The influence of cavitation in common-rail diesel nozzles on the soot formation process has been analysed experimentally. The soot formation process was characterized by measuring soot emissions in a single-cylinder engine, which was mounted on a test bench equipped with an opacimeter. In order to do this, operating conditions where the soot oxidation process was equivalent were chosen, whereby differences in the soot formation process were possible to be analysed. The results achieved confirm that cavitation provokes a soot formation process reduction. This reduction can be attributed by combining results of three effects: a reduction of the effective diameter, an increase in effective injection velocity, and an increase in turbulence level inside the nozzle orifice leading to a longer lift-off length. The three effects lead to a decrease in relative fuel/air ratio at the lift-off, therefore explaining the soot formation reduction.


The limitations of parameter determination manually exist in the current object based image analysis (OBIA) of the commercial software, such as Definiens eCognition or ENVI FX, In this paper, an intelligent method based on Mean-Shift and support vector machines (SVM) algorithm of OBIA is proposed to extract the building damage caused by catastrophic earthquakes, which aims to improve the accuracy of classification and get the best bandwidth parameter of the Mean-Shift segmentation automatically by computing the Kappa index that has been used in a feedback loop. The improved method is applied to extract seismic damage information in a test area of the city of Dujiangyan after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake by using post-earthquake aerial images acquired on May 18, 2008. The results of the experiments indicate that the improved OBIA is more effective and robust than traditional method of OBIA.


This exploratory study examined how students responded to, and approached learning from, case-based instruction. Students' responses were defined in terms of their perceived interest, relevance, and confidence for learning from this method. Students' approaches were defined by goals, self-regulation strategies, and the evaluation criteria they used to focus their learning efforts. Fifty-eight first-year veterinary students in a case-based biochemistry laboratory course were classified according to their precourse performances on two self-regulated learning inventories. Nine students, representing high and low levels of self-regulation, were interviewed three times during the semester to explore initial and changing responses and approaches to case-based instruction. Using a constant comparative analysis method, three general categories were identified that reflected common themes in students' responses and approaches. These themes revolved around: (1) the value that students assigned to the case method of teaching; (2) the types of goals and evaluation criteria they used to focus their learning efforts; and (3) the manner in which they used reflective strategies to approach case-based instruction. (Contains 1 table and 17 references.) (Author) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** U S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) /1"'his document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. ID Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL


The weak decay of heavy b and t quarks is discussed using the mixing angles obtained in Fritzsch's model. We find that the decay b ..-->.. c dominates over b ..-->.. u for 7 .. X..mu../sup +/..nu../sub ..mu../) < or approx. = 12%, the equality holding for the absence of nonleptonic enhancement. b-quark cascade decay is found to be an insignificant source of multimuons in ..nu.. interactions and suitably small in nu-bar interactions, consistent with the data of the CERN-Dortmund-Heidelberg-Saclay and Harvard-Pennsylvania-Wisconsin-Fermilab collaborations. Several branching ratios for exotic final states produced via b quarks in e/sup +/e/sup -/ annihilation are discussed.


Guanine-rich peptide nucleic acid probes hybridize to DNA G quadruplex targets with high affinity, forming PNA-DNA heteroquadruplexes. We report a surprising degree of kinetic discrimination for PNA heteroquadruplex formation with a series of DNA targets. The fastest hybridization is observed for targets folded into parallel morphologies.


A method for producing a reaction mixture comprising a plurality of C 3 chlorinated alkane isomers comprises chlorinating a C 3 chlorinated alkane starting material in a chlorination region to produce a plurality of C 3 chlorinated alkane isomers, each, C 3 has at least one more chlorine atoms than chlorinated alkane starting material, to a plurality of C 3 chlorinated alkane isomers of C 3 chlorinated alkane starting material C 3 chlorinated alkane isomers of conversion of, C 3 chlorinated alkane starting material in the reaction mixture present in the chlorination region: C 3 represented by the molar ratio of the chlorinated alkane isomers, and C 3 chlorinated to no more than about 40:60 The concentration of the alkane starting material is controlled. [Selection figure] None


Echo State Network is one pioneering recurrent neural network with the core structure of a randomly generated and unchangeable reservoir. This paper provides a Condition prediction model of flue gas turbine by applying Echo State Network and makes prediction of the overall vibration value. Compared to Elman neural network prediction model, examples show that Echo State Network has wonderful dynamic characteristics with smaller error and less prediction time. The model has a good performance in non-linear time series prediction, indicating that the model is feasible in the condition prediction of flue gas turbine.


Marija Babovic and Danilo Vukovic overview their recent study of a social accountability programme in Cambodia. They argue future initiatives ought to be grounded in and tailored around citizens' real interests, taking into account the country's restrictive patronage based political environment as one of the key variables.


With global anthropogenic black carbon (BC) emissions increasing, automobiles are significantly contributing as the major source of emissions. However, the appropriate regulations of BC emissions from vehicles are not in place. This study examined BC emissions following fuel types (gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and diesel) and engine combustion (gasoline direct injection (GDI) and multi-port injection (MPI) for gasoline vehicles) with emission regulations. To this end, chassis dynamometer and aethalometer (AE33) were used. Driving modes created by the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) and emission certification modes (CVS-75 and NEDC) for vehicles in Korea were used to determine BC emissions for various vehicle speeds. In addition, the contributions of biomass and coal combustion to the data of AE33 were analyzed to determine the possibility of tracking the BC sources. MPI, LPG, and EURO 6 with diesel particulate filter (DPF) vehicles emitted the lowest BC emissions in NIER modes. Among gasoline vehicles, MPI vehicles showed the lower BC content in PM emissions. Also, older vehicles in MPI vehicles emitted the high PM and BC emissions. The BC emissions of EURO 3 vehicles without DPF were the highest as the results of previous studies, and it was found that as emissions regulations were tightened, the level of BC results of diesel vehicles became similar with MPI vehicles. The average absorption Ångström exponent (AAE) from difference emissions sources were biomass combustion (oak wood) > coal combustion (the power plant stack) > automobile emissions (gasoline, LPG, diesel).


The present invention relates to a lighting dimming system using a light-emitting device, which comprises: a power supply unit including a power input terminal through which an external AC supply voltage is applied, a dimmer connected to the power input terminal and receiving the AC supply voltage, and a rectifying circuit for the output voltage of the dimmer; a lighting unit including a first light-emitting device located at the shortest distance from a connection point with the power supply unit to an n^th light-emitting device located at the longest distance from the power supply unit, wherein the first light-emitting device is connected to the power supply unit and the light-emitting devices are connected in series; a light-emitting device driving unit including a plurality of switching circuits respectively connected to the output terminals of the light-emitting devices, which form the lighting unit, and respectively forming current supply channels for the corresponding light-emitting device, and a dimmer control unit connected to a switching circuit of the first light-emitting device, detecting whether the current supply channel for the first light-emitting device is operating normally, and outputting a control signal according to the detected result; a dimmer driving unit connected in parallel to a connection line between the power supply unit and a power input terminal of the first light-emitting device to form a bleeding current supply channel, and including a switch for turning on/off the bleeding current supply channel according to the control signal of the dimmer control circuit.


This article gives an overview of how civilian control of the military in Slovenia is implemented in practice. It utilizes the perspective of the controlled entity itself, that is, the Slovenian Armed Forces. The findings show the type and characteristics of civilian control in Slovenia and how they hinder military effectiveness. As one of the European transition countries to have concluded the democratization of its civil–military relations, civilian control over Slovenia's Armed Forces is now in place; however, the control mechanisms have had several debilitating effects on the country's armed forces—the democratization of civil–military relations has been achieved at the partial expense of military effectiveness. Because of this experience, the Slovenian case could serve as an example of how successful democratization of civil–military relations can sometimes produce negative outcomes, or collateral damage, for the military, especially when the employers of the control mechanisms are not aware of the effects that the exercise of their control might have on the military's ability to execute core missions. Methodologically, this article brings an approach for analyzing interrelations between civilian control and military effectiveness.


Corrections to isovector M1 transition matrix elements are calculated in a model that incorporates the important dynamical aspects of nuclear structure (core polaristion, CP), meson exchange current (MEC) and isobar currents (IC). The residual interaction is approximated by a one-boson-exchange potential and a short-range correlation function is introduced. 1 reference.


The auditor should not consider the Supplement to be "safe harbor" for identifying audit procedures to apply in a particular engagement, but the auditor should be prepared to justify departures from the suggested procedures. The auditor can consider the supplement a "safe harbor" for identification of compliance requirements to be tested if the auditor performs reasonable procedures to ensure that the requirements in the Supplement are current.


This paper shows that a large class of systems, introduced in [Celikovský & Vaněcek, 1994; Vaněcek & Celikovský, 1996] as the so-called generalized Lorenz system, are state-equivalent to a special canonical form that covers a broader class of chaotic systems. This canonical form, called generalized Lorenz canonical form hereafter, generalizes the one introduced and analyzed in [Celikovský & Vaněcek, 1994; Vaněcek & Celikovský, 1996], and also covers the so-called Chen system, recently introduced in [Chen & Ueta, 1999; Ueta & Chen, 2000]. Thus, this new generalized Lorenz canonical form contains as special cases the original Lorenz system, the generalized Lorenz system, and the Chen system, so that a comparison of the structures between two essential types of chaotic systems becomes possible. The most important property of the new canonical form is the parametrization that has precisely a single scalar parameter useful for chaos tuning, which has promising potential in future engineering chaos design. Some...


We investigate to what extent a suitably chosen system Hamiltonian can counteract local dissipative processes and preserve entanglement in the stationary state. The results determine prospects and limitations of dissipative state preparation schemes based on natural dissipative processes\char22{}in contrast to engineered, typically nonlocal dissipative schemes. As an exemplary case, we determine the stationary state of two spontaneously decaying two-level systems with optimal entanglement properties. The corresponding system Hamiltonian is derived, and its possible experimental implementation is discussed in detail. Finally, we discuss generalizations for $N$ qubits.


This visual presentation describes the results of a library‐led initiative involving the use of iBeacon proximity‐based technologies to connect people with their communities. The two libraries involved in this initiative developed and tested an app that pushed community‐based digital stories to users' smartphones and tablets when users were physically near a historic or cultural object (e.g., statue, landmark) about which the digital story was based. Using proximity‐based technologies to deliver stories about cultural and historic objects of interest to a community was thought to be a novel and engaging way to rally emotional connection and pride in one's own community. To test this hypothesis, as well as the viability of using iBeacon technology as a storytelling delivery mechanism, a pilot study was conducted with 50 participants from the general public at the two libraries involved in the initiative. Participants used the app to browse and read stories pertaining to a prominent park in the city. Posters with pictures of historic or cultural objects within the park were installed throughout each library. Each poster was enabled with iBeacon technology so that digital stories about the historic or cultural object displayed on the poster were automatically pushed to participants' smart devices as participants became near. To collect data on users' experiences and satisfaction with the app and the digital stories, on‐the‐spot interviews were conducted with participants after they finished visiting the posters and reading the digital stories. Interview data were analyzed using content data analysis techniques. A Likert‐scaled questionnaire was also administered; this data was analyzed using factor analysis and hierarchical regression. Results suggest that proximity‐based digital storytelling is a viable approach to connect people with their communities, especially if the stories provide people with relevant, timely, location‐based community information that stirs a positive emotional response.


One of the primary constraints for development and management of water resources is the spatial and temporal uncertainty of rainfall. This is due to the stability and reliability of water supply is dynamically associated with the spatial and temporal uncertainty of rainfall. However, this spatial and temporal uncertainty can be assessed using the intensity entropy (IE) and apportionment entropy (AE). The main objective of this study is to investigate the implications of the use of Doane's and Freedman-Diaconis' binning rule in characterizing potential water resource availability (PWRA), which the PWRA is assessed via the standardized intensity entropy (IE') against the standardized apportionment entropy (AE') scatter diagram. To pursue the objective of this study, the daily rainfall data recorded ranging from January 2008 to December 2016 at four rainfall monitoring stations located Coastal region of Kuantan District Pahang are analyzed. The analysis results illustrated that the use of Doane's binning rule is more appropriate than Freedman-Diaconis' binning rule. This is due to the resulted PWRA characteristics using Doane's binning rule is relatively consistent with practical climate such that the study region is experiencing poor-in-water zone with less amount and high uncertainty of rainfall during the Southwest Monsoon, while abundant and perennial rainfall during the Northeast Monsoon. Furthermore, the use of Doane's binning rule is more advantages compared to the Freedman-Diaconis' binning rule with the abstraction of computational cost and time.


Prevalent diabetes is at high risk for cardiovascular diseases and has a high familial inheritance. However, little is known whether a non-diabetic subject with a family history of diabetes is at high risk for vascular damage or not. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between a family history of diabetes and arterial stiffness in adult non-diabetic Japanese population. We analyzed eligible 787 non-diabetic subjects (502 men and 285 women) aged 35-69 years who enrolled in the baseline survey of a cohort study in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan and who underwent a brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (ba-PWV) measurement. Information on individual life-style characteristics including medical history and treatment for diseases and a first-degree family history of diabetes was obtained through a structured self-administered questionnaire. Analysis of covariance and logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate the association between a family history of diabetes and ba-PWV. We found no differences in age-and-systolic blood pressure-adjusted and multivariate-adjusted means of ba-PWVs between subjects of both sexes with and without a family history of diabetes. Logistic regression analyses including both sexes also revealed that subjects with a family history of diabetes showed no differences in age-and-systolic blood pressure-adjusted and multivariate-adjusted odds ratios for high ba-PWV compared to those without that trait. Our results suggest that a family history of diabetes itself is not associated with arterial stiffness in adult non-diabetic Japanese population.


Background. Chronic Lymphoproliferative Disorder of Natural Killer cells (CLPD-NK) is a rare disease characterized by chronic NK cell lymphocytosis, typically equipped with a restricted pattern of activating killer immunoglobulin like receptors. Several lines of evidence point to a putative role of viral agents in the pathogenetic mechanisms accounting for NK cell proliferation. A role of Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) has been claimed in the aggressive form of NK cell proliferation [i.e. Aggressive NK Cell Leukemia (Kawa Ha et al, JCI 1989)]. At variance, in the indolent CLPD-NK, EBV DNA was seldom detected by PCR (Loughran TP Jr et al, Blood 1993), whereas we provided serologic evidence for previously experienced viral infections in the majority of CLPD-NK patients (Zambello R et al, Leukemia 1995). However, the role of infectious agents in the pathogenesis of chronic antigen stimulation of NK cells in CLPD-NK patients is still elusive.
 Methods. Several studies showed that whole exome sequencing (WES), as well as RNA-seq, can identify pathogens, particularly viruses, in cancer clones enabling the definition of possible integration sites in the host genome or their presence as episomal forms. In the present study, we searched viral sequences in WES data of a cohort of 10 CLPD-NK patients. High-depth (average 51 M reads) WES data of highly purified (>97% purity) leukemic NK clone and autologous granulocytes, as control, from CLPD-NK patients were analyzed for pathogen discovery. Three different methods for virus detection were used: i) Centrifuge (Kim et al, Genome Research 2016), a metagenomic tool performing a wide search against GenBank viral and bacterial sequences, which has been recently used to detect EBV load in ANKL and NK T cell Lymphoma (NKTCL) tumor clones (Dufva et al. Nat Comm 2018); ii) VirusSeq (Chen et al., Bioinformatics 2013), a software to identify viruses and eventually their integration sites, grounding on its custom and relatively wide viral sequence database; and iii) ViFi (Nguyen et al. Nucleic Acids Res, 2018), which can find viral integration in the human genome, with an analysis focused on a narrow set of viruses (EBV, HPV, HBV) with well-established oncogenic potential.
 Results. First, as positive control two datasets were used: RNA-seq data of an HBV positive sample with known site of integration (provided by VirusSeq) and WES data of three NKTCL tumor and control clones with high, moderate or low EBV load in the tumor samples previously detected by Dufva et al. (Dufva O et al, Nat Comm 2018), publicly available at NCBI SRA. HBV presence was detected in the positive sample by all the three methods and our reanalysis of NKTCL samples with Centrifuge confirmed published results, detecting EBV in all tumoral samples and in none of the matched control samples. Next, analysis of samples from the 10 CLPD-NK patients with the three methods did not identify a significant viral load neither in tumor nor in control specimens. Neither VirusSeq nor ViFi found viruses in CLPD-NK samples, whereas, according to Centrifuge analysis, the human disease virus with the highest load in most patients was Varicella Zoster (Human alphaherpesvirus 3) but with low read count and, most relevant, without specificity for the cancer clone.
 Conclusions. Our very thorough WES analysis did not identify a significant and meaningful viral load in CLPD-NK samples, neither in leukemic clones nor in control cell population. Although not ruling out that a viral infection might play a role as starting event for inciting NK cell proliferation, our data do not support a role of viral infections in maintaining the proliferation in CLPD-NK.

 Zambello: Janssen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees.


In order to select the optimum parameters for friction stir welding of twin-roll cast (TRC) AZ31B Mg-Al-Cu alloy, mechanical and microstructural characterizations are performed on friction stir welded 3 mm thick sheets under different processing parameters of rotational spindle speed and feed rate. Used was a tool made from high resistance Sverker 21 steel alloy with a 19 mm diameter cylindrical shoulder and a 6.4 mm diameter pin that extrudes 2.7 mm from the bottom of the shoulder. A large number of welded joints were prepared according to a test matrix of various combinations of rotational speed and feed rate. Tensile tests at different temperatures and strain rates were performed on specimens cut with their major axis perpendicular to the welded joints. Static strength tests of these specimens revealed that joints welded at a speed of 1200 rpm and a feed of 150 mm/min resulted in strengths as high as 94% of that of the as received TRC AZ31B metal. For specimens welded at spindle speeds larger than 1400 rpm, microstructural observations revealed the presence of micro cracks and voids located in the zone between the nugget and the thermally affected zone. In order to monitor the effect of lengthy testing times and the observed grain growth associated with slow strain tests, annealing tests under different temperatures and time durations were performed while monitoring grain diameter. Very limited grain growth have been obsereved after annealing and thus the mechanical performnace of the joints was solely due to the effect of the friction stir welding.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


N-Methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists are perspective candidates for medication development for a number of diseases/states that are associated with increased aggressiveness (e.g., opioid withdrawal). The prototypic NMDA receptor antagonist phencyclidine (PCP) itself is a widely abused substance and is known to elevate levels of aggression in drug users. The present study was aimed at testing several drugs that share with PCP the ability to block NMDA receptor–associated channel. The resident-intruder procedure was used to assess drug effects on aggressive behavior in isolated male mice. Resident aggressive mice were administered NMDA channel blockers (PCP; 0.3–10 mg/kg), dizocilpine (MK-801; 0.01–0.3 mg/kg), memantine (1–30 mg/kg), and MRZ 2/579 (0.1–5.6 mg/kg). The competitive NMDA receptor antagonist DCPPene (0.1–5.6 mg/kg) was also tested as a compound representing an alternative approach to reduce activity of NMDA receptor complex. PCP, dizocilpine, and memantine inhibited expression of aggressive behaviors only at doses that produced ataxia. The novel channel blocker MRZ 2/579 also produced ataxia at the highest dose level but failed to affect aggressiveness. Reduction in aggression with a corresponding increase in sociability was observed after administration of D-CPPene. Overall, the present results suggest that NMDA receptor channel blockers do not exert selective effects on aggressive behavior. Aggr. Behav. 25:381–396, 1999. © 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.


The article is devoted to the analysis of the influence on the results of a sociological study of the use of various forms of questions: open and closed on the example of the study of interethnic tolerance of high school students. The study was conducted using the traditional social distance scale developed by Emory Bogardus and its modified form as an open-ended question. The authors come to the conclusion that there are no significant quantitative (the value of the social distance scale) and qualitative (the composition of nationalities, about which the opinions of the respondents and the vector of attitudes towards them are updated) differences in the data collected using open and closed questions. At the same time, it is noted that the specifics of the respondents' answers to open-ended questions became a more positive (in accordance with both qualitative and quantitative criteria) attitude towards European ethnic groups, at the same time, a large social distance versus closed-ended questions. Another distinguishing feature of the answers to the open-ended question was the radicalism of views and less social distance to representatives of other peoples in general.


We study fermionic ladders with identical disorder along the leg direction. Following recent experiments we focus, in particular, on how an initial occupation imbalance evolves in time. By considering different initial states and different ladder geometries we conclude that in generic cases interchain coupling leads to a destruction of the imbalance over time, both for Anderson and for many-body localized systems.


The Aids Litigation Project, which monitors the legal repercussions of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, is operated by the American Society of Law and Medicine and the Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, and supported by the National AIDS Program Office of the U.S. Public Health Service. Gostin's article is the first in a two-part series reviewing case law and human rights commission rulings tracked by the Project since 1981. The series covers 469 AIDS cases decided, settled, pending, or filed at local, state, and federal levels. Part I discusses civil and criminal cases involving issues ranging from AIDS education to AIDS and the prison system. Accompanying the article are tables of cases broken down by court system and by subject matter, and a subject compilation of 320 case citations.


The maximization of environmental resources exploration is necessary to maximize maize grain yield. The plant arrangement (spatial arrangement and occupied area by the plant), acts on the intraspecific competition by environmental factors. Thus, the objective of this work was to compare the equidistant plant spacing and 0.80m row width, in populations of 30000 to 105000 plants ha-1. The essay was located in a clay red alfisol area, in the FCA/UNESP-Botucatu-SP, in 2007/08 growing season. The experimental design was a randomized block in four replications, in 4.5 x 10m plots. It was evaluated ear and grain length, ear and cob diameter, number of grain rows and grain weight per ear, a thousand grains weight, ear index, ear and grain number per hectare, plant lodging and grain yield. All parameters evaluated were affected by plant densities and the spatial arrangements affected only the percentage of stalk lodged plants. In these conditions, it can be affirmed that the maize plant was influenced mainly by plant densities, not by plant arrangement.


The advent of ML music models such as Google Magenta's MusicVAE now allow us to extract and replicate compositional features from otherwise complex datasets. These models allow computational composers to parameterize abstract variables such as style and mood. By leveraging these models and combining them with procedural algorithms from the last few decades, it is possible to create a dynamic song that composes music in real-time to accompany interactive experiences. Malakai is a tool that helps users of varying skill levels create, listen to, remix and share such dynamic songs. Using Malakai, a Composer can create a dynamic song that can be interacted with by a Listener


Object-oriented programming is a modular approach to developing programs. It supports incremental program development and an effective interface mechanism for programs written by more than one programmer, typical of a large software development project. However, programs written in a pure object-oriented language execute slower than their counterparts in functional languages. We develop techniques to enhance the execution of object-oriented programs on single and multiple processor systems. The execution speed of an object-oriented program is dampened by run-time type-checking and method-binding to calls, necessitated to provide method overloading and guarantee type-method conformance. We present techniques to implement method overloading efficiently.
Objects encapsulate methods and data upon which the methods act, providing locality of reference and execution. Therefore, a task graph obtained from an object-oriented program will have fewer inter-task communications than that from a conventional program. We view an object as a basic entity, methods of which can be executed in parallel with those of other objects. We sketch a distributed object-oriented system based upon this parallelism paradigm and introduce the concept of an Object Invocation Graph, a concept similar to a task graph. Next, we present an algorithm to schedule task graphs on multiprocessors with a given number of processors. The algorithm forms clusters of tasks using a longest path heuristic and then merges these clusters until the number of clusters matches the number of processors. Each cluster is then scheduled on a separate processor. Using simulations, we demonstrate that our schedules yield the same or lower execution times than those of other researchers, but using fewer processors. We also point pitfalls in various metrics for measuring the longest path.
Tree task structures occur frequently in modularly developed programs. We present a formal treatment of scheduling task trees on multiprocessors and show that the important problems of scheduling a task tree for non-communicating tasks on a fixed number of processors and for communicating tasks on an unbounded number of processors are NP-complete. We present an optimal algorithm to schedule constrained task trees. We also introduce an approach to scheduling in which schedules computed a priori can be used at run-time.


The penile plethysmograph is believed by many researchers and clinicians to be the most valid and reliable instrument currently available for assessing male sexual arousal patterns. Stimuli used to elicit sexual arousal in research studies as well as in plethysmographic assessments, however, have varied considerably. We examined the effects of two stimulus characteristics that may greatly influence the measurement of male sexual arousal—the type of sexual behavior depicted and the presence of accompanying audio cues. The sexual arousal of 18 male college students was individually assessed via penile plethysmograph and self‐report while they viewed 60‐second erotic video clips. Each video clip depicted a single sexual behavior; half of the clips were presented with accompanying audio. Separate 2 (sound) x 6 (behavior) x 2 (session) repeated measures ANOVAs revealed significant main effects for sound and behavior for both the physiological and self‐report data, as well as a significant sound x behavior inte...


This thesis demonstrates the application of an Action Research framework, drawing on a variety of methodologies in order to understand the nature of my methodological inventiveness. The study was originally based on the attempt to develop an understanding of the pedagogy and practice relating to the implementation of the National Strategies in Assessment for Learning. It was developed by examining the strategies in a real world context using an Action Research framework as a basis for the synthesised methodology. The work on this thesis incorporated the "improve" paradigm of research and was grounded in the notion of social justice. This concept has been central to developing my own and others' practice. The theme of the research on Assessment for Learning was inspired by the first instance by the work by Black and William on Formative Assessment. The original research on which this thesis is based has taken place in a time frame constrained by the implementation of the strategy to the removal of the support, an action taken by the coalition government. The thesis has examined the pedagogical theories behind the concept of Assessment for Learning and the National Strategies. It has also considered how these ideas have been implemented in schools and the impact this has had on a variety of stakeholders. The work by Black and William suggests a rolling programme of action research type activities in order to develop the ideas they are postulating. This thesis has taken this concept and applied the idea creating a synthesised methodology which has resulted in my developing my own concept of methodological inventiveness.

This thesis presents a number of original contributions to knowledge, centred on the fact that each school is a unique culture and therefore the implementation of a generic Continued Professional Development (CPD) strategy will prove difficult, the language of individual sites being different. Another significant contribution to knowledge is based on the terminology of assessment and how it is interpreted by practitioners, the different paradigms are discussed and conclusions drawn. This is based on the premise that educational practice equates with embodied knowledge and this thesis examines this concept. It also aims to clarify the meaning of social justice in the context of this study and the reasons for how this concept emerged. The concept of methodological inventiveness is also examined and conclusions drawn from the experience of this research.


Asymmetry in the motional sideband spectrum is a signature of the quantum regime of mechanical oscillators. It enables self-calibrated thermometry measurements, and has recently been experimentally studied in several optomechanical systems. Here, we present motional sideband asymmetry measurements in the well-resolved sideband regime of a nano-optomechanical system sideband-cooled close to the ground state and probed simultaneously with red- and blue-detuned lasers. We show that the nonlinear cavity response, induced for example by the thermo-optical frequency shift or the Kerr effect, can lead to an artificially modified motional sideband asymmetry. The presence of an auxiliary drive, such as the sideband cooling laser, creates an oscillating intracavity field which leads to coupling of originally independent thermomechanical sidebands and modifies the observed sideband asymmetry. We develop a theoretical model based on Floquet theory that accurately describes our observations. This phenomenon has wide-ranging implications for schemes utilizing several probing or pumping tones, as commonly employed in backaction-evading measurements, dissipative optical squeezing, dissipative mechanical squeezing, as well as recent demonstrations of non-reciprocal devices.


Abstract We determined the complete mitochondrial DNA sequence of Silurus lithophilus, a catfish endemic to Lake Biwa, Japan. The mitogenome was 16,524 bp in length and the gene contents and order agreed with those of typical vertebrates. A molecular phylogenetic analysis based on 12 published Silurus mitogenomes showed that the mitogenome of S. lithophilus (LC520058) was closest to that of Silurus asotus from Japan (AP012022). These two mitogenomes were identical in the short (ca. 170 bp) gene region widely used in metabarcoding for environmental DNA analysis of fishes.


When a word perception task was studied under conditions of binocular rivalry, the meaningful one of two rivalling strings of letters was identified more often than the other. Differences in frequency of the trigrams in the Norwegian language had no effect.


Abstract : A semi-empirical fracture criterion has been presented here for determination of crack initiation in a multiaxial stress state. The type of fracture surface may be selected with properly designed biaxial testing programs while the value of uniaxial ultimate strength can be obtained experimentally in proper strain rate and temperature environments. However, the next logical stop seems to be the planning of an elaborate testing program aimed to evaluate the validity of this proposed criterion and to establish its applicability in practical engineering problems. Keywords: Fracture mechanics, Fracture criterion, Crack initiation.


The hydrogenization refining method for catalytic cracked gasoline is characterized in cascade of tow prevulcanized non-noble metal catalysts having different activity and different granule size, which are loaded in a reactor sectionally or in two reactors separately, the hydrogenization takes place under the condition of reaction temperature 150-300 deg.C., partial pressure of hydrogen 1.2-8.0 MPa, volume spatial velocity 4-0 and 1-15 per hour, hydrogen oil volume ratio 150-500 cubic nm/cubic m, weight ratio of cyclic and fresh raw oil 0.5-5:1. The diene ratio of the product is less than 1gI2/100g, induction period exceeds 480 min., the loss of octane ratio is less than 3 units.


In this paper, we deal with the colour naming visual task in computer vision. Our goal is to develop a colour naming model to be included in a real surveillance application, where images have to be automatically annotated with people clothes description, for a further content-based image browsing. Although colour naming has been a usual goal in psychophysical research, it is a quite novel topic in computer vision. Colour naming is posed as a fuzzy set problem where each colour category is presented as a fuzzy set with a characteristic function. Our goal is to find a model which provides membership values as similar as possible to the values that would give a real observer. To this end, we propose a Sigmoid-Gaussian model as the membership function of the colour fuzzy categories. We analyse its properties and results to confirm the suitability of this model versus most common Gaussian models. To test the results, we have developed a colour naming experiment that has provided a set of membership values for a set of colour samples. Although the data used is far from being a complete learning set, it has been a first step to evaluate the proposed model.


Measuring the semantic similarity between words is a significant element in different tasks on the web such as family member origin, population mining, document clustering, and regular metadata extraction. Despite the helpfulness of semantic similarity measures in this application, correctly measuring semantic likeness between two words (or entities) remains a challenging task. We propose an experimental method to approximation semantic likeness using page counts and text snippets retrieve from a web search engine for two words. Particularly, we describe a variety of word cooccurrence actions using page counts and incorporate those with lexical patterns extracted from transcript snippets. To recognize the frequent semantic relations that exist between two given words, we suggest a novel pattern removal algorithm and a pattern clustering algorithm. Semantically-grounded methods aim to make correspondence for datasets with textual attributes are limited and, as it will be discuss in this paper, they are disadvantaged by their imperfect semantic analysis of data. In this paper, we propose a technique that, exploit the knowledge provided by setting Ontologies is able to make the centroid of multivariate datasets describe by means of textual attributes. Individual efforts have been put in the minimization of the semantic distance between the centroid and the input data. Our suggestion has been evaluated by means of a real dataset consisting on short textual answer provided by visitors of a usual park. Results show that our comparison retains the semantic content of the input data better than related works.


Chile, through a new Land Use Regulation Policy (COMICIVYT, 2018), has recently changed the way regional planning instruments (IPTs in Spanish) are generated. This is with the goal of including sustainability criteria in strategic decisions from the beginning, improving planning and strengthening governance and citizen participation. Changing from the former Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to the Strategic Environmental Evaluation (EAE in Spanish), allows moving from having the environmental consequences of development as a core issue, to having a strategic vision of the development starting from the environmental characteristics of each area, looking to integrate the different activities and uses under a sustainable logic (Henríquez, 2018). On the other hand, UNESCO's proposal of Biosphere Reserves is another means of land regulation which ensures the consolidation of biological diversity, the search of economic and social development, while maintaining the associated cultural values (UNESCO, 1995). Currently, Biosphere Reserves are proposed as models which harmoniously integrate human activity and nature. Today, Chile has 10 Biosphere Reserves which comprise sites of international biological interest (Moreira-Muñoz & Borsdorf, 2014) and for this it is important to ask how prepared and adapted Chile is to address the needs of environmental protection and harmonious regional planning, considering that the sustainability of an area depends on the new occupations of the population living there (cultural content) along with the strategies and regulations set out to resolve spatial conflicts and its aspired use. Under this setting, it seems fit to analyze whether the new environmental policy allows addressing the protection needs of the common property in areas with great natural value, areas which are being subjected to growing urban and agricultural expansion processes, under the context of an urban region with diverse areas of influence and strains on its use. In this way, by studying the La Campana Satellite Intercommunal Regulation Plan (PRI-LC), the coherence of the urbanistic and national environmental policy with the zoning model proposed in the La Campana-Peñuelas BR will be analyzed.


The formulas for the entropy of ideal gases mixture and the entropy change in mixing of ideal gases on the basis of the third law of thermodynamics were obtained. It is shown that when using these formulas, the Gibbs paradox within the framework of classical thermodynamics does not arise.


Summary We evaluated the plasma concentrations of soluble adhesion molecules and platelet-derived microparticles (PMP) in patients with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) and studied the effect of cilostazol on PMP generation. There were differences in the levels of soluble adhesion molecules between NIDDM patients (N = 43) and the control subjects (N = 30) (soluble thrombomodulin: 11.5 ± 5.3 vs. 7.0 ± 1.2 TU/ml, p<0.0001; soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1: 708 ± 203 vs. 492 ± 113 ng/dl, p<0.0001; soluble intercellular cell adhesion molecules-1: 274 ± 65 vs. 206 ± 48 ng/dl, p<0.0001; soluble P-selectin: 194 ± 85 vs. 125 ± 43 ng/dl, p<0.0001). There were also differences in the levels of PMP and platelet activation markers between NIDDM patients and the controls (PMP: 943 ± 504 vs. 488 ± 219/10 4 plt, p<0.0001; platelet CD62P: 9.2 ± 4.6 vs. 4.4 ± 4.3%, p<0.001; platelet CD63: 10.2 ± 4.5 vs. 4.5 ± 3.3%, p<0.0001; platelet annexin V: 9.1 ± 3.9 vs. 5.3 ± 3.8%, p<0.001). To study the release of PMP into plasma, a modified cone-and-plate viscometer was used. Increased release of PMP from platelets was observed in diabetic plasma compared to normal plasma under high shear stress conditions (2,672 ± 645 vs. 1,498 ± 386/104 plt, p<0.05). Therefore, one cause of PMP elevation in NIDDM may be high shear stress. The levels of PMP, activated platelets, and soluble adhesion molecules all decreased significantly after treatment with cilostazol. These results suggest that cilostazol may be useful for the inhibition of both PMP-dependent and -independent vascular damage in NIDDM.


The present invention relates to a regulating device for a vehicle seat. The device includes a guide element (3) for guiding the lever element (2). Guide element (3) is in contact with the support rail (1). According to the present invention, at least one contact region of the guide element (3) comprises at least some portions profiled chamfer (4).


Particular decisions about nuclear weapons are made by individuals on the basis of a set of assumptions. These assumptions are rarely revealed in official publications which explain or support those decisions. But without knowing what these assumptions are it is impossible to test the validity of the decision-makers' arguments, or to know what kind of debate with them is likely to be fruitful or effective. This paper describes the assumptions made by a small group of influential British nuclear weapons decision-makers. The research on which it was based was carried out in four stages. First each decision-maker was interviewed at length. Next, the statements made in the interview were assembled into a cognitive map in order to find those assumptions which were not articulated or which were hidden in chains of reasoning, the use of analogies or the structure of the whole system of thought. Next the maps were compared to find the commonalities shared by all decision-makers and to isolate the critical assumptions. Finally, the identification of these assumptions as critical was tested by interviews with knowledgeable critics of nuclear defence policy. The most important assumptions are as follows. Nuclear weapons are not qualitatively different from conventional weapons. Decision-makers in all the nuclear nations are rational and in control of the weapons. Because they are rational it is assumed that the system of deterrence as a whole works rationally and is stable. Indeed, it is so stable that any change is dangerous and it should remain unaffected, in particular, by any reduction in the perceived threat. The paper does not discuss the validity of these assumptions, but considers their implications for change.


This paper studies the effects of heat generation and chemical reaction on the coupled conjugate heat and mass transfer by MHD laminar mixed convective flow along a vertical slender hollow cylinder. The governing boundary layer equations along with the boundary conditions are first cast into a dimensionless form by a non similar transformation and the resulting equations are then solved by the finite difference method using Matlab@ following the code bvp4c. Numerical results of the velocity, temperature and concentration for different values of the conjugate heat transfer parameter p, the magnetic parameter M, the heat generation Q, and the chemical reaction K are studied. The local skin friction, Nusselt number and Sherwood number are also analyzed and presented graphically. In the numerical ranges of the main parameters, it is found mainly that working with strong conjugate heat transfer or/and all others parameters affects negatively the Nusselt and Sherwood numbers. The same trend is revealed for the skin friction factor.


One of the major challenges that visual tracking algorithms face nowadays is being able to cope with changes in the appearance of the target during tracking. Linear sub-space models have been extensively studied recently and are possibly the most popular way of modeling target appearance. Unfortunately, efficiency is one of the limitations of present linear subspace models, and this is a key feature for a good tracker. In this paper we present an efficient procedure for tracking based on a linear subspace model of target appearance (grey levels). A set of motion templates is built from the subspace base, which is used to efficiently compute target motion and appearance parameters. It differs from previous works in that we impose no restrictions on the subspace used for modeling appearance. In the experiments conducted we have built a modular PCA-based face tracker which shows that video-rate tracking performance can be achieved with a non optimized implementation of our algorithm.


Dual active bridge isolated bidirectional DC-DC converters-DAB-IBDCs, with the two-way power flow ability and high frequency isolation, can match the different level voltage resource easily, and are the critical unit to connect the different power such as battery, generator and loads etc. The three level neural point clamp-3L-NPC IBDC can fulfills high voltage converting with lower rated power devices, and can increase the power rate extent remarkably and improve the electromagnetic compatibility as the same. In this paper the control strategies of 3L-NPC IBDC were invested in detail and the operation modes were divided two types according to relationship between the duty cycle of the inner bridge and the phase shift ratio of the two bridges. The current, output voltage and transfer power characteristics are analyzed and analytical expression is given according the three sub-modes under model respectively. The current of the neural point must be kept balance to ensure the two clamp capacitors have the approximately equal voltage in one period in the both operation modes. The results show that the 3L-NPC IBDC is feasible and have a good prospect in the high power converters.


of a doctoral essay at the University of Miami. Doctoral essay supervised by Professor Craig Morris. No. of pages in text. (119) With virtuosic soloists continuing to push the boundaries of skill in trumpet performance, so too have composers set new bars that redefine the instrument's previously conceived limitations. In recent years there has been both a significant increase in the number of solo compositions for the trumpet and a rise in the use of the trumpet as a soloist in the orchestra. Contemporary works are being performed, not just by groups dedicated to new music, but also by major orchestras and ensembles who (in additional to traditional repertoire) present these works in the contexts of new commissions and the performance of recent additions to the accepted repertoire. Along with the new demands being made of the trumpet due to changes in its role in the orchestra, there have been a multitude of new techniques discovered and explored in contemporary literature. This dissertation outlines an original method comprised of studies on these new techniques, built on strategies seen in extant technical performance guides, as well as fundamental method books established by renowned trumpet pedagogues throughout history. This method will synthesize standard trumpet fundamental approach with new techniques in order to introduce them into a student's regular practice. This will allow trumpet pedagogues to incorporate new standards for trumpet technique into their training of future musicians.


A number of chemicals released into the environment have the potential to interfere with physiological and developmental processes by disrupting endocrine pathways. Among the best known of these endocrine disruptors are compounds that mimic the action of the steroid hormone 17β‐estradiol. These xenobiotic estrogens are believed to pose health risks to both humans and wildlife. Our laboratories are designing in vivo bioassays for xenobiotic estrogens based on induction of the egg‐yolk precursor protein vitellogenin. Vitellogenin is normally produced by the liver of adult female nonmammalian vertebrates under estrogen stimulation. In immature or male animals, which have low levels of endogenous estrogens, vitellogenin can serve as a reliable biomarker for exposure to xenobiotic estrogens. Our model system used the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, an ideal species for laboratory screening of endocrine disruptors. Xenopus laevis vitellogenin was purified by diethylaminoethyl (DEAE) chromatography and used to generate polyclonal antibodies in rabbits. The resulting antiserum was used to develop an enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for measurement of serum vitellogenin. Frogs were exposed to compounds by immersion in order to mimic environmental exposure to aquatic contaminants. Initially, frogs were immersed in the potent estrogenic agent diethyl‐stilbestrol (DES) at a concentration of 1 ppm for 11 d to test the efficacy of the immersion protocol. Diethylstilbestrol exposed animals showed substantial induction of serum vitellogenin, indicating that the frogs are capable of responding to estrogenic agents present in their aquatic environment. Vitellogenin induction was then investigated for chlordane, dieldrin, endosulfan, and toxaphene, compounds that have been shown through in vitro assays to be weakly estrogenic when administered individually but more strongly estrogenic in combination. Adult male frogs were immersed in water containing the compounds (1 ppm, 11 d), both singly and in paired combinations. Endosulfan proved toxic at this concentration. Toxaphene‐ and dieldrin‐treated frogs showed significant levels of vitellogenin induction, while chlordane‐treated animals did not differ from controls. There was no evidence of a synergistic response between any of the combinations. This research demonstrates the utility of vitellogenin as a biomarker for exposure to estrogenic agents. The assays developed could be used to screen chemicals for estrogenic properties, to test waters for the presence of estrogenic agents, or to assess wildlife exposure to environmental estrogens.


Production of chlorpyrifos via the phase-transfer-catalyzed reaction of O,O-diethylphosphorochloridothioate and the sodium salt of 3,5,6-trichloropyridin-2-ol was reinvestigated. The formation of sulfotep (the major byproduct) and the yield are influenced by the nature and concentration of the catalysts, temperature, stirring rate, and time of the reaction. The elucidation of the roles of different parameters influencing the end of the reaction have permitted us to perform the synthesis of chlorpyrifos on bench scale (0.3 M scale) under optimized conditionsusing the minimum amounts of catalysts (0.5 mol %)with 92% yield and 98.5% purity.


According to W.v.O. Quine the reference even of scientific terms is inscrutable. In order to strenghten this claim central to his philosophy Quine explores the philosophical relevance of the Lowenheim-Skolem theorems, which are a clear indication that ontological commitments of some object-theory can only be discussed within another theory. Closer inspection of Quine's argument reveals that it is vulnerable to a general criticism Donald Davidson has directed against "ontological relativity". Relativity, as Davidson has pointed out, only makes sense in a conceptual setting providing some fixed point of reference for frameworks to be relative to. Radical interpretation a la Davidson forces interpreters to regard the terms of a given "language" as directed towards a "world" in order to make sense of them. Once this is done, there may be disagreement with respect to those interpretations between competing meta-theories. But


Government support for major sporting events is usually predicated on their assumed economic benefits. Yet there has been little parallel consideration of their potential environmental costs, at a time when the same governments are citing the importance of sustainable development. Environmental performance of major sporting events has hitherto been judged, if at all, on qualitative, activity and procedural criteria, rather than by attempting to estimate the overall impact of an event on measurable externalities. This paper examines the UK round of the 2004 World Rally Championship, using environmental accounting techniques to estimate its economic and environmental impacts on its host region.


Penile blood flow depends on the internal pudendal arteries; because of their anatomical alignment, the internal pudendal arteries are often likely to be injured when the subject falls astride an object. Patients with arteriogenic erectile dysfunction caused by traumatic localized arterial lesions can be treated successfully by penile revascularization surgery. More particularly, when the patient is young and had no cardiovascular risk factors, his erectile function can be restored completely. Most penile revascularization procedures use the inferior epigastric artery as an arterial source. A long pararectal incision was traditionally required to harvest the inferior epigastric artery, and complications related to this skin incision were many.


With the Nostoc commune Vauch as the tested material,the propose was to study the effects of H2O2,ethanol,UV on algal separation using different treatment,then culturing in the BG11.Each best treatment of different treatment conditions was screened out through microscopic observation.The characteristics of each stage of Nostoc commune with light microscope were observed.Results showed that Single factor screened out was 1%H2O2,30s H2O2,75% ethanol,40s ethanol,20min UV irradiation,800uW/cm2UV intensity,respectively.Composite condition screened out was 1% H2O2,30s H2O2,75% ethanol,40s ethanol,10min UV irradiation,800uW/cm2.N.commune presented a variety of reproductive mode and a plurality of morphological developmental stages by different environmental conditions.


The two most common measures of central tendency and dispersion in statistics are the mean and standard deviation on the one hand, and the median and absolute deviation on the other. For most purposes the former measure is preferred for two very good reasons; the first is that the squares of quantities are easier to handle analytically than their moduli; and secondly for all the common symmetrical distributions, such as the normal, uniform and binomial distributions, for which the mean and median coincide, if a sample is taken to estimate the central value, then the mean of that sample has a smaller variance than the median, and is therefore relatively more efficient as an estimator of the central value of the parent population.


The heat transfer regulation of organism was discussed quantitatively by establishing a heat transfer model of the investigated objects along with the analytical solution. The heat transfer process of porcine tongue and human tongue were studied. By invasive and non-invasive experiment methods, the regulation change of tongue temperature in relation to blood perfusion rate was obtained. In theoretical calculation, tongue was simplified as fin cube. In light of the heat transfer characteristic of tongue, a quasi-one-dimensional heat transfer model of porcine tongue was set up, in the form of second order inhomogeneous differential equation with variable coefficients, and appended by its analytical solution. Checking this model with corresponding data of human tongue showed that the calculation temperature was in accord with experimental values obtained through infrared thermovision. This modeling and calculating approach can quantitatively and theoretically analyze the changing regulation of temperature distribution of tongue in response to blood perfusion rate, indicative of the changing regulation identity between human tongue and porcine tongue. Although this model targets tongue, the modeling approach is applicable to other fin-like organisms with inner heat source.


Measuring and representing reflection and transmission accurately are core to high fidelity visual simulation of materials. However, state-of-the-art Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function (BSDF) models do not suggest a general solution for any surface class, from glasses to metals, isotropic to anisotropic materials, and daylight redirecting films. Furthermore, an accurate BSDF acquisition is not a trivial task at especially some specific measurement angles, such as normal incidence and grazing angles. In this paper, we address the problem of finding a general solution for efficient BSDF measurement and representation. We also outline the main issues that do not allow the effective use of current BSDF representations. Finally, we suggest specific solutions that could be investigated in order to address these challenges. CR Categories: I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism—Color, shading, shadowing, and texture;


The many different peoples of the Soviet Union have certain traditional handicrafts, and the Soviet administration is fostering them. Their practice is growing rapidly, and the products are every year appearing in much greater quantities and spreading more widely over the Union as a whole. There are two large shops in Moscow dealing solely in native peasant handicrafts. Their goods come from all over the Soviet Union, and they do a roaring trade although prices are by no means low. A Russian friend of mine bought a charming set of carved mammoth-tusk chess-pieces, made in the Arctic; the pawns were reindeer, the king a hunter, the queen an old nanny, the castles nomad tents, and so on. He paid a thousand roubles, which at that time—1935—represented about six weeks' average Russian income. At the present exchange rate it would be about £40. The set was worth quite that much.


Introduction: Intake of micronutrients and zonulin levels (as a marker for intestinal permeability) during pregnancy can be effective on birth weight of infants. However, no studies have investigated the relationship between the infants birth weight and maternal zonulin level. Aim: This study aimed to compare the zonulin levels and maternal trace elements in infants with low birth weight (LBW) and Normal Birth Weight (NBW) and its relationship with weight, length and head circumference of infants. Materials and Methods: In this study, 368 infants were divided into two groups: case (n=82) with birth weight of = 2500 gm. Maternal zonulin, zinc, calcium, copper and iron levels were evaluated. Weight, length and head circumference of infants were measured. The maternal serum level zonulin and micronutrients between the two groups were assessed using Student t-test or Chi-squared test and the relationship between variables using Spearman's rank correlation. Results: A significant difference was seen in the maternal zonulin and zinc serum levels between the LBW and the NBW infants (<0.001). No significant difference was observed in the calcium, copper, and iron levels between the two groups. A significant positive relationship was seen between maternal serum zonulin and zinc concentration with the birth weight of the LBW infants (respectively r=0.45 and r=0.41) (p<0.05). No relationship was seen between maternal serum zonulin and zinc concentration with the length and head circumference of the infants. Conclusion: The results showed that the maternal serum Zn level is associated with the infants birth weight. In addition, intestinal permeability, as a new factor could affect the birth weight and birth rate of the LBW infants. Further studies in this area are recommended.


This article presents the IICT Model (Integration of Information and Communication Technologies) and highlights it ́s characteristics. It also describes the theoretical frame that envolves the Model Constructivism, Engagement Theory and ARCS model and explains how information, communication and collaboration tools can promote learning situations, especially using the Web 2.0 tools, regardless of the courses it might be applied on. Further, this article analysis the appropriateness of using the IICT model in teaching practices and present an example of the way it can be used. keywords: IICT Model, Constructivism, Engagement Theory, ARCS Model, Web 2.0.


The utility model relates to an integrated system for oil preparation and detoxified protein processing by cottonseeds. The integrated system comprises a cottonseed preprocessing system, a leaching and dephenolizing system, a mixed oil evaporating system, a phenol-contained mixed solution separating and recycling system, a soluble wet protein drying and recycling system and a protein selecting and packaging system. In the utility model, the negative-pressure technology is adopted in the key working procedures of mixed oil evaporating and soluble wet protein drying, so as to reduce the energy consumption by 30% compared with the normal-pressure technology, improve the oil quantity, reduce the denaturation of proteins and improve the water-solubility of the proteins; in addition, as different solvents are added to extraction equipment at different time, the extraction of grease, gossypol and raffinose can be finished; and in this case, the process route is shortened, and the production cost is reduced.


The energy-saving device for public building system,one kind of device designed to improve the current situation of high energy consuming of public buildings,is made up of pipeline part and automatic control systems.Pipeline part is made up of a bypass pipeline paralleled on the water-supply pipeline.In the bypass pipeline,there are power driven three-way valves,pipeline pumps,ball valves according to the direction of flow.By the combination of automatic control technology and heating energy saving device,PLC can adjust PID output date.4~20 MA electric signal controlling valve opening and power driven three way valves,in-line pump can achieve a benefitable effects,that is,by adjusting the mixing ratio of water supply and water return to control the public building temperature and finally achieve the energy-saving effect.This device is suitable for a wide range of application and promotion based on its advantages:simple device,stable performance,tight structure,less investment and can be got by reforming the existing equipments.


n Mullen v Hackney London Borough Council 119973 1 WLR 1103 the plaintiff, a council tenant, claimed compensation against the council for breach of a repairing covenant. The council gave an undertaking, embodied in a consent order, to carry out certain repairs within a specified period of time. These works were not carried out within the stipulated period and had still not even been started when the matter was brought once more before the county court judge on an application for committal under CCR Ord. 29 r. l ( 1 ) . The council admitted that it was in breach of its undertaking. The judge, when considering the appropriate penalty, said that the case was 'one of numerous examples' of the council's failure to honour undertakings given to the court in repairing cases. He fined the council €5000 in view of its past conduct. The council argued in the Court of Appeal that the judge had erred in law in taking into account other instances, unconnected with the present case, when it was said that the council had failed to honour undertakings given to the court. It was pointed out that there had been no evidence before the court of previous breaches by the council in other cases, whether of undertakings or injunctions; nor had there been any schedule, agreed or otherwise, listing such breaches.


A 32-year-old previously healthy man presented with head-ache that progressively worsened during the day. He denied any previous history of headache and trauma. There was no family history of neurological diseases. Examination revealed nuchal rigidity. Cranial computed tomography disclosed a left frontal hemorrhage. Brain magnetic resonance imaging revealed multiple cerebral cavernous malformations (CCM). The patient received conservative treatment. Cerebral cav - ernous malformations are commonly described in the familial form and are frequently asymptomatic. When symptoms do occur, seizures are the most common followed by focal deficits and headache 1 . Several mutations in CCM genes have already been identified in patients with sporadic disease 2


The stoneflies Leuctra graeca Zwick, 1978, Zwicknia acuta Muranyi & Orci, 2014 and Isoperla pesici Muranyi, 2011 are reported for the first time from the (FY) Republic of Macedonia. An apparently new species of Zwicknia Muranyi, 2014 is referred but not named. The hitherto unknown larva of Rhabdiopteryx doiranensis Ikonomov, 1983 is described from both sexes. Further stonefly occurrences are also enumerated from the Anska Reka and Dojran Lake drainage basins, including the first early spring records of the autumnal Leuctra bronislawi Sowa, 1970 and L. graeca .


Diseases of the skin, digestive organs, urogenitary tract, mouth, etc. are caused by the multiplication and spread of fungal microorganisms known as mycelia. Mycoses (fungal infections) range in degree from unnoticed to fatal. They are directly related to asthma and allergic alveolitis reactions. They are dealt with by the immune system and competition from other microbes or earlier developmental phases of their own cyclogeny.


3 What if we could look inside an asteroid or comet? Information about their internal density structure and macroporosity would provide powerful constraints on their formation and evolution as well as information needed for planetary defense, mining, and in situ resource utilization. At present, the internal structure of small bodies must be inferred from surface morphology (e.g. by optical imaging or radar) and indirectly from other observations. We are investigating new methods to directly map the deep interior structure of small solar system bodies using secondary particles, such as muons, produced by galactic cosmic ray (GCR) showers within the body itself. 1) Artist's conception of a rubble-pile cometary nucleus (from Weissman et al., 2004); 2) Surface of C-G 67P (ESA/Rosetta); 3) Breakup of ShoemakerLevy 9 (NASA/HST) suggestive of rubblepile structure.


Risk assessment for the dams in West Java Province with a method of Modified Andersen and Modified ICOLD (DOISP-2) have been done; the assessment is part of the activities of Dam Operation Improvement Safety Project-2 (DOISP-2) at Central Project Implementation Unit (CPIU), Ministry of Public Works and Housing. Dams were studied to analyse the risks of the deficiency of the structure due to the load under normal operating conditions, flood conditions, and earthquake conditions. This article summarizes the risk assessment process, assessment results, conclusions and recommendations for both risk index methods. The document also includes an assessment of the risk assessment process and policy recommendations for the operation and maintenance of dams. The results are risk rankings between the two methods give different sequences; this is due to differences in the risk assessment approach of both methods. Modified Andersen focused on structural deficiencies, especially visually, and modification ICOLD Method (DOISP-2) focused on design flaws and risks downstream of the dam. Although both methods have different approaches, both methods can be used in risk analysis of the dam's adjusted purposes of risk index assessment.


L actoferrin is a metal-binding glycoprotein occurring mainly in milk of various animal species10). Lactoferrin has two iron-binding sites9) and has been reported to exhibit many biological functions, such as bacteriostatic effects, iron adsorption in gut, myelopoiesis2,4,5,12), However, quantitative evaluation of lactoferrin activity for such functions remains a difficulty. Various lactoferrin activities in living system are thought to be concerned with the iron binding ability of lactoferrin. Thus, to measure the yield of iron-binding recovery or iron-binding capacity is one of the easiest method to estimate lactoferrin activity. Determination of the ironbinding ability of apo-type lactoferrin has been performed simply by measuring absorbance at 465nm11) of a mixture of lactoferrin and iron ion. However, the procedure for separation of iron saturated lactoferrin requires the dialysis or gel filtration chromatography to remove the excess free iron ions. In this report, a rapid separation method of excess iron ion from lactoferrin solution is attempted with affinity chromatography, in which heparin-Sepharose was used as the affinity media.


Zinc-based redox flow batteries (ZRFBs) have been considered as ones of the most promising large-scale energy storage technologies owing to their low cost, high safety, and environmental friendliness. However, their commercial application is still hindered by a few key problems. First, the hydrogen evolution and zinc dendrite formation cause poor cycling life, of which needs to ameliorated or overcome by finding suitable anolytes. Second, the stability and energy density of catholytes are unsatisfactory due to oxidation, corrosion, and low electrolyte concentration. Meanwhile, highly catalytic electrode materials remain to be explored and the ion selectivity and cost efficiency of membrane materials demands further improvement. In this review, we summarize different types of ZRFBs according to their electrolyte environments including ZRFBs using neutral, acidic, and alkaline electrolytes, then highlight the advances of key materials including electrode and membrane materials for ZRFBs, and finally discuss the challenges and perspectives for the future development of high-performance ZRFBs.


The primary motivation of this paper is to present an accurate and universal method for the nonlinear system modeling. An Unconstrained Bezier Calibration Method (UBCM) is presented. By constraining the boundary freedom of the UBCM, it could become a constrained form called the Bezier Calibration Method (BCM), which is suitable for situations with an accurate boundary modeling requirement. A comparison study is performed to compare the presented method with the most widely utilized Polynomial Calibration Method (PCM) through several nonlinear behavior modeling examples, including sensor inherent nonlinearity calibration, sine wave, gauss nonlinearity and nonlinear broken line. A comparison study demonstrates that in the present verification examples the UBCM has better calibration performance than that of the BCM and PCM.


In order to study the genetic diversity in rice (Oryza sativa L.), 29 genotypes consis ng land races, pure and improved lines were evaluated using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. A total of 30 SSR primers were used to amplify some part of rice genome in germplasms, the PIC values ranged from 0.07 (RM 340) to 0.71 (RM 7426) with an average of 0.45. The results showed a total number of 106 amplified bands. Among them, the primer RM7426 showed the highest number alleles while the lowest was observed for RM340 primer. Average number of observed alleles in total genotypes was 3.53. The lowest PIC value was observed in RM445, RM466, RM3345, and RM7424 primers and the highest PIC value was observed in RM7426, RM1337, RM47, and RM5430 primers. PCA components explained 84.40% of variation. The clustering patterns of the genotypes were assigned into three clusters based on their response to salinity and morpho-physiological characteristics. Cluster analysis grouped the genotypes in salt tolerant, intermediate tolerant and sensitive classes. The results showed that information from SSR data can complement information obtained from quantitative methods.


The Soay shocp of St. Kilda is the most primitive domostic breed in Europe, resembling doinesticated Neolithic sheep and the inouflon. Those on the isle of Soay, St. Kilda are prrsumably direct descendants of the first sheep introduced to the islands in prehistoric times. Flocks stemming from them now exist in parks and other islands in Britain. A flock was established on the vacant pastures of Hirta, St. Kilda after the natives and their sheep were evacuated in 1930.


This work ties together existing literature relating to the functions and contributions of eBay and online trading, discussing them in a cohesive, meta-analytic fashion. To further increase knowledge in the field, two studies have been undertaken to present a view of current online trading practices in the United Kingdom (UK). Data was collected by conducting online questionnaires and performing interviews using the Repertory Grid technique. This method has its roots in Personal Construct Psychology and allows for the expression of participants' perceptions and preferences in their own terms or personal constructs. Investigations found that eBay is considered by the public to be the place to take part in online auctions, despite the availability of other ways to buy therein. Multi-channel retailing considers eBay a separate channel. Local retailers, however, are venturing into independent online retailing rather than opening eBay stores. Shoppers make purchase decisions based on several factors and select different purchase methods dependent on personal preferences, need and mood. Reputation on eBay is still a major factor in purchase decisions. Astoundingly, some users suspect that they have been victims of auction fraud but have chosen not to report it. This study demonstrates how activity conducted online can have implications across multiple sectors. In particular, the concepts of trust, reputation, change in methods of commerce, and social interaction are discussed in the domain of the emerging Internet of Things (IoT).


This paper deals with the existence and iteration of positive solutions for the following one-dimensional -Laplacian boundary value problems: , , subject to some boundary conditions. By making use of monotone iterative technique, not only we obtain the existence of positive solutions for the problems, but also we establish iterative schemes for approximating the solutions.


e12544 Background: Many innovations in medicine were discovered by astute clinicians recognizing previously unknown patterns in their practice. As the future of cancer treatment increasingly utiliz...


The question, "Who is more likely to cheat in a relationship?" has been discussed a lot recently. This short exercise intends to explain that in a world where people subscribe to certain "Beliefs" and under a certain condition called the "No Love Condition", a situation can be found such that, in a relationship, the girl is more likely to cheat than the boy. The question of "Why?" is answered by the Beliefs and the No Love Condition. The question of "When?" is answered by the situation to be found.


A conceptual model for parallel computations on large arrays is developed in this thesis. The model provides language concepts needed to process arrays which are generally too large to fit in the primary memories of a multiprocessor system. The semantic model is used for representing arrays on a concurrent architecture in such a way that the performance realities inherent in the distributed storage and processing can be adequately represented. An implementation of the large array concept as an ADA package is described.
The model presented in this thesis provides a high level conceptual unity to the area of parallel computation on large arrays in a machine independent manner. The characteristics of a particular architecture, give rise to restrictions on the overall model. Implementation designs on several typical multiprocessor architectures are presented that are tailored to the performance realities associated with the hardware. The machines studied are the NASA Massively Parallel Processor, the intel 432 system, the NASA Finite Element Machine, and the University of Maryland ZMOB.
Sample algorithms using the concepts of the model, from the areas of finite element computations and image processing, are presented.


Prevalence of long term abdominal pain is unknown. It supposes about 2-4% of the pediatric consultations. Pain that lasts more than 2-6 weeks is called chronic abdominal pain, and if it lasts more than 3 months, it is called recurrent abdominal pain. It can be an organic disorder, a somatization disorder or a functional disorder. In children younger than 4 years recurrent abdominal pain sets up as a "diagnosis", as it can't be established as a functional disorder. In older children, recurrent abdominal pain is a "symptom", and the diagnosis of functional disorder is established according to Rome III criteria, that are based upon a set of symptoms. Complete examination and physical exploration are the main components in the valuation of any patient with chronic or recurrent abdominal pain. Organic cause should be always considered in first place, moreover in children younger than 4 years. Presence of alarm symptoms or signs constitutes and indication to perform diagnostic tests. Once discarded organic disease or somatization disorder, we can establish the functional abdominal pain diagnosis, based upon the Rome III criteria, that sets up the following categories: functional dyspepsia, irritable bowel syndrome, abdominal migraine and abdominal functional pain. Children with chronic or recurrent abdominal pain should be treated in the context of a biopsicosocial assistant model.


Introduction III-IF is a highly invalidating condition which requires long term parenteral nutrition (PN).The most frequent cause is post-surgical short bowel syndrome (SBS). Less than 50% of pts would be able to reach rehabilitation within 2 years. Favorable outcomes rely on, post-surgical intestinal length (PSIL), anatomy type (PSAT) and the presence of ICV. Over the last years the use of TED has changed the course of this disease, challenging the classically accepted predictors for favorable outcome. Aim: Report the experience using TED for Type III-IF in adults, single and first center experience in Latin America. Material and Methods: Data from TED treated pts from 2014 to 2018 was collected and analyze, including: Age, gender, PSIL: a): < 50cm., b) 51– 99 cm., c)>100 cm; PSAT: 1) terminal jejunostomy, 2) jejuno-colonic anastomosis and 3) jejuno-ileo-colonic anastomosis; freedom from PN survival and comparison of outcomes to previous reports, and drug adjustments made over time, were analyzed using SPSS v20. Results: Twelve adult pts have been treated since 6/2014. 11 received AGIRS. Mean age: 40.5 years, 50% male; 7/12 had PSIL: a). Six pts had PSAT: 3); five: 2) and only one: 1). Mean PN volume during admission was 20.37 +/5.72 (range: 10–28) Lt/week. All patients received standard treatment for SBS, and most of them could reduce PN volume to 12.5 +/4.73 (range:6–21) Lt/week. 7/12 pts are currently PN free, three of them with PSIL: a) and four with PSIL:b). Compared to the 2015 report, the percentage of pts able to achieve intestinal autonomy increased from 74 % to 83%, and from those in the PSIL a) group PN independency grew from 0% to 33%, and in the PSIL b) group went from 67% to 91%. Results are shown in table (1) and figure (1). Two pts are currently off PN, and off TED; and 1 of them has been able to sustain a successful pregnancy; 2 pts have been on every other day doses due to abdominal bloating and discomfort for 14 and 7 months respectively, sustaining weight and urine output. Conclusions: TED is the first gut hormone commercially available proven to enhance intestinal rehabilitation in patients with SBS and III-IF. The use of TED in this very selective initial group of patients validates previous reports performed in developed countries. It adds the concept of using it after AGIRS, allowing not only to recover intestinal sufficiency but also to reduce the time to achieve it, even with unfavorably anatomy. P4.35


The relationship between compatible solutes (osmolytes) and antioxidants are the strategies that plants have developed to tolerate salt stress. Pre-treatment of wheat (Triticum aestivum L. cv) and barley (Hordeum vulgare L. cv) with Salicylic acid (SA) can be enhanced their tolerance to saline stress during germination. The alleviation of oxidative damage and increased resistance to salt stress induced by 150 mM NaCl treatments often correlate with a more efficient antioxidative defense systems and detoxification mechanisms. Pre-treatment of wheat and barley plants with salicylic acid (SA) enhanced antioxidant activities in concentration dependent manner and increased the stress tolerance of seedlings. Improved acclimation of SA-pre-treated plants to salt stress depended on the activation of the antioxidative and accumulation of ionic and non-ionic osmolytes. The present work deals with the possible role of the osmotic adaptation and oxidative defense mechanisms of wheat and barley plants with low concentrations of SA. During the germination period, a considerable increase was observed in proline levels (up to 185% in T. aestivum and about 128% in H. vulgare) in the seedlings subjected to saline stress (S), whereas in the SAS group, the proline increment was not significantly. Starting from the fourth day of germination, betaine levels in seedlings pretreated with Salicylic acid and then with water (SAW group) and in SAS showed a significant increase versus C and S seedlings, possibly because such a precursor promotes betaine biosynthesis. This could be responsible for the enhanced growth observed in SAS versus S seedlings, as well as for preventing the decrease in chlorophyll content in the SAS group. The accumulation of betaine seems to correlate with the greater tolerance of these seedlings against saline stress. A relationship between antioxidant glutathione and salt tolerance was observed in both plants, under the effect of Salicylic acid.


A selective MT2 melatonin receptor antagonist, 4-phenyl-2-propionamido-tetralin (4P-PDOT), was prepared as a tritium-labelled compound with high specific activity and radiochemical purity. Catalytic hydrogenation of a unique vinyl bromo precursor 10 was used to introduce the tritium. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


CRC cards are unconventional methods for identifying and describing classes, behavior and their responsibilities and collaborators of class. Representation of three categories of class, responsibilities and collaborators can give proper image of the scenario. These cards are effective method for analyzing scenarios. With all positive features of CRC cards, these cards have some weaknesses such as failure to show details of operations and failure to evaluate them. These weaknesses guide us to model and evaluate these cards using petri nets. Basis of petri nets is on graph. In addition, these petri nets have mathematical structure and definitions, they have graphics. One of the other important characteristics of petri nets is their applicability which can be used for evaluating behavior and efficiency of a system. Therefore, our goal in this paper is to map CRC cards into stochastic petri net for evaluating and analyzing quality parameter of security. doi: 10.5829/idosi.ije.2014.27.05b.03


Introduction: Diabetes foot is one of the most common complications of diabetes. Metformin treatment may aid in lowering the prevalence of diabetic foot ulcers in diabetic patients. Study objectives: The purpose of this study was to look into the prevalence of diabetic foot ulcers among diabetic patients attending out-patient, as well as the impact of metformin treatment on the development of diabetic foot ulcers. Methodology: To collect data from diabetic patients' files, a retrospective design was used. Demographic variables such as gender and age were included in the study, as well as clinical variables such as diabetes duration, metformin treatment, and diabetic foot ulcer status. Data was gathered and entered into SPSS version 20 for analysis. Descriptive features of statistical analysis included frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. Various statistical models, such as the Chi-square test, One Way Anova, and Pearson's correlation, were used to investigate the relationship between variables. If p 0.05, the significance was accepted. Results: The study included 62 diabetic patients with an average age of 56.9511.98 years. The males were 33 (53.2%), the duration of diabetes was 7.55.86 years, metformin was prescribed to approximately 66% of patients, the mean metformin dose was 1617.32649.49 mg, and the prevalence of DF was 8.1%. There were no significant relationships between DF and gender or metformin use (p>0.05). Both the One-Way Anova Test and the correlation test revealed that DF was significantly related to DF. Conclusion: The current study found that metformin treatment is significantly associated with metformin dose and could protect diabetic patients from developing DF.


Objective To detect the difference in flowering phenology of Lonicera japonica among different cultivars.Methods Counting the flowering numbers every day,and the data was analyzed by SPSS 16.0 and SAS 9.1 software.Results The flowering process including the initial time,the blooming time and falling time among the five cultivars of flos Lonicera japonica was different;the" Xi Ma-zhen"was llongest(18 days) as well as the"Da Mao-hua "was shortest(12 days) in the last time of flowering.The flowering amplitude curves were similar between"Da Mao-hua"and"Xiao Ji-zhao",as well as"Xiao Mao-hua"and "Jiu Feng 1"were similar;the results of variance analysis showed that thesignificant difference among the flowering amplitude,the flowering numbers and flowering duration time was caused by different variants;the results of correation analysis showed that the blooming date was positively correlated with flowering duration time,and initial time of flowering was negatively correlated with number of flowers.Conclusion There are great difference among different cultivars in flowering phenology.


Three fungicides namely carbendazim (0.05%), mancozeb (0.2%) and azoxystrobin (0.1%) and Pseudomonas sp. namely Ps 2 and Ps 3 were evaluated in vitro by using poisoned food technique and dual culture respectively for their antagonistic activity againt C. capsici. Among the three fungicides mancozeb (0.2 %) recorded 73.47 % inhibition followed by carbendazim (0.05%) which recorded 64.12% inhibition. The least inhibition (62.21%) was recorded in azoxystrobin (0.1%) treatment. In dual culture assay Ps 2 showed 93.41 % inhibition whereas Ps 3 produced 72.5% inhibition of C capsici.


Wind energy has gained much attention with the development of conversion technologies, concerns on fossil fuel use and associated environmental impacts. As a result, an increasing number of large wind farms are coming into the power system at high voltage (HV) grid level. Voltage transformers (VT) are used for obtaining secondary voltages suitable for metering and protection devices in a wind farm at collector feeders, medium voltage bus and HV side of the main step-up transformer(s). Capacitive Voltage Transformers (CVT) are preferred at HV level over the conventional electromagnetic VTs. In large wind farms, CVTs are installed on the HV side of the step-up transformer. However, during line faults, due to the collapse of primary voltage, CVT will dissipate its stored energy in stack capacitors and tuning reactor, which will introduce a transient component to the voltage inputs to protection and control equipments. This will have a significant impact on the distance and directional protective element performance in multi function numerical intelligent electronic devices. This paper considers a CVT placed at the HV side of a step-up transformer in a large wind farm. CVT and the wind farm employing Doubly Fed Induction Generators (DFIG) are modeled in Matlab/Simulink. Faults and voltage dips are created in the power system and within the wind farm, and CVT secondary voltage profiles are simulated and analyzed.


Received : 1 November, 2013 Revised : 29 November, 2013 Accepted : 21 January, 2014 ABSTRACT Objectives : The purpose of this study was to investigate the oral hygiene status before and after the dental hygiene care performance to patients by the dental hygienists. Methods : Subjects were 55 adults visiting to dental clinics in Chungnam. The patients agreed to undergo a dental hygiene care performance. A skilled dental hygienist provided dental hygiene care performance including periodontal status, halitosis and oral hygiene status. Corresponding Author Min-Hee Hong Department of Dental Hygiene Baekseok University 76 Munamro, Dongnam-gu, Cheonan Chungnam, 330-704, Korea. Tel : +82-41-550-2163 +82-10-3210-5650 Fax : +82-41-550-2829 E-mail : email@example.com Results : The periodontal pocket depth was compared before and after the performance. The depth dropped from 4.02 mm to 2.81 mm, and the value of halitosis dropped from 45.78 bbv to 35.76 bbv. The O'Leary index of the patients dropped form 49.37 to 32.84, and all the differences were statistically significant. Conclusions : Proper use of oral hygiene supplies and regular dental checkup can prevent periodontal diseases. This study will provide the useful information of the effective application of dental hygiene care performance.


Fish discards represent both an underutilization of fishing stock and an environmental problem. Consequently, the European Commission has undertaken a depth reform regarding common fisheries, so-called the zero-discard policy. This new regulation implies that all the catches must be landed resulting in a high amount of fish biomass. Hence, technical solutions able to convert the fish discards into added-value compounds must be developed and optimized. The aim of this PhD research is to develop new processes for the up-grading of oil and protein extracted from fish discards to produce functional compounds of interest for the pharmaceutical and food industry. In the area of lipids, the composition and regiodistribution of six discarded species of the Alboran Sea was seasonally studied. Oils extracted from small-spotted catshark and bogue contained PUFA with high sn-2 regioselectivity and have been proposed as substrate for the production of 2-MAG. In the case of oils extracted from sardine, axillary seabream, blue whiting and horse mackerel polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) were more randomly distributed. Consequently, these oils have been recommended as a substrate for the production of PUFA concentrates by physical methods. Theoretical studies aimed at mechanistically model the production of PUFA concentrates by winterization of free fatty acids at low temperature and by lipase mediated-hydrolysis of fish oil in microaqueous systems were conducted. Winterization was the most efficient process, achieving high increase of PUFA content (1.7-fold). Finally, an up-grading process aimed at producing MLM structured lipids from sardines discards was developed. MLM are functional compounds highly demanded in the pharmaceutical industry. The process was composed of (i) fish oil extraction, (ii) Omega-3 concentration via low temperature winterization, (iii) enzymatic esterification and (iv) triacylglycerols (TAG) extraction via liquid chromatography. The resulting MLM structured lipid met the oxidative conditions required for refined oils Fish protein was employed as a substrate for the production of bioactive peptides (i.e. antihypertensive and antioxidant activities) employing a mixture of bacterial and animal proteases. In this case, a crossed mixture-process model was proposed involving percentage of subtilisin in the enzyme mixture, concentration of protein in the reaction volume and temperature as input variables. Additionally, fish protein hydrolysates (FPH) were evaluated as potential compounds able to physically and oxidatively stabilize fish oil emulsions and microcapsules produced by spray-drying. The process of homogenization and spray-drying did not affect the stability of the oil and presented high yield (98%). After 80 days of storage, the encapsulated oil exhibited a similar course of hydroperoxide content as reported for microencapsulated fish oil prepared from other matrix systems. These microcapsules may enlarge the shelf-life of fish oil and, therefore, find applications in the food industry as delivery systems.


We present a rotation equivariant, quasi-monolithic graph neural network framework for the reduced-order modeling of fluid-structure interaction systems. With the aid of an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation, the system states are evolved temporally with two sub-networks. The movement of the mesh is reduced to the evolution of several coefficients via complex-valued proper orthogonal decomposition, and the prediction of these coefficients over time is handled by a single multi-layer perceptron. A finite element-inspired hypergraph neural network is employed to predict the evolution of the fluid state based on the state of the whole system. The structural state is implicitly modeled by the movement of the mesh on the solid-fluid interface; hence it makes the proposed framework quasi-monolithic. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is assessed on two prototypical fluid-structure systems, namely the flow around an elastically-mounted cylinder, and the flow around a hyperelastic plate attached to a fixed cylinder. The proposed framework tracks the interface description and provides stable and accurate system state predictions during roll-out for at least 2000 time steps, and even demonstrates some capability in self-correcting erroneous predictions. The proposed framework also enables direct calculation of the lift and drag forces using the predicted fluid and mesh states, in contrast to existing convolution-based architectures. The proposed reduced-order model via graph neural network has implications for the development of physics-based digital twins concerning moving boundaries and fluid-structure interactions.