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Almanacis a collection of lyrical and narrative poems that celebrate, and mourn the passing of, the world of the small family farm. But while the poems are all involved in some way with the rural Midwest, particularly with the people and land of the northwestern Illinois dairy farm where Austin Smith was born and raised, they are anything but merely regional. As the poems reflect on farm life, they open out to speak about childhood and death, the loss of tradition, the destruction of the natural world, and the severing of connections between people and the land. This collection also reflects on a long poetic apprenticeship. Smith's father is a poet himself, andAlmanacis in part a meditation about the responsibility of the poet, especially the young poet, when it falls to him to speak for what is vanishing. To quote another Illinois poet, Thomas James, Smith has attempted in this book to write poems \"clear as the glass of wine / on [his] father's table every Christmas Eve.\" By turns exhilarating and disquieting, this is a remarkable debut from a distinctive new voice in American poetry.______ FromAlmanac:THE MUMMY IN THE FREEPORT ART MUSEUMAustin Smith Amongst the masterpieces of the small-townPicassos and Van Goghs and photographsof the rural poor and busts of dead Greeksor the molds of busts donated by the ArtInstitute of Chicago to this dyingtown's little museum, there was a mummy,a real mummy, laid out in a dim-litroom by himself. I used to goto the museum just to visit him, a pharaohwho, expecting an afterlifeof beautiful virgins and infinite foodand all the riches and jewelshe'd enjoyed in earthly life,must have wondered how the hellhe'd ended up in Freeport, Illinois.And I used to go alone into that roomand stand beside his sarcophagus and say,\"My friend, I've asked myself the same thing.\"

This study investigates the removal of selected pharmaceuticals, as recalcitrant organic compounds, from synthetic wastewater using an electro-membrane bioreactor (eMBR). Diclofenac (DCF), carbamazepine (CBZ), and amoxicillin (AMX) were selected as representative drugs from three different therapeutic groups such as anti-inflammatory, anti-epileptic, and antibiotic, respectively. An environmentally relevant concentration (10 μg/L) of each compound was spiked into the synthetic wastewater, and then, the impact of appending electric field on the control of membrane fouling and the removal of conventional contaminants and pharmaceutical micropollutants were assessed. A conventional membrane bioreactor (MBR) was operated as a control test. A reduction of membrane fouling was observed in the eMBR with a 44% decrease of the fouling rate and a reduction of membrane fouling precursors. Humic substances (UV 254 ), ammonia nitrogen (NH 4 -N), and orthophosphate (PO 4 -P) showed in eMBR removal efficiencies up to 90.68 ± 4.37, 72.10 ± 13.06, and 100%, respectively, higher than those observed in the MBR. A reduction of DCF, CBZ, and AMX equal to 75.25 ± 8.79, 73.84 ± 9.24, and 72.12 ± 10.11%, respectively, was found in the eMBR due to the enhanced effects brought by electrochemical processes, such as electrocoagulation, electrophoresis, and electrooxidation.

The mass production and widespread use of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) posed a great threat to the water environment and human health. In this paper, a green plant-based Bi-Zr bimetallic MOF SU-101.2 was prepared, and the adsorption characteristics were studied with typical PPCPs-Diclofenac sodium (DCF). Compared to SU-101 and SU-102, SU-101.2 showed a significant increase in the adsorption rate of DCF. The adsorption mechanisms between SU-101.2 and DCF were mainly electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonding and π-π interactions. Moreover, SU-101.2 also had considerable photocatalytic properties, which was applied to the subsequent treatment of adsorbent desorption, effectively solving the problem of secondary pollution and achieving a green sustainable adsorption and degradation cycle. In all, this work presented an effective adsorbent and a sustainable approach for DCF elimination, which could replace traditional chemical desorption and regenerate the adsorbent via a photocatalytic process.

Background Neoadjuvant chemotherapy with docetaxel, cisplatin plus 5-FU (DCF) has become the new standard of care for locally advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). In a real-world setting, the efficacy, recurrence, and adverse events (AEs) remain unclear. Methods This retrospective cohort study included 86 patients who received neoadjuvant DCF followed by esophagectomy for resectable ESCC. Results Following neoadjuvant DCF treatment, 75 patients underwent R0 curative resection. At the median follow-up of 19.2 months, the median disease-free survival (DFS)/recurrence-free survival (RFS) was not yet reached, with estimated 3-year DFS/RFS rates of 65.2%, respectively. The incidence of primary tumor regression grading (TRG) grade 1a and pathological complete response (pCR) were 21.3% (16/75) and 14.7% (11/75), respectively. The estimated 1-year DFS/RFS rates were 93.8% for primary TRG grade 1a and 100% for pCR. Baseline elevated serum SCC-antigen levels were inversely associated with achieving primary TRG grade 1a or pCR. In 64 patients who did not achieve pCR, residual tumor cells in the lymph nodes (ypN; HR, 16.96; 95% CI, 2.11-136.12; P  < 0.01) and Glasgow prognostic score (GPS; HR, 8.34; 95% CI, 1.73–40.31; P  < 0.01) were independent predictors of shorter DFS/RFS. The most common grade  ≥  3 AEs were neutropenia (61.6%) and febrile neutropenia (26.7%), which were not associated with clinicopathological factors. The most common non-hematological AEs were appetite loss (9.3%), pulmonary embolism (8.1%), diarrhea (7.0%), and nausea (2.3%). Nine patients discontinued neoadjuvant DCF due to toxicities. Conclusions Neoadjuvant DCF was effective and well-tolerated in real-world ESCC patients. Primary TRG grade 1a or pCR showed a favorable DFS/RFS, while positive ypN and GPS were independent risk factors for worse DFS/RFS.

The production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is an unavoidable consequence of oxygenic photosynthesis and represents a major cause of oxidative stress in phototrophs, having detrimental effects on the photosynthetic apparatus, limiting cell growth, and productivity. Several methods have been developed for the quantification of cellular ROS, however, most are invasive, requiring the destruction of the sample. Here, we present a new methodology that allows the concurrent quantification of ROS and photosynthetic activity, using the fluorochrome dichlorofluorescein (DCF) and in vivo chlorophyll a fluorescence, respectively. Both types of fluorescence were measured using an imaging Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) fluorometer, modified by adding a UVA-excitation light source (385 nm) and a green bandpass emission filter (530 nm) to enable the sequential capture of red chlorophyll fluorescence and green DCF fluorescence in the same sample. The method was established on Phaeodactylum tricornutum Bohlin, an important marine model diatom species, by determining protocol conditions that permitted the detection of ROS without impacting photosynthetic activity. The utility of the method was validated by quantifying the effects of two herbicides (DCMU and methyl viologen) on the photosynthetic activity and ROS production in P. tricornutum and of light acclimation state in Navicula cf. recens Lange-Bertalot, a common benthic diatom. The developed method is rapid and non-destructive, allowing for the high-throughput screening of multiple samples over time.

For long-reach communication in passive optical network (PON), it is essential to mitigate the effect of dominating signals using an effective modulation technique with a suitable fiber system. Three fiber systems, Dispersion Compensation Fiber (DCF), Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG), and Optical Phase Conjugator (OPC) with Duobinary modulation technique, are installed for effective data transmission. A successful downlink transmission of 10 Gbps data is done at 193.414 THz frequency using 1550 nm wavelength with a suitable fiber system. The performance of different fiber systems having the configuration Duobinary + DCF, Duobinary + FBG, and Duobinary + OPC is analyzed over various lengths of fiber, 100 km, 200 km, 300 km, 400 km, and 500 km in terms of eye diagrams, electrical histograms, Q-factor, BER, and jitter value. The analysis is done for two different power levels of transmission, one at 0 dBm and the other at 3 dBm. To investigate the most suitable system, a comparative analysis is done in the form of MATLAB graphs. Results show that Duobinary + OPC is the most effective fiber system for compensation of chromatic dispersion at higher power levels as well as at lower power levels. The system is capable of achieving a maximum Q-factor of 36.11 at 0 dBm and 40 at 3 dBm. The minimum BER attained by the system is of value 1.32 × 10 –39 at 0 dBm and 1.42 × 10 –40 .

This study aims to explore current financial management practices covering governance and financial operation aspects in Islamic donation-based crowdfunding (DCF) in Malaysia. A series of interviews with six Islamic DCF platforms in Malaysia were conducted. For reporting purposes, this study employed a single-case study approach. The interview was conducted and completed at the end of August 2022 via an online approach through Google Meet. The findings highlight the governance background in terms of legal establishment as well as monitoring the function of Islamic DCFs in Malaysia. In addition, for financial operation, several findings related to the funding management process model, income generation, financial sustainability and financial disclosure of Islamic DCFs in Malaysia were discussed. This study is among the pioneer studies that explore financial management practices in Islamic DCF platforms in Malaysia. The study findings and recommendations are useful for Islamic DCF platforms as well as related parties like regulators, funders, potential project managers and the public in general to understand financial management practices in Islamic DCF platforms in Malaysia.

In this paper, advanced modulation techniques based on external modulation, such as I-AMI, AMI, and DBRZ, are designed to improve long-haul transmission and lower high power requirements in the FSO communication system. For long-haul 16 × 100 Gbps FSO systems, an alternate mark inversion modulation approach with high-data rate distortion less transmission is possible. The results demonstrate improved performance in terms of performance indicators such as Q-factor (29.62) and BER (3.8e −193 ), as well as improved data transmission capabilities of up to 100 Gbps over a distance of 9 km in clear weather. Because here, AMI technique uses a low input power of 5 dBm instead of a conventional power of 10 dBm, the achieved findings demonstrate a reasonable reduction in signal degradation, especially nonlinear effects.

This paper proposes a power over fiber (PWoF) to optically power the hazardous or remote locations. The feasibility of PWoF link with double-clad (DCF) for simultaneous transmission of data and high-power feed light to the remote antenna unit (RAU) has been analyzed. The PWoF enables the management of power supply to the RAU by controlling the feed power at the central station (CS). PWoF is an excellent replacement of the batteries to power the RAU at hazardous and remote locations. The PWoF act as a backup system for conventional power lines, which can be reduced to a greater extend. The data is transmitted through the single-mode core, and high-power feed light are transmitted through the inner cladding of DCF. The proposed system enables remote communications in a hazardous environment or during power outages and in disaster regimes in the near future. The comparison of the conventional single-core fiber (SCF) and DCF is carried out for data transmission, and DCF outperforms the SCF. This article experimentally demonstrates that a 100-m DCF optical fiber can deliver about 800 mW at the RAU. The results for transmission performance analysis show that the simultaneous downlink and uplink data transmission with a negligible EVM power penalty is feasible even under 12.0 W high-power feed light in DCF.

This paper analyses the valuation process of companies listed on the Italian Exchange in the period 2000-2009 at their initial public offering (IPO). One the most common valuation techniques declared in the IPO prospectus to determine the offer price is the discounted cash flow (DCF) method. We develop a 'reverse engineering' model to discover the short term profitability implied in the offer prices. We show that there is a significant optimistic bias in the estimation of future profitability compared to ex-post actual realization and the mean forecast error is substantially large. Yet we show that such error characterizes also the estimations carried out by analysts evaluating non-IPO companies. The forecast error is larger the faster has been the recent growth of the company, the higher is the leverage of the IPO firm, the more companies issued equity on the market. IPO companies generally exhibit better operating performance before the listing, with respect to comparable listed companies, while after the flotation they do not perform significantly different in term of return on invested capital. Pre-IPO book building activity plays a significant role in partially reducing the forecast error and revising expectations, while the market price of the first day of trading does not contain information for further reducing forecast errors.