The accession of ten countries into the European Union makes the forecasting of their key macroeconomic indicators such as GDP growth, inflation and interest rates an exercise of some importance. Because of the transition period, only short spans of reliable time series are available which suggests the adoption of simple time series models as forecasting tools, because of their parsimonious specification and good performance. Nevertheless, despite this constraint on the span of data, a large number of macroeconomic variables (for a given time span) are available which are of potential use in forecasting, making the class of dynamic factor models a reasonable alternative forecasting tool. We compare the relative performance of the two forecasting approaches, first by means of simulation experiments and then by using data for five Acceding countries. We also evaluate the role of Euro-area information for forecasting, and the usefulness of robustifying techniques such as intercept corrections and second differencing. We find that factor models work well in general, even though there are marked differences across countries. Robustifying techniques are useful in a few cases, while Euro-area information is virtually irrelevant.


The weathered residual stratum of diabase vein in granite is a kind of soil layer that are strong in construction and special of mechanical property. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately divide their boundary and really reflect their distribution .The discontinuous vein in distribution and its weathered residual stratum on profile is not thinned out or made into lens like conventional graphics ,but expressed in the mode of occurrence on profile in sorting geological data of Xiamen's Transformer Station .This kind of meaning method really reflects this characteristic of vein distribution in vein weathered residual stratum and has the important meaning to guide the construction ,and to provide accurate and completely data for design personnel .We suggest that this method will be adopted at the process of modifying 《Technical rule of data processing for investigation of geotechnical engineering for fossil fuel power plants》 in the future.


the aim of the present experiment was to determine if inducing a depressed mood would result in a decrease or elimination of the positive illusory perception of driving skill and perceived invulnerability to accidents. the standard velten mood induction procedure was used, in which subjects are presented with a series of self-referent statements such as 'i feel so tired and gloomy that i would rather just sit than do anything'. subjects were asked to try to get into the mood consistent with the statement. three different techniques were investigated: (1) increasing availability in memory for driving errors and accidents; (2) increasing accountability for judgments of skill and safety; and (3) inducing 'depressive realism'. each of these are considered in turn. results demonstrated that speeded articulation was affected by mood induction suggesting that the effect is not entirely due to demand characteristics. here for the first time there is independent information that manipulation has been successful. in previous examples of accountability and selective memory search there is no independent verification that the manipulation worked so it remains a possibility that if there were successful manipulations of selective memory and accountability then significant debiasing may have occurred. the critical question is did the mood induction result in any debiasing and the simple answer is that there was no evidence for debiasing. overall, the results indicate first, that in the area of perceived accident involvement there is evidence for the presence of the illusion of control but no evidence for unrealistic optimism; second, the illusory judgments of driving skill are compatible with self enhancement but not downward comparison theory; third, illusory self enhancement occurs for a wide range of component driving skills and fourth, attempts at debiasing have shown little signs of success. although there might have been some small effect using the accountability technique there was no convincing evidence. for the covering abstract of this seminar see irrd 845356.


Ransomware is a sort of malware that keeps or points of confinement clients from getting to their framework, either by locking the framework's screen or by locking the client's records unless a payment is paid. More cutting edge ransomware families, altogether sorted as crypto-ransomware, scramble certain record sorts on tainted frameworks and powers clients to pay the payoff through certain online installment strategies to get a decode key.


Surgeon information transfer and communication: factors affecting quality and efficiency of inpatient care are an exciting and timely contribution to the literature. Their findings and recommendations are consistent with recent work in human factors engineering, in particular "reduce, reveal, and focus" heuristics for coordination design. Perhaps more importantly, the methodology is a rare example of a systematic, empirically grounded attempt to "translate" communication strategies used in high-reliability organizations to a specific healthcare setting.

Reduce, Reveal, and Focus Heuristics for Coordination Design
In human factors engineering, the basic unit of analysis is composed of practitioners supported by tools meeting the demands of a particular setting.1 The primary functions of this unit are analysis and (re)planning. As these functions are necessarily distributed across human and machine agents, communication is required to coordinate. This coordination is delineated by organizational roles, procedures to synchronize activities and mediate access to shared resources, and social rules (norms).

The findings and recommendations in this paper resonate with 3 heuristics for designing effective coordination: reduce, reveal, and focus.2,3

The first heuristic is to reduce complexity. For example, the findings indicated that shift change handoffs, patient location changes, and multiple providers from different specialties increased complexity. Strategies could be used to minimize these, when it is possible to do so without incurring high costs on tradeoff dimensions such as profitability. For example, "bumpable" patients in the Intensive Care Unit could be proactively moved prior to the earliest possible completion of a particular operation to eliminate unnecessary transitions when a patient must wait for an available bed.4

The second heuristic is to reveal hidden (private) events and activities. When work is rendered observable, costly coordinative meetings can be replaced with indirect, lightweight, peripheral ("out of the corner of the eye") coordination, which reduces the need for direct communication. Traditionally, this heuristic has been implemented through the design of specialized tools, although environmental design and communication technologies have also been explored. The traditional approach is to have software with an overview "at a glance" visual display of the current status of a work process in parallel with a detailed view. By placing the display in a shared physical space, it serves as a "common ground" that enables gesturing to efficiently signal movement between preidentified discussion topics.5

Although designing "at a glance" displays is a challenging process and the final visualizations can appear unique, common themes are to highlight:

Differences from typical assessments and plans (eg, surgeon not informed of a patient's overnight death before talking with family),

Activities of other agents (eg, confusion regarding which specialty should order an x-ray),

Stances of stakeholders toward key decisions (eg, the "aside" notes regarding family dynamics likely include this information), and

Constraints and side effects for contingency plans (eg, impacts of a delayed operation on treatment plan).

The third heuristic is to focus attention. One of the key findings regarded the diversion of surgeon attention due to an assumption of patient stability. It is arguably desirable for attention to be directed toward the most unstable patients. Nevertheless, there will be cases where stability assessments are inaccurate or events occur that render a patient unstable. Similar dilemmas exist in other industries. The primary solution is to enable peripheral detection of unexpected events and actions while performing primary tasks. For example, as noted in the paper, a surgeon's patients can be physically grouped in one place (eg, Intensive Care Unit, surgical ward) to support the ability to track the status of seemingly stable patients while simultaneously caring for unstable patients. In this situation, there are naturally existing auditory cues in the physical environment that allow a surgeon to indirectly develop "situation awareness."6 Although there are distinct advantages to peripheral monitoring via audio data since the visual perceptual channel tends to be overloaded, similar benefits can be realized with visual displays. These displays generally reduce search and navigation costs by employing advanced visualization techniques.7

Translation Is Not Direct Copying
The employed methodology is one of few significant attempts to translate, in a systematic fashion, human factors knowledge to improve communication processes in health care. In principle, strategies and technologies used in high-reliability organizations should be useful in jumpstarting efforts to re-engineer care processes. In this paper, 19 communication strategies used in space shuttle mission control, nuclear power, ambulance dispatching, and railroad dispatching8 were used as a starting point for framing research questions. Subsequently, data were collected in the target setting (surgery) and insights were reported as targeted design principles.

An alternative approach would be to directly copy the published strategies. This approach would not discover domain differences that might create unintended consequences. In this paper, some critical domain differences were found, and it is possible that other methodologies, particularly direct observation, might reveal others. For example, training of resident physicians is apparently conducted quite differently than training of mission controllers, nuclear power plant operators, and ambulance and railroad dispatchers. Although there a number of differences, one example is that mission controllers have extensive training during high-fidelity simulations before supporting actual missions.

In addition, different communication technologies impact the ability to adopt communication strategies. For example, the "voice loops" audio technology9,10 enables mission controllers to continuously communicate on a second-by-second basis despite being physically separated into front and back control rooms. A positive, likely unintended, side effect of using this technology is that people can easily "listen in" on others' communications. With this capability, controllers can verify that a communication was received, understood correctly, and acted upon, which is not always easy or even possible with a faxed communication.

By systematically collecting data, analyzing patterns, and iteratively tailoring intervention strategies based on guiding principles, another benefit is revealed. This paper suggests functional alternatives to the published strategies that might be easier to implement for a number of reasons, most notably cost. For example, rather than implementing voice loops to facilitate contacting someone when their personal information is not known, only their organizational role, instead a team (service) pager, is proposed for the first call resident.

What is perhaps most striking is the extent of this effort: translation is clearly hard work. The results provide an important foundation for future multidisciplinary research but also raise many questions about how to continue to make progress.

Next Steps: Long-Term Multidisciplinary Collaboration
As we move forward, there is an emerging consensus that long-term partnerships of surgical and human factors experts have the potential to identify opportunities to make revolutionary improvements in processes and outcomes. For example, prospective observational studies can be conducted to understand the technical details of how distributed work is currently orchestrated. Design heuristics and principles, combined with a calibrated understanding of a particular setting, can be synthesized from relevant literatures to help identify highly promising leverage points in which to invest. Scenario-based envisioning methods can be used to predict impacts of proposed interventions given differences in tradeoff functions for particular settings.

To realize this potential, continuous, predictable funding is needed to support a "critical mass" of expertise not traditionally found in health care. The next rational step in this line of research is not national dissemination of any particular communication strategy. It is likely going to be unsettling and disappointing for some to realize that the efforts to do successful translation from other fields requires a great deal more time, effort, and funding than currently budgeted.


With the rapid growth of economy and population in coastal areas, floating waste has gradually become a new environmental issue. So floating junk clean-up work is exigent to be solved. Floating garbage mainly consists of floating solid waste and leakage of oil. Aiming at floating rubbish disposal, we designed a rubbish disposal device which can collect the solid waste on water and separate the oil leakage from water. This device is mainly composed of fishing gear and oil-water separator. The salvaging device is composed of a conveyor belt, poking claw, stepped shaft and supporting plate; the oil-water separator is composed of a pump, tank, and motor. The floating disposal device is convenient to use and contributes to reducing the working intensity and improving the work efficiency.


Synopsis SYNOPSIS Skin melanin concentrations were measured by reflectance spectrophotometry in patients during the active phase of a primary affective illness and in normal subjects. There were no significant differences between 27 females with depression (unipolar illness) and 17 females with mania (bipolar illness) or between a mixed group of 30 male patients with mania and depression (predominantly mania) and a normal sample of 27 male subjects. These negative results are discussed in terms of the catecholamine hypothesis of the affective disorders. A study of brain pigmentation is suggested as being a potentially useful investigation in manic-depressive psychosis.


In this work, we presented an environmentally friendly approach for the immobilization of high-density silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) on the negatively charged surface of alginate (AL) microspheres. Quaternized cellulose (QC)–Ag nanocomposites are subsequently deposited onto the surface of AL microspheres through the electrostatic interaction between QC and AL. The density of Ag NPs immobilized on the surface of AL microspheres could be altered by varying the Ag content in QC–Ag nanocomposites. Optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were employed to follow all preparation steps and to characterize the resulting functional surfaces. The catalytic activity of the composite microspheres was evaluated by reduction of p-nitrophenol to p-aminophenol by NaBH4. The results demonstrated that the obtained microspheres exhibited excellent catalytic activity with a high reaction constant of 2.75 min−1. This was a significant enhancement compared to other Ag catalysts reported in the literature.


This paper presents a novel approach for the efficient solution of large-scale periodic microstrip antenna arrays using the newly introduced characteristic basis functions (CBFs) in conjunction with the method of moments (MoM) based on the conventional RWG basis functions. The CBFs are special types of high-level basis functions by incorporating the physics of the problem, defined over domains that encompass a relatively large number of conventional subdomain basis functions. The advantages of applying the CBF method (CBFM) are illustrated by several representative examples, and the computation time as well as the memory requirements are compared to those of conventional direct computation. It is demonstrated that the use of CBFs can result in significant savings in computation time and memory requirements, with little or no compromise in the accuracy of the solution.


Geospatial data are increasingly frequent and useful in Visualization, Virtual Reality and, of course, Geographic Information System (GIS) applications due to its realism. Most of the geospatial data sources are heterogeneous because they come from diverse satellites and the data are of different nature. Nevertheless, the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) provided an unique source of uniform data of the almost entire Earth's surface. On the other hand, to make effective and efficient regional queries over these SRTM data, the indexing with a space partitioning data structure is needed, making easy the visualization of their results. This paper presents a tool to query an visualize the complete SRTM data set indexed by the Q-tree multidimensional index structure. The tool .is totally integrated into the VTBuilder, an open GIS, allowing the visual selection of rectangular and polygonal spatial query regions and the retrieval of the query results by using the multidimensional index. The query results of the selected regions can also be exported to files with two specific format types for their further analysis. Finally, the visualization takes place in both 2D and virtual 3D rendering for its visual analysis.


ABSTRACT: Flood occurred when heavy and continuous rainfall exceeding the absorptive capacity of soil and the flow capacity of rivers, streams, and coastal areas. Land areas that are most subjected to floods are areas situated adjacent to rivers and streams, that are known as floodplain and therefore considered as "flood-prone". These areas are hazardous to development activities if the vulnerability of those activities exceeds an acceptable level. According to the Department of Irrigation and Drainage in Malaysia, about 29, 000 sq. km, or 9% of the total land area and more than 4.82 million people (i.e. 22% of the population) are affected by flooding annually. Damage caused by flooding is estimated about RM 915 million (£160 million). An unprecedented heavy rainfall occurred in Malaysia in December 2006 to January 2007. The consequence of this extreme event has resulted severe impact on few area of Malaysia where Kota Tinggi in Johor state is one the affected area. The objectives of this study are; to identify the element at risk in flooding, to estimate the land use/cover that affected by flooding in different return periods. Multiple RADARSAT SAR imagery with the aid of DEM data used to extract inundated area and study the characteristics of flooding. Different return period in term of flooding will be simulated using hydrodynamic model named SOBEK to determine its impact on land use/cover. Landsat TM was used to classify the land use/cover. SOBEK is an integrated 1D-2D hydrodynamic model. Such model can overcome the limitations of 1D and 2D models where it could reduce the computation time, simplify the modeling procedure and enrich the results.


Titanium and titanium alloys are widely used at some technical and medical applications because of their mechanical and corrosion resistance properties. The Ti6Al4V alloy is the most popular and universal alloy, for example it find a use for the aircraft parts and for implants in dentistry and orthopedics [1÷3]. This alloy is produce as cast and as forging. It belongs to the high strength materials but its wear resistance is low. Therefore various methods of surface modification are used [4÷7], e.g. plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO), electrophoretic deposition (EPD), vacuum plasma spraying, glow discharge, plasma treatment, chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Nitriding of titanium and titanium alloys has been investigated for many years and is used effectively for protection against wear. In this paper the TiN+Ti2N+αTi(N) layer deposited by glow-discharge nitriding on the Ti6Al4V alloy is characterized. This hybrid system is destined as outer layer or intermediate layer under other ceramic in biomedical applications and as thin film for adhesive bonding to polymer composites in aircraft applications.


As integrated circuit manufacturing advances, the occurrence of systematic defects is expected to be prominent. A methodology for predicting potential systematic defects based on design-for-manufacturability (DFM) guidelines was described earlier. In this paper we first report that, among the faults obtained based on DFM guidelines, there are undetectable faults, and these faults cluster in certain areas of the circuit. Because faults may not perfectly represent potential defect behaviors, defects may be detectable even though the faults that model them are undetectable. Clusters of undetectable faults thus leave areas in the circuit uncovered for potential systematic defects. As the potential defects are systematic, the test escapes can impact the DPPM significantly, and thus lead to circuit malfunction and/or reliability problems after deployment. To address this issue in the context of cell-based design, we propose a logic resynthesis procedure followed by physical design to eliminate large clusters of undetectable faults related to DFM guidelines. The resynthesized circuit maintains design constraints of critical path delay, power consumption and die area. The resynthesis procedure is applied to benchmark circuits and logic blocks of the OpenSPARC T1 microprocessor. Experimental results indicate that both the reduction in the numbers of undetectable faults and the reduction in the sizes of undetectable fault clusters are significant.


A multiscale approach spanning from the segmental (subnanometer) up to micrometer level was applied for detailed study of the self-assembly of aliphatic block polyurethane (PU) elastomers. To understand the principles of the self-organization of hard and soft segments in the complex multi-component systems, several two-component model PU samples, that is, the products of 1,6-diisocyanatohexane (HDI) with three diols differing in the length and constitution were also prepared, characterized, and investigated: (i) polycarbonate-based macrodiol (MD), (ii) biodegradable oligomeric diol (DL-L; product of butane-1,4-diol and D,L-lactide), and (iii) butane-1,4-diol (BD). The study (particularly 13C-1H PILGRIM NMR spectra) reveals complex internal organization and interesting (application appealing) behavior of multi-component PUs. Hard segments (HDI+BD products) feature self-assembled and significantly folded chain conformations with interdomain spacing 15–22 nm (small-angle X-ray scattering analysis). The small domains are hierarchically assembled in various structural formations of µm size (spherulites) depending on PU composition, as detected by transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 41590.


President Macron, in his speech at the Sorbonne University, announced the founding of the European Intenrvention Initiative (EI2). If the EI2 can be implemented as planned, it will fill an important gap in the defense of Europe. In times of crisis, the intervention initiative should help to analyze joint dangers through joint analysis and to help joint operations out of the crisis. Thus, the strategic goal, the European strategic culture, can be achieved. If the EI2 gets enough political support, an important EU operational gap will be closed. If this support is lacking, then the EI2 will land on the top of the history's midden heap like the previous attempts. The project is a very suitable opportunity to develop a common strategic culture in Europe. But if the opportunity is not taken, European countries will have to wait a long time for the next opportunity.


First of all the adjacency matrix of a graph, a symmetric square array of binary integers with zero diagonal is itself is a powerful spectral parameter to describe a graph in a simple and unambiguous manner. A simple application of linear algebra leads to spectral parameters such as coefficients of characteristic polynomial, spectrum, spectral radius, second largest eigenvalue, least eigenvalue, separator, spread, energy, determinant,pseudo determinant and so on. In the present paper the abovementioned spectral parameters are computed for three standard classes of graphs, namely, Kn, Pn , Cn and three class of graphs obtained by the join operation, namely, Km,n, F3n and Wn.


Abstract : We have undertaken our multiscale modeling of proton exchange membranes through three simultaneous but distinct studies of perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) systems at different time and length scales: (1) hydrated morphology of PFSA membranes with dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations; (2) classical MD simulations of the hydration and hydronium ion diffusion of the short-side chain (SSC) PFSA membrane; and (3) ab initio density functional theory Car-Parrinello MD simulations of model PFSA systems. A course-grained study of the hydrated morphology of Nafion and the SSC ionomer as a function of water content and equivalent weight (EW) was undertaken using DPD simulations. The results were analyzed through water contour plots, radial distribution functions of the water, and scattering plots. This work provides the first insight into how EW and side chain chemistry of the ionomer effects morphology. In the second study a unique force field was derived for the fully atomistic MD simulations of the SSC ionomer. The EW was fixed but the water content (from minimal to intermediate) was varied. Structural data and proton diffusion coefficients were computed on a small system of the SSC ionomer and provide a base line for simulations that treat the atoms as classical particles only. Finally, we performed density functional theory Car-Parrinello MD simulations of the mono-, di- and tetra- hydrates of trifluoromethanesulfonic acid as model systems for minimally hydrated PFSA polymers. We developed a consistent set of dispersion corrected atom-centered potentials to account for van der Waals interactions in these solids in order to match structural and lattice parameters.


Photoactivated Langmuir Monolayers as an Active Polar Fluid A thesis presented to the Department of Physics Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts By Elif Demirbas We consider a continuum theoretical description of a Smectic C monolayer made of molecules that can undergo cis-trans isomerization when subject to photo-activation. We use analytical and numerical methods to investigate the dynamics of this system. We show that this system exhibits self-regulation and the existence of propagating solitary waves, central features of an active fluid. Thus we demonstrate that this system can serve as an experimental platform to investigate the physics of this inherently out-ofequilibrium class of materials. The specific results obtained in this study are as follows: a) an equilibrium Smectic C monolayer can exist in one of two states a homogeneous state and a striped state. b) In the presence of photo-activation the system develops propagating orientation waves. These waves are not a pattern but are rather solitary waves resulting from the self-regulating nature of the dynamics of the system. c) The iv properties of these waves are characterized as a function of two system parameters, the strength of spontaneous splay and the relaxation rate for the equilibration process of the molecular isomerization. We find that the speed of propagation increases as a function of both these parameters. c) We localize the activation by illuminating the monolayer using slits of various widths. In this case we find that the localization leads to the formation of a domain wall at the edge of the activated region and propagating waves are set up moving away from this domain wall. In the absence of diffusion, the waves remain confined to the slit of illumination. When diffusion is ramped up, the waves penetrate into the dark regions of the system and hence can potentially serve for controlled pattern generation and stabilization in this liquid crystal system.


This study examined the utility of self-rating compared to supervisory and management ratings of training needs. Both self- and supervisory assessment of training needs were collected from 200 managers and professionals using a discrepancy model of needs assessment. Self-ratings tended to be more lenient and evidenced less halo than supervisor ratings of subordinates. Self- and supervisory needs assessment of the subordinate were not significantly related. Self-ratings of needs assessment resulted in three independent factors while supervisory needs assessment of subordinates resulted in only one general factor. These findings, coupled with evidence that supervisors projected their own needs when identifying subordinates' needs, suggested that self-ratings of needs assessment may be an important component of a valid needs assessment process.


Temporal and spatial characteristics of sea surface temperature departure(SST' ) and heat storage departure(HS' ) are analyzed on the interdecal and interannual scale in January and July by using harmonious wave analysis and EOF analysis methods. Results show that (1) there are two important modes of SST and HS' : the structure of HS' for January is the simplest on the interdecadal and interannual scale, and the structure of SST for January (July) is the most complicated on the interannual(interdecadal) scale; (2) the breaking time of HS' interannual variation is later than that of SST in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with SST (HS' ) increasing(descreasing); (3) interannual anomaly of SST is not related to ENSO noticeably, but HS' has a close relationship with ENSO.


Globalization has infiltrated conversations in practically every corner of academia; education is no exception as the classroom has become increasingly globalized as a result of several factors, such as immigration and distance learning. Educating every child is an ever-changing and ever-growing endeavor. This paper places the library in the spotlight—in a discipline that remarkably does not consider often the library as a piece of the puzzle—as a potential resource to address the challenging issue of providing a quality education for students regardless of social, linguistic and cultural background.


Provided is a coloring composition which contains a halogenated zinc phthalocyanine pigment and has excellent viscosity stability. Also provided are a cured film using the coloring composition, a color filter, a pattern formation method, a method for producing a color filter, a solid-state imaging element, and an image display device. The coloring composition comprises a coloring agent, resin, and pigment derivative, wherein the coloring agent contains a halogenated zinc phthalocyanine pigment, the content of coloring agent in terms of the total solid content in the coloring composition is 50 mass% or greater, and the content of Group 2 element ions in terms of the mass of the halogenated zinc phthalocyanine pigment is 30 to 300 ppm by mass.


The Church makes clear that her social teaching is not a "third way," some middle road between capitalism and socialism. It is not an economic or political agenda at all, and nor is it a "system." Although it does, for example, offer a critique of socialism and capitalism, it does not propose an alternative system. It is not a technical proposal for solving practical problems, but rather a moral doctrine, arising from the Christian concept of man and his vocation to love and to eternal life. It is in a category of its own.


This is a collection of authoritative reviews covering the wider aspects of small intestinal immunopathology. The last decade has seen many notable advances in this field, such as characterisation of Ia or DR-related gene products on lymphocyte membranes; the antigen-presenting dendritic cell; the discovery of the M cell and the role of Peyer's patches in antigen processing; the trapping and subsequent priming of lymphocytes, and their patterns of migration to other mucosal sites; and the role of T lymphocyte-directed mucosal mast cells. As well as the fundamental aspects of gastrointestinal immunity, practical issues are also addressed in this volume, so as to attract and interest readers from a variety of disciplines - scientific, clinical, paediatric, veterinary, pathological - whether they are concerned with AIDS, malnutrition, immunological competence, lymphoproliferative disease in Third World Countries, coeliac disease or food allergies.


Chapter 1: Global Politics Because People Matter Chapter 2: People, Households, and the World Chapter 3: People and Power Chapter 4: People and Economy Chapter 5: People and States Chapter 6: People and Borders Chapter 7: People and War Chapter 8: People and Justice Chapter 9: People and Globalization Chapter 10: People Matter


In sewages treatment processes on a large scale polymers and acrylamide copolymers are used. In recent years there is increasing competition between the companies producing flocculants on basis of acrylamide, which are applied with good effect in technologies of sewages treatment, both municipal as well as industrial. In connection with forming sewages of varied physical-chemical parameters it is necessary to synthesize newer and more effective polyelectrolytes. As a result of performed polymerisation and copolymerisation processes there were received polyacrylamides, acrylamide copolymers, with acrylic acid and also acrylamide with acrylnitrile, which were tested as flocculants in process of municipal sewages assistance. Flocculants application not only caused decrease of turbidity but also decrease of soluble pollutants concentration and also improvement of wastes quality parameters.


AIM: An LC-MS method was developed and validated for the analysis of Guanfu Base A in dog plasma to support the pharmacokinetic study.METHODS: Blood was withdrawn at different times and absolute bioavailability was studied by LC-MS at dosage of 4 mg/kg in 6 beagle dogs.RESULTS:The pharmacokinetic of Guanfu Base A in Beagle dogs fits best to two compartment model with AUC0-48 h,Cmax,tmax and half life t1/2 of(17623.9±7006.4) ng·mL-1·h,(1988±972)ng/mL,(0.8±0.7) h,and(11.2±1.6) h,respectively.Compared with i.v administration,the absolute bioavailability of Guanfu Base A was(99.0±11.2)%,with absorption rate(K01)at(7.563±4.612)/h.CONCLUSION: After oral administration,GFA can be rapidly and completely absorbed by Beagle dogs,which suggested that oral administration of Guanfu Base A could be a substitute way for anti-arrhythmic treatment.


The Electronic Publishing of Math Texts, from books to web-pages is possible with the use of the Electronic Publishing Toolbox. The TEX System and the Postscript language are the core of the Electronic Publishing Toolbox. Numerous auxiliary tools can be found ranging from Symbolic Computation Systems to Free-hand Drawing programs. LATEX Text { Books, Articles, Reports, . . .


According to the exploring and practice of experiment teaching reform,this paper describes several bases and basic ideas,proposes the experiment teaching pattern and laboratory construction scheme based on network laboratory by synthetically making use of current advanced computer,network,software,automation and so on.This proves to be an effective solution of the problems of traditional experiment teaching.This network laboratory establishes the standard interface specifications of industry by OPC to integrate isomeric control network data including industrial Ethernet,Factory Control System(FCS),and Distributed Control System(DCS) etc.The management and supervisory of isomeric control network laboratory are realized.


Using bud chip settlings with application of improved production technology for nursery management, settling transplanting method and time, plant spacing, weed control, nutrient requirement, irrigation scheduling, and optimum time of cane harvesting, good cane yield of 100t/ha can be realized at farmers field and seed multiplication rate can be enhanced to 1: 60 ratio from conventional method of 1: 10 (using three bud setts). Farmers can increase their income as well as increase sugarcane yield using bud chip settlings with good management practices.


In this paper, the influence of temperature ascension on the mode of hydrostatic bearing, the grating measuring system and the angular misalignment of the large precision centrifuger is discussed and analyzed, and the heat source of the centrifuger is calculated. Based on the theory analysis and experiment research for the precision centrifuger, the method of solving the temperature ascension problem is presented, and the improving suggestions for precision centrifuger is given.


lected. (Incidentally, to be logically consistent, he would equally have to reject much of the documentary source material—other than interviews—for his own solid, earlier studies of the PKI). Throughout his review Hindley rejects the position that social science propositions developed from other data bases can be applied to the Indonesian milieu. I suppose the logical extension of this stance is that Indonesian behavior is not a subcategory of human behavior! For example, he dismisses the symbolic proposition on group behavior adapted from the careful studies of Mancur Olson on American and British group dynamics as an "appalling . . . simple mathematical equation." The truly appalling element, however, is not. the attempt to see whether Olson's proposition may be of explanatory value in other group contexts but rather Professor Hindley's obvious and indeed prideful ignorance of empirical theory and technique in political science.


This study presents investigations of the micro-crack formation in pearlite microstructure as a trigger of unstable cleavage crack propagation in ferrite-pearlite steel. In order to clarify the micro-crack formation mechanism, a trace analysis was conducted to compare the direction of crack surface with those of cleavage and slip planes of ferrite in pearlite. It is found that any directions of crack surface were not coincident with those of {100} planes. On the other hand, all of the directions of crack surfaces showed good agreement with those of {110} planes. The result showed a probability that the micro-cracks in pearlite are formed by the shear fracture on slip planes in ferrite. The condition of unstable propagation from a microcrack in pearlite into a neighbor ferrite grain was investigated. Effective surface energy was estimated by the crack length obtained by SEM observation and the local stress calculated by finite element analysis. The result showed the estimated effective surface energy of a propagation from micro-crack in pearlite into ferrite matrix is larger than that of cleavage crack propagation across boundary between ferrite grains. A probability of the micro-crack formation in pearlite was quantified by the measurement of micro-cracks in steels having various ferrite-pearlite microstructures and finite element analysis. As a result, the probability of micro-crack formation could be effectively estimated as a function of only the equivalent plastic strain, independently from temperature, volume fraction of pearlite and loading condition.


I consider how to do sociological things with thick concepts, what's the relation between thick concepts and social facts, what's unique about thick concepts, and what's unique about creatures in whose lives there are thick concepts.


Short-channel structures are promising catalyst carriers because it is easy to control the heat/mass transfer and fluid flow characteristics by changing their lengths. In this work, the flow resistance of hexagonal structures was investigated experimentally and numerically. The structure tested (6 mm long) was manufactured from AISI 316 steel using the selective laser melting technique. Due to some differences between theoretical approaches and practical results, two types of computational models were applied to analyze the pressure distribution in a short hexagonal duct. It was shown that although experimental results agree with some theoretical solutions, the channel wall thickness should not be omitted from the overall flow resistance. A comparison of short structures differing in channel length with widely used long monoliths was performed as well.


The problem in the research is the difficulty of students in solving problems of the square root of integers (perfect squares) and cube roots of integers (cubic numbers) using an algorithm strategy better known as porogapit. This problem was obtained when giving tutoring to several junior high school students in Purworejo. The algorithm or porogapit strategy was taught when I was in elementary school. Still, as the learning model developed, the strategy could have been more efficient and took a long time. Only a few students remembered the strategy. Today's students even use a trial-and-error strategy: try the same multiplication number one by one or raise the numbers sequentially until the number in question. The trial and error strategy solved only the square root of integers (perfect square). In contrast, when there was a problem with the square root of imperfect integers (irrational squares), they still had difficulty solving it. The results showed that it was easier for students to master the factor tree strategy in solving square root problems than the algorithmic and trial-and-error strategies. Furthermore, the factor tree strategy can assist students in solving the square root problem, both the square root of perfect integers and the square root of imperfect numbers (irrational squares).
Keywords: Students Learning Difficulties, Square Root Solutions.


The BioFire® FilmArray® respiratory panel (RFA) has been proposed as a tool for timely diagnosis and treatment of respiratory tract infections. However, the impact of the RFA on clinical decision making, most notably antibiotic prescribing, de-escalation and duration has been varied.

 We aimed to determine the impact of RFA results on antibiotic days of therapy (DOT) depending on patient disposition. We conducted a retrospective chart review of adults who had an RFA performed within 48 hours of admission or presentation to the emergency departments (ED) of 3 hospitals in Des Moines, Iowa, between March 3 and March 16, 2019. Patients were excluded if they had a non-respiratory infection with defined indication for antibiotics. RFA results were categorized as influenza, non-influenza virus or negative. Negative binomial regression models were used to calculate rate ratios (RR) for the association between RFA result and DOT.

 A total of 486 total patients were included. Patients were divided according to disposition status, with 243 patients admitted and 243 discharged from the ED. Among inpatients, the median DOT was 2 (IQR 0–7). The results of the adjusted analysis for inpatient are shown on Table 1. In this group, RFA result was not associated with DOT (p=0.598 for non-influenza viruses and 0.706 for negative RFA), while having a urine culture done was independently associated with higher rate ratio of DOT (RR 1.85, 95% CI 1.32–2.59; p< 0.001). Among patients discharged from the ED, the median DOT was 0 (0–8). The results of the adjusted analysis for this group are shown on Table 2. Compared to patients with influenza, those with non-influenza viruses had a RR for DOT of 4.18 (95% CI 1.16–14.9; p=0.028) and those with a negative RFA had an RR for DOT of 5.24 (95% CI 1.99–13.8; p= 0.028).
 Adjusted analysis for the association between Respiratory Film Array results and Days of Therapy among hospitalized patients

 Adjusted analysis for the association between Respiratory Film Array Results and Days of Therapy among patients discharged from the ED

 Among inpatients, RFA results did not impact DOT, and in this group, antibiotic use was driven by urine cultures. In contrast, among patients discharged from the ED, a non-influenza virus or a negative RFA was associated with much higher rates of DOT. Our results suggest that different strategies need deployment in the ED compared to inpatient services in order to guide utilization of rapid molecular tests and antibiotic use.

 All Authors: No reported disclosures


This is a straightforward study that examines the production of the SARS-CoV-2-Spike Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) in the yeast Pichia pastoris . The motivation is to use this protein as an immunogen for vaccine development or the development of serological testing kits. The authors compare the protein produced in yeast to that produced in mammalian HEK- 293T cells in terms of its yield, folding and antigenicity in vivo .


Three trials were conducted in the Burnett region of southern Queensland, Australia, in the 1993–94 and 1994–95 seasons to determine the efficacy of fluazinam, procymidone, and iprodione for managing sclerotinia blight of peanut. Different combinations of rates, nozzle types, and spraying times were used in each trial. Two or 3 sprays of fluazinam at 0.75 and 1.0 kg a.i./ha, and of procymidone at 0.688 and 0.75 kg a.i./ha, were the most effective combinations that reduced disease incidence and increased yield. Iprodione at rates up to 0.5 kg a.i./ha did not significantly improve the yield compared with unsprayed treatments in any trial. In one trial at Tingoora in 1994–95, pre-infection treatments in which the first spray of fluazinam or procymidone was applied before symptoms appeared were more effective than post-infection treatments in which the first spray was applied soon after symptoms were seen. At J. Bjelke-Petersen Research Station (JBPRS) in 1994–95, a banded spray of procymidone at 0.688 kg a.i./ha using a single flat-fan 8004VB nozzle centred over the row significantly increased yield and reduced disease incidence compared with a spray using 3 hollow-cone nozzles (HB4-70) per row, with 1 nozzle over the row and 1 drop nozzle on each side of the row directed at the bases of the plants. At JBPRS in 1993–94, a band spray of fluazinam at 0.333 kg a.i./120 L.ha, applied with a single flat-fan 80015EVB nozzle immediately after the appearance of symptoms, was as effective in reducing the rate of disease development for 3 weeks, as was a directed application using three 80015EVB nozzles at the same time and concentration, but at 3 times the rate per area (1.0 kg a.i./360 L.ha).


A long-running debate in the small-firms' literature questions the value of formal human resource management (HRM) practices, which have been linked to high performance in larger firms. The authors contribute to this literature by exploiting linked employer–employee surveys for 2004 and 2011. Using employees' intrinsic job satisfaction and organizational commitment as motivational outcomes, the authors find the returns to small-firm investments in HRM are U-shaped. Small firms benefit from intrinsically motivating work situations in the absence of HRM practices and find this advantage disturbed when formal HRM practices are initially introduced. Firms can restore positive motivation when they invest intensively in HRM practices in a way that characterizes high performance work systems (HWPS). Although the HPWS effect on employee motivation is modified somewhat by the Great Recession, it remains robust and continues to have positive promise for small firms.


There are many shortcomings in current curricular set_up of Chinese Language Education, which have effected the training of pedagogical personnels of new type. Therefor,it is necessary to carry out the reform as soon as possible a new curricular system, which will be helpful to optimize students' professional mentally quality and give prominence to the training of teaching skills.


In the present contribution, an ellipsoidal reflector antenna fed by a leaky wave array has been studied for imaging applications at submillimeter waves. The array geometry is easy to manufacture at these frequencies and presents better spill over efficiency and more symmetric patterns than conventional horn arrays. At the present time, two arrays aiming at large and small FD ratios are being manufactured. The offset ellipsoidal reflector system has been optimized to reduce cross polarization and improve scanning performances.


Appropriate allocation of funds and the maintenance of financial and performance accountability are 1 of the principal problems facing the rapidly expanding social and health services. The National Center for Family Planning Services (NCFPS) Department of Health Education and Welfare is the largest funder of family planning services for those in need. NCFPS contracted the Westinghouse Population Center (WPC) to undertake a study of a sample of its grantees in order to investigate systematically the field of cost reporting and to gather current cost information. The basic element of the study was a comprehensive descriptive model which included every possible family planning program function of activity and its direct costs. The overall model on which the study was based describes the process by which resources are combined to accomplish certain functions. The types and relationships of program costs within a standard time frame were to be identified. The initial date for the provision of family planning services or programs ranges from 1935 to 1970. The total cost for the average program is about $314000. The organizational emphasis as measured by the internal cost structure has significant differences between the emphasis of Planned Parenthood and of the health department. The study tested every pair of variables for linear correlation. There are strong trends for the number of new patients to increase with both the total cost and the number of clinic sessions per month.


ABSTRACT Application of the Galerkin method to various fluid and structural mechanics problems that are governed by a single linear or nonlinear differential equation is well known [1-5]. Recently, the method has been extended to finite element formulations [6-10], In this paper the suitability of the Galerkin method for solution of large deflection problems of plates is studied. The method is first applied to investigate large deflection behavior of clamped isotropic plates on elastic foundations. After validity of the method is established, it is then extended to analyze problems of large deflection of clamped skew sandwich plates, both with and without elastic foundations. The plates are considered to be subjected to uniformly distributed loads. The governing differential equations for the sandwich plate in terms of displacements in Cartesian coordinates are first established and then transformed into skew coordinates. The nonlinear differential equations of the plates are then transformed into nonline...


A model catalytic system of a monolayer consisting of 9-nm average size, cubic, single-crystal Pt nanoparticles and poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) polymer capping agent deposited on a sapphire prism was investigated by sum-frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy in total internal reflection (TIR) geometry. Exposure of a clean nanoparticle monolayer after removal of PVP by cyclic oxidation–reduction treatment to high-pressure ethylene at room temperature led to the formation of ethylidyne and di-σ bonded ethylene. Low-pressure ethylene adsorption on a pseudohexagonal reconstructed Pt(100) single crystal resulted only in the formation of di-σ bonded ethylene. High-pressure adsorption of ethylene on Pt nanoparticle monolayers and Pt(100) led to the formation of both ethylidyne and di-σ bonded ethylene and stabilized the pseudohexagonal reconstruction of Pt(100) on both the single crystal and the surface of clean cubic nanoparticles. Restructuring of the PVP layer caused by CO adsorption indicated a...


ABSTRACT It is known that input–output approaches based on scaled small-gain theorems with constant D-scalings and integral linear constraints are non-conservative for the analysis of some classes of linear positive systems interconnected with uncertain linear operators. This dramatically contrasts with the case of general linear systems with delays where input–output approaches provide, in general, sufficient conditions only. Using these results, we provide simple alternative proofs for many of the existing results on the stability of linear positive systems with discrete/distributed/neutral time-invariant/-varying delays and linear difference equations. In particular, we give a simple proof for the characterisation of diagonal Riccati stability for systems with discrete-delays and generalise this equation to other types of delay systems. The fact that all those results can be reproved in a very simple way demonstrates the importance and the efficiency of the input–output framework for the analysis of linear positive systems. The approach is also used to derive performance results evaluated in terms of the L 1-, L 2- and L ∞-gains. It is also flexible enough to be used for design purposes.


Renin‐angiotensin system (RAS) plays an essential role in cardiovascular homeostasis. The peptide hormone angiotensin II (Ang II), generated by angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE), mainly regulates cardiovascular system via its receptors. More recently, we have reported that Ang‐(1–7) stimulates ANP secretion via Mas receptor. However, Ang‐(1–9), converted from Ang I by ACE 2, is still unknown. The aim of the present study is to determine whether Ang‐(1–9) stimulates ANP secretion using isolated perfused beating atria and to find out its signaling pathway. Ang‐(1–9) augmented ANP secretion and concentration in a dose‐dependent manner. Ang‐(1–9)‐induced ANP secretion (about 60% increase by 3 uM) was attenuated by the pretreatment with Ang II type 2 receptor (AT2R) antagonist but not by AT1R or Mas receptor antagonist. In addition, pretreatment with inhibitors of phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase(PI3K), protein kinase B (Akt), endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) or guanylyl cyclase (GC), blocked the attenuation of ANP secretion by Ang‐(1–9). However, Ang‐(1–9) did not influence atrial contractility and ECF translocation. These results suggest that Ang‐(1–9) stimulates ANP secretion via AT2R, PI3K, Akt, eNOs, GC pathway. We try to do further study to find out the signaling mechanism involved these responses.


Two extractants, 0.01 M CaCl2 and 0.01 M Ca(H2PO4)2, and two incubation systems, closed and open, were used to investigate the influence of granule dispersion and granule size on formation in a Red soil treated with a new micronized, granular S0 fertilizer at rates of 500 and 3000 mg kg−1 of S0. Sulfate production was significantly greater with dispersed micronized particles than for either the 1 to 2 mm or 2 to 4 mm intact granule size fractions. Increasing the dosage of S0 resulted in much greater formation from all particle sizes of S0. Quantities of extracted by 0.01 M Ca(H2PO4)2 generally exceeded those removed by 0.01 M CaCl2 in both the closed and open incubation systems. Levels of extractable recovered in the open incubation procedure were consistently much greater than those in closed incubation. In open incubation, extractable varied from 0.66 to 36.79 mg S/100 g soil and 1.35 to 65.02 mg S/100 g soil, respectively, for the 0.01 M CaCl2 and 0.01 M Ca(H2PO4)2 leaching solutions. With closed incubation, recoveries ranged from 0.15 to 12.08 mg S/100 g soil and 0.21 to 31.74 mg S/100 g soil in the 0.01 M CaCl2 and 0.01 M Ca(H2PO4)2 extracts, respectively. The average oxidation percentages measured by 0.01 M Ca(H2PO4)2 extraction were 27.9%, and 36.7% greater than those occurring with 0.01 M CaCl2 extraction, in closed and open incubation, respectively. Oxidation percentages for the dispersed S0 particles were significantly higher than for intact fertilizer S0 granules, which increased significantly with decreasing granule size. Oxidation percentages were significantly greater at the lower dosage rate of S0 fertilizer. Highly significant linear function relationships between cumulative formed by oxidation of S0 and the time of open incubation were found.


Three different cases should be considered for motion tracking: moving object with fixed camera, fixed object with moving camera and moving object with moving camera. Two methods are widely used for motion tracking: the optical flow method and the difference frame method. The optical new method is mainly used when either one, object or camera is fixed. This method tracks object using time-space vector which compares object position frame by frame. This method requires heavy computation, and is not suitable for real-time monitoring system such as DVR(Digital Video Recorder). The different frame method is used for moving object with fixed camera. This method tracks object by comparing the difference between background images. This method is good for real-time applications because computation is small. However, it is not applicable if the camera is moving. This thesis proposes and implements the motion tracking system using the difference frame method with PTZ(Pan-Tilt-Zoom) control. This system can be used for moving object with moving camera. Since the difference frame method is used, the system is suitable for real-time applications such as DVR.


BMJ 1992;304:698-700 The limited ability of cost containment strategies to resolve the problems besetting health services is in? creasingly being recognised. There is a growing aware? ness among politicians, managers, clinicians, and the public that, while changes in the financial management of health services may help to improve the environment in which care is provided, financial measures do not address the underlying issues of the effectiveness, appropriateness, and humanity of care. Leading for Health: a BMA Agenda for Health emphasises the crucial importance in working to improve health by identifying and measuring problems and monitoring new ways of dealing with them.1 The need for a shift in approach was recognised by, among others, Arnold Relman, when he wrote in 1988 of the dawn of "the era of assessment and account? ability"2: "We can no longer afford to provide health care without knowing more about its successs and failures. The Era of Assessment and Accountability is dawning at last; it is the third and latest?but probably not the last?phase of our efforts to achieve an equitable health care system, of satisfactory quality, at a price we can afford." If this approach is to succeed a widespread change in attitude on the part of the medical profession will be required. There needs to be a far greater acceptance of current uncertainties in medical practice, combined with wholehearted support for evaluative research. Without this it will prove impossible to place the health service on a firm, scientific base. This does not mean, as defenders of uncertainty are prone to suggest, that the art of medicine is to be sacrificed but rather that wherever possible scientific evidence should be able to be marshalled to suggest that the care being provided is effective. The new era can be achieved only through, firstly, an expanded programme of health services research; secondly, medical audit to ensure research findings are adopted in clinical practice; and, thirdly, education to change some well established professional attitudes towards medicine.


The effects of C. roseus fresh leaf aqueous and methanolic extracts on hyperlipidemic mice were investigated. Both extracts were evaluated by estimating the effects on serum triglycerides, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL) and high density lipoprotein (HDL) percentage on hyperlipidemic mice. After three weeks of aqueous extract oral administration, the serum cholesterol, triglyceride and LDL levels were significantly reduced while HDL level was increased, changes being always greater than those observed after the administration of methanolic extract. Lower atherogenic index of the aqueous extract treated group definitely suggested the hypolipidemic potential of this plant extract.


some Chacoan features (Fig. 1). There were many temporary pools alongside the national road to Mendoza during this exceptionally rainy summer. The following forms were taken: Leptodactylus bufonius, Physalaemus fuscomaculatus, Physalaemus sp., Ceratophrys ornata, Odontophrynus americanus, Bufo arenarum. I observed many subterranean nests of Leptodactylus bufonius in the clayey soil, and floating froth nests of Physalaemus fuscomaculatus in the pools. There were many social burrows of Lagidium ("vizcacheras") in the vicinity, perhaps the shelters of Leptodactylus bufonius and Ceratophrys, as in the true Chacoan biocenosis. The invertebrate fauna of the pools was very abundant at this period, especially entomostracans (Apus and related forms) and dipteran larvae. Only three species of batrachians were recorded by Freiberg (1942) for the province of San Luis: Bufo arenarum, Hyla raddiana, Leptodactylus ocellatus. My report shows that the fauna of this territory is a transitional one. ome Chacoan features (Fig. 1). There were any temporary pools al ngside the national oad to Mendoza during this exceptionally ainy sum er. The following forms were taken: eptodactylus bufonius, Physalaemu fuscomacuatus, Physalaemus sp., Ceratoph ys ornata, dontophrynus americanus, Bufo arenarum. I bserved many subterran an nests of Leptoactylus bufonius in the clayey soil, and floating roth nests of Physalaemus fuscomaculatus in e pools. There were many social burrows of agidium ("vizcacheras") in the vicinity, peraps the shelters of Leptodactylus bufonius and eratophrys, a in the true Chacoan bio enosis. he invertebrate fauna of the pools was very bundant at this period, especially ntomostraans (Apus and related forms) and dipteran arvae. nly three species of batrachians were ecorded by Freiberg (1942) for the province of It is composed of the more ancient Chacoan subtropical elements (ecological relicts in the clayey soil station nearJarilla) and the peculiar Andean fauna of the nearby Mendoza province2. It was imp ssible during the wet summer of 1951 to find the bove mentioned forms anywhere between the canfons of the Desaguadero River and the w stern arid zone of Mendoza.


An improved stability-indicating RP-HPLC method was developed for the estimation of troxipide in bulk and tablet dosage forms. Chromatographic separation of troxipide from its degradation products was achieved on Agilent Zorbax SB-CN (150 × 4.6 mm, 3.5 μm) using sodium phosphate buffer (pH was adjusted to 4.0 ±0.05) and acetonitrile in the ratio of 40:60 V/V, at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min. This system was found to give compact peak for troxipide at 2.1±0.2 min. The detection was monitored at 260 nm. The linear regression data for the calibration plots showed good relationship with r2 = 0.99 ± 0.001. The method was validated for precision, linearity, accuracy and robustness according to International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines. The percentage RSD was found to be less than two, indicating high degree of accuracy and precision of the proposed RP-HPLC method. The drug was subjected to stress degradation studies under acidic, basic, oxidative and thermal conditions. The degradation studies reveal that purity angle was less than the purity threshold, so the peak was said to be pure. It means that products resulting from stress studies did not interfere with the detection of troxipide and the assay can thus be considered as stability-indicating. Due to its simplicity, rapidness, high precision and accuracy, the proposed HPLC method may be used for determining troxipide in bulk and in pharmaceutical dosage forms.


Gastric perforation in early gastric cancers is relatively rare and often demands an emergency surgery. We describe a case of early gastric cancer with gastric perforation, in which an elective radical surgery for the gastric cancer was performed following a successful conservative treatment. A 49-year-old woman was seen at the department because of abrupt left hypochondoric pain. A plain abdominal X-ray photograph showed free air under the diaphragm and perforation of the upper gastrointestinal tract was suspected. The patient underwent conservative treatment for the perforation. Fiberscopy revealed an early gastric cancer of type IIc+III at the greater curvature of the fornix 10 days after the conservative treatment for the perforation. Histological diagnosis of biopsy specimens was signet-ring cell carcinoma. She underwent a total gastretomy with D2 lymphadectomy. The invasion of the cancer was within mucosa histopathologically. The final diagnosis was gastric perforation underlying early gastric cancer. No recurrent disease has been detected as of 1 year and 3 months after the operation. Fifty cases of gastric perforation underlying early gastric cancer seen in the Japanease literature are also reviewed.


What do a small manufacturing company, a medium-sized real estate brokerage, and a large CPA firm have in common? Goals. How can these organizations influence their members to act toward the attainment of their goals? Organizational control systems.


a photosensitive resin composition having excellent resolving power, contact stability and resist stripping properties; and a photoresist film. The photosensitive resin composition comprises a polymer having a carboxyl group (A), an ethylenically unsaturated compound (B) and a photopolymerization initiator (C). The polymer having a carboxyl group (A) is a copolymer having methacrylic acid (a1), a vinyl monomer having a phenyl group (a2) and a compound represented by the formula (1) (a3) as the copolymerization components, wherein the content of the component (a1) is 22 to 35% by weight and the content of the component (a2) is 20 to 35% by weight, both relative to the total amount of the copolymerization components.


The discusser would like to thank the authors for using particle swarm optimization PSO to estimate the parameters of the nonlinear Muskingum model and would like to draw attention to some points. An accurate solution method of the nonlinear Muskingum model simulation/prediction procedure is essential to the parameter estimation of the model calibration/optimization procedure . In the simulation procedure, for a given inflow hydrograph the outflow hydrograph is determined. In this stage, different solution methods may produce different results. However accurate and standard methods should generate similar results. In the original paper, Tung's method reported by Geem 2006 , is used to solve the model simulation stage and particle swarm optimization is used to estimate the parameters calibration stage . Tung's method is the same as Euler's method. The Euler's method is a first-order method, meaning that the error per step is on the order of t2. This makes the Euler's method less accurate for the same small values of t=time interval than other higherorder techniques such as the Runge–Kutta method. The Euler's method is not often used except as a simple example to introduce the numerical integration methods. Euler's method is not very accurate to solve the nonlinear Muskingum model. This method results in inaccurate simulations based on the governing equations and should not be used by the robust optimization methods for parameter estimation of the nonlinear Muskingum model. In current research two methods are introduced to solve the nonlinear Muskingum model. These methods are compared with Tung's Euler's method using the example presented in the original paper Wilson 1974 data . The results show that Euler's method is not accurate enough to solve the model. Since the simulation procedure is a base for optimization procedure, it is proposed to use an accurate and standard method to solve the nonlinear Muskingum model. It should be noted that inaccurate solution methods may generate good results in the calibration stage but generally these methods are not reliable for the prediction stage. This issue may be attributed to the calibration procedure for finding the optimal Table 1. Observed Inflow and Computed Outflow Hydrographs for Various Parameter Estimation Methods Simulated Using Method 1 for Given Parameters


The subject for this project is the disease myeloproliferative neoplasms which is a subtype of blood cancer. The models formulated in this project are based on the model describing the interaction of MPN and the inflammatory system proposed in [1]. The model proposed in [1] is presented and their choice for including a specific T-cell response is reflected upon. In particular their assumption that the death rate of naive T-cells is significantly larger than the amount of malignant stem cells is investigated and a new model is formulated as a modified version of their model with a more complicated T-cell response. The modified model is analysed using the theory of dynamical systems where global existence is guaranteed by establishing a trapping region. A semi analytic investigation reveals that the dynamics of the modified model differs from the model proposed in [1] if the mentioned assumption does not hold. This finding is further supported by simulations showing that for the same choices of parameters the model proposed in [1] may approach a non-fatal co-existing state whereas the modified model approaches a fatal state. Secondly, a model is formulated describing the impact of malignant cells becoming resistant. The model is based on the parsimonious principle and it is shown that the solutions of the model are well behaved by the establishing of a trapping region. The simulations shows how a patient may develop fatal growth of malignant cells despite continuous T-cell treatment.


This paper presents the development of an ultra-high-speed permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) that produces output shaft power of 2000 W at 200 000 rpm with around 90% efficiency. Due to the guaranteed open-loop stability over the full operating speed range, the developed motor system is compact and low cost since it can avoid the design complexity of a closed-loop controller. This paper introduces the collaborative design approach of the motor system in order to ensure both performance requirements and stability over the full operating speed range. The actual implementation of the motor system is then discussed. Finally, computer simulation and experimental results are provided to validate the proposed design and its effectiveness


The process of developing electronic devices includes the decomposition of large functional devices into smaller ones, the subsequent analysis of their implementation options and the selection of the most suitable ones according to various criteria, such as price and quality. In the process of modeling and calculating such schemes, models are used that are actually far from ideal. This article will consider an example of development (calculation, modeling, and hardware implementation), the difference between the embedded model and the resulting one in real life, methods for dealing with such a situation in the future, as well as using the resulting node without the possibility of correction.


A study was undertaken in Baramulla district of Lesser Himalayas (J&K) to map the spatial variability of DTPA extractable micronutrients and their relationship with other important soil properties. Six hundred and seventy six (676) geo-referenced surface soil samples (0.2 m) were collected using SOI (1:50,000 Scale) by random grid sampling from the district. These soil samples were analyzed for DTPA extractable micronutrients (Zn, Fe, Mn, and Cu) and were categorized as deficient, sufficient and adequate as per the criteria followed in the soil testing laboratories. The DTPA-Zn in soils varied from 0.04 to 9.90 mg kg, DTPA-Cu from 0.00 to 16.15 mg kg, DTPA-Fe from 0.55 to 99.88 mg kg and DTPA-Mn from 0.16 to 43.50 mg kg. None of the samples were found to be deficient in iron and copper. The relationship between micronutrient contents in soil was significant. There is a need to refine the critical level of deficiency for DTPA-Fe with reference to growing environment, certain soil characteristics and pre-defined plant parts of specific crops. Soil micronutrient maps prepared in Arc Info GIS clearly delineated the specific locales where micronutrient problem constrained crop production. Multi-micronutrient map suggested that deficiency of individual element is more prevalent as compared to that of two or three micronutrients. DTPA extractable micronutrients showed positive correlation with organic carbon and clay. The positive influence of organic carbon on micronutrient availability was maximum for DTPA-Cu. The pH and CaCO3 had negative influence on the availability of Zn, Mn and Fe. The results indicated that Zn is likely to constraint crop production, followed by Mn in the soils of Baramulla district. About the Author Dr. Mushtaq Ahmad Wani has passed B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. at SKUAST-K and research from IARI, New Delhi. He is Gold medalist at Master's and Doctor's level, awarded JRF twice and Fellowship from AIT, Bangkok. He has authored 2 books, 115 papers and has projects on Nutrient Indexing, Soil Fertility Mapping & LUP. He loves teaching, learning, working with honest people. Email ID: firstname.lastname@example.com Phone: 01942431203 Mobile: 09419095701 09797955034 09858381685


With the advancement of technology, computing has0 changed in a very drastic way. It has travelled a very long way from parallel to distributed to grid computing. Now a-days, the most pre- dominant internet based computing is Cloud computing. This technology provides a large number of pros like on-demand access, ubiquitous network access, rapid elasticity etc. But like other technology, it suffers from some serious issues as well like workflow scheduling, security etc. Here, we are going to propose a model which is providing high fault tolerance to real time systems in cloud environment. The main feature of this proposed model is the adaptive behaviour of the reliability of each and every virtual machine along with addition and removal of nodes on the basis of reliability If a virtual machine produces correct result within time, then its reliability increases and if it fails to do so, then its reliability decreases as well. And also, priority scheduling has been introduced so as to determine the best node when the reliabilities of two nodes come out to be same.


The following is reprinted from Unesco News, No. 69, 1 February 1982. The Constitution of Unesco advocates cooperation among the nations in all branches of intellectual activity, and in particular &dquo;the exchange of publications, objects of artistic and scientific interest and other materials of information&dquo;. It also stipulates that the Organization &dquo;collaborate in the work of advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples, through all means of mass communication&dquo;, and, to that end, &dquo;recommend such international agreements as may be necessary to promote the free flow of ideas by word and image&dquo;. Thus the General Conference, at its fifth session held in Florence (Italy) in 1950, adopted an agreement on the importation of educational, scientific and cultural materials known as the &dquo;Florence Agreement&dquo;, which today binds 73 countries. Essentially, the agreement provides for the abolition of customs duties on the importation of numerous items of an educational, scientific or cultural character which are grouped in five annexes: books, publications and documents; works of art and collectors' pieces; visual and auditory materials; scientific instruments and apparatus ; articles for the blind. The agreement has proved to be an effective instrument in lowering customs barriers and reducing the effects of other economic measures that impede the exchange of ideas and knowledge. Nevertheless, in the quarter of a century following its adoption, technical progress changed the ways and means of transmitting information and knowledge, which was the agreement's fundamental objective. Furthermore, the developments in the field of international trade were in general reflected in greater freedom of exchange. Lastly, as a result of the accession of many States to independence, the international situation changed radically, and it became necessary to take the needs and concerns of the developing countries into consideration, with a view to giving them easier and less costly access to education, science, technology and culture. For that reason, the General Conference at its nineteenth session held in Nairobi in 1976 adopted a Protocol to the Florence Agreement, which entered into force on 3 January, i.e. six months after the date of deposit of the fifth instrument of ratifi-


The main problem of tag-based search in collaborative tagging system (CTS) is the lack of explicit semantic relations between tags. To address this problem, we propose an approach based on the integration of symmetrical and asymmetrical similarity measures to calibrate the relatedness between tags and then further organize them into an ontological structure. We also demonstrate how this extracted knowledge will help to apply semantic web techniques to existing web2.0 applications such as CTS and improve their search and browse capabilities.


This paper reviews communication research in the areas of community and agricultural development in the Philippines and synthesizes results on the basis of the 4 elements of the communication process: source message channel and receiver. This review indicates several unmet research needs. Most developmental communication studies are at the macro level so the effect of source credibility on change in knowledge attitudes or behavior is unknown. Studies are needed on the impact of the order of presentation of messages and the effectiveness of emotional vs. rational appeals. The comparative effectiveness of the various group channels of communication and the various mass media channels should also be explored as should audience characteristics that tend to influence the adoption of innovations. To accelerate the flow of innovative information and the consequent adoption of innovation studies are needed to clarify the diffusion process in the Philippine setting. The paper further outlines some implications for research development of materials and training in family planning communication. Since research on development communication has largely dealt with agricultural innovations it is not clear whether the same findings will hold for family planning. The result of conveying only the advantages of certain contraceptives vs. citing its side effects in motivating a woman to practice family planning should be explored. It must further be determined whether to start campaigns in rural or urban areas among the more or less educated or with men or women. The use of a compulsion strategy should be investigated. Previous research tends to suggest that comics magazines and semi-illustrated leaflets based on the experiences of the target audience are most effective. In the absence of communication studies in the context of family planning research findings in developmental communication appear useful to family planning trainees interested in communicating more effectively with rural people.


A preliminary evaluation was made of the suitability of titanium alloys and 17-7PH steel for constructing highpressure auxiliary gas containers, for aircraft, to hold various gases under operating pressures of 3500 psi. The titanium alloys included commercially pure titanium, Ti--6Al--4V, Ti--5Al--2.5Sn, and Ti--4Al--4Mn. The gases under consideration are oxygen, nitrogen air, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and helium. The seryice temperatures under consideration are limited to the range of --65 to +4OO deg F. (auth)


What role does culture play in the process of economic development? Economists have been reluctant to incorporate cultural endowments, or cultural change, in their models of economic development. Anthropologists have been critical of economic theory for avoiding the role of culture. But they have provided very little insight into how culture should be taken into account (Bardhan 1989; Harrison and Huntington 2000). In the previous chapter I have presented a model of the dialectical relationships among changes in cultural endowments, resource endowments, technology and institutions (Fig. 1.1). In this chapter an attempt will be made to explore in greater depth the relationships between cultural endowments and economic development. 1 I first review the efforts of a number of development economists to draw on the anthropological literature in an attempt to understand the role of cultural endowments and cultural change in the process of economic development. I then explore the potential value of a deeper mining of the anthropological literature for economists who would like to incorporate the role of cultural endowments, and of cultural change, into the analysis of the processes of economic development or the design of development institutions. Economists have made substantial contributions to our understanding of the sources of technical and institutional change. But, until recently, they have given relatively little attention to the role of cultural endowments or cultural change in economic development. To the extent that cultural endowments are considered at all by economists they tend to be subsumed under the concept of tastes. And tastes, even more than technology and institutions, have traditionally been regarded as not subject to economic analysis. 2 At an intuitive level I have little difficulty in accepting the view that cultural endowments, including religion and ideology, exert at least some influence on the supply of institutional innovation. Cultural endowments can make some forms of institutional change less costly to establish and can impose severe costs on others. It has been argued, for example, that the traditional moral obligation in the Japanese village community to cooperate in communal infrastructure maintenance has made it less costly to implement rural development programs than in societies lacking such traditions (Ishakawa 1981). In Northern Italy dense networks of social institutions—ranging from choral societies to soccer clubs—some with traditions running back to the late Middle Ages, have contributed to the effectiveness of recent reforms in regional governance (Putnam 1993). The traditional patterns of cooperation have …


The task of reasoning with fuzzy description logics with fuzzy quantification is approached by means of an evolutionary algorithm. An essential ingredient of the proposed method is a heuristic, implemented as an intelligent mutation operator, which observes the evolutionary process and uses the information gathered to guess at the mutations most likely to bring about an improvement of the solutions. The viability of the method is demonstrated by applying it to reasoning on a resource sheduling problem.


The author publishes his Four Baxter Relativity Postulates and Four Conclusions in support of his published papers disproving Special Relativity and its Incorrect derivatives such as predicted time slowing down due to uniform relative motion, etc., and leading to the incorrect derivation of E = MC^2


LHRH analogs have exhibited antifertility effects in several species when administered frequently in large doses. The mechanism by which these analogs work is not completely understood at present; they may act on the hypothalamus on the pituitary or at the gonadal level. Administration of 10 mcg of [(in-Bzl)]-D-His6des-Gly10]-LHRH-EA (D-His) in male rats caused a rapid increase in serum luteinizing hormone (LH) levels a decrease in testicular follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) receptor levels and a decrease in testicular prolactin receptor concentrations. Other experiments showed that LHRH analogs require at least 24 hours to exhibit a direct effect on the testis which may differ among animal species. Treatment with [D-Trp6]-LHRH twice weekly for 12 weeks had no effect on the sperm count or motility in rhesus monkeys although it led to desensitization of the pituitary. It could not be shown if there was an effect on libido or on the fertilizing ability of ejaculated spermatozoa.


In this paper, we consider the problem of minimizing the transmission completion time in energy harvesting devices on time-varying channels with a reinforcement learning approach. Because of the randomness of energy arrival and fading channel in wireless communications, a reinforcement learning algorithm often converges to suboptimal points with a degraded performance. To solve this problem, we first prove that the expected discounted reward sum in the environment is an increasing function of negative time, amount of data sent, channel gain, harvested energy, and remaining battery. We leverage this proof to construct a partially monotonic network that efficiently approximates the optimal action-value function for learning. Experimental results show that our approach with the exploitation of the partial monotonicity of the desired function achieves better performance than existing power allocation policies. Further experiments show that the performance of our learning-based approach is close to the theoretical upper bound over rapidly time-varying channels.


The increase of incident reporting in hospitals in recent years, and the way these incidents are dealt with, have contributed to patient safety becoming one of the hot topics of the early 21st century. An important and necessary issue to tackle, yes, but has the safety of nurses been cast aside in the pursuit of patient safety?


2-Cyclohexyl-4-metylphenol was obtained in high yield by the alkylation of p-cresol with cyclohexene in the presence of benzenesulphonic acid. The effect of variation of parameters on the reaction has been investigated. 2-Cyclohexyl-4-methylphenol was further converted to 2,6-dicyclohexyl-4-methylphenol.


As the first line of defence of resisting the pathogeny microorganism, the mucosal immune system(MIS) plays an important role in the immune system of animals. It is extensively distributed in respiratory tract 、 alimentary tract、geni- tal tract and some lymphs of exocrine gland.Further more ,it is the main location where the local special immune function implemented.in a long run,its importance and particularity will be increasingly emphasized.This thesis mainly summarize the headway of MIS' antigen presentation、lymphocyte homing 、function of SIgA、oral tolerance and cytokines.


Mr. Huebsch misjudges the perspicacity and sophistication of the American Haicheng Earthquake Study Delegation. The members of the group were carefully selected for their ability to gather and critically evaluate all information that might be provided by their hosts about the successful prediction of the Haicheng earthquake. As one who played a small part in nominating the members, I know that several of the scientists were chosen not only for their knowledge of the subject involved, but also for their highly critical, often skeptical approaches to judging observations and research results, including their own. In the selection process, full recognition was given to the importance of including a good scientist 'able to converse in the language of the country.' Francis Wu, a seismologist of established high reputation, was included for this specific reason. U.S. scientists hoped for, and I believe received, the results of the most penetrating examination of the Chinese data, analyses, and prediction methods possible within the constraints imposed by the hosts.


In this work are presented the results of isotopic analyses made on bone remains of human individuals (n = 6) from the southern Puna of Argentina dated to the final Early Holocene (ca. 8230–8000 BP). They were found in structures located in Peñas de las Trampas 1.1, a rockshelter at 3582 m.a.s.l. in Antofagasta de la Sierra, in the southern Argentinian Puna. They contain multiple secondary burials. Bone fragments were recovered from at least six individuals, three in each structure. Stable isotopes of Carbon (δ13C) and Nitrogen (δ15N) analysis were aimed at defining aspects related to the palaeodiet of the six individuals within the palaeo-economic subsistence spectrum typical of hunter–gatherers. It is worth noting that these human remains are among the earliest from North-Western Argentina, where funeral practices are related with the transportation of certain anatomical parts. The palaeodietary inference considers, on the one hand, the extreme aridity of this geographical area and its impact on the isotopic ecology. And, on the other, it takes into account the fact that four of the six individuals under study were breastfed infants. The results are in agreement with the expected values of the period, which has been characterized as the beginning of the arid Altithermal.


Risk assessment aims at providing structured information for decision making, public health improvement, regulatory actions and research initiatives. The four very distinct steps in the risk assessment process enable risk management and risk communication, and thereby, a functional food safety system. Identification, characterization and assessment of risks demand the application of science-based, accurate and reliable methodologies. Nowadays, several different widely recognized approaches to risk assessment are applied worldwide. Novel omics technologies are benchmarking a new era of pathogen testing, providing much more than just accurate identification. These technologies have now opened the door for a more integrated approach that can enlighten transmission patterns and predictions of the transmission routes. Merging data on virulence, interaction of pathogens with different food matrices and the host, multiple data processing is resulting in reliable and science-based responses to the forthcoming challenges.


Ewing's sarcoma is a kind of bone and soft tissue tumor which is highly invasive and mainly occurres in chil-dren and adolescents. In recent years, combined chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy in treatment of Ewing's sarcoma, pa-tients' prognosis and life quality have been significantly improved. However, over the past 20 years, the treatment of Ewing's sar-coma entered the platform period. The 5-year overall survival rate remained at 55%-75%. Multiple metastasis and recurrence are the main factors of poor prognosis and death. Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and molecular targeted therapy are still the main meth-ods for the treatment of Ewing sarcoma. The side effects, drug resistance and the use of the combination regimen of antitumor drugs have been plaguing the clinical workers. In order to improve the efficacy of chemotherapy drugs and reduce the toxic side ef-fects, Multi-disciplinary and multi-center clinical studies on Ewing's sarcoma patients who suffered from local control or recur-rence have been launched by Domestic and European and American countries. As an important supplementary mean for the treat-ment of Ewing's sarcoma, patients often appear a series of complications after radiotherapy, including the risk of local damage or secondary tumors. Therefore, it is necessary to further clarify the indications of radiotherapy and the timing of preoperative and postoperative radiotherapy. The specific chromosome translocation and the expression of the fusion gene EWS/FLI1 have been found in Ewing sarcoma. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that drive tumor relapse and metastasis remain unknown. Molecular target-ed therapy can be used to inhibit tumorigenesis and progression by regulating the upstream or downstream target genes of EWS/FLI1. In conclusion understanding of the current treatment status of Ewing's sarcoma, results of multi-center clinical trials and the-ory of genomics research will contribute to the design of new biological therapies so as to establish individualized treatment modali-ties. In this paper, we present a review on the progress of Ewing sarcoma chemotherapy, radiotherapy, molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy.


Spin-discloses a magnetic medium and an information reproducing apparatus and an information reproducing method using a dependent scattering. Described the information reproducing apparatus, on top of the first magnetic layer and first magnetic layer has a non-magnetic metal layer is capped with a Schottky junction to the semiconductor tips and probes that emit thermal electrons through the Schottky junction, are stacked on top of the substrate and the substrate that are stacked on top of the non-magnetic layer and the non-magnetic layer to be laminated and a second magnetic layer has a parallel or anti-parallel to the magnetization direction in the magnetization direction of the first magnetic layer a magnetic medium, for applying a voltage to the probe was released hot electrons control and , by detecting the first and the current of the recording medium changes according to the parallel or anti-parallel to the magnetization direction of the second magnetic layer and a measurement section for reproducing the information recorded on the magnetic medium. The disclosed magnetic medium and an information reproducing apparatus and an information reproducing method comprising the steps of hot electron spin - that it is possible to realize a large-capacity storage device through the dependent scattering can reproduce information on the magnetic medium with a high resolution and high speed.


While to some extent there is disharmony in defining the term ecotourism, most tourism research agrees that the eco prefix is a definite pointer to environmental or natural resource management as a core value to the concept. However, the inherent gap between theoretical conceptualization of ecotourism as "green practice expected to address adverse outcomes of conventional tourism" and actual environmental impacts of this form of tourism raises the question of whether or not ecotourism in practice complies more closely with its defining criteria. In this regard, this article explores the term ecotourism as a metaphor for pro environmental behavior, uncovering its derivatives as constructed by tourism players in Kenya. The study covered five focal areas for ecotourism identified by the Ecotourism Society of Kenya, analyzing excerpts from hypertexts that operate at the supply side of tourism to read motivations for references to the term. The readings were then compared to The International Ecotourism Society definition of ecotourism which was taken as a neutral position. The findings revealed that environmental sustainability was an insignificant concern, as compared to product promotion and corporate image in informing the concept of ecotourism in focal areas. Consequently, the "eco prefix" metaphor in tourism is informed by economic and social logics, serving stakeholders other interests. The authors recommend a revisit to the practical basis of the concept for actors in ecotourism focal areas, with keen considerations to linguistic adequacies of the term's use.


The invention discloses a password inputting method and a password inputting device. The password inputting method and the password inputting device are applied to password inputting products or systems. The password inputting method includes that a block length is arranged. When password characters are input, an input serial number of current input characters is obtained, and then judging whether the input serial number is integral multiple plus one of the block length or not. When the input serial number is integral multiple plus one of the block length, the current input characters can be displayed, and the input characters input before the current input characters are displayed as hidden characters. The input password characters are block displayed, and therefore a user can check whether the input characters are correct or not. Compared with the prior art, the circumstance that the characters are completely cleared due to mistaken input characters and input again is avoided to a great extent by the password inputting method and the password inputting device. A display method of password based on grouping is achieved in a password inputting process. Usability of the password inputting products or systems and user experience are improved.


Abstract As a result of climate change, the species structure of forest stands is gradually changing when the growing share of core species of deciduous trees at the expense of conifers places demands on its future efficient processing into final products. This study evaluates the influence of the surface modification of the heartwood of oak (Quercus robur) with five selected chemical modifiers on the strength of the glued joint with the used one-component PUR adhesive for interior and exterior structural applications. Samples of test bodies produced according to the standards were exposed to the given environment and subsequently subjected to a test using the method of determining the longitudinal shear strength under tensile stress. By applying a chemical modification to the surface layers of the glued surfaces of oak wood, the tannins in the surface layers were neutralized, increasing the adhesion of the glued surface. The resulting values of the strength of the glued joints with the applied chemical modification of the heartwood surface also confirmed this.


The title of this lecture shows clearly the three topics treated: we shall first give a summary of the various ways invented by living cells for producing methyl-branched fatty acids, the most conspicuous being C-methylation with methionine and in- corporation of propionic acid. We shall then inquire about the origin of the 'extra methyl group' of the C28 sterols, e.g. ergosterol, of fungi, and of the 'extra ethyl group' of the C29 sterols, e.g. ,B-sitosterol, of higher plants.


Lienard systems of the form , with f(x) an even continuous function, are considered. The bifurcation curves of limit cycles are calculated exactly in the weak (e → 0) and in the strongly (e → ∞) nonlinear regime in some examples. The number of limit cycles does not increase when e increases from zero to infinity in all the cases analyzed.