Placebo Analgesia, Acupuncture and Sham Surgery

Invasive procedures, such as surgery and acupuncture, are likely better than the others in terms of eliciting placebo analgesia. Understanding how invasive procedures can elicit enhanced placebo responses may provide new insights into mechanisms underlying placebo analgesia. In this essay, it is argued that sensory, cognitive and emotional factors are major determinants of the magnitude of placebo analgesia. Sham surgery and acupuncture are good examples of placebo interventions, which generate robust placebo responses through simultaneously manipulating such three factors

A Study on Water Utilization in Chinese Rural Areas

In China, because rural population is great and agriculture is very important in national economy, rural areas have becomes a main sphere of water consume. There exist the problems of water shortage and water waste in the countryside. The conflicts of water resource supply and demand between industry and agriculture are very conspicuous. Various factors that include ideology, finance, technology, management and policy restrict the rational and effective use of water resource. The survey on the villages of Jia Ge Zhuang and Yao Bai Zhuang in Ji County, Tianjin reflects these problems. The government tries to solve the problems by making laws and policies, as well as affording financial and technology support to towns and villages. At the same time, it is necessary for the government to make officials and farmers realize the importance of rational water usage and saving by doing propaganda, coordinating the inter-governments relations, and defining the departments’ duties. For realizing the objective of rational water usage, it is necessary to take measures to construct and perfect irrigation installations by both superior and local governments’ investment and farmers’ labor force. Key Words: Chinese Rural Areas, Water Resource, Rational Use, Farmland, Irrigation System Résumé: En Chine,la population est grande et l’agriculture est très importante dans l’économie nationale. Les régions rurales sont devenues un sphère principal de la consommation d’eau. Il existe les problèmes d’insuffisance d’eau et le gaspillage d’eau dans la campagne. Les conflits sur les resources d’eau fournie et demandée entre industrie and agriculture sont très fréquents. Les facteurs variés tels qu’idéologie, finance, technologie, management et politique limitent l’usage rationel et effectif de ressources d’eau. L’enquête sur les villages de Jia Ge Zhuang et Yao Bai Zhuang dans le pays Ji, Tianjin reflète ces problèmes. Le government tente de résoudres les problèmes par l’élabortion des lois et les poliques, ainsi que le support financierl et technologique aux bourgs et villages. Au meme temps, il est nécessaire pour le government à render conscients les officiels et les paysans l’ importance de l’usage rationel en économisant par la publicité, en coordonnant les relations inter-governmentaux, et en déterminant les tâches des départments. Pour la realiser l’objectif de l’usage d’eau rational, il est nécessaire de prendre des mesures pour construire et perfectionner l’ installations d’irrigation par l’investissement des governements supérieurs et locaux ainsi que les forces des labeurs. Mots clés: Les régions rurales chionoises, Ressource d’eau, usage rationel, fermier, Système d’ Irrigatio

Adaptive Dynamic Surface Control for Generator Excitation Control System

For the generator excitation control system which is equipped with static var compensator (SVC) and unknown parameters, a novel adaptive dynamic surface control scheme is proposed based on neural network and tracking error transformed function with the following features: (1) the transformation of the excitation generator model to the linear systems is omitted; (2) the prespecified performance of the tracking error can be guaranteed by combining with the tracking error transformed function; (3) the computational burden is greatly reduced by estimating the norm of the weighted vector of neural network instead of the weighted vector itself; therefore, it is more suitable for the real time control; and (4) the explosion of complicity problem inherent in the backstepping control can be eliminated. It is proved that the new scheme can make the system semiglobally uniformly ultimately bounded. Simulation results show the effectiveness of this control scheme

Anti-bacterial properties of lactoferrin immobilized wool fabric

A new biological cross-linker, microbial transglutaminase (mTGase), has been used to catalyze the immobilization of lactoferrin onto the wool fabrics, and the antibacterial properties of immobilized wool on both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria are studied. It is found that the minimal inhibitory concentration of lactoferrin against S·aureus and E·coli is 0.5mg/mL and 0.25mg/mL respectively. As compared to the control sample, the amount of lactoferrin adhered onto the wool fabric improves from 4.87 mg.(g fabric)-1 to 12.96 mg.(g fabric)-1, indicating that the crosslinking reaction initiated by mTGase can increase the amount of lactoferrin fixed onto wool fabric obviously. The ratios of bacteriostasis to S.aureus and E.coli of wool fabrics immobilized with lactoferrin are bound to be 57.95% and 69.96% respectively, showing good antibacterial property