On independence in 1991, Ukraine's foreign and security policy was based on four commitments – non‐bloc status, non‐nuclear status, neutrality and independent bilateral ties – as outlined in the Declaration of Ukrainian Sovereignty announced a year earlier. This article argues that while non‐bloc status and neutrality were achieved quickly if not painlessly, there was vacillation on the implementation of the commitment to denuclearization because of Russian hegemonic tendencies, a disiniterested West, and the perceived inappropriateness of the policy. Only with the input of the United States was denuclearization finally achieved. The article concludes that this established a foundation for future successes in Ukrainian foreign and security policy such as the eventual establishment of harmonious bilateral ties with Russia.


The concentration of serum cotinine (the major metabolite of nicotine) was measured in sera from 4211 women at between 15 and 21 weeks gestation to determine whether a serum cotinine level was a better predictor of low birthweight than the self‐reported number of cigarettes smoked per day. Both cotinine levels and smoking history were significantly associated with reduced birthweight, but cotinine correlated significantly better. Smokers of ≤25 cigarettes per day, representing the 2·7% of women with the greatest cigarette consumption, had infants 289 g lighter than the 68% of women who were non‐smokers. Women with serum cotinine levels in the top 2·7% (≤284 ng/ml) had infants 441 g lighter than the 68% of women with the lowest cotinine levels (≤24 ng/ml). Our results strengthen the evidence linking smoking with low birthweight and also demonstrate that cotinine can be satisfactorily used to assess and monitor cigarette smoking in pregnancy.


The great source of the Indonesia income is come from tax. This study aimed to analize the effect of the tax system, discrimination, the possibility of froud detection and norms on tax payers perception about tax evasion. The population is individual tax payers whose registered in KPP Pratama Padang in 2013. Slovin's formula used to determine 100 respondents. The data collect ed by using questioner that direct distributed to respondent.the hipotesis testing used multiple regression analysis. The result showed that discrimination have significant effect on the tax payers perception about tax evasion while the tax system, the possibility of fraud detection, and norms has no significant effect on the tax payers perception about tax evasion. Keywords: Tax System, Discrimination, possibility of fraud detection, Norma, Tax Evasion


The invention discloses a copper plating process for a welding wire. The process comprises the following steps: providing a welding wire and drawing the welding wire; carrying out cleaning to remove a lubricant on the surface of the welding wire having undergone drawing; carrying out copper plating on the welding wire; drying the welding wire having undergone copper plating; sizing and polishing of the welding wire; and rolling up of the welding wire. According to the invention, after drawing of the welding wire, cleaning and direct copper plating are successively carried out, and there is no need for rolling up the drawn welding wire with an I-shaped wheel and subsequently carrying out wire supplying anew for copper plating, which enables a copper plating tank used for copper plating to be directly connected with a drawing machine used for drawing; thus, the speed of copper plating is increased by 2 to 3 times, production efficiency is improved, and considerable production cost is saved for enterprises.


In a five stage multi‐aperture and multi‐grid (MAMuG) accelerator in JAEA, beam acceleration tests are in progress toward 1 MeV, 200 A/m2 H− ion beams for ITER. The 1 MV voltage holding has been successfully demonstrated for 4,000 s with the accelerator of expanded gap length that lowered local electric field concentrations. This led to increase of the beam energy up to 900 keV‐level. However, it was found that beamlets were deflected more in long gaps and direct interceptions of the deflected beamlet caused breakdowns. The beamlet deflection and its compensation methods were studied utilizing a three‐dimensional multi beamlet analysis. The analysis showed that the 1 MeV beam can be compensated by a combination of the aperture offset of 0.8 mm applied in the electron suppression (ESG) and the metal bar called a field shaping plate with a thickness of 1 mm attached beneath the ESG. The paper reports these compensation methods and analytical predictions, with experimental results of the MAMuG accelerator in...


Based on the Diamond Model,factor endowments,demand,relative and supportive industries,enterprise strategy,opportunities and government policy are six elements in the analysis of the international competitiveness of China's textile industry.On the basis of such analysis,this thesis sums up China's competitive advantages and disadvantages and conducts a contrastive evaluation of its international competitiveness.


The influence of crystal interfaces related to stacking faults on the properties of >110 3 Al and doped Al 3 Ti our data do not support the hypothesis that the strong increase of the yield stress with decreasing T at low T results from sessile SISF-bound dislocation dissociations. Alternative explanations are suggested. For Ni 3 Al our results do not rule out the idea that Kear-Wilsdorf locks are responsible for the experimentally observed anomalous temperature dependence of the yield stress.


The present invention thus relates to the use of biguanide derivatives of the following general formula I: (CF DRAWING IN BOPI) in which: the groups R1 and R2 represent, independently of one another, a hydrogen atom, a C 1 -C 7 alkyl group, a cycloalkyl group, a heterocycle, a C 2 -C 7 alkenyl group, an aryl group, an aralkyl group, an aryloxylalkyl group or a heteroaryl group or R 1 and R 2 taken together represent a C 2 -C 7 alkylene which may contain one or more heteroatoms and the group R3 represents a primary, secondary or tertiary amine or pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof to produce a medicament having a healing effect.


The work performed on noise in avalanche transit-time devices is reviewed and presented in detail. Both theoretical and experimental results on the noise mechanisms and performance of these devices when employed as oscillators, amplifiers, and self-oscillating mixers are included. Suggestions for further studies in this area are also given.


As the leader of the specialty group of information in vocational college, the computer information specialty should meet its destiny to build a set of mechanism of assessment for its education quality. There may be a set of mechanism, which is based on the practical rules and administration model of enterprise in the cooperation process between college and enterprise, can be used to administrate the students and assess the educational quality efficiently. The assessment system needs to meet the require ment that the system can be responsible to the changes in the daily education and adapt to the new rules in time


It has passed the era of Full High Definition Television (FHD) and ended the era of Ultra High Definition Television (UHD). We will talk about the problems caused by the difference in the number of pixels in the TVs and introduce a method to improve them. This method is a method of performing an interpolation method suitable for a given image with Weighted Essential Non-Oscillation (WENO). Thus, it is possible to reduce the distortion of the image and to ensure a better image quality. Therefore, if we use the WENO methodology, when we watch old video material on UHD TV, we can enjoy high definition of UHD TV without changing the number of pixels.


In this paper, the problem of eigenstructure assignment via output feedback for linear systems with uncontrollable and/or unobservable modes is considered. Based on the established explicit and parametric solution of the matrix equation AV+BW=VF, a parametric approach for eigenstructure assignment in linear systems via output feedback is proposed. Here the system is not required to be controllable and/or observable. When is controllable, the obtained solution of the matrix equation becomes the result of Theorem 2 in \, when is controllable and is observable, the obtained approach of eigenstructure assignment via output feedback becomes the result of the Algorithm II for constant linear systems in \.


Machine learning techniques are preferred to make efficient accuracy prediction in stock marketing. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is a familiar method that incorporates technical analysis for predicting in financial markets. The paper focuses on making predictions in stock market with NUMERAI stock values based on specific efficient parameters. By making use of NUMERAI index exchange rate value and in collaboration with generalized Neural Network Back propagation concept, an improved accuracy rate and less loss rate for NUMERAI stock market could be predicted.


Our knowledge of the solar system is constantly expanding. Ideas that initially
are accurate become uncertain and/or obsolete because they evolve and they
need to be revised. The planets of the solar system haven't always been the neither
the same nor the same number. The concept of planet has also changed. This fact becomes
a tool to work in the classroom. Our proposal is based on two texts: The first
one, which we date approximately in 1850, presents the Planetary System made up
by 23 planets; the second includes resolutions 5 and 6 in which the IAU General Assembly
in Prague passed a new definition of planet, on August 24 of 2006.


Having timely and credible security information is becoming critical to network and security management. Most current sources of threat information and detection techniques suffer from having a limited view of the global threat scenario. In this paper, we present Foresight, an Internet scale threat analysis, indication, early warning and response architecture. We describe the design of an incentive based cooperation scheme to create a global trusted community which is more accountable and hence less vulnerable to attacks and abuse. Foresight utilizes this infrastructure to share a global threat view in order to detect unknown threats and isolate them. We describe a novel behavioral signature scheme to extract a generalized footprint for multi-modal threats. System performance analysis through trace-based simulations show significant benefits for sharing forensics across cooperating domains


The elec trical c urre nts and pote ntials produced in pipes of intermediate and very hi gh resistiviti es, by the fl ow of a c harged liquid hydrocarbon have been investigated . The maximum pipe currents to the ground were in the range 1 to 6 microamperes. Depending upon the electrical resis tance of the p ipes, these c urrents produced pote ntials ranging from esse ntiall y zero to values in excess of 30,000 volts whic h were suffi cie ntly severe to cause electri cal breakdown and arcs within some of the pipes unde r investiga tion. It is concluded that haza rdous pipe pote ntials, resulting from s tati c elec· tnclty,can be eliminated in practi ca l applica tions if the elec trical res ,s tance from each and a ny portion of the IIlterlOr surface of the pipe to the ground does not exceed about 107 ohms.


In this paper, we propose a leakage reduction technique as high leakage currents in deep submicron regimes are becoming a major contributor to total power dissipation of CMOS circuits. Sub threshold leakage current plays a very important role in power dissipation so to reduce the sub threshold leakage current we proposed an adaptive voltage level (AVL) technique. Which optimize the overall voltage across the half subtractor circuit in standby mode. In this AVL technique, two schemes are employed, one is AVLS (adaptive voltage level at supply) in which the supply voltage is reduced and the other is AVLG (adaptive voltage level at ground) in which the ground potential is increased. By applying this technique we have reduced the leakage current from 9.274*10-12ampere) to 5.428*10-12amp. That means this technique the leakage current 41.4%. The circuit is simulated on Cadence(R) Virtuoso(R) in 45nano meter CMOS technology. Simulation results reveal that there is a significant reduction in leakage current for this proposed cell with the AVL circuit reducing the supply voltage.


Troubling phenomenon of many parties, at present this is the style of the
teen dating leading to sex or free sex. Especially young women today have
undergone many changes in terms of social and lifestyle. This study aims to
determine the interpersonal communication between the mother and teenage
daughter in understanding the risk of premarital sex in Surabaya.
Interpersonal communication theory used in this study is the social
exchange theory by John Thibaut and Kelly Harorld, based on this theory we enter
the social exchange relationship between a mother and teenage daughter who
engage in open communication. The method used is descriptive method and using
kualitatif analysis, which combines the method of survey or observation, and in
depth interviews.
Mothers should be able to explain the risk of premarital sex, especially
when children enter menstrual pertama.So more intensive mentoring. Mother and
teenage daughter must communicate openly so that messages can be received
well.
Keywords: Interpersonal Communication, Interpersonal Communication mothers
with young women, understand the risks of sex, the risk of pre-marital sex.


The outsourcing in financial services has grown dramatically in the past few years in the background of globalization. The financial entities can save cost, focus their advantageous resources on core businesses and optimize their market strategies to win competitive edge by outsourcing their non-core activities to offshore service providers. This paper elaborates the risks in outsourcing in financial services as well as how to avoid these risks.


In this paper,there are three patterns of import ERP system,enterprise development of technology through its own efforts,corporations between ERP system providers and enterprise,work together based on enterprise,ERP system providers and third-party surveillance company,in virtue of game theory,three different principal-agent patterns are established,after the patterns is analysised and compared,the outcome is that the corporations is the optimal model for the ERP system among enterprise,ERP system providers and third-party surveillance company.Finally,scientific decisionmaking and theoretical guidance is presented during ERP system for enterprises to import.


We report the evidence that the oxygen defects induced by focusing an intense infrared femtosecond laser pulse in fused silica can be self-organized by the interference pattern between photon and electron plasma wave. Self-organized nanostructure with a sub-wavelength modulation in refractive index exhibits form birefringence which is rewritable and directionally-controllable. Intriguingly, such optical anisotropy, which indicates a remarkable non-reciprocity, has initially evolved from residual birefringence originated from internal stress distribution due to local heating followed by structural change, regardless of interpulse time. This anisotropic light-matter interaction could be interpreted in terms of an asymmetric relation between light polarization and pulse front tilt. Apart from fundamental understanding of self-organization mechanism, the direction of encoded birefringence can introduce an entirely new concept for rewritable optical storage beyond the diffraction limit of light.


This article describes a short‐term psychodynamic treatment of a learning disabled adult male, referred to a community psychology service with social withdrawal and refusal behaviours. It explains the nature of the intervention, progression through the therapeutic process, development of hypotheses and the emergent formulation, and therapeutic outcomes for the client.The article identifies the suitability of short‐term individual psychodynamic psychotherapy for cases such as this, and demonstrates how such interventions can be documented through structured accounts of treatments, which link theory to practice.


Methods. One hundred HIV-infected patients attending the immunology clinics at the Universitas and Pelonomi hospitals in Bloemfontein, South Africa, were screened for the presence of psychiatric disorders using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI). More specifically, anxiety was· evaluated using the Zung self-rating and Hamilton anxiety (HAM-A) scales. Disease stage of the patient was determined by clinical examination and CD4+ T-cell count values.


The composition of the invention based on zirconium and cerium oxide has a content of cerium oxide of at most 50 mass%, a degree of reducibility of at least 95% and a specific surface area after calcination for 4 hours at 1100 degree C of at least 15 m / g. It is prepared by forming an aqueous mixture comprising compounds of zirconium, cerium; heating this mixture to at least 100 degree C and causing it after heating to a basic pH; adding a surfactant type of additive to precipitate from this mixture and calcining the precipitate under an inert gas or under vacuum at ure temperature of at least 900 degree C. and then under an oxidizing atmosphere at a temperature of at least 600 degree C. composition may be used in the treatment of automotive exhaust gases.


The Web has great potential as the content on the Web can be presented in different formats to make information available to individuals with disabilities. However, the potential of the Web is still largely unrealized. Most of the students in the information systems program are unaware of accessibility issues. Few information systems departments have incorporated universal design and Web accessibility in their curriculum. The objective of the research is to examine WAI (Web accessibility initiative) guidelines for Web accessibility so as to incorporate Web accessibility in information systems curriculum


Researchers involved in the discovery phase of a project involving indigenous biological resources or traditional knowledge no longer need to obtain a bioprospecting permit before beginning their research.


In this paper, we embed the $\Z_{4R}$ parity as a discrete subgroup of a global symmetry \UoR\,obtained from $\Z_{12-I}$ compactification of heterotic string $\EE8$. A part of \UoR\,transformation is the shift of the anticommuting variable $\vartheta$ to $e^{i\alpha}\vartheta$ which necessarily incoorporate the transformation of internal space coordinate. Out of six internal spaces, we identify three U(1)'s whose charges are denoted as $Q_{18},Q_{20}$, and $Q_{22}$. The \UoR~is defined as \UEE$\times$\UKK~where \UEE~is the part from $\EE8$ and \UKK~is the part generated by $Q_{18},Q_{20}$, and $Q_{22}$. We propose a method to define a \UoR~direction. The needed vacuum expectation values for breaking gauge U(1)'s except U(1)$_Y$ of the standard model carry \UoR~charge 4 modulo 4 such that \UoR~is broken down to $\Z_{4R}$ at the grand unification scale. $\Z_{4R}$ is broken to $\Z_{2R}$ between the intermediate ($\sim 10^{11\,}\gev$) and the electroweak scales ($100\,\gev\sim 1\,\tev$). The conditions we impose are proton longevity, a large top quark mass, and acceptable magnitudes for the $\mu$ term and neutrino masses.


The article seeks to define tamizdat as a literary practice and political institution of the late Soviet era. Comprising manuscripts rejected, censored, or never submitted for publication at home but smuggled through various channels out of the country and printed elsewhere, with or without their authors' knowledge or consent, tamizdat contributed to the formation of the twentieth-century Russian literary canon. Tamizdat thus mediated the relationships of authors in Russia with the Soviet literary establishment on the one hand and with the underground on the other, while the very prospect of having their works published abroad, let alone the consequences of such a transgression, affected these authors' choices and ideological positions in regard to both fields. The article argues, along these lines, that tamizdat was as emblematic of the literary scene after Stalin as its more familiar and better researched domestic counterparts, samizdat and gosizdat, whereby the traditional notion of late Soviet culture as a binary opposition between the official and underground fields is reinvented, instead, as a transnationally dynamic three-dimensional model.


Composed of modern city centers and numerous slum patches in deep proximity and coexistence with one another, the Sub-Saharan African urban landscape is often perceived as chaotic or unorganized in nature due to the inconsistencies in the urban layout derived from the spontaneous occupation in said slums, in Angola, known as "Musseque". This article focuses on the border between the "Musseque" of Catambor and the Alvalade Neighborhood as a point of interaction of both realities, influencing users to either adjust their activities to the streets or adjust the streets to their needs. With the purpose of understanding the streets' environmental behavior settings and purpose improvements while preserving said environmental behavior, this study uses the behavior mapping method to identify the users' stationary activities and then groups them by zone and occurrence, followed ultimately by a series of interviews. The results uncovered a degree of self-intervention by the users, ranging from the establishment of "commercial spots" on the street to "the setting of places to sit and gather" to accommodate for the lack of services, defying the intended purposes of the streets and prompting a deep understanding of what guides the decision-making processes and what the users consider valuable to the built space.


Introduction T term "fuel jettisoning" refers to the discharge of unburned fuel directly into the atmosphere by an airborne aircraft. Fuel jettisoning usually occurs as the result of an inflight emergency or unforeseen operational requirement and is performed to reduce the aircraft's gross weight and facilitate a safe, expeditious landing. Jettisoning incidents, although infrequent, involve considerable quantities of fuel. Depending upon the aircraft, the fuel released in a single incident can range from a few thousand liters to well over 50,000 liters. The jettisoned fuel readily breaks up into small droplets and begins to evaporate. From an environmental standpoint, the principal concern is what fraction of the fuel reaches the ground before it can evaporate and disperse. A previous analysis showed that the effect of the evaporated fuel vapors in the atmosphere is negligible. If liquid fuel reaches the ground, however, there is a potential for negative environmental consequences such as crop damage or water pollution. The Air Force has been investigating the environmental ramifications of fuel jettisoning for several years. Air Force aircraft jettison fuel nearly 1000 times a year, and the fuel released to the atmosphere by these aircraft amounts to more than 7000 metric tons (16 million pounds) per year —averaging 26,000 liters (7000 gal) per day. Fortunately, the fuel discharged by Air Force aircraft is generally JP-4, a highly volatile fuel which is readily evaporated and dispersed, minimizing ground contamination by liquid fuel.' On the other hand, Jet A, the fuel currently in use by commercial aircraft in the United States, is a kerosene-type fuel much less volatile than JP-4. Recently the Air Force has converted many of its NATO aircraft to JP-8, a military fuel very similar to Jet A. Any fuel jettisoning involving these fuels can be expected to entail greater ground contamination than that involving JP-4 owing to the lower tendency to evaporate. In recent years, Air Force aircraft in NATO have jettisoned fuel approximately 80 times per year, for a total of over 500 metric tons (over a million pounds) of fuel per year. Commercial aircraft also jettison fuel, but complete records are not kept. Maintenance reports provided to the FAA by the commercial airlines show 485 records of fuel jettisoned over the 5-yr period ending March 1980. Unfortunately, these records do not indicate the amount of fuel jettisoned, and only fuel jettisoning incidents associated with aircraft maintenance are


Acknowledgements Prologue. Covey's Daughter and Her Dilemma Introduction. From Self-Made to Belabored 1. From Calling to Vision: Spiritual, Secular and Gendered Notions 2. From Power! to Personal Power!: Survivalism and the Inward Turn 3. From Having It All to Simple Abundance: Gender and the Logic of Diminished Expectations 4. The Self at Work: From Job-Hunters to Artist-Entrepreneurs 5. At Work on the Self: The Making of the Belabored Self 6. All You Can Be, or Some Conclusions Appendix. Some Notes on Method Notes Bibliography


Through the hardware design based on the single-chip model,MCS-51,a temperature control system,was introduced.The temperature measure was the key point.A series of serial work mode chips were used showing low price and high


In the paper,the electrical discharge machining(EDM) technique was used to cut strips for cold-formed residual stress measurement of hat-shaped section.After adjusting the electrolyte ratio,designing specific the cutting tool and improving the methodof antiseptic treatment,the test results improved significantly. Electrical resistance strain gauges with EDM cutting technique were used to establish the magnitude and distribution of the residual stresses in cold-formed hat-shaped section.Based on the experimental findings, an idealized distribution pattern of the residual stress in cold-formed hat-shaped section is presented.


Abstract Mapping of regolith layer thickness for the lunar nearside is carried out with Arecibo radar data at 70 cm wavelength (T. W. Thompson 1987, Earth Moon Planets37, 59–70) and distributions of iron and titanium content derived from Earth-based optical data (Yu. Shkuratov et al. 1999, Icarus137, 222–234). For the mapping a new simple model of radio wave multiple scattering in the regolith layer was used. A comparison of this map with independent estimates of regolith layer thickness for landing sites and other areas of the lunar surface showed a good correlation. It was found that regional variations of thickness are almost the same for maria and highlands, though the average thicknesses are different (5 and 12 m, respectively). A relatively thin regolith layer (4 m) covers a portion of Mare Serenitatis, Mare Tranquillitatis, and Mare Humorum, while the thickest regolith layer occurs in Mare Nectaris (9 m). A thin regolith layer is a characteristic of the cryptomare Schiller-Schickard. Very small regolith thickness corresponds to the crater floors. In this case, the model cannot yield reliable estimates of thickness; it predicts only a characteristic distance between rock inclusions buried in regolith. A thick highland regolith occurs at the southeast portion of the lunar disk and the highland to the north of Mare Imbrium and Sinus Iridium. For the lunar nearside, the regolith thickness generally correlates with the surface age: the greater the age, the thicker the regolith. The results are consistent with a higher rate of regolith growth for times earlier than 3.5 byr ago, when meteorite flux was much higher.


A new method of dynamic optimization for the flying trajectory of a free-flying space robot based on its flying motion characteristics is presented. The continuous flying trajectory is broken into a number of segment and the control efforts and the duration of the segment are chosen as the optimization parameters. The objective function is made by using the weighted sum of the fuel used and the time spent, and the constraint equations are selected. Finally, the internal point punishment function method is adopted in the optimization program, and the results of computer simulation are given.


Iron deficiency is defined as a decreased total iron body content. Iron deficiency anemia occurs when iron deficiency is sufficiently severe to diminish erythropoiesis and cause the development of anemia. Iron deficiency is the most prevalent single deficiency state on a worldwide basis. It is important economically because it diminishes the capability of individuals who are affected to perform physical labor, and it diminishes both growth and learning in children.


Research has demonstrated a close relationship between affective expression and cognitive development among young children. The emergence of affective responsively of infants with Down syndrome follows the same developmental pathway as that of their normally developing peers. The strength of the association between affective expression and cognition has resulted in the examination of this relationship among children with moderate to severe motor impairment. These data reveal that the expression of affect has both cognitive and physiological determiners, and impairment in either areas may hinder a child's expression of affective responses. The degree to which cognitive ability and motor disability merge determines the ability of a handicapped child to respond affectively.


This review article discusses research and practical guidelines on the use of the cognitive behavioral approach in psychotherapy for self-harming behavior. Self-harm is an acute problem of modern psychiatry, psychotherapy and clinical psychology, affecting mainly young people. A significant part of the research on assistance is devoted to cognitive behavioral therapy and related areas. Given the complexity of the phenomenon of self-harm, the first part of the article considers the theoretical models that underlie the applied hikes. This was followed by a review of studies on various areas of psychotherapy for self-harming behavior. The main techniques and basic principles of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy were considered, and illustrative practical examples were given. It is concluded that the quality of evidence is currently insufficient, but the methods of the cognitive-behavioral approach are recognized as well-established and promising for helping patients in this group.


Crisp is right to detect a clash between Dancy's leading formulation of holism about reasons and the phenomenon of invariance. Replying to Crisp on behalf of the particularist, I suggest a better formulation of holism modelled on a standard treatment in the philosophy of language of context-sensitive expressions.


Cardiovascular disease today is a global health problem due to its capcity to increase morbidity and mortality, In our country it is considere done of the most frequent pathologies, This investigation intends to focus on the reality of the risk of the factors through the gathering of lipid profile information, in patients treated at the Hospital Andino de Riobamba May 2017 and June 2018. With a descriptive, retrospective, non experimental study, with several phases, the data center was first obtained by gender, consecutively a statistical analysis in Excel software, classifying the data into 5 parameters with their own characteristics that correlate the risk factors through the verification of reference values. Of 1221 reports, total cholesterol> 240 mg / dl or high, in women as in men an equilibrium was shown with a total of 14%; HDL cholesterol 240 mg / dl in women 12% and in men 9% responding to 21% of the universe under study and finally LDL cholesterol> 160mg / dl women 8% and men 7% corresponding to 15% of the population, with these results it is conclude that the feminine gender prevails over the man and the enclosure of 25% of the population in general has a type of alteration with cardiovascular risk.


Distributed Denial-of-Service(DDoS) attack prevent users from accessing services on the target network by spoofing its origin source address with a large volume of traffic. The objective of IP Traceback is to determine the real attack sources, as well as the full path taken by the attack packets. Existing IP Traceback methods can be categorized as proactive or reactive tracing. Proactive tracing(such as packet marking and messaging) prepares information for tracing when packets are in transit. Reactive tracing starts tracing after an attack is detected. In this paper, we propose a "advanced ICMP Traceback" mechanism. which is based on the modified push back system. Proposed mechanism can detect and control DDoS traffic on router and can generate ICMP Traceback message for reconstructing origin attack source.ck source.


Objective To observe the curative effect of abdominal acupuncture combining body acupuncture on ischemia stroke.MethodsAccording to the inclusion criterion in this study,the selected patients were divided into abdominal acupuncture group(abdominal group,n=30),body acupuncture group(body group,n=31) and combining group(n=31) by applying random digits table.The patients were given acupuncture treatment respectively after choosing abdominal and body acupoints based on theoretical acupoint choosing principle.The relief of symptoms of consciousness,language,paralysis of upper limbs,paralysis of lower limbs and activities of daily living(ADL) were observed and compared.The curative effect and ADL scores were reviewed before the treatment and after treatment for 30 times.ResultsThe curative effect had significant difference respectively before and after the treatment in three groups,but the comparison between abdominal group and body group showed no significant difference(P0.01).The curative effect and ADL scores were better or higher in combining group than those in other two groups(P0.01).ConclusionAbdominal acupuncture is an effective therapy for treating stroke and has the same curative effect as body acupuncture.The combination of abdominal acupuncture and body acupuncture can relieve much better the symptoms of consciousness,language and motor function of limbs in the patients at recovery stage of stroke(qi deficiency and yin deficiency),improve effective rate and ADL scores.


Objective: Despite the various approaches that have been adopted to control the negative consequences of environmental and social challenges, these consequences have persisted. Studies that have critiqued these challenges and the proffered solutions with the intent of offering a more encompassing and result oriented solutions are rare in the literature. Thus, based on the unprecedented dimensions the challenges have assumed, this study seeks to propose a holistic and more encompassing approach for managing the challenges. Research Design & Methods: The study adopts a research methodology that is based on a critical review and analysis of 25 related papers. The keywords employed to select the papers that were published between 1980 and 2020 are environmental challenges, social challenges and strategic development goals. Findings: The approaches adopted so far to manage environmental and social challenges have not yielded the desired results. This is because: all the stakeholders are not involved in the formulation and implementation of the approaches; the approaches are formulated and implemented as though environmental and social challenges are not interrelated; the approaches vary among the different institutions, countries and regions; in some areas, the level of implementation is partial, while in others it is full.Contribution & Value Added: Environmental and social challenges are interrelated. As such the Environmental and Social Responsibility Network (ESRN) is proposed as a more encompassing approach since it will bring together all those who are directly and indirectly affected by the challenges.


that agglutinate red blood cells (RBCs) were demonstrated in Anopheles stephensi mosquito midgut extracts using human (four groups: A, B, AB and O, RH+) rat, sheep and rabbit blood cells. Only rabbit RBCs showed agglutination reaction against the midgut extracts. Significant differences in hemagglutinin titers and carbohydrate specifity were detected between male and female mosquitoes as well as among three different geographical populations of Anopheles stephensi from south of Iran. Overall agglutinin levels were increased following a blood meal. The highest hemagglintination titers were due to Kazerun population. All hemagglutination assays were versus rabbit RBCS. A significant difference was detected among the number of egg-float ridges. Iranshahr population was different from Bandar-abbas and Kazerun population in egg-float ridges number. Bandr-abbas population was in the intermediate category. Iranshahr population fell between mysoransis and intermediate group and Kazerun population was between intermediate and type form. This study presents the first report on the occurrence of heterogeneous anti Rabbit RBC agglutinins in the midget extracts of the different geographical populations of An.stephensi with the sugar - binding specificities. The sugar- inhibition pattern was different between & within geographical population of An.stephensi.


Objective To investigate the affect of NF-κB through low-frequency ultrasound combined with microbubble agent inducing the apoptosis of human hepatocellular carcinoma SMMC-7721 cells.Methods Cells were divided into four groups.They were blank group(A),microbubble agent group(B),low-frequency ultrasound group(C) and low frequency ultrasound combined with microbubble agent group(D).Cell apoptosis was analyzed by flow cytometry.Transmission electron microscope was used to observe cell morphous;Western blotting was used to analyze the expression of NF-κB.Results The apoptosis rate of the 4 group were(1.51±0.21)%,(2.49±0.30)%,(14.14±2.01)% and(27.01±4.21)% respectively.Differences were not obvious between group A and B.The apoptosis rates of group C and D were higher than that of group A(P0.01),and the apoptosis rate of group D was higher than that of group C(P0.05).Morphology alterations of group D were obviously observed using transmission electron microscope.NF-κB expression in group D was lower than other groups,and the grey intensity ratios of A-D groups were 5.34,4.29,2.72 and 1.04 respectively.Conclusion Low-frequency ultrasound combined with microbubble agent can induce apoptosis of human hepatocellular carcinoma cells by decreasing the expression of NF-κB,and microbubble agent can strengthen the effect of low frequency ultrasound.


The problem of the research is the result of low student studying economi. This study aims to find a signifikan effect on the yield learning model ROPES class X student study economic SMA N 1 Habinsaran academic year 2012/2013.
 This experimental research conduted in SMA N 1 Habinsaran. The population in this study are all student of class X which consists of 6 calsses in wich 240 people total. Sample was taken randomly, there are X-2 which consist of 40 students who are given model ROPES and X-3 which consist of 40 students who are convensional learning. The way in taking data in by giving the pre test and the post test to the stundents. Instrument used to measured students learning results in a objective test of 20 multiple – choise question. And data analysis technic wihch used is normality, homogeneity test. And t test is used to examine the hipotesis.
 Based on data analysis for an experimental class obtained pre-test average of 30.25 with a standart deviation of 9.54 and the average post test 71.50 with a standart deviation 10.87. Gained control of the class average pre- test 29.63 with standar deviation 8.73 and average post – test 64.50 with astandar deviation of 9.32. Both the data is normal distribution and homogeneus.
 Based on statistical test, can be found thitung = 3.907 with = 0.05 and ttabel = 1.667. So thitung > ttabel or 3.097 > 1.667. Finally, it can be conclude that there is a positive and significant influence of the learning model ROPES to the economic studyng result of the firs level senior high school students in SMA N 1 Habinsaran in academic year 2012/2013.


Article 232 EC Should the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the Commission or the European Central Bank, in infringement of the Treaties, fail to act, the Member States and the other institutions of the Union may bring an action before the Court of Justice of the European Union to have the infringement established. This Article shall apply, under the same conditions, to bodies, offices and agencies of the Union which fail to act.


Theta series attached to integral positive definite quadratic forms are one of the most important tools for the explicit construction of (Siegel or elliptic) modular forms. The so-called basis problem asks whether a given modular form of some fixed type can be represented as a linear combination of theta series. Here the theta series are usually also restricted to a fixed type, either theta constants of fixed level or theta series of full lattices of fixed level. It is sometimes easier to obtain an answer if one drops this restriction on the type of theta series. In particular, translation of results about theta liftings from adelic representation theory into classical terms typically gives representability as a linear combination of (possibly inhomogeneous) theta series of some not specified level. It appears therefore desirable to investigate the conditions under which such a general linear combination of theta series can be transformed into a linear combination of theta series of the specified type. The present article should be regarded as a first step in this direction. We look at the subspace Article ID jnth.1999.2404, available online at http: www.idealibrary.com on


Violent cometary or asteroidal impact events comparable to that which terminated the Cretaceous era must produce large amounts of nitrogen oxides, sufficient to provide NOx mole fractions much larger than 100 ppm over areas of millions of square kilometers. Rapid production of NO2, and subsequent rainout of HNO3 and other strong acids can acidify surface waters, selectively destroying CaCO3 shells. This scenario holds the promise of explaining both the scope of Cretaceous biological extinctions and their extraordinary selectivity.


The media of all kinds have the task of introducing, expressing and objectively representing the cultures of different societies in various types and forms of press and media. The precept of media pluralism is the basis for freedom of expression & the cornerstone of its realization. Therefore, it is linked to the establishment of several conditions and elements in order to establish it as a principle and practice. Issues of cultural diversity in media and cultural pluralism are one of the most important elements and indicators. So, this paper aims to shed light on the concept of media pluralism and related concepts within the framework of cultural diversity and multicultural indicators. Thus, highlighting the features of cultural diversity in digital media and its roles in promoting it in light of the characteristics and transformations that have touched many aspects of human life.


More efficient pumping and fluorescence collection, plus restricted infrared bandwidth, have enabled us to obtain a noise equivalent power (NEP) of 3\times10^{-9} watts (Hz)^{\frac-{1}{2}} for the 4.2°K Pr3+:LaCl 3 infrared quantum counter (IRQC) as a narrow-band detector of 2.03-micron radition. This is approximately a four order of magnitude improvement over the most recently reported NEP in this material. The significant role of the lattice is demonstrated in a comparison of Pr3+IRQC action in the LaCl 3 and LaF 3 hosts. The inferiority of the latter is explained in terms of nonradiative quenching of the infrared levels, using recently published data on multiphonon emission rates. The dominant source of noise in the present device is described, and prospects for further sensitivity improvement are discussed.


Acetic acid-water system (AW) poses a challenge in reactive distillation, acetic acid purity and loss of acetic acid in aqueous solutions. Feasible separation of AW has been studied using entrainers but acetic acid loss in lean phase cannot be avoided. This study presents feasible region to operate column with toluene and benzene as entrainer for AW. Liquid -liquid equilibrium data and nature of tie line for ethyl acetate are given priority.


Soils are crossroads of carbon and nitrogen geochemical cycles and were consequently identified as a potential sink for carbon (C) and a compartment storage for nitrogen (N). Monitoring the joint evolution over time of organic C and total N stocks in soils appears interesting because of the C/N ratio is an indicator of changes in the organic matter quality. Nevertheless, the temporal evolutions detected in most of the existing studies are in the order of a few gC.m-2.yr-1 (C) and mgN.m-2.yr-1 (N). This study aims to assess uncertainties of soil organic carbon (SSOC) and soil total nitrogen (SSTN) stocks in the topsoil layer (0-25 cm) using three different methods (stochastic, deterministic and experimental), in order to identify the main sources of uncertainty and to evaluate the significance of SSOC and SSTN evolutions over the time. This study was based on a 1200 ha agricultural catchment area in Brittany (France) where systematic soil sampling was repeated at 108 sites in 2013 and 2018. Moreover, soil sampling was repeated three times in 2020 at the same sites by 3 different teams of experienced samplers. Comparing the three methods of uncertainty assessment, we found they provided equivalent results with a SSOC standard deviation of 0.85, 0.74 and 0.68 kgC.m-2 respectively for stochastic, deterministic and experimental approaches and 0.08, 0.07 and 0.06 kgN.m-2 for SSTN. Variance decomposition identified variations of fine earth mass as the main source of uncertainty (77 % of total variance) and attributed at least 16% of the uncertainties due to the operator procedure and were therefore reducible. Using the stochastic approach, the width of the 90 % confidence interval was estimated at each sampling site for C, N and C/N temporal changes. Changes were considered significant at respectively 59, 77 et 99 sites for SSOC, SSTN and C/N: a majority of sites lost organic carbon (-0.03 ± 0.07 kgC.m-2.yr-1), gained total nitrogen (0.006 ± 0.005 kgN.m-2.yr-1) and the C.N-1 (-0.17 ± 0.09 yr-1) ratio decreased. Finally, stock measurements uncertainty was mainly explained by soil natural variability but may still be reduced by a better control of the measurement procedure. In the agricultural context of the study area, the accuracy of the direct measurement appeared sufficient to detect SSOC and SSTN evolution over a time span of 5 years.


The uses of a digital computer not as a research tool but as a piece of equipment on a production plant are discussed. It is only in the last decade that electronic engineering and techniques of construction have contributed to the manifold and substantial increases in system reliability which now make it attractive to place the earning power of a multimillion investment in whole-time dependence on a single electrical system. It must be remembered that computers have been in use on refineries for about forty years: they were single-purpose units on each control loop, initially pneumatic and primarily analogue. The revolution which has occurred in the last ten years derives not only from the greater flexibility of electrical techniques, together with the accuracy and manreuvrability of digital methods, but also from the change from thermionic valves to integrated solid-state blocks. This has allowed reliability to go up and price to come down, both markedly. The consequence of this double-step function is an increase in 1967 of 14 in the total number of installed digital on-line computers said to be used for plant control in the petroleum and petrochemical plants throughout the world. This figure, given by the Oil and Gas Journa/(1), shows the total in use or on order as 46, of which 13 were installed prior to 1967. Of this latter 13, only 4 were in refineries and the lead given by petrochemicals in this field is largely attributable to the 5 of this number in use in various Divisions of leI. The particular form of digital control, in which the central computer facility is timeshared between all measurement and control functions, was pioneered by ICI and Ferranti some 10 years ago. Since 1964, when ICI showed(2) that, during the first 20 months since the end of commissioning, availability of 99·6 % was achieved and, subsequently, well over 99·8 %, there have been many refinements in construction and design. ICI, alone, are now said to have bought a total of 12 direct digital control units for plant control.


As we move towards exascale computing, an abstraction for effective parallel computation is increasingly needed to overcome the maintainability and portability of scientific applications while ensuring the efficient and full exploitation of high-performance systems. These circumstances require computer and domain scientists to work jointly toward a productive working environment. Domain specific languages address this challenge by abstracting the high-level application layer from the final, complex parallel low-level code. Saiph is an innovative domain specific language designed to reduce the work of computational fluid dynamics domain experts to an unambiguous and straightforward transcription of their problem equations. The high-level language, domain-specific compiler and underlying library are enhanced to make applications developed by scientists intuitive. Additions and improvements are presented, designed for the significant advantage of running computational fluid dynamics applications on different machines with no porting or maintenance issues. Numerical methods and parallel strategies are independently added at the library level covering the explicit finite differences resolution of a vast range of problems. Depending on the application, a specific parallel resolution is automatically derived and applied within Saiph, freeing the user from decisions related to numerical methods or parallel executions while ensuring suitable computations. Through a list of benchmarks, we demonstrate the utility and productivity of the Saiph high-level language together with the correctness and performance of the underlying parallel numerical algorithms.


Anyone who is acquainted with recent developments in Trinitarian theology could scarcely pass over Fr. Gilles Emery, O.P. Beginning with his La Trinite Creatrice (Paris: Vrin, 1995), the Author has produced a series of first-rate works on Aquinas' Trinitarian theology. Amongst others, there is his Trinity in Aquinas (Ypsilanti: Sapientia, 2003), or more recently The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: University Press, 2007). There are also his brilliant articles in The Thomist including Essentialism or Personalism in the Treatise on God in Saint Thomas Aquinas (64 (2000): 521-563); The Personal Mode of Trinitarian Action in Saint Thomas Aquinas (69 (2005): 31-77), and Theologia and Dispensatio: The Centrality of the Divine Missions in St. Thomas' Trinitarian Theology (74 (2010): 515-561).


Several models were developed in the literatures for studying the system impedance characteristics during sub-synchronous oscillations (SSO). However, the doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) impedance presents a $2\times 2$ matrix with the frequency coupling component at the off-diagonal position, which increases the difficulty for analyzing the impedance characteristics of DFIG. The coupling effect in this case is caused by the asymmetric impedance characteristics of controllers, which are composed of voltage source converters (VSCs). Accordingly, simplifications are often conducted to decouple the impedance matrix into single sequences. Outer loop controller and phase-locked loop (PLL), which are often neglected in simplifications, are the main causes of the asymmetry of impedance matrix. Such simplifications could also hamper proper system stability analyses. In this paper, a comprehensive impedance model is proposed in which the outer loop controller, PLL, and grid-side controller (GSC) are all considered. The proposed comprehensive impedance model can provide exact stability data, in which stable boundaries for compensation level and transmission distances are presented. Furthermore, the proposed model is converted to simplified models in which the impacts of outer loop controller, PLL, GSC and coupling components on boundary stability of SSO are analyzed. The results are validated by time domain simulations and eigenvalue analyses, and deviations of the simplified models are analyzed for different operating parameters and conditions leading to simplifications.


With the wide application of lithium batteries in electric vehicles, energy storage and other fields, accurate life prediction of lithium ion batteries becomes particularly important. As a fast and non-destructive electrochemical technology, impedance spectroscopy can reflect the internal characteristics of Li-ion batteries, and it is widely used in battery management. A method based on the health characteristic parameters extracted from the impedance spectrum of Li-ion battery is proposed in this paper to predict the battery life. Firstly, the equivalent circuit model is used to fit the impedance spectrum of the battery and screen out the characteristic quantity which can reflect the aging state of the battery. Then, BP neural network was used to establish the relationship model between the two. Finally, particle filter algorithm was used to predict the remaining service life of the battery. At the end of this paper, the measured results are compared with the predicted results to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.


We propose a novel interpretation in classical path analysis, whereby the influence of k independent variables on a dependent variable can be analyzed. The approach should be useful to study a causal structure with the assumption that this structure is true for the situation investigated. We propose a new coefficient, Qi, which provides a better interpretation of classical path analysis. We provide an example in which effects of certain soil properties on grain yield of winter rye (Secale cereale L.) were examined.


Abstract:  Spatial distribution of land use can have a substantial effect on surface and groundwater quality. Our objective was to test for trends in flow components and water quality related to changes in land use in the Alafia and Hillsborough River watersheds in Florida, USA, over the period 1974‐2007. In addition, water quality statistics were evaluated in the perspective of numeric water quality criteria and proposed reclassification of segments of the Alafia River. Trends in 10 water quality parameters and three discharge variables were evaluated using a nonparametric trend detection test. Results of land use analysis indicated substantial urbanization and loss of agricultural land in the study area. Discharge variables did not exhibit significant trends, whereas trends in the majority of water quality concentrations were negative or nonsignificant with total nitrogen and total Kjeldahl nitrogen as exceptions showing positive trends. Changes in nutrient pathways could not be clearly identified. Considering recently promulgated numeric nutrient criteria and standards for dissolved fluoride, much of the Alafia River was found to be out of compliance. While there were land use changes and changes in water quality over the study period, it was difficult to identify a direct cause‐effect relationship. Responses to regulatory efforts, such as the Clean Water Act and improvements in phosphate mining practices, may have had greater impacts on water quality than changes in land use.


The 2nd edition of the Vetdiagnostix Laboratory Manual has just been released.Weighing in at 3 kg, this 412-page comprehensive diagnostic laboratory guide is lavishly illustrated with in excess of 1500 full-colour images. Species covered include canine, feline, bovine, small ruminant, porcine, equine and exotic avians. The title is somewhat misleading, as the manual is not restricted to laboratory techniques, but takes a systematic, practical, step-bystep approach to collecting suitable specimens and interpreting results.


The chair of a group brought together to develop public policy and medical guidelines on the use of cannabis has said that her task had been thwarted by the poor quality of the evidence.

Marie McCormick, a professor of pediatrics and chair of the department of maternal and child health at the Harvard School of Public Health, chaired the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee that examined the topic and issued a report on 12 January.1 She concluded: "The lack of any aggregated knowledge of cannabis related health effects has led to uncertainty about what, if any, are the harms or benefits of its use." …


A computer graphic simulation system for analysing the damped linear structure under multi-periodic loading with a multi objective fuzzy optimisation system to improve the vibration behaviours of structure is developed. In the optimisation process, the following criteria are taken into consideration: 1. The distribution of natural frequencies for significant modes are constrained in specific regions to avoid possible resonance. 2. The maximum displacement of the generalised displacement of significant modes are to be minimised to reduce the structural response. 3. The weight of structure is to be minimised.


The engineering design status of the Quasi-Poloidal Stellarator Experiment (QPS) is presented. The purpose, configuration, and possible manufacturing and assembly techniques of the various components of the core are described.


Heavy metals and metalloids are toxic for living organisms through oxidative and/or genotoxic mechanisms (1). Among them, the nonessential element arsenic (As) is known to be a poison and also to promote various cancers (skin, lungs, and kidneys) in humans. Exposure to As occurs mainly by drinking contaminated water (2) or eating plant food originating from As-polluted soils. This happens particularly in Asian populations with diets relying mainly on rice (3). As sources in the environment are natural or the result of human activities (Fig. 1). It is worthwhile to note that As-contaminated water of some Asian regions is often associated with reducing conditions occurring in paddy soils, which are known to facilitate As mobilization from ferric oxides. Such a situation can explain As contamination of rice grains, which leads to a serious public health problem (4). Understanding As tolerance in plants is potentially useful knowledge for solving this problem. In this context, the paper by Song et al. (5) in PNAS is of primary importance, because it reports identification of the transporters responsible for arsenite detoxification by plant vacuoles.


A meta-analytic integration is reported that summarizes the effects of tripling in college dormitories. Results indicate that tripling exerts significantly adverse effects of moderate size on four distinct modes or response (residential, social, affective, and behavioral). Meta-analytic focused comparisons reveal several interesting patterns of variability in these effects of tripling. For example, the adverse effects of tripling were more extreme for subject populations composed of predominately male subjects, for subjects living in dormitories with longer corridors, and among subjects participating in the earlier studies of tripling. The implications of these patterns for an understanding of the effects of tripling are discussed.


We study the M/G/2 queuing system with an exponential server (server-1) and a general server under a controlled queue discipline. Such a queuing model depicts a service system where servers are allocated to customers rather than chosen as in many telecommunications and computer business centers across the globe. The First Come First Served (FCFS) queue discipline is violated to achieve the least waiting time of customers in the system. Using the remaining service time of the customer on server-2 (the slower server) as a supplementary variable and given that every customer who first finds server-1 busy is allocated server-1, we derived the steady state distribution for the number of customers in the system. Furthermore, closed form expressions for the mean waiting time, the mean queue length and the blocking probability for the queuing system are derived. Finally, mean performance measures are computed numerically and results compared with existing models.


Vacuum systems are designed for a variety of research activities and industrial performs for different vacuum ranges depending upon the process prerequisite. It is very essential that these systems should be designed by selecting the vacuum equipment for proper vacuum generation, precise vacuum measurement and particular vacuum control for immense contribution to the process effectiveness, operational ease, working efficiency and quality product. In this paper effort has been made to clarify the physical concepts to use variety of vacuum pumps, gauges and valves to design different vacuum systems with diverse vacuum ranges for their up to mark effectiveness.


I During the past dozen years, the central event in the history of American literary criticism--the institutionalization of literature brought about in part by the so-called New Critics--has come under new scrutiny. The reef of decades that divides us from figures such as John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Cleanth Brooks, and Yvor Winters has made it possible to conduct such investigations with less reductive and misleading animosity than that found in a work such as Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983). Mark Jancovich's especially ambitious The Cultural Politics of the New Criticism (1993) highlights the affinities between the practices of Ransom, Tare, and Robert Penn Warren and then-contemporary deconstruction, Marxist criticism, and burgeoning cultural studies. More importantly, it rescues these poet-critics from the inaccurate portrayal of their intellectual program as somehow ideologically repressing history, narrative, and politics in favor of an autonomous aesthetic objet removed from the turning world. (1) Daniel Green, in a recent article, has fairly evaluated the New Criticism both in terms of its worthy efforts to make literature as literature a subject of investigation and of how its very claims left literary studies open to cooptation by critical schools (such as deconstruction, the new historicism, and finally cultural studies) that the New Critics themselves would have found anathema. I wish to extend Green's argument by contending in what follows that at least one New Critic, Yvor Winters, far from eliding the roles history and philosophy in the poetic text, focused upon them in order to work out a systematic method for the evaluative criticism of literature. For him, the text of a poem or novel was never at a remove from history, but it was not reducible to a mere historical artifact either. In his work on Emily Dickinson in particular, he attempted to show how poetic language is informed by its historical condition of production and also how it challenges and even threatens human reason itself---the faculty that makes historical, or any, consciousness possible. As such, Winters provides occasion to reconsider the always contentious frontier where art, history, and--crucially--religion all meet. In Winters's almost unrelenting condemnation of "American Obscurantism," his volume of essays titled Maule's Curse (later collected with three other critical books to form In Defense of Reason), he picks off writer after writer in a slow campaign to reverse the tragic consequences of the battle between the ecstatic unreason of Calvinism and romanticism and the rational faculties of the American artist. He begins with Hawthorne, whose literary war, in Winters's narrative, was waged by the haunting ghosts of Puritan allegory against the inadequate articulation of rational experience; the romantic devil took possession of Hawthorne's literary activity in the guise of these residual Puritan specters. Winters chronicles this same combat through nineteenth-century American letters, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Henry Adams to its final decadence in Henry James. These last two geniuses, lacking anything but the half-perceived residual sensation of what once had been a zealous Puritan ethics, were simply exhausted and forced to concede a gentlemanly defeat at the hands of unreason. If every reader of James recognizes his Europeans as courtiers without Castiglioni's guidebook, Winters stands among the first to appreciate that his Americans were not mere innocents abroad but Calvinists in want of the Institutes. Amid these cursing chapters, where literary admiration but narrowly moderates metaphysical condemnation, rests a short essay on Emily Dickinson. There, Winters peels away what he sees as Dickinson's obscurity of "personal shorthand" and the cuteness of her "content-less catch-phrases" to expose, at the core, a poet of somber and penetrating intellect; a poet capable of describing and speculating on, lamenting and abiding, the "Limits of Judgment" (the title of the essay). …


Abstract Summary Visualization and inference of population structure is increasingly important for fundamental and applied research. Here, we present Struct-f4, providing automated solutions to characterize and summarize the genetic ancestry profile of individuals, assess their genetic affinities, identify admixture sources and quantify admixture levels. Availability and implementation Struct-f4 is written in Rcpp and relies on f4-statistics and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) optimization. It is freely available under GNU General Public License in Bitbucket (https://bitbucket.org/plibradosanz/structf4/). Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Oringinned as an important theory in Ecology,the niche theory has been introduced in many disciplines. In architecture,niche theory can be used as a new vision to analyse the phenomena of urban forms and architecture,guiding the construction of ecological environment. Adopting niche theory,this paper analyses some foreign and local examples on architecture and urban design.


HOW did I come to write this editorial, when I don't have much experience treating sarcoptic mange in cats and dogs? Many years ago, a colleague, Keith Mckellar Stewart, e-mailed me photos of a cat with severe crusting dermatoses. He said he had never seen anything like it. When I looked at the photos (Fig 1a), the lesions were mainly on and around the cat's head and ears and, truthfully, I had pemphigus foliaceus at the top of my list of diagnostic possibilities. Sensibly, I suggested doing some skin scrapes, which revealed enormous numbers of mites (Fig 1b).

FIG 1:
(a) The pinna and external ear canal of a cat with crusted scabies. Note the crusts and fissures on the margins of the pinna. (b) Skin scraping from the cat in (a) with crusted scabies. Note abundant adult mites and hexapod larvae. (c) Burrows of Sarcoptes scabiei mites in the stratum corneum of a skin biopsy from an affected cat

He was embarrassed to have asked my advice, when he could have made the diagnosis so easily. The mites showed up in the skin biopsy (Fig 1c), so he would have made a definitive diagnosis in any case. But what was the diagnosis? Keith and I were both convinced it was notoedric mange, as it looked like photos of a case we had …


This paper explores duality relationships for a broad class of stochastic dynamic production problems. Assuming that the decision maker maximizes the expected present value of profit, it is shown that product supply, negative factor demand, and negative quasifixed factor acquisition equations cannot be directly obtained by partial differentiation of the indirect profit function if price expectations have a Markovian structure. Consequently, empirical application of duality to many stochastic dynamic problems is quite complex and may be more difficult than a primal approach to the problem.


Background As many countries seek to slow the spread of COVID-19 without reimposing national restrictions, it has become important to track the disease at a local level to identify areas in need of targeted intervention. Methods We performed modelling on longitudinal, self-reported data from users of the COVID Symptom Study app in England between 24 March and 29 September, 2020. Combining a symptom-based predictive model for COVID-19 positivity and RT-PCR tests provided by the Department of Health we were able to estimate disease incidence, prevalence and effective reproduction number. Geographically granular estimates were used to highlight regions with rapidly increasing case numbers, or hotspots. Findings More than 2.6 million app users in England provided 115 million daily reports of their symptoms, and recorded the results of 170,000 PCR tests. On a national level our estimates of incidence and prevalence showed similar sensitivity to changes as two national community surveys: the ONS and REACT studies. On a geographically granular level, our estimates were able to highlight regions before they were subject to local government lockdowns. Between 12 May and 29 September we were able to flag between 35-80% of regions appearing in the Government's hotspot list. Interpretation Self-reported data from mobile applications can provide a cost-effective and agile resource to inform a fast-moving pandemic, serving as an independent and complementary resource to more traditional instruments for disease surveillance.


The phenomenon of hydrophobic surface (contact angle of a water droplet exceeding 90°) has attracted a considerable research interest from academia and industry. Current studies have unveiled the fact that the hydrophobicity of a solid surface is governed by surface free energy and surface roughness. To date, many methods have been proposed for fabricating hydrophobic surfaces. In this paper, a facile, low cost, and time-saving approach for the improvement of water-repellent property of durian peel composite sheet surface is studied. A unique mixture of hydrophobic modified-silica particles and polystyrene was synthesised and applied onto the composite sheet via dip coating method. The hydrophobic property was characterised using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and water contact angle meter. Results show that a water repellent surface with a contact angle of 143.90° was generated, which is nearly superhydrophobic. This method could be an effective strategy for producing hydrophobic surfaces for promising potential applications in water repellency, self-cleaning, friction reduction, and antifouling.


Facial expression recognition in complex environment is one of the difficult tasks of visual recognition in recent years. This paper introduces the visual saliency mechanism and we design automatic searching of the face region in the image. Using the narrow band C-V model to evolve curve, the proposed scheme can obtain the accurate face region. Meanwhile, the SVM will be trained by standard database. It will calculate the Bhattacharyya distance between the clustering center and the face sample which is extracted from complex environment and then updating the parameters of SVM. Finally, the performance of the classifier will be obtained through testing the test set. Experimental results on lighting change or noisy added image in complex environment confirm the validity of our approach.


Objective: Presentation of pyoderma gangraenosum (PG) as an important differential diagnosis for wound healing disorders after cesarian section. Adequate therapeutic regimens are discussed. Case report: A 39-year-old woman developed a PG after cesarean section. A treatment with prednisolone and cyclosporine A was started. Within three days of treatment, the inflammatory process was significantly reduced. Serological inflammatory markers and fever dropped to normal levels. Due to the development of a pronounced arterial hypertension, dapsone was additionally applied to reduce glucocorticoids and cyclosporine A doses. Rapid normalisation of blood pressure without aggravation. Modern wound dressings helped to rapidly establish granulation and reepithelialization. The immense ulceration completely healed after six months of therapy. Conclusion: PG is a potentially lethal disease and must be considered as an important differential diagnosis after abdominal surgery and cesarean section. Modern systemic and topical treatments help to treat PG successfully.


The AlliedSignal RDR-4B, a state-of-the-art digital airborne weather radar capable of forward-looking/predictive windshear detection, is presented. The weather phenomenon known as microbursts and windshears are overviewed. In reviewing the 'physics' of windshear, the need for a forward-looking sensor is established and the selection of digital radar as a means-to-the-end is justified. The RDR-4B system capabilities are then summarized, followed by a top-level breakdown of the radar and associated windshear detection processing. Key discussions include formation of Doppler frequency domain data, adaptive rejection of clutter spectra, and statistical characterization of retained weather/windshear spectra. An explanation of how these statistics come to indicate a windshear's existence and severity, in terms of hazard factors, follows. The paper concludes by documenting an actual windshear's detection prior-to-encounter and subsequent penetration by a RDR-4B equipped test aircraft.


We present evidence for triggered star formation on two dieren t spatial scales in the NGC 281 molecular cloud complex. This remarkable complex is situated 300 pc above the Galactic plane, and appears to be part of a 270 pc diameter ring of atomic and molecular clouds expanding at 22 km s 1 . We suggest that the ring has formed in a superbubble blowout driven by OB stars in the plane of the Galaxy. Within the cloud complex, combined optical, NIR, mm and cm data detailing the interaction of a young O star with neighboring molecular cores, provide evidence of triggered star formation inside the cloud complex on a few parsec scale. These data suggest that two modes of triggered star formation are operating in the NGC 281 complex|the initial supernovae triggered formation of the entire complex and, after the rst generation of O stars formed, the subsequent triggering of star formation by photoevaporation-driven molecular core compression.


Abstract The mitochondrion genome of Occidentarius platypogon was assembled from Illumina short reads, and consisted of 16,714 base pairs, with 13 protein-coding, two ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), and 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes. Base composition is 30.7% A, 26.4% T, 28.5% C, and 14.4% G, and 42.9% GC content. Two start codon (ATG and GTG) and seven stop codon (TAA, ACT, CCT, TTA, CAT, AAT, and TAG) patterns were found in protein-coding genes. Control region presented the highest A + T (64%) and lowest G + C content (35.7%) among all mitochondrial regions.


This note describes the design of timber posts based on limit state theory. The note assumes that the reader is familiar with the use of coefficient factors prevalent within BS EN 1995-1-1 (Eurocode 5).


For the rapid identification of common plant honey and Chinese medicine nectar plant honey,a novel qualitative identification method combined Kernel Principal Component Analysis(KPCA) and Least Square Support Vector Machine(LSSVM) is proposed.The presented method uses Fourier transform NIR spectrophotometer to collect the spectral data of locust,leonuri and coptis honey.The KPCA algorithm is used to extract nonlinear features.Then a LSSVM classificaion model based on Error Correcting Output Code(ECOC) is designed and grid search method is used to determine the optimal model parameters.To unknown honey samples,the optimal model has the best identification capability with a accuracy of 96.67%.Experimental results indicate that the proposed qualitative analysis method based on KPCA and LSSVM can distinguish the honey of common and Chinese medicine nectar plant.


Hydrothermal synthesis of ferrisilicate of ZSM-5 structurewas followed by FT-IR, XRD, XPS, XRF, TG, and EXAFS. It was found that the micro-structure around Fe formed before instantaneous crystallization of the bulk.


Maxillectomy is a term used to describe the partial or total removal of the maxilla, often performed in patients suffering from benign or malignant neoplasms. The resulting defect may include any portion of the hard and/or soft palate, the alveolar ridges and the floor of the nasal cavity. Patients with acquired maxillary defects differ from those with congenital defects because of the abrupt alteration in physiologic processes associated with surgical resection of the maxilla. Subsequently they create oro-nasal and oro-antral communication leading to difficulties in mastication, hyper nasal speech, fluid leakage and cosmetic deformity. This effect diminishes the patient's quality of life and self esteem. Prosthodontic rehabilitation of such defect by obturator prosthesis would restore the patient to a normal level of function. An obturator (Latin: obturare, to stop up) is a disc or plate, natural or artificial, which closes an opening or defect of the maxilla as a result of a cleft palate or partial or total removal of the maxilla for a tumor mass. Iatrogenic maxillary defects are often created following surgical resection of neoplasms or congenital malformation, but can also result following trauma. These defects cause functional disability and psychological trauma to the patient. Patients with acquired maxillary defects differ from those with congenital defects because of the abrupt alteration in physiologic processes associated with surgical resection. Subsequently they create oro-nasal and oro-antral communication leading to difficulties in mastication, deglutition, speech and cosmetic deformity. Prosthodontic rehabilitation in these patients not only addresses the functional disability, but also offers aesthetic corrections thereby improving the self confidence and the overall quality of life. A successful prosthodontic rehabilitation should recreate the partition between the oral and nasal cavity, restore facial contour, and improve mastication and speech. Authors describe the prosthetic rehabilitation following hemi maxillectomy in two patients, which showed significant improvement in function and facial esthetics.


Buildings are typically equipped with a number of elements and devices (e.g., windows, blinds, luminaires, radiators) to control indoor environmental conditions. The availability, effectiveness, and usability of control devices and their interfaces constitute an essential aspect of built environments' quality. This aspect has been sometimes referred to as indoor-environmental "affordance" (or "ecological valency") and can be interpreted as a descriptor of buildings' responsiveness toward inhabitants' needs and requirements. However, in contrast to some other building quality aspects such as energy efficiency, there is a lack of systematic evaluation or certifications procedures for objective characterization of indoor environments' affordance as related to the availability and effectiveness of control devices and their human interfaces. This paper entails an exploration of the potential for and associated challenges of designing and implementing affordance measurement and certification procedures. Challenges include, above all, assigning relative weights and coefficient values to different domains (e.g., thermal, visual, acoustical), devices, and levels of their effectiveness. Irrespective of their success to date, attempts toward operationalization of indoor-environmental affordance can be quite beneficial: The affordance framework can offer a systematic, intuitive, and compact framework to guide the workflow toward the provision and maintenance of adequate indoor environments for human occupancy.


Ramsey's "Facts and Propositions" is terse, allusive, and dense. The paper is far from easy to understand. The present essay is an effort, largely following Brian Loar's account,' to say what Ramsey's goal is, to spell out what he took to be the means to accomplish it, and to show how those means, at least in the terms of F&P, cannot accomplish that end. I also contrast Loar's own account of judgment, explicitly modeled on Ramsey's view, with the latter. The exercise is not at all academic. Loar makes clear the striking depth and originality of Ramsey's insights.


Retrofit use of visco-elastic dampers at expansion joints of bridges with hinges is studied for the purpose of demonstrating that they can prevent the girders from falling off the seat and/or from colliding with each other in the event of a severe earthquake. The Kelvin and Maxwell models, consisting of an elastic spring and a linear viscous dash pot combined in parallel and in series, respectively, are considered for analysis. The two-dimensional finite element analysis with bilinear hysteretic model for bridge piers was performed on example bridges with one or two hinges and the results showed that the damper is effective in suppressing the relative displacement possibly at the expense of some increase in ductility demand for the piers. It also showed that the spring component of the Kelvin and Maxwell models had little effect on the performance of the damper.


This study aims at exploring how teachers from rural elementary and secondary schools feel about their work stresses currently,and how the work stresses impact on teachers′ physical and mental state,work,daily life and professional identity,so that we can realize the status quo of rural school teachers′ work stresses objectively,and it will be helpful to explore particular stressors as well as the coping strategies that used by these teachers.Methods: Through semi-structured depth-interviews,10 rural elementary and secondary school teachers from a certain region in Jilin Province were interviewed.Results: In rural area,teachers′ work stress is generally high.Various work pressures have,in varying degrees,influenced teachers′ physical condition,psychological and mental state,work attitude,and even their daily life.Meanwhile,discontent of their occupation brought about by high work stress is a serious threat to teachers′ professional identity.Conclusion: The status quo of rural teachers′ work stress is not optimistic.


ON August 10, 1894, Pietro Ramella, a young Italian soldier taking part in physiological experiments, ascended rapidly to the Capanna Regina Margherita hut on Monte Rosa (4559 m), an Alpine peak bo...


Faeces of 240 stry dogs and 240 family dogs that frequent the same public area in Tirana City they gathered and analyzed during the two years. We used the coproscopic method to identify intestinal parasites of which could be infested. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the environment biopollution at public areas from exogenous stage of intestinal parsites by stray dogs using two indicators: a) the prevalence of infestation and b) number of species of which are infested dogs. It showed that the prevalence of infestation of stray dogs was 77.5% and 20% of family dogs. Regardless of the season or in which environment were collected samples, in both two groups of dogs were identified the same representatives of intestinal parsites, and specifically identified: Echinococcus granulosus , Dipylidium caninum , Taenia spp, Mesocestoides lineatus, Ancylostoma spp, Uncinaria spp , Toxocara canis, Toxascaris leonina, Trichuris spp, Giardia spp and Coccidia spp. The high prevalence of infestation at the stry dogs is a result of their lifestyle. To ensure the food they attend household waste, territory around the slaughterhouses, etc. In these areas they take food both with the invasive stages of intestinal helminths (3,8,18). At the same time they fed with wreck and alive rodent, with different arthropods and annelids worms, who as we know serve as paratenic hosts for many of the representatives of invasive helminthes of dogs (3,6,7,16,19, 21). Moving in search of food they come into contact with other public environments contaminated by their counterparts. Thus homogenized and increased parasite loads that they carry with which contaminate even more moving and living environments where. Family dogs infested by intestinal fauna when representatives will hike in public environments that are contaminated by stray dogs. Between the infestation prevalence of stray dogs and the infestation prevalence of family dogs from intestinal parasitic fauna has a positive correlation ( r = 0.736 for p = 0.0275), therefore can ignore the level of family dogs infestation from invasive intestinal fauna is an expression of the impact of polluted environment from stray dogs on the health conditions of family dogs.


Citation analysis is an important method of bibliometrics.However,the traditional method evaluates scientific literature's quality according to the cited times.This paper proposes a Page-Rank based evaluating algorithm which takes into account more factors such as the authority of the literature's publisher,the authority of the authors and the literature's published time.Experimental results indicate that the new algorithm can give more accurate results.


Generation of high-affinity IgG is essential for defense against infections and cancer, is the intended consequence of many vaccines, but can cause autoimmune and inflammatory diseases when inappropriately directed against self (Wang et al., 2018, Ludwig et al., 2017, Chinen et al., 2010). The interplay and balance of T follicular helper cells (TFH) and T follicular regulatory cells (TFR) is critical for production of high-affinity IgG (Wing et al., 2018). Here, we empowered TFH cells and improve antigen-specific IgG responses with two interventions intended to transiently diminish TFR influence. First, adult mice were administered an antibiotic cocktail (ABX) for an extended period to deplete the immunoregulatory intestinal microbiota (Belkaid and Harrison, 2017, Thaiss et al., 2016, Rooks and Garrett, 2016, Honda and Littman, 2016, Perruzza et al., 2017, Teng et al., 2016, Block et al., 2016, Proietti et al., 2014, Slack et al., 2014). This treatment skewed T follicular cell ratios, with increased TFH and reduced TFR numbers. TNP-KLH immunization resulted in higher affinity TNP-specific IgG in ABX mice compared to controls. In a model of IgG-driven inflammatory nephritis, ABX mice had significantly worse nephritis accompanied by higher affinity antigen-specific IgG, and enriched TFH cells compared to controls. Second, we sought to functionally manipulate TFH and TFH cells, which both express the checkpoint inhibitory molecule, PD-1 (Sage et al., 2013), by administration of α-PD-1 during immunization. This intervention enhanced the affinity of antigen-specific IgG and increased in TFH following TNP-KLH immunization and nephritis induction. These results suggest that altering TFH and TFR ratio during immunization is an appealing strategy to qualitatively improve IgG responses.


The article focuses on the Berlin Initiative, which establishes a Conservation Committee under the International Whaling Commission. The article discusses the history of the establishment of the Committee, objections to its establishment, and the prospects for the Committee to help further the IWC's agenda.


In his three February 2010 interviews with Bob Lange, Robert Auerbach details his personal history, training in zoology, and involvement with the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the 1950s to the 2000s. He recounts how his family escaped Nazi Germany in the 1940s and immigrated eventually to the US. From here, he describes key influences in developing his interest and expertise in music and mouse genetics, eventually training with the high-profile genetics department at Columbia. He then discusses the main lines of his research in trypsinization of the kidney, embryonic thymus genetics, and immunology, which eventually led him to UW, where he taught among other things developmental biology. Throughout, Auerbach offers his reflections on such key figures and issues as music and science, T. Dobzhansky, research and publication, the tenure process, university service, teaching philosophy, the functioning of a lab, and the division between researchers and teachers in the zoology department. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the UW-Madison Oral History Program.


The normalized raw data of the Earth's electric field, monitored at PYR, ATH, HIO monitoring sites in Greece, are studied as far as it concerns the presence of electric seismic precursors. Electric preseismic pulses, plateau-like anomalous electric field and Very Long Period (VLP) anomalies were detected prior to the occurrence of the July 1st, 2009 large (Ms = 6.3R) EQ in Greece. Further processing of the same data revealed the true form of the generated preseimic potential thus providing an indirect estimation of the time window of the occurrence of the large EQ. Finally, by correlating, at pairs, the anomalous electric field from all monitoring sites it is possible to calculate the "strange attractor like" seismic electric precursor that provides a time window for the occurrence of the large EQ and utilizes the determination not only of the regional seismogenic area that has been activated but also a more precise epicenter too.


This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between pro-innovation organizational climate and innovative work behavior among the knowledge workers of the knowledge intensive business services in Malaysia. The innovative work behavior has a central role in the development of knowledge-intensive business services in Malaysia. It was previously reported that pro-innovation organizational climate to have a significant relationship with innovative work behavior of employees in various business sectors. However, not all support the notion that organizational climate correlates with innovative work behavior. Some of the researchers concluded the relationship is rather weak. This makes it even more interesting to include organizational climate in the research framework of the model of innovative work behavior in Malaysia. A quantitative method was utilized and data were collected using mail survey. A total of 1520 questionnaires were distributed and 310 deemed usable for analysis using SPSS, resulted in 20.6 % response rate. The results revealed that there was a significant relationship between pro-innovation organizational climates and the innovative work behavior of knowledge workers in Malaysia.


Docker is undeniably powerful and revolutionary in how containerized system development is developed today, but it is apparent that the learning curve for it should be addressed, as it typically is complex at times, especially for beginners. One of the fundamental tasks in a Docker workflow is Dockerfile configurations, which at times require ample time to study and observe for attaining the best practices, even the appropriate result. This issue undeniably affects the developer experience. Developer Experience (DX), being a derived field from User Experience (UX) that has been getting traction for the past few years concerns developers' innate ability to perceive tasks as enjoyable, painful, or perhaps some other sets of emotions. The goal of DX is to evaluate all those factors in order to improve the software development experience, which consequently affects how the project is delivered. In resonance with that, this work aims to enhance the DX by way of proposing and incorporating supporting interaction tools, both based on CLI and GUI as the interface type, with two different permutations: CLI and GUI. The DX of both has to be evaluated by the experts, who are of experienced developers, regardless of whether they have knowledge of Docker or not. The method to test and evaluate two different solutions is conducted qualitatively, with each respondent having a different order of evaluating the two solutions. The qualitative data is thematically analyzed, resulting in GUI being the best option among the two. The contribution of this research is the design guidelines for GUI and CLI-based tools development that enhance the Developer Experience (DX) in the scaffolding of Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml for projects that use Docker.


Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) allow for parameter sharing and translational equivariance by using convolutional kernels in their linear layers. By restricting these kernels to be SO(3)-steerable, CNNs can further improve parameter sharing and equivariance. These equivariant convolutional layers have several advantages over standard convolutional layers, including increased robustness to unseen poses, smaller network size, and improved sample efficiency. Despite this, most segmentation networks used in medical image analysis continue to rely on standard convolutional kernels. In this paper, we present a new family of segmentation networks that use equivariant voxel convolutions based on spherical harmonics, as well as equivariant pooling and normalization operations. These SE(3)-equivariant volumetric segmentation networks, which are robust to data poses not seen during training, do not require rotation-based data augmentation during training. In addition, we demonstrate improved segmentation performance in MRI brain tumor and healthy brain structure segmentation tasks, with enhanced robustness to reduced amounts of training data and improved parameter efficiency. Code to reproduce our results, and to implement the equivariant segmentation networks for other tasks is available at http://github.com/SCAN-NRAD/e3nn_Unet


pages. As such, it does not help the reader to appreciate the nature of the methodology pioneered by Aristotle, and its possible use or development in the work of Cicero. Again, in commenting Cicero's loci individually, R. neglects to point out relationships with the work of Aristotle that could, however, be highly signiμcant for a grasp of the essence of the Topica. Just to quote an example, in Topica 8 Cicero introduces a group of loci that are drawn from without (extrinsecus) and are opposite to the loci attached to the subject under discussion (loci in eo ipso de quo agitur haerent). R. correctly notes that the former group is linked to the pre-Aristotelian and Aristotelian non-technical proofs. What he does not note, however, is that in Rhetoric B23, at 1398b19–1399a6, Aristotle speaks of a υ ποΚ λ λσ τεψΚ which closely resembles the idea behind the loci drawn extrinsecus. But Cicero, di¶erently from Aristotle, separates these loci from the others. There must be a reason behind this separation, which should be explored in its historical context. This could provide precious insight into the relationship between Cicero's list of loci and the list of υ ποι discussed by Aristotle in Rhetoric B23. Despite my comments above, I want to conclude by stressing once again that R.'s work is certainly the most successful work on Cicero's Topica to date. I am convinced that it will spur further scholarly interest in this sophisticated and still somehow enigmatic book by Cicero. However, there is more to be done to give the Topica its full credit. I believe that more investigation is needed, especially, as I have suggested above, in its relationship to the texts of Aristotle. How the author of this review would do this . . . is another story!


The purpose of this work is to quantify the dosimetric effect of two types of uncertainty in permanent prostate brachytherapy implants: failure to (1) image or (2) precisely localize all the seeds implanted. Both of these aspects are due to limitations of current imaging technology. An idealized pre-plan as well as clinical post-implant data for I-125 were used in this analysis. Monte Carlo simulations were done to evaluate the impact of missing seeds and of seed localization uncertainty on predicting the dose distributions. The indices chosen to compare dose distributions were the dose received by 90% of the target volume (D90), and the tumour control probability (TCP). Initial results show that for both types of uncertainties considered in this work, the mean values for TCP and D90 decreased as the magnitude of the uncertainty (number of seeds missing or magnitude of displacement) increased. For both sources of uncertainty, the effects were larger for the pre-plan (with a fixed lattice of seeds) than for the clinical cases (in which seeds were less orderly). Although the trends seen in mean values for TCP and D90 allow generalizations on the expected effect of seed localization uncertainties for a series of patients, the variability in those mean values demonstrate that for a single treatment in an individual patient it is very difficult to predict the values of TCP and D90 in the presence of the imaging uncertainties considered here.


Winter sports such as skiing and snowboarding are becoming increasingly popular among all age groups, as practicing these sports has seen an upward trend, which has led to an increase in the number of injuries and pathologies related to them. Practicing skiing/snowboarding entails a series of vibrations occurring in the equipment, their propagation along the kinetic chain impacting both in a positive and negative way the health of the person in question. The study was a comparison, skiing vs. snowboarding, between the vibrations experienced by professional and non-professional athletes, with the main objective of determining which of them produces greater vibrations and identifying the negative and positive effects they have. The study was performed under field conditions using sensors designed to record vibrations on the ski/snowboard (tip/nose and tail), as well as vibration sensors located in the ankle, knee, hip and lumbosacral areas, designed to record the propagation of vibrations along the kinetic chain. The results show a higher level of vibrations recorded on the ski than on the snowboard, while their transmission along the kinetic chain is inversely proportional. The conclusion relates to the choice of skiing/snowboarding. Therefore, due to the Whole-Body Vibration phenomenon, young people are more likely to choose snowboarding due to the possibility of increasing bone quality and quantity, while older people are rather fond of skiing, given its effect along the kinetic chain, which protects the skeletal system. Studies have provided evidence to suggest alpine skiing is an appropriate activity for elderly as a health-enhancing sport. Thus, perhaps alpine skiing could provide the physical activity needed to counteract age-related degradation processes and loss of function.