A descriptive case study approach and 34 indicators was used to examine the socio-economic impacts o f whale watching tourism in the Laguna San Ignacio (LSI) World Heritage Site located within the E l Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Tlie framework measured both the socioeconomic changes, and the economic viability of the local and regional operators. This approach led to a detailed understanding of the underlying, and often complex, inter-related factors that shaped the ecotourism development in LSI between 1994 and 2002. It identified strengths and weaknesses o f current ecotourism development making it a valid tool for evaluating and improving these activities in any biosphere reserve. More specifically the objectives were to examine: 1. How existing ecotourism operations and their activities in the LSI have changed since 1994; 2. Whether these changes have made ecotourism a more viable socio-economic development alternative for the local communities; and 3. Which strategies may be useful in overcoming identified barriers to further socio-economic benefits both from existing and future ecotourism activities Tlie results strongly suggested that the benefits from ecotourism improved significantly between 1994 and 2002. Economically this was reflected in growth of visitor numbers (50%), employment (100%) and local and regional revenue approximately 70% (or 55% in real terms adjusting for inflation). Social benefits were seen in more cooperation among previous antagonistic stakeholders; a wider distribution o f ecotourism benefits; some improvement in l iving standards and increasing local support for the Reserve. Polit ically, local stakeholders became more empowered through involvement in tourism related management activities. Tlie viability of the local and regional operators also improved significantly as they became more sophisticated in their product offerings, enhanced their facilities and gained a market share of ecotourism relative to the foreign operators. These improvements were particular true for tlie operators that sold package tours. However, the analyses also revealed a number of barriers with the most important ones being: • Unresolved historic land use conflicts over rights to land with ecotourism possibilities; • Lack o f activities diversification possibilities outside the tourism season; • Stagnating visitor numbers; • Uneven business skills among operators; • Poor marketing and promotional efforts; • Insufficient ecotourism infrastructure; • A proposed ecotourism tax; • L o w profit margin o f the ecotourism operators; and • Lack of funding for further investments To alleviate these threats and barriers 13 general strategies were identified. A n elaboration o f these resulted in 39 concrete operational strategies on how potentially to implement them.


This study focuses on the Mallik gas hydrate field, in the Northwest Territories, where 3D acoustic impedance and well log data from two wells are available. Firstly, collocated log data are used to infer the statistical relation between acoustic impedance and gas hydrate grade (product of saturation and porosity). Secondly, adapted stochastic Bayesian simulation is applied to generate multiple 3D models of gas hydrate grade fields integrating log data and lateral variability of 3D acoustic impedance. A statistical analysis of these scenarios allows the quantification of the in-place gas volumes. The simulation approach also allows estimating the uncertainty on these volumes. Then, connectivity analysis is computed on the three gas hydrate layers based on different grade cutoffs. The upper gas hydrate layers (zones A & B) show low connectivity and low grades. The deeper gas hydrate layer (Zone C) presents the highest connectivity that reaches the limit of the studied 3D grid, suggesting an even larger connected area of high gas hydrate grades.


Flow passage of steam turbine have lots of fault features,types of fault are complex,It's difficult to establish the precise mechanism model.This paper provides an improved algorithm based on weighted least squares support vector machines(WLS-SVM),this improved algorithm use leave one out cross validation(LOOCV)deviation of output variable replace original deviation to determine weighted coefficient.resolved the problem that sample repeated changes and can not convergence because of the influence between weighted coefficient and support value of model.The experiment results show that this method can effectively remove abnormal samples,reduce the number of fault features.improve the robustness of calibration models and the speed and accuracy about features prediction.


[Objective]Observation of liuwei dihuang pill on diabetic nephropathy rats blood glucose,creatinine and urea nitrogen effect.[Methods]Using random parallel control method,will only 48 kunming mice were divided into control group,experimental group according to random number table method,24 / group.Control group normal saline,2 ml/time,3 times/d,to fill the stomach.Experimental group concentrated pill,liuwei dihuang pill 1 / time,3 times/d,to fill the stomach.Continuous treatment of 56 d of 1 course of treatment.Observation rat blood glucose,creatinine and urea nitrogen.As a course in a row,judge curative effect[.Results] Blood glucose,creatinine and urea in the two groups were improved(P0.05),the treatment group is better than that of control group(P0.05).[Conclusion]Liuwei dihuang pill on diabetic nephropathy rats blood glucose,creatinine and urea nitrogen effect is remarkable,is worth promoting.


It is of great significance to apply numerical simulation technology to forecast the influence of artificial island projects on marine environment around it before the implementation of the projects. With numerical forecast the negative impact of the projects on the environment can be found and engineering mistakes can be avoided. This paper discusses the basic ideas and methods to utilize numerical simulation technology to forecast the influence of artificial island project on marine environment and analyses the characteristics of the different numerical methods.


How society should respond to corporate misconduct is the subject of intense debate. Although the ideologies that people hold are key to understanding how they make moral judgments, existing research has been silent on how ideological beliefs drive psychological perceptions of corporations and responses to their misconduct. Here we examine the role ideological attitudes about social hierarchy play in driving perceptions of corporations and their misconduct. Across four convenience samples we find that those who hold anti-egalitarian attitudes (those high in social dominance orientation) are less likely to perceive corporations as possessing an agentic mind (Studies 1a and 1b) and thus judge corporate misconduct as less immoral (Studies 2 and 3), even after controlling for left-right political orientation. These results suggest a unique relationship between ideology and the mind perception of organizations that contributes to leniency toward corporate misconduct, and help integrate theoretical work across political ideology and mind perception.


Fishing produces low CO2 emissions per unit output compared to other animal protein sources. However, emissions from fishing grew by 28% from 1990 to 2011 and fishing currently contributes about 4% of the emissions of world food production. The purpose of this paper is to identify the relationship between various factors and emissions in fisheries. We analyse the development of CO2 emissions from the Icelandic individual transferable quota regulated fishing fleet from 1997 to 2018. The results show that emissions per unit of catch fell around 40% during this period. The main findings are that overall catches and abundance are by far the most important factors determining emissions, the bigger the catches and the greater the abundance, the smaller the emissions per unit of output. Fuel prices are a distant third factor and technological change has played a minor role in this development. In addition, the importance of different factors affecting emissions, varies between vessels depending on types of fishing gear. The results indicate that building up fish stocks not only increases output but also increases profitability and reduces emissions per unit of output, as long as the fisheries management system preserves incentives for efficient fishing.


This paper will discuss the use of ArcView Spatial Analyst software's ModelBuilder in determining the potential habitat for seven endangered, threatened or candidate species in Albany County, Wyoming, USA. The analysis was completed in support of a countywide Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) developed by the University of Wyoming for the Albany County Planning Office. Eight data layers were examined within a matrix of habitat parameters characterizing each of the seven species. Subsequent models were then developed in ArcView to predict each species' distribution and occurrence. ArcView Spatial Analyst software's ModelBuilder is showcased as a means to organize and replicate complex HCP models for characterizing species of concern.


Objective: Acute inhibition (1 h) of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) with L‐NAME causes leukocyte recruitment in the rat mesenteric postcapillary venules that is angiotensin‐II (Ang‐II) dependent. Since 4‐h exposure to Ang‐II provokes arteriolar leukocyte adhesion, this study was designed to investigate whether subacute (4‐h) NOS inhibition also causes this effect.


1. The chromosome number in the somatic cells of he chick is about 35 or 36.2. No characteristic differences between the number, the sizes, the morphology or the behavior of the chromosomes in comparison either with each other or with the cells of the gonads have been noted.3. In view of the entire similarity of the somatic and germinal mitotic behavior and in consideration of the complete inability of highly specialized cells to regenerate other than cells similar to themselves it is tentatively suggested as a basis for future discussion that the somatic chromosomes, as far at least as their genetic function is concerned, have either become functionless or their cytoplasmic environment is incapable of reacting to the possibilities presumably carried by them.


Nothing changed so much the face of our society, the interactions between individuals and groups as the technology and especially Information and Communication Technologies. Learning and training is one of the primary beneficiaries of the tremendous evolution.According to the European Internet Foundation, the key to adequately preparing learners for life in a digital world is to "redesign education itself around participative, digitally enabled collaboration within and beyond the individual educational institution".13 They predict that by 2025 this will have become the dominant worldwide educational paradigm.In a similar manner, a study commissioned by the MacArthur Foundation envisages that, in the future, learning in ET school will become dynamic, community-wide systems and networks that have the capacity to renew themselves in the context of change. …


Based on the ballot paper samples from the available literatures, this paper systematically compares five typical ballot paper styles in China's villager committee elections. After identifying the advantages and disadvantages individually, we affirm the contributions of ballot paper styles to the development of China's villager committee elections, and indicate the thinking sets and black spots reflected from all the ballot paper styles. Guided by the basic principles of comparative electoral systems, we explores three possible approaches to improve ballot paper design in villager committee elections, including designing multiple ballot styles under existing villager committee organic law, assorting the ballot paper styles with governance form of villager committee, and exploring relative majority rule to decrease the election cost.


A new preparation method of a light‐focusing plastic rod (LFR) is reported, where the photocopolymerization of methacrylic esters (M1) such as methyl methacrylate (MMA) with vinyl benzoates (M2) such as vinyl benzoate (VB), vinyl o‐chlorobenzoate, and vinyl o,p‐dichloro‐benzoate was carried out. The M1‐M2 mixture placed in a glass tube was exposed to uv light by rotating a glass tube about its axis. LFR prepared from a MMA‐VB pair has a quadratic gradient constant with a refractive index A= (3∼11) ×10−3 mm−2, an internal loss of light transmission IL= (3∼12) dB/m, and a ratio of the radius of the imaging region to the rod radius (ri/rp) =0.5∼0.7.


What shapes politicians' strategies in political systems where pork, rather than programmatic platforms, wins elections? We argue that resource control provides much of the answer, as politics in pork-centric systems will in large part be organized around actors who control access to pork. We use new national and subnational data from Brazil and Japan to show how the degree of centralization of resources can affect party affiliation patterns. We find that in decentralized Brazil, both national and subnational politicians join parties that control their subnational government. In contrast, in our analysis of centralized Japan, politicians at both national and subnational levels base their party affiliation decisions on national-level partisan considerations.


Gas-phase structure, hydrogen bonding, and cation–anion interactions of a series of 1-(2-hydroxyethyl)-3-methylimidazolium ([HOEMIm] + )-based ionic liquids (hereafter called hydroxyl ILs) with different anions (X = [NTf 2 ] – , [PF 6 ] – , [ClO 4 ] – , [BF 4 ] – , [DCA] – , [NO 3 ] – , [AC] – and [Cl] – ), as well as 1-ethyl-3-methylimizolium ([EMIm] + )-based ionic liquids (hereafter called nonhydroxyl ILs), were investigated by density functional theory calculations and experiments. Electrostatic potential surfaces and optimized structures of isolated ions, and ion pairs of all ILs have been obtained through calculations at the Becke, three-parameter, Lee–Yang–Parr/6-31 + G(d,p) level and their hydrogen bonding behavior was further studied by the polarity and Kamlet–Taft Parameters, and 1 H-NMR analysis. In [EMIm] + -based nonhydroxyl ILs, hydrogen bonding preferred to be formed between anions and C2–H on the imidazolium ring, while in [HOEMIm] + -based hydroxyl ILs, it was replaced by a much stronger one that preferably formed between anions and OH. The O–H···X hydrogen bonding is much more anion-dependent than the C2–H···X, and it is weakened when the anion is changed from [AC] – to [NTf 2 ] – . The different interaction between [HOEMIm] + and variable anion involving O–H···X hydrogen bonding resulted in significant effect on their bulk phase properties such as 1 H-NMR shift, polarity and hydrogen-bond donor ability (acidity, ).


The evolution of the sled testing industry into a full-fledged SAFE Association and its activities are discussed. The US Aerospace has been putting sleds downtracks, which have provided fundamental insight into human tolerance, weaponry, and escape system performance not possible elsewhere. The sled tests deals with escape systems and are proof of cockpit, canopy, and canopy jettison systems, sequencing systems, ejection seat and escape path clearance designs intended for the protection of aircrew. Current sled testing systems use sophisticated laser technology and automated tracking systems and have much improved coverage. Sled-borne cameras placed inside the cockpit and outside the fuselage provide close up systems performance coverage. A documentary coverage is used to record mundane test preparations, test article installation into the sled test vehicles and post-test results.


The incidence of obesity is increasing throughout the world, including Korea. Liraglutide, the main purpose of which is glucose control, has recently gained significant attention due to its additional effect on weight loss. Liraglutide injections have been widely used as an important treatment for obese patients in Korea. In addition to weight loss, liraglutide has various other effects, such as prevention of cardiovascular disease. Despite its excellent effect on weight loss, notable side effects, such as nausea and vomiting, have also been associated with liraglutide. Despite these side effects, liraglutide has not been discontinued due to its beneficial effects on weight loss. Nonetheless, there are reports wherein patients did not experience weight loss upon taking the drug. As such, there is a possibility of liraglutide misuse and abuse. Therefore, physicians need to have a broad understanding of liraglutide and understand the advantages and disadvantages of liraglutide prescription.


Remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS) are widely applied in forest mapping to obtain high quality and quantity data. The launch of RS satellites heralded a new beginning in natural resource survey and management. Soon the technique was adopted for mapping the distribution of individual species, such as bamboo. Recognizing the importance of bamboo to livelihoods in rural areas, forest ecosystems, and the economy, this work highlights the importance of RS and GIS in the mapping of bamboo-bearing areas through satellite imagery. The work also analyzes the applicability of RS/GIS to better management and conservation of bamboo resources. Mapping bamboo requires improvement in the traditional classification scheme and thorough ground truthing. Successful classification of the imagery would provide data on the current status of bamboo and assist in modeling future scenarios. In a GIS environment, action plans can be generated for effective bamboo resource planning. Over all, since RS and GIS have tremendous ability to remotely identify and classify bamboo, the methods should be put to better use to utilize the potential offered.


What a difference 12 months can make. The successful introduction into service of the A350-900 and the Farnborough launch of the A330neo have given Airbus a new impetus in a large twin market dominated by Boeing.


In this project, we study an asymptotic expansion method for solving stochastic volatility European option pricing problems. We explain the backgrounds and details associated with the method. Specifically, we present in full detail the arguments behind the derivation of the pricing PDEs and detailed calculation in deriving asymptotic option pricing formulas using our own model specifications. Finally, we discuss potential difficulties and problems in the implementation of the methods.


The occurrence of Selenothrips rubrocinctus (Giard) attacking leaves of lychee (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) (Sapindaceae) is recorded for the first time in Brazil. The attack was observed in July 2003 in Piracicaba, State of Sao Paulo (22° 42' 30" S, 47° 38' 00" W) .


An arbiter-based simple phase decision circuit (PDC) optimized for high-resolution phase-to-digital converter made up of an analog phase-frequency detector and a time-to-digital converter for all-digital phase-locked loops is proposed. It can distinguish very small phase difference between two pulses even though it consumes lower power and has smaller input-to-output delay than the previously reported PDC. Proposed PDC is realized using 130-nm CMOS process and demonstrated by transistor-level simulations. A 5-bit P2D having no offset nor deadzone using the PDC is also demonstrated. A harmonic-lock-free and small-phase-offset delay-locked loop for fixing the P2D resolution regardless of PVT variations is also proposed and demonstrated.


Strange Tales has always been performed by story-tellers, from 1909 to 1932, Strange Tales, which were placed more than 300 paragraphs in the Beijing's newspapers as a serial story by Zhang Zhi-lan, Zhuang Yiu-ting, Yin Zhen-ming and others, who used Beijing dialect to dwell on Strange Tales in the form of story-telling. This transformation is that Strange Tales in popular language with a large-scale was being diffused, and has undergone a form in modern history.


When attempting to read malicious network traffic, security analysts are challenged to determine what attacks are happening in the network at any given time. This need to analyze data and attempt to classify the data requires a large amount of manual time and knowledge to be successful. It can also be difficult for the analysts to determine new attacks if the data is unlike anything they have seen before. Because of the everchanging nature of cyber-attacks, a need exists for an automated system that can read network traffic and determine the types of attacks present in a network. Many existing works for classification of network attacks exist and contain a very similar fundamental problem. This problem is the need either for labeled data, or batches of data. Real network traffic does not contain labels for attack types and is streaming packet by packet. This work proposes a system that reads in streaming malicious network data and classifies the data into attack models while dynamically generating and reevaluating attack models when needed. This research develops a system that contains three major components. The first is a dynamic Bayesian classifier that utilizes Bayes' Theorem to classify the data into the proper attack models using dynamic priors and novel likelihood functions. The second component is the dynamic model generator. This component utilizes the concept of a cluster validity index to determine the proper time to generate new models. The third component is a model shuffler. This component redistributes misclassified data into attack models that more closely fit the behaviors of the data. Malicious packet captures obtained from two network attack and defense competitions are used to demonstrate the ability of the system to classify data, successfully and reasonably create new attack models, and shuffle the data into more closely related models.


Several factors such as smoking habits, diet, occupational, and environmental exposure to chemical carcinogens influence the overall level of DNA damage. In 69 healthy adult volunteers' polymorphisms of glutathione S-transferase (GST), an enzyme which participates in the metabolism of a broad range of carcinogens and endogenous compounds were determined. The level of DNA damage was assessed by comet assay and classified according to GSTT1/M1 genotype and smoking habits. GSTM1 null genotype was recognized in 48% of studied subjects and GSTT1 null genotype in only two cases (3%). In subjects carrying GSTT1/M1 alleles a significantly lower degree of DNA damage, determined as % DNA in the comet's tail, than in null individuals was noted. However, the results obtained did not indicate that in studied subjects an elevated endogenous level of DNA damage may be significantly related to smoking habits.


Introduction. In finite dimensional complex Euclidian space, any linear operator has a unique maximal invariant subspace on which it is semi-simple. It is easily described by means of the Jordan decomposition theorem. The main result of this paper (Theorem 2.1) is a generalization of this fact to infinite dimensional reflexive Banach space, for arbitrary bounded operators T with real spectrum. Our description of the "semi-simplicity manifold" for T is entirely analytic and basis-free, and seems therefore to be a quite natural candidate for such generalizations to infinite dimension. A similar generalization to infinite dimension of the concepts of Jordan cells and Weyr characteristic will be presented elsewhere. The theory is motivated and illustrated by examples in §3. Notations. The following notations are fixed throughout this paper, and will be used without further explanation. R: the field of real numbers. C : the field of complex numbers. âd : the sigma-algebra of all Borel subsets of R. C(R) : the space of all continuous complex valued functions on R. L"(R) : the usual Lebesgue spaces on R (p = 1). j : integration over R. /: the Fourier transform of / e L1(R). X : an arbitrary complex Banach space. X*: the conjugate of X. B(X) : the Banach algebra of all bounded linear operators acting on X. I : the identity operator on X. | • | : the original norms on X, X* and B(X) (new norms, to be defined, will be denoted by double bars). | • \y, | • |œ: the L\R) andLTM^) norms (respectively). a(T) : the spectrum of T e B(X) ; p(T): the resolvent set of T; R(X; T): the resolvent of T; T\W: the restriction of T to an invariant linear manifold IF.


Sidelobe level is a key parameter for phased array design. However, the conventional method for sidelobe level calculation is time-consuming due to the high sampling number of the radiation pattern. In this paper, an iterative sidelobe-seeking method for sidelobe calculation of arbitrarily distributed planar arrays is proposed to shorten the computing time. By applying Newton's iterative method with an approximate formula, the proposed method uses less sampling to obtain the sidelobe positions and the peak sidelobe level. Numerical experiments were carried out and verified the effectiveness of the proposed method. Compared with the conventional method, the proposed method had a similar optimization effect but saved 80% of the algorithm time in the synthesis of a sparse planar array.


We present statistical mechanics models to understand the physical and molecular mechanisms of X-Chromosome Inactivation (XCI), the process whereby a female mammal cell inactivates one of its two X-chromosomes. During XCI, X-chromosomes undergo a series of complex regulatory processes. At the beginning of XCI, the X's recognize and pair, then only one X which is randomly chosen is inactivated. Afterwards, the two X's move to different positions in the cell nucleus according to their different status (active/silenced). Our models illustrate about the still mysterious physical bases underlying all these regulatory steps, i.e., X-chromosome pairing, random choice of inactive X, and "shuttling" of the X's to their post-XCI locations. Our models are based on general and robust thermodynamic roots, and their validity can go beyond XCI, to explain analogous regulatory mechanisms in a variety of cellular processes.


This third article, in a series of five, applies Fractal Physics Theory to electron. The magnetic dipole moment of a cosmic scale electron is obtained from known properties of ordinary matter. Fractal Physics Theory (FPT) considers electrons to be composed of 52 10 subquantum scale iron atoms with an excess of 40 10 subquantum scale electrons. Like all human scale matter, the fractal electron is proposed to exist in solid, liquid, gaseous and plasma phases. This provides insight into the wave- particle duality of quantum particles. FPT considers a photon to be composed of 80 10 subquantum scale photons. The initial and final states of atomic absorption and atomic emission have long been understood and described by Quantum Mechanics. This article illustrates the process occurring between these initial and final states in spatial and temporal resolution. Hydrogen atom's discrete spectra are reproduced from transitions occurring between atomic spherical capacitors. The capacitor is formed from a vaporized and delocalized electron that has a proton center and outer shell of subquantum scale (sqs) electrons. It temporarily stores the absorbed photon energy in its electric field.


Rhodotorula sp. USM-PSY62 is a psychrophilic yeast that is competent in withstanding and surviving in extreme cold environment. It is a good model organism to study the intrinsic molecular mechanisms that are involved in cold adaptation. In this study, a robust RNA-seq approach was employed to study the global transcriptomic response of Rhodotorula sp. USM-PSY62 upon temperature shifts. The cells were initially cultured at optimum growth temperature of 15 ° C and subsequently shifted to 21 ° C, 5 ° C and 0 ° C in order to induce the cold and heat adaptive responses of cells toward heat and cold shock conditions, respectively. The cells were then harvested from the four growth temperatures and subjected to RNA-seq analysis using Illumina platform. The resultant RNA reads were de novo assembled using Trinity and the differential expression analysis were executed. A total of 286 transcripts were found to be differentially expressed for at least four-fold when a pair wise comparison amongst four temperature conditions was performed. A number of 72 out of 286 transcripts have been functionally annotated and divided into three main functional groups based on the eggNOG orthologous groups: 38 transcripts (metabolism); 17 transcripts (cellular processes and signalling); 17 transcripts (information storage and processing). As deduced from the transcriptional alterations, cold shock responses of Rhodotorula sp. USM-PSY62 include enhanced cell motility, overproduction of helicase to reduce the increased stability of DNA and RNA, risen of ion intake as well as activation of a cold related signal transduction mechanism. Besides, transcripts associated with membrane trafficking and chromosome organization were also down-regulated as a response to the cold. Heat shock response was observed with the up-regulation of heat shock factor protein 1 when the growth temperature increased. Rhodotorula sp. USM-PSY62 has developed wide-xiii


Interventional coils can detune substantially due to differences in patient loading and positioning. This is especially true for flexible interventional coils, which absolutely require re-tuning after implantation. We have developed and tested a method for asynchronous re-tuning of varactor-diode tunable coils. We use a micro-controller to orchestrate a reference oscillator, a phase comparator, a DAC for the varactor tuning, TR switches, and a simple tuning algorithm. Before-and-after measurement of the tuned coil impedance reveals successful retuning in under 300 milliseconds.


A frequency reconfigurable multiband antenna using lumped capacitors has been designed and characterized. By embedding a pair of capacitors in the two opposite corners, the proposed patch can easily generate and control two resonant frequencies besides the main resonant frequency of the reference structure at F1=2.45GHz. When varying capacitance values from 0.845 to 3.454pF, tuning ranges of 990MHz (for the frequency F2) and 670MHz (for the frequency F3) can be achieved. Prototypes were realized and characterized. Simulated and measured results are presented and discussed.


Introduction Nowadays, on-a-chip capillary electrophoresis is a routine method for the detection of PCR fragments. The Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer was one of the first commercial devices in this field. Our project was designed to study the characteristics of Agilent DNA 1000 kit in PCR fragment analysis as a part of circulating tumour cell (CTC) detection technique. Despite the common use of this kit a complex analysis of the results from a long-term project is still missing. Materials and methods A commercially available Agilent DNA 1000 kit was used as a final step in the CTC detection (AdnaTest) for the determination of the presence of PCR fragments generated by Multiplex PCR. Data from 30 prostate cancer patients obtained during two years of research were analyzed to determine the trueness and precision of the PCR fragment size determination. Additional experiments were performed to demonstrate the precision (repeatability, reproducibility) and robustness of PCR fragment concentration determination. Results The trueness and precision of the size determination was below 3% and 2% respectively. The repeatability of the concentration determination was below 15%. The difference in concentration determination increases when Multiplex-PCR/storage step is added between the two measurements of one sample. Conclusions The characteristics established in our study are in concordance with the manufacturer's specifications established for a ladder as a sample. However, the concentration determination may vary depending on chip preparation, sample storage and concentration. The 15% variation of concentration determination repeatability was shown to be partly proportional and can be suppressed by proper normalization.


The physical and mechanical properties such as bulk density, true density, angle of internal friction, porosity, static coefficient of friction are necessary for the design of transport, process and storage structures of the barley. The physical and mechanical properties were evaluated as a function of moisture content of grain varying from 10% to 14% (db). In this moisture range, as the bulk density decreased linearly from 647.34 to 623.00 kg/m 3 , true density increased linearly from 984.00 to 1 013.67 kg/m 3 . The porosity and angle of internal friction increased with the increase in the grain moisture content up to 38.50% and 22.50%, respectively, at 14% moisture content. The static coefficient of friction increased from 0.877 to 0.993, 0.773 to 0.920, 0.560 to 0.713 for concrete (BS 30), galvanized steel and wood surfaces respectively. Nomenclature Q amount of addition water ( g) vw volume of sample (m 3 ) wi dry sample weight (g) normal stress (kpa) mi initiative moisture content of sample (d.b. %) N load applied over sample (kg.f) mf final moisture content of sample (d.b. %) A cellular area (cm 2 ) !b bulk density (kg/m 3


A static deterministic model was used to evaluate productivity and efficiency of growing and finishing beef steers systems in Rio Grande do Sul State differing at steers slaughter age (IA): 54, 42, 36, 30, 24 and 18 months (IA54, IA42, IA36, IA30, IA24 e IA18, respectively), or in market live weight for buying and sale (cattle growing systems from 150 to 250 kg -R1, from 250 to 350 kg -R2, or finishing cattle from 350 to 450 kg -R3). Feeding management was described for each system based on published reports according to IA, while for systems R1, R2 and R3 it was considered that native pastures were the exclusive forage resource. There was a quadratic response curve between productivity and IA, with a minimum production (65 kg/ha) for IA54 and the highest for IA18 (343 kg/ha). Energetic cost per kg of produced live weight was linearly increased in 1.19 Mcal ME for each month increased at IA. Reducing IA, increased the proportion of the grazing area that was occupied by improved pastures up to 66%. This allowed higher stocking rates and daily gains, as well. For an equal total live weight gain, reducing steer weight for buying and sale, increased system productivity (R1: 113, R2: 81 and R3: 63 kg/ha), so that productive specialization appears as an alternative for improving those systems which depends exclusively on native pastures.


The authors characterizes the Polish concept of a party to administrative proceedings. The authors proves that a party to proceedings is a central institution of Polish general administrative procedure. The authors indicates that complete absence of a subject or absence of a subject that may be considered a party to administrative proceedings leads to a situation in which an administrative procedure may not proceed – it will not be initiated if this fact comes out prior to such initiation (as a result of preliminary check) or will be discontinued nonsubstantively (without any resolution in the case) if such fact comes out in the course of proceedings or if a given subject loses the status of a party to pending proceedings. ABSTRAKT Autori charakterizujú koncept účastníkov konania v poľskom všeobecnom správnom konaní. Autori dokazujú, že účastník konania je ústrednou inštitúciou poľského všeobecného správneho konania. Autori naznačujú, že úplná neprítomnosť subjektu alebo neprítomnosť subjektu, ktorý môže byť považovaný za účastníka správneho konania, vedie k situácii, keď správne konanie nemusí pokračovať nebude začaté, ak k tomu dôjde pred takýmto začatím (v dôsledku predbežnej kontroly) alebo bude zastavené bezdôvodne (bez prípadného rozhodnutia vo veci), ak takáto skutočnosť vyjde v priebehu konania alebo ak daný subjekt stratí postavenie účastníka v prebiehajúcom konaní. I. GENERAL REMARKS Specification of the range of the parties to proceedings is one of the first actions undertaken by the competent public administration authority. Consequences of the findings made by the authority are essential to further existence of administrative proceedings. In effect, it is beyond doubt that the institution of a party to proceedings is an essential institution of administrative procedure and, as such, deserves extensive analysis both from theoretical and practical perspective. This study, with a view to fully discussing that procedural institution, is going to rely on the currently available literature in the field (output of the doctrine of administrative procedure) and the latest opinions of the judiciary, including predominantly case-law of administrative courts (Supreme Administrative Court, Voivodeship Administrative Courts) 1 PhD Candidate, Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach, Wydział Prawa i Administracji, Polska University of Silesia in Katowice, Faculty of Law and Administration, Poland, ORCID NO: 0000-0003-3775-2815. 2 Master's degree, Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach, Wydział Prawa i Administracji, Polska University of Silesia in Katowice, Faculty of Law and Administration, Poland, ORCID NO: 0000-0002-9264-1598. 3 C.f judgment of the Voiveodeship Administrative Court in Poznań of 6 November 2019, file reference: IV SA/Po 276/19, Legalis no. 2246867. 4 Hereinafter referred to as "SAC." 5 Hereinafter referred to as "VAC." Since there are several Voivodeship Administrative Court in Poland, the seat of the court will also be indicated to distinguish between them. STUDIA IURIDICA Cassoviensia ISSN 1339-3995, ročník 8. 2020, číslo 2 https://doi.org/10.33542/SIC2020-2-04 46 and the Supreme Court. Rulings delivered by ordinary courts may also be incidentally cited. The analysis was carried out predominantly using the formal dogmatic method, based on the Polish legislation applicable to the discussed subject matter, and, complementarily, using the empirical method, based on the abovementioned judicial practice. II. LEGISLATION ON POLISH ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE The principal legislative act on Polish general administrative procedure is the Act of 14 June 1960 – Code of Administrative Procedure. CAP governs (Art. 1, Art. 2 and Art. 2a CAP): 1) proceedings before public administration authorities in cases that are within the jurisdiction of such authorities and individually decided by way of administrative decision or without notice; 2) proceedings before other state authorities and other entities appointed to decide matters specified in item 1 by operation of law or on the basis of agreement; 3) in disputes regarding jurisdiction between local government authorities and governmental authorities or between the authorities and entities referred to in paragraph 2; 4) proceedings in matters regarding the issuance of certificates; 5) imposition or meting out of administrative monetary penalties or granting relief in the enforcement of such penalties; 6) the procedure of European administrative cooperation; 7) procedure in matters of complaints and proposals (Part VIII) before state authorities, local government authorities or governing bodies of social organisations; 8) compliance with of the duty specified in Art. 13(1) and (2) of the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) in matters listed in items 1-7 above (in CAP, such scope has been provided for in Art. 1 CAP – in respect of items 1 to 6 and in Art. 2 CAP – in respect of item7). Regardless of the above, the Polish legislator decided also to introduce an exhaustive catalogue of matters in which the CAP shall not apply. This catalogue was specified in Art. 3 CAP. In the Polish legal order, there is a principle presuming application of the CAP (interpretative rule). Under Art. 5 § 1 CAP, if a provision of law mentions generally provisions 6 Hereinafter referred to as the "SC." 7 I.e. Dz.U. 2020, item 256; hereinafter referred to as "CAP.". As regards the last major amendment to the Act, c.f. K. Majewski, General principles of Code of Administrative Procedure after amendment of 2017, Annuals of the Administration and Law no. 17 (1), Sosnowiec 2017, p. 165-182. 8 OJ L 119 of 04.05.2016, p. 1, as amended.; hereinafter referred to as "GDPR." 9 At the same time, CAP stipulates that performance of the duty mentioned in Art. 13(1) and (2) GDPR shall be independent of the duties of public authorities as provided in the CAP and shall not affect the course and outcome of the proceedings (Art. 2a § 2 CAP). 10 Regarding consequences of such an approach, c.f. judgment of the SAC of 12 March 2014, file reference: II OSK 2477/12, Legalis no. 1067705. 11 Certain authors refer to that principle as "principle of exclusive application of the CAP's provisions," c.f. ADAMIAK B., ,Komentarz do art. 5 Kodeksu postępowania administracyjnego, In: ADAMIAK B., BORKOWSKI J., Kodeks postępowania dministracyjnego. Komentarz, Warszawa 2019, Legalis. However, such an approach to the provision of Art. 5 § 1 CAP is not accurate. Exclusive application of the CAP's provisions would exclude the possibility of applying other provisions. InThe Polish legal order, there are plenty procedural provisions contained in other statutory acts which not only apply directly but also modify the solutions adopted in the CAP. They may be referred to as lex specialis in relation to the provisions of the CAP. An example of such provision is Art. 11 of the Act of 21 July 2006 on financial market supervision (i.e. Dz.U. of 2020, item 180). As regards the abovementioned modifications, see the judgment of the SAC of 12 December 2016, file reference: II GSK 1924/15, Legalis no. 1591300, judgment of the SAC of 29 April 2014, file reference: II GSK 320/13, Legalis no. 1042396, judgment of the SAC of 27 January 2014, file reference: II GSK 1626/12, Legalis no. 909829, judgment of the SAC of 7 August 2013, file reference: II GSK 567/12, Legalis no. 737850, judgment of the VAC in Warsaw of 10 November 2009, file reference: VI SA/Wa 1092/09, Legalis no. 828525. STUDIA IURIDICA Cassoviensia ISSN 1339-3995, ročník 8. 2020, číslo 2 https://doi.org/10.33542/SIC2020-2-04 47 of administrative procedure, this shall be understood as the CAP provisions. As a result, it is beyond any doubt that the CAP shall apply to administrative proceedings held by public administration authorities. The rule under Art. 5 § 1 CAP is subject to certain restrictions. In literature of the subject, it is accepted that "it does not refer to situations when legal provisions expressly invoke specific norms of the Code (most often citing specific article numbers) or provide for merely appropriate application of the CAP's provisions." It must be emphasized, as P. Gołaszewski and K. Wąsowski did, that an (external) reference mentioned in Art. 5 § 1 CAP should be included in generally applicable legal provisions. The presumption of applicability of the CAP does not prevent the legislator from including procedural rules of administrative nature in other statutory acts. Such provisions, once enacted, are in principle lex specialis in relation to the norms of the CAP. In the light of the above, according to the principle lex specialis derogat legi generali, they will exclude application of the CAP's provisions or result in their appropriate application. Introduction of the rule assuming application of the Code of Administrative Procedure (k.p.a.) should be considered positive. This principle fills in a possible gap in the legislation and, in consequence, makes the system consistent and complete. Therefore, the Polish legal order does not require supplementation in that area. III. CONCEPTION OF A PARTY TO PROCEEDINGS IN THE CAP The definition of party to administrative proceedings was included in Art. 28 CAP. Under that provision, a party to proceedings ("a party") is any person whose legal interests or obligations are the object of the proceedings or who requires the intervention of an authority in respect of their legal interests or obligations. The literal understanding of the above provision indicates that the precondition (criterion) of recognizing a given subject as party to the proceedings is the establishment (existence) of a legal interest or obligation. None of the two concepts derive from procedural law provisions, but they r


The stock price fluctuation and banking fragility are closely related. This study analyses the impact mechanism of stock price on bank operation and banking fragility.Data analysis shows that the banking capital and stock funds in China have strong correlation,which indicates that the banking funds in China may be affected by above mechanism.Therefore we should improve the transparency between monetary market and capital market and give alarm to stock fluctuation and strengthen the bank′s prudent management.


The high frequency resonant current in coupler would inevitable results in interaction of electromagnetic force (EMF), leading to short service life, poor security and low reliability of wireless power transmission (WPT). It may be worse when electromagnetic shielding (EMS) materials are used. The mechanism and characteristics of the EMF on various EMS materials are revealed. Based on Lorentz force and Kelvin force, the mathematical calculating model of EMF is established with analysis of forces of iron, copper, aluminum, and ferrite. The effects of electric conductivity and magnetic permeability on EMF are compared. Simulation is established to verify the analysis of the high frequency EMF. The results showed that the effects of electric conductivity and magnetic permeability on the direction of the EMF are opposite. And the force can be reduced by appropriate designing the shielding structure.


This letter presents improved maximum cyclic autocorrelation selection (MCAS) based spectrum sensing techniques with multiple antennas. The improved MCAS based spectrum sensing employs two types of statistic; one includes an information of target signals and another one is for the comparison with the former one. These statistics are computed from a cyclic autocorrelation function (CAF) at only one cyclic frequency. In this letter, we attempt to enhance the performance of signal detection by selecting a receive antenna element with a minimum statistic for the comparison. The presented results are compared with some conventional results. Numerical examples are shown to validate the effectiveness of the presented technique and the performance of the presented technique is superior to the conventional technique.


Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) pathways are foundational for delivering high-quality, multidisciplinary perioperative care. Unfortunately, ERAS pathways have not been widely used in vascular surgery and none have been created specifically for patients undergoing major lower extremity amputation (above or below the knee). We developed an ERAS pathway that brought together the expertise of the diverse group of multidisciplinary providers necessary for delivering optimal care for patients undergoing major lower extremity amputation (Fig. 1). Herein, we describe our pathway by providing the rationale for each component and describing goals for patient outcomes. We believe that this framework can be successfully adopted by other institutions. We encourage others to implement similar ERAS pathways to provide these complex patients with the highest likelihood of a successful recovery. The goals of an ERAS pathway are to maintain normal homeostasis through application of evidencebased, best practice guidelines, and subsequently accelerate patient recovery. The core components of ERAS pathways include preoperative patient optimization and education, multimodal opioid-sparing analgesia, standardized intraoperative anesthetic management, and postoperative systems of care to promote early mobility and while limiting nosocomial infections.1 In the context of other surgical specialties, ERAS pathways are associated with improvement in clinical outcomes, including improved pain management, decreased hospital length of stay, and decreased thirtyday mortality.2 Patients with severe peripheral vascular disease requiring major limb amputation have a high risk of perioperative complications. Generally, these patients are older and have significant, often poorly controlled, medical comorbidities, including congestive heart failure, renal disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; all of which are independently associated with an increased risk of death after major limb amputation.3 Among Medicare beneficiaries who underwent aboveor below-knee amputations from 2000 to 2008, mortality was 48.3 per cent at one year and 70.9 per cent at three years after surgery.3 The presence of these comorbid conditions also increases the likelihood of hospital readmission, chronic pain, immobility, and chronic nursing facility residents.4 After a comprehensive review of a retrospective cohort of lower extremity amputation patients at our medical center, we identified significant variability in preoperative patient education and expectation setting. We also found variability in the anesthesia technique used, limited use of multimodal analgesia, and lack of standardized treatment approaches for patients who developed phantom limb pain. Furthermore, poor coordination between the surgical team and ancillary teams often resulted in prolonged hospital length of stay and unplanned readmissions. As with other specialties, our ERAS pathway for major limb amputees has preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative components (Table 1). Each step was designed to address the aforementioned concerns and specific needs of new amputees with an emphasis on early mobility and judicious use of opioid analgesics. The initial step in the pathway was to provide preoperative education to patients scheduled to undergo an amputation. To standardize expectation setting among various providers, a pamphlet was created that describes the pre-, intra-, and post-op care patients receive. All preoperative discussions included the concept of multimodal analgesia, expectations for hospital discharge to a rehabilitation center, instructions on how to avoid common complications, and a timeline for prosthetic fitting and usage. Our educational materials Address correspondence and reprint requests to Katharine L. McGinigle, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, Division of Vascular Surgery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 3021 Burnett Womack Building, CB#7212, Chapel Hill, NC 27599. E-mail: katharine_mcginigle@ med.unc.edu.


This is a comprehensive collection of essays that explores cutting-edge work in experimental philosophy, a radical new movement that applies quantitative and empirical methods to traditional topics of philosophical inquiry. • Situates the discipline within Western philosophy and then surveys the work of experimental philosophers by sub-discipline • Contains insights for a diverse range of fields, including linguistics, cognitive science, anthropology, economics, and psychology, as well as almost every area of professional philosophy today • Edited by two rising scholars who take a broad and inclusive approach to the field • Offers a complete introduction for non-specialists and students to the central approaches, findings, challenges, and controversies in experimental philosophy


Lightning strikes are responsible for some of the catastrophic airborne accidents. Design of suitable protection schemes requires prior knowledge of the current and field levels during a lightning strike. For assessing these quantities and for the validation of the design, lightning current injection tests are specified. Current tests are performed with components A to D which are specified in standards. Most of the tests are practical only at the component levels. For subjecting the whole aircraft to lightning tests, standards suggest a return conductor (RC) arrangement. The return conductor arrangement permits injection of current with magnitude and rise time specified in standards. However, in a natural environment, there is no such return path for current. Therefore, the lightning electromagnetic environment experienced by an aircraft during an actual lightning strike could be different from that simulated by laboratory tests. The present work aims to investigate this considering Standard Dynamics Model (SDM) aircraft. The impedance network method is employed for determining the current and voltage distribution for the current component A. It is shown that in the real environment, the voltage drop across the aircraft is much higher than that in a laboratory test. The inevitable use of the return conductor is responsible for the differences in the electromagnetic environment.


Jbstract We study the accuracy estimates of numerical discretely stochastic procedures for solving an itegral equation of the second kind. The procedure is to introduce a discrete grid, estimate the solution at ic grid nodes by the Monte Carlo method and approximate the solution by the values obtained at the nodes. /e consider as the measure of the error of the numerical methods under study the probabilistic metrics of jaces L 2 (along with convergence in the mean) and C (along with convergence in probability). We jcceeded in expressing corresponding convergence conditions for some specific stochastic estimates of a jlution at the grid nodes in terms of the kernel and the free term of the integral equation and the probability ensities, used to obtain the above stochastic estimates.


Studies throughout past years have established clearly that the development of resistance to disease is subject to both genetic and environmental influences. It is fair to say that diet is the environmental influence that has been studied most extensively. Since the discovery of vitamins and the recognition of their essential role in the maintenance of normal cellular metabolism, these substances are probably the most studied of the various constituents of the diet. Indeed, it is recalled that it was a study of the then supposedly infectious disease of beriberi by Eijkman that led to our modern concept of vitamins. The studies on the relationship of nutrition to disease have been reviewed in recent years by Schneider' and Clark et aZ.2 The investigations on the role of vitamins in resistance to disease have been concerned, in general, with deficiencies of an individual vitamin or group of vitamins. The correlation between a vitamin deficiency and resistance to disease has been found to be positive in some cases and negative in others. For example, Wooley and SebrelP have shown that ribotlavin or thiamine deficiencies decrease resistance of mice to pneumococcal infection. On the other hand, Reiner and Paton4 found that rats on a vitamin B-complex deficient diet were more resistant to Trypanosoma equiperdum, as indicated by a prolongation of the incubation time over that of controls fed a diet containing a vitamin B-complex supplement. While the results of studies on the effect of vitamin deficiencies in response to disease are of fundamental importance, they are difficult to interpret in terms of resistance of the host animal. There is little in our knowledge of biochemistry, physiology, and nutrition to suggest that a deficiency of a nutrient essential for lifc would actually strengthen the physiological state of an animal so that it would become more resistant to an invading organism. I t is much more likely that a deficiency that brings about a less acute response to infection does so by decreasing the disease-producing capacity of the infectious agent. While studies on the effect of vitamin deficiencies on resistance to disease Are not plentiful, even less data are available on the effect of high levels of vitamins. In the studies of Wooley and SebrelP mentioned above, the administration of 5 to 10 times the amount of riboflavin or thiamine given the control groups did not increase thc resistance of mice to pneumococcal infection. There are a few other instances in which an exceedingly high level of an individual vitamin has been tested No one to the authors' knowledge, hoir ever, has tested the effect of the inclusion at high levels of all the known re quired vitamins on resistanLC to disease. This is the approach that lias been taken in the experiments presented in this report T n all the studies presented herein, rapidly growing strains of New Hamp-


[Abstract]: For building constructions in bushfire-prone areas, the relevant Australian Standard (AS 3959-1999) recommends that potential building openings be protected against flying debris and burning embers using a metal mesh with an opening less than 1.8 mm. Although the metal mesh can reduce the radiant heat transfer, it can also create hot spots on the object it is intended to protect, particularly if the standoff distance between the mesh and the object is small. These hot spots may even have a higher temperature than the object temperature without metal mesh protection. In this paper, the performance of some commercial metal meshes is simulated and the minimum standoff distance needed to avoid hot spots on the surface of the object is determined. An approximate formula for the calculation of this minimum distance is proposed.


According to Law No. 3 of 2002 on National Defense, the defense of the State is the responsibility of all citizens of Indonesia, including community organizations. Forum Bela Negara (FBN) DKI Jakarta, a community organization formed with the specific purpose of overseeing efforts to strengthen the values of the country's defense in society, has long been taking part in implementing the law. FBN, especially in the DKI Jakarta province, has organized many activities such as regular, comprehensive, and integrative socialization of fostering awareness of defending the country to the cadres and the public, as well as supporting and carrying out government programs for the creation of the National Defense Cadre. This is in line with the Presidential Instruction (Inpres) No. 7 of 2018 concerning the 2018-2019 National Action Plan of Nation Defense, which states that the internalization of the basic values of state defense to the general public is one of the intended action plans. The problems faced by FBN DKI Jakarta include the measurability of the results of activities and the ineffectiveness of the approach (model) of activities that have been held. The voluntary nature of membership in mass organizations (Law No.17 of 2013 article 1 paragraph 1) has caused FBN to have many limitations including in Event Management. The purpose of this community service program was to strengthen the FBN's institutions by increasing the soft skills and hard skills of the DKI Jakarta FBN Management on Event Management, which included, among others, the approach of implementing activities, making creative proposals, and raising funds. The method used in this program was as follows. First, a need assessment was conducted; next, a mini-workshop on Event Management was held, and finally, a Coaching Clinic or supervision to the idea of DKI Jakarta FBN activities was provided. Institutional strengthening was chosen because FBN as a mass organization has a strategic function in carrying out social change, such as supporting efforts to instill nationalism spirit and awareness of the defense of the people's state. The output of this activity was, among others, increasing knowledge and skills of the DKI Jakarta FBN Management related to Event Management, as evidenced by the draft proposal they had prepared. The core of this activity was to identify an adaptive, contemporary approach ranging from planning, implementation, and an evaluation in the activities carried out by the State Defense Forum.


I describe the pathophysiological and hemodynamic events that occur after an emergency pneumonectomy for trauma and how they impact on subsequent mortality. Four patients were identified as requiring an emergency right pneumonectomy for trauma at a level 1 Urban Trauma Center within a 39-month period. A retrospective review of their hospital course served as the basis for our analysis. Three patients sustained gunshot wounds and one patient was a victim of blunt trauma. Hemodynamic data were available for three patients who survived more than 24 hours. All patients presented in shock and required massive transfusion. One patient died in the operating room due to air embolism and shock. After pneumonectomy, there was an increase in pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) and pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) more than 2 times normal, which coincided with a decrease in stroke volume, cardiac output, and right and left ventricular stroke work (RVSW/LVSW). The RVSW gradually increased to above normal levels by postoperative day 5, whereas the LVSWI remained below normal. Adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) developed in all patients early in the postoperative period. There was evidence of oxygen delivery (DO2) dependent of oxygen consumption (VO2) and the DO2 remained below normal despite inotrope administration. The remaining three patients died 7 to 13 days after surgery due to various combinations of ARDS, cardiac failure, and sepsis. Until we have better methods to decrease PAP selectively, traumatic pneumonectomy should be avoided if possible, especially when it involves the right side or is associated with a contralateral lung injury. Early operative intervention and control of the pulmonary hilum may lessen the severity of shock. The hemodynamic changes that occur after pneumonectomy for trauma becomes additive in the presence of ARDS. This combination results in inadequate cardiac function, oxygen transport, and, ultimately, death.


BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION:
Retaining students within the higher education STEM majors, remains a challenge for institutions across the United States. Mason's solution to this nationwide concern is to implement a STEM Summer Boot Camp for incoming freshman that focuses on engaging students and modernizing instructional methods.


We show that the bases of irreducible integrable highest weight module of a non-symmetric Kac-Moody algebra, which is associated to a quiver with a nontrivial admissible automorphism, can be naturally identified with a set of certain invariant Langrangian irreducible subvarieties of certain varieties associated with the quiver defined by Nakajima. In the case of non-symmetric affine or finite Kac-Moody algebras, the bases can be naturally identified with a set of certain invariant Langrangian irreducible subvarieties of a particular deformation of singularities of the moduli space of instantons over A-L-E spaces.
The motivation of this paper comes from string/string duality and the paper is ended with questions and speculations related to string/string duality.


With a view to support instruction, formative and summative assessment and to provide model handwriting performance for students to compare their own performance, a Malayalam handwriting scale is developed. Data from 2640 school students belonging to Malappuram, Palakkad and Kozhikode districts, sampled by taking 240 students per each grade (grades 2 through 9) were used. The scale with 19 quality levels is formulated based on 10 point criteria viz., Shape of the letter, Size of the letter, Space between the letters, Space between the words, Space between the lines, Proportion, Margin, Slanting, Clarity and speed, and Straightness of lines. Reliability and validity of the scale were verified by ensuring the scaled handwritten scripts being identified by five experts as belonging to a particular scale value. grade norms in terms of cumulative percentage of students is provided and gender norms also are indicated. Students, teachers, school counsellors and parents will find the scale useful for improving Malayalam handwriting performance of learners at all grade levels in schools © 2015 Guru Journal of Behavioral and Social Sciences Importance of handwriting in education and development of individuals can never be exaggerated. Handwriting is an image of unique personality. Graphic maturity of a writer develops from childhood and continues throughout lifetime with age despite influence of factors like writing-medium like pen, ink, writing material, writing surface, speed of writing, physiological condition including age and illness, and intoxication. Education among other things is to improve students' ability to express in writing and hence cannot be neglected in instruction. Ability to write with reasonable legibility and speed is essential and important; but it is very complex functional task essential for expressing ideas fluently in text form. Absence of fluent hand wring leads students to avoid writing. Surely, other transcription related skills like spelling are important too. This paper reports the development of handwriting scale in Malayalam to provide students, teachers and school counsellors with grade appropriate model handwriting which will prove useful in assessing, giving feedback and directing handwriting and instruction thereof in schools.


. Samples of the polychaete Nereis diversicolor O.F. Muller and surficial sediments from a clean and a polluted estuary were taken during a year at monthly intervals to determine, by comparison, the range of temporal fluctuations in trace metal concentrations. Whereas metal variations in surficial sediments were more pronounced in the polluted estuary, concentrations in N. diversicolor in both estuaries showed a wide range of temporal variation that surpassed that of surficial sediments. A clear decline in all metals studied (except Mn) from polluted sediments was noted after episodes of strong rainfall. In the reference estuary the fluctuations were less pronounced. Metal body burdens in N. diversicolor from the two estuaries were usually quite similar even though total levels in sediments differed considerably, indicating a lack of worm-sediment relationship. The low level of Cu, Cr and Pb in the tissues of N. diversicolor suggest a mechanism which prevents the polychaete from being exposed to these metals in highly polluted sediments. Therefore, it is concluded that N. diversicolor cannot be considered to be an ideal biomonitor of metal contamination in the polluted Bilbao Estuary.


Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes(POSS),a new kind of organic-inorganic hybrid material,de-monstrates potential applications in contemporary materials science.The reaction creativity varies with different sub-stituents of POSS,so the preparation methods of POSS nanocomposites are abundent.Physical blend and chemical synthesis on recent progress in preparation of POSS-based nanocomposites are summarized,and the development of POSS-based nanocomposites is prospected.


Root canal treatment (RCT) deals with repairing and saving the tooth that is badly decayed or becomes infected. Endodontic means treating tooth from inside. Obturation is a process of complete filling and sealing of 3D root canal space with gutta percha as biocompatible sealing material against bacterial growth. The main cause of Endodontic treatment failure is the incomplete sealing of the root canal. The degree of endodontic success needs to be evaluated based on mechanical sealing of root canal cavity with gutta percha also there is a need to quantify measures for evaluating Root canal success. Current paper discusses the effect of mechanical factors on success in this treatment.


Through this study, ZnO thin films have been deposited on a clear glass substrate by sol-gel method with and without polyethylene glycol (PEG) content and also optical properties of the deposited films have been investigated. Using PEG, with zinc acetate precursor, has enhanced the chance to obtain the porous structure of ZnO films. After annealing the films at 550 It has been reported that, in order to obtain high photon-to-current conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells, surface of ZnO photoanode should be porous in nature that has been accomplished by using PEG as C for 2h, optical transmittance measurements have been carried out with UV/Visible spectrometer at 200-900 wavelengths. The film are highly transparent in the visible range and the average transparency with and without PEG contented ZnO films, beyond 400nm wavelength, has been found to be of 93% and 90% respectively. A blue shift in both direct and indirect allowed band gap has been found with the addition of PEG. The direct and indirect allowed band gap of ZnO films with PEG content has been found to be of 3.24 eV and 3.14 eV respectively.


This work presents an online testing scheme for detecting Single Missing Gate Faults (SMGF) in Exclusive-Or Sum of Product (ESOP) based reversible circuits consisting of both the positive and negative control MCT (Multiple control Toffoli) gates. In this technique, initially we transform an input function to its equivalent testable design, where some redundant gates and an ancillary line are appended to the design. After that, the test vectors are applied to the input of the circuit for detecting all possible faults in the design. This scheme has been tested successfully over large benchmark circuits to verify correctness of the algorithm. Performance of the proposed design has been compared with the existing well known testing algorithms, and improvement over them has been observed.


Wearing the soil's capacity is the main factor affecting the durability of parts and compo-nents of tillage machines and the life of the machinery and tools in general. The article shows the influence of the different soil types on the degree of wear of the working bodies and it was found that the wear rate depends on the texture, moisture content, density and uniformity of the soil, the speed and shape of working bodies, the properties of the materials of which they are made. An analysis of the nature of plowshares wear, ripping tines, disc of harrows, seeders openers and knives of cutters was done. Of the variety of factors that affect the wear, two main factors were defined: the texture of the soil, determining its abrasive aggressiveness and connectivity, and density of the soil, which determines the pressure on the blade of the soil mass and the rate of wear of the cutting blade. Changing one of these factors leads to a change in the rate of wear and forms of worn blade. Other factors that characterize the soil are considered incidental since their effect can be expressed by the action of two major factors. However, the tests shall be considered to refer to agriculture. Silvicultural areas, in its turn, are characterized by the presence of stumps, roots and forest residues. In addition, the soils of the forest zone contain a part of debrisstony inclusions, causing breakage of parts and heavy wear. These factors adversely affect the durability of parts and components, and the service life of machinery in general, and require further studies.


A new concept for a mechanically stable drug release system is to combine hydrogels with porous ion track membrane. The membrane consists of a mechanically strong polymer matrix onto wich a soft hydrogel is grafted.


The paper investigates, in the framework of the kinetic approach, the linear screening of a point non-absorbing charge in a homogeneous collisionless plasma with cold ion flow. The velocity distribution of ions far from the charge is assumed to be a shifted Maxwellian distribution with infinitesimal thermal velocity and finite flow velocity, and the electron component is considered as a homogeneous neutralizing background. The potential in the direction perpendicular to the flow is found to have an attractive part (i.e. two like charges aligned perpendicular to the flow can attract each other electrostatically). The paper addresses in detail the relevance of the model to the screening of charged dust particles levitated in the plasma–wall transition layer. In particular, by using the Bohm collisionless sheath model the paper shows that in certain cases electrons do not contribute significantly to the screening of dust particles: deep in the non-neutral sheath the electron density is much smaller than the ion density, and in the quasineutral presheath (well above the sheath entrance) kinetic energies of ions are small as compared with the electron temperature. Also, the model of the present paper is shown to be in agreement with existing measurements of the interaction potential between two dust particles aligned perpendicular to the ion flow in the plasma–wall transition layer of a radio-frequency discharge (Konopka U et al 2000 Phys. Rev. Lett. 84 891) and predicts a minimum of the interaction potential to be located outside the distance range in which the measurements were performed.


The subjects of investigation in a standard clinical conditions were 4 groups of workers: blast furnace workers (n = 121), operators (n = 131), persons from managic staff (n = 73) and monks (n = 81). In all subjects 8 factors enhancing ischemic heart disease were estimated: treating family history, habit of smoking, male sex, blood hypertension, obesity, increased cholesterol concentration in blood serum and small physical activity. It was found that investigated groups were significantly different as to frequency of occurrence of ischemic heart disease risk factors.


Photoselective vaporisation of the prostate (PVP) is an established treatment option for bladder outlet obstruction (BOO). PVP has demonstrated durable clinical efficacy equivalent to other endoscopic procedures at 5 years [1]. Furthermore, PVP has demonstrated superior haemostatic properties compared with other endoscopic treatments for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) [2]. Despite this many Urological Surgeons trained in Australasia are not trained in PVP. Therefore, many urologists attempt to overcome the learning curve after a mentorship of only a handful of cases. Herein, we evaluate the first 53 cases performed independently by a single surgeon following comprehensive resident training in the technique.


The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between school decline and changes in school demographics. Using a population of 981 (N = 981) elementary schools, the authors identified samples of declining schools: Relational Decline (n = 510), Absolute Decline (n = 217), and Crossing the Line (n = 165). Latent growth models assessed longitudinal relationships between 4 demographic factors and school performance. Of the 4 tested predictors, only changes in the percentages of disadvantaged students maintained significant structural relationships with declining academic performance. Associations between school size on school performance varied depending on sample. Findings suggested that changes in school demographics challenge educators, but that internal school processes account for school decline. Future research might search for a school decline threshold, as well as common processes responsible for the phenomenon. Educators might design procedures so that no one school must face continuous or extensive increases in at-risk student populations.


To seek the good tradeoff between robustness and unobtrusiveness, the cover data is divided into nonoverlapping blocks and an independent distortion situation is assigned to each block, which is called localized quality evaluation. Two specific implementations applying the Signal to Noise Ratio and Watson's visual model as the quality metrics are respectively achieved in the sense of maximizing the detection value. And the corresponding upper limits are derived under the given distortion constraints. Then, some practical adjustment strategies of those relative parameters are provided. The approach also introduces an improved linear correlation detector using side information and analyzes its performance mathematically. A lot of experimental results show the presented schemes obtain very significant performance improvement in terms of image transparency and robustness.


The mixtures of elastomer compounds based on natural and 1,4-cispolybutadiene rubber of 80:20 ratio, were used for the investigation of adhesion promoters influence on adhesion of vulcanisate to steel cord. Ni-stearate and resorsynol-formaldehyde resin combined with hexamethylenetetramine in various mass ratios were included as adhesion promoters. Elastomer mixtures were prepared using a laboratory double mill, and the rheological and vulcanization characteristics were examined on a vulcameter provided with an oscillating disc, a higher temperature of 145 °C. The crosslinking of the mixture was carried out by press, at a temperature of 145 °C and specific pressure of 40 bar, in period of 45 minutes. A wide number of standardized methods for physical mechanical characterization of vulcanization prior and after accelerated aging were used. The adhesion of vulcanizate bond with zinc coated steel cord was determined according to the so called H-test, by measuring the pulling-out force of the cord from the vulcanized block, and the degree of coverage of cord with vulcanizate after separation. The results of examinations show significant dependence of physico-mechanical characteristics and adhesion forces on the type and amount of used adhesion promoters in experimental elastomer mixtures.


Patent filings are an excellent indicator of technology development and ownership. In this paper 'active' (not abandoned or expired) patents and patent applications are analysed to provide a unique overview of the chemical engineering landscape in Australia. Altogether we identified 19,927 active Australian chemical engineering patents, with an average age of 8.7 years. The US remains the leading source of chemical engineering patents (and by implication technology), with resource companies in the oil and gas, and mining sectors the leading applicants. Within Australia Rio Tinto, CSIRO and BHP Billiton were the leading patent applicants. We also showed that applicants from other countries have been slow to benefit from the relative low cost and easy to obtain innovation patent, unlike Australian applicants.


Conceptually, personality traits are defined as relatively stable individual differences in affect, behaviour and cognition. It could be argued that the qualification 'relatively' has been downplayed until recently, however. The classic division of labour in psychology is that developmental psychology deals with changes (in both mean-level differences and individual differences therein), whereas personality psychology addresses stable factors. Like all divisions of labour, this has produced some fruitful results, but it has also led to some blind spots, both within personality psychology (neglecting change) and developmental psychology (neglecting stability). The particular focus of personality psychology on stability seems to have been exacerbated by the so-called consistency debate, which was spurred by Mischel's publication of 'Personality and Assessment' in 1968. This publication questioned the very existence of nomothetic individual differences and emphasized situational fluctuations instead. Not surprisingly, the pushback to this line of reasoning stressed that consistent individual differences indeed exist, yet as a side effect, studies of inconsistency took backseat roles for many decades. Fortunately, this is beginning to change. Methodologically, there is another reason for the relatively late emergence of personality development as a recognizable sub-discipline: only recently have large-scale empirical studies on adult personality development become available. This is not to say that such studies are without precursors. Pioneering researchers such as Terman and Block started long-term longitudinal endeavours long ago, in 1921 and 1968, respectively – to give just two examples, and somewhat later, cohort studies such as the New Zealand Dunedin study and the German LOGIK study appeared. Yet, these longitudinal studies typically started in childhood and therefore needed to deal with the issue of continuity in heterotypic circumstances: Because circumstances and capacities change so drastically during childhood, it is difficult to assess the same personality factors in the same ways over time Only in the last three decades or so have studies that have repeatedly assessed personality traits as well as a range of possible sources of influences in adulthood increasingly become available (e.g. Helson&Wink, 1992; Costa & McCrae, 1992; Neyer & Asendorpf, 2001; Robins, Fraley, Roberts, & Trzesniewski, 2001). It took even longer for large and representative cohort studies such as the German Socioeconomic Panel to include repeated personality measures, giving rise to novel insights regarding the shape and sources of personality development. A relatively new research area must first establish an empirical database that can be used both to test existing theories and to derive new ones. This is what is currently happening with personality development. The goal of this special issue is to provide a roadmap for studies of personality development


In this paper a novel improved method for three-dimensional (3D) imaging is proposed based on the existing 3D imaging methods. In this method, which we call it the merged imaging (MI) technique, by combining two 3D imaging methods i.e., integral imaging and incoherent holography and using the positive features of each we are able to overcome the trade-off between resolution and depth-of-field and reach to an improved 3D resolution. Simulation results confirm the superiority of the proposed method compared to previous 3D imaging techniques.


ABSTRACT The steady-state level and metabolic half-life of retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein pRB are decreased in cells that express high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) E7 proteins. Here we show that pRB degradation is a direct activity of E7 and does not reflect a property of cell lines acquired during the selection process for E7 expression. An amino-terminal domain of E7 that does not directly contribute to pRB binding but is required for transformation is also necessary for E7-mediated pRB degradation. Treatment with inhibitors of the 26S proteasome not only blocks E7-mediated pRB degradation but also causes the stabilization of E7. Mutagenic analyses, however, reveal that the processes of proteasomal degradation of E7 and pRB are not linked processes. HPV type 16 E7 also targets the pRB-related proteins p107 and p130 for destabilization by a proteasome-dependent mechanism. Using the SAOS2 flat-cell assay as a biological indicator for pRB function, we demonstrate that pRB degradation, not solely binding, is important for the E7-induced inactivation of pRB.


The CNC man-machine interface editor system is realized in this paper by the method of modeling and designing based on Object-oriented Modeling Technique(OMT).This system has plenty of mental graphics with dynamic properties,provides tools which can generate engineering pictures quickly,modify mental graphics and undo/redo operations,supports the connection to CNC and picture switch.It is highly visible and open with strong function.


Electromagnetic field-driven micro-robots are a class of robots ranging in size from centimeter to nanometer scale, driven by magnetization with an applied external gradient magnetic field or uniform magnetic field in a low Reynolds number environment to achieve precise path tracking control of targets. In biomedical experiments, electromagnetically driven microrobots have solved the drug overdose and off-target delivery problems in traditional drug delivery methods, providing an efficient solution for clinical biomedical treatments equipped with observation and control systems, and with the continuous emergence of new structural materials and magnetic drive systems, the motion efficiency and targeting accuracy have been significantly improved. Based on the analysis of the motion structures and drive systems of different magnetic microrobots, the current research status and development trend of magnetic microrobots for biomedical applications are discussed. With the continuous progress of electromagnetically driven microrobot research, it creates a wide range of application prospects in important biomedical applications such as microassembly, cell surgery, and targeted drug delivery.


The quality of a radar interferogram can be characterized by wavenumber correlation coefficient. The wavenumber correlation analysis exploits the unique characteristics of the radar interferogram in which in-phase and quadrature-phase terms are highly correlated. One can easily distinguish the signal components from the noise components of the radar interferogram in the wavenumber domain, and consequently this method can be utilized to design a post filter to enhance the interferogram. The wavenumber correlation analysis can also be applied to an amplitude coregistration of a master and slave pair. Test results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


the groups of Jewish refugees who were engaged in construction work by the C.P.R. in 1882. He should have also mentioned all the names when he says, "In the records of many of these new progressive cities and towns like Kingston, Kirkland Lake and Timrains, the names of many Jews were given a permanent place among the heroes". Why refer only to Hart of Three Rivers and Kaplan Bros. of Kirkland Lake ? Dr. S. Goldman's essay "The national movement in Canada" contains much useful information, and will be helpful in understanding the census returns in respect to the Jewish population. The sections on Jewish history, education, youth, and business add little to what is already known from previous publications. The editor is to be congratulated for being 'courageous enough to state the existence of discrimination against the Jew in Canada by various institutions. His essay on "Emancipation but not equal rights" is a challenge and should be read by everyone. The importance of Dr. Cohen's contribution is not only that he makes clear the existence of this "social disease" in Canada, but raises the question as to how non-English-speaking roups may be assimilated if there is discrimination against those who differ only in their religious views from the dominant elements. As a whole the volume gives a vivid picture of Jewish life in the communities from the Atlantic to the Pacific shores, and considering the difficulty of gathering the materials scattered over so large an area, the reader is willing to forgive a good many defects both of omission and commission. ANDREW A. MARCHBIN


A computational model for the temperature rise and design formulas for the liner thickness of the bimetal bearing in service are built based on the Fourier′s law.The temperature rise is a linear increasing function of load power and friction coefficient,and its proportional coefficient is named a thermal-structure factor of the bimetal bearing to express the thermal and structural effects on temperature rise.It is also found that the thermal-structure factor is always a nonlinear decreasing function of the thermal conductivity λ1 of the liner materials.However the thermal-structure factor is a two-sided function of the liner thickness δ1,a nonlinear increasing function(when λ1λ2)or a nonlinear decreasing function(when λ1λ2).There exists a critic value of the liner thickness,the larger thickness than the critic one is supposed when λ1λ2,however,a smaller thickness than the critic one is supposed when λ1λ2.


Designing message forwarding protocols for underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) is challenging mainly due to high propagation delay, limited bandwidth and high packet loss. Most such protocols operate on the assumption that precise location of sensor nodes is known, which is difficult as GPS waves cannot propagate through water. Moreover, due to the error-prone nature of the acoustic link, message forwarding over multiple hops degrades end-to-end reliability, consumes significant energy and incurs longer delay. In this paper, we propose a location unaware message forwarding technique. It employs opportunistic routing where nodes use accumulate-and-forward paradigm to route data. The technique also exploits nodes' ability to overhear one another's transmission to select reliable route. Our opportunistic model uses independent and local forwarding decisions to select next hop forwarder on-the-fly based on its link transmission reliability and reachability to the gateway. Message ferrying approach is utilized to collect sensor data from gateway nodes of multiple UASNs at high data rate. Our simulation results exhibit its effectiveness and superiority compared with two well established message forwarding algorithms in underwater in terms of packet delivery ratio, routing overhead and energy consumption.


The differential transform method (DTM) is a simple technique based on the Taylor series. Applying the DTM, a given linear boundary eigenvalue problem (BEVP) involving ordinary differential equations is converted into a recurrence relation or a system of recurrence relations for the Taylor coefficients. This ultimately leads to the solution of the problem in the form of an infinite power series with an appropriate region of convergence. The present paper aims to apply the DTM in solving a BEVP arising from the Darcy–Brinkman convection in a rectangular box subject to general boundary conditions whose vertical sidewalls are assumed to be impermeable and adiabatic. The non‐dimensional temperature difference between the plates represented by the Darcy–Rayleigh number, the eigenvalue of the problem, is obtained as a function of the width of the Bénard cell ( 2πb : b is the horizontal wave number) and other parameters using the DTM. The work includes investigation on the convergence of the series solution. The solution by the DTM is compared with that obtained by the MATLAB bvp4c routine and excellent agreement is found thereby establishing the accuracy of the DTM.


European mistletoe (Viscum album L., family Santalaceae) is native from Europe and is an evergreen, perennial, hemiparasitic shrub that lives on a wide range of woody plants species. The mistletoe has a number of biological effects, such as anticancer, antimycobacterial, apoptosis – inducing, antiviral, and immunomodulatory activities. In the first part of this study, we present the floral and vegetative characters of five varieties of Viscum album ssp. album that are growing on five different host trees (Acer campestre, Mallus domestica, Fraxinus excelsior, Populus nigra and Robinia pseudoacacia).
In the second part, we recorded the UV-VIS spectrum of methanolic extract (400 to 700 nm), to determined the level of chlorophyll a and b, and also the ratio of A280/A340 (to identify which the bioactive compounds is predominantly). We find the diference between the stem and leaves from the mistletoe that are growing on the same host, and also between the mistletoe that are growing on different host trees.


This paper presents an investigation into the performance of adiabatic logic circuits, specifically PFAL and ECRL NAND and NOR gates, on FPGA and ASIC platforms. We evaluated power dissipation, area utilization, and reliability of analog, FPGA, and ASIC implementations. The power efficiency of PFAL circuits was significantly higher than that of ECRL circuits, particularly when MOSFET transistors were installed in NAND gates. The power dissipation of ECRL and PFAL circuits was significantly reduced for ASIC implementations compared to FPGA implementations. According to the results, adiabatic logic circuits such as ECRL and PFAL can be effectively incorporated into ASICs or optimized FPGA environments for energy-efficient computing. The development of alternative implementation techniques and circuit design refinements will be crucial to fully exploit the benefits of adiabatic logic across a variety of applications and technologies in the future. Our results show that our ASIC implementation of the adiabatic logic circuits outperforms traditional implementations in terms of the proposed design and achieves a performance of 0.16 ns with a $0.8917\mu W$ on-chip power consumption at $29.569\mu 2$ chip area.


The article focuses on the investigation of detective fiction in general and detective stories in particular which in this research is understood as a narrative where the plot hinges on a crime that the characters investigate and attempt to solve. The research also deals with various genre types of detective stories, such as police-department procedurals, hardboiled, locked room mysteries, cosy mysteries. Special attention is paid to the genre development of detective stories from a historical perspective. It is worth underlining that the period between World War I and World War II (the 1920s and 1930s) is generally referred to as the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. The purpose of the study is to highlight the main plot elements of a cosy mystery, such as the protagonist, the antagonist, the setting, the crime event, and definite narrative mechanisms involved in a story.


Purpose: To develop a clinical scoring system for children with presumed appendicitis who visit the emergency department. Methods: A registry based-retrospective study was conducted in the pediatric emergency department between September 2015 and December 2016. Patients aged 4 to 17 years who had a > 1 of 5 Likert scale for possibility of appendicitis were included. Multiple logistic regressions based on Akaike information criterion were performed using variables regarding clinical features and inflammatory markers to develop the clinical scoring system. Results: A total of 233 patients were included, and 93 (39.9%) had the final diagnosis of appendicitis. The final model with the lowest Akaike information criterion (171.7) consisted of 5 variables, including vomiting (1 point), absence of watery diarrhea (1 point), duration of symptoms ≤ 3 days (1 point), rebound tenderness (1 point), and white blood cell count > 10.0 × 10/L (2 points). If the clinical score was ≥ 4 of 6 points, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.78 (95% confidence interval, 0.71-0.86) with a 78.9% sensitivity, 66.7% specificity, positive and negative predictive values of 70.0% and 76.2%, respectively, and positive and negative likelihood ratios of 2.4 and 0.3, respectively. Conclusion: The 5-item clinical scoring system shows a fair performance for prediction of pediatric appendicitis. This simple tool could be applied to predict the pediatric appendicitis, and to avoid the use of potentially unnecessary computed tomography.


Discussing the uses of speech as ritual and in the manipulation of ideas at the national political convention, the authors argue that convention rhetoric does not properly encourage the democratic process.


A series of reforms on basic education has been carried out in Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou region. The main experiences are: solidly taking the Deng Xiaoping' S thought on education as the guiding thought for education reform; solidly putting into effect the priority stratagem position of education; firmly changing education concepts and increasing the level continuously; implementing the high standard diathesis education; and taking mass scientific research as forerunner to promote education reform and development. The experiences in Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou region give out a lot of revelation to Tianjin basic education reform.


Past research on Multitask Learning (MTL) has focused mainly on devising adequate regularizers and less on their scalability. In this paper, we present a method to scale up MTL methods which penalize the variance of the task weight vectors. The method builds upon the alternating direction method of multipliers to decouple the variance regularizer. It can be efficiently implemented by a distributed algorithm, in which the tasks are first independently solved and subsequently corrected to pool information from other tasks. We show that the method works well in practice and convergences in few distributed iterations. Furthermore, we empirically observe that the number of iterations is nearly independent of the number of tasks, yielding a computational gain of O(T) over standard solvers. We also present experiments on a large URL classification dataset, which is challenging both in terms of volume of data points and dimensionality. Our results confirm that MTL can obtain superior performance over either learning a common model or independent task learning.


Novel Basic Ligands for the Homogeneous Catalytic Carbonylation of Methanol, XXVIII. — Synthesis, Properties and Fluxional Behavior of (Ether-Phosphine)palladium Complexes

Cl2Pd(COD) (1) (COD = 1,5-cyclooctadiene) reacts with 1 equiv, of the (ether-phosphine) ligand Ph2P∼D (2a–c) (D = CH2C4H7O (a), CH2C4H7O2 (b), CH2CH2OCH3 (c)] to give the dimeric complexes [μ-ClPdCl(Ph2P∼D)]2 (3a–c) (P∼D = η1-P-coordinated). According to the field-desorption mass spectra which show only one peak for the monomeric moieties ClPd(Ph2P∼D), 3a–c have a very weak Pd2Cl2 bridge. trans-Cl2Pd(Ph2P∼D)2 (4a–c) is obtained either from 3a–c and 2a–c by cleaving the Pd2Cl2 bridge or from 1 and 2 equiv. of the ligands 2a–c. 4c crystallizes in the monoclinic space group P21/c with Z = 2. AgClO4 selectively abstracts one Cl⊖ ligand from 4a–c which results in the formation of the cationic complexes [trans-(Ph2P∩D)(Ph2P∼D)PdCl]⊕ (5a–c) (P∩D = η2-D,P-coordinated) containing one chelated and one η11-P-bonded (ether-phosphine) ligand. 5a–c show fluxional behavior which is demonstrated by temperature-dependent 31P{1H}-NMR investigations. The coalescence points have been determined and are at 253 (5a), 303 (5b), and 283 K (5c). The activation enthalpies ΔG‡ are estimated at 48, 58, and 54 kJ/mol. The abstraction of the second Cl⊖ ligand from 5a–c succeeds only in the presence of AgSbF6 yielding the dicationic bis(chelate) complexes [trans-(Ph2P∩D)2Pd]2⊕ (6a–c). The latter are also obtained from 4a–c) and AgSbF6. The hydrogenating properties of 3a–c and 4a–c toward 1-hexyne are investigated in comparison with trans-Cl2Pd(Ph2P-CH2CH2CH3)2.