Place-oriented or people-oriented concepts for destination loyalty: destination image and place attachment versus perceived distances and emotional solidarity

Many studies have modeled several different concepts to explain destination loyalty; however, none have integrated place-oriented (e.g., destination image, place attachment) and people-oriented concepts (e.g., cultural distance, social distance, and emotional solidarity) for their relative influences on loyalty. The current study tested the influence of destination image (place-oriented) and perceived distances (people-oriented) as antecedents of place attachment (place-oriented) and emotional solidarity (people-oriented) for their relative influences on destination loyalty. Survey data collected from both domestic (n=260) and international (n=250) visitors to a city in Turkey, Antalya, revealed that place-oriented concepts (cognitive and affective destination images and place attachment) are better predictors of destination loyalty than people-oriented concepts (cultural distance, social distance, and emotional solidarity). Together, they explain about half of the variance in destination loyalty, 42% in past loyalty and 60% in future loyalty

On The Dynamics Of The Difference Equation

In this paper, we studied the global behavior of the difference equation nbspwith non-negative parameters and the initial conditions nbspare non-negative real numbers

The effects of nitrogen deficiencies on the lipid and protein contents of Spirulina platensis

Nitrogen deficiencies were studied in Spirulina platensis (Cyanophyceae) with the aim of determining the effects of the 50 and 100% deficient nitrogen on the lipid and protein contents of the cell under laboratory conditions. S. platensis cultures were grown in Spirulina medium and kept at the constantroom temperature of 26 ± 2°C, illuminated with fluorescent lamps at an irradiance level of 80 ìmol m-2 s-1 with photoperiod 16:8 (L:D) and aerated continuously. In the Spirulina biomass harvested at the stationary phase, 67.4, 53.5, 5.6% protein and 5.78, 13.66, 17.05% lipid were recorded for the groups of control, 50% N(-) and 100% N(-), respectively. The highest lipid content and 1.00 gL-1 dry-weight were recorded from the culture to which treated 100% N(-).Key words: Spirulina platensis, lipid, nitrogen deficiencies, protein

Reactive Extraction of Propionic Acid Using Aliquat-336 in 2-Octanol: Linear Solvation Energy Relationship (LSER) Modeling and Kinetics Study

Reactive extraction is an important recovery method for extraction of propionic acid from dilute streams, providing numerous advantages like high selectivity and recovery. Equilibrium and kinetic study of reactive extraction is essential to choose a proper extractant-diluent for acid recovery and ascertain the kinetic parameters essential for design of the process. In this paper, the linear solvation energy relationship (LSER) modeling of reactive extraction of propionic acid using Aliquat 336 in 2-octanol as diluent was presented to obtain the model parameters. Also, the kinetics of extraction in stirred cell was presented to explain the progress of reactive extraction of propionic acid using Aliquat 336 in the diluent. The reaction was found to be fast pseudo first order. To design the reactor to carry out reactive extraction, the kinetic parameters evaluated are essential. Modeling using LSER model predict a close resemblance of experimental data

Association between mean platelet volume levels and inflammation in SLE patients presented with arthritis

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) may be characterized by periods of remissions and chronic or acute relapses. The complexity of clinical presentation of the SLE patients leads to incorrect evaluation of disease activity. Mean platelet volume (MPV) has been studied as a simple inflammatory marker in several diseases. There is no study in the literature about MPV levels in adult SLE patients with arthritis.Objectives: We aimed to investigate the MPV levels in the SLE population with arthritis during and between activations.Methods: The study consisted of 44 SLE patients with arthritis in activation period (Group 1), the same 44 SLE patients with arthritis in remission period (Group 2) and 44 healthy controls (Group 3). Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), creactive protein (CRP), white blood cell count, platelet count, and mean platelet volume (MPV) levels were retrospectively recorded from patient files.Results: The mean ages of the SLE subjects were 42 ± 16 years, while the mean ages of controls was 41 ± 17 years. MPV was significantly lower in Group 1(7.66±0.89fL) than in Group 2 (8.61±1.06 fL) and Group 3(8.62±1.11fL) (p<0.0001). The differences between groups reached statistical significance.Conclusions: We suggest that MPV levels decrease in patients with arthritis of SLE activation when compared to the same patients in remission and healthy controls.Key words: Systemic lupus erythematosus, Arthritis, Mean platelet volum

The effects of nitrogen and phosphorus deficiencies and nitrite addition on the lipid content of Chlorella vulgaris (Chlorophyceae)

The effect of 50% N, 100% N, 50% N plus 50% P and 50% P deficiencies and nitrite addition were treated on Chlorella vulgaris (Chlorophyceae) was studied in laboratory conditions with the aim to determine the effects of the deficient nutrient and different nitrogen sources on lipid and protein contents. Proteinand lipid values of the biomass were found as 50.8 and 12.29% for the control group, 20.3 and 17.5% for 50% N(-), 13.01 and 35.6% for 100% N(-), 21.37 and 20.5% for 50% N(-) and 50% P(-), 38.16 and 16.7% for 50% P(-) and 41.03 and 13.04% for the nitrite group that was added. The highest lipid content was recorded with the culture to which 100% N(-) was treated with 0.18 g/L dry-weight.Key words: Chlorella vulgaris, lipid, nitrogen and phosphorus deficiencies, nitrite

Deep reinforcement learning for subpixel neural tracking

Automatically tracing elongated structures, such as axons and blood vessels, is a challenging problem in the field of biomedical imaging, but one with many downstream applications. Real, labelled data is sparse, and existing algorithms either lack robustness to different datasets, or otherwise require significant manual tuning. Here, we instead learn a tracking algorithm in a synthetic environment, and apply it to tracing axons. To do so, we formulate tracking as a reinforcement learning problem, and apply deep reinforcement learning techniques with a continuous action space to learn how to track at the subpixel level. We train our model on simple synthetic data and test it on mouse cortical two-photon microscopy images. Despite the domain gap, our model approaches the performance of a heavily engineered tracker from a standard analysis suite for neuronal microscopy. We show that fine-tuning on real data improves performance, allowing better transfer when real labelled data is available. Finally, we demonstrate that our model's uncertainty measure-a feature lacking in hand-engineered trackers-corresponds with how well it tracks the structure

Stoichiometric and Spectroscopic Study of Reactive Extraction of Phenylacetic Acid with Tri-n-Butyl Phosphate

Phenylacetic acid is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry for production of antibiotics. The recovery of phenylacetic acid from dilute aqueous waste with tri-n-butyl phosphate in methyl isobutyl ketone and petroleum ether has been attempted, and the results are presented in terms of distribution coefficient, extraction efficiency, apparent equilibrium constant, and loading ratio. The mechanism of reactive extraction was analyzed and the stoichiometric ratio of phenylacetic acid to tri-n-butyl phosphate in methyl isobutyl ketone and petroleum ether was found to be 1:0.5 and 1:1.2. Mass action law was used to represent the reactive extraction equilibrium for phenylacetic acid−tri-n-butyl phosphate−diluents which satisfied much in the present study. FTIR spectroscopy was studied for confirmation of the formation of a complex between acid and extractant. Further relative basicity approach has been extended to represent the experimental results. The model is best suited to experimental results

Synthesis of Carboxymethyl Starch for increasing drilling mud quality in drilling oil and gas wells

This paper describes the impact of carboxymethyl starch preparation conditions on physicochemical properties of polysaccharide reagent, widely used as fluid loss reducing agent in drilling mud. Variation of the main parameters of carboxymethylation is researched in the experiment. The following conditions such as temperature and reaction time, amount of water, as well as ratio of NaOH to monochloracetic acid define the characteristics of carboxymethyl starch. The degree of substitution is defined for polysaccharides, as well as the characteristics of samples have been studied by infrared spectroscopy. Rheological characteristics and fluid loss indicator have been investigated to study the impact of the reagents on drilling mud quality

Evaluation of the nasal mucociliary transport rate by rhinoscintigraphy before and after surgery in patients with deviated nasal septum

In this study, we have investigated the effect of nasal septal deviation (NSD) on nasal mucociliary activity and how does a septoplasty operation affecs the nasal mucociliary transport rate in the first and third months during the post-operative period. Twenty-two patients who were diagnosed with NSD and 22 healthy controls were studied using rhinoscintigraphy with Tc-99m-macroaggregated albumin (Tc-99m-MAA). On each case, the nasal mucociliary transport rate (NMTR) was measured pre-operatively only on five cases, on the first and third months of post-operative period. The NMTRs of patients with a deviated septum were significantly lower than the NMTRs of the healthy controls on both the convex and concave sides. Significant improvement was observed in the first post-operative month. On the concave and convex sides, the average postop third month post-operative NMTR value was higher than the first month post-operative NMTR values. It was concluded that the septoplasty operation improves reduced NMTRs after surgery. The effect of nasal surgery on nasal mucociliary activity may be more accurately evaluated in the third month than the first month of post-operative period