Cardiac manifestations of Wegener's granulomatosis: Case report and review of the literature

SummaryWegener's granulomatosis, first characterized as a clinical syndrome in 1936, is a rare form of vasculitis of the small- and medium-sized blood vessels affecting mainly the upper and lower respiratory tracts as well as the kidneys. This review article describes the case of a 45-year-old man who developed aortic regurgitation and third degree heart block secondary to Wegener's granulomatosis. He subsequently presented to our institution 3 years later with pulmonary hemorrhage. The ensuing literature review reveals that historically clinical cardiac involvement in Wegener's has been rare, particularly with valvular lesions. However, recent literature has shown an increase in reported cases of cardiac valvular lesions in Wegener's. The presented case report along with recently reported case reports highlight the morbidity and mortality associated with such cardiac lesions. We believe routine cardiovascular supervision including echocardiography and electrocardiograms are important for the screening and monitoring of patients with Wegener's granulomatosis

Teaching Academic Skills to Chinese Undergraduate Students in U.S. Academic Institutions

The purpose of this field project is to help Chinese undergraduate students succeed in the American classroom through guidance on academic skills. To achieve this goal, a series of situationally-based curriculum modules about different academic skills are developed as the central part of this project. This curriculum is designed not only for Chinese undergraduate students, but also for instructors in U.S. academic institutions to increase their awareness of the academic skills issues among international students. This project is presented in the form of a teaching manual and a brief syllabus. The teaching manual provides Chinese undergraduate students with practical rules, diagrams, charts, examples, and exercises to practice how to manage their time, how to take notes effectively, how to prepare and take exams, and how to engage in a group discussion. It is a supplement for students to use when they have difficulty in their daily studies. The exercises in the teaching manual will require students to apply these academic skills to their course materials. During the instruction, the teacher should follow the syllabus and adjust it according to the level of students

A Survey on the Application of Game Teaching Method in English Teaching of Primary School: A Case Study of a Primary School in Our Local City

The game based teaching method is specifically aimed at assisting English teaching, communicating in English, and widely used in English classrooms or extracurricular activities. Compared with Chinese, primary school students lack a certain language environment for English learning and do not have a true understanding of English learning. Therefore, English teachers should use games to mobilize students’ enthusiasm for learning, and follow the basic principle of “happy teaching” to adapt to students’ development. However, there are still many problems with game teaching methods in English teaching. This thesis wants to explore the current situation of the application of games in English teaching and research its countermeasures, so that more front-line teachers can benefit from it.This study is based on Piaget’s cognitive development theory and happiness education theory. By using the methods of questionnaire survey and interview, this paper delves into the current application status, existing problems, and cause analysis of game teaching methods in primary school English classrooms. And the study summarized the shortcomings of current primary school English teachers in the application of classroom game teaching methods.It is found that the main problems are: in ordinary classes, the use of game-based teaching methods is still relatively limited; students’ game goals are unclear and cannot be applied to practice; the class is chaotic; and all students cannot participate in the game.The study suggests that the teacher enrich the theoretical knowledge of game teaching methods and strengthen their application. Schools can provide training for teachers at appropriate times, or regularly order publications or books related to games. Teachers can also learn more from successful game application cases to improve the application ability of game teaching methods. For the student group, research suggests that students clarify the purpose of games and enable them to understand the true intention of the teacher in using games in the classroom. Secondly, it is necessary to strengthen students’ classroom discipline.Through in-depth exploration of the practice of game teaching methods in primary school English classrooms, it has reference value for primary school English teachers to correctly and effectively implement game teaching methods, and has profound significance for better implementing game teaching methods in primary school English classrooms

Advanced gel polymer electrolyte for lithium-ion polymer batteries

In order to keep abreast with the rapid development of portable electronic equipment, improving the performance of polymer electrolytes has therefore become our goal of research. This work improved performance of Li-ion polymer batteries through advanced gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs). Comparing with liquid type Electrolyte, Gel type Polymer Electrolyte (GPE) had the advantage of a wide variety of shape, size and dimensions so that GPE was selected as our target. The GPE is a membrane synthetized by trapping ethylene carbonate, and propylene carbonate in polyvinylidene fluoride and 1-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone solutions. Advanced GPEs were synthesized by incorporating an organic electrolyte solution (LiPF6-EC-PC) with ionic liquid (EMI-Tf) into polyvinylidene fluride-base membranes. Among a series of test including ionic conductivity, film resistance, cell voltage, cyclic voltammetry, and charge/discharge efficiency, 50 volume percent of ionic liquid (EMI-Tf) in an organic electrolyte solution showed the best performance. We also introduced the nanoparticle-polymer techniques that gold nanoparticles were adding to the GPE membranes as the fillers in order to higher capacity, stronger mechanical strength, and lower internal resistances

INTER-SITU RESTORATION AND THE USE OF WHOLE SOIL INOCULA TO REHABILITATE THE CRITICALLY ENDANGERED HAWAIIAN PLANT, CYRTANDRA KAULANTHA

M.S

Forecasting using Bayesian VARs : a benchmark for STREAM

This study develops a suite of Bayesian Vector Autoregression (BVAR) models for the Maltese economy to benchmark the forecasting performance of STREAM, the traditional macro-econometric model used by the Central Bank of Malta for its regular forecasting exercises. Three different BVARs are proposed, containing an endogenous and exogenous block, and differ only in terms of the cross- sectional size of the former. The small BVAR contains only three endogenous variables, the medium BVAR includes 17 variables, while the large BVAR includes 32 endogenous variables. The exogenous block remains consistent across the three models. By using a similar information set, the Bayesian VARs developed in this study are utilised to benchmark the forecast performance of STREAM. In general, for real GDP, the GDP deflator, and the unemployment rate, BVAR median projections for the period 2014-2016 improve the forecast performance at the one, two, and four-step ahead horizons when compared to STREAM. However, the latter does rather well at annual projections, but it is broadly outperformed by the medium and large BVARs.peer-reviewe

Channel Estimation for Ambient Backscatter Communication Systems with Massive-Antenna Reader

Ambient backscatter, an emerging green communication technology, has aroused great interest from both academia and industry. One open problem for ambient backscatter communication (AmBC) systems is channel estimation for a massive-antenna reader. In this paper, we focus on channel estimation problem in AmBC systems with uniform linear array (ULA) at the reader which consists of large number of antennas. We first design a two-step method to jointly estimate channel gains and direction of arrivals (DoAs), and then refine the estimates through angular rotation. Additionally, Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) are derived for both the modulus of the channel gain and the DoA estimates. Simulations are then provided to validate the analysis, and to show the efficiency of the proposed approach.Comment: 5 figures, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 29 March, 201

Resource Allocation for Device-to-Device Communications in Multi-Cell Multi-Band Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

Heterogeneous cellular networks (HCNs) with millimeter wave (mm-wave) communications are considered as a promising technology for the fifth generation mobile networks. Mm-wave has the potential to provide multiple gigabit data rate due to the broad spectrum. Unfortunately, additional free space path loss is also caused by the high carrier frequency. On the other hand, mm-wave signals are sensitive to obstacles and more vulnerable to blocking effects. To address this issue, highly directional narrow beams are utilized in mm-wave networks. Additionally, device-to-device (D2D) users make full use of their proximity and share uplink spectrum resources in HCNs to increase the spectrum efficiency and network capacity. Towards the caused complex interferences, the combination of D2D-enabled HCNs with small cells densely deployed and mm-wave communications poses a big challenge to the resource allocation problems. In this paper, we formulate the optimization problem of D2D communication spectrum resource allocation among multiple micro-wave bands and multiple mm-wave bands in HCNs. Then, considering the totally different propagation conditions on the two bands, a heuristic algorithm is proposed to maximize the system transmission rate and approximate the solutions with sufficient accuracies. Compared with other practical schemes, we carry out extensive simulations with different system parameters, and demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed scheme. In addition, the optimality and complexity are simulated to further verify effectiveness and efficiency.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technolog