In this paper the information source planning and data environment construction were analyzed by using the information system theory, the construction method and details of the function model and data model were investigated, and the data standard system of information construction in high school was given out.


Polymer-based dielectric composite films with large energy density are urgently demanded for various applications. Compared with the ones with inorganic fillers, polymer blends exhibit the advantage of mechanical matching as well as the interfacial compatibility. Herein, poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) composite films with various volume fractions of methyl methacrylate-butadiene-styrene (MBS) were prepared via the solution casting. The maximum energy density of 6.4 J/cm3 at 390 MV/m was obtained by optimizing the content of 12 vol% MBS in MBS/PVDF composite films. The energy density of the optimized composite films was further improved with the help of post-treatments including quenching and/or hot-pressing. At last, the composite films display the enhanced energy density of 8.7 J/cm3 at 500 MV/m with the efficiency of 67.4% via the comprehensive post-treatments. This work provides a paradigm to improve the energy storage performance of PVDF-based composite films for dielectric electrostatic capacitors.


Abstract The paper shows the decision-making and strategy in overseas expansion by global retailer's and the gradual changes after entry into foreign markets. The focus is the concept of gradual strategic change. The research on retail internationalization has pointed to an evolutionary process from domestic action to global action. However, little research has been undertaken on the change of strategy in respect of standardization-adaptation before and after entry. Examples are provided of the standardization-adaptation process in the stages of pre-entry and post-entry for Toys "R" Us and Carrefour in Japan.


The valuation and applications of one-touch double barrier binary options that include features of knock-out, knock-in, European and American style are described. Using a conventional Black-Scholes option-pricing environment, analytical solutions of the options are derived. The relationships among different types of one-touch double barrier binary options are discussed. An investor having a particular view on values of foreign exchanges, equities or commodities can use the options as directional trades or structured products in financial market.


The presented field trial was conducted in 1995 in Pirai do Sul, Parana State, Brazil, on a sand-clay texture soil, to evaluate the efficiency and selectivity of propaquizafop on carrot crop weed control. The experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with six treatments and four replications, and 5.00 x 1.00 m plots. The treatmens were: propaquizafop (100, 125 and 150 g a.i/ha); fluazifop-p-butil (188 g a.i/ha); control with weeding and control without weeding. The carrot cultivar Nantes Tim Tom was sown on June 15 with plants spaced 0.25 x 0.05 m. The prevalent weeds were Brachiaria plantaginea (capim-papua), Digitaria horizontalis (capim-milha) and Eleusine indica (capim pe-de-galinha). Evaluations were carried out at 15, 30 and 45 days after treatment applications. The herbicide propaquizafop, at doses 100, 125 and 150 g a.i/ha, was efficient in control of capim-papua, capim-milha and capim pe-de-galinha. Weed control using herbicides resulted in the same production when compared to manual control. Production losses due to the presence of weeds was 76.4%. Carrot plants did not show any visual symptoms of damage attributed to herbicide applications.


Tolerance to ad libitum feeding was compared in three genotypes of broiler breeder hens: a standard broiler breeder fed ad libitum (SA) or restricted (SR), a slow growing 'label' broiler breeder (L) and an experimental dwarf heavy broiler breeder (E). Two similar experiments were conducted in two distinct research centres. Feed intake and body weight were measured every 3 weeks from hatch to 40 to 49 weeks of age. Egg production and egg abnormalities were recorded. The number of yellow follicles in ovaries was counted at the age of 32 weeks. Body weight was stabilised at 2·2, 3·7 and 5·4 kg after 24 weeks of age in L, E and SA hens, respectively. Growth of the SR hens was similar to that of L up to 20 weeks and stabilised at a similar level to that of E hens after 30 weeks of age. Sexual maturity was delayed by 6 weeks in restricted breeders compared to ad libitum fed hens that started to lay at 20 weeks. SA hens had low egg production and a high proportion of defective eggs, which was largely compensated for by feed restriction. However, productivity of SR hens remained lower than that of L breeders. Compared to the low viability and reproductive fitness observed with SA hens, the E dwarf broiler breeder tolerated ad libitum feeding and had better egg production, fewer egg abnormalities and yellow follicles per ovary and a higher egg production. However, laying rate was still lower than that of the SR and L groups. Energy conversion (kJ/g egg) from 32 to 40 weeks of age was much higher in the SA group than in the other three groups. The feasibility of feeding a dwarf broiler breeder ad libitum calls for further research on implications of specific IGF and GH-receptor expression at the level of the ovary in dw chickens.


In order to provide a device for cleaning a fluid, which has a high cleaning efficiency, it is provided that this is a pyrolysis device with a pyrolysis cell, in which the fluid with a standing electromagnetic wave can be acted upon, and one of the pyrolysis upstream cold trap comprises for separating impurities ,


This article looks at the provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (DDA) that empower the Minister to make disability standards to assist organisations bound by the DDA and people with a disability to understand in practice what is required to comply with the DDA. It took 10 years from when the DDA was enacted for the first disability standard to be made. The article examines the causes of the delay and critiques the 'consensus approach' used to develop disability standards in Australia. It contrasts the consultative methods used for the development of disability standards in the US and UK with the consensus model used in Australia, and suggests that regulators abandon the consensus approach to expedite the making of disability standards.


At present, the reform of quality education in our country is advancing continuously, and the position of the management of physical education in Colleges and universities is becoming more and more prominent in the teaching management system of all disciplines in Colleges and universities. It can be said that the quality of the management of physical education in Colleges and universities is directly related to the implementation of the concept of quality education and the healthy development of students' body and mind. Therefore, in the new era, the physical education management workers in Colleges and universities must adapt to the new form and innovate the old traditional concept of physical education management. At the same time, it is also necessary to carefully comb the connotation of college physical education management, summarize the characteristics of college physical education management, and then follow the laws of physical education, recognize the current problems and dilemmas faced by college physical education management. This paper takes college physical education as the research object, through the analysis of the dilemmas faced by college physical education teaching at this stage, explores the development strategies of College Physical Education at this stage.


In pursuance of increasing power plants' competitiveness in energy market, these power plants need to embrace a proper operating and maintenance methodology in order to lessen the level of O & M (operation and maintenance) costs. Similar to this, Geothermal Power Plants ought to embrace as well the corresponding strategy, so that they can vie for their productivity and competitiveness. The prominence methodology needed should be able to achieve the equipment's availability at maximum level whilst attaining cost of maintenance at optimum level. Reliability is a parameter which is successfully used to serve as a warning signal for maintenance managers to respond to the lower level of availability. This paper demonstrates the application of Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) in Geothermal Power Plants. A case study of a geothermal power plant in Dieng Central Java, Indonesiaoperated by PT. Geo Dipa Energi was conducted. In this research, a framework for the implementation of RCM into Geothermal Power Plants was developed. The results include recommendations for 52 maintenance tasks to eliminate 36 malfunction of equipment that never happened, in the form of four lubricating task, four visual check task, 15 inspection tasks,18 scheduled restoration task, one scheduled discard task, and 10 no scheduled maintenance task..


Abstract Traditionally, caregiving for individuals with dementia has been viewed as a negative experience. Understanding positive aspect of caregiving and related factors is important to improve health among family caregivers. We analyzed baseline data from an ongoing dyadic sleep education trial for individuals with dementia and their caregivers (N=21 dyads; mean age 70.8± 11.1 for caregivers, 80.5± 8.3 for care-recipients). The Positive Aspects of Caregiving (PAC 9-item) was used to assess subjective satisfaction with caregiving. Other measures included Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), SF-12 Health Survey (SF-12v2), Revised Memory and Behavior Problems Checklist (RMBPC), and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Pearson correlations and t-tests were calculated for analyses. Caregivers most frequently endorsed that caregiving enabled them to appreciate life more (n=16 agreed a lot). Caregivers who began providing care within the first few months of the care-recipient needing care (n=16) had greater positive aspects of caregiving than those who started providing care sometime later (n=5) (36.37±7.33 versus 25.8±8.29, p=0.01). Caregivers with higher PAC scores had lower ZBI score (r=-0.49, p=0.02), better mental health on the SF-12v2 (r=0.53, p=0.01), less distress related to care-recipient behaviors on the RMBPC (r=-0.50, p=0.02), and lower PSQI subscale (perceived sleep quality) score (r= -0.46, p=0.04). Findings suggest that higher positive caregiving experience was associated with better mental health and sleep quality, and less burden and distress from the care-recipients behaviors. More research is needed to better understand this relationship and to determine possible interventions to increase positive aspects of caregiving.


Objective To study the clinical changing trend in gastric cancer.Methods A retrospective study was performed on 804 patients with gastroscopical and pathological diagnoses of gastric cancer during the period of January 1979 ~ December 1997. The patients were divided into two groups according to the time they were diagnosed. GroupⅠ comprised 214 patients during January 1979~December 1988 , while GroupⅡconsisted of 590 patients during January 1989 ~ December 1997 . Statistical comparison analyses were performed according to the gastroscopically detected rate, locational distributions, sex ratio, histological type of gastric cancer. Results The gastroscopically detected rate of gastric cancer in Group I (3.1%) was higher than that in GroupⅡ (1.5%) , P 0.05 ; There was an increase in the proportion of cardia carcinoma from 10.3% in Group I to 26.1% in GroupⅡ, with a corresponding decrease in the proportion of antral carcinoma from 41.1% in Group I to 28.3% in GroupⅡ, P 0.05 ; There was no change in the male : female ratio between two Groups ; the proportions of differentiated adenocarcinoma and undifferentiated cancer decreased from 40.2% ,6.5% respectively in Group I to 31.9% , 2% respectively in GroupⅡwith a increase in the proportion of lower differentiated adenocarcinoma from 36% in Group Ⅰ to 53.2% in GroupⅡ, P 0.05. Conclusion In this period, the gastroscopically detected rate of gastric cancer decreased, there was a shifting trend in location of gastric cancer towards proximal stomach, the male: female ratio didn't change significantly, the proportions of the differentiated adenocarcinoma and undifferentiated cancer decreased with a increase in the proportion of lower differentiated adenocarcinoma.


This special volume of STUF – Language Typology and Universals combines the rise of empirical and formal interest dedicated to German-language speech islands and to the macroand micro-level parametric variation of their linguistic structures (cf. Putnam 2011a) with recent trends in seeking to gain further insight into the dynamic process of language change and language attrition in heritage/ contact grammars. The unified focus of investigation in this volume explores properties of the left-periphery of clausal structure (i.e. the C(omplementizer)layer) of German dialects under severe contact situations attaining, on the one side, a deeper understanding of the development of complementizer systems in these German-language Sprachinseln (e.g. speech islands) throughout the world and, on the other side, aiming to model contact-induced language change. In doing so, we proceed from a methodologically original approach to comparison of linguistic phenomena based on the two following facts. Firstly, although the varieties under investigation in this volume clearly differ with respect to their genesis and the historical period in which they were formed, they all share the same typological root, being of German origin. Secondly, the linguistic phenomena the contributions of this volume deal with pertain to the same grammar domain, i.e. complementation. For our purposes, we interpret the notion of 'complementizer system' to encompass elements of speech cate gorially classified as complementizers (e.g. subordinating conjunctions) as well as embedded elements that occupy clause-initial position (e.g. wh-items and relative pronouns). The novelty of our question consists of investigating whether varieties with the same typological origin show a comparable logic of change – or, on


Density functional theory with SQS-32 (Special Quasi-random Structures with 32-atom super-cell) configuration is applied to study the energy-gap properties of strained GeSn alloys. The calculation results show that the direct-indirect crossover occurs at the mole fraction of ~ 6%. The energies of direct and indirect gaps at x ~ 0.075 are well agreement to recent experiments. The calculated emitting powers for these gaps reveal that the lowest peak energy in electroluminescence experiment of strained Ge/Ge0.922Sn0.078/Ge LED mainly originates in the direct gap rather than indirect. It is in contrast to the recent experimental report. Our results show that the strained Ge0.922Sn0.078 is direct gap.


Employing 1-bit quantization in massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems is a promising approach to improve the power efficiency. Various linear and nonlinear precoding techniques including the maximum safety margin (MSM) precoder have been presented to cope with severe 1-bit quantization distortions. In this paper, we show the reason for MSM precoder's success in reducing the quantization distortions and propose a low complexity extension with a greedy algorithm by exploiting this analytic result. Numerical results illustrate that the extended MSM is almost optimal in terms of maximizing the constructive interference (CI) between the received signals.


The price-to-book ratio (stock prices divided by book value per share) is a commonly used a valuation metric to screen for under- or overvalued stocks. Empirical evidence suggests that low price-to-book stocks (i.e., value stocks) outperform high price-to-book stocks (i.e., growth stocks) in the long run. Here we attempt to build on the vast literature on the field by applying a different methodology to Brazilian stocks in the 1989-2009 time period. We build portfolios of stocks traded below book value and compare results to the more comprehensive Ibovespa index. We found strong evidence in favor of the former. Our portfolios outperformed the Ibovespa by 1425.39 percentage points (cumulative real returns). Moreover, our portfolios seem to be less risky than the Ibovespa, given their outperformance in every state of the economy, and, more importantly, their strong relative results during economic downturns and bear markets. We speculate that the reasons for the superior performance are related to behavioral issues.


The real state housing project Millecento is a private venture; which will be developed by two strategic partners: SMC Construcciones as principal in charge of the construction of the project, and Ecuatoriana de Construcciones S.A who will me in charge of the supervision of the accomplished work.
The site plan of the project is at the Quito Metropolitan District, Central –North side of the city, Inaquito Parish, Batan Alto section, La Pradera neighborhood. The terrain's total surface is 2344sq.m, which is the result of the liaison of 3 neighbor pieces of ground; this conditions makes highly striking due to the connection between the two side roads, Av. Whymper and Bulgaria Street. Even though the terrain is practically 100% flat to the view, the technical studies reveal a difference of 1,2m of ground level between these two access points.
The architectural result shows two modern housing towers supported by commercial programs on the ground floor plan; the main purpose of the development relies on the idea of generate a pedestrian connection between both streets on ground floor and at the rooftop.
The business plan to be presented contains the incidence of several variables like: at first place the Macroeconomic Background; secondly, the Location of the project and its Market Study, later, the Architecture Evaluation of the facade and internal distribution; and the technical costs and commercial evaluation; so finally the project could reveal the cost of the money in time in the financial evaluation; lastly, the legal and management background of the project.
The project revels its viability and its appropriate behavior which responds to the market restrictions and calling of necessities.


With the help of 10 different compositions (x) between 0.0 and 0.4 for MA1–xFAxPbI3 and about 20 temperature points between 15 and 310 K for each composition, we establish a rich temperature–composition phase diagram in terms of structural variations determined by powder and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Four crystallographic phases are found to exist for this solid solution series, namely, cubic (Pm-3m), tetragonal (I4/mcm), orthorhombic (Pnma), and large-cell cubic (Im-3). Variable-temperature dielectric measurement reveals qualitative changes in dielectric properties of these materials driven by the observed structural phase transitions; it establishes that with an increasing FA content the high-temperature-dominant Curie-like behavior in dielectric constant of MAPbI3 gets suppressed and an unusually prominent glassy behavior evolves in direct correlation with the structural evolution. This reveals a strong structure–property correlation existing in these solid solutions, qualitatively modifying pr...


The article analyzes accountability mechanisms in development aid law, defining development aid law as the legal regime regulating the transfer of official development assistance. It focuses on the rules of two multilateral donor institutions, the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program. It also examines the accountability mechanisms pertaining to the recipients of aid, since the transfer of aid involves not only a donor but also a recipient.The article first conceptualizes the notion of 'accountability' for legal analysis and flashes out the non-legal context of the transfer of development aid. On that basis it goes on to argue that there is a surprising plenitude of accountability mechanisms that go well beyond the conventional mechanisms of supervisory control of International Organizations by member states. Instead, such mechanisms involve several actors, standards and types of sanctions. However, the article also asks whether these mechanisms add up to a coherent system, give voice and access to the relevant constituencies and thus achieve a satisfactory standard of accountability. Finally, the article connects its findings to the wider discussion on the emergence of an international or global administrative law.


A technique is discussed for framing a reliability model in terms of variables data rather than attribute data. A particular model is developed in terms of a Gamma process; it is believed that such a model may prove applicable to items undergoing long term storage, especially where continuous observations are not feasible. Estimates of the parameters of the model, along with a discussion of prodcedures for control and verification are included.


Community detection in online social media networks is to identify the connections of nodes within the network. The community can be determined as clusters, modules, or groups in different networks. Community detection is performed to find out the hidden relationships among the nodes in the network. Several works have been conducted till now to detect the community of nodes in the network however the performance is often affected due to the imprecise detection, time complexity, and so on. To detect the community of the nodes in the network effectively we have proposed a novel hybrid honey badger optimization‐based African vulture algorithm (HHBAVO). Prior to the application of HHBAVO, the networks are compressed to reduce the time complexity and effective identification of the community of nodes. The proposed honey badger optimization (HBO) and African vulture optimization (AVO) can be used to achieve global optimization. The algorithms are mainly hybridized to offer optimized global search. This is effectively used to search the nodes globally and to detect the relationship among the nodes. Experimental analyzes depict that the proposed approach can be used to detect the community of the nodes in the online social media networks effectively than the other approaches. For comparative purposes, we have taken state‐of‐art works such as GA, LSMD, DPCD, and ICLA approaches.


The primary objective is to implement a basic Computational Fluid Dynamics tool in a Flight Simulator in order to be able to optimize aerodynamically the vehicle's shape during the initial stability analysis tradeoffs. The emphasis will be on basic tools required to conduct and analyze engineering calculations. The Delft Aerospace Re-entry Test (DART) demonstrator is a small re-entry vehicle. Its stability is under investigation with a flight simulator. During the initial design phase, strong interaction between different disciplines is demanded for an effective design. One important factor is the vehicle's aerodynamics, it is in fact needed to simulate the vehicle dynamics. However, another necessity during the preliminary phase is to have a simple way of evaluating the dynamics for different configurations of the design. This is necessary so that a quick and iterative process will lead to a final design that meets all the requirements and objectives.Real time calculation of the Aerodynamic Coefficients was implemented in the flight simulator, through the Re-entry CFD toolboxes. The aerodynamic regimes implemented are: rarefied, transitional, and continuum hypersonic, all with the influence of viscosity. Such software is what some avant-garde Aerodynamicists would call a "Virtual tunnel".


We thank Dr. Manresa and colleagues for their interest in our study on the use of corticosteroids in tuberculous (TB) pleurisy.1 The study by Dr. Galarza and colleagues was similar to our study, but could not be discussed by us, as our article was already accepted when their article was published.2 Despite different methodologies, the main outcome of both studies was that corticosteroids added to antituberculous chemo¬ therapy do not make any difference to the clinical course of TB pleurisy and have no effect on residual pleural thickening. There are, however, several aspects in their letter to which we would like to respond in more detail. We agree that thoracoscopy is not an essential procedure to diagnose TB pleurisy. For the purpose of our study we thought it absolutely necessary to include only patients with proven TB pleurisy. The superior diagnostic yield of thoracoscopy compared to needle biopsy is reflected in the 100% confirmation of TB in our patients, compared to 63% proven TB diagnosis in the study by Dr. Galarza and colleagues. Furthermore, direct inspection of the pleural cavity permitted an assessment of the extent and the degree of the associated inflammatory changes, which in our study resulted in well-matched groups in this respect. Although unknown, it is conceivable that the rate and extent of resolution of the pleural pathology may well be different if there is a grossly inflamed and thickened pleura with multiple fibrous adhesions compared to when the pleura is only slightly inflamed and has no or only few fibrinous adhesions. We agree with Manresa et al that not every pleural effusion needs complete drainage. However, 84% of our patients had large (more than 50% of a hemithorax) or even massive effusions that we would have drained for symptomatic relief irrespective of the method used. The total drainage also enabled a much better assessment of the lung parenchyma. Parenchymal evidence of lung tuberculosis was seen in a surprising 34% of our patients. Complete drainage resulted in immediate normalization of accompanying fever in all but one of our 74 patients. With partial drainage in the patients studied by Galarza et al it took 3.32 (range 0-50) days in prednisone-treated patients and 4.15 (0-60) days in the placebo group to normalize their temperatures. We stated that of all the clinical parameters assessed, the main factor responsible for symptomatic improvement was the initial com¬ plete drainage prior to the …


Ludvigson ( 1 9 6 4 ) , working in Iowa, failed to corroborate certain general findings pertaining to the facilitatory and inhibitory effects of stimulant and depressant drugs upon eyelid conditioning obtained by the Maudsley group working in England (e.g., Franks & Trouton, 1958) . Although doubtless of importance in its own right, Luclv~gson s srudy differs from the original work in so many salient respects that it can not be regarded as a replication. These differences include: physical parameters of the s t imul~ employed; various conditioning stimuli relationships and reinforcement schedules; criteria of an acceptable CR; variables pertaining to attitude, instructions, E-S interaction and so forth; Ss' arousal level; apparatus differences in method of delivering and detecting stimuli and subsequent importance of variations in peripheral factors such as corneal sensitiviry; sex of Ss; choice of drugs and method of administration. In the absence of compelling evidence in favor of a general factor of conditionability over and above specific factors pertaining to variables such as listed above, need for precision in replication becomes paramount (Franks, 1963a). Even if a general factor (or factors) could be demonstrated, the need for precise replication would assume importance inversely to the amount of variance accounted for by this general factor in the specific conditioning situations under examination. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of a general factor, precise replication of circumstances known to be pertinent is difficult, many parameters are little understood and some unknown. This regrettable state of affairs may well account both for the many discrepancies in the eyelid conditioning literature and also for the commonly encountered failures to predict specific conditioning performances either from personality measures or from other conditioning data. Under these circumstances it is scarcely surprising that the generality of the theory of learning and personality which is supposed to underly the prediction of drug-conditioning effects has not been readily established. It is becoming increasingly apparent that conditioning is not the uncomplicated and objective tool for the srudy of learning in man that the psychologists of an earlier decade had hoped it would be. Until much more is known about general and specific factors ancl about central and peripheral variables, Iowa studies will doubtless continue to support Iowan theory and workers in the Maudsley will continue to demonstrate the superiority o l their dicta. Now that a member of the Maudsley group, upon transfer to the USA, has failed to replicate his own findings (Franks, 1 9 6 3 b ) , it is surely encumbent upon some sporting Iowan to repeat his studies in England!


Legislative speech records from the 101st to 108th Congresses of the US Senate are analysed to study political ideologies. A widely-used text classification algorithm – Support Vector Machines (SVM) – allows the extraction of terms that are most indicative of conservative and liberal positions in legislative speeches and the prediction of senators' ideological positions, with a 92 per cent level of accuracy. Feature analysis identifies the terms associated with conservative and liberal ideologies. The results demonstrate that cultural references appear more important than economic references in distinguishing conservative from liberal congressional speeches, calling into question the common economic interpretation of ideological differences in the US Congress.


The eleventh special session of the Trusteeship Council was 'Held at UN Headquarters in New York on April 10, 1961, to consider the agenda item: report of the UN plebiscite commissioner for the supervision of plebiscites in the southern and northern parts of the trust territory of the Cameroons under United Kingdom administration. Introducing the report, Mr. Abdoh, the UN plebiscite commissioner, noted that the report included all the pertinent facts about the organization, conduct, and results of the plebiscites. In order that the General Assembly would have ample time to examine the report during the resumed fifteenth session, the Council did not discuss it but limited itself to transmitting the report to the General Assembly, as provided in a draft resolution sponsored by Bolivia and India and approved by the Council. After adopting its draft report to the General Assembly on the item, the Council set June 1, 1961, as the tentative opening date for its 27th session.


In recent years, we have seen a rapidly increasing interest in understanding the effects of confinement in catalysis, with the ultimate goal of designing tailored chemical environments to improve the performance of catalysts. This themed collection showcases the most recent developments in the field, sharing novel strategies that take advantage of confinement effects to overcome challenges that are relevant to the wider catalysis community.


FIELD: chemistry. SUBSTANCE: invention relates to anti-tumour purine derivatives of formula (A) and salts thereof, as well as pharmaceutical compositions based thereon, a method for production thereof where W is an alkyl-substituted amine, a pyrrolidine, piperidine, morpholine or piperazine residue, optionally substituted with C 1 -C 6 alkyl or hydroxy; Y is H or a saccharide residue, Z is H; Q is an optionally substituted quinoline residue. The disclosed method involves reacting a corresponding purine protected at the 9th position with corresponding precursors of groups W and Q. EFFECT: novel compounds with low toxicity, a wide anticancer range, high anticancer activity, high stability, suitable for producing anti-tumour drugs. 12 cl, 3 tbl, 31 ex


were obviously different from F. magnifica, the only species previously recorded from eastern Africa. These collections differ from F. magnifica most notably in inflorescence structure, calyx shape, and length of anther-thecae. Their ecology is also quite different from that of F. magnifica. All collections are from medium altitude dry forest and bushland on rocky hills in the southern part of the SomaliaMasai Regional Centre of Endemism (White 1983: 112) and in very similar Zambesian vegetation in S Malawi. F. magnifica occurs only in lowland forest and thicket in the Zanzibar-Inhambane Regional Mosaic (White 1983: 187). Comparison of these collections with F. magnifica and with the other African species of the genus has convinced the author that they represent a distinct species which is described below as F. abbreviata. During the course of this work it also became clear that F. magnifica var. lutea differs sufficiently from F. magnifica to be recognised at species level, and it is described fully here. A key to and synopsis of all the continental African species is provided. Pollen morphological studies (Harley & Banks 1994) lend support to the taxonomic changes proposed here. The pollen ofF. abbreviata is differently shaped and smaller than the pollen of F. magnifica. The pollen of F. lutea is smaller than that of F. abbreviata and has thicker walls than either of the other two. Outside continental Africa Fernandoa also occurs on Madagascar, but a treatment of the Madagascan species is outside the scope of this paper. Only a section of the examined collections is cited in this paper. A complete list of all material studied in connection with the preparation of this paper is available on request from the author or from the Library of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.


We investigate Cauchy problem to double dispersion equations with polynomial type nonlinearities with variable coefficients. Necessary and sufficient conditions for nonexistence of global weak solutions and nonblowing up ones are found for subcritical initial energy. For supercritical energy a sufficient condition for finite time blow up of the weak solutions, independent of the scalar product of the initial data, is developed.


Quantitative computed tomography (CT) applications based on statistical iterative reconstruction algorithms require accurate models of the CT acquisition process, with a key component being the x-ray fan beam intensity. We present a method to experimentally determine the extra-focal radiation profile incident on individual CT detectors. Using a tungsten cylinder as a knife edge, a super-sampled signal was created from sinogram data, which traced the "occlusion" of the x-ray source as seen by a detector. By differentiating this signal and correcting for finite detector size and motion blur, the effective source profile can be recovered. Extra-focal scatter was found to be on the order of 1-3 percent of the focal beam intensity, with lower relative magnitude at the isocenter and increasing towards the edge of the fan beam, with its profile becoming asymmetric at large angles. The implications for reconstruction algorithms and QCT applications will be discussed.


Abstract : File characteristics: Computer software(10 files). Physical description: 1 Diskette; 5-1/4; col. System requirements: DOS 2.0 or higher; High density; AT compatible. ExperCAT is a menu-driven 'Clear Air Turbulence Forecast Expert System' that runs on an IBM-PC-AT or compatible computer. The purpose of ExperCAT is to provide nowcasts and short-term forecasts of upper-level turbulence using satellite and upper air data, which are input by the user. Clear air turbulence (CAT) is a nonconvective turbulence that occurs at altitudes above 18,000 feet. While the user is asked questions about current upper air and satellite data, ExperCAT uses these answers in a 'chain of reasoning' process to arrive at a CAT forecast.


Rotated Ferromagnetic Heisenberg model (RFHM) is a new class of quantum spin model with a strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC). In this paper, we study the RFHM in a Zeeman field. We find that the interplay of the Zeeman field and the SOC provides a new platform to host rich and novel classes of quantum phases, excitations and phase transitions. These quantum phases include two collinear states at low and high Zeeman field, two co-planar canted states at two dual related SOC strengths respectively, also a non-coplanar incommensurate Skyrmion (IC-SkX) crystal phases surrounded by the 4 phases. The IC-SkX state reduces to a commensurate SkX state with a 2$\times$4 spin-orbital structure at a special commensurate value of the SOC. Experimental detections of these new phenomena in cold atoms are discussed. Implications to various materials such as MnSi, Fe$_{0.5}$Co$_{0.5}$Si , quantum dimers, especially complex magnetic ordering in Li$_2$IrO$_3$ are given.


Abstract:

Insurance is a growing term in the field of economy as the risk is inherent and growing day by day. The study is designed to evaluate present marketing strategies adopted by life insurance companies in India and to identify the major marketing challenges of the sector along with the impact of Agent's attrition in life insurance companies. Even though, there is a strong ombudsman and grievance redressal mechanism, claim settlement is a very serious issue for all the insurance companies. More over the strategic policies, technological changes, product innovation, delivery and distribution system, competition, agent's attrition etc making major challenges in the insurance sector. This paper presents various marketing factors, which have direct impact on insurance marketing. Secondary data is used for this study. Agent's attrition and turnover makes big challenges to the companies as they are the key elements of the insurers.. Public-Private competition also brings challenges in the market.

Keywords: Challenges, issues, attrition, insurance. marketing strategy.


The invention discloses a production method of strong aromatic Chinese spirits. The production method comprises the following steps of: preparing fermented grains by using 1000-1200 parts of unprocessed food grains, 100-200 parts of steamed rice husk steamed, and 4000-5000 parts of middle-level fermented grains fermented at the upper row; filling the fermented grains in a steaming bucket for cooking, mixing cooking wine of the fermented grains, fermented at the upper row while cooking the raw materials so as to obtain the cooked fermented grains and large dreg wine after ending cooking; taking out the cooked grain wine and placing for aeration cooling, adding 200-250 parts of middle-temperature Daqu, 30-50 parts of bacterial mouldy bran, firstly placing 1000-1200 parts of upper fermented grains fermented at the upper row in a pit, then placing 5500-6500 parts of the grain wine obtained in the previous step in a pit, and fermenting for 60-70 days; filling 1000-1200 parts of lower fermented grains fermented at the lower row in the steaming bucket for cooking, thereby obtaining double-turn wine; and after operating once according to the steps, mixing the large dreg wine and the double-turn wine obtained in the next turns to obtain the strong aromatic Chinese spirits. The production method has the advantages that the content of tetramethylpyrazine in the strong aromatic Chinese spirits is increased, and the style of the strong aromatic Chinese spirits is not affected.


Editor's preface Introduction Part I. Law Anchored to a Cosmic Order: 1. Plato 2. Aristotle 3. Cicero Part II. The Christian Revision: 4. St Augustine 5. St Thomas Aquinas Part III. The Modern Quest: 6. Thomas Hobbes 7. John Locke 8. Immanuel Kent 9. Jeremy Bentham Part IV. The Significance of Rules: 10. From historical jurisprudence to realism 11. The Defence of Rules Part V. The Idea of Law Repudiated: 12. Marxist Theories 13. Political jurisprudence 1 14. Political jurisprudence 2 Part VI. New Foundations: 15. A skeptical jurisprudence 16. Postscript Index.


An analysis has been undertaken of the effect of birefringence on the selection of polarization states of a weakly index guided vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) supporting both a fundamental and a first-order transverse mode. It is shown that for small index steps polarization switching due to spatial-hole burning effects can occur. For larger index steps it is found that higher order modes can emerge which are orthogonally polarized to the dominant polarization of the fundamental mode.


Ph.D. (Food Science and Technology), Department of Food Technology and Nutrition, Faculty of Technology, Mahasarakham University, Mahasarakham 44000 Thailand. Corresponding e-mail: email@example.com Received, 15 February 2002 Accepted, 25 June 2002 Yogurt has been known to mankind for over 6,000 years. The word "yogurt" is possibly derived from the Turkish word "jugurt" which first appeared in the 8 th century (Rasic and Kurmann, 1978) but today various names are used to refer to yogurt or similar products. These names include Dahi or Dahee in India, Roba in Iraq, and Fiili in Finland (Tamime and Deeth, 1980; Tamime and Robinson, 1985) and several others. It is likely that yogurt originated in the Middle East where there was a limited availability of milk due to the desert environment. Ancient Turks who lived as nomads possibly introduced yogurt to village people as a preserved milk product (Akin and Rice, 1994; Rasic and Kurmann, 1978; Tamime and Robinson, 1985). Popularity of yogurt is greatly attributed to Professor Elie Metchnikoff of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1908 and authored the book, "The Prolongation of Life" in which he advocated the health benefits of yogurt. Yogurt was first introduced to the U.S. in the early 20 th century and gained significant consumer popularity during the 1960's and 1970's. Sales in the U.S. increased from 141 million kg in 1974 to 616 million kg in 1995 (Anon, 1996). Yogurt has now become a popular subject for researchers nationwide as it has been claimed to be a healthy food. During the past decade, full fat yogurt consumption has declined due to changes in dietary habits of consumers, in particular, reduction in milkfat consumption. Many modifications in yogurt manufacturing have therefore been developed to reduce milkfat content in yogurt resulting in the availability of nonfat and lowfat yogurt.


The differential elastic p--d scattering cross sections at angles of 40 deg to 150 deg and the differential quasi-elastic p--p scattering cross sections at angles of 50 deg to 90 deg of the two nuclei were measured in the center of mass system by the ganged-telescope method. The experimental data point to the existence of a predominant interaction between the incident proton and the separate nucleons in the deuteron and also to the existence of collective interactions between the three nucleons. The energy dependence of the differential cross section of quasi-elastic p--n scattering into an angle of 90 deg in the c. m. s. of the two nucleons was also measured in the 460 to 660 Mev range. (auth)


I recognise along with the authors that hypocalcaemia is an accepted complication of thyroid surgery, and monitoring for hypocalcaemia in the postoperative period is essential. However, I feel that the rate of hypocalcaemia quoted by Pfleiderer et al. is high, particularly, the temporary hypocalcaemia (43%). I believe that, in clinical practice, the symptomatic hypoparathyroidism rate is of most significance. Pfleiderer et al. quote this as 24%. We performed 79 total thyroidectomies (excluding the completion surgery) over the last 4 years (2004–2008); only five (6%) patients had temporary hypocalcaemia and one (1.2%) patient had permanent hypocalcaemia. The BAETS audit data quote a rate of 30% with temporary hypocalcaemia and 7% with permanent damage necessitating treatment.

The authors have suggested that identifying the parathyroid glands is a risk factor for hypocalcaemia. In their study, hypocalcaemia has been attributed to various causes, including increased diathermy use, especially in toxic goitres. The standard approach to prevent parathyroid injury and subsequent hypocalcaemia during thyroid surgery is to look for, and preserve, the superior parathyroid glands, and staying close to the thyroid gland to avoid and, therefore, preserve the inferior parathyroid glands. Our low rates of hypocalcaemia are, we believe, due to the fact that we routinely identify the parathyroid glands during surgery. We also use the harmonic scalpel in total thyroidectomies, which minimises bleeding and injury to the parathyroid glands. Where the parathyroid glands have been devascularised, parathyroid gland autotransplantation is also used in our unit in an attempt to prevent permanent hypoparathyroidism.


Despite the clear advantages of mini hydropower technology to provide energy access in remote areas of developing countries, the lack of resources and technical training in these contexts usually lead to suboptimal installations that do not exploit the full potential of the environment. To address this drawback, the present work proposes a novel method to optimize the design of mini-hydropower plants with a robust and efficient formulation. The approach does not involve typical 2D simplifications of the terrain penstock layout. On the contrary, the problem is formulated considering arbitrary three-dimensional terrain profiles and realistic penstock layouts taking into account the bending effect. To this end, the plant layout is modeled on a continuous basis through the cubic Hermite interpolation of a set of key points, and the optimization problem is addressed using a genetic algorithm with tailored generation, mutation and crossover operators, especially designed to improve both the exploration and intensification. The approach is successfully applied to a real-case scenario with real topographic data, demonstrating its capability of providing optimal solutions while dealing with arbitrary terrain topography. Finally, a comparison with a previous discrete approach demonstrated that this algorithm can lead to a noticeable cost reduction for the problem studied.


Gulf of Alaska (GOA) Atka mackerel are on a biennial stock assessment schedule to coincide with the availability of new survey data from the biennial trawl survey. The previous full assessment was presented in 2017, which included data from the 2017 GOA bottom trawl survey. On alternate (even) years no assessment is due for GOA Atka mackerel because of its Tier 6 status. Gulf of Alaska Atka mackerel have been managed under Tier 6 specifications since 1996 due to the lack of reliable estimates of current biomass. In 2007, the assessment presented Tier 5 calculations of ABC and OFL based on 2007 survey biomass estimates, for consideration. However, the Plan Team and SSC agreed with the authors that reliable estimates of Atka mackerel biomass were not available and recommended continuing management under Tier 6. The 2017 assessment presented Tier 6 recommendations and did not present Tier 5 calculations given the large variances associated with the 2017 survey biomass estimates, which were based on one significant haul encountered in the western Gulf of Alaska off the Sanak Islands. The 2017 full assessment (Lowe 2017) is available at https://www.afsc.noaa.gov/REFM/Docs/2017/GOAatka.pdf. The Council set the Gulf-wide 2018 and 2019 OFL, ABC, and TAC for Atka mackerel at 6,200 t, 4,700 t, and 3,000 t, respectively.


In this article, the author focuses on the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Professional Capacity Building (PCB) Program. He discusses the program's achievements and offers a vision for future transportation education and training.


In this paper the author presents iconic-symbolic drawings made by his Mexican History students, portraying their conception of the current Mexican. They first visualized images of Mexican people, and then they identified five significant and defining elements. They sketched these images, and explained their choice of elements. The author classifies the images, and differentiates archetypes and stereotypes.


In this paper, a scheme of on-line automatic tuning is proposed for PI controllers. This method is based on FDI filters, designed by Luenberger observers for the linearized plant model, in closed loop. The isolation of the PI controller gains can be achieved by reescalin g of the state variables. The gain parameters of the new diagnostic model are involved in the failure functions. Then, the tuning law is obtained by imposition of a simple asymptotically stable differential equation, guaranteeing that the failure function tends to zero. Our method was applied success fully for chemical process control, stabilizing the pH in a plant unit.


As a new technology of biometrics,gait recognition has attracted a great of interest in computer vision community due to its advantage of unobtrusive recognition at a distance.In this paper,the general process of gait recognition was described firstly.Then the paper reviewed most existing typical methods for gait recognition and analysed their respective pros and cons.In addition,challenges that constrain practical application of gait recognition systems were discussed and more than 10 publically available datasets and experimental results of some typical methods were reported.Finally,future trends were given to guide further research in this field.


The invention discloses an intelligent remote monitoring retractable garage. The intelligent remote monitoring retractable garage comprises a fixed cover and a retractable shed body, the retractable shed body comprises a synchronous isometric retractable shed body and a sector-shaped shed body, guide rail grooves are disposed in the bottom of the fixed cover, the bottom of the retractable shed body is provided with retractable arms and stretching rods, the retractable arms and the stretching rods drive the retractable shed body to be stretch, a controller is disposed in the fixed cover, two sides of the fixed cover, i.e., the inner sides of the guide rail grooves are provided with infrared devices connected with the controller, an edge of the sector-shaped shed body is provided with a sensing device connected with the controller, a remote monitoring system is disposed in the fixed cover, and the remote monitoring system comprises a GPS positioning system, a water level monitoring system, a fault monitoring system and an abnormal open monitoring system. The intelligent remote monitoring retractable garage is safe and intelligent, effectively prevent a vehicle body from being scratched, and is convenient to manage and monitor at the same time.


The Gospel of Truth was one of the first tractates from Nag Hammadi to be translated and rendered accessible for scholars. This chapter outlines Bradley's proposed literary form, along with the challenges raised by especially Terence Mullins and John Brunt. The author refers to the literary form as a "cluster" in order to distinguish it from "topos" in the stricter rhetorical senses, especially the communes loci and above all the argument from contraries. In his 1953 article Bradley attempted to establish a literary form for making sense of the paraenetic sections of Paul's letters. The moral relations that are idealized within the Gos. Truth are closely related to a cosmological drama of soteriological endeavour. The paraenetic section of the tractate is closely linked to this broader idealization.Keywords: Bradley; Gospel of Truth; John Brunt; Terence Mullins


To enable robust patterning, morphogen systems should be resistant to variations in gene expression and tissue size. Here we explore how the Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) morphogen gradient in the ventral neural tube enables scaled patterning in embryos of varying sizes. Using zebrafish eggs that have been surgically reduced in size, we find that ventral neural tube patterning remains proportional in smaller embryos. Intriguingly, a secreted protein implicated in Shh release, Scube2, is expressed in the dorsal-intermediate neural tube far from Shh producing cells. Overexpression of scube2 expands the Shh gradient whereas loss of scube2 causes gradient contraction. Conversely, upregulation of Shh represses scube2 expression while Shh downregulation increases scube2 expression thus establishing a negative feedback loop. This regulatory feedback is necessary for scaling, as demonstrated by its loss in scube2 overexpressing embryos. Using mathematical modeling, we show that feedback control on diffusion and release rates of Shh allows the morphogen gradient to be robust to differences in field length and Shh gene dosage. We conclude that Scube2 promotes release and diffusion of Shh to allow gradient scaling in an extension to the expander-repressor model. Summary Statement The Shh morphogen gradient can scale to different size tissues by feedback between Scube2 mediated release and diffusion of Shh and Shh based inhibition of Scube2 expression


As an important art form,new media art provides effective paths for the development of creative industries,i.e.establishing more majors to improve the educational system of new media art;designing new-media-art related curriculum and training interdisciplinary talents;putting stress on the quality education and developing creativity;emphasizing aesthetic education and fostering aesthetic awareness.


The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan provides an example of a nation state in the eastern Mediterranean, which has undergone profound changes in populationenvironment dynamics during the twentieth century. The structure of interdependency between urbanisation and agriculture is distinctively shaped by the political history of the region. Created as an ent ity in 1922 through colonial demarcation of the former Ottoman Empire, the development of nationhood imposed both restrictions to the traditional mobility of pastoralists and the need for national identity. Environmental change driven by political and economic context has been rapid and varied. The growing demand for the use of water resources, in particular, from rapidly expanding urban centres is problematic for sustainable development. The structure between urbanisation and agricultural production is encroached by issues of population growth, migration, concepts of territory and boundaries, land tenure and factors driving mobility and settlement. An on-going Research and Development Programme in a sector of the Badia, the desert margin in the north east of the country, seeks to provide information about environmental resources and options for their sustainable use. Well beyond the limits of the capital, Amman, economic decision making in urban areas and global technological developments impact acutely on the physical environment and the nature of resource exploitation. Amman has grown rapidly through a combination of natural population increase, rural-urban migration, influx of migrant labour and Palestinian settlement. Following Israeli occupation of the West Bank, many Palestinians settled east of the River Jordan and were further bolstered by 300,000 leaving Kuwait after the Gulf War. Combining very high rates of natural population growth with in-migration the population of Jordan as a whole has risen from 0.7 to 4.2 million between 1952 and 1994. About half of the population live within the urban areas of Amman and its satellite towns Zarqa and Suweilah. Two thirds of this urban population is Palestinian. The rapid growth of a low density city has not only changed the balance of urban-rural population but has consumed land which is capable of sustaining rainfed agriculture, which is a rare commodity in Jordan. Water demand has increased


A new type of potassium niobium phosphate, K8Nb7P7O39, has been prepared and its structure has been determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The results show that it crystallizes in a novel (3 + 1)-dimensional incommensurately modulated structure with a triclinic superspace group P(αβγ)0 and modulation vector q = −0.35281a* + 0.17630b* + 0.25807c*. The structure of K8Nb7P7O39 contains [K3.66]∞, [K4.34]∞ and [Nb7P7O39]∞ layers alternately stacked along the c-axis. In this structure, seven not fully occupied K atoms (six of them come from the [K3.66]∞ layer and the remaining one comes from the [K4.34]∞ layer) are thought to be the dominant factors in driving the structural modulation. The strong occupational modulation in combination with positional modulation of these seven K atoms can be described by crenel-type modulation functions. Furthermore, elemental composition, UV-Vis absorption spectrum, SEM morphology and photoluminescence properties induced by Eu3+-doping have been studied for K8Nb7P7O39. The excitation spectrum covers a wide range from 362 to 465 nm and it matches well with the emission of near-UV InGaN-based LED chips and bluish-green LED chips, indicating that K8Nb7P7O39:Eu3+ has potential as a red-emitting phosphor for LED applications.


The role of oxygen vacancies on the kinetics of the oxygen electrode reaction on passivated metal surfaces is an issue of considerable theoretical and practical importance in the development of new electrocatalysts for both oxygen evolution and oxygen reduction. Although oxygen vacancies have been implicated in oxygen evolution on oxidized metal surfaces in the past, to the authors' knowledge they have not been previously implicated in the kinetics of oxygen reduction. The goal of the present study was to ascertain the kinetic roles that oxygen vacancies play in the OER on passive titanium, because the oxygen vacancy concentration in the passive oxide film that forms on this metal can be varied over a wide range by carefully controlling the film formation conditions. The anodic oxide films formed on titanium were prepared galvanostatically in 0.5M H2SO4 solution until the voltage reached 20 VSHE. The films were then grown potentiostatically at this voltage to yield films of constant thickness of 44 ± 2 nm. By using Mott-Schottky analysis[1] and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, it was found that the donor concentration varied with the current density, and we observe that the modulus of the impedance, |Z|, is a sensitive function of the donor density, with |Z| becoming lower as Nd increases. (Figure 1). Potentiodynamic experiments employing titanium oxide films covering a wide range of donor density were used for ascertaining relationships between the rates of oxygen reduction/evolution and the donor (oxygen vacancy) density. These studies show that the rates of both reactions are higher for passive films having higher donor densities. Possible explanations include enhancement of the conductivity of the film due to the vacancies facilitating charge transfer and the surface oxygen vacancies acting as catalytic sites for the reactions. The possible involvement of surface oxygen vacancies in the oxygen electrode reaction was explored by determining the kinetic order of the OER with respect to the donor concentration. The following rate equation is postulated to describe the kinetics of the oxygen electrode reaction in acid solutions [2]


Biomass Feedstock and Logistics Biomass Feedstocks: Types, Sources, Availability, Production, and Sustainability Sorghum as a Sustainable Feedstock for Biofuels Short Rotation Woody Biomass Production Supply Chain Management of Biomass Feedstock Conversion Processes Thermochemical Biomass Conversion for Rural Biorefinery Conversion of Holocellulose-Derived Polyols to Valuable Chemicals Using High-Temperature Liquid Water and High-Pressure Carbon Dioxide Utilization of Ionic Liquids for the Processing of Biopolymers Economically Viable Biochemical Processes for Advanced Rural Biorefinery and Downstream Recovery Operations Effect of Co -metals in Copper Catalysts for Hydrogenolysis of Glycerol to 1,2-Propanediol Energy Harvest: A Possible Solution to the Open Field Stubble Burning in Punjab, India Algal Biorefinery Ecological Economics and Policy Process Systems Engineering Approach to Biofuel Plant Design Impact of Allocation Procedures on the Greenhouse Gas Intensity of Wood-Based Cellulosic Ethanol Policy Mechanisms to Implement and Support Biomass and Biofuel Projects in the United States Case Studies Cellulosic Biofuel in the United States: Targets, Achievements, Bottlenecks, and a Case Study of Three Advanced Biofuel Facilities Biorefineries for Sustainable Production and Distribution: A Case Study from India Techno-Economic and Environmental Impacts of Biofuel Options in Brazil Biomass and Biofuels: A Case Study from Nigeria


It is a conceptual paper to demonstrate the importance of application of Six Sigma DMAIC methodlogy to a PVC pipe manufacturing process and to realize the role played by measure phase for successful completion of Six Sigma. Measure phase measures the potential of the process. It is important to study the existing process in order to formulate the improvement strategies. It entails a method to execute measure phase in a comprehensive manner so that this phase reflects the actual process. It acts as road map for the researchers for executing measure phase using appropriate tool. A case study has been conducted in a PVC manufacturing plant to execute measure phase to produce breakthrough results in real world environment.


The effectiveness of P(E-co-MA-co-GMA) as a compatibilizer for recycled PET/PP and recycled PET/PP-EP (polypropylene (ethylene-propylene) heterophase copolymer) blends was investigated by means of morphological (scanning electron microscopy), rheological (small amplitude oscillatory shear), mechanical (tensile, flexural and impact tests), and thermal (differential scanning calorimetry) properties. Compatibilizer concentration ranged from 1 to 5 wt % with respect to the whole blend. All blends were obtained in a 90/10 composition using a twin screw extruder. Compatibilization effects for PETr/PP-EP were more pronounced due to ethylene segments present in both PP-EP and P(E-co-EA-co-GMA). PETr/PP-EP has shown greater dispersed phase size reduction, a more solid-like complex viscosity behavior and larger storage modulus at low frequencies in relation to PETr/PP blend. For both investigated blends, mechanical properties indicated an improvement in both elongation at break and impact strength with increasing compatibilizer content. PETr/PP-EP blends showed improved performance for the same level of compatibilizer content. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 41892.


The study investigates challenges facing internal auditing function in improving organizational performance. It uses a grounded theory strategy for data collection and analysis. The research was conducted in four Local Government Authorities (LGAs) in Tanzania. The study findings revealed that structural limitations and capability deficiencies in terms of staffing, sufficient funding and lack of other working facilities were the challenges perceived to hinder the effectiveness and efficiency of LGAs internal audit units (IAUs). It was also revealed that efficiency and effective internal audit function in Tanzanian LGAs cannot be achieved unless internal actors, particularly management, support the function of internal audit units. The study provides evidence to the existing literature of how internal auditing can be used as an instrument to foster organizational efficiency despite challenges faced, and confirms that management support to IAUs to be the most important attribute contributing towards effective internal auditing.


Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a major pool that impacts the global carbon cycle (Lal,1999). Increasing SOC pool is desirable because of its favorable effects on improving soil fertility, decreasing water and air pollution, and mitigating the greenhouse effect caused by various energy utilization activities such as fossil fuel combustion. The amount of SOC depends on kinetic competition between various input and output processes. The input processes include plant growth (plant residue, root excretion, and organic matter through-fall), addition of organic material (manure, sewage sludge, and other organic wastes) through soil management, and deposition through soil erosion. The output processes comprise decomposition into gases, leaching into groundwater, and removal through soil erosion. Assessment of these processes is one of the steps toward adopting the strategy of increasing SOC content.


Group I introns share a conserved core region consisting of two domains, P8‐P3‐P7 and P4‐P6, joined by four base‐triples. We showed previously that the T4 td intron can perform phosphoester transfer reactions at two splice sites in the absence of both P4‐P6 and the conserved base‐triples, whereas it is barely able to perform the intact splicing reaction due to the difficulty of conducting the sequential reactions.


ObjectiveTo explore the optimum extraction method of Flos Lonicerace.MethodsThe experiment was made by the orthogonal design and Chlorogenic acid determined by UV in which the concentration of ethanol(A),dosage of solvent(B),circumfluence time(C)and circumfluence times(D) were the four factors in the experiment,three levels of each factor were chosen to be inspected to optimize the process.ResultsFactor C had most significant effect on the result of extraction,Factor A had less effect on the result of extraction,and factor B had least effect on the result of extraction.ConclusionThe best extraction process was to extract twice with decuple EtOH(40%) and refluxing at 80℃ for 1.5 h each time.


Leiomyosarcoma of the small intestine is a rare entity and often presents difficulty in determination of the location of the tumor. Recently we experienced a case of huge leiomyosarcoma of the jejunum which invaded the rectal wall and was supplied parasitic arterial blood from the inferior mesenteric and iliac arteries that made the differentiation from a rectal tumor difficult. A 31-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of a huge mass in the lower abdomen. Abdominal ultrasonography, CT and MRI revealed a huge tumor occupied the entire pelvic cavity. The border between the tumor and the rectum was unclear on abdominal CT and MRI. Angiograms of the inferior mesenteric artery and common iliac artery showed a hypervascular tumor with feeding arteries from the superior and middle rectal artery. Under a diagnosis of submucosal tumor of the rectum, an operation was performed. At laparotomy, we found that the tumor arose from the jejunum and invaded the rectum. The histological examination showed well differentiated leiomyosarcoma with mitotic figure 1.0/HPF.


There are various explanatory analyses of the instability and persistent underdevelopment in Africa. The general presumption points to a case of arrested development to begin with – the product of slavery and colonialism – a retardation that constitutes the inauspicious legacy on which newly independent African states have to build. It is argued that this ill-augury of colonial inheritance exerts a momentum of its own, intensifying in the post-independence era the cancerous growth of ethnic fissures, constitutional disequilibrations, economic disasters, and fresh dominations.


Innovation has been a subject of interest at the level of the European Union ever since its formation as the European Community, being regarded as the main factor of progress facilitating the transition to a knowledge-based economy. In many studies, the RD Strong Innovators; Moderate Innovators and Modest Innovators. To highlight these gaps in the paper we will use indicators of descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation), but also the Herfindahl - Hirschman and Gini - Struck concentration / diversification coefficients. The analysis reflects an upward trend for the innovation index while preserving significant gaps between Innovation Leaders in Northern and Western Europe and Moderate and Modest Innovators, mainly located in Central and Eastern Europe.


The availability of massive amounts of biological data, distributed in various data sources, in conjunction with the need to understand the underlying biological processes of life, has prompted the development of a wide range of data analysis tools, most of which are publicly available through the Internet. However, due to the heterogeneity and complexity of the domain, performing a specific analysis by combining tools is complicated. In this paper, we argue that the software agent metaphor constitutes a flexible approach that efficiently addresses integration of bioinformatics analysis tools and dynamic composition-execution of data analysis workflows. To substantiate this assertion, a scalable engineering methodology is presented, aiming to address horizontal and/or vertical integration, through functionally related multiagent systems. The proposed approach is mediator-oriented, relying primarily on agent coordination strategies and semantic domain descriptions. The applicability and virtue of the proposed systems are illustrated through test cases addressing integration of computational gene finders.


Freedom of expression has actually been guaranteed in the law. As a citizen, having an opinion according to what is considered right is certainly a legal thing. The phenomenon of opinion in various social media is currently being loved. The thing that has often been an issue in recent weeks is the truth about the Covid-19 pandemic. Jerinx, a member of a well-known musician band in Bali, often voices opinions that are different from what actually happened. He considers that this pandemic is just a conspiracy of the global elite. The opinions expressed were conveyed through his social media channels, up to a post that forced Jerinx to go to jail for allegedly violating the rules contained in the ITE Law. The purpose of this study is to analyze the accuracy of the use of Articles in the ITE Law which is alleged to be against Jerinx for the posts he has made. By using juridical-normative research methods based on primary, secondary and tertiary legal materials such as legislation, court decisions, legal theory, and can be in the form of opinions of scholars related to existing problems. The results of this study were then analyzed qualitatively with descriptive-prescriptive presentation. There, a fact was found that all the elements of the articles of the ITE Law had been fulfilled to imprison Jerinx.


Safety is an important character of safety-critical software system. In order to validate the safety of safety-critical software system, people will use the method of testing. The key factor of the method is to model the system safety requirements and interaction constraints among components. This paper addresses a new approach to model the safety requirements by safety behavior model and perform safety test of safety-critical system based on it. By using the method, we have developed an automatic testing platform for train control system safety test.


Improvements to the Yanchep Lagoon foreshore are continuing, with the concept
design of the Picnic Cove redevelopment endorsed by Council last night.


Americans long ago dedicated themselves to the removal of social and economic barriers that unfairly burdened racial and ethnic minorities, women, and older people. Discrimination against individuals on the basis of their membership in artificially defined groups was rejected. The current crisis in health care expenditures, however, may be reviving some old prejudices and creating new ones, particularly against older people. Questions have been raised about older Americans, their place in society, and their rightful claim on resources such as health care. The way that society addresses these questions may well determine the character and quality of life in this country over the next few decades.


This invention relates to cooking and distribution of food products. This means for continuously cooking and doses of food products and to distribute and extract doses of baked products comprises a horizontal cooking cylinder 1 provided with an opening 8 for introducing the products to be cooked, and wherein a basket 3 rotates on a coaxial drum 4, and which comprises a cage provided with radial vanes 3A 3B, uniformly spaced. This drum has a receiving opening baked goods while a bottomless drawer receives the products cooked dose per dose and is used to distribute and / or extract the Main applications:. Vending machines and Automatic distribution of freshly baked products.


A pre-trained convolutional deep neural network (CNN) is widely used for embedded systems, which requires highly power-and-area efficiency. In that case, the CPU is too slow, the embedded GPU dissipates much power, and the ASIC cannot keep up with the rapidly progress of the CNN variations. This paper uses a binarized CNN which treats only binary 2-values for the inputs and the weights. Since the multiplier is replaced into an XNOR circuit, we can realize a high-performance MAC circuit by using many XNOR circuits. In the paper, we eliminate internal FC layers excluding the last one, then, insert a binarized average pooling layer, which can be realized by a majority circuit for binarized (1/0) values. In that case, since the weight memory is replaced into the 1's counter, we can realize a compact and faster CNN than the conventional ones. We implemented the VGG-11 benchmark CNN for the CIFAR10 image classification task on the Xilinx Inc. Zedboard. Compared with the conventional binarized implementations on an FPGA, the classification accuracy was almost the same, the performance per power efficiency is 5.1 better, as for the performance per area efficiency, it is 8.0 times better, and as for the performance per memory, it is 8.2 times better.


Taking a cue from the title, if the reader were to approach this book for a comprehensive theory of Administration or delineation of the field of research therein, he is likely to be disappointed. The book is divided into four parts neither too closely integrated nor of an even fibre. In the first part, the author develops a paradigm on administrative behaviour, in the second, he presents a digested account of two of his researches on pattern of "leadership behaviour" and ' 'organisational climate" of schools. While the first two parts are couched in technical language which makes tough reading, the next two parts provide a delectable contrast and contain interesting comments expressed in literary language on communication in administration and the state of contemporary research and its relevance to the practical problems.


Aiming at the problem of long training time of process neural networks,a training algorithm based on MPI and OpenMP is proposed.The proposed algorithm based on batch processing of process neural network by the standard gradient descent,uses MPI and OpenMP Programming technology.In the local area network,a cluster is composed of multiple computers.Meanwhile,the sample training is carried out under different magnitude levels,the test result shows that it can accelerate the training speed of process neural networks,when the parallel granularity is appropriate.


Abstract In the Sahel, the borders still offer suitably fertile ground for informal commerce to bloom. In that context, this article postulates that contemporary cross‐border economic activity illustrates one of the foundations of what some geographers called mobile space, i.e. that circulation is the most appropriate method of managing the uncertainty of Sahelian life. The case of the border markets of Gaya (Niger), Malanville (Benin) and Kamba (Nigeria) provides a concrete example. On this "triple point", the study of trade networks suggests that border commerce makes some use of the colonial partition, to the extent that the establishment of boundaries represents not so much a divide as a condition of contemporary economic dynamism.


Power grid tries to maximize its profit by reducing generation cost, supply costs and operation costs while sustaining its required reliability. Developing maintenance strategies is one of the most effective methods. The condition-based maintenance approach is a key method in providing optimal maintenance strategies in theory. It considers the tradeoffs between the system maintenance risk and the potential system failure risk of system reliability losses. Since power grid contains a group of different kinds of equipments and the reliability of the electric equipments varies with time. One type of electrical equipment has different maintenance models because of their different failure modes and deterioration processes. A union method for equipment maintenance model and system condition-based maintenance model is proposed. The modified imperfect maintenance model-Kijima II model is selected for equipment maintenance model comparing with minimal repair and perfect maintenance through optimizing imperfect maintenance effect factor. In addition, a genetic algorithm is used to find the optimal maintenance strategies from possible maintenance scenarios. These optimal maintenance strategies have been tested on a HVDC link which is simplified into an equivalent serial and parallel system and an IEEE-RTS79 system. The results demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the proposed model.


We read with interest the paper by M Levy et al about the treatment of scabies with ivermectin in infants and children under 15kg of body weight1 . The authors describe the results of a multicentre observational study conducted in France between 2012-15, among 170 children with body weight 4 to 14.5kg. Children were treated with a mean dose of ivermectin of 223µg/kg, and 89% of them had received two doses. Adverse events were observed in only seven participants (4%), none of which were severe. Therefore, they concluded that a therapeutic trial in infants and young children needs to be performed.


Talking books, besides helping the blind and print-disabled communities to have easier access to books, also allow reading in situations when the vision becomes temporarily unavailable, for instance, while driving. In this paper, we present a user interface model-based architecture for digital talking books. The books allow for multimodal interaction in an effort to broaden the usage scope. Considering the execution platform, user and usage characteristics, a great number of configurations for the books are possible. For the situations where the most suited configuration can not be forecast, an adaptable book can be the solution.


The future requires military operations and intelligence communities to more heavily rely on Internet-based solutions for the delivery of MetOc data and products to the warfighter in an automated manner. These issues are being addressed by Tactical Environmental Data Services (TEDServices). TEDServices is being engineered by the Naval Research Laboratory, the Naval Oceanographic Office and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, with sponsorship from Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) PMW-150. TEDServices was successfully demonstrated during April 2004, in FBE-Kilo, and is in transition to the US Navy this fiscal year. This paper will describe how TEDServices has been engineered to provide solutions to issues routinely confronted by warfighters. These solutions include, but are not limited to, better bandwidth usage, automated data ordering, simplification of data management, automated data transformations, forward deployed data caching, simplified integration with legacy tactical decision aids and support for joint interoperability.


Phenazines and heterocyclic N-oxides have proven to be interesting classes of antitumoral as well as antibiotic agents . The natural product myxin (1-hydroxy-6-methoxyphenazineN5, N10-dioxide) which belongs to both of these unique classes of molecules, has been found to cause bio-reductively activated, radical-mediated DNA strand cleavage via a de-oxygenative mechanism, making it a potential antitumoral as well as anti-bactierial candidate. In order to investigate as well as improve the bioactive properties of myxin, the following study was designed to synthesize glycosylated myxin analogs. A small catalog of these compounds were synthesized, some of them exhibiting comparable biological activity to that of myxin. INDEX WORDS: Myxin, Phenazines, Heterocylcic N-oxides, Glycosylation, Carbohydrates, Bioreductive SYNTHESIS OF NOVEL HETEROCYCLIC N-OXIDE GLYCOSIDES: GLYCOSYLATION OF MYXIN ANALOGS


The pick‐up rate of 2149 e‐prescriptions and 414 paper prescriptions for short‐term treatments was determined at a middle‐sized Swedish pharmacy. We found a high pick‐up rate of 90% within 5 days from the date of issue. The number of patients with a pick‐up delay of more than 5 days was significantly higher among those with paper prescriptions (15%) compared to those with e‐prescriptions (10%).


Background: Chronic Suppurative Otitis Media (CSOM) is the major cause of hearing impairment, mainly conductive type of hearing loss. The occurrence of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) in CSOM is controversial and the controversy is more for safe mucosal type. This study aims to assess the association between SNHL and safe mucosal CSOM and its relation to patient's age, sex, duration of disease, active or inactive disease and speech frequencies. Methods: 100 patients with unilateral mucosal type of CSOM with normal contralateral ear were included in the study. The infected ear was taken as study ear and normal ear as control ear in all patients. All patients underwent hearing assessment by pure tone audiometry for both ears. In case of active disease, ear discharge was first cleared and then audiometric assessment done. Results were statistically compared in all patients for both study and control ears using parameters of patient's age, sex, duration of disease, speech frequency and active or inactive disease. Results: There was significant higher number of study ears with CSOM having average bone conduction threshold of all frequencies above 25 decibels which implies SNHL (21%) compared to control contralateral ears without infection (5%). There was higher incidence of SNHL at higher speech frequencies. The incidence also increased with age of patient and duration of disease. The incidence was higher in active stage than inactive or quiescent stage. There was no difference among males and females. Conclusion: Safe mucosal CSOM can cause significant SNHL and risk increases with increasing age, duration of disease, higher speech frequencies and presence of active disease.


Korpipää, Heidi Overlap between reading and arithmetic skills from primary to lower secondary school and the underlying cognitive mechanisms Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2020, 61 p. (JYU Dissertations ISSN 2489-9003; 181) ISBN 978-951-39-8023-8 (PDF) Reading and math skills are fundamental for school achievement, and these two basic academic skills have been shown to be strongly related. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the longitudinal relationship between reading and arithmetic skills, as well as on the underlying cognitive mechanisms. Investigating the overlap (i.e., shared variance) between reading and arithmetic skills across grade levels can provide valuable information about the development of these skills in relation to each other, which is important in understanding the comorbidity of learning difficulties and in designing more effective interventions. This research aimed to complement the current understanding of the overlap between reading and arithmetic skills with three separate studies. In Study I, an unselected population was used to investigate the extent to which reading and arithmetic skills show overlap in Grades 1 and 7, and the extent to which this overlap is time-invariant, on the one hand, and time-specific, on the other. Furthermore, the study investigated the extent to which different cognitive antecedents, along with parental education, predict the time-invariant and timespecific parts of the overlap. In Study II, a person-oriented approach was applied to complement the variable-oriented research by investigating individual differences in cognitive profiles composed of shared predictors of reading and arithmetic skills. In addition, the relations of these profiles to subsequent reading and arithmetic skills and to the overlap between these skills during primary and lower secondary school were investigated. Finally, Study III focused on the association of prematurity with the overlapping part of reading and arithmetic skills at the beginning of school and the cognitive antecedents explaining this association. Overall, the results revealed that reading and arithmetic skills show substantial overlap across grade levels from primary to lower secondary school, which is predicted mainly by linguistic and basic number skills related to developing fluency in these two domains (Study I). The results showed further that individual variations in patterns of performance exist across linguistic and basic number skills that differentially predict the overlap of subsequent reading and arithmetic skills (Study II). Finally, the results showed that prematurity was negatively associated with the overlapping part of reading and arithmetic skills rather than the unique variation of these skills, and this association was due to the premature children's weaknesses in cognitive antecedents predicting the overlap between reading and arithmetic skills (Study III). In general, the results suggested that reading and arithmetic skills develop in tandem among most of the children due to the partly shared cognitive background; thus, children with difficulties in one domain should be closely monitored for difficulties in the other domain as well.


Bacteriophytochromes (BphPs) are red‐light photoreceptors that regulate light responses in bacteria via reversible photoconversion between red (Pr) and far‐red (Pfr) light‐absorbing states. BphPs consist of a photosensory module that is composed of the PAS (Per‐ARNT‐Sim), GAF (cGMP phosphodiesterase/adenyl cyclase/FhlA), and PHY (phytochrome) domains. PHY domain is covalently linked to a signaling‐effector module such as histidine kinase. Wild type protein from non‐photosynthetic myxobacterium Stigmatella aurantiaca (SaBphP1) was purified, crystallized, and the structure of the complete photosensory module was determined at 2.35 Å resolution. Unlike classical BphPs, SaBphP1 undergoes limited Pr/Pfr photoconversion in the presence of the PHY domain. Wild‐type SaBphP1 lacks a conserved His that forms a hydrogen bond with the chromophore in the Pr state in the classical BphPs. A single Thr289His mutation in the chromophore‐binding pocket of SaBphP1 results in a complete Pr/Pfr photoconversion. Consequently, we determined the crystal structure of the complete photosensory module for SaBphP1 Thr289His mutant at 2.85 Å resolution. Both SaBphP1 crystal structures, solved in the Pr state, reveal how interdomain interactions bring together PAS, GAF and PHY domains to achieve Pr/Pfr photoconversion. We identify key amino acids that stabilize the chromophore in the Pr state and provide structural evidence to support the essential role of the PHY domain in Pr/Pfr photoconversion. Our results highlight local structural changes from the photosensory domain that significantly affect the long, signaling helices at the dimer interface and may impact the spatially distant histidine kinase domain and its activity.


Using the tender stems of Edible cactus as the explants,the effects of different medium on plant regeneration were examined.The results indicated that the appropriate medium for bud induction was MS+6-BA1.0 mg/L+IAA0.3 mg/L.the highest rate of bud induction was 88.9%.the medium of multiplication was MS+6-BA1.0 mg/L+IAA0.3 mg/L,the multiplication rate was 345.4%.the multiplication of the lower parts of the micro-cladode is higher.the medium of rooting was 1/2MS+IBA0.5 mg/L,averagely every stem has 2.67 roots,some roots length was 5cm.When root length was over 2 cm,open lid for 3 days and transplant them into mixture medium(residue and perlite in equal proportion)with up to 95% survival.


This paper presents a video summarization method to visualize the video object trajectories across multiple cameras in a static image for monitoring the movements of suspicious people in a building. First, we have designed an object association algorithm across multiple stationary cameras, which can be used to build the object trajectories in the building with the assistants of the predefined locations of the cameras. The object associations are based on the features of human body, such as the clothing colour, stature, shoulder breadth and so on. These features are calculated from the anthropometric dimensions of the human body from calibrated monocular video sequences. Finally, the object trajectories are illustrated in a perspective picture that overviews all floors of the building, wihich is called storyboard. Some diagrammatic elements such as arrows and texts are used to annotate the object movements. Thicker arrows represent the more rapid movements and narrower arrows represent the slower movements. The visualization results can assist the monitors to real-time observe the people's movements and easily understand the people's activities in a building.


We show that the edge graph of a locally (cid:12)nite tiling in the plane satis(cid:12)es a strong isoperimetric inequality if one among the lower averages of what we call the characteristic numbers of edges, vertices and tiles is positive.


Composite engineers have made considerable strides forward in the development of new constituents, architectures and processing routes, leading to an unprecedented ability to tailor and optimise the properties of the resulting composites. Recently there has been interest in developing multifunctional materials which exhibit duel, and distinctly different, capabilities. Structural power composites; multifunctional materials that carry mechanical loads whilst storing (and delivering) electrical energy, are the focus of this paper. The progress made by the STORAGE consortium, who have been using structural power materials for hybrid automotive applications, is presented. In particular, the progress made in the constituent development, the resulting composites, systems and demonstration is discussed.


To improve the number of qualified high school students entering into engineering disciplines, the University of Arizona (UA) and local businesses have created a program called the Summer Engineering Academy or (SEA). The SEA program has proven to be highly successful during the summers of 1999 and 2000. The idea behind the SEA program is to show students how a concept becomes reality. On this program, student teams designed and rapid prototyped aerodynamic vehicles using SolidWorks™ and Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM  ) for Computer Aided Design (CAD) and rapid prototyping (RP), respectively. In 1999, two groups of 35 freshmen-sophomores and 47 junior-seniors participated, while in the 2000 program, 52 freshmen-sophomores and 40 junior-seniors attended. Out of the students who attended the program in 1999, 27 students from the senior batch have enrolled in the University of Arizona engineering programs. In both of the programs, 68 female students and 57 students from under-represented groups participated. The students were taught concepts of materials science, aerodynamics, CAD, and rapid prototyping by faculty from UA. The students visualized and modeled to prepare CAD files of the cars. The parts were built using a Fused Deposition Modeler. The vehicles were then tested in a wind tunnel and prizes were awarded for the best aerodynamic design. The students also toured the ACR and Raytheon rapid prototyping facilities during the weeklong program. The design and model competition results were presented to the parents and faculty members of the College of Engineering.


In order to give the unique flavour of traditional Doenjang (Korean-style soybean paste) to commercially manufactured soybean paste, the addition of Bacillus licheniformis and Saccharomyces rouxii was tried and their influences were investigated. The addition of B. licheniformis and S. rouxii in soybean paste decreased the content of reducing sugars. By the addition of B. licheniformis, the contents of amino type nitrogen and titrable acidity were increased. The content of ammoniacal nitrogen was reduced and ethyl alcohol production was increased by the addition of S. rouxii. The viable counts of molds showed the decreasing tendency during the aging and it was accelerated by the addition of B. licheniformis and S. rouxii. Acetaldehyde, acetone, ethylacetate, methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol, propyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol were detected from the vapor of all tested ripen soybean pastes, while in a traditional Doenjang, isoamyl alcohol and isobutyl alcohol were not. The B. licheniformis and S. rouxii added sample showed richest free amino acid content. In organoleptic test the B. licheniformis and S. rouxii added sample showed the most excellent overall acceptability.


We present an anthracene-based coordination system with blue light emitting properties which could be easily modulated by tuning the end-coordination solvent molecules. These complexes also show promising applications as fluorescent thermometers.


1 Supplementary Methods 1.1 Treatment of replicate microarrays When a given experiment had more than one replicate, we only included the closest-to-average (CTA) replicate in analysis. The CTA replicate was the microarray in a set of replicates that was closest to the average of that set of replicates (minimum sum of absolute differences between the replicate and the average of replicates). If there were only two replicates for an experiment, one was chosen at random. TRNI performance using CTA replicate data was compared to two other treatments of replicates (including all chips or averaging replicate chips) in Supplementary Figure S2. We chose to use the CTA replicates for analysis in this work, as the CTA data performed better in correlation-based TRNI than including all replicates, and this approach avoids possible smoothing effects due to averaging. We conducted permutation tests for i.i.d. experiments following [2]. The n × n experiment correlation matrix was computed for the double standardized compendium. The first eigenvector of this matrix, v1, was calculated via singular value decomposition. If the experiments were indeed i.i.d., the order of the values in v1 should be random with respect to the order of the experiments. To test this, a block statistic S(v) = v Bv (1) was computed for v = v1 and 5000 random permutations of v1, v = v1 *. The block operator B was the n × n matrix: B = h β h β h for h=1:number of projects (2) where β h is the n × 1 vector: β h = 1 for j in project h, j=1:n 0 otherwise. (3) The p-value of the test was then computed as the fraction of S(v1 *) exceeding S(v1).


Bronchial asthma, being a chronic airway disease, requires long-term pharmacotherapy. Since, a wide range of antiasthmatic drugs are available, study of prescription pattern is essential to promote rational use of drugs. The aim of the study was to evaluate prescription pattern in paediatric patients of bronchial asthma in a private hospital. An observational, non-interventional cross-sectional study was conducted in paediatric outpatient department at a private hospital in Aurangabad after institutional ethical clearance. Asthmatic children of either gender or age group 1-17 years were enrolled and patients details such as demographic details, drugs used etc. were filled in the specially designed case record form. Data was presented in percentages. SPSS software version 20.0 was used to analyse data using statistical test ANOVA. 'P' value ≤ 0.05 was considered as significant. Out of total 300 children enrolled in the study, 43.33% children had intermittent asthma, 16.33% had mild persistent, 21.34% had moderate persistent and 19% had severe persistent asthma. Asthma in majority of the children (40%) was partly controlled. Maximum study population was males of 6-10 years of age. Most of the children received multiple anti-asthmatic drugs (66%) and prevalence of two drug combinations was the highest (46%). Average drugs per prescription were 2.7. Inhalational route was preferred. Most commonly encountered anti-asthmatic drugs were short acting beta 2 agonists (74.33%) followed by inhalational corticosteroids (56.33%). Inhalational corticosteroid usage was profound in children with persistent asthma. Encounter with antibiotics was found to be 18.33%. All the drugs were prescribed by their brand names. Inhaled and oral corticosteroids were prescribed more often in children with persistent asthma than children with intermittent asthma and differences were statistically significant (p=0.001). However, no statistically significant difference was observed among intermittent and persistent asthma in terms of prescription of drugs like salbutamol, levosalbutamol, levosalbutamol plus ipratropium bromide and salmeterol plus fluticasone. The findings of the study suggested a rational approach in providing anti-asthmatic pharmacotherapy to children. Health care professionals seemed to be well versed with the current treatment guidelines. Only matter of concern is prescribing with brand names. Promotion of educational strategies and programmer will incur awareness about benefits of prescribing generic drugs.