Abstract Purpose Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) have been incorporated into clinical trials for many symptoms and medical conditions. A transition from paper-based capture of PROs to electronic PROs (ePROs) has recently started. This study reports on the feasibility of ePRO assessment in a prospective registry including molecular data for patients with advanced breast cancer. Methods As part of the PRAEGNANT network, patients were invited by clinical trial staff, physicians, and nurses to complete three standardized Internet-based questionnaires (EQ 5D 5 L, CES-D and IPAQ). Feasibility was assessed by the staff members who assigned the user accounts by the patients. The completeness of the questionnaires was also assessed. Results Fifteen of 17 patients who were asked agreed to participate to complete the PRO questionnaires (EQ-5D-5L and CES-D). However, the IPAQ (physical activity) questionnaire was only validly completed by 9 patients. Feasibility was ranked better by the physicians and dedicated clinical trial staff than by the nursing staff. Conclusions Incorporating ePRO questionnaires into an advanced breast cancer registry is feasible, and no major hurdles were reported. Involving stakeholders from the start, the application is tailored to the capacities and abilities of both patients and clinical staff. The patients' compliance was better with some questionnaires, but others may present difficulties.


Wheat callus and suspension cultures were initiated from 22 immature haploid embryos obtained from intergeneric crosses with Hordeum bulbosum L. using an F1 wheat hybrid. Two different callus lines were induced after 10 weeks of suspension culture. One line consisted of compact and friable callus clusters which proliferated rapidly in a liquid medium. A few of the calli transferred onto the solid medium were regenerated to green plants through somatic embryogenesis. The other line, growing slowly, consisted of somatic embryoids which were successfully regenerated to green plantlets, but in most of the cases failed to undergo further development. The difference in the behaviour of wheat suspension cultures was discussed.


Abstract The kiwifruit vine is a species which has been newly introduced into cultivation and little is known of its comparative physiology and anatomy. In this study we found that fibrous, 'magnolioid' roots, which have undergone secondary vascular development but which retain the cortex and develop a suberized epidermis, comprise the greater part of the root system (95% of total length). Newly initiated roots with primary development conform to norms established in other woody plant species. However, the structural roots, like the fibrous roots, also retain a cortex and phelloderm which is initiated by hypodermal cells within the cortex and not by the pericycle which is the common progenitor tissue in other species. This phellogen produces new cells centrifugally only. The cortex is a relatively small component of the structural root and the bulk of the tissue is vascular in origin, as in the roots of other plant species. The endodermis is retained and continues to divide periclinally to accommodate the increase in circumference with growth.


A class of polynomial basis function of 5th degree with shape control parameter λ was presented.It was extension of basis function of quartic generalized Ball curve.Properties of this new basis were analyzed and the corresponding polynomial curve with a shape paramete λ was defined.This curve not only inherited the outstanding properties of quartic generalized Ball curve,but also was adjustable in shape.This curve converged to quartic generalized Ball curve when λ=0.The C1-continuity condition of two-piece of curves was also discussed.An algorithm for constructing an extension of the close quartic generalized Ball curves which were tangent to the given polygon was described.The control points of an extension of the close quartic generalized Ball curves to be constructed were computed simply by the vertices of the given polygon.The constructed curves were shape-preserving to the polygon.The local modification to the extension of the close quartic Generalized Ball curves could be completed by simply adjusting the corresponding control parameters.One example was given,examples illustrated the variation of curve shapes with different values of λ.


Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), a major climate variability in the tropics which drives the abiotic stress associated with heavy rainfalls and severe droughts, is not much understood in terms of its role in the carbon cycle, while El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO)‐related terrestrial carbon cycle variation has been intensively studied. Here, we investigate IOD's impact on land photosynthesis over the Indian ocean rim countries during austral spring using satellite‐based gross primary productivity (GPP) and Earth System Model simulations produced in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). IOD independently affects GPP with significant positive partial correlation coefficients ( pcor ) over most of Africa and India, and negative pcor over southern China, Indo‐China peninsula, maritime continent, and Australia, mostly driven by precipitation variations; this obviously differs from the widespread significant negative pcor pattern induced by ENSO. The recent extremely positive IOD in 2019 caused the canonical IOD‐affected GPP patterns, however, with its extreme impacts. Furthermore, though large inter‐model spreads exist, the CMIP6 multimodel median can basically capture the main characteristics of IOD‐affected precipitation and GPP patterns. Importantly, IOD is predicted to occur more frequently in future warming scenarios. Model future projections suggest that it will exert larger impacts on GPP variations over central and eastern Africa, Sumatra, western and southeastern Australia with stronger pcor and enhanced explained variance, but less impacts over southern Africa, east India, Indo‐China peninsula, and northeastern Australia. Therefore, besides ENSO, understanding the IOD impacts can provide us new insights into regional and global carbon cycle interannual variability.


IIB Degree-burn takes longer to heal because only a small epithelium component remains. It requires a topical agent that can accelerate the wound healing process. One of the wound healing signs is the increased collagen formation as an extracellular matrix produced by fibroblast in the proliferative phase. This study aimed to prove the effect of Robusta coffee extract gel as a topical agent on increasing the number of fibroblasts and collagen density in IIB degree-burn treatment on Long Evans rats. This study used 24 Long Evans rats which were divided into three groups, namely positive control (silver sulfadiazine), negative control (gel base), and treatment group (2.5% of Robusta coffee extract gel). The results showed a higher number of fibroblast (p<0.05) and a denser collagen density (p<0.05) of the Robusta coffee extract gel compared to the control group on day 8 and day 14. These results indicated that the number of fibroblasts and collagen increases that can scavenge free radicals and stimulate the release of cytokines that play a role in increasing fibroblast proliferation. Robusta coffee affects expanding the number of fibroblasts and collagen density to be an alternative topical agent of second-degree burns treatment.


This paper discuss the need of performance appraisal in libraries especially in University Libraries. It is also elaborates functions and limitations and also the related studies of the performance appraisal. The library personnel needs to be exposed to latest training in the fields of information technology, which is possible through performance appraisal. This paper explains the application of Performance Appraisal in University Educational System.


If I were a publisher named Horace Liveright I would not talk about anything so vague as 'burning and imperishable epics.' I would, day after day, by the crudest modern ways of advertising, by newspaper page and radio and billboard, demand: 'Your Excellency, Mr. Hoover, have you read "Strike!" by Mary Heaton Vorse? And if you have, what do you think of evicting families in which there is a child with smallpox, of policemen blackjacking unarmed old women, of whole American communities receiving an average wage of twelve dollars a week?' (474)


ABSTRACT Childhood bereavements are not new and normal, culturally defined mourning processes have always required social support. Unfortunately, COVID-19 – like other pandemics, wars, natural disasters, and famines – has complicated and disrupted normal mourning in both children and adults. I review some of these complications and disruptions and then go on to describe some of the interventions that may be helpful and supportive to bereaved children and their families. While it is important to avoid viewing mourning processes as evidence of psychopathology, it remains true that a sensitive, psychoanalytically attuned approach to mourning may help identify those people who, because of past or present circumstances, may find their bereavements to be particularly disorganizing. That attunement puts us in a position to help individual children, families, and whole communities find alternative ways to do the work of mourning despite the obstacles imposed by pandemics, wars, and natural disasters.


Assuring safety in stochastic hybrid systems is particularly difficult when only noisy or partial observations of the state are available. We first review a formulation of the probabilistic safety problem under partial hybrid observations as a dynamic program over an equivalent information state. Two methods for approximately solving the dynamic program are presented. The first approximates the hybrid system as a finite state Markov decision process, so that the information state is a probability mass function. The second method approximates an indicator function over the safe region using radial basis functions, to represent the information state as a Gaussian mixture. In both cases we discretize the hybrid observation process, then use point-based value iteration to under-approximate the safety probability and synthesize a safety-preserving control policy. We obtain error bounds and convergence results in both cases, assuming switched affine dynamics and additive Gaussian noise on the continuous states and observations. We compare the performance of the finite state and Gaussian mixture approaches on a simple numerical example.


Summary. Although several monoclonal antibodies to sperm antigens are available, only few systematical reports on the appearance of distinct antibody binding structures in spermatozoa of infertile patients are available. We studied the binding frequency of six monoclonal antibodies (TÜS‐1, ‐2, ‐10, ‐17, ‐19, ‐20) by means of a flow cytometer in different semen samples and their possible relationship to other sperm parameters, in particular to the motility parameters as determined by computer‐assisted semen analysis. The percentage of vital spermatozoa binding the different antibodies was 21.5% (TÜS‐2) to 52.1% (TÜS‐20). The percentage binding was higher in samples with normozoospermia than in those with oligo‐asthenoteratozoospermia. A significant correlation occurred between sperm concentration and the percentage of spermatozoa stained by TÜS‐2 and TÜS‐17; between motile spermatozoa and those binding TÜS‐17 and TÜS‐20; the velocity average path and those binding TÜS‐17; an inverse correlation occurred between the morphologically‐abnormal spermatozoa and those binding TÜS‐20; an inverse correlation between TÜS‐17 and acrosin. We conclude from our results that although the antigens of the antibodies concerned are not yet characterized, the determination of antibody binding will give additional information on the functional status during capacitation and acrosome reaction of spermatozoa.


Expansion of commercial vegetable production in Kentucky prompted the updating of the 1998 commercial vegetable budget estimates for Kentucky's major commercial vegetables in 2000. Updates continued throughout subsequent seasons. These estimated returns to land, labor, and management sought to convey a conservative profitability estimate for comparative purposes among existing and potential commercial vegetable producers. A copy of current budget estimates can be found at this Web site: <http:/ /www.uky.edu/Ag/NewCrops/2003veggiebudgets.pdf>. Return to land, capital, labor, and management is defined as the return above variable and fixed production costs incurred during the production year. Variable production costs include cash costs incurred in crop production such as seed, fertilizer, harvest labor, packaging, marketing, and pesticides. Fixed production costs include noncash costs incurred in vegetable crop production such as depreciation on machinery and irrigation equipment. The estimated returns are listed in Table 1. It should be noted that vegetable production practices and costs vary throughout different regions of the state. Therefore, these estimated returns are best used as a guide for simply comparing profitability between crops. It should also be noted that these estimates are based on wholesale prices received by the producer. Producers utilizing on-farm retail or other direct marketing strategies can usually expect significantly greater returns per acre.


A USEFUL WAY to analyze the past and future of for-profit and not-forprofit hospitals is to consider the challenges the rise of investor-owned hospital companies has posed for the nonprofit hospital sector, which has long been predominant among hospitals in the United States. Having moved through what I term as the takeover and competitive challenges, we are now in the midst of a legitimacy challenge. I should first clarify some terms. As I am using it, "nonprofit" does not include public facilities, but refers to private organizations owned by not-forprofit corporations and chartered under state statutes. Their profits are usually called surpluses or operating margins and must be used for the charitable, educational, religious, or scientific purpose for which the organization was chartered. Nonprofit hospitals enjoy a number of legal advantages, the most important being exemption from local property taxes and corporate income taxes. Regarding for-profit organizations, an important distinction can be drawn between proprietary and investor-owned. Proprietary firms are independent, owner-operated organizations. They included half of hospitals early in the century. These were small; most were physician owned. Proprietary hospitals have comprised a smaller percentage of American hospitals every time a census has been done. It was down to 11-12% of hospitals in the early 1960s, when a new for-profit form appeared. It is down to fewer than 270 nationally now. Investor-owned hospitals were, of course, the new form that began in the 1960s. Here most owners had no connection with hospitals other than ownership. The hospitals were owned by companies such as the Hospital Corpora-


The principle of equality – the belief that all human beings are born free and equal – along with the correlated prohibition on discrimination are foundations of society. Equality is one of the most basic aspects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a pillar on which the United Nations (UN) was founded in 1945. Yet, following the emergence of the coronavirus in December 2019, this long-established fundamental human right is being increasingly threatened. Indeed, as the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Fernand de Varennes, observed, "COVID-19 is not just a health issue; it can also be a virus that exacerbates xenophobia, hate and exclusion."


This paper provides some empirical evidence about the supposed vulnerability of immigrants to the recent economic downturn, by using longitudinal data from the Italian Labour Force Survey. Immigrant workers always show a higher probability of ending an ongoing employment spell when compared to their native colleagues. However, their observable characteristics are more likely associated to higher separation rates, so that, when comparing similar workers, differences between immigrants and natives disappear, both before and after the downturn. The impact of the downturn is mostly related to observed characteristics, not to the immigrant status itself, and it is markedly different by gender. In 2009 job separations are increasing for all male workers, but the impact is stronger for immigrants, mainly because their characteristics are more likely to be hit by the downturn. On the contrary, both groups of female workers show a slightly lower probability of losing a job in 2009, so that observed differences remain the same before and after the downturn.


Type II iodothyronine 5′-deiodinase catalyzes the bioactivation of thyroid hormone in the brain. In astrocytes, this ∼200-kDa, membrane-bound enzyme is composed of at least one p29 subunit, an ∼60-kDa, cAMP-induced activation protein, and one or more uniden- tified catalytic subunit(s). Recently, an artificial type II-like selenodeiodinase was engineered by fusing two independent cDNAs together; however, no native type II selenodeiodinase polypeptide is translated in the brain or brown adipose tissue of rats. These data suggest that the native type II 5′-deiodinase in rat brain is unrelated to this artificial selenoprotein. In this report, we describe the cloning of the 29-kDa subunit (p29) of type II 5′-deiodinase from a λzapII cDNA library prepared from cAMP-induced astrocytes. The 3.3-kilobase (kb) cDNA encodes an ∼30-kDa, 277-amino acid long, hydrophobic protein lacking selenocysteine. Northern blot analysis showed that a 3.5-kb p29 mRNA was present in tissues showing type II 5′-deiodinase activity such as brain and cAMP-stimulated astrocytes. Domain-specific, anti-p29 antibodies specifically immunoprecipitated enzyme activity. Overexpression of exogenous p29 or a green fluorescence protein (GFP)-tagged p29 fusion protein led to a >100-fold increase in deiodinating activity in cAMP-stimulated astrocytes, and the increased activity was specifically immunoprecipitated by anti-GFP antibodies. Steady-state reaction kinetics of the enzyme in GFP-tagged p29-expressing astrocytes are identical to those of the native enzyme in brain. Direct injection of replication-deficient Ad5-p29GFP virus particles into the cerebral cortex of neonatal rats leads to a ∼2-fold increase in brain type II 5′-deiodinating activity. These data show 1) that the 3.3-kb p29 cDNA encodes an essential subunit of rat type II iodothyronine 5′-deiodinase and 2) identify the first non-selenocysteine containing subunit of the deiodinase family of enzymes.


One of the great unsolved problems of Riemannian geometry is to determine the structure of collapse with a lower curvature bound. An apparently simpler, but still intractable problem, is to determine which closed manifolds collapse to a point with a lower curvature bound. Such manifolds are called almost nonnegatively curved. While many examples of such manifolds are known, few topological obstructions to this class exist and we are far from obtaining a complete classification. Our project is to construct new examples with almost nonnegative curvature, with an eye towards achieving a better understanding of this important class of manifolds.


The concept of set-invariance provides useful tools for the synthesis of controllers for constrained linear systems, in particular for model predictive control with stability guarantee. If a linear system is stabilizable, it is possible to construct a controlledinvariant set such that a suitable sequence of control inputs can be computed to enforce the constraints along the state trajectory. Based on this concept, we recently proposed a solution for the dual problem: to compute a polyhedral set which is conditioned-invariant with respect to a full-order state observer, in the sense that the estimation error trajectory can be kept in this set by means of a suitable output injection. In this talk, we present a dynamic output feedback compensator structure that can guarantee the satisfaction of linear state constraints in linear systems subject to control constraints, additive disturbances and measurement noise. From a pair composed by a conditioned-invariant and a controlled-invariant polyhedron, it is possible to construct another polyhedron in the extended (system plus compensator) state space, which is controlled-invariant under output feedback. Then, based on the available measurements and on the state of the compensator, a control sequence can be computed which enforces the state constraints, as long as the initial state belongs to an admissible set, which can be characterized as well. Differently from other approaches, the compensator is not based on a precomputed linear observer and is, therefore, likely to result in a larger set of admissible initial states.


State-of-the-art millimeter wave paramp designs have been reduced to practice resulting in a miniaturized low-noise, all solid-state, K/sub a/-band amplifier designed to meet stringent electrical and mechanical specifications. An amplifier gain of 18 dB and a noise figure of 3.8 dB were achieved. This amplifier has application to future generation communications systems, and because of its small size and weight, to upgrading existing systems.


Developing an ontology that succinctly describes the contents of a spatial database is a very difficult undertaking. Yet most current efforts to develop spatial ontologies remain focused on describing content. Ontologies describing other aspects of spatial databases may prove to be much easier to develop and nearly as useful as content ontologies, and yet these alternative ontologies have received little attention from the research community. This paper explores one such alternative, specifically, an ontology that describes how a spatial database may have been derived. Derivation ontologies are shown to be highly complementary to content ontologies, and in some cases can perform nearly identical tasks. It is also shown that derivation ontologies are much more straightforward to develop than are content ontologies. Finally, we present a genetic programming (GP)‐based approach to automatically developing derivation ontologies for existing databases. It is concluded that while derivation ontologies cannot replace content ontologies, they are a useful and practical complement that offer their own unique set of strengths to the problem of semantically characterizing spatial data.


ABSTRACT In this article, we examine the growth of ethnopolitical divisions in Ethiopia. Using recently released Afrobarometer data and comparing current levels of ethnonational identity with previous data released in 2013, we find an erosion in support for a national Ethiopian identity, and rapidly growing ethnonational identities among Oromo and Tigrayan respondents, but not Amhara. This suggests that the attempts by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to promote 'Ethiopianess' as a unifying principle for the country will face great challenges. In addition, although it is tempting to lay the blame for this growing ethnonationalism at the 'feet' of the ethnofederal system in Ethiopia (as many scholars have) this study cannot directly address the connection between ethnic federalism and ethnic conflict and instability. However, what is clear is that there is a growing sense of ethnonationalism (or the idea that ethnic identity is now more important than a national Ethiopian identity) for a significant part of the population and this is consistent with the expectations of the critics of ethnofederalism. This also suggests greater challenges to Ethiopian unity in the near future.


Aims  To assess any differences between coronary heart disease (CHD) risks calculated by the Framingham equation and those calculated by the PROCAM equation in men with and without diabetes mellitus, and whether any such differences are associated with the hypertriglyceridaemia of diabetes mellitus.


Paul Virilio criticizes technical images in the context of his theory of speed, his «dromology». From an ethics of media that describes the negative consequences of the historic evolution of transport and communication media on individuals, he


In order to avoid the harmonics of traction power supply system delivered to superior power system substation and have a detrimental effect on the quality of public power grid, the scheme, substation equipped with passive filters, processing the problem of harmonics delivered to power system substation was proposed in this paper. Based on the measured data of the system substation, the single-tuned filter was designed to eliminate the low-order harmonics and compensate reactive power with considering the effects of capacitor deviation and the system impedance variation. And the second-order high-pass filter was designed to suppress the high-order characteristic harmonics and harmonic resonance with considering the effects on the impedance characteristics under the deviation and fault of the capacitors. The characteristic harmonics, harmonic resonance and the process of harmonics in substation system were simulated in co-simulation model based on power systems computer aided design (PSCAD). The simulation results show that, the designed passive filters have an effective suppression on characteristic harmonics and harmonic resonance.


Zone of Impulse is a fast-paced multiplayer action game, playable on mobile devices. By wearing sensors on the chest and palm the player's emotional state is integrated into gameplay. The processed physiological signals provide the basis for adaptation of several game elements. This creates a more personalized gaming experience and provides additional input modalities to an otherwise "casual" game.


This essay reviews the poverty of Chinese women and their fight against it, the massive efforts the Chinese government has put into the fight, and NGO's contributions to poverty relief among women. It tries to analyze, from the gender angle, women's poverty and the state's policies and actions in the fight against poverty, and develops an analysis framework of the women's-poverty issue from the combined angles of income poverty, time poverty and assets poverty.


We study the Gross-Neveu model in 2+1 dimensions with a baryon chemical poten- tialusing both analytical and numerical methods. Forgreater than a critical value the model is chirally symmetric and has a Fermi surface with kF ≃ � . We have calculated the particle interaction in medium due to scalar meson exchange to leading order in N −1 f , where Nf is the number of flavors, in the hard dense loop approach.


Introduction: Blends of poly(lactic acid) [PLA] and poly(vinyl alcohol) [PVOH] have been considered as biomaterials for tissue engineering scaffolds and for encapsulation of drugs. For example, Sun et al. used PLA /PVOH membranes for microencapsulation of cartenoids and Mooney et al. investigated PLA/PVOH sponges for hepatocyte transplantation. However, to our knowledge, there has been no attempt to use a combinatorial approach to characterize the biocompatibility of PLA/PVOH blends. Therefore, the purpose of the project described here was to measure focal adhesions, cell spread area, and cell number as indicators of biocompatibility for PLA/PVOH blends of various compositions. Experimental: PVOH (100 % hydrolyzed, molecular mass of 15,000 g/mol; Aldrich Chemical Company), poly (d,l-lactic acid) [PLA, inherent viscosity of 0.17 dL/g; Birmingham Polymers, Inc], and hexafluoro-isopropanol (HFIP; TCI America) were used without further purification. Solutions of different compositions were prepared by mixing appropriate amounts of a solution of PVOH (mass fraction of 1 %) in HFIP and a solution of PLA (mass fraction of 1 %) in HFIP. Films of PLA, PVOH and PLA/PVOH blends [PLA mass fractions of (20, 40, 55, 70, 80, and 90) %] were prepared by casting these solutions on cover slips 12 mm in diameter. These films were allowed to dry in the ambient air for 1 d, and then at room temperature for 2 d under high vacuum. The films were quenched to room temperature after they were heated at 200 C for 3 min. Finally, the films were further dried under high vacuum for 3 d at room temperature. MC3T3-E1 osteoblast-like cells obtained from Riken (Ibaraki, Japan) were cultured in alpha Minimal Essential Medium (MEM; BioWhittaker, MD), supplemented with 10 % mass fraction fetal calf serum (FCS, Gibco, Grand Island, NY) and 60 μg/mL of kanamycin sulphate (KS; Sigma, St. Louis, MO). The cells were kept at 37 C in a fully humidified atmosphere of air containing 5 % volume fraction of CO2. The cells were fed every (3 or 4) d. Before the cells became confluent, the cells in a 25-cm flask were incubated with 5 mL of 0.25 % mass fraction trypsin in 1 mmol/L EDTA-4Na (Gibco, Grand Island, NY) for 5 min at 37 C. The cells were resuspended in MEM (supplemented with 10 % mass fraction FCS and 60 μg/mL of KS) and plated onto films of PLA/PVOH blends. After 24 h of incubation, cells were prepared for immunofluorescence staining of vinculin, a focal-adhesion protein, as described by van Kooten and coworkers. A confocal fluorescence microscope was used to acquire the images of the stained cells. Results: In the micrographs shown herre, the bright spikes indicate the locations of vinculin molecules in the focal adhesions, which were made visible through an immuno-fluorescence technique. It is seen that while the cells seeded on a PVOH film (A) and on a PLA film (C) exhibited prominent focal adhesions, the cell seeded on a blend film (B, 70 % mass fraction of PLA) exhibited few foca cell film 70, seed


This paper describes two models: a saturable current transformer model ((CT) and a wide-band coupling capacitor voltage transformelr suitable for real-time transients simulation. By using very efficient network reduction and network synthesis techniques, the operations count for these models is kept to a minimum. The accuracy of the models has been tested in connection with our real-time transients simulator RTNS [l] and compared to conventional EMTP models [2]. Kevwords: Current transformers, coupling capacitor voltage transformers, EMT modelling, real-time simulation. secondary current from the known primary current is described here, a) Equivalent circuit A equivalent circuit Of the current transformer is Shown in Fig. 1 with all quantities referred to


Hoglund et al. (2010) investigated the ability of listeners to detect the presence of aircraft masked by ongoing ambient sounds using a two interval forced choice (2IFC) procedure. They found that the signal-to-noise ratio required for target detection varied across the different types of ambient environments. Recordings of helicopters in flight were used as target signals and maskers were recorded in rural, suburban and urban locations. Their goal was to better approximate real-world conditions. The goal of the current study is to extend those results to include factors that may bias the listener under more realistic conditions. The 2IFC procedure is designed to minimize listener bias; however, real-world listening conditions are more typically one interval situations. The frequency of occurrence of aircraft over-flights and the costs of errors and rewards for correct responses may substantially affect some estimates of listener sensitivity. Work reported here investigated the influence of apriori probab...


The paper takes gender into consideration in assessing if and how much this ascribed factor impacts school performance. The effects of gender connected to the type of school attended and to the geographical area of residence are analysed. Although there are gender gaps in literacy resulting from the OECD PISA - Programme for International Student Assessment' study - with greater female proficiency in text comprehension and greater male ability in conceptual skill in mathematics - it seems, however, that these trends can be significantly mitigated by the type of school attended and by the geographical area of residence. The paper takes into consideration the Italian case.


Chapter - 00: Introduction Chapter - 01: Marketing - the basics Chapter - 02: The effective use of marketing research Chapter - 03: Situation analysis Chapter - 04: Websites and e-commerce Chapter - 05: The role of public relations in the internet age Chapter - 06: Channels to market Chapter - 07: Advertising and sales promotion Chapter - 08: Promotional materials, presentations and exhibitions Chapter - 09: Products and pricing Chapter - 10: Application selling Chapter - 11: Getting into overseas markets


Happiness has been shown to be related to a myriad of positive outcomes in many areas, including personal relationships, performance, creativity and altruism (Lyubomirksy, King, & Diener, 2005). Such outcomes are viewed as resources that people can use to their advantage and the advantage of others. The Broaden-and-Build Theory (Fredrickson, 1998) explains these findings by proposing that positive emotions lead to a broadening of thought-action repertoires and, hence, the building of resources. This conceptualization does not differentiate between different types of happiness. The current investigation attempted to show that happiness experienced in conjunction with an experience of autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 1985b; Ryan & Deci, 2000) would lead to greater resource building than happiness coupled with a more controlling experience. Pilot Study 1 showed that those high on autonomy had a stronger relationship between happiness and need fulfillment than those low on autonomy. Pilot Study 2 showed that participants high on self-determination had a stronger relationship (compared to those who are low) on eudaimonia and creativity. In contrast, Study 1 failed to show any moderating effect of autonomy on the relationship between happiness and coping. Study 2 showed mixed support for the hypothesis that happiness based on autonomous activities leads to greater performance, perseverance, creativity, and altruism than happiness based on controlled pursuits or neutral affect. Overall, the results suggest that in some contexts, but not in others, autonomous happiness leads to greater resource building than controlled happiness. Future research may attempt to identify when autonomy enhances the resource-building function of happiness.


Although the skin prick test (SPT) is a reliable procedure to confirm IgE‐dependent allergic sensitization in patients, the interpretation of the test is still performed manually, resulting in an error‐prone procedure for the diagnosis of allergic diseases.


Very rich and interesting properties are exhibited in the transition metal oxide systems due to the strongly correlated electrons and interactions between spin, charge, lattice and orbital, such as high-temperature superconductivity, insulator–metal transition and colossal magnetoresistance.1–5 Combining with the development of high pressure technology, many new materials with novel physical properties were discovered. A series of ACrO3 (A = Ca, Sr and Ba) polycrystalline samples were synthesized under high pressure and high temperature in 1960s.6–8 These samples are transition metal oxides with the unusual high valence Cr ion with two electrons in 3d


Germanium-core/silicon-shell nanowires were grown by an ex-situ method where germanium nanowires were first grown using a vapour-liquid-solid growth mechanism, followed by catalyst removal in an etching solution and deposition of amorphous silicon on the nanowire sidewalls. Back-gated and top-gated field effect transistors based on germanium-core/silicon-shell nanowires exhibited p-type depletion mode characteristics. Field-effect hole mobilities up to 501 cm2/V.s were extracted from these nanowires.


In a recent publication from this laboratory it has been shown that the so-called elastic sulfur obtained by quick quenching molten sulfur from a temperature of 250°C. to a temperature of about −10°C. is really a mixture of polymeric sulfur and monomeric S8 sulfur, the latter in a metastable condition. The reason why quick quenched sulfur is elastic is because of the plasticizing effect of the liquid S8 sulfur on the polymeric sulfur. In this publication we show that large concentrations of S8 can exist dissolved in a liquid condition in other polymers where it also acts as a plasticizer. In many cases these compositions appear completely stable, i.e., there is no tendency for the dissolved sulfur to crystallize out. The best example is crosslinked polyethylene tetrasulfide polymers. We show that these polymers can retain 40% of dissolved sulfur in the form of liquid S8 over indefinitely long periods of time. We prove that the sulfur is in its elemental form by quantitative extraction with CS2. The specific volume of the dissolved sulfur shows it is in a liquid condition. The mechanical properties of the sulfur plasticized crosslinked polymers are just what would be expected from this type of structure. Preliminary information concerning sulfur in other polymers is presented.


Local area networks are built mainly for two essential goals, the first one is to support the framework's business functionality such as email, file transferring, procurement systems, internet browsing, and so forth. Second, these common networks should be built using secure strategies to protect their components. Recent developments in network communication have heightened the need for both secure and high performance network. However, the performance of network sometime is effected by applying security rules. Actually, network security is an essential priority for protecting applications, data, and network resources. Applying resources isolation rules are very important to prevent any possible attack. This isolation can be achieved by applying DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) design. A DMZ extremely enhance the security of a network. A DMZ is used to add an extra layer of protection to the network. It is also used to protect a private information. A DMZ should be properly configured to increase the network's security. This work reviewed DMZ with regard to its importance, its design, and its effect on the network performance. The main focus of this work was to explore a means of assessing DMZ effectiveness related to network performance with simulation under OpNet simulator.


In December 1892, thirteen residents of the Taieri Native Reserve in Otago signed and sent a letter, comprised of just a few lines, to the Native Minister, Alfred Jerome Cadman. Sadly, the original letter in te reo Māori has been lost, with only the English translation now held at Wellington's Archives New Zealand office.


In 1852, teaching was deeply modified in France and a larger place was given to scientific teaching. Consequently, numerous physics textbooks were edited. Among them, the "Traité de Physique", by Adolphe Ganot, got a prominent place. Though the author did not hold any academic position, his book was translated in numerous foreign languages and was used worldwide for physics teaching. Its still remains a reference for people interested in physics apparatus. Regularly republished for 80 years, this manual was the first to exhibit some characteristics of our present textbooks and facilitated the propagation of the new theories. In this article are reported the main innovative features of this textbook and the reasons why it became so popular.


Biogas is the product of anaerobic digestion of waste, whether occurring spontaneously in landfills or under controlled conditions in digesters. Biogas is viewed as an important energy source in current efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels and dependency on imported resources. Several studies on the assessment of biogas potential have been made at regional, national, and global scales. However, because it is not economically feasible to transport biogas feedstock over long distances, it is more appropriate to consider local waste sources for their potential to produce biogas. An assessment of the biogas potential on Long Island, based on the review of local landfills, wastewater treatment plants, solid waste generation and management, and agricultural waste, found that 234 × 106 m3 of methane (CH4) from biogas might be harvestable, although substantial barriers for complete exploitation exist. This number is equivalent to 2.52 TW-h of electricity, approximately 12% of fossil fuel power generation on ...


We show that ELI queries (ELIQs) are learnable in polynomial time in the presence of a DL-Lite ontology O, in Angluin's framework of active learning. When initially provided with a conjunctive query (CQ) that implies the target ELIQ under O (in the sense of query containment), it suffices for the learner to only pose membership queries to the oracle, but no equivalence queries. The initial CQ can be obtained by a single equivalence query and is available 'for free' in case that O does not pose any disjointness constraints on concepts. Our main technical result is that every ELI concept has only polynomially many most specific subsumers w.r.t. a DL-Lite ontology, generalizing a recent result about homomorphism frontiers by ten Cate and Dalmau.


It has been known for decades that movements of the neck can provoke eye movements. Barany1 and Voss2 demonstrated them in newborn children; de Kleyn,3 in rabbits. A sustained torsion of the neck in these circumstances leads to a sustained compensatory eye deviation interrupted by nystagmus beats. In mature humans, turning of the neck causes eye movements only in a patient whose eyes are closed or who are examined in the dark.4,5,6,7,8 Though the combination of compensatory eye movements and nystagmus is found again in this case, the sustained deviation of the eyeball during sustained deviated positions of the neck is not found. Not only neck torsion, but even torsion of the thorax or the pelvis in respect to the adjacent parts of the spine, suffices to elicit nystagmus,4,5 and it must be kept in mind that the angles over which neck, thorax or pelvis must be rotated in order to provoke eye movements need not be extreme. Rotations of 90° or even less, in general, suffice.


In Today's world Mobile devices are the important handheld devices spreading throughout the world, and it is necessary to integrate web services into the mobile device. We introduce a simple approach for dynamically invoking web service methods from mobile devices with minimal user intervention that only involves entering a search phrase and values for the method parameters. This energy efficient architecture overcomes technical challenges that involve power consuming and speedy access of web services by introducing man-in-the-middle (MIM) server that provides a web service whose responsibility is to discover needed services and build the client-side proxies at runtime. We perform extensive evaluations of the system performance to measure scalability as it relates to the capacity of the MIM server in handling mobile client requests, and device battery power savings resulting from delegating the service discovery tasks to the server.


In the present study, two techniques used for wells linking in Underground Coal Gasification (UCG), namely, Reverse Combustion Linking (RCL) and Forward Combustion Linking (FCL) are compared. Linking time in FCL is estimated using two-dimensional model and assuming stability of the combustion front. Effects of instabilities during FCL are discussed.


A major objective in power system control design is to prevent loss of synchronism when a sudden fault occurs. In this paper, the backstepping method is applied in order to design a nonlinear controller with the goal of improving both transient stability and voltage regulation of power system under a symmetrical three-phase short circuit fault. A comparison based on simulations is then performed between the here-proposed control scheme and both the classical control scheme AVR+PSS and the DFL controller based on state feedback linearization. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and the practical robustness of this backstepping approach.


A 10-YEAR study by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Washington, DC, shows that, for some pollutants, the air outside may be safer to breathe than air in the home. Speaking at the American Lung Association's second annual Science Writers' Forum in Annapolis, Md, Lance A. Wallace, PhD, an environmental scientist at the EPA, said that most exposure to a number of known or suspected carcinogens appears to come primarily from personal activities rather than from industrial sources. This is true, he says, even in the country's most concentrated chemical manufacturing areas. Daily Dangers The risks Americans may face from some of the pollutants dumped and leaked into the environment by industry may be less than the risks from activities in the home such as smoking, showering, using room deodorizers, and storing and wearing dry-cleaned clothing, Wallace says. Quoting the comic strip "Pogo," he says, "We have met the enemy


PURPOSE: A method and apparatus for reducing the power consumption of a slot mode mobile terminal is provided to minimize the power consumption of a mobile terminal, and to efficiently process sleep/wake-up transition procedures. CONSTITUTION: In a wake-up state, a mobile terminal monitors an allocated paging slot and confirms whether a paging channel message exists. If the paging channel message doesn't exist, the control part of the mobile terminal determines to enter a sleep mode and generates a sleep mode determination signal(S0). Then the control part sets a hardware parameter to make a communication-associated circuit part entered to the sleep mode. If the setting of the hardware parameter is completed, the control part generates a sleep mode indication signal(S8). If the sleep mode indication signal(S8) is generated, the communication-associated circuit part directly enters the sleep mode without the necessity of waiting the next PN circular signal(S5). Accordingly, the communication-associated circuit part can reduce the power consumption as much as a time of T2.


In reviewing the operational processes that failed, questions were asked of what was bypassed and why were some of the safeguards and responsibilities neglected or not assigned. Failures often occur due to oversight of a required process. Our interests should be as to whether the oversights were due to the lack of perceived need, or were they just ignored? By making safety an advisory capacity, NASA could still have a safety department, but keep it from interfering with its primary mission, scheduled production and projects with a scheduled space flight. It is not the author's place to question the logic used by each of the leaders within that organisation, or even those within the sub-contracting structure, but we can question the operational leadership and the people leadership functions.


The developing level of the informatization has become a mark of weighting the advance extent of a country or a region.This paper makes the measurement and calculation of certain extent of the municipal informatization level of Zibo City,obtains the extent of Zibo's informatization level,and points out the problems existing in Zibo's informatization,and puts forward some corresponding measures for improving.


The research reported here was undertaken as part of an Economic and Social Research Council Project (R000237103) entitled Cycling and Urban Mode Choice. The scope of the study is entirely commuting within an urban context. The objectives of the study were: • to better understand the interactions between car, bus, cycle and walk in an urban context and to explain observed variations in cycle trip rates across towns.

• to be able to forecast the effect of a range of improvements to cycling facilities on mode choice • to use the estimated models to evaluate some actual schemes • to provide end users (eg consultants, local authorities, cycling organisations) with a tool to determine the effect of policy measures. In particular, to create models which will enhance the performance of strategic, integrated transport studies. The objectives of this paper are:

• to describe the methodology that was used to examine cycling within an urban mode choice context

• to outline the collection of data required to estimate behavioural models

• to report the results of the estimated mode and route choice models

• to provide illustrations of how the model can be used to appraise improvements to cycle facilities and cycling conditions.

 The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 2 gives a brief overview of the policy context of work on cycling in the UK and previous work in the area. Section 3 describes the methodology used to collect the Revealed Preference (RP) and Stated Preference (SP) data necessary for the model. Section 4 describes the data that was collected. Section 5 gives details of the development of the model and some empirical results from the model that was developed. Section 6 illustrates how the model could be used to appraise improvements in cycle facilities and cycling conditions. Section 7 draws some conclusions from the work.


The ecological adaptability of Bougainvillea glabra Choisy in Xianning city including its reaction to heat,drought,cold with or without wind was studied using purple B.glabra as material.The results showed that purple B.glabra could endure the lowest temperature in Xianning without wind.Continuous low temperature with wind was the biggest obstacle for introducing purple B.glabra in Xianning city.Purple B.glabra also had certain drought tolerance.Its old leaves wilted,hang down and curled firstly before the same symptoms occurred in tender leaves under badly drought;however,these symptoms could be released by watering.


Objective: The aim of our study was to evaluate the effects of low dose intravenous nitroglycerin infusion on intraocular pressure during pneumoperitoneum period in laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Material and Methods: Sixty patients with no pre-existing eye disease were divided into two groups as nitroglycerin and control groups in this prospective, randomized, and double-blind study. Anesthesia was induced with propofol, fentanyl, lidocaine and rocuronium in all patients and maintained with isoflurane and N2O in oxygen. Intravenous nitroglycerin infusion 0.5μg kg min was given to the nitroglycerin group during pneumoperitoneum period. Intraocular pressure, mean arterial pressure, heart rate, peak and plateau airway pressure, end tidal CO2 pressure, and peripheral oxygen saturation measurements were recorded before induction of anesthesia (T0), post-intubation (T1), before insufflations of CO2 (T2), 10 min (T3), and 30 (T4) min of pneumoperitoneum and 5 (T5) min after exsufflation. Results: After induction of anesthesia, there was a significant decrease in intraocular pressure compared with basic values in both groups. Mean arterial pressure and intraocular pressure were significantly higher in control group compared to nitroglycerin group during the period of pneumoperitoneum (23.7 ± 3.1 and 15.6 ± 2.9 at T3 and 19.1 ± 2.7 and 14.5 ± 2.8 at T4, respectively, in control and nitroglycerin groups, for intraocular pressure). Conclusion: We concluded that intravenous low-dose nitroglycerin infusion might prevent the increase of intraocular pressure during pneumoperitoneum period in patient with no pre-existing eye disease.


Background: In this case report we present a case of both vastus lateralis and intermedialis sprain in basketball athlete young male who presented to the clinic with loss of knee motion, anterior knee pain and tense anterior thigh. Case report: We present a young male in his early twenties, who was engaged in recreational sports activities regularly and practice basketball as professional player. He sustained a direct blow to his right thigh by direct trauma while playing basketball, and then suddenly experienced severe pain with minor tingling sensation. No other injuries were noted at the time. Later, he developed anterior knee pain and significant loss of knee motion and by the end of the day his anterior thigh became tense with very severe pain. Conclusion: The quadriceps injury among athletes is common as combined injury of the two heads of quadriceps and very rare as an isolated one head of quadriceps and the best treatment of such injury is to prevent it.


We provide a first study of Mellin moments of double parton distributions (DPDs) in the nucleon on the lattice, where we consider several combinations of quark flavors and polarizations. These are accessible through two-current correlations, which can be obtained by evaluating four-point functions. In this context we consider all possible Wick contractions, where for almost all of them sufficiently clear signals are obtained. In the present study, we employ an n f = 2 + 1 CLS ensemble on a 96 × 323 lattice with lattice spacing a = 0.0856 fm and the pseudoscalar masses mπ = 355 MeV and mK = 441 MeV.


The effects of methanolic extract of aerial plant part of Calotropis gigantea on reproduction have been studied on male rats. The study was divided into four groups of 10 animals each. The first group (I) received vehicle alone to serve as control. The second and third (II and III) of animals were administered the root extract daily at 100 mg/kg body weight, and 200 mg/kg body weight, respectively, for a period of 60 days. Animals of group IV served as recovery group and treated with 100 mg dose for 60 days and kept of recovery period of 30 days. Significant decreases in the weights of testes, Epididymis, seminal vesicle and ventral prostate were observed. A dose related reduction in the testicular sperm count, epididymal sperm count and motility, number of fertile males, ratio between delivered and inseminated females and number of pups were observed. Significant reduction in serum concentration of luteinizing hormone and testosterone were observed. No distinct change in serum FSII concentration was recorded. The final body weights of all groups were elevated markedly. Results reveal that methanolic extract of Calotropis gigantea could be used as potential source of anti-fertility agent.


In the case presented here, the patient had no prior history of adverse skin reactions to any medication. She was treatment-naive and initially developed a vesiculobullous injection site reaction to pegylated interferon alfa-2b and ribavirin within the first week of therapy that subsequently became a generalized rash. Due to the rapid onset and severity of symptoms, it was decided to stop therapy. Her lesions were slow to improve with topical and oral steroids. A rechallenge with nonpegylated interferon was not considered. Biopsy results were not consistent with a lichenoid or eczematous reaction, which is the most common type following treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin. It is possible that her generalized rash may have been a manifestation of her underlying disease. Cutaneous reactions of this type are not common, but it is important that physicians are aware of them. Early referral to a dermatologist and prompt symptomatic or even preventative treatment may be able to increase the likelihood of continuing antiviral therapy.


YONEDA, A. Y.; Performance evaluation of a W-Beam guardrail model used in Brazilian roads in several installation conditions. 2013. N f. Dissertação (Mestrado) – Escola Politécnica, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2013. The application of Finite Element Method as an analysis tool in industry has been increasing over the years, so that one of the development areas corresponds to the study of impact and crashworthiness. The objective of this work is to assess the efficiency of a guardrail model used on Brazilian roads, with respect to the ability of containing a runaway vehicle of 2 ton at 100 miles per hour, through numerical simulation using finite element analysis. Experimental tests of samples taken from a component of the guardrail are performed to enable material characterization for the analysis. Furthermore, model simplifications are developed to permit the analysis with low computational cost. The impact behaviors are evaluated in various guardrail installation conditions found on high movement roads, including some inadequate ones. The analysis show that the guardrail is unable to retain the vehicle, shearing the W-beam splice bolts. The irregular maintenance condition guardrails present more catastrophic results, endangering even more the occupants and the pedestrians. Finally, it is recommended that the bolts are upgraded to 5.8, enabling the vehicle retention under test 3-11 of NCHRP Report 350.


The parent viruses and clones 64c and 6 of the A/Puerto Rico/8/34-A/England/939/69 (H3N2) series were examined. Virulence was assessed from 50% infectious dose, replication in the upper respiratory tract, degree of lung infection, and production of fever. Viral infection of the upper respiratory tract declined with onset of the inflammatory response and pyrexia, and restriction of replication in nasal turbinate tissue at pyrexial temperatures correlated with onset and rapidity of decline of infection in the upper respiratory tract. Compared with the H3N2 strains, the HON1 strain of A/Puerto Rico/8/34 stimulated a lower and later inflammatory response, which correlated with a delayed and low fever and, in turn, a high nasal infection that was slow to decline. The differential ability to infect the lung in vivo (clones 64c and 6 more than A/England/ 939/69 and clone 7a more than A/Puerto Rico/8/34 and clone 64d) was not always explained by differences in ability to replicate in lung tissue at normal or pyrexial temperatures. Neither overall virulence nor any particular facet of it can yet be correlated with particular gene pieces. The results are discussed in relation to the virulence of the strains for humans.


The difference in the curves of the zeroth order cross- polarization reflection coefficients vs. angle of incidence have remarkable potential for application in scatterometry since, if larger than the measurement error, could allow for a reliable nondestructive technique to detect asymmetries in grating profiles. In this paper the cross-polarization efficiencies of metallic gratings with asymmetric grooves are investigated theoretically by means of a rigorous electromagnetic code. The result show that the differences between p yields s and s yields p conversion efficiencies tend to be undetectable for highly conducting materials, limiting, in principle, the application of this potential detection technique.


This article reports on a study of HIV seroprevalence and sexual lifestyles among Italian intravenous drug users (IVDUs). Unlike the situation in the US and most of Europe, where HIV infection is found primarily among homosexual and bisexual men, intravenous drug users account for 66% of the hiv cases in Italy. This study, which ran from January through March of 1990, involved interviews with 124 IV heroin users having methadone treatment in a Public Assistance Center in Rome. The goals of the study included conducting a demographic survey and investigation of the serological condition of IVDUs, investigating the sexual behavior of both HIV positive and negative subjects, and investigating any changes in the sexual habits of the subjects following awareness of their serological condition. 34 of those interviewed were women and 90 were men. Ages ranged from 18-41 years. Of the 124 subjects, 120 were heterosexual, 2 homosexual, and 2 bisexual. 39 heterosexuals, as well as the 2 homosexuals and the 2 bisexuals, tested HIV positive. 96% of the IVDUs interviewed reported being sexually active, and 67% indicated having at least 1 sexual intercourse a week (28% reported 10 or less sexual intercourses in a year). Although all those interviewed acknowledged being aware of the risk of sexually transmitted AIDS, 60% of the HIV positive and 88% of the HIV negative subjects did not use condoms regularly (56% of the HIV negative subjects never used condoms). The article lists some of the reasons given for irregular use of condoms. Concerning changes in sexual habits, 46% of the HIV negative and 63% of the HIV positive subjects indicated reducing the number of sexual partners and/or using condoms.


In this paper, numerical simulation of the convection heat transfer in micro-channel heat sinks with air working fluid is investigated. The main objective of this research is to study the effect of geometric parameters of the fin, including diameter, distance between fins and fins height, as well as the inlet fluid flow velocity on the average temperature fins, average temperature of fluid at outlet, temperature distribution in longitudinal direction of the micro-channel and heat flux passing fins. For this purpose, the cooling fluid flow passing through a micro-channel heat sinks with bar fins which have the elliptical cross-section and placed in a linear arrangement is simulated using a finite volume method. The incompressible, laminar, steady, and single-phase fluid flow is considered, and the radiation heat transfer, free convection and the body forces are neglected. Simulation results indicate that changes in diameter and distance between the fins as well as the velocity of the inlet fluid have a significant effect on the heat transfer rate of the heat sink, but the temperature variations due to the change in the height of the fins are low.


Inflammatory cytokines, especially tumor necrosis factor α (TNF‐α), have been shown to inhibit osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and bone formation in estrogen deficiency–induced osteoporosis, but the mechanism responsible remains poorly understood. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to regulate MSC differentiation. Here, we identified a novel mechanism whereby TNF‐α, suppressing the functional axis of a key miRNA (miR‐21) contributes to estrogen deficiency–induced osteoporosis. In this study, we screened differentially expressed miRNAs in MSCs derived from estrogen deficiency‐induced osteoporosis and found miR‐21 was significantly downregulated. miR‐21 was suppressed by TNF‐α during the osteogenesis of MSCs. Furthermore, miR‐21 was confirmed to promote the osteoblast differentiation of MSCs by repressing Spry1, which can negatively regulate the osteogenic differentiation of MSCs. Upregulating miR‐21 partially rescued TNF‐α–impaired osteogenesis of MSCs. Blocking TNF‐α ameliorated the inflammatory environment and significantly enhanced bone formation with increased miR‐21 expression and suppressed Spry1 expression in ovariectomized (OVX) mice. Our results revealed a novel function for miR‐21 and suggested that suppressed miR‐21 may contribute to impaired bone formation by elevated TNF‐α in estrogen deficiency–induced osteoporosis. This study may indicate a molecular basis for novel therapeutic strategies against osteoporosis and other inflammatory bone diseases. © 2013 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.


One group of students whose unique needs present a challenge to educators seeking to create inclusive general education classrooms is learners who are learning english as a second language. The purpose of this article is twofold: (a) to distill from the literature of bilingual special education, bilingual education, and special education a description of the roles of bilingual special educators in cooperative teaching endeavors designed to educate second language learners in general education classrooms; and (b) to offer the observations of a bilingual special educator who worked as part of a cooperative teaching team.


New public economics has emphasized the importance of using market solutions in the public sector. Public-private partnerships and marketization through tender calls have been among the instruments of this policy trend. The regional and local effects of such policies are highly relevant for Denmark, as about 66 percent of the public budget in 2003 is delegated to municipalities and counties. The total public expenditures represent 55 percent of GDP in 2003 and are therefore a vital element in overall economic activity. These instruments from the new public economics thereby become active vehicles to local and regional development, which has to a high extent been delegated to local and regional authorities. They arguably constitute the most pronounced policy area within regional and local policies in Denmark. The hypothesis tested here is that marketization is a potent policy instrument for local and regional development in Denmark and that it is therefore important to plan for the operational areas to be subject to marketization. Using panel data on the use of tender calls by Danish municipalities for the period 1993-2004, the paper tests the extent to which the use of marketization influences the local and regional growth potentials, controlling for a number of local and regional characteristics. These growth potentials are measured through a number of indicators such as income growth, job growth and formation of new firms in different sectors. The findings indicate that marketization is most important policy tool in regional planning and development. Not only is it effective, but it is to a large extent also in the hands of local politicians. The slack in use of marketization among Danish municipalities and counties may therefore be a threat to overall growth at the local, regional and national level in Denmark.


More than 75 years ago, John Maynard Keynes wrote in his magnum opus: 'The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes' (Keynes 1936 [1978]: 372). This statement still applies today and has gained even more significance in recent times. In contrast to all the grandiose promises which accompanied the march back to Manchester liberalism during the past decades, present-day capitalism performs rather poorly.


The aim of this paper is to revisit on the possibility to reintroduce the waqf as policy instruments for economic development. This study is motivated by our findings that waqf are considered as economic matters in three aspects: ownership, tools for intergenerational transfer, investment and sources of revenue and expenditure. Subsequently, we suggest to record these activity in the State of National Account. However, the current practices of transmitting the waqf via NPO and Islamic microfinance lead us to narrow the scope of recommendation to only fiscal policy. The related policy that could contribute to a very large and significant development and welfare of the community is being left out. Therefore, in this paper, we suggest a social security policy, which is intended to achieve the prosperity of society.


Multiple solutions are reported for the two‐dimensional boundary layer flow of a viscous fluid near a permeable wall through which fluid is uniformly withdrawn. In the limit of large wall suction, three flows of similarity form are found: the first is the well‐known monotonic solution of Terrill; the second exhibits flow reversal, with the streamlines being separated into three distinct cells; the third also exhibits flow reversal, but has multiple cells only when the fluid withdrawal speed is less than some threshold. The wall injection problem is also briefly studied, only Terrill's branch of solutions being found. Numerical and asymptotic solutions are presented and compared; the large‐suction asymptotics of the third solution branch are found to be rather subtle.


Aluminium hydroxide gels are the most commonly used adjuvants in the veterinary vaccine industry. There is, however, limited information on the physical and chemical properties of such gels with respect to their ability to act as adjuvants. This paper compares the surface charge, particle size, pH and protein binding of a number of laboratory prepared aluminium hydroxide gels and a commercial gel. Selected gels were then used in a trial to compare their abilities to act as adjuvants in prototype clostridial vaccines.


Part III. Regional perspectives and country case studies A. South-East Asia Overview of the South-East Asia Region Karin Timmermans International trade in health services in the millennium: the case of Thailand Wattana S. Janjaroen and Siripen Supakankunti International relations within Indonesia's hospital sector Dono Widiatmoko and Ascobat Gani B. The Americas Trade in health services in the Region of the Americas Division of Health and Human Development, PAHO The case of Brazil Simonetta Zarrilli


Simple Summary In this study, consumer preferences for pork produced using animal-welfare-enhancing farming strategies were assessed. In China, the demand for animal-friendly products is increasing, but so far, studies on consumer preferences for animal welfare farming attributes are limited. The objective of this study was to analyze consumer preferences for pork based on four animal welfare farming attributes, namely feed nutrition, living environment, health care, and activity space. The study employed a choice experiment approach. The survey covered 1274 pork consumers in Guangdong province, China. Our empirical results suggest that Chinese consumers were willing to pay an additional 2.359–10.477 CNY/500 g (5.27–23.39%) for animal welfare pork. Furthermore, there was significant heterogeneity in consumer preferences. China is the world's largest producer and consumer of pork. Since the outbreaks of African swine fever in 2018, China's pork imports have been constantly on the rise. The results can contribute to the optimization of pork production structures and marketing plans for stakeholders and can assist with the timely development of international competition strategies for animal-derived trade products. Abstract Consumption demands for pork produced by farms that employ strategies to improve animal welfare ("animal welfare pork") will be an important indicator for predicting domestic pig feeding standards and pork industry development. This paper analyzes consumer preferences for animal welfare pork based on the choice experiment data of 1274 pork consumers in Guangdong province, China. The results show that consumers had a significant preference for animal welfare pork and that they were willing to pay a premium of 2.359–10.477 CNY/500 g (5.27–23.39%) on average. There is heterogeneity in consumer preferences regarding age, education level, and income. Producers of animal-derived products can not only adjust the mix of production conditions to improve pig welfare and innovate contractual arrangements for industry chain stakeholder groups, but they can also develop differentiated marketing strategies for animal welfare products to meet consumer demands for animal welfare.


The internet is a growing part of the political arena. During the Swedish election 2018, 71 percent of the Swedish population used the internet to access political information. In 2014, less than h ...


Dialog modeling of making suggestions in human-agent interaction is a challenge due to the socially delicate nature of a suggestion and ensuing interactional negotiations. A basic first dialog model for making suggestions was tested in the context of schedule management assistance by an embodied conversational agent with elderly and mildly cognitively impaired persons. Analysis showed that users responded according to human social structures with most response types bearing potential challenges concerning the system's language understanding and the users' intention interpretation:next to explicit answers, users produced implicit versions for acceptance or resistance and further requests for information or modifications. Thus, an enhanced dialog model with a newly added clarification sequence and a new multi-conditional entry sequence was tested in a second study with the autonomous system. Initial observations show a promising performance of the dialog model.


This article explores the often perplexing experience of being an epilepsy surgery candidate, as portrayed in four book-length accounts: Laura Doermer's Moritz mein Sohn (Moritz my son, 1990), David B.'s L'ascension du haut mal (The ascent of the high evil, 1996; published in English as Epileptic, 2003), Ray Robinson's Electricity (2006), and Alberto Capitta's Il giardino non esiste (The garden doesn't exist, 2009). Building upon critical disability studies and the work of French poststructuralists Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, I analyze issues of embodiment, identity and narrative (re)construction in the postsurgical alleviation of chronic illness. I argue that these texts highlight the inevitable disruption of self that brain surgery entails and ultimately resist biomedical normativization. They also call for a narratological reconsideration of current illness narrative typologies, among which Arthur Frank's "chaos narrative" emerges as the best suited to accommodate the chronic fragmentation of consciousness and voice in epilepsy.


ohann Sebastian Bach, perhaps more than any other composer in the history of Western music, was acutely aware of the legacy he had received from earlier composers. Although Bach did not travel much beyond his homeland, he collected, studied, and transcribed the music of an international array of composers. In trac358 ing the influences upon Bach's music, scholars have focused mainly on composers who were either Bach's contemporaries or members of the immediately preceding generation. In addition, much lip service has been given to the inspiration Bach drew from one composer born more than a century earlier, Girolamo Frescobaldi. Yet scholars have heretofore been able to identify few concrete instances in which a piece by Bach carries the unequivocal stamp of Frescobaldi's influence, beyond merely displaying features that were common coin during the early years of the seventeenth century.' Bach's Fugue in CO


ATLAS (Australia Telescope Large Area Survey) is a wide deep radio survey which is distinguished by its comprehensive multi-wavelength approach. ATLAS is creating a large dataset of radio-selected galaxies for studying the evolution and inter-relationship of star-forming and active galaxies. Although the project is far from complete, we are already starting to answer some of these questions, and have stumbled across three surprises along the way: * FRI/FRII radio-loud AGN embedded within spiral galaxies, * radio-bright AGN which are unexpectedly faint in the infrared, and which may be at high redshift * IR-luminous radio-quiet AGN which are partly responsible for the wide variations in reported values of the radio-infrared ratio These and other observations suggest that the AGN activity and star formation become increasingly inter-dependent at high redshifts.


ew overcomes the old Complex over-ruled the simple Social, Economic and Cultural practices evolve through time and space meanwhile, a consistent effort has been put towards the preservation of archaic and ruined. Each year a remarkable sum of government money is channelled for research and conservation, with specialized agencies devoted for locating and identifying ancient sites and monuments throughout India. In direct conflict, however, projects of 'national importance' have posed consistent and accelerating threat to the overall existence of these historical sites. In the Spiti Valley, recent economic development has led to the construction of new roads, bridges and dams, all of which affect the territories heritage especially the rock art sites of the region. The present paper is an output of a ten-day field work to the various rock art sites of the Spiti Valley in October 2015. Two of the authors conducted the survey on behalf of the I.G.N.C.A. (Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts), New Delhi.


This article appears in the Viewpoint section - a neutral forum in which prominent South Asian are able to present full and frank views on particular issues affecting the future of the region and its people - of Contemporary South Asia. In this issue, H.E. (Retired) Ahmad Tariq Karim, the former Bangladesh High Commissioner to South Africa, Ambassador to Iran, and Additional Foreign Secretary for Asia and SAARC, outlines the recurrent failure of successive Pakistan governments, particularly its military regimes, to grasp the need to settle its long-running dispute with India over Kashmir. He describes how the selfish corporate mindset of the Pakistan military establishment ultimately may lead to a potential nuclear confrontation with India. Karim concludes by urging the international community in general, and SAARC in particular, to deploy measures that would encourage the return of democracy to Pakistan as soon as possible.


This paper proposes an improved model-based capacitor voltage control for single-phase STATCOM. A cascaded H-bridge multilevel converter (CHB-MC) based STATCOM consists of several series connected single-phase STATCOM; therefore, the required capacitance to achieve a constant dc voltage is comparatively high. The concept of applying the drastically reduced capacitance by accepting a strongly fluctuating capacitor voltage has been proposed. For the propose concept, keeping the peak capacitor voltage is important, and its overshoot may occur during transient changes. The transient behavior of the STATCOM with reduced capacitance is discussed and fundamentals of the proposed control are shown. Experimental results confirm that the proposed control can avoid over-shoot after a step-change in current reference.


We consider initial value problems for ordinary differential equations with a measurable right-hand side containing parameters in general metric spaces. We prove existence and uniqueness of solutions and the continuous dependence of the solution on the initial data and the parameters under weak assumptions on the right-hand side. In the case where the parameters belong to a normed linear space we show that the solution depends differentiably on the parameters and initial values. These generalizations of classical results in the theory of ordinary differential equations have applications in optimal control theory and other variational problems with nonholonomic constraints. AMS Classification: 34A12, 34A34 Introduction In nature, engineering and economics many processes are governed by systems of ordinary differential equations of the form (1) ẋ = f(t, x(t), λ) on I ⊂ IR, x(τ) = ξ , where the right-hand side f depends on certain parameters λ. In addition to the fundamental questions concerning existence and uniqueness of solutions of the initial ∗firstname.lastname@example.com ∗∗firstname.lastname@example.com


Compaction of asphalt mix has been recognized as one of the most important factors that affect the long-term performance of the pavement. Problems experienced in compacting asphalt mixes have generally been ascribed to the mix. Roller "checking," the result of compaction with steel rollers, has been disregarded or considered as irrelevant. Compaction based on a new concept, using a soft plate, avoids roller checking, as demonstrated by a series of side-by-side field tests with steel and pneumatic rollers. The surface cracks initiated by the steel wheel roller may provide an explanation for the often reported phenomenon of early deterioration of asphalt pavements. Finite element analyses of pavement structures with roller-induced cracks have shown significantly higher tensile stresses than the corresponding stresses in otherwise identical uncracked pavements. The analytical findings are supported by indirect tensile and stress fatigue tests results obtained in the laboratory from asphalt samples compacted ...


Across various nations, including Afghanistan, the government plays a pivotal role in coordinating a multitude of national activities, spanning critical sectors like infrastructure, education, and healthcare. The responsibility for executing extensive construction projects and providing essential medical and educational services rests squarely on the shoulders of the government. Meeting these obligations demands a substantial budget allocation. However, challenges can emerge, potentially leading to a budget deficit. Such shortfalls might arise due to a failure to achieve projected revenues, escalated expenditures, or a combination of both.
This article endeavors to deeply examine the intricate interplay of diverse factors that contribute to such fiscal gaps, with a specific focus on Afghanistan. The central inquiry revolves around comprehending and delineating the complex relationships among key variables, notably subsidies, inflation rates, tax revenues, income from natural resources, government expenditures, economic growth trajectories, instances of conflict, electoral processes, unemployment rates, and demographic trends. The rationale for singling out and scrutinizing these particular variables draws from a fusion of economic theories, including the Keynesian framework, optimal finance theory, random loan theory, and general choice theory.
In this current study, the concept of a budget deficit assumes the role of the dependent variable within the analytical model. It is operationally defined as the disparity between the government's overall expenditures and its generated revenues. Through a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted connections among the aforementioned variables, this research aims to provide a deeper understanding of the intricate dynamics that influence the equilibrium of budgets and the fiscal stability within government operations.
To assess the impact of these factors, the period from 2014 to 2023 underwent rigorous statistical analysis. Utilizing the ordinary least squares method, we aimed to scrutinize how these variables interacted with the budget deficit. The findings from this comprehensive study unveil a noteworthy pattern: revenues from natural resources and taxes, in conjunction with economic growth, exhibit an adverse correlation with the budget deficit. Conversely, government subsidies and general expenditures display a tendency to elevate the budget deficit within the government's fiscal framework.


Nature provides countless examples of evolutionary arms races, in which species develop adaptations and counter-adaptations in a struggle for survival and reproduction. Such arms races are common between predator and prey or between parasite and host. Understanding this coevolutionary process can aid in our ability to develop necessary counter-measures, such as overcoming bacterial resistance to antibiotics.


Barium sulfate was used to study foreign body reaction of the nasal sinus. This substance possesses strong foreign body effect and to the mucous membrane and produces remarkable swelling of the sinus mucosa after instillation into the antrum and the swelling of the sinus membrane can be demostrated roentgenologically.The observation was carried out on the chronic sinusitis patients. X-ray film was taken 24 hours after instillation of barium in the maxillary sinus in 77 cases, and also on the 8th day in 88 cases. All cases were operated after the roentgenological examination. The changes on X-ray films were com pared with that of obtained histological specimens. From this study the following results were obtained: The swelling of the membrane was most remarkable in mild cases of chronic sinusitis which showed minimal swelling of the mucosa on X-ray film. In the cases with extensive rnucosal changes, no reaction to barium was seen.On the other hand, swelling of the mucosa was remarkable in the cases with large sinuses, while it was not so severe in the cases with small sinuses.This reaction of the mucosa consists of edematous swelling and round celhnfiltration with increased eosinophils. Those findingsin the mucosa resembles to the picture of the edematous type of chronic sinusitis. Allergy test proved to be negative in the cases with marked mucosal reaction.The author has previously stated that this reaction of the mucosa could be ascribed to the foreign body effect of the Ba SO4, and not to its chemical stimulation. The mucosal change in chronic sinusitis might be the result of foreign body effect of the infected bacteria which have relatively weak toxisity. This study revealed that the mucous membrane of the sinus displayed different reactions against the same stimuli depending on its grade of pneumatization. The well-developed large sinuses reacts foreign body with edematous change, but this reaction is minimal in the under-developed small sinuses. This reaction against foreign body should be recognized as that of the sinus itself, because the foreign body was insilled in the sinus cavity and not in the mucosa.The author would like to emphasize that this results of the clinical study can serve as the valuable data to understand pathology of chronic sinusitis. Unfortunately our experiment of similar foreign body reaction in rabbits failed to find significant change to confirm these clinical findings.


Procedures used to predict solder-joint life from calculations of the joint strains and low-cycle fatigue data are described. The fatigue lives of chip-carrier/printed-wiring-board joints are predicted and compared to measured values. This prediction utilizes a finite-element analysis of the string distributions in a typical joint acted upon by an imposed displacement. These strains are then used to determine the fatigue life through low-cycle fatigue data. The correlation with joint behavior requires a size-effect correction to the low-cycle fatigue lives. This correction is required because typical joint dimensions are smaller than the dimensions of the specimen utilized in the fatigue tests, and the fatigue life depends on the joint size.<<ETX>>


Preface, ix Chapter 1 Nuclear Energy: Public Opinion and Local Attitudes, 1 Chapter 2 Local Context and Research Design, 25 Chapter 3 Local Attitudes: Costs, Benefits and the Salience of Consequences, 47. Chapter 4 Comparison with Other Energy Sources, 75 Chapter 5 Representations of the Nuclear Debate, 107 Chapter 6 Nuclear Accidents, 141 Chapter 7 Danger, Trust and Public Policy, 173 References, 205 Subject Index, 217 Author Index, 219.


This experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of spirulina powder on the growth properties of lactic acid bacteria in reconstituted skim milk. The spirulina powder supplemented to S. thermophilus and L acidophilus slightly stimulated lactic acid production. In addition, the growth and a...


The three-dimensional wound core "seven with eight, material belt and other long" core cross-section is introduced, with a reasonable set of cut for the purpose of calculation methods and formulas for each grade material belt length are described and derivation proposed a more accurate the calculation method of the weight of the core.


This paper reports the results derived from the research project, entitled "eDCINEMA: Towards the European Digital Space. The role of small cinemas in original version" (CSO2012-35784), which focused on the analysis of the role of movies in OV/OVS in achieving diversity of languages and cultures (as viewed from the European Digital Agenda) as well as Community policies on the promotion of small cinemas in the European digital space. The current study is based on a methodological triangulation, a transnational exchange of information between 62 European experts and a multistage organization, which included: a critical review of the scarce essay writing and profuse Community rules, in-depth interviews with international experts and a design and implementation of a prospective Delphi questionnaire. One of the most remarkable research results is summarized as an indicator of the conflict between the clearly demonstrated OV influences to make progress towards achieving the ideal of a real language diversity, and Community-wide application of packages of random measures, which often leads to lack of expected results. Consequently, the study suggests a strategic reorientation of the European Audiovisual Model toward further exploitation of its 24 languages, on the role of vernacular and not just as vehicular languages, and eventually as guarantors in the process of reliable access to cultural and scientific repertoires.


Monosodium Glutamate is the scientific name of Chinese salt, which also called Ajinomoto. Monosodium Glutamate was first discovered by the Japanese chemist Ikeda Kibunae in 1908. The MSG was firstly derived from seaweed. Later on MSG was got from meat, gluten, and vegetables etc. It can be derived from Najas ul 'ain and Gher Najas ul 'ain things. If it was got from Najas ul 'ain, then there is a question about MSG that is it halal (permissible/ lawful) or haram (non-permissible/unlawful). This research in this article is concluded that if the culture of MSG is halal or the proper Istihalah has been done in Najas; MSG will be halal (permissible/ lawful). However, where no such details are available about the culture of MSG, it should be avoid, although it cannot be declared haram as per Islamic Jurisprudence rules.


The 13C n.m.r. data of a variety of 4eq- and 4ax-substituted adamantanones and bicyclo[2.2.2]octanones are presented. It is shown that for a number of carbons the chemical shifts cannot be predicted by a given additivity rule. The deviations of the observed chemical shifts from the calculated ones are discussed in terms of different interaction mechanisms operating through the σ bond frameworks or through space.


Selective laser melting (SLM), as the main representative of additive manufacturing technologies, has a high variability of process parameters setting, which provides wide possibilities in tuning porosity and mechanical properties of final parts. To ensure a high relative density of SLM parts, thorough process optimization is required. Efforts so far developed in this research area suggest that the optimization is desirable for each machine, material and suitably even for a specific product. As even the adjustment of a specific machine may affect the resulting part quality, we carried out an initial process optimization for a specific SLM machine applied to the processing of Ti6Al4V alloy. We studied a range of energy density values between 40-400 J/mm3 by changing scanning speed and hatching distance. The results of this initial optimization demonstrated how porosity and mechanical properties can be varied widely with different parameter settings, suggested a processing window for reaching the highest relative density and revealed that changing the energy density might be also associated with microstructural changes influencing the mechanical performance of a final part. Therefore, our follow-up study will focus on detail microstructural characterization.


A several kinds of numerical models, including moving force model, for determination the service life of gears in regard to bending fatigue in a gear tooth root, is presented. Finite element method and linear elastic fracture mechanics theories are then used for the further simulation of the fatigue crack growth under a moving load. Moving load produces a non-proportional load history in a gear's tooth root. The corresponding stress cycle is obtained which enables more precise computing. An approach that accounts for fatigue crack closure effects is developed to propagate crack under non-proportional load. The computational results are compared with other researchers' numerical results and with service lives of real gears. The fatigue lives and crack paths determined in this paper exhibits a substantial agreement with experimental results and significant improvement compared with the existing numerical models.


Summary. Ammonia oxidizing autotrophic nitrifying bacteria in soil samples from 3 classical Rothamsted fields and elsewhere were counted by a modified 2-layered silica gel plating method. Counts ranged from 0-18000/g of dry soil, the maximum number being found in the Broadbalk farmyard manure plot. Nitrosomonas europaea was isolated in pure culture and detected only in soils treated with dung or other organic fertilizer. Nitrosocystis coccoides and Nitrosospira spp. were found in other soils. Nitrobacter spp. were present in many soils and of the 18 pure cultures isolated there seemed to be 3, or possibly 4, different colony types.


The purpose of this research was to study the correlation between child's secure attachment and factors of maternal behavior. 60 mother-child clusters were randomly selected from mothers who had at least one child within the age range of 1-5. The data gathering instruments included two questionnaires: Attachment Q-Sort (AQS) and Maternal Behavior Rating Scale. Corresponding author: esfahan, university of esfahan, department of psychology. Tel: +9891233173656 Email: firstname.lastname@example.com 294 / ! / " #$ %& / ' ()*+ /


This report proves that under the time step condition ∆t|Λ| < 1 (| · | = Euclidean norm) suggested by root condition analysis and necessary for stability, all modes of the CrankNicolson Leap-Frog (CNLF) approximate solution to the system du dt +Au+ Λu = 0, for t > 0 and u(0) = u0, where A+AT is symmetric positive definite and Λ is skew symmetric, are asymptotically stable. This result gives a sufficient stability condition for non-commutative A and Λ, and is proven by energy methods. Thus, the growth, often reported in the unstable mode, is not due to systems effects and its explanation must be sought elsewhere.


Posterolateral rotatory instability (PLRI) of the elbow occurs secondary to an injury to the lateral ulnar collateral ligament and lateral stabilizing structures [2]. The lateral pivot-shift test (PST) is a clinical examination for diagnosing PLRI [1]. The test involves moving the elbow from full extension to flexion while applying simultaneous supination torque, valgus moment, and axial compression [2]; a positive result is characterized by ulnohumeral subluxation that is seen clinically as posterolateral movement of the radial head and an incongruent radiocapitellar joint [2]. The PST is difficult to reliably reproduce in an office setting [3]. This can be due to patient-guarding or inexperience of the examiner. It is likely that the experienced examiner may perform the test differently from the inexperienced examiner. The PST has not previously been characterized biomechanically in the laboratory. Thus, the objective of this study is to fully characterize the biomechanics of the PST for PLRI. We will evaluate the repeatability of the PST across multiple surgeons and determine how the clinician's level of training affects their method of testing. These results will be useful in developing training guidelines to standardize PST application as well as to improve accuracy.Copyright © 2009 by ASME


The total chromatic number, χ(G) is the minimum number of colors which need to be assigned to obtain a total coloring of the graph G. The Total Coloring Conjecture (TCC) made independently by Behzad and Vizing that for any graph, χ(G) ≤ ∆(G)+2, where ∆(G) represents the maximum degree of G. In this paper we obtained the total chromatic number for some classes of four regular circulant graphs.


Background: Thermal output of high temperature strain gauges can be measured by different methods.Purpose: This paper is to discover measurement methods' effects on thermal output of high temperature strain gauge and to suggest a method of clamping instead of welding for fixture of high temperature strain gauge for thermal output measurement.Methods: By analysis of impacting factors of thermal output,thermal outputs were explored for mismatching thermal expansion coefficients between material of components to be tested and that of strain gauge base.Thermal outputs of all kinds by different fixture methods were obtained and compared for hanging,clamping and spot welding,respectively.Results: Thermal output obtained by way of hanging strain gauge can be used in case of installation on material of the same thermal expansion coefficient as the strain gauge base.And this hanging measurement method provides access to thermal output that strain gauge undergoes different temperature changing ratio from that one of provision offered by strain gauge fabrication factory.Thermal output obtained by way of clamping measurement method can substitute for the one obtained by spot welding.This clamping measurement method can not only realize the effect of spot welding,reducing calibration cost due to spot welding of strain gauges,but also realize the aim of calibration of strain gauges one by one with the strain gauges be intact after calibration.Differences between thermal outputs by two measurement ways of both hanging and clamping explain that large divergence can be made when thermal expansion coefficients between the material of strain gauge base and the one of the component to be installed on.Conclusions: Thermal output can be measured among all methods by fixture of clamping instead of welding,with an advantage of realizing strain gauge calibration one by one and also with a high precision.


Introduction: There is still little data on stroke with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients in Indonesia. COVID-19 patients also experience stroke. Aims : This study aims to determine the clinical outcomes of stroke with COVID-19 patients in Trenggalek, Indonesia. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design by comparing the clinical outcomes of stroke patients with COVID-19 and those without COVID-19 at Trenggalek Hospital. The clinical outcomes in this study are mortality, length of stay and cost of care. The mortality rate in this study is the case fatality rate. The independent variable studied in this study was COVID-19 infection status based on medical records. The dependent variables studied in this study were length of hospitalization, cost of care, and mortality rate. Results: This study found that the average age of patients with stroke with COVID-19 was 65 years. Stroke patients with COVID-19 have a higher mortality rate than those without COVID-19 (p<0.001; 95% CI). The average cost of care in the group of stroke patients with COVID-19 was significantly higher than the stroke group without COVID-19 (p<0.001; confidence internal (CI) 95%). However, there was no statistically significant difference in the length of treatment. (p=0,326). Conclusion: Stroke patients with COVID-19 have higher mortality rates and treatment costs than those without COVID-19. However, no significant difference was found in the length of treatment. The average age of stroke patients with COVID-19 is 65 years.