An intrinsic histone acetyltransferase (HAT), p300, is required for acetylation and the transcriptional activity of GATA4, as well as pathological left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and the development of heart failure (HF) in vivo. Recently, studies of histone modification have been performed within the flexible tails, such as H3K9 and H3K14. Although most previously studied histone modifications are within the flexible tails of histones, H3K122 is reportedly a novel site of the histone globular domain acetylated by p300, and its acetylation activates gene transcriptions by destabilizing histone-DNA binding and increasing the accessibility of transactional factors to DNA. However, little is known about the extent histone modifications directly affect LVH and HF.

 We hypothesized that p300 could induce epigenetic changes by acetylation of the globular domain as well as tail domain of histone during the development of LVH and HF.

 First, to investigate whether the acetylation of H3K122 in the globular domain of histones as well as those of H3K9 and H3K14 in the tail domain of histones increased in cardiomyocytes hypertrophy, western blotting and chromatin-immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays were performed using neonatal rat cultured cardiomyocytes with phenylephrine (PE) stimulus. Second, neonatal rat cultured cardiomyocytes were treated with p300 knockdown by siRNA or curcumin, a p300-specific HAT inhibitor. Third, to investigate the role of p300 HAT activity in histone acetylation in vivo, we utilized mice overexpressing p300 in the heart, which induced LVH. Final, to investigate whether these acetylation changes during the development of LVH and HF, in vivo ChIP assay was performed using hypertensive heart disease model of Dahl salt-sensitive rats.

 Western blotting indicated that treatment with PE increased the acetylation of H3K122 as well as those of H3K9 and H3K14 in cardiomyocytes hypertrophy. ChIP assay demonstrated that PE increased the recruitment of acetylated H3K122 and H3K9 onto ANF and BNP promoters containing the GATA element and peaks of acetylation of these domains were 4 hours after PE stimulation. Next, these acetylations were significantly inhibited by p300 knockdown by siRNA or treatment with curcumin. Conversely, in vivo ChIP assays in mice overexpressing p300 indicated that p300 overexpression increased recruitment of acetylated H3K122 and H3K9 onto ANF and BNP promoters containing the GATA element. Next, in hypertensive heart disease model of Dahl salt-sensitive rats, in vivo ChIP assays reviled that acetylation of H3K9 was increased around ANF and BNP promoters containing the GATA element at the LVH stage but that of H3K122 was increased at the HF stage.

 Our data indicate that acetylation of H3K122 in globular domain of histones by p300 is the key event of the transition from LVH to HF.


Background—We retrospectively investigated the value of clinical and ECG findings as well as QT-QRS dispersion in predicting the risk of sudden death in patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC). Methods and Results—Duration and interlead variability of the QT interval and QRS complex were measured manually from standard ECGs in 20 sudden death victims with ARVC diagnosed at autopsy (group I), in 20 living ARVC patients with sustained ventricular tachycardia (group II), in 20 living ARVC patients with ≤3 consecutive premature ventricular beats (group III), and in 20 control subjects (group IV). QT and QRS dispersions were greater in group I (77.5±10.6 ms for QT and 45.7±8.1 ms for QRS) compared with group II (64.5±13.9 ms for QT [P =0.001] and 33.5±8.7 ms for QRS [P =0.0004]) and in group II compared with group III (48±8.9 ms for QT [P <0.0001] and 28±5.2 ms for QRS [P <0.0001]) and group IV (33.5±4.8 ms for QT [P <0.0001] and 18.5±3.6 ms for QRS [P <0.0001]). Negative T wave beyond V1 and syncope were statistically more frequent in group I (P =0.02 and P =0.007, respectively). On multivariate analysis, QRS dispersion remained an independent predictor of sudden death (P <0.0001), followed by syncope (P =0.09). In assessing risk of sudden death, QRS dispersion ≥40 ms had a sensitivity and specificity of 90% and 77%, respectively; QT dispersion >65 ms, 85% and 75%, respectively; negative T wave beyond V1, 85% and 42%, respectively; and syncope, 40% and 90%, respectively. Conclusions—QRS dispersion (≥40 ms) was the strongest independent predictor of sudden death in ARVC. Syncope, QT dispersion >65 ms, and negative T wave beyond V1 refined arrhythmic risk stratification in these patients.


In response to infection in corals, activated caspase-3 cleaves gasdermin E to induce pyroptosis (see the related Research Article by Jiang et al.). Coral gasdermin E is cleaved by activated caspase-3 to induce pyroptosis, a form of inflammatory programmed cell death, in response to a bacterial pathogen (see the related Research Article by Jiang et al.).


A large number of studies have been conducted to investigate the pore structure of cement-based materials with the mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) method. However, the conventional MIP method has some drawbacks in the measurement of pore size distributions of most porous materials, including cement-based materials. This is mainly because of the lack of direct accessibility of most pore volumes. This paper reports an alternative method to investigate the pore structure with conventional MIP set-up but different testing sequence and different data analysis method. By repeating the intrusion and extrusion cycles in every pressure step, the volume of throat pores and the volume of corresponding ink-bottle pores can be determined at each pore diameter. With the assumption that the size distribution of these ink-bottle pores at each pore diameter is equal to that of the pores larger than the corresponding throat pores, the pore size distribution can be recalculated. The new MIP method is used to investigate the pore structure of Portland cement pastes. The results measured with the new MIP method are compared with those determined with conventional MIP method and backscanning (BSE) image analysis. It is found that the new and conventional MIP measurements give the same total porosity and BSE image analysis gives a relatively lower total porosity. Regardless of the curing age, the result of the new MIP method shows a critial pore diameter smaller than that of the old method and larger than that of the BSE image analysis.


We have synthesized water-soluble poly(arylene ethynylene)s having maleimide groups capable of reacting with thiol-containing biomolecules. The number-average molecular weights of the polymers range from 11,000 to 14,000. The polymerization was carried out by palladium-catalyzed Sonogashira-Hagihara cross-coupling reaction with good yield. The polymers showed blue emission colors in their methanol solutions, while green color was observed in aqueous solutions with decreased emission intensity.


The impact of Indian Vedic astrological moon signs on consumer buying behavior is one of the potentially important area that has not been studied in marketing literature. The principal reason for this study was to examine the impact of Indian astrology on consumer buying behavior as per the moon signs. In this study the triangulation research method has been utilized to collect the data from the respondents, the study incorporates twelve Focused Group Discussions, five in-depth interviews, and a survey of 360 respondents. The qualitative data has been analyzed by thematic analysis and the quantitative data has been analyzed by IBM SPSS 20.00. Also the descriptive statistical method, Independent Sample T-Test, and One way ANOVA has been used in analyzing the hypothesis test. By way of conclusion, the impact of astrology on consumer buying behavior has been specified.


The proposed panel will provide a review of GLOBE 2020 study. We will explain our theoretical framework, our instrument design, and our sampling procedure. We will also share the first round of fin...


In recent years the use of multiple lead electrocardiography has rightly become an accepted part of accurate cardiovascular investigation. In addition, the taking of records has simplified by the use of direct writer instruments with the result that the electrocardiograph is used more widely. Nevertheless it must be emphasized that the test is no short cut to diagnosis and should always be interpreted in conjunction with the clinical findings. The electrocardiogram will tell us little or nothing of the functional ability of the heart, and we may only obtain this information by assessment of the patient. Thus the electrocardiogram should be regarded as the servant, not the master, in diagnosis.


Thirty two radish(Raphanus sativus L.) accessions with different flesh colors were used to analyze the karyotypes and the red pigment content for the first time.It showed that the red accessions with red flesh had a high red pigment content as high as 16.21% on the average(ranging from 3.4‰~28.8‰),and there existed significant differences in the red pigment content between accessions.With the same number of chromosomes(2n=2x=18) the karyotype formulae of the red radish with red flesh,green radish with red flesh,white radish with red flesh,and white radish were 14m+4sm,16m+2sm,as well as 18m,and belonged to 2A,1B,1A,and 1A,respectively.As all the accessions without satellites presented almost exclusively m and sm chromosomes,some changes in chromosome size and structure occurred but no great changes in chromosome morphology were obseved.Ranking of radish accessions based on the chromosomal asymmetry index was in turn: the red radish with red flesh,green radish with red flesh,red radish with white flesh,and white radish.With respect to the karyotype evolution,the white flesh radish could be considered more ancestral than the red flesh accessions.In additon,it was deduced that the latter might be a variant of the former.


Microalgae is one of the most ubiquitous organisms on the planet, found in most environments on earth, and has so far been estimated 35000 species, and the predominantly nourish form among them being the photoautotrophic, representing an exceptionally rich resource for bioprospecting for species with biochemistries and properties suitable for commercial exploit (Borowitzka, 1992a) bioactive compounds (Patterson et al. 1994), wastewater treatment (Oswald 1988), metabolic conversions (Pollio et al. 1994). At industrial scales, natural β-‐carotene is extracted from the halophile tolerant Dunaliella salinas (Borowitzka 2010b), astaxanthin from freshwater algae Haematococcus pluvialis, destined for nutraceutical and pharmaceutical purposes (Cysewki and Lorenz 2004), long-‐chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (Sukenik 1999), the fluorescent marker pigment phycobilin for research, medicine, cosmetic and cosmoceuticals (Kronich and Grossman 1983), even renewable biofuels like algae lipids biodiesel, hydrogen, methane from algae sugars and crude oils from algae biomass pyrolysis (Benemann 2000; Demirbas 2006; Christi 2007; Lee 2008; Torzillo et al. 2009; Borowitzka 2010a). Selection of the algae species and strain to be grown is the first and critical step in developing a reliable and viable process for algae biomass production, which was the main goal of this study, therefore four of the five algae strains cultivated were supplied by the IGV algae culture collection (IGV Potsdam, Germany), and the fifth freshwater algae strain, Chlorella wild mix Arungen, was kindly provided by PhD candidate Annette Akerstrom, and isolated from inland lake Arungen at the university campus at As, Norway (see Glossary for definitions).
Selecting a microalgae for the commercial-‐scale production is the first important process, due to the challenge and opportunity the diversity of the algae involves, thus the choice of species and strains in question depends of many specific criteria to yield efficiently high-‐productivity cultivation (i.e. thermic, un-‐optimal irradiation and salinity tolerance, efficiency and mechanisms of inorganic carbon uptake, photosynthetic capacity, rapid growth, shear tolerance, biochemical constituents quality and quantity), harvestability (i.e. cells size and morphology, high specific gravity) and extractability (i.e. wall cell covering or no, no production of autoinhibitors), and achieved after direct approach and screening.


Although extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) is a non-invasive and effective treatment for renal calculi but it is not completely free side effects. The most common complications of ESWL, are kidney tissue injury and increased free radical formation. Regardless stone free status, this study considered renal oxidative stress and peroxide radical formation estimated from biomarker Malondialdehyde (MDA) after ESWL taking in account the abdominal visceral fat of patients as well as the physical properties of shocks .A total of 40 patients age 37.18 ± 10.64 (all older than18 years) harboring renal or ureteral stones, underwent extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy. Abdominal visceral fat was measured by Omron Body Fat Monitor. Malondialdehyde (MDA) excretion was measured as an oxidative stress biomarker. The parameters such as MDA, occult blood (RBC), ketones, protein, and leukocytes (WBC) in the urine samples pre and post ESWL were measured using Bio Doctor Analyzer. The mean levels of urea MDA, occult blood (RBC) and ketones showed statistically significant elevation after SWL termination compared with pre-ESWL values. The elevation of MDA is likely to be more correlated with visceral fat of patients while, the hemorrhage elevation is likely to be more correlated with patient age.The high ESWL energies were, the more ketone bodies were released into the urine. Overweight/obese patients should be exposed to ESWL energy ranged (3-3.5J) and shock wave pulse rate (60-90 pulses/min)with 2300 as an optimal per session. The MDA urinary level after ESWL, should be considered as a routine test. Keyword: ESWL, Abdominal Visceral Fat, renal oxidative stress, Free Radicals, MDA Received 17/02/2017 Revised 27/04/2017 Accepted 30/06/2017 How to cite this article: R. S. AlNaemi, H.Y. Y.Aldosky, B. S. A. Shukri .Association of the Abdominal Visceral Fat in complicating side effects of Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy. Adv. Biores., Vol 8 [4] July 2017: 197-205. INTRODUCTION Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) is considered the first line treatment and has become the standard used for the majority of patients with renal and ureteric calculi, because of its advantages, which is convenient, noninvasive outpatient procedure, safe and with success rates of 60–99%[1–3]. In order to optimize the results of ESWL, several technical factors should be considered. These factors are related to the patient and the stone, such as its size, density, skin to stone distance, number of shock waves and location of stone, which help predict the chances of success [4–5].Also, different kinds of lithotripters may influence the success rate of ESWL since there are lots of differences in the way they work. However, the obesity metrics of body mass index (BMI) and skin-to-stone distance (SSD) have been evaluated as predictors of ESWL success. WhereSSD has demonstrated a strong correlation with success [6– 9].In contrast, some studies concluded that the outcomes of ESWL correlate with BMI. These studies revealed that higher quantities of abdominal fat, especially visceral fat, are associated with a lower calculus-free rate following ESWL treatment [10– 11].Therefore, the influence of body mass index on the complete clearance of renal stones remains an indistinct. This study preferred to use the abdominal visceral fat rather than BMI and body fat for two reasons. The first reason is that the AVF stored within the abdominal cavity and is therefore stored around a number of important internal organs such as the Advances in Bioresearch


Differential centrifugation of ribbed mussel gill tissue homogenates and extraction of the mitochondrial fraction demonstrated that most (72%) alanine aminotransferase (AlAT) activity was mitochondrial. Subsequent characterization of the cytosolic activity demonstrated properties identical to those demonstrated by the mitochondrial enzyme. Both enzyme fractions showed little variation in Vmax with pH, had low Km's for ketoacid substrates, and were inhibited by aminooxyacetate (AOA), L-cycloserine, and β-chloro-L-alanine. It appears that the AlAT in ribbed mussel gill tissue is strictly mitochondrial and that alanine production during hypoxia or hyperosmotic stress must be mitochondrial.


3-Hydroxy-4-methyl-5-ethyl-2(5H)-furanone has been isolated from a commercial sample of acid hydrolyzed soy protein by diethylether extraction of the acidified sample. Identification is supported by gas chromatography, infrared spectrophotometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry.


Brassinosteroids (BRs) have been suggested to increase the resistance of plants to a variety of stresses, including water stress.This is based on application studies, where exogenously applied bioactive BRs have been shown to improve various aspects of plant growth under water stress conditions. Brassinosteroids are now widely accepted as essential regulators of plant growth as they play a key role in a variety of developmental processes,including cell elongation,vascular differentiation and fruit ripening (Clouse and Sasse, 1998, Symons et al., 2006).Numerous studies have also reported that BRs are able to increase the plants ability to cope with stress,such as water stress, salt stress and pathogen attack (Krishna, 2003), although the mechanisms by which BRs modulate plant stress responses are not yet understood. The majority of research focusing on BR-mediated stress responses has involved simple application studies such as spraying plants with BRs.Application of BRs has resulted in reduced phytophthora infections in potato increased resistance to viral pathogens,fungi and/or disease in tobacco (Nakashita et al., 2003) and tomato (Krishna,2003); a reduced inhibitory effect of salinity on seed germination in rice (Anuradha and Rao, 2001) and an increased tolerance of lethal heat treatment in Brassica napus and tomato seedlings (Dhaubhadel et al.,1999).Various studies have also reported that BR applications increase water stress tolerance. Water stress tolerance is one of the most common environmental stresses that affects plant growth and development.A deficit of water leads to various alterations in plants,including stomatal closure, leaf abscission and changes in the composition of the cell wall or plasma membrane and can result in a decline in growth as photosynthesis and turgor are decreased.A study involving cucumber (Cucumis sativus) showed that plants sprayed with a synthetic BR, 24-epibrassinolide (EBR), had improved resistance to dehydration,as EBR treated leaves retained more water than the controls after drought. Another study, using sugar beet (Beeta vulgaris) showed that BR treatment fully compensated for the reduction in taproot mass normally caused by mild drought stress (Schilling et al., 1991).A BR application resulting in increases in relative water content (RWC), nitrate reductase activity,chlorophyll content and photosynthesis under water stress conditions (Sai ram,1994). Recently it has been shown that EBR –treated Arabidopsis and B.napus seedlings had a higher survival rate when subjected to drought (Kagale et al., 2007) and that BR-treated sorghum (Sorghum vulgare) showed Correspondence to: P. SANDHYA RANI, Agricultural Research Station, Darsi, PRAKASAM (A.P.) INDIA


Linearised approximations of the Zoeppritz equation are widely used for amplitude versus offset (AVO) forward modelling and prestack seismic inversion. However, current linearised approximations typically exhibit large errors for strong-contrast media and large incidence angles (even for those less than the critical angle), leading to poor quality estimation of elastic parameters. We therefore develop a data-driven method to improve the linearised AVO approximation, based on the concept that the inaccuracy of the conventional linearised AVO forward operator is solely responsible for generating residuals of the PP reflection coefficients calculated by the conventional linearised approximation compared with using the Zoeppritz equation. Therefore, if true model parameters from well-logging data are known, the residuals of the PP reflection coefficients can be used to estimate linear modifications of the inaccurate linearised AVO forward operators at well sites. We apply estimated linear modifications to original inaccurately linearised forward operators to obtain an improved linear AVO operator (ILAO). Because ILAOs can only be estimated at the well sites by the data-driven method, we construct spatially variant ILAOs using structure-guided interpolation for those at a distance from the well sites. Numerical example results reveal that the improved linear AVO approximation is more accurate than the Aki–Richards approximation for strong-contrast media and large incident angles. Moreover, the accuracy and resolution of the inverted P- and S-wave velocities and density using ILAOs are higher than those using the conventional Aki–Richards operators. Finally, application to the field data successfully demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of the improved linearised AVO inversion method.


Existing traffic engineering (TE) solutions perform well for software defined network (SDN) in average cases. However, during peak hours, bursty traffic spikes are challenging to handle, because it is difficult to react in time and guarantee high performance even after failures with limited flow entries.We propose TED, a scalable TE system that can guarantee high throughput in peak hours. TED can quickly compute a group of maximum number of edge-disjoint paths for each ingress-egress switch pair. Such paths are suitable for well connected networks with unique edge capacity and TED is not limited to use only these paths. We design two methods to select paths under the limit of flow table size. We then input the selected paths to TED to minimize the maximum link utilization. In case of large traffic matrix making the maximum link utilization larger than 1, we input the utilization and the traffic matrix to the optimization of maximizing overall throughput under a new constrain. Thus we obtain a realistic traffic matrix, which has the maximum overall throughput and guarantees no traffic starvation. Experiments show that TED has much better performance for heavily-loaded SDN and has 10% higher probability to satisfy all (> 99.99%) the traffic after a single link failure for G-Scale topology than Smore under the same limit of flow table size.


We investigated the effects of high-pressure annealing as a source of activation energy to form the amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO) channel layer at 100°C. Thermal activation under oxygen pressure was used to facilitate the formation of channel layer as well as to improve positive bias stress stability.


AIM: To identify risk factors for surgical failure after colonic stenting as a bridge to surgery in left-sided malignant colonic obstruction. METHODS: The medical records of patients who underwent stent insertion for malignant colonic obstruction between February 2004 and August 2012 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients with malignant colonic obstruction had overt clinical symptoms and signs of obstruction. Malignant colonic obstruction was diagnosed by computed tomography and colonoscopy. A total of 181 patients underwent stent insertion during the study period; of these, 68 consecutive patients were included in our study when they had undergone stent placement as a bridge to surgery in acute leftsided malignant colonic obstruction due to primary co-


Corrosion in the terminals of nickel cadmium cells was investigated. Corrosion, crevice type corrosion, at the interface between the stainless steel material, the nickel material, and the braze was examined. It was concluded that in the welded areas there was no problem. There was corrosion of the crevice type in the brazed areas and some pitting was evident between the braze and the base material.


C-reactive protein (CRP) is a sensitive inflammation and infection marker which is accepted as a new risk marker in cardiovascular events. Several clinical studies have shown the usefulness of elevated levels of CRP to predict instability in patients with acute coronary syndrome or worst results in those undergoing percutaneous revascularization (higher mortality, infarction or restenosis), which are also associated with a higher number of readmissions in patients with heart failure. (1, 2) In cardiac surgery, preoperative evaluation of CRP elevated levels has shown controversial results over the past 25 years. In 1986, Boralessa et al. considered an association between the preoperative CRP elevated values and the development of postoperative higher complications. The following year, such results were refuted by Kress et al., who did not determine the predictive value for preoperative elevated CRP in a group of 80 patients and started the so mentioned controversy. (3, 4) Since that, several authors argued and argue for (Boecken et al., Perry et al.) and against (Gaudino et al.) regarding the predictive value of a preoperative elevation of CRP. (5-7) In this issue of the Journal, the study of Waldman et al. joins those who support the predictive value of an elevated level of preoperative CRP. In this work, made on 169 patients undergoing different types of elective cardiac surgery, the authors concluded that a CRP value equal or higher than 2mg/dl was predictive for the development of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRIS), as well as SIRIS with renal failure, atrial fibrillation, shock and postoperative death. The study has some interesting points and several aspects that may need a deep analysis. Among the first, besides the choice of the topic, the intention to predict preoperative evolution and especially the development of complications and/or a bad result using a preoperative biomarker would be of great interest and obvious benefits. The study includes an important number of consecutive patients and represents the largest review published about the predictive value of preoperative elevated CRP levels in cardiac surgery. The idea to use a CRP of intermediate sensitivity by a greater number of institutions would be very important. Regarding the points to analyze, although authors make clear that they are elective surgeries, preoperative RICARDO LEVIN 1


Objective Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune disorder associated with numerous health problems, including reproductive disorders. This study was performed to analyze the association between CD and the menstrual cycle in a group of patients with CD and compare these patients' characteristics with those of healthy women. Methods The study included 145 patients with CD (age, 15–51 years) and 162 healthy women (age, 18–55 years). Age at menarche and characteristics of the menstrual cycle were obtained by an anonymous questionnaire developed for the study. Results The age at onset of menarche was 12 to 14 years in 72.9% of the patients with CD and 77.3% of the healthy controls. For most patients (74.2%), the length of the menstrual cycle was around 27 to 28 days with 4 to 5 days of bleeding. Furthermore, 8.4% of patients versus 5.9% of controls experienced bleeding between cycles. Conclusions Our results suggest that in Slovenia, the age at menarche in patients with CD is 12.7 years, which is comparable with that in healthy women. We conclude that CD (treated or untreated) may not be associated with late menarche.


The spread of infectious diseases may have several factors, but human endless greed combined with an uncontrolled capitalist production and distribution system aimed at maximizing profits of companies, exploitation of the natural environment and resources, environmental pollution caused by factory farming, It is closely related to the ecological crisis. Unless we control the current system, it is difficult to stop the train headed for catastrophe. In modern states, the state gains legitimacy in that it embodies the universal interests of the people. The attitude and role that the government should take in the public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic can be sufficiently derived not only from the justification of pursuing the universal interest of the people's life and safety and from the legitimacy of the state, but also from constitutional and legal grounds. The government should not only make structural and systematic efforts to prevent disaster situations in advance, but also respond to disaster situations that have already occurred so that damage to the lives and bodies of citizens is minimized. In an emergency, various manuals and crisis response scenarios must be prepared and actively dealt with. However, as we can see from the various attitudes taken by governments in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot rely solely on the role of the government. The role of individual people and civil society is very important. Citizens themselves must awaken to the subjectivity of human beings. Human beings, who live as slaves to structures for various reasons, must realize their own identity, solidarity, and enhance humanity to innovate structures and make ceaseless efforts to deepen democracy.


—Internet of Things (IoT) devices generates a huge volume of data that needs to be processed at real time. Cloud computing paradigm has been a requisite part of this process, consequently, the physical distance between users and cloud increases transmission latency which makes cloud computing not too suitable for real time applications. To address this issue, Edge Computing (EC) which collaborates with the cloud computing allows the processing and storage of applications and data in real time from different geographical locations. As EC is being accepted in the ICT environment, it is also faced with a lot of security issues. In this paper, an investigation on the impacts of ransomware attacks on EC devices is conducted and presents some ransomware families that target edge devices. The study presented some solutions proposed in the literature on securing EC devices against ransomware attacks, however there is a need to provide proactive measures and also apply more robust methods such as, deep learning than the traditional signature based or shallow machine learning approaches which are not recommendable and robust enough in handling complex malwares like ransomware. Thus, the researchers proposed a deep learning framework for the detection of ransomware on EC devices.


Abstract Equilibrium simulations using the best-available general circulation models to estimate the sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration are in broad general agreement that the global annual average surface air temperature would increase 2.5 to 4.5 K. However, at finer spatial scales, the range of changes in temperature and precipitation predicted by different computer models is much broader. Many shortcomings are also apparent in the model simulations of the present climate, indicating that further model improvements are needed to achieve reliable regional and seasonal projections of the future climatic conditions.


Malaria in pregnancy (MiP) alters the expression of ATP‐binding cassette efflux transporters in maternal and foetal tissues, as well as the placenta. Malaria induces oxidative stress, and pregnancy is associated with arginine deficiency. We hypothesized that reducing oxidative stress during MiP by supplementation with L‐arginine, a NO precursor, would attenuate transcriptional changes in a second superfamily of transporters, solute carrier (SLC) transporters, and improve pregnancy outcomes.


Being influenced by western modern school and post-modernism cultural trend of thought,Cui Xiuzhe's novels showed modern people's worry and anxiety and self-worth seeking by the techniques of symbol,metaphor,illusion and surmise.In addition,his novels also recorded the reflection on modern people's living predicament and existing form,which provided with the characteristics of innovation,pioneer and experiment.


The problem of simulation and modelling of natural human movement is a basic topic in ergonomics applications. Generalization capabilities of artificial neural networks can be profitably pursued in this field. The use of real collected data for training may help in simulating human movement for CAD applications. Furthermore, it also permits us to embed features of the real movements which could be hardly taken into account with a priori modelling. We show an application of this point of view, consisting in recurrent networks trained to perform arm movements based on actual human data.


This article aims to examine the perceptions that Chinese and Gypsies have shaped about the identity of Venezuelans living in the Venezuelan border town of Rubio. It begins with a theoretical revision of approaches about identity, community and societal identity that produce the national identity and social and cultural identity; it continues with the revision of approaches of borders and of perceptions. It uses qualitative method with in-depth interviews with six informants, three for each group, and it uses the content analysis technique. The results show positive and negative perceptions, common and contrasting elements, as well as, dualities in the perception about the people from Rubio. It concludes that Chinese and Gypsies are groups with very firm and stable identities for whom the border, Rubio and its people are seen as tools to achieve and improve their living standards and build a better future. However, they are willing to abandon them when the border loses dynamism because they do not intend to fully integrate with the welcoming society.


Most developed countries have tried to restrain digital piracy by strengthening laws against copyright infringement. In 2009, France implemented the Hadopi law. Under this law individuals receive a warning the first two times they are detected illegally sharing content through peer to peer (P2P) networks. Legal action is only taken when a third violation is detected. We analyze the impact of this law on individual behavior. Our theoretical model of illegal behavior under a graduated response law predicts that the perceived probability of detection has no impact on the decision to initially engage in digital piracy, but may reduce the intensity of illegal file sharing by those who do pirate. We test the theory using survey data from French Internet users. Our econometric results indicate that the law has no substantial deterrent effect. In addition, we find evidence that individuals who are better informed about the law and piracy alternatives substitute away from monitored P2P networks and illegally access content through unmonitored channels.


Abstract A hollow-cone kerosene spray with a nominal cone angle of 30 degrees from a pressure-swirl fuel atomizer was used in a swirl-stabilized combustor. Swirling air flow with a calculated swirl number of 0.36 is generated with a swirl plate having an exit air velocity vector of 30 degrees with respect to the chamber axis. Effects of swirl and dilution air flow rates on the shape and stability of the flame are investigated. A Phase Doppler Particle Analyzer (PDPA) is used to measure drop size, mean and rms values of axial drop velocity, fuel volume flux, drop velocity and size distributions, and size-classified drop velocity profiles for two cases of with and without combustion and at six different axial locations from the nozzle. A thermocouple is used to measure the uncorrected average temperature at these axial positions. For the no-combustion case all air and fuel flow rates were kept at the same values as the combusting spray condition. A Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV) is employed to measure the ...


Multi-agent systems has generated lots of excitement in recent years because of its promise as a new paradigm for conceptualizing, designing, and implementing software systems. One of the most important aspects of agent design in AI is the way agent acts or responds to the environment that the agent is acting upon. An effective action selection and behavioral method gives a powerful advantage in overall agent performance. We define a new method of action selection based on probability/priority models in RoboCup Soccer Simulation League(H. Kitano, 1997) and for simulated soccer agents, we thereby introduce an efficient way to determine probabilities and a new priority based system which maps the human knowledge to action selection method. Furthermore, a behavior model is introduced to make the model more flexible


This tutorial is meant to present and teach about all the improvements done in the design of GIS technology and to report about the excellent experiences with GIS in other countries.


Objective To study human papillomavirus(HPV)infection and expression of Ki67 antigen in cervical squamous immature metaplasia. Methods HPV typing by polymerase chain reaction and Ki67 antigen immunostaining were conducted in 15 cases with squamous immature metaplasia,11 with normal cervix,14 CIN Ⅰ,9 with CIN Ⅱ and 10 in CIN Ⅲ. Results HPV infection was not detected in cases with normal cervix.7 out of 15 cases with immature metaplasia were positive for HPV detecting,3 of them were positive for HPV 16/18 typing.HPV 16/18 typing were found in 5 of 14 cases with CIN Ⅰ.44 4 % and 50 % positive of HPV 16/18 were observed in cases of CIN Ⅱ and CIN Ⅲ,respectively.Ki67 indices significantly elevated as CIN grade increasing.The range of Ki67 indices in immature metaplasia covered from normal cervix to CIN Ⅱ. Conclusion Our study suggested that HPV typing and Ki67 expression were closely associated with CIN grade.High risk typing of HPV may playan important role in sqamous immature metaplasia.


Temperature dependences of self-diffusion coefficients, scattered electron intensities, lattice parameters and atomic bond energies are considered. All curves representing the dependences are "splitted" into two linear ones: for a surface and for a volume of the crystal. This splitting can be eliminated and the lines representing the two linear dependences be matched, if a new variable Tc = nT (where n is a scale factor and Te is an effective temperature) is introduced. The value of n is shown to vary over not a wide range (from 1.6 to 8) for all the processes considered and in all cases n > 1. A possible physical sense of the effective temperature has been considered.

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The protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) family proteins are a group of dithiol-disulfide oxidoreductase located at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). They usually contain at least one Cys-Xaa-Xaa- Cys(CXXC)active site that can catalyze disulfide formation,reduction,and isomerization. The PDI family proteins primarily function as catalysts of the oxidative protein folding in the ER lumen,but they are also involved in other processes,such as ER-associated degradation(ERAD),trafficking,calcium homeostasis, antigen presentation and virus entry. Regardless of their functions,PDI family proteins all contain at least one thioredoxin-like domain.


The volume of information produced by Internet of Things (IoT) gadgets has significantly expanded along with how many of these gadgets are connected to the Internet. Now a day's Edge-Cloud computing has a major roll to store the data. Edge computing is close proximity to the network's edge enables quick data processing and supporting user request. Therefore, we present an Edge-Cloud system design that enables scheduling IoT application offloading operations reducing a massive volume of data being transmitted in the network.


The rotating blades of a horizontal axis wind turbine generator (WTG) can distort the video portion of a TV signal and thereby interfere with TV reception in the vicinity of the WTG. The nature of this interference is discussed and methods are described for calculating the approximate zone within which the interference is judged severe. All necessary information is provided for predicting the interference zones about MOD-0 and MOD-0A, and MOD-1 machines for any given TV transmitter using graphical procedures. The effects of any terrain inhomogeneity, irregularity, or adjacent structures are ignored.


We present theoretical arguments to explain observations of a "reversal" of the RBE at relatively large doses; that is, the RBE of high-LET vs low-LET radiation is less than one. Numerical examples are given and the results of Bogo et al. (Radiat. Res. 118, 341-352, 1989) are discussed qualitatively.


To-night I take leave of you as your President, and in so doing it is my duty to say farewell in the form of a Valedictory Address. In the past such addresses have varied in length from a few words *? the monumental record of Handyside in 1872, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Society, which occupied over sixty pages of the Edinburgh, Medical Journal. This Jubilee Chronicon, as it was later styled by Caird, is, however, a valuable historical document in the annals of the Society as it gives a full account of its activities during the first fifty years of its existence. On this occasion it seems fitting that the names of the forty-six Members who died during the six years between 1939 an<^ *945 should he placed on record. Some, such as Professor Gulland and Sir Norman talker, who were members for fifty-three and fifty-one years


Based on the good performances of nonlinear diffusion in preserving important image features. We introduce the curvature as a new controlling factor into the equation to build a new third-order nonlinear diffusion model, which combines the Curvature-driven with Edge-stopping. And two numerical schemes are discussed here. The experimental results indicate that this method has good performs for image filtering.


© 2 0 11 T H E A U T H O R S 1 3 4 4 B J U I N T E R N A T I O N A L © 2 0 11 B J U I N T E R N A T I O N A L confirm or deny the view that high levels of serum testosterone are of little or no consequence in PCa progression once eugonadal serum levels have been reached. A variety of other, more sophisticated indicators (e.g. tissue measurement of hormones) or more intrusive indicators (e.g. periodic prostate biopsies) might also be assessed at institutions with the know-how and capacity to perform them. The valid concerns articulated by the opposing views discussed in the Mini-Review could certainly be resolved more promptly and reliably with information collected through a collaborative international initiative.


In this paper, we analyze the performance of a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) energy harvesting (EH) relaying system with the residual transmit RF impairments (RTRI) over a Rayleigh fading channel. Users in our proposed system are allocated with different power levels. The source node communicates with the near user using the direct link and communicates with the far user via an amplify-and-forward (AF) relay which uses the time-switching (TS) protocol to harvest energy from the source's signal. The near user also receives the signal broadcasted by the relay and uses this signal to improve its performance. To evaluate the performance of system, the expressions for outage probability (OP) and throughput are derived, and these analyses are verified by a Monte Carlo simulation. Moreover, the effects of various parameters, such as power allocation levels, target data rate, EH efficiency and transmit hardware impairment levels on the OP and throughput of proposed system are investigated.


Now,rainfall frequency analysis is used commonly to determine probability of irrigation water requirement,and to choose typical years for irrigation project design during the plan and design of the land consolidation.This method doesn't consider the rainfall distribution sufficiently,but the results of frequency analysis of net irrigation requirement can make up for these disadvantages and are valid.


The orientation dependence of the backscattered yield of 1.0-MeV helium ions has been used to investigate the lattice characteristics of silicon and germanium implanted at room temperature with 40-...


I START WITH an informant's comments. Asked by a fellow folk dancer to describe her Norwegian folk costume (bunad) before an audience of Scandinavian folk dance enthusiasts at Seattle's Nordic Heritage Museum, she explained, "I wanted to get a bunad from my grandmother's village. I wanted that connection to her and to my past. But really, the costume from her village is just awful, so I decided on one from another village instead." The audience laughed with nods of recognition. Hers was not an unusual experience in their circles: a dilemma of descent versus consent, a desire to subscribe to the power of tradition in some meaningful way, thwarted at the last by the unruly action of the personal will, which asserts itself in the form of aesthetic judgment. Why did grandmother not come from a village with a nice bunad? Would she not have emigrated if that were the case? Lucky are those people who have ancestors from several villages: they have a selection of bunads to choose from. Taken for granted in this circle of knowledgeable sympathizers is the notion of a single specific costume for each Norwegian locale and the prohibitive expense of purchasing even on'e traditional outfit. Taken for granted, too, is the necessity of speaking the truth before this room of costume experts. Amateurs though they be, they know their costumes, communities, and specifications inside and out. How do we go about studying the phenomenon of modern folk costume: the self-conscious, carefully regulated reproduction of peasant dress from the 19th century or before? One way is through a history of its development, focusing on the broad social and ideological underpinnings of this important artistic movement in European cultural history. Another way is through close ethnographic description of particular moments and situations: the nuanced and detailed observations that make folkloristic ethnography so rich. The studies in this issue of the Journal of American Folklore do both these things, providing us with a valuable foundation for understanding one of the most ubiquitous and problematic genres of the modern folk festival, one of the genres most immediately noticed and enjoyed by festival participants but most frequently eschewed by the academic folklorist.


Nowadays, Social Network (SN) is one of the essential tools of people especially young and adolescents. In consequence, there are so many controversial things on advantages and disadvantages of SN. In Myanmar, the rate of mobile phone users and internet users is on the increase today. This is a cross-sectional study conducted to the university students at Kyaukse University from June to November, 2015. In total 400 students who are aged between 16-23 years were randomly selected and interviewed with pretested structured questionnaires. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of Social Network Addiction (SNA) and the prevalence of anxiety. Furthermore, this study also found out SNA related to anxiety among students. Among the students, 110 students (27.5%) addicted to SN and 146 students (36.5%) suffered from anxiety. There is significant association between SNA and anxiety. Among the social network addicted users, 59.1% suffer from anxiety (χ²=33.408, p <0.001). Most of the students who used SN addicted to SN. The students addicted to SN, duration of SN more than 3 years, SN using hours more than 4 hours per day, using Facebook and Google suffer from anxiety. According to the findings in this study, there is a positive association between SNA and anxiety. So parents, teachers and other authorities should be aware and involved in checking and controlling the internet use of the students. In addition, the similar researches should be encouraged in different population and different age groups to explore other side effects of SNA. South East Asia Journal of Public Health Vol.7(1) 2017: 23-28


This thesis presents a conceptual study of a long-distance cycling network with integration of main urban centers in Gorenjska statistical region, as a part of a planned national cycling network. Currently, there are several national strategies that deal with this issue and offer useful cycling paths in this part of Slovenia, but only a small fraction of these are built and in use by locals and tourists. Cycling path D-2 between Mojstrana and Ratece as well as small part of planned R-2 path, which runs between Bohinjska Bistrica and Ribcev Laz, serve as examples of good coordination between local communities and state institutions. The main objective of the thesis is to integrate existing links into a new concept, which focuses on the sustainable planning policies and encourages the integration of various services as a part of this network.
Planned proposal of the national cycling network connects urban centers of Gorenjska region, which were previously determined on the basis of their economic and tourist importance in the area. Cycling links were planned according to the main requirements for cycling infrastructure, where safety is the most important aspect. Taking that into consideration, we were trying to make the best use of existing low traffic roads without unnecessary investment costs into separate infrastructure. Some links are presented in a number of different options, which have been evaluated and compared in terms of safety, spatial and operational aspects as well as in their integrative function. Additional integrity of the network is provided by the connectivity with neighboring regions (Savinja, Central Slovenia and Gorizia region) and countries Austria and Italy, which enable connection with the European cycling network EuroVelo.


Results. Dmft was 7.20 ±5.33, dmfs 15.65 ±15.82, d1-2dmft 10.81 ±5.63, d1-2dmfs 20.84 ±16.56, including d1-2t and d1-2s dp – 3.59 ±2.86 and 5.14 ±4.51 respectively for 19.04 ±1.99 examined primary teeth. The main component of the indicators was the average number of teeth/tooth surfaces with caries (4.71 ±4.54/8.72 ±10.77 respectively). The average number of teeth/surface fillings amounted to 1.73 ±1.99 and 3.58 ±5.01; those lost due to the caries of 0.79 ±1.74 and 3.39 ±7.56. Treatment index amounted to 0.27 and DI-S to 1.1 ±0.57. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between dmft and dmfs, dt and ds, and the DI-S.


Detailed knowledge regarding robot requirements is a necessary prerequisite for implementing robot operation in a virtual world. This chapter describes key considerations in underwater robotics hardware and software, particularly as instantiated in the NPS AUV. Familiarity with the Chapter II review of related robotics projects is recommended. An overview of generic AUV hardware and software is followed by NPS AUV hardware specifications and software characteristics. Additional overview descriptions of the NPS AUV and related research appear in (Brutzman, Compton 91) and (Healey 92a). Due to the large variety of critical tasks an autonomous underwater robot must perform, a robust multilevel software architecture is essential. The software architecture used by the NPS AUV is the Rational Behavior Model (RBM). The three levels of RBM are described with emphasis on the real-time characteristics of each level. Details are also provided regarding vehicle software developed in this work. Specific contributions of this dissertation include extending the RBM execution level and improving implemented RBM interprocess communication (IPC). Although there are far fewer robots designed to operate underwater than in other environments, there is much diversity in the hardware and software of those robots that exist. Underwater robot hardware is mostly concerned with watertight integrity, maneuvering and sensing. Underwater robot software is usually preoccupied with real-time hardware control. Implemented higher-level functions are rarely as sophisticated or capable as desired. Although manipulators and intervention tools are common on remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs), they remain a rarity on autonomous robots because fundamental problems of ship control, navigation and classification of 55


A Nafion/sulfonated SiO2 molecular sieve composite membrane was prepared by solution casting with sulfonated SiO2 molecular sieve as the modifier. The ATR/FT-IR results showed that sulfonated SiO2 molecular sieve did not change the structure of the membrane. The SEM and XRD results showed that the molecular sieve was distributed uniformly in the membrane. The proton conductivity, methanol permeability, water content, and swelling degree were measured. Compared with Nafion membrane, the composite membrane had higher water content and proton conductivity and lower methanol permeability. The overall performance was the best when the content of sulfonated SiO2 molecular sieve was 5 wt%. These results indicated that Nafion/sulfonated SiO2 molecular sieve composite membranes would be excellent candidate membrane materials for direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) applications.


The paper describes the development of an Australian Handbook of Stream Roughness Coefficients , that has been prepared to guide the selection of flow resistance parameters, such as Manning's n, in Australian streams. Flow resistance is a critical parameter for estimating flow depths and discharges in open channels and has an important influence on engineering and hydrographic practice. In many cases the selection of an appropriate stream roughness coefficient, such as Manning's n, is required, but often this is not straightforward. In other countries, particularly New Zealand and the United States, roughness coefficients have been collected and pictorial guides or empirical equations provide a firm basis for estimating the flow resistance parameters in new situations. There will be however, many Australian streams that are not well represented in these existing guides. We have used estimates of flow resistance in streams to develop a guide for Australia. This web-based guide includes roughness values from 25 Australian streams from Victoria, NSW, Queensland, and the ACT. There are also resources for estimating floodplain resistance, and links to the key international web sites and handbooks that can guide roughness estimation. We have also reviewed the role of empirical equations for the estimation of Manning's n under Australian conditions. Together, this material will allow stream practitioners to better estimate roughness coefficients and so improve the accuracy of open channel flow calculations that apply to floodplain management, discharge estimation and river restoration. We would also like to invite stream researchers, managers and consultants to contribute additional case studies to the roughness database.


Abstract A crown canker disease causing yellowing and wilting of the leaves was observed on muskmelon (Cucumis melo) plants in a number of greenhouses in Shouguang county, Shandong province, China, during April 2014 to July 2015, resulting in serious economic losses. Black sporodochia with white mycelial tufts emerged on surfaces of lesions at the base of the stem. Eleven fungal strains were isolated from infected tissues. On the basis of morphological features, ITS-5.8S rDNA and TEF1 sequence analysis, the isolates were identified as Paramyrothecium roridum (Tode) L. Lombard & Crous (syn. Myrothecium roridum Tode). The pathogenicity of the isolates was confirmed. The morphological characteristics of reisolated strains from inoculated muskmelon plants showing symptoms of crown canker were consistent with the original strains. A host range test indicated that strains had a wide range of hosts. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of muskmelon crown canker caused by P. roridum in China. This disease could have a significant economic impact on muskmelon production.


6092 Background: The EDIFICE study was the first which aimed to allow better understanding of population's adhesion in France to the screening tests available for the 4 most frequent cancers: breast, colorectal, prostate and lung.

METHODS
This nationwide observational study was carried out in France from January 18th to February 2nd, 2005 among a representative sample of 1,504 subjects aged between 40 and 75 years and a representative sample of 600 general practitioners (GPs). Information collected about participating subjects included socio-demographic characteristics, attitude towards cancer screening and actual experience of cancer screening, and about GPs' medical practice regarding screening.

RESULTS
A striking result observed is that screening for colorectal cancer that USPSTF rates as an "A" Recommendation (strongly recommended) deserves less attention: reported rate 25% than prostate cancer screening (either with digital rectal examination and/or PSA): reported rate 36%. In the same way, GPs' are recommended more often prostate cancer screening (58%) than colorectal cancer screening (18%). Another key result of that EDIFICE national representative survey is the high attendance rate of women at mammography screening.

CONCLUSION
With respect to the cost of such programs, utilization must be monitored and compared among different countries/organization. Additional data will be presented about reasons to do or not cancer screening and about regularity of screening. [Table: see text] No significant financial relationships to disclose.


Please note that in Volume 23, Number 2 of Language and Cognitive Processes, published in March 2008 (this issue) in the paper by Suiping Wang, Hsuan-Chih Chen, Jinmian Yang, and Lei Mo, entitled ''Immediacy of integration in discourse comprehension: Evidence from Chinese readers' eye movements'' on page 252, 2 paragraph, the first words of line 7 'incongruent condition' should have read 'congruent condition'. LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE PROCESSES 2008, 23 (2), 327


Light-induced enhancement in magnetization is observed at room temperature in the metamagnetic Fe3Ga4 grains formed by the alternative deposition of Fe3Ga2-xAsx and GaAs on GaAs(001) substrates. The illumination power dependence of the enhanced magnetization is compared with the antiferromagnetic-type magnetization–temperature (M–T) curve (Néel temperature of TN=340–390 K), and, in addition with the enhancement due to light-induced heating, the possibility of photoenhanced magnetization is discussed.


Static fit and dynamic fit evolution relationships between core technological innovation and management innovation of underdeveloped enterprises are studied from the perspectives of cost,knowledge integration,and innovative organizational culture based on fit theory.A case of technological innovation of TD-SCDMA of ZTE is given to testify the frameworks constructed.The results suggests that there is a fit relationship between low exceptional core technological innovation and internal-oriented supplemented with exterior management innovations in underdeveloped enterprises,and high exceptional core technological innovation shows fit management innovations characteristics of external-oriented supplemented with interior ones in underdeveloped enterprises;Meanwhile,there is adynamic fit evolutionary relationship between technological innovation and management innovation.The implementation of management innovation promotes the transformation of technological innovation from the high exceptional stage to the low exceptional stage and the following market-oriented innovation.Therefore,technological innovation path of underdeveloped enterprises presents the pattern of high exceptional technological innovationtechnology pool 1low exceptional technological innovationnew high exceptional technological innovationtechnology pool 2new low exceptional technological innovation… under the support of internal and external management innovations.Additionally,management innovation shows a trend of continuous expanding and deepening with the implementation of technological innovation.


Taiwan localizes between the subtropical and the tropical regions in Asia Pacific with the Kuroshio Current passing along its east side. The differences in the structure and abundance of coastal macroalgae in relation to environmental variables were investigated by determining the temporal dynamics (2001-2003) of intertidal macroalgal abundance and structure in northern (Hermei), southern (Nanwan) and southeastern (Taitung) Taiwan and the islands around Taiwan (Hsio-lu-chiu in the southwest, Penghu in the west, and Green Island and Lan-yu Island in the southeast of Taiwan). One hundred and seventy-one species have been identified with rhodophytes as abundant species. Species richness (number), diversity (H'), and evenness (J') showed site variation in the order of Nanwan = Hsio-luchiu > Green Island > Hermei > Taitung > Lan-yu Island > Penghu for species number and H', and Lan-yu Island >> Hermei > Hsio-liu-chiu > Green Island > Penghu > Taitung for J'. Dry weight biomass was higher in Hermei and Hsio-liu-chiu. The data from hierarchical cluster analysis and nonmetric multidimensional scaling ordination of species similarities between different sampling times and the results of analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) showed that macroalgal assemblage is structured primarily by site and secondarily by year. There were three groups: 1. Hermei, 2. Hsio-liu-chiu and Green Island, and 3. Nanwan, Taitung, Lan-yu Island and Penghu. The species structure was different between 2001 and 2003, but similar between 2001 and 2002 and between 2002 and 2003. Less typhoon disturbance in 2002 may be one of the factors in explaining annual variability in intertidal macroalgal assemblage structure. The comparison of species compositions with environmental variables by BIO-ENV stepwise (BVSTEP) analysis shows that water temperature, salinity and precipitation are the abiotic variables which best explain the spatiotemporal dynamics of intertidal macroalgal abundance and structure around Taiwan. Cold winter temperature contributes to the distinction of Hermei (in the subtropical waters of northeastern Taiwan) from other sites localized in tropical waters. Precipitation and salinity are the factors affecting the seasonality of intertidal macroalgae in Taiwan. These results indicate that geographic difference in macroalgal assemblage structure in the intertidal regions around Taiwan can be attributable to temperature differences between subtropical and tropical waters in Taiwan. Salinity changes due to precipitation are considered as governing the seasonality of intertidal macroalgal assemblage structure in Taiwan.


Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Who's afraid of population decline? A critical examination of its consequences
Chapter 3. Does economic development drive the fertility rebound in OECD countries?
Chapter 4. WLB and Low Fertility: What can we expect from WLB?
Chapter 5. Very Low Fertility and Pronatal Policy Interventions in Japan
Chapter 6. Causes of Low Fertility and Appropriateness of Pronatal Policy Measures in Korea
Chapter 7. Unity in Diversity
Chapter 8. Trends and Projection of Population Changes in East Asia: Population Ageing and Migration Flows in South Korea and Japan
Chapter 9. Low-fertility in Germany: Background and Policy Responses


Transverse Kelvin–Helmholtz turbulence has been observed in a region of strong rotation and shear in a magnetoplasma column produced using a Lisitano structure. The turbulence is identified on the basis of radial density–potential fluctuation phase, wave localization, and steady-state characteristics of the column. A modified wave equation is used to check experimental observations with theory. This is a second type of magnetoplasma column where transverse Kelvin–Helmholtz turbulence has been identified and it supports previous investigations in Q machines.


Cultural content industries, including the motion picture, pop music, TV drama, video game and animation are emerging as a new driving engine for our country's economic progress.... There lies an even greater opportunity for the further development of those industries in the future. Cable television must assume an important role in this endeavor. On its tenth anniversary, cable television as a pioneering medium should look forward one step further.... To meet the demand of convergence between broadcasting and telecommunication, the government will put its very best efforts into restructuring regulatory arrangements and providing necessary assistance. (Roh Moo Hyun, the former Korean President, 2005, translated)


The main feature of MWD wireless system is logging while drilling,it could complete the task of drilling survey and controlling well trajectory while complete the drilling tasks.The measured data is coded by the downhole equipment,and the pulser sends pulse signal according to the encoder.Drilling fluid pressure is changed instantly,the changed pressure is detected by pressure sensor and transmitted to the ground computer insite Software,then the insite software decode the pressure signals into electrical signals,and obtain the desired measurement data.This article describes the common problems of MWD system in offshore oil drilling,the difficulties for insite software decoding,the work process of MWD on offshore oil drilling platform and the situation of insite software decoding.Analysis the common problems of signal instability and the difficulties for insite software decoding and gives the solution.


The importance of seismic design requirements for the facilities and equipment on the deck of an offshore platform is increasing. This paper presents an efficient procedure for the generation of earthquake response spectra for light equipment in a massive structure. It is assumed that the equipment may be modeled as a single-degree-of-freedom linear oscillator attached at a single point to a multi-degree-of-freedom linear system. Modal properties of the combined equipment/structure may be determine from the known properties of the separate systems. The peak equipment response to a given ground-motion time history is determined from a frequency domain analysis of the combined system and the ground-motion response spectra. This procedure takes into account equipment/structure interaction, correlation between modes, and response transience, some or all of which are typically ignored in current practice. Because most of the theoretical development for this procedure has been done in the nuclear industry, the primary focus of this paper is on the application of the procedure to offshore platforms. Several numerical examples are included to demonstrate the excellent agreement between this procedure and time-history results.


This study tried to investigate how three levels of arousal affect performance of a 3-back task. Ten university male (age 25.7±1.5) and ten female (age 24.5±1.8) students participated in this experiment. Using pictures selected from a group test, three levels of arousal, i.e. tensed, neutral, and relaxed emotions, were induced. Each subject was run through the procedure three times, once for each arousal level. The procedure consisted of six phases for each arousal condition Rest 1(2 min), Picture 1(presenting emotion arousing photos for 2 min), 3-back task 1(2 min), Picture 2(presenting emotion arousing photos for 2 min), 3-back task 2(2 min), and Rest 2(2 min). Skin conductance level(SCL) of electrothermal activity was also measured during all phases of the experiment. The accuracy rate of 3-back task performance was the highest at a neutral emotional state, followed by relaxed and then tensed emotional state. There was no difference in reaction time(RT) among the three levels of arousal. SCL was the highest at a tensed emotional state, followed by neutral emotional state and then relaxed emotional state. Based on the results, it could be inferred that tension, induced by stimuli unrelated to cognitive tasks, decreases the ability to perform cognitive tasks.


In the field of doping suppression, there is a tenuous dividing line between food supplements and drugs. In this regard, it is especially alarming that such supplements may contain substances that are potentially toxic to athletes, components that are prohibited under antidoping regulations either by themselves, as prohormones or as metabolic products. In fact, a large percentage of positive results in doping controls are due to the presence in, or contamination of supplements with substances listed in the well-known "Prohibited Substances and Methods List". On the other hand, we should point out that it is not only high-level athletes who use this type of substance to compete more effectively: their use is widespread in certain social activities, such growing muscles or losing weight. In these cases, we often find people who do not practice a sport purely for "leisure" but rather, to achieve certain ideals of beauty through the design of their body shapes, such as bodybuilding— practices specifically aimed at the cultivation of the body, in gyms, fitness rooms and the like. Not only are these substances being used more widely, they are easy to obtain and there may be a lack of security and quality control. In this paper we intend to set forth, briefly but rigorously, the mix of legal issues around the extended use of (incorrectly) so-called "food supplements", trying to express in full the complex inventory of problems arising from the lack of ad hoc regulation in the field of doping in sport.


The university modernization process has introduced a new concept of such institutions: the "Smarter University". According to this concept, the new role of universities in modern society consists not only of cooperation with other actors focusing on social, cultural and economic activities but also the wide use of web-based technologies to support traditional teaching and research, as well as engagement and social interaction (Coccoli et al., 2014). The Smarter University model is the result of technological innovations and, in particular, digital tools that facilitate interconnection, networking and sharing be-tween individuals and groups (Coccoli et al., 2014) and increase the ability of uni-versities to contribute to economic and social development. The new concept of the university has attracted research attention aimed at finding appropriate models to measure the performance of such institutions. In this paper, we develop a model to measure the contribution of smarter universities to social, economic and cultural development. We adopt an integrated approach that links performance measurement to the smart university's mission and its new business model.


Geological hazards,tectonic earthquake and mine hazards are three kinds of chief solid Earth hazards in China,caused by the crust movements and rock disastrous fracturing due to overloading.By analyzing the present situations of experimental researches on electromagnetic radiation from overloaded rock and on remote sensing related with solid Earth hazards,it is suggested to establish a 3D coordinated integrated remote sensing system with all kind of electromagnetic and non-electromagnetic techniques being applied and satelli:e-based,airborne-based,surface-based and underground-based monitoring units being integrated.The limitation of information fusion theory for classic remote sensing should be overcome so as to search for and to mine out at temporal,spatial and physical scales the correlated mechanisms and laws between multiple physical parameters inside the generalized remote sensing information.In order to improve the reliability in identifying the precursors related with solid Earth hazards,the feasibility of establishing a generalized remote sensing system for the monitoring solid Earth hazards in the condition of Global Earth Observation System of System(GEOSS)is analyzed.Meanwhile,some important issues including the information fusion theory for generalized remote sensing and the identification model for the precusors of solid Earth hazards are discussed.


In order to undersd and the distribution features of SPAD value at different part of blade and different leaf order of sugarbeet, both pot and field experiment with different sugarbet genotypes were conducted by using SPAD502 chlorophyll meter. And the correlations between leaf SPAD value of different development stages and leaf chlorophyll content or the plant nitrogen content were analyzed in different genotypes of sugarbeet. The results were as follow: The leaves's SPAD values of sugarbeet were different; the blade tip of the highest leaf in sugarbeet plant should be taken as the optimum measured position of SPAD value. With the addition of nitrogen applying rate, the SPAD values increased. There were significant relationships between SPAD values and chlorophyll content, plant nitrogen. So the SPAD values were suitable for rapid diagnosis of nitrogen nutrition and used to monitor the development and photosynthetic efficiency in sugarbeet production.


We demonstrate ultrabroadband THz wave detection using a photoconductive antenna with a combination of an ultrashort pulsed laser with 5 fs pulse duration and a DAST crystal. We successfully detected an extremely wide frequency range from 0.5 to 170 THz.


OBJECTIVE To establish a RP-HPLC method for the determination of quercetin in Penthorum chinense Pursh. METHODS The content of quercetin was determinated by RP-HPLC. Kromasile C18 column (4.6 mm x 150 mm,5 um) was used. The detection wavelength was set at 256 nm. RESULTS The mobile phase consisted of methanol-0.2% phosphatic acid (55:50) with flow rate 1.0 mL.min and column temperature at 25 t. The method was liner within the range of 6.7 ~ 40.2 ug.mL-1 (r = 0.9980). The method RSD was 1.65% ( n = 5) . The average recovery of assay was 98.3% and RSD was 1.73% ( n = 5) . CONCLUSION The method appeared to be simple and rapid, highly accurate and precise. It can be used for the quantitative determination of quercetin in Penthorum chinense Pursh.


Our main aim in this work is to study the problem of the global asymptotic stabilization (GAS) of affine control systems with control value sets (CVS) given by (convex) polytopes U with 0 ϵ U, hence allowing 0 in the boundary of U, 0 ϵ ∂U, e.g. positive control inputs. Working along the line of Artstein-Sontag's control Lyapunov function (CLF) approach, we study the conditions that feedback controls of the decentralized form u(x) = (u1,..., um), with Uj(x) = ρj(x)ωj(x), should satisfy in order to be admissible (regular and valued in a CVS U) and render a system GAS, provided an appropriate CLF is known.


The paper presents an approach based on a preprocessing technique that allows previously known methods of reducing the complexity of subspace-based methods to be adapted to the case of highly correlated signals. Snapshot vectors are first preprocessed, and then used to compute the signal subspace of the spatially smoothed correlation matrix. The proposed method is a complexity-reduced version of the DEESE algorithm (Grenier et al., 1993). It gives better resolution in noisy environments than the common spatial-smoothing method with a relatively small increase in computational cost.


The application of controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) in hydrocarbon exploration significantly facilitates the detection of economic hydrocarbon. The method captures anomalies through the resistivity contrast between the overburdens and hydrocarbon-bearing lithologies. In most cases, the resistivity contrast is only prominent when there is sufficient hydrocarbon saturation. K-Field is situated on the continental shelf of Sarawak Basin, a sub-mature area for oil and gas in the Central Luconia province. Despite the low saturation of the gas in the Cycle VI sand, the seismic data shows a strong amplitude in the shallow section. Therefore, this study is conducted to assess the change of resistivity and CSEM response to the gas saturation and thickness variations of thin-gas sand in the K-Field. 3D resistivity models and three exploration wells are provided and two main methods are implemented in this study comprising the resistivity and CSEM forward modelings. The resistivity modeling is conducted using the Indonesia water saturation equation for different gas saturation scenarios and subsequently, the modeled resistivity is inputted in 1D and 2.5D CSEM forward modeling. The modeled CSEM response analysis is done by normalizing the modeled CSEM amplitude to the background or also known as normalized amplitude response (NAR). In gas saturation variation, the modeled resistivity showed an insignificant resistivity increase from 0.45Ωm to 0.55Ωm from wet case to 5% of gas and strongly increases to 35Ωm at 90% of gas saturation. The 1D CSEM NAR shows a very weak response of less than a 3% increase for 5% of gas and up to 230% increase for 90% of gas. In gas thickness variation, the CSEM NAR is weak and less than a 15% cutoff for all the tested thicknesses for 5% and 45% of in-situ gas. At 70% of gas, 25m is the minimum detected gas thickness with a 17.5% response increase, and at 90% of gas, the response is already strong at a minimum 5m thickness with a 35% increase. The modeled 2D CSEM responses also show that only 70% and 90% of gas sand layers in the K-field were delineated distinctively by the inline receivers with a 40% and 200% response increase respectively.


News on the renovation work being carried out at the Platt Hall Gallery, part of the Manchester Art Gallery network.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: To compare clinical intra and early postoperative outcomes between Thulium laser Enucleation of the Prostate (ThuLEP) and Thulium Fiber Laser Enucleation of the Prostate (TFLEP) in the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). METHODS: 240 patients suffering from lower urinary tract symptoms due to BPH were consecutively enrolled and randomized to either BPH to ThuLEP (n[117) or TFLEP (n[123). Patients were evaluated preoperatively using the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), Quality of Life score (QoL), maximum flow rate (Qmax), and postvoid residual urine volume (PVR). Preoperative prostate volume, PSA and haemoglobin were also recorded. All the patients were evaluated postoperatively with regards to blood loss, catheterization time, irrigation volume, hospital stay and operative time. 3 months after surgery micturition improvement was evaluated using the IPSS, Qmax and PVR. RESULTS: No significant differences were found between the patients in the two study arms. Compared with TFLEP, ThuLEP determined a shorter operative time (63.69 41.44 vs 79.66 48.70 minutes, p[0.045). No significant differences were found between ThuLEP and TFLEP in terms of haemoglobin decrease (0.45 vs 0.47 g/ dl, p[0.32), catheterization time (1.9 vs 2.1 days, p[0.37), irrigation volume (29.4 vs 32.8 l, p[0.43), and hospital stay (2.2 vs 2.6 days, p[0.22). During the 3 months of follow-up, the procedures did not demonstrate significant differences in Qmax, IPSS, PVR, and QoL. CONCLUSIONS: ThuLEP and TFLEP both relieve lower urinary tract symptoms equally, with high efficacy and safety. ThuLEP was statistically superior to TFLEP in terms of duration of the procedure. Catheterization time, irrigation volume, hospital stay and operative time were comparable.


ABSTRACT Purpose: This study investigated responses of single-leg balance and landing and countermovement jump (CMJ) following rugby union training and the specific components of training load associated with test decrement. Methods: Twenty-seven professional rugby union players performed CMJ, single-leg balance and landing tests on a 1000 Hz force plate at the beginning and end of training days. Training load was described by session RPE, Banister's TRIMP, GPS total distance, high-speed running distance (>5.5 m s−1), relative speed and body load. Results: CMJ eccentric rate of force development (EccRFD) demonstrated moderate impairment post-training (ES ± 90%CL = −0.79 ± 0.29, MBI = almost certainly). CMJ height (−0.21 ± 0.16, possible), concentric impulse (ConIMP) (−0.35 ± 0.17, likely) and single-leg balance sway velocity on the non-dominant leg (0.30 ± 0.26, possible) were also impaired. Regression analyses identified the strongest relationship between sRPE and impaired ConIMP (r = −0.68 ± 21, β = −0.68) whilst other load measures explained 27–50% of the variance in balance and CMJ changes. Conclusions: CMJ variables representing altered movement strategy (EccRFD and IMP) may be useful for assessing acute neuromuscular fatigue in rugby union, though single-leg balance sway velocity may be an alternative when maximal tests are impractical.


The establishment of planted trees and the natural regeneration of trees in agroecosystems is challenging. This study evaluated the establishment and natural regeneration of the following six native tree species in two agricultural systems in the Atlantic Forest in Paraguay: Cedrela fissilis Vell., Cordia trichotoma (Vell) Arráb. ex Steud., Handroanthus albus (Cham.) Mattos, Handroanthus impetiginosus (Mart. ex DC.) Mattos, Peltophorum dubium (Sprengel) Taubert, and Cordia americana (L.) Gottschling and J.S.Mill. At the study site in Caaguazú, 18 plots of 100 m2 each were established in 2 agronomic systems (conventional or agroecological) featuring 3 plantation types (pathsides, agricultural field edges, and islets). Trees were planted at this site in spring 2010 at a density of 1800 individuals ha−1, and the site was monitored for six years. At the study site in Itapúa, 30 plots of 50 m2 each were established in three agronomic systems (conventional, traditional, or agroecological). Trees were planted at this site in spring 2012 at a density of 1600 individuals ha−1, and the site was monitored for four years. Survival and relative growth rates of the planted species and natural regeneration were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models that considered species, agronomic system, and plantation type as fixed factors, and time and plot as random factors. At both sites, survival varied among species. Here, C. fissilis showed lower survival and C. trichotoma higher growth than the other species. Naturally regenerated species were C. trichotoma, H. albus, and P. dubium. The agronomic system and species affected growth and natural regeneration at both locations. Plantation type affected survival and growth in Caaguazú only. We conclude that species contributes more than agronomic system or plantation type to determining the survival, relative growth rate, and natural regeneration in agroforestry systems in the Paraguayan Atlantic Forest.


comparable" (6), but from a "law as literature" perspective precedent has a fundamentally different systematical function. It is true that in civil-law countries courts rely on precedents no less than they do in a common-law system: however, those cases (unless decided by the German Supreme Court) do not develop the same normative force as cases in common-law systems. Beebee's study would have benefited from a more detailed investigation of the legal underpinnings of the German system, for example, a distinction between the role of precedent in particular subsystems such as constitutional/administrative, civil, and criminal law. One of the most interesting sections of Citation and Precedent is the subchapter dealing with Weiss's Investigation. Like the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials themselves, Beebee raises the question of the unprecedented and the problem that "the law cannot make the second-order observation of declaring itself to be legal [ . . . ] or illegal" (218). Beebee looks (here and in other places) at the relative nature of guilt and skillfully outlines the different layers of how law interacts with society (the play consisting of actual citations from the trial, the audience as judges and defendants at the same time). And yet, Beebee does not include how German courts and legal thinkers such as Gustav Radbruch created precedent through the application of ideas of natural or supernational law. Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, which addresses the problem of retroactivity and natural law, might have been of value for Beebee's analysis. Beebee's command of German is obvious and impressive, although there are parts where a second round of editing would have added precision (45–46, 68), especially when an argument hinges on the exact meaning ("thinking of rights" is different from "daran denken, Rechte zu haben"). In summary, Beebee's methodology is not a necessary means to his findings and I would have wanted to learn more about the legal aspects of some of the arguments he makes. However, Citation and Precedent adds an important facet to the discussion in the field and encourages a more comparative view on this topic.


The invention discloses a method for producing down-like fiber, and relates to the technical field of textiles. The down-like fiber is formed by blending, melting and spinning polypropylene, polyether ester and far infrared anionic micro powder with the grain diameter of less than 30 nanometers. The method can spin the novel down-like fiber with health-care and environment-friendly function, highelasticity, high fluffy property, light weight and heat insulation. The down-like fiber can be applied to health-care and warm-keeping filling of down garments, quilts, sleeping bags and pillow inners and applied to decorative fabrics of spun yarns, non-woven fabrics and the like, and the environment-friendly and health-care function of the down-like fiber is favorable for human health and improvement of air quality.


Appendix A presents the data collected with a standard 7-inch objective lens attached to the photometer. Much of this data is presented in graphical form in Appendix B. Appendix C presents an analysis and interpretation of the data. As used in this study operation of the photometric with the 7-inch objective lens produced data which is not photometrically accurate, but which is believed to be useful in that it shows trends and relationships. The reader is cautioned that the data do not represent absolute values, and are useful only for comparing the various test conditions of the study.


The Anesthesia Quality Institute (AQI) is a nonprofit-"related organization" of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). The vision of the AQI is to advance the quality and safety of anesthesia care in the United States, specifically through aggregation and reporting of clinical and administrative data. The primary purpose of the AQI is to facilitate local quality management efforts by providing anesthesiologists information about their practice and their outcomes. The AQI also serves ASA as a source of quantitative information about the specialty, aggregating information from multiple sources into reports for ASA committees, subspecialty societies, federal agencies, and both academic and industry researchers. The AQI maintains multiple data registries, focused on different aspects of anesthesia practice and the professional work of anesthesiologists. This chapter reviews the registries of the AQI, their purpose, the types of data they contain, and ways in which that data can be reported and shared.


One of the critical biotic stress factors paddy farmers face is diseases caused by bacteria, fungi, and other organisms. These diseases affect plants' health severely and lead to significant crop loss. Most of these diseases can be identified by regularly observing the leaves and stems under expert supervision. In a country with vast agricultural regions and limited crop protection experts, manual identification of paddy diseases is challenging. Thus, to add a solution to this problem, it is necessary to automate the disease identification process and provide easily accessible decision support tools to enable effective crop protection measures. However, the lack of availability of public datasets with detailed disease information limits the practical implementation of accurate disease detection systems. This paper presents Paddy Doctor, a visual image dataset for identifying paddy diseases. Our dataset contains 16,225 annotated paddy leaf images across 13 classes (12 diseases and normal leaf). We benchmarked the Paddy Doctor dataset using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and four transfer learning based models (VGG16, MobileNet, Xception, and ResNet34). The experimental results showed that ResNet34 achieved the highest F1-score of 97.50%. We release our dataset and reproducible code in the open source for community use.


Herba Ecliptae (HE) is a typical Chinese herbal medicine used in China for 1500 years. In the study, HE was extracted by various solvents to prepare five HE extracts. They were observed to possess a protective effect against ×OH-induced DNA damage, and scavenging effects on ×OH radical, ×O2− radical, DPPH×(1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) radical, and ABTS×+ (2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethyl-benzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) radical, and reduce Cu2+ ion. The contents of total phenolics and wedelolactone in five extracts were determined respectively using Folin-Ciocalteu method and HPLC method. To identify which chemical component can be responsible for its effects, the correlation graphs between chemical contents and antioxidant abilities (1/IC50 values) were plotted to calculate correlation coefficients (R values). Finally, MTT assay revealed that two HE extracts could effectively protect mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) against ×OH-induced damage at 3-30 μg/mL. On the basis of mechanistic analysis, we concluded that: (i) HE can effectively protect against ×OH-induced damages to DNA and MSCs, thereby HE may have a therapeutic potential in MSCs transplantation or prevention of many diseases; (ii) the effects can be mainly attributed to total phenolics (R = 0.678) especially wedelolactone (R = 0.618); (iii) they exert antioxidant action via hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) and sequential electron proton transfer (SEPT) mechanisms.


The purpose of this paper is to describe developments in the professional designing and construction of buildings from ancient times to the Middle Ages. The production of buildings such as the following process is required. 1. Designing the building 2. Procuring and processing construction materials 3. Education and mobilization of the people. A sophisticated system of division of labor was required for this process to be followed. Moreover, the use of technology was very limited. Under such circumstances, people how succeeded in making a number of temple architecture with a huge cathedral. Existing studies on the history of architecture have often ignored building construction systems. By analyzing the production system architecture will be the opportunity that will change the history of architecture, historical style biased.


Simple Summary Monitoring animal condition is integral for maintaining a healthy flock, increasing ewe productivity, refining animal nutrition, and identifying suitable animals for slaughter. Accurate determination of the body compositions (the amount of fat, muscle, and bone) of ewes can be used to evaluate their conditions, which provides key information to make management decisions. Farmers currently rely on live weight (LW) and body condition score (BCS) to evaluate the health statuses of ewes. This research proposed the use of visual imaging to determine body dimensions, which are then used in combination with LW to predict the body compositions of ewes. The results showed a correlation between fat, muscle, and bone weight determined by computerized tomography (CT) and the fat, muscle, and bone weight estimated by the live weight and body parameters calculated using the image processing application. The results showed an optimal fat of 9% of LW for ewes during the production cycle. If the percentage of fat is less than or more than 9%, farmers have to take action to improve the conditions of the animals to ensure the best performance during weaning and ewe and lamb survival during the next lambing. Abstract Farmers are continually looking for new, reliable, objective, and non-invasive methods for evaluating the conditions of ewes. Live weight (LW) and body condition score (BCS) are used by farmers as a basis to determine the condition of the animal. Body composition is an important aspect of monitoring animal condition. The body composition is the amount of fat, muscle, and bone; knowing the amount of each is important because the information can be used for better strategic management interventions. Experiments were conducted to establish the relationship between body composition and body parameters at key life stages (weaning and pre-mating), using measurements automatically determined by an image processing application for 88 Coopworth ewes. Computerized tomography technology was used to determine the body composition. Multivariate linear regression (MLR), artificial neural network (ANN), and regression tree (RT) statistical analysis methods were used to develop a relationship between the body parameters and the body composition. A subset of data was used to validate the predicted model. The results showed a correlation between fat, muscle, and bone determined by CT and the fat, muscle, and bone weight estimated by the live weight and body parameters calculated using the image processing application, with r2 values of 0.90 for fat, 0.72 for muscle, and 0.50 for bone using ANN. From these results, farmers can utilize these measurements to enhance nutritional and management practices.


The purpose of this commentary is to address common questions regarding the care of patients with fibrotic interstitial lung disease (ILD) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our suggestions are based on...


Abstract:Research suggests that participation in co-curricular and extracurricular activities improves students' academic outcomes, but less is known about the mechanisms by which these programs impact students' educational trajectories. This study examines psychosocial factors linking participation in an urban debate league (UDL) and academic performance in a large prospective study of students in the Chicago Public Schools (N = 12,197) over a nine-year period. School, social, and civic engagement were higher among debaters than non-debaters, but mediation analysis indicated these indicators of engagement only partially explained the academic effects of UDL participation. This article discusses study implications for co-curricular programming, in particular as they relate to efforts to close racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in educational attainment.


Original Research Article Background: Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease with significant effects on patient related quality of life. Adherence to antirheumatic drugs has been shown to ameliorate the effect of rheumatoid arthritis on quality of life. Data regarding the effect of adherence on quality of life among rheumatoid arthritis patients in Jordan is lacking. Methods: Data from rheumatoid arthritis patients referring to the rheumatology outpatient clinic in King Hussien Medical Center were retrieved and their adherence and quality of life was assessed using the SF-36. Results: One hundred and seven patients were recruited in this study with a median age of 53.69 years. Females represented more than 75% of the study population. Adherence was reported in more than 85% of the participants. Adherence was associated with better physical functioning score as compared to non-adherent (31.6667 vs. 22.7516, p=0.035). Conclusion: Adherence has a positive effect on physical functioning among rheumatoid arthritis patients. Patients suffering rheumatoid arthritis alone are more likely to be adherent and achieve the positive effect of adherence on physical functioning.


Architecture is not only the basic structure of the system of systems(SoS),but also the principle on which SoS operates and evolves.The traditional design methods of the architecture of SoS,the procedureoriented structured design approach and the object-oriented approach,lack a clear description of the goal,intention and behavior of stakeholders involved in SoS.The mapping relationship between the user requirements notation(URN)and the DoDAF meta-model is established.And a goal-oriented modeling process of the SoS is put forward based on the meta-model.Finally,a search and rescue case is used to illustrate the process.


To solve the test problems of launch vehicles ground test equipment such as long calibration cycle,complex and various test methods,a timing simulation test system is designed based on SOPC and USB 3. 0( CYUSB3014) for launch vehicle. 64-channels of timing timing sequence and timing bunchs can be produced to test launch vehicles ground test equipment with different test requirements. This system has advantages easy to approach,versatility,high precision and a large number of channels which can improve the test efficiency.


Water-supply network is the lifeline of a city.It is an important task for water-supply corporation to reduce the leakage and ensure water supply.In this paper,leakage-examination result of water supply pipes of Chuzhou city was introduced,the primary reasons of leakage,including pipe material,joint,design and construction and maintenance were analyzed,finally the countermeasure preventing water leakage was discussed.


Abstract In this paper, inspired by the concept of generalized single-valued neutrosophic graphs(GSVNG) of the first type, we define yet another generalization of neutrosophic graph called the generalized interval-valued neutrosophic graph of 1 type (GIVNG1) in addition to our previous work on complex neutrosophic graph (CNG1) in [47]. We will also show a matrix representation for this new generalization. Many of the fundamental properties and characteristics of this new concept is also studied. Like the concept CNG1 in [47], the concept of GIVNG1 is another extension of generalized fuzzy graphs 1 (GFG1) and GSVNG1.


An apparatus (1) for cutting a pipe (2) made of thermoplastic material comprises: cutting means (T) which comprise a tool equipped with a disk (3) rotatabie about an axis (X1) and which are configured to allow a rotary motion of the axis (X1) of the disk (3) about an axis (X2) of the pipe (2) and disk (3) sinking into the pipe (2) in a radial direction; lubricating means (L) for the disk (3), configured to operate on at least one portion (P1, P2) of a face (F1, F2) of the disk (3), for releasing a predetermined quantity of lubricant on it so as to reduce the friction between the disk (3) and the pipe (2) during cutting.