Objective To observe the clinical effects of the nerve block in intervertehral fora- men combined with lytic acupotomy in intervertebral outside foramen for the treatment of lumbar in- tervertebral disc herniation.Methods Two hundred patients with lumbar intervertebral disk hernia- tion were randomly divided into observe group and controll group.In observe group,patients were treated with nerve block in intervertebral foramen and lyric acupotomy in intervertebral outside fora- men.In the control group,patients were treated by nerve block in intervertebral foramen.The clini- cal effects were observed after 1 month,3 months and 6 months.Results The excellent and good rates after 1 months in observe group(92.2%,95/103 cases)were obviously much better than that in control groups(81.4%,79/97 cases)(P0.05).The effective rates after 3 months and 6 months in observe group(92.2%,94/102 cases;90.2%,92/102 cases)were obviously better than that in control groups respectively(78.4%,76/97 cases;76.3%,74/97 cases)(P0.01). Conclusion Nerve block in intervertebral foramen and intervertebral outside foramen with lytic acu- potomy for the treatment of lumbar intervertebral disk herniation is obviously effective and safe than the nerve block only.


Recently, a new six-term 3-D chaotic system with an exponential nonlinearity was discovered (Sundarapandian, 2013). This novel chaotic system has two saddle focus nodes and hence they are unstable. The maximal Lyapunov exponent (MLE) for the six-term Sundarapandian chaotic system was found as 3.2827 and the Lyapunov dimension of the Sundarapandian chaotic system was found as DL = 2.1668. Complete synchronization of chaotic systems deals with the problem of asymptotically synchronizing the states of a pair of chaotic systems called as master and slave systems with the help of controllers attached to the slave system. Complete synchronization of chaotic systems has applications in many engineering areas such as secure communications, secure data encryption, cryptosystems, etc. This paper addresses the design of active and adaptive feedback controllers for completely synchronizing the states of identical six-term Sundarapandian chaotic systems with exponential nonlinearity. Active controllers are used when the system parameters a, b and c are available for measurement and the synchronization result is established using Lyapunov stability theory. Numerical simulations using MATLAB have been shown to demonstrate the proposed active and adaptive synchronization results for the novel chaotic system discussed in this paper.


Abstract : The report describes a series of ground ejection tests conducted on the Supersonic Multiple Bomb Rack (SMBR). The tests provide information about the dynamic ejection characteristics of the SMBR for various weight stores, rack station location and ejector orifice combinations when using the F4C wing mounted configuration. In order to provide data of maximum utilization for any aircraft the elastic characteristics of pylons, wings, adapters, etc., were eliminated. A high speed camera and two pressure transducers mounted in the test unit were used to obtain ejector force versus time, ejector piston displacement versus time, and store center of gravity and pitch rate at the end of the ejection stroke. (Author)


Abstract Background The use of contraception for family planning is critically important for women living with HIV (WLH), but barriers to co-use of hormonal contraceptives (HC) and antiretroviral therapy (ART) exist due to drug-drug interaction (DDI) potential. The objective of this study was to describe the type and frequency of HC and ART used among WLH and to identify the prevalence and severity of DDI potential between HC and ART. Methods This was a retrospective chart review of WLH, receiving ART, who were 18–60 years old, and had at least one clinic visit at the Northwestern Infectious Disease Center from January 1, 2010 to April 30, 2014. Electronic medical charts were reviewed to assess demographics and history of contraceptive and ART use. For each combined HC and ART regimen, DDI potential and severity (major, moderate or minor) was assessed using the University of Liverpool HIV Drug Interactions website (www.hiv-druginteractions.org). Results During the study period, 317 women had a median of 8 clinic visits (interquartile range (IQR) 5–13) and received a total of 438 ART regimens: ritonavir-boosted PI- (282, 64.4%), NNRTI- (80, 18.3%), other- (45, 10.3%), INSTI-based (31, 7.1%). The cohort had a median age of 37 years (IQR 28–46); 170 (54.3%) were African American and 277 (88.5%) were non-Hispanic. The use of any contraceptive method was reported in 169 (53.3%) women, of which 75 (44.4%) reported using HC, mostly commonly a progestin intrauterine device (43, 57.3%) or injection (17, 22.7%), or combination oral contraceptive pill (OCP; 9, 12%). A potential DDI (all moderate severity) was identified in 74 of 113 ART-HC-regimen combinations, representing 57 (76%) women using ART and HC. Ritonavir-boosted PIs were the ART most frequently implicated in a potential DDI (62, 83.8%); for HC, this was the progestin intrauterine device (51, 68.9%) and OCP (17, 23%). Conclusion Approximately one-third of WLH using any contraceptive in our clinic had a potential DDI with ART. Though frequently used and implicated, the progestin IUD is unlikely to result in a clinically significant DDI with ART, but confirmation of this assumption is warranted. Relative to its frequency of use, there was high prevalence of potential OCP-ART DDI; the clinical implications need to be further explored. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.


A group of museums in Gloucestershire took part in a development programme combining a training day, visits by a consultant, and a self-assessment exercise that resulted in measurable improvements in standards of collections care. Jane Henderson explains the processes involved and the main benefits for the participants


www.worldwidejournals.com 3 Dr. A Celine Rani Professor, Department Of Political Science And Development Administration, Gandhigram Rural Institute, Tamil Nadu, India. Sl. No. Type of Family Frequency Percent 1 2 3 Nuclear Joint Extended 352 306 22 51.8 45.0 3.2 Total 680 100 Sl. No. Place of Residence Frequency Percent 1 2 Rural Urban 574 106 84.4 15.6


Abstract A new miniature tridentine catfish is described from the rio Purus drainage, Amazon basin, Brazil. It differs from all other tridentines in having several unique autapomorphies: conspicuous anteromedial protuberance in the snout; set of symphyseal premaxillary and dentary teeth inclined posteromedially; distal process of the hyomandibula directed anteriorly; rod-like orbitosphenoid ossified only ventral to the optic nerve; mesethmoid cornua inclined ventrolaterally; opercular and interopercular odontodophores separated by a large interspace; basipterygia fused sagittally; and conspicuous dark brown horizontal stripe in the middle of the caudal fin. The new taxon is hypothesized to be sister to the clade formed by Tridensimilis and Tridens. A detailed osteological description of the new taxon is provided based on X-ray microcomputed tomography (µCT-scans) data and on cleared and stained specimens. Our analysis also reveals that "Tridens" brevis, an enigmatic species that has been indecisively assigned to three different tridentine genera over the past 134 years, belongs to Tridentopsis.Consequently, Tridensimilis is a monotypic genus that currently includes only T. venezuelae.


At present, China's secondary vocational education is facing several major embarrassment: goals too utilitarian and single-oriented; not enough support from the community; the overall educational effectiveness and quality not high."9+3 Tibetan Free Vocational Education Plan" can provide a reference for vocational education free of charge, and help our secondary vocational education get rid of the embarrassment, walking towards integration with the whole education background.


FIELD: radio engineering, communication. SUBSTANCE: method is based on emitting probing signals and subsequently receiving reflected signals using a zone plate focused on a point of an object, the position in the longitudinal direction of which depends on frequency. Probing signals are emitted using a transmitting antenna mounted on the axis of the system within a first radioopaque Fresnel region of an axially symmetric zone plate; the beam width of the transmitting antenna corresponds to the angular sector of the monitoring zone, and the spectrum width of the emitted signal corresponds to the depth of said zone. In order to simultaneously receive signals reflected from points of the extended object, located at the same distance, a matrix of receiving elements is used, which is placed on the focal surface of the axially symmetric zone plate, after which signals received by elements of the matrix of receiving elements, having a defined frequency for constructing a picture of the scene which corresponds to a range-specific section, are used. EFFECT: high rate of monitoring extended media and objects, and smaller dimensions of the focusing system. 5 dwg, 1 tbl


Chamney, Anne, see O'Byrne, Eileen (ed.) Clare, Wallace, see O'Byrne, Eileen (ed.) Clarke, Howard B., & Phillips, J. R. S. (eds), Ireland, England and the Continent in the middle ages and beyond: essays in memory ofF. X. Martin, 390-92 Clarke, Howard B., Prunty, Jacinta, & Hennessy, Mark (eds), Surveying Ireland's past: multidisciplinary essays in honour of Anngret Simms, 418—21 Cole, Robert, Propaganda, censorship and Irish neutrality in the Second World War, 553-8 Connell, Peter, The land and people of County Meath, 1750-1850, 401-2 Crawford, Jon G., A Star Chamber court in Ireland: the Court of Castle Chamber, 1571-1641, 243-* Crowley, Tony, Wars of words: the politics of language in Ireland, 1537-2004, 241-3


In bioinformatics, landscapes of phylogenetic trees for an alignment of sequence data are defined by a discrete state combinatorial space. The optimal solution in such a space is the best-fitting tree which provides insight on the evolutionary relationship between taxonomic groups. The underlying structure of this space is poorly understood. The Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm is applied in a novel manner to sample phylogenetic tree landscapes in order to understand more about this structure. The proposed implementation provides a probabilistic model for exploring this combinatorial space. This probabilistic model allows us to circumvent the complexity that arises due to increasing the number of sequences. In order to evaluate its performance, quantities of resultant solutions were judged in order to determine how much of the space can be sampled. The results show that the algorithm is robust to the starting location and consistently samples a majority of the


Exposure to pesticides is an important risk factor for genotoxicity in farmworkers. Once there is a possibility that genotoxicity is related to the autoimmunity process, the present study aimed to characterize genotoxicity and possible immunological alterations related to chronic and direct exposure to a complex mixture of pesticides. It employed Interleukin–6 (IL-6), Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), IL-12 and IL-10 as biomarkers of cellular immune function. DNA damage was greater in the exposed group (p < 0.05). Both IL-6 and IL-12 were significantly increased in the exposed group (p < 0.05 and < 0.01, respectively); on the other hand, Il-10 levels were decreased (p < 0.01). Evaluation of the association between cytokine levels and epidemiological variables showed a correlation between alcohol consumption and higher levels of IL-12 (p < 0.05). In addition, negative correlation between % DNA and IFN-γ (p < 0.05) as well as % DNA and IL-6 (p < 0.05) and positive correlation was found between IL-6 levels and absolute number of T CD8+ lymphocytes (p < 0.05) as well as between IL-10 levels and absolute number of T CD4+ lymphocytes (p < 0.05). No association between all the evaluation parameters was found in the non-exposed group. The observed alterations related to chronic and direct exposure to a complex mixture of pesticides may allow the monitoring of these workers to minimize the negative impact caused on their health.


The public security organs should insist on advancing with the time and safeguarding the stable and united situaton to build the steady political environment for the construction of the rural well-to-do.Establishing a good public security environment for the construction requires that the organs abide by and seek truth from facts to deepen the attacks of crimes.Offering a good adminstration environment for the construction requires the organs accelerate system reform which bases on pioneering and inventing.To establish a good humane environment for the construction,the organs should promote cultural and ideological progress with a mind of continuous development.


. The n -dimensional generalized Hartogs triangles H n p with n ≥ 2 and p := ( p 1 ,...,p n ) ∈ ( R + ) n are the domains defined by H n p := { z = ( z 1 ,...,z n ) ∈ C n : | z 1 | p 1 < ··· < | z n | p n < 1 } . In this paper, we study the L p Sobolev mapping properties for the Bergman projections on the n -dimensional generalized Hartogs triangles H n p , which can be viewed as a continuation of the work by S. Zhang in [25] and a higher-dimensional generalization of the work by L. D. Edholm and J. D. McNeal in [16].


This paper investigates the efficiency convergence of Malaysian listed government-linked companies towards the benchmarked foreign owned firms that represent international standard. We use stochastic frontier analysis to estimate production efficiencies of 31 GLCs and 15 FFs over a period of 12 years (2001–2012). The results of the σ convergence test show a process of convergence although the speed is relatively slow. The study also observes a significant negative link between output generation and labour input, suggesting overcapacity in human capital investment, and a significant positive link between financial firms and inefficiency implying the need to enhance productivity driven personnel and knowledge based investments for firms in this sector.


4533 Background: HDC is a curative therapy for relapsed GCT. However, multiple prior relapses, cisplatin refractoriness (relapse/progression (PD) within 4 weeks) or absolute refractoriness (no prior response), or very high tumor markers at relapse predict poor early event-free survival (EFS). The validated Beyer model (JCO 1996;14:2638) identifies groups with poor risk (5% EFS at 1-year post-HDC), intermediate risk (25% EFS) or good risk (≥50% EFS). Given high VEGF expression in metastatic GCT and synergy between BEV and chemotherapy, we studied concurrent BEV/HDC in refractory GCT. Methods: Eligibility includes ≥ 1st relapse/PD, poor/interm risk and no contraindications to HDC or BEV. Treatment consisted of 2 cycles of HDC with stem-cell support following BEV (5 mg/kg) 1 week before each cycle. HDC-1 consists of a novel regimen of infusional gemcitabine with docetaxel/melphalan/carboplatin (BBMT 2005;11:297). HDC-2 includes ifosfamide/carboplatin/etoposide. Target accrual is 25 pts, to distinguish a 1-yr...


Recently,the study of the low bit-rates(4800-9600bps)speech coders mainly centers on a class of analysis-by -synthesis linear predictive speech coders;which includes many well-known tech-niques.In this class the coders all have near toll quality ,but the high complexity gets rid of their mod-est hardware implementation.In this paper,an enhanced self-excited vocoder with an harmonic noise weighting filter(HSEV) is presented in which several techniques for improving the speech quality be used.An harmonic noise weighted adaptive code book which is similar to a closed loop long-term pre-diction filter is used to excite the system .For decreasing the computation,an hybrid open /closed-loop search procedure is used .The noise weighting filter is a cascade of a traditional short-term spectral wenghting filter and an harmonic noise weighting filter.Finally the decoded speech signal^,s quality is more improved by an adaptive post filter .The overall algorithm is very simple,but its decoded speech is sound.This speech coder can be implemented in a single DSP such as TMS320C25 with an integral echo canceller.


The author gives the results of a survey carried out in 1981 to measure the quantity of fuel consumed by motor vehicle traffic on the main street network in Helsinki on an average weekday. In 1980, the average weekday consumption of petrol over the whole of the street network was 312000 litres of petrol and 246600 litres of diesel oil, costs of which were approximately 1.8 million Finnish marks per day. Details are given of the methodology used in the survey, and energy consumption per vehicle/kilometre on various types of street. Measures are suggested to reduce fuel consumption. (TRRL)


Deng Xiaoping's ideology of educational investment provides the profound inspiration for solving the present problems of educational investmeat.That is,in the development of the new century education,we must build up the correct viewpoint on educational investment,make the goal of education clear,establish the security system for the educational investment and improve the leadership responsibility.


In this paper, an advanced PI control method was analyzed. The analysis of Bode plot in frequency domain, and the experiment shows that advanced controller is better than the existing PI controllers. They can achieve higher bandwidth, lower settling time and better disturbance rejection ability. The increased performance costs little in sensor noise amplification. We show using true-life design examples that advanced control algorithms improve equally well both speed and position controllers


Gentamycin Sulfate and E.coli Blood-serum Antibody were conjugated by special modified agentia of chemistry and then were prepared into Targeted Gentamycin Sulfate after certain treatment according to the principles of pharmaceutical pharmacy and befitting chemical methods. Detected by electron microscope, clearing to see Gentamicin Sulfate particle adhere to surface of the antibody globulin. Detected the immunogenicity of Targeted Gentamicin Sulfate by Indirect ELISA , show that the Targeted Gentamycin Sulfate has a little immunogenicity, but its immunogenicity has been greatly attenuated compared with E.coli Blood-serum Antibody, the result show that chemical modification is not only conjugate but also it attenuate the immunogenicity of E.coli Blood-serum Antibody In the Targeted Gentamycin Sulfate ,E.coli Blood-serum Antibody almost do not effect pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of Targeted Gentamicin Sulfate.


he warns us, are only partial and provisional, in that they are based only on the analysis of the consonant system. To summarize these conclusions, numerous and interesting as they are, in a short space would be unfair. A general point, which the author emphasizes, deserves mention: the degree to which, by the mid fourth century, the original genetic relationships of the dialects had been overlaid by new relationships at least within the field of the present study. In addition to the Czech text of almost 125 pages the volume contains abridged versions of chapter x in Russian (13 pages) and of chapters iii-xii in English (44 pages), and an elaborate table setting out the successive phases of the consonantal systems of all the dialects during the period studied. To do justice to the range of Bartonek's work, still more to assess fully the validity of his findings, would require a long and detailed discussion. These observations can only pretend to be some measure of tribute to his learning and acuteness of observation and argument, as well as to the interest and importance of his methods and conclusions.


This report provides background information on the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), and discusses U.S. trade negotiating objectives, procedures for congressional-executive notification and consultation, and expedited legislative procedures.


ESPITE the long and extensive clinical use of ephedrine and related D compounds, little is known of their metabolism and excretion in man. It has been reported that the metabolism of (-)-ephedrine in various animals shows considerable species differences (Axelrod, 1953). Thus demethylation to norephedrine is a major route of metabolism in the dog and guinea-pig, but only a minor one in the rat; hydroxylation is of minor importance in the dog but a major pathway in the rat. Williams (1959) suggests that demethylation of ephedrine is likely in man although Richter (1938) claimed that about 100% of the dose was excretedunchanged in 24 hr. It must be noted, however, that the analytical method used by the latter author did not differentiate between ephedrine and norephedrine. The development of a specific and sensitive gas-liquid chromatographic assay for ephedrine and its congeners in urine, (Beckett & Wilkinson, 1965b), permits detailed investigation into the metabolism and excretion of these compounds. Table 1 shows the results obtained when aqueous solutions of (-)-methylephedrine, (-)-ephedrine, and (-)-norephedrine were administered orally in the form of their hydrochlorides to a male volunteer.


This paper presents a Heston-based pricing model for contingent convertible bonds (CoCos). The main finding is that skew in the implied volatility surface has a significant impact on the CoCo price. Hence stochastic volatility models, like the Heston model, which incorporate smile and skew are appropriate in the context of pricing CoCos. The financial crisis of 2007–2008 triggered an avalanche of financial worries for financial institutions around the globe. After the collapse of Lehman Brothers, governments intervened and bailed out banks using tax-payer's money. Preventing such bail-outs in the future and designing a more stable banking sector in general, requires both higher capital levels and regulatory capital of a higher quality. Bank debt needed therefore to be made absorbing. This is where CoCos come in. The Lloyds Banking Group introduced the first CoCo bonds as early as December 2009. Since the first issuance of a CoCo bond more than five years ago, the market has continued to grow and has now reached a size over €120bn. CoCos are hybrid financial instruments that convert into equity or suffer a write-down of the face value upon the appearance of a trigger event, often in terms of the bank's CET1 level in combination with a regulatory trigger. The valuation of CoCos boils down to the quantification of the trigger probability and the expected loss suffered by the investors if such a trigger event eventually takes place. There are at least two schools of thought regarding valuation of CoCos. Structural models can be put at work or investors can rely on market implied models. The latter category uses market data (share prices, CDS levels and implied volatility, etc.) in order to calculate the theoretical price of a CoCo bond. In De Spiegeleer and Schoutens The Journal of Derivatives, the pricing of CoCo notes has been worked out in a market implied Black–Scholes context. In this paper we move away from the assumption of a constant volatility which is the back-bone of Black–Scholes based valuation and put the Heston model at work and study CoCos in a stochastic volatility context. The existence of a semi closed-form formula for European options pricing under the Heston model allows for a fast calibration of the model. In our approach we combined market quotes of listed option prices with CDS data. As a case study, the procedure was applied on the Tier 2 10NC 758% CoCo issued by Barclays in 2012.


As part of the WINTER (Wintertime Investigation of Transport, Emissions, and Reactivity) campaign, a Particle‐into‐Liquid Sampler with a fraction collector was flown aboard the National Center for Atmospheric Research C‐130 aircraft. Two‐minute integrated liquid samples containing dissolved fine particulate matter (PM1) species were collected and analyzed off‐line for the smoke marker levoglucosan using high‐performance anion‐exchange chromatography‐pulsed amperometric detection to compare levoglucosan with aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) biomass burning markers and investigate the contribution from residential burning during the study. Levoglucosan was correlated with AMS organic aerosol (R2 = 0.49) and with carbon monoxide (CO; R2 = 0.51) for all flights. Levoglucosan was not correlated with the inorganic smoke marker water‐soluble potassium but was correlated with the AMS markers ∆C2H4O2+ (high resolution, R2 = 0.60) and ∆m/z 60 (unit mass resolution, R2 = 0.61). However, at low levoglucosan, AMS markers deviated potentially due to interferences from other sources or differences with the species captured by the AMS markers. Analysis of levoglucosan changes relative to carbon monoxide as plumes advected from source regions showed no systematic levoglucosan loss for plumes up to 20 hr old. Based on literature residential burning source ratios and measured levoglucosan, contributions of organic carbon (OC) due to residential burning were estimated. The contribution ranged from ~30 to 100% of the OC, with significant variability depending on the source ratio used; however, the results show that biomass burning was a significant PM1 OC source across the entire sampling region. A GEOS‐Chem model simulation predicted significantly less smoke contribution.


Evolution of heat tolerance is a crucial mechanism for the adaptive response to global warming, but it depends on the genetic variance harbored by populations and the thermal stress intensity in nature. Selection experiments on heat tolerance have been key to understand the heat tolerance evolution but the effect of variable heat stress intensity on the correlated responses of resistance traits has not been explored. Here, the effects of heat intensity selection (fast and slow ramping temperatures) for increasing knockdown temperature in Drosophila subobscura were evaluated on the knockdown time at different stressful temperatures (35, 36, 37, and 38 °C), the thermal-death-time curves (TDT curves), the desiccation and starvation resistance. Correlated evolution was found for these four resistance traits in D. subobscura, which demonstrates that the evolutionary response to tolerate higher temperatures also confers the capacity to tolerate other stress such as desiccation and starvation. However, these correlated responses depended on the intensity of thermal selection and sex, which could limit our capacities to transfer these findings to natural scenarios. Nevertheless, this study reaffirms the value of experimental evolutionary approach to explore and to understand the adaptive responses of natural populations to global warming.


A number of high density villas are built among the contemporary city,but the courtyard area of the villas is very small. In the limited space range, how to design the garden landscape with the normal size is worth analyzing and exploring. The point of this article is to think from the angles of comfort, function and openness, and discusses about the design, the needs of the owners, pros and cons of the site through the actual design examples, proposes that the small space landscape is the continuation of the building, but should have an independent character.


We provide evidence of the long-run effect of income provided during the first year of life. We take advantage of the January 1 birthdate cutoff for child-related tax benefits, which results in families of otherwise similar children receiving substantially different amounts of income. Using the universe of administrative tax data in selected years, we show that an additional $1,000 of income during the first year of life increases young adult earnings by at least 1-2%, with larger effects for males. These effects show up earlier in terms of improved math and reading test scores and a higher likelihood of high school graduation. Estimates of parental behavior in the years after birth suggest an important role for liquidity during the year after birth. ∗We thank participants at the 5th Annual Northeast Economics of Education Workshop, the 2019 NBER Children's Meeting, the 2019 Summer Meeting of the Institute for Research on Poverty, Williams College seminar attendees, and the 2021 AEA Annual Meeting for their comments and suggestions. We also thank Chris Avery, Hilary Hoynes, and Larry Katz for their suggestions. The opinions expressed herein reflect the personal views of the authors and not those of the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense. This paper is released to inform interested parties of research and to encourage discussion. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Census Bureau. The Census Bureau's Disclosure Review Board and Disclosure Avoidance Officers have reviewed this product for unauthorized disclosure of confidential information and have approved the disclosure avoidance practices applied to this release. Census statistics approved for release under disclosure numbers CBDRB-FY2021-CES010-002, CBDRB-FY2021-CES010-003, CBDRB-FY2021-CES010-008, and CBDRB-FY2021-CES010-010. All errors are our own.


Social norms have a potential to contribute to advances in social intelligence. One approach to take this advantage in the design of virtual agents is the use of institutional models - a social reasoning framework which brings about social norms - in conjunction with classical AI techniques, to achieve the appropriate recognition of complex situations and provide guidance on the subsequent choice of adequate action(s) with norms. In this paper, we aim to show that the combination of an institution providing social reasoning and BDI agents providing individual reasoning, establishes a framework for socially intelligent behaviour by the interplay between: (i) the institution and Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs), and (ii) norms maintained by the institution and the mental states of IVAs. From an engineering point of view, the framework provides a separation of concerns because the BDI agent is augmented with the capacity to process social obligations, while the specification and verification of social structure resides in the institutional models. We illustrate our approach with two scenarios: one on queuing and another on inter-personal distance theory.


Although to Northern observers this comet must have appeared insignificant, the appearance in New Zealand was just the reverse, the comet being remarkable for its brightness and its rapid motion southward. A series of five photographs was received by the writer at this observatory from August 6 to August 15, which showed the comet in its various stages of evolution. Unfortunately the weather was exceedingly bad at Wellington all through the month and important stages appear to have been missed.


With a cultural approach applied to the audiovisual field, this article aims at problematizing the concepts of everyday life, space and territory within the representation of physical space and the production of territorialities. We regard movies that combine documentary dimensions in audiovisual fiction narratives. The audiovisual product of analysis was the work of the Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes, especially his film Arabian Nights (2015), divided into three volumes.


Preschool education is an important part of pedagogy, which has experienced many schools in its development process. It has been ignored in the process of actual practice, but its influence on children is imperceptible. Therefore, preschool education theory studied is of great significance to children's education. The meaning of education is very broad, and there are many types of preschool education. In the course of its theoretical development, the problems of ignoring preschool education often appear repeatedly. Therefore, in the course of theoretical development of preschool education, it is necessary to analyze its current situation, reflect on emerging issues, and guide the future development of education.


"History is happening in manhattan," eliza Schuyler sings with her sisters before she meets and marries the illfated eponymous hero of Hamilton: An American Musical. in this r&bstyle number, the Schuyler sisters simultaneously hail the "new ideas in the air" of revolutionary era New York and remind the presentday audience that they are witnessing a broadway musical make history by making history.1 linmanuel miranda's musical chronicles the deadly rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron burr as they sing and dance their way through the revolutionary War, the framing of the Constitution, and their intertwined personal lives. When Hamilton premiered in 2015, critics and fans rushed to proclaim it a revolution on broadway. Hamilton is undoubtedly a remarkable production and has become a powerful cultural phenomenon, breaking broadway ticket sales records and winning numerous accolades, including eleven tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize in Drama. it quickly became a touchstone of contemporary culture, setting off a landslide of reviews, opeds, and breathless commentary. it has inspired countless latenight television and Youtube parodies. barack and michelle obama


The usefulness of type Ia supernovae as distance indicators is a metter of current study and discussion. The avaialbel data suggest that the intrinsic dispersion in the absolute B magnitudes of SNe Ia at maximum light is less than 0.4 mag. Hence, SNe Ia offer considerable potential for cosmological studies out to redshifts of z~0.1 or greater. At these distances, however, the effects of the redshift on the observed magnitudes are not negligible and must be taken into account in order to compare the magnitudes and light curves of objects of different redshifts. In this paper we make use of the best spectra avaialbe for type Ia supernovae in order to calculate the effect of theredshift on the observed B and V magnitudes. We present K-temrs in the redshift range z=0.005-0.50 from a collection of spectra of SNe 1990N, 1991T, and 1992A covering from day -14 to day +76, counted from the time of maximum light in the blue band. The K-terms calculated for the V band from the different spectra show a well defined trend as a function of time. In the B band the K-terms show some scatter before maximum light due to the spectroscopic differences displayed by the trhee SNe selected. These spectral differences tend ti disappear for later epochs and, consequently the K-term curves in the B band after maximum light are much tighter. Our calculations enable us to interpolate K-terms for SNe Ia at maximum light, which should prove useful to study the Hubble diagram for these objects.


This paper brings to the topic of world shipments an investigation of more efficient multimodal routes from the commercial (time and consumption costs) and environmental (impacts) points of view. In particular, the freight relations existing between Asia and Europe, through the Suez Canal, have been investigated because of the constant growth of these relations, despite the Europe-America ones. European destinations are reached by alternative paths, which use road or railway connections starting from the main Mediterranean (Genova, Venezia, Trieste) or North European (Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Bremerhaven) ports. Environmental and commercial index values, evaluated for each possible route through an original software (written in the APL code), allow a comparison in order to identify which is the most sustainable transport chain relating to the different destinations. These results could be useful to re-organize a freight network in terms of managing and adjusting the existing infrastructures in order to obtain lower environmental impacts.


In the west part foundation pit of zone A of Guangzhou Qifu building,the system of double-row cement mixing pile with vertical steel floral tube embedded and pre-stressed anchors and soil nailing is adopted to control its deformation and cut off water.The system is not mentioned in the current code of foundation pit supporting.The application of the system in this project can be used as references for the other foundation pit supporting projects with similar geologic conditions.


The use of platelet rich plasma (PRP) in sports medicine has increased dramatically recently but there are still doubts towards its efficacy that likely stem from the wide variety between PRP samples and products. To further define PRP, this study aimed to test whether its composition was altered if PRP or the blood used to produce PRP, remained out at room temperature before use. Another aim was to establish if a manual platelet count would adequately quantify platelet concentration compared to using automated methods. All types of PRP product tested remained stable, according to growth factor and cytokine measurements, for up to four hours when stored at room temperature. No significant differences were found in platelet concentrations obtained from automated or manual methods. The results found confirm the ease of verifying platelet concentration manually and that PRP can be used in orthopedic and surgical situations without worry of product degradation.


Cavitation induced by stresses in the irrotational streaming flow of a viscous liquid past a stationary sphere is studied here using the theory of viscous potential flow. The maximum tension criterion for cavitation used here was proposed by Joseph 1995, 1998: "Liquids at atmospheric pressure which cannot withstand tension will cavitate when and where tensile stresses due to motion exceed one atmosphere. A cavity will open in the direction of the maximum tensile stress which is 45◦ from the plane of shearing in pure shear of a Newtonian fluid." The analysis leads to a dimensionless expression for the maximum tensile stress as a function of position which depends on the cavitation and Reynolds numbers. The main conclusion is that at a fixed cavitation number the cavitation threshold decreases with the Reynolds number and the extent of the region of flow at risk to cavitation increases as the Reynolds number decreases. This prediction that more viscous liquids at a fixed cavitation number are at greater risk to cavitation seems not to be addressed, affirmed or denied, in the cavitation literature known to us.


The program to improve the quality of life and protection of women in Riau Province is a program that functions to empower women victims of domestic violence. This study aims to determine the strategy implementation of life quality improvement and protection of women program in Riau Province, as well as determining the inhibiting factors of the program. This study uses qualitative research with a descriptive case study approach. The research results found that the implementation of the strategy program improved quality of life and protection of women in Riau Province is good. Because of all the assessments done on the program, budgets and procedures, all of them show the results that are already good. Implementation of the strategy of the program conducted by the Women Empowerment Office and Child protection of Riau Province through UPT P2TP2A which is reviewed from the program has been running for more than a year and the benefits of this program has been perceived by victims of domestic violence that received treatment. A review from the budget indicates that the budget used has been audited and recorded in the document of the budget work plan so that it can be accounted for. Then reviewed from the procedure shows that in the implementation of quality of life improvement program and women protection is executed according to the operational standards of the existing procedures.


The inherent difficulty in supporting human usability in large control systems—such as building environmental and security systems—derives from the large diversity of components and users within each domain. Each system is different, with different types and organizations of devices; each user is different, and takes different roles; each task a user performs varies with the situation. As a result, applying traditional methods of interface design to these systems is insufficient. Designers end up handcrafting each diagram required by each type of user, the effort needed to add new functionality quickly bloats, and users end up juggling multiple disparate applications. We have begun to deploy a tool called DIG (Dynamic Interaction Generation) that addresses this difficulty. DIG uses models of domain, task, and presentation knowledge to automatically design and present interfaces specialized to a user's current role and task, the current situation, and the capabilities of the current display hardware. In this demonstration, DIG will convert a real-life building management configuration into a dynamic interface that building managers can operate using either a standard PC or a Palm Pilot.


The maintenance and improvement of soil fertility greatly rest with the quantity and quality of soil organic carbon (SOC), while the study of SOC pool in farmland ecosystem is a main research direction of agricultural, ecological, and environmental sciences. Land use, cultivation, crop selection, planting density, irrigation, fertilization, and other anthropogenic activities all affect the dynamics of SOC pool. This paper summarized the research advances on the SOC pool and its affecting factors in farmland ecosystem, soil C sequestration potential, measures for maintaining and improving SOC pool, and potential roles of farmland soil C sequestration in mitigating greenhouse gases emission and climate change. The future research directions of SOC pool in farmland ecosystem were also put forward.


Two rapid-acting insulin analogs, lispro and aspart, are now available for clinical use (1).

The aim of our study was to compare the plasma-insulin profiles of these analogs after subcutaneous injection in patients with type 1 diabetes.

Fourteen patients with type 1 diabetes (six men and eight women, [mean ± SEM] 35.4 ± 3.3 years of age [range 22–59], HbA1c 7.3 ± 0.3% [reference range 3.2–5.4], BMI 24.7 ± 1.1 kg/m2, and diabetes duration 22.9 ± 2.6 years) were recruited for the study. Only two patients had measurable C-peptide levels (0.04 and 0.11 nmol/l). All patients were on multiple-injection therapy with a breakfast insulin dose of 11.1 ± 0.7 U (range 6–14) and no intermediate-acting insulin in the morning.

The study was designed as a single blind randomized crossover study. On the first day, seven patients were randomized to insulin lispro (Humalog, U-100; Eli Lilly, Indianapolis, IN), and the other seven were randomized to insulin aspart (NovoRapid, U-100; Novo-Nordisk, Bagsveard, Denmark). On the second study day (5–21 days later), the patients received the alternative insulin analog. The patients continued their usual insulin treatment between the study days.

All patients arrived to the clinic fasting. After an initial blood sampling, they were given 10 U s.c. of one of the insulins in the abdominal wall at 7:30 a.m. A standardized breakfast, which had an energy content of 418 kcal and a nutrient content of 21 g protein, 11 g …


The important practical problem of poor heat stability of poly(l-lactic acid) (PLLA) is addressed by the addition of N, N′-bis (benzoyl) sebacic acid dihydrazide (BSAD) and talc as a nucleating agent system. The idea of incorporating talc into the PLLA/BSAD composites is that talc can provide supplementary nucleation effect with very small amount of BSAD (0.2 wt %) and therefore can improve the heat deflection resistance of PLLA materials. Effects of BSAD/talc on morphology, crystallization behavior, heat resistance, and mechanical properties of PLLA/BSAD/talc were investigated after annealing processes. The results indicated that the BSAD/talc system increased the crystallinity from 6.0% of pure PLLA to a maximum 42.9% by the synergistic effects of BSAD and talc increasing the growth of spherulites and nucleation density, respectively. After annealing at different temperatures, the heat deflection temperature (HDT) of PLLA was improved dramatically due to synergistic effects of BSAD/talc between restricted chain movement and acceleration of crystallization. At high temperature (above Tg), the thermo-mechanical properties of PLLA is mainly determined by the crystallinity and the reinforcement effect of talc acted as a filler. Moreover, effects of BSAD/talc on mechanical properties were discussed. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 41454.


When a transducer of finite size is used to measure the spectral density of a turbulent sound field, the recorded values are dependent upon transducer size. The dependence has been described in the literature. If the transducer is separated from the turbulence by a nonturbulent madium or by an elastic layer, then the recorded spectral density is a function of both transducer size and layer thickness. Analysis of the resulting situation is the purpose of the present paper.


The air defense multiple launch rocket is an effective terminal air defense weapon. The rotation of its turntable has an effect on the rocket's ballistic. In the paper, the rotation angular velocity of the turntable is combined into the initial swing angular velocity of the transverse and longitudinal axis of the projectile axis. Based on this, taking the rotation of the turntable in the direction as an example, the six-degree-of-freedom rigid body ballistic model is selected for full ballistic simulation, and the stability of the projectile flight at different rotation angular velocities is studied according to the simulation results of the rocket attitude angle.


In this design,a low-cost ECG electrocardiogram monitoring system is introduced,which consists of two parts: data acquisition device based on C8051F320 and PC terminal as the analysis and processing system.The system is low- power consumption,the data is transmitted to the PC terminal by USB interface of the C8051F320.By using the visible virtual instrument system developing platform LabVIEW,the traditional instruments function modules are integrated into the computer,so the user can modify virtual instrument software to change its function to meet their needs.Using USB in- terface to realize real-time ECG data transmission,in addition,ECG data acquisition module is designed as the computer peripheral,which makes the syetem high-speed and portable.


Keywords: calcaneus; kidney transplant; lymphoma;osteolytic lesionWe describe a 55-year-old male with end-stage renaldisease due to chronic glomerulonephritis. A kidneytransplantation was performed at 52 years of age, andthe patient had been treated since transplantation withsteroids, azathioprine (AZA) and cyclosporine A(CsA). Three years post transplant, AZA was changedto mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) and allopurinolintroduced due to hyperuricaemia, observed since thesecond month post transplant.Five months later, the patient complained of painand oedema of right ankle joint. On examination, therewere no abnormalities except oedema, reddening andtenderness of the joint. As there were no abnormalitieson X-ray, and symptoms were related to soft tissues,the patient received antibiotics and his leg wasimmobilized for 3 weeks, after which the symptomsexacerbated. A subsequent X-ray performed after thisperiod revealed osteolysis of calcaneus (Figure 1).Magnetic resonance imaging revealed diffuse osteolysisof calcaneal bone stock, extension of pathologicaltissue into the surrounding soft tissues, with low signalin T


The most important political event in 2020 was the nationwide vote on the approval of amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Some of the adopted amendments directly concern the social sphere; they are designed to ensure an increase in the well-being of Russian citizens and the level of their social protection. This has actualized scientific research on social justice in all social sciences and humanities. In this regard, legal science is most interested in questions related to at least two aspects. First, to what extent are the amendments to the Russian Federation Constitution relevant from the point of view of the social sphere current state? To what extent are they conditioned by the current agenda and modern social relations content? On the other hand, to what extent does the current legislation designed to serve the implementation of the constitutional foundations meet the requirements of the Basic Law? Do not the provisions of the Constitution become an unattainable bright ideal in the modern system of legal regulation of specific legal relations?
This work is devoted to the formulation of precisely these questions. It provides examples from the sphere of regulation of social and labor relations, which make it possible to talk about the difficulties that the law is already facing today, not having sufficient funds in its traditional arsenal to ensure the implementation of fair social standards established in the Constitution. The development of employment non-standart forms, the precarization of the labor market, an objective decrease in the number of hired workers in the total number of employed, creates a significant circle of subjects who today do not have access to the rights and guarantees established by the Constitution, since they are traditionally ensured by the norms of labor law, which does not apply to these citizens.
Based on the experience of individual foreign countries, it is concluded that in order to fully implement the constitutional foundations and principles in the world of work, it is necessary to extend certain traditional labor rights and guarantees to the self-employed and workers employed on online platforms.


The performance benefits of the dynamic inducer tip vane system have been experimentally demonstrated for the first time. Tow-tests conducted on a three-bladed, 3.6-meter diameter rotor have shown that a dynamic inducer can achieve a power coefficient (based upon power blade swept area) of 0.5, which exceeds that of a plain rotor by about 35%. Wind tunnel tests conducted on a one-third scale model of the dynamic inducer achieved a power coefficient of 0.62 which exceeded that of a plain rotor by about 70%. The dynamic inducer substantially improves the performance of conventional rotors and indications are that higher power coefficients can be achieved through additional aerodynamic optimization. It is noted that the wind turbine system used as a baseline unit is the Kedco 1200, a conventional propeller-type wind turbine with power blades designed for optimum performance without tip vane augmentation. In addition, the tip vane utilized a standard conventional NACA airfoil selected on conservative grounds to guarantee acceptable performance. More advanced high life-to-drag airfoil sections are expected to improve the tip vane effectiveness.


The operation of rectifiers with a complex voltage drop at the diodes in tachogenerators is investigated. It is shown that the use of such rectifiers reduces the insensitivity zone of the tachogenerator output characteristic.


This issue begins with Victoria Burbank's call for a shift in emphasis by researchers in Indigenous Australia towards a more cognitively based approach to culture in attempting to explain a widespread lack of effective engagement by many Aboriginal people with Western institutions. In the Arnhem Land community that is the setting here, the cultural models that underpin socialisation generate developmental processes whose trajectory is not congruent with notions of 'work' obtaining in the dominant society. The 'self with others' schema that Burbank posits as originating in early childhood experiences furnishes a behavioural template that impedes a person's capacity to engage with Western institutions. Her contention that culture is more productively viewed as a 'motivational force' is well supported by her ethnography. Burbank is not urging reform of Aboriginal adaptive strategies; rather, she offers a broader cultural critique, acknowledging that large numbers of Westerners are also coping badly with their own institutions and suggesting that we can learn much from what is happening in Indigenous Australia. In their paper, Kathryn Coe, Nancy Aiken and Craig Palmer also focus on child socialisation. They suggest that traditional stories may have functioned in parenting as a species-typical adaptation to the slow maturation rate of children. They see stories and storytelling as encoding desired moral values and conformity to group norms. They contrast news carrying in traditional non-literate societies with the institution of storytelling, whose forms, functions, characters, content, intent and contexts of telling are here shown to be quite different. The authors also uncover the ubiquity of themes of selflessness and sacrifice for the greater good, and demonstrate how elements of fantasy are mixed with religion in the fostering of solidarity and cooperation. A religion-as-communication perspective is adopted by Reed Wadley, Angela Pashia and Craig Palmer in their paper. Their particular concern is with scepticism, an inadequately studied aspect of the sociology of religion, and its impacts on social relationships among the Iban of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, with particular reference to shamanic practice. The authors begin with a helpful discussion of some of the thorny problems surrounding the emics and etics of 'belief '. For them, religious adherence requires non-sceptical commitment to a set of claims about the cosmic order, plus behaviours supportive of this stance. Religious scepticism thus entails some kind of challenge to such claims, and its expression requires close anthropological and linguistic attention to social context and to both verbal and nonverbal dimensions of communication. While confirming that elements of modernity are inevitably implicated in the occurrence of scepticism surrounding Iban Anthropological Forum Vol. 16, No. 1, March 2006, 1–2


Uncertainties in instantaneous dam-break floods are difficult to assess with standard methods (e.g., Monte Carlo simulation) because of the lack of historical observations and high computational costs of the numerical models. In this study, polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) was applied to a dam-break flood model reflecting the population of large concrete dams in Switzerland. The flood model was approximated with a metamodel and uncertainty in the inputs was propagated to the flow quantities downstream of the dam. The study demonstrates that the application of metamodeling for uncertainty quantification in dam-break studies allows for reduced computational costs compared to standard methods. Finally, Sobol' sensitivity indices indicate that reservoir volume, length of the valley, and surface roughness contributed most to the variability of the outputs. The proposed methodology, when applied to similar studies in flood risk assessment, allows for more generalized risk quantification than conventional approaches.


The attacks on New York and Washington, 11 September 2001 ('9/11'), as well as other attacks since, have demonstrated how vulnerable our modern societies are. These events shattered many people's basic feelings of security and safeness, though 9/11 probably did not radically change the view of scholars in science, technology, and society studies (STS). Work on this chapter started in response to 9/11, when several historians and sociologists of technology and science asked in what ways their research could be relevant to understand these events. I will argue that it is worth to investigate the vulnerability of technological culture, and that this can be done fruitfully from an STS perspective. My main point, however, is different. I want to suggest that vulnerability is not to be taken as something purely negative. Living in a technological culture, I will argue, inevitably implies to live in a vulnerable world. And vulnerability is not only an inevitable characteristic; it is even an important asset of our technological culture as a prerequisite for living with the quest for innovation. To live in an open, changing and innovative culture, we must pay the price of vulnerability. Vulnerability is a central issue when thinking about innovation. Joseph Schumpeter's recognition that the fundamental instability of capitalism presents an ever-present possibility of entrepreneurs' seizing upon innovations can be read as an early formulation of a positive relation. Vulnerability seems to be a condition sine qua non for innovation, as it is the inevitable result of the instability and dynamic development that Schumpeter identified as prerequisites for innovation (Schumpeter 1939). The relation has also been made vice versa: innovation makes vulnerable.


We study the role of firms' investment decisions in mitigating asymmetric information in bankruptcy markets using a model in which bankrupt firms sell assets to uninformed buyers. We show that firm value can increase with leverage or investment cost because the informational value of investment decreases with firms' incentives to invest. When bankruptcy costs increase, firms may issue more debt to mitigate adverse selection in the bankruptcy market. We find empirical support for the model's prediction that the investment rates of firms with low credit ratings correlate negatively with the recovery rates of firms with high credit ratings.


Abstract : An analysis is made to determine the shape of the film-vapor interface when a thin liquid film separates from a stationary surface and is swept away on an opposing moving surface. Situations in which variations of this phenomenon occur include cavitation in bearings, the spreading of thin films, and the movement of bubbles in narrow spaces. The results of the analysis show that for a fixed attachment height the flow carried in the separating film decreases with decreasing N = (3mu(U)/T) to the 1/3rd power. Stagnation points occur on the interface (with upstream recirculation) at a film height of 3F/U where F is the flow per unit film width and U is the plate velocity. As N decreases, the flow decreases; and the stagnation point moves down the interface toward the moving plate. A second stagnation point always occurs at the point of film attachment. A second important result is that film separation occurs in a distance of about one plate clearance. Because this transition distance is very small, the analysis is applicable to situations in which the plate velocity is not normal to the film edge, e.g. striated cavitation in bearings. The upstream transition distance is shown to be a few plate clearances.


The study is based on the topic of "Where go the salt?" edited by Newton Publishing House. The study is conducted by comparing two groups: the experimental group adopts the method of the Problem-based Learning, and the control group adopts the teaching direction to investigate the influence on students' learning effects in natural science and problem-solving abilities by adopting Problem-based Learning. The subjects in the study are four classes of fourth grade elementary school students in New Taipei City, two classes are experimental group and other two classes are control group. The subjects and teaching time of the experimental group and the control group are both 59 students and 15 courses. The study adopts a quasi-experimental design, and it applies mainly quantitative experiment analysis method and partly qualitative data analysis. The Test of Problem-Solving and Test of Natural science Learning Effects are tested before and after teaching, and those are analyzed by ANCOVA and ANNOVA statistics to examine the pretest and posttest divergence. The qualitative data were collected including semi-structured interview, teacher' reflective thinking note, classroom observation record, worksheet, learning attitudes questionnaire of natural science, performance assessment and course questionnaire of problem based learning, so as to further understand students' feeling toward Problem-based Learning. The study has reached the conclusions as follows: 1. The learning effects in natural science and problem-solving abilities of the experimental group students have improved after adopting Problem-based Learning. In comparison with the control group students, there is significant difference. 2. After adopting Problem-based Learning,all the problem-solving sub-item abilities of the experimental group students have improved. There is significant difference between experimental group and control group in the sub-item abilities of the "finding solutions", "finding causes" and "flexibility". However there is no significant difference between the two groups in the sub-item abilities of the "avoiding problems" and "effectiveness". 3. After adopting Problem-based Learning, there is no significant difference in the learning effects in natural science and problem-solving abilities of the experimental group students between different sex. 4. After adopting Problem-based Learning, there is no significant difference in the learning effects in natural science and problem-solving abilities of the experimental group students between different learning achievements.


The nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) is a well known burrower, but individuals spend the majority of their time above ground foraging for soil organisms by repeatedly digging pits through the soil surface. Little ichnological attention has been given to these foraging pits even though their great prevalence within the geographic range of extant armadillos implies that they might have a trace fossil record in paleosols extending back to at least the Paleocene. This research describes the foraging pits constructed by D. novemcinctus with implications for recognition and interpretation of similar conical trace fossils. Field observations yielded an association between one large-diameter (41 cm wide) dwelling burrow, three relatively short, straight shelter burrows (up to 19 cm wide and 38 cm long), and abundant variously sized foraging pits (up to 18 cm wide and 14.5 cm deep). Plaster casts of foraging pits showed that most were asymmetrical, vertically oriented, downward-tapering elliptical cones (width>depth), with smooth to coarsely dimpled walls and common elongate, parallel grooves, isolated curved grooves, and distinct paired grooves, resulting from scratching with the elongated middle two digits of the forelimb. Digital models of plaster casts are used to quantify several aspects, including a new property, conicality. Relative compactness and volume exploited indicate that surface pits are more efficient for soil foraging than subterranean burrows. Recognition of fossil armadillo foraging pits would enable paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic interpretations analogous to the habitats and ranges of extant armadillos. Conical trace fossils in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation are potential examples of ancient vertebrate foraging pits, although they are not attributable to armadillos because of their age. Brian F. Platt. Department of Geology and Geological Engineering, University of Mississippi, 120A Carrier Hall, University, Mississippi 38677, USA firstname.lastname@example.com


TRAVIS L. GAYDOS: Data Representation and Basis Selection to Understand Variation of Function Valued Traits (Under the direction of J. S. Marron ) Many fields, including evolutionary biology, collect data in which a curve corresponds to each individual. Therefore a curve is the statistical atom of analysis, which is an area in statistics known as Functional Data Analysis (FDA). A common goal in FDA is to understand the variation of curves. Often Principal Components Analysis (PCA) is a useful tool to do this. But PCA will often yield undesirable results if the amount of variation explained by directions is not significantly different. Directions of low variation do not often explain significantly differing amounts of variation. Therefore in subspaces of low variation it is difficult to separate biological signal from noise using variation measures. In this dissertation a way to separate biological signal from noise by quantifying the simplicity structure of curves in a subspace of low variation is shown. Also asymptotic properties of subspaces of low variation and subspaces of biological signal are developed. The results of PCA are highly dependent on the representation of the data as well. In this dissertation a representation of data curves similar to shape statistics is produced by exploiting the developmental stages of insects. This representation allows for variation, that is usually most efficiently modeled using non-linear methods when using typical FDA grid based representations of the data, to be modeled using linear PCA. Also in the dissertation is a method to simultaneously visualize multiple t-tests to understand the slope structure of data sets.


Simultaneous second primary tumors are not uncommon in patients with oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma. Many studies have previously shown that oral...


Objective
To discuss the relationship between meibomian gland abnormalities and tear film stability in patients with obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome.

Methods
In a descriptive study from November 2013 to June 2014, 63 patients (126 eyes) who were diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) were recruited. Healthy individuals (n=44; 88 eyes) who were seeking physical examinations served as the control group. Personal information, clinical history, and the ocular surface disease index (OSDI) were recorded. All eyes were assessed by slit lamp examination, tear break-up time (BUT), noncontact infrared meibography, and meibomian gland inspection. The prevalence of meibomian gland dropout and distortion in OSAHS patients was compared with controls.

Results
The prevalence of meibomian gland dropout in the control and different OSAHS groups (mild, moderate, and severe) was 12/88(14%), 7/18(39%), 14/30(47%), and 53/78(68%), respectively. The difference was statistically significant (χ2=50.62, P<0.01). The meibography scores of the mild, moderate, and severe OSAHS group and the control group were 2.29±1.25, 2.29±0.91, 2.64±1.18, and 1.50±0.67, respectively. The difference was statistically significant. The prevalence of meibomian gland distortion in the control and different OSAHS groups (mild, moderate, and severe) was 8/88(9%), 6/18(33%), 12/30(40%), 49/78(63%), respectively. The difference was statistically significant (χ2=51.96, P<0.01). Meibomian gland orifices were plugged in 32 eyes in the control group (32/88, 36%) and in 87 eyes in the OSAHS group (87/126, 69%). The difference was significant (χ2=22.42, P<0.01). Meibomian abnormalities were present in 34 eyes in the control group (34/88, 39%) and in 91 eyes in the OSAHS group (91/126, 72%). The difference between the two groups were statistically significant (χ2=27.26, P<0.01).

Conclusion
Compared to the general population, OSAHS patients have a less stable tear film, and they are more likely to develop meibomian gland atrophy or morphological abnormality. Morphological abnormality of the meibomian gland is correlated with the severity of OSAHS.

Key words:
Meibomian gland dysfunction; Obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome; Meibomian gland dropout


The pathophysiology of both classical and common migraine is still not understood, and there is controversy as to whether the origin is vascular, neuronal, or both. Although the mechanism for the prophylactic effect of β-blockers in migraine has not been elucidated yet, the therapeutic action of β1-blockers and non-selective β-blockers devoid of intrinsic activity is well established by many controlled trials. Mainly on the basis of data from animal experiments, the possible role of central β-adrenoceptor-mediated mechanisms involved in the control of the activity of noradrenergic neurons will be discussed with reference to migraine.


Background: Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have severe impairment in their social functioning, and such literature from their sibling relations is limited. Sibling relations have several dimensions to them and a more detailed assessment into their impairment in ADHD is needed. We compared quality of sibling relations among ADHD sibling dyads and healthy controls. We also correlated the quality of sibling relations with severity of inattention and hyperactivity in ADHD. Materials and Methods: The present case–control study enrolled 30 cases of ADHD and 30 healthy controls from a child guidance clinic. The quality of their sibling relations was assessed by parent-rated version of the sibling relationship questionnaire (SRQ) on four domains of warmth, power struggle, conflict, and rivalry as well as their respective sub–domains. Their severity of inattention and hyperactivity was assessed using the Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Parents Rating Scale (VADPRS). Results: ADHD sibling pairs had significantly lower warmth, prosocial behavior, affection, companionship, and competition as compared to their healthy counterparts. ADHD child was admired less by the sibling, and they were also seen to nurture each other less. The most significant difference was seen in affection (r = 0.59), followed by nurturance (r = 0.56). Intersibling conflict correlated positively with hyperactivity scores on VADPRS (ρ = 0.410, P = 0.04). Conclusions: Sibling relations are significantly affected in ADHD, with lower warmth and nurturance. Most significant impairment is noted in affection followed by nurturance. Intersibling conflict correlates significantly with severity of hyperactivity.


Background: There is high incidence of nosocomial in developing countries and the bacteria responsible are becoming more resistant to commercially available antibiotics, hence, the need for this research. Methods: Isolation and identification of microorganisms from different wards of


As a major subject of enhancing the art of leadership and abilities of administration,promoting the harmonious development of cities is to assume power for the people.It asks the leader to exercise the state power in the interest of the people's livelihood,rule by consensus,eliminate the exploitation and polarization between the rich and the poor and finally achieve the common prosperity.It also requires the leader to exercise the state power in the scientific manner that means the leader should be good at rethinking the reasons of the exploitation and polarization between the rich and the poor which bring by the disharmony in Chinese cities nowadays.Consequently,the important indication of measuring the art of leadership and abilities of administration is the decision relating to how to promote the harmonious development to eliminate the exploitation and polarization between the rich and the poor in the process of realizing the urbanization and modernization.


Enterprise information systems, while support daily activities, typically collect data on executed processes in event logs. These data describe the temporal sequence in which activities were carried out, hiding possible parallelism and other control flows. Representing the structure of each process execution in the form of an Instance Graph, enables managers to discover valuable knowledge on enterprise behaviors. In this work, we describe BIG4ProM, a tool which implements the Building Instance Graph (BIG) algorithm. BIG4ProM exploits filtering Process Discovery algorithms implemented in ProM in order to return the set of instance graphs related to the given event log. The plug-in is conceived to support both expert and standard users.


This paper describes kits that were deployed in a freshman engineering design course and used to enhance understanding of the engineering design process. In a first-year engineering design course student teams were given instructions and a kit of physical materials to work with. The instructions present a design challenge that can be solved through the creative assembly of the materials, as well as outline rules, timing and scoring of the challenge. Each activity can be completed in as little as one hour. Brevity of the assignment forces student teams to think quickly and rapidly functionalize ideas. Student teams use the time to complete the challenge and then compete against each other with their finished product. An example of one of these challenges is tasking the teams to develop a launcher capable of transporting a ping pong ball the furthest using a collection of low fidelity materials. Scoring is based on a strength to weight ratio. The activities are designed such that student teams are most successful when they allocate time in the challenge and methodically proceed through the design process. The steps that each of these kits focus on are planning, defining the design criteria or success criteria, brainstorming, prototyping, testing, and iterating. Before and after the activity students take a survey that assesses their understanding of the engineering design process and queries how they would allocate time in a similar challenge based on the steps of the design process. We detail the student and faculty experiences and provide preliminary data from our pilot deployment of these kits. We will provide sample kits for other faculty to take home and solicit suggestions for adoption in other programs. Introduction Engineering design is a core component of any engineering education. Most students take some form of engineering design in their capstone experience, as is recommended by ABET [1]. Recently, however, more opportunities for this work have been created for underclassmen. Studies have shown that placing team-based engineering design earlier in an engineering curriculum can provide students with valuable teamwork skills and connections to real-world engineering work, as well as increase retention of material learned in class [2]. Teaching design freshman year increases retention of women and underrepresented minorities[3]. It also provides relevance and context to young engineers' careers. While there is an increased interest in teaching engineering design, understanding how to teach it is still a challenge. Teaching engineering design requires instruction of process not content, something that is often foreign to students and instructors. When teaching engineering design in the classroom the format should focus more heavily on active learning than the traditional passive learning formats. Learning engineering design and practicing engineering design are two different things. The traditional engineering classroom typically includes greater fractions of passive learning than active participation. Concept understanding and knowledge retention have been shown to be higher with a variety of active learning types, such as problem based or active learning. [4]. In typical classes students are assessed based on performance on problem sets and tests that require knowledge gains from textbooks and lectures. Assessing engineering design is different, however, as it is based on evaluating students' execution of processes explained in class, rather than quantifiable test outcomes with correct answers [5]. Repeatable methods to test processexecution are needed. The engineering design process is a decision-based process that can be used to break down and solve large and complex problems. Each university teaches a variation of the basic steps of the engineering design process: clarifying the problem, understanding the problem and context, defining design criteria, brainstorming, prototyping, testing, and documentation. A central feature of the engineering design process is iteration. Iteration is used to cycle backwards to repeat steps when new information has come to light, when failure occurs, or when an alternate option needs to be explored. Success in the engineering design process requires a mindset that encourages iteration and revision as a once-only run through of the engineering design process is surely to yield mundane or already-attempted solutions. Teaching iteration in a lecture course is nearly impossible. The process of iteration includes making assumptions, creating artefacts based on those assumptions, testing those assumptions, synthesizing results and ultimately starting over with refined assumptions. Through these steps new information about a problem is generated, which influences the next steps [6]. Simply lecturing about these steps is insufficient to give students the experience necessary to effectively iterate in teams. Failure is one of the main reasons for iteration, but is difficult to teach about. The ability to identify and assess failures or other reasons for iteration can only be properly learned through hands-on experience. Previous studies have highlighted the ability to teach such concepts using hands-on activities such as model building and laboratory exercises. Lemons et al. showed that model building helped students generate ideas, make ties between concept and physical object, and finally make the students more away of their process-based strategies [6]. Mackenchnie and Buchanan have employed hands-on activities in a laboratory class using a building component [7]. The current work aims to teach crucial aspects of engineering design in short periods of time by providing students with simple building-based kits. Students use these kits in the classroom to solve challenges requiring steps from the engineering design process. The activities can be completed by most students as they require only practical ingenuity and creativity. Teams need to rapidly move through the steps of the engineering design process and iterate based on what they learn in order to be successful. These kits also provide instructors with an application of the design process to base student performance evaluations on, rather than typical question and answer. Kit Development The kits originally started as active learning challenges developed by faculty and staff at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen at Rice University. These kits were originally used for challenges offered at weekly lunch time events called INNOVATE Challenges [8]. These events were open to the public, students, and faculty. Attendees would draw a random number that would place them on a team with three other people. Participation was limited to 45 participants (15 teams), on a first come first serve basis. The challenge would be announced promptly at 12:05, begin immediately, and run for less than an hour. Prizes were awarded for the top teams. Challenges were adopted from a number of sources, including St. Louis University's Weekly Innovation Challenges [9], Teampedia.net, a wiki-based website that lists team building exercises, and from brainstorming sessions with Rice instructors. Challenges were scoped to be completed in the one hour period including set up and breakdown. Before running a challenge during an INNOVATE event, the challenges were workshopped and played through numerous times by staff and professors to adjust to the right level of complexity based on time constraints and student experience. Complexity was added to each challenge by adding design specifications, or setting minimum criterion which were difficult to achieve. The goal was to set a difficulty level such that it was easy for teams to complete the process-based steps of the challenge, but alone would not guarantee success in meeting the design criterion. Instead, students or teams would have to make a leap, either creatively or intellectually, to innovate upon the challenge solution in order to meet the success criterion. The leap could only happen if students completed a build and test iteration cycle. Complexity of the challenges were adjusted to suggest iteration as a necessary step to meet the success criterion, rather than merely going through the steps of the design process. These challenges were later adapted and new ones developed to be deployed in a number of circumstances. The first ancillary product of these challenges was to teach workshop participants how to use low fidelity prototyping to communicate ideas and solve problems [10]. Low fidelity prototyping is a process that champions using readily available materials to build rapidly with low attention to aesthetic appeal and a strong focus on developing practical solutions. These workshops were taught with a kit of materials collected to run any of the challenges. Teams could then use the low fidelity materials and skills from these workshops for future projects. The second evolution of these challenges was to teach students the engineering design process, specifically the iterative aspects of building and testing. Success in the challenge is dependent upon how quickly teams can iterate, not quality of craftsmanship, aesthetics, or other surface level characteristics. One of the challenges was introduced at Michigan State University for EGR 100 Introduction to Engineering Design. This is a two-credit course taught in a lecture and laboratory format. Course learning objectives focus on engineering design and project management, technical communications, teamwork and engineering professionalism. Flipped classroom lectures are held once each week for 50 minutes throughout a 15-week semester. The laboratory sessions meet once per week for 110 minutes each. Lectures are held in a traditional auditorium, whereas the laboratory sessions are held in a computer lab facility with Windows ® based PCs. Lectures primarily deal with the various aspects of design, communication and the engineering profession


The paper shows the difficulties that the increasing international mobility of capitals set to the execution of monetary policy in the development countries. In modern capitalist economies, more than ever, money should be viewed as an institution. Therefore, it is first necessary to understand what are institutions (being money one of them) in order to comprehend the institutional and theoretical prerequisites to monetary policies and monetary stability. In this discussion, we emphasize the challenges that the monetary and financial opening up of many national markets impose for the execution of economic policies. In this sense, we also examine some of the specific institutional prerequisites to monetary stability in the development countries, because of facts as the inconvertibility of their currencies, and the frequent inconsistency of their fiscal, monetary and exchange policies, etc. We try to demonstrate that those institutional difficulties are responsible for the growing appeal of proposals to a complete abandonment of some national currencies, or for the adoption of currency boards in which the policymakers renounce to their power to decide about the liquidity level of their economies, in spite of the formal existence of their national currencies. Finally, we present some suggestions to the solution of the referred problems.


B ECAUSE the nation has been found to be too large, and the individual States too small to serve as effective administrative areas, many Federal agencies have divided the United States into administrative regions.' The Federal Reserve Districts, the Army's Corps Areas, and the Civil Service Commission Districts are familiar examples. Because there are currently in use over one hundred such regional schemes, none of which conforms to any other, there has developed a belief that an important step toward improving public administration would involve the abolition of existing regions and the adoption in their stead of a set of regions uniform for the whole administrative branch of the Federal Government. Such a proposal stems from the passion of human minds for reducing multiplicity to unity, complexity to simplicity and variety to uniformity,-a passion, which if intelligently directed, may be productive of much good. Where, however, there are reasonable as well as historical grounds for multiplicity, complexity, and variety, this passion, if translated into action, may result in attempts to solve difficult problems through simple and inadequate remedies. Such a remedy is the proposal of a single regional scheme for Federal administration. The National Resources Board, approaching administrative regions from the standpoint of national planning, in its 1934 report proposed the introduction of a measure of uniformity in these words:


Construction managers require innovative techniques to assist them in producing accurate planning tasks such as resource allocation and costing of activities, because of unique characteristics of the road construction industries. The research study introduced a framework for Virtual Construction Model (VCM) that includes 4D modeling and automatic generated time location plan for earthwork activities in a road project. The framework is designed by integrating road design data, quantities of cutting and filling sections, variable productivity data, algorithms for 4D terrain modelling, and a progress profiles visualiser. The model is validated with a real life case study of a road project and it was found to be beneficial in generating the 4D terrain surfaces of progress, cost histogram and a time location plan with more accurate information of location and time in the earthwork operations. The VCM has potential to assist project planners and construction managers in producing efficient construction scheduling and resource planning. civil engineering projects using morphing techniques and realisation of construction progress in graphical images. The 4D models of earthwork operation have been produced in 3D CAD model at equal volume and at a fixed production rate of the earthwork activities at different stages during construction operation and linked with time but the variable productivity data of equipment and soil characteristics was not considered in the 3D CAD models. The above research efforts did not address the interface of variable production rate, which depends on available resources and site conditions for the development of the VCM. The key issue faced in road construction sites is the variable productivity from one day to another due to the special characteristics of the road construction industry; such as fluctuation in daily weather conditions, working conditions in open sky, resource unavailability on time and other unpredictable factors. The study focuses on addressing the above issues by the development of the VCM. The model will be integrated with the "variable production rate" of earthwork activity throughout road construction operations. Currently accepted scheduling techniques including CPM, PERT and Bar Charts are unable to model linear activity more accurately in terms of locations. A linear scheduling method developed earlier than CPM has the potential to provide significant enhancement, because it provides location of working activities coupled with the advancement of computer technology. This allows the project schedulers and construction managers to plan road construction project visually to determine the controlling activity path (Hamerlink and Yamin, 2000). Previously research efforts by Johnston (1981 and Garold et al (2005) in the area of linear scheduling concluded that the techniques are a useful schedule ing tool for progress monitoring in road construction projects during the planning and execution phases. Previous research studies have considered earthwork activities as a linear activity (Hamerlink and Yamin, 2000). However, earthwork activities are nonlinear in real practice since the earthwork quantities vary along a road project from station to station (chainage to chainage) according to topography of terrain surfaces. To overcome this issue of the earthwork activity, this study presents an innovative methodology for the development of VCM and a time location plan of the earthwork construction processes in road construction projects. The VCM generates 2.5D terrain surfaces of road profiles automatically at the intermediate stages during the earthwork operations. The model intends to assist in improving the site communications of road construction planning and scheduling information, and to produce efficient construction scheduling and resource planning. The remainder of this paper outlines a conceptual framework and details of the prototype for VCM and generation of a time location plan of the earthwork operations in a road project. 2. FRAMEWORK OF A VIRTUAL CONSTRUCTION MODEL (VCM) The general specification of framework of a prototype of virtual construction model is outlined in figure 1. The framework integrates the road design data, sectional quantities of cut and fill, productivity models, algorithms for terrain modelling and a progress profile visualiser. The model assists in generating visual terrain surfaces of road progress automatically throughout the earthwork operations. The next section describes in detail the input, process and output of the VCM. Figure 1: Framework specification of a virtual construction model


Mineral flotation is the most widely used separation process applied for the concentration of metals sulphide particles from finely ground ores. However, flotation is a process that often has many problems which can affect its efficiency, mainly due to: • Variability of the feed stream characteristics • Inability to measure important process variables, such as the mineral floatability • A lack of understanding of the effect of circuit configuration and the mineral behaviour through the circuit The aim of this thesis is to investigate these issues using a steady state model applied to industrial data. The plants examined in this thesis were the Pillara Concentrator in Western Australia and the Charcas Concentrator in Mexico. In both cases the zinc circuit was surveyed to provide data for evaluation of simulation methods. The main characteristic of these ores is that the minerals are well liberated, and thus, the properties of flotation models can be evaluated without the confounding effects of composite particles. In terms of model building, there are a number of papers in the literature that offer models of various aspects of the flotation process such as chemistry, hydrodynamics, process kinetics, characterisation of the mineral flotation properties, and phase effects. The current JKMRC model methodology was developed in order to put together some of these aspects for the cases where the chemical environment remains constant. With aid of relatively simple well liberated ores this thesis investigates the combined use of plant data and batch cell flotation results from the various plant streams, as a means of determining additional properties of the process streams in the plant. It is shown that additional useful information is available for the batch tests. It is both an advantage and a problem that different types of data are obtained from the batch cells and the continuous plant cells. The ability of the models to predict is limited by the staged addition of reagent that change, as might be expected, the flotation properties of the ore. It is found for constant reagents and froth recovery that the models are capable of predicting the performance of parts of the industrial flotation plant. A recommendation for further work on the effects of froth recovery and reagents is made.


The Book of Jubilees in its final form comes to us as an extended narrative, the bulk of whose text reports events recorded in the biblical books Genesis and Exodus 1-16, maintaining for the most part the narrative sequence of those same books in language often closely resembling theirs. The status and function of "Israel" as implicated in the beginning and end of time could hardly be more emphatically expressed; yet within the following narrative spoken by the angel of the presence Israel's status is, indeed, further enhanced. Properly to understand Jubilees' approach to Genesis, it is crucial that we have a clear idea of how that text envisages Israel. The complex relationship which Jubilees envisages as existing between chronology and law reaches its climax on this day, the twenty-second day of the seventh month. Keywords:angel; chronology; Genesis; Israel; Jubilees


Traditional Japanese (kampo) medicine has recently been included in the medical education curriculum in Japan; hence, an education program in kampo physical examination for beginners is needed. The aim of the present study was to develop an education program using a simulator of kampo abdominal palpation that would enable beginners to acquire this skill, and to assess the effectiveness and usefulness of the education program.


Tracheobronchial injuries are uncommon and their successful diagnosis and treatment often requires high level of suspicious. Surgical repair should be individualized for each type of injury. This article reviews diagnosis and management of traumatic injuries to the trachea and major bronchi. From March 1991 to March 2003, twenty-seven patients with major airway trauma were managed in Nemazee Hospital, Shiraz, Iran. Afterwards these patients were prospectively studied, for a period of 10 years. The mechanism of injury was blunt trauma in 13 patients, stab wound in 6, gunshot in 2 and iatrogenic in 6. Two patients had associated esophageal injury. Twenty-one patients were male and 6 were female. Eight patients had major bronchial injury, 13 had cervical tracheal injury and 6 had mediastinal tracheal injury. Six patients had re-implantation of main bronchus (5 right and 1 left), and two patients had repair of bronchus with concomitant bi-lobectomy in one of them. In cases of tracheal injury, 12 patients had primary repair of trachea with distal tracheostomy in two. However, 7 patients were managed conservatively with later sleeve resection of trachea and laryngotracheal anastomosis in three patients. Three patients died. Tracheobronchial injury is extremely challenging due to its early threat to life. A high level of suspicious and the liberal use of bronchoscope are critical in the diagnosis of tracheobronchial injuries. Avoidance of iatrogenic complications, primary repair and liberal use of autogenous tissue for wrapping or buttressing increases success rate.


OBJECTIVE: To describe and to correlate with the clinical data the ictal patterns of infraslow (ISA) EEG changes in patients with infantile spasms.
 BACKGROUND: ISA EEG analysis has shown potential in differentiating absence and partial complex seizures as well as pre-epilepsy surgical planning in adult patients. Despite these potential applications, there have been no published reports, to our knowledge, involving ISA analysis in infantile spasms.
 DESIGN/METHODS: EEG recordings of all cases of infantile spasms in the past 10 years at the Alberta Children9s Hospital were reviewed and for each patient, the first 10 confirmed spasms were analyzed for ISA patterns as follows. Each spasm, was evaluated using an ear referential montage with a band pass filter set to 0.01 Hz to 0.1 Hz. Spasms were then evaluated for correlating changes in ISA and whether these changes, if identified, were either focal or generalized. Once the EEG analysis was completed for all patients, pediatric neurology clinic notes and brain imaging reports were reviewed. Imaging results, treatments, clinical course and information pertinent to likely etiology of the infantile spasms was recorded.
 RESULTS: 85% of subjects had clear ISA changes correlating with infantile spasms. 46% showed lateralization with at least some spasms analyzed. 100% of patients with generalized ISA changes showed at least a partial response to initial therapy, while this was the case in only 60% of patients with lateralized ISA changes, and 50% of patients with no ISA changes. 33% of patients with generalized ISA changes developed other seizure semiologies, however this occurred in 100% of patients with either lateralized or absent ISA changes.
 CONCLUSIONS: There are ictal changes in ISA in the majority of infantile spasms. Some trends were observed suggesting that the presence of generalized ISA changes in patients with spasms may confer a better prognosis with regards to the development of other seizure types. Disclosure: Dr. Myers has nothing to disclose. Dr. Bello-Espinosa has nothing to disclose. Dr. Scantlebury has nothing to disclose.


: Thinking of present gastronomic trends is inevitable when talking about innovation in Haute Pastry. Despite the rising demand for new creations, launching a successful product that meets the high expectations of consumers is increasingly complex. For this reason, sensory analysis studies are more and more interested in studying the emotions generated by these products to understand and improve user experiences. The main goal of this work was to conduct a study to ana-lyze the emotional arousal of consumers after the visualization of 5 special cakes. For data collection, an online questionnaire with EsSense Profile ® scale and CATA methodology has been used. EsSense Profile ® is a predefined and validated scale that measures emotions generated by food that includes 39 terms. When analyzing the emotions expressed by all the participants 22 are statistically significant, of which 14 are classified as positive, 6 as neutral, and only 2 are negative. The results obtained support the importance of the emotional profil e to understand consumer's expectations and behavior.


We are in an environment that is constantly changing, this confronts the leaders of the companies to be not only more creative but also to have a broader thought of what happens in general in the market to which your company belongs, that is why the The case of travel agencies in Colombia has taken a completely different course and this has caused many SMEs with tradition in the market to disappear; if we take into account that the vast majority of companies in the sector do not work under a strategic direction and do not implement good practices such as planning, definition of clear objectives, diagnosis of market needs and organized execution, with clear indicators, which makes relevance and should be the starting point for the sustainability over time of all companies in the sector.


This issue of Organised Sound is devoted to a conference, 'Music without Walls? Music without Instruments', which took place at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK in June of this year. It was hosted by the university's Music, Technology and Innovation Research Group. As one can easily discover, given the conference's title, the goal of this meeting was to investigate vision and plans for the future. The three-day event included papers, musical events, installations, demonstrations and a plenary. All artists whose pieces were selected for the conference concerts were requested to present vision papers to accompany their performance.