Sprays have found widespread application in many engineered systems owing to the simple, inexpensive and efficient manner in which interfacial area can be increased by several orders of magnitude. In these applications, the spray process is essential to enhancing transport of mass, momentum or energy. As simple a device as a spray nozzle is, the physics governing the breakup of the bulk liquid and subsequent transport is extremely complex. The primary breakup of the liquid into dispersed droplets and ligaments is a complicated phenomenon, and has been the topic of recent reviews [45] . The focus of this review is on modeling and simulation of the dispersed spray, and not on the primary atomization processes. Some of the complexities encountered in the dispersed part of the spray are outlined hereunder in the context of spray combustion.

The primary breakup of the liquid into dispersed droplets and ligaments is a complicated phenomenon, and has been the topic of recent reviews.


Performances of the presented video denoising algorithms are analyzed for two test videos. The videos are obtained by recording a moving object passing through a stationary scene. The average frame peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) was used as a measure of video estimation quality (obtained by averaging all frame PSNRs of the denoised videos). Note that other image quality measures can be used for describing visual effects in denoised video, such as the wavelet based measure which provides improved correlation with subjective grades of image quality [13] .

Note that other image quality measures can be used for describing visual effects in denoised video, such as the wavelet based measure which provides improved correlation with subjective grades of image quality.


In addition, premade ZnO NPs have been immobilized with different polymers (e.g., polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polycaprolactone (PCL)) by electrospinning to fabricate hybrid nanofibrous membranes [19, 20] . Interestingly, these nanocomposite materials showed synergistic/enhanced antimicrobial efficiency. However, the ZnO NPs/polymer hybrid nanofibers were directly electrospun from a ZnO 2 Advances in Condensed Matter Physics NPs-containing polymer (e.g., PVA) aqueous solution. Therefore, the premade ZnO NPs are mostly encapsulated in the fiber interior, likely limiting the interactions between ZnO NPs and microbial cells. To overcome this drawback, an in situ preparation of ZnO NPs/PVA nanofibrous membranes has been developed through electrospinning a ZnO precursor (zinc acetate) containing PVA solution [21] . The in situ synthesized ZnO NPs mostly resided on the PVA nanofiber surface, which were further observed with enhanced optical quality [22] . However, the biological properties like antimicrobial and anti-cell adhesion activities of the in situ fabricated ZnO NPs/PVA nanofibrous membranes, to the best of our knowledge, have not been reported to date.

In addition, premade ZnO NPs have been immobilized with different polymers (e.g., polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polycaprolactone (PCL)) by electrospinning to fabricate hybrid nanofibrous membranes.

To overcome this drawback, an in situ preparation of ZnO NPs/PVA nanofibrous membranes has been developed through electrospinning a ZnO precursor (zinc acetate) containing PVA solution.

The in situ synthesized ZnO NPs mostly resided on the PVA nanofiber surface, which were further observed with enhanced optical quality.


Phytic acid (PA), myo-inositol 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexakis (dihydrogen phosphate) or phytate, is a naturally occurring phosphorous (P)-rich compound formed during seed maturation [1] . Phytic acid accounts for 60% -80% of the total P present in seeds, and is the primary source of P during germination [1] . The phosphates in PA chelate with essential mineral micronutrients such as iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) and reduce mineral bioavailability to humans and animals. For example, poultry and swine feed grain P is in the phytic acid-P (PA-P) form and is excreted as phosphate complexed minerals; therefore, monogastric animal feeds must be supplemented with bioavailable P and minerals or phytase enzyme supplements for the animals to utilize P and mineral nutrients [2] . Beyond nutritional implications, PA-derived P in animal waste is a major environment pollution issue in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere [3] . However, recent studies indicate that PA may have significant health benefits with respect to preventing kidney stone formation, diabetes, caries, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, and a range of cancers [4] . Therefore, the negative nutritional and environmental concerns associated with PA are somewhat balanced by the positive health benefits it demonstrates as an antioxidant or anticancer agent. Optimizing the level of PA and other inositol phosphates in seeds is required to maximize nutritional and health benefits while reducing P waste to environment.

Phytic acid (PA), myo-inositol 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexakis (dihydrogen phosphate) or phytate, is a naturally occurring phosphorous (P)-rich compound formed during seed maturation.

Phytic acid accounts for 60% -80% of the total P present in seeds, and is the primary source of P during germination.

For example, poultry and swine feed grain P is in the phytic acid-P (PA-P) form and is excreted as phosphate complexed minerals; therefore, monogastric animal feeds must be supplemented with bioavailable P and minerals or phytase enzyme supplements for the animals to utilize P and mineral nutrients.

Beyond nutritional implications, PA-derived P in animal waste is a major environment pollution issue in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.

However, recent studies indicate that PA may have significant health benefits with respect to preventing kidney stone formation, diabetes, caries, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, and a range of cancers.


Although there is currently no empirical data to support this as it relates to early childhood (3-8 years of age), two key articles have explored the relationship between pro-environmental behaviours and beliefs, and childhood experiences up to the age of 11 years. The first, a retrospective study of approximately 2000 US adults, linked natural experiences in childhood with adult environmentalism [23] . The second was a paper that further linked time spent outdoors, nature connectedness, and environmental stewardship in children [24] . Both identified that a closeness to nature, either through behaviour or nature connectedness, was associated with environmentally protective behaviours. Other studies have also linked emotional affinity to nature and nature-protective behaviours [20, 25, 26] .

The first, a retrospective study of approximately 2000 US adults, linked natural experiences in childhood with adult environmentalism.

The second was a paper that further linked time spent outdoors, nature connectedness, and environmental stewardship in children.

Other studies have also linked emotional affinity to nature and nature-protective behaviours.


This article proposes that an ecocentric orientation could rest upon the construct of nature connectedness for the articulation of a distinct pedagogy that will aim to bridge this notional divide between humans and non-humans, and encourage children to feel that they are part of nature. In this way, education can be considered more from a point of view of relationality and interconnectedness, of building a meaningful relationship, and less from the point of view of gaining knowledge and understanding. Previous research on children has found that connectedness to nature has been a stronger driver of ecological behaviours than environmental knowledge [20] . This pedagogy of connectedness, articulated below using recent experimental evidence from ecopsychology, is particularly suited to early childhood which has been identified as a key time when skills, like empathy, emerge and are nurtured [21] . Moreover, this initial development of empathy in early childhood has been found to predict later pro-social behaviour [22] . Using this as a basis, this article argues, from a theoretical perspective, that nurturing early childhood empathy towards non-human nature could predict later pro-environmental behaviours and compassion towards non-human animals.

Previous research on children has found that connectedness to nature has been a stronger driver of ecological behaviours than environmental knowledge.

This pedagogy of connectedness, articulated below using recent experimental evidence from ecopsychology, is particularly suited to early childhood which has been identified as a key time when skills, like empathy, emerge and are nurtured.

Moreover, this initial development of empathy in early childhood has been found to predict later pro-social behaviour.


To a large extent, this growth has, so far, been driven by an anthropocentric pursuit of the purported benefits to humans of spending time in natural environments. While these benefits are of paramount importance, a more ecocentric, post-humanist approach to education can emphasise the infinite benefits for nature and the possibilities for REB via the strengthening of the bond between human and non-human nature [19] . In this sense, non-human nature can move away from being used merely as an instrument in the development of the child and, by taking a post-humanist perspective towards education, it can become a vital part of an EE that will benefit both humans and non-humans alike.

While these benefits are of paramount importance, a more ecocentric, post-humanist approach to education can emphasise the infinite benefits for nature and the possibilities for REB via the strengthening of the bond between human and non-human nature.


Responsible environmental behaviour (REB) has commonly been seen in the past as a worthwhile goal for EE programmes [7, 8] . ESD has similarly been focused on REB, although the pedagogical aspects of how to achieve this have not commonly been articulated [9] . The framework proposed here attempts to put REB, through its positive association with nature connectedness, at the centre of EE in the early years.

Responsible environmental behaviour (REB) has commonly been seen in the past as a worthwhile goal for EE programmes.

ESD has similarly been focused on REB, although the pedagogical aspects of how to achieve this have not commonly been articulated.


Energy consumption of most of the water supply systems worldwide could be reduced by at least 25% through the use of power efficiency processes. Water supply companies have the potential to save more energy than the total consumption of Thailand (James et al., 2002) . The optimisation of pumping operations may generate significant savings, especially in large systems, where these savings can reach millions of dollars per year. Several studies both in Europe and the United States of America indicate that many industrial processes have a saving potential of 30% to 50% in their pumping systems (Hovstadius, 2007) .

Water supply companies have the potential to save more energy than the total consumption of Thailand.

Several studies both in Europe and the United States of America indicate that many industrial processes have a saving potential of 30% to 50% in their pumping systems.


Enzymes from fungal and bacterial sources have been increasingly applied in industrial sectors (Pandey et al., 2000) . Amylases contribute as a class of industrial enzymes constituting approximately 25% of the enzyme market (Sindhu et al., 1997; Rao et al., 1998) . It is desirable that α-amylases should be active at the high temperatures of gelatinization (100-110°C) and liquefaction (80-90°C) to economize the processes. Therefore, there has been a need for more thermophilic and thermostable α-amylases (Sindhu et al., 1997) . The most widely used thermostable enzymes in the starch industry are the amylases (Poonam and Dalel, 1995; Crab and Mitchinson, 1997; Sarikaya et al., 2000) . An extremely thermostable α-amylase is produced by B. licheniformis (Morgan and Priest, 1981) . The objective of this work was to isolate and identify a bacterial strain, which can produce thremostable α-amylase with desired characters that can be used in industrial sectors.

Enzymes from fungal and bacterial sources have been increasingly applied in industrial sectors.

Amylases contribute as a class of industrial enzymes constituting approximately 25% of the enzyme market.

Therefore, there has been a need for more thermophilic and thermostable α-amylases.

The most widely used thermostable enzymes in the starch industry are the amylases.

An extremely thermostable α-amylase is produced by B. licheniformis.


In the context of this study, instead of using traditional approaches for the classification of objects in the images, to achieve the goal, we introduce a new technique based on the use of artificial neural networks (NNs). Thanks to the computational technologies, which have rapidly developed in recent decades, and the tremendous growth of available data, it has become possible to utilize NNs for a variety of applications such as image classification or object detection ( Szegedy et al., 2013 ) . Nowadays, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are one of the most successful examples of machine learning applications, because they allow the achievement of state-of-the-art performance in solving different image processing problems.

Thanks to the computational technologies, which have rapidly developed in recent decades, and the tremendous growth of available data, it has become possible to utilize NNs for a variety of applications such as image classification or object detection.


CNNs are a part of the general concept of "deep learning" ( Goodfellow et al., 2016 ) . Deep learning approaches may be formulated as a set of machine learning technologies that are designed to extract and comprehend low-and high-level abstractions in data automatically. This approach provides a necessary flexibility in experimental data analysis, which implies that the algorithms are adaptable and simple as much as possible for configuration and use. This, in turn, allows, for example, building of an effective and robust classifier for recognizing bubble patterns in images of twophase bubbly flow with minimal interventions from outside.

CNNs are a part of the general concept of "deep learning".


Zooplankton are considered to comprise a key link between trophic levels because they constitute the main carbon transfer pathway within the marine food web (Mann & Lazier 1991) . Therefore, the study of zooplankton distribution due to forcing from meteorological and hydrological conditions has become one of the key objectives in international research programs (i.e. GLOBEC). It is particularly important to address these issues in the Strait of Gibraltar due to: (1) the strong influence of the hydrological conditions on biogeochemical patterns, and (2) the relatively high abundance of top predators (such as tuna and marine mammals), which should imply a substantial transfer of organic matter up through the food web.

Zooplankton are considered to comprise a key link between trophic levels because they constitute the main carbon transfer pathway within the marine food web.


The circumferential butt welded pipes are widely used in nuclear power plants and usually subjected to complex varying thermal and mechanical loads [1] [2] . Under such loads, the pipes may fail either from the accumulated plastic deformations during the increasing load cycles or from the reverse plastic deformations. The former is known as ratchetting, which leads structures to incremental collapse; the latter is named plastic shakedown, which gives rise to local low cycle fatigue. For a pipe with a crack in the weld, the elastic stress singularity at the crack tip violates the elastic shakedown condition, hence the non-existence of a finite shakedown limit. Therefore the ability to calculate the ratchet limit of the cracked pipe is particularly desirable. The obtained ratchet limit may then be used to calculate the ratchetting reference stress to predict material deformation and rupture [3] .

The circumferential butt welded pipes are widely used in nuclear power plants and usually subjected to complex varying thermal and mechanical loads.

The obtained ratchet limit may then be used to calculate the ratchetting reference stress to predict material deformation and rupture.


In recent years, organogels have been attracting more attention as one class of important soft materials, in which organic solvents are immobilized by gelators [1] [2] [3] [4] . Although gels are widely found in polymer systems, there has recently been an increasing interest in low-molecular-mass organic gelators (LMOGs) [5] [6] [7] [8] . In recent years, physical gelation of organic solvents by LMOGs has become one of the hot areas in the soft matter research due to their scientific values and many potential applications in the biomedical field, including tissue engineering, controlled drug release, and medical implants [9] [10] [11] [12] . The gels based on LMOGs are usually considered as supramolecular gels, in which the gelator molecules selfassemble into three-dimensional networks in which the solvent is trapped via various noncovalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonding, -stacking, van der Waals interaction, dipole-dipole interaction, coordination, solvophobic interaction, and host-guest interaction [13] [14] [15] [16] . Such organogels have some advantages over polymer gels: the molecular structure of the gelator is defined and the gel process is usually reversible. Such properties make it possible to design various functional gel systems and produce more complicated and defined, as well as controllable, nanostructures [17] [18] [19] [20] .

In recent years, organogels have been attracting more attention as one class of important soft materials, in which organic solvents are immobilized by gelators.

Although gels are widely found in polymer systems, there has recently been an increasing interest in low-molecular-mass organic gelators (LMOGs).

In recent years, physical gelation of organic solvents by LMOGs has become one of the hot areas in the soft matter research due to their scientific values and many potential applications in the biomedical field, including tissue engineering, controlled drug release, and medical implants.

The gels based on LMOGs are usually considered as supramolecular gels, in which the gelator molecules selfassemble into three-dimensional networks in which the solvent is trapped via various noncovalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonding, -stacking, van der Waals interaction, dipole-dipole interaction, coordination, solvophobic interaction, and host-guest interaction.

Such properties make it possible to design various functional gel systems and produce more complicated and defined, as well as controllable, nanostructures.


In our reported work, the gelation properties of some cholesterol imide derivatives consisting of cholesteryl units and photoresponsive azobenzene substituent groups have been investigated [21] . We found that a subtle change in the headgroup of azobenzene segment can produce a dramatic change in the gelation behavior of both compounds. In addition, the gelation properties of bolaform and trigonal cholesteryl derivatives with different aromatic spacers have been characterized [22] . Therein, we have investigated the spacer effect on the microstructures of such organogels and found that various kinds of hydrogen bond interactions among the molecules play an important role in the formation of gels. Furthermore, in another relative research work, the gelation behaviors of some new azobenzene imide derivatives 2 Journal of Spectroscopy with different alkyl substituent chains and headgroups of azobenzene residues were investigated [23] . The experimental results indicated that more alkyl chains in molecular skeletons in synthesized imide gelators were favorable for the gelation of organic solvents.

In our reported work, the gelation properties of some cholesterol imide derivatives consisting of cholesteryl units and photoresponsive azobenzene substituent groups have been investigated.

In addition, the gelation properties of bolaform and trigonal cholesteryl derivatives with different aromatic spacers have been characterized.

Furthermore, in another relative research work, the gelation behaviors of some new azobenzene imide derivatives 2 Journal of Spectroscopy with different alkyl substituent chains and headgroups of azobenzene residues were investigated.


We also recall the following theorem given by Gadjiev and Orhan [18] . The aims of this paper are to introduce a new generalization of λ-Bernstein operators based on q-integers and give the statistical approximation properties of these operators using the concept of statistical convergence. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we give some lemmas which are needed to prove our main results. In section 3, we obtain the statistical approximation theorem and give an example to show that, in some cases, the absolute error bounds of these operators de ned in (3) to f (x) are smaller than the bounds of classical q-Bernstein operators to f (x).

We also recall the following theorem given by Gadjiev and Orhan.


We noticed that 6%-7% of K-rich particles which are a tracer of biomass burning occurred at the T1 site and T2 site ( Figure 5 ). In rural areas of Northeast China, the biomass materials (e.g., maize stalks and wheat straws) are often used for cooking in all seasons and for household heating from winter to spring [11] . Our results indicate that the regional contribution of biomass burning emissions should be far smaller than the contribution from coal burning emissions. However, the similar abundance of K-rich particles from the T1 and T2 sites indicated that continuous contributions from biomass burning emissions in villages should not be ignored in the whole Northeast China region.

In rural areas of Northeast China, the biomass materials (e.g., maize stalks and wheat straws) are often used for cooking in all seasons and for household heating from winter to spring.


DPP IV is a 110 kDa cell surface glycoprotein with serine exopeptidase activity that cleaves proline dipeptides from the N-terminus of polypeptides. In diabetes it cleaves the N-terminal tyrosine-proline dipeptide from the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), gastric inhibitory peptide, and pituitary adenylate cyclase activating peptide (PACAP). These incretins are released postprandially from the gut and stimulate insulin secretion [1] . DPP IV promotes hyperglycemia by rapidly inactivating these peptides. However, inhibition of DPP IV maintains the incretins at physiological levels that can increase insulin secretion.

These incretins are released postprandially from the gut and stimulate insulin secretion.


Trans fatty acids (t-FAs) are naturally present in ruminant's milk fat. Their total content is lower and with different composition of isomers as compared to partially hydrogenated oils (Destaillats et al., 2008) . High t-FAs intake has been associated with an increased risk of CHD and myocardial infarction (Ascherio et al., 1994) . Vaccenic acid (VA) (11trans-18:1) is the most represented t-FAs in ruminant milk (Park et al., 2007) . VA is the main precursor of rumenic acid (RA) (9cis, 11trans-18:2), the principal isomer of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in milk. The isomer 9cis, 11trans-18:2 positively affects the plasmatic lipid profile, reducing the risk of CHD and the onset of cancers (Bhattacharya et al., 2006) . Ruminant milk and meat represent almost the exclusive source of CLA in human diet (Parodi, 2003) . Characteristics of goat milk composition and their effects on human nutrition have been investigated in several reports (Park et al., 2007; Ceballos et al., 2009) . Most of milk composition studies have been carried out on individual or bulk tank samples collected at farm level, while little information exist on fluid milk at retail level. Moreover, only few studies investigated goat's milk lipid composition (Barnes, 1951; Merlo, 2001) . The objective of the present study was to evaluate the nutritional characteristics of fluid goat milk available on the market with regard to major fatty acids profile and concentration.

Their total content is lower and with different composition of isomers as compared to partially hydrogenated oils.

High t-FAs intake has been associated with an increased risk of CHD and myocardial infarction.

Vaccenic acid (VA) (11trans-18:1) is the most represented t-FAs in ruminant milk.

The isomer 9cis, 11trans-18:2 positively affects the plasmatic lipid profile, reducing the risk of CHD and the onset of cancers.

Ruminant milk and meat represent almost the exclusive source of CLA in human diet.

Characteristics of goat milk composition and their effects on human nutrition have been investigated in several reports.

Moreover, only few studies investigated goat's milk lipid composition.


Pseudorabies (PR) is a disease that significantly impacts the swine industry. This disease is caused by Suid Herpesvirus 1 (SuHV-1), which is a double-stranded DNA virus that belongs to the Herpesviridae family and the Alphaherpesvirinae subfamily and exhibits a slow genetic evolution. The primary hosts of SuHV-1 are domestic or wild pigs (Sus scrofa). This disease also affects cows, dogs, and cats, but, in these species, the disease is fatal in nearly 100% of cases [1] . Although PR has been eradicated in domestic swine in many countries, such as the United States, Germany, and England, this disease still occurs in wild boars and other feral swine in these countries [2] .

This disease also affects cows, dogs, and cats, but, in these species, the disease is fatal in nearly 100% of cases.

Although PR has been eradicated in domestic swine in many countries, such as the United States, Germany, and England, this disease still occurs in wild boars and other feral swine in these countries.


Inflammation is the body's natural response to infection and trauma (Janeway and Medzhitov, 2002) . Macrophage cells play a key role in the initiation and orchestration of the inflammatory response. These immune cells reside in tissues where they monitor the environment for molecules derived from pathogen or damaged cells (Medzhitov and Janeway, 2000) . When such molecular patterns are detected, macrophage secrete pro-inflammatory mediators (such as TNF and interleukin(IL)-1) and chemoattract other white blood cells, thus initiating an immune response (Cohen, 2002) . TNF and IL-1 induce endothelial cells to express adhesion molecules for neutrophils, a circulating white blood cell. Neutrophils migrate into the tissues, following chemokine gradients, where they scavenge and digest pathogen in a process called phagocytosis (Abraham, 2003) . Pro-inflammatory cytokines also trigger an anti-inflammatory wave that suppresses inflammation and returns the system to baseline as the infection or damage is cleared. IL-10 is a powerful anti-inflammatory cytokine that suppresses the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and the activity of innate immunity effector cells (Fujiwara and Kobayashi, 2005) . Anti-inflammation is an essential regulator of the inflammatory response that thwarts potential deleterious cytotoxic effects of vigorous pro-inflammation. Although the goal of the inflammatory 1 To whom correspondence should be addressed: +1-412-624-7364 response is to contain and eliminate the initial biological stressor (e.g. infection) and thus restore a healthy state, it also has the potential to push the system into a number of pathological states.

Inflammation is the body's natural response to infection and trauma.

These immune cells reside in tissues where they monitor the environment for molecules derived from pathogen or damaged cells.

When such molecular patterns are detected, macrophage secrete pro-inflammatory mediators (such as TNF and interleukin(IL)-1) and chemoattract other white blood cells, thus initiating an immune response.

Neutrophils migrate into the tissues, following chemokine gradients, where they scavenge and digest pathogen in a process called phagocytosis.

IL-10 is a powerful anti-inflammatory cytokine that suppresses the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and the activity of innate immunity effector cells.


Our study provides interesting insights into the development of sensitive biomarkers for TASH development. The most significant effect of PCB 126 exposure was a decrease in free long chain fatty acids (LCFAs) and PUFAs. Our results show that docosatrienoate 22:3n3 and 22:3n6 are the most sensitive biomarkers of lipid metabolism disturbances in HepaRG cells (Figure 1 ). This is in accord with the results obtained from a birth cohort from a fishing community that linked a high seafood intake, and thus high PCB exposure, to alterations in lipid profiles (Grandjean and Weihe, 2003) . Other experimental studies suggest that PCBs may affect the utilization of PUFAs by inhibition of Δ 5-and Δ 6-desaturation (Matsusue et al., 1999) . Such enzyme inhibition in fishing communities lead to deficient formation of arachidonic acid from its precursor, linoleic acid, attenuating the beneficial effects of essential lipids contained in seafood (Grandjean and Weihe, 2003) .

This is in accord with the results obtained from a birth cohort from a fishing community that linked a high seafood intake, and thus high PCB exposure, to alterations in lipid profiles.

Other experimental studies suggest that PCBs may affect the utilization of PUFAs by inhibition of Δ 5-and Δ 6-desaturation.

Such enzyme inhibition in fishing communities lead to deficient formation of arachidonic acid from its precursor, linoleic acid, attenuating the beneficial effects of essential lipids contained in seafood.


We determined transcriptome and metabolome signatures of the effect of a 10-day exposure to PCB 126 in differentiated HepaRG cells (Figure 1) . The cells presented no visible signs of aging at this time point. The metabolome platform detected 802 metabolites. We removed 7 variables with more than 50% missing values, and 199 variables that showed low repeatability. The effects of the PCB 126 were first visualized by plotting each sample as a point in space defined by the two principal components from a PCA, in order to reduce the 596-dimensional space defined by the variations in the metabolites levels (Figure 2A) . The components separated the group of samples treated with the PCB126 from the control group. As the dose of PCB 126 increases, the groups become more clustered. We then built an OPLS-DA model ( Figure 2B ) on the basis of the PCA results. The OPLS-DA model for PCB 126 (R2X = 0.177, R2Y = 0.769, and Q2 = 0.58) appropriately classified all samples ( Figure 2D ). This model explains 17.7% of the variation in metabolite levels (R2X) and 76.9% of the variations between the different groups (R2Y). The average prediction capability (Q2) was 58%. The difference between R2Y and Q2 was less than 0.2 and the Q2 value was greater than 50%, revealing an excellent predictive capability (Robotti and Marengo, 2016) . A 1,000-time permutation test was conducted to further validate the OPLS-DA model ( Figure 2C) . The empirical p-values for R2Y (p = 0.022) and Q2 (p < 0.001) indicate that the observed statistic (based on our data) is not part of the distribution formed by those from the permuted data. Thus, the dose-dependent clustering of the data is statistically significant.

The difference between R2Y and Q2 was less than 0.2 and the Q2 value was greater than 50%, revealing an excellent predictive capability.


Here t is some complex parameter. For t = 0 the above relations are the usual braid relations for W . Deformations like this, i.e. deformations of a group algebra C[G], G a Coxeter group, with deformed braid relations, have recently been studied by Etingof and Rains [7] , [8] . The paper is organized as follows. After some preliminaries on root systems, we define in section 2 a subalgebra H of the trigonometric DAHA H, and it is shown that the subalgebra H is a deformation of the group algebra C[W ]. Then in section 3 we define the rational DAHA H as a subalgebra of H that is generated by H and a polynomial algebra. We derive several useful properties of H, such as a PBW-theorem, and we define the analogues of Cherednik's Y -operators. In section 4 we study a faithful representation π of H in terms of difference-reflection operators on the vector space P consisting of polynomials in n variables. The nonsymmetric multivariable Wilson polynomials are used to describe the decomposition of P into irreducible π(H)-modules. In section 5 we derive several properties of the nonsymmetric Wilson polynomials. Finally, in section 6 we show how well-known properties of the (symmetric) multivariable Wilson polynomials can be obtained from the representation theory of H.

Here t is some complex parameter.

Deformations like this, i.e. deformations of a group algebra C[G], G a Coxeter group, with deformed braid relations, have recently been studied by Etingof and Rains.

The paper is organized as follows.


Vocabulary is one of the language aspects that should be emphasized in the teaching and learning of foreign languages. Vocabulary is the key component in second language teaching. The failure to master the vocabulary will lead to weaknesses in other language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. Therefore, vocabulary should be pursued in language activities to improve students' language proficiency (Hamid, 2010) . As one of the foreign languages offered at secondary schools in Malaysia, the level of Arabic Language Vocabulary mastery among the students still do not reach satisfactory level (Hussin, 2002; Yasim, 2012) .

Therefore, vocabulary should be pursued in language activities to improve students' language proficiency.

As one of the foreign languages offered at secondary schools in Malaysia, the level of Arabic Language Vocabulary mastery among the students still do not reach satisfactory level.


In this study we focus on the relationship between structural software quality characteristics (expressed through metrics), maintenance production (i.e., software units maintained) and duration. Although we acknowledge the fact that structural quality is not the only parameter that should be used in such a model (i.e., a complete model should consider the number of changing requirements, number of defects, etc.), we isolate software structure, in order to explore its influence exclusively. In classical economics production and duration are combined through the measure of productivity, which is defined as an average measure of production in the unit of time [6] . In this line of thought, we define maintenance productivity as the average lines of code that are being maintained (software units maintained) in a given time unit. Although the exploration of the relationship between software units maintained and structural quality measures is not novel (see Section 2) , to the best of our knowledge this is the first study that considers maintenance productivity. To achieve this goal we used a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) to model the relationships between the input (structural software metrics) and output parameters (maintenance production, maintenance duration, and maintenance productivity). The network has been trained through a case study on 454 versions of 20 Open Source Software (OSS). The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents research efforts on studies related to maintenance production; Section 3 presents background information on BBN and the metrics that have been used in the developed network; Section 4 presents the case study design; in Sections 5, we present and discuss our results and the implications to the researchers and practitioners; in Section 6 we present threats to validity and finally, and in Section 7 we conclude the paper.

In classical economics production and duration are combined through the measure of productivity, which is defined as an average measure of production in the unit of time.


To investigate the role of water in this mechanism, further experiments were carried out by heating a reaction mixture containing only TEA as a solvent (i.e., without water) in an autoclave at 160 ∘ C for 6 h and studying the morphology of the synthesized sample. In this case, Bi 2 S 3 nanorods with diameters and lengths in the range of 77-575 nm and 1200-3700 nm, respectively ( Figure S3 , Supporting Information), were obtained in contrast to the nanorods (diameters and lengths in the range of 44-140 nm and 945-2150 nm, resp.) produced under similar reaction conditions with TEA and water as reaction medium. The results validated the utility of water in the reaction medium for the generation of uniformly sized nanorods with high aspect ratio. Bi 2 S 3 has moderately high band gap energy ( ) compared to the other sulfides of the same group, making them important materials for various optoelectronic applications. So, the diffuse reflectance spectrum of the Bi 2 S 3 sample prepared at optimized hydrothermal reaction conditions (i.e., at 160 ∘ C for 18 h) has been carried out at room temperature, and the result is depicted in Figure 10 . The optical band gap was calculated from the point of intersection of the tangent of the absorption edge and the extrapolated line of the diffuse reflectance at lower wavelength, and the value was found to be 1.46 eV. This calculated value lies in the band gap range reported for bulk Bi 2 S 3 , which may be attributed to their larger average particle diameters compared to the exciton Bohr radius of Bi 2 S 3 (29.8 nm) [46] .

The optical band gap was calculated from the point of intersection of the tangent of the absorption edge and the extrapolated line of the diffuse reflectance at lower wavelength, and the value was found to be 1.46 eV. This calculated value lies in the band gap range reported for bulk Bi 2 S 3 , which may be attributed to their larger average particle diameters compared to the exciton Bohr radius of Bi 2 S 3 (29.8 nm).


In (2, 2) signature both families have one scalar in the spectrum. The scalar in the β-string is, as noted above, a deformation of the target space Kähler potential and the dynamics is that of self-dual gravity. The aim of this paper is to compute the exact effective action of the scalar in the α-string. The scalar is a deformation of a potential that determines the target space metric, torsion and dilaton [5] . The dynamics is that of a self-dual curvature with torsion [6] .

The scalar is a deformation of a potential that determines the target space metric, torsion and dilaton.

The dynamics is that of a self-dual curvature with torsion.


Rapidly growing mechanical and electrical waste has long been known to cause severe environmental problems. A major contributing factor of this is the rapid technological development of new products and an increasing demand for the latest technology by the consumers. The desire to obtain the latest technology often leads to premature purging of still functioning products. This, in turn, has led to a diminishing number of landfills and rapid depletion of virgin resources [1] . In order to the recycle them, it is necessary that the disassembly of end-of-life products should be implemented.

This, in turn, has led to a diminishing number of landfills and rapid depletion of virgin resources.


This problem is closely related to the Mather problem on the existence of trajectories with unbounded energy in a periodically forced geodesic flow [10, 29] . The criteria for the existence of trajectories of the energy that grows up to infinity are known for sufficiently large initial energies [10, 29, 71, 30, 85, 44, 45] . The results of the present paper can be used to establish the generic existence of orbits of unbounded energy for all possible values of initial energy.

This problem is closely related to the Mather problem on the existence of trajectories with unbounded energy in a periodically forced geodesic flow.

The criteria for the existence of trajectories of the energy that grows up to infinity are known for sufficiently large initial energies.


For ε = 0, the unperturbed system (1) is described by the Hamiltonian H = H 0 (I). Then the actions I are constant along trajectories, so the equation I = I 0 defines an invariant torus, and the angles ϕ are quasi-periodic functions of time with the frequency vector ω 0 (I) = H 0 (I). KAM theory implies that the majority of invariant tori survive under perturbation. Tori with rationally dependent frequencies are called resonant and are destroyed by a typical perturbation [2] . The frequency of a resonant torus satisfies a condition of the form ω 0 (I) · k = 0 for some k ∈ Z n \ {0}. The resonant tori form a "resonant web", typically (e.g. if ω 0 is a local diffeomorphism) a dense set of measure zero.

Tori with rationally dependent frequencies are called resonant and are destroyed by a typical perturbation.


As evidence of this potential problem, we were able to simulate a MMI with what would be regarded as satisfactorily correlated with human disturbance, from metrics that have only purely spurious relationships to disturbance (m 5 -type MMI). While the metrics in those simulated MMIs each had some ability to predict local disturbance, there was no direct causative relationship between disturbance and the metrics (these metrics fail to satisfy Pearl's back-door criterion for causal relations (Pearl, 2009) ). As a result, the MMI (and its component metrics) would be insensitive to any management action taken to reduce human disturbance. As levels of human disturbance were reduced, one would not find that metric scores improved, but that they no longer were predictive of human disturbance.

While the metrics in those simulated MMIs each had some ability to predict local disturbance, there was no direct causative relationship between disturbance and the metrics (these metrics fail to satisfy Pearl's back-door criterion for causal relations).


Currently, there are at least three strategies employed to mitigate the effects of environmental covariates on MMIs. The apparently oldest and most frequently used approach is to attempt to avoid problems by developing separate indices for (presumably) different homogeneous sub-regions of the study area (Barbour et al., 1999) . We do not address this approach here, except to note that it may be impractical at smaller spatial scales where sample sizes are not large, it cannot address interactions among environmental covariates and it results in multiple MMIs where one, more general MMI would be preferable. Another prominent approach is to use a "minimally impacted" reference set of sites to develop models of the effects of environmental covariates on metrics and then use these models to remove such effects in the entire (reference and non-reference) set of sites (Cao et al., 2007; Whittier et al., 2007; Stoddard et al., 2008; Hawkins et al., 2010) . A third, less-commonly applied approach uses the set of all sites to simultaneously model the effects of disturbance and environmental covariates on metrics and then adjusts metrics based on model parameters (Wiley et al., 2003; Baker et al., 2005) .

The apparently oldest and most frequently used approach is to attempt to avoid problems by developing separate indices for (presumably) different homogeneous sub-regions of the study area.

Another prominent approach is to use a "minimally impacted" reference set of sites to develop models of the effects of environmental covariates on metrics and then use these models to remove such effects in the entire (reference and non-reference) set of sites.

A third, less-commonly applied approach uses the set of all sites to simultaneously model the effects of disturbance and environmental covariates on metrics and then adjusts metrics based on model parameters.


A large number of countries are adopting policies to increase the number of electric vehicles in their fleets. The aim of these policies is to improve air quality by reducing pollutant emissions, especially in urban areas [1] . In this environment, the relationship between braking time and the vehicle moving time is very high. This indicates that there is a large amount of energy wasted as heat. This wasted kinetic energy can be recovered in electric vehicles by means of a regenerative braking system [2] [3] [4] . In large cities, with frequent stops and intersections, the energy dissipated in braking can reach 34% of total traction energy [3] . In traditional vehicles, that energy is wasted as heat through the brake friction. For this reason, regeneration or energy recovery systems are being widely used in electric vehicles.

The aim of these policies is to improve air quality by reducing pollutant emissions, especially in urban areas.

This wasted kinetic energy can be recovered in electric vehicles by means of a regenerative braking system.

In large cities, with frequent stops and intersections, the energy dissipated in braking can reach 34% of total traction energy.


Thus, there is a great necessity to explore way of improving current extensive urban expansion and economic growth to a sustainable development mode through coupling relationship of economic, construction land use, and ecology. The speed of urbanization and industrialization in some regions in China has been so unprecedented and unique that it cannot be repeated in human development history [12] . Hence, it is critical to explore a scientific and effective decision way to achieve the goal of building resource-saving and environmentally friendly society.

The speed of urbanization and industrialization in some regions in China has been so unprecedented and unique that it cannot be repeated in human development history.


As a representative of the eastern-coast developed provinces of China, Zhejiang Province has still faced a rigid demand for construction land resource. Unlike Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing, cities that are directly administered by the central government, cities of Zhejiang Province have been under the control of the provincial government. Local governments have encouraged land transfer to boost local revenue and attract more investment. Thus, in Zhejiang Province from 1999-2012, the average proportion of the land-transferring fee to fiscal revenue was 48.98%, with the highest level being 79.96% in 2003 ( Figure 1 ). The substantial extra-budgetary revenue that is available through converting land use further stimulates the fiscal motives of local governments: they convert large amounts of rural use land into urban use land. This causes a phenomenon whereby the acquired lands are in disuse because of a market surplus; this, in turn, makes it possible for the developers to obtain further land use rights for low land-transferring fees. However, with rapid urbanization and industrialization, Zhejiang Province has been facing many ecological challenges such as extreme heat events, degraded visibility, air and water pollution. For example, the average visibility degraded dramatically by 1.8 km/10a during the last three decades [13] . Therefore, Zhejiang Province should take measures to coordinate the relationship among economic, construction land use and ecology subsystem rather than passively wait for the arrival of the Kuznets curve inflection point between them.

For example, the average visibility degraded dramatically by 1.8 km/10a during the last three decades.


Construction land in this study refers to land that can be built on, including cities and towns, rural residential areas, independent industrial and mining land, and traffic land. The increase in the construction land has caused a sharp decrease in the amount of cultivated land, and threatened land productivity from ecological impact and the impact of cultivated land change induced by landscape variation, raising great concerns about China's ability of maintaining food self-sufficiency [5, 6] . As to China's more developed eastern region, the urbanization has led to the loss of cultivated land increased by 29.2% from 2000 to 2008 compared with that from 1995-2000 [7] . Moreover, the rapid expansion of construction land and China's economic growth has irreversibly deteriorated the ecological and environmental quality of the land, posed a serious threat to environmental sustainability [8] [9] [10] . At present, China's urbanization and industrialization trends show no signs of abating. One could extrapolate that China's construction land demand will rise constantly in line with its past trends, even although the gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to decrease to 7% in the coming years. However, compared with Japan during its rapid economic development period, every 1% GDP increase in China equates to eight times the land size of a similar increase in Japan [11] . China's extensive construction land use (CLU) is a crucial element affecting its long-term outlook for sustainable economic development, and for its ecological and environmental quality.

The increase in the construction land has caused a sharp decrease in the amount of cultivated land, and threatened land productivity from ecological impact and the impact of cultivated land change induced by landscape variation, raising great concerns about China's ability of maintaining food self-sufficiency.

As to China's more developed eastern region, the urbanization has led to the loss of cultivated land increased by 29.2% from 2000 to 2008 compared with that from 1995-2000.

Moreover, the rapid expansion of construction land and China's economic growth has irreversibly deteriorated the ecological and environmental quality of the land, posed a serious threat to environmental sustainability.

However, compared with Japan during its rapid economic development period, every 1% GDP increase in China equates to eight times the land size of a similar increase in Japan.


Al5Fe2 as the minor phase, while most of the coating consisted of Al5Fe2. Thus, it is seen that the increment of the heating temperature from 700 to 800 °C led to the formation of Al5Fe2 instead of Al13Fe4, and AlFe instead of Al5Fe2 through the enhanced counterdiffusion of the Al and substrate elements. Figure 5c shows a ~4 μm-thick α-Al2O3 layer, ~20 μm-thick Al5Fe2-rich layer, ~70 μm-thick AlFe layer, ~65 μm-thick newly formed transient coating, and the substrate that consisted of equiaxed grains. Elongated Al5Fe2 grains shown in Figure 4 grew to coarse, columnar AlFe grains in Figure 5c . The optical image shown in Figure 5c shows the α-Al2O3 scale either detached or adherent, Al5Fe2-rich layer, AlFe layer, transient coating, and the substrate. The Kirkendall effect and the Al-Fe phase transformation generated many voids (dark spots in the coating) and some cracks (Figure 5c,d) . In Figure 5e , Al diffused inwardly to the bottom of the transient coating, which was believed to consist of AlFe3, because AlFe3 could form between AlFe and α-Fe according to the Al-Fe binary phase diagram. In Figure 5e , the major alloying element, Cr, diffused up to the surface to dissolve in the α-Al2O3 layer. The second major alloying element, Mo, was denuded at the upper part of the coating owing to its small solubility in AlFe [20] . The third major alloying element, Mn, was present in the whole coating. The Vickers microhardness of the sample, outlined in Figures 2 and 5 , is displayed in Figure 6 . Before heating, the average microhardness of the Al-rich topcoat, Al13Fe4 layer, Al5Fe2 layer, and substrate was 105, 863, 1031, and 228 Hv, respectively. The lowest and highest microhardness was The Vickers microhardness of the sample, outlined in Figures 2 and 5 , is displayed in Figure 6 . Before heating, the average microhardness of the Al-rich topcoat, Al 13 Fe 4 layer, Al 5 Fe 2 layer, and substrate was 105, 863, 1031, and 228 Hv, respectively. The lowest and highest microhardness was similarly reported in the Al-topcoat and Al 5 Fe 2 -alloy layer, respectively [4, 13] . The Al-rich topcoat disappeared after oxidation at 800 • C for 100 h in air [13] . Heating broadened and softened the alloy layer so that the average microhardness of the (oxides, Al-Fe)-mixed layer, AlFe layer, AlFe 3 transient layer, and the substrate became 879, 507, 336, and 227 Hv, respectively. The increment of the surface hardness of the hot-dip aluminized P91 steel improves the wear resistance and thereby the performance of structural components [13] .

The second major alloying element, Mo, was denuded at the upper part of the coating owing to its small solubility in AlFe.

The lowest and highest microhardness was similarly reported in the Al-topcoat and Al 5 Fe 2 -alloy layer, respectively.

The Al-rich topcoat disappeared after oxidation at 800 • C for 100 h in air.

The increment of the surface hardness of the hot-dip aluminized P91 steel improves the wear resistance and thereby the performance of structural components.


The optical microstructure of Figure 3c is shown in Figure 4 . The α-Al 2 O 3 scale consisted of fine, round grains, because it grew slowly. Most of the coating consisted of numerous grains that elongated along the counterdiffusion direction of the Al and substrate elements. Particularly, Al 5 Fe 2 grew fast perpendicular to the sample surface [4] . AlFe grains were largely square (see spot 15 in Figures 3c and 4 ).

Particularly, Al 5 Fe 2 grew fast perpendicular to the sample surface.


Intercropping is a form of mixed cropping in which two or more crops are cultivated on the same land area and in time, in order to increase the productivity of land per unit area and as a natural model for designing sustainable agriculture and land conservation for fertility restoration (Andrew and Kassam, 1976) . It is a strategy used by farmers especially in the developing countries to increase crop yields, crop diversity and stability of crop production and financial returns (Kuchinda and Ogunwole, 2000) . Row intercropping is a form of intercropping which involves at least one of the component crops arranged in rows in either replacement or additive methods with the intension of planting many crops in order to reduce competition for growth resources in intercropping and thereby, improving intercropping practices as a means of yield increase in crop production (Natarajan and Willey, 1985) . A variation of row cropping in the developed countries includes strip row arrangement, where multiple crops are grown together in strips wide enough to permit separate crop production using machines but close enough for the crops to interact.

Intercropping is a form of mixed cropping in which two or more crops are cultivated on the same land area and in time, in order to increase the productivity of land per unit area and as a natural model for designing sustainable agriculture and land conservation for fertility restoration.

It is a strategy used by farmers especially in the developing countries to increase crop yields, crop diversity and stability of crop production and financial returns.

Row intercropping is a form of intercropping which involves at least one of the component crops arranged in rows in either replacement or additive methods with the intension of planting many crops in order to reduce competition for growth resources in intercropping and thereby, improving intercropping practices as a means of yield increase in crop production.


The area under sesame cultivation in Sindh, Punjab, KPK and Balochistan during the year 2006 was 3.4, 75.1, 0.1 and 3.4 thousand hectares with the production of 1.4, 31.6, 0.1 and 2.0 thousand tons. The yield per hectare of sesame in Pakistan is low as compared to many other sesame growing countries of the world. The causes behind this setback are varied, which may include use of marginal land impure seed, low yielding varieties; improper sowing time, irrigation frequencies, fertilizer; and other cultural practices [7] .

The causes behind this setback are varied, which may include use of marginal land impure seed, low yielding varieties; improper sowing time, irrigation frequencies, fertilizer; and other cultural practices.


Pakistan is facing acute shortage of edible oil. Demand of edible oil in Pakistan is increasing with increase in population but production of edible oil is decreasing every year. The local production estimated at 0.680 million tons, meets only 24% of domestic requirement of edible oil while the remaining 76% is met through imports. Total availability from all sources is provisionally estimated at 1.749 million tons. Higher production of sesame may contribute towards edible oil and to meet country's requirement which may help in reducing the import [6] .

Higher production of sesame may contribute towards edible oil and to meet country's requirement which may help in reducing the import.


Reduced glutathione, tocopherol and ascorbic acid are non enzymatic antioxidants. Reduced glutathione is a cellular antioxidant and has a central role in reducing reactive oxygen species. It scavenges free radicals and thus maintains the structural integrity of cell membrane and membrane organelles. It also maintains the levels of ascorbic acid and tocopherol [23, 24, and 25 ] Vitamin E works synergistically with Vitamin C and they have greater effect when they work together than their individual effects on the antioxidant system.These vitamins reinforce and extend each other's antioxidant activity. Vitamin C attacks free radicals in the cell fluid while vitamin E scavenges dangerous free radicals of the cell membrane [26] . The results showed the depletion of both GSH and tocopherol in CQ group. Depletion in the levels of GSH is possibly due to its over usage in scavenging large amount of free radicals generated due to chloroquine. Low levels of tocopherol might also be due to the same reason.

Vitamin C attacks free radicals in the cell fluid while vitamin E scavenges dangerous free radicals of the cell membrane.


Citation analysis was performed by classifying each tweet as having an internal, external, or no citation, using a pre-defined, Twitter-specific classification system [3, 17] . Tweets with internal citations, commonly referred to as retweets, contained the prefix RT@ while external citations contained shortened universal resource locators (URLs) to third party websites (Table 1 ) [3] . Sentiment scores were calculated by performing conventional linguistic analyses of each tweet using a modified Affective Norms for English Words sentiment lexicon (AFINN) [18] [19] [20] [21] . The AFINN lexicon was developed specifically for the text of microblogs such as Twitter [18] . Each word in the lexicon is given a dimensionless integer value from 25 (highly negative) to +5 (highly positive). We ascribed these values from the lexicon to each word in a tweet using an automated complier and averaged the values to obtain a sentiment score for that tweet.

Citation analysis was performed by classifying each tweet as having an internal, external, or no citation, using a pre-defined, Twitter-specific classification system.

Tweets with internal citations, commonly referred to as retweets, contained the prefix RT@ while external citations contained shortened universal resource locators (URLs) to third party websites (Table 1 ).

Sentiment scores were calculated by performing conventional linguistic analyses of each tweet using a modified Affective Norms for English Words sentiment lexicon (AFINN).

The AFINN lexicon was developed specifically for the text of microblogs such as Twitter.


Fourth, we did not compare tweets from similarly sized nephrology or other medical conferences. Our comparison was limited between tweets from Kidney Week 2011 and the 2011 ADA meetings because conference officials for both had documented an interest in using Twitter to increase public awareness [1, 6] . A comparison with other nephrology or medical conferences would have been more meaningful had those respective conference officials/organizers documented a similar intention.

Our comparison was limited between tweets from Kidney Week 2011 and the 2011 ADA meetings because conference officials for both had documented an interest in using Twitter to increase public awareness.


Moreover, our study also focused on membrane bound enzymes F(H + )-ATPase and the PTS, a possible primary locus for the inhibitory effects of the extract. Aciduricity of S. mutans GS-5 is coupled with an increase in the activity of the F 1 F 0 H + -translocating ATPase enzyme [26] . The F-ATPase maintains the cytoplasmic pH in a range where metabolic enzymes and transporters can function, and is thus important for acid tolerance. Acid production is linked to uptake and metabolism of sugars, and demineralization of teeth occurs when the pH in dental plaque drops below 4.0 as a result of acid production by S. mutans GS-5. Our data indicated that both F-ATPase and PTS activity were suppressed by methanolic extract of the leaves of C. operculatus, and consequently acid production was reduced.

Aciduricity of S. mutans GS-5 is coupled with an increase in the activity of the F 1 F 0 H + -translocating ATPase enzyme.


Second, we focus on effective trend analysis using clustering. The existing trend analysis has two weaknesses. The existing analysis is based on word statistics, which extract sporadic group of words, rather than meaning-based subject extraction. Also, it fails to respond with composure when extracting subjects from various aspects, such as timely, daily, and weekly time scales. This is because it is designed to passively detect words that pass over a specific threshold that is designed in advance. We use a nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) clustering method to overcome these weaknesses [1] . This paper is composed as follows. We introduce previous Twitter-related researches in Section 2. In Section 3, we introduce a clustering method that searches communities and suggest a partitioned Louvain algorithm. In Section 4, we investigate NFM clustering, which is a Tweet content-based clustering method, for trend analysis. In Section 5.1, we give a partitioned Louvain algorithm and examine its performance.

We use a nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) clustering method to overcome these weaknesses.

This paper is composed as follows.


Although EBT appears to have a more modest performance compared to IECR, it must be noted that EBT is still applicable when the probing scenario needs the state of the probing algorithm to be explicitly put into the probe packet. This is the case, for example, with the RFID tags [3] . Furthermore, the explicit state in the probe packet can help an error-resilient design of the probing procedure. Finally, the explicit state can help the terminals to employ some energy-efficient sleeping strategies while participating in the probing process.

This is the case, for example, with the RFID tags.


The bark of the pomegranate fruit is the hard part of the fruit. It is generally used dried in the form of brownish pieces. These fragments are leathery consistency. They are formed of parenchyma cells with thin walls, in the middle of which there are groups of stone cells and vascular bundles. The flavor of pomegranate rind is bitter and astringent. The crust is an anthelmintic and astringent and useful in the treatment of diarrhea, dysentery and stomach pains [1] . For centuries, bark, leaves, flowers and fruits of Punica granatum L. (Punicaceae), known as the grenade name, were used to treat many diseases [2] . Bacterial and fungal infections due to multidrug-resistant microorganisms are a major concern for both health problem in developing countries where they are the main cause of high mortality rates in industrialized countries where resistance to existing antibiotics grow alarmingly [3] . This situation creates a growing need to find new compounds; identifying new sources of antibiotic natural products and the expansion of the chemical diversity of antibiotics provide leads for new chemical drugs. Medicinal plants, particularly those used traditionally, are a potential source of such compounds. One strategy for this research is to explore the plants used in traditional medicine to treat many infectious origin pathologies. Capable of colonizing a wide variety of tissue causing, among others, respiratory, intestinal, skin or urinary [4] . They have enormous therapeutic potential to cure many infectious diseases [5] . Thus, for two decades studies have been conducted on the development of new applications and the exploitation of natural properties of essential oils in different areas. The use of essential oils is relevant today. As part of our effort to achieve this goal, we evaluated the antibacterial activity of the plant used traditional medicine Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) belongs to the family Punicaceae. It is a shrub native to Asia and has been cultivated since ancient times throughout the Mediterranean region of Africa and parts of Europe.

The crust is an anthelmintic and astringent and useful in the treatment of diarrhea, dysentery and stomach pains.

For centuries, bark, leaves, flowers and fruits of Punica granatum L. (Punicaceae), known as the grenade name, were used to treat many diseases.

Bacterial and fungal infections due to multidrug-resistant microorganisms are a major concern for both health problem in developing countries where they are the main cause of high mortality rates in industrialized countries where resistance to existing antibiotics grow alarmingly.

Capable of colonizing a wide variety of tissue causing, among others, respiratory, intestinal, skin or urinary.

They have enormous therapeutic potential to cure many infectious diseases.


Condition monitoring of machines is gaining importance in industry because of the need to increase reliability and to decrease possible loss of production. To achieve this, it is necessary to establish a maintenance monitoring program to regularly assess the condition of a machine. There are a number of different methods that can be employed for machine condition monitoring to support maintenance decisions. The use of oil analysis, vibration and acoustic emission (AE) signals is quite common in the field of condition monitoring of rotating machinery (Peng and Kessissoglou 2003; Samanta, Al-Balushi et al. 2003) .

The use of oil analysis, vibration and acoustic emission (AE) signals is quite common in the field of condition monitoring of rotating machinery.


The results presented in Table 3 showed that the pseudo-second order rate constant, K 2 was 4.12 x 10 -3 mg/g min 1/2 while the equilibrium sorption capacity (q e2 ) was 4.80 mg/g. Table 3 further reveals that the initial sorption rate, h o was 0.095 mg/g min and the pseudo-second order correlation coefficient (R 2 2 ) for the sorption of Basic Blue-9 dye from solution was very high 0.9949, showing that the kinetic sorption experimental data was suitably described by the pseudo-second order rate model. Similar results were obtained when caladium bicolor (wild cocoyam) biomass was used for the sorption of lead and cadmium ions from aqueous solution (Horsfall and Spiff, 2005) .

Similar results were obtained when caladium bicolor (wild cocoyam) biomass was used for the sorption of lead and cadmium ions from aqueous solution.


A bus may be temporarily blocked from entering and exiting a stop by other buses and traffic lights. The objective of this paper is to model each type of delay under these phenomena and the overall delay a bus experiences on average. The proposed model can provide a tool for bus stop design and the foundation for service quality evaluation of public transit (Furth, Rahbee 2000) .

The proposed model can provide a tool for bus stop design and the foundation for service quality evaluation of public transit.


However, there is no general agreement for the definition of bus delay at stop. It is defined as the difference between the time a bus actually spends at bus stop and the time a bus is expected to spend there. The expected time is the sum of the typical bus deceleration and acceleration time and the typical time it takes for passengers to get on and off the bus (Xu et al. 2009 , Zhou et al. 2008 Han et al. 2004) . A similar definition states that bus delay at stop includes several components that can be summarized as time lost while a bus stops (for doors to open and close, for passengers to board and alight) and time lost during deceleration and acceleration (Furth, SanClemente 2006) . These two definitions both compare the actual condition with the expected condition. Buses that travel on busy routes can be temporarily blocked from entering or exiting a stop by other buses that are serving passengers there. Thus, bus delay at stop is defined as the sum of two average delays in entry queue and in the berth due to the block from other buses (Gu et al. 2014) . The limitation of this definition is that it does not include the impact of traffic lights.

The expected time is the sum of the typical bus deceleration and acceleration time and the typical time it takes for passengers to get on and off the bus.

A similar definition states that bus delay at stop includes several components that can be summarized as time lost while a bus stops (for doors to open and close, for passengers to board and alight) and time lost during deceleration and acceleration.

Thus, bus delay at stop is defined as the sum of two average delays in entry queue and in the berth due to the block from other buses.


The inconsistent data reported here, if removed from longitudinal analyses, could yield losses to follow-up equivalent to or greater than other sources of attrition (e.g., deaths, institutionalization, non-response) over the planned 20 year course of the NPHS. The 1998-99 NPHS included probing questions to reduce inconsistencies and it should alleviate many of the problems evident here [44] . However, probes were not designed to address the larger problem of reverse-telescoping observed among some respondents in the NPHS longitudinal cohort. Incorporation of women's previous responses in subsequent interviews to avoid telescoping and stimulate recall can be used to minimize such inconsistencies [30] . A recent critical review of the accuracy of self-reported health behaviors, including mammography, provides further suggestions for enhancing the accuracy of such data [45] .

The 1998-99 NPHS included probing questions to reduce inconsistencies and it should alleviate many of the problems evident here.

Incorporation of women's previous responses in subsequent interviews to avoid telescoping and stimulate recall can be used to minimize such inconsistencies.

A recent critical review of the accuracy of self-reported health behaviors, including mammography, provides further suggestions for enhancing the accuracy of such data.


The data for production simulation are presented in Table 3 . Figure 5 presents the effect of permeability correction factor on productivity of fractured well, and we can see from this figure that permeability correction factor has a great influence on productivity. Production of fractured well is very small when our model only considers Darcy flow in nano/microscale pores ( = 1), but gas production increases a lot when matrix apparent permeability is corrected by permeability correction factor . Field data shows that gas production of a fractured vertical well is 1.2 × 10 4 m 3 when production pressure drop keeps 7 MPa and fracture halflength is 200 m [4] . The calculation results of multiscale non-Darcy seepage model are much more close to the field data compared with the production rate calculated by Darcy formula and production rate calculated by productivity formula only considering first order term of permeability correction factor.

Field data shows that gas production of a fractured vertical well is 1.2 × 10 4 m 3 when production pressure drop keeps 7 MPa and fracture halflength is 200 m.


Plant polyphenols are known to inhibit lipid peroxidation by quenching lipid peroxyl radicals and by reducing or chelating iron in cells [25] . We found that FME protected against AAPH-induced hemolysis in a dose-dependent and time-dependent manner and attenuated UV-induced generation of intracellular ROS. The results are consistent with those obtained from the analyses of reducing power, DPPH scavenging activity, and free radical scavenging activity. The antioxidant activity of FME may be due to its redox properties, which allow it to act as a reducing agent, hydrogen donor, and singlet oxygen quencher. UV exposure can lead to the depletion of endogenous antioxidants resulting in ROSinduced aging and DNA damage, especially in skin. FME with its UVB-induced ROS quenching effect might, therefore, be an effective antiphotoaging agent.

Plant polyphenols are known to inhibit lipid peroxidation by quenching lipid peroxyl radicals and by reducing or chelating iron in cells.


Concrete is the most widely used construction material in the world. Its consumption is around 10 billion tons per year, which is equivalent to 1 ton per every living person [1] . A variety on loads is applied to concrete all along its economical life. These loads can be separated into two types namely static and dynamic loads. Dynamic loads include explosive shocks, impact of a bullet or rocket, wind, earthquakes, impact of ships on to legs are RC bridges or petrol platforms, drop of rocks on to building that are constructed of avalanche regions and machine vibrations. The one among the dynamic loads at which very limited amount of investigation are done is the impact loading. Although the magnitude and application time of the impact loading can not be known exactly like the static loadings the instantaneous magnitudes can reach larger values than the other loading types [2, 3] . The impacts behaviors of basic structure material like steel and concrete got importance with the technological improvements. For example the loading during the nuclear reactions at nuclear centrals can reach very high magnitudes suddenly. Structures that have military significantly or strategic importance and very populated structures should be design according to impact loadings.

Its consumption is around 10 billion tons per year, which is equivalent to 1 ton per every living person.

Although the magnitude and application time of the impact loading can not be known exactly like the static loadings the instantaneous magnitudes can reach larger values than the other loading types.


There are studies investigating impact behaviors of concrete when the additive materials such polypropylene or steel fibers are added to concrete [11, 12] . These studies showed that additive are affected the impact strength of the concrete positively. But these fibers made handling of the concrete different increased the cost. In addition when the volume of the concrete increased, the homogeneous distribution of additives became hard. As a result the property of the concrete differs according to distribution. For these reasons, only standard mixtures with increased concrete compression strength are used for this experimental study.

There are studies investigating impact behaviors of concrete when the additive materials such polypropylene or steel fibers are added to concrete.


Impact testing are concentrates on to one of the basic structural material namely steel. But due to increase in active use of concrete, the impact behavior of the concrete started to gain importance. There is no established standards or methods for impact testing up to nowadays' studies [4] [5] [6] [7] . But ASTM E 23 regulations improved the test setup performance significantly and gave good starting points for the limits of impacts experiments [8] . When the experimental impact studies at literature are investigated, they are categorized in to two main segments. One of them depends on the investigation on specimens under impact loads that are applied by test equipments. These types of studies are concentrated on mostly steel materials. The other studies use equipment with mechanism that drops masses from height. This method is used mostly for the concrete impact testing [9, 10] . Several impact tests have been used to demonstrate the relative brittleness and impact resistance of concrete and similar construction materials. However, none of these tests has been declared to be a standard test, at least in part due to the lack of statistical data on the variation of the results.

There is no established standards or methods for impact testing up to nowadays' studies.

But ASTM E 23 regulations improved the test setup performance significantly and gave good starting points for the limits of impacts experiments.

This method is used mostly for the concrete impact testing.


An alternative pathway between personality and inflammation involves direct or indirect impact inflammatory health behavior leading to a direct inflammatory response or indirectly via the cost of illness (Chapman et al., 2011) . Our findings did not support our hypothesis that physical activity would explain the relationship between personality and IL6. None of the health behaviors that were examined accounted for the association between personality and IL6 (physical activity, BMI). We observed a significant correlation between level of physical activity and IL6 in the total sample and in the males. In addition, there was a trend toward significance for males in the regression analysis, which conforms to the notion that physical activity affects plasma cytokine levels in an intensity and sex dependent manner (Dressendorfer et al., 2002; Edwards, Burns, Ring, & Carroll, 2006a) . A considerable literature documents the effects of long-term physical activity on health (Jankord & Jemiolo, 2004) . Moderate physical activity is associated with enhanced cardiovascular and metabolic function and reduced body fat (Jankord & Jemiolo, 2004) . Lifestyles associated with high-intensity and high-volume physical activity result in positive changes in chronic low-grade inflammatory markers (Lira et al., 2010) . While physical activity was not a significant factor in the present study, other personality-influenced behaviors (e.g., diet, stress reduction practices) may lead to lower inflammatory levels.

An alternative pathway between personality and inflammation involves direct or indirect impact inflammatory health behavior leading to a direct inflammatory response or indirectly via the cost of illness.

In addition, there was a trend toward significance for males in the regression analysis, which conforms to the notion that physical activity affects plasma cytokine levels in an intensity and sex dependent manner.

A considerable literature documents the effects of long-term physical activity on health.

Moderate physical activity is associated with enhanced cardiovascular and metabolic function and reduced body fat.

Lifestyles associated with high-intensity and high-volume physical activity result in positive changes in chronic low-grade inflammatory markers.


Various explanations have been reported to account for the associations between personality and inflammation. One possible pathway between personality and inflammation involves the psychophysiology of stress. It has been suggested that a possible index of HPA activation can be reflected in personality phenotype in individuals who self-select into stressful situations, demonstrate variation in stress perception and coping (de Jong, van Sonderen, & Emmelkamp, 1999; Roberts, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2001) . Inconsistent with our findings, others have reported (favorable) associations between inflammatory markers and Openness to Experience.

It has been suggested that a possible index of HPA activation can be reflected in personality phenotype in individuals who self-select into stressful situations, demonstrate variation in stress perception and coping.


For more than sixty years, personality has been known to influence both positive and negative health outcomes (Segerstrom et al., 1998; Steptoe & Molloy, 2007; Temoshok, Wald, Synowski, & Garzino-Demo, 2008) . Certain personality traits have been associated with increased risk of chronic systemic inflammation. We examined whether the Big 5 personality dimensions were associated with IL6 in healthy males and females, and the extent to which physical activity and sex might explain this association. Our findings were that personality phenotype had a greater impact on systemic inflammation than physical activity, and the impact differed between men and women according to different personality characteristics. Controlling for age and BMI, higher scores of Openness have more of an impact on IL6 than physical activity among males than females and lower scores of Agreeableness have more of an impact on IL6 than physical activity among females than males. The finding of a weaker influence of physical activity on inflammation was surprising, but reinforces the importance of personality with regards to potentially harmful immune system activity.

For more than sixty years, personality has been known to influence both positive and negative health outcomes.


In addition, positive affective states have shown differential neuroendocrine-inflammatory associations in men and women, suggesting that, for women, a "happier" state of mind is related to reduced levels of inflammatory markers (Steptoe & Molloy, 2007) . Another sex-specific finding is that highly-sociable gay men infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) had slower CD4 T cell decline, higher viral load, and higher response to highly active antiretroviral therapy compared to less social HIV-infected gay men (Cole, Kemeny, Fahey, Zack, & Naliboff, 2003) . Identifying relationships between specific behavioral trait of sociability and immune function/disease progression allows further insight into mechanisms underlying the previously-established relationships between human personality and disease resistance or susceptibility.

In addition, positive affective states have shown differential neuroendocrine-inflammatory associations in men and women, suggesting that, for women, a "happier" state of mind is related to reduced levels of inflammatory markers.

Another sex-specific finding is that highly-sociable gay men infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) had slower CD4 T cell decline, higher viral load, and higher response to highly active antiretroviral therapy compared to less social HIV-infected gay men.


I contend these two bases for ethnic identification are not complete in the case of identification with either Taiwan or China for people living in Taiwan. I propose a third basis for ethnic identification as life space nepotism in anthropological terms, or social identification by life space in social psychological terms. Life space refers to the psychological field for each individual that is familiar and meaningful relative to the satisfaction and frustration of needs (Lewin, 1935) . When referring to the issue of social identification, one's psychological field is largely overlapped with the living space he/she shares with others. Within this psychological field, there are familiar people, lands, institutions, modal behavior patterns and social events. Life space nepotism entails a kind of primordial attachment to the land where one lives, works and interacts with familiar others (Shills, 1957; Geertz, 1963; Keyes, 1981; Latane & Liu, 1996) . The meaning of life space nepotism is similar to the concept of mere exposure. Individuals like the stimuli to which they are frequently exposed (Zajonc, 1968; Bornstein, 1989) . It is proposed that the sentiments of mutuality and familiarity resulting from shared life space can make up a common social identification for people who live in the same geographical area for a long time.

Life space refers to the psychological field for each individual that is familiar and meaningful relative to the satisfaction and frustration of needs.

Life space nepotism entails a kind of primordial attachment to the land where one lives, works and interacts with familiar others.

Individuals like the stimuli to which they are frequently exposed.


The issue of ethnic identity has always been a topic of concern in the fields of anthropology, sociology, archaeology, history and linguistics. At the turn of the 20th century, ethnic identity increasingly became a basis for nationalism. The concept of nation as a well-defined political group did not actually exist before the early 20th century in most areas of the world (Gellner, 1983) . Ethnicity has been used as a basis for defining a nation and as the reason for forming an independent nation in many areas of the developing world as part of the struggle against Western colonization. Formation of a nation in this manner depended on identification of a common ethnic group, which was generally considered to be objectively definable in terms of shared lineage, language, religion and other cultural characteristics.

The concept of nation as a well-defined political group did not actually exist before the early 20th century in most areas of the world.


Two possible categories of nationality exist for the people of Taiwan: Taiwanese or Chinese. Because of the current political complexities surrounding Taiwanese nationhood, the categories of 'nationality' and 'ethnicity' are mutually interpenetrating. A person in Taiwan may be culturally and politically Taiwanese, culturally and politically Chinese, or a mixture of the two. Now, six possible categorical identities exist: (i) Taiwanese; (ii) Chinese; (iii) Taiwanese but Chinese too; (iv) Chinese but Taiwanese too; (v) new Taiwanese; and (vi) general Chinese. Identification with Taiwanese implies complete exclusion of Chinese as ingroup members. Identification with Chinese entails inclusion of Chinese both in Taiwan and mainland China as ingroup members. Two newer identities as well as the double identity of (iii) and (iv) have emerged to try and deal with the political complexities of Chinese ethnicity versus nationality. New Taiwanese is an identity recently created by politicians in an attempt to cover those people who identify with the land of Taiwan regardless of whether their family's immigration to Taiwan was 200 or 50 years ago. It excludes Chinese in mainland China as ingroup members. By contrast, general Chinese (hua ren) denotes a collective category of people whose ancestors supposedly originated from the Yellow River in north China about 3000 years ago. Hence, the identity of general Chinese extends to Chinese descendants who have already become citizens of non-Chinese countries as well as those who are citizens of ROC in Taiwan and PRC in mainland China (Tzeng, 2000) .

Hence, the identity of general Chinese extends to Chinese descendants who have already become citizens of non-Chinese countries as well as those who are citizens of ROC in Taiwan and PRC in mainland China.


Soils frequently confront with us both under the foundations of structures and in engineering projects as a construction material. Engineering properties of soil could change within a wide range depending on the site conditions, in addition to the type of soil. Moreover, the soil condition in construction sites may not have the desired properties all the time. Rapid changes in population and urbanization cause civil engineers to have to make constructions on soils that are described as problematic soils. Soils with insufficient bearing capacity, excessive settlement problem, liquefaction potential, slope instability, swelling and dispersibility potential are known as problematic soils. Although the demolition of these soils is accepted as problematic and instead, the use of a convenient soil or changing the construction place could be accepted as a solution, these solutions are not accepted in technological and especially economical terms. For this reason, mechanical or chemical soil improvement methods have been used for a long time to improve the engineering properties of the problematic soils [1] .

For this reason, mechanical or chemical soil improvement methods have been used for a long time to improve the engineering properties of the problematic soils.


While angiosarcoma may occur virtually anywhere in the body, it commonly presents on the head and neck. Retrospective analysis of a series of 47 patients with CA without lymphedema revealed that lesions most commonly presented on the scalp (49%) followed by the cheek (19%) [3] . Altogether, 95% of the cases had local lesions on the head and neck. In the same study, the majority of the patients (76%) were noted to be elderly men (59-92 years old) [3] . This predilection of CA in elderly males has been noted extensively in the literature [4] [5] [6] .

Retrospective analysis of a series of 47 patients with CA without lymphedema revealed that lesions most commonly presented on the scalp (49%) followed by the cheek (19%).

In the same study, the majority of the patients (76%) were noted to be elderly men (59-92 years old).

This predilection of CA in elderly males has been noted extensively in the literature.


This paper proposed a new approach for configuring a parallel-planar HTS-DBPF that has the required frequency responses without the need for precise alignment between resonators. This is accomplished by employing double-sided conductors on a substrate. In this investigation, 1.8-/2.9-GHz band and 2.1-/2.7-GHz band BPFs were designed and fabricated for the proposed approach. The measured frequency responses of the fabricated HTS-DBPFs agreed better with the simulated results than the results from the previously proposed HTS-DBPF [5] . In particular, this filter configuration improved the maximum insertion loss by approximately 1 dB. These results confirm the effectiveness of the approach for configuring a parallel-planar HTS-DBPF. There still remain technical issues to address in the design of a multipole DBPF that provides sharp skirt characteristics and in the design of an MBPF with more than two passbands.

The measured frequency responses of the fabricated HTS-DBPFs agreed better with the simulated results than the results from the previously proposed HTS-DBPF.


A large number of 2328 AE hits were recorded from the BFS/OPC sample with encapsulated Al for 183.5 hours of monitoring separated into clearly defined periods with very low or almost none activity followed by an abrupt jump in the AE hits number. This behaviour of the sample, in term of AE, resembled the response of studied cement-based structures under loading associated with micro and macro scale damage development [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] . Moreover, the interval of AE "silence" following the period of a high AE activity in the history of the conducted experiment (stage 2 from Fig. 2) showed Kaiser effect observed in cement-based materials during loading-unloading cycles [18] .

This behaviour of the sample, in term of AE, resembled the response of studied cement-based structures under loading associated with micro and macro scale damage development.

Moreover, the interval of AE "silence" following the period of a high AE activity in the history of the conducted experiment (stage 2 from Fig. 2) showed Kaiser effect observed in cement-based materials during loading-unloading cycles.


Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are becoming a pervasive technology to monitor very different systems, from wide geographical areas to small-scale phenomena (as in body area networks). They are able to promptly detect particular events or working conditions and deliver related information to a specific destination. WSNs are currently deployed in many application fields, such as buildings construction, traffic monitoring, environmental analysis, healthcare assistance, weather forecast, and many others [1] [2] [3] . WSNs can improve the way people interact with surrounding environment, to increase their quality of life, and reduce the wasting of natural resources (water, oil, and gas), while optimizing their usage. A relevant task from this perspective is represented by metering, that is, the capability of measuring the amount of a certain resource, available at a specific grid point. In particular, companies in the utility sector providing electricity, gas, or water services are clearly interested in advanced metering infrastructures (AMIs), to improve their real-time monitoring over consumptions and optimize plants management.

WSNs are currently deployed in many application fields, such as buildings construction, traffic monitoring, environmental analysis, healthcare assistance, weather forecast, and many others.


Very few downloaded records were specific to any one RQ. The largest number of RQ-specific results were attributable to RQ3 (Interventions to develop routes and infrastructure to support low emission modes of transport) and focussed on active travel (waking and cycling). There were also a few results relating to RQ6 (Zoning interventions), but the majority of records were either relevant across multiple RQs or were potentially useful but not RQ-specific (Miscellaneous) ( Table 5) [4] . However, the complimentary search process undertaken by Eunomia and UWE mostly identified published evidence on effectiveness of interventions that were already included in the evidence review originally undertaken by NICE.

There were also a few results relating to RQ6 (Zoning interventions), but the majority of records were either relevant across multiple RQs or were potentially useful but not RQ-specific (Miscellaneous) ( Table 5).


In preparation of the guidance, the Public Health and Social Care Centre (PHSCC) within NICE undertook a review of published evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of local authority interventions to reduce traffic related air pollution. In December 2015, NICE commissioned research to complement their evidence review on the cost-effectiveness of these interventions and to develop an economic model [4] . This paper presents the systematic evidence review of the cost-effectiveness of interventions to reduce traffic related air pollution contributing to the development of the economic model.

In December 2015, NICE commissioned research to complement their evidence review on the cost-effectiveness of these interventions and to develop an economic model.


The position resolution improves with increasing photon energy up to 14 keV. This is consistent with the increase of the SNR. In fact, if the value of the 10 % limit of the MTF is plotted as a function of the X-ray energy range used to build it, it is evident that the position resolution Figure 8 . The position resolution as a function of the energy (brown squares). The energy spectrum is drawn for reference (the copper peak is seen, strongly attenuated by the 1.5 stainless steel sheet). The magenta line is the photo-electron range in argon as a function of the incoming X-ray energy, from calculated data [5] .

The magenta line is the photo-electron range in argon as a function of the incoming X-ray energy, from calculated data.


It should be mentioned that the present in vitro study could not reproduce the exact structure and condition of the tissues as well as pulpal status, and there were no periapical tissues that may act as a natural barrier against apical extrusion. However, the methodology used here has received the most attention and has been adopted by most studies pertaining to apical extrusion of debris [9, 24] . Regarding the number of files, single-file canal preparation in WaveOne system is expected to offer reduced working time and this fact was proved in the present study. The same result was reported in previous studies [3, 22] .

However, the methodology used here has received the most attention and has been adopted by most studies pertaining to apical extrusion of debris.

The same result was reported in previous studies.


This in vitro study compared the amount of apical DE after root canal preparation using ProTaper rotary and WaveOne reciprocation systems. Apically extrusion of intra-canal debris and irrigants, is a common occurrence during root canal treatment, and no instrument or technique has thoroughly eliminated this problem [9] . Some studies have shown that the different techniques, motions and systems, result in different amount of DE [9, 10] . The present study showed that WaveOne extruded more debris compared to ProTaper files (26% more).

Apically extrusion of intra-canal debris and irrigants, is a common occurrence during root canal treatment, and no instrument or technique has thoroughly eliminated this problem.

Some studies have shown that the different techniques, motions and systems, result in different amount of DE.