Abstract: The aim of this paper is to review some of standard fact on Miura curves. We give some easy theorem in number theory to define Miura curves, then we present a new implementation of Arita algorithm for Miura curves.
Abstract: Purpose: To compare attitudes and perceptions of
Israeli native born mothers versus former Soviet Union (FSU)
immigrant mothers regarding the physical health of their infant.
Methodology: cross-sectional design. A convenience sample of 50
participants was recruited by face to face and snowball technique. A
questionnaire was constructed according to the instructions of the
Ministry of Health for the care and treatment of infants. The main
areas explored were: sources of knowledge that the young mother
acquired regarding the care of her infant, ways of caring for the
infant, hygiene and sanitary habits, and the pattern of referral to
health professionals. The last topic relates to emotions mothers might
experience towards their infant.
Results: Mothers from both cultural groups present some similar
caring behaviors, which may express a universal aspect of mothers'
behavior towards their infants. However, immigrant mothers differ
significantly from native born by relying less on their mothers' and
grandmothers' experience, they wean their infants from diapers
earlier, they are stricter about hygiene and sanitary habits and they
tend to consult a physician when their infant has low fever. Native
born and immigrant mothers differ in their expressions of pride and
wonder. Immigrant mothers report of a lesser degree of these
emotions towards their infants than native born mothers.
Conclusion: The theoretical model of socialization and
acculturation of immigrant mothers is employed as an explanatory
model for the current findings Young immigrant mothers undergo a
complex acculturation process and adapt behavioral patterns in
various areas to comply with Israeli norms and values, demonstrating
assimilation. In other areas they adhere to the norms of their original
culture.
Abstract: This study was conducted to evaluate the anti-diabetic
properties of ethanolic extract of two plants commonly used in folk
medicine, Mormodica charantia (bitter melon) and Trigonella
foenum-graecum (fenugreek). The study was performed on STZinduced
diabetic rats (DM type-I). Plant extracts of these two plants
were given to STZ diabetic rats at the concentration of 500 mg/kg
body weight ,50 mg/kg body weight respectively. Cidophage®
(metformin HCl) were administered to another group to support the
results at a dose of 500 mg/kg body weight, the ethanolic extracts and
Cidophage administered orally once a day for four weeks using a
stomach tube and; serum samples were obtained for biochemical
analysis. The extracts caused significant decreases in glucose levels
compared with diabetic control rats. Insulin secretions were increased
after 4 weeks of treatment with Cidophage® compared with the
control non-diabetic rats. Levels of AST and ALT liver enzymes were
normalized by all treatments. Decreases in liver cholesterol,
triglycerides, and LDL in diabetic rats were observed with all
treatments. HDL levels were increased by the treatments in the
following order: bitter melon, Cidophage®, and fenugreek. Creatinine
levels were reduced by all treatments. Serum nitric oxide and
malonaldehyde levels were reduced by all extracts. GSH levels were
increased by all extracts. Extravasation as measured by the Evans
Blue test increased significantly in STZ-induced diabetic animals.
This effect was reversed by ethanolic extracts of bitter melon or
fenugreek.
Abstract: Digital libraries become more and more necessary in
order to support users with powerful and easy-to-use tools for
searching, browsing and retrieving media information. The starting
point for these tasks is the segmentation of video content into shots.
To segment MPEG video streams into shots, a fully automatic
procedure to detect both abrupt and gradual transitions (dissolve and
fade-groups) with minimal decoding in real time is developed in this
study. Each was explored through two phases: macro-block type's
analysis in B-frames, and on-demand intensity information analysis.
The experimental results show remarkable performance in
detecting gradual transitions of some kinds of input data and
comparable results of the rest of the examined video streams. Almost
all abrupt transitions could be detected with very few false positive
alarms.
Abstract: Provision of optical devices without proper instruction
and training may cause frustration resulting in rejection or incorrect
use of the magnifiers. However training in the use of magnifiers
increases the cost of providing these devices. This study compared
the efficacy of providing instruction alone and instruction plus
training in the use of magnifiers. 24 participants randomly assigned
to two groups. 15 received instruction and training and 9 received
instruction only. Repeated measures of print size and reading speed
were performed at pre, post training and follow up. Print size
decreased in both groups between pre and post training maintained at
follow up. Reading speed increased in both groups over time with the
training group demonstrating more rapid improvement. Whilst
overall outcomes were similar, training decreased the time required
to increase reading speed supporting the use of training for increased
efficiency. A cost effective form of training is suggested.
Abstract: In this paper we propose a new classification method for automatic sleep scoring using an artificial neural network based decision tree. It attempts to treat sleep scoring progress as a series of two-class problems and solves them with a decision tree made up of a group of neural network classifiers, each of which uses a special feature set and is aimed at only one specific sleep stage in order to maximize the classification effect. A single electroencephalogram (EEG) signal is used for our analysis rather than depending on multiple biological signals, which makes greatly simplifies the data acquisition process. Experimental results demonstrate that the average epoch by epoch agreement between the visual and the proposed method in separating 30s wakefulness+S1, REM, S2 and SWS epochs was 88.83%. This study shows that the proposed method performed well in all the four stages, and can effectively limit error propagation at the same time. It could, therefore, be an efficient method for automatic sleep scoring. Additionally, since it requires only a small volume of data it could be suited to pervasive applications.
Abstract: Value-based group decision is very complicated since many parties involved. There are different concern caused by differing preferences, experiences, and background. Therefore, a support system is required to enable each stakeholder to evaluate and rank the solution alternatives before engaging into negotiation with the other stakeholders. The support system is based on combination between value-based analysis, multi criteria group decision making based on satisfying options, and negotiation process based on coalition formation. This paper presents the group decision and negotiation on the selection of suitable material for a support bridge structure involving three decision makers, who are an estate manager, a project manager, and an engineer. There are three alternative solutions for the material of the support bridge structure, which are (a1) steel structure, (a2) reinforced concrete structure and (a3) wooden structure.
Abstract: Today advertising is actively penetrating into many spheres of our lives. We cannot imagine the existence of a lot of economic activities without advertising. That mostly concerns trade and services. Everyone of us should look better into the everyday communication and carefully consider the amount and the quality of the information we receive as well as its influence on our behaviour. Special attention should be paid to the young generation. Theoretical and practical research has proved the ever growing influence of information (especially the one contained in advertising) on a society; on its economics, culture, religion, politics and even people-s private lives and behaviour. Children have plenty of free time and, therefore, see a lot of different advertising. Though education of children is in the hands of parents and schools, advertising makers and customers should think with responsibility about the selection of time and transmission channels of child targeted advertising. The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the influence of advertising upon consumer views and behaviour of children in different age groups. The present investigation has clarified the influence of advertising as a means of information on a certain group of society, which in the modern information society is the most vulnerable – children. In this paper we assess children-s perception and their understanding of advertising.
Abstract: Fault tolerance is critical in many of today's large computer systems. This paper focuses on improving fault tolerance through testing. Moreover, it concentrates on the memory faults: how to access the editable part of a process memory space and how this part is affected. A special Software Fault Injection Technique (SFIT) is proposed for this purpose. This is done by sequentially scanning the memory of the target process, and trying to edit maximum number of bytes inside that memory. The technique was implemented and tested on a group of programs in software packages such as jet-audio, Notepad, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Outlook. The results from the test sample process indicate that the size of the scanned area depends on several factors. These factors are: process size, process type, and virtual memory size of the machine under test. The results show that increasing the process size will increase the scanned memory space. They also show that input-output processes have more scanned area size than other processes. Increasing the virtual memory size will also affect the size of the scanned area but to a certain limit.
Abstract: Ontologies play an important role in semantic web
applications and are often developed by different groups and
continues to evolve over time. The knowledge in ontologies changes
very rapidly that make the applications outdated if they continue to
use old versions or unstable if they jump to new versions. Temporal
frames using frame versioning and slot versioning are used to take
care of dynamic nature of the ontologies. The paper proposes new
tags and restructured OWL format enabling the applications to work
with the old or new version of ontologies. Gene Ontology, a very
dynamic ontology, has been used as a case study to explain the OWL
Ontology with Temporal Tags.
Abstract: Design of experiments made for correlated the hormonal activity of steroids and their effect on the vaginal structure properties. Vaginal wall consists of distinct layers of cells which strongly differ regarding growth in answer to steroid hormones. The presence study carried out for functional evaluation and sustained replacement effect of the reproductive hormones on the vaginal morphometry in the rabbit. Rabbits were maintained control (Co) or ovariectomized (Ovz) and continuously treated with estradiol (Ovz E) and estradiol mixture with testosterone (Ovz ET). Relative to control rabbits with the distinct tissue distribution pattern, ovariectomized animals displayed declined epithelial thickness and atrophy of the muscularis layer that cause the vaginal wall thinning. Estradiol treatment of Orz rabbits inverted these changes to status of the preovariectomy. Histometric measurements in Ovz ET group completely including of thickness of the epithelial and muscular layers was greater in comparison to that of control animals.
Abstract: By the end of XX century in the structure of humanity some changes have been provoked: a new ethnos - Ethnos of Intellect is formed and is still being formed, beside the historical types of ethnoses: open ethnos, closed ethnos, wandering ethnos, dead ethnos, - and this event was caused by the technical progress, development of informational and transport communications, especially - by creation of Internet. The Ethnos of Intellect is something very close to the ÔÇ×Information Society“ described by J. Ellule and Y. Masuda that was regarded as the culture of XXI century, being an antithesis for technical and technicistical civilizations, but it-s necessary to indicate also the essential difference between these concepts: the Ethnos of Intellect is the antithesis of Socium. The existence of such an ethnos within human society that has already become an Information Society itself is extremely important in observing legally and informatically a new kind of reins in the hands of the political power, revealing every attempt to violate the human rights of simple citizens. A concrete example of some conjunction points of legal informatics and informatical law in a certain kind of ambiental studies of the project ''State Registre of Population'' in Russia is very eloquent.
Abstract: Assassination of politicians, school mass murders, purported suicides, aircraft crash, mass shootings by police, sinking of sea ferries, mysterious car accidents, mass fire deaths and horrificterror attacks are some of the cases that bring forth scientific and legal conflicts. Questions about truth, justice and human rights are raised by both victims and perpetrators/offenders as they seek to understand why and how it happened to them. This kind of questioning manifests itself in medical-criminological-legalpsychological and scientific realms. An agreement towards truthinvestigations for possible legal-political-psychological transitory issues such as prosecution, victim-offender mediation, healing, reconciliation, amnesty, reparation, restitution, and policy formulations is seen as one way of transforming these conflicts. Forensic scientists and pathologists in particular have formed professional groups where the complexities between legal truth and scientific truth are dramatized and elucidated within the anatomy of courtrooms. This paper focuses on how pathological truth and legal truth interact with each other in Kenya’s criminal justice system.
Abstract: Swietenia mahagoni have been used in traditional
medicine for treatment of different diseases. Present study was
performed to evaluate anti-ulcerogenic activity of ethanol seed
extract against ethanol induced gastric mucosal injury in rats. Six
groups of rats were orally pre-treated respectively with
carboxymethyl cellulose, omeprazole 20 mg/kg, 50, 100, 200 and 400
mg/kg plant extract one hour before oral administration of absolute
ethanol to generate gastric mucosal injury. After additional hour, rats
were sacrificed and ulcer areas of gastric walls were determined.
Grossly, carboxymethyl cellulose group exhibited severe mucosal
injury, whereas pre-treatment with plant extract exhibited significant
protection of gastric mucosa. Histology, carboxymethyl cellulose
group exhibited severe damage of gastric mucosa; edema and
leucocytes infiltration of sub mucosa compared to plant extract which
showed gastric protection. Acute toxicity study did not manifest any
toxicological signs in rats. Conclusions, results suggest that S.
mahagoni promotes ulcer protection as ascertained grossly and
histologically.
Abstract: This research is aimed at studying the nature of
problems and demands of the training for community leaders in the
upper northeastern region of Thailand. Population and group
samplings are based on 360 community leaders in the region who
have experienced prior training from the Udonthani Rajabhat
University. Stratified random samplings have been drawn upon 186
participants. The research tools is questionnaires. The frequency,
percentage and standard deviation are employed in data analysis. The
findings indicate that most of community leaders are males and
senior adults. The problems in training are associated with the
inconveniences of long-distance travelling to training locations,
inadequacy of learning centers and training sites and high training
costs. The demand of training is basically motivated by a desire for
self-development in modern knowledge in keeping up-to-date with
the changing world and the need for technological application and
facilitation in shortening the distance to training locations and in
limiting expensive training costs.
Abstract: This paper examines the available experiment data for a copper bromide vapor laser (CuBr laser), emitting at two wavelengths - 510.6 and 578.2nm. Laser output power is estimated based on 10 independent input physical parameters. A classification and regression tree (CART) model is obtained which describes 97% of data. The resulting binary CART tree specifies which input parameters influence considerably each of the classification groups. This allows for a technical assessment that indicates which of these are the most significant for the manufacture and operation of the type of laser under consideration. The predicted values of the laser output power are also obtained depending on classification. This aids the design and development processes considerably.
Abstract: Pure phase gallosilicate nitrite sodalite has been synthesized in a single step by low temperature (373 oK) hydrothermal technique. The product obtained was characterized using a combination of techniques including X-ray powder diffraction, IR, Raman spectroscopy, SEM, MAS NMR spectroscopy as well as thermogravimetry. Sodalite with an ideal composition was obtained after synthesis at 3730K and seven days duration using alkaline medium. The structural features of the Na8[GaSiO4]6(NO2)2 sodalite were investigated by IR, MAS NMR spectroscopy of 29Si and 23Na nuclei and by Reitveld refinement of X-ray powder diffraction data. The crystal structure of this sodalite has been refined in the space group P 4 3n; with a cell parameter 8.98386Å, V= 726.9 Å, (Rwp= 0.077 and Rp=0.0537) and Si-O-Ga angle is found to be 132.920 . MAS NMR study confirms complete ordering of Si and Ga in the gallosilicate framework. The surface area of single entity with stoichiometry Na8[GaSiO4]6(NO2)2 was found to be 8.083 x10-15 cm2/g.
Abstract: In mammalian reproductive tract, the oviduct secretes
huge number of growth factors and cytokines that create an optimal
micro-environment for the initial stages of preimplantation embryos.
Secretion of these growth factors is stage-specific. Among them,
VEGF is a potent mitogen for vascular endothelium and stimulates
vascular permeability. Apart from angiogenesis, VEGF in the oviduct
may be involved in regulating the oocyte maturation and subsequent
developmental process during embryo production in vitro. In
experiment 1, to evaluate the effect of VEGF during IVM of porcine
COC and subsequent developmental ability after PA and SCNT. The
results from these experiments indicated that maturation rates among
the different VEGF concentrations were not significant different. In
experiment 2, total intracellular GSH concentrations of oocytes
matured with VEGF (5-50 ng/ml) were increased significantly
compared to a control and VEGF group (500 ng/ml). In experiment 3,
the blastocyst formation rates and total cell number per blastocyst
after parthenogenesis of oocytes matured with VEGF (5-50 ng/ml)
were increased significantly compared to a control and VEGF group
(500 ng/ml). Similarly, in experiment 4, the blastocyst formation rate
and total cell number per blastocyst after SCNT and IVF of oocytes
matured with VEGF (5 ng/ml) were significantly higher than that of
oocytes matured without VEGF group. In experiment 5, at 10 hour
after the onset of IVF, pronuclear formation rate was evaluated.
Monospermy was significantly higher in VEGF-matured oocytes than
in the control, and polyspermy and sperm penetration per oocyte
were significantly higher in the control group than in the VEGFmatured
oocytes. Supplementation with VEGF during IVM
significantly improved male pronuclear formation as compared with
the control. In experiment 6, type III cortical granule distribution in
oocytes was more common in VEGF-matured oocytes than in the
control. In conclusion, the present study suggested that
supplementation of VEGF during IVM may enhance the
developmental potential of porcine in vitro embryos through increase
of the intracellular GSH level, higher MPN formation and increased
fertilization rate as a consequence of an improved cytoplasmic
maturation.
Abstract: Measuring the effect of perinatal lead exposure on learning ability of offspring is considered as a sensitive and selective index for providing an early marker for central nervous system damage produced by this toxic metal. A total of 35 Sprague-Dawley adult rats were used to investigate the effect of lead acetate toxicity on behavioral patterns of adult female rats and learning ability of offspring. Rats were allotted into 4 groups, group one received 1g/l lead acetate (n=10), group two received 1.5g/l lead acetate (n=10), group three received 2g/l lead acetate in drinking water (n=10) and control group did not receive lead acetate (n=5) from 8th day of pregnancy till weaning of pups.
The obtained results revealed a dose dependent increase in the feeding time, drinking frequency, licking frequency, scratching frequency, licking litters, nest building and retrieving frequencies, while standing time increased significantly in rats treated with 1.5g/l lead acetate than other treated groups and control, on contrary lying time decreased gradually in a dose dependent manner. Moreover, movement activities were higher in rats treated with 1g/l lead acetate than other treated groups and control. Furthermore, time spent in closed arms was significantly lower in rats given 2g/l lead acetate than other treated groups, while, they spent significantly much time spent in open arms than other treated groups which could be attributed to occurrence of adaptation. Furthermore, number of entries in open arms was dose dependent. However, the ratio between open/closed arms revealed a significant decrease in rats treated with 2g/l lead acetate than control group.
Abstract: Schools today face ever-increasing demands in their attempts to ensure that students are well equipped to enter the workforce and navigate a complex world. Research indicates that computer technology can help support learning, implementation of various experiments or learning games, and that it is especially useful in developing the higher-order skills of critical thinking, observation, comprehension, implementation, comparison, analysis and active attention to activities such as research, field work, simulations and scientific inquiry. The ICT in education supports the learning procedure by enabling it to be more flexible and effective, create a rich and attractive training environment and equip the students with knowledge and potential useful for the competitive social environment in which they live. This paper presents the design, the development, and the results of the evaluation analysis of an interactive educational game which using real electric vehicles - toys (material) on a toy race track. When the game starts each student selects a specific vehicle toy. Then students are answering questionnaires in the computer. The vehicles' speed is related to the percentage of right answers in a multiple choice questionnaire (software). Every question has its own significant value depending of the different level of questionnaire. Via the developed software, each right or wrong answers in questionnaire increase or decrease the real time speed of their vehicle toys. Moreover the rate of vehicle's speed increase or decrease depends on the difficulty level of each question. The aim of the work is to attract the student’s interest in a learning process and also to improve their scores. The developed real time game was tested using independent populations of students of age groups: 8-10, 11-14, 15-18 years. Standard educational and statistical analysis tools were used for the evaluation analysis of the game. Results reveal that students using the developed real time control game scored much higher (60%) than students using a traditional simulation game on the same questionnaire. Results further indicate that student's interest in repeating the developed real time control gaming was far higher (70%) than the interest of students using a traditional simulation game.