The current distribution of Bantu languages is commonly considered to be a consequence of a relatively recent population expansion (3-5kya) in Central Western Africa. While there is a substantial consensus regarding the centre of origin of Bantu languages (the Benue River Valley, between South East Nigeria and Western Cameroon), the identification of the area from where the population expansion...

In this paper, ontology technology is applied to Supply Chain information integration, in order to provide unified interface for semantic data and to share, reuse knowledge among information resources. Ontology can solve well the semantic heterogeneity problem of distributed, heterogeneous and autonomous data sources; and the problem of semantic interoperability. Since the objects on Supply Cha...

The Clever Foraging Hypothesis asserts that organisms living in a more spatially complex environment will have a greater neurological capacity for cognitive processes related to spatial memory, navigation, and foraging. Because the telencephalon is often associated with spatial memory and navigation tasks, this hypothesis predicts a positive association between telencephalon size and environmen...

BACKGROUND The association between fish consumption and risk of depression is controversial. We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the association. METHODS A literature search was performed in PubMed, EMBASE and Web of Science database for all relevant studies up to March 2015. We pooled the relative risks (RRs) with 95% CIs from individual studies with random effects model, and conducted ...

The process of integrating the schemas of several databases into an integrated schema is not easy, due to semantic heterogeneities. We present a method to detect class similarities by following a strategy and applying comparison criteria, that exploits the semantically rich structures of the schemas (previously enriched), along both the generalization/specialization and the aggregation dimensio...

In the past, Rent’s rule has been successfully applied for a priori estimation of wire length distributions. Deviations to Rent’s rule appear due to the existence of heterogeneity. This can be classified in hierarchical and spatial heterogeneity. Stochastic models for the interconnection complexity, based on Rent’s rule, are introduced. A coarse model shows that the variance follows a power law...

Substrate defects crucially influence the onset of sliding drop motion under lateral driving. A finite force is necessary to overcome the pinning influence even of microscale heterogeneities. The depinning dynamics of three-dimensional drops is studied for hydrophilic and hydrophobic wettability defects using a long-wave evolution equation for the film thickness profile. It is found that the na...

We perform lattice Monte Carlo simulation using the bond-fluctuation model to examine the conformation and dynamic properties of a single small flexible ring polymer in the matrix of linear chains as functions of the degree of polymerization of the linear chains. The average conformation properties as gauged by the mean-square radius of gyration and asphericity parameter are insensitive to the ...

During development and throughout adult life, macrophages derived from hematopoietic progenitors are seeded throughout the body, initially in the absence of inflammatory and infectious stimuli as tissue-resident cells, with enhanced recruitment, activation, and local proliferation following injury and pathologic insults. We have learned a great deal about macrophage properties ex vivo and in ce...