Enthroning Responsible Democratic Culture in Nigeria through Christian Values

This paper looks at the devastating democratic activities in Nigeria.  Governments in Nigeria have tended to be pre-occupied with power and its  material perquisites. Corrupt politicians with questionable pedigree occupy the political sit of Nigeria. Corruption is the ocean which separates Nigeria from  prosperity, and good living conditions such as good roads, social amenities, viable industries and employment opportunities. Nigerians require deep  re-orientation. Christian values play vital role in any democratic government. Therefore, the potentials of enthroning responsible democratic culture in  Nigeria through Christian values are the discourse of this paper

Beam optical calculations for SPIRAL2

Ions of high charge states as required for both stable and radioactive beams in order to optimaly profit from the accelerating voltage provided can be produced by means of charge state breeders. However, the energy increase obtained is accompanied by an intensity decrease due to the low efficiency of the charge breeding process itself. With respect to the production of radioactive beams an enhancement of the breeding efficiency would be most desirable to avoid a high power primary beam as yet inevitable to counteract the loss in intensity. For this purpose the beam optics of an ion recirculation capable to separate the desired charge state and to reinject the remaining charge spectrum has been designed. The ions, potentially extracted from both sides of the charge breeder, are focused by means of electrostatic quadrupole doublets and bent by two 180° dipole magnets resulting in a racetrack-like shape. After one revolution the optics realises horizontally and vertically a point-to-point image independent from the charge state of the ions. The second order geometric aberrations as well as most of the chromatic aberrations vanish. The non-zero energy dependeant aberrations are compensated by the charge dependent aberrations leading to an effectively achromatic system up to the second order. The beam optivcal calculations have been carried out with the arbitrary order beam physics code COSY INFINITY and been validated with the beam enveloppe code TRANSPORT

Evaluating interest rate rules in an estimated DSGE model

The empirical DSGE (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) literature pays surprisingly little attention to the behavior of the monetary authority. Alternative policy rule specifications abound, but their relative merit is rarely discussed. We contribute to filling this gap by comparing the fit of a large set of interest rate rules (fifty-five in total), which we estimate within a simple New Keynesian model. We find that specifications in which monetary policy responds to inflation and to deviations of output from its efficient level—the one that would prevail in the absence of distortions—have the worst fit within the set we consider. Policies that respond to measures of the output gap based on statistical filters perform better, but the best-fitting rules are those that also track the evolution of the model-consistent efficient real interest rate.Stochastic analysis ; Monetary policy ; Keynesian economics ; Interest rates ; Gross domestic product

Megan Patton-Lopez Interview 2019

Dr. Megan Patton-Lopez, Assistant Professor/ Community Health, Division of Health and Exercise Science, Western Oregon University, passionately discusses her vision for community health throughout the Western Oregon Community. Her priorities focus on assisting lower-income families in the surrounding areas, and directly with the students of Western Oregon University

Entwicklung und Aufbau von Strahldiagnosesystemen für den Heidelberger Hochstrominjektor

Mit dem neuen Hochstrominjektor am Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik in Heidelberg können Ionenstrahlen mit Intensitäten bis zu einigen Milliampere beschleunigt werden. Aufgrund der im Vergleich zum alten Injektor um zwei Größenordnungen höheren Strahlströme ist eine Anwendung der bisher an der MPI-Beschleunigeranlage zu Diagnosezwecken eingesetzten Geräte beim neuen Injektor nur noch mit Einschränkungen möglich. Es war deshalb erforderlich, eine Strahldiagnose zu entwickeln, mit der die Strahleigenschaften auch unter den Bedingungen des Hochstrominjektors untersucht werden können. Dazu wurde ein System aus Profilgittern zur Messung von Strahlprofil und -lage bei mittleren Intensitäten (I_Strahl ~ 10 mikroA, DC) aufgebaut. Ein wesentlicher Teil der Arbeit lag dabei in der Entwicklung einer neuen, an die PC-Steuerung des Hochstrominjektors angepaßten Ausleseelektronik. Für den darüber hinausgehenden Strombereich wurde ein Strahlprofilmonitor entwickelt, der die unter dem Einfluß des Strahls ionisierten Restgasteilchen auf einen ortsauflösenden Detektor projiziert. Durch Rechnungen und Simulationen konnte gezeigt werden, daß der dabei auftretende Abbildungsfehler mit <~180 mikrom unterhalb der intrinsischen Auflösung des verwendeten Detektors von 800 mikrom liegt. Schließlich wurde das Phasensondensystem des Hochstrominjektors um eine Phasensonde erweitert, wodurch man nun in der Lage ist, die Strahlenergie unabhängig von Dipolmagneten über eine Flugzeitmessung zu ermitteln. Die während der Strahlzeiten durchgeführten Profil- und Energiemessungen konnten die Einsatzbereitschaft der neuen Diagnosegeräte unter Beweis stellen

Detection of methylated tumor DNA in serum as a marker for the colorectale carcinoma

Kolorektale Karzinome sind die dritthäufigsten bösartigen Tumore weltweit. Daher ist es wichtig eine sensitive und verlässliche Methode für die Diagnose und die Verlaufskontrolle dieser Erkrankung zu finden. Ein Ansatz für diesen Zweck ist, epigenetisch veränderte DNA im Serum als Marker für das kolorekale Karzinom zu nützen. Daher war das Ziel unseres Projektes eine Methode für die Detektion und Quantifizierung von methyliertem RASSF1A und P16 im Serum zu finden. Nach der Etablierung einer Standardkurve, verglichen wir zwei Ansätze für die Berechnung des Methylierungslevels einer Probe. Die Berechnung des %Methylierung Werts lieferte akkuratere Ergebnisse, während die „Percentage of Methylated Reference“ Methode praktikabler ist. In einem weiteren Schritt untersuchten wir die Effizienz fünf verschiedener, kommerziell erhältlicher Kits für die Aufreinigung von DNA. Wir konnten zeigen, dass der Kit, der auf einer Methode basiert, die magnetic beads nützt, die besten Ergebnisse erzielte. Wir testeten auch eine Bisulfit-unabhängige, auf Restriktionsenzymen basierende Methode für die quantitative Detektion von methylierten DNA Sequenzen im Serum, die aber keine Verbesserung der Sensitivität brachte. Anschließend benutzen wir das geeignetste Protokoll um Serumproben von Patienten mit kleinzelligen Lungenkarzinom und kolorektalem Karzinom zu untersuchen. Wir konnten bei 2 von 8 (25%) Bronchialkarzinom Patienten und 0 von 9 (0%) CRC Patienten methyliertes RASSF1A detektieren. Bei der Untersuchung auf P16 waren alle Proben aus beiden Gruppen negativ.Colorectal carcinomas (CRCs) are the third most common malignant tumors worldwide. Thus, it is important to find sensitive and reliable methods for the diagnosis and the clinical monitoring of this disease. An approach for this purpose is the use of epigentically altered DNA as a marker for the CRC. Therefore, the aim of our project was to establish methods to detect and quantify the methylated forms of the genes P16 and RASSF1A in serum. After the establishment of the standard curve, we compared two approaches for calculating the methylation level of a sample. We obtained more accurate results using the %methylation approach, on the other hand the calculation of the Percentage of Methylation Reference (PMR) is more reasonable and more practicable to perform. Second we compared the efficiency of five different, commercially available DNA isolation kits. We found that the kit applying magnetic beads provided the best extraction rates. Finally, we tested also another, sodium-bisulfite independent, restriction enzyme based method to quantitatively detect methylated DNA sequences in serum. But it did not improve the sensitivity of the method. Using the most efficient protocol, we analyzed serum samples of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and of CRC patients. We could detect methylation of RASSF1A in 2 of 8 (25%) lung cancer patients and in 0 of 9 (0%) of CRC patients. When using the primer and probes for P16 all samples of both cancer groups were negative

EMO: Episodic Memory Optimization for Few-Shot Meta-Learning

Few-shot meta-learning presents a challenge for gradient descent optimization due to the limited number of training samples per task. To address this issue, we propose an episodic memory optimization for meta-learning, we call \emph{EMO}, which is inspired by the human ability to recall past learning experiences from the brain's memory. EMO retains the gradient history of past experienced tasks in external memory, enabling few-shot learning in a memory-augmented way. By learning to retain and recall the learning process of past training tasks, EMO nudges parameter updates in the right direction, even when the gradients provided by a limited number of examples are uninformative. We prove theoretically that our algorithm converges for smooth, strongly convex objectives. EMO is generic, flexible, and model-agnostic, making it a simple plug-and-play optimizer that can be seamlessly embedded into existing optimization-based few-shot meta-learning approaches. Empirical results show that EMO scales well with most few-shot classification benchmarks and improves the performance of optimization-based meta-learning methods, resulting in accelerated convergence.Comment: Accepted by CoLLAs 202

there, not there: (un)disciplining study off the writing tracks/tracts

For us, “writing off the beaten track” has been propelled by collaborative study of ontoepistemological contributions that break the constraints of western knowledge-making. Black studies and women of color feminisms prompt us to pause long enough to breathe … to interrogate the ellipsis … to sit in the space between words or the dangling punctuation. What’s there (or not there) creatively points to ideas, questions, and methods that subvert the primacy of the western colonial imagination. Our collective writing has often come to us by being worked and reworked, fused and refused in an iterative process, this time with fahima ife’s Maroon Choreography. From homonyms to a wordplay on tracks/tracts, we discuss a writing praxis that has been contoured by radical study and scholarship “actively straying from” disciplined/disciplining conventions. There is always more to knowing and articulating subjects, contexts, and the pursuit of justice

Abraham Lincoln Memorial Park

This postcard features an Abraham Lincoln statue in Charleston, Illinois.https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/fvw-artifacts/5959/thumbnail.jp

Development of agricultural market and trade policies in the CEE Candidate Countries

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