Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) with intrinsically porous structures and well‐dispersed metal sites are promising candidates for electrocatalysis; however, the catalytic efficiencies of most MOFs are significantly limited by their impertinent adsorption/desorption energy of intermediates formed during electrocatalysis and very low electrical conductivity. Herein, Co is introduced into conductive Cu‐catecholate (Cu‐CAT) nanorod arrays directly grown on a flexible carbon cloth for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Electrochemical results show that the Co‐incorporated Cu‐CAT nanorod arrays only need 52 and 143 mV overpotentials to drive a current density of 10 mA cm−2 in alkaline and neutral media for HER, respectively, much lower than most of the reported non‐noble metal‐based electrocatalysts and comparable to the benchmark Pt/C electrocatalyst. Density functional theory calculations show that the introduction of Co can optimize the adsorption energy of hydrogen (ΔGH*) of Cu sites, almost close to that of Pt (111). Furthermore, the adsorption energy of water ( ΔEH2O ) of Co sites in the CuCo‐CAT is significantly lower than that of Cu sites upon coupling Cu with Co, effectively accelerating the Volmer step in the HER process. The findings, synergistic effect of bimetals, open a new avenue for the rational design of highly efficient MOF‐based electrocatalysts.


A gas cylinder with a rotation controlling clutch is provided to allow a seat of a chair to be rotated right or left only when a user is seated on the seat, but to prevent it from being rotated after restoring it to its initial position when he/she stands up from the seat. A gas cylinder with a rotation controlling clutch includes: a can pipe(100), having an inner hole; a cylinder member(200), inserted axially into the inner hole of the can pipe in a slid manner; a piston rod(300), one side of which has a piston which is inserted into the cylinder member and guides an ascent or descent of the cylinder member, and the other side of which has a rod which is located in a bottom plate of the can pipe; a sleeve pipe(400), moving in an upward or downward slid manner according to a guidance of a bushing member(140) which is fixed to the upper side of the inner hole of the can pipe, and connected to an inner bushing member(440) in such a manner that the cylinder member moves upward or downward through a rotation prevention unit(R) only; a height adjusting member(500); an elastic restoring body(600); and a clutch(700), controlling the sleeve pipe selectively so that the latter is rotated.


Judith Hermann's works have attracted considerable criticism for their supposedly slight portrayal of passively drifting characters and for their alleged failure to engage with the socio-political realities of contemporary life in the Berlin Republic. Only very recently have scholars paid attention to the hidden concern with memory expressed in her books, and have set out to examine their intertextual depth. This paper explores these previously neglected historical references in Summerhouse, later and analyses the book's intricate intertextual allusions with specific reference to Theodor Fontane's works. It examines how the tentative existence, which Hermann's characters experience, is the product of a hesitant and fruitless confrontation with questions of German history and nationhood. Using pervasive water imagery, Hermann shows present-day Germany as a continually contested territory with a fluid identity shaped by an abundance of conflicting narratives. In this context, the allusions to Fontane as a representative of the Wil-helminian period serve as references to a continuing German tradition of repression and marginalisation. At the same time, Hermann recognises Fontane's ambivalent political stance combining elements of social criticism with a general endorsement of social order. Ultimately, the seemingly indifferent attitude of Hermann's characters and the elegiac style used to portray them, emerge as a distancing mechanism that functions as a postmodern variant of Fontane's irony and is shaped by a similar sense of skepticism towards developments in German society and national history.


Abstract Silk garments with its unique luster, softness and glamour has always occupied an important position in the fashion market. However, such fabrics present difficulties in daily care and tend to deteriorate in visual perception after laundering. Panasonic in 2021 has therefore launched a novel washing mode characterized by up-and-down soft pressure and vacuum dehydration to address the mechanical damage of common household washing methods to the silk garments. In this study, the effect of the press washing mode on the appearance and mechanical properties of silk garments based on common household laundering scenarios was investigated by comparing with hand washing, gentle machine washing and normal machine washing. The experimental results demonstrated that press washing had the best performance in terms of appearance indicators and elastic recovery, especially in the case of repeated laundering, due to the minimum fiber damage and surface degradation during washing. The laundered samples were also subjected to sensory evaluation by taking into account the personal feelings of consumers, which further verified the instrumental test results to a certain extent. The results obtained in this study can provide scientific care guidance and optimization ideas for subsequent research and applications.


Eleven kinds of different stabilizers and emulsifiers were applied to the research on the stability of rice beverage.Among which,four kinds with better stability effect were selected and used in the orthogonal test to improve the stability of rice beverage.The results indicated that the rice beverage had the highest stability with its precipitation rate 0.87% only and without stratification occurred after 3weeks at room temperature when the amount of pectin,xanthan gum and monoglyceride were added 0.60%,0.165% and 0.60% respectively.In addition,xanthan gum and pectin had significant(P0.01 and P0.05,respectively),while monoglyceride and Span 40 did not have significant(P0.05)effect on the stability of rice beverage.Comparatively,the impact of monoglyceride on rice beverage stability was much larger than that of Span 40.


Purpose – For all the rhetoric – and hype – about open innovation, the reality is that few corporations have institutionalized open innovation practices in ways that have enabled substantial growth or industry leadership. This paper aims to explain how open innovation can achieve its potential in most companies.Design/methodology/approach – Three cases of companies that practice various types of open innovation are discussed. The principles of establishing an organizational environment for open innovation are outlined.Findings – The ability to move into and out of different industries by capitalizing on ideas and concepts from inside and outside the organization – open innovation – has tremendous value.Practical implications – Without the appropriate mindset and, ultimately, operational structure in place, the promise of open innovation cannot be realized.Originality/value – For corporate leaders, the paper identifies a key first step – to deliver on the promise of open innovation an organization must sta...


This is the fourth in a sequence of articles that describe the core principals of Okinawan Karatedo in the Goju Ryu system. Previous articles have focused on hard principles of structure, movement, and breathing [Labbate1999], intermediate principals associated with building, controlling, and transferring internal energy [Labbate2000], and soft principals associated with making contact, following, and controlling an opponent [Labbate2001]. This article builds upon these ideas and incorporates them into a general set of Kata training principals. Kata are stylized fighting forms, or sequences, developed over the centuries and based on actual combat experience. Here the ideas are illustrated through the study of Seiunchin Kata, however, each Kata in the Goju Ryu system can be developed with the same ideas.


Lamb waves are transmitted into pure magnesium plate which is carried out fatigue test and the second harmonic components generated from the plates are detected. Second harmonic components had increased as the number of fatigue test cycles producing the stress faults was increased. At 100 thousand and 200 thousand cycles, second harmonic components had increased by approximately 3 dB and 6 dB respectively compared with an unstressed plate.


Rhizodeposits, root exudates, and root border cells are vital components of the rhizosphere that significantly affect root colonization capacity and multiplication of rhizosphere microbes, as well as secretion of organic bioactive compounds. The rhizosphere is an ecological niche, in which beneficial bacteria compete with other microbiota for organic carbon compounds and interact with plants through root colonization activity to the soil. Some of these root-colonizing beneficial rhizobacteria also colonize endophytically and multiply inside plant roots. In the rhizosphere, these components contribute to complex physiological processes, including cell growth, cell differentiation, and suppression of plant pathogenic microbes. Understanding how rhizodeposits, root exudates, and root border cells interact in the rhizosphere in the presence of rhizobacterial populations is necessary to decipher their synergistic role for the improvement of plant health. This review highlights the diversity of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) genera, their functions, and the interactions with rhizodeposits in the rhizosphere.


Hypermethylation of ras association domain family 1A gene ( RASSF1 A) promotor region in-fluences the transcription, and promotes the genesis and development of related tumors. Recently, studies have approved that the hypermethylation of RASSF1A gene promotor region closely correlates with cervical canc-er, ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer.

Key words:
DNA methylation;  Genital neoplasms, female;  BASSF1A gene


Resumo/Abstract: We consider the inverse problem of determining the spatial dependence f(x) of the source term in a heat equation ut−γ∆u = f(x)σ(t) in Ω × (0, T ) assuming σ(t) known, from a single partial internal measurement of the solution in O × (0, T ), O ⊂ Ω. The purpose of this paper is to establish a reconstruction formula for f(x) using exact controls, and that could be generalized for general parabolic equations. The reconstruction formula is associated to a family of exact controls v(τ) indexed by τ ∈ (0, T ). We perform numerical simulations in order to illustrate the feasibility, accuracy and stability of the proposed reconstruction formula. Ref: G. Garcia, A. O, M.


Study Objective. To investigate the relationship between the daily dose of the synthetic opioid methadone and the corrected QT (QTc) interval in a series of methadone‐treated patients who developed torsade de pointes.


This paper examines the detailed pollen morphology of Fortunearia Rehd. & Wils.(Hamamelidaceae), a monotypic genus endemic to China, by light microscope, scanning electron microscope, and transmission electron microscope. Our datacorroborate earlier reports: Fortunearia pollen is mostly tricolpate, rarely nontypical pantocolpate or pantoporate, pores irregular in outline, unequal in size, veryindistinctly delimited; colpus membrane tuberculate, exine sculpture reticulate,consisting of semi-tectate, columellate layer, foot layer, and endexine. Pollen morphology variation is rather large. It correlates with the variability of gross morphology in this genus. The present study supports the placement of Fortunearia, as wellas Sinowisolia, in the tribe Eustigmateae, rather than in the Corylopsideae orDistylieae, as suggested by other botanists.


In these lectures the recent status of hydrodynamic modeling of high energy heavy ion reactions will be reviewed. The relativistic hydrodynamic approach in this filed is used for almost 30 years by now and it became one of the best established theoretical and experimental methods. From our point of view the applicability of this method is vital, and we will discuss the initial and final stages of heavy ion reactions in great detail, in addition to the middle stages of the reaction where the relativistic hydrodynamic description provides an adequate and accurate description of the reaction.


Indoor Radio Channel Models based on Measurements and Ray-Tracing at 5.2 GHz1 Stefan Mangold, Matthias Lott2 Abstract| In [2], time-domain channel models are used to investigate transmission schemes. The way of how these models are developed based on ray tracing as well as channel sounding results is discussed in this paper.


Recently many types of robots have been playing an active part in various fields. The operation of these robots' manipulators is an important subject of research. The tasks of manipulation can be regarded as sequences of several motion primitives called "skills". Skills also have ability to compensate for errors both in modeling and in execution. Data may occur in the elements of the shapes, positions and orientations of objects that can be dispensed with to make geometric models simpler. In order to achieve tasks with high reliability, this paper proposes simplified geometric models based on skill techniques not only for industrial products but also for objects used in the daily life of humans. As examples of simplified geometric models of objects used in daily life, simplified models in a transfer task of plastic bottles and in a transfer task of a cup are explained.


. The applications of Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet are rapidly growing in various areas such as cryptocurrency exchanges and hardware wallets. Im-proving privacy and security is more important than ever. In this study, we proposed a protocol that fully support a two-party computation of BIP32. Our protocol, similar to the distributed key generation, can generate each party's secret share, the common chain-code, and the public key without revealing a seed and any descendant private keys. We also provided a simulation-based proof of our protocol assuming a rushing, static, and malicious adversary in the hybrid model. Our master key generation protocol produces up to total of two bit leakages from a honest party given the feature that the seeds will be re-selected after each execution. The proposed hardened child key derivation protocol leads up to a one bit leakage in the worst situation of simulation from a honest party and will be accumulated with each execution. Fortunately, in reality, this issue can be largely mitigated by adding some validation criteria of boolean circuits and masking the input shares before each execution. We then implemented the proposed protocol and ran in a single thread on a laptop which turned out with practically acceptable execution time. Lastly, the outputs of our protocol can be easily integrated with many threshold sign protocols.


Autocorrelation based spectral moment estimators are typically derived using the Fourier transform relationship between the power spectrum and the autocorrelation function along with using either an assumed form of the autocorrelation function, e.g., Gaussian, or a generic complex form and applying properties of the characteristic function. Passarelli has used a series expansion of the general complex autocorrelation function and has expressed the coefficients in terms of central moments of the power spectrum. A truncation of this series will produce a closed system of equations which can be solved for the central moments of interest. The autocorrelation function at various lags is estimated from samples of the random process under observation. These estimates themselves are random variables and exhibit a bias and variance that is a function of the number of samples used in the estimates and the operational signal-to-noise ratio. This contributes to a degradation in performance of the moment estimators. This dissertation investigates the use autocorrelation function estimates at higher order lags to reduce the bias and standard deviation in spectral moment estimates. In particular, Passarelli's series expansion is cast in terms of an overdetermined system to form a framework under which the application of additional autocorrelation function estimates at higher order lags can be defined and assessed. The solution of the overdetermined system is the least squares solution. Furthermore, an overdetermined system can be solved for any moment or moments of interest and is not tied to a particular form of the power spectrum or corresponding autocorrelation function. As an application of this approach, autocorrelation based variance estimators are defined by a truncation of Passarelli's series expansion and applied to simulated Doppler weather radar returns which are characterized by a Gaussian shaped power spectrum. The performance of the variance estimators determined from a closed system is shown to improve through the application of additional autocorrelation lags in an overdetermined system. This improvement is greater in the narrowband spectrum region where the information is spread over more lags of the autocorrelation function. The number of lags needed in the overdetermined system is a function of the spectral width, the number of terms in the series expansion, the number of samples used in estimating the autocorrelation function, and the signal-to-noise ratio. The overdetermined system provides a robustness to the chosen variance estimator by expanding the region of spectral widths and signal-to-noise ratios over which the estimator can perform as compared to the closed system.


We consider linear steady-state systems of third order with one controlling (perturbing) action. The control action is assumed to be limited in absolute value and to be contained in the set of piecewise continuous functions. The case is investigated when our system has two complex conjugated and one real eigenvalues. Variation of the attainability region as time increases is studied. We show analytically that the changing of the attainability region with time variation depends on the correlation between the real parts of the eigenvalues.


The aim of the paper is to give illustrative examples of apparent disappearance phenomena which are typical of laser and biological systems. It is well known that canards play an important role in the theory of mixed-mode oscillations consisting of large amplitude, and followed by small amplitude oscillations. In a sense we consider limiting cases of mixed-mode oscillations, when large amplitude oscillations are followed by vanishingly small amplitude oscillations.


The cuticle of the gill lamina of the crayfish Astacus leptodactylus (E), mechanically isolated, was mounted in an Ussing chamber and examined for its electrical properties. The cuticle of the gill lamina obtained from exuviae had similar properties. When perfused with artificial fresh water (AFW) outside and Van Harreveld solution (VH) inside, the transcuticular potential Voi was negative with respect to the inside, and close to the equilibrium potential for Cl‐ (ECl‐). CH3COO‐, HCO3‐, SO4(2‐) and cations (Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+ and NH4+) behaved as impermeant ions with respect to Cl‐. A decrease of pH (brought about with CO2) from 8.5 to 6.0 in AFW, VH or both had no effect on the potential. The cuticle area specific conductance was 20‐30 mS/cm2 when superfused with AFW outside and VH inside. The conductance decreased linearly with log [Cl‐] when Cl‐ was replaced by CH3COO‐. Rectification was obvious when internal Cl‐ was reduced to 5 mmol/l. The Cl‐ selectivity of the cuticle could also be demonstrated in perfusing the cuticle with a single salt (NaCl, KCl, CaCl2, MgCl2 or LaCl3) and in diluting that salt on one side of the preparation or in replacing Cl‐ by CH3COO‐, SO4(2‐) and HCO3‐. The potential changed almost linearly with log [Cl‐] and was close to ECl‐. The inner face of the cuticle was found to be slightly less selective than the outer face. The relative permeabilities were calculated to be: PCl‐ = 1, PNa+ = 0.001, PHCO3‐ = 0.0006, PCH3COO‐ = 0.0002. The dilution of a Cl‐ ‐free salt resulted in a cationic potential. The relative permeabilities of cations (NH4+, K+, Na+, Ca2+ and Mg2+) were found to range within a factor 2. The permeability of the cuticle to HCO3‐, CH3COO‐ and SO4(2‐) was 2‐5 times lower. The cuticle conductance was linearly related to the activity of the salt perfusing the two sides of the preparation at equal concentrations. The molar area specific conductance to chloride salts was 14 (mS/cm2)/(mmol/l). That of Cl‐ ‐free salts ranged from 1 to 20 (microS/cm2)/(mmol/l) depending on the salt used. It was deduced that PCl‐ is 2 X 10(‐3) cm/s and that all the other ions tested have permeabilities of 10(‐7)‐10(‐6) cm/s. With large intensity current pulses the cuticle exhibited rectifying properties and an asymmetrical behaviour. Increasing the pH of the perfusing solution reduced the transcuticular potential established with a Cl‐ gradient.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


Patient monitors and monitoring systems are a staple for all healthcare facilities and healthcare delivery organizations. The continuous monitoring of patient parameters such as heart rate, heart electrical activity, oxygen saturation (Spo2), blood pressure, temperature, and other specialty measurements is a common feature for the care and safety of patients. Patient monitoring systems must record, collect, and display physiological data accurately and in real time to support clinical decision making during treatment. Patient monitoring can be rigorously defined as "repeated or continuous observations or measurements of the patient, his or her physiological function, and the function of life support equipment, for the purpose of guiding management decisions, including when to make therapeutic interventions, and assessment of those interventions [Michael SM, Gardner RM. Decision Support Systems in Critical Care. Springer; 1994]." The data provided by patient monitors are used for a multitude of applications: it directly affects the diagnostic and therapeutic treatment plans for a patient, alerts care providers to potential life-threatening incidents, and provides insight on the control of connected life-support medical devices. Physiological monitors can be found everywhere within a hospital. Depending on the acuity of a department or their intended application, the complexity of the device can vary as to how many parameters are monitored, whether it is bedside (fixed), portable, or telemetry, and what other medical equipment directly communicate with the monitor. The most commonly known application of physiological monitoring is for unstable/critically ill patients in intensive care units and medical/surgical units. Monitoring is needed on patients in these areas who have compromised homeostatic systems, are suspected to have a life-threatening condition, or are at a high risk of developing a life-threatening condition. Outside the more common environments where patient monitors reside, they are also used during more specialized practices including labor and delivery, operating room procedures, and interhospital and intrahospital patient transport.


It is known that ultrasound affects action potentials in neurons, but the underlying principles of ultrasonic neural stimulation are not clearly elucidated yet. In this study, we measured the action potentials of rat hippocampal neurons cultured on multi-electrode arrays during ultrasound stimulation. From most of electrodes, it was observed that the ultrasound stimulation increased the frequencies of action potentials (i.e., spikes) during ultrasound stim- ulation.


Page 1 of 3 Commentary: HPV Catch-Up Vaccination Reduces the Prevalence of HPV 16 and 18 Infections and Cervical Disease: A Retrospective Study Nick F. Hallam1*, Janet A. Parker2 1Colposcopy Clinic, Women's Outpatients, Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle, England, United Kingdom 2Manchester Cytology Centre, Division of Laboratory Medicine, Manchester University, NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, England, United Kingdom


Due to insufficient mass transfer and mixing issues, cells in the industrial-scale bioreactor are often forced to experience glucose feast/famine cycles, mostly resulting in reduced commercial metrics (titer, yield and productivity). Trehalose cycling has been confirmed as a double-edged sword in the Penicillium chrysogenum strain, which facilitates the maintenance of a metabolically balanced state, but it consumes extra amounts of the ATP responsible for the repeated breakdown and formation of trehalose molecules in response to extracellular glucose perturbations. This loss of ATP would be in competition with the high ATP-demanding penicillin biosynthesis. In this work, the role of trehalose metabolism was further explored under industrially relevant conditions by cultivating a high-yielding Penicillium chrysogenum strain, and the derived trehalose-null strains in the glucose-limited chemostat system where the glucose feast/famine condition was imposed. This dynamic feast/famine regime with a block-wise feed/no feed regime (36 s on, 324 s off) allows one to generate repetitive cycles of moderate changes in glucose availability. The results obtained using quantitative metabolomics and stoichiometric analysis revealed that the intact trehalose metabolism is vitally important for maintaining penicillin production capacity in the Penicillium chrysogenum strain under both steady state and dynamic conditions. Additionally, cells lacking such a key metabolic regulator would become more sensitive to industrially relevant conditions, and are more able to sustain metabolic rearrangements, which manifests in the shrinkage of the central metabolite pool size and the formation of ATP-consuming futile cycles.


Successful learners are active, goal-directed, self-regulatingwho assume personalresponsibility for contributing to their own learning. This is a brief introduction to the recently changed model ofteaching and learning which has been applied in a language classroom for the last two decades. The article focuses on the project method and some other methods based on Corpus Linguistics the application of which aims at allowing students to solve 'purposeful' problems, to explore and experience their environment with as little teacher direction as possible. Many educators are trying out relatively long-term, interdisciplinary problems in their classrooms to teach thinking and problem-solving skills. One of the most efficient tools to do that is Wikipedia, the achievement of Corpus Linguistics, which helps learners learn more effectively and so become learners for life. The aim oflearning to learn is to develop lifelong learners who are capable and motivated to learn throughout their lives, thereby raising achievement and increasing enjoyment of learning.


Background: Community Health Centers played an important role in tuberculosis control. However, Community Health Centers' contextual effect toward tuberculosis recurrence has not yet been discovered. The study aims to analyze socio-demography and clinical factors of first tuberculosis episode and Community Health Centers' contextual effect toward tuberculosis recurrence. Subjects and Method: It was analytic observational study with case control approach. The study was conducted in the city of Surakarta, Central Java, from December 2019 up to January 2020. Sample collection toward 204 tuberculosis patients who had completed their treatment or were confirmed cured, were conducted by using simple random sampling at individual level and stratified random sampling at community health centers level. The dependent variable was tuberculosis recurrence. The independent variables were family income, level of education, BCG vaccination status, smoking history, initial bacteriological test, weight gain, DM, and COPD. The data were collected through medical record and interview. The data were analyzed by using multilevel multiple logistic regression with Stata 13. Results: In individual level, the preventive factor toward tuberculosis recurrence among other were high income (OR= 0.24; 95% CI= 0.06 up to 0.92; p= 0.037), high level of education (OR= 0.18; 95% CI= 0.04 up to 0.84; p= 0.029), BCG vaccination status (OR= 0.11; 95% CI= 0.02 up to 0.67; p= 0.017), and high weight gain (OR= 0.06; 95% CI= 0.01 up to 0.28; p< 0.001). Meanwhile, the independent predictors toward tuberculosis recurrence (OR= 7.11; 95% CI= 1.65 up to 30.64; p= 0.009) and diabetes mellitus (OR= 10.85; 95% CI= 2.13 up to 55.29; p= 0.004). In the level of Community Health Centers, high ratio between health workers/ tuberculosis patients significantly correlated with lower tuberculosis (OR= 0.01; 95% CI< 0.01 up to 0.44; p= 0.016). Community health Centers had contextual effect toward tuberculosis recurrence with Intra-Class Correlation (ICC) by 38.67%. Conclusion: Factors in individual and community health centers level may affect tuberculosis recurrence. Community Health Centers has contextual effect toward tuberculosis recurrent. Keywords: Tuberculosis recurrence, tuberculosis, predictor, Community Health Center, multilevel analysis Correspondence: Muvida. Masters Program in Public Health, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Jl. Ir. Sutami No. 36 A, Surakarta 57126, Central Java. Email: muvidamd@gmail.com. Mobile: +6289651450435. Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health (2020), 5(1): 65-78 https://doi.org/10.26911/jepublichealth.2020.05.01.07


Packaged enterprise application software vendors claim that ERP systems are a source of competitive advantage. On the other hand, Nicholas Carr says that IT has become a commodity, and therefore that investments in IT, including ERP, are unlikely to be sources of competitive advantage. This paper asks who is right.

Evidence from three surveys and a single case study suggests that ERP systems provide benefits such as improved information visibility, personnel and inventory reduction, productivity improvement and new improved processes. However, since ERP software has been available for many years, and benefits such as those listed have been realized by many firms, it is argued that ERP software is an unlikely source of competitive advantage either through opportunities for strategic positioning or through gains in operational effectiveness.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


T he aim of the thesis (Næser 2008) was to develop methods for the assessment of surgically induced astigmatism (SIA) in individual eyes, and in groups of eyes. The thesis is based on 12 peer-reviewed publications published over a period of 16 years. Both contemporary and older literature was reviewed (Næser 2001). A new method of analysing SIA was developed: the polar system. Multivariate statistical analysis of refractive data was described (Næser 1997; Næser & Hjortdal 1999, 2001a, 2001b). Clinical validation studies were performed. The description of a cylinder surface with polar values and differential geometry was compared. The main results were that refractive data (in the form of sphere, cylinder and axis) may define an individual patient or data set, but are unsuited for mathematical and statistical analyses (Næser 2001). The polar-value system converts net astigmatisms to orthonormal components in dioptric space. A polar value is the difference in meridional power between two orthogonal meridians (Næser 1990; Næser et al. 1994). Any pair of polar values, separated by an arch of 45 , characterizes a net astigmatism completely (Næser & Behrens 1997). The two polar values represent the net curvital and net torsional power over the chosen meridian (Næser & Hjortdal 2006). The spherical component is described by the spherical equivalent power. Several clinical studies demonstrated the efficiency of multivariate statistical analysis of refractive data (Næser & Guo 2000; Næser & Hjortdal 2001a, 2001b; Næser et al. 2002). Polar values and formal differential geometry describe astigmatic surfaces with similar concepts and mathematical functions (Næser & Hjortdal 2006). Other contemporary methods, such as Long's power matrix, Holladay's and Alpins' methods, Zernike (Næser & Hjortdal 2004) and Fourier analyses (Næser & Hjortdal 2006), are correlated to the polar-value system. In conclusion, the analysis of SIA should be performed with polar values or other contemporary component systems.


The physical origins of components in the unified model of quasars such as broad line region (BLR), dust torus, and narrow line region are unresolved. To learn more about them, we focus on studying Changing-State Quasars (also known as Changing-Look Quasars) as they offer the opportunity to observe structural changes associated with state transitions. This can give us insight into the origins of each quasar structure. We aimed to understand the central core structure of one of the most variable Changing-State Quasars, SDSS J125809.31+351943.0, and how it changes before and after the state transition. We performed reverberation mapping with optical spectroscopy to investigate the structure of the BLR and to measure the black hole mass. The results of the reverberation mapping show that the Eddington ratio crossed the value of 0.01 before and after state transition for the black hole mass of $10^{9.46^{+0.15}_{-0.19}}\rm{M_\odot}$. In addition, we compared optical to X-ray spectral indices ($\alpha_{\rm{ox}}$) before and after the state transition to investigate the structure difference of the accretion disk. These variations in $\alpha_{\rm{ox}}$ and the Eddington ratio were found to behave similarly to the state transition seen in X-ray binary systems. We also measured the time-lag between the mid-IR and the optical light curve to estimate the size of the dust torus. From all the acquired information about the BLR and dust torus, we confirmed the existence of two distinct rotating/inflowing BLR components located near the dust torus, probably generated by different processes, which are the origins of the BLRs.


In this note we study dynamical random walks (DRW) with internal states. We consider a particle which performs a dynamical random walk on $\mathbb{Z}$ and whose local dynamics is given by expanding maps. We provide sufficient conditions for the position of the particle $z_n$ to satisfy the Central Limit Theorem.


The magnetic circular dichroism and circular dichroism spectra of xanthine oxidase are reported from 200–700 nm. The magnetic circular dichroism spectrum exhibits weak bands at 520 and 375 nm which are assigned to the iron-sulfur and molybdenum chromophores, respectively. The tryptophan chromophore gives a strong positive magnetic circular dichroism band at 292 nm and from the intensity of this band in xanthine oxidase, the presence of a total of 23–24 residues per molecule has been calculated.


The aim of the study was to evaluate the potential risks of radiation near
 abandoned uranium mines, tailing dumps, or uranium deposits on Mountain
 Stara Planina, Serbia. For risk assessment several parameters were
 determined: radium equivalent activity, Raeq, external hazard index, Hex, gamma radiation absorbed dose rate, D, annual effective dose on background outdoor gamma exposure,
 AEDoutdoor, and excess lifetime cancer risk, ELCR.
 Obtained results showed that all the samples, except one, have the
 Raeq value up to two times higher than the reference limit. The Raeq of
 the sample from the Mezdreja mine tailings was increased by almost eight
 times. The value of Hex followed the same pattern as Raeq. All the investigated
 localities have increased D values, while all the samples have shown
 the moderately low AEDoutdoor, except Mezdreja mine tailings that have
 5.5-2.8 times higher dose relative to the world's average. ELCR at the
 Mezdreja mine tailings is 4.58 times higher than the world's average of
 1.45?10?3. In the context of human activity in the area of Stara Planina
 such as different kinds of tourism, livestock breeding, dairy products, and
 herbal manufacturing, etc. there is a need for detailed analysis in order to
 evaluate potential human exposure and health impacts.


The allocation of resources is the core issue of economics and the business development guarantee.This paper,taking the basic process of business operations:inputs and outputs and the basic components of resources:financial resources,material resources,human resources and information resources as the primary and secondary indicators,combined with the characteristics of sports and fitness clubs,builds a characteristic indicators system of resource allocation for sports and fitness clubs,and the correlation between each index are studied.The study shows that the relationship between inputs and outputs of the clubs changes over time;financial and material resources are close related,but no significant correlation between these two indicators and human resources;the closeness between level three or four indicators and the upper level indicator is different.The results of the study provide a reference for the development law and the resource optimization of the clubs.


This paper presents a fully-integrated 0.18 µm CMOS low drop-out (LDO) regulator designed to drive on-chip low power front-end sensor nodes. The proposed LDO is based on a simple telescopic amplifier stage with internal cascode compensation driving a PMOS pass-device, providing a high precision 1.8 V output voltage for input voltages from 3.6 V to 1.92 V up to a 50 mA load current with only 22 µA quiescent current. Line and load regulation are respectively better than 0.017 mV/V and 0.003 mV/mA, while recovery times are below 4 μ s over a (-40 ºC, 120 ºC) temperature span.


Objective: To compare the effectiveness of Bei Ling capsule with compound fresh bamboo juice for treatment of the elderly patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in acute exacerbation period ( AECOPD ). Method: Sixty four patients with AECOPD were chosen and thirty three patients (treatment group) were treated with Bei Ling capsule and thirty one cases (control group ) took compound fresh bamboo juice, both of whom were treated for 7 days and their effectiveness was compared. Result: The total effective rate was 90.9% in the treatment group and 71% in control group, whose comparing difference had the statistic significance. Conclusion: The effectiveness of Bei Ling capsule in the treatment of AECOPD is more obvious, and better than that of the compound fresh bamboo juice.


Chinese classical literature discipline in yanbian university without professional research institutions,No professional talents,The curriculum is not reasonable.Based on this,Combining with the actual school,the choice of teaching material,teaching the arrangement of the content,teaching method are discussed.


On March 19, 1990 the Hope Creek generating station was tripped off line when a phase-to-phase fault occurred on the Salem to Deans 500-kV transmission line. The fault was very close to the Salem switchyard. The Salem station is adjacent to Hope Creek. The line circuit breakers opened and closed within four cycles to clear the fault. In the present study, the authors simulate the Hope Creek nuclear generating station power distribution and the nearby 500-kV network during the fault, and analyze the depression of voltages in the plant. The study is conducted so that equipment responses in the plant can be reconciled with the depression of voltages caused by the fault. The close-in phase-to-phase fault apparently created highly unbalanced conditions in the three-phase power distribution network of the Hope Creek plant. As a result, undervoltage relaying at 4.2 kV and 7.2 kV did not operate, while the voltage on the 480/120 V control transformers dropped below the setpoint of the voltage sensing relay, initiating a plant trip.<<ETX>>


India is a country of 1.3 billion people, with 4-fold the population of the United States and one-third the size. India has 29 states and 7 territories, with the populations of many states exceeding those of large countries. There are more than 2000 distinct ethnic groups in India who speak 415 languages, of which 23 are considered official languages that are spoken by more than a million native speakers. India also has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Along with rapid globalization and technological transformations, however, have come health problems, such as obesity, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes. In 2016, ischemic heart disease became the leading cause of disability-adjusted life-years in India.1 Also, by 2016, all Indian states had undergone an epidemiological transition to having higher rates of noncommunicable diseases than communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases. Noncommunicable diseases account for 55% of the overall disease burden (communicable and related diseases, 33%; and injuries, 12%).1 A burgeoning burden of chronic cardiovascular diseases accompanies the persistent scourges of infections and malnutrition. States in the north and south (Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa) have the highest rates of ischemic heart disease. The recently published Indian state level of disease burden report2 showed that across all states, chronic diseases are the leading cause of death, with heterogeneity in the pattern of disease. For example, stroke is widely prevalent in the northeast of the country, with a rural to urban gradient of hemorrhagic stroke.2 In the south and west, ischemic heart disease predominates.2 This epidemic of cardiovascular disease is largely propelled by tobacco use, a high burden of hypertension, and a high propensity for developing type 2 diabetes. In this issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, Geldsetzer and colleagues3 report on the prevalence of diabetes and hypertension from 2 large household surveys in 27 Indian states from 2012 to 2014. The surveys, notably, have provided the first nationally representative data on these conditions. The agestandardized diabetes prevalence was 6.1% for women and 6.5% for men, and hypertension prevalence was 20.0% for women and 24.5% for men, with marked variation among states.3 Diabetes and hypertension prevalence was significantly higher in urban locations compared with rural areas, although the associations among wealth and educational attainment and disease were modest. In middle-age to older adults across all geographic settings and socioeconomic groups in the country, the prevalence of both diabetes and hypertension were disturbingly high.3 The authors acknowledge that the estimates for diabetes prevalence may be lower than those in prior subnational studies and those used by the International Diabetes Federation, NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), and Global Burden of Disease Project because of limitations in the method for defining diabetes were based only on a blood glucose measurement, and did not include a known diabetes diagnosis, treatment with diabetes medications, or oral glucose tolerance testing. Indeed, a recent population-based study4 from 14 states in India from 2012 to 2015 that ascertained diabetes more comprehensively by using oral glucose tolerance tests, a physician diagnosis, or diabetes medication use found a diabetes prevalence of 7.3% with a similar variation by states, and a higher prevalence in urban compared to rural areas and among lower socioeconomic groups. Another recent population-based study5 from 2 Indian cities (New Delhi and Chennai) and a Pakistani city (Karachi) from 2010 to 2011 reported a somewhat higher prevalence of hypertension with 26.8% in women and 30.1% in men, likely owing to an exclusively urban sample. Other studies in immigrant South Asian populations from the United Kingdom, Singapore, and United States have also highlighted the higher rates of diabetes and hypertension in South Asians compared with other race/ethnic groups, drawing inferences that westernization of lifestyles added to the burden of disease. Thus, in a recent study6 from a research team that I was a part of, it was surprising to find that the diabetes prevalence in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, was higher than in a community-based sample of Asian Indian immigrants in the United States. This unexpected result may underscore the dramatic shift in lifestyle that has occurred in India. Studies suggest that the particular vulnerability of Indians to type 2 diabetes reflects genetic susceptibility with more pancreatic β-cell dysfunction and an adverse body fat deposition in ectopic fat depots leading to greater insulin resistance.7 In addition, Indians in native settings as well as immigrants to diaspora countries develop diabetes at an earlier age and have a more rapid transition from prediabetic states to diabetes.8 Consequently, intensive lifestyle interventions may be less effective in Indians9 compared with similar interventions in other racial/ethnic groups. Given this high prevalence of hypertension and diabetes in middle-age to older adults all across India, public health approaches, as well as the provision of appropriate medical care, are important. India should apply approaches for chronic disease prevention that have been learned in high-income countries. These lessons include community and state-level policy interventions particularly for tobacco control, public and private partnerships to promote a healthy diet and physical activity, and a robust national disease surveillance system. A major challenge in chronic disease prevention and treatment is India's fragmented health care system, which is a patchwork of poorly resourced public health care and a booming urRelated article India's Call to Action—Prioritize Chronic Cardiovascular Disease Invited Commentary


This is a book about family, based on the narratives of 35 young adults with care experience. These individuals are not typical, or statistically representative, of care experienced adults in England. They took part in one of two studies, which were very different in focus: Against All Odds? was a crossnational project focused on people who were in education or employment at the time of joining the research; the Evaluation of Pause examined the work of a programme of intensive support for women in England who had been identified as being at risk of recurrent child removal. This book is focused on the experiences of two subgroups within those studies: Against All Odds? participants who were living in England, and participants in the Evaluation of Pause who were part of a 'care leaver pilot'. The population of people with care experience is diverse and, inevitably, there are striking similarities and differences in people's experiences within and between the two studies. But my aim in bringing the studies together was not to compare, nor have I tried to identify pathways to risk or protective factors. Rather, the purpose has been to illuminate the diversity of experiences and narratives of family for people with care experience, and to enable the recognition of care experienced lives as varied, specific and socially and biographically located, avoiding the dangers of a deficitfocused


Animals must balance needs to approach threats for risk-assessment and to avoid danger. The dorsal periaqueductal gray (dPAG) controls defensive behaviors, but it is unknown how it represents states associated with threat approach and avoidance. We identified a dPAG threat-avoidance ensemble in mice that showed higher activity far from threats such as the open arms of the elevated plus maze and a live predator. These cells were also more active during threat-avoidance behaviors such as escape and freezing, even though these behaviors have antagonistic motor output. Conversely, the threat-approach ensemble was more active during risk-assessment behaviors and near threats. Furthermore, unsupervised methods showed approach/avoidance states were encoded with shared activity patterns across threats. Lastly, the relative number of cells in each ensemble predicted threat-avoidance across mice. Thus, dPAG ensembles dynamically encode threat approach and avoidance states, providing a flexible mechanism to balance risk-assessment and danger avoidance.


SummaryThe authors report a case of Fallot's tetralogy found in an asymptomatic adult patient. Echocardiography and cardiac catheterization confirmed the diagnosis. Life expectancy without surgery is usually short and our patient's survival is therefore uncommon. This case probably represents the oldest patient with uncorrected tetralogy found in the literature.


The fast growth of counterfeiting medicines in the last two decades has created one of the biggest problems facing the pharmaceutical industry on the global level, resulting in loss of income, product withdrawal, loss of brand value, etc. But this is not only the problem of the intellectual property rights of the pharmaceutical industry, it is also the problem of the healthcare regulatory authorities, whose most significant concern is the risk to the public health. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, together with the wholesalers and retailers, have an essential role in the fight against counterfeit medicines by the implementation of different anti-counterfeit technologies for securing the supply-chain of medicines. The protection of drug packaging has a specific role in the drug development process, as well as in the fight against counterfeit medicine. The authenticity of the medicine and the forensic elements for protection on the packaging may be confirmed using different technologies. Tracking and tracing of pharmaceutical products in the supply chain, keeping electronic records for all stages of the distribution, and verification of the authenticity of a medicinal product is a key element and an effective solution for timely detection of counterfeit medicines and protection of intellectual property rights.


An idealized force pulse that simulates footsteps was developed by Galbraith and Barton. Their proposed forcing function was determined from direct force measurements using walkers of different weights walking at various speeds. Unger and White used this idealized footstep pulse to determine the maximum dynamic deflection of a floor for the purpose of building design calculations. These basic concepts were used to revisit the characteristics of the idealized forcing function. During the design phase of an academic research facility, extensive vibration measurements were obtained using an exemplar floor similar in design to that proposed for the new research building. The exemplar floor was modeled using FEA. Its modal characteristics were compared to the field test results and found to be in reasonable agreement. Upon having established confidence in the basic FEA model, the field measurement results of two walkers on the exemplar floor were compared with the FEA results predicted using the Galbraith‐Bart...


Abstract IT IS generally understood that the formulation of a feeding standard involves a knowledge, first, of the nutritive needs of the animal, and second, the nutritive value of the feedstuffs. As regards feeding for maintenance of energy, it is obvious that knowing first, the amount of heat produced, in calories, by the animal under given conditions, and second, the net calorific values of the feedstuffs, it is possible by means of appropriate conversion factors to set up feeding standards to satisfy the energy needs of the animals for maintenance under the given conditions with given feedstuffs. The measurements of heat production, or energy metabolism, of chickens is therefore a matter of some practical importance as well as theoretical interest. M ethod The maintenance needs for energy of growing chickens is best measured by some calorimetric method. This method may be a direct one, consisting of measuring the heat taken up by . . .


The invention relates to a piece of surface enhanced raman detection test paper and the application thereof, which belong to the technical field of ultra-sensitive test analysis, in particular to the piece of surface enhanced raman detection test paper and the application of the paper to detection of biological or chemical probe molecules with raman signals. The surface enhanced raman detection test paper is obtained by covering a precious metal layer on the surface of paper with a natural fiber micro nano multi-grade structure through the physical vapor deposition or chemical plating technology, the paper can be filter paper, parchment paper, napkin, newspaper or printing paper and the like, the precious metal film is gold or silver and the like, and the thickness of the precious metal film is 5 nanometers to 90 nanometers. Combined action of size, period and roughness enables incident light to generate a local electric field on the surface of a multi-stage structure and enables the electric field to be enhanced, and the detection limit can reach 10-10mol/L. The test paper has the advantages of being good in flexibility, low in cost, free of environment pollution, capable of being prepared in batch and the like, thereby being capable of being used in detection of probe molecules such as rhodamine 6G, p-aminothiophenol, riboflavin or ethanol and the like.


Regression models based on economic data indicate that Singapore's tourist authorities' optimistic expectations for tourist arrivals may be on target. The models show a strong effect on tourism from rising income in neighboring regions, while currency-exchange rates may have little impact. The models forecast some 10 million visitors to Singapore in 2000, a projection that is in line with the targets set by Singapore tourism officials. A calculation of the projected number of hotel beds in 2000 shows that the nation could accommodate up to 13 million visitors. While a huge number of tourists might strain local resources and overwhelm the relatively small population, the authors believe Singapore can sustain 10 million visitors without negative repercussions.


This paper describes the Interim Guideline for Climate Change for Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR). The Interim Guideline outlines an approach to address the risks from climate change in projects and decisions that involve estimation of design flood characteristics. It draws on the most recent climate science, particularly the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report in September 2013 (IPCC, 2013) as well as the new climate change projections for Australia (CSIRO & Bureau of Meteorology, 2015). The Interim Guideline is intended to be applied to the design standard for the structure or infrastructure of interest. While its primary application is for current-climate rainfall intensities (or equivalent depths) within the range of probability of one exceedance per year or annual exceedance probabilities (AEPs) from 50% to 1%, it provides guidance for situations where the Probable Maximum Precipitation is the basis for design. At the time of writing (March 2015), the Guideline was still open for public comment and thus subject to revision.


The number of cells in tissues is tightly controlled by cell division and cell death, and misregulation of cell numbers could lead to pathological conditions such as cancer. To maintain cell numbers in a tissue, a cell elimination process named programmed cell death or apoptosis, stimulates the proliferation of neighboring cells. This mechanism is called apoptosis-induced compensatory proliferation, which was originally reported more than 40 years ago. While only a limited number of the neigboring cells need to divide to compensate for apoptotic cell loss, the mechanisms that select cells for undergoing division remain an open question. Here we found that the spatial inhomogeneity in mechanotransduction through a growth-promoting transcription co-activator Yes-associated protein (YAP) in the neighboring tissue, accounts for the inhomogeneity of compensatory proliferation. Such inhomogeneous mechanotransduction arises from the combination of the non-uniform distribution of nuclear size, which is inherent in tissues, and the non-uniform pattern of mechanical force applied to the neighboring cells upon apoptosis. Our findings from a mechanical perspective complement the current biochemical understanding of compensatory growth and provide additional insights into cellular functions of how tissue precisely maintains its homeostasis.


Depression is one of the most common mental health conditions in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Mental Health.


The results of the South African Intrapartum Nevirapine Trial (SAINT) published in this issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases provide further evidence of the safety and efficacy of short-course antiretroviral prophylaxis regimens for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). SAINT compared 2 intrapartum/postpartum antiretroviral regimens multiple-dose zidovudine/lamivudine and single-dose nevirapine that had been shown in previous separate clinical trials to be effective in preventing MTCT and found that both regimens had similar efficacy and safety. SAINT is the fifth clinical trial in breastfeeding populations published since 1999 that has demonstrated the safety and efficacy of different short-course antiretroviral regimens for preventing MTCT. However the results of these trials appear to have had little impact on the perinatal HIV epidemic in resource-limited countries bringing into sharp focus the differences in the perinatal epidemic between resource-rich countries and those with limited resources. (excerpt)


Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease affecting 1-5% of the population worldwide.1 Its predominant plaque psoriasis/psoriasis vulgaris (PV) subtype results from interactions of complex genetic backgrounds with environmental factors, leading to dysregulated skin immune responses. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Augmented Reality (AR) is increasingly being used for providing guidance and supporting troubleshooting in industrial settings. While the general application of AR has been shown to provide clear benefits regarding physical tasks, it is important to understand how different visualization types influence user's performance during the execution of the tasks. Previous studies evaluating AR and user's performance compared different media types or types of AR hardware as opposed to different types of visualization for the same hardware type. This paper provides details of our comparative study in which we identified the influence of visualization types on the performance of complex machine set-up processes. Although our results show clear advantages to using concrete rather than abstract visualizations, we also find abstract visualizations coupled with videos leads to similar user performance as with concrete visualizations.


A theoretical analyzing approach about a class of seismic isolation system,dry friction plate-reposition spring system,was presented.It started from the formulation of the governing equation of multiply-degree of freedom system for structures equipped with this seismic isolation system.Computation results demonstrate that it has the three kinds of necessary functions required for an effective seismic isolation system.The relatively long vibration period provides the necessary isolation capability,the spring provides the reposition capability,and the friction forces at the contacting surface provide the seismic energy dissipation capability.It is also shown that the inter-storey drift resulted from seismic action could be drastically decreased on buildings equipped with this system,with the storey drift being enlarged but being distributed more evenly along the height.The friction coefficient and the string constant play significant roles in dictating the seismic isolation effectiveness.A combination of smaller friction coefficient and smaller spring constant could generate a seismic isolation effectiveness of about 90%


AbstractThe polymerization of cyclic lactams (ε-caprolactam and ω-dodecalactam) in the presence of anionic initiator and new activators (modifying additives) was studied. The compounds used as modifying additives have the following structures:

 The effects of the activators on the rate of polymerization, conversion, molecular weight, content of olygomer products, thermal stability were established. The polydispersity of the polyamides obtained in the presence of different activators were investigated.


The Ludus Danielis, a spiritual game in the Latin language from the late 12th century, is not only a stroke of luck from the point of view of music history, but also from the point of view of media theory. Completely preserved and thoroughly composed through, it represents the possibility of systematically analysing questions such as the specific relationship between the media involved – text and music or melody. Translations inevitably come into view: from text to melody and vice versa. With the help of the monophonic solo song "Surge frater" from the Ludus Danielis, this essay will examine the translation processes in terms of Pierce's sign types. At issue will be the exercise to carry out a categorical trace-back of text and melody (space, time, movement). A condition for this seems to be a specific semantic momentum of its own in both media, which, in the case of the formation of coherent statements by the interpreter, reveals itself as interference with increasing performative potentials.


Most bright galaxies are spirals, like our own, and in the nearby well-studied cases they reveal the beautiful and intricate grand-design spiral patterns that are both familiar and appealing (e.g., Sandage & Tammann 1981). At the centre of a few out of every hundred spirals there is also an extremely bright point of light. This point can be so bright that it can outshine the entire stellar output of the disc and bulge of the galaxy, and this enormous luminosity is produced from an exceedingly small volume indeed. This thesis studies aspects of these active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that inhabit some spiral galaxies.


This study was conducted in field experiment of groundnut and sesame intercropping plantation in Jokekone Village, Taungdwingyi Township, Magway Region during December 2012 to March 2013. Two pesticides, the synthetic pesticide (Shweseta Brand, a mixture of N-cyano-N-methyl acetamidine) and tobacco pesticide (home-made) were tested for the control of major insect pests. The experimental design was replicated three times in pesticide-free and pesticide-affected plots. A plot measuring 2m x 2m was chosen for field experiment. In the present study, the results revealed that all the three species (Nezara viridula, Dysdercus cingulatus and Aulacophora foveicollis) of major pests were comparatively controlled by the synthetic pesticide as well as tobacco pesticide. The average yield of groundnut was (862.0 Kg/ha) in control plots, (1223.7 Kg/ha) in tobacco pesticide plots, and (1195.8 Kg/ha) in synthetic pesticides plots. The average yield of sesame seed was (305.8 Kg/ha) in control plots, (472.8 Kg/ha) in tobacco pesticide plots and (528.0 Kg/ha) in synthetic pesticide plots. According to the yield, the average yield of groundnut in tobacco and the synthetic pesticide treated plots was approximately the same and higher than that in control plots. The average yield of sesame in tobacco pesticide treated plots was slightly lower than that in the synthetic pesticide treated plots, but higher than that in control plots. It was suggested that the tobacco pesticide was equally effective as the synthetic pesticide in controlling the pest population and also in yield of crops. From the data obtained, it was suggested that bio-pesticide is cheap and easy access to farmers and ecofriendly to our environment.


Previous solutions to the problem of synchronising fault-tolerant multiprocessor systems require either 3t+1 processors (for t-fault-tolerance) or else multiple rounds of messages with unforgeable digital signatures. These solutions are too expensive for small microprocessor-style control systems. The paper shows that simple constraints on the physical design of the communication links permit a much more economical solution with just 2t+1 processors and one round of messages, without the need for unforgeable signatures.


The present invention is directed to a method for the prophylactic management of delayed emesis by the use of metoclopramide nasal spray.


Opinion mining is an art of tracking the mood of the public about a particular product or topic from a huge set of opinions or reviews publically available in web. In this work, a novel approach is proposed based on SentiWordNet, which generates count of score words into seven categories such as strong-positive, positive, weak-positive, neutral, weak-negative, negative and strong-negative words for the opinion mining task and evaluated using machine learning algorithms like Naïve Bayes, SVM and Multilayer Perception (MLP). The web data is collected using web crawler applied with different pre-processing techniques which include removal of stop-words from online reviews, then stemming is performed using Porter Stemmer algorithm, and then reviews are tagged using Stanford POS tagger. The proposed approach is experimented on movie and product web domains and obtained higher success rate in terms of accuracy measured by various tools like Kappa statistics with an accuracy of 77.7% and has lower error rates. Weighted average of different accuracy measures like Precision, Recall, TP Rate, F-Measure rate depicts higher efficiency rate and lower FP Rate for Naïve Bayes and MLP models. The experimental results of Ten-Fold cross validation on the training data shows that Naïve Bayes & MLP outperforms the SVM model. Thus, the former are used for the Sentimental Analysis of web data. The results demonstrate that the proposed novel approach has higher efficacy and it can be successfully used in Opinion Mining for the task of decision making by any web user.


The residual gas fraction has significant effects on combustion in a diesel engine. However, few researchers have studied the effects of the residual gas on startability and emissions of a diesel engine during cold start, in which the components of the residual gas fraction were very different from those under normal operating conditions. Through experiments conducted on a single-cylinder direct-injection diesel engine, this paper investigated the combustion and emissions characteristics during cold start under different exhaust valve closing (EVC) timing conditions. The results show that an appropriate increase in the residual gas fraction could promote ignition of the first firing cycle and combustion stability significantly during cold start. Residual gas also had significant effects on the emissions during cold start. Opacity during cold start, especially during the initial phase, could be reduced significantly by properly advancing the EVC timing. Owing to the strong thermal effect of residual gas, nitrogen oxide (NO x ) emissions during cold start tended to increase as the EVC timing was advanced.


Climate Change as an Arena of Transnational Environmental Law it is fitting that the second issue of Transnational Environmental Law (TEL) focuses on governance and climate change. Transnational environmental law views governance as an outgrowth of local, regional and transboundary communications and pressures. The challenges of transnational governance – and its necessity – are especially clear in the context of climate change. On the one hand, climate change is a global phenomenon with globally distributed causes, thus requiring a global response. On the other hand, emissions always take place from specific locations within particular jurisdictions, and the impacts of climate change will vary from place to place, requiring diverse adaptation measures. Thus, it is inherent in the nature of climate change that responses will be multi-scalar and multi-jurisdictional, raising profound issues of governance. Moreover, because of the ubiquity of climate and of the activities causing emissions, climate governance modifies rules that govern private control over resources – in other words, with the property system.


Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) are a unique type of glial cells with axonal growth‐promoting properties in the olfactory system. Organized migration of OECs is essential for neural regeneration and olfactory development. However, the molecular mechanism of OEC migration remains unclear. In the present study, we examined the effects of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) on OEC migration. Initially, the "scratch" migration assay, the inverted coverslip and Boyden chamber migration assays showed that BDNF could promote the migration of primary cultured OECs. Furthermore, BDNF gradient attracted the migration of OECs in single‐cell migration assays. Mechanistically, TrkB receptor expressed in OECs mediated BDNF‐induced OEC migration, and BDNF triggered calcium signals in OECs. Finally, transient receptor potential cation channels (TRPCs) highly expressed in OECs were responsible for BDNF‐induced calcium signals, and required for BDNF‐induced OEC migration. Taken together, these results demonstrate that BDNF promotes the migration of cultured OECs and an unexpected finding is that TRPCs are required for BDNF‐induced OEC migration. GLIA 2016;64:2154–2165


The carburizing atmosphere during the case hardening process contains a large proportion of hydrogen. Due to the rapid diffusion of hydrogen a high amount of hydrogen can be absorbed by the carburi ...


This study was conducted to investigate whether several composted liquid manures (CLMs) are useful for biological control of large patch on zoysiagrass and investigate the chemical and biological factors to suppress large patch in soil treated with CLMs. The CLMs were produced at 4 different facilities for livestock excretion treatments located in Korea. Field experiments were carried out at 5 golf courses located near each facility. CLM and Chemical fertilizer (CF: water soluble fertilizer, 20-20-20) were applied four and three times with N at 12 g m -2 per year, respectively. There was significant increase of concentration of K, Na, and Cu of soil treated with CLM compared to CF treatment. Among experimental plots, CN and GG2 plot sites were shown significant higher effect of biological control 80% and 50% respectively against large patch disease. The number of bacteria, Actinomycetes, and fungi in soil at these sites significantly increased and fluorescein diacetate hydrolytic activity was enhanced, while the soil was treated with CLM. The results of this study demonstrated that CLM application has effect on soil to suppress large patch and reduce the use of fungicide in environment-friendly turf management.


Abstract : System Development Corp., Santa Monica, Calif. A COMPARISON OF HUMAN PERFORMANCE UNDER NATURAL LANGUAGE AND TERM DIAGRAM PROCEDURES FOR THE PRODUCTION OF REPORT SUMMARIES, by John D. Ford, Jr. and Emory H. Holmes. 6 Feb 62, 16p. incl. illus. 11 refs. (Technical memo. no. TM-662/000/00) Unclassified report DESCRIPTORS: (*Abstracting, *Documentation, Information retrieval, Automation.) (Language, Reduction, Theory.)An experimental study to increase our understanding of how human beings extract information from natural language expressions is presented. This may be regarded as a preliminary study of human performance in the production of report summaries in which severe format restrictions result in a task which departs from the natural language habits of human beings. This report presents a discussion of the problem and a description of the experiment. The next report series will discuss the results of performance pertaining to the three main variables, method, content and order of presentation. A third part of this series will present a number of ex post facto analyses of the data primarily with the intent of illuminating the language data processing behavior of human beings in the task of selecting information and writing summaries from written text. (Author)


: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a chronic metabolic disease with renal function injury or glomerular filtration rate <60% caused by a variety of factors. Due to the powerful compensatory function of the kidney, the onset of the disease is hidden, and if it cannot be detected and intervened in time, it can eventually progress to end-stage renal disease. At this time, alternative drugs such as dialysis and kidney transplantation can be used to maintain life. Urine-derivedstemceslls (USUs) are stem cells obtained from human blood with very high expansion function and multi-differentiation potential, and have the characteristics of unlimited source, non-invasive and self-derived culture. Many scientific studies have shown that USCs also has very important physiological and pathological effects in the fields of cell inflammatory response, cell apoptosis and cellular oxidative stress. Therefore, the search for potential biomarkers of chronic kidney disease has become an urgent problem. In this paper, the origin, isolation and culture of urogenic stem cells, their application in chronic kidney disease and the research progress of exosomes were reviewed.


the medical world and among the public at large. He went on to say that for the fourth time in ten years medical men and veterinarians were assembled together to study in common the manifold and important problems connected with the question of tuberculosis. Of these there was none more important, or the solution of which was more urgent, than that of prophylaxis. When Koch published his discovery of the bacillus of tuberculosis it seemed reasonable to hoDe that a means of neutralising its effects would shortly be found. On all sides efforts were made to discover imeansof destroyingthe bacillus or of neutralising its effects within the organism, but all these efforts had been in vain. The bacillus of Koch is one of the most resistent of the micro-organisms known, and in proportion as we have learnt to know it better, there appears to be less -prospect of finding an agent, chemical or -other, capable of destroying it in the .organism or of preventing its evolution without causing grave damage to the organism itself. It is certain that there are great differences in virulence among different types of Koch's bacillus, but that bacillus does not produce immunity against itself, and it was soon necessary to renounce all hope of preventive vaccination by the inoculation of attenuated virus. The employment of soluble products of the bacillus in the treatment of lbacillary lesions some time ago gave the greatest hope, speedily followed by the most painful disillusion. Subcutaneous, intraperitoneal or intravenous injections -of serums from refractory animals have


Given a non-zero polynomial $f$ in a polynomial ring $R$ with coefficients in a finite field of prime characteristic $p$, we present an algorithm to compute a differential operator $\delta$ which raises $1/f$ to its $p$th power. For some specific families of polynomials, we also study the level of such a differential operator $\delta$, i.e., the least integer $e$ such that $\delta$ is $R^{p^e}$-linear. In particular, we obtain a characterization of supersingular elliptic curves in terms of the level of the associated differential operator.


Pathloss prediction is an essential component of wireless network planning. While ray tracing based methods have been successfully used for many years, they require significant computational effort that may become prohibitive with the increased network densification and/or use of higher frequencies in 5G/B5G (beyond 5G) systems. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a data-driven and model-free pathloss prediction method, dubbed PMNet. This method uses a supervised learning approach: training a neural network (NN) with a limited amount of ray tracing (or channel measurement) data and map data and then predicting the pathloss over location with no ray tracing data with a high level of accuracy. Our proposed pathloss map prediction-oriented NN architecture, which is empowered by state-of-the-art computer vision techniques, outperforms other architectures that have been previously proposed (e.g., UNet, RadioUNet) in terms of accuracy while showing generalization capability. Moreover, PMNet trained on a 4-fold smaller dataset surpasses the other baselines (trained on a 4-fold larger dataset), corroborating the potential of PMNet.


To the Editor .—The spelling of "dearth" as "dirth" ( Amer J Dis Child 122 :92, 1971) caused more murth here than it was wirth.


The field practice in Beidaihe is designed mainly for the fresh students majoring in Geosciences in CUG as a basic introduction to the field geology.Traditional way of score assessment for field practice is mainly focused on the final geological report,which stressed student's ability of comprehensive analysis of geological phenomena generalization.However,due to the weakness of geological background and poor practice experience,there are some negative effects in the traditional score assessment.So we proposed a comprehensive way of using a final exam mainly focusing on the field geological outcrops and other necessary proxies like field notes and field skills to record the student's final score at Beidaihe in 2010,which improves greatly the scoring ways,brings new energy for practice teaching and achieves a satisfactory effect.


A retrospective review was undertaken of 169 patients admitted to an Intensive Therapy Unit with a major chest injury to determine the incidence, clinical features and outcome of patients with myo- cardial contusion. This injury occurred in 29 (17o7o) patients, of whom 24 (83~ had significant cardio- vascular complications and five died as a direct result of the injury. The interval between injury and diagnosis was 3.2 ___ 2.3 days (mean + SD) from injury and in six patients the diagnosis was made only at necropsy. Increased awareness of myocardial con- tusion is required for earlier diagnosis and prevention of complications.


Methods and methods for monitoring environmental parameters using a computer information measuring system are proposed. Special service functions have been developed, according to which the measurement process takes place automatically without operator involvement. Studies of the impurity concentration in the aqueous medium by a direct method using ion-selective electrodes have been carried out. The verification of the correctness of the results was done by the method of additives, that is, by measuring the known concentration of the component against the background of an unknown part of it in the test solution.


The utility model provides an integrated computer, relating to the computer field. The technical proposal adopted by the utility model is as follows: an integrated computer comprises a casing formed by a front frame and a back cover; an LCD and the mainframe hardware are connected by a back board and arranged inside the casing; the back board is also provided a wireless network card; the front frame is provided with functional keys; the lower-back end of the back cover is provided with a rotary-shaft bracket. The utility model overcomes the limit of going on line with cables of the existing integrated computer, and additionally arranges the display screen functional keys on the front frame, including AUTO, menu, on-off, volume-regulation and silence; and a foot pad is arranged on the back cover of the computer for the anti-skid purpose when the computer is arranged on the desktop.


Abstract Homestead resource utilization is widespread in Asia, while centuries of traditional approaches have been increasing throughout South Asia. Homestead resources are vital to maintaining sustainable life and livelihood of local people in Bangladesh and people in remote areas as coastal zones are mostly engaged with their homestead resources. The study was conducted in Sandwip Upazila (sub-district) of Chittagong district to assess the diversity of plant species, species richness, homestead management practices, and their contribution to the socio-economic condition of the rural households. Ninety household interviews were conducted using a semi-structured questionnaire following stratified sampling to fulfill objectives. A total of 57 tree species under 28 families, including timber, fruits, fuel wood, and multi-purpose tree species were found in the study area. Among the identified 57 tree species under 28 families, 49% are fruit species, while the mean value of Shannon-Wiener Index and evenness of species were 3.32 and 1.89, respectively. Also, the Species Richness Index for Maitbhanga and Sarikait unions was 15.20 and 15.36, respectively, while 52% of the respondents identified market or private nurseries as their source of planting materials. Besides, 71.11% of the respondents replied that protection measures are taken for protecting planting seedlings, while seedlings were used mostly for a better survival rate. Damaged by animals, storms, and pests were identified as most problems faced by households in homestead resource management. This study may help policymakers, including local communities to take proper necessary actions to ensure sustainable management of diversity of homestead resources in local areas of Bangladesh.


Neurovisceral storage disease is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait.The patients have clinical and roentgenographic features resembling Hurler's disease. There is severe progressive cerebral degeneration with death occurring in the first two years of life. Increased accumulation of ganglioside in the brain has been previously demonstrated.Two patients are reported who show, in addition, the increased synthesis and storage of mucopolysaccharide in skin fibroblast cultures.


A two-dimensional computation method for open channel flows is developed reflecting the effects of secondary flow. Among the assumptions in the analysis, the vertical velocity profiles of the main flow and the secondary flow are assumed to remain similar, and the general distoreted velocity profile is expressed by the composition of them. This method has been verified using available data. The scheme of computation is very simple so that computation by personal computer is feasible.


This paper explores the history of Ontario's labour laws as they relate to agricultural workers, examines the way these laws have been interpreted by the judiciary, provides an overview of the most recent case affirming the right of agricultural workers to bargain, and analyzes the likely effects of the Court of Appeal's recent decision. In so doing, it provides commentary on the relationship between the labour movement, human rights and the legal system more generally, and provides specific commentary on this situation as applies to agricultural workers in Ontario. This paper is informed largely historical institutionalism, an approach which illuminates how political struggle and political actors are influenced by institutional settings (Thelen and Steinmo, 1992; Hall and Taylor, 1996). As such, it analyzes various state and societal institutions which shape how political actors- in this case the Canadian labour movement- defines their interests and structure their power in relation to that of other groups (Thelen and Steinmo, 1992: 2). The first part of the analysis begins with an overview of the relationship between the Ontario legislature, agricultural workers, and collective bargaining rights and highlights the struggles of their reliance on the legislature for progressive change. The second part of the analysis is predominantly legalistic and identifies the Charter and the Supreme Court of Canada as central institutions within the Canadian polity. It then examines the relationship between the labour movement and these institutions in recent years. An analysis


Background/Introduction: Diabetes impacts 12- 14% of pregnancies. Evaluating the impact of maternal diabetes on the fetal heart is challenging due to variable image quality and limited time for structural changes to manifest. Left atrial reservoir strain (ER) is a sensitive marker of early left atrial dysfunction which may elucidate fetal atrial dysfunction resulting from maternal diabetes.

 We sought to evaluate if fetal ER can detect impairment of left atrial function in the fetal heart as a result of maternal diabetes.

 We performed a prospective observational study evaluating patients who were referred to the high risk pregnancy service as a result of maternal diabetes (pre-existing or gestational) and healthy controls.
 Patients were excluded if adequate imaging of the fetal myocardium was not possible. Baseline characteristics of the mother and cardio-metabolic risk factors were recorded.
 The fetal echocardiogram focused on the 4 chamber view. We used the 4 chamber view with closure of the mitral valve as the zero reference point (R-R) gating. The strain curves from 6 atrial segments were averaged.
 Normality of the data was assessed using the Shapiro-Wilk test. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare ER between fetuses, whose mothers had diabetes versus those fetuses whose mothers were healthy controls.

 A total of 120 fetal scans were performed. 5 were excluded due to poor image quality, which prevented strain analysis. 115 fetal scans were analysed (87 with maternal diabetes and 27 healthy controls). The diabetic subjects and controls did not defer significantly in age Mean ± SD (31± 5 vs 30± 5, p= 0.81). The mothers with diabetes had a higher body mass index than controls (Median [IQR]) (30.5 kg/m2 [25.1, 35.3] vs 24.6 kg/m2 [22.1, 28.6] p < 0.001).
 The presence of maternal diabetes resulted in lower fetal ER (28.5% [22.1, 36.2] vs 33.4% [26.6, 41.6] P = 0.01).
 Figure 1 illustrates the Box-Whisker plot comparing Fetal ER between fetuses exposed to maternal diabetes and fetuses where mothers were healthy controls.

 The presence of maternal diabetes results in impaired fetal left atrial function as measured by fetal left atrial strain (ER).
 Abstract P1378 Figure 1


The stacking fault ribbon of dissociated 60 dislocations in silicon is imaged with resolution better than 0.33 nm. The dissociation width of the dislocations had been frozen in under high shear stress. It is relaxed by heating within the electron microscope. The dynamics of kinks on the partial dislocations can be analyzed in this way. We find the migration energy of kinks on 90 partials to be Wm ˆ …1:24 0:07† eV. The formation energy of a single kink is estimated to Fk ˆ …0:73 0:15† eV. Obstacles for kink motion are observed under the beam; they are thermally overcome with activation energy Eu ˆ 2:4 eV.


Learning selective course is one of the chief assignments for an engineering undergraduate. To improve the teaching quality of the selective courses, some measures have been put forward in this paper. They involved with teaching management, capital requirement, teaching mode, testing, and so on.


In this paper, analysis and simulations are presented to show that using array antennas in deep space communication can increase the signal collecting aperture and enable beam forming, array received signal model is build, and multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm introduced to increase suppression of interference is implemented on a simulated array system. Simulation demonstrates that the MUSIC algorithm is a strong candidate that can provide great angle separation, as well as interference suppression capability. To get optimal signal combining, several arraying combining algorithms are studied focusing on the very low received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) channel conditions that commonly found in deep space communications applications. According to simulation result, theoretically all discussed combining algorithms are recommended candidates to find the optimal combining weight coefficients that maximizes the combined SNR, but with the received signal SNR get lower, the combining preferment of algorithms will degrade. Simulation show SMI and LMS algorithm get lowest combining SNR loss, but Eigen and Sumple algorithm are blind combining procession, no need of reference or training signal.


We use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Data Release 12 (DR12Q), containing nearly 300,000 active galactic nuclei (AGNs), to calculate the monochromatic luminosities at 5100, 3000, and 1350 Å, derived from the broadband extinction-corrected SDSS magnitudes. After matching these sources to their counterparts from the SDSS Quasar Data Release 7 (DR7Q), we find very high correlations between our luminosities and DR7Q spectra-based luminosities with minute mean offsets (∼0.01 dex) and dispersions of differences of 0.11, 0.10, and 0.12 dex, respectively, across a luminosity range of 2.5 dex. We then estimate the black hole (BH) masses of the AGNs using the broad line region radius–disk luminosity relations and the FWHM of the Mg ii and C iv emission lines, to provide a catalog of 283,033 virial BH mass estimates (132,451 for Mg ii, 213,071 for C iv, and 62,489 for both) along with the estimates of the bolometric luminosity and Eddington ratio for 0.1 < z < 5.5 and for roughly a quarter of the sky covered by SDSS. The BH mass estimates from Mg ii turned out to be closely matched to the ones from DR7Q with a dispersion of differences of 0.34 dex across a BH mass range of ∼2 dex. We uncovered a bias in the derived C iv FWHMs from DR12Q as compared to DR7Q, which we correct empirically. The C iv BH mass estimates should be used with caution because the C iv line is known to cause problems in the estimation of BH mass from single-epoch spectra. Finally, after the FWHM correction, the AGN BH mass estimates from C iv closely match the DR7Q ones (with a dispersion of 0.28 dex), and more importantly the Mg ii and C iv BH masses agree internally with a mean offset of 0.07 dex and a dispersion of 0.39 dex.


EDITOR—Having worked for the HALO Trust—a British mine clearance organisation—as doctors (SH, EC) and mine clearers (PJ) in various parts of the world, we were interested in Hanevik and Kvale's paper on landmine injuries.1 We were surprised that most injuries were pattern 3 type as this …


Permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs) with fractional-slot non-overlapping windings, also known as tooth-coil winding PMSMs (TCW PMSM), have been under intensive research during the latest decade. There are many optimization routines explained and implemented in the literature to improve the characteristics of this machine type. This paper introduces a new technique for torque ripple minimization in TCW PMSM. The source of torque harmonics is also described. The low-order torque harmonics can be harmful for a variety of applications, such as direct drive wind generators, direct drive light vehicle electrical motors, and for some high-precision servo applications. The reduction of the torque ripple harmonics with the lowest orders (6th and 12th) is realized by machine geometry optimization technique using finite element analysis. The presented optimization technique includes the stator geometry adjustment in TCW PMSMs with rotor surface permanent magnets and with rotor embedded permanent magnets. Influence of the permanent magnet skewing on the torque ripple reduction and cogging torque elimination was also investigated. It was implemented separately and together with the stator optimization technique. As a result, the reduction of some torque ripple harmonics was attained.


Abstract This ethnographic study of a police cadet programme in government high schools in Kerala describes how efforts to develop future leaders dovetail with educational strategies for acquiring class distinction in liberalising India. I show how the counter-intuitive movement of children from private English-medium schools to English-medium sections of government schools accrued social and cultural capital for children while establishing newer distinctions in these schools—distinctions which the cadet programme reinforced. While all cadets appreciated the exposure provided by the cadet programme, the programme's practical logic of risk reduction and efficiency enabled English-educated cadets to emerge as 'ready-made leaders' requiring very little training.


The paper introduces background extractions with self-adaptive update algorithm and puts forward an algorithm of background extraction based on statistics of histogram combining with multi-frame average.It avoids the image trail-blur phenomena using pure multi-frame method on traffic jam,and has relative low computation complexity comparing with the mix Gauss model.It can run on the TI DM642 DSP hardware platform.Experimental image shows that the algorithm gives a fast extraction speed and gets good background image.


Legal scholarship on intellectual property theories have long held the assumption that copyright enables creativity without a strong acceptable universal foundation of empirical research. The theories of copyright focus mostly on developed economies with little empirical or scholarly exploration of the creative dynamics in developing economies. The scholarly debate on the relevance or necessity of a strong copyright regime is even more relevant in the digital era because unauthorized users reproduce copyrighted works at the click of a mouse or the touch of a fingertip. With the advent of the Internet, it is necessary to update copyright laws to protect creative works.

Currently, some scholars contend that strong copyright protection has a chilling impact on creativity, which serves instead as a form of corporate protectionism and undue financial welfare. These copyright law scholars contend that copyright law has bloated to protect corporate stakeholders rather than society. This dissertation is a case study of Nollywood, Nigeria's movie industry, to test the competing hypotheses about whether strong copyright law incentives or discourages the nascent cultural content industries in a developing country.

Nollywood is among the three largest film production industries, globally. The rise of Nollywood, from a low budget and technology industry without an effective national copyright regime, seems to support the assertion that creativity might thrive without the restrictions of laws. However, a comparative analysis of the copyright regimes in the United States, India, and Nigeria gives further hindsight of the nuanced intersections at work that support an enhanced copyright regime for the Nigerian film industry.

Nollywood film industry is less than thirty years old, which is fairly new compared to Bollywood, a subdivision of the Indian film industry. The jurisprudential experience of Bollywood in combatting the impact of copyright infringement has gone through evolving phases of growth. India and the United States have updated its laws and policies to confront the emerging digital era ecosystem of creativity, unlike Nigeria. Nollywood is an ideal case study to examine competing claims about the impact a copyright law regime weighs on the creative growth of the film industry in a developing economy. Nollywood creative dynamics epitomizes both the need for a strong copyright law and the freedom of creating without restrictions of law.

The first narrative about the role of copyright law on Nollywood was that the film industry developed in large part because Nigerian copyright law is weak and enforcement non-existent. The second competing narrative is that a strong copyright regime safeguards creativity in a content industry like Nollywood. According to the second account, Nigeria's film industry would have developed further, and currently endangered because of weak copyright law. Additionally, this account contends that, film piracy and other infringing activities undermine Nollywood, and prevent it from developing further as true competitors to the U.S. and Indian film industries.

My thesis contends that the second school of thought is correct. The Nigerian film industry, through its history and evolution, highlights the importance of Nollywood needing an effective and enhanced copyright regime, which will save the industry from collapse. Nollywood's creativity is a child of entrepreneurial pursuit. The infringing activities of film pirates undercut the ingenuity of the industry and its creators. Prominent Nollywood filmmakers, either have suspended movie productions, or threatened to stop investing in the industry, because of the impact of copyright infringements. To reconceptualize Nigerian copyright to protect Nollywood's means of production would be a foundational step to enhance its creativity.

Copyright is a necessary tool for the sustained growth of Nollywood and its goals of reaching a global creative competitive edge. At the basic level, an effective Nigerian copyright law and enforcement policy will instill confidence in Nollywood filmmakers about the profitability of their investments. This thesis proposes the reform of Nigeria's laws to enact an effective digital copyright regime that will give Nollywood filmmakers more protection for their productions. Enacting legal reforms is a modest first step to giving the Nollywood film industry the means to restrain illegal copying.

The change to the "law-in-the-books," will not have the desired effects unless Nigeria ratchets up its copyright enforcement, both non-digital ("analogue") and digitally. Nigeria should combine a modern digital copyright law with the resources necessary to enforce the law, if Nollywood is to achieve its promise, and evolve further like Bollywood and the U.S. film industries. This thesis concludes that widespread piracy threatens Nollywood and Nigeria's film industry will soon wither away without copyright reforms that I propose. Apart from critical analysis of concepts, this dissertation adopts doctrinal analysis and examination of theories related to law, development, sociology and culture. This dissertation examines the causes and consequences of widespread piracy and the need to fortify copyright protection in Nigeria, to ensure both economic growth and protection of innovation. Finally, this dissertation argues that an enhanced copyright regime is necessary for Nollywood to flourish and compete in the global market.