On Alice Munro’s Short Story Writing

Alice Munro,renowned Canadian short story writer,ingeniously explores human complexity and the transience of life in a revolutionary short story format.And she is addicted to portraying loss,death,pain,murder,and betrayal etc.,many dark sides of real life.As a female writer,she records the lives of girl and women with unsentimental eyes.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon in rain and street runoff in Amman, Jordan

Concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs) were determined in the rain and street runoff samples from two sites in the vicinity of Amman City during the pluvial period 1999—2000. The results showed that elevated levels of PAHs were detected in the city center(site 1) than the residential area(site 2) and that the levels were higher in street runoff than rain samples of the same sites. The highest concentration of PAHs in both street runoff and rain samples were observed in the first rainy month(November 1999) which indicated a wash out effect of PAHs originating from vehicular emission accumulated during the long dry summer season before sampling. Within the investigated cold winter seasons, fluctuations in PAHs concentration were observed. The variation was attributed to the fossil combustion for heating purposes and to intervals between rainfalls: as the longer the intervals between rains were, the higher the PAH concentration were. Removal of PAHs from the atmosphere through precipitation over the investigated period varied with time and places depending on the amount of rainfall where higher rainfall removed higher amount of PAHs from the atmosphere. The amount of PAHs washed out through precipitation was estimated to be around 14.8 mg/m 2 and 21.1 mg/m 2 for sites 1 and 2 respectively.

Multidisciplinary Constrained Optimization of Power Quality in Doubly Fed Wind Turbine Induction Generator

Shape optimization of turbine blade to maximize the output power usually changes the power factor due to compensate Repower in a wind turbine. This article presents a multidisciplinary optimization technique to maximize the output power in Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) wind turbine. The most common parameters when operating the turbine, namely, active power, reactive power and power factor, are considered as the problem constraints and the pitch angle grid side variable frequency converter of the turbine blades are optimized to maximize the output power. Numerical simulation has been illustrated to present the performance of the proposed design approach.

AB096.Neurophysiological measures of stigma stereotypes

Background:The perceptions surrounding assistive technology have been shown to be increasingly stigmatizing in older adult populations.This stigmatization can lead individuals to the abandonment of the assistive device.Until now,the methods of identifying or predicting the stigma surrounding assistive technology has mostly been qualitative in nature.Here we present a novel quantitate and qualitative research study that uses neuro-cognitive(psychophysics and EEG)and eye tracking technology,in addition to a new questionnaire to investigate the stigma associated with assistive devices.Therefore,this approach plays a major role in understanding and predicting the neural and physiological correlates associated to stigma.Methods:Thirty-four older adults(>50 years)took part in the study.To determine the psychophysiological predictors of stigma surrounding assistive technologies,we monitored brain activity using EEG,heart rate and eye movements using an eye-tracker while participants viewed a series of images containing either an older or younger individual in different social scenarios(e.g.,talking to doctor,at coffee shop).In each scenario,the individual uses either no assistive device,a low stigmatizing device(e.g.,iPad),or a high stigmatizing device(e.g.,electronic magnifier).Results:Here we present preliminary analysis of the eye movement data.Analysis shows that in comparison to images that contained a low stigmatizing device,in images that contain high stigmatizing devices,the latency to fixate the device is shorter,first fixation duration is longer,and the total number of fixations on the device are higher.The environment that the devices is used in has no effect on eye movement metrics.Conclusions:Although the sample size is small,and based on a healthy older-adult population,these initial observations would indicate that latency to fixate and first fixation duration are predictors of stigma associated with assistive devices.Future research should expand this prediction to those actively using assistive devices,and how the measures predict abandonment over time.

Predicting long-term outcomes in acute intracerebral haemorrhage using delayed prognostication scores

Objective The concept of the‘self-fulfilling prophecy’is well established in intracerebral haemorrhage(ICH).The ability to improve prognostication and prediction of long-term outcomes during the first days of hospitalisation is important in guiding conversations around goals of care.We previously demonstrated that incorporating delayed imaging into various prognostication scores for ICH improves the predictive accuracy of 90-day mortality.However,delayed prognostication scores have not been used to predict long-term functional outcomes beyond 90 days.Design,setting and participants We analysed data from the ICH Deferoxamine trial to see if delaying the use of prognostication scores to 96 hours after ICH onset will improve performance to predict outcomes at 180 days.276 patients were included.Interventions and measurements We calculated the original ICH score(oICH),modified-ICH score(MICH),max-ICH score and the FUNC score on presentation(baseline),and on day 4(delayed).Outcomes assessed were mortality and poor functional outcome in survivors(defined as modified Rankin Scale of 4-5)at 180 days.We generated receiver operating characteristic curves,and measured the area under the curve values(AUC)for mortality and functional outcome.We compared baseline and delayed AUCs with non-parametric methods.Results At 180 days,21 of 276(7.6%)died.Out of the survivors,54 of 255 had poor functional outcome(21.2%).The oICH,MICH and max-ICH performed significantly better at predicting 180-day mortality when calculated 4 days later compared with their baseline equivalents((0.74 vs 0.83,p=0.005),(0.73 vs 0.80,p=0.036),(0.74 vs 0.83,p=0.008),respectively).The delayed calculation of these scores did not significantly improve our accuracy for predicting poor functional outcomes.Conclusion Delaying the calculation of prognostication scores in acute ICH until day 4 improved prediction of 6-month mortality but not functional outcomes.Trial registration number ClinicalTrials.gov Registry(NCT02175225).

多体效应对纳米器件传输电流的影响

纳米尺寸电子系统的研究与单电子库仑阻挡（COULOMB BLOCKADE）结构，单电子三极管，分子开关的实现和应用有着十分密切的关系．近年来关于纳米系统电流传输性质的研究引起了越来越多的关注．曾经普遍应用的LANDAU-DFT方法计算出的电流与实验结果相差几个量级，