The tribology of metal-on-metal (MOM) hip resurfacing prostheses has been investigated in this study, with particular consideration of the effect of prosthesis design (cup wall thickness and clearance) on the contact mechanics and elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) of these man-made bearings. Two commercially available MOM hip resurfacings, which differ mainly in cup-wall thickness and diametral clearance, were investigated. Finite element contact mechanics and lubrication analyses were carried out on the two MOM hip resurfacing designs. It was found that the thinner acetabular cup with a the relatively smaller clearance resulted in lower contact and hydrodynamic pressure predictions, and a significant increase in the predicted lubricant film thickness at the bearing surfaces. This was attributed to the increase in contact area, conformity between the cup and ball and to the increased influence of the underlying non-metallic structures such as bone and cement, which enhanced the elasticity of the thin acetabular cup. It was shown that full fluid-film lubrication was possible in MOM hip resurfacings during the walking cycle with the small clearance and thin cup-wall thickness model. The importance of the design and manufacturing parameters on the tribological performance of MOM hip resurfacings is highlighted in this study, particularly in promoting fluid film lubrication as a means to further reduce wear at the bearing surfaces.Copyright © 2005 by ASME


Is a very practical teaching elementary course.It adopts the model of basic replication experiments,comprehensive designing experiments,exploratory comparative experiments and open scientific research experiments.By closely combining experimental and clinical teaching methods,experimental teaching of anatomy develops the innovation abilities of medical students.


Through detailed analysis on new rural led by industrial park, this article induces features of such kind of village,makes construction planning for Hushan village according to its situation and developing condition,it also proposes that important points of planning and measures of phased implementation so as to achieve planning goal.


With the development of electric power industry in China, the urban electric network construction and renovation including distribution automation is carried out. In Jiaxing power system some of automation systems and devices, such as SCADA, EMS, DTS, DMS, MIS and so on, has been equipped, and others are being installed. On the basis of describing functions of those systems and devices, their integrated management, from information sharing, application sharing, towards component sharing, is analyzed and discussed.


The Atlantic Council has cooperated in an ongoing dialogue on energy policy issues with key Japanese organizations for the past twelve years. These Japanese organizations are the Committee for Energy Policy Promotion (CEPP) and the Institute of Energy Economics (IEE). The members of CEPP are major energy supplier and user companies. The IEE conducts sophisticated research and prepares policy papers on a range of international and Japanese energy issues. This energy dialogue is the only long-term US-Japan dialogue which engages CEPP/IEE members. Over the past twelve years the US-Japan energy dialogue has met seventeen times, with alternating meetings held in Tokyo, Hawaii, and Washington, DC. While the dialogue is a private sector activity, US and Japanese government officials are kept informed on the program and are invited to participate in the meetings in Washington and Tokyo. Major benefits of this activity have included: Establishment of close working relationships among Japanese and US private sector energy institutions and experts; exchange of papers on energy issues among participants and on a selected basis to others in the private and governmental sectors; facilitation of separate US-Japanese work on policy issues - for example a joint US-Japan cooperative policy paper on global climate changemore » published in 1991, some government representatives participated in a May 1991 meeting on this subject. Encouragement of Japanese participation in separate Atlantic Council programs on US energy policy imperatives (1990); technology cooperation with developing countries in the field of energy supply and use for sustainable development (1992); creation of a World Energy Efficiency Association (1993); and a US-Japan-Newly Independent States project on NIS energy policy (1992--1994).« less


With rising global competitiveness, increasing wages, and growing demands for social responsibility, enterprises in Bangladesh are grappling with a multitude of unprecedented challenges. In view of the complexities surrounding a firm's operation, it is not entirely surprising that social compliance is often seen yet another cost and a drag on profitability. Consequently, from the point of view of enterprises, they will comply only if the benefits of compliance outweigh the costs. Theoretically, an enterprise's performance on social compliance is a good indicator of its overall competitiveness and efficiency. The logic behind this is simple: quality of output and productivity of workers are closely linked to wages, worker satisfaction, working hours, and other social compliance factors. Therefore, better working environment brought about by social compliance is expected to increase technical efficiency of firms, i.e. firms will produce maximum level of output for a given level of inputs. This study investigates whether the Social Compliance Program at the Export Processing Zones of Bangladesh have led to increases in technical efficiency in production.


Policy search is a successful approach to reinforcement learning. However, policy improvements often result in the loss of information. Hence, it has been marred by premature convergence and implausible solutions. As first suggested in the context of covariant or natural policy gradients, many of these problems may be addressed by constraining the information loss. In this paper, we continue this path of reasoning and suggest two reinforcement learning methods, i.e., a model‐based and a model free algorithm that bound the loss in relative entropy while maximizing their return. The resulting methods differ significantly from previous policy gradient approaches and yields an exact update step. It works well on typical reinforcement learning benchmark problems as well as novel evaluations in robotics. We also show a Bayesian bound motivation of this new approach [8].


The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant long-term impact on education worldwide. In many countries, schools and universities experienced a rapid switch to emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL), which affected many education systems in the 2020–21 school year. This was true for the Italian educational context as a whole, including School in Hospital (SiHo) services. This study explored how the SiHo functioned in Italy during the 2020–2021 school year. The aim was to explore what, if any, changes the emergency brought about in educational practices and in the adoption of technologies in this specific context, with a particular focus on any differences between school levels. The study was conducted with 252 SiHo teachers using a questionnaire format. The results showed that after the forced adoption of distance modes during the spring 2020, face-to-face teaching returned to be the prevalent mode in the 2020–2021 school year, with some exceptions for upper-secondary school students (covered by ministerial provisions). The teaching approach that SiHO teachers prefer, both for face-to-face and distance lessons, remains frontal instruction, probably given the particular needs of their students. Younger students probably experienced the most significant changes due to the limits imposed on interpersonal contact in hospitals, which prevented group work and play, previously commonly adopted by kindergarten and primary school teachers. In terms of technology integration in educational practice, teachers stated that they had acquired greater competence in the use of a variety of technological resources.


4'-substituted-2,2':6',2"-terpyridine ligands which all contain a terminal
alkyne functionality are synthesised and discussed in Chapter 2. These
ligands have been designed with potential coupling to platinum(II) or gold(I)
through the alkyne in mind and have varying degrees of flexibility built in.
Ligands are intended to favour either polymer or macrocycle formation
according to their flexibility and the various ways of achieving this are also
discussed in Chapter 2.
The coupling of these ligands with platinum(II) and gold(I) are
discussed separately in Chapters 3 and 4, respectively. The combination of
the ligand flexibility with the coordination geometry at the metal centre is
carefully considered in order to form building blocks of a specific shape which
can then be reacted further at the pendant terpyridine moiety. The ligands
have been fully characterised, some crystallographically. Luminescence
spectra of these building blocks are measured. 31P NMR spectroscopy is a
particularly useful tool for characterisation of these molecules, especially in
the case of the platinum(II) complexes, since this provides a means of
determining the configuration of the phosphine ligands at the platinum(II)
centre. Again, X-ray crystal data provide some invaluable information as to
the arrangement of the molecules in the solid state, including interactions
between metal atoms in the case of Au(I).
The final step in the formation of polymers or macrocycles is discussed
in Chapter 5 where the platinum(II) and gold(I) containing building blocks are
assembled into supramolecular structures by coordination of the pendant
terpyridine moiety with iron(II). The resulting structures are fully characterised,
and electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry is important in determining the
size of the macrocycles formed. Pulsed-field gradient spin-echo NMR
experiments help to determine the size of the products formed and X-ray
crystal data for one structure have been obtained and are discussed.


Background: Parental decisions regarding vaccination are very vital for increasing the vaccination rate and parent compliance to the immunization schedule.  Worldwide studies show that besides other factors, parental knowledge and beliefs have major influence on starting and continuing of child vaccination. Objective: The study aim to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of the parents regarding child vaccinations in Arar, Northern Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional community based study carried out during the period from 1st January to 30th July 2018. A systematic random sampling technique was used; 367 participants was included.  Data collected using a pre-designed online questionnaire distributed among parents of children and adolescents to be self-administered. Results: the majority (40.1%) of children aged less than 6 years old, 58.9% were males, fathers' education was university or more in 47.7% of participants and mothers' education was secondary school 75.5%. Most (88.3%) of parents were sure that the vaccinations are important for their children, 68.4% think vaccination reduces the probability of death or illness of a child, 85.6% think that vaccinations reduces the number of infectious diseases, 89.6% think that the vaccinations have a role in the child health, 6.8% were aware that some vaccinations are accompanied with side effects such as fever and 83.1% were aware that even healthy child needs vaccination. 70.1% of parents gave their child all mandatory vaccines, 77.9% follow the child's compulsory immunization, 76.6% of parents feel secure after vaccination of their children. Conclusion: knowledge and acceptance of childhood vaccinations, perceptions of vaccine-related health benefits is good among parents in Arar, Northern Saudi Arabia.


The communication revolution and ease of global connectivity have had a significant contribution to the industrial transformation from a short and long-term planned development to a more just-in-time design, development and production. Recent economic crises have impacted the rate of these transformations; however, the driving factors remain the technological changes in information and communication. The transformation of industry has prompted a re-examination of the workforce development and educational system in the US and particularly in all STEM disciplines. Engineering education in US went through transformations after post American Revolution in 1860's and again after World War II in 1950's. The recent industrial transformation requires another major change in engineering education. Engineering programs are going through "transformations" from their traditional focused curriculum. These changes need to produce "multi-disciplinary", project-based learning as well as "inter-disciplinary" and "multi-disciplinary" innovation and entrepreneurship in the curriculum and its delivery. These approaches require collaborative teaching and learning and the ability to form inter-disciplinary cooperation in research programs. A successful transformation of this form for engineering programs demand entrepreneurship and visionary talents to adapt to these frequent changes and industrial experiences to direct the transformation towards emerging inter-disciplinary industries such as cyber physical systems and digital manufacturing. These transformations need to address the spectrum of education and workforce development for pre-college to undergraduate, graduate and continuing education.


As an idealized alternative to mass tourism, ecotourism seeks balance between economic benefits for resident hosts and protection of the natural resource base against environmental costs. Yet these ambiguous descriptors fail to consider what is to be sustained, at what levels, and for whom. Nor is the fundamental contradiction resolved between the demand for economic growth to ameliorate poverty-induced ecological destruction and environmental conservation that inhibits economic growth. If ecotourism is to induce sustainable development, it must be ecologically sound, culturally sensitive, and economically viable. Using data from two Belizean case studies, this paper challenges optimistic assessments concerning the impacts of ecotourism and points to the leakage of profits back to tourist-source countries, high emigration rates, and a tourism industry that is likely more "brown" than "green" Even though ecotourists in Belize tend to be affluent and spend more money than "mass tourists" leakages persist, local multipliers are low, and some natural resources are continuously threatened. If ecotourism is to support appropriate development, it should accelerate economic growth but also promote sound livelihood opportunities for local populations while simultaneously braking against environmental costs. How one defines these relationships and how communities work to achieve a balance between seemingly disparate goals is critically important to the process of using ecotourism as a development strategy. Given its recent commitment to ecotourism, Belize offers a unique opportunity to study local models and explore sustainable human-ecosystems in the context of this newly-developing industry.


This paper analyzes the factors that influence the municipal solid waste (MSW) generation, and determines the main influencing factors based on the results of correlation analysis. The Elman neural network model is established to predict Shanghai municipal solid waste(MSW) generation. Based on the absolute error and relative error, the model has good applicability and accuracy and predicts Shanghai municipal solid waste (MSW) generation in the next few years. Finally, compared with BP neural network model, Elman neural network is more suitable for the prediction of municipal solid waste (MSW) generation.


CMOS device dimensions scale down to the very deep submicrometer. ICs are going towards higher density, higher speed and lower power dissipation, making new challenges on IC test and design for test. The idea of test and design for testability is discussed, the challenges of test and design for testability are analyzed, then the test and design for testability in SOC design are discussed. The progresses in test and design for testability are put forward.


In the developing countries, diarrhea still becomes the main cause of morbidity and mortality on children. In 2010 at Surakarta area, it was found 4.683 (36.91%) diarrhea cases on baby, where the number of cases increase than the same cases in the previous year. In the other hand, the coverage of exclusive breastfeeding in Surakarta city 2010 decrease to 20,35%. The aim of this study was to identify the factors related to the occurence of diarrhea among 3 to 6 months baby in working area of Puskesmas Ngoresan. The research method used is observational analytic with case control approach. It was done in working area of Puskesmas Ngoresan with 30 respondents for case group and 30 respondents for control group between April to May 2012. The formula feeding and the occurance of diarrhea were measured with directed interview. The data were analyzed by chi-square test using SPSS 17.0 for windows. The chi-square analysis showed the score of x 2 = 22.937 with α = 0.05. It showed that H o was rejected and H a was accepted, therefore it can be concluded that there was significant correlation between formula feeding and the occurance of diarrhea on 3-6 months baby in working area of Puskesmas Ngoresan.


A sample of the study comprised of 300 high school children in the age group of 13-16 year from five urban high school of Dharwad taluk. Creative thinking scale developed by mehdi (1989) and creative thinking check list developed by AICRIP-CD Dharwad center (2010) were used to assess the creative thinking ability of children. The result of the study revealed that majority of children showed high level of creative thinking ability and none of them belonged to low category of creative thinking ability. There was no influence of type of school, age and gender on creative thinking ability of children.


This paper presents a new speed control system for a flux-modulated permanent-magnet (FMPM) in-wheel motor. It is based on deadbeat-direct torque and flux control (DB-DTFC) to reduce the torque ripple and improve the steady performance compared with conventional SVPWM-DTC system. DB-DTFC calculates the control input of next control period so that a new stator current observer is proposed to predict the stator current in next control period. Simulation is built up to verify the accuracy of the current observer and to validate the system performance. Then, experiments of the observer and the DB-DTFC system is implemented based on a 2-kW prototype motor. The results demonstrate the advantages of the DB-DTFC system.


aim of this thesis is to develop a method for self-localization of a UAV inspecting the electrical power distribution grid. The GPS and magnetometer measurements are degraded by the strong electromagnetic interference in such tasks. The following tasks will be solved: Abstract This thesis presents a localization method based on the fusion of GNSS and LiDAR measurements to improve the precision of the position estimate around high-voltage transmission towers. The study of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has become an important subfield of mobile robotics. One of its use cases is inspecting power lines and transmission towers and assisting in their maintenance. UAVs need precise navigation to function properly, especially in this task, as they can easily damage themselves or parts of power lines. Electromagnetic interference in the area further complicates this task by degrading the accuracy of magnetometers and GNSS, which are typically used for self-localization during outdoor missions. To reduce the influence of these interferences, we propose a system based on measurements from 3D LiDAR. This work describes the proposed system, including all the algorithms used, and evaluates the estimation error using a precise ground truth.


[Objective]To understand the prevalence of hepatitis B among enterprise employees in Qingyuan city,and to provide scientific basis for its prevention and control. [Methods]During 2009,employees from 10 enterprises in urban Qingyuan received occupational health examination,and their blood samples were collected.ELISA method was adopted for hepatitis B virus(HBV) serological detection. [Results]Of 9 850 blood samples,the total positive rate of HBsAg,HBsAb,HBeAg,HBeAb,HBcAb was 5.62%,63.81%,0.63%,9.72%,11.74%,respectively,among which HBsAg positive rate of male(6.80%) was higher than that of female(4.03%),state-owned enterprise employees(7.17%) was higher than overseas-invested enterprise employees(4.52%)(both P20.01).HBsAb positive rate of female workers(66.86%) was higher than that of male workers(61.57%),state-owned enterprise employees(66.31%) was higher than overseas-invested enterprise employees(62.03%)(both P0.01).Detection of hepatitis B 5 markers showed total infection rate of HBV was 71.08%,58.79% of single HBsAb positive rate, 0.60% of HBV-marker modes of HBsAg+,HBeAg+,HBcAb+,3.77% of HBV-marker modes of HBsAg+,HBeAb+,HBcAb+,28.92% of HBV negative. [Conclusion]The infection status of HBV among enterprise employees of urban Qingyuan is not optimistic.It is necessary to continue to strengthen hepatitis B vaccination,to strengthen prevention and control of hepatitis B,and to control hepatitis epidemic.


A two – year field trial was conducted in El-Boustan region, South El-Tahrir Province, El-Behira Governorate, Egypt to decrease mineral nitrogen (N) inputs of sunflower and increase yield and quality of the intercrops to achieve farmer's benefit under sandy soil conditions. A split-plot design with three replicates was used. Quality of sunflower and soybean seeds was tested in the laboratories of Seed Technology Research Department, Field Crops Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center. For soybean crop, average yield of soybean with sunflower was greater by intercropping soybean with sunflower that spaced at 40 cm in the same ridge. Slow – release N fertilizer rates of sunflower did not affect all the studied soybean traits. Also, soybean yield and its attributes were not affected by the interaction between sunflower plant spacing and slow – release N fertilizer rates of sunflower. Seed oil content of soybean was increased by increasing sunflower plant spacing from 20 to 40 cm, meanwhile quality of soybean seeds was not affected by slow – release N fertilizer rates of sunflower or the interaction between sunflower plant spacing and slow – release N fertilizer rates of sunflower. For sunflower crop, intercropping soybean with sunflower that spaced at 20 cm had the highest seed and oil yields per ha compared to the others. All the studied sunflower traits were increased by increasing N fertilizer rates of sunflower from 71.4 to 142.8 kg N/ha except number of leaves per plant. The interaction between sunflower plant spacing and slow – release N fertilizer rates of sunflower affected significantly all the studied sunflower traits except number of leaves per plant. Quality of sunflower seeds was not affected significantly by sunflower plant spacing but it was increased by increasing N fertilizer rates of sunflower from 71.4 to 142.8 kg N/ha. The interaction between sunflower plant spacing and slow – release N fertilizer rates of sunflower did not affect quality of sunflower seeds. Land equivalent ratio values for intercrops were much greater than 1.00 indicating less land requirements of intercropping systems than sole sunflower. Farmer's benefit was achieved by intercropping soybean with sunflower plants that spaced at 20 cm between hills (50% soybean + 100% sunflower) and received 75% of the recommended mineral N fertilizer rate of sunflower under sandy soil conditions.


Sex is an easily identifiable characteristic of an individual. Sex composition of a population refers to the balance between male and female in any population. It can be expressed either in the form of proportion of a particular sex in the population or as a ratio between the population of two sexes. As is obvious, the first one gives the number of males per hundred females or number of males per thousand females in the population and is the most widely used measure of sex ratio the world over. On the country the second provides the number of females per hundred males or number of females per thousand males in the population. Sex ratio as used in this study is expressed as the number of females per 1000 males. Sex ratio is an important determinant for assessing composition of population, quality of life, levels of development and level of human resources, level of participation in different economic activities of males or females of a particular region. The preview of the present study is to assess the spatial pattern of urban sex ratio: A case study of Koch Bihar district, West Bengal (India).


The extent of systemic forms of mother–child separation has received insufficient attention in research on migrant families. In this article, I explore the littlestudied phenomenon of mother–infant separation among professional women migrants. I draw from in-depth interviews with Indonesian professional women working in Singapore who have lived apart from their infant children to pursue work and education. Narratives of separation illustrate a complex transnational network of care built around an availability of support offered by spouses or extended kin. Women experience unease about separation, which emerges in how they talk about their absent infants. Mothers articulate ambivalence about the potential cost of their decisions, positing infants as able to pass judgement on them, with potential rejection and disengagement causing them potent concerns. The unease of these mothers moderates claims that transnational separation is readily managed and highlights the ambiguity embedded in an increasingly common form of transnational mother–child separation.


We present two generic classes of supersymmetric solutions of N = 2, d = 4 supergravity coupled to non-Abelian vector supermultiplets with a gauge group that includes an SU(2) factor. The first class consists of embeddings of the 't HooftPolyakov monopole and in the examples considered it has a fully regular, asymptotically flat space-time metric without event horizons. The other class of solutions consists of regular non-Abelian extreme black holes. There is a covariant attractor at the horizon of these non-Abelian black holes.


Self-directed learning is described as an individual taking the initiative to engage in a learning experience while assuming responsibility to follow through to its conclusion. Robotics competitions are examples of informal environments that can facilitate self-directed learning. This study examined how mentor involvement, student behavior, and physical workspace contributed to self-directed learning on one robotics competition team. How did mentors transfer responsibility to students? How did students respond to managing a team? Are the physical attributes of a workspace important? The mentor, student, and workplace factors captured in the research showed mentors wanting students to do the work, students assuming leadership roles, and the limited workspace having a positive effect on student productivity.


Administration of exogenous CDNs to activate the cGAMP-STING pathway is a promising therapeutic strategy to unleash the full potential of cancer immunotherapy. This strategy mirrors the role of endogenous extracellular cGAMP, which we recently described as an immunotransmitter exported by cancer cells and imported into local responder cells of unknown identities to promote anti-tumoral immunity, with irradiation enhancing this effect. Here, in low-dose irradiated murine tumors, we identified CD4+ T cells, M1 macrophages, and NKG2DLow NK cells as cGAMP responder cells that have decreased STING activation upon depletion of extracellular cGAMP. At higher doses of radiation, extracellular cGAMP promoted the death of T cells and macrophages. Furthermore, we identified the orphan protein SLC46A2 as the dominant importer of cGAMP and select bacterial CDNs in human macrophages and monocytes. Together, we provide the first cellular and molecular mechanisms of cGAMP as an immunotransmitter, paving the way for effective STING pathway therapeutics.


Abstract Uccellini and Johnson present a case study of a severe weather event in Ohio on 10–11 May 1973 to show evidence for coupling between an upper-tropospheric jet streak and a low-level jet within an indirect transverse circulation found in the exit region of the upper-level jet. The differential advection of moisture and temperature created by the shear between the upper- and low-level jets reduced convective stability, thereby enhancing the potential for severe convection. Two 12 h numerical simulations of the 10–11 May 1973 case are studied to determine 1) if a transverse indirect circulation with a low-level jet imbedded in its lower branch can be diagnosed in the exit region of the upper-level jet and studied using the model output at 3 h intervals and 2) if the initial magnitude and structure of the upper-level jet have a significant effect on the subsequent development of the low-level jet and the decrease in convectivc stability due to differential advection. In an adiabatic model simulation,...


The energy absorption property of closed-cell foam metals with matrix Al,matrix Al-Si12,matrix Al-Si6,matrix Mg,matrix Al-fiber and matrix RE-Al alloys are investigated by the compression,impact and split Hopkinson pressure bar(SHPB) test.And the micro-mechanics failure mechanism of closed-cell foam metals is discussed.Quasi-static experiment results show that the mechanical properties of different foam metals are different,and the maximum of compressive strength is about 5 MPa.Impact test results indicate that the maximum of compressive strength and absorbing energy value are about 15 MPa and 29 J,respectively.The closed-cell foam metals exhibit good energy-absorption ability on the optimal conditions that density is 0.35–0.70 g/cm3,porosity is 65%–87% and pore diameter is 1.0–4.0 mm.The micro-morphology of closed-cell foam metal with matrix Al is obvious tear trace,indicating that it has toughness characteristics.Compared with quasi-static experiment results,closed-cell foam metals with matrix Al is good for energy absorption materials because of its high absorbing energy value and deformation.Similar experimental results show that bolt and U steel support roadway have impact deformation or damage,and the blunt support roadway is better in integrity.


This paper describes the simulation of the generation of high speed liquid jet injected to quiescent air including the compressible liquid dynamics in the nozzle (before injection) using computational fluid dynamics technique (FLUENT code). In this study, in the experiment, the high speed liquid jet is generated by using the impact driven method which the liquid retained in nozzle cavity is impacted by a high velocity projectile. In the numerical model, velocity of projectile driving through the nozzle was calculated with conservation equation of momentum of projectile. At initial condition, closed system domain consists of two parts which are nozzle and test chamber containing the compressible liquid and air respectively. In this study, projectile impact velocities are 300 m/s and 700 m/s. Two types of liquid jets, e.g. water and diesel were investigated. The CFD results show good agreement to the previous experimental results. In addition, simulation results proved the dynamics characteristics of multiple pulsed high speed liquid jets driven by projectile impact. From this study, it is the first reveal on the characteristics of the high speed liquid jet injected into quiescent air and liquid dynamics in the nozzle using CFD technique and will be further challenge for the study in this field.


Cardiac electrophysiology (EP) is a rapidly growing field in the health care sector globally. Evidence from European and American retrospective registries have shown that cardiac arrhythmias can be treated both medically and through intervention via catheter ablation. These registries have described disease burden, procedural success rates, and complication rates as well as patients' electrophysiological and clinical characteristics. Currently, there is minimal data describing these factors in South Africa (SA). Aims and objectives: The primary aim of this study was to describe the clinical characteristics, disease prevalence and the success and complication rates of EP procedures in the first year of a newly established service at a tertiary referral centre in SA. Methodology: Patients who were referred to the Tygerberg Hospital EP service in the year 2019 were retrospectively included. Clinical, electrophysiological, and echocardiographic data were anonymized, de-identified, and recorded into a password-protected Microsoft Excel case report form (CRF). For the continuous variables, means and standard deviations were used to analyse the data. For the categorical variables, the Pearsons chi-square tests and the Fisher exact tests were used. A p-value of <0.05 was regarded as statistically significant. Results: A total of 73 patients were retrospectively included in the study. Thirty-nine were males (53.0%) and 34 were females (47.0%). The mean age for this population was 49.5±14.3 years (males-mean 51.9±14.4 years; females-mean 46.8±13.7 years). Patients were symptomatic in the form of palpitations (n=55 [75.0%]), dyspnoea and pre-syncope (n=36 [49.3%] each). Beta-blockers were the most commonly used medication to treat patients in this study, being prescribed to 64 (87.6%) patients. There were 13 (17.8%) patients treated with medical therapy alone, and 60 (82.2%) patients were advised to undergo an EP study (EPS) with catheter ablation if indicated. Three patients declined this treatment, and 57 EPS were performed. Of the 57 patients undergoing an EPS, eight (14.0%) had diagnostic studies only, with four (7.0%) patients being non-inducible and four (7.0%) patients with arrhythmia substrate that were not ablated. The other 49 patients (86.0%) underwent catheter ablation. Twenty-one patients (39.6%) were diagnosed with atrial flutter (AFL), of which 19 (35.8%) underwent cavotricuspid isthmus (CTI) ablation. Twenty-nine (54.7%) patients were diagnosed with a paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). Of these 13 (24.5%) had atrioventricular nodal re-entry tachycardia (AVNRT), 15 (28.3%) had atrioventricular re-entry tachycardia (AVRT) and one patient had both AVNRT and AVRT. Atrial tachycardia (AT) was diagnosed in two patients (3.8%). In the 29 (54.7%) patients with SVT, 27 ablations were done in 26 patients, with 24 (92.3%) of the 26 patients having a successful procedure on the first attempt. Atrioventricular nodal ablations (AVNA) were performed on two patients with poorly controlled atrial fibrillation (AF). Only one (1.9%) patient underwent an EPS for ventricular tachycardia (VT) and this patient had a successful ablation for idiopathic right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) VT. The success rate for ablation procedures in this cohort was 95.9%. Echocardiograms were available for 57 (78.1%) of the study population. As was to be expected, structural heart disease was more common in the AFL group compared to the SVT group, with this group having larger atria, larger ventricles, poorer LV function and more diastolic dysfunction than the SVT group (p<0.05 for all of these variables). At follow-up, patients reported a significant (78.6%) decrease in the prevalence of arrhythmia-related symptoms. Dyspnoea, palpitations, pre-syncope, and syncope were all significantly reduced, with a p-value <0.01. The need for cardioversion was also significantly reduced at follow-up with a p-value <0.01. Conclusion: This registry, the first of its nature in SA sought to identify disease prevalence, clinical characteristics of EP patients and the success and complication rates of ablation procedures. This provides novel setting-specific information. This study showed that referral for tertiary arrhythmia management was infrequent, with 73 patients referred in 2019. The most common arrhythmia was SVT, followed by AFL. Ablation procedures were safe and effective. Reasons for the low referral are likely to be multifactorial including lack of awareness on the part of patients and physicians, as well as logistical aspects


In this paper a mixed ICT and Optimal Power flow approach is used for the optimal management of a battery storage system in microgrids. The proposed optimisation criterion is based on the possibility to select a subset of microgrids with the aim to reduce the total cost of system due to fluctuations fine costs and degradation costs (calendar and cycle aging) of the storage system. Considering an observation period of one year, results show that for a significant part of the time, under the economic point of view it is more advantageous to select a subset of microgrids instead of selecting all. Results shows that the proposed management strategy provides an economic advantage with a net gain of about 20%.


Abstract : Absent a strategic shift in the ongoing efforts to build an Afghan National Police (ANP) force, the USG and its coalition partners will continue to create an organization that is ineffective at both counterinsurgency and policing. The JAWP team recommends an adjusted approach less focused on the number of personnel trained and more focused on building a credible, professional, police force. To achieve overall sustainable security and justice, this force would need to be supported by a concurrently developed and balanced holistic justice system and complemented by the government-supported utilization of the traditional, customary rural justice and security systems.


The paper discusses the problem of subrogation of the Guarantee Fund, especially in a case when
a person who failed to take out the third-party liability motor insurance was not liable for the accident.
The author presents current trends in Portuguese case-law on this matter and examines whether
the Guarantee Fund should be entitled to claim the redress.


In European phytosociology, national classifications of
corresponding vegetation types show considerable differences
even between neighbouring countries. Therefore, the European
Vegetation Survey project urgently needs numerical
classification methods for large datasets that are able to
produce compatible classifications using datasets from
different countries. We tested the ability of two methods,
TWINSPAN and COCKTAIL, to produce similar classifications of
wet meadows (Calthion, incl. Filipendulenion) for Germany (7909
releves) and the Czech Republic (1287 releves) in this respect.
In TWINSPAN, the indicator ordination option was used for
classification of two national datasets, and the extracted
assignment criteria (indicator species) were applied crosswise
from one to the other national dataset. Although the datasets
presumably contained similar community types, TWINSPAN revealed
almost no correspondence between the groups derived from the
proper classification of the national dataset and the groups
defined by the assignment criteria taken from the other
national dataset. The reason is probably the difference in
structure between the national datasets, which is a typical,
but hardly avoidable, feature of any pair of phytosociological
datasets. As a result, the first axis of correspondence
analysis, and consequently the first TWINSPAN division, are
associated with different environmental gradients; the
difference in the first division is transferred and multiplied
further down the hierarchy. COCKTAIL is a method which produces
releve groups on the basis of statistically formed species
groups. The user determines the starting points for the
formation of species groups, and groups already found in one
dataset can be tested for existence in the other dataset. The
correspondence between the national classifications produced by
COCKTAIL was fairly good. For some releve groups, the lack of
correspondence to groups in the other national dataset could be
explained by absence of the corresponding vegetation types in
one of the countries, rather than by methodological problems.


AbstractThe dependence of the sedimentation rate of donor blood on its percentage in the sample (the degree of its dilution with physiologic saline) ranging from 0.25 to 100% (whole undiluted blood) is investigated with digital video equipment. The ratio of the value of displacement of the sediment–supernatant boundary per time unit was taken as the blood sedimentation rate. In case of registration of different speeds of movement of this boundary in a given volume of the cuvette, their spatial averaging was performed. A substantial increase in the blood sedimentation rate was found experimentally at high levels of its dilution, and, conversely, at blood concentrations in physiologic saline solutions that are close to whole blood. At the same time, the rate of blood sedimentation decreased several times with blood content in the range of 30–50%. It was experimentally shown that variation of blood content in the physiologic saline solution over a wide range did not affect the evenness of sedimentation occurring for almost any blood concentration in the mixture. In other words, in the process of sedimentation of a single blood sample of a given dilution in the physiologic saline solution, the sedimentation rate does not change with time. The experimentally obtained results allowed to build a theoretical model of blood sedimentation for two cases: 1) sedimentation of free erythrocytes (highly diluted blood) and 2) sedimentation of erythrocyte aggregates (almost undiluted blood, up to whole blood). The originality of the model comes from the proposition to consider the sedimentation of cells and/or their aggregates as a collective effect, and not in the traditional form of sedimentation of individual particles or particles interacting with each other. This model gives a satisfactory agreement with experimental laws with the use of certain empirical constants. The study is useful for understanding the process of erythrocyte sedimentation.


This paper presents the performance analysis of an integrated renewable energy based power generation system with DC micro grid setup. The designed system comprises of wind generator (WG) system, photovoltaic (PV) panels, battery, charge controllers and DC loads as its major components. PV panels have the major contribution of supply hence it is the primary source for the designed system. WG acts as a secondary source because of its lower contribution in the supply. Lead acid battery is used as an energy storage system (ESS) to make the system more reliable by fulfilling the supply demand gap between the source and load. The proposed system presents a low cost, simple design integrated system based on basic electronic components with key features of stable voltages at load terminals, overvoltage and low voltage protection for load, back feed power flow protection for sources and overcharge and discharge protection for the battery backup. Real time results have been presented and proved that voltages have been maintained at the load terminals with small variation of 10–12%. This makes the system efficient and does not create much adverse effects on the load performance. The proposed system is suitable for off-grid remote areas facilities which offers reliable, cost effective and efficient system that maintains the voltage stability and improves the battery life.


Older Dementia people are social vulnerable groups.Under the instruction of social support theory,social workers and caregivers provide social support for them,that is making extensive use of all kinds of social resources to improve their present living conditions.The understanding and application of social support theory of social workers for the elderly can supply research value and practical experience for further improving the caring quality of dementia elderly.


Objective Discussion severe head injury after a large area cerebral infarction in the pathogenesis and treatment. Method 26 patients with severe head injury patients with a large area cerebral infarction were retrospectively analyzed. Result Grade according to GOS: 12 examples death, plant existing 6 cases, severe disability 4 cases, middle disability 3 cases, good recovery 1 cases.Conclusions Severe head injury after a large area cerebral infarction patients make early diagnosis 、understanding of pathogenesis and effective treatment improve the prognosis of patients 、improving the quality of life.

Key words:
Severe head injury;  Cerebral infarction


Increasing Solid waste generation and its management has been one of the key concerns for governing bodies around the world. Land filling is the only technique practiced majorly at present for solid waste disposal. However, most of the landfill sites are associated with numerous problems such open dumping, quick filling of landfills, availability of free land, causing severe environmental impacts like odor and pest problem, contamination by Leachate, health hazards to surrounding people etc. [1-3]. Yet another major concern with landfill sites is number of landfill sites are far lesser compared to actual amount of waste produced. Though there is an extensive interest on part of government and local bodies the disposal of MSW is major environmental problem which needs immediate thought as the existing disposal methods have failed to address the issue completely [4].


The concepts of diplomacy and foreign policy are directly connected. Continuing events on the world stage and the interaction of political figures (heads of state and diplomatic workers) lead to the formation of a common international situation. The current general international situation has a significant effect on the foreign policy of countries. Diplomacy is a key tool for the successful conduct of the foreign policy of each active participating state. Foreign policy significantly affects the independent system of law governing interstate relations, while diplomacy helps to formulate general international rules for this system. In this respect, the relationship of the concepts under consideration is clearly expressed. In the course of the study there are lexical units of the semantic field "diplomacy" and "foreign policy" were selected from Russian and English dictionaries with political and diplomatic designations; there was studied and verified the material in the form of diplomatic documents, protocols and international agreements.


test suites (Parts 301...) Conformance testing (Parts 31-39) Application protocols (Parts 201...) Application interpreted constructs (Parts 501...) Integrated resources Description methods (Parts 11-19) Implementation forms (Parts 21-29) Generic resources (Parts 41...) Application resources (Parts 101...) Figure 12: the STEP document structure Description methods The scope of the description methods class is that of the languages and methods used to create standard representations of product data. The description methods have been allocated part numbers between 11 and 19. To date, three parts have been identified within the description methods class: • Part 11: "The EXPRESS language reference manual"; • Part 12: "The EXPRESS-I language reference manual"; • Part 13: "Architecture and methodology reference manual". Part 11 is included within the initial release of STEP. The structure and content of STEP 55 One of the key objectives of STEP is to provide unambiguous, computerinterpretable representation of product data. This is supported through the use of the EXPRESS language. EXPRESS is a data specification language that is used to represent the structure of data and any constraints that may apply to it. The data models contained in the STEP Integrated Resources and Application Protocols are defined using EXPRESS. Although EXPRESS resembles some programming languages, it cannot be used to define executable programs; rather, it is used to define the data on which programs operate. EXPRESS supports: • the definition of data entities, attributes, and relationships; • the specification of local and global constraints on these; • the collection of data definitions and constraints in separate schemas, supporting modular development of data models. Although EXPRESS has been developed as part of STEP, it is now widely used in other standardization, research, and integration projects. Further information about the EXPRESS language is given in Appendix B; Chapter 10 includes a summary of some of the software tools that are available to work with EXPRESS. The second STEP part in the description methods class is EXPRESS-I. This is a standard data instance definition language, ie. it may be used to specify actual values within an EXPRESS schema. EXPRESS-I is particularly useful in the specification of test data. Part 13 of the standard describes the detailed structure of STEP and the methods used to develop its various elements. It is intended to provide a definitive statement of the STEP architecture and methods, to enable the application of the methodology, and to serve as a basis for training. A summary of the STEP architecture and methodology is given in Appendix A of this book. Implementation forms One of the key differences between STEP and previous standards in the areas of CAD/CAM data exchange or data management is the separation of data definition from implementation. Thus within STEP the data models defined in the standard are designed to be independent from the various ways in which they may be implemented. The implementation forms class of parts defines standard 56 STEP for data management, exchange and sharing formats for data instances and values, and the mappings between these formats and the EXPRESS language. The implementation forms have been allocated part numbers between 21 and 29. To date, five parts have been identified within the implementation forms class. The most important of these are: • Part 21: "Clear text encoding of the exchange structure" defines the standard format for encoding of data in a file, and supports the exchange of data between applications. • Part 22: "Standard data access interface" enables access to product data within an application (an "engineering" application or a database management system) independently of the internal form of data storage within the application. Part 21 (commonly referred to as the "physical file" format) is part of the initial release of STEP. As well as Part 22 (commonly referred to as the "SDAI"), several additional parts within the implementation forms class define the bindings between the SDAI and specific programming languages including C, C++ and FORTRAN. An implementation form is not sufficient to define the complete requirements for a conforming implementation of STEP; in addition, a data model is required that defines the structure and semantics of the data to be handled by the implementation. Within the architecture of STEP, these data models are provided within Application Protocols, as described below. An implementation of STEP combines an Application Protocol with an Implementation Form; thus, the same data model is used (for example) for exchange of engineering drawings using files (on disc or tape) or for standard access to drawings within a database. Chapter 6 provides additional information on implementation forms, and their place within the implementation architecture of STEP. Integrated resources In Chapter 3, the idea of a conceptual data model was introduced. Within STEP, a single conceptual data model has been developed that reflects and supports the common requirements of many different product data application areas. This conceptual data model is modular in nature, and is published within the Integrated Resources class of parts. Even though the Integrated Resources are documented as a number of separate parts, the data model that they contain logically constitutes a single, integrated conceptual product data model. The structure and content of STEP 57 For the purposes of publication, Integrated Resources are divided into two separate series of parts: • the integrated generic resources (Parts 41...99) define the components of the conceptual product data model that are independent of applications; for example, Part 42 "Geometric and topological representation" defines the standard representations for the shapes of objects, independent of any specific use of the shape information; • the integrated application resources (Parts 101...199) extend the generic resources to support the needs of specific groups of applications; for example, Part 101 "Draughting" defines the common data requirements of all applications that incorporate or make use of engineering drawings. The Integrated Resources provide the developers of STEP Application Protocols with standard definitions of product data; they are not themselves intended for direct implementation. In this respect they may be loosely compared to a collection of library routines used by programmers: Integrated Resources define reusable components that are intended to be combined and refined (within an Application Protocol) to meet a specific need. Six parts in the integrated resources series are included in the initial release of STEP: • Part 41 "Fundamentals of product description and support"; • Part 42 "Geometric and topological representation"; • Part 43 "Representation structures"; • Part 44 "Product structure configuration"; • Part 46 "Visual presentation"; • Part 101 "Draughting". Several other Integrated Resource parts have been developed for later publication, as required to fulfil the requirements of new Application Protocols. 58 STEP for data management, exchange and sharing Application protocols By far the largest, and in many senses the most important class of parts is the Application Protocols class. Application Protocols are numbered from part 201 onwards; two Application Protocols are included in the initial release of STEP: • Part 201: Explicit draughting; • Part 203: Configuration controlled design. Many others are being developed for later publication. Application Protocols define and fulfil the requirements of an identified application of product data related to a specific industry need. This should be contrasted with the generic, application-independent nature of the Integrated Resources. It is noted above that Part 42 of STEP defines standard representations of geometry: an Application Protocol will, for example, define how these representations are used to exchange the designed shape of the wing of an aeroplane, or the inservice shape of the hull of a ship, or the shape of the access area around a pump within a petro-chemical plant. These are examples of uses of shape that may be supported by appropriately designed Application Protocols. Part 1 of STEP defines an Application Protocol as: "a part ... (of ISO 10303) ... that describes the use of integrated resources satisfying the scope and information requirements for a specific application context." This definition highlights a key characteristic of Application Protocols: they are uses of the STEP Integrated Resources, but do not extend the data model defined in the Integrated Resources. This characteristic ensures a high degree of uniformity across different Application Protocols, ensuring that common or similar requirements are satisfied using a common or similar solution. The role of an Application Protocol is to provide the basis for implementations of STEP, and to enable the assessment of conformance of implementations. As noted in Chapter 2, Application Protocols were introduced into IGES as a mechanism for defining controlled, meaningful subsets within the standard. STEP has extended and refined this concept considerably, and the development of STEP is now focused on the development of Application Protocols to meet the requirements of a wide range of industry sectors and application areas. The structure and content of STEP 59 Clearly, this diversity has to be managed: otherwise, STEP would consist of a collection of separate, industryor discipline-specific Application Protocols. The costs of implementing and supporting these would be very high as new interfaces would have to be written from scratch for each Application Protocol. However, the diversification of Application Protocols is not only managed; it is a conscious design intent of STEP that Application Protocols should be consistent. This consistency is a


Students with hearing impairments may get discouraged by the prospect of being able to find employment where their communication needs are accommodated. That, in turn, could hinder persistence.


The placement of elemental operations (as opposed to data) of a data-driven data-parallel computation in a network of processors is examined. A fast suboptimal algorithm is proposed for such placement which tends to minimise the overall network load when the computation is essentially nonlocal. The cases of grid, torus and hypercube topology are considered. It is shown that the proposed algorithm, while having moderate computational complexity, demonstrates up to a 50% reduction in required network throughput over some straightforward placement schemes in the practical range of network sizes.


Tolerance has occupied the efforts of transplant scientists and physicians since the first successful clinical transplants in the 1950s. The development of new therapeutic agents combined with a more detailed understanding of alloimmunity has intensified this interest and prompted clinical trials aimed at achieving drug-free acceptance of transplanted organs. Despite this enthusiasm, progress has been slower than many predicted as new barriers to tolerance have been appreciated. In this issue, Fudaba and colleagues describe an approach to achieving tolerance to transplanted kidneys in patients with renal failure and multiple myeloma that had failed to respond to traditional chemotherapeutic agents. They report six individuals who following nonmyeloablative conditioning underwent bone marrow and kidney transplantation from HLA-identical siblings. Following a short course of immunosuppression, all six patients accepted the transplanted kidney with five of the six maintaining good function. Only one individual developed rejection, which responded to a temporary reintroduction of immunosuppression. Tumor control was achieved in the majority of these patients who presented with advanced disease with complete remission in three patients and partial remission in one patient. Achieving this degree of success in a patient group considered by many to be untreatable is truly remarkable.


1. The best fit curves were determined using locally weighted polynomial regression. A recent meta-analysis published in the journal Nature Climate Change, by Challinor et al. (2014) examines 1,722 crop model simulations, run using global climate model output under several emissions scenarios, to evaluate the potential effects of climate change and adaptation on crop yield. The authors find that, without adaptation, projected corn, rice and wheat production is reduced when areas experience 2.0 °C or more of local warming, with losses greater in the second half of the century due to larger changes in climate. Crop-level adaptations are projected to be able to increase yields by an average of 7-15% when compared to similar scenarios that do not utilize adaptation. Projections indicate that adaptation may be more successful for wheat and rice than for corn. Though less data is available on yield variability, Challinor et al. find that it is likely to increase. The world's cereal grain harvest is primarily made up of three crops: corn, rice and wheat, with corn being the largest harvest, at over 900 million metric tons produced annually (compare with around 700 million metric tons for rice and wheat, just over 100 metric tons for barley, the next largest grain, and just under 300 million metric tons for soy). While rice and wheat are mostly grown for direct human consumption, most corn is grown for livestock feed and it is also used for ethanol production. Grain production can be affected by a variety of factors including climate, competition for both land and water from other uses, demand, disease, pests, soil quality, weather and weeds. As the Earth's climate changes, it is expected that Figure 1: Quantification of the benefits of adaptation, from Challinor et al. (2014). The above figure shows the percent change in yield as a function of (a) temperature and (b) precipitation. The dots represent the results from individual simulations, the solid curves 1 represent averages and shading indicates 95 % confidence intervals 2 (i.e. there is a 95% chance that the shaded interval includes the true average response to temperature or precipitation change). Orange dots, lines and shading are used for the no adaptation simulations, whereas blue is used for simulations that assume adaptation. The figure indicates that adaptation may be effective at offsetting yield losses across a variety of precipitation changes and temperature increases. However, note that each panel of the …


One blowout pattern is a zone on multiple data streams in which the data points are dense but highly unbalanced. It can be applied into a variety of fields. for example, it may imply a successful sales promotion especially for a few areas. the difficulties of exploring blowout patterns are: 1). It is not periodic, 2). the distribution is unknown, and 3). How to distinguish it from outliers or clusters. We have proposed a novel method for it. First, we employ a density based clustering algorithm to detect dense data points. Second, we use a novel concept (Normal Standard Deviation: NSD) for the evaluation of the data distribution in the zones. the zones that include dense but unbalanced data points are highlighted as significant blowout patterns. the results demonstrate that our method can find and locate blowout patterns efficiently and effectively compared to kernel framework and slide window.


Beams of 42-MeV alpha particles were elastically and inelastically scattered from Cu-65 in an attempt to excite states which may be described in terms of an excited core model. Angular distributions were measured for 17 excited states. Seven of the excited states had angular distributions similar to a core quadrupole excitation and eight of the excited states had angular distributions similar to a core octupole excitation. The excited state at 2.858 MeV had an angular distribution which suggests that it may have results from the particle coupling to a two-phonon core state. An extended particle-core coupling calculation was performed and the predicted energy levels and reduced transition probabilities compared to the experimental data. The low lying levels are described quite well and the wavefunctions of these states explain the large spectroscopic factors measured in stripping reactions. For Cu-65 the coupling of the particle to the core is no larger weak as in the simpler model, and configuration mixing results.


Crime and its associated fear are very topical issues. In academia, this has been studied in terms of the use of public spaces, primarily within an urban setting. This has been found a highly gendered phenomenon, argued by feminist geographers as a social construction, along with gender itself. This independent study aims to consolidate this previous work by researching the experiences and opinions of women who use public spaces in an urban and suburban context. The study identifies key areas of interest which are all deemed of importance, either in theoretical knowledge or in everyday life. In researching these theoretical standpoints and studies, it investigates the deeper societal issues regarding gender, space and the public private dichotomy and then questions whether these are still applicable in the contemporary field of geography. Using these particular concepts, it employs primary qualitative research from �the field� to expand on the central aims and objectives with reference to participant emotions and attitudes towards fear and the avoidance of public space. It also researches the effect of urban design and the justification of fear with regard to other societal constructs such as age, motherhood and temporal differences. The themes by which these results are grouped indicate the important features of public life as discovered in the research. In conclusion, it is argued that there is no easy solution to all of the problems affecting public space, but that the opinions of the general public should, at the very least, be considered in urban design practices to ensure such spaces are liveable and accessible to everyone.


THE vane-type flow meter was calibrated for a range
of operating conditions both in the hydraulics laboratory
at Colorado State University and through a
field trial. Three meters were tested, all of which were
made for a 2-ft rectangular section. Each of the meters
was a production model furnished by the manufacturer.


Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter (PM), or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans and other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment. The substance that is solid, liquid or gas in the air that cause harm to humans and the environment is known as pollutants. These pollutants are classified into primary and secondary. This review mentioned sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, ammonia, odours, radioactive pollutants as primary pollutants whiles particulate matter, ground level ozone and peroxyoxyacetyl nitrate were mentioned as secondary pollutants. The effects of these pollutants on health and the environment were also not left out of this review. Furthermore, adsorption, absorption and incineration processes were mentioned as the three basic techniques for controlling gases. Finally, this review revealed that air borne particles could only be removed physically using equipment such as cyclones, scrubbers, electrostatic precipators and bag house filters for collecting the fine particulates.


Aim. Description of the endoscopic and clinical traits of heterotopic gastric mucosa (HGM) observed in cervical oesophagus.Key points. HGM in proximal oesophagus can be asymptomatic or have various clinical manifestations. A 40-yo female patient consulted a gastroenterologist with complaints of cough and globus sensation. For several years she was visiting an otorhinolaryngologist and psychotherapist, with therapy ineffective. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGDS) at the last visit revealed several foci of HGM in cervical oesophagus of 1.2 x 0.8 cm maximal size. The patient was prescribed a combined prokinetic — proton pump inhibitor therapy, which relieved the symptoms. EGDS in a 21-yo patient without active complaints revealed a 2 cm-wide HGM of 4/5 cervical oesophageal lining with acidproducing zones.Conclusion. Two different scenarios of cervical oesophageal HGM are described, the first one manifested with laryngopharyngeal reflux, and the second devoid of clinical manifestations despite a large heterotopic site.


The work was carried out on Wistar rats. The reaction of microcirculatory vessels to the laser irradiation was performed in the condition of an 'open window'. Together with the method of laser Doppler flowmetry we studied the state of tissue blood flow in the cortical area of the brain. Low-intensity laser irradiation at a dose of 3 and 6 J/cm2 was carried out in the red and infrared spectral ranges. Results. Low-intensity laser irradiation of blood vessels of the pia mater at a dose of 3 J/cm2 has a stimulating effect on the microcirculation. The response was dose-dependent up to the threshold limit reactivity. Most sensitive to laser irradiation were the smallest pre-cortical arterioles, which are the final link of multiple branching pial vessels. The high reactivity of the pial microcirculatory vessels was found out in newborn and young animals, and its decline in mature rats. Increasing the dose of laser irradiation to 6 J/cm2 led to a drop in blood flow and the appearance of signs of microcirculation disorders. Conclusions. Within the therapeutic doses the laser irradiation has a photo stimulating effect on cerebral blood flow.


"Work means everything to us," James Livingston writes in the introduction to his recent book, No More Work: Why Full Employment Is A Bad Idea. The meaning of work, what Livingston calls the work ethic, is our problem. "And we've believed that, even if it sucks, a job gives meaning, purpose and structure to our everyday lives—at any rate, we're pretty sure that it gets us out of bed, pays the bills, makes us feel responsible, and keeps us away from daytime TV." The time for this mode of thinking, we learn, has passed. "These beliefs are no longer plausible," Livingston says. "In fact, they've become ridiculous, because there's not enough work to go around, and what there is of it won't pay the bills."


An approximate theoretical analysis of the optical injection locking phenomenon in MESFET oscillators is presented. The locking ranges estimated in the frame of this analysis are in quite fair agreement with those found experimentally. Introduction Optical injection locking of GaAs MESFET oscillators has recently been observed[']. The phase locking of FET oscillators occurs when an optical signal, amplitude modulated at a frequency close to the free -running frequency of the oscillator is absorbed in the active region of the device. High isolation between output signal and locking signal is obtained due to the inherent isolation of the optical process. However, for the structure of the MESFET used, the efficiency of the optical absorption in its active region is poor. Therefo re high locking gains and limited locking ranges are expected. The present work has been developed elsewhere [2] in more detail. The approximate optical injection locking analysis is described and a comparison with the experiments is briefly presented. Optical Injection Locking The optical injection locking analysis is carried out in an identical manner as the elec trical injection locking in transmission type oscillators 3'41. The optical injected locking current is represented in the input circuit by an equivalent locking current generator IL and the locking range is then calculated at the output port. The equivalent locking current generator IL injects the same current as the photocurrent generated in the active region of the MESFET at a frequency close to the free running oscillation frequency. Fig. 1 illustrates the small signal equivalent circuit of the intrinsic MESFET with the current generator IL accounting for the optically injected signal in the gate circuit.


BR23, BRRI dhan40, BRRI dhan41, BRRI dhan53 and BRRI dhan54 possess salinity tolerance up to EC 8 dS m in addition to high yield potential (> 4.0 t/ha), lodging tolerance and 10-38 days shorter growth duration over traditional rice varieties for the wet season. Development of BRRI dhan47, BINA dhan8, BRRI dhan53 and BRRI dhan55 for dry season was a major breakthrough for breeding salt tolerant rice in Bangladesh. BRRI dhan47 can tolerate EC 12 to 14 dS m salt stress. The potential yield of the varieties ranged from 5.4 to 8.3 t ha in different saline prone areas. Current efforts are to use advanced tools such as marker assisted selection (MAS) and marker assisted backcrossing (MABC) to introgress SalTol QTL into BR11. MABC for BRRI dhan28 was completed at IRRI. All of these introgressed lines are tested in the farmer's field in coastal regions. The principal focus was to pyramid multiple stress tolerant genes into mega-varieties of rice to ensure better adaptability in coastal salt affected areas.


The relationship between bacterial sulfate reduction and mercury methylation, as well as the in situ distribution of methylmercury in sediments, was studied in Quabbin Reservoir, MA. Fish methylmercury levels in Quabbin and other lakes affected by acid deposition are often elevated. However, the cause of acceleration of net methylmercury production or bioaccumulation in these lakes is poorly understood. Experimental additions of sulfate to either anoxic sediment slurries or lake water above intact sediment cores resulted in increased microbial production of methylmercury from added inorganic mercury


Measurement of resistance in-situ during rapid thermal annealing is a powerful technique for process characterization and optimization. A major advantage of in-situ resistance measurements is the very rapid process learning. With silicides, in-situ resistance measurements can quickly determine an appropriate thermal process in which a low resistance silicide phase is formed without the agglomeration or inversion of silicide/polycrystalline silicon structures. One example is an optimized two step anneal for CoSi 2 formation which was developed in less than one clay. Examples of process characterization include determining the phase formation kinetics of TiSi 2 ( C49 and C54 ), Co 2 Si, and CoSi 2 using in-situ ramped resistance measurements. The stability of TiSi 2 or CoSi 2 /poly-Si structures has also been characterized by isothermal measurements. Resistance measurements have been made at heating rates from 1 to 100°C/s and temperatures up to 1000°C. The sample temperature was calibrated by melting Ag, Al, or Au/Si eutectics.


We report the experimental characterization of efficiency enhancement in a single-pass seeded free-electron laser (FEL) where the electron energy is detuned from resonance. Experiments show a doubling of the efficiency for beam energies above the resonant energy. Measurements of the FEL spectra versus energy detuning shows that the wavelength is governed by the seed laser. The variation in the gain length with beam energy was also observed. Good agreement is found between the experiment and numerical simulations using the MEDUSA simulation code.


The central argument of my study is that, among other matters, in his works, J.M. Coetzee could be said to demonstrate that the known Self is an embodied being and is not autonomous. With regard to the latter contention, Coetzee intimates that any two Subjects are implicated in each other's subjectivities in a reciprocal process that involves what Derek Attridge has called "irruptions of otherness" (2005: xii) into the Subject's subjectivity. These irruptions, which happen during the encounter, lead to a double loss of autonomy for each Subject and this phenomenon renders the relationship between Subjects non-dichotomus or non-binaric. In other words, the Subject does not produce the contents of his or her consciousness in
a sui generis and ex nihilo fashion, and his or her ontological indebtedness to the Other constitutes his or her first loss of autonomy. As for those Others that do possess consciousness, the Subject is implicated in their consciousness and this constitutes the Subject's second loss of autonomy. These losses counter the near solipsistic Nagelian neo-Cartesianism and paves the way for imagining both intra- and inter-species "intersubjectivity". It is my view that this double loss of autonomy accounts for the sympathetic and empathetic imagination that we encounter in
Coetzee's fiction. Following Coetzee's intimations of intersubjectivity through irruptions of otherness, what I see as my contribution to studies on this author's work through this study is the link I have established between the physicalist strain within the philosophy of mind (whose central thesis is that consciousness is an embodied phenomenon) and a modified Kantian "metaphysics", especially Immanuel Kant's conception of concepts as comprising form and content. I have deployed this conception in demonstrating the Subject's ontological indebtedness to external sources of the content part of consciousness. And, through the Husserlian concept of
intentionality, and Kant's (1929: 27) observation that we cannot have appearances without something that appears, I have linked the Subject to the sources of his or her content and thereby also demonstrated that the Subject is not eternally separated or alienated from those sources. Instead, the Subject is not simply contiguous but coterminous and co-extensive, albeit in a mediated way, with the external sources of the content part of his or her consciousness. Thus, while accepting the thesis of the Other's radical otherness, I modify the thesis of the Other's radical exteriority. Ultimately, then, ontologically speaking, the Coetzeean project could be described as one of embodying and grounding the supposedly autonomous, solipsistic and freefloating/disembodied Cartesian Subject. This he does by alerting this Subject, first and foremost, to its embodiedness and, further to that, pointing out its ontological indebtedness to its Others and its implication in the Others's consciousnesses and so prevent it from continuing with its imperialistic and ecological barbarities. However, ethically…


A remote memory paging system called a distributed large memory (DLM) has been developed, which uses remote-node memories in a cluster, as the main memory extension of a local node. The DLM is available for out-of-core processing, i.e., processing of large-size data that exceeds the main memory capacity in the local node. By using the DLM and memory servers, it is possible to run multi-thread programs written in OpenMP and pthread for large-scale problems on a computation node whose main memory capacity is smaller than the problem data size. A page swap protocol and its implementation are significant factors in the performance of remote memory paging systems. A current version of the DLM has a bottleneck in efficient page swapping because all communication managements between memory servers and the local computation node are allocated to one system thread. This paper proposes two new page swap protocols and implementations by introducing another new system thread to alleviate this situation. They are evaluated by a micro-benchmark, Stream benchmark, and a 7-point stencil computation program. As a result, the proposed protocol improves the performance degradation ratio, i.e., the performance using the DLM divided by the performance using only the local memory, from 57% in the former protocol to 78% in stencil computation, which processes data whose capacity is four times larger than the local memory capacity.


This paper discusses the importance of the zoning system in the acceptance of SMA / SMK New Students (PPDB) towards the equal distribution of the quality of Human Resources (HR) in East Java Province. The zoning system in accepting high school / vocational students will prevent the accumulation of certain quality human resources in the region. Zoning of high school / vocational student admissions will encourage equal distribution of quality human resources in an area, making it easier to meet the needs of the workforce to support local economic activities. The author uses a descriptive qualitative approach in analyzing the application of zoning systems in PPDB SMA / SMK in East Java. A qualitative case study strategy was used to explain the impact of the policy in reducing disparity in human resource quality between regions in East Java. In this case, the authors use the assumption that providing equal opportunities to obtain quality education in an area will guarantee the availability of quality human resources equally. This paper presents an interesting analysis, that the direct or indirect PPDB zoning system policies at the SMA / SMK level will encourage even distribution of quality human resources in East Java. First, the high school / vocational PPDB zoning policy avoids the accumulation of high-quality prospective students in only one particular school in a particular region, thus raising exclusivity in the field of education. Second, the implementation of the zoning system policy guarantees the availability of quality workforce equally, because students receive teaching by teachers and educational resources with no different quality. The absence of a gap in the quality of graduates will ultimately increase the even distribution of quality human resources in all regions of East Java.


For the recruitment,training and position qualification of the simulator instructors and feedback of training effect,the management approaches are formulated in "The System for Simulator Training and Licensing Examination of Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station Operators".The concrete requirements on the professional knowledge,work experience and foreign language ability of a simulator instructor are put for-ward.The process of instructor training is designed.The training items include the trainer training,pedagogy training,time management training,operation activities training during outage of unit,"shadow" training and on-the-job training on simulator courses.Job rotation is realized between simulator instructor and licensing personnel on site.New simulator instructor must pass the qualification identification.After a duration of 2 years,re-qualification has to be carried out.On the basis of the operator training method introduced from EDF(Electricite De France),some new courses are developed and the improvement on the initial training,retrain-ing courses,the technical support and the experience feedback by using the simulator is done also.


A total of 250 spottail sleeper ray, Narke impennis caught from Visakhapatnam waters were analysed with respect to length frequency distribution, length -weight relationship, growth studies, length-at-first maturity, size-atbirth, sex ratio, gestation period and fecundity. Specimens ranging from 53 to 206 mm TL (132.833±0.132) including 137 males and 113 females, were collected from shrimp trawl and trammel net catches during June, 2015 to April, 2017. The length-weight relationship for females, males and combined sex was estimated as b <3, the growth is considered to be negative allometric. The asymptotic length (L ∞ ) and VBGF growth constant (K) for spottail sleeper ray were estimated as 215.25 mm and 0.350 yr-1 respectively. Average condition factor was estimated as 2.514 for males, 2.449 for females, and 2.465 for combined sex. Lengthatfirst maturity for females was estimated as 120 mm TL and 115 mm TL for males and the size-atbirth was estimated to range between 42 to 46 mm TL. Mature females in full vitellogenic activity showed 2 to 8 yellow-yolked ovarian eggs. Number of embryos ranged from one to six. Overall sex ratio favoured males at the rate of 1:0.8. This study presents the first detailed biological observation and growth studies of the spottail sleeper ray in Indian waters.


This study aims to investigate the privacy paradox, examine the factors that influence this paradox and determine the factors that influence the willingness to disclose personal information on Facebook. The privacy paradox describes the unexpected behavior by people who are concerned about their privacy, but nevertheless disclose personal information. Therefore, the factors privacy valuation, peer pressure, perceived benefits and perceived risks are analyzed in relation with the willingness to disclose personal information. Data was collected via an online survey that was completed by 1.320 German and Dutch Facebook users above 18 years. The research model was adapted based on the results of three Principal Component Analyses and tested separately for German and Dutch respondents. The adapted research model was analyzed with regression and mediation analyses to be able to answer the hypotheses, explain the privacy paradox and examine the factors influencing the willingness to disclose personal information on Facebook.
The results of this study confirm that privacy valuation, perceived risks, perceived benefits and peer pressure significantly influence the willingness to disclose personal information. The findings of this study, especially the mediating influence of perceived benefits and perceived risks, the five types of willingness to disclose personal information as well as the influence of peer pressure offering a broader view on the privacy paradox and disclosure on Social Network Sites. This study provides new insights in an actual and upcoming topic and additionally outlines possible further research subjects.


A spread spectrum watermarking algorithm based on singular value decomposition(SVD) has proposed.The original image block was transformed in DCT block,then SVD decomposition,the singular value.Watermark adopts repetition code,and pseudo-random generator generates a pseudo-random sequence with a secret key to spread spectrum the watermark.Watermark embedding is achieved by modifying the maximum singular value.And combine with a model of the human visual system to balance these two main performance indicators of the robustness and transparency of the watermark.The experiments show that,due to the use of spread spectrum technology,the watermark extraction accuracy rate is very high,with good robustness to noise,filtering,compression and shear.For spin attack,it makes the watermark extraction accuracy rate greatly improve by estimating the angle of rotation,the use of spread spectrum technology and SVD.


In this paper, we propose a multi-view ordinal ranking (MVOR) method for facial age estimation. Different from most existing facial age estimation methods where age estimation is formulated as a classification or a regression problem, we cast facial age estimation as series of ordinal ranking subproblems, and each subproblem learns a ranking hyperplane to separate face samples into two groups: instances with age labels larger than k and instances with labels no larger than k. To better extract complementary information from different facial features, we construct multiple ordinal ranking models, each corresponding to a feature set, and aggregate them into an effective age estimator. Experimental results on two public face aging datasets are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method.


The remarkable growth in the popularity of mendelian randomization (MR) studies—analyses using genetic polymorphisms as instrumental variables (IVs)—reflects both the importance of the causal inference problems addressed by MR and the potential power of the approach.1 Although IV analysis is a well-established econometric tool, applications in health research using genetic information as IVs present novel challenges and opportunities. Papers such as that of Au Yeung et al., providing evidence on the characteristics of a proposed genetic IV for a specific phenotype-outcome association,2 are important because they help establish a foundation of evidence relevant for many future MR studies. In this commentary, we discuss the value of integrating evidence from external sources, such as the Au Yeung et al. results in MR studies, with specific focus on using separate-sample IV (SSIV, sometimes called split-sample IV) in data from case-control studies.


Based on the environment data and material corrosion data,using BP artificial neural network method,models for prediction of corrosion rates of copper and copper alloy were proposed to describe the relationship between corrosion rate,environment factors,and component of material.Use the model to analyse the affect of environment factors on corrosion rates of copper and copper alloy.The result of analyses is that higher temperature and bio-fouling accelerate copper and copper alloy corrosion,but the pH,oxygen solubility and salinity decelerate corrosion clearly only in one-year test.


PURPOSE
To develop new ionization chamber dosimetry of absorbed dose to water in diagnostic kV x-ray beams, by using a beam quality conversion factor, kQ, for Co-60 to kV x-ray and an ionization conversion factor for a water-substitute plastic phantom.

METHODS
kQ was calculated for aluminum half value-layers (Al-HVLs) of 1.5 mm to 8 mm which were generated by kV x-ray beams of 50 to 120 kVp. Twenty-two energy spectra for ten effective energies (Eeff) were calculated by a SpecCalc program. Depth doses in water were calculated at 5 × 5 to 30 × 30 cm2 fields. Output factors were also obtained from the dose ratio for a 10 × 10 cm2 field. kQ was obtained for a PTW30013 Former ion chamber. In addition, an ionization conversion factor of the PWDT phantom to water was calculated. All calculations were performed with EGSnrc/cavity code and egs_chamber codes.

RESULTS
The x-ray beam energies for 1.5 mm to 8 mm Al-HVLs ranged in Eeff of 25.7 to 54.3 keV. kQ for 1.5 mm to 8 mm Al-HVLs were 0.831 to 0.897, at 1 and 2 cm depths for a 10 × 10 cm2 field. Similarly, output factors for 5 × 5 to 30 × 30 cm2 fields were 0.937 to 1.033 for 25.7 keV and 0.857 to 1.168 for 54.3 keV. The depth dose in a PWDT phantom decreased up to 5% compared to that in water at depth of ten percent of maximum dose for 1.5 mm Al-HVL. The ionization ratios of water/PWDT phantoms for the PTW30013 chamber were 1.012 to 1.007 for 1.5 mm to 8 mm Al-HVLs at 1 cm depth.

CONCLUSION
It became possible to directly measure the absorbed dose to water with the ionization chamber in diagnostic kV x-ray beams, by using kQ and the PWDT phantom.


Motion forecasting plays a crucial role in autonomous driving, with the aim of predicting the future reasonable motions of traffic agents. Most existing methods mainly model the historical interactions between agents and the environment, and predict multi-modal trajectories in a feedforward process, ignoring potential trajectory changes caused by future interactions between agents. In this paper, we propose a novel Future Feedback Interaction Network (FFINet) to aggregate features the current observations and potential future interactions for trajectory prediction. Firstly, we employ different spatial-temporal encoders to embed the decomposed position vectors and the current position of each scene, providing rich features for the subsequent cross-temporal aggregation. Secondly, the relative interaction and cross-temporal aggregation strategies are sequentially adopted to integrate features in the current fusion module, observation interaction module, future feedback module and global fusion module, in which the future feedback module can enable the understanding of pre-action by feeding the influence of preview information to feedforward prediction. Thirdly, the comprehensive interaction features are further fed into final predictor to generate the joint predicted trajectories of multiple agents. Extensive experimental results show that our FFINet achieves the state-of-the-art performance on Argoverse 1 and Argoverse 2 motion forecasting benchmarks.


. Among the mathematical models suggested for the receptive field profiles of the human visual system, the Gabor model is well-known and widely used. Another less used model that agrees with the Gaussian derivative model for human vision is the Hermite model, which is based on analysis filters of the Hermite transform. It offers some advantages like being an orthogonal basis and having better match to experimental physiological data. In our earlier research both filter models, Gabor and Hermite, have been developed in the framework of Clifford analysis. Clifford analysis offers a direct, elegant and powerful generalization to higher dimension of the theory of holomorphic functions in the complex plane. In this paper we expose the construction of the Hermite and Gabor filters, both in the classical and in the Clifford analysis framework. We also generalize the concept of complex Gaussian derivative filters to the Clifford analysis setting. Moreover, we present further properties of the Clifford-Gabor filters, such as their relationship with other types of Gabor filters and their localization in the spatial and in the frequency domain formalized by the uncertainty principle.


A simplified screw supplying device installed in an assembly line, the device
comprising a screw receiving section (22), a rotary drum (25) for conveying screws
received in this screw receiving section (22), an aligning means (40, 41) for
aligning the screws conveyed by the rotary drum (25), and a guide rail (48) positioned
downstream of the aligning means (40, 41) for supporting the heads of the aligned
screws. After the screws are once aligned, they are guided to the guide rail (48),
thereby making it possible to avoid the trouble of small screws being caught in
the guide rail (48).


In particular, the present invention discloses a molding system components, and related methods for producing thereto, the member having a body with at least a portion thereof defining a support base.


In brief Adolescent baseball pitchers who pitch too frequently may place too great a demand on their rapidly growing shoulders, resulting in damage that may curtail and possibly end their playing c...


Basing on this problems of acceleration on aging population in China and lack of innovative capacity for high-tech enterprises′innovative talents,From the perspective of enterprise annuity,Relying on the theory of enterprise annuity and human resource management theory,Throughing the deeply analysis about incentive mechanism′current situation for the innovative talents of high-tech enterprises,This article Offers to use the pension system′the second pillar-the enterprise annuity as creative talents′a means of long-term incentives,Use enterprise annuity′affordable,incentive,binding to Implement long-term effective human resource management,Build enterprise annuity plan for incentive mechanism about high-tech enterprise′innovative talent.


The SignalEditor is an extensible set of general purpose tools for viewing, analyzing, editing, and
processing sampled signals on the IRCAM Musical Workstation (IMW). Its main intention is to
provide the composer and the scientist with a sophisticated interface to handle digital audio signals
naturally. This involves a high quality graphics interface, a flexible signal analysis system, an
efficient sound file system, and a powerful signal processing environment. In this paper we
discuss a prototype implementation of the spectrogram editing facilities, some aspects of the
editor's extension language and the lowest layer of the sound file system.


Education is the most powerful factor in all aspects of Human life and also plays a dominant role to create a good society. Large amount of data can be collected from the educational field and it can be used to extract new knowledge. The data mining techniques such as classification, clustering, association rule mining can be used to discover the hidden patterns from educational data. The discovered knowledge may be used in several ways, such as to improve enrollment of students towards higher education, to improve the performance of the students as well as teaching faculty, finding attitude of students and so on. This paper focuses on finding the best tool to find the relationship between external environment and the attitude of the students studying in the higher educational institutions. The data collection is done through a questionnaire which contains 27 close ended questions. The Machine Learning algorithms such as FP_Growth and Apriori are applied to find the relationship between the attributes and to create association rules based on the relationships. Two familiar machine learning tools, namely Rapidminer and Tanagra were used to generate rules and compared with each other.


Daniel Bowman,1 the elder, son of Christian Bowman, married Anna Wakeman, Dec. 22, 1774, in Virginia. They were married by Simon Harr, a Lutheran minister. Daniel Bowman made a will2 dated 1824, probated 1828, Shenandoah County, Virginia, in which he devises and bequeaths to his wife, Anna Maria (or Mary) ; to his son Henry, he devises his home farm on the river near Woodstock ; to his son John, land upon which he then lived ; to his son Benjamin, all claims for advances made to pay for Benjamin's land; he then pro vides for the distribution of his entire estate among his ten children, each one to have an equal share, but he does not mention them by name. Henry Bowman was named execu tor, and as such made a settlement in 1830, covering items of 1828-30. In this settlement distributions were made to:


In this article, we develop and analyse a new spectral method to solve the semi-classical Schr\"odinger equation based on the Gaussian wave-packet transform (GWPT) and Hagedorn's semi-classical wave-packets (HWP). The GWPT equivalently recasts the highly oscillatory wave equation as a much less oscillatory one (the $w$ equation) coupled with a set of ordinary differential equations governing the dynamics of the so-called GWPT parameters. The Hamiltonian of the $ w $ equation consists of a quadratic part and a small non-quadratic perturbation, which is of order $ \mathcal{O}(\sqrt{\varepsilon }) $, where $ \varepsilon\ll 1 $ is the rescaled Planck's constant. By expanding the solution of the $ w $ equation as a superposition of Hagedorn's wave-packets, we construct a spectral method while the $ \mathcal{O}(\sqrt{\varepsilon}) $ perturbation part is treated by the Galerkin approximation. This numerical implementation of the GWPT avoids imposing artificial boundary conditions and facilitates rigorous numerical analysis. For arbitrary dimensional cases, we establish how the error of solving the semi-classical Schr\"odinger equation with the GWPT is determined by the errors of solving the $ w $ equation and the GWPT parameters. We prove that this scheme has the spectral convergence with respect to the number of Hagedorn's wave-packets in one dimension. Extensive numerical tests are provided to demonstrate the properties of the proposed method.


At times we encounter clinical prob-lems for which there are no directlyapplicable evidence-based solutions,but we are compelled by circumstan-ces to act. When doing so we rely onrelated evidence, general principles ofbest medical practice, and our expe-rience. Each "Current Clinical Prac-tice" feature article in Seminars inOncology describes such a challeng-ing presentation and offers treatmentapproaches from selected specialists.We invite readers' comments andquestions, which, with your approval,will be published in subsequentissues of the Journal. It is hoped thatsharing our views and experienceswill better inform our managementdecisions when we next encountersimilar challenging patients. Pleasesend your comments on the articles,your challenging cases, and yourtreatment successes to me at firstname.lastname@example.com. I look forward to alively discussion.Gloria J. Morris, MD, PhDCurrent Clinical Practice FeatureEditor