Job demands and extended hours contribute to chronic employee stress, leading to physical and psychological health problems. Workplace wellness programs (WWPs) strive to improve employee's physical health and wellbeing, but lack holistic options addressing stress reduction for the mind, body, and spirit. The purpose of this project is to describe the effects mandala coloring has on reducing objective and subjective stress levels in corporate employees. This empirical, quasi-experimental pilot study sampled 14 employees (n = 6 experimental, n = 8 control) measuring blood pressure, pulse, and perceived stress levels over a course of three weeks of coloring. Participants of this convenience sample were randomly sorted into the control or experimental group. Data was analyzed and interpreted using IBM SPSS Statistics 24. An RMANOVA showed no statistical significance between coloring mandalas versus coloring sheets in reducing objective and subjective stress levels in corporate employees over a threeweek time period. Our pilot study provides a starting point for future research and possible implications for WWPs. Our suggestions for future research include: recruiting a larger sample size to represent the population as a whole, increasing both the duration of the study and time spent coloring for participants, incorporating qualitative data, and testing cortisol levels as another determinant of stress reduction. Furthermore, as the demands of corporate employees continue to cause chronic stress to rise, it is necessary to provide more evidence for stress reduction encompassing holistic modalities, such as mandala coloring, in a workplace setting.


The complex cation in [4,5-dihydro-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-2-(2-pyridyl-kappa N)imidazol-1-oxyl 3-oxide-kappa O(3)](nitrato-kappa(2)O,O')(N,N,N',N'-tetramethyl-1,2-ethanediamine-kappa(2)N,N')nickel(II) hexafluorophosphate dichloromethane solvate, [Ni(NO(3))(C(6)H(16)N(2))(C(12)H(16)N(3)O(2))]PF(6) x CH(2)Cl(2), is the first example of a nitronyl nitroxide complex of a transition metal ion having d electrons in which nitrate is coordinated as a bidentate ligand. Owing to the smaller steric requirement of NO(3)(-), the Ni-O(nitroxide) bond length [2.014 (2) A] is remarkably shorter than that in the corresponding beta-diketonate complexes [2.052 (4)-2.056 (2) A].


We present a linear time algorithm for computing an implicit linear space representation of a minimum cycle basis (MCB) in weighted partial 2-trees, i.e., graphs of treewidth two. The implicit representation can be made explicit in a running time that is proportional to the size of the MCB.


ABSTRACT To understand the chemical basis of action for thePDR5-encoded multidrug resistance transporter ofSaccharomyces cerevisiae, we compared the relative hypersensitivities of the wild-type (RW2802) and null mutant strains toward a series of tri-n-alkyltin compounds. These compounds differ from each other in a systematic fashion—either by hydrocarbon chain length or by anion composition. Using zone-of-inhibition and fixed-concentration assays, we found that the ethyl, propyl, and butyl compounds are strong PDR5substrates, whereas the methyl and pentyl compounds are weak. We conclude that hydrophobicity and anion makeup are relatively unimportant factors in determining whether a tri-n-alkyltin compound is a good PDR5 substrate but that the dissociation of the compound and the molecular size are significant.


In this paper we describe the implementation of a system that gives assistive force feedback to the remote user in a teleoperation based environment. The force feedback would help the user in trajectory following exercises for stroke rehabilitation. Exercises in virtual environments on a PC as well as real world exercises with a remote robotic arm, that would follow a trajectory in real-time as the user moves the master device, could be performed. Such real world exercises augmented with real-time force feedback can make the exercises more effective as the user gets force assistance along the desired path. Moreover, the system can find its application in remote therapy, where the therapist is away from the user, as it can be teleoperated and has internet based protocols. The assistive force feedback has been implemented using simple sensors such as the camera and the laser and a PC-based real-time multithreaded control system. The real-time force feedback from the remote robot to the master device has been possible using effective multithreading programming strategies in the control system design and novel sensor integration. The system also has the capabilities of autonomous as well as supervisory control of the remote robot and is modular as far as integration of different master devices for stroke rehabilitation exercises is concerned.Copyright © 2008 by ASME


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate advanced mathematical electrochemical noise analysis (ENA) as a way of corrosion monitoring for carbon steel.Design/methodology/approach – The electrochemical potential/current noise was recorded simultaneously with a working‐reference‐working electrode set up and the processing of data was performed through fast Fourier transformation (FFT) and wavelet transformation (WT) routes. The formation and rupture of carbonate films on St37 steel electrodes in a 0.5 M sodium bicarbonate electrolyte was studied for 20 h utilizing an electrochemical noise approach.Findings – Although the slope of mid‐range of noise impedance exhibited a mechanistic style, and increased with film formation and decreased with film rupture, FFT of potential noise was more sensitive to film formation and rupture. WT of potential noise depicted that ν=1.41 × 10−2 Hz was the boundary frequency in the film formation. At frequencies higher than the mentioned limit, the fraction of distribu...


The California milliped genus Xystocheir Cook, occurring along the Pacific Coast and the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, comprises nine species, three being divided into a total of seven subspecies; the species are combined into four species-groups named for the oldest component. Xystocheir dissecta (Wood), abundant around San Francisco – San Pablo and Monterey bays, comprises intergrades, one true subspecies, and two apparent semispecies that are treated as subspecies; additionally, a local population in southern Mendocino County has achieved reproductive isolation and attained species status. Two new combinations, X. reducta (Causey) and X. modestior (Chamberlin), are proposed, along with the following new synonymies: Paimokia Chamberlin under Xystocheir, X. acuta Cook, X. francisca and X. milpitas, both by Chamberlin, and Cheirauxus sapiens Chamberlin under X. d. dissecta, new status; and Delocheir conservata and D. dalea, both by Chamberlin, under X. dissecta taibona Chamberlin, new status. The fo...


Solar panel's reliability studies focus mainly on the properties of the encapsulating such as gel content and transmittance, while ignoring the impact of encapsulation process on the solar cells themselves. The harsh lamination conditions apply high temperature and pressure on the wafers, which can induce increased stress, deformation and defects. The investigation of solar cells sealed inside modules calls for a non-destructive method. In this paper, we demonstrate that transmission X-ray topography (XRT) can be used as an accurate method to evaluate bending feature of encapsulated wafers and present in detail the experimental methods from capturing diffraction data to the data analysis.


Various Nigerian successive governments have recognized the need to tame poverty. This prompted varieties of anti-poverty poverty programmes, but unfortunately poverty situation is still at alarming rate, especially in the rural domains. It is on this note, that this study argued for the need to measure poverty in a multidimensional manner, as against the commonly monetary poverty measurements. Primary data from farm household was used for collection of information for the study. Alkire and Foster methods was used for the headcounts ratios, adjustment headcounts as well as poverty intensity. Probit regression was employed to assess variables that predict poverty in the study areas. Results of the study showed that about 82% are multidimensionally poor, while money-metric poor are about 86%. Major determinants of multidimensional poverty include age of the respondents, marital status, income, number of dependants and household head farming experience. The study concluded that to alleviate rural poverty, potential vulnerable categories of people (as shown in the deprivation incidence) should be given the deserved attention as to reduce poverty eventually.


Based on the present situation and existing problems of the construction and sharing of the literature information resources in China at present, and connecting with the reality of the construction of the information resources in the library of Huizhou Hospital, this paper researches on the strategies of the construction of the literature information resources in hospital library, seeking the effective ways and practicable measures for the construction of the literature information resources.


A lot of the views of practitioners outside of Bali looked at the ceremony as one of the causes of poverty. It is seen from the portion of income that must be spent for various ceremonies to be performed by the Balinese Hindu community. This study aimed to answer the fundamental question, whether it is the customs and cultures led to affect Hindu community income in Bali? The data used is primary data from 350 Hindu households listed as poor households in Bali using depth interview survey method. Religion can play a role in overcoming poverty. Religion is not only a moral conscience that reminds the community will give generously to the poor but also to see the poor as human beings. The opinion says that the religious activities and custom made by Balinese Hindu communities causes increased poverty seems supported by the magnitude of the data portion of the expenditures for this activity. In Balinese Hindu communities, family income will be issued again and consumption expenditure shaped yajna. The analysis shows if traditional rituals and Balinese Hindu religious tend to have positive influence, good for people's income and the level of happiness. Therefore, it is not appropriate if the customs and religion are said to have made the Balinese Hindu community becomes poorer. This result also shows a shift in the understanding of religion in Balinese Hindu community. Religiosity someone then be interpreted by the implementation of the ritual in the form of upakara (yadnya) and the implementation of ethics in public life (susila).


The present study was performed to investigate the effect of endurance running on muscle protein synthesis. Male Sprague-Dawley rats(n = 49) were randomly assigned to the time course of the treadmill running (VO₂max 75-80%, 1hr). Muscle samples were obtained before and recovery period of the exercise (immediately, 30 min, 1hr, 2hr, 3hr and 6hr from the running) at the soleus muscle for the determination of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), p70S6 kinase (p70S6k), eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF) 4E-binding protein (4E-BP1) and AMPK phosphorylation. Endurance exercise generated a significant increase in mTOR phosphorylation immediately after exercise and the phosphorylation maintained up to 6hr of recovery (∼90%, p=.024). In addition, 4EBP1 phosphorylation was significantly increased at the immediately after exercise and decreased up to an hour recovery. However, 4EBP1 was resumed to increase for 2-3hrs during recovery (∼48%, p=.05). However, Phosphorylation of p70S6K was elevated above rest level throughout the 6hrs recovery and reached peak at 6hr recovery (303%, p=.001). On the other hand, Phospho-AMPK (Thr172) was increased from 30min to 3hr of recovery (p<.05). These results clearly demonstrate that intensitive endurance running result in significant differences in protein signaling of muscle protein synthesis.


The invention provides a protective cultivation technique for rice, which relates to a planting method for rice. The protective cultivation technique is carried out according to the following steps: preparation of seedling-growing nutrient soil, seed treatment, seeding quantity determination, seeding, management in a germinating stage, management in a first vertical-needle-shaped incomplete leaf growing stage, management in a weaning stage, management in a seedling stage, and management in a grown-up seedling stage; soil preparation; rice seedling transplanting; and management in a shallow water tiller enhancing stage, management in a tiller control stage, management in a booting stage, management in a flowering stage, management in a filling stage, management in a milk-ripe stage and management in a maturation stage. By virtue of the protective cultivation technique for rice provided by the invention, a short period is changed to a long period, and the rice cultivation growth period is 120 days; by virtue of the heat preservation function of the protective cultivation technique, the growth period reaches up to 150 days more, and a long period is changed to double periods; when the protective cultivation technique is used for planting rice in an area with the rice cultivation growth period longer than 150 days, spring rice is planted in advance in spring and the plantation of autumn rice is delayed in autumn so as to realize double cropping in one year, and consequently, the higher and higher yield of the rice is realized; natural disasters in agriculture can be avoided or reduced; meanwhile, the low temperature can be resisted, and the tiller is enhanced; the soil temperature is increased, and the root growth is enhanced; the temperature at night is preserved, the effective accumulative temperature is increased, the chilling damage is prevented, and therefore the heavy crops are realized in consecutive years.


Globally, more than 130 million people are estimated to be in food crisis. These humanitarian disasters are associated with severe impacts on livelihoods that can reverse years of development gains. The existing outlooks of crisis-affected populations rely on expert assessment of evidence and are limited in their temporal frequency and ability to look beyond several months. This paper presents a statistical foresting approach to predict the outbreak of food crises with sufficient lead time for preventive action. Different use cases are explored related to possible alternative targeting policies and the levels at which finance is typically unlocked. The results indicate that, particularly at longer forecasting horizons, the statistical predictions compare favorably to expert-based outlooks. The paper concludes that statistical models demonstrate good ability to detect future outbreaks of food crises and that using statistical forecasting approaches may help increase lead time for action.


The dominantly prevalent patriarchal culture organized around sexual difference and based on the primacy of the male at the cost of the female, equates women with body— ―whether it is a body which fulfils the male sexual urge, or a body which slogs until it drops down with fatigue‖ (Jain, Across Cultures 86). By defining women in terms of their physical capacity for reproduction and by merging their biological functions into imposed socio-cultural characteristics (what Toril Moi refers to as merging of femaleness and femininity in her essay ―Feminist Literary Criticism‖) patriarchy has manipulated to establish women's biological as well as mental inferiority in relation to men. Moira Gatens comments, ―Man is the model and it is his body which is taken for the human body; his reason which is taken for reasons; his morality which is formalized into a system of ethics‖ (Imaginary Bodies 24). Margrit Shildrick also says, ―though there is no fixed referent, the male body (in its own various constructions) is posited as the natural standard against which the female body is measured and valued— as inferior, as different, as insubstantial, as absent‖ (Leaky Bodies 44). By doing so patriarchy has further drawn a distinction between the private and the public sphere, the family and the state, and the domestic and the non-domestic. To colonize women's bodies further, patriarchy has propagated that ―he, not she is the worker. His work is real work; her work is vicarious leisure‖ (Greer, The Whole Woman 36). Hence, whereas embodiment as a male is a matter of celebration, embodiment as a female is a matter of disadvantage in many ways. Summing up the whole situation, Bowden and Mummery observe:


Celebrity endorsement is one of the advertising techniques companies use to create awareness and gain favourable responses about their products and services. This expectation is often not realised as negative image about a celebrity endorser, incongruity of a celebrity endorser with the product being endorsed are all capable of inducing bad responses towards the product rather than the other way round. The practice of celebrities being used for rendering services other than performing their actual job as either an actor or an athlete, such as endorsements has proliferated over time. Despite the cost and the risks involved with this technique of advertising, it is been used quite extensively in the present era. The instrument of celebrity endorsement has nowadays become a pervasive element in advertising and communication management. India as a country is known for loving its stars. The Indians idolize their bollywood actors and cricketers. The advertisers see this as an opportunity to grab and work on so as to expand their operations and promote their product. This dissertation focuses on examining the perception of these Indian Consumers about the celebrity endorsement process and the subsequent impact on their purchase decisions.


Discusses attributes of leadership that are necessary in a quality organization. Defines empowerment as a philosophy, an attitude and a way of thinking that supports the quality process. Quality is depicted as a synergetic teamwork philosophy, a group process, and a can‐do attitude that must be embraced by the organization. Clarifies the development of a quality process system and the formation of quality principles as they relate to empowerment. Explains empowerment and the manner in which it differs from the traditional power and control concept of management. Depicts delegating and accepting responsibility as a behavior that promotes and supports leadership. Provides guidance, techniques, and examples that can be used to enhance leadership and teambuilding skills. Establishes a philosophy to increase the probability for long‐term success and professional fulfillment. Includes quotes from contemporary as well as historical leaders.


Executive summary: One can get the impression that symbolic forms of expression exclusively involve looking purely at the theme "symbols" This is not to be overseen, however, it is important to stress that one has to do with symbols and its forms of expression. The usage of symbols should not be understood as a limitation of interpretation e.g. only within the genre "rituals", but properly be addressed through relevancy. From this, the author attempts to lead the contribution to where the interpretation should be seenin a broader perspective, and show how the effect of symbols within different themes become visible and take shape. In the beginning, it becomes fundamental to treat the word "symbol", for mapping what one puts in this expression. Making the starting point unorthodox and sober-minded, one could easily say that symbols are words that synonymously explain and represent objects' realities. Transformed into examples, many with the author would say that: an animal such as the dove stands for peace, blue colour stands for coldness, red colour stands for warmth, while the flag and the state arms are national symbols. However, already here we should be critical. I.e., is everyone agreeing that e.g. the flag represents the national homogenous? Alternatively, differently given, does it mean that everyone being the proprietor of a flag has a homogenous understanding of the sense? According to e.g. Ernest Gellner related to the question of homogeneity, it is not so that nationalism imposes homogeneity, it is rather the objective need for homogeneity that is being reflected through nationalism. About these questions, the author mainly shows that the anthropology through times has been able to contribute with different views regarding symbolic forms of expressions, and the frames to them. It has been shown that very little on this earth is of universal art, and this field is neither an exception. It is thus necessary that the analyses successively being put forward mirror critical evaluations to the material presented, and that it be discussed out of contextual relativity.


Conventional microscopy focusing methods perform a time consuming sweep through the Z-axis in order to estimate the focal plane. As an alternative, we developed a deep learning model that predicts in one shot the distance offset to the focal plane from any initial position using an input of only two images taken a set distance apart. The difference of these two images is processed through a regression CNN model, which was trained to learn a direct mapping between the amount of defocus aberration and the distance from the focal plane. A training dataset was acquired from a semiconductor sample at different surface locations on the sample and at different distances from focus. The ground truth focal plane was determined using a parabolic autofocus algorithm with the Tenengrad scoring metric. The CNN model was tested on bare semiconductor sample using the projected shape of the F-stop. The model was able to determine the in-focus position with high reliability, and was also significantly faster than conventional methods that rely on classical computer vision. Furthermore, the rare cases where our algorithm does not find the focal plane can be detected, and a fine-focus algorithm can be applied to correct the result. With the collection of sufficient training data, our deep learning focusing model provides a significantly faster alternative to conventional focusing methods.


Abstract Continuous-mass production technology, widely adopted in the late nineteenth, early twentieth centuries, enabled businesses to vastly increase output. Thorstein Veblen was among the first to observe the business response: how to prevent production from exceeding what the market could profitably absorb? How to prevent losses? How to increase profits? Continuous-mass production introduced consumer capitalism, applying the technology to consumer goods, creating the necessity of increasing consumer demand, making imperative adopting the corporate form of business enterprise. Continuous-mass production has accentuated a number of paradoxes, some of which were addressed by Veblen, Polanyi, and Keynes. Those paradoxes include the prospect of depression, the rise of dynastic ambitions channeling the increased output into militarism, financial innovations involving identifying and liquefying consumer assets to provide credit and expand demand, laying the foundation for the financialization of the economy. Financialization culminated in the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), requiring massive government intervention. The GFC gave rise to Modern Monetary theory, overcoming the limits of the market economy. And the environmental crisis resulting from the commodification of everything, accentuated by applying continuous mass production to the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, combined with a belief in infinite growth.


To a method for monitoring the condition of an engine oil (6) in an internal combustion engine (1), in which first the viscosity of the engine oil (6) is determined at different temperatures of the engine oil (6), after which (from the viscosity and temperature of the engine oil 6) a viscosity index is determined to indicate that allows a reliable statement about the condition of the engine oil during its use in the engine, the viscosity index of the engine oil (6) at different successive instants (t0, t1, t2) is determined and the variation of the viscosity indexes over time serves as a measure for assessing the oil condition.


Alternaria alternata is the wide spread pathogen causing leaf blight disease in Spanish jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum L.) an important flower crop of commerce widely grown in India. Generous spectrum of effective fungicides is in use against this pathogen. The indiscriminate use of chemical fungicides is not only expensive but also hazardous for all living organisms. With this view the study was conducted to find a bio fungicide against Alternaria alternata. Twenty-four plant extracts and four oils were screened for antifungal activity under in vitro condition. Among the tested plant oils and plants products clove extract of Allium sativum (5%) recorded the highest reduction of the mycelial growth of 100% followed by leaf extract (10%) of Datura metel (68.44%) and oil (3%) of Azadirachta indica (59.88%). The effective plant extracts and oils have potential to be developed as potent fungicides in organic farming.


A new synthetic procedure has been developed to prepare the biologically important azocino[4,3-b]indole via the tetrafluoro-1,4-benzoquinone (TFB)-mediated cyclization of a tetrahydrocarbazole derivative bearing an amide side chain at the C-2 position. For the first time, this strategy is based on a different method for the C-2 position of the tetrahydrocarbazole for the synthesis of methanoazocino[4,3-b]indole. The notable features of this protocol include its operational simplicity and high reaction yields. Furthermore, the structures of all the presently synthesized compounds were confirmed using spectroscopic methods (1H NMR, 13C NMR, FT-IR).


Recent measurement studies show that commercial mmWave 5G can indeed offer ultra-high bandwidth (up to 2 Gbps), capable of supporting bandwidth-intensive applications such as ultra-HD (UHD) 4K/8K and volumetric video streaming on mobile devices. However, mmWave 5G also exhibits highly variable throughput performance and incurs frequent handoffs (e.g., between 5G and 4G), due to its directional nature, signal blockage and other environmental factors, especially when the device is mobile. All these issues make it difficult for applications to achieve high Quality of Experience (QoE). In this paper, we advance several new mechanisms to tackle the challenges facing UHD video streaming applications over 5G networks, thereby making them {\em 5G-aware}. We argue for the need to employ machine learning (ML) for effective throughput prediction to aid applications in intelligent bitrate adaptation. Furthermore, we advocate {\em adaptive content bursting}, and {\em dynamic radio (band) switching} to allow the 5G radio network to fully utilize the available radio resources under good channel/beam conditions, whereas dynamically switched radio channels/bands (e.g., from 5G high-band to low-band, or 5G to 4G) to maintain session connectivity and ensure a minimal bitrate. We conduct initial evaluation using real-world 5G throughput measurement traces. Our results show these mechanisms can help minimize, if not completely eliminate, video stalls, despite wildly varying 5G throughput.


The emergence of performance intensive distributed applications is making new demands on computer networks. Distributed applications access computing resources and information available at multiple computers located across a network. Realizing such distributed applications over geographically distant areas requires access to predictable and high performance communication.
Circuit switching and packet switching are two possible techniques for providing high performance communication. Circuit switched networks preallocate resources to individual sources of traffic before any traffic is sent, whereas packet switched networks allocate resources dynamically as the traffic travels through the network. The advantage of circuit switching lies in guaranteed performance due to reserved capacity, but the network capacity is wasted when circuits are idle. Packet switched networks have been preferred in data networks due to their lower cost and efficient utilization of network resources. However, the major limitation of current packet switched networks lies in their inability to provide predictable performance.
This dissertation proposes a new architecture for providing predictable high performance in high speed packet switched networks. The architecture combines the advantages of circuit switching and packet switching by providing two services: datagrams and flows. The datagram service supports best-effort delivery of traffic. The main liability of a datagram service lies in congestion. To avoid congestion, the architecture uses a novel, rate-based congestion control scheme. To support applications that demand specific performance guarantees, the architecture provides an abstraction called a flow. A flow is a communication channel that has specific performance characteristics associated with its traffic. When requesting a flow, a source specifies the performance needs and a destination. The underlying delivery system guarantees to meet those needs by pre-allocating resources along a selected path to the destination.
An experimental evaluation using a prototype network demonstrates the viability of the architecture in providing predictable, high performance. The importance of this research extends beyond providing another architecture for packet switched networks. The successful implementation of the flow abstraction demonstrates the feasibility of providing predictable performance in packet switched networks. Supporting both datagrams and flows in the same network adds flexibility to packet switched networks to accommodate applications that span a wide range of performance requirements. Regulating rates at which data enters a packet switched network to prevent congestion provides a new direction for exploring ways of controlling datagram congestion.


SO2 emission may cause acid rain leading to environmental pollution and living-life threats. Sulfite reduction as the most important step during biological fume gas desulfurization and sulfur resources cyclic utilization has been concerned widely. Conditions of low pH, carbon desire, and temperature were investigated in this paper to reveal the characteristics of sulfite reduction by such a sort of SRB. The results show that such a sort of SRB is much sensitive to the acidic condition and could be effective to reduce sulfite within 4 days. At least C/S should reach the value 0.275 of carbon resource (calculated as COD) to keep sulfite reduced efficiently. Sulfite could be reduced at room temperature by the SRB with only 3 days delay than at 35 °C. It cloud apply some preliminary study for biological fume gas desulfurization and recycling of sulfur resources.


A mechanistic kinetic model has been developed for the hydrocracking of complex feedstocks such as vacuum gas oil (VGO), based on an exhaustive computer-generated reaction network of elementary steps. The model utilizes a detailed composition of VGO, characterized by 16 different molecular classes up to C40. These classes are divided into 45 subclasses by distinguishing the isomers of a class according to the number of methyl branches, leading to 1266 groups of isomers/pure components. The frequency factors of the rate coefficients for the acid site steps are modeled using the single-event concept, and the activation energies are modeled based on the nature of the reactant and product carbenium ions. The saturation of polyaromatics is modeled according to the sequential hydrogenation of aromatic rings on the metal sites. The competitive chemisorption of aromatics and naphthenes is taken into account, based on the number of aromatic/naphthenic rings on the metal sites, and based on the corresponding gas-ph...


The expert system, Principal Investigator-in-a-Box, or [PI], was designed to assist astronauts or other operators in performing experiments outside their field of expertise. It helped the crew calibrate instruments for a Sleep and Respiration Experiment that flew on the Space Shuttle Missions STS-90 and STS-95. [PI] displays electrophysiological signals in real time, alerts astronauts when poor signal quality is detected, and advises astronauts how to restore good signal quality. A ground-based study sought to assess the utility of on-board expert systems, in general, for performing experiments and troubleshooting complex instrumentation systems. Thirty subjects received training on the sleep instrumentation and the [PI] interface. Each subject was then tested on two separate sessions with the instrumentation, once with [PI] assistance and once without. Results indicate a beneficial effect of [PI] in reducing anomaly troubleshooting time. Further, questionnaires showed that most subjects preferred monitoring the [PI] display, together with monitoring waveforms, to monitoring of the waveforms alone. Thesis Supervisor: Laurence R. Young, ScD. Title: Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics This research was supported by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, NASA Cooperative Agreement NCC 9-58, and the NASA Ames Research Center, grant number NCC 2-570.


Background. The greenbug (Sсhizaphis graminum Rondani) can significantly reduce the yield of barley and other cereals in the southern regions of Russia. Cultivation of resistant varieties can significantly limit the pathogen's harmfulness. At the same time, specific interaction with the genotypes of the host plant, characteristic of S. graminum, requires a continuous search for new resistance donors to broaden the genetic diversity of barley cultivars. Materials and methods. The resistance of 178 accessions of barley landraces from Uzbekistan to the Krasnodar greenbug population was tested in laboratory experiments. Juvenile plants were infested with aphids of different ages, and when the susceptible control died (cv. 'Belogorsky'), resistance was assessed on a 0 to 10 (plant death) rating scale. Plants with a damage rate of 1–4 points (up to 30% of the leaf surface being damaged) belonged to the resistant class; damage rate of 5–8 points indicated moderate resistance of plants, and that of 9–10 meant susceptibility. In addition, we assessed the aphid damage of the winter barley cultivar 'Post', protected by the previously identified resistance gene Rsg1.Results and conclusions. We identified 52 barley accessions as heterogeneous for the studied trait. In six accessions, plants with high (points 3 to 4) and moderate (5 to 8) resistance were identified; 6 accessions were differentiated into 3 phenotypic classes: resistant, moderately resistant, and susceptible; and in 40 accessions the manifestation of the resistance component varied within 5 to 7 points (from 31 to 60% of the leaf surface being damaged). The distinctly expressed resistance of 12 accessions is controlled by alleles of resistance genes that differ from Rsg1. After selection for resistance, the identified accessions can be used in breeding.


Cornelia faced enormous odds when she tried to practise at the Calcutta High Court where she was repeatedly insulted and humiliated for being a woman. She was notallowed to appear, nor permitted to use the Bar library though .she had the same professional qualifications as her male colleagues and her expertise in drafting was privately acknowledged. Gooptu shows the professional isolation Cornelia endured so bravely. But she maintained her professional integrity and was shocked by the unscrupulous behaviour of the male lawyers who were only interested in earning money.


This research considers the incidence of foreign firms investing between 10 percent and 50 percent equity in U.S. corporations, or Foreign Direct Minority‐Equity Investment (FDMI). FDMI relationships are viewed with respect to international strategic alliances in general and are hypothesized to be motivated by market, technology, or production considerations. Both financial and operational performance measures are examined comparing three years prior to the FDMI with three years after. The research follows an ex post facto, quasi‐experimental design with two control groups consisting of 99 companies each. Results indicate declining performance measures related to FDMI companies receiving FDMI as compared to a matched sample of peer firms. Strategic management, agency theory and other explanations are explored in light of these findings.


The school-enterprise cooperative innovation is the inherent demand for cultivating occupation ability of higher vocational college students. The school-enterprise cooperative innovation based on occupation ability training focuses on in novation of personnel training mode, curriculum and teaching materials, practice training model and construction mode of teaching staff. The school-enterprise cooperation innovation encounters many restricting factors that need government's at tention and support, both the university and the enterprise also should strengthen the sense of responsibility, and try to es tablish security mechanisms.


Rapid technological advancements have resulted in a more user-friendly conducive virtual learning environment. Despite a vast corpus of research on online learning utilising an asynchronous online forum (OF) to improve English, studies on OF to improve English and develop 21st-century skills of communication and collaboration at the university level in Malaysia are still limited. This paper reports the use of OF via a learning management system (LMS) as a platform for teaching and learning in an English for Specific Purpose (ESP) course. This study comprised 26 participants from a public university to look at how OF was implemented in an ESP course to enhance communication and collaboration. Data from interviews and reflective journals were obtained from the participants during their involvement in OF. The findings of this study demonstrate that using OF helps students enhance their 21st century skills like communication and collaboration. It is evident that OF can become a recommended platform for enhancing students to improve 21st century skills based on the promising responses received from the participants in this study. The findings also suggest that OF is relevant for engagement of the language learners and may be worthy to be implemented in English courses or other courses tertiary level.


(57) Abstract: The present invention includes a method and apparatus for multiplexing electrophoresis analysis. Sample array of a plurality of well plates are transferred to an array of electrophoresis columns simultaneously, analysis of the column after the electrophoresis was run at the same time is carried out. The method and apparatus of the present invention, e.g., DNA analysis including sequencing, are useful in such reactions measurements between specific binding protein and its binding partner.


Automation of Javanese script translation is needed to make it easier for people to understand the meaning of ancient Javanese script. By using Javanese script image as input, the translation system generally consists of character segmentation, character recognition, and combining the recognized characters as a meaningful word. The segmentation which obtains region of interest of each character, is an important process in the translation system. In the previous research, segmentation using projection profile method can separate each character well. The method can overcome characters overlapping, but it still produces truncated characters. In this study, we proposed a new segmentation to reduce the truncated character. The first step of the proposed method is pre-processing that consists of converting input into binary image and cleaning noises. The next step is to determine the connected component labels, which further perform as candidate of characters. Some of the candidates are still represented by more than one labels, so that we need a process to merge the connected component labels that have centroid distance less than threshold. We evaluate the proposed method using Intersection over Union (IoU). The evaluation shows the best accuracy 93,26%.


This paper discusses the relationship of attachment, attachment behavior, occupation, and co-occupation in early childhood development. It explores the inextricable relationship among these concepts and the agency of the infant in affecting the infant-mother dyadic relationship. The reciprocity of intersubjectivity and its component parts of attunement, joined attention, and joined intention in the infant-mother dyad are discussed in light of the concept of co-occupation. Internal working models, which are the product of attachment, are discussed as a correlate to personal identity which, in turn, is thought of as being shaped by occupation. The importance of a secure attachment and, conversely, the problems with insecure attachment are considered. Relevance to occupational science and future directions for exploration and research are reviewed.


Automated segmentation and delineation of morphological properties of retinal vascular network had now become the most important research area in the treatment of ophthalmologic disorders. With the advancement of computational efficiency, image processing methodologies are widely used in ophthalmology. This paper gives the review of various segmentation techniques implemented by various authors in conjunction with performance metrics like sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and area under the curve. Results of various algorithms has been compared and analyzed. For the extraction of retinal vasculature, 2D retinal image from various databases has been considered.


Large volcanic eruptions influence climate on both annual and decadal time scales due to dynamical interactions of different climate components in the Earth's system. It is well established that the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) tends to shift towards its positive phase during the winter season in the first 1–2 years after large tropical volcanic eruptions, causing warming over Europe. However, other North Atlantic circulation regimes such as Atlantic Ridge or zonal regime have received less attention. This study explores the volcanic fingerprint in terms of patterns and mechanisms on the North Atlantic atmospheric circulation in IPSL-CM6A-LR model simulations for tropical eruptions of the last millennium using dedicated sensitivity experiments and observations.


The theory of the internal strain, which has been verified experimentally for crystals with the diamond structure, is extended here to the zincblende structure. X-ray intensity measurements were taken on GaAs under a uniaxial stress along the [111] direction. It was found that this stress causes a slight change of the structure factor of the weak reflexion 006, from which the value ζ = 0.046 ± 0.002 for the bond-bending constant was estimated. This means that in GaAs the effect of the internal strain is very weak, so that the tetrahedral bond changes its length almost according to the macroscopic strain tensor.


ABSTRACTWe have developed a stochastic full-waveform inversion that uses genetic algorithms (GA FWI) to estimate acoustic macro models of the P-wave velocity field. Stochastic methods such as GA severely suffer the curse of dimensionality, meaning that they require unaffordable computer resources for inverse problems with many unknowns and expensive forward modeling. To mitigate this issue, we have proposed a two-grid technique with a coarse grid to represent the subsurface for the GA inversion and a finer grid for the forward modeling. We have applied this procedure to invert synthetic acoustic data of the Marmousi model, and we have developed three different tests. The first two tests use a velocity model derived from standard stacking velocity analysis as prior information and differ only for the parameterization of the coarse grid. Their comparison indicates that a smart parameterization of the coarse grid may significantly improve the final result. The third test uses a linearly increasing 1D velocit...


The change of mutton degree during different temperatures were evaluated based on sensory evaluation in this work.And four indexes of fat oxidation,TBA、acid value、saponification value、pH value.were detected.


For Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) purposes, the standard method consists in using optical data to assess change in forest cover. However, SAR data are sensitive to forest above-ground biomass; thus an adequate SAR system, with long wavelength, could provide mapping of biomass and its change over time to be used for estimating carbon emissions. In this paper, the focus is on the comparison of forest cover maps derived from optical data and from SAR data in the Centre Province of Cameroon (about 84 000 km2), which contains humid tropical forests and woody savannas. The forest-non forest maps from optical and SAR data have comparable validation results. However, SAR-based methods are easy to implement, do not require extensive reference samples for calibration, and answer to the key question for carbon cycles studies which is how much biomass or carbon has been disturbed.


More than a half of elderly people with mobilisation problems have constipation. Most elderly people have a normal bowel habit, but their use of laxatives is increased. Constipation is the main colorectal abnormality, especially in those with mobility problems. Other important contributory physiological changes in constipation or faecal impaction include deficient colonic propulsion, difficulty defecating, and impaired rectal sensation. A history of chronic constipation, although common in these patients, is not always present. The possibility of other colonic disease should also be considered. Whole gut transit time does not seem to change with age but has been found to be considerably prolonged (longer than 14 days) in immobile constipated patients. This delay seems to occur mainly in the sigmoid colon and rectum. Constipation is often associated with "faecal impaction" in elderly people. The term "faecal impaction" has traditionally indicated loading of the rectum with hard faeces. Many elderly patients, however, have massive faecal loading with soft or even liquid faeces and they are more likely to experience faecal soiling.


In order to screen a bacterium which can produce amylase,starch hydrolysis circle is used in this experiment as a screening model.The Strain B5 is achieved by screening from the soil near the starch factory.After the optimization of the condition,the capability of B5 is improved.The optimal condition is:carbon source is starch 2.0 %;nitrogen source is yeast extract 0.5 % and peptone 0.5 %;the initial pH is 6.0;and the optimum incubation temperature is 37 ℃;the appropriate load is 15 mL culture medium in 50 mL flask;the optimal time for producing amylase is 48 h;when 0.05 % MgSO4,0.05 % CaCl2,and 0.005 % FeSO4 is added to the medium,the amylase activity can be improved greatly.The amylase activity of Strain B5 in liquid fermentation can reach as high as 158.89 U/mL.The optimal reaction temperature of amylase is 42 ℃,and the optimum reaction pH of amylase is 5.0.The experimental method is simple and intuitive,and can be used to screen amylase-producing strain quickly and efficiently.


In view of the uneven development of current agricultural industries and sectors, systems engineering theory and methods and mathematics, multi-objective planning methods are used to build sustainable and efficient agricultural structure and promote efficient, stable and sustainable development of ecological economic system of small watershed. A sustainable, efficient, optimized model of the industrial structure in agriculture regional watershed is built. The results show that the adjustment of the agricultural production structure is an effective measure to improve the ecological function of the overall economic system and restore ecological virtuous circle of small watershed.


Glutaraldehyde was synthesized by heterogeneous catalytic oxidation of cyclopentene(CPE) with WO3/HMS as catalyst and hydrogen peroxide as oxidant.The catalyst of molecular sieve WO3/HMS was prepared with(NH4)2WO4 as tungsten source.The influence of process conditions such as reaction time,reaction temperature,catalyst mass,solvent consumption and mass fraction of oxidant on the yield of glutaraldehyde was investigated.The experimental results show that the optimum conditions of glutaraldehyde synthesis with cyclopentene are as follows: n(H2O2) ∶n(W) ∶n(CPE)=2 ∶0.025 ∶1,V(t-BuOH) ∶V(CPE)=8 ∶1,the reaction temperature is 35 ℃ and the reaction time is 30 h.The yield of glutaraldehyde is up to 67%.


Retrieval of images from image databases by spatial relationship can be effectively performed through visual interface systems. In these systems, the representation of image with 2D strings, which are derived from symbolic projections, provides an efficient and natural way to construct image index and is also an ideal representation for the visual query. With this approach, retrieval is reduced to matching two symbolic strings. However, using 2D-string representations, spatial relationships between the objects in the image might not be exactly specified. Ambiguities arise for the retrieval of images of 3D scenes. In order to remove ambiguous description of object spatial relationships, in this paper, images are referred by considering spatial relationships using the spatial location algebra for the 3D image scene. Also, we remove the repetitive spatial relationships using the several reduction rules. A reduction mechanism using these rules can be used in query processing systems that retrieve images by content. This could give better precision and flexibility in image retrieval.


A possible enantiocontrolled route to cerorubenic acid-III (1) is described herein. The central elements of the approach take advantage of the ready availability of both optical antipodes of citronellol and of the tricyclic ketone 8. Although the absolute configuration of 1 is not kown, its relative stereochemistry has been established by X-ray crystallography. On this basis, it is possible to match the reaction partners with the long-range view of establishing experimentally the actual configuration of 1. Assembly of the two structural halves was accomplished via a vinylstannane intermediate whose construction required utilization of an intramolecular S N 2 displacement in order to overcome the weakly nucleophilic nature of a stannyl-substituted ester enolate


Return on assets of the Russian banks at 2019-end has significantly increased despite a slide in bank margin and slowdown of lending growth rates. This fact was due to both credit risk mitigation and putting in operation of a new procedure for loan loss accounting. In 2019 as a whole, bank assets' growth rates have decreased.


The Combustion Engineering (C-E) owner group was formed in 1979 to address the technical and regulatory issues for plants with nuclear steam supply systems supplied by C-E that resulted from the accident at the Three Mile Island plant. The group addressed many of the immediate concerns from the accident including the response of C-E owner-group plants to small-break loss-of-coolant accidents, the use of power-operated relief valves, emergency operating procedure upgrades, as well as transient and accident responses. The group was successful in addressing these technical and regulatory issues with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in such a manner that C-E owner-group plants were not required to shut down or operate at reduced power levels. In recent years, the group has increasingly pursued programs for the benefit of its members rather than because of a regulatory commitment. The major current activities of the group are programs to support the design basis reconstruction of our member plants, improvements to emergency procedure guidelines, which are the basis for the emergency operating procedures used in our plants, a charging pump performance improvement program, various activities to reduce the number of unplanned reactor scrams at our plants, modeling of steam generator corrosion mechanisms to improvemore » steam generator performance, and leak-before-break justification of reactor coolant system piping.« less


We present a nonlinear Fourier transform algorithm whose accuracy, at a comparable runtime and for moderate step sizes, is orders of magnitude better than that of the classical Boffetta-Osborne method.


Conventio nal oral drug delivery systems supply an instantaneous release of drug, which cannot control the release of the drug and effe ctive concentration at the target site. This kind of dosing pattern may result in constantly changing, unpredictable plasma concent rations. Drugs can be delivered in a controlled pattern over a long period of time by the process of osmosis. Osmotic devices are the most promising strategy based systems f or controlled drug delivery. They are the most reliable controlled drug delivery sy stems and could be employed as oral drug delivery systems. Various patents available for osmotic drug delivery system like Rose - Nel son pump, Higuchi leeper pump, Higuchi Theeuwes pump, Elementary Osmotic pump etc. ODDS are useful for poorly soluble drug, f or pulsatile drug release, zero order release. Various techniques available for preparation of ODDS include push pull osmotic Pump, osmotic Brusting osmotic pump, liquid oral osmotic system, sandwiched osmotic tablets , delayed delivery osmotic device, mon olithic osmotic System and controlled porosity osmotic Pump. Osmotically controlled oral drug delivery systems utilize osmotic pressure for controlled delivery of active ag ents. These systems can be utilized for systemic as well as targeted delivery of dru gs. The release of drugs from osmotic systems is governed by various formulation factors such as solubility and osmotic pressure of the core components, size of the delivery orifice, and nature of the rate - controlling membrane. In this Paper mainly focused on the Osmotic System with example, the basic component of osmotic system and evaluation parameter of the osmotic drug delive ry system.


This paper addresses the problem of the joint target tracking and classification based on data fusion. In traditional methods, a separate suite of sensors and system models are used, target tracking and target classification are usually treated as separate problems. In our JTC framework, the link between target state and class is considered and the feasibility of JTC techniques is discussed. The tracking accuracy and classification probability are improved to some extent with the more accurate classification results from classifier based on data fusion feedback to state filter.


The conjunctural swing in the early 1970s resulted in new Reearch on long waves of the 'Kondratieff type. Previous theories seemed to have lost their explanatory power when confronted with the atypical fluctuations of certain variables (prices, production, etc.). It became necessary to formulate and verify new hypotheses to explain the original features of the structural crisis that was assuming shape. The present paper in part responds to this need. It postulates a relation between expenditure on human development (wages, education, health care, etc.) and on material growth. We assume that there was a qualitative development of the labour force until 1945 during long phases of economic difficulties; subsequently, this development tended to worsen during prosperous periods. This phenomenon is explained by the hypothesis that until the eve of World War II, the development of the socio-economic system was based on an alternation between the quantitative development of material accumulation and employment on the one hand, and the qualitative development of labour force and capital through technological innovation on the other hand. This qualitative development of the labour force during the long depression phase may account for the strong increase in expenditure on human development. Newly created conditions made it possible to take into account the necessary development of the labour force – especially the development of its qualitative aspect; this structural change could render the productive forces more efficient, thus opening the way for a new accumulation cycle. The reversal of the cycle after ∗ Address all communications to Claude Diebolt, LAMETA/CNRS-Université Montpellier I, Espace Richter, Avenue de la Mer, B.P. 9606, 34054 Montpellier Cedex 1, France. Tel.: 33(0)184.108.40.206.23. Fax.: 33 (0)184.108.40.206.83, E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com.


The reduction of the organic matter concentration of hospital wastewater is expressed in BOD 5 and COD. The treatment was developed using a micro-nanobubble generator with continuous system. Micro-nanobubbles of 0.024μm average diameter were obtained. For the treatment, two samples were taken; Sample 1 (at 8:00 a.m.) and show 2 (at 11:00 a.m.). After applying the treatment with ozone-air micro-nanobubbles, it was possible to reduce the initial concentrations of sample 1: BOD 5 from 132mg/L to 14mg/L, COD from 374mg/L to 30mg/L and from sample 2: BOD 5 from 127mg/L to 21mg/L and COD from 297mg/L to 36mg/L. The efficiency obtained at 15 minutes of sample 1 of BOD 5 was 90.2% and of COD was 92.51% and of sample 2 of BOD 5 was 83.5% and of COD was 87.9%.


SUBTITLE: STEVE DUNNE LOOKS AT HOW SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS IS POSITIONING ITSELF TO BE THE PREMIER AIRLINE TO SOUTH AFRICA.


The paper describes the basic dynamic characteristics of two free-standing lattice towers obtained by a free-vibration analysis. For one of these towers, measurements of the resonant dynamic response to wind action are described. The along-wind response varies approximately as the mean wind speed to the power of 2.5.


The present invention is in the field of TNF signaling. Compounds that can modulate TNF trimer signaling through the receptor have been identified. Accordingly, a method for identifying such compounds is provided. The compound itself is useful in therapy.


Rotary coupon test,electrochemical polarization curves and impendence method were used to study the corrosion inhibition and formed a layer of film performance of three kinds of different octadecylamines(ODA).At the same time,by using SEM the film performance of its gaseous and liquid phase was studied at the high temperature of a modified ODA.The results show that the inhibition of modified ODA is excellent and it can form a layer of hydrophobic film with good protective effect on the metallic surface, so it can be used in the shut down thermal power equipment.


In a previous study, alimentary secretions and sera were obtained from 49 human subjects (1). Immunoglobulin A was found to predominate in parotid saliva. Duodenal specimens were reported to contain IgA, IgM, IgG and IgD. The apparent lack of a uniform distribution of the four major classes of immunoglobulins led us to feel that this was a real phenomenon. This seemed to be supported by the association of locally produced anti-BSA with immunoglobulins other than IgG in 9 of 31 subjects without circulating anti-BSA, as well as apparent antibody associated with IgG, IgA and IgM in duodenal contents from most of the subjects with high amounts of circulating anti-BSA. The purpose of this communication is to present follow-up data which demonstrate that the conclusions reached in the previous report were based on what now appear to be false-positive immunodiffusion and radio-immunodiffusion studies.


In the EU Horizon 2020 Shift2Rail Multi-Annual Action Plan, the challenge of railway maintenance is generating knowledge from data and/or information. Therefore, we promote a novel concept called " ...


Alpha radiation is known to exist in outer space and presents a potential hazard in manned space flight. An important technical point in devising protective methods is precise knowledge as to how alpha radiation damages the brain. Previous studies by other investigators have resulted in differing opinions concerning the primary site of radiation brain damage. One widely held opinion has been that the primary damage is to the blood vessels of the brain. This study, which used sensitive new methods to show the early effects of alpha radiation on the brains of rats, indicates that damage primarily occurs in the ceils of brain tissue itself and that blood vessel injury is secondary.


In this paper, a new matrix-based approach for differential noise figure measurement will be presented. Passive components used for embedding a differential device into a single ended test setup are characterized by their noise correlation matrices. Then, signal transfer via the component chain is described by chain matrices. Determining the output referred noise correlation matrix of the device under test this way, a noise figure can be denoted.


Since Adam Smith published his book The Wealth of Nations in 1776, it marked the birth of political economics and represented the beginning of all the studies of political economics. But when Adam Smith's ideas were really applied to reality, many problems arose, such as the overflow of social Darwinism and the outbreak of the economic crisis. On this basis, the author puts forward "national political economy", expecting to solve a series of problems that have occurred and may occur through "national political economy" and its ideas, and ultimately improve the current economic system and political system. This article mainly has a basic exposition of "national political economy", and puts forward the policy to solve the current problems.


Combined heat and power (CHP) is an energy-saving method in which electricity and heat are produced simultaneously. Nowadays, due to increased energy consumption, high losses of power transmission and low efficiency of electricity generation, the use of combined heat and power production has been considered. In order to make effective use of cogeneration units, the economic dispatch of combined heat and power (CHPED) was introduced. In the economic dispatch of electricity and heat (CHPED), the goal is to find the optimal point of production of electricity and heat with a minimum fuel cost So that both heat and electricity demand will be met. In this paper, a new hybrid optimization algorithm called the Black Hole-Collective Decision Optimization Algorithm (BH-CDOA) is introduced for CHPED. The feasible operating limits for cogeneration units include both power and heat demand in which both are functions of each other. Thus, it forms the complex inequality constraint which should be handled for satisfactory operation of CHP units within their capacity limits. In order to consider the constraint area of the operation of the cogeneration units, Euclidean distance method is used which determines if the solution is not contained within the feasible region, the violated values are made to contribute as penalty based on Euclidean distance in the objective function. The objective functions are also considered economically and the problem is studied on a 4-unit system including 1 unit of electricity, 2 units of cogeneration and 1 unit of heat generation. The results will show the effectiveness of the proposed method.


This article deals with the role of innovation processes in organisations and presents an interdisciplinary approach to this crucial issue. The study focuses on the role of managers as information providers. It is found that most managers are aware of the significance of information systems for strategic decision-making and that such management information systems facilitate top management when making complex, far-reaching and unpredictable decisions. It is argued that implementing new technologies not only requires the purchasing of sophisticated equipment but also the introduction of an integral system. The balance of all factors of success is, after all, the principal objective of innovation processes in any organisation. The search for a way to accomplish a dialectical system of innovation preconditions is thus related to the research on comprehension of quality significance in Slovenian Istria. By means of a survey on the quality precondition, 80 organisations in Coastal–Karst region have been examined. The results of the survey which deals with quality development in Coastal–Karst region show that organisations in this region are aware of the importance of quality and they consider it to be the key to having a competitive edge. However, the conditions of the business environment they operate in have not forced them yet to become more innovative. Therefore, this is not a systemic quality but rather one which gave a competitive edge thirty years ago; unfortunately, this does not work today.


Current liver cancer ablation methods are mainly thermal-based and inherently exhibit inconsistent tissue ablation due to irregular heat dissipation. Histotripsy is a non-thermal ultrasound (US) ablation method that fractionates tissue through the precise control of acoustic cavitation. This paper studies the feasibility and chronic effects of non-invasive histotripsy for liver cancer ablation in an in vivo murine HCC model.


If the plane acoustic wave hits a polyhedral angle, the scattered field consists of an incident wave, of its reflections from the angle's facets, of primary edge waves excited at angle's edges, and of a spherical wave excited at the angle's vertex. It is supposed for simplicity that the geometry of the problem is such that there is no secondary and subsequent edge waves. There are two types of light–shadow boundaries: first for incident and reflected waves and second for edge waves. As is well known, the field in penumbras is expressed via a Fresnel integral. The incident wave's ray passing through the vertex and its reflections from facets are singular rays belonging to the light–shadow boundaries of both types. It will be shown that the field in the vicinity of a singular ray is expressed via a Fresnel intergal and via a generalized Fresnel integral G(p,q) which was introduced in [P. S. Clemmov and T. B. A. Senior, Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 9, 570–572 (1953); see also V. A. Borovikov, Uniform Station...


Purpose: to evaluate parameters of ocular blood flow in subclinical atherosclerosis. Materials and methods. We observed 45 patients aged from 40 to 65 years. The methods of investigation of the blood flow in orbital vessels and carotid arteries included duplex ultrasonography, Color Doppler Imaging and spectral Doppler analysis. Retinal vascular caliber was measured by using digital retinal photographs. Results. Color Doppler Imaging and spectral Doppler analysis of ocular blood flow showed significant increase of vascular resistance in central retinal artery and short posterior ciliary arteries, dilatation of retinal venular caliber in cases of subclinical atherosclerosis. Retinal venular caliber was significantly larger in individuals with subclinical atherosclerosis. Conclusion. Ultrasound methods of investigation of ocular blood flow and measurement of retinal vessel caliber showed the changes of choroidal and retinal circulation in patients with subclinical atherosclerosis.


Texture characterization is a central element in many image processing applications. Multifractal analysis is a useful signal and image processing tool, yet, the accurate estimation of multifractal parameters for image texture remains a challenge. This is due in the main to the fact that current estimation procedures consist of performing linear regressions across frequency scales of the 2D dyadic wavelet transform, for which only a few such scales are computable for images. The strongly non-Gaussian nature of multifractal processes, combined with their complicated dependence structure, makes it difficult to develop suitable models for parameter estimation. Here, we propose a Bayesian procedure that addresses the difficulties in the estimation of the multifractality parameter. The originality of the procedure is threefold. The construction of a generic semiparametric statistical model for the logarithm of wavelet leaders; the formulation of Bayesian estimators that are associated with this model and the set of parameter values admitted by multifractal theory; the exploitation of a suitable Whittle approximation within the Bayesian model which enables the otherwise infeasible evaluation of the posterior distribution associated with the model. Performance is assessed numerically for several 2D multifractal processes, for several image sizes and a large range of process parameters. The procedure yields significant benefits over current benchmark estimators in terms of estimation performance and ability to discriminate between the two most commonly used classes of multifractal process models. The gains in performance are particularly pronounced for small image sizes, notably enabling for the first time the analysis of image patches as small as 64 × 64 pixels. Manuscript received October 9, 2014; revised March 26, 2015; accepted April 17, 2015. Date of publication April 24, 2015; date of current version May 7, 2015. This work was supported in part by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) through the BLANC 2011 Programme within the AMATIS Project under Grant BS0101102 and in part by ANR through the HYPANEMA Project under Grant ANR-12-BS03-003. The work of S. Combrexelle was supported by the Direction générale de l'Armement. The work of S. McLaughlin was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under Grant EP/J015180/1. The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Dr. Ivana Tosic. (Corresponding author: H. Wendt.) S. Combrexelle, H. Wendt, N. Dobigeon, and J.-Y. Tourneret are with the Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse Laboratory, National Petroleum Institute-École Nationale Supérieure d'Électronique, d'Électrotechnique, d'Informatique, d'Hydraulique et des Télécommunications, University of Toulouse, Toulouse 31062, France (e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com; firstname.lastname@example.com; nicolas.dobigeon@ enseeiht.fr; email@example.com). S. McLaughlin is with the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, U.K. (e-mail: email@example.com). P. Abry is with the Department of Physics, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Lyon 69007, France (e-mail: email@example.com). Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIP.2015.2426021


Forbes suggests that the potato be moved from its current "second class" status as a vegetable in the dietary pyramid to the base of the pyramid, noting that potatoes are an inexpensive source of energy and can prevent scurvy. I quite agree that potatoes do not belong in the vegetable category and that nutritionally they would fit better with the current pyramid base, which consists of grains without regard to their degree of refinement. However, just as for refined grain products, there is no good evidence that consumption of potatoes should be promoted in a sedentary population in which overweight is the main nutritional problem. Like white bread, potatoes have a high glycemic index because they are rapidly converted to glucose after being consumed (1). As shown by Jeppesen et al (2) and many others (3), a high glycemic load causes hyperglycemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and low HDL cholesterol concentrations, especially in persons with some degree of underlying insulin resistance. Not surprisingly, we found potato consumption to be positively associated with risk of type 2 diabetes in men and women (3, 4). Also, a high glycemic load has been related to increased risk of myocardial infarction, except in those who are very lean (5). Although consumption of fruit and vegetables in general has been associated with reduced risks of many cancers, there has consistently been a lack of any apparent benefit from a high potato consumption (6, 7). As suggested by my colleague LH Kushi (personal communication, 1998), if potatoes are to be included in the dietary pyramid, the appropriate place appears to be in the apex along with sweets, to be eaten only sparingly.


What is the live birth rate of ovarian tissue transplantation and which factors are associated with the success rate?

 Live birth rate per transplanted woman is 26.5% and the success rate is associated with female age and first versus repeated transplantation.

 Live birth rates after tissue transplantations have been reported to be between around 24% and 41% per patient. Success rates seem to be negatively associated with increasing female age at the time of tissue cryopreservation and with pelvic radiation. Success rates are apparently not reduced after overnight transportation of tissue before freezing.

 Registry analysis of 244 transplantations in 196 women, performed by 26 centers of the FertiPROTEKT network from 2007 to 2019 with a follow up till 12/2020.

 Orthotopic transplantation was performed in 196 women, 191 with previous malignant and 5 with previous non-malignant diseases. Size of transplanting centers varied between 1 and 100 transplantations per center (average: 9.5 ± 19.6 transplantations). Factors possibly associated with success rate such as female age, first and repeated transplantation, experience of the transplanting center and overnight transportation of the tissue before freezing were analysed.

 Average age of all transplanted 196 women was 31.3 years (SD, standard deviation, 5.2) at the time of cryopreservation (range 17-44y) and 35.9 years (SD 4.8, range 23-47) at the time of first transplantation. Overall pregnancy rate was 30.6% (95% CI, 24.2-37.6%) per first transplantation and 32.7% (95% CI, 26.1-39.7) per patient. Overall live birth rate per first transplantation was 25.0% (95% CI, 19.1-31.7%) and per patient 26.5% (95% CI, 20.5-33.3%). Pregnancy and live birth rates were calculated and graphically expressed as a continuous function of age to allow estimation of success rates per age group. Success rate decreased with increasing age at the time of tissue freezing. Pregnancy rate after first transplantation was 34.5% (95% CI, 26.7-42.9%) in women <35y and 20.4% (95% CI, 10.6-33.5%) in women ≥35y.
 Pregnancy rate was higher after 1st transplantation (30.6% (95% CI, 24.2-37.6%)) compared to 2nd and more transplantations (11.8% (95% CI, 3.3-27.5%)).
 Pregnancy rates after 1st transplantation was higher in centers with ≥10 transplantations (35.1%) compared to centers with <10 transplantation (25.4%) (p = 0.12). Corresponding live birth rates were 27.0% and 18.6%.
 Success rates was not different in women with and without overnight transportation of tissue before cryopreservation.

 The data were drawn from a registry analysis. Data such as ovarian reserve and premature ovarian insufficiency were not available for all women. Data might be influenced by different follow up policies of the centers.

 The study reveals the high potential of ovarian tissue freezing and transplantation but only if freezing is performed in younger women. The study suggests to better focus on the first and not on repeated transplantations. It also opens the discussion if transplantation should rather be performed by experienced centres.

 Non


We envision a future in which telepresence is available to users any-time and anywhere, enabled by sensors and displays embedded in accessories worn daily, such as watches, jewelry, belt buckles, shoes, and eyeglasses. We present a collaborative approach to 3D reconstruction that combines a set of IMUs worn by a target person with an external view from another nearby person wearing an AR headset, used for estimating the target person's body pose and reconstructing their appearance, respectively.


Introduction: ICU delirium has been diagnosed in 60 to 85% of patients receiving mechanical ventilation and is undetected in many patients. Multiple studies document the need for detection and prevention of delirium. A key component to achieving recognition and treatment of delirium is daily interpr


Early detection of mental fatigue and changes in vigilance could be used to initiate neurostimulation to treat patients suffering from brain injury and mental disorders. In this study, we analyzed electrocorticography (ECoG) signals chronically recorded from two non-human primates (NHPs) as they performed a cognitively demanding task over extended periods of time. We employed a set of biomarkers to identify mental fatigue and a gradient boosting classifier to predict the performance outcome, seconds prior to the actual behavior response. An average F1 score of 75.4% ± 8.4% and 86.4%±6.6% was obtained for the two studied NHPs. Our preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility of detecting mental fatigue in healthy primates that could be used for closed-loop control of neurostimulation therapy.


The value of epinephrine in the treatment of asystole"5 and ventricular fibrillation697 has long been recognized. Treatment of acidosis has been emphasized as next in priority to the establishment of airway and relief of hypoxia in the management of cardiac arrest.* However, recommendations concerniilg dosage and mode of administration of various drugs used in resuscitation are primarily based on clinical impressions rather than on data from controlled experiments.


colonoscopy with incarceration of the colonoscope in an inguinal hernia. An 81-year-old man underwent colonoscopy for routine surveillance. He had a rather large left inguinal hernia that was not reducible. However, he had not presented for this disease before colonoscopy. After he was consciously sedated with pethidine hydrochloride, the procedure was performed without difficulty until the cecum was reached at approximately 120 cm. As the colonoscope was withdrawn, the colon was observed. However, at approximately 60 cm the colonoscope could not be withdrawn further although the lumen was clearly visible. Thus, the colonoscope appeared to be inexplicably frozen in position. On examining the left inguinal hernia, it became clear that the colonoscope had become incarcerated within the hernia sac and could not be withdrawn even with gentle external traction. The patient was taken immediately to the X-ray room, where the colonoscope together with a part of the small intestine was shown, as expected, to be within the hernia sac (l" Fig. 1). Under radiographic guidance, the colonoscope was slowly and carefully withdrawn by gentle traction without incident. The procedure was terminated, and the patient was referred to the surgery department for consideration for hernia repair. There have been two reports of restoration of this complication, with radiographic guidance [1] or by external manual pressure [2]. The presence of an inguinal hernia is not a contraindication to colonoscopy. However, a careful history and physical examination before colonoscopy are important because they can put the endoscopist on the alert for a potential hazard such as the one we encountered.


Following a protracted introduction of dichlothiazide to rats (20 mg/kg) and to dogs (5 mg/kg) there occurs a marked increase in the tubular secretion of the cardiotrast and passage of urates with urine. A single and long-term administration of the drug to dogs did not have any substantial effect on the maximal reabsorption of glucose.


Chryseobacterium indologenes PgBE177, isolated from the root tissue of a 4-year-old Panax quinquefolius plant, showed antagonistic activity against Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000, a bacterial pathogen. ABSTRACT Chryseobacterium indologenes PgBE177, isolated from the root tissue of a 4-year-old Panax quinquefolius plant, showed antagonistic activity against Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000, a bacterial pathogen. Here, we report the whole-genome sequence of C. indologenes PgBE177. The bacterium contains bacteriocin gene clusters and has the potential to stimulate plant growth.


We use a recently developed Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) method by Duan(2019) to solve the Sparse Index Tracking problem. This is essentially a problem of selecting P stocks from a set of N correlated stocks in a linear regression framework, and we solve this optimization problem using a bayesian computation technique. We compare our approach with the widely-used LASSO and find that 1) SMC selects a more economically diverse basket in terms of the sector composition and 2) statistically outperforms LASSO most of the time in terms of out of sample tracking error.


The article analyses the level and main factors of the professional mobility of Russia's working people. The level of mobility, measured by the number of working people who have changed the occupation obtained from a special professional training, makes up 39 per cent. This level is practically equal in all socio-demographic groups. Differences are mainly determined by the branch of the economy and the type of enterprise where respondents work. The changes of profession mostly affected the leastqualified labour force white collars and unqualified bluecollar workers. The motives of occupational change are principally determined by the socio-professional status of the workers, the branch -where they work, their educational attainment. The main motives are hopes for higher payment in a new occupation, facilitated employment, easier working conditions. People change professions also because of their moral ageing, low prestige, and lack of prospects. The potential professional mobility, i.e., the number of those -who are about to change occupation, is 10 per cent. The first place in it belongs to the motive of -work remuneration.


Abstract The collective effects of two heteroatoms on the total π-electron energy, resonance energy and charge distribution of alternant conjugated molecules are examined. Three general rules for the signs of these effects are formulated. All these rules are shown to have a common origin and are conse-quences of certain mathematical properties of graph propagators.


Since the debt crises of some European countries in 2011, the European Central Bank and some credit and financial authorities have often spoken about a credit crunch in Europe. They have said that banks have curbed credit access to the economic system, creating persistent problems for the European economy. The aim of this paper is to analyze the problem of the credit crunch in Europe from 2007 to 2014, taking as our sample three European countries: Austria, Italy and Greece. These are countries with different economic structures, so they represent a significant sample for our purposes. Using statistical analysis, we will measure the entity of the credit crunch. We will find that the credit crunch is indeed present in Europe, but maybe is not as dramatic as has been described. dropped during the last months of 2014. The ECB has made numerous loans to Eurosystem banks (the so-called Target Long Term Refinancing Operations, TLTRO), aimed at disbursing loans to the production system. The purpose of this article is to analyze the intensity of the credit crunch phenomenon in Europe and to understand if it has hit all European states equally during 2007-2014. In order to achieve these two aims, we will take a sample of three members of the European Union and of the Eurosystem: Austria, Italy and Greece. We will compare them not only among themselves, but also with the average level of Eurosystem credit supply, trying to interpret the data analysis in the light of economic happenings in the sample states.


Analyses of possible synergies between energy recovery and water management are essential for achieving sustainable advances in the performance of pressurized irrigation networks. Nowadays, the use of micro hydropower in water systems is being analysed to improve the overall energy efficiency. In this line, the present research is focused on the proposal and development of a novel optimization strategy for increasing the energy efficiency in pressurized irrigation networks by energy recovering. The recovered energy is maximized considering different objective functions, including feasibility index: the best energy converter must be selected, operating in its best efficiency conditions by variation of its rotational speed, providing the required flow in each moment. These flows (previously estimated through farmers' habits) are compared with registered values of flow in the main line with very suitable calibration results, getting a Nash–Sutcliffe value above 0.6 for different time intervals, and a PBIAS index below 10% in all time interval range. The methodology was applied to a Vallada network obtaining a maximum recovered energy of 58.18 MWh/year (41.66% of the available energy), improving the recovered energy values between 141 and 184% when comparing to energy recovery considering a constant rotational speed. The proposal of this strategy shows the real possibility of installing micro hydropower machines to improve the water–energy nexus management in pressurized systems.


Gender differences in the perceptions of PID disease, IgG replacement therapy and life situation - Data from the the national SwePID study


Under the macroscopical background of Chinese academic research transforming from classic to modern,this paper all-around arranged the research process and summarized some important achievements and deficiency in order to provide some beneficial reference and revelation for the study of ancient China history poems.


In this paper, we propose a novel spoken-text-style conversion method that can simultaneously execute multiple style conversion modules such as punctuation restoration and disfluency deletion without preparing matched datasets. In practice, transcriptions generated by automatic speech recognition systems are not highly readable because they often include many disfluencies and do not include punctuation marks. To improve their readability, multiple spoken-text-style conversion modules that individually model a single conversion task are cascaded because matched datasets that simultaneously handle multiple conversion tasks are often unavailable. However, the cascading is unstable against the order of tasks because of the chain of conversion errors. Besides, the computation cost of the cascading must be higher than the single conversion. To execute multiple conversion tasks simultaneously without preparing matched datasets, our key idea is to distinguish individual conversion tasks using the on-off switch. In our proposed zero-shot joint modeling, we switch the individual tasks using multiple switching tokens, enabling us to utilize a zero-shot learning approach to executing simultaneous conversions. Our experiments on joint modeling of disfluency deletion and punctuation restoration demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.


The top coal blasting technique is systematically studied and used in full mechanized caving working face 8911 of Xinzhouyao Mine of Datong Mining Administration.According to the research of fractal geometry and indoor blasting experiment,the triangle blasting hole scheme has the advantages of high energy utilization ratio and good blasting results. It is practically proved that the scheme can meet the need of the production in full mechanized caving method in hard coal seam.


LECTURE 15 Martingale property of Ito integral and Girsanov theorem Lecture outline • Continuity of Ito integral • Martingale property of Ito integral. Martingale representation theorem. Girsanov's theorem. • 15.1. Continuity and martingale properties of Ito process t t Ito process is a process of the form X(t) = X(0) + 0 U (s)ds + V (s)dB(s). The first part of 0 t this expression, 0 U (s)ds is a continuous function of t (recall from real analysis that Reimann integral is continuous in t). What about the Ito integral part? It turns out that there always exists a continuous version of the Ito integral. Theorem 15.1. Given V ∈ H 2 and T > 0 there exists an a.s. continuous stochastic process t Y (t) such that Y (t) = 0 V (s)dB(s) a.s. for all 0 ≤ t ≤ T. Namely, there exists a continuous t version of V (s)dB(s) on every finite interval. 0 t Note that the theorem does not imply that every version of 0 V (s)dB(s) is continuous. Can you think about two process which are a.s. equal to each other but one is a.s. continuous while the other is discontinuous everywhere? t Proof. Recall that V (s)dB(s) is the L 2 limit along any sequence of simple processes V n 0 satisfying t (15.2) E[ (V n (t) − V (t)) 2 dt] 0. → 0 Fix any such sequence V n and consider their corresponding Ito integral I t (X n). t Lemma 15.3. I t (V n) = 0 V n (t)dB(t) is a martingale.


Key results: This cooperation is expected to contribute to the following outcomes:1) Assisting the authorities in identifying and improving an integration of circular economy, solid waste management and renewable energy in the regulatory and practical framework, enhancing the implementation of provincial policies and action plans for circular economy, waste management and energy; 2) Provide assessments of the potential and pre-feasibility of circular economy, solid waste management and waste-to-energy development on the two islands under both current and improved framework condition; 3) Support and promote the foundation for private sector stakeholders' engagement and funding opportunities for waste-to-energy at Lombok and Riau Islands.


We report the results of static friction tests between column base and foundation stone of Japanese traditional timber buildings. Through the tests, we examined the effect of the shape of the column section, rotation angle of the column, the number of loading cycles on the variation of the static friction coefficient. The friction coefficient obtained from the test ranged from 0.7 to 0.9 in the first loading cycle. Up to 30% reduction was observed in the second loading cycle. In addition, we examined the friction coefficient between column base and concrete foundation, where the reduction in the second loading cycle was more significant.


Four-roller flow is the simplest two-dimensional non-planar disturbance that is consistent with periodic boundary conditions. In this paper we outline a new microscopic method of calculating the bulk properties of a two-dimensional four-roller flow system at a fixed k vector.


A validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computer code, ICRKFLO, was used to investigate the scale-up effects on the coke yields of thermal cracking riser factors. Comparisons were made for calculated coke yields of pilot- and commercial-scales riser units. Computational results show that the riser aspect ratio, reaction temperature, particle residence time, and particle/oil ratio have major impacts on the coke yield. A computational experiment was conducted to determine optimal operating conditions for a conceptual design of a commercial-scale riser unit. This experiment showed that the performance loss in scale-up from pilot to commercial scale may be almost completely recovered through optimizing the operating conditions after scale-up using the CFD simulations as a guide.


If Planned Parenthood - a tax-exempt organization bankrolled to a staggering extent by the government - won't hand over its internal audits or let the public know the details of its operations, our government should stop handing over the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars to the organization.


English for business contracts is a quasi-ELL (English language of law) having accurate, formal and precise words with stylistic meaning. This paper, based on the analysis of typical examples, discusses the lexical characteristics of English for business contracts from the perspectives of literary words, technical terms, archaisms,loanwords, juxtaposition of synonyms and hedging.


SIGNIFICANCE
The incidence of cataract surgery is increasing, accounting for a large percentage of eye care expenses. Scientific evidence supporting the medical necessity of the traditional postoperative schedule is lacking. Further studies are needed to optimize postoperative care to reduce the burden on patients and medical providers.

PURPOSE
To study the rate of complication one week after uncomplicated phacoemulsification to determine if the one-week postoperative examination can be safely omitted.

METHODS
A retrospective record review was conducted on all consecutive patients who had uncomplicated phacoemulsification between February 1, 2019, and February 1, 2020, at a clinic in an urban setting with a predominantly black and African American patient population. Subjects were included if they had no complications during the one-day postoperative examination. Complications at the one-week and one-month postoperative examination were recorded and analyzed.

RESULTS
Omitting the one-week postoperative examination would result in missed complications in 4.48%-15.97% of patients and failure to make unexpected management changes in 1.78% to 13.84% of patients.

CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study do not support omitting the one-week postoperative examination after uncomplicated phacoemulsification. Further studies are needed to determine whether telemedicine can be safely substituted for postoperative examinations.


DOI: 10.1002/admi.201600767 limitations for widespread application, and the source of photo thermal agent suitable to be applied onto biomedical devices surface coating is far away from sufficient. Polydopamine (PDA) is well known for its selfpolymeri zation of dopamine to form surfaceadherent nanocoating on wide range of materials.[18] Further, the excellent biocompatibil ities and versatile secondary reactions boost the PDA coating in diverse uses.[19] More important, PDA has latent photothermal feature. For example, Liu et al. reported the dopaminemelanin colloidal nanosphere as a novel agent for photothermal thera peutic, of which the conversion efficiency is as high as 40%, enabling to elevate local temperature up to ≈58 °C for in vivo cancer treatment.[20] We thus envision that PDA could be applied for photothermal killing of microbes. While, whether or not a PDA coating with ultrathin thickness in nanoscale could achieve effective photothermal conversion for killing microbes is unexplored. In this study, PDA nanocoating was prepared by immersing substrate into a freshly prepared dopamine solution (2 mg mL−1, 10 mM Tris buffer, pH 8.5) with an open vessel contacting with atmospheric oxygen at ambient temperature (≈15 °C) for prediction intervals.[21] After that, the substrate with PDA coating was rinsed and dried for the following experiments. Ellipsometer was utilized to confirm the growth of PDA coating. As shown in Figure 1a, thickness of the PDA coating increased proportionally with the polymerization time, and a PDA coating with 28 nm thickness in light brown color was gained in 24 h, suggesting a successful controllable fabri cation of PDA nanocoating on substrate through the classical method.[18] Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of the PDA nanocoating (24 h polymerization) indicated a rough but uniform surface (Figure 1b), which should be ascribed to the deposition of nanoPDA aggregates during the forma tion of coating as previously reported studies.[22] Although the mechanism of dopamine polymerization remains incom pletely understood, the (dopamine)2/5,6dihydroxyindole (DHI) trimers, which are selfassembled physically via quadrupole– quadrupole, hydrogen bonding, π–π interactions, and dopa mine–DHI–DHI conjugates, which are formed via covalent bond, coexist in PDA structure.[23] Further, dopamine oligomers and a large number of PDA aggregates with various size deposit and stack on the surface through multiple interactions to form nanocoating,[24] which would provide great potential for photo thermal conversion.[20] Light absorption is requisite for eligible photothermal materials. As shown in Figure 2a, the PDA nanocoating exhibited a broad absorption ranging from visible to NIR wavelengths compared to bare glass slide. It is previously reported that electronic properties of π–π* transition of poly meric backbone benzenoid ring contributes to the broad Infection of pathogenic microbes has posted increasing threat to public health. Particularly, nosocomial infection, which is further exacerbated by antibioticresistant infections, claims hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide every year.[1,2] One of the most direct solutions to address this severe issue is devel oping antibacterial coating, which can undermine attachment and growth of pathogens.[3] There are three dominant strategies to combat and prevent the bacterial colonization on surfaces: adhesion resistance, contact killing, and biocide leaching.[4] However, the antiadhesion surfaces usually using hydrophilic compounds such as polyethylene glycol easily lose their func tions in varying environment such as dry conditions;[5] the contactkilling surfaces would suffer environmental contami nation and be toxicity to adhered mammalian cells possibly;[6] and in the case of biocide leaching surfaces, where antibi otics and heavy metal ions have been employed, lead to severe issue of antibioticresistance and dubious damage to human body and environment, respectively.[7] Alternative strategies to broaden the range of bactericidal surface design are therefore imperative.[2,8] Photothermal killing of microbes based on the materials that are capable to convert light into heat to destroy bacteria via various thermal effect such as denaturation of cell wall and proteins/enzymes[9] shows advantages over traditional antibac terial approaches.[10–12] Specifically, near infrared (NIR) irra diation (wavelength 700–1100 nm) is of eminent priority in biological applications due to its invasive penetration through tissue.[13] In addition, ≈55% of solar energy reaching the earth surface belongs to NIR region, providing an inexhaustible source for photothermal application.[10] Recently, various NIR photothermal materials have been explored for antibacterial applications in solution system, such as nanoparticles based on gold,[14] reduced graphene oxide (rGO),[15] polypyrrole,[16] and ferroferric oxide.[17] On the other hand, with the aim of designing photothermal bactericidal surface coating, polyani line[11] and rGO[10] have been employed in different coating sys tems, showing distinct thermal elevation (up to ≈45 °C−55 °C) upon NIR or solar irradiation, respectively. Consequently, more than 90% adhered bacteria were killed on these coatings. Nev ertheless, the methods based on multistep procedures have