AIMS
Transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) is a novel technique for treating mitral regurgitation. We report 18-month/two-year outcomes of the five first-in-man patients undergoing chronic TMVR with the Tendyne device.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Five patients (STS score range 14%-23%) underwent TMVR using the Tendyne system under compassionate use at a single centre. One patient (who was non-compliant with anticoagulation) died nine months after TMVR following a cerebrovascular accident. Whilst some of the remaining patients experienced recognised post-TMVR complications (left ventricular outflow tract obstruction, paravalvular leak, stent thrombosis), all patients alive at 18 months/two years after TMVR reported significant reduction in NYHA class and increase in exercise capacity compared to baseline. Transthoracic echocardiography demonstrated valve stability, absent transvalvular mitral regurgitation, and significant reductions in tricuspid regurgitation severity and systolic pulmonary arterial pressure.

CONCLUSIONS
Eighteen months/two years after compassionate use of the Tendyne system in a high-risk surgical group, the majority of patients were alive, patient symptoms improved, and the device was stable with good haemodynamic function, no late migration and no new paravalvular leak. Continued follow-up of patients treated with the Tendyne system is required in order to describe its safety and efficacy further.


Find out about the Government's Warm Front Scheme and Home Energy Efficiency Grants in England or Wales from The Pension Service, part of the Department for Work and Pensions.


ABSTRACT The authors of this article investigate the nonlinear stability of axisymmetric functionally graded annular spherical shells with temperature-dependent material properties subjected to thermo-mechanical loads and resting on elastic foundations. Equilibrium and compatibility equations are derived by using the classical thin shell theory in terms of the shell deflection and the stress function. Approximate analytical solutions are assumed to satisfy simply supported boundary conditions and Galerkin method is applied to obtain the closed-form of load–deflection paths. An analysis is carried out to show the effects of material and geometrical properties and combination of loads on the stability of the shells.


Abstract Applications of in situ agrobiodiversity conservation practices within agricultural production systems have the potential to reduce the risks of agricultural modernisation and enhance sustainable development. The aims and approaches for in situ conservation differ according to the requirements of communities and nations. Approaches to in situ conservation in the decade after the Convention of Biological Diversity are reviewed within the contexts of marginal agricultural systems in Nepal, Turkey and Switzerland. Numerous approaches are currently utilised, including: the informal de facto retention of agrobiodiversity; the provision of state assistance; the marketing of agrobiodiversity products; the use of technological innovations to develop local diversity; the establishment of conservation reserves; community assistance programmes and the raising of awareness of the issue amongst all sectors of societies. Emerging complementary in situ approaches applicable in the rural margins suggest a framework for effectively conserving agrobiodiversity by working with local people.


To predict CTLA4 expression levels and prognosis of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) by constructing a computed tomography‐based radiomics model and establishing a nomogram using clinicopathologic factors.


MARS scanners generate multi-energy images with high spatial resolution and low noise. MARS imaging simultaneously identifies and quantifies various components of soft tissues, bones, cartilage as well as exogenously administered contrast agents, nanoparticles and pharmaceuticals in a single scan. This ability to detect contrast agents and intrinsic markers simultaneously has enabled research into new methods of cancer and tumor detection.


Enantiospecific synthesis of (+)-trans-alpha-himachalene starting from (R)-carvone is described. An intramolecular type II carbonyl ene reaction has been employed as the key step for the construction of the bicyclo[5.4.0]undecane ring system.


The design of multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antennas based on characteristic modes has attracted considerable attention recently. This letter presents a novel MIMO antenna that excites the same two eigenmodes from each of its two ports, but with a 180° phase difference between the modal excitation coefficients of one of the dominant modes. This provides the antenna with two orthogonal radiation patterns that can be independently excited from each of the two ports of the antenna, without a complex power dividing network that is typical of other designs based on characteristic modes. A fabricated prototype gives 21.2 dB of isolation between the ports. Good agreement is observed between the measured and simulated radiation patterns, and the envelope correlation coefficient between the patterns was measured to be 0.0638.


The development of the digestive system in larvae of the Neotropical fish P. argenteus was analyzed histologically. On the 3rd day after hatching, the digestive system comprised oropharyngeal cavity, esophagus and simple undifferentiated tube. Since secreting cells, positive to Alcian Blue (AB), were found in the esophagus, digestive activity in the initial phase had occurred. On the 18 and 28th days after hatching, the esophagus was positive for AB and Periodic Acid Schiff (PAS) stain. The stomach was fully differentiated, with the cardiac, fundic and pyloric regions. Different regions of the epithelium were characterized by basic and acidic secreting cells (AB and PAS positive). On the 18 and 28th days after hatching, the intestine was long, coiled and divided into proximal, middle and distal segments with pyloric ceca. Secreting cells in different regions of the gut were either positive or negative for AB and PAS. Results showed that larvae of P. argenteus exhibited digestive activity on the third day after hatching, with fully differentiated stomach and intestines on the 18 and 28th days and their different regions featuring secreting cells.


The present assignment examines the manifestation of the professional exhaustion syndrome affecting educators (both tenured and substitute) of the Greek Public Educational System. The paper casts light on the parameters relating to the analyzed syndrome and their correlation to professional stress, to the individual characteristics of the educators and to the contemporary working conditions, within the framework of a prolonged economic recession in Greece. Additionally, the assignment locates and interprets the extent to which the symptoms of professional exhaustion are present in the lives of public education professors, by emphasizing on the deterioration of their working conditions and on the distinction between the types of the contractual relationships (tenured/non-tenured educators). The representative sample of the research was comprised of 134 teachers appointed in primary schools and high schools in the prefecture of Attica, as well as two internet-based groups of substitute educators. The methodological approach applied to the above mentioned conduct was the quantitative research by means of questionnaires. The outcomes of the research suggest that public education teachers experience intense symptoms of professional exhaustion, especially in the case of non-tenured educators (substitute / hourly-wages income). Consequently, the worsening employment conditions in this contemporary era of crisis, contribute greatly to the manifestation of the particular syndrome. In conclusion, the paper summarizes that the educators are being damaged on an individual level, while at the same time the proper functioning of the educational process is being undermined.


Phenyl-capped CdSe nanometre sized particles (quantum dots) were isolated after preparation inside reversed micelles present in AOT/H 2 O/heptane and then successfully redispersed in aminosilicate ormosils derived from either 3-aminopropyl(trimethoxy)silane (i.e SA) or N-[3-trimethoxy]silyl(propyl)ethylene-diamine (i.e. DA ). Doped ormosils were formed into films of a few μm thickness or small bulk samples. Host ormosils were structurally characterised by means of absorption spectroscopy in the near and mid infrared ranges and by 29 Si and 13 C solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The SA (and DA) siloxane matrix was found to be 84% (and 88%) condensed and polymeric water molecules hydrogen bonded into the matrix, presumably at silanol and amine sites. 13 C nonquaternary suppression NMR revealed that the carbon attached to silicon in the ormosil is semi-rigid whereas the rest of the organic chain is mobile in the ormosil matrix. Doped ormosils were prepared and investigated via visible spec- troscopy. CdSe dots of good monodispersity and radius 1.5-2.4 nm (going from yellow to red in visual appearance) were redispersed in aminosilicate ormosils. Attempts to prepare larger dots resulted in flocculation of the CdSe. The maximum loading of CdSe dots in the aminosilicate matrix was measured to be 2.05 wt% CdSe 0.72 where the density of the host matrix is about 0.5-0.7 that of a typical silicate glass.


In reviewing the older literature on pulmonary disease, one is impressed with the significance accorded pulmonary hemorrhage in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. Although this disease was not always diagnosed on the basis of pulmonary hemorrhage alone, such bleeding was usually attributed to a tuberculous focus until proved otherwise. Later, when the roentgen ray was used to aid in the examination of the lungs, it was observed that in many cases of pulmonary hemorrhage there was no demonstrable pulmonary lesion. It was, therefore, assumed in such cases that the hemorrhage was from a tuberculous focus near the hilum of the lung. This conception of pulmonary hemorrhage prevailed until further aid in the diagnosis of pulmonary disease was afforded by bronchoscopy. Direct inspection of the trachea and bronchi revealed that many lesions other than diose of tuberculosis cause bleeding from the lungs. Benign and malignant neoplasms, pulmonary abscess and foreign bodies are some of the less common lesions giving rise to pulmonary hemorrhage. More common causes are chronic bronchiectasis and chronic mitral endocarditis with stenosis. The records of 100 patients suffering from active pulmonary tuberculosis have been reviewed and compared with those of an equal number of patients suffering from chronic bronchiectasis and also an equal number suffering from mitral stenosis, with dyspnea on exertion, in order to determine the relative incidence of pulmonary hemorrhage in these diseases. In none


The appearance of pregnancy-typical proteins in nonpregnant women during the treatment with oral effective synthetic estrogens progestogens and the combination of both was investigated by precipitating immunochemical methods. The occurrence of the pregnancy zone alpha-2-glycoprotein depended on the estrogen content of the contraceptive drugs respectively on the inherent estrogen activity of progestogens. The pregnancy zone protein is estrogen-dependent but not specific for pregnancy. The pregnancy-specific beta-1-glycoprotein is not detectable in nonpregnant women under the influence of synthetic sexual steroids.(AUTHORS MODIFIED)


Masako Nakagawa, Villanova University "Kiritsubo and Yang Kuei-fei: A Sino-Japanese Dimension" Abstract: Po Chü-i's famous poem: "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" spread in Japan during Po's lifetime and created a literary sensation. Po's work is about Yang Kuei-fei, a famous Imperial consort. It is no coincidence that Prince Genji's mother Kiritsubo is compared to Yang Kuei-fei in the first chapter of The Tale of Genji The story of Genji's parents, Kiritsubo and the Emperor, has a tragic ending like that of Yang. Through the comparison with Yang, Kiritsubo is defined as a woman with humility and subtlety. After Kiritsubo's death the Emperor sends a messenger to Kiritsubo's mother. This is an obvious allusion to Po's poem. The Emperor's emissary encounters the mother whose personal grief overpowers and makes her to hint at her criticism toward the Emperor in connection with her daughter's untimely death while the Chinese magician flies to a magic isle where Yang's spirit greets him with a full of gratitude toward imperial concerns even after her death. Here Murasaki Shikibu presents a new theme of true human emotion underneath humility and subtlety which the Japanese people had valued. Guided by deep emotion, Kiritsubo's son Genji falls in love with his stepmother Fujitsubo who is said to resemble his late mother. His quest then leads to the discovery of young Murasaki, Fujitsubo's niece. In his romantic adventures true human emotion is a strong primordial force, and if not in check it could ruin his personal life as it did with his parents. This study addresses a hitherto unexplored driving force behind the narrative through an examination of its impact on Genji's story in relation with Yang's.


Drive system (2) for a tilt adjustment of an intermediate of a foldable to transport passengers suitable use position and a relative to the use position easily pivoted inoperative position, the backrest (10) of a vehicle seat (1), wherein the backrest (10) via at least one fitting (12) (to a substructure 11 ) of the vehicle seat (1) is held, wherein lean side (from a driving motor 20) can be driven output gear (24) is provided, and the output pinion (24) arranged with a rotatably (on the substructure 11) toothed segment (18) cooperates and by the drive motor a pivoting movement of the backrest (10) can be performed (20) while the bracket (12) is unlocked, characterized, that the output pinion (24) by means of a coupling (22) of the drive motor (20) can be decoupled, and that between the backrest (10) and the substructure (11) compensation spring acting (14) is provided, by means of which the backrest (10) is biased towards the non-use position.


Recent measurements of the gyromagnetic ratio of the proton have yielded results which indicate that there may be a field dependence of the magnetic moment of the proton. An attempt has been made to observe such a dependence; although none was found, a method of comparing nuclear magnetic resonance frequencies with a precision of better than 1 part in 106 is described. The ratio of the proton resonance frequency to the resonance frequencies of 3H, 7Li, 11B 19F have been measured to a precision which is in some cases as high as 1 part in 107.


A key component of a multi-threaded server is the thread manager, which performs the assignment of incoming requests to server threads. We present a new kind of thread manager called UniServer, implemented in Java. UniServer incorporates three innovations: First it solves a great deal of the involved management tasks by intelligent use of the monitor concept. Second, it allows to choose between the main threading strategies by the appropriate adjustment of only three parameters. And-nally, it allows the change of the threading strategy at runtime. As an application and demonstration of the usefulness of UniServer we present a server called MetaDriver based on UniServer, which can increase the performance of applications that use the JDBC Java Database Connectivity standard.


A scheme is described for the calculation of the atmospheric infra-red radiative cooling rate which is suitable for use at all levels. It uses the Curtis matrix method together with the Curtis-Godson approximation in a form which includes the influence of temperature on line intensity. Doppler effect is included. Because of its simplicity the Goody random model is used for all the absorption bands considered (H2O rotation and 6.3μ, CO2 15μ, O3 9.6μ); the use of more accurate models as they become available presents no fundamental difficulty and in any case many of the topics investigated are not particularly sensitive to the spectral model used. A method of reducing the number of spectral intervals is described and its accuracy demonstrated. An accurate method of dealing with diffuse radiation is used to test the diffuse approximation, with the result that the constant factor 1.66 originally proposed by Elsasser is found to be quite adequate for most purposes. Cooling rate errors caused by the following factors are estimated: (1) random and systematic errors in the initial temperature and humidity profiles; (2) the size of the vertical step used in computation; (3) neglecting the temperature dependence of the Curtis matrix; (4) non-linear effects in forming climatological means. It is shown that the easily computed 'cooling to space' is often a good approximation. All the error investigations are based on direct calculations of the cooling profile. Some comparisons with other techniques are presented and a number of examples of meteorological interest are used to illustrate the versatility of the computing scheme.


We investigate the problem of kriging analysis for estimating quantities at unknown locations given a set of observations. Widely known in the geostatistical community, kriging bases spatial prediction on a closed-form model for the spatial co variances between observations, deriving interpolation parameters that minimize variance. While kriging produces predictions with high accuracy, a standard implementation based on maximum likelihood involves repeated covariance factorization, forward-solve, and inner product operations. The resulting computational complexity renders the method infeasible for application to large datasets on a single node. To facilitate large-scale kriging analysis, we develop and implement a distributed version of the algorithm that can utilize multiple computational nodes as well as multiple cores on a single node. We apply kriging analysis for making predictions from a medium-sized weather station dataset, and demonstrate our parallel implementation on a much larger synthetic dataset consisting of 65536 points using 512 cores.


Excerpt To the editor: Ticarcillin, a semisynthetic penicillin with a spectrum of activity similar to that of carbenicillin, has been particularly useful in conjuction with the aminoglycosides in t...


4007 Background: Pemetrexed (P) (ALIMTA) is a multitargeted antifolate with broad antitumor activity in solid tumors, including pancreas cancer (PC). Gemcitabine (G) (GEMZAR) is the current standard of care for inoperable PC. The combination of G and P has shown preclinical synergy and activity in a phase II study in PC [Kindler et al., ASCO 2002].

METHODS
This study compared G 1250 mg/m2 day (d)1 & d 8 and P 500 mg/m2 d 8 q 3 weeks to G 1000 mg/m2 d 1, 8, 15 q 4 weeks in chemonaive patients (pts). Primary objective was overall survival (OS); secondary objectives were progression-free survival (PFS), time to progressive disease (TTP), response rate (RR), quality of life (QoL), and toxicity. Pts were stratified for performance status, disease stage, baseline homocysteine levels and investigational centers.

RESULTS
565 pts (GP 283; G 282) were randomized. Baseline characteristics were well balanced (GP/G) with median age (63/63), stage IV disease (90%/91%), ECOG PS 0-1 (85%/88%), and liver metastasis (63%/63%). Median treatment duration was 12 weeks in both arms. There was no statistical difference in OS (p=0.848; censoring rate 16.3%; median 6.2 months (m) for GP and 6.3 m for G). RR was significantly better (p=0.006) for GP (18.3%; 42/230) than G (9.1%,20/220) as was median TTP (5.2 m for GP vs 3.6 m, p=0.042). PFS (3.9 m vs 3.3 m; p=0.11) and 1-year survival (21.4 vs 20.1%; p=0.718) were similar in both arms. Second-line therapy was given to 39% of the pts (PG 34%; G 43%). Of the planned doses, 75.3% of G and 86.9% of P in the GP arm were given, 86.5% in the G arm. Weekly mean dose of G was similar in both arms (628 vs 610 mg/m2). There were 3 treatment-related deaths in the PG arm. More grade 3/4 toxicity was seen for PG: neutropenia (45.1% vs 12.8%), thrombocytopenia (17.9% v 6.2%), anemia (13.9% v. 2.9%), febrile neutropenia (9.9% vs 0.4%), all differences p<0.001, and fatigue (15% vs 6.6%, p<0.05). Otherwise, both treatments were well tolerated. Overall QoL was well preserved in both treatment arms.

CONCLUSIONS
PG improved TTP and RR, but not survival. Gemcitabine monotherapy remains the global standard of care for inoperable PC. [Table: see text].


Edward W. Said's claim in Culture and Imperialism—that the West justified its imperial domination over the rest of the world by overvaluing its own culture—owes much to the work of Raymond Williams, the founder of the field of cultural studies. Williams's political struggle for the recognition of popular culture in the configuration of society at the national level should, according to Said, be reintegrated into the context of an imperial framework characterized by the reification and hierarchization of dominated cultures. Williams's commitment to a democratic debate on cultural hegemony within the nation pre-supposes a consensus on the homogeneity of a given people. This homogeneity becomes impossible at the imperial level in view of the racial segregation implemented by colonial imperialism. The cultural materialism of Raymond Williams and his analyses of the role of diasporas in the European artistic avant-garde allow Said to consider—sometimes against the overly national perspectives of Williams himself—the material conditions that would enable the global propagation of cultural experiences, freed from the imperial straitjacket.


Multi‐decadal weakening trend of the equatorial Pacific easterly winds since 1960 has reversed after 1993. The trend reversal has induced cooling (shallow thermocline) trend in the equatorial western Pacific before 1993, followed by a warming (deep thermocline) trend from 1993 to the present. All available atmospheric reanalysis products corroborate the trend reversal during the two multi‐decadal periods. The magnitudes of the multi‐decadal trends of the easterly winds, however, differ among the reanalysis products. The trend reversals of regional ocean circulations are assessed using linear regressions between wind and transport anomalies in an eddy‐permitting numerical model, suggesting that since 1993 the Indonesian Throughflow and the Leeuwin Current transports have also reversed their multi‐decadal weakening trends.


More specifically, section I develops a model for the analysis of the effect of changes in consumer demand on average educational requirements under rather restrictive assumptions. Some quantitative conclusions, based on income elasticities, input-output coefficients and capital-output ratios in the Israeli economy, are presented. Section II deals with the effect of changes in the composition of consumption on the demand for different levels of education, and their effect, in turn, on wage differentials. The discussion is based on the analysis and calculations of section I.


Images and/or collections of images may be rendered in a way that adapts to ambient circumstances, and that may enhance a user's perception of experience quality. When an image is requested for display, it is determined whether a rendered version of the image exists. If no rendered version of the image exists, then an imposter image is displayed. The imposter image may include arbitrary colors and/or patterns. If an appropriate rendered version of the image exists, then the rendered version may be displayed in place of the imposter version. While the imposter or rendered image is being displayed, the image may be retrieved, and may be rendered at other resolutions (e.g., successively higher resolutions). The choice of resolutions may be adapted to available transmission bandwidth, display speed, or other considerations.


AIM
Comparison of acute response to nebulizer inhalation of therapeutic doses of combined broncholitic berodual and domestic bronchoselective adrenomimetic salgim in patients with bronchial asthma (BA) and chronic obstructive bronchitis (COB).

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The trial included 17 COB and 15 BA patients who for two consecutive days inhaled berodual and salgim solutions. Before and after the inhalations, subjective condition of the patients and parameters of the forced expiration were recorded. The sequence of the solutions use was determined randomly.

RESULTS
Nebulizer inhalations of berodual and salgim relieved respiration subjectively in 83.9 and 93.5% patients, respectively. Significant bronchodilation was registered 30 min after inhalation of each of the solutions both in BA and COB. Berodual caused no side effects, salgim provoked short-term cough in 6(19.4%) patients.

CONCLUSION
Nebulizer therapy of berodual or salgim is clinically and cost effective in moderate and severe obstruction in BA and COB patients.


A U.S. company was contracted to cover different regions of the country. A moderately detailed description of the highlights of the company activities along with some conclusions and recommendations are reported. In summary, the regional program effectively: (1) informed segments of the medical community of research opportunities; (2) validated formats for regional workshops; (3) assisted potential investigators with follow-up consultations and proposal preparations; and (4) identified a latent intersect requiring continual dialog at the scientist/engineer interface for successful cultivation and integration.


In this paper, a magnetoelectric (ME) energy harvester is presented for scavenging external magnetic field energy. The proposed heterostructure consists of a Terfenol-D plate, a piezoelectric PZT5H plate, a NdFeB magnet, and two concentrators. The external magnetic field is concentrated to the Terfenol-D plate and the PZT5H plate working in shear-mode, which can potentially increase the magnetoelectric response. Experiments have been performed to verify the feasibility of the harvester. Under the magnetic field of 0.6 Oe, the device produces a RMS voltage of 0.53 V at the resonant frequency of 32.6 kHz. The corresponding output power reaches 44.96 μW across a 3.1 kΩ matching resistor.


With the rapid development of transportation industry, how to carry out intelligent traffic flow prediction has become an urgent issue. In this paper, compared with the single algorithm traffic flow prediction model, we propose a new method for modelling that combines the minimum multiplication support vector machine and clustering algorithm to predict the traffic flow, which provides the basis for scientific traffic management and decision-making process.


As an emerging kind of crystalline material, the metal-organic framework (MOF) has shown great promise in the biomedical domains such as drug storage and delivery. In this study, a new porous MOF, [[Dy2(H2O)3(SDBA)3](DMA)6] (1, H2SDBA = 4,4′-sulfonyldibenzoic acid, DMA = N,N-dimethylacetamide (C4H9NO)), with uncoordinated O donor sites has been fabricated using a bent polycarboxylic acid organic linker under the solvothermal condition. The structure of the obtained crystalline product has been fully determined by the X-ray single-crystal diffraction, TGA, elemental analysis, XRD, and the gas sorption measurement. Due to the suitable window size and polar atom functionalized 1D channels, the activated 1 (1a) compound was used for the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5-Fu, C4H3FN2O2) loading by a simple impregnation method. A moderate drug loading and pH-dependent drug-release behavior could be observed for 1a. Furthermore, as indicated by the MTT assay, this drug/MOF composite shows low toxicity toward the human normal cells and demonstrates obvious anticancer activity against the human osteosarcoma cell line MG63.


Then the function f(z) has both a rational multiplication and a rational addition theorem. We propose to determine all such functions. Our problem is a generalization of one treated in a paper by Ritti1), in which all periodic meromorphic functions having a multiplication theorem were determined. This is equivalent to taking S(z) =z in (2). For this case, Ritt proved that \m\ ^ 1 ; and if \m\ > 1, then f(z) is a linear function of one of the functions eaz, cos(az+s), p(z+s); when gs = 0, g»2(z+j3); when g2 = 0, S>'(z+s) and j?3(z+j3). Here a is arbitrary while s is restricted to certain values. If \m\ =1, then it was shown that m is either —1 or a third, fourth or sixth root of unity. The forms for the function f(z) were also explicitly given in this case. Use will be made of the results quoted and also of the methods of Ritt's paper. We distinguish the following three cases : (A) m >1; (B) m ?1, with m not a rational root of unity; (C) m a primitive wth root of unity. For Case (A), which is the one usually considered in multiplication theorems, we can restate the problem in a way which shows its connection with the theory of a class of functions first systematically studied by Poincare(2). He provided an existence theorem for meromorphic functions satisfying (1) assuming that 7?(z) has a fixed point(3) a for which 7?'(a) has a modulus greater than unity. Thus our problem is equivalent to that of finding all Poincare functions having a rational addition theorem.


Objective To study the expression of thymidine phosphorylase(TP) in colorectal cancer. Method TP protein and mRNA level were measured in 14 primary colorectal tumors and adjacent uninvolved tissues with ELISA and real-time RT-PCR. Results Both in mRNA and protein level, TP expression in tumors were much higher compared with the corresponding normal tissues. The level of TP protein and mRNA in tumors were 7. 82 ± 4. 31ng/μgTPO and 1. 66 ± 0. 766, respectively, those in nor-mal tissues were 5. 03 ± 2. 48 ng/μgTPO and 1. 05 ± 0. 60 > respectively. The level of mRNA were correlated with that of protein (r= 0. 81). Conclusion This result suggests that the expression of TP in tumors are high and offers a strategy for optimizing the use of 5-FU-based chemotherapy.


1) This paper investigates the differences between characteristics of street fashions due to regional and cultural differences in southern and northern region of China. Beijing and Shenzhen were chosen as representative cities for the two areas. Empirical research and literature study were performed for this study. Empirical studies were performed by using a total of 708 images of dresses, which were collected through direct imaging. Through discussion with experts, the collected data were classified into five categories; Modern trendy, Romantic, Easy casual, Ethnic, and Classical / Traditional. The data was analyzed by using cross tabulation and frequency analysis. Content analysis for each category was also conducted. As a consequence of this study, a significant difference between Beijing and Shenzhen were observed. As a city, which puts emphasis on practicality and modernity, Beijing showed a higher frequency of modern and trendy style than the other city. On the other hand, Shenzhen showed a higher frequency of romantic style and was distinguished as a city of femininity and decorative preference of fashion style. This study intends to contribute to the academic community of Chinese fashion and to help Korean clothing companies to be launched in Chinese market in the future.


Along with the growth in calculation speed and storage capacity of the network terminal node and in connection of bandwidth,the network of P2P structure,which has characterizes as huge storage capacity and strong computing power,flexibility and so on,can be ap plied to the regional teaching resources sharing to improve the rate of resource utilization in university,and can reduce the cost of resource input of university especially can avoid the repetition of resources construction.This paper aims at solving the problem of sharing regional university resources conveniently,bases on the research of existing P2P technology and network application characteristics to design a re gional teaching resource sharing system.


The invention relates to the at least one biocompatible, flexible space holder of a rigid material (flexible space holder) having a tubular body (1) to be implanted into a human or animal body, temporarily into or permanent, material one by the recess It is provided thereto or more flexible areas. The space holder, tubular body, the connecting means, grafts, muscle tissue, intervertebral disc, vertebra


Continuous soil nutrient data is the basic data of soil information system,soil nutrient spatial interpolation study becomes very important because it can affect the data reliability of soil nutrient data straightly.In this study,soil available kalium data,Zhouzhi county,Shaanxi province,is sampled and got the interpolation map of available kalium with OK,IDW,Spline and TSA according to interpolating sampling points.The cross validation results showed that OK is the best which used spherical model in these methods;although Spline and IDW could also produce fair and reasonable results,both of them were sensitive to sampling density,interpolation result appeared large prediction errors in those regions which had exiguous sampling points.


Manganese oxide/graphite oxide (GO) composites containing GO of two different oxidation levels are investigated as supercapacitors in neutral electrolytes, Na2SO4 and Li2SO4. Addition of only 10 wt% of GO with a low oxidation level results in an 18 times improvement in the capacitance in lithium sulfate and in a 60 times improvement of the capacitance in sodium sulfate as compared to that measured on manganese oxide. Even though the performance of the composites is similar in both electrolytes, in Na2SO4 the electrodes are more stable and the capacitance retention ratio is higher. The charge storage in sodium sulfate is linked to the double layer capacitance in the small pores of the composites and to the pseudocapacitance of the manganese oxide phase. In lithium sulfate the insertion of the lithium cation into the structure of the manganese oxide phase enhances the performance. Addition of GO with a high oxidation level is not favorable owing to the defects in the graphene layers limiting the conductivity and charge propagation for Faradaic reactions.


Sociology's nomothetic approach aims at general insights by comparing a large number of cases which are placed in a large context. The sociological approach is advantageous for observing non-intentional and non-politicized effects of contexts on cases. As a side-effect of this approach specifics of case and context are often neglected. The fact that cases are mostly placed in the nation state context alone is highly problematic. The research program of methodological cosmopolitanism proposes a different manner of constructing cases and contexts and of situating cases in contexts. Drawing on methods and concepts of ethnographic and comparative research, the article suggests situating cases in multiple contexts (among others e.g. transnational social fields or postcolonial spaces). Comparisons should be designed in a manner which enables us to empirically understand the extent and ways in which the nation state (system) impacts on cases. Ideal types of research designs which go "beyond" the nation state frame are discussed on the basis of the author's research on highly skilled migration.


The climatic conditions are changing with the era to era. Nowadays, to the people climatic conditions are very annoying and unusual. Throughout the history of human beings, temperature related inconveniences such as heat stroke, heat rash, frostbite, dehydration, hypothermia, etc. are the major problems and one cannot escape from these problems. Some of these conditions are led to unfortunate deaths of people. Some technological solutions made to keep people thermally comfortable such as air conditioning units, are most successful in helping people in their homes & in cars etc. but not in personal mobility situations. If one wants to move in such type of climatic conditions, climate adaptable jacket is a very beneficial product. This jacket can naturally keep up the specific temperature inside the jacket, so as to reduce the temperature; it initiates the fan that is placed inside the jacket. The design of this jacket gives better protection to the soldiers & navy people who are working in extreme weather conditions. This jacket allows the user to control and monitor the internal temperature of the jacket from high to low temperatures, with the use of the thermoelectric effect and displays the results in both GPS & GSM Modules. Keywords— LPC2148 microcontroller, Thermo-electric coolers (TECs), Peltier plates, GPS & GSM modules, LM35 temperature sensor, Relay. International Journal of Engineering and Techniques Volume 2 Issue 5, Sep – Oct 2016 ISSN: 2395-1303 http://www.ijetjournal.org Page 126 The final design is microprocessors based system, that the system makes heat and cool both sides of TECs by using rechargeable battery power supply. That the heat and cool functionality selected by using push button switch/mode and we can adjust heat and cool by relay operation. To provide the power supply to the circuit the lead acid rechargeable battery is used. Generally The TECs are outside of the circuitry which are connected through wires and placed with in the jacket so user can easily adjust position of TECs and it is not harmful to human body. The system also using LM-35 temperature sensor, GPS & GSM modules, and 16X2 LCD screen. The temperature sensor is using to sense the climatic temperature continuously and display it on LCD screen.


Abstract. Serum from a thrombocytopenic patient who was refractory to the transfusions of HLA‐matched platelets contained a platelet‐specific alloantibody, anti‐Naka. Immunofluorescence analyses revealed that the Naka antigen defined by the serum was expressed exclusively on platelets and its distribution was different from PlA1, Baka, Yuka or Yukb. Analysis by Dr. von dem Borne's group revealed the Naka was also different from Koa, Kob or Zwb. Family studies showed that the Naka antigen was inherited as an autosomal codominant trait. Its antigen frequency in the Japanese population was over 97%. The results of the enzyme immunoassay using monoclonal antibodies for antigen immobilization showed that the Naka epitope did not appear to reside on GPIIb/IIIa or Ib. The transfusions of Naka‐compatible platelets improved the patient's thrombocytopenia.


How to access Newman Library resources for the FASB Codification and IFRS, including explanatory and interpretative information in journals and other resources. Explains what is the Codification and its organization


Anonymity is often regarded as a negative feature of online communication because it allows speakers to behave antisocially without being at risk of facing repercussions. Hackers and online activists that use the ability to hide their identities as a means to protest against organizations and businesses are regarded with dread by the press, as they convey a general feeling of vulnerability in front of seemingly untouchable people. However, it is important to regard anonymity through an objective lens and reveal the positive aspects it lends to communication. Among these, one can count the lack of prejudice between communicators and the ability to focus on ideas and information instead of the social status of the speaker, which often leads to biased interpretations of their message. At the same time, the cathartic value of anonymous communication should not be ignored as it reminds us that people are psychologically multifaceted, not simple mirrors reflecting one identity ascribed to them. This article will review research into online communication and anonymity, as well as Kierkegaardian perspectives on anonymity and the trivialization of information. It will also comment on a recent speech by 4chan founder Christopher Poole regarding the limitations imposed on online communication by social networks which object to anonymity.


In the last 2 years (1989-1990) we have treated a total of 53 patients with metastatic nonseminomatous germ cell tumours (teratoma). In ten cases surgery to remove residual abdominal masses was required on completion of chemotherapy and normalisation of tumour markers (HCG and AFP). In a further three patients with large intra-abdominal masses and little or no other sites of disease surgery was performed


Lecture
In an era when minimally invasive pancreatic surgery is rapidly increasing, there is a desperate need for an educational program for the safe establishment and standardization of minimally invasive pancreaticoduodenectomy. This study aimed to develop a program that will enable easy access to educational materials and software development that can perform surgical simulation as an educational platform for minimally invasive pancreaticoduodenectomy. Two main training programsare development of surgical simulator and video-based training program. Surgical simulator is an in vitro mastery-based training kit which can practice two main reconstruction procedures of hepaticojejunostomy and pancreaticojejunostomy. Another is a video-based training program building webhard, which was categorized as 1. Korean minimally invasive pancreatic surgery (K-MIPS) education program, 2. Technical notes, and 3. K-MIPS online mentoring program. The K-MIPS education program consisted with expert's videos and public videos, allowing novice surgeons to learn the techniques of experienced surgeons. Technical notes provide lecture materials for members to upgrade their theoretical knowledge. K-MIPS online mentoring program is a highlight of this education program. This program contains three stages. Stage 1 is a video library, which provides important surgical pitfalls in procedure segmentation for stepwise approach. Here, novice surgeons can learn the each procedure in step-by-step following the experts' surgery. Stage 2 and 3 are online mentoring system. Novice surgeons can upload their in-vitro and in-vivo experience. Then, members of the board of education of K-MIPS plan to provide evaluation and hearfelt mentoring. With this online educational platform, we hope to establish feasible, practical, and effective surgical educational system for safe implementation of minimally invasive pancreatectomy in our society.


To see if writing about former abuse reduced depression, somatic, and sleep complaints, 664 undergraduates were screened for past physical or sexual abuse. Of those abused, 88 consenting students were randomly assigned to no-writing control or writing (20 minutes on 4 different days) about abuse or trivial topics. All completed pre-, post-, and 4-week follow-up testing. At follow-up, all reported significantly less depression and fewer somatic and sleep complaints; groups were not significantly different. For students reporting past physical or sexual abuse, interacting with professionals, earning class credit, and receiving thanks may be enough to reduce depression, somatic complaints, and sleep disturbances.


The restoration of properties of the degraded soils of Trans-Urals agro-ecological systems of the Republic Bashkortostan under agro-steppes by Dzybovas mode is investigated. Various variants are considered and the most effective combinations of cultivating and methods of tilling the soils under agro-steppes are marked out. Effective phytomeliorants are revealed for widespread types of chernozems of the Bashkir Trans-Urals. The influence of perennial seedlings, grasses from natural communities and grain crops on the agro-physical properties defining fertility of the Bashkir Trans-Urals chernozems is studied.


This paper highlights some interesting results from a preliminary study involving the choice of technology in Australian rural secondary education. Advances in computers, wireless networks, and mobility have fostered collaborative learning environments. While a large body of research has documented successful intervention strategies and software applications for computer-based and mobile-based collaborative learning systems with respect to computer games and mobile games for educational purposes, little of the research has examined the effect of the two different technology platforms (computer verses mobile) on students' behaviors and evaluations while using a collaborative learning system. We developed an open-ended collaborative learning game and implemented it on desktop and mobile environments. The collaborative learning game we developed for this study is a multi-player game we called CipherGame. The game is essentially a word-based guessing game. A group of students work together to solve a challenge sentence that has been encrypted with a simple mono-alphabetic substitution cipher (Singh, 2000). The game has no time limit, but we found the students typically took 45 minutes to complete the game. A preliminary study was conducted with the assistance of the ICT teachers and students from the 2009 cohort at Smithfield High School, Cairns, Far-North Queensland, Australia. The purpose of this preliminary study was to begin exploring how students use computer-based and mobile-based collaborative learning systems. We looked at the students' behaviors and evaluations of using the collaborative learning game as a technology artifact, and students' communication pattern when using the systems. We were interested in looking at the extent of help contributing and help seeking student activities during game-play, and also students' interactions during the collaborative process. We found that perceived enjoyment was significantly lower with the desktop environment, while there were no significant differences on perceived ease of use and perceived sense of group belonging. We therefore, discuss the potential implications of this result with respect to the future of technology in Australian secondary education.


Homomorphic filtering can reduce the undesired contributions within the image due to light source nonuniformity.A new method based on discrete stationary wavelet transform is applied to Homomorphic filtering to enhance the contrast of an image effectively.After making discrete stationary wavelet transform to image.According to the result of experiment,the given algorithm can extrude the details information of the image well,also is better than the traditional homomorphic filtering.


ABSTRACTObjective: this questionnaire aimed to evaluate the approval of a new pictograph system for endodontic diagnosis by undergraduate and graduate students/endodontist instead of a conventional method. Methods: after a presentation to a total of 224 participants explaining the pictograph system, the participants (166 undergraduate students and 58 graduate students/endodontist) received a standardized questionnaire with three questions. The data were analyzed using the multprop macro basing on Tukey's test for multiple comparison with (P ? 0.05). The first question was to define the education level of the participants; the second question about which diagnosis method is preferred; and the third question about the intention of using one of the methods in the future. The questionnaire was realized in May 2019.  The response rate was 97.7%. Results: the first question showed that 74.10% and 25.90% were undergraduate and graduate students/endodontist respectively. After statistical analysis there was no significant difference between the groups in the second and the third questions. In the second question (71.08% and 62.06%) of undergraduate and graduate student/endodontists respectively preferred the pictograph method over the conventional method. In the third question (60.24% and 51.72%) of undergraduate and graduate student/endodontists respectively showed interest in using the pictograph method in their professional career. Conclusion: the pictograph method in endodontic diagnosis is accepted by the majority of undergraduate and graduate students/endodontists. Training and experience affect the diagnosis making.  KEYWORDSAdvanced dental education; Continuing dental education; Endodontics; Pictograph


As a decentralized cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has been in market for around a decade. Bitcoin transactions are thought to be pseudo-anonymous, however, there were many attempts to deanonymize these transactions making use of public data. Escrow services have been introduced as a good private and secure way to handle Bitcoin payments between untrusted parties, where the escrow service acts as the arbitrator in case of disputes. In our work, we examine the privacy and anonymity level of trades done through one of the Bitcoin trading websites offering such escrow services and how using the data they provide for open access through their APIs along with some public scraped data can compromise the privacy and anonymity of trades in some cases. In this paper, we suggest some heuristics and methods to deanonymize Bitcoin escrow trades done on LocalBitcoins.com, a well-known escrow service used especially by people seeking anonymity, and link them to suspect sets of Bitcoin transactions in the blockchain and suspect sets of users. Our research spots privacy weakness points of using escrow services that affects the privacy and anonymity of their users trades and identities. It also shows how tracking down criminals activities across escrow services is possible even without any authority on the escrow service making it less attractive for criminals to use cryptocurrencies and leading it to gain more trust.


Abstract Non-orthodox Christian asceticism in Late Antiquity is known to us largely through the distorting lens of orthodox heresiology. This paper aims to reassess the character of the ascetic communities of rural Lycaonia in the fourth century a.d. in the light of the surviving funerary and ecclesiastical epigraphy, including three inscriptions published here for the first time. We are fortunate to be able to read these texts in the light of a neglected work of orthodox polemic, Amphilochius' Against False Asceticism, the work of an embattled orthodox bishop at Iconium in the late 370s a.d. This treatise formed part of a successful campaign to stigmatize the Lycaonian ascetics as heretics, a position which was enshrined in Theodosius' anti-heretical legislation of a.d. 381–3.


Conducting sentiment analysis and opinion mining are challenging tasks in natural language processing. Many of the sentiment analysis and opinion mining applications focus on product reviews, social media reviews, forums and microblogs whose reviews are topic-similar and opinion-rich. In this paper, we try to analyze the sentiments of sentences from online webcast reviews that scroll across the screen, which we call live barrages. Contrary to social media comments or product reviews, the topics in live barrages are more fragmented, and there are plenty of invalid comments that we must remove in the preprocessing phase. To extract evaluative sentiment sentences, we proposed a novel approach that clusters the barrages from the same commenter to solve the problem of scattering the information for each barrage. The method developed in this paper contains two subtasks: in the data preprocessing phase, we cluster the sentences from the same commenter and remove unavailable sentences; and we use a semi-supervised machine learning approach, the naïve Bayes algorithm, to analyze the sentiment of the barrage. According to our experimental results, this method shows that it performs well in analyzing the sentiment of online webcast barrages.


Secure authentication between user equipment and 5G core network is a critical issue for 5G system. However, the traditional authentication protocol 5G-AKA and the centralized key database are at risk of several security problems, e.g. key leakage, impersonation attack, MitM attack and single point of failure. In this paper, a blockchain based asymmetric authentication and key agreement protocol (BC-AKA) is proposed for distributed 5G core network. In particular, the key used in the authentication process is replaced from a symmetric key to an asymmetric key, and the database used to store keys in conventional 5G core network is replaced with a blockchain network. A proof of concept system for distributed 5G core network is built based on Ethereum and ECC-Secp256k1, and the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed scheme are verified by the experiment results.


This paper uses a structural, dynamic model of the banking firm to examine how Jamaican banks respond to both leverage and risk-based capital requirements. Dynamic programming techniques were applied and the model estimated within a Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equation (SUR) framework using a panel data set on Jamaican banks. The results show that capital requirements are significant considerations in the profit- maximizing plan of banks. However, the imposition of the risk-based requirements in 1999 seemed to have changed the incentive structure of banks, causing a shift away from assets containing default risk and into default-free assets. The positive sign on the estimated marginal risk-based requirement cost suggests that banks keep a relatively high buffer on their risk-based capital ratios in order to avoid potential regulatory costs. However, the negative sign on the estimated marginal leverage requirement cost suggests that banks actually reap a net gain from declining close to the leverage requirement.


We propose a method based on quadratic programming for learning control-oriented models of physical systems for which limited data from only one trajectory is available. To this end, we take advantage of the principle of least action from physics. We propose two methods based on quadratic programming to approximate either the Lagrangian or the Hamiltonian of the system from the data. We show how the learning methods based on convex optimization can accommodate symmetries about the underlying system if they are known a priori. Furthermore, we incorporate the error in the approximation to build a data-driven differential inclusion, that is suitable for control purposes. We illustrate the results by an example.


Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) is a promising method for elucidating detailed electronic structure of materials in a broad range of chemical and physical applications. Here, we use the ...


: As organizations continue to increase their level of operations across international borders, their ethical conduct becomes a greater social concern. A global code of ethics allows organizations to follow one code for all countries rather than creating and administering multiple separate codes. Currently, there are several thoughtful global codes of ethics developed by different stakeholders. This paper provides an analysis of some of the major global codes of ethics available to multinational corporations. Their shared norms are identified and synthesized into three Hyper Norms that can both


The development of technology brings a bunch of changes in every aspect in the world. In the education fields, it brings new concepts; a sense of easiness in learning and teaching process, such as, easiness of receiving information (knowledge) through internet, conducting teaching and learning process in distance area. This new concept is called shift – learning. E-learning systems are different from learning that is usually held in class (traditional learning). In industrial revolution 4.0, it is important that we use internet to fulfill the objective of education. This paper aims to identify the way fresh students from remote areas handle this situation. This research used descriptive qualitative. The research subjects consisted of 12 students of the English Language Study Program of Universitas Ahmad Dahlan in 2019. Data collection techniques were carried out using observation and interviews. From the student's perspectives, it was found that Shift-learning (e – Learning) is not something new for them, Shift-learning (e – Learning) leads students to broaden their knowledge, making them flexible to access the materials. However, less supported facility becomes the significant challenge.  It showed that most English students from remote areas are ready to use e-learning in learning English because e-learning is not something new to them. Although less supporting facility and guidance from lecturers become the challenges for students, these do not stop them from using e-learning.


This paper gives a construction of group divisible designs on the binary extension fields with block sizes 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, respectively, which is motivated from the decoding of binary quadratic residue codes. A conjecture is proposed for this construction of group divisible designs with larger block sizes.


The present invention is in the field of corrosion protection coating of steel structures, particularly relates to water-based rust coating and preparation method for the protection of steel parts before painting. The water mixed with the rust preventive pigment and 8-12 parts by dispersing milled to a fineness of 20 to 60 microns, adding the crosslinking acrylic emulsion, transforming agent, conversion promoting agents, antifoaming agents, coalescents, thickening agent and the balance water, stir, packaging. The present invention is based on cross-linked acrylic emulsion formation mechanism on by crosslinking acrylic emulsion and other film-forming additives and main component compound screening, developed crosslinked acrylic emulsion used as main film-forming agent protective coating steel workpieces in water-based rust paint. Products are non-toxic, harmless, non-polluting, simple operation, wide range of sources of raw materials, low prices, clean production and so on.


As raw material,soybean and peanut were made into compound curd through a series of processes of soaking,defibrination,heating,mixing and solidification. Soaking conditions were analyzed by extracting rate of soybean protein and preparation process conditions were analyzed by gel strength. The results showed that the optimum soaking conditions were as followed:0. 4% of NaHCO3 concentration,16h of extracting time,1∶ 8 of solid -liquid ratio. And the optimum solidification conditions were as followed:1∶ 8 of solid-liquid ratio,85℃ of temperature,20min of time and 0. 4% of GDL concentration when soybean and peanut curd was in equal proportion. In the condition,the gel strength of compound curd was 20~25g and the stability was well.


Context. Extended main-sequence turn-offs (eMSTOs) are a commonly observed property of young clusters. A global theoretical interpretation for eMSTOs is still lacking, but stellar rotation is considered a necessary ingredient to explain eMSTOs.
Aims. We aim to assess the importance of core-boundary and envelope mixing in stellar interiors for the interpretation of eMSTOs in terms of one coeval population.
Methods. We constructed isochrone-clouds based on interior mixing profiles of stars with a convective core calibrated from asteroseismology of isolated galactic field stars. We fitted these isochrone-clouds to the measured eMSTO to estimate the age and core mass of the stars in the two young clusters NGC 1850 and NGC 884, assuming one coeval population and by fixing the metallicity to the one measured from spectroscopy. We assessed the correlations between the interior mixing properties of the cluster members and their rotational and pulsational properties.
Results. We find that stellar models based on asteroseismically-calibrated interior mixing profiles lead to enhanced core masses of eMSTO stars. Additionally, these models can explain a significant fraction of the observed eMSTOs of the two considered clusters in terms of one coeval population of stars, which have similar ages to those in the literature, given the large uncertainties. The rotational and pulsational properties of the stars in NGC 884 are not sufficiently well known to perform asteroseismic modelling as it is achieved for field stars from space photometry. The stars in NGC 884 for which we have v sin i and a few pulsation frequencies show no correlation between these properties and the core masses of the stars that set the cluster age.
Conclusions. Future cluster space asteroseismology may allow for the interpretation of the core masses in terms of the physical processes that cause them, based on the modelling of the interior mixing profiles for the individual member stars with suitable identified modes.


The publication analyzes the initial results of Ethiopia's spirited higher education expansion and reform efforts. It provides up to date information on many aspects of the system's performance, and identifies potential hazards on the road ahead. Discussion center on seven areas of likely policy concern in the near term: the cost and financing of this reform program; the proposed new funding formula for higher education institutions; strategies for expanding management capacities within the system, the task of producing sufficient academic staff to support rapid enrollment expansion; implementation of an effective quality assurance capability, appropriate development of information and communications technologies, and efficient planning and use of physical infrastructure on campuses. Possible policy options in each of these areas are also identified.


Analysis of static geological elements of petroleum combinations in the Lile basin indicates that there are three suites of source rock in the Lile basin, i.e. lower Oligocene, Paleocene to Miocene and Mesozoic, of which the second and third suites have better hydrocarbon-generating potential. Sandstone, carbonate rocks and organic reefs are the main reservoir types, of which the sandstone reservoir is widely developed in the Meso-Cenozoic strata, while the carbonate and organic reef reservoirs are mainly developed in the upper Oligocene to Quaternary. Generally, the basin is lacking in widespread regional cap rocks with good sealing properties, but locally the cap rocks are well developed and have good sealing properties.. There are three petroleum-bearing combinations in this basin, i.e. the Mesozoic, Paleogene and Neogene petroleum-bearing combinations. The Mesozoic one has good oil-gas prospects; the Paleogene one is the most important exploration target in the basin and has the best prospect; and for the Neogene one, it is possibly difficult to form a good petroleum combination in the uplift in the central part of the basin, whereas in the depressions of the basin, especially in the southern depression, a good petroleum combination may be formed.


It is significant that the idea of goodness (and of virtue) has been largely superseded in Western moral philosophy by the idea of rightness, supported perhaps by some conception of sincerity. This is to some extent a natural outcome of the disappearance of a permanent background to human activity; a permanent background, whether provided by God, by Reason, by History, or by the self. --Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good In philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch's 1970 study of the nature of good and evil, she poses a series of questions: "What is a good man like? Can we make ourselves morally better?" These are the questions that Murdoch saw as important for the philosopher, in particular, to answer, while realizing that we know little about truly good men. She comments that "there are men in history who are traditionally thought of as having been good (Christ, Socrates, certain saints), but if we try to contemplate these men we find that the information about them is scanty and vague, and that, their great moments apart, it is the simplicity and directness of their diction which chiefly colours our conception of them as good" (SG 52). Goodness is difficult to find, even if we know what we are looking for. Can we define "goodness" even in ourselves, she asks? What one would need is a "purification and reorientation of an energy which is naturally selfish, in such a way that when moments of choice arrive we shall be sure of acting rightly" (SG 54). For the Christian this could be by devoting oneself to prayer, defined not as petition but as "an attention to God which is a form of love" and effected by "grace, [...] a supernatural assistance to human endeavour which overcomes empirical limitations of personality." Because Murdoch, at one time early in her life, was Anglican, then a full atheist, and finally a partial believer in Tibetan Buddhism, the practice of prayer to God is not a practical one. Murdoch creates her own definition of God in this small philosophical work: "God was (or is) a single perfect transcendent non-representable and necessarily real object of attention" (SG 55). Her moral philosophy is one in which the believer holds on to this central concept without believing in a Judeo-Christian God-concept. The religious believer has an easier time of it than the non-believer who is attempting to reach a purified state, in part because there is an object of focus. God becomes a powerful source of energy, but one can receive moral energy by focusing on things other than God, even the idea of goodness, which Murdoch does not see as denied to the non-believer. One can, after all, be good without believing in God. That God creates a single, supreme value system for humankind she finds unacceptable: "Why should there not be many different kinds of independent moral values? Why should all be one here?" (SG 56). Murdoch does not agree that the Judeo-Christian pattern of moral values is the only one that matters; rather, goodness matters, or what is considered good in the culture in which one lives. Her definition of goodness is summed up best in her favorite expression: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Since the only proof for the existence of God is faith, a belief in not harming others would seem to accomplish the same thing as religious beliefs. Murdoch suggests that "the authority of the Good seems to us something necessary because the realism (ability to perceive reality) required for goodness is a kind of intellectual ability to perceive what is true, which is automatically at the same time a suppression of self" (SG 66). There must be, suggests Murdoch, a substitute for prayer, "that most profound and effective of religious techniques" One must purify one's attention, one's energy and violence of will, employing not a "quasi-religious meditative technique" but "something which belongs to the moral life of the ordinary person" (SG 69). The idea of contemplation is one in which Murdoch believes modern man can find an answer. …


Atherosclerotic vascular disease (ASVD), which encompasses coronary heart, cerebrovascular, and peripheral arterial diseases, is predicted to surpass infectious disease as the number one cause of death and disability worldwide by the year 2020. To better understand the potential roles of 4 recently proposed risk factors for ASVD -- C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, homocysteine, and lipoprotein(a) …


The aim of the research described in this paper is to gain a qualitative understanding of how cohesiveness relates to personality type, performance and adherence to a particular software engineering methodology (XP). A variety of research methods were employed including ethnographic methods, questionnaires and interviews. An online personality test based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was used to ascertain the personality types, and questionnaires were used throughout the project to measure levels of cohesiveness. Examples of how the teams worked together throughout the project are described, and whether and how this relates to the personality types of the individual members. The results indicate that certain teams were found to work consistently well over the project due to homogeneity in personality type and others were found to be very cohesive due to a mixture of types.


Why is it optimal not to tax capital income in the long run in Chamley (1986) and Judd (1985)? This paper demonstrates that the answer follows from standard intuitions from the optimal commodity-tax literature. We show that the steady state assumption is critical for the Chamley-Judd result: in the steady-state, Engel curves for consumption become linear in labor earnings and consumption demands become equally complementary to leisure over time. From the optimal tax literature, we conclude that consumption should be taxed uni-formly, which means that the optimal capital income tax is zero. We show that the intuition that capital income should not be taxed because the consumption distortions become infinite only applies when restrictions are imposed on the utility function. These restrictions ensure that consumption demands are equally complementary to leisure in the long run, thereby confirming standard optimal-tax intuitions. We also demonstrate that the optimal capital-income tax is zero irrespective of whether factor prices are determined in partial or general equilibrium. This result contradicts the intuition that optimal taxes on capital income are zero because the entire burden of capital income taxes is shifted to labor through general-equilibrium effects on factor prices.


Information technology and information systems have been generally recognized as one of the greatest human inventions of modern times. Information system (IS) is an organized combination of people, hardware, software, communication networks and data resources that collect, transform, and disseminate information in an organization [38]. As IS are being developed and deployed, research on their strategic utilization have been continuously studied by researchers and scholars. Accordingly, various models and frameworks have been proposed to evaluate the strategic utilization of IS. However, past researchers have paid little attention on factors that contribute towards strategic utilization of IS. Against this concern, this paper attempts to provide a conceptual understanding of the contribution of organizational, technological and environmental factors on the strategic utilization of information s ystems measured in terms of product differentiation, cost leadership and growth advantage. Based on the proposed model, several propositions are formulated as a basis for the study that will follow.


The syntheses of two previously known, 2-((2-aminoethyl)(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)amino)ethanol (1) and 2-((3-aminopropyl)(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)amino)ethanol (2), and four new unsymmetrical N-capped tripodal amines, 2-((4-aminobutyl)(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)amino)ethanol (3), 3-((2-aminoethyl)(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)amino)propan-1-ol (4), 3-((3-aminopropyl)(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)amino)propan-1-ol (5) and 3-((4-aminobutyl)(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)amino)propan-1-ol (6), are reported. The ligands (3–4) feature a longer arm, 3-hydroxypropyl or butylamino, than in the analogues previously employed (2-hydroxyethyl arm, ethylamino-arm or propylamino-arm in 1 and 2). All six tripodal amines, 1–6, are equipped with a 2-methylpyridyl-arm and either an ethylamino-arm (1 and 4), propylamino-arm (2 and 5) or butylamino-arm (3 and 6). The new amines, 3–6, have been employed in one pot condensation reactions with 2-hydroxy-1-naphthaldehyde and salicylaldehyde (and its derivatives) in the presence of Cu(II) metal ions to generate a series of new mononuclear complexes, [MIILaldi](ClO4) as well as new dinuclear complexes [CuIILaldi]2(ClO4)2 of new ligands Laldi. Four monomeric complexes and one dimeric complex have been characterised by single crystal X-ray diffraction, revealing a distorted square-pyramidal copper(II) ion. A general comparison between these structures shows that the number and types of chelate ring sequences around the metal ions are important in the formation of structures. Theoretical studies show that the 3-hydroxypropyl arm in these complexes is a weak coordinating group and it can readily be removed from the coordination sphere of metal ions, resulting in a dimerised four coordinate complex. Calculations show that the interaction between the two monomeric fragments is very weak.


Master the Toy Box Tips on how to get started, tutorials to create your own world and secrets to unlock new toys Easy-to-follow Walkthrough Strategies on how to beat every mission for each Play Set Detailed Labeled Maps Key areas for every Play Set with Red, Green capsule locations and Vaults/Chests Power Discs Powers, gadgets, themes and combos revealed! Find the Goodies Strategies on how to unlock items and find collectibles FREE eGuide access Every print guide comes with a code giving access to the eGuide


Based on the influence factors theory of the foreign exchange reserves,the paper makes an empirical analysis on the factors which influence China's foreign exchange reserve scale and establishes an econometric model.The results of the model shows that the trade balance between imports and exports is the most direct and important factor influencing the scale of foreign exchange reserves and that the actual amount of used foreign capital plays an important part,while the influences of foreign debts and exchange rates are not obvious.


Identifying emotion from speech is a very important concept in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), and it has been gaining progressive interest in the current research area. As a result, various researchers have introduced and established numerous systems and methods for recognising emotion in human speech, which discussed earlier implementations and advances in emotion recognition. The goal of creating this model is to detect sounds in audio files. This proposed system also includes speech emotion detection, which can detect emotions such as Sad, Anger, and Happiness in audio signals, gender detection and playing an YouTube video according to the detected emotion. Whereas in prior projects, just emotion detection techniques were used, however here, emotion as well as gender are detected. This output is sent as an input to YouTube, which will play the music based on the user's mood, causing the user's mood to settle quickly. The CNN feature extraction method is used, the feature vector dimensions are handled by using NumPy and the audio classification is based on MFCC (Mel frequency cepstral coefficients). To train and test the model, two datasets: RAVDESS and SAVEE, are primarily used and a new deep learning model is created and trained using the collected datasets. The model is then saved, and loaded with the inputs so that, the required results can be retrieved. The system scope is the device on which the Jupiter notebook software is installed, allowing to run the code.


This paper introduces the working process of microcomputer's mistake proofing closure system,analyses the feasibility of realizing the remote control based on the original system,and describes the new functions and daily maintenance tasks of the new system.


The health care systems of the EU-member states are based on the social principle but to a different extent, and there are also differences in funding the health care expenditures. Some systems are financed by taxes, others by insurance premiums. Actually to become a member of a specific EU state's health system it is necessary to live or to work in this state. This means e. g. that getting a benefit from a tax-funded type requires paying taxes in this state. Free factor movement and free trade lead to an institutional competition which is weakend by the fact that an individual can only choose between whole bundles of services and taxes.


A doubly interpenetrated metal–organic framework (MOF) [Zn4(L)3O]·8DMF·H2O (1, DMF = N,N-dimethylformamide) including the [Zn4O] clusters was first synthesized by employing a rigid 2,6-bis(4′-carbo...


FIELD: medicine. SUBSTANCE: invention refers to a vacuum extractor (2) put on user's body for medical applications, particularly for vacuum wound healing on human or animal body, comprising a vacuum extracting unit and a disposable container (10) for body fluids, particularly wound effluents absorbed from the wound. To make the device more comfortable to use, it is configured so that body segments (4, 8) can be detachably attached to each other by means of latching, fixing or other locks or gates (34) actuated to form a closed geometrical boundary. EFFECT: structural improvement. 32 cl, 27 dwg


The term "Basic Unmanned Aircraft System" refers to a comprehensive system encompassing both hardware and software components, forming an integral configuration aimed at unmanned aviation operations.
The Unmanned Aircraft System, in its fundamental assembly, comprises an intricate interplay of technological components. These components, ranging from cutting-edge hardware to sophisticated software, collaborate harmoniously to execute tasks that were traditionally accomplished by manned aircraft.
Collaboration between specialized enterprises and research institutions approach holds promise in terms of synergizing the respective expertise of these entities. This symbiotic partnership not only expedites the development process but also introduces the prospect of novel breakthroughs through the fusion of practical experience and theoretical knowledge.
A paramount consideration is the host of advantages that could potentially be reaped from the realization of the Basic System. One such advantage is the projected increase in production volumes. This, in turn, could significantly bolster the capacity to meet defense orders in a shorter timeframe, thereby enhancing national security endeavors.
Furthermore, the article delves into the catalytic effect this innovation could have on scientific research, particularly in prioritized domains. The development of the Basic System could potentially serve as a stimulus for intensified scientific inquiry. The complexity of its design necessitates advances in a multitude of scientific fronts, such as materials science, artificial intelligence, and robotics.


This paper investigates some properties of combinational digital networks for which the elements are capable of performing many functions (mainly all the logical functions) of their input variables. Networks designed with large-scale integrated circuits such as read-only memories or programmed-logicarrays fall into this category. Central to the investigation are concepts of the universality of parts of the network, the range of functions that can be achieved by a given network, and the redundancy of some networks. On the question of range, a notation and the algebra which this implies are described. A case study is given in the Appendix to illustrate the way in which the formalisms discussed in this paper interact with intuitive design.


Book review of: Guus Extra and Durk Gorter (eds): Multilingual Europe: facts and policies, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin and New York, 2008, viii + 352 pp, Pb €32.95, ISBN 978-3-11-020513-8.


ABSTRACT The problem raised here is the intensification of technology in field crops of winter oilseed rape. Is there a justification for this by explaining what relationship between the yield and individual yielding traits are formed in hybrid and population cultivars. During years 2012–2015 field studies to evaluate five hybrid and five population cultivars response on the standard and high-input technology in winter oilseed rape production have been executed in Poland. High-input technology included: double foliar application (in autumn, and in spring) of micro-nutrients, additional top fertilisation of 40 kg N per ha in spring, double application of the amino-acid bio-stimulators, and additional growth regulator. According to the principle component analysis made for both technologies it was found that hybrids and population cultivars displayed varied response which is explained here on the basis of morphological, growth, and yield elements. The high-input technology improved the yield responded elements e.g. number of siliques and number of seeds per silique as well as winter hardiness. This impact was more evident for population cultivars than for hybrids. We state that high-input technology, as the proposal in this paper, that provided 9.6% increase in seed yield, is biologically justified for winter oilseed rape crop and can be recommended in North and central European countries.


The Ancient World of the Celts is a highly i llustrated and comprehensive study of the Celts, their origi ns, society, art, religion, architecture, myth and legend. '


The preparation of newmaterials that can act as systems capable of sensing biologically relevant molecules constitutes a significant modern challenge as well as a necessity oriented towards disease prevention. Subcomponent self-assembly of 2-(methylhydrazino)benzimidazole, 4-tert-butyl-2,6-diformylphenol and Fe(ClO4)2(H2O)6 leads to a new, bimetallic iron(III) complex of the following formula: [Fe2(H3L)2(MeOH)2(m-OMe)2](ClO4)4 (1), as established by ESI-MS, FTIR and single crystal X-ray analysis. It is important to note that ligand H3L was also successfully synthesized and characterized for the first time. Compound 1 was successfully deposited on a gold electrode and applied as a voltammetric sensor with respect to epinephrine (EP). Cyclic voltammograms (CVs) proved the catalytic activity of the new, electrochemically prepared composite Au/1 for the oxidation of EP in the presence of ascorbic acid (AA). The respective current peaks were clearly separated from each other, thus enabling selective detection of these compounds coexisting in a mixture. For the prepared sensor a linear relationship between the current response of EP electrooxidation at the potential of peak maximum (ip) and the concentration of EP in solution (cEP) in the presence of constant AA concentration was found in the broad range of cEP (R 2 $ 0.9997, 1.0 10 8 M to 9.0 10 4 M) with a high detection limit (7.4 10 9 M), excellent reproducibility as well as high stability.


We present an improved version of an earlier Larson-type model of amphiphiles. Detailed descriptions of the algorithms are given and some situations where care must be taken are pointed out. We use the model to calculate the condensation transition temperature of amphiphiles in a ternary mixture. The concentration percolation threshold and percolation critical exponent of amphiphile clusters at the oil-water interface are also calculated.


Based on the current theoretic calculation for the transmittance of the atmosphere,considering various factors such as height modification,slope distance and weather attenuation,an integrative theoretic model and the calculation method for the transmittance,average transmittance and integral transmittance of atmosphere are established.This calculation method for calculating the atmosphere transmittance of 3.0~12.0μm is programmed under any atmosphere condition.The result of this program with the result of the MODTRAN is compared.


Laser-induced fluorescence of 3,4,9,10-perylene-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA) oligomers embedded in helium nanodroplets has been studied in the spectral region where the strongest absorptions of PTCDA crystals and single PTCDA molecules dissolved in organic solvents have been observed before. The cold helium droplet environment allows a separation of excitonic and molecular excitations. We find narrow $(l1{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1})$ as well as broad $(\ensuremath{\approx}500{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1})$ absorptions which can be attributed to electronic molecular transitions of the PTCDA dimer and, respectively, to excitonic transitions of sandwichlike PTCDA oligomers. The maximum of the excitonic absorption lies at $22190{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1},$ slightly shifting to lower energies upon addition of more PTCDA molecules. The results are discussed in comparison with existing theories of exciton states in thin organic films or crystals.


Performance (i.e., response time, throughput, resource consumption) is a key quality metric of today's applications as it heavily affects customer satisfaction. SAP strives to identify and fix performance problems before customers face them. Therefore, performance engineering methods are applied in all stages of the software lifecycle. However, especially in the development phase continuous performance evaluations can introduce a lot of overhead for developers which hinders their broad application in practice. In order to evaluate the performance of a certain software artefact (e.g. comparing two design alternatives), a developer has to run measurements that are tailored to the software artefact under test. The use of standard benchmarks would create less overhead, but the information gain is often not sufficient to answer the specific questions of developers. In this industrial paper, we present an approach that enables exhaustive, tailored performance testing with minimal effort for developers. The approach allows to define benchmark applications through a domain-specific model and realizes the transformation of those models to benchmark applications via a generic Benchmark Framework. The application of the approach in the context of the SAP Netweaver Cloud development environment demonstrated that we can efficiently identify performance problems that would not have been detected by our existing performance test infrastructure.


In order to meet the highway safety requirements of the bus under different speeds, the model of highway bus and W-beam were established in UG software and the collision dynamics simulation was analyzed in ADAMS software. During a number of simulation experiments, the impact force and the lateral deformation displacements would be done through the W-beam was collided by the bus in different speeds. The result was proven to meet the regulatory requirements of the evaluation specification for highway safety barriers. The result show that: semi-rigid guardrail can be better deformation and guiding effect when the speed of bus was lower than 80 km/h, but when the speed was higher than 80 km/h, the collision avoidance effect of guardrail was poor and the bus was easy to cross the guardrail to case secondary accident.


The research selected six kinds of plants such as Epipremnum aureum, Sansevieria trifasciata Lanrentii, Hedera nepalensis var. Sinensis, Maranta leuconeura, Phnom Penh Chlorophytum and Aloe vera var. Chinensis, and used fumigation to study the purifying effect to Ammonia of above plant within 6 h fumigation time. The results show that 6 kinds of plants all have purifying effect to Ammonia, but there are significant differences between different plants. The Epipremnum aureum and Hedera nepalensis var. Sinensis has strong adsorption ability to Ammonia, medium for Maranta leuconeura and Sansevieria trifasciata Lanrentii, and weaker for Phnom Penh Chlorophytum and Aloe vera var. Chinensis.


First-row members of the group 6 series of transition metal dihydrogen complexes Cr(CO){sub 3}(PR{sub 3}){sub 2}({eta}{sup 2}-H{sub 2})(R = Cy, Pr{sup i}) have been synthesized and examined by X-ray crystallography and NMR, infrared, and inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopies. The complexes completely dissociate H{sub 2} in solution to give Cr(CO){sub 3}(PR{sub 3}){sub 2}, which contains an agostic C-H interaction. An X-ray structure of Cr(CO){sub 3}(PPr{sup i}{sub 3}){sub 2}(H{sub 2}) showed a side-bonded dihydrogen ligand with H-H = 0.67(5) {angstrom}, and proton NMR of the HD isotopomer showed a J(HD) value of 35 Hz. Solid-state H NMR spectroscopy of the PCy{sub 3} complex indicated that the H-H separation is 0.85(1) {angstrom}, which is believed to be a more precise and accurate measure of this key parameter. The barrier to rotation of the {eta}{sup 2}-H{sub 2} has been recalculated to be 1.17(10) kcal/mol, as compared with 1.32(10) and 1.9(1) kcal/mol for the Mo and W analogues, based on H-H distances from solid-state NMR. Correlations of properties of the group 6 species indicate that the H{sub 2} {yields} M {sigma}-bonding strength appears to increase as Mo < Cr {approximately} W but that d{pi} {yields} H{sub 2} {sigma}* back-bonding increases down the group. It mightmore » be generally concluded that back-bonding is more of a factor than {sigma}-bonding in influencing stability, H-H distance, and possibly overall bond strengths. Crystallographic data: space group P2{sub 1}/c, a = 13.457-(3) {angstrom}, b = 11.493(3) {angstrom}, c = 16.639(4) {angstrom}, {beta} = 102.25(2){sup o}, Z = 4, R = 3.32%.« less


To the Editor Resistant cases of multiple myeloma present a therapeutical dilemma. Especially in advanced, multitreated patients the prospects of disease regression after chemotherapy are bleak. In such cases, interferon treatment may have an effect (l), but the side-effects with high doses are often difficult to tolerate. Borgstrom et al (2) reported a possible synergism between interferon and cimetidine in resistant cases of malignant melanoma. This procedure might offer the possibility of using a lower dose of interferon and thus reduce the side-effects. We therefore decided to try interferon and cimetidine in a previously heavily treated case of resistant myeloma. The patient was a 67-yr-old man in whom a monoclonal immunoglobulin type IgA lambda was already detected in 1971. He was without symptoms of disease until September 1982, when he developed back pain and a diagnosis of multiple myeloma was made. The concentration of IgA was 24 g/l with a subnormal IgM level. In the bone marrow, 29 of 200 nucleated cells were plasma cells and an X-ray showed compressions of several lumbal vertebrae. Therapy was started with alternating courses of vincristine/CCNU/chlorambucil/prednisolone and 6-mercaptopurine/cyclophosphamide/teniposide, respectively (3). After 7 months, the IgA concentration had decreased by 75% and the plasma cell concentration in the bone marrow was 10%. The patient was kept on maintenance treatment, but 9 months later he had signs of progression. Therapy was then changed to a combination of adriamycin/procarbazine/nitrogen mustard and later to melphalan/etoposide. In December 1985 there were signs of further progression, with transfusionrequiring anaemia, thrombocytopenia with bleedings from the oral mucosa, and deteriorating general condition. The patient was then started on a combination of leucocyte interferon-alpha (3 Mu/d s.c.) and cimetidine (1200 mg/d orally). During the following months, his general condition improved greatly, with relief of bone pains, and the patient was also able to care for his needs himself. The erythrocyte transfusion requirement decreased and the bleeding ceased. After 3 months, it was possible to reduce the interferon dose to 1 Mu/d S.C. and this was kept as maintenance with the addition of cimetidine at an unchanged dose for another 3 months. Despite the very low dose of interferon, the patient developed severe nausea which eventually led to cessation of the interferon treatment. A few months later, the myeloma progressed again. The remarkably significant clinical improvement was accompained by a decrease in P-2-microglobulin from 10.9 to 7 . 3 pg/ml. This is of interest since 0-2microglobulin has been shown to be strongly correlated to the myeloma tumour burden (4). The IgA concentration was already depressed at the start of the treatment and did not change much. The mechanism by which interferon exerts its effect in myeloma is not clear. Interferon increases the NK cell activity both in vitro and in vivo ( 5 ) . This has also been shown for cimetidine in vitro (6). In this case, we observed an increase of the natural killer (NK) cell activity (Table 1) . If cimetidine and interferon work synergistically in vivo, an enhanced effect on the activity of the NK cell subpopulation would be a possible mode of action. However, Einhorn et a1 (5) did not find any correlation between interferon-induced enhancement of NK cell activity and clinical response to interferon treatment in myeloma. Whether this is also true when a combination of interferon and cimetidine is used, we cannot say. In our patient, we also observed an increase in T helperhducer cell number and in helper/suppressor cell ratio (Table 1).


NTEREST in interchromosomal effects on crossing over in Drosophila melanoIgaster has been renewed recently (COOPER, ZIMMERING and KRIVSHENKO 1955; OKSALA 1958; HART and SANDLER 1961; RAMEL 1962; SUZUKI 1962a; ROBERTS 1962). As a result of the new approaches taken in these studies, two general types of mechanisms, one physiological in nature ( STEINBERG and FRASER 1944; RAMEL 1962; ROBERTS 1962), the other mechanical ( SCHULTZ and REDFIELD 1951; OKSALA 1958; SUZUKI 1962a, b) have been suggested to explain these effects. Although, as SCHULTZ and REDFIELD (1951) indicate, a clear-cut distinction between these hypotheses is difficult, for the present paper the physiological mechanism has been interpreted as an alteration of gene action (e.g., position-effect) , and the mechanical effect as altered chromosome behavior (e.g., loop formation, asynapsis). While the mechanical hypotheses have been more readily tested, the number of conditions known to cause interchromosomal effects is extensive, and no mechanical hypothesis yet proposed adequately accounts for all of the observations. On the other hand, while physiological explanations are sufficiently general to encompass most known situations, no critical experiments have been carried out testing their validity. ~ By interpreting the interchromosomal effects on crossing over on a mechanical basis, it is possible to separate chromosomes having such effects into two groups: those that are postulated to synapse as loops or large rings (SUZUKI 1962a) and those postulated to have a definite frequency of asynapsis (SUZUKI 196213). It is possible to minimize such influences of loop configurations and abnormal crossover values by testing autosomal exchange in X chromosome inversion homozygotes. Such tests might indicate whether the effects of inversion heterozygotes are due to loop formation, to heterozygosity per se, or to the intrinsic properties of the rearrangement. It was also hoped that inversion-homozygote tests would


Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) is the most frequent paediatric cancer. Modern therapies have improved survival rates, but approximately 15-20 % of patients relapse. At present, patients' risk of relapse are assessed by projecting high-dimensional flow cytometry data onto a subset of biomarkers and manually estimating the shape of this reduced data. Here, we apply methods from topological data analysis (TDA), which quantify shape in data via features such as connected components and loops, to pre-treatment ALL datasets with known outcomes. We combine these fully unsupervised analyses with machine learning to identify features in the pre-treatment data that are prognostic for risk of relapse. We find significant topological differences between relapsing and non-relapsing patients and confirm the predictive power of CD10, CD20, CD38, and CD45. Further, we are able to use the TDA descriptors to predict patients who relapsed. We propose three prognostic pipelines that readily extend to other haematological malignancies.


Objective: To understand the predictive relationship of colleague friendships and work engagement with wellbeing. The study aims to account for fluctuations within each construct whilst measuring three separate aspects of colleague friendships (colleague support, workplace friendship opportunity and prevalence). Following the findings of previous literature linking such variables to positive organisational outcomes, the current study hypothesises a positive predictive relationship to also be present between the constructs and wellbeing. Methods: Participants (all of whom employed) completed a Qualtrics questionnaire online, including 5 scales regarding colleague friendships, work engagement and wellbeing. A demographic and control survey were also included. Participants completed the same questionnaire once a week for three weeks, receiving reminder emails from the researcher at each time-point. Results: Significant positive correlations were present between each of the predictor variables and the outcome variable at all time-points. The hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the introduction of work engagement into the predictive model led to significant additional explanation of variance within wellbeing. This finding was present at each of the three time-points. The introduction of colleague friendships was only able to significantly account for wellbeing variance at the third time-point. Conclusions: The results confirm that there is a predictive positive relationship present between colleague friendship and work engagement with wellbeing over a three-week period.


How to cook a food product one-way valve that opens at overpressure 20-200mbar is provided with a seal packages provided is provided. The method includes heating the seal packages at about atmospheric pressure in the oven during the first period, after the first period, so that the gas exits the seal packages through the valve, the package and a exposing a pressure lower than atmospheric pressure. Further, an oven for carrying out this method is provided.


A hybrid two-axis scanning micromirror combining electrostatic and electrothermal actuators was fabricated using SOIMUMPs. Experimental evaluation shows the device is capable of scan in two orthogonal directions and produces a rectangular raster-scan pattern.


The results of detailed qualitative and quantitative analyses of food in the gut of Chromidotilapia guentheri are provided. Food in the full stomachs constitute a mean 0.52% of the body weight, while food in the intesting accounted for a mean value 1.53% of body weight. A wide spectrum of food items was encountered in the guts of this fish species that include a variety of plant materials and animals. The dominant plants include algae (especially blue-green), diatoms and different colonial, unicellular and filamentous algae. The animals found in the gut include nematode, copepods, cladocera, insect larvae and parts, arthropod appendages and fish scales. The results showed that there is not much difference between the food items found in the stomach and the intestine.


Abstract Spatial point processes are mathematical models for irregular or random point patterns in the d-dimensional space, where usually d = 2 or d = 3 in applications. The second-order product density and its isotropic analogue, the pair correlation function, are important tools for analyzing stationary point processes. In the present work we derive central limit theorems for the integrated squared error (ISE) of the empirical second-order product density and for the ISE of the empirical pair correlation function when the observation window expands unboundedly. The proof techniques are based on higher-order cumulant measures and the Brillinger-mixing property of the underlying point processes. The obtained Gaussian limits are used to construct asymptotic goodness-of-fit tests for checking point process hypotheses even in the non-Poissonian case.