In this study, the use of the oxygenated fuels in spark-ignition (SI) engines has been investigated by means of exergy analysis. For this purpose, a two-zone quasi-dimensional thermodynamic cycle model was used. The cycle model contains compression, combustion, and expansion processes. The combustion period is simulated as a turbulent flame propagation process. Intake and exhaust processes are computed by a simple approximation method. Principles of the second law of thermodynamics are applied to the cycle model to perform exergy analysis. Exergetic terms, such as exergy transfer with heat, exergy transfer with work, irreversibilities, thermomechanical exergy, fuel chemical exergy, and total exergy, were computed in exergy analysis. Additionally, distributions of fuel exergy, the energy-based (the first law) efficiency, and the exergetic (the second law) efficiency were calculated. The results showed that the oxygenated fuels are suitable from an exergy point of view because of less entropy production and...


Under certain circumstances, Voigt waves can propagate in a biaxial composite medium even though the component material phases individually do not support Voigt wave propagation. This phenomenon is considered within the context of the strong-permittivity-fluctuation theory. A generalized implementation of the theory is developed in order to explore the propagation of Voigt waves in any direction. It is shown that the correlation length—a parameter characterizing the distributional statistics of the component material phases—plays a crucial role in facilitating the propagation of Voigt waves in the homogenized composite medium. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)


This study discusses the important role of the media, especially the Internet as a propaganda tool for the action of radicalism and the spread of terrorism in the name of religion. The virtual world has indeed changed the pattern and the map of radicalism and terrorism, with this technological advancement, terror is no longer only done with disgusting actions through various physical crimes, but also through the doctrination of religiously wrapped religious teachings. If the jelly catches the information, these unfounded abusive doctrines will naturally die. Radicalism and terrorism have indeed leveled up, but that does not mean that its existence can not be destroyed

Keywords: Radicalism, Religion and internet


METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MIXING MATERIALS. The method for mixing materials in a container (1) having two or more means STIRRING ROTARY (10, 20, 30) and apparatus for performing the method, wherein at least one of the agitating means (10, 20, 30) is rotated by a rotation speed different from that of another, or of others in a value that does not exceed 25%.


We propose an algorithm for the non-negative factorization of an occurrence tensor built from heterogeneous networks. We use l0 norm to model sparse errors over discrete values (occurrences), and use decomposed factors to model the embedded groups of nodes. An efficient splitting method is developed to optimize the nonconvex and nonsmooth objective. We study both synthetic problems and a new dataset built from financial documents, resMBS.


Objectives The purpose of this study is to study Dokdo education plans in teacher training institutions from the
perspective of education for sustainable development. In this study, from the perspective of education for sustainable
development, the Dokdo education plans in teacher training institutions was analyzed, focusing on the direction
of Dokdo education and the component of Dokdo education.
Methods As a literature study, this study collected domestic, foreign literature focusing on the topics of sustainable
development education, teacher training institutions, and Dokdo education. In this study, in the process of
analyzing the collected domestic, foreign literature, educational action theory and instructional design theory were
selected as a conceptual framework.
Results First, the direction of Dokdo education from the perspective of education for sustainable development
appeared as global community direction of Dokdo education in terms of values, past, present, future fair of Dokdo
education in terms of times, environment, economy, social integration of Dokdo education in terms of areas, and
regional, national, global cooperation of Dokdo education in terms of spaces. Second, the component of Dokdo
education from the perspective of education for sustainable development appeared as formation of identity as a
member of the global community, coexistence as a member of the global community in terms of educational purpose,
understanding of Dokdo issues into the past, present, future, insight of Dokdo issues into the past, present,
future, practice of Dokdo issues into the past, present, future in terms of educational goals, Dokdo related learning
from the environmental, economic, social levels, Dokdo integrated learning from the environmental, economic,
social levels in terms of learning contents, discussion activities for decision making, project learning for problem
solving in terms of education methods, and building a school community linking university and middle school,
building a local community linking university and local community in terms of educational infrastructure.
Conclusions This study suggests the development of a Dokdo education model that reflects the characteristics
of teacher training institutions, the development of Dokdo education standard curriculum in teacher training institutions,
the operation of Dokdo education centered on pre-service teachers in teacher training institutions, and
the support of the human and material resources for Dokdo education in teacher training institutions.


Liquid hydrogen around 20 K is used as cold moderator for generating "cold neutron beam" in nuclear research reactors. A cryogenic helium refrigeration system is the core upon which such hydrogen liquefaction applications are built. A thermodynamic process based on reversed Brayton cycle with two stage expansion using high speed cryogenic turboexpanders (TEX) along with a pair of compact high effectiveness process heat exchangers (HX), is well suited for such applications. An existing helium refrigeration system, which had earlier demonstrated a refrigeration capacity of 470 W at around 20 K, is modified based on past operational experiences and newer application requirements. Modifications include addition of a new heat exchanger to simulate cryogenic process load and two other heat exchangers for controlling the temperatures of helium streams leading out to the application system. To incorporate these changes, cryogenic piping inside the cold box is suitably modified. This paper presents process simulation, sizing of new heat exchangers as well as fabrication aspects of the modified cryogenic process piping.


Objective
To analyze the resistance genes in a multidrug resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (MDRKP) strain.

Methods
A MDRKP strain was isolated from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of Children's Hospital Affiliated to Soochow University in February 2012. Acquired resistance genes to beta-lactams, aminoglycosides, quinolones, ompK35 and ompK36 gene for outer membrane porin protein, and carbapenems targeting PBP2 gene were analyzed by PCR and verified by DNA sequencing.

Results
Acquired resistance genes TEM-1, SHV-1 to beta-lactam antimicrobial agents and aac(6')-Ⅰb to aminoglycoside antimicrobial agents were positive in the strain of MDRKP. While 16S rRNA methylase, ompK35 and ompK36 genes for outer membrane porin protein were negative. Compared with susceptible strains, there were 9 synonymous mutations in PBP2 gene sequence of this MDRKP strain, but the amino acid sequences were the same. No mutation in quinolone resistance determining region (QRDR) was observed.

Conclusion
The multidrug resistance of the isolated Klebsiella pneumoniae strain may be related to 2 kinds of beta-lactam acquired resistance genes, 1 kind of aminoglycoside acquired resistance gene, ompK35 and ompK36 genes defects and synonymous mutation in PBP2 gene.

Key words:
Klebsiella pneumoniae; Drug resistance, multiple; Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid; Resistance element


In the Superconducting linac ALPI, (Acceleratore Lineare Per Ioni) operating at Legnaro, 70 QWRs (Quarter Wave Resonators) are presently installed, 12 of them are full Nb resonators, 58 have been produced by deposition of a superconducting layer on a Cu base. Most of the Cu substrates were initially Pb plated and were later upgraded by the substitution of the Pb layer with a sputtered Nb film. In this way the QWR Nb sputtering technology, developed at Legnaro, allowed a substantial increase in the ALPI performance at a negligible cost. Accelerating fields exceeding 7 MV/m, at 7 W dissipated power, have been reached in newly designed ALPI QWRs, but lower performance was instead obtained in resonators produced using the old Cu substrates, thus limiting the average accelerating field of sputtered cavities in ALPI to 4.6 MV/m, always at the design dissipated power of 7 W. The Nb sputtered QWRs do not show any deterioration in performance with time; it is still improving due to better conditioning. The sputtered QWRs are very stiff and are not affected by frequency shifts due to drift in the He bath pressure. This allows their reliable locking up to the accelerating field allowed by the available cryogenic power also in the ALPI vault, where the environmental noise and the excursion in liquid He bath pressure are important. Their mechanical stability, differently from the bulk Nb QW resonators, allows taking full advantage of their performance. ALPI SUPERCONDUCTING LINAC ALPI is a superconducting linac for heavy ions which entered in operation at LNL in 1994 [1]. Initially it was used as a booster of an existing 15 MV XTU Tandem, but since 2005, it has been injected also by PIAVE, a new positive injector based on an ECR ion source followed by two superconducting SRFQs and 8 Nb QWRs [2]. PIAVE extends the range of ALPI accelerated beams both to noble gases and to very heavy ions (up to Pb). In the original design ALPI consisted of 97 Pb on Cu QWRs of three different βs. Only the 44 resonators of the medium β (β=0.11) section, which was completed in 1994, made use of the original resonator design [3]; the low β (β=0.056) section, which was later installed (1998), housed instead the double wall, full Nb, 80 MHz QW Resonators [4]. In the first two cryostats of high β section (β=0.13), we installed 8 QWRs instead, produced using since the beginning the Nb sputtering technology [5]. We did not have the possibility of filling all the originally foreseen cryostat positions up to now, but ALPI beam design energy was anyway reached in 2003, once the whole medium β section had its resonators upgraded by replacing the Pb with Nb [6]. ALPI can now provide beams exceeding 20 MeV/A in case of light ions and up to 6 MeV/A for Pb. At present only 4 Pb/Cu QWRs, housed in two bunching cryostats, are still installed. The ALPI layout is presented in fig. 1. QW NB SPUTTERING AT LNL In 1988, as soon as the construction of ALPI started, a research project devoted to the production of high performance QWRs, realized by Nb sputtering on Cu substrates, was funded. Since the beginning, we thought about the possibility of combining the better superconducting characteristics of Nb with the mechanical stability of Cu QWRs. As a matter of fact, producing high performance resonators by Nb sputtering would have allowed replacing, at a very low cost, the ALPI Pb/Cu QWRs in the future; moreover we could have had available immediately the less expensive and that time easier to build, Pb on Cu cavities. We choose to investigate the DC biased sputtering technology, which was expected to reach good thickness uniformity without the complication of developing plasma magnetic confinement structure [7]. If the deposition rate is lower in case of DC biased sputtering with respect to the magnetron sputtering process, the bias presence, which promotes the film impurity release by the bombardment of low energy Ar atoms, allows maintaining the impurities level in the superconducting layer low, enhancing the film superconducting properties. After setting up the sputtering system, we tried to obtain on the samples good film uniformity and superconducting characteristics. We sputtered a simplified QWR prototype in 1991. Accelerating fields comparable to the world best operating QWRs were obtained in 1993 in a modified prototype. The chosen rounded shorting plate, joining the inner and outer conductor, resulted very effective in enhancing the film superconducting characteristics. We applied the sputtering technology to the production of cavities of the ALPI high β section. The high β cavity design was optimized for its production by sputtering: we adopted the rounded shorting plate and also a capacitive coupler to avoid holes in high current region and external beam ports. These, jointed to the resonator body by indium gaskets, allowed avoiding shadow areas where the sputtered film used to be of bad quality. Figure 1: ALPI layout scheme. The low β cryostats are represented by green circles and house 80 MHz full Nb QWRs. The medium β and the high β cryostats are represented by red and by magenta circles respectively. All of them house 160 MHz, Nb on Cu sputtered QWRs. B2, B3 and B4 are bunching cryostats. All of them house medium β cavities; B2 house Nb on Cu QWR; B3 and B4 still have installed Pb on Cu resonators. A few positions are still available to host other cryostats in future. We installed the first high β cryostat in 1996, but some troubles in the cryostat assembling limited the cavity performance to an average value of 4 MV/m at 7 W of dissipated power [8]. In 1998 we had the opportunity to replace the resonators with completely new units, which, since then, operate in ALPI at an average accelerating field of 6 MV/m, always at 7 W dissipated power. A second high β cryostat, housing the first produced high β cavities, was installed in 2001. In the cavities of the latter cryostat we could not obtain the same performance, mainly because we did not used good quality substrates. Later, being other high β cryostats not available, we investigated the possibility to enhance the performance of the installed medium β cavities. A systematic cavity upgrading programme could start only in 1999, when we had to repair or prevent cryogenic leaks, which began to appear in some cryostats. The upgrading program was completed in 2003 increasing the average accelerating field of medium β resonators from 2.2 MV/m (average field of Pb resonators before removal) to more than 4.5 MV/m. Recently we obtained funds for the production of 4 new, medium β QWR substrates and we are going to have them available for the sputtering process soon. We expect the same performance reached in high β resonators. ALPI SPUTTERED QWRS


The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for container inspection in the inspection unit. By providing the test mark having a test vessel and a method having multidimensional data carrier encoded information about the test vessel, the test data on the individual markers may be a simple, low cost and reliable manner is read and simultaneously ensuring convincing check control.


clicking here. colleagues, clients, or customers by , you can order high-quality copies for your If you wish to distribute this article to others here. following the guidelines can be obtained by Permission to republish or repurpose articles or portions of articles ):  December 16, 2012  www.sciencemag.org (this information is current as of The following resources related to this article are available online at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/320/5880/1170.full.html version of this article at: including high-resolution figures, can be found in the online Updated information and services, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/320/5880/1170.full.html#ref-list-1 , 3 of which can be accessed free: cites 18 articles This article 69 article(s) on the ISI Web of Science cited by This article has been http://www.sciencemag.org/content/320/5880/1170.full.html#related-urls 3 articles hosted by HighWire Press; see: cited by This article has been http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/collection/mat_sci Materials Science subject collections: This article appears in the following


AUSTRALIASYDNEY-- Last month the vice chancellor of the University of New South Wales decided to throw out the most serious allegations of scientific misconduct against prominent Australian renal transplant specialist Bruce Hall.


"Oil and water" is a synonym of being incompatible. However, when amphiphiles ( or surfactants ) are added, oil 'and water become solvent to each other to some extent depending on the relative ratios of three substances. It is because surfactants tend to concentrate as a monolayer at an interface between oil and water, reducing the interfacial tension remarkably. Our main interest is in the single fluid phase of the microemulsions, which is seen for a constant temperature in the low to intermediate region of surfactant concentration C s and in a broad range of water (or oil) concentraion C w (or co).!) The bi-continuous microemulsion (bi-lYIE) exists in C w '" Co, with an isotropic percolated sheet of surfactants sitting at the water-oil interface. The mono-continuous MEs (mono-ME) exist in both sides of the bi-ME. The present study addresses the following questions.


For a given transition rate, i.e., a Q-matrix Q = (qij ) on a countable state space, the uniqueness of the Q-semigroup P(t) = (Pij (t)), the recurrence and the positive recurrence of the corresponding Markov chain are three fundamental and classical problems, treated in many textbooks. As an addition, this paper introduces some practical results motivated from the study of a type of interacting particle systems, reaction diffusion processes. The main results are theorems (1.11), (1.17) and (1.18). Their proofs are quite straightforward.


The slope aspect turned out to be a factor reliably determining significant differences in the annual dynamics of the main taxonomic groups of microorganisms. The higher abundance of oligotrophic bacteria was recorded in soils on north-facing slopes and that of eutrophic bacteria, in soils of watersheds. Micromycetes and cellulose-decomposing microorganisms were more abundant in soils of south-facing slope, while actinomycetes, in soils of east-facing slopes. The reliable relationship between the humus content and the main microbiological and biochemical characteristics of ordinary chernozem was found on the basis of processing the data by regression analysis.


In an attempt to increase production of LK8, an 86-amino-acid kringle fragment of human apolipoprotein(a) with three disulfide linkages, protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) was coexpressed in recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae harboring the LK8 gene in the chromosome. Whereas overexpression of the LK8 gene without coexpressing PDI was detrimental to both host cell growth and LK8 production, coexpression of PDI increased the LK8 production level by 2.5-fold in batch cultivation and 5.0-fold in fed-batch cultivation compared with the control strain carrying only the genomic PDI gene.


This paper investigates synchronization of coupled neural-mass models. Compared with some existing papers which study the dynamical behaviors of single neural-mass model, some synchronization criteria of coupled neural-mass models are derived. Moreover, the adjacency coupling for neural- mass models is investigated, which is more generalized than the special coupling in some existing papers. Furthermore, those derived synchronization criteria can be used to study synchronization of neural-mass models with special coupling. Two simulation examples are used to reveal the effectiveness of derived synchronization criteria.


The paper intends to discuss the right to property, its origin, functionality, and the effects of positive law, which may cause insecurities or uncertainties that can influence negatively potential investments.


The bioaccumulation rule of the gaseous DDTs in spinach and carrot was studied under the condition of water cultivation. The DDTs were accumulated mainly on the leaves of spinach and carrot, and expressed the following rules: Wp,p'-DDE Wo,p'-DDE Wp,p'-DDD Wp,p'-DDT Wo,p'-DDT. The accumulative abilities of different DDTs in the bodies of spinach and carrot were different. The bioaccumulation factors in the bodies of spinach and carrot were BCFp,p'-DDE BCFo,p'-DDE BCFp,p'-DDD BCFp,p'-DDT BCFo,p'-DDT. The bioaccumulation amount and bioaccumulation factor of gaseous DDT on the leaves of spinach were all higher than those on carrot. The average accumulation amount and bioaccumulation factors (BCF) in the bodies of spinach and carrot of degradation products p,p'-DDE and o,p'-DDE were all higher than their mother compounds p,p'-DDT and o,p'-DDT.


Abstract The experimental data collected on the interaction of active centers of carbon black with the rubber on the one hand and of the active centers of carbon black with the sulfur and accelerators, and also with the antioxidants, on the other hand, provide a sound basis for belief that the problem of reinforcement of rubber by active fillers in the process of vulcanization cannot be explained from the physical aspect alone. The facts indicate the considerable importance of the chemical reactions between the active groups of carbon black and the compounding ingredients in the course of vulcanization.


This thesis functions as a comparative exercise juxtaposing reconciliation politics in Rwanda and Burundi from a bottom-up perspective. Rwanda and Burundi have been labeled 'twins' before. Both countries have a very similar population structure and history of mass violence. However, their post-conflict processes differ. This fact renders them ideal candidates for comparison. Rwanda's 'maxi-mum approach' is compared to Burundi's 'non-approach' to reconciliation politics on two levels: official and informal. The 'official' level examines intention and politico-economic context from the government's side, the 'informal' level looks at how these policies have been perceived at the grass-roots and if they succeeded in reconciling the population with regard to the key objectives memory, acknowledgement, apology, recognition, and justice.
The thesis analyzes and compares the advantages and disadvantages of both models thoroughly and identifies pitfalls and solutions with regard to breaking the cycle of alternating revenge and domi-nance by re-orienting national reconciliation politics towards the perceptions and insights of the rural population at the grassroots. The thesis concludes that the strong governmental focus on con-trolling the reconciliation discourse in Rwanda and the self-absorption of the political elite in Burundi in politico-economic power struggles are the main obstacles to reconciliation as they risk to margin-alizing and alienating large parts of the population.


This experiment adopts two factors mixed experimental design to explore the basketball referees' penalty decision ability. The results show that 1) high level referees in the condition of high tension decision- making accuracy were better than that of low tension,and the time they take decision were shorter; 2) decision accuracy of low level referees in high tension state was lower than in low tension state,and the time they take to make decision was longer than low tension state. It is suggested that the referees professional skills training focus on on- the- spot emotional state regulation ability training,especially the referees' self adjust ability,in order to avoid excessive tension,therefor the refarees can accurately find fouls in time.


The Internet has increased its inclusion of highly available servers. These servers require not only fault tolerance but intrusion resilience. DNS servers are particularly critical components on the Internet, since a DNS service is an infrastructure for the Internet. This paper proposes an implementation of an intrusion-resilient system for the DNS service using an active redundancy approach with diversification. This system is composed of heterogeneous virtual machines running different operating systems and different server implementations of the same server protocol specification. The approach is founded on the observation that not all implementations will be affected by the same vulnerability, apart from vulnerabilities in the specifications and shared libraries. The intrusion-resilient system needs to run only two application servers in parallel whereas others, such as intrusion-tolerant systems, require many physical resources to diversify an application server and operating systems. Tests of the intrusion-resilient system demonstrated that stab resolvers did not fail name resolution even during downtime due to cyberattacks. In addition, the overhead of the intrusion-resilient system had negligible effect on DNS service performance.


Dynamic overshoot (DO) of saccades was investigated in 17 normal subjects and 24 patients with central nervous lesions affecting the cerebellum and its connecting pathways, in order to detect and to define a pathological pattern of DO. Eye movements were recorded binocu-larly with the infrared reflection method. Normal subjects showed a high incidence of DO (average: 86% of all saccades) with an average amplitude of 0.16 deg (range of individual averages 0.08 to 0.41 deg). In 52% of all saccades DO occurred in both eyes and in 34% in one eye only. As in normals, the incidence of DO was too variable in patients to be used as a diagnostic tool. Six patients (out of 24) were considered to have pathological DO: their DO amplitudes (range of averages 0.57-0.99 deg) and/or left-right asymmetries exceeded the range of normal subjects. Three had multiple sclerosis, one a hereditary ataxia, one Friedreich's ataxia and one Wallenberg's syndrome.DO is considered to result from an alteration in the saccade braking (d...


The most popular technologies for implementing ubiquitous networks are radio frequency identification (RFID) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs), which have been actively investigated in the literature. Before the RFID and WSN technologies can be applied to ubiquitous networks successfully, a clear understanding of the issues involved in integrating WSNs with electronic product code (EPC) in RFID systems is essential. This work proposes an approach to integrating RFID and WSN architectures through interworking between WSN and EPC to formulate a WSN/EPC network architecture. This combination provides a flexible system framework and a convenient platform for selecting the modules that users needed to develop a digital home environment. The WSN/EPC framework also facilitates implementation of heterogeneous networks in a U-life environment.


The structure and determinants of the molten globule folding intermediate of a-lactalbumin (c-LA) are investigated using a combination of site-directed mutagenesis, disulfide chemistry, and spectroscopy. The a-LA molten globule folding intermediate may best be described as a bipartite structure consisting of a molten globule helical domain containing helices arranged in a native-like topology and a largely unstructured beta sheet domain (Chapter 2). Analysis of thiol-disulfide effective concentrations for native and non-native cysteine pairs in the helical domain of the a-LA molten globule reveals local preferences for native-like structure (Chapter 3). Analysis of hydrophobic core mutants defines a stabilizing subdomain containing specific native-like sidechain interactions (Chapter 4). Finally, simultaneous mutation of all hydrophobic sidechains to a representative hydrophobic residue leucine in a recombinant model of the isolated helical domain suggests that specific hydrophobic sidechain diversity may not be necessary to establish the native-like fold of the a-LA molten globule (Chapter 5). The appendix describes studies aimed at clarifying the requirements for forming fixed tertiary interactions from the molten globule state. It is shown that acquisition of specific tertiary interactions requires calcium-dependent organization of the beta sheet domain and the interdomain regions of a-LA. Thesis Supervisor: Peter S. Kim Title: Professor of Biology


Interview with retail salesperson conducted March 16, 2010. James Silver is a 28-year old white male working at Sears. His work week consists of between 35 and 40 hours, and he has been employed with Sears for over five years. James has a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from the University at Buffalo.


Abstract Computing with graphical objects techniques have proved useful in the management of imperfect graphical information. This paper presents graphical user interface (GUI) constructed for Content-Based Image Retrieval System (CBIR) in order to build a query by image. In our case, this image example is prepared individually by the user from the graphical objects offered by the GUI. The images are described based on a two-staged index and compared, applying compatibility and aggregation operators. We analyze the semantic imprecision and spatial or temporal relationships of graphical objects in the compared images using the fuzzy set theory.


PURPOSE
This study evaluates the dosimetric differences between dose-to-medium (Dm) and conventional dose-to-water (Dw) reporting using Varian's Acuros XB (AXB) dose calculation algorithm with actual patient treatment plans.

METHODS
Twelve patients were selected: four head-and-neck (HN) (2 Gy × 33-35 fractions), four lung SBRT (10-12 Gy × 5 fractions) and four spine SBRT (6-8 Gy × 5 fractions) cases. All treatment plans were optimized using the Varian Eclipse Progressive Resolution Optimizer (version 13.6) to meet objectives of institutional guidelines. After the optimization process, each plan was calculated using both Dw and Dm options within AXB. The calculated treatment plans were normalized such that the prescribed dose covered at least 95% of the PTV. The dose-volume histograms were evaluated for various dosimetric parameters. The percent difference between the two options is calculated as (AXB_Dw - AXB_Dm)/AXB_Dm *100.

RESULTS
The largest difference between AXB_Dw and AXB_Dm was seen in the mandible structure for HN cases, where AXB_Dw was up to 10% higher than AXB_Dm results (5.3%-10.2%). AXB_Dw was also higher for PTV maximum dose in these cases, ranging from 2.5%-5.7%. Among all other dosimetric parameters in HN, Spine and lung SBRT plans; the differences between AXB_Dw and AXB_Dm were within 5%. We also noted that AXB_Dw was consistently higher (1.8-3.8%) for cord in lung SBRT, and was consistently lower for esophagus/bowel in spine SBRT (-5% - -2.9%).

CONCLUSION
The preliminary dosimetric results from our clinical study show that the selection of either Dm or Dw in AXB is not likely to produce significant dosimetric differences in most clinical cases. However, Dw can be different by up to 10% in bony anatomy compared to Dm. Therefore, Dm is the preferred option to achieve the greatest accuracy in both target and critical structure, providing a smooth transition from conventional to state-of-the-art treatment planning.


Objective An in vitro study was conducted to evaluate the ability of nitrate reduction and its effect on ruminal methano genesis and fermentation characteristics of various microbial fractions.Method Using the Menke's gas production method in vitro,pure substrates formulated with soluble starch,Avicel,and sodium nitrate were anaerobicly incubated for 24 hours.Physical centrifugation and chemicals selections were used to differentiate microbial fractions as follows:whole rumen fluid(WRF),protozoa(P),bacteria(B),fungi(F),protozoa plus bacteria(P+B),protozoa plus fungi(P+F),bacteria plus fungi(B+F),and negative control(CTN).Result The results showed that the degradation of nitrate by fraction P was higher than fraction B(P0.001),while fraction F had little contribution to nitrate reduction,even for its co-culture with fractions of P or B.The gas production and nitrate reduction were greatest in WRF,followed by fractions of P+B and P,and the three fractions had greater values in methane(CH4) proportion,total VFA(TVFA) concentration and acetate molar proportion(P0.001).Nitrate-N addition increased rumen microbial protein synthesis with the greatest synthesis occurring in P+B fraction.Conclusion Both ruminal fractions of P and B had the ability to reduce nitrate(NO3-) and nitrite(NO2-) with a greater ability in P fraction.F fraction had minor ability of nitrate reduction in this substrate.Ruminal protozoa and bacteria represented predominant populations responsible for nitrate reduction,methanogenesis,and microbial protein synthesis.


The mutation responsible for Overo Lethal White Syndrome usually results in frame overo white patterning in carriers. In 10–20% of carriers, this phenotype is unapparent due to suppression by other color genes or because of fusion with additional white patterning genes. To be certain of genotype in individuals, allele-specific PCR analysis must be performed. Breeders can use the genotype information when planning matings to eliminate the possibility of producing a lethal white foal. Authors' addresses: Peterson and Smith Equine Hospital, 4747 SW 60 Ave, Ocala, FL, 34474 (Vrotsos); Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Wisconsin, School of Veterinary Medicine, 2015 Linden Drive West, Madison, WI, 53706 (Santschi); and Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, University of Minnesota, 1988 Fitch Ave, St. Paul, MN, 55108 (Mickelson). © 2001 AAEP.


Calculations are presented and data are reviewed on the properties of the high-j states in the light Au nuclei. Both prolate and oblate structures are observed in this region. It is found that the collective model describes well the band-head and the high-spin properties of the h/sub 9/2/ and i/sub 13/2/ proton states, without resort to an ''intruder state'' phenomenology.


This article presents the results from an Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) measurements by using a custom wireless and
portable electronic system. Our goal is to differentiate between cells and their extracellular matrix in the gathered impedance
spectrum. These results are used as a part of a research project that aim to find an appropriate electromarker for the detection of
the fibrosis induced by active cardiac implants.


People's behavior in the fire circumstances of the high-rise building is a typical study instance of environmental stresses. We replicated this scene in our virtual environment using Unity 3D. The technology creates a virtual environment by combining 3D modeling technology, computer graphics, wide-angle stereo display and a series of hardware and software technologies. The project built a high-rise building fire escape system which providing a highly immersive virtual environment and giving participants a more realistic experience. Virtual reality was used to simulate the fire scene, and data of how people reacted was collected to analyze the credibility and effectiveness of virtual environment on studying environmental stresses.


Bas van Fraassen endorses both common-sense realism – the view, roughly, that the ordinary macroscopic objects that we take to exist actually do exist – and constructive empiricism – the view, roughly, that the aim of science is truth about the observable world. But what happens if common-sense realism and science come into conflict? I argue that it is reasonable to think that they could come into conflict, by giving some motivation for a mental monist solution to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. I then consider whether, in a situation where science favors the mental monist interpretation, van Fraassen would want to give up common-sense realism or would want to give up science.


The vector Pz and tensor Pzz polarizations of a deuteron beam have been measured using elastic deuteron‐carbon scattering at 75.6 MeV and deuteron‐proton scattering at 270 MeV. After acceleration to 1170 MeV inside the COSY storage ring, the polarizations of the deuterons were remeasured by studying the analyzing powers of a variety of nuclear reactions at the ANKE magnetic spetrometer. The overall precisions obtained were about 4% for both Pz and Pzz. One of the motivation for the experimental programme is the direct reconstruction of the spin‐dependent amplitudes, including relative phases, of large angle neutron‐proton elastic scattering, through the study of the p(d,2p)n charge‐exchange reaction up to the highest available deuteron energy at COSY (2.3 GeV).


only the traditional writing of autobiographies, but letters to the editor, donosy, and patronage all involve a performance of identity. Despite a bit of repetition from chapter to chapter, the collection is not just a republication but a thematically unified study. Third, she considers gender a central aspect of the study of identity. Three full chapters (including a new one entitled "Wives' Tales") and parts of several others are devoted to gender and sexuality. There are also new essays, most notably a final chapter on "Becoming Post-Soviet." Here she demonstrates that assuming a new identity was not only—or even mostly—a matter of "speaking Bolshevik" to avoid regime repression. After 1991, a new revolutionary situation required new identities, and they were constructed and assumed in ways familiar to Russian citizens and, thanks to Fitzpatrick, ways comprehensible to historians. The new identities were often anti-Soviet and were accompanied by a new lexicon that included words like pablik-rikishnz, konsalting, biseksualy, and the familiar biznesmen. And many readers will smile at the note that Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking was a hit in Russia but that (citing Nancy Ries) many Russian thought that "[Russian] negative thinking was powerful enough to encompass and absorb any instruction in positive thinking that could be offered" (309). Fitzpatrick's work has always been controversial. I remember the spirited attacks that defenders of the totalitarian school made on her work in the 1980s and similar criticism by Martin Malia and others has continued. On the other hand, the new cultural historians of a theoretical bent will find her work and the theory it uses to be old-fashioned. Aside from the obvious conclusion that she must therefore be doing something right, her work has defined social history of the Soviet period: it is the reference against which others are measured and to which they react.


Many of the controversial religious debates of our day grow out of disagreements about how to interpret scripture correctly. Is it a historical or theological text? How do we address the apparent contradictions? In Anglican Approaches to Scripture , the sequel to ATB Book of the Year Christian Hope and Christian Life , Greer shows the multi-layered Anglican tradition of what scripture is and how it is to be interpreted.


Purpose. To report a patient with corneal ectasia and bilateral dacryocystoceles. Methods. Case report, review of medical literature. Results. The patient experienced gradual bilateral worsening of visual acuity caused by increasing corneal ectasia. Vigorous and frequent massaging of the lacrimal sacs and globes preceded development of symptomatic corneal ectasia. Conclusions. The timing of the development of this patient's corneal ectasia suggests an association between the dacryocystoceles massage and the ectasia.


Objective To investigate if upregulating Mir-30 a expression in human lung adencarcinoma cells(H3122 cells) can enhance the cells sensitivity to Crizotinib, to explore the related mechanism. Methods Lipofectamine2000 carrying Mir-30 a was transfected into H3122 cells. H3122 cells were divided into control group, Crizotinib group and Mir-30 a trasfection + Crizotinib group. The proliferation and invasiveness of the cells were detected by MTT and Transwell respectively. The expression of ALK, c-MET, Beclin-1, E-cadherin and Vimentin proteins was detected by Western blot. Results The inhibition effect on H3122 cells was much more strong in Mir-30 a trasfection + Crizotinib group than in Crizotinib group, but the invasive ability of the cells was decreased in Mir-30 a trasfection + Crizotinib group. The expression levels of ALK, c-MET, Beclin-1 and Vimentin proteins were decreased, but increased for E-cadherin in Mir-30 a trasfection + Crizotinib group than in Crizotinib group. Conclusion Mir-30 a can enhance the sensitivity of H3122 cells to Crizotinib, which might be related to the overexpression of Mir-30 a inhibiting the autophagy and epithelial mesenchymal transition.


The cooperation of the analog and digital circuits and the embedded controllers as well as their industrial use and technical application have always been in the focus of our interest. In reconfigurable systems the effectiveness and quality of the analog circuit system can be maintained and modified by circuit or by changing the single element values. There are further advantages of the programmable analog circuit applications; more compact, more reliable, more flexible systems can be produced with better performance. It is especially beneficial if for programming we modify the function of a programmable analog circuit either giving a new topology or a new component parameter using the flexibility of the microcontroller.


Objective:To explore the safety and feasibility of laparoscopy combined with colonscopy available to patients with colonic polyps.Methods:Eight cases with endoscopically unresectable colonic polyps or complications were performed by laparoscopy combined with colonoscopy.Of them,a colonic perforation occurred during therapeutic colonscopy;a copious bleeding underwent post-therapeutic colonoscopy;a large polyps with thick stalk of sigmoid colon undergoing polypectomy;5 cases underwent laparoscopic segmental colon resection.Results:Eight cases were performed by laparoscopy successfully.There were no complications or conversions to open surgery.Conclusions:Colonoscopy combined with laparoscopy available to patients with endoscopically unresectable colonic polyps is safe and feasible.


Pressure ulcers are serious problems within hospital and aged care settings and are associated with adverse health outcomes and high treatment costs. Because of a high incidence of pressure ulcers in the health system, attention is now being directed to not just preventing, but also more effectively treating them. Nutrition plays a fundamental part in wound healing, with malnutrition, dehydration and recent weight loss identified as independent risk factors for the development of pressure ulcers. While the optimal nutrient intake to promote wound healing is unknown, increased needs for energy, protein, zinc and vitamins A, C and E have been documented. There is reasonable evidence to show that nutritional support, mostly by high-protein oral nutritional supplements, is effective in significantly reducing the incidence of pressure ulcers in at-risk patients by 25%. Intervention studies using high-protein or specialised disease-specific nutritional supplements support a trend to increased healing of established pressure ulcers. Such specialised supplements are typically based on defined amounts of arginine, vitamin C and zinc. Mechanisms by which nutritional support can aid in pressure ulcer prevention and healing are likely related to addressing macro- and/or micro-nutrient deficiencies arising from either poor oral intake or increased nutrient requirements related to the wound healing process. With much more research still to be done in this area, nutrition support appears an efficacious and cost- effective adjunct to current medical and nursing approaches in the prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers.


As a communication technology between man-machine interactive technology,voice recognition is widely used.This paper introduces the design of voice recognition system based on the Lingyang single chip with DSP function,which can accomplish the voice recognition for several orders,namely isolated words,and for special person.In the practical process,the design regards short Chinese orders as objects of recognition,embodying Chinese voice traits.Moreover,it stresses simple and practical characteristics in the software and hardware design,simplifies the system structure and strengthens the control capacity.This method overcomes the defects of the similar system established on DSP chips,such as complex design,high price and inconvenient control.


This article points out that there are the same substances between the Zang-fu organs and tissues, the essence of the correlation between the acupoints and the organs is transferring the same substances between the correlative Zang-fu organs and tissues to regulate their functions. The rule of transfering the same substances relates to the property of five-elements of five-organs. The viewpoint provides the basis for multi-syndromes in one disease and many kinds of diseases having same syndromes in TCM, or multi-acuponits treating one disease(organ) and one acupoint treating many diseases(organs) in acupoints effects, which has important signifi cance for understanding the intension of'regulating qi' by stimulating the acupoints and treating disease with the points or compounding the points properly in clinic.


Introduction In order to be able to handle the total power and particle fluxes to the target material, the ITER divertor has to be operated in the partially detached regime. Thus, understanding the physics of detachment is crucial for making predictions for the ITER divertor performance. It has been observed on ASDEX Upgrade that, while increasing the plasma density, the detachment process can be divided into different distinct states [1]. During one of these states, where the inner divertor is partially detached and the outer divertor remains still attached, strong fluctuations in the radiated power signal appear in the SOL of the inner divertor close to the X-point (Fig. 1a). The origin of these fluctuations is still under investigation. During this Fluctuating Deachment State (FDS), a high electron density, ne, appears at the X-point, measured by a Stark broadening diagnostic (SBD) (Fig. 1b). In addition, there is an increase of the ion flux, ΓD+ , at the inner target at a distance of ≈ 4cm from the strike point (Fig. 1c). Although this work focuses on L-mode discharges only, the X-point fluctuations appear also in H-modes with detached inner divertor [2] and are thus independent of the confinement regime.


Speech and singing voice discrimination is an important task in the speech processing area given that each type of voice requires different information retrieval and signal processing techniques. This discrimination task is hard even for humans depending on the length of voice segments. In this article, we present an automatic speech and singing voice classification method using pitch parameters derived from musical note information and f 0 stability analysis. We applied our method to a database containing speech and a capella singing and compared the results with other discrimination techniques based on information derived from pitch and spectral envelope. Our method obtains good results discriminating both voice types, is efficient, has good generalisation capabilities and is computationally fast. In the process, we have also created a note detection algorithm with parametric control of the characteristics of the notes it detects. We compared the agreement of this algorithm with a state-of-the-art note detection algorithm and performed an experiment that proves that speech and singing discrimination parameters can represent generic information about the music style of the singing voice.


Supporting calls in Canada for a national mitigation strategy, this paper outlines the considerations needed for effective inter-organizational collaboration in proactive efforts to reduce losses associated with disasters. Some of the issues explored include: regulatory and financial arrangements, making use of existing organizations, drawing support f?om those not traditionally involved in disaster issues, encouraging regional approaches, and coupling mitigation with other community goals.


ABSTRACT Changes in the sartorial practices of Dutch-Turkish women who wear Muslim headscarves may be summarized as a shift from sober, religiously inspired forms of dress towards colorful, more fashionable styles. A focus on the materiality of headscarves indicates, however, that the relation between Islam, dress, and fashion is more complex. The main motivation for the women to adopt headscarves, including the fashionable ones, is religious. They do so because they consider it a practice prescribed in the foundational Islamic texts and because presenting a pleasant, up-to-date look can be considered as a form of visual da'wa. At the same time, however, wearing particular styles of fashionable headscarves also performs other, non-religious, identities and forms of belonging, such as those pertaining to status, ethnicity, and professionalism. This is evident in how fabrics (such as silk) and shapes of headscarves (square or rectangular) matter. An investigation of headscarves as particular items of dress is, in turn, helpful to understand the limits of a focus on aesthetic styles and fashion. The headscarf format makes these items of dress easy to acquire and hard to discard, because they are often received as gifts. A woman's attachment to particular headscarves—materializing social relations and functioning as souvenirs—goes beyond aesthetic styles and mitigates the force of fashion.


Current photometric requirements for some signal lamps in the U.S. are based on the number of "lighted sections" that comprise the lamp. Intensity requirements are somewhat higher for lamps with more sections, partially adjusting for the presumably larger lighted area of a lamp with more sections, and thereby establishing some control of luminance. The number of sections is used as a proxy for area, based on the assumptions that lamps will be constructed with optical units of a certain approximate size, each with a single incandescent bulb of relatively high candle power. However, recently there has been growing interest in, and in some cases use of, a greater variety of sources for signal lamps, including LEDs, neon tubes, miniature halogen bulbs, and distributive lighting sources. The relationship between number of lighted sections and surface area that could be assumed for lamps with relatively large incandescent bulbs cannot be extended to the new sources. Therefore the way in which photometric standards address the areas or luminances of signal lamps must be reassessed. This document reviews the existing research that is relevant to the roles of lighted sections and area in signal-lamp performance, presents the findings from a new experiment, and offers tentative recommendations about how to update the lighted-section photometric requirements for new light sources. The available evidence suggests that, although references to lighted sections should be replaced by something more broadly applicable to a variety of sources, something similar to the spirit of the current requirements should be retained (i.e., primary emphasis on control of intensity but with some recognition of area and luminance). One major alternative would be to abandon control of area and luminance entirely, regulating lamps only in terms of intensity. This would be an extremely flexible approach that would allow maximum innovation in the use of new technologies, and it would continue to insure control of the most important aspect of signal lamps (intensity). However, the current evidence does not support a complete elimination of area and luminance control. The authors recommend that the concept of a lighted section in the current regulations be replaced by a standard area, with a tentative value being 225 cm squared.


The Rev. J.P.B. Dennis, F.G.S., lately did me the favour to place in my hands, for examination, the portion of jaw with teeth, imbedded in the oolitic slate of Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, which he had, two years before, submitted to Mr. Charlesworth of York, by whom the fossil was introduced to the notice of the Geological Section of the British Association at the meeting at Liverpool in 1854. The portion of bone exposed to view is about 9 lines in extent, and is part of a ramus of the lower jaw, containing three molar teeth (Pl. I. figs. 1 & 2).


Since the time of lm-format cameras, PENTAX has developed a series of compact, lightweight and durable SLR cameras, and delivered numerous " eld camera" masterpieces to our users. Among them are 67and 645-series medium-format cameras, which have received tremendous support from both professionals and amateurs because of their remarkable maneuverability and exceptional imaging power. As for 35mm lm-format cameras, the professional-standard PENTAX LX remained a best-selling camera for more than 20 years, as the rst PENTAX SLR camera to feature a dustproof, weather-resistant structure. en, the PENTAX ME became an epoch-making model for its world's smallest, lightest body.*


The article presents a synthesized analysis of scientific and methodological approaches to the study of pedagogical personalities - famous teachers, scholars, public figures who have made a significant contribution to the development of education and pedagogical science of Ukraine and the world. The essence of scientific and methodological approaches is characterized according to their division into two main conditional groups: «traditional» that were used in historical and pedagogical studies in the second half of the XX century (historical and logical; semantic and formal; personal and active; quantitative and qualitative; culturological and its varieties, etc.) and «innovative» , which began to be actively used as a research tool in the late 1990s (anthropological, axiological, phenomenological, hermeneutic, intellectual and biographical, paradigmatic, synergetic, etc.).
The peculiarities and difficulties of using scientific and methodological approaches to the study of pedagogical personality are clarified. They are connected to the fact that, first, this issue is mainly considered in the context of the study of individual biographies, which determines the brevity, abstractness of its understanding or does not take into account the specifics of biographical studies. Secondly, due to the «multi-layered» methodology of pedagogical science and the subjective reflections of scholars, there is an arbitrary interpretation and use of these methodological approaches. Third, in specific biographical studies, scientists operate with a relatively narrow range of methodological approaches, which limits the cognitive possibilities and general research results.


Different post-harvest treatments such as dip wax, GA3 (50 ppm) and Bavistin (500 ppm) were applied to freshly harvested Patharnakh pear fruits. The fruits were packed in CFB cartons and stored in cold storage maintained at 0–2°C and 90–95% RH. The control fruits were kept untreated under same conditions. The fruits were evaluated after 30, 45 and 60 days interval for various physiological and biochemical parameters such as physiological loss in weight, firmness, organoleptic evaluation, TSS, total sugars and titratable acidity. Wax coating was found to be the most effective treatment in reducing the weight loss and breakdown of fruit firmness. The results indicated that wax coated fruits can be stored upto 60 days in cold storage with excellent appearance, quality and acceptable firmness compared to control and other treatments, which were found soft and shrivelled due to loss of weight and firmness and in some fruit slight off flavour and core browning was also noticed.


Presented with a DVD explaining the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), produced in association with Ansys UK, one of the market leaders in CFD software. How aerodynamic forces are generated, drag and lift, aerodynamic efficiency and three-dimensional flow. An explanation of how CFD can be used to improve aerodynamic performance. Wind-tunnel case studies to back up the CFD data and graphics. An explanation of aerodynamic devices, including spoilers, airdams and splitters, wings and underbodies, turning vanes, vortex generators, etc. Determining aerodynamic performance using flow visualisation, data logging, wind tunnels and scale-model testing. Case studies from various motorsport categories, including interviews and discussions on how competitors and teams use aerodynamic devices and what benefits they have gained. An addition to the series of titles including Competition Car Composites, Competition Car Data Logging, Competition Car Suspension and Competition Car Electrics.


This paper introduces the Charles Loop's scheme into the synthesis of realistic animated facial images drove by sound-driver,and proposes a Face-LS algorithm based on location subdivision module.This algorithm does iterative interpolating ghost points on location using location subdivision principle,in order to hold different density on different region,which can prevent distortions and decrease the density of the whole mesh.Simulation experiment shows that the algorithm has better performance.


Power-efficient design of real-time embedded systems becomes more important as the system functionality is increasingly realized through software. This paper presents a dynamic power management method called cooperative voltage scaling (CVS) and its experimental implementation. The implementation includes design of an operating system, applications, and a supporting hardware platform. We study several factors that are important in implementing CVS and discuss efficiency of CVS through experiment.


Heinrich Zimmer (1890-1943) is perhaps best known in the English-speaking world for four posthumous books: "Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilisation", "Philosophies of India", "The Art of Indian Asia", and "The King and the Corpse". These works have inspired several generations of students of Indian religion and culture. The collection of research papers in this volume testify to Zimmer's originality and to his rightful place in that small group of scholars who were part of the first generation to confront the end of European empires in India and the rest of Asia. In her introduction, Margaret Case contrasts Zimmer's approach to India with that of Jung. There follow two recollections of Zimmer, one by his daughter Maya Rauch, the other by a close friend and supporter in Germany, Herbert Nette. Then William McGuire describes Zimmer's connections with Mary and Paul Mellon and with the Jungian circles in Switzerland and New York. A brief talk by Zimmer, previously unpublished, describes his admiration for Jung. Wendy Doniger picks up the question of Zimmer's intellectual legacy, especially in the light of Campbell's editorial work on his English publications. Gerald Chapple raises another question about how his influence was felt: the division between what is known of his work in the German-and the English-speaking worlds. Kenneth Zysk then summarizes and analyzes his contribution to Western knowledge of Hindu medicine; Matthew Kapstein evaluates his place in the West's appreciation of Indian philosophy; and Mary Linda discusses his contributions to the study of Indian art in the light of A.K. Coomaraswamy's work and more recent research.


This paper presents a new fault diagnosis technology for event-driven controlled systems like PLC. The controlled plant is modeled by means of the Timed Markov Model, which regards the time interval between successive two events as a random variable. In order to estimate the probability density functions of the randomized time intervals, the maximum entropy principle is introduced, which can estimate probability density functions so as to maximize the uniformity with satisfying the constraints caused by measured data. Then, the fault diagnosis algorithm, which returns the probabilistic diagnosis results, is developed. Finally, the usefulness of the proposed strategy is verified through some experimental results.


This paper deals with the problem of devising an efficient framework for constructing rate-compatible low-density parity-check (RC-LDPC) codes. We present a deterministic framework for constructing a family of linear-time encodable RC-LDPC codes from a mother code using puncturing and extending. Application of the proposed construction to a type-II hybrid ARQ scheme with information block length k=1024 and code rates 8/19 to 8/10, using an optimized irregular mother code of rate 8/13, results in a throughput which is only about 0.7dB away from Shannon limit. This outperforms existing similar schemes based on turbo codes and LDPC codes by up to 0.5dB.


With the deepening of modernization, society increasingly competitive. (social competition will become more and more fierce.)Efficient, high-speed academic life and complex interpersonal relationships in society have become the factors of psychological pressure when college students face major social problems. This has led to the emergence of students' psychological problems. Students' psychological problems keep emerging. In view of this phenomenon, this paper focuses on studying the influence of sports on adaptive psychological management, and analyzes the beneficial effect of physical activities on adaptive psychological management. It is hoped that more students can realize the importance of exercise and properly adjust their psychological problems through exercise, so as to undertake the historical task of national construction.


This descriptive cross-sectional community based was conducted to assess the prevalence and associated risk factors of visual disturbance among diabetic patient in outpatient clinic in Elmek nimer hospital, in the period from April - December 2014. In this study 90 diabetic patients were included. They are selected by use probability method of sampling (simple random sampling). Data was collected by two tools (Self- administered questionnaire, snellen test chart).The present study reveal that more than two third of study group (68.9%, 66.7%) were female and their age more than 45years, respectively. More than quarters of them (28.9%) are primary school. the highly significant statistical relation had been found between the level of education and diabetes follow up (p-value 0.05). The collective evidence from this study showed that (64.4 %) of study population had Type 2 of diabetes. More than two third of patients (71.1%) their duration of diabetes between 5- 10 years. The highly proportion (53.3%) of study population use Oral hypoglycemic agent. In contrast to more than quarter (26.5%) of them had hypertension. Therefore important that effort should made using the media to create diabetic awareness in rural areas with less health services and emphasize the importance of dietary program .Less than two third (61.8%) of study population were performing eye examination by physician. Majority (71.1%) of study population experience of visual disturbance recently. This study explains that less than quarter (24.4%, 22.2%) of study population had developed retinopathy and cataract, respectively. It has been found from this study (25.6%) of study population had mild vision loss with eye equity 6/18 and only (13.3%) had profound vision loss.Finally, the study recommend that, Locally educational programmes are highly needed to reduce the risk of visual impairment and blindness among diabetics and Systematic screening for diabetic retinal disease should be provided for all people with diabetes and should be screened at least annually.


13 Latent class models have long been a tool for capturing heterogeneity across decision-makers in the 14 sensitivities to individual attributes. More recently, there has been increased interest in using them 15 to capture heterogeneity in actual behavioural processes, such as information/attribute processing 16 and decision rules. This often leads to substantial improvement in model fit and the apparent 17 finding of large clusters of individuals making choices in ways that are substantially different from 18 those used by others. Such findings have however not been without criticism given the potential 19 risk of confounding with other more model-specific heterogeneity. In this paper, we consider 20 an alternative approach for exploring the issue by contrasting the findings obtained with model 21 averaging, which combines the results from a number of separately (rather than simultaneously) 22 estimated models. We find that this leads to significant reductions in the amount of heterogeneity 23 of the type analysts have sought to uncover with latent class structures of late, with our results 24 suggesting that heterogeneity in the sensitivities to individual attributes rather than the behavioural 25 process per se could be the key factor behind the improvements gained through the adoption of 26 latent class models for heterogeneity in behavioural processes. 27


The Boykow solar compass has been successfully employed on polar flights as a direction indicator. Recently, this instrument has been recommended for use in flights in lower latitudes. For this purpose the axis of rotation of the clock mechanism which, in the type of instrument designed for polar flights, was oriented perpendicular to the local horizon, may be adjusted parallel to the axis of the earth. The use of this appa ratus may then be conceived as follows :In order to be able to hold to the loxodromic course from the take-off to the goal of the flight with the aid of the solar compass, the setting at the point of departure should be made in such a manner that when the airplane is on the correct course, the axis of rotation of the clock mechanism may be oriented parallel to the axis of the earth. Since the clock mechanism completes one full revolution about its axis of rota tion in exactly 24 hours, the influence of the diurnal movement of the sun is compen sated in such a manner that at the point of departure one may be assured of maintai ning position as well in a pre-determined plane parallel to the earth's axis (constant hour angle) as in the pre-determined azimuthal direction, while at the same time the fixed course is continuously indicated. However, up to now no account has be taken of the fact that as a result of the changes in position of the airplane, the apparent movement of the sun differs with the changing positions of the airplane from that at the point of departure, for which in reality the apparatus is adjusted to function as a direction indicator. The significance of this will be illustrated by a few examples later to make this clear. Let us assume that the airplane is to make a flight with the solar compass along the parallel of latitude 50° in an easterly direction. In order that the axis of rota tion of the clock mechanism may assume the direction of the axis of the earth on the designated course, one should elevate it 50° above the horizontal bearing on the port beam. The figure then shows the errors which may be expected as a result of a change in the position of the airplane. Let Z be the zenith at the position occupied by the airplane, M V the horizontal line of direction ahead, M N X to port, M P X the direction


The present article deals with the general family of summation-integral type operators. Here, we propose the Durrmeyer variant of the generalized Lupas operators considered by Abel and Ivan (General Math. 15 (1) (2007) 21-34) and study local approximation, Voronovskaja type formula, global approximation, Lipchitz type space and weighted approximation results. Also, we discuss the rate of convergence for absolutely continuous functions having a derivative equivalent with a function of bounded variation.


The utility model relates to a laser mouse pen which comprises a hollow main body in a pen shape, a receiving inductor which is arranged in the main body, and a circuit board which is connected with the receiving inductor, wherein the bottom end of the main body is provided with a through hole of which the inner side is also provided with a laser generator of which the transmitting terminal faces to the exterior of the through hole; the bottom end of the main body is also provided with a touching switch which is provided with a movable contact protruding from the bottom end surface of the main body. The utility model is characterized in that a mouse is designed into the pen shape, which is very convenient for a user to hold; by that the laser generator is adopted to replace the existing light emitting diode, even if a nib of the mouse pen moves away from a sliding plane for a certain distance, light spots can be generated for the receiving inductor to receive because laser can also shoot the sliding plane and generate interference fringes; thereby, cursor sliding control can be realized; when the nib is pressed on the sliding plane and enables the touching switch to be switched on, the utility model can also has the functions of writing, drawing, etc. In addition, compared with the existing nib structure which can be pivoted, the utility model has the advantages of simpler main body structure and more convenience in processing.


Eng. Paolo Accinelli, Societa Impianti Calce (SIC), Italy, presents a review of some recent and current projects arount the world.


OBJECTIVES
To determine the frequency of hospitalizations due to alcohol intoxication (AI) at the Pediatric Health Center, and to attempt to identify factors contributing to the occurrence of intoxication in the population of children and adolescents.

METHODS
Medical documentation of 227 patients hospitalized due to AI. 108 (48%) patients were girls and 119 (52%) patients were boys. The mean age of the study group was 14.9 years ±2.1. Data regarding patients, their families and the circumstances of intoxication underwent analysis.

RESULTS
Alcohol intoxication constituted 2.8% of all hospitalizations. The number of hospitalizations between 2000 and 2011 showed an increasing tendency with some fluctuations within years. Spirits were predominant alcohol beverages. Over 10% of patients required a short-term hospital stay at the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care. In 13% of children, coexisting medicine or drug intoxication was observed and 10% of patients presented with alcohol-related injury to the head or extremities. Risky sexual behaviors were noted in 25% of girls. The majority of children were raised by two parents who had received primary education. Alcoholism was present in over 20% of the families. In single-parent families, fathers were more frequently absent and a lack of a regular source of income was more often related to mothers.

CONCLUSIONS
There are no uniform standards of multi-specialist medical care for children hospitalized due to AI. Identification of children consuming alcohol is recommended. It should be done by primary physicians, pediatricians, teachers and psychologists. Minor patients hospitalized due to AI should be provided with a long-term and comprehensive care.


Stuck pipe is a common problem with tremendous impact on drilling efficiency and costs in the oil industry. Generally, the stuck pipe troubles are solved after their occurrences by using some standard operational procedures such as working the drill string up or down, attempting to rotate the string and pumping mud at higher flow rates through the drill bit to aid pipe release. One may also place different fluids around the stick area and use a drilling jar. However, in cases where common solutions don't work, then the cutoff is the last resort. To have a successful cutoff operation, estimating the location of the free point and choosing the right cutting tool is of vital importance. This paper presents the Radial Cutting Torch (RCT) as a innovative cutting tool and its oilfield application in stuck pipe events.


Rehabilitation robots are playing an increasingly important role in daily rehabilitation of patients. In recent years, exoskeleton rehabilitation robots have become a research hotspot. However, the existing exoskeleton rehabilitation robots are mainly rigid exoskeletons. During rehabilitation training using such exoskeletons, the patient's joint rotation center is fixed, which cannot adapt to the actual joint movements, resulting in secondary damage to the patients. Therefore, in this paper, a tendon-driven flexible upper-limb rehabilitation robot is proposed; the structure and connectors of the rehabilitation robot are designed considering the physiological structure of human upper limbs; we also built the prototype and performed experiments to validate the designed robot. The experimental results show that the proposed upper-limb rehabilitation robot can assist the human subject to conduct upper-limb rehabilitation training.


Abstract Communication is a fundamental step in the process of political representation, and an influential stream of research hypothesizes that male and female politicians talk to their constituents in very different ways. To build the broad dataset necessary for this analysis, we harness the massive trove of communication by American politicians through Twitter. We adopt a supervised learning approach that begins with the hand coding of over 10,000 tweets and then use these to train machine learning algorithms to categorize the full corpus of over three million tweets sent by the lower house state legislators who were serving in the summer of 2017. Our results provide insights into politicians' behavior and the consequence of women's underrepresentation on what voters learn about legislative activity.


FIELD: metallurgy. SUBSTANCE: in process of casting metal strip coming from crystalliser of continuous cast installation is bent from vertical into horizontal direction. Several pairs of rollers of drawing device support a strip, direct it and perform plastic deformation. At least one pair of rollers of drawing device plastically deforms metal strip changing average thickness of metal strip to less, than 5 %. Metal flow is formed exclusively across direction of strip transporting at plastic deforming. EFFECT: production of metal strip with high quality properties. 8 cl, 2 dwg


It points out that the Chinese costume enterprises have surpassed the stages of quantitative development and brand development, entering a new stage of feature development. At this stage, the market is almost saturated and the customers are more and more mature. The essential of the survival and development of the costume lies in the formation of the enterprise features. With its own characteristics, no matter what they are the style of name brands, the way of production, or others, the enterprise will survive and develop. With the deepening of the competition, it will be difficult to develp one's own characteristics. But if one has already had its characteristics, it will have more power of competition. Thus, this paper advocates that our costume enterprises plan our own characteristics as soon as possible and manage to realize them.


Neuse River is formed in western Durham County [2] by the junction of the Eno and Flat Rivers. It flows southeast along the Durham County [2]–Granville County [3] and Durham County–Wake County [4] lines, eventually passing through Wake, Johnston [5], Wayne [6], Lenoir [7], and Craven [8] Counties. The river then flows along the border between Craven and Pamlico [9] Counties and Carteret [10] and Pamlico Counties before draining into Pamlico Sound.


Following Waterloo, managing French public finances represented a daunting task as the country had lost a substantial part of its population and territory and had to pay huge amounts as reparations to the victors. Despite this, in just ten years, France managed to issue substantial amounts of debt with a spread, compared to the British consol, falling from more than 400 to 100 basis points. We argue that the Duke of Wellington was key in creating an environment in which Baring had an incentive to lend to France and all actors had an incentive to see French debts reimbursed.


Summary Urine was collected at weekly intervals at weekly intervals for three or more months from 139 menstruant women aged 40–55 years. Menstrual cycles were classed as ovulatory if the 24-hr pregnanediol output was > 5 μmol on a single occasion, or if the total excreted on 2 days 1 week apart was > 7 μmol. Of the 81 women who reported no change in menstrual frequency, 95% ovulated in every cycle. Only 34% of the 53 with a recent history of oligomenorrhoea ovulated without fail. Ovalation occurred in 93% of all 21–35-day menstrual cycles, in 55% of 36–50-day cycles, in 40% of 51–75-day cycles and in 17% of those lasting > 76 days. Pregnanediol increases suggestive of ovulation and followed by menstruation were observed on 31 occasions after amenorrhoea of from 2 to 6 months' duration.


gastrointestinal risks of NSAIDs.However, it does not answer an important question for rheuma tologists and geriatricians: can we prescribe NSAIDs in old and very old patients? Osteoarthritis typically affects elderly people, and management of this disorder includes prescription of NSAIDs. However, international guidelines are unclear about how to manage pain in elderly patients.


During the Spanish Civil War, posters became a powerful propaganda tool for uniting disparate Republican groups and the illiterate masses against fascism. Unemployed designers, artists without gall...


Using a marketplace platform for trade transactions in the digital era is currently in great demand than conventional shopping. However, marketplace users cannot just give away their personal data just like that. Customer data security is the most important thing that must be considered in order to avoid computer network crimes or commonly known as cybercrime. This article aims to find out what influences the security of customer data in the marketplace on consumer shopping behavior by implementing the UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance & Use of Technology) research model. The research method in this article uses descriptive quantitative methods by taking population samples of active marketplace users in Denpasar City and using samples from several respondents. In this article it can be concluded that interest in using the marketplace has a partial influence on user behavior and the facilitating condition variables moderated by experience have a simultaneous effect on user behavior. These factors are proven to both have important aspects in influencing the security of customer data on the marketplace.


The Internet has evolved and continues to evolve rapidly and as adults we understand the need to be careful with various issues including our privacy, scams, bullying and as adults we stumble acros ...


Aim: Serum and follicular fluid ischemia-modified albumin levels and total antioxidant capacity were evaluated in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome applied ICSI-ET to clarify the association between these markers and IVF outcome parameters. Methods: In this prospective controlled clinical trial, the study group consisted of PCOS cases (n=30) undergoing ICSI-ET cycles. The control group consisted normogonadotropic female partners of male factor infertility (n=30). The controlled ovarian hyperstimulation was performed by long protocol down regulation and recombinant FSH stimulation. Aspirated follicular fluid from the first retrieved follicle were analyzed for TAC and IMA levels. Oocyte quality, fertilization rate, embryo quality and final pregnancy outcomes were assessed. Results: No statistically significant difference was found between the groups when compared for mean age, body mass index and cycle outcome parameters (p>0.05). FF IMA levels were found positively correlated with embryo grading (r=0.328; p=0.03). The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of the best cutoff value of FF IMA (1.475 ABSU) for the prediction of grade 1 embryo development were 75%, 72%, 73% and 60%, respectively (AUC:0.765;CI 95%:0,6060,924; p=0.017). In PCOS cases with TAC ≤1.299 mmol/L compared with TAC >1.299 mmol/L, number of metaphase II oocytes, fertilization rates, embryo grading and FF IMA levels were found significantly different (p<0.05). Conclusions: The levels of IMA and TAC in FF were higher than serum levels which inturn indicates a greater degree of oxidative stress in follicular microenvironment compared to systemic circulation. Although oxidative stres in FF of PCOS cases was found similar to non-PCOS cases when detected by IMA, a significant positive correlation between FF IMA levels and embryo grade may indicates the role of augmented oxidative stress in infertility. Correspondence to: Yasemin Tasci, Assoc. Prof., University of Medical Sciences, Dr.Zekai Tahir Burak Womens Health Research Hospital, 06230, Ankara, Turkey, Tel: 903123065759; Fax: 903123124931; E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


The adult female, first-instar nymph, male pupa and adult male of a new species of the genus Cyphococcus Laing (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha: Coccidae) from India, C. williamsi Joshi Rajgopal sp. n., are described and illustrated. This is the first record of the genus Cyphococcus and the subfamily Cyphococcinae from the Oriental region. Information on distribution, biology, host plants, associated coccinellid predators and hymenopteran parasitoids is given.


Fibroblastic growth factor 23 (FGF23) is a circulating phosphaturic hormone. Inactivating mutations of the endopeptidase PHEX or the SIBLING protein DMP1 result in equivalent intrinsic bone mineralization defects and increased Fgf23 expression in osteocytes. The mechanisms whereby PHEX and DMP1 regulate Fgf23 expression are unknown. We examined the possibility that PHEX and DMP1 regulate Fgf23 through a common pathway by analyzing the phenotype of compound Phex and Dmp1 mutant mice (Hyp/Dmp1–/–). Compared to single‐mutant littermates, compound‐mutant Hyp/Dmp1–/– mice displayed nonadditive elevations of serum FGF23 (1912 ± 183, 1715 ± 178, and 1799 ± 181 pg/ml), hypophosphatemia (Pi: 6.0 ± 0.3, 5.8 ± 0.2, and 5.4 ±0.1 mg/dl), and severity of rickets/osteomalacia (bone mineral density: –36, –36, and –30%). Microarray analysis of long bones identified gene expression profiles implicating common activation of the FGFR pathway in all the mutant groups. Furthermore, inhibiting FGFR signaling using SU5402 in Hyp‐ and Dmp1–/– ‐derived bone marrow stromal cells prevented the increase in Fgf23 mRNA expression (129‐ and 124‐fold increase in Hyp and Dmp1–/– vs. 1.3‐fold in Hyp+SU5402 and 2.5‐fold in Dmp1–/– +SU5402, P<0.05). For all analyses, samples collected from nonmutant wild‐type littermates served as controls. These findings indicate that PHEX and DMP1 control a common pathway regulating bone mineralization and FGF23 production, the latter involving activation of the FGFR signaling in osteocytes.—Martin, A., Liu, S., David, V., Li, H., Karydis, A., Feng, J. Q., Quarles, L. D. Bone proteins PHEX and DMP1 regulate fibroblastic growth factor Fgf23 expression in osteocytes through a common pathway. FASEB J. 25, 2551–2562 (2011). www.fasebj.org


Due to the incredible number of pressures like increasing globalization, rapid technological changes and tougher competition etc. on human life, it becomes highly important for the education system to play a critical role and increase its real and perceived value. The core objective of education is helping people lead life for which the perspective of education must necessarily shift from being able to read and write to being able to earn and live with dignity. The impact of technology on educational outcomes has received significant attention by researchers, especially over the last decade. Several studies have found a correlation between computer use at home and educational outcomes but it is not clear if this relationship is causal. Providing computers, software, and internet access to schools is a very different intervention from using technology to change the way that students learn. Traditionally the formal education emphasized on teaching more than learning but now the role of teachers has been evolved from dispensers of information and knowledge to facilitators and enablers of learning. Thus Online Education is a structured learning activity that utilizes technology with intranet/internet-based tools and resources as the delivery method for instruction, research, assessment and communication. Although a teacher-led course or experience is preferable, not all districts have this capacity and district discretion will prevail. It is encouraged that teachers will incorporate standards for Teaching and Learning; higher order thinking, deep knowledge, substantive conversation and connections to the world beyond the classroom, into the experience. It also places emphasis on the use of the global Internet, rather than a stand-alone software product.


Amin, Moeness G., and Zhang, Yimin, Direction Finding Based on Spatial Time-Frequency Distribution Matrices, Digital Signal Processing10 (2000), 325?339.Spatial time-frequency distributions (STFDs) have been recently introduced as the natural means to deal with source signals that are localizable in the time-frequency domain. It has been shown that improved estimates of the signal and noise subspaces are achieved by constructing the subspaces from the time-frequency signatures of the signal arrivals rather than from the data covariance matrices, which are commonly used in conventional subspace estimation methods. This paper discusses the application of STFD to high-resolution direction finding. We focus on both the role and the effect of crossterms in angle estimation when multiple time-frequency points are incorporated. Simulation examples are presented to compare the performance of joint block-diagonalization and time-frequency averaging techniques for incorporating multiple autoterm and crossterm points in subspace estimation.


Background: The primary problem of dislipidemia include increases in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglyceride or decrease of HDL cholesterol. Omega-3 in fish oil supplementation has benefit on the management of hypertriglyceridemia and cholesterol This study aimed to determine the effect of chitosan fiber supplementation with omega-3 in fish oil on plasma triglyceride and total cholesterol in obese employees Methods: Thirty-eight obese employees were assigned into 2 groups, equalized on the basis of their body mass index (BMI > 25 kg/m2). Twenty two obese employees received supplements providing 3 g omega-3 and 16 obese employees received 3 g omega-3 and 3 gr chitosan daily for 21 days. Plasma trigliceryde and total cholesterol were measured on days 0 and 22. Confounding factors of this study were fiber intake during study and total cholesterol before supplementation. Linear regression analysis was run on SPSS 17 to determine the difference in triglyceride and total cholesterol levels between the two groups while controlling for the confounding factors. Results: The study showed that total cholesterol on chitosan and omega 3 group was lower than omega-3 group. The difference of total cholesterol between groups was statistically significant. However, there was no difference in triglyceride between groups. Conclusion: Chitosan supplementation along with omega-3 supplementation has a beneficial effect in lowering total cholesterol in 20-54 years old obese employees Keywords: obese, omega-3, chitosan, triglyceride, total cholesterol


The use of enzymes and whole cell biocatalysts has proven valuable in production of enantiomercally pure proteinogenic and non-proteinogenic L- and D- amino acids, and their derivatives. These chemicals are of great interest as building blocks for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and agriculture products. In addition to the increasing importance of single enantiomers of chiral active ingredients this development is a result of recent advances in molecular biological methods like recombinant enzyme expression, high throughput DNA sequencing and enzyme evolution technologies. This chapter gives an introduction of important technologies for Evonik Degussa for the production of amino acids by biocatalysis.


An independent review of the framework of statutory wage setting mechanisms known as Employment Regulation Orders (ERO) and Registered Employment Agreements (REA). The review was a commitment under the provisions of the joint EU-IMF Programme for Ireland. The Review was conducted jointly by Mr. Kevin Duffy, Chairman of the Labour Court, acting in an ad hoc capacity, and by Dr. Frank Walsh, Lecturer, School of Economics, University College Dublin, having regard to the need for this independent review to draw both on particular knowledge of the operation of wage setting mechanisms and independent economic expertise.


Pain and anxiety are major problems in childbirth that can cause fetomaternal circulation disorder and became a risk factor for postpartum depression. Management of pain and anxiety made for a smooth delivery process. This study aimed to compare the influence of spiritual intervention and Spiritual Emotional Freedom Technique (SEFT) to decrease pain intensity and maternal anxiety in the first stage of labor. The study design used was quasy experiment pre post test design with control group with consecutive sampling technique. The subjects involved 36 parturient in PONED public health center Pekalongan which divided into two groups, SEFT and spiritual. The instrument used was a numeric rating scale. Data were analyzed using the Mann Whitney U Test and Independent T Test with a significance level of 5%. Results showed the mean pain and anxiety before intervention was 8.50 (SD: 1.339) and 5.17 (SD: 1.383) in the intervention group, whereas the control group 7.72 (SD: 1.447) and 4.89 (SD: 2.026). The mean pain and anxiety after intervention was 6.00 (SD: 0.686) and 1.89 (SD: 1.278) in the intervention group and the control group of 6.22 (SD: 0.943) and 4.89 (SD: 2.026). There is a significant difference on average decrease in pain (p<0.05) and anxiety (p<0.05) between the intervention and the control group. This study provides evidence for the use of SEFT interventions as a pain and anxiety mangement during the first stage of labor. These interventions should be applied by a community nurse for interdisciplinary collaboration in order to help overcome the problems.


Sepsis is a major health issue causing mortality, morbidity and health care financial crisis to people around the globe. To resolve this issue, many researchers and clinical practitioners have worked hard to predict the onset of sepsis using various parameters of patients. The proposed work is an attempt of authors to analyse the various parameters (8 vital parameters, 26 laboratory or clinical parameters, and 6 demographic parameters regarding hospital stay) given in Physionet Challenge dataset so as to devise the best features for early and efficient prediction of sepsis. Authors have also addressed another important issue of missing values of some parameters of some patients by applying Gaussian Mixture Model to estimate the missing value in pre-processing steps. The pre-processed data is then fed to Extreme Gradient Boosting algorithm (XGBoost), which is a state of the art performer algorithm for prediction purposes in data analysis field. The experimental results show that by real time monitoring of data from cloud, sepsis can be predicted 6 hours prior to the onset of sepsis with an accuracy score of 0.994 and AUC score of 0.867. It is also observed that demographic parameters play a vital role in sepsis prediction. The Since the parameters used for early prediction can be easily acquired with the help of sensors, the proposed approach proves its potential for development of mobile and website applications for patient monitoring, real-time prediction of sepsis and generation of appropriate alert system.


This article proposes a modified switched-coupled-inductor quasi-Z-source inverter, which is characterized by a continuous input current, low dc-link voltage overshoot, and high efficiency. The bootstrap capacitor in this improved module enhances the boost capability of the inverter at a low shoot-through duty cycle <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$D$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. Thanks to the distinct positions of the third and fourth windings <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N_{23}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N_{24}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> of the multiwinding coupled-inductor in the proposed inverter, these windings have low current stress during shoot-through state and no current flow at nonshoot-through state. The work environment of the coupled-inductor is optimized, and the inverter efficiency is substantially improved due to its low copper loss. This article studies the operating modes, analyzes the voltage and current stresses of different components, and studies their energy consumption in detail. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed inverter is validated via a 1-kW prototype developed in the laboratory and the test results are consistent with the theoretical analysis.


With the April 2014 vote to require layperson summaries of clinical trial results on the European clinical trials database [1], EU lawmakers presented the global research enterprise with a critical opportunity to restore public trust and engage study volunteers as our greatest advocates and ambassadors. Although some research sponsors will view the new regulations with trepidation, more than two dozen major and midsize biopharmaceutical companies are already planning and implementing programs for communicating trial results to their study volunteers in lay language. In this article, we share best practices and lessons learned at the nonprofit Center for Information and Study on Clinical Research Participation (CISCRP) over the course of 5 years' collaboration with these sponsor companies, and look toward the future of post-trial communication as an important means of engaging patients as partners in the research process.


Twenty-three patients with hepatitis B were treated with recombinant interferon-alpha-2a. Twelve patients were given 6 MU three times a week for 6 months (Group A); eleven patients were given 9 MU three times a week for an initial 4-month course and subsequently for a further 3-month course after 6 months of no therapy (group B). Eight patients in the group A (66.7%) and seven patients in the group B became negative for HBV-DNA and normalized their ALT, compared to 31% of controls. Relapses were noticed in 75% of the responders in the group A and in 71.4% of the responders in the group B within 12 months after interferon discontinuation. The Authors are consequently of opinion that it is appropriate to try longer treatments with moderate doses of interferon in order to maintain the response as long as possible.


At present, the research of image clarity processing based on FPGA is still in the initial state which is mainly for some simple algorithms at home and abroad. In this paper, firstly, the FPGA technology is used for fast median filter and denoising processing of images. And then, the analysis of rough sets and the processing of incomplete information which divides the image into target areas and background areas and processes with different functions respectively are adopted to improve the algorithm of image clarity processing. The experimental result shows that, the clarity processing based on FPGA can greatly save time and meet the needs of real-time. In addition, using the gray transformation algorithm based on rough set theory can make the original blurred image clearer.


We used 140 IgG complement‐fixing blood group alloantibodies of 17 different specificities in tests to determine whether anticomplement antibodies are still necessary in antiglobulin reagents to be used in indirect antiglobulin tests. Anti‐Rh and other IgG noncomple‐ment fixing antibodies were excluded from the study. A polyspecific antiglobulin reagent that contained anti‐IgG and anticomplement antibodies, and an anti‐IgG reagent containing the same level of anti‐IgG as the polyspecific one, were compared. Titrations with some of the antibodies were repeated with only the polyspecific reagent. With each antibody, studies were done with complement activation blocked, and compared with results in which it was allowed to proceed. We found that 42.9 per cent of the antibodies were detected at a higher dilution, and 64.3 per cent of them were detected with a higher titer score, when the polyspecific antiglobulin serum containing anticomplement antibodies was used. We conclude that anticomplement antibodies are indeed still essential for the correct performance of indirect antiglobulin tests.


Direct injection diesel engines have been widely used in transportation and stationary power systems because of their inherent high thermal efficiency. On the other hand, emission regulations such as NOx and particulates have become more stringent from the standpoint of preserving the environment in recent years. In this study, previous results of multiple injection strategies have been further investigated to analyze the effects of narrow fuel spray angle on optimum multiple injection schemes in a heavy duty common rail direct injection diesel engine. An advanced computational fluid dynamics simulation has been carried out on a Caterpillar 3401 diesel engine for a conventional part load condition in 1600 r/min at two exhaust gas recirculation rates. A good agreement of calculated and measured in-cylinder pressure, heat release rate and pollutant formation trends was obtained under various operating points. Three different included spray angles have been studied in comparison with the traditional spray injection angle. The results show that spray targeting is very effective for controlling the in-cylinder mixture distributions especially when it accompanied with various injection strategies. It was found that the optimum engine performance for simultaneous reduction of soot and NOx emissions was achieved with 105° included spray angle along with an optimized split injection strategy. The results show, in this case, the fuel spray impinges at the edge of the piston bowl and a counterclockwise flow motion is generated that pushes mixture toward the center of the piston bowl.