This paper presents a new approach to the analysis and design of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), based on reactive principles and cognitive models, this way leading to multiagent architecture. In these kinds of models, the analysis problem is treated bottom-up, as opposed to that of traditional artificial intelligence (AI), i.e., top down. We present one ITS example called Makatsina (meaning tutor in TOTONACA, a Mexican pre-Columbian language), constructed according to this approach, which teaches the skills necessary to solve the truss analysis problem by the method of joints. This learning domain is an integration skill. The classical ITS work is based on explicit goals and an internal representation of the environment. The new approach has reactive agents which have no representation of their environment and act using a stimulus response behavior type. In this way they can respond to the present state of the environment in which they are embedded. With these elements, errors, and teaching plans, ea...


In this paper, we analyze the service quality problems of hotels from the perspective of customer satisfaction and service, and propose corresponding solution strategies. This paper elaborates on the word vector of model input, and then focuses on the structure and calculation process of the two-channel RNN triplet block model proposed in this paper. According to the expression habits of daily emotional tendencies, the RNN ternary block structure is set up to capture the structure of emotional tendency expressions and strengthen the dependency relationship between emotional tendency expression words. Provide suggestions for the improvement of service quality of Guido Hotel based on the results of satisfaction analysis and customer questionnaire. By comparing the experimental results, the effectiveness of the two-channel RNN ternary block model in the hotel review sentiment tendency analysis task is verified.


The objective of this article is not to teach the student how to write reports, memoranda, etc. but to provide a simple guide to be used when writing reports.


Nerve injuries are a common complication of gynaecological surgery, occurring in 1.1–1.9% of cases. Patient mal‐positioning, incorrect placement of self‐retaining retractors, haematoma formation and direct nerve entrapment or transection are the primary causative factors in perioperative nerve injury. Nerves most commonly injured during surgery include the femoral, ilioinguinal, pudendal, obturator, lateral cutaneous, iliohypogastric and genitofemoral nerves. The majority of neuropathies resolve with conservative management and physiotherapy. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), tricyclic antidepressants and gamma‐aminobutyric acid (GABA) antagonists are of significant benefit in managing painful neuropathies.


This research had as objective to evaluate the germination and emergence speed index (ESI) of pequi (C. brasiliense Camb.) from sexual propagation material (putamens and seeds) fromtwo sites, Porangatu and Faina, Goias State, Brazil. Twelve treatments were evaluated (2x6 factorial), the two procedences being combined with six sowing methods: putamens (inner mesocarp and endocarp) immersed in water; putamen without pulp (inner mesocarp) immersed in water; seeds (almonds) immersed in water; putamens immersed in giberelic acid solution 10%; putamens without pulp immersed in giberelic acid solution; seeds (almonds) immersed in giberelic acid solution. The experimental design was randomized complete blocks with four replications. The experiment took place in a screen-house at 50% shading. The observations were taken every 48 hours for 77 days from seed planting. It was not observed significant variation (p>0.05) between fruit origin in germination and ESI. Putamens with or without pulp and treated with giberelic acid resented satisfactory germination indexes, above 30%, and perior (p 0.05) in this characteristic. Besides, significant (p>0.05) effect of the treatments was not detected on plantules ESI. KEY-WORDS: Pequi; GA3; giberelic acid; almond; native species.


This paper presents a sonar vision algorithm applied to omnidirectional vision. It provides autonomous navigation for a mobile robot in an unknown environment. It uses omnidirectional images without any prior calibration and detects static and dynamic obstacles. It estimates the most intended path based on visual sonar beams in front of the robot. The proposed method was tested on a mobile robot in indoor environment. The experimental results show acceptable performance considering computation costs.


Unlike C-undecylcalix[4]resorcinarene, C-methylcalix[4]resorcinarene 1 reacted with chlorodifluorophosphine in the absence of an auxiliary base to give the unstable octakis(difluorophosphite)-substituted derivative 2. The existence of two conformational isomers of 2 in solution was observed by 19F and 31P NMR spectroscopy. Attempts to react the octakis(trimethylsilyl)calix[4]resorcinarene 3 and its tetrabromo derivative 4 with phosphorus trichloride and chlorodifluorophosphine were unsuccessful.

The ethoxy-tethered C-methyl-octakis(trimeth-ylsilyl)calix[4]resorcinarene 5 was allowed to react with 2-chloro-1,3,5-trimethyl-1,3,5-triaza-2σ3λ3-phosphorin-4,6-dione and chlorodifluorophosphine. By substitution of all trimethylsilyl groups, the octakis(phosphorus(III))-substituted compounds 6 and 7 were formed. As for 2, dynamic behavior in solution was observed for 6 and 7, arising from the equilibrium between different conformational isomers. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Heteroatom Chem 9:553–558, 1998


The combined use of ultrasound pulse-echo intensity and Doppler shift frequency is examined as a means to measure strong unsteady three-phase pipe flows of a gas and two liquids. With air, oil, and water as components of the fluid media, particular attention is given to analyze ultrasound responses at the air–oil and oil–water interfaces. Reciprocating slugging is generated inside a 55-mm-diameter circular pipe, of which edges oscillate vertically at a controlled frequency. We use an ultrasound velocity profiler to obtain the 1-D cross-sectional distributions of the instantaneous flow velocity at the sampling rate of 60 Hz. All the measurements are realized by a single ultrasound transducer located outside the pipe. Measurement accuracy is validated using a high-speed camera coupled with particle image velocimetry that is synchronized with the profiler. The results demonstrate that the proposed technique works properly in sensing both interfaces as well as in-phase flow velocity distributions. In addition, multiphase volume flow rates for the constituents are obtained by velocity profile integration assuming vertical phase stratification in an approximation.


An inverse optimization framework for designing thick diffractive optical elements is proposed to automatically find complex multilayer structure with wavelength selective effects. The design strategy is presented by optimizing the multilayer structure parameters with evolutionary algorithm based on rigorous coupling wave theory.


The precondition of extending social security system from urban areas to rural ones is economy's development to some degree.Consolidating urban social security system and rural one is an important sign of modern human civilization.Now,the basic condition of building the rural social system in our country matures.What we should do is to specify short-term targets,long-term targets and phased targets.We should also try our best to push broadly covered targets,socialized process,pluralized patterns,mixed management and legalized construction.


Under the Basel II framework for capital adequacy of banks, regulatory financial collateral and guarantees (C&G ) can affect lending policy in both a micro and a macro perspective. This paper aims at assessing these effects throught the modelling of the impact of C&G on credit spreads. In doing this we assume the perspective of a bank adopting a Foundation Internal Rating Based approach to measure credit risk and we apply a comparative-static analysis to a pricing model, based on the intrinsic value pricing approach as in the loan arbitrage-free pricing model (LAFP) suggested by Dermine (1996). Our results show that financial collaterals are more effective than guarantees in reducing credit spreads, this differential impact becoming greater as the borrower's rating worsen. Moreover, the effects of C&G on credit spreads can be more effective than an improvement of borrower's rating, this possibly leading to negative outfits on credit industries' allocative efficiency. As the Commission's in-house science service, the Joint Research Centre's mission is to provide EU policies with independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support throughout the whole policy cycle. Working in close cooperation with policy Directorates-General, the JRC addresses key societal challenges while stimulating innovation through developing new standards, methods and tools, and sharing and transferring its know-how to the Member States and international community. Key policy areas include: environment and climate change; energy and transport; agriculture and food security; health and consumer protection; information society and digital agenda; safety and security including nuclear; all supported through a cross-cutting and multidisciplinary approach. L B -N A -2 5 5 2 9 -E N -N


This study evaluates the agricultural interventions related to productivity enhancement that may provide solutions to improve smallholder farmers' incomes. By applying Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) and conducting risk analysis using the Monte Carlo simulation technique for the proposed agricultural interventions, this paper evaluates the agricultural interventions in rural communities in Upper Egypt aimed at addressing the current challenges by moving from traditional farming to conservation agricultural. Results indicate that the interventions proposed are viable and have high positive socio-economic impacts on the farmers' livelihoods. The interventions will increase job opportunities in the target regions. Also, a very low probability of negative returns is shown. The probability of negative returns to the socio-economy aspects becomes almost zero when we add the economic benefit to society.


On November 23, 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved nivolumab for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC), thus opening a new era of immunotherapy for this tumor. This review summarizes the 5-year experience of studying and using nivolumab in RCC patients. 11


The rapid development of technology especially in the field of internet-based information technology has made the role of communication media is very vital in society. Multimedia technology has gained popularity as a means of socialization and political campaigns to the entire community, especially to novice voters or known as millennials. In this study, researchers identified the role of social media in encouraging the political participation of millennials in the 2019 legislative elections in Bireuen District and to what extent social media can affect the political participation of millennials in the 2020 legislative elections in Bireuen District. The research method used was a qualitative method that describes the data to be able to explain the problem in accordance with the title and object of the research while data was collected through observation, interview and documentation. Data analysis technique used was interactive data analysis consisting of 3 (three) components of analysis including data reduction, data presentation and conclusion drawing. The results of the research are: (1). The role of social media is still powerful to encourage the political participation of millennials even though the applications used are more varied, not only Facebook (2) The political participation of millennials in Bireuen is still relatively high but it is not related to the use of Facebook, but other applications that are more popular, especially Instagram and WhatsApp.


Cloud Computing is the most advanced technical platform for next generation. Cloud Computing provide us a large range of data storage space in web source. Cloud Computing work automatically as per the need of user we don't need to do extra work on it. High level applications and game is run by Cloud Computing. It simply states that cloud computing means storing and accessing the data and programs over the internet rather than the computer's hard disk. Cloud Computing cover the wide range of areas. It provides its service through online net connection. The data can be anything such as music, files, images, documents, and more. The user can access the data from anywhere just with the help of an internet connection. To use cloud computing, the user should register and provide with ID and password for security reasons. The speed of transfer depends on various factors such as the capacity of the server, internet speed, and many more. In this paper, we explore the understanding the determinates of security and privacy in cloud computing, Cloud Computing architecture and we also address the characteristics and applications of several popular cloud computing platforms. We identified several challenges from the cloud computing adoption perspective and we also highlighted the cloud interoperability issue that deserves substantial further research and development. However, security and privacy issues present a strong barrier for users to adapt into cloud computing systems.


Abstract : Natural fiber composites are commonly used in residential decking, siding, and fencing applications, but their use in high-load structural applications has been limited by their low strength performance. However, wood-plastic composites (WPCs) consisting of nylon 12 and thermoplastic epoxy resin (TPER) exhibit excellent mechanical performance. This study evaluated the extrusion parameters for each composite including: barrel/die temperature profile, lubricant compatibility, wood flour (WF) content, and WF moisture content (MC). Increases in strength and modulus of both composites indicated significant adhesion between polymer and wood components. These composites show promise for use in structural applications currently lacking WPC presence.


Abstract First I review my long and fruitful association with Zia, starting with our meeting at the Council for Science and Society. We met over the years in a variety of places, and he was essential in the promotion of Post Normal Science. He also helped in the publication of my various books. I see his Post Normal Times as a natural outgrowth of the cautiously radical message of Post Normal Science. This offers a essential complementary vision, especially now that the Euro-American Empire has taken another downward lurch. What comes next? I conclude with a list of keywords that would define a new rejuvenated natural science. They conclude with compassion, a topic on which Zia and I are in deep agreement.


Operating within their fiscal allotments, today's information professionals are debating the best methods for evaluating the acquisition of a wide array of electronic information resources. Electronic publishing is affecting not only the way scholars conduct their research, but also the selection process librarians use in acquiring these products. Although electronic information resources have many advantages, the financial implications of implementing new technologies have yet to be fully revealed. The impact of these financial implications creates new scenarios librarians must consider when examining the budgetary implications of selecting print or electronic materials ‐ or, in some cases, several versions of the same resource. Among the many questions information professional face in this explosive environment is how do we decide which product will best serve the needs of the institution today and in the future and how can we provide all that is requested by the university's community in an environment of static or shrinking budgets? Offers a subjective evaluation model for comparing the desirable and undesirable potential of a proposed acquisition.


Objective To discuss the effects of health belief model intervention on improving the self-efficacy of patients with acute coronary syndrome, and to provide methods and proofs for promoting the establishment of health behavior in patients with acute coronary syndrome. Methods All 140 patients with acute coronary syndrome who conformed to the inclusion criteria were randomly assigned to control group and intervention group, with 70 patients in each group. The control group was given regular health education of acute coronary syndrome; the intervention group was given the intervention of health belief model. Health belief and self-efficacy in the two groups were assessed before and after the intervention. Results Scores of health belief and self-efficacy in patients in the intervention group after the intervention were significantly higher than those in the control group, and the differences were statistically significant(P0.01). Conclusion The intervention of health belief model is able to improve the health belief of patients with acute coronary syndrome, and strengthen patients' self-efficacy.


Abstract : An analytical study is conducted to determine the stability and free vibration characteristics of laminated anisotropic plates using the Levy approach. Included in the plate model are the effects of shear deformation and rotary inertia. Six different boundary conditions in the y direction analyzed in conjunction with simply-supported boundaries in the x direction. The y directed boundaries considered are simple-simple, clamped-clamped, simple-clamped, simple-free, clamped-free, and free-free. Solutions are presented for the buckling loads and natural frequencies of rectangular, graphite-epoxy symmetric plates. The results indicate the importance of including shear effects and rotary inertia in a plate's mathematical model. The overall importance of these equation parameters is definitely a function of the boundary condition and a general statement cannot be made. In addition, the effectiveness of the Levy technique, in studying laminated problems, becomes apparent in handling the more complicated boundaries as compared to the Galerkin or Rayleigh-Ritz techniques.


The embodiments of the invention disclose a method for canceling an alarm clock prompt. The method comprises displaying prompt information, which is used to remind a prompt information instruction capable of being received by the mobile terminal, if a mobile terminal is at a bright screen state in a preset time which is a period of time before an alarm clock prompt time, obtaining the prompt information instruction by the mobile terminal, and executing corresponding operation by the mobile terminal according to the prompt information instruction. And the embodiments of the invention further disclose a device for canceling the alarm clock prompt and the mobile terminal.


Nina ter Laan recalls how during the Arab Spring little has been published in the international press about protests for democracy in Morocco. Despite the Moroccan government's eagerness to present Morocco as an 'exception' in a region in turmoil, young bloggers inspired by revolts in other countries have instigated a protest movement through Facebook. The February 20th Movement, deriving its name from the first day of protest, has attracted a broad spectrum of sympathizers who gather every Sunday in cities across Morocco to demonstrate peacefully against the government and to demand democracy. The author analyzes how the February 20th Movement, the Moroccan parliament, and the monarchy respond to what is generally known as the 'Arab Spring' and how they try to influence its Moroccan incarnation.


The invention discloses a method and system for accessing a terminal without an SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card to the Internet of Things. The method comprises: an M2M (Machine to Machine) management platform receives virtual SIM card information obtained by the terminal without the SIM card based on the serial number of the terminal; and the M2M management platform accesses the terminal without the SIM card to the Internet of Things based on the virtual SIM card information. As the terminal without the SIM card generates the virtual SIM card information based on the serial number of the terminal, the method and system for accessing the terminal without the SIM card to the Internet of Things realize the technology of accessing the terminal without the SIM card to the Internet of Things.


Oral health has long been considered to be a separate specialty that is distinct from whole body health. However, poor oral health can promote systemic disease, and is found concomitantly with numerous systemic disease processes. Thus, individuals with poor oral health may have a predisposition to other disease processes. A healthy mouth contains hundreds of billions of bacteria, and this number increases more than ten times if the mouth is not adequately cleaned. Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory oral condition currently affecting more than 75 percent of the U.S. adult population.


War-related articles dominated materials on the press for the current quarter. There was increasing interest in the impact of the war on the press as a business. Exciting accounts of activities of correspondents in war zones were common. Major non-war issue was the civil suit filed by the federal government against the Associated Press concerning alleged monopolistic practices. There was a surprising dearth of material on journalism education and the war. F. E. M


Mining activities is commonly to work with the problem of stability of rock mass, then befordesaining mine's slope should know rock shear strength parameters, such as cohesion (c) andinternal friction angle value ( . Beside those parameters, also needed to know the impact ofwater content to the rocks. The water content will effect rock's shear strength, proof by the rockcondition which is ductile when it is dry and soft when it is wet. Based on test results was doneusing sandstone with laboratory scale of direct shear test were analyzed using mohr – coulomband patton criteria (1966). It is known that the cohesion (c) of sandstone decreased from 510,35kPa at natural condition down to 133,75 kPa at wet condition. The internal friction angle ( ) alsodecreased from 54,56° at natural condition down to 48,45° at wet condition. The reduction of theshear strength is caused by fragments and clay minerals characteristics which are so reactiveand very easy to absorb water so that the cohesion of the sandstone reduce the active normalstress so that working the shear stress required to cause the shear failure becomeweaker. From the results, it is also known that the shear surface roughness had a lot ofinfluence on the shear strength the normal stresses applied on the direct shear tests werevery low under 20% of UCS.


Anoplophora chinensis is a poliphagous woodboring beetle native to Eastern Asia, and is a serious pest accidentally introduced into Europe. Currently two infested areas are present in Italy and other infestations have occurred in the past in other European countries, while interceptions in entry ports are made yearly by National Plant Protection Organizations of the European Community. A. chinensis is a quarantine invasive pest, and strong measures are applied worldwide to prevent its introduction, spread and to eradicate its populations. The presence of exit holes of adult beetles on infested trees is one of the most important diagnostic signs to detect an A. chinensis infestation. Exit holes are visible on the bark surface of infested trees for several years, but the hole is after that enclosed by the reaction tissue (callus) of the plant; thus, after some years the exit hole is no longer visible. Such injuries produced by beetle activity can be recognised after many years by inspection of the wood after cross-sectioning of the tree. It is possible to date the time of occurrence of the injury using the annual growth ring method for tree age analyses. Surveys conducted on the wooden material collected in the infested site in Rome indicate that the first A. chinensis adult emergences from infested trees of the city occurred in 2002. Since the species takes in the infested site 1 or 2 years for juvenile development, we can speculate that the first introduction of A. chinensis into the city of Rome took place in the years 2000 or 2001.


The objective of this article is to present the foundations of a new conceptual Knowledge Management Model. The model is product of investigation, and allows the development of activities to implant practical solutions of knowledge management in organizations. The model includes five phases, each one, having their own set of products and activities as well as their achieving techniques and means of quality. These techniques include the use of lessons learned, best practices, learning processes and communities of practice, among others. In the final sections, an evaluation of the knowledge management model is made, and finally conclusions are presented as well.


Photovoltaic (PV) is an attractive renewable energy source and the global cumulative PV capacity is growing steadily. Implementation of a cost-effective wireless PV monitoring system at panel level is required in order to apply it commercially to the massive number of PV panels and to enhance convenience of maintenance of PV systems. This paper proposes an implementation method for cost-effective wireless PV monitoring module (WPMM), and describes demonstration results on the practical PV system.


Objective:To explore the correlation factors of inducing type 1 diabetes mellitus(DM) and to provide data to decline the incidence of type 1 DM.Methods:83 patients of type 1 DM(≤15 years old) who were admitted to paediatric department of Shengjing hospital were choosed as case group and 166 non-DM children as control group.The common data,feeding fashions and dietary habits of patients in the two groups were analysed and compared through questionnaire research.Results:The sex ratio of male:female in the case group was 1:1.24.School age period was period of high circulation of type 1 DM.Often drinking belly-wash of milk and liking to eat sock were dangerous factors of type 1 DM while often eating vegetables was protective factors by multi-factor nonconditioned Logistic regression analysis.Conclusion:There are some mistakes in feedings and daily dietaries of patients.Education on scientific feeding should be intensified and nutritional arrangement of child dietary should be regarded.Those non-healthy dietetic habits should be corrected.


In this paper, we presents the characteristics of an inductive coupling unit (ICU) made of a nano-crystalline alloy for contactless electric vehicle power line communication (EV PLC). An ICU contains a toroidal transformer consisting of a circular nanocrystalline core and two wires sharing a magnetic field caused by an electric signal. An average channel bandwidth of 48 Mbps was measured when the proposed ICUs were installed on the high power line between EV and EV charger. EV PLC using a miniaturized nano-crystalline ICU will contribute to simplification and weight reduction of electric vehicle wiring.


Objective To study the prophylactic use and regulate the management of antibiotics in perioperative patients with type Ⅰ incision in our hospital.Methods The application of antibiotics in 172 cases with tuberous thyroid surgery or closed fracture surgery during perioperative period from January 2010 to September 2010 was retrospectively analyzed.Results According to the prophylactic use principles of antibiotics for typeⅠincision,which were stated in No.38 document of ministry of public health ,we found the major problems including excessive choices of drugs,incorrect opportunity of drug administration,too long time of drug usage and blind combination.Conclusion The prophylactic use of antibiotics in perioperative patients with typeⅠincision is seriously unreasonable.It is necessary to take effective and comprehensive management measures.


Flame edge determination and classification is an active research area of wide application. Edge detection techniques for flame images can be used in applications such as flame image monitoring, early detection of fire, evaluation of fire, and the measurement of flame and fire parameters. This paper mainly gives importance on edge detection and classification of flames. The boundaries of flames are detected perfectly by using auto adaptive edge detection algorithm and classification of flame levels are done by using resilient back propagation algorithm in feed forward neural network.


One significant aspect of surgical education and training is autonomous surgical skill assessment with feedback. In this paper, an autonomous two-level fuzzy logic assessment system for tracking and evaluation of laparoscopic instruments' tooltip movements for the FLS peg transfer task is proposed. The surgeon's left and right-hand movements are detected by using an Artificial Intelligence Network through instrument tooltip detection and position coordinates calculations. A first of its kind, custom laparoscopic box trainer dataset was built from experimental peg transfer task video recordings which were carried out by 9 doctors and OB/GYN residents, of the Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, WMU, in the Intelligent Fuzzy Controllers Laboratory, WMU. A multi-class object detection algorithm, based on Deep Neural Networks, was developed.


Life insurance as part of the insurance business plays an important role in human's life and the economy of a country. This is because it provides financial security to families, long term savings, and contributes to the economic growth of the country. However, there is no conclusive proof of what really determines its consumption. This study aims to explore the macroeconomic and demographic determinants of life insurance demand in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. We employ ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis of time series data covering the period between 1981 and 2013 in the case of Kenya, and 1981-2012 in the case of Nigeria and South Africa. The findings clearly show that both macro-economic as well as demographic factors influence the demand of life insurance for the three countries under investigation. However, some indicators, such as, GDP per capita, level of education and life expectancy reveal unexpected signs that suggest further research. Moreover, due to variations observed, we cannot draw a unique conclusion on factors influencing the demand of life insurance among the three countries under investigation.


A new method for testing pavement condition combines laser/inertial profilometry of unloaded pavement with vibration measurements in a full loaded heavy truck at highway speed. Three types of results are obtained. 1: Truck wheel, frame and cab vibration, as well as driver seat vibration to be compared with exposure guidelines in ISO 2631-1 and limits in directive 2002/44/EC. 2: Three-dimensional road surface geometry data for simulation of ride and calculation of roughness indices. 3: Locations of potential pavement "soft spots". The latter is possible since large pavement deflection variance under the heavy truck cause a quite different vehicle vibration pattern than the pattern excited from the measured unloaded road surface profile. A tentative accuracy experiment has been done at 4 sites. Recorded seat vibration levels were very high, thus exceeding the EU Action Value in all test runs. The soft spot indications show reasonable repeatability, as well as reproducibility between different driving speeds and between spring time and autumn. Trueness is the mostdifficult accuracy feature to estimate, since no ideal reference method is at hand neither for variance of local deflection under truck wheel, nor for global deflection under the entire truck. By comparison with FWD, coring and ground penetrating radar results, trueness seems promising. During the tests, a virtual tyre footprint sensor was used for road profiling. Evaluation showed it to bring a large improvement to profiling accuracy. The new high speed measurement method brings excellent opportunities for further research on the entire chain pavement-truck-ride quality interaction.


This article examines academic and practitioner perspectives on what concepts are important in a data communications senior-level undergraduate course. There were 101 concepts identified, and a survey instrument was distributed to over 800 academic and data communication professionals to determine if differences in perceptions existed. Data analysis expounds upon significant differences in the perceptions of these two groups. In addition, the concepts were grouped into categories and differences were examined. The findings indicate considerable consensus among academics and practitioners regarding the content of what should be taught in a senior-level data communications course.


Ensuring growth of investment activity in territorial educations is possible only on the basis of creation of complete system of attraction of investments into subjects of the Russian Federation and purposeful actions on increase of investment appeal of regions. In article the assessment of a social and economic condition of the Republic of Ingushetia from the point of view of its investment potential is given.


Aiming at the problem of route planning of large region,this paper discusses the establishment of road hierarchical divided model and multi-scale road networks database. Then it brings forward the method of constructing multi level road networks topology. Finally,it selects an optimal route by using Hierarchical Spatial Reasoning and ameliorated heuristic A arithmetic.


The lipid matrix within the SC is believed to be the main contributor to the skin's barrier properties. But the major problem is that the organisation of the lipids into the lamellar layers and their contribution to the barrier properties of the skin remains poorly understood. This thesis has attempted to address this issue through the use of molecular simulations of model bilayers of the SC under a variety of different conditions. The use of molecular dynamics simulations has allowed these membranes to be studied at the atomistic level that isn't accessible through conventional experiments.

It is shown that the hydration level within the lipid matrix has a direct impact on the bilayer conformation and thus the barrier properties of the SC. At low hydration a pooling effect is observed on the bilayer surface, which affects the order and orientation of the CERs. Lowering the hydration reduces the amount of CER-water hydrogen bonds and replaces them with adjacent CER-CER hydrogen bonds. The lateral hydrogen bonding network remains unchanged.

Through free energy calculations and the calculation of permeability coefficients, a mixed system of CER and OA has a greater permeability than either of its pure counterparts and thus would be a more favourable pathway for permeants, such as water, to migrate through. This enhanced permeability is shown to be due a combination of weakening the lateral hydrogen bonding network and disrupting the packing with it's 'kinked' tail.

Finite size and solvent effects on CG simulations with the interaction of DMSO on CER bilayers are presented. At low solvent to lipid ratios and larger bilayers, the small solvent chamber allows interactions of the CER bilayer with it's periodic image causing disruption to the conformation and leading to a change to a hexagonal phase. Solvent effects are observed when the amount of DMSO at the interface is higher for larger bilayer systems despite the same solvent to lipid ratio as a larger surface area can accommodate a greater number of DMSO molecules at the interface. Our results suggest that the system sizes of at least 256 lipids and 30 solvent molecules per lipid are required to avoid finite size effects in simulations of lipid membranes in mixed solvents.


1. Submission. Articles, written in English and not submitted for publication elsewhere, may be sent to any one of the following editors: Dr Ray Hodgson, Addiction Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, U.K.; Dr William Yule, Psychology Department, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE 5 8AF, U.K.; Dr G. Terence Wilson, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, P.O. Box 819, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, U.S.A. Manuscripts will be sent out for review exactly as submitted. Authors who want a blind review should mark two copies of their article "review copy" omitting from these copies details of authorship.


The effectiveness of electromagnetic (EM), ground penetrating radar (GPR) and seismic refraction (SR) were evaluated by surveying a shallow trench in which a number of objects of varying composition and size were buried. The trench was excavated in granular calcareous fill material. An experienced geophysical contractor was asked to provide blind predictions of object locations using each of the techniques in turn. GPR with a 400 MHz antenna was the most successful, followed by SR and EM surveying. GPR and SR were also carried out at the port of Hilo to investigate complex subsurface conditions.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


We consider a finitely generated torsion free Kleinian group $H$ and a random walk on $H$ with respect to a symmetric nondegenerate probability measure $\mu$ with finite support. When $H$ is geometrically infinite without parabolics or when $H$ is Gromov hyperbolic with parabolics, we prove that the Patterson-Sullivan measure is singular with respect to the harmonic measure coming from $\mu$.


while the interview participants tended to describe the leadership behaviour they observed as predominantly top-down, co-leadership and team leadership styles are also evident in the interactional data. Chs. 5 to 7 investigate the intersection of culture1 and culture2. Ch. 5 examines identity work by using constructivist conceptualisations of identity to demonstrate how participants constructed identities with reference to cultural1 categories, their own affiliations, and the interactional contexts. Ch. 6 is concerned with gender. The global, gendered assumptions prevalent in Hong Kong workplaces are contrasted with the stories of two successful female entrepreneurs who enacted gender by juxtaposing masculine and feminine speech styles in interactions. Ch. 7 focuses on work-life balance. The authors maintain that although the interview participants' cultural1 views on this issue were somehow reflected in their actual workplace behaviours, it is indeed a global issue influenced by local-level factors such as organisational expectations and needs. The concluding chapter highlights themain argumentsmade throughout the book. The authors suggest that the usefulness of both orders of culture be acknowledged and taken into consideration in intercultural communication research. In other words, investigating culture1 can serve as a starting point that seeks to understand laymen perceptions of the role of culture in shaping workplace behaviours, followed by a finegrained culture2 analysis that illuminates the ways culture is discursively enacted in micro-level authentic interactions and the extent towhich culture1 influences culture2. Aimed towards general readers interested in workplace discourse, this book shows how (intercultural) communication researchmay draw insights fromwell-established concepts in discourse studies and interactional pragmatics to reveal the congruence and divergence between culture1 and culture2 in the workplace context.


Thisworkpresents a newmethodforobject problem ismatching theunknown object ontheobject inthe recognition in complexscenescombining vision-based object database. Although conceptually recognition and techniques applied tothe3Ddataobtained using range sensors,positioning aretwodifferent problems whenonlypartofthe andobject identification coming fromRadioFrequency tags object isavailable (i.e. partial view)recognition andpose (RFIDtechnology). Vision basedalgorithms for3Drecognitionappearclosely related. Thusifwe canalign theunknown havemanyrestrictions inpractical applications: uncertainty, object, that wewill call 'scene' onanobject ofthedatabase, incapability forrealtimetasks ...;butthey workwellforpose that we will call 'model', poseandrecognition areinseparable determination oncetheobject isrecognized. Ontheother hand, westionss RFIDtechnology allows detecting thepresence ofspecific objects questions. inascene butitcannot provide their localization. Inthis paper, Theseproblems havebeenwidely studied bythevisual weshowthepowerful recognition toolobtained byfusioningperception community andmanysolutions havealready been bothtechniques. Thephases oftheproposed procedure are proposed. We areespecially interested intheactive vision described andanindepthexperimental demonstration is based solutions, when3Dinformation ofthescene isacquired included. A performance analysis ofthemethodismadeby using range sensors. Several algorithms havebeendeveloped comparing therecognition algorithm withandwithout theRFID inthis field. Next, someofthemostnoteworthy workswill be phase. Obtained results, concerning tosuccess rateincreasingreferenced andcommented. andcomputational cost reduction, confirm therobustness ofthis ChuaandJarvis code information onthe3Dcontour ofa fusion approach andprove its effectiveness.ChaadJricoenfmtonnte3Doturfa point P ofthesurface. A parametric curve,called Point


In recent years, 3D printing technology has focused on the development of new materials and shortened manufacturing time. In the light curing process, the printing time of the surface projection molding technology called digital light processing (DLP) can be shorter than the point projection molding technology, and has better development. With the open-loop control system of bottom-up type of DLP machine, the user should set the rise time of printing platform in each layer according to the experience before the printing starts. Therefore, the user experience will determine the printing efficiency. This study proposes to use case-based reasoning (CBR) method to improve printing efficiency. The printing parameters of machine, the geometry of printing object and the separation time are all recorded in a case format. The printing parameters that affect the separation time become the characteristics of the index system. The most similar case is obtained from the case base through the similarity calculation, and rising time of the platform is obtained through the case correction rule. Finally, the effect of the inference system is confirmed by a case study. 


This manual's purpose is to help adult-education instructors to deal with addictive or preaddictive behavior in their Native American students. The impact of alcohol and drug-related social problems has been devastating to Native communities. It is essential to examine broader issues such as cultural identity, ethnic pride, self-confidence, and self-esteem when implementing addiction-prevention strategies. The manual consists of five units. Unit 1 discusses different types of addiction and characteristic addictive behavior. It also provides a brief explanation of the origins of addiction and a comment on the Native experience. Unit 2 revolves around the story of a fictional addict, while providing introductory activities for the other units. Unit 3 includes a variety of student handouts covering basic information on prevention of addictions, including issues of self-esteem, goal-setting, decision-making, peer counseling, and Indian identity. Unit 4 offers simple tools for identifying addiction problems of students or helping them to identify their own. Unit 5 helps educators decide whether or not a student should be referred to professional counseling and includes a list of treatment programs for Native people in British Columbia. Five appendices offer information on adult children of alcoholics, films and videos on alcohol and drug abuse, the Alkali Indian Band, nutrition for recovering alcoholics, and a bibliography of 20 items. (TES) ********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * from the original document. ***********************************************************************


The article presents a study whose aim was to learn the attitudes of teachers of upper elementary grades from mainstream schools to education including students with disabilities. It was also an attempt to learn their opinions on the chances and limitations of implementing inclusive assumptions in educational practice as well as their needs and expected support in the performance of professional tasks related to teaching students with disabilities. The study involved 145 teachers of grades 4–8 of elementary schools. The following research tools were used: The Scale of Teachers' Attitudes to Inclusive Education, developed on the basis of the Survey of Attitudes Toward the Inclusion of Students with Special Needs by M.A. Winzer (Polish adaptation by W. Pilecka & J. Kossewska), and a survey questionnaire for teachers. The obtained results show that many teachers approach skeptically the new solutions in education for students with disabilities. Their ambiguous or negative attitude to inclusive education corresponds to the sense of lack of proper preparation to teaching students with disabilities and a critical assessment of the state of readiness of mainstream schools (both in formal and social/mental terms) to the implementation of educational inclusion assumptions.


We hope that our investigationswill, in part, overcome the deficiency. From the beginningof the study,particular attentionhas been devoted to protectingthe children from possible harmful effects of radiation. The late Dr. C. E. Eddy, Director, Commonwealth X-Ray and Radium Laboratory, and his successor,Mr. D. J. Stevens, gave detailed consideration to this problem, and supervised the protective measuresand the general planning of the radiographic study, which is being carried out with techniques and ancillary protective devices designed to reducethe radiation dosesto tissuesto minimal levels.


Bahia, analyzing the interannual precipitation variability and the most significant months within the period from 1976 to 2016. A series of data were used Average monthly rainfall from 1976 to 2016, from 15 conventional meteorological stations, located in the South Center of Bahia and adjacent municipalities, obtained from the Meteorological Database for Teaching and Research BDMEP, on the INMET website. Filling of the data was performed using the statistical software R. A descriptive statistic was then made only of the data of the meteorological stations included within the region. Spatial characterization of the temperature of the region was performed by spatial interpolation using the inverse distance weight (IDW) method in the QGIS program. It was verified that December was the month that presented the highest averages for most of the municipalities, except for Lençóis and Vitória da Conquista, whose averages were higher in the month of November. The region presented increase in rainfall intensity in the eastern rainy period to the west, and in the months considered dry there was a greater precipitation in the east than in the west.


Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable performance across various information-seeking and reasoning tasks. These computational systems drive state-of-the-art dialogue systems, such as ChatGPT and Bard. They also carry substantial promise in meeting the growing demands of mental health care, albeit relatively unexplored. As such, this study sought to examine LLMs' capability to generate empathetic responses in conversations that emulate those in a mental health counselling setting. We selected five LLMs: version 3.5 and version 4 of the Generative Pre-training (GPT), Vicuna FastChat-T5, Pathways Language Model (PaLM) version 2, and Falcon-7B-Instruct. Based on a simple instructional prompt, these models responded to utterances derived from the EmpatheticDialogues (ED) dataset. Using three empathy-related metrics, we compared their responses to those from traditional response generation dialogue systems, which were fine-tuned on the ED dataset, along with human-generated responses. Notably, we discovered that responses from the LLMs were remarkably more empathetic in most scenarios. We position our findings in light of catapulting advancements in creating empathetic conversational systems.


Our previous study has shown that isoflurane (ISO), a commonly used volatile anesthetic, has an excitatory effect on bronchopulmonary C‐fibers (PCFs) (Zhang, et al., EB 2011, A377). Because right atrial bolus injection of PBG has been extensively used to selectively stimulate PCFs by action on local 5‐HT3 receptor, and thereby evoking an apnea, we asked whether inhalation of ISO would facilitate the PCF 5‐HT3 receptor‐mediated apneic response, and if so, how. Our experiments were performed in three groups of rats. We recorded the ventilatory response and pulmonary C neural response to right atrial bolus injection of PBG (25 μg/kg) before and during inhalation of 5% ISO. To this end, the ventilatory response was recorded in anesthetized and spontaneously breathing rats (Group I), while pulmonary C neurons were electrophysiologically isolated and extracellularly recorded in the nodose ganglion of anesthetized and paralyzed rats (Group II). Using perforated patch clamp technique in vitro, we further tested the effect of ISO (1 mM) on the PBG‐induced inward current of pulmonary C neurons labeled by previously instilling 1,1′‐dioctadecyl‐3,3,3′,3′‐tetramethylindocarbocyanine perchlorate (DiI) into the airways and lungs (Group III). Our results showed that inhalation of ISO markedly shortened the PBG‐produced apnea and attenuated the PBG‐elicited excitation of pulmonary C neurons. Moreover, ISO perfusion depressed the PBG‐induced inward current of pulmonary C neurons. These data suggest that ISO can inhibit PCF 5‐HT3 channel function to attenuate PCF excitatory response to PBG, likely contributing to shortening the PBG‐induced apnea by ISO in rats. (Supported by HL 107462 and ALA RG‐191095‐N)


In recent years, there has been a concern to re-negotiate the relationships been individual professionals working with the same people. So, for example, healthcare staff are expected to coordinate their activities and 'work together'. The end point is a collaborating together as a team of professionals often located in the same place. This demand for inter-professional working (IPW) has seen the rise of higher education programmes of study in IPW, now deemed an essential part of undergraduate education for these professional groups. The rationale is laudable, IPW ought to enhance the experience of the client and ultimately improve their outcomes. The two questions I want to raise in this paper are as follows: is inter-professional education (IPE) possible in the sense of an education that seeks to enable IPW, and if it is what form should it take. In pursuing these questions, I seek parallels with MacIntyre's (1987) 'idea of an educated public'. In doing so, I argue for an account of IPE and working premised on the development of a limited 'educated public' of healthcare professionals. I conclude with a limited specification of what this means in practice.


Following the approval and implementation of a significant higher-level educational document known as the fundamental transformation of education, an undeniable reform took place in the field of the English language teaching program in general and English textbook development in particular, in the Iranian formal education system. Regarding the English textbooks, as probably the most important component in any ELT program, especially in societies in which English is taught and learned as a foreign language, a notable transformation in topic and content selection has occurred alongside a reform in its approach and structure. Conceiving the importance of this reform, which has been mostly neglected in the available research on the topic, this paper aimed at comparing descriptively and analytically the type of topic and content which has been integrated in the previous and new high school English textbooks. Findings revealed that through applying critical pedagogy in the development of the new textbooks, a pivotal transition from the mainstream ELT to critical ELT has been manifested. In a more precise word, achieving the joint goal of fostering social development and language skill development on the part of learners, the awareness-raising and controversial topics and content have substituted for neutral and sanitized topics and content.


This paper adopts a retrieving mechanism from case-based reasoning approach to implementing a decision support system that can evaluate a study performance of the students and also suggest an appropriate courses plan for enrolment based on the historical data. This system will retrieve the most similar enrolment plan from the senior students' records, in order to suggest the current student who is facing of a probation situation (GPAX<2.00) and coming to have an advice with his/her advisor. To develop the system, a methodology is distinguished into three parts of research study which are data preparation, similarity calculation and matching, and counseling system. By using the leave-one-out cross-validation, this system can perform the best at 99.16% of Precision, 23.37% of Recall, and 37.82% of F-measure when evaluating the system with confusion matrix.


The term "risk" here mainly refers to the possible impacts of future climate change on food crops supply-demand balance.Based on the simulated results of food crops production under scenario B2 of climate change in RCMCA(regional crop model for Chinese agriculture),this study developed the food crops consumption scenario and set the criteria on food crops risks under climate change.It also analyzed the future variation in food crops supply and demand to determine the effect of climate change on food crops security in the short,medium and long terms at the county scale with the support of GIS.The results show that the climate change will hinder the food crops supply in general.With higher living standard,the gap between food crops supply and demand will be enlarged in the future,resulting in the increase of risk.The highest may occur in the medium term,the lowest in the near future,and the medium in the far future.Particularly in the medium term,66.99% of the counties in China will face risks.Among them,29.5%,occupying the largest area,will be with high and moderate risks;in the short-term,however,the situation will be easier,i.e.25.54% counties in moderate(14.82%) and high risks(10.72%).Moreover,counties with high risks are distributed mainly in Huang-Huai-Hai Region,Loess Plateau,Southwest China,and Eastern Margin of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Region.The areas with lower risks are in Northeast Region,Gansu Province and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region,and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and areas along the Great Wall.


When this article was first published online, Veronica Vecchi's job title was given in error as 'a contracted professor' at Bocconi University, Milan. She is in fact a lecturer at Bocconi University, Milan. Her biography and affiliation details have now been corrected in both the print and online versions. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 2015 Vol. 17, No. 5, ix, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13876988.2015.1094889


In the midst of the Cold War, the Soviet Union conducted numerous nuclear tests as part of the nuclear weapons development race. The Semipalatinsk Test Site, the most prominent nuclear testing ground operated by the Soviet Union, witnessed a total of 456 nuclear tests in the air, on the ground, and underground over a span of 40 years since 1949. As the cradle of Soviet nuclear weapons development, this site sparked a grassroots anti-nuclear movement within Kazakhstan towards the end of the Soviet era. The activities of the 'Nevada-Semipalatinsk', an anti-nuclear citizen group in Kazakhstan led by Olzhas Suleimenov, garnered support not only within Kazakhstan but also from the Soviet leadership and national and civil organizations worldwide, resulting in the closure of the Semipalatinsk Test Site. However, the closure of the Semipalatinsk Test Site marked not the end but rather the beginning of addressing the more fundamental issue of damages caused by radioactive materials. The Soviet Union disregarded the harms inflicted upon the residents living near the testing site and its surrounding areas during the nuclear tests. However, as a result of the nuclear tests conducted in all areas of the site, the Semipalatinsk Test Site and its adjacent region suffered severe contamination of both surface and underground water sources, leading to various health problems and the occurrence of deformities among the affected residents. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, international cooperation and independent efforts by the government of Kazakhstan were undertaken to remove the remnants of nuclear testing and radioactive contamination in the former Semipalatinsk Test Site and its surrounding areas. Based on the results of these efforts, the current government of Kazakhstan claims that the contamination caused by radioactive materials has largely disappeared and emphasizes the need for various forms of economic activities and development in the region. However, civil organizations in Kazakhstan and abroad argue that the area is still contaminated by radioactive materials, exposing a significant number of residents to associated damages.


The paired kidneys are reddish, bean-shaped organs located just above the waist between the peritoneum and the posterior wall of abdomen. Because their position is posterior to the peritoneum of the abdomen cavity, they are said to be retroperitoneal organs. The kidneys are located between the levels of the last thoracic and third lumbar vertebrae, a position where they are partially protected by the eleventh and twelfth pairs of ribs.


This paper discourses on the principles and means for choosing controller of automaticproduct line. And the design of "multi-axes precision manipulator" proposed here. Anovel idea for adjusting and demarcating approached.


This paper analysis the impact of collective action and political participation on the economic development of the south Indian state of Kerala over the last three decades. Despite its low economic basis, Kerala's successive governments have implemented a large redistributive programme that resulted in impressive levels of social development. Kerala's success has been largely attributed to the actions of organised collective movements, both in the formal and informal sectors, in the form of militant peasants associations and labour unions. Collective actions have, however, also contributed towards political instability, increase in the risk of investment and uncertainty in labour productivity. This paper examines the effects of collective actions on Kerala's economic growth during the last three decades using time-series analysis techniques, considering in turn collective action and redistributive policies to be external and then endogenous variables to the process of economic growth in Kerala. The results show that while some forms of collective action can contribute towards the decrease of poverty and increase in state income, other forms harm economic growth. We compare these results with those obtained for a panel of 14 major Indian states.


1 Read at the second annual meeting of the American College of Angiology, Chicago, Illinois, June 10, 1956. This is a report on 108 consecutive sympathectomies for various peripheral vascular diseases, observed by the author in private practice and in the Peripheral Vascular Disease Clinic of the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, Los Angeles, Calif ornia, for a 10-year period from 1946 through 1955. The primary purpose of this report is to review and clarify the causes of failure. Several of the sympathectomies were done prior to 1946, and these cases did not come under


The Ninove Chapter Book is the oldest of its kind for the Premonstratensian Order in the Low Countries and is a fairly complete example of what a chapter book actually was in the Middle Ages; the various parts of this particular codex also contain important European, comparative data. The martyrologium demonstrates that not one, but several text traditions of the martyrologium of Usuardus circulated within the Order of Premontre and, unique to this codex, there is a text containing the form of prayer for entry into the fraternitas. An analogous text is found in the Arnstein Chapter Book. Further is the charter drawn up by abbot Radulfus, indicating that the 'pittance' at Ninove was a separate institution from 1219 on. Of exceptional interest is the series of three successive necrologia, which give a written record - from the twelfth to the eighteenth century - of the names of the persons to be commemorated, thereby enabling the development of the necrologia to be traced in detail over the long term. The preparation of the second necrologium at Ninove in 1652 clearly marks the disappearance of the liber capituli and the transformation of the necrologium into a separate book.


The basic theme of this paper are bare noun phrases, which in the Italian language often appear in reduced syntactic structures. Omitting redundant syntactic units is caused by several reasons, among which the most important are economy of language, emphasis and style. The occurrence of bare noun phrases in Italian often coincides with ellipsis, so we have paid special attention to the type of ellipsis (rhetorical and grammatical) where bare nouns appear, and to the types of verbs which is omitted in elliptical structure (verbal predicates, copulative verbs, semi-copulative verbs, existential verbs). We have analysed these reduced statements at the levels of surface as well as deep structures of sentences, relying on the principles of generative grammar and on modern structural methods. The survey results represent syntactic and semantic conditions as well as linguistic contexts, that cause SNO in ellipsis.


High room‐temperature ionic conductivity and good compatibility with lithium metal and cathode materials are prerequisites for solid‐state electrolytes used in lithium metal batteries. Here, the solid‐state polymer electrolytes (SSPE) are prepared by combining the traditional two‐roll milling technology with interface wetting. The as‐prepared electrolytes consisting of elastomer matrix and high‐mole‐loading of LiTFSI salt show a high room temperature ionic conductivity of 4.6×10−4 S cm−1, a good electrochemical oxidation stability up to 5.08 V, and improved interface stability. These phenomena are rationalized with the formation of continuous ion conductive paths based on sophisticated structure characterization including synchrotron radiation Fourier‐transform infrared microscopy, wide‐ and small‐angle X‐ray scattering. Moreover, at room temperature, the Li||SSPE||LFP coin cell shows a high capacity (161.5 mAh g−1 at 0.1 C), long‐cycle‐life (retaining 50% capacity and 99.8% Coulombic efficiency after 2000 cycles), and good C‐rate compatibility up to 5 C. This study, therefore, provides a promising solid‐state electrolyte that meets both the electrochemical and mechanical requirements of practical lithium metal batteries.


Introduction Nucleus pulposus (NP) replacement by the application of injectable hydrogels seems a straightforward approach for tissue engineering. We investigate a thermo-reversible hydrogel (TH-RHG), based on a modified polysaccharide with a thermo-reversible polyamide (poly(N-isopropylacrylamide = pNIPAM). Using "click chemistry" and reversible addition fragmentation transfer (RAFT) polymerization,2,3 the gel is made to behave as a liquid at room temperature and hardens at >32°C. To inject the hydrogel, a mild papain disk degeneration model (PDDM) is employed that creates a cavity in the intervertebral disk. Here, we investigate the performance of the TH-RHG in situ in bovine IVD with preconditioned human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) with rhGDF-5. Materials and Methods IVDs were harvested from six calf tails, aged 6 to 9 months, which were received from a local abattoir within 3 to 5 hour of slaughter. The bovine IVDs of intermediate size (max. height of 2 cm and diameter of 1.5 cm) were used included the bony endplates and cultured in vitro for 16 days. Utilizing our previously established PDDM was necessary to create a cavity in the NP. For the papain injection, a 25 G needle was used to inject centrally the enzyme into the bovine IVD. Simultaneously, primary hMSCs expanded from bone marrow obtained from five patients undergoing spine surgery (ethically approved) were seeded at 4M cells/mL in 3-D in the TH-RHG and preconditioned with 100 ng/mL rhGDF-5 for 7 days. Afterwards, the TH-RHG was reversed to a fluid and injected into the IVD organ culture and kept under static loading of 0.1 MPa for 7 days using custom-designed specimen chambers.1 Experimental designs are as follows (i) fresh d0 control PBS injection (ii) PDDM + PBS injection (iii) PDDM + TH-RHG + bovine NPCs (Cell control) (iv) PDDM + TH-RHG + hMSC.4 Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was employed to image the hydrogel-filled cavity before and after loading at day 9 and day 16, and RT-PCR comparison of the hMSCs at day 1, 8, and 15 investigated the changes in gene expression. On the same days of cell sampling, cell viability (trypan blue) was determined. Sulfated glycosaminoglycan synthesis (DMMB assay) and DNA content (Picogreen assay) from anterior and posterior annulus fibrosus (AF) segments of each disk at day 16 were performed. Results MRI images confirmed a central positioning of the TH-RHG into the PDDM. A considerable drop in volume across all groups in the NP region and consequently of disk height was observed between day 9 and day 16. The RT-PCR results of injected hMSCs showed significant differences between day 8 and day 15 for versican and Sox9 relative to day 1 (Fig. 1). The results of bovine AF gene expression relative to control AF showed significant differences between groups for ACAN, Col1, Col2, IL-b1, versican, ADAMTS-4, Casp-8, MMP13, and MMP3. Cell viability of injected cells dropped from around ∼100% down to ∼87% for bovine cells and ∼86% for hMSC after 7 days in 3D culture. It further dropped to ∼72% after organ culture. GAG/DNA ratio showed significant difference across groups irrespective of posterior or anterior location. Conclusion MRI imaging of TH-RHG seems a promising protocol for noninvasively observing the gel performance in vitro. 10% TH-RHG is a feasible scaffold for in vitro 3D preconditioning of hMSCs and can be used at the same time for direct injection into the IVD. However, the TH-RHG has been shown to be unable to bare static load leading to a drop of cell viability. Relative gene expression of the hMSC phenotype after "co-culture", however, points towards "discogenic" differentiation.5 Acknowledgements This project is funded by HansJörg Wyss Start up Award 2011/Project no. 102646/AOSpine International. I confirm having declared any potential conflict of interest for all authors listed on this abstract No Disclosure of Interest None declared Chan, et al. Spine 2011. Mortisen, et al. Biomacromolecules 2010;11(5):1261–1272 Mortisen, et al. PCT2009, 3-3-2009 2009;141 Gantenbein-Ritter, et al. European Spine Journal 2011;20:962–971 Peroglio, et al. European Spine Journal 2011;epub


Introduction. Chapter I Background-Biography and Beyond. Chapter II Discourse Analysis. Chapter III Media Theory. Chapter IV Greek Cultural Techniques. Chapter V Controversial Achievements. Further Reading. Works Cited.


We consider FFT computations on parallel machines in which communication speed is limited by network bandwidth rather than by message overhead. Such machines are modeled well by a special case of the LogP model of Culler et al. We show how commonly used parallel programming techniques such as intelligent data placement, careful co-ordination of computation and communication, and pipelining long streams of messages, can yield 100% efficiency (in speedup) even in the presence of substantial message traffic. At a different level, our parallel algorithm can be viewed as an efficient simulation of a butterfly network on the LogP model in the presence of reasonable slack.


Suppose somebody does not abide by these engagements)' then what happens? An absolute isolation, a boycott! The boycott is automatic. There is no ','if' or "but" about that in the Covenant ..•• The borcott will mean ... [that] there shall be no communication of any kind between the people of the other nations and the people of [the aggressor] nation .•.• It is the most complete boycott ever conceived in a public document; and I want to say' with confident prediction that there will be no more fighting after that. There is not a nation that can stand that for six months.


The concept of "moral responsibility" has almost always been defined in relation to a certain idea of metaphysical freedom and to a conception of the physical world. So, classically, for indeterminist thinkers, human beings are free and therefore responsible, if their choices are not defined by a previous state of the world but derive from an autonomous selection among a set of alternatives. Differently, for the majority of determinist philosophers (the so-called "soft com - patibilists"), the only form of freedom we need has to be identified with freedom of the conduct, considered as opposite to any form of coercion. Some argue that, given the truth of determinism and the related suppression of concepts such as "guilt" and "praise", or "merit" and "demerit", morality could survive just as a utilitarian tool, even though this seems to be in conflict with our deepest feelings and practices. Considering some revisionist approaches of moral responsibility in connection with classical positions (synthetically presented in the first part of the paper), I will reconstruct some of the attempts to release responsibility from the thematisation of freedom, exploring the possibility of redefining it as an inde- pendent concept. My conclusion is that the focus on the choice-action process and on the characteristics of the "self", avoiding reference to alternative scenarios, could be a good starting point for elaborating a conception of what really counts for our moral life - even though, in the end, this could entail the abandonment of the traditional concept of responsibility itself.


The present study was carried out during 2011-2012 in Deoli Taluka of Wardha district of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state for ascertaining the constraints faced by farmers in adoption of biofertilizers. The study revealed that a great majority of respondents (85.00%) reported the lack of confidence towards various biofertilizers practices. More than half of the respondents of the respondents (58.00%) reported that lack of knowledge about biofertilizers, followed by inadequate water availability (45.00%) and lack of guidance from extension personnel (41.00%). It is therefore, advisable that the extension agency should increase confidence level of farmers on use of biofertilizers. Information regarding utilization of biofertilizers through organizing of training programmes, guest lectures, method and result demonstration and Krishi Mela.


The anatomy of males of Nyfolairnus aqwalkris Thorne, 1930, collected from Blackburn, Ontario, is described. Descriptions arc ibavctl on whole mounts and alsa on serial sections, Specimens e~nbedded in panan were cut in sections 9 p iu thickness ant1 stained with hacmatovylin and eosi~t. S~cial enlpliasis is to cuticulur structure, such as median pores, lateral pores, hemironid, ancl transverse and lungi tutlinaI striations, which are described anrl illustraterl. Begides thcse structures, othcr orEan systems of the body, such as digestive system, evcretory sysicm, ncrvous sysicm, and reproductive organs, have also beer1 descsibcd altd illustratrd.


Movements of the front shed boundary impose constraints on filling-insertion tim ings. These movements, which entail changes in shed shape, are determined by sley drive and shedding mechanism characteristics and by the shed-change timing. Shed shape can be specified by two angles whose variations with timing define a characteristic that depicts the form of the whole sequence of shed shapes occurring during the loom cycle. Differences between such sequences of shed shapes are shown particularly clearly by this characteristic. The main forms of the shed-shape sequence, showing the effects of both sley and shedding dwells and of shed-change timings, are illustrated. Examples of shed-shape-dependent constraints on timings are considered in conjunction with relevant shed-shape characteristics, and their implications are discussed.


Provided is a polyester elastomer foam having a fine and uniform cell structure. This polyester elastomer foam is characterized by being formed by foaming a polyester elastomer composition comprising a polyester elastomer and a surface-treated/processed inorganic material (excluding a hydroxide). It is preferred that the 166-mesh residue content of the surface-treated/processed inorganic material (excluding a hydroxide) is 0.01% or less.


Time-dependent computational methods for quantum dynamics have witnessed significant advances, which have resulted in better understanding of a variety of physical and chemical phenomena [1]. Such advances have greatly benefited from the remarkable developments in computational techniques and fast vector/parallel processing computers. Recent interests in the time-resolved experiments using femtosecond pulse lasers to observe fundamental dynamical processes demand corresponding time-dependent information from theoretical studies. Both the scope of the topics studied and the list of computational methods used in the theoretical studies of time-dependent quantum dynamics have been greatly expanded. Even with the advances described above, it is still not feasible to treat the dynamics of complex systems fully by quantum mechanics. For example, theoretical treatments of the reaction dynamics occurring in condensed phases primarily rely on classical mechanics due to the large number of particles involved, yet it is necessary to describe a few relevant degrees of freedom quantum mechanically. A commonly used strategy is to partition the whole system into a subsystem (e.g., the solute) which can be treated rigorously and the remaining bath (e.g., the solvent) degrees of freedom which are approximated by classical trajectories. This strategy is based on the assumption that the motion of the solute can be separated from that of the solvent, which is referred to as the time-dependent Hartree (TDH) or time-dependent selfconsistent filed (TDSCF) approximation [2]. In a typical formulation of a hybrid quantum/classical (HQC) method, the dynamics of the system is described by a quantum wavepacket while classical trajectories are used to follow the dynamics of the bath. The quantum and the classical dynamics are coupled self-consistently within the Ehrenfest framework. It is noted that energy exchange between the system and the bath is allowed. The HQC scheme has been applied to many different dynamical processes [3–9]. Photodissociation is one of the most widely studied chemical reactions both experimentally and theoretically [10]. In condensed environments, studies on a wide range of systems, including diatomic molecules and complicated polyatomic systems, have revealed sequential processes of photodissociation, geminate recombination, and vibrational relaxation. A pair of recoiling photofragments produced by initial photolysis can geminately recombine due to the caging effect of solvent molecules. The resulting vibrationally excited molecule loses its extra energy into the solvent bath and relaxes to the ground vibrational state. The I2 photodissociation/recombination dynamics has been investigated most thoroughly as a standard model for chemical reactions in solutions [11]. Recently, time-resolved experiments on the photodissociation and recombination dynamics of molecular ion (I2 ) in several solvents and in massselected clusters of the form I2 (CO2)n have been done by several research groups [12–16]. Along with molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations for the same systems [17–19], such studies emphasized the role of electrostatic interactions on solution/cluster reaction dynamics and vibrational relaxation. In this work, we studied the photodissociation and recombination dynamics of I2 in a linear chain of rare


U.S.C. ............................................... 280/744 Int. Cl'........................................... A63C 9/08 Field of Search ......... 280/150 SB, 150 B, 744, 280/745, 747; 180/82 C; 297/388, 389 56) References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,838,746 10/1974 Andres ......................... 280/150 SB 3,87,470 3/1975 : Schwanz ...................... 280/150 SB 3,891.27 6/1975 Fieni............................ 280/50 SB, Primary Examiner-Robert R. Song 57) ABSTRACT A cylinder-piston assembly of a gas-operated actuator for straining a seat belt when a vehicle encounters a collision is provided with gas passageways which are normally closed by a valve. The valve permits gas to escape through the passageways when the gas pressure exceeds a predetermined value due to pulling of the piston against the force developed by the gas during forward motion of the seat occupant so that the occu pant may be secured to the seat with a restricted force. and adequate energy absorption.


Application of antibody probes in the diagnosis and control of fish diseases listeria monocytogens - a new microbiological hazard in seafood? vaccines and immunostimulants for sustainable aquaculture traditional fermented fish products of south east and far east Asia applications of molecular methods for seafood quality control applications of jellyfish green fluorescent proteins recent developments in marine biotechnology changing concepts and problems in fishery development antibacterial chemotherapy and drug resistance in aquaculture sex determination and differentiation in teleosts.


The aim of this study was to investigate the association between urinary 90 kDa N-domain Angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) form with C-reactive protein (CRP) and homocysteine plasma levels (Hcy), urinary nitric oxide (NOu), and endothelial function (EF) in normotensive subjects. Forty healthy subjects were evaluated through brachial Doppler US to test the response to reactive hyperemia and a panel of blood tests to determine CRP and Hcy levels, NOu, and urinary ACE. They were divided into groups according to the presence (ACE90+) or absence (ACE90−) of the 90 kDa ACE, the presence (FH+) or absence (FH−) of family history of hypertension, and the presence or absence of these two variables FH+/ACE90+ and FH−/ACE90−. We found an impaired endothelial dilatation in subjects who presented the 90 kDa N-domain ACE as follows: 11.4% ± 5.3% in ACE90+ compared with 17.6% ± 7.1% in ACE90− group and 12.4% ± 5.6% in FH+/ACE90+ compared with 17.7% ± 6.2% in FH−/ACE90− group, P < 0.05. Hcy and CRP levels were statistically significantly lower in FH+/ACE90+ than in FH−/ACE90− group, as follows: 10.0 ± 2.3 µM compared with 12.7 ± 1.5 µM, and 1.3 ± 1.8 mg/L compared with 3.6 ± 2.0 mg/L, respectively. A correlation between flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) and CRP, Hcy, and NOu levels was not found. Our study suggests a reduction in the basal NO production confirmed by NOu analysis in subjects with the 90 kDa N-domain ACE isoform alone or associated with a family history of hypertension. Our data suggest that the presence of the 90 kDa N-domain ACE itself may have a negative impact on flow-mediated dilatation stimulated by reactive hyperemia.


Emergent software applications are increasingly becoming (self-)adaptive and autonomous. Further, Internet of Things (IoT) applications increasingly involve data analytics. The introduction of neural networks in IoT systems has enabled a new generation of applications capable of performing complex sensing and actuation analysis tasks that were not previously possible with other approaches. A key component in the development of these systems is the ability to represent data analytics variability, which captures the ways in which the system can adapt in terms of the data analysis at design and run times. Although variability has been explored in the domain of software product lines (SPLs), data analytics variability in IoT neural network-based systems still seems to be poorly understood and needs to be investigated appropriately. In this paper, we introduce an approach to capture data analytics variability in IoT neural network-based systems (IoTNNSs). The approach represents several types of variability inherent in the development of these analytics systems, including those related to the application context, behavior, quality attributes, IoT devices, and neural networks.


It researches the affection of polymer to the bonding strengthening and deformation function of insulating slurry through the experiment,and the experimental effect indicates that the content of polymer increasing the tensile strength of insulating slurry is increase as when the volume content of polyphenyl granule is inalterability and the liner shrink ratio is decrease,to prompt the application of pastern powder polyphenyl granule out of the external wall insulating system.


DURING THE first half of the nineteenth century the midwestern town of Cleveland, Ohio, developed from a pioneer outpost of a dozen people to a thriving mercantile center of some 30,000 population. Most of this expansion took place after 1827 when the Ohio-Erie canal reached the lake and greatly stimulated the lagging commerce and immigration of the region. This phenomenal growth of Cleveland was hence largely concentrated within the second quarter of the century and its very rapidity made orderly development difficult. It is clear from the record, however, that disorder within the city at this time must also be traced to improvisation as a substitute for long-range planninginevitable in a region and an age unfamiliar with the concept of planning; to subservience to economic pressuregroups, particularly the real-estate interests; and to the hold which conservatism and tradition had upon the thinking of the community leaders. These factors played a large part in shaping the community before 1850 and hence the next period was to inherit an already ill-formed design and a city inadequately prepared for the deluge of industrialization which was shortly to be visited upon it. In the third quarter of the century, following hard upon the canal era, Cleveland entered a second period of rapid expansion and pervading change. The new impetus was provided by the railroads and heavy industry and under these stimuli the city changed its character almost completely for the second time. Faster transportation and the needs of industry fostered a new and larger wave of immigration. Accordingly, the city limits were repeatedly extended and as the older center became congested, new streets were laid out on the periphery. With this lateral expansion, better transportation became imperative and required extensive street improvement and systems of public conveyance. Water supply and lighting had to keep pace and new services had to be supplied, in particular refuse disposal and sewerage. The need for public grounds became more conspicuous with increased population and extended boundar es. Grave new issues attendant upon industrialization had to be faced. Of these the problems of air and wat r pollution were most acute. There was a multiplicity of problems to accompany a period of trem ndous pressures and great physical change and many of these problems were new. Unfortunately, both the physical forms and the procedures inherited from the previous era were detrimental to their solution. The street at ern was established and large areas of town already were built up and the character of each section of town became mor deeply imprinted as the decades passed. The me cantile concentration along the river became more crowded as the railroads and industry moved into this area. The retail district became both more dense and more ex-


To provide evidence for extractive technology of Mongolian traditional medicine Jiangtang Capsule.Orthogonal design was used here,showed adding 8 times volume of water and boiling 1.5 h,extracting 2 times total was the best extractive technology.Boiling time and water volume were the most important factors for the extractive capacity of polysaccharide,so they should be under control.


This study analyzes various design alternatives in determining the manpower requirements needed for an army orders processing operation. Specifically it will enable a National Guard Plans and Training orders. The analysis is performed by use of simulation modeling. Different manpower alternatives were evaluated that included varying numbers and arrangements of processes. Consideration was given to the total processing time objectives in order to determine these levels of manpower. It is intended that this model will ultimately reside in interactive software on a microcomputer.


Conductive food mounting plate (2) accommodates a refrigerator (1) in, placing the food (9) to the food mounting plate (2), at the same time the food placing AC voltage and a DC voltage food storage method which is characterized in that plate (2) to cool the food product while applying (9) storage. Wherein the AC and DC voltages at the same time the DC-AC simultaneous application period a period for applying, after the DC-AC simultaneous application period has elapsed, and applying only the DC or AC voltage to the food mounting plate (2) to food (9) and cold storage in the state. Refrigerator (1), and food placing plate of conductive accommodated in refrigerator (1) (2), and an AC power source for applying an AC voltage to the food mounting plate (2) (3), food placed includes a DC power source for applying a DC voltage to the plate (2) (4), the food storage apparatus characterized by simultaneously applying said AC voltage and the DC voltage to the food mounting plate (2).


Requests have been made for more study in energy informatics where IS research can demonstrate academic social responsibility and create new opportunities within the field (Watson et al. 2010). Other calls have been made to incorporate Big Data, intelligence and intelligent systems to help understand strategic decision making for organizations (Gholami et al. 2016; Ketter et al. 2016). It remains unclear how the use of machine learning (ML) and analytics along with Big Data as part of the larger Information System (IS) in non-profit energy sector firms can be effectively used to inform strategic outcomes and decisions. This research contributes to extant IS literature by advancing insights related to the role of ML, Analytics and Big Data in strategic outcome and decisions by top management in the non-profit firms within the electrical energy sector.


Keen observation and vivid imagery mark this collection of poems by a Chickasaw Indian. Linda Hogan's subjects are often drawn from events of everyday life--gathering wood, watching her daughters sleep, witnessing changes in the weather, awaiting nightfall. But beneath the surface of these daily happenings runs a powerful undercurrent, a sureness of life's basic rhythms and a sensitivity to the pressures of survival.


An employers′ approach to in‐company policy and training needs for handling substance abuse is outlined. This is supported by detailed checklists on warning signs that employees may have personal problems and six steps that are recommended as a procedure for any necessary intervention by managers or supervisors.


This report provides a synthesis of the analysis of regulatory framework affecting sensory properties.
The main focus of the analysis was on the most relevant differences between the EU rules for organic production, governmental rules and private standards, which are relevant for sensory properties.


Abstract This paper proposes a method of speech intention understand-ing based on a spoken dialogue corpus to which the intentiontags are given. The intention tag expresses the task-dependentintention of the speaker, and therefore, the proper understand-ing enables a spoken dialogue system to take appropriate ac-tions. We have tagged about 35000 utterances in the CIAIR in-car speech database. In our method, several decision trees forintention understanding are constructed. By constructing deci-sion trees and using them at the same time, the strong amount ofcharacteristic features related to intentions can be retrieved, andit can also be robustly coped with the diversity of the utterances.An experiment on inference of utterance intentions has shown73.1% accuracy. 1. Introduction In order to interact with a user naturally and smoothly, it is nec-essary for a spoken dialogue system to understand the intentionof the user exactly. As a method of speech intention under-standing, example-based approaches have been considered sofar [1, 3, 6]!%In general, these approaches involve comparinga spoken utterance with examples in a correctly-tagged corpus.The intention of the utterance is regarded as the intention tag ofthe most similar example in the corpus. However, it is difficultto infer the intention of the utterance to which any example inthe corpus is not similar.This paper proposes a method of speech intention under-standing based on a spoken dialogue corpus. The method con-structs several decision trees for intention understanding. Byconstructing several decision trees, the strong amount of char-acteristic features related to intentions can be retrieved, and itcan also be robustly coped with the diversity of the utterances.So far, we have designed an organization of the tags which iscalled Layered Intention Tag(LIT). These tags show more de-tailed utterance intention rather than the illocutionary act level,and have built the corpus[2, 3]. LIT is divided into several lay-ers considering the relevance between an intention and variousphenomena relevant to an utterance, such as a style, a keyword,a sentence structure. This method constructs several decisiontrees by using this corpus and infers the intention by combiningthem.In order to evaluate the effectiveness of our method, an ex-periment on inference of the utterance intentions was conductedusing the driver utterances about restaurant search recorded ona large-scale in-car spoken dialogue corpus of CIAIR[4, 5]. Asa result, the effectiveness of the method was confirmed.


The development of the game is now more diverse kinds of simple games to games that high dimension. Making Space Applications Games is us- ing Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) which is part of Java 2, and has been tested on the emulator provided by the J2ME and mobile devices Sony Ericsson Type K770i. The games discussed here called Space is a game that moves the air- craft to not hit the outer space objects such as stars and satellites. This application is very simple, consisting of six scripts that function is mixed. At the manufacturing stage to note exactly how much memory will be used later, be- cause the memory available on mobile phones is also not too big. Bibliography (2003-2004).


Abstract Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) is a versatile drought‐tolerant crop; part of its potential for expansion in the subtropics of the US and the tropics is unrealized because of its sensitivity to soil acidity. Improved methods for rapid evaluation of acid soil tolerance may help breeding programs to overcome this limitation. Four‐day root growth of seedlings of six genotypes in rapid tests in acid soil media was significantly correlated (R2 = 0.82) with acid soil tolerance evaluated in a field experiment on a high‐Al Ultisol in Corozal, Puerto Rico. This indicates that the ability of the roots of tolerant genotypes to penetrate into acid environments was a key aspect of their success in the field. A solution culture test showed that aluminum (Al) was the principal acidity factor in the acid soil at Corozal. Rapid seedling root growth tests can non‐destructively identify plants having genetic potential to withstand Al toxicity in the field and increase the efficiency of breeding programs.


It is pointed out that control over the dielectric losses of a polypropylene-oil layer insulation system can be attained by a surface modification procedure of polypropylene (PP) foil using the plasma polymerization technique. Plasma polymers produced from chosen organic vapors have been used to demonstrate the potential usefulness of this approach. Stabilization of dielectric losses with electric field was achieved by a plasma polymer layer no more than 1000 AA thick. It is concluded that the contributions which the plasma polymerization technique can make to the design of a layer insulation include controlling the current-voltage characteristics of PP sample and decreasing the dissipation factor of the layer insulation.<<ETX>>


The aim of this paper is to explore main approaches to Second Language Acquisition. In particular, current research within the linguistic, sociolinguistic and cognitive approach is presented. The paper aims at demonstrating the relevance of the studies to foreign language pedagogy.


Part 1 Theoretical and methodological issues: industrial relations and technical change - the case for an extended perspective, Wolfgang Streeck and Arndt Sorge flexible specialization - miracle or myth?, Richard Hyman comparative research and new technology, Beat Hotz-Hart new technology and social networks at the local and regional level, Reinhard Lund and Jorgen Rasmussen. Part 2 Innovation initiatives: management strategy - towards new forms of regulation?, Serafino Negrelli between Fordism and flexibility?, Stephen Wood new technology in Scotbank, John MacInnes. Part 3 Skills, deskilling and labour market power: labour and monopoly capital, Peter Armstron skills, options and unions, Jon Gulowsen new technology and training, Helen Rainbird. Part 4 Trade union strategies: new technological paradigms, long waves and trade unions, Otto Jacobi technological change and unions, Greg Bamber policy debates over work reorganization in North American unions, Harry Katz the Australian metalworkers' union and industrial change, Stephen Frenkel. Part 5 Technological innovation and workplace relations: information, consultation and the control of new technologies, Robert Price consensual adaptation to new technology - observations on the Finnish case, Pertti Koistinen and Kari Lilja industrial relations and workers' representation at workplace level in France, Sabine Erbes-Seguin bargaining over new technology - a comparison of France and Germany, Michele Tallard.


Human face plays an important role in our social interaction, conveying people's identity but it is a dynamic object and has a high degree of variability in its appearences.So to overcome this variability Face Detection and face recognition methods have been introduced. Face detection is the basic step of face recognition. In this paper, we present a comprehensive and critical survey of face detection and face recognition techniques. We present a neural network solution which comprises of identifying a face image from the face's unique features. The basic idea is to identify some unique features in the face image of a person, extract that feature and compare. Approach and various methods which involve the text detection in natural image and extract the aligned text with composite background. In face recognition, we propose the concept of neural networks and PCA,LDA,MPCALDA in which we recognize an unknown test image by comparing it with the known training images stored in the database as well as give information regarding the person recognized. Back propagation algorithm give different rates of accuracy under different conditions as experimentally observed. In face detection, we have developed an algorithm that can detect human faces from an image. This paper describes our research progress towards a different approach for recognition techniques.


Objective To investgate the feasibility and experimental conditions when determine the activity of mouse spleen cells with the Alamarblue assay on the basement of comparision of Alamarblue and MTT.Methods The reduce rate of Alamarblue and the OD value of MTT were determined at different cell density and reaction time.Results In Alamarblue assay,the cell density was linearly related to the Alamarblue reduction at 4th,6th,20th hour.The cell density was not linearly related to the Alamarblue reduction at 0,2nd hour.The reduce rate was 78.3% when the cell density was 2×105 cells/ml and the reaction time was 20 hours.Alamarblue assay was linearly related to MTT assay.The group difference of Alamarblue was 0.015 2(high cell drnsity)and 0.024(low cell drnsity).Conclusion In the proliferation or cytotoxicity test of mouse spleen cell,Alamarblue assay may reflect the amount of lymphocytes indirectly.Alamarblue assay is well linearly related to the MTT assay.When the cell density is low,Alamarblue assay is more stable.


The induction of 1‐hydroxylase in alveolar macrophages by tumor necrosis factor‐alpha (TNF) was examined in view of recent evidence suggesting that local production of 1,25‐(OH)2D3 may play a role in the regulation of immune functions. Incubation of pulmonary alveolar macrophages from normal human subjects with recombinant TNF caused a 2‐ to 10‐fold increase in 25‐hydroxyvitamin D3‐1‐hydroxylase activity. The dose‐response curve was linear over the range 0.05—5.0 IU/ml, and no further increase was seen at higher concentrations. The increase in 1‐hydroxylase activity was present after 12 h and reached a maximum after 3 days. The effect of TNF was inhibited in a dose‐dependent manner by the presence of 1,25(OH)2D3 (10−10−10−8 M) in the incubation media for 5 days but was unaffected by 10−9 M 1,25(OH)2D3 after 12 h. The enhancement of macrophage 1‐hydroxylase activity by TNF was comparable to that induced by gamma interferon (IFN) but the effects of maximal doses of both agents were not additive. The presence of antibody to TNF resulted in a 76% inhibition of TNF‐induced 1‐hydroxylase but had no significant effect on IFN‐induced 1‐hydroxylase activity.