Half-metallic systems will be quite useful in future spin electronics. The GW approximation is employed to study electronic structure of half-metallic La0.7Sr0.3MnO3, to show that the lowest quasiparticle energy of the unoccupied minority spin states is far above the Fermi energy compared to that in the LSDA. As a bulk, this system is predicted to be a fully spin-polarized half-metallic ferromagnet.


After the comparison many kinds of MPEG-4 video frequency coding system in current,This paper proposed the video frequency coding system design based on the DSP,which introduced this system composition structure in details,and the function which realized to various modules has been divided. In the paper mainly stresses to introducing this system the hardware realization plan,including the system power source module,the clock module and the reset module and so on. In addition,union concrete project ex perience,this paper emphasized this PCB design skill such as system layout,wiring characteristic.


In the article is brought analysis of condition of buildings and erecting, which are used on the rail-freight traffic in theUkraine. Described main known dissolves, which are to be use for the transport building repair and buildings. Shown advantages of using as repair material polymer-cement and cement –polymer dissolves.


How do you help improve living conditions in areas that are short of water? Where do you start? Eleanor Hazell explains the principles behind WaterAid, a UK charity dedicated to exactly this


Regulated power systems not only were built with excess capacity, but also operated with conservative security limits. But under deregulated environment, the requirement of maintaining security and maximizing the return on existing investments becomes one typical antinomy, resulting in operating the system closer to the traditional deterministic limits or even beyond them by assuming that the contingencies may not actually occur. This fact requires more refined methods for power system security proper assessment and fair distribution that account for the probabilistic nature of uncertain variables in the decision-making environment. This paper presents a framework of fair assigned security price for a given market participant which firstly contains two comprehensive pricing methods for quantifying the transmission security cost based on risk analysis and voltage stability constrained OFF market models for comparison. In the later method, this paper next distributes the security cost equitably to all participants based on the impact of their transactions on the ATC, which is calculated by using continuation power flow (CPF) or OPF approaches and should consider thermal, voltage and stability limits with N-1 contingency criteria. The nodal security price can be attained finally. All above-mentioned approaches are illustrated by evaluating the results of an experiment that simulates a full AC network with 6 buses, three of which are generators


This practically oriented thesis deals with the generation of short term schedules for switching engines at industrial in-plant railroads. The problem is related to the multiple-vehicle pickup and delivery problem with time windows. We consider combinatorial restrictions of the sequence of visited locations, introducing the concept of pattern concatenation. We show that the construction of schedules of minimal cost with respect to total travel time is NP-complete in the strong sense. Two models for the minimization problem are developed in this thesis. The first is an adaptation of a mixed integer program known from the literature. It is of polynomial size but the quality of its LP relaxation is provably poor. The second formulation is a set partitioning program where a variable corresponds to a feasible schedule for an engine, represented by the subset of visited requests. The number of variables is exponential in the size of the instance, and we propose to solve its LP relaxation by column generation. The pricing problem is a constrained shortest path problem and is proven to be NP-complete in the strong sense. A new lower bounding criterion is used to prune the search space of the princing dynamic programming algorithm. We extensively discuss our implementation and give computational results for practical problem instances. An investigation of the concept of patterns reveals its theoretical advantages as well. The large bibliography is intended to contribute in its own right and contains more than 100 references to column generation.


The content repository for Java technology is designed to be a set of standard API to solve the problem that the content repository cannot be unified in content manager system(CMS) area.It is located between the application system and the storage layer,using a 'tree-like' storage model,provides many content services like content access,version control,transaction,search and filter.It realized the decoupling of the content access and the storage repository,provided greater flexibility and the ability to exchange.This context outlined the concept of the content repository for Java technology and its principle and structure,and briefed the open source project Apache Jackrabbit,described the role in CMS with a news release system example.It also discussed the advantages and disadvantages and made a prospect for the future at last.


A histological description is given of the ommatidium of the corn earworm, Heliothis zea (Boddie). The cornea has the configuration of an achromatic doublet, and the crystalline cone of a field lens, which is coated in the night-adapted eye with a quarter-wave antireflection dielectric. All morphological units fit the theoretical configuration to be expected of a mosaic optic-electromagnetic thermal radiometer. There is a fast daylight-adaptation to ultraviolet and a lack of stimulated flight in an activity cage when moths are subjected to shortwave ultraviolet (2537 A). It is concluded that the compound eye is a high absorber of far infrared radiation and of such a configuration that it could orient to hot or warm spots of longwave infrared radiation in total darkness.


IP-XACT is a standard for describing intellectual property metadata for System-on-Chip (SoC) integration. Recently researchers have proposed visualizing and abstracting IP-XACT objects using structural UML2 model elements and diagrams. Despite the number of proposals at conceptual level, experiences on utilizing this representation in practical SoC development environments are very limited. This paper presents how UML2 models of IP-XACT features can be utilized to efficiently design and implement a multiprocessor SoC prototype on FPGA. The main contribution of this paper is the experimental development of a multiprocessor platform on FPGA using UML2 design capture, IP-XACT compatible components, and design automation tools. In addition, modeling concepts are improved from earlier work for the utilized integration methodology.


In order to improve the efficiency of full bridge LLC resonant converter interleaved parallel (FBLLC-SP) system, and make its theoretical loss closer to the actual operation loss, In this paper, the parasitic parameters of cascode GaN HEMT are introduced into the loss model , to set up an accurate loss model of FBLLC-SP system, which is suitable for single phase shift (SPS) open-loop control and three phase shift (TPS) double closed-loop control; In this paper, the optimal dead time calculation method is given, and the theoretical loss of FBLLC-SP system under single phase-shifting (SPS) open-loop control is analyzed, and the accurate calculation methods of transient loss of GaN HEMT with different modes are proposed; The experimental system is built. The experimental results show that the loss value of the loss model in this paper is about 0.6% higher than the actual operation loss of the system, that is to say, the refined loss model established in this paper can be used to analyze the actual operation loss of the system.


Optimized contracted Gaussian basis sets of double‐zeta valence polarized (DZVP) quality for first‐row transition metals are presented. The DZVP functions were optimized using the PWP86 generalized gradient approximation (GGA) functional and the B3LYP hybrid functional. For a careful analysis of the basis sets performance the transition metal atoms and cations excitation energies were calculated and compared with the experimental ones. The calculated values were also compared with those obtained using the previously available DZVP basis sets developed at the local‐density functional level. Because the new basis sets work better than the previous ones, possible reasons of this behavior are analyzed. The newly developed basis sets also provide a good estimation of other atomic properties such as ionization energies. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 26: 175–183, 2005


Objective: To study the relationships between p53 protein expression and the clinico-pathologic parameters in stage I breast cancer.Methods: With anti-p53 monoclonol antibody, by immunohistochemical methods, tissues from 112 paraffin-embedding specimens of stage I breast cancer were tested for p53 protein expression levels. Results: 1.Of 112 cases,p53 protein was expressed in 60.71% (68/112) which was associated with high histologic grade (P0.05).2.p53 protein expression has a positive trend with lymphonode metastatic rate while negative with 5-,10-,and 15-years free-disease survival rate (P0.05).3.p53 protein expresses no evident relationship with other clinico-pathologic parameters, such as ER or PR status, age, pathologic types etc(P 0.05) Conclusion:p53 protein expression levels may serve as a valuable prognostic parameter of breast cancer, which needs to be investigated further.


Ideally every child has his or her own father and mother who carry out their roles responsibly. However, in reality there are a number of children with disabilities who are ignored by their parent and consecutively taken care, nurtured, and guided by Yayasan Sayap Ibu. In order to protect the children, the caretaker of Yayasan Sayap Ibu deploys following efforts: preserving mind or intellect through education, preserving lineage (nasab) through nurturing and caretaking, and protecting property through many aids allocated to fulfill children needs. In sum, the article tries to examine whether the protection provided by Yayasan Sayap Ibu is in line with the theory of maqâsid asy-syari'ah or not. The theory consists of five pillars as follow: hifz din (protection toward religion), hifz nafs (protection toward soul), hifz aql (protection toward mind), hifz nasl (preserving toward lineage) dan hifz mal (protection toward property.


Cypress bark beetles (Phloeosinus cristatus (LeConte)) are native insects that occur throughout Arizona. They are common in the Verde Valley, Prescott, Payson, and Kingman areas. Under natural conditions, most bark beetles act as natural thinning agents that remove dying, overcrowded, and unhealthy trees. Cypress bark beetles seldom cause mortality in healthy, vigorous trees. However, when host trees are drought stressed, bark beetle populations increase allowing the beetles to colonize seemingly healthy trees. Cypress bark beetles are found in Arizona cypress (Cupressus arizonica), Leyland cypress (Cupressocyparis leylandii), eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), and other native Juniper trees (Juniperus spp.). In wildlands, cypress bark beetles mate and oviposit in the limbs and trunks of weakened, broken, dying, or felled trees and are common in juniper firewood. Cypress bark beetles rarely kill native juniper trees. Cypress bark beetle mortality in planted Arizona and Leyland cypress is common due to misconceptions about the water requirements of these tree species. Natural stands of Arizona cypress are often found in riparian areas or where precipitation is higher than adjacent areas. Property owners often assume that because these trees are native they can survive without supplemental irrigation. Lack of irrigation induces water stress within the plant, which predisposes planted trees to colonization by cypress bark beetles. Adult cypress bark beetles are small, reddish brown to black, often shiny, and about 2-3 mm long (Figure 1). In weakened or stressed trees, adult beetles colonize the bole (trunk) and larger branches of the tree where they mate and lay eggs. Here, significant damage to the tree is caused by a 25-75 mm long, linear gallery (tunnel) with closely spaced niches at either side where eggs are laid. After the eggs hatch, the larvae (grubs) create new galleries which radiate outward from the central gallery (Figure 2). As they consume the inner bark (phloem), cambium, and outer sapwood, the tree is girdled cutting off the flow of nutrients to the lower portion of the tree. Beetle colonization often causes top-kill and branch mortality, but can lead to tree mortality. Trees are colonized in the spring and summer. One generation per year is common, although more generations are possible during extended drought periods. Newly emerged adults fly to a new host tree where they bore into small twigs a few inches from the branch tips. This kills the branch tip causing it to fade in color. The dead branch tip remains hanging on the tree (called "flagging") for a short period before breaking off. Upon close inspection of the branch tips, a hollow area can be seen where the beetle mined the twig (Figure 3). When beetle populations are high, hundreds of branch tips may accumulate on the ground. Figure 1. Close-up of a cypress bark beetle


We have previously reported that (-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg) inhibited lung carcinoma cell adhesion to fibronectin (FN) and demonstrated its interaction with FN. In the present work, we studied the interaction between thermolysin fragments of FN and EGCg. An amino acid sequence analysis of the fragment bound by EGCg-agarose provided its identification as a carboxyl-terminal heparin-binding domain. Thus, the inhibition of cancer cell adhesion to FN by EGCg is not caused by its direct binding to the cell-binding domain containing an Arg-Gly-Asp-sequence.


The future of disease prevention through genetic profiling presents some challenging ethical questions. Crystal Oldman considers how health visitors can provide guidance.


PURPOSE: A glass slimming system is provided to slim a plurality of glasses in uniform thickness by spraying etchant to a plurality of glasses. CONSTITUTION: A glass slimming system comprises a chamber unit(10), a cassette unit(50), a wash liquid circulating unit, and an etchant circulating unit(30). The chamber unit comprises a washing chamber(14) and an etching chamber(16). For the plurality of glasses arranged perpendicularly, cleaning process, etching process and cleaning process are performed in order. The cassette unit perpendicularly receives a plurality of glasses, and injects and draws out the glasses to the chamber unit. The wash liquid circulating unit is arranged at the lower position lower than the chamber unit. The washing solution is supplied to the washing chamber, and the used washing solution is collected.


This is a celebratory, historical article about the past 30 years of the Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS). Key issues in the integration of Christianity and psychology between 1979 and 2006 are addressed; major contributing personalities to this discipline are identified; pertinent special issues of the Journal of Psychology and Christianity are highlighted; and nodal events (such as landmark conferences) are overviewed. The author's sole sources for information were archival records (primarily minutes from Board meetings), and personal communications with the two living former executive directors of CAPS, and the current executive director. Reviewing the past 30 years of CAPS' archival materials was akin to walking through a "hall of fame" of seminal writings about the integration of psychology and Christian faith. Names like Craig Ellison, H. Newton Malony, David Benner, Nancy Duvall, Brace Narramore, Gary Collins, Larry Ferguson, Vernon Grounds, and Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen jumped off the pages and reminded me of the monumental contributions these founding "mothers and fathers" of integration have made to CAPS. The distinctives that define CAPS, such as excellence, professionalism, scholarship, compassionate outreach, godliness, and grace, are traits that these "giants of integration" embody. CAPS is blessed to have been built on such a firm and honorable foundation. 1979-1986 Leadership during the years of 1979-1986 was provided by executive secretary, J. Harold Ellens of Michigan. The year 1982 was a banner year, as membership exceeded 1,000 for the first time, and the first issue of the Journal of Psychology and Christianity (JPC) was published. This scholarly, peer-reviewed journal replaced the former "CAPS Bulletin" (Minutes, April 21, 1982). Over the next few years, a JPC endowment was established. Due largely to the prudent guidance and generous giving of Ellens, Malony, Jean Rech, and Thomas and Mary Clark, this endowment was founded. A number of similarly gracious contributions were made during the King Endowment Fund Challenge in the late 1990s, when over $36, 000 was given (Randolph Sanders, personal communication, July 2006). The JPC endowment continues to grow and largely supports the publication of JPC. In 1988, Ellens passed the baton of JPC editorship to Peter Hill, who remains in this post to date (Minutes, April 20-23, 1988). Hill's longevity of service and continuity of quality is but one of many examples of dedicated commitment to CAPS. The year 1984 was also nodal, as CAPS became an approved continuing education provider for the American Psychological Association (Minutes, May 3, 1984). CAPS was divided, historically, into the following regions: East, Southeast, South Central, North Central, Midwest, West, and Canada East (Minutes, May 5, 1984). In the early 1980s, Canada West was absorbed by the East and Midwest regions. Borders of the South and North Central regions changed, and the South Central region was renamed Southwest. The success of regions has varied significantly over the years, due to changing regional leadership and fluctuating regional membership numbers (which has impacted dues and budget monies available at the regional level). Several regions adopted the West region's tradition of hosting regional conferences during this era. Regional conferences provided opportunities for fellowship and learning among CAPS members and their colleagues in geographic regions of the U.S. and Canada. International conferences were conducted annually, and since they rotated amongst the regions, conferences were held in a range of locales: Atlanta (1982), Chicago (1983), Dallas (1984), Grand Rapids (1985), and Oakland (1986). The humanitarian spirit and emphases on goodwill and cooperation that have always characterized CAPS and her members was manifested in gestures such as: the establishment of a task force on family life that worked with James Dobson's Family Research Group (1983); trading conference exhibit space and advertising for many years with the National Association of Christian Social Workers; and supporting and cosponsoring the International Congress on Christian Counseling in Atlanta (Minutes, September 28-29, 1984). …


This article is dedicated to Prof. Pieter M. Venter who has
just retired from the University of Pretoria as Head of the
Department of Old Testament Studies. Since we started
working together in one department, he has always been an
inspiration as a scholar.


With the development of the SOE privatization,the old salary management system can't meet the needs of changed enterprise management.The enterprise leaders should strengthen the salary management consciousness,place salary system transformation at the top of agenda,and construct the marketing salary management system with the competitive power according to the enterprise situation.


The Endeavour replica's 2011-12 circumnavigation of Australia visited 18 ports around the country, and called for a monumental effort from her crew, museumbased staff, support personnel and volunteers recruited in every port. We asked one of them, project coordinator Holly Shalders, for her perspective on this epic project.


This letter presents an original solution to extract the time difference of arrival (TDOA) from the baseband channel estimation of a multicarrier communication, i.e. orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). Considering a particular Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO) configuration, the delay between two direct paths impacts, by means of amplitude modulation, the received spectrum. With an appropriate demodulation, one can then estimate the TDOA even with presence of multipath. This method exhibits superior resolution compared to conventional time domain approaches dealing with inter-correlation function or spectral domain involving Fourier Transform. For example, it allows estimating TDOA of about 2 ns when using a null-to-null bandwidth of 100 MHz. Such approach can be useful for several applications needing accurate positioning for indoor environment.


pollution or isolation. People in rural areas mainly felt disadvantaged on account of insufficient employment opportunities and poor access to urban amenities. Despite the disadvantages. 56 per cent of the students from towns, and 69 per cent of the students from farms, said they would prefer to stay in their home town or district after they left school. However, strong attachments to home often become subordinated to the


Abstract Fertilizer encapsulation through polymer membranes can reduce fertilizer losses and minimize environmental pollution. In this paper, an emulsion of ethyl cellulose (EC)/vinyl acetate (VAc)/butyl acrylate (BA) was successfully prepared by pre-emulsified semi-continuous seed emulsion polymerization. EC/BA/VAc films showed biodegradability. The influence of the EC content on the properties of EC/BA/VAc films was also investigated by DSC, a water absorbency analysis, etc. Controlled-release urea encapsulated by EC/BA/VAc latex was prepared in a film coating machine and conformed to the standards for slow-release fertilizers of the Committee of European Normalization. The release of urea from controlled-release urea encapsulated by EC/BA/VAc latex containing 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% EC was 75.1%, 65.8%, 70.1% and 84.1%, respectively, after 42 days, and controlled-release urea encapsulated by EC/BA/VAc latex (5% EC) had the best controlled-release ability. Therefore, controlled-release urea encapsulated by EC/BA/VAc latex has many potential applications in agricultural industry.


Abstract This article provides a bibliographic listing of journal papers published in 1995 concerned with distillation and other equilibrium-staged separation processes. The references are taken from the 50 most important chemical engineering journals. This paper provides an update to the literature as provided in previous bibliographic papers (1–4). A bibliography detailing supercritical extraction from 1980–1993 has also been published separately due to the current interest in this relatively new technology (5), and references for 1995 are included in this paper. A bibliography of the chemical engineering journal literature from 1967–1988 has been published by the author (6). A complete bibliographic listing of the chemical engineering journal literature from 1989 to 1995 (with subsequent 6 monthly updates) is available on a CD-ROM database (7) and full details can be obtained from the author. The following topics are included in this paper: 1.1. Mass Transfer and Transport Processes Theory 1.2. Distill...


Abstract: Fencing poles are one of the most widespread manmade features on Earth, and they May out stretch roads by an order of magnitude. One of the most durable and Efficient RCC fencing poles is constructed with the help of concrete. Properly made Reinforced concrete pole .The essential requirements for the protection of Poles for general purposes, we conducted impact test on the protection of reinforced Concrete poles by changing the height of the post & it's position to decreases the effect of impact energy. Fences have eluded systematic study for so long for good reasons. Fencing has become more popular architecture in many disciplines, from ecology to computing. Fences are globally everywhere used & they are often discussions of evaluation. For designing a RCC pole one has to consider all the possible loading and see that the Structure is safe against all possible loading condition. Keywords: RCC fencing pole, protection fence, impact energy, everywhere.


a delayed treatment of such cases are associated with long term disability,reduced grip strength and osteoarthritis of hand. We present a rare case report of an isolated closed dorsal dislocation of ulnar four metacarpals and its management. We will also highlight the main points in early diagnosis and management of this injury and review the CMC anatomy. Isolated dislocation of the multiple carpometacarpal joints without any associated fractures of the metacarpal and/or carpal bones is a less commonly reported injury. Even more rare is its occurrence after a minimal trauma to hand. We present a case report of a 21 year old gentleman presenting to us with isolated dorsal dislocation of ulnar four metacarpals, after he punched a wall with his st being partially clenched. Successful closed reduction of the dislocation and stabilisation with multiple K wires was done for this injury under anaesthesia in the operating theatre. Early recognition and anatomical reduction are essential in achieving good long-term outcomes in such uncommon injuries.


Eddie's desire for his niece Catherine makes him a pathetic figure. Eddie although understands the ethics of his community, outrages them, betrays his wife and violates the moral code. Love is one of the most confusing emotions that one can ever perceive. Catherine is a naive woman who has not experienced much of it, and is eager to. She is grown up in a warm nurturing environment, and is truly an innocent and open character. Eddie's flaw is his obsessive love for Catherine. The paternal over protectiveness of Eddie towards Catherine breaks the family apart. In order to protect her from outside elements, he himself became her sexual predator, the desire was in his mind, which was not fully realized. The growing up of Catherine, her feminine maturity is a threat. Eddie's reaction to the grown-up girl is an affection turned into "incestuous desires."


Bridge piers are sometimes damaged by local scour. Although the problem of local scour around pier has been studied extensively, it has been difficult to estimate local scour depth quantitatively. This study is concerned with local scour around semicylind


The Energy condition is studied for five dimensional cosmological model with nonminimal derivative coupling (NMDC) between scalar field and curvature tensor. We assume that the scale factors of three dimensional space (a(t)) and the extra dimension (b(t)) is related by b(t) = (a(t))γ, where γ is a constant. We apply the Null Energy Condition (NEC), Weak Energy Condition (WEC), Strong Energy Condition (SEC) and Dominant Energy Condition (DEC) to our model and investigate some constraint in order the energy condition violated. The constraint that we found is appropriate with cosmological model in which the four-dimensional universe expands with positive acceleration and the extra dimension decays.


There has been a significant development in the field of an individual's routine tasks. Automation of the surrounding environment allows a modern era human being to increase his work efficiency and the comfort. Nowadays, we find most of the people clinging to their smart phones and other such devices throughout the day. Hence, with the help of this companion- a smart phone, some routine tasks can be accomplished automatically with comfort. Home Automation Using Android Application is a system that controls various home appliances such as a fan, bulb, AC, TV etc with an android application. This paper presents the automated approach of controlling the devices in a household that could ease the tasks of using the traditional method of the switch. The system makes use of the most famous and efficient short range wireless device –Bluetooth to create a link between a smart phone and home appliances. The Bluetooth devices and the android application is interfaced with an 8-bit micro-controller which drives the relay (ON/OFF switches) connected to home appliances.


Abstract Oil spill is an environmental challenthat influences various aspects of coastal zones including humans, health, economy, and coastal ecosystems. The source of the oil spill can be both natural and anthropogenic. Oil spill response is dependent on the prompt detection of spillain open waters and at the coast. This study uses Sentinel-1 (S-1) C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data to detect oil spill that transpired at Karachi's coastline from 23 to 26 October 2018. The oil spill detection was conducted using the K-means clustering algorithm of S-1 SAR data that involves reduction of speckle. Meteorological data consisting of wind speed and direction from S-1 Level-2 Ocean product (L2 OCN) based on the European Centre for Medium-RanWeather Forecasts (ECMWF) was also utilized. Initially, two long streaks of bunker oil covering an approximate area of 9.45 km2 was detected on 23 October 2018. Later oil spill spread over an area of ∼188.30 km2 (∼20 times more) until 26 October 2018 along the Karachi shoreline. Spilled oil covered ∼20 times more of its first spread area at an alarming rate of ∼37.63 km2 per day due to wind and wave action. Oil spill damaged the local ecology along the western coast of Karachi. Such damages can be avoided by installing an oil spill monitoring system using SAR and ground data which will support both environment and economy.


because the -waves of which light and sound are collmposed become superimposed one upon another, as in Fig. 2. But if, by chance, one sound or one light is thlrown half a wave length behind the otlher, the two sounds make a silence, and once when I was a student in 1862 I actually saw tlle late Professor P. G. Tait of Edinburgh show the experirlment of two lights making darkness (Fig. 3). WI-hen two rhythms do not quite coincide, beats of alternate strength and weakness are produc3d, as shown in Fig. 4,


The problems of the classification and evolution of the rodents continue to provide a basis for disagreement among students of the group. This is because of the considerable number of forms involved, and because of the unquestioned parallelism which has occurred in the evolution of members of the order. Even those authors who question parallelism in other structures admit that it occurs in the tooth patterns, and the present author believes it has been characteristic of all aspects of rodent morphology. There are many current problems which will be elucidated as more work is done, both on fossil and on Recent rodents. Until a great deal more of such work is carried out, the classification of the order cannot be anything but tentative. Nevertheless, such tentative classifications serve a value as showing areas where further investigations are needed, and in stimulating discussion, and the present paper is presented with this in mind. For many years, most workers grouped the rodents inlto the three Brandtian suborders -Sciuromorpha, Myomorpha and Hystricomorpha (cf. Simpson, 1945) or some variant thereof (Tullberg, 1899). In the past few years, however, almost everyone working primarily with rodent taxonomy has expressed his firm conviction that these three suborders are not valid phyletic entities (see, for example, Lavocat, 1951, 1955, 1956; Schaub, 1953, a and b; Viret, 1955; and Wood, 1954, 1955). But almost everyone who has approached this question has come up with


To develop a novel method to process data of external quality assessment (EQA) of clinic chemistry with Microsoft Excel,it is used for accounting average,standard difference,variance index and variance index score of the data of EQA of clinic chemistry.The data processing from originality determine data to variance index score is operated in an electronic table of Excel.Microsoft Excel is an excellent data processing tool being fit for organizer of EQA of clinic chemistry.


Business environment is changing at a rapid pace and so is the fierceness in competition. Today's business demands decision at the speed of thought . It is obvious that such decisions need most efficient information acquisition, integration, transformation and finally presentation in the most efficient way at a matching speed and without increasing the cost of doing so. A data warehouse is set up in a company with a clear focus to support the decision support system, involving collecting useful information, harmonizing it and transforming and finally presenting it for answering business questions. For instance, What is the sales trend of a specific material? It is an established fact that most SAP BW projects succeed when they deliver the above objectives by providing: 1. The ability to acquire data from various data sources such as the OLTP system and present accurate information. 2. A capacity to provide drill-down or slice-n-dice capability for analyzing the different perspectives of the information. 3. Decision support enablers such as self-service options, exception reporting etc. However, these parameters are primarily of academic interest and translate into real success only when a decision maker finds it acceptable. Performance tuning directly influences the degree of user acceptance as it delivers a quick response to a user's call. More specifically, performance influences, on time availability of data, response time to query execution, response time for drill down and so on. The performance is also an important criterion for reducing the TCO, as performance here relates to efficient use of database, lower load on system resources, availability of system, and availability of bandwidth. In this book the authors have listed performance tuning parameters right through the data model, including extraction of data, data loading, fine tuning of the database, concluding with proactive operational maintenance mode (e.g. review aggregates, build new ones, delete unused ones, find problem queries) as an ongoing cycle. Also covered in this book is how to go about evaluating the actual performance; whether there is scope for improvement or other avenues of performance tuning need to be explored. This book is written specifically with reference to the subject of Performance for SAP BW version 3.X on an Oracle database, but most of the content is equally applicable for any versions of BW.


Emerged from Classical mechanics,Galileo's Tradition has a great influence upon economic method, positivist consider the whole human culture as a knowledge system based on positivism, and the one -method as the only starting point of scientific theory. On the one hand models are playing more and more important pait in modern elonomics. And on the other hand,we should see that economics distincts essentially from physics since it has no typical physical test and contains human relations which doesn't exist in physics. So elonomics should carry forwand Galileo's tradition as Well as attach importance to such elements as socialy. history. Culture and national psychologyets.


Distalization is a common treatment for the correction of class II malocclusion; several tooth supported appliances such as the pendulum have been designed and used with side effects like mesialization of premolars and labialization of upper incisors; currently different bone supported systems are being used in order to eliminate this reaction. This is a case report of a 10 year old female patient with a class II division 1 malocclusion, on whom a modified transpalatal bar was cemented on the first molars and a temporary mini-implant (TADs) distal to the bar on the mid palatal suture area as anchorage was placed for distalization. A successful distalization of the first upper molar was obtained with a spontaneous correction of the anterior crowding, resulting in an absolute anchorage without undesired side effects. This treatment demonstrated to be a good alternative for the distalization of


example, the works of Gray, Holden, Quain, Ranney, Shield, Treves, and Windle. In none of these is there any regular and systematic reference to those nerves which can be detected by inspection or external manipulation, and in most works they are entirely ignored. The positions of many of the larger nerve-trunks in the body are tolerably well known even to those outside the medical profession. The ulnar nerve, under the name of " funny bone," is a household


A new style of CAM system which consists of hierarchical modules was developed, and as a basic geometric model for the system, the Cell-Constructed-geometric-Model (CCM) was proposed. These enables us to decompose the CCM into the several Machining Face Groups (MFG) which are created by the same cutting operations, to determine various information about machining, to generate cutter path for each MFG and to check and distribute NC data to machine tools in an interactive way. The CCM which is based on a rational Bezier interpolation, is efficient to make and edit the MFG, and to generate cutter path. In this paper, the structure and functions of these hierarchical modules and an example of the processing are described. And the concept and contribution of the CCM to these modules are also shown.


The heat sink temperature is often set in a semi-empirical way based on steady-state temperatures . As a result, the entrance parameters of the heat sink working fluid are often too conservative, and the rate of temperature rise is difficult to control. In this paper, transient thermal models for each component of the heat sink temperature regulation system are established. Then they are programmed into a dynamic simulation model by using Matlab/Simulink as the thermal control algorithm.It is shown that the model can accurately reflect the dynamic and steady state characteristics of the heat sink temperature regulation system, and can provide guidance for the selection of control strategies and working fluid parameters in the thermal vacuum test.


Objective To investigate the efficacy of small dose of azathioprine( AZA) in the treatment of refractory ulcerative colitis( UC). Methods The clinical data of 47 patients with refractory UC treated with small dose of AZA from April 2008 to January 2012 was analyzed retrospectively. Results Among 47 cases,28 cases were moderate UC and 19 cases were severe UC. They were treated with AZA in a dose of( 1. 21 ± 0. 41) mg / kg / d from 8 weeks to 44 months. Efficacy was judged by Mayo disease activity index. At 3 months,6 months and 1 year after the treatment,the effective rates were 72. 3%( 34 /47),80. 4%( 37 /46),93. 0%( 40 /43),and the remission rates were 19. 1%( 9 /47),56. 5%( 26 / 46),and 76. 7%( 33 /43). Both ESR and C reactive protein level after treatment for 6 months and 1 year were significantly lower than those before treatment( P 0. 05). At 6 months and 1 year after AZA treatment,the endoscopic improvement rates were 63. 0%( 29 /46),74. 4%( 32 /43). The incidence of adverse reactions was 23. 9%( 11 /46),mainly in leukopenia. Conclusion Small dose of AZA is effective in the treatment of refractory UC patients and safe.


Cooling in a centrifugal compressor can improve the performance and reduce the impeller temperature. In a centrifugal compressor, external walls can be cool down, which is known as the shell cooling. This method avoids undesirable effects induced by other cooling methods. Cooling can be applied on different external walls, such as the shroud, diffuser or the back plate. This paper focuses on seeking the most effective cooling place to increase the performance and reduce the impeller temperature. It is found that shroud cooling improves the compressor performance the most. Shroud cooling with 2400 W of cooling power increases the pressure ratio by 4.6% and efficiency by 1.49%. Each 500 W increase in the shroud cooling power, increases the efficiency by 0.3%. Diffuser cooling and back plate cooling have an identical effect on the polytropic efficiency. However, back plate cooling increases the pressure ratio more than diffuser cooling. Furthermore, only back plate cooling reduces the impeller temperature, and with 2400 W of cooling power, the impeller temperature reduces by 45 K.


Electronic patient records are a potentially rich data source for knowledge extraction in biomedical research. Here we present a method based on the ICD10 system for text-mining of Danish health records. We have evaluated how adding functionalities to a baseline text-mining tool affected the overall performance. The purpose of the tool was to create enriched phenotypic profiles for each patient in a corpus consisting of records from 5,543 patients at a Danish psychiatric hospital, by assigning each patient additional ICD10 codes based on freetext parts of these records. The tool was benchmarked by manually curating a test set consisting of all records from 50 patients. The tool evaluated was designed to handle spelling and ending variations, shuffling of tokens within a term, and introduction of gaps in terms. In particular we investigated the importance of negation identification and negation scope. The most important functionality of the tool was handling of spelling variation, which greatly increased the number of phenotypes that could be identified in the records, without noticeably decreasing the precision. Further, our results show that different negations have different optimal scopes, some spanning only a few words, while others span up to whole sentences.


The translation of commentaries in museums plays an important role in transferring information as well as in disseminating culture,but few studies are available on this topic in China so far.The errors in translating museum commentaries can be classified into linguistic,pragmatic and cultural errors.Skopos theory can be applied to interpret the reason why the errors occurred;that is it is oriented more to the target audience and the function of the text.This paper focuses on the linguistic translation errors and indicates that the study of skopos theory is the key to avoiding these errors.


Table of Contents: Introduction Annette Michelson Robert Gardner Ed Pincus (and Jane Pincus, Lucia Small) Alfred Guzzetti Ross McElwee Nina Davenport Leonard Retel Helmrich Jonathan Caouette Pawel Wojtasik Michael Glawogger Susana de Sousa Dias Alexander Olch (on The Windmill Movie) Amie Siegel (on DDR/DDR) Arthur and Jennifer Smith (on Ice Bears of the Beaufort) Betzy Bromberg (on Voluptuous Sleep) Jen Proctor (on A Movie by Jen Proctor) Jane Gillooly (on Suitcase of Love and Shame) Godfrey Reggio (on Visitors) Todd Haynes Sensory Ethnography Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (on In and Out of Africa and Sweetgrass) Lucien Castaing-Taylor (on his installation work and on Harvard's Sensory Ethnography Lab) Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel (on Leviathan) Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez (on Manakamana) Filmographies Bibliographies


Based on the biostratigraphic study of graptolites near the Lower/Middle Ordovician boundary,the authors selected five typical stratigraphic section in such Ordovician sedimentary facies of South China as platform facies,basin facies and the transitional facies between the above two facies to conduct graphic correlation of the graptolite faunae near the Lower/Middle Ordovician boundary.The results shed further light on the duration of graptolite faunae near the Lower/Middle Ordovician boundary in South China and the precise correlation of graptolite faunae in different facies,thus laying a foundation for the precise stratigraphic correlation of different facies.


Based on engineering practices and previous research results,the influence of geological characteristics of rock mass upon TBM construction proceeding was analyzed.A rock mass rating(RMRTBM) identification for TBM tunnels was proposed to estimate the rock mass class by the TBM performance parameters and muck characteristics.With this method the rock mass quality could be identified by the regression formulas or neural network model when the TBM performance parameters were inputted,and it could be also identified by analyzing the interlocking of rock pieces and the quality of discontinuity surface through the TBM muck characteristics.Considering the obvious characteristics of these two approaches,it was suggested that the approach based on the TBM performance parameters was suitable for the high quality rock mass,and the other approach based on the muck character was more suitable for the relative poor rock mass.The method of estimating the mechanical parameters of rock mass was investigated based on the results of investigation of rock mass rating identification.


PAUD students as an Early Childhood Education teachers candidate are required to provide innovations in learning approaches, methods, and media using concrete objects nor teaching aids, so they can conduct innovative learning. In fact, from the results of an initial survey that conducted on 6th semester PAUD students using google form, it was found that both studets and teachers are struggling to be able to design a proper science learning. Based on these findings, the PKM team conducts training and mentoring for PAUD teachers candidate to help them facing obstacles in developing learning activities that are able to improve science process skills that suitable for early childhood development. This activity will provide insight and knowledge to students to be able to sort out and design science learning activities for early childhood. The results obtained from this activity were increasing student skills in designing learning activities based on science process skills


List of Tables and Figures Preface List of Abbreviations and Acronyms Genetic Diversity in Agriculture: Its Rise, Fall, and Significance Technological Change in Agriculture: Orthodox Views The Determinants of the Path of Technological Change in Agriculture: An Unorthodox View Beyond Orthodoxy: Locking in to Genetic Uniformity Introduction to Case Studies Hybrid Corn in the United States, 1900-1935 The Road to Mexico's Green Revolution: Maize Research, 1940-1955 Biotechniques and the Neglect of Alternative Agriculture Conclusion Bibliography


A ^ The title of the present Ph.D. Thesis is " A Study of the Writings and Style of Murtaza Mutahhari and Dr. AH Shariati as Exponents of Modern Religious Persian Prose". Murtaza Mutahhari and Dr. Ali Shariati were the two great thinkers, scholars and prolific writers of recent times and both are considered to be among the important influences on the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In this present thesis, I have tried to evaluate the literary contribution of these two distinguished religious thinkers of the 20'"' century. In fact Persian religious prose, contrary to the Persian religious poetry has not been able to find a suitable place in Persian literature. So our basic approach in this study has been to carry out an appraisal of the works of Murtaza Mutahhari and Dr. Ali Shariati with special reference to the Persian literature. Murtaza Mutahhari was born in 1920 in Iran and received his elementary education in theology from his father. Then he proceeded to Qum, the great center of Islamic education and completed his education in Islamic Beliefs and Jurisprudence under the supervision of the renowned philosopher Allamah Mohammad Husain Tabatabai, and also studied under Imam Khomeini and many other distinguished scholars. Murtaza Mutahhari attended the O um hawza from 1944-1952, and then joined the University of Tehran, where he taught philosophy for 22 years. He wrote several books on Islam, Iran and historical topics. Till now sixty books of Mutahhari have been published, thirty books have been written about him or composed from his speeches. During the period of his education, Mutahhari felt that the communists wanted to distort the sacred religion of Islam and destroy its spirit by mixing their atheistic views with the Islamic philosophy and interpreting the verses of the Quran in a materialistic manner. Communism was not the only thing which received his attention. He also wrote on exegesis of the Quran, philosophy, ethics, sociology, history and many other subjects. In all his writings the real object he had in view was to give replies to the objections raised by others against Islam, to prove the short comings of other schools of thought, and to manifest the greatness of Islam. He believed that in order to prove the falsity of Marxism and other ideologies like it, it was necessary not only to comment on them in a scholarly manner but also to present the real image of Islam. Mutahhari was one of the most versatile Islamic scholars and prolific writers of recent times, deeply rooted in traditional learning and enamored of its exponents. On the other hand, Dr. Ali Shariati was an Iranian revolutionary and sociologist, who focused on the sociology of religion. He is held as one of the most influential Iranian intellectuals of the 20''' century and has been called the 'Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution'. Dr. Ali Shariati was born in 1933 in Iran. After graduating from Iran in I960, he pursued graduate studies in France and received his doctrate in Sociology in 1964 from Sorbonne University. As a Muslim sociologist, he sought to explain the problems of Muslim societies in the light of Islamic principles explaining them and discussing them with his students. Very soon he gained popularity with the students and different social classes in Iran. His lectures at Houssein-e-Ershad Religious Institute attracted thousands of people from different backgrounds who were fascinated by his discourses. Dr. Ali Shariati studied and explored many philosophical theological and social school of thoughts with an Islamic view. He attempted to ii explain and provide solutions for the problems faced by Muslim societies through traditional Islamic principles interwoven with an understanding from the point of view of modern sociology and philosophy. Dr. Ali Shariati wrote many books in the Persian language. In all his writings, he tried to present a clear and genuine picture of Islam. He strongly believed that if the intellectual and new generation realized the truth of this faith, attempts towards social change would be successful. Dr. Ali Shariati constantly fought to create humanitarian values in the young generation, a generation whose values had been defaced with the help of most scientific and technical methods. He vigorously tried to reintroduce the Quran and Islamic history to the youth so that they may find their true selves in all their human dimensions and fight all the decadent societal forces. The thesis has been divided into five chapters aside from the detailed introduction. In the introduction, the reasons for the selection of this topic have been discussed, and an intellectual attempt has been made to affirm that religious prose should also be considered an integral part of literature. In the first chapter of the thesis, an overview has been presented of the evolution and development of general prose and religious prose in Persian literature throughout different historical periods, and a brief description of Persian prose from the Pahlavi period to the Safavid period has been provided. In the second chapter, a critical analysis of general Persian prose after the Islamic Revolution of Iran has been undertaken. During this period, a good number of writers emerged who further expanded the parameters and dimensions of Persian religious prose through their writings, and an attempt has been made to highlight their works. iii In the third and fourth chapters of the thesis, the biographical details of Mutahhari and Shariati have been discussed, and an assessment of their major works and writings has been made with particular focus on their conceptions of religion. Islamic ideology, Islamic history and Muslim society. It is fair to say that these two chapters constitute the central pivots of this thesis. In the fifth and final chapter of the thesis, the approach and literary styles of Mutahhari and Shariati have been discussed with a critical analysis of their thoughts and writings demonstrating their great and extraordinary contributions to Persian religious prose. A bibliography of books and journals that have been consulted for the preparation of the present thesis, has also been appended at the end. The entire Ph.D. work consists of 273 pages.


In preindustrial society entering widowhood meant a profound change of the living conditions. The marital relation and division of labor between husband and wife within the household secured the couple's financial, social and emotional support. Therefore, the death of a spouse was a threat to the surviving party and the children and endangered the existence of the household itself. Once the spouse died, the surviving party had to decide how to handle the situation. The widow or widower generally faced five alternative strategies: Firstly, they could continue to be the head of an independent household, trying to compensate for the loss of the spouse by hiring labor, relying on kin etc. Secondly, they could remarry and thereby replace the dead spouse. Thirdly, they could move in with adult children. Fourthly, they could become an inmate in a household headed by others than children. Fifthly, they could leave the place of residence and migrate elsewhere. This paper studies what factors that influenced the choices of widowed people in the period after the death of the spouse, using longitudinal individual level data from family reconstitutions and population registers for five parishes in southern Sweden 1814-1894. The different widowhood transitions are modeled as competing risks using event history analysis and the results show pronounced differences in the choice of strategies between widows and widowers as well as between widowed people of different ages, socioeconomic statuses and household conditions. Generally speaking, widows and widowers of lower ages, with more assets and/or with adult children had better opportunities to secure their well-being as widowed by remarriage, continuing as an independent household head, or move in with children, whereas older, landless and childless people became lodgers in households headed by others than children.


Preface 1. Introduction 2. Game theory 3. First-order logic 4. Independence-friendly (IF) logic 5. Properties of IF logic 6. Expressive power of IF logic 7. Probabilistic IF logic 8. Further topics References Index.


While exchange rate crises generally result in significant economic disruptions for the affected country, one group of firms is expected to benefit – export-oriented firms. A significant devaluation should raise an exporter's profits as the increase in the value of foreign currency revenues brings higher expected future profits. In an efficient market, the value of export firms should be less affected by a currency crisis than firms that are primarily focused on the domestic economy. In a similar fashion, exported-oriented firms in a closely integrated trading partner country should experience lower future profits and an immediate decline in the stock value. We conduct an event study of the effects of the 1999 Brazilian devaluation on a cross-section of publicly traded Brazilian and Argentine firms. We find that Brazilian export firms outperform Brazilian nonexport firms in the months after this crisis. Surprisingly, we find no differential impact of the real devaluation on Argentine exporters versus non-exporters.


SUMMARY A workflow net (WF-net for short) is a Petri net which represents a workflow. There are two important subclasses of WF-nets: extended free-choice (EFC for short) and well-structured (WS for short). It is known that most actual workflows can be modeled as EFC WF-nets; Acyclic WS is a subclass of acyclic EFC but has more analysis methods. An acyclic EFC WF-net may be transformed to an acyclic WS WF-net without changing the external behavior of the net. We name such a trans- formation Acyclic EFC WF-net refactoring . We give a formal definition of acyclic EFC WF-net refactoring problem. We also give a necessary condi- tion and a su ffi cient condition for solving the problem. Those conditions can be checked in polynomial time. These result in the enhancement of the analysis power of acyclic EFC WF-nets.


A modular one-pot approach for the synthesis of well-defined organoboron quinolate polymers and the tuning of their photoluminescence is reported. Highly selective borylation of poly(4-trimethylsilylstyrene) (PSSiMe3) followed by replacement of one of the bromine substituents in the resulting reactive polymer PSBBr2 with tert-butylphenyl groups led to the common intermediate PSBPhBr. A series of organoboron quinolate polymers PSBPhQ were then obtained in high isolated yields (65−85%) by in situ treatment of PSBPhBr with differently substituted 8-hydroxyquinoline derivatives. All the quinolate polymers were fully characterized by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, gel permeation chromatography in-line with multiangle laser light scattering (GPC-MALLS), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). Luminescence measurements revealed distinct emission bands, ranging from the blue to the red region (486−615 nm), depending on the substitution pattern on the qu...


: Ultrasonic guided wave structural health monitoring(SHM) is an attractive technique in the diagnosis of large scale structure, such as board and tube. It has been demonstrated by different authors that environmental and operating conditions, especially temperature and applied loads variations may cover up the signal changes caused by the defects, which consequently limit the performance of SHM system. The effect of environmental changes in temperature and load on ultrasonic guided wave propagation mechanism in SHM system are discussed : The variations of ambient temperature may evoke changes in sample thermal expansion coefficient and elastic modulus, thereby affecting the propagation of ultrasonic guided waves in the structure, in addition, compared to ultrasonic longitudinal guided waves, there exist a lower temperature sensitivity in shear; the effect of applied load on the guided wave propagation is mainly reflected in the change of time shift, amplitude and phase. In view of the influence about ambient temperature on guided wave structure health monitoring, the progress of temperature compensation strategies is also discussed in detail aiming to provide a theoretical foundation for better identifying variations caused by the defect and the benign changes due to the surrounding environment and indicate directions for subsequent ultrasonic guided wave SHM research.


With the deterioration of the living environment, water pollution, and the traditional fishing places occupied, frequent occurrence of natural disasters and other issues have become increasingly prominent. Professional fishermen has become the social vulnerable groups in special difficulties. In-depth research of professional fishermen's production, living conditions, and analysis of the corresponding problems have a profound significance on the innovation and guidance of social management of disaster prevention and post-disaster reconstruction process, as well as on promoting the professional fisherman industrial transformation. Based on this, the production and living conditions of professional fishermen who are fishing on fishing rafts in Fujian province are analyzed in this study in order to provide new ideas for combination of peace time and disaster.


Management and maintenance of bridges need to grasp current status of each bridge along the line accurately,and the evaluation technique for reliability is an effective way to reach this purpose.This paper summarizes results obtained from time-varying reliability at extreme status of bearing capacity,time-varying reliability at extreme status of normal use,fatigue reliability and system reliability,etc.in researches on in-service concrete beam bridges,and analyzes shortcomings in various researches and research direction with possible further development so as to provide a reference for deep research on evaluation techniques for time-varying reliability of in-service concrete beam bridges.


The term craniostenosis was introduced by Virchow to describe those skull changes which are due to a premature synostosis of the cranial sutures. Under this term, craniostenosis, are included the many types of deformity which result from generalised or from localised premature closure of the sutures. Schuller says of these lesions that "the skull growth does not keep pace with the brain, increasing normally in size, and there results a disproportion between the volume of the skull contents and the cranial capacity. In consideration of the fact that the skull is too small for its contents, one speaks of craniostenosis." The deformities resulting from this pathological condition have acquired many names: oxycephaly, acrocephaly, pyrgocephaly, turricephaly, "steeple skull," "sugar-loaf skull," craniofacial dysostosis of Crouzon, scaphocephaly, plagiocephaly, clinocephaly, trigonocephaly, leptocephaly, etc. As the essential factor underlying these deformities is a premature synostosis of some or most of the c...


In these days, as a method of evaluating synthetically the expense and the cost of the construction, the maintenance, repair, and renewal of an engineering-works road structure. From which the concept of assets management (infrastructure valuation of assets and management) has come to attract attention, in order to cope with a subject called optimization of the maintenance, repair, and renewal of a road engineering-works from now on.In order to build such a system, the monitoring of the performance of a road structure and a functional level are required. The precision photogrammetry technique was used and it was shown that the efficient monitoring of a road structure is possible. Moreover, in the tunnel with traffic, the actual proof experiment was conducted and it checked actually functioning.


An ultrasonic system for measuring the thickness of a part 28 with a coating 30 has at least one acoustic transducer 12, and a buffer delay line 14 having an impedance matched to an impedance of the coating 30. This eliminates a reflection at the delay line/coating interface.


PURPOSE:To improve the polishing accuracy of the thickness of an SOI wafer layer being an element forming layer, in a manufacturing process of an SOT semiconductor base with a laminating wafer. CONSTITUTION:A laminating wafer 11 is stuck on a transparent mount plate 3 by using a transparent wax, and a polishing pad 1 is made in a transparent body. The laser beams a laser oscillator 4 generates are made to the beams with the wavelength equal to the thickness required to the element forming layer of the laminating wafer 11 by a wavelength converting device 5, and injected to the laminating wafer 11 in the whole reflecting angles through the polishing pad 1 and a slurry 10 with the refration factor higher than that of the laminating wafer 11. Since the light permeates when an SOI wafer of the laminating wafer 11 is made into a desired thickness, a polishing is carried out until a light detector 6 detects the permeation light.


A gluino in the mass range 12--16 GeV combined with a light (2--5.5 GeV) bottom squark, as has been proposed recently to explain an excess of b quark hadroproduction, would affect the momentum-scale dependence (``running'') of the strong coupling constant alpha_s in such a way as to raise its value at M_Z by about 0.014 +/- 0.001. If one combines sources of uncertainty at low (m_b) and high (M_Z) mass scales, one can only distinguish such an effect at slightly more than the 2 sigma level. Prospects for improvement in this situation, which include better lattice QCD simulations and better measurements at M_Z, are discussed.


This book is divided into nine chapters. The main objective of this book is to evaluate different challenges and lessons from COVID-19 from an economic point of view. The main aim is to propose "COVIDECONOMICS" is to assess the impact of COVID-19 economically under the use of new analytical tools to evaluate the damage and its final effect on different social groups. We define COVIDECONOMICS as a new research field in Economics to assess the COVID-19 from different holistic approaches. The first chapter is the introductory part to explain each chapter of this book. The second chapter graphically demonstrates the patterns of economic recession from any epidemic in the world, i.e. the COVID-19 contagious infectious disease. This can generate economic waves on different markets (countries or regions). This chapter evaluates the way in which an economic recession from the COVID-19 contagious infectious disease damage can simultaneously affect five different markets economic hotspots viz. East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), China, ASEAN, United States and the European Union (EU). To visualize how a worldwide epidemic can generate economic waves on world economy, it is necessary to apply the inter-linkage coordinate space. Finally, this chapter proposes the use of computer graphical animation, which is based on the construction of a large number of slides joined together through the production of a video. In our case, we will use Windows Microsoft movie maker software to generate the real time effect of these economic waves in the same graphical space.
The third chapter evaluates how much COVID-19 affects consumer behavior in the U.S. and Japan. Hence, this study wants to present two new concepts, followed by the massive unnecessary overconsumption levels and massive irreversible under consumption levels. The main objective is to determine how COVID-19 generates a profound transformation in American and Japanese consumer behavior in the short run. We propose a new dynamic indicator entitled "The Consumption Unstable Behavior in COVID-19 Index (CUBE-COVID-19-Index)." The CUBE-COVID-19-Index offers policy-makers and researchers a new analytical tool to evaluate how much distortion COVID-19 can generate in any country's consumption of essential goods and services (food and basic services). The CUBE-COVID-19-Index is not intended to be a predicting indicator in any case. It shows the rapid consumer preferences changes originated by COVID-19 in the U.S. and Japan recently.

In the fourth chapter is willing to evaluate how long the world economy can resist COVID-19 crisis pressure. In the present COVID-19 crisis looks unstoppable and uncertain its end. We try to make a serial of simulations using possible slight or extreme scenarios with different environments in the short and long run. The main objective is to offer a specific date until the world economy can likely resist COVID-19 crisis pressure. Finally, we try to evaluate how much developed and developing countries can resist the COVID-19 crisis pressure and find its critical point for recovery or full collapse, respectively.

The fifth chapter applies the special theory of relativity to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. economy. Therefore, we propose a new indicator is called "the Conservation of Economic Energy (EE)." The construction of the conservation of economic energy (EE) requests the use of two economic variables into the special theory of relativity, followed by the unemployment growth rate (U) and the COVID-19 human damage speed (ΔC2). Finally, the conservation of economic energy (EE) was applied for the case of the U.S.

The sixth chapter proposes a new national account system to calculate the GDP in the COVID-19 crisis. The new national account approach is entitled "The Input-Output Electronic Online Transactions Monitoring System (IOEOTM-System)." The IOEOTM-System is based on the interaction among four main strategic sectors (producers, sellers, logistic, and final consumers) by "i" number of strategic sub-sectors under the uses of "j" number of goods and services. The main idea is to generate an alternative national account system for the COVID-19 crisis under the total electronic transactions online accounting daily, monthly, and yearly to elaborate the economy's final output under the GDP-Surfaces construction.

The seventh chapter tries to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the world oil prices from a multidimensional graphical perspective. The alternative multidimensional graphical is based on a new graphical method, the "Infinity Physical Space (I-Physical Space)." The I-Physical Space can systematically show the world oil prices from a multidimensional point of view in shorter or longer periods. To analyze the behavior of world oil prices, we divided historical data from April 2019 to April 2020. In this study, the behavior of world oil prices has two categories: stable oil price range and unstable oil price range. The application of the I-Physical Space framework allows us to identify periods of world oil price volatility quickly. Our findings indicate that any pandemic can generate high volatility of oil prices, such as the case of COVID-19 anytime and anywhere.

According to chapter eighth discuses about the impact of COVID-19 on economic performance is crucial, but measuring such implications to get a sense of the intensity of its effects on macro-variables such as consumption, investment, government spending, and net trade is subject to a great deal of uncertainty. As such, this chapter primarily attempts to close this gap by using the Global Economic Smash Crisis Effect Simulator (GESCE-Simulator), a new economic simulator that could be used to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on different macroeconomic scenarios simultaneously. Hence, this article, the world economy, was used to illuminate and illustrate the applicability of the GESCE-Simulator from where analyses provide a coherent evaluation of the degree to which Post-COVID-19 adverse economic effects from a multidimensional perspective.

Finally, this chapter proposes an alternative production, distribution, and consumption platform for the case of COVID-19 crisis, this new platform is entitled "The Economic Sustainable Accelerators (TESA)." The TESA is based on a strategical plan to reactivate the production, distribution, and consumption of any country in the present COVID-19 crisis. Before we proceed to implement TESA in any country, it is necessary to use twelve different modules of evaluation follow by (i) Module-1: COVID-19 infection cases geographical location; (ii) Module-2: Movement Control Order perimeters size; (iii) Module-3: Labour concentration and mobility systems, (iv) Module-4: Production priority plan; (v) Module-5: Transportation systems integral mobility; (vi) Module-6: Suppliers distribution; (vii) Module-7: Sanitation and Prevention strategic points; (viii) Module-8: Agriculture and Food Security; (ix) Module-9: COVID-19 Private and Public Partnership (public transportation controls, free health support, welfare programs, taxation exoneration), government spending controls; (x) Module-10: Industrial restructuration; (xi) Module-11: Services dynamicity; (xii) Module-12: COVID-19 Consumers opening levels mobility. The main objective of TESA is to offer policy-makers a new proposal to help countries to recovery faster from the COVID-19 crisis. The application of TESA is not limited to the study of a select group of cities. TESA, in effect, is a flexible and straightforward production, distribution, and consumption alternative platform. The third part of this chapter shows a multidimensional diagram to explain how TESA can work in any country.


Phased-array antennas utilizing fixed, planar apertures and designed to provide electronic-beam scanning throughout a hemisphere require a minimum of 3 apertures or faces. Each face covers one-third of the hemisphere and scans to an angle 63\deg from broadside. This causes a ratio of broadside beamwidth to maximum-scan beamwidth of 0.45. Also, assuming no power reflected from the aperture broadside scan, a large amount of power would be reflected at maximum scan because of mutual coupling. These two effects cause a variation in realized gain of 4.1 db. By using 4, 5, or even 6 faces to scan the hemisphere, the antenna performance may be considerably improved. Each face of the 6-face array scans to an angle of only 41\deg from broadside, and exhibits a beamwidth ratio of only 0.76. The power reflected from the aperture is greatly reduced, and the variation in realized gain is only 1.3 dB. The relative number of elements required by the various designs depends on the particular basis of comparison. Equalizing poorest performance by specifying equal realized gains at the respective maximum scan angles requires about 18 percent more elements for 3 faces than for 6 faces. Three of the four chosen bases for comparison yielded fewest elements for the 4-face array.


The behavior estimation of variables and search for their optimal value are intended to help the expected performance of companies; Therefore, this procedure becomes a relevant element for strategic organizational planning. In this sense, this article analyzes the process of patient discharge in the UPB clinic using the relative frequency, with the aim of creating a linear model that describes the behavior of the data and search for the optimum so that it allows to control the time and cost that the process must take according to the type of bed in which it is found. the patient.


The cure kinetics of bismaleimides(BMI) resin system was investigated by dynamic DSC analysis and the phenomenological model was established.The relationship between glass transition temperature and cure degree was obtained with DiBenedetto equation.The gelation process of BMI resin system was investigated by gelation disk,and the relationship between gel-time vs temperature was obtained.Then the relationship between conversion at gelation and glass transition temperature was also obtained.Finally,the time-temperature-transition(TTT) diagram was built based on the works above.


With only about 1% of the world's land mass, Island Southeast Asia is nevertheless one of the most species-rich regions on Earth, with, for example, c. 13% of all mammal species. The region's dynamic geological past (Holloway & Hall, 1998) and relatively stable climatic conditions probably result in many speciation opportunities and relatively few extinction events. Biogeographical theory for the region dates back to the 19th century, when scientists such as Salomon Müller and Philip Lutley Sclater noted the faunal breaks between east and west Indonesia. These breaks were thought to be associated with deep-water channels that separated the different parts of the Malay Archipelago, resulting in well-known biogeographical boundaries, such as Wallace's Line between Sundaland in the west and Sulawesi and other islands in the east. Another faunal break, separating the Indochinese and Sundaic subregions along the Thai/Malay Peninsula, is less well known, but is at least as significant, being an important floristic boundary (van Steenis, 1950) that also separates significantly different avifaunal communities (Hughes et al., 2003). There are no obvious geographic breaks in this area, and the mechanisms that separated the faunas of Indochina and Sundaland remain unclear. Woodruff & Turner's (2009) recent contribution sheds new light on the biogeography of this region. Along a transect of 20 latitudinal degrees from Singapore in the south to the northernmost point of Thailand, they identify distinct areas of high and low mammal diversity among 325 volant and non-volant species. To explain these patterns, Woodruff & Turner explore various alternative, potentially overlapping, mechanisms. There is a general trend of increasing mammal diversity towards the equator. This fits observations made in other tropical regions (Stevens, 1989), but does not explain why there should be areas along the transect with unexpectedly low (1 N, 10 N, 16 N and 20 N) or high (4 N and 14 N) species diversity. As the authors point out, the low species diversity just above the equator could be explained by a peninsula effect. Such an effect at the end of a peninsula has been demonstrated in other places in the world, and is possibly caused by reduced dispersal and population replenishment opportunities at the far end of a narrowing land mass, as typified by southern Malaya and Singapore. Another possible explanation for the distinct peaks and troughs in the speciesrichness curve along the transect is that these may represent a simple area effect. This was pointed out by the authors, but will be investigated only in a future study. This possibility perhaps deserved more attention in the Woodruff & Turner paper, as areas of unexpectedly high species diversity around 4 N and 14 N coincide with those parts of the transect where the peninsula is at its widest, whereas the areas of lowest diversity coincide with the narrowest part, or with the faunistically impoverished most northern parts. Woodruff & Turner (2009) instead focus on an alternative hypothesis for explaining the mammalian diversity patterns. They assume that Neogene changes in sea level led to the divergence between Indochinese and Sundaic faunas. In earlier works on the region's avifauna, it was thought that early Pliocene sea-level highs (some 4–5 Ma) fragmented the peninsula into several land areas separated by wide sea straits (Hughes et al., 2003; Woodruff, 2003). A new global sea-level curve (Miller et al., 2005), however, suggests that such global highstands were probably less extreme than previously thought and could not fully account for the observed patterns. High sea levels that could have fragmented the Thai/Malay Peninsula into an island chain did occur several times between 43 and 63 Ma. These, however, appear to pre-date many of the speciesand genus-level divergence events between the Indochinese and Sundaic faunas (Meijaard, 2004). Rather than any particular sea-level high fragmenting the peninsula, Woodruff & Turner hypothesize that the significant sealevel lows of the Pliocene and Pleistocene, followed by more than 50 episodes of rapid sea-level rise, compressed populations of species into small parts of their ranges, leading to extinctions. These extinctions would have been most severe in the narrowest parts of the peninsula, explaining the mammal species diversity patterns found along the transect. Woodruff & Turner's paper provides useful new data and insights into the potential mechanisms that underlie the divergence between the Sundaic and Indochinese faunas. Two important issues require further study and should be incorporated into future models. First, Woodruff & Turner assume that the Thai/Malay Peninsula was similar in its basic extent and physiography to how it is at present. This is not supported by the existence of a number of depositional sequences in the Thai and Malay Basins east of the peninsula, extending eastwards by a distance of at least the width of the peninsula. Meijaard (2004) provides an overview of the Oligocene and Miocene environments in these basins, which suggests that they were above sea level for most of that time, with successive fluvio-lacustrine, littoral and deltaic or swamp deposits suggesting changes in coastlines but mostly emergent conditions. Not until the start of the Pliocene, some 5 Ma, did this vast region become inundated, giving the peninsular region its approximate present geography. The filling of these basins also makes it difficult to super-impose past sea-level changes onto local sea-bed topographies, because we do not know the extent to which sediment deposition and subsidence Journal of Biogeography (J. Biogeogr.) (2009) 36, 801–802


Currently studying and diagnosing the working environment in the public sector is a
A strategic tool that contributes to the continuous improvement of the entity, so the Administrative Department of the Public Function "DAFP" has created an instrument to measure the work climate, despite this in the Mayor's office of Villavicencio the work climate is not the most suitable for Promote productivity among its staff; This is how the present study was born, which aims to diagnose the work climate for the administrative staff of the territorial entity under study, in order to contribute to an adequate management of human talent, for this purpose an alternative Of solution to the findings. In order to carry out the study, a quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional research study was carried out, taking as a population the administrative staff of the Mayor's Office of Villavicencio, equivalent to 635 people, who, once applied the formula Simple random sampling was determined that 240 public servants were taken as sample, and the questionnaire prepared by the DAFP was applied to them as a survey.


System for providing hierarchical services in a data network. A method is provided for rendering hybrid presentations. The method includes caching one or more content items, and detecting a presentation event associated with a real-time service. The method also includes retrieving a selected content item from the one or more content items based on the presentation event, and rendering the selected content item.


This book is designed primarily to help readers broaden their knowledge of global issues, gain insight into their country's situation in a global context, and understand the problems of sustainable development both national and global. Because development is a comprehensive process involving economic as well as social and environmental changes, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach. It attempts to describe and explain the complex relationships among various aspects of development, including population growth, economic growth, improvements in education and health, urbanization, and globalization. Teachers, students, and learners of all ages are invited to explore these relationships even further using the statistical data and theoretical concepts presented in this book.


Summary The incorporation of 14C from [1-14C] and [6-14C]glucose into CO2, fatty acids and glycerol by rat parametrial adipose tissue was measured at intervals during pregnancy, lactation and involution. There were small increases in the incorporation of both the C-1 and C-6 atoms into CO2 and glycerol on the seventh and sixteenth days of pregnancy. Fatty acid synthesis from glucose was negligible on the twentieth day of pregnancy and during lactation. Three days after weaning the rate of oxidation of the C-1 atom was doubled and the incorporation of both carbon atoms into fatty acids was increased at least 20-fold. There were no changes in the activities of glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase and 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase during pregnancy and lactation, but 3 days after weaning the activities of both enzymes were doubled. These results are discussed in relation to other evidence that the total body fat is increased during pregnancy, and to the idea that the fat depots are mobilized during lactation.


The goal of this investigation is to obtain definitive information about the heat transfer characteristics of circular coil-spring turbulators. This is achieved by measuring the wall temperatures on the inner tube of the exchanger. Also the inlet and outlet temperatures and pressure loss of the fluid are measured. These results are parametrized by Reynolds numbers (2500 <Re < 12, 000), outer diameters of the springs (D s = 7.2 mm, 9.5 mm, 12 mm, and 13 mm), numbers of the springs (n =4, 5, and 6), and the incline angles of the springs (θ=0 deg, 7 deg, and 10 deg). Additionally, another goal of this work is to quantify the friction factor f of the turbulated heat exchanger system with respect to aforementioned parametric values. As a result, it is found that increasing spring number, spring diameter, and incline angle result in significant augmentation on heat transfer, comparatively 1.5-2.5 times of the results of a smooth empty tube. By the way, friction factor increases 40-80 times of the results found for a smooth tube. Furthermore, as a design parameter, the incline angle has the dominant effect on heat transfer and friction loss while spring number has the weakest effect.


As with many other sectors the amount of agriculture data based are increasing on a daily basis. However, the application of data mining methods and techniques to discover new insights or knowledge is a relatively a novel research area. In this paper we provide a brief review of a variety of Data Mining techniques that have been applied to model data from or about the agricultural domain. The Data Mining techniques applied on Agricultural data include k-means, bi clustering, k nearest neighbor, Neural Networks (NN) Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naive Bayes Classifier and Fuzzy cmeans. As can be seen the appropriateness of data mining techniques is to a certain extent determined by the different types of agricultural data or the problems being addressed. This survey summarize the application of data mining techniques and predictive modeling application in the agriculture field.


Small-angle neutron scattering from D{sub 2}O solutions of a series of organic salts, ranging from sodium toluenesulfonate to sodium triisopropylbenzenesulfonate, has been measured. Evidence of aggregation was found, at least at high concentrations, in all cases. The patterns were interpreted by the mean spherical approximation, and estimates of the size of the species are presented. Aggregate sizes increase with increase in equivalent weight. Addition of toluene increases aggregation number. A few measurements on solutions of sodium cyclohexylane carboxylates indicate that aggregates are somewhat smaller than those of aromatic salts of about the same number of carbons. 47 refs., 9 figs., 4 tabs.


This long‐term inhalation study was designed to describe the toxicity and the carcinogenic risk from Cd compounds because it had been shown from former long‐term inhalation studies that cadmium choloride induced primary lung tumors in Wistar rats. It was therefore logical to examine whether other cadmium compounds to which human beings are more frequently exposed have also carcinogenic potency. In a long‐term inhalation study cadmium aerosols consisting of cadmium chloride (CdCl2), cadmium oxide (CdO) as dusts and fumes, cadmium sulfate (CdSO4), cadmium sulfide (CdS) and a combination of cadmium oxide/zinc oxide were used. Wistar rats were continuously exposed in inhalation chambers for 18 months 22 hrs a day or for 40 hrs a week. The studies will be terminated at the mean survival life time of the species. The aerosols were generated by several different systems. The particles of the cadmium aerosols have the average mass medium diameters in the range from 0.2 to 0.5 μm.


The authors consider the systematic integration of service learning into a professional business school curriculum. Taking a developmental approach, students were involved in service-learning experiences throughout all 4 years of their education. Major barriers of faculty/organizational resistance, institutional infrastructure to support service-learning efforts, and pedagogical/curriculum design are addressed. The article focuses primarily on the pedagogical and curricular design and implementation of service-learning experiences that promote students' personal (moral) and professional (ethical) development.


Pathophysiology of cerebral blood flow (CB) and clinical aspects of cerebrovascular disease This includes the establishment of a new rat model of chronic intracranial venous hypertension and its effects on CBF and behaviour (together with the Institute for neurosurgical pathophysiology, University of Mainz), as well as intraoperative assessment of CBF-regulation during resection of cerebral arteriovenous malformations and in temporomesial epilepsy. Furthermore, participation in European studies on epidemiology, biology, diagnostics and treatment of aneurysmal disease (with D. Rüfenacht, SNI at HUG), and in clinical Phase II trials, which will be continued in Geneva in the context of GINEVRA (Geneva integrative neurovascular research association).


The sphere of urban commercial naming is seen as a kind of media discourse, which is characterized by increased linguistic creativity and belongs to the area of "mass linguistic creativity". This description of the modern Russian urbanonyms takes into account the general naming principles. They are nominators' creative speech activity; the tendency to "latinization'' (pro and contra) and some other. The article deals with commercial urbanonyms of Russian cities Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan. Some specific creative means of creating commercial urbanonyms, in particular, graphic hybridization (which is a mixture of Cyrillic and Latin alphabets) are presented in the article.


The roentgen ray has added much to exactness in the diagnosis of gastro-intestinal diseases, and from it we have learned many things that are helpful in treating conditions about which we formerly did a great deal of guessing. The general use of the roentgen ray, however, has not been without some misinterpretations of its findings. This is particularly true of gastroptosis, which, though only an incidental part of a general bodily habitus and always associated with enteroptosis, is being treated as a separate entity by many who seem not to understand the underlying etiologic factors of visceroptosis. Much of the misconception regarding gastroptosis comes from the teachings of textbooks on anatomy and physical diagnosis which assert that the normal position of the stomach is in the upper left quadrant of the abdomen, the dome lying in the vault of the diaphragm, and the lower border about 2 inches above the


Any complex mathematical or physical problem can be solved easier if it isbroken down into several less complex problems. A similar situation occurswhen it is necessary to determine the meaning of big data or severalmeanings of individual data blocks.A mechanism that could combine objects of various kinds with onemeaning would help solve a number of problems of sense logic andsemantic analysis.In this article, we describe one of the mechanisms, sense series that allowsmany different and complex objects to determine the presence of asemantic connection and sense dependence between them.


The aim of this paper is to show under which conditions a receptor-based model can produce and regulate patterns. Such model is applied to the pattern formation and regulation in a fresh water polyp, hydra. The model is based on the idea that both head and foot formation could be controlled by receptor-ligand binding. Positional value is determined by the density of bound receptors. The model is defined in the form of reaction-diffusion equations coupled with ordinary differential equations. The objective is to check what minimal processes are sufficient to produce patterns in the framework of a diffusion-driven (Turing-type) instability. Three-variable (describing the dynamics of ligands, free and bound receptors) and four-variable models (including also an enzyme cleaving the ligand) are analyzed and compared. The minimal three-variable model takes into consideration the density of free receptors, bound receptors and ligands. In such model patterns can evolve only if self-enhancement of free receptors, i.e., a positive feedback loop between the production of new free receptors and their present density, is assumed. The final pattern strongly depends on initial conditions. In the four-variable model a diffusion-driven instability occurs without the assumption that free receptors stimulate their own synthesis. It is shown that gradient in the density of bound receptors occurs if there is also a second diffusible substance, an enzyme, which degrades ligands. Numerical simulations are done to illustrate the analysis. The four-variable model is able to capture some results from cutting experiments and reflects de novo pattern formation from dissociated cells.


The aim of this study was the development, rheological behaviour determination, and sensory analysis of cosmetic formulations containing glucan biopolymer (Manihot esculenta), a tensor agent that was proposed to produce an immediate lifting and smoothing effect. For this purpose, formulations were developed and supplemented or not with 4 % of hydrolysed Manihot esculenta tuber extract and submitted to preliminary stability tests. These formulations were evaluated in terms of rheological behaviour over 90 days. Sensory analysis was carried out through a research with 20 cosmetic consumers who answered a questionnaire regarding their perception to the cosmetic qualities. The formulations presented pseudoplastic behavior and were considered stable in the physical stability studies, with the exception of the gel formulation based on Ammonium Acryloyldimethyltaurate/VP Copolymer. The formulations were well evaluated in the sensory parameters. The gel formulations based on Polyacrylamide, C1314 Isoparaffin, and Laureth-7 were stable and presented the best sensory profile in some evaluated parameters, such as spreadability, smoothness and skin moisturizing, and can be considered an appropriate vehicle for formulations containing hydrolysed Manihot esculenta tuber extract.


The connotation of lawful personality had undergone three stages,which were inequality,formal equality,and actual equality.Yet in modern society,which the lawful personality closes to the actual equality,personality and capacity of right can never share the same concept.For personality should embrae civil capacity of right and responsibility.The former mainly describes civil Subject's capacity of performing legal right and obligations concording with lawful will,while the latter describes civil subject's capacity of taking responsibility,which caused by attending the fact that violate the will of the law.


By combining some strategy ideas in Sun Tsu's Art of War with the modern track and field competition tactical utilization situation,the paper discusses the internal relations and the essential rules between the sport's competition tactical thought and the Sun Tsu's Art of War strategy thought,which enriches and develops the tactical theory of the track and field sports,and promotes the fast development of the sports in our country.


Two-dimensional (2D) hetero-phase homojunction has become increasingly popular in recent years. This is because high-performance field-effect transistors (FETs) require lower contact resistance, clean and atomically flat interfaces for efficient carriers...


The problem of run time planning and motion control for a mobile robot (Labmate) in the presence of unknown obstacles is addressed, and an integrated control system and a functional architecture to support the planning and control requirements of an autonomous indoor mobile robot are described. The robot must autonomously navigate, in a prescribed motion area, following a generic path specified with few via points, providing small obstacle avoidance capabilities. A set of algorithms and architectural concepts is presented, that shows an attempt for integrating high-level planning activities with low level reactive behaviors. Hierarchical object oriented design methods (HOODS) are used to give better integrated and coordination planning, perception and execution activities, and to improve the efficiency and robustness of the robot systems.


The determination of the dynamic properties of the soil is a critical issue in geotechnical engineering. It is of a particular importance in problems involving dynamic excitation of soil systems, such as earthquakes. This research focuses on measuring the velocity of seismic waves, particularly shear waves, in the centrifuge soil models. The high noise during the centrifuge operation, and the need of using a number of bender elements in the same model, makes the use of bender elements in the centrifuge more challenging. The research starts with improving the current bender elements system at RPI Geotechnical Centrifuge Center. This involves solving electric and electromagnetic problems in the system and reducing noise and ghosting effects. The improved bender elements system is then used to determine the shear (S) wave velocities of dry Ottawa sand at different void ratios and different overconsolidation ratios in the centrifuge. The shear wave velocity measurements are also used to estimate the effect of overconsolidation on the coefficient of lateral earth pressure at rest (K₀). A comparison of the results is done with those published in the literature.


We discuss the application of electron tunnelling to the study of super conductors and describe the results of tunnelling experiments involving superconducting thallium. We show that by measuring the first and second derivatives of the tunnel junction characteristics it is possible to determine the superconducting density-of-states variation in thallium and to draw some conclusions about the shape of its phonon spectrum. The principle peaks in the phonon spectrum (corresponding to the transverse and longitudinal modes) are found to occur at 4·0 mev and 9·45 mev, respectively. The end of the phonon spectrum appears to be located at 10·6 mev and evidence for this and other critical points is presented in this paper. The average value of the full gap for thallium was found to be 2Δ(0)Tl = (0.74±0.02) mev (i.e. 2Δ(0)Tl = (3.55±0.1) kTc) although considerable anisotropy of the gap was observed. Values of 2Δ(Tl) ranging from 0·59 mev to at least 0·97 mev, and possibly 1·29 mev, were measured.


In light of the June 2022 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, the Journal of Moral Theology invited a number of leading Catholic scholars to address the following question: what needs to change to foster "reasoned reflection and constructive civil dialogue" within Catholic contexts around the issue of abortion? Representing a range of positions on both the Dobbs decision and the question of abortion, each scholar focuses on one or two key changes or clarifications she or he thinks would help shift the discourse in a constructive direction. This introduction provides important contextualizing information for the symposium as well as a summary of the scholarly contributions.