Three years ago, a midwife at Pembury Hospital in Kent suggested introducing kangaroo care for pre-term babies on the postnatal ward. Sarah Gregson, consultant midwife at the Trust, was interested in the idea, but wondered why it wasn't already in routine use on postnatal wards. 'Even though I knew kangaroo care had been done in the developing world and in the special care baby unit, I thought there must be a reason why it's not being done on the general wards,' she says. 'But when I looked in the literature, I found that no work had been done.'


In this paper, we introduce a new approach in texture segmentation utilizing 2D wavelet transform. The HL and LH subbands coefficients as the features are mapped into the probability space by 2D Generalized Gaussian probability density function (GG-PDF) to achieve preliminary segmentation. The features in PDF are classified into homogenous regions via multilevel thresholding after wavelet de-noising. The edges can be extracted from the segmented images. To verify the accuracy of GG-PDF, 2D bootstrap algorithm is used. In addition, we test our algorithm in noisy environment to check its reliability. Finally the performance of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated on variety of Bordatz textures and some textual images.


In a ball and socket joint comprising a ball and a socket in mutual swivelling sliding engagement with each other, the ball having a stud integrally formed at one end thereof and projecting outwardly through one end of the socket, the improvement consisting in forming the socket with an annular groove circularly disposed at the edge of the open end of the socket for fitting and retaining therein the beaded end of a flexible oil-resistant seal having a bellows type body provided at one end with an annular band stretched over the periphery of the stud.


Abstract We report a ligand-controlled nickel-catalyzed reductive hydroarylation of styrenes with predictable and controllable regioselectivity. With a diamine ligand, the reaction produces selective linear hydroarylation products. Alternatively, with a chiral PyrOx ligand, branch-selective enantioenriched 1,1-diarylalkane products are obtained. Preliminary mechanistic results are consistent with a reductive Heck process.


An 86-year-old male nursing home resident presented with increasing confusion and was initially treated for catheter-associated urinary tract infection. CT scan demonstrated acute acalculous cholecystitis and complete inguinal bladder hernia with compression of right vesico-ureteric junction leading to acute obstructive renal failure. Percutaneous cholecystostomy and percutaneous nephrostomy were attempted but were not possible due to patient non-compliance. Patient improved with conservative management.

 Bladder involvement in inguinal herniae is rare with most cases being identified at the time of hernia repair and there is a 17% risk of intra-operative bladder injury. Key risk factors include increasing age, male gender, lower urinary tract symptoms and previous hernia repair. Percutaneous nephrostomy followed by inguinal hernia repair is the treatment of choice for most patients. Clinicians should aim to make the diagnosis of inguinal bladder hernia pre-operatively to reduce risk of intra-operative bladder injury during hernia repair. Acute acalculous cholecystitis tends to occur in critically ill patients and is a marker of poor prognosis.


BACKGROUND: Comprehensive medication reviews (CMRs) consist of in-depth reviews of patients' medications to identify effectiveness or safety problems and often generate cost savings for individuals. Despite their advantages, CMRs are not widely obtained. Previous studies found that older age, female sex, and experience of side effects were associated with obtaining a medication review. OBJECTIVE: To quantify the association between attitudinal and clinical factors with intention and predict future behavior to obtain a CMR among Medicare Part D beneficiaries. METHODS: A sample of Medicare Part D beneficiaries from 1 health care plan (n = 660) completed a 14-item survey over the telephone assessing factors that were hypothesized to affect their intention and behavior to obtain a CMR. The survey collected medication use history and health care information with the medication user self-evaluation tool, health status, adherence, intention to obtain a CMR, and demographic characteristics. Subjects subsequently were informed that they could obtain a CMR from their pharmacies. Claims data were obtained that indicated which subjects received a CMR. Two dependent variables were predicted: intention to schedule a CMR using a multivariate linear regression model and receipt of a CMR using a logistic regression and including intention as a predictor variable. RESULTS: The mean age of participants was 76.6 (SD = 7.61) years; 71% were female; and participants took an average of 5.2 (SD = 3.18) medications. The intention to have a CMR was 2.85 (SD = 1.41) on a 5-point scale, and 5.6% of the participants actually had a CMR. Worrying about medications doing more harm than good, number of pharmacies where participants obtained their medications from, number of medications, and number of medical conditions predicted intention to obtain a CMR. Patients who perceived their health status to be poorer compared with others their age were more likely to have a CMR. Intention to obtain a CMR was not associated with receipt of a CMR. CONCLUSIONS: Stakeholders should target patients who perceive their health to be poor for a CMR, hence expanding the scope of CMRs and increasing the number of older adults benefiting from this service.


Page 6 Practical at ENSINGER do Brasil High-performance plastic TECAPEK Calendered sheets and coils In peril on the sea Mayor of Cham visits the ENSINGER company ́s branch work In many sectors of industry, hardly anything is produced without plastics. But what has plastic got to do with art? Quite a lot, if you look at the sculpture of The little lateral thinker. Creator of The little lateral thinker is artist Otmar Alt – who used original ENSINGER plastic parts. The sculpture consists of a total of 42 high-tech plastic parts in different qualities of material that are specific to different sectors of industry, to illustrate the variety of areas of application. The idea of making a work of art from plastic emerged at ENSINGER just under a year. When the question arose of who should create the work of art, the choice of the German artist Otmar Alt was made very quickly. "We decided in favour of Otmar Alt because his colourful objects very much appealed to us. The other deciding factor was that he is very open to all kinds of materials, and his versatility is simply tremendous," says Marketing and Sales Manager Martin Baras. The internationally famous artist studied the ENSINGER company, its philosophy, products and innovative technologies very intensively before creating The little lateral thinker. The result shows that technical plastics can be used not only for high-tech products, but for genuine works of art.


Objective: To evaluate the correlation between body mass index [BMI] and dental caries among 12and 15-years old school going children in Modinagar city. Methods: The study population consisted of school children of 12 and 15 years old in the schools' of Modinagar city. Anthropometric (height in meters and weight in kilograms) and caries measurements and decayed missing filled teeth (DMFT) index, were carried out according to the standard criteria Results: The majority of the study participants were having low normal weight. The frequency of sweet consumption has been significantly increased from low/normal weight to over-weight followed by obese study participants. The concern study demonstrates that the obese study participants had more dental caries. Correlation analysis showed significant positive relation with BMI and DMFT Conclusion: There was a significant association between over-weight/obesity and dental caries experience among school going children in Modinagar city. Obesity and dental caries have common risk determinants and require a comprehensive multidisciplinary by health professionals


This paper is an analysis of the enlightenment of Jeremy Lin effect to basketball reserve personnel training in our country,focuses on the analysis and comparison of training mechanism,basketball reserve talents,college basketball coach selection and other aspects of the system between China and America,and puts forward the reasonable suggestions.The purpose is to provide references for the training of reserved basketball talents for through Jeremy Lin's successful experience.


Several important studies evaluating distinct surgical therapies for Parkinson's disease (PD) have been published in recent months. These have included "neurorestorative" approaches with the publication of the results of the second NIH-funded controlled clinical trial of fetal mesencephalic transplantation by Olanow and colleagues in the September issue of the Annals and pilot studies reporting initial results in patients treated with intraputaminal infusions of glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and carotid body cell aggregates. Neuromodulation is a term applied to the effects of deep brain stimulation (DBS). Recent studies have reported long-term outcomes of subthalamic nucleus (STN) DBS, and Volkmann and his colleagues in this issue of the Annals provide evidence for therapeutic advantage of STN DBS over globus pallidus interna (GPi) DBS. Finally, an alternative method of modulating basal ganglia function with gene therapy has been initiated with a pilot study designed to impart inhibitory GABAergic properties to subthalamic nucleus neurons. Although the nature of these interventions and the results of reported trials are very different, we believe that this collective experience forces a reappraisal of the unmet needs in the treatment of PD. The widespread nature of the underlying neuropathology accounts for progressive disability that becomes increasingly resistant to current medical therapy. Available evidence predicts a similar failure of surgical treatments that concentrate exclusively on correcting or treating the consequences of striatal dopamine deficiency. Furthermore, this highlights the urgent need for a major emphasis of research efforts on controlling the progression of the multisystems neurodegenerative process.


To be a base supplying quality steel products for China is really a strategy of significance to Anshan's development.With the superiority in mineral resources, energy,water resources,regional transportation,industrial foundation and local talents,developing iron/steel industry in Anshan is a necessary consequence. However,there are some problems to be noticed and solved such as the imperfect product mix,excessive investment,urgent and heavy burden to be shouldered by enterprises for energy saving and environmental protection,and especially the slow action in restructuring enterprises.To attain the strategic goal,i.e.,making up Anshan a base supplying quality steel products for China,it is suggested that the Anshan Municipal Government shall set up the effort to support the key points in developing Anshan Iron/Steel Complex,extend the local steel enterprises,strengthen and deepen the cooperation between local enterprises and Anshan Iron/Steel Complex and develop greatly the cyclical economy.


A dual-band wireless power transfer (WPT) system is proposed to satisfy multiple distinct-band WPT demands. A power amplifier combined with a dual-band output matching coil, which is relatively compact, is adopted to enable asynchronous two-band power transfer for multiple single-band receivers (RXs). The measurement results revealed that the efficiency reached 71% for both 6.78 and 13.56 MHz when the transmitter (TX) coil and RX coil were in alignment. However, the efficiency of a dual-band WPT system decreases when the spacing between the TX coil and RX coil deviates from its optimal distance. To address this concern, boost converters were used in the RX ends to achieve higher efficiency under coil misalignments. Efficiency improvement of 14% was obtained when the deviation of the RX coil from the alignment center of the TX coil was 5 cm.


The study examined the determinants of health care utilization among the elderly in Ijumu local government area of Kogi State Nigeria. The study was cross-sectional in design. A multi-stage sampling technique was adopted and 1217 elderly aged 65+ were randomly selected. Health care utilization was operationalized as whether the respondent sought biomedical treatment or not when they took ill. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression. The mean age of the elderly was 72.3±8.4 years and a larger proportion was females. About 59% were in monogamous family and more than one-third were living with chronic conditions. Socioeconomic status, types of family and living with chronic conditions were the determinants of biomedical health care utilization. An increase in socio-economic status increased the odds of seeking biomedical treatment, and those in polygamous family were more likely to seek biomedical health treatment. Those living with chronic conditions had higher odds of seeking biomedical treatment compared to those with no chronic illness. Since the elderly seems to use biomedical health care, there is need for the government to ensure that the health care services are accessible and affordable for them, most especially for those living with chronic conditions.


The operating temperature of Li ion batteries is one of the main aspects to consider when analysing the battery's performance. The battery's internal temperature interferes with important characteristics of the battery, such as lifetime and overall performance. In order to avoid any issues related to the thermal behavior of the batteries, efficient thermal management systems are required. Therefore, a thermal characterization of Li ion cells is necessary to provide the thermal parameters needed for further battery's thermal studies, and the development of adequate thermal management systems. This thesis work presents a thermal characterization of a Tesla cylindrical Li ion cell, describing methods for the measurement of the specific heat capacity, axial thermal conductivity and radial thermal conductivity. All the experiments were implemented utilizing a custom-made isothermal heat conduction calorimeter (IHCC). The calorimeter was originally designed to work with prismatic and pouch cells. Therefore, all the process related to the design modifications, in order to adapt the calorimeter to work with cylindrical cells, is also described in this thesis. The methods developed were validated utilizing a Polyoxymethylene (POM) sample with the same dimensions of 21700 cylindrical cell. Some issues related to heat leakage were faced when performing the experiments, and they were overcome by improving the calorimeter set-up. Finally, the results obtained from the measurements presented reasonable values and a very good precision, being an important contribution in the thermal characterization of cylindrical Li ion cells.


The Leaders Transforming Learning and Learners (LTLL) project explores the ways in which moral purpose, authentic learning and educative leadership work together in schools to transform the lives of learners, making use of a conceptual framework that embraces these elements. This article takes up the issue of how schools view their moral purpose, what they see as evidence of their endeavours in this area, and how these perceptions change over time. A team from each of the 11 participating schools completed a reflection instrument on commencement, and towards the end of their formal engagement with the project. Two major sections of this instrument tap into aspects of moral purpose: values and ethics. The article summarizes and analyses school perceptions of six of the LTLL schools both before and after the LTLL intervention, and examines changes which took place as a consequence of participation in this important dimension of school life. Broadly speaking, over the course of the program perceptions of the extent to which moral purpose was being realized were more positive, and a wider range of types of evidence was utilized. Within this overall pattern, however, there were some variations in individual schools.


Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems require downlink channel state information (CSI) at the base station (BS) to achieve spatial diversity and multiplexing gains. In a frequency division duplex (FDD) multiuser massive MIMO network, each user needs to compress and feedback its downlink CSI to the BS. The CSI overhead scales with the number of antennas, users and subcarriers, and becomes a major bottleneck for the overall spectral efficiency. In this paper, we propose a deep learning (DL)-based CSI compression scheme, called DeepCMC, composed of convolutional layers followed by quantization and entropy coding blocks. In comparison with previous DL-based CSI reduction structures, DeepCMC proposes a novel fully-convolutional neural network (NN) architecture, with residual layers at the decoder, and incorporates quantization and entropy coding blocks into its design. DeepCMC is trained to minimize a weighted rate-distortion cost, which enables a trade-off between the CSI quality and its feedback overhead. Simulation results demonstrate that DeepCMC outperforms the state of the art CSI compression schemes in terms of the reconstruction quality of CSI for the same compression rate. We also propose a distributed version of DeepCMC for a multi-user MIMO scenario to encode and reconstruct the CSI from multiple users in a distributed manner. Distributed DeepCMC not only utilizes the inherent CSI structures of a single MIMO user for compression, but also benefits from the correlations among the channel matrices of nearby users to further improve the performance in comparison with DeepCMC. We also propose a reduced-complexity training method for distributed DeepCMC, allowing to scale it to multiple users, and suggest a cluster-based distributed DeepCMC approach for practical implementation.


Introduction In 2000, a European Community working group met with the phenomenon of acute undetected pain in the lumbar spine. Experts from almost all countries in the European zone took place in this meeting, to identify potential harmful factors, to establish a framework for prevention and to formulate guidelines for the treatment of LBP among the field's professionals. In the results, the working group made widely known the poor association of the LBP feeling in connection to the radiographic diagnosis, as it often did not coincide with the pain in the particular area of the patient. It also included guidelines for exercise as a mean of preventing and of reducing LBP during its chronic phase. Advices were also given on what kind and at which intensity of exercise is appropriate. LBP defined as the pain followed by concomitant discomfort, located between the lateral and the lower gluteus folds (Haryono, Kawilarang, & Prastowo, 2019). Acute LBP defined as the one lasts less than 6 weeks, sub acute the one between 6-12 weeks, while for more than 12 weeks characterized as chronic. Pain divided in two categories according to the causal risk factors. Red-flag sign defined the group who has predisposing factors to experience LBP. This category includes ages under 25 and over 55 years, recent history of violent trauma, steadily worsening non-mechanical pain (not receding with bedtime), chest pain, malignant tumor medical history, prolonged use cortisone, unexplained weight loss, and various other factors of minor importance (Waddell, Feder, McIntosh, Lewis, & Hutchinson, 1998). The yellow-flag sign refers to secondary risk factors for LBP. Participants according to their working group stated that, work satisfaction, emotional issues (stress, depression, etc.), pain management, and low levels of exercise are factors that cause chronic LBP (Kendall, Linton, & Main, 1997). The cost of any form of LBP evaluated as GDP percentage. In Finland, the total cost reaches 0.8% (Heikki, 2002), in the Netherlands 1.7% (Van Tulder, Koes, & Bouter, 1995), in Sweden 1.7% (Nachemson, 1991), in the United States is 2.2% (Frymoyer & Cats-Baril, 1991) of the GDP's of each country. UK has the highest numbers of back pain related absenteeism in the EU, nearly 10 million workdays were lost to back pain in 2014, (Miller, 2014), where the cost also reaches 2% of GDP (Maniadakis & Gray, 2000), agreed with survey results presented shown that 75-85% of absenteeism were due to back pain (Andersson, 1999; Waddell et al., 1998). Artur (2014), underline that LBP is the leading cause of disability for most of countries in Europe, North Africa and a part of Latin America. The majority of researches have so far not addressed LBP issues Abstract


1. No Speak English 2. Popular Mechanics 3. The Unicorn in the Garden 4. The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse 5. Samuel 6. The Chaser 7. The Brown House 8. Love 9. The Use of Force 10. The Lottery 11. A Blizzard under Blue Sky 12. The Sentinel 13. Hills Like White Elephants 14. The Man to Send Rain Clouds 15. The Somebody 16. Japanese Hamlet 17. Secrets 18. The Orphaned Swimming Pool 19. The Sojourner 20. English as a Second Language 21. The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant 22. Fine Points 23. Where You Have Been Where You Are Going 24. Christmas Show


The results of the application of sensitivity analysis to the simulation of gas–surface scattering are presented. The simulation technique was the three dimensional generalized Langevin method of Tully, and the sensitivity analysis methods were the coupled solution of system and sensitivity equations approach and a new stochastic sensitivity analysis method. We found that the coupled solution approach only converged when trajectories which involved multiple collisions of the gas with the surface were excluded from the Monte Carlo averaging of this simulation approach. The stochastic sensitivity method was found to give convergent results for both single collision trajectories and multiple collision trajectories. In the stochastic sensitivity method the sensitivity coefficients are computed by selecting the parameters of the system randomly from a given distribution and then performing a linear least‐squares analysis of the variations of the output variables of the simulation model with respect to variatio...


Abstract The goal of this note is to prove that the signed Segre forms of Griffiths' positive vector bundles are positive.


Village bank is a main force of our new rural financial institutions.Based on characteristic of village bank's credit risk,the paper analyzes the causes of it.Finally,countermeasures and suggestions on perfecting credit risk management of village bank are provided.


The state of the environment in which we live and certain hygienic practices we indulge in has been known to affect our nutritional status. This study was aimed at examining the association between malnutrition and some selected water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practices among school children in Gombe State Nigeria. A cross sectional survey was conducted between March and June, 2019. A total of 745 pupils were selected from 12 public and 6 private schools across 6 LGAs in Gombe state, using multi-stage sampling technique. Anthropometric measurements of heights and weights of the study participants were done using standard instruments and procedures. Other relevant data (age, sex, some environmental variables etc) were collected using a structured template. Data analysis was done using IBM SPSS version 21 and key variables were presented using descriptive statistics, while associations were tested using Chi square. Odd ratio (OR) was used to estimate risks of malnutrition among the subjects and p-value was set at 0.05. The pupils had a mean age of 9.96±2.26 years, 50.9% of whom were males the rest being females. Though 84.6% of them had toilets in their residences not all of them (98.6%) put them to use. A good proportion (79.1%) dispose their refuse by dumping and slightly more than half of them (51.7%) have access to pipe borne water. And though only two (method of refuse disposal and source of drinking water) out of the eight WASH variables studied were found to be associated with underweight (Composite indicator of malnutrition), all the eight variables were found to be associated with stunting (chronic malnutrition). Overall, 20.8% and 22.4% of the subjects were underweight and stunted, respectively. The foregoing raises a germane concern about the role of WASH in malnutrition among school children and the need for a comprehensive and sustainable school feeding programme in the state and country at large. There should also be an integration of a WASH component in all nutrition intervention programmes.


Reaching for higher wind resources beyond the water depth limitations of monopile wind turbines, there has arisen the alternative of using floating wind turbines. But the response of wave induced loads significantly increases for floating wind turbines. Applying conventional onshore control strategies to floating wind turbines has been shown to impose negative damped oscillations in fore-aft due to the low natural frequency of the floating structure. Thus, we suggest a control loop extension of the onshore controller which stabilizes the system and reduces the wave disturbance. The results shows that when adding the suggested control loop with disturbance reduction to the system, improved performance is observed in power fluctuations, blade pitch activity, and platform oscillations.


A unique mechanical-face seal test apparatus is described, and some experimental results are presented. The apparatus is designed to test a single 96-mm shaft diameter face seal. Provision is made to measure friction torque, leakage and seal face temperature and to record these data as a function of time automatically using a computerized data acquisition system. The unique feature of the machine is that face waviness is imposed on one of the rings using gas pressure. In order to minimize the effects of wear on the waviness so that long-term tests can be made, the waviness is moved slowly relative lo the ring. Results show that seal wear and friction are greatly reduced by the face waviness when compared to a flat face seal. Presented at the 35th Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California, May 5–8, 1980


Our empirical research has shown that a predominant structural feature of defect tracking repositories is the evolving "bug report network" (BRN). Community members create BRNs by progressively asserting various formal and informal relationships between bug reports (BRs). In one F/OSS bug repository under study, participants assert two formal relationships (duplications and dependencies) and various informal relationships (like "see also" references). BRNs can be interpreted as (1) information ordering strategies that support collocation of related BRs, decreasing cognitive and organizational effort; (2) sense-making strategies wherein BRNs provide more refined representations of software and workorganization issues; (3) social ordering strategies that rearrange collective relationships among community members. This paper presents findings from an investigation of the nature, extent, and impact of BRNs in one large F/OSS development community. We investigate whether and how specific classes of BRNs influence problem management within the community, and identify several new research questions.


Objectives: Under five nutritional deficiencies in Somaliland constitute a major health concern. In response, Population Services International (PSI) undertook a study to examine practices related to acceptability of and willingness to pay for (WTP) MNP. Methods: 72 female caregivers from different socioeconomic groups trialed MNP. Focus group discussions on MNP were conducted with the trialists, a control group of 120 female caregivers, and 30 men. WTP exercises, using both the price sensitivity meter (PSM) and Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) methods were conducted with women. Results: 95.7% of the MNP trialists used the product; 61.2% would use MNP in the future. 64.2% would prefer to purchase in pharmacies and 28.4% in clinics. Although the PSM exercise indicated a high WTP (4,596 Somaliland Shillings), the BDM exercise resulted in a lower value (2,773 SS). 45.7% bid above the estimated cost (2,958 SS ) and the average bid 93.7% of the estimated cost. Conclusions: MNP would, therefore, be a suitable product for Somaliland; it is relevant to nutrition needs and caregivers show WTP close to the product's cost recovery price, necessitating minimal subsidies.


Selinexor is an FDA-approved first-in-class, oral selective nuclear export inhibitor which forces nuclear retention of many tumor suppressor proteins.

 We conducted a phase 2 trial of selinexor monotherapy for adults with recurrent GBM including a surgical arm to explore intratumoral PK and 3 medical arms to optimize dosing. Prior treatment with radiotherapy and temozolomide was required; prior bevacizumab was exclusionary. The primary endpoint was 6-month progression-free survival (6mPFS) rate.

 Selinexor administered ~2 hours pre-operatively yieleded average intratumoral concentration (136 nM, n=6) comparable to the in vitro IC50 (130 nM) from 7 primary human GBM cell lines. Among all 68 patients accrued to 3 medical arms (~85 mg BIW, n=24; 60 mg BIW, n=14; 80 mg QW, n=30), median age was 56 years (21–78). Median number of prior lines of therapies was 2 (1–7). At 80 mg QW, 28% patients were progression-free at the end of cycle 6; the 6mPFS was 17%; disese control rate by RANO was 37% (1 CR, 2 PRs, 7 SD) among 27 evaluable patients; responses were durable (median 11.1 months), and treatment lasted for 442, 547 and 1282 days in 3 responders, as of data lock, with one responder remaining on treatment off study; median overall survival was 10.2 months with 95% CI (7.0, 15.4). The ~85 mg BIW-schedule was abandoned due to poor tolerability. The related adverse events (all grades) in patients on ~85 mg BIW/60 mg BIW/80 mg QW were nausea (41.7%/64.3%/66.7%), fatigue (70.8%/71.4%/50.0%), neutropenia (29.2%/14.3%/33.3%), decreased appetite (45.8%/71.4%/26.7%), thrombocytopenia (66.7%/28.6%/23.3%) and weight loss (16.7%,/42.9%/6.7%).

 Selinexor monotherapy demonstrated encouraging intratumoral penetration and efficacy, with durable disease control in rGBM. Monotherapy dose at 80 mg QW is recommended for further development in rGBM. A phase 1/2 study of combination therapy for newly diagnosed or rGBM has been initiated (NCT04421378).


On the study of current merchandise counterfeiting system, a new solution based on the Web service technology, which also combines Web technology with up to date digital anti-counterfeiting technology, is proposed in this paper. It can solve the problem of security and flexibility of traditional anti-counterfeiting system. And then the system functions, encrypt and de-encrypt algorithm, anti-counterfeiting code and authentication technologies are introduced.


Cytosolic sulfotransferases (SULT) are involved in detoxification pathways. A functional polymorphism in the SULT1A1 gene, leading to an Arg213His substitution (SULT1A1*2), is thought to confer susceptibility to various types of cancer. Upper urinary tract urothelial cell carcinomas (UUT-UCC) are rare (5% of all urothelial carcinomas). We genotyped 268 patients with UUT-UCC and 268 healthy controls matched for age, gender, tobacco consumption, and ethnicity. His213 (SULT1A1*2) allele frequency was significantly higher in patients than in controls (37.1% versus 28.9%; P = 0.004). The His/His genotype corresponding to low-activity SULT1A1 enzyme conferred a significantly higher risk of UUT-UCC (odds ratio, 2.18; 95% confidence interval, 1.28-3.69; P = 0.004).(Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(11):1–4) (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(11):2500–3)


These desired changes in genotypes of crop species are achieved by a series of interrelated and largely interdependent activities viz., creation of variation, selection, evaluation, multiplication and distribution, out of which creation of variation is important for effective selection. Hence, improvement in yield and International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 08 (2018) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com


The research aims to find out how the application of Urban Ecology in order to increase Environmental Awareness in East Jakarta Bidara Cina. The method used is theoretical descriptive method. The study was conducted from January to May 2018. The results showed that there are four obstacles in the application of Urban Ecology in order to increase Environmental Awareness in East Jakarta Bidara namely, first the need for land for urban residents is very large, so that green space becomes the main obstacle limitation land, both the urbanization of the immigrant population causing the population to increase from year to year so that, the land is more limited, the third the number of young people who are not aware of the environment, so as not to support the movement of environmental awareness, the four busyness of religious leaders causing the lack of worship activities so that socialization on environmental awareness is not done maximally.


The aim of Modern Medical Ethics is to construct a procedure rule under the basic principle, lets each kind of theory and the values obtains the equal opportunity of dialogue and cooperation. But as a result of flaw of the method and the inherent contradicions of modern ethics, it has not certainly realized this goal. We must fully respect the Chinese cultural tradition and the social status quo, use west medicine ethics resources prudently and reasonably。


Abstract The aim of this research was to determine the influence of 56-days (from day 4 to day 60 post partum) of simultaneous supplementation of selenium (Se) and iodine (I) enriched Chlorella algae on blood and urine Se concentrations and thyroid hormone levels in ewes and lambs. The study included 18 Šumava sheep ewes and their lambs divided into three groups (CON, HSe, HSeI). Selenium and I content in the diet of ewes measured 0.2 and 0.7 mg (CON), 0.4 and 0.7 mg (HSe), 0.4 and 1.3 mg (HSeI) per kg of dry matter. During the experimental period a significantly higher blood serum Se concentration was determined in ewes of the HSeI group (P< 0.001) and urine (P< 0.01). A significantly higher (P< 0.001) blood serum Se concentration was found also in lambs of the HSeI group. The highest Se concentration in the blood serum was recorded in ewes (128.0 μg/L) and lambs (74.2 μg/L) on the 26th day of the experiment. The results demonstrate a higher utilization of Se administered in the organic form accompanied by a higher intake of I applied also in the organic form. Plasma thyroid hormone levels in ewes were not explicitly affected by higher Se and I supplementation. A higher Se concentration in the lambs' blood serum led to significantly higher (P< 0.05) T3 levels up to 30 days post birth.


An algorithm to derive the diffraction coefficient for a surface wave that diffracts at the corner of a semi-infinite dielectric slab is proposed. Using the equivalence principle the dielectric slab is replaced by equivalent electric currents. These currents can also be expressed in terms of equivalent electric currents in the infinite slab, two electric currents of two semi-infinite slabs and electric currents of an angular sector slab. The electric field of the last current can be regarded as a diffraction coefficient for a surface wave that diffracts at the corner. It was shown that its calculation reduces to canonical diffraction integrals, which are expressed in terms of transition functions. The diffraction coefficient has such a form that it can be used for different types of excitation.


Prior work on cross-lingual dependency parsing often focuses on capturing the commonalities between source and target languages and overlook the potential to leverage the linguistic properties of the target languages to facilitate the transfer. In this paper, we show that weak supervisions of linguistic knowledge for the target languages can improve a cross-lingual graph-based dependency parser substantially. Specifically, we explore several types of corpus linguistic statistics and compile them into corpus-statistics constraints to facilitate the inference procedure. We propose new algorithms that adapt two techniques, Lagrangian relaxation and posterior regularization, to conduct inference with corpus-statistics constraints. Experiments show that the Lagrangian relaxation and posterior regularization techniques improve the performances on 15 and 17 out of 19 target languages, respectively. The improvements are especially large for the target languages that have different word order features from the source language.


I INTRODUCTION The odious debt doctrine has experienced renewed popularity in the past few years; it has been heralded by academics, political commentators, economists, and politicians as a mechanism to alleviate burdens imposed by illegitimate rulers. In its classic formulation, the doctrine provides that a regime's debt is odious, and thus unenforceable, if the state's people did not consent to the debt, the proceeds from the debt were not used for the benefit of the people, and the regime's creditors had knowledge of the first two conditions. (1) Scholars and policy makers have made advances in defining the doctrine and proposing mechanisms for its application to real-world problems, and there are now several leading theories on how the doctrine could be implemented. (2) To date, however, it is not clear how much traction, if any, the doctrine has gained in the real world. The doctrine, in any form, has not been directly invoked in recent history, (3) though not for lack of test cases. For example, South Africa's Apartheid debt is often cited as an ideal situation for the application of the doctrine: there was a clear break between the overthrown Apartheid regime and the elected African National Congress government, there is general consensus in the international community that the Apartheid regime was oppressive, and the new regime had international support and the intent and capacity to repay any newly incurred debt obligations. Nonetheless, the country continues to repay its Apartheid-era debt due to fears that not paying would hinder its ability to borrow going forward. (4) Many groups continue to advocate for the repudiation of South Africa's Apartheid debt; however, the South African government has given no indication of pursing an Apartheid-era debt write-down. The companies and creditors that supported the Apartheid regime will be repaid, even if by the same people who were oppressed by it and worked to overthrow it. In 2003, the newly instated Iraqi regime began negotiations to restructure that country's debt, much of which had been incurred by Saddam Hussein during his twenty-odd year tenure as its dictator. As with South Africa, there were many calls to invoke the odious debt doctrine to repudiate Iraq's Saddam-era debt, (5) particularly because many saw Iraq, with its clear regime change and the general consensus on the unsavory nature of Saddam's regime, as an opportune situation under which to implement the doctrine. Again, as with South Africa, the doctrine was not invoked. The similarities, however, end there. Unlike South Africa, Iraq was able to restructure its debt on very favorable terms--receiving an eighty percent write-off--by working through political channels with the backing of the United States. Despite the differences between the regime changes in Iraq and South Africa (Iraq's was precipitated by U.S.-led military operations whereas South Africa's was internally driven, though certainly encouraged by other countries through international sanctions and political isolation), the new Iraqi regime's more recent decision to back away from the odious debt doctrine similarly calls into question the usefulness and practicability of the doctrine in addressing inequities in sovereign debt burdens. This note examines the doctrine's influence on Iraq's recent debt restructuring and whether the doctrine has become an effective debt repudiation tool for sovereign creditors. Part II reviews scholarship and commentary proposing to apply the odious debt doctrine to Iraq, and Part III gives an account of the Iraqi debt renegotiation process, focusing particularly on the Paris Club negotiations and the forces behind the process. The note then addresses the implications of the Iraqi result for subsequent restructurings and the prospects for the implementation of the odious debt doctrine by other successor governments. More specifically, in Part IV the note argues that the doctrine, although it may have played some role in the Iraqi debt renegotiation process, does not currently supply a meaningful mechanism for debt repudiation for those countries without sufficient political or strategic value to major world powers. …


In a novel experimental approach a magneto-optical trap (MOT) is combined with a Reaction Microscope (ReMi) and implemented in an ion storage ring. Single ionization measurements were performed with 24 MeV O8+ and 6 MeV H+ projectiles and a state prepared lithium target. We obtained single-, double- and fully differential cross sections and observed features that we attribute to the structure and polarization of target initial states.


Alexandrina Victoria, the future Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Empress of India, on the day of her birth, May 24th 1819, had little chance of becoming the leader of a superpower. Born as the only child of Princess Victoria of SaxeCoburg-Saalfeld and Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the forth son of George III, the King of the United Kingdom of the Hanoverian house, was fifth in the line of succession after her father and uncles. However, as a result of rather astonishing family matters and lack of strict moral conduct, she remained the only legitimate representative of her generation in the family, born 18 months after the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales, the daughter of George Augustus Frederick, future King George IV, the eldest son of George III. Victoria accessed the British throne on June 20th, 1837, at the age of 18 and remained the sovereign until 1901, keeping her post for more than 63 years. Until September 9, 2015, she was given the title of the longest ruling British monarch, now surpassed by Queen Elizabeth II. In American press, not much space was devoted to the new Queen at the very moment of her ascension to the throne. The news appeared in "Morning Herald", claiming: A great political contest is developing itself in England since the death of the King. Queen Victoria may be the last monarch on the isle1. High possibility of social, political and cultural advancement had already been mentioned in the same paper: The death of the King of England is a greater event than the mere extinction of an old man's life can be imagined.


Background: Malignant melanoma with its varied clinical presentations and histopathological patterns poses diagnostic problems both for clinicians and pathologists. It presents as metastatic lesions or in an unusual site with no known primary. We present three cases of malignant melanoma to demonstrate the wide array of clinical presentations of this entity. Patients and Methods: A 5 years retrospective study of all melanotic lesions, both benign and malignant irrespective of the site was done. Among these, three cases of malignant melanoma were selected, that evaded clinical diagnosis because they occurred in unusual locales and caused diagnostic difficulty in initial screening procedures. The diagnosis was confirmed only after pathologic examination and immunohistochemistry (IHC). Results: Of the three cases, one presented as an intracranial hematoma, the second as a pseudo cyst of pancreas and the third as a parotid gland tumor. The first two cases were metastatic and the third was a primary. Conclusion: Diagnosis of malignant melanoma may provide a challenge, especially when the primary is unknown or when it occurs in an uncommon location. When the histology of a lesion shows features suspicious of melanoma it should be subjected to extensive sampling, to look for the focal production of melanin and a mandatory IHC marker study helps the final diagnosis. This would help the pathologist to come to a correct diagnosis and hence prevent an unwanted contribution to patient mortality.


The present paper is motivated by the observation that Weyl's equidistribution theorem for real sequences on a bounded interval can be formulated in a way which is also meaningful for sequences of selfadjoint operators on a Hilbert space. We shall provide general results on weak convergence of operator measures which yield this version of Weyl's theorem as a corollary. Further, by combining the above results with the von Neumann ergodic theorem, we will obtain a Cesaro convergence property, equivalently, an "ergodic theorem", which is valid for all (projectionvalued) spectral measures whose support is in a bounded interval, as well as for the more general class of positive operator-valued measures. Within the same circle of ideas we deduce a convergence property which completely characterizes those spectral measures associated with "strongly mixing" unitary transformations. The final sections are devoted to applications of the preceding results in the study of complexvalued Borel measures as well as to an extension of our results to summability methods other than CesAro convergence. In particular, we obtain a complete characterization, in purely measure theoretic terms, of those complex measures on a bounded interval whose Fourier-Stieltjes coefficients converge to zero.


Provided is a goggle kit including a goggle clip attachable to the goggle frame, and a corresponding nose element, which adheres to the user's nose. The nose element and the goggle clip are configured to be detachably engageable therewith, such that when the nose element is placed on the user's nose and the goggle is placed over the user's eyes, the goggle clip and nose element may be engaged with each other, thereby urging the nasal opening of the user to dilate.


ABSTRACT Lime and cement as traditional binders need to be reduced in soil stabilization to avoid carbon dioxide emissions. Infrastructure development like paved structures, buildings, foundations, and dams involves exhaustive use of natural resources and serious concern for the environment. Using natural fibers as reinforced soil is a green-novel technique that improves soil properties such as strength, deformation, and expansion. Thus, this paper advances the performance of soil reinforcement using natural fiber. Natural Curauá fiber was used to improve unconfined compressive strength (qu), splitting tensile strength (qt), shear direct, and deformation of sedimentary silt in southern Brazil. By studying strength properties, 0.50% fiber and a length of 6 mm were selected as an optimum percentage and optimum length, respectively. For direct shear tests, the increase in strength at low confining stresses is proportional to the increase in fiber content and fiber length. By natural biodegradation of fiber, expanded polystyrene (EPS)-based treatment was employed, influencing a reduction of 10% in water absorption of fiber and increasing fiber's tensile strength by 5%. Finally, the results demonstrate that natural fiber is a friendly-environmental alternative to enhance soil properties by applying rammed earth and some short-use earthworks in green constructions.


The effect of deformation and DyF3 additions on the electrical resistivity and the magnetic performance has been studied in hot-deformed Nd-Fe-B melt-spun ribbons and correlated with respective microstructures. Despite the nanocrystallinity of hot-compacted magnets, the specific electrical resistivity measured by four-point-method was shown to be comparable with that of sintered magnets. Die-upsetting reduces electrical resistivity within the magnetically hard plane because of an enhanced shape anisotropy of the grains. The addition of DyF3 overcompensates this reduction due to the presence of electrically insulating Dy-F rich inclusions and thus reduces eddy current losses within the magnet. Magnetic measurements reveal an increase in coercivity without a change in remanence for die-upset magnets with a total height reduction of 63% and 1.2 wt. % Dy (1.6 wt. %DyF3). Both properties, remanence and coercivity, demonstrate an effective reduction in heavy rare earth Dy for Nd-Fe-B magnets.


The study aims to analyze about the low graduation and certification exam training participants of the procurement of goods / services of the government and its contributing factors, and formulate a strategy of education and training and skills certification exams procurement of goods / services of the government. Collecting data using the method of study documentation, interviews, and questionnaires. Is the official source of information on the structural and functional Regional Employment Board, as well as the participants of the training and skills certification exams procurement of goods / services of the government in Magelang regency government environment. Analysis using 4 quadrant SWOT analysis, to determine the issue or strategic factors in improving the quality of education and training and skills certification exams procurement of government goods / services within the Government of Magelang regency. The results show organizer position is in quadrant I, which is supporting the growth strategy, with 3 alternative formulation strategies that improve the quality of education and training and skills certification exams procurement of government goods / services, and conducts certification examination of the procurement of government goods / services with computer assisted test system (CAT). Based on the research recommendations formulated advice to the organizing committee, namely: of prospective participants of the training and skills certification exams procurement of goods / services the government should consider the motivation of civil servants, is examinees who have attended training in the same period of the year, the need for simulation procurement of goods / services significantly, an additional allocation of training time, giving sanction to civil servants who have not passed the exam, the provision of adequate classroom space with the number of participants of each class are proportional, as well as explore the evaluation of education and training and skills certification exams procurement of goods / services for Government of participants.


A paradox of very simple solution, involving electrostatic and magnetostatic forces, is presented and solved. Its solution is only possible if the velocity involved, v, is such that , and it is shown that an upper bound to the velocity could have been found as early as 1820.


Since the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) unveiled its WorldCat Local library catalog discovery layer in 2008, library instructors have debated how to incorporate this tool into their teaching. WorldCat Local's faceted searching brings both educational benefits and unexpected challenges to the classroom. Instructors frequently hold formal and informal discussions on such topics as which search features are most effective during teaching and which patron groups benefit most from this tool. The authors of this article surveyed instruction librarians at U.S. academic libraries that are using WorldCat Local in order to gather and organize this feedback. This article presents the findings of this survey.


Biodegradable antimicrobial poly(ester-carbonate)s were prepared facilely via a simple two-step process with low cost. First, poly(5,5-dibromomethyl trimethylene carbonate-co-e-caprolactone) (PDBTCL) with pendant bromo groups was synthesized by the direct ring-opening copolymerization of 5,5-dibromomethyl trimethylene carbonate (DBTC) and e-caprolactone (CL) in the presence of stannous octanoate (Sn(Oct)2) as catalyst. Then, the quaternization reaction between PDBTCL and a series of N,N-dimethyl alkylamines was performed under mild conditions, resulting in biodegradable poly(ester-carbonate)s with pendant ammonium salts (QPDBTCL). The chemical structure and composition of QPDBTCLs were characterized by 1H NMR. The influences of alkyl chain length and charge density on the antimicrobial activity of QPDBTCLs against Gram-negative (Escherichia coli) and Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria were evaluated by OD600 and zone of inhibition methods. It was observed that QPDBTCLs with long alkyl chain on the ammonium groups exhibit significantly higher antimicrobial activity than those with short alkyl chain for both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. QPDBTCL with quaternary N,N-dimethyldodecylammonium groups shows strong antimicrobial activity even with very low charge density (4.3 mol%). This kind of biodegradable antimicrobial material may have potential applications as biomaterials.


Over the past 20 years, it has become widely accepted that both genes and environments are important when examining outcome variables such as temperament, behavior problems, and cognitive ability (Plomin, DeFries, McClearn, & McGuffin, 2000). However, the implications of these well-replicated findings have not been fully integrated into theories examining dyadic and triadic processes within families or within peer groups. If we assume that differences in the way people behave are influenced, in part, by genetic factors, we should also assume that genetic influences may affect the relationships among family and peer members. The purpose of this volume is to describe a set of studies that demonstrate not only how genetically sensitive designs may be used to examine family/peer processes and outcomes, but also why such studies are important to theories of social development. The purpose of this introduction is to describe the logic behind the various methods employed by the authors and to introduce the manuscripts that compose the collection. More detailed discussions of the statistical procedures by which these methods are


This paper presents a study which is part of a broader project. This latter aims at providing mobile users with context-aware personalised services. The E-tourism Project deals with a variety of queries submitted by a tourist, such as booking a hotel room, getting the weather conditions for the next day, or booking tickets in a museum in the neighbourhood and worth to visit. This paper focuses on the query management and processing. The module described analyses and structures the query by splitting it, identifying the named entities, solving ambiguities... To process the query, the system uses various external knowledge bases and Natural Language Processing tools to understand the named entities and proper context of the query using disambiguation techniques. MOTS-CLÉS : e-Tourism, Traitement de Requêtes, Services Personnalisés Dépendants du Contexte


A set of three out-of-plane magnetic spectrometers (OOPS) has recently been deployed and commissioned at the Bates Linear Accelerator. Measurements of the 2 H(~ e; e 0 p)n reaction have been performed using an 800 MeV polarized electron beam and the OOPS to detect protons in coincidence with an electron spectrometer in kinematics of either quasielastic (QE) at Q 2 =0.22 (GeV/c) 2 or non{quasielastic (dip) at Q 2 =0.15 (GeV/c) 2. Two and three OOPS were positioned symmetrically along the direction of momentum transfer in pq=(45,135) and (0,90,180) conngurations, respectively, for a given set of pq values. This allowed simultaneous measurements of the longitudinal-transverse responses, f LT and f 0 LT , and the transverse-transverse response f TT at various central missing momenta ranging from 145 to 265 MeV/c. Here, preliminary results are presented and compared with vigorous model calculations. The data reveal strong eeects of relativity and nal-state interactions, as well as the two-body currents, which include the meson-exchange and iso-bar currents, in the deuteron electrodisintegration. An outlook of future OOPS programs is also discussed.


kingdom of Sicily; the large role of Guillaume Durant (c. 1230–96) in papal administration (nos. 13, 31–33, etc.); the situation of Edward I, king of England, who was in arrears in handing over Peter's Pence (nos. 43–46); and the pope's concern for Rome, although he did not reside there (see esp. p. 103; at Orvieto and three other locations). Since much local Italian archival material has been lost, Reg. Lat. 42 is often the only source for such information.The chamber register of Martin IV opens a window to the workings of the papacy in the late-thirteenth century; and for this reason alone, this edition, compiled according to the high standards of German scholarship, is a welcome addition to our knowledge of papal affairs on the Italian peninsula and nearby regions.


ABSTRACT Among the various representations of fans in film, the image of the psychologically troubled and socially awkward individual is amongst the most common. In this article, I discuss the anime Perfect Blue (Kon, 1997) as a text that directly engages with the negative portrayal of fans by depicting a deranged stalker and his obsession with a young female singer-turned-actress. Perfect Blue is an anime that is concerned with the violent fantasies that underlie both fan identifications with media products and the manufacture of these products by an exploitative entertainment industry. Central to Perfect Blue's criticism of fandom and popular culture is its use of the thriller genre to problematize the issue of identification. Here, I use Perfect Blue's criticism of fandom and the construction of media commodities to focus on the problem of identity as a central issue in the construction of an ideal anime text by fans.


Cell adhesion kinase β (CAKβ/PYK2) is a protein-tyrosine kinase of the focal adhesion kinase (FAK) family. Whereas FAK predominantly localizes at focal adhesions, CAK β localizes at the perinuclear region in fibroblasts. Here we expressed in cultured cells two point mutants of CAKβ, P717A and P859A, each of which had lost one of its two PXXP motifs, the ligand sequence for SH3 domains, found at the CAKβ C-terminal region. We observed a remarkable change in the subcellular distribution of the P859A mutant; while that of the P717A mutant was the same as the wild type. The P859A mutant localized exclusively in the cell nucleus in all cell lines examined. Wild-type CAKβ also accumulated in the nucleus when cells were treated with an inhibitor of the nuclear export of proteins. These results indicate that CAK β shuttles between the cytoplasm and the nucleus. On nuclear accumulation of P859A-CAKβ, a CAKβ-binding protein, Hic-5, also accumulated in the nucleus. P859A-CAKβ and co-expressed Hic-5 formed nuclear speckles, in which one other CAK β-binding protein, p130Cas, was also concentrated. These findings on nuclear translocation of CAK β imply that CAKβ may regulate nuclear processes such as transcription, particularly because Hic-5 was recently shown to be a coactivator of nuclear receptors.


When thousands of processors are involved in performing event filtering on a trigger farm, there is likely to be a large number of failures within the software and hardware systems. BTeV, a proton/antiproton collider experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, has designed a trigger, which includes several thousand processors. If fault conditions are not given proper treatment, it is conceivable that this trigger system will experience failures at a high enough rate to have a negative impact on its effectiveness. The RTES (Real Time Embedded Systems) collaboration is a group of physicists, engineers, and computer scientists working to address the problem of reliability in large-scale clusters with real-time constraints such as this. Resulting infrastructure must be highly scalable, verifiable, extensible by users, and dynamically changeable.


To increase the efficiency of verification in design of Application Specific Instruction Set Processor(ASIP), a software-hardware co-verification method which combines the verification of ASIP Register Transport Level(RTL) description with the test of ASIP software development tools(assembler, software simulator) is proposed. Test assemble instructions and data are generated according to the test requirement, and the binary codes are produced by the assembler subsequently. The binary codes are input to the hardware simulator and instruction set simulator at same time, and the results of software and hardware simulation are compared automatically. This method can discover errors in ASIP RTL description, the assembler and the instruction set simulator efficiently, increase the coverage of verification, and shorten the verification cycle of ASIP.


With the global energy crisis and environmental pollution intensified, the development of new energy has become the consensus of the world. Among them, ocean, which accounts for 70.8% of the Earth's surface area, contains a wide range and considerable storage of renewable energy. Energy flow density of wave energy is large, which is a low-cost energy source that can provide considerable power through smaller devices. The rational use of marine wave power generation consumes no fuel and resources, does not produce any pollution, less investment and quick return. Therefore, wave power generation has great potential for development. However, there are some problems to be solved urgently in the wave power generation. The wave energy has the characteristics of large amplitude and variable frequency. Therefore, the input power of the wave power generator is generally unstable, discontinuous and abrupt. And facing of changing climate conditions and other factors, wave power generation devices often work in abnormal conditions, which will cause some degree of impact on some devices, also the power quality of the reliability and stability are affected. A single wave power generation system is usually an independent power generation system or directly connected to the offshore power distribution system and is currently the main form of running wave power generation. Directly connected to the offshore power distribution system in the wave power generation system is not enough to cause a significant impact on the voltage and frequency of large systems, but its impact on the voltage, power quality, power electronic devices of the local power distribution network can not be ignored. Through the analysis of wave power generation characteristics, this paper proposes a inverter control strategy based on the principle of virtual synchronous generator (VSG) to introduce the wave power generation system. Because of its similar characteristics of synchronous generators, such as large output impedance, large inertia, power by droop feature distribution, it is suitable for wave energy this low stability, high mutation rate power generation system. Through the introduction of virtual inertia and damping coefficient, it can improve the stability of wave power generation, improve the efficiency of inverter utilization, reduce the cost of system configuration and improve the service life of converter.


The combination of multidimensional analytical technology to form a single nth-order analyzer can produce reaction process data more efficiently and may provide data that are inaccessible using conventional techniques. A 3rd-order analyzer was assembled utilizing a Mettler RC1 calorimeter, Applied systems, Inc. ReactIR and Hewlett-Packard 5971A mass selective detector. The 3rd-order analyzer was utilized to simultaneously perform reaction calorimetry, in situ infrared spectroscopy, and in situ mass spectrometry on the conversion of a vinyl sulfone to a vinyl tributylstannane. The goal of complete material and energy balance, coupled with knowledge of scale-up issues, was achieved in a single experiment and in real time.


Applying raft lamination foundation to the treatment of soft foundation, we take effective measures to solve our problems in the work. As a result, the construction quality is guaranteed and we gain successful experience in the construction on soft foundation.


Christianity is type of living more than a religion, reflecting the principles and teachings of Jesus Christ, whom they consider as a savior and believed to be sent from Almighty God to save his people from sins to everlasting life. In general presumption the followers of any kind of religion needs to hold a set of principles in which they believe their life would be enlightened. When a child born in a family that follows a specific religion will be trained to abide by the religious conditions, most in common many people continues to follow those even after growing old enough to understand the world of reality, due to the beneficial factors that exist in it. The beneficial factors are different from physical world to spiritual world; very few among them tend to have their own understanding and the ability to examine the world of reality and don't compromise on the issues that conveyed to them about the religion, which seems to be in different dimensions for them. In this article I footnote some of my understandings that consider the possibilities of migration from religious beliefs to non religious beliefs specifying the Christian attributes.


The modeling analyses of the mass area ratios of the flat-plate and evacuated tubular solar water systems were conducted based on the daily solar radiation model and the solar collector energy output model in the paper. The results show that the simulations of the mass area ratios are well consistent with the experimental data and their relative errors do not exceed 10%. The mass area ratios of the solar collector integrated in large-tilt-angle ( 70°- 90°) with south facades of the residential buildings in five meteorologic regions including 133 cities in China were calculated and analyzed. For convenient use in practice, parameter correlations between the mass area ratios of solar hot water systems and the main meteorologic variables were analyzed by using the linear polynomial regression technique. The correlations of solar hot water systems used in summer and winter were been given in the paper. These results give a useful tool to calculate and improve the mass area ratios of the solar collector integration in large-tilt-angle with the south facades of buildings.


Despite the many fascinating discoveries of fundamental significance and device applications involving graphene, one area that has been lacking is graphene-based displays and emissive devices. Since graphene by itself has weak and wavelength-independent absorption and no emission in the visible range, such devices must rely on synergistic combination with other highly sensitive optical materials such as quantum dots. However, the well-known strong nonradiative energy transfer between emitters and quantum dots and graphene makes it impossible to create such devices due to strong emission quenching. Here we report the first demonstration of enhanced photoluminescence of quantum dots in close proximity to graphene field effect transistor devices, which are electrically and spectrally tunable. The enhanced emission originates from super-radiance between closely packed quantum dots placed close to single-layer graphene, which overcomes the strong nonradiative quenching observed earlier. Finite difference time ...


It is the cornerstone of precise and scientific prevention and control to understand the temporal evolution and spatial pattern of the COVID-19 epidemic. Based on the county-level COVID-19 case of the United States from January 22, 2020 to October 8, 2021, we explored and analyzed the epidemic by using time series analysis, spatial autocorrelation analysis and gravity center trajectory analysis. The results show that: (1) the epidemic in the United States experienced four stages of low incidence, growth, peak and rebound with June 15, September 30 and October 1, 2020 as the cut-off points. (2) The global Moran index experienced a process of "increase-decrease-increase-stability", with the maximum value exceeding 0.6, indicating that the epidemic has obvious spatial aggregation; the epidemic is dominated by high-high clusters (over 150 counties) and low-low clusters (over 500 counties), presenting a pattern of "three cores and multiple islands" and "north-south belt". (3) In 60% of states, the trajectory of the epidemic center of gravity is near-linear type. The epidemic hotspots in these states were relatively stable over time. In more than half of the states, the curve of the moving distance of the epidemic center of gravity is exponential. These states experienced a very rapid epidemic. This study is expected to provide a reference for evaluating the effectiveness of epidemic prevention measures and determining targeted epidemic prevention measures, as well as accumulate experience for future research on the spread of different infectious diseases in different regions.


Togo's Export diversification has improved during most of the 2000s, although Export Quality has been stagnant on Average. Relative commodity export quality has decreased steadily since the 1990s, although it is in trend with benchmark countries (IMF African Department, 2015). In this paper, I investigate the Contribution of High Technology Export to Economic Growth (GDP) of Togo in the period from 2008 to 2017. For this, Simple Regression Model has been applied to estimate the Contribution of High Technology Export to Economic Growth (GDP) in Togo. From the recently available data from the World Bank, the Contribution of High Technology Export to Economic Growth (GDP) is analyzed for the period of 2008 to 2017. The findings of the present study are quite interesting. The findings of the study reveals that High Technology Exports has the positive relationship with Economic Growth (GDP) in Togo for the period of 2007 to 2016. Which means that High Technology Exports had Significant Contribution to Economic Growth (GDP) of Togo for the period of 2008 to 2017.


Abstract : To study the current structure of the California Current as it manifests itself on the continental shelf a subsurface mooring, P1, was anchored 5 km west of Point Sur at 36 17' N, 121 59' W from 28 February through 11 May 1990, The P1 Mooring, placed on the 84 m isobath, consisted of a Self-Contained Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (SC-ADCP) housed in a syntactic foam sphere and secured to an anchor. The mooring geometry placed the transducer heads at 80 m depth. The instrument operated at 307 kHz with each beam inclined 30 from the vertical. An ensemble average of 170 one-second pings were recorded every 15 minutes for 70 days. Good velocity data to with 17 m of the surface were obtained at 4 m intervals throughout the record. Low-pass filtered data indicated high coherence between the observed currents and the local wind forcing measured at the Monterey Bay NOAA buoy located 53 km to the northwest. During equatorward wind events the current response was vertically sheared and time-lagged at depth with near surface speeds up to 35 cm s. During wind relaxations (Periods of no wind) and poleward winds a pressure induced barotropic poleward flow, on the order of 10 cm s, developed throughout the water column. These poleward currents became more frequent and better developed later in the record. Analysis of adjusted sea level (ASL) differences between stations located to the north and south of mooring P1 suggest an increasing poleward pressure gradient during the span of the record. Alongshore differences in the alongshore wind stress component contributed to the increasing difference in ASL.


Display clutter has been shown to lead to breakdowns in attention and performance during visual search in data-rich domains. However, the contribution of, and interaction between, the two key aspects of clutter - data density and poor organization - are not well understood. The aim of this study was to fill this gap by systematically varying both factors and collecting performance and eye tracking data. This data was then used to analyze the performance and underlying attentional costs resulting from the two aspects of clutter. Participants performed visual search tasks in a simulated graphics program. Data density (density of icons) and display organization (grouping of icons) were manipulated. The dependent measures were response time, error rate, eye movements, and subjective clutter ratings. Results confirmed the negative effects of high data density and poor organization on response time and error rate. More importantly, eye tracking metrics reflected the effects of data density and organization on attention allocation and helped explain the observed performance decrements. In particular, spatial density mirrored the interaction effects between data and organization, and the nearest neighbor index (NNI) helped differentiate between the effects of high data density and poor organization. These findings suggest that eye tracking is a powerful means of obtaining a more detailed understanding of the effects of clutter and may also prove useful for real-time detection of clutter.


Drawing upon a corpus of the author's research, this paper demonstrates how membership categorization devices can explicate social aging. In particular it connects Schutz's notion of anonymous typifications with membership categorization analysis. Initially, Schutz's perspective and its development within ethnomethodological/interpretivist understanding of social life is outlined. The practical use of membership categorization devices is illustrated in three domains: firstly, professional texts of architectural design for special housing for older peop le to show how space utilization is accounted for, secondly, an ethnography of rehabilitation of older people to show how professional theorizing of care displays a dialectic between space/place and type of care received and thirdly material from a study on becoming and being older to outline changing identities of aging. Whilst these research studies ostensibly are discrete, they are linked with a theoretical/analytical concern to demonstrate how membership categorization analysis concretizes Schutz's rather abstract notion of typification in social situations and, thereby, dis plays the ongoing accomplishment and orderly production of aging.


Transcriptome profiling through next generation sequencing generates a massive list of transcripts from samples exposed to specific stimuli. This study aims to find differentially expressed genes from RNA-seq data that can be used to develop a molecular-based nitrogen sensor. The transcripts were screened using classifiers based on the expression of genes following exposure of plants to nitrogen deficiency and readaptation. Results revealed genes with antagonistic response to nitrogen availability with 135 and 67 from the leaf and root samples, respectively. Some of these genes were found associated with glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, RNA degradation, oxidative phosphorylation, carbon fixation degradation, and metabolism of amino acid, purine, fatty acid, and butanoate. Also, a number of transporters showed considerable response to nitrogen. The identification of DEGs using fuzzy logic show potential to generate a list of candidate genes for biosensor development.


The observation of neutrino bursts from SN 1987A has provided the crucial insight of supernovae (SNe). On the other hand, these dramatic astrophysical events can be one important source of producing any weakly interacting particles. From a particle physics aspect, the observation of SN 1987A has offered a profound opportunity to the studies of sterile neutrino. The presence of this hypothetical particle provides a new channel to the energy emission of a supernova, and therefore, it must have a dramatic impact on the stars evolution. As a consequence, duration of the SN signal might be significantly shortened and causes potential conflict with the observation. Theoretically, within the standard supernova scenario, in comparison with the observational fact, the calculation which is based on the energy-loss argument should provide sufficiently strict constraints on the sterile-active mixing parameters. In this thesis, the above approach is applied by including the following particle processes: electron neutrino scattering on background medium of the inner core of a type II supernova which contains nucleons and electrons as two major target species, the electron capture process and the inverse process where both production and absorption of electron neutrinos are involved. The analysis of a simplified model which is based on the assumption of strong degenerate leptons is carried out first. Then a more realistic model follows where most physical features of core-collapse SNe are preserved. Through a detailed modelling and simulation, the dynamics of the system is explored by following the time evolution of the degeneracy parameter and related emission rates of lepton numbers. We perform detailed modelling and simulation by using that the dynamics of the system can be explored by following the time evolution of the degeneracy parameter and related emission rates of lepton numbers. By simulating the energy emission in the inner core of the supernova which is caused by the neutrino flavour conversion, the bounds on the properties of sterile neutrino are examined in the parameter space with the mass parameter in a range between 0.1 keV and 130 keV while the vacuum mixing angle is in a range between 10−6 and 10−1.


Objective To investigate genotoxicity of Radix Ophiopogonis decoction by Mouse Lymphoma Assay (MLA) and Mouse Bone Marrow Micronucleus Test (MNT). Methods In MLA, four dose levels of 3.36, 6.73, 13.45, 26.90 mg (crude drug)/mL was exposed with L5178Y cells for 3 hours with and without metabolic activation (+/-S9), then expressed for 2 days. The mutation frequency plates were prepared and incubated for 12 days. Colony size in each plate was scored, and the total mutation frequency and the percentage of small colony mutants were calculated and analyzed. In MNT, contained three groups of 3.34, 6.68, 13.35 g (crude drug)/kg and 10 ICR mice (5 males/5 females) in each group, the mice were given every 24 hours by oral gavage twice and sacrificed after 24 hours of the last dosing, both femur bones were collected to prepare the smear. For each mouse, the number of micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes (MNPCE) in 2 000 polychromatic erythrocytes was counted, and the mean rate of MNPCE in each group was calculated. Results In MLA, the total mutation frequency of dose levels showed a dose-dependent increase, there was statistical significant (P 0.01) compared with negative control, and the percentage of small colony mutants was similar with negative control in the absence and the presence S9. In MNT, the decoction did not show inhibitory effect for bone marrow, and the rate of MNPCE induced in each group did not show significant increase comparing with negative control. Conclusion Radix Ophiopogonis decoction can induce tk gene mutation in L5178Y cells with and without metabolic activation, it hints that the test article may have potential genotoxicity for human bodies. Radix Ophiopogonis decoction did not show chromosome damage of bone marrow cells in ICR mice, it has no genotoxicity in vivo with metabolic activation.


Gastroretentive drug delivery systems are designed to prolong the gastric residence time after oral administration, at specific site and controlling the release of drug, especially being useful for achieving controlled plasma level as well as improving bioavailability. In the present work, gastroretentive tablets of eprosartan mesylate were prepared with hydrophilic swellable polymers like Polyox WSR coagulant, Polyox WSR 301 and Polyox WSR N 80 and hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose K100M and K15M as release retarding agents. Lactose and microcrystalline cellulose were used as diluents. Citric acid and Tromethamine were used as pH modifiers. The prepared tablets (F-I to F-XX) were evaluated for all physico-chemical parameters, in vitro dissolution, swelling studies and release kinetics. From the results, optimized formulation F-X maintained tablet strength due its constant swelling rate over a period of time and showing a drug release of more than 95% at 12th hour. The drug release followed zero order and the kinetics best fitted into Higuchi model. The optimized batch stability studies were carried out at 40°C /75%RH storage condition up to 4 weeks and there was no significant change in physico-chemical parameters, in vitro drug release profile and swelling index.


A new analytical proof is presented for steady‐state seepage in recharged heterogeneous unconfined aquifers. The paper also presents a detailed procedure and important rules for performing correctly numerical studies of unsaturated seepage. Once a numerical solution is calibrated with field data, using a set of spatially distributed values for hydraulic conductivity K and effective infiltration EI, any new numerical analysis with a set of αK and αEI values, where α is a constant, yields an equally good calibration. However, if the effective porosities of each layer are unchanged, the groundwater velocities are multiplied by α, whereas the travel times are divided by α, which may help to select α in order to match known travel time data. This is a clear example of multiple solutions to an inverse problem. The paper underlines the role and the need to finely mesh unsaturated zones and also contacts between layers to reach the asymptotic convergence range, as it was carried out to verify the proof and as it should be completed to study any seepage problem. A few consequences of the new analytical proof and the rigorous procedure are shown with examples. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Preface Acknowledgments Part I. A Proposal: 1. Studying children in a changing world Part II. Historical and Life transitions: 2. America's home front children in World War II 3. Rising above life's disadvantage: from the Great Depression 4. Child development and human diversity Part III. Life Transitions Across Historical Time: 5. Problem girls: observations on past and present 6. Continuity and change in symptom choice: anorexia 7. Fathers and child rearing Part IV. The Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: 8. The workshop enterprise 9. The elusive historical child: ways of knowing the child of history and psychology 10. A paradigm in question: commentary 11. Epilogue Bibliography Author index Subject index.


Sr0.5Ba0.5Nb2O6 (SBN) thin films were prepared on Pt-coated Si (Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si(100)) substrates by pulsed laser deposition. The influence of ambient gas type on the preparation of SBN thin films was studied. N2O gas was found to be more effective for improving the oxidation reaction during deposition under lower pressure than O2 gas because, under lower gas pressure, the ablated species can keep higher energy for improving the crystallinity of SBN thin films. Structure changes in SBN thin films have been investigated as a function of film thickness in the range of 0.1-1.2μm. Highly (001) oriented SBN layers have been obtained in thicker films.


Identification of plants is important to develop robotics for pest, disease, and weed control with machine vision. Leaf shape is a common source of information used to identify plants. Intelligent vision systems are the next generation in machine vision. The addition of intelligence into vision systems requires an understanding and structuring of human visual techniques.


The problem of constructing a shortest network which interconnects a given set of points with some extra points is usually called the Steiner problem, and correspondingly, the shortest network is referred to as a Steiner minimal tree [5]. Although this problem goes back three hundred years to Fermat, it really drew wide attention only after the sixties of this century [6]. Since it has been proved to be one of the NP-hard problems [4], we devote ourselves in this thesis to some fundamental techniques and their applications. Chapter 1 is an introduction, giving terms, notations and some existing basic results. Chapter 2 deals with the fundamental techniques. The indirect comparison based on the variational approach [8] is used to study Steiner minimal trees for any four points and to prove an embedding theorem. A method to construct general Steiner polygons [1] is presented. The concept of symmetrisation is introduced, and as a result, Pollak's theorem [7] becomes a simple corollary of our symmetrisation theorem. In Chapter 3, the Steiner minimal trees for two extreme classes of sets are determined. One class is the set of zigzag lines for which we generalise an existing result [2]. The other class is the set of regular polygons with centre. This problem is much more complicated than the original one of the Steiner problem of regular polygons without centre. The latter problem is regarded as the first genuine instance of the Steiner problem in the history of the topic [3]. Finally, in Chapter 4, the decomposition problem is investigated; that is 'When is the Steiner minimal tree on a union of sets just a union of the Steiner minimal trees on these sets separately?' In particular, we reveal the structures of the Steiner minimal trees for consecutive orthogonal rectangles. These can be used to test the performance of heuristics of the Steiner problem.


Local electronic structure around adatom vacancies on Si(111)-7×7 surface has been investigated using STM (scanning tunneling microscopy) and STS (scanning tunneling spectroscopy). The nearest neighbor adatom to a vacancy appears bright in the STM observations, while the brightness of the other neighbor adatoms are almost unchanged. The nearest neighbor adatom slightly approaches to the vacancy, while the other neighbor adatoms do not change their location. These results suggest that the electronic states between the vacancy and its nearest neighbor adatom are changed. In the STS spectra for each type of adatom vacancies, a new state appears at about 0.5 eV below the Fermi level. The new state also appears in the STS spectra for the nearest neighbor adatom of the vacancies. Thus, it is clear that the state about 0.5 eV below Fermi level is associated with the localized vacancy level.


Performative paper presented in the panel, 'Critical Vocabularies', at the BAM conference, 'Now and then... Here and there...', Tate Britain, London. Panel convened by Iniva in collaboration with Black Artists and Modernism.


GalnAs/AllnAs on InP HEMTs have demonstrated great potential for microwave and millimeter wave power applications [1,2]. By using Al,lnl-,As Schottky layer with x>0.48 we have been able to improve the gate-to-drain breakdown voltage of these HEMTs. But the remaining drawback has been their low value of the drain-to-source breakdown voltage due to the low breakdown field of the Ga0.47ln0.53As channel. Using InP as the channel material should improve the drain-to-source breakdown voltage, but due to the difficulty in achieving very low contact resis?ances-as well as the higher fields necessary to achieve velocity saturation-InP channel HEMTs have a higher knee voltage in their current-voltage characteristics and lower fT's than typical Gao.47lno.53As channel HEMTs. By using a combination of a thin layer of GalnAs and InP as the channel material it is theoretically possible to use the advantages of both materials [3]. Previously reported composite channel structures did not demonstrate any improvement in the drain-to-source breakdown voltage, probably due to the limitation of the gate-to-drain breakdown voltage of the devices. In this study we have combined AIo.60h0.40As Schottky layers with GalnAsAnP composite channels. We investigated the effect of changing the thickness of the Ga0.471n0.53As channel on the DC and RF characteristics of the HEMTs. The wafers were grown using a Varian Gen I I gas-source MBE on InP substrates. The channel consisted of a 100 A InP layer doped 2X1018cm-3, followed by a 50 A undoped InP layer. The Ga0.47ln0.53As channel thicknesses were varied between the three wafers grown and they were 100 A, 50 A, and 30 A for wafers A, 6, and C respectively. A 250 A Alo.6oino.40As undoped layer was used as the Schottky layer. HEMTs with gate-length of 0.15 pm, drain-to-source spacing of 2 pm, and total gate-widths ranging from 50 to 900 pm were fabricated on these three wafers. Preliminary measured results on the wafers are very encouraging. The maximum transconductance (measured at Vds=l.5 V) for wafers A, 6, and C, were 795, 71 1, and 613 mS/mm. Wafers A, 6, and C, had full channel currents of 733, 747, and 560 mA/mm, and drain-to-source breakdown voltages of 6.8, 8.3, and 10.6 V respectively. The knee voltage on all the wafers were comparable to Ga0.471n0.53As channel HEMTs. Based on the full channel currents and the breakdown voltages, power densities of 480, 627, and 633 mW/mm can be calculated for wafers A, B, and C. The preliminary results indicate that GalnA$/lnP composite channel HEMTs with a Gao.47lno.53As channel thickness of 50 A or less show improvement in the drain-to-source breakdown voltage without sacrificing performance.


The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution of Italy's territorial inequalities from 1952 to 1996 and to consider what the Italian record tells us about the utility of theories of convergence and divergence. After outlining the scale and nature of contemporary development gaps in Italy, the author explores the way these inequalities have changed, showing that convergence in the 1960s and early 1970s gave way to divergence, and identifying the respective roles of productivity, employment, and demographic growth in shaping the overall trend in inequality. To examine what underlay the aggregate trends attention is paid to the comparative evolution of twenty Italian regions, indicating clearly the changing relative fortunes of the metropolitan northwest, the Mezzogiorno, the Third Italy, and the Adriatic coastal regions. In the final sections several decompositions are employed to identify the contribution of productivity and employment growth across a range of sectors to the comparative performance of Italy's regional economies.


The main interest of previous researches for shape from shading was only on a Lambertian surface which consists of a diffuse reflectance surface. In practice, natural objects have hybrid reflectance, which limits the recovery of shape from intensity distribution. In this paper, we propose the method of determining shape using a neural network and diffuse illumination. The segmented region of sphere surface is used for a training set, which can be determined by shadow line and edge of surface. Diffuse illumination is used to avoid specular spike and highlight which usually cause many problems such as intensity disparities. The diffuse illumination method using flat paper allows us to reduce these phenomena with a simple scheme. The neural network and diffuse illumination method are useful for shape from shading, because it can be applied to objects of unknown reflectance properties, but it is applied only to Torrance-Sparrow style reflectance.


Introduction: Bureaucratic Constraints, Administrative Coping Strategies, and the Potential for Reform Part One: The World of the Public Manager 1. Varieties of Organization: Four Cases 2. The Different Roles of Public Managers Part Two: How Public Managers Cope with the Civil Service System 3. The Personnel Office: FriAnd or Foe? 4. The Labyrinth of the Hiring Process 5. Addressing Performance Problems Part Three: The Budgetary Imperative 6. The Position Classification System: A Budgetary Control Systems in Disguise 7. Coping with Celings, Freezes, and Reductions in Force Conclusion: Loosening Constraints and Changing Culture:The Potential for Reform.


We report a novel pattern in species richness, complementary to the well-known species–area relationship. We show that, as sample area increases, the variation in relative richness decreases among otherwise comparable spatial units. This pattern holds for southern African birds, French birds, Cape Proteaceae and the trees of Barro Colorado Island. We propose a scale-free method for quantifying this pattern by measuring the multifractal intensity of species richness, which is the multi-scale tendency of adjacent patches with the same area to differ in richness. By this measure, spatial variability is strongest for Cape Proteaceae and weakest for Barro Colorado Island trees. Our results have implications for area-dependent estimates of species-richness, for example in reserve planning and in simulation-based studies. They imply that such estimates are most accurate for large areas, and will be subject to substantial uncertainty when the multifractal intensity is high and the area is small. For comparative purposes, multifractal intensity may be used as a supplement or as an alternative to mean richness, as well as for other ecological densities, such as biomass distribution and local abundance.


This paper presents a point-to-point (PTP) motion control method for accurate positioning and vibration suppression of a vertical XY positioning system with a flexible beam. The proposed method is composed of a feedforward and feedback controller. The input preshaping based on the analytic modeling and frequency equation of the system is proposed as a feedforward controller to produce the desired responses. The feedback controller based on a robust internal-loop compensator is designed to meet the specified performance and to stabilize the whole system in the presence of uncertainties and disturbances. By integrating the input preshaping controller and feedback controller, it is shown that the system is stable and the vibration of the flexible beam is suppressed. The proposed algorithm is demonstrated experimentally on an XY positioning system which consists of a base cart, elastic beam and moving mass.


Abstract What is the role of friends in practices of care within intimate relationships, either towards each other, or in supporting caring practices towards other persons (children, parents or other kin)? And to what extent are these caring practices gendered? I explore how friendship either disrupts, or reproduces, the ethics of care that cross-cuts gender relations throughout society. I focus on the experience of Portuguese men and women and take as reference their personal community, understood as the active and meaningful personal ties they consider to be central in their lives. Drawing on qualitative data from 30 in-depth interviews, I explore their experiences of care in three dimensions: caring for others; caring for oneself; and being cared for. Results show that, while it is not possible to assert a complete centring of personal lives on friendship, friends stand out as important sources of care in these three different situations, providing both emotional and practical support.


Background: Proteins with a thioredoxin (Trx) fold share several structural features but carry out different reactions. Results: The contribution of the electrostatic environment of the active site to the reactivity of Trx-fold proteins is described. Conclusion: Function and reactivity of the Trx fold depend on an extended active-site motif. Significance: These results are expected to assist with functional prediction for Trx-fold proteins. Proteins belonging to the thioredoxin (Trx) superfamily are abundant in all organisms. They share the same structural features, arranged in a seemingly simple fold, but they perform a multitude of functions in oxidative protein folding and electron transfer pathways. We use the C-terminal domain of the unique transmembrane reductant conductor DsbD as a model for an in-depth analysis of the factors controlling the reactivity of the Trx fold. We employ NMR spectroscopy, x-ray crystallography, mutagenesis, in vivo functional experiments applied to DsbD, and a comparative sequence analysis of Trx-fold proteins to determine the effect of residues in the vicinity of the active site on the ionization of the key nucleophilic cysteine of the -CXXC- motif. We show that the function and reactivity of Trx-fold proteins depend critically on the electrostatic features imposed by an extended active-site motif.


The present invention relates to a disc brake cylinder including a piston and a parking brake mechanism, the parking brake mechanism consists the input shaft and the ball ramp mechanism which is rotated when the parking brake is actuated, the ball ramp mechanism and the first groove being supported by the input shaft (15), said piston facing said is supported by members (13) which can be pushed toward the disk the first groove (15) have a second groove (15), first and second includes a ball (14) which is trapped between the groove, the first and each relief area of the concave shape of the second groove (16) include, when the input shaft along the relief zone is rotated with respect to said member (13), the ball rotates, first the Parkinson Absorb play in the Gubureki mechanism, then a disc brake cylinders to move axially towards said member (13) to said piston. The present invention also relates to a parking brake including such cylinder. .The


Recent experimental results show that the spreading coefficient frequently becomes positive when Candida lipolytica is cultivated on n‐hexadecane. The effects of oil spreading at the surface of air bubbles in an airlift fermentor are examined using a mathematical model. The distribution of the oil phase with position and among the phases is determined using computer simulation. The simulation results qualitatively explain some of the experimental observations which have been previously reported.