This article introduces the World Affairs 2022 special issue which contains ten contributions, including this one, debating the proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation published in this journal earlier this year. In the present article, I continue and expand some of the arguments in the previous proposal. The notion that the time is not ripe to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is misguided and extremely dangerous. When and how a more conducive environment will be created to restart peace negotiations remains elusive. Even a cursory review of the daily encounters between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied territories and Gaza point to the intensity of hatred, enmity, and utter contempt they feel toward one another, which if continued unabated will be a recipe for an unprecedented violent conflagration. To avert the inevitable, every concerned individual must do everything humanly possible to help in creating new psychological, political, and physical conditions that would facilitate a dialogue and engender a new momentum to start a process of reconciliation before it is too late. This should eventually lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state under the umbrella of an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation, where all three countries maintain their independence and can grow and prosper together and live in mutual security and peace.


: This paper presents the behavior of concrete square columns reinforced by jute fibers fabrics composites. The fibers are treated for 24h in 2% of the KOH and 4% of the NaOH solution. Eighteen specimens are evaluated by using the compression test. The results are presented in terms of the ultimate load, and the composites morphology. An increase of the ultimate load capacity was noted in the case of specimens reinforced by fibers treated in 4% NaOH. On the other hand, the maximum load capacity noted a decrease in the case of specimens treated in 2% of KOH solution comparing to untreated ones. At the microscopic level, the resin was distributed uniformly in both cases of specimens in which the fibers are treated.


The more I thought about these books, and how my boys instantly were attracted to them while I was not, the more I began to consider the world we live in. This is a world where we are constantly bombarded with visual stimuli that we must learn to filter and prioritize. All teachers strive to help equip students with the tools necessary to survive and thrive in the world (Anstey, 2002). Being an art educator, I realized, "Who could better teach about visual stimuli than a visual arts teacher?" An excellent tool to help the visual arts teacher accomplish this goal is the picture book.


Device-to-Device (D2D) communication appears as a key communication paradigm to realizing the vision of Internet of Things (IoT) into reality by supporting heterogeneous objects interconnection in a large scale network. These devices may be many types of objects with embedded intelligence and communication capabilities, e.g., smart phones, cars, or home appliances. The issue in in this type of communication is the interference to cellular communication caused by D2D communication. Thus, proper power control and resource allocation should be coordinated in D2D network to prevent excessive interference and drastic decrease in the throughput of the cellular system. In this paper, we consider the problem of cross-layer resource allocation in time-varying cellular wireless networks with D2D communication and incorporate average interference to cellular system as a quality-of-service constraint. Specifically, each D2D pair in the network injects packets to its queue, at rates chosen in order to maximize a global utility function, subject to network stability and interference constraints. The interference constraint enforces an arbitrarily low interference to the cellular system caused by D2D communication. We first obtain the stability region for the multiuser systems assuming that the nodes have full channel state information (CSI) of their neighbors. Then, we provide a joint flow control and scheduling scheme, which is proven to achieve a utility arbitrarily close to the maximum achievable utility. Finally, we address the consequences of practical implementation issue such as distributed scheduling by a designing algorithm, which is capable of taking advantage of diversity gain introduced by fading channels. We demonstrate the efficacy of our policies by numerical studies under various network conditions.


Abstract : This conference proceeding summarizes a November, 1999 roundtable discussion on the role of information technology (IT) in housing design and construction. The roundtable was the first in a series of discussions sponsored by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) to explore how IT can transform and improve American homes and the home building industry. A second workshop will be held in the Spring of 2000 to discuss the role of IT in the home and what the proper role of the federal government should be in bringing the benefits of IT into America's homes. This conference proceeding is intended to share the roundtable discussion and provide information that can be used by interested parties to advance the use of IT within the housing industry. This document solely reflects the author's efforts to summarize the discussion that occurred and to provide a limited amount of additional information on related activities. This document does not constitute analysis of that discussion, nor does it represent validation of the discussion or the recommendations by RAND. Similarly, the information contained in the Appendix does not constitute an endorsement by RAND.


Due to many achievements in the field of communication and sensor networks, Internet of Things becomes an emerging technology which makes the human life easier and comfortable. This technology development paves the way to work and live in a comfortable manner. In internet, interfacing of any object is very difficult, but IoT makes the process very easier that too in a short span of time. In IoT, a huge of amount of data has been captured that is considered as huge business and social value data's'. So, IoT needs a model which is used to extract those high business data. Thus, data mining is a process which extracts high business data from huge amount of data easily. In this paper, a systematic review has been carried out on various data mining techniques and models that have been applied in IoT. Also its advantages and disadvantages have been discussed along with the challenges and future trends of IoT..


This paper adopts such pragmatic theories such as social deixis,speech act,politeness principle and turn-taking to make a multi-level analysis on the use of address terms.Address terms,first as a social deixis,reflect the social identity,status,power and solidarity in relationship between the speaker and the hearer.Address terms often perform speech act in actual communication,making greetings,warnings,threats,blaming,advice and other illocutionary acts.The polite use of address terms reduces the threat of face in communication,maintaining one's positive face as well as keeping one's negative face.Moreover,in turn-taking patterns,address terms not only constitute a "call-answer" adjacent pair to initiate a conversation,but also maintain the turn-taking by selecting the next participant in a conversation.


While demonstratives and other determiner-like words in English are part of the functional system, their Japanese counterparts are simple lexical categories. The semantic theory (e.g. Brown & Fraser 1963) predicts that these elements must emerge at a later stage in both languages since they denote relatively abstract and complex meanings; whereas Radford's (1990) maturational theory makes no such predictions about Japanese. In replicating O'Grady's (1993) Korean study, I collected both production and comprehension data for Japanese. The data indicates that despite their categorial status (i.e. lexical categories), these determiner-like elements emerge quite late. Since the late emergence of these elements in both Japanese and English can be attributed to their relatively abstract semantics, there is no reason to attribute the late acquisition of English determiners to their categorial status (i.e. functional categories). Thus, just like O'Grady's Korean data, the Japanese data seems to support the semantic theory.


OBJECTIVE To investigate the mechanism of Qing-ban Capsule on the treatment of chloasma.METHODS Animal melasma model was established by injection of progesterone according to the literature.SOD,MDA,GSH-PX were observed in mouse serum and liver after the treatment of different drug concentrations.Also the effection of skin melanin was observed by immuno-histochemistry after treated with Qing-ban Capsule.RESULTS SOD,GSH-PX was significantly higher and MDA was decreased in serum and liver after treat with Qing-ban Capsule,the difference was significant compared with model group.Skin melanin was significantly improved on the treatment group.CONCLUSION Qing-ban capsule has significant anti-oxidant effects,and good treatment of melasma.


In 1927 and 1928 two patients with unusual cases of apparent extradural tumor of the spinal cord were operated on in University Hospital. The nodules which were removed were at first thought to be chondromas arising from intervertebral disks, but because microscopic examination showed no neoplastic tissue their nature and origin were for a time left in doubt. In the light of recent increase in knowledge concerning pathologic processes of the vertebral column, these nodules are now identified as herniations of nucleus pulposus tissue from intervertebral disks. Reports of these cases and a brief description of certain aspects of pathologic conditions of the disks follow. REPORT OF CASES Case 1. —Syndrome of involvement of cauda equina. Complete cerebrospinal fluid block. Localization with iodized oil. Laminectomy. Removal of nodule from intervertebral disk. Recovery. History. —F. R. H., salesman, aged 31, was referred by Dr. F. J. Graham in December 1926, complaining


his article focus on the effects of microwave heating on the viscosities of different crude oils such as Sudan and Venezuela crude oil.The influence of microwave irradiation time,power level as well as the composition,especially water content on the oil viscosity was investigated.The influence of microwave irradiation on the crude oil physical properties and composition was investigated.It was found that microwave has different effects on different oil,and the water content of oil has an important influence on the absorption of the microwave field.


Purpose To explore the value of ultrasound contrast agent SonoVue and Cadence Pulse sequencing(CPS)in diagnosing renal and bladder occupied lesions.Methods Conventional and contrast-enhanced ultrasound were performed on 88 suspected renal and bladder occupied lesions.The results were compared with that of pathology.Results Contrast-enhanced ultrasonography diagnosed 41renal malignant lesions,8 renal benign lesions,35 bladder malignant lesions and 4 bladder benign lesions.While pathology showed 38 renal malignant lesions,11 renal benign lesions,34 bladder malignant lesions,5 bladder benign lesions.The sensitivity,specificity,and accuracy of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography in the diagnosis of renal bladder occupied lesions with were 94.7%,75.0%,95.4%,respectively.Conclusion Contrast-enhanced ultrasound is important in differential diagnosis of the renal and bladder occupied lesions.


1. Origins 2. The two ages: Golden and Hard Boiled 3. Transitions 4. International crime fiction 5. Gender 6. Cousins of crime: spy ficiton, the thriller, and legal drama 7. Epilogue: Can crime fiction be taken seriously? Further reading Index


Combined with pile foundation work in Taiyuan Iron and Steel Corporation the construction scheme to protect exited pile foundations [JP2]are studied. The precast pile is introduced. Practical structural design and treatment effect are discussed. In the end some experiences are summarized.[JP]


Traditionally, the DC operating points of a nonlinear electronic circuit are found using the Newton-Raphson method, which has known problems. It is not globally convergent; it can frequently diverge; and cannot find multiple solutions in a single pass. We discuss the use of evolutionary algorithms to overcome these problems.


E XCAVATION was conducted by the American School of Classical Studies in five areas of Ancient Corinth during the spring of 1968.1 Dr. and Mrs. William Biers continued for their fourth season the investigations in the large Roman bath to the north of the modern plateia of the present-day village.2 An excavation training session was conducted for the members of the School during April; at this time limited work was done in the bath that lies immediately east of the Lechaion Road and north of the Peribolos of Apollo.8 The foci of the spring season in the agora were the renewed excavations around the Sacred Spring, that is, in the area immediately south of the foundation of the Captives' Facade, and at the west end of the Roman forum, immediately west of the foundation of the Babbius Monument.4 The fifth endeavor of the spring season at Corinth was an investigation of a month's duration in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, undertaken, by arrangement with Professor Ronald S. Stroud, by Dr. Nancy Bookidis.'


The utility model provides a fiber grating demodulation instrument base on a digitalized tunable light source; and the demodulation instrument is characterized by comprising a digitalized tunable light source capable of freely setting wavelength and power, a coupler or a circulator, a photoelectric conversion module, a data acquisition module with synchronization signals, and a calculation and control unit. Light emitted by the digitalized tunable light source passes the coupler or the circulator, enters a test fiber, and is reflected by the fiber grating on the test fiber; the light carrying tested information reversely passes the coupler or the circulator, and enters the photoelectric conversion module; signals are collected by the synchronical data acquisition unit, and sent to the calculation and control unit; and wavelength reflected by the fiber grating is calculated according to reflectivity of various wavelengths, thereby obtaining temperature of test fiber grating or strain information. The advantage of the fiber grating demodulation instrument base on the digitalized tunable light source is that a synchronization problem brought by different fiber grating distances of a conventional scan-type light source is eliminated.


A 67-year-old man presented with a large right inguinal mass that had progressed in size for 25 years. Eighteen years earlier, he had been hospitalized with an oblique inguinal hernia but declined surgical repair because of concern about complications.


This paper discusses some of the facts and technical gaps in existing environmental policies in general with particular focus in air pollution problems in India. Some measures have been suggested to narrow these gaps and improve the efficiency and utility of environmental management programmes in the country. (excerpt)


XML, the eXtensible Markup Language, is fast evolving into the new standard for data representation and exchange on the WWW. This has resulted in a growing number of data cleaning techniques to locate "dirty" data (artifacts). In this paper, we present DeepDetect – an extensible system that detects attribute outliers and duplicates in XML documents. Attribute outlier detection finds objects that contain deviating values with respect to a relevant group of objects. This entails utilizing the correlation among element values in a given XML document. Duplicate detection in XML requires the identification of subtrees that correspond to real world objects. Our system architecture enables sharing of common operations that prepare XML data for the various artifact detection techniques. DeepDetect also provides an intuitive visual interface for the user to specify various parameters for preprocessing and detection, as well as to view results.


Coronavirus cases in Russia have more than doubled since Wednesday of this week, bringing the total number of recorded infections in the country to 45 as of Friday evening. Neighboring Ukraine, where so far only a handful of people were reported to have contracted COVID-19, reported its first death from the disease yesterday. The bulk of infections in Russia are concentrated in the country's main population centers—Moscow and Saint Petersburg—where officials have now banned large gatherings. Flights to Italy, Germany, France, and Spain are suspended, expanding travel restrictions already in place. Russia closed most of its border crossings with China two weeks ago and stopped issuing visas to Chinese, Iranian, South Korean, and Italian travelers. Thus far, the government reports that all of Russia's coronavirus cases are among those who recently traveled to locations with a significant outbreak or have been in close touch with someone who has. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin credited the country's clampdown on travel with China for allegedly averting a large-scale outbreak. Despite efforts by Russian lawmakers to project the image that state policies have managed to protect the population, it is clear that they have not, and government officials anticipate community spread. Three hospitals in Leningrad Oblast, which includes the city of Saint Petersburg and its environs, have been specifically designated to handle coronavirus victims. This week Moscow's mayor Sergei Sobyanin ordered the immediate building of a field hospital on the city's outskirts, with construction crews already breaking ground as they prepare to bring in prefabricated buildings and medical equipment and hook up a sanitation system. The school where a ten-year old girl fell ill with COVID-19 has been shuttered. Rospotrebnadzor, the agency responsible for consumer rights and well-being, announced that people should avoid visiting public places at rush hour. The government continues to promote anti-Asian chauvinism, deporting 100 Chinese students who allegedly violated their quarantine. Anticipating the need to use police state measures to control the spreading outbreaks, Moscow authorities threatened those who fail to follow government orders to self-isolate with five-year prison terms. In an expression of the political tensions within the country, parliamentary member Sergei Katasonov of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) was sharply criticized for violating self-isolation after returning from travel abroad and attending a Duma session at which President Vladimir Putin spoke. On Thursday, the media outlet Lenta featured the commentary of Doctor Pavel Brand, who warned that an "Italian scenario" would be "very bad" because Moscow alone has only enough ventilators for 1,500 to 2,000 people. It would need five to six times as many. Ordinary Russians are already feeling the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. The value of the ruble has dropped to 75 rubles to the dollar, down from 63 a few weeks ago, despite government efforts to arrest the decline with large expenditures of foreign currency reserves. Prices for consumer items are rising as a result, under conditions in which family budgets are already strapped due to a steady drop in real incomes for several years. Alexei Kudrin, a well-known liberal politician and former minister of finance with close ties to Putin, is predicting a rise in Russia's poverty levels. The country's target growth rate of 1.9 percent is


Many studies on context inference in the wireless sensor network system have been actively conducted. In fact, the context of real world, which the wireless sensor network system recognizes through a sensor, is frequently variable. Therefore, the context change in accordance with the lapse of time should be taken into consideration in terms of context awareness. The existing representative study reflecting the lapse of time applies Kalman Filter. The idea of a method using Kalman Filter is to calculate an actual measurement value and a computed value, and compare them to find an error, and then to do recursive computation to estimate a position in accordance with the lapse of time. Although the method is excellent in estimating a position according to the lapse of time, but has the limit of inferring context information of an object. Therefore, we proposed a method of context inference in consideration of the lapse of time. On the basis of Dempster-Shafer's Evidence Theory, multi-sensor data fusion was executed in each time zone, and after that, each focal element's belief and uncertainty were fused into one at an interval of a given time to reflect the context change after the lapse of time. As a result, the proposed method in this paper made possible context inference reflecting the context change in accordance with the lapse of time.


Specialists in pharmacotherapeutics have recently been taken to task for being engrossed in matters of dubious clinical relevance and for not showing more concern with educating doctors in how to use drugs properly.' Consequently, many doctors still depend largely on drug companies for information about drugs, and lack the opportunity to discuss therapeutic choices and problems with their colleagues. At postgraduate medical centres diagnosis and investigation dominate the programmes,2 and even when therapeutic problems are aired they tend to be presented didactically by specialists who may be unaware of the needs of general practice. Moreover, such an approach violates the principle that learners should be active participants in the educational process.3 We describe two methods which we have found useful at postgraduate meetings in helping doctors to discuss their prescribing with each other. Because both are rooted in the individual doctor's experience everyone may take part. The first method makes use of precirculated questions, the second of partially completed decision flow-charts.


The complexes between "elastases" and their seric inhibitors (a. 1. AP and a2. M) which could be formed in the blood, are exhibited in vitro: after incubation of serum or plasma with 125iodine labelled elastin at pH = 6, followed by extensive washing, pH was increased from 6 to 8.6: labelled peptides are released in supernatant.


Optimal control of a nonisothermal fedbatch reactor with heat removal constraint is used as a test problem for comparing iterative dynamic programming (IDP) and Luus- Jaakola (LJ) optimization procedure. Although there are only two control variables, the feed rate and the temperature, the heat production rate constraint makes the optimal control problem very difficult. Therefore, the problem is reformulated by using rate of heat production instead of temperature as the second control variable. To parametrize the optimal control problem, the time interval is divided into P time stages of constant length, and piecewise constant control is used at each time stage. For small values of P , both optimization procedures are almost equivalent. However, when is increased beyond 20, IDP becomes more efficient.


This paper applies Ethnography to the primary stage of product development and product design-user research,and puts forward the basic procedures and methods for seeking product opportunity gap with Ethnography.This paper also summarizes the significance of establishing product opportunity gap and dealing with product development with Ethnography.


The purposes of this research are to analyze and test the influence of company's external and internal variables with disclosure of CSR at manufacturing companies which listed in Bursa Efek Indonesia on 2014-2017. The ratio that used in the research are the measure of company, profitability, the measure of board commissioners, leverage and liquidity. The method of this research is purposive sampling. The samples are 60 manufacturing companies which taken periodically. Multiple linear regression is used for analyzing the influence of independent variable to dependent variable. The tests of hypothesis are using f test and t test with 5% significance. The result of determinant coefficient test is 75.1% CSR which can explained by the measure of company, profitability, the measure of board commissioners, leverage and liquidity. Meanwhile 24.9% CSR is explained by the other factor in the other variable. The result of t test is the measure of company and profitability variable are influenced to CSR and the measure of board commissioners, leverage and liquidity aren't. Keywords:  T he Measure of Company, Profitability, The Measure of Board Commissioners, Leverage and Liquidity, Corporate Social Responsibility


We examined whether the attitudinal and behavioural effects of structure depend, in part, on the level of trust in the organization. Data from 309 individuals in different organizational contexts confirmed our expectations for an interaction effect for employee commitment. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding the mechanisms that lead to enabling or disabling structures.


We studied the hydraulic support pushing down and socket fracture during cyclic weighting in the fully-mechanized caving face of Xuandong mine.After the theoretical calculation and field tests,the study shows that hydraulic support accidents can be prevented by increasing the support working resistances and improving the mining techniques.


Health-related quality-of-life by the self-report, disease-specific Short Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (SIBDQ) is increasingly used as an outcome measure in Crohn`s disease (CD) patients in clinical trials. Higher SIBDQ scores indicate better quality-of-life; the range is 10 to 70. However, the construct validity of SIBDQ and its responsiveness to change of disease status require validation.

 Adult (≥18 years) CD patients (n = 108) with Harvey–Bradshaw Index (HBI) >4 and <16 prospectively filled in the SIBDQ at two time-points (T1, T2) 3 months apart. Medical data at T1 and T2 were collected, and recorded by their physicians in the HBI. Biomarkers of disease activity included Calprotectin and C-reaction protein (CRP), measured at T1 and T2. The construct validity of SIBDQ in relation to biomarkers and HBI was determined by Pearson correlations and group comparisons using Student`s t-test. Statistical significance was taken as p < 0.05. Patients' medications were prescribed without regard to the study protocol.

 Demographic and medical characteristics (median, %) of the cohort were: age 30 years; females 65%, married/partner 48%; higher education 83%; BMI 22; non-smokers/past-smokers 92%; disease duration 5 years; past Crohn's disease-related surgery 17%; Montreal classification A2 89%, L2+L3 89%, B1+B2 89%, perianal disease 18%; medications: corticosteroids 4%, 5-ASA 5%, immunomodulators 21%, biologicals 43%. HBI and SIBDQ median scores at T1 and T2 were: HBI: 9 and 4 (p < 0.001); SIBDQ: 43 and 49 (p < 0.001). SIBDQ scores correlated inversely with Calprotectin (r = −0.395, p = .002), CRP (r = −0.208, p = .046), and HBI (r = −0.345, p < 0.001). Baseline HBI scores were used to divide the cohort into two groups for comparison: mild disease (5–7) vs. moderate disease (8–16). Mild disease patients reported higher SIBDQ scores than those with moderate disease (42.7 vs. 39.7, t = 1.96, p = 0.05). Regarding sensitivity of SIBDQ to clinical changes between T1 and T2, we found that change in SIBDQ correlated significantly with change in CRP across these two administrations (r = −0.232, p = 0.042). Finally, defining clinical response in CD as a decrease from baseline HBI score by ≥3 points, SIBDQ change scores were significantly larger in treatment responders (n = 51, M = 6.25) than non-responders (n = 30, M = 1.13, t = −3.042, p = 0.003).

 The SIBDQ measure is a valid assessment of quality-of-life in CD, correlating with biomarkers and sensitive to change of disease activity, with potential for use as a patient-reported outcome in both clinical practice and as a primary end-point in clinical trials.


By supplying the skilled workers needed, occupational training plays a fundamental role in the maintenance of a healthy economy. Although planners are not accountable for ensuring a perfect fit between training offerings and employment opportunities, they should anticipate shortages and surpluses of skilled workers. Decision makers can then take corrective action to expand, improve, curtail, or discontinue existing training or add new offerings. In order to discern skilled worker shortages/surpluses, the labour market demand must be determined. Workforce projection and forecasting approaches and labour market signalling approaches are used to make these determinations. The strengths and weaknesses of each approach must be considered when selecting the ones to use. Discusses a number of viable approaches and lists their strengths and weaknesses in tables to facilitate comparisons. Also includes supplemental instruments as examples and to provide guidance in determining workforce requirements. An appendix defines the terminology used.


The paper presents an active vision system for the automatic detection of falls and the recognition of several postures for elderly homecare applications. A wall-mounted Time-Of-Flight camera provides accurate measurements of the acquired scene in all illumination conditions, allowing the reliable detection of critical events. Preliminarily, an off-line calibration procedure estimates the external camera parameters automatically without landmarks, calibration patterns or user intervention. The calibration procedure searches for different planes in the scene selecting the one that accomplishes the floor plane constraints. Subsequently, the moving regions are detected in real-time by applying a Bayesian segmentation to the whole 3D points cloud. The distance of the 3D human centroid from the floor plane is evaluated by using the previously defined calibration parameters and the corresponding trend is used as feature in a thresholding-based clustering for fall detection. The fall detection shows high performances in terms of efficiency and reliability on a large real dataset in which almost one half of events are falls acquired in different conditions. The posture recognition is carried out by using both the 3D human centroid distance from the floor plane and the orientation of the body spine estimated by applying a topological approach to the range images. Experimental results on synthetic data validate the correctness of the proposed posture recognition approach.


The design of a novel microstrip-line fed circularly polarized (CP) annular-ring slot antenna (ARSA) is studied. To achieve CP radiation with broad axial ratio (AR) bandwidth that can cover both the WiMAX 2.3 GHz and WLAN 2.4 GHz bands, a simple method of loading an inverted L-shaped slot into the bottom section of the ARSA is proposed. Measured results show that the proposed antenna can exhibit wide 10-dB impedance bandwidth of 48% (1.69-2.76 GHz), and its corresponding 3-dB AR bandwidth was approximately 8% (2.29-2.48 GHz).


- Environmental economics is a branch of economics that studies the economic impacts of environmental policies and behaviors. It recognizes that the economy and the environment are interconnected and that economic activities can have negative effects on the environment, leading to externalities or "spillover" costs. Environmental economists seek to understand how to internalize these costs and develop policies that address environmental concerns while also promoting economic growth. Some criticisms of environmental economics include the assumption of infinite wants and the belief that technical efficiency can overcome finite resources, leading to an emphasis on growth rather than sustainability. Additionally, environmental economics may prioritize market-based approaches, leading to a focus on efficiency rather than equity and distribution of costs and benefits.


AbstractSince the beginning of the carrage, coincident with the fin du siecle, car art has been as much in flux and reflux as the car's technology itself. Many eminent painters have at least flirted with automobile matters, great impressionists as well as modern pop artists, and between them, say from 1910 to 1960, there existed the golden age of the great illustrators and poster men. Each one of these has left us a different image of what the car meant to him and thi review attempt to project some of these images. It must be more than coincidence that the first and the last illustrations here show a car as an objet d'art.


* A longer version of this paper will be presented at the 2001 IEEE Industrial and Commercial Power Systems Technical Conference. Abstract The traditional methods of industrial and commercial power system reliability studies can be enhanced by the use of Six Sigma methods. The goal of the Six Sigma approach is to improve the quality of a process by reducing the number of "defects." In electrical systems defects are defined as outages. The method begins by determining which aspects of the process are "critical to quality," and then uses a systematic approach to reduce variation in the process to reduce the failure rate. Finally, monitoring and control procedures are put in place to ensure continuing quality. This approach is well suited to systematizing the distribution reliability study.


This study aims to show how formative assessment that is assisted by technology can improve student learning in English literature courses in higher education. Moreover, it explores how the use of technology could help implement formative assessment by the instructors to assure student learning in English literature courses in an efficient and timely manner. Formative assessment is somewhat new for higher education instructors, especially those who teach English literature. Applying this type of assessment is, unfortunately, not easy and the results are not always ideal. Nevertheless, to reach the goals of the study, a quantitative method is distributed to 50 English literature instructors from higher educational institutions that recently started implementing technology in their formative assessments. The significance of the study lies in the fact that the study is conducted in a region where formative assessment has recently been used in education, specifically in higher education English literature courses. The contribution also lies in how technology can help implement formative assessment, overcome any obstacles, and thus ensure student learning. The findings of the study show significant awareness of formative assessment in higher education, and especially among instructors of English literature. The findings also indicate that implementing technology with formative assessments enhances students' learning in English literature course in higher education after COVID-19.


ZHAO Shuli and ZHANG Ailing ascended literary circle almost at the same time in 1943,showing the strong vitality of"popular literature".This paper makes a study of their experiences of popularity through comparing their writing strategies,publications and attitudes towards reactions from different circles.To some extent,they integrate the "popular literature" into the New Literature of the 1940s.


This paper explores the use of 'containment' in an inner city multidisciplinary service. This busy practice setting (a health centre) has multiple aims alongside the psychotherapeutic, and in this context the discussion is directly relevant to therapeutic casework. The article begins by describing the work done by practitioners in recognizing that different disciplines use the concept of containment in different senses. These are the psychotherapeutic (broadly, developmental or transformative, drawing on Bion's work), the safety net ('containing' the worst effects of a deteriorating condition) and the repressive (controlling and setting Ž rm limits for a user of service in order to minimize the negative effects on an organisation and its staff). The article explores the value of the mutual recognition of these initially separated deŽ nitions. As staff integrated different dimensions of understanding it enabled 'parallel' working by different staff to mature into 'collaborative' working. The article explicitly recognizes the gap between the "high ground of theory" and the "swampy lowlands of messy day to day reality". It makes use of frameworks from Bion, Menzies Lyth and Schon (who had acted as consultant for 2 years for this team at the Marylebone Health Centre—Schon, 1992). The second half of the article illustrates the minute-tominute interpenetration of the different meanings in counselling practice, illuminating the nature of interprofessional communication. This latter theme is surely relevant not just to interdisciplinary communication, but also to different orientations or functional responsibilities within a single service—for example, between residential and Ž eld workers, between a case manager and a therapeutically oriented social worker. A footnote to the article informs us that its material is drawn from two chapters in a book which has now been published (Pietroni & Vaspe, 1999).


Objective To explore purslane with other durgs or compositions how to be combined to lower blood lipids.To find out the best combintion for preventing and treating.Methods Using orthogonal test design to analyse anti-hyperlipidemia effect of compound purslane(A),compound microelement(B) and compound juemingzi(C).Results 8 indexes like RBC membrane fluidity,etc of A,B and C had statistical significance( P 0 01 or 0 05);while A,C,B were used simultaneously,the effect was the best;and the effect was ACB.The best combination was A 2C 2B 2( P 0 01 or 0 05).Conclusion Compound purslane with it's combination could decrease TC,apolipoprotein B(apoB),platelet aggregaiton rate,RBC membrane fluidity micro-viscosity,RBC IR as well and increase apoA 1,GSH-Px,LCAT.By combination,the effect of purslane was better.


Gallium Nitride (GaN) films have been successfully deposited on Al2O3 (0001) substrates by the sol-gel spincoating technique. The gel was prepared from the gallium-citrate-amine crystals. This crystals was formed from a solution-containing Ga +3 ions and citric acid (CA). To obtain a clear solution, this dried crystals were dissolved in ethylenediamine. One to two drops of the solution was placed on the substrate and the substrate was then rotated at 1000 rpm. The gel films so obtained were placed in a programmable furnace. The deposition temperature was fixed at 1123 K, 1173 K, and 1223 K under a constant flow of N2 gas for a period 3 hour. The crystalline quality of films were characterized by XRD measurement. The surface morphology and the cross section of films were examined using SEM, and optical properties were determined by using UV-Vis spectroscopy. The result suggests that the GaN films deposited on the sapphire are polycrystalline oriented. The crystal quality of GaN films depends on the growth temperature. It is shown that within the range of the growth temperatures, the increase of the temperature improves the quality of GaN films. Optical Bandgap of GaN films deposited on the Al2O3 (0001) also depends on growth temperature.


The purpose of this work was the study of modern navigation systems in relation to historical buildings that have distinctive features. Among which we can highlight the complex layout and difficulties with the organization of radio signal propagation. In this paper, modern navigation systems were investigated with the aim of their applicability for building a route in the context of historical buildings. It has been suggested that these systems can be applied in such difficult conditions to organize educational and tourist routes. Experimental studies of common user location systems were carried out and a multicriteria comparison was carried out using the hierarchy analysis method, with the result that the method based on the Bluetooth beacons of Bluetooth low energy was chosen as optimal for a historic building. Also, this method was applied to the study of software for building an information and navigation system and was chosen INDOORS.


The 21 st century is a computer information technology era; with gradually quickening of speed of computer updating and more and more developed software industry, the computer industry proposes higher and higher development requirement for computer software program. In numerous applied structure and programming language with different performance, the reasonable selection can exert the high efficiency and high adaptability of software development to maximum degree. This paper carries out a discussion on several mainstream programming language in the industry at present, and then carries out analysis on applicability selection principle of development language in the computer software development process according to their features and specific application.


Off-campus practice bases for electronic information major are important places to cultivate students` practice,innovation and creation capabilities,paving a significant way for students to acquire knowledge of enterprises and step into the society.With the positive significance of off-campus bases kept in mind,based on problems emerging in off-campus production and practice process,this paper summarizes construction principals,models,management experience of off-campus bases and establishes a scientific and normalized management and processing mechanism.The implementation of schoo-enterprise cooperation has instructive significance for experimental and practice teaching aiming to train technical personnel with innovation and creation capability in this field in provincial universities.


The high‐density microarray patch (HD‐MAP) promises to be a robust vaccination platform with clear advantages for future global societal demands for health care management. The method of action has its base not only in efficient delivery of vaccine but also in the reliable induction of a local innate physical inflammatory response to adjuvant the vaccination process. The application process needs to induce levels of reactivity, which are acceptable to the vaccine, and from which the skin promptly recovers.


The generalized scheme of physicochemical processes, which proceed in polyarylenephtalides (PAP) under UV-light irradiation, was suggested on the base of systematic study presented in our previous papers of this series. The principal photochemical transformations in the polymer are briefly discussed in the line with the suggested mechanism. It was proved using both the experimental techniques (electronic spectroscopy, fluorimetry, ESR, t-metry) and the density functional theory calculations that the excitation of a polymer by UV-light triggers the electron transfer in polyarylenephtalides, in which polyaromatic frame (biphenylene, fluorenylene, terphenylene) acts as an electron donor, whereas acceptor, was found to be the set of oxygen-containing fragments of PAP listed below in the order of the decreasing of acceptor power: end groups (anthraquinone or acid group), defect anthrone group, lateral phtalide fragment of a polymer. The change in the registered luminescence spectra of PAP's solutions and films both under the exposure of polymer to radiation and as a result of the variation of the excitation wave length was rationalized by the existence of several luminescence emitters in the PAP macromolecules. Moreover, the UV-irradiation of PAP causes formation of new centers of light absorption, namely, the triplet states of the polyaromatic frame. The long-lived recombination luminescence of the PAP films in the 490-510 nm spectral diapason is in accord with the statement on the existence of, at least, two emitting centers in a polymer. The photolysis leads to formation of polymer matrix stabilized ion-radicals; the recombination of the latter is accompanied with luminescence. The suggested mechanism is supported by various experimental findings, such as PAP electroluminescence or the effect of magnetic field on the electroluminescence intensity, which were observed in our earlier experiments and briefly discussed in the present paper.


Reliability evaluation is the basis for reliability design of NC machine tools. Since traditional reliability evaluation methods do not consider the working conditions' effects on reliability, there is a great error of a result of a traditional method compared with an actual value. A new reliability evaluation model of NC machine tools is proposed based on the Cox proportional hazards model, which describes the mathematical relation between the working condition covariates and the reliability level of NC machine tools. Firstly, the coefficients of working condition covariates in the new reliability evaluation model are estimated by the partial likelihood estimation method; secondly, the working condition covariates which have no effects on the reliability of NC machine tools are eliminated by the likelihood ratio test; then parameters of the baseline failure rate function are estimated by the maximum likelihood estimation method. Thus, the reliability evaluation model of NC machine tool is obtained under different working conditions and the reliability level of NC machine tools is obtained. Case study shows that the proposed method could establish the relation between the working condition covariates and the reliability level of NC machine tools, and it would provide a new way for the reliability evaluation of NC machine tools.


Compared to single signature analysis, checking multiple intermediate signatures has many advantages, e.g., smaller aliasing, easier computation of exact fault coverage, and shorter average test time. Conventionally, checking n signatures requires n references. Storing these references and comparing them with collected signatures imposes considerable hardware requirements. In this paper, we propose a novel multiple intermediate signature analysis scheme which checks n signatures against a single reference, thus making the circuitry for checking n signatures essentially the same as that for checking only one. The cost for implementing the proposed scheme is a very small nonrecurring CPU time expenditure in the design phase with no CUT modifications. In return, the proposed scheme yields significant recurring silicon area savings as well as reduced aliasing, and consequently higher test quality. This paper also defines a property for linear compactors that guarantees the existence of an initial state that necessarily yields two identical signatures at arbitrary check points for all circuits. >


Physico-chemical properties and group composition of the virgin and used M-10DM motor oil for diesel engines were studied. IR-spectroscopy and derivatography were used for investigation. By means of X-ray fluorescence the composition of inorganic part was determined. Change in properties and composition of M10DM before and after using are discussed.


We show that U.S. corporate bond market movements during the days preceding FOMC announcements can predict monetary policy surprises, as well as the pre-FOMC stock market movements. Starting several days before an expansionary (contractionary) surprise in FOMC decisions, corporate bond prices surge (decline) and yield spreads decline (surge). The pattern is statistically and economically significant. Moreover, corporate bond customers buy (sell) more often from dealers before expansionary (contractionary) surprises, suggesting that in aggregate they have more accurate information about the outcome of FOMC announcements. A portfolio that mimics customer trades is profitable with a Sharpe ratio of 0.64 and is profitable before both contractionary and expansionary surprises. Furthermore, consistent with the informativeness of corporate bond transactions, we show that lagged corporate bond customer-dealer trade imbalances can predict pre-FOMC stock market movements and explain pre-FOMC drift. Corporate bond yield changes "Granger-cause" stock pre-FOMC movements, and a 1% surge in the constructed TRACE bond yield during a 2 p.m.-to-2 p.m. period ending one day before an FOMC announcement, predicts a 5.8% decline in the S&P 500 index for the 2 p.m.-to-2 p.m. period ending on the FOMC meeting day. This bond-to-stock granger causality does not exist for non-pre-FOMC periods and is stronger for the companies with higher probability of default.


The Argentine road system was built and designed in keeping with the framework assigned to rural roads, based on the allocation of a road network category with its corresponding directive pace that defined the characteristics of the geometrical design of the plan. This type of design took only the physical environment into account, according to changes to the terrain needed to obtain a certain speed guideline. The effects and impacts in terms of vegetation, forest, flora and fauna took on a completely secondary role. This paper will analyze several concrete cases to show some of the errors of the past, as well as the evolution process towards environmental protection with regard to road network. The presentation concludes with recommendations that apply not only in Argentina, but in other countries as well, that aim towards legislation that considers the control of environmental impacts within the framework of road design and construction.


"Corporate governance heat"has lasted more than ten years in our country.Today corporate governance has become a systematic subject to explain the economic phenomena in China from the initial discussion on concepts and debate on ideas.Though domestic researches still learn from the Occident in the basic aspects of research clue and method,the research objects and hotspots have some unique characteristics.What is more remarkable is that relying on the complexity of the corporations in our country it is possible to realize some kind of breakthrough in the basic theorems.The research of double agency cost governance is one of the explorations.


A 10-year-old girl was admitted to the hospital because of gross hematuria and abdominal pain. She had hepatosplenomegaly and a miliary pattern on chest X-ray and CT-scan. Histopathologic studies of bone marrow and liver revealed findings in favor of type B Niemann-Pick disease (NPD). This is a fatal and nonneuropathic form of NPD that is usually detected as an incidental finding during routine physical examination.


CASE A 23-year-old African American male college student presented with fever and malaise of 1-week duration. He complained of nausea without vomiting or diarrhea. One month before presentation, he complained of sore throat for which he took nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs followed 2 weeks later by azithromycin and methylprednisone, without much improvement. Seven years earlier, he had diagnoses of mononucleosis and Chlamydia infection. He had no other significant medical history. His most recent skin test was negative for tuberculosis. He denied any sick contacts, recent travel, or tick bites. On physical examination, his temperature was 40.1-C. He had no icterus and no throat erythema. He had decreased breath sounds on the right lung base, and he had right upper quadrant tenderness. No hepatosplenomegaly or lymphadenopathy was felt. The rest of his physical examination was unremarkable. His white blood cell count was elevated at 25,400 cells/KL, with 74% neutrophils and 3% band forms. His albumin was 2.2 g/dL (3.5Y4.8) and his liver function test results were aspartate aminotransferase, 52 IU/L (15Y41) and alanine aminotransferase, 59 (G34), and his lactate dehydrogenase was 628 IU/L (100Y200). There was no A-hemolytic Streptococcus on his throat culture. His HIV test result was negative. His hepatitis B and C serological findings were negative, and his Echinococcus and ameba serological findings were also negative. An imaging of his liver showed a large loculated mass (Fig. 1). His blood cultures and the culture from his liver aspirate grew an organism (gram stain; Fig. 2). Which organism is it?


This paper proposes an algorithm for fault localization in a Linear Lightwave Network (LLN). A LLN is an all-optical network using Linear Dividers Combiners (LDCs) as network nodes. These LDCs can perform either wavelength or waveband selective linear operations on optical signals including controllable power dividing and combining [l]. In general, the network environment is divided into a number of static disjoint subnetworks, as in Figure l(a), each managed by an individual management process. A subnetwork might be connected to other subnetworks, and/or has inputs from Tx stations and outputs to Rx stations. A subnetwork manager is responsible for monitoring the power level at all the entering and leaving links in its domain, in order to detect failures [2] as shown in Figure l(b). Whenever a node fails the power levels in its output ports deviate from the acceptable power levels. We assume that if a node fails it fails completely (all its outputs are erroneous). The effect of a failure propagates in the nodes that are connected directly or indirectly to the faulty node. A straightforward way to localize a fault would be to constantly measure the input and output powers of all the components in the network. That approach, requires a large number of tests. Since testing is a time consuming process, it is essential to provide a fault localization algorithm which minimizes the number of required tests in order to localize the fault while keeping its computational complexity low. In this paper we propose such an algorithm which is based on measurements only at the peripheral nodes of the network. We examine the single fault case, where exactly one component can become faulty at any time. We also assume that the system is a zero time system '. For fault management purposes a subnetwork can be modeled as a digraph G = (V, E ) , where the vertices represent the network components that might fail and the edges the fault propagation between them. The manager keeps the set R (routing table) for all active routes & at any given moment in its domain. We define S(&) the set of nodes that compose the route R,, Head(%) and Tail(&) the starting and


This project examines fiscal reforms in Brazil since the 90s, focusing on the varying reform outcomes in the area of taxation, budgeting, and fiscal federalism. While there has been an extensive reorganization of fiscal federalism in the country since the mid1990s, much less change can be observed in the area of taxation. The federal government has managed to recentralize fiscal authority in the country, curbing the autonomy of the states by resorting to numerical rules. By contrast, while expanding massively the extractive capacity of the Brazilian state, policy-makers choose not to revamp the tax system, and to keep an inefficient system that has been capable to generate high levels of revenue. In the area of budgeting, several changes were implemented and the federal executive has been able to strengthen its control over the budget process. The economic crises in the mid-1990s created contrasting incentives to reform. While the crises episodes prompted the government to rein in subnational fiscal imbalances and ultimately to enact the Fiscal Responsibility Law, they discouraged policy-makers from introducing major changes in the tax system. This status quo bias is associated with differences in risk aversion across the issue areas but also with the incentives in the country's policy-making process. We argue that the executive derives utility from fiscal stability and inflation control because of electoral incentives and of credibility gains in international markets. This endogenous perspective allows us to understand fiscal and tax reform initiatives as generating political benefits for incumbent politicians. However, fiscal stability was attained at the cost of systemic inefficiency associated with highly regressive and distortionary taxes. Although the Federal Executive branch was able to implement its preferences because it had incentives and capabilities to do so, there were also gains-from-trade in federal government-state relations. Governors developed an interest in reforms in the wake of the approval of the reelection amendment and in view of the compensation mechanisms involved in the reform process. In turn, tax reform initiatives were discontinued by policy-makers because of the perceived risks of a fall in revenue in a context of fiscal uncertainty and also due to the political costs involved, leading the government to choose a line of least effort. The paper also argues that the Achilles' heel of the sustainability of the Fiscal Responsibility Law is the enforcement technology: the Tribunais de Contas. While on net they have been effective enforcers of the FRL, there is some space for creative accounting due to the varying quality of these institutions across the states.


This paper presents an investigation of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) Casson nanofluid flow along a stretchable surface through a permeable medium. The modeling of the physical phenomena is considered with impact of thermal radiation, heat generation, slip conditions and suction. Transformations of the governing set of mathematical equations for the physical model are carried out into nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with appropriate similarity variables. The nonlinear ODE solutions are carried out using the optimal homotopy analysis technique (OHAM), and the findings are presented for determining the influences of the emerging important parameters. The results indicate that velocity field increases in respect of porosity parameter, Casson fluid parameter and magnetic parameter while it declines for enhancing velocity slip and suction parameters. The temperature profile shows rising behavior for heat source, Prandtl number, thermophoresis, radiation and Brownian motion parameters while it declines for enhancing thermal slip parameter. Moreover, the concentration profile enhances for rise in Brownian motion parameter while it reduces for Schmidt number and nanoparticle parameter. We also showed the accuracy of the present results by indicating that skin friction values for varied magnetic parameters agree with earlier findings in the literature.


Abstract Quantitative trait loci (QTLs), which were related to the ability of callus induction and plant regeneration in seed culture of rice, were analyzed using a mapping population from a cross between the rice cultivars 'Samgang' (tongil type) and 'Nagdong' (japonica). A tongil type rice cultivar, 'Samgang' showed lower frequency (20%) of plant regeneration than that (35%) of japonica rice, 'Nagdong'. Transgressive segregations were observed for the ability of callus induction and plant regeneration from the seed- derived calli of 58 doubled haploid (DH) lines. The abi lity of plant regeneration of 58 doubled haploid lines showed a continuous distribution with comparatively wide range (10.0 to 66.7%) of variation. Composite interval mapping analysis was used to identify the QTLs controlling callus induction and plant regeneration ability. Four significant QTLs, qCWS6, qCWS8, qCWS9 and qCWS11, associated with callus weight per seed were detected on chromosomes 6, 8, 9, and 11 with LOD values of 3.30, 2.60, 2.70 and 2.43, explaining 36% of the total phenotypic variation. Three significant QTLs, qPR1, qPR6, and qPR11, for the ability of plant regeneration were located on chromosome 1, 6, and 11 at LOD score of 2.25, 2.15 and 2.55, accounting for 24 % of the total phenotypic variation. The present study should be useful for improving the efficiency of plant regeneration in tissue culture of indica rice by means of marker-assisted selection.


It is an inevitable trend that China's medium small-sized enterprises have to implement internationalized management gradually for their survival and development under the frame of WTO. SA8000, however, raises a great challenge to the achievement of internationalized management. According to the status quo of production operations management, this article analyses the impacts on China's medium small-sized enterprises exerted by SA8000 and gives some relevant measures as well.


A new Mn2series of oil2quenched super2st rengt h bainitic steel was developed on t he basis of t he alloy sys2 tem of t he original Mn2series air cooled bainitic steel . The mechanical p roperties of t he new steel are well combined while p recious alloy element s and complicated technologies are not needed fo r it s p roductio n. Experimental result s show t hat bainite/ martensite (B/ M) dual p hase micro st ruct ure can be o btained wit hin a very wide cooling rate range and bainite micro st ruct ure exist s even when t he cooling rate reaches as fast as 60 ℃/ s ; t he hardenabilit y of t he steel is bet ter t han t hat of 40CrNiMo and 42CrMo ; t he diameter of t he ro und bar made of t he steel i s 250 mm , and t he ro und bar tempered at 350 ℃ af ter oil quenching exhibit s it s cent ral mechanical p roperties as follows : Rm = 1 550 MPa , Rp012 = 1 270 MPa , A = 15 % , aku = 95 J / cm 2 (at room temperat ure) .


We design and analyze a method to extract secret keys from the randomness inherent to wireless channels. We study a channel model for the IEEE 802.11a orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing channel. We analyze the fundamental limits of key generation for this model and describe an implementation based on error correcting codes. We study key extraction based both on channel state information (CSI) and on received signal strength indicators (RSSI). Due to the reduction in the degree-of-freedom when going from CSI to RSSI, the rate of key extraction based on CSI is far higher than that based on RSSI. This suggests that making CSI information available to higher layers would greatly assist in key generation. We prototype a key generation system based on low-density parity-check codes. We describe the implementation and performance of two systems: one based on binary LDPC codes and the other (useful at higher signal-to-noise ratios) based on four-ary LDPC codes.


The diversified coupling factors affecting bulk forming were analyzed,and the related rigid visco-plastic theory,heat transfer theory,wear and damage theory were expatiated.A simulation model of bulk forming based on multi-factor dynamic-coupling was set up,which was applied for a hot forming simulation of crankshaft.The temperature field and cumulate damage of dies and billet,the total wear depth of dies under thermal-force coupling were predicted.The simulation model contributes to the simulation of various hot forming process.


Objective In order to investigate the possible mechanism of somatostatin(SS) in gastric carcinogenesis and the clinicopathological significance of somatostatin. Methods immunohistochemical SABC(Strept Avidin Biotin Complex) method was used to examine the expression of the SS and EGFR protein.Results In normal gastric mucosa,positive staining for SS protein was even,and the positive rate was 85.0%;positive staining for SS protein in gastric carcinoma was heterogeneous,and its positive rate was 24.3%.There was a signficant difference between normal mucosa group and carcinoma group(P0.01).In the well and moderate differentiation group and poor differentiation group,the positive rates of SS were 34.2% and 13.5% respectively,tended to be decreased with the deterioration of histological grades and there were significant differences between the two groups(P0.05).In the mucosa or submucosa infiltration group and muscular or whole layer infiltration group,positive rates of SS were 64.3% and 15.6% respectively.There were significant differences between the two groups(P0.05).In the lymph node metastasis negative group and lymph node metastasis positive group,the positive rates of SS in the two groups were 38.7% and 14.9% respectively and there were significant differences between the two groups(P0.05).In the TNMⅠ~Ⅱstage and group Ⅲ~Ⅳ stage group,The positive rates of SS in the two groups were 45.5% and 8.9 % respectively and tended to be decreased with the high stage.There were significant differences when comparison was made(P0.05) A negative correlation was observed between the expression of SS and that of EGFR(P0.05).Conclusion The expression of SS was associated with the depth of gastric carcinoma invasion,lymph node metastasis and histological grades.SS can inhibit the gastric carcinogenesis and progression of gastric carcinoma by inhibiting the expression of EGFR


The objective of this paper is to introduce a diagnostic metric—termed the local-convergence ratio —that can be used to quantify the contribution of evaporation (and transpiration) to the atmospheric hydrologic cycle, and precipitation in particular, over a given region. Previous research into regional moisture (or precipitation) recycling has produced numerous methods for estimating the contributions of "local" (i.e., evaporated) moisture to climatological precipitation and its variations. In general, these metrics quantify the evaporative contribution to the mass of precipitable water within an atmospheric column by comparing the vertically integrated atmospheric fluxes of moisture across a region with the fluxes via evaporation. Here a new metric is proposed, based on the atmospheric moisture tendency equation, which quantifies the evapo-rative contribution to the rate of precipitation by comparing evaporative convergence into the column with large-scale moisture-flux convergence. Using self-consistent, model-derived estimates of the moisture-flux fields and the atmospheric moisture tendency terms, the authors compare estimates of the flux-based moisture-recycling ratio with the newly introduced local-convergence ratio. Differences between the two ratios indicate that they can be considered complementary, but independent, descriptors of the atmospheric hydroclimatology for a given region.


Abstract To study the effect of the melt-draw ratios (MDRs) on the structure and properties of the poly(4-methyl-1-pentene) (PMP) film, the crystal structure evolution and mechanical properties of the PMP film with an MDR of 40–160 were characterized using scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, wide-angle X-ray scattering, and mechanical test. The results show that with the increase of MDR, the spherulite to platelet transition occurs in the PMP. When the MDR exceeds 100, a parallel platelet structure appears. Due to the side chains, with the increase of MDR, the distribution density of tie chains in PMP decreases and the entanglement density of amorphous chains increases. This leads to a decrease in the yield strength and the strain hardening becomes noticeable. Although the crystalline network becomes loose due to the decrease in tie chain density, the elastic recovery (ER) value still increases with the increase of MDR. This result indicates that the entanglement density of the amorphous region greatly contributes to the ER.


The article presents the second step of a practise based research about theatrical acting and avatar direction. It first describes the paradigm shift induced by the move from video medium towards 3D image for transferring scenic presence in virtual space using an inertial motion capture device. It takes a use case for explaining the new approach needed both in acting and direction issues. It ends with a synthese of the achieved results and prospects about new explorations.


Poly[2,2′-(4,4′-(2,6-bis(phenoxy) benzonitrile))-5,5′-bibenzimidazole] (PBI-CN) was synthesized via the polycondensation of 3,3′,4,4′-tetraaminobiphenyl and 2,6-bis(4-carboxyphenoxy) benzonitrile. The introduction of the nitrile group to the main chain of PBI-CN can provide both strong polarity and a reactive site for further reaction. The effects of different reaction conditions on the intrinsic viscosity of the synthesized polymer are discussed, which is consistent with the regular pattern. After appropriate purification of starting materials and optimization of polymerization conditions, the synthesized polymer can exhibit higher intrinsic viscosity, which means higher molecular weight. The solubility, chemical oxidation stability, thermal degradation behavior, acid doping ability, and proton conductivity of the synthesized polymers were studied. Compared with poly[2,2′-(m-phenylene)-5,5′-bibenzimidazole] (PBI-ph), the introduction of –C≡N and –O– group in PBI-CN provides the polymer with better acid doping ability and chemical oxidation stability, while the solubility and thermal stability decrease a little. The proton conductivity of PBI-CN/3.5H3PO4 composite membranes can reach ∼10−3 S cm−1 at 170 °C under anhydrous condition. The temperature dependence of proton conductivity of the acid doped membranes can be modeled by an Arrhenius relation.


An international march was organised by feminist groups across 20 countries last Saturday, 21st of January, following the election of Trump as the president of the United States. This march gathered an important diversity of organisations, making thousands of people unite around the world in protest to Trump's election, in defence of woman's rights, and against discourses of hate and racism. Here are the reasons why some of us attended the march, in London and Paris.


A compact ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filter (BPF) using microstrip and coplanar waveguide (CPW) back-to-back coupled structure is proposed. First, the detached-mode resonator on the CPW layer is formed to allocate three resonant frequencies to meet the concern of UWB operation. Then, microstrip and CPW back-to-back coupled structure is introduced to achieve the UWB limit. To further improve the stopband performance of the proposed UWB BPF, the periodic serration resonator (PSR) on the microstrip layer is employed. The upper stopband bandwidth could be finely tuned by adjusting the coupled area of the PSRs. To verify the feasibility of the mechanism above, a filter is fabricated and tested. The measured results exhibit good performance including a small insertion loss less than 0.52 dB, good return loss below −18 dB in the midband. Specifically, the upper stopband is observed from 11.5 to 17.3 GHz, and a stopband rejection level below −21 dB.


The 'China Social Science Forum: International Symposium on the 20th Anniversary of the Disintegration of the Soviet Union', sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and co-sponsored by 12 institutions including the Research Centre of World Socialism, the Academy of Marxism, and the Institute of Russian, East European and Middle East Studies of CASS, was held in Beijing on 23 April 2011. More than 200 scholars from Russia, Vietnam, the United States, Germany, Bulgaria, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Japan and other countries and from over 50 research institutes, colleges and universities in China, participated in the forum. Heated discussions were held by participants in the forum on three topics: 'Causes of the disintegration of the Soviet Union', 'Consequences of the disintegration of the Soviet Union' and 'Prospects for the world socialist movement'.


The aim of this paper is to analyze the uses of water and its implications for the rural economy in the Late Middle Ages, taking as a reference the natural region of Tierra de Campos, and in a more specific way, Becerril. The study shows quite clearly the significant role played by the local politics in the regulation of water uses. Moreover, it emphasizes the importance achieved in the management of resources by territorial structures, involving many local communities in a background of strong competition for the water.


In this paper we report preliminary data of BIRD640, which is a high-sensitivity (50 mK @ F/1, 60Hz) VGA format detector with 25 μm pitch. This high performance is achieved by utilizing an improved pixel design. The product is architecturally compatible to BIRD384 and contains SCD's proprietary unique features (e.g. "Power-Save", Ambient drift compensation, etc.). The ROIC architecture follows the framework of the previous designs. It consists of an internal timing machine with a single clock that facilitates the system interface. Extensive effort was invested in reducing the detector and system power dissipation. The ROIC supports special "low power" modes, where considerable power is saved with only minor performance degradation. With its superior temporal sensitivity, long-term stability and operational flexibility BIRD640 serves as an ideal candidate for high end and high resolution uncooled VGA systems, particularly hand-held applications.


Synthesis of some novel 1,2,4-triazoles, 1,3,4-oxadiazoles and 1,3,4-thiadiazoles bearing a (R) 5-(1-(4-(5-chloro-3-fluoropyridin-2-yloxy)phenoxy)ethyl) unit, as a moiety of commercial herbicide, using their thiosemicarbazides in an alkaline, iodine and acidic media is reported, respectively. The structure of the synthesized compounds was characterized by IR, 1H, 13C NMR spectroscopic data, and elemental analyses. The herbicidal activities of synthesized compounds were evaluated against Echinochloa cruss-galli, Avena fatua, and Sorgum halepense weeds. Compounds 7 and 12a showed potential herbicidal activity against gramineous weeds. Our results may provide some guidance for synthesis development of some novel oxa or thiadiazole and triazole-based herbicidal lead structures.


This paper provides an overview of changes in methods used in the Corporation Statistics of Income Program to control corporation income tax returns through the statistical processing system and to test and correct data taken from the returns for the purpose of producing annual statistics as required by law [1]. Organizationally, the paper is divided into four parts. Part one provides an overview of the corporation statistics program. Part two discusses new methods in controlling returns through the IRS Data Center, a processing center located in Detroit, Michigan. Part three discusses the process of data testing in prior years and part four discusses new methods in data testing. Data testing is the computer process for checking internal consistency of the financial data.


Hip ankylosis can be caused by the sequela of septic arthritis, osteoarthritis, tuberculous arthritis and
hip joint arthrodesis from treatment of severe arthritis in young patients. It is known that an unilateral
fused hip results in an unusual change of gait pattern, followed by other joint problems. However, no pre-vious study has examined the assessment of gait pattern precisely through clinical and quantitative gait laboratory data. The purposes of this study were to evaluate the gait pattern of patients with unilateral hip ankylosis, objectively and quantitatively, and to determine how the gait pattern affects other joints. We evaluated the relationship between the quantitative gait data obtained from 30 patients with unilat-eral hip ankylosis who did not show any limitation of motion in the contralateral hip, and the data from 20 normal controls. We also assessed the statistical relationship among the data of other joints, such as the opposite hip of the fused hip and both knees. Compared to normal controls the results of this study demonstrated that the gait pattern of the patients was slow, asymmetrical, arrythymic and the patients showed increased upward-downward pelvic tilt, obliquity, rotation, continuous flexion and overload of the knee on fused hip, excessive motion and stress of the hip of the sound side(p<0.05). The correlations that were obtained among the gait data were presented with excessive motion and stress of the lumbar
area, the hip on the sound side and the knee on the fused side. These affects caused the clinical problems
such as pain, and limitation of motion of the low back, the hip on contralateral side and the knee on ipsi-lateral
side. Finally, through the gait analysis of the patients with unilateral hip ankylosis, we found that
unilateral hip fusion can affect other joints adversely. These findings suggest that the surgeon needs to
use care when performing unilateral hip fusion in young patients.
In conclusion, as compared with the gait pattern of the controls, we recognized that the patients
with unilateral hip ankylosis appeared to have a different gait pattern by the quantitative gait laborato-ry
data, and this gait pattern could cause clinical problems of other joints.


Results for improving the quality of narrowband CELP-coded speech by enhancing the pitch periodicity and by regenerating the high-band components of speech spectra are reported. Multiband excitation (MBE) analysis is applied to enhance the pitch periodicity by re-synthesizing the speech signal using a harmonic synthesizer. The high-band magnitude spectra are regenerated by matching to low-band spectra using a trained wideband spectral codebook. Information about the voiced/unvoiced (V/UV) excitation in the high-band is derived from a training procedure and recovered by using the matched low-band index. Simulation results indicate that the quality of the wideband enhanced speech is significantly improved over the narrowband CELP-coded speech.


In the process of Chinese financial reform and development,government always plays the roles,which should be important and dominant.It takes Guangdong province as an example to explain its blueprints and specific strategies and draws some conclusions.It also presents the conception of financial inclusion ecology and related policy suggestions.The government should follow the internal laws of the financial ecological optimization,consider resource endowments,economic foundation even different human environment,handle the relationship between the three elements of the financial ecology,handle the relationships of the financial development with social construction with inclusive financial ecosystem idea.


This article proposes an opportunistic scheduling scheme based on adaptive modulation for users in a mixed noise environment, where some users are under additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and other users are exposed to impulsive noise. Unlike the scenario, where all the users are in an AWGN environment, the maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) scheduler does not provide the maximum capacity if users are in a mixed noise environment. In the proposed scheduling scheme, called maximum rate scheduler, the user with the highest rate (or highest modulation order), instead of highest SNR, is selected. To evaluate the performance of the proposed scheduling scheme, the analyses of average spectral efficiency, outage probability and system capacity are provided along with a simple calculation of SNR thresholds for adaptive modulation in an impulsive noise environment satisfying target symbol error rate (SER). Simulation results illustrate that system capacity with the proposed scheduling given target SER = 10−2 and the average spectral efficiency are improved by 156% and 124%, respectively, at SNR = 5 dB when a strong impulsive noise is present.


We have constructed a hyperspectral confocal microscope for high-speed and high-resolution readout of spectra from bio-integrated microlasers. We demonstrate its advanced performance in multiplexed cell tracking and dynamic sensing experiments.


As technologies emerge to integrate many devices and appliances in a smart home environment, smart mirrors have a potential of being used for personalized content delivery to smart home users. In this study, we have developed a smart mirror using internet of things and deep learning technologies to provide users daily news updates and current events based on the user emotion. In addition, the smart mirror will also display current weather information based on the location, calendar information, to-do-list, traffic updates, currency rates, reminders, etc. The proposed smart mirror is powered by a Raspberry Pi and provides facial emotion classification using a FER CNN deep learning model. The deep learning emotion classification model was implemented on an embedded device with minimum computational resources and was able to classify emotions to three emotion labels: happy, sad and neutral with training and validation accuracies of 84.17% and 81.69% respectively. Furthermore, the proposed system proved that it could deliver personalized content based on user emotion, as it recorded an experimental accuracy of 80% when it was tested with 60 test-cases from 10 different pre-registered users of the system.


Nanoscale MnO mildly expanded graphite (MnO/MEG) composites were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method combined with a subsequent self-reduction process using MEG as the raw material. The physicochemical and electrochemical properties of this novel MnO/MEG composite were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, galvanostatic charge/discharge tests, cyclic voltammetry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements. MnO/MEG exhibits excellent electrochemical performance for which the reversible capacity is as high as 931 mAh g−1 at 0.3 C after 450 cycles, which can be attributed to nanoscale MnO on MEG and self-developed graphene during the charge/discharge process. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse of the work in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. [DOI: 10.1149/2.0861605jes] All rights reserved.


: This paper demonstrates the need for the structural analysis of information as a distinctive methodological tool for two reasons. The first is that this form of inquiry is underrepresented and inadequate in the study of information. The second, a closely related reason, is that there are many misconceptions about the distinction between different forms of inquiry reduced to only two, characterized as qualitative and quantitative, with surprisingly little attention paid to the role of structural analysis, not only in the study of information, but in all scientific and intellectual domains. Since the first step towards this structural analysis is in defining concepts in structural terms, the established structural methodology may also contribute to choosing a satisfactory-for-all definition of information and to develop its uniform theory.


Zero-frequency Casimir theory is analyzed from different viewpoints, focusing on the Drude-plasma issue that turns up when one considers thermal corrections to the Casimir force. The problem is that the plasma model, although leaving out dissipation in the material, apparently gives the best agreement with recent experiments. We consider a dielectric plate separated from a dielectric half-space by a vacuum gap, both media being similar. We consider the following categories: (1) Making use of the statistical mechanical method developed by H{\o}ye and Brevik (1998), implying that the quantized electromagnetic field is replaced by interaction between dipole moments oscillating in harmonic potentials, we first verify that the Casimir force is in agreement with the Drude prediction. No use of Fresnel's reflection coefficients is made at this stage. (2) Then turning to the field theoretical description implying use of the reflection coefficients, we derive results in agreement with the forgoing when first setting the frequency equal to zero, before letting the permittivity becoming large. With the plasma relation the reflection coefficient for TE zero frequency modes depend on the component of the wave vector parallel to the surfaces and lies between 0 and 1. This contradicts basic electrostatic theory. (3) Turning to high permeability magnetic materials the TE zero frequency mode describes the static magnetic field in the same way as the TM zero frequency modes describe the static electric fields in electrostatics. With the plasma model magnetic fields, except for a small part, can not pass through metals. i.e.~metals effectively become superconductors. However, recent experimental results clearly favor the plasma model. We shortly discuss a possible explanation for this apparent conflict with electrostatics.


Various additives are present in brand-name and generic products of vancomycin injections, which may aŠect their solubilities. The present study investigated the solubilities of 5 products in saline by measuring the number of insoluble microparticles with a Z1 Coulter Particle Counter based on the Coulter principle. The number of insoluble microparticles signiˆcantly decreased after shaking for a prolonged period of time in 4 products. The number of insoluble microparticles was signiˆcantly lower in one generic product than in a brand-name product. Signiˆcant diŠerences were observed in the number of insoluble microparticles between the 5 products at solution time. Therefore, medical staŠ should be informed of the correct solution times which may diŠer between products. Key wordsvancomycin, solubility, Z1 Coulter Particle Counter, generic products


This study examines the prospects for future population development in East Germany and 8 selected regions...until the year 2010....The results of the projections indicate a further population decline in East Germany as a whole by about 20 percent for the period 1990 to 2010. In some regions the decline will be even steeper while in others migration gains might compensate birth losses....In all regions there will be a steep decline of the young population in some regions by up to 70 percent. On the other hand the population over 60 will increase everywhere....[The] negative consequences will create an additional burden for the economic and social prospects of some regions in the long run. (SUMMARY IN ENG AND FRE) (EXCERPT)


We study vertex partitions of graphs according to some minor‐monotone graph parameters. Ding et al. [J Combin Theory Ser B 79(2) (2000), 221–246] proved that some minor‐monotone parameters ρ are such that, any graph G with ρ(G)⩾2 admits a vertex partition into two graphs with parameter ρ at most ρ(G) − 1. Here we prove that some of these parameters ρ are such that, any graph G with ρ(G)⩾3 admits a vertex partition into three graphs with parameter ρ at most ρ(G) − 2. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 66: 49‐56, 2010


I.N.R.A. C.R.7..V. Theix 63 SAINT-GENES-CHAMPANELLE (France) Magnesium seems able to stimulate the release of calcitonin (CT) in vivo in the rat (RADDE et al., 1968) and in the cat (NIELSEN, 1970) and from porcine thyroids slices in vitro (RADDE et al., 1970). We have carried out this experiment in order to investigate the possible role of magnesium on the release of CT in the bovine. Materials and methods : 2 36 months-old Jersey steers (360 kg), and 3 6 years-old dry Jersey cows (330 kg), were used. 4 animals were infused during 1 h with Mg (6 mg/kg/h) as C1 2 Mg, in the right jugular vein. 2 control animals (1 steer and 1 cow) received the same volume (300 ml) of solvant alone. 10 days after this infusion, 1 steer and 3 cows were surgically thyroidectomized (TX) and a similar infusion was given 14 days after thyroidectomy without any thyroxine (T4) therapy. Then 3 days latter these 4 animals were supplemented with T4 (30 ~g/kg/day) administered daily intramuscularly during 7 days and infused aga in in the same way. 1 TX cow supplemented or not with T4 , was used as control during the second and the third infusion. Blood sampies were collected via a catheter inserted in the left jugular vein. Calcium, magnesium and inorganic phosphorus were determined in plasma according to BARLET et al., (1970). Results and discussion : As shown by the figure, in intact animals, Mg infusion induces a significant hypocalcemia (6 Ca) which does not occur in TX animals. A similar significant hypophosphatemia occurs also in intact, but not in TX animals.


Spatial relations between geographical entities are typically visualized as a node-link diagram that is depicted over
a geographical layout. The node-link diagram representation is well-suitable for tasks that require the analysis of
the topology and properties of a spatial graph because it is more intuitive with respect to the matrix representation.
However, the readability of node-link diagrams is, especially for large sized graphs, one of the issues studied in
literature. In this paper we describe an interactive technique for virtual globes, called GeoPeels, which uses spatial
deformations to reveal spatial information otherwise hidden behind the geographical layout. The deformed geometries
are rendered around the globe, therefore, occupying space that otherwise would be unused. Additionally, our
approach facilitates graph-related tasks by reducing the overall number of actions required to visualize and understand
the spatial relations. The evaluation of our approach is based on the analysis of the graphical performance
and on a comparison between virtual globes and 2D flat maps.


Should a child-killer be set free because he revealed evidence only under threat of torture? Can the absolute prohibition of torture be a threat to justice? The case of Gäfgen caught a lot of attention1 and re-introduced the discussion on the use of force in interrogations.2 It confronted the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with a difficult ethical dilemma, having to balance the absolute prohibition on torture against the obligation to hold a criminal liable for his acts.


The epoxy resin/silicon carbide thermal conductivity composites were prepared via casting method. The content of SiC and coupling reagents effecting on the thermal conductivity, mechanical and thermal properties of composites were investigated. Results revealed that the thermal conductivity properties of the composites were improved with the increasing mass fraction of SiC, and the thermal conductivity coefficient λ was 0.7152 W/mk with 50% mass fraction of SiC, being over 3 times of that of native epoxy resin. The flexural strength and impact strength of the EP/SiC composites increased firstly, but decreased with excessive addition of SiC, and the properties of EP/SiC composites were maximum with 10 wt% SiC. DSC and TGA analysis showed that the glass transition temperature (Tg) of composites decreased, but the heat resistance increased with the addition of SiC. SEM observation of impact fracture revealed that the impact strength had the relationships of large or small fracturing ability and the fracturing extended ability and the resin elasticity deformation.


The SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex orchestrates the repositioning of nucleosomes and is necessary for the regulation of multiple fundamental processes including DNA replication and repair, gene expression, and cell division [1]. Genes encoding subunits of the SWI/SNF complex are potent tumor suppressors and inactivating mutations in these genes are found in ~20% of cancers [2,3]. This class of cancers is almost universally fatal and there currently are no effective treatments, in part because the SWI/SNF complex is deemed undruggable. For an overview of the fundamentals of SWI/ SNF structure and function, readers are directed to recent excellent reviews [1,4]. Emerging evidence indicates that exploiting tyrosine kinase dependencies arising from SWI/ SNF subunit loss may be an effective strategy to overcome cancers driven by these tumor suppressor genes. Specifically, recent preclinical data suggest that tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have utility in the treatment of this class of cancers. This editorial summarizes the current knowledge of tyrosine kinase dependencies in SWI/SNF mutant cancers and discusses outstanding questions and barriers that need to be overcome in order to translate these preclinical results into patient benefit. SMARCB1 is a core subunit of the SWI/SNF complex located at the 22q11 chromosomal region. It is capable of forming two distinct and mutually exclusive complexes containing either the SMARCA2 or the SMARCA4 ATPdependent helicases [4]. Loss of SMARCB1 is a driver in a number of cancer types, including rhabdoid tumors (RTs), epithelioid sarcomas, renal medullary carcinoma, epithelioid malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors, meningiomas and extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcomas [5]. Tyrosine kinase dependencies associated with SMARCB1 deficiency have been most well studied in RTs and include oncogene addiction to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and Human EGFR 2 (HER2) [6–8]. Screening three RT cell lines across a panel of 129 small molecular inhibitors, Singh et al. showed that targeting EGFR-HER2 signaling using the EGFR-HER2 TKI lapatinib was effective in blocking tumor cell migration and inducing apoptosis in vitro [8]. Similarly, Kuwahara et al. found that RT cell lines displayed high levels of EGFR expression and inhibiting EGFR phosphorylation with the EGFR TKI gefitinib was capable of reducing cell growth both in vitro and in vivo [7]. These findings are consistent with a recent phosphoproteomic analysis of Smarcb1-deficient RT murine cells derived from a genetically engineered mouse model which showed that Smarcb1 loss led to the upregulation of EGFR phosphorylation and activation of the AKT pro-survival pathway [6]. Interestingly, in this study, lapatinib suppressed EGFR phosphorylation while gefitinib had the opposite effect of elevating receptor activation, although the mechanistic basis of this counterintuitive finding was not pursued. In addition to EGFR and HER2, other receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) such as fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs), insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R), and the c-MET receptor are also active in SMARCB1-deficient cancers. Wohrle et al. found that RT cell lines express high levels of FGFRs, including FGFR1 and FGFR2 [9]. They showed that ectopic expression of SMARCB1 in these cell lines led to the downregulation of FGFR protein expression and that the mechanism involved direct binding of SMARCB1 to the FGFR2 promoter locus. Importantly, the use of the FGFR inhibitor NVP-BGJ398 was capable of blocking FGFR signaling through the ERK pathway and inhibiting RT cell growth in vitro and in vivo. Wong et al. recently found that dual inhibition of platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRα) and FGFR1 induces synergistic cytotoxicity in RT cells [10]. D'Cunja et al. demonstrated that IGF-1R was expressed in RT patient specimens while its cognate ligands IGF-1 and IGF-II were highly expressed in RT cell lines [11]. This finding suggests that an autocrine/ paracrine loop may exist in RT cells where high levels of ligand lead to the activation of IGF-1R ultimately promoting tumor growth. Given that the authors did not perform SMARCB1 reexpression experiments, it remains unclear if SMARCB1 directly regulates IGF-1R and/or ligand expression. However, silencing of IGF-1R levels using antisense oligonucleotides was capable of suppressing RT cell proliferation and inducing apoptosis. In addition, IGF-1R downregulation sensitized RT cells to chemotherapy in the form of doxorubicin and cisplatin. Brenca et al. published a short report describing the expression and coactivation of EGFR and c-Met in the VAESBJ epithelioid cell line which lacks SMARCB1 [12]. These receptors activated the AKT and ERK pathways and combined inhibition of both RTKs using two


47 Multi-centre clinical trials involving a dosimetry component are becoming more 48 prevalent in molecular radiotherapy and are essential to generate the evidence to 49 support individualised approaches to treatment planning and to ensure that sufficient 50 patients are recruited to achieve the statistical significance required. Quality assurance 51 programmes should be considered to support the standardisation required to achieve 52 meaningful results. Trials should be designed to ensure that dosimetry results from 53 image acquisition systems across centres are comparable by incorporating steps to 54 standardise the methodologies used for the quantification of images and dosimetry. 55 Furthermore, it is essential to assess the expertise and resources available at each 56 participating site prior to trial commencement. A quality assurance plan should be 57 drawn up and training provided if necessary. Standardisation of quantification and 58 dosimetry methodologies used in a trial are essential to ensure that results from 59 different centres may be collated. In addition, appropriate uncertainty analysis should 60 be performed to correct for differences in methodologies between centres. 61 Recommendations are provided to support dosimetry studies based on the experience 62 of several previous and ongoing multi-centre trials. 63