This is a case report of a 66-year-old female patient with multiple myeloma who developed cardiac arrest after a minitracheotomy. The patient was admitted to the intensive care unit for treatment of respiratory failure. Four days after artificial ventilation, her respiratory condition improved sufficiently to allow tracheal extubation. However, a minitracheotomy had to be performed because of sputum retention. Ten minutes after the minitracheotomy, unexpected bleeding from the site of the minitracheotomy increased. Subsequently, oxygen saturation dropped rapidly and then cardiac arrest occurred. She was immediately resuscitated by endotracheal intubation and cardiac massage. Bronchofiberscopic examination revealed that a large amount of sputum with clots had occluded the right main bronchus. We recommend that bronchofiberscopic examination be performed before minitracheotomies to reduce the risk of serious complications occurring due to this tecqunique.


Cowpea occupies a considerable place in the nutritional and economic balance of the rural population of Burkina Faso. However, its cultivation is marked by yield instability linked to soil depletion of nutrients, especially N and P, and irregular rains. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of phosphorus fertilization with the rock phosphate named BurkinaP, on the spatial and temporal variability of cowpea nodulation and yield. A multilocation test was conducted in 12 and 16 farmers'fields in 2013 and 2014, respectively, in 3 villages of 3 provinces of the northern region of Burkina Faso. Two treatments were compared: zaï without (ZS) and zaï with BurkinaP (ZP). Overall, dry weights of nodules and shoots at flowering stage, and grain at harvest, were significantly increased by BurkinaP. It is concluded that in soils where low availability of P limits crop yields of cowpea especially in arid sud-saharan areas of West Africa, the input of BurkinaP can improve cowpea N2-fixation, and increase and stabilize cowpea yields.


Based on the Debye-Huckel equation, a semi-empirical equation for activity coefficients was derived through empirical and theoretical trial and error efforts. The obtained equation included two parameters: the proportional factor and the effective radius of an ionic sphere. These parameters were used in the empirical and regression parameter fitting of the calculated values to the experimental results. The activity coefficients calculated from the equation agreed with the data. Transforming to a semi-empirical form, the equation was expressed with one parameter, the ion radius. The ion radius, α, was divided into three parameters, αcation, αanion and δcation, representing parameters for the cation, anion and combination, respectively. The advantage of this equation is the ability to propose a semi-empirical equation that can easily determine the activity coefficient with just one parameter, so the equation is expected to be used more widely in actual industry applications.


Choosing the optimal deployment of a distributed embedded application onto alternative hardware configurations is often difficult and time consuming. When developing a new product, a company must chose a hardware architecture that ensures both that the system behaves correctly according to its functional and timing specifications but also keeps its production cost at a minimum. The investigation to find this tradeoff between cost and performance can be very expensive if carried out at implementation time. A company can save money and development time if there is a possibility to quickly explore the design alternatives before the start of the implementation. In this paper we describe a method and associated tool support to assist in finding the best system design solution.


Abstract Warmer temperatures lead to a decrease in temperature-related mortality, including deaths associated with cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and strokes. The evidence of this benefit comes from research conducted in every major country of the world. In the United States the average person who died because of cold temperature exposure lost in excess of 10 years of potential life, whereas the average person who died because of extreme heat related event lost no more than a few days or weeks of life because heat has a greater effect on more seriously debilitated and ill persons. Cold-related deaths are far more numerous than heat-related deaths in the United States and the world. Coronary (heart attack) and cerebral thrombosis (stroke) account for about half of all cold-related mortality, events that are directed related to blood vessel and blood viscosity effects of cool or cold environments. Global warming, if it did occur, even to the degree predicted in the extreme, will reduce the incidence of cardiovascular diseases related to low temperatures and wintry weather by a much greater degree than the warming might increase the incidence of deaths or illness attributable to heat. Heat illness primarily produces fluid and electrolyte disturbances, loss of core temperature control and organ dysfunction from dehydration, circulatory failure and heat caused stress, not clotting events. The heat wave deaths of 1995 in Chicago and 2003 in Europe are pointed to by advocates of the claim that heat stress deaths will increase with any warming that might occur, but a closer look at heat event death rates in some of the studies below show acclimation increased awareness have blunted any heat stress death increases. In the case of Chicago and Europe temperatures rose to over 100 but the availability of air conditioning and ventilation along with attention to the needs of elderly and disabled individuals was determined to be a major reason for heat deaths. The heat deaths that occur during severe heat events are the result of stress and inability to acclimate to maintain normal core temperature control and avoid dehydration. Acclimatization and proper attention to the vulnerable populations failed in Chicago in 1995 and Europe, particularly France in 2003, for example with hundreds of heat deaths in the former and 20,000 or more deaths in the later. A large body of scientific examination and research contradicts and disproves the claim that malaria will expand across the globe and intensify as a result of CO2-induced warming. Malaria is historically a disease that was endemic to cool and even cold climates like Finland and Russia but has been suppressed by hygienic and vector control measures. Concerns over large increases in vector-borne diseases such as dengue as a result of rising temperatures are unfounded and unsupported by the scientific literature, as climatic indices are poor predictors for dengue disease. The Aedes Aegypti, Anopheles, and Asian Tiger mosquitos all have been found at higher latitudes. While temperature and climate effect the geographical distribution of ticks, they are not among the significant factors determining the incidence of tick-borne diseases. Moreover the effect of small increases in climate temperature, if does occur with certainly not impact the range of ticks that now live in the high latitudes, even in the mountains of those high latitudes.


The invention discloses a running wheel toy, comprising a roller, an axis column, a base, and a food catapult component. The outer wall of the roller is provided with a pushing plate. The center of the roller is provided with a sleeve. The base is a cavity without a cover, the opening end of a side plate of the cavity is in a concave semicircular shape which is matched with the outer wall of the roller. The side plate of the base, corresponding to the concave side plate, is provided with an axle hole. One end of the axis column passes through and is connected with the sleeve of the roller, and the other end passes through and is connected with the axle hole of the base. The concave side plate of the base is connected with the outer wall of the roller in a matched manner. The pushing plate does not contact with the inner wall of the base. The food catapult component comprises an L-shaped rod, one end of the rod is connected with the side plate of the base, the side plate being provided with the axle hole, and the other end is suspended above the roller. The suspension end of the L-shaped rod bends downward, so the suspension end contacts with the outer edge of the pushing plate which is operated to the top end. Through induction and stimulation of food, a pet can continuously be interested in the running wheel, and an objective of exercise training is achieved, and enough motion space is given to the pet in limited space.


WordNet1 is a large lexical database for English. With its broad coverage and a design that is useful for a range of natural-language processing applications, this resource has found wide general acceptance. We offer only a brief description here and refer the reader to Miller, 1990 and Fellbaum, 1998 for further details. WordNet's creation in the mid-1980s was motivated by current theories of human semantic organization (Collins and Quillian, 1969). People have knowledge about tens of thousands of concepts, and the words expressing these concepts must be stored and retrieved in an efficient and economic fashion. A semantic network such as WordNet is an attempt to model one way in which concepts and words could be organized. The basic unit of WordNet is a set of cognitively equivalent synonyms, or synset. Examples of a noun, verb, and adjective synset are { vacation, holiday }, { close, shut }, and { soiled, dirty }, respectively. Each synset represents a concept, and each member of a synset encodes the same concept. Differently put, synset members are interchangeable in many contexts without changing the truth value of the context. Each synset also includes a definition, or 'gloss', and an illustrative sentence. The current version of WordNet (3.0) contains over 117,000 synsets that are organized into a huge semantic network. The synsets are interlinked by means of bidirectional semantic relations such as hyponymy, meronymy, and a number of entailment relations. For example, the relation between oak and tree is such that oak is encoded as a hyponym (subordinate) of tree and tree is encoded as a hypernym (superordinate) of oak. Leaf and trunk are meronyms (parts) of tree, their holonym. Meronyms are transitive, so linking leaf and trunk to tree means that oak (and beech and maple etc.) inherits leaf and trunk as parts by virtue of its relation to tree (Miller, 1990, 1998). Concepts expressed by other parts of speech (verbs, adjectives) are interlinked by means of additional relations (Fellbaum, 1998).


The need to restructure, redesign or develop a management model on a scientific basis at domestic petrochemical enterprises in the context of the challenges of industry 4.0 and the prospects of industry 5.0, the transition to new management standards, the lack of qualified managers determine the importance and relevance of the problem of choosing the optimal organizational structure of enterprise management that contributes to the most effective achievement of goals. When designing and evaluating the effectiveness of organizational management structures, modeling was used using the production function, which takes into account the indicators of the use of human and material capital in the organization of production. The article summarizes the research and development that allows us to assess the current level of development of organizational structures of petrochemical enterprises in domestic and foreign science and practice. It is proposed to calculate the ranges of indicators of the effectiveness of the management system, depending on the type of organizational structure of management. As a hypothesis, it is noted that with organic types of organizational structures, the level of resource saving is higher than with divisional OSU, the level of resource efficiency of which, in turn, is higher than with mechanistic OSU. The scientific results presented in the study are of significant importance in the context of the implementation of projects on strategies for the development of organizational structures of petrochemical enterprises.


Abstract
Purpose – Investor activism is the attempt by a dissident shareholder to alter firm behavior by filing a shareholder resolution with the firm. Faced with a shareholder resolution, management can either oppose it or attempt to negotiate a settlement. This study examines the factors that would cause a firm to adopt a compromise position with a dissent investor.

Methodology – A logistic regression is run in which the result of the shareholder resolution (whether or not a compromise has been researched) is a function of the topic of the resolution, the proposer of the resolution, and the firm's history of compromising on previous shareholder resolutions. The model is tested using a sample of 762 shareholder resolutions filed in Canada over an eleven-year period from 2000 to 2010.

Results – The results indicate that compromise is more likely to occur when the shareholder resolution addresses an environmental or social responsibility issue, and when the dissident shareholder is an investment or mutual fund.

Practical implications – Institutional and mutual funds control the financial resources necessary for the firm's survival. As such, firms are more likely to compromise when these powerful investors put forward shareholder resolutions. Furthermore, firms are more likely to compromise when the resolution does not address the core activities of the firm.

Originality – This study examines the factors that encourage Canadian firms to adopt a compromising strategy when confronted by dissident shareholders.


This paper presents an adaptive neural output feedback control scheme for uncertain robot manipulators with input saturation using the radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) and disturbance observer. First, the RBFNN is used to approximate the system uncertainty, and the unknown approximation error of the RBFNN and the time-varying unknown external disturbance of robot manipulators are integrated as a compounded disturbance. Then, the state observer and the disturbance observer are proposed to estimate the unmeasured system state and the unknown compounded disturbance based on RBFNN. At the same time, the adaptation technique is employed to tackle the control input saturation problem. Utilizing the estimate outputs of the RBFNN, the state observer, and the disturbance observer, the adaptive neural output feedback control scheme is developed for robot manipulators using the backstepping technique. The convergence of all closed-loop signals is rigorously proved via Lyapunov analysis and the asymptotically convergent tracking error is obtained under the integrated effect of the system uncertainty, the unmeasured system state, the unknown external disturbance, and the input saturation. Finally, numerical simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive neural output feedback control scheme for uncertain robot manipulators.


SBA-15 materials were functionalized with amino groups, APTES. The functionalization was carried out with ethanol or toluene, in air or nitrogen atmosphere. Texture and silanol ratio of functionalized materials were characterized by CO2 adsorption, N2 adsorption, SEM, TEM, and NMR. The results of this work indicates that functionalization in toluene is better than functionalization in ethanol, in order to anchor the largest number of APTES molecules on SBA-15 surface. For the same purpose, during functionalization process, the use of nitrogen atmosphere is better than the use of air atmosphere.


This paper introduces a design of RS422 signal processing interface circuit based on FPGA with adjustable baud rate,length of data and stop bit,and optional parity function. The design uses Altera Cyclone chips EP3C80F780I7 for control,and the differential signal processing chip ADM2687 EBRIZ ADIfor the RS422 processing. All operational functions of the design are accomplished by hardware logic. The design has characteristics of high reliability and versatility.


Nigeria recently became the largest economy in Africa. The country's economic output is outpacing population growth. GDP increased from $31 billion in 1990 to $522 billion in 2013 (averaging an annual growth rate of 5.9 percent), whilst the population increased from 96 million to 170 million during the same period (averaging an annual growth rate of 2.6 percent). Urban areas in particular appear to have generated disproportionately higher rates of economic growth than rural areas. The Nigerian urban business environment, however, discourages investment and frustrates competitiveness, acting as a constraint on economic growth. Inadequate infrastructure is identified as the major constraint to growth and competitiveness. This research project designed a City Infrastructure Quality Index (CIQI) aimed at providing a relative measure of performance in urban infrastructure in Nigeria, focusing specifically on factors of production and resources for inclusive economic growth and development.


The ambient lifestyle is characterised by interaction with your immediate environment no matter what kind of mobile and wireless sensor, service and network technology is behind it. The ambient user explicitly expects individual and seamless cooperation with those technologies depending on his current situation and context. Implicitly he requires transparent but inherent secure communications and trustworthy transactions. This paper introduces a context-aware mobile service provisioning framework to meet and fulfil the expectations of both the mobile users and service providers by deploying enhanced personalisation and privacy and security technologies following the multilateral security concept. Therefore, the domain oriented architecture is devided mainly into the user's trust domain and the service domain as the paper describes in detail. This approach is underpinned by (1) a user-centric Java Card enabled authentication and authorisation against your personal knowledge management system and (2) an event-driven and agent-based management of particular user tasks based on semantic cooperative reasoning.


This paper addresses the problem of managing computing systems using an integration of model-based control techniques and efficient AI search strategies. The control approach uses the system model to forecast all future system behavior up to a certain horizon and then searches for the best path for the system based on a given utility function. In practical computing systems, however, the large number of control (tuning) options directly affects the computational overhead of the control module which executes in the background at run-time, and ultimately slows down the overall system. To handle this problem, several search algorithms are introduced to improve the controller's performance. A case study of an online processor power management is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new search techniques for the model-based control approach.


Based on the samples collected by bottom trawl in the seawaters of Guniea-Bissau during 31 Jan. to 17 Apr. 2006, the species composition and diversity of zooplankton were analyzed and compared to the four sub-areas with different features of sediment. The highest and lowest mean biomass of zooplankton appeared in Area 1 (16°30′~17°00′ W, 11°30′~12°20′N) (2 992 mg/m3) and Area 3 (16°40′~17°20′W, 10°00′~11°00′N) (1 069 mg/m3) respectively. The species of zooplankton were consisted of planktonic Crustacean, Medusae, Chaetognaths and Tunicata, etc., in which planktonic Crustacean were consisted of 6 orders, 22 families, 22 genus and 23 species. Copepods were the most important zooplanktons; the proportion of Copepods was more than 80% except for Area 3, followed by Lucifer. The number of Copepods was the hightest and followed by Lucifer and Chaetognatha in Area 1, Area 2 (16°55′~17°30′W, 11°00′~12°20′N), and Area 3. The number of Chaetognatha, however, was higher than that of Lucifer in Area 4 (16°20′W~16°40′W, 10°20′N~10°35′N). Species number and diversity index (H=1.547) of zooplankton in Area 1 was the highest among the 4 areas, but the richness index was the lowest (D=0.28). Richness index (D=0.58) and evenness index (J=1.26) in Area 3 were the highest and diversity index (H=1.07) and evenness index (J=0.59) in Area 4 were the lowest among the 4 areas.


Two-dimensional velocity fields were measured quantitatively using particle image velocimetry(PIV) in the humid air non-premixed recirculating combustion on a bluff-body burner in order to study the effect on flame stability with steam added.The characteristic flame modes and velocity field structures in the humid air combustion were experimentally investigated and detailed stabilization regimes diagrams were proposed.The comparison of the stabilization regimes shows that the critical fuel-to-air velocity ratios of the fuel penetration condition in the humid air case are 16% — 22% lower than that of conventional non-humid air case,and the partially quenching limits in the humid air flame are at least 25% lower.The main reasons for unstable humid air flame are due to the reductions of the humid air momentum and the decrease of the O-atom concentration due to dilution and chemical reaction.


Aculus taihangensis is a potential biological control agent of Ailanthus altissima (Miller) Swingle. However, predatory mites found in Europe may affect the action of this eriophyid agent. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the biology of two predatory mites, Euseius stipulatus and Typhlodromus (Typhlodromus) exhilaratus, feeding on A. taihangensis. Rearing stocks were maintained in germination chambers at 25 ± 1 °C, with 12 hours of photophase and relative humidity 70 ± 5%. Of 40 individualized T. (T.) exhilaratus eggs, only 37.5% achieved adulthood, while viability of E. stipulatus was 87.5%. The mean fecundity was 18 eggs/ female. Both predatory mites evaluated in this study feed on A. taihangensis. However, only E. stipulatus seems to be an efficient predator, capable of controlling A. taihangensis.


An erection method of a large-span continuous steel truss arch, in the construction of a large-span continuous truss arch bridge, a bridge pier is taken as the foundation, a bracket beside the pier is arranged, a plurality of steel trusses with an interval on the top pier are arranged on the bracket beside the pier, and a double-suspension erection system is formed. A full-rotation beam erection lifting machine is positioned at the truss of the pier top, and truss bar is arranged one by one. After the suspension arm reaches a certain degree, a horizontal rope or a multi-layer tower with a suspended cable and a stay cable is arranged to maintain the double-suspension arm to extend forwards until closure.


Fly ash is widely used for replacing partial cement and producing high-performance concrete. The concrete production company is interested in the optimal substitute ratio of fly ash. This study presents a general procedure for evaluating the optimal substitute ratio of fly ash. First, the compressive strength of fly ash blended concrete is evaluated based on adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). The water-to-binder ratio, fly ash replacement ratio, and ages are used as input parameters of ANFIS. Strength is the output parameter of ANFIS. Second, sensitivity analysis is performed using ANFIS. The development of relative strength of fly ash blended concrete is calculated considering water-to-binder ratio, fly ash replacement ratio, and ages. The analysis results show that the optimal replacement fly ash is dependent on water-to-binder ratio of concrete. As thewater-to-binder ratio decreases from 0.5 to 0.3, the optimal substitute ratio of fly ash increases from 15% to 30%.


Background:Neuroapoptosis is induced by the administration of anesthetic agents to the young. As α2 adrenoceptor signaling plays a trophic role during development and is neuroprotective in several settings of neuronal injury, the authors investigated whether dexmedetomidine could provide functional protection against isoflurane-induced injury. Methods:Isoflurane-induced injury was provoked in organotypic hippocampal slice cultures in vitro or in vivo in postnatal day 7 rats by a 6-h exposure to 0.75% isoflurane with or without dexmedetomidine. In vivo, the α2 adrenoceptor antagonist atipamezole was used to identify if dexmedetomidine neuroprotection involved α2 adrenoceptor activation. The γ-amino-butyric-acid type A antagonist, gabazine, was also added to the organotypic hippocampal slice cultures in the presence of isoflurane. Apoptosis was assessed using cleaved caspase-3 immunohistochemistry. Cognitive function was assessed in vivo on postnatal day 40 using fear conditioning. Results:In vivo dexmedetomidine dose-dependently prevented isoflurane-induced injury in the hippocampus, thalamus, and cortex; this neuroprotection was attenuated by treatment with atipamezole. Although anesthetic treatment did not affect the acquisition of short-term memory, isoflurane did induce long-term memory impairment. This neurocognitive deficit was prevented by administration of dexmedetomidine, which also inhibited isoflurane-induced caspase-3 expression in organotypic hippocampal slice cultures in vitro; however, gabazine did not modify this neuroapoptosis. Conclusion:Dexmedetomidine attenuates isoflurane-induced injury in the developing brain, providing neurocognitive protection. Isoflurane-induced injury in vitro appears to be independent of activation of the γ-amino-butyric-acid type A receptor. If isoflurane-induced neuroapoptosis proves to be a clinical problem, administration of dexmedetomidine may be an important adjunct to prevent isoflurane-induced neurotoxicity.


In this paper, a smart agent is proposed to search image/graphics based database for students and an instructor. The seach procedure is based on content-based image retrieval (CBIR). In addition, the smart agent can also give help in seaching image/graphics data, answering simple questions and optimizing educational activities graphically.


We adopt Hulthén plus Hellmann potential as the quark-antiquark interaction potential for predicting the mass spectra of heavy mesons. The adopted potential was made to be temperature-dependent by replacing the screening parameter with Debye mass ( ) ( ) D m T .The radial Schrödinger equation was analytically solved using the series expansion method and energy eigenvalues were obtained. The energy eigenvalues is used to predict the mass spectra of heavy mesons such as charmonium ( ) c c and bottomonium ( ) bb . Four special cases were considered when some of the potential parameters were set to zero, resulting in Hellmann potential, Yukawa potential, Coulomb potential, and Hulthén potential, respectively. The present potential provides satisfying results in comparison with experimental data and the work of other researchers with a maximum error of 0.034 GeV.


In oreder to study the influence of main cable angle of side span in suspension bridge,Xihoumen Suspension Bridge is taken as the protype,its finite element model is established by using bridge nonlinear avalysis system BNLAS,which is developed by Southwest Jiaotong University.This model is about a twin-tower single-span suspension bridge and its main cable span is 1650m,which has a single-span simply supported girder.Then,the influence of main cable angle on the force of suspension bridge is analyzed,through comparing the force changes of suspension bridge with different main cable lengths of side spans.


Uropol (Bristol Labs) is a combination of tetracycline phosphate complex, sulphamethizole and phenazopyridine for use in acute and chronic urinary tract infections. The makers claim that it gives therapeutic tissue levels of tetracycline and high urinary levels of sulphonamide, and so reduces the risk of bacterial resistance developing, and that it is useful in the treatment of mixed infections. The addition of phenazopyridine is claimed to provide local analgesia in the lower urinary tract as well as visual assurance of drug excretion by colouring the urine bright orange-red.


— The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of adding the purple sweet potato and durian fruit extracts on the organoleptic properties of goat milk ice cream. The research design used was a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with 16 treatments, two replications. The treatments examined were as follows P0 = control, P1 = 10% purple sweet potato + 1% durian fruit extract, P2 = 20% purple sweet potato + 2% durian fruit extract, and P3 = 30% purple sweet potato + 3 durian fruit extracts %. The results of this study indicate that the administration of purple sweet potato and durian fruit extracts has a significant effect on the organoleptic properties of goat milk ice cream. Interaction between the addition of purple sweet potato and durian fruit extract on the organoleptic properties of goat milk ice cream. The type of panellists used by panellists are not formally trained but can distinguish and communicate reactions from organoleptic assessments tested .


This study deals with stall/ spin characteristics of radio control model airplane with the radio control model flight test technique. The model airplane was made 1/6 size of developed trainer agree to dynamic characteristics. On-board type flight instrumentation system was developed for the quantitative analysis of stall/spin characteristics. And movie camera used for the prediction of stall/spin characteristics.
Measuring units was calibrated with the subsonic wind-tunnel and gyro tester before mounting on the model airplane. Flight test was perfromed at Chung-Won Air Force Base.
The result of this research can be devided into two large categories. First, Flight test instrumentation system for measuring the quantitative flight data was developed. Second, stall/spin characteristics of developed trainer was estimated, and these data was compared with the theoretical aerodynamic data and angular velocity at normal spin condition.


The green algal genus Nannochloris Naumann was originally described as having a simple binary division mechanism and lacking autosporulation and a parental cell wall. An initial observation of autosporulation in one isolate ascribed to this genus encouraged a broader investigation to determine whether or not autosporulation is restricted to only certain forms or is the reproductive mechanism used in the genus as a whole. Five cultures were examined; all had typically chlorophycean ultrastructure and both chlorophylls a and b. Nannochloris atomus differed from the other forms (two Nannochloris spp., Nannochloris bacillaris, and Nannochloris maculants) in having a pyrenoid and different wall structure and other ultrastructural features. However, reproduction in all five was by autosporulation with a thin, yet clearly defined, parental wall surrounding the two–four daughter cells in electron micrographs. These and related findings of other workers point to the need for a redefinition of the genus.


The strategy for improving the productivity of fruit and vegetables in Indonesia can be done through modification of the existing cultivation system by adding certain component of healthy practice farming. One of the approaches for achieving that aim is through the usage of endophytes in cultivation system. The identified mechanisms of endophytic microbes are that the stimulant produced by them is able to suppress diseases and pests that pose a significant threat for plants. Moreover, endophytic microbes are also capable of producing antimicrobial compounds and bio stimulating compounds such as phytohormones and proteins. The purpose of this study was to determine the ability of endophytic bacteria isolates that were taken from collection of Indonesian Citrus and Subtropic Fruits Research Institute in producing IAA hormone, phosphate solvent and nitrogen fixing. The research consisted of several stages; testing for Free Nitrogen Binding Bacteria; Phosphate Solubilizing Bacteria and in Producing IAA. The results showed the three endophytic bacterial isolates isolated from different citrus varieties had the ability to fix free nitrogen. G.28-isolates and G.35_isolates had identical ability to dissolve phosphate, while G.31-isolates could not dissolve phosphate. The most effective time to produce IAA is the fourth day of incubation. G.35-isolates was the bacterial isolate that had the highest IAA production.


Photovoltaic (PV) water pumping systems have been increasingly popular in remote areas where grid is not accessible or is too costly to install. These systems are mostly used for agriculture and household purposes. Generally, such systems use permanent magnet dc motors because of their simple circuit configuration and control strategy. However these systems require frequent maintenance. On the other hand, the conventional PV water pumping systems driven by ac motors employ a dc-dc converter followed by an inverter. The conventional systems use more number of power semiconductor switches (increases the system cost) and suffer from reduced overall efficiency as two power converters are connected in series. In this paper, a PV water pumping system using a single stage inverter fed induction motor driving a centrifugal pump is considered. The inverter simultaneously performs two functions, viz., (i) converts dc power into ac power and (ii) forces the induction motor to operate at maximum efficiency. The system considered has a simple control strategy and the viability of the control strategy is demonstrated through steady state and dynamic simulation results.


Wireless communications are playing a key role in todays and future communication systems. The advantages of wireless networks in comparison with their wired counterparts include flexible mobility management, faster and cheaper deployment, and ultimately easier maintenance and upgrade procedures. In addition to this, the users are also starting to use the Ad Hoc mode of 802.11 in which multiple wireless hops are used to connect two distant nodes. In this mode, nodes can communicate directly to each other (without a central coordinator) and should relay data to each other in a self-organizing fashion. This configuration is commonly referred to as multihop wireless Ad Hoc networks or simply multihop wireless networks. As the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is designed to provide reliable end-to-end delivery of data over unreliable networks (wireless network). In practice, most TCP deployments have been carefully designed in the context of wired networks. Hence to improve TCP performance in wireless mobile adhoc network is ultimately improve the overall performance of communication system. In this paper we have discussed some methods to improve TCP performance in mobile adhoc network. Firstly I-ADTCP method and Secondly Crossed layered based protocol.


SCF‐Xα‐SW calculations have been performed for H2S in the ground state, in ionic states resulting from the vertical removal of a valence electron, and in 36 singlet and triplet excited states resulting from the vertical excitation of an electron from the 2b1 or the 5a1 molecular orbitals to various virtual orbitals. Excellent agreement for the transition energies is found both with the experimental ultraviolet and photoelectron spectra and with recent large‐scale configuration interaction calculations. The average absolute difference between the Xα‐SW and CI results for the 26 cases where both exist is only 0.24 eV. The intrinsic advantages of the Xα‐SW method over the traditional LCAO or one‐center approaches for the treatment of Rydberg states are delineated. Contour plots of the excited orbitals have been generated and these are used to illustrate some of the conceptual problems related to the Rydberg‐valence distinction. Finally, a brief speculative discussion of the possible photochemical implication...


ABSTRACT Located in the Salton Basin of Imperial County in southeastern Alta California, Obsidian Butte was the major prehistoric obsidian toolstone source in southern Alta California and northern Baja California and is frequently referenced in the archaeological literature. Reported in detail geoarchaeologically by Richard Hughes in the 1980s, the study herein considerably amplifies his research in that it focuses on the natural (geological) and cultural (archaeological) history of this source and its impact on the prehistory and archaeological interpretations of the region. A thorough in-field examination of the source and analysis of over 500 obsidian artifacts from San Diego County and western Imperial County archaeological contexts enlarges the database of artifacts assigned to that source, as well as providing recent geochronological data in support of the cultural history. This study can be seen as a companion to the recent work on sources of archaeological obsidian in northern Baja California by Panich et al. (2012, 2015, 2017).


Preface Introduction: What are brains for? 1. Avoidance and the cingle Cell: Ionic signals 2. You can't run but maybe you can hide: Chemical signals 3. Truth for the jellyfish: Coordination to fit the occasion 4. Modulation: The spice of neural life 5. An Internal wake-up call 6. Wanderlust 7. Love on the fly 8. The world as we find It 9. Are all brains alike? Are all brains different? Bibliography Glossary Index


Introduction. The article presents data on cases of tick-borne dermatitis in medical workers caused by rat mites Ornithonyssus bacoti in unfavorable sanitary conditions. The goal is to consider the cause-effect relationship in the formation of tick-borne dermatitis as an industrial-conditioned disease. Material and methods. The clinical examination of 23 employees - female medical workers (doctors, nurses) aged from 28 to 56 years was carried out. Results. As a result of clinical examination, medical employees working in the department of a medical hospital on the first floor of the building were found to have complaints of severe itching, not associated with the time of day and the appearance of rashes in the form of roseola, small nodules in areas with thin and delicate skin, with serous or bloody crust on the top, mainly in the places of close contact with the laundry, where it fits snugly (especially the straps, collar, belt). On weekends, the improvement was noted, the itch subsided, and on returning to work the manifestations of the disease resumed. The medical staff at the workplace had contact with rat mites, triggered by the spontaneous mass infiltration of Ornithonyssus bacoti shortly after in the basement of the hospital located under this deratization department, when the main feeder-rat was destroyed and the mites were forced to look for the food, motor activity, leave the nest of rodents and crawl into the premise on the ground floor, preferring insulated places, concentrating in the crevices of the floor, walls, furniture, and there was an attack of ticks on a human. At the same time, employees working in the department did not depend on the profession, it was also noted among doctors and nurses. Conclusions. Given that the nature of the work in the performance of their duties at the workplace, medical personnel should not have direct contact with animals and substrate that can be infected with rat mites, as well as the occurrence of the disease soon after the deratization in the hospital, the mass and uniformity of the appearance of rashes allow to consider rat tick-borne dermatitis as an industrial-conditioned disease.


The transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture is an inevitable trend in the development of national modernization. The increase in production efficiency brought about by agricultural modernization has provided a solid material foundation and life guarantee for our country. The purpose of this paper is to study the level of agricultural modernization, discover its influencing factors, and propose suggestions to promote the development of agricultural modernization. This paper takes 11 provinces (cities) in the Yangtze River Economic Belt as the research object, constructs agricultural modernization evaluation indicators to study the development of agricultural modernization, and uses SPSS17.0 software to perform factor analysis. It is concluded that the development level of agricultural modernization in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is significantly different. Hunan and Anhui have higher levels of modernization; comprehensive agricultural production conditions have a greater impact on agricultural modernization. Accordingly, it is proposed to promote agricultural modernization in accordance with local conditions, increase investment in science and technology, and cultivate agricultural talents.


Summarizes previous research on the links between multinationality and earnings persistence and presents a study which applies the autoregressive, integrated, moving‐average time series model to 1990‐1999 data on the largest US multinationals. Explains the methodology and presents the results, which show a negative relationship between the level of multinationality and earnings persistence measures. Puts this down to a negative link between multinationality and performance; and reduced risk through international diversification and profit stabilization.


AbstractA modified gravity model is used to describe the flows of commuters between a central city and concentric zones around it. A multiplier-type model of a central-place system (after Christaller) is then used to calculate the number of residents for service centers at each level of the hierarchy within the system. The rank-size rule (Zipf's formula) is also considered as a criterion of a true system of urban places. Results are presented for the urban network of the Ukraine.


Energy efficiency is usually a significant goal in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this work, an energy efficient chain (EEC) data routing approach is first presented. The coverage and connectivity of WSNs are discussed based on EEC. A hybrid node scheduling approach is then proposed. It includes sleep scheduling for cyclically monitoring regions of interest in time-driven modes and wakeup scheduling for tracking emergency events in event-driven modes. A failure rate is introduced to the sleep scheduling to improve the reliability of the system. A wakeup sensor threshold and a sleep time threshold are introduced in the wakeup scheduling to reduce the consumption of energy to the possible extent. The results of the simulation show that the proposed algorithm can extend the effective lifetime of the network to twice that of PEAS. In addition, the proposed methods are computing efficient because they are very simple to implement.


The paper deals with the computer aided analysis of weakly coupled Josephson junctions submitted or not to applied magnetic fields. A comparative study was made between the analytical solutions provided by specialty literature for currents phase variations and those obtained after original simulation. As remarkable differences were revealed, some original formulas were deduced, validated through programs that operate symbolical (written in MATHEMATICA) and error computations were done. The original formulas provide better approximation of solutions, the approximation errors being significantly reduced.


In a number of recent multi-billion dollar cases brought against cigarette manufacturers, plaintiffs have in part alleged that the cigarette manufacturers (1) conspired not to compete on the basis of health claims or the introduction of potentially safer cigarettes since the 1950s, and (2) engaged in fraudulent advertising by making implied health claims in advertisements selling 'low tar'/'light' cigarettes. In this type of litigation, defendants' actions could be due to alleged illegal behaviour as asserted by plaintiffs, or be the result of market forces that may have nothing to do with allegedly inappropriate acts. We examine the economic evidence relating to these allegations, taking into account some of the major influences on cigarette company behaviour. In particular, our analyses show that much of the cigarette manufactures' behaviour can be explained by Federal Trade Commission and related government actions, rather than conspiracy or fraudulent acts. We find the economic evidence is inconsistent with an effective conspiracy to suppress information on either smoking and health or the development and marketing of potentially safer cigarettes. Regarding 'lower tar' and 'light' cigarettes, the economic evidence indicates that the cigarette manufacturers responded to government and public health initiatives, and that disclosing more information on smoking compensation earlier than the cigarette companies did would not have had any significant impact on smoking behaviour.


MAIA, an acronym for Mercator Advanced Imager for Asteroseismology, is a three-channel instrument that targets fast-cadence three-colour photometry, installed at the 1.2-m Mercator telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain). This instrument observes a 9.4 x 14.1 arcmin 2 Field-of-View simultaneously in three wavelength bands on three large frametransfer CCDs. These detectors were developed for ESA's cancelled Eddington space mission and were o ered on permanent loan to the Institute of Astronomy (KU Leuven, Belgium). MAIA uses its own ugr photometric system that is a crude approximation of the SDSS system. The instrument is designed to perform multi-colour observations for asteroseismology, with specific emphasis on subdwarf and white dwarf single and binary stars. We describe the design of the instrument, discuss key components, and report on its performance and first results.


Short-range atomic order in semiconductor alloys is a relatively unexplored topic that may promote design of new materials with unexpected properties. Here, local atomic ordering is investigated in Ge–Sn alloys, a group-IV system that is attractive for its enhanced optoelectronic properties achievable via a direct gap for Sn concentrations exceeding ≈10 at. %. The substantial misfit strain imposed on Ge–Sn thin films during growth on bulk Si or Ge substrates can induce defect formation; however, misfit strain can be accommodated by growing Ge–Sn alloy films on Ge nanowires, which effectively act as elastically compliant substrates. In this work, Ge core/Ge1−xSnx ( x ≈  0.1) shell nanowires were characterized with extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) to elucidate their local atomic environment. Simultaneous fitting of high-quality EXAFS data collected at both the Ge K-edge and the Sn K-edge reveals a large (≈ 40%) deficiency of Sn in the first coordination shell around a Sn atom relative to a random alloy, thereby providing the first direct experimental evidence of significant short-range order in this semiconductor alloy system. Comparison of path length data from the EXAFS measurements with density functional theory simulations provides alloy atomic structures consistent with this conclusion.


Quaternion, an extension of complex number, is the first discovered non-commutative division algebra by William Rowan Hamilton in 1843. In this article, we review the recent progress on building up the connection between the mathematical concept of quaternoinic analyticity and the physics of high-dimensional topological states. Three- and four-dimensional harmonic oscillator wavefunctions are reorganized by the SU(2) Aharanov-Casher gauge potential to yield high-dimensional Landau levels possessing the full rotational symmetries and flat energy dispersions. The lowest Landau level wavefunctions exhibit quaternionic analyticity, satisfying the {\it Cauchy-Riemann-Fueter} condition, which generalizes the two-dimensional complex analyticity to three and four dimensions. It is also the Euclidean version of the helical Dirac and the chiral Weyl equations. After dimensional reductions, these states become two- and three-dimensional topological states maintaining time-reversal symmetry but exhibiting broken parity. We speculate that quaternionic analyticity can provide a guiding principle for future researches on high-dimensional interacting topological states. Other progresses including high-dimensional Landau levels of Dirac fermions, their connections to high energy physics, and high-dimensional Landau levels in the Landau-type gauges, are also reviewed. This research is also an important application of the mathematical subject of quaternion analysis in theoretical physics, and provides useful guidance for the experimental explorations on novel topological states of matter.


In most countries around the world, various public policies and guidelines, such as social distancing and stay-at-home orders, have been put in place to slow down the spreading of COVID-19. Relying on traditional surveys to assess policy impacts on community level behavior changes may lead to biased results, and limit fine-grained understanding of human behavior dynamics over time. We propose to leverage mobile sensing to capture people's behavior footprints amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and understand their collective behavior changes with respect to existing policies. Specifically, we propose to extract a rich set of behavioral markers from raw mobile sensing data, including mobility, social interactions, physical activities, and health states, and apply them in a generalized behavior change analysis framework to measure and detect community level behavior changes in an epidemic context. We present how to combine change point detection algorithm and interrupted time series analysis to automatically detect three different measurements of behavior changes (e.g., level, trend, and variance changes), and provide insights supported by statistical inference. A case study using a dataset that we collected from a large mobile sensing study conducted in the United States is shown to demonstrate the proposed framework and method.


The problem of finding the best quantum time in multi-level processor scheduling is addressed in this paper. Processor scheduling is one of the most important issues in operating systems design. Different schedulers are introduced to solve this problem. In one scheduling approach, processes are placed in different queues according to their properties, and the processor allocates time to each queue iteratively. One of the most important parameters of a processor's efficiency in this approach is the amount of time slices associated to each processor queue. In this paper, an ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is presented to solve the problem of finding appropriate time slices to assign to each processor queue. In this technique, each ant tries to find an appropriate scheduling. Ant algorithm searches the problem space to find the best scheduling. The quality of each ant's solution is evaluated using a new fitness function. This fitness function is designed according to the evaluation parameters of each processor queue and also according to the queue theory's relations. Also a heuristic function is presented which prompts ant to select better solutions. Computational tests are presented and the comparisons made with genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms which try to solve same problem. The results show the efficiency of this algorithm.


Abstract. The aminoterminal propeptide of type III procollagen (PIIINP) in serum is employed as a direct marker of fibrillogenesis. The balance between local fibrillogenesis and serum PIIINP is governed by the transport and possible degradation en route from tissue to circulation. In conscious pigs, we investigated the transport of PIIINP from the knee cavity into the circulation after intra‐articular injection of radiola‐belled PIIINP followed by sequential sampling of thoracic duct lymph, serum and urine. Clearance from the joint space was evaluated by external detection of 131I‐HSA, used as co‐tracer. Lymph samples were gel filtrated to assess possible lymphatic degradation of the intact PIIINP. 125I‐PIIINP and 131I‐HSA were found in thoracic duct lymph within 20 min of the intra‐articular injection. Both isotopes had a biphasic appearance, with the first peak after 60 min and a larger peak after 150 min. During the 6 h observational period 18% of the injected PIIINP was found in the lymph. Gel chromatography of lymph showed the fast formation of a small fraction with a lower MW than that of PIIINP, which suggests that some degradation of PIIINP may occur through the lymphatics. The half‐life of the joint clearance of HSA by bulk flow was assessed to be 8.3 h. The clearance of PIIINP from the joint was estimated to be equal to that of HSA, which indicates that PIIINP leaves the joint space by bulk flow as has been proposed for HSA. Whereas the fractional amount of PIIINP in lymph and blood was lower than that of HSA, in urine the fractional amount of PIIINP was substantially higher than that of HSA. This may be the outcome of a more rapid irreversible degradation of PIIINP than of HSA.


first described in 1948 by Nicholas Hajdu and Ralph Kauntze under the designation "cranio-skeletal dysplasia."11 The first familial case involved a mother and her four children who suffered from acroosteolysis.5 Most reported cases are sporadic forms of the disease, and one third are familial forms with probable autosomal-dominant transmission.2,5 The syndrome is characterized by facial dysmorphism (smooth and long philtrum, thin lips, depression of the tip of the nose, thick eyebrows and coarse hair, and ptosis); maxillofacial anomalies (microretrognathism, premature loss of teeth, alveolar resorption, and mandibular hypoplasia); joint laxity; significant osteopenia of the entire skeleton,3 with fractures occurring particularly at the level of the fifth metatarsus; short stature; and dysplasia of the spine and long bones.8,13,25,27 This syndrome may be associated with anomalies of the urinary system (polycystic kidney disease),9,30 cardiac malformations (persistence of the arterial channel and interventricular communication), and/or hearing loss (transmission deafness). The diagnosis can be confirmed on x-ray films, which show acroosteolysis of the distal phalanges and dysplasia of the skull (wormian bone, bathrocephaly, open sutures, widening of the sella turcica, prominent occipital ridge, and platybasia). Fifty-seven cases of Hajdu–Cheney syndrome have been reported in the literature; nine patients presented with neurological signs related to malformation of the craniovertebral junction (Table 1). Platybasia, which is not specific to this syndrome, but was found in 53% of patients,2 is responsible for basilar impression followed by ascending luxation of the odontoid process. Neurological complications can occur in childhood, generally after 10 years of age; hydrocephalus is the most common complication. Syringomyelia associated with this disease has only been reported three times in the literature (in one adult and two 10-year-old children). We report on a 7-year-old boy with a sporadic form of Hajdu–Cheney syndrome involving very early and rapidly developing syringomyelia, who has now been followed for 3 years. The therapeutic problems related to rapid deformation of a growing spine and the anatomical problems specific to this syndrome made surgical treatment quite hazardous.


With the advent of the cloud computing and its associated challenges, building a secured electronic health record (EHR) in a cloud computing environment has attracted a lot of attention in both healthcare industry and academic community. Cloud computing concept is becoming a popular information technology (IT) infrastructure for facilitating EHR sharing and integration. In this study we discuss security concepts related to EHR sharing and integration in healthcare clouds and analyse the arising security and privacy issues in access and management of EHRs. This paper focus on the current challenges that comes with the use of the cloud computing for EHR purposes.


[Objective] The research aimed to assess residue dynamic of mandipropamid in potatoes and establish guideline for safety application. [Method] Residue dynamic experiment for mandipropamid in potatoes were conducted in Jilin and Nanjing simutaneously.The samples were measured by liquid chromatography. [Result] The results showed that the half-life of degradation for mandipropamid was 4.5-7.5 d in potato plants,7.8-11.7 d in soil.The final residues quantity in all potatoes samples were no detection when the last spraying mandipropamid after 3、7、14 days. [Conclusion] The guideline for safety application is sprayed 3 times with 75-150 g a.i./hm2 of mandipropamid,the preharvest interval is 3 days.The maximum residue limit is recommended 0.01 mg/kg.


We have mapped the positions of topoisomerase II binding sites at the centromere of the human Y chromosome using etoposide‐mediated DNA cleavage. A single region of cleavage is seen at normal centromeres, spanning ∼50 kb within the centromeric alphoid array, but this pattern is abolished at two inactive centromeres. It therefore provides a marker for the position of the active centromere. Although the underlying centromeric DNA structure is variable, the position of the centromere measured in this way is fixed relative to the Yp edge of the array, and has retained the same position for >100 000 years.


Glioma is the most common central nervous system tumor and associated with poor prognosis. Identifying effective diagnostic biomarkers for glioma is particularly important in order to guide optimizing treatment. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have drawn much attention because of their diagnostic value in diverse cancers, including glioma. We summarized studies to identify the potential diagnostic values of miRNAs in glioma patients. We included articles reporting miRNAs for differentiation of glioma patients from controls. We calculated sensitivities, specificities, and area under the curves (AUC) of individual miRNA and miRNA panels. We found that overall sensitivity, specificity, and AUC of miRNAs in diagnosis of glioma were 85% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.81‐0.89), 90% (95% CI 0.85‐0.93), and 93% (95% CI 0.91‐0.95), respectively. Meta‐regression analysis showed that the detection of miRNAs expression in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and brain tissue largely improved the diagnostic accuracy. Likewise, panels of multiple miRNAs could enhance the pooled sensitivity. Moreover, AUC of miR‐21 was 0.88, with 86% sensitivity and 94% specificity. This study demonstrated that miRNAs could function as potential diagnosis markers in glioma. Detection of miRNAs in CSF and brain tissue displays high accuracy in the diagnosis of glioma.


Thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections (TAAD) affect more than 30,000 Americans annually. One-fifth of TAAD patients have a first-degree relative with the disease, suggesting a genetic component to its pathogenesis. Missense mutations in a number of genes lead to TAAD, including MYH11 ,which encodes the smooth muscle isoform of myosin heavy chain. However, potential genetic contributors in the four-fifths of patients without affected relatives have not been explored. Variants of unknown significance in MYH11 are prevalent in the population, and are enriched in patients with TAAD and other vascular diseases. The goal of this study was to evaluate one of these variants as a potential contributor to TAAD. A knock-in mouse model of the Myh11 R247C rare variant was generated, and these mice survive and reproduce normally. They have no structural abnormalities of the aorta or signs of aortic disease, but do have decreased aortic contractility. Myh11 R247C/R247C mice also have increased neointimal proliferation following carotid ligation and increased proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in vitro. Myh11 R247C/R247C SMCs have decreased contractile gene and protein expression and are dedifferentiated. In fibroblasts, myosin force generation is required for maturation of focal adhesions, and enhancers of RhoA activity replace enhancers of Rac1 activity as maturation occurs. Consistent with these previous findings, adhesions are smaller in Myh11 R247C/R247C SMCs, and there is increased Rac1 and focal adhesion kinase (FAK) activation with decreased RhoA activation. A RhoA activator (CN03) rescues the dedifferentiated phenotype of Myh11 R247C/R247C SMCs, and FAK inhibition reduces proliferation. Since this rare variant occurs in the general population, we sought to determine if it acts as a modifier gene for aortic disease. The Myh11 R247C allele was bred into Acta2 -/- mice, which develop aortic aneurysms, and into Acta2 +/- mice, which do not. In both cases, the presence of the R247C allele increases aortic diameter. These preliminary data suggest that the MYH11 R247C rare variant may be a genetic contributor to TAAD in patients without an inherited mutation, or may affect the clinical presentation of TAAD in patients with Mendelian disease.


Time transfer using television (TV) signal transmitted over microwave link was first demonstrated by Tolman et. al [1] and utilizing that technique they could set the clocks to microsecond accuracy. Similar level of accuracy was also achieved with another timing system via television networks employed Line-10 as a passive time synchronization technique [2]. TV signals through geostationary satellites are also been used for precise time transfer between remote clocks [3]. With the advent of technologies, all analog TV are being replaced with digital ones and developing an easy deployable and accurate time transfer technique utilizing digital TV signal will be extremely useful for many of the applications like estimating clock offset or drift among servers and clocks. In this article we described a very simple and inexpensive method of time transfer based on the digital TV signal from the geostationary satellites. The basic principle of this kind of time transfer is that it identifies a specific part of the digital TV signal as the time marker and every time the marker signals arrive at any particular station, its time of arrival being recorded with respect to the local clock. Consider two such clocks located at two different places (Fig. 1) A and B and recording time of arrival of the marker signal from a commonly viewed geostationary satellite. If $\tau _ { A }$ and $\tau _ { B }$ considered to be the travelling time or delay of the marker signal from the satellite to the position A and B respectively and $T _ { A }$ and $T _ { B }$ to be the local time of arrival of that marker signal. The time offset $\left( \nabla T _ { A B } \right)$ between the two local clocks can be estimated as


This paper proposed a new prediction method to predict customers' arrears by means of multivariable linear regression model and convolutional neural network (CNN) on Hadoop big data platform with mass of customers' power consumption. The proposed method made the association between different type of customers' data and related traits with customers' arrear, and estimated the probability of customers' arrear based on evaluated customers' credit level and prediction of customers' arrear. The application results illustrated that the method is available.1


Despite the work of many gender and information and communication technology (ICT) advocates from different stakeholders around the world, scant reference is made to several critical gender and ICT issues when information society issues are discussed at any level. A fully informed gender perspective should encompass the diversity and specificity of concerns of different sectors of women both in the North and in the South. This chapter seeks to emphasize that the principle of gender mainstreaming should be adopted when discussing women's role in the information society, taking into account their communication rights and their demand for full participation in ICT development more widely. This includes challenging their portrayal in the new media, considering their labour rights in the ICT work market, making radical changes in education policies, ensuring women's participation in science and technology, encouraging their access to decision making and working toward equitable redistribution of available resources in the ICT field. ICTs are one of the fields where gender relations take place, sometimes reinforcing old roles, sometimes changing them, but making us aware that the social and cultural context has an impact in ICT development and use, and that it is not possible to think of new communication technologies as gender neutral. The absence of women's voices and perspectives in the information society also shows us that power relations in the new media replicate in many ways those in conventional media. The globalization of communications produces new challenges and impacts that must be considered in relation to gender equality. Women's access to information sources and communication channels are crucial if they are to attain democratic participation, respect for their human rights and an equal voice in the public sphere. Convinced that ICTs can be an empowering tool for resistance, social mobilization and development in the hands of people and organizations working for freedom and justice, the women's movement has become an active participant in the preparatory process for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Women are struggling to ensure that gender is a cross-cutting principle when discussing ICT policies at all levels, international, regional and local. They encourage democratization of policy processes within the ICT sector, including use of ICT tools to support this process, and to formulate and implement ICT Communicating in the Information Society 12 policy using principles of openness and fair participation. This collective participation in the communications field is also an essential element for women's empowerment.


The innovative artist and smallholder Nikolai Astrup (1880–1928) spent most of his career devoted to portraying variations of his home village of Jølster. The early reception and framing of Astrup's work as 'national' was, by large, a result of the budding national art institutions' efforts towards unifying the diverse regional cultures into a single national identity. This chapter questions to what degree Nikolai Astrup's artistic project adhered to a national agenda. Through the lens of ecocritical art history, Astrup's art can be seen as an expression of proto-ecological sensibilities and a reaction to the environmental changes of his time. His landscape paintings often include humans working on the land, and appear to represent an opposition to the nature-culture dichotomy and the increasing separation between humans and their environment that occurred during Astrup's lifetime. His representation of his surroundings was that of the place-specific, cyclical and particular. In this chapter, these characteristics of Astrup's artistic project are discussed in light of Arne Næss' notion of deep ecology.


The comunitarianist conception of democracy and the education This paper analyzes the communitarianism as a perspective of collective decision to think democraticy in public educational policies and in public school administration. First I present the contractarian conception of democracy as a counterpoint to discuss questions about how communitarianism difine the limits and scope of political education and school as a place of coletive deliberation. What is specificaly focused is how question about identity and difference must


Different kind of organic manure, farmyard manure (FM), chicken manure (CM) and blood meal (8M), was tested during three successive seasons in order to reveal the effects of the applications on the macro nutrient contents of soil under cabbage (Brassica oleracea L.) growth. 17 organic manures and 1 control, collectively 18 treatments, were used in a randomized block design with four replications under the open field conditions. As a result, total nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), magnesium (Mg) and potassium (K) contents were influenced by the treatments to a different extent, while calcium (Ca) contents were less influenced. Evaluating the seasonal mean, P and K contents rose significantly from autumn I to autumn 2 season, but the increase in total N, Ca and Mg contents were found to be statistically insignificant. Consequently, 10.0 ton ha^(-1) FM + 1.2 ton ha^(-2) CM and 1.7 ton ha^(-1) CM + 7.5 ton ha^(-1) FM treatments gave the better results than the others. FM and CM treatments gave the better results than the 8M treatment and we concluded that the 8M should be used in small quantities in mixtures.


This paper describes the design of a fuzzy controlled robot for use in an agricultural environment. This environment comprises of an open, but irregular terrain either supporting crops or sparsely populated with objects. This results in complex problems of identification, monitoring and control. In this paper a fuzzy controller is identified which when used with a novel sensor design can deal with both crop tracking and cutting. The controller was tested on an in-door mobile robot using two ultrasound sensors. The controller showed a good response in-spite of the irregularity of the medium as well as the imprecision in the ultrasound sensors. This Controller will be implemented on both electrical and diesel powered vehicles which can navigate in out-door farm environments.


Abstract Purpose: This paper aims to reveal, and contribute to an understanding of, the processes that connect learning and innovation networks in sustainable agriculture to elements of the mainstream agricultural regime. Drawing on the innovations and transition literature, the paper frames the analysis around niche-regime interaction using the notion of niche-regime compatibility. Design/Methodology/Approach: 17 Learning and Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture (LINSA) engaged in agricultural food production, non-food and rural development were analyzed. In line with the project's transdisciplinary approach data were collected in a series of participatory workshops. Findings: Five modes of LINSA-regime interaction are distinguished based on compatibility. The level of LINSA-regime compatibility influences the extent of the diffusion of LINSA ideas and practices into the regime. However, interaction processes within these modes reveal multiple and diverse connections between LINSA and regime entities suggesting a more complex relationship exists. Practical implications: A range of connecting processes and activities (for example, certification, exemption from regulation, facilitation of networking) can bring about effective LINSA-regime interaction and could be externally supported. Originality/Value: Empirical evidence from 17 case studies provides valuable insights from a number of different contexts across Europe. By directing analysis of interaction at the level of LINSA (niche project), rather than at the macro level, the study offers an original perspective. It suggests that the transition to sustainable agriculture might be understood as a complex of interactive processes leading to a series of adaptive changes, rather than as regime change.


THE issue of the number in which the programme of the ensuing year is sketched, invites us to a brief review of the past and to a peep into the future. The historical retrospect of the year would require more space than can this week easily be allotted to it; but a rapid glance may be cast over the events of the year, before we sketch the outline of the scheme of next year's work. The main medical event of the year has been the fortyfirst annual meeting of the Association, in numbers exceeding two thousand, in the metropolis. Nothing was wanted to make


To the Editor: —Dr. W. W. Keen pleads from the physician's standpoint for the restoration of the army canteen. I submit some facts, and views which are as honestly and earnestly held, but which do not accord with Dr. Keen's position on this important question. Dr. Keen is to be commended for his strong position on social total abstinence, and when he says that he would nail up the doors of every saloon, and put on them a placard, "To rent for some decent business", I am with him heart and soul. But then, with only a semicolon between, he says, "and yet I am in favor of allowing beer to be sold to the soldiers"! Now I am led to believe that the canteen is simply a vicious saloon run by the government. Its results are the same as those of all saloons—drunkenness, disease and crime. It has been


The present invention discloses an ultra-resistant organic solvent type paint baking and its preparation method, which is characterized by containing the following components by weight percentage: 2-10% silver, 15% butyl acetate, fluorine-modified polyester resin 10-40%, 10-20% cellulose, 8-25% phenyl substituted amino resin, low molecular weight epoxy resins 10-20%, 0.5-3% polyurethane curing agent, a crosslinking accelerator acid 0.1-0.5% adhesive agent 0.3-3%, 0.1-2.5% anti-settling agent, leveling agent 0.1-0.7%, 0.2-0.5% anti-sagging agent, 2-5.5% of xylene, 1-5% dibasic ester. Coating of the present invention has a resistance to organic solvent soak, good stability properties, preparation method is simple, low cost.


yet solitary telescopes? Is the utilitarian bent that Buttrica discovers among planetary radar astronomers unique to this community and indeed conditioned by its small science roots, or a tendency shared within the planetary sciences community at large? Buttrica deserves credit for raising these important questions, though this fine first history of planetary radar astronomy does not provide a fully satisfying answer.


Since china's reform and opening door to the outside world, our foreign trade has been enjoying dramatic development. Recent development keeps on a relative stagnant phase. The further development can be achieved through the optimization of exports structure. Exporting expansion of electromechanical products is an important strategy to adjusting and optimizing our mix of exports. Weather it's practical? Does China machinery industry have relative competitiveness? The paper will put forward the detail analysis through relative competitiveness indexes to measure conditions about China machinery industry's relative competitiveness.


Taking the development of technique of an appropriate printing ink for silk-screen printed electrode-plate of electrolytic nickel buttons as objective and employing epoxy resin,amino resin,and castor oil alkyd resin as film forming materials,a mono-component thermosetting printing ink for silk-screen printed electrode-plate of electrolytic nickel buttons was obtained by using a special ground assistants(thixotropic agent,deflocculating agent,and drying agent).It was found by investigation that,in the system of printing ink,when the mass-fraction of the epoxy resin E-44,amino resin, and castor oil alkyd resin was 15%,20%,and 35%,respectively in the overall combined film forming materials and the mass-fraction of the methyl silicon oil (H201) as deflocculating agent,paratoluenesulfonic acid(p-TSA) as catalyzer of curing cross-linkage,and nano-attapulgite asthixotropic agent was 1.5‰,3‰,and 3.5%,respectively in the overall printing ink system,the form and structure of the insulating printing ink layer were compact and uniform,the growth morphology of the nickel buttons was regular,and the quantity of electricity leakage spots on the insulating layer of the electrode-plate was less when the printing ink layer was cured at 150 ℃ for 5 min,so that the electrolytic processing of the nickel buttons was comparatively well adapted to.


Purpose The Swedish government has in its budget proposal to parliament for 2007 announced its intention to submit a White Paper on Swedish relations with Africa. The previous White Paper on this subject, " Africa on the Move " , was submitted in March 1998, a revised and shorter version in 2002. The White Paper is intended as a basis for the formulation of Swedish government policies toward Africa, not only regarding development cooperation but also in trade, security, cultural exchange and other areas of particular Swedish interest. Work commenced in the spring of 2007, a first draft shall be available by 1 November 2007, and final submission is expected by December 2007. The project is being coordinated within the Africa Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The White Paper will highlight new developments in Africa as well as other trends of relevance to Swedish relations with the continent. It will explore how these trends affect Sweden and how Sweden may position itself in relation to them. It will discuss changes of relevance not only to Swedish bilateral relations with Africa but also to Swedish involvement in EU and UN initiatives. Its point of departure will be the existing Swedish policy for global development. The White Paper will focus on Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as a whole and will not describe developments in individual African countries or sub-regions other than for purposes of illustration. Background material for the White Paper will consist of five papers commissioned from external writers by the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, researchers at the Nordic Africa Institute as well as a set of shorter, non-formal thematic papers mostly written within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The five papers cover the following areas: • The " New Africa " • Natural resources – assets and vulnerability • Human resources • Demography • Economic growth This is the first of these five papers written by researchers at the Nordic Africa Institute. Following an introduction with highlights from the current academic debate on changes in Africa, the following sets of issues are reviewed: • Rural poverty, agrarian change and the struggle for resources • Urban dynamics: Poverty, information and transformation • Conflicts, displacement and transformation • Gender, sexuality and HIV/AIDS • Uneven globalization: Trade and regional integration Finally, in a set of concluding remarks a macro-perspective on Africa, outlining global and national dimensions of the various road maps …


Following on from the letter (April 11) about Twitter-obsessed nurses, my colleagues and I thought we could go one step further.


The use of biometrics for security — relying on the uniqueness of your face, fingerprint, or iris — offers the prospect of a world without passwords to remember or identity cards to show. Facial recognition, in particular, is fast, contactless, and able to identify multiple people at the same time. These benefits could smooth movement through passport control or keep a vigilant eye out for known criminals. Yet those same qualities could also enable mass surveillance on an unprecedented scale. It is not too late to impose limits on how facial recognition is used. Unfortunately, it may also be too early.


Scientific disruptions today, or appearing on the surface in a wide variety of scientific integration projects known as Islamization of science, integralization of science, or interconnections create complex problems with the many ideas of integrative education through transformative prophetic education. Various phenomena of the problem then there are two things that become important points that we can make the lens to see the phenomenon of illness of education today. Firstly, Education has no soul in question in education here about re-presenting the mission of religious prophetic values to be presented to the public sphere. Secondly, the existence of human model as role model (uswatun hasanah). In education, especially character education that has become an agreement decision making education of Indonesia must display the human figure in the role model or model that must be imitated as according to the output of character education itself. But it aims to describe the implementation of integration of Islamic education in Islamic educational institutions from the perspective of integration between educational institutions, family and community and prophetic-based with transformative values. This research yields One offer of thinking about alternative education which is expected to reduce deadlock in developing integrative education with standard and figure of really strong and irrefutable model that is Prophet Muhammad Saw and return to activity, feeling, thinking in interpreting Al- Quran and Sunnah.


The chaotic dynamic characteristic of arrhythmia is analyzed and the control and anticontrol of chaos in arrhythmia are presented in this paper. First, t he cardiac chaotic dynamics can be established b ased on the clinical data between heart RR signals using statistical modeling approach. Then, this paper utilizes the advantages of approximation accuracy of artificial neural network to simulate cardiac output between the RR signals. Finally, based on the impulsive differential theory, we put forward a novel chaotic control and anticontrol algorithm to deal with cardiac dynamics model between RR output signals to eliminate cardiac arrhythmias.


Education of honesty for college students is considered as the basic project of constructing the socialist harmonious society.It is the important measure to implement Practice Outline as well as the objective necessity to promote them to grow healthily.Combining with practical situation of carrying out the education of honesty,the author probes the principles and means of honest education.


The geosynchronous Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (gLISA) is a space-based gravitational wave (GW) mission that, for the past 5 years, has been under joint study at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Stanford University; the National Institute for Space Research (I.N.P.E., Brazil); and Space Systems Loral. If flown at the same time as the LISA mission, the two arrays will deliver a joint sensitivity that accounts for the best performance of both missions in their respective parts of the millihertz band. This simultaneous operation will result in an optimally combined sensitivity curve that is ``white'' from about $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{Hz}$ to 1 Hz, making the two antennas capable of detecting, with high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), coalescing black-hole binaries (BHBs) with masses in the range $(10\ensuremath{-}1{0}^{8}){M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$. Their ability of jointly tracking, with enhanced SNR, signals similar to that observed by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (aLIGO) on September 14, 2015 (the GW150914 event) will result in a larger number of observable small-mass binary black holes and an improved precision of the parameters characterizing these sources. Together, LISA, gLISA and aLIGO will cover, with good sensitivity, the $({10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}\ensuremath{-}1{0}^{3})\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{Hz}$ frequency band.


This thesis is an exploration of the visualisation of large data sets in the transcriptional regulatory space. Advances in technology have resulted in large volumes of bioinformatics data, including those relating to interactions between regulatory proteins and target genes. Visualisation is an important step in the scientific workflow, allowing researchers to gain insights and communicate their findings to wider audiences. This study examined the effect of display size, visual encodings and network representations in the context of transcriptional regulation, using a series of user studies to evaluate current approaches and to identify strategies for improved visualisation in this domain.


The recipient of of Thomson Reuters Citation Award 2015, Dr. Rajeev K Varshney, Director, Center of Excellence at Genomics at the ICRISAT, Hyderabad, shares interest development in the areas of genome sequencing. I really feel humbled and honoured to receive research excellence citation Award by Thomson Reuters. I would like to dedicate this award to my PhD students, Postdocs, colleagues and collaborators from ICRISAT as well as all other organizations with whom I got an opportunity to work with on different exciting projects...


The cohesion is the symbol of the life of the party and it is not born with the party. It took shape and advanced during the CPC led the people to struggle and construct. As the guiding ideology, Mao Zedong Thought had acted greatly on it. Exactly under the leading of Mao Zedong Thought, the CPC becomes a great strong party of working class. It has also made the CPC become the core power that coagulates the Chinese nation.


Summary This paper presents a novel procedure to improve the performance of a Wavelet based image compression in terms of entropy. All the subbands of wavelet decomposed image are quantized based on the energy of the subband. The quantized and rounded coefficients in the LL subband are re-ordered in a predetermined manner. A prediction algorithm is used to reduce the entropy (bits/pixel). In addition, an oblivious image watermarking algorithm is proposed using compressed LL subband. The performance of the proposed watermarking algorithm is measured in terms of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Normalized Cross Correlation (NCC). Further, this algorithm is robust for various attacks including JPEG and JPEG2000 compression on watermarked image.


The evolution mechanism of hydrocarbons in ultra-deeply-buried and ultra-old strata is the core issue of petroleum geology moving towards Deep Earth. Reconstructing the evolutionary history of ultra-deeply-buried hydrocarbons is the key to shedding light on deep hydrocarbon accumulation and evolution mechanisms. Furthermore, it can help point out directions for oil and gas exploration in Deep Earth. Anyue gas field in the central Sichuan Basin is the Frontier of deep natural gas exploration in China. This study selected the natural gas reservoirs of the Upper Sinian Dengying Formation in the central Sichuan Basin as the research object. By integrating analysis of natural gas geochemical characteristics, source rock evaluation, reservoir bitumen-source correlation, inclusion analysis, one-dimensional and two-dimensional hydrocarbon accumulation simulations, the generation and evolution of hydrocarbons in different structural regions, namely the inherited paleo-uplift and slope area in central Sichuan Basin, have been dynamically restored and compared. The results show that: 1) The natural gas of the ultra-deeply-buried Sinian Dengying formation in central Sichuan is typical oil-cracking gas from the paleo-oil reservoir. The Sinian gas is mainly sourced from the Qiongzhusi/Maidiping Formation. 2) The formation of Sinian gas reservoirs includes three stages: the formation of paleo-oil-reservoirs; the cracking of paleo-oil-reservoirs into paleo-gas-reservoirs; the adjustment of the paleo-gas-reservoirs. 3) Source rock and reservoir evaluation, quantitative solid bitumen analysis, and hydrocarbon accumulation simulation show that the natural gas accumulation conditions in the slope area are better than in the inherited uplift area. The scale of the paleo-oil-reservoirs in the slope area may be greater than that in the inherited uplift area.


Objective To study the clinical feature of pulmonary tuberculosis complicated by fungi infection in order to improve the recognition and treatment on the coexistence of these two types of diseases. Methods The data of 70 cases of pulmonary tuberculosis complicated by fungi infection were reviewed and analyzed. Results The major clinical feature of pulmonary tuberculosis complicated by fungi infection was as follows: long history of tuberculosis; usually occurred in elder patients and the patients with infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis, and chronic fibrocvaitative pulmonary tuberculosis; extensive lesions and many cavities in lungs; most of them have the evident causes of fungi infection. Their diagnoses depended on the examination of pathogenic organisms. Conclusion The number of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis complicated by fungi infection is increasing and as such the understanding of its clinical feature can improve the level of recognition.


Blind Source Recovery (BSR) is an autonomous (or unsupervised) stochastic adaptation approach that denotes recovering signals from measurements in environments that may include convolution, transients, and even possible nonlinearity. The primary goal of BSR is to recover original source signals, as best as possible, even in the absence of precise environment identifiability. A discrete-time optimization framework for BSR has been adopted based on minimization of the Kullback-Lieblar Divergence, subject to the constraints of a state-space representation, using the Riemannian contra-variant gradient adaptation.
The modeling of the environment and its representation is vital in the proposed framework. The adoption of the state space framework allows for the derivation of more general update laws capable of catering to most known filtering paradigms. For the interesting case of multi-variable linear time-invariant dynamic BSR, parametric update laws for discrete-time canonical feedforward and feedback state space configurations have been derived. Higher Order Statistics have been explored to obtain adaptation algorithms that are purely blind of actual source distributions. The BSR cases of undercomplete and overcomplete mixtures have also been investigated. A new two-stage BSR algebraic algorithm for sparse static overcomplete mixtures has been developed. Further, the BSR framework has been successfully formulated for multi-user detection in modern CDMA wireless communication networks. Promising new results clearly demonstrate the effectiveness and practicality of the formulated approach.
Computer Simulations have been widely conducted during the course of this research to evaluate the performance of all the developed algorithms for a variety of scenarios. In most cases, the performance verification has been done using actual speech and communication data in the presence of noise. In summary the main contributions of this thesis are (1) Info-theoretic update laws for a multi-variable dynamic state space network were investigated. Natural gradient based BSR update laws for the cases of minimum phase and non-minimum phase mixing environments as well as both feedforward and feedback canonical state space configurations were developed and implemented. (2) An exploration and extension of parametric source distribution models and derivation of adaptive score-functions (or non-linearities) for the BSR of sources with multiple source distributions. (3) The development of the Algebraic ICA (AICA) Algorithm, which is a new ICA algorithm for blind, sparse, static mixing matrix recovery. It enables the BSR from overcomplete mixtures of speech and other sparse distributions using a combination of AICA and interior point linear programming (IP-LP) techniques. (4) Development and simulation of new Blind Multi-user Detection algorithms for DS-CDMA and WCDMA wireless communication networks based on the BSR framework.


In this paper, we propose a new adaptive subcarrier allocation for a multiuser two-way OFDMA relay network. In the proposed algorithm, subcarriers are allocated to the user-pairs and relays to maximize the achievable sum-rate over all user-pairs while satisfying the minimum rate requirement for each user-pair. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm improves spectral efficiency and fairness.


Because they are subject to economic but also to environmental and social pressures, transport companies are forced to innovate. These innovations are commonly focused on technologies to improve fuel economy and ultimately transform the energy basis of transport. Our purpose is to focus on non-technological innovations for sustainable transport, i.e., a more environmen-tally and socially friendly transport, in order to provide a taxonomy of trajectories of them, which contribute cost-effectively to this transport. To achieve this objective, first, we base this on a conception of transport not only as a manufacturing industry, but also as a service industry. And, second, we use the data from the European project on transport: CANTIQUE. At the end of our study, we conclude that there is not a single trajectory of non-technological innovation for sustainable transport, but a variety and that each of them has a particular logic.


Wine vinegar is produced in most Mediterranean countriesand extensively used as a condiment, acidifying and foodpreserving agent. Traditional production requires matura-tion in wood for many years to obtain a high acetic degreeand the resulting product is relatively expensive. New tech-nologies are being designed to overcome this difficulty withthe objective of producing vinegars with a similar qualityand at the same time less expensive. These methods ofproduction involve the use of submerged bacterial cultureand a continuous aeration system. Recent research isfocussed in improving yield and quality of the final product.# 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


Medical imaging and clinical diagnostics are complementary to one another since their analysis is typical and contains critical information. The growing volume of data has become one of the biggest challenges, as the acquisition of medical modalities is currently having high resolution from the improved and efficient machines (3 to 7 T or more). Moreover, image and video compression is a need with the consideration that there should not be any gap for losing the important information. Less bitrate requirement with high compression ratio without sacrificing important detail is a challenge these days. The current study, is dealing with the compression of 4D‐functional medical resonance images (fMRI) with a codec, that is, high‐efficient video coding (HEVC/H.265) and its objective analysis along with its predecessor that is advanced video coding (AVC/H.264) and with VP8 (WebM Project of Google) reported here. Further, the bit rate analysis that has been conducted, also accounts in conjunction with the bitrate investigation, which is an imperative perspective vital for the telemedicine field. The simulation results reported here represents the compression ratio (CR = 118.23:1) with HEVC/H.265 codec over the compression ratio (CR = 20.52:1) provided by AVC/H.264 and VP8 (CR = 78.29:1). There has been significant improvement observed in alignment of the peak signal‐to‐noise ratio (APSNR), structural similarity (SSIM), and mean squared error (MSE) metrics. Overall, the performance of the anticipated technique is satisfactory for the forthcoming telemedicine or clinical use.


Humidity control paper board comprising natural polymer derivatives, porous natural minerals, inorganic salts, natural moisturizing material and paper was prepared by simple physical blending and its humidity control properties were tested. The moisture adsorption and desorption rate are 0.82 g/7h.g-1 and 0.71 g/7h.g-1, respectively. The adsorbed moisture amount is 0.85 g/g. It can maintain the relative humidity (RH) range between 50% and 60% within 20 min at 25 °C. Above all, the prepared paper board shows pronounced humidity control properties and the preparation technology is simple, which is feasible for production in large scale.


Profilin1 (Pfn1) belongs to a class of actin‐binding protein cytoskeletal function of which is negatively regulated by its interaction with membrane phosphoinositides (PPI). In stark contrast to most physiological scenarios where loss of Pfn1 significantly impairs normal cell migration and invasion through inhibition of actin polymerization, breast cancer cells exhibit hyper‐migratory phenotype in vitro and enhanced hematogenous dissemination from primary tumor in vivo upon depletion of Pfn1, the underlying mechanism of which is not easily explained by Pfn1's cytoskeletal function. Through knockdown and overexpression studies in multiple cell lines, we show that Pfn1 plays a key role in determining the cellular profile of various PPIs including PI(4,5)P2, PIP3 and PI(3,4)P2 Specifically, Pfn1 promotes PI(4,5)P2 and inhibits membrane accumulation of PI3K‐generated PPIs including PIP3 and PI(3,4)P2, a feature related to Pfn1's PPI interaction. Kinetics of PI3K signaling output suggest that loss of Pfn1 enhances sustenance of PI3K signaling by inhibiting an antagonistic pathway, a finding that correlates to Pfn1‐dependent regulation of PTEN. We establish Pfn1‐dependent alteration of multiple pro‐metastatic cytokines and membrane recruitment of selective PI(3,4)P2‐dependent pro‐migratory protein complexes, the latter in particular linking to hyper‐migratory and hyper‐invasive phenotypes of Pfn1‐deficient breast cancer cells. In summary, these findings establish novel regulation of cell migration by lipid signaling via membrane interaction of actin‐binding protein.


This paper presents an overview of Saudi Arabia's Master Gas System (MGS), specifically the Phase I program. All the source gases, collected from the various fields, are associated with sour crude production. Significant potential corrosion problems arise in the handling and processing of these gases. For this reason, extensive corrosion control programs have been implemented in the very early stage of the program. In this paper, the related corrosion control measures are discussed. Some facilities in the MGS have been in operation for more than two years. Corrosion monitoring data indicates that corrosion has been under good control.


16 Abstract This paper discuss the role of research institutions and technologies for sharing scientific knowledge from research institutions, universities and research groups, to society. Thus, this research can be classified as exploratory bibliographic and documentary. The study demonstrates the importance of research groups and universities to place themselves as disseminators of knowledge, highlighting their roles as developers and decoders of knowledge. In this way, technology has the capacity to change the way institutions create, organize and disseminate their knowledge. For this, the study identified 16 methods or techniques of knowledge management based on information and communication technologies, and more than 40 tools that can fulfill and assist the proposed by these methods. Their main characteristics are the ability to interact and integrate different audiences, recover knowledge and the ability to give visibility to institutions.