We present the design, characterization, and experimental demonstration of a polarization-insensitive wide-angle plasmonically induced transparency (PIT) planar metamaterial (MM) in the near-infrared regime. A four-level plasmonic system is proposed to explain and analyze the forming mechanisms of the PIT planar MM, whose results agree closely with the simulated and experimental results. This shows that the local asymmetrical nanostructure leading to the plasmon-assisted interaction is the key to producing PIT, but it does not mean that PIT cannot be achieved by the whole symmetrical nanostructure. This work offers a further step in developing optical modulation.


The extinction and the persistence of the population of the harmful sheep blowfly (Lucilia cuprina) are discussed in this paper through a stochastic mathematical model. Using appropriate Lyapunov functionals, the extinction of these flies depends on the time to oviposition and the time between generations. The oviposition period must be sufficiently short. Another species of blowfly, called Lucilia sericata, also attacks sheep in many areas. Both blowflies are ectoparasites of warm-blooded vertebrates, particularly domestic sheep. These two blowflies are related to sharing the same mitochondrial DNA sequences, although the two species are distinct. A sufficiently small egg-laying delay then leads to the rapid extinction of both blowfly populations.


Let G→ be a directed graph of order n with no component of order less than 3, and let Γ be a finite Abelian group such that ∣Γ∣≥2n+2n or if n is large enough with respect to an arbitrarily fixed ε>0 then ∣Γ∣≥(1+ε)n . We show that there exists an injective mapping φ from V(G→) to the group Γ such that ∑x∈V(C→)φ(x)=0 for every connected component C→ of G→ , where 0 is the identity element of Γ . Moreover we show some applications of this result to group distance magic labelings.


The economy of Nigeria is powered by generator Plants. This study investigated the place of Social Entrepre- neurship in an economy that lacks social amenities and infrastructures which should have stimulated Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate preparedness to support Social Entrepreneurship in such economy and seeks to unravel current Corporate con- ceptions between Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Business Responsibility in such emerging economy. Eighty Cor- porate bodies located in five states were surveyed using questionnaire that addressed the specific objectives. The sampling method adopted is availability and willingness to participate. Percentages were used to localize assertions while SPSS version 16 based Multivariate Analysis of Variance statistical tool was employed to produce test statics and statistical inferences drawn at 5% level of significance on each of the stated hypothesis. The research findings showed that currently there is a confused conception of Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility. It was also found out that institutional trusts among Corporate bodies and Governmental Agencies are very low in Nigeria thus impeding the flourishing evolution of Social Entrepreneurship to a large extent. The tenets of Social Entrepreneurship needs to be expatiated and Corporate service costs reduced by providing enabling structures that will further enhance flourishing evolution of Social Entrepre- neurship in developing countries as Corporate preparedness to support Social Entrepreneurship in Generator driven economy such as Nigeria is encouraging.


Accounting education is argued to be in crisis and several changes to it have been recommended lately (Siegel & Sorensen, 1999; Russell et al., 2000). This study is motivated by the question of how accounting education should be developed to provide the knowledge, skills and capabilities required by contemporary organizations. The aim is to ascertain the main managerial accounting tasks of practicing accountants. The relative importance of various tasks is identified and the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for the competent performance of those work activities are studied. Moreover, we aim to focus on whether there has been a change in activities, especially from bean counters to business partners, and how the work will change in the next three years. The study was conducted as a survey (the number of respondents was 300, response rate 30 %). The results suggest that the most common and important activities are fairly traditional accounting duties, such as financial reporting and budgeting. These are assumed to change somewhat in the near future, however. Although no TEEMU MALMI, Professor TOMI SEPPALA, Professor


e18515 Background: At diagnosis approximately 25-40% of patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) are over age 65 and more than 60% of them have extended disease (ED). There is a scarcity of data on this subpopulation. The aim of this study was to report clinical characteristics of this subpopulation, highlighting some challenges in their clinical management. Methods: In this retrospective cohort, data from 96 patients aged >65 years with SCLC diagnosed between 1997 and 2007 at a single institution were analyzed. Results: At diagnosis median age at presentation was 71, and most patients (n=65; 67.7%) had ED_SCLC and became the focus of our analysis. In this particular population the median survival time was 5 compared to 9 months for limited disease patients. Further, 63% of these patients had performance status (PS)≥2 and that was correlated with worse survival (PS0-1=9 months, PS2=4 months and PS3-4=3months; p=0.05). Additionally, 70% of this group with ED had at least one comorbidity and 30% had more...


Faced with the gradual reduction of College English course in university, this study takes the course of "College English Viewing, Listening & Speaking" as an example and probes into the online and offline blended learning mode based on SPOC for part of the top freshen, which lasts 16 weeks among two semesters and makes up for the reduced lesson time by extending the teaching content. The integration of high-quality MOOC and offline classes has changed the traditional single teaching mode, updated the teaching content and stimulated students' interest in learning. The results show that this learning mode can make students have more time to study independently and meet their individual learning needs, which is more helpful to the realization of college English training.


INTRODUCTION Regularly recurring fears of impending scarcity of non-renewable energy have, as previously shown all proved to be groundless (McCabe, 1998; Odell, 1973; Odell and Rosing, 1983). Nevertheless, the issue of the world' s potential supplies of coal, oil and natural gas seems to remain one of concern, reflecting humankind's continuing overwhelming dependence on them for its energy needs. This concern is, however, misplaced in the light of recent important changes on both the supply and demand sides.


In this issue, Maciejewski and colleagues (page [3584][1]) suggest an interesting new use for anti-interleukin-2 (IL-2) receptor antibody (daclizumab) in patients with moderate aplastic anemia (AA). According to their interpretation, 6 of 16 evaluable patients responded within 90 days from the last


The fundamental principle of seismic isolation is to modify the response of the building so that the ground can move below the building without transmitting these motions into the building. A lead rubber bearing is formed of a lead plug force-fitted into a pre-formed hole in an elastomeric bearing. The lead core provides rigidity under service loada and energy dissipation under seismic loads. In this paper, engineering properties and performance evaluation for seismic isolation as lead rubber bearing will be introduced.


Public sector human resources management (HRM) today functions more-or-less globally in a Facilitative State era in which state regime theories and practices differ significantly from those of the nine decades of the Administrative State during which the field developed. This comparative analysis of contemporary HRM in seven nation states and in the state of California probes one fundamental question: Facilitation of what? In particular, what are the standards of facilitative-state HRM? How do shared and varied regime values impact the field, and vice versa? In answers, politics and its definitions and absent or present qualities of merit, including ethics, are inescapable factors.


EDITORS, The recent paper by Ludvigsson et al in this journal raises the important issue that an inverse relationship exists between anxiety and depression, and the risk of disease worsening (or nonhealing) in coeliac disease, mediated via adherence to disease management strategies. Such an issue is apparent in many chronic, not only gastrointestinal, diseases, especially when requiring life‐long care and self‐management of patients. Such seemingly paradoxical effects have been described before where, for example, strict adherence to drug therapy improves survival risk of cardiac events even when the patients had received placebo. There is a bidirectional relationship between psychiatric symptoms and bowel disorders where increased symptom load may induce mood disorders at follow‐up, while increased scores in depression and anxiety may provoke symptoms in those symptom free at baseline have been reported, such as in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. The conclusion Ludvigsson et al draw from their data may be premature. All chronic diseases induce depression and anxiety; the number of patients that had developed psychiatric symptoms after diagnosis in this study was relatively low in both groups—between 0.5% and 4% in those with strict adherence and mucosal healing and between 0.1% and 4% in those with persistent villous atrophy for anxiety and depression respectively. The global prevalence of anxiety and depression in the general population is in the same range in Sweden. The number of those receiving psychotropic drugs is even smaller. The number of patients that had a diagnosis of anxiety and depression prior the diagnosis was unfortunately not reported, presumably due to the fact that coeliac disease often manifests early in life, and the number is even lower. More surprisingly, the authors call for "strategies to promote mucosal healing while preserving quality of life and mental health" but abstain from discussing the starting points for such strategies. The rise in the incidence of anxiety and depression occurred after the follow‐up biopsy for confirmation of diagnosis (Table 1). Anxiety and depression have trait (personality) as well as state (situational) signatures that can be distinguished by tests, and, while many patients may develop state anxiety in such a diagnostic situation, persistent (trait) anxiety is where the focus should be. Performing such a test at the time prior to the second biopsy would allow to differentiate the patients accordingly. Those with high levels need to adopt a coping strategy to learn that they can adjust to the disease without becoming a disease victim; for example, an anxiety‐reducing counseling and cognitive behaviors therapy (CBT) may be requested. While those with rather low and stable levels of anxiety that are at risk of nonadherence to disease management need to learn that adherence is the only way to prevent disease progression. This calls for a more educational approach that could involve pharmacists and community workers. For both strategies there are examples (such as in diabetes management) that need to be adopted to coeliac disease. Such a strategy needs validation in a prospective clinical cohort study.


Rails are manufactured from bloom by hot rolling. Subsequently, they are cooled to ambient temperature. At the end of the cooling process, the rails bend almost in the form of circular ares. They are then straightened in the roller-straightening machine. Knowledge of the shape of the bent rail and the magnitude of residual stress at the end of the cooling process is useful for proper computation of the straightness and residual stress in the rails after the straightening operation. The present paper describes a simulated model developed for the investigation of the behaviour of the rail during the entire cooling process. The analysis has been carried out as a decoupled thermomechanical transient problem using the general-purpose finite element software ANSYS. Histories of the temperature distribution and deformation of the rail have been obtained by the method. The results are in good agreement with the observed behaviour of the rails in the real-life environment. The model has also evaluated the generated residual stress distribution.


The NGO of our country has a very fast development since reform and opening-up,during the reform of public service taking marketization,socialization as orientation,introduced quality and efficiency that the NGO will help to improve the public service,help to realize the society fairly,to satisfy the pluralistic social demand and response improving the public service.But the development of the NGO of our country is not abundant enough at present,the public service ability,public trust and the ability of raising the social capital,etc.for remaining to improve further,this needs the government,NGO,society to make a good environment of favorable to NGO's development together.


Designing a control law for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) has been a considerable challenge from classical and modern control view point. Neural Network based control is seen as an emerging technology for intelligent control of complex system. Here we consider an approach to model the controller for the AUV using Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN). RNN had been selected to model the system as it has very good capability to incorporate the dynamics of the system. The AUV dynamic equations had been modeled to obtain the data required for training the neural network. A controller has been developed which can learn change in the dynamics on the fly. Results have been shown for online learning controller. Back Propagation Algorithm had been used in upgrading the controller weights during online learning control techniques.


The circular photogalvanic effect, spin-galvanic effect and magneto-gyrotropic effect have been observed in hexagonal (0001)-oriented GaN low-dimensional structures excited by infrared and terahertz radiation. Experimental and theoretical analysis exhibits that the observed photocurrents are related to the gyrotropy of the GaN based heterojunctions and give evidence for a substantial structural inversion asymmetry caused by the built-in electric fields at the AlGaN/GaN interface.


A field experiment was conducted at Sakha Agricultural Research Station Farm during the two growing seasons 2013 and 2014 to study the he effect of irrigation period, depth and cultivar on yield and water parameters for rice (Oryza sativa L.). The site located at Kafr EL Sheikh Governorate, Middle North of the Nile Delta. Two irrigation period treatments; 6 days (P1) and 12 days (P2) were tested. Three irrigation depths; irrigation till 3cm above soil surface (ASS) (D1), irrigation depth till 5cm ASS (D2) and the traditional till 7cm ASS (D3) were tested. Three rice cultivars; Giza 177 (V1), Sakha 101 (V2) and Orabi (V3) were tested. The important findings could be summarized as follows: The highest values of irrigation water applied and then water duty were recorded under control treatment e.g. irrigation every 6 days and 7 cm depths (irrigation without any stress during the growing season, interaction between P1D3). On the contrary, the lowest values were recorded under interaction between P2D1 (every 12 days irrigation interval and 3cm depth during the growing season). The mean value of productivity irrigation water was increased under prolonged irrigation interval of 12 days plants comparing with other treatments. The highest mean values were recorded under interaction between P2D1 but the lowest mean values were recorded under interaction between P1D3 (highest water applied treatment) The mean values for grain yield was significantly affected with irrigation period, depth and verities. For two periods, irrigation till 5cm (D2) recorded the highest grain yield 4246.7 kg fed , and 4394.3 kg fed. under 6 days as irrigation interval, and 2894.4 kg fed., and 2866.6 kg fed under 12 days as irrigation interval in the first season and second seasons respectively. Orabi 1 recorded the highest values of grain yield under overall period and depth of water. Yield components of rice; 1000 grain weight g., biological yield kg., straw yield kg., grain straw ratio and sterility % were decreased under water stress treatments in the second period (P2) as compared with P1, for water depths; D1 compared with D2 in the two period. For varieties, biological yield kg., and grain straw ratio only showed significant effect. Regarding, all studied growth parameters; panicle Length and plant height were increased with increasing irrigation water applied. Moreover, water saving from interaction between P1D2 which increased yield with 7% with water saving with 16-18% as comparing with P1D3 (highest water applied treatment).


The theoretical investigation of polar crystal surfaces in solution involves methodological issues that have not been entirely resolved. Here we present results of molecular dynamics simulations of potash alum surfaces in contact with aqueous solution. As a prerequisite for this study, we developed a classical, empirical model potential for this complex inorganic material. The resulting rigid ion force field was carefully tested, and we could show its ability to reproduce a wide range of experimental results. Using this force field, we studied the (111) surface of potash alum and compared various ways of simulating this polar surface. By establishing the stability of a charged, in addition to the reconstructed crystal surface usually assumed, we question the common practice of excluding the existence of such charged surface terminations a priori.


The (cinema) caption processing that adds descriptive texts on the sequence of frames is an important video manipulation function that video editor should support. This paper proposes an efficient MC-DCT compressed domain approach to insert the caption into the MPEG-compressed video stream. It basically adds the DCT blocks of the caption image to the corresponding DCT blocks of the input frames one by one in MC-DCT domain as in [5]. However, the strength of the caption image is adjusted in the DCT domain to prevent the resulting DCT coefficients from exceeding the maximum value that is allowed in MPEG. In order to adjust the strength of caption image adaptively, we should know the exact pixel values of input image that is a difficult task in DCT domain. We propose an approximation scheme for the pixel values in which the DC value of a block is used as the expected pixel value for all pixels in that block. Although this approximation may lead some errors in the caption area, it still provides a relatively high image quality in the non-caption area, while the processing time is about 4.9 times faster than the decode-captioning-reencode approach.


The problem of interaction of the commercial bank and currency value regulation organs and currency control agents are dealt with. The commercial bank inherent problem is its organizational structure, commercial bank is examined as a subject of legal activity.


The genesis of this book was a casual suggestion at a meeting of the Social Work History Network. Why don't we do something to mark 50 years since BASW was formed in 1970, the Local Authority Social Services Act was passed and a unified social work training was about to be introduced? And this book is the something....


Title: Psychopharmacology: A historical approach. Abstract: Psychopharmacology can be defined as a scientific discipline that studies drugs able to modify the behaviour and the mental function through its action on the neuroendocrine system. Pharmacology, bio- chemistry, psychiatry and psychology share their interest for this multidis- ciplinary field of knowledge, devoted to the analysis of the substances that alter those functions of the nervous system that are shown on the organ- ism's behaviour. This paper reviews the theoretical concept of psychopharmacology, and the main historical events that occurred in clinical psychiatry, labora- tory pharmacological research, and behavioural studies conducted in both animals and human beings.


Abstract Background Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) often do not respond to antidepressant (ADT) monotherapy; adjunctive treatment is often used to address this unmet need. Cariprazine (CAR), a dopamine D3-preferring D3/D2 and serotonin 5-HT1A receptor partial agonist approved to treat adults with manic, mixed, or depressive episodes of bipolar I disorder, is under investigation as adjunctive therapy for patients with MDD. Methods This randomized, double-blind, phase 3 placebo (PBO)-controlled study assessed the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of CAR 1.5 and 3 mg/d as an adjunct to ADT in adult patients with MDD (18–65 years) and inadequate response to ADT alone (NCT03738215). The primary endpoint was change from baseline to week 6 in Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) total score. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-17), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A), and Clinical Global Impressions (CGI) were also assessed. Treatment response was defined as at least 50% decrease in MADRS total score at week 6. Results Patients (n=751) in the modified intent-to-treat population were randomly assigned to CAR 1.5 mg/d+ADT (n=250), CAR 3 mg/d+ADT (n=252), or PBO+ADT (n=249). Mean age was 44.8 years and 73.4% were female; mean baseline total scores were: MADRS=32.5, HAMD-17=25.9, HAM-A= 21.4. Overall, 89.7% of patients completed the study; rates of discontinuation due to adverse events (AEs) and lack of efficacy were 3.6% and 0.5%, respectively. The difference in MADRS total score change from baseline to week 6 was statistically significant after multiplicity adjustment for CAR 1.5 mg/d vs PBO (-14.1 vs -11.5; adjusted P=.0050), but not for CAR 3 mg/d (-13.1; P=.0727). Differences for CAR 1.5 mg/d vs PBO were observed by week 2 (nominal P=.0453) and maintained at weeks 4 (nominal P<.0001) and 6 (nominal P=.0025). At week 6, more CAR 1.5 mg/d patients (44%) than PBO patients (34.9%) responded to treatment (nominal P=.0446). Greater improvement in the CGI-I scores was observed for CAR 1.5 (nominal P=.0026) and 3 mg/d (nominal P=.0076) vs PBO. At week 6, improvement in HAMD-17 total score reached nominal significance for CAR 1.5 mg/d vs PBO (-13.1 vs -11.1; nominal P=.0017), but not for CAR 3 mg/day (-12.2; P=.0783). HAM-A improvement was greater for CAR 1.5 mg/d vs PBO (nominal P=.0370). There were no deaths; 2 serious AEs occurred in each group (CAR: kidney infection, social stay hospitalization; PBO: depression, multiple sclerosis). The most common CAR AEs (≥5% and twice PBO) were akathisia and nausea. Conclusion Cariprazine 1.5 mg/d was effective as adjunctive treatment in adults with MDD and inadequate response to ADT. Cariprazine was generally well tolerated, with a safety profile that was consistent with other indications. Together with results from a prior flex-dose study, these results suggest that adjunctive cariprazine may be an effective option for patients with inadequate response to ADT alone. Funding AbbVie


The paper describes several methods for the diversity research of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and the widely-used molecular biology techniques during the recent years,reviews the application status of those methods to AMF research,points out that the effective combination of morphological and molecular biology methods could better reveal the diversity and ecological functions of AMF in natural ecosystems.


A metal seal ring 43 for a well-head assembly 11, 25 has upper and lower legs 44, 46 extending in opposite directions from each other and a rib 53 extending radially outward from a junction of the legs to give the ring a T-shaped cross-section. A first conical band 47 on the upper leg 44 extends uninterrupted from the rib 53 a selected distance toward a tip of the upper leg 44. A second conical band 45 on the upper leg 44 extends uninterrupted from the tip of the upper leg 44 toward the first conical band 47. An annular recess 49 is located between the first and second conical bands 47, 45. The lower leg 46 also has two conical seal bands separated by a recess.


Bandwidth exhaustion in an ad hoc network can seriously downgrade communication quality and cause denial of service (DoS). This paper studies a set of attack approaches to exhaust bandwidth, which follow protocols and are hard to detect. From early researches, it is clear that an attacker can misuse media access control (MAC) and routing protocols to cause DoS. However, we find that an attacker can steal or seize bandwidth from others while being a "good" node. This paper also clarifies some misunderstandings about the nature of bandwidth exhaustion. For example, some people believe that nodes can get the same amount of bandwidth if they demand the same, and attackers can always cause serious DoS by demanding more bandwidth. This study results in a family of intriguing findings. For example, this study finds that in IEEE 802.11 networks (a) nodes demanding the same amount of bandwidth may get very different bandwidth, and (b) demanding more bandwidth does not always enable the attacker to steal more bandwidth from the legitimate nodes. These findings not only show that attackers can take advantage over legitimate nodes via a deliberate selection of attack parameters, but also provide insights on how to effectively counteract bandwidth exhaustion in ad hoc networks.


Within the optimal production and hedging decision framework, Lien compares the exponential utility function with its second order approximation under the normality distribution assumption. In this paper, we first extend the result further by comparing the exponential utility function with a 2n-order approximation for any integer n. We then propose an approach with illustration to find the smallest n that provides a good approximation.


The Oder estuary, especially the large, shallow Szczecin (Oder) Lagoon (687 km2, average depth 3.8 m) suffers from severe and ongoing eutrophication due to heavy loads, mainly by the Oder river. Poor water quality nowadays is a main obstacle for further touristic development around the lagoon. Long-term nutrient concentrations show a high interannual variability and a decline during recent years. Using a simple eutrophication box model and comparing dry, warm years (1989-1991) with colder, wet years (1986-1988) we analyse the impact of interannual and short-term weather conditions on the eutrophication process. Internal nutrient cycling processes in the lagoon are mainly driven by shortterm weather conditions. During rare and short calm summer periods a stratification and oxygen depletion above the sediment is likely. Coarse model-based estimations indicate an anoxic P-release from sediments of up to 10 μmol P md or up to 400-600 t P for the entire lagoon. These situations are restricted to several days and occur only in a few years. Wind with a daily average velocity above 2-3 m/s cause mixing and put an end to anoxic P-release. Compared to a monthly summer load of 100-150 t P by the Oder river, internal eutrophication in the lagoon is important, but has no pronounced effect on biology. In wet years the P and N load with the Oder river can be up to twice as high compared to dry years. Discharge and load by rivers control the nutrient dynamic in the Szczecin Lagoon, to a high degree. The observed reduction in nutrient concentrations in early 90's is an effect of the warm, dry years and cannot be attributed to anthropogenic nutrient load reductions. Management implications are discussed. 1 Problems and management challenges in the Oder estuary The large Oder-catchments is located at the German-Polish border. With a surface area of 120,000 km and a population of about 13 Mio inhabitants it is responsible for the heavy nitrogen and phosphorous load of the Oder river. In recent years, about 63,000 t total N/a and 3,500 t total P/a were transported with the Oder towards the Baltic Sea. The river therefore is the most important source of eutrophication and pollution for the south-western Baltic Sea. The respective coastal zones, especially the Szczecin (Oder) Lagoon, suffer from severe eutrophication, heavy algal blooms of potentially toxic species, high water turbidity and even hygienic quality problems [1]. The Szczecin Lagoon is a key element of the Oder river estuary. It is a large (687 km2) and shallow (average depth 3.8 m) coastal flow lake. The lagoon consists of two main parts Kleines Haff on the German side and Wielki Zalew located on Polish territory (Fig. 1). The Wielki Zalew comprises about 60 % of the lagoon area and volume. A theoretical water exchange time of the entire water body is about 2 months, but its western part (Kleines Haff) receives only between 10 % and 20 % of the Oder water [2]. Germany Sweden Finland Poland Germany Poland Dziwna


Research in advanced prostate cancer is largely focused on newer agents for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, including abiraterone acetate (ZYTIGA), enzalutamide (XTANDI), radium Ra 223 dichloride (Xofigo), and the immunotherapy sipuleucel-T (Provenge).


Anxiety and depressive disorders are the most prevalent psychological issues addressed in mental health treatment. As a consequence, the development of cost-effective methods of implementing psychosocial interventions in systems of care is a critical health policy concern. Clear evidence is needed for mental health policy makers to enact decisions regarding whether or not implementing an evidence-based therapy in a clinic will improve care above what is already being provided. This study examined the relative efficacy of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) versus treatment-as-usual (TAU) in routine care for anxiety and depression in adults. Currently, there is insufficient evidence to suggest that transporting an EBT to routine care that already involves psychotherapy will improve the quality of services. However, there does appear to be evidence that implementing EBTs into routine care that does not involve psychotherapy would improve the quality of care. Bruce Wampold and his colleagues conclude that until evidence with regard to EBTs in routine care is more substantial, the clinician treating anxiety and depression, whether administering an EBT or another treatment, should ensure that their services produce outcomes similar to known benchmarks for treatments of these disorders.


The extraction and matching of interest points is a prerequisite for visual pose estimation and related problems. Traditionally, matching has been achieved by assigning descriptors to interest points and matching points that have similar descriptors. In this paper, we propose a method by which interest points are instead already implicitly matched at detection time. Thanks to this, descriptors do not need to be calculated, stored, communicated, or matched any more. This is achieved by a convolutional neural network with multiple output channels. The i-th interest point is the location of the maximum of the i-th channel, and the i-th interest point in one image is implicitly matched with the i-th interest point in another image. This paper describes how to design and train such a network in a way that results in successful relative pose estimation performance with as little as 128 output channels. While the overall matching score is slightly lower than with traditional methods, the network also outputs the confidence for a specific interest point resulting in a valid match. Most importantly, the approach completely gets rid of descriptors and thus enables localization systems with a significantly smaller memory footprint and multi-agent localization systems that require significantly less bandwidth. We evaluate performance relative to state-of-the-art alternatives.


The association of bacterial cellulose with other polymers can be an effective method for increasing its characteristics and structure, providing new industrial applications. The purpose of this paper was to verify the influence from bacterial cellulose in the physical, chemical and barrier properties in films of bacterial cellulose blends and potato starch. The films were made according to a ternary mix planning, with bacterial cellulose, potato starch and glycerol as independent variables. Blends with higher concentrations of bacterial cellulose exhibited increase in thickness, weight, permeability rate of water steam and permeability to water steam and reduction of density, solubility, opacity, swelling index at pH 1.8 and 8.0 (1, 10, 30 and 60 minutes). The scanning electron microscopy showed films with cohesive matrix, but with irregular morphology, containing insoluble particles of bacterial cellulose. The pure bacterial cellulose film showed increased weight, opacity, permeability rate of water steam and at swelling at pH 1.8 at 1 minute and pH 8.0 at 1, 10, 30 and 60 minutes. The bacterial cellulose contributed to high capacity of retention, absorption and low water desorption, providing biofilms that acted as barrier for light and kept the humidity constant.


This chapter provides an overview of the micro-variation in Norwegian when it comes to Verb Second (V2) word order, both in the various dialects and in the two standard written varieties of Norwegian. The variation is dependent on a number of factors, including clause type, type of initial element, and information structure. This overview demonstrates a rich inventory of micro-systems, raising the question of how children come to acquire such fine-grained patterns. The chapter addresses this question by providing findings from acquisition research and discusses what this considerable micro-variation and coexisting grammars tell us about the architecture of the human language faculty.


Influences on Learner-Learner Interaction in Online Classes. (May 2003) Shannon Diane Fite, B.S., Texas A&M University; M.Ed., Texas A&M University Co-Chairs of Advisory Committee: Dr. Karen L. Murphy Dr. Stephanie L. Knight Interaction, particularly learner-learner interaction, needs to be cultivated in online classes in order for students to have a satisfying learning experience. This study considered two graduate level online classes in an effort to determine: 1) is cognitive style related to the quantity of learner-learner interaction in online courses, 2) is there a relationship between learner characteristics and learner posting preferences in learnerlearner interaction in online courses, 3) how do selected learners differ in their use of interaction elements during online discussion, and 4) how do selected learners perceive their experiences in online courses. Using the Student Demographic Questionnaire, the Group Embedded Figures Test, the Text Analysis Tool, and an Interview Protocol developed by the researcher, the study was conducted with a mixed method design. Learner-learner interaction was considered in terms of the students' contributions to the FirstClass discussion activities that were completed as part of the course requirements. This study found that: a) there is not a correlation between cognitive style and quantity of learner-learner interaction, b) some learner characteristics do influence learner posting preferences, c) interaction elements during online discussion do not


In order to detect the infection of staphylococcus aureus in 21 day-old chick embryos,based on the heat-resistant nuclease gene(Nuc) of this bacteria,a pair of primers are designed and synthesized to develop a PCR method for the detection of staphylococcus aureus specifically and quickly.After isolation and culture of 18 samples from 21 day-old chick embryos,18 suspected colonies of staphylococcus aureus are obtained.Using the developed PCR method to amplify 18 suspected samples,4 of them show positive amplification of Staphylococcus aureus,which proves the infection rate of staphylococcus aureus among 21 day-old chick embryos is 22%(4/18).The PCR method based on Nuc gene in this paper is a rapid and specific molecular biological method to detect staphylococcus aureus in chick embryos.


Recently, personal information in the mobile devices have been threatened as the popularization of mobile devices because of the lack attention to the information. The purpose of our research is to develop the reliable and convenient authentication system for mobile devices. In this paper, the development of the biometric authentication system, which generates feature points from freehand pattern and uses the points as the anchors for drawing pattern and points for detecting pen speed, is introduced using the experimental results.


A binary inductive voltage divider (BIVD) is compared with a decade inductive voltage divider (BIVD) in an automatic IVD bridge. New detection and injection circuitry was designed and used to evaluate the IVDs with either the input or output tied to ground potential. In the audio frequency range the DIVD and BIVD error patterns are characterized for both in-phase and quadrature components. Differences between results obtained using a new error decomposition scheme based on structural modeling, and measurements using conventional IVD standards are reported.<<ETX>>


We consider the dynamic network formation problem under the requirement that the whole network be connected and remain connected after q nodes are destroyed. We propose the concept of dynamic Cq-stability and characterize dynamic Cq-stable networks for any q≥0. Comparison with the outcome in the static model is also discussed.


Aim  We present a biogeographical analysis of the areas of endemism and areas of diversification in the Muscidae. This analysis searched for geographical patterns in the Muscidae to reconstruct elements of the evolutionary biogeographical history of this insect family.


Considering the cost and complexity of realizing SO(system optimum) principle in traffic assignment,most traffic systems with and without real-time traffic information system(RTTIS) run in UO(User Optimum) principle.It is necessary to examine whether UE(user equilibrium) can be built and used to improve the traffic efficiency in the systems with and without RTTIS.The results of our experiment indicate that approximate UE states can be established in three types of networks with and without RTTIS,that in these UE states the traffic efficiency is improved in grid networks(the average speed is increased by 33%) and ring networks(the average speed is increased by 71%) with RTTIS,and that in parallel networks the new UE achieved by RTTIS decreases traffic efficiency(the average speed declines by about 50%).So the UE situations should not be taken as an indicator of traffic system efficiency.


ography of research on the consistories and with research perspectives. As Mentzer rightly states, in the early days research on the Reformed Churches was often carried out by family descendants. Over the years this has changed and the field has opened up internationally. Mentzer presents a long list of books and articles based on consistory records, among them works by Elisabeth Labrousse, Judith Pollmann, and Philip Benedict. The second part of the book is the inventory itself: 157 entries providing insight into the topics debated in various consistories. The inventory is organized by place. Each location has a list of archives or libraries where relevant documents may be found, with brief general information on their contents. While there is an index locorum and nominum, there is unfortunately no index of topics. The book also contains a bibliography of sources and research tools. Overall, this is a valuable resource for those interested in the history of the Reformed Church in France, and provides an essential tool for further research in this field.


The fibrous clay minerals palygorskite and sepiolite occur in many arid and semi-arid soils and are capable o f adsorbing a great number o f organic materials. Besides simple organic compounds such as alcohols and acetone, these m inerals have been shown to adsorb such complex compounds as parathion (Gerstl & Yaron, 1981), pyridine (Blanco et al., 1988) and even stearic acid (H eller-K alla i & Y ariv, 1984). M any soils in semi-arid areas contain palygorskite and a few also sepiolite (Singer, 1984). W hile most o f these soils are poor in organic m atter, in some the palygorskite-rich clay fraction has been reported to be complexed w ith large amounts o f organic m atter (Hodge et al., 1984). A major fraction o f the organic m atter in soils is in the form o f hum ic acids. As no inform ation whatsoever is available on the interaction between humic acid and these fibrous clay minerals, the objective o f this study was to obtain some insight on humic acid interaction w ith palygorskite and sepiolite.


The article explains two different point of views of love and their expressions in three diverged ways: the form of the loving dialogue, the content and social insignificance of it. And the paper holds that the diverging thinking patterns of China and Western Countries is the main cause of them. So we can feel the great national and cultural impact inBian Cheng (A Frontier Town) and the Wuthering Heights.


The solvent has a significant influence in the rate of reactions promoted by Stryker's reagent. The reactions performed in THF were, in most cases, faster than in toluene.


American Journal of Philology. LV. i. January-March, 1934. E. M. Sandford, Quotations from Lucan. Using examples from history, ethics, science, and general literature, suggests that most of the quotations were made at first hand and not from a florilegium. L. K. Born, The Perfect Prince According to the Latin Panegyrists. Argues that the Panegyric was cultivated largely as a means of inculcating certain cardinal virtues in the government of the person addressed. G. Boas, Presuppositions of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Cites nineteen instances of unproved premises under the headings metaphysical, epistemological and evaluative. H. C. Nutting, Notes on Lucan ; Second Group. Deals with seven cruces : (1) I. 531, read tenso-aere as an ablative absolute, (a) II. 201 read tulit (for fuit) and translate • brought about,' (3) / / / . 595-6, place a strong stop after crastina and take componere as an historical infinitive, (4) IV. 813 understand meritae in the sense of emeritae, (5) VI. 196, accept Hosius' torta (for portae), (6) VII. 325, translate 'count' it a sin to waste time in killing any of the common herd, (7) VIII. 339 ff., read qui te for te quern. F . R. B. Godolphin, The Unity of Certain Elegies of Propertius. Maintains that / . 8 and 15 and / / . 24 and 28 should not be divided, as they belong to a ' subjective dramatic' type which admits lapse of time. W. J. Gates, A Note on Cato De Agri Cultura LVI. Seeks to show that the conpediti received a daily ration of four or five pounds of bread. H. H. Bendes, English Strawberry. Derives the name from the fact that the plant grows in hayfields. D. M. Robathan, The Basilica Argentaria. Holds that this building was a shop for the sale of silver goods. F . Mezger, Latin Nitere-Renidere-Nidor. Argues that the last two are not connected with the first, but derived from the root of an adjective *nidus ' bright.' T. Frank, An Emendation of Octius in Cic. Ad Att. 12, 46, 1. Proposes (oo-reos ' must be kept in subjection.'


We investigated the method of low oxygen treatment for prolonging shelf life of ripening-initiated banana cv. Sucrier, which were ripened until stage 3 (more green than yellow). Controlled atmosphere condition of 5% oxygen and nitrogen-gas application for 48h followed air stream extended shelf life of the banana only 1-2 days longer than control (continuous air flow, 3-4 days shelf life). Nitrogen-gas packing for 24 or 48h in polyethylene (PE) bag (0.03 mm thickness) extended the shelf life in cardboard box at 20°C to 5-6 days compared with 3-4 days in the control (air packing) although accumulation of the sugar content of banana was same as control. A 24h nitrogengas packing in PE bag and then polyvinyl chloride wrapping extended the shelf life of banana to 9-11 days


Gangues are the coal mining waste with low calorific value and high ash,and are full of difficulties to be combusted in industrial boilers or civil stoves directly. This paper reports the experimen-tal results on the influence of various conditions upon the ignitability and combustion efficiency ofgangue briquettes. The results show that the volatile and combustion efficiency of gangue briquettesvary with furnace temperature and combustion time. When the content of CR additives is 0.3%,thevolatile and combustion efficiency of gangue briquettes are higher than that of without CR additivesobviously. Consequently,the technology of gangue briquettes may convert wastes into useful fuels,save farmlands and reduce pollution. The influential mechanism of CR additives on the combustion ofgangue briquettes has been discussed as well.


Among the amount oi problems that exist in the Colombian educational system. mathematics and more specifically spatial reasoning, presents major shortcomings as evidenced by the State test: Saber. In addition to this needs, there are problems in the pedagogical strategies employed in school classrooms. There arises the need to integrate jtechnological aspects with education in order to provide teachers and students with a tooK to support their learning processes. Due to the already mentioned Akasha arises, a software application which seeks to reinforce the knowledge of basic geometry in first grade students through gamification, implementing a personalizaron model which is tailored to the specific needs of each student.


Surgical or nonsurgical treatment was randomly selected for 1,225 patients with occlusive cerebrovascular disease. Statistically significant differences in cumulative survival rate at 42 months were as follows: (1) Surgical treatment appeared more beneficial for unilateral carotid artery stenosis in patients with transient attacks or a mild-to-moderate neurological deficit. (2) Nonsurgical treatment produced better results for unilateral carotid artery stenosis in patients with a moderateto-severe neurological deficit. (3) Nonsurgical treatment appeared more beneficial for combined unilateral carotid artery stenosis and contralateral carotid artery occlusion if patients had a moderate-to-severe neurological deficit. (4) Nonsurgical treatment appeared more beneficial for patients with completed strokes who had a marked and persistent neurological deficit.


In order to study the properties of 2,6-diamino-3,5-dinitropyridine-1-oxide(ANPyO),the three refined samples of ANPyO were prepared by recrystallization from the solvents of trifluoroacetic acid(CF3COOH),dimethyl sulfoxide(DMSO) and N,N-dimethyl formamide(DMF) respectively,and the properties of the three samples were compared.Results show that the particle size of ANPyO prepared by recrystallization from CF3COOH distributes from 2 μm to 70 μm and its BET specific surface area is 0.454 m2·g-1.The differential scanning calorimetry(DSC) analysis and thermal decomposition kinetics calculation show that,compared with ANPyO prepared by recrystallization from DMSO and DMF,enthalpy of decomposition of ANPyO(CF3COOH) is 1021.46 J·g-1,and the temperature of the exothermic peak is 370.69 ℃,and its activation energy is 279.63 kJ·mol-1at a heating rate of 10 K·min-1.Impact and friction sensitivity of ANPyO prepared by recrystallization from CF3COOH are 20% and 18%,respectively.


The climate of southern arid central Asia (SACA, 35.25°-45°N，46.25°-80°E) is controlled by the subtropical high and it exhibits typical Mediterranean characteristics. Given the lack of systematic research on the physical mechanism of precipitation variations in the major precipitation seasons of SACA, we analyzed the physical mechanism of winter precipitation variations during 1979-2017. The results suggest that two water vapor pathways influence the winter precipitation in SACA and that they are closely related to a low-latitude high-pressure anomaly and the mid-high latitude North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Specifically, at low latitudes, the northern Indian Ocean heated by El Nino  causes the anomalous intensification of the subtropical high throughout the low latitude region, especially over the Indian subcontinent, resulting in increased water vapor transport from the northern Indian Ocean to SACA. At middle and high latitudes, the negative NAO phase leads to the southward movement of the water vapor pathway, which causes it to pass over a greater number of upwind water bodies, resulting in the transport of more westerly-associated water vapor to SACA. Further analysis showed that there is a northwest-southeast teleconnection wave train, from the North Atlantic to Central Asia and to the Indian subcontinent, which allows wave fluxes originating in the North Atlantic and the northern Indian Ocean to propagate from high and low latitudes, respectively, to the study area. At the same time, high-latitude cold air advection, brought by the low-pressure system in Central Asia, converges with the flow of warm water vapor from the low-latitude northern Indian Ocean, generating an ascending motion and reducing atmospheric static stability, which results in increased precipitation in SACA. Therefore, the key to determining the origin of precipitation variations in SACA is understanding the interaction of large-scale circulation systems at low and mid-high latitudes. In the future, with continued global warming, strong El Nino events will occur more frequently, and the subtropical high is like to intensify and move northward. As a result, there will be a tendency for the NAO and the Arctic Oscillation (AO) to remain in a negative phase; consequently the Arctic vortex in the eastern hemisphere is likely to provide favorable water vapor and dynamic conditions promoting increased winter precipitation in SACA. Overall, our findings are valuable for understanding the regional response of precipitation in arid areas against the background of ongoing global warming.


The present invention includes the steps of obtaining a biological sample from the cancer patient; Step by measuring the expression level of the sample in Table 1, Table 2 or Table selected from the group consisting of marker genes at least three marker genes to obtain data for the level of expression of the marker gene; And determining if equivalent to the level of expression of the expression level or the non-recurrent group of the recurring group the level of expression of the marker genes; a method of predicting the risk of lung cancer recurrence of the cancer patients treated with lung cancer or cancer treatment, including the to provide. Lung cancer, recurrence, a marker gene


The syndrome of motor restlessness, or akathisia, is a movement disorder characterised by an irresistible purposeless urge to move about and, in most cases, a sense of inner tension and agitation. During the attack, patients become extremely restless and are unable to sit or stand still. Rarely, akathisia is confined to the lower limbs and in these cases patients stamp their feet repeatedly or cross and uncross their legs without having the urge to walk. In severe cases the syndrome is associated with emotional distress and suicidal attempts have been reported in some patients.1 2 Akathisia may also be accompanied by painful oral and genital sensations.3 These consist of unpleasant paraesthesiae, burning or lancinating pain that does not respond to analgesic drugs, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents, phenytoin or carbamazepine. The onset of druginduced akathisia may be acute or the syndrome may develop after months or years of exposure to neuroleptic and antidepressant agents (tardive akathisia). Akathisia is a relatively common but under-recognised extrapyramidal syndrome. The prevalence of this disorder in the general population is not known. However, it is very common in psychiatric patients, occurring in about 3040% of patients treated with neuroleptic drugs.4 The syndrome has also been reported to be the commonest extrapyramidal adverse effect of antidepressants which selectively inhibit serotonin re-uptake, accounting for 45% of all movement disorders associated with these drugs.5 Interestingly, akathisia due to these drugs tends to occur mostly in younger patients, especially women, whereas dystonia, parkinsonism and tardive dyskinesia are found more frequently in older patients.


Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua, Taiwan School of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan School of Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan Department of Emergency Medicine, Bern University Hospital, Freiburgstrasse, Bern, Switzerland Department of Emergency Medicine, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, Singapore Emergency Department, St Vincent's University Hospital, Elm Park, Dublin, Ireland


We report our recent efforts toward the identification of the X-linked lethal infantile spinal muscular atrophy (XL-SMA) locus. Our collaborative group has previously described several families which display an X-linked recessive form of human motor neuron disease (AJHG. 61S. # 1554, 1997) Defining features include multiple generations of males with congenital onset of severe hypotonia, contracturcs and fractures; muscle biopsy indicative of neurogcnic atrophy; and autopsy indicating loss of anterior horn cells. The first family analyzed for linkage mapped to Xp 11.3-q11 2, and multipoint analysis refined this interval to a 11 cM region defined by DXS993-DXS991, with a maximum LOD score of 2.63 (Hum Molec Genet, 4(7): 1213-16,1995). Subsequently, seven unrelated families (six N. American, one European) have been identified and ascertained. These families were selected based on the above described inclusion criteria. Genomic DNA was prepared from blood and/or tissue specimens from affected and unaffected males, and obligate earner females, and analyzed using X-chromosome highly polymorphic DNA repeats Concordance analysis was used to define maternal meiotic recombination breakpoints surrounding a disease gene region, followed by multipoint linkage analysis using additional DNA markers. Results of these studies were interpreted using the LINKAGE and VITESSE programs, using the assumptions of a completely penetrant disease, with a gene frequency of 1 × 10−6. These combined results indicated that in addition to the first family reported above, four additional families have been linked to the same candidate disease gene interval, Xp11.3-q11 2. Multipoint linkage analysis has been completed for three of these four families and has refined this interval to a region defined by DXS991-DXS1003, with a maximum LOD score of 2.73 for these three families. The total additive LOD score for these three families, and the family previously published, is 5.36 at a Theta of 0.00 These results strongly support the existence of a major disease locus for XL-SMA between DXS 1003-DXS 991 (Xp 11.3-Xp 11.21) We are attempting to narrow the disease gene region through a search for recombinant individuals in each of the families using additional polymorphic markers We are also focusing our efforts on mutation screening of candidate disease genes within this region, particularly new candidates identified from a recently completed 1 1 mB transcript map of Xp11.3 Latest findings will be presented.


With over 40 spoken tongues in Kenya, English serves as a language of instruction in schools and is taught from
the onset of schooling, making the language a significant factor in academic achievement and subsequent social
mobility. This article draws on a case study conducted in an urban multilingual primary school in Kenya and focuses on the challenges and strategies for teaching and learning English as a second language (ESL) in primary schools. The findings are based on evidence gathered from teachers, through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, and from pupils, through learner diaries. The data show a strategic approach to teaching and learning English and reveal the tremendous effort invested by teachers and learners in grappling with the challenges of learning English in the context of an unresolved national language policy, interference from regional linguistic heritage languages and an examination-oriented education system. The strategies deployed by teachers to address these challenges include varied instructional approaches and creating a warm classroom climate to provide a non-threatening environment for learning and language acquisition. Data from pupils shows that group based interactions with their peers and individual reinforcement strategies, such as keeping vocabulary notebooks, are the most common learner strategies. The study shows how school-based research can give teachers and learners a voice in the development of successful language teaching and learning strategies for complex and challenging multilingual environments.


ABSTRACT The article addresses Deirdre Madden's Time Present and Time Past as a response to the demise of the Celtic Tiger economy in Ireland. Primary among the article's concerns are the ways in which Madden deals with issues such as debt and the uncanny; literary realism; the relationship between past, present and future; and the redemptive agency of the artistic imagination. Each of these preoccupations is situated within a broader international critical context, bringing post-Celtic Tiger Irish studies into conversation with literary criticism that focuses on the links between the fields of finance and literary fiction.


ABSTRACT "Motive" may be defined as that which actuates or influences, that which determines choice. It implies the presence of an uuimpaired will power, at least one that is not so seriously impaired as to be incapable of volition, and actuated either by right or wrong desires.Impulse is the sudden application of some powerful motive, that causes the will to act hastily without usual deliberation, or that exercise of the reasoning faculties that occurs when a purpose is deliberately formed. The genesis of impulse may be a good or evil motive.In both instances either when the act results from the motive operating upon the mind through a deliberate and logical course of reasoning, or impulsively, as when the motive acts independently of, orsupercedes and dethrones reason, if it attempts to assert itself in either instance, there is one condition that is common to both, and that always is present,


Soil samples collected from the three Local Government Areas of Anambra State were analyzed for their elemental composition using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. Anions such as CL-, PO43-, NO3-, SO42-, CO3 2- and SiO2 were also assayed using tritimetric and quantitative and qualitative methods. Some specific physiochemical characteristics such as pH, particle size, porosity index/water holding capacity, moisture content and organic carbon/matter were also determined. Result on the cation concentrations in mg/kg of the soils in Aguata A, Dunukofia D and Oyi Y, Local Government Areas were in order: Ca(D>A>Y); K(Y>A>D); Na(D>A>Y); Cr(A>D>Y); Mg(D>A>Y); Ni(D>A>Y); Cu(Y>D>A); Zn(D>Y>A); Cd(A>Y>D); Pb(D>A>Y); Fe(D>Y>A); Al(Y>D>A). Anion concentrations in mg/kg were as follows Cl-(Y>A>D); PO4 3-(Y>D>A); NO3–(D>A>Y); SO4 2- (A>D=Y); CO3 2-(Y>D>A); %SiO2(Y>D>A). Other physiochemical characteristics showed that Aguata soils were acidic, pH (5.26), Dunukofia pH (5.95) moderately acidic and Oyi, pH (7.42) slightly above neutral. Aguata area had more sandy particles (92.52%) whereas Oyi area had more of clay particles (27.49%). Statistical studies reveal that silicate, phosphate, and carbonate including metals such as Cd, Cu, Pb, and iron oxides were significant factors in the incidence of erosion in Aguata area


Urban areas provide a complex material environment, both in the number of materials present, and in the spatial scale of material variation. Classification in urban environments using multispectral sensors has typically been limited to discrimination of major terrain classes due to both the limited spatial resolution of currently available sensors and to the inability to consistently discriminate between similar materials. High spectral and spatial resolution imagery, such as collected with the HYDICE sensor, provides the opportunity to develop detailed material maps for urban areas, and to perform precise material discrimination for cultural objects. Referencing a comprehensive set of material spectra, this paper describes a procedure for land cover classification which can be automated and performed with little or no a-priori knowledge of objects in the scene.


In this work, the selenocentric dynamic reference net was developed for the first time in the field of selendesy in order to address problems with space navigation. Three tasks were addressed in this research: a) the analysis of the mathematical model of the orthogonal coordinate transformation accuracy; b) the identification of the basic dynamic reference system objects with ones that are contained in reducing catalogues; and c) the extension of the base points net of the basic dynamic reference system. The result was a dynamic coordinate system summary that contains 1162 objects. The correlation analysis of this net was carried out and was found to coincide with modern dynamic coordinate systems that have been obtained. This selenocentric reference catalogue covers the full visible area of the Moon.


The purpose of this study was to gain insight into the academic achievements of 200 talented athletes in 1992/1993 and 200 in 2006/2007, aged 14–16 years. When compared with the national average, the athletes in 2006/2007 attended pre‐university classes more often (χ2 = 57.001, p<.05). Of the 2006/2007 athletes, a higher percentage participated in pre‐university programs compared with that of athletes in 1992/1993 (χ2 (1, n = 400) = 32.003, p<.05), whereas the national averages showed stability (χ2 = .325, p>.05). Investigating self‐regulation appears relevant, as talented athletes may have developed a high sense of self‐regulation in sports, which may enable them to optimally profit from their self‐regulatory skills in their academics.


Pursuant to the provisions of paragraph 6.4 of the Rules of Operation and Management Indicators of Healthy Communities and Evaluation Program for fiscal year 2014, the Ministry of Health of Mexico; the final evaluation report is presented, integrating information gathered in the city of Tampamolon Corona, SLP, in the Basic Unit of Rehabilitation and facilities H. Hall who served as the venue for the various activities that make up the Project "A DISABILITY EQUALITY, knowing ... MAKE THE DIFFERENCE "; work was undertaken to publicize the achievements and deviations observed in its operation. This approach allowed us to explore the perception of the beneficiaries and the actors responsible for implementation and management and whose efforts make it possible.
The purpose of this evaluation is to compare their results with the expected goals on services, identify and improve the components and actions facing major difficulties and make recommendations which contribute to the optimal utilization of human, community and material resources.


We report a lowest-order Taylor-like series expansion that enables efficient analytical computation of primary matrix functions of perturbed quantum states whose perturbation preserves the vector support of the original state. We apply our theory to find simple expressions for four important quantities in quantum information theory: the von Neumann entropy, the quantum relative entropy, the quantum Chernoff bound, and the quantum fidelity. Our results, which we elegantly represent using Fréchet derivatives, require only knowledge of the eigenspectrum of the unperturbed state and the density matrix elements of the perturbation, bypassing eigenanalysis of the full perturbed state. These results were recently used to derive the fundamental quantum limits of identifying diffraction-limited objects in passive incoherent imaging [1] and in an approach to quantify the covert communications capacity of a bosonic channel [2]. We discuss other avenues where our results could be applied.


On a railway embankment, we perform soil exploration at many lattice-points of the slope, and analyze the soil strength relation between the Swedish weight sounding test, which is ordinarily used in railway survey and a dynamic cone penetration test, which is intended for slope investigation. Based on the results of the analysis, we propose a relation formula between the two tests. Also, we clarify the distribution characteristics of the soil strength in directions vertical and horizontal, and check the validity of one-point soil survey in a sounding test over an embankment slope using an auto-correlation coefficient along the slope surface.


In this article, I will focus on the notion of supervenience introduced and deployed by Armstrong. The aim is to settle the issue of whether it has any fruitful applications. My conclusions are negative. Armstrong gives to his notion of supervenience a major explanatory role of telling why one need not consider certain beings as a genuine ontic expansion, if one already assumes a certain meagre set of more basic entities. On closer inspection, however, Armstrong's notion does not clarify such intuitions any further. The legitimate uses of the notion for the above purpose turn out to be redundant: the concepts of identity and partial identity can be employed instead. Armstrong, who does not restrict the scope of the definition of supervenience in any manner (e.g., to properties or characteristics of entities), defines supervenience in the following way (Armstrong 1997, 11):


The present invention provides a method for preparing a PDLC film. PDLC films prepared according to the present invention, the first solution is formed by mixing the liquid crystal graphene nanoparticles, citric acid and 1,8-octanediol prepared as a prepolymer, or citric acid, 1,8 diol, and 1,2-propanediol to prepare a prepolymer, the prepolymer was dissolved in absolute ethanol, to form a second solution, after which the first and second solutions were mixed and stirred uniformly to obtain a polymer-dispersed liquid crystal and alkenyl mixture of graphite nanoparticles prepolymer, the prepolymer mixture after a few days to obtain a PDLC film. By the present invention, polymer dispersed liquid crystal in combination with graphene nanoparticles indirectly changing the dielectric properties of the polymer matrix, thereby enhancing the response speed of the liquid crystal polymer dispersion, reducing the polymer dispersed liquid crystal driving voltage, and the present the method of preparing PDLC films of the invention prepared PDLC film size and thickness can be adjusted, the application is more convenient.


The method is for enhancing the yield and the reliability of a semiconductor device by removing the fluorine ion contained in a tungsten silicide. The method is characterized by depositing a tungsten silicide on the surface of a wafer where a polysilicon as a conduction layer is formed and removing the fluoride contained in the tungsten silicide by using the hydrogen compound, and repeating the above process until the set thickness of the tungsten silicide is formed.


Abstract Issues arising in the application of high-resolution, high-precision spectroscopy to remote sensing are discussed in the context of deriving surface pressure from absorption in the O2 A-band. This application requires spectral resolution approaching 1 cm−1 and noise not exceeding 0.1%. The authors establish the theoretical limit to signal-to-noise ratio and establish tolerances on mechanical and thermal stability for a grating spectrograph. The tolerances are tight, but not impossibly so. Two experiments are described to test the effects of atmospheric noise generated by turbulence in the lower atmosphere. In the first experiment, the air mass along the path of the solar beam was tracked with an error equivalent to less than 0.1 kPa in surface pressure. In the second experiment, the optical path from the sun to the spectrograph was extended with an O2 absorption cell whose pressure could be modulated to simulate changes in atmospheric pressure. Changes as small as 0.1 kPa were detected clearly.


Federal courts are increasingly being called upon to adjudicate disputes involving controversial new biomedical technologies or government efforts to control environmental and health risks. The authors cite some examples and examine various proposals that have been made to better equip the courts to deal with these complex disputes. They conclude that the proposals fall seriously short by focusing on questions of technical competence without addressing the basic moral and public policy implications of modern science and technology.


The Hydrographic Administration of the Chief Administration of the Northern Sea Route [Gidrograficheskoye Upravlenie Glavsevmorputi] sent out a number of hydrographic expeditions (one report says thirteen) to the Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea. One of the parties, led by Mikhalenkov, went to Severnaya Zemlya for 2 years. This was the first shorebased hydrographic expedition to these islands. The School of Hydrology of Leningrad University [Gidrologicheskaya Shkola Leningradskogo Universiteta] sponsored a party which studied the fauna of the White Sea and the Barents Sea. The Institute of Sea Fisheries arid Oceanography [Institut Morskogo Rybnogo Khozyaystva i Okeanografii] studied fish in the Kara Sea. The V. A. Obruchev Institute for the Study of Permanently Frozen Soil [Institut Merzlotovedeniya im. V.A. Obrucheva] sent an expedition to Poluostrov Taymyr and another to the Verkhoyansk area. The Verkhoyansk expedition studied the giant ice mounds that have appeared in the past on local rivers in winter. The Medical Institute [Meditsinski Institut] at Arkhangelsk studied the conditions and health of workers at the Amderma fluorite mines. The Ethnographical Institute [Institut Etnografii] and the Institute of Material Culture of the Academy of Sciences [Institut MateriaFnoy Kul'tury Akademii Nauk] jointly equipped an expedition, led by Rudenko, to study the origins of the inhabitants of Chukotka and the question of early emigration to America from the Russian side of Bering Strait. This expedition was expected to last several years. The Arctic Institute [Arkticheski Nauchno-Issledovatel'ski Institut] organised an archaeological expedition, led by A. Okladnikov, to study remains of human habitation on the east coast of Poluostrov Taymyr. The Institute of Language [Institut Yazyka] at Yakutsk sent an ethnographical party to study the descendants of early Russian settlers at Russkoye Ust'ye on the lower Indigirka. The original settlers apparently came from Novgorod in the seventeenth century and their descendants still speak the Russian of that time and place. A large expedition under the direction of the Academy of Sciences [Akademiya Nauk] studied natural resources in Komi A.S.S.R., Severny Ural and Polyarny Ural. This expedition has been in the field since 1944.


This paper explores the concept of sociopolitical preoccupation in Joseph Conrad's 1902 novel Heart of Darkness and Nkemngong Nkengasong's 2014 novel God Was African to project the Scramble for Africa as the root cause of the social and political wrongs these writers denounce. The objective is to demonstrate that although Conrad is European and Nkengasong is African, both converge on the critique and denunciation of colonialism and its nihilistic effects in general and in the Congo and Cameroon in particular. Using the concepts of biography, history and culture of the literary theory New Historicism, the study demonstrates that Conrad and Nkengasong are both victims of colonialism and thus their Eurocentric and Afrocentric critique is born of their real life experiences. Colonialism is nihilistic as it strips man from his inherent dignity as a free and responsible being. This paper is therefore significant in that it projects these authors' vision for truth, restraint, respect for the dignity of others, and that differences in colour, race, culture or sex should be celebrated and not used by others as a tool for manipulation, exploitation and oppression. Literature thus portrays the writer as the voice of conscience.


The aim of this research is to develop hydrodynamic models to enhance the knowledge of the propulsion efficiency in rowing. The flow around a rowing blade is a complex phenomenon characterised by an unsteady 3D behaviour, with violent free surface deformation including breakup and with a flexible shaft driven by a 6-DOF movement. The study uses experimental results obtained on an instrumented boat to perform CFD computations. All parameters are considered except the minor role played by the spin rotation of the shaft. The numerical results fit fairly well with experimental data given a high number of uncertainties. Once CFD computations fully validated, more accurate parametric models could be built and integrated in a rowing simulator which will help coaching staff in analysing and improving performance and training of athletes. Another considered possibility is the direct coupling between the rowing simulator and the CFD code. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Centre for Sports Engineering Research, Sheffield Hallam University.


The tongue-in-law plant (Sansevieria trifasciata Prain) contains saponins, flavonoids, steroids and triterpenoids which are natural metabolites that have the potential to control agricultural pests such as armyworms (Spodoptera sp.). Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the mortality and LC50 value for 72 hours of giving in-law tongue plant extract to Spodoptera litura and the length of the life cycle of S. litura in the laboratory. The research method used a completely randomized design (CRD). The extract of the tongue-in-law plant is obtained from the maceration process of the tongue-in-law plant with ethanol and then concentrated using a rotary evaporator until the thick extract is obtained. The results of the research on the ethanol extract of the tongue-in-law plant on the mortality of S. litura, found that the highest mortality was 63.6% at a concentration of 800 ppm and the lowest mortality value was 36.4% at a concentration of 200 ppm for 72 hours.


Corrosion inhibition of Al-Mg alloy in 2.0 M HCl was investigated in the absence and presence of diffe rent concentration of Benzylamine-N-(p-methoxy benzylidene) [BANPMB]. Weight loss, galvanostatic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscop y (EIS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were employed. The inhibition efficiency increased with increase in inhibitor concentration but decreased w ith increase in temperature. The adsorption of Schiff b ase was found to obey Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Some thermodynamic parameters ( ∆Gads and Q ads ) and activation energy (E a) were calculated to elaborate the mechanism of corrosion inhibition. The polarization measurement indicated that the inhibitor is of mix ed type. Electrochemical impedance was used to investigate t he mechanism of corrosion inhibition. The surface characteristics of inhibited and uninhibited metal samples were investigated by scanning electron micr oscopy (SEM).


The purpose of this article is to offer a socio-philosophical analysis and methodology for studying the relationship between social conflict and development. Conflicts and development always accompany each other. However, not all development is accompanied by conflict. Therefore, we have to determine what kind of development we are dealing with, and what specific conflict it is accompanied by. In this regard, it should be emphasized that a number of conflicts lead to destructive consequences nullifying all development efforts. On the other hand, some conflicts can stimulate development and even determine what development is needed. Development is often caused by existing conflicts and contradictions that need to be resolved. To analyze the proposed topic of the article, the following tasks are considered: the links between conflict and development are analyzed, scenarios for the development of conflict using indicators are considered, and methodology for analyzing stable development is revealed. The application of developed methods is possible not only in the analysis of specific conflicts, but also in the diagnosis of conditions and factors in the development of specific regions and territories.


The infants who born preterm was depend on intensive care, associated with an exceedingly large amount of painful procedures. The study was aimed to assess the pain response during vein puncture in control group and effectiveness of facilitated tucking in reducing the pain response during vein puncture among preterm neonate admitted in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and postnatal ward in experimental group at Krishna Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Karad, Maharashtra, India. The study design was Post test only control group design.30 preterm neonates in experimental group with facilitated tucking and 30 with routine NICU method in control group were the sample selected by non probability purposive sampling technique. The result shows that the mean pain scores of experimental group was 2.47 and control group was 6.17. The unpaired t-test value was 20.76, (p<0.001) showing a significant difference between mean pain level of neonates for control and experimental group as p value <0.05. The study concluded that the facilitated tucking is a non-pharmacological, effective, simple, inexpensive and safe pain management technique for reduction in pain during the vein puncture procedure.


Based on the characteristics of the roller with variable height spiral groove and variable pitch groove in grinding ball skew rolling machine,taking 38 mm grinding ball as an example,the parameters of the roller was calculated,the design method of the roller was described,which overcomed the difficulties about the roller design and manufacture,and provided a theoretical basis for solid modeling and CNC machining of the roller.The designed roller has high production efficiency,high utilization of materials and good quality.


In Brazil, each region has its own cultural identity regarding accent, gastronomy, customs, all of which may reflect in its literature. Specially, we believe that country's background and contextual features are directly related to what people read. Hence, we perform a cross-state comparison analysis based on Brazilian reading preferences through a multipartite network model. Also, we explore the effects of socioeconomic and demographic factors on favorite books and writing genres. Such cross-state analyses highlight how the country is culturally rich, where each region has its own distinctive culture. Our findings offer great opportunities for the Brazilian book industry by enhancing current knowledge on social indicators related to reading preferences.


The paper develops a method for improving the transient performance of feedback-controlled irrigation channels by varying the water-level references across time. To this end, a reference manager based on a model predictive control scheme is used to set the references at regular update times. The approach ensures satisfaction of actuator and water-level constraints for a season given full knowledge of the load schedule. A method for constructing and using a reduced-order process model is also considered. A simulation study based on a 96-km long irrigation channel in Victoria, Australia, illustrates improved transient performance with the reference manager compared to the use of fixed water-level references.


The article deals with the philosophical analysis of the major sociocultural factors, which significantly influence on the changes of speech culture in society under the conditions of information and communication technologies application in communication processes.


A quantitative assessment of the Raman spectrum emitted from a coarse-grained polycrystal of multiferroic BiFeO3 has been carried out by means of a polarized Raman microprobe. The dependence of the intensity of Raman phonon modes has been first theoretically modeled as a function of crystal rotation. Then, the Raman tensor elements have been experimentally determined from the analysis of the Ag and Eg vibrational modes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Pharmaceutical device for continuous and controlled delivery of at least one active substance for application to the non-lesional skin, the mucosa of the mouth, tongue, nose or rectum, on bronchial or alveolar epithelium, or via parenterally with inclusion of an absorption process, wherein the active substance: a) is diamorphine, which is presented as diamorphine base, in the form of an acid addition salt of pharmaceutically acceptable acid chosen from the group consisting of the hydrochloride , sulfate, hydrogen sulfate, hydrobromide, iodide, lactate, acetate, formate, propionate, oleate, phosphate, hydrogen phosphate, citrate, ascorbate and tartrate diamorphine or in the form of an inclusion compound, and b) is contained in a pharmaceutically compatible aprotic solvent and / or a pharmaceutically compatible solvent with a small proteolytic activity, comprising the solvent, at least 5 % By weight of vitamin E and / or derivatives of vitamin E.


Rail deterioration is an inevitable consequence of the wheel/rail interaction. Uncontrolled deterioration can, however, lead to gauge corner shelling, rail surface corrugation or excessive side wear with the potential for catastrophic rail failures. In this paper the authors use experience gained at MTR Corporation in Hong Kong to review the causes of rail deterioration and the methodologies employed to manage it with the objective of lowering the incidence of rail defects and overall rail maintenance costs. MTR Corporation has been working in partnership with BHP Institute of Railway Technology at Monash University, Australia to identify some of the causes of rail profile deterioration on MTR Corporation tracks and to devise strategies to reduce the rate of deterioration. Several modifications to the components and rail maintenance procedures were implemented. A Rail Management Model was developed to assist MTR Corporation to pro-actively manage the rails instead of using traditional reactive methods. The implementation of technical improvements at the wheel / rail interface have enabled MTR Corporation to significantly reduce levels of rail deterioration and undesirable events such as gauge corner shelling. Through a comprehensive structured programme MTR Corporation has managed to extend the life of its rails whilst reducing wheel wear and railhead defects with resultant savings in rail maintenance and renewal costs. For the covering abstract see ITRD E123713.


Failing to bring into question the self-proclaimed power of expertise and of generalised assesment,
mental health seems destined to become again a branch of public hygiene (from which psychiatry
emerged). It would thus be reduced to a biopolitical mechanism to recompose our psychological and
social sensitivities within which we are all to become potential outcasts within the city. Such a mechanism runs the risk of becoming, in the name of "science", victim in turn of such vicissitudes, a mere
alibi of a sovereign Power over what Giorgio Agamben calls the "naked life" of outcasts. When life
and politics identify with each other, there is a considerable risk of seeing forms of totalitarianism
develop that make of the "biological" that fatality in whose name political decisions are re-encoded
as being "natural" norms.
We should not forget that our decisions do not derive from any naturality but almost always proceed
from deeds and words whereby our humanity emerges.


A systolic array design for an adaptive filter is presented. The filter is based on the least-mean-square algorithm, but due to the problems in implementation of the systolic array, a modified algorithm, a special case of the delayed LMS (DLMS), is used. The DLMS algorithm introduces a delay in the updating of the filter coefficients. The convergence and steady-state behavior of the systolic array are analyzed. It is shown that the performance of the systolic array is similar to that of a conventional LMS implementation for a wide range of practical conditions. >


The synthesis of unconventional feasible sources for building future smart electromagnetic (EM) environments is addressed in this work. Towards this aim, inverse scattering theory and concepts are effectively reformulated and exploited to design field manipulating devices (FMDs) able to modify the field radiated by a primary source (i.e., the base-station antenna) and match a user-defined target field distribution. The proposed framework allows to synthesize passive, dielectric-only, and cost-effective FMDs that could be in principle used to build bio-inspired "smart objects" within the urban environment that positively contribute to the overall system quality-of-service (QoS). An illustrative numerical proof-of-concept is shown to assess the potentialities of the proposed design framework.


In the present study, we developed a novel selective molecular method for capturing zmol amounts of target antigens in femtoliter-scale volumes that is suitable for application to nanofluidic immunoassays. Our method involves antibody patterning in extended nanochannels using a photolithographic technique with vacuum ultraviolet light (VUV) and a lowtemperature bonding method. The method allows for partial introduction of functional groups for antibody patterning before bonding, which is difficult in conventional processes due to the damage caused by heat and plasma. Using this extended nanofluidics method, we demonstrate for the first time the feasibility of quantitative immunochemical reactions with sample volumes smaller than that of a single cell. The volume of the constructed immunochemical reaction space was 86 fL. Analysis of the reaction rate in the femtoliter-scale reaction space indicated that the required sample volume was decreased to 810 fL, and the limit of detection was improved by 5-6 orders of magnitude, down to 3 zmol. This improvement in performance was achieved through femtoliter-scale fluid control and enabled a higher capture efficiency of near 100%.


To determine the emission rates of particulate matter and volatile organic compounds (VOC), the prediction of the air exchange rate of an animal housing facility must be accurate. This applies to mechanically and naturally ventilated facilities or a combination referred to as hybrid ventilation systems (HV) that are becoming common in Quebec. Prediction of ventilation rates are commonly based on building carbon dioxide (CO2) or sensible heat balance data. As part of another study, the ventilation rates in a mechanically ventilated (MV) barn were measured along with the CO2 concentrations, inside/outside temperatures, and wind speed/direction. The CIGR equations used to calculate diurnal sensible heat and CO2 productions were modified to facilitate a good fit between measured and predicted air exchange rates. The activity index in these equations was changed from 0.43 to 0.10. According to the results obtained from the MV barn, the CO2 balance provided the best prediction capability for the two rooms and three seasons of data. Results obtained from the MV barn were applied to the HV barn. To properly establish the CO2 balance of an HV barn, the interior CO2 concentration should be calculated from at least two planes along the building and from different measurement heights. When the CO2 balance is used to predict the VR from the HV barn, the range of the Cq factor (effective opening coefficient) had to be reduced from a range between 0.2 to 0.6 to a range between 0.1 to 0.4 to improve the agreement between predicted and measured values. Based on the predicted ventilation rates, more research is needed to define the opening effectiveness of full-scale barn configurations and then improve the precision of equations used to predict the VR of naturally ventilated barns.


Author(s): Karp, Steven Neil | Advisor(s): Williams, Lauren K. | Abstract: Total positivity is the mathematical study of spaces and their positive parts, which can have interesting combinatorial properties as well as applications in areas such as analysis, representation theory, and theoretical physics. In this dissertation, I study total positivity in the Grassmannian Gr(k,n), which is the space of k-dimensional subspaces of R^n. The totally nonnegative Grassmannian is the subset of Gr(k,n) where all Plucker coordinates are nonnegative. In Chapter 2, I generalize a result of Gantmakher and Krein, who showed that an element V of Gr(k,n) is totally nonnegative if and only if every vector in V, when viewed as a sequence of n numbers and ignoring any zeros, changes sign at most k-1 times. I characterize when the vectors in V change sign at most k-1+m times for any m, in terms of the Plucker coordinates of V. I then apply this result to solve the problem of determining when Grassmann polytopes, generalizations of polytopes into the Grassmannian studied by Lam, are well defined. In Chapter 3, which is joint work with Lauren Williams, we study the (tree) amplituhedron A(n,k,m), the image in Gr(k,k+m) of the totally nonnegative part of Gr(k,n) under a (map induced by a) linear map which is totally positive. It was introduced by Arkani-Hamed and Trnka in 2013 in order to give a geometric basis for computing scattering amplitudes in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. We take an orthogonal point of view and define a related "B-amplituhedron" B(n,k,m), which we show is isomorphic to A(n,k,m), and use the results of Chapter 2 to describe the amplituhedron in terms of sign variation. Then we use this reformulation to give a cell decomposition of the amplituhedron in the case m=1, using the images of a collection of distinguished cells of the totally nonnegative Grassmannian. We also identify A(n,k,1) with the complex of bounded faces of a cyclic hyperplane arrangement, and deduce that A(n,k,1) is homeomorphic to a ball. In Chapter 4, I study the action of the cyclic group of order n on the totally nonnegative part of Gr(k,n). I show that the cyclic action has a unique fixed point, given by taking n equally spaced points on the trigonometric moment curve (if k is odd) or the symmetric moment curve (if k is even). More generally, I show that the cyclic action on the entire complex Grassmannian has exactly n choose k fixed points, corresponding to k-subsets of nth roots of (-1)^(k-1). I explain how these fixed points also appear in the study of the quantum cohomology ring of the Grassmannian.


On March, 27th 2009 Situ Gintung dam collapsed. Situ Gintung dam failure has been analyzed based on the condition of watershed, reservoir, and embankment on March, 27 2009. Hydrological analysis and slope stability analysis are combined to analyze the major causes gintung collapse. Watershed analysis using ARC-GIS software, routing in reservoir using HEC-HMS model, and stability condition was strudied using Geo-Slope. Input data, parameters, and model assumptions are very important to get the right results. Hydrological analysis results show that rain occurred on March 26, 2009 with a rainfall intensity of 111 mm/day was only classified as rainfall with a return period of 5 years. Reservoir routing show that water level elevation on March, 27 2009 was only 70 cm above the spillway crest or 1,3 m below the embankment crest with a peak flow of 36,2 m3/s, so it didn't cause overtopping on the embankment. Slope stability analysis results show that the factor of safety of 1,19 < 1,5 (standard), it show that there was the weakening of the dam, such as scouring, erosion, and cracks. It can be concluded that the main factor of the collapsed was caused by scouring and cracks.


The proposed text contemplates the prerequisites for the success of local currencies (starting with their objectives and the experience accumulated thus far) in the event of greater sustainability at the local level that is sought and to identify which would overcome the known difficulties so far to contribute effectively to improving the sustainability of activities at the local level: the inclusion of banks and local funding agencies and local authorities or even the facilitation of the currency via the input of external resources appear to be essential to consider the success of local currencies.


A green building is a sustainable building that has minimal impacts on the environment throughout its life. For the purposes of this report, "green building" is understood to mean construction that makes efficient use of energy and resources in every aspect. This includes the production of building materials, and the design, use, and eventual demolition of a building in any sector (commercial, residential, industrial, public buildings) and at all stages, from new buildings to "retrofitting" or adapting existing ones. The construction sector, which accounts for 10% of global GDP, has direct and indirect impacts on the environment. It produces 23% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and buildings are responsible for between 30% and 40% of all material flows. A green building is a sustainable building that has minimal impacts on the environment throughout its life.


With the growth of economy, the esthetic values of bridges become significant points in the decision process of a type of new bridges. So, it is common that a long-span bridge or a multi-purpose bridge are selected as the type of new bridges. Also, the economic growth derives increase in traffic and then the increased traffic derives multi purpose bridges from the decision process of bridge types. In the multi-purpose bridges with private fund, the construction cost is simply alloted to several organizations according to the percentage of participation and usage. But the allotment of the maintenance cost is not simple. Because the loads and safety factors in design are different between the criterion of design of highway bridges and that of railway bridges. In this study, we verify the possible problems in case of allotment method of maintenance cost in foreign examples as well as domestic example. As one of the method of determination of allotment ratio in maintenance cost, the method based on the stress of structural analysis is presented and it can be an example in the similar problem later.


Guide to finding photographs, illustrations and other images in the State Library of Victoria's collections Information for authors and editors of SLV Research Guides


In RFID systems,tag-collision is an important issue.This paper presents a novel algorithm based on the binary search tree algorithm and the Aloha algorithm.The amount of tags on each node of the binary tree is estimated dynamically,and then the number of slots is decided.This results in fewer reader queries and responses to tags and saving of energy.The performance of the algorithm is analyzed.Simulation results show that the algorithm produces significant energy saving in comparison with the binary search tree algorithm.


A simple finite element analysis of axisymmetrically loaded shells of revolution is presented herein, using the beam on elastic foundation analogy. The analysis requires very few elements and can be easily programmed on a microcomputer. Numerical examples are presented and the results are in good agreement with those from available solutions


This work analyzes an apparent paradox: share values generate conflict. From an ethnographic study developed in an International Non-Governmental Organization in the city of Cordoba we show how the organizational values widely assumed by its members become factors that encourage the development of disagreements and conflicts. In this way, we support the hypothesis that share values not necessarily (only) produce consensus and cooperation, but also allow disagreement because they facilitate the observation and evaluation of organizational operations. This hypothesis becomes pertinent, in the first place, from some assumptions of the social and organizational theory which consider share values as opposite to conflict; in the second place, from the social conflict theories that tend to propose that conflict appears as the


Provided are eyeglasses having no nose pads, in which lenses are supported by G-shaped end covers. Eyeglasses have a lens portion (18) in which one or two lenses (8, 8) are formed without nose pads, temples (14, 14) which extend through end pieces (12, 12) on opposite sides of the lens portion (18), and G-shaped end covers (1, 1) which are connected to rear portions of the temples (14, 14). The G-shaped end covers (1, 1) extend along the shapes of the outer portions of the ears and are bent forward at outer ends thereof so as not to interfere with lobes (3, 3). The outer ends of the G-shaped end covers (1, 1) are provided with holders (7, 7) to be attached into openings (2, 2) of the ears.