There exist many situations in daily activities where people are exposed to hazardous environment including biohazard sites such as nuclear power plants, chemical laboratories, and fire sites. Every year, approximately 5000 US laborers working in hazardous environment are injured, and lose their lives when they are not found immediately [1] [2] . These workers may lose their lives due to direct external injuries. In addition to people who face dangerous situations in their working environment, elderly people may encounter emergency medical situations and/or may fall leading to accidental injuries. When a person falls, it is commonly defined as an activity that results in coming to rest on the ground, excluding intentional change in body positions [3] . A falling incident takes place mainly in medical emergency situations, such as cardiac arrest, hypoxia, hypoglycemia, arthritis, dizzy spells and other immediate life-threatening symptoms [4] . Falls and consequent injuries are major public health problems that often require medical attention especially to elderly population [5] - [13] . In addition, falls lead to 20% -30% of mild to severe injuries, and are underlying cause of 10% -15% of all emergency department visits [14] . Thus, it is crucial to identify the cause of the fall for accurate and prompt medical treatments. The cause can be identified by analyzing accelerometer and gyroscope data on the patient, but surrounding environment conditions must be also identified. The surrounding environment conditions include but not limited to temperature of the atmosphere, air pressure caused by elevation, humidity and GPS coordinates.

Every year, approximately 5000 US laborers working in hazardous environment are injured, and lose their lives when they are not found immediately.

When a person falls, it is commonly defined as an activity that results in coming to rest on the ground, excluding intentional change in body positions.

A falling incident takes place mainly in medical emergency situations, such as cardiac arrest, hypoxia, hypoglycemia, arthritis, dizzy spells and other immediate life-threatening symptoms.

Falls and consequent injuries are major public health problems that often require medical attention especially to elderly population.

In addition, falls lead to 20% -30% of mild to severe injuries, and are underlying cause of 10% -15% of all emergency department visits.


The international regulations are of a reactive nature, which means that they are usually revised after major accidents have occurred somewhere in the world [20] . In 1997, the IMO took a step towards proactivity by inviting its member governments and non-governmental organizations to apply formal safety assessment (FSA) when deemed necessary, to support the IMO's decision making [21] . In 2002 the IMO approved guidelines for FSA [22] . FSA is defined as "a rational and systematic process for assessing the risks relating to maritime safety and the protection of the marine environment and for evaluating the costs and benefits of IMO's options for reducing these risks". Since the initiative, a host of FSA studies have been submitted to the IMO [23] [24] [25] . As the FSA studies aim at enacting generic international regulations, they mainly focus on risks common to a particular type of ship or hazard, and rarely on risks of particular sea areas [26, 27, 20] . Thus, the recommendation given by the IMO to conduct FSA provides a supportive, but not sufficient basis for a proactive approach for the GoF.

The international regulations are of a reactive nature, which means that they are usually revised after major accidents have occurred somewhere in the world.

In 1997, the IMO took a step towards proactivity by inviting its member governments and non-governmental organizations to apply formal safety assessment (FSA) when deemed necessary, to support the IMO's decision making.

In 2002 the IMO approved guidelines for FSA.

Since the initiative, a host of FSA studies have been submitted to the IMO.

As the FSA studies aim at enacting generic international regulations, they mainly focus on risks common to a particular type of ship or hazard, and rarely on risks of particular sea areas.


Maritime safety in the GoF is managed basically by the same prescriptive international regulations that are found in all the world's seas [7] . The international regulations mainly relate to ship conditions, construction and equipment, mariners and management, and navigational instruments. The global rules are set down by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that brings together 168 states of the world as well as non-state actors, such as shipowners and environmental organizations, in order to achieve general acceptance [8] . At the level of the European Union (EU), the European Commission (EC) translates the regulations, determined at the IMO, into binding laws, with the support of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) [9] . Further, the rules are adapted to regional conditions by the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (Helsinki Commission, HELCOM), an intergovernmental organization of nine Baltic coastal countries and the EU [7, 10] . Finally, the regulations are implemented by individual nations. Only in their territorial areas (up to 12 nautical miles from the coast) do the coastal states have an extensive right to arrange and govern issues such as piloting, Vessel Traffic Services (VTS), the maintenance of waterways and safety devices, nautical charting, and weather, water level and ice services [11, 7] .

Maritime safety in the GoF is managed basically by the same prescriptive international regulations that are found in all the world's seas.

The global rules are set down by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that brings together 168 states of the world as well as non-state actors, such as shipowners and environmental organizations, in order to achieve general acceptance.

At the level of the European Union (EU), the European Commission (EC) translates the regulations, determined at the IMO, into binding laws, with the support of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).

Further, the rules are adapted to regional conditions by the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (Helsinki Commission, HELCOM), an intergovernmental organization of nine Baltic coastal countries and the EU.

Only in their territorial areas (up to 12 nautical miles from the coast) do the coastal states have an extensive right to arrange and govern issues such as piloting, Vessel Traffic Services (VTS), the maintenance of waterways and safety devices, nautical charting, and weather, water level and ice services.


These international rules are widely regarded as the only possible way of managing safety at sea, because they ensure the principle of the freedom of navigation, guarantee uniform safety standards for all waters, and provide a coherent operational environment for shipping companies and seamen [11] [12] [13] . Still, the safety regime is criticized inter alia for being ineffective, diffuse and partial, too slow in its reactions, and incapable of addressing local shipping conditions and satisfying the needs of the most vulnerable sea areas [12] [13] [14] [15] . The limitations are manifested in efforts by individual states or regions to implement additional safety measures in their adjacent waters [16] [17] [18] 11] . Local measures are rarely supported by the IMO because they interfere with the integrity of global navigation [19, 11, 7] .

These international rules are widely regarded as the only possible way of managing safety at sea, because they ensure the principle of the freedom of navigation, guarantee uniform safety standards for all waters, and provide a coherent operational environment for shipping companies and seamen.

Still, the safety regime is criticized inter alia for being ineffective, diffuse and partial, too slow in its reactions, and incapable of addressing local shipping conditions and satisfying the needs of the most vulnerable sea areas.

The limitations are manifested in efforts by individual states or regions to implement additional safety measures in their adjacent waters.

Local measures are rarely supported by the IMO because they interfere with the integrity of global navigation.


A regional maritime risk governance framework would not only provide a forum for addressing the safety risks of shipping. It also provides the potential for enlarging stakeholder collaboration to other environmental issues related to shipping, such as sewage pollution, illegal discharges, the introduction of alien species, air pollution, and security issues, and even to other sectors affecting the sea, such as aquaculture, fishing, wind energy, leisure boating, and agriculture. Multi-sector stakeholder collaboration would reinforce the coordination of interrelated problems and facilitate the formation of an integrated approach to maritime spatial planning, which is seen as a key to governing the fragile Baltic Sea [150] .

Multi-sector stakeholder collaboration would reinforce the coordination of interrelated problems and facilitate the formation of an integrated approach to maritime spatial planning, which is seen as a key to governing the fragile Baltic Sea.


The global economy is based on an efficient transportation of goods among countries and continents, and today over 90% of the world's trade is transported by sea [1] . However, intense maritime traffic can have negative consequences, such as vessel accidents potentially leading to a loss of life and cargo, and detrimental impacts on the environment. Thus, there is an ever growing need for maritime safety measures to prevent and mitigate harmful consequences.

The global economy is based on an efficient transportation of goods among countries and continents, and today over 90% of the world's trade is transported by sea.


The evaluation has been carried out involving our colleagues, who visit and update the portal pages frequently, but do not know the underlying ontology in detail. Thus, some of the queries the users in our experiments asked the system contain keywords which do not correspond to entities in the knowledge base. Obviously, this is a problem for our approach as it violates assumptions A1' as well as the generic A1. According to our recall measure (43-52%), at least about half of the keyword queries fulfill assumption A1' and can thus be mapped to appropriate ontology elements. The higher precision of 69-85% on the other hand shows that, given that A1' is fulfilled, the generated query is correct in most cases. In fact, we found that most of the errors in our approach are produced in step 1. This means that the Lucene engine does not return the appropriate ontology elements in some cases. This problem could be for example addressed by integrating additional lexical knowledge about words as found in resources such as WordNet [12] .

This problem could be for example addressed by integrating additional lexical knowledge about words as found in resources such as WordNet.


The propensity of fuels to slag and foul boiler heat transfer surfaces can be predicted by means of laboratory based tests and measurements. Commonly used analytical techniques include testing the fusion characteristics of ash, measurements of ash viscosity and estimation of indices based on ratios of elemental oxides [8] [9] [10] . Despite the limitations associated with these techniques, they are still widely used to assess the tendency of various coals to slag and foul boiler heat transfer surfaces and have also been extended to biomass fuels for evaluation of the same [11] [12] [13] [14] .

Commonly used analytical techniques include testing the fusion characteristics of ash, measurements of ash viscosity and estimation of indices based on ratios of elemental oxides.

Despite the limitations associated with these techniques, they are still widely used to assess the tendency of various coals to slag and foul boiler heat transfer surfaces and have also been extended to biomass fuels for evaluation of the same.


The details regarding the various mechanisms associated with deposit formation and important elements and mineral species in fuels that contribute to slagging and fouling are well documented in the literature [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] . A number of these studies reveal that the formation of an initial melt phase greatly expedites the accumulation of ash deposits on boiler tubes, with a melt phase of as little as 10% enough to initiate extensive deposit formation [20] . Ash fusion temperature(AFT) testing is a widely used laboratory technique in this regard, since it gives an indication of the melting behaviour of ash with respect to temperature. While ash fusion measurements take into account visual changes such as change in shape of specimen caused by viscosity changes, improved knowledge of change in mass of the ash on heating, gas phase release etc can be obtained by techniques such as simultaneous thermal analysis.

The details regarding the various mechanisms associated with deposit formation and important elements and mineral species in fuels that contribute to slagging and fouling are well documented in the literature.

A number of these studies reveal that the formation of an initial melt phase greatly expedites the accumulation of ash deposits on boiler tubes, with a melt phase of as little as 10% enough to initiate extensive deposit formation.


Azo dyes are synthetic organic chemicals widely used in textile, pulp and paper, plastic, pharmaceutical, food, paint and other industries. They are characterized by the presence of at least one nitrogen-to-nitrogen double bond (-N=N-) bearing aromatic rings, and they dominate the worldwide market of dyestuff with a share of about 70 % (Soares et al. 2002) . Furthermore, some azo dyes and their dye precursors have been proven or are suspected to be human carcinogens as they generate toxic aromatic amines (Stylidi et al. 2003) . Therefore, colour removal has drawn an increasing attention of scientists, as indicated by the multitude of related research reports.

They are characterized by the presence of at least one nitrogen-to-nitrogen double bond (-N=N-) bearing aromatic rings, and they dominate the worldwide market of dyestuff with a share of about 70 %.

Furthermore, some azo dyes and their dye precursors have been proven or are suspected to be human carcinogens as they generate toxic aromatic amines.


Sequence or interactive behavior of a user interface-as opposed to layout-is just such a problem; we need to invent appropriate visual representations for it in order to use visual programming. Current interface builders usually handle behavior by providing a fixed set of predefined interactive behaviors. They are the familiar screen buttons, sliders, scrollbars, and other commonly-used widgets. Their interactive behaviors have been defined by the programmer of the toolkit using a conventional programming language; the: user interface designer merely decides where these predefined objects should be placed on the screen. It is generally difficult lor impossible for him or her to change their interactive behaviors or to create new objects with new belhaviors within the toolkit interface. Next-generation interfaces will introduce new objects with new types of interactive behaviors. The designer needs a scheme for designing and programming the actual, internal interactive belhaviors. Such languages may well be visual, and the designer may use v w a l programming techniques with them [16] . But they will require new visual languages, to describe sequence or behavior, not just a picture of the layout of the screen or virtual world.

Such languages may well be visual, and the designer may use v w a l programming techniques with them.


Rogue AVs typically find their way into victim machines in two ways. First, social engineering techniques can be used to convince inexperienced users that a rogue tool is legitimate and that its use is necessary to remediate often nonexistent or exaggerated threats found on the victim's computer. A second, stealthier technique consists of attracting victims to malicious web sites that exploit vulnerabilities in the client software (typically, the browser or one of its plugins) to download and install the rogue programs without any user intervention (e.g., through drive-by downloads). After a rogue AV is installed on a victim's machine, it uses a number of techniques to convince (or force) a user to pay for additional tools or services, such as a "full version" of the program or the subscription to an update service. The cost of these additional programs or services ranges from $30-$100 [8] .

The cost of these additional programs or services ranges from $30-$100.


In condensed matter theory, the low energy physics is more commonly described by Lifshitz theory with hyperscaling violation which breaks both Lorentz and scaling invariances of the theory. The gravitational dual can be constructed by introducing a dilaton field such that the spacetime is Lifshitz up to an overall dilaton scaling factor that violates the scaling symmetry [13, 15, 14, 16] . Many Lifshitz-like solutions with hyperscaling violations have been found in literature [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] . In section 3, we demonstrate that by introducing a dilaton, the hyperscaling violation is also possible in our system. In section 4, we present some exact black hole solutions that are asymptotic to the Lifshitz spacetimes with or without hyperscaling violations. We present similar four-dimensional solutions in section 5. The paper is concluded in section 6.

The gravitational dual can be constructed by introducing a dilaton field such that the spacetime is Lifshitz up to an overall dilaton scaling factor that violates the scaling symmetry.

Many Lifshitz-like solutions with hyperscaling violations have been found in literature.

The paper is concluded in section 6.


In recent years, there is a growing interest in sharing personal opinions on the Web, such as product reviews, economic analysis, political polls, etc. These opinions cannot only help independent users make decisions, but also obtain valuable feedbacks (Pang et al., 2008) . Opinion oriented research, including sentiment classification, opinion extraction, opinion question answering, and opinion summarization, etc. are receiving growing attention (Wilson, et al., 2005; Liu et al., 2005; Oard et al., 2006) . However, most existing works concentrate on analyzing opinions expressed in the documents, and none on how to represent the information needs required to retrieve opinionated documents. In this paper, we focus on opinion retrieval, whose goal is to find a set of documents containing not only the query keyword(s) but also the relevant opinions. This requirement brings about the challenge on how to represent information needs for effective opinion retrieval.

These opinions cannot only help independent users make decisions, but also obtain valuable feedbacks.

Opinion oriented research, including sentiment classification, opinion extraction, opinion question answering, and opinion summarization, etc. are receiving growing attention.


Several anonymity designs have been proposed in the literature with the objective of hiding senders' identities. From simple proxies to complex systems, anonymity networks can offer either strong anonymity with high latency (useful for high latency services, such as email and usenet messages) or weak anonymity with low-latency (useful, for instance, for Web browsing). The most widely-used low-latency solution for traditional Internet communications is based on anonymous mixes and onion routing [1] . Nowadays, it is distributed as a free software implementation known as Tor (The onion router [2] ). It can be installed as an end-user application on a wide range of operating systems to redirect the traffic of low-latency services with a very acceptable overhead. Tor's objective is the protection of privacy of a sender as well as the contents of its messages. To do so, it transforms cryptographically those messages and mixes them via a circuit of routers. The circuit routes the message in an unpredictable way. The content of each message is encrypted for every router in the circuit, with the objective of achieving anonymous communication even if a set of routers are compromised by an adversary. Upon reception, a router decrypts the message using its private key to obtain the following hop and cryptographic material on the path. This path is initially defined at the beginning of the process. Only the entity that creates the circuit knows the complete path to deliver a given message. The last router of the path, the exit node, decrypts the last layer and delivers an unencrypted version of the message to its target.

The most widely-used low-latency solution for traditional Internet communications is based on anonymous mixes and onion routing.

Nowadays, it is distributed as a free software implementation known as Tor (The onion router).


Zirconium (Zr) alloy (or Zircaloy2) has many useful properties for applications in nuclear facilities, such as low absorption cross-section of thermal electrons, high ductility, good fabricability, hardness, and corrosion resistance [4, 5] . Therefore, these alloys are used widely as cladding and guide tubes in pressurized water-cooled reactors. For nuclear reactor applications, the existence of hafnium (Hf), which can be found in zirconium ore at 1-3 wt%, should be avoided because of its high thermal neutron cross section. Owing to their similar physical and chemical properties with almost identical ionic radii (0.074 mm for Zr 4+ , 0.075 mm for Hf 4+ ), the separation of these elements is a challenge, leading to many intricate processing steps for producing Hf-free Zr in commercial nuclear reactor applications. In particular, a purification step is one of the core and harshest steps to determine the required Zr purity.

Zirconium (Zr) alloy (or Zircaloy2) has many useful properties for applications in nuclear facilities, such as low absorption cross-section of thermal electrons, high ductility, good fabricability, hardness, and corrosion resistance.


Distillation has attracted considerable attention for Zr purification because of its potential for clean separation and many other advantages for a large scale production, such as fewer unit operations and chemical consumption, higher overall yield, and less effluent [17, 18] . On the other hand, because distillation utilizes the volatility difference of the components associated with the vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE), the close boiling points of ZrCl4 and HfCl4 with narrow and harsh conditions for the vapor-liquid phase existence limits the distillation applications: a large number of separation stages are required in the column to bring HfCl4 to an acceptably low level; stringent temperature control and a confining pressure are needed to manage the VLE; and the column material must withstand high temperatures and pressures. Note that ZrCl4 and HfCl4 are solids at normal temperatures and sublime when heated under normal pressure. The physical properties of these components are described elsewhere [21] .

Distillation has attracted considerable attention for Zr purification because of its potential for clean separation and many other advantages for a large scale production, such as fewer unit operations and chemical consumption, higher overall yield, and less effluent.

The physical properties of these components are described elsewhere.


Only a few studies have examined the association between HL and obesity, between HL and metabolic syndrome, and between HL and BMI among adult individuals [20, 21] . A cross-sectional study, which was conducted in the United States using the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) to measure HL, reported that BMI predicted adequate HL among adults (OR = 1.040, 95 % CI = 1.016-1.065) [23] . In another cross-sectional survey, which examined the association between HL measured by NVS and BMI among 364 native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in the United States, low NVS scores were associated with increased BMI (r = −0.12, P = 0.027) [24] . Associations between HL and child and adolescent obesity have also been reported [25, 26] . In one cross-sectional study that tested the association between child and parental HL (using NVS) and their obesity, children's obesity decreased with higher parental NVS (OR = 0.75, 95 % CI = 0.59-1.00), and increased with parental obesity (OR = 2.53, 95 % CI = 1.08-5.94) [25] . In a survey that examined the association between child HL using the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (STOFHLA) and BMI among 171 overweight children in the United States, child STOFHLA correlated negatively with BMI Z score (r = −0.37, P < 0.01) [26] . In this study, we also found that the proportion of ideal BMI (18.5-24.9) was higher in the higher HL group than in the lower HL group among men. This suggests that a higher HL may contribute to maintaining an ideal body weight. Thus, estimation of HL level may be useful and even necessary for lifestyle modification strategies. We also found an association between HL level and prevalence of metabolic syndrome among men. Metabolic syndrome represents clusters of cardiovascular risk factors, assuming that cardiovascular risk is amplified more than is expected from the effect of single risk factors [2] [3] [4] 27] . The risk of cardiovascular events and death was found to be markedly greater for individuals with metabolic syndrome compared to those without, regardless of the definition of metabolic syndrome [27] . Thus, preventing metabolic syndrome will be important for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. To date, only a few studies have assessed the association between metabolic syndrome and HL level, and correlations with chronic disease-related HL [28] . Additional studies will be needed to further explore these associations and correlations.

Only a few studies have examined the association between HL and obesity, between HL and metabolic syndrome, and between HL and BMI among adult individuals.

A cross-sectional study, which was conducted in the United States using the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) to measure HL, reported that BMI predicted adequate HL among adults (OR = 1.040, 95 % CI = 1.016-1.065).

In another cross-sectional survey, which examined the association between HL measured by NVS and BMI among 364 native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in the United States, low NVS scores were associated with increased BMI (r = −0.12, P = 0.027).

Associations between HL and child and adolescent obesity have also been reported.

In one cross-sectional study that tested the association between child and parental HL (using NVS) and their obesity, children's obesity decreased with higher parental NVS (OR = 0.75, 95 % CI = 0.59-1.00), and increased with parental obesity (OR = 2.53, 95 % CI = 1.08-5.94).

In a survey that examined the association between child HL using the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (STOFHLA) and BMI among 171 overweight children in the United States, child STOFHLA correlated negatively with BMI Z score (r = −0.37, P < 0.01).

Metabolic syndrome represents clusters of cardiovascular risk factors, assuming that cardiovascular risk is amplified more than is expected from the effect of single risk factors.

The risk of cardiovascular events and death was found to be markedly greater for individuals with metabolic syndrome compared to those without, regardless of the definition of metabolic syndrome.

To date, only a few studies have assessed the association between metabolic syndrome and HL level, and correlations with chronic disease-related HL.


Crop residue creates small ponds in which sedimentation may occur. The volume of water stored in individual impoundments, and corresponding amounts of sedimentation, may be small. However, the cumulative effect of a large number of ponds may be substantial (Brenneman and Laflen 1982) .

However, the cumulative effect of a large number of ponds may be substantial.


Breeding of sweet corn has several equally important aims that are directed by the market demands and different mode of consumption than field corn. The ear yield, in sweet corn is not the only and main goal of breeding. Morphological traits of the plant, ear and kernel and chemical composition of the kernel is also very important. Favorable traits for the hybrids that are used in industrial processing are uniformity of ear size, length and shape, proper kernel row configuration, depth, width and color of kernels, as well as quality of the taste (PAJIĆ et al., 2010) . Usually yellow kernel types of sweet corn hybrids are more popular for the fresh market consumption. Also nice and healthy appearance of the ear is very important, and the quality of the product such as sweetness, pericarp tenderness and creamy texture of the endosperm are crucial traits for this market.

Favorable traits for the hybrids that are used in industrial processing are uniformity of ear size, length and shape, proper kernel row configuration, depth, width and color of kernels, as well as quality of the taste.


Although hermetic compressor design does not generally start with the selection or design of the oil supply system, it becomes an important concern when the limiting operating conditions of a given bearing system are approached, for example, at low compressor rotation speeds. Therefore, simplified models that can be run at low computing costs are valuable in order to identify ranges of improved performance for a particular set of geometric parameters. So far, a considerable number of semi-analytical models of oil supply systems for hermetic compressors have been proposed in the literature (Cho et al., 2002; Kim et al., 2003; Kim, 2005; Alves et al., 2011) . It is obvious that the biggest advantage of semi-analytical models is the much shorter computing times than CFD-based models. However, the dependence on empirical correlations for a specific system component can be their main drawback, especially when a geometry optimization of the oil supply system is pursued.

So far, a considerable number of semi-analytical models of oil supply systems for hermetic compressors have been proposed in the literature.


When health care planners and authorities analyse possible solutions to tackle these problems, one of the main suggestions emerging it the need to increase the health care budget. Since most developing countries face economic constraints, this option appears difficult to implement. But if such an increase were feasible, it would not necessarily provide a real solution. In fact, using data from countries with higher health care budgets than Argentina, CENEXA has demonstrated that the quality of care provided was similarly poor in all of them [22] . These findings thus showed that the size of the health budget is not the main constraint for delivering good quality diabetes care and that there is a need to find more efficient interventions to improve health care quality.

In fact, using data from countries with higher health care budgets than Argentina, CENEXA has demonstrated that the quality of care provided was similarly poor in all of them.


Laminated composite shells are widely used in aircraft, aerospace, marine, automobile, power generation, and chemical industries. A shell is called shallow (deep) if its rise equals at most (at least) one-fifth of its smallest planform dimension [1] . A shell is termed thick, moderately thick, and thin if the ratio of the smallest curvilinear length and/or the smallest radius of curvature to the thickness is, respectively, at most 10, between 10 and 20, and at least 20 [1] .

A shell is called shallow (deep) if its rise equals at most (at least) one-fifth of its smallest planform dimension.

A shell is termed thick, moderately thick, and thin if the ratio of the smallest curvilinear length and/or the smallest radius of curvature to the thickness is, respectively, at most 10, between 10 and 20, and at least 20.


Already, in the very early investigations it has been back grounded that a surface in QDs represents an area with cation and anion dangling bonds, and various methods of surface passivation have been developed to eliminate influence of these defects on recombination [7, 10] . Nevertheless, as it was firstly predicted theoretically, intrinsic deep levels may exist even in well passivated QDs [11, 12] . During the last years, specific deep-level luminescence was consistently observed in CdTe and CdSe QDs [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] .

Already, in the very early investigations it has been back grounded that a surface in QDs represents an area with cation and anion dangling bonds, and various methods of surface passivation have been developed to eliminate influence of these defects on recombination.

Nevertheless, as it was firstly predicted theoretically, intrinsic deep levels may exist even in well passivated QDs.

During the last years, specific deep-level luminescence was consistently observed in CdTe and CdSe QDs.


The wide bandgap II-IV halcogenides semiconductors, CdTe, CdSe, and CdS, have gained great interest of researchers for decades [1] . They are successively used for light emitters and detectors, substrates for epitaxy, thermoelectric converters, radiation detectors, etc. Nanocrystals (NCs) of these materials in glasses have been used for a long time for optical filters [1] [2] [3] [4] . But the most important is that the optical and electronic properties of these semiconductors can vary with decreasing the size of NCs. When the size of NCs is comparable with the Bohr exciton radius, an exciton movement is spatially restricted due to quantum confinement effect [5] [6] [7] . Arbitrarily, small, mostly spherical NCs with a radius less than the Bohr exciton radius also referred to as quantum dots (QDs) in which carrier motion is restricted in all three dimensions. QDs are already well-known phosphors, bearing considerable potential for novel optoelectronic devices and light emitters.

The wide bandgap II-IV halcogenides semiconductors, CdTe, CdSe, and CdS, have gained great interest of researchers for decades.

Nanocrystals (NCs) of these materials in glasses have been used for a long time for optical filters.

When the size of NCs is comparable with the Bohr exciton radius, an exciton movement is spatially restricted due to quantum confinement effect.


Cognitive radio (CR) was proposed to make use of the existing wireless spectrum opportunistically without causing harmful interference or collisions to the primary users (PUs) [1] . Cognitive radio ad hoc networks (CRAHNs) are networks with mobile CR devices working without the support of any fixed infrastructure or central administration. Since the topology of a CRAHN can change rapidly and unpredictably, efficient routing is difficult to achieve in CRAHNs. Routing path in CRAHNs may break frequently due to dynamic network topology. If any single link of a path breaks, then this path needs to be either locally repaired by finding another link if possible or globally replaced with a new path by rerouting. Route repair or rerouting will induce more energy consumption, waste the scarce radio resources, and degrade end-to-end network performance such as throughput and delay [2] . Thus, an optimal path in CRAHNs should first be stable and reliable to avoid frequent rerouting operations. The stability of a path depends on the availability of all links constituting this path.

Cognitive radio (CR) was proposed to make use of the existing wireless spectrum opportunistically without causing harmful interference or collisions to the primary users (PUs).

Route repair or rerouting will induce more energy consumption, waste the scarce radio resources, and degrade end-to-end network performance such as throughput and delay.


Over the past decade there have been several studies that have described why cities have been proactive in joining ICLEI's (Local Governments for Sustainability's) Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign (Bulkeley and Betsill, 2003; Sharp et al., 2010; Anguelovski and Carmin, 2011) . Like many climate policy initiatives at all levels, CCP was originally focused on actions cities could do to mitigate climate change, that is, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that several different types of factors predict the likelihood that cities with join CCP. Thus far there has much less emphasis on adaptation within the climate agendas of most CCP cities (Bulkeley, 2010) . Research focused on CCP can be instructive however to a point on why cities take action regarding climate change.

Over the past decade there have been several studies that have described why cities have been proactive in joining ICLEI's (Local Governments for Sustainability's) Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign.

Thus far there has much less emphasis on adaptation within the climate agendas of most CCP cities.


Centromerus sylvaticus is known to be active in the winter under the snow layer in central Canada (Aitchison 1978) . The entire genus is apparently winter active, with a cold season reproductive peak (Kronestedt 1968; Merrett 1969; Huhta & Viramo 1979; Draney 1997b) . Centromerus sylvaticus has a low optimal temperature for postembryonic growth, which results in slow growth during the summer months, delaying maturity until late fall or winter (Schaefer 1977) . In southern England, males and females peak in December and January, and females survive until July. Our data, showing high numbers of individuals in fall and none in the spring, may indi-cate that in harsh winter climates, reproduction occurs before winter, and adults do not generally survive to the next spring.

Centromerus sylvaticus is known to be active in the winter under the snow layer in central Canada.

The entire genus is apparently winter active, with a cold season reproductive peak.

Centromerus sylvaticus has a low optimal temperature for postembryonic growth, which results in slow growth during the summer months, delaying maturity until late fall or winter.


The LFR typically uses flat mirror elements of equal width to focus the sun's rays onto a linear central receiver supported by a tower (see Figure 1) . A well designed receiver can increase the performance considerably. Several receiver designs exist, with configurations using simple pipes, plates, evacuated tubes and secondary concentrating devices [8] .

Several receiver designs exist, with configurations using simple pipes, plates, evacuated tubes and secondary concentrating devices.


Little is known about the mechanisms of desensitization for non-immediate reactions. Both regulatory T cells and anti-drug antibodies have been proposed as mediators to suppress drug specific T cells. Regulatory T cells are believed to moderate allergic diseases through inducing immune tolerance [12] [13] [14] . It is possible that during desensitization effector T cell responses are controlled by these regulatory cells.

Regulatory T cells are believed to moderate allergic diseases through inducing immune tolerance.


Colour parameters: hue and colour intensity. The hue value of the spirit for all experiments was similar, regardless of the characteristics of the oak fragment. Hue mean value in Q. petraea was 4.70 and in Q. alba 4.89. These values were similar to the mean values recorded in previous research of this group (data not shown) for distillates aged in barrels for 1-6 years: 5.26 for Q. petraea and 5.39 for Q. alba. These hue values reveal that there is no difference between oak fragments and barrels in aged spirits. The values of colour intensity, however, are much lower in spirits aged in contact with oak fragments (Table 3 ) than those obtained in barrels: 0.7 is the minimum value, and it was obtained in spirits aged in Q. alba barrels, while the maximum value was the 2.3 obtained in spirits aged in Q. robur (from Galicia) (Rodríguez-Solana et al. 2014c) .

The values of colour intensity, however, are much lower in spirits aged in contact with oak fragments (Table 3 ) than those obtained in barrels: 0.7 is the minimum value, and it was obtained in spirits aged in Q. alba barrels, while the maximum value was the 2.3 obtained in spirits aged in Q. robur (from Galicia).


Our framework involves four main phases and for each one we present a mechanism to support and assist its concretization. In the first phase, by means of interviews, we build a business case table. The table captures the various cases that a business process describes. The basic property of a process is that it is case-based (Aalst 1998) . This means that every task is executed for a specific case.

The basic property of a process is that it is case-based.


Glyphosate passes through the cuticle at moderate speed, requiring, on average, six hours without raining, after application to have adequate control of susceptible plants. It is possible that the relatively slow absorption of glyphosate occurs due to the very low value of octanol to water (-4) compared to other herbicides which give low lipophilicity and high solubility in water. Thus, new formulations have surfactants to provide greater apolarity to the solution that facilitates the absorption of the inhibitors (EPSPs) by the leaves (Velini, 2009; Mac Isaac et al., 1991) .

Thus, new formulations have surfactants to provide greater apolarity to the solution that facilitates the absorption of the inhibitors (EPSPs) by the leaves.


The spectrum sensing must be performed efficiently by cognitive radio in the dynamically changing environment to detect the presence of primary user over a wide range of the spectrum. If the secondary user (SU) is in deep fade due to severe multipath fading may not detect the primary user and start using the spectrum already occupied by the primary, may cause the interference to primary user is referred hidden node problem [3] . To deal with the problems of propagation losses and interferences, cooperative spectrum sensing is one of best technique used. In the cooperative spectrum sensing approach every secondary user independently observe the presence or absence of primary by periodic sensing, and transmit the sensing information to the cognitive radio fusion center is referred information fusion or soft fusion which requires high bandwidth control channel, the control channel bandwidth should be at least same as the bandwidth of the sensed channel. The cognitive radio makes the decision and transmit to fusion center is referred decision fusion or hard fusion which requires low bandwidth control channel.

If the secondary user (SU) is in deep fade due to severe multipath fading may not detect the primary user and start using the spectrum already occupied by the primary, may cause the interference to primary user is referred hidden node problem.


Recently, we reported the preparation of buckypapers composed entirely of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) [13] . No supporting membrane was present in these buckypapers, which were obtained by vacuum filtration of aqueous dispersions of SWNTs, which were prepared using either Triton X-100, or one of several macrocyclic ligands including a derivatised porphyrin and calixarene, to assist in formation of the dispersion. Microanalysis and Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopic examination of the buckypapers provided direct evidence for retention of the macrocyclic molecules within the structure of the membrane. Scanning electron microscopy and analysis of nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms showed that both the surface and internal morphologies of the buckypapers were strongly dependent on the macrocyclic molecules that had been incorporated into its structure during preparation. It was therefore not surprising that the permeability of the buckypapers towards water varied markedly.

Recently, we reported the preparation of buckypapers composed entirely of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs).


While our results suggest that almost finiteness and comparison are full-fledged dynamical analogues of their Toms-Winter counterparts, tower dimension and its relatives unfortunately fall short on this account, despite their utility in establishing finite nuclear dimension for crossed products of large classes of actions. The problem is that tower dimension, dynamical asymptotic dimension, and amenability dimension are too much affected by the dimensionality of the acting group and too little affected by the dimensionality of the space and its interaction with the dynamics (as captured by an invariant like mean dimension). On the side of the space, if we drop the assumption of finite-dimensionality then the implication (i)⇒(ii) fails, even for G = Z (Example 12.5). One can attempt to rectify this by imposing a small diameter condition on the tower levels in the definition of tower dimension (we call the resulting invariant the fine tower dimension) but one would not gain anything in the effort to relate dimensional invariants to almost finiteness and comparison since finite fine tower dimension already implies that dim(X) is finite. Even more serious is the structural restriction imposed from the side of the group: the tower dimension, dynamical asymptotic dimension, and amenability dimension are always infinite whenever G has infinite asymptotic dimension, which occurs frequently in the amenable case, an example being the Grigorchuk group. In contrast, a generic free minimal action of any countably infinite amenable group on the Cantor set is almost finite [4] . Given that tower dimension seems as close as we can come in dynamics to being able to formally mimic the definition of nuclear dimension, and that it connects naturally to dynamical m-comparison and nuclear dimension in one direction of logical implication, we will perhaps have to be content with the prospect that the Toms-Winter conjecture cannot be fully analogized within the coordinatized framework of group actions. On the other hand, it is conceivable that the tower dimension of a free minimal action G X is always finite when G is amenable and has finite asymptotic dimension and X has finite covering dimension. This is indeed what happens if we furthermore assume G to be finitely generated and nilpotent (see Example 4.9).

In contrast, a generic free minimal action of any countably infinite amenable group on the Cantor set is almost finite.


Driver behavior varies with ethnicity, gender, age, psychology and intoxication level. People in the age groups 18-25, 25-55 and 55+ have different cognitive and physical behavior and thus also different driving behavior [11] . Cognitive and physical behavior decline with age which increases the probability of accidents. The crash rate between ages 35-64 is three times less than at 65+ [12] . Older people can have difficulties moving their heads sideways to scan the traffic flow and there can be memory issues. Thus, reaction to changing conditions can be sluggish and is a major cause of accidents at intersections [11, 13] . Young drivers often exhibit limited horizontal road scanning behavior which is similar to the sluggish behavior of intoxicated drivers [14] . Drugs and alcohol change thought processes and typically lead to slow driving behavior. In 1972, teenagers in the US were five times more likely to die in a traffic accident than people in the 35-64 age group. Experienced drivers have a wide horizontal traffic scanning behavior. Thus, they quickly recognize changes in speed and density and so take less time to perceive and react than inexperienced drivers. Existing microscopic models do not characterize differences in driving behavior. To more accurately characterize traffic flow harmonization (alignment), a model is required which captures the effect of driver behavior [5] . This behavior can be characterized for specific groups such as intoxicated drivers, old and young drivers, and considering ethnicity and experience.

People in the age groups 18-25, 25-55 and 55+ have different cognitive and physical behavior and thus also different driving behavior.

The crash rate between ages 35-64 is three times less than at 65+.

Thus, reaction to changing conditions can be sluggish and is a major cause of accidents at intersections.

Young drivers often exhibit limited horizontal road scanning behavior which is similar to the sluggish behavior of intoxicated drivers.

To more accurately characterize traffic flow harmonization (alignment), a model is required which captures the effect of driver behavior.


This paper considers the behavior of vehicles as they harmonize to forward traffic conditions. The time for traffic harmonization is based on the front traffic stimuli, i.e. the time to react and align (harmonize) to the forward traffic. The time required to react is known as the reaction time, and the time for traffic alignment (harmonization) is known as the transition time [1] . The reaction distance is the distance travelled during the reaction time, while the transition distance is the distance covered during the transition time. The sum of the transition and reaction times is known as the safe time headway. This is the time required for the safe adjustment of velocity. The distance travelled during the safe time is known as the safe distance headway.

The time required to react is known as the reaction time, and the time for traffic alignment (harmonization) is known as the transition time.


The main types of traffic models are macroscopic, mesoscopic and microscopic. Macroscopic models consider the aggregate behavior of traffic flow while microscopic models consider the interaction of individual vehicles. These models include parameters such as driver behavior, vehicle locations, distance headways, time headways, and the velocity and acceleration of individual vehicles. Mesoscopic models share the properties of macroscopic and microscopic traffic models. These models characterize the influence of vehicles in close proximity and then approximate the cumulative temporal and spatial traffic behavior [3] . Macroscopic traffic models are typically employed due to their low complexity.

These models characterize the influence of vehicles in close proximity and then approximate the cumulative temporal and spatial traffic behavior.


At King Saud University, college of Medicine, medical ethics is being taught for about three decades (Aldughaither et al., 2012) . It is now taught for the third year students in the form of didactic, case-based lectures, casebased group discussions, and student assignments. The current study reports on one of the assignments in which the students present a real case with analysis of the relevant ethical issues.

At King Saud University, college of Medicine, medical ethics is being taught for about three decades.


As we knew, we could not expect continuity (and not even boundedness) of the gradient Du under continuous coefficients (or even more relaxed condition). The regularity result with continuous coefficients was already proved in eighties by Campanato [3, 4] . He proves that we could still expect local Hölder continuity of the solution u in special cases, for instance, in lower dimension n ≤ p + 2. The result with arbitrary dimension was given by Foss and Mingione [8] .

The regularity result with continuous coefficients was already proved in eighties by Campanato.

The result with arbitrary dimension was given by Foss and Mingione.


For all experiments, we run MCMC inference for at least 2000 iterations and fix model parametersθ,ẑ,η,F to the final sample. For all datasets except KTH, we use sequencespecific dynamics, as global sharing is likely not beneficial when temporal variability is significant. We use a fixed set of hyperparameters for all datasets, with transition weights α = 2 and κ = 10α, BP mass γ = 2, and BP concentration β 0 = 1 (as in the conventional IBP [6] ). We encourage moderately sparse emission distributions via λ θ = 0.75.

We use a fixed set of hyperparameters for all datasets, with transition weights α = 2 and κ = 10α, BP mass γ = 2, and BP concentration β 0 = 1 (as in the conventional IBP).


The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 formalized definition of basic concept and reconfiguration of service chain. Section 3 describes the definition of process constraint and integrity constraint in the Web services chain Reconfiguration. Section 4 explains min-conflict heuristic based regression search algorithms in detail. Section 5 presents the results of experiments and a comparison between our approach and WSPR [6] . The related work is discussed in section 6. The paper concludes in section 7 by summarizing the contributions of this novel technique and describing a few ideas for future work.

Section 5 presents the results of experiments and a comparison between our approach and WSPR.


In this work, the 10 GHz COEO is phase locked to a low noise local oscillator in order to reduce the close-in phase noise value. In this approach, two different actuators, one in the RF part and one in the optical part, are tested. The first actuator is the bias current of the semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) included in the mode-locked laser. The bias current is modulated by the command signal from the servo loop. Recently, there have been some publications on RF phase shifters based on current control of an SOA in a microwave photonic system [11] , [14] . This approach relies on Coherent Population Oscillations (CPO) in semiconductor structures [12] , [13] . The basic working principle of this approach is to change the group velocity using a sharp variation of the refractive index. This variation of the refractive index originates from the population oscillation induced by the pump and probe signals in a two level system. Based on this approach, biasing current of an SOA allows one to control the delay and phase shift of the RF output signal.

Recently, there have been some publications on RF phase shifters based on current control of an SOA in a microwave photonic system.

This approach relies on Coherent Population Oscillations (CPO) in semiconductor structures.


In this work, to take into account the unresolved modes in the surrogate dynamic model, we will rely on a recently proposed stochastic framework (Mémin, 2014; Resseguier et al., 2017a) . In this context, an advection of the large-scale component due to the action of the unresolved random component emerges naturally, together with an inhomogeneous nonstationary diffusion. This will lead us to consider corrective advection and diffusion terms driven by the turbulence inhomogeneity whose local effects can now be physically interpreted.

In this work, to take into account the unresolved modes in the surrogate dynamic model, we will rely on a recently proposed stochastic framework.


Nasal retainers alone are not sufficient to successfully elongate the columella. We have found that elevating the nostril to elongate the columella without pulling down the prolabium simultaneously results in loss of tensile strength. The addition of lip taping counteracts the effect of the nasal retainer by placing constant pressure on the prolabium. It is imperative, as Cutting stated, that a "saddle" be placed at the lip-columella junction to define the separation between lip and columella and allow the columella to be expanded along an anterior vector while tape is used to stretch the prolabium inferiorly [3] . The parents of the patients adjusted the lip taping to maintain the tension and also cleaned the retainer daily.

It is imperative, as Cutting stated, that a "saddle" be placed at the lip-columella junction to define the separation between lip and columella and allow the columella to be expanded along an anterior vector while tape is used to stretch the prolabium inferiorly.


As it was explained in Section 2, there are various types of dementia. The development of neural networks based on the data set described in the Section 2. MLPs and PNNs used in order to estimate the dementia type, as these architectures are suitable for classification problems. Therefore, MLPs and PNNs can approach procedures prognosis and diagnosis in medicine [37, 46] . Specifically, four artificial neural network architectures implemented for the determination of dementia type and its treatment.

Therefore, MLPs and PNNs can approach procedures prognosis and diagnosis in medicine.


Fillet welded T-joints have frequently been used in mechanical engineering such as in the vehicle, aircraft, shipbuilding, civil engineering, offshore industries and in many other related fields. The welding of these structures is usually conducted by filler fusion techniques that generate a large amount of heat. Localised heat generation during welding and subsequent rapid cooling lead to the permanent geometrical imperfections of structures and to welding residual stress occurrences [1] . The geometrical imperfections often cause serious problems during assembly while the residual stresses can contribute to fatigue crack initiations, brittle fractures or stress corrosion cracking [2] [3] [4] [5] . The elimination of these consequences requires additional financial costs and it is often impossible due to the large structure dimensions.

Localised heat generation during welding and subsequent rapid cooling lead to the permanent geometrical imperfections of structures and to welding residual stress occurrences.

The geometrical imperfections often cause serious problems during assembly while the residual stresses can contribute to fatigue crack initiations, brittle fractures or stress corrosion cracking.


Casein is an anecdotally obvious choice for NT protein supplementation, as it is not acid-stable and tends to gel in the stomach and empties in the small intestine at a slower rate than other proteins, resulting in a prolonged period of aminoacidemia [9, 14, 15] . Conceptually, this may be beneficial since sleep would prevent consumption of the next meal (e.g., breakfast) by about 6-8 h. While casein provides a steady release of amino acids for several hours, this may not only support muscle protein synthesis, but also help limit muscle protein breakdown [14] . When comparing whey to casein, whey leads to a faster and greater early hyperaminoacidemia and one potential compensating strategy would be to consume more casein. This could support maximizing MPS after high volume workouts [16] . The present study used 35 g of casein protein which is comparable to the level of casein used in previous nighttime protein studies [6] [7] [8] . Furthermore, nighttime calories, either in the form of protein or carbohydrate, did not lead to increases in fat mass. Most likely this is due to alignment between energy requirements and dietary provision; however, it also supports the notion that eating a smaller caloric load before sleep will not lead to changes in body composition versus ceasing to consume food or supplements past early evening. In a recent study, the provision of 54 g of protein before bed did not influence body composition [12] . The use of casein in the present study may also have influenced the results. Casein is digested over a period of ~6-7 h and may not robustly increase MPS when consumed in isolation compared to proteins like soy or whey [17] . The present study, limited by sample size, observed greater, albeit nonsignificant, advantages for DT vs. NT consumption of protein for increasing LST. Moreover, the sterile nature of the study (e.g., diet control, total protein control), in effect, limited total protein consumption due to the fact~50 g of protein were supplemented daily and some quantities of lower quality plant proteins were consumed during participants efforts to meet carbohydrate intake requirements. Therefore, another hypothesis is that it could be possible for DT casein consumption to create an "elevated baseline" for hyperaminoacidemia, thereby reducing the absolute amount of dietary protein necessary to maximize protein synthesis in meals consumed during the 6-7 h postprandial period following casein supplementation [14] . As protein and its constituent amino acid, leucine, are believed to maximally stimulate protein synthesis at a certain threshold (e.g., 2.5-3 g leucine), it is conceivable that DT participants individual meals consumed up to 6-7 h following casein ingestion had a cumulative effect on amino acid and leucine concentrations, which was not possible with NT casein supplementation, and more frequently or robustly stimulated MPS [18, 19] .

Casein is an anecdotally obvious choice for NT protein supplementation, as it is not acid-stable and tends to gel in the stomach and empties in the small intestine at a slower rate than other proteins, resulting in a prolonged period of aminoacidemia.

Conceptually, this may be beneficial since sleep would prevent consumption of the next meal (e.g., breakfast) by about 6-8 h. While casein provides a steady release of amino acids for several hours, this may not only support muscle protein synthesis, but also help limit muscle protein breakdown.

This could support maximizing MPS after high volume workouts.

The present study used 35 g of casein protein which is comparable to the level of casein used in previous nighttime protein studies.

In a recent study, the provision of 54 g of protein before bed did not influence body composition.

Casein is digested over a period of ~6-7 h and may not robustly increase MPS when consumed in isolation compared to proteins like soy or whey.

Therefore, another hypothesis is that it could be possible for DT casein consumption to create an "elevated baseline" for hyperaminoacidemia, thereby reducing the absolute amount of dietary protein necessary to maximize protein synthesis in meals consumed during the 6-7 h postprandial period following casein supplementation.

As protein and its constituent amino acid, leucine, are believed to maximally stimulate protein synthesis at a certain threshold (e.g., 2.5-3 g leucine), it is conceivable that DT participants individual meals consumed up to 6-7 h following casein ingestion had a cumulative effect on amino acid and leucine concentrations, which was not possible with NT casein supplementation, and more frequently or robustly stimulated MPS.


An adjustment to the equilibrium model by way of different physics would manifest itself as a change in the fluxes for the dynamic equations, producing a similar qualitative behavior. While simple, the general diffusive flux model from which we obtain the fluxes has been successful in comparing to experiments in the monodisperse case. It is not always an accurate reflection of the physics of the problem, particular at concentrations near the maximum packing fraction where models based on normal stress differences are more appropriate [14, 15] . This is primarily a concern in the ridged regime (which is not the focus here), where the particle concentration approaches φ m at the front, and in the derived asymptotics for small angles, where this occurs in the back of the particle rarefaction.

It is not always an accurate reflection of the physics of the problem, particular at concentrations near the maximum packing fraction where models based on normal stress differences are more appropriate.


Recently, materials that can absorb microwaves have been made from carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and they have been investigated extensively because of their ability to absorb the energy from electromagnetic waves and convert it to heat so that it can be dissipated [7] . CNTs contain a high content of carbon, which is considered to be a lossy conductor material that can help absorb microwave energy [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] . In addition, several researchers have used CNT composites to develop materials that can be used as shields against electromagnetic radiation [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] . In CNTs, there is no signification magnetic loss contribution in absorption [19] . CNTs have been classified into two different categories, i.e., single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) [20] . The difference between SWCNTs and MWCNTs is SWCNTs show single-layer of graphene sheet whereas MWCNTs consist of multi-layer of graphene sheets [21] . CNTs also can be used in many of fields, including chemical, mechanical, and electrical applications, due to their excellent characteristic properties [22] [23] [24] [25] . In terms of theory, the structure of MWCNTs is very complex and much more difficult to confirm that that of SWCNTs. Some of the specific properties of CNTs allow them to store or absorb considerable energy [26, 27] . The electromagnetic properties of pure CNTs are very difficult to measure directly because it is hard to form them in the required shape [7] . Therefore, CNTs must be combined with other materials to form composites in order to to measure their ability to absorb microwave radiation.

Recently, materials that can absorb microwaves have been made from carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and they have been investigated extensively because of their ability to absorb the energy from electromagnetic waves and convert it to heat so that it can be dissipated.

CNTs contain a high content of carbon, which is considered to be a lossy conductor material that can help absorb microwave energy.

In addition, several researchers have used CNT composites to develop materials that can be used as shields against electromagnetic radiation.

In CNTs, there is no signification magnetic loss contribution in absorption.

CNTs have been classified into two different categories, i.e., single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs).

The difference between SWCNTs and MWCNTs is SWCNTs show single-layer of graphene sheet whereas MWCNTs consist of multi-layer of graphene sheets.

CNTs also can be used in many of fields, including chemical, mechanical, and electrical applications, due to their excellent characteristic properties.

Some of the specific properties of CNTs allow them to store or absorb considerable energy.

The electromagnetic properties of pure CNTs are very difficult to measure directly because it is hard to form them in the required shape.


The most popular structure of a VCO which is more used in CMOS technology is as follows: ring oscillators and LC tank based oscillators [13] . The most important characteristics of each VCO are phase noise, consumption power, and wide frequency tuning range [14] [15] [16] . In VCOs, there is a special trade-off between them. It has been proven that the phase noise of LC VCOs is much better than phase noise of the loop VCO. But LC VCOs are worse than loop VCOs in terms of area and sometimes power consumption [17] . LC VCOs are usually great choices for RF applications because of desirable and rough start-up conditions and appropriate phase noise [18] .

The most popular structure of a VCO which is more used in CMOS technology is as follows: ring oscillators and LC tank based oscillators.

The most important characteristics of each VCO are phase noise, consumption power, and wide frequency tuning range.

But LC VCOs are worse than loop VCOs in terms of area and sometimes power consumption.

LC VCOs are usually great choices for RF applications because of desirable and rough start-up conditions and appropriate phase noise.


Recently, there has been an increased demand in radio frequency design [1] [2] [3] . One of the most important blocks in transceiver communication systems are the voltage controlled oscillators (VCOs) [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] . Voltage controlled oscillators are the circuits which are used to generate alternative signals in many parts of the radio frequency systems. In power systems, operators need to communicate with each other in different locations. Therefore, data exchange and communication among people and assets require wireless transceiver communication devices. Radios are widely utilized in power systems to make connections among actors, especially system operators such as a phasor measurement unit (PMU) [10] . A block diagram of the basic PMU is demonstrated in Figure 1 . PMUs are used to estimate the magnitude and phase angle of an electrical phasor quantity, like voltage or current, in the electricity grid. As shown in Figure 1 , one of the main components of a PMU is the phase locked oscillator which uses voltage controlled oscillators [11, 12] . Therefore, in order to design a wireless transceiver system and also make a bridge between actors including operators and assets in the electrical industry, designing voltage controlled oscillators with high performance is needed.

Recently, there has been an increased demand in radio frequency design.

One of the most important blocks in transceiver communication systems are the voltage controlled oscillators (VCOs).

Radios are widely utilized in power systems to make connections among actors, especially system operators such as a phasor measurement unit (PMU).

As shown in Figure 1 , one of the main components of a PMU is the phase locked oscillator which uses voltage controlled oscillators.


Among different LC tank VCOs, Colpitts and cross-coupled structures are utilized more [19] . The cross-coupled VCO has a simple start-up condition and good phase noise, and the type of Colpitts has low consumption power [20, 21] . Concurrent utilization of two types of the voltage controlled oscillator, Colpitts and cross-coupled in circuit structure, improves start-up conditions and the phase noise of the circuit with low power consumption.

Among different LC tank VCOs, Colpitts and cross-coupled structures are utilized more.

The cross-coupled VCO has a simple start-up condition and good phase noise, and the type of Colpitts has low consumption power.


For underground coal mining, piles of granular spoils with irregular shapes and varied size are produced due to coal extraction, which consists of debris and waste rock materials. Conventionally, spoils are heaped up on ground surface, which not only occupies a certain amount of land, but also causes environmental pollution [1] . To some extent, this makes the coal mining practice under strict public scrutiny. To solve such a problem and ensure the mining license in some countries, the most direct and effective way is to reuse them as supporting material to backfill the excavated strata. The utilization of gangue mitigates negative impact on environment; on the other hand, backfilled spoils can reduce the cave-in of roof strata and control ground subsidence. However, the deformation and breakage of spoils under compression are distinctly different from fractured rock mass.

Conventionally, spoils are heaped up on ground surface, which not only occupies a certain amount of land, but also causes environmental pollution.


An approach adopted by several power management protocols is to maintain a connected communication backbone that is responsible for routing packets, while other nodes sleep most of the time [3, 15, 13] . Although the backbone provides good communication performance by maintaining sufficient network connectivity, this solution does not exploit the possibility of conserving energy on the backbone nodes even when they are not needed for communication. Keeping the backbone nodes continuously active may become unacceptable in WSNs especially when the workload is light. Power management schemes based on communication backbones do not exploit traffic shaping or workload characteristics.

An approach adopted by several power management protocols is to maintain a connected communication backbone that is responsible for routing packets, while other nodes sleep most of the time.


In order to derive water correction functions for CO 2 and CH 4 , a series of experiments were carried out using the setup given in Fig. 1 . Gas from a high-pressure tank containing ambient air was supplied to a humidifier or dew point generator (Li-Cor, Inc., Lincoln, NE, USA, model LI-610) after the gas pressure was reduced to a level slightly above the ambient pressure using a combination of a high pressure regulator (Scott Specialty Gases, Plumsteadville, PA, USA, model 51-14D) and a needle valve. The ambient air tank was prepared in Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena (MPI-Jena), Germany, using dried and compressed air from outside the building with CO 2 mixing ratios of ∼400 ppm. The LI-610 humidifier could generate a moist air stream with a known setting dew point ranging from 0 to 50 • C. After the gas was humidified, it was split into two paths, one with and the other without a chemical dryer (magnesium perchlorate). Carefully balancing the flow and pressure ensures that there was no change in pressure in the chemical dryer while switching. This avoided the influence of magnesium perchlorate under conditions of changing pressure on CO 2 mixing ratios (Levin et al., 2002) . A crossover valve that was made of two 3-way valves was located downstream of the dryer and was controlled by a data logger (Campbell Scientific, Inc., Logan, UT, USA, model CR23X) that selected dry or wet air to flow through the CRDS analyzer.

This avoided the influence of magnesium perchlorate under conditions of changing pressure on CO 2 mixing ratios.


In East Africa, very poor economic conditions have characterized, and hence negatively influenced the provision of education at all levels (Evoh, 2007) . Indeed, in subscribing to the ideals of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), even the East African countries concurred with the rest of the continent that improved secondary education is fundamental to the creation of effective human capital in any country (Evoh, 2007) . However, together with the World Bank, the East African countries' scholars agree that the biggest task confronting education policymakers in this part of the world is how to transform secondary education institutions and current schooling practices to align them with the fast growing demands of globalization and the technology-driven world.

In East Africa, very poor economic conditions have characterized, and hence negatively influenced the provision of education at all levels.

Indeed, in subscribing to the ideals of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), even the East African countries concurred with the rest of the continent that improved secondary education is fundamental to the creation of effective human capital in any country.


The use of polysaccharide such as pectin for the synthesis of biofilm provides the properties such as water solvency and reduced water permeability (Xu et al., 2005) . On the other hand, whey protein shows properties like gas and mechanical barrier as compared to biofilms synthesized from polysaccharides. The molecular structure of whey protein displays high intermolecular binding potential (Jolie et al., 2010) . Biofilms, which are synthesized from these biopolymers are delicate and less manipulative by mechanical means. Thus, it has become essential to use the plasticizer to increase the flexibility and extensibility and additives are also added which facilitates as cross-linking agent. Whereas the excess amount of additives results in declination of flexibility, porosity, and permeability to gases, water vapours and solvents (Flores et al., 2010) . Nowadays, the awareness has been observed from consumer aspect, preferring healthy food provides health benefits. Thus, on this basis pectin and whey protein integrated with cinnamon products like cinnamic acid, cinnamon essential oil and cinnamon powder are utilized for synthesizing the edible biofilms. These edible biofilms on packaging interacts with the product as well as environment to increase adaptation phase whereas decline the proliferation rate of microbes. Currently, different plant essential oils are being extracted and integrated with biofilm components for evaluating their antimicrobial activity.

The use of polysaccharide such as pectin for the synthesis of biofilm provides the properties such as water solvency and reduced water permeability.

The molecular structure of whey protein displays high intermolecular binding potential.

Whereas the excess amount of additives results in declination of flexibility, porosity, and permeability to gases, water vapours and solvents.


Conventional storage capacity, consisting of depleted oil and gas reservoirs, aquifers, salt mines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage plants, are in most cases constrained by their geographical location and a rather low inflow and withdrawal rate. Furthermore, LNG plants have high storage costs since the gas needs to be cooled [6] . The pipeline exit point is usually situated at a major market hub. Considering the linepack as a separate storage volume placed at the receiving terminal, the high flexibility makes it a potentially valuable tool for short-term balancing of natural gas supply and demand.

Furthermore, LNG plants have high storage costs since the gas needs to be cooled.


In order to implement a QoS modelling and decision making approach it is necessary to consider available adaptation mechanisms supported by the underlying platform. Commonly used are horizontal scaling approaches, such as those implemented by the ROAR project [41] . The ROAR solution scales the number of running VMs, while considering QoS and operational costs of the application. The horizontal scaling approach, however, is not sufficient to address the QoS requirements for network-intensive functionalities. Another adaptation possibility is to select or dynamically change the Virtual Machine instance types (e.g. T2, M4, C4, X1, P2), the amount of allocated RAM or number of CPU cores. Third option, investigated in this study, is to select geographically the best possible infrastructure for the required service utility.

Commonly used are horizontal scaling approaches, such as those implemented by the ROAR project.


Furthermore, the models created by vPerfguard are highly susceptible to noise, which has been addressed by fuzzy logic to some extent [23] . The approach relies on taking concepts from experts in the field to fuzzify the variables. This approach works for a smaller set of common variables. If the number of variables grow, or are hard to qualify, for example, by using application-level QoS metrics, the fuzzification of the metrics becomes impossible.

Furthermore, the models created by vPerfguard are highly susceptible to noise, which has been addressed by fuzzy logic to some extent.


Culture of C. carpio would be a useful means to upgrade the small-scale farmers' livelihood and to increase the per capita consumption of fish in Sri Lanka. Being an omnivorous fish, it is easy to use these species in extensive culture (i.e., culture-based fisheries) in the reservoirs of Sri Lanka especially in dry zone (Wijenayake et al. 2005) . Aquaculture in home gardens and cage and pen-culture in shallow reservoirs can be popularized because captive breeding technology is well established in the country at present. Fast growth, high survival and resistance to bacterial diseases make this species popular among fish farmers (FAO 2004 (FAO -2015 . Formulated feed is an attractive alternative because it eliminates the need for costly and labor-intensive fresh feeds. In addition, formulated feeds are available throughout the year, conveniently stored, easy to use and their nutrient composition could be easily modified. In some cases, commercial products are not very rich in all nutritional qualities. Nutritive quality of fish feed is highly important, as growth is significantly correlated with it.

Being an omnivorous fish, it is easy to use these species in extensive culture (i.e., culture-based fisheries) in the reservoirs of Sri Lanka especially in dry zone.


IMF modulations carry different frequency range specifications. In the experiments, the IMF1 which is extracted from 10s lung sound is the lowest responsible feature for the COPD diagnosis using Deep ELM kernels. The reason of the fact that the IMF 1 is usually qualified as the noisy modulation for the distributions [18] .

The reason of the fact that the IMF 1 is usually qualified as the noisy modulation for the distributions.


Long-distance transportation of live farm animals to slaughter in Europe has recently aroused great public and consumer concern for animal-welfare reasons. Europeans are generally very critical of long-distance transport of animals (Moynagh, 2000) . Low transport costs relative to market values of meat, market demand and related seasonal variation, geographical concentration of production, increasing specialisation within livestock production, Although factors affecting animal welfare during transport are fairly similar regardless of species, some results indicate that certain species are more sensitive than others to different factors (Ekesbo, 2003) .

Europeans are generally very critical of long-distance transport of animals.

Low transport costs relative to market values of meat, market demand and related seasonal variation, geographical concentration of production, increasing specialisation within livestock production, Although factors affecting animal welfare during transport are fairly similar regardless of species, some results indicate that certain species are more sensitive than others to different factors.


The combined application of statistical, correlation and fractal analysis for the quantitative assessment of polarization-inhomogeneous scattered fields observed at the surfaces of isotropic scattering tissue phantoms and Table 2 Statistical (Z i ), correlation (K j ) and fractal (D f ) parameters introduced for quantitative assessment of depolarization Δ(m × n) of light scattered in the normal and cancerous paraffin-embedded tissue blocks, measured at the selected wavelengths biological tissue samples has been performed in these initial exploratory studies. It has been shown that using the results of the analysis of paraffin-embedded tissue blocks one can unambiguously detect the malignant transformation of tissue. The distributions of depolarization Δ(m × n) for healthy tissue are fractal at all studied wavelengths, while corresponding distributions for cancerous tissue loose fractality for medium size features (few hundreds of microns). Adding paraffin to tissue alters its optical properties and increase scattering [25] . Our experiments with isotropic scattering phantoms have proved that simple increase in scattering (from single scattering regime to multiple scattering regime) does not destroy the fractality of distributions of Δ(m × n). It suggests that possible difference in paraffin intake by healthy and cancerous tissue can not be the reason for the observed loss of fractal properties of two-dimensional distributions of depolarization Δ(m × n) for cancerous tissue. The most plausible explanation of this effect is related to the structural changes of tissue induced by cancer development.

Adding paraffin to tissue alters its optical properties and increase scattering.


The analysis of depolarizing properties of tissue phantoms 1-3 in the frameworks of the statistical, correlation and fractal approaches reveals that with the increase in number of scattering events along the light propagation path (i.e. increase of scattering coefficient from 2.5 mm ) the maximum of the distribution shifts to larger value of depolarization (see Figs. 1, 1.4-1.6 ). The dispersion of Δ values distribution increases monotonically with the increase of mean value of depolarization (see Figs. 1,  1.4-1.6 ). This fact correlates well with the measurements of the degree of depolarization, averaged over an emerging beam area [19] . On the other hand, the different phantom samples are characterized by the "individual" half-width, asymmetry and sharpness of the peak of distribution N(Δ).

This fact correlates well with the measurements of the degree of depolarization, averaged over an emerging beam area.


We hypothesized that song playback might function as a sensory attractant capable of increasing territory establishment in low to moderate use roadside environments. The overall pattern of territory establishment supported this hypothesis, with significantly more territories found in roadside habitats near song playback speakers. However, this pattern of response was not uniform across individual species. Based on lack of overlap in CIs and effect sizes >30%, 11 species increased the use of playback sites, whereas 6 species decreased use of the same sites. Although the net gain is positive for both overall numbers of territories and species, this variable response must be taken into consideration when evaluating the technique. Somewhat surprisingly, anthropogenic noise was not significantly related to playback response. Guild and song analyses revealed that species which flycatch, utilize scrub habitats, and sing at higher frequencies are more likely to respond to playback. These results are similar in several ways to those from our companion study conducted in similar habitats located along forest edges, but not near roads (DeJong et al. 2015) . In both studies, the overall community effect was positive, with increases in territory establishment and more positive than negative species-specific responses. In addition, both studies found increased use of playback sites by a subset of both focal and nonfocal species, whereas other species were unaffected or avoided playback sites. However, the subset of species differs between the 2 studies. In terms of focal species, black-throated green warblers responded similarly, however, ovenbirds (Seiurus aurocapilla) did not exhibit any directional response and hermit thrushes (Catharus guttatus) trended towards avoidance of playback. Both species responded positively when roads were not present. Nonfocal species responses also differed. For example, positive responses to playback were found for least flycatchers and chestnut-sided warblers (Setophaga pensylvanica) near roads, 2 species that previously exhibited no response and a negative response, respectively. It is plausible that more suitable habitats in conjunction with conspecific cues could underlie differential responses in these species. Alternately, competition may have been lower near roads due to a smaller number of inhabitants returning from previous years. One nonfocal species, the American robin, increased use of playback sites previously, but avoided playback locations near roads.

These results are similar in several ways to those from our companion study conducted in similar habitats located along forest edges, but not near roads.


Coalition governments are the norm in many countries with multi-party systems. Voters, however, can only cast their ballot for an individual party or candidate, not a specific coalition. Voters are certainly aware that coalition formation is an additional and intermediary step between vote decision and government formation, making any predictions of likely governments rather difficult (Downs, 1957) . The instrumental goal of maximizing expected utility by voting a specific government in office quickly becomes a highly challenging task. A vote for a specific party and its policy will never directly result in a government but at best secure a party's membership in a coalition, along with a "compromised" policy mix that the coalition parties will eventually agree on.

Voters are certainly aware that coalition formation is an additional and intermediary step between vote decision and government formation, making any predictions of likely governments rather difficult.


In recent years, it had shown significant interest to develop Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (PMSM) control schemes for high performance applications such as traction drive, electric vehicle and ship electric propulsion. PMSM has gained popularity to be adapted in many electric motor applications due to the fact that it offers high torque density (i.e. Nm/kg), and high efficiency as compared to that of induction machine. Basically, the control methods of PMSM can be divided into two methods (similar to that of using induction machine) as follows; 1) scalar control also knows as 'volt per Hertz' method which is simple to implement, however it gives poor dynamic performance, 2) vector control, i.e. Field Oriented Control (FOC) or Direct Torque Control (DTC) which is based on the instantaneous space vector quantity (i.e. phase of flux, current and voltage) control [1] [2] [3] .

Basically, the control methods of PMSM can be divided into two methods (similar to that of using induction machine) as follows; 1) scalar control also knows as 'volt per Hertz' method which is simple to implement, however it gives poor dynamic performance, 2) vector control, i.e. Field Oriented Control (FOC) or Direct Torque Control (DTC) which is based on the instantaneous space vector quantity (i.e. phase of flux, current and voltage) control.


Understanding HuR regulatory circuits is further complicated by the presence of multiple mRBPs that bind to target mRNAs at the same/similar sites as HuR, but generally elicit antagonistic outputs to HuR binding. One such mRBP is AUF1 (HNRNPD), which shares significant target overlap with HuR based on PAR-CLIP analysis . Mechanistically, in contrast to the canonical role of HuR in promoting mRNA stability, AUF1 typically promotes degradation of target mRNAs (Gratacos and Brewer, 2010) .

Mechanistically, in contrast to the canonical role of HuR in promoting mRNA stability, AUF1 typically promotes degradation of target mRNAs.


The Sossego Mine was Vale's first copper operation. The plant has the capacity to process 41,000 t of ore per day, which is equivalent to 15 million tons per year, from open pit mining. The proved reserve is of the order of 255 Mt with an average content of 1.0% copper and 0.3 g/t gold [6, 7] .

The proved reserve is of the order of 255 Mt with an average content of 1.0% copper and 0.3 g/t gold.


Cancer is a type of gene diseases in which cells grow and divide uncontrollably [1] . In the last years, cancer has become one of the leading causes of death [2] . It is estimated that about 5.2 million patients die from cancer per year in the world and more than half million patients die in developing countries [3] . One of focal tasks of cancer-related researches is to develop inexpensive, accurate, fast, and convenient diagnostic methods to improve the survival probability. As far as cancer diagnosis is regarded, histopathological evaluation is still the gold standard [4] . It involves the sampling of tissues and examination by pathologists. Such a procedure includes tissue staining and morphological pattern recognition. In the process of tissue transformation, substantial modifications at molecular level are expected to occur before apparent visible morphological changes. Moreover, histopathological evaluation mainly depends on expert's subjective judgment and experience and its result is therefore subjective to some extent [5] . There is an urgent need to develop novel and objective methods for cancer diagnosis. In recent years, great emphasis has been placed on seeking diagnostic methods that may enhance the ability to differentiate between normal and cancerous tissues.

Cancer is a type of gene diseases in which cells grow and divide uncontrollably.

In the last years, cancer has become one of the leading causes of death.

It is estimated that about 5.2 million patients die from cancer per year in the world and more than half million patients die in developing countries.

As far as cancer diagnosis is regarded, histopathological evaluation is still the gold standard.

Moreover, histopathological evaluation mainly depends on expert's subjective judgment and experience and its result is therefore subjective to some extent.


Various molecular spectroscopes as powerful tools for investigating chemical changes at molecular level have been applied to detect cancer [6] [7] [8] . For example, infrared spectroscopy (IR) techniques are widely applied to analyze biological tissues; the resulting spectra are composed of characteristic bands originating from all vibration modes of bimolecular components present in the tissue including proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. Each biomolecule gives a characteristic IR spectrum, which contains infrared information of various functional groups in the molecule. The frequency and intensity of spectral bands are related to the vibration frequencies and polar properties as well as relative concentration. A total spectrum of tissue can convey information of characteristic changes in molecular composition and structure 2 Journal of Chemistry accompanying transformation from normal to cancerous state.

Various molecular spectroscopes as powerful tools for investigating chemical changes at molecular level have been applied to detect cancer.


In addition to the influence of site area, sites that contain a greater number of priority habitats for conservation under the UK's Biodiversity Action Plan cost more to manage. The situation offering the greatest efficiency savings in conservation, where sites assigned the greatest ecological priority are also those where conservation costs are lowest , is therefore not achieved for this set of protected areas. An alternative approach to emphasising the richness of priority habitats for conservation would have been to focus on the dominant habitat type found on each site (Frazee et al., 2003) . In the Supplementary material, we provide additional results showing that dominant habitat type explains little of the variation across sites in either overall management costs or management costs per hectare (Supplementary material: Appendix 2: Dominant habitat type).

An alternative approach to emphasising the richness of priority habitats for conservation would have been to focus on the dominant habitat type found on each site.


Development of alternative fuels has been widely studied because of the depletion of fossil fuels and increased concerns for environment. One of the most promising areas of renewable fuel development is the production of biodiesel. Biodiesel, which is a renewable, nontoxic, and biodegradable fuel, can be used in diesel engines without engine modifications. Biodiesel burns cleaner than conventional diesel fuel, substantially reduces carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, particulate matter, and eliminates sulfur dioxide emissions [1] . It contributes no net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and it reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 41% compared with diesel [2] . In addition, biodiesel has high cetane number, high flash point, and excellent lubricity and miscibility with petroleum diesel at all ratios [3] .

Biodiesel burns cleaner than conventional diesel fuel, substantially reduces carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, particulate matter, and eliminates sulfur dioxide emissions.

It contributes no net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and it reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 41% compared with diesel.

In addition, biodiesel has high cetane number, high flash point, and excellent lubricity and miscibility with petroleum diesel at all ratios.


Biodiesel, fatty acid methyl ester (FAME), is traditionally made by transesterification reaction from various types of oils and either ethanol or methanol in presence of a homogeneous catalyst [4] . Transesterification is a reversible process which requires a strong acid or a strong base. The main product of the transesterification reaction is biodiesel and glycerol is formed as a by-product. The transesterification reaction is shown in Figure 1 [5] .

Biodiesel, fatty acid methyl ester (FAME), is traditionally made by transesterification reaction from various types of oils and either ethanol or methanol in presence of a homogeneous catalyst.

The transesterification reaction is shown in Figure 1.


Variables acting together may have greater or smaller effect than individual variables acting alone. A response surface can be most efficient fitted if proper attention is given to the choice of experimental design [16] . BoxWilson, composite rotatable design is common type of statistical experiments, especially applicable to optimization analysis.

A response surface can be most efficient fitted if proper attention is given to the choice of experimental design.


Concrete as a raw material is widely used in construction engineering such as buildings, roadways, bridges, and tunnels. It is very important for public safety to carry out damage analysis, stability monitoring, and remaining life estimation of those constructions using appropriate methods [1] . Various techniques such as surface topography, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), infrared thermal imaging, computerized tomography (CT), and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) have been used to observe the damage process in laboratory tests [2, 3] . In recent years, passive (acoustic emission, AE) and active (ultrasonic, UT) testing techniques have been gradually applied to the structural instability and safety monitoring [4, 5] .

It is very important for public safety to carry out damage analysis, stability monitoring, and remaining life estimation of those constructions using appropriate methods.

Various techniques such as surface topography, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), infrared thermal imaging, computerized tomography (CT), and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) have been used to observe the damage process in laboratory tests.

In recent years, passive (acoustic emission, AE) and active (ultrasonic, UT) testing techniques have been gradually applied to the structural instability and safety monitoring.


According to our study findings family history of obesity is an important risk factor for physical inactivity that is in agreement with previous studies. Obese family members create obesogenic household environment [25, 26] . Family history of obesity on one hand may lead to genetic predisposition for obesity, but on the other hand may reflect behaviors in the family that may lead to sedentary lifestyle [10] .

Obese family members create obesogenic household environment.

Family history of obesity on one hand may lead to genetic predisposition for obesity, but on the other hand may reflect behaviors in the family that may lead to sedentary lifestyle.


Water Quality in the Central... It was reported that average annual values of COD Cr , TP, total hardness, and alcalinity did not meet the requirements set for class II water quality. Therefore, the quality of studied waters was less than good. As for average annual values of TRP and BOD 5 , they met the requirements set for class II water quality, whereas values of the remaining tested indicators classified the studied stretch of the Ina as class I water quality [9] .

Water Quality in the Central...

As for average annual values of TRP and BOD 5 , they met the requirements set for class II water quality, whereas values of the remaining tested indicators classified the studied stretch of the Ina as class I water quality.