The first 20 channel images of Hyper Spectral Image (HSI) have obvious stripe noise, which seriously affects the application of the HSI data. This paper summarized and analyzed the existed destriping methods. Based on the image characteristics of HSI, a new stripe noise removal method was proposed by using spline interpolation function to resample. Taking the HSI image of Guangzhou area as an example, the Fourier transform method, moment matching method and the new method proposed in this paper were used to remove the stripe noise. The results showed that the Fourier transform method couldn't remove the image stripe noise effectively; the moment matching method could remove the image stripe noise, but it also forced the image mean column value to 1, which would destroy the differences of image features information; The new method proposed in this paper was able to retain the differences of image surface features while removing the image stripe noise. The destriping efficiency of the new method was better than the other methods.


Volume rendering is a key technology with increasing importance for the visualization of 3D sampled datasets. 3D volumetric data is delievered by acquisition devices such as biomedical scanners (MRI, CT) or acoustic wave devices for geophysical explorations, as well as super-computer simulations and scienti c experiments, including aerodynamics, weather simulations, material tests, and many more. Volume rendering provides a powerful technique to reveal the information contained in these datasets. The computational cost for volume rendering is very high and becomes worse for the visualization of dynamically changing datasets in real-time, a process that is called 4D (spatio-temporal) visualization. Numerous software approaches for interactive rendering, mainly based on algorithmic optimizations and large-scale parallelism, have been introduced. The highest performance for rendering of a 512 data set at 7 frames per second was achieved on a 32 processor SGI Challenge using the shear-warp algorithm [10]. This impressive achievement is only possible with costly pre-calculations, data-dependent classi cation that prohibit 4D visualization, and the use of expensive multi-processor machines. Providing real-time volume rendering at a reasonable cost with high image quality is the goal of special-purpose volume rendering hardware. The Cube project [9, 14, 16, 15] for hardware accelerated volume rendering pioneered several volume rendering architectures that use using parallel rendering processors and a specially interleaved memory organization to provides high processing performance and memory bandwidth. Cube-4, the most recent approach, is a parallel and scalable architecture with modular rendering pipelines using only local and xed bandwidth interconnections. Cube-4 is estimated to achieve real-time performance (30 frames per second) for a 512 dataset with 128 pipelines running at 30 MHz. Cube-4 uses 3D interpolation and high-quality surface normal estimation without any pre-computations or additional data storage. The performance of Cube-4 grows proportionally with increasing number of pipelines, ultimately limited only by memory speeds. The costperformance ratio of Cube-4 is signi cantly better than existing solutions. The Cube-4 algorithm and data ow have been simulated in C and VHDL. This paper describes two prototype implementations of the Cube-4 architecture on the Teramac hardware simulator at the Hewlett-Packard research laboratories, Palo Alto, CA. Teramac belongs to a new class of machines called custom computing machines which provide the user with a huge amount of programmable logic, thus combining the speed of specialpurpose hardware with the exibility of general purpose computers. In Section 2 we brie y describe the Cube-4 volume rendering algorithm and the rendering pipeline derived from this algorithm. We further describe a scheme for parallel volume rendering that has been implemented on the Teramac machine. We will explain two partitioning schemes for rendering large volumes with a small number of rendering pipelines. Section 3 gives an overview of the Teramac hardware and software system. In Section 4 we discuss our two Cube-4 implementations on Teramac in more detail and present results in the form of performance numbers and images.


Objective To construct a series of vaccine vectors carrying epitopes from two novel genes 2B9G1 or 7C3-C3 of Toxoplasma gondii and lay the foundation for further research on protection induced by them.Methods The epitopes encoded by sequences within two novel genes were predicted by bioinformatics.Three epitope encoding fragments W2b,W2a and W4a were selected,and amplified from either 2B9G1 or 7C3-C3 gene by PCR,respectively.The amplified products were purified with DNA purification kit and then digested with restriction endonucleases.Digested products were then ligated into corresponding polyclone sites of plasmid with T4 DNA ligase respectively.The recombinants were transformed into E.coli DH5α cells by heat-shock method.Ampicillin-resistant transformants were then selected and identified by PCR,restriction endonucleases and DNA sequencing analysis.Identically,W2a and W4a were cloned into the downstream of recombinant pcDNA3-W2b,respectively,and W4a into the downstream of recombinant pcDNA-W2b2a.Results With the confirmation by the PCR,restriction endonucleases and DNA sequencing analysis,the epitopes of W2b,W2a and W4a were inserted into the expecting site of pcDNA3;W2a and W4a were also inserted into pcDNA3-W2b and W4a into pcDNA3-W2b2a,respectively.Conclusion By these procedures,the single-epitope vaccine plasmid pcDNA3-W2b,pcDNA3-W2a,pcDNA3-W4a and double-epitope vaccine pcDNA3-W2b2a,pcDNA3-W2b4a and multiple-epitope vaccine pcDNA3-W2a2b4a were successfully constructed.


In this essay I analize Natsume Soseki's Kokoro or The Heart and Uchida Hyakken's Hanabi or Fireworks, from the viewpoint of the labyrinthine images in them. These short stories have in common extraordinarily dreamy characteristics. In Kokoro, a man finds a strange bird that reminds him of vague memories within himself. Then he meets a strange woman who also gives him impression that she may be related to dim memories of his past. She leads him into a dark, narrow, mazy lane, that is, a labyrinthine space. In this story Soseki created a chain of images that showed his subjective world: a bird, a woman, memories, and so on. He created Kokoro on the basis of subjective visions, instead of the real world. On this point, Soseki can be compared with the Western subjective artists whom G. R. Hocke called the Mannerists. Kokoro's influence on Hanabi is obvious. In Hanabi, a man also meets a strange woman on a bank near the sea. They walk together towards the seaside. They saw splendid fireworks on their way, and he thinks that the fireworks resemble the memories of his past. That is, the image of fire or fireworks has the function of the bird in Kokoro. Getting into a small labyrinthine corridor, he feels uneasy. Finally the woman fall upon him, screaming a flirt!. Hyakken also created a subjective chain of images in his work. These works are quite neurotic, but I think pathological approaches are not sufficient to understand them. Because Soseki and Hyakken composed them deliberately from the viewpoint of artistic effects. They tried to express their inner enigmatic world, which they thought really valuable. They produced many labyrinthine images in the process of representing such enigmas.


ABSTRACT How should political leaders be evaluated? This article reviews existing approaches and argues that they are insufficiently developed to map the more complex policy effects of political leaders, since they tend to focus on electoral and broader regime level outcomes. In response, it maps out a layered framework based on scientific realism. The layered approach argues that analysis should focus on the effects of leaders within societal structures, formal political institutions, the framing of policy problems as well as policy. The approach requires that we are sensitive to the structure and agency relationships between layers when identifying where leaders brought about policy and political change, as well as the effects on the international system and on other polities. It is proposed that the new approach will help to develop a more complete and nuanced understanding of the policy effects of leaders that will uncover their effects in hidden spaces as well as broader societal shifts.


High performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) was used to quantify the concentrations of beta-carotene and lutein in Biomphalaria glabrata and Helisoma trivolvis (Colorado and Pennsylvania strains) snails under various conditions. These conditions were: snails fed a lettuce (L) vs. a yolk (Y) diet; B. glabrata infected with Echinostoma caproni vs. uninfected snails; and H. trivolvis (PA) infected with Echinostoma trivolvis vs. uninfected snails. The pigments were extracted from the snail whole bodies and digestive gland-gonad complexes, separated by reversed phase HPTLC, and quantified by densitometric scanning with standard calibration curves. Snails on the L-diet showed significant increases (Student's t-test, P<0.05) in the concentrations of beta-carotene and lutein compared to snails on the Y-diet. Snails infected with echinostomes showed no significant differences (Student's t-test, P>0.05) in the concentrations of lutein and beta-carotene compared to the uninfected cohorts. Our results were compared with previous studies that analyzed beta-carotene and lutein in snails infected with larval trematodes. Variations in the results of our study compared with others reflect intrinsic differences in the larval trematode-snail systems used.


Everyone's right to life is guaranteed by Article 38 of the Constitution2. It is undeniably a fundamental value, which is rooted in the idea of human dignity3 and at the same time it is the genesis of all other rights a person is entitled to. It is obvious that life once lost cannot be restored or regenerated in any way4. Therefore, more effort should be made both by the state as well as a single unit to protect this value in a comprehensive manner. Protection of life refers to the full and complete human life period and each of its stage and phase5. In that


Tumor hypoxia results in poor patient outcome due to treatment resistance as well as biological changes that stimulate angiogenesis, vasculogenesis, migration, invasion and immune suppression. These hypoxia-induced adverse biological changes are often mediated by membrane bound or secreted proteins through transcriptional and translational upregulation. Thus, understanding the regulation of how secreted proteins in hypoxia can therefore reveal novel therapeutic targets. Proteins that traverse through the secretory pathway form disulfide bonds in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Recent data from our lab have demonstrated that disulfide bond formation remains incomplete in ER cargo proteins like LDLR and Flu-HA in the absence of oxygen. To address whether hypoxia-induced proteins were likewise impaired, radioactive pulse chase assays were performed to measure disulfide bond formation and secretion capacity under both normoxic and hypoxic conditions. Here, we demonstrate that both hypoxia induced proteins carbonic anhydrase 9 (CA9) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) complete disulfide bond formation and are secreted with equal kinetics under hypoxia and normoxia. These proteins hence have a superior ability to be expressed in the absence of oxygen. Additionally, in a global in silico analysis of all proteins that traverse through the ER, we discovered that hypoxia-induced proteins on average contain fewer free cysteines and shorter-range disulfide bonds in comparison to other proteins. These traits may contribute to their superior ability to form correct disulfide bonds in hypoxia. These data show that the ability of proteins to form native disulfide bonds in hypoxia varies widely which can ultimately contribute to their expression in the extracellular space. Citation Format: Sandy Che-Eun Serena Lee, Fiana Levitin, Stephanie Hulme, Ryan Rumantir, Jenna Sykes, Marianne Koritzinsky. Protein secretion rates of VEGF and CA9 in normoxia and hypoxia [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research 2020; 2020 Apr 27-28 and Jun 22-24. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(16 Suppl):Abstract nr 3559.


Editors' Preface As part of EA planning EA programmes have the need to estimate the effort needed. Current literature and practice approaches do not offer much help in this regard. EA effort estimations are at best of experience of the team involved. There is a clearly a lack of scientific / heuristic based approaches on offer. There are several reasons for the current state: (A) Most of the EA discipline development, till date, has focused on frameworks, methodologies, notations, tools, toolkits etc. (B) EA is still evolving, as in, currently the footprint (scope and nature) of the EA programmes are still left to specific needs of the organizations, and (C) Emergence (but current lack) of standards in EA.


The Agriophyllum squarrosum(L)Moq.experimental plot in Guanting lakefront of Yanqing county was taken as investigation subject,based on the observations and investigations on roughness,effective function of wind prevention,amount of sediment transport,blown wind speed and single Agriophyllum squarrosum's sand resistance range.The result shows that the roughness of experimental plot is 6.17 cm,which is higher than clear sand land in windward slope with 5.37 cm;the effective function of wind prevention at the height of 30 cm and 50 cm is better,with the percentage separately is 24.13% and 17.07% and at the height of 200 cm nearly has no effective function of wind prevention;when the wind speed up to 7.1 m/s,the experimental plot still has no sand blown phenomenon;the average wind speed is 5.8 m/s in 20 min,the sand accumulation in the experimental plot is only 0.62 g;the single Agriophyllum squarrosum's sand resistance range is 1.37 m~2.


The paper proceeds to discuss drugs commonly used in the treatment of sleep disorders, benzodiazepines and newer nonbenzodiazepines compounds. The pharmacokinetic properties of these compounds are briefly described, as are effects of age. Other hypnotics as suvorexant and melatonin are included in this review which concludes with suggestions for the proper identification of patients requiring chemical treatment for sleep disorders and highlights methodologies for choosing the most beneficial pharmacological tools.The following article identifies the appropriate strategies for the prescription of hypnotic drugs. Keys words: Hypnotics; Benzodiazepines; Z Drugs; Suvorexant and Melatonin; Received: December 01, 2017; Accepted: January 18, 2018; Published: January 22, 2018 *Corresponding author: Michel Bourin, Neurobiology of anxiety and depression, University of Nantes, 98, rue Joseph Blanchart 44100 Nantes, France, E-mail: email@example.com Symbiosis www.symbiosisonline.org www.symbiosisonlinepublishing.com Symbiosis Group * Corresponding author email: email@example.com Introduction Insomnia is defined as a difficulty falling asleep and / or nocturnal awakening or late night. These sleep disorders are related to various medical or psychological problems. The prevalence of sleep disorders appears to be higher in women than in men. It is also higher in the elderly. Insomnia is usually a symptom rather than an autonomous pathology; it accompanies depressive or anxious syndromes in the majority of cases. The prescription of a hypnotic requires a good knowledge of the circumstances that lead to its use. It is therefore necessary, first of all, to define what is insomnia or more precisely the disorders of sleep. The great problem of the practitioner is therefore to carry out a correct evaluation of the symptoms; this is not very easy but does not dispense with doing it. Most of the time, the prescription of a hypnotic is carried out without this prior procedure thus making it difficult to evaluate [1]. Three groups of drugs used as hypnotics are schematically distinguished • Allosteric modulators of GABA A receptors (including benzodiazepines) •Suvorexant which is an antagonist of orexin receptors • Melatonin which is a natural hormone Benzodiazepines Benzodiazepines have been substituted for barbiturates in the treatment of insomnia due to their lower toxicity. Derivatives marketed ashypnotic's exhibit a relatively rapid resorption rate which allows them to be used as sleep inducers (Table 1). Table 1 ICD Resorption (h) Half-life (h) Estazolam 1–1.5 18–24 Flunitrazepam 1–1.5 20–30 Loprazolam 2–3 8–10 Nitrazepam 1–1.5 18–25 Témazepam 1.5–2 8–14 Properties of Benzodiazepines Classically, short-acting or long-acting benzodiazepines are separated according to their half-life (mean half-life greater than or less than 10 hours for a hypnotic) [2]. However, this classification has some shortcomings because the elimination half-life is not necessarily the major determinant of the blood concentration as a function of which the hypnotic action ends. Thus, the plasma decay, for a good number of benzodiazepines, is carried out in two phases. The rapid phase is a redistribution of the drug from the perfused tissues, particularly from the brain to the peripheral fats and other weakly perfused tissues (peripheral compartment). The second is a major contributor to decreased plasma concentrations. Products with a half-life of significantly longer than 8 or 10 hours are likely to accumulate and, after several nights of administration, lead to high residual concentrations that may induce diurnal sedation. We must also beware of products whose speed of resorption is not fast, their hypnotic effect is linked to an "overdose", and i.e. the effect is obtained well before the maximum plasma concentration [3]. Whatever the characteristics of benzodiazepine hypnotics, we can note that benzodiazepines with anxiolytic aim can be used in anxiety for a hypnotic purpose by administering a higher dose in the evening, taking into account the rate of resorption often slower [4]. Benzodiazepines have certain advantages [5]: • A large margin of safety between therapeutic and toxic


This work is an extension of Kaghashvili [1999] where ion-cyclotron wave dissipation channel for Alfv\'en waves was discussed. While our earlier study dealt with the mode coupling in the commonly discussed sense, here we study changes in the initial waveform due to interaction of the initial driver Alfv\'en wave and the plasma inhomogeneity, which are implicitly present in the equations, but were not elaborated in Kaghashvili [1999]. Using a cold plasma approximation, we show how high frequency waves (higher than the initial driver Alfv\'en wave frequency) are generated in the inhomogeneous solar plasma flow. The generation of the high frequency forward and backward propagating modified fast magnetosonic/whistler waves as well as the generation of the driven Alfv\'en waves is discussed in the solar atmosphere. The generated high frequency waves have a shorter dissipation timescale, and they can also resonant interact with particles using both the normal cyclotron and anomalous cyclotron interaction channels. These waves can also be important in space, Earths magnetosphere, the ionosphere, and laboratory plasma processes.


Draws on Neo‐Weberian theory to argue that commodification is itself a cultural process, whilst not discounting the potentially negative effect of commercialisation. Examines product conception in the early US recording industry citing three disparate periods. Shows that in the late 1870s, recording firms sold and leased phonographs to entrepreneurs for public exhibitions, the the late 1880s firms leased phonographs and graphophones for dictation purpose and in the 1890s, firms exploited the phonograph by offering musical recordings. Concludes that structural power helped shape the product concepts of the industry.


Collected almost 100 years ago, these timeless tales represent the diversity and richness of American Indian cultures from around the Great Lakes, the Midwest, and the Mississippi River valley. They reveal much about the central beliefs and guiding principles of Winnebago, Ojibwa, Menominee, and other peoples and provide a window into their outlook and aspirations. As Katharine Judson wrote in her original preface, they express the longing to understand the why and how of life. Many of these tales concern Manabush, a culture hero for several peoples and later the inspiration for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Hiawatha." Readers also encounter the elemental forces of Thunder, Rain, and Wind; the wise and foolish actions of Fox, Eagle, and Hare; and legends describing the creation of Earth, Sky, and Mountain. Told in a simple, unencumbered style, these stories and myths grow in depth and complexity upon each reading and provide rich material for understanding the peoples of a region whose cultures have received relatively little attention. An introduction by Peter Iverson highlights the divergent ways American Indian identity has been constructed through such legends. All ages can appreciate the strength, power, and beauty of these timeless legends and tales.


The article is devoted to exploring the possibilities of ensuring the security of material storage at military depots by introducing risk-oriented fire safety management, developing the basics of the mechanism of fire risk management of material storage facilities for military needs. Analysis of statistics shows that nowadays there is a general tendency to increase the number of fires and direct material damage from them.  Considering the fact that storage facilities are characterized by a large number of dangerous factors that can cause a fire, the problem of increasing the level of fire safety of warehouses and ensuring the reliability of storage of material resources on them in the current conditions arises.  At the same time, it is established that the existing requirements of fire safety for the respective objects by officials and personnel are mainly fulfilled.  This situation indicates the need to improve the mechanisms of fire safety management of the warehouse. Based on the analysis of scientific publications and the results of the author's research, it has been found that the possibilities of increasing the level of fire safety of military depots are related to the introduction of risk-oriented fire safety management.  For this purpose, it is necessary to develop a mechanism for managing fire risks of the warehouse management of the military unit.  This article presents the basic basics of the fire risk management mechanism for military material storage facilities, defines the procedure and their main elements. It is stated that the effectiveness of management decisions and actions aimed at eliminating, reducing or at least localizing fire risks and, accordingly, the results of work, has a key influence on the working expert group, which should be established in a specific military unit for risk analysis and card preparation fire risks. The latter allows documenting the existing risks and their levels, showing the conditions of occurrence of a fire, the factors influencing the level of fire risks, actions to eliminate these factors.


In the woodworking industry, the issue of noise reduction is one of the fundamental ones. In most cases, it is an indicator of equipment and products quality, in addition, it negatively affects the performance and irritates the nervous system of machine operators. [1]. The cause of noise is the process of cutting tool interaction with wood and it also depends on the type of wood cutting tool. For wood manufacturing, the blade and abrasive cutting tools are used. The blade instrument has a specified number of fixed shape blades and is divided into disk, cylindrical, conical and plate-shaped ones according to the shape of the body. The abrasive cutting tool on the working surface contains an indefinite number of abrasive material particles. [2]. The edge of the cutter interacts with the surface under work, along the entire width, the cutting direction is perpendicular to the cutting edge. With a small cutting depth, this does not cause significant sound vibrations, but with intensive technological modes of the treated surface, this factor is of great importance in generating noise.There are a lot of works devoted to the study of different cutting tool dependence and noise characteristics [3-7]. For example, in [8] it was experimentally proved that the noise level increases by 1-5 dBA with an increase in the number of knives from 2 to 4. This article presents the results of the acoustic system theoretical studies "manufactured workpiece cutting tools" for cantilever fixing of the workpiece of turning group woodworking machines.


Proper regulation of apoptotic cell death is crucial for normal development and homeostasis in multicellular organisms and is achieved by the balance between pro‐apoptotic processes, such as caspase activation, and pro‐survival signaling, such as extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK) activation. However, the functional interplay between these opposing signaling pathways remains incompletely understood. Here, we identified MAPK/ERK kinase (MEK) 1, a central component of the ERK pathway, as a specific substrate for the executioner caspase‐3. During apoptosis, MEK1 is cleaved at an evolutionarily conserved Asp282 residue in the kinase domain, thereby losing its catalytic activity. Gene knockout experiments showed that MEK1 cleavage was mediated by caspase‐3, but not by the other executioner caspases, caspase‐6 or ‐7. Following exposure of cells to osmotic stress, elevated ERK activity gradually decreased, and this was accompanied by increased cleavage of MEK1. In contrast, the expression of a caspase‐uncleavable MEK1(D282N) mutant in cells maintained stress‐induced ERK activity and thereby attenuated apoptotic cell death. Thus, caspase‐3‐mediated, proteolytic inhibition of MEK1 sensitizes cells to apoptosis by suppressing pro‐survival ERK signaling. Furthermore, we found that a RASopathy‐associated MEK1(Y130C) mutation prevented this caspase‐3‐mediated proteolytic inactivation of MEK1 and efficiently protected cells from stress‐induced apoptosis. Our data reveal the functional crosstalk between ERK‐mediated cell survival and caspase‐mediated cell death pathways and suggest that its dysregulation by a disease‐associated MEK1 mutation is at least partly involved in the pathophysiology of congenital RASopathies.


The Bethe-Salpeter equation in non-commutative QED (NCQED) is considered for three-body bound state. We study the non-relativistic limit of this equation in the instantaneous approximation and derive the corresponding Schr\"{o}dinger equation in non-commutative space. It is shown that the experimental data for Helium atom puts an upper bound on the magnitude of the parameter of non-commutativity, $\theta\sim10^{-9}\lambda_e^2$.


Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) comprises a Collection of wireless nodes that does not rely on any fixed infrastructure or base station. Trust based routing in MANET is challenging task due to its on demand dynamic nature which makes it susceptible to various types of attacks such as black holes, Byzantine, rushing attacks etc. The proposed trust based Management framework gives an overview about trust in MANETs. It works on the concept of trust factor in (initialization phase), for selecting the most efficient route and a routing path is evaluated using the concept of trust value that is updated during the route exchange process. The performance metric considered are throughput, number of drop packets and packet delivery ratio (PDR). The simulation results show that the proposed protocol gives better performance than existed protocol.


Natasa Christidou's earliest memory is of her father Peter masturbating over her as she lay in bed. It was December 1971. She was not quite three years old. Her mother Ruby was in hospital, having given birth to her sister Helen. Natasa and her year-old sister Anna were in Peter's care in the family home in Alfred Street, Richmond, Melbourne. As her father wiped his penis across Natasa's mouth, she felt 'something wet' splash on her lips, and thought he had 'pooed' on her. Later, when the family visited Ruby in hospital, the girls were placated with stuffed toys: a red dog for Natasa; a blue dog for Anna.


Three hundred eighty cancers of the larynx and 120 of the pyriform sinus were treated in the 15 years from 1958‐1973 at Yale‐New Haven Hospital. They were studied for response to treatment by surgery, radiation or a combination of the two. Overall control rates in the entire group of 500 were 51% for radiotherapy, 51% for surgery. Further analysis showed significant differences in the results obtained by stage and by location for surgery and radiotherapy. The total number of cases treated by combined therapy was relatively small, except for pyriform sinus.


Higher rates of school switching by students contribute to achievement disparities and are typically theorized as driven by attributes of individual pupils or families. In contrast the neoclassical-economic account postulates that switching is necessary for competition among schools. We argue that both frames fail to capture social-referential and institutional comparisons that drive student mobility, hypothesizing that pupil mobility stems from the (a) student's time in school and grade; (b) student's race, class, and achievement relative to peers; (c) quality of schooling relative to nearby alternatives; and (4) proximity, abundance, and diversity of local school options. Propositions are tested with discrete-time hazard models using data from Los Angeles, including 6.5 million observations. We find the student's position relative to peers, relative school quality, and proximity to local alternatives contribute significantly to the likelihood of switching schools, beyond the effects of individual pupil or family attributes. Implications for understanding "choice" as a social-referential process within diverse organizational fields like urban education markets are discussed.


his issue celebrates one of the truly crucial books for the history of childhood: Viviana Zelizer's Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children. Short essays by Birgitte Søland, Paula Fass, Michael Katz, Daniel Thomas Cook, Barrie Thorne, Linda Gordon, and Viviana Zelizer herself reflect on the continuing importance of this book, not only for understanding children's social roles, but also for thinking about the relations between history, sociology, and economics. Like Pricing the Priceless Child, these essays ask what the shifting value of children in the early-twentieth-century United States might suggest about the process of valuation itself. Zelizer's book charts change. One of the most striking aspects of these probing meditations on her work is how much the "usefulness" of this account has itself changed as it has reached new audiences (see the essays on teaching Pricing the Priceless Child) and as it illuminates new economic and familial structures. As many of these scholars note, one of the ways that children have indeed proved economically "useful"—even as children's value as laborers waned— has been in the market role of consumers. The three long essays in this issue focus on young people's relations to consumption. Emily Hamilton-Honey's detailed reading of the scrapbooks compiled by two Smith students in the 1890's provides a wonderfully tangible account of the varied roles commercial establishments played in the education of these young women. Indeed the college boardinghouse itself—an institution mimicking a home—encapsulates many of the patterns Zelizer describes in which emotional value simultaneously diverges from and enhances market value. The effort to sentimentalize economic transactions is rampant in the educational arrangements of the college, the marketing strategies of Northampton shopkeepers, and the girls' own penchant for making commercial ephemera into keepsakes. L. Halliday Piel's essay is quite literally about children's consumption. It details the problems of hunger and malnutrition that beset Japanese children during the 1940s. Through an innovative combination of governmental and medical records, children's


The preservation of standing biomass is one of the most vital elements for environmental sustainability and the sustainability of the forest itself. One of the actions that can be taken in an effort to maintain the sustainability of forest stand biomass is to map the distribution of biomass, and monitor changes or dynamics of stand biomass from time to time in a sustainable manner. This study aims to build a model based on remote sensing imagery to estimate the total biomass of tropical rainforest stands in Mandiangin Hill, South Kalimantan. The models developed in this study are based on vegetation indices extracted from Sentinel-2 MSI Imagery. A total of ten vegetation indices were tested in this study. For the construction process and validation of stand biomass estimation models, biomass information was measured directly in the field using a number of measuring plots. Stand biomass estimation models were made by correlating stand biomass information from the field with vegetation indices from Sentinel-2 MSI Imagery. The results showed that the most accurate model for estimating the biomass of tropical rainforest stands was 9.5806.exp (0.1454.PSSRa). Where PSSRa is Pigment Specific Simple Ratio. This model has a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.876, a Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 16.8%, and a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 32.6. The estimation results show that the total biomass of the Bukit Mandiangin tropical rainforest stands is between 11.7 to 998.5 Mg/ha, with an average biomass of 135.8 Mg/ha. Furthermore, the estimation of stand biomass in this study is limited to woody vegetation with a DBH of 10 cm and above. The PSSRa model with various improvements can be used to accurately estimate stand biomass


4 ABSTRACT:This paper is merely deals with estimating the 3-Dimensional view of a single image and also determining and altering various aspects of an image such as its alpha, beta, direction, border, background using NI- LabVIEW software. It can also be accomplished for reducing the size of the image as well as varying the maximum height of the image. The image to be used for conversion can be either acquired through camera using NI-Vision and Motion tool or we can load already acquired image. With Personal Computer installed with LabVIEW 2014, we can able to establish 3-Dimensional View and its corresponding depth of the acquired image.


The objective of this study was to investigate the absorption behavior of chikusetsusaponin IVa (CHS‐IVa) in the rat intestine using single‐pass intestinal perfusion (SPIP) and to classify CHS‐IVa into the biopharmaceutics classification system (BCS). The equilibrium solubility of CHS‐IVa was determined by the shaker method. The absorption mechanism of CHS‐IVa in the intestine was studied by comparing the Peff of different concentrations of CHS‐IVa. The intestinal site dependence of CHS‐IVa absorption was studied by comparing the Peff of the same concentration of CHS‐IVa in different intestinal segments. The relationship between CHS‐IVa and intestinal efflux protein was studied by perfusion with an efflux protein inhibitor. The permeability of CHS‐IVa was investigated by comparing the Peff of CHS‐IVa and the reported value. The solubility of CHS‐IVa over the pH range 1.0–7.5 was 14.4 ± 0.29 to 16.9 ± 0.34 mg/ml. The Peff of CHS‐IVa in the duodenum was 1.76 × 10−3 to 2.00 × 10−3 cm/min. The Peff of CHS‐IVa in the jejunum was 1.26 × 10−3 to 1.39 × 10−3 cm/min. The Peff of CHS‐IVa in the ileum was 1.25 × 10−3 to 1.31 × 10−3 cm/min. The Peff of CHS‐IVa in the colon was 1.02 × 10−3 to 1.08 × 10−3 cm/min. There was no statistical difference of the Peff in the four segments at different CHS‐IVa concentrations. The Peff of CHS‐IVa (0.07, 0.7 and 7.0 mg/ml) were all notably smaller than the reported Peff (3.00 × 10−3 cm/min) in the jejunum. The Peff of CHS‐IVa was not influenced by verapamil (P‐gp inhibitor), indomethacin (MRP inhibitor) and pantoprazole (BCRP inhibitor). CHS‐IVa was classified as high solubility, low permeability and BCS III. The main absorptive tracts were the upper intestinal tracts and the rank order of intestinal permeability was duodenum > jejunum ≈ ileum > colon. The transport mechanism of CHS‐IVa in all intestinal segments might be primarily passive transport. CHS‐IVa was not a substrate of P‐gp, MRP and BCRP.


The tremendous change in the 21 st century is the emerging nature of a new set of economic and social indicators which eventually capture the changes in structural transformation, technological advance, and competition in the job market. This paper aims to discuss the development and validation process of the Malaysian 21 st century skills instrument (M-21CSI) to be used within the teaching and learning of science processes. The M-21CSI consists of five distinctive elements which are: i) Digital age literacy; ii) Inventive thinking; iii) Effective communication; iv) High productivity; and iv) Spiritual value. Through an extensive review of the literature and group discussion, constructs that represent the Malaysian 21 st Century Skills were identified and further refined by Two Round Delphi Studies. Subsequent to that, items representing each construct were then drawn up. In order to justify the validity of this instrument, the questionnaire built has been tested its validity by face validity, language and content validity. This then was followed by factor analysis. The reliability of each construct was justified in terms of its internal consistency by means of Cronbach Alpha. Findings of this study confirmed the validity and reliability of the M-21CSI and thus indicated that it is a useful instrument to evaluate the mastery of Malaysian students towards 21 st century skills.


Mechanisms for controlling an audio level of an HDMI audio system are provided, the mechanisms comprising: causing audio data to be presented by an HDMI audio system at a current system volume level; receiving a requested volume level from a second screen device; and controlling a system volume level by: (a) determining the current system volume level; (b) determining a change in volume based on a difference between the requested volume level and the current system volume level; (c) determining a direction in which to cause the system volume level to change; (d) sending a volume control message to the system using a consumer electronic control bus connected to the system indicating whether to increase or decrease the system volume level based on the determined direction of system volume change; and (e) repeating (a)-(d) until the current system volume level reaches a predetermined value.


The paper defines the concept of vernacular landscape of the north-west arid region,that is the rural complex ecosystem which is able to fully adapt to the natural environment and reflect the special people-land relationship of the arid areas.According to the differences of main areas of research and discipline,the paper describes the research status of vernacular landscape of the arid region from 4aspects i.e.the landscape pattern and process,the land resources and water resources using,the settlement landscape and the landscape planning and design.Then,the paper sums up three features of previous research—Continuous expansion of the subject areas continue,and empirical research as the lead and use of diversification of research methods.In the end,the paper puts forward the outlook of future research as deepening of the basic theory and the underlying mechanism,and diverse exploration and paradigm convergence of the discipline.


By using the concept of Loss Event Rate (LER) as a input parameter, we propose a novel congestion control mechanism for adaptive transmission of video unicast. The proposed mechanism is a probing algorithm and can reduce the fluctuation of the sending rate in the case of transient period of severe congestion.


Background: Although surgical repair has been reported to provide improved outcomes compared with nonoperative treatment in the management of complete proximal hamstring origin avulsions, no intact or avulsion repair biomechanical data exist to support various repair strategies or guide postoperative rehabilitation. Purpose: To compare failure load among 4 proximal hamstring tendon conditions: (1) intact, (2) repair with 2 small anchors (2S), (3) repair with 2 large anchors (2L), and (4) repair with 5 small anchors (5S). Study Design: Controlled laboratory study. Methods: Twenty-four human cadaveric hemipelvises were randomly allocated to 1 of the 4 testing groups. Intact and repaired specimens were subjected to cyclic loading at 1 Hz between 25 N and a progressively increasing maximum load that was incremented by 200 N every 50 cycles, beginning at 200 N and increasing to 1600 N. Displacement, maximum load, stiffness, number of cycles to failure, and mode of failure during cyclic loading were recorded and analyzed. Results: The intact proximal hamstring tendons failed at the highest cyclic force of all tested groups, yet no significant differences existed between the intact (1405 ± 157 N) and 5S repair (1164 ± 294 N) conditions. Both the 2S and the 2L repair groups failed at a level significantly lower than the intact hamstring (474 ± 145 N [P < .001] and 543 ± 245 N [P < .001], respectively). The maximum load attained by the 5S repairs was significantly greater than the loads attained by the 2S (P = .005) and 2L (P = .013) repairs. Conclusion: Repairs using 5 small anchors were similar to the intact tendon and were significantly stronger than repairs using only 2 large or 2 small anchors in the repair of complete avulsions of the proximal hamstring tendons. Additionally, no significant differences in strength were observed when only anchor size differed. Clinical Relevance: This finding supports the clinical investigation of postoperative range of motion rehabilitation protocols that permit full flexion and extension of the hip and knee when a 5-anchor repair construct is used.


This paper analyses the current safety protection methods for LPG tanks under fire and makes decisions on the application scope of every kinds of methods.Experiment is carried out to get failure theory and failure mode of LPG tanks under fire,thus a comprehensive safety protection technology is proposed and the corresponding operating procedure is given.


A method for producing a power electronics module with at least one electronic component (1) comprising the steps of: Cutting at least one of for at least one electrical contact (7) of the component (1) provided for opening (5) in an at least comprising a first inorganic material electrically insulating support film (3); Positioning and fixing the electronic component (1) on the carrier film (3); Generating the electrical contact (7) to the outside of the electronic component (1), characterized, in that for the construction of the module exclusively inorganic or multi-bonded inorganic insulating materials (3; 9) are used.


In this paper, the neural network (NN) is used to control the remote IP address that related to user device. When the IP address assigned carefully and controlled by a novel tool, the work performance and service quality will be better. The input for the NN determined depending on the repeated problem in recent networks and the available parameters which are in the main server node. The training process done by determining the required training function and activation function for all neurons in the NN. The performance of the proposed method was (1*10-20) or less in more cases and the error of the learning process is nearly (1*10-6). In addition to IP address control, the proposed method is a good manner to optimize the security issue by specializing an IP address for a given user that can't be used by other device. Finally, the NN subject the produced IP address for the given users for test and validation which reached to the goal at smallest time (~0.0001s) and little number of iteration (9 - 20) epoch.


Roughly 40 million tons of slag is generated in Japan annually from iron and steelmaking processes, and virtually all of it is effectively used according to its chemical, mechanical, and functional properties as the raw material for cement production, the material for road base courses, and for other civil engineering; such application led to the saving of natural resources and decreasing energy consumption and CO2 emission. While increased use of iron/steel slag contributes to conservation of global environment, it has been mainly for civil construction, and its demand is expected to decrease in the long run. In view of this, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation has been developing technology to solve the problems related to the use of slag and cultivate new applications by taking advantage of its characteristics. This paper reports the production, marketing, and material properties of iron/steel slag and the R&D activities to expand its effective use. Table 1 Production and sales of iron/steel slag (FY 2012)


How to make use of comparative advantage and competitive advantage is always a hot issue in international trade.It is important to choose the developing strategy of a nation.This paper generalizes and analyzes the theory of comparative advantage and competitive advantage on the basis of Chinese national conditions.The findings shows that different regions should adopt comparative advantage to develop and that the nation grasp competitive advantage.


Background: A cardinal feature of the double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenge (DBPCFC) is that placebo administration is included as a control. To date, the occurrence and diagnostic signi fi cance of placebo events have not extensively been documented. Objective: To analyze the occurrence and features of placebo events in DBPCFCs, and to assess their contribution to the diagnostic accuracy of the DBPCFC in children. Methods: The study population consisted of 132 challenges in 105 sensitized children (age range 0,7 -16,6 years, median 5,3 years), who underwent DBPCFCs with cow's milk, egg, peanut, hazelnut, and soy. Placebo and active food challenges were performed on different days. Results: A total number of 17 (12.9%) positive placebo events occurred, which could be classi fi ed as immediate (9/17), late-onset (8/17), objective (11/17) or subjective (6/17). Four out of 74 (5.4%) positive active food challenges were revealed to be false positive by administration of a placebo challenge. This is 3% (4/132) of all challenges. When computed by a statistical model, the false positive rate was 0.129 (12.9% of all challenges). Conclusion: Placebo events with diverse clinical characteristics occur in DBPCFCs in a signi fi cant number of children. The diagnostic signi fi cance of the administration of a placebo challenge is fi rst, to identify false positive diagnoses in DBPCFCs by refuting false positive tests in individual patients. Secondly, to allow for blinding of the active food challenge. Thirdly, applying a statistical model demonstrates that some positive challenges may be false positive, and that the test may need to be repeated in selected cases.


The failure of the kidney is affected the whole human body and it can be a cause of the seriously ill and cause of deaths. Machine learning and data mining techniques are the most significant role in disease prediction with high-performance rate and used to help decision makers to assem-ble and understand information. The performance of classification techniques depends on the feature of the data set. To improve the accuracy of classification used feature selection method by reducing the dimensions of the feature and used ensemble or combine a model of the algorithm. In this research K-Nearest Neighbor, J48, Artificial Neural Network, Nave Bayes and Support Vector Machine classification techniques were used to diagnose Chronic Kidney Disease. To predict chronic kidney disease, build two important models. Namely, using feature selection method and ensemble model. To build chronic kidney disease prediction, used Information gain attributes evaluator with ranker search engine and wrapper subset evaluator with best first engine was used. The result showed that the K-nearest neighbor classifier by using Wrapper Sub set Evaluator with Best first search engine feature selection method has 99% accuracy, J48 with Info Gain Attribute Evaluator with ranker search engine has 98.75, Artificial Neural Network with Wrapper Sub set Evaluator with Best first search engine has 99.5% accuracy, Nave Bayes with Wrapper Sub set Evaluator with Best first search engine has 99% accuracy, Support Vector Machine with Info Gain Attribute Evaluator with ranker has 98.25% accuracy in prediction of chronic kidney disease compared to other with and without feature section method. The second model building method ensemble model by comb-ing the five heterogeneous classifiers based on a voting algorithm. Comparison of the base classifier examined the effectiveness of the proposed ensemble model. The experimental result showed that the proposed ensemble model achieved 99% accuracy.


P2X receptors are cation‐selective channels gated by extracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP). There are relatively few known types of ligand‐gated receptors. In vertebrates they include acetylcholine (Ach), 5‐hydroxytryptamine (5‐HT), γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA), glycine, and glutamate as well as ATP. Ach, 5‐HT, GABA and glycine ligand‐gated receptors are related in evolutionary terms, while glutamate and ATP receptors form separate groups. There have been seven cloned proteins identified to date as members of the P2X receptor family in a wide range of cells and species. We have carried out hydropathy investigations and sequence comparisons of each of the seven subunits in order to examine the putative transmembrane and cysteine‐rich extracellular domains. Probable locations of disulphide bridges are consistent with there being two separate extracellular folding domains. Assessment of the putative surface‐accessible regions was used to select small localised amino acid segments in nonglycosylated regions for raising antibodies against each of the P2X receptor subunits. To test the specificity of these novel P2X receptor antibodies and their presence in cardiac and smooth muscle, sodium dodecyl sulphate‐polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS‐PAGE)/Western blotting was undertaken in homogenised rat heart, bladder, kidney, and vas deferens.


Stories Methods in the Perspective of the Qur'an. In the modern educational system method is part of the curriculum. One method of education is stories methods. This method, if done professionally can be interested for listeners. This method is suitable for telling example of the figures or events that difficult to find the data and the facts or because of other factors. In the Qur'an contains stories of the prophets, the story of the past, the events that occurred and will occur. There is also a story that is not an event, but just as the teaching and guidance. Keywords: Islamic education, the method acts, al-Qur'an.


We study some consequences of the loop quantization of the outermost dust shell in the Lema\^itre-Tolman-Bondi spacetime with a homogeneous dust density using different quantization strategies motivated by loop quantum gravity. Prior work has dealt with loop quantizing this model by employing holonomies and the triads, following the procedure in standard loop quantum cosmology. In this work we compare this quantization with the one in which holonomies and gauge-covariant fluxes are used. While both of the quantization schemes resolve the central singularity, they lead to different mass gaps at which a trapped surface forms. This trapped surface which is matched to an exterior generalized Vaidya spacetime disappears when the density of the dust shell is in the Planck regime. We find that the quantization based on holonomies and gauge-covariant fluxes generically results in an asymmetric evolution of the dust shell in which the effective mass associated with the white hole as seen by an external observer is $2/\pi$ of the one for the black hole. This effective difference in masses results from difference in the classical limits in pre- and post-bounce regimes in the two quantizations. This distinctive feature rules out formation of any black hole-white hole twin in presence of gauge-covariant flux modifications which is in contrast to the quantization using holonomies and triads where the gravitational collapse always leads to a black hole-white hole twins. In another striking difference, for the quantization based on holonomies and gauge-covariant fluxes there can be situations in which during a non-singular collapse only a black hole forms without a white hole.


Foraging behavior and feeding preference of the most abundant ground beetles in Kentucky alfalfa were determined under simulated field conditions in a laboratory terrarium. Evarthrus sodalis LeConte is a carnivorous carabid that foraged primarily on the soil surface. Harpalus pennsylvanicus De Geer is an omnivorous carabid that was never observed on the plants. Amara cupreolata Putzeys foraged on alfalfa foliage as well as the soil surface and was observed feeding on larvae of the alfalfa weevil, Hypera postica (Gyllenhal). The variety of foraging and feeding strategies employed by these ground beetles illustrates the importance of examining carabids at the species level, rather than making generalizations at the family level.


Some National Antimicrobials Used in Food Preservation With humans beginning tol ive together, foods colud be contaminated due to several reasons following the production process. Therefore, the necessity of secure methods for preserving foods has occured. Food safety is the subject that the food industry has been interested and concerned most. For this reason, severeal preservatives are added during the production process. Although there are many applications in food preservation, preserving the foods through biologic methods isone of the most focused applications today. Unlike many applications, biologic preservation is carried out through natural antimicrobials and the number of these materials and theirusage is increasing anddeveloping. The materials used and studies for this purpose are classified as toxinology origin (lisosim, lactoferrin and magainins), plantal products (fitoalexins, herbs and spices)and microbial metabolits


Macroeconomics is a complex and nonlinear macrosystem, in which various elements interact with each other. Traditional methods to predict and analyze macroeconomics, such as time series, cannot get satisfactory results. Simply applying artificial neural networks (ANN) also cannot achieve good results. This paper introduces a new method, called Trend Fitting ANN (TFANN), which combines polynomial fit with the traditional ANN method. TFANN disassembles historical economic data to the trending and the fluctuating element, and then analyzes the two elements respectively. The experimental results show the algorithm is reliable and efficient.


Background: The present study was conducted to compare the Efficacy of MgSO4 and Nifedipine in PreTerm Labour. Materials & Methods: The present study was conducted on 70 patients in active preterm labor who were 24 weeks to 33 weeks and 6 days gestation. Patients were divided into 2 groups. Group I patients received Magnesium Sulfate and group II patients received Nifedipine. In Both Groups, Primary outcome and Secondary outcome was recorded. Adverse effects were also recorded. Results: There were no differences between the groups in the proportion of patients who delivered within 48 hours, Gestational age at delivery and delivery before 37 weeks (P< 0.05). The mean birth weight of babies in group I was 2510 grams and in group II was 2630 grams, Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS) was seen in 8 in group I and 7 in group II, Intraventricular Hemorrhage (IVH) was seen in 1 in group I only and Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) was not seen in any group, sepsis was seen in 2 in Group I and 1 in Group II, death 1 in group I only. Neonatal Intensive Care Unit admission (NICU) was seen in 18 in group I and 13 in group II and mean days in NICU was 8.2 days in Group I and 4.1 days in Group II. Conclusion: Authors found that more patients in Group I achieved the Primary outcome of prevention of Preterm delivery for 48 hours with uterine quiescence as compared to Group II. Nifedipine was associated with fewer maternal adverse effects as compared to Magnesium Sulphate.


— Database to store, search and retrieve DNA physical properties profiles has been developed and its use for analysis of E. coli promoters has been demonstrated. Unique feature of the database is in its ability to handle whole profile as single internal object type in a way similar to integers or character strings. To demonstrate utility of such database it was populated with data of 1227 known promoters, their nucleotide sequence, profile of electrostatic potential, transcription factor binding sites. Each promoter is also connected to all genes, whose transcription is controlled by that promoter. Content of the database is available for search via web interface. Source code of profile datatype and library to work with it from R/Bioconductor are available from the internet, dump of the database is available from authors by request


Significance Lubricin is a glycoprotein that protects cartilage in weight-bearing joints under boundary mode conditions, which defines the conditions under which physical cartilage damage takes place. The natural expression of lubricin decreases with age, and when the joint is damaged. Replacement of lubricin by intraarticular injection reestablishes boundary mode lubrication and can protect against osteoarthritis. However, the manufacture of lubricin is difficult. We set out to create a synthetic mimetic of lubricin by mimicking its structure and functional composition. The result is a diblock copolymer that reduces the coefficient of friction on cartilage, under boundary mode conditions, to a level equivalent to native lubricin. This paper reports coefficents of friction in a boundary mode system that are equivalent to lubricin. We report the design of a diblock copolymer with architecture and function inspired by the lubricating glycoprotein lubricin. This diblock copolymer, synthesized by sequential reversible addition–fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization, consists of a cationic cartilage-binding domain and a brush-lubricating domain. It reduces the coefficient of friction of articular cartilage under boundary mode conditions (0.088 ± 0.039) to a level equivalent to that provided by lubricin (0.093 ± 0.011). Additionally, both the EC50 (0.404 mg/mL) and cartilage-binding time constant (7.19 min) of the polymer are comparable to purified human and recombinant lubricin. Like lubricin, the tribological properties of this polymer are dependent on molecular architecture. When the same monomer composition was evaluated either as an AB diblock copolymer or as a random copolymer, the diblock effectively lubricated cartilage under boundary mode conditions whereas the random copolymer did not. Additionally, the individual polymer blocks did not lubricate independently, and lubrication could be competitively inhibited with an excess of binding domain. This diblock copolymer is an example of a synthetic polymer with lubrication properties equal to lubricin under boundary mode conditions, suggesting its potential utility as a therapy for joint pathologies like osteoarthritis.


Pennsylvania has the longest history of oil and gas drilling in the world, and the state's governance of the industry has matured and continues to evolve. The long history of policy development provides a panoramic perspective useful for the governance challenges of ensuring responsible oil and gas development in the shale era. We make three observations from the Pennsylvania experience. First, sensible policies can be slow to emerge, especially ones that address long-term issues like well reclamation. A second observation is that the mere presence of reclamation requirements and knowledge of well locations does not ensure proper reclamation as evidenced by a high abandonment rate under such a policy regime. Lastly, bonding requirements for conventional wells have been–and are still–far less than actual reclamation costs (roughly half of the costs by our estimates). The same is now true of shale well bonding requirements. A single shale well bond is $10,000, but our analysis of reclamation data for more than 1,200 wells suggests that reclaiming a typical shale well would cost more than $90,000. Bonding requirements are not the only means for encouraging and paying for proper reclamation, but other methods, such as setting aside revenue raised through the state's Impact Fee on unconventional wells, are not currently used.


Background:  Multidrug resistance (MDR) among gram-negative bacilli has increased substantially limiting the choice of antimicrobials. This study was conducted with the objective to determine the efficacy of tigecycline , polymyxin B, newer floroquinolones and newer carbapenems against MDR gram negative isolates. Methods:  90 clinical samples were obtained  from ICU patients. On  basis of  antibiotic susceptibility to first line antibiotics isolates were divided into 3 groups- a)sensitive to all the first line drugs, b) sensitive only to injectables and c) resistant to all antibiotics except imipenem.These groups were then  tested against enoxacin(10 μg), gemifloxacin (5μg), moxifloxacin (5μg), prulifloxacin (5μg), ertapenem (10μg), faropenem (5μg), tigecycline (15μg) and polymyxin B (300 units). Isolates were screened for  ESBL, AmpC, CRE and   MBL. Results: All  the isolates in group 1 were uniformly sensitive to all the new antimicrobials tested. In group 2 susceptibility  profile was as follows -100%  sensitive to  polymyxin B, 16.6% to tigecycline, 10% to enoxacin,  3.3% to gemifloxacin, moxifloxacin, prulifloxacin, ertapenem and faropenem. In group 3, 81.5% of the isolates were sensitive to polymyxin B, 13.2% to tigecycline,  3.3% each to gemifloxacin and ertapenem.. Isolates of the  three groups were uniformly sensitive to imipenem(100%). 2(6.67%) of the isolates were ESBL producers  and  30 (33.3%) were AmpC producers. No CRE and MBL were detected. Conclusion: Polymyxin B emerged as  most effective antimicrobial in group 2 and group 3 with 100% and 81.5%  sensitivity respectively. Use of polymyxin B will  prevent  injudicious use of imipenem and will decrease escalation of MBLs in our facility.


Based on the principle of the Integrated Optical Spectrometer (IOSPEC), a waveguide-based, longwave infrared (LWIR) dispersive spectrometer with multiple input slits for Hadamard spectroscopy was designed and built intended for passive standoff chemical agent detection in 8 to 12μm spectral range. This prototype unit equips with a three-inch input telescope providing a field-of-view of 1.2 degrees, a 16-microslit array (each slit 60 μm by 1.8 mm) module for Hadamard binary coding, a 2-mm core ZnS/ZnSe/ZnS slab waveguide with a 2 by 2 mm2 optical input and micro-machined integrated optical output condensor, a Si micro-machined blazing grating, a customized 128-pixel LWIR mercury-cadmium-telluride (MCT) LN2 cooled detector array, proprietary signal processing technique, software and electronics. According to the current configuration, it was estimated that the total system weight to be ~4 kg, spectral resolution <4cm-1 and Noise Equivalent Spectral Radiance (NESR) <10-8 Wcm-2 sr-1cm-1 in 8 to 12 μm. System design and preliminary test results of some components will be presented. Upon the arrival of the MCT detector array, the prototype unit will be further tested and its performance validated in fall of 2007.


This paper analyzed the condition of volume and sand sediment dynamics based on the design need of sediment pool for the leveling land engineering of urbanized development.Authors put forward to the basic method of sized design of sediment pool.


Summary The Trifon Zarezan landslide is one of the well-studied areas north of Varna. It has been registered in 1998 and monitored since then, but due to expansion of construction activities and lack of sewerage facilities in 2005 it exhibited strong activation seriously damaging the panoramic coastal road remaining closed up to nowadays. One important issue in mitigating the effect of this phenomenon is its continuous monitoring and one promising solution of this problem is the usage of differential Synthetic Aperture Radar interferometry In the framework of this study two sources of data have been used –three geodetic surveys and SAR data from C-SAR instrument onboard Sentinel-1. The main research objective was to combine the advantages offered by both data sources in order to produce regularly updated information about the whole site. The GPS data are precise, but cannot be provided by a dense network, while SAR data cover the whole area, but they lack of high spatial resolution which is disadvantage in case of exploring small areas such as this one. Based on the results achieved it can be concluded that both sources of data provide information confirming the overall behavior of the studied phenomena for the time period concerned.


Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (haplo-HSCT) in patients with acquired severe aplastic anemia (SAA), who lacked suitable related or unrelated HLA-matched donors. Methods: 39 SAA patients underwent haplo-HSCT from Jul 2012 to Jun 2015 at our center. There were 23 males and 16 females at a median follow-up of 11 (range, from 0 to 36) months. The median time from diagnosis to transplantation was 1 (range, from 0.5 to 52) months. The median ages of SAA patients and related haploidentical donor were 23 years (range, 9 to 51years) and 45 (range, from 21 to 61) years, respectively. All patients were given BuCy plus ATG conditioning regimen. GVHD prophylaxis regimen consisted of cyclosporine A (CsA), mycophenolate motetil (MMF), and short-term methotrexate. Results: Stem cells were collected from bone marrow in 23.08% (n=9) of patients, peripheral blood in 2.56% (n=1), bone marrow plus peripheral blood in 74.36% (n=29) patients. 36 patients received haplo-HSCT combined with the third part of cord blood transfusion 92.31%. The median stem cell dose transplanted was 9.76 (range, from 4.02 to 20.10)×108/kg for mononuclear cells, while 3.4 (range, from 1.05 to 8.60)×108/kg for CD34 cells. 36 patients achieved neutrophil engraftment at a median of 12 (range, from 9 to 28) , and 29 patients achieved platelet engraftment at a median of 29 (range, from 10 to 26) days. Cumulative incidence of III°~IV° acute graft versus host disease (aGVHD) was 8.9±4.9%. 6 patients died of transplant-related mortality (TRM), including 4 from severe infection, and 1 from TMA. The overal survival rate of all patients was 83.2%±6.4% Conclusions: Haplo-HSCT is likely to be an option for SAA patients without suitable related or unrelated HLA-matched donors, in consideration of the acceptable TRM and severe GVHD incidences. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


INTRODUCTIONIt is widely accepted that we are now entering the second decade of what will become known as the 'Asian Century'. This argument is based on the argument that economic power is shifting from West to East, and such economic shifts will invariably have strategic and military implications. In short, the economic rise of East Asia, and relative economic decline of North America and Europe will fundamentally reorganise the distribution of power in the world.The evidence that we are well into an Asian Century appears compelling. In 1960, and using World Bank figures, East Asia accounted for a mere 14 percent of global GDP , rising to about 27 percent currently. If linear trends continue, the region could account for about 36 percent of global GDP by 2030 and over half of all global output by the middle of the century. As if symbolic of a handover of economic pre-eminence, China which only accounted for about 5 percent of global GDP in 1960 will likely surpass the United States as the largest economy in the world over the next decade.The link between rising economic wealth and increased military spending also seems compelling. According to figures produced by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute or SIPRI , East Asia accounted for 6.4 percent of global military expenditure in 1988, rising to 13.2 percent in 1998, and 19.5 percent in 2014. (SIPRI 2015) If past record is an indicator of future performance, then the 'Asian Century' prediction is close to a sure thing.In reality, the arrival of the Asian Century is no sure thing. More than this, there are significant headwinds or obstacles which may prove difficult for many Asian countries in the region to overcome. These range from the declining effectiveness of an export-dependent growth model, developments in manufacturing technologies that will dilute the region's existing advantages, and the problems and cost of aging demographics which will be challenging for many countries to manage.This means that while it might still be prudent for governments to prepare for the challenges and complexities associated with an 'Asian Century' such as increased military spending and competition normally associated with rising economies, serious thought should also be given to the possibility of problems associated with large and populous countries with struggling economies and unstable political-economies and societies.STRAINS IN THE 'EAST ASIAN' EC ONOMIC MODELRapidly developing East Asian economies since after the Second World War - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and most recently China - have all relied upon a remarkably similar export-manufacturing model. While there are differences as to the level of state involvement and intervention in these countries during their stage of rapid economic development, their developing models all essentially involve producing exported products for advanced economy consumers cheaper, faster and more reliably than can be done in other countries or regions. Those predicting the 'Asian Century' assume that what worked in the past and present will continue to work for populous countries such as China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Burma -still low- to middle-income economies seeking to replicate what fully industrialized neighbours have achieved.At the heart of this so-called East Asian model of rapid economic development and industrialization is the emphasis on developing a strong export-manufacturing domestic sector that is bolted onto a highly protected domestic consumption market. In addition to the natural advantage of being able to offer a cheap and plentiful supply of low cost labour, state interventionist policies were implemented to attract foreign firms and capital into the export-manufacturing sectors. These include tax concessions and subsidies given to domestic and foreign firms to locate manufacturing plants in various East Asian countries. Export-enhancing policies also include East Asian currency regimes that artificially suppress the value of the domestic currency from rising against Western currencies, making the cost of capital entering into these East Asian countries and buying products made in these countries cheaper for Western firms and consumers respectively. …


The linearity of contributions to the S‐ground‐state splitting (zero‐field splitting, ZFS) of Gd3+ is confirmed by studies on the quadratic effects of the ZFS mechanisms, which are proved to be negligible in most cases. However, the quadratic crystal field (QCF), though small, may have marginal influence on the superposition model analyses of the experimental spin‐Hamiltonian parameters. General expressions are thus obtained for QCF contributions to ZFS in ions with the open‐shell f 7 configuration. These are used to calculate the quadratic contributions for Gd3+ in garnet host crystals. They show that these are small and yet should be allowed for when making superpositon model analyses of phenomenological parameters.


While N-(2-nitrobenzylidene)anilines produced mixtures of 2,1-benzisoxazoles and 3-anilino-2-aryl-2H-indazoles in the presence of indium and iodine in MeOH, N-(2-nitrobenzylidene)anilines were transformed into 3-anilino-2-aryl-2H-indazoles as the predominant major product through the change of the solvent from protic MeOH to aprotic THF. In an indium-mediated one-pot reductive reaction, 2-benzaldehydes and anilines in THF were also successfully transformed into the corresponding indazoles.


Safe evacuation design is a complex process, which relies on crowd simulation models when assessing the performance of large or complicated building layouts. Current simulation methods and tools lack automation and are limited to geometry when relying on BIM interoperability. The use of semantic web linked data is seen as a step towards integrating and leveraging current digital resources to facilitate intelligent and automatic design capable of knowledge processing. An intelligent software system has been developed which is capable of integrating multiple information sources and which can facilitate fast automatic construction and analysis of crowd simulation models for design decision support. The system includes several developed OWL ontologies and SWRL rules which represent design knowledge from the fire evacuation field, thus being able to process and store data about a multi-disciplinary design field. The work conducted towards the development of the system involved investigation into crowd analysis tools, evacuation and digital building models. The ontology and knowledge operators are presented and discussed, providing insight into future exploration of such methods with the aim of outlining their benefits and limitations. The system and knowledge engineered have been tested using a case study, proving they are capable of fast processing and correct interpretation of model data.


Introduction Gliogenesis, revascularization (angiogenesis), and neurogenesis are three major events thought to contribute to brain repair. The interaction of these three processes after global cerebral ischemia (GCI) in the brain is not totally understood. Gene expression at the transcription level during brain repair that follows GCI may be related to metabolic response and plasticity, and all involve the presence of neural progenitor cells (NPC); therefore, understanding the changes that occur throughout the repair process will aid translation of gene targeting for therapies. However, detection of de novo NPC in the brain is not routinely performed clinically because current techniques rely on the use of biopsy or autopsy samples. The biopsy procedure to obtain brain tissue severely limits the utility of these methods because they remove the same cells that we wish to save in vivo, and often clearly precludes longitudinal therapeutic evaluation. To overcome these problems we developed an alternative method that uses molecular probes for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); this novel method provides a powerful and less invasive means of in vivo detection of gene action in brain cells. Here we focused on providing data for the specificity of gene targeted MR-visible probes. Methods Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION, a T2 susceptibility MR contrast agent, BIOPAL Inc) were activated to contain NeutrAvidin (NA) (1). SPION-NA was linked to biotin-labeled phosphorothioate-modified antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (sODN) before use. SPION-sODN or fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-sODN (40 μg Fe or 120 pmol DNA per kg) targeting endogenous gene transcripts of cfos in neurons or glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in astroglia was delivered to the cerebrospinal fluid in cerebral ventricles of C57black6 mouse by cortical puncture (intracerebroventricular, icv, delivery). Two controls were included: no infusion (baseline) and SPION-fos infusion for non astroglia. MRI was acquired for SPION-gfap uptake in live brains in 9.4T magnet at 7 hours after delivery and post mortem brains were obtained for histopathology of FITC-sODN-gfap uptake. For MR detection of uptake specificity, three dimensional T2* weighted MRI (Gradient Echo, TR/TE = 50/21 ms, 50X50X100 μm, NA=24, α=20) was acquired in post mortem brains using a 14T magnet (2).


The effective utilization of wind energy conversion system )WECS( is one of the most crucial concerns for the development of renewable energy systems. In order to achieve appropriate wind power, different pitch angle methods are used. Recurrent Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (RANFIS) is utilized in this paper in a new effective design to improve the performance of classical and adaptive Proportional Integral (PI) controllers applied for the pitch control purposes. Adaptive-online performance and high robustness coverage are the main advantages of the suggested controller. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by a simplified two-mass wind turbine model and a detailed aero-elastic wind turbine simulator (FAST7). At any given wind speed, the proposed controller has outperformed PI, Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS), and RANFIS based controllers, reducing the mechanical stress of drive train while presenting suitable aerodynamic power tracking and maintaining the rotational speed of the rotor under the rated value.


Volume 0 ABSTRACT Introduction: Ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) are commonly prescribed to improve gait in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). However, there is currently little research to support their use or guide clinicians in the prescription process in this population. The purpose of this pilot study was to compare the effects of carbon and plastic AFOs on measures of gait, balance, and mobility in persons with MS. Materials and Methods: Ten individuals with MS who had not used an AFO previously had their gait, balance, mobility, and perception of benefit assessed under three different AFO conditions: no AFO, carbon AFO (C-AFO), and plastic AFO (P-AFO), on separate days. Gait was assessed using an instrumented 10-m walk, a 6-minute walk, the physiological cost index (PCI), and a visual analog fatigue rating scale. Static balance was assessed using posturography under different sensory conditions and dynamic balance using the limits of stability (LOS) test. Mobility was assessed using the timed up and go (TUG) test. The perceived benefit of using the AFO was measured with an eight-item Likert scale survey. Results: No significant differences were identified between the C-AFO and P-AFO conditions for any of the gait, balance, and mobility measures. Both AFO types tended to improve static balance but negatively impacted dynamic balance and mobility when compared with no AFO. There was no significant difference in the perceived benefit between the AFO types. However, there were differences in the PCI and perception of benefit for individual subjects that could be clinically meaningful. Conclusions: There were no differences in gait, balance, and mobility measures or perception of benefit between C-AFO and P-AFO in persons with MS. However, there were differences in individual performance that may warrant consideration when prescribing AFOs. Therefore, clinicians should consider using appropriate standardized assessment tools that measure various aspects of gait, balance, and mobility when evaluating individual responses to AFOs. (J Prosthet Orthot. 2020;00:00–00)


Introduction Cape Coast is one of the maritime towns of this country that established an early and intimate relationship with the Europeans who began to settle in the town from about the last decades of the 15th century. From this time up to 1877, Cape Coast developed into one of the major commercial towns of the Gold Coast, centred around its' famous castle, becoming the headquarters of the British possessions. During this period, the infiltration of European, particularly British values and attitudes into Cape Coast Society, was perhaps the most extensive in the whole of the Gold Coast. A significant consequence of this development was the weakening of effective traditional authority in the town. A reflection of this was the inability of the traditional authority to assume responsibility for the hygiene and sanitation for the town, notwithstanding the active encouragement repeatedly given it by the British. In the words of Kimble:


For the past 60 years, vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) have been the main drugs used for long-term oral anticoagulant therapy. Because of the significant limitations of AVCs, direct-acting oral anticoagulants (DOAKs) have been developed over the past decade. DOAKs have a predictable pharmacokinetic profile and lack the disadvantages of vitamin K antagonists. Apixaban is an oral direct-acting factor Xa inhibitor used for the prevention of thromboembolic complications in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF) and deep vein thrombosis. Despite the use of recommended dosages, some patients may still experience bleeding or lack the desired anticoagulant effect. With this in mind, it is critical to explore new uses for direct oral anticoagulants and to predict their dosage when used in monotherapy or in combination with other drugs. In addition, recent studies have documented individual variability in plasma POAC levels. DOAC pharmacogenetics is a relatively new area of research. There is a need to understand the role of pharmacogenetics in adapting anticoagulant therapy according to a patient's genetic characteristics. In this scientific review of current data, we detail the pharmacokinetics and pharmacogenetics of apixaban as well as new data concerning the clinical characteristics that predetermine the necessary dosage and risk of adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Indeed, the results obtained to date from basic and clinical studies certainly indicate an undeniable influence of genomic changes on the pharmacokinetics of POACs.


Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), also known as somatomedin C, is a peptide hormone composed of a single chain of 70 aminoacids. It owes its name to the structural similarity to insulin. IGF-1 is part of the somatotropic axis, as it is to date considered the primary target of growth hormone (GH) action1. According to the original somatomedin hypothesis by Daughaday et al., GH stimulates production of IGF-1 in the liver. IGF-1 subsequently mediates its physiological role in longitudinal bone growth. IGF has a number of other roles, including that in cortical bone mass, intrauterine growth, brain development and function, insulin sensitivity, kidney and liver size, blood pressure, prostate size, etc.2. At present, there is a growing body of evidence on the possible role of IGF-1 in the pathology of neurodegenerative disease. The role of IGF-1 will be further considered in the text, with emphasis on its function in the brain as well as the implications concerning neurodegeneration.


An apparatus includes an array of bit cells (202, 204, 206, 208) that include a first row of bit cells and a second row of bit cells. The apparatus also includes a first global read word line (240) configured to be selectively coupled to the first row of bit cells and to the second row of bit cells. The apparatus further includes a second global read word line (244) configured to be selectively coupled to the first row of bit cells and to the second row of bit cells. The apparatus also includes a global write word line (242) configured to be selectively coupled to the first row of bit cells and to the second row of bit cells. The first global read word line, the second global read word line, and the global write word line are located in a common metal layer (M4).


Through a linguistic analysis of the Hebrew Lord's Prayer, this article endeavors to reach a new understanding of the function of this text in the lives of its users, concluding that the ninth-century Carolingian writer/translator meant for this text to be sung aloud. This article goes back to the basics of textual research—philology and language study—in order to determine the correct historical framework through which to understand this much-debated text, thus adding to our understanding of the religious life and practice of the nuns of Essen at the polyglottic crossroads of Latin and German, Hebrew and Greek. This paper is also an invitation for future studies to continue its effort to rewrite the history of Hebrew in the church, for historians to broaden their toolbox, and for linguists and philologists to contribute their insights to other fields.


14 Introduction Microbiological screening of hematopoietic progenitor cells cord blood (CB) is required to manufacture high-quality, safe products and is mandated by regulatory bodies. The three AusCord cord blood banks (CBB), licensed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and accredited by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT), aimed to optimize and align their method for microbiological screening. Objectives The aim of this study was to validate the chosen CB fractions, the process, and BacT/ALERT FAN Plus (bioMérieux, France) system for microbiologic screening of CB.


s, 16th Cong Int Soc Blood Transf. Montreal , A u g 16-22, 1980, pp 150. uses require permission. on August 14, 2021. For personal use only. All other www.ccjm.org Downloaded from


A laboratory study was carried out to investigate the ability of neutralization of red mud(RM) using carbon dioxide gas at ambient conditions. It was to evaluate the removal of alkali in the red mud using CO2.The neutralized red mud was characterized by X-ray diffraction(XRD) , FP-640 flame photometer and auto titration method. XRD patterns of red mud revealed that the intensity of sodalite was decreased by using CO2. The pH of red mud was decreased from 11 to 8 . The specific advantages of these processes are that, through adding with hydrochloric acid(HCl) and N-Methyldiethanolamine(MDEA), the removal of alkali in the red mud (Na2O) was decreased from 12.5% to 2.3% by adding with HCl.What is more , the removal ratio of sodium oxide in the red mud by adding with HCl can be received at 80%.


S. aureus by Objective: Dental pulp is acknowledged to be an organic tissue sample on which the microbiological diagnosis of blood-borne pathogens, including those responsible for infectious endocarditis, can be based. Method: Molecular detection of S. aureus was performed in the dental pulp extracted from one tooth collected in a patient firmly diagnosed with S. aureus infectious endocarditis. Result: We report on one patient diagnosed with Staphylococcus aureus endocarditis in whom S. aureus DNA was further detected by PCR in the dental pulp. We advocate not throwing away extracted teeth, appropriate microbial investigations of which may reveal bacteraemic pathogens not otherwise detectable.


We address a counterfeiter who pretends to be the legitimate producer of software or content, charges the same price as the latter and competes with her in the same market. We examine the legitimate producer's joint determination of the profit-maximizing price and intensity of monitoring the counterfeiter's illegal activity. Our approach involves an explicit solution of the profit-maximizing level of counterfeiting, based on a real probability of detection function. The analysis reveals that the profit-maximizing price is lower than the price set in the absence of counterfeiting and must be accompanied with some minimum level of monitoring to be positive. Depending on the level of counterfeiting, the profit-maximizing monitoring rate may rise or fall with an increase in the penalty rate or in the legitimate producer's share in the counterfeiter's fine and back payments, and may counter-intuitively rise with improvements in detection technology.


Femtosecond time-resolved fluorescence depletion spectroscopy was used in the study of the orientation relaxation of Rhodamine 700 ( LD700) and Oxazine 750 ( OX750) in DMSO. The anisotropy functions of the dye molecules were obtained from the fluorescence depletion spectra, as the polarization of probe pulse is parallel and perpendicular respectively. The results show that the transition dipole moment of the pump and the probe of LD700 and OX750 are parallel. The time constants of the orientation relaxation of these dye molecules in DMSO are 1.8 and 1.9 ps for LD700 and OX750, respectively.


Matsu belief was popular in Taiwan in Qing dynasty and some Matsu temples were connected with Buddhism.From its completion to the Japanese occupation era,Buddhists maintained Grand Matsu Temple with a tablet and a plaque kept in it.The record of its repairing in Qianlong dynasty kept two belongings of Matsu belief: 1.Due to Matsu's deeds,Matsu belief seemed close to Taoism,but actually it combined Buddhism and Taoism,with more Buddhism.2.Matsu was believed as the incarnation of Buddha.The plaque record about the huge bell casting in Xianfeng dynasty illustrated Buddhistic functions of Buddha image(including the Matsu image) and the huge bell.With Buddhists in Matsu temples,Matsu belief,once a folk belief,was endowed with more Buddhism connotations.Besides Grand Matsu Temple,this phenomemon can also be found in Luermen Matsu Temple,Beigang Chao-Tian Temple and Lugang Matsu Temple.It originated from Meizhou,Putian,Fujian province,which could be dated back to Song dynasty.


A widely accepted practice for treating deuteron breakup in A(d,p)B reactions relies on solving a three-body A+n+p Schrodinger equation with pairwise A-n, A-p and n-p interactions. However, it was shown in Phys. Rev. C 89, 024605 (2014)PRVCAN0556-281310.1103/PhysRevC.89.024605 that projection of the many-body A+2 wave function into the three-body A+n+p channel results in a complicated three-body operator that cannot be reduced to a sum of pairwise potentials. It contains explicit contributions from terms that include interactions between the neutron and proton via excitation of the target A. Such terms are normally neglected. We estimate the first-order contribution of these induced three-body terms and show that applying the adiabatic approximation to solving the A+n+p model results in a simple modification of the two-body nucleon optical potentials. We illustrate the role of these terms for the case of Ca40(d,p)Ca41 transfer reactions at incident deuteron energies of 11.8, 20, and 56 MeV, using several parametrizations of nonlocal optical potentials.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE:Sarcomatoid urothelial carcinoma (SUC) is an unusual variant that bears poor prognosis. Guidelines recommend consideration for early radical cystectomy (RC) in patients w...


For selecting a hot spot of a touch screen, a display module showing sequentially each hotspot within a specified selection area by a projection of the selected object on a touch screen on. The sequential display may be in response to the floating of the selection object within a floating range of the touch screen. A selection module selects a hotspot together with the display of the selected hotspot in response to detecting a movement of the selected object to the touch screen.


Nowadays, many industries rely on machine learning (ML) algorithms and their ability to learn from existing data to make inferences about new unlabeled data. Applying ML algorithms to the network security domain is not new. However, without proper data pre-processing and proper optimization of the hyper-parameters (HPs) of ML algorithms, these algorithms might not achieve their full potential. This paper proposes a framework that applies pre-processing steps, including data balancing, and utilizes optimization techniques to tune the HPs of random forest, gradient boosting machine, and deep neural networks. In this paper, we compare the performance of three different optimization algorithms: Tree-structured Parzen Estimator (TPE), Bayesian Optimization and Hyperband (BOHB), and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). We show that through data balancing and optimization of the HPs and architecture of deep neural networks, their performance can improve significantly: false alarm rate of 0% and only 1.79% using the BoT-IoT and the ToN-IoT benchmark datasets, respectively.


This paper investigates the influence of three-dimensional smooth humps with varying deflection angles (φ) on the linear stability of streamwise vortices over a yawed cone with a 7° half-angle at a 6° angle-of-attack, free-stream Mach number of 6, and unit Reynolds number of 1.0×107/m. The steady laminar flow is obtained using direct numerical simulations. The eN method based on global stability theory is used to predict the transition location of the streamwise vortices along the centerline on the leeward side of the cone. The results reveal that φ plays a significant role in the outward vortex generation location, with smaller values of φ effectively delaying the outward vortex generation. Moreover, there is a qualitative relationship between the instability of the streamwise vortices and the inward/outward vortex structure characteristics of the base flow over a yawed cone. Namely, the transition delay effect of the streamwise vortices is proportional to the delay in the generation location of the outward vortex, which provides insights into the control of the transition induced by streamwise vortices. In particular, the configuration based on a hump with φ=9° and a height of 0.57 times the local boundary layer thickness delays the transition by approximately 38.2% at the critical N-factor (Ntr=12.5) without significantly increasing the instability of the inner mode.


The relativistic parametric coupling model is used here to describe global static properties of nuclear matter and neutron stars. Using recent observational data related to neutron star properties and experimental results of heavy-ion collisions, we review some properties of the effective model and we impose this way new constraints on its coupling constants. Then we analyze the consequences on already known parameters of nuclear matter, i.e., the compression modulus, the effective nucleon mass, and the maximum neutron star mass predicted by integrating the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff equations. To achieve this goal, we have explored the parametric coupling model in a wide range of parameters. We made use of recent data on flow analysis to constraint this parameter. Our results indicate values for the compression modulus of nuclear matter and for the maximum mass of neutron stars which are in good agreement with the observational data.


Occupational hazards are recognized as a major threat to the health of workers in all manufacturing industries, including the automobile assembly industry. There is need to document what workers in the vehicle assembly plants in Nigeria know regarding hazards in their workplace. This study was conducted in two automobile assembly companies in Nigeria. The study assessed the level of knowledge of the workers regarding occupational hazards and appropriate safety measures in their workplace. This is a cross A semi-structured, pre-tested, intervieweroccupational hazards and safety measures. The respondents were a assembly companies. Data was analysed with SPSS version 20 software and means, and were presented in tables for easy appreciation. A total of 318 respondents participated in thi workers in Plant A and 50 workers in Plant B. Males constituted 96.9% of the respondents while females constituted 3.1% of the respondents. The mean age of the respondents was 27.88±7.28 years. Among the respondents 72.0% were single, 94.0% had secondary education. Of all the respondents, 44.3% have worked for 1 to 2 years, while the mean years of working in the companies was 3.62 ± 4.07 years. The body shop section had the highest number of workers (32.1%), followed by the final finishing sect were hazards in their workplace and 78% of the respondents were able to identify at least one hazard in their workplace. Also 76.7% of the respondents were able to identify at least workplace. Among the respondents 77.7% were able to identify at least one measure to prevent occupational illnesses/injuries in their workplace. All the respondents (100%) believed that the use of Per (PPDs) was necessary and 76.7% were able to identify at least one PPD that is necessary in their workplace. This study concluded that the level of knowledge of the workers regarding occupational hazards was high. Appropriate interv should be put in place to maintain and even improve the knowledge of the workers regarding occupational hazards in their workplace.


Lubricant oil based mineral oil is widely used in the lubrication industry. But due to the stronger environment concern, biodegradable lubricant oil such as Palm Oil Methyl Ester have been introduce as the base lubricant or as the lubricant additive. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of Palm Oil Methyl Ester as the lubricant additive in friction and wear reduction by using the ball on disc machine. Johnson Baby Oil is used as the base lubricant and Palm Oil Methyl Ester is used as the lubricant additive. The different percentage on lubricant mixture have been used in this study. The test is conducted by using the three different nominal load which are 10 N, 30 Nand 60 N under the same speed, 10 m/min. For the other test, 30 N have been used under the two different speed, 10 m/min and 50 m/min. 30% of lubricant mixture produce the lowest coefficient of friction for each load. The presence of POME in lubricant mixture reducing the coefficient of friction. 30 N produce significant different of coefficient friction between the lubricant with POME and lubricant without POME. Lubricant with the presence of POME also reducing the wear area.


PURPOSE: To obtain an improved black-and-white photographic developing soln. and to form a high contrast photographic image with the developing soln. CONSTITUTION: This photographic developing soln. has pH9.5-11.5 and contains an ascorbic acid developing agent, an auxiliary superadditive developing agent and at least 0.5mol/l carbonate buffer but does not contain a dihydroxybenzene developing agent such as hydroquinone. This developing soln. is ecologically excellent, has high stability with respect to seasoning action and enables development ensuring such advantages as low pepper fog and high speed. It is especially suitable for forming high contrast image.