As we reflect on Australia Day, there is often renewed national fervour as we gather with friends and neighbours, share a meal, watch sporting events, maybe attend a citizenship ceremony and sing the national anthem at one of the many community events. Most of us know the words of the first verse of our national anthem,howeverthereisasecondandoften forgottenverse of our national song. There are two poignant lines in that second verse:For those who've come across the seasWe've boundless plains to share,1These lines of our national anthem draw attention to Australia being a welcoming country for migrants and refugees. There has been much media attention and social commentary of late regarding refugees, asylum seekers, Australia's overall population 'cap', children in detention and migrant health. This ongoing commentary often leads to vigorous and polarised debate about Australia's commitment to migrants and refugees, and raises the question of whether Australia is particularly welcoming to refugees and migrants when it comes to health service provision.Australia has undergone significant demographic changes over the past 70 years. In 1947, post-World War II Australia had 10% of its population born overseas, whereas in 2011, 27% of the population was born overseas, with over 18% of these being from non-English speaking countries.2 While migrant families come with often better health than the general Australian population, this is eroded over time through acculturation, with migrants eventually displaying similar disease patterns to the broader Australian population.3 Considering the large migrant population, how does Australia provide services for over a quarter of its citizens that weren't born here and what are the unique issues faced by refugees and migrants, particularly those from nonEnglish speaking backgrounds, that the rest of the population takes for granted?There are several common themes that run across a recent migrant health studies in Australia. The first theme is social isolation. Social isolation and loneliness of Australian migrants has led to underlying emotional, social and mental health issues.4 These emotional and mental health issues put pressure on local primary and secondary care services particularly in outer metropolitan and regional areas.The second theme is assimilation. Acculturation stress, language barriers and issues with health literacy have led to depression and reduced health-seeking behaviours.5 The literature tells us that these migrants will be less likely to seek health care because of these issues. It naturally follows that if these patients do not actively seek out health services, the burden of disease and chronic illness will grow in these communities.The third theme is access to appropriate health services. Shame or fear of what family and friends might think, fear of being judged by the treatment providers, fear of hospitalisation, andlogisticaldifficultiesare significantimpediments to accessing health care services for refugee women.6 Much still needs to be done to ensure our health services are compassionate, accessible and welcoming for those with limited language skills and fearful of our often complex health system in Australia.Health literacy is an important aspect of positive health outcomes, and this is also true for migrant health. For example, limited health literacy and dietary changes have been noted in poorer oral health outcomes7 of migrants as well as a reduction in health-seeking behaviours.5Targetedhealthpromotion is animportantthemewith migrant health. With changestomorewestern and high energydiets found in Australia, research has shown a relationship between physical environments and obesity among Australian migrants.8 Additionally, smoking-related disease remains high in the migrant population with smoking prevalence higher in migrant men.9 Along with approaches to improve health literacy, health promotionstrategiesneedtobetargetedforarangeofhealth issuesto improve the overall health status of migrants and their families. …


ABSTRACT Background: Several studies have documented the variation in species diversity patterns along elevational gradients in the Himalaya, but few have reported the evolutionary and biogeographic processes behind these patterns. Aims: To understand whether evolutionary history and phylogeny have any role in structuring plant species communities along an elevational gradient in the Sikkim Himalaya. Methods: We used data on endemic plant species occurrence from primary and secondary sources to construct family-level phylogenetic supertrees for different growth forms with the help of Phylomatic tool of Phylocom. These phylogenetic supertrees were used as a base for testing phylogenetic diversity (PD), niche conservatism, diversification time patterns and phylogenetic structure of various plant growth forms along an elevational gradient. Results: PD was the highest at mid-elevations for all growth forms and PD had a significant positive correlation with endemic species richness. Species at mid-elevations were dominated by the ancestral/primitive taxa. There was phylogenetic clustering at higher elevations and phylogenetic overdispersion at lower and mid-elevations for the majority of the growth forms. Conclusions: Time-for-speciation effect and niche conservatism along elevation (retention of niche-related ancestral elevational distribution over evolutionary time scale by species) together determine plant species diversity patterns in the Himalaya.


Recently, due to the increasing environmental problems in the process of industrial chemical production, there is a need to increase the conversion of raw materials into the finished products. This prevents the formation of by-products and especially toxic waste. This dramatically reduces the cost for selection and utilization toxic industrial waste. In this paper we describe a several  of new policy decisions more effective ways of processing and recycling of industrial organochlorine waste (OCW) in the production of dichloroethane and vinyl chloride monomer, returning — recycling of raw materials. The study on chlorination of unsaturated chlorinated wastes showed that the additional treatment with chlorine to reduce the amount of unsaturated OCW and to increase the content of 1,2-dichloroethane in chlororganic waste at 9-15% reduced the loss of 1,2-dichloroethane when burned. The study optimized the conditions of the process of alkali dehydrochlorination, using a freshly prepared suspension of Ca(OH) 2 in NaOH, which allows to process the 1,2-dichloroethane and 1,1,2-trichloroethane with a total conversion of 95-96% of trade vinyl chloride and vinylidene chloride  to the outputs of the last 25-70%. This method can reduce the amount of waste incinerated chlororganic 2-5 times.


Nitrobenzene is an organic compound that has use in multiple industries, whether it is in manufacture of aniline (in printing ink) or in soaps/shoes/metal polishes or as a solvent etc. As a result of its widespread use and easy availability, accidental and suicidal poisoning is not uncommon. However, homicidal poisoning has been rarely reported due to nitrobenzene poisoning, probably due to the bitter almond odour of nitrobenzene. Here, we report a case of homicidal nitrobenzene poisoning which had been administered along with alcohol to mask the smell of nitrobenzene.


The paper considers a problem of load balancing, i.e. allocation of single-carrier User Equipment (UE) entities over multiple available carriers in the Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) system. Performance of different load balancing approaches is numerically evaluated by means of System Level Simulations (SLS) of W-CDMA HSUPA. The simulation results demonstrate a sufficient performance gain due to optimal carrier selection at the beginning of a packet call compared to random carrier selection at the beginning of a call. An additional minor gain is achievable for high traffic loads if optimal carrier reassignment is allowed also during the packet calls. The gains in both cases are explained by better equalization of physical resources assigned to different UEs and by suppression of the intra-cell interference at the most loaded carriers.


In an enterprise network, an attacker can get access and privilege to the critical asset through step by step vulnerabilities exploitation of network devices that lie between them. This security problem is serious concerns for a network security manager to protect from great data loss and business interruption. One of the ways to protect an enterprise network is to analyze network risk at given network topology and security condition. The risk analysis helps the security manager to enforce more security on weak nodes, or shift critical hosts in a secure place before an attacker takes benefit of vulnerabilities on transition devices and compromise highly important hosts. In this paper, we proposed a quantitative risk calculation method to compute network risk. We computed network risk as a function of total vulnerabilities exploitation along path and Impact of exploitation. Previous research including Topological Vulnerability Analysis (TVA) has been done to model and analyze attacking pathway through attack graph generation. They considered only vulnerabilities, and provide ways for the protection of critical hosts. However, in this paper, we analyze the network risk considering both vulnerabilities exploitation and impact of exploits (i.e., compute the total network risk by balancing exploitability and impact). We also perform a simulation analysis on an enterprise network and show how total network risk varies with vulnerabilities exploitation scores and impact scores.


We proposed a novel microwave-band radio-over-fiber system with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) bus architecture. An electrooptic phase modulator combined with Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) can realize frequency multiplying. Here the FBGs are used to fulfill three main tasks: convert phase modulation into intensity modulation, filter away unwanted optical frequency components, and work as demultiplexers in the WDM radio-over-fiber system. Simulation demonstrates a system capable of multiplying the frequency of differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) modulated signals from 2.7GHz to 5.4GHz (two times), 10.8GHz (four times) and even higher frequency values after transmitting the signals over 0.5 km of polymer optical fiber. Such a RoF system is cost-effective and suitable to install in in-house environment.


Security is a growing concern in the hardware design world. At all stages of the Integrated Circuit (IC) lifecycle there are attacks which threaten to compromise the integrity of the design through piracy, reverse engineering, hardware Trojan insertion, physical attacks, and other side channel attacks — among other threats. Some of the most notable challenges in this field deal specifically with Intellectual Property (IP) theft and reverse engineering attacks. The IP being attacked can be ICs themselves, circuit designs making up those larger ICs, or configuration information for the devices like Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Custom or proprietary cryptographic components may require specific protections, as successfully attacking those could compromise the security of other aspects of the system. One method by which these concerns can be addressed is by introducing hardware obfuscation to the design in various forms. These methods of obfuscation must be evaluated for effectiveness and continually improved upon in order to match the growing concerns in this area. Several different forms of netlist-level hardware obfuscation were analyzed, on standard benchmarking circuits as well as on two substitution boxes from block ciphers. These obfuscation methods were attacked using a satisfiability (SAT) attack, which is able to iteratively rule out classes of keys at once and has been shown to be very effective against many forms of hardware obfuscation. It was ultimately shown that substitution boxes were naturally harder to break than the standard benchmarks using this attack, but some obfuscation methods still have substantially more security than others. The method which increased the difficulty of the attack the most was one which introduced a modified SIMON block cipher as a One-way Random Function (ORF) to be used for key generation. For a substitution box obfuscated in this way, the attack was found to be completely unsuccessful within a five-day window with a severely round-reduced implementation of SIMON and only a 32-bit obfuscation key.


A computer program for the design and operation of the space shuttle environmental and thermal control life support system is presented. The subjects discussed are: (1) basic optimization program, (2) off design performance, (3) radiator/evaporator expendable usage, (4) component weights, and (5) computer program operating procedures.


A numerical analysis of Laser Shock Peening (LSP) process is illustrated, applied to an open hole specimen. This specimen is representative of a section of an aircraft fuselage lap joint, typically prone to fatigue crack nucleation at the rivet holes. The effect of the residual stress field induced by LSP on the fatigue life of open hole specimens is investigated. The results show that significant compressive residual stresses can be introduced in fatigue sensitive areas using LSP, postponing fatigue crack nucleation.


In analogy to the usual aggregation phenomena, such as the formation of liquid droplets in a supersaturated vapor, the nucleation, growth, and condensation of car clusters are considered in a one-lane freeway traffic flow model. The clustering behavior (known as congestion) in an initially homogeneous traffic stream is described by a master equation. The construction of the stochastic equation is given as well as its relationship to other dynamical models. Numerical experiments in heavy traffic with well-explained transition probabilities show the transition from the initial free particle situation (free jet of vehicles) to the final congested cluster state, where one big aggregate of cars is formed. The results are presented analytically in dependence of the stable cluster size from car concentration and numerically as stochastic trajectories.


All construction projects start from the ground up, requiring different enclosures and support systems below grade to keep away earth material and/or water. Constructing from the ground up involves access to elevated areas, requiring the use of platforms, such as scaffolding systems, to get material and labor above ground level. In addition, most construction projects involve concrete, which is the most widely used material in construction, requiring formwork and falsework systems. Also, materials such as rebar cages must be supported temporarily by guying and bracing to avoid collapsing. In some cases, existing underground facilities and appurtenances must be underpinned and supported in place to avoid damages. Additionally, on heavy civil projects requiring heavy construction equipment, there is always the need for trestles and equipment bridges used as temporary access. What is unique about these topical areas is that they fall under the subject area called temporary structures, which happens to fall outside the required curriculum of the CM (construction management) and ConE or CEM (construction engineering or construction engineering management) programs in the US. The objective of this paper is twofold. The first is to make the case for including temporary structures as a required part of the CM, ConE or CEM curriculum, and secondly, to recommend an instructional design approach for a temporary structures class. This study gathered, analyzed and synthesized literature and empirical data on the topic. Considering the failure rate of temporary structures, and the socioeconomic consequences of lack of knowledge and training in the area of temporary structures, the authors call for CM, ConE or CEM programs to re-evaluate the way they view temporary structures. Temporary structures should not be viewed as an optional course; it is an indispensable part of the construction process and should be treated as such. The significance of this research is paramount. It encourages accreditation bodies and academic programs in the area of CM, ConE or CEM to consider making temporary structures a required course. It also provides the programs with an instructional design on how to build the course content for a temporary structures course.


Two novel metabolites of mixed biogenesis, polycerasoidin [1] and polycerasoidol [2], have been isolated from the stem bark of Polyalthia cerasoides. Their structures were established on the basis of nmr spectroscopic techniques, including 2D correlated nmr spectroscopy (COSY 45, HMQC, and HMBC).


In this paper, we present a study concerning the stabilization of an electrooptic modulator (EOM) by controlling its optical bias point. A digital proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller using an auto-tuning algorithm has been developed with a PSOC microcontroller in order to keep the bias point at an optimal value. The evolution of the modulator characteristics can be followed through its nonlinear behavior by detecting the second harmonic of a low-frequency modulating signal. By such a bias point control of the EOM it is possible to compensate completely the effects of the modulator drift for duration of at least two hours.


FIELD: process engineering. SUBSTANCE: cutting plate assembly has cutting plate seat with channel, cutting plate and its clamp. Note here that said cutting plate, first surface, second surface and peripheral surface located there between. First and second surfaces cross said peripheral surface along first and second peripheral edges, respectively. Note here that at least one section one of said first and second peripheral edges makes the cutting edge. Cutting plate channel has at least two sections, smaller of which having an oval cross-section allows fast and easy replacement or indexing of cutting plate without complete clamp removal from the seat channel. EFFECT: higher reliability of attachment, accelerated replacement or cutting plate indexing. 9 cl, 19 dwg


This paper presents the results for the experimental characterization of the mobile underwater acoustic communication channel in shallow water through the statistics of the fading and the time and frequency dispersion parameters. Starting from measurements performed in Forno Bay, Arraial do Cabo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, using three hydrophones in the reception side, two CW signals (3 and 6 kHz) and three sequences of LFM chirps in different bands: 2 to 4 kHz, 5 to 7 kHz and 1 to 8 kHz, the mobile sounding was performed in that channel in order to characterize it as in narrowband as in wideband.


In this paper, a new combination of Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Markov Chain (MC), and MultiObjective Land Allocation (MOLA) was proposed and evaluated to simulate multiple land use changesusing GIS-based techniques and multi temporal remote sensing data. The main objective of this paper is topredict land use changes for Tehran, the biggest and capital city of Iran. In this regard, by integration ofANN, MC, and MOLA, we found the pixels that have the highest tendency to change their states from oneland use category to others. An ANN model was applied to create Transition Potential Maps (TPMs), andan MC model was used to calculate the quantity of the changes. Finally, a MOLA model was employed forspatial allocation of new changes. In order to analyze the effects of proximity, three types of neighborhoodfilters were combined with MOLA. The proposed method achieved 92.62%, 95.49%, and 92.74% of kappaindex of agreement (KIA), overall accuracy (OA), and kappa of location (Klocation), respectively. Thismethod was applied for Tehran to predict the situation in year 2020. The trend of the changes shows thatthe urban growth is moving toward southwest of the city, where the areas with poor infrastructure aresituated.


Figure shows the natural shoreline in the first half of the 18th century, which was formed mainly with natural levees and enbayments. The landscape of the shore would be a rush field intersected by a network of creeks This shoreline was restored on a topographical map on a scale of 1:3000, based on the distribution of soils and some old maps of neighboring villages. It is cleared in this map that after this time the shoreline retreated by artificial drainage works at outlet of the Lake.


It is impossible to "manage" a naturally occurring drought, so "drought management" refers to managing resources, including water, to mitigate the adverse effects of droughts, which are certain to occur. Other resources that can be managed are food supplies, including animal feed, public facilities of various kinds, and economic resources to aid businesses, farmers, and citizens.

Keywords:

drought;
drought management;
food supplies;
disaster;
planning;
water agencies;
meteorological drought;
hydrologic drought;
contingency planning;
vulnerability;
shortage;
hazard;
emergency;
water use;
demand management


Consider non-autonomous chaotic system with unknown parameters as drive system.By adaptive control,a response system with the same structure as the drive system is constructed.Based on the Lyapunov's stability theory,we further choose a controller to make the drive-response systems achieve completely synchronization.We will make the parameters of the response system be in good agreement with those of the drive system when the drive-response systems achieve completely synchronization.Then the unknown parameters of the drive system can be identified.The forced Duffing oscillator and loudspeaker system are taken as examples to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.


Energy management has become an important concern in virtualized environments; Cloud providers are developing and using techniques to minimize the energy consumption of their data centres. Providers rely immediately on elastic computing to scale-up or -down infrastructure resources based on incoming workloads and user settings. However, elasticity comes at a price, as adding resources may significantly increase energy usages and costs. We believe that, before scaling-up, it is possible to cope with different workloads and energy expenditure by automatically reconfiguring the software architecture of the Cloud. This paper presents a self-adaptive architecture and a set of techniques that use information about energy consumption to enforce policies to reduce cost and energy. We experiment our approach by reconfiguring different HTTP servers and web applications of the back-end servers based on the workload and energy consumption without interrupting current running services. Our approach proves more efficient when compared to elasticity methods under the same workloads.


The new conception on teaching innovation of Engineering Drawing is explained.The creating,consummating and utilizing of Multi-Dimension stereoscopic teaching resources from textbook and CAI to special self-directed learning website are introduced.Developing the self-directed inquiry-collaborative learning by using Multi-Dimension stereoscopic teaching resources,developing bilingual-teaching and extensive international cooperation are the features of innovative teaching mode.


1. Pather S, Tejada Berges T, Saidi S, Carter J. Re: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for advanced ovarian cancer. Who really benefits?. Aust N Z J Obstet Gynaecol 2018; 58: E25-E26. 2. du Bois A, Reuss A, Pujade-Lauraine E et al. Role of surgical outcome as a prognostic factor in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer: a combined exploratory analysis of 3 prospectively randomized phase 3 multicenter trials: by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Gynaekologische Onkologie Studiengruppe Ovarialkarzinom (AGOOVAR) and the Groupe d'Investigateurs Nationaux Pour les Etudes des Cancers de l'Ovaire (GINECO). Cancer 2009; 115: 1234–1244. 3. Fagotti A, Ferrandina G, Vizzielli G et al. Phase III randomised clinical trial comparing primary surgery versus neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer with high tumour load (SCORPION trial): Final analysis of perioperative outcome. Eur J Cancer 2016; 59: 22–33. 4. Eisenkop SM, Spirtos NM, Montag TW et al. The impact of subspecialty training on the management of advanced ovarian cancer. Gynecol Oncol 1992; 47: 203–209. 5. Bristow RE, Tomacruz RS, Armstrong DK et al. Survival effect of maximal cytoreductive surgery for advanced ovarian carcinoma during the platinum era: a metaanalysis. J Clin Oncol 2002; 20: 1248–1259. DOI: 10.1111/ajo.12925


. The usual criteria for establishing that a function of bounded variation or an absolutely continuous function has an absolutely convergent Fourier series are given in terms of the modulus of continuity, the integrated modulus of continuity or conditions on the derivative. The relations between these criteria are investigated. A class of functions is constructed to provide counterexamples which show to what extent the existing theorems are best possible. In the case of absolutely continuous functions a few new criteria are given involving the variation of the given function. A couple of necessary and sufficient conditions are given for a class of absolutely continuous functions to have absolutely convergent Fourier series.


The article is devoted to the research of the legal basis tax and legal regime for the IT business "Diia.City", which is based on the analysis of the regulatory support of this project and the evaluation of the results obtained during the short period of activity. Indicated the main problems of the IT Law, the solution of which was aimed at novels by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. The article presents scientific approaches to the concept of the legal regime, outlines the main directions of the Ministry of Digitization in the process of implementing "Diia.City" and the impact of such innovations on the position of Ukrainian IT companies. The main variants of tax regimes and hiring methods, based on and using which the IT business in Ukraine is built, were considered, and a comparison was made with the possibilities of taxation for Diya.City residents and GIG contracts, which became a novelty for the labor law of Ukraine, influencing the other fields, in particular – intellectual property and intellectual work to order


Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a local inflammatory process driven by eosinophils. Mucosal eosinophil count (MEC) has previously been demonstrated to be a reliable indicator of disease severity. We aim to evaluate use of MEC in guiding medical management of CRS after functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS).


ABSTRACT The low level of students' learning outcomes at MAN 1 Pontianak on solubility and the result of solubility multiply was caused by lack of students' understanding on basic concept. This research had the purpose to find out the difference between the students' learning outcomes which were taught by using Teams Games Tournament (TGT) type of Cooperative Learning Method Assisted Question Box and the lectures teaching method assisted Question Box as well as to know the effect of TGT type of Cooperative Learning Method Assisted Question Box. This research was Quasi Experimental Control Pretest Posttest Group Design. The sampling system was simple random sampling technique. The techniques of data collection used measurement technique, observation and direct communication (interview). The result of data analysis showed that the mean score of experimental class was 73.8 which was higher compared to the mean score of control class which was 62.97. The result of statistical analysis using U-Mann whitney test with α 5% obtained 0.00 value which was smaller than α value (0.00 <0.05). It meant that there was difference between the learning outcomes in experimental and control class. The calculation result using effect size showed the value of ES 0.91 which was included in high category. It could be concluded that TGT type of Cooperative Learning Method assisted Quesion Box gave high effect on the improvement of students' learning outcomes which was 31.86 %. Keywords: Learning Outcomes, Solubility and The Result of Solubility Multiply, TGT, Question Box


A poulies.Elle control apparatus refers to an apparatus having a drawing unit for assembling and drawing slivers, which has at least two pairs of rollers comprising each an upper roller and a lower roller and an adjustment device of the spacing of one of the lower rollers with respect to one another, each roller having a mounting device and the lower rollers being driven by a drive element which rotates around the pulleys. A guide pulley (42, 46) is attached to each mounting unit having a mounting device or a slider (35a; 36a) and the roller driving pulley (40, 41) and the guide pulley (42 , 46) act on both sides of the drive member (47) .Use of the drawing frame.


The utility model discloses the hydraulic machinery which converts the energy of the water flow into the mechanical energy, and relates to a high-efficiency water turbine. The utility model is composed of a main water pipe, a recoil type upper rotor, an impact type rotor, and a crankshaft which is driven by the rotors. The upper rotor is composed of a wheel disc and a plurality of bend pipe-shaped blades which are arranged on the wheel disc. The periphery of the wheel disc is in rotary connection with the outlet of the main water pipe. The impact type lower rotor is arranged under the upper rotor. The blades are a plurality of arc-shaped blades which form definite angle with a central shaft.


Coherence and phase synchronization between time series corresponding to different spatial locations are usually interpreted as indicators of the connectivity between locations. In neurophysiology, time series of electric neuronal activity are essential for studying brain interconnectivity. Such signals can either be invasively measured from depth electrodes, or computed from very high time resolution, non-invasive, extracranial recordings of scalp electric potential differences (EEG: electroencephalogram) and magnetic fields (MEG: magnetoencephalogram) by means of a tomography such as sLORETA (standardized low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography). There are two problems in this case. First, in the usual situation of unknown cortical geometry, the estimated signal at each brain location is a vector with three components (i.e. a current density vector), which means that coherence and phase synchronization must be generalized to pairs of multivariate time series. Second, the inherent low spatial resolution of the EEG/MEG tomography introduces artificially high zero-lag coherence and phase synchronization. In this report, solutions to both problems are presented. Two additional generalizations are briefly mentioned: (1) conditional coherence and phase synchronization; and (2) non-stationary time-frequency analysis. Finally, a non-parametric randomization method for connectivity significance testing is outlined. The new connectivity measures proposed here can be applied to pairs of univariate EEG/MEG signals, as is traditional in the published literature. However, these calculations cannot be interpreted as connectivity, since it is in general incorrect to associate an extracranial electrode or sensor to the underlying cortex.


We appreciate the opportunity to respond to the issues raised by Burnie et al. regarding our mixed-method analysis of pregnancy termination in Bangladesh.

With respect to ascertainment of pregnancy status, all women within the Sample Registration System (SRS) households are asked to report on their menstrual status during the quarterly visits. If amenorrheic, women are queried as to the possible cause (e.g., use of injectable contraception, suspected pregnancy). If a woman is unsure of her pregnancy status, her record is flagged in the SRS database for follow-up. If her pregnancy is confirmed, she is asked for the date of her last menstrual period. Albeit imperfect, this method is less subject to recall bias as compared with retrospective reporting of pregnancies and pregnancy loss.1,2 A more detailed explanation of the SRS and pregnancy ascertainment are described elsewhere.3,4

Attrition over the study period was relatively low as compared with other longitudinal data sets. The sample was comprised of couples in which both spouses answered the 1998 fertility questions. Of these couples, over 82% remained active through the 5-year study period. Even when comparing the sample women to all women who participated in the 1998 survey (n = 5 273), there were no significant differences (P < .05) apart from a slightly higher mean number of children among our sample (2.45 vs 2.37 children; P value = 0.035).

We agree with Burnie et al. that walking distance does not wholly define access. However, given the existing secondary data available for this analysis and literature linking higher mobility with lower fertility among Bangladeshi women,5 we felt walking distance to be the most appropriate available proxy measure to assess the potential physical and psychological barriers for women in accessing health services in this context.

During qualitative data collection, there were nightly staff meetings in the field, in addition to further crystallization of study findings by the entire study team through peer review of transcripts and memo-writing on emerging and dominant themes. The themes identified during the fieldwork served as a basis for the results presented.

Lastly, we would like to concur with Burnie et al. that this study is not meant to be representative of all of Bangladesh, or even all of rural Bangladesh. Despite limitations, these data shed light on the contextual circumstances of pregnancy termination. We hope that our study prompts further investigation and a more holistic understanding of pregnancy termination within and outside of Bangladesh.


This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial and No Derivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution of the material without any modifications, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original works properly cited. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the rapidly ongoing pandemic caused by spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), led to a significant impact on transplant systems [1]. Because of intensified induction therapy as well as maintenance of immune suppressant, there is significant concern about transplantation after COVID-19 infection. Meanwhile, the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 is crucial in detecting primary infection and in confirming postinfection recovery or reinfection [2]. In this case, we serially monitored humoral and cellular immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 during preparation for an ABO-incompatible kidney transplantation (ABO icKT) and who successfully received kidney transplantation (KT) without Successful ABO-incompatible kidney transplantation and SARS-CoV-2–specific immune monitoring in a patient recovered from coronavirus infection


An approach for detection and classification of objects based on Gabor features and enhanced fisher discriminant model (EFM) is presented in this paper. Decomposed by Gabor filters, the dimensions of Gabor features of object images and models are very large. Principal component analysis (PCA) is used to extract the master components and reduce dimensions of Gabor features. Whether there are vehicle objects or not is primarily justified by the magnitude of the Gabor features. If candidate object is detected, EFM is carried out to compare its features to those of models to determine which one it belongs to-vehicles or back ground. The experiments prove the proposed arithmetic can get good results while reducing the feature dimensions. Furthermore, arithmetics for determining vehicle's number and positions are also discussed. And the experimental results also validate their feasibility.


Abstract Research Background: The concept of risk is of great importance in any financial system, due to unstable economic situations and fluctuating environmental factors. Like other variables, risk has a significant effect on firms' returns and profit. Purpose: This study aims at examining the relationship between dividend policy and performance taking cognisance of the uncontrollable risk (market risk). Research methodology: This study was modelled using 250 commercial banks from 30 selected Sub-Saharan African countries in the period 2008 to 2017. The Panel-Vector Error Correction Model was used to estimate the model. Result: From the long run analysis, a long run relationship between dividend policy, agency cost, and bank performance is evident. The disequilibrium will take about 39.5% yearly speed of adjustment to return to a steady state. There is an inverse relationship between Lending interest rate (market risk proxy) with bank performance while there is a positive relationship of foreign exchange rate (market risk proxy) and bank performance in SSA. Novelty: Market risk's influence on the relationship between dividend policy and bank performance was firstly established. Therefore, it is recommended that the banking sector in SSA should focus more on endogenous factors and review some of their policies as these contribute more significantly to variations in their performance than exogenous factors.


There was a dramatic improvement in self-perceived caregiver competence (3.9 ± 1.6-5.0 ± 0.32; P < .0006). Devor also noted a trend toward improvement in caregiver overload but no change in caregiver burden. Caregivers with baseline parameters indicative of higher burden, overload, or lower competence showed improved scores at 6 months. Overall, their educational seminar program was effective in improving competence, especially in those with higher degrees of caregiver burden. In The Progression of Behavior in Dementia: An In-office Guide for Clinicians, Lindy A. Kilik et al examined the progression of behavioral changes in 200 community living subjects using the Kingston Standardized Behavioral Assessment, which is a measure of both traditional neuropsychiatric behaviors and neuropsychological behaviors. They studied a group of patients with probable Alzheimer's disease, mixed (Alzheimer's disease/vascular) dementia, and mild cognitive impairment. They identified changes in behavior patterns across all quartiles—even in the early quartile. The type and the pattern of these emerging behaviors change as the disease progresses. An "at-a-glance guide" characterizing the patterns of increasing behavioral change is provided for clinicians. Clinicians are urged to use the typical patterns of behavioral change to be aware of likely behavioral impairments and to anticipate future behavioral changes and the related care needs. Pain is common in the older people, and dementia subjects often do not spontaneously state that they are in pain. Some just develop behavior changes. Also, pain medications are often poorly tolerated in the older people. The quality of assessment tools limits management. Alison Mahoney and Lorna Peters described the development and trial of the Mahoney Pain Scale, which aims to assess pain in advanced Dr Kerry Donnelly et al examined the diagnostic accuracy of a primary care screening procedure for identifying cognitive impairment in 100 at-risk older veterans, in comparison to 4 brief standardized neuropsychological tests in Primary Care Screening for Cognitive Impairment in Elderly Veterans. The results indicated that 3 of the tests significantly discriminated normal from mildly impaired status on the Dementia Rating Scale. Correct classification rates were near 80% for the mini-mental state examination (MMSE), clock drawing test, and both trail making tests (TMT-A and TMT-B). In contrast, they found no evidence to support the current interview-based screening procedure. Further research is needed to identify quick, accurate screening tests for dementia in veteran and nonveteran populations. Claudia A. Orengo et al studied the difficult (but common) behavior of aggression in veterans with dementia in Aggression in Individuals Newly Diagnosed With Dementia. They focused on newly diagnosed veterans with dementia and defined aggression as a positive caregiver response to 1 or more of 3 probes from the Ryden Aggression Scale, which they administered during a telephone screen. Nearly, 20% had aggressive behavior—(23 [31%] verbally, 9 [12%] physically, 24 [32%] verbally and physically, and 19 [25%] with unspecified aggression). Given the negative ramifications of aggression, this high prevalence of aggression in individuals newly diagnosed with dementia suggests that early screening for aggression for this population should be considered. A majority of family members provide care for elders with dementia; however, interventions to support the community-based caregiver are needed. Devor and Renvall studied caregiver burden in 300 caregivers before and 6 months after community-based seminars for caregivers of patients with dementia. Review of Issue


This study constitutes a starting point Jor gathering betier evidence for the efjectiveness and appropriate uses OJ various online learning tools. The research question investigated - How valuable are rhreaded discussion Jorums as a pedagogical tool in a course delivered via an online modality? - was addressed by a longitudinal study in which the perJormance of gaduate students (N=103) on a series OJ discussion Jorum assignments was compared to their ultimate success in their program oJstudy. This study lends credence to the belieJthat discussion Jorums can indeed play an important role in an online course. A dgnignijicanl correlation was demonstrated between success in an academic program as measured by progress toward completion of degree requirements and GPA and performance in discussion Jorum assignments as measured by the timeliness oJthe contributions to thejorum and the content oJrhose contributions. Even ijthe discussion Jorum assignments do no more than predict success, however. their value is evident, fas nothing more than an evaluative tool.


A Predictive Proportional + Integral (PPI) controller with improved performance over standard PI and PID controllers is proposed. This controller consists of two parts: a standard PI controller and a predictive term with which its dynamics depend on the system time delay. The controller is realized by a continuous time implementation; i.e. a numerical solution of differential equations rather than a transformation to the Z-domain. The performance of this controller is compared with that of the PID controller tuned by Zeigler and Nichols and three other recent methods of tuning PID controllers. The conditions for stability are derived and the sensitivity of the new controller to process parameter changes is analysed by Monte-Carlo evaluation.


SeO2 is added as selenious acid (H2SeO3) and as sodium selenite (Na2SeO3 to the oxides Na2O, CaO, BaO, PbO, B203, and SiO2 to form glasses and crystalline melts containing apprcciable amounts of SeO2. The chemical analysis of glasses shows the vaporization of SeOn to be high during the melting stage. Most of these glasses are unstable in air or water. A relatively stable glass contained Na2O 33.4%, CaO 12.4%, B2O3 37.6%, SiO2 5.8%, SeO2 10.8%. Melting several compositions in a closed container yielded opaque or crystalline melts, whereas the same compositions melted in air with a partial volatilization of SeO2 gave clear glasses.


The cationic metal-pair complex of the catalyst composition comprising the starts with a method of manufacturing the same. Polymerization process of ethylenically unsaturated monomers using the catalytic composition and hence the addition polymers prepared in accordance with the is also disclosed. Cationic metal-pair complex, the ethylenically unsaturated monomers polymerized


The present invention relates to a field coil assembly of an electromagnetic clutch for a compressor, more particularly, a field coil assembly of an electromagnetic clutch for a compressor, in which a terminal electrically connected with a field coil portion, and an electric wire are assembled to each other by means of upper and lower holders, and then finally engaged with together by means of aninsert molding, thereby simplifying a manufacturing process to reduce manufacturing expense, removing a need for a separate member for protecting an electric wire, and easily adjusting the length of the electric wire.


Surface elevation information of glaciers and ice caps is an important Essential Climate Variable (ECV) in particular for ice sheet mass balances. Due to their remote location and immense extension this information is hard to be gained. Selective ground measurements, airborne campaigns and spaceborne mission are the alternatives. Within the TanDEM-X mission a global digital elevation model was generated from single-pass X-Band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry. It is believed that the TanDEM-X DEM will widely be used for ice mass balances as those data are globally available. SAR systems penetrate the surface of snow and ice covered areas to some degree before being reflected. The most important parameters for the penetration into the ice sheet are the structure, the surface roughness, and the water content.
In this study we present a procedure how corrections for the penetration depth into ice caps can be modelled and applied to the TanDEM-X DEM. The Devon Ice Caps in the Canadian Arctic serves as example to demonstrate effects and possible improvements. As verification data set ICESat is used. TanDEM-X DEM data were acquired between December 2010 and January 2015. The DEM has a 12.5 m posting with 10 m absolute and 2-4 m relative height accuracy (depending on the terrain slope). In the Arctic most of the acquisitions took place in winter. Therefore, we generated in addition to the TanDEM-X DEM mosaic two DEMs solely containing Winter 2010/11 and Winter 2011/12 scenes.
The first step in our procedure is a classification of different snow facies. Dealing with InSAR data the intensity as well as interferometric coherence can be used for the classification. The intensity is related to surface roughness and water content and the coherence provides an estimate for the volume decorrelation. The goal is to develop a method to determine the penetration depth directly from the TanDEM-X DEM product. This method is applied to the global DEM mosaic, but also separately to two winter DEM mosaics as well as to all individual input InSAR scenes.
In a second step snow and ice densities are assigned to the individual classes. Then an existing approach is used to calculate the approximate penetration depth. Here, the knowledge of a specific snow facies allows the estimation of the penetration depth by inverting an interferometric volume decorrelation model and assuming a constant and real dielectric constant. For each ice class the corresponding height offset is applied, i.e. the DEM heights are corrected accordingly. The results for TanDEM-X mosaic, the winter DEM mosaics, and the individual scene-corrected DEM mosaic are compared. For further verification the penetration-corrected DEMs are compared with ICESat data. Resulting differences to ICESat are in the order of 1-2m instead of up to 6m penetration depth.
This procedure shows great potential as an innovative approach for assessing surface heights from TanDEM-X DEMs or measurements to be compared with other data measuring surface heights.


New economy is the economy based on information revolution and a global market. On the threshold of the new economic era, China should take immediate and practical measures in the following respects: giving priority to traditional economy, improving the construction of corollary facilities,reducing investment risks by bringing all potentialities into full play,promoting the construction of business network so as to adjust the enterprises to the competitive situation, and providing opportunities for personnel reeducation.


I n this paper presents numerical solutions of Integro-Differential Equations (IDE) using single-term Haar wavelet series (STHWS) method. The obtained discrete results were compared with exact solution of the IDE and Local Polynomial Regression (LPR) method [7] to highlight the efficiency of the STHWS method. The numerical solution shows that this method is powerful in solving integro-differential equations. The method will be tested on three model problems in order to demonstrate its usefulness and accuracy.


O NE OF THE MORE RECENT TRENDS among anthropologists concerned with East Indian culture has been to suggest reductionary explanations of caste. Accordingly, caste is explained by isolating a single factor as the most basic for the existence of this institution. Berreman, for example, contends that endogamy is the crucial factor of caste: ". . . a caste system may be defined as a hierarchy of endogamous divisions in which membership is hereditary and permanent" (1960:120). Similar reductionary explanations have been reported in the literature almost as soon as caste was called to the attention of the scientific world and have continued intermittently as a prominent type of interpretation.2 Related to and consistent with Berreman's statement and goals (crosscultural comparison) is Olcott's suggestion that caste ". . . differs from class in its strict enforcement of permanent endogamy within caste groups" (1944:648). A roster of related explanations compiled by Pohlman when he solicited more than thirty sociologists and anthropologists for statements of the ". .. essentials which distinguish caste from other types of social classes .. ." (1951:376) offers similar interpretations. A great deal of room for disagreement and debate exists in regard to all reductionary explanations of caste. While I do not agree with the methodology involved in this general approach to the problem of explicating caste, I do feel that continuous reassertions along these lines maintain the important variables of the caste system as viable scientific interests. One may not agree that endogamy is the basis of caste, but it cannot be disputed that endogamy is extremely important for maintaining and perpetuating caste. It is with this latter point in mind that the current analysis is presented. The assumption is made that while endogamy is not the basis of a caste system, it is one of the necessary factors for the existence and perpetuation of caste. Endogamous patterns take on added importance when the anthropologist is involved in an analysis of East Indian caste outside of India. Studies of this type


This study explores the openness of people with Fibromyalgia (FM) to counselling referrals, and the issue of who helps in the management of symptoms. Data were collected from 190 support group members using an online survey. Results indicate that 52% of particpants believe they would benefit from seeing a counsellor. Further, in 67% of cases, reports of illness distress, emotional and practical problems correctly differentiated those who believed they would benefit from counselling referrals from those who did not. Participants report that health care, community, and interpersonal resources are helpful in the management of symptoms. In conclusion, health care professionals should explore the role of psychosocial factors in illness, and consider the benefits of community and interpersonal resources in the management of FM.


External humidification has been used as a flexible water management strategy for the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). To study the anode inlet relative humidity (ARH) effect on the performance of PEMFC, the anode inlet water content (AIWC) model is established, including condensation rates and water activity. A comparable analysis between the AIWC model, Fluent model and experiment is conducted at 60 °C operating temperature, four different anode relative humidities (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%), and 100% cathode relative humidity (CRH). The species distributions of water content and hydrogen concentration are presented and analyzed. The results show the relative error of the voltage results derived from the AIWC model has been reduced by 3.2% (the original is 4.6% in the Fluent model) especially at 240 mA·cm−2 for 50% ARH. An increase in hydrogen humidity can improve the PEMFC output at low ARH (25% and 50%). Meanwhile, at high ARH (100%), the excess water produced does not play a positive role. At 50% ARH, the water content and hydrogen distribution are more uniform all over the anode channels.


The portable electronic entity pocket (400) comprises: - removable connecting means (420) to a host station (300), - first means for secure communication (460, 470, 471) with a remote server (100) via said connection means and said host station, - second communication means (450, 455) between said first means for secure communication and a second portable electronic entity (500) and- means (440, 445) for communicating to said remote server, by said first means for secure communication, the data received from the second portable electronic entity, by the second communication means.


This article explains how the author used Deleuze and Guattari's concept assemblage to analyze data from an interview study about the reading practices of 10 academics. Instead of coding interview transcripts, the researcher used writing and reading as methods of inquiry and analysis to explore how reading can become a force that enables complex relationships with texts.


Comparative studies were conducted on the flowering, fruiting, yield and other physico-chemical characteristics of Flordasun and new introduction TA-170. The variety TA-170 showed distinct earliness in ripening by one week, better keeping and shipping quality, and relative resistance to fruitfly attack in comparison to Flordasun. This variety appear to be suitable for cultivation under the sub-tropical climate of Punjab and adjoining areas.


We report a case of meningioma in the left temporal lobe which was successfully treated in our clinic. Howewer, two years later the new tumor was grown in the same temporal lobe. MRi and PET scan demonstrated the oligoastrocytoma of the medial temporal lobe.


Objective: To compare dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) in the assessment of body composition in athletes. Data Sources: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted collating peer-reviewed studies that compared BIA with DXA for the assessment of body composition in athletes that indexed in MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, and PsycINFO databases. Main Results: After duplicate removal, 267 articles remained for full-text screening. Sixty-three studies remained for the final inclusion, with 8 focused on athletes (n = 461). Five studies were included in the meta-analysis and were rated as positive after risk of bias assessment, whereas the remaining were neutral. BIA overestimated fat-free mass (FFM) over DXA 2.78 (1.38-4.18) (mean difference ± 95% CI) with an effect size of 3.9(P < 0.001). Conclusions: BIA was found to overestimate total FFM when compared with DXA. Correlations are high between BIA and DXA; however, the limits of agreement are wide. Hence, BIA may not be a suitable substitute for DXA body composition scanning of athletes. Because of the low level of ionizing radiation exposure, the use of DXA should always be medically justified, and therefore, it is not recommended for repeat, longitudinal measurements in healthy subjects. We recommend that clinicians do not use BIA interchangeably with DXA in the assessment of body composition in athletes. Considerations should be made over the safety and appropriateness of DXA in young healthy adults. For long-term use, BIA can be warranted for athletes. PROSPERO Registration Number: CRD42020183777


. Introduction
Not only have clouds and precipitation (snow, rain and hail) made up an important part of the subsystem atmospheric phenomena of terrestrial climate, but are also considered as the main components of the water cycle. Aerosols play an important role in cloudiness and precipitation. In warm clouds with the same liquid water path, increase in aerosols concentration results in the reduction of effective radius of cloud droplets and increase of cloud albedo, which is referred to as "first indirect effect" or "Twomey effects" (Twomey, 1977;Twomey et al., 1984). Variation in concentration of aerosols causes variation in the thickness, life period and precipitation rate of the clouds, referred to as "second indirect effect" or "Albrecht effect", (Albrecht, 1989; Hansen et al. 1997; Ackerman et al. 2000).
The city of Tehran, the capital of I. R. of Iran, is a mega-polis with a population of more than 10 million. The city is located in the central part of the Alborz Mountain Range and characterized by its complex topography and diverse climate in an area of about 700 Km2. The city's long term annual average precipitation is 300mm. The growth of the city during the last 30 years has turned the city to one of the most polluted cities in the country, particularly during autumn and winter. The geographical conditions of the city are the other most important factors affecting the city's environmental condition and the nature of the particulate matters that may be found in its atmosphere.
In this paper, the influence of aerosols on microphysics of clouds over Tehran during the years 2003 to 2012 has been investigated.
2. Material and Methods
In this paper, the influence of aerosols on microphysics of clouds over Tehran throughout the years 2003 to 2012 was studied. Correlations between microphysics of clouds and aerosols from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) were examined over Tehran. These are both from the collection 5.1 level 3 daily data, at 10×10 resolution. Daily AOD, CER, COT, CWP, CTT and CTP observed by MODIS on board the Aqua satellite from 2003 to 2012 on 10×10 grids are used in this work. In this study, Aerosol Index (AI) and Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) were used as a proxy for the cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). To reduce errors, water phase cloud is defined as having a cloud top pressure greater than 800hPa.
3. Results and Discussion
Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated and written for all cloud microphysical quantities with AOD as well as AI by software SPSS-V13. For the study, scatter plot diagrams between CER, CWP, CF, CTT, CTP and COT with AI and AOD were drawn. Furthermore, scatter plot diagrams between cloud microphysics quantities were drawn. We used the AI and AOD as our aerosol products, as AI includes size dependence and has been shown to correlate better with CCN. Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients and scatter plot diagrams showed that there are positive correlation coefficients between the aerosol index and cloud top temperature and cloud top pressure. However, there are negative correlation coefficients between aerosol index and cloud fraction, cloud optical thickness and cloud water path. There are no significant negative correlation coefficients between cloud effective radius and AI over Tehran. These correlations suggest the increase of aerosols in Tehran in the last 10 years, because of over seeding. In these 10 years, there was reduced cloudiness over Tehran. The correlations between quantities of cloud microphysics fully match with theoretical studies.
4. Conclusion
At first step the scatter plots of CER, CWP, CF (cloud fraction), CTT, CTP and COT versus AI and AOD, which were considered as the representative of aerosols in our study, were created to provide an early picture of the possible interrelationship between those cloud microphysics and aerosols characteristics. The same diagrams were plotted to provide a picture of the way microphysical characteristics of clouds vary with each other. Study on the relationship between the AOD and AI with CCN showed that AI is a better representative of CCN .Then, correlations between clouds microphysical properties and both AOD and AI were examined by means of Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients which were calculated usingSPSS-V13. The results showed that there are positive correlation between the AI and CTT and CTP. However, there are negative correlation between aerosol index and CF, COT and CWP. Negative but insignificant correlation was observed between CER and AI over Tehran. The correlations suggest the increase in aerosols concentration over Tehran during the duration of study might be regarded as one of the main reasons for the reduced cloudiness and precipitation over Tehran. The correlations between quantities of cloud microphysics fully match the theoretical studies.


The aim of the media may have sacred or profane, materially and spiritually, lasting and temporary characteristics . However, media should be related with social control and order. As consequence, media also can be used for many aims that somewhat different by various interests, groups and community sector. We need the existence of mass media anyway, as source of information, entertainment, persuasion, cultural transmission , to motivate social cohesion, control, correlation, and social inheritance . Otherwise, the problem will be different when the mass media has great importance from various groups whether the authorities, capitalists, media workers and others, that on the contrary put them on "top of the top ". It means the community interest as public who in fact become the object has been badly emasculated. With the excuse to preserve the continuity of media industry, the mass media performs commodities in all aspect of human live such as economy, politic, social, culture, and even has spread into religion.


The increasing number of mobile devices, such as smartphones, has brought attention to participatory sensing in which real-world data are collected via personal devices. To collect data via participatory sensing, it is important to motivate participants. Thus, we previously proposed Top of Worlds, a method for encouraging user participation by presenting their rank order. In this paper, we estimate its time complexity in order to understand how often we can present a rank order in planning phase of services.


The article discusses the results of development of energy efficient ventilation system of sheepfold. The scheme of the experimental energy-efficient ventilation system of sheepfold is given. The differential equations of heat transfer for describing the temperature field in the soil around the duct of the ventilation system of the sheepfish are used. An example of calculation of dimensionless criteria at given initial and boundary conditions is shown. The values of the air temperature at the outlet of the channel and the value of the heat flux are determined. The results of the calculations are consistent with the test data using information and measuring system for remote recording of the thermal characteristics of ventilation systems.


Following the example of countries North of the Mediterranean, those of Northern Africa and the Middle East initiated a policy of small dam construction. The objectives of this type of water resources management are essentially twofold and sometimes contradictory. We can differentiate soil and water conservation and management objectives, as well as economic and social development objectives: Erosion control, protection of downstream infrastructures and particularly control of the rapid sedimentation of large dams; integrated rural development by offering a rare but vital and renewable resource: the fair distribution of water in the countryside while limiting disruptions in the social order such as massive expropriation, and displacement of infrastructures or houses. Based on the results of multi‐disciplinary research carried out in two countries in Northern Africa (Morocco and Tunisia), and two countries in the Middle East (Lebanon and Syria), this article endeavors to show the position of small dams in the mobilization and management of water and soil resources in the semi‐arid Mediterranean zones. It first draws up the framework of the multiplication of these projects implemented in the countries studied. As territorial management is carried out along different lines in each country, development of small dams has followed different directions and objectives. The first common trait is the political will to develop this type of conservation project in the years to come. The goal of large dam protection is more prevalent in Northern Africa than in the Middle East. The fishery aspect is completely absent in Tunisia. The prospect of protecting conservation works and structures has been studied using a model for estimating and simulating sediment transport and yields. These studies provide a better understanding of the erosion and siltation phenomena. The stakes of integrated development around hill reservoirs are strongly linked to the sustainability of the resource. The types of the crops and of the agricultural conservation projects must be adapted to the expected duration of the dam and to the rhythm it is drying up. The consequent recharge of the water table improves the potential of development downstream. The environmental impact of these projects are linked to the quality of the water and to its maintenance. They are positive, the main risk being the breaking of the dikes.


The invention relates to a laboratory environment and equipment wireless monitoring and alarming system, belonging to the wireless monitoring field. The system comprises n wireless probes, one base station node, one PC and a prepared monitoring program therein, one GSM module and a user mobile phone, wherein, n is a positive integer; and the wireless probes establishes alletizin with the base station node through a short distance wireless communication protocol networking, the base station node is accessed into the PC by a serial port, the GSM module is accessed into the PC by a USB interface, and the PC is used for operating the monitoring program. The system can realize reconfigurability and availability of equipment by designing the wireless intelligent probes, realize convenient system layout by a short distance wireless communication technology, realize variety and realiablity of an alrming mode by the GSM module, and realize real-time property for updating wireless probe parameters by an online parameter table synchronization technology.


Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms, and Cultures. Chris McManus. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2002; 432 pp. In an age when popular science books seem to be written about just about anything-there are several currently circulating, for instance, on the topic of coffee, and two on the role of cod in world history-we have here an entry that discusses an apparently idiosyncratic and potentially trivial topic: asymmetries of various kinds. It is also a book that ranges widely across normal disciplinary boundaries, as suggested by the book's subtitle: "The origins of asymmetry in brains, bodies, atoms and cultures." It turns out that "handedness" or asymmetry can be found in phenomena ranging from the smallest to largest scales of organization. We are told of left-handed sub-atomic particles such as neutrinos, left-handed amino-acids, the left-sided heart, and our lateralized brains, in which language abilities are usually found in the left hemisphere. The book's author, Chris McManus, a professor of Psychology and Medical Education at University College London, is someone who admits to a nearly lifelong obsession with this topic. This isn't surprising, since it would take a life-time to acquire the expertise necessary to cover the range of topics so lucidly conveyed in this book. McManus really covers a lot of ground, and the book makes for a fascinating read. One can't help but learn some new things and gain new perspectives. McManus also has a real passion for his subject, making for some lively prose, with fascinating anecdotes. But it was winning a prize for popular science writing in a contest sponsored by a British medical trust that put the idea of writing the book into the author's head. Given that no one but McManus is likely to be expert in all the areas he covers, it's just as well that he deals with each topic presuming little background. But why should anyone really be interested in so arcane a subject as symmetry? Is this book simply something one picks up to flip through, looking for that juicy tidbit to impress listeners at the next cocktail party? Handedness or symmetry, after all, is not something that is regularly advertised in academic job descriptions as an area of expertise, so one need not read this to catch up on some well-recognized area of research. One might wonder, in particular, why should an anthropologist read a volume like this? Much of what the book covers falls into the domains of other sciences like physics and biology. But the book's title mentions "asymmetries in culture," and several chapters are devoted to analyzing cultural topics. For example, McManus provides explanations for why some countries drive on the left, and why some scripts move from left to right (e.g., English), while others are written in the opposite direction (e.g., Hebrew). These phenomena are basically just social conventions, sometimes acquired by transmission from other groups, so no universal principle is at work here (which is why there are examples of both kinds of rules in each case). But other features of culture and society are not so variable. In fact, there is, McManus argues, a universal symbolic association of right with good and left with bad. For example, he provides lists from Aristotle (derived from "principles" established by the Pythagoreans) and a variety of cultural groups (such as the Gogo of Tanzania) that can be compiled to produce a compelling world-view based on this simple dichotomy: IMAGE FORMULA7IMAGE FORMULA8 Lots of rituals must go in clock-wise progression as well, McManus notes (just think of passing food around a table). Religions are full of symbolic asymmetries. The Bible refers to the "right hand of God," for instance. Such universal principles beg for explanation, not just cataloguing, McManus argues. But there is no universal theory of symbolism, and so no way to make sense of this apparently universal tendency to equate handedness with other traits. …


Among various building information model (BIM) reconstruction methods for existing building, image-based method can identify building components from scanned as-built drawings and has won great attention due to its lower cost, less professional operators and better reconstruction performance. However, this kind of method will cost a great deal of time to design and extract features. Moreover, the manually extracted features have poor robustness and contain less non-geometric information. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a deep learning-based method to detect building components from scanned 2D drawings. Taking structural drawings as an example, in this article, 1500 images of structural drawings were firstly collected and preprocessed to guarantee the quality of data. After that, the neural network model—You Only Look Once (YOLO) was trained, verified and tested. In addition, a series of metrics were utilized to evaluate the performance of recognition. The results of test experiments show that the components in structural drawings (e.g., grid reference, column and beam) can be successfully detected, while the average detection accuracy of the whole image is over 80% and the average detection time for each image is 0.71 s. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is robust and timesaving, which provides a good basis for the reconstruction of BIM from 2D drawings.


International law allows South Africa to exercise in its contiguous zone, which may not extend beyond 24 nm. Both in international law and in South African law, the contiguous zone is not part of the South African territory and legislation must be presumed not to apply extra-territorially. The MZA provides for a maritime cultural zone of 12 nm, within which South Africa has, "in respect of objects of an archaeological or historical nature found in [it], the same rights and powers as it has in respect of its territorial waters". At the regional level, South Africa is a member of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), established in 1910, together with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. Illegal immigration is a major challenge for South Africa, but sea-borne migration is not as serious a problem in South Africa as it is in other parts of the world.Keywords: Contiguous Zone; Customs; Immigration Jurisdiction; International law; Maritime Cultural Zone; south africa


In the last decade, organizations have spent billions of dollars on attempts to improve productivity. But while 85 percent of U.S.-based corporations engaged in some form of restructuring, most of these changes failed. Indeed, 44 percent of the companies reported that the situation actually worsened. The reason, explains William Joyce, is that traditional methods for designing and changing organizations have been based on an assumption of human limitations -- a premise that buries creativity in bureaucracy and useless systems and procedures, and denies employees' needs for satisfying work.Megachange prescribes a very different journey -- from a new starting point defined by a person's strengths. Joyce's "New Logic for Change" is composed of four critical steps: Empowering the Workforce, Engaging Systems, Reforming Structures, and Redirecting Strategy. Developed while the author was guiding large-scale change at Nabisco and Citibank and at Aetna during its acquisition of U.S. Healthcare, the Megachange system creates an organizational culture that emphasizes human values and is based on meaningful work, not just the bottom line.


According to WHO (World Health Organization) depression is the third largest psychological disorder that is thought to occur in (5%) of the world's population and the onset of depression has a relationship with several factors one of which is family support. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of family support with the level of depression in the elderly in the Social Home Tresna Werdha Kasih Sayang Batusangkar. This research use cross sectional approach. The study was conducted at the Tresna Werdha Social House of Mother Love Batusangkar in July 2017 with a population of 53 elderly people who suffer from depression. Sampling technique with total sampling. Data processing is done computerized using computerized program. The result of univariate analysis showed that (67,9%) respondents got good support and (39,6%) respondents had moderate depression. In bivariate analysis p value = 0.008 means there is a relationship of family support with depression level in elderly. It is expected that Tresna Werdha Social Welfare officer Kasih Ibu Batusangkar to raise awareness and always give support to elderly. It is intended that the level of depression in the elderly in the Social House Tresna Werdha Valentine's Love Batusangkar decreased even none.


This paper considers the performance of an important player in the UK retail market - the Co-operative societies. We argue that the fragmented nature of the UK Consumer Co-operative Movement - which had at one time over 1000 separate associations - has historically been an impediment to its market competitiveness. The paper also demonstrates how wider trends in UK retailing favour nationally-organized chains such as the current market leader - Tesco. This inherent inability of the Co-op to compete nationally eventually led to it having to retreat from the successful superstore format so favoured by its rivals. However, we argue that current policy agendas offer a new opportunity for the Co-op.


We present an up-to-date analysis of muon $g-2$ evaluations in terms of Mellin-Barnes moments as they might be useful for lattice QCD calculations of $a_\mu$. The moments up to 4th order are evaluated directly in terms of $e^+e^-$--annihilation data and improved within the Hidden Local Symmetry (HLS) Model, supplied with appropriate symmetry breaking mechanisms. The model provides a reliable Effective Lagrangian (BHLS) estimate of the two-body channels plus the $\pi\pi\pi$ channel up to 1.05~GeV, just including the $\phi$ resonance. The HLS piece accounts for 80\% of the contribution to $a_\mu$. The missing pieces are evaluated in the standard way directly in terms of the data. We find that the moment expansion converges well in terms of a few moments. The two types of moments which show up in the Mellin-Barnes representation are calculated in terms of hadronic cross--section data in the timelike region and in terms of the hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP) function in the spacelike region which is accessible to lattice QCD (LQCD). In the Euclidean the first type of moments are the usual Taylor coefficients of the HVP and we show that the second type of moments may be obtained as integrals over the appropriately Taylor truncated HVP function. Specific results for the isovector part of $a_\mu^{\rm had}$ are determined by means of HLS model predictions in close relation to $\tau$--decay spectra.


The article introduces the method for restoring center point of Tai-Gu Square building.Firstly the building center point of the first underground floor,then the center point of fourth-floor is gained,finally setting-out data are resumedfor ensuring the design requirement and project verification of this building.


Nowadays, security has become a fundamental concern of computer systems. This requirement can be satisfied using encryption, which refers to protecting private information against third parties. A broad range of encryption algorithms is symmetric, in which the parties share the same key for encryption/decryption. As these algorithms are fed with fixed-sized inputs, the plaintext should be divided into blocks with the determined size. This results in designing various modes of operations. In this paper, we have proposed a new mode of operation, namely Automata-based Block Cipher mode (CACB). This mode exploits the randomness property of CA to generate proper random vectors. Using high quality random vectors makes independent encryption of blocks possible. To speed-up encryption process, we have used GPU to encipher blocks in parallel. The numerical comparisons show that, our algorithm improves the randomness of input vectors significantly. Moreover, using GPU to enable parallel execution, reduces the runtime considerably.


The link between religion and prosociality but also, paradoxically, many kinds of prejudice has been established for decades. However, researchers in that field conducted their investigations only in Western cultural and religious contexts. Do these findings also hold for Eastern religions and Asian cultures? Across ten studies, we demonstrated that the paradoxical relation between religion and both prosociality and prejudice is not universal. We consistently found that East Asian religiosity and religious concepts promote not only prosociality but also tolerance (low prejudice) toward ethnic and religious outgroups. A greater tolerance of contradiction and compassion seem to explain the positive impact of East Asian religions. It is our impression that this dissertation contributes significantly to the body of research in cross-cultural psychology as well as in psychology of religion. It reminds us the importance of a better understanding of how prejudiced attitudes emerge across and between religious and cultural contexts.


A summary of the methods of electron temperature and electron density measurement in low-pressure nitrogen and argon discharges using optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is given. This paper describes recently developed simple kinetic models for nitrogen and argon discharges and their applications in establishing the relationship between the electron parameters (temperature and density) and the OES line ratios from the discharges. In particular, the assumptions and applicability of these models in different kinds of discharges (capacitively coupled and inductively coupled discharges, discharges with different gas mixtures, etc) are discussed in detail.


The outdoor public address system is one of the important methods to notify evacuation information in disaster situations. However, when speech announcements are simultaneously radiated from a number of dispersedly located loudspeakers, speech intelligibility decreases because of temporal or spatial segregation of speech streams, just like a long-path echo in large closed spaces. The present study is focusing on relationship between speech intelligibility and spatial characteristics of long-path echo. Useful-detrimental ratio (U50) was tested to predict speech intelligibility scores in sound fields with a discrete long-path echo. A noteworthy feature of U50 is that all energy of long-path echo is explicitly counted as detrimental energy. The results of intelligibility tests demonstrated that the feature led to lower intelligibility predictions, that is, predictions on the safe side. Meanwhile, the prediction errors increased when the difference between interaural differences for the direct sound and the l...


According to practical situation of MIS development and application, this paper puts forward a MIS model based on user of the system,which includes Database Reconstruction Module, Query Reconstruction Module, User-interface Resolution Module and Database backing Module. It can realize all kinds of database objects,redesign query-interface and keep logistic in-dependency between application program and database. It has been proved by the application that MIS system constructed on the user can largely reduce the work for system maintenance and increase the expansibility.


In this "article", a "new "adjustment" is made on Two-fishalgorithm based on using a new operation called cyclic group extended # (CGE#) operation for increasing the randomness of algorithm. This isa new operation works on 8-bits and using 30 tables constructed with cyclic group and multiplication in Galois Field (GF) (28). A new (CGE#) operation is used instead of (X-OR)"operation in "each "round of Fe-istel of Two-fish. This is done by using dual keys: one key is used for selecting one table among 30 tables, and the other" key" is used for: encryption: and "decryption. The proposed algorithms are evaluated by using many security metrics such as complexity, NIST, histogram and correlation coefficients. The modification has givengood results in these metrics, and this leads to make the proposed algorithmmuch more robust against many the attacks.


Sponsored by the National Science Foundation Developed by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Paula Sanjuan Espejo Aerospace Engineering Student, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Undergraduate Student Research Assistant firstname.lastname@example.com email@example.com Contact information: • Email: firstname.lastname@example.com • Webpage: www.i-m.mx/sla/slaable/ SLA-aBLe started in 2014. The researchers have been implementing second language acquisition methods, frameworks, and cognitive skills to the learning process of programming languages in Introduction to Computing for Engineers (MATLAB) courses at EmbryRiddle Aeronautical University for four terms. The new materials are focused on developing problem-solving skills and include: new slides and videos with embedded quizzes to keep students engaged, open-ended programming quiz questions, discussion boards online and think-pair-share in-class activities. Surveys and one-on-one interviews were conducted to obtain feedback from students, which was used to improve the materials.


The kinetics of ruthenium (III) chloride (Ru(III)) catalyzed and uncatalyzed oxidation of an anticonvulsant drug, pregabalin (PG) by N-chloro-ptoluenesulfonamide or chloramine-T (CAT) in HClO4 medium was investigated in the temperature range 293K -313K. The reaction showed a first order dependence on [oxidant]o, fractional order dependence on [PG]o and inverse fractional order dependence on [H] for both Ru(III) catalyzed and uncatalyzed reactions. The order with respect to Ru(III) concentration was unity. The reaction stoichiometry was found to be 1:2 for both the cases and oxidation products were identified. The products of reaction and halide ions have no significant effect on the rate in both the cases. The variation of ionic strength of the medium alters the rate in catalyzed reactions, but it has no effect on uncatalyzed reactions. The reaction rate was slightly decreased by the dielectric constant in both the cases. The reaction products were identified by the spot test, GC-MS and IR. The kinetics of Ru(III) catalyzed oxidation of PG by CAT has been compared with those of uncatalyzed reactions; The catalyzed reactions were found to be about 3-fold faster. The reaction constants involved in different steps of the mechanism were calculated for both the cases. The thermodynamic parameters were determined for both the cases. The catalytic constant (Kc) was also calculated for catalyzed reactions at different temperatures.


clinical problem A 9-month old boy, born of a non-consanguineous marriage was referred for bradycardia. The child was otherwise asymptomatic. On examination, his heart rate was 60 bpm, with no apex pulse deficit. Other systems were normal. Investigations showed complete heart block on electrocardiograph (ECG) and echocardiography was normal How should this child be managed? Complete heart block, also known as complete atrioventricular (AV) block, is a condition in which the electrical impulses generated by the sino-atrial node in the atria of the heart are not conducted to the ventricles. Due to this, the intrinsic electric rhythm of the ventricular muscle takes over the pacemaker role for the ventricles. As the intrinsic rhythm of the ventricles has a much lower frequency (about 40 beats/minute), compared to that of the atria (100 beats/minute)1, this condition manifests clinically as bradycardia. The ECG shows a complete dissociation between the P-waves (representing the atrial rhythm) and the QRS complexes (representing the ventricular activity). This condition manifests in about 1 in every 20,000 live births.2 Complete congenital AV block (CAVB) may be diagnosed during fetal life or after birth. It may be isolated or occur in association with congenital structural defects of the heart, such as atrioventricular discordance or AV canal defects. It may also be associated with heterotaxy.1 A strong association has been recorded between the incidence of congenital heart block and the presence of maternal anti-Ro/SSA autoantibodies, which may or may not be associated with maternal autoimmune diseaseusually systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) or Sjogren's syndrome. About 1-2% of mothers with anti Ro/SSA antibodies give birth to children with CAVB, with a 12-20% recurrence rate in subsequent pregnancies.3 Other possible etiologies include myocarditis, and cardiomyopathy, including congenital conditions such as Hurler cardiomyopathy.1 CAVB has a good prognosis. However, this depends on a number of factors, such as intra-uterine detection at an early gestational age and the presence of associated structural defects. The estimated mortality of nonpaced patients is 8%-16% in infants and 4%-8% in children and adults. Instances of patients surviving up to the fourth to six decades of life without pacemaker implantation have been recorded.4 A complete work-up of a child diagnosed with CAVB is required. Twenty-four hour (Holter or ambulatory) ECG monitoring is recommended to determine the nature of the block, i.e. if it is continuous or intermittent, as well as to check for any other electrocardiographical abnormalities.1,5 Chest radiography must also be performed to check for cardiomegaly and pleural effusions.1 Exercise tolerance cannot be deduced from the resting heart rate, so exercise testing must be conducted, as ectopy with exercise is frequent in these patients.5 Routine electrolyte assays and complete blood counts must be performed in case of any metabolic derangements or blood cell deficiencies, especially thrombocytopenia. Assessments for evidence of organ damage must also be performed.1 The mother should be evaluated for connective tissue disorders, presence anti-Ro antibodies, and other signs of autoimmunity if this has not been performed previously.1,5 The approach to the therapy of CAVB can be classified into pharmacological and pacemaker therapy. Pharmacological therapy is more useful as a prophylactic measure as it does not reverse third degree heart block, but may be useful in preventing progression to complete heart block, if firstor second-degree heart block is detected in utero. These therapies include plasmapheresis, immunoglobulins, and corticosteroids.1 Transplacental administration of dexamethasone is the current treatment modality for fetuses, however, recent studies show no significant reduction in the occurrence of hydrops fetalis.5 Most children with CAVB will inevitably require permanent pacemaker insertion at some point. This is indicated in all symptomatic patients with syncope, congestive heart failure (CHF), or chronotropic incompetence limiting physical activity.5 However, some patients may be asymptomatic or exhibit mild and general symptoms such as frequent nightmares, naps, tiredness or unsatisfactory growth. In such cases, pacemakers may be inserted if the cause for these symptoms can be strongly associated with bradycardia. Other parameters are based on ventricular dysfunction Article history Received 4 August 2019 Accepted 10 August 2019


"Exodus: How Migration is Changing Our World." Paul Collier. Oxford University Press. October 2013. --- In Exodus, Paul Collier lays out the effects of encouraging or restricting migration in the interests of both sending and receiving societies. Drawing on original research and numerous case studies, Collier explores this volatile issue from three unique perspectives: the migrants themselves, the people they leave behind, and the host societies where they relocate. Dalibor Rohac feels this forthcoming book does not fully get to grips with the evidence on untapped economic gains from free migration, but nevertheless this is still a must-read for students of migration.


What does a horticulturist or landscape architect strive to attain when choosing plants for a naturalistic animal exhibit in any major zoo? Should visitors come upon bananas and tropical figs complementing an exhibit featuring giraffes or zebras that naturally roam the hot, arid Serengeti? Let's hope not. Likewise, they should not be confronted by trees that resemble the acacias of arid Kenya and Tanzania in a lowland gorilla exhibit. In order to simulate a particular geographical area as closely as possible, zoo horticulturists must have a thorough knowledge of the region's overall geology, climate, economy, and social customs-all critically important for installing an appropriate habitat for zoo


Labor mobility for some people is one of the strategies of ruralhouseholds to improve economic conditions by improving their incomes. Thereason why the mobility Cenderungnya headed overseas, partly because of theeconomic conditions of the region of origin can not meet the needs of life insociety. Instead the country of destination is more promising in terms ofincreased revenue. Even with the income he earned at the destination, they areable to deliver remittances to the households left behind in the area of origin.This study aims to determine how the influence of income, consumptionexpenditure, number of family members in the area of origin, and thesimultaneous presence of parents or partially to the delivery of remittances tothe region of origin and to examine the use of sending remittances to theirhometown. The data used are primary data in a sample of 122 out of 177members of the population. Sampling was done by proportional stratifiedrandom sampling. Analysis technique used is multiple linear regression with theF test and t test.Results showed that, simultaneously income, consumption expenditure,number of family members in the area of origin and the presence of parentssignificantly influence the delivery of remittances to Fcount (64.957) > Ftable of(2.68). Partially, the income has positive and significant impact on delivery ofremittances to the region of origin. Consumption expenditure and a significantnegative effect on the delivery of remittances to the region of origin. Thenumber of family members and significant positive effect on the delivery ofremittances to the region of origin, while the presence of parents does notsignificantly influence the delivery of remittances to the region of origin.Sending remittances to family utilization in areas used for debt repayment,investment and home construction as well as in savings.


Objective To evaluate the relationship between the ER,PR and P-gp with prognosis in NSCLC.Methods The S-P immunohistochemical techniques were used to test the expression levels of ER,PR and P-gp in NSCLC.Results The positive rates of ER and PR were 45.2% and 40.4%.The expression rates of ER and PR were both 64.7% in adenocarcinoma,which were apparently higher than that in other types of lung cancer tissues,P0.01.The positive rate of P-gp in NSCLC was 40.4%.In lung cancer the expressions of ER,PR and P-gp had no relationship with the patients' sex,age,clinical stage,degree of differentiation of tumor cells,P0.05.The non-tumor survival rate in the negitive expression of P-gp was higher than that in the positive expression,P0.01.There were obvious correlation between the expressions of P-gp and ER,PR in lung cancer,P0.05.Conclusions The expressions of ER and PR could not be taken as the reference indexes to judge the prognosis of patients' conditions.P-gp could be taken as a reference index to judge the clinical effect of the chemotherapy and make prognosis of patients with lung cancer.The expression of P-gp and those of ER and PR in lung cancer tissue were in a positive correlation.


The invention relates to a high power modulated signal generator, a generator calibration method and a magnetic resonance imaging system. The invention finds particular utility in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). According to the invention, the generator comprises: • means (11, 13, 14, 17) for generating a sinusoidal signal out of phase with a first variable value (-θ) with respect to a phase reference and a sinusoidal signal out of phase with a given fixed value added to a second variable value (+ θ) with respect to the phase reference, the second variable value being opposite to the first variable value with respect to the phase reference, the variable values (-θ, θ ) being representative of the modulation of the radiofrequency signal, the two sinusoidal signals being of constant amplitude, • two amplifiers (15, 16) each amplifying one of the sinusoidal signals in a saturated regime, • a fixed phase shifter (12) of equal value to the given value of the means for generating the two sinusoidal signals, the fixed phase shifter (12) coupling the signals from the two amplifiers (15, 16) to deliver the modulated radio frequency signal.


This paper presents a 250 GHz hetero-integrated VCO using InP-on-BiCMOS technology. It consists of a single-ended Colpitts Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) in 0.25 μm SiGe-BiCMOS technology and a common-emitter based frequency tripler in 0.8 μm transferred-substrate (TS) InP-HBT technology, which are combined using a wafer-level BCB bonding process. The VCO operates at 83 GHz and the combined circuit delivers 0.7 mW output power at 250 GHz with 2% tuning range. This result documents recent advances of the hetero integrated process towards THz frequencies.


In this study, a bidirectional three-phase high-frequency ac link dc–ac converter is proposed for energy storage with low dc voltage. The operation of the converter changes with the direction of power flow. The proposed topology has the following advantages: high voltage conversion gain, high power factor, high conversion efficiency and high power density. The operation principle of the general control strategy, mode analysis and gate signals generation are discussed. The proposed architecture and the general control strategy have been validated by experimental results of a 300 W laboratory prototype using supercapacitors as the storage device.


Objectives: This paper aims to validate the performance and physical design of a wearable, unobtrusive ear-centered electroencephalography (EEG) device, dubbed "EARtrodes", using early and late auditory evoked responses. Results would also offer a proof-of-concept for the device to be used as a concealed brain–computer interface (BCI). Design: The device is composed of a custom-fitted earpiece and an ergonomic behind-the-ear piece with embedded electrodes made of a soft and flexible combination of silicone rubber and carbon fibers. The location of the conductive silicone electrodes inside the ear canal and the optimal geometry of the behind-the-ear piece were obtained through morphological and geometrical analysis of the human ear canal and the region around-the-ear. An entirely conductive generic earpiece was also developed to assess the potential of a universal, more affordable solution. Results: Early latency results illustrate the conductive silicone electrodes' capability to record quality EEG signals, comparable to those obtained with traditional gold-plated electrodes. Additionally, late latency results demonstrate EARtrodes' capacity to reliably detect decision-making processes from the ear. Conclusions: EEG results validate the performance of EARtrodes as a circum-aural and intra-aural EEG recording system adapted for a wide range of applications in audiology, neuroscience, clinical research, and as an unobtrusive BCI.