Single photon ranging has high sensitivity and can effectively improve the measurement range. In order to improve the target detection efficiency of commonly, we use the method of multiple accumulation to improve SNR. For moving target echo signal, each has a certain offset. The echo signal accumulation broadening greatly increases the difficulty of signal extraction. The traditional method is using multiple filters. But for single photon signals, the filtering method is not effective. This paper studies the single photon echo ranging model. The mathematical model of the echo signal of moving target is established. Accumulation of moving target with velocity estimation overcomes the accumulation of the problem. Compared with the traditional filtering method, it has more superior performance. And the detection probability of the method is calculated by Matlab simulation, verifying its good performance.


This article examines the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure (Codice di procedura penale) as a theoretical model for transformation of the U.S. accusatorial system of justice. Specifically, the article systematically analyzes how the goals of impartiality and fairness might be more aptly promoted through the adoption of a quasi-inquisitorial system of justice in the U.S.


ABSTRACT The article explores the convergence between the market-oriented actions of commercial art galleries and the exhibiting choices in the museum environment. The convergence between museums' and galleries' choices not only jeopardizes the traditional hypothesis of independence of the art system but it could also produces a lack of informational balances and speculative behaviors. Specifically, the article studies the convergence between the two realms comparing the diffusion of artists in Art Basel and in a sample of contemporary art museums and centers. Two databases were used: one gathering all the galleries that participated in Art Basel from 2005 to 2012 and the presented artists; a second one collecting information about the exhibitions held in 34 institutions between 2005 and 2013, plus 2 editions of Documenta (2007 and 2012). The main evidences suggest that the curatorial side includes a larger variety of artists (only one-third of the artists exhibited in the selected institutions also participated in Art Basel). Nevertheless, both sides grant higher attention to the same smaller group of artists and orient their preferences in the same direction. Therefore, the contribution reveals, at least in the short term, a set common preferences and expectations, which could engender higher speculative risks.


Abstracl The paradox of enrichment refe$ to a sjruarion in which an orJginally srable predator-prey ecosystem is destabilizcd by tripling the food supply arailable ro the herbivore, resulting in the extinction of both species due to overexploitation. An existing anhropod predator prey model inco4)orating age structure in the carnivore is extended to include the effects of intraspecific carnivore competition. A linear stabiliry annlysis o{ the community equilibrium point of rha i di fferenridt integral equation systcm is perforrird aod the results are compaied to thosi obtarned by cmploying an analogous di{ferential equation model without age sttuctule. It is shown that, unlike for the latter model, the paradox of enrichment can now occur eveo for a carnivore which exhibits intraspeci{ic carnivote competition- This prediction is in accordance with relevant expetimental evidence involving mites on oranges. Inlroduclion ^fhe parad,ox of enrichnzent is a term coined by Univetsity of Afizona ecologist M. L. Rosenzweig (1971) to describe the outcome of a laboratory expelimenr involving two mite species conducred by a team qf Berkeley entomologists under the direction of C. B. Huffaker. The ecosystem under examirurion consisted of rhe herbivorous six-spotted spider mite Eotettanychat Jexlnac latal Riley feeding on ofanges while, in turn, beiog preyed upon by the carnivorous mite Metateiulat accid,entdliJ Nesbitt io a controlled environment of carefully consrructed cabinets. Huffaker et al. (1963) obseived rhar for univetses composed of a particular fixed amounr of oranges the population derisities of the two mite species per cabirrer tended ro persist in ecological time. Then ahey s/ere able to destabilize this originalty stable situation by tripling the fo<xt supply available to the herbivorous mite, which resulted in the extioction of both mite slccies due to overexploitation. In what follows we shall sutvey rwo attemp$ to model this phenomenoo mathematically.


Objective:To explore the relationship between the extent of coronary artery lesion and plama B-type natriuretic peptide(BNP) levels in patients with acute myocardial infarction(AMI) except for heart failure(HF).Method:66 AMI patients without HF were enrolled in the study.24 patients with normal coronary arterography(CAG) served as controls.Plasma BNP levels were measured before CAG.Compare the correlation between BNP and the extent of coronary artery lesions,as well as BNP levels between different infartion site.All statistical analysis was carried on via SPSS17.0 version in personal computer.The data were expressed as(mean±SD) and were analyzed by using t-test.Bi-variance correlation was evaluated by Pearson Correlation Coefficiant.P0.05 indicated statitical significance.Result:The plasma BNP concentrations in patients with AMI were significantly higer than those in controls(P0.001).There was a positive correlation between the BNP levels and coronary artery lesion score(r=0.048).Conclusions:AMI patients without heart failure,the more serious the coronary artery lesions,the higher the plasma BNP concentrations were.BNP may be helpful for the risk stratification and prognosis determination of AMI patients.


The field of quantum computing has evolved into a large interdisciplinary community where significant resources are invested worldwide. As a result, accelerated progress is achieved and we are at the beginning of a new age of computation, developing programmable quantum systems towards universal quantum computers. Quantum computers promise to solve certain mathematical problems that are intractable to classical computers.


Vocabulary belongs to the most flexible part of the language and it often changes and evolves together with the society and nearly immediately reacts on the movement is society system and mirrors its social, community and political relationships. Slovak language as a state language had a function in variety of state establishments. The noticeable changes in these units often had as well an influence on the Slovak language. Since the year 1989 is considered the considerable milestone change in our society, we are concentrating on the vocabulary movement before and after this period. We note the dynamics of the lexical Slovak language in the last decades, in other words the spontaneous processes direct or lead in the retreat of certain lexical units, stylistics review, semantic changes and revitalization of those units as well as the growth of new words and phrases from domestic and foreign languages.


Abstract Porous powdered carbon nanomaterials [carbon nanotubes (CNT) and carbon nanoshells (CNS)] were compacted using spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique. High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and SEM images demonstrate the structural change: the increase of density and thickness of nanoshells stack, formation of interparticle bonds between nanotubes. Surface properties of original and sintered materials were studied by liquid nitrogen sorption and compared to the characteristics for real vapors sorption. The data collected for water, ethanol, acetonitrile and benzene show both physical adsorption and chemisorption. The mean pore diameter distribution calculated from nitrogen adsorption by density functional theory (DFT) approach shows the reduction of total pore volume in CNS pellet while for CNT pellet total pore volume does not differ dramatically from those for non-compacted samples. The isosteric heats of sorption for all chosed vapors were calculated.


Plari. semwoletile oils and their components are known to exhibit antimicrobial activities, and many applications for controlling the growth of food borne ~ens. ExlnIction of semivolatile oils of Apium grawokns L. (Tayok-narman). CoriandTum sa1tvum L. (Nannan), AfUthum grawokns L. (Sa meke), Ocimum basilicum L. (Pin sein), Mentha longifolia (L .) Hudson (Bu di nan) were done~ antimicrobial activity of tbcse semivolatile oils were evaluated in culture medium; and taste panel evaluation were also carried out with chicken roast.. The detailed analysis of five Myanmar aromatic plants semivolatile oil was done by Gas Chomatography Mass Spectrometry technique:. The antimicrobial results showed that all semreoletile oils could inhibit the growth of &cillw pumilu.s. &cillw subhlis. Escheridua coli, Staphylococcus tzUnW and Candida albicans. Mentha latgifolia L. (Hudson) oil ani Ocimum basilicum L. oil showed the strongest intnbitioo 00 StaphylocOfX1LJ aureus. In the resuh of taste panel evalwtion, Ocimum basilicum L. was the most suitable to use as preservative for chicken roast. Keyword s:semivolatiJe oils, amimicrobial activity. preservatives


In this article, we present a comprehensive discussion of a new class of inline microwave filters with transmission zeros in the response, namely, the path filters. The main features of this filters class are highlighted, and an original (synthesis-based) design approach is presented, relying on the derivation of suitable characteristic polynomials. In addition to the classical generalized Chebyshev characteristic, two new characteristics are introduced (namely, the bounded Chebyshev and the reduced Chebyshev), which allows improving the flexibility in the requirements assignment of path filters. A new method for the synthesis of the low-pass prototype is also introduced, which overcomes the limitation in the classical synthesis based on the manipulation of the transversal prototype (whose synthesis may fail in case of path filters). Finally, the proposed approach for designing the class of considered filters has been validated by several examples that include the evaluation of the characteristic polynomials, the prototype synthesis, and the dimensioning of the physical structures in waveguide technology.


Photograph of a Ph.D candidate being presented with a Doctoral hood at her commencement ceremony. The graduate is looking off to the side and smiling as the man behind her presents the hood to be placed over her shoulders. President Neal Smatresk (left) stands off to the side smiling for her.


A embedded web server design is presented in this paper. In this system,a CYCLONE1C20 is applied as a control unit. AnNIOS Ⅱ embedded system is built on FPGA. An uClinux operation system is transplanted to it. With the embedded web server,the func-tion of long-distance real-time monitor is successfully realized. Server can support the industry equipment and information appliance to ac-cess into Internet.It is low cost,simple design and easy to upgrade.


Tanganyika became an independent country in 1961 and after union with Zanzi bar in 1964, they formed what is now known as the United Republic of Tanzania. Tanzania has an area of 365,000 sq. miles and a population of 16 million people. Nearly 95% of the population lives in villages scattered all over the countryside. These people grow all their food and most of the major cash crops which form the backbone of the economy. The remaining 5% of the population lives in rapid ly growing urban centres. For some years following independence, the Tanzania Government, like many other Governments in developing countries, paid very little attention to housing credit. In the urban areas, housing loans were being offered by private moneylenders at exorbitant rates of interest, and by a few pri vate financial institutions to selected high income borrowers. But in the rural areas, there was virtually no organised source of credit for housing at all. In 1967, there was a major shift in Government political and economic thinking which led to a whole new Development Philosophy being announced in the ? Arusha Declaration ? of that year K According to the Declaration, Tanzania is to develop into a Socialist and Self Reliant State. To attain this goal, a number of institutional changes and new policy measures have been introduced in subse quent years. These have included a higher allocation of resources for integrated rural development and the creation of public financial and commercial enterpri ses to cater for the various sectors of the economy. Among the new financial institutions created to implement the new development strategy, was the Tanza nia Housing Bank established in 1972 to mobilise savings and provide housing credit throughout the country. This paper will first look ot the legal objects, func tions and operational principles of the THB. After that, it will examine the Bank's experience during the first five years of its existence, noting particularly the techniques used in mobilising domestic savings and other resources for housing credit and how this credit is extended to the low income earners in both urban and rural areas of Tanzania. Because Housing Banks of the THB model are still rare institutions today, it is hoped that, from this paper, some lessons will be drawn which might be useful to existing and proposed housing credit institu tions in other developing countries.


Abstract Background Many sports are associated with an increased risk of traumatic brain injury (TBI), often in a form of repeated minor trauma. While the pathophysiological changes of the brain after TBI have been relatively well studied, data on cognitive aspects are relatively scarce. The main objective of this study was to measure the cognitive consequences of repeated heading in a controlled set of training exercises in 21 years old football players. Methods The study design is quasi-experiment. Participants consisted of male football players (N = 27) and were tested under 3 conditions: before the sports activity, after the sports activity not involving heading, after the sport activity focused on heading. To monitor the cognitive changes we used neuropsychological methods: the Trail Making Test (TMT), the Verbal reproduction test. Blood samples were taken to analyse the presence of biomarkers (glucose). Linear regression and repeated-measures ANOVA were used for statistical analysis. Results The data showed significant relationships between the glucose level (before and 1-hour after the heading) and the TMT (part B) score /(F(1,22)=6.03; p=.001; R-square=.223/. Based on TMT (part B) scores, the cognitive flexibility and glucose lowered after the sessions. For both parts of TMT we found significantly worse scores after both training sessions compared to baseline testing (Part A: F(2,46)=189.354; p<.001; Eta2=.892; Part B: F(2,46)=10.191; p<.001; Eta2=.307). Post-hoc tests revealed slightly worse results in the TMT (part A) after non-heading than after the heading training which means, that the focused attention was affected. In the TMT (part B) no difference was found between the results after non-heading and heading training. Conclusions This study has a unique potential to highlight the relations between biomarkers and psychological abilities and their possible changes caused by heading, which may have beneficial as well as damaging impact on the body and cognitive functioning. Key messages • The findings of this study suggest a potential relationship between repeated minor head trauma and cognitive performance in young adults. • Besides physiological changes, cognitive impact on cognitive performance may be a consequence of repeated minor head trauma; further study is required to elucidate these associations.


The effect of precursor pollutants on the formation and fate of ozone is of major concern in the Northeastern US. Hydrocarbon and carbonyl compounds measured at 15 Photochemical Assessment Monitoring Station (PAMS) sites in the Northeast are being investigated as a part of a data analysis effort sponsored by the Coordinating Research Council. One of the objectives of the volatile organic compound (VOC) analyses is to develop an understanding of the variability, spatial patterns, and diurnal patterns across the Northeast. This understanding is important for assessing transport of ozone and precursors, assessing model inputs and results, evaluating emission inventories, and assessing the efficacy of VOC/NO{sub x} controls. Analyses discussed in this paper include preliminary investigations of the spatial and temporal variation in isoprene concentrations, primarily associated with biogenic emissions; examination of ratios of species with different reactivity rates for temporal and spatial trends; and investigation of key differences among sites regarding speciation, relative age, and relative reactivity of the VOC to obtain clues into transport processes and emission sources.


With emission legislation becoming more stringent within the next years, almost all future internal combustion gasoline engines need to reduce specific fuel consumption, most of them by using turbochargers. Additionally, car manufactures attach high importance to a good drivability, which usually is being quantified as a target torque already available at low engine speeds that is fast reached in transient response operation. These engine requirements result in a challenging turbocharger compressor and turbine design task, since for both not one single operating point needs to be aerodynamically optimized but the components have to provide for the optimum overall compromise for maximum thermodynamic performance. The component design targets are closely related and actually controlled by the matching procedure that fits turbine and compressor to the engine. Inaccuracies in matching a turbine to the engine full load are largely due to the pulsating engine flow characteristic and arise from the necessity of arbitrary map extrapolation to low turbine blade speed ratios and the estimation of turbine efficiency for low engine speeds.This paper addresses the above described standard problems, presenting a methodology that covers almost all aspects of thermodynamic turbine design based on a comparison of radial and mixed flow turbines. Wheel geometry definition with respect to contrary design objectives is done using CFD, FEA and optimization software. Parametrical turbine models, composed of wheel, volute and standard piping allow for fast map calculation similar to steady hot gas tests but covering the complete range of engine pulsating mass flow. These extended turbine maps are then used for a particular assessment of turbine power output under unsteady flow admission resulting in an improved steady state matching quality. Additionally, the effect of various design parameters like either volute sizing or the choice of compressor to turbine diameter ratio on turbine blade speed ratio operating range as well as its inertia is analyzed. Finally, this method enables the designer to comparatively evaluate the ability of a turbine design to accelerate the turbocharger speed for transient engine response while still offering a map characteristic that keeps fuel consumption low at all engine speeds.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


Over the past few decades, induction motor has become a reliable choice in the industrial field as an electromechanical device. The inherent characteristics of an induction motor make it convenient, efficient and popular option among industrial applications. With the development of power electronic devices and power converters, it has become possible to control the speed of induction motor smoothly. Although these converters are capable of providing more flexible speed control, they also cause some technical hitches such as distorted current and voltage waveforms, increasing losses, pulsating torque etc. These are mainly due to harmonic contents added in voltage and current waveforms. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze such problems while designing efficient electric drive. This paper mainly deals with an investigation and analysis of harmonic profile executed by three-phase voltage source inverter for different PWM using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) through MATLAB/Simulink.


As a result of the first partition of Poland (1772) Austria occupied two big districts, namely the southern part of Lesser Poland and Red Ruthenia. Th e newly incorporated crownland, called the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, was mapped within Josephine survey already a few years after annexation. The name of Josephine survey (or the first military survey) refers to a series of topographic maps made in the years 1763–1787, which covered the successive territories under the rule of the Habsburg dynasty (fi g. 1). In the case of the map of Galicia, the same principles were adopted as those for the whole Josephine survey. Th e map was prepared in a 1:28 800 scale model on the basis of field measurements but also using the "a la vue" method, with a plane table and other instruments. Th e Josephine map of Galicia, initially made secret due to its military importance, was never published and remains in a manuscript till now, kept in the War Archives in Vienna. It consists of 413 sheets in the format of 24 × 16 inches (63.2 × 42.1 cm) and additional sheets of varying formats. Its total surface is about 115 m2. Two sets of hand-written copies (fi g. 3) have been preserved besides the original (an example in fi g. 2). Th e map is accompanied by six bulky volumes including descriptions of the mapped area (one of the sheets is presented in fi g. 4). Due to the value of the map as a source and its usefulness for historical as well as geographical studies and studies conducted within other disciplines, postulates were put forward for this relic to be made available in print. Those intentions were made specific in 2008, when work was begun on preparing a full edition of Galicia's map which would include both the cartographic material and the text (topographic descriptions). Four editorial groups are concerned with this and they are headed by Waldemar Bukowski (Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Cracow), Zdzislaw Noga (Institute of History, Pedagogical University of Cracow), Andrzej Janeczek (Institute of Archeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw) and Zdzislaw Budzynski (Institute of History of the University of Rzeszow). Th e material was divided into fifteen volumes of a similar size (fi g. 5). Each volume will be composed of two volumes. One will include facsimiles of the sheets of the map, from 20 to 46. Th e other volume will contain texts of descriptions in German with a parallel translation into Polish, commentaries to the descriptions, an inventory of names included in the map, a joint index of maps and descriptions and, finally, explanations to the symbols and the map captions. Further plans provide for a digital version on the basis of the prepared material of the printed version.


For expressing and preparing monoclonal antibody of GPV p32 protein,p32 gene was cloned and inserted into plasmid pET28a(+),and expressed efficiently in E.coli Rosseta by IPTG induction.After purification by affinity chromatograph,p32 protein was immunized as antigen to BALB/c mouse.22 monoclonal antibodies which recognize recombinant p32 protein were obtained,among them,3 could recognize GPV.These monoclonal antibodies provided biomaterials for sandwich ELISA testing GPV and competitive ELISA testing GPV antibodies.


The use of traffic conflicts is gaining acceptance as a proactive approach to studying road safety. A traffic conflict involves a chain of events in which at least one of the involved road-users performs some sort of evasive actions to avoid a potential collision. Pedestrian evasive actions are normally manifested by changes in the walking behaviour which is expressed through variations in their speed profile. This paper investigates the automatic detection of pedestrian evasive actions in a computer-vision framework. The study proposes a new measure for detecting pedestrians undertaking evasive actions based on permutation entropy (PE). PE is a robust approach for discovering dynamic characteristics of a time-series. In the current context, it reveals the degree of abnormality in the walking pattern by identifying the deviations from the normal free walking. The methodology is applied and validated using video data from an intersection in Shanghai, China. Results show that the PE-based indicator has a high potential to identify and measure the severity of conflicts that involve pedestrian evasive actions compared to traditional time-proximity measures (e.g. time-to-collision and post-encroachment-time). This research finds many applications in the modern transportation infrastructure monitoring, studying pedestrian crossing behaviour and developing safety programs for vulnerable road-users.


Black Americans of Achievement Series. Chelsea House Publishing. Biographies. Thurgood Marshall. By: Lisa Aldred Nat Turner. By: Terry Bisson Barbara Jordan. By: Rose Blue and Corinne Naden Colin Powell. By: Warren Brown Philip Randolph. By: Sally Hanley Josh Gibson: Baseball Great. By: John Holway Rosa Parks. By: Mary Hill Martin Luther King, Jr. By: Robert Jakoubek Adam Clayton Powell. By: Robert Jakoubek Marcus Garvey: Black Nationalist Leader. By: Mary Lawler Clarence Thomas: Supreme Court Justice. By: Norman Macht Coretta Scott King. By: Lisa Renee Rhodes Malcolm X: Militant Black Leader. By: Jack Rummel Frederick Douglass: Abolistionist Editor. By: Sharman Russell Jackie Robinson: Baseball Great. By: Richard Scott


The biosorption of Cd~(2+) by suspended saccharomycete was investigated with various influencing factors on the process discussed.The results showed that 10 minutes after starting the process,the adsorption equilibrium comes about.The pH value has a great effect on the biosorption,and when it is 5.41,the biosobent shows a best adsorbing effect.The initial mass concentration of adsorbate is also an important influencing fact on the biosorption,and the adsorbing rate can be up to 99% if the concentration of adsorbate is 228.4?mg/L and that of adsorbent is 14?g/L.The results of IR spectrum showed that the adsorbing positions of the suspended saccharomycete biomass to Cd~(2+) are mainly the-OH,C=O,P=O,-NH_2,and S=O.


Dependency parsers show syntactic relations between words using a directed graph, but comparing dependency parsers is difficult because of differences in theoretical models. We describe a system to convert dependency models to a structural grammar used in grammar education. Doing so highlights features that are potentially overlooked in the dependency graph, as well as exposing potential weaknesses and limitations in parsing models. Our system performs automated analysis of dependency relations and uses them to populate a data structure we designed to emulate sentence diagrams. This is done by mapping dependency relations between words to the relative positions of those words in a sentence diagram. Using an original metric for judging the accuracy of sentence diagrams, we achieve precision of 85%. Multiple causes for errors are presented as potential areas for improvement in dependency parsers.


The application of big data targeted advertising in the green supply chain makes the green marketing of products more accurate and effective. This paper applies game theory to study the decisions and coordination issues of a green supply chain in which the online retailer conducts big data targeted advertising. A centralized model and two Stackelberg game models (an online-retailer-led decentralized model and a manufacturer-led decentralized model) were constructed and solved. The zero wholesale price-side-payment contract and greedy wholesale price-side-payment contract were introduced into the green supply chain for coordination. The study found that: (1) the increase in demand attenuation coefficient, green sensitivity coefficient, and big data targeted advertising sensitivity coefficient will be beneficial to the growth of total consumer demand, supply chain profit, and environmental benefit; (2) supply chain coordination is necessary because greenness, demand, supply chain profit, and environmental benefit under the centralized model are higher than those under two decentralized models; (3) two contracts can achieve the coordination of the green supply chain, and the profits of the manufacturer and online retailer under the contract are greater than those under the decentralized model. The results can provide insights for promoting green supply chain operations.


A numerical wind tunnel simulation is performed in order to predict wind loads acting on a building. The aim of the present study is to suggest a guideline for the numerical wind tunnel analysis, which could provide more detail wind load distributions compared to the wind code and expensive wind tunnel experiments. To validate the present numerical simulation, wind-induced loads on a 6 m cube model is predicted. Atmospheric boundary layer is used as a inlet boundary condition. Various effect of numerical methods are investigated such as size of computational domain, grid density, turbulence model and discretization scheme. The appropriate procedure for the numerical wind tunnel analysis is suggested through the present study.


Numerical simulation of global formation of auroral arcs is carried out for a three-dimensional coupled ionosphere-magnetosphere system. With the presence of the stationary convection electric field, the field-aligned current driven by the polarization and drift of the ionospheric conductivity enhancement is shown to be responsible for the feedback instability of the shear Alfven wave. The simulation result demonstrates the dynamic process of auroral arc formation, where an ionospheric perturbation nearly resonant with the magnetospheric Alfven wave (toroidal mode) can eventually grow into auroral arcs. Many of the important characteristics of quiet auroral arcs are demonstrated, and it is shown that the overall distribution of auroras depends critically on the stationary state of the auroral oval characterized by the large-scale Birkeland current, the electric field, and the electron density distribution.


In this issue of Blood , Kremer Hovinga and colleagues demonstrate that a lower level of initial plasma ADAMTS13 activity (< 10%) is associated with higher risk of relapse in patients with TTP. Also, patients with a low plasma ADAMTS13 activity and high-titer inhibitor (≥ 2 BU) appear to have


In order to increase thermal conductivity of diamond/Cu composite material,high quality diamond films were deposited on core materials by chemical vapor deposition(CVD),and then those diamond bars were longitudinally arranged with copper powder filling in the space to prepare paralleling heat conduction diamond/Cu composite by vacuum hot-press sintering method.The growth of diamond films was investigated by Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy(SEM),and heat conduction performance of diamond/Cu composite materials was discussed by numerical analysis.The results show that the paralleling structure diamond/Cu composite material is compact and the density is 9.51g/cm3.The CVD diamond films present continuous channels and generate paralleling heat conduction in the copper matrix,where the thermal conductivity is 392.78W/(m·K).


The paper investigates the secondary flow induced in an Oldroyd fluid, contained between two concentric spheres due to the rotational oscillations of the spheres about a fixed axis. The secondary motion consists of a steady velocity distribution as well as a periodic motion with twice the frequency of the primary. The steady part of this flow is studied in detail for three cases, namely (i) the outer sphere at rest and the inner oscillating, (ii) the two spheres oscillating with the same angular amplitude in the same sense and (iii) the two spheres oscillating with the same angular amplitude but in opposite senses. We notice that the secondary flow is strongly dependent on the frequency of oscillation and also on the rotational nature of the motion of the spheres.


HE ASSOCIATION of anerythroid anemia and T benign thymoma has recently emerged as a clinical and pathological entity. The recognition of this association is of particular interest because of the occasional complete remissions of the anemia after thymectomy. This therapeutic possibility is obviously important in the management of an individual patient, but, in addition, it implies a causal relationship between the thymoma and this obscure form of anemia. During 1957, 2 patients at Memorial Center for Cancer and Allied Diseases, New York, N.Y., were found to have this syndrome. It is the purpose of this paper to report our observations on these 2 patients and to explore the interrelationships between this rare type of anemia and thymic tumors. An attempt has been made to establish the incidence of selective erythroid aplasia among patients with thymomas and, conversely, the incidence of thymomas among patients with this type of anemia. The effects of thymectomy on the hematological abnormality have been evaluated. In addition, an attempt has been made to reproduce the erythroid hypoplasia in laboratory animals.


Wireless power transfer (WPT) is a convenient, safe, and autonomous means for electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle charging that has seen rapid growth in recent years for stationary applications. WPT does not require bulky contacts, plugs, and wires, is not affected by dirt or weather conditions, and is as efficient as conventional charging systems. This study summarizes some of the recent Sustainable Campus Initiative activities of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in WPT charging of an on-campus vehicle (a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid electric vehicle). Laboratory development of the WPT coils, high-frequency power inverter, and overall systems integration are discussed. Results cover the coil performance testing at different operating frequencies, airgaps, and misalignments. Some of the experimental results of insertion loss due to roadway surfacing materials in the air-gap are presented. Experimental lessons learned are also covered in this study.


A widely held view is that openness to international trade leads to higher income volatility, as trade increases specialization and hence exposure to sector-specific shocks. Contrary to this common wisdom, we argue that when country-wide shocks are important, openness to international trade can lower income volatility by reducing exposure to domestic shocks, and allowing countries to diversify the sources of demand and supply across countries. Using a quantitative model of trade, we assess the importance of the two mechanisms (sectoral specialization and cross-country diversification) and show that in recent decades international trade has reduced economic volatility for most countries. ∗Thanks: Referees, Pol Antras, Costas Arkolakis, Robert Barro, Fernando Broner, Ariel Burstein, Lorenzo Caliendo, Julian DiGiovanni, Bernardo Guimaraes, Nobu Kiyotaki, Pete Klenow, David Laibson, Fabrizio Perri, Steve Redding, Ina Simonovska, Jaume Ventura, Romain Wacziarg, and seminar participants at Bocconi, Birmingham, CREI, Princeton, Penn, Yale, NYU, UCL, LBS, LSE, Toulouse, Warwick, as well as participants at SED, ESSIM, and the Nottingham trade conference. Calin Vlad Demian, Balazs Kertesz, Federico Rossi, and Peter Zsohar provided superb research assistance. Caselli acknowledges financial support from the Luverlhume Fellowship. Koren acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council (ERC) starting grant 313164. Tenreyro acknowledges financial support from the ERC starting grant 240852. † London School of Economics, CfM, CEPR. ‡ Central European University, MTA KRTK, CEPR. § European Comission. Correspondence: firstname.lastname@example.com.


Each year university leaders attend conferences and trainings where they learn strategies to encourage and enable faculty community engagement at their respective institutions, such as instituting faculty development programs, providing infrastructure support, and offering seed grants for engaged teaching and research projects. Similarly, organizational leaders are encouraged to signal their support of faculty community engagement by helping make it visible, acknowledging it within academic reward systems, and making it central to campus mission, strategy, and general education reform. Each of these organizational support strategies is recommended by scholars and academic leaders to institutionalize community engagement (Furco & Holland, 2004; Hinck & Brandell, 2000; Holland, 1997; Hollander, Saltmarsh, & Zlotkowski, 2001; Sandmann, Thornton, & Jaeger, 2009). Often organizational leaders return in subsequent years to the same conferences to report on the practices they put in place to create a more engaged campus. Missing in this picture are the experiences of the end-users of these reforms. That is, few studies have examined the experiences of faculty receiving these various forms of support. In fact, we know little about how community-engaged faculty experience support from their organizational leaders. What forms do faculty see that support taking? What influence does such support have on a faculty member's sense that they can accomplish their community engagement goals? Research has established that faculty experience many barriers to involvement in community engagement across institutional settings (Abes, Jackson, & Jones, 2002; Bloomgarden, 2008; O'Meara, 2002, 2011; Vogelgesang, Denson, & Jayaknmar, 2010). Given these barriers, do the actions organizational leaders take mitigate or overcome structures and cultures that discourage community engagement? Which kinds of support are most important to faculty and why? Understanding the answers to these questions is important for colleges and universities seeking to encourage faculty engagement with communities. Exploring these questions also requires awareness of key contexts. First, not all faculty are equally invested in community engagement. Members of organizations are more likely to notice cues and signals from organizational leaders if they prioritize this work and have some part of their identity invested in it (Weick, 1995). Thus, faculty who are most involved in community engagement are likely to be the most aware of signals and specific acts of support by their organizational leaders. Second, community-engaged faculty do not experience actions on the part of organizational leaders in a vacuum but nested in specific institutional contexts and fields (Bloomgarden, 2008; Braxton, 1986; Clark, 1987; Mundy, 2004). Also, community-engaged faculty experience supports as individuals in different career stages, in different disciplines, and with various other social identities and motivations (O'Meara & Niehaus, 2009; O'Meara, Terosky, & Neumann, 2008). As such, it is important to explore how contexts surrounding these acts of support influence how faculty experience them. Third, whenever an organizational leader works to support one activity or discourage another within an organizational hierarchy, they employ a source of power (Barbalet, 1985; Lawrence, 2008; Powell & Dimaggio, 1991). Thus, it is important to have a framework that takes into account how actions taken by organizational leaders are experienced as sources and exchanges of power. To understand how community-engaged faculty perceive actions on the part of organizational leaders to support community engagement, we draw upon Lawrence's (2008) theory of power and agency in organizations. We interviewed exemplar community-engaged faculty to understand the kinds of signals and supports they perceived were employed by organizational leaders on their behalf. …


It is known that the sink organ is not just a reservoir of carbon, but must also acquire water in appropriate proportion as the organ grows. In this study, the dynamics of tuber growth rate in sweet potato plants (Ipomoea batatas Lam.) was analyzed with reference to water relations using a newly developed system for on-line measurement of tuber volume. Tuber growth rate in the dark was higher than in the light, and the growth rate was almost parallel to the change in leaf water potential. Furthermore, transient responses of tuber growth rate were found just after rapid changes in evaporative demand, i.e. tuber growth rate drastically increased in 1 h after turning off the light, increasing humidity or excising all leaves, and the growth rate drastically decreased 1 h after turning on the light or decreasing humidity. Thus, the tuber growth rate was higher under higher leaf water potential, and it appeared to be affected by leaf transpiration through the whole plant water balance. (Received September 1, 1997)


—Fixing some ordering on the domain of real-valued functions of n Boolean variables ( i.e. pseudo-Boolean functions) we can identify these functions (or rather tables of their values) with vectors in the Euclidean space R 2 n of dimension 2 n . From a perspective of the Boolean function theory the integer-valued pseudo-Boolean functions are of special interest. It is due to the fact that the Walsh–Hadamard transform of a Boolean function gives the integer-valued pseudo-Boolean function that identically corresponds to the Boolean function. If we represent such pseudo-Boolean functions by points of Euclidean space then all of them appear to be placed on the (2 n − 1) -dimensional sphere with radius 2 n . Previously the mapping of the n -variables Boolean function set on the Euclidean hypersphere in R 2 n was already studied. This paper represents an attempt to extend the results obtained in those settings to the subset of pseudo-Boolean functions corresponding to the points on the hypersphere. In particular, we consider new concepts of curvature and nonlinearity of such pseudo-Boolean functions. We set relations between them and express curvature value via some metric parameters related to the described geometric representation of the pseudo-Boolean functions.Oneof the aims of this investigation is to work out an ap-proach to bounding maximum nonlinearity of Boolean functions with odd number of variables.


The dynamic oxygen storage/release capacity over Cu0.1Ce0.9Ox and Cu0.1Ce0.6Zr0.3Ox prepared by sol-gel method was investigated.The structure of the compounds was characterized by using XRD,TPR,XPS and EPR.The results show that the dynamic oxygen storage/release capacity of ceria-based materials can be improved by synergetic effects between Cu-O and Ce-O.


Masonry towers represent an important portion of the cultural heritage in Italy. Their preservation and maintenance through intervention techniques able to guarantee their historical authenticity is essential. Effective structural interventions can be planned only after a deep knowledge of the building and of its structural behaviour. For this purpose, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) plays a crucial role in providing information both on the dynamic properties of the structures and the damage caused by earthquakes or impacts. SHM can be used either immediately after the event or to monitor the long-term deterioration due to weathering and human use. In the 2011, a static Structural Health Monitoring system (SSHM) was installed in the Two Towers (Asinelli and Garisenda towers), masonry medieval towers located in Bologna, Italy. The data gathered from a SSHM system may be used in conjunction with structural analysis to identify the main vulnerabilities associated with the relevant hazards and the main structural criticalities in order to conceive targeted solutions. From June to September 2012 a dynamic monitoring system has also been installed by the INGV (the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology) on the Asinelli tower, the taller of the two. The aims of this paper are: (i) to present the results obtained from the static monitor ing system during these first five years of monitoring of the Two Towers and (ii) to identify the dynamic properties and the fatigue behavior due to the traffic load of the Asinelli towe r making use of the recorded data by a dynamic monitoring system. First, the order of magnitude of specific reference quantities (extrapolated from the recorded time series) able to character ize the main features of the structural response of the Two Towers are presented. Then, the fundamental frequencies of the tower has been obtained from the experimental measurements and compared with the results of the numerical models. Using an available experimentallybased formulation the fatigue strength has been also evaluated and compared with the stresses induced by the traffic loads recorded during the monitoring. 8th European Workshop On Structural Health Monitoring (EWSHM 2016), 5-8 July 2016, Spain, Bilbao www.ndt.net/app.EWSHM2016 M or e in fo a bo ut th is a rt ic le : h ttp :// w w w .n dt .n et /? id = 20 05 5


I. William Zartman is a skillful, shrewd and sophisticated political scien tist, an authority on Francophonic Africa who has progressively broadened the focus of his work to include the whole complex of issues implicated in North-South negotiations over the international economic system. He has also contributed to the substantial literature on the theory of negotiations.1 This book stems from his dual interests. It is not simply another analytic or hortatory work on the substantive issues that make up the North-South agenda. Its focus rather is on the negotiating process itself, on the way in which the parties have packaged issues and organized themselves for bar gaining in diverse arenas, and on the dynamics of those bargaining sessions. More specifically, its purpose is to test some 16 hypotheses about NorthSouth negotiations that have emerged from earlier process-oriented studies such as Robert Rothstein's Global Bargaining (1979), Roger Hansen's The "Global Negotiation" and Beyond (1981) and the Commonwealth Group of Experts' The North-South Dialogue: Making It Work (1982). Among those hypotheses are the following: (1) " Negotiation is bound to fail when the parties' definitions of the problem diverge." (2) "When one side possesses primarily negative power (i.e. only veto power but no positive incentives or trade-offs for the other party), a mutually favorable outcome is unlikely and an unfavorable atmo sphere prevails, making m atters worse." (3) "Global forums keep results low because of the need to pace the slowest member and combine all interests." (4) "Specific functional negotiations are fruitful and mutually pro ductive; global negotiations are not, because of the broad demands and the complex agenda." (5) "Negotiations fail where demands of one side and the conces sions o f the o ther are imbalanced, and succeed only where equal trade-offs are possible." (6) "Concessions are made by the party with the lowest tolerance for breakdown or conflict (critical-risk factor), which lies permanently on the Southern side." (7) " In the absence of an ability to produce constraints (sticks), only rewards (carrots) or moral obligations can produce results for the South."


The lack of integrity and corruption affects human rights, has important implications on the market and represents an issue in Public Procurement. Non-transparent economic interests supported by lobbies may influence legislation, its implementation, the competition and finally the economic growth and competiveness of the market itself.One increasingly popular way for States to prevent bribery committed overseas is adopting measures with extraterritorial implications or to assert direct extraterritorial jurisdiction in specific instances. These measures may have local preferences implications.A community of values is growing in the wider context of transnational and international bodies such as OECD, UN, and single Member States, to promote a joint system against corruption, but still needs clear means of actions.How to ensure integrity, accountability and transparency of public authorities and economic operators across Countries?The paper investigates two different profiles linked to the same phenomena with a comparative approach. The legal boundaries of lobbying as joint to conflicts of interest and corruption, on one side; the effects of some extraterritorial legislation, such as the US and the UK anti-bribery models, on the other. It analyses the role of private and public preventive anti-corruption measures as a mean of action.


SUMMARY Advanced Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have being used intensively in the Central Asian region in the last years. The former Soviet Union countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, have used the common ellipsoids and coordinate systems in the last century. They have different policies and activities on reforms in the geodesy and cartography fields in the last decades. Implementation of the global satellite positioning by replacing traditional survey technologies has created challenging issues related to the establishment of GNSS reference networks, implementation of the local geodetic datums, new coordinate systems and international collaboration. The present situation with different applications, such as land management, Geoinformation systems, engineering, transportation, geodynamic and environmental studies, and trends of GNSS technology in the four countries of the region are considered and analysed in this work.


This paper describes the eigenfrequency distribution of semi‐stadium 2‐D fields whose geometrical figure is formed by rectangular and hyper‐circular segments. The sound ray propagation in the fields exhibits chaotic properties when order n of the hyper‐circular parts defined by xn+yn=rn decreases to 2. The chaotic behavior can be estimated according to the degree of freedom of the gamma distribution that represents the eigenfrequency spacing statistics and the correlation dimensions of the chaotic structure. The experimental and simulation results of the 2‐D‐membrane and plate vibration analysis show that the degree of freedom of the gamma distribution changes from 1 to 2 including nonintegers as the boundary of the 2‐D space changes from rectangular (n: infinity, ''regular field'') to stadium (n: 2, ''irregular field''), which corresponds to the change in the correlation dimensions from 1 to 2 for the sound ray propagation in the field. The family of gamma distributions includes the Wigner distribution, ...


Mather, resigned. Infectiousness of Tuberculosis.?The Medico-Chirurgical Society of Glasgow, a body consisting of over 200 members, mostly practitioners in the West of Scotland, held a discussion, and arrived at the following resolution at a meeting on the 18th December, 1891:?" That a Memorial be presented to the Town Council of Glasgow, calling their attention to the fact that Tuberculosis is now


Direct H2 formation by photo catalytic or photo electrochemical H2O splitting provides theoretically high light (photon) to fuel (H2) efficiency. Advanced materials and design concepts based on the coupling of wide band gap semiconductors i.e. ZnTe, GaP, SiC or thin film Si tandem cells and nano sized metal catalysts provide very promising options. Alternatively band gap modified and defect engineered nano sized Oxides are interesting alternatives to meet the requirements. Materials and devices of this type must be designed, grown, processed and characterized combining a solid knowledge of photovoltaic device physics and electro catalysis.


A formalism is presented to determine donor (N{sub D}) and acceptor (N{sub A}) concentrations in wurtzitic InN characterized by degenerate carrier concentration (n) and mobility ({mu}). The theory includes scattering not only by charged point defects and impurities, but also by charged threading dislocations, of concentration N{sub dis}. For an 0.45-{micro}m-thick InN layer grown on Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} by molecular beam epitaxy, having N{sub dis} = 5 x 10{sup 10} cm{sup -2}, determined by transmission electron microscopy, n(20 K) = 3.5 x 10{sup 18} cm{sup -3}, and {mu}(20 K) = 1055 cm{sup 2}/V-s, determined by Hall-effect measurements, the fitted values are N{sub D} = 4.7 x 10{sup 18} cm{sup -3} and N{sub A} = 1.2 x 10{sup 18} cm{sup -3}. The identities of the donors and acceptors are not known, although a comparison of N{sub D} with analytical data, and also with calculations of defect formation energies, suggests that a potential candidate for the dominant donor is H.


This thesis consists of four self-contained papers related to banking, credit markets and financial stability. Paper [I] presents a credit market model and finds, using an agent based modeling approach, that credit crunches have a tendency to occur; even when credit markets are almost entirely transparent in the absence of external shocks. We find evidence supporting the asset deterioration hypothesis and results that emphasize the importance of accurate firm quality estimates. In addition, we find that an increase in the debt's time to maturity, homogenous expected default rates and a conservative lending approach, reduces the probability of a credit crunch. Thus, our results suggest some up till now partially overlooked components contributing to the financial stability of an economy. Paper [II] derives an econometric disequilibrium model for time series data. This is done by error correcting the supply of some good. The model separates between a continuously clearing market and a clearing market in the long-run such that we are able to obtain a novel test of clearing markets. We apply the model to the Swedish market for short-term business loans, and find that this market is characterized by a long-run nonmarket clearing equilibrium. Paper [III] studies the risk-return profile of centralized and decentralized banks. We address the conditions that favor a particular lending regime while acknowledging the effects on lending and returns caused by the course of the business cycle. To analyze these issues, we develop a model which incorporates two stylized facts; (i) banks in which lending decisions are decentralized tend to have a lower cost associated with screening potential borrowers and (ii) decentralized decision-making may generate inefficient outcomes because of lack of coordination. Simulations are used to compare the two banking regimes. Among the results, it is found that even though a bank group where decisions are decentralized may end up with a portfolio of loans which is (relatively) poorly diversified between regions, the ability to effectively screen potential borrowers may nevertheless give a decentralized bank a lower overall risk in the lending portfolio than when decisions are centralized. In Paper [IV], we argue that the practice used in the valuation of a portfolio of assets is important for the calculation of the Value at Risk. In particular, a seller seeking to liquidate a large portfolio may not face horizontal demand curves. We propose a partially new approach for incorporating this fact in the Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall measures and in an empirical illustration, we compare it to a competing approach. We find substantial differences.


The nature and morphological characteristics of axial summit troughs on fast (∼90–130 mm/yr−1 full spreading rate) and superfast spreading (>130 mm/yr−1) mid-ocean ridge crests reflect the time-integrated effects of long-term magmatic cycles, short-term volcanic episodicity, and the tensional stress regime imposed on young ocean crust. Two principal types of axial trough morphology have been identified and associated with distinct volcanic and tectonic processes occurring at fast and superfast spreading mid-ocean ridge crests. (1) Narrow axial troughs, ∼300–2000 m wide and ∼30–100 m deep) on the East Pacific Rise crest are classified as axial summit graben. The dimensions of axial summit graben, as well as the morphological and structural character of their walls and floors, suggest a primary tectonic origin. An axial summit graben may contain a nested axial summit collapse trough, implying that processes responsible for these endemic features may be linked. Near-bottom, side-looking sonar and observational data collected using the towed vehicle Argo I and submersible Alvin have been used to characterize the axial summit trough of the fast spreading East Pacific Rise between 9° and 10°N. A four-stage model is presented for the evolution of this axial summit collapse trough, as well as for other well-studied portions of the East Pacific Rise crest from 21°N to ∼20°S. We propose that the transition from a narrow, surface collapse-dominated axial trough to a broader, fault-bounded graben is controlled by the relative importance of diking, volcanism, hydrothermal cooling, and tectonism along a ridge segment over time periods <104 years.


One of the most vexing questions posed over time by political scientists is: Why do democratic polities develop in some countries, but not in others? In his seminal work Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1986), still read today by most students of comparative politics, Barrington Moore strove to answer that question by examining the historical process in which commercial agriculture emerged in Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China. In his book, Fernando López-Alves takes the framework that Moore provided and applies it to three countries in Latin America whose trajectories in the nineteenth century led to different polities and experiences with democracy—Argentina, Colombia, and Uruguay (he also makes brief reference to Paraguay and Venezuela as so-called control cases). While conceding the need for "further testing" (p. 220), he arrives at conclusions that differ significantly from Moore's, even though he does not attempt to dismiss that earlier work.


This paper reports about experience with the cure of 2,000 primary hernia by the insertion of a patch, and of 1,400 recurrent hernias with obturation and a plug. All operations were performed under local anesthesia and with short hospitalization. There was almost no recurrence (2/2,000) of primary hernias, and only 1% for recurred hernias.


In this paper, we show almost global existence of small solutions to the Cauchy problem for symmetric system of wave equations with quadratic (in 3D) or cubic (in 2D) nonlinear terms and multiple propagation speeds. To measure the size of initial data, we employ a weighted Sobolev norm whose regularity index is the smallest among all the admissible Sobolev norms of integer order. We must overcome the difficulty caused by the absence of the $H^1$-$L^p$ Klainerman-Sobolev type inequality, in order to obtain a required a priori bound in the low-order Sobolev norm. The introduction of good substitutes for this inequality is therefore at the core of this paper. Using the idea of showing the well-known Lady\v{z}enskaja inequality, we prove some weighted inequalities, which, together with the generalized Strauss inequality, play a role as the good substitute.


Semi-empirical PM3 calculations are made for the electronic absorption spectra of colored forms of nonmethylated anthocyanidins (aurantinidin, pelargonidin, cyanidin, and delphinidin). The position of the absorption band peak is shown to depend on the orientation of hydroxyl groups in the aglycone structure. The observed tendency toward a bathochromic shift after ОН groups are added to the ring generally corresponds to experimental data. The results for the uncharged quinonoid forms of pelargonidin (a hypsochromic shift of absorption bands) do not in this case agree with the prevailing opinion of specialists about the bathochromic shift. While this opinion is confirmed by DFT calculations, there are still no reliable experimental data on their validity. The formation of single-charged (negatively) quinonoid structures is clearly the reason for the bathochromic shift of absorption bands, which is consistent with the experimental data. When the charge multiplicity increases (to −2), a hypsochromic shift of absorption bands to the experimentally observed yellow color of anthocyanins in alkaline solutions is again predicted.


Family violence in China was raised as a social issue only within the last decade. Many aspects of family violence have not been responded to by social service agencies or policy makers; nor has it...


The advances on the methods of antimony-doped tin dioxides preparation are reviewed.The sel-gel method,spray pyrolysis,hydrothermal and precipitation all are the available preparation methods,but there are some shortcomings in their commercial application.Powders prepared by sel-gel method are in good dispersion state and high purity,but process parameters are difficult to control.Spray pyrolysis is simple but Cl-can not be eliminated in this method.Hydrothermal can get low aggregation,high purity powders but it needs costly equipment.Precipitation is a cheap preparation method but powders prepared from this method are often aggregated.


This report presents the results obtained in a study of VTOL and STOL short-haul transports conducted by The Boeing Company for NASA's Ames Research Center. The study covered airplane design, operational techniques, noise and public acceptance, acquisition cost, direct operating cost, technical risk, and research requirements.


At the Twenty-first Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21), in Paris in December 2015, an agreement was reached on a long-term goal for world governments to limit global warming to well below 2°C. However, scientific assessments indicate that the global average temperature is already at or exceeding 1°C and by the end of the century could be in excess of 4°C. With evidence that global temperatures are increasing at an alarming rate, there are therefore still doubts that keeping the rise below 2°C can be achieved. The UK government has established through the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017 that more needs to be achieved in implementing effort over and above that already planned during the next 5 years. However, the implication of financial support reductions on government agencies and local government required to act on such climate change implications means that local agencies are now unable to provide the necessary resources. Climate change represents one of the most serious threats to ...


Butadiene was dimerized with sodium dispersion in THF, in the presence of catalytic amounts of o-diphenylbenzene, at various temperatures between -70 and -10°C. The reaction mixture was treated with carbon dioxide and resulting carboxylic acids were separated.The composition of the reaction products were determined by gas chromatography. The results showed that the conversions and the composition of the carboxylic acids were depended remarkably on the dimerization temperature. The conversion to the carboxylic acids obtained to butadiene was 95%, in which C10-dicarboxylic acids were contained about 85%, at-70°C. But these values decreased with increase in the dimerization temperature, and the amounts of monocarboxylic acids, in which C9-acids were predominant, and of polybutadienes of lower molecular weights increased. The composition of the position isomers of the carboxylic acids caused by 1, 4- and 1, 2-addition of butadiene were also depended on the dimerization temperature. The amounts of n-carboxylic acids increased with decrease of the temperature.The mechanisms of above reactions were discussed.


The CdS powder was prepared by precipitation using Na2S,Zn(CH3COO)2 and Cd(CH3COO)2 as raw materials.The properties of powders were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer(FT-IR),X-ray diffraction(XRD),and Ultraviolet visible(UV-Vis DRS).The effects of temperature on crystalline and properties of photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange were studied.The results showed that the content of hexagonal phase CdS increased gradually for higher calcination temperatures.The prepared CdS can degrade methyl orange in the some extent,and the photocatalytic activity of CdS prepared by heating at 80 ℃ was higher.


Independent component analysis (ICA) method can be used to separate fMRI data into some task-related independent components, including one consistently task-related (CTR) and several transiently task-related (TTR) components. However, the weights, with which the CTR and TTRs contribute to the final task component, are often unknown, but are important for finding its relevant spatial activation area. Here we propose a new ICA post-processing method alternative to combine not only these CTR and TTRs which sometimes are judged in a subjective manner, but also others in an effort to identify a comprehended and summed spatial pattern that is responsible for the behavior under investigation. This proposed procedure has been successfully used in principal component analysis (PCA) based scaled subprofile modeling (SSM). Adopting this newly proposed approach, we essentially refer the ICA exploratory findings to a hypothesized temporal brain response pattern (reference function). Basically, we will use linear regression method to seek the relationship between the reference function and time courses of multi components generated from the ICA procedure. The linear regression coefficients are then used as relative weights in generating the final summed spatial pattern. Moreover, this approach allows a researcher to use T-test to statistically infer the importance of each independent component in its contribution to the final pattern and consequently the contribution to the cognitive process. Experiment result also shows that the spatial activation of the final task component becomes more accurate.


Cyclical changes in fleece parameters were studied in mature feral doe goats exposed to either natural light (NL) followed by continuous light (CL) then NL, or CL followed by NL then CL. Results show that both initial translocations (NL-CL and CL-NL) were recognized immediately and reflected in changes in volume growth rate, length, diameter, brush end fibres of cashmere and cashmere : hair ratio. Cyclic activity continued after the change in photoperiod. Progressive alterations in cycle amplitude, period and frequency appeared in CL following the initial NL-CL change. Following the initial CL-NL change, cycles of some cashmere fleece parameters continued to be influenced by previous CL exposure and did not immediately adopt NL cyclicity. Mean cycle periods of 252-261 days were common to all CL photoperiods and to NL following CL. This suggests that CL exposes a unique cycle of fleece growth, which is independent of photoperiod and retained for some time after the cessation of CL, owing to transient modification of pineal function. Differences between the response to the first and second translocation may be a function of interactions between the cycle status and translocation, rather than solely the change from one photoperiod to another. The NL-CL change resulted in two cycles of cashmere growth in the 392 days following the initial translocation. This would allow two fleeces to be harvested during that time compared with the one expected in NL alone. Exploitation of this principle may represent an opportunity to increase cashmere production.


The invention provides a liquid cement grinding additive, which comprises the following components in percentage by weight: 10 to 20 percent of tetrahydroxyethyl-ethylenediamine, 10 to 20 percent of ethoxyl-diethylenetriamine, 10 to 15 percent of diethylene glycol, 5 to 10 percent of polyethylene glycol, 2 to 5 percent of sodium tripolyphosphate, 3 to 5 percent of calcium lignosulphonate, 0 to 10 percent of tri-isopropanolamine, 0 to 8 percent of sodium gluconate, and the balance of water, wherein the molecular weight of the polyethylene glycol is between 200 and 400. As a preferred scheme of the invention, the content of the tri-isopropanolamine is between 5 and 10 percent, and the content of the sodium gluconate is between 5 and 8 percent. A cement and concrete admixture using the liquid cement grinding additive has good adaptability, can significantly improve the grinding efficiency of a grinding machine and improve the strengths of the cement in an early period and a later period by 2 to 4 MPa, or can reduce the clinker dosage by 4 to 8 percent and increase the adding volume of a mixed material by 4 to 8 percent in the cement under a condition of keeping the same cement strength grade.


Efficiently exploiting thread-level parallelism has been challenging for software developers. As many parallel applications do not scale with the number of cores, the task of rightly choosing the ideal amount of threads to produce the best results in performance or energy is not straightforward. Moreover, many variables may change according to the system at hand (e.g., application, input set, microarchitecture, number of cores) and even during execution. Existing solutions lack transparency (demand changes in the original code) or adaptability (do not automatically adjust to applications at run-time). In this scenario, we propose Aurora, an OpenMP framework that is completely transparent to both the designer and end-user. Without any code transformation or recompilation, it is capable of automatically finding, at run-time and with minimum overhead, the optimal number of threads for each parallel loop region and re-adapt in cases the behavior of a region changes during execution. When executing fifteen well-known benchmarks on four multi-core processors, Aurora improves the Energy-Delay Product by up to 98, 86 and 91 percent over the standard OpenMP execution, the OpenMP feature that dynamically adjusts the number of threads, and the Feedback-Driven Threading, respectively.


Dynamic voltage restorer can cost-effectively mitigate voltage sags, and its effect is determined by compensation strategy. For different durations and characteristics of voltage sags, a single compensation strategy is difficult to simultaneously consider the compensation quality and duration. Three basic compensation methods and characteristics of voltage sags are analyzed, and then a generalized compensation strategy based on pre-fault and minimum energy compensation is proposed. The strategy can automatically adopt appropriate compensation method according to voltage sag's duration and characteristics. Thus the compensation quality is ensured and the compensation duration is extended if necessary. The implementation method is then suggested. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy and operability of the proposed compensation strategy.


Background: Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, autoimmune, demyelinating disease of the central nervous system. Multiple sclerosis is an incurable disease. The goal of disease-modifying therapies is to slow the progression of the disease, prevent relapses and increase the patient's overall quality of life. Aim of the study was to assess factors affecting compliance regarding therapeutic regimen among patients with multiple sclerosis. Subjects and Method: Research design : A descriptive design was utilized. Setting: This study was conducted in outpatient neurology clinics (MS unit) at Zagazig University Hospitals, Egypt. Subjects: A purposive sample of (105) patients with MS. Tools of data collection: Two tools were used for data collection. Tool (I) an Interview questionnaire to assess demographic characteristics of studied patients. Tool (II) a Questionnaire to assess factors affecting patients' compliance regarding therapeutic regimen. Results: Current study revealed that the mean age of all patients was 32.5 ±6, (63.8%) were females, and mean of disease duration per years was 4.7±2.6. (30.5%) of studied patients affected by physical factors, (64.8 %) affected by socioeconomic factors, (76.2%) affected by health care team and system related factors (83.8%) affected by psychological factors, (84.8%) affected by therapy related factors, (85.7%) affected by factors related to patient's belief. In multiple linear regressions, belief score was positive predictor of total therapeutic compliance score with p. value was 0.013. While psychological factor and therapy related factor were negative predictors of total therapeutic compliance score with p. value was (0.014 and 0.0001 respectively). Conclusion : The study finding concluded that several factors affected on therapeutic compliance as physical factors, socioeconomic factors, psychological factors, patients' belief related factors, therapy related factors, and healthcare team and system related factors. Recommendations: Further studies to assess factors affecting compliance with therapeutic regimen among patients with multiple sclerosis.


The thesis discusses the transformation of philosophical idea having been taken by Marx. The transformation was from nature attitudes to history attitudes. It passed by the intermediary of the consciousness viewpoint of German classical philosophy. Only pass by the intermediary, Marx's philosophy realized the fundamental transformation from the old materialist nature attitudes to the dialectical materialist historical attitudes. Nature attitudes is an audiovisual experiential elementary attitudes, historical attitudes is a negativeness developmental attitudes being realized by man creativeness.


A general procedure is presented for systematic development of rotorcraft models for use in systems identification, which includes fuselage and rotor degrees of freedom (DOF). Formulations for rigid blade flap and lag as well as the normal mode representation of an elastic blade are developed for hingeless and articulated rotor systems. The method of multiblade coordinates is used to obtain linear constant coefficient state variable models of various levels of approximation. Two of the approximate models, a 6 DOF, are identified from a nonlinear articulated helicopter computer simulation. The results demonstrate the accuracy attainable for each model. Advanced results outline the status of rotorcraft modeling and systems identification and indicate areas that require further investigation.


Although much has been written on the subject of polar planimeters, they still remain relatively obscure instruments. This is unfortunate: not only do they provide a remarkably quick and precise method for measuring areas, they have a fascinating history and are a delightful example of Green's theorem to show calculus students (or colleagues, for that matter). Perhaps part of the reason polar planimeters are not discussed in calculus courses is that an explicit computation with the relevant vector field using Green's theorem is somewhat complicated. (There are geometric explanations of planimeter operation that avoid Green's theorem, but it is debatable whether they are simpler. See [6, 9].) In this paper, we avoid tedious computation by applying Green's theorem to an implicit representation of the planimeter vector field. The resulting simplification should make the explanation of the polar planimeter accessible to any calculus student with a knowledge of partial derivatives and a modest background of linear algebra. We will also discuss two other important features specific to polar planimeters: (1) the neutral circle, and (2) how compensating polar planimeters compensate.


Stop me if you've heard this one: four professors are having an argument about theory and literature. The Stylistic Historian delivers a long lecture, which his erstwhile colleagues ignore. He turns his back and stalks off alone. The Aesthetician and the Conventional Scholar link arms and stroll away, deep in discussion of Chaucer and Freud. This leaves only the Allegorist to deliver the last word: ''I really am getting too old for all that intense feeling.'' During their discussion, the Allegorist had told his colleagues, while shooting a daggered look in the Aesthetician's direction, that ''we are accustomed in modern times to love our feelings, and, on occasion, the feelings of others, whose manifestations assure us that they are, like ourselves, human'' (94). The Allegorist is not much of one for affect. He finds a welcome refuge from ''all that intense feeling'' in the distant European past, for emotion and scholarship are easily separated in the study of a culture that, as the Allegorist believes, rigorously divided the realm of things and the realm of ideas: ''In Antiquity and throughout the whole course of the Middle Ages men of all kinds loved ideas, not ideas regarded as being products of individual human cogitation, but ideas regarded as having a reality of their own, a reality stemming ultimately from God'' (94).


Summary Replicas of freeze-cleaved and replicated red cells produced with an improved Bullivant-Ames apparatus show the plasma membrane to be thin and sheet-like with its inner and outer surface partially covered with a small particulate component. In cross section, some of these particles appear to extend through the full thickness of the membrane. Discontinuities in the thin sheet-like membrane accommodate these penetrating particles. These findings give morphologic evidence of structural specialization of the plasma membrane.


Abstract In this article, a number of broad questions related to the acquisition of consonant clusters in a second language are investigated. Drawing on the structural relations and phonological principles of Government Phonology, it is argued that the behaviour of second language learners can be accounted for by a top-down, left-to-right phonological parser. Appealing to a model of cognitive architecture, it is demonstrated that one can account for the different behaviours of speakers of languages that share the trait of lacking tautosyllabic clusters (Korean and Finnish) when learning a language which allows such clusters (English). Properties of the LI segmental inventory and a licensing strength scale are proposed to explain why Finnish learners have less trouble than Korean learners when acquiring English clusters.


Phytoremediation is a potentially less costly approach to treat contaminated soil. Here, the phytoremediation capacity of marigold (Tagetes erecta) in conjunction with EDTA and mycorrhizae was analyzed. Specifically, the ability of the marigold to extract lead from contaminated soils in the Bird Forest Zone of the Huachipa Zoological Park (PZH) was evaluated. Marigold was planted in main areas of interest within the PZH. Plants were treated with different concentrations of mycorrhizae (0 and 0.5 g/kg) and EDTA (0, 0.5 and 1 mg/kg) and later analyzed by atomic absorption spectrophotometry for lead concentrations in the aerial parts and roots of the plants at the end of the experiment. We show that marigold has the ability to extract lead; and under the conditions of the experiment, mycorrhizae did not improve the extraction efficiency. However, EDTA did increase the amount of lead extracted, thus affecting the physiological development of the plant.


Manuscript type: Research Article Research Aims: This paper analyzes the role of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), perceived enjoyment, perceived social influence, consumer intention to engage, and brand loyalty in the context of gamification in e-commerce. Design/methodology/approach: Online survey was conducted to collect data, and Partial Least Square (PLS) was used to analyze the effects among variables. Research Findings: The study found that perceived usefulness, perceived social influence, and perceived enjoyment had a positive effect on brand attitude, while perceived ease of use had an insignificant effect on brand attitude. The brand attitude was found to have a significant effect on loyalty intention. Theoretical Contribution/Originality: This research elaborated on the role of TAM in using the gamification method for intention to engage, brand attitude, and its effect on loyalty intention. Practitioner/Policy Implication: The company that applies gamification should develop a fun and interesting game to create engagement. Emotional bonding and a positive consumer feeling must be maintained to build consumer loyalty. Research limitation/Implications: The external factor such as subjective norm, design, image, job relevance, technology efficacy influence, the level of perceived usefulness, and ease of use. Keywords: Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), perceived enjoyment, perceived social influence, brand loyalty, gamification, e-commerce.


Astronomy}—One of the newest of the elementary textbooks on the subject, Astronomy is well and interestingly written, attractive in layout, and handsomely illustrated. It is unfortunate, however, that its inaccuracy makes the book unacceptable for use as a text in its present form, at least in the judgment of this reviewer. A careful study has revealed no fewer than 152 errors (other than typographical ones) in the text, figures, and figure legends. About fifty of these errors are relatively minor—the sort of slips that are likely to appear in any first edition of a text. The majority of the remaining inaccuracies are errors in fact. Examples are a confusion of partial and penumbral lunar eclipses (page 318), the description of the Crab Nebula as a "particularly good example of an expanding nova shell" (page 155), and the statement that in globular clusters, the "distances between adjacent stars are more nearly comparable to planetary separations than to the spacings we usually associate with stars" (page 222). There are at least nineteen errors that represent either fundamental confusion of factual material or misunderstandings of basic physical theory. We find the statements—both on page 98—that it is the chromosphere of the sun "which produces the dark lines in the solar spectrum," and that "sunspots are rotating vortices." On page 96, we read that flocculi "spiral in toward the sunspot as though they were being sucked down into a whirlpool." We have heard of no such observations. The chapters on stars and galaxies contain completely confused accounts of our current ideas on stellar evolution and the concept of stellar populations. To this reviewer, the most serious error is the common misconception that orbital motion results from a balance of two forces, the force of gravitation pulling the revolving bodies together, and a "centrifugal force" that somehow manages to tug radially outward on a body moving on a circular path. The organization of the book is quite unorthodox. After an opening chapter on telescopes, the author describes the "Life


The ability to detect and recognise dangerous objects at a safe distance is a very important task in a number of defence, police and security applications. In this paper, we look at ways of increasing the effectiveness of infrared imagery for object recognition through processes such as super-resolution image reconstruction and deconvolution methods. In this paper, we propose two techniques for assessing image quality improvement: operator assessment and edge detection; and report on some initial work recently undertaken.


The general impression about street vendors is that they are a "nuisance" or an "eyesore" that ruins the image of city and prevents development of city, as elsewhere in India and other developing countries. Navi Mumbai is one of the world's largest planned cities. The structure plan model of the city is favoured with broad land use zones indicating the uses permitted within each zone, as against the conventional master plan. Though small vendors are considered in commercial zone (such as vegetable/fish market, daily bazaar, otla etc) in all the 14 planned nodes of the city, but despite this the fact shows that there exist huge gap between demand and supply of space for hawkers at affordable cost and for thousands of street vendors in the city, there is no specific zone for hawkers in development plan. The street vending has had a long historical presence in urban cities in India; it provides essential services to a major segment of the population and provides direct self-employment to urban poor. This paper reveals the necessary requirement of street vendors in a city through meticulous understanding of their role at public spaces and socio demographic and economic profile of street vendors. This paper comprehensively covers the socio-demographic, economic and spatial parameters of matters for the Navi Mumbai city which is based on complete study of seven planned nodes and non-nodal areas located in Raigadh District in Navi Mumbai. An attempt has also been made to compare the situation of street vendors of Navi Mumbai with other Indian Cities in Gujarat, Karnataka and Delhi etc. The paper further provides recommendations for street vendor's settlement and the street vending policy of City and Industrial Development Corporation is in line with National Policy on Urban street Vending.


The article discusses the origins of the phenomenon of transgression, as well as analyzes the philosophical and aesthetic value of the transgression in the context of postmodern paradigm. Studying the variability of interpretations and manifestations of the transgression approach, the author comes to the conclusion that the transgression has a certain methodological value as a means of overcoming the binary oppositions.


This work provides a novel architecture for modular seven level inverter (M7LI). The M7LI utilizes binary DC sources for producing output at seven levels. The level shifted PWM technique with variable frequency carrier and trapezoidal reference are used to trigger the M7LI. The binary configuration provides more voltage levels with minimum utilization of sources and components contrasted with traditional MLIs. In order to prove the effectiveness and viability of the suggested architecture and PWM techniques various performance measures are evaluated and listed. MATLAB-SIMUINK is used to perform the simulations. It is observed that, the LS-PDVF technique provides relatively low THD, and lower Distortion Factor. The LS-COVF method has a greater VRMS output voltage.


The adsorptive removal of malachite green (MG) from aqueous solution using waste pea shells (Pisum sativum L.) is reported. Optimized conditions for maximum uptake were established. The adsorption was best described by the Freundlich model. A pseudo-second-order kinetic model correlated best with the data. Liquid-film and intra-particle diffusion control the overall process. Thermodynamic parameters indicated that adsorption was spontaneous, endothermic, and accompanied with an increase in entropy. Low contact time and high removal efficiency at natural pH of water recommend pea shells as efficient low-cost adsorbent for removal of MG from wastewaters.


Objective To explore the surgery treatment and efficacy of hand scar contracture deformity. Methods 34 cases with hand scar contracture deformity in our hospital from January 2008 to August 2012 were selected and treated by Z-word angioplasty,scar release, skin graft, skin flap and brace traction.observed the treatment effect. Results The 8 patients treated by Z-word angioplasty,there were 5 cases' hand function were completely returned normally(62.5%),3 cases'hand function were mostly returned normally(37.5%).The 12 patients treated by scar release,there were 7 cases'hand function were completely normal(58.33%).3 cases'hand function were mostly returned normally(25.0%),2 cases'hand function were basic recovery(16.67%).11 cases treated by skin flap,4 cases'hand function were completely returned normally(36.36%),5 cases'hand function were mostly returned normally((45.45%),2 cases'hand function were basic recovery(18.18%).3 cases treated by brace traction,their hand function were all completely returned normally. Conclusion The hands with different characteristics of scar contracture deformity should choose different surgical treatment options,the postoperative effective rehabilitation and physical therapy can restore hand function and morphology.


Abstract Two patients with congenital neutropenia were found to have abnormalities of the immature myeloid cells. These cells were incapable of complete differentiation to a mature stage and also had a substantial reduction in their capacity for cell proliferation. The defect in one patient appeared to be intrinsic to an abnormal cell line, but in the other bone-marrow environmental factors may have contributed to the defect in maturation and proliferation. The surprisingly benign clinical courses may be explained by compensatory defense mechanisms.


The synchronous multipoint scanning system technique in wind tunnel tests and random vibration theory method were used to analyze the wind‐induced torsion vibration of some irregularly shaped super high‐rise buildings in downtowns. The torsion vibration modes and the spectra of torsion wind load were studied, and the proportions of mean wind torsion, inertia torsion and the mass eccentricity torsion caused by horizontal inertia forces are discussed. The following conclusions can be drawn. First, the third and fourth modes have torsion vibration shapes, and their frequencies are in the high‐energy area of the spectra of the torsion wind load; the third and fourth modes are included in the resonant component of the spectra of the top torsion angle of the building, and the third mode is dominant. Second, the torsion stiffness is weak in the high stories of the building, so the inertia torsion is dominant, whereas the torsion stiffness is strong in the low stories; the mean wind torsion is dominant. The proportion of the mass eccentricity torsion moment caused by horizontal inertia forces is small. Finally, the wind‐induced torsion moment at a 90° wind angle is the largest, whereas the torsion eccentricity is 46% of the radius of gyration and is much greater than the mass eccentricity; thus, the wind‐induced torsion should be considered. The wind‐induced torsion vibration of the building is sensitive to wind directions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract The processing options for the SSM/I data that NSIDC receives from Remote Sensing Systems, Inc. (RSS) have evolved over time. These include options for along-track scan corrections and sensor-to-sensor "calibrations". This document summarizes how these options have been applied by NSIDC, and provides an approximate estimate of the effects of applying or not applying the different options. Currently, NSIDC has only performed comparisons on these processing options for the SSM/I DMSP-F8 and -F11 data. A similar assessment for DMSP-F13 data will be added to this online report upon completion of data comparison.


The great part of investigations in the field of high power electronics is generally devoted to microwave generators that are considerably easier to design compared with the amplifying devices. Yet, there is a growing demand for microwave sources with controlled amplitude and phase for supercolliders, radars and other applications.


Although firms' announcement of data breaches can lead to reputational or operational damages, extant research suggests that stock markets are relatively unresponsive to such announcements. We investigate whether markets' unresponsiveness can be explained by firms strategically timing the announcement to coincide with busy days in the media, thereby reducing attention and, ultimately, attenuating market reactions. We leverage novel data on data breach announcements in the United States between 2008 and 2018 and create a measure of busyness in the trade press—news pressure—based on the Wall Street Journal. To investigate, we conduct two complementary studies. In Study 1, we employ an instrumental variable approach to assess whether announcements coincide with days of predictably high news pressure. We find that this is the case. On days with a one-standard-deviation-higher predictable news pressure, 4.44% more data breaches are announced (or approximately 19.024 data records). Strategic timing is more prevalent for breaches that are severe, that have firm-internal causes, and that leak healthcare data or credentials. In Study 2, we utilize a stock market event study to assess market reactions conditional on news pressure on the announcement day. We find that data breach announcements are associated with negative market reactions, yet these are attenuated by higher news pressure on the announcement day. If news pressure is on its empirical mean (respectively, one standard deviation above), we estimate a median decline in market capitalization of $347 (respectively, $85) million. We conclude that firms' strategic timing might explain inconsistent findings in prior work. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems.


We outline the objectives of microscopic simulations of charge and energy transport processes in amorphous organic semiconductors, describe the current status of techniques used to achieve them, and list the challenges such methods face when aiming at quantitative predictions.


PURPOSE: A vehicle card key and a manufacturing method thereof are provided to increase durability and to decrease thickness and weight. CONSTITUTION: A vehicle card key (100) includes a substrate (110), an accommodating member (120) and a battery (20). The substrate comprises an installation side (111) in which a conductor pattern is formed only in one side, and is mounted with every kind of circuit element (112) for wireless transmission and receiving with a vehicle, and assures a region where a mechanical key (10) is assembled. The accommodation member is formed with a stainless material on a region, and assures a hollow space where the mechanical key is assembled. The battery is used as a power source for the card key or a case (130) sealing the substrate and the accommodation member.


The contamination of the environment by pesticides is becoming a burning issue in many countries in the World. Development, design, and synthesis of new eco-friendly pesticides and modification of existing ones in order to improve their efficacy with the lowest impact on the environment are two main future possibilities in crop protection and the provision of sufficient food for the growing world population. The present study is focused on the comparative analysis of a series of eight symmetrical triazine derivatives, as potential herbicide candidates with acyclic (alkyl) and cyclic (cycloalkyl) substituents, in terms of their antifungal activity towards Aspergillus flavus as an opportunistic fungal pathogenic microorganism responsible for frequent contaminations of crops with aflatoxin, and in terms of their potential application as herbicides in maize, common wheat, barley, and rice crops. The applied methods include the chemometric pattern recognition method (hierarchical cluster analysis), experimental microbiological analysis of antifungal activity (agar well-diffusion method), and molecular docking of the triazines in the corresponding enzymes. The main findings of the conducted study indicate the significant antifungal activity of the studied triazine derivatives towards A. flavus, particularly the compounds with acyclic substituents; five out of eight studied triazines could be applied as systematic herbicides, while the other three triazines could be used as contact herbicides; the compounds with acyclic substituents could be more suitable for application for various crops protection than triazines with cyclic substituents.


We compare two recent similar and complementary indexing methods for fast seed discovery [10,12]. Both methods are based on the principle of counting matches on a diagonal with a goal to find the value and/or position of the best match between two sequences under Hamming distance on alphabet of k-mers, where k can equal 1. The matching k-mers in two sequences are found by scanning one sequence and using the index of the other. Indexing the shorter of the two sequences is easier to perform on-line; however, if the index is constructed off-line on the longer sequence, the number of comparison operation is potentially much smaller. We present the analysis of this effect for different real data sequence lengths in the context of protein search.


PURPOSE
Genome-wide association studies have shown association of the atonal homolog 7 (ATOH7) and raftlin lipid raft linker 1 (RFTN1) genes with glaucoma-related optic disc parameters. ATOH7 and RFTN1 sequence variations were investigated in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and their relationships with vertical cup-to-disc ratio (VCDR) and central corneal thickness (CCT) were determined.

METHODS
In 289 unrelated controls and 142 patients with adult-onset POAG, including 117 with high-tension glaucoma (HTG) and 25 with normal-tension glaucoma (NTG), the single exon of ATOH7 was sequenced by direct sequencing. Additional single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) at upstream ATOH7 (rs1900004 and rs3858145) and an RFTN1 SNP (rs690037) were genotyped. Quantitative trait and disease associations were analyzed by linear and logistic regression respectively, controlling for sex and age.

RESULTS
ATOH7 rs61854782 was associated with VCDR (P = 0.004) in controls and RFTN1 rs690037 was associated with CCT in combined POAG (HTG+NTG; P = 0.026). No coding mutation was detected in POAG, and no SNP was associated with POAG (P between 0.441 and 0.996). However, ATOH7 rs3858145 showed significant interaction with RFTN1 rs690037 in NTG and combined POAG (P = 0.026 and 0.013 respectively). ATOH7 rs3858145 GG combined with RFTN1 rs690037 TT conferred risk for glaucoma in HTG, NTG, and combined POAG (odds ratio = 2.11, 8.44, and 2.69, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
Coding mutations of ATOH7 were unlikely to be involved in POAG. But combination of ATOH7 and RFTN1 SNPs increased risk to POAG, indicating their diversified effects in the complex genetics of glaucoma.


The idea for this Special Issue emerged from the Editors' collaboration on the framework of the European project MIMY: EMpowerment through liquid Integration of Migrant Youth in vulnerable conditions [...]