IntroductionReading the world always precedes reading the word, and reading the word implies continually reading the world . . . but by a certain form of rewriting. . . that is, of transforming by means of conscious practical work.1CURRENT UNDERSTANDINGS OF WHAT it means to be literate are based on a mechanistic approach where the reading of text is removed from the social and political context, rendered neutral and value-free. This is so even as we know that knowledge embedded in textbooks is value-laden, influenced by dominant social and cultural mores.2 At its core, literacy teaching paradigms are deployed in formal institutions of learning to serve as a conduit for the indoctrination of learners into the social, political and economic order of the ruling class.3 The resultant impact is that educators, in their quest to inculcate 'healthy' reading habits, continue to employ pedagogical tools that reproduce social stratification.4 In this way, teachers usher the oppressed into becoming "headless bodies'^ that unquestioningly absorb the teachings of the educational institutions of the ruling class.A critical approach to literacy, however, sees the emancipatory potentialities of teaching learners how to engage in critical discussions about the larger sociopolitical implications of the hidden curriculum within various social institutions.6 This approach to literacy moves learners from being passive consumers of text7 and instead encourages the development of criticality and awareness of how the self is situated in a world where relations of power are woven into all social interactions. Teaching reading in this way equips learners with the critical thinking skills to identify the operation of capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy in the lives of the oppressed. When learners analyse text to identify and expose the covert ways in which social institutions reaffirm social inequities, and conversely how text in turn sustains the ideas deployed by social institutions, they are better able to expose the dominant political agenda and conjure material solutions to social problems. Teaching reading in this way continuously equips learners to challenge underlying power relations even as they are also exposed to the mechanics of reading surface-level text.Critical literacy advances an appreciation for the forms of meaning-making that learners bring from their multiple discursive backgrounds.8 It also creates space for alternative literacy systems (for example, indigenous sign systems) that do not fit within conventional paradigms, but that equally inform the multiple readings of the world. In Afro-indigenous communities, for instance, orature9 is central to engaging in meaning-making and knowledge production for individual and social transformation. The acquisition of knowledge is experiential, tied to the socio-cultural context, and occurs through various mediums. Visions, intuitions, spiritual ceremonies, informal gatherings and circles, music, fables and stories are the basis of how knowledge about the self, community and social world is produced. Learning is embedded in daily experiences and forms the core of how our communities read the world, and subsequently brings our nuanced worldviews to bear on the written word. Critical literacy is, thus, reframed as a process that is woven into our daily social interactions. Framing literacy as a social practice moves it beyond its traditional conceptualisation where it is rendered as something that is located in learners' heads as a set of skills, or as neutral text on paper.10In this essay, I explore how we can extend our imagination of literacy to include those linked to the socio-cultural practices of Afro-indigenous groups. To this end, I situate my analysis within New Literacy theoreticians' conceptualisation of literacy. As was mentioned above, New Literacy positions literacy as a social practice that is context-specific, learner-centred and that connects learners' lived experiences and identities to the process of meaning-making. …


Temperature associated with the logitudinal thermal velocities overshoots for M1 > (9/5)½ for monatomic gases. The overshoot and the location of the maximum temperature are functions of M1.


Since colonial times, Latin America has had a tradition for supplying raw materials, which have contributed strongly to the economic development of other regions. Non-fuel minerals from Latin America, such as, iron, aluminum, gold, silver and copper have become high-value commodities in a globalized market. The exploitation of mineral resources in the region has produced social, environmental and political issues. This exploitation also implies the loss of mineral wealth in the region. The current work gathers information related to investigations about the quantitative assessment of the loss of mineral wealth from a non-traditional approach in twenty countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (AL&C). This research has been based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics and has enabled to identify aspects that are hidden in traditional analysis. The main result shows that the loss of mineral wealth in AL&C in 2013 was not compensated by the revenues coming for the sales of minerals in that year. This fact establishes a challenge for the region that maintains a considerable reserve of minerals required in a modern society for keeping today´s standard of living. A change towards a more sovereign positions on mineral resources in the region would be required if a more sustainable production of minerals is being sought in the region.


This work investigates the structure, morphology, and optical properties of TiO2 nanoparticles embedded in a Fe2O3–PVA composite matrix. The samples were examined using a variety of techniques, including field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), absorption and transmission spectra, and Fourier transformation infrared (FTIR). Crystallography information revealed the presence of TiO2 doesn't effect in the crystal structure of PVA-Fe2O3. The manufactured composites demonstration strong absorption in the range of 440–570 nm. It is important that the highest absorption of these composites gradually shifted to the shorter wavelength region with presence of TiO2. PVA-Fe2O3 is highly transparent with transmittance of around 85 % in range 600-800 nm. After addition of 2.5 % by weight of TiO2 nanoparticles, the transmittance of nanocomposite drops to 75% in the same range of wavelength . Further addition of nanoparticles reduced the percentage transmittance to 68%. The results specify that as the TiO2 ratio increases, the band gap be wider.


Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1: Overview 1.2: Individualism vs. collectivism 1.3: Methodology 1.4: The existence of moral rights 1.5: Terminology Chapter 2: A Lockean Framework of Rights 2.1: The right to one's own person 2.2: Property rights and rights of first arrival 2.3: Negative need rights 2.4: Autonomy, well-being, and rights Chapter 3: Rights and Harm 3.1: The doctrine of doing and allowing 3.2: Quinn's interpretation of the doctrine 3.3: Foot's interpretation of the doctrine 3.4: The causal interpretation of the doctrine 3.5: The acting-on interpretation of the doctrine 3.6: A rights-based alternative 3.7: Three objections 3.8: Rights and intentions Chapter 4: Liability to Defense 4.1: The rights enforcement account 4.2: Defense against the innocent 4.3: Defense of the guilty 4.4: The defense liability principle 4.5: Forfeiture 4.6: Montague and McMahan Chapter 5: Necessity and Proportionality in Defense 5.1: A defense of internalism 5.2: Necessary harm 5.3: Proportionate harm 5.4: Do the numbers count? Chapter 6: Liberating Just War Theory from Double Effect 6.1: The structure of my argument 6.2: PDE, MP and rights 6.3: Quinn's defense of double effect 6.4: Recent attempts to improve upon Quinn 6.5: The restricted claims principle 6.6: Alleged support for a strongly discriminating principle 6.7: The irrelevance of weakly discriminating principles Chapter 7: The Rights of Innocent Bystanders 7.1: Unauthorized violence 7.2: Excusable violence 7.3: Liability through assumed risk 7.4: Ex ante compensation 7.5: Justifiable infringements upon rights Chapter 8: How to Justify Waging War 8.1: The justifiable war principle 8.2: Is the justifiable war principle too demanding? 8.3: The flaws of traditional jus ad bellum Chapter 9: The Scope of Liability in War 9.1: Combatants and military personnel 9.2: Those who assist unjust aggressors 9.3: Munitions workers 9.4: Farmers and taxpayers Chapter 10: Citizenship and Liability 10.1: Agency and liability 10.2: Nonintervention and liability Chapter 11: Conclusions Appendix: Need Rights and Compensation Index


The economic effects of advertising have been a much studied and hotly debated topic for a number of years. By now, there is fairly general agreement that, inter alia, advertising is important as a barrierto-entry (see Joe Bain, William Comanor and Thomas A. Wilson, Leonard Weiss) and that advertising does succeed in shifting demand for individual products (see Neil Borden, Nicholas Kaldor, Robert Dorfman and Peter Steiner, Lester Telser (1962), Kristian Palda), but there is little agreement as to the effect of advertising on aggregate consumption. John Kenneth Galbraith would have us believe that much of consumers' spending is managed from Madison Avenue,' but such a view has still to find universal acceptance.2 What is surprising, however, is that no one who has been party to the rather spirited debate generated by the Tall Gentleman's thesis has seen fit to examine by econometric methods the proposition that advertising has an impact on the aggregate consumption function. To undertake this is the purpose of this paper. In a modest, yet not insignificant, way, we feel that we have made some progress. Based on an analysis of advertising expenditures in the aggregate, our results suggest that advertising does in fact tend to increase consumption at the expense of saving. But as to what the causal mechanism underlying this is, we unfortunately cannot say. It may be that advertising actually succeeds in altering tastes a la Galbraith, but then again it may be that advertising is simply serving to bring new goods and services to the attention of consumers. As already noted, our analysis concentrates on the effects of advertising in the aggregate, and is conducted in the framework of the state-adjustment model of Hendrik Houthakker and Lester Taylor, as applied to aggregate consumption. Following Houthakker and Taylor, two variants of the model have been employed; the first focuses on consumption, and the second on personal saving. Section I presents a brief description of the Houthakker-Taylor (H-T) model and discusses the ways that it can be extended to accommodate advertising. This section also provides a short description of the data and methods of estimation. Sections II and III are empirical, Section II being devoted to a presentation of results and Section III to their critical evaluation. The paper is then concluded with some final observations in Section IV.


A network structure is responsible for efficient communication through a computer network. In order to obtain a network structure suitable for optimal packet communication on the network, we introduce a cost function for the efficiency of packet communication. By means of numerical simulations, we find an optimized network structure by reconnecting links in the network so as to minimize the defined cost function by using a shortest-path routing control model for packet flow. It turns out that the obtained optimized networks have the small-world property but a different structure from Erdos and Renyi's random graph [P. Erdos and A. Renyi, Publ. Math. (Debrecen) 6 (1959), 290] nor the real Internet. In addition, the distribution of links in the obtained network is not homogeneous and hence different from that obtained by Guimera et al., who have also investigated an optimal network structure for packet communication without packet routing processes.


We present applications of the visiometrics approach, which emphasizes the quanti cation of diagnostics to obtain physical insight into complex physical processes. This methodology is applied to study both the vortex collapse problem via Biot-Savart reduced models as well as the exploration of Navier-Stokes turbulence direct simulations with a 512 3 mesh resolution. The feature extraction and data reduction algorithms introduced provide insight into the types of problems that arise in dealing with very large datasets. The developed tools are based on thresholding, object segmentation and low order ellipsoidal representations and are applied to searching coherent vortex structures associated with maxima events in the turbulence eld. In addition, we emphasize the importance of sharing tasks between supercomputers and workstations, where each machine may work more e ciently at di erent stages of the data processing. We have obtained visualizations that show the structure of the dominant coherent objects in the turbulent ow. The reduced representations employed make it possible to examine di erent types of elds for possible correlations. The quanti cation of the objects identi ed by the feature extraction algorithms, should contribute to the building of models that consider both coherent structures and the random background observed in Navier-Stokes turbulence.


Background:  Esophageal variceal sclerotherapy (EVS) is an effective means of controlling variceal hemorrhage. However, it causes a wide variety of local and systemic complications. The present study was performed to document pleuropulmonary complications of EVS with absolute alcohol.


Radiation temperature calibrations of IR radiometers and imaging systems, pre-launch characterization of spaceborne optical sensors require low and medium-background test facilities, equipped with reference blackbodies for full aperture calibration. Such extended area blackbodies have been recently developed and characterized by VNIIOFI and Vega International, Inc. Target technical specifications for the low temperature blackbody include 100 mm full aperture, plus or minus 12 degrees viewing angles, 0.999 effective spectral emissivity in 3 micrometer to 15 micrometer band, 100 K to 450 K temperature range, 50 mK temperature uniformity across aperture and, finally, 30 mK temperature setting/measurement accuracy. Monte Carlo technique and finite element method were employed for computer modeling of temperature distributions and effective emissivities of radiating cavities consisting of V-grooved flat bottom and particularly profiled reflector. The design features and technical specifications of blackbodies, developed for operation in high vacuum conditions in the temperature range from 100 K to 900 K, are presented. Results of investigation confirm applicability of the selected approach, though leaving space for improvement of blackbodies performance. Main directions of further research and development are discussed.


This study aims to investigate whether there are differences in the company's financial performance before and during the Covid-19 Pandemic and to find out the strategies taken by the company to survive during the Covid-19 Pandemic. This research was conducted at food and beverage industry sub-sector manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2018-2020. The results showed that financial performance based on the current ratio had an average growth rate of 0.24 which means the company experienced an increase in liquidity even though it was affected by the pandemic. The average growth based on the debt to equity ratio is 30.22%, where the low ratio indicates that the company's debt is smaller than the amount of its assets. While the growth based on total asset turnover is -0.24, this explains that the assets owned by the company cannot be used to make a profit, which means that the company is currently experiencing difficulties in using all of its assets to generate sales. Based on the return on assets, the average growth is 0.24 this means that the company's management has not been able to use assets to generate maximum income


Following induction of epidural analgesia with 0.375% bupivacaine, 120 healthy parturients were randomly assigned in a double blind fashion to one of eight infusion groups. All received 8ml.h‐1 of0.125% bupivacaine either alone (control group), or with alfentanil at 133, 266 or 400μg.h‐1 (groups A1‐A3) or with diamorphine at 133, 266, 400 or 533μg.h1 (groups D1‐D4). Significantly longer top‐up intervals were achieved with the two highest doses of both alfentanil and diamorphine when compared with bupivacaine alone (p<0.01), making the minimum effective doses 266 μg.h‐1 of alfentanil and 400 ng.h‐1 of diamorphine. Perineal analgesia was better in all the opioid groups compared with the control group (p < 0.05). The intensity of motor block was greater in the control group (p < 0.05). The incidence of pruritus did not differ between groups. The highest dose of diamorphine caused significantly more nausea. No significant neonatal side‐effects were demonstrated.


Abstract:I argue that the late-nineteenth-century dramatic monologue shifted to depict the relationship between multiple societies rather than an individual speaker versus his or her society. The poetic form expanded from depictions of idiosyncratic individuals to global negotiations between communities and the rage and violence that resulted. E. Pauline Johnson's dramatic monologues participated in this shift and, in so doing, challenged Anglo-Canadian audiences to confront their understanding of themselves as a British colony. Johnson's use of poetic tropes from Britain, Canada, and the United States suggested a universality of values between colonizer and colonized that the colonized Indigenous peoples of Canada surpassed the British in upholding these values. Johnson's dramatic monologues invited Anglo-Canadians to join in her rage and created a new conception of what it meant to be Canadian by questioning the foundational assumptions of colonial society.


In the last two decades, hybrid simulation (HS) has been recognized as a very effective testing strategy for simulating the dynamic response of structural systems whose dimensions and complexities exceed the capacity of typical testing facilities. The hybrid model of the overall structure, which combines numerical and physical substructures (NSs and PSs), accurately reproduces the overall dynamic response of the structure with reduced costs and efforts. Nonetheless, the considerable influence of uncertainties on system behavior, which has also led the scientific community to recognize the importance of a stochastic approach to engineering problems, is largely unexplored in hybrid models. In fact, a rational treatment of the uncertainties, for example by means of probability theory and statistics, cannot be addressed rigorously if the traditional HS approach is employed. From this perspective, the present paper explores the possible enhancement of HS for uncertainty-contaminated hybrid models. Owing to obvious limitations, the use of computationally advantageous and non-intrusive solution algorithms is of paramount importance in this endeavor. In particular, the broad class of spectral methods, which appears to be particularly suitable for this purpose, is investigated. First, a benchmark linear case study is introduced with uncertainty in both boundary conditions and input force. Since the order of the polynomial expansions influences the number of HS runs, "optimal" truncations are evaluated by comprehensive numerical simulations. Then, the same study is extended to a slightly nonlinear system. Finally, the proposed approach is validated on a three degree-of-freedom experimental benchmark system PS.


Aiming at the medical images security problem during storage and transmission, the author provides a fragile watermark method to protect it. And this method can be able to achieve integrity detection and accurate tampering localization. This method adopt s image block, chaotic modulation in watermark information and encryption to set password . The watermark information will be embedded to the least significant bits of original medical image's sub - block area. Experimental results show that the algorithm has the following features: ( 1 ) T h e watermarked medical images has high and stable quality . ( 2 )  I t is sensitive to manipulations, and any manipulation of any pixel can be detected . ( 3 ) T he tampering localization can be accurate into 2×2 pixel area . ( 4 ) T he algorithm achieves the blind detection with high security.


An illumination device for illuminating a surgical drape comprises a axial lighting dome a first ring of LEDs in a first color temperature (TK1) and a second ring of LEDs in a second color temperature (TK2) different from the first color temperature and an annular mirror coaxial semi-reflecting facets. collimating optics are provided between each LED ring and the annular mirror semi-reflecting facets. The annular mirror semi-reflective facets mixes the collimated light beams emitted by the two rings of LEDs coupled to the collimator and form a first and a second light beam mixed results (FR1, FR2) collimated having a same temperature intermediate color ( Tkr). An annular mirror plane facets surrounds the annular mirror semi-reflective facets for reflecting the first light beam mixed resulting (FR1) collimated to combine it with the second light beam mixed resulting (FR2) collimated in the surgical field according to a certain overlay configuration in a superposition of plane where there is formed a luminous spot.


The stochastic Landau-Lifshitz-Bloch equation in dimensions 1; 2; and 3 perturbed by pure jump noise is considered in the Marcus canonical form. A proof for existence of a martingale solution is given. The proof uses the Faedo-Galerkin approximation; which is followed by compactness and tightness arguments. This is followed by use of the Jakubowski's version of the Skorohod Theorem. Pathwise uniqueness and the theory of Yamada and Watanabe give the existence of a strong solution for dimensions 1 and 2. A weak convergence method is later used to establish a Wentzell-Freidlin type large deviation principle for the small noise asymptotic of solutions for dimensions 1 and 2.


Latency-Tolerant Distributed Shared Memory For Data-Intensive Applications Jacob Eric Nelson Co-Chairs of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Luis Ceze Computer Science and Engineering Professor Mark Oskin Computer Science and Engineering Grappa is a modern take on software distributed shared memory (DSM) for in-memory dataintensive applications. Grappa enables users to program a cluster as if it were a single, large, non-uniform memory access (NUMA) machine. Performance scales up even for applications that have poor locality and input-dependent load distribution. Grappa addresses deficiencies of previous DSM systems by exploiting application parallelism, trading off latency for throughput. We evaluate Grappa with an in-memory map/reduce framework (10× faster than Spark [117]); a vertex-centric framework inspired by GraphLab (1.33× faster than native GraphLab [68]); and a relational query execution engine (12.5× faster than Shark [39]). All these frameworks required only 60-690 lines of Grappa code.


: X-ray diffraction (XRD) is a widely used experiment in materials science to understand the composition-structure-property relationships of materials for designing and discovering new materials. A key aspect of XRD analysis is that the composition-phase diagram is composed of not only pure phases but also their mixed phases. Hard clustering approach treats the mixed phases as separate independent clusters from their constituent pure phases, hence, resulting in incorrect phase diagrams which complicate the next steps. Here, we present a novel clustering approach of XRD patterns by leveraging a fuzzy clustering technique that can significantly enhance the potential phase mapping and reduce the manual efforts involved in XRD analysis. The proposed approach first generates an initial composition-phase diagram and initial pure phase representations by applying the fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm, followed by hierarchical clustering to accomplish effortless manual merging of similar initial pure phases to generate the final composition-phase diagram. The proposed method is evaluated on the XRD samples from two high-throughput composition-spread experiments of Co-Ni-Ta and Co-Ti-Ta ternary alloy systems. Our results demonstrate significant improvement compared to hard clustering and almost completely eliminate manual efforts.


Once the supply voltage of a power supply network exceeds a maximum limit, occur in conventional inverters unacceptably high currents, which can lead to the destruction of the inverter. The inventive circuit arrangement for performing the method according to the invention enables the operation of an inverter at an arbitrary supply voltage within wide limits. According to the invention the intermediate circuit direct voltage of the inverter is always regulated so that it is above the peak value of the rectified supply voltage U¶N¶ to avoid inadmissibly high currents. For this, the peak of the rectified supply voltage is determined and compared to the intermediate circuit voltage. If the intermediate circuit voltage lower than the peak value of the rectified supply voltage, the intermediate circuit voltage is raised above the originally set target value addition. This prevents that the free-wheeling diodes are rendered conductive to impermissible time points and cause a too large current.


This thesis, as a case study, focuses on the perspective of foreign news reports on Taiwan's first time hosting an international multi-sport event, the World Games 2009 in its biggest port city Kao ...


Background
Breastfeeding has many important health benefits for the woman and her baby. Despite evidence of benefit from a large number of well conducted studies, breastfeeding uptake and the duration of exclusive breastfeeding remain low in many countries. In order to improve breastfeeding rates, policy and guidelines at global, individual country level and in local healthcare settings have recommended that structured programmes to support breastfeeding should be introduced. The objective of this review was to consider the evidence of outcomes of structured compared with non-structured breastfeeding programmes in acute maternity care settings to support initiation and duration of exclusive breastfeeding.

Review methods
The definition of structured programme used included a multi-faceted or single intervention approach to support breastfeeding; definition of non-structured included support offered within standard care. The review considered quantitative and qualitative studies which addressed outcomes following the introduction of a structured programme in acute healthcare settings to support breastfeeding compared with no programme. The primary outcomes of interest were uptake of breastfeeding and duration of exclusive breastfeeding (only breast milk, including milk expressed). Studies which only considered community based interventions were not included.

Search strategy
A search of the literature published between 1992 and 2010 was conducted, which followed a four step process. After a limited search of MEDLINE and CINAHL to identify key words contained in the title or abstract and index terms to describe relevant interventions, a second extensive search was undertaken using identified key words and index terms. The third step included a search of reference lists and bibliographies of relevant articles and the fourth step included a search of grey and unpublished literature and national databases

Methodological quality
Methodological quality was assessed using checklists developed by the Joanna Briggs Institute. Two independent reviewers conducted critical appraisal and data extraction.

Results
Twenty-six articles were included; one randomised controlled trial, two non randomised trials, one cross-sectional study, five systematic reviews, 15 cohort studies and two descriptive studies. Due to the poor quality of evidence presented and clinical and methodological heterogeneity of study designs, including definitions of breastfeeding and duration of follow-up, it was not possible to combine studies or individual outcomes in meta-analyses, therefore findings are presented in a narrative form. In most studies the structured programme of interest reflected some or all of the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative 'Ten Steps'. Most studies found a statistically significant improvement in initiation of breastfeeding following introduction of a structured breastfeeding programme, although effect sizes varied widely.

The impact of introducing a structured programme on the duration of exclusive breastfeeding and duration of any breastfeeding was also evident, although not all studies found statistically significant differences. At hospital discharge or within the first week post-birth, implementation of a structured programme appeared to increase duration of exclusive breastfeeding and the duration of any breastfeeding compared with usual care. After hospital discharge and up to six months post-birth, use of structured programmes also appeared to support continued duration of exclusive and any breastfeeding although differences in outcomes were not reported across all included studies. At six months, three of five studies which included data on longer-term outcomes showed women were statistically significantly more likely to be exclusively breastfeeding. Only one of these studies compared outcomes following implementation of BFHI.

Conclusions
Despite the poor overall quality of studies, structured programmes, regardless of content, compared with standard care appear to influence the uptake and duration of exclusive breastfeeding and any breastfeeding. In healthcare settings with low breastfeeding uptake and duration rates, structured programmes may have a greater benefit. TRUNCATED AT 600 WORDS


The invention discloses a preparation method and application of a high-sulfonation-degree lignosulfonate containing alkyl sulfonic acid. The preparation method comprises the following steps: dissolving industrial lignin or lignosulfonate in water or an organic solvent-water mixed solution, adding an alkali substance, regulating the pH value to 9-14, and dropwisely adding an alkyl sulfonic acid sulfonating agent; and carrying out sulfonation reaction under normal pressure under the heating condition of room temperature to 100 DEG C for 0.5-24 hours, and purifying to obtain the lignosulfonate product. The preparation method uses the papermaking waste liquid byproduct industrial lignin or lignosulfonate as the main raw material, so the raw material source is abundant. Compared with the traditional lignin sulfonation reaction, the technique disclosed by the invention performs the sulfonation reaction by using the alkyl sulfonic acid sulfonating agent under normal pressure directly through the lignin phenolic hydroxyl group site and alcoholic hydroxtyl group, and thus, is easy to operate; and the prepared high-sulfonation-degree lignosulfonate has the advantages of favorable water solubility, high sulfonation degree (higher than 3 mmol/g) and excellent dispersibility.


In this paper, the relationship between the frequency and time domain windows is discussed and an approach is introduced which allows the response to an infinite excitation (charging) process to be derived from the measurement of the response to a fixed period of excitation. As an example, the measurement of absorption currents and their transformation to the frequency domain are discussed using a polyethersulphone (PES) thin film sample.


Objective To examine the association between baseline hemoglobin values and major adverse cardiovascular events through 30 days in the patients with acute myocardial infarction.Methods Two hundred ninety-four patients with acute myocardial syndrome were divided into 6 groups according to the hemoglobin.The association was studied between anemia and cardiovascular events by a multivariate analysis of clinical parameters.Results[WTBZ] The cardiac fatalities were 15.62%,9.52%,5.88% and 5.26% in group A,B,C and F respectively,which were obviously higher than those in group D and E(1.85% and 1.72%)(P0.01).The incidences of heart failure were 12.5%,7.14%,7.84% and 5.26% in group A,B,C and F,which were higher than those in group D and E(1.85% and 1.72%)(P0.01).The angina aggravation rate were 15.62%,14.28%,7.84% and 5.26% in group A,B,C and F,which were higher than those in group D and E(3.70% and 3.44%)(P0.01).The multivariate analysis showed that anemia was an independent predictor of cardiac events.Conclusion Anemia is a power and independent predictor of cardiovascular events in the patients with acute coronary syndrome.


In 2003, in Salonica, Balkan countries were told that "their future lies in the EU". The Berlin process in 2014 provided a framework for a period of four years. In 2017, President Juncker, speaking of all non-EU Balkan countries except Turkey, estimated the first accessions would potentially take place in 2025! The Berlin process seeks to restore stability in the Balkans by leading to reconciliation. It includes new fact-finding commissions to establish the real facts in order to restore friendly relations, efforts to build economic links in transport and communication and new roads, establishment of a Western Balkan Common Market as a new partner for the EU, EFTA, and the EEA, and a new partnership among its member countries. The European Council will meet the Balkan heads of state in Sofia, Bulgaria, in April 2018. Without stability in the Balkans, there cannot be a stable Europe. In this paper we look at how to keep the Berlin process open and successful, possibly to accelerate it, and how to overcome current challenges. Notably, we look at the "deterioration of democratic standards" in some countries, which will have to be stopped and reversed. The conclusions support positive decision-making outcomes at all levels.


A location-aware iPhone application presenting music in Roman churches was designed using paper prototyping. To enable navigation in busy city, a sequence of three basic kinds of screens was devised, corresponding to city, neighborhood, and actual location. We found sound works better than images, but are still searching for a good solution for hyperlinks.


BRUCELLOSIS in humans has a world-wide distribution. It is mainly a disease of adults, though children are affected not infrequently. Excellent progress in its eradication has been accomplished in the Scandinavian countries, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom and other countries, but strong endemic foci still exist in the Nleditcrraiieaii area. Latin America. Asia and Africa. The important aspects of Brucellosis as a world problem are its public health significance and the economic loss it brings to the animal industry. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization have collaborated for many years in the study of Brucellosis. There are F:~O/~1'H~ Brucellosis centers in some 15 different countries. With the


Raves are exclusive, private parties, usually held in the late evening at undisclosed locations, where people, referred to as ravers, come together to experience sensory art, dance, and music. Ravers can also use Club Drugs, such as speed, Special K and ecstasy. The accessibility of drugs is regarded as safe among the rave community because of the understanding between participants to use them responsibly for heightened perception. However, inexperienced ravers may not follow the same code, and drug use leads them to risky behaviors and potential overdose. Many of the drugs are illegal and may be mislabeled, which can cause adverse reactions and death. DanceSafe and the Toronto Raver Information Project were formed by ravers to address safety perception problems with these parties. The groups distribute factual information on drugs and risks for contracting HIV through unprotected sex, and also dispense condoms. Additionally, the DanceSafe booth provides sober volunteers who can assist and counsel ravers who are having trouble during the party and beyond. The intention of these groups is for harm reduction and support for ravers by ravers who present no threat or bias.


Floods occur almost every year in a number of areas in the floodplain of Kali Welang. The floods have caused loss of materials and lives. Assessment of the vulnerability is essential for policy making in non-structural treatment of floods.  The objective of this paper is to compute and elaborate the flood vulnerability index in local scale to assess conditions that affect the magnitude of flood hazards.  This study identifies and evaluates the Flood Vulnerability Index (FVI) of an area by considering the factors of area's exposure to floods, flood susceptibility, and flood resilience. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to formulate the weights of each component. The values of the components were collected from interviews with policy makers from relevant governmental agencies. The inputs for the AHP were collected from the respondents in a questionnaire survey. This study selected 18 relevant indicators. The FVI results show very high vulnerability in local scale in one village and high vulnerability in other six villages. The results of this study can be used to construct non-structural strategies in flood mitigation by enhancing community's resilience toward the flood. In addition, the results can be used for policy making process in spatial urban planning.


Decorative symbol is a kind of visual language and the epitome of cultural heritage, which tends to become the national, ethnic and regional representative symbol. Traditional decorative symbols not only bear the basic functions of the design elements, but also inherit the historical culture. In modern decoration, the traditional symbol is used directly or indirectly, with the intimacy and the differences of national traditional culture and newly-built visual changes caused by modern technology and new materials. The traditional decorative symbol, with its uniqueness and national feature, enters into the broader international market, being used by contemporary building decoration.


Abstract This work presents the results of the empirical study conducted on internal audit (IA) functions in the Federal Government of Canada (after this Federal Government) to measure generalized audit software (GAS) use practices. The study empirically gauged the function maturity of the Federal Government Internal Audit. It sought to provide information on the current state and usage of GAS and the future needs of audit functions across the federal government. The current maturity assessment (2022) is phase two; phase one (2017) was completed five years ago. This work enables us to see if progress has been made in data analytics and provides valuable information on where to focus efforts to achieve best practices. People, processes and technology form the foundation of effective internal auditing. It is essential to continue assessing progress in these areas. This paper focuses on these three aspects, which contribute equally to the overall assessment of the maturity of GAS use by internal auditors in the Federal Government. The comparison drawn from the empirical findings indicates that there has not been significant progress in any area or overall maturity levels since the initial study in 2017. A comprehensive discussion of the results leads to policy recommendations for shaping the maturity-level assessment of future GAS use. At the same time, by considering Canada as an advanced country case study, the research aims to provide a lessons-learned experience from an organizational learning perspective for other countries and organizations while contributing to decision-making processes.


Family sources of stress and conflict are important variables in the well-being of children, adolescents, and young adults. In this study, current models of stress are contrasted with earlier versions, definitions are reviewed, and ambiguities in conceptualization are brought out. Current research on affective information processing is thought to hold considerable promise for understanding the links between cognitions and emotions in families experiencing conflict. A comprehensive model is suggested that attempts to explain the importance of constructs such as family functioning and coping for appraisals of parental conflict and subsequent emotional response. The model tested includes several constructs thought to measure family conflict experiences. Specifically, this study explores the potential role of family functioning, coping resources, and attitudes about mood in influencing cognitive appraisals of family conflict and subsequent emotional responses among college students (N.609). A rationale for the inclusion of these constructs is provided, and additional measures are described. Results are reported and discussed. Further modeling strategies are described, and the resulting model is discussed. (Contains 2 figures, 3 tables, and 105 references.) (EMK) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ********************************************************************************


The purpose of this paper is to deals with the problem of regional boundary asymptotic gradient full order observer (-observer) concept by using internal regional case. Thus, we study the relation between this notion and the corresponding asymptotic detectability and sensors. More precisely, various important results have been examined and explored concern an extension of an approach which enables to  reconstruct the gradient of current state from internal region. In addition, it has been shown that the characterization of -observability under which conditions  to be achieved.  Finally, we have illustrate that there is a dynamical system which does not represent the observer in the usual sense, but it could be interpreted as a -observer.


The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is developing requirements for disinfection of groundwater-based drinking water systems. The Ground Water Disinfection Rule regulatory workgroup, made up of representatives from USEPA, states, utilities, and other interested parties, recognizes that most drinking water systems using true groundwater supplies are substantially different from those using surface water. These differences have as much to do with the systems' relative sizes and economic circumstances as with the source water and types and degree of treatment currently in place. This article discusses the context, issues, status, and directions of this rule.


This article offers a practical approach to demonstrating the pitfalls of broker‐dealers not preparing written supervisory procedures. By showing examples of legal complications that can arise, as well as outlining the current regulatory directives in favor of written procedures, the author emphasizes that written supervisory procedures cannot be treated lightly or as a back‐burner issue.


In the proposed publication, we present a geometric method for solving a boundary value problem for a nonstationary heat equation. The equivalence of the geometric solution to an explicit difference method is shown with the corresponding initial parameters. There are considered the first and second boundary value problems. The physical interpretation of the method is based on local balance.


PURPOSE: To minimize disturbances onto/from a conventional television signal by allocating a frequency of a subcarrier of a frequency multiplex signal most suitably used for a broadcast system, using a conventional television signal to a frequency band at which the disturbance onto/from the conventional television signal is minimized. CONSTITUTION: A method and device is provided such that a television source signal having a 1st frequency band width is coded into a frequency multiplex television signal, having a plurality of subcarriers modulated by digital information each having frequency band narrower than that 1st frequency band. Each subcarrier has an amplitude, a band width and a coding characteristic reflecting the relative importance of the digital information provided and a receiver is provided, which decodes the frequency multiplex signal and provides high definition display. COPYRIGHT: (C)1992,JPO


This paper addresses the problem of enabling inter-machine ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) in 5th generation (5G) NR Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) networks. In particular, we consider a common Standalone Non-Public Network (SNPN) architecture proposed by the 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA), and formalize a full-stack end-to-end (E2E) latency analysis where semi-persistent uplink scheduling is considered in detail and compared with a baseline grant-based approach. Through simulations, we demonstrate that semi-persistent scheduling outperforms the baseline scheme and provides an E2E latency below 1 ms, thereby representing a desirable solution to allocate resources for URLLC. Notably, we provide numerical guidelines for dimensioning 3GPP-compliant IIoT networks for both periodic and aperiodic traffic applications, and as a function of the number of machines in the factory and of the offered traffic.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text Objective: This study aims to verify the utility of international online datasets to benchmark and monitor treatment and outcomes in major oncologic procedures. Background: The Esophageal Complication Consensus Group (ECCG) has standardized the reporting of complications after esophagectomy within the web-based Esodata.org database. This study will utilize the Esodata dataset to update contemporary outcomes and to monitor trends in practice in an era of rapid technical change. Methods: This observational study, based on a prospectively developed specific database, updates esophagectomy outcomes collected between 2015 and 2018. Evolution in patient and operative demographics, treatment, complications, and quality outcome measures were compared between patients undergoing surgery in 2015 to 2016 and 2017 to 2018. Results: Between 2015 and 2018, 6022 esophagectomies from 39 centers were entered into Esodata. Most patients were male (78.3%) with median age 63. Patients having minimally invasive esophagectomy constituted 3177 (52.8%), a chest anastomosis 3838 (63.7%), neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy 2834 (48.7%), and R0 resections 5441 (93.5%). For quality measures, 30- and 90-day mortality was 2.0% and 4.5%, readmissions 9.7%, transfusions 12%, escalation in care 22.1%, and discharge home 89.4%. Trends in quality measures between 2015 and 2016 (2407 patients) and 2017 and 2018 (3318 patients) demonstrated significant (P < 0.05) improvements in readmissions 11.1% to 8.5%, blood transfusions 14.3% to 10.2%, and escalation in care from 24.5% to 20% A significantly (P < 0.05) reduced incidence in pneumonia (15.3%–12.8%) and renal failure (1.0%–0.4%) was observed. Anastomotic leak rates increased from 11.7% to 13.1%, whereas leaks requiring surgery decreased 3.3% and 3.0%, respectively. Conclusions: The Esodata database provides a valuable resource for assessing contemporary international outcomes. This study highlights an increased application of minimally invasive approaches, a high percentage of complications, improvements in pneumonia and key quality metrics, but with anastomotic leak rates still >10%.


This paper surveys three methods for testing the weak form of market efficiency: the autocorrelation coefficient, the variance ratio, and the lead-on-the-lag regression. All of them have different strengths and limitations, so they provide complementary insights about market efficiency. The three methods are applied to a sample of eleven countries plus the world stock index. The results reveal the appearance of market anomalies in capital markets, specifically overreaction and mean reversion, with differences in timing and duration. These differences could be due to cross-country differences in investment horizons among investors.


Discusses the twofold purpose of this study, first to introduce a number of measures devised to be used in comparing and evaluating two schedules for the same project, second to present and evaluate a heuristic procedure developed in this research for solving the resource constrained project scheduling problem. Posits that the new procedure is based on the notion that a project can be partitioned into a number of sections and there is no obligation to use a single policy all the way through all the sections of project. Shows that this research is also an attempt to bridge the gap between the theory and practice by eliminating the question of which priority rule to use for which project. Develops a new model showing that selecting from a number of priority rules is not required and, using the measures of performance introduced, decides on a suitable schedule from the schedules produced under varied assumptions is shown to be much easier. Concludes with suggestions for further research.


The generation of thermal neutron flux contours from a criticality event is demonstrated for an idealized building with a criticality event in one of the rooms. The MCNP Monte Carlo computer code is used to calculate the thermal neutron flux.


This paper introduces the features and functions of touching screen and its application in 200t automatic hydraulic press machine of tile.


Currently, contents generated by SNS services are increasing exponentially, as the number of SNS users increase. The SNS is commonly used to post personal status and individual interests. Also, the SNS is applied in socialization, entertainment, product marketing, news sharing, and single person journalism. As SNS services became available on smart phones, the users of SNS services can generate and spread the social issues and controversies faster than the traditional media. The existing indexing methods for web contents have limitation in terms of real-time indexing for SNS contents, as they usually focus on diversity and accuracy of indexing. To overcome this problem, there are real-time indexing techniques based on RDBMSs. However, these techniques suffer from complex indexing procedures and reduced indexing targets. In this regard, we introduce the TK-Indexing method to improve the previous indexing techniques. Our method indexes the generation time of SNS contents and keywords by way of NoSQL to indexing SNS contents in real-time.


Due to its excellent properties 3Y-TZP ceramic is a suitable material for various applications, including dental materials for implants or crowns. One of the advantages of this material is its non-metallic nature, which is important for patients allergic to metals, including titanium [1]. However, the long-term surface stability of this material in a humid environment is still a matter of concern and may limit its application [2]. Additionally, the oral environment is very diverse and the surface of dental materials is exposed to different pH ranges, which could be highly acidic because of consumption of food and beverages, and conditions associated with reflux of gastric fluid [3]. Apart from the change of pH, substantial temperature fluctuations occur in the oral cavity. The aim of this work was to study the long-term corrosion behavior of commercial and non-commercial 3Y-TZP ceramics in acidic environment and the influence of the loss of ions stabilizing tetragonal zirconia on tetragonal-to-monoclinic phase transformation of zirconia. This work also attempts to answer the question whether acid-related corrosion is a process, which is, by its nature and mechanism, different from low-temperature degradation (LTD). In addition, the influence of the loss of tetragonal zirconia stabilizing ions (Y 3+ ) on sensitivity of studied materials to LTD was also studied. Two commercial materials were tested: zirconia-based dental materials stabilized in their tetragonal form by addition of yttrium (3Y-TZP) – IVOCLAR IPS e.max ® ZirCAD and DOCERAM Nacera ® . In addition, non-commercial 3Y-TZP ceramics


The expression of intercellular adhesion molecule‐1 (ICAM‐1) in mouse B16 and human melanoma cell lines was investigated by indirect immunofluorescence using a FACScan analyzer. Mouse B16 melanoma cell lines (B16‐F1 and F10) did not express ICAM‐1 under ordinary culture conditions. Neither in vitro hyperthermia at 41°C for 3 or 6 hr nor cytokines such as γ interferon (IFN‐γ) or tumor necrosis factor α (TNF‐α) induced ICAM‐1 expression in B16 melanoma cell lines. A combination of IFN‐γ with TNF‐α caused slight induction of ICAM‐1 expression in the B16‐F10 melanoma cell line. Hyperthermia at 41°C for 3 hr in combination with the cytokines induced a slight expression of ICAM‐1 in the B16‐F1 melanoma cell line. Hyperthermia at 41°C for 3 hr or 6 hr did not induce de novo ICAM‐1 expression but hyperthermia at 43°C for 6 hr caused rather suppression of the expression of ICAM‐1 in the three human melanoma cell lines tested. In contrast, they showed a clear increase in the expression of ICAM‐1 after treatment with either with IFN‐γ or TNF‐α, and the expression was further augmented by a combination of the two cytokines. Treatment with cytokines in combination with hyperthermia at 41°C or 43°C for 3 hr did not augment the expression of ICAM‐1 over that in cytokine‐treated human melanoma cell lines, at normal temperatures. Thus, it is concluded that mouse B16‐F1 and F10 melanoma cell lines are different from human melanoma cell lines in terms of induction of ICAM‐1 expression by cytokines and/or hyperthermia.


Abstract This research study was conducted to assess the impact of the World Wide Web as an educational instrument, promotional tool, and entertainment venue on college students. The results reflect a significant difference within gender, class, and major. Most notably, the results indicate that the acquisition of information (be it educational or promotional) represents the most important aspect of student web activity. Knowledge of this result should help quell some of the negative concerns of educators, provide additional fuel for promotional strategists, and also should serve to highlight the potential benefits to be derived by both parties from their pursuit of joint ventures.


In Wireless Sensor Networks, the base station is generally the only unconditionally trusted entity. If it is not connected for a period of time, the network is left unattended and sensor nodes cannot offload data in real time. Thus, until the base station becomes available, adversaries can compromise some sensor nodes and selectively destroy data. In order to prevent such attacks, providing the so-called "data survival", some strategies can be employed. In this paper, we propose a new strategy based on the concept of secure multi-party protocols. The main advantages of the proposed strategy are not limited to the security, since it (1) preserves privacy, (2) enables the use o data aggregation, (3) enforces a level of trust among nodes, which collaborate to compute functions. Additionally, we implement and evaluate the proposed solution using a real sensor platform. Results show the low cost of the scheme in terms of energy consumption and processing time.


Resource allocation is one of the most important research topics in servers. In the cloud environment, there are massive hardware resources of different kinds, and many kinds of services are usually run on virtual machines of the cloud server. In addition, cloud environment is commercialized, and economical factor should also be considered. In order to deal with commercialization and virtualization of cloud environment, we proposed a user utility oriented queuing model for task scheduling. Firstly, we modeled task scheduling in cloud environment as an M/M/1 queuing system. Secondly, we classified the utility into time utility and cost utility and built a linear programming model to maximize total utility for both of them. Finally, we proposed a utility oriented algorithm to maximize the total utility. Massive experiments validate the effectiveness of our proposed model.


A series of Ti-HMS samples with different Ti amounts were prepared by a grafting method using organometallic titanocene dichloride as the Ti source and HMS as the support. The template of HMS was removed by calcination at 600 ℃ or by ethanol-extraction followed by calcination at 400 ℃. The Ti-HMS samples were characterized by thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis, powder X-ray diffraction, N_2 adsorption-desorption isotherm, diffuse reflectance UV-visible spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The catalytic performance of the Ti-HMS samples for oxidation of 4-tert-butyltoluene with aqueous H_2O_2 was tested under the mild conditions. Pretreatment of HMS by ethanol-extraction followed by low temperature calcination made OH groups available for grafting. The isolated framework Ti(Ⅳ) decreased with the increase in Ti loading. The four-coordinated Ti state displayed catalytic activity for oxidation of 4-tert-butyltoluene. Non-framework Ti species were responsible for low catalytic activity. A conversion of 4-tert-butyltoluene up to 9.3% and a complete selectivity for 4-tert-butylbenzaldehyde were achieved.


This article puts critical realism in conversation with the classical Aristotelian concept of the common good. This concept plays an essential explanatory role in Aristotelian thought, not only a normative one, and so it has something to offer critical realism, which in turn can provide a sound metatheory for common good reflection. It is argued that accounts of emergence based on causal powers and common purpose are compatible and mutually enlightening. Critical realism can develop a distinctive conception of common good based around ontological stratification and social teleology. In this conception, empirical social enquiry is essential for understanding what common goods are available in given social settings, since common goods flow from the intransitive real features of social entities, especially their causal powers.


The present invention discloses a drainage system shallow slope, the slope (6) underlying platform with drains (4), on the slope (6) densely arranged in a plurality of rows multiple rows of drainage bore distance (1), between the drainage bore (1) 2 ~ 3m, and the depth of 3 ~ 4m, elevation angle of 0 ~ 10 °, equipped with drainage bore (1) each of said drainage slope, the slope (6) is arranged with a longitudinal gully micro drain outlet of each of said abutment (2) and / or transverse micro gullies (3), the micro longitudinal gully (2) and / or transverse micro gullies (3) of the gutter (4) communication. The present invention is a fast and efficient discharging Infiltration shallow slope to the slope of the ground drainage system shallow soil body.


Hyper One or more embodiments of the present invention, provides access from the lock screen presented by private environment of the mobile device to the working environment in the portable device, the work environment is running in a private environment runs in a virtual machine that is supported by the visor, private environment is a mobile device of a host operating system (OS). In response to the lock screen is presented on the mobile device of the user interface (UI), you receive a confirmation authentication information the host OS from the user, to determine whether this is a valid confirmation authentication information to the private environment or work environment . If confirmed authentication information is valid for private environment, it is authorized to access only the private environment. If confirmed authentication information is valid with respect to the work environment, given the right to access both the private environment and working environment.


The results of investigation into the metal–nonmetal interface during the formation of electrocontact rods by means of the effect of the high-strength pulsed magnetic field on the melt are presented. It is shown that the proposed magnetic-pulsed technology makes it possible to considerably lower the transient electric resistance between electrocontact rods and anode block of the electrolyzer due to an increase in contact density.


Anuj Mittal is a PhD Candidate in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Iowa State University. His research interests include agent-based modeling and discrete-event simulation and their applications in sustainable sociotechnical systems. He is currently a NSF-Trinect Engineering Fellow, and is working with cooperating teachers and student teachers at Des Moines Public Schools to help improve STEM education in an elementary school classroom. He is actively involved in developing and deploying several Industrial Engineering outreach activities with the K-12 community at Iowa State University. He obtained his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Delhi, India and a M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Iowa State University. He has worked as an engineer for Whirlpool Corporation, Amana and Doosan Power Systems India.


Electronic system for operating an electromechanical parking brake for a vehicle has at least two control units connected to said input unit for evaluating the at least one input unit and also the parking brake request of the driver to be transmitted for detecting a parking brake request of the driver It includes. And the control unit are at least, connected to the at least one actuator for actuating the parking brake in order to control the single actuator. The system also includes an energy supply for supplying to said input unit and the control unit of the at least one actuator. In a case where a single fault has occurred from the set of fault conditions possible in the system, at least one actuator and at least one control unit, receiving supply of energy and / or control signals, when the parking brake request, the corresponding driver is present, the vehicle so as to be fixed in a parking position, it controls the at least one actuator is at least one control unit with the supply of the feed.


The boundary element method comprises three distinct phases: set-up, equation solution and recovery of internal values. All three phases are suitable for domain decomposition, there being an inherent parallelism in the method which offers a straightforward data decomposition, ideally suited for an SPMD environment. Also, there are two approaches to the set-up phase viz collocation and Galerkin. Both approaches are considered and implementations on a PC cluster, transputer network and on an nCUBE sixty-four processor hypercube are described and compared.


Introduction: Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration involves loss of disc matrix leading to instability and pain. Autologous cells are the ideal choice for bioengineering a new IVD, but removal of cells from the IVD is problematic. Our aim was to direct mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) down a chondrocytic lineage to mimic disc chondrocyte phenotype. Methods: MSCs were either maintained in monolayer, pelleted into micromass aggregates or transferred to alginate beads. Pellet cultures were used in immunohis-tochemistry for type II collagen and aggrecan and in situ hybridisation for SOX-9 mRNA. Monolayer and alginate cells were cultured in the presence or absence of chondrogenic medium for 4 and 11 days. Monolayer cultured MSCs were also transfected with a SOX-9 adenovirus and cultured in the presence or absence of TGF-_1. Realtime quantitative PCR was used to analyse expression of chondrocyte markers. Results: IHC showed increased expression of type II collagen and aggrecan in pellet cultures, while ISH showed that SOX-9 was not expressed by monolayer MSCs, but increased after pelleting. Realtime PCR using alginate-cultured MSCs showed down regulation of type I collagen mRNA expression and up-regulation of SOX-9 that was increased by chondrocgenic medium. SOX-9 transduced monolayer MSCs showed increased type II collagen, aggrecan, SOX-6 and SOX-9 mRNA over controls, while type I collagen levels showed no significant change. Stimulation of transfected MSCs with TGF-_1 showed similar increases in chondrocyte genes. Discussion & conclusions: Adult human MSCs were induced to differentiate along a chondrocytic phenotype, which was mediated by culture conditions. Alginate and pellet culture produce a cell that has more chondrogenic characteristics than monolayer cells. SOX-9 transduced monolayer MSCs appeared to produce a more chondrocytic phenotype which was modulated by TGF-_1. Results suggest SOX-9 transfected monolayer MSCs may be used as a source of chondrocytes for repair of degenerate IVD.


An expert system has been developed for optimum design of reinforced concrete members, called EXFORM. Optimization at the conceptual design phase has so far been based on informal methods i.e the knowledge of the designer gained through past experience. In this paper a formal method has been proposed for cost optimization of reinforced concrete structures. An appropriate cost function has been derived to estimate optimum percentage of steel. EXFORM makes use of this cost function along with heuristic knowledge of the designer.


Aim:To synthesize and characterize a series of imidazo[1, 2-a]pyrimidine derivatives,and to evaluate their anti-inflammatory activities.Methods:Based on the analysis of the structure of imidazo[1, 2-a]pyrimidine,a series of compounds(5a-5o) substituted adjacently with two aryls at positions 2 and 3 were designed and synthesized.Their anti-inflammatory activities were evaluated by means of xylene-induced ear swelling in mice.Results:Their structures were confirmed by 1H NMR,IR,MS and elemental analysis.It was found that most of the synthesized compounds possessed the anti-inflammatory activity,of which compound 5d,5f and 5l showed the most potent activity.Conclusion:Imidazopyrimidine compounds keep moderate anti-inflammatory activities as compared with that of ibuprofen.


This article outlines how public works officials, engineers, and environmental scientists can reduce costs and improve public relations on a municipal project. A proactive approach to citizen involvement includes several important initiatives designed to answer the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a proposed project. The following is a list of useful activities: posting/sending activity flyers to announce predesign tasks, sending personal letters to invite citizens to neighborhood meetings, holding neighborhood meetings, designing with citizen comments in mind, obtaining easement contacts, holding preconstruction neighborhood meetings, sending monthly newsletters, and maintaining onsite project representatives. Actively involving citizens in the design process and keeping them informed during construction allows them to feel as if they played a part in the completion of the project. By actively soliciting citizen comments, design changes can be made prior to the bid period, reducing expensive change orders and saving time.


The cell cycle of mesencephalic ventricular cells was studied by means of tritiated thymidine radioautography during normal and abnormal development in the looptail (Lp ) mutant mouse. The total generation time, DNA-synthetic (S), premitotic (G2), mitotic (M), and postmitotic (G1) periods were compared in looptail homozygotes (Lp/Lp ) which exhibit neural dysraphism and in their normal littermates (+ / +) at 10 and 11 days ' gestation. Both normal and abnormal embryos showed a chronological lengthening of the generation time between the 10th and 11th day. However, the generation time in the 10-day abnormal brains was 4·5 h longer than that in normal littermates, and the difference was the result of an increase mainly in the M and G1 periods. At 11 days of gestation the generation time in the abnormal brains increased by 50 h over that of the normal brains. Since the cell cycle was actually prolonged in the defective brains, the increased numbers of mitotic figures which characterize the looptail homozygote brain during early development appear to reflect the lengthening of the mitotic period rather than increased proliferation.


Dear Sir, As you inform me that you are drawing up an account of your magnetical experiments, I send you a brief account of those which I have made: they may possibly bear upon some of the points which you have had under consideration ; and in this case you will not be displeased at being able to compare independent results. After having made experiments with a thin copper disk suspended over a horse-shoe magnet, similar to those which I witnessed at Mr. Babbage's, I made the following.


To avoid the interference of two missiles at the launch and flight processes,the launchtime coordination for ship-borne common-frame vertical-launch missiles was analyzed.Based on the initial motion feature of the vertical-launch missile,the time-variable trajectory distribution model was established in view of the trajectory dispersion-errors during vertical ascent phase and procedure turn phase.By introducing the distance-margin,the potential conflict of two missiles' trajectory pipes of different launch time was detected,and the launch interval was obtained.The simulation result shows that time-consuming of the whole process is confined within 100 milliseconds,and it can meet the requirements of combat.


With the continuous development of self-analytic hierarchy process (AHP), many scholars have made extensive research on the method of solving the weight vector of interval number judgment matrix. With the development of science and technology, agricultural machinery has gradually become intelligent, economical, precise and large-scale. As an advanced technology of agricultural information, agricultural Internet of Things can play a technical support role in the development of agricultural machinery. The future development of agricultural Internet of Things focuses on: agricultural Internet of Things information sensing and identification technology, agricultural Internet of Things self-organizing network deployment and information transmission technology. Agricultural Internet of Things self-organizing network deployment and information transmission technology, agricultural Internet of Things security supervision and service quality assurance technology. This paper proposes a simple and effective method to obtain the preference information of decision makers, so that each column contains the overall decision information and prove the feasibility of this method. Regardless of whether the interval number reciprocal judgment matrix is consistent, the corresponding interval weight vector can be solved according to this method.


Bullying is a complex school phenomenon that involves inalienable social aspects in its explanation and its strategies of dealing with it. It occurs as an effect of other violent mechanisms that cover every social fields and for that reason it needs a focused intervention, regarding the peculiarity of every case, where the consideration of subjectivity should be used as a way of explanation and therapeutics. Accordingly in this text, be emphasized and develop those areas of social and cultural influences, collaborating in setting of violence that serves a prelude to the above expression 1 .


Solid state lasers pumped with diode form a new class of lasers which replace those with lamp pumped lasers presently used. Properties of most often discussed single crystals for diode pumped solid state lasers are presented. YAG crystals doped with Yb and double-doped with Er, Yb and YVO crystals doped with rare earth elements are discussed. Recently promising for laser application seems to be doped tungstate KGd(WO4)2 and KY(WO4)2 crystals. Relatively new group of laser materials are borates, like GdCa4(BO3)3, Ca4YO(BO3)3, YAl(BO3)3 offering laser, self-frequency doubling and nonlinear optical properties. As active laser materials fluorides are discussed e.g. doped LiCaAlF6, LiSrAlF6 crystals. Important group of materials applied in laser technique are materials showing nonlinear absorption, which are used for passive modulation (Q-switch). YAG crystals doped with Cr, V, Co are presented.


To find correctness of the grammatical structure of a natural language sentence, unambiguous parse is the basic requirement. Therefore, Parsing of the source language plays a key role for reliable machine translation. In this paper a language oriented parsing algorithm is presented for Urdu language sentences by initiating tagging only for morphologically closed classes of words like postpositions, conjunctions, verb morphemes, etc. By utilizing linguistics features of these closed classes neighbor words are collected into chunks. The chunks are formed by applying grammar rules in order through ordered context free grammar. Finally, full parsing on chunks is achieved which have much lesser search space. The functional structures are unified throughout the process of chunking and parsing to support the correctness of parsing. It is found that use of closed classes ahead of open classes and chunking process reduces the number of grammar rules and enhances the reliability of final parse.


BACKGROUND: Antenatal education is a process giving health information to pregnant women as a part of antenatal care. Antenatal education influences knowledge and behavior which indirectly give impact to the health of mothers and children. In implementing several antenatal education methods, several countries have experienced some obstacles.

AIM: The present study aimed to explore the implementation and problems of antenatal education in Denpasar Bali.

METHODS: Descriptive qualitative exploration design was used in the study. The respondents were ten midwives in primary health-care clinics and private midwifery clinics in all districts of Denpasar city. The sample was selected using purposive sampling. Data analysis was using thematic approach by QSR Nvivo 12 Plus.

RESULTS: The result of this study found two main themes; those were maternity class method and individual/face to face method. Midwives reported that on maternity class method the delivered information was felt more complete since it was in accordance with curriculum, pregnant women could hare with each other, and they could integrate with other professions. However, its weakness was low participation of pregnant women due to busyness. Meanwhile, face-to-face method had advantages since pregnant women felt free to express their personal problems and midwives could offer solutions for the identified problems during antenatal visits. Nevertheless, it has many disadvantages such as, very limited information was provided, problem with human resource management, time management, and pregnant women visitation management.

CONCLUSION: In conclusion, both of antenatal education methods have advantages and disadvantges. Maternity class method is considered as a better method yet pregnant women participation to the class is relatively low. Face-to-face method is considered not comprehensive in delivering antenatal information as its problem with time management, human resource management, and patient management.


The band structure of a model superlattice, in which the conduction band bottom in the first host semiconductor is located very close to or even below the valence band top in the other host semiconductor, is analyzed as a function of layer thickness and of the conduction band–valence band edge discontinuity. The analysis is carried out in the envelope-function approximation and in Kane's two-band framework. It is shown that with increasing magnitude of the discontinuity (or of layer thickness), the nature of the superlattice changes from a direct gap semiconductor to a direct zero gap semiconductor. Furthermore, it is also shown that in the direct zero energy gap states the valence and conduction bands may touch each other simultaneously over several circumferences in the Brillouin zone of the superlattice.

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This report discusses what it means for the federal government to "negotiate" drug prices under existing public programs, the arguments for and against such activities, and some implications for the pharmaceutical industry, Medicare beneficiaries, and others if similar federal involvement were to occur on behalf of the Medicare Part D program.


This study aimed at investigating the influence of utilizing electrically conductive nanofillers such as graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) and carbon nanotubes (CNT) as secondary fillers on the electrical-mechanical behavior of epoxy/synthetic graphite (epoxy/SG) composites where SG was a microfiller. The composites were prepared by an internal mixer and compression molding and the electrical-mechanical behavior of the composites was characterized by the measurements of the in-plane and through-plane electrical conductivity as well as the flexural strength and modulus. The microstructure of the composites was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that the addition of GNP to epoxy/SG composites in the expense of SG had a negative impact on the electrical conductivity as the GNP content increased up to 10 wt%. Composites containing M-grade GNP with a particle size of 15 μm showed higher in-plane and through-plane conductivity values compared to that having the C-grade GNP with particle size less than 2 μm. The incorporation of CNT to the epoxy/SG/GNP composites had a pronounced improvement to the electrical and flexural properties. The maximum values of in-plane and through-plane conductivity reported were almost equal of about 41 S cm−1 for composites containing a GNP:CNT weight ratio of 4:6. The effect of fillers morphologies and distribution on the behavior of the composites was also investigated.


The Federal Communications Commission recognized as early as 1994 that the rapid adoption of wireless technology in the USA was destined to put additional strain on emergency dispatch and rescue personnel due to the absence of any location information associated with a wireless handset. Previously, the FCC had gone to considerable effort to ensure that all landline phones were associated with an unambiguous street address, so that rescue personnel could be dispatched efficiently during a 911 call. The FCC was compelled by their duties to establish a mandate for the development of "Automatic Location Identification" (ALI) technology by the wireless industry. This paper outlines a system that requires no changes to the wireless network and can provide a wide range of location capabilities, including precise location solutions with GPS. This system was designed for flexibility, and can be used for both commercial location-based services, as well as E911/PSAP solutions.


Recently some funds donated to the Civil and Natural Resources Engineering Dept at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, were used to develop some interactive engineering displays for existing and prospective students. The first exhibit developed was a transportation board display, representing a landscape upon which a new road route was to be determined. The metallic display surface is sub-divided into hexagonal sections, each with a "cost" reflecting the relative difficulty of constructing in that location (e.g. due to mountains, rivers, development, etc). Magnetic straight and curved road elements (each with a value reflecting the costs to road users) can then be placed on the display to create an alignment between the chosen end points. The aim for users of the display is to determine the optimal road alignment, in terms of minimal construction costs, road user costs, or both. Since its creation, the display has been used in various locations, both on campus and at career expos. It has been immensely popular with visitors, many of whom get quite caught up in solving the problems presented. The potential for using this as a classroom tool for maths, science or geography classes at high school has also been identified. This paper outlines the development of the display, its applications to date, and the transportation lessons that it can highlight.


Hereditary transthyretin (ATTRm) amyloidosis is an autosomal-dominant disorder caused by mutations in TTR, characterized by systemic accumulation of amyloid fibrils in various organs and peripheral...


The Jamboree and Logging Show will be held on August 3-5, 2019. There will be a parade, logging show, motorcycle show, car show, heritage engines,… Find OR craft shows, art shows, fairs and festivals


Image-based convolutional neural network(CNN) algorithms are spreading across a variety of applications. In particular, an autonomous vehicle recognizes objects and the surrounding situation using the CNN models. CNN models for image classification are trained using clear image dataset, so they are not robust to grayscale images or noise-intensive data. Therefore, there is a risk of an accident because the quality of the input image drops rapidly during night driving. The region that is revealed by the headlight can have colors, but in the shaded area it has a brightness that is not enough to get color values. We intend to increase the safety of autonomous driving by coloring this region of interest(ROI).


In this paper, a new video description method based on finite element method is proposed. In the method, a finite element mesh is utilized to approximate an original intraframe image, this mesh is also utilized to describe motion between consecutive interframes. By applying the method presented in this paper, drawbacks in the conventional block matching method can be alleviated, and new video coding scheme can be developed.


Surface state change of ammunition generated during the storage period increases the surface roughness and this affects the flight of ammunition, but there are no research results quantitatively indicating this. In this study, the drag force for each Mach number of howitzer shells was calculated through CFD to which the surface data of the howitzer shell was applied, and analysis of trajectory was performed using drag force values as an input of the 4th Runge-Kutta method, and the degree of decrease of the maximum range caused by the surface roughness of the howitzer shell was estimated. As a result, it was confirmed that the maximum range of howitzer shell with high surface roughness was 1.12 % shorter than that of howitzer shell without roughness. It was confirmed that the effect of surface roughness on the trajectory is not negligible.


It is over one year since COVID-19 broke out. The whole world is still struggling against the virulent pandemic COVID-19. It is still difficult to take international travel. Many conferences are held virtually, for the sake of protecting all the participants and conference staff from get infected by the virus. It is uncertain when the COVID-19 will end, so it remains unclear for postponement time, while many scholars and researchers wanted to attend this long-waited conference and have academic exchanges with their peers. Therefore, in order to actively respond the call of the government, and meet author's request, 2021 2nd International Conference on Signal Processing and Computer Science (SPCS 2021), which was planned to be held in Qingdao, China from August 20 to 22, was changed to be held online through Zoom software. This approach not only avoids people gathering, but also meets their communication needs. The SPCS 2021 was organized by AEIC Academic Exchange Information Center. It dedicated to create a platform for academic communications between specialists and scholars in the fields of Signal Processing and Computer Science. The conference created a path to establish a research relation for the authors and listeners with opportunities for collaboration and networking among the universities and institutions for promoting research and developing technologies. The conference brings together about 90 well-known scholars in the field of Signal Processing and Computer Science at home and abroad. The reports were divided into keynote speeches, oral presentations, and poster presentations to share their latest research results and experiences in related research fields. In the first part, each keynote speakers were allocated 30 minutes to present their talks via Zoom. After the keynote talks, all participants joined in a WeChat communication group to discuss more about the talks and presentations. We were greatly honor to have invited seven distinguished experts as our keynote speakers. Prof. Roberto Montemanni, from University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy was the first one to perform a thought-provoking speech: Artificial Intelligence Applications in Logistics. And then we had Assoc. Prof. Lingling An, from Xidian University, China. She presented an insightful speech: Enhancement Mechanism of Cerebellar Neural Network Dynamics. Prof. Xinsong Yang, from Sichuan University, China. He made a wonderful speech: Synchronization And Control for Differential Equations with Discontinuous State on the Right-Hand Sides. Prof. Xinhua Tang, from Southeast University, China. His research topics include GNSS receiver techniques, GNSS/INS integrated navigation system, Multi-source integration systems, Precision agriculture, Autonomous vehicles etc. Prof. Haibin Zhu, from Nipissing University, Canada. He delivered a speech: E-CARGO and Role-Based Collaboration. Assoc. Prof. Marcin Paprzycki, from Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland. His original research interests were in the area of high performance computing / parallel computing / computational mathematics. Over time, they shifted towards intelligent systems, software agents and agent systems, and application of semantic technologies, among others. Our finale keynote speaker, Prof. Hoshang Kolivand, from Liverpool John Moores University, UK was invited to perform a speech: Current and Future of Directions of Augmented and Virtual Reality. Their insightful speeches had triggered heated discussion in the third session of the conference. The WeChat discussion lasted for about 30 minutes. Every participant praised this conference for disseminating useful and insightful knowledge. We are glad to share with you that we received lots of submissions from the conference and we selected a bunch of high-quality papers and compiled them into the proceedings after rigorously reviewed them. These papers feature following topics but are not limited to: Signal Processing, Applications of Signal Processing, Communication and Broadband Networks, Computational Science and other relevant directions. All the papers have been through rigorous review and process to meet the requirements of international publication standard. We would like to thank the organization staff, the members of the program committees and reviewers. They have worked very hard in reviewing papers and making valuable suggestions for the authors to improve their work. We also would like to express our gratitude to the external reviewers, for providing extra help in the review process, and the authors for contributing their research result to the conference. Lastly, we would like to warmly thank all the authors who, with their presentations and papers, generously contributed to the lively exchange of scientific information that is so vital to the endurance of scientific conferences of this kind. Committee of SPCS 2021 List of titles Committee member are available in this Pdf.


The aim of the study is to discover and elucidate the nature of causation. One of the main objectives of the research paper is to show that the knowledge of the Law of Causation has a significant impact on an individual and society. In the first chapter ―The Cement of the Universe: Nature and Role of Causation‖, the paper analyzes causation as a universally valid law which is applicable to the existence of the universe, societies and the life of every human being. The study analyzes the concepts of causation from ancient times till modernity and provides reasons why the Law of Causation can be considered as one of the most fundamental questions to humanity. The paper shows that with help of the science of causation human beings comprehend the objective world extending through space and time as an ordered, systematic and law-governed whole. Discussion on causation provokes a debate central to human thinking: Does causality imply that this universe functions according to strict deterministic laws and there is no space for the freedom of choice or free will? Are causation and free will compatible or mutually exclusive? In the second chapter, the paper analyzes how causation functions at the level of an individual. It deals with the two aspects of Causation: the Laws of Karma and Destiny. It does not only discuss the relation between causation and free will, but also raises a question of moral and social responsibility of an individual. The paper shows that according to the Law of Causation a man is a master, and not a slave, of his destiny. In part three ―The Misconception of Causation: Superstition‖, the paper discusses the consequences of an incorrect correlation of cause and effect on life of an individual and society. With help of statistics and analytical data the study shows that superstitious beliefs which emerge as a result of such an improper correlation of cause and effect impede the progress of a society. The paper shows that the layman's notions of good and bad luck are mere superstitions. The paper provides a solution to the social evil of superstition and analyzes the method by which rational causal thinking can be developed and adopted by individuals, communities and societies. The study concludes by saying that the knowledge of Causation and development of rational causal thinking guarantee the progress and prosperity of a society. I. "THE CEMENT OF THE UNIVERSE" 1 – NATURE AND ROLE OF CAUSATION The law of cause and effect appears to be one of the most fundamental of all the presuppositions accepted by science and ordinary experience. The universe is an expression of innumerable laws of nature: physical, chemical, biological, psychological and many others. Each one of them is based on cause and effect relationship. Causal laws do not only sustain the objective world, but they also express subjectively in the microcosm forming a base of the human intellect and human activity. In the words of German scientist and philosopher Gottfried W. Leibnitz, in this universe ―there is nothing without a reason, or no effect without a cause‖ (Hulswit, 2002). Causation can be defined as a logical relationship between an object or event called ―cause‖ and another object or event called ―effect‖ which is the direct consequence or result of the first. A New Dictionary of Sociology defines causation as follows: ―To say that one event A is the cause of a second event B may be to assert that the prior occurance of an event of a type A is a necessary condition for the occurance of an event of type B; or that it is a sufficient condition for the occurrence of such an event; or that it is both necessary and sufficient. To formulate a causal law is thus always to formulate a connection between two classes of events, and thereby to furnish a recipe for producing events of the second kind by producing events of the first class‖ (Mitchel, 1968, 24). Causes can be classified into various categories. Payne mentions several such categories relevant to social sciences. For instance, proximate causes are those events that immediately precede the effect in time and also have demonstrable copresence. These are often thought the most unproblematic candidates for causation and they are also referred to as ―specific‖ or ―efficient‖ causes. Perpetual causes, on the other hand, refer to enduring traits, regularities, or laws concerning an individual or a social group. Specific physical causes may be 1 Quoted in: J. Mackie: The Cement of the Universe, p. 2. Law of Causation and Consequences of its Misconception DOI: 10.9790/0837-2104044960 www.iosrjournals.org 50 | Page internal or external. Internal (to the individual) physical causes might be molecular or chemical while external (again, to the individual) physical causes may be environmental or the direct prepotent influence of physical forces. Distal causes are more separated from the event by temporal scale. They may be classed into two groups: developmental and evolutionary. Developmental causes concern the history or biography of the singular entity acted upon. For the social sciences, it could be an individual, group, or other collectivity. Evolutionary causes are those that act upon a class of entities, often over a long time scale. For the sociologist, environmental causes involve the manner in which the development of our physical environment shapes events at the mental and socio-cultural levels. Ontogenic causes are those that appeal to events during the biological development of the organism, whereas phylogenic causes locate the focal causative factor in the heredity of the individual. Psychodevelopmental causes are those favored by psychodynamic theorists like Freud, Adler, and Erikson — these concern the lasting effects of an individual's interactions through the life course. Socio-cultural or positional causes are relevant for macrosociology. They refer to ―big structures, large processes, huge comparisons‖ (Payne, ASA 2007). Historical causes remain to take the long view and the macro-social level. They explain events not only in terms of large structures and processes, but also encompass sweeping time-scales. There is often no reference to individuals and their specific characteristics in this restricted sense of historical explanation (Payne, ASA 2007). A cause may not always be a singular event or a stimulus causing a particular reaction. A cause is often a very complex entity or even a plurality of causes which produces a particular reaction under unique circumstances. For instance, what is defined statistically as a natural cause of death could be in reality a variety of environmental, physical and psychological causes. Hence, it would be correct to adopt Joseph Leighton's definition of a cause as ―a condition 2 of a change‖. Payne writes in "Causation, Emergence, Level and the Importance of Theoretical Viewpoint": ―Cause is the generative force. It is productive in that it is responsible for bringing about a new configuration of entities or events (whether that configuration is relatively constructive or destructive of that which came before). Cause asserts that, without this process, the outcome would have been fundamentally otherwise (of course, acknowledging that multiple causation may have resulted in a similar outcome, but through a different path). Identifying causal connections is necessary for generating useful social theories‖ (Payne, ASA 2007). Hence, one could conclude that causation always implies change. In fact, in the empirical world there is incessant change. As Leighton states: ―Wherever there is change there is causality, and wherever there is causality there must be some sort of activity‖ (Leighton, 1922, 203). ―What we happen to single out as causes and effects, from the rich complex of empirical process, are the critically important events from the standpoint of our specific purposes. But the only sense in which causation and change are continuous is that there is no absolute cessation or beginning in the empirical order; and, therefore, this order consists of the continuous interaction or interdependence of the elements which make up the world. (...) Critical points are the results of the gradual accumulation of small changes, but their actual fruition constitute creative syntheses or novelties 3 . The discrete occurrences which we call causes, or effects, according to our point of view, are the critical and creative expressions of the qualitative complexity of interaction and result in a world which is constituted by the interplay of a multitude of dynamic individuals‖ (Leighton, 1922, 203). The Law of causation is based on empirical evidence and scientific observation of nature and society. When an unfailing relationship between cause and effect is discovered, it is expressed as a scientific law of nature. Correlating cause and effect does not mean simply observing one event following another. There must be a necessary logical connection between them. In many cases one thing can occur regularly before another, and thus appear to be related as cause and effect, but are in fact effects of a common cause, a phenomenon called ―spurious causation‖. Causation has a direction. For example, warm weather causes people to wear lighter clothing, but wearing lighter clothing does not cause warm weather. This phenomenon is called ―asymmetry of causation‖. Time sequence is a necessary component of causation. The cause must always come before the effect. Causation seems to stretch indefinitely into the past and future. The cause effect relationship like that between chicken and egg, tree and seed existed in the past, exists in the present and will exist in the future. Causation appears infinite in its expressions. Spinoza observed this fact: ―Every individual, or every thing, that is finite and which has a circumscribed existence, cannot exist nor be determined for action unless it is determined for existence and action by another cause, likewise finite and


Direct-sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems are of interest for wireless access in personal communications systems. Wideband CDMA systems offer potential advantages in capacity and ability to integrate different rate services in wireless access systems. We investigate the receiver design alternatives for wideband CDMA systems in microcellular environments. To implement CDMA systems with a bandwidth larger than 10 MHz, the high chip rate presents a major challenge to achieve a receiver with low complexity and low power consumption. The main objective of this paper is to find ways to minimize the receiver complexity and power consumption without introducing significant performance degradation. We consider the use of a receiver with significantly reduced oversampling for wider bandwidths. Measured channel impulse response estimates are used to estimate the performance of this RAKE receiver. The results indicate that for CDMA systems with bandwidth near 20 MHz, one sample per chip may be adequate for the digital RAKE receiver in the outdoor microcellular environment. Two samples per chip may be enough for the indoor systems and the outdoor 10 MHz system.