Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter explores and defends the consideration requirement in the enforceability of contractual obligations, both when the contract is formed and if it is varied, refuting some of the criticisms calling for the requirement of consideration to be reformed or abolished in English law. It defines consideration as the 'price of the promise' and clarifies that an act or promise must have been requested by the promisor to count as consideration. It explores issues such as past consideration, performance of an existing contractual duty, part payment of a debt, for which latter issue the common law rule is ameliorated by the equitable doctrine of promissory estoppel.


Revision with unchanged content. Music education does not exist independently; it exists in a social context. The author sheds light on political, economic, sociological and cultural influences on the history of Korean middle school music education between the years of 1945 and 2005. This book divides the history of Korean school music curriculum into four periods: (1) Immediate Post War Period (1945–1960); (2) National Development (1960–1979); (3) Stability Period (1980–1987); and (4) Towards the 21st Century (1988–2005). Each period is contextualized along political and socioeconomic lines, and includes a thorough discussion on the musical philosophies and repertoire used in the specific time frames. Adding a vivid dimension to the school music experiences across time, the book is also analyzed the content of schools songs contained in textbooks. Music educators should be responsive to this issue, and the book discusses some interesting issues that are relevant to musicians from different parts of the world.


This paper aims to analyse the development process of innovative start-ups with special attention to the equity crowdfunding regulations. The main objective of this analysis is to interpret the effects of equity crowdfunding on the development mechanism of innovative start-ups and compared with other methods of existing loans (for example, the American JOBS Act and the venture capital regulation). The research uses a qualitative method with an exploratory approach. The differential finding of the contribution summarises the main similarities and differences of the financial instruments available to innovative start-ups, highlighting in the new regulation on equity crowdfunding a sustainable financial instrument, capable of reducing the effects of the problem of informative asymmetries.


We have investigated the angular behavior of the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) in transition-metal-based junctions using the low-field susceptibility of the crossed magnetic configuration. The noncollinear arrangement, stabilized by combining step anisotropy and interfacial exchange-bias coupling, is shown to be of a particular interest for an accurate analysis of the angular dependence of the TMR. We show that the intrinsic tunnel processes are reflected on a linear behavior of the conductivity giving a more complex form for the resistance, as expected by the model of Slonczewski. The more intuitive ``high-field'' saturating regime deviates the hard layer from its nominal pinning direction and consequently is shown to be less adapted for the experimental study of the intrinsic angular response of the TMR.


In the climate adaptation literature, we can distinguish two seemingly distinct frameworks for the concept of vulnerability. We might think of vulnerability in terms of susceptibility to harm. Some discussions of vulnerability accordingly focus on the risk posed to well‐being. Alternatively, we might think of vulnerability in terms of a system's responsiveness to adverse conditions, often spelled out in terms of resilience. This article highlights and distinguishes these frameworks through a brief survey of climate adaptation literature. Understanding the relationship between these two frameworks is vital not only for conceptual clarity, but also for developing adaptation strategies that respond to the different sorts of vulnerabilities posed by climate change. Mitigating the vulnerability of an individual at risk of harm might well complicate efforts at mitigating the vulnerabilities of systems in which that individual is embedded. Humans are clearly at risk of harm from a changing climate, and changing climate challenges the resilience of systems on which humans depend. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of the vulnerabilities that arise from the dissociation of people from their environments. Dissociation, whether through the migration of people or through changes to environmental background conditions not only makes clear the dual nature of vulnerabilities, but also serves as a lens through which we might consider the prospects for integrating a more cohesive account of vulnerability into successful climate adaptation strategies.This article is categorized under:
Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Ethics and Climate Change
Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Values‐Based Approach to Vulnerability and Adaptation


Knowledge about the population structure and relationships within and among maize inbred lines was important to improvement and utilization of maize inbred line. Distance-based cluster and model-based cluster methods were used to analyze the genetic structure and relationship of 97 maize inbred lines used in China with 112 microsatellite (simple sequence repeat, SSR) markers, evenly distributed over 10 chromosomes. Results showed that model-based cluster method was more suitable for maize inbred line clustering than distance-based cluster method, because the former could define the group of inbred lines more effec- tively than the latter. All inbred lines were grouped into four groups by model-based cluster method: Reid, Luda red cob (LRC), PB and Tangsipingtou (SPT). According to the result of genetic structure component (Q-value), numerous inbred lines in each group were overlapped in genetic component with the other groups. Reid group kept minimum Nei's genetic distance with LRC group, had most distant genetic relationship with SPT group. The results of genetic relationships among groups indicated that the four groups could be simplified into three (A: Reid, LRC; B: PB; C: SPT) or two (A: Reid, LRC, PB; B: SPT) potential heterotic groups. The defined population and the genetic component analysis of inbred lines provided the basis for improving the efficiency of hybrid breeding.


This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy & Religious Studies at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact email@example.com. Repository Citation Willock, Nicole, "The Revival of the Tulku Institution in Modern China: Narratives and Practices" (2017). Philosophy Faculty Publications. 54. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/philosophy_fac_pubs/54


Part One Writing and PR: 1. Public Relations and the Writer 2. Ethical and Legal Responsibilities 3. Persuasion 4. Research for the Public Relations Writer. Part Two Writing Principles: 5. Writing for Clarity and Interest 6. Simplifying the Complex 7. Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation. Part Three Writing for Select Audiences: 8. Memos and Letters, Reports and Proposals 9. Backgrounders and Position Papers. Part Four Writing for Mass Media Audiences: 10. News Releases for Print Media 11. News for Broadcasting 12. Features for Print and Broadcasting 13. Writing Advertising Copy 14. Crisis Communication. Part Five Writing for Special Audiences: 15. Newsletters 16. Brochures 17. Employee/Association/Trade and Industry Magazines, Speeches and Presentation Scripts 18. Annual, Employee and Public Interest Reports 19. Media Kits 20. Campaign Writing. Appendix A: Readability Formulas. Appendix B: Copyfitting. Appendix C: Compliances.


Haemophilus influenzae was first described by Pfeiffer in 1892 ([30][1]). Forty years later Pittman identified six capsular polysaccharides (types) of H. influenzae (a, b, c, d, e, and f) whose structures were later elucidated (Table [1][2]) ([12][3], [31][4], [40][5]). Systemic infections in


Population genetics models are useful for obtaining background expectations about genetic variation. In this work, the authors calibrate such a model using empirical data sets, specifically Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) data from three populations (West Africa, East Asia and Europe). The authors use a total of 15 measures to compare the simulated data to the empirical observations. For each measure they compute the root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the simulated value with respect to the mean empirical value. The overall goodness of fit of a particular model is obtained by calculating the total RMS discrepancy of all measures. The calibration of the model starts from a standard neutral model that includes the separation between the African and the non-African population, and the subdivision of the later into the European and East Asia populations. This model has a root-mean-square-error (RMSE) of 4.7. The model is refined using a stepwise approach: a set of parameters is added to the model and those parameters are optimized in order to minimize the error. This step is then repeated with additional parameters. In the first of these steps, the RMSE for the single-locus measures is reduced to 1.15 by increasing the fraction of low-frequency alleles and adding population bottlenecks and migration between populations to the model. The recombination rate is then optimized to match the observed heterozygosity. The recombination model is improved in order to obtain a larger, and thus more realistic, level of linkage disequilibrium (LD) than with the neutral model. This is done by adding large-scale variations as well as fine-scale variations such as localized hotspots to the model. The best-fitting model has an overall RMSE of 1.35 with respect to the mean empirical values. The model is evaluated by generating predictions for the X chromosome of the same population, which was not used during the calibration. The calibrated model performs significantly better than the neutral model (RMSE of 0.97 instead of 1.51). The calibrated model is also shown to be able to simulate haplotype blocks significantly better than the neutral model. Finally, the authors show that the variations found in a set of 100 genes are reproduced by the calibrated model an can thus be explained without having to hypothesize positive selections.


LiFePO4/Al/C composite cathode materials were synthesized by two-step solid-state method. The crys- talline structure, morphology, the particle size and the coated state of the samples were characterized by XRD, SEM and TEM. The effect of the amounts of Al powder on the electrochemical properties of the composite was investi- gated. The results show that the interface reaction occurs between metal Al and LiFePO4, resulting in the formation of several by-products and the passive film on the surface of LiFePO4. The surface of LiFePO4 particles are coated by the irregularly shaped metal Al and a thin carbon layer of 1−2 nm. The LiFePO4/Al/C containing 3wt% Al shows the best electrochemical performances, with discharge specific capacity of 117.8 mAh/g at 25℃ and 10C rate, and discharge specific capacity of 105.6 mAh/g at −20℃ and 0.1C rate, and discharge capacity of samples at −20℃ is 73.8% of that of samples at 25℃.


Co-decomposition of Pd and Pt precursors in the presence of trioctylphosphine and stearic acid gives a unique non-spherical PdPt@Pt core–shell nanospike with multiple grain boundaries in a facile one-pot synthesis. The difference in the metal–P bond strengths causes the disparate precursor decomposition kinetics, which in turn positions the Pt content on the nanoparticle surface. The core–shell composition, crystallinity, and shell thickness are conveniently controlled by simple variations in the amount of precursors and surfactants. The PdPt@Pt core–shell nanospike shows a high electrocatalytic activity toward methanol oxidation reaction. The excellent catalytic performance seems to originate from (1) the existence of multiple, surface energy-elevating grain boundaries, (2) roughened surface, and (3) lattice mismatch between the core and shell.


"The Eastern problem" used from the beginning of the 19th century is a concept derived from the strategic and religious concerns of that century. The same problem still exists in a different appearance based on the same concerns. The region dominated by the Ottoman Empire is called as "the Middle-East " today in the literature of international relations and history. The Eastern Problem is a concept which describes the strategies employed to share the land of the Ottoman Empire by the western powers and the competition among them as regards to this matter. Some of the important issues merged with Middle-East can be listed as follows : Palestine- Israel , artificial states , incapable administrators , political instability and oil , major religions , ethnic structure , GAP ( South Eastern Anatolian Project ) , terror and water resources. Therefore, it is possible tzimŞark Meselesi, Ortadogu, Osmanli Devleti, Batili Gucler, Turk Islam Dunyasi, Arap Dunyasi, EmperyaliThe Eastern Problem, Middle East, Ottoman Empire, Western powers, Turco Islamic world, Arab world, Imperialism. Tam Metin


In O Corpo de Helena (1998), Paulo Jose Miranda presents an important literary
innovation by transforming Menelaus into the protagonist of his dramatic work. After having
examined the presence of this hero in ancient Greek literature of the archaic and classical periods,
this article will focus on the symbolism, sources and characters of this short Portuguese play, in
order to highlight the presence of Greek literature in this contemporary text and account for the
author's interest in revisiting the ancient heroes and Greek gods.


This book represents the first treatment of computable analysis at the graduate level within the tradition of classical mathematical reasoning. Among the topics dealt with are: classical analysis, Hilbert and Banach spaces, bounded and unbounded linear operators, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and equations of mathematical physics. The book is self-contained, and yet sufficiently detailed to provide an introduction to research in this area.


Modelling and Control of a Pico-scale Hydro Turbine for Pressure Regulation Shi Miao Yu Master of Applied Science Graduate Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering University of Toronto 2020 Hydraulic pumping systems account for 8.6% to 9.2% of total global energy usage, and significant research has gone into improving pumping system efficiency. Pressure control devices, such as throttling valves, are crucial to any large industrial or municipal hydraulic system. However, they are inherently a source of inefficiency as they achieve pressure reduction by forcing the flow through an orifice thereby wasting all the mechanical energy. To offer an alternative to throttling valves, an inline pico-scale (< 5kW) hydro turbine capable of both pressure control and energy recovery was presented in this work. Specifically, this work focused on the design of a control system that can achieve both pressure regulation and maximum power recovery. Several control methods were surveyed, and the final design presented made use of an Unscented Kalman filter, Fuzzy Logic Hill Climb Search method, and a low-level PID controller in a cascade control structure. The controller was tested in simulation and experimentally for set-point tracking and disturbance rejection. Finally, the first demonstration of a small scale hydro turbine capable of both pressure regulation and optimal tracking was presented.


Objective: To demonstrate the functional changes of gap junctional mediation of intercellular communication in detrusor instability (DI) and its mechanisms. Methods: The function of gap junctional intercellular communication in the cultured bladder detrusor cells was detected by fluorescence redistribution after photobleaching. Results: At the fourth minute after bleaching, the mean fluorescences recovery rates of DI group bladder detrusor cells were (35 791±0 836)%, that of control group (8 645±0 673)%. The mean fluorescence recovery rates of DI group were significantly higher than those of control group ( P 0 01). Conclusion: It shows that the increase of intercellular excitatory communication is one of the important reasons of pathogenesis of DI.


production values than most, but was still funded mostly through in-kind favours. In the final example, director Tina Cesa Ward made a feature film in Hollywood before the collapse of a second film saw her create Anyone But Me as a web series, attracting 100 million views in the process. What brings together all of Healy's case studies is that despite their low-budget production values (when compared to traditional broadcast material), they are story-driven, and most importantly: authentic, and Healy is keen to push the value of direct community engagement that YouTube's comments section offers in creating this level of credibility. Online web content may not replace traditional formats anytime soon, but they add an important contemporary dimension to the screen industry, particularly in the diversity space; and this book offers a scholarly examination of the online content production environment.


— This paper proposes an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) against Sinkhole attacks in Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANET) with mobile sinks. A sinkhole attack is where a hacked node advertises a false routing update to draw network traffic. One effect of a sinkhole attack is that it may be used to launch further attacks, such as drops or changed routing information. Sinkhole nodes attempt to forge the source–destination routes to attract the surrounding network traffic. For this purpose, they modify routing control packets to publish fake routing information that makes sinkhole nodes appear as the best path to some destinations. Several machine learning techniques, including Decision Tree (DT), K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Convolution neural network (CNN), and Support Vector Machine (SVM), are used to do the categorization. Furthermore, the MANET's node's characteristics, particularly speed, are used for feature extraction. Totally 3997 unique samples, including 256 malicious samples and 3604 normal samples are collected. The categorization results demonstrate the accuracy of DT, KNN, CNN, and SVM at 98.4%, 96.7%, 98.6%, and 97.8%, respectively. The CNN approach is more accurate than other methods, at 98.6%, based on the data. After that, Priority, SVM, KNN, and CNN, in that order, each denotes excellent accuracy.


Campylanthus pungens O. Schwartz. (Scrophulariaceae) is reported from Bhuj, Kachchh District of Gujarat, as a new record for India. Detailed taxonomical characteristics, habitat ecology and associated floral information are provided.


This project addresses the difficulty of keyframing. Model based computer vision techniques is utilized to aid in automatic model parameter generation of human figure models. Instead of trying-and-testing with unintuitive body configuration parameters, an animator will focus on animation itself rather than on learning and fighting with conventional animation tools. This is a good illustration of how computer vision techniques could potentially aid in efficient computer animation generation.


In the case where resistance to an insecticide is associated with increased metabolism of the insecticide, it should not be concluded that the resistance is due only to the increased metabolism (i.e. metabolic hypothesis). Here, we study theoretically the pharmacokinetic consequences of a resistance mechanism due to increased metabolism. We consider two cases: treatment with the initial dose D 0 applied to the susceptible strain and the treatment with the initial dose αD 0 , with α>1, applied to the resistant strain. We show the conditions for which the metabolism hypothesis is conceivable. The time τ, from which the mortality of the susceptible strain is significantly higher than that of the resistant strain, is an important parameter in determining the validity of the metabolic hypothesis. The more τ increases, the more the conditions are favourable to this hypothesis. Our work suggests an approach to test the metabolic hypothesis from experimental results.


Francisca Bohigas was one of the most important conservative women in Spain in the first half of the 20th century. In spite of her affinity with Franco's dictatorship, in the conduct books that she published during the first decade of the regime, she disagreed on some central aspects of the official gender model that the Francoist regime tried to transform into a hegemonic one. However, this does not mean that her thought was completely transgressive. She tried to strengthen the existing patriarchal structures in the private sphere, although as an autonomous and, at the same time, privileged subject, she was able to negotiate, question and/or openly resist the official gender norms and regulations she did not agree with. Firstly, she strove to salvage and preserve social acceptance and respectability that certain ways of remaining unmarried had traditionally enjoyed in Spain. Moreover, she fought to remove the social barriers that Spanish women faced to access almost any job. These are sufficient examples to argue that the elements of the official gender model that Bohigas chose to fight against were not mere details and nuances, but central aspects of the gender system that the dictatorship wanted to impose. The analysis of Bohigas's conduct books provides a privileged framework for exploring the possibilities of action that conservative women -even those who supported the dictatorship- had when negotiating and questioning the roles that the Francoism strove to impose on Spanish women.


Polyomavirus BK (BKV) or human Polyomavirus is an icosahedral, non-enveloped virus classified under the Polyomaviridae family. The oncogenic properties of BKV belong to both an early domain and late domains. BKV encodes important Tag proteins such as LTAg and STAg "Tumour antigen; Tag. They succeeded in altering and stimulating infected cells to uncontrolled proliferation experimentally in both culture cell and animal models. This study aims to summarize the important oncogenic pathway that BKV used to initiate tumor. Both BKV proteins LTAg and STAg interfere with many cellular pathways/proteins such as retinoblastoma proteins, PP2A, P53, MAP kinases pathway, tumor suppressor proteins, telomerase, endothelial growth factor, leading to uncontrol of cell proliferation and apoptosis. This study concluded that stimulation of cell growth and secretion of extra endothelial growth factor in the absence of antiapoptotic proteins increases BKV proteins to mediate cancer development.


To realize the high-precision temperature detection,a new type of fiber optic temperature sensor is proposed based on femtosecond laser micromachining.The femtosecond laser with wavelength of780nm is employed to ablate a groove-shaped microstructure into the cladding of single mode fiber with Bragg grating(FBG).By magnetron sputtering process,a sensitive film(TbDyFe)is deposited on the microstructure to make a new fiber optic temperature sensor probe.To the coated annular microstructure,the mechanism of enhancing sensitivity to temperature is analyzed.The effects of different microstructures on temperature sensitivity are discussed.The experimental results show that the grooveshaped microstructure without coating has almost the same sensitivity with the normal FBG,and it also couldn′t change the trends of the center wavelength with the temperature.However,as the sensitive film is deposited on the FBG cladding with groove-shaped microstructure,its sensitivity can be improved significantly.Moreover,the annular microstructure has better sensitization effect than the screw thread microstructure,and the temperature sensitivity can reach 21.37pm/℃.


The invention relates to a solar energy assisted disinfection method for a composite artificial wetland. The method comprises: 1) removing coarse particles and suspended solids in life sewage; 2) carrying out interception on suspended solids in the sewage treated by the step 1 through a primary underground flow artificial wetland to remove part of nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matters; 3) carrying out UV disinfection on the effluent from the primary underground flow artificial wetland, and carrying out re-oxygenation on the sewage; and 4) removing organic matters from the disinfected sewage through a secondary underground flow artificial wetland. The invention further provides a solar energy assisted disinfection apparatus for performing the method. The apparatus has characteristics of strong purification ability, good disinfection effect, low operating cost and stable effluent quality, and is applicable for life sewage.


The integrity of the mesothelial layer is essen- tial for both defence and solute transport in continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD). The human peritoneal mesothelial cell (HPMC) culture has been shown to be a very useful tool to study the peritoneal mesothelial stem cell behaviour. We investigated whether hydralazine, an antihypertensive agent fre- quently used, might affect HPMC growth and collagen synthesis. HPMCs were cultured from specimens of human omentum by enzymatic disaggregation of omentum. HPMC growth was evaluated by modified methyltetrazolium (MTT) assay. Cell viability was confirmed by trypan blue exclusion and lactate dehy- drogenase assay. Collagen synthesis was measured by 3 H-proline incorporation into pepsin-resistant, salt- precipitated collagen. Intracellular cAMP levels were measured by enzyme immunoassay. The procollagen al (I) mRNA expression was evaluated by Northern blot analysis. Hydralazine inhibited serum-stimulated HPMC growth in a dose-dependent manner. The maximal inhibition was 93% at a concentration of 100 ug/ml. Hydralazine inhibited collagen synthesis in confluent mesothelial cells (47% inhibition at a concen- tration of 100 ug/ml). The procollagen al (I) mRNA expression was also decreased by hydralazine (about 50% decrease at 100 ug/ml). These effects may be due to the phosphodiesterase inhibition property of hydra- lazine to increase intracellular cAMP levels. These data suggest that the use of hydralazine in CAPD patients may affect peritoneal membrane function and integrity. treatment for end-stage renal disease. The integrity of the mesothelial layer is essential for both defence and solute transport. The peritoneal mesothelial cell layer is under continuous sloughing and regeneration pro- cesses during CAPD. The new mesothelium that develops after injury arises from peritoneal mesothelial stem cells (1-3). Because mesothelial cells in culture have been shown to posses the same immunocyto- chemical markers as stem cells (co-expression of cyto- keratins and vimentin) (4,5), this culture system can be used as a tool to study the behaviour of peritoneal mesothelial stem cells. Any agent which interferes with mesothelium stem cell proliferation may be harmful to the peritoneal membrane. Therefore, any medication in patients with CAPD should in principle be evaluated with respect to the effect of the drugs on peritoneal mesothelial stem cells. Hydralazine is a frequently used drug in patients with end-stage renal disease, to control hypertension. It is still unknown whether the use of hydralazine in patients having CAPD affects peritoneal membrane function. Therefore, we investigated the effects of hydralazine on the behaviour of human peritoneal mesothelial cells (HPMCs) in culture. Subjects and methods Materials


Porphyry-type ore deposits develop within much larger magmatic-hydrothermal systems. Dissolved metals are transported in both vapour and liquid phases and precipitated in response to steep temperature and pressure gradients. The driving force for fluid flow in such systems are density variations caused by the thermal energy released by a magmatic intrusion. The amount of thermal energy is given by the intrusion's volume and temperature. From the initial temperature and pressure distribution in a given geometry and from additional constraints on magmatic fluid contributions, numerical simulation can be used to develop reconstructions of the spatial and temporal evolution of the magmatichydrothermal system. At Bingham Canyon, petrography and fluid inclusion data from the mine area indicate that ore precipitation took place from a vapour-dominated magmatic fluid plume in a temperature interval from 350 to 425°C and at pressures of 14 to 21 MPa [1, 2]. First generic models [3] predict steep temperature-pressure gradients along with a spatial and temporal fluid evolution that closely resembles the fluid inclusion results. In an ongoing project to apply this hydrological simulation technique to an actual case study, we are compiling 3D geological, geomagnetic and structural data to construct a geological model of Bingham Canyon. A suite of scenarios varying in deep subsurface geometry and large-scale permeability structure will be tested with these simulations, to match observational constraints of the timing sequence of intrusion and veining, the zoned distribution of Cu, Au and Mo ore grades, and the chemical and density characteristics of fluid inclusions.


Some data suggest that obesity blunts the benefits of exercise on mobility in older adults. This study tested the homogeneity of the effect of a physical activity intervention on major mobility disability (MMD) across baseline obesity classifications in the Lifestyle Interventions and Independence for Elders (LIFE) Study. LIFE randomized 1,635 sedentary men and women aged 70 to 89 years to a moderate‐intensity physical activity (PA) or health education program.


The idea that preconception environmental exposures may be involved in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) etiology arose in the 1970s from a retrospective case-control study of ASD that found a statistically significant difference in parental occupational exposure to chemicals during the preconception period 1. ASD are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by varying deficits in social interactions, communication, and learning, as well as stereotypic behaviors. Over the past years, research into environmental risk factors for autism has grown dramatically, bringing evidence that an array of non-genetic factors acting during the prenatal period may influence neurodevelopment 2. The present study was therefore undertaken to investigate the potential prenatal risk factors for ASD. A total number of 184 individuals were studied. In the present study, factors that have demonstrated significant increases in ASD risk, include advanced maternal age and stress during pregnancy while folic acid and calcium supplement intake was found to be reducing the risk of ASD. Factors that showed insignificant increase in frequency or no association with ASD were intake of medications, fall, respiratory problems and bleeding during pregnancy.


Cristina Armas , Peter L. Meserve, Julio R. Gutiérrez, and Douglas A. Kelt © 2020 The Authors. The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Ecological Society of America. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


Simple Summary Romania maintains its regrettably leading position in terms of mortality caused by cervical cancer in Europe, with any available studies evaluating the oncological outcomes and quality of life of these patients. Our study could provide a historical comparison for future randomized controlled trials in Eastern Europe needed to confirm these results. Abstract (1) Background: Cervical cancer patients have been found to have worse quality of life (QoL) scores due to cancer treatment, not only when compared to the general population, but also when compared to other gynecological cancer survivors. In Eastern European developing countries, the health care system often cannot afford the uppermost standardized treatment for these patients. In the absence of a comparable study in our country, the authors' aim for this retrospective cross-sectional observational study was to evaluate the overall survival (OS) and the QoL o cervical cancer survivors; (2) Methods: 430 patients were analyzed. The first objective is to evaluate the OS rates of patients with cervical cancer stages IA2 to IIB undergoing radical hysterectomy (RH) +/− neoadjuvant or adjuvant radiotherapy +/− chemoradiotherapy treatment combinations. The second objective is to assess their QoL, using two standardized questionnaires issued by the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), namely QLQ-C30 and QLQ-CX24. (3) Results: The mean age of the participants was 51 years (22–76) and the average follow-up time was 65 months (2–128). At the time of the analysis, 308 out of 430 patients were alive, with a mean five-year OS of 72.4%. The multivariate Cox regression analysis identified stage IIB, parametrial invasion, and the lymph node metastases as independent prognostic risk factors negatively impacting the OS. Of the 308 patients still alive at the time of the analysis, 208 (68%) answered the QoL questionnaires. The QLQ-C30 shows a good long-term Global QoL of 64.6 (median), good functioning scores, and a decent symptom scale value. However, the EORTC QLQ-CX24 showed high values of cervical cancer-specific symptoms, namely: lymphedema, peripheral neuropathy, severe menopausal symptoms, and distorted body-image perception. The results also indicate a significant decline in the quality of sexual life with a low sexual enjoyment and decreased level of sexual activities. (4) Conclusion: Despite a good OS, in this setting of patients, cervical cancer survivors have a modest QoL and sexual function. Our study may provide a comparison for future randomized, controlled trials in Eastern European countries needing to confirm these results.


CEYLON BRANCH. A MEETING of this Branch was held at Colombo, at 2 P.M. on April I5th, Surgeon-Major PERRY, P.C.M.O., in the chair. Confirmation of Minutes.-The minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed. Annual Report.-From the annual report it was seen that there were I19 members at the end of last year, being an increase of seven during the year. Two deaths of members were recorded. Five ordinary meetings had been held in addition to meetings of the Committee. At these meetings several important and interesting papers were read. New Member.-Mr. Cyril H. Dickman, L.C.M.C., was elected a member of the Branch. Election of O.ficers.-The PRESIDENT (Dr. Perry) having vacated the chair proposed Dr. W. G. Van Dort, M.D. (Aberdeen) as the President for the current year. The following officers were also unanimously elected: Vice-President8: Dr. T. F. Garvin, M.B., Dr. G. P. Schockman, M.B. Council: Dr. Harvey Hilliard, M.R.C.S., Dr. H. Marcus Fernando, M.D., B.Sc., Dr. H. G. Thomasz, F.R.C.S.E., Dr. P. S. Brito, M.B., M.R.C.S. Honorary Treasurer: Dr. M. Sinne-Tamby, M.D., F.R.C.S.E. Secretary: Dr. W. H. de Silva, M.B. Vote of Thank8 to Retiring Ojficers.-A vote of thanks was proposed to the retiring office-bearers, which was acknowledged by Drs. PERRY and DE SILVA. Papers.-A paper on superfoetation was read by Dr. HEYNSBERG, of Kalutara, which evoked a deal of discussion, in which the following took part., namely, Miss Dr. SHARMAN, Drs. SINNE-TAMBY, HILLIARD, FERNANDO, PAUL, and the PRESIDENT. Another paper was read by Surgeon-Major PERRY on gonorrhceal ophthalmia, with records of several cases. This paper also gave rise to a discussion, the following taking part: Drs. HILLIARD, DE SILVA, THOM&Sz, FERNANDO, and the PRESIDENT. Dr. PERRY having replied, a unanimous vote of thanks was passe(d to the readers of both the papers. Specimens.-The following were exhibited: (i) A pathological specimen of tumour of pons; (2) a specimen of ischiopagus ; (3) a specimen of arrested development of a fcetus; (4) large vesical calculi.


Before the middle of tke 1970's, seme developed nations began to pay much attenttioR to the effect of the thenmai discharges from pewer palnts on the eenvironment. And some international symposiums were heid in these nations. However, Chinese expeits did not pay much atrention to this problem untg 1978, Chinese experts began to publish some results of thermal effect oR the environment in the aerly 1980's. [hese results provided a ascinetific basis of the regional water temperature and conaibuted to eavaluate a erIiterion for an assessment of environmental problems in water bodies. This repTot introduces the main achievements of these studies in Ckina.


The current study aims to examine the human resource management practices and job satisfaction on employee performance and examine the mediating role of job satisfaction in the ministry of foreign affairs of Kuwait. The survey included 212 employees are working in the ministry of foreign affairs of Kuwait. The results of this study indicated that human resource management practices have a positive direct effect on employee performance. Moreover, the results of this study indicated that human resource management practices have a positive direct effect on job satisfaction. The results of this study indicated also that job satisfaction has a positive direct effect on employee performance. Regarding the mediating role, the results indicated that job satisfaction mediated the impact between human resource management practices and employee performance. Organizations should implement human resource management practices to strengthen and boost their future performance. As organizations should increase the level of job satisfaction in order to improve the performance of employees. This study recommended replicated the context of this study in other sectors in Kuwait such as the health care sector, education sector, and private sector.


). Thisimplies that a significant fraction of the heat of reaction can be con-verted to chemical energy, thereby compensating for ohmic losses.High thermodynamic efficiency (the ratio of the energy supplied withrespect to the energy used to drive the reaction) is not uncommonfor electrolysis with gaseous products: the entropy term


This paper introduces the chemical composition and pozzolanic characteristic of fly ash.And the principle of desulfurization and denitrifaction of fly ash is introduced.It has advantages of simple craftwork and removalling SO_2 and NO_x simultaneously in the coal fired flue gas treatment.This paper particularizes several technics of desulfurization and denitrifaction.But it is not very clearly of fly ash as absorbent and its effect is not very good in the practical application.So it is necessary to study the application of fly ash further.


The coloring composition for a color filter comprises a transparent resin, its precursor or a carrier made of a coloring their mixture, a green coloring agent dispersed in a coloring substrate. Green food coloring is a first halogenated metal phthalocyanine pigment and a center metal with copper as the central metal, having a metal selected from the group consisting of Mg, Al, Si, Ti, V, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Zn, Ge and Sn at least it composed of one kind of the second halogenated metal phthalocyanine pigments. The second is the content of the halogenated metal phthalocyanine pigment is from 1 to 80 mol% based on the total volume of green food coloring. In addition, and with at least one red filter segment, at least one blue filter segment, and at least one green filter segment, however, come with at least one color filter is a green filter segment, which is formed with the coloring composition.


In recent years, social media has become omnipresent and essential for social networking and content sharing. And yet, the content that is generated from these websites remains largely untapped by official authorities. The present tutorial investigates techniques for social media modeling, analytics and optimization. First we present methods for collecting large scale social media data and then discuss techniques for coping with and correcting for the effects arising from missing and incomplete data. In this paper, we show how social media content can be used to predict real-world outcomes. In particular, we use the chatter from Twitter.com to forecast box-office revenues for movies. We show that a simple model built from the rate at which tweets are created about particular topics can outperform market-based calculations. We further demonstrate how sentiments extracted from Twitter can be further utilized to improve the forecasting power of social media. We summarize an effort to predict box office revenues using Twitter data. It is hypothesized that an increased number of tweets about a movie before its release will result in increased box office revenue.


A novel torque control strategy was presented for the optimization of efficiency in steady and dynamic state as well as rapid torque response performance on the basis of analyzing the efficiency optimization control strategies for induction motors.Firstly,a new decoupling control scheme to the efficiency optimization for induction motors was proposed based on active disturbance rejection controller(ADRC).In order to produce the fast transient response of torque,the proposed ADRC consists of linear functions without tracking differentiator(TD).With the high efficiency of global searching,the mutative scale chaos optimization method was introduced to optimize the parameters of ADRC.The simulation results show that the proposed ADRC can not only improve the efficiency of induction motor both in steady and transient states at low loads,but also provide good torque response performance than the conventional PI controller.It ensures good robustness and adaptability under external disturbance.


A state language, useful for describing the control software for appliances and industrial machines, has been used with a programmable industrial sewing machine, yielding benefits much like those of structured programming.


With the explosive development of wireless technologies, the demand of electromagnetic spectrum has been growing dramatically. Therefore, looking for more available spectrum, regulators have already begun to study secondary assignments in licensed bands. In this paper we present a probabilistic model based on a stochastic geometry approach to analyze cognitive radio networks. We focus on those scenarios where more than one band is available, a natural situation in this kind of networks. Quiet surprisingly, and to the best of our knowledge, such scenario has not been deeply explored yet in the literature. In particular we focus our study in the two main performance metrics: medium access probability and coverage probability. We evaluate our proposal through simulations and we present the analytical results of a particular case.


As the number of school shooting cases has witnessed a rapid growth in the past several years, there is an increasing concern about the massively growing juvenile crime rate. Some researchers have found that juvenile offenders have misfits, problems in dealing with interpersonal relationships, and resentment toward society and others, and an increasing number of adolescents have engaged in juvenile crimes such as mass school shooting, jeopardizing the social stability and leaving severe trauma on those who are involved in such incidents. The current study conducted a case study on a school shooting in a U.S high school with an aim to determine the causes of such incidents that happen repeatedly in society in recent years. It is found that the adverse family environment, represented by High-Intensity Parental Dispute (HIPD), parent's negligence and insure child-parent attachment, is the main cause that contributes to juvenile offenders' lack of empathy and concern for others, leading to aggression and antisocial behaviors. Based on the results of the study, suggestions have been proposed to prevent the formation of antisocial behavior from the perspective of developmental psychology and reduce the juvenile delinquency rate from four aspects: parental, clinical, school, and judicial.


Shrinkage is a concerned property of concrete for long time.But normally only dry shrinkage is measured and with which predicts possibility of cracking except the concrete for dam construction.Since advances in cement and concrete technology and structural engineering,cracking phenomenon more and more results from thermal contract and autogenous shrinkage.At the same thime,the strength of concrete at early age increases quickly,its elastic model and creep relaxation are changed also along with,resulting remarkable trends of cracking.So it is very necessary and eagerly to update the methods of evaluating concrete shrinkage and predicting its cracking trends,and to develop the measures to improve crack resistant properties of modern concrete. 〔


[1] Questions related to underlying principles of tonal process often engender heated disagreement among musicians. Are there three tonal functions or seven Stufen? How is the minor mode derived, and how should it be understood in relation to major? Why are parallel fifths forbidden in common-practice (and a significant body of earlier) music? What are the conditions under which parallel fifths or octaves are acceptable in the foreground or middleground? Do seventh chords exist? What is the status of scales within tonal theory? Should we sing with fixed or movable do syllables, and if movable, according to Kodaly or Curwen? The list could go on and on, but the titular question of the book under review now joins the others, and it provides more contention than one might at first expect, even within the strict chronological confines of this volume. "What is a cadence?" resembles my other questions in that we cannot get very far until we have provided a provisional answer for ourselves, yet we are unlikely to reach a consensus anytime soon.[2] Markus Neuwirth and Pieter Berge have brought together nine essays on the subject, all of which were presented in January 2011 at a four-day conference held at the Academia Belgica in Rome. The authors explore a wide range of music-theoretic perspectives: Schenkerian theory; Formenlehre according to Caplin or Hepokoski/Darcy; schemata and partimento; eighteenth-century compositional theory according to Kirnberger, Koch, Riepel, and others; generative grammar according to Lerdahl and Jackendoff as well as Rohrmeier; and many others. Methodologies range from corpus studies, through music-cognition experiments, to traditional theoretical explorations. The editors have allowed the conflicts between approaches and readings to stand unmediated, and thus the collection reads like a music-academic free-for-all, with several musical examples reappearing from one article to another and the authors responding to each other throughout. In this respect, the collection will remind readers of another well-known volume from the same publisher (Berge 2009).[3] While the essays all intersect with each other in fascinating dialogue, both explicit and implicit, the editors suggest a two-part organization to the book (Introduction, 10). Five essays (by William Caplin, Felix Diergarten, Poundie Burstein, Markus Neuwirth, and Danuta Mirka) offer mechanical or technical investigations of the theory and practice of cadence in late eighteenth-century composition. Four further essays (by Nathan John Martin and Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, Vasili Byros, David Sears, and Martin Rohrmeier and Markus Neuwirth) are interdisciplinary in nature, and offer methodological innovations that lie further from traditional approaches to tonal theory and analysis. The nine essays all gain from being read as a collection; I suspect that many readers will reconsider some cherished notions in favor of what is offered here, while remaining firm in their convictions when confronted with other ideas in the collection. My own Schenkerian orientation will be quite evident as I discuss the individual contributions to this volume. Reading the essays collectively, I found ample evidence that the question of what constitutes a cadence in tonal music is bound to an understanding of hierarchical levels, and that all of the work presented here is explicitly or implicitly in dialogue with questions of levels. Among the many possible examples to be raised here, the following can be understood as specific versions of the question of levels: Koch's or Riepel's variously weighted cadential/punctuation types; Caplin's hierarchy of beginning, middle, and ending functions; preferred placement of the EEC or ESC within Hepokoski and Darcy's Sonata Theory; and right- vs. left-branching, or nesting decisions, in generative-grammar approaches to musical structure. Several of these issues are raised in Anson-Cartwright 2007, an important study of musical closure that appears in only one of the bibliographies within the collection under review. …


A number of technologies are available and in the pipeline to increase the competitiveness of existing combined cycle assets based on FA gas turbines.


A.CHAUSSURE SPORTS INCLUDING TENNIS SHOE. B.CHAUSSURE CHARACTERIZED IN THAT ZONE OF TIGHTENING 6 OF THE BASE ON 5 MORE PROFILES ARE PROVIDED SUPPORT OF DISCRETE 7 DIFFERENT HEIGHTS, WHICH IS THE RECOVERY 8, FREE AT THE ENDS ON SIDE 9 SUCH SUPPORT PROFILES 7, AT LEAST APPROXIMATELY IN THE PLAN OF PARTIES BOUNDARY 10 11 THE MARKET SOLE. C.L'INVENTION APPLY TO INCLUDING TENNIS SHOES.


metals are serious pollutants of the aquatic environment because of their environmental persistence and ability to be accumulated by aquatic organisms. Clarias batrachus was exposed to 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08 and 0.10ppm of HgCl2 for 35days. After 35days of exposure red blood cell (RBC) count (1.66, 1.59, 1.54, 1.42 and 1.23,10 6 mm -3 ) and Hb content (67.2, 50.8, 42.6, 31.6 and 29.2, g/dL) decreased when compared to the control (RBC - 1.77, 10 6 mm -3 and Hb - 75.0 g/dL). The number of white blood cells (WBC) increased (10.4, 11.9, 12.7, 13.3 and 14.8, mm 3 x10 3 ) in mercuric chloride treated fish. The results are statistically significant at P< 0.05


A non-structural concrete mix was elaborated with a resistance of 14.5 Megapascals under the parameters indicated in the American Concrete Institute (ACI), ASTM and the Colombian Technical Standards (NTC). Six mixing cylinders were made with the concrete mix to test their mechanical resistance using the compressive resistance test, 3 were tested on day 7 and the 3 left were tested on day 28, the tests were performed in the IBERFEST machine, located in the laboratory of resistance of materials of the University Francisco de Paula Santander in the city of Cucuta, Colombia. The results were averaged to obtain the data of interest. Hospital solid waste was treated and processed in the Ecosteryl machine 250C, located in the environmental technology park Guayabal, Cucuta. The processes for the treatment of the waste material were performed under the established procedures in the Colombian decree 2676 of 2000. Taking particles, no bigger than 20mm of waste material, 2.5, 5 and 7.5% of the total stony aggregate used for the elaboration of the non-structural concrete was replaced, each of the 3 percentages were used for the elaboration of the 6-cylinder mixes (2 of each). The cylinders were tested on days 7 and 28 using the same procedure implemented to the mix of non-structural concrete. With the data obtained from the tests a comparative analysis was performed, identifying the presented characteristics of each. 4986 Oswaldo Hurtado-Figueroa et al.


The expansion of the Internet and the number of its users has raised many new problems in information retrieval. The most common way to find information in the web is using web search engines. However, gathering information from the web is a difficult task for a novice user even if he uses the search engines. The user must have experience and skill to find the relevant pages from the large number of documents returned, which often cover a wide variety of topics. One solution to the problem is to build a domain-specific search system that returns only web documents relevant to a certain domain. In this thesis, we adopt query refinement approach when we build domain specific search systems. This approach is based on the idea that the main difficulty in searching the web is result from the fact that users cannot formulate appropriate queries representing their information needs. We try to support users by changing their queries to appropriate forms. In this thesis, we present following issues on domain-specific web search. 1. A simple and domain-independent method for building domainspecific web search engines. Previous domain-specific web search engines are based on human knowledge about the domain in question. Accordingly, they are hard to build and cannot be applied to other domains. We contrive a new method that improves search performance by adding the domainspecific keywords, called keyword spices, to the user's input query;


We present analytic theory and numerical simulations comparing the optical beam smoothing capabilities of the smoothing by spectral dispersion (SSD) technique using random temporal phase modulation, with that of the induced spatial incoherence technique. The analytic theory provides a simple formula for the SSD mode spectrum in the usual case where the phase mask at the focusing lens is random, and its asymptotic limit quantitatively relates the long wavelength mode smoothing to the width of the angular dispersion. With parameters and phase aberration relevant to the National Ignition Facility beams, the SSD simulations show that the large long wavelength components, which are also found in earlier simulations, can be significantly reduced by replacing the independent random phase masks in each pair of adjacent beams by a conjugate pair of zero-correlation masks. These simulations suggest that one can combine zero-correlation masks with random temporal phase modulation and multiple color cycles to achieve...


For Warburg, each image is the result of cultural and temporal shifts, which settle, or sediment, and survive as form, transforming each image into an energetic and dynamic moment that cyclically recurs in a phantasmagorical manner that Warburg calls Pathosformel , and that flourish in friction. One can also approach Andre Malraux's concept of the imaginary museum from these considerations, in the sense that his exercise of the imaginary museum develops a history of art according to similarities (formal and rhetorical), but one not governed by influences. The imaginary museum's main importance lies, then, in a kind of experimental visual montage that aims to take into account, in art, a larger, more expanded cultural heritage than the Greco-Roman matrix of Occidental art.  English version: Leslie Damasceno.


106 ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF STEERING AND SUSPENSION SYSTEM BY MATHEMATICAL AND COMPUTATIONAL METHODOLOGY Akash Sood1, Abhishek Pandey2, Savita Vyas3, Avadesh K. Sharma4 1,2P.G Scholar, Mechanical Engg.,Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya, Bhopal, India 3Asst. Prof., Mechanical Engg., Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya, Bhopal, India 4Asst. Prof., Mechanical Engg.,Madhav Institute of Technology & Science, Gwalior, India Email:email@example.com, email@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com ABSTRACT This paper introduces a design and analysis of suspension and steering system of formula SAE vehicle by both mathematical and computational methodology for optimum performance. The design is according to the formula SAE rulebook. The deep understanding is established between logics and parameters of vehicle. The design parameters are decided either from logics or from worst condition of track and the simulation of parameters are conducted.


As the wired and wireless communications and networking infrastructure evolves and undergoes dramatic changes, the need for high performance and efficiency calls for new and innovative frameworks, methods, and tools to simulate and analyze the behavior of these intricate systems and gain better understanding of their performance under different user models, traffic paradigms, and environment characteristics. While the support of a wide range of quality-of-service (QoS) requirements for a wide range of applications in heterogeneous wireline networks brings about formidable challenges, these challenges are further exacerbated in wireless environments characterized by a variety of channel interferences and highly random signal propagation characteristics, severe bandwidth limitation, and user mobility. This special issue is dedicated to address these daunting challenges and advance the state of the art in the fields of modeling, simulation, and protocol development of wired and wireless communications and networking systems. The articles that are included in this special issue cover a variety of important and challenging topics in the areas of Internet and wireless network technologies and address various aspects of their architectures, protocols, and performance. According to the tradition of this journal, all articles have been subjected to a thorough review process by qualified anonymous referees. In the first article, He, Dovrolis, and Ammar present an optimization framework to minimize the number of TCP flows that should be simulated between each pair of network nodes in order to meet specific performance requirements while minimizing the resource needed to carry out the simulation. Their methodology takes into consideration the network topology, a specification of the utilization and loss rate for certain links, and the average number of hops for the TCP flows. Their evaluations reveal that the observed performance and link characteristics are very close


A method for detecting motion of an object by nuclear magnetic resonance, comprising the steps of: a) applying a pulse sequence that modulates the magnetization of the object in space in a spatial direction, b) receiving a spectral peak of the Fourier space of the spatially modulated object by a three-dimensional imaging sequence with volume excitation of the nuclear spins, c) computing a Fourier Transform of the captured spectral peak, d) determining the movement of the object from the Fourier-transformed signal, wherein additionally in one of the other directions, the magnetization is modulated in one of the other two spatial directions perpendicular to the first spatial direction for two-dimensional detection of the movement in step a), and then steps b) to d) are repeated.


A generalized block pulse function (GBPF) is employed to solve a functional differential equation. The operational matrix for integration and the functional operational matrix of the GBPF are introduced to solve the state equation in order to simplify the calculation procedure. The greatest advantage of using a GBPF is that the time interval of calculation can be adjusted arbitrarily. A small time interval is chosen for a steep change of state variable with time and a large time interval is chosen for a flat change of state variable with time. Therefore, the number of expansion coefficients is greatly reduced and the computer time is also minimized when using GBPF compared with the conventional BPF. An illustrative example is given. It is shown that computational results are more accurate for a steep change of state variable using a GBPF rather than a BPF.


Tidal disruption events (TDEs) by supermassive or intermediate mass black holes have been suggested as candidate sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) and high-energy neutrinos. Motivated by the recent measurements from the Pierre Auger Observatory, which indicates a metal-rich cosmic-ray composition at ultrahigh energies, we investigate the fate of UHECR nuclei loaded in TDE jets. First, we consider the production and survival of UHECR nuclei at internal shocks, external forward and reverse shocks, and nonrelativistic winds. Based on the observations of Swift J1644+57, we show that the UHECRs can survive for external reverse and forward shocks, and disk winds. On the other hand, UHECR nuclei are significantly disintegrated in internal shocks, although they could survive for low-luminosity TDE jets. Assuming that UHECR nuclei can survive, we consider implications of different composition models of TDEs. We find that the tidal disruption of main sequence stars or carbon-oxygen white dwarfs does not successfully reproduce UHECR observations, namely the observed composition or spectrum. The observed mean depth of the shower maximum and its deviation could be explained by oxygen-neon-magnesium white dwarfs, but they may be too rare to be the sources of UHECRs.


The purpose of the study was to investigate if an intervention program with focus on neuromuscular and feedback training in a home-based setting with supervision improves the leg alignment in recreational volleyball and basketball players. 16 players ran a 6-week neuromuscular intervention program in a home setting with video-based supervision. The control group just followed the regular training program. Before and after the intervention the DKV was measured as the peak knee valgus angle during the video-recorded landing after a lateral jump from a box using a 2D video analysis tool. While the DKV improved in the training group, no changes were found for the control group. The intervention was effective and can be recommended as a knee-injury mitigation program.


Well bore damage created by conventional drilling fluids, under conditions of low bottom-hole pressures, can be removed during the completion operation with a high-pressure jetting tool, utilizing a carbonate-based drill-in fluid system. This combination allows operators to perform completion operations in depleted zones, under conditions of extreme overbalance. For the purpose of jetting damaged well bore sections, a special drill-in fluid was developed to withstand differential pressures up to 5,000 psi, while sealing the formation with a very thin, non-damaging filter cake.


abstract: The concepts of medical futility and "potentially inappropriate" interventions aim to describe particular decision-making situations and assist in making ethically sound decisions. This article explores how both of these concepts simplify the rather more complicated decision-making task in ways that often hinder their ability to be helpful, and potentially allow for unstated biases to influence decisions. Instead of searching for a single unifying phrase or concept, acknowledging and explicitly working with the numerous judgments and decisions that comprise a high-stakes medical treatment decision will do more to advance ethically sound decision-making.


Combining with the enclosure structure construction of the underground diaphragm wall of the foundation pit at Chengshanlu station in Shanghai,the paper analyzes the reasons for the quality problems for the pit mud leakage of underground diaphragm wall,lists the respective prevention measures and treatment methods,and introduces the key technical measures of underground diaphragm wall by an engineering example,and achieves better effects,so it can be further extended.


In this study, we present a significantly enhanced signal detection method using harmonic frequency in a lock-in amplifier (LIA). This method reduces the effect of flicker noise that limits the signal-to-noise ratio in a conventional DC-based LIA. Furthermore, it has a definite advantage that it is not necessary to match the phase between the input and the reference signals. To verify such merits, we constructed a hybrid LIA circuit and conducted experiments. The results demonstrated that the dynamic range improved by approximately 43 dB compared to a conventional DC-based LIA. Moreover, the harmonic LIA output is successfully obtained regardless of the phase difference.


The magnetic shape memory (MSM) effect was observed in Ni–Mn–Ga freestanding thin foils down to 90μm in thickness using top-down approach. The foils were prepared by thinning the bulk crystals exhibiting MSM effect. The effect was evaluated from the magnetization curves. The significant decrease in magnetic field needed to initiate the MSM effect (magnetic field induced strain or martensite structure reorientation) was observed for the studied foils down to μ0H=0.088T or H=70kA∕m. Observation suggests that the pinning of twin boundaries on the internal obstacles rather than pinning on surface lowers twin boundaries' mobility.


Over the years, several approaches have been developed for the quantitative analysis of dynamic fault trees (DFTs). These approaches have strong theoretical and mathematical foundations; however, they appear to suffer from the state-space explosion and high computational requirements, compromising their efficacy. Modularisation techniques have been developed to address these issues by identifying and quantifying static and dynamic modules of the fault tree separately by using binary decision diagrams and Markov models. Although these approaches appear effective in reducing computational effort and avoiding state-space explosion, the reliance of the Markov chain on exponentially distributed data of system components can limit their widespread industrial applications. In this paper, we propose a hybrid modularisation scheme where independent sub-trees of a DFT are identified and quantified in a hierarchical order. A hybrid framework with the combination of algebraic solution, Petri Nets, and Monte Carlo simulation is used to increase the efficiency of the solution. The proposed approach uses the advantages of each existing approach in the right place (independent module). We have experimented the proposed approach on five independent hypothetical and industrial examples in which the experiments show the capabilities of the proposed approach facing repeated basic events and non-exponential failure distributions. The proposed approach could provide an approximate solution to DFTs without unacceptable loss of accuracy. Moreover, the use of modularised or hierarchical Petri nets makes this approach more generally applicable by allowing quantitative evaluation of DFTs with a wide range of failure rate distributions for basic events of the tree.


A B ST R A C T Thispaperisan extension ofthework doneby Pierens& Nelson (2008)in which they haveinvestigated thebehaviourofa two-planetsystem em bedded in aprotoplanetary disc.They have puta Jupiterm assgasgianton the internalorbitand a lowerm ass planeton the externalone.W e considerhere a sim ilarproblem taking into account a gasgiantwith m assesin the range of0:5 to 1M J and a Super-Earth (i.e.a planet with m ass 6 10M � )astheouterm ostplanet.By changingdiscparam etersand planet m asseswe have succeeded in getting the convergentm igration ofthe planets which allowsforthe possibility oftheirresonantlocking.However,in the casein which the


Packages are the means of preservation, distribution and convenience of use for food, medicine and other consumer products. The introduction of a new package-opening technique for a better opening ...


In this paper a visual overt attention mechanism is presented. It builds and keeps updated a scene representation of all the relevant objects around a robot, especially if they are far away of each other and do not lie in the same camera image. The algorithm chooses the next fixation point for a monocular camera, which is mounted over a pantilt unit. Our approach is based on two related dynamics: liveliness and saliency. The liveliness of each relevant object diminishes in time but increases with new observations of such object. The position of each valid object is a possible fixation point for the camera. The saliency of each fixation point increases in time but is reset after the camera visit such location. Real experiments with a pioneer robot endowed with a firewire camera on a pantilt unit are displayed


The evolution of electron conductance in the presence of inelastic effects is studied as an atomic gold contact is formed evolving from a low-conductance regime (tunneling) to a high-conductance regime (contact). In order to characterize each regime, we perform density functional theory (DFT) calculations to study the geometric and electronic structures, together with the strength of the atomic bonds and the associated vibrational frequencies. The conductance is calculated by first evaluating the transmission of electrons through the system, and secondly by calculating the conductance change due to the excitation of vibrations. As found in previous studies [Paulsson et al., Phys. Rev. B. 72, 201101(R) (2005)] the change in conductance due to inelastic effects permits to characterize the crossover from tunneling to contact. The most notorious effect being the crossover from an increase in conductance in the tunneling regime to a decrease in conductance in the contact regime when the bias voltage matches a vibrational threshold. Our DFT-based calculations actually show that the effect of vibrational modes in electron conductance is rather complex, in particular when modes localized in the contact region are permitted to extend into the electrodes. As an example, we find that certain modes can give rise to decreases in conductance when in the tunneling regime, opposite to the above mentioned result. Whereas details in the inelastic spectrum depend on the size of the vibrational region, we show that the overall change in conductance is quantitatively well approximated by the simplest calculation where only the apex atoms are allowed to vibrate. Our study is completed by the application of a simplified model where the relevant parameters are obtained from the above DFT-based calculations.


This paper presents a proof of concept for the integration of the INCOSE Biomedical‐Healthcare Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) Challenge Team's modeling framework with a model‐based analysis method. This project investigated the inclusion of numerical analysis of an infusion pump and anesthesia using mathematical models integrated into the team's larger scope SysML drug delivery system medical device development modeling framework. The results of this work demonstrate how the results of a stochastic analysis can be integrated into a larger MBSE model. The inclusion of these results makes it possible for high level decisions to be informed by detailed engineering model analysis to give medical device designers the necessary data to speed development and utility of the devices they propose.


Technology is critical to the work of child health psychologists, impacting the methods available to measure behaviors, assess outcomes, and deliver interventions. In particular, the use of electronic and information technology, including the Internet, personal and hand held computers, cell phones, CD-ROMs, virtual reality, video conferencing, among other forms of technology, have solidified an important place in the provision of medical care. Within the realm of pediatric psychology, information and communication technologies have been used in the provision of pediatric psychology interventions to children, adolescents, and their families (Hicks, von Baeyer, & McGrath, 2006; Ritterband et al., 2003; Williamson et al., 2006). Moreover, pediatric psychologists use technology to reach broader populations of children and families allowing research participation via web surveys and computer assisted telephone interviews. Unique aspects of the technology impact the manner in which data are collected, interpreted, and analyzed. Real time visibility in data collection and compliance enhancing functions of computerized devices affords additional opportunities for understanding complex health behaviors. Innovative devices can be used to provide objective measures of a variety of health-related behaviors such as adherence-related behaviors, activity level, and sleep. The section on Innovations in Technology in Measurement, Assessment, and Intervention will focus on the science related to technologies used in pediatric psychology research and practice. As new technologies emerge and are adopted, as a field, we will need ongoing information to not only enable understanding of the functions and applicability of the technology, but also to critically consider issues pertinent to the science of the technology. This section is intended to highlight specific innovative technologies, demonstrate their applicability to pediatric psychology research and practice, and consider specialized issues such as acceptability, confidentiality and security, and human subjects concerns. The section will include manuscripts that describe the clinical effectiveness of technologies in practice settings; and that present data concerning economic costs versus benefits of the application of technologies in research and practice. Human subjects and ethical concerns, including IRB-related issues, and solutions related to the use of new technologies in different practice settings will be featured. A separate but related topic that will be highlighted is the influence of information and communication technologies on children's health and functioning such as their physical activity levels, mental health outcomes, and somatic symptoms. The section on Innovations in Technology seeks manuscripts on a wide variety of topics within the content area of information and communication technologies. These include, but are not limited to, empirical research pertaining to the use of technologies for assessment, treatment, or education; review papers that advance theoretical and empirical perspectives; and brief ''how to'' papers and author letters that describe pertinent issues in the implementation of various technologies. Commentaries will be used to advance discussion of research and clinical implications. This section will be ongoing and will also feature special issues. For example, the first special issue relevant to this section will be on eHealth in pediatric psychology (to be co-edited with Lee Ritterband, PhD).


The article examines the main characteristics of the representation process of Russia in the American mass media discourse. The research proves that the image of Russia, conceptualized in the headlines of American mass media, tends to be rather single-sided and contains negative information, the purpose of which is to discredit Russia. The strategy of preterition is established to be one of the main features of the analyzed discourse.


In the last 10 years, the PResymptomatic EValuation of Experimental or Novel Treatments for Alzheimer Disease (PREVENT‐AD) research program has collected both biological and behavioral data longitudinally, using well‐recognized biomarkers, to better understand and prevent Alzheimer's disease (AD). Our cohort is composed of older individuals with a family history of AD, but who were themselves cognitively unimpaired when enrolled in the study (aged 63 years old ± 5, at entry). To move AD research further, we recently shared this rich dataset with the global research community.


In this paper, we give two family of explicit blowup axisymmetric solution for $3$D incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in $\mathbb{R}^3$. Here one family of solutions admit the smooth initial data, and the initial data of another family of solutions are not smooth.


In its simplest sense, computational thinking is considered as a series of specific skills that help programmers to do their homework, but that are also useful to people in their professional life and in their personal life as a way to organize the resolution on their problems, and of representing the reality that surrounds them.In a more elaborate scheme, this complex of skills constitutes a new literacy --- or the most substantial part of it --- and an inculturation to deal with a new culture, the digital culture in the knowledge society.We have seen how Bayesian probability is used in epidemiology models to determine models for the evolution of data on contagion and deaths in COVID and in natural language processing.We could also see it in a multitude of cases in the most varied scientific and process analysis fields. In this way, with the automation of Bayesian methods and the use of probabilistic graphical models, it is possible to identify patterns and anomalies in voluminous data sets in fields as diverse as linguistic corpus, astronomical maps, add functionalities to the practice of the magnetic resonance imaging, or to card, online or smartphone purchasing habits. In this new way of proceeding, big data analysis and Bayesian theory are associated.If we consider that Bayesian thinking, this way of proceeding, as one more and more relevant element of computational thinking, then to what has been said on previous occasions we must now add the idea of generalized computational thinking, which goes beyond education. It is no longer about aspects purely associated with ordinary professional or vital practice to deal with life and the world of work, as has been what we have called computational thinking until now, but as a preparation for basic research and research methodology in almost all disciplines. Because, thus defined, computational thinking is influencing research in almost all areas, both in the sciences and in the humanities. An instruction focused on this component of computational thinking, Bayesian thinking, of including it at an early stage, in Secondary (K-12), including the inverse probability formula, would allow, based on Merrill's First principles of learning, and in particular in the activation principle, activate these learning as very valuable and very complex components in a later stage of professional or research activity, or in the training passed, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, of these professions or that train for these activities and professions.


The purpose of the work is to determine the stress-strain state of the centrifugal turbomachine wheel  , in which, when we made  calculating in one case, the wheel was considered as constructively orthotropic disk, in the othercase we didn't took into account the stiffness of the blades, which were considered as the joining mass.Calculations of elements of power equipment were also examined in works [1-3].         The calculation of working wheel as a constructively orthotropic disk was investigated in the works [4 , 5]. The problem is reduced to the solution of the boundary integral equation in relationto the intensity of radial effort in these works.


The pressing need to increase agricultural production often seems at odds with conserving biodiversity. We find that if managed properly, the tropical countryside may provide a substantial opportunity for tropical bird conservation. We detected 144 bird species from 29 families in agricultural areas outside of extensive native forest in southern Costa Rica. The majority of the species detected were observed foraging, often kilometres from extensive native forest. We estimate that 46% of those native to this region (excluding nocturnal species and waterfowl) are utilizing the countryside in some manner. Forecasts of biodiversity change under various land-use scenarios indicate that policies that affect habitat composition could greatly impact the persistence of these species in the countryside. In particular, if tall trees and edge habitats were removed from this landscape, we predict that bird richness in the countryside would decline by approximately 40%.


Discretized path-integral computations of the energy and radial distribution function of $^{4}\mathrm{He}$ in good accord with experiment are presented for temperatures down to 1 K at saturated vapor pressure. Results for the single-particle density matrix, momentum distribution, and condensate fraction agree at the lowest temperature with previous ground-state calculations.


The elbow joint is considered relatively stable; however, elbow dislocations are a fairly common occurrence. This injury frequently occurs during sporting activities when a person falls on an extended elbow. In most instances, the semilunar notch of the ulna is dislocated posteriorly from the distal humerus. If there is no fracture associated with the dislocation, it is described as simple, and the injury is often closed with no bony protrusion through the skin.The stability of the elbow joint due to its bony structure means that significant force is required to disrupt the joint. Therefore, an associated fracture may be found along with the elbow dislocation thus classifying the dislocation as complex. Neurovascular complications are rare from a simple, closed, posterior dislocation. The less encountered anterior elbow dislocation requires much more force and concern for neurovascular compromise should be greater. A dislocated elbow necessitates immediate closed reduction to prevent complications. Recurrent elbow dislocations suggest chronic joint instability and may require operative fixation.


New York is the financial capital of the United States and the international capital of the world. No other city offers the quality and diversity that New York City offers. It is a center of business and industry, headquarters to multi-national corporations, and a mecca for the fine arts, entertainment and fashion. A record number of people are drawn to a variety of financial and service-related businesses every day, and the city is a destination point for millions of tourists and conventioners who patronize its hotels, restaurants and theaters. New York City's primary international gateway is John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), located approximately 16 miles from Manhattan. A major component of the national air transportation network, JFK handles approximately 350,000 flights each year, carrying over 30 million passengers and nearly 2 million tons of cargo. Along with two other area airports -- La Guardia (LGA) and Newark International (EWR) -- JFK contributes significantly to the regional economy. It provides 37,000 direct and 207,700 indirect jobs, and generates $6.6 billion in wages and salaries and $20.4 billion in regional sales. Although forecasts indicate that JFK will serve as many as 37 million passengers by 2003 and 45 million by 2013, this growth potential may very well remain unrealized if ground access to, from and within the airport is not improved. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in conjunction with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and various economic, technical and environmental consultants, has conducted in-depth analyses for an airport access project that would reduce automobile trips to JFK, provide a safe, reliable and environmentally sound alternative, and improve intra-airport mobility. This paper will discuss the need for such a system, the challenges of building it at JFK, and the influence of the public and regulatory processes on its implementation and technological and evolutionary design.


Rechargeable lithium–sulfur batteries (LSBs) are regarded as one of the most promising next-generation energy storage systems for their high energy density and low-cost. However, the severe shuttle effect and the sluggish kinetics of polysulfides significantly hinder the practical application of LSBs. Most notably, surface defects of catalysts (typically anion deficiencies) have been fabricated via metal doping, hydrogen treatment and plasma engraving, in order to effectively enhance the chemisorption and electrocatalysis of polysulfides. However, these methods are complicated, have high costs and suffer from difficulties in scaling up. Herein, we present a facile and cost-effective strategy via electroreduction treatment to fabricate sulfur deficiencies applied to a CdS nanosheet/reduced graphene oxide (CdS NSs/rGO) composite, which serves as the functional separator to promote the catalytic interconversion of polysulfides for LSBs. The cell with the CdS1−x NSs/rGO functional separator not only exhibits a high initial rate performance of 1415.9 mA h g−1 at 0.2C, but it also delivers an excellent cycling stability with a decay rate of 0.066% after 1000 cycles at 1C. This work provides a new perspective on engineering sulfur deficiencies in energy storage systems through electrochemical technology.


Analyses of early social cognition have highlighted young children's ability to coordinate with another person by attending to the same object, engaging in a common project, talking about the same topic, or sharing a make-believe world. However, a great deal of communication is predicated on the fact that people differ in what they know and understand. Indeed, many communicative acts are aimed at bridging those divergent perspectives. A knowledgeable speaker can inform his or her listener. An ignorant speaker can seek information from someone better informed. A misunderstanding between speakers can be overcome via suitable repairs. I argue that young children are not only alert to such gaps in knowledge or understanding, they are also motivated to remedy them. In pursuit of that goal, they inform, ask and repair. They work at building a shared reality rather than taking it for granted.


Goat fatty acid synthase(FAS),a central multifunctional enzyme in charge of fatty acid synthesis in mammary gland,plays a significant role in regulation of short-and medium-chain fatty acid.This study designed three short hairpin RNA(shRNA) sequences shRNA-5544,shRNA-5936,and shRNA-6132 targeting different area of FAS gene and one negative control sequence,then constructed four entry vectors containing shRNA expression cassette as well as pDsRed1-C1 vector expressing target gene by cotransfecting HEK 293 cell.The result showed that entry vector expressing shRNA-5544 and shRNA-5936 sequences caused an obvious interference effect.Then ampicillin and chloramphenicol were successfully applied to identify three recombinant adenovirus vectors generated by LR recombination between entry vector(pENTR/CMV-GFP/U6-shRNA-5544,pENTR/CMV-GFP/U6-shRNA-5936,pENTR/CMV-GFP/U6-shRNA-NC) and backbone vector(pAd/PL-DEST).ScaⅠdigestion identification and sequencing analysis indicated that the sequence inserted into pAd/PL-DEST vector was the same with designed shRNA template.Recombinant adenovirus vector was transfected into HEK 293 Cell by Lipofectamine 2000 reagent after linearization by PacⅠdigestion.The cell lysates harvested during 10 to 12 days post transfection were employed to perform virus amplification in HEK 293 cells for three times to generate high-titer virus.The titer of the adenoviral stock was determined by TCID50 method and respectively reaches 6×108 PFU/mL(Expressing shRNA-5544 sequence),5×108 PFU/mL(Expressing shRNA-5936 sequence),and 6×108 PFU/mL(Expressing shRNA-NC sequence),respectively.The attaining of recombinant virus lays a foundation for RNA interference research of FAS gene in primary goat mammary epithelial cells.


Preface Opening Statement of Chairman John Conyers, Jr., before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Hearing on " Accountability, Transparency, and Uniformity in Corporate Deferred and Non-Prosecution Agreements" Corporate Crime: Preliminary Observations on DOJ's Use and Oversight of Deferred Prosecution and Non-Prosecution Agreements (Statement of Eileen R Larence, Director, Homeland Security and Justice, (GAO) Prepared Statement of Christopher J Christie, Former U.S. Attorney, District of New Jersey, June 25, 2009 Statement of Gary G. Grindler, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, U.S. Dept. of Justice, before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Hearing on "Accountability, Transparency, and Uniformity in Corporate Deferred and Non-Prosecution Agreements" Testimony of Chuck Rosenberg, Hogan & Harrison, LLP, before the Committee on the Judiciary, Hearing on "Accountability, Transparency, and Uniformity in Corporate Deferred and Non-Prosecution Agreements" Written Statement of Vikramaditya Khanna, Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School, before the Committee on the Judiciary, Hearing on "Accountability, Transparency, and Uniformity in Corporate Deferred and Non-Prosecution Agreements" Testimony of Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., before the Committee on the Judiciary, Hearing on "Accountability, Transparency, and Uniformity in Corporate Deferred and Non-Prosecution Agreements" Opening Statement of Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr., Eighth Congressional District of New Jersey, before the Committee on the Judiciary, Hearing on "Accountability, Transparency, and Uniformity in Corporate Deferred and Non-Prosecution Agreements" Corporate Crime: Prosecutors Adhered to Guidance in Selecting Monitors for Deferred Prosecution and Non-Prosecution Agreements, but DOJ could Better Communicate its Role in Resolving Conflicts (Statement of Eileen R. Larence, Director, Homeland Security and Justice, (GAO)) Statement of Gil M. Soffer, Co-Chair, National White Collar Practice, Katten Muchin Rosenman, LLP, Former Associate Deputy Attorney General, U.S. Dept. of Justice, before the Committee on the Judiciary, Hearing on "Transparency and Integrity in Corporate Monitoring" Written Statement of Brandon L. Garrett, Associate Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law, before the Committee on the Judiciary, Hearing on "Transparency and Integrity in Corporate Monitoring" Corporate Crime: DOJ has Taken Steps to Better Track its Use of Deferred and Non-Prosecution Agreements, but Should Evaluate Effectiveness (GAO) Index.


The properties of traveling kinetic Alfvén waves (KAWs) and their role in energizing electrons in the inner magnetosphere during a geomagnetic storm are examined using measurements from the Van Allen Probes and Gyrofluid‐Kinetic Electron (GKE) model simulations. Traveling KAWs occur in the vicinity of energetic plasma injection fronts in association with magnetic field dipolarizations. The KAWs coincide with energized field‐aligned electrons at energies ≲1 keV. By using observational constraints and incorporating hot and cold electron populations, the GKE simulations are able to reproduce the observed energized electron distribution signatures. The modeling results demonstrate the crucial importance of cold electrons for best observational agreement. The results show that the electron response to KAWs can be substantially different for opposing current regions and are a sensitive function of the cold electron relative density.


How do you know your house is sustainable if you have no information on what makes a house unsustainable? The Household Energy End-use Project (HEEP) (completed in 2007), provides baseline information on key measures of sustainability – the use of energy and the temperatures in New Zealand"s residential buildings. The results from HEEP now provide the basis for projects such as the Key Energy Uses Study (air-to-air heat pumps and entertainment appliances), Sustainable Water Heating (solar and heat pump), lighting surveys and downlight investigations. HEEP and the Key Energy Uses study are nationally representative monitoring studies collecting energy use, temperatures, and house and social data. Others are case studies or surveys on specific technologies to understand performance and uptake rates.


The existence of positive solutions to boundary value problem for m impulsive points p-Laplacian dynamic equations on time scales was disscussed.Using fixed point theorems for an operator on a cone,sufficient conditions were established for the existence of at least two and three positive solutions to the above boundary value problem.Also,some examples were provided to demonstrate the main results.


Written by: John Wilhite & Tiger Yeh, Advantech Corporation, Industrial Automation Group A funny thing happened on the way to the future. Because of the laws of physics and economic realities, processors took a detour, getting off the path they had been on for decades. That is one way to read the development of multi-core processors, chips that have two or more largely independent instruction execution engines in them. As is the case with some other detours, this one could prove beneficial, particularly for automation applications. Control systems based on multi-core processors will have more computing power, greater reliability and lower overall cost than equivalent single core solutions. In this white paper, we will look at why multi-core processors were developed, explore the characteristics of an industrial automation computer and then examine what features a multi-core system should have. The paper will then detail the advantages a multi-core system offers for automation applications and describe a realworld example. It will conclude by looking at what the future holds.


Fatty acids, stored as triacylglycerols, are the main fuel reserves of animals and are readily used by most tissues, with a few specialized exceptions such as nerve cells and erythrocytes. Fatty acid degradation in tissues proceeds mainly through @-oxidation, which involves the successive oxidation removal of acetyl groups from the carboxyl end of long-chain fatty acids. P-Oxidation had been believed to occur only in the mitochondrial matrix in animal tissues until Lazarow and de Duve reported the presence of a 0-oxidation system in rat liver peroxisomes in 1976.' The discovery of peroxisomal ,&oxidation is of great importance for the progress of the field of lipid research. Extensive studies on the physiological significance of the system have been undertaken. Studies on the properties of the enzymes in the peroxisomal @-oxidation system are essential to characterize the nature and physiological role of this novel system. In this paper we describe the molecular and catalytic properties of individual enzymes of rat liver peroxisomes.


The performance advantage of multitaper spectral analysis is quantified relative to weighted overlapped segment averaging (WOSA). To make the comparison of these two nonparametric spectral estimators, theoretical performance measures are derived in terms of leakage, variance, and resolution. The methods are then compared by evaluating each measure in turn, while requiring the other two measures to be equal. The results show that multitaper analysis always performs better than WOSA. For example, given the same leakage and resolution, multitaper analysis can have three-quarters to one-half the variance of WOSA. Given the same resolution and variance, multitaper analysis can exhibit a 10-20-dB leakage advantage over WOSA. These and other results provide compelling evidence for greater use of multitaper analysis in situations for which a nonparametric spectral estimator is appropriate. >


Every even integer > 2 is the sum of two prime numbers & equivalent Each odd integer > 5 is the sum of three prime numbers USING THE SIEVE OF ERATOSTHENES.


A trajectory tracking problem for a class uncertain parabolic linear distributed parameter systems is discussed.Under condition of systems state initial allow existing error in iterative processing,a time-varying gain coefficient close-loop P-type iterative learning algorithm is presented,and the sufficient condition for tracking expected trajectory is given.Convergence of iterative error in L2 norm is proved by using Bellman-Gronwall inequality and operator theory.A numerical example illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.


The surface quality of micro-arc oxidation (MAO) in 6061 aluminum alloy was investigated using a variety of process parameters. The tribological properties of the different MAO surfaces were evaluated using the 'reciprocating pin-on-disk' method. Different current densities were selected in order to illustrate the formation mechanism of the MAO layer. Wear test results were used to evaluate the wear resistance ability of the various MAO layers for establishing a wear model. The surface morphology, porosity distribution on cross section, and worn surface of the MAO layers were characterized using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Different material counterparts and contact conditions were applied to simulate a variety of practical scenarios. The results show that the hardness of the MAO layer formed at the 15 A/dm2condition was the highest among the four kinds of specimens, and the MAO layer formed at the 15 A/dm2 condition had the best wear resistance. This can be attributed to the various size and distribution of the pores and the different ratio of $\alpha$ to $\gamma$ phase in the MAO layers when subjected to different parameters during MAO process.


The aims of this study were to understand the prevalence and correlates of syphilis infection among HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM) in Shanghai, China. A total of 200 HIV-positive MSM participants were recruited using "snowball" sampling. Participants were tested for syphilis and completed a one-time questionnaire which included demographic characteristics, sexual behaviours with male and female sexual partners, substance use, and use of antiretroviral medications. Prevalence of syphilis infection was 16.5%. Among HIV/syphilis co-infected participants, 63.6% reported having anal sex with male partners and 24.2% did not use condoms consistently during the past six months; 66.7% reported having oral sex with male partners and 51.5% reported unprotected oral sex during the past six months. Factors associated with testing seropositive for syphilis infection included receptive anal sex with a male partner in the past six months (AOR = 12.61, 90% CI = 2.38–66.89), illicit drug use in the past six months (AOR = 11.47, 90% CI = 2.47–53.45), and use of antiretroviral medication (AOR = 4.48, 90% CI = 1.43–14.05). These data indicate a need for "positive prevention" interventions targeting HIV-positive MSM in China.