Hemophilia is a rare congenital bleeding disorder, resulting from a deficiency of factor VIII (hemophilia A) or factor IX (hemophilia B). Deficiency of either of these factors interrupts normal hemostasis resulting in an inability to form a stable fibrin clot to halt bleeding. This article reviews the etiology of hemophilia, available pharmacologic approaches to bleeding episodes, and treatment options in the presence of complications.


Objective In the present paper we present an observational study of the implementation of a Neuropsychological Stimulation Program at an Elderly Day Care Center in low-educated participants with very similar backgrounds concerning social economic status. Methods The implemented program tackled several dimensions, including daily orientation sessions, cognitive stimulation sessions twice a week, followed by movement sessions, and structured sessions conducted every two weeks. Cognitive Evaluation was performed before and after implementation of the program. Results Results are discussed taking into consideration cognitive outputs as well as non-cognitive outputs and the specificities of community-based intervention. Conclusion It was concluded that community-based intervention is set to become vital in promoting dementia prevention.


The paper presents a mechanism for ergonomic evaluation and selection of the variants of an industrial product. The mechanism is based on knowledge about the natural hierarchy of ergonomic evaluation criteria used. The mechanism can be applied for mixture of quantitative and qualitative criteria and in case of missing measurements values of some criteria. A program implementation of the evaluation mechanism is developed on IBM-PC computer. The example described demonstrates an effective improvement in the evaluation accuracy over other methods. The application areas of the evaluation mechanism and the program system are discussed.


The ability of the animal gut to absorb the trace elements and other nutrients, therefore, improving the growth performance of animals. Nanoparticles of Selenium (Nano-Se) promote growth performance of rabbits and it can act as antioxidants, antibacterial agents, improving the immunity system of the rabbits. Moreover, Se is one of the critical nutritional factors necessary for the normal functioning of the immune system and maintenance of gut health, growth, and organ functions. Numerous studies have demonstrated that a deficiency in Se could lead to serious disruptions in animal performances such as growth, digestion, liver damage, pancreatic fibrosis, cystic ovaries, and thyroid metabolism dysfunction. Furthermore, sufficient Se supplementation in rabbits tends to maintain good health and productive performance. The levels of Se in the rabbit diets vary widely according to dietary ingredients and selenium supplementation, ranging from 0.05 to 2.0 mg/kg diet. Since there are almost unlimited possibilities concerning the dosage of Se there is still more research needed. This review gives an overview of the mode of action, recommendation levels of Nano-Se, and their effects on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, carcass criteria and blood biochemical of rabbits.


The carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity postulates that diets high in carbohydrate result in elevated insulin secretion thereby trapping fat inside adipocytes, decreasing the availability of circulating fuels, and generating a state of "internal starvation" in non-adipose tissues that signals to the brain to suppress energy expenditure and increase hunger [1, 2]. Therefore, isocaloric replacement of dietary carbohydrates with dietary fat should result in decreased insulin secretion, increased circulating fuels, and increased energy expenditure if the carbohydrateinsulin model is valid. To investigate this possibility, we recently conducted a metabolic ward study of a relatively homogeneous group of 17 men with overweight or class 1 obesity to measure changes in daily energy expenditure as subjects transitioned from four weeks of consuming a high-carbohydrate, high-sugar, baseline diet (BD) to an isocaloric very low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet (KD) with equal protein for a subsequent four-week period [3]. Subjects spent two consecutive days each week residing in respiratory chambers and the pre-specified primary aim of the study was to measure differences in daily energy expenditure on the final pair of chamber days during each diet period. The study was powered to detect a 150 kcal/d difference in this primary outcome which was pre-specified in the pre-registered clinical study protocol as the minimum effect size that would be deemed physiologically significant [3]. We found no significant difference in daily energy expenditure between the diet periods, with (mean ± SD) 2650 ± 356 kcal/d during the KD versus 2617 ± 395 kcal/d during the BD (p = 0.21) as measured on the final pair of chamber days on each diet in all 17 subjects [4]. Nevertheless, using a repeated measures analysis of all chamber data during the isocaloric diets resulted in a significant increase in chamber energy expenditure that appeared to transiently increase by ~100 kcal/d upon induction of the KD followed by a subsequent waning over time despite rapid and substantial changes in daily insulin secretion, ketosis, and respiratory quotient (RQ) that stabilized within the first week of the KD and persisted throughout the study [5]. The subjects consumed, on average, slightly more energy than they expended during the respiratory chamber days and they completed 90 minutes of mandatory daily exercise at a fixed wattage on cycle ergometers in an attempt to stabilize physical activity expenditure between chamber and non-chamber days. However, on average, the subjects lost body weight and body fat suggesting that non-chamber energy expenditure was greater than the energy expended inside the respiratory chambers. This inference was supported by actigraphy data indicating increased non-chamber physical activity [5].


GATA factors play important role in hematopoiesis. In particular, GATA2 is critical for maintenance of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HS/PCs) and GATA1 is required for erythropoiesis. GATA1 and GATA2 are expressed in reciprocal patterns during erythroid differentiation. It was shown that GATA1 occupied the -2.8Kb regulatory element and mediated repression of the GATA2 promoter in terminally differentiating erythroid cells. However, the detailed molecular mechanisms that control the enhancer/promoter activities of the GATA2 gene remain to be elucidated. In this report, we found that LSD1 and TAL1 co-localize at GATA2 1S promoter through ChIP and double-ChIP assays in murine erythroleukemia (MEL) cells. To further test whether LSD1 and its mediated H3K4 demethylation is important for repression of the GATA2 gene during erythroid differentiation, we silenced LSD1 expression in both MEL cells and mouse ES cells using retrovirus mediated shRNA knockdown and induced them to differentiate into erythroid cells with DMSO and EPO, respectively. GATA2 expression was elevated while the level of GATA1 was repressed by RT-qPCR. Furthermore, consistent with the GATA witch hypothesis, ChIP analysis revealed that the levels of H3K4me2 were increased at the GATA2 1S promoter.  In addition, knock-down of LSD1 in MEL cells results in inhibition of erythroid cell differenciation and attenuation of MEL cell proliferation and survival. Thus, our data reveal that LSD1 involved in control of terminal erythroid differentiation by regulating GATA switch. The LSD1 histone demethylase complex may be recruited to the GATA2 1S promoter by interacting with TAL1. The H3K4 demethylation activity of LSD1 leads to downregulation of the active H3K4m2 mark at the GATA2 promoter that alters chromatin structure and represses transcription of the GATA2 genes. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


In this paper, we study a lower bound estimate of thefirst positive eigenvalue of the sublaplacian on a three-dimensional pseudohermitian manifold. S.-Y. Li and H.-S. Luk derived the lower bound estimate under certain conditions for curvature tensors bounded below by a positive constant. By using the Li‐Yau gradient estimate, we are able to get an effective lower bound estimate under a general curvature condition. The key is the discovery of a new CR version of the Bochner formula which involves the CR Paneitz operator.


The thermodynamics of in situ reaction from the reaction system of Al TiO 2 B to form Al 2O 3, TiB 2/Al composites was studied. The results show that under the condition of certain heating rate, aluminum reacts with TiO 2 firstly at 1?073?K and then forms Al Ti B reaction system. The phases of AlB 2 and Al 3Ti occur during the reaction process as medi products and the AlB 2 phase is decomposed into Al and B at the temperature of about 1?200?K, meanwhile, Al 3Ti is deduced by B to form TiB 2. When the mole ratio of B/TiO 2 is about two, the Al 3Ti phase is almost eliminated completely. [


One lingering concern is the effect of the radiation produced by the mobile handset antenna on the human head. This topic has been studied widely, but still there is no definitive answer. Since mobile telephones are typically used in close to the human head, significant levels of power can be absorbed by the head, the primary effect is to cause local heating of the brain and head tissues. This is of concern to some people who work continually with mobile telephones, and some form of ''preventative'' research should be done. This paper describes some kinds of models of antennas (dipole, monopole and patch antennas) and human, and the calculation of the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) in the human head at 1800 MHz. Also, this paper studies the effect of the human head model on the return losses of these models of the antennas. The obtained results show that at the same frequency, the patch antenna induces SAR in the human head of smaller values than that induced by dipole and monopole antennas. In addition, the return loss of the patch antenna is affected greatly by the presence of the human model, when it is compared with the return losses of the dipole and monopole


The purpose of this study was to describe ice hockey player's opinions about leaders, educations and activities in Halland Ice Hockey Asssociation. This is a qualitative study and the data were gat ...


Erythroderma has not previously been reported to be a feature of myelodysplasia. We report two cases of myelodysplasia presenting with erythroderma, one of which was associated with skin infiltration by blast cells.


Node cooperation in relaying others' packets and route stability are essential for high-performance multi-hop wireless networks and reliable data transmission. In this paper, we propose routing protocol called TETO for stimulating node cooperation and establishing stable routes. TETO uses credits (or micropayment) to stimulate the nodes' cooperation and processes the payment receipts to evaluate the nodes' quality of packet-relay in terms of trust values. Stable routes are established through the highly trusted nodes having sufficient residual energy. Extensive analysis and simulations demonstrate that TETO can secure the payment and trust calculation and significantly improve route stability and thus the packet delivery ratio.


This article describes the professional services project for the Phi Delta Chi Professional Pharmacy Fraternity—Beta Gamma Chapter—preparation of an educational videotape on abuse of anabolic steroids. A short summary of the adverse effects of these steroids, a personal story involving steroid abuse, recovery, and motivation and stimulation of a group of pharmacy students to provide important educational services to teenagers (and older aspiring athletes) is presented.


This paper presents the design of a patch antenna with structure bio-inspired by the Wayfaring-tree (Viburnum lantana) leaf chosen from the European native flora, for applications in wireless communication systems. The antenna was manufactured in low-cost FR-4 substrate, fed by a microstrip line using the hybrid technique with matching impedances of 50Ω. Specifically the antenna is designed for operation in the 2400–2483.5 MHz range of the IEEE802.11b, g, n (Wi-Fi) and IEEE802.15 (Bluetooth). Ansys Designer® simulator software was used for numerical characterization and a vector network analyzer for the experimental characterization. The proposed antenna presents a bandwidth of 61 MHz, measured reflection coefficient of −37.14 dB at 2.44 GHz, and gain of 3.68 dBi in the broadside direction.


This article discusses the problems of social protection of citizens in the closed administrative-territorial educations are considered, his concept and characteristic features is given. Legal positions of the Constitutional Court on some aspects of social protection of the specified category of persons are given.


This article has two main goals: (i) to show how nasal–obstruent clusters interact with a Canadian-Raising-type pattern in Liverpool English and (ii) to provide evidence that fine phonetic variation in the realisation of nasal–obstruent clusters influences the production of the preceding vowels. I present quantitative evidence from an acoustic study on price and mouth vowel realisations before nasal–obstruent clusters in Liverpool English. The investigation looks at price and mouth separately before obstruents, nasals and nasal–obstruent clusters, in order to demonstrate that nasal–obstruent clusters influence vowels differently depending on the quality of the vowel. Price realisations before nasal–obstruent clusters are similar to productions before singleton obstruents with the same voicing. Specifically, price has a raised realisation before nasal–voiceless obstruent clusters, but a non-raised realisation before nasal–voiced obstruent clusters, which is the same pattern as before singleton obstruents. Mouth realisations preceding nasal–obstruent clusters show evidence of a greater influence from the nasal. The nucleus formant measurements are similar to those before singleton obstruents, but there is frequent monophthongisation preceding nasal–obstruent clusters in mouth, which is mainly found before singleton nasals. Furthermore, I show that the variation in nasal–obstruent clusters in Liverpool English helps to explain the differences in realisation of the target vowels. Nasal deletion is more frequent in nasal–voiceless obstruent clusters following price, leading to vowel productions similar to those before singleton voiceless obstruents. However, nasal durations are longer in nasal–obstruent clusters following mouth, leading to a greater influence of the nasal in the form of more monophthongal vowel productions.


PURPOSE: A screen and method for manufacturing the same is provided to maximize view angle and improve gain by minimizing loss of light, while minimizing eye strain. CONSTITUTION: A screen comprises a light transmission sheet(10) made of a light transmission material having a scattering layer(11) with a concave-convex surface; a reflecting layer(20) formed at the surface of the light transmission sheet, which reflects the light transmitted through the light transmission sheet; and a transmission cutoff layer(30) formed at the surface of the reflecting layer and made of a black synthetic resin. The light transmission sheet is made of polycarbonate or polyethylene terephthalate, and the reflecting layer is colored into silver so as to minimize eye strain.


Background: Propofol is used for sedation during local and regional anesthesia. In order to evaluate the depth of sedation the bispectral index (BIS) and observer's sedation scoring (OAA/S) are widely used. However, there are few studies focused on elderly surgical patients during propofol-induced sedation for regional anesthesia. The goal of this study was to examine the effect site concentration of propofol for conscious sedation using the bispectral index (BIS) and hemodynamic changes in elderly patients. Methods: Sixteen patients aged 65 yrs or older presenting for elective surgery requiring regional anesthesia were studied. After performing spinal anesthesia, target plasma concentration of propofol was set at 2.5/ml. Effect site concentration was titrated by increasing and decreasing the target plasma concentration to maintain a BIS of 75-80. Effect site concentration, the OAA/S score, mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate were measured for 1 hour every 5 minutes. Statistical analysis was performed using repeated measurement of ANOVA and correlation analysis. Results: The mean effect site concentrations was 1.3 0.2/ml and OAA/S score was 2.8 0.5 when the BIS was maintained between 75-80. The correlation coefficient for the effect site concentration versus the BIS was r = - 0.79. The MAP significantly decreased with an effect site concentration of propofol 1.0 and 1.2/ml and the heart rate significantly decreased at 1.2/ml. MAP decreased significantly at the level of conscious sedation. Conclusions: The mean effect site concentration of propofol was 1.3 0.2/ml when the BIS was 75-80. There were significant correlation between the effect site concentration and BIS.


Performance testing is crucial to assess that Web Applications provide a good user experience under different workloads. A workload reproduces the interactions of a number of concurrent users with the system, to observe its actual behavior under stress.Defining meaningful workloads is a key challenge in performance testing, and many solutions have been proposed in the literature to support testers in this task, mostly based on analyzing system logs describing real user behaviors. However, in our industrial and academic experience, we found that these solutions present some limitations, hindering performance testers' applicability and productivity. In particular, (I) they require the system under test to be actually deployed in order to collect real user behaviors; (II) they offer limited support to automated management of data dependencies; (III) they lack support for emerging protocols, such as WebSocket.In this paper, we present E2E-Loader, a novel approach to automate the design of performance testing workloads for web applications. E2E-Loader generates workloads by exploiting existing End-to-End functional test cases and can be used at an early stage, before the system is deployed and actual user behaviors have been collected. Our solution features full WebSocket support and includes a customizable heuristic to automatically detect data dependencies.We empirically evaluate the proposed approach in an industrial case study. Results are promising and show that the workloads generated with E2E-Loader are generally comparable to those that were manually created by practitioners working with our industrial partner while requiring a fraction of the time to be obtained. Finally, we make E2E-Loader and its source code publicly available for interested practitioners and researchers.


The German question was not only about re-unification of two opposite German states embedded in the bi-polar constellation of the Cold War. It was...


In this paper,the oscillation of positive sotutions for a type of nonlinear difference equations with variable coefficientsx n+1 =x nexp(r n1-x n-k 1-cx n-k )is investigated,A good sufficient condition for the oscillation about the positive equilibriun =1 is obtained.


One-pot synthesis of benzimidazole compounds from ortho-phenylenediamine and a variety of aldehydes was developed under mild reaction conditions. All the reactions were carried out in the presence of samarium triflate (10 mol%) in acetonitrile at room temperature.


This paper studies the effect of rare-earth additive(CeO2) on the micro-structure and properties especially the anti-corrosive property of chemical plating Ni-P.With the optimal experimental prescription,Ni-P/CeO2 electroless deposit is co-deposited on low carbon steel substrate surface and the fine powder is dispersed effectively by ultrasonic.Environmental scanning electron microscopy(ESEM) is used to examine the surface deposit and corrosive morphology.Transmission electronic microscopy with energy dispersive spectrum(TEM/SEM) is used to analyze crystal grain structure after aging treatment and the internal chemical content of the deposit respectively.The polarization curve is determined by potentiostat.The results show that rare-earth CeO2 additive increases the content of phosphorus(w(P)10%),makes the refined grain in amorphous state and low porosity which increases the corrosion resistance.The nanometer rare-earth additive co-deposited with Ni,P is filled in the defect among dislocation,grain boundary and porosity in chemical deposition and thus hinders dislocation glide.During this process,it spread with substrate of dense structure oxide CeO2 which is produced in dislocation gap.These can help to increase grain densification and corrosion resistance.


The laws of formation of wear and hardresistant coatings of the Ni-Al-Ti-C-SiO 2 -Al 2 O 3 B 2 O system are shown in the work and the results of their research at friction loading are given. The proposed coatings are characterized by having an order of magnitude higher resistance to oxidation compared to traditional heatresistant coatings, with high wear resistance. In the whole range of tests, the indicators of wear intensity remain virtually unchanged, and much lower than traditionally used wear-resistant materials. At change of speed of sliding in the conditions of the increased loadings and temperatures intensity of wear remains practically invariable and is twice less in comparison with coverings of tungsten carbide.


We discuss the Skyrme model for strong interactions and the concept of a Skyrmion fluid. The corresponding compact objects, namely Skyrmion stars, constructed from the equation of state describing such a fluid are presented and compared to models of neutron stars based on modern equation of states. We suggest plausible Skyrmion star candidates in the 4U 1636-53 and 4U 1820-30 low mass X-ray binary systems where the suggested masses of the accreting compact companion (\sim 2.0M_{\odot}) remain a challenge for neutron star models.


The status quo of the research on Bloch oscillations in semiconductor superlattices is outlined. Bloch oscillations excited by femtosecond laser pulses have been investigated by different optical techniques. They have allowed measurement of the internal electric field changes associated with the charge oscillations, the emitted terahertz electromagnetic radiation and the nonlinear coherent optical response, all directly in the time domain. The main results are summarized and critically reviewed. The potential of Bloch oscillations for practical applications in terahertz radiation sources is assessed.


The solid polymer blend sample films of Poly (ethylene Oxide) (PEO)/Sodium Carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC) with 10/90, 30/70, 50/50, 70/30 and 90/10 compositions were prepared by solution cast technique and electrical properties were investigated by Dielectric studiesassociated with dielectric constant (ɛ′ ) and dielectric loss (ɛ′')including AC conductivity (σac) measurements. Dielectric constant and dielectric loss are found to decrease with the increase of frequency, and laterremains constant for all blend compositions in higher frequency range. Conductivity studyreveals that,the blend of 10/90 composition exhibits higher electrical conductivity of 2.707X10−5 Sm−1 and is found to be decreased with increase inwt.% of CMC in the blend matrix. The deviation in the trend of conductivity has been observed at 70/30 and 90/10 composition due to the miscibility.


This working paper finds that successful redevelopment efforts in Camden, New Jersey, under state receivership were able to build on groups' existing capacities and their past work in neighborhoods, were marked by more effective participatory dynamics and the limited use of eminent domain, and benefited from good relationships with the State of New Jersey and with private-sector partners. It concludes that attempts to build public capacity to revitalize cities may need to be complemented by efforts to build civic capacity, or the ability to solve problems in coordination with major partners.


Silicon photodetector can be integrated with all kinds of Silicon circuits to get monolithic OEIC. A CMOS-process-compatible silicon double-photodetector with structures of P+/N-well and N-well/P-substrate, called PD1 and PD2 respectively, is designed in this paper. The theoretical absolute spectral response and response speed of this double-photodetector are calculated and analyzed. Simulation results in 0.5um standard CMOS process show that the responsivity of the double-photodetector is above 0.2A/W from 400 to 900nm wavelength range without ARC (Anti-Reflection-Coating). Both the effects of the insulated medium layers (SiO2 and Si3N4) in CMOS process and reverse voltage on spectral responsivity are also discussed. When the optical window area is 16.54μmx16.54μm2, the capacitance of PD1 is about 100fF at a reverse voltage of 2.5V. Yet the capacitance of PD2 is almost 1/10 of PD1. With a load-resistor of 50Ω, the response speeds of PD1, PD2 and double-photodetector are 0.628, 2.04 and 2.05ns at 650nm wavelength (corresponding bandwidth about 276MHz, 85MHz and 84.7MHz), respectively. Finally, the co-design of Monolithic OEIC is also discussed. A full CMOS monolithic OEIC for optical-disc signal pickup is designed with this double-detector.


Our paper is consecrated to show the influence of variable fluid properties in EMHD non-Newtonian power-law fluid along a moving Riga plate. Slip velocity phenomenon is considered at the surface wh...


Guidelines for the design of multimode, step-index fibers with intentional fluctuations of the refractive index of the core are given, with the aim of reducing multimode pulse dispersion. It appears possible to engineer a fiber with carefully designed refractive index fluctuations, the azimuthal variation of which is governed by the function cos ϕ and the z dependence of which has a spatial Fourier spectrum with a sharp cutoff frequency. By limiting the location of the index fluctuations to a region below a certain radius r max , coupling to modes with large azimuthal mode numbers can be avoided and power loss via coupling to radiation modes can be held to a minimum.


With citation of the 306thHospital of PLA as a good example, this paper demonstrated the establishment of a set of controllable, practical and simple workflow for management of medical consumables, through analysis and summarization of the consumable supply system. This IT system assigned proper responsibilities and duties to certain personnel, and thus enhanced the workflow and work efficiency, and finally the overall competitiveness.


The incidence of immediate and delayed hypersensitivity to Candida albicans in 45 patients with denture stomatitis and 100 control patients was investigated. No increase in this incidence was found; it is suggested, therefore, that allergy to the fungus is probably not the cause of denture stomatitis.


The most exceptional feature of the Sarcophagus of the Amazons is its pictorial decoration, which most probably goes back to the activity of Greek artists of the first half of the fourth century BC. In view of its restoration and with the aim to characterise both inorganic and organic materials, an analytical investigation was undertaken. This provided a unique opportunity to document the painting techniques of the time, to highlight restoration materials, and to assess the state of conservation of the sarcophagus. The preliminary results discussed here give information on the pigments and binders used in the paint decoration. The investigations were carried out by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy-dispersion X-ray analysis (EDX) and pyrolysis coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (PY-GC-MS). Whenever possible, the different analytical techniques were applied sequentially on the same samples. The obtained results show that the palette is mainly composed of mineral pigments, and that proteinaceous matter is present as binder. The presence of other organic natural materials, including shellac, and synthetic materials (a vinylic polymer) attributed to restoration is also highlighted.


We consider an M=E n = 1 queueing model where customers arrive at a facility with a single server according to a Poisson process with customer service times assumed to be independent and identically distributed with Erlang distribution. We concentrate on the overshoot of the workload process in the queue. The overshoot means the excess over a threshold at the moment where the workload process exceeds the threshold. The approximation of the distribution of the overshoot was proposed by Bae et al. (2011); however, but the accuracy of the approximation was unsatisfactory. We derive an advanced approximation using the property of the Erlang distribution. Finally the newly proposed approximation is compared with the results of the previous study.


Microbiological risk assessments, as stipulated by the European Pharmacopea, are new in Europe. Up to now guidelines of the local authorities are not known. The following article presents some examples and gives assistance for practice. The microbiologist should use his margin of discretion responsibly and appropriate.


Abstract This paper presents a novel design of a low profile circularly polarized (CP) metasurface (MTS) antenna with in-band radar cross-section (RCS) reduction property. The MTS is loaded as a superstrate on slot antenna and it can be viewed as a polarization-dependent MTS (PDMTS). The rectangular patch-based PDMTS is analyzed using characteristic mode analysis to find two orthogonal degenerate modes, which produces CP waves. Linearly polarized slot antenna is used to excite the PDMTS. The performance of PDMTS loaded slot antenna is analyzed numerically using full-wave analysis method. The PDMTS CP antenna is fabricated and its performance is tested experimentally. The proposed antenna has a compact structure and it has an overall size of $0.52{\lambda _0}\times 0.52{\lambda _0} \times 0.078{\lambda _0}$ (where ${\lambda _0}$ is the free space wavelength). The measured results show that the PDMTS antenna achieves $-10\,{\rm dB}$ impedance bandwidth of 29.41$\%$, 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth of 9.05$\%$, broadside gain of 6.34 dB, and monostatic RCS reduction of $-30.2\,{\rm dBsm}$ at the resonant frequency of 5.86 GHz. The simulated results are in well agreement with the measured results and it is well suited for C-band Radar and Satellite communication.


Thirty-nine per cent of job advertisements in a Dutch national paper contain one or more English words (Korzilius, Van Meurs & Hermans, submitted). Several authors have claimed that the use of English in advertising in non-English-speaking countries is associated with prestige (e.g. Friedrich 2002; Haarmann 1989). The present study aims to test the effects of the use of English in Dutch job ads. In a between-subjects experimental design, three manipulated versions of a job ad were presented to potential applicants. One version was completely in English, one version contained 11 different English words, and the third version was completely in Dutch. The respondents answered questions on the intelligibility and appreciation of the advertisement as a whole, on the image of the organisation and of the job offered, and on their motivation to respond to the ad. In addition, they indicated the degree to which they understood the meaning of the manipulated Dutch and English items as they occurred in their version of the ad, and paraphrased the meaning of these manipulated terms. Results showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the scores of the completely Dutch and partly English versions on the attractiveness and intelligibility of the ad as a whole, on the image of the company and of the position on offer, and on motivation to respond. As for comprehension, the manipulated Dutch items scored better on respondents' own estimation of their understanding of the items and on the number of correct paraphrases. The results for the completely English version will be available shortly. On the basis of the two versions analysed, it may be concluded that English words and phrases are less well understood than their native equivalents, but, contrary to claims in the literature, the use of English instead of Dutch words does not affect potential applicants' attitudes towards various aspects of the ad, the job and the organisation, at least not in the case of young and highly educated respondents.


To adapt to the topographic conditions in Zhejiang province,general principles of the combine harvester were adopted,it designed middle and small types of combine harvester.It analyzed,calculated and determined the main parameters of the 4LZ-1.0full-feeding axial flow threshing combine harvester on the cut-width,speed,productivity,power and ground-pressure etc.


The characters and environmental conditions of a typical ground subsidence in Jingmen district are introduced.In order to awake people the close ties between environment and geological environment condition caused by mining,the reasons are analyzed;and fundamental theories and urgent treatment methods for investigating and analyzing the similar case are also put forward.


The act of plagiarism is a serious offense and all involved parties will be penalized according to most Thai university rules. The lack of effective tools for plagiarism detection in the Thai language is a problem for academic and research institutes in Thailand. A practical framework and detection tool would facilitate the development of academic integrity and honesty. This paper presents an effective alternative method to detect plagiarism in Thai academic articles utilizing a syntactic parse tree technique (SPT). The main concept of this method is the dynamic weighing of each sentence according to the roles of its words. The experimental results, empirically compared with three existing tools: tri-grams, semantic role labeling (SRL), Turnitin and Akarawisut, yield comparable or higher precision and recall in all four plagiarism study cases of word-by-word, word-reordering, modifier-insertion, and synonym-replacement plagiarism. SPT shows promise and should be incorporated in similarity comparison tools to improve the accuracy of plagiarism detection in the Thai language.


'Rhodes' soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] (Reg. no. CV317, P1 561400) was developed and released by the Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station in February, 1990. This is a Maturity Group V cultivar which is resistant to Races 3 and 14 and moderately resistant to Race 4 (9) of the soybean cyst nematode (SCN), Heterodera glycines Ichinohe. Rhodes was selected from the cross J74-123/N73-520. J74123 is a sister line of 'Bedford' (8) that derived its SCN resistance from 'Forrest' (7) and PI88788 (1). N73-520 is a selection from the cross 'Tracy' (3)/'Ransom' (2). Early-generation selection and testing were done at the Delta Center of the University of Missouri at Portageville, MO. The F2 population of the cross was grown in the cyst nematode nursery at the Rhodes Farm near Clarkton, MO. Individual F3 plants were chosen and evaluated in the greenhouse for resistance to SCN. Resistant progenies in the F4 were again planted in the cyst nematode nursery. The progeny of an F5 plant was bulked for initial testing and designated S80-2959. Since S80-2959 was segregating for resistance to the root-knot nematode [Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid & White) Chitwood] single plant progenies were developed and screened and resistant selections were bulked to develop breeder seed. Rhodes was evaluated in the Uniform Soybean Tests—Southern Region from 1984 through 1986 (4,5,6), and compared against Forrest (7) and 'Essex' (10). The seed yield of Rhodes was almost the same as Forrest and slightly better than Essex. In eleven station tests conducted in Portageville, MO., Rhodes exceeded the seed yield of Bedford by 6 to 7%. Rhodes will be suitable for planting in the SCN infested fields in Southeast Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee where Maturity Group V cultivars are planted. Rhodes has white flowers and tawny pubescence with tan pod walls. It is a Maturity Group V determinate cultivar and matures 2 d earlier than Forrest. Rhodes has a plant height of 90 cm, which is 5 cm shorter than Forrest and 10 cm shorter than Bedford. It also has greater lodging resistance than Bedford. Rhodes is resistant to SCN Races 3 and 14 and is moderately resistant to Race 4. It has a moderate level of resistance to root-knot nematode and is susceptible to Sudden Death Syndrome, caused by Fusarium solani (Mart.) Sacc. Rhodes has 41 Ig kg-' seed protein and 206g kg-' oil, compared with 401g kg-' seed protein and 209g kg-' oil of Forrest. Seed of Rhodes are yellow with brown hila and have a 100-seed weight of 14.3 g, compared with 12.8 g for Forrest. Rhodes was named after Mr. Roger F. Rhodes of Clarkton, MO, who donated a 100-acre farm to the University of Missouri. The farm, now called Rhodes Farm, is the site of the cyst nursery for screening and breeding soybean. The Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station will be responsible for maintaining breeder seed. The seed will be maintained as one generation each of breeder, foundation, registered, and certified seed. Foundation seed will be produced and distributed by Missouri Foundation Seeds, Department of Agronomy, 210 Waters Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211. A small sample of seed of Rhodes may be obtained from the author for research purposes for at least five years.


This paper investigates whether and to which degree watching Angry Birds-like live streaming could affect the spectator's working memory (WM). We prepared Angry Birds-like gameplay on the Twitch streaming platform in which a domino effect based on Rube Goldberg Machine (RGM) mechanism is featured in each generated game level. The spectators' working memory are measured using the N-back task, and our results show a possibility that watching the proposed live streaming can increase the WM performance.


The new Drilling control and monitoring system, DrillView, is used on a number of new drilling units in the North Sea and in the Caspian sea. The DrillView system is a modular system that can be used on any size drilling unit, from a single portable top drive to a complete drilling unit with automated pipe handling, cement system, mud system and third party equipment. The Human Man Interface (HMI) is based on touch screen technology (ATEX approved where required). The communication network is based on Ethernet and Profibus, giving full remote operation and monitoring functionality.


Functional and anatomic information are often considered together when physician wants to obtain a more reliable diagnosis in medicine. The image quality and quantitative accuracy of radionuclide imaging, however, often lack anatomic cues that are needed to localize or stage the disease and typically has poorer statistical and spatial characteristics than anatomic imaging methods, such as MRI, X-rays or ultrasounds one. Among the techniques able to provide anatomical information, ultrasounds (US) are a cost-effective and reliable method, and the US-probes represent an easy ways to assemble a portable devices. These issues have motivated the development of a new research approach that could combines functional data from compact gamma cameras with structural one from US equipments. The ECORAD collaboration aims to develop a dual compact system for imaging in Medicine able to integrate an US-probe within a compact gamma camera. It will be able to acquire ultrasound and scintigraphic images and to get both morphological and functional information on the same device. A volumetric image containing the fused information will be provided to the user.


The Federal Reserve adjusts the federal funds target rate discretely, causing discontinuity in short-term interest rates. Unlike Poisson jumps, these adjustments are well anticipated by the market. We propose a term structure model that incorporates an anticipated jump component with known arrival times but random jump size. We find that doing so improves the model performance in capturing the term structure behavior. The mean jump sizes extracted from the term structure match the realized target rate changes well. Specification analysis indicates that the jump sizes show strong serial dependence and dependence on the interest-rate factors. JEL Classification: E43, G12, G13, C51


Sustainable energy development (SED) is a crucial component of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), aiming to maintain economic and social progress while protecting the environment and mitigating climate change's effects. SED serves as a transition paradigm for sustainable development, providing a blueprint for energy peace and prosperity for people and all uses. This article presents the history of SED and then uses a critical discourse approach to summarize existing review studies in SED. Ten interlinked themes of SED are identified, with two of them considered to be among the least studied in existing SED reviews and in the current global discussion around climate change. This study explores these two themes, which include energy financing and the need for 100% renewable energy (RE), a sub-theme of decarbonization strategy working towards the 1.5–2.0 °C scenario. The study suggests that the current G20 countries' contributions, if maintained continuously per annum, in addition to 80% more funding from private investment compared to the amount in the 1.5 °C scenario financial requirements for clean energy, are sufficient to limit global warming. In addition to the present drive for 100% RE, the article also discusses emerging issues, such as energy storage options with an indication of hydrogen as the most promising, other energy-related development agendas, and the need for regional security stability to prevent energy wars. Selected SED decarbonization strategies are presented across the power, transport, building, and industrial sectors. The study concludes with progress and directions for future research, mainly the need for re-defining nationally determined contribution (NDC) through an emissions budgeting and centralized global or regional emissions stock-taking strategy working towards the 1.5 °C scenario.


Knowledge of the extent of burial of bottom sitting sea mines is critical to mine detection due to the significantly degraded capabilities of mine-hunting systems when the mines are buried. To provide an enhanced capability for predicting mine burial in support of U.S. Navy mine countermeasure (MCM) operations, an expert system approach to predicting sea mine burial has been developed. This expert system serves as a means to synthesize previous and current research on sea mine burial due to impact upon deployment and subsequently due to scour, the two dominant burial mechanisms in littoral waters. Prediction systems for impact and scour burial have been implemented as simple Bayesian networks whose probabilistic basis provides means of accounting for the inherent uncertainties associated with mine deployment methods, simplified physics-based burial models, and environmental variability. Examples of burial predictions and comparisons to results from field experiments are illustrated. In addition, a proposed risk metric is developed and applied to provide a geospatial mapping of mine burial probability.


Abstract : Chapter I. The stationary flow of a monatomic gas around a sphere is considered. For solving BOLTZMANN-equation in this case, a special iteration-process is introduced. The zeroth step is constructed with the help of an special Ansatz. The Ansatz allows the fulfilling of the demanded boundary-conditions and leads with the help of MAXWELLs transport-equations for a special molecule-model to a system of six non linear partial differential-equations. These equations are not yet solved. Chapter II. Hydrodynamic equations for polyatomic gases using an extended GRAD method are derived. The results are eq ations which can be simplified to equations corresponding to the NAVIER-STOKES equations for monatomic gases. Chapter III. Some numerical results about the development of the flow of a dissociating gas past a shock front are given. (Author)


We compute the degrees of the syzygies of lattice ideals by means of some simplicial complexes. The vertex sets of those complexes are subsets of the extremal rays of the associated cone. In particular, we deduce a way of computing the depth of the ideal. In the case when the lattice ideal is homogeneous, the regularity is computed in terms of such complexes.


Homogeneity and heterogeneity are twinborn in city society.They oppose and bolster each other. Furibermore, reciprocity between them is never absent in communal dwelling condition,especially in cities nowadays in which social mobility has become faster and greater.Coordination in dealing these two has profound meaning in maintaining an equitable,democratic,stable social order.


Since the introduction of Direct Electron Detectors (DEDs), the resolution and range of macromolecules amenable to this technique has significantly widened, generating a broad interest that explains the well over a dozen reviews in top journal in the last two years. Similarly, the number of job offers to lead EM groups and/or coordinate EM facilities has exploded, and FEI (the main microscope manufacturer for Life Sciences) has received more than 100 orders of high-end electron microscopes by summer 2016. Strategic corporate movements are also happening, with very big players entering the market through key acquisitions (Thermo Fisher has recently bought FEI for \$4.2B), partly attracted by new Pharma interest in the field, now perceived to be in a position to impact structure-based drug design. The scientific perspectives are indeed extremely positive but, in these moments of well-founded generalized optimists, we want to make a reflection on some of the hurdles ahead us, since they certainly exist and they indeed limit the informational content of cryoEM projects. Here we focus on image processing aspects, particularly in the so-called area of Single Particle Analysis, discussing some of the current resolution and high-throughput limiting factors.


This paper ranks and sorts the development of special education in each regions of china by adoping the factor analysis and grouping principal component analysis, then verifies the sorts result with the discriminant analysis, which can provide scientific basis for directing and planning the development of our specical education.


Ice discharge from north and northeast Greenland glaciers was calculated at the grounding line using ERS radar interferometry data acquired during the tandem phase. The resulting estimates exceed the production of icebergs at the glacier fronts by a factor 3.5. This large decrease in ice flux is attributed to extensive melting at the underside of the floating sections. When compared to the predicted grounding line ice discharge of an ice sheet in balance, the results show an excess 28 km3/yr of ice lost to the ocean. The north and northeast sectors of the Greenland Ice Sheet are therefore thinning and contributing positively to sea-level rise.


D&R in the GT of PE is finally available, see http://www.dataweb.nl/~cool/Papers/Drgtpe/Index.html for abstract, table of contents, list of 'what is new', covertext, and PDF (windows 98).


New wire antennas are proposed, namely turnstile S -Shaped dipole and Swastika wire antenna. The radiation characteristics are obtained using the method of moments (MoM) with one-volt delta gap source and suitable dimensions for these antennas. From the obtained characteristics these antenna are considered of wide bandwidth. The proposed Swastika antenna and turnstile S-Shaped dipole antenna radiate left circularly polarized (LCP) waves. Right circularly polarized (RCP) waves are obtained using the inverted Swastika antenna and inverted turnstile S-Shaped dipole antenna. Swastika antenna and turnstile S-Shaped dipole antenna with comparison with turnstile dipole with the same absolute length have superiority performance of radiation characteristics in addition to save up to 75% of the area that the antennas can occupy. The given discussions proved the feasibility of using such antennas in a wide range of applications in the VHF and UHF frequency ranges both in free space and with a perfect grounded conducting plane. In this paper commercial software (NEC-win professional) is used to obtain all the radiation characteristics of the proposed antennas.


Barista is a novel architecture that seeks to enable flexible and customizable instantiations of network operating systems (NOSs) for software-defined networks (SDNs). As the NOS is the strategic control center of an SDN, implementing logic for management of network switches as well as higher-level applications, its design is critical to the welfare of the network. In this paper, we focus on three aspects of composable controller design: component synthesis, dynamic event control, and predictive NOS assessment. First, the modular design of the Barista enables flexible composition of functionalities prevalent in contemporary SDN controllers. Second, its event handling mechanism enables dynamic customization of control flows in a NOS. Third, its predictive NOS assessment helps to discover the optimal composition for the requirements specified by operators. These capabilities allow Barista operators to optimally select functionalities and dynamically handle events for their operating requirements while maximizing the resource utilization of the given system. Our results demonstrate that Barista can synthesize NOSs with many functionalities found in commodity controllers with competitive performance profiles.


The influence of reducing steam pressure from CFB boiler upon the steam turbine and related thermodynamic system has been analysed.The results of test show that the standard coal consumption of produced steam has decreased 2.46 kg/t after reducing the pressure of steam produced from CFB boiler.If boiler operation in one year is accounting for 280 d,and the the steam production is 280 t/h,the saved standard coal in one year will be about 3802 t.Conversing into petrolium coke,it would be about 3327 t,if the cost of petrolium coke is 1000 yuan/t,the saved cost in one whole year can reach 3.33 milion yuan.


Abstract Limonium mansanetianum is catalogued as critically threatened (CR) species and it is included in Valencian Catalogue of Threatened Plant Species. Limonium mansanetianum is a gypsicolous species, which only lives in a restricted area to south-centre of Valencia province (Spain). The species is a low-branched woody shrub with summer flowering. The influence of incubation temperature (10°, 15°, 20° and 25°/20 °C) and salinity (0%–3.0% NaCl) on seed germination of L. mansanetianum was studied. Best seed germination was obtained in distilled water controls. Seed germination decreased with an increase in salinity and few seeds germinated at 2.5% and 3.0% NaCl. Optimal temperature regime for germination was 15 °C where germination in 0.5% and 1.0% NaCl was not affected. Recovery and hypersaline conditions experiments showed that L. mansanetianum seeds displayed a greater tolerance to high salinity and temperature stress before germination.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by the deposition in brain of β‐amyloid (Aβ) peptides, elevated brain caspase‐3, and systemic deficiency of cytochrome c oxidase. Although increased Aβ deposition can result from mutations in amyloid precursor protein or presenilin genes, the cause of increased Aβ deposition in sporadic AD is unknown. Cytoplasmic hybrid ("cybrid") cells made from mitochondrial DNA of nonfamilial AD subjects show antioxidant‐reversible lowering of mitochondrial membrane potential (Δ(gYm), secrete twice as much Aβ(1‐40) and Aβ(1‐42), have increased intracellular Aβ(1‐40) (1.7‐fold), and develop Congo red–positive Aβ deposits. Also elevated are cytoplasmic cytochrome c (threefold) and caspase‐3 activity (twofold). Increased AD cybrid Aβ(1‐40) secretion was normalized by inhibition of caspase‐3 or secretase and reduced by treatment with the antioxidant S(−)pramipexole. Expression of AD mitochondrial genes in cybrid cells depresses cytochrome c oxidase activity and increases oxidative stress, which, in turn, lowers ΔΨm. Under stress, cells with AD mitochondrial genes are more likely to activate cell death pathways, which drive caspase 3–mediated Aβ peptide secretion and may account for increased Aβ deposition in the AD brain. Therapeutic strategies for reducing neurodegeneration in sporadic AD can address restoration of ΔΨm and reduction of elevated Aβ secretion. Ann Neurol 2000;48:148–155


A number of treatments are now available to treat multiple sclerosis (MS) among them several beta interferons (IFN-β) and glatiramer acetate (GA) for relapsing–remitting MS (RR-MS), and mitoxantrone and natalizumab for aggressive forms of RR-MS and those patients who have failed the first line therapies IFN-β and GA. With mitoxantrone and natalizumab, higher efficacy comes at the price of more and more severe adverse events among them secondary leukaemias and compromise of cardiac function (mitoxantrone), and progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML)(natalizumab). Numerous other therapies that fall in the latter category are currently in development including alemtuzumab (Campath-1), fingolimode (FTY-720), cladribine and others. All these approaches share several characteristics. They all target the inflammatory phase of MS; with the exception of fingolimode, they all have to be injected; and their potential risks are higher than those of IFN-β and GA. Hence, their use needs to be weighed carefully, and patient involvement in treatment decisions is paramount.

Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) appears to represent yet a further escalation. Autologous HSCT encompasses mobilization and preservation of autologous haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs); subsequently, in most cases, myeloablative immunosuppression by a combination of chemotherapeutic drugs and often total body irradiation (TBI); and later the reinfusion of HSCs (Tyndall …


Individuals give for two reasons. One is to get a benefit back. The other is to avoid a cost. "Cooperation" theories stress mutual benefits. "Conflict" theories stress costs. Hunters may give up part of their hunt because they get favors back, or because the recipients are stronger than they are and the hunting isn't as good anywhere else.


A new perspective on financial repression has recently been developed that stresses the public finance aspects of this policy. In this view, financial repression is seen as an implicit tax that generates "benefits" for government in the form of substantial amounts of government revenues, especially under high inflation. However, once it is granted that financial repression is a tax, it must also be granted that there are "costs" of repression, in the form of an array of distortions. In this article, the authors present estimates of the welfare costs of financial repression for Turkey, a country that recent work shows has been heavily taxed by such means. A simple computable general equilibrium model is constructed and calibrated to obtain estimates of the efficiency costs of this implicit tax. The analysis shows that financial repression creates very high welfare costs whose magnitude may well exceed the revenues generated. Consequently, although financial liberalization measures should always be cautiously pursued, and a better understanding of the scale of the implicit taxes implied by government policy is very useful, the size of the latter should not serve as a rationale to discourage pursuit of the former.


Abstract Background: The matrix metalloproteinase-7 (MMP-7) and osteopontin (OPN) are both multifunctional proteins with roles in inflammation, cell proliferation, tissue remodeling and so on, implicated in the pathogenesis of numerous conditions including pulmonary fibrosis. In this study, we investigated the associations between the potential functional polymorphisms in MMP-7 and OPN and the risk of coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP) in a Chinese population. Methods: Four polymorphisms (rs10502001 in MMP-7, rs1126772, rs11728697 and rs9138 in OPN) were genotyped and analyzed in a case-control study of 697 CWP and 694 control subjects. Results: Our results revealed that three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, MMP-7 rs10502001, OPN rs1126772 and OPN rs11728697) were associated with increased risk of CWP under a recessive model (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 1.80, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.01–3.20, p = 0.045 for MMP-7 rs10502001; adjusted OR = 2.09, 95% CI = 1.17–3.72, p = 0.013 for OPN rs1126772; adjusted OR = 2.48, 95% CI = 1.37–4.51, p = 0.003 for OPN rs11728697). Additionally, a combined effect was observed in a dose-dependent manner with increasing numbers of risk variant alleles (Ptrend = 0.003). Furthermore, logistic regression analysis revealed no significant interaction between SNPs and smoking status on CWP risk. Conclusions: Our results indicate that three functional SNPs (MMP-7 rs10502001, OPN rs11728697 and OPN rs1126772) are associated with an increased risk of CWP in a Chinese population.


This thesis is an exploration into the technical and economic issues related to a syngas fermenting biorefinery producing 50 metric tons per day of hydrogen gas and 12 metric tons per day of PHA, a biodegradable plastic. In addition, an optimization study on the bioreactor is performed by varying reactor diameter and stirring speed. The analysis assumed switchgrass costing $55/Mg as feedstock, and the bacterium Rhodospirillum rubrum to ferment the syngas. With a hydrogen market value of $1.90/kg assumed, 95% pure PHA was determined producible for approximately $2.05/kg. Grassroots capital for the biorefinery was estimated to be $55 million, with annual operating costs at $8.3 million. For a constant volumetric mass transfer coefficient of 0.05 s the optimum reactor size was a 14.8 m diameter being stirred at 0.6 rev/s. Producing PHA by this method was found to be less expensive than processes using sugar fermentation.


DISSERTATION: The Contribution of Twentieth-Century Canadian Composers to the Solo Pedal Harp Repertoire, with Analysis of Selected Works STUDENT: Grace Bauson DEGREE: Doctor of Arts COLLEGE: Fine Arts DATE: May 2012 PAGES: 158 The purpose of this dissertation was to research harp solos written by Canadian composers in the twentieth century and to determine factors that could have contributed to the rise in output of harp literature in Canada during that period. In addition to research of existing writings, interviews with two performers, Erica Goodman and Judy Loman, and two composers, Marjan Mozetich and R. Murray Schafer, were conducted. Analysis of six selected works from 1957 to 2002, Little Suite by Robert Turner, The Crown of Ariadne by R. Murray Schafer, Fifteen Pieces for Harp by John Weinzweig, From the Eastern Gate by Alexina Louie, Songs of Nymphs by Marjan Mozetich, and the King David Sonata by Srul Irving Glick, showed the diversity of output and provided opportunity to look for common elements. The factors that coincided with the increase in solo harp literature by Canadian composers included an increase in the number of professional harpists and composers, government support through commissioning grants, trends in solo literature at large, and avenues for performance. Specific motivations for the cases studied included commissions, respect for virtuosic harpists, interest in composers' works, opportunities for performance and audience exposure to new works.


This article outlines a map of current research in neuroscience and experimental psy- chology. It does not intent to be comprehensive but to provide a guide for students and graduates in psychology and related disciplines about topics being experimentally studied locally. We cover studies from the Behavioral Biology Laboratory at the Biology and Experimental Medicine Institute (IBYME), the Applied Neurobiology Unit (UNA), the Cognitive Neurology Institute (INECO), the Psychology Laboratory at the National University of Cordoba, the Cognitive Functions Research Laboratory and the Experimental and Applied Psychology Laboratory (PSEA) at the Medical Re- search Institute "Dr. Alfredo Lanari".


Creating a European area without borders and free movement gave rise to new forms of expression of cross border crime, but also new opportunities for criminals to evade justice. Cross-border crime concerns at present international drug traffic areas such as risk and high risk, terrorism, human trafficking, counterfeiting of means of electronic payment and cybercrime, tax evasion and money laundering, corruption offenses. Although adopted a series of measures and ways to combat this phenomenon have diversified and adapted to new ways of committing these crimes, some very sophisticated, crime has grown. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen existing institutions - Europol, Eurojust, OLAF, and the creation of new sound institutions - the European Public Prosecutor - able to prevent and combat crime, especially on the borders.


college students' ideological and political education is a wide-concerned topic and its mainstream is active,healthy and op-timistic.With the impact of various cultural thoughts and values,however,some decadent and backward life styles are corroding students' soul,causing their thoughts indifferent in politics and public interest,shortsighted and superficial in connotation.Hence,the ideological and political education is indispensable for college students to explore effective approach and strategy to root it into their soul through dealing with the relationships between inheritance and innovation,theoretical guidance and practical study,in-structors' guiding education and construction of campus culture.


We analyse the stability of inhomogeneous superfluid phases in a system consisting of identical fermions confined in two layers that are immersed in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The fermions in the two layers interact via an induced interaction mediated by the BEC, which gives rise to pairing. We present zero temperature phase diagrams varying the chemical potential difference between the two layers and the range of the induced interaction, and show that there is a large region where an inhomogeneous superfluid phase is the ground state. This region grows with increasing range of the induced interaction and it can be much larger than for a corresponding system with a short range interaction. The range of the interaction is controlled by the healing length of the BEC, which makes the present system a powerful tunable platform to stabilise inhomogeneous superfluid phases. We furthermore analyse the melting of the superfluid phases in the layers via phase fluctuations as described by the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless mechanism and show that the normal, homogeneous and inhomogeneous superfluid phases meet in a tricritical point. The superfluid density of the inhomogeneous superfluid phase is reduced by inherent gapless excitations, and we demonstrate that this leads to a significant suppression of the critical temperature as compared to the homogeneous superfluid phase.


iii Acknowledgments iv Chapter One: Introduction 1 Rationale 1 Research Aim and Questions 3 Thesis Outline 4 Chapter Two: Literature Review 5 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 5 Listening to Children's Voices 6 Participation 12 Children and Mass Media 16 Chapter Three: Design and Methodology 2


The system is designed to produce a map of underground objects such as pipes, cables, vaults, building foundations and some natural features. A radar impulse is transmitted into the ground from a broadband dipole antenna. A similar antenna receives the reflected signals which are digitized and stored on a magnetic disc. The radar system is mounted on a handcart, the wheels of which are coupled to a shaft encoder. The output of this encoder is also saved. After an area has been scanned, a minicomputer processes the stored data and prints a map.


The present invention reduces the workload of maintaining physical nodes constituting a virtual network and problems such as cable wiring mistakes. A control device, provided with: a virtual network management unit for managing a virtual network using mapping information in which an association is established between configuration information about a physical network and configuration information about a virtual network; and a controller for setting control information in a physical node of the physical network on the basis of the mapping information, thereby causing the physical node to act as a virtual node on the virtual network. The control device identifies the manner in which the ports of the physical node are allocated in the virtual network on the basis of the mapping information. The control device displays the manner in which the ports are allocated in the virtual network on a predetermined port state display device.


The optimal treatment of nonconvulsive seizures in critically ill patients is uncertain. We evaluated the comparative effectiveness of the antiseizure drugs lacosamide (LCM) and fosphenytoin (fPHT) in this population.


Normal-tension glaucoma (NTG) is a form of primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) in which there is no known history of statistically elevated IOP; however, the definition of an upper limit of normal IOP is arbitrary. POAG is a multifactorial disease process with pressure-dependent and pressure-independent etiologic factors. In NTG, the pressure-independent factors likely play a more substantial role.


The role of interested groups within English tourism policy development has increased considerably in recent years. There are several possible explanations for this, including changing government policy styles, the perception of the importance of tourism to the national economy, and the developing sophistication of a tourism policy network. This paper reviews the role of interested groups and the nature of tourism policy development in England within the context of a theoretical discussion on public policy analysis, policy styles and policy networks. It specifically reports on the relationship between the tourism interest groups and government, and the mechanisms used by them to influence policy development. The paper shows that the tourism policy network can be characterised as immature. It has government at its centre directing strategic policy, with two sub-networks concentrating on the detail of commercial tourism and tourism resource policy. Within these sub-networks are dominant and secondary players defined as such by the manner in which they use their resources, gain access to decision-makers, collaborate with like-minded groups and work with government bureaucracy.


The isothermal change of the magnetic entropy of a magnetically ordered material upon application of external magnetic field can be calculated from the temperature and field dependence of the magnetization or of the specific heat. The adiabatic temperature change, i.e., the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) can be measured directly or can be calculated via different methods using the field-dependent specific heat values, or a combination of data obtained via magnetization and thermal measurements. In the present study, magnetic and thermal measurements were carried out on Gd75Y25(TC=232 K) and Gd48Y52(TC=161 K) samples, for applied fields ranging between 0 and 7 T. From both datasets, the magnetic entropy change and MCE values were calculated and compared, in order to assess the mutual reliability of the methods applied. The magnetically or thermally deduced specific heat discontinuities show a reasonable agreement within experimental error. Similar comparison of the calculated magnetic entropy changes reveals ...


In this research, the corrosion behavior of different types of (NiTiC) coatings produced by high velocity oxy‐fuel (HVOF) technique was studied. NiTiC and Ni(Ti,W)C composite powders were produced by self‐propagation high temperature synthesis (SHS). These powders as feedstock were thermally sprayed on steel substrates in comparison with a conventional powder mixture of Ni + TiC. The microstructures of the produced coatings were characterized using SEM micrographs. The presence of different phases in the microstructure was investigated using EDS analysis and XRD patterns. Also, the behavior of the coatings against a corrosive media was studied using Tafel polarization tests. The results show that the NiTiC and Ni(WTi)C coatings exhibited better corrosion resistance than conventional Ni + TiC mixture coating due to the increment of the homogeneity of the structure and the decrement of the porosity level. In addition, the presence of W in the microstructure of Ni(WTi)C coating provided the least pitting and highest general corrosion.


With the development of economy in Zhujiang delta, the fault structure and its process for earthquake disaster has been regarded again. In this report the gravity data of Zhujiang delta have been processed tenuously using geometry fractal and wavelet analysis. It is suggested that the NEE fault is important, and it is the main influential factor for earthquake disaster in Zhujiang delta.


After the multi-folding hatch cover of the 19500dwt cargo carrier is rationally simplified, the virtual prototype modeling and the dynamic analysis are carried out by software UG and ADAMS. In order to acquire different dynamic performances of the prototype, this paper lays emphasis on the changes of thrust forces in hydro-cylinders, the forces of pivoting points as well as lifting arms during opening the hatch cover. The working-thrust forces of the hydro-cylinders are also measured on site. The analysis results could be regard as the designing reference for new-type multi-folding hatch covers, and the virtual prototype could be used to deeper analysis according to the requirements.


Objective To investigate the characteristics of elderly with secundum atrial septal defect (ASD) in color Doppler echocardiography (CDE). Methods Fifty elderly patients with ASD were examined with CDE. All patients underwent cardiac catheterization contrast. 47 cases underwent occlusion therapy for associated ASD and 3 cases underwent operation for associated ASD. Results Fifty cases were accurately diagnosed by CDE image.The features of CDE image in elderly ASD were obvious. (1)Two-dimensional echocardiography apical four chamber view measurements showed echo interruption in the middle part of interatrial septum in all cases,with the smallest diameter of 0.6 cm and the largest of 3.2 cm and different degrees of left atrium,right atrium and right ventricle enlargement and obvious shrinkage of left ventricle. Parasternal great artery short axis view showed normal relation of the two great arteries in all cases and larger diameter of pulmonary artery than aorta and markedly longer closure time than opening time in pulmonary valve in those with associated pulmonary hypertension. (2)M-mode echocardiography showed opposite movement in 40% cases and equidirectional movement in 60% cases of the interventricular septum and posterior wall of left ventricle. (3)Continuous-wave Doppler assessments of tricuspid regurgitation showed that the smallest peak value of frequency spectrum was 2.65 m/s and the largest one was 4.18 m/s in patients with pulmonary hypertension. (4)Color Doppler flow imaging showed multicolor shunt across interatrial septum in all cases; multicolor reverse flow across mitral valve and tricuspid valve during systole in patients with associated mitral and tricuspid incompetence and multicolor reverse flow across aortic and pulmonary valve in those with associated aortic and pulmonary incompetence. (5)Elderly ASD combination with atrial fibrillation and coronary artery disease increases dramatically. Conclusions The size of defect,pulmonary artery pressure and the size of cardiac chamber can be measured accuratly by using CDE,which can help the doctor to opt for protocol of ASD closure.


Despite major advances achieved in percutaneous coronary follow-up angiography within 6 to 15 months. Following intervention (PCI) and antithrombotic therapies, in-stent patients were excluded: myocardial infarction within restenosis (ISR) is still a challenging clinical problem after PCI. It is very important to identify a new parameter for ISR risk stratification and as potential pharmacological targets. We previously reviewed that Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) may be the best predictor of ISR among several parameters of blood cells. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is closely related to inflammation andacts as an independent risk factor of ISR. However, few studies have evaluated the predictive role of the dynamic changes of NLR on ISR in patientswithT2DM.Therefore,we aimed to analyze preprocedural NLR value in the first PCI and the second coronary angiography (CAG), and evaluate its predictive value on ISR in patients with T2DM.


The authors present a problem of the optimization of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles flights for different tasks in the city. Using Central Drone Repeater in conjunction with geometrical modeling covering as the most suitable configuration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles team (group) in the city, authors suggest improving the versatility, maintainability and operational safety of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles group via the introduction of a functional framework in the form of a functional-protocol stack, in remote analogy with Open Systems Interconnection model in telecommunications


Based on the LabVIEW programming, the software is designed to interpolate the experimental values obtained and generate the stress-energy curve by exponential fitting. Then it uses the special coefficient A and B which fit the curve to reverse the maximum acceleration-static stress curve. The software is designed not only to verify the feasibility of the stress-energy method, and it also can be called a practical application of the method. The aim is to seek a more practical and easy way to reduce the workload of the determination of the buffer curve, thereby greatly reducing the packaging design time and reducing the amount of packaging materials properly.


Purpose: To determine the association of double elevator palsy with jaw winking ptosis.
Study Design: Interventional case series.
Place & Duration of Study: Mayo Hospital, Lahore between 2000 and 2003 by one surgeon.
Material & Methods: Seventy patients with congenital ptosis were managed with Frontalis Fascia lata sling Surgery with or without vertical muscle surgery. Pre-operative visual acuity, margin to reflex distance in primary gaze (MRD1), margin to reflex distance in down gaze (MRD2), levator function, extra-ocular movements, bell's phenomenon and jaw winking phenomenon were noted in all cases. Post-operative MRD1, MRD2, lagophthalmos and corneal surface were also noted.
Results: Review of 70 cases with congenital ptosis showed that 8 (11%) patients had jaw winking ptosis and 10 (14%) patients had double elevator (DE) palsy. Out of these 8 patients with jaw winking ptosis, 4 (50%) patients had DE palsy. Thus 6% of the total patients had both jaw winking ptosis and DE palsy.
Conclusions: This study shows that we must be very careful to eliminate double elevator palsy in cases of jaw winking ptosis due to their strong association


1 Sodium channel ionic current (INa) and gating current (Ig) were compared for rat skeletal (rSkM1) and human heart Na+ channels (hH1a) heterologously expressed in cultured mammalian cells at ∼13 °C before and after modification by site‐3 toxins (Anthopleurin A and Anthopleurin B). 2 For hH1a Na+ channels there was a concordance between the half‐points (V½) of the peak conductance‐voltage (G–V) relationship and the gating charge‐voltage (Q–V) relationship with no significant difference in half‐points. In contrast, the half‐point of the Q–V relationship for rSkM1 Na+ channels was shifted to more negative potentials compared with its G–V relationship with a significant difference in the half‐points of −8 mV. 3 Site‐3 toxins slowed the decay of INa in response to step depolarizations for both rSkM1 and hH1a Na+ channels. The half‐point of the G–V relationship in rSkM1 Na+ channels was shifted by −8.0 mV while toxin modification of hH1a Na+ channels produced a smaller hyperpolarizing shift of the V½ by −3.7 mV. 4 Site‐3 toxins reduced maximal gating charge (Qmax) by 33% in rSkM1 and by 31% in hH1a, but produced only minor changes in the half‐points and slope factors of their Q–V relationships. In contrast to measurements in control solutions, after modification by site‐3 toxin the half‐points of the G–V and the Q–V relationships for rSkM1 Na+ channels demonstrated a concordance similar to that for hH1a. 5 Q max vs. G max for rSkM1 and hH1a Na+ channels exhibited linear relationships with almost identical slopes, as would be expected if the number of electronic charges (e−) per channel was comparable. 6 We conclude that the faster kinetics in rSkM1 channels compared with hH1a channels may arise from inherently faster rate transitions in skeletal muscle Na+ channels, and not from major differences in the voltage dependence of the channel transitions.


The dispersive interaction between nanotubes is investigated through ab initio theory calculations and in an analytical approximation. A van der Waals density functional (vdW-DF) [M. Dion et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 246401 (2004)] is used to determine and compare the binding of a pair of nanotubes as well as in a nanotube crystal.


In this paper, considered the information carried by the membership, the non-membership and the intuitionistic index in intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs) as probability spaces, a modified cross-entropy measure between two IFSs is proposed to overcome the drawback of the intuitionistic fuzzy cross-entropy measure proposed by Vlachos and Sergiadis and the notion of symmetric discrimination information measure for IFSs is introduced. Finally, numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed discrimination information measure for pattern recognition and medical diagnosis.


With the rise of feminism in the 20th century,many western critics have looked at Joyce from a feminist perspective.Their discussion is largely focused on the topics such as″Is Joyce a misogynist or sympathizer with women ?″and ″Are Joyce's female characters representation of stereotypical male chauvinism ?″Because they have approached from different angles and combined different theories in their studies,their views are actually not identical.As a result,their research work has uncovered new dimensions of Joyce.


Environmental DNA (eDNA) and metabarcoding have recently been combined with the aim of detecting species through the small amounts of DNA animals shed into the environment. The technique has successfully been applied in the biomonitoring of vertebrates and decapods and, in a collaborative project with the Trace and Environmental DNA laboratory, Curtin University, we tested its utility in troglofauna sampling. Traditional troglofauna surveys have low yields and consequently, provide limited information about species' ranges. The ability to detect more occurrences of a species and better define the species' range by combining traditional troglofauna sampling and eDNA is very exciting. The study area we used is in the central Pilbara and prior survey of the area had documented a moderate troglofauna community. We collected 147 samples from 74 drill holes that comprised 58 scrapes samples, 75 litter trap samples and 14 water samples. Pairs of scrape and water samples were collected from each drill hole, with one set sent for morphological identification and the second set frozen for metabarcoding. A pair of water samples comprised lowering a bailer down the drill hole, retrieving 1 L of water from the top of the water column (for eDNA) after which stygofauna net haul sampling was undertaken. Trap samples collected 124 troglofauna specimens, scrapes 37 troglofauna and net hauls two species of stygofauna and no troglofauna; troglofaunal groups collected include cockroaches, diptera, bugs, schizomids, millipedes, pseudoscorpions, palpigrads, isopods, beetles, silverfish, pauropods and symphylans. Surface species were abundant in the traps (7,760 specimens) and present in most scrapes (81 specimens); they mostly comprised mites and collembola, with lower numbers of flies and ants. The high diversity of animals collected and inevitable human contamination could be expected to pose significant hurdles to use of eDNA. The preliminary eDNA results are compared with the results of traditional sampling.


The effects of pH, temperature and various inhibitors on the proteolytic activity of the cell lysate of Uronema marium were investigated using colorimetric and substrate gel electrophoretic methods. The cell lysate of U. marinum showed proteolytic activity over a wide range of pH, and pH optima ranged from pH 5 to 7. The proteolytic activity was increased according to a rise of temperature but decreased at . The proteolytic activity of the parasite lysate was significantly inhibited by protease inhibitors including trans-epoxysuccinyl -L-leucylamido-(4-guanidino) butane (E-64), pepstatin A, phenyl-methanesulfonyl fluoride(PMSF), and ethylenediamine-tetraacetic acid (EDTA). Preincubation of the lysate with E-64 showed the maximum inhibition of the caseionolytic activity. Four protease bands (152, 97, 67 and 40 kDa) were detected by gelatin SDS-PAGE. Significant inhibition of caseinolytic activity and complete abolition of a 152 kDa band in gelatin SDS-PAGE by EDTA indicated that the cell lysate of U. marinum had a metalloprotease Another three proteolytic bands were inhibited by E64, a cysteine protease inhibitor. Preincubation of the cell lysate with pepstatin or PMSF had no effects on the protease bands.


Based on the location of the device or other application data (e.g., calendar data) stored on the device, in order to ensure proper devices work, profiles, and / or change information in attendance is pressed into the mobile communication device. In this manner, the apparatus may be controlled automatically in case of external or location (e.g., in concert and libraries) operation, in these environments, the operation of the mobile phone or other mobile computing device may be considered annoying, destructive or damaging.


The spatial arrangement of cell fusion sites and eyespots of the gametes in vis‐à‐vis mating pairs of Chlamydomonas eugametos, corresponding to the swimming zygote of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, were studied using field emission scanning electron microscopy and light microscopy, respectively. After the adhesion of mt+ and mt− gametes, each of which has one eyespot and two flagella elongated from the cell anterior, gamete–gamete fusion occurred at the anterior papilla on the cell apex of each gamete, leading to the formation of a vis‐à‐vis mating pair, indicating that the cell fusion site is arranged symmetrically relative to the flagellar beat plane. In vis‐à‐vis mating pairs, two eyespots could be seen on the same or on opposite sides of the cell. As only the mt+ flagella and eyespot are functional for swimming and phototaxis in the vis‐à‐vis mating pair of C. eugametos, it is suggested that coordinated alignment of the parental gamete flagella and eyespots in the swimming zygote and asymmetric positioning of the gamete mating structure/cell fusion sites, which is prevalent in C. reinhardtii and other chlorophytes, is not necessary for C. eugametos.


Amongthemechanisms postulated tocontribute tomyocardial "stunning" isadepression ofcontractility byoxygen-derived freeradicals. Ithasbeensuggested thattheseradicals mightdepress thecalcium sensitivity ofthecontractile proteins. We haveexposed themyofilaments (inchemically "skinned" rat cardiac muscle) tothesuperoxide anionandmeasured isometric force atcontrolled degrees ofactivation. Superoxide was generated bythexanthine/xanthine oxidase system: theeffects tobedescribed were shown tobespecifically attributable tosuperoxide. Maximumcalcium-activated force isreduced, or even completely abolished, ina dose-dependent fashion andwithout any alteration incalcium sensitivity. The myofilaments arehighly sensitive tosuperoxide: significant force reduction hasbeenshowntobecaused byenzyme concentrations aslowas2microunits/ml xanthine oxidase andwithexposuresofless than1 minute tothegenerating system(athigher enzyme concentrations). Onceforce hasbeendepressed, it cannot berecovered within theduration oftheexperiments described. Whenxanthine oxidase isapplied during thecalcium-induced contracture, tension falls steadily. However, a similar concentration is without immediate effect on therigor contracture (evoked byapplying ATP-free solutions). Toaccount for thedepression ofmaximumcalcium-activated force, we conclude that some aspect ofcrossbridge behavior isparticularly vulnerable tosuperoxide rather thanthattheradical hasanonspecific "proteolytic" effect. Thisaction on thefundamental units offorce production couldcontribute tomyocardial stunning since theeffects we report are consistent withmany aspects ofthisphenomenon. (Circulation Research 1992;70:1217-1224)


We present a method for combining multiple images of a common object assuming two-dimensional (2D) affine transformations between the image sampling grids. Our method is based upon the projection-onto-convex-sets approach of Yeh Stark [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A7, 491 (1990)]. Each image frame constitutes a single projection in our approach. We derive a frame projection algorithm under the 2D affine transform assumption that uses one-dimensional fast Fourier transform operations. We demonstrate that all the parameters required for successful image fusion can be estimated with sufficient accuracy from the image data proper. Four 64×64-pixel images taken by the Galileo Orbiter spacecraft of the asteroid Gaspra were fused to produce a result with twice the sampling rate and significantly improved spatial resolution. The total processing time was 55 s on a single-processor workstation.


A practical strategy for the reduction of nanogap width has been investigated using liquid nitrogen freezing of Pd-sputtered elastomeric substrates. Two types of hydrogen gas sensors, in which no pre-strain and 25% elongation were applied to Pd films on the elastomeric substrates, showed extremely low detection limits of less than 300 and 200 ppm, respectively, after liquid nitrogen freezing and recovery to room temperature. For the non-strained sensors, the nanogap width was measured to be about 90 nm, whereas


The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) Annex VI regulation 13 comes into effect on September 1, 2017. "The fuel emissions generated by a single container ship are equal to 50 million cars". (Vidal, 2009) Ergo, the impact of shipping on the global environment is highly significant. Currently, MARPOL Annex VI Regulation 13 suggests that environmental protection is as important as monetary considerations. This report identifies multiple emission control methods used to adhere to the new legislature in accordance with MARPOL, regarding emission reduction requirements. The methods are presented with numerical data and evaluated. Based on the analysis of the technologies; a selection of the most suitable process for industry is presented as a suggestion for retrofit and ship design.


byvar repeats stata_cmd for each distinct combination of values in varlist; varlist may contain string variables. Option e(elist) saves the e-class estimates e() named in elist which arise from stata_cmd. r(rlist) saves the R-class results r() named in rlist which arise from stata_cmd. b(coeflist) stores the regression coefficients for variables named in coeflist. se(selist) stores the standard errors of regression coefficients for variables named in selist. generate creates new variable(s) corresponding to the quantities named in the e(), r(), b() and se() options. This is an update of byvar, described in ip9 of STB-27, for Stata version 8 and later.


Abstract The focus of this study is on interindividual differences emerging among 6 to 11 year-old children in terms of their knowledge of and the way in which they use outdoor public spaces. A survey was conducted with 378 primary school children in a small town in the outskirts of Paris. A questionnaire was used to ascertain the children's knowledge, frequency of visits, recreational use and independent access to the main outdoor public spaces in their town. The results highlight that in an urban environment, public spaces fulfil an important function for children. As young as six years of age, children demonstrate that they already have an extensive knowledge of the squares, parks and play areas in their nearby urban environment. Most of the known outdoor public spaces are regularly visited and used for play by the children; however their independent access to these places is quite restricted. Independent access to outdoor spaces is the behaviour that shows the clearest evolution with age. However, the most important differences observed in children's knowledge and uses of public spaces are related to gender, in favour of the boys. Manifest differences also emerge between children who live in a house and those who live in a flat, the latter exhibiting a more extensive use of the public spaces in their town.


The first Mexican newcomers moved to Chicago in the 1920s. Elidia Barroso's diary offers a personal glimpse into movement in Mexico to Texas and eventually to Illinois. The 1929 ballad "El corrido de Texas" (recorded in Chicago) also follows Mexicans' tracks north in search of employment. Mexicans entered a city of diverse immigrant populations and without entrenched anti-Mexican feelings. Mexican settlement patterns and religious life in Chicago were closely connected. The powerful and multiethnic archdiocese welcomed Mexicans and encouraged the establishment of two parishes with Spanish-speaking clergy. These churches recognized Mexican religious devotion. The new Catholic parishes, together with settlement houses, enabled the first wave of Mexicans and their family members to gain a toehold in Chicago, a place that became less diasporic and more like home.


—In this paper, we present the Black-Scholes model for European call option pricing that is transformed to the diffusion equation and added with noise (white noise) to describe the external stock factors that affect option prices. Therefore we propose stochastic partial differential equation (SPDE) which is stochastic heat equation by using finite element method to solve SPDE numerically. The discretization with respect to space is performed by piecewise linear finite elements and in time is performed by the Crank-Nicolson. The white noise is approximated by piecewise constant random processes. We estimate the European call option prices numerically using the finite element method (FEM).


Wearing a facemask can help to decrease the transmission of COVID- 19. We investigated self-reported mask use among subjects aged 18 years and older participating in the COVID-19 Community Research Partnership (CRP), a prospective longitudinal COVID- 19 surveillance study. We included those participants who completed [≥]5 daily surveys each month from December 1, 2020 through August 31, 2021. Mask use was defined as self-reported use of a face mask or face covering on every interaction with others outside the household within a distance of less than 6 feet. Participants were considered vaccinated if they reported receiving [≥]1 COVID-19 vaccine dose. Participants (n=17,522) were 91% non-Hispanic White, 68% female, median age 57 years, 26% healthcare workers, with 95% self-reported receiving [≥]1 COVID- 19 vaccine dose through August; mean daily survey response was 85%. Mask use was higher among vaccinated than unvaccinated participants across the study period, regardless of the month of the first dose. Mask use remained relatively stable from December 2020 through April (range 71- 80% unvaccinated; 86- 93% vaccinated) and declined in both groups beginning in mid- May 2021 to 34% and 42% respectively in June 2021; mask use has increased again since July 2021. Mask use by all was lower during weekends and on Christmas and Easter, regardless of vaccination status. Independent predictors of higher mask use were vaccination, age [≥]65 years, female sex, racial or ethnic minority group, and healthcare worker occupation, whereas a history of self-reported prior COVID-19 illness was associated with lower use.


This paper assessed youths participation in yam minisett technology in Ivo LGA of Ebonyi State. Multistage random sampling technique was used to select the communities, villages and youths involved in yam minisett technology. The sample size was one hundred and twenty (120) yam minisett farmers. Result showed that majority (73.34%) of the farmers had age range between 15-30 years, 26.6% had farming experience of between 11-15 years while 55.0% culminated on farm sizes ranging between 1.1-3.0ha. The study also revealed that 80.0% of the youths participated fully in yam minisett technology organized by the College. A correlation analysis showed that age, farming experience and farm size were strong determinants of youths participation in yam minisett technology at 0.01% level, while household size is significant at 0.05% level. It was recommended that married youths should be encouraged to participate in the project. The College should also intensify training to make farming attractive. Finally, government is advised to provide soft loans for the youths for expansion and growth in agricultural production. Key words: Youths, Participation, Yam, Minisett and Technology


This article presents the role of children's librarian in the age of information. Preparing the 21st century, there should have been to identify the humanities of health, independent, creative, and moral fact with educating children in future Korea. Children's library should service all the children to improve the information skill and technology, to creat a whole person with high order intellectual thinking skill for the consumer, the voter and the leader of the next generation. It has been identified that the children's librarian should playas a mediator of literacy and culture of children, a creating counselor of personality, a negotiator of recoginating all knowledge, and a leader of the information skill or communication skill in the children education at the 21st century.


The purpose of this paper is to give some basic knowledges about the rabbit as on experimental animal, to the Orthopaedic Surgeons who work on this matter first. In the first part of the paper, the anatomy, physiology and the husbandry of the rabbit <as given. In the second part. The preparation of the rabbit to the experiment, the methods of the anesthesia and operations, and the histological preparation methods of the rabbits bone were explained. A method tor quantitative appreciation of the composed tissues in a microscobic slide was showed in the last part.


22,000,000 by the end of 1943. Such staggering totals are needed to produce the astronomical numbers of airplanes, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, and ships to which we are committed for 1943. Some of the added workers will come from the ranks of the unemployed, who totaled 3,600,000 in early 1942.' Others will be transferred from civilian industries which are converted to war work or which discontinue the production of civilian goods because they cannot secure the necessary raw materials. Each year thousands of boys reach working age and graduate from, or discontinue attendance at, the secondary school. A large proportion of these will shortly be called for military service. Many persons will migrate from rural areas to the urban areas where the war industries are located. Older people who had retired and had expected never again to work are being called back to service. But the overwhelming number of the needed workers will be women. Present estimates indicate that 5,500,000 women who were not in the labor force in January, 1942, will be employed in war jobs by the end of December, 1943. Then nearly i8,ooo,ooo women will be employed, since somewhat more than I2,400,ooo women were employed before 1942. That there is an ample reserve is indicated in the following quotation. If we can succeed in using effectively our potentially great force of women workers, we need have no doubt about meeting any labor requirements for war production. Recent 1940 Census figures show that of the 50,350,ooo women in our population, 14 years of age and over, 12,850,000, or slightly less than one-quarter, were part of the labor force in 1940. This figure included a larger proportion of women in their "twenties" than of any other age group. Approximately 2,Ioo,ooo of the 4,680,000 women in the 21-24 in' The Employment of Women in War Production, p. 3. Washington: Reports and Analysis Division, Bureau of Employment Security, Social Security Board, May, 1942.


ABSTRACT Motivated by various applications in queueing theory, this article is devoted to the stochastic monotonicity and comparability of Markov chains with block-monotone transition matrices. First, we introduce the notion of block-increasing convex order for probability vectors, and characterize the block-monotone matrices in the sense of the block-increasing order and block-increasing convex order. Second, we characterize the Markov chain with general transition matrix by martingale and provide a stochastic comparison of two block-monotone Markov chains under the two block-monotone orders. Third, the stochastic comparison results for the Markov chains corresponding to the discrete-time GI/G/1 queue with different service distributions under the two block-monotone orders are given, and the lower bound and upper bound of the Markov chain corresponding to the discrete-time GI/G/1 queue in the sense of the block-increasing convex order are found.