INTRODUCTION Multiple reports have indicated that the prevalence of work-related stress is increasing among academics. This has been attributed to the expanding number of students, the need for efficiency in providing higher quality education, accountability to multiple stakeholders, internal and external factors, and problems in management and workplace communication systems. In spite of the growing realization of the importance of work-related stress, little is known about the subject in SubSaharan Africa. In this study, we investigated the prevalence of work-related stress and associated factors in colleges across Eritrea. METHODS This study was a cross-sectional study performed in 2019 in Eritrea. Sample size for this study was calculated using single population proportion formula and simple random sampling technique was used to acquire the study participants. A structured closed-ended questionnaire was subsequently used to collect sociodemographic and other occupation related data. The University and College Union model stress questionnaire was used to assess stress among the study participants. Statistical analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics version 23. RESULTS Based on the UCU model stress questionnaire, the overall prevalence of stress among college faculty was found to be 49.2%. When assessing the stress related factors, Pearson's correlation test showed participant's stress score was moderately correlated with demand (r=0.37), control (r=0.36) and relations (r=0.32) scores. However weak, the stress score had a statistically significant positive correlation with role, change, and the support domain scores. CONCLUSIONS Work-related stress among faculty members was prevalent in the study setting, as it was found to affect almost half of the study participants. The factors affecting stress can be categorized into three broader domains: uncertainty of career prospect, role confusion and lack of resources. ABBREVIATIONS HSE: Health and Safety Executive; UCU: University and College Union; OCMHS: Orrotta College of Medicine & Health Sciences; HAC: Hamelmalo Agricultural College; COS: College of Sciences; COE: College of Engineering; CBSS: College of Business and Social Sciences; COE/TTI: College of Education (Teachers Training Institute) INTRODUCTION Stress is a psychological factor produced by a change in an environment that is perceived as challenging, threatening or damaging to a person's wellbeing1. It can lead to a variety of psychological responses, the most common of which is anxiety. The term stress is commonly used to describe feelings of tensions or exhaustion usually associated with work overload or overly demanding work2. Stress was reported to be one of the ten leading causes of death in the world3. It can lead to the development of several physical and psychological problems. For instance, chronic stress is believed to affect the immune system by disrupting healthy immune responses, and it can also lead to depressive disorder4,5. Stress is so prevalent that it is estimated 74% of Research Paper| Population Medicine Popul. Med. 2021;3(March):9 https://doi.org/10.18332/popmed/133815 2 people have felt so stressed that they were overwhelmed or unable to cope at some point in their life4. Work-related stress can be defined as a harmful reaction to undue pressures and demands related to the job role6. Occupational stress is an inherent component of any work environment, which is sometimes necessary, but this does not justify its translation into any form of physical, psychological, or behavioral distress4,7. Occupational and organizational stress has been identified as a key risk factor for cardiovascular problems8. Occupational stress is also viewed as a chronic condition that requires an understanding of the condition, like its epidemiology, prior to exploring and setting protection, prevention, and intervention alternatives4,7. Circumstances that are believed to cause stress are events or conditions that are unpredictable or uncontrollable, uncertain, ambiguous or unfamiliar to the person, or situations involving conflict9. Occupational stress affects both the employee and the organization as a whole, as workers experiencing undue stress are prone to absenteeism, reduced job performance and poor communication7. The impact of work related stress and job performance remains controversial. Many researchers found that the relation between occupational stress and job performance to be inversely related9,10,11. While some argue that the occupational stress can improve the performance of an employee and the outcome of work12. Nothing, of course, should be taken away from the type of work to be carried. However, when it comes to the impact of stress on human's physical and mental wellbeing, it is hard to find disagreement13-15. A recent study of academic employees found strong links between work intensity and long working hours with negative implications for work–life balance16. Research findings also demonstrate that the features that traditionally protected employees working in universities and colleges against work-related stress, such as job control and support, have gradually eroded, thus exacerbating the pressure experienced by employees17. The reasons for the increasing level of work-related stress among academics has been attributed to the expanding number of students, the need for efficiency in providing higher quality education, accountability to multiple stakeholders, internal and external factors, and problems in management and workplace communication systems18. A study conducted among academic staff in Gondar University, Ethiopia, found the prevalence of work-related stress to be 60.4%. This study also found smoking, high job demand, low job control and age as significant factors affecting stress19. Studies conducted in several universities of Nigeria have found very high stress levels among university lecturers20,21. Prevalence of stress among university lecturers in Zimbabwe was found be as high as 50%22 and a prevalence rate of 30.1% was reported from a study conducted in Tanzania23. The differences in the prevalence of stress across countries might relate to the different tools the studies used. Nonetheless, stress seems to be a major challenge to institutes of higher education in general. Several factors like workload, student-related issues, research and career development, interpersonal relationship and administrative-related issues were the main stressors identified in another study at a Nigerian university24. In addition, a Ghanaian study identified delay or irregularity in salary payment, workload, inadequate monetary reward, subject matter load and long working hours as the main sources of stress among university lecturers25. Study on occupational stress of academic staff in South African higher education institutions reported work overload and work–life balance as the main players in ill health of academics26. The magnitude of stress among the college instructors has never been studied in Eritrea. Hence, this study aims at assessing the prevalence of work-related stress among faculty members of the six colleges of the country. In addition, the study has attempted to identify the workenvironment related factors that are deemed to be important in causing stress in these colleges. METHODS Study design This cross-sectional study was conducted in all the six colleges in Eritrea: Orotta College of Medicine and Health Science (OCMHS), Hamelmalo College of Agricultural Science (HAC), College of Science (COS), College of Engineering (COE), College of Education (COE/TTI), and Adikeih College of Business and Social Sciences (CBSS), between February and March 2019. All the colleges are public institutions governed under the National Board of Higher Education and Research Institute. They are the only institutions of higher learning in the entire country. Four of the colleges are located in the central region and the remaining two colleges are located in Debub region (CBSS) and Anseba Region (HAC). The study population comprised college instructors who were on active duty at the time of the study. Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the Department of Nursing, Orotta College of Medicine and Health Sciences. Permission to conduct the study was sought from each person in-charge in all the colleges. Participants of the study were briefed about the purpose of the study, and written informed consent was obtained from each participant. Confidentiality of the data was maintained as data were collected anonymously. Sample size and sampling method Sample size for this study was calculated using single population proportion formula [n1=Z (p×q)/e2]. The following parameters were used to reach the initial sample size (n1): Z=1.96 for 95% CI, p (proportion)=0.5 (50%), q=1–0.5 (0.5) and e (margin of error)=0.05. Based on this, n1 was 384.16. In order to adjust this number to the actual population size, we used the correction factor, i.e. n2=(n1×N)/ (n1+N) where N (total population)=429. This gave a sample Research Paper| Population Medicine Popul. Med. 2021;3(March):9 https://doi.org/10.18332/popmed/133815 3 size (n2) of 202. Finally, a 10% of the n2 was added to the sample, for assumed non-response, to get the final sample size of 222. This study employed simple random sampling technique to acquire the study participants. First, the sample size was allocated to each college proportionally to the total number of academic staff. Then, a sampling frame was developed in each college from which participants were selected by using simple random sampling technique. In case the selected instructor was not available during the data collection time, we used replacement from those not selected using the same technique. Instruments and data collection A structured closed-ended questionnaire was used to collect sociodemographic and other occupation related data. The University and College Uni


Based on the analysis of discontinuity and anisotropy of columnar joints,a 3D numerical simulation is carried out for an arch dam and its foundation.Considering the initial ground stress of river valley and anisotropic mechanical property of rock mass,the computation results with isotropic and anisotropic models are compared and analyzed.The result shows that the characteristics of columnar joints have obvious influence on the stress and displacement of engineering rock mass.The influence of columnar joints on dam or abutment stability is very important;and a successful application is provided for the analysis of anisotropic property of rock mass in this dam area.


An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with the advantages of compact structure, good mobility and low-cost will be better used in the field of marine scientific research and military application. This paper introduces the bottom-level control subsystem and autonomous navigation algorithm of the low-cost AUV. In order to prove that the control system has good robustness, some simulations and lake tests were conducted. The results show inertial navigation algorithm based on AHRS, digital compass and GPS can achieve good performance.


stomach, and of preserving gastric acidity, should be defined. Selective decontamination of the digestive tract may be helpful, however, in preventing infection in long stay patients with trauma who are being ventilated and in removing organisms during outbreaks. What selective decontamination of the digestive tract has done is to open new approaches for investigating and possible intervention of an intractable problem. P J SANDERSON Consultant Microbiologist, Edgware General Hospital, Edgware, Middlesex HA8 OAD


The presence of random skew quadrupole field errors will couple the x and y motions. The x and y motions are then each given by the sum of 2 normal modes with the tunes {nu}{sub 1} and {nu}{sub 2}, which may differ appreciably from {nu}{sub x} and {nu}{sub y}, the unperturbed tunes. This is often called tune splitting. This tune splitting may be large in proton accelerators using superconducting magnets, because of the relatively large random skew quadrupole field errors that are expected in these magnets. This tune splitting has been studied in the RHIC accelerator. A correction system has been developed for correcting this large tune splitting which uses two families of skew quadrupole correctors. It has been found that this correction system corrects most of the large tune splitting, but a residual tune splitting remains that is still appreciable. RHIC has to operate within a box in tune space whose width is {Delta}{nu} = 33 {times} 10{sup {minus}3} in order to avoid all resonances which are tenth order or less. It appears desirable to correct the tune splitting to a level which is much smaller than 33 {times} 10{sup {minus}3}. The residual tune splitting that remained after correctionmore » with the 2 family tune splitting correction system was found to be about 18 {times} 10{sup {minus}3}. The residual tune splitting appears to be due to higher order effects of the random a{sub 1} multipole. Loosely speaking, one may say that residual tune splitting is associated with the nearby linear sum resonance, {nu}{sub x}, + {nu}{sub y} = integer. A skew quadrupole correction system has been developed that appears able to correct a large part of the residual tune splitting. This consists of skew quadrupole correctors near the high-{beta} quadrupoles in the insertions, which are excited so as to generate the harmonics that would drive the nearby sum resonances, {nu}{sub x}, + {nu}{sub y} = integer.« less


Oaks are classified heavily based on the leaf morphology. However, identification of specimens without acorns is usually controversial in Cerris section. Although members of Cerris section have a broad distribution area, there are only few taxonomic studies. Therefore, the current study is the first to show the discrimination of species in Cerris section based on leaf characters from Turkey. Discrimination among the members of Cerris section over Turkey (Q. cerris L. var. cerris, Q. ithaburensis Decne. subsp. macrolepis (Kotschy) Hedge and Yalt, Q. brantii Lindley, Q. libani Olivier, and Q. trojana P. B. subsp. trojana.) was aimed and variations within and among the species based on 15 qualitative leaf characters was presented. In this work we have studied the natural variability of these species by analysing leaf materials collected from 44 populations around Turkey. Cluster Analysis (CA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were performed to assess intra-specific differentiation and to compare the distribution of variance in the individual and population level. The results showed that the leaf characters presented a good discrimination of five Cerris taxa in PCA at the population level, but the relationships between Q. ithaburensis subsp. macrolepis and Q. brantii showed complex groups in CA. Among the studied taxa, the highest variation was found within Q. cerris populations. In this work, we obtained discrimination of Cerris section species from Turkey based on leaf characters which is quite useful for those herbarium specimens without acorns and in other systematic observations. Additional key words: cluster analysis, numerical taxonomy, oak, principal component analysis Address: Abant Izzet Baysal University, Faculty of Science and Art, Department of Biology, Golkoy 14280 Bolu, Turkey; e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


Grant Agreement number: FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2008-1-228403 Project acronym: TRANSVAC Project title: European Network of Vaccine Research and Development Funding Scheme: Combination of Collaborative Project and Coordination and Support Action Date of latest version of Annex I against which the assessment will be made: 23 August 2013 Periodic report: Final Report Period covered: 1 October 2009 – 30 September 2013


Identification of software components is found to be a crucial task and remains as a challenging area in the software domain to extract optimal components from the component repository[18]. Several methods are deployed to identify the software components and observed that clustering based technique is frequently used and offer a solution with certain limitations such as prior specification of a set of clusters, overlapping and difficulty in selecting the correct distance metric. In this research, an optimization technique is applied on some components to get the best result. The genetic algorithm using the concept of number of chromosomes is applied on software complexity metrics such as Cohesion of Variables within a Component (COVC), Cohesion of Methods within a Component (COMC) and Total Cohesion Complexity of a Component (TCCC) which are proposed by Rana and Singh et.al [14]. Fitness function metrics is proposed for finding out the fitness value. Rana and Singh also empirically evaluate cohesion metrics(COVC, COMC, TCCC) and perform comparative analysis with existing metrics in another research paper [15]. In this paper genetic algorithm is applied on these metrics for optimization of results. After application of genetic algorithm, SPSS a statistic tool is applied on the result to find out the significance of result. The result obtained shows that better optimization of software metrics is obtained through application of genetic algorithm compared to without usage of genetic algorithm.


Recent years have witnessed a rapid growth of interest in the study of the dynamic behavior of replenishment rules of Bullwhip Effect. We prove that Bullwhip Effect and butterfly effect share a same the self-oscillation amplifying mechanism that is the ordering decisions the supplier self-oscillation amplify the perturbations brought by the errors in the processing of retailers' demand information. This results as an explicit self-similar structure of the sensitivity of the system to the initial values duty to the nonlinear mechanism. In this paper, the causes process of the Bullwhip Effect is described as the internal nonlinear mechanism and study on the complexity of Bullwhip Effect for order-up-to policy under demand signal processing. The methodology is based on fractal and chaotic theory and allows important insights to be gained about the complexity behavior of Bullwhip Effect.


From the moment of its arrival in France, Nicolas Poussin's Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well, today in the Louvre, has been both the object of acclaim and the subject of debate (Fig. 1). According to Andre Felibien, whom there is every reason to believe, Poussin painted it in 1648 for his wealthy friend Pointel, a banker of Lyon who had settled in Paris.1 Even when it formed part of Pointel's extraordinary collection of works by Poussin, Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well stood out as an especially admired and coveted piece.2 Indeed, Felibien relates that one lady wanted the painting so badly that she promised to give Pointel whatever he desired in exchange. Pointel, however, refused this offer, as he did all others, because he was so fond of his paintings by Poussin that he could not bear to part with any of them for even a day, much less sell one.3


Discusses the application of recurrent neural networks for identification and control of helicopter vibrations. A class of recurrent networks called memory neuron networks are used for plant identification and control. These networks are obtained by adding trainable temporal elements to feedforward networks. This makes the network output history sensitive and gives them the capability to identify and control systems whose order is unknown or systems with unknown delay. A representative analytical model with higher harmonic pitch angles for minimizing hub shear forces is used for simulation. The effectiveness of the controller in minimizing the force level at varying and constant forward speed are studied. The ability of the controller to cope with changes in system and environment parameters is also considered.


Content Pedagogy Assessments The following content assessments will be
updated to include increased content pedagogy to be assessed through both
multiple choice and constructed response questions. The dates below represent the current target
date. Any amendments will be made on
this site. The date


Background: Exploitation and abusive handling of children through child labour is an important issue which has evaded the attention of global, national and local authorities. Research reveals that child labor is a common phenomenon which runs widely and deeply. This study aims to describe children exploitation through child labor in district Vehari, Pakistan. Methods: We conducted this cross sectional study in both the rural and urban settings of the three tehsils of district Vehari, during the months of May and June 2013. A total of 542 children living in difcult circumstances employed in 11 work categories (94.1% male; average age 13 years) were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaires. Information on socio-demographic characteristics of children, health outcomes, nancial exploitation and exposure to physical and sexual abuse was collected. Results: We found that 100% of study subjects were being forced to work and nancially exploited for working more than average working hours, i.e. 10.78 (±2.58) hours a day for just Rupees 1000-2500(US$9.72-24.30) per month as wages. For physical abuse, 8.5% of children reported being subjected by the employers and the family members. However, no sexual abuse was reported. Large family size and illiteracy were found to be important predisposing factors. Conclusion: We conclude that exploitation of underprivileged children through child labor is an issue in Vehari. This has evaded the attention of the national and local authorities though there is enough legislation in Pakistan.


Over the past decade, many mobile payment systems have been introduced to facilitate the ease with which businesses and customers' process payments. For these mobile payment systems to succeed, merchant acceptance is of utmost importance as merchants play a central in the mobile payment value chain. As such, the main purpose of this chapter is to assess the determinants of merchant acceptance of mobile card payment systems using the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework. The study made use of structural equation modeling to evaluate the hypothesized association in the proposed model. Using data from 259 small businesses in the South African retail sector, this study found that two technological (i.e., relative advantage and perceived cost), one organizational (i.e., top management support), and two environmental (i.e., competitive pressure and customer pressure) context factors were significant determinants of merchant acceptance of mobile card payment systems. The chapter culminates with a discussion of the implications of the findings.


We present two- and three-dimensional simulations ofconvectiveinstabilitiesduringtherstsecondofaType IIsu- pernova explosion. Convective overturn occurs in two distinct, spatiallywellseparatedregions:(i)insidetheproto-neutronstar immediately below the neutrinosphere (r < 50 km) and (ii) in the neutrino-heated \hot-bubble" region interior to the outward propagatingrevivedshockwave(100 km < r < 1000 km).We have calculated the gravitational wave signature of both con- vective instabilities including the quadrupole waveforms, the energy spectra, and the total amount of the emitted gravitational wave energy. Moreover, we have estimated the amplitude and energy of gravitational waves associated with the anisotropic neutrino emission that is caused by the convective transport of neutrinos and by aspherical perturbations of temperature and density in the neutrinospheric region. For a supernova located at a distance of 10 kpc the maxi- mum dimensionless gravitational wave amplitudes due to con- vective mass motions range from jh TT j 210 22 for the three-dimensional simulation tojh TT j 310 21 for the most strongly radiating two-dimensional model. The total emitted energy varies from 3 10 14 Mc 2 to 5 10 10 Mc 2 . The convective mass motions inside the proto-neutron star produce a stronger signal than convection in region (ii) with up to a fac- tor of 10 larger amplitudes and 1000 times more gravitational wave energy. Because of smaller convective eddies and struc- tures and slower overturn velocities, the wave amplitudes of three-dimensional models are more than a factor of 10 smaller, and the energy emitted in gravitational waves is almost 3 orders of magnitude less than in the corresponding two-dimensional situation. In two dimensions the gravitational wave amplitude asso- ciated with the anisotropic emission of neutrinos can be larger (factor 5) than the wave amplitude due to mass motions in the proto-neutronstar,althoughtheenergyintheneutrinotidaleld is 20 times smaller. In three dimensions the neutrino gravita- tional wave amplitude is reduced by a factor of about 10 and the gravitational wave energy by a factor of roughly 100 rela- tive to the two-dimensional results. Nevertheless, the neutrino tidaleldismorethanafactorof10largerthanthegravitational Send offprint requests to :E. M ¨ uller waveamplitudefrommassmotionsandthecorrespondinggrav- itational wave energies can be of similar size. Most of the gravitational radiation from convection inside the proto-neutron star is emitted in the frequency band 100{ 1000 Hz, while convective motions in the hot-bubble region generate waves from several 100 Hz down to a few Hz. Gravi- tationalwavesfromtheanisotropicneutrinoemissionhavemost poweratfrequenciesbetweensome10 Hzandafew100 Hzand a low-frequency contribution at about 1 Hz to several Hz. Features in the gravitational-wave signal from the neutrino- heated region are well correlated with structures in the neu- trinosignal,bothbeingassociatedwithsinkingandrisinglumps of matter and with temporal variations of aspherical accretion flows towards the proto-neutron star. A simultaneous measure- ment of both signals would impose important constraints on the dynamics of Type II supernovae and theoretical models of the explosion mechanism.


During Chinese Fir(Cunninghamia lanceolata)drying at a pilot-scale kiln,aldehyde was trapped in 2,4-DNPH solution and polar compounds were trapped in deion water and then analyzed by HPLC.Terpene was trapped on active carbon tube and analyzed by GC-FID.The results showed that the total volatile organic compounds(VOC)volume were 91.7 g·m-3 and 29.9 g·m-3 at 120 ℃ and 90 ℃,respectively.During kiln drying the major components in VOC were methanol,acetic acid,formic acid,acetaldehyde,formaldehyde,acrolein/acetone.The major terpine were α-pinene,D-limonene,camphene,β-pinene and β-phellandrene.The volume of aldehydes,methanol,acetic acid and formic acid emitted from drying at 120 ℃ was much higher than that emitted from drying at 90 ℃.But the total amount of terpine was almost the same at 120 ℃ and 90 ℃.The final moisture content of wood had significant influence on emission amount of aldehydes and polar volatile compounds.However,the final moisture content on the emission amount of terpine was not significant.The rate of formaldehyde emission increased gradually with the decreasing of moisture content(MC)for high temperature drying at 120 ℃,and the rate of other components decreased with the decreasing of MC.


Socio-spatial concerns are gaining increasing attention in the design of interventions for urban mobility. This is especially true in contexts traditionally characterized by structural inequality and high levels of poverty, in which transport can be a decisive contributor to development thanks to its contribution to a higher social inclusion. Amongst them, Latin America has emerged as a significant laboratory for urban and transport policy due not only to its socioeconomic conditions but also to the implementation of different mobility strategies based on the construction of traditional and innovative infrastructures such as subways and bus rapid transit (BRT) systems. These two transport systems can be complementary or alternative to each other: this depends not only on their transport capacity, their economic sustainability, and to their levels of public acceptability but also on social, political, and spatial features of the setting they serve. This paper intends to discuss the socio-spatial consequences that interventions based on different transport systems can generate, examining them in the city of Quito, Ecuador. The discussion is based on the implementation of the existing BRT network and of a subway line under construction. Reconstructing two contrasting transport policies developed in the city in the last 25 years, this paper proposes an overview of the socio-spatial concerns that influenced and were influenced by urban mobility planning in Quito. To do so, this paper reviews and compares the socio-spatial concerns related to BRT and subway corridors, considering their accessibility, the wider urban transformations they promote, their economic sustainability, and the overall public acceptability, estimating to what extent these have influenced the decision to implement a certain transport policy.


Objective To determine the optimal injection dose of ozone for the treatment of lumbar intervertebral disc protrusion.Methods A total of 240 patients with lumbar intervertebral disc protrusion were randomly and equally divided into four groups,with 60 patients in each group.Under CT guidance intervertebral injection of ozone was performed.The injection dose of ozone(50 ug/ml)used for patients in group A,B,C and D was 10 ml,20 ml,30 ml and 40 ml respectively.Immediately after the procedure CT scanning was made to check the result.A follow-up lasting 6-12 months was carried out.Clinical observation,including the ablation degree of the nucleus pulposus,the therapeutic results and the adverse reactions,was conducted.The results were statistically analyzed and compared among the four groups. Results A significant difference in the therapeutic effect existed between group A(10 ml)and other three groups(P0.05),while no significant difference in the therapeutic effect existed among group B(20 ml), group C(30 ml)and group D(40 ml),with P0.05.The occurrence of complications was increasing with the injection dose used.Conclusion The optimal injection dose of ozone for the treatment of lumbar intervertebral disc protrusion is 20 ml.


Chester Himes, an American author who in his lifetime never found a "place" in the American literary scene, set his novels written during French expatriation in the nostalgic milieu of a Harlem he half-created in his imagination. In fiction he was able to exercise a control over U.S. racial politics which he (like most people) could never exercise in life. Himes explained the pleasure of his nostalgic literary act to John A. Williams: I was very happy writing these detective stories, especially the first one, when I began it. I wrote those stories with more pleasure than I wrote any of the other stories. And then when I got to the end and started my detectives shooting at some white people, I was the happiest. (qtd. in Williams 3l5) Himes's detective novels allow him to control the site of nostalgia, briefly to imagine refashioning U.S. race relations and law enforcement practices. His own experiences as a black convict in Ohio State Prison inform his authorial imagination in these novels.(1) An emphasis present in the detective fiction, and Himes's other writings as well, is the necessity of physical safety for African Americans. Himes's two detectives, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, emerge as "the cops who should have been," the cops who could offer protection to the African American urban community. By analyzing two of Himes's detective novels, published in 1959 and 1969, we can chart the progress of these proposed heroes. In 1959 in The Real Cool Killers Himes constructs Coffin Ed and Grave Digger as viable folk heroes for the urban community.(2) But by Blind Man with a Pistol (1969) their effectiveness as heroes is undercut by the altered socio-political landscape of U.S. race relations. The Real Cool Killers: Coffin Ed and Grave Digger as Folk Heroes Himes's second detective novel, The Real Cool Killers, opens with the blues lines "I'm gwine down to de river, / Set down on de ground. / If de blues overtake me, / I'll jump overboard and drown" (5). As a vernacular inscription, this epigram is well-suited to the themes of Himes's novel, which can be read as the ghetto's answer to white power. But the words of the blues lines imply a different and more pessimistic response to life in a racist society than the response suggested by the novel. My contention is that the characters in The Real Cool Killers employ specifically community-based, folk-heroic strategies of self-defense and solidarity in the face of intrusive, dominating power structures embodied by white cops. In all of his detective novels, Himes sets up Harlem as particularly unreadable and mystifying, not only to white "visitors" and cops, but also to his two heroes, Coffin Ed and Grave Digger, and even local inhabitants. What varies is the degree to which Harlem mystifies the various characters, and it is the community insiders' special skill both in reading Harlem and in manipulating its unreadability which allows for their self-protecting solidarity. Most governmental systems of ordering and labeling urban reality are not applicable in Himes's Harlem. When Grave Digger questions a suspect to find out an address, the evasive response he gets is, "'You don't never think 'bout where a gal lives in Harlem, 'les you goin' home with her. What do anybody's address mean up here?' "(115). The breakdown of the ability to rely on official locating practices functions in several ways in the novel. First, it completely baffles the white cops (especially chiefs and lieutenants) and renders them ineffectual. It allows Himes to project Coffin Ed and Grave Digger as powerful inside readers of an otherwise inscrutable milieu. And it enables the residents of Harlem to manipulate the particular codes which confound white cops, in the interest of self-protection. In The Real Cod Killers the white cops continually express their frustration in being unable to pin down a systematic way to decipher their surroundings. Their inability to make sense of their environment is directly linked to their preconceived racist stereotypes, as is seen in the exasperated statement of one white cop to another:" 'What's a name to these coons? …


A good example for Dynamic Programming over sequences is RNA folding. We consider here only a minimal example based on the grammar with non-terminals S and B denoting arbitrary structures and secondary structures enclosed by a base pair respectively. We write terminals in the usual shorthand notation as • for an unpaired base, while ( and ) denotes a base pair. There are just five productions in the usual RNA CFG S → B ∣∣ •S ∣∣ BS ∣∣ • B → (S) (1)


Objectives: Myotonic dystrophy (DM) and facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD) are two of the most common muscular dystrophies in adults. It has been reported that patients with these two disorders may suffer from pain and inadequate pain management. The purpose of this study is to analyze the current use of pain medications and develop a survey to assess pain medication use and adherence in this patient population. Methods: Patients registered in the National Registry for DM and FSHD at the University of Rochester were surveyed on pain medication use and the most significant problem of their disease. After analysis of these surveys, an additional survey was created that contained questions specifically on pain medication use, adherence, and general questions about the patients' pain. Questions for the survey were devised from previous studies on medication adherence, questionnaires on medication adherence and beliefs, and questions from the Brief Pain Inventory. Results: In the first survey, pain medication was used by 34% of the survey respondents (n=519/1527). Specifically, NSAIDs were used by 23.5% and opioids were used by 4% of survey respondents. In a separate survey, pain was reported as the most burdensome problem by 8% of patients (n= 27/355). This was greater than problems related with balance (n=10/355), fatigue (n=20/355), or gastrointestinal distress (n=8/355). Conclusion: Despite the low reported response that pain was the most significant problem associated with their disease, the prevalence of pain medication use indicates that further study into the impact of pain and pain medication use in this patient population is warranted. Specifically, investigating questions about adherence, use, and beliefs toward pain medication will lead to an increased understanding of pain and its treatment in this patient population. This knowledge can lead to the ability of pharmacists to optimize pain management and to reduce adverse reactions to pain medications.


The present invention relates to a multifunctional integrated power virtual testing analysis method, and is characterized by that the computer hardware resource and its matched input interface, output interface, signal conversion, communication interface, printing interface and human-machine interface module and application seftware package made up according to the coulometric working mechanism of several tested objects are formed into a computer-operated modularized instrument virtual testing system. Said invention utilizes different application software packages to implement coulometric test analysis of tested object under the support of same hardware. Its working control machine is formed from computer main board containing CPU and memory, input interface module, output interface module, signal conversion module.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to compare the marginal and internal adaptation of a non-gamma-2 amalgam and an ultrafine compact-filled light-cured composite in small to moderate-sized Class II restorations of conventional design.

METHOD AND MATERIALS
Fifty recently extracted human premolar and permanent molar teeth were selected for the study. The teeth were restored with either a non-gamma-2 amalgam alloy or a light-cured resin composite. The marginal adaptation of the restorative materials to the proximal surface outline form of each preparation was assessed. The mean percentages of perfect margins, marginal fissuring, and underfilled margins for the 2 restorative materials were recorded and statistically analyzed.

RESULTS
Both materials performed equally well in the buccal and lingual segments of the proximal box. At the cervical margin, the resin composite restorations showed a significantly greater number of imperfect margins and marginal fissuring. The incidence of underfilled margins was low for both restorative materials even at the cervical margin.

CONCLUSION
Although there was some cause for concern about the marginal adaptation of the resin composite restorations along the cervical margin, the findings support contemporary teaching that small to moderately sized conventional Class II preparations may justifiably be restored with an appropriate resin composite.


The use of a new time-delay operator is proposed for the purpose of investigating the decoupling and disturbance rejection control of linear time-varying systems with time delays in state and control variables (LTVSTD). The algebraic properties of the time-delay operator and its matrix are studied in detail to obtain a useful sufficient condition of decoupling and disturbance rejection control for the most general class of LTVSTD with arbitrary initial functions in state and control variables.


Data mining is a fast growing field and many industrial engineering applications generate large amounts of data to which data mining techniques can be applied. In this paper we develop a data mining framework for production scheduling. This involves preprocessing of historic schedules into an appropriate data file, discovery of key scheduling concepts, and representation of the data mining results in a way that enables its use for job scheduling.


Categorizes the coherence traffic in update-based protocols and shows that, for most applications, more than 90% of all updates generated by such a protocol are unnecessary. We identify application characteristics that generate useless update traffic, and compare the isolated and combined effects of several software and hardware techniques for eliminating useless updates. These techniques include dynamic and static hybrid protocols, a data re-mapping strategy, and coalescing write buffers. Our simulations show that these techniques are effective for different types of useless updates. Overall, software caching (where dynamic data re-mapping is performed under programmer or compiler control) has the potential to significantly increase the percentage of useful traffic in applications. When software caching is not applicable, either the static or the dynamic protocol generates the least useless traffic. Although coalescing write buffers provide great reductions in the total number of messages transferred, these buffers do not necessarily increase the percentage of useful traffic.


Fruit flies have eight identified Drosophila insulin-like peptides (DILPs) involved in regulation of carbohydrate concentrations in hemolymph as well as accumulation of storage metabolites. In the present study, we investigated diet-dependent roles of DILPs encoded by genes dilp1–5, and dilp7 in regulation of insect appetite, food choice, accumulation of triglycerides, glycogen, glucose, and trehalose in fruit fly body and carbohydrates in hemolymph. We found that dilp2 gene predominantly influences body glycogen level, dilp3 – trehalose level in hemolymph, while dilp5 and dilp7 affect triglyceride level. Fruit fly appetite was found to be regulated by dilp3 and dilp7 genes. Our data contribute to the understanding of Drosophila as a model for further studies of metabolic diseases and may serve as a guide for uncovering the evolution of metabolic regulatory pathways. HIGHLIGHTS Different Drosophila insulin-like peptides play distinctive roles in metabolism, physiology and appetite regulation. Lack of Dilp2 and Dilp5 abrogates glycogen accumulation on high carbohydrate diets Lack of Dilp3 leads to build-up of trehalose in haemolymph on high-carbohydrate-low-protein diets Lack of Dilp3 and Dilp7 leads to increased consumption of protein on low-carbohydrate-high-protein diets GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT


During the process of the nation and government strongly pushing forwards the modernization and leading social variation,how to cut down the absolute power corruption output mechanism is a realistic task.It is the same important to any government which want maintain the ruling validity and avoid the traps of turbulence while developing.This paper attempts to use the law of Tinbergen and network approach of political,management,economical and ethical.


With the relentless digitization of commercial media, it is increasingly susceptible to the violation of its intellectual property rights. We address the issue of authenticating digital video in this paper by presenting a novel technique based on motion trajectory and cryptographic secret sharing. Given a video, we segment it into shots and select the key frames in a shot based on the motion trajectory. We then consider these key frames as shares of a secret-sharing scheme for color images. We then reconstruct the secret corresponding to these shares. This secret frame is deemed as the secret key of this shot. Utilizing the secret keys of all the shots, we hierarchically construct the master key for the entire video by recursively employing the same method of color image sharing. Any modifications in a shot or in the important content of a shot will be reflected as changes in the computed master key. Thus, any video can be authenticated by comparing its computed master key with the original master key. The advantages of the proposed technique are that we take the correlation among the video frames into account, all authentication data is encapsulated within the master key, and this master key authentication information need not be embedded into the video. Thus the video quality is not affected by the auxiliary authentication information.


Scenarios have been studied theoretically, and they have been successfully applied, e.g., in requirements engineering. Still, requirements engineers using scenarios in practice are facing real‐world challenges. Especially, the fit of scenarios in the larger context of requirements engineering is an issue. So, for effective and efficient application of scenario‐based approaches in real‐world practice more experience will have to be gained and reported.


In the paper, we are presenting our suggestion of the content of strategic objectives in the field of development of renewable energy resources (RES). The first part of the paper deals with the development of cluster initiatives and their possible utilization in the area of development of RES. The article identifies the role of local and regional administration in the processes of foundation and functioning of a RES cluster. Strategic development objectives presented in second part of work can be applied on local, regional and national level as well. This paper has no ambition to offer a coherent concept of spatial development, since we believe that the absence of local specifications in such concepts makes these documents significantly inflexible and causes difficulties in their implementation. Our aim is to offer partial structure of strategic goals in the area of implementation and utilization of RES technologies. These goals, together with the analysis of local specifics in the process of creation of local and regional strategic development documents, should create functional and flexible tool for support of activities related to the development of RES technologies with an accent on utilization of the local and regional potential.


Due to unique inherent catalytic characteristics of different size, shape and surface functionalized Gold nanoparticles, their potential application is being explored in various fields such as drug delivery, biosensor, diagnosis and theranostics. However Conventional process for synthesis of these metallic nanoparticles utilizes toxic reagents as reducing agents, additional capping agent for stability as well as surface functionalization for drug delivery purposes. Hence, in this work suitability of Gum Ghatti for reducing, capping and surface functionalization during the synthesis of stable Gold nanoparticles were duly explored. Role and impact of key process variables i.e. volume of chloroauric acid solution, Gum solution and temperature at their respective three different levels, as well as mechanism of formation optimized Gold nanoparticles were also investigated using BoxBehnken design. These novel synthesized Optimized Gold nanoparticles were further characterized by UV spectrophotometer for its SPR at around ~530 nm, DLS for its hydrodynamic size (112.5 nm), PDI (0.222) and Zeta potential (21.3 mV) while Transmission electron microscopy further revealed surface geometry of these nanoparticles being spherical in shape.


This paper deals with the interlinkages between religious beliefs and practices and the economic growth and development of a particular country or region. In the paper I have reviewed some empirical work carried out in the recent times to explain the relationship between religion and growth. I have also tried to present Adam Smith's view on the subject and how it could be understood in the present context. The paper ends with a case study of the state of Gujarat in India, which shows the relationship between religious riots and economic growth.


.................................................................................................... 3 TIIVISTELMÄ ................................................................................................. 5 ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................ 10 LIST OF ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS ................................................. 13 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 14 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ................................................................. 16 1. Steroid receptors ........................................................................................ 17 1.1 Structure of steroid receptors ............................................................... 17 1.2 Mechanism of action of steroid receptors ............................................. 18 2. Hormone-dependent breast cancer and its therapy ...................................... 20 2.1 Mechanism of action of SERMs, SERDs and aromatase inhibitors ............................................................................................ 21 2.2 Endocrine therapy for hormone-dependent breast cancer ..................... 22 2.2.1 Premenopausal patients ............................................................. 22 2.2.2 Postmenopausal patients............................................................ 23 3. Endocrine-resistant breast cancer and its therapy ........................................ 25 3.1 In vivo mechanisms of endocrine resistance ......................................... 25 3.1.1 De novo tamoxifen resistance .................................................... 25 3.1.2 Acquired tamoxifen resistance .................................................. 26 3.2 Therapy for endocrine-resistant breast cancer ...................................... 27 4. MCF-7 cell culture models of estrogen deprivation and acquired resistance to endocrine therapy................................................................... 28 4.1 Cell models for acquired resistance to aromatase inhibitors ................. 28 4.1.1 Role of estrogen receptor in LTED ............................................ 29 4.1.2 Role of growth factor receptors and signaling pathways in LTED .................................................................................... 30 4.1.3 Microarray studies of LTED in MCF-7 cells ............................. 31 4.1.4 Aromatase-transfected MCF-7 cell models of acquired aromatase inhibitor resistance.................................................... 32 4.2 Cell culture models for acquired tamoxifen resistance ......................... 33 4.2.1 The role of estrogen receptor in acquired tamoxifen resistance .................................................................................. 33 4.2.2 The role of growth factor receptors and signaling pathways in acquired tamoxifen resistance ................................ 34


Compact, highly efficient, 3.0 to 3.4 μm light emitters are in demand for spectroscopic analysis and identification of chemical substances (including methane and formaldehyde), infrared countermeasures technologies, and development of advanced infrared scene projectors. The need for these light emitters can be currently addressed either by bulky solid-state light emitters with limited power conversion efficiency, or cooled Interband Cascade (IC) semiconductor lasers. Researchers here have developed a breakthrough approach to fabrication of diode mid-IR lasers that have several advantages over IC lasers used for the Mars 2009 mission. This breakthrough is due to a novel design utilizing the strain-engineered quantum-well (QW) active region and quinternary barriers, and due to optimization of device material composition and growth conditions (growth temperatures and rates). However, in their present form, these GaSb-based laser diodes cannot be directly used as a part of sensor systems. The device spectrum is too broad to perform spectroscopic analysis of gas species, and operating currents and voltages are too high. In the current work, the emitters were fabricated as narrow-ridge waveguide index-guided lasers rather than broad stripe-gain guided multimode FabryPerot (FP) lasers as was done previously. These narrow-ridge waveguide mid-IR lasers exhibit much lower power consumptions, and can operate in a single spatial mode that is necessary for demonstration of single-mode distributed feedback (DBF) devices for spectroscopic applications. These lasers will enable a new generation of compact, tunable diode laser spectrometers with lower power consumption, reduced complexity, and significantly reduced development costs. These lasers can be used for the detection of HCN, C2H2, methane, and ethane. This work was done by Siamak Forouhar, Clifford F. Frez, and Alexander Soibel of Caltech and Gregory Belenky, Leon Shterengas, and Gela Kipshidze of The State University of New York at Stony Brook for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, contact firstname.lastname@example.com. NPO-47377 Single Spatial-Mode Room-Temperature-Operated 3.0 to 3.4 μm Diode Lasers These devices can be used in gas sensing for environmental monitoring. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California Optical sidebands have been generated with relative frequency tens to hundreds of GHz by using optical sidebands that are generated in a cascade process in high-quality optical resonators with Kerr nonlinearity, such as whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonators. For this purpose, the WGM resonator needs to be optically pumped at two frequencies matching its resonances. These two optical components can be one or several free spectral ranges (FSRs), equal to approximately 12 GHz, in this example, apart from each other, and can be easily derived from a monochromatic pump with an ordinary EOM (electro-optic modulation) operating at half the FSR frequency. With sufficient nonlinearity, an optical cascade process will convert the two pump frequencies into a comblike structure extending many FSRs around the carrier frequency. This has a demonstratively efficient frequency conversion of this type with only a few milliwatt optical pump power. The concept of using Kerr nonlinearity in a resonator for non-degenerate wave mixing has been discussed before, but it was a common belief that this was a weak process requiring very high peak powers to be observable. It was not thought possible for this approach to compete with electro-optical modulators in CW applications, especially those at lower optical powers. By using the high-Q WGM resonators, the effective Kerr nonlinearity can be made so high that, using even weak seeding bands available from a conventional EOM, one can effectively multiply the optical sidebands, extending them into an otherwise inaccessible frequency range. This work was done by Dmitry V. Strekalov and Nan Yu of Caltech for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Further information is contained in a TSP (see page 1). NPO47322


Single-phase nanocomposites of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d (Bi2212) with organic polymer have been successfully synthesized for the first time by the foliation-adsorption technique. Colloidal suspension containing exfoliated Bi2212 nanosheets was prepared with a stepwise intercalation method. Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) was slowly added into colloids containing Bi2212 nanosheets. X-ray diffraction patterns show that the gallery height of Bi2212 host is expanded from 3.08 nm to 4.91 nm in PEG/Bi2212 nanocomposites. The basal plane expansion of 0.9 nm is in good agreement with the values reported for PEG-containing nanocomposites, suggesting that a PEG bilayer is incorporated within the Bi2212 nanosheets.


(57) Abstract: The present invention, adeno 陏伴 virus (AAV), provides a method for acquiring the target gene modified in vertebrate cells with parvovirus vector. Parvovirus used in the method according to the present invention. Vector by 担同 pairing, it is possible to target a specific gene modifications to pre-selected target locus in the cell genome.


The sex-role orientation was determined for 352 high school seniors in Plano, Texas. Using maternal employment status as the independent variable, the students were divided according to full-time employed mothers or full-time homemaker mothers. Results indicated that adolescents of employed mothers had a more liberal sex-role orientation and attitude towards the division of household tasks than adolescents of homemaker mothers. When male and female scores were analyzed separately, the order from most liberal to least liberal was females of employed mothers, females of homemaker mothers, males of employed mothers, and males of homemaker mothers. The mean scores indicated a nontraditional attitude. The study also indicated that maternal happiness with employment did not affect male and female sex-role orientation.


The present invention relates to an applicator to the skin, lips and / or the composition on the skin covering was present in the physiological medium comprises at least one pharmaceutically composite pigment, said pigment comprising a composite mineral core, at least partially covering the mineral at least one organic pigment in the core, and at least one organic pigment for fixing to the adhesive on the mineral nucleus.


An identikit is a model of a head created for a purpose of identification. Nowadays, the police use mostly 2D portrait identification, which is simple but has limited possibilities. Therefore, 3D head models have started to be used as identikits. In this paper, we propose small improvements of Free-Form Shape Deformation (FFSD) for 3D identikits creation, which allow modeling new shapes and keeping important details. With these improvements the FFSD method is able to create various and realistic deformations of a human head model which are necessary to make and identikit is a bit quicker. The improved method has been implemented and used in software prepared for the police.


COVID-19 vaccine is a hot topic in online platforms due to the ongoing pandemic. Most studies on sentiment analysis of COVID-19 vaccines on Indonesian social media posts only used one or two classifiers with few modifications. This research investigated sentiment analysis using seven machine learning techniques on Twitter dataset in which the one with the highest evaluation value will be used to predict on other unlabeled Twitter datasets as well as news headlines dataset. The same classifier is also used to build a visualization dashboard that reflect the result of the sentiments. The result from the sentiment classification is then used to identify the topics, by using word cloud. The experiment revealed that SVM classifier has the highest accuracy and micro average F1-measure, which is 84% and 0.76. This classifier managed to capture similar patterns of sentiments in Twitter and news headlines datasets, which is dominated by neutral sentiment. Some of the topics from each sentiment, managed to reflect the real condition when the datasets were collected.


This study is based on an investigation of all blind and partially sighted persons living in the county of Hordaland, Norway with a population of 379 734. It was found that 1441 were visually impaired with a vision of 6/18 or less or 0.38% of the total population. There was a high frequency of hereditary diseases (29.6%). 336 had other family members with the same type of eye diseases, and 492 had someone in the family with an eye disease which differed from the one they had themselves. Blood relation between parents was found in 139 cases. Many large families with hereditary diseases, of which some are quite rarly seen, were discovered.


Nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) mediate all traffic between the nucleus and the cytoplasm and are among the most stable protein assemblies in cells. Intriguingly, budding yeast cells carry two variants of NPCs which differ in the presence or absence of the nuclear basket proteins Mlp1, Mlp2 and Pml39. The binding of this basket structure is the last step of NPC assembly and Mlp-positive NPCs are excluded from the region of the nuclear envelope that is associated with the nucleolus. Here, we use recombination-induced tag exchange (RITE) to investigate the stability of all the NPC subcomplexes within individual NPCs. We show that the nuclear basket proteins Mlp1, Mlp2 and Pml39 remain stably associated with NPCs through multiple cell-division cycles. Mlp1/2 are responsible for the exclusion of NPCs from the nucleolar territory, but an independent pathway via Nup2 also contributes to the depletion of Mlp-negative NPCs from this region. We developed a method for single NPC tracking in budding yeast and observed that NPCs exhibit increased mobility in the absence nuclear basket components. Our data suggest that the distribution of NPCs on the nucleus is governed by the nuclear basket proteins and is the result of interactions with chromatin or chromatin-associated factors.


Separation of laminar boundary layer is a great source of loss in energy and power machinery. This paper investigates the entropy generation of the boundary layer on the flat plate with pressure gradient. The velocity of the flow field is measured by a high resolution and time related particle image velocimetry (PIV) system. A method to estimate the entropy generation of each mode extracted by proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is introduced. The entropy generation of each POD mode caused by mean viscous, Reynolds normal stress, Reynolds sheer stress, and energy flux is analyzed. The first order mode of the mean viscous term contributes almost 100% of the total entropy generation. The first three order modes of the Reynolds sheer stress term contribute less than 10% of the total entropy generation in the fore part of the separation bubble, while it reaches to more than 95% in the rear part of the separation bubble. It indicates that the more unsteady that the flow is, the higher contribution rate of the Reynolds sheer stress term makes. The energy flux term plays an important role in the turbulent kinetic energy balance in the transition region.


There is an ongoing debate concerning the relationship between the disciplinary ends of the broad spectrum that is geography and also the relationship between geography and other disciplines, including the extent to which it is self-focussed or inward looking. These issues were assessed using an analysis of citation relationships between journals in the Thompson Scientific Journal Citation Reports databases at the category level. Thirty-four categories were used, comparing the two geography categories ('Geography', representing human geography and 'Geography, Physical', representing physical geography) with 32 other cognate categories. A matrix of the citation relationships between each category was developed using a relatedness factor that corrects for the opportunity for citations to occur. The resultant matrix of factors indicates that human geography journals are considerably more likely to cite their own papers than are those of physical geography, but that they are by no means the most self-citing of the journals assessed. Both human and physical geography journals have strong citation relationships with several other disciplines, with those for human geography most often being net export relationships in the sense of a balance of trade. This finding contradicts previous assertions that human geography imports more than it exports. The citation relationships of physical geography are smaller than those of human geography, and are typically small net imports. The relationship between human and physical geography journals is a small net export from physical geography to human geography, but their total trade volume is considerably smaller than their respective relationships with other disciplines. These results are likely to be caused by many factors in addition to the actual relatedness between disciplines and sub-disciplines, but they do represent a benchmark against which more detailed analyses can be assessed.


1. Over a 1-year period, twenty controlled experiments were performed using small mesocosms (20-l clear plastic carboys) and plankton communities collected from four sites in shallow, subtropical Lake Okeechobee, Florida. In replicated treatments, macrozooplankton grazers were excluded by size fractionation (115 μm), and/or nutrients (N and P) were added, and impacts on phytoplankton biomass and productivity were measured after 3-day incubations.

2. In most experiments (fifteen out of twenty), there was no significant effect of zooplankton exclusion on phytoplankton biomass or productivity, but there were significant increases in those attributes due to nutrient additions. The magnitude of the responses was a function of light availability at the collection sites.

3. In three experiments, zooplankton exclusion led to declines in phytoplankton biomass and productivity, suggesting that animals may sometimes have net positive effects on the phytoplankton, perhaps via nutrient recycling.

4. In only two experiments was there evidence of net negative impacts of grazers on the phytoplankton. In both instances, cladocerans (Daphnia ambigua and Eubosmina tubicen) were dominant in the zooplankton. However, the increases in chlorophyll a due to zooplankton exclusion were small (5–20%), probably because of the small size and relatively low grazing rates of the cladocerans.

5. The results support the hypothesis that phytoplankton biomass in Lake Okeechobee is little affected by herbivorous macrozooplankton. This may be a common feature of lowland tropical and subtropical lakes.


Reaction of trans-[PdCl2(NH2X)2](X = NPhR or PhCH2; R = Ph, Me, or H) with acetophenone gives the cyclo-palladated dimer [{PdCl(C6H4CMeNX)}2], the acetophenone phenyl ring being orthometallated. Reaction of [PtCl4]2– and [Pd2Cl6]2– with 2-aminothiazoline and 2-aminothiazole (L) affords in acid media the cyclic N-co-ordinated monosubstituted [NBu4][PdCl3L] and disubstituted cis-[PtCl2L2] and trans-[PdCl2L2] complexes. In basic solution, the monomeric [PdCl2L′2] and dimeric [{MCl2L′}2] species are obtained [M = PtII or PdII; L′= HS·CH2·CH2·NH·C⋮N and HS·CH:CH·NH⋮N. The combined presence of the metal and hydroxide ions appears to induce the ring opening and rearrangement of the amine ligands.


January 2023 concerns how feasible it is for non-authoritarian governments to dismantle networks like the one in the UK described by the book. I am thinking, for instance, of Bolsonaro's network in Brazil and the space that the progressive movement supporting Lula Da Silva will effectively have to rule. Last January 8, in a striking resemblance to the US Capitol attack two years before, alt-right movements stormed Brazilian Congress and presidential palace. The complexities and relevance of the entanglements studied in Alt-Finance require more research that complements the work Benquet and Bourgeron have begun to make sense of these episodes, expanding and reworking on their sense of the network. All in all, this is a must-read book whose main takeaway is its bold approach to major conundrums in history by unpacking complexities and reconstructing networks beyond artificial and unfruitful divides of our experience. Beyond the case of Brexit and the heterogeneities of finance, this is a book about the construction of power relations, about how capital accumulation produces ideas, and about how capital accumulation and ideas shape and are shaped by politics.


A novel high-efficiency space vector modulation (SVM) strategy is proposed in this paper. It is based on the simultaneous and combined use of two strategies. The former consists of commutating only one switch of each inverter leg within each modulation period. In this way, there is no need to impose the dead time. The latter performs a step-by-step change of the modulation frequency in order to reduce the distortion of the inverter output voltage. The proposed system has been implemented and carried out on a programmable logic device (PLD) digital board. For validation, an experiment has been set up and several tests have been performed. The results have been compared with the ones achieved by means of the traditional SVM technique.


In their Report "A cryptic subgroup of Anopheles gambiae is highly susceptible to human malaria parasites" (4 February, p. [596][1]), M. M. Riehle and colleagues discuss the existence of a previously unknown exophilic subgroup within the major Afrotropical malaria vector An. gambiae s.s. Their


The validity and usefulness of the complex angular-momentum formulation in nuclear scattering are investigated by studying the elastic scattering of $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ particles by ${\mathrm{He}}^{4}$, ${\mathrm{C}}^{12}$, and ${\mathrm{O}}^{16}$ in terms of the Regge trajectories through suitable Regge-type representations for the $S$ matrix. The trajectories are obtained from the resonant levels of the compound nuclei, and residues are calculated by imposing unitarity on the Regge-type representations for the $S$ matrix. The differential cross sections obtained by this method are compared with those obtained by experiment and by the Ackhiezer-Pomeranchuk-Blair-McIntyre model with resonant phase shifts. In order to establish the merit of the Regge-pole approach, cross sections are calculated in terms of the poles of the $S$ matrix in the momentum plane and compared with the results obtained by using the complex angular-momentum formulation. These studies provide an interesting method for the analysis of nuclear scattering.


The older sixth form masters have seen a fundamental change from a unified programme guided by the form master, to an à la carte curriculum where the form master may see some members of his form only once or twice a week. The old liberal character of form work must now be transformed into certain elusive elements in the subjects themselves and in the way they are studied. In this respect sixth form teachers are in the same vulnerable position as the editors of newspapers: they must be resolute in resisting the monopolists, whether inside or outside the school.


The aim of the present study was to examine the correlation between Narcissism, Self Esteem and Humor in a sample of 49 people from the age group of 18-21 and 22-25 years old. For that purpose, Narcissistic Personality inventory, Rosenberg's Self-esteem scale and Humor Style questionnaire were used. Narcissism was positively correlated with self-esteem and affiliative humor, whereas Self-esteem was positively correlated with affiliative humor and negatively correlated with self- defeating humor. Findings are discussed in terms of the role self-esteem plays in the humor regulation of individuals with narcissistic personality. Keywords: Narcissism, self-esteem, humor


With questionnaire survey,interview and mathematical statistics,it made an analysis of six university students in Tianjin for physical activity status.The results show that the graduates' physical exercise is not optimistic.Issues of exercise venues,funding,sports organizations,lacking sports knowledge are the restricting factors for Tianjin University graduate students to participate in physical exercise.


In this paper the new non-linear partial differential equations is established.This new modal describes the vortex-excited vibrations of coupled structure of cable-stayed beam in vertical plane.The partial differential equations are transformed into ordinary differential on time domain equations by Galerkin method.The first approximate solutions of the ordinary differential equations are obtained by the multiple scales method when vortex-excited frequency close to frequencies of natural structure.The analyses results indicates that the structure contains two frequencies for jth normal mode of the structure.When the vortex frequency close to natural frequency of the structure the amplitude of structure increase suddenly.This vortex-excited vibration phenomenon is observed in the Tacoma Narrows bridge.The first approximation solutions and analysis method in this paper provide a convenient checking method for a practical coupled structure of cable-stayed beam.


1. The early Wei emperors 2. Tung-p'ing 3. Assassination and retreat 4. Anti-ritualism 5. Confucian essays and a strange understanding of Chuang-tzu 6. Society and solitude 7. The immortal woman 8. The pursuit of immortality 9. Mysticism 10. The Great Man 11. Poetry.


1 Abstract. The aim of this study was the qualitative structure assessment of the forestry associations sustaining a large number of rare or declining bird species, reason that the Special Protection Area was established. These are the first steps in a long term conservation of species and their habitats. Number of vascular plants identified: 50-Salicetum triandrae, 98-Salici-Populetum, 59-Carpino-Fagetum, 118- Carpino-Quercetum petraeae, 75-Genisto tinctoriae-Quercetum petraeae subass. melicetosum uniflorae, 112-Pruno spinosae-Crataegetum. Phanerophytes are dominating, followed by hemicryptophytes. The calculated altitudinal indices show a moderate human impact, excepting riverine forests and willows with a strong anthropogenic pressure. From geographic point of view the Nordic elements dominate. The associations provide shelter for relicts (Sanicula europaea, Cnidium dubium), Carpathian Endemism (Cardamine glanduligera), Romanian Red List species (Neottia nidus-avis, Platanthera bifolia, Cephalanthera damasonium, Lilium martagon), species with a restricted areal of distribution (Lathyrus hallersteinii, Crocus vernus, Helleborus purpurascens, Centaurea phrygia ssp. indurata), Carpathian endangered species (Erythronium dens-canis, Adonis aestivalis), IUCN red list species (Alnus glutinosa). The ecologic indices reflect the general and local values of the environmental factors. The diploid index shows the pioneer stage of willow formations. All economic categories were revealed, melliferous plants


Unfertilized sea urchin eggs contain a Mg++ATPase that is very similar to axonemal dynein. The egg enzyme shows the unique ionic and nucleotide specificities and sensitivity to inhibitors (sodium vanadate and erythro-9-2,3-hydroxynonyladenine) characteristic of sperm flagellar dynein. In addition, the native enzyme is large, exhibiting a sedimentation coefficient of 12-14S, similar to some forms of axonemal dynein. As determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacryalmide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), the egg ATPase is composed a t least in part of high molecular weight (HMW) polypeptides (A, D and B; see reference 1) that comigrate with flagellar subunits. Recently, these polypeptides have been shown to bind ATP specifically.* In order to examine the primary structural homology between the egg ATPase and a known dynein, the H M W polypeptides of the two enzymes prepared from sea urchin eggs and sperm flagella were compared by one-dimensional peptide mapping. The egg ATPase and sperm flagellar dynein were isolated from the gametes of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus according to standard procedures. Peptide maps were generated by the method of Cleveland et al.' with minor modifications. The H M W dynein subunits were fractionated by SDS-PAGE on 5-10% gradient gels containing a 30:0.3 ratio of acry1amide:bis-acrylamide! After brief staining with Coomassie blue, the A, D, and B bands were excised and soaked in sample buffer. Each band was loaded into the well of a second gel containing a 7.5-15% gradient of polyacrylamide alternating egg and flagellar bands across the gel. The slices were overlaid with sample buffer and then with either 1-500 ng of Staphylococcus V8 protease or 0.5-5 r g of (Y chymotrypsin. The mapping gels were run a t 15 mA, and in the case of chymotrypsin digestion, the current was turned off for 30 min when the protein was 0.5 cm from the bottom of the stacking gel. Mapping gels were visualized with a silver nitrate stain. Adjacent lanes where egg and flagellar H M W subunits were digested under identical conditions were compared visually, and 35 to 40 peptides were examined on each map. No more than four differences (absent or substantially decreased peptides) were found between the egg and flagellar dynein subunits. This indicates that each polypeptide component of the egg ATPase is 85-90% homologous to its flagellar counterpart. When the flagellar subunits A, B, and D were compared one to another, 80-85% homology was observed by the same criteria. These data support the identification of the egg-derived polypeptides as components of a "cytoplasmic dynein". Because these polypeptides are ATP binding: it is likely that the active sites of egg and flagellar dynein are highly conserved. The high degree of similarity between cytoplasmic and axonemal dynein may support an early


This paper presents the reasons why most Chinese non-English major students can not speak English well, and it offers several practical ways of teaching based on the learner-centered approach in classroom to show how student's initiative is given full play.


Airports, linking air transport with other modes of transport, are indicated as one of the elements influencing regional and local development. Their presence strengthens the communication accessibility of a particular place in space attracting investors and dynamizing its development. Recently, the functioning of airports has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic drastically reducing passenger traffic at airports, which also translated into the situation of related companies and people who live near airports (commune). Assessing the impact of an airport on the socio-economic situation in a commune is difficult because, on the one hand, they create jobs and attract investors and, on the other hand, they generate noise and pollution. In this situation, a preliminary study was carried out in five communes throughout Poland. The aim of the research was to determine how residents and representatives of communes perceive airports located in their communes, in the context of the impact of these airports on the socio-economic situation in communes, also in the situation when the airports face problems resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim was achieved using analysis of strategic documents of communes, analysis of data on the functioning of communes and airports in the period 2016–2021, and a diagnostic survey using interview and survey techniques. The survey research involved 600 respondents from 5 communes located in different regions of Poland and 5 representatives of their authorities. To analyze the collected material and present the results, Statistica v.13.3 and R/RStudio software were used.


Abstract The article contains a classification of the groups indicated in the title, consisting of a parametrised list of groups, each relevant group being conjugate in GL(4,  C ) to precisely one group on the list (and each group on the list being relevant). Each group on this list is given by a generating set of matrices, whose entries are explicit functions of finitely many integers satisfying certain relations. Also included is a similar classification of the finite primitive subgroups of GL(2,  C ).


BackgroundVarious gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, including diarrhea, nausea/vomiting and abdominal pain, have been reported in patients with Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this context, the presence of GI symptoms is variably associated with poor clinical outcomes in COVID-19. We aim to determine the outcomes of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with gastrointestinal symptoms.MethodsThis is a retrospective cohort study which used medical records of admitted COVID-19 patients from March 2020 to March 2021 in a tertiary hospital in Pangasinan. Data records were evaluated for the presence of gastrointestinal manifestations, including diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain at the time of admission. A comparison between cases of COVID-19 patients presenting with GI manifestations to controls or COVID-19 patients without GI manifestation was done.ResultsFour hundred three patients were included in the study. Of these, 22.3% presented with gastrointestinal symptoms, while 77.7% comprised the study controls. Diarrhea was the most common GI symptom (10.4%). No statistically significant difference was observed in comorbidities and laboratory findings. Mortality as the primary outcome of the study did not reach statistical significance between cases and controls (13.33% vs. 16.30%, p =0.621). There were also no significant differences observed in the secondary outcomes, mean length of stay, (14 [12–18 days] in cases vs 14 [12- 17.5 days] in controls, p = 0.716) and need for mechanical ventilation (12.22% vs 16.93%, p = 0.329).ConclusionsThe results of the study revealed no association of the GI symptoms to poor outcomes, including a high rate of mortality, prolonged length of stay and increased need for mechanical ventilation.


The present competitive landscape in Ghana's banking industry has accentuated the need for effective management of relationships as a customer retention strategy. The objective of this study is to explore the relationship between Relationship Marketing (RM) and customer loyalty in Ghana's banking industry. In order to achieve the objective of the study, data was collected using questionnaires from 247 relationship marketing staff of universal banks in Ghana. Reliability test and multiple regression analysis were carried out using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The study found that the six RM constructs cumulatively had significant positive effect on customer loyalty. Individually, competence, commitment and communication were found to be significant drivers of customer loyalty. The study recommends that banks desirous of achieving customer loyalty and retention should consider RM as a strategy since it effective practice leads to customer loyalty.  In addition, top management must demonstrate genuine commitment and active involvement in relationship marketing issues. Key words: Banking industry, Customer loyalty, Ghana, Relationship marketing


IN the early 1930s the publishing industry discovered the teenage reader, and the junior novel was born. Educators at first welcomed the new genre, hoping that it would provide what they had long needed: good books for readers between the ages of ten and fourteen. But to their dismay, the junior novel soon began to exhibit alarming characteristics of being not the true heir of literary tradition, but a bastard offspring of popular culture.


............................................................................................................................. XVI VARIATION IN PLANT WATER USE, GROWTH, AND WATER-USE EFFICIENCY OF PLANTED MIXTURES AND MONOCULTURES: TOWARD PROPER SPECIES SELECTION FOR REFORESTATION EFFORTS IN THE SEASONALLY DRY TROPICS .................................................................................................................................. XV


Family caregivers of older adults often suffer from fatigue and burnout (Day and Anderson, 2011). Recent studies have found that self-compassion improved caregivers' mental health and promoted their well-being (Delaney, 2018; Raab, 2014). By contrast, with a lack of self-compassion, family caregivers ignore their own needs for a long time, and their capacity to provide compassionate care to their loved ones decreases over time. This is known as compassion fatigue (Day and Anderson, 2011). Therefore, before developing a compassion program for caregivers to improve their well-being and reduce compassion fatigue, it is necessary to develop a good psychometric compassion scale to measure the effectiveness of compassion programs. Murfield et al. (2021) explore the validity of the compassionate engagement and action scales (CEAS) with family carers of older adults. These three scales were developed by Gilbert et al. (2017) to measure the competencies of an individual engaging in suffering and taking action to alleviate and prevent suffering. The items of the compassionate engagement scale represent key attributes: care for well-being, sensitivity, distress tolerance, sympathy, empathy, and non-judgment. The items of the compassionate action scale describe transformative skills: attention (mindfulness practice), reasoning (cognitive reappraisal), behavior (gratitude exercises), feeling (showing emotions), imagery (guided imagery exercises), and sensory (breathing practices, posture). These attributes reflect the five elements of compassion proposed in Strauss et al.'s (2016) review study, namely, recognizing suffering, understanding the university of human suffering, being emotionally connected with the suffering, tolerating uncomfortable feelings, and acting or feeling motivated to alleviate suffering. Developing compassion intervention may include these skills. CEAS can examine the impact of such actions on improving competency in compassionate engagement and action. The three CEAS scales are based on Gilbert's (2014) hypothesis of the three-way flow of compassion for self, compassion for others, and compassion from others, which are involved in emotional regulation. People experience emotional distress when their thinking brain is hijacked by the emotional limbic system, and, subsequently, they move into the primitive drives of fight or flight (threat system). Cultivating and developing individuals' competences in self-compassion, receiving compassion from others, and showing compassion to others can enhance their emotional soothing system to regulate the threat system (Gilbert, 2014). Currently, the most widely used compassion measure is Neff's (2003) SelfCompassion Scale. Gilbert's three-directional flows of compassion have not been examined well. Murfield et al.'s validation of these three scales helps future researchers using these scales to examine hypotheses on the abilities to be compassionate toward oneself, to feel compassion for others, and to receive compassion from others in emotional regulation studies. Murfield et al. use an international sample of 171 family caregivers to validate the three compassion scales through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The strength of CFA is that it can confirm the construct validity of a measure through verifying the underlying factors and the pattern of item-factor relationships (i.e. factor loadings) (Brown, 2006). In this study, the results of the CFA support a single higher-order factor; that is, the factor structure of the CEASmeasures involves a single, broader construct representing the concept of compassion and two dimensions representing engagement and action that support Gilbert's compassion theory (Gilbert et al., 2017). However, the use of a single higherorder factor model could not demonstrate the discriminant validity of the subscales. Discriminant validity is supported when the relationship between distinct factors (engagement and action) is small to moderate (Brown, 2006). To develop and validate higher-order constructs, the following procedure is useful: (1) confirm a conceptually valid first-order CFA model; (2) report a strong correlation among first-order factors; and (3) examine an alternative or competing models (Brown, 2006; Koufteros et al., 2009). It is also important to identify the preferable model based on the appropriate fit statistics (i.e. chisquare difference test for nested models), parsimony, and relevant theory (Cabrera-Nguyen, 2010). Consistent with Gilbert et al. (2017), in Murfield et al.'s study, CFA showed a more complicated higher-order model for the Self-Compassion Scale. The construct of self-compassion is conceptualized as two dimensions of engagement and action.Moreover, the dimension of engagement consists of two subdimensions, namely, sensitivity to suffering and engagement with suffering. However, their small International Psychogeriatrics (2021), 33:4, 323–325 © International Psychogeriatric Association 2021


Objective:To study the chest X ray features in patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), providing useful radiologic information for clinical diagnosis and treatment of SARS.Methods: From March 5, 2003 to March 30, 2003, 28 patients with SARS underwent chest radiograph in wards and the results were compared at acute stage and recovery stage.Results: At acute stage 13 cases had single opacity or small subtle opacity in peripheral lung;3 cases had 2 opacities in periphery unilaterally;6 cases had opacities in central lung;6 cases had opacities or consolidations bilaterally;4 cases had widespread consolidation. At recovery stage the lesions were all resolved in 19 slight cases;some strip and line shades showed in 6 severe cases and the other severe cases died. Conclusion: X ray of SARS are various consolidative opacities.Single subtle opacity is commonly located in peripheral distribution and easy to resolve; large and widespread consolidation was commonly located in middle and lower zone of bilateral lungs and not easy to resolve. The results demonstrate that extension of lesions were related to prognosis of patients with SARS.


Background: The growing spread of drug resistance in Helicobacter pylori has caused concern. Urease is one of the most important enzymes associated with H. pylori activity. Oxadiazoles have a wide range of inhibitory activities. The aim of this study was to investigate new oxadiazole compounds as urease inhibitors of H. pylori. Methods: The synthesized compounds were reused as ligands in the previous study, and the initial structure of the compounds was optimized by the Molecular Mechanics Models method. Then, the compounds were evaluated as inhibitors on the active site of the urease enzyme by AutoDock Vina software, and the output results were analyzed and evaluated using soft Discovery Studio software. Results: All compounds, especially (4c) with flour groups, exhibited powerful inhibitory activity against the urease enzyme of H. pylori. Conclusions: The present findings indicated the inhibitory potential of the novel synthetic 1, 3, 4-oxadiazole compounds.


Composed of the fiber-reinforced plastic skin material and the honeycomb core, the honeycomb sandwich structure, a skin material, be a structure that embeds the optical fiber sensor structure in the adhesive layer formed between the honeycomb core in, even when adhering the thermal control element on the surface, exactly it is possible to perform the heat control, the honeycomb sandwich structures and honeycomb sandwich structure capable of evaluating the temperature in the high-resolution and high-precision the method of manufacturing can be obtained.


According to new class sign request, when the fine arts teaching should pay great attention the fine arts appreciation, the esthetic appeal development, simultaneously must adopt some new teaching method in the classroom to the student esthetic ability enhancement, enables the student to open, the creation, the exercise original creation power of thought in the study, increases the fine arts appreciation interest.


By using a geometric framework of PDE's we prove that the set of solutions of the D'Alembert equation (*) (% o9t) = 0 is larger than the set of smooth functions of two variables f(x, y) of the form (**) f(x, y) = h(x) * g(y). This agrees with a previous counterexample by Th. M. Rassias given to a statement by C. M. Stephanos. More precisely, we have the following result. Theorem. The set of 2-dimensional integral manifolds of PDE (*) properly contains the ones representable by graphs of 2-jet-derivatives offunctions f(x, y) expressed in the form (**) . A generalization of this result to functions of more than two variables is sketched also by considering the equation ( i :log f ) 0. 1. SYNOPSIS Questions of representation of functions in several variables by means of functions of a lesser number of variables have occupied the interest of mathematicians for centuries. One of these questions is closely connected with the thirteenth problem of Hilbert (1862-1943) and concerns the solvability of algebraic equations [7]. Functions of certain special forms have been investigated by several authors, including d'Alembert (1717-1783), who as early as 1747 proved that each sufficiently smooth scalar function h of the form (1. 1) f(x, y) = h(x) * g(y) has to satisfy the partial differential equation


Six diets were prepared containing 20 and 40% raw and roasted rice bean meal (RBM) for broilers. The roasted RBM diet was also fortified with animal protein. ME (Kcal/kg) of diet was significantly (P<0.05) higher in control diet D, (2950 Kcal/kg) and diet containing 20 % roasted RBM, however, body weight gains of chickens were maximum on control diet (1819g). Similarly, weight gains (g/d) were more (37.12) on diet D, and diet D, (35.54) containing 40% roasted RBM. The diets with roasted RBM improved growth and feed to gain ratio, whereas additton of animal protein to the diets decreased growth and ffee to gain ratio. Raw RBM, however, exhhibited adverse effects on growth. The CP, EE, Ca, and P balance (g/d) also increased in diets containing roasted RBM. It was concluded that toasted RBM can be incorporated in broiler ration upto 40% on DM basis.


Summary During acute malaria infection, platelets in human platelet-rich plasma are hypersensitive to the addition of ADP between 1.0 uM and 5.0 uM, or adrenaline 0.11 uM as aggregating agents. The mean maximum aggregation amplitude (as % of light transmission) obtained from 8 subjects in response to added ADP (1.0 uM), 39.8 ± 27 (1SD), was significantly greater than the value in 6 controls (5.2±6.7 (1SD); t = 3, 51 P <0.005). A similar pattern of response was obtained with higher ADP concentrations (2.4,4.5 or 5.0 uM) in 22 patients and 20 control subjects (89.9±14.9% vs 77.8±16.5% (1SD) t = 2.45, P <0.02). Addition of 4.5 uM ADP to patient PRP usually evoked only a single aggregation wave (fused primary and secondary waves) while the typical primary and secondary wave pattern was usually obtained from controls. Mean plasma B-thromboglobulin (BTG) concentration in 7 patients (208.3 ± 15.6 ng/ml) was significantly higher than the value in 6 control subjects (59.2±15.7 ng/ml; t = 13.44, P <0.002).


The pre-big-bang scenario describes the evolution of the Universe from an initial state approaching the flat, cold, empty, string perturbative vacuum. The choice of such an initial state is suggested by the present state of our Universe if we accept that the cosmological evolution is (at least partially) duality symmetric. Recently, the initial conditions of the pre-big-bang scenario have been criticized as they introduce large dimensionless parameters allowing the Universe to be ``exponentially large from the very beginning.'' We agree that a set of initial parameters (such as the initial homogeneity scale, the initial entropy) larger than those determined by the initial horizon scale ${H}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ would be somewhat unnatural to start with. However, in the pre-big-bang scenario, the initial parameters are all bounded by the size of the initial horizon. The basic question thus becomes: is a maximal homogeneity scale of order ${H}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ necessarily unnatural if the initial curvature is small and, consequently, ${H}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ is very large in Planck (or string) units? In the impossibility of experimental information one could exclude a priori, for large horizons, the maximal homogeneity scale ${H}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ as a natural initial condition. In the pre-big-bang scenario, however, pre-Planckian initial conditions are not necessarily washed out by inflation and are accessible (in principle) to observational tests, so that their naturalness could be also analyzed with a Bayesan approach, in terms of a posteriori probabilities.


mutation is renewed in passing through the stage of reduction divisions or gametophytic generation; the colored somatic cells thus producing colorless gametes, as in Amaranthus. Consequently, all the progeny plants from pseudo-monocolored seeds are mottled or spotted, no pseudo-monocolored individuals being obtained. It seems that in Amaranthus gametic or gamnetophytic pseudoomutation occurs, producing self-red individuals; while in beans and peas this is not the case.


Tina Modotti's camera work covers the spectrum of pure art and political document. She is best known for both her modern aestheticized images of flowers and her seemingly candid shots of post-revolutionary workers protesting in Mexico. In this article, however, I will look closely at three of Modotti's "honest photographs" of mothers and children and examine them as attempts to create what I call the photographic choran moment: a modernist aesthetic ideal of unity between self and other presumably available to viewer, subject, and photographer. The term comes out of my understanding of feminist psychoanalyst and linguist Julia Kristeva's delineation of the semiotic chora as a prelinguistic state of bonding with the maternal body. I extend this concept in order to contend with various forms of modernist media that hark back to maternally-bonded states of consciousness—those


INTRODUCTION
The Ideal Life BP Manager™ measures BP and automatically transmits results to the patient's medical record independent of internet access, but has not been validated. Our objective was to conduct a validation study of the Ideal Life BP Manager™ in pregnant women using a validation protocol.

METHODS
Pregnant participants were enrolled into three subgroups per the AAMI/ESH/ISO protocol: normotensive (systolic blood pressure (SBP) <140 and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) < 90), hypertensive without proteinuria (SBP ≥ 140 or DBP ≥ 90), and preeclampsia (SBP ≥ 140 or DBP ≥ 90 with proteinuria). Two trained research staff used a mercury sphygmomanometer to validate the device, alternating sphygmomanometer and device readings for a total of 9 measurements.

RESULTS
Among 51 participants, the mean SBP and DBP differences and standard deviations between the device and the mean staff measurements for all participants were 1.7 ± 7.1 and 1.5 ± 7.0 mmHg, respectively. The standard deviations of the individual participant's paired device and mean staff SBP and DBP measurements were 6.0 and 6.4 mmHg, respectively. The device was more likely to overestimate rather than underestimate BP [SBP: Mean Difference=1.67, 95% CI (-12.15 to 15.49); DBP: Mean Difference= 1.51, 95% CI (-12.26 to 15.28)]. Most paired readings had a difference of less than 10 mmHg across averaged paired readings.

CONCLUSION
The Ideal Life BP Manager™ met internationally recognized validity criteria in this sample of pregnant women.


We have shown over recent years that the dynamics of quantum fields is likely to slide outside equilibrium above the Fermi scale of electroweak interactions. In proximity to this scale, spacetime dimensionality flows with the probing energy and leads to the concept of minimal fractal manifold (MFM). The goal of this brief report is to combine the MFM conjecture with the transition to chaos in nearly-integrable Hamiltonian systems. In doing so, we find that the KAM theorem can conceivably explain the stability of the Fermi scale in the low TeV sector.