Agile software requirements engineering processes enable quick responses to reflect changes in the client's software requirements. However, there are challenges associated with agile requirements engineering processes, which hinder fast, sustainable software development. Research addressing the challenges with available solutions is patchy, diverse and inclusive. In this study, we use a systematic literature review coupled with thematic classification and gap mapping analysis to examine extant solutions against challenges; the typologies/classifications of challenges faced with agile software development in general and specifically in requirements engineering and how the solutions address the challenges. Our study covers the period from 2009 to 2023. Scopus—the largest database for credible academic publications was searched. Using the exclusion criteria to filter the articles, a total of 78 valid papers were selected and reviewed. Following our investigation, we develop a framework that takes a three-dimensional view of agile requirements engineering solutions and suggest an orchestrated approach balancing the focus between the business context, project management and agile techniques. This study contributes to the theoretical frontier of agile software requirement engineering approaches and guidelines for practice.


Extensive active margin, continental slope and upper fan deposits are not commonly preserved in the rock record. The Holz Shale (Ladd Formation, Black Star Canyon, Santa Ana Mountains) represents such a sequence where shale and mudstone strata are dissected by numerous coarse-grained channel-fill deposits. Channels preserve evidence of filling primarily by conglomerate debris flows, high-density turbidites, and classic Bouma low-density turbidites; slumping and traction-current mechanisms were less important. Associated with channels are submarine chutes, pebbly mudstones, and poorly developed levee facies. Interbedded turbidites, contourites, and hemipelagic sediments dominate interchannel strata. Hemipelagic sediments exhibit sedimentologic textures that range from biol gically dominated (homogenous, bioturbated) to physically dominated (fine-scale, planar-laminated, anaerobic) fabrics. This variation in texture and associated diagenetic information indicates that the anaerobic/aerobic boundary was generally at some depth below the sediment-water interface, but at times migrated up into the overlying water column. Foraminiferal assemblages within hemipelagic sediments are dominated by agglutinated forms which indicate deposition at bathyal depths. Macroinvertebrates include (1) the interchannel paleocommunity, dominated by the bivalve Inoceramus and the deposit-feeding trace fossil Chondrites, and (2) the submarine channel paleocommunity, comprised mainly of the trace fossils Thalassinoides and Ophiomorpha. Previous studies have demonstrated that these active margin environments included a narrow continental shelf. Abundance of terrestrial plant material, paucity of displaced shelf faunas, well-rounded conglomerate clasts, and the coarse-grained texture of these deposits suggest that one or more of the Holz Shale submarine channels was receiving sediment directly from terrestrial environments. End_of_Article - Last_Page 458------------


For the sustainable use of building spaces, various methods have been studied to satisfy specific conditions required by the characteristics of space types and the energy use in operation. However, several effective control approaches adopting the latest statistical tools may have problems such as higher control precision increases energy consumption, or lower energy consumption decreases their control precision. This study proposes an optimized model to reach the indoor set-point temperature by controlling the amount of heating supply air and its temperature and investigates the efficiency of an adaptive controller to maintain indoor thermal comfort within setting ranges. In the consistency of the comfort level, the fuzzy logic controller was found to be 1.76% and the artificial neural network controller to be 17.83%, respectively, more efficient than the conventional thermostat. In addition, for energy use efficiency, both of the controllers were confirmed to be over 3.0% more efficient. Consequently, the network-based controller with the adaptive controller checking comfort levels effectively works to improve both energy efficiency and thermal comfort. This improvement can be significant in places such as commercial high-rises, large hospitals, and data centers where many spaces are intensively woven with appropriate thermal environments to maintain users' workability.


Crop evapotranspiration (ET) is an important component of simulation models many practical applications related to the efficient management of crop water supply. Also, the accurate evaluation of evapotranspiration is key to the soil water content. In our study, a spring maize ecosystem located in Jinzhou Station of Agricultural Ecosystem Research (41o 49' N, 121o 12' E) is taken as an example, observational data are generated by using eddy correlation (EC) method, in order to compare the methods for estimating crop ET, including Hargreaves model, Priestley-Taylor model, FAO-Penman-Monteith model, Bowen ratio method, aerodynamics method and process-based physio-ecological model. The data from weather station with the time step of 1 day are used in the Hargreaves model, Priestley-Taylor model and FAO-Penman-Monteith model to calculate daily ET, while vertical gradient data with the time step of 30 minutes are used in the Bowen ratio method and aerodynamics method to calculate daily ET-Performance analyses of these methods show that the modeling results of Hargreaves model, Priestley-Taylor model and FAO-Penman-Monteith model have the same changing trends the observational data, but these models overestimate the crop ET by 20-26%. Among the three methods, Priestley-Taylor model is the best in performance, since it can explain 74% of the variations in daily ET of this maize field. Therefore, Priestley-Taylor model can be applied in the ET calculation with the simple input and can retrieve relatively accurate results. The process-based physio-ecological model is proved to be the optimal model in simulating the crop ET. It can obtain all kinds of simulation results besides ET and be used in mechanism and process analysis between atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems. Meanwhile, this model considers several physical processes and parameters which made it difficult to apply under some conditions. The results indicate that the Bowen ratio method can provide accurate measurement of crop ET when is correctly installed and β value is below 0.4. It is also suggested that observation height and height differences can affect the performance of aerodynamics method greatly. At last, a majority of the site are not ideal conditions, so it can not fully meet the basic assumption of eddy covariance technique for the flux measurement, and result in some uncertainties in the flux measurement. It is made clear that the differences between the observational data and the modeling results are conditional, but not absolute.


The academics of higher education are required to write scientific papers in reputable international journals, which they find challenging in terms of English language skills and the lack of research skills, low literacy skills, and skills in accessing references. Thus, this study aims at exploring the framework for improving academics' literacy competence for scientific publication activities. Action Research was employed as a design by involving 24 doctoral program students at one campus in West Java Province, Indonesia, who were lecturers at four universities in Indonesia. This research resulted in 7 stages as a critical reflection step in improving literacy competence. The seven stages are summarized in the acronym LITERAT as an extension of Literacy, Investigation, Writing Techniques, Exploration, Reflection, Actualization and Translating. This study concludes that these seven steps proved that 87% of academics' literacy competences have increased. This study contributes by providing guidance for academics in improving literacy competence and boosting the number of scientific publications of each university as a manifestation of a country's pride in the form of diplomacy portrayed in the quality of education and science.


: The aim of the present study was to examine the potential ameliorative effects of biostimulant application on lettuce plants grown under deficit irrigation conditions. For this purpose, we evaluated the effect of five biostimulant products with varied composition (e.g., seaweed ex-tracts+macronutrients+amino acids (SW); humic+fulvic acids (HF); Si + Ca (SiC); Si (Si); vegetable proteins+amino acids (VP)) and the control treatment (no biostimulant added (NB)) on field grown lettuce plants ( Lactuca sativa L.: Romaine type cv. Doris) under deficit irrigation conditions (Control treatment: rain-fed plants; I1: 50% of field capacity; I2: 100% of field capacity). The growth parameters tested were plant weight (aerial part), number of leaves, fresh and dry weight of leaves, plant height, leaf area index (LAI) and specific leaf area (SLA), and SPAD index. Our results indicate that the biostimulant with seaweed extracts+macronutrients+amino acids (SW) combined with deficient irrigation (I1) presented the highest values in terms of plant weight, leaf weight, LAI as well as the chlorophyll content in lettuce plants. According to SPAD values, the biostimulants treatments performed higher values of chlorophyll in the case of rain-fed plants compared to those that were fully irrigated (I2). Also, the Si treatment presented the higher plant height under deficit irrigation (I1) as also the greatest number of leaves. In general, all biostimulants showed a better response to deficit irrigation and to rain-fed plants compared to those with full irrigation in almost all measurements.


Abstract Dissolved oxygen (DO) control in the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) has been the most critical factor in terms of improving the wastewater treatment efficiency and energy saving. However, the result of DO control with simple PID controller is not satisfactory since the dynamics of DO show some time-varying and nonlinear characteristics. The objectives of this study are as follows. First aim is to apply and compare some process identification methods of PID autotuning for stable DO control in a real coke WWTP. Second, a simple algorithm for the supervisory control of set point decision is proposed to decide a proper DO set point for the current operation condition of the aeration basin by estimating the respiration rate simultaneously during process identification step. The key idea in this method is that the DO set point is proportional to the respiration rate, which is the indicator of the biologically degradable load. In the experimental results, process identification methods have been practiced and compared at the modeling and control performance and supervisory control reduced the aeration cost in the full-scale WWTP.


Fixed WiMAX is leading broadband wireless technology which provides broadband access to Internet for multiple users by using one or more base stations. As it is relatively new technology, there is very limited number of papers and published literature on this subject which are dealing with planning issues and giving a precise evaluation of economic feasibility for implementing WiMAX on specific area. Papers in question are dealing mostly with coverage planning or traffic planning. This approach does not give the possibility to answer a question regarding the economic feasibility of implementing the system itself, because it concerns planning the network in order to plan coverage or to respond to traffic demands. In this paper we give a proposition for the methodology that considers all relevant parameters, and provides a proposition for the network architecture in the way that both user demands are fulfilled: demands for the coverage on specific areas as well as the traffic demands. Methodology that is presented in this paper has been applied for the planning of a specific network in the chosen area in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it provided estimation for the investment necessary for the system, as well as the evaluation of revenue possibly generated by the users if proposed services are used. This provides evaluation of the economic feasibility of implementation for fixed WiMAX network in specific area.


Woven smart textiles are useful in creating flexible electronics because they integrate circuitry into the structure of the fabric itself. However, there do not yet exist tools that support the specific needs of smart textiles weavers. This paper describes the process and development of AdaCAD, an application for composing smart textile weave drafts. By augmenting traditional weaving drafts, AdaCAD allows weavers to design woven structures and circuitry in tandem and offers specific support for common smart textiles techniques. We describe these techniques, how our tool supports them alongside feedback from smart textiles weavers. We conclude with a reflection on smart textiles practice more broadly and suggest that the metaphor of coproduction can be fruitful in creating effective tools and envisioning future applications in this space.


Abstract : This report documents the procedures for data cleaning and imputation for the 1993 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Employer Health Insurance Survey. The survey was conducted in 10 states to provide state-level data on the employment-based health insurance market. RAND designed the survey under a grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Initiatives in Health Care Reform program.


Fruit and vegetable flour composite composition and preparation method and applications of the present invention is disclosed having a therapeutic health benefits. The vegetable flour composite composition, comprising the following parts by weight of the raw material: 85 to 99 parts of rice, cabbage powder 1 to 10 parts, other vegetable powders and / or fruit powder, 0.1 to 5 parts. The present invention is a composite composition vegetable flour, drug employed Edible, natural and safe; people widely applicable, can be complex depending on the population, after processing, to produce a different therapeutic health benefits, for different populations composite fruit and vegetable rice flour composition; nutritionally balanced comprehensive, nutrition structure is reasonable, proven, good conditioning and prevention of oral ulcers, stomach and stomach, and enhance immunity laxative effect; pure taste delicate, can be very good to make up for the traditional rice nutrients and more single color defects, to meet consumer demand for taste, flavor and nutrition.


Propagation of modulated radiation from a platform is substantially limitedo unidirectional transmission through a body of water. Acoustical energy is generated at the surface of a remote object submerged in the water in response to impingement and absorption of the modulated radiation from the platform. Radiation of the acoustical energy generated adjacent the object is detected at the platform to extract data therefrom from which the location of the object relative to the platform is indicated.


The university's scien-tech garden is an important carrier of production,teaching,research cooperation.It plays an important role to accelerate university's scientific and technical result into productivity,promote production,teaching,research to tombine together.strengthen the self-development ability of the university,raise the efficiency in school management.As everyone knows Silicon Valley of USA is the successful model of the scien-tech garden of university.The text plans to analyse from the relation between Stanford University and Silicon Valley,comparing with the actual method of production,teaching,research cooperation in the university of our country,draws some references in the industrialization process of new and high technology.


(57) Abstract: The present invention of the general formula (I) of the drug which comprises, as either or active ingredient salts thereof with inorganic or organic acids of at least one compound or a stereoisomer, a new formula (I) derivatives, their stereoisomers, relates salts and their preparation and their inorganic or organic acids. In the general formula (I), Rc Or represents It represents a hydrogen atom. [Formula 1]


Design objects in CAD applications have versions and participate in the construction of other more complex design objects. The author describes data model aspects of an experimental database system for CAD applications called Pegasus. The model is based on previously published work on extensible and object-oriented database systems. The novel idea of Pegasus is the reconciliation of two subtyping (inheritance) mechanisms: the first, called refinement, is based on the usual semantics of schema copying; the second, called extension, is based on the inheritance semantics between prototypes and their extensions. The author uses these modeling elements to show how generic and version objects as well as component occurrences of (generic or version) components can be modeled.<<ETX>>


The boundary inverse heat conduction problem (BIHCP) deals with the determination of the surface heat flux or the surface temperature from measured transient temperatures inside a conducting body where the initial temperature is known. This work addresses a BIHCP related to the spatiotemporal heat conduction in a large slab when a time-variable heat flux is prescribed at an exposed surface and the other surface is thermally insulated. Two different heating waveforms are studied: a constant heat flux and a time-dependent triangular heat flux. The numerical temperature-time history at the insulated surface of the large slab provides the "temperature-time measurement" with one temperature sensor. Framed in the theory of the method of lines (MOL) first and employing rudimentary concepts of numerical differentiation later, the main objective of this paper is to develop a simple computational methodology to estimate the temporal evolution of temperature at the exposed surface of the large slab receiving the two distinct heat fluxes. In the end, it is confirmed that excellent predictions of the surface temperatures versus time are achievable for the two cases tested while employing the smallest possible system of two heat conduction differential equations of first-order. DOI: 10.1115/1.2993141


The spectrum of a charged particle coupled to Aharonov-Bohm/anyon gauge fields displays a nonanalytic behavior in the coupling constant. Within perturbation theory, this gives rise to certain singularities which can be handled by adding a repulsive contact term to the Hamiltonian. We discuss the case of smeared flux tubes with an arbitrary profile and show that the contact term can be interpreted as the coupling of a magnetic moment spinlike degree of freedom to the magnetic field inside the flux tube. We also clarify the ansatz for the redefinition of the wave function.


This is the final report of a one-year Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). This project provided a detailed systems design for advanced integrated facility monitoring and identified the components and enabling technologies required to facilitate the development of the monitoring system of the future.


Abstract A critique, originally circulated 15 years ago, of the use of evidence in guidelines concerning rest in low-back pain, is reproduced. The conceptual background against which evidence was considered is discussed with the suggestion that attempts to reconcile data and concept resulted in advice on treatment which is now being questioned. It is necessary to be vigilant lest expectations of evidence unduly influence its assessment.


Halleck would not hear me about the matter for fear he would ... be suspicioned of having acted in the suggestion of a Volunteer. In the hands of such selfish, biggot ed, supercellious, incompetent West Pointers, the destiny of our Great Country has been mistakenly placed and the lives of a million volunteers staked and 200,000 use lessly sacrificed. I have no faith . . . [that] the war will end in five years if the direc tion of our armies is left with Halleck and McClellan but if put in the hands of good volunteer officers it will be ended in 90 days ... I consider West Point next to slav ery the great bane of our country.1


In this paper, based on remote control and local control strategy, a class of hybrid multi-rate control models with uncertainties and multiple time-varying delays is formulated and their robust stability properties are investigated. By Lyapunov-Krasovskii functions and apply it to a descriptor model transformation, some new criteria of robust stability for such Internet-based control systems are established. Numerical example and simulation are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results


Nowadays, Supply Chain Management is seen as a strategic management instrument in order to gain and sustain competitive advantage. Coordination of value-added activities along the value chain is critical to the efficiency and the adaptability of international operations. New information and communication technologies have substantially changed the way value chains are designed and managed. Enterprise resource planning systems in multi-tier value networks are facing major challenges. Many existing solutions neglect feedback mechanisms and operate on the assumption of isolated supply chains. However, there might be obstacles to successful business usage even in intra-enterprise planning via production plants. Decentralized planning is an innovative approach which grounds on consensus-like agreements between equal partners, through communicative, negotiation-like processes. Thus research activities are aiming at developing appropriate coordination mechanisms for decision making in tactical operations planning between independent supply chain partners. These mechanisms are supposed to enable them to draw up consistent plans.


Shot peening is widely used to improve the fatigue properties of cyclically loaded mechanical components. The benefits of the treatment, which are mainly due to the compressive residual stress field induced in the surface layers of material, depend on the correct choice of the peening parameters. However, many times the choice of the treatment parameters is made by following empirical considerations, that do not make it possible, for the particular mechanical application, to set the most important factors at their best levels. So, an appropriate procedure, suitable for the different applications, would be necessary to optimise the treatment parameters and to address the choice of their best levels. 'Design of Experiment' (DOE) was applied to the results obtained from the numerical simulation of shot peening (impact of one or more spheres on an infinite smooth steel target), and permitted a choice to be made of the best levels of the treatment parameters in a cheap and fast way.


Abdullah al-Sayrafi is one of the most distinguished calligraphers of the 8th and 9th H/14th and 15th AC centuries who followed the way of Yaqut al-Musta'simi (d. 698H/1298AC) and helped spreading it in the eastern part of the Islamic world. His way of writing was adopted by Sheikh Hamdullah al-Amasi (d. 926H/1520AC); the head calligrapher of the Ottoman school of calligraphy which is considered the most mature and popular at the present time.
We know not much about the life of al-Sayrafi same as for most of the 8th century calligraphers particularly those who were known as 'the six masters'. Nevertheless, the few and rare manuscripts written by him are obvious evidences on his high mastership.
This paper presents a comprehensive study of the life and works of al-Sayrafi through what calligraphy references have offered of information with an attempt to list down what remains of his writings. It analyses his way in writing naskh script which he mastered the most through presenting detailed samples of his unique manuscript which have recently appeared in some private collections. It includes an index for the form of the individual letters in naskh script which were extracted from the manuscript.


The relevance of an alternative epistemology: a first hypothesis This article aims to show the validity of an alternative epistemological approach to that of health psychology in understanding autism. Such an alternative approach has led us to conclusions which limitations of space oblige us to present in the form of heuristic hypotheses, and which we intend to develop further in future publications.


Coulomb-bound electron-hole pairs (excitons) dominate the optical response of atomically-thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) semiconductors. The photoluminescence spectrum in W-based TMDs monolayers (i.e. WS2 and WSe2) at low temperature exhibits much richer features than Mo-based TMDs monolayers, whose origin is currently not well understood. Herein, by using near-resonant photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy, we probe the scattering events between excitons and phonons with large kˆ-momentum, which provides strong evidence for the momentum-indirect nature of the optical bandgap in monolayer WS2. The scattering between carriers and zone-edge phonons creates excitons at different valleys, among which, the lowest-energy is momentum-indirect. Our findings highlight that more efforts are required to solve the current debate on the inherent bandgap nature of TMD monolayers and the complex photoluminescence spectrum reported on W-based compounds.


A novel procedure for detecting linkage disequilibrium is proposed which has only one degree of freedom irrespective of the number of alleles at the marker locus under consideration. In this test, all marker allele frequencies are determined as a function of the true marker allele frequencies, the recombination fraction between marker and disease, and the number of generations since an initial disease mutation was introduced into the population. Under the restrictive assumption of one initial founder mutation occuring in the population under study, it is possible to predict the marker allele frequency in the case sample as follows: p{sub n}=p{sub n{minus}1}(1-{theta}) + q{sub n{minus}1}{theta}, where p{sub n} is the frequency in the case sample of the allele in generation n, and q{sub n} is the frequency of said marker allele in the control sample. Then a test of linkage disequilibrium can be parametrized as a function of {theta} using a {open_quotes}LOD{close_quotes} score statistic as log{sub 10}[L({theta})/L({theta}=0.5)], where the allele frequencies in generation 0, and the number of generations since introduction of the allele to the population are treated as nuisance parameters and estimated separately in numerator and denominator, thus leaving us with a test statistic on one df, irrespective ofmore » the number of alleles at the marker locus. While the assumptions are often not reasonable, violations of said assumptions will simply have the effect of making the test less powerful. Still, the test is consistently more powerful than the standard 2 x n table chi-square test of association for multi-allelic marker systems. Multiple founders, non-zero mutation rates, and an extension to multipoint association tests are under development.« less


One of the recent news threads to have emerged in the mainstream media coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is the spate of home-grown terrorists--Americans who have attempted to or succeeded in perpetrating violence against the United States and its citizens. Unfortunately, this coverage has been particularly critical of the Muslim faith, as if the religion itself is conducive to fostering terrorists. Islam has emerged as a popular scapegoat for other larger, systemic problems that underlie the recent crop of home-grown terrorists. Additionally, the recent spate of home-grown terrorists is not the first instance in recent history where America has been targeted by its own citizens. In 1993, David Koresh led his Branch Davidian followers in a standoff against the FBI which resulted in the deaths of eighty-two people in Waco, Texas. Koresh thought of himself as a prophet, believing he was doing God's work by establishing a camp in Palestine, Texas, where he lived with his followers. He, too, experienced visions and felt himself to be God's tool in implementing the Davidic kingdom in Jerusalem. Meant to coincide with the two-year anniversary of the Waco Siege, Timothy McVeigh perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest incident of terrorism on U.S. soil pre-9/11 (168 people died and approximately 700 injured). Although McVeigh was not a religious figure in his community, his obsession with firearms became his own religion. But it was the 1999 Columbine High School massacre that left an indelible imprint on my memory. I'll never forget watching the constant news coverage of the incident from the safe confines of my dormitory room. Ironically, I was living in Manhattan's East Village, not far from Tompkins Square Park and Alphabet City, neighbourhoods known as the seedy underbelly of Manhattan, yet I was safer than the teachers and children in a public school in suburban Colorado. What is striking about the massacre is that although it spurred a nationwide debate about gun control, no one connected the anti-social behaviour shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold expressed in their website and blog with the anti-social narcissism, loneliness and isolation which characterise Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh's biographies. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, like McVeigh, were not religious teenagers, yet they worshipped anarchy and scoffed at their local community's conventional social mores. We can see two major themes emerge from briefly recounting the above-mentioned incidents of terrorism on U.S. soil: that God, whether the Baptist or any other Christian faith's vision of Him, can be misappropriated as a motive behind widespread violence. And that human psychology, particularly in the forms of emotional distress and mental disorders, is a powerful lens with which to distort religious teachings and one's world view. Not coincidentally, present-day home-grown terrorists are men as young as the Columbine shooters or as established in their community as Koresh. Tarek Mehanna sounds eerily like the Muslim version of a Columbine shooter: twenty-seven years old and guilty of planning an attack in a large public space (this time a mall rather than a school) and sharing the same angst against the U.S. government McVeigh expressed. The "Washington Post" recently reported the aggressive and successful recruitment of Somali-American men by al-Qaeda that has come to light after a truck bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, a terrorist incident in which Americans are suspected of participating. These radicalised youth who are training in al-Qaeda camps receive the support and community they seek while being appreciated for their American nationality and passports. …


Microcrystalline silicon carbide (μc-SiC:H) deposited by hot wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) provide advantageous opto-electronic properties, making it attractive as a window layer material in silicon thin-film and silicon heterojunction solar cells. However, it is still not clear which electrical transport mechanisms yield dark conductivities up to 10−3 S/cm without the active use of any doping gas and how the transport mechanisms are related to the morphology of μc-SiC:H. To investigate these open questions systematically, we investigated HWCVD and PECVD grown layers that provide a very extensive range of dark conductivity values from 10−12 S/cm to 10−3 S/cm. We found out by secondary ion mass spectrometry measurements that no direct correlation exists between oxygen or nitrogen concentrations and high dark conductivity σd, high charge carrier density n, and low activation energy Ea. Higher σd seems to rise from lower hydrogen concentrations o...


To understand what conditions make democracies stable or unstable, effective or ineffective, Professor Eckstein examines the stability and effectiveness of Norwegian democracy. He finds them both to be high. He then examines several theories derived from the study of other democracies or from comparative studies of other democratic and nondemocratic societies. Virtually all present an inadequate explanation of the Norwegian case, because the political divisions in Norway are the kind usually associated with instability and ineffectiveness of democratic rule. The author explains, however, that a profound sense of community exists despite the political cleavages.Originally published in 1975.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Article history: Received October 28, 2013 Received in revised format 25 November 2013 Accepted 15 January 2014 Available online January 18 2014 Brand plays essential role on the success of most organizations and it has been considered as organizational assets. Therefore, brand management is important in today's structure of organizations. A good brand helps gain new customer and future preferences, which leads to customer retention. Brand loyalty is one of the most important components of brand management. It can raise firm's market share and it has close relationship with firm's return of investment and profits. This research tries to answer this question and finds out more about the relationship between customer satisfaction, trust, brand equity, brand image and customer loyalty. The study uses a sample of 384 regular customers who use insurance services in Iran. Using Pearson correlation ratio as well as structural equation modeling, the study has detected positive and meaningful relationship between brand equity and other factors such as customer satisfaction, trust, etc. © 2014 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


By the work of Thurston, any surgery on a hyperbolic knot in the 3-sphere produces a hyperbolic 3-manifold except in at most finitely many cases. So far, the figure-8 knot seems to be the best candidate for a hyperbolic knot with the most (8) non-trivial exceptional surgeries. In recent years, much progress has been made in the classification of hyperbolic knots admitting more than one exceptional toroidal surgery. In fact, such classification is known for toroidal surgeries with distance at least 4. We give a classification of hyperbolic knots in S admitting two toroidal surgeries at distance 3, whose slopes are represented by twice punctured essential separating tori. Such knots belong to a family K(a, b, n), where a, b, n are integers and gcd(a, b) = 1.


We have previously shown that TNF‐α inhibition slowed the progression of hypertension and renal damage in salt‐sensitive hypertension. Thus, we hypothesize that TNF‐α contributes to renal injury in DOCA‐salt rats. Four groups of rats (n=5–6) were studied for 3 weeks with the following treatments 1) placebo, 2) placebo + TNF‐α inhibitor, etanercept (1.25 mg/kg/day, sc), 3) DOCA‐salt, or 4) DOCA‐salt + etanercept. Mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) measured by telemetry increased in DOCA‐salt rats compared to baseline (177±4 vs. 107±3 mmHg) and TNF‐α inhibition had no effect in the elevation in MAP in these rats (177±8 mmHg). Urinary protein excretion significantly increased in DOCA‐salt rats compared to placebo (703±76 vs. 198±5 mg/day, respectively); etanercept attenuated proteinuria in DOCA‐salt rats (514±64 mg/day). Urinary albumin excretion followed a similar pattern in each group. Urinary MCP‐1 and ET‐1 excretion were also increased in DOCA‐salt rats compared to placebo (MCP‐1: 939±104 vs. 43±7 ng/day, and ET‐1: 3.30±0.29 vs. 1.07±0.03 fmol/day, respectively); TNF‐α inhibition decreased both MCP‐1 and ET‐1 excretion (409±138 ng/day and 2.42±0.22 fmol/day, respectively). Renal cortical expression of ICAM‐1, NFκB, TGFβ, and TNF‐α mRNA increased in DOCA‐salt rats and etanercept reduced these changes. These data support the hypothesis that TNF‐α contributes to the increase in renal injury in DOCA‐salt rats, possibly through increased renal ET‐1 production.


Hospital Inpatient Tracking System using RFID technology is a web application developed for the medical personnel (doctors and nurses) to track the movements of the inpatients in the accident and emergency department of government hospitals. RFID reader fixed in each of the rooms will detect the patient who is wearing the registered tag when enter and leave from the room. It is designed to solve the problems of long queues, overcrowding, delayed treatments, and insufficient beds for patients. Tracking process is taken to track all of the registered patient. At the same time, duration of patient process in each of the room will be recorded and calculated to get the range of processing time in each of the room. It can be used as reference and solving the bottlenecks that faced by hospitals. All the medical personnel need to register and approved by system administrator before accessible to the system.


A quad‐band (0.8, 1.7, 2, and 1.4 GHz) wideband code division multiple access (W‐CDMA) transceiver, which uses a divide‐by‐2.5 frequency divider in local parts of a direct‐conversion architecture, has been developed. Using the fractional‐2.5 frequency divider reduces the fractional bandwidth of the voltage‐controlled oscillator and avoids injection locking of the local RF synthesizer perfectly. This transceiver achieved 3% error‐vector magnitude and—46 dB ACLR, which satisfy the margin given in standard specifications. © 2012 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


Teaching computer programming activities in the lectures is expected to make room for the students to perform the test based on the theory that gained. However, in practice is still not able to give the expected output. This is due to less integration of activities of the teaching is done. Based on these problems then conducted in this research is the fix module system and teaching computer programming for long.
The method is a new method of CDIO has the goal to increase the role of the student in resolving issues in an active and integrated. This method consists of 4 stages that must be undertaken, namely Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate. Furthermore, based on the application of the method of CDIO then performed repairs on modules and teaching computer programming scenarios.
The results of the improvements obtained based on application of methods of teaching computer programming on the CDIO is the achievement of competence and the expected output. From the results of the analysis of the questionnaire with Likert scale data processing using the acquired positive results (scale of ' good ') by applying the method of CDIO. The average value obtained is above 740 points and in the percentage of approvals were in the range of 74%.

Keywords: CDIO, Competence , Module, Practicum


Carrot (Daucus carota L. subsp. sativus), of the Apiaceae family, is grown worldwide. Diseases affecting carrot production in Korea include black root rot, damping-off, leaf blight, powdery mildew and leaf spot (Agrios, 2005; The Korean Society of Plant Pathology, 2009). Wilts, vascular discoloration or brown streaks in the taproot, were observed on carrots cultivated in fields in Daejeo and Busan, Korea (Fig. 1). 0.17 ha were represented by the surveyed areas. The disease incidence reached approximately 40% in the surveyed areas in July 2008. The causual fungus was isolated on potato dextrose agar (PDA) from diseased carrots. A total of 10 isolates were obtained from roots in one farmer's field. Colonies with light-purple mycelia developed after 5 days of incubation at 25 oC (Fig. 2A). The optimum temperature for fungus growth ranged from 25 oC to 28 oC. Abundant microconidia, macroconidia, and chlamydospores developed on water agar (WA) (Fig. 2). The microconidia were small, colorless, one-celled, and oval to elliptical in shape (8.0− 9.4 × 3.2−3.8 μm). The macroconidia were three-to-five-celled, and gradually pointed or curved toward the ends (28.8−44.8 × 3.7− 5.2 μm) (Fig. 2B). The chlamydospores (4.79−10.88 × 4.53−10.98 μm) are formed singly when grown on water agar. The morphological characteristics of the causal fungus examined agree with records for Fusarium oxysporum described by Nelson et al. (1984). To confirm identification of the pathogen, the translation elongation factor 1α (EF-1) and mitochondrial small-subunit (mtSSU) ribosomal DNA (rDNA) were partially sequenced (O'Donnell K et al., 2004). Amplification of the EF-1α region generated a sequence of 651 bp; the mtSSU amplicon was 677 bp. The EF-1α sequence was 100% similar to the sequence of a F. oxysporum strain (GenBank Accession No. HM347117). The mtSSU sequence was 100% similar to the sequence of a F. oxysporum strain (GeneBank Accession No. HQ114275). To confirm the pathogenicity of the casual fungus, 30-day old carrots were artificially inoculated with a representative isolate. Two isolates were used for the pathogenicity tests to the host plants. Carrot roots were dipped into conidial suspension (106 conidia per ml) of the causal fungus for 15 min. Then, the inoculated plants were transplanted into plastic pots containing sterilized bed soil and maintained at 25 oC and 90% relative humidity in a growth chamber with a daily 12-hr photoperiod of fluorescent light. The pathogenicity test was conducted twice. After a 30-day of incubation, all of the artificially inoculated carrot plants had wilted and the fungal symptoms were reproduced. No symptoms were observed on plants dipped in distilled water. The fungus was successfully re-isolated to prove Koch's postulates. Based on morphological and pathogenicity approaches, the isolated pathogen was identified as Fusarium oxysporum. Fusarium dry rot of carrot caused by Fusarium spp. has been previously reported in Korea, but Fusarium wilt caused by F. oxysporum has not been recorded yet (The Korean Society of Plant Pathology, 2009). To our knowledge, this is the first report of the occurrence of carrot Fusarium wilt caused by F. oxysporum in Korea.


The word 'landscape' was often understood in the Chinese context as 'mountains and water' within the scope of traditional garden making. As a result of this tradition, landscape architects first emerging in eariy twentieth century China concerned themselves especially with the design of gardens and parks. This situation remained almost unchanged during the radical socialist revolution, which resulted in the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 that was led by Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976). During the Mao era (1949-1979), the impact of the Chinese communist ideology on landscape was far-ranging and ground breaking. Besides extensive development of public parks for socialist education as well as recreational purposes, cities were reshaped with large housing areas created for workers - the proletariats, and urban squares playing a crucial role in exhibiting political power, while the countryside was reshaped from a hierarchical landscape with an exploitative nature to an egalitarian one, where the broad masses were to benefit from improvements.


This paper reports the proceedings of a one-day Conference organized jointly by the Institute of British Geographers, the Royal Geographical Society and the Social Science Research Council. The purpose of the Conference was to identify specific problems in the field of urban systems research, with a view to stimulating research activities by geographers. As reported here, a considerable num? ber of topics came to light and it is evident that a large amount of very important work both urgently needs to be done and is feasible.


A small round box of bamboo (8 by 6 inches) was bought nine years ago in Hong Kong, China, and brought home to Boston. It was placed on a little shelf on the wall, and used for Turkish tobacco. The box was lined inside with a perfectly closing box made of East Indian block-tin, about a millimetre thick. I examined the box January, 1885, and found it hollowed throughout like a sieve, and containing between the tin box and the bamboo cover a large number of dead and living beetles and two living larvæ. The tin box had four small round holes apparently cut through by the insects. The beetles represented two species, one, a little larger, only two specimens, all the others belonging to the second specres.


This paper presents the application of three non-destructive techniques in the study of an agricultural area on the west coast of Peloponnese, Greece. The applied methods include (a) electromagnetic geophysical research using a handheld EM profiler (EMP-400 GSSI), (b) computed tomography (CT) with coring data, and (c) X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) scanning. As electrical conductivity is mainly influenced by the bulk soil, including water content, clay content and mineralogy, organic matter, and bulk density, a comparison of the three applied techniques indicates the same soil stratification and same soil properties with depth. Moreover, the ground-truthing by the undisturbed soil and sediments core retrieved in the centre of the site as well as the laboratory analyses of soil and sediment properties confirm the reliability of the geophysical research and the revealed soil/sediment stratification.


They did not seem to be in a position to help the other body. Yet, on October 10, 2002, members of the House Judiciary Committee listened to witnesses discuss how the Senate could be more efficient. In 2003, Senate committees heard similar testimony. During the hearings, eminent law professors suggested that the practice of allowing filibusters on judicial nominees could not be imposed by previous Senates on the current one. It, therefore, would be within the power of the 51 Republican Senators to uphold a point of order against the filibuster and proceed to govern by majority rule (Kmiec 2003). In Washington, this course of action is called the "nuclear option." Although the informal use of the nuclear option has several variations, each variation has a common underlying feature that can be formally defined. The nuclear option is a dramatic refusal to recognize delaying tactics permitted under the rules that facilitates the institutionalization of majoritarian procedures in a legislative body. Occurring in legislatures such as the 1881 British House of Commons, the use of the nuclear option can be a watershed event wherever the majority lacks an unassailable way to end debate.


A phosphorescent white organic light-emitting device (WOLEDTM) with 14% etaege at 1,000 cd/m2 (25% EQE with outcoupling enhancements), CIE coordinates (0.46plusmn0.01, 0.46plusmn0.01) and a 50% lifetime 21,000 hours at an initial luminance of 1,000 cd/m2 has been demonstrated.


Although the hematology of healthy elephants has been well-described, published information on hematological changes during disease is limited. The objective of this study was to describe qualitative morphological changes in the leukocytes of Asian and African elephants (Elephas maximus and Loxodonta africana) diagnosed with a variety of inflammatory conditions. Twenty-five of 27 elephants had morphological changes in their leukocytes, although only 16 of these had a concurrent inflammatory leukogram. Morphological changes included heterophil left-shifting with or without concurrent dysgranulopoiesis, toxicity, or hypersegmentation, reactive lymphocytes, plasma cells, and/or vacuolated monocytes. Although the observed leukocyte morphological changes are non-specific, their early recognition upon blood film evaluation may provide important, clinically-relevant information, particularly if the leukogram is normal. This case series is the first description of qualitative morphological changes in the leukocytes of elephants in association with inflammation.


LOKSIM2 is a discrete event simulation model developed to analyze the capacity and delay characteristics of single locks on the U.S. inland waterways. Extending previous single-lock simulation techniques. LOKSIM2 features a highly detailed representation of the components of the locking cycle. The model is directly compatible with data provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Performance Monitoring System. A preprocessor model, TOWLST1, generates tow traffic inputs so as to match distributions of underlying tow characteristics. The output from LOKSIM2 is used to estimate the parameters of a lock delay function. Delay functions obtained for various lock physical and operating conditions can be used to analyze proposed lock improvements. (Author)


The purpose of this study was to compare skeletal maturity index and dental developmental stages based on skeletal malocclusion. A total of 192 patients (89 male and 103 female) between 6 to 14 years old were selected for this study and underwent cephalograms, panorama radiographs, and hand-wrist radiographs. Any syndromic cases were excluded. Selected clinical parameters were dichotomised for statistical analysis. Chi-square, logistic regression analysis, and independent t-tests were used for the statistical evaluation. Canine, first molar, and second molar calcification were significantly associated with skeletal maturity in the logistic regression model ( p < 0.05). In addition, patients who had higher skeletal maturity index were 11.43 times more likely to be female than those who had lower skeletal maturity index (p < 0.001). The patients with skeletal class II malocclusion displayed significantly higher dental developmental stage in canines, first premolars, first molars, and second molars than the patients with class III malocclusion (p < 0.05). The dental developmental stage of the patients was significantly associated with skeletal maturity. In addition, there was a significant difference between class II and class III malocclusion with some types of tooth calcification.


In this paper, we propose an approach to detect and geotag advertisement billboard in real-time condition. Our approach is using AlexNet's Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) as a pre-trained neural network with 1000 categories for image classification. To improve the performance of the pre-trained neural network, we retrain the network by adding more advertisement billboard images using inductive transfer learning approach. Then, we fine-tuned the output layer into advertisement billboard related categories. Furthermore, the detected advertisement billboard images will be geotagged by inserting Exif metadata into the image file. Experimental results show that the approach achieves 92.7% training accuracy for advertisement billboard detection, while for overall testing results it will give 71,86% testing accuracy.


This thesis makes two related arguments regarding the academic field of migration and refugee studies (MARS) and the control of migration by UK state agencies. The first, and more empirical one, is that the former facilitated the latter: the field's members provided symbolic, technical, and pedagogic assistance to two non-departmental public bodies in controlling migration. The second, and more theoretical, argument of this thesis is that MARS facilitated migration control because of culture, power, and structure. It is through the field's implication in the coercion of its human subjects by UK state agencies that MARS academics a) answered their calling, b) assisted class rule as ideologists, and c) separated sacred and profane by policing endogamy. The introduction describes the existing literature on the relationship between MARS and migration control. The consensus is that the former facilitated the latter. However, these studies fail to provide detailed accounts of the ways in which it did so. Chapter One defines the elements of my more empirical argument: MARS and migration control. An historical narrative outlines the institutional development of the field since its beginnings in the early 1980s. Then a new model for understanding migration control – i.e., migrant CODAR – is described. Chapter Two uses this model to trace the actor network through which MARS academics facilitated the restriction of their human subjects' mobility by the UK state agencies of the Advisory Panel on Country Information and the Migration Advisory Committee. Chapters Three, Four, and Five use Weberian, Marxist, and Durkheimian anthropological approaches (respectively) to explain the implication of MARS and migration control that is described in Chapters One and Two. Finally, the conclusion of the thesis discusses its contributions to both more particular (i.e., the literature surveyed in the introduction on MARS and migration control) and more general (i.e., anthropology) scholarly fields.


We use a chiral Lagrangian, including a logarithmic potential associated with the breaking of scale invariance, based on quarks interacting with chiral fields, σ and π, and with vector mesons to describe nuclear matter at finite density. Using the Wigner-Seitz approximation to mimic a dense system, we show that the model admits stable solitonic solutions at higher densities respect to the linear-σ model and that the introduction of vector mesons allows to obtain saturation. This result has never been obtained before in similar approaches.


This paper presents a pair of ultra-wideband (UWB) antennas facing on both sides of a 5-layer voxel-based earlobe phantom for the continuous blood glucose levels (BGLs) monitoring applications. The small flexible monopole antenna with a coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed operates from 4 to 10 GHz has been proposed and simulated in the CST Microwave Studio (MWS). The simulated S-parameters are studied by varying the concentration of blood glucose levels using a modified Cole-Cole Model of blood to model the realistic, complex permittivity of blood. The results show that the resonance frequency shift could be used to determine the concentration of the patients' BGLs. In addition, a comparative evaluation of transmission results in varying BGLs is presented in a contest of investigating the effect of the blood density in BGLs measurements by using the proposed antenna.


Even well-designed software systems suffer from chronic performance degradation, also named "software aging", due to internal (e.g. software bugs) and external (e.g. resource exhaustion) impairments. These chronic problems often fly under the radar of software monitoring systems before causing severe impacts (e.g. system failure). Therefore it's a challenging issue how to timely detect these problems to prevent system crash. Although a large quantity of approaches have been proposed to solve this issue, the accuracy and effectiveness of these approaches are still far from satisfactory due to the insufficiency of aging indicators adopted by them. In this paper, we present a novel entropy-based aging indicator, Multidimensional Multi-scale Entropy (MMSE). MMSE employs the complexity embedded in runtime performance metrics to indicate software aging and leverages multi-scale and multi-dimension integration to tolerate system fluctuations. Via theoretical proof and experimental evaluation, we demonstrate that MMSE satisfies Stability, Monotonicity and Integration which we conjecture that an ideal aging indicator should have. Based upon MMSE, we develop three failure detection approaches encapsulated in a proof-of-concept named CHAOS. The experimental evaluations in a Video on Demand (VoD) system and in a real-world production system, AntVision, show that CHAOS can detect the failure-prone state in an extraordinarily high accuracy and a near 0 Ahead-Time-To-Failure (ATTF). Compared to previous approaches, CHAOS improves the detection accuracy by about 5 times and reduces the ATTF even by 3 orders of magnitude. In addition, CHAOS is light-weight enough to satisfy the realtime requirement.


It is currently common practice for sound engineers to record digital music using high-resolution formats, and then down sample the files to 44.1kHz for commercial release. This study aims at investigating whether listeners can perceive differences between musical files recorded at 44.1kHz and 88.2kHz with the same analog chain and type of AD-converter. Sixteen expert listeners were asked to compare 3 versions (44.1kHz, 88.2kHz and the 88.2kHz version down-sampled to 44.1kHz) of 5 musical excerpts in a blind ABX task. Overall, participants were able to discriminate between files recorded at 88.2kHz and their 44.1kHz down-sampled version. Furthermore, for the orchestral excerpt, they were able to discriminate between files recorded at 88.2kHz and files recorded at 44.1kHz.


Abstract This article assesses the existing literature on logistics in war, concluding that there is no satisfactory conceptual definition of logistics. It proposes a concept of logistics derived from Clausewitz's theory of war to fill that void. This is presented as a derivation because Clausewitz's distinction between (1) the use of the fighting forces (tactics and strategy) and (2) all other activities in war that were required so that forces could be taken as a given. The latter, left unnamed by Clausewitz, corresponds to a concept of logistics that proves to be an analytical peer to Clausewitz's categories of politics, tactics and strategy.


Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the completion rate and the toxicity of chemoradiotherapy with CDDP (CDDP-R T) a nd bioradiotherapy with cetuximab (BRT) following induction chemotherapy (ICT) in locally advanced head and neck squamous cetuximab-RT than CDDP-RT. Conclusion: In terms of compliance, cetuximab-RT seems to be more suitable after induction chemotherapy. However, cetuximab-RT causes more severe mucositis and dysphagia, which warrants good support.


Background: Sepsis is a pro-inflammatory state caused by systemic infection. As sepsis progresses, multiple organ systems become affected with subsequent increase in mortality. Elevated red cell distribution width (RDW) has been seen with changes of other inflammatory markers and thus could potentially serve as a means of assessing sepsis severity. In this study, we examine the association of RDW with APACHE II score and in-hospital mortality. Meterials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective study involving a cohort of patients with sepsis. The study period spanned 2 years with a cohort of 349 patients. Data were collected to determine if RDW is associated with APACHE II scores and in-hospital mortality in this cohort. Results: RDW correlated weakly (rs = 0.27), but significantly (P < 0.0001) with APACHE II scores; coefficient of determination (r2 = 0.09). The odds ratios for the association of RDW with APACHE II were calculated over the RDW range 12-20% at a dichotomized level of APACHE II, i.e., <15 and ≥15. At a RDW ≥16%, multivariate analysis including all potential confounders indicated that RDW was independently associated with an APACHE II score of ≥15. Similarly, mortality was associated with RDW ≥16%. Conclusion: A prognostic biomarker for sepsis in the form of a routine blood test may be of considerable clinical utility. The results of our study suggest that RDW may have value in differentiating between more severe and less severe cases of sepsis. Future studies with larger samples are needed to confirm these findings.


High-pressure water jets are used to assist roadheaders in breaking hard rock. The failure life of the high-pressure rotary seal (HPRS) is significant, due to how it affects the safety and efficiency of the roadheader. Here we investigate the mechanical behaviour of the HPRS with a series of experiments. Single-level rotary seal device based studies were conducted to investigate the effect of seal forms, materials, operating pressure and spindle speed on friction torque and leakage. The best seal form from the three kinds of forms was chosen to test the failure life of the multi-level series rotary seal device and the relationships between the operating pressure, spindle speed, temperature, leakage and failure life were analysed. The failure life of rotary seals from Levels 1 to 4 was observed to be 15, 11, 5, and 4 days respectively. The increase in temperature of Levels 1 and 2 was perceived to be slow at the beginning phase of the test, while it rose sharply until the failure occurred, whereas in the case of Levels 3 and 4 it was instantaneous.


Urban green infrastructure is a network of green spaces, water and other natural features within urban areas. A green infrastructure approach uses natural processes to deliver multiple functions, such as reducing the risk of flooding and cooling high urban temperatures. This POSTnote summarises research evidence of the effectiveness of green infrastructure, and challenges to its implementation. Overview 80% of people in the UK live in urban areas. Green space has decreased in many cities in recent decades. This reduction poses risks to human health and natural systems that may increase with climate change. Urban green infrastructure can help to mitigate these risks. Green infrastructure can often provide the same functions as conventional infrastructure, such as water management and flood risk alleviation, with other benefits for health and biodiversity. However, these benefits are not always well quantified. Constraints on green infrastructure provision include a lack of understanding of natural systems and their associated benefits, a lack of strategic green infrastructure plans and a lack of co-ordination within local authorities.


Abstract Objectives Skeletal muscle weakness has been observed in obese patients despite preserved or even greater lean body mass. Additionally, the presence of obesity-related comorbidities is a recognized risk factor for cognitive dysfunction and mood disturbances. Metabolism of several amino acids (AAs) including the Branched-chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) is altered in obesity but whether these disturbances are associated with muscle and cognitive dysfunction remain underexplored. Methods 159 subjects were divided, using the BMI cut-off of 30 kg/m2, into two groups: 79 non-obese (32 males/47 females, age 48.5 [43.3, 53.7], BMI 25.2 [24.6, 25.7] kg/m2) and 80 obese (31 males/49 females, age 54.3 [51.0, 57.6], BMI 38.3 [36.9, 39.6] kg/m2). Postabsorptive whole-body production (WBP) rates of several AAs were measured by IV pulse of stable isotopes including BCAAs, Phenylalanine (Phe), Tyrosine (Tyr), Glutamate (Glu), and Tryptophan (Trp). Plasma amino acid enrichments and concentrations were analyzed by LC-MS/MS. Large Neutral Amino Acids (LNAA) was calculated as the sum of BCAAs, Phe, and Tyr. Body composition (DXA), hand and leg peak strength and endurance (isokinetic dynamometer), cognitive function (Stroop, TMT), and mood (POMS, HADS) were assessed. Statistics performed by ANCOVA with age, gender, and lean body mass as covariates. Significance at P < 0.05. Results expressed as means [95% CI]. Results Obese subjects had higher concentrations of plasma Leu (12%, P = 0.0097), Ile (7%, P = 0.0310), Tyr (23%, P < 0.0001), and Glu (40%, P = 0.0001). The obese group was also characterized by elevated WBP of BCAAs (8%, P = 0.0343), Phe (12%, P = 0.0003), Tyr (18%, P = 0.0005) and increased whole-body net protein breakdown (Phe to Tyr conversion, 11%, P = 0.0212). Both groups had similar muscle and cognitive functions but obese individuals had greater scores for self-reported depressive symptoms (P = 0.0273), anger (P = 0.0234), fatigue (P = 0.0098), and tension (P = 0.0158). No changes in Trp metabolism were found but obese subjects had elevated LNAA (7%, P = 0.0170) resulting in increased systemic Trp availability to the brain (P = 0.0014). Conclusions Obese subjects have preserved muscle and cognitive function despite greater whole-body net protein breakdown and increased turnover of several AAs involved in muscle metabolism and serotonin synthesis. Funding Sources None.


informational purposes. While APL has no reason to believe that the information contained in this publication is inaccurate, APL is unable to guarantee the accuracy of the information and, subject to any terms implied by law which cannot be excluded, accepts no responsibility for loss suffered as a result of any party's reliance on the accuracy or currency of the content of this publication. The information contained in this publication should not be relied upon for any purpose, including as a substitute for professional advice. Nothing within the publication constitutes an express or implied warranty, or representation, with respect to the accuracy or currency of the publication, any future matter or as to the value of or demand for any good. Specific Carbohydrate Formulation in Late Lactation Diets for Primiparous Sows to Enhance Early Antral Follicle Development, Oocyte Quality and PostWeaning Fertility


We extend the notion of perturbation of wreath products, and by the methods similar to [3], prove that certain perturbations are still quasi-isometric to the original wreath product. As an application, we show that a property of containing free subgroup or free subsemigroup, and many other algebraic properties of groups are not quasi-isometrically rigid.


We propose a new monocular semantic simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) system that tightly couples planar text features. The system treats text features as a plane with rich texture information and semantic information, and more accurate camera pose estimation can be obtained by tightly coupling the semantic plane. Unlike previous work, it pioneers the use of words contained in the text to represent the semantic information of the plane, which enables the use of simpler and more efficient data association algorithms to match geometric planes. We evaluate our method in public datasets, and the final experimental results prove that our proposed system improves the accuracy of camera pose estimation. Additionally, the system augments the sparse map with semantic plane information, enhancing the applicability of the system in robotics, unmanned driving, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).


We present initial patient data comparing ICG and Gd kinetics in breast cancers, correlated to radiological diagnosis and pathology. Our optical system uses TRS for bulk properties and a fast CW system for kinetics imaging.


Philippe Ariès, one of the first researchers of the medieval family (1960), believed that childhood was not a separate cultural period and was not recognized as such by adults until the 16th–17th centuries. Since that time, there have been many studies devoted to medieval childhood, in which the ideas of Ariès were questioned, but they were all based on texts. Images were used only as illustrations. Therefore, no one questioned Ariès assertion that images of children in the family, except the scenes of the Holy Family, had not existed in the Middle Ages. In this article, I argue that the images of families with children appeared in the 14th century among the Ashkenazi, that is, the Jews of Germany and Northern France, and later – among the Sephardim, that is, the Jews of Spain, Portugal and Southern France. Although the appearance of these scenes can be explained by ritual reasons, but not solely them, and the study of such images can serve to further deepen our knowledge of the medieval family in general and the medieval Jewish family in particular.


When aspirating abdominal masses or fluid collections, a needle stop will prevent the needle being inserted too deeply. The use of a Kwill Filling Tube* is an effective and cheap way of achieving this.


For H a quasitriangular Hopf algebra, S 2, the square of the antipode is the inner automorphism induced by the Drinfeld element u, and S 4 is the inner automorphism induced by the grouplike element g = uS(u)−1. For H finite dimensional, results of Drinfeld and Radford express g in terms of the modular elements of H. This note supplies another proof which replaces the requirement of finite dimensionality with existence of a nonzero integral for H in H*. Similar results hold for the infinite dimensional coquasitriangular case; here we supply some interesting examples.


Helmholtz resonators, traditionally designed as a narrow neck backed by a cavity, are widely applied to attenuate combustion instabilities in gas turbine engines. The use of multiple small holes with an equivalent open area to that of a single neck has been found to be able to significantly improve the noise damping bandwidth. This type of resonator is often referred to as "distributed Helmholtz resonator". When multiple holes are employed, interactions between acoustic radiations from neighboring holes changes the resonance frequency of the resonator. In this work, the resonance frequencies from a series of distributed Helmholtz resonators were obtained via a series of highly resolved computational fluid dynamics simulations. A regression analysis of the resulting response surface was undertaken and validated by comparison with experimental results for a series of eighteen absorbers with geometries typically employed in gas turbine combustors. The resulting model demonstrates that the acoustic end correction length for perforations is closely related to the effective porosity of the perforated plate and will be obviously enhanced by acoustic radiation effect from the perforation area as a whole. This model is easily applicable for engineers in the design of practical distributed Helmholtz resonators.


Macroeconomic factors play a fundamental role in attracting the growth the country. This research examined the impact of various macroeconomic factors on GDP of Pakistan for the period of 1975-2015. The core objective of this research was to check the impact of inflation, investment, exchange rate and net export on development of Pakistan. The tool for analysis was Ordinary Least Square (OLS) multiple regression model. This research used Descriptive Statistics, Harvey's test for checking the heteroscedasticity and Breusch Godfrey LM test to check autocorrelation among variables. The results of this study show that inflation exerts negative significant effect on Pakistan GDP whereas investment shows positive significant effect and exchange rate have positive insignificant effect on GDP of Pakistan. Moreover net export has been highly positive significant on Pakistan GDP.


The article calls for an appreciation of alternative social research methods. In so doing the argument moves away from the dangers of an over-emphasis on quantitative strategies towards action research methodology. Disciplines like Public and Development Management/Public Administration do not have a tradition of alternative research methodology. Participatory Learning and Action is part of a growing family of action research methodology and exposes the researcher to the meaning-giving social context of the beneficiaries of development. In the article the important issue of participatory development management is located in the development theory and strategy debate. Through participatory learning and action strategies the researcher becomes a partner with the research respondents. Public and Development Management/Public Administration researchers and lecturers can only improve their holistic understanding of the multidimensional context in which development research and intervention takes place if they expose themselves to action research methodology.


This paper presents a discussion of why and how the teaching of at least some of aspects the history of engineering should be incorporated into a CDIO based Engineering program. The major emphasis is on the use of the history of engineering to illustrate the interrelation between engineering and society which is an important element of a CDIO based engineering program. Suitable topic areas that should be considered in dealing with the history of engineering are discussed and various ways in which discussion of the history of engineering can be presented in a CDIO program are considered. A separate course on the history of engineering is considered as is the inclusion of some discussion of engineering history in existing courses in the program. Methods of including such discussions of engineering history into the teaching of existing courses in an engineering program are considered.


The authors present the results of a detailed quantitative analysis of mode intensities in inelastic electron tunnelling spectra of the formate ion. They find that the theoretical approach of Phillips and Adkins (1985) can account successfully for the intensities of those spectral components that can be evaluated unambiguously from experimental spectra. They conclude that useful information can be obtained from quantitative aspects of inelastic electron tunnelling spectra, even in cases where the complexity is such that any attempt at full analysis would not be feasible.


With the extensive application of new types of sensors, the rate of data acquisition and transmission are becoming a problem in Prognostic and Health Management(PHM). This paper presents an FPGA-based method for high speed data acquisition and transmission taking full advantage of the parallel processing capabilities and easy to modify and upgrade features of FPGA, to cope with the difficulties of high-speed data acquisition and transmission. This article focuses on the components,performance and characteristics of the FPGA-based fault prediction and diagnosis system. The system uses an FPGA chip as the core operational component to achieve fast transfer of large amounts of data by FIFO. The use of programmable FPGA hardware, makes the data acquisition system design flexible, while improving the reliability of the system. It is also important for achieving the real-time online monitoring of failure.


Background and Aim: Cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth and invasion of tissues. It seems that personality differences and psychological factors are important factors that lead to different reactions to cancer. Therefore, the main purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between type D, stress level of life events, personality traits, and anxiety sensitivity in people with breast cancer attending to Tehran Bu-ali Hospital. Methods: The study was a correlational study in which 100 cancer patients referred to Bu-ali Hospital in Tehran, selected by the available sampling method from April to June 2018. The tools used included the Denollet DS-14 Type D Questionnaire, the Paykel Life events Questionnaire, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, the ASI Anxiety Scale, Floyd et al., Data analysis in this study is taken place by using SPSS software, two descriptive levels (percentage, frequency, etc.) and regression. Results: The study results showed that there is a relationship between type D personality with stress of life events, neurosis, extraversion, and psychopath dimensions of personality and anxiety sensitivity in breast cancer patients. Conclusion: Psychological factors play a role in the incidence and exacerbation of breast cancer, and ultimately patients with personality type D and personality traits such as psychosis and high anxiety sensitivity and more stress of life events show more symptoms.


Today's information society development,cloud computing has become the future strategic direction of the development of information industry and promoting the economic growth engine,it not only for information industry's reform and innovation to provide new impetus,also for the upgrading of traditional industries and emerging industries with great opportunities,pay attention to and the development of this new information processing way is our country in the new century,facing the globalization process must solve one of the major issues.


Nano wheel gear is an integral part of the nano electromechanical system (NEMS). The nano wheel gear, with the advantages of ultra-high speed, wear resistance, long life and easy assembly, has been a hot research topic in many fields in recent years. In this paper, we proposed a new nano wheel gear of ultrahigh speed, easy assembly and low friction, based on the principle that carbon nanotube (CNT) suspended in aqueous solutions can rotate in the direction of water dipole under the induction of rotating electric fields. Nano wheel gears can be applied in all or part aqueous environments. Through molecular dynamics simulation, we found that, the lag angle between the nanomotor rotors and the water dipoles can be reduced by adjusting the rotating electric field speed or altering the electric field strength, and thus, the nanomotor rotors and the nano wheel gears can rotate in pace with the rotating electric field speed within the shortest time. The research is conductive to the precise control of the nano wheel gears. What's more, the simulation results also provide significant reference value to the application of the nono wheel gears as well as the design of complex mechanism such as nano automobiles and nano robots


According to coal resource and characteristics of coal quality in Xinjiang,the distribution of different coals and utilization direction were discussed,which would provide support of basic theory and data for reasonable exploration and utilization of Xinjiang coal resources.


Abstract:In this article, the authors consider both historical and contemporary data regarding the experiences of African American males serving as school principals and employ a framework drawn from the concepts of ethno-humanism and critical race theory. In reporting the findings, we provide descriptions of historical trends and narrative insight into the experiences of four contemporary principals who are African American men. Several common themes were discovered, including a lasting struggle with and against dominant White societal norms and educational policies, a clear focus on and commitment to local community, and an enduring attention to the needs of African American students. The implications of these factors are considered as they contribute to the career advancement or derailing propositions these leaders face.


Abstract 1912 Poster Board I-935 Background: Essential Thrombocythemia (ET) and Polycythemia Vera (PV) are myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) arising from a multipotent hematopoietic stem cell characterized by an unregulated production of platelets, red cells and white cells alone or in combination, a tendency to clonal evolution and an increased risk of thrombohemorrhagic complications. MicroRNAs (miRNA) are negative regulators of genes involved in cellular proliferation, apoptosis and/or carcinogenesis. Aim: To analyze the expression pattern of miRNA between PV and ET patients and to find distinctive signatures in ET patients according to JAK2V617F and c-MPL mutational status. Material and Methods: Total RNA was extracted from peripheral blood granulocytes of 50 ET patients, 10 PV patients and 10 controls. Median age of patients was 57 years (range, 20-88); males 36%. The JAK2V617F mutation was present in 23 (46%) of 50 ET patients and in all PV patients. MPL mutations were present in 5 (18%) of 27 JAK2V617F negative cases (3 cases MPLW515L, 1 case MPLW515K and 1 case MPLS505N). miRNA expression was profiled in 384 miRNA via Taqman Low Density Array in ABI PRISM 7900. Expression data was normalized with RNU48 and relative quantification was calculated with the 2 –σσCt method. The data were presented as log 10 of relative quantity of target miRNA. Median of normal controls was used as calibrator for all samples. Data were analyzed by means of Significant Analysis of MicroArrays (SAM), Prediction Analysis of MicroArrays (PAM) and Class Comparison methods using BRB array tools version 3.7.0 and TIGR multiexperiment viewer version 4.3. Results: We found a general downregulation of miRNA in ET and PV patients respect to normal controls. A set of 29 miRNA allowed us to discriminate between ET and PV versus normal controls; three of these miRNA were up-regulated and 16 down-regulated in PV and ET vs. normal controls with a >2 fold change and p value 2 fold change and p Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that ET and PV can be defined by specific signatures of miRNA. In ET, some miRNA allow us to discriminate cases according to JAK2V617F mutational status and also between MPL-positive and MPL-negative JAK2V617F-negative patients. Research Funding: FIS EC07/90791 Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


functions of the common space conform to the purpose of installation of common space, such as individual support for children and support of the staff members' team approach. In addition to them, the following two points are regarded as features of the functions of the common space: 1) complementing the lifestyle of living spaces 2) guarantee of options in living. Aya ISHIGAKI, Shinpei HARADA, Syunya HASEGAWA, Hideaki SUMIKURA and Yoshinobu HIRANO


A method of simulating random fields using a moving average is proposed in this paper. Random fields were simulated for different sizes of sub-field and different numbers of cycles of calculations of the moving average. For the fields obtained the covariance function was analyzed. In order to estimate the efficiency of the proposed simulation method of random field based on the method of diagonal covariance matrix was performed. It is shown that two of the simulation methods presented are able to generate a multidimensional random variable with required correlation function. However, the method of diagonal covariance matrix has some limitations caused by the size of the simulated random field, which result from the necessity of converting a relatively large matrix. Using the proposed simulation method it is possible to simulate, in a comparatively quick and simple manner, a random field with a large number of nodes on PC-s. The presented method can be useful in the stochastic analysis of transport phenomena in soil.


A new Circular Business Model Assessment Tool is developed for companies within the Lithium-Ion Battery Industry. The new Assessment Tool uses statements from an existing Assessment Tool and new formulated statements to calculate a ranking of Circular Business Models. The weight calculations for ranking the Circular Business Models make use of the Normalized analysis method. To validate the Assessment Tool interviews are conducted to determine the usability and representativeness.


This article reports the results on the photooxidation mechanisms of two copolymers of fluorinated olefins and allyl or vinyl ethers. It is shown that the presence of the fluorine atoms influences strongly both the orientation of the reaction and the photooxidation kinetics. Due to the neighbouring fluorine atoms, the methylene groups in α-position of the oxygen of the ether groups are not equivalent regarding oxidation and the secondary carbon becomes more oxidable than the tertiary one. Because these unexpected results were obtained, the study has been extended to non fluorinated polyethers. On the basis of the results obtained, a general mechanism of the primary oxidation of polyethers is given, and the role played by the fluorine atoms on the orientation of the reactions is discussed.


ABSTRACT The lack of Oxalobacter formigenes colonization in the human gut is generally acknowledged as a risk factor for kidney stone formation since this microorganism can play an important role in oxalate homeostasis. Here, we present the genome sequence of OXCC13, a human strain isolated from an individual residing in Germany.


The present study intends to determine the effect of punicalagin as natural antioxidant on stabilising canola oil during 90 days storage and also to compare its strength with the synthetic antioxidant Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). Canola oil samples were categorized into three groups; pure oil (control), oil with Punicalagin and oil with BHT. Peroxide value (PV) and free fatty acid (FFA) were used to estimate the primary products of oil oxidation while Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances (TBARS) and P-Anisidine values (PAV) were used to estimate the secondary products. Finally, total oxidation index was calculated to evaluate the overall oxidation of oil samples. The results showed that PV, FFA, PAV and TOTOX were significantly increased in all canola oil samples with increased in storage time. In contrast, The TBARS values continued to increase from the starting storage period until 60 days and then decreased significantly until the end of the storage period. Punicalagin effectively reduces the production of the first and second oxidation products of canola oil during storage as indicated by the reduction in the PV, FFA, PAV and TOTOX of canola oil. When compared to BHT, punicalagin showed similar effect in inhibiting primary oxidation products whereas BHT showed stronger effect in reducing the secondary oxidation products. In conclusion, punicalagin can be used as a suitable replacement for chemically synthetic antioxidants on stabilising canola oil.


The observation of neutrinoless double-beta ($0\nu\beta\beta$) decay would offer proof of lepton number violation, demonstrating that neutrinos are Majorana particles, while also helping us understand why there is more matter than antimatter in the Universe. If the decay is driven by the exchange of the three known light neutrinos, a discovery would, in addition, link the observed decay rate to the neutrino mass scale through a theoretical quantity known as the nuclear matrix element (NME). Accurate values of the NMEs for all nuclei considered for use in $0\nu\beta\beta$ experiments are therefore crucial for designing and interpreting those experiments. Here, we report the first comprehensive ab initio uncertainty quantification of the $0\nu\beta\beta$-decay NME, in the key nucleus $^{76}$Ge. Our method employs nuclear strong and weak interactions derived within chiral effective field theory and recently developed many-body emulators. Our result, with a conservative treatment of uncertainty, is an NME of $3.44^{+1.33}_{-1.56}$, which, together with the best-existing half-life sensitivity, sets an upper limit for effective neutrino mass of $141^{+117}_{-39}$ meV. The result is important for designing next-generation germanium detectors aiming to cover the entire inverted hierarchy region of neutrino masses. When extended to other isotopes, our approach will allow a careful comparison of experiments.


Non-invasive fetal electrocardiography (fECG) has attracted the medical community because of the importance of fetal monitoring. However, its implementation in clinical practice is challenging: the fetal signal has a low Signal- to-Noise-Ratio and several signal sources are present in the maternal abdominal electrocardiography (AECG). This paper presents a novel method to detect the fetal signal from a multi-channel maternal AECG. The method begins by applying filters and signal detrending the AECG signals. Afterwards, the maternal QRS complexes are identified and subtracted. The residual signals are used to detect the fetal QRS complex. Intervals of these signals are analyzed by using a wavelet decomposition. The resulting representation feds a previously trained Random Forest (RF) classifier that identifies signal intervals associated to fetal QRS complex. The method was evaluated on a public available dataset: the Physionet2013 challenge. A set of 50 maternal AECG records were used to train the RF classifier. The evaluation was carried out in signals intervals extracted from additional 25 maternal AECG. The proposed method yielded an 83:77% accuracy in the fetal QRS complex classification task.


American lobsters are crustaceans traditionally marketed live and, once caught, are subjected to different type of stressors that can affect their welfare. The European legislation does not assess specific retention requirements and the only invertebrates welfare references are the EFSA Animal and welfare Scientific panel opinion (2005) [1] and the guidelines created by the Seafish Industry Authority, a public body in the United Kingdom [2]; therefore their management is demanded to the common sense of food business operators. Keeping lobsters claws tied before and during storage is not legally required, but it is suggested to prevent animals from damaging each other. Some authors, nevertheless, affirm that this practice may prevent lobsters from showing their natural behaviour and damage the claws. Aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of claws binding on lobsters welfare by analyzing seven different emolymphatic stress parameters, vitality and weight. The study was performed in commercial aquaria of Lodi Acquaculture Research Centre, at the University of Milan. During the experiment, water temperature was 6°C; specific gravity was 1020, oxygen was 87%, un-ionized ammonia was <0.3 mg/l and nitrite <0.1 mg/l. A total of 24 lobsters of both sexes were assigned randomly to one of two experimental groups: control group was mantained with tied claws while treatment group was held with free claws. Animals were maintained unfed throughout the trial. Hemolymph samples were withdrawn from the the ventral abdominal sinus (arthrodial membrane covering the articulated base of the 5th walking leg) of each animal at arrival (T0) and after 12 h (T1), 36 h (T2), 60 h (T3) and 108 h (T4). Vitality index and weight were measured at the same sampling times. Glucose, lactate, total protein, ammonia, urea, chloride, calcium and magnesium concentration were determined. Parameters were rather constant during the whole experiment. At T1, all the parameters determined resulted significantly higher if compared to T0 (P<0.01); the effect of "time" confirmed the importance of lobster storage in high quality artificial seawater tanks [3].


One hundred and forty‐six previously untreated patients with advanced gastric cancer were assigned at random to therapy with the following regimens: 1) Methyl CCNU alone; 2) Methyl CCNU with cyclophosphamide induction; 3) 5‐fluorouracil (5‐FU) + methyl CCNU; and 4) 5‐FU + methyl CCNU with cyclophosphamide induction. Cyclophosphamide induction produced an objective response rate of only 8%. In addition, it added to hematologic toxicity and detracted from the therapeutic activity of subsequent treatment. Methyl CCNU was relatively ineffective therapy with an overall objective response rate of 8%. The response rate to 5‐FU + methyl CCNU without cyclophosphamide induction was 40% and this was significantly superior to all other regimens. The survival time of all patients treated with 5‐FU + methyl CCNU was significantly superior to that of all patients treated with methyl CCNU alone.


International Migration and Development UN Report of the Secretary General, 2006, 90 pp, at http://www.un.org World Migration 2005: Costs and Benefits of International Migration International Organ...


In Hillingdon it was decided in January 1982 to proceed with the automation of all major library applications (circulation, local information, catalogue and acquisitions) as a co‐ordinated project and using a stand‐alone integrated, online system.


4 H is a Benno Schmidt anecdote to go with the one my co-editor, Susan O'Malley, uses in her article (below). Some years back, at a conference for administrators organized by University Business magazine, former Yale president Schmidt gave the keynote address. He had become head of Edison, the forprofit schooling company, and he spoke enthusiastically about the benefits his new project would bring. During the question period, I asked him if we could expect its benefits to rival those enjoyed by health care consumers since the system's takeover by HMOs, insurance companies, and big pharma. He paused a second to take in the hostile intent of my question, then replied, "Even better," and went on to enumerate. I do not remember his list, but one thing we can certainly enjoy about the privatization of higher ed is the rich vein of black humor in news reports of recent years. For instance: • Bridgepoint Education Inc. bought a private, accredited college in 2005 and another in 2007. The total enrollment of the two, at purchase, was 400 students. At the end of 2009, it was 53,688, 99% of whom took courses exclusively online (Daniel Golden, "Your Taxes Support For-Profits as They Buy Colleges," Bloomberg.com, March 4, 2010). [When a for-profit takes over the accreditation of a college it acquires, it represents that it will preserve the mission of the college.]


Application type undergraduate graduation design is a very important stage of practice teaching. In mechanical engineering students graduation design process, there are graduation design topic selection unreasonable, the difficulty of the topic is too large, the graduation design started later, the structure design is not suitable for all kinds of problems.Aiming at these problems, this paper summed up the effective measures, and put forward several links focus on grasp through the reform of teaching practice for many years. The results of the reform show that: in recent three years, the quality of graduation design of mechanical major students of this school is greatly improved, drawing ability enhanced, the number of students writing papers and patents before graduation and the employment rate of increase have been greatly improved.


These, and some closely related series, arise in several number-theoretic investigations, including the distribution of primes into arithmetic progressions, the class number of binary quadratic forms, and the distribution of Legendre and Jacobi symbols. Our own immediate interest in them stems from their utility in the calcution of certain other number-theoretic constants. These latter include the ha of references [1] and [2], the Si of reference [3], the constant 0.48762 of reference [4], and the constant \C of reference [5]. The last of these illustrates our point, for when it was first presented by Bateman and Stemmler [6], it was given as 0.76; subsequently, in [5], the improved value 0.761 was presented; but with the aid of a short table of L3(s), and utilizing a formula analogous to that in [1, eq. (18), p. 323], it is fairly easy to compute


In this paper, we incorporate a locally estimated appearance model to enrich the data term of the graph-cuts algorithm. It balances between data term and smoothing terms in order to extract small liver vessels. We estimate stochastic parameters of vessel and liver tissues using the MIP image. Medial axes of the vessels are then enhanced by a multi-scale filter. The skeleton of the axes are used to prepare the appearance model which is employed to prepare s-link weights in the graph-cuts algorithm. We evaluated the proposed method quantitatively using public synthetic data and qualitatively using clinical images. We obtained an average Dice measure of 0.93 which was comparable to recent researches. We achieved segmentation of liver vessels up to the fourth order too.


The chitosan coating materials were prepared with different organic acids (acetic acid, lactic acid, and propionic acid) and phenolic compounds (gallic acid and caffeic acid). Quail and chicken eggs were covered with these combined coating materials. Coated and uncoated samples were contaminated with Escherichia coli and Salmonella enteritidis. The coating process inhibited the microorganisms and provided a safer environment. Chitosan - Lactic acid-Gallic acid and Chitosan-Lactic acid-Caffeic acid coating material was found potentially usable in the preservation of chicken eggs and quail eggs freshness.


A plane strain problem of a crack on interface between an isotropic elastic conductor and a transversely isotropic piezoelectric ceramics is considered. The problem is reduced to system integrodifferential equations on the interface. These equations relate the normal and tangential components of the crack opening vector with distribution of normal and shear stresses on the crack surfaces. It therefore make it possible to obtain an exact solution as a function of the loading applied to the crack surfaces. As an example, some analytical solutions of the crack problem are given.


The synthesis of tocopherol acetate was studied by esterification of tocopherol and acetic anhydride.The optimal conditions were determined by single factor and orthogonal experiments as follows: reaction time 60 min,reaction temperature 110℃,dosage of acetic anhydride 45%,dosage of catalyst 4.0%.Under the optimal conditions,the conversion rate of tocopherol acetate was 99.4%.


This exploratory case study employed Appreciative Inquiry Framework in answering the following questions: 1) What are the expectations set by the following to the student homosexuals; a) Self, b) Parents and c) Teachers; 2. What are the positive and negative effects of these expectations to the student homosexuals? and 3) How do these expectations affect the process of identity development of the student homosexuals?. The participants are five college students who identified themselves as homosexual. Written consent was secured to ensure that the research abides to the ethical standards. The data was triangulated through analysing the point of view of the student participants, their parents and their teachers. Results revealed that expectations set by the student homosexuals, their parent and teachers are all contributory factors that affect the identity development of student homosexuals. Moreover, it was revealed that those who have problems in their identity development experienced difficulties in their performance in school. Positive and negative effects of expectations were also noted as the participants shared their stories. With the results, it was recommended that teachers must treat all their students equally regardless of their gender preferences in life. Activities that support the holistic personalities of students must be given emphasis. The parents must support their children in whatever endeavour they take and provide them guidance to be successful in their academic pursuits. Lastly, a model of counselling procedure for student homosexuals was proposed.