in arid and semi-arid ecosystems, shrubs may act as fertility islands but theireffect may vary depending on their morphology and ecological impacts. this research wasaimed to study effect of three shrubs scariola orientalis, astragalus heratensis, and rosapersica on soil properties and on the microclimate conditions (temperature, luminance, andsoil moisture) of their understory in the steppe ra...

dibutyl phthalate (dbp) is a phthalic acid ester and is widely used in polymeric products to make them more flexible. dbp is found in almost every plastic material and is believed to be persistent in the environment. various analytical methods have been used to measure dbp in different matrices. considering the ubiquitous nature of dbp, the most important challenge in dbp analyses is the contam...

This paper describes the development of a novel humanoid robot foot/ankle based on an orientation Parallel Kinematic Mechanism for intelligent and flexible control. With three identical Universal-Prismatic-Spherical prismatic-actuated limbs and a central Universal-Revolute passive limb, the PKM can perform three degrees of freedom rotation motions. In order to enable the humanoid robot safely t...

Cotton fabric with the addition of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and polyaniline (PANI) was developed as a flexible electrode to measure muscle biopotential signals using Electromyography (EMG) in this study. AgNPs are synthesized two reduci

OBJECTIVE To investigate and compare the effects on pain of intraurethral 2% lidocaine gel and plain lubricating gel in male patients underwent flexible cystoscopy. MATERIAL AND METHODS The data of 220 male patients who underwent flexible cystoscopy between March 2012 and August 2014 were retrospectively analized. The patients were divided into 2 groups according to using intraurethral gel ty...

A Uniform Lying Helix (ULH) liquid crystal device (LCD) fabricated by utilizing the characteristics of shear flow alignment as well as dielectric anisotropy was demonstrated. Cholesteric liquid crystals with a short helical pitch can exhibit an electric field-induced tilt. These experimental results indicate that it is possible to realize a high-speed response flexible LCD using plastic substra...

Vehicular fuel composition and atmospheric emissions in South China: Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, and Zhuhai W. Y. Tsai, L. Y. Chan, D. R. Blake, and K. W. Chu Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA Received: 7 February 2006 – Accepted: 9 March 2006 – Publi...

The veri cation of timed systems is extremely important but also extremely di cult Several methods have been proposed to assist in this task including extensions to symbolic model checking One possible use of model checking to analyze timed systems is by modeling passage of time as the number of taken transitions and ap plying quantitative algorithms to determine the timing parameters of the sy...

This paper presents an overview of the economics literature on the effect of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards on the new vehicle market. Since 1978, CAFE has imposed fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. market. This paper reviews the history of the standards, followed by a discussion of the major upcoming changes in implementation and stringency. It d...

BACKGROUND Although colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in women, little is known about predictors of adherence to screening. METHODS A randomly selected sample of 202 predominantly low-income and African-American women were interviewed. Knowledge of, attitudes and beliefs about, and practices related to flexible sigmoidoscopy (FS) screening were assessed. RESULTS The majority...