Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in India. Association between hyperhomocysteinemia and Metabolic Syndrome (MS) or its components in a population with or without cardiovascular disease is not well established. This study aims to check levels of homocysteine (Hcy) and its relationship with CVD. Aims and Objectives: To check Hcy levels in healthy adults and MS patients to reflect its association with CVD. Material and Methods: Case control study was done on 40 subjects patients with MS (n=20) and controls (n=20) of 30 - 60 years at Fr. Muller Medical College Hospital, Karnataka. Results: Homocysteine levels were significantly higher in MS group when compared to controls (p = 0.04). Conclusion: MS group had higher homocysteine levels along with blood glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol when compared to controls. Elevated levels of Hcy can be a marker for cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, the results of this study suggest the overall role of homocysteine function on insulin resistance, and its association with cardiovascular parameters.


Introduction: Elderly are vulnerable individuals in society, and are mostly exposed to mental disorders especially depression. Using non-medical factors to manage the depression, like perceived social support, can reduce the incidence of adverse reactions in such a vulnerable population. The current study aimed to determine the relationship between social support with depression among elderly in the eastern cities of Guilan.
Methods: This study was a cross-sectional, descriptive -correlational study conducted by the elderly living in the eastern cities of Guilan, in which 168 people were selected from two-stage, cluster random and available sampling.   Data was collected with using two standard tools include, Philips social support questionnaires (23 Items), and Geriatric Depression Scale (15 Items)    Data were analyzed using SPSS, version 19, software, T-test, ANOVA and Pearson tests.
Results: The mean of social support in elderly living in the eastern of Guilan was 73/25±9/18 (total score range of 23-92) and the mean of depression for them was 3/20±3/58 (total score range of 0-15). The analysis of the data indicated that there was a negative significant correlation between social support and depression (p<0/01, r=-0/47).
Conclusion: This study confirmed the role of social support in the development of depression in the elderly, so it is important to provide the conditions for promoting social support to reduce depression and thus improve the quality of life of the elderly.


This paper reports research on the effect of prior programming experience on success in an objects-first CS1. In an objects-first, approach students are taught from the very beginning to think in terms of objects and the fundamentals of object-oriented programming, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. These concepts are introduced before traditional selection and iterative constructs. The finding that students with prior programming experience do not do better than those without such experience flies in the face of conventional wisdom.


It is well recognized that hypotension is a feature of advanced adrenal failure. Several factors, such as sodium loss, decreased circulating plasma volume and so on, may play a role in the reduction of blood pressure. Observations on the patient mentioned above, however, suggest that perhaps the pressor activity of catecholamines is reduced in the absence of adrenal cortical hormones, i.e. adrenal cortical hormones are perhaps permissive, in the sense used by Ingle (1952), for the action of medullary hormones. Alternatively, the relationship between the two may be purely secondary. Various aspects of this relationship will be considered.


To explain the mechanism involved in the formation of copper porphyries, a new concept is brought forward based on magmatic pulsations providing the forces necessary to drive hydrothermal and mineralizing stations, and also to produce structures. . . The basic type of breccia particular to hydrothermal developments is rupture breccia, formed by hydraulic ramming of hydrothermal solutions into overlying rocks. This breccia when heaved up or subsided by magmatic pulsations can be changed. . . into subsidence, heave, kneaded, or milled breccias. The burst and late-magmatic breccias are also caused, though more indirectly, by magmatic pulsations.


Presently e-learning is growing day by day because it's provides a efficient learning environment and practical utilities at anytime and anywhere, as for learners and teachers fell their educational activities with less effort, time and money. In modern era E-learning gained so much attention by semantic web techniques. This paper shows acceptability of semantic web in e-learning environment. At first here shows compression between learning and e-learning, semantic web different from web, and how much e-learning is depended on semantic web and here set up a relationship between semantic web and ontology. Overview of layers of the Semantic web architecture successively can draw a knowledge map about semantic web technologies in modern era. Also here describe Metadata in e-Learning. Semantic web technologies applied in different field, e-learning is one of the areas that can benefit from Semantic Web technologies. Key words: Semantic Web, E-Learning, Ontology, Metadata, RDF, SPARQL


The brain's cognitive skills gradually decline with aging. In old animals, damaged proteins accumulate in neurons since autophagy, a catabolic process responsible for organelle and protein degradation, decreases. Physical exercise is a known lifestyle factor that promotes learning and memory formation in the hippocampus. The beneficial effects of exercise are mediated through the induction of the brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Previous work identified that exercise promotes cognition by inducing autophagy. In this study, we report that voluntary exercise increases autophagic activity in the hippocampus of adult C57BL/6 mice. This increase in autophagy is correlated with enhanced spatial learning and memory formation in the Morris water maze. Inhibition of autophagy in adult exercise mice with chloroquine phosphate (CQ) during the behavioral test showed impaired learning and memory formation, as well as decreased BDNF levels in the hippocampus as compared to the control exercise group. Activation of BDNF signaling in mice treated with CQ did not rescue learning and memory deficits. Hence, our results suggest that BDNF signaling is upstream of autophagy in the hippocampus. The same exercise paradigm did not promote learning and memory formation in middle aged and old male mice. Interestingly, we show that systemic administration of adult exercise plasma into middle-aged mice rejuvenates learning and memory in an autophagy dependent manner. Our results are consistent with autophagy playing central roles in promoting exercise-induced effects on cognition. Among the plasma factors, we identified β-hydroxybutyrate, a liver-derived molecule, as an exercise-induced factor that promotes learning and memory in an autophagy-dependent manner. The results reveal the potential therapeutic benefits of plasma factors released in response to exercise in an autophagy dependent manner.


The primary objective of this research involves the synthetic design of homologs of 3, 4dihydroxyphenylalanine (dopa) in order to inhibit melanin formation, melanogenesis. These synthetic homologs are structured to have variations within their side chains and unto their aromatic ring when compared to the structure of dopa. Strategic structural variations are incorporated within the molecular framework of the homologs such that their dopa mimicking features are enhanced, and consequently inhibit the formation of melanins. The structural variations of the homologs are designed to exhibit specificity in the regulations of phase-I and phase –II of melanogenesis. Many studies have suggested a strong correlation between enhanced rates of melanin formation and many forms of malignant melanomas (e.g., skin cancers). In this work, a variety of dopa precursors and dopa homologs were successfully synthesized. The synthetic methods developed for the preparation of the dopa homologs were also designed for efficient entry into a variety of new amino acids and precursors. Structural validation of dopa and precursors were aided by the use of a variety of instrumentations; inclusive of GC/MS, FTIR and NMR. The ultimate success of this work is expected to lead to the development of a more comprehensive profile between strategic molecular designs and melanin inhibition.


.Abstract This study examined the effectiveness of maternity nursing simulations using a high-fidelity simulator forundergraduate nursing students. One-group pretest-posttest design was used. The simulation-based education programconsisted of three sessions, including the clinical scenarios about prenatal, childbearing and postpartum care. The program provided for 3 weeks in November 2014. Data was collected before and after the simulation education usingself-reported questionnaires, which included simulation effectiveness, problem solving ability, communication skills and self-confidence in maternity nursing. The data of 83 participants were analyzed using the IBM SPSS 20.0 program. After simulation education, the overall score of the simulation effectiveness was 17.4 out of 26.0. Communication skill (t=4.58, p=<.001) and self-confidence in maternity nursing (t=9.70, p=<.001) increased significantly in the posttest. On the other hand, there was no significant change in the problem solving ability. Thesimulation effectiveness correlated significantly with the problem solving ability (r=.494, p<.001), communication skill(r=.361, p<.001), and self-confidence in maternity nursing (r=.497, p<.001) after simulation-based education. These findings suggest that the high-fidelity simulation in maternity nursing education could be used not only to enhancethe nursing competency, but also to deal with the limitations of the clinical practicum in the current situation. Keywords : Communication; Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate; Obstetric Nursing; Problem Solving; Simulation Training; Self Efficacy


INTRODUCTION :
Ulcerative colitis (colitis ulcerosa, UC) is a chronic idiopathic inflammatory disease of the
gastrointestinal tract that affects the large bowel and is a major disorder under the broad group of
conditions termed inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs).
Etiopathogenesis of ulcerative colitis largely remains hypothetical. It arises from a complex
interaction between genetic, immune and environmental factors. Inflammation first affects the
rectum and extends proximally along a variable length of the colon. In most of the cases, the
disease follows a chronic relapsing, remitting course. Treatment is mainly immunosuppressive.
Control of disease includes long term medical management and regular monitoring for
complications. Enteric infections are known to be associated with exacerbations of UC. India, being a tropical country has a high prevalence of enteric pathogens. There is scant literature from India on what are the interactions of enteric pathogens with disease severity of UC.
AIM OF THE STUDY :
To perform a prospective cross-sectional observational study in patients with ulcerative colitis - To determine whether there is any association between intestinal infection (with
parasites, cytomegalovirus or Clostridium difficile) and clinical disease severity in
patients with ulcerative colitis.
CONCLUSIONS : The presence of pathogens (parasites, cytomegalovirus and/or Clostridium difficile) was very significantly associated with moderate/severe UC (p value = 0.02). 86% of patients testing positive for the above pathogens had moderate to severe UC while 51% of patients without pathogens had moderate to severe UC.
Ten patients (11.5%) had a parasitic infestation. Eight out of these ten patients had moderate to severe disease. Three patients (3.4%) had Clostridium difficile toxin positivity in stools. All had severe disease. They improved with medical treatment.
Two patients (2.3%) had cytopathic changes suggestive of cytomegalovirus infection on biopsy. Both had severe disease. One of them responded only partially to ganciclovir and subsequently required subtotal colectomy while the other improved with ganciclovir and medical therapy for ulcerative colitis.


The performance management,which has successfully used by the enterprises,achieves successes in the government management reform in many western countries.Here some basic procedure and methods to apply the performance evaluation to the Sichuan government management under the macro-purpose of building a harmonious society are analyzed.


This study is an attempt to estimate the role of Organisational climate perception in determining the teaching competence primary school teachers. The sample of the study consisted of 242 primary school teachers. Two newly constructed tools were administered on the sample for the collection of data. The results of the study indicated significant influence of Organisational climate perception on teaching competence of primary school teachers. Results indicated significant relationship between 'Teaching Competence' and 'Organisational Climate Perception' among primary school teachers for the total Sample and for relevant sub samples. Except for the correlations obtained between the sub samples based on teachers educational qualification as P.G B.Ed and T.T.C, all other variables selected for the study have no influence on the degree of relationship between organisational climate perception and teaching


OBJECTIVE
To test whether dopexamine hydrochloride, by its beta 2-adrenoreceptor and dopaminergic 1 (DA1) and dopaminergic 2 (DA2) agonistic properties, can improve oxygen consumption (VO2) in hyperdynamic patients with septic shock.

DESIGN
Prospective, single-cohort study.

SETTING
ICU, university hospital.

PATIENTS
Twenty-nine postoperative, hemodynamically stabilized, hyperdynamic patients with septic shock.

INTERVENTIONS
Short-term application (30 min) of dopexamine hydrochloride at a dose of 2 microgram/kg/min.

MEASUREMENTS
Complete hemodynamic profile with O2 transport-related variables at baseline, 30 min after starting the dopexamine infusion, and 30 min after stopping the infusion.

MAIN RESULTS
The dopexamine infusion resulted in significant increases in cardiac index (17%) (p<0.001) and O2 delivery (DO2) (16%) (p<0.001). VO2 increased slightly but significantly about 4% (p<0.001) by respiratory gas exchange measurements and 9% (p<0.001) by cardiovascular Fick calculations. The O2 extraction ratio decreased about 8% (0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
The addition of dopexamine hydrochloride at a dose of 2 microgram/kg/min resulted in significant increases of DO2 and to a lesser extent VO2. Much of the global DO2 increase was not utilized, because O2 extraction ratio decreased. Direct calorigenic effects of dopexamine and an increase in myocardial VO2 likely account for a large portion of the increase in global VO2. Whether any of the VO2 increase reflects improvement in regions of jeopardized tissue oxygenation remains to be clarified before the definite value of this drug in septic shock can be established.


In order to improve the stamping production efficiency, a second processing procedure out of the stamping die could be put into the progressive die. With the design of the die for the motor bracket parts as an example, the application of the technology of rivet jointing inside the progressive die was introduced.


A goal of this paper is to overview the nature of research methodology used in studies of supported employment and to discuss implications for the next decade of supported employment research. Because of the similarities between the two initiatives, a methodological framework or cycle developed to analyze research on transition was used as the organizer for this overview of supported employment.


A problem currently faced by autonomous systems, learning agents, multi-agent systems and other cognitive systems is the extreme susceptibility to bad information and malicious misdirection. In this paper, we propose a strategy to identify trusted agents in a multi-agent system, so that a system can eliminate the knowledge provided by malicious or unknown agents. The strategy is covered in three phases by each agent; firstly sharing information with other agents in the system, secondly calculating the conclusion based on the majority of information received from others and lastly identifying the trusted, malicious and unknown agents in the system. The theoretical analysis shows that the trusted agent strategy (TAS) is capable of identifying malicious or compromised agents if a system has less than 25% of malicious agents. This is further improved in the advanced-TAS which can handle up to 40% malicious agents. The experimental results show that trusted and malicious agents can be identified with high accuracy.


This paper articulates the Artificial Medium Laws Theory. The theory is comprised of Perceived Psychological Dimensions, namely: sound, picture, moving picture, time and interaction. These dimensions are the building blocks of the theory's five laws: 1) The Truth in the Medium is Context Dependent, 2) The Stronger Dimension Prevails, 3) Medium with Time Dimension Determines its Usage Length, 4) The More Dimensions the Medium Poses the Weaker the User's Imagination, and 5) The User is Bound to All the Laws. The theory seeks to explain the artificial medium influence on human users and to suggest potential implications.


[Objective]To develop an animal pulmonary cement embolism model,by which the effect of polymethylmethacrylate(PMMA),calcium phosphate cement(CPC) and silk fibroin/calcium phosphate cement composite(SF/CPC) on the hemodynamic change,respiratory function and the antithrombin activity were measured after the pulmonary embolism caused by cement injection.The efficiency of SF reducing the risk of cardiovascular complication was evaluated.[Method]Twenty-four pigs were assigned to 3 groups randomly,with 8 pigs in each group.After general anesthesia,animals were endotracheal intubated and mechanically ventilated by a respirator.The pulmonary trunk was exposed via sternotomy and each kind of cement was injected into the main pulmonary artery.Hemodynamic parameters were continuously monitored.Blood samples were drawn at certain time points for blood gases analyzing and measurement of AT Ⅲ.Postmortem lungs were subject to computer tomography(CT) examination along with three-dimensional reconstructions of cement casts.[Result]The injection of CPC caused severe pulmonary hypertension and arterial hypotension,with a maximum elevation of 20.93±5.04 mmHg in PAP(20 min post-injection) and a maximum decrease of-26.59±6.8 mmHg in MABP(50 min post-injection).The changes in SF/CPC group were relatively slighter,which is similar with PMMA group,having a statistically significant difference from CPC groups(P0.05).Blood gases revealed significant hypercarbia,acidemia,hypoxemia and a sharp drop of AT Ⅲ level in CPC group after injection,while these respiratory impairments and change of coagulation were mild in SF/CPC and PMMA group.CT images showed an obvious decay of CPC while SF/CPC casts kept fairly intact.[Conclusion]The results indicated that,the washout resistance properties of cements significantly influenced the severity of cardiovascular complications post pulmonary embolism.The incorporation of SF evidently improved the stability of CPC that effectively reduced the formation of embolus especially the micro-embolus.The effect on hemodynamic changes and respiratory function were well reduced by the addition of SF,as well as a decreased risk of stimulation of clotting system.The rate of acute cardiovascular deterioration and mortality were therefore decreased.


Hypoadrenocorticism arises from insufficient adrenal gland function and is also known as Addison's disease, a rarely occurring disease (0.1%) in dogs. Due to its oscillatory course and overall nonspecific symptoms, it is a diagnostic challenge for clinicians, and is often misdiagnosed or unattended among other differentials. There are two forms of hypoadrenocorticism: primary and secondary. The aim of this study was to analyse the data of dogs suffering from Addison's disease, treated at the Clinic for Internal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Croatia and to compare them with data from similar institutions worldwide. The archive of Clinic for Internal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Zagreb, Croatia was searched to investigate and statistically analyse signalment, clinical and laboratory data, and the duration of symptoms, treatment protocols and outcome of canine hypoadrenocorticism. The study group included 14 dogs (36% male and 64% female) diagnosed with hypoadrenocorticism. All dogs had a history of gastrointestinal symptoms, i.e. vomiting in 100%, diarrhoea in 64% and melena in 7%. Hypovolemic shock was noted in 57%, hypothermia in 64% and bradycardia in 29% of cases. The most frequently observed laboratory abnormalities were an increase in BUN (86%), creatinine (57%) and potassium concentration (79%), and a decrease in sodium (71%), Na/K ratio (86%), cholesterol (21%) and glucose concentration (21%). Duration of symptoms (till ACTH stimulation test performance) was broad, from 2 – 2190 days (median 90±1195.5 days). The outcome was favourable in 100% cases after initiation of adequate treatment.


A union bound analysis is given for codes over binary asymmetric channels. By considering a random mapping that modulates each coded bit equiprobably to the signal constellation point, an average union bound is derived explicitly as a function of the code's weight spectrum. The bound can be used for estimating the error floor performance of maximum-likelihood decoding or near optimal decodings.


The β-Si3N4 crystals are widely used in industrial and electronics areas. Therefore, β-Si3N4 has drawn the attention of
researchers for many years. In this study, effects of icosagen group impurity atoms in the IIIA group on the electronic
properties of the β-Si3N4 crystal were analyzed by using the density functional theory. As a result of these analyses, it was
determined that the electronic properties of the crystal change significantly. Basic electronic characteristics for pure β-Si3N4
crystal and icosagen group impurity β-Si3N4 crystals, such as band structures, densities of states, binding energies, and
formation energies were investigated. We identified that the band gap of the …


A new type arbitrary waveform generator was designed by using the virtual instrument technology.By adopting Visual Basic to interface programming,the system implemented hand-painted waveform and recorded the waveform data on the upper computer,and carried on control and transmission of the low level USB data by Visual C++.The recorded waveform data was transmitted to C8051F320 through USB,transformed by the D/A electric circuit,finally carried out the waveform output.The experiments show that the arbitrary waveform generator can achieve the corresponding output of arbitrary hand-painted waveform.The system has flexible configuration and convenient operation.


Abstract  Transaortic transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAo‐TAVI) has been recently proposed as an alternative to transapical (TA) and transfemoral (TF) approach. We now discuss a technical issue associated with TAo‐TAVI related to the use of a delivery system dedicated to the antegrade TA approach. The potential solutions to this issue as well as the potential advantages of the TAo approach are discussed. (J Card Surg 2012;27:438‐440)


This article reviews the regulatory framework for joint ventures and presents some proposals for its improvement. Korean competition law does not define a joint venture, not even a concentration from substantive points of view. An establishment of a joint venture can be assumed as either a concentration or a cartel. Therefore, there is a possibility of double control of this single behavior, which could severely threaten legal certainty and predictability. Against this background, this article attempts to define the establishment of a joint venture substantively, and it means an acquisition of joint control to a newly created company by two or more undertakings. Considering that a joint venture has an ambivalent nature, or proand anticompetitive effects, it is suggested that a joint venture accompanied by structural changes in the participating firms will be dealt with in principle under merger control, where its cooperative effects are reviewed altogether. A joint venture for simple cooperation should be processed within a simplified procedure under certain circumstances. This would result in procedural economies without harming effective competition.


This paper aims to examine the relationship between Lean Marketing (LM) and implementing Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA).  Based on discussing the different types of waste that a company can produce during the production process.   This study targeted the Mosul Dairy Manufactory.  In total (67%) valid completed questionnaires, out of (75) questionnaire forms distributed to the manufacturer's marketing departments and distribution outlets.  This study is based on a number of conceptual and applied questions concerning the relationship of correlation and its influence between the variables of research. The questionnaire was used as the main tool for collecting data and information. Statistical quantitative methods like (SPSS) were adopted in analyzing the data collected by the questionnaire. The main outcomes indicated, the existence of a significant correlation between the two variables, as well as, the existence of a significant impact of lean marketing on the sustainable competitive advantage. The main significance suggests; the necessity to adopt the concept of lean marketing in the manufacturing facility to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.


Computational analysis of radial correlation reflectometry in the framework of a model accounting for 2D probing wave propagation and scattering is performed. The procedure of the turbulence wavenumber spectra reconstruction from radial correlation reflectometry data previously proposed in the case of normal incidence of probing wave onto the 1D plasma is justified for the real geometry of a reflectometry experiment at large and modest scale fusion plasmas.


In this paper, we investigate the problem of communication over cognitive interference channel (CIC) with partially cooperating (PC) destinations (CIC-PC). This channel consists of two source nodes communicating two independent messages to their corresponding destination nodes. One of the sources, referred to as the cognitive source, has a noncausal knowledge of the message of the other source, referred to as the primary source. Each destination is assumed to decode only its intended message. In addition, the destination corresponding to the cognitive source assists the other destination by transmitting cooperative information through a relay link. We derive a new upper bound on the capacity region of discrete memoryless CI-CPC. Moreover, we characterize the capacity region for two new classes of this channel: (1) degraded CIC-PC, and (2) a class of semideterministic CIC-PC.


Abstract : Recent analysis indicates that an attack autopilot and moveable gun combination can improve air-to-ground survivability and effectiveness. A pursuit guidance technique is applied to a simplified point mass attacker. The attacker then pursues a psuedo (ficticious) target. The gun is moved in the opposite direction t the attacker motion to keep the rounds on the target. In this way the attacker can continue to accelerate and be less vulnerable to AAA during the attack maneuver. The moveable gun with this technique was also shown to be effective during piloted full scale simulation. For this reason an attack autopilot was designed for a realistic aircraft using modern control theory. The attack autopilot is now being implemented on the full scale simulation. (Author)


The invention discloses a method of reducing power consumption of a vein observation device. A working process of the vein observation device is divided into two stages: an observation stage for observing and locating the vein at the earlier stage, and switching a luminescent tube to work in a shining manner; and a puncture stage for puncturing the vein at the later stage, and switching the luminescent tube to work in a continuously luminous manner. According to the invention, vein observation is realized at lower power consumption of the luminescent tube, and the method has the advantages of capabilities of reducing the power consumption, reducing heating, prolonging the service life of the luminescent tube, and reducing harm on eyes of medical workers.


Cognitive radio (CR) is a type of wireless communication in which wireless devices use environmental sensing to detect and change transmission parameters. In this paper, we propose the Probabilistic and Deterministic Path Detection (PDPS) Protocol for cognitive radio networks. PDPS aims to increase the probability of finding the path of best quality between any source and any destination. The performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated by conducting comprehensive simulation scenarios and experiments using a special simulator which was built using Java. The simulation results highlight the benefits of the proposed path selection technique in comparison to one of the state-of-art protocols.


Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 is the viral infection pandemic that has spread all over the world. Although all people are prone to the infection almost equally, some of them after catching infection may produce more severe clinical symptoms. These are called vulnerable groups and pregnant women are one of them.
Summary: Pregnant women were thought to be not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the first wave, but recent observations from the second wave which harbors the mutated versions of novel coronavirus, said to be more virulent and lethal, suggests that pregnant women are not only vulnerable to catching the infection but they can show severe clinical outcomes. Also case fatalities, preterm births are also high among COVID-19 infected pregnant women.
Conclusion: More vaccination among pregnant women is needed to safeguard them as the severity of the symptoms is lowered post-vaccination. To solidify more results, more comprehensive and frequent studies are needed so that correlation can be established.


The MobileTV, IPTV, and DVB standards (DVB-H/T) have been defined to offer mobile users interactive multimedia services with quality of service (QoS) consistency analogous to TV services. However, the market has yet to provide effective and economical solutions for the real-time delivery of such services to the corresponding transmitters over multi-domain IP networks. The monitoring system proposed in this paper enables the QoS in the IP networks involved in the delivery of real-time multimedia content to the transmitters to be ascertained. The system utilizes the QoS parameters defined in MPEG-2 Transport Streams to detect problems occurring in the heterogeneous multi-domain IP networks. The ability to detect problems having an adverse effect on QoS allows appropriate control actions to be determined to recover the QoS across the composite IP network. The design and implementation of the proposed QoS-Monitoring system (QoS-MS) is presented, followed by analysis of experimental results that demonstrate the feasibility of the system.


Joaquim de Carvalho was born June 10, 1892, at Figueira da Foz. He was one of the first people of the 20th century to choose an academic career as a way of engaging in public intervention. He has achieved national prominence as an Historian of Ideas, having undertaken a specialization in Science and Portuguese Thinkers and Contemporary Portuguese Culture. This paper explores the archive consisting in the letters written by Antonio Baiao, director of Torre do Tombo, and by Laranjo Coelho, paleographer of the same institution, letters that were sent to Joaquim de Carvalho. The main goal of this paper is to divulge the referred documentation, which is already properly organized, treated and systematized.


We numerically studied the dependence of the initial pulse shape on the spectral filtering photon-number squeezing of ultrashort optical pulses in nonlinear optical fibers. An adaptive system for the optimization of intrapulse quantum structures is also proposed.


An antiplasmodial activity of n-butanol fraction from mahoni bark extract (Swietenia mahagoni Jacq.) and pure compound chlorogenic acid were investigated on white male miceSwiss derivated strain which were infected by Plasmodium berghei ANKA strain. Samplewere administrated i.p ., which n-butanol fraction with convertion dose 100, 200 and 400 mg/kgBW and chlorogenic acid with dose 0,01; 0,1; 1 and 10 mg/kg BWnrespectively for a period of 4days, consecutively started one day after parasit inoculation.Parasit persentage was counted daily (H0 to H4).The best aniplasmodial activity was shown by n-butanol fraction with convertion dose 200mg/kg BW (fraction dose 81,89 mg/ kg BW )with inhibition persentage 45.05% and chlorogenic acidwith dose 10 mg/kg BW with inhibition persentage 55,51%.n


An existence and uniqueness theorem is proved for an implicit free boundary problem for the heat equation—denoted as "implicit" due to the absence of the derivative of the free boundary in a free boundary condition.


The motivation of achievement and psychometric intelligence were studied at 85 pairs monozigotic and 84 pairs dizigotic twins at the age of 16-20 years. Diagnostics of psychometric intelligence was spent with application of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), for diagnostics of motivation of achievement A. Mehrabian's questionnaire and H. Heckhausen's projective test was used. In structure of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale are allocated experience subtests which productivity of performance depends mainly on the saved up experience («Information», «Vocabulary» «Digit Symbol-Coding», «Arithmetic») and personality subtests which productivity of performance depends on individual distinctions («Picture Completion», «Consecutive pictures (Sorting)», «Digit Span»). The indicators of heritability received on experience subtests to subtests of the WAIS significantly above, than indicators on personality subtests. The interrelation of intelligence and achievement ́s motivation has complementary character and is differently shown depending on IQ: at high indicators of intelligence phenotypical correlation with achievement ́s motivation is positive, and at low – is negative. The greatest influence on phenotypical variability of achievement ́s motivation (as implicit, and self-attributed) render shared environment factors, for self-attributed achievement ́s motivation presence and enough the expressed influence of genetic factors is established.


Syndromic surveillance for respiratory disease is limited by an inability to monitor its protean manifestation, cough. Advances in artificial intelligence provide the ability to passively monitor cough at individual and community levels. We hypothesized that changes in the aggregate number of coughs recorded among a sample could serve as a lead indicator for population incidence of respiratory diseases, particularly that of COVID-19. We enrolled over 900 people from the city of Pamplona (Spain) between 2020 and 2021 and used artificial intelligence cough detection software to monitor their cough. We collected nine person-years of cough aggregated data. Coughs per hour surged around the time cohort subjects sought medical care. There was a weak temporal correlation between aggregated coughs and the incidence of COVID-19 in the local population. We propose that a clearer correlation with COVID-19 incidence could be achieved with better penetration and compliance with cough monitoring.


Doppler effect in Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR) is first introduced.Then three methods for estimation of Doppler central frequency f_D are presented.Next,the advantages and disadvantages of the three methods are analyzed and compared using experimental data.A method for estimation of the blur number m of the frequency f_D is proposed.Using the estimated f_D and m in SAR imaging,the results are good as expected.


The increasing trend towards caesarean section by maternal request has attracted much criticism and debate. This article examines the link between this mode of delivery compared to vaginal birth and the effects this choice has on the infant. The presence of microflora in the gut helps protect infants against potentially harmful pathogens. The use of prebiotics in formula feed is discussed along with the importance of educating parents about safety in formula feeding. Midwives and other health care professionals should support women whatever their chosen method of infant feeding.


Electrocardiogram (ECG) is a diagnostic procedure that measures and records the electrical activity of heart in detail. By reviewing an ECG report, one's condition of heart can be evaluated. But ECG signals are often affected and altered by the presence of various noises that degrade the accuracy of an ECG signal and thus misrepresents the recorded data. To filter out these noises conventional digital filters have been used for decades. Yet noise cancellation with finite and determined coefficients has often been unsuccessful due to the non-stationary nature of ECG signal. Adaptive filters adapt their filter coefficients with the continuous change of signal using adaptive algorithms, providing the optimum noise removal features for non-stationary signals like ECG. In this study, the adaptive filter algorithm, RLS has been used in cancellation of various noises in ECG signals. We have also performed noise removal using LMS adaptive filter algorithm to compare the performance of RLS algorithm. We have used MATLAB® to simulate different noise signals and process the noises. The ECG signals used here have been taken from the PhysioNet ECG-ID database. The simulation results depict that RLS algorithm renders a much better performance in removing noises from the ECG signals than LMS algorithm.


The direct parallels between the z-transform and the Levinson recursion, such as complex conjugation, sequence reversal, upsampling, and modulation by a complex exponential of unity magnitude, are explored, and the effects on the associated lattice filter structures are investigated. The modulation property of a general complex exponential for the z-transform is extended to the lattice filter with a systematic modification of the reflection coefficients of the filter. A reciprocal-based lattice filter is derived. It has the structure of a standard lattice filter yet the zeros of the system function depend explicitly on the weighting functions of the filter. This filter has the property that the system function roots remain fixed as additional sections are added to the filter. >


This paper aims to analyse the level of supply chain integration in liner shipping and test its relationship with supply chain value. It also aims to examine the barriers and problems to establish and maintain a partnership or collaboration among the members in a supply chain. Recommendations will be given on how to overcome these obstacles. Empirical investigation was conducted via semi-structured interviews which targeted professionals from the top 30 shipping lines. We estimate ordered probit/logit models to examine the relationship between the level of integration with supply chain members and the supply chain value, and find a positive relationship. Customer service and inventory management are the two most significant areas in affecting supply chain value. Findings reveal that individualism is a major obstacle to supply chain integration. The paper presents an original modelling approach and an empirical investigation based on theoretic foundation in estimating the effects of supply chain integration with the focus on shipping.


Genotype variants of B and C alleles of asI-casein milk protein (locus) were identified in Indian Sahiwal (62), and Tharparkar cattle ( 25) and Murrah buffaloes (68) using genomic DNA from blood samples and rapid, powerful technique of allele specific polymerase chain reaction (ASPCR). C allele was more frequent in animals of both the species. Absence of both variants B and G in 6.5 % of Sahiwal, 8% of Tharparkar and 8.8 % of Murrah buffaloes screened, suggested the possibility of presence of either an additional new allele or a rare allele.


In Niger, the acute and chronic malnutrition constitutes a public health problem among children aged from six to fifty-nine months. The use of local foods was identified in the national protocol of malnutrition management as an alternative for ready to use therapeutic foods that are currently used. Among these local foods, the powder of dried leaves of Moringa oleifera was analyzed in order to know the composition of the powder of dried leaves of Moringa oleifera produced in Niger compared to the available data. To achieve this, four samples from the three main Moringa production regions in Niger namely Tillaberi, Niamey both located in the river basin and southern Maradi of the Sahel-Sudanese zone, were analyzed. The chromatographic analysis hasbeen made in the laboratory of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi- Arid Tropics. The nitrogen extraction technique was done using H 2 SO 4 digestion + salicylic acid + H 2 O 2 and selenium. It was measured using the calorimetry auto analyzer, based the Bertholet reaction. Total phosphorous, iron, zinc, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium and copper was also extracted, using the same method. Phosphorus was measured by calorimetry using the method of molybdo-phosphate reduced to ascorbic acid. The other elements were measured using atomic spectroscopy absorption. The results correspond to the average of two parallel tests. Five standards enabled to make the calibration and a control sample was analyzed in the same conditions. The test is valid if the regression is about 0,9950 - 0,9999. The powder of dried leaves of Moringa produced in Niger turned out be rich in proteins with an average of 24, 8 % (Confidence Interval at 95%: 19, 34-30, 24) with values going from 21,58% in Tillaberi to 28,72% in Niamey and in micronutrients. According to regions, the composition varies for iron between 51,9 and 55,12 mg/100g, 0,45 and 1,58 mg/100g for zinc, 1192,5and 1957,5 mg/100g for calcium, 414,37 and 714,37 mg/100g for magnesium,1587 and 2037 mg/100g for potassium, 207,75 and 326,25 mg/100g for sodium, 32 and 61 mg/100g for phosphorus. These results are close to those revealed by earlier studies. Key words: Moringa oleifera , composition, powder, dry, leaves, different, regions, Niger


We investigate Robertson-Walker cosmology with the Lagrangian $R+{\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{1}\ensuremath{\Elzxh}{R}^{2}+{\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{2}\ensuremath{\Elzxh}{R}^{\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\nu}}{R}_{\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\nu}}{+L}_{\mathrm{rad}}$ where ${L}_{\mathrm{rad}}$ denotes a classical source with a traceless energy-momentum tensor. We weaken the self-consistence condition [L. Parker and J. Z. Simon, Phys. Rev. D 47, 1339 (1993)]. Quantum corrections are expressed as contributions to the effective equation of state. We show that the empty space-time is stable within the class of radiation-filled expanding universes with no order reduction of the field equations.


It has been shown that diets high in antioxidants are associated with high bone mineral density in postmenopausal women. Conversely, some studies suggest that dietary supplements containing antioxidants may have detrimental effects on bone. Serum concentrations of antioxidants can reflect their intakes from both food and supplements. Thus, the objective of our study was to examine the associations between serum concentrations of several antioxidants and femoral neck BMD (FN_BMD) in postmenopausal women aged ≥50 years. We used cross‐sectional data from the NHANES 2005–6. Multiple regression models with adjustments for relevant confounders were used to examine the associations between serum concentrations of vitamins C and E (alpha‐ and gamma‐tocopherol) and alpha and beta‐carotene, and FN_BMD. The study sample included 168 women, with a mean age of 67.5±0.5 years, who were free from diseases and medications that affect bone metabolism, and were fasting >;9 hours prior to examination. In adjusted models, serum concentration of vitamin C had a positive association with FN_BMD (p=0.018), while serum concentration of beta‐carotene had a negative association with FN_BMD (p=0.008). The association between higher serum vitamin C and higher BMD in our study is consistent with findings of other studies. The negative association between serum beta‐carotene and femoral neck BMD needs further investigation.


Malmberg proposed in 1969 that anomalously low surface (upper 200 m) salinities in the Iceland seas during the late 1960s could increase the stability of the water column sufficiently to prevent deep convection. The increased stability would then enhance the formation of sea ice during winter in this region because even at the freezing point (−1.8°C), the surface water density is sufficiently low to prevent mixing with the water below. Hence only a small portion of the water column need be cooled before freezing can occur and ice formation is enhanced. Here we explore this concept further by examining hydrographic data from three locations bordering Greenland and Iceland and then compare these with colocated sea ice concentrations. For the period 1953–1980, it is shown that the lag correlations between surface salinity and sea ice anomalies show a common structure for the case where salinity anomalies lead sea ice anomalies. It is shown that this correlation structure can be reproduced by a simple statistical feedback model using a nonstationary negative feedback coefficient to account for salinity forcing of ice anomalies. The data presented are all consistent with the concept of stability enhancement of sea ice formation.


Pseudorabies Virus Infection Accelerates KIF1A Degradation Pseudorabies virus (PRV), an alphaherpesvirus, is sorted and transported in axons in the anterograde direction by the kinesin-3 motor KIF1A. Huang et al. (e01934-19) showed that PRV neuronal infection disrupts KIF1A synthesis and accelerates proteasomal degradation of intrinsically unstable KIF1A proteins in axons, leading to depletion of the motor late in infection. The viral anterograde sorting complex US9/gE/gI mediates the accelerated KIF1A degradation. These findings suggest that following a reactivation episode in peripheral nervous system (PNS) neurons, PRV progeny have a limited time window in which to travel back to the mucosal surface for further host-to-host spread.


Background:
 The American Heart Association (AHA) proposed the concept of ideal cardiovascular health (CVH) to reduce the risk of cardiovascular mortality. However, the overall CVH status is still unsatisfactory. We attempted to contribute to AHA 2030 goals by identifying the relationship between CVH and non-cardiovascular diseases such as sarcopenia.

 Methods:
 We analyzed data on 3311 adults
 >
 20 years of age from the NHANES 2011-2018. Sarcopenia was defined as the lowest for gender-specific sarcopenia index cut-off values. CVH was categorized as inadequate, average, or optimum. We used multinomial logistic regression to assess the association between CVH and sarcopenia.

 Results:
 This cohort study involving 3,311 adults
 >
 20 years comprised 1329 females (42.4%). The number of intermediate or ideal and poor CVH participants was 1719 and 1592 with mean CVH score of 9.3 ± 0.1 and 5.43 ± 0.1, respectively. After adjusting for related confounding factors, intermediate or ideal CVH was associated with a risk reduction of sarcopenia than poor CVH (aOR: 0.39, 95% CI; 0.22-0.69,
 P
 < 0.001) and the risk of sarcopenia was significantly lower for each incremental increase of 1 in CVH metrics (aOR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.70-0.83,
 P
 < 0.001). Moreover, if the number of ideal CVH metrics was
 >
 5, the risk of sarcopenia decreased by up to 85% (aOR: 0.15, 95% CI: 0.06-0.38,
 P
 < 0.05).

 Conclusions:
 Our findings suggest a relationship between the CVH and the prevalence of sarcopenia in adults. Our analysis confirms that CVH extends beyond protection against cardiovascular disease. The results of our study can contribute to achieving the 2030 public health goal of achieving CVH for all, which may be supported by efforts to reduce the prevalence of sarcopenia.


Different approaches have been proposed for digital display of bangla numerals and also characters. But a complete and accurate scheme not has been done yet. We approach a complete low cost and fair design to display bangla numerals, bangla characters (vowel, consonant and shortened form of these characters), also English and Arabic numerals and all English character's represented as 120 character displayed by only 34 segments with tiny bits of binary code and differently usable architecture made this approach favorable. This scheme can be effectively used instead of other alternatives as less complex, economic and complete. With this framework, other characters also can be displayed as manufacturer specification.


Photoswitchable self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) in contact with a conductive or semiconductive layer can be used to remotely trigger changes in electrical current using light. In this study, we apply full-atomistic simulations to assess the changes in electronic structure and charge-transport properties of a graphene sheet in contact with an amorphous silica dielectric decorated by an azobenzene SAM. The simulations explicitly account for the structural and electrostatic disorder sourced by the dielectric, which turns out to be weakly affected by photoisomerization and spatially correlated over a length scale of 4–5 nm. Most interestingly, by combining large-scale (tight binding) density functional theory with Kubo–Greenwood quantum transport calculations, we predict that the trans-cis isomerization should induce a shift in surface electrostatic potential by a few tenths of a volt, accompanied by a variation in conductivity by a factor of about 3.


The purpose of this study is to clarify the influence of visual information on subjective impression for room sound field. Authors have carried out subjective experiments on it using room impulse response signal as auditory stimulus and interior panorama picture as visual stimulus, and found that reverberance/clarity for room sound field is affected by information sensible from room volume, dimensions, geometry or finishing etc. And then in this report, experiments about visual effect on spatial impression (ASW and LEV) in auditorium were conducted to clarify the influence of room volume, size or geometry on them. Auditory stimuli were made in anechoic chamber by binaural microphone recording under the conditions that directions of early reflections and late reverberation were varied, and were presented to subjects through headphone. Visual stimuli were made of panorama pictures captured around room interior and were presented by Head Mounted Display (HMD). ASW and LEV were measured under single-mode or multi-mode presentation of visual /auditory stimuli, and mutual effect of visual and auditory sense were examined in architectural space.


Reasonable total quantity control and assignment of pollutants are important conditions to keep city developing in harmony with environmental improvement,COZEE-cooperation project between UK and SEPA selected Quanzhou as a trial city to carry out the IEMP demonstration project.Combining foreign advanced experiences and calculation methods with local situation,scheme of total quantity control and assignment were completed successfully.The paper illustrates the adopted ways and methodology,which would be used as good references for coastal zones where economies are rapidly growing.


AIM: To establish a liquid chromatography method for determining the monosaccharide composition of human lipoproteins,and to investigate the differences between diabetic patients and healthy participants. METHODS:Liquid chromatography with pre-column derivatization was used to determine the neutral and basic monosaccharides,and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry was applied to quantify N-acetylneuraminic acid content. RESULTS: The contents of mannose,glucosamine,N-acetylglucosamine,glucose,galactose and N-acetylneuraminic acid in high-density lipoprotein from healthy participants and diabetic patients were( 5. 88 ± 0. 94),( 16. 49 ± 4. 11),( 1. 31 ± 0. 33),( 0. 87± 0. 16),( 7. 18 ± 1. 64),( 2. 14 ± 0. 12) mmol /( g protein) and( 8. 68 ± 0. 39),( 24. 73 ± 5. 50),( 1. 91 ± 0. 54),( 1.23 ± 0.35),( 9.73 ± 2.85),( 3.53 ± 0.27) mmol/( g protein),respectively. The contents of mannose,glucosamine,N-acetylglucosamine,glucose,galactose and N-acetylneuraminic acid in low-density lipoprotein from healthy participants and diabetic patients were( 29. 20 ± 3. 57),( 50. 77 ± 4. 72),( 5. 28 ± 0. 64),( 10. 06 ± 1. 37),( 28. 44 ±3. 96),( 6. 86 ± 0. 11) mmol /( g protein) and( 30. 08 ± 3. 78),( 38. 52 ± 6. 38),( 3. 79 ± 0. 78),( 7. 63 ± 1. 50),( 20.05 ±2.63),( 6.45 ±0.18) mmol/( g protein),respectively. The contents of mannose,glucosamine,glucose,galactose and N-acetylneuraminic acid in very-low-density lipoprotein from healthy participants and diabetic patients were( 91.21 ±4.12),( 27.05 ± 2.34),( 4 230.95 ± 15.83),( 43.40 ± 3.75),( 2.95 ± 0.24) mmol/( g protein) and( 82.40 ±0.51),( 30.16 ±0.32),( 4 722.73 ±93.27),( 34.05 ±2.81),( 4.42 ±0.15) mmol/( g protein),respectively. CONCLUSION: Liquid chromatography with pre-column derivatization is suitable for the neutral and basic monosaccharide analysis in human lipoproteins,and the glycosylation of lipoproteins in diabetic patients are significantly changed compared with the healthy controls.


Most Anglo-American writers refer to the Texas of the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s as early Texas, and in one sense they are right. The transformation of Texas into a member state of the American Union began in those years. Most of the country that the Anglo-American colonies and later the republic occupied was wilderness, as that term was defined by Euro-American concepts of wilderness and civilization. Unquestionably, however, there was an even earlier Texas-a Texas that existed within a Hispanic historical context and responded to Spanish-Mexican social, economic, political, and religious norms. Before that, there had been no Texas. To the Indian peoples who inhabited the coastal prairies, the piney woods, the high plains, and the mountains and basins of the extreme southern Rockies, there were very different economic and political geographies, most of which remain a mystery to us today.' Nevertheless,


How do the socially reproductive functions of local government fare within municipalities that adopt "entrepreneurial" economic development practices? This article examines the case of tax increment financing (TIF), a quintessentially entrepreneurial strategy whose use has significant fiscal implications for the overlapping taxing jurisdictions that provide these functions. Statistical analysis of TIF's impact on the finances of school districts in Cook County, Illinois, reveals that municipal use of TIF depletes the property tax revenues of schools during the lifespan of the TIF district but that a portion of the budget shortfalls are relieved by increases in state school aid. Entrepreneurial policies can create conflict between taxing bodies unless higher levels of government take on some of the fiscal burden of these more redistributive functions.


A procedure is developed for the determination of the critical buckling stress of long sandwich panels subjected to nonuniformly distributed longitudinal loads at the ends. The procedure is based on a reduction of the governing partial differential equation by introduction of the longitudinal deflection shape and solution of the resulting ordinary differential equation by means of second-order finite differences. Design charts are developed for linear and trigonometric-shaped stress distributions for a range of stiffnesses that extends to the isotropic thin plate at one limit. Illustrative examples, including comparisons with pertinent isotropic plate solutions, are presented.


In the present work, composites based on petroleum coke (shot petcoke) and unmodified lignites as high pressure and high temperature fluid loss control additives (HPHT) in oil-based drilling fluids were synthesized and evaluated. Several petcoke composites were synthesized with coke content among 48 wt% and 85 wt%. Petroleum coke composites with lignites controlled the fluid-loss better than organophilic lignite. Petcoke composite with leonardite (a type of lignite) (FPC-L) was that showed the smaller fluid-loss (6.8 mL) in organophilic lignite (FOL) comparison (5.7 mL), because of colloidal lignite (fouling) helps plug off the permeable parts of filter-cake. Applying the reverse osmosis filtration models (Hermia's models); the blocking mechanisms that occurred most probably were found. FOL fluid-loss control mechanism is by filter-cake formation, while FPC-L is by filter-cake fouling. Petcoke composites controlling fluid-loss by three mechanisms colloidal fouling of the cake filtration: (i) intermediate blocking, (ii) standard blocking and (iii) complete blocking. Colloidal lignite is a determinant factor in the fouling of pore volume and permeability the filter-cake. Cake filtration permeability was estimated by 1H-NMR. Use lignite-petcoke composites as fluid-loss control additive of lower environment impact for oil-based drilling fluids.


This paper presents new calculations for the multi-factor productivity of the nonresidential market production in Finland. The new methodology entails quality corrected measures of capital and labour services. The results reinforce the view of a shift taking place in the Finnish growth pattern after the early 1990s recession, from extensive to intensive growth. The exception is the extensive contribution of information and communication capital. Multi-factor productivity has been the engine of growth during the whole observation period from 1975 to 1999, but it experienced a significant step-up in the 1990s.


This essay evaluates the gender-neutral language of the Womens Convention in light of recent feminist critiques of the focus on "rights" in the womens movement. In so doing it describes the reasons that rights language or gender-neutral treaty provisions may not address problems that women in telling their own stories identify as salient. Finally this essay proposes particular criteria to evaluate treaty provisions and applies them to the Womens Convention examining the strategies the Convention language reflects as it attempts to advance the status of women. (excerpt)


Machine learning has provided powerful algorithms that automatically generate predictive models from experience. One specific technique is supervised learning, where the machine is trained to predict a desired output for each input pattern x. This chapter will focus on classification, that is, supervised learning when the output to predict is a class label. For instance predicting whether a patient in a hospital will develop cancer or not. In this example, the class label c is a variable having two possible values, "cancer" or "no cancer", and the input pattern x is a vector containing patient data (e.g. age, gender, diet, smoking habits, etc.). In order to construct a proper predictive model, supervised learning methods require a set of examples xi together with their respective labels ci. This dataset is called the "training set". The constructed model is then used to predict the labels of a set of new cases xj called the "test set". In the cancer prediction example, this is the phase when the model is used to predict cancer in new patients. One common assumption in supervised learning algorithms is that the statistical structure of the training and test datasets are the same (Hastie, Tibshirani & Friedman, 2001). That is, the test set is assumed to have the same attribute distribution p(x) and same class distribution p(c|x) as the training set. However, this is not usually the case in real applications due to different reasons. For instance, in many problems the training dataset is obtained in a specific manner that differs from the way the test dataset will be generated later. Moreover, the nature of the problem may evolve in time. These phenomena cause pTr(x, c) ≠ pTest(x, c), which can degrade the performance of the model constructed in training. Here we present a new algorithm that allows to re-estimate a model constructed in training using the unlabelled test patterns. We show the convergence properties of the algorithm and illustrate its performance with an artificial problem. Finally we demonstrate its strengths in a heart disease diagnosis problem where the training set is taken from a different hospital than the test set.


Arthropods exhibit highly diverse limb morphologies ranging from unbranched walking legs to multibranched swimming paddles. Understanding morphogenesis in structurally diverse limbs can be useful for ascertaining homologies between limbs. Structurally similar limbs have been produced by different evolutionary modifications of morphogenesis in certain cases. Whereas it is easy to support the claim that whole arthropod limbs are homologous structures, I demonstrate that it is not always possible to draw well-founded homologies between parts of different limbs. This result is important with regard to general models of appendage development and evolution in arthropods because it clarifies contradictory explanations based exclusively on gene expression data.


In this study, the current state of groundwater development and use and groundwater quality has been examined based on official groundwater data collected from the Republic of Korea. The groundwater data indicate a steady increase in the number of groundwater wells and an increase in groundwater pumping. The well diameters also increase with increasing well depth, owing to the development of drilling technology. Although groundwater is predominantly used for agricultural and living purposes, the former has recently outnumbered the latter. According to the groundwater quality monitoring stations covering the entire country, the groundwater levels, dissolved oxygen, and oxidation–reduction potential decrease with a steady increase in the water temperature, pH, and electrical conductivity, indicating an aggravating groundwater environment in this region. The most concerning contaminants found are nitrate, ammonia, arsenic, zinc, toluene, xylene, chloroform, and fluoride. Thus, based on these observations, we propose three essential tasks for sustainable groundwater use: a paradigm shift in groundwater management, conjunctive use and integrated management of groundwater and stream water, and groundwater governance and data quality control.


By adjusting composition, metastable y (austenite) and E (hexagonal) martensite may be retained in Fe-Mn and Fe-Mn-Cr alloys and used to impact toughness through the TRIP mechanism. The resulting alloys have excellent toughness at cryogenic temperatures. The best alloys obtained to date are:


The key to achieving maximum yields from microcarrier cultures is by using the optimization factors as replenishment of vero cell culture media during growth, the inoculation density on the proportion of microcarriers bearing cells, stirring speed on the growth of vero cell on cytodex 3, culture volume and headspace on cell yield from closed microcarrier system, various culture media, various types of the serum, control of PH, microcarrier concentration and modified initial culture procedure. The result reveled that the higher cell yield obtained after replenishment of culture media every three day, the optimum concentration of microcarrier is to be 3mg cytodex/ml, the optimum inoculation density 15x10 cells/mg cytodex microcarrier is required, the higher cell yield obtained by using (medium 199) containing high amount of amino acid at low density of the cell higher than Dulbecco's modification of Eagles's medium (DME) in higher density of the cell, fetal calf serum gave higher cell yield in the first three days in the culture, 60 rpm was the optimum stirring speed to get higher cell yield, addition of 10 – 25 mμ Hepes helped in maintaining the PH around 7.3-7.4 this gave higher cell yield, reduced the head space not more than half full of the culture give a higher result and the modified in initial culture procedure during the growth culture give higher results. The obtained result maximizing the yield of the vero cell production on acytodex-3 microcarrier culture system.


Summary In vivo metabolism of lysine and arginine is markedly inhibited ( p Escherichia coli l-asparaginase II. Two hr after treatment, there is substantial inhibition of thymidine transport but no effect on incorporation of thymidine. None of these effects were observed in the l-asparaginase-resistant subline of the tumor. The inhibition of lysine transport and incorporation was maximal (40%) 1 hr after treatment was given, while the effect on arginine metabolism increased with time. Since the course of inhibition of transport and incorporation almost coincide, the initial effect is probably on the transport. Alterations of the plasma membranes of the tumor are suggested, but it is not known whether such lesions are caused by a direct action of l-asparaginase on the cells or are the result of a general systemic effect in the animal.


Maintenance of consistent cool root zone temperatures is the factor most critical for successful Darlingtonia californica cultivation. Darlingtonia plants grown semi-hydroponically with chilled water will tolerate ambient temperatures substantially warmer those grown conventionally.


Within organizations diverse asynchronous, unreliable multicast channels to push information chunks already exist. These usually include posters, newsletters, intranet pages, print media and talks. Situated public displays have the potential to complement these channels, because their properties of being situated and public make them superior to conventional information channels in certain situations. In order to present the information that is most interesting to users and thus improve the efficiency of information distribution, we propose to learn a model of the spatio-temporal behaviour of users, find clusters belonging to certain organizational subgroups within this model, gather profiles for some of the users and use the estimated profiles of clusters to optimize the information presentation on the displays.


Abstract We prove A r (Ω)-weighted imbedding theorems for differential forms. These results can be used to study the weighted norms of the homotopy operator T from the Banach space L p ( D , ∧ l ) to the Sobolev space W 1,  p ( D , ∧ l  − 1 ),  l  = 1, 2, …,  n , and to establish the basic weighted L p -estimates for differential forms.


: We believe what others say or advise us to believe. Advertising is a crucial component of any advertisement campaign. Advertising is inextricably linked to marketing tasks. Whose final aim is to meet the needs of customers in terms of goods and services. Advertising is an important part of our daily lives. It defines the way of life and standard image in general, and it has an impact on our thinking as well as our attitude toward ourselves and the world around us. Advertisement has an impact on everyone, even if they don't realize it. We don't pay attention to how it affects us. We have been enslaved by scientific and technical development, which advertising brilliantly exploits. In Pakistan, total advertising expenditure was occurred 81.5 billion rupees in fiscal year 2017-18 and 67.15 billion rupees in fiscal year 2018-19. In 2019, TV ads had the highest share of the advertising market, accounting for 42 percent of the total. Ads are regarded as the most important money-making or revenue-generating product. Companies persuade the public to spend money on their products by influencing them through 30-60 second advertisements. This is expert through the routine of various advertising types, and the most suitable techniques.


This study establishes the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) for eco鄄industrial park development in China by applying multi鄄criteria ranking method. First, an indicator system is established by referring to the Standard for Sector鄄 integrate Eco鄄industrial Park. The indicator system includes eight indicators, which are classified into three categories, the indicators of economic development, resource and energy consumption, and pollution discharge. Second, a two鄄step normalization method is used to transform the original values of different indicators. Third, an equal weight method is applied for aggregation. The EPIs of the 24 national demonstration eco鄄industrial parks are analyzed and ranked with 2010 as the reference year. We suppose a standard eco鄄industrial park by referring to the Standard for Sector鄄integrate Eco鄄industrial Park. The key factors crucial to EPI are investigated, which include industrial structure, development stage of the eco鄄 industrial park, and the type of the eco鄄industrial parks. The industrial structure of the eco鄄industrial park, moreover, the pillar industries of the park usually play a significant role on the EPI. The development stage of the eco鄄industrial park is the second key factor for the EPI. The accredited national demonstration eco鄄industrial parks generally have better EPIs than the eco鄄industrial parks on trial. The third important factor crucial to the EPI is the type of the industrial park. Overall, the EPI of the eco鄄industrial parks retrofitted from high鄄tech industrial development zone is better than those retrofitted from economic and technological development zone. At last, the policy implication based on ranking the EPI of the 24 eco鄄 industrial parks is discussed. The standard eco鄄industrial park supposed above, which is designated an EPI of 60, is ranked


A Paul Oppenheimer has argued, the sonnet is by nature an introspective genre designed "to portray the self in conflict and explore self-consciousness"(l). This is especially evident in palinode sonnets, in which the speaker looks back with a gesture of regret and recantation. The term "palinode" derives from the Greek word "palinoidia" and has been translated as "against the ode" or "singing again" (Phillippy 16). It was first used with reference to "a lyric by Stesichorus in which he recanted his earlier attack upon Helen as the baneful cause of the Trojan War" (Preminger). Petrarch and the Renaissance poets who followed him tend to emphasize personal regret over recantation of previous poetry, however the term has since its inception referred to both of these themes. The self depicted in the palinode is of course a poetic construct, no matter how sincere and confessional the speaker may sound, no matter how exact the autobiographical coincidence between poet and speaker may be.1 The speaker, the poetic persona, the protagonist, the "yo" that addresses the reader-is a character created by the poet. This distinction takes on special imporfance in the study of Lope, whose work has so often been studied as if it were the poet's biography. In fact, as Mary Gaylord Randel has stated, "with rare exceptions, the approach to Lope's poetry has had the man as its real target" (223).2 This study of Lope's tranformation of the palinode tradition will focus primarily on the character he creates in three sonnets of his Rimas sacras, a character who represents a dramatic departure from those found in previous palinodes. Although there are biographical facts that tend to explain Lope's publication of a collection of religious poems dominated by palinode themes-ijle tragic death of his son Carlos Felix in 1612 and of his wife Juana de Guardo in 1613, his entrance into the priesthood in 1614 when the book was publishedI will go no further than that in correlating his life and his art. I will examine instead the persona Lope creates in three sonnets that represent different kinds of palinode which appear repeatedly within the book. 3


We implemented a generic speech-based dialogue shell that can be configured for and applied to domain-specific dialogue applications. A toolbox for ontology-based dialogue engineering provides a technical solution for the two challenges of engineering domain extensions for new question and answer possibilities and debugging functional modules. In this paper, we address the process of debugging and maintaining rule-based input interpretation modules. While supporting a rapid implementation cycle until the dialogue systems works robustly for a new domain (e.g., the dialogue-based retrieval of medical images), production rules for input interpretation have to be monitored, configured, and maintained. We implemented a special graphical user interface to monitor and explain reasoning processes for the input interpretation phase of multimodal dialogue systems. A particular challenge was the presentation of the software system's ontology-based interaction rules in a way that they were accessible to and editable for humans for maintenance, and, at the same time, allowed a real-time monitoring of their application in the running dialogue system.


Summary/Abstract Pseudomonas syringae is a diverse phytopathogenic species complex, and includes strains that can cause disease across a wide variety of plant species. Much previous research into the molecular basis of immunity and infection has focused on pathogen and plant responses in a handful of model strains and hosts, and with a tacit assumption that early steps in infection and host resistance are generalizable to the species complex and across plant hosts as a whole. Here, we provide a test of this assumption by measuring the dual pathogen and host transcriptomes of two distinct pathogenic lineages of P. syringae during compatible infection of a shared model host (Nicotiana benthamiana). Our results demonstrate that, with a handful of exceptions, host plants largely respond in a similar way to both pathogenic lineages and both bacterial pathogens possess highly similar transcriptional responses at 5 hours post inoculation. However, we also highlight that subsets of genes with differential expression patterns in both bacteria and host which likely represent strain-specific responses.


The configuration of the electric towbarless vehicle was illuminated in this paper. The special structure of this vehicle and key points in hydraulic system were explained. The design account was presented and the testing result was given in the end.


Visible light-driven photocatalytic production of H2O2 from molecular oxygen represents a promising route to transform solar energy to green oxidants and solar fuels. Herein, KOH-assisted thermal polymerization of urea was adopted to controllably incorporate cyano groups into the polymeric carbon nitride (PCN) framework. Photoelectrical techniques and density functional theory (DFT) calculations disclosed that the cyano groups effectively narrow down the band gap, elevate the conduction band, and improve the generation, transmission, and lifetime of the photoexcited charge carriers, which synergistically boost the H2O2 productivity by up to 5.4 times with respect to that on the pristine PCN in photocatalytic reduction of molecular oxygen under visible light at room temperature. This facile and effective strategy to enhance the photocatalytic activity of the inexpensive PCN catalyst under visible light enriches the horizon of H2O2 production in an economic, safe, and environmentally benign manner.


Brain extraction is the task of removing non-brain tissues from brain magnetic resonance images. Brain extraction is a preprocessing step in many applications related to the brain image analysis. Accurate extraction of brain tissue is a laborious task. So, automatic extraction of it is a need in many applications. In this study we propose an automatic region based brain extraction method. In this method histogram of each region is independently analyzed and parameters relating to each tissue type is estimated by employing expectation-maximization algorithm. The estimated parameters of each tissue type including its mean and variance are used to determine tissues of interests. In this study tissues of interest are gray matter and white mater. Eventually a connected component analysis leads to select largest connected components of tissues of interest as brain mask. The proposed method is tested on BrainWeb dataset. Jaccard similarity index (J), Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), Sensitivity (Sen), and Specificity (Spec) are used to measure performance of the proposed method. The results are compared to three popular brain extraction methods namely hybrid watershed algorithm (HWA), brain extraction tools (BET), and brain surface extractor (BSE). The proposed method outperforms mentioned popular methods.


The invention relates to a method for detecting an interruption of a line connection (10; 13) between a power stage (4; 24), comprising a plurality of trigger circuits (5U, 5V, 5W; 25U, 25V, 25W) adapted to selectively apply one or one or more established potentials at an output of the respective trigger circuit (5U, 5V, 5W; 25U, 25V, 25W) or to disconnect the output of the respective trigger circuit (5U, 5V, 5W; 25U, 25V, 25W) from the established potentials, and an electric machine (2; 22) comprising a plurality of phase windings connected together, said windings being able to be contacted through phase connections, wherein the output of each of the trigger circuits (5U, 5V, 5W; 25U, 25V, 25W) is connected to a phase connection, respectively, by way of a corresponding connection line (10; 30), said method comprising the following steps: applying (S1) an established potential at at least one output of the respective trigger circuits (5U, 5V, 5W; 25U, 25V, 25W); executing a detection for detecting a detection potential that depends on the potential at one of the outputs of the trigger circuits (5U, 5V, 5W; 25U, 25V, 25W) or on the potentials at more than one of the outputs of the trigger circuits (5U, 5V, 5W; 25U, 25V, 25W); and establishing that an interruption of at least one of the line connections (10; 30) between the power stage (4; 24) and the electric machine (2; 22) exists, depending on the results of the detection.


Asthma is considered as a difficult chronic disease with prolonged inflammation, reversible obstruction and remodeling in the airway. The present work aimed to examine the therapeutic efficacy of Bergenin-loaded Cationic Liposome (B-CLs) in asthma. We applied the thin film dispersion
 approach to prepare B-CLs, which were administered orally to asthma mice. Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), cytokine contents and histopathological results were obtained and examined by transmission electron microscope (TEM), enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits, together with
 histopathological study separately. B-CLs had a mean size of 158.33 ± 5.88 nm with positive potential of 24.51 ± 0.51 mV. In pharmacokinetics, the area under curve (AUC0–∞) and half-life (T1/2) of B-CLs were 3.33 and 3.92 times higher than free
 Bergenin. Compared with model group, alveolus and airway wall lesions in hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) staining of B-CLs-Medium/High dose groups declined as the wall-infiltrating inflammatory cell number declined. The thicknesses of airway wall and bronchial smooth muscle, together with
 the counts of bronchial smooth nuclei in B-CLs decreased significantly (P < 0.01). Specially, the ultrastructural airway changes were markedly-reversed in the B-CLs-High (P < 0.01). The changes of cytokines indicated the decrease in inflammation and improvement of the balance between
 T helper 1 cytokines (Th1) and T helper 2 cytokines (Th2). B-CLs could significantly enhance the dissolution, bioavailability and more inhibit airway inflammation as well as improve the lung histopathological condition.


Abstract This paper discusses the management of rapport by a group of English-language teachers through their request e-mail discourse. The group was regarded as a community of practice consisting of two types of members—core and peripheral. The paper explores and compares the ways the core and peripheral members managed rapport while making requests through e-mails. It is argued that to the two types of members, rapport weighed differently and was thus managed differently by differential manipulation of three aspects of the macro-structure of the discourse including (i) the blending of discourses, (ii) the generic structure of the request e-mails, and (iii) the rhetorical approach chosen. The observed differences in rapport management are explained with reference to the career prospects and duties of the e-mail authors.


Textile wastewaters are characterized by high chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration, strong color, high pH and temperature, and low biodegradability. Conventional treatment methods are considered to be inefficient to comply with the discharge limits. Recently, nano zero-valent iron (nZVI) technology has received increasing attention of the scientific community as an emerging technology for treatment of polluted streams. Due to smaller particle size, larger surface area and higher surface reactivity of iron nanoparticles, the removal of pollutants occur very rapidly. In this work, we synthesized nZVI employing green chemistry principles in a chemical reduction reaction. Iron precursor solution (FeSO4) was reduced by plant extracts that contain polyphenols. Plant polyphenols are known to possess strong reducing agent properties and act as effective metal chelators. The objective of this study was to characterize the green synthesized iron nanoparticles in terms of size and zeta potential parameters under various synthesis conditions (pH, precursor concentration and precursor/extract volume ratio) and compare the reactivity of the engineered nanoparticles for textile wastewater treatment. Green tea leaves-GT and Rose leaves-R were selected as the plant sources. Plant extracts were examined in terms of their Total Phenolic Content (TPC) expressed as Gallic Acid Equivalent (GAE). Rose leaves were found to possess 2062 mg/L TPC whereas, Green Tea leaves were found to have 1882 mg/L in grinded powder form. Results showed that 74% color removal along with 18% TOC removal could be achieved with 5 ppm of GT-ZVI nanoparticles synthesized at a 2/1 ratio (v/v) of precursor to extract. With the same concentration of R-ZVI nanoparticles, 78% color removal and 40% of TOC removal were observed.


We present the development and the achieved parameters of the telecom C-band optical frequency laser standard mainly intended for the precise time and frequency dissemination through the optical fiber networks. The compact and robust system based on the ultra-narrow linewidth fiber laser achieves fractional frequency stabilities from 1e-12/1s down to 1e-13/1024s levels (measured through the 306 km long optical fiber link) and can serve as a stable frequency source for applications of the precise time and frequency dissipation, wavelength calibrations in optical telecommunication, remote calibrations or laser interferometry measurement systems.


There is a growing interest in developing efficient and economically viable hydrogen (H2) sensors for the swift detection of leakage of H2 in areas where hydrogen is used. In the present study we have prepared palladium catalysed antimony doped tin dioxide by sonochemical process, as a H2 gas sensing material for 1000 ppm to 8% by volume H2 gas concentration. The electrical characteristics of the sensors before and after the H2 exposure show significant changes at different temperatures. The response even shows more than 86% at 300 °C towards 1000 ppm H2 gas in a selective manner.


[1] Cluster and ACE magnetic field measurements from the 13 February 2001 are presented. On this day the four Cluster spacecraft made two crossings of the heliospheric current sheet (HCS) while in the solar wind and observed a large-scale rotation of the magnetic field in the magnetosheath. These features were also observed by ACE upstream of the Earth at the L1 point. Minimum variance analysis (MVA) is used to show the similarity of the HCS orientation at ACE and Cluster, and Cluster multispacecraft analysis of the timing, orientation, and changes across the reversal is used to show that these results are consistent with crossings of the HCS. The structure of the currents in the HCS is also investigated using the Cluster curlometer technique. The field rotation observed by Cluster in the magnetosheath and ACE in the solar wind is identified as a magnetic flux rope, and MVA shows that although the structure and ordering of the flux rope are unchanged by the bow shock, the orientation of the axis changes. This is most likely caused by the rotation of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) as it is processed by the bow shock, augmented by draping effects deeper in the magnetosheath.


The current understanding of lifelong learning (LLL) does not refer simply to recurrent or adult education but encompasses all learning endeavors over the lifespan. The Internet, a large information database, readily available, may be used to support LLL. It is difficult to find the exact/correct information that one wants. Most of the search mechanisms on the Web deal with isolated solicitations for information; being that the results for one determined request are identical, independent of the user or specific context of the user. It is possible to improve the results using context information. The learning projects (LP) is a methodology based on the intentional and natural human activity of constructing projects. These LPs will give indications of the specific userpsilas information necessities, providing the context of this information. Our system can assist the process of constructing LPs into virtual learning environments by recommending documents. The IR model is a basic component because documents will be retrieved, classified based on the userpsilas context, downloaded from the Internet and recommended to the user by artificial agents. The system builds domains ontology of the project using the userpsilas interactions with LPs and concept maps as a strategy to build context.


The asymmetric unit of the title compound, (C6H9N2)4[BiCl6]Cl·H2O, contains four protonated 2-amino-6-methylpyridine (HAMP) cations and two-halves of two [BiCl6]3− anions, together with one water molecule and one chloride anion. The BiIII atoms are hexacoordinated by Cl atoms, forming distorted octahedral geometries. In the crystal structure, intramolecular O—H⋯Cl and N—H⋯Cl, and intermolecular O—H⋯Cl and N—H⋯O interactions link the molecules into a three-dimensional network.


Pneumococcal resistance to fluoroquinolones is an emerging threat in adults associated with hospital treatment of pneumonia and exacerbations of chronic bronchitis. We report for the first time the emergence of fluoroquinolone resistance in a pneumococcus isolated from a child, temporally associated with the treatment of another hospitalized child who was given fluoroquinolones for the management of multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis.


A brushless DC motor, wherein the rotor (1) having a motor shaft (4), a rotor yoke mounted on the motor shaft (2) on (4), and a magnetized ring magnet (3), the magnet a plurality of magnetic poles in the circumferential direction, and the rotor yoke (2) is held in place. The stator has a first and a second stator yoke (5,6). A main magnetic pole of the stator yoke (13 or 14) each extending radially from the center, and the magnetic pole attachment (21, 22) respectively, from the front end of the main magnetic pole (13 or 14) along a ring-shaped magnet (3) the inner circumferential surface extending in the vertical direction. Another surrounding the motor shaft (4) of the central yoke (7) is used in a magnetic circuit connecting said first and second stator yokes (5,6), having an annular winding (8) of the winding assembly (12 ), and a printed circuit board (11), on which is mounted the annular winding (8), electromagnetic conversion element (9) and a drive circuit.


Objective To investigate the relationship between histological classification and immunohistochemical expression in dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans(DFSP). Methods 42 DFSP cases were analysed by clinical pathology with HE stain and S P immunohistochemistry.Results 42 cases were classified into conventional, fibrosarcoma lesion, myxoid and melanin pigmented DFSP. CD34 was stablely positive in each subtype DFSP while Vimentin was weak positive, and sometimes unstable; nm23, Ki 67, p53 expression had no statistical difference among the subtype. Conclusion Conventional DFSP is a low grade malignant neoplasm while fibrosarcoma lesion DFSP is more malignant; myxoid and melanin pigmented DFSP would be further to investigate. CD34 is positive and very characteristic for diagnosis and identification of DFSP.


Abstract : By measuring the rates of reaction of meta and para-picrylbenzoic acids with diphenyldiazomethane in ethanol, the Hammett constants sigma sub meta and sigma sub para for the picryl group were found to be 0.433 and 0.413 respectively. The ordering and magnitude of these constants indicates that there is no resonance interaction of the picryl group with the reaction site in the benzene ring to which it is attached. (Author)


The invention belongs to the fields of modern agriculture, new agricultural inputs, new fertilizer and soil conditioner, and relates to a preparation method of enzymatic hydrolysis high activity algae organic fertilizer. The method mainly uses a two-segment hydrolysis approach for complete extraction method of algae endogenous active substances and nutrients; and first actinomycete is used for fermentation, and then Bacillus is used for fermentation, so as to prepare the organic fertilizer containing high content of algae active ingredient. Main technical indexes of the algae organic fertilizer provided by the invention meet the followings: organic matter no less than 95 g / L, alginate no less than 20g / L, and total amount of Cu, Zn, Mo and B no less than 4 g / L. The organic fertilizer can increase crop yield, improve the quality of agricultural products, especially has grater yield increasing effect and economic benefit on economic crops such as cotton, tobacco, mulberry and tea, and horticulture.


Industrial food production causes a high amount of waste. This waste must be taken to a suitable location where it can be further processing. During industrial processing of the pineapple, about 50 % of the mass of the fruit ends up being discarded becoming a residue. Researchers have studied these residues in order to add value to these by-products, to reduce disposal costs and guarantee environmental sustainability. This work investigates the development characteristics of research on agroindustrial residues of pineapple based on bibliometric methods to explore the structure of knowledge in this field over the years, according to the year of publication, periodicals, country, authors, area of knowledge, institutions, keywords, subject type, and citation analysis. In total 927 articles were found and after a careful analysis and selection of papers, 364 articles remained of which 82 % were published only in the last decade. Most studies focused on agricultural and biological sciences. About 1183 authors from 50 different countries contributed to this subject, in which India has the largest number of publications. The results obtained with this study, highlighting the different uses for pineapple residues, can provide valuable information for researchers interested in the field of agroindustrial wastes.


Interfacial and wetting behavior of a double chain cationic synthetic surfactant di-dodecyldimethyl ammonium bromide (DDAB), a natural surfactant (Shikakai), and their mixtures of five different ratios have been studied by surface tension and dynamic contact angle measurements. Pure Shikakai has higher surface tension and contact angle values at critical micelle concentration (CMC) than DDAB, indicating that it is inferior to DDAB and also commonly used synthetic surfactants. Addition of DDAB to Shikakai gives a gradual lowering of the CMC, surface tension and contact angle values at the CMC. When the concentration of DDAB is ∼50 mol% the final surface tension and contact angle values are very close to those of pure DDAB. The mixed surfactant solutions show strong non-ideal solution behaviour because of the interaction between the two surfactants. As the wetting properties of a natural surfactant are enhanced in the presence of a synthetic surfactant, the use of plant–synthetic mixed surfactant systems may be useful in wetting and in several other applications. At the same time the consumption of synthetic surfactant can also be reduced.


The activity of the water reduction catalyst [Co(L)(pyr)2]PF6 (1), where (L ) is a bis-amido pyridine ligand and pyr is pyrrolidine, is investigated. Catalyst 1 has an overpotential of 0.54 V and a high observed TOF of 23 min, albeit for a relatively short time. Considering the significant activity of 1 and aiming to improve catalyst design, a detailed structural and electronic study is performed to understand the mechanisms of deactivation. Experimental and theoretical evidence support that the metal-reduced [Co(L)] is in tautomeric equilibrium with the ligand-reduced [Co(L)] species. While [Co(L)] favors formation of a Co–H relevant for catalysis, the [Co(L)] species leads to ligand protonation, structural distortions and, ultimatley, catalyst deactivation. Substantial efforts have been directed towards the development of molecular catalysts for water reduction based on abundant and affordable 3d transition metals. Such catalysts must withstand drastic electronic and structural changes from high to low redox states required for hydride formation that precedes H2 evolution. To this end, cobalt complexes have been extensively studied because of the energetically affordable stepwise conversions from 3d Co to 3d Co and back to Co– H and Co–H hydride species. [1b, 1c, 1g, 1j, 1k, 2] As such, mechanistic understanding of catalytic pathways —including those of deactivation— becomes a necessary condition to the development of robust catalysts. Our group has studied the mechanisms of several proton and water reduction cobalt catalysts, including some phenolaterich Co [N2O3] catalysts that served as the stepping stone to much improved pyridine-rich Co [N2N py 3] catalysts for water reduction that display TON > 7000 mol. 3] We have gathered evidence that some molecular catalysts such as cobalt oximes [2d] are converted into nanoparticulates through ligand hydrolysis triggered by radical-based mechanisms. Therefore, although the involvement of ligands in the catalytic cycle has been reported, we conclude that radical formation may have deleterious effects on H2 production. [5] Here we examine this issue in detail and suggest that formation of energetically equivalent valence tautomers, viz. [Co(L)] ↔ [Co(L•)] offers additional conversion pathways that lead to catalyst deactivation. In order to evaluate this hypothesis we examined the electronic and redox structure of the pseudo-octahedral [CoL(pyr)2]PF6 (1) complex, where (L ) is the doubly deprotonated form of a bis-amido pyridine ligand and pyr denotes axially coordinated pyrrolidines, as shown in Scheme 1. Complex 1 was synthesized by adapting reported procedures, where the ligand was treated under aerobic conditions with 1 equiv. of Co(OAc)2•4H2O in presence of pyrrolidine using methanol as the solvent. The formation of a microcrystalline precipitate was induced by the addition of NH4PF6. Complex 1 was thoroughly characterized using H–NMR, FTIR, ESI-MS(+), and elemental analysis (See Experimental Section for details), as well as X-ray crystallography (vide infra). As it will be discussed, this species is capable of robust water reduction followed by rapid deactivation. The cyclic voltammogram (CV) of 1 was taken in CH3CN and shows five independent redox processes (Figure 1). The processes at E1/2 = 1.34 VNHE (ΔE = 0.10 V, |Ipa/Ipc| = 1.08) and Epa = 1.94 VNHE are assigned as amido to amidyl radical oxidations (for potentials vs. Ag/AgCl and Fc/Fc see Table S1). The process at Epc = -0.32 VNHE is assigned to the Co/Co couple. 9] The process at -1.08 VNHE (ΔEp = 0.16 V, |Ipa/Ipc| = 0.84) is tentatively assigned to a Co /Co couple, while the third process at -1.79 VNHE (ΔE = 0.11 V) is attributed to a pyridine-based reduction. The CV of 1 in phosphate buffer (1 mol/L, pH 7, Figure 2) shows a catalytic wave at -0.95 VNHE in presence of 1 with concurent evolution of gas at the surface of the electrode. This corresponds to an overpotential of 0.54 V. Moreover, the onset potential of -0.95 VNHE closely resembles that of the Co /Co [] Mr. H. Baydoun, Dr. S. Mazumder, Prof. H. B. Schlegel, Prof. C. N. Verani Department of Chemistry, Wayne State University 5101 Cass Ave, Detroit, MI 48202 (USA) E-mail: email@example.com Homepage: http://chem.wayne.edu/veranigroup/ Dr. S. Mazumder Current address: Department of Chemistry, Hofstra University, Berliner Hall, Hempstead, NY 11549 (USA) Supporting information for this article is given via a link at the end of the document. Figure 1: The CV of 1 (1 mM) in ACN. Glassy carbon, Ag/AgCl, Pt wire, TBAPF6 (0.1 M). Ferrocene is used as an internal standard. Scheme 1: Synthetic scheme of catalyst 1. 10.1002/chem.201701783 Chemistry A European Journal This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


It's scary to think that the legal industry may one day be run by Artificial Intelligence. Although total AI disruption is still a way off, Industry 4.0 is coming. Unless human lawyers learn to adapt and compete, it's only a matter of time before all our clients are signing up with machines.