The prevalence of atopic diseases such as bronchial asthma has increased over the last decades, making allergies a very serious public health problem. Allergic predisposition is regarded as a multifactorial condition whose onset and severity are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors [1]. The search for genes that contribute to the aetiology of allergic asthma has included several complete screens of the human genome and a number of association and linkage studies. One of the regions most consistently linked to asthma and/or its intermediary phenotypes, such as high total serum IgE levels and eosinophilia, is a region on chromosome 11q, which contains many loci that, on the basis of their functions, are candidate asthma-susceptibility genes [2, 3]. The study by Higa et al. [4] in this issue of Clinical and Experimental Allergy is a further example of such association and extends our present knowledge by investigating IL-18 gene polymorphisms in atopic asthma. Our understanding of the immunological processes leading to allergic asthma has improved greatly in recent years. The paradigm of antagonism between T helper (Th) lymphocyte subset and their cytokines, first described in the early 1990s [5], has resulted in the widely accepted hypothesis that atopy and asthma are 'Th2 diseases'. In its simplest terms this hypothesis argues that a relative increase in Th2 responses in combination with a decrease in Th2 responses drives the allergic phenotype [6]. IL-18 belongs among those several factors, which are known to influence the balance of Th1/Th2 immune response. Interleukin-18, a member of the IL-1 family, was originally described as IFN-g-inducing factor (IGIF) and it is generally considered a Th1-type response [7]. IL-18, in collaboration with IL-12, strongly induces type I cytokines such as INF-g leading to the production of molecules destructive to tissues, including nitric oxide, reactive oxygen species and TNF-a. Interestingly, IL-18 is also capable of generating a Th2 cell response under certain conditions, as measured by the production of Th2 cytokines and initiation of allergic manifestation [8]. However, recent reports indicate that IL-18 can directly stimulate IL-4 production and histamine release from basophiles [9], enhance IL-4 and IL-13 production from both NK and T cells in synergy with IL-2 [10, 11], and induce IgE expression by B cells [12]. In addition, IL-18 has also been shown to indirectly induce B cell isotype switching to IgE and, together with its effects on Th2 cytokine production, has been demonstrated to play a role in allergic inflammation [13]. However, these reports demonstrated a pleiotropic role for IL-18 in Th1 and Th2 responses dependent on the cytokine milieu [14]. The possible functions of IL-18 at different levels of the allergic mechanisms were mainly analysed by in vitro and mice studies. Wild et al. [13] found that the intranasal application of IL-18 together with ragweed increased the production of ragweed-specific IgE and IgG1 in serum and production of BAL eosinophilia in a mouse model of allergic asthma, effects consistent with the support of a Th2 phenotype. Furthermore, intrapulmonary administration of IL-18 in mice was associated with increased eotaxin levels and eosinophilic recruitment in the airways [15]. Thus, IL-18 seems to drive the allergic inflammation by its ability to stimulate eosinophilia and IgE production in mice models. The IL-18-induced IgE accumulation in vivo was completely dependent on the IL-4/IL-4R system but not on IL-13 [12, 13]. IL-18 is synthesized as an inactive precursor (pro-IL-18), a 24-kDa polypeptide, and like IL-1b it is cleaved by the IL-1bconverting enzyme (ICE, also known as cysteine proteinase caspase-1) in a biologically active 18-kDa monomer [16]. A recent report suggests proteinase 3 as a possible alternative enzyme necessary for IL-18 processing [17]. Pro-IL-18 expression is widespread, including monocyte/macrophages, dendritic cells, Kupffer cells, keratinocytes, Langerhans cells, B cells and airway epithelial cells. IL-18 acts through the membrane receptors IL-18Ra and IL-184Rb to transduce the signal into the nucleus. The genes for IL-18 and its receptor map to different chromosomes. The human IL-18 gene is located on chromosome 11q22.2-22.3 [18], and it is composed of six exons and five introns spanning about 19.5 kb. Several studies have demonstrated that increased IL-18 expression and serum levels are associated with allergic diseases. Tanaka et al. [19] recently described that serum IL18 levels were elevated in patients with acute asthma and that these levels quickly decreased after treatment. Also Wong et al. [20] demonstrated increased IL-18 levels in patients with allergic asthma. Furthermore, Yoshizawa et al. [21] reported that significantly higher serum IL-18 levels were found in patients with atopic dermatitis than in control subjects, and that serum IL-18 levels were correlated with disease severity and with the number of eosinophils in peripheral blood. However, a recent report has demonstrated significantly higher concentrations of IL-18 in nasal secretion of persistent allergic rhinitis patients compared to healthy controls, with a slow increase during the course of the pollen season [22]. In addition, Tanaka et al. [23] indicated that NC/Nga mice that Clin Exp Allergy 2003; 33:1023–1025


This paper discussed the definition and the characteristics of the green barrier in marine service trade,especially focused on the analysis of its mechanism in this line.The conclusion was as follows: when the admittance standard of marine service trade market in country A was higher than that in country B,the shipping enterprises of country B would make a decision,i.e.,service only in country B,or service in country A and in country B at the same time.It was assumed that the admittance standard of country A rises to a certain scope of variation S_e;thus,there is no difference in profits for the maritime companies in country B with the two mentioned choices.For maritime enterprises in country A,the standard of no discrepancy choices between complete monopolization and oligopoly was defined as S_d.If S_e was beyond S_d,maritime enterprises in country A prefered those oligopolies without admittance standards;otherwise,they chose the performance standard S_e.


With abundant energy reserves and a great amount of production,Russia has become the first biggest oil-produced country of the world.Russia exports a large amount of energy,which make Russia entrenched in the world market.The cooperation in energy between Russia and S.Korea is compratively late,but its potentials big.The cooperation in this respect between Russia and N.Korea is being restored.For the energy security,our country should actively join their cooperation.


In the present study, the crude polysaccharides were extracted from the microalgae Gracilaria lemaneiformis with ultrasonic-assisted extraction method and purified by DEAE-52 cellulose chromatography and Sephadex G-100 size-exclusion chromatography in that order. Two main fractions, GPC-1and GPC-2, were obtained through the extraction and purification steps. Then partial characterizations, such as chemical composition, ultraviolet (UV) spectrum and infrared (IR) spectrum of the two fractions were analyzed in this study. The results indicated that the total sugar contents of GPC-1and GPC-2 were 89.32% and 88.79%, and the protein contents of these two fractions were only 0.35% and 0.76%, compared with that of crude polysaccharides of 75.49% and 1.92%, respectively. Moreover, both the UV spectrum and the IR spectrum demonstrated that the two fractions were typical purified polysaccharides. As a consequence, these investigated characterizations could be considered as a favorable evidence for the identification of polysaccharides from Gracilaria lemaneiformis.


Nearly all strong magnetic storms are generated by halo coronal mass ejections (CMEs), but most frontside halo CMEs are not followed by strong storms. Hence additional information is required to discriminate highly geoeffective CMEs from those less geoeffective. There is a tendency for the strongest magnetic storms to be generated by the fastest CMEs, and in the absence of detailed information on the internal structure of an observed CME, the speed is often used to evaluate the risk that a strong storm will follow. We here report on the alternative use of solar energetic particle (SEP) flux as an indicator of the geoeffectiveness of halo CMEs, addressing the question of whether SEP flux is better in this respect than CME speed. On the basis of a list of 137 frontside halo CMEs, we have investigated the relations between CME speed, SEP flux, and strong magnetic storms. We find that enhancements of the ≥10 MeV SEP flux close to CME onset can be used to indicate whether a full halo CME will be followed by Dst below −100 nT within 18 to 72 hours (our definition of a CME–strong magnetic storm association). Ranking the CMEs by speed and by SEP flux enhancement shows that the latter indicator results in a better discrimination between highly geoeffective CMEs and those less geoeffective. The results suggest that SEP flux enhancements may provide a more efficient discrimination than CME speed for any choice of discriminating thresholds, resulting in lower rates of both false alarms and missed predictions.


Purpose - The purpose of this scoping review was to examine research studies relating to autistic students in learning English as anAdditional Language (EAL) to outline potential research agendas and to inform EAL educators of current related issues.
Methodology - PRISMA-ScR protocol outlined by Tricco et al. (2018) was followed when selecting the relevant studies publishedbefore July 2020 from six prominent databases: Education database, ERIC; Linguistics database, PsycINFO; SAGE, and Scopus. Inaddition, a hand search of Google Scholars was conducted. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to screen the identified data.
Findings - From the evidence provided in the eighteen studies identified, the researcher found that current autism research inEAL focused more on teaching strategies and much less on autistic individuals' EAL learning processes. The 118 autistic participants inthe identified studies displayed highly diverse characteristics, which may explain why the case study was the dominant research approach. They were reported by the identified studies to have strong microlinguistic skills (phonology, morphology, syntax-related) but were weak in macro-linguistic skills (e.g., reading comprehension). The researcher noted that some learning behaviours of autistic students have been reported in addition to some teaching strategies perceived effective for teaching autistic EAL learners such as utilisation of technology and a visual approach.
Significance - While there is an increasing number of autistic individuals learning EAL, research on autistic students learning EALand on teaching autistic students EAL has been limited to date. This present study is the first scoping review to investigate existing relevant studies. Despite calling for further investigation into the teaching and learning of autistic students in EAL that involve the perspectives of parents of non-autistic peers, and of the autistic students themselves, interactive patterns of teaching and learning of autistic individuals in EAL classrooms remains an area for further research in the future.


We use the deuteration of c-C3H2 to probe the physical parameters of starless and protostellar cores, related to their evolutionary states, and compare it to the N2H+-deuteration in order to study possible differences between the deuteration of C- and N-bearing species. We observed the main species c-C3H2, the singly and doubly deuterated species c-C3HD and c-C3D2, as well as the isotopologue c-H13CC2H toward 10 starless cores and five protostars in the Taurus and Perseus complexes. We examined the correlation between the N(c-C3HD)/N(c-C3H2) ratio and the dust temperature along with the H2 column density and the CO depletion factor. The resulting N(c-C3HD)/N(c-C3H2) ratio is, within error bars, consistent with 10% in all starless cores with detected c-C3HD. This also accounts for the protostars except for the source HH211, where we measure a high deuteration level of 23%. The deuteration of N2H+ follows the same trend but is considerably higher in the dynamically evolved core L1544. We find no significant correlation between the deuteration of c-C3H2 and the CO depletion factor among the starless and protostellar cores. Toward the latter the coolest objects show the largest deuterium fraction in c-C3H2. We show that the deuteration of c-C3H2 can trace the early phases of star formation and is comparable to that of N2H+. However, the largest c-C3H2 deuteration level is found toward protostellar cores, suggesting that while c-C3H2 is mainly frozen onto dust grains in the central regions of starless cores, active deuteration is taking place on ice.


613 Background: The 12-gene colon cancer assay (Oncotype DX) can identify groups of stage II colon cancer patients with lower or higher recurrence risk, but distribution of scores based on race/ethnicity has not been assessed. This study compared the distribution of Recurrence Score results and gene expression profiles between African American (AA) and Caucasian (CA) stage II colon cancer patients. Methods: Stage II colon cancer patients were identified from tumor registry data from four institutions: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock; Veterans Administration Medical Center, Little Rock; Baptist Medical Center, Memphis, and University of Alabama at Birmingham. The 12-gene assay and mismatch repair (MMR) status were performed on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues by Genomic Health (Redwood City, CA). T-test and Wilcoxon test were used to compare data from the two groups (SAS Enterprise Guide 5.1). Results: Of the 244 subjects, there were 118 women (63 AA, 55 CA) and 126 men (59...


This study intends to describe how did the forms of de-normalization of
power system that occurred and why the author tried to explain the de-normalization
of power system through TToWH novel by Anne Bronte. Therefore, the purpose of
this study were to reveal the form of de-normalization of power committed by female
character in the novel of TToWH and reveals why the author, Anne Bronte, tried to
explain the de-normalization of the power system is considered normal at the
Victoria's Era. To answer these questions, the study was conducted by using the
concept of normalization and the power written by Foucault to gain freedom and
away from all forms of oppression. Knowledge that subsequently can create the
power and it can create de-normalization of the power system that is considered
normal at the Victoria's Era so it created the equal rights between women and men .
Based on this study, it can be concluded. First, there are some forms of the de normalization of the power system done by the main female characters


ABSTRACT Cell surface protein antigen (PAc) and glucosyltransferases (GTF) of Streptococcus mutans are major colonization factors of the organism. We prepared bovine milk containing antibodies against a fusion of the saliva-binding alanine-rich region of PAc with the glucan-binding domain of GTF-I. This study examined the effect of the immune milk on the cariogenicity of S. mutans in a rat model. Concentrated immune milk was fed to rats once a day for 55 days. The group that received immune milk had significantly less caries development than controls.


Objectives To discuss the diagnosis and management of children with fluctuating sensorineural hearing loss, especially focusing on those problems dealing with autoimmune inner ear disease.


To obtain high accuracy, CMOS temperature sensors need to be calibrated. The current available calibration techniques are manual ones. They are time-consuming and expensive. They are not suitable for chip mass production. To solve the problem, we present an individual and automatic calibration technique for BJT-based CMOS temperature sensors. It is an automatic voltage calibration using the trimming circuit based on the successive-approximation algorithm. Experimental results show that after a 2-second auto-calibration, the sensor can achieve an accuracy of −1 °C∼ 1.5 °C from −40 °C to 100 °C.


Aiming at solving the problem of poor performance of airborne freestyle skiing balance, this paper presents the research of airborne freestyle skiing balance control based on ant colony algorithm. On the basis of defining the trajectory division of the airborne balance of freestyle skiing and the track of the center of gravity of the human body, a sensor is used to collect the data of the airborne balance of freestyle skiing, and the moving average, denoising, and normalizing processes are done. The training label of the ant colony algorithm is made by the analog signal matrix, the implementation foreground of the key posture frame of freestyle skiing is extracted, the disturbed area in the key posture frame is removed by the clustering algorithm, and the key posture area of freestyle skiing is obtained. The incremental clustering of the data of the key posture area of freestyle skiing is conducted, the incremental posture data mining model of freestyle skiing is established, the mining parameters are input into the mining model, and the incremental data mining is realized by the ant colony algorithm to complete the research on the control of the airborne balance of freestyle skiing. The results show that the proposed method has good reliability, good convergence, and strong response ability.


COMPOSITION OF WASHING AND / OR CONDITIONING OF MATERIALS keratin, characterized in that it contains in an aqueous medium, a surface active agent possessing detergent properties at least one insoluble silicone in the middle and at least one copolymer DERIVATIVE DIALILDIALKILAONIO Y a monomer anion.


List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction 1. First Impressions: Chinese Exclusion and the Introduction of Immigration Documentation, 1875--1909 2. Photographic Paper Sons: Resisting Immigration Identity Documentation, 1893--1943 3. Ellis Island as an Observation Station: Spectacle and Surveillance, 1892--1924 4. Ellis Island as a Photo Studio: The Honorific Ethnographic Image, 1904--26 5. The Imaginary Line: Passing and Passports on the Mexican-U.S. Border, 1906--17 6. The Dividing Line: Documentation on the Mexican-U.S. Border, 1917--34 Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index


Measurement of surface roughness by means of speckle technique has the advantage of being noncontacting and applicable to an in-process environment. Results from measurements of speckle contrast on ground surfaces are shown. The measurement range in the configuration used is Rq ≤ 200 nm. Comparisons of results between calculated and experimentally achieved speckle contrast are in agreement. An empirical method is presented that can be used to classify machined surfaces according to roughness when no specular component exists in the scattered light. The measurement range of this method is highly dependent on the machining process used. Surfaces with Ra ≤ 3.2 μm are classified according to roughness.


On November 27 2000 Canadas Liberal Party won a new majority in the parliament. Because of this the partys policies including encouraging a level of immigration twice as high as in the US will therefore likely continue. But the difficulty of maintaining a high level of immigrants surfaced during the campaign when an opposition politicians remarks demonstrated that not all Canadians supported this policy. Despite oppositions Elinor Caplan Liberal Minister of Citizenship and Immigration stressed the need to pursue a human capital model of immigration one that attracts newcomers who are good for the economy because they are well-educated and bring valuable skills. On the other hand Betty Granger a political opponent and member of the Canadian Alliance party points out that an influx of Asian students has put pressure on the university system and prevented Canadian students from getting into university programs in Vancouver and Victoria.


Therapeutic systems (TS) are contemporary drug delivery forms, designed to improve the therapeutic potential of drugs through maintenance of therapeutic drug levels for extended period of time. TS provide controlled or sustained drug release, intended to reach the systemic circulation or remain and act locally on the site of application. Transdermal Drug Delivery Systems (TDDS) are pharmaceutical preparations to be applied to the intact skin for systemic absorption and occupy more than 30% of the global market share of TS. TDDS ensure a constant plasma concentration of the active ingredients in the therapeutic window from 24 hours to 7 days by non-invasive and easy administration. Important advantages of TDDS include avoidance of first-pass metabolism and gastro-intestinal adverse effects, improved drug stability and etc. First generation TDDS (Transderm-Scop, Transderm-Nitro, Estraderm, Nicoderm and etc.) accomplish remarkable success and benefits in the treatment of motion sickness, angina pectoris, quit smoking and contraceptive therapy. The constantly growing scientific interest and adjustment of well-known physical and chemical methods (as iontophoresis, sonophoresis, microneedles and etc.) to TDDS as additional force to enhance drug permeation through stratum corneum, leads to next TDDS generations by overstepping beyond the preferable TDDS stereotype of the small, less than 300 Da, molecule with balanced lipophilicity. The number of the TDDS on the market increases every year, as the highest progress is observed in the field of Central Nervous System's diseases - dementia, depression, Parkinson, migraine. The market share of TDDS on the global pharmaceutical market reaches up to 12% and is estimated to be approximately 31.5 billion, while their role and disposal on the Bulgarian market is still limited.


Botanical photochemopreventives are used to fight against the adverse effects of ultra violet rays on skin which leads to photoaging.  Phytoconstituents present in Punica granatum extract have antioxidant, anti-carcinogenic and photoprotective properties which was proved by estimation of phenolic content, sun protection factor and antioxidant effect determination of the alcoholic extract. Extract loaded nanotransfersomes were prepared, evaluated for size, entrapment efficiency and incorporated into the cream. The presence of vesicles in the cream was confirmed by the transmission electron microscopy and the efficacy of the formulated creams by the physicochemical parameters. The nanotransfersomal and conventional cream formulations were in vivo tested for change in skin hydration (Corneometer), viscoelasticity (Cutometer) and sebum content (Sebumeter) . The photoprotective effect of formulations was further confirmed by biochemical studies. Improved skin properties (viscoelasticity, skin hydration, sebum content) and biochemical parameters (superoxide dismutase, catalase, total protein and ascorbic acid level) with decreased malondialdehyde level was observed with nanotransfersomal cream formulations as compared to conventional creams. The efficacy was in the order nanotransfersomal creams > Conventional creams> Empty nanotransfersomal cream > Base cream.


The toxicity of ammonia to various organisms was examined to develop a baseline for mortality in several commonly used testing species. This baseline data will assist in choosing the proper test species and in interpreting results as they pertain to ammonia. Responses for two juvenile fish species, three marine amphipods, and two species of mysid shrimp were compared for their sensitivity to levels of ammonia. All mortality caused by ammonia in the bottom-dwelling Citharichthys stigmaeus occurred within 24 h of exposure, whereas mortality in the silverside, Menidia beryllina, occurred over the entire 96-h test duration. Responses to ammonia varied among the amphipods Rhepoxynius abronius, Ampelisca abdita, and Eohaustorius estuarius. R. abronius and A. abdita showed similar sensitivity to ammonia at lower concentrations; A. abdita appeared more sensitive than R. abronius at levels above 40 mg/L. Concentrations of ammonia required to produce significant mortality in the amphipod E. estuarius were far higher than the other species examined (> 100 mg/L NH{sub 3}). A comparison of ammonia toxicity with two commonly used invertebrates, Holmesimysis sculpts and Mysidopsis bahia, suggest that these two species of mysid have similar sensitivities to ammonia. Further studies with ammonia that examine sensitivity of different organisms should bemore » conducted to assist regulatory and environmental agencies in determining appropriate test species and in interpreting toxicological results as they may be affected by levels of ammonia.« less


In proteins,cation-π interactions are formed between positively charged amino acids(Lys,Arg) and aromatic amino acids(Phe,Tyr,Trp).We investigated the cation-π interactions in two typical folding structures of α/β proteins,namely,the singly wound structure and the doubly wound structure.The results reveal that:(1) The distribution density of cation-π interactions in singly wound structures is about 2.6 times as high as that in doubly wound structures;(2) In singly wound structures,a correlation is observed between the amount of residues and their cation-π interactions while no correlation is observed in doubly wound structures;(3) Lys,Arg and Tyr in singly wound structures participate more easily in cation-π interactions than those in doubly wound structures;(4) Arg-Phe pairs are preferred in doubly wound structures while Arg-Tyr pairs are preferred in singly wound structures;(5) In singly wound structures,65% of the cation-π interactions form arrays or distribute between the starting point and the end point in the structures.


Electron beam induced loss of mass from the organic matrix and from higher Z constituents of biological samples was measured by monitoring bremsstrahlung and peak changes in EDS spectra. When any effects of contamination, extraneous X‐rays, beam current drift, specimen drift, and specimen shrinkage were monitored and corrected for, the three types of samples gave consistent and similar results at 296 K. Bremsstrahlung losses averaged 45%, 46% and 50% respectively for muscle homogenate, salivary gland sections and albumin. Sulphur losses average 74%, 72% and 86% for the same three sample types. No other elements suffered significant losses. Dl/e for bremsstrahlung averaged 0·14 C/cm2. Bremsstrahlung loss at 93 K began approximately one order of magnitude higher in dose, and the extent of loss varied. Sulphur losses, however, were greatly reduced at low temperatures.


A study was conducted to assess the seasonal variations of soil enzymes (amylase, invertase, cellulase, and urease), and physicochemical parameters of soil in an arsenic (As)-contaminated area. Ten different sampling sites of Purbasthali, West Bengal, India, were chosen for this experiment, and the collected data were compared with that of the control area, Burdwan University Farm, Burdwan. The As concentrations were found to be high in all experimental soil samples. Only urease and amylase activities were found to vary significantly (p < 0.01) with organic carbon content during pre-monsoon season but nonsignificant (p > 0.05) relationships were recorded between soil enzyme activities and organic carbon content during the post-monsoon period. Again urease and cellulase activities were found to vary significantly (p < 0.05) with soil As content in both pre- and post-monsoon periods, respectively. Similar observations were recorded from cluster analysis in both the seasons. Moreover, all tested soil enzymes activities except urease in post-monsoon period have shown significant relationship (p < 0.01, p < 0.05) with soil moisture in both pre- and post-monsoon periods. Therefore, it is suggested that the study of enzymatic activities and physicochemical parameters of soil may be helpful in assessing the effects of As on the biochemical quality of soils.


Sappi once again celebrated remarkable craftsmanship in the print industry at this year's Sappi Printer of the Year Awards. The highly anticipated event was held with much fanfare at Melrose Arch in Johannesburg on 16 August.


S>An investigation was conducted on the friction welding of Zr, 304 stainless steel, 2024 Al alloy, Mg, Ni, and Cu to themselves and of four dissimilar metal combinations. A wide range of weld and forge forces was used with a constant speed, 3200 rpm. The welds of metals to themselves were satisfactory except with Cu. The dissimilar metal combinations are welded together in the following order of increasing difficulty: 2024 Al alloy to Cu, Zr to mild steel, Zr to 304 stainless steel, and Ni to Mg. Some of the factors influencing weldability are believed to be hot strength, coefficient of friction, and axial alignment. (D.L.C.)


NoSQL data stores are popular backends for managing big data that is evolving over time: Due to their schema-flexibility, a new release of the application does not require a full migration of data already persisted in production. Instead, using object-NoSQL mappers, developers can specify lazy data migrations that are executed on-the-fly, when a legacy entity is loaded into the application. This paper features ControVol, an IDE plugin that tracks evolutionary changes in object-NoSQL mappings, such as adding, renaming, or removing an attribute, which may conflict with entities already persisted in production. If not resolved prior to launch of the new application, harmful evolutionary changes can cause runtime exceptions or data loss. In this demo, we focus on a novel feature of ControVol, detecting changes to attribute types that are not backwards-compatible with legacy entities. When such changes occur, ControVol issues warnings, and upon the request of developers, assists in safely carrying out type changes.


Background: Our aim was to study the independent effect of heart rate (HR) on parameters of diastolic function, particularly mitral annular velocities measured by tissue Doppler imaging (TDI), an effect which is not well understood. Methods: Sixteen patients with dual chamber pacemakers attending for routine pacemaker review underwent detailed echocardiographic assessment during atrial pacing with intact atrioventricular conduction at baseline and accelerated HRs. Mitral inflow and annular tissue Doppler velocities and systolic strain parameters were compared. Results: Parameters of systolic function were unaffected by increased HR. When these parameters were compared at baseline (mean 67 bpm) and accelerated HR (mean 80 bpm), the following was observed: a significant decrease in early mitral inflow (E) wave (70.5 ± 5.5 cm/s vs 63.5 ± 4.9 cm/s, P < 0.02) and early mitral annular (E′) velocities (7.0 ± 0.5 cm/s vs 6.3 ± 0.6 cm/s, P < 0.003) and a significant increase in mitral inflow A wave (70.3 ± 4.5 cm/s vs 77.3 ± 4.4 cm/s, P < 0.05) and late mitral annular (A′) velocities (9.3 ± 0.6 cm/s vs 10.8 ± 0.5, P < 0.00004). Conclusion: Changes in HR have previously unrecognized significant effects on tissue Doppler parameters of diastolic function. Further study is required to determine if tissue Doppler derived annular velocities should be corrected for HR.


The Chenghan kingdom political power is constructs by the south national minority,the Li patriarchal clan is the Chenghan kingdom political power all previous dynasties ruler's main body,for the time altogether 45 years,its sphere of influence also achieves within the boundaries of northwest Gansu besides the southwest area.The multitudinous local organs of state power appears which with the two jin's when compare,the Chenghan kingdom political power and they all belong establish a separatist regime the nature local organs of state power,but actually has oneself many characteristics: Establishment political power time most early;South only local organs of state power;The implementation military establishes a separatist regime,but cuts off by no means with the central dynasty relations;Attention social stability;Large-scale immigration.


To improve the control precision for an unmanned autonomous helicopter (UAH) hovering in strong atmospheric disturbances, a high precision position control scheme is presented in this paper. Difficulties of the precision position control for a UAH is firstly analyzed. Then, for the disadvantages of the normal position controller, a high precision position control scheme is developed, which is based on the modified nonlinear PID. The simulation indicates that the high precision position control scheme could achieve higher control precision and better capacity of restraining disturbance than normal position control scheme, so, the high precision position control scheme plays an important role in application of the unmanned autonomous helicopters.


The physical properties of a sample are typically measured one at a time using appropriate testing methods. The use of a calorimeter to determine heats of formation and a viscometer to determine molecular weights are examples of physical tests that have been developed to measure specific physical properties. In the present study, near-infrared spectrometric analysis and chemometric learning algorithms have been combined to deduce automically and simultaneously the physical properties of a sample. Specifically, the new combination enables the heat of formation, molecular weight, and the number of methyl groups per molecule to be determined in hydrocarbon mixtures directly from their near-infrared spectra. 15 references, 3 figures, 2 tables.


Fair opportunity supports a modified version of the Model Penal Code insanity test, against the narrower M'Naghten test. The Andrea Yates case is introduced as a paradigmatic insanity defense. Recent arguments that psychopaths should be excused because their psychological deficits prevent them from developing cognitive competence about moral norms are considered and rejected. Moral blindspots involving selective discrimination raise questions about selective incompetence. In general, the selective nature of these blindspots implies that agents with blindspots have the capacity to correct their moral ignorance and so should not be excused.


The article outlines the principles of design of repeated geotechnology at the development of reserves in the conditions of collapsed deposits of the Zhezkazgan field for the purpose of rational management of underground mining processes. This is an integral design principle of the mine technical system with repeated geotechnology, and the foundation for the practice of designing and operation of the subsoil at the development of mineral deposits. At the designing of a mine technical system with repeated geotechnology aimed at the development of collapsed subsoil reserves, the risks and natural and man-made emergencies related to the production are taken into account. Under modern conditions, mining design cannot be employed in isolation from the principles of sustainable development, which implies not only orthodox meaning but also the development that ensures society existence without threatening the needs of future generations. In this connection, the ongoing research incorporates designing of mine technical systems with due account for the principles of sustainable development, which correspond to the current priority direction related to the development of repeated geotechnology within new frames of sustainable development of repeated underground mining of reserves in the conditions of collapsed deposits of the Zhezkazgan field. This contributes to the efficient use of resource-replenishing repeated geotechnology and the possibility of the most complete development of the georesource subsoil potential due to the enhancement of the ore potential at the operation of underground mines of Kazakhmys Corporation Ltd., which is one of the largest copper mining companies in the world.


Earlier studies have related the masked threshold for a tonal signal to its duration, where the signal and the noise are both in phase at the two ears. The present study is concerned with the cases where either the signal or the noise (or both) is reversed in interaural phase. Five combinations were used: noise and signal both in phase; both reversed in phase; noise in phase, tone reversed; tone in phase, noise reversed; and monaural. Durations of the 500‐cps tonal signal ranged from 800 msec to 10 msec. The data agree with earlier studies for the in‐phase condition and exhibit the same values for the monaural case and for the case where both the noise and tone are reversed in phase. The other two conditions show a somewhat different curve for masking vs duration, exhibiting substantially larger differences in masking level for the short durations than for the long. The data support a conclusion, tentatively proposed in an earlier paper, that interaural detection of a signal is less adversely affected by ...


Essentials The basis of cytoprotective protease‐activated receptor 1 (PAR1) signaling is not fully understood. Activated protein C chimera (APCFVII‐82) was used to identify requirements for PAR1 signaling. APCFVII‐82 did not initiate PAR1 signaling, but conferred monocyte anti‐inflammatory activity. APC‐specific light chain residues are required for cytoprotective PAR1 signaling.


The application of bioretention / cistern integrated technology in Urumqi road ecological drainage system was introduced. The cost-effectiveness of traditional drainage system,ecological drainage system and ecological drainage system combined with traditional drainage system was compared. The effect of runoff control of the ecological drainage system was simulated by the stormwater management model. The results showed that urban road ecological drainage system was effective in improving road drainage standard and relieving the pressure of water shortage in semi-arid regions. It can also provide a good reference for building stormwater management and utilization systems in semi-arid regions in China.


Lanthanum zirconate (La 2 Zr 2 O 7 , LZ) is a newly proposed material for thermal barrier coatings (TBCs). The thermal stability of LZ coating was studied in this work by long-term annealing and thermal cycling. After long-term annealing at 1400°C or thermal cycling, both LZ powder and plasma-sprayed coating still kept the pyrochlore structure, and a preferred crystal growth direction in the coating was observed by X-ray diffraction. A considerable amount of La 2 O 3 in the powder was evaporated in the plasma flame, resulting in a nonstoichiometric coating. Additionally, compared with the standard TBC material yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), LZ coating has a lower thermal expansion coefficient, which leads to higher stress levels in a TBC system.


54 METHOD FOR FABRICATING PRINTED Primary Examiner-Leo P. Picard CIRCUITS Assistant Examiner-Trinidad Korka (75) Inventors: Jon E. Bengston, Newington; Gary story Agent, or Firm-St. Onge Steward Johnston & s eenS B. Larson, Cheshire, both of Conn. o (57) ABSTRACT (73) Assignee: Map prated, Conductive copper areas of printed circuits, such as y, through-holes, pads and lands, to which electronic com (21) Appl. No.: 581,030 ponents can thereafter be electrically connected by, e.g., wave soldering, are provided with a coating of (22) Filed: Sep. 12, 1990 nickel or cobalt, such as by electroless deposition from nickel-or cobalt-boron and nickel-or cobalt-phosphor : s O77. ous plating baths, or entirely or partly electrolytically, 52 U.S. C. .................................... 361 7868. 29/8 followed by a coating of a protective material which 58 Field of Search 174/256, 257 260 262 protects the nickel or cobalt coating from oxidation (58) es/264 266,263.361/397 4.18: 437/98 243.1. prior to the subsequent solder connection operation, is 9, 96. 99. 428/34 6. 297877. 228/180 wettable by solder in the subsequent solder connection W 1 / 3 a Wy s w operation, and substantially dissolves in the solder in the 56) References Cited t l, ES Sir E. ad verse effect on the solder joint between the electronic U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS component and the through-hole, pad or land. A partic 4,002,778 1/1977 Bellis et al. ........................... 427/98 ular preferred protective material is gold, such as ap 4,075,416 2/1978 Kittner et al.. 36/392 plied by deposition from immersion or electroless gold 4,303,798 12/1981 Paunovic .......................... i.2. plating baths. The invention renders the so-treated areas :25 1/2. E. al *:::: readily susceptible to the soldering of components 3.37. E". M.347& thereal, thereby avoiding the need for hot air solder 4546 is 17/1990. Juskey, Jr. et al... 174/26 x levelling. 4.941,582 7/1990 Morikawa et al. ............ 428/34.6 X 4,950,623 8/1990 Dishon .............................. 29/877 X 12 Claims, 2 Drawing Sheets


The role of the language units making up a family of words with the root -zlin creating an emotional background  of A.A. Akhmatova language in her lyrics is investigated. The need for and the productivity of this derivational model in the literary text is analyzed.


The various aspects of database systems are formalized. An information base is described as a projection of the real world which follows certain semantical constraints. The concepts of the external, conceptual and internal model of a database are integrated in this theory. Furthermore, interactions (query, update, add and delete) on databases are defined exactly with the help of this generalized concept.


The ground state energy of the hydrogen molecule was numerically analysed using quantum Monte Carlo methods. The QMC methods used in this work are the Variational Quantum Monte Carlo [VQMC] and the Path Integral Monte Carlo [PIMC]. This analysis was done under the context of the accuracy of Born- Oppenhiemer approximation [fixed nuclei restriction]. The ground state energies of hydrogen molecule for different interproton separations (0.4 - 1.0 A) are computed using the two different methods mentioned [VQMC and PIMC] and compared with previous numerical and empirical results that are essentially exact. The results from the Path Integral Monte Carlo methods of calculations are found to be precisely approaching the required order of accuracy.


where B(x, r) = {y ∈ X : d(x, y) ≤ r}. In most cases of interest, it is difficult to compute the weak (1, 1) operator norm ∥M∥L1(X)→L1,∞(X) exactly; a notable exception to this statement is the real line R, equipped with the usual metric and Lebesgue measure [see A. D. Melas, Ann. Math. (2) 157, No. 2, 647–688 (2003; Zbl 1055.42013)]. Many studies have been made to estimate the asymptotic behavior of the various operator norms of maximal functions. The authors introduce a variant of maximal function and microdoubling condition. For R ⊆ (0, ∞), let


It is helpful for putting forward the elementary advices of solving problems to launch on the definition of expressway hinge connecting each other,introduced the problems which should be concerned in design of connection between expressway hinges and constructing organization.


The vast majority of people you reach out to will only read your headline, making it the most important part of your article. This means that your ...


To the list of particles that have been Coulomb captured by a nucleus, add antiprotons and sigma minus particles. Gerhard Backenstoss and his collaborators from CERN, Karlsruhe and Heidelberg have observed x rays from atomic transitions of antiprotons bound in the Coulomb field of a thallium nucleus. Similarly they observed x rays from atomic transitions of Σ− particles orbiting sulfur, chlorine and zinc nuclei. Only very high values of angular momentum are observed; at lower levels the orbit is within the nucleus and the Σ− or antiproton is captured by a nucleon. The level at which transitions disappear is very sensitive to the arrangement of nuclear matter. As the particle works its way down to the nucleus its orbit becomes circular; so interaction with the nuclear surface is favored. The other exotic atoms previously observed contain pions, muons, and most recently, kaons.


A highly parallel and scalable Deblocking Filter (DF) hardware architecture for H.264/AVC and SVC video codecs is presented in this paper. The proposed architecture mainly consists on a coarse grain systolic array obtained by replicating a unique and homogeneous Functional Unit (FU), in which a whole Deblocking-Filter unit is implemented. The proposal is also based on a novel macroblock-level parallelization strategy of the filtering algorithm which improves the final performance by exploiting specific data dependences. This way communication overhead is reduced and a more intensive parallelism in comparison with the existing state-of-the-art solutions is obtained. Furthermore, the architecture is completely flexible, since the level of parallelism can be changed, according to the application requirements. The design has been implemented in a Virtex-5 FPGA, and it allows filtering 4CIF (704x576 pixels @30fps) video sequences in real-time at frequencies lower than 10.16 Mhz.


Films can affect social life, lifestyle and morals. One of them is human spirituality. The purpose of this research is to find out how spiritual values are expressed in the film The Unholy. Spiritual values are according to Roland Barthes' semiotic theory which includes denotation, connotation and myth. This research uses descriptive qualitative method and Roland Barthes semiotic analysis method. The subject of research is the film The Unholy which was released on March 31, 2021, produced by Screen Gems and Ghost House Pictures, and directed by Evan Spiliotopoulos. These spiritual values are then analyzed through the signs and symbols found in selected scenes through stills from the film The Unholy. The results showed that, from 7 scenes in The Unholy, based on an analysis based on denotations and connotations in The Unholy, it was found that the spiritual values contained in The Unholy represent loyalty, trust and belief, the ability to find meaning in life, harmony, truth, hope and faith. The value of spirituality is reflected in the attitude, dialogue and facial expressions between the players, as well as the tone of voice displayed by the characters in  The Unholy. This research is expected to be useful for many parties, namely the film industry, society and researchers related to spiritual concepts.


1. Senior Researcher, Agricultural Engineering Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Dokki, Giza, Egypt. 2. Head Researcher, Agricultural Engineering Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Dokki, Giza, Egypt. 3. Researcher, Agricultural Engineering Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Dokki, Giza, Egypt. ...................................................................................................................... Manuscript Info Abstract ......................... ........................................................................ Manuscript History Received: 05 March 2020 Final Accepted: 07 April 2020 Published: May 2020


Purpose – This paper aims to introduce novel linear synchronous motor (LSM) driven assembly automation and material handling system designs with examples.Design/methodology/approach – Discusses novel LSM technology principles with some practical system design and configuration examples for automated assembly and material handling. The high energy density and rugged design offers high duty cycle, high power, rapid acceleration, improved speed, high positioning repeatability, and increased performance for demanding installations.Findings – LSMs can increase throughput, reliability and payload information feedback. They can also decrease maintenance requirements, and the total cost of installation. MagneMotion's patented QuickStick system propels and controls each vehicle independently by interacting with a permanent magnet array mounted to each vehicle. As a consequence, the vehicles do not require communication or power cables, allowing a broad range of flexible, reconfigurable configurations and move prof...


We propose a new distributed, fault-tolerant peer-to-peer index structure called the <B>P-tree</B>. P-trees efficiently evaluate range queries in addition to equality queries.


We begin by reviewing data from Korean, Turkish, Italian and Spanish-speaking adults acquiring German without formal instruction. Our findings have shown that these learners transfer their L1 VPs: the Korean and Turkish speakers transfer a head-final VP and the Italian and Spanish speakers first transfer a head-initial VP and then switch its headedness to the correct, head-final value for German. Although functional projections in Korean and Turkish are head-final and in Italian and Spanish head-initial, all four groups of learners subsequently posit head-initial functional projections in German (which are not always target-like). We conclude that only lexical projections constitute the L2 learner's initial state; the development of functional projections is driven solely by the interaction of X'-Theory with the target-language input. We then discuss some studies on the acquisition of French by English speakers and of English by speakers of various L1s which purport to bring evidence to bear against our approach. Upon closer examination, the evidence turns out to offer further support for the position that the sole projections which the learner transfers from the L1 are lexical ones. Finally, we account for potentially problematic verb-raising data from French learners of English. Rather than taking the stance that French raising to Agr is transferred, we propose that L2 learners' identification of free morphemes as salient triggers leads to a misanalysis of verb raising in English. We also apply this idea to a reanalysis of the morpheme-order studies of the 1970s.


Abstract The new genus Brianaria S. Ekman & M. Svensson is introduced for the Micarea sylvicola group, with the new combinations Brianaria bauschiana (Körb.) S. Ekman & M. Svensson, B. lutulata (Nyl.) S. Ekman & M. Svensson, B. sylvicola (Flot. ex Körb.) S. Ekman & M. Svensson and B. tuberculata (Sommerf.) S. Ekman & M. Svensson. The new genus is characterized by a chlorococcoid, non-micareoid photobiont, small, convex apothecia without an excipulum, an ascus of the 'Psora-type', 0–1-septate ascospores, dimorphic paraphyses, and immersed pycnidia containing bacilliform conidia. Brianaria is shown to form a monophyletic group in the Psoraceae, where it is probably the sister group to Psora and Protoblastenia.


Based on reasonable assumptions and according to the camera imaging principles,the pinhole model is built and geometry model is analyzed.The introduction of the rotation matrix and displacement vector are introduced to induce the mapping relationship between targets and images and its formula.Through experiments using the coordinates of the target point and of the corresponding points in the image,according to the camera parameters and experimental data,with the reverse projection method,the mapping matrix is solved,and then substituted into the target point coordinates to determine the image coordinates on the image plane.The error analysis is made lastly and the obtained error is within the reasonable bounds.Therefore,the model is feasible and practical.


Party lecture is very important for college students in their growth , which plays a big part in helping them build up a right comprehensive philosophy of the world , human life and values . As college Party affairs workers , we must put our back to improving Party lecture in teaching, study the open questions in new situations and wrest from the new avenues and new ways positively.


Different studies reveal the effects of humic substances on plant growth and yield. Humic acid consistently show positive effects on plant biomass. It also Stimulate the growth of root and shoot. The root growth is generally more apparent than stimulation of shoot growth. In this study the wheat growth and yield was observed and by the application of humic acid all the attributes show significant and positive results. By the increase of humic acid conc. the root, shoot and yield production was increased. It was concluded that application of humic acid in the soils is a good source to increase soil fetility.


The present application relates to a virtualized data transmission of a distributed antenna system. A system for routing signals in a distributed antenna comprising a system (DAS) in which: in a home location of one or more local digital access unit (DAU), said one or more local each DAU DAU includes a local upstream port coupled to the light unit; each distal end and a distal end located in one or more positions with one or more DAU distal end, wherein the distal end of one or more of the DAU DAU via an optical cable coupled to the one or more local DAU.


For a good yield a farmer needs to monitor the filed from time to time. This paper focuses filed monitoring using IoT devices which would provide live soil moisture, humidity and temperature of the field to the farmers. An individual would be able to take a prompt action to manage the filed based on the data received from field. An Arduino Microcontroller board with soil, temperature and humidity sensors is used to collect the data from the filed on the fly from a remote field. The data once received are analysed and discussed. This work invoked to take a preventive measure for loss of crop and also increase the productivity of crop.


New literature results on the liquid equilibria in the three edge binary systems make necessary a reconsideration and correction of liquidus surfaces of the γ and δ solid solutions hitherto outlined in the literature. Therefore, with respect to the critically reinterpreted edge binary systems, the shape of the stable liquidus surface of the γ and δ solid solutions has been newly outlined.


Abstract : Finite element models of the generic V-Hull and soldier were successfully integrated. Methodologies were developed to investigate the effects of structural component variations and safety measures on the risk of injury to the legs and lumbar. These models and software tools can now be used by the Army to evaluate future designs and improve current vehicle designs in an effort to improve occupant safety on and off the battlefield. Studies were performed to investigate the effects of material thickness on the lumbar and legs during an underbody blast event. A study was completed that determined the effects of foam on tibia forces during an under body blast event.


It was shown in previous studies [1] that the Nd:YAG laser can be used as an excellent tool for killing bacteria in root canals. The present examinations were carried out with a high power diode laser in comparison with a conventionally treated control group.


Wilson, D. Harlan. Technologized Desire: Selfhood and the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction. Hyattsville: Guide Dog Books, 2009. 208 pp. Softcover. ISBN: 978-1-933293-73-8. $14.95. D. Harlan Wilson takes up a difficult but ultimately fruitful task in his book Technologized Desire: Selfhood and the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction. Starting from a critique of Fredric Jameson, Wilson claims he will "try to achieve a mediation between the individual subject and the world system that is abstracted in Jameson's Postmodernism" (13). Wilson also takes from Scott Bukatman's Terminal Identity the idea that sf as a genre is the realm in which increasingly technologized subjects conduct the serious play of envisioning and describing new relationships between themselves and their world system. It is upon these two foundational texts that Wilson builds his argument. Where Bukatman's analysis focused specifically on cyberpunk texts and broadly on many factors defining subjectivity, Wilson expands on the number and type of sf texts while "shifting focus exclusively to the commodification of the subject and the self as it figures in science fiction" (16). Theory figures heavily in Technologized Desire, with Deleuze and Guattari, Krocker and Cook, and Baudrillard being invoked most often. As would be expected with this critical genealogy, the technologized subject's possibilities for agency are severely curtailed, if they exist at all: "the only choice available to the postmodern subject, despite all desire and action, is rooted in a dependency on (and devotion to) consumer-capitalism and the ultraviolent schizophrenic production of the commodity-self. Terminal choice means that free will is a fiction" (18). With or without choice, Wilson's technologized subjects explore the possibilities left them through "science fiction texts [...] that can be read as technocultural phenomena as well as sources that read into the nature of technoculture" (13). This is the fruitful outcome of Wilson's project--a series of deft and interesting analyses of the ways in which specific sf texts map the position of the technologized self within a postmodern world. The book is divided into five chapters, with an introduction and coda. Each of the chapters takes at least one primary sf text and applies a variety of theories to explicate the position of the subject in each fictionalized world. Chapter 1 focuses on Vanilla Sky as an example of the problem of the constructedness of the postmodern subject "repulsed by the technological yet invariably needing and demanding it for his existence as an active, effective postmodern body" (40). Although a great number of theorists are mentioned, Lacan is the dominant force in this chapter--specifically his concept of love as a form of projection onto the other. In chapter 2, William S. Burroughs's cut-up novels are the base texts for analysis, with specific emphasis on The Soft Machine. Wilson sees Burroughs as "a forefather of cyberpunk and a seminal figure in postmodern literature" (53) who advocates that the technologized subject respond to "the schizoid determinism of a panic society" (52) by becoming schizophrenic, "becoming the disease itself (56). The theorists engaged are the Frankfurt School, with Adorno, Benjamin, and Horkheimer all receiving attention. The assertion that Army of Darkness represents "an astute critique of advanced capitalism and its pathological effects, rendering the film a critical theory" (80) is the thesis of the third chapter. Although the critical reader may find this thesis too grandiose to be supportable, Wilson does not hesitate to use multiple theories in support of this contention. Deleuze and Guattari figure prominently but are read against the grain. Chapter 4 reverts to a more conventional thesis that "the technology of commodity fetishism" inherent in capitalism places technologized subjects in an inherent opposition where "war signifies the natural state of the late capitalist system and, by default, of human existence" (108). …


The thermal cis–trans isomerization of 1,2-dichloroethylene in a toluene carrier was found to follow first order kinetics at temperatures below 846 °K. Within the limits of detection, no decomposit...


The author of this Address to the Brontë Society was a close colleague of George Smith, Charlotte Brontë's publisher. In this mixture of reminiscence and analysis he chronicles Charlotte's many visits to London. Parallels are drawn between her experiences in London, particularly during her stays at the home of George Smith and his mother, and incidents in Charlotte's novel, Villette. The characters of Dr Graham Bretton and Mrs Bretton are closely modelled on Smith and his mother. Charlotte's meeting with Thackeray is noted, aided by the memories of eyewitnesses, Lady Anne Richie, Thackeray's daughter, and the artist Sir J. M. Millais. Note: The opening section of this address, which mainly relates to the speaker's own attachment to the Brontë novels and other personal comments, is omitted here.


by Jonathan Slack. Blackwell Science (2001) 321 pages. ISBN 0-632-05233-3 £16.50

Developmental biology is not one of the easiest of subjects to study. The richness in diversity of body forms and the surprising contortions embryos often go through to produce them (aspects of the subject that lure


The relationship between pressure and flow in the peripheral circulation of mammals is complex and unpredictable in the individual animal. We have attempted the experimental determination of the pressure-flow (P-F) relationships in the whole dog in the presence of intact pressure-regulating mechanisms. Systemic cardiac output and aortic pressure were measured in open chest preparations. Systemic blood flow was partially restricted instantaneously and the resulting pressure was measured. A series of such measurements, covering a range of flows and pressures, allowed the construction of a P-F curve. Vasomotor changes, reactive to the abrupt changes in systemic blood flow and pressure, became evident after 6 to 8 seconds, a period of time considered sufficient to allow the determination of P-F points uninfluenced by vasomotor changes and representing the state of the vascular bed at a constant vasomotor tone. The experimental determination of the P-F relationship at constant vasomotor tone is necessary for the interpretation of circulatory changes which involve changes in flow as well as in pressure. Examples of the type of insight to be gained in this way are given.


Transformers have been an indispensable staple in deep learning. However, it is challenging to realize efficient deployment for Transformer-based model due to their substantial computation and memory demands. To address this issue, we present an efficient sparse Transformer accelerator on FPGA, namely STA, by exploiting N:M fine-grained structured sparsity. Our design features not only a unified computing engine capable of performing both sparse and dense matrix multiplications with high computational efficiency, but also a scalable softmax module eliminating the latency from intermediate off-chip data communication. Experimental results show that our implementation achieves the lowest latency compared to CPU, GPU, and prior FPGA-based accelerators. Moreover, compared with the state-of the-art FPGA-based accelerators, it can achieve up to $12.28\times$ and $51.00\times$ improvement on energy efficiency and MAC efficiency, respectively.


Statistics of fluctuations of low‐frequency sound in the ocean are analyzed for an arbitrary number of paths. Covariances are derived for the intensity, phase rate (time derivative of the phase), and related parameters. Power spectra are derived from the covariances. The multipath results are based on weakly fluctuating single paths whose phase is perturbed by the internal‐wave field. The theory is illustrated by deriving some results for a single internal wave. We specialize to a large number of equal energy paths by appealing to the central‐limit theorem which states that the Cartesian components for the multipath field are Gaussian distributed. Some results available in the literature are shown to be valid for the special case of a large number of paths. Power spectra for data obtained in a recent experiment are shown to follow the predictions of this analysis.


For the intermediate- and short-range part of the nucleon-nucleon interaction a new approach is suggested based on the formation of a symmetric six-quark bag in the state |(0s)6[6]X,L = 0 dressed due to strong coupling to π, σ and ρ fields (dressed bag). This new mechanism offers both a strong intermediate-range attraction which replaces the effective σ-exchange (or excitation of two isobars in the intermediate state) in traditional force models and also short-range repulsion. Part of the intermediate and the full long-range contribution to the nucleon-nucleon force is also in this approach described by the Yukawa meson-exchange mechanism. A simple illustrative model is developed which demonstrates clearly how well the suggested new mechanism can reproduce the NN data.


The earlier compiled collections of Tenebrionidae held at the North Eastern Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Shillong were identified. The present study reports five species of Tenebrionidae belonging to three genera under three tribes of two subfamilies. The collected and identified Tenebrionid species are reported from the Mizoram state for the first time. The synonyms, distribution and images are also provided.


Quality function deployment(QFD)is a systematic method for product design,but few QFD softwares are developed.The target value of the house of quality(HOQ) in QFD often depends on subjective experience.Therefore,a quality function deployment system based on the fuzzy measurement is built in this paper.The system deploys four HOQs with the fuzzy measurement,fuzzy relationship matrix and fuzzy transition matrix by introducing a fuzzy measurable house of quality model,which adapts to information measurement and mapping.By analyzing the system deeply,the design strategy and functional modules of the QFD system are elaborated.The whole fuzzy-based quality function deployment system is developed based on the.NET Framework platform.


OBJECTIVE:To discuss the clinical features and the general pattern of drug-induced hepatic lesions.METHO-DS:The clinical data of 170 drug-induced hepatic lesion cases collected from Jan.2002 to Apr.2006 in our hospital were analyzed retrospectively.RESULTS:Of the 170 cases,35.29% were induced by Chinese herbal medicines,13.53% by antipsychotic drugs,12.94% by anti-tuberculosis agent;51.18% were hepatocellular damage type,14.12% cholestatic damage type and 34.71% damage of mixed type damage.CONCLUSION:Hepatic lesions resemble viral hepatitis and were of no specificity in clinical features;various drugs can lead to hepatic lesions and to which clinic should attach great importance.


A recent quasiclassical description of a tunneling universe model is shown to exhibit chaotic dynamics by an analysis of fractal dimensions in the plane of initial values. This result relies on non-adiabatic features of the quantum dynamics, captured by new quasiclassical methods. Chaotic dynamics in the early universe, described by such models, implies that a larger set of initial values of any large expanding branch can be probed.


"My Indefensibly Ambivalent Position on the War." Kathe Kollwitz from Supporting to Opposing War, 1914-1918.
The war diaries of German artist Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) between 1914 and 1918 as well as her graphic art and sculptures against war (re)present - unlike traditionally male-connotated war discourse that tells life stories/history from the front - constructions of painful experience, mostly by women and children, at the home front. Christine Sylvester's political science concept of "war as experience [of] ordinary people" and Didier Fassin's anthropological approach to testimony on humanitarian crises provide the theoretical framework for this investigation at the intersection of textual diaries, visual arts, political activism and historical context. It analyzes issues of testimony on individual and collective war experience and of the role of diaries in the context of identity transformations in and after World War I.


. INTRODUCTION Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a family of protocols can provide information-theoretic security to share keys between two distant parties. Apart from the matured fibre-based QKD approaches, free-space QKD has progressed out of laboratories into real-world scenarios. Several pioneering experiments such as the Chinese Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) missions contributing to the full in-orbit demonstrations of the satellite-based QKD approaches, provides a most feasible option to achieve an ultralong-distance QKD with today's technology. Very recently, by integrating the fibre and free-space QKD links, a spaceto-ground QKD network has been successfully extended to a distant optical ground station (OGS) site, up to a total distance of 4,600 kilometers, which sparked a worldwide interest in design for the future global quantum network. In such an integrated space-to-ground network, the fiber-based trusted nodes have been built for extending these limited point-topoint QKD distances from one backbone node to another but are fixed locations that could be subject to constant surveillance and probes. To remove these fiber-channel risks, one could consider a hypothetical but possible network (illustrated in Fig.1) evolved from the paradigm, consisting of a space-based mobile platform (i.e., the Micius satellite) and the selected cities with OGSs (i.e., the built and planned backbone nodes for the future national network). Here, the only relay, i.e., Micius satellite, operates as either 'trusted node' or 'untrusted node' and directly mediates the distribution of secure encryption keys pairwise between these cities. The remarkable fact that, the 'untrusted node' configuration such as the implemented entanglement-based QKD or future space-based measurementdevice-independent (MDI) QKD is more secure but feasible only when both OGSs are within the satellite coverage simultaneously. Moreover, though a constellation of satellites that provides a continuous, on-demand entanglement distribution service to cities appears to be viable in future term, the limitation of orbit resources and the costs of construction should be considered before a widely deployment. Instead, in the current 'trusted node' configuration, the Micius satellite carries out QKD operations with distinct OGSs to establish independent keys with each of them, and subsequently broadcasts over a public channel the XOR hash of both delivered keys allowing thus any two cities to have a shared key. Therefore, the encrypted-communication in such a possible network could be implemented without the need for fibre-based relays. However, one major challenging bottleneck putting the network in extensive use is so far the satellite-based QKD has not been efficient enough to support the for the one-time-pad encryption. In seeking a higher key rate, there have been proposals for free-space continuous-variable (CV) QKD, asymmetric MDI-QKD, whereas, directly applying the modifications to space environment is difficult yet to be achieved. For instance, in a high-loss regime adopting CVRecent the large-scale quantum network that connects metropolitan area quantum networks between the cities is realized by integrating the free-space and fibre QKD links, yet the fiber-based trusted nodes in such network could be subject to constant surveillance and probes. To remove these fiber-channel risks, we consider a network where a space-based relay, Micius satellite, executes a sequence of keys delivery missions, allowing thus any two cities to have a shared key. In this work, we develop a comprehensive framework integrated with the precise orbital modeling and the cloud statistics model to enable a pre-assessment on the satellite-based QKD applications. Using this framework, we consider three different scheduling strategies and estimate the keys possible to deliver to the cities, respectively. Results show that the strategy of pursing the total final keys maximized significantly embodies space-based QKD advantage, while the strategy of considering different levels of missions achieves more keys delivered to a higher priority mission. Most importantly, the targeted strategy of pursuing the distribution of final keys delivered being coincident with network traffic distribution, guarantees the individual needs, further promoting the utilization of delivered keys in practice. We also provide a comparison between the total number of delivered keys by the satellite with different altitude orbits. It is demonstrated that the plans for constructing a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation, are more effective than that for employing an expensive high-orbit satellite, for a realization of the potential applications. Our works not only provides a practical method in the near term but also gives the aforehand exploration to establish satellite-based quantum communication network.


Description: The paper considers the position of trade marks in the European Communities, particularly their conflicts with the rules on free movement of goods within the EU and with EC competition law. These conflicts are closely related to each other. It will be argued that various interests clash in these conflicts, the difficult resolution of which has fallen to the European Court of Justice. Besides dealing with the legal aspects of these two conflicts, the paper will also explore the reasons behind them, and its broader business and political ramifications. The paper adopts a critical approach to the current development and argues that with the power of strong brands continuing to be on the increase, the relationship between trade mark rights and EC competition law, as well as the relationship between trade marks and the rules on free movement of goods, calls for a reassessment. The paper is ideal for lawyers,students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and for anybody interested or involved in this colourful subject.


it is not even an early traditional explanation, and the term is otherwise never so used in Vedic texts. What is more important, it does not occur in any of the enumerations of the Satapatha Brahmaiia and the Brhaddranyaka Upanisad, and the Vidyas which do occur there have probably a restricted and technical sense, and were not a generic expression for the " sciences ". We must not overestimate the elaboration of Vedic civilization or seek to find in it the full developments of the later period. It may interest Colonel Jacob in view of his note on vaktaro bhavanti* to know that this phrase occurs in Bhaskara's commentary on the Taittiriya Samhitd. On vii, 4. 19. 1 it is used simply as an equivalent of " people will ( = are wont to) say " in the phrase loke hi premdtibharena vaktaro bhavanti mdtar ddrike svd7niniti. On ii, 6. 1. 7 it serves to explain dhuh of the text, and in that case it is possible to see some suggestion of contempt for "chatterers" as contrasted with the realknowerof the meaning of the question ascribed to those who vaktaro bliavanti.


The article looks at the category of "cultural archetype" as an effective tool for analysis of ethno-national art. Reactualization of the ethnic background of art in the early 21st century has led to the rise of new artistic forms, making the study of archetypes still more topical. This article summarizes the author's research into Finno-Ugric neomythologism and ethnofuturism as it applies to, in particularly, Mari ethnic art. We distinguish between Jungian and Russian approaches to cultural archetype. In the Jungian psychoanalytic tradition, the cultural archetype is not identical to the psychological archetype of the collective unconscious, it belongs to the cultural unconscious, to the area of historical memory which lingers between the collective unconscious and the existing pattern of a culture. Unlike the unimaginable archetypes of the collective unconscious, cultural archetypes in a psyche are much more similar to ready-made and, historically conditioned representative cultural forms and symbols. From the Jungian perspective, the meaning of art is related to unconscious representation of archetypes through the completed masterpiece. The interpreter's task is to identify and to give an approximated description of the semantic core of an archetype. Russian researchers have approached the cultural archetype and the cultural unconscious through the concept of literary and mythological archetype. Different takes complement each other and enrich the methodological framework of a scholar of ethno-national art. In ethno-national art, the ethno-cultural archetype is a basic element of content. Making use of resources of artistry and imagination, the archetype preserves such fundamental features as the integrity of representations over time; stylistic variation of the archetypical invariant; the tendency to augment the meanings at every new stage; affective impact on the viewer, tinged with the numinous, sanctified, or rejective; ethnocentricity as national art's drive towards search and adaptation. The methods of artistic representation of archetypes characterize the nature of ethnocultural reflection.


New syntheses of 4,6,7-tris-(2-methoxycarbonylethyl)-1,3,5,8-tetramethyl-2-vinylporphyrin (2c) and its 4-vinyl isomer (2d), from pyrromethanes, are reported. These porphyrins and coproporphyrin-III tetramethyl ester (2b) were labelled at the meso-positions with tritium, and incubated in the form of the porphyrinogen carboxylic acids, with a cell-free system from Euglena gracilis. Coproporphyrinogen-III (3b), the standard for the system, was incorporated into protoporphyrin-IX (1a) to the extent of 2·0%, whereas the 2- and 4-vinylporphyrinogens gave incorporations of 3·0 and 0·5%, respectively. These results show conclusively that, in the biosynthesis of protoporphyrin-IX from corproporphyrinogen-III in Euglena gracilis, the 2-propionic acid group is converted into vinyl before the 4-substituent is modified. Further confirmation was obtained by detection of radiochemically labelled 2-vinylporphyrinogen (3c)[by isolation of the corresponding porphyrin (1c) using dilution analysis] as a product of the coproporphyrinogen-III feeding; the isomeric identity of the porphyrin (1c) was established using high-pressure liquid chromatography.


Objective:To master the characteristics of mucolytic chelating agents,chelating agents mucolytic clear role in the treatment of DPB.Methods:56 cases of diffuse panbronchiolitis patients were randomly divided into study group and control group.The two groups were treated by anti inflammation,relieving cough and reducing sputum.Beside this,study group was given mucolytic eccritic(standard Myrtle oil pill),the control group without.Results:After 3 month's treatment,the curative rate of the study group was 25.0%,higher than 10.7%of the control group(P0.01).Conclusion:Mucolytic chelating agents can improve the efficacy in treatment of diffuse panbronchiolitis.


There are some problems on psychological health education in higher vocational colleges in our country,and the thesis suggests the necessity of establishing psychological health education mechanism.It also focuses on how to establish psychological health education mechanism including systematism mechanism and guarantee mechanism to improve psychological health education of vocational Undergraduates.


This film by Steve McQueen investigates the problem of sexual addiction with a fictional story of a man working in a non identified super-modern office in New York. His sexual addiction and his freedom in his apartement are disturbed by the unexpected arrival of his suicidal sister. Urban life, urban solitude and despair are part of the emotional life depicted in this film.


Eros~on ot sod by w ~ n d 1s a serlous problem In many arrd reglons throughout the world Agr~cultural producers, as well as managers of non-agricultural lands, need to know how d~fierent management practices Impact wmd eroslon For t h ~ s purpose, several wmd eroslon models have been developed Models, however, need to be tested usmg experimental data Thls paper revlews wmd erosion held research, emphasizing recent contributions, and describes experiments and measurements requ~red to evaluate w ~ n d erosion models Three types oi data are needed to evaluate w ~ n d eroslon models. alrborne sed~ment flux, meteorological data and data descnbmg the cond~t~on of the field surface The Big Sprlng Number E1gk.i (BSNE) and the Mod~fied Wllson and Cooke (MWAC) samplers are the most w~dely used collectors of a~rborne sed~ment The Sens~t and the Salt~phone do not collect sediment, but cont~nuously record the occurrence and Intensity of saltatlng part~cles. Addit~onal work IS needed to mvestlgate their use for the actual quant~ficatlon of sediment flux Several researchers have developed some type of cont~nuously welghlng sampler a sampler and an electron~c scale combined In one apparatus These dev~ces are not yet fully operat~onal and are expenswe The~r cost has to decrease ~f they are to be used more w~dely More research 1s also needed on methocis to cont~nuously measure so11 molsture at the so11 surface Rad~at~on data such as surface albedo may be useful In t h ~ s regard


Perceiving objects' and avatars' weight in Virtual Reality (VR) is important to understand their properties and naturally interact with them. However, commercial VR controllers cannot render weight. Controllers presented by previous work are single-handed, slow, or only render a small mass. In this paper, we present PumpVR that renders weight by varying the controllers' mass according to the properties of virtual objects or bodies. Using a bi-directional pump and solenoid valves, the system changes the controllers' absolute weight by transferring water in or out with an average error of less than 5%. We implemented VR use cases with objects and avatars of different weights to compare the system with standard controllers. A study with 24 participants revealed significantly higher realism and enjoyment when using PumpVR to interact with virtual objects. Using the system to render body weight had significant effects on virtual embodiment, perceived exertion, and self-perceived fitness.


The profession of medicine is full of conflicts: doctor7patient, doctor7hospital, clinical=therapeutic7research, et cetera. Two slightly different conflicts have recently been brought to light. One has to do with business and medicine; the other has to do with pharmaceuticalcompanies and the practice of medicine. In a recent survey, it was found that different medical schools had different approaches to what counted as conflict of interest when it came to business-supported research and business interests of researchers (Lo,Wolf, & Berkeley, 2000; McCrary et al., 2000).This is not surprising or perhaps even important.What is important is that it is now realized that rules delineating what is to count as conflict of interest are needed. In general, business has one single driving (ethical?) principle: to maximize profit. Medicine may have no one driving ethical principle, however whatever priciples there are, many of them would clash with maximizing profit.Yet as more and more of the practice of medicine comes under the spell of some sort of business (HMOs or drug companies), there seems no way to avoid conflicts of interests. How much of a stake in companies that could profit from certain research outcomes should any researcher be allowed to have before the research becomes suspect? Journalists are supposed to have not even the look of such conflict. Shouldn't the same be expected of physicians? Shouldn't the same be expected of institutions? That is, should universities, especially medical schools, have economic ties to for-profit companies? The answer seems to be `̀ They do already.'' In a very strict sense, just allowing a drug representative to buy pizzas or hand out pens creates such a tie. As one of the articles notes; almost all universities of any size have a technology transfer office just waiting to turn its school's research into profitable technology. Obviously either no such institution sees a moral issue here or has settled to its satisfaction whatever that moral issue might be.What might such moral issues be? There are two broad ones, (a) How does it look from the outside (i.e., from the public's point of view)? (b) What affect does it have in reality on researchers and research? More specific issues include the following: Can patients trust that they are being treated with what is best for them and not what is economically best for the physician or institution? Is an area of research now more determined by economics rather than by need or interest? Can results be disseminated freely or will there come to be


Ca2+ influx is an important event associated with platelet activation and regulated by the content of intracellular Ca2+. Previous studies have suggested two different Ca2+ pools and two Ca2+ influx pathways exist in platelets. In the present study, we have investigated the regulation of thrombin- and thapsigargin-induced Ca2+ entry into human platelets, using fluorescent indicators to monitor Ca2+ mobilization and membrane potential. It was found that depletion of thapsigargin-sensitive Ca2+ stores was coupled to Ca2+ influx through a Ca2+-selective pathway. Additional release of Ca2+ from the thapsigargin-insensitive pool by thrombin caused the opening of a nonselective cation channel.


Jasmonate signaling plays a critical role in protecting plants from pathogens or insect attacks and in limiting damage from abiotic stress. Many events contribute to the regulation of jasmonic acid (JA) synthesis during abiotic or biotic stress, but the details of the underlying mechanism remain unclear. In this Mini-Review paper, we discuss the possible roles of reactive oxygen species (ROS), nitric oxide (NO), calcium influx, and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade during JA synthesis or JA signal transduction.


In the design and manufacture of engineering products geometrical problem is known by shaping the surface of the product. An important element of general solution of this problem is to define the lines of surfaces intersection, forming the shape of designed product. Existing possibilities of modern CAD systems do not allow achieving fullness of the result in this direction. For example, control points and change point of visibility is difficult to identify in the product drawings. In addition, there are no possibilities of detecting imaginary points which are necessary for a complete analysis of intersection surfaces, and mapping these points in the drawing. The aim of the study is to develop a geometric algorithm of constructive determining the intersection line and is devoid of these shortcomings. The objectives of the study are testing the obtained algorithm by experimental verification with geometric modeling solutions to specific problems by tools CAD. This study adopted the method, which is based on quotient of geometric sets, which are regarded as intersecting surfaces in space E3. One area of practical use of surface engineering products geometric algorithm - shaping is based on their intersection line.


Abstract Introduction The association between interleukin-6 (IL-6) gene −572 G^C polymorphism and myocardial infarction (MI) risk has not been established. We adopted this meta-analysis for further insight into the case–control studies. Materials and methods To investigate the genetic association, we searched multiple databases, including Web of Science, EMbase, CBM disc, PubMed and CNKI. Also, we manually identified the searched references. All the statistical analyses were conducted using Stata 11.0. Results A total of five studies were identified, involving 2,526 MI cases and 3,027 controls. The results revealed a significant association between IL-6 gene −572 G^C polymorphism and MI, implying that the IL-6 gene −572 C allele may be a protective factor for MI (for C allele vs K allele: OR = 0.85, 95% CI = 0.73–0.99, p = 0.041; for C/C vs G/G: OR = 0.55, 95% CI = 0.31–0.98, p = 0.044; for C/C vs G/C + G/G: OR = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.41–0.89, p = 0.011). However, in the subgroup analysis with regard to ethnicity, no significant correlation was identified between IL-6 gene −572 G^C polymorphism and MI among Europeans. Conclusion The IL-6 gene −572 C allele may be a protective factor for MI. Future studies involving larger sample bases are still recommended.


Objective: This research aims to study effectiveness of cold gel compression before intralesionaltriamcinolone acetonide injection for pain relief in keloid treatment. Materials and methods: A randomized cross-over study in the patients with keloid at out patientdepartment of plastic surgery, Samutsakhon hospital between June 2009 to May 2011. Sixty four patientsconsented and then was devided into 2 groups. All of them received intralesional steroid injections for 2 timeswithin 1 month apart. One time of treatment they had cold gel compression before intralesional steroidinjections. Pain scores 0-10 were used to evaluate the patients' feeling. Results: Demographic data of both groups of the patients were not different in gender, age, location,size of keloid, amount of steroid used and side effect. Pain scores in the patients who received cold gelcompression before steroid injection were lower both during puncture the needle and injection of steroid. Painscores during puncture the needle were 3.09 ± 2.11 and 1.86 ± 1.93 in group that not received and receivedcold gel compression, respectively (p-value < 0.001). Pain scores during injection of steroid were 5.25 ± 2.59and 2.36 ± 2.06 in group that not received and received cold gel compression, respectively (p-value < 0.001).Pain scores were divided into 3 ranges; mild, moderate and severe pain. During puncture the needle, thepatients who received cold gel compression had decline of pain scores 57.8%, equal of pain scores 39.1%and increase of pain scores 3.1%. During steroid injection, the patients who received cold gel compressionhad decline of pain scores  82.8 %, equal of pain scores 14.1 % and increase of pain score 3.1%. Conclusion: Cold gel compression before intralesional triamcinolone acetonide injection in keloidtreatment was effective for pain relief during puncture the needle and injection of steroid with statistical andclinical significance. This method was also easy, safety, cheap and available in general practice. Keywords: effectiveness, cold gel compression, intralesional injection, triamcinolone acetonide, keloid, pain score


It is important for the current small and medium sized companies to innovate and thereby still to be able to compete with the cheaper companies from the east. Within Fontys University a project has been started to develop an innovative education for its future curricula. More attention is paid to competence learning and 'learn to learn'-principles instead of cognitive learning. This has resulted in a so-called 'major-minor' system. In the Netherlands this system of education is commonly used at the Universities. The major, at Fontys, is a three-year primary education, which aims to develop the student's discipline. The minor are two education entities restricted, for the size of 30 ECTS, which students can choose. Within the Fontys University a study has started to develop a minor education on the topic "strategically decision-making on innovations in a SME". Fontys wants to train its students for this task in the SME, because it is assumed that many higher educated personnel will find work in the SME. Furthermore it is assumed that there is a growing need for higher educated personnel in possession of competences about strategic decision-making and implementing an innovative organisation. In the autumn of 2006, as a result of the present developments, a minor will be started on the topic 'strategically decision-making on innovations'. This paper describes the progress of the developments of the minor.


The $K\ensuremath{\alpha}$ and $K\ensuremath{\beta}$ x rays of Ni produced by the passage of light fission fragments from the spontaneous fission of $^{252}\mathrm{Cf}$ through a thin Ni foil were found to be shifted up in energy by 69 \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{} 11 and 210 \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{} 16 eV, respectively, relative to the x rays produced by 6-MeV $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ particles and by photons from the decay of $^{241}\mathrm{Am}$. These shifts are similar in character to those observed previously in 15- MeV oxygen-ion bombardments, but require extremely high ionic charge states to be explainable in terms of multiple inner-shell plus outer-shell ionization.


Background and Objectives: Recurrent aphthous stomatitis is common oral condition, characterized by multiple, recurrent, small, round, or ovoid ulcers with circumscribed, erythematous haloes, and yellow or grey floors. Its etiology and pathogenesis is not entirely clear linked to systemic diseases and among these, anemia, iron deficiency, folic- acid, and vitamin B12 deficiencies. The aim of this study to investigate the association between recurrent aphthous stomatitis and hemoglobin, serum ferritin, folic acid, and vitamin B12 deficiency. Patient and Methods: This prospective cross sectional case control clinical study was conducted on 50 patients with recurrent aphthous stomatitis. The control group composed of 50 healthy age and sex-matched subject. The patient demography about family history of recurrent aphthous stomatitis, and smoking was recorded, also the hemoglobin, serum levels of ferritin, folic acid, and vitamin B12 has been investigated.Results: The low hemoglobin was reported in 30% and vitamin B 12 deficiency in 31% of the patient so low hemoglobin and B12 deficiency have significant correlation with recurrent aphthous stomatitis. Patients with low hemoglobin, vitamin B12 deficiency , positive family history, and non smoker have been found to have the highest risk for having recurrent aphthous stomatitis. Conclusion: Recurrent aphthous stomatitis is a multifactorial disease. Positive family history, low hemoglobin level , vitamin B12 deficiency, and nonsmoking status are among the important predisposing factors. Routine hematological screening and tests for iron status, folic acid, and vitamin B12 status should be assessed in all patients with recurrent aphthous stomatitis.


particularly in Africa. Current strategies promoted by donors such as USAID for controlling malaria rely on prevention of infections and on treatment—but with reliance on a cocktail of chemicals—some of which become ineffective over time. More sustainable tools that have proven to work in malaria endemic regions must be analyzed, strengthened and implemented. They can reduce the burden of malaria while protecting human health and the environment, enhancing general health status, ensuring long-term sustainability of the control efforts and contributing to overall development of marginalized rural and urban areas. Strategies to Replace DDT and Control Malaria


This paper proposes a model for water detection in video sequences, which is a key asset of any robot operating in natural environments. By searching the visual input for the waters typically chaotic dynamic texture, the model is able to filter out the static background and even any dynamic object present in the scene. In this work, the waters signature is defined, mostly, in terms of an entropy measure computed from the optical flow obtained across several frames. To foster the classification of motionless regions in the visual input, usually associated to the far field, a segmentation guided label propagation method is used. The model is experimentally validated on 12 diverse videos, acquired from static and moving cameras.


The technique of scanning potential stopped-rotation voltammetry, which is based on measuring the differences between currents with the electrode rotation switched on and off while the applied potential is scanned linearly, is described. Asymmetric rotation pulses, without the achievement of the rotation "off" steady-state current, are employed. The resulting modulated response is free of most background current components, directly proportional to the analyte concentration and reproducible. Well defined current-potential graphs are obtained for ascorbic acid, dopamine, homovanillic acid and hexacyanoferrate(II) ion at the micromolar concentration level. Extremely low background signals are achieved at a glassy-carbon disk electrode, allowing a detection limit of 7 × 10–8M of dopamine. The technique is simple and suitable for automation.


Abstract Fifty-four subjects with chronic distressing tinnitus were randomly allocated to one of four experimental treatment conditions: (1) attention control and imagery training (AC1); (2) cognitive restructuring (CR); (3) combined attention control and imagery training plus cognitive restructuring (ACI + CR); and (4) a waiting list control (WLC). Significant overall improvements were found on measures of distress associated with tinnitus, and on a number of other measures of cognition and coping strategies. These improvements were maintained at the six-month follow-up. Relative to the WLC, the three treatment conditions (combined) were associated with improvements in tinnitus-related distress, reductions in tinnitus-related dysfunctional cognitions and an increase in the frequency of use of coping strategies. There was a significant effect in favour of the ACI group compared to the CR group on the measure of irrational beliefs. The analyses also revealed that the combined treatment condition (ACI + CR)...


This work's purpose is to explain those words that Heidegger said about Suarez in Being and Time , i.e., to explain what is the importance of Suarez in the History of Metaphysics, specially on how something that was in its origin a problem became a discipline: the ontology; and also how the consequences that came from Suarez, and particularly how he understand the conceptus entis, mark the future of the Metaphysics of the Modernity.


The relevance and potential of artificial intelligence (AI) for biology and medicine should not be judged by NIH attitudes toward the field. However, NIH is the principal funding source for biomedically relevant R&D, and its enthusiasm (or apathy) for a domain can significantly alter the pace of development and the projects to which scientists devote their time. The notorious "AI winter", usually attributed to the disappointment of exaggerated expectations, more or less froze funding for AI development in general. Biomedicine was not spared, and the relatively small but enthusiastic funding provided by the National Library of Medicine dried up in the 1990s. NIH as a whole has never embraced AI, and in fact, did not develop much enthusiasm for computation in general until 2000. Even today, enthusiasm for AI (broadly defined) is modest. However, the emergence of new and complex problems for clinicians and biologists, as well as the federal interest in electronic health records, has stimulated some renewed interest in the potential of AI. Some AI can be seen in a number of funded projects, including the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) Program, the Clinical and Translational Science Awards, and the National Centers for Biomedical Computing. The National Library of Medicine recently awarded 13 research contracts for projects in "computational thinking" relevant to biomedicine. Funding opportunities for AI projects are becoming available at NIH for applicants who can identify important problems, know where to look for support, and wordsmith with sufficient shrewdness.