U RUGUAY has the reputation among students of Latin American government, and indeed among the Latin Americans themselves, of being one of the most democratic nations of the world in both form and fact.1 Many factors contribute to this impression, not the least of them being the freedom, in the fullest possible sense of that word, which is evidenced in the electoral system of the nation. For nearly thirty years this system has produced elections notable for their honesty and integrity. In an area in which elections are often considered "honest" if the most popular man wins and is allowed to take office even though he may not be the selection of the government party, a system productive of such results is nearly unique. Most Uruguayan political parties staunchly support the secret vote, proportional representation (PR), and the electoral bodies which implement this system; the importance of electoral honesty has long been realized.2 The principal opposition to PR is found in a section of the major party whose policies and ambitions would be furthered by the possession of a clear majority, which


In this study, the geometries of ground loop heat exchangers and the performance of ground-source heat pump systems were investigated. The length of ground loop heat exchangers was decreased with an increase of thermal conductivity, while that was increased with an increase of thermal resistance.


Accurate unit-cell analysis and reflectarray synthesis are two key issues in reflectarray antennas design. In unit-cell analysis, forced linked boundary condition (FLBC) is proposed to emulate quasi-periodic reflectarray environment. We demonstrate that both incident and reflection angles affect the reflection phase of reflectarray elements. In reflectarray synthesis, a novel modes superposition synthesis method (MSSM) based on linear superposition of the unit TE and TM mode responses is proposed. The MSSM can take the real incident angles, polarizations of incident fields, and the quasi-periodic reflectarray environment into account. Two reflectarrays are designed to justify the proposed FLBC and MSSM. The first one is a low-profile broadside-radiating flat Cassegrain reflectarray featuring a 0.5 dB gain improvement after accounting for the effects of incident angle. The second is an offset-fed reflectarray achieving a 1.2 dB gain enhancement and lower sidelobes after taking the effects of both incident and reflection angles into account.


The paper presents the main ideas behind our soft real time database system prototype called Data Point Processor (DPP). The main aim in designing such systems is to minimize the application programs part of database management and therefore to avoid heavy data transfers between the database server and the application client due to polling. Our design is based on the observation of data transfer and database design in an environmental monitoring system. Due to the changing needs of the user we tried to offer a flexible tool for describing different problems associated with air pollution monitoring. However, the Data Description Language (DDL) which is also presented in the paper is applicable to problems of a different nature, too. The DPP is a main memory oriented, user level application which provides soft deadline handling and is extendible with user written C functions.


A fiber-reinforced melamine foam board comprises, by mass, 5% to 15% of fibers and 85% to 95% of melamine foam. The porosity of the fiber-reinforced melamine foam board ranges from 75% to 94%, the diameter of the fibers ranges from 0.1 micrometer to 1 micrometer, and the length of the fibers ranges from 0.5 mm to 2.5 mm. The material is one of glass fibers, quartz fibers and basalt fibers. The density of the melamine foam ranges from 5.0 kg/m to 16.5 kg/m . The fiber-reinforced melamine foam board has the beneficial effects that a fiber-reinforced structure is adopted, so that the tenacity, the bending strength and the flame-retardant performance of foam are greatly improved, and the application field is broadened; compared with a laminated board reinforcing manner, the layer shearing force of the foam board is greatly increased; cutting can be performed again according to different use conditions, the flame-retardant performance and the mechanical performance of the foam board cannot be affected, and use is convenient.


This paper presents the design and implementation of a systolic RSA cryptosystem based on a modified Montgomery's algorithm and the Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT) technique. The CRT technique improves the throughput rate up to 4 times in the best case. The processing unit of the systolic array has 100% utilization because of the proposed block interleaving technique for multiplication and square operations in the modular exponentiation algorithm. For 512-bit inputs, the number of clock cycles needed for a modular exponentiation is about 0.13 to 0.24 million. The critical path delay is 6.13ns using a 0.6µm CMOS technology. With a 150 MHz clock, we can achieve an encryption/decryption rate of about 328 to 578 Kb/s.


Intimal hyperplasia occurs as a response to a varie ty of vascular insults and results in vascular stenosis, and organ ischemia. This proc ess represents a fundamental component of atherosclerosis, venous graft stenonsi s, and allograft arteriopathy in solid organ transplants. Smooth muscle cells (SMCs), and their associated extracellular matrix (ECM) form major components of intimal hyperplasia. We hypothesize that chemokines play a critical role in SMC migration into such int imal lesions. A number of chemokinechemokine receptor interactions that mediate inflam matory cell recruitment have been characterized. However, the specific chemokineche mokine receptor pathways that contribute to SMC recruitment are not known. The ai ms of this study are to examine the expression of C-C chemokine receptor 1 (CCR1) on me dial SMCs (MSMCs), and to test its functionality in SMC recruitment. SMCs were der iv d from murine aortas; cultures were >95% SMC as demonstrated by the expression of sm oth muscle α-actin (SMA), calponin, smooth muscle myosin heavy chain (SM-MHC) . Interferon-gamma (IFNγ) and Tumor necrosis factoralpha (TNFα) – stimulated MSMCs express CCR1 with a peak expression between 30 h and 48 h after cytokine sti mulation. The functionality of receptors was initially demonstrated by agonist-ind uced calcium mobilization: the vi addition of CCR1 ligands, Regulated on activation, Normal T cell expressed and secreted (RANTES) and Macrophage inflammatory protein -1 α (MIP-1α) to MSMCs caused an increase in intracellular Ca 2+ concentration. Blockade of CCR1 by BX471, a CCR1 antagonist, inhibited the Ca 2+ mobilization induced by RANTES and MIP-1 α. The results suggest that up-regulation of CCR1 expression on cy tokine-stimulated SMCs may facilitate recruitment into intimal lesions through endothelial-derived chemokine expression.


A rich tradition of English education was founded in West Bengal for historical reasons. But the Left Front Government upset it during their thirty-four years rule. The two decades of Left rule, from 1983 to 2004, witnessed four changes in the scenario of teaching English at school at irregular intervals without proper justification. English education has remained a contested terrain of hegemonies and counter hegemonies since its inception during the colonial period, after Independence in entire India and in Leftruled West Bengal too. Despite of its pro-proletariat ideology, the Left Front Government did a volte-face when it reintroduced English in the Primary stage after initially abolishing it from there. They even failed to produce any revolutionary ideal in the English textbooks. Globalization, ideological confusions and imperatives of realpolitik are chiefly responsible for the indecisiveness of the Left vis-a-vis English education policies.


Abstract Levels of valeric acids (isovaleric and 3-methylvaleric) in leaves and smoke of different tobacco types were quantified by capillary gas chromatography (GC) using flame ionization detector (FID). The aroma characteristics of the smoke were scored by sensory evaluation. It was found that leaves of Oriental and burley tobaccos contain higher amounts of both valeric acid derivatives than Virginia tobaccos containing isovaleric acid but no 3-methylvaleric acid. Strong correlation between the aroma and pleasantness scores of smoke and the content of valeric acids in the leaves of Oriental tobaccos was observed, while it was not the case for leaves of Virginia and burley tobaccos. In all tobacco types no correlation between smoking characteristics and the content of valeric acids in the smoke was established. Regression models involving leaf isovaleric acid were developed that can be used to evaluate aroma and pleasantness of smoke in Oriental tobaccos. The data obtained allow the following conclusions to be drawn: a) 3-methylvaleric acid may be a chemical marker to distinguish Virginia tobaccos from Oriental and burley tobaccos; b) isovaleric acid content in leaves of Oriental tobaccos may be used for objective aroma evaluation that can be exploited for breeding and market purposes.


Over the past three decades, feminism has been a major force in literary studies, while literary studies have represented an important strand of academic feminism. This interrelationship has been reflected in the prevalence of feminist papers at literature conferences, and literary papers at feminist conferences. Few conferences, however, have focused exclusively on feminist literary criticism. The Manifesting Literary Feminisms conference therefore offered a rare opportunity for feminist literary scholars to come together with the purpose of listening and responding to, and being challenged by, the stimulating diversity of work in progress in the field. For this opportunity, participants at the conference repeatedly thanked the convenors, Margaret Henderson from the University of Queensland and Ann Vickery from Monash. The conference was also an occasion to engage with and celebrate the contributions to feminist literary scholarship of the plenary speakers: acclaimed American poet and critic Rachel Blau DuPlessis, from Temple University, Philadelphia, and Susan Sheridan, one of Australia's most influential feminist literary critics, recently retired from the position of Head of Women's Studies at Flinders University. The experience of listening to these eminent scholars on consecutive days writ large the way in which many conference papers brought the Australian context into conversation with international and transnational themes, theories and debates in feminist and literary theory. In her opening address, 'Manifesting Literary Feminisms: Thinking into Future Work', DuPlessis offered a thought-provoking list of some of the 'gender buttons' that feminist literary scholars are pressing. Among these was the idea of 'nexus'*defined by the OED as a 'bond, link, or junction; a means of connection between things or parts'. DuPlessis identified 'nexus-thinking' as a way of moving beyond the hierarchical paradigm of major and minor writers, and instead considering the literary field in terms of connections, interactions, relationships and communities. Conference papers and sessions focusing on literary communities, and on genres such as detective fiction, ably demonstrated ways that 'nexus thinking' is informing work in contemporary feminist literary studies. The 'nexus' theme continued in Susan Sheridan's address that opened the second day of the conference: 'Generations Lost and Found: Reading Women Writers Together'. Exploring the 'eclipse' of Australian women writers of the 1950s, Sheridan noted the value of 'nexus thinking' as a way of investigating groups, even when these groups do not see themselves as such. Susan Sheridan's attention to the social, political, economic and geographic conditions of Australian women writers of the 1950s demonstrated another


Emotional disturbances are central to diverse psychopathologies. In this article, we argue that the functions of emotion are comparable for persons with and without psychopathology. However, impairment in one or more components of emotional processing disrupts the achievement of adaptive emotion functions. Adopting a theoretical conceptualisation of emotional processes that stresses activity in centrally mediated approach and withdrawal systems, we discuss the role of emotion in several forms of psychopathology, including major depression, some of the anxiety disorders, psychopathy, and schizophrenia. In doing so, we highlight the nature of emotion disturbance and attendant behavioural and cognitive deficits. Finally, we discuss the merits of this approach for conceptualising emotional disturbance in psychopathology.


(57) Abstract: solid ion device including a dense electrolyte sandwiched between two porous electrodes. In one embodiment, the apparatus is an anode support, the cathode porous three-dimensional solid having an ion conducting phase of the electrocatalyst phase and a plurality of ionic conductor particles of a plurality of electrocatalytic particles (14) (16) It is formed from a phase structure. The average size or median size of the electrocatalytic particles is greater than the average size or median size of the ion conductor particles. The apparatus may further comprise a long range electron conducting layer of lanthanum cobaltate or other electronically conductive material.


The moderate growth retardation frequently observed among children living at high altitude is usually assumed to result from hypoxic stress. However, such children are frequently from the poorer socioeconomic strata of their societies and may suffer malnutrition, poor hygiene, inadequate medical care, and overcrowding—factors also associated with growth retardation. The objective of this study was to determine if there is a statistically observable alteration in the growth of middle-class children of European ancestry during sojourn at high altitude. Semilongitudinal height/weight measurements were gathered retrospectively from medical records of 18 boys and 17 girls who were born at low altitude, were well-nourished and clinically normal, and who had lived at Achoma, Peru (altitude 3,200 m), continuously for 9–36 months. Measurements were divided, by sex, into four cohorts: I (3–6 months at Achoma), II (6–12 months), III (12–18 months), and IV (18–24 months); initial, presojourn, height and weight were also obtained. All heights and weights were normalized with age-specific reference values. Changes in Z scores (ΔZ) during sojourn were calculated for each subject by subtracting the score of the presojourn value from those of cohorts I–IV. Paired t-tests revealed, among the boys, a significant decline in Z score for weight during sojourn in all four cohorts. Weight scores for the girls also declined in all four cohorts, although only the change in cohort III was significant. Height scores showed a decline with time at sojourn in the boys, but in girls there is an initial drop followed by a steady increase to presojourn levels. These results are consistent with the view that moderate hypoxia exerts a primary growth-limiting effect even on healthy, well-nourished children.


The first set of key performance indicators for consumer participation in the acute health sector were recently published by the Victorian Department of Human Services. It was titled, Participation Indicators: Participation in your Health Service System: Victorian Consumers, Carers and the Community Working Together with Their Health Service and the Department of Human Services (Department of Human Services 2005). This document was intended to complement the health participation policy developed by the Department in 2005, discussed in this month's editorial.


OBJECTIVE
To screen optimal Inonotus obliquus strains that is suitable to cultivation, extracting effective components on industrialized production, genetics and breeding.

METHODS
Inonotus obliquus mycelia from different countries were used. High quality strain was screened by comparing the antagonism between Inonotus obliquus and penicillium. The contents of crude fat, crude ash, crude protein and crude fiber were analyzed.

RESULTS
It was showed that antagonism ability of Finnish birch was the strongest, its mycelia diameter was up to 53. 27 mm. It was also showed that nutritional ingredient was abundant in artificial cultured Inonotus obliquus strains. The contents of crude fat and crude protein in Finnish birch were higher, which was 1. 93% and 20. 23%, respectively. The contents of crude fat and crude protein in NBRC8681 strains were lower, which was 1. 55% and 19. 85%, respectively. The content of crude ash of JL04 strains was higher(8. 76%). The content of crude ash of NBRC8681 strains was lower(6. 8%). Crude fiber content was higher in HLJ01 strains, its content reached to 45. 09%. The least content appeared in MAFF420101 strains, whose crude fiber content was only 38. 27%.

CONCLUSION
The strains of Finnish birch, HLJ01 and JL04 are suitable to exploitation.


ABSTRACT The socio-legal tendency to categorise female killers as either 'mad', 'sad' 'bad' has been recognised as reflective of narrow notions of women's capacity for violence. If women only kill due to insanity, or as the result of prior victimisation (the 'mad' and 'sad'), then those who fall outside this narrative (the 'bad') risk legal and popular characterisation as non-women and even non-human. I consider the role of gender performance in which of these narratives are imposed upon a defendant and suggest that queer women are particularly susceptible to framing as monstrous due to their transgression of gender norms. This article will focus on the murders of Edward Baldock and Stacey Mitchell, both killed by lesbian couples in Australia in 1989 and 2006 respectively. Despite the intervening years, the defendants in both were characterised as vampiric in court and the news media, to the exclusion of relevant evidence of mental illness. I will examine this discursive and textual construction of the lesbian offender through Julie Kristeva's theory of abjection and explore how the creation of a legal monster justifies, and indeed necessitates, its expulsion from society, leading to harsher punishment for lesbian defendants.


The sodium/bicarbonate cotransporter NBCn1 regulates intracellular pH (pHi) and transepithelial HCO–3 movement. We examined NBCn1 expression and activity under acidic conditions and its contribution to ammonium movement in the mouse medullary thick ascending limb (MTAL) cell line ST‐1. Incubating cells at pH 6.8 for 24 h lowered the mean steady‐state pHi from 7.10 to 6.56. Immunoblot showed NBCn1 upregulation after acidic incubation. The Cl/HCO3 exchanger AE2 was present but its expression remained unaffected by acidic incubation. Acidic incubation decreased 14C‐methylammonium/ammonia (MA) accumulation by 22%. The 14C‐MA accumulation after acidic incubation was unaffected by 0.5 mM DIDS, whereas the accumulation in controls was reduced by DIDS. In CO2/HCO–3‐free solution, cells at normal pH accumulated 14C‐MA over 7 min and reached a plateau. In CO2/HCO–3 solution, however, cells markedly accumulated 14C‐MA over 30 min. This CO2/HCO–3‐dependent accumulation was reduced by DIDS. Cl– removal reduced the accumulation and this reduction was more substantial with DIDS. Expressed in Xenopus oocytes, NBCn1 increased CO2/HCO–3‐dependent 14C‐MA accumulation, which was abolished by replacing Na+. Two‐electrode voltage clamp exhibited negligible current upon NH4Cl application. We conclude that NBCn1 in the MTAL is upregulated under acidic conditions and the upregulation enhances ammonium uptake.


Most of the research to date has approached engagement from either the individual – or group-level, while there has been little effort to understand the employee engagement process across organizat...


Determining a life of the chemical filter on the basis of the same time to install the chemical filter for removing chemical impurities in the air intake port, the resonance frequency of fitting a gas sensor to adsorb the chemical impurities in the upstream side of the chemical filter, and the gas sensor do. Or a portion of the chemical filter, the removal capacity of chemical impurities at the same time the installation of low specific parts than the other portions, and to install a sensor for detecting a chemical impurities on the downstream side of the specific portion, based on the output of the sensor predict the lifetime of the chemical filter.


: The current research aimed at developing the skills of evaluating daily activities among kindergarten pre-service teachers using the Reggio Emilia approach. The research relied on the experimental research approach with the quasi-experimental design of one group with pre-and post-measurements for the study group due to its relevance to the research nature. The research sample consisted of (40) female students from the Faculty of Education for Early Childhood. The following tools were utilized: an observation card for pre-service teachers during evaluating kindergarten daily activities using the Reggio Emilia approach (prepared by the researcher), an achievement test to measure the level of scientific knowledge of the skills of evaluating daily activities among female for Early Childhood, and the training program employing the Reggio Emilia approach for developing some skills of evaluating kindergarten daily activities among pre-service teachers at Faculty of Education for Early Childhood. Results concluded that the training program employing the Reggio Emilia approach helped in developing some skills of evaluating kindergarten daily activities among pre-service teachers.


com Abstract- Thispaperpresents theimplementation ofnear numerically intensive algorithms. The internal program optimal Electrocardiogram (ECG)classifier based onMultilayermemoryisstructured sothat atotal ofeight instructions canbe Perceptron NeuralNetworks (MLP NN).Inthepresentfetched every cycle. Withaclock rate of150MHz,theC6711 investigations theoptimized MLP NN basedclassifier isdesigned andimplemented fordetection ofnormalandabnormalECG. iscapableof ng eight 32-biinstucis every Somedominant uniquefeatures ofECG areextracted using


In recent years, China's economy has developed rapidly, and accordingly, financial market has also developed rapidly in China, attracting the attention of investors domestic and foreign. Therefore, it is of vital significance to study the stock price trend in China's financial market for scholars, investors and regulators. With the rise of quantitative trading and other ideas, more and more scholars apply deep neural network (DNN) to the financial field. Although DNN has achieved great success in image, voice and text in recent years, it has encountered many challenges in financial time series prediction due to the highly dynamic and noisy feature of dataset. As a typical representative of DNN in time series data processing, LSTM, because this method does not consider the importance of data at different time points and different sources, the effect is still not ideal. Different from the introduction of the Attention mechanism on the traditional LSTM model, by improving the Self-Attention model, the daily data and the time-sharing data are encoded and fused separately, and the impact of changes in capital flow on changes in stock trends can be learned. The experimental results show that the proposed method improves the accuracy of trend judgment to 63.04%, and obtains a return of 6.562% in the two-month back testing experiment, which proves that the model has a certain effectiveness and practicability in stock price trend prediction.


Japan created the"9.18" event, occupied north-east China, then began to invade the whole China. Millions Manchus fought gravely with other nationalities, their battles were great and had the characterization of abundance, diversity, firmness and complexity.


Although the choropleth method is considered among the easiest cartographic methods, it lacks accurate representation of the real population density. In this regard, dasymetric maps offer the better alternative, especially for heterogonous spaces and those exhibit intense spatial dynamic, like the Greater Cairo Region, which has the highest population and population density among various Egyptian governorates. The current study aims mainly at comparing the dasymetric mapping technique with the choropleth mapping technique for studying the population density in the Greater Cairo Region. To this end, the satellite image processing and ArcGIS (version 10.6.1) were used. For instance, it was found, in the choropleth map, that the population density category ranged from 161.415 to 270.922 person per km2 occupied 1% of the total area of 1481 km2; whereas, in the dasymetric map, the population density category ranged from 139.986 to 761044 person per km2 concentrated in only 0.4% of the total area of 648 km2. Thus it is clear that the dasymetric mapping technique is more representative of the realistic population density distribution, because it eliminates all land uses except the residential land use. Conclusively, it is highly recommended to use the dasymetric mapping technique rather than the choropleth method.


We study the optical response of a strongly anisotropic nonmagnetic material. As a first case, it is considered an anisotropic nonmagnetic thin film (medium 2) sandwiched between medium 1 of refraction index n1 and medium 3 of refraction index n3. As a second case, the anisotropic thin film and medium 3 are interchanged. These geometries correspond to the Kretchmann [E. Kretschmann and H. Raether, Z. Naturforsch. A 23, 2135 (1968); E. Kretschmann, Z. Phys. 241, 313 (1971)] and Otto [A. Otto, Z. Phys. 216, 398 (1968)] attenuated total reflectivity arrays, respectively. Our main goal is to obtain a negative phase velocity propagation. To achieve this we choose an index of refraction n1>1 and show how the appropriate angle of incidence allows us to induce a negative phase velocity nonmagnetic material. We focused our attention in two distinct regions that emerge in the reflectivity curves when varying the angle of incidence. In the first region, the minima of the reflectivity are interpreted in terms of the ...


Companeros de viaje (1959), Jaime Gil de Biedma's first book of poems, consists of three seemingly heterogeneous parts, which include poems belonging to very different movements: symbolist introspection in one extreme and committed social poetry in another. The purpose of the present article is to demonstrate that this heterogeneity is deliberate; that by including poems with such different traits in a single volume Gil de Biedma has attempted to describe an important evolution in his career as a poet: an evolution which passes from an experience centered on the first person singular (the "I") to one totally given over to the first person plural (the "we"). The article also hopes to demonstrate how the poet, anticipating the title he was to give to his collected poetry, uses the different persons of the verb to underline this evolution.


In this paper,we introduce principle and classify automobile belt continuous varable transmission by analyzing the developmental history,shortcomings and merits.All of these are very significant in application of automobile belt continuous varable transmission.


The utility model relates to a test device of a merging unit, which is characterized in that the test device comprises a light input plate, an analog quantity regulation plate, a back plate, a main central processing unit (CPU) plate and an analog quantity output plate, wherein the light input plate and the analog quantity regulation plate are respectively connected with the back plate through a data wire or a plug-in module, the main CUP plate is connected with the analog quantity output plate through the data wire or the plug-in module, the test device can adopt a digital mutual inducer input mode and a traditional mutual inducer input mode, and the functions of input and output time delay test, sampling precision test, sampling pulse and time mark error test, real-time waveform data analysis display, waveform record and test data display and the like on the merging unit are realized.


A slurry impingement rig containing 6 wt.% SiO2 particles was used to investigate synergistic erosion–corrosion behavior of X-65 carbon steel at various impingement angles. Maximum erosion–corrosion and erosion rates occurred at impingement angles of about 25 deg and 40–55 deg, respectively. The synergy value highly depended on the impingement angle. The formation of patches of porous corrosion product followed by the formation of corrosion pits led to a positive synergy under impingement angle of 25 deg. At higher impingement angles, the absence of pits probably due to the formation of a more durable tribocorrosion layer resulted in a negative synergy.


Recent trends in the field of communication science show that most devices are built and governed by Visible Light Communication (VLC) and Light Emitting Diodes (LED). The communication process depends on source characteristics and bandwidth restriction, and effective methods of modulation and demodulation can enhance data rate. Attractive and practical Carrierless Amplitude-Phase (CAP) modulation is used for higher efficiency and easier implementation. However, the performance of the CAP-VLC system gets adversely affected by factors like jamming, scattering, and low sensitivity to receiver signal. Hence, this paper examines the mitigation of available system degrading factors, based on a high-speed, extreme learning machine algorithm (ELM). Prediction analysis and simulation are processed using trained raw dataset for CAP demodulation, to prove the level of performance in terms of accuracy as 92%, under various parametric conditions. This system that is proposed can achieve bit error rate (BER) of 40% to 50% of noise ratio and can be effectively used in sectors like medical health care, banking, and finance.


Last week saw more questions and, maybe, a few answers about the drawn-out controversy over recent H5N1 avian flu research. After exchanges of letters and a congressional hearing, cooler heads seem...


Current situations of domestic standardization for PVC resins were analyzed,and the following suggestions were proposed: ① making a good job of establishing and revising standard closely around the industrial development and social demand;② reinforcing the rate of adopting advanced standards and improving the technological level of standards;③ focusing on the development of standards for special PVC resins;④ promoting the work of standardization in enterprises.


Before Erich Fromm there was 'one-person psychology.' Then, through a respectful, ambitious, but uncompromising revision of Freudian theory, Fromm helped lead us to our current relational perspective that considers the complexities of a 'two-person' interpersonal, contextual view of human functioning and therapeutic treatment. This book succinctly summarizes Fromm's main contributions to psychoanalysis, assessing their strengths and weaknesses and considering their utility in light of contemporary developments in psychoanalysis and related fields. It shows the vitality and relevance of Fromm's ideas for today's clinical and social problems.


Objective To study the abdominal CT findings of the penicilliesis marneffei in patients with AIDS.Methods Abdominal CT imaging features of the the penicilliesis mameffei in 35 patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) were retrospectively analyzed.Results Abdominal lymph adenopathy was observed in 27 (77.1%) cases.Hepatosplenomegaly was observed in 18 (51.4%) cases.Lesions in the liver and spleen were found in 11 (31.4%) cases which included 3 cases of low density nodules in the liver (8.6%) and 5 cases of low density nodules in the spleen (14.3%).5 cases of diffuse low density in the liver (14.3%) and 5 cases of heterogeneous enhancement in the liver (14.3%) .Thickening of the intestinal wall was observed in 3 cases (8.6%). Ascites was observed in 4 cases (11.4%).Pancreatitis was found in 1 case(2.9%).Conclusions Penicilliosis marneffei in patients with AIDS usually involves multiple organs in the abdomen.Abdominal lymphadenopathy, hepatosplenomegaly and parenchymai lesions in the liver and spleen are the most common CT findings in the abdomen.

Key words:
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome;  Tomography,X-ray computed


Objective To investigate the curative effect of lattic CO2 laser in the treatment of atrophic acne scars. Method 92 patients with atrophic acne scars in our hospital from January 2013 to December 2013 were treated with lattic CO2 laser for 4 times. The curative effects and adverse reactions were observed. Result After treatment, the number of cured, excellent, effective and invalid patients were 18(19.56%), 30(32.61%), 31(33.67%) and 13(14.13%), respectively. The total effective rate was 85.87%. There was no significant difference among the curative effect of patient with different disease course(P 0.05). The total effective rate increased with the treatment times, with significant difference(P 0.01). Patients had red or swelling, local burning sensation, mild pain and discomfort, 3 cases of mild infectious pustules, used chlortetracycin hydrochloride eye ointment for 3 days remission; 1 case of pigmentation, subsided within 2 months; 1 case of persistent redness, after 2 months of extinction. Conclusion Lattic CO2 laser is an effective and safety method to treat atrophic acne scars, multiple treatment is recommended for the way.


Light rail transit systems (LRTs) are attractive options for modern communities as they offer high quality, sustainable public transportation services. However, investment costs often may make their application for medium-sized cities prohibitive, particularly if no significant social benefits are achieved. Guided light transit (GLT) has been introduced in the recent years, as a lower cost alternative to LRT, with the additional advantage of being suitable for urban environments with space limitations. In this study, a systematic comparison of LRT and GLT is offered, in the context of a mid-size city in Greece. Results indicate that high investment costs, coupled with low ridership can have a negative impact to the introduction of LRT in a medium-sized city. However, under certain conditions, GLT may be a viable alternative, while its nature and characteristics are not that different to those of LRT.


Abstract. Many studies of experimental economics have producedoutcomes which contradict the predictions of Nash equilibrium,which relies heavily upon the premise of sel shness of an individ-ual. In the games involving contexts of social conicts representedby the prisoners' dilemma game, the experiments yields outcomesquite di erent from what are predicted by the conventional wisdom.In order to ll this gap between the conventional Nash Equilibriumand experimental outcomes, non-sel sh (or other-regarding) mo-tives of human behavior are introduced and then a new equilibriumconcept, RAE-equilibrium is developed. It is also proved that anRAE-equilibrium exists under quite general conditions. Then it isapplied to the prisoners' dilemma game that some of the experi-mental outcomes can be explained. 1. IntroductionThe intention of a country or an institution that provides commonpool resources is to manage and/or maintain ways to enable many peopleto use the commons e ectively for a long period of time. However, itis a well-known fact that the use by unspeci c multi-parties withoutany restriction causes the economic ineciency of resources under theabuse in so-called 'the tragedy of the commons'. Existing studies on theissue of abusing commons have three analysis models: the tragedy ofthe commons, the prisoner's dilemma game and the logic of collective


Within each culture, the multi-source origins play an essential role to form its distinct moral and aesthetic values, which emphasize the cultural identity. These values were accumulated through ages. That's why every single cultural tributary should be traced, to demonstrate the extent of its impact on specific city identity formation. The Egyptian government pays due attention to Siwa Oasis because of its special historical and cultural characteristics. It happens in co-operation with one of the Culture Ministry sectors "the General organization for Cultural Palaces", that adopted the idea of reviving the project of city studios. Such initiative has been established before at the city of Luxor. For example, a financial and logistic support was provided for the initiative in a similar context. From this standing point, this paper provides a historical study about Siwa Oasis since its inception at the Ancient Egyptian era and through the Greco-Roman, the Coptic-Islamic era, and the Arab influences till now. Also, I will review the Siwa studios grant: procedures, different sessions and the most interesting aspect of it, which is the exhibitions. The historical and cultural overview will include: the Significant monuments in the city, location and environment, population and their language, traditions, and custom, and finally, the Siwa Oasis features nowadays. Reviewing the project stages will include: how to apply? On what bases the participants was chosen? Also, information about the time schedule, the site-visits, etc. Finally, I will analyze some artworks from 2009 till now in order to emphasize the importance of such activity on the cultural map.


For employees serving in various fields from staff in office, to worker in workplace or to the driver in vehicle, there are many elements threatening the health and safety of the employees in workplaces. By work health and safety services and the risk assessments, the risks are tried to be minimized in a controlled manner. However forests, which are one of the important natural sources of our world, include many activity areas (working style) due to the properties they have, therefore forestry studies are conducted in various conditions and areas. Some important features of forestry labor are that forest works cover a wide area and proceed under changing conditions, work amount and time is stable, the material subject to work and place is not constant, it is assumed to be a heavy duty so occupational accident rate is high, great freedom is granted to the worker in the organization of the work. For this reason and due to the different properties of forestry sector in terms of working life, legislation provisions cannot be sufficiently applied and the conducted work health and safety studies cannot go beyond creating awareness on this field. The aim of the study is to evaluate the developments on work health and safety in forest harvesting sector under legal scope, to research what kind of activities or policies are created for preventing or minimizing the risks, to emphasize the different working conditions demonstrated by forestry work field and to ensure the submission of suggestions. Keywords: Working life, Work health and safety, Legislation, Forestry, Risk


Yttrium-90 (90Y) radioembolization involves the intra-arterial delivery of radioactive microspheres for treating liver tumors. Although primarily a β− emitter, 90Y occasionally emits positrons via internal pair production. There is growing interest in positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of these microspheres following radioembolization to localize and quantify their distribution. Due to the low abundance of positron emission (0.0032%), the PET images are highly sensitive to the parameters of iterative reconstruction algorithms used in clinical PET imaging. In this study, we aim to determine the optimal 90Y PET reconstruction parameters for PET/MRI that provide maximal activity recovery while maintaining a moderate noise level. We imaged an ACR phantom filled with 90Y chloride solution on two Siemens Biograph mMR scanners with a total activity of 1.00 GBq–7.43 GBq. Images were reconstructed with varying iteration number, post-reconstruction filter size, and scatter correction method. In addition, we evaluated the effects of incorporating point spread function (PSF) compensation as well as reducing the scan time and imaging off the central axis of the scanner in order to simulate realistic patient acquisition protocols as closely as possible. Recovery coefficients (RCs) for hot cylinders 8–25 mm in diameter reached near convergence with limited noise at 3 iterations, 21 subsets, 5 mm FWHM Gaussian post-reconstruction filter, use of PSF compensation, and absolute scatter correction across all scans. RCs increased by as much as 17% and noise decreased by as much as 29% when scan time duration was 30 min compared to only 15 min. Images acquired with the phantom placed 7–10 cm off the central axis of the scanner exhibited slightly reduced RCs, especially for the lowest activity scan. Although optimal reconstruction parameters with current reconstruction software were determined in this study, these parameters failed to achieve perfect count recovery, suggesting further investigation of 90Y PET imaging is required.


1. According to an identity theory of truth, a proposition is true if and only if it is identical with a fact. Whereas a correspondence theorist holds that facts are extralinguistic items which make propositions true, an identity theorist, by contrast, believes true propositions to be facts. From the perspective of the identity theorist, the correspondence theorist is guilty of double vision: she looks for correspondence where there can only be coincidence. The history of identity theories of truth has recently attracted some interest,1 but we should not make the mistake of thinking that a concern with them is one of mere philosophical archaeology. For in the course of his imaginative and fecund John Locke lectures [7], John McDowell makes remarks of which an identity theorist would be proud. However, it is the contention of this brief article that McDowell conflates two distinct, and opposed, identity theories. Ironically, given his claim to show us how to dismount from one particular philosophical see-saw (whose end points are the Myth of the Given and coherentism ([7], p. 9)), McDowell himself is perched upon a see-saw of his own.


The aim of this paper is to define how technology is helping to agribusiness and its growth. Literally speaking business means bushes. Business concerns with buying and selling goods, manufacturing goods or providing services in order to earn profit. Agriculture has evolved in to agribusiness and has become a vast and complex system that reaches for beyond the farm to include all those who are involved in bringing food and fiber to consumers. This system has undergone a rapid transformation as new industries have evolved and traditional farming operations have grown larger and more specialized. The farms that meet the consumers demand for greater processing and convenience also constitute a major part of agribusiness and are referred to as the processing manufacturing sector. The food and fibre system is increasingly being referred to as "agribusiness". The term agribusiness was first introduced by Davis and Goldberg in 1957. it represents three part system made up of (1) the agricultural input sector (2) the production sector and (3) the processing-manufacturing sector. The applications of technology have not only increased food production in real terms, but have dramatically reduced the number of individuals directly involved in food production/processing – enabling the diversification of society to address social issues not directly related to "survival", but generally seen to increase the quality of life. The role that biological and chemical technology have played, continue to play, and will play in the future development of agriculture. Technology has been essential to agricultural productivity/stability, current breakthroughs in technology confirm that the development of new technologies is a sustainable endeavour, and directs us to that technology will enable sustainable agriculture in future. The objective of the modern technology is to meet the new machinery that is used to perform different jobs in the field and it gives the expected outcomes.


Although research has indicated many positive outcomes related to service-learning experiences, challenges remain, especially when projects are set in communities that are culturally distinct from the home communities of student participants. Through interviews with 15 service-learning facilitators, this research identifies important considerations and potential best practices related to orientation and postexperience communication in intercultural service-learning contexts. In most cases, postexperience communication was limited and informal, but four primary approaches to preliminary communication about intercultural service emerged in the data: direct interaction with people from the host community or culture, assigned readings, research projects, and discussions.


Many scholars research the politics,the culture and the economy about Lingnan region.However,few specialists study the distribution of Guang zhou city.Although,only fifty five years,governed by Liu from grandfather Liu Yin to grandson Liu Chang,twenty six palaces and eight gardens were reserved.The enomorous architecture project was determined by the economical strength of the regime.


In this paper we propose a prototype of mobile car license plate recognition system for helping user identify car information on smartphone. The research presented here addresses special requirement and challenges in mobile application. The implementation of new architecture and system process flow with functions will help user real-time car image photograph, recognition and identification. We demonstrate the feasibility of this system by experimental results.


An experiment using a sample of 11th graders compared text editing and worked examples approaches in learning to solve dilution and molarity algebra word problems in a chemistry context. Text editing requires students to assess the structure of a word problem by specifying whether the problem text contains sufficient, missing, or irrelevant information for reaching a solution. Worked examples direct students to follow steps toward the solution, and its emphasis is on computation instead of the formation of a coherent problem model. Text editing yielded higher scores in a transfer test (which shared the same solution procedure as in the acquisition problems but differed in contexts), but not a similar test (which resembled acquisition problems in terms of both solution procedure and context). Results provide some theoretical support and practical implications for using text editing to develop a coherent problem model to facilitate problem-solving skills in chemistry.


Empirical tools for planning access to transit systems are developed. Transit access is defined as those portions of the journey spent getting to the transit system, and then from the transit system to the destination point. The usual transit modes include the following: walking, park-and-ride, kiss-and-ride, paratransit feeder, transit feeder, taxi and bicycle. The impact of the access characteristics on transit ridership and the normative definition of the area accessed by the transit system are explored. The models presented concern bus routes (in Vancouver, St. Louis and Washington, D. C.) and commuter rail and express bus service (in northeastern New Jersey). The models determine normative classifications for transit service areas on the basis of access distance and time.


Despite research on cervical cells since 1925, systems to automatically screen images from conventional Pap smear tests continue to be unavailable. One of the main challenges in deploying precise s...


A new series of benzothiazolo-benzothiadiazine hybrids (9a-g) has been synthesized and evaluated for their antibacterial activity against clinical isolates of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Some of these hybrids in this series exhibited antibacterial activity comparable to ampicillin. In addition, some of the compounds showed DNA gyrase inhibitory activity at a moderate level compared to ciprofloxacin.


We discuss four potential ways to reduce conflict between groups: consideration of future consequences, independent leadership, outgroup empathy, and coordination. We review relevant empirical findings for each method and discuss how each can be used to promote intergroup cooperation.


The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary co njugated linoleic acid(CLA) supplementation on the growth performance,serum biochemical parameters and hormones contents of pigs.160 healthy Landrace×Rongchang pigs were divided randomly into 5 groups,each of which contained 0,0.5%,1.0%,1.5% and 2.0% CLA,respectively.The experiment ended when the average body weight growed up to about 90 kg.The results showed that CLA could affect the growth performance of pigs,which correlated with the levels of CLA.1.0% CLA significantly decreased F/G(P 0.05),with no obvious difference in ADG.Moreover,CLA treatment might caused significance to some of serum biochemical indexes and hormone contents.1.0% ~2.0% CLA markedly decreased the contents of serum HDL,APOA1,T3and cortical hormone(P 0.05).It was suggested that CLA could impove the growth performance,increase the feed conversion efficiency of pigs,and the appropriate dose of CLA was 1.0%.Furthermore,CLA might affect the fat metabolism of pigs in some extent.


In this paper, we study a simple means for coordinating teams of simple agents. In particular, we study ant robots and how they can cover terrain once or repeatedly by leaving markings in the terrain, similar to what ants do. These markings can be sensed by all robots and allow them to cover terrain even if they do not communicate with each other except via the markings, do not have any kind of memory, do not know the terrain, cannot maintain maps of the terrain, nor plan complete paths. The robots do not even need to be localized, which completely eliminates solving difficult and time-consuming localization problems. In this paper, we use real-time heuristic search methods to implement ant robots and present a simulation study with several real-time heuristic search methods to study their properties for terrain coverage. Our experiments show that all of the real-time heuristic search methods robustly cover terrain even if the robots are moved without realizing this, some robots fail, and some markings get destroyed. These results demonstrate that terrain coverage with real-time heuristic search methods is an interesting alternative to more conventional terrain coverage methods.


The velocities of the positive and negative ions produced by Rontgen rays in 4 gases and 15 vapours have been measured at normal temperatures over a wide range of pressures and under different electric intensities. Langevin's direct null method was employed throughout. For a constant pressure the velocity of the ion was found to vary as the electric intensity.


In conclusion, this thesis presents the findings of various experimental therapeutic approaches on in the treatment of acute kidney injury in different experimental models. The findings indicate that the resuscitation fluids commonly used with the idea of protecting the kidney actually do not correct systemic inflammation or oxidative stress, and therefore do not prevent renal ischemia and hypoxia. Nonetheless, even though fluid resuscitation does not have any effects on renal oxygenation, it is of course better than not resuscitating at all. Therefore, optimization of fluid therapy, such as balancing fluids, and other therapeutic approaches aimed to protect the kidney, is utmost important. Taking into account our studies on antioxidants, a new generation of fluids could be developed, incorporating antioxidant properties. However, the long-term effects of balanced and antioxidant-enriched resuscitation on renal function warrants further study.


Learning is often perceived as a very complex and many-sided matter that is fuelled by social interaction and participation. It is therefore no wonder that in today's knowledge and information-led society the concepts of 'lifelong learning and knowledge' have become more popular in relation to both the formation and implementation of policies and strategies, including those around the planning and realisation of spatial development projects. The overarching purpose of this master thesis is therefore to explore the role of learning and knowledge within the urban area development project HafenCity Hamburg by focussing on the learning activities and the impacts these learning activities have on the project's master plan development. In order to reveal the learning process within HafenCity Hamburg a literature review about urban area development, learning, and knowledge is conducted, accompanied with an empirical research to get a deeper understanding about the learning process. In this research process a critical discourse analysis is used as a tool to interpret the learning process in HafenCity Hamburg and to find an explanation concerning the changes in the various master plans. The results of this research suggest that the changes in the master plans imply a learning process. The discourse analysis supports the idea that the identified learning activities fuel the learning process and up to a certain extent affects the project's master plan development. Evidence also suggests that learning within HafenCity Hamburg can be seen as a process as well as a product. Learning as a process in HafenCity can be seen as deploying a series of learning activities over time, leading to some durable changes in regard to the development and planning process of HafenCity Hamburg. Learning as a product in HafenCity is the result of the learning process i.e. the consequence of learning, which is the knowledge generated by the learning activities that led to certain changes in the master plans. Besides, it can be concluded that learning within urban area development projects is strongly associated with an adaptive and even reactive learning process resulting in an enduring change in the development and or planning process in regard to the quality of the content, process, and/or individual building projects. Describing the learning process within HafenCity Hamburg implicates that learning is present within spatial development projects and that this exploratory research established a foundation for further research and future explorations in this domain of learning within urban area development.


The objective of this study was to describe how students with a dynamic view of limit generalize their understanding of the limit concept in a multivariable setting. This description emphasizes the type of generalization that takes place among the students (Harel and Tall, 1989) and the role of motion among students' conceptualizations. To achieve these goals, a series of task-based interviews were conducted with seven students enrolled in multivariable calculus. These interviews were analyzed and a coding scheme was developed to describe the data. This coding scheme arose from analysis of the data combined with the role of limit in formal mathematics. It emphasizes three models for understanding the limit concept, the dynamic model, the neighborhood model, and the topographical model. After analyzing the coded data, two important interactions between the three models of limit were described. First, it was found that students superimposed dynamic imagery on top of existing topographical structures in order to understand multivariable limits, and a weak topographical understanding of multivariable limits contributed to students struggling to understand the multivariable limit concept. Second, it was found that students implementing dynamic imagery in the context of multivariable limits confronted an infinite process of analyzing motion along an infinite number of paths. It was found that students' struggles to understand the multivariable limit were connected to their struggles to understand this infinite process. Additionally, it was found that the condensation of this infinite process led several students towards the neighborhood model of limit. URI https://hdl.handle.net/11244/6825 Collections OSU Dissertations [9238] DSpace software copyright © 2002-2016 DuraSpace Contact Us | Send Feedback Theme by Students' conceptualizations of multivariable limits SHAREOK advancing Oklahoma scholarship, research and institutional memory 


Five classes of up to 13 a posteriori error estimators compete in three second-order model cases, namely the conforming and non-conforming firstorder approximation of the Poisson-Problem plus some conforming obstacle problem. Since it is the natural first step, the error is estimated in the energy norm exclusively. The competition allows merely guaranteed error control and excludes the question of the best error guess. The former a posteriori error estimators apply to the obstacle problem as well and lead to surprisingly accurate guaranteed upper error bounds. This approach allows an extension to more general boundary conditions and a discussion of efficiency for the affine benchmark examples. The Luce-Wohlmuth and the least-square error estimators win the competition in several computational benchmark problems. Novel equilibration of nonconsistency residuals and novel conforming averaging error estimators win the competition for Crouzeix-Raviart nonconforming finite element methods. Our numerical results provide sufficient evidence that guaranteed error control in the energy norm is indeed possible with efficiency indices between one and two.


Check it out! Weirdness and bizarre brainfucking from the WTO!
Web devolution is the only solution! Freak out the squares!
Beaujolais!


Whole-body imaging with fluorescent proteins has been shown to be a powerful technology with many applications in small animals. Our laboratory pioneered in vivo imaging with fluorescent proteins (1) including noninvasive whole-body imaging (2). Whole-body imaging with fluorescent proteins depends in large part on the brightness of the protein. Brighter, red-shifted proteins can make whole-body imaging more sensitive due to reduced absorption by tissues and less scatter. Non-invasive imaging with fluorescent proteins has been shown to be able to quantitatively track tumor growth and metastasis, gene expression, angiogenesis, and bacterial infection (3) even at subcellular resolution depending on the position of the cells in the animal. Interference by skin autofluorescence is kept to a minimum with the use of proper filters. To noninvasively image cancer cell/stromal cell interaction in the tumor microenvironment and drug response at the cellular level in live animals in real time, we developed a new imageable three-color animal model. The model consists of green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing mice transplanted with dual-color cancer cells labeled with GFP in the nucleus and red fluorescent protein (RFP) in the cytoplasm. Various in vivo phenomena of tumor-host interaction and cellular dynamics were imaged, including mitotic and apoptotic tumor cells, stromal cells interacting with the tumor cells, tumor vasculature, and tumor blood flow as well as drug response. This imageable technology should lead to many new insights of in vivo cancer cell biology.


The present invention provides: an insulation wire wherein a conductor is covered by at least one layer of an insulating material and there is at least one air bubble layer in the thickness direction in the covered layer, and the insulation wire has a portion the thickness of which is thin in either the length direction or the circumferential direction of the covered layer; a method of manufacturing therefor; a method of manufacturing a stator for a rotary electric machine; and a rotary electric machine.


The new flavour of the moment in insurance litigation is the doctrine of subrogation. The intricacies surrounding the insurer's right of subrogation seem to come under judicial scrutiny more often than any other single topic, even those perennial favourites misrepresentation and non-disclosure.


A study was conducted to explore the effects of frequency, method, and level on temporal integration both at and above threshold. Listeners' thresholds were measured at three frequencies (250, 500, and 4000 Hz) using two methods (tracking and 2 IFC adaptive procedure), for duration of 20, 80, and 640 ms. Employing the same frequencies and signal durations, loudness‐balance data were obtained from the same group of listeners at 40 and 70 dB SPL using two different loudness balance methods (a method of adjustment and an adaptive procedure). Major findings were (1) threshold integration varied inversely with frequency, particularly for the tracking procedure; (2) temporal loudness summation varied inversely with level for both methods with little difference in integration values as a function of frequency; and (3) no one method emerged superior with respect to variability at either threshold or suprathreshold. [Work supported by the Veterans Administration.]


Abstract Diastereomerically pure O-protected thymine monothioate nucleotide (I) is efficiently coupled to protected thymidine (II) in a chemoselective, but not stereoselective manner, to give dithymidine phosphorothioates (III).


Reaction of 9-diazofluorene with 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyanobenzoquinone gave an oxirane. It was found that the oxirane formed 1 : 1 molecular complexes with solvents on recrystallizing from some solvents such as acetone, acetonitrile, 1,4-dioxane, and benzene.


A voltage sensitive preamplifier design is presented for operation at 1.6 K. The active device is a Sony 3SK164 dual‐gate GaAs metal‐semiconductor field‐effect transistor (MESFET), which was chosen for its low‐frequency noise performance, stability against oscillations, and the inclusion of a gate protection diode. Active devices made from GaAs operate at cryogenic temperatures without carrier ''freeze out.'' The main design goal was to keep the power dissipation in the cryostat minimal, while maintaining high bandwidth and low noise. This was achieved by operating four parallel MESFETs at cryogenic temperatures in cascode with a room‐temperature Si JFET. Parallel operation gives a higher transconductance‐to‐power dissipation ratio than with a single device. The input cascode is followed by high‐speed, low‐noise operational amplifiers. The low‐frequency noise corner occurs at 100 kHz. The white voltage noise of the preamplifier referred to the input is <0.9 nV/Hz1/2 at 1 MHz with 2 mW dissipated in the cr...


Kalmar lantman is a large company with a large energy consumption, producing mainly ceral based feed; Notfor, Piggfor, Pullfor and Farfor. Kalmar lantman has been ordered by the environmental authorities to prepare an energy saving plan, to further a continued development towards becoming a more energy efficient enterprise. This is a proposal on how to extract data on the present performance, how to design an energy saving plan and how to save energy. The present energy performance at Kalmar lantman is compared to a similar enterprise. Recommendations in this thesis are mainly based upon experiences from reports from Energikontor Sydost Energy Agency of southeast Sweden, Energimyndigheten and Miljosamverkan Sverige.


Now a days, Internet activities are growing in exponential rate so are the criminal activities, with the growth of internet usage. Internet is also a source of malicious web pages. Automatic Malicious URL identification resulted a relative novel and sensitive security challenging area. The area would aim in aiding the users to overcome security threats due to the presence of malicious webpage's resulting in a better network security. The present study makes attempt in assessing and identifying malicious websites, a malicious identification model is proposed using deep learning ideas. The present work uses the URL and HTML based features to identify malicious websites. PCA is applied to reduce features, dominating features are identified. It is found that dominating features play vital role in segregating the URLs into malicious and non-malicious. Dataset from PhishTank and Alexa is used in this study. Seven Layer Neural Network has shown significant improvements resulting in accuracy of 94%. The proposed work gave true-positive rate 95.51 and False-malicious rate 9.51.


PET-CT is the only current medical imaging technology to provide both metabolic and morphologic information in anatomical configuration mode, with high sensitivity and non-invasion. As one of the optimal measures in tumor diagnosis and therapy, abnormally-increased FDG uptake of some subtypes therefore makes an increasing application of PET-CT in lymphoma. The progress of PET-CT in lymphoma will be summarized in this paper based on the reports from the 58th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting.

Key words:
Lymphoma; Positron-emission tomography; Computed tomography; American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting


With the rapid development of Internet technology, the educational administration management in Colleges and universities should keep close to the informatization. In the traditional educational administration system, the disadvantage of information management is becoming increasingly apparent, and it is also a good choice to carry out information construction. Through the research, we can find that there are still many problems in the process of information construction of university educational administration system, and there is still a lot of room for information construction in many universities. This paper will analyze the current situation of the construction of educational management information system in Colleges and universities, on the basis of this, put forward corresponding strategies on how to improve the educational management system of information construction, to further enhance the educational management system of informatization degree and level.


A novel image completion method is proposed that uses the advantage of planar structural information to fill corrupted portions of an image. First, in estimating parameters of the projection plane, the image is divided into several planes, and their planar structural information is analyzed. Second, in calculating the a priori probability of patch and patch offset regularity, this information is converted into a constraint condition to guide the process of filling the hole. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is fast and effective, and ensures the structure continuity of the damaged region and smoothness of the texture.


The capital markets across the world are evolving, leading to inventions of new generation financial instruments, with an aim of having investment portfolio with highest possible returns and minimum possible risks. Some of this tools happen to be called as Derivatives. The past decade has witnessed explosive growth in the use of financial derivatives by a wide range of corporate as a cheap source of funds. Forwards, Futures and Options are instruments that are widely used for hedging and speculating. They are derivatives, which values derive from other financial products. An attempt to review these derivatives from the shariah perspectives would be the aim of this paper in order to encourage consequent papers to be written in this area especially from the Islamic perspectives.


In taking the landscape-scale view increasingly demanded of natural resource management, scientific assessments make considerable use of geographic information systems (GIS) maps to convey the research findings they develop. Public interaction with scientists over natural resource management issues is therefore frequently mediated by such maps, which can directly influence how the landscape is viewed, and how science findings are communicated and understood. Analysis of the Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling Study (CLAMS) project in western Oregon reveals that GIS maps play a significant role in how we frame and address natural resource management issues. They can support the role of privileged knowledge as held by the map makers, typically scientists, and may reinforce it by the de facto "map tyranny" that gives primacy to scientific worldviews. But they can also enable broader kinds of inquiry through multiple frames of reference, enhancing story-making opportunities for stakeholders. Which of these trajectories is followed is affected by resource availability and new perceptions of responsibility, each of which reflects social power structures. The CLAMS case study suggests that map user/non-scientists appear less likely to be victims of "map tyranny" the more familiar they are with the technology. Accordingly, they become more likely to push for usable results from it, and more confident about engaging their own knowledge with that of the map maker/scientists.


Occasionally, in the midst of satisfying customer requirements, we have to assess whether or not we are really making progress in terms of achieving more effective helicopters. We should identify both the areas which offer the greatest potential for improvement and those in which improvement is the most required. Then, we must decide on the amount of effort we will put into improving these areas.


In India, the beche-de-mer industry mainly depends on Holothuria scabra, commonly called sandfish, a highly valued and widely distributed species. In addition to this, another species, H. spinifera, commonly known as brown sandfish, is also fished in large quantities and widely processed along the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay, on the south-east coast of India. The animal is brown on the upper surface and lighter on the lower surface, with sharp projections all over the body (Fig. 1a). Being a highly burrowing species, it is found on clean sand in slightly deeper waters (James 2001). This species, locally called Cheena attai (or Raja attai), was once rated high in the market and was in good demand in China. At present, the market value is moderate, the freshly caught specimens are priced at Rs. 10–15/piece and the processed ones (Fig.1b) fetch Rs. 500–1000/kg depending on the size. H. spinifera is fished throughout the year, usually by trawlers that form the major part of the sea cucumber fishery. It is also caught as a by-catch of thallumadi, a local fishing gear, and by skin diving during peak seasons. James et al. (1997) reported an estimated landing of 460 tonnes by a trawl net, modified to collect chanks locally known as chanku madi, during 1994–95 along the Rameswaram coast of the Palk Bay area. Sea cucumber caught in trawlers command a lesser price than those collected by skin diving, due to quality difference. Moreover, H. spinifera is very sensitive in nature and even a slight disturbance leads the animal to eviscerate, usually the gut along with the right respiratory tree and sometimes the gonad also. Hence, the specimens collected through skin diving were used as broodstock. Considering their commercial value, attempts were initiated for the hatchery production of seed. The hatchery technology for H. scabra has been developed by James et al. (1988). This paper presents the results of the


Background Only unequivocal evidence confirming the total extent of injury. Biomechanical analysis, objectifications of permanent consequences after injury and objectification, whether such injuries influence life activities ofan injured person, should be the basics for preparation of expert medical opinion. To make a necessary distinction from the previous injuries or illnesses that might have influence on current health state of a patient and its treatment, analysis of all medical records of a certain injured person is needed. Therefore this are inevitable steps in preparation of an expert medical opinion. In cases when medical opinion should explain disability of a patient as a consequence of a certain contractual relationship, the contrctct should be taken into consideration when such opinions is prepared. Methods 500opinions have been retrospectively analysed, selected at random out of 3452 opinions, submitted in claims for damages at Zavarovalnica Maribor, d. d.,in the period from January 2001 until January 2006. Thirteen typical data have been analysed and evaluated on the basis of objective evidences. Results On the basis of analyses it hots been established that there is a great difference between principles of objectification and the data in analysed opinions. It has been noticed the most obvious deviation in biomechanical analysis (95%), in records of decreased life activities (90%), in all medical records of an injured person (65%) and in objectification of permanent consequences after injuries (55%). Conclusions As results of analysis demonstrate, there are significant differences in preparations of expert and medical opinions in Slovenia, particularly when basic principles are analysed that need to be considered when writing such opinions. (Abstract truncated at 2000 characters)


OBJECTIVES
To study whether isometric shoulder endurance was more advantageous than isometric shoulder strength training in reducing pain and perceived exertion and to increase shoulder function through improved muscle endurance and strength.

DESIGN
Randomized trial.

SETTING
Three occupational health care centers.

PARTICIPANTS
Women industrial workers with nonspecific neck-shoulder pain. The International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) diagnosis was "cervicobrachial syndrome" (M53.1). Thirty-eight patients completed the isometric shoulder endurance training and 31 patients completed the isometric shoulder strength training.

INTERVENTION
Twelve weeks of training.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Self-reported pain and rating of perceived exertion (RPE), arm motion performance test, shoulder muscle strength, shoulder muscle endurance, and shoulder functional tests, as well as follow-up after supervised training had ended.

RESULTS
The isometric shoulder strength training resulted in an almost one-scale step decrease in RPE at work and a 5% to 15% improvement of arm motion performance compared with the endurance training. The isometric shoulder strength training more effectively improved left side shoulder abduction strength (p < .026), but no major differences were found for the other strength measurements. The isometric shoulder endurance training was not more successful than the strength training in the endurance test (p .51 to .81).

CONCLUSIONS
Physical training programs for neck-shoulder pain may include isometric shoulder muscular strength exercise in addition to isometric shoulder endurance training, rather than endurance training only.


The dynamics model of a tilting car system is established.The numerical simulation method is used to study the dynamics performance of radial bogies when the tilting train negotiates a curve.The simulation results show that,when a tilting train negotiates a curve at a speed 30% higher than a normal train,the application of forced steering bogies can effectively reduce the wheel-rail wear and improve the dynamics performance,the actively controlled radial bogie can have the similar effect as the forced steering radial bogie,the curve negotiation performances of both bogies above are better than those of the non-steering and the self-steering bogies,and they have fairly high non-linear critical speed.The controlled radial bogie can conveniently ajust the radial gain,and has the same performance as the self-steering radial bogie when the actuator is unloaded.


Flow cytometry and mass cytometry are the methods of choice to dissect the cellular makeup of biological samples, including blood and disaggregated tissue. Most of these samples are tremendously heterogeneous and comprise a plurality of specialized cell types that serve distinct functions in health


Spacecraft surface charging can lead to arcing and a loss of electricity generation capability in solar panels or even loss of a satellite. The charging problem may be further aggravated by atomic oxygen (AO) exposure in Low Earth orbits, which modifies the surface of materials like polyimide, Teflon, anti-reflective coatings, cover glass etc, used on satellite surfaces, affecting materials properties, such as resistivity, secondary electron emissivity and photo emission, which govern the charging behavior. These properties are crucial input parameters for spacecraft charging analysis. To study the AO exposure effect on charging governing properties, an atomic oxygen exposure facility based on laser detonation of oxygen was built. The facility produces AO with a peak velocity value around 10-12km/s and a higher flux than that existing in orbit. After exposing the polyimide test material to the equivalent of 10 years of AO fluence at an altitude of 700-800 km, surface charging properties like surface resistivity and volume resistivity were measured. The measurement was performed in a vacuum using the charge storage decay method at room temperature, which is considered the most appropriate for measuring resistivity for space applications. The results show that the surface resistivity increases and the volume resistivity remains almost the same for the AO exposure fluence of 5.4×1018 atoms cm-2.


Full-scaled single-stage interventions are problematic in critical conditions associated with widespread peritonitis and severe injuries of abdominal cavity organs. In such situations the mentioned volume can exceed physiological capabilities. The article deals with the survey of literature containing the analysis of leading pathophysiological syndromes during critical conditions. Special attention is given to digestive  and  abdominal hypertension. The article gives recent  literature data  about multi-stage surgery indications and techniques.


Previous work on testing NoC-based systems has shown that the integrated network can be efficiently reused as test access mechanism (TAM). These approaches exploit the given infrastructure for data transportation. Beyond that, NoC-architectures for nanoscale systems also have to ensure a reliable communication by additional hardware and/or software measures. For example a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) may be added to protect the end-to-end communication between network resources. This paper presents an approach to reuse the CRC hardware for a compression scheme similar to LFSR-reseeding. The experimental results show that competitive compression ratios can be achieved at low extra cost. This way, core testing in NoC-based systems can benefit from test data compression even for standard cores without integrated decompressors.


The spectrophotometric determination of titanium (IV) using gallacetophenone phenylhydrazone (GPPH) is a sensitive and fairly selective method when compared to other spectrophotometric methods. Titanium( IV) is determined bymeasuring the absorbance of the orange colored complex at 375 nm in the pH range 2.3-2.8. BeerÂ's law is obeyed over the range 0.1-1.2 igml-1. Themolar absorptivity and the SandellÂ's sensitivity of the complex are found to be 3.254 i'´ 104 l mol-1cm-1 and 0.0015 ig cm-2 respectively. The stoichiometry of the complex as determined by jobÂ's continuous variation andAsmus methods is 1:2 (metal:ligand) and its stability constant at 300Cis 2.73 i'´ 107. Themethod is applied for the determination of titaniumin ilmenite.


Researchers used ice core data to reconstruct seasonal temperatures throughout the Holocene. The results link especially hot summers with patterns in Earth's orbit.


Pseudomonas sp. PG2982 ................... 14 Introduction . • • • . . ........... ■ • • I S Materials and M e t h o d s ....................... . 1 8 Results. ....................... 7 . . . . 26 Discussion .......................... . . . . 4 7 PART 11. The d egradation of phosphonates by Pseudomonas sp. PG2982 ............. 60 Introduction .................................. 61 Materials and Methods. • • . . . . . . • 6 2 R e s u l t s ..................... 66 D i s c u s s i o n ............... . 7 0 LITERATURE C I T E D ............................................ 75 V I T A ............................................................ 84


In this paper a novel spin valve giant magnetoresistance (GMR) ring-sensor integrated with a microstructure is proposed for concentrating, trapping, and detecting superparamagnetic beads (SPBs). Taking advantage of the fact that SPBs can be manipulated by an external magnetic field, a unique arrangement of conducting microrings is utilized to manipulate the SPBs toward the GMR sensing area in order to increase the reliability of detection. The microrings are arranged and activated in such a manner so as to enable the detection of minute concentrations of SPBs in a sample. Precise manipulation is achieved by applying current sequentially to the microrings. The fabricated ring-shaped GMR element is located underneath the innermost ring and has a magnetoresistance of approximately 5.9%. By the performed experiments it was shown that SPBs could be successfully manipulated toward the GMR sensing zone.


Using 20% seawater as nutrient fluid, diluted liquid extract of kelp as liquid substance, pacchoi seedlings were cultured. The results showed that 600 times dilute liquid extract of kelp has the significant effect on pacchoi seedlings of fresh weight, root weight, chlorophyll content.


It is easier to obtain high energy in very short period through pulse laser than through continuous laser. And in the field of biology, especially in researching the active cells by optical tweezers, the traditional continuous laser employed in the tweezers are inclined to hurt even kill the cells. So, substituting the traditional continuous laser by pulsed laser is one probable trend for optical tweezers. This paper theoretically analyzes the radiation forces on the nanoparticles in continuous optical tweezers and in pulsed optical tweezers, respectively, compares the forces in those two cases, and obtains the simulation curves for the forces.


The restoration of a root canal treated or, endodontically treated teeth, is often can be achieved with post and core because of the significant loss of tooth structure. Until the mid-1980s, the safest way to restore an endodontically treated tooth was considered to be the cast-metal post, made indirectly by a dental technician. Also prefabricated metal posts in combination with different core materials under artificial crowns were used. The development and use of fiber reinforced composite (FRC) root canal posts over metallic posts make possible of the attachment & reinforcement of the crown with maximum esthetics. This paper illustrates a technique for rehabilitation of an endodontically treated maxillary central incisor of both sides (UL1 & UR1) with a fiber reinforced composite post (FRC post) & discusses the advantages, disadvantages of metallic post over fiber reinforced composite (FRC) posts. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjdre.v3i1.16595 Bangladesh Journal of Dental Research & Education Vol.3(1) 2013: 45-48


The vibration suppression device detects undesired mechanical displacement of a body, and continuously excite an actuator (52) to proof mass for reducing interference. A sensor (32) of relative displacement or inertial energy dui determines the movement and a correction signal is generated which is summed with the signal excitation of the actuator to minimize the energy of detected movement. The position of the proof mass is detected and processed by differentiation and multiplication by a scalar and the proof mass position signal processed is also summed with the excitation of the actuator signal. The device that the actuator performs a proof mass natural frequency loop to tend to follow the frequency associated to the maximum vibration energy.


Subtitle: Ward's is considering ways to enhance the 10 Best Engines competition and ensure it can accommodate whatever comes from powertrain test labs.


Aligning sentences belonging to comparable monolingual corpora has been suggested as a first step towards training text rewriting algorithms, for tasks such as summarization or paraphrasing. We present here a new monolingual sentence alignment algorithm, combining a sentence-based TF*IDF score, turned into a probability distribution using logistic regression, with a global alignment dynamic programming algorithm. Our approach provides a simpler and more robust solution achieving a substantial improvement in accuracy over existing systems.


11TH INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH CONFERENCE GENERAL SIR JOHN KOTELAWALA DEFENCE UNIVERSITY 11TH INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH CONFERENCE GENERAL SIR JOHN KOTELAWALA DEFENCE UNIVERSITY Abstract– During the recent years, life insurance industry experienced great reforms to improve their market density and penetration. When it comes to provide service to the customers, they lack behind in resulting to customer dissatisfaction. Therefore there is a need to understand the quality of service required by the customers and meet their need successfully. Then it creates the loyal customers.After reviewing several specialized papers, the underpinnings of service quality are Tangibility, Reliability, Responsiveness, Empathy, Assurance, Helpfulness and Problem solving. As sample frame, personal administrated survey questionnaire with randomly selected 100 sample life insurance customers as unit of analysis are targeted to investigate their loyalty towards the life insurance industry. Responses were measured on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). A number of quantitative and qualitative methods including correlation analysis and regression were used to analyse the data Using SPSS version 23. According to the findings Tangibility, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Helpfulness and Problem solving have positive relationship with customer loyalty in life insurance industry. Assurance and Problem Solving highly relate with customer loyalty. That means Assurance and Problem Solving are the main issues of service quality towards customer loyalty. In order to build a loyal customer there is a need to improve the quality of the delivering services. Organizations that are aiming to nature loyal customers should pay close attention to issues of service quality.


Innovative and optimized design schemes were adopted in the electrical system of the Shanghai Waigaoqiao No.3 power plant(2 × 1 000 MW Units).Some of the design schemes were initially adopted in the 1 000 MW unit project.This paper introduced the design of electrical systems in terms of electrical single line diagram,layout of electric equipment outside row A of main turbine building,main equipment and conductor selection,auxiliary power system,control and protection systems,and single-core power cable selection,which comprehensive demonstrated the characteristics of electrical systems.The operation of the power plant has proved that the innovative and optimized design schemes were successful and worthy of using for reference.


Summary. Oxytocin and its five analogues (arginin vasopressin included) were studied in chemotaxis assays using Tetrahymena as unicellular model cells. Exclusively the two real hormones (oxytocin and vasopressin) were consequently repellent, other analogues (with ex changed or missed amino acids) were neutral, attractant or unbalanced. Tetrahymena was not able to differentiate qualitatively between oxytocin and vasopressin, however it sharply discriminated the real hormones from the analogues. Considering that in earlier experiments oxytocin and vasopressin also equally influenced the function of the contractile vacuole, it is supposed that the uniformity of the effe ct of these hormones is not a chance event and they had to be diverged (in function) later, during the evolution.


Objective: To study the protective effects of SSTF on carbon tetrachloride actue hepatic injury in mice. Methods: SSTF was administrated ig to the mice with induced actue hepatic injury by carbon tetrachloride. Colorimetric method was used to measure the activities of alanine transaminase(ALT) in serum, the content of malondialdehyde(MDA) and superoxide dismutuse(SOD) in liver homogenate. Results: SSTF(50、100、200mg/kg, ig, 7d) significantly reduced actue hepatic injury induced by carbon tetrachloride, with increasing serum ALT. The activities of SOD in the treament group were higher than those in model grouop. The content of MDA were lower than those in model group. Conclusion: SSTF has protective effects on mice acute hepatic injury induced by carbon tetrachloride. The results indicated that the protective action of SSTF were related to anti-lipid peroxidation effect of SSTF.


A new inorganic nonmetallic cementing material rather than epoxy resin was adopted in carbon fiber sheet (CFS) strengthened concrete beams and slabs in this paper. Firstly, the types of inorganic adhesive were introduced and double-shear tests and the compressive strength of specimens as a function of temperature were studied to prove the effectiveness of inorganic adhesive in CFS strengthened concrete beams and slabs was studied. The practice shows that MPB has good performance when applying at high temperature. RC beams and slabs strengthened with new inorganic adhesives sticked FRP sheets are feasible. The appearance of MPB renders an extensive prospect for carbon fiber sheet (CFS) application in building structure reinforcement.


Many nail cosmetics have components that are considered irritants or allergens. Due to the current clinical assessment limitations, it is often too late to identify nail enamel hazards until they cause disease. Thus, it is essential to investigate effective methods of detecting minor changes and early lesions in nails before they worsen.


Fluorescent organic light-emitting diodes capable of radiative utilization of both singlet and triplet excitons are achieved via a simple double-layer planar pn hetero-junction configuration without a conventional emission layer, leading to high external quantum efficiency above 10% and extremely low driving voltages close to the theoretical minima.


In this paper, the 2T NOR CTNVM with HfSiON and TiN metal gate has been investigated using 128 bit and 26 kbit array vehicles, which are programmed/erased by direct tunnelling of electrons/holes from the Si channel. It has been demonstrated that with programme/erase (P/E) voltages as low as plusmn10 V, a threshold voltage (VT) window in excess of 4V can be achieved with 1 ms - 10 ms pluses, combined with an excellent endurance up to 10 P/E cycles and a good room temperature retention.


This contribution is aimed at studying multiple labelling in the Oxford Idioms Dictionary for Learners of English (OIDLE2). We sought to establish whether labels belonging to one and the same category combine with one another or whether multiple labelling consists of labels from different categories of labels, the latter providing different types of information. The database used for the analysis was compiled by searching manually through the dictionary and keying in all the idioms with multiple labelling into our database. Altogether, 392 idioms or their senses with two or more labels were found in OIDLE2. The findings of the study are: labels expressing different types of diasystematic information are included; the three most frequent labels appearing in combination with other labels are informal, humorous and old-fashioned; the combination of four labels is used only once, ten idioms were identified with three labels, while the majority of label combinations consist of two labels. The significance of the findings lies in the issues related to multiple labels, combinations of labels expressing different types of diasystematic information and other issues related to labelling in general. The inclusion of diasystematic information largely depends on the type of dictionary and its intended users. This is especially true of dictionaries intended for non-native speakers of a language, where one of the main functions is to promote the active use of a foreign language, and where every single piece of information included in the dictionary counts. Keywords: phraseological dictionary; diasystematic information; labels; connotation; dictionary users


Patients with sleep apnea experience repeated, intermittent hypoxic exposures during sleep and are at increased risk of developing hypertension. The mechanisms that contribute to high blood pressure in these patients are not completely understood. In this context, we sought to examine the effect of intermittent hypoxic exposures on baroreflex sensitivity and blood pressure. We hypothesized 3‐hours of intermittent hypoxia would result in a decrease in baroreflex sensitivity in healthy adults. We further hypothesized any decrease baroreflex sensitivity would be related to an increase in blood pressure following intermittent hypoxia.


Authors : Jalal Abdulkareem Sultan, Abdulhakeem Luqman Hasan Abstract : The master production schedule (MPS) problem is a typical NP-hard problem. So, searching for the global optimal solution in a MPS problem usually demands an effort most industries are not willing to pay. Therefore, the use of metaheuristics that generates good solutions in reasonable computer time becomes an attractive alternative. In this paper, a Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization (HPSO) algorithm is used to optimize the fuzzy multi-objective master production schedule FMOMPS. The main idea is to integrate PSO with GA mutation operator. The purpose of this paper is to apply the FMOMPS in the Textile plant. The application involves determine the gross requirements by demand forecasting using neural networks, in addition to determine of the available capacity of each production line by estimating the parameter values of GP model for all failures and calculating the availability. The proposed algorithm proved its efficiency in solving MPS problems compared with the genetic algorithm for fuzzy and non-fuzzy model, as the results clearly showed the superiority of the proposed algorithm on genetic algorithm in all targets.


Introduction: Chemotherapy backbones with immunomodulatory drugs have become the standard of care for the treatment of multiple myeloma (MM). Despite improved survival outcomes, thrombotic complications remain a concern especially in the older patients with co-morbidities. A meta-analysis showed that lenalidomide might be associated with lower rate of thromboembolism than thalidomide-containing regimen in patients with newly diagnosed MM with (0.7 vs. 2.6 per 100-patient-cycle) or without prophylaxis (0.8 vs. 4.1 per 100-patient-cycle) (JTH 2011;9:653). As thalidomide is still commonly used outside of the United States, it is important to understand if the thromboprophylaxis guideline is generalizable to all immunomodulatory drugs. However, no prior study has directly compared the thrombotic incidence between the two regimens while accounting for confounders. In the current propensity score weighted study, we have examined the incidence of venous (VTE) and arterial (ATE) thromboembolism and survival for older patients with newly diagnosed MM treated with lenalidomide- versus thalidomide-containing regimen.
 Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study using the SEER-Medicare database and selected all patients 66 or older with newly diagnosed MM 2007 to 2013. Patients were included if they had a prescription of IMID within twelve months of diagnosis and complete enrollment for fee-for-service and prescription drug coverage. Patients were followed from the IMID index date until first VTE occurrence or death and they were censored for disenrollment from Medicare A/B/D, enrollment in health maintenance organization, or 12/31/2014. We defined VTE (including pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis) and ATE (including acute stroke and myocardial infarction) using previously validated ICD-9-CM codes with positive predictive value of 75-95% (Thromb Res 2010;126:61, Am Heart J 2004;148:99, Stroke 2014;45:3219).
 We used inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) to balance potential confounders (demographics, year of diagnosis, co-morbidities, concurrent medications) where a standardized difference (SD) of <0.1 was considered adequate balance. Weighted Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox models (HR) were used to compare overall survival. Weighted cumulative incidence curves and Fine-Gray subdistribution hazards models (SHR) were used to compare VTE and ATE incidence where death was treated as a competing risk. Variance was estimated via 200 bootstraps.
 Results: Among 2397 older MM patients that met the study criteria, 78% received lenalidomide (n=1863) and 22% thalidomide (n=534). There was a strong temporal trend of increasing lenalidomide use over time (Table 1). The lenalidomide group was more likely to receive bortezomib and lower dose of dexamethasone and less likely to receive anticoagulant prophylaxis. All confounders were balanced between the two treatment groups after IPTW. The 12-month incidence of VTE (10%) and ATE (5%) were similarly high in both groups (Figure 1a-b). Lenalidomide vs. thalidomide had a SHR of 1.11 (0.59-2.02) for VTE and a SHR 0.96 (0.45-1.98) for ATE. Overall survival was also not significantly different with a HR of 0.88 (0.60-1.18) for lenalidomide vs. thalidomide.
 Conclusion: In this propensity score weighted study of older patients with newly diagnosed MM, the cumulative incidences of VTE and ATE were similarly high in both lenalidomide- and thalidomide-treatment groups. The lack of difference in overall survival should be interpreted with caution as residual confounding such as severity of disease could influence this outcome. Our results suggest that appropriate risk stratification and vigilant thromboprophylaxis remain essential for MM patients receiving all types of immunomodulatory drugs.

 Garcia: Retham Technologies LLC: Consultancy; Shingoi: Consultancy; Portola: Research Funding; Boehringer Ingelheim: Consultancy; Bristol Meyers Squibb: Consultancy; Janssen: Consultancy, Research Funding; Incyte: Research Funding; Daiichi Sankyo: Research Funding; Pfizer: Consultancy. Lyman:Amgen: Other: Research support; Halozyme; G1 Therapeutics; Coherus Biosciences: Consultancy; Generex Biotechnology: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees.