Magnetic core–shell CoFe2O4@ZnO nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized by using coprecipitation method to provide easy separated nanomaterials and high photocatalytic activity performance. Core–shell nanoparticles with various CoFe2O4-to-ZnO molar ratio (1:2, 1:3, 1:4, 1:5) have been investigated over x-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-visible spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometer. XRD spectra confirm the cubic spinel ferrite phase structure of CoFe2O4 and the hexagonal wurtzite phase of ZnO. The crystallite size is found within the range of 14.9–20.6 nm. TEM measurement confirms the good crystallinity of the samples. The magnetic hysteresis shows that CoFe2O4@ZnO has high saturation magnetization of about 30 emu g−1 and coercivity of about 300 Oe. Photocatalytic investigation was carried out using methylene blue (MB) under UV irradiation. Our result yields the enhancement of MB degradation as ZnO content increases. The maximum photodegradation achieved by the core–shell nanoparticles is 57.2%, 60.5%, 65.5%, and 78.3% for molar ratio of 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, and 1:5, respectively. The enhancement of MB degradation can be attributed to the formation of internal structure between CoFe2O4 and ZnO in the form of heterojunction structure. The magnetic properties of core–shell lead to the easy separation between the magnetic core–shell nanoparticles and the final degraded solution by permanent magnet.


The purpose of this study is to prove the structural behavior of the
spiral bar joing that is one of the connecting methods of PC Large Panel
 Structure, and to propose the designing formula.
Large numbers of parameters which affect tensile strength and failure
shape of the spiral bars are assembled as following ; 1 diameter, inside
 diameter of spiral bar and number of rotation 2 concrete compressive
 strength 3 diameter and inside diameter of hook bar 4 load conditions.
 Totally 93 specimens were manufactured to investigate the strength of
spiral joint of grout mortar and adaptability of other kinds of concrete
- polimer, epoxy and steel fiber concrete.
It was confirmed that the major factors of tensile resistance capacity in
 horizontal joint specimens were the diameter of spiral bar, the diameter
 of hook bar, the rotation number of spiral bar and the concrete compressive
 strength.


Chronic and end-stage liver diseases negatively affect many aspects of patients' physical functioning and quality of life. Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is the standard of care for patients with end-stage liver disease and has been shown to improve patients' survival and health-related quality of life (HRQL). Although the deterioration of hepatic function and the development of complications due to cirrhosis (i.e., ascites, hepatic encephalopathy, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, and hepatorenal syndrome) are the main indications for OLT, improvement in HRQL may be important from the patients' perspective. For some patients with cholestatic or polycystic liver disease, symptoms of pruritus and abdominal pain may be the main reasons to consider liver transplantation. In addition to the importance of HRQL from the patients' perspective, HRQL has also been associated with physiological functioning, adherence to treatment regimens, and mortality. A considerable amount of research in the past few decades has been devoted to the measurement of HRQL. Global (generic) aspects of health-related quality of life are commonly assessed, which allows for comparisons between patients with different diseases. As the popularity of generic instruments increased, disease-specific quality-of-life instruments have also become more common. These instruments are important because they are more responsive to the specific nature of a disease and treatment regimens. Over the last few years, assessment of HRQL for patients undergoing OLT has become increasingly important. Despite problems with acute cellular rejection and side effects of medications, studies among transplant recipients have demonstrated that quality of life largely improves after transplantation. In fact, liver transplantation has been shown to markedly improve both patient's physical and mental health components of HRQL. In one study, a rapid improvement in HRQL after OLT was associated with better health resource utilization. In this issue of Liver Transplantation, Kirchner and colleagues report their outcomes, including HRQL for 36 adult patients with polycystic liver disease who underwent either OLT or combined liver-kidney transplantation. This is one of the first studies to report quality-of-life assessments for this patient population. In their series, both a generic (Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36; SF-36) and a self-designed, diseasespecific HRQL instrument were administered. Their disease-specific assessment focused on symptoms experienced before and after transplantation and how patients' marital status and employment situations changed before and after transplantation. This diseasespecific instrument measures outcomes that are commonly assessed by researchers interested in the quality of life of patients who have undergone transplantation. However, no explanation is given for how and why they created a new instrument, given the existence of psychometrically validated instruments for assessing HRQL for patients with liver disease. Furthermore, the psychometric properties (i.e., reliability, validity, responsiveness) of this HRQL instrument are not presented in the article. Nevertheless, the data presented suggest that less than 10% of patients reported that their well-being worsened after transplantation. Although marital status largely remained the same after transplantation, several of the transplant patients entered early retirement after transplantation. Common symptoms experienced by patients, including vomiting, tiredness,


Now optical fiber communication is the main method of communication in data communication systems,its performance has a direct impact on the quality of data communication systems.In this paper,the implementation of optical fiber communication system uses the FPGA Verilog language.The optical fiber communication system includes extraction of bit synchronization signal module,8B/10B code/decode module and NRZI code/decode module.All of these modules are synthesized and simulated by EDA tools of DA(Design Analyzer),Quartus II and Modelsim,etc,and from the simulation results can be seen that a good design to meet the system requirements.


The clinical picture of an infectious disease, the character of its course, the outcomes depend on the mode of entry. When infection occurs naturally there happens an adequate immune response, the disease manifests typical symptoms, proceeds cyclically and ends with the recovery with formation of a full-fledged sterile immunity. In the case of hematogenous infection these is no full mode of entry and there may develop fulminant forms of the disease or a chronic course with the involvement of visceral organs in the process. Sterilizing immunity is not formed in this case. Complete sanogenesis requires the presence of the pathogen or its mediators in the primary site of infection. HIV, hepatitis C and B, tetanus, rabies should be treated as infectious diseases occurring due to the mechanisms of tropism's change. It provides the emergence of new tropism substrates with subsequent involvement in the process of visceral organs. The challenge for the future is to search for specific mediators of the immune response, triggering and controlling all stages of a germ and macroorganism interaction.


Public administration is struggling to contend with a substantial shift in practice fueled by the accelerating adoption of information technology. New skills, competencies and pedagogies are required by the field to help overcome the data-skills gap. As a means to address these deficiencies, we introduce the Data Science Literacy Framework, a heuristic for incorporating data science principles into public administration programs. The framework suggests that data literacy is the dominant principle underlying a shift in professional practice, accentuated by an understanding of computational science, statistical methodology, and data-adjacent domain knowledge. A combination of new and existing skills meshed into public administration curriculums help implement these principles and advance public administration education.


An essential part of the EM data processing is the rejection of the random noise. This paper presents a new approach which is based on the decomposition of the EM data matrix into eigenimages, using singular value decomposition. The distribution of the singular values in EM data indicates which singular values are related to the EM signal and which to the noise. By truncating the singular values associated with the noise, the data may be reconstructed from only a few of the first eigenimages associated with the signal, and the random noise can be rejected. The test of the method on synthetic data shows that the approach can reduce the random noise by more than sixty percent. A field example is presented.


Thin (∼10 nm) films comprising of Ta2O5–HfO2, Ta2O5–ZrO2, and ZrO2–HfO2 nanolaminates were deposited and characterized for possible gate dielectric applications. These films were deposited on silicon substrates using atomic layer deposition. The dielectric constants of these films were in 12–14 range and the leakage currents in 2.6×10−8–4.2×10−7 A/cm2 range at 1 MV/cm electric field. It was found that as these films were made thinner, the value of their dielectric constant dropped compared to their bulk values. The dominant leakage current mechanism at low electric fields was determined to be Schottky emission, whereas Poole–Frenkel emission dominated at higher fields.


Internationalization of medical education is important at a time of globalization and population migration. It can occur on several levels.


COVID-19 initial surge at Wuhan, China brought the pivotal role of virtual enterprise data ware houses in Supply Chain Management (SCM), eventually became a major drive momentum towards Always Available Always Online (A3O) heterogeneous data networks Reliable and tightly coupled information deluge in the unprecedented trends toward the smart city development as well as deployment of adhoc huge Disaster Management Center (DMC), as regional Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to name a few;are prone to issues on stability, reliability and availability Smart data storage resources are vulnerable to provide functionality due to their inherent heavy dependence on System Down Time, Redundant Systems and Software Failure or whole multiple site failures In the absence of Production Database Management Services, duplicate deployment of similar data on disjoint but similar architecture provides a Tightly Coupled Ultimate System, which assures A3O mutually exclusive services In this paper, we investigated active Data Guard and Data Guard role management or switchover for a real time transition performed for database at standby state to cope up both planned maintenance and accidental RS2F events We expose our results for deep integration of active Data Guard with ODB in-terms of Fast Sync to align synchronously at an ease of zero of wait states for disk I/O and configurability to Null Data Loss Over a large range of remote or standby databases null data lost make it certain to zero failover The impact of Fast-Start Failover in the cloud proximity make sure guaranteed null data lost in synchronously and near null data lost protection asynchronously Hence, avoids unusual overhead impeding disk I/O and eventually on a primary database We observe the key performance indicator in failover does not restart the standby database for primary role resumption, but introduce cloud proximity as a new primary database and the process is performed without any intervention of manual migration The reliability of active data guard Redo is flexible across not only standby databases but also primary sites running different operating system over diverse hardware platforms The Redo capability enables migration with minimal downtime for any transaction in the clouds, therefore adds an inevitable functionality to big data applications © 2005 - ongoing JATIT & LLS


The role of actin filament dynamics in the regulation of airway smooth muscle contraction is not fully understood. We have investigated the effects of impairing actin filament polymerization with latrunculin‐B (Lat‐B) –a G‐actin binding toxin, on agonist‐induced Ca2+ signaling, Ca2+ sensitivity and contraction in small intrapulmonary airways in mouse lung slices. Incubation of lung slices with Lat‐B (0.1 μM) for 60 min caused a reduction of airway contraction induced by 0.1 μM serotonin (5‐HT) and 0.1 μM acetylcholine (ACh) by 54 ± 8% and 42 ± 6%, respectively. In addition, Lat‐B induced relaxation of airways pre‐contracted with agonists. Maximal airway relaxation was 55 ± 5% and 53 ± 8% in airways pre‐contracted with 5‐HT and ACh, respectively. Furthermore, Lat‐B affected the Ca2+ signaling induced by ACh and 5‐HT by reducing the frequency of agonists‐induced Ca2+ oscillations. Finally, in Ca2+ permeabilized lung slices, Lat‐B induced relaxation of airways pre‐contracted with either 5‐HT or ACh indicating Ca2+ desensitization. Together these results suggest that actin filament dynamics are important for the regulation of airway smooth muscle contraction and signaling.


Obtained is a thin-film thermoelectric conversion module which has excellent thermoelectric conversion efficiency by decreasing the thermal conductivity of a thermoelectric conversion material thin film, while maintaining high output factor thereof. A thin-film thermoelectric conversion module 200 which comprises: a base 220 that has two or more orientation regions in the surface, said orientation regions having different crystal orientations from each other; a first thermoelectric conversion material thin film 204 that is formed on the base 220 and has a cubic crystal structure; a second thermoelectric conversion material thin film 208; an insulating layer 206 that is formed on the first thermoelectric conversion material thin film 204; and electrodes 207, 210. The first thermoelectric conversion material thin film 204, the second thermoelectric conversion material thin film 208 and the insulating layer 206 are respectively provided with two or more orientation regions, which are formed adjacent to each other and have different crystal orientations from each other, at positions corresponding to the orientation regions of the base 220; and the boundaries between the orientation regions are formed along the boundary between the orientation regions of the base 220.


Bladder Training is one of the applications of Evidence Based Nursing (EBN) to reduce urinary elimination disorders in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients with urinary catheters. Bladder training is bladder training that aims to develop muscle tone and bladder sphincter muscles for maximum purpose. The purpose of this EBN is to identify the effectiveness of Bladder Training (delay urination) in reducing urinary elimination disorders in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients . The results of this EBN application were found that at the time of administering bladder training,on the first day the patient has not felt the sensation of wanting to urinate and at the time of giving bladder training on the second day the client has felt the sensation of wanting to urinate. Bladder training (delay urination) can be recommended as a non-pharmacological therapy to reduce urinary elimination disorders, is easy to do, safe and technically practical to reduce elimination disorders in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients


It is important to utilize the channels very efficiently in cellular system as these channels are meager. In this paper, A Distributed Dynamic Channel Allocation (DDCA) strategy is applied for channel allocation in 9-cell system having non-uniform traffic. Square shape cells with nine cell cluster size have been considered for model development with GSM 1800 specification. The model also considers fixed channel reservation (5–15% of total channel per cell) for handoff calls only, to reduce the handoff call dropping probability (HCDP). Different call arrival rates ranging from 0.1 calls/s to 4 calls/s have been considered. Handoff call queuing method is also implemented for reducing the HCDP. The results indicate that the handoff dropping probability reduces with increase in percentage handoff reservation. Likewise, queuing the Handoff calls further reduces the HCDP. A comparison between HCDP without queuing the handoff calls and with queuing of handoff calls has been attempted. Keywords:  Dynamic channel allocation, handoff calls, queuing, blocking probabilities, dropping probabilities.


the small houses of today are soon reached. What is needed above all is the creation of a sentiment that what we have in common should be worthy, which would lead to the rebuilding of mean towns and to the preservation of natural beauty. We are still far from Cicero's boast: "Odit populus Romanus privatam luxuriam, publicam magnificentiam diligit." Economic science and national pride both point the same way, towards free spending on public objects. The Christian, while doing his part as a citizen, will naturally be as generous as his means permit towards the objects which he has most at heart. Providentially, the theological emphasis of our time reinforces this appeal. We are back once more in surroundings which recall the eschatological background of the Gospels and necessarily aflect our theological outlook. Saving for a Palestinian peasant could only take the form of accumulacing clothes or coin, which were at the Inerey of rnouhs and thieves. In the nineteenth century a man could lay uIl treasure on earth, reasonably confident that money would breed money and that he could ensure a steadily increasing estate for himself and his family. In modern political and social conditions property is as vulnerable, or nearly so, as in ancient Palestine. We must not repine; it may be easier to be a Christian now for this very reason. W. K. L. C.


Nonlinear exponential smooth transition autoregressive (ESTAR) models are recently very popular in modelling the deviation from purchasing power parity. This article, shows that there is a close relation between the ESTAR models estimated in Taylor et al. (2001) and stochastic unit root (STUR) processes of Granger and Swanson (1997) and McCabe and Tremayne (1995). Also, for a post-Bretton Woods sample period, the real exchange rates from four major countries are tested if they are better described as I(1), ESTAR or STUR processes.


A technique is provided which can prevent the quality of an electrical signal from degrading in an optical semiconductor device. In a cross-section perpendicular to an extending direction of an electrical signal transmission line, the electrical signal transmission line (ETL) is surrounded by a shielding portion (SP) including a first noise cut wiring (NM1), second plugs (PL2), a first layer wiring (M1), first plugs (PL1), a shielding semiconductor layer (SSL), first plugs (PL1), a first layer wiring (M1), second plugs (PL2), and a second noise cut wiring (NM2), and the shielding portion (SP) is fixed to a reference potential. Thereby, the shielding portion blocks noise due to effects of a magnetic field or an electric field from the semiconductor substrate, which affects the electrical signal transmission line.


For Hammerstein system with input constraints,the design method for optimal controllers is proposed based on LMI.Two-step method control strategy of nonlinear separation is adopted.Firstly,a state feedback optimal control of the linear subsystem of Hammerstein models is presented by using the LMI technique;secondly,the actual control actions are calculated by solving nonlinear algebraic equations.The two-step strategy makes a full use of the special structure in Hammerstein model and it comes down the controller design problem within the linear control system.Moreover,the Lyapunov's method is used to derive sufficient conditions for the closed-loop stability.Finally,a simulation of polypropylene grade transitions verifies the effectiveness of the method proposed here.


Supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) could offer a viable treatment alternative to destroy the organic structure of ion-exchange resins (IER) that are radioactive process wastes and which contain radioactivity. The GC/MS technique was used successfully to identify the low-concentration degradation compounds that are present in the cold liquid effluent after SCWO of polystyrenic IER at 380 °C (25.5 MPa). The study of the behavior of these IER in supercritical water enhances the role of temperature and the role of supercritical water in the degradation process. With the exception of acetic acid, the identified compounds are aromatic. The functional groups are released during the heating time, and they do not interfere in the degradation process. The oxidation involves a complex set of reaction pathways. A mechanism including parallel and competitive reactions is proposed.


Why do some leaders pursue ethnic exclusion even though it increases the risk of ethnic conflict? This article develops and tests a theory that explains how a leader's ethnic policy and the size of the minimum winning coalition interact to influence leader survival. An event history analysis of leadership duration between 1946 and 2012 shows that in non-democratic countries with small winning coalitions: (1) leaders who promote ethnic exclusion are more likely to survive longer in office than those who do not promote such policy; (2) leaders are more likely to be removed from office in a violent manner (e.g. coup d'état) when they fail to employ ethnic exclusion; and (3) political benefits from ethnic exclusion are large enough to offset the risk of being involved in civil war. These findings suggest that ethnic exclusion can be a rational strategy for autocratic leaders even if it might increase the risk of civil war. Political reforms without considering this grim reality are likely to introduce another source of violence and instability in autocratic regimes. He shows that Chewa-Tumbuka cleavage is highly salient in Malawi but not in a neighboring Zambia because Chewas and Tumbukas are large enough to serve as viable coalitions in Malawi but are too small to constitute such coalitions in Zambia.


MWi' is a general purpose user conjigurable manipulator system that provides rapid design and inexpensive implementation of customized (simple or complex) manipulator geometries tailored to the needs of individual researchers or application engineers. Structures of arbitrary complexity are conjigured JPom serf contained 1 -DOF rotary or linear JOINT modules, inchding on-board joint control processor, power amplijier, etc., connected together by passive rigid LINKS. The supporting software environment provides easy teaching of locations, hierarchical programming of complex tasks, sophisticated tool trajectory control and integrated workspace YO, including vision. ne system architecture, many recent improvements, including model-based control software, and various economic advantages of the approach are presented.


Lithium-ion batteries are widely used as portable electrical energy storage devices because they have high energy densities and long life cycles. One of the cathode active materials used in the manufacture of Lithium-ion batteries is LiMn2O4 because of its easy and cheap manufacturing, has a long life cycle, high power applications, safe, and low toxicity of manganese basic materials. In this research, LiMn2O4 as cathode sheet has been made by doctor blade coating. This method was carried out by mixing LiMn2O4 with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), Super P, and dimethylacetamide (DMAC) with weight ratio of 82.5: 10: 7.5, respectively, to obtain a well dispersed slurry. Slurry was superimposed on aluminum foil surface with various thickness of 200, 300 and 400 μm. Coin cell was assembled using electrodes, separator, lithium metal and electrolytes in the glove box. The cell battery was characterized by using cyclic voltammetry, charge discharge and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in order to know the effect of active material thickness to cell battery performances. The results showed that active material with 400 μm in thickness had the best electrochemical performance due to a narrow and sharp reduction-oxidation peak pair, small polarization value of 0.0335 V as well as having charge and discharge capacities of 1.1249 mAh and 1.0914 mAh, respectively. Moreover, EIS result showed that 400 μm thickness of active material had highest conductivity value of 5.3922 × 10−5 Scm−1.


Tramadol, a synthetic, centrally acting analgesic with weak mu-opioid agonist activity, is often prescribed as an alternative to opioids due to its negligible abuse potential. Although the potentia...


Abstract : The physical problem presented in this paper is water rotating steadily in a vertical cylinder with a specified tangential influx. Water is withdrawn through a sink in the center of the base of the cylinder. Laser Doppler velocimetry is utilized to obtain velocity data in and near the viscous vortex core region, the viscous boundary layer, and the near irrotational region. Of particular interest is the region near the sink where the viscous core interacts with the bottom boundary layer. The core radius is measured for various circulations with fixed sink radius and water column depth. Tangential and axial velocity measurements are taken through the viscous core and into the near irrotational region for various circulations with fixed sink radius and water column depth and at various radial and axial locations. Axial and tangential velocities are measured near and in the bottom boundary layer. A flow visualization technique is developed to display qualitative data on the flow where the boundary layer and viscous core interact. (jhd)


Semantic Web which is an extension to the current web 2.0 presents information more magnificently for humans and automated tools as well. It offers an intelligent web service that synchronizes and arranges précised data over web in a well-organized modus. The exactitude of fetching relevant data as per the user demand has been a real challenge for traditional web over years in the field of data mining. In this paper, we propose an approach for mapping data over web 3.0 through web ontology and retrieve the précised information through an intelligent agent. The agent provides all the searched data related to the user query from where desired information is found. If the user does not have enough search parameter, mining can be carried out by the information appended by the agent. Our proposed model shortlists the results fetched by traditional search engines such as Google which are semantically related to users' search parameter. A case study of Institutions of Barisal Division is considered to examine the helpfulness of the model.


The results of GRB observations are being published in the GCN Circulars in real-time. To study all the objects in the sky areas around the GRBs we identified them on the digitized MAO Double Wide angle Astrograph (DWA) plates (D/F=40/200) within a circle with the radius of dozens of arcminutes. We selected only GRBs with the positional accuracy between ±0.3" and ±7.5" and the range of magnitudes between 14 and 20. We used MIDAS/ROMAFOT package to obtain the catalogues of the faint objects in small areas in the GRBs vicinity. For the plates of DWA telescope the positional rms errors are ± 0.20" for RA and DEC, the photometric errors are ± 0.20. All positions were obtained in Tycho-2 system.


Subtle anion effects have been observed for the cyclization of AgX (X - = BF 4 - vs ClO 4 - ) with bis(3-pyridyl)-dimethylsilane. For the two similar anions, BF 4 - affords a cyclic tetramer with two independent spaces, while ClO 4 - affords a dimer of cyclic dimer via an unusual intercyclic argentophilic interaction. For BF 4 - , the specific X - ...H-C interactions seem to play an important role in the formation of the cyclic tetramer.


Abstract Western redcedar (WRC) trees of 48–49 years in age grown in monoculture and in admixtures with birch, Douglas-fir and pine in the interior of British Columbia were sampled for wood density and the presence and level of damage from butt decay initiated by Armillaria ostoyae in stumped and unstumped plots. Stump removal reduced butt decay incidence in WRC from 18% to 2% and damage from 3.5% of the diameter at base to 0.3% compared to when stumps remained. External lesions on tree bases caused by Armillaria root disease increased the probability of WRC stems having butt decay by 1.25 times for an average-sized lesion. The incidence of butt decay and the level of internal damage to WRC in sampled plots was not related to admixture, tree size or site index. Stump removal controlled the inoculum of Armillaria root disease, thereby reducing incidence and size of WRC basal lesions that probably act as infection courts for other fungi causing butt decay. WRC trees grown in monoculture or with birch had the highest wood densities of all planting mixes tested. Wood density in WRC was lowest at the outer edges of individual WRC trees, in larger trees, and in plots where stumps had not been removed. The lower density WRC wood is thought to occur by overtopping from fast-growing species in admixture and depletion of soil moisture affecting latewood formation. This is a first report of stump removal affecting butt decay and admixture affecting wood density in WRC.


Management of hypertension in patients provides a significant challenge for healthcare professionals. It was convincingly demonstrated that lowering of blood pressure below what is recommended for patients with essential hypertension. The present study was done to find prescription trend in Indian cardiology and nephrology practice and its adherence to therapeutic guidelines. For present study, 120 patients having blood pressure greater or equal to 140/90 mm Hg and fulfilling inclusion-exclusion criteria were enrolled and data of Serum Creatinine and Blood Pressure were recorded at 0 week, 4 week, 8 week and 12 week. In treatment strategy, Goal of blood pressure is to achieve BP up to <130/80 mmHg for all patients. There is still controversy about effectiveness of antihypertensive drugs in CKD. In view of JNC VII guideline, ACE inhibitors should be used as first line treatment. It may surprising in this study that ACE inhibitors or Angiotensin receptor blockers were used only in 50% of the patients, whereas Diuretics were in 87% and Calcium channel blockers were prescribed in 73% patients. It was found that physicians hesitate to prescribe ACE inhibitors as first line treatment due to serious side effects such as brassy cough and hyperkalemia. It was concluded that there is still potential to increase the prescription frequency of ACE inhibitors and AT1 blockers. Management of Hypertension is more difficult in renal patients and requires multi drug therapy, which is further influenced adversely by diabetic condition.


The major collagen receptor glycoprotein VI (GPVI) is required for normal hemostasis, thrombus formation, platelet spreading on collagen, platelet activation and collagen-induced platelet aggregation [1–4]. GPVI is found in a non-covalent association with the FcRc-chain in platelets [5,6]. The importance of this physical association was emphasized by the discovery that human and mouse platelets that lack GPVI as a result of depletion by antibodies also lack the FcRc-chain [5,6]. The discovery of this relationship led to the suggestion that GPVI initiates collagen-induced signaling through the associated FcRc-chain [5,7]. This relationship has confounded elucidation of the role of GPVI, on the one hand, and the FcRc-chain, on the other hand, in signaling that is apparently FcRc-chain-dependent because genetically FcRc-chain-deficient platelets also lack GPVI [6]. Specifically, botrocetin (bt)/ von Willebrand factor (VWF)-induced aggregation of washed platelets is FcRc-chain-dependent [8]. Likewise, aggregation of washed platelets induced by a low level of thrombin is also dependent on the FcRc-chain [9]; however, because genetically deficient FcRc-chain-deficient platelets also lackGPVI, it is not known whether aggregation of washed platelets induced by the bt/VWF or thrombin is dependent on GPVI, the FcRc-chain or both. Furthermore, this relationship has prevented the investigation of the ability of the FcRc-chain to be activated by a receptor(s) other than GPVI in platelets. However, the recent construction of a genetically GPVI-deficient mouse has provided a means of resolving both these issues because the GPVI)/) platelets express the FcRc-chain [4]. The function of the FcRc-chain in the presence and absence of GPVI was investigated by stimulating wild-type, genetically FcRc-chain-deficient (which also lack GPVI) and GPVI)/)/ FcRc-chain+/+ platelets with the bt/VWF, or c-thrombin. c-thrombin, a proteolytic derivative of a-thrombin was used because although it activates platelets, it does not convert fibrinogen to fibrin. This feature of c-thrombin eliminates the problems associated with clot formation [10]. Aggregation of the bt/VWF and c-thrombin-stimulated washed platelets is GPVI/FcRc-chain-dependent (Fig. 1). In contrast to normal washed platelets, FcRc-chain)/) platelets, which also lack GPVI, failed to aggregate in response to stimulation by the bt/ VWF or c-thrombin. Furthermore, unlike the wild-type platelets, the FcRc-chain)/) platelets stimulated with the bt/ VWF produced a diminished level of thromboxane A2 (TxA2) and secreted a diminished level of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The diminished levels of these products corresponded to the levels elicited by agglutination, not the levels elicited by aggregation (Fig. 1) [11]. The higher levels of these substances associated with aggregation are dependent on aIIbb3 outside-in signaling as demonstrated by the data obtained using the b3)/) platelets (Fig. 1) [11]. The effect of the genetic deficiency of the FcRc-chain on TxA2 production and ATP secretion was even more pronounced in response to stimulation by a low level of cthrombin. The FcRc-chain deficiency prevented all TxA2 production and ATP secretion in response to a low level of thrombin. The fact that the FcRc-chain)/) platelets also lack GPVI [6] precludes knowing whether the signaling characterized here is dependent on the GPVI/FcRc-chain complex or if the apparently FcRc-chain-dependent signaling can be initiated in a GPVI-independent manner. Selecting between these alternatives was facilitated by using genetically GPVI-deficient platelets [4]. The significance of this is that although the platelets lack GPVI and therefore do not aggregate in response to collagen, they contain the FcRc-chain. The functionality of the FcRc-chain in the GPVI)/) platelets has not been described [4]. Treatment of these platelets individually with the bt/VWF or c-thrombin would resolve this issue if the GPVI)/) platelets aggregated in response to either one or both of the agonists. In contrast, a negative response would not be informative because a dependency on either GPVI or the FcRc-chain could explain the lack of aggregation as it is not known if the FcRc-chain present in GPVI)/) platelets is functional. The results enabled a clear selection between the alternatives. In contrast to collagen-stimulated GPVI)/) platelets, which did not aggregate (not shown) [4], the GPVI)/) platelets aggregated, produced an undiminished level of TxA2 and secreted the normal level of ATP in response to each agonist (Fig. 1). Therefore, it is evident that the FcRc-chain expressed in the GPVI/) platelets is functional, and its activation by these agonists is not dependent on GPVI. Furthermore, aggregation in response to these agonists under the conditions used here is dependent on the FcRc-chain function. Thus, another receptor Correspondence: T. K. Gartner, Department of Biology, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA. Tel.: +1 901 678 2977; fax: +1 901 678 4457; e-mail: tgartner@ memphis.edu


IN previous studies in the monkey, it was observed that there is a direct relationship betwen the interruption of ascending nervous fibers at the level of the ventromedial area of the upper brain stem, the retrograde cellular degeneration in the ipsilateral substantia nigra,1and the depletion of dopamine in both parts of the homolateral striatum.2-4Similarly, the depletion of serotonin in the striatum was attributed to the interruption of the most dorsomedial fibers of the cerebral peduncle on the corresponding side.5,6These neuroanatomical and neurochemical changes are apparently important factors in the appearance of extrapyramidal signs and, more precisely, in the genesis of abnormal movements.2,4-6Moreover, there is a close relationship between such results in the monkey and the findings previously reported in parkinsonian patients.7In the light of our previous findings in the monkey,1-6it was thought worthwhile to verify the results


We studied the propagation speed of fiber fuse using heterodyne detection method by analyzing the Doppler shift based on short-time Fourier transform. We observed periodic velocity changes about 160 μs with a constant launched power.


The cathodic protection by sacrificing anode was performed by laboratory methods,and the corrosion of the steel of the heating-furnace under the investigated under the two conditions,below-850mV and above-850mV.The results showed that the protection efficiency were more than 80% in both cases.The potential of cathodic protection by sacrificing anode had a relation with the area of the anode,and it was inaccurate that only the protection potential was used as the assessment standard.In the end,the field operation of cathodic protection by sacrificing anode was briefly introduced.


Abundances of He, N, O, and Ne have been uniformly calculated for 192 planetary nebulas residing in the Galactic disk and halo, the LMC, the SMC, and M31. Direct correlations appear to exist for type I as well as non-type I objects for the following pairs of parameters: N/O-He/H, N/O-N/H, and Ne/H-O/H. Separately, type I planetaries show a weak anticorrelation between N/O and O/H, while non-type I's exhibit direct correlations between N/H and O/H and between N/O and O/H. From these patterns, it is inferred that non-type I's synthesize N via the CN cycle. Type I planetaries, on the other hand, manufacture N at least partially via the ON cycle, destroying O in the process. Neither type appears to synthesize O or Ne. 64 refs.


1 Sir Lawrence Wackett Centre for Aerospace Design Technology, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001, Australia 2 Department of Aerospace Engineering, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001, Australia 3 Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Composites Structures Limited 506 Lorimer Street, Fishermen's Bend, Victoria, 3207, Australia


MBA is the course of elites. The "elitist" character of management education has been counteracted by the effective role played by the universities in India by spreading management education from classes to masses. This is evident from almost a mushroom growth of management courses in the universities as well as by several autonomous bodies (private institutions). Thus growth in numbers has predictably resulted in a wide divergence in the quality of education provided by schools. This quantitative expansion without adequate preparation and even the basic infrastructure has adversely affected the quality of management education. Hence there is an urgent need for developing a monitoring system for management education. To control the quality degradation in management education there should be a regular feedback from those who received management education as well as by the users of the product. A continuous dialogue with the users in public and private undertakings as well as in the academic field would serve a dual purpose of having a rapport with the users. The pressure to provide better student services has never been greater. Students have become more and more aware of their requirements and demand higher standards of services. Their (Quality Gap) are continually evolving making it difficult for the service providers to measure and manage services effectively. The key lies in improving the services selectively, paying attention to more critical service dimensions as a part of service management. Students are very sensitive to various service dimensions. Now, the challenge is to reduce dissatisfaction among the students is equally strong.


The Technology Department at Alabama A&M University (AAMU) is developing courses for a Biotechnology Manufacturing elective area. The biotechnology field has much promise to grow rapidly in the region and nation. Huntsville, Alabama, is on its way to becoming a leader in the biotechnology industry with the construction of the Hudson-Alpha Institute for Biotechnology (HAIB) in Huntsville. The institute will contain state-of-the-art laboratories for biotechnology and is expected to attract many new industries to the area. The institute is expected to employ some 400 scientists and staff when it opens in mid-2007. The Technology Department at AAMU has developed several new courses to better equip graduates with the knowledge and skills to design, maintain, and operate biotechnology devices (or systems). The primary objective of the Biotechnology Manufacturing elective area will be to produce graduates that will have the knowledge in biogenetics and up-to-date technology to support this industry efficiently. This paper will discuss some of the essential elements of courses to support Biotechnology Manufacturing.


The sulf-polymer Electrolyte was designed and synthesized.Proceed from the problems of polymer electrolytes based on poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO),synthesized one sulf-polymer electrolyte.first,1,3-dichloro-2-propanol poly(enthylene glycol)(PEG400 and PEG600) methyl ether of different molecular weight were prepared.Further,sulf-polymer electrolyte was polymerized in the sodium disulfid solution.the sulf-polymer electrolyte were investigated by infrared spectrum (IR),elemental analysis,AC impedance,differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetry analysis(TG).It shows that the sulf-polymer electrolyte has good mechanical property and electrode contact property.DSC and TG results show that the electrolyte has low glass transition temperature and sufficient thermal decomposition temperature(220 ℃).AC impedance results show the ionic conductivity is 10-5S/cm in the room temperature.


The energy-dependent thermal diffusion equation is considered in a region free of external sources. Two cases of experimental interest are calculated. The first of these is the steady-state condition where an eigenvalue problem for the thermal diffusion length is obtained. The associated eigenfunction is the neutron spectrum. The second case, which is mathematically identical to the first, is the exponential decay in time of the thermal flux in a pulsed source experiment. The neutron leakage is assumed to be describable by a single eigenvalue for the buckling. In this case the eigenvalue is the decay constant of the flux. When the ratio of absorption cross section to transport mean free path decreases with energy in the thermal region, the first case will give a ''diffusion hardening,'' and the second case a ''diffusion cooling'' of the neutron spectrum compared to a Maxwellian distribution at the moderator temperature. These effects are investigated quantitatively for the model of a heavy gaseous moderator. (auth)


The study aims to find the quality of translation children story by the theme "Dorothy and Mikey" from English to Indonesian. The Study used qualitative method by using accuracy of translation. Data used all of senteces in the pictures children story the tittle is "Dorothy and Mikey". Sources of data contain document, children story book in English and it translation. We used forum group discussion to analyze document. The findings that 82 data or 84,54% accurate and 15 data or 15,46% less accurate in the Dorothy and Mikey story.


From enlightenment to eugenics - Empire, race and medicine, 1780-c1950, Trevor Turner and Susan Collinson recovering the obvious - race and mental health, V.Y. Mudimbe identity and psychopathology, D. Barker cultural studies, ethnicity and mental health, Gargi Bhattacharyya and John Gabriel religious issues - special reference to "Schizophrenia" in Afro-Caribbeans in Britain - a systematic review, Kate Miriam Lowenthal and Marco Cinnirella law and mental health - some implications for ethnic minorities in England, Prakash Shah and Dion Hanna black families, William Obamanu the mental health of British Afro-Caribbean children and adolescents, Tami Crader and Matthew Hodes mental health problems in black refugees, Ros Ramsay substance use in black people of African descent, Zelpha Kittler alcohol use in black people of African descent, Vincent Kirchner.


Environmental issues and the need to reduce energy consumption for lowering operating costs have pushed power efficiency to become one of the major issues of current research in the field of wireless networks. The objective of the Green Radio research programme (Core 5) of Mobile VCE is to deliver reduced power consumption of radio access networks. This paper attempts to show that an efficient exploitation of multiple antenna techniques and multiuser diversity in both the time, frequency as well as the space domain can significantly ease the power requirements of a base station, whilst maintaining the same levels of service. Different MIMO transmission and precoding schemes proposed for LTE, achieving varying degrees of multiuser diversity are examined.


The influence of varying the V2O5 content (3-6 wt.%) was studied for the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of nitrogen oxides by ammonia on heteropoly acid (HPA)and tungsten oxide (WO3)-promoted V2O5/TiO2 catalysts. The SCR activity and alkali deactivation resistance of HPA-promoted V2O5/TiO2 catalysts was found to be much higher than for WO3promoted catalysts. By increasing the vanadium content from 3 to 5 wt.% the catalysts displayed a two fold increase in activity at 225 °C and retained their initial activity after alkali doping at a molar K/V ratio of 0.181. Furthermore, the catalysts were characterized by N2 physisorption, XRPD, NH3-TPD, H2-TPR, Raman, FTIR and EPR spectroscopy to investigate the properties of the catalysts. XRPD, Raman and FTIR showed that promotion with 15 wt.% HPA does not cause V2O5 to be present in crystalline form, also at a loading of 5 wt.% V2O5. Hence, use of HPAs does not cause increased N2O formation or unselective oxidation of NH3. NH3-TPD showed that promotion by HPA instead of WO3 causes the catalysts to possess a higher number of acid sites, both in fresh and alkali poisoned form, which might explain their higher potassium tolerance. Ex-situ EPR spectroscopy revealed that HPA-promoted catalysts have a higher V/Vtotal ratios than their WO3-promoted counterparts. H2-TPR suggests that HPAs do not have a beneficial effect on the V-V redox system, relative to WO3.


The market order is based on commercial credit at all.Although commercial credit is one of the legal credits,it origineted from moral credit. Commercial credit has an invariable meaning in temporary commercial law. But from other eyes to see,it is ordered by moral and itself.Only when legal consequence has been made by litigant for his broken words,should commercial credit should be adjusted by law. Even though it is adjusted by law, the function of moral has the same effectiveness as legal. Commercial credit has a different essence on earth, so the difference between law and moral, especially the problem of commercial credit order controlled by moral power, would become a key issue of temporary research on commercial credit's theory. In this article,the author has researched on commercial credit from different angles such as commercial advantages, spirit's personality, social law, philosophy root and adjusted method, and hoped to resolve the moral question in commercial credit's controlled system.


The early portfolio of resources that new firms have are likely to be powerful determinates of their success. However, no theory exists to predict if or how the configurations of resources affects ...


From the artistic and antiquarian points of view, the systematic destruction of our old City churches under the Union of Benefices Act is greatly to be deplored. Under this Act the churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren have especially suffered; and here I will venture to say a few words on that famous architect and his work. A dire catastrophe sometimes calls forth the energies of the master mind that can grapple with it; this was the case, when, after the Great Fire of 1666, by which eighty-six parish churches were destroyed or severely injured, Wren at that time, hardly a professional architect, turned his attention to the City. He first produced a plan for general rebuilding, which would have given free scope to his genius, although at the same time destroying many links with the past. The chief public buildings were to have been grouped round the Royal Exchange, which would have formed an important centre; St. Paul's Cathedral being approached from the east by two broad converging streets. A river quay, in part adorned by the City Halls, would have extended from Black-friars to the Tower of London; while the churches, greatly reduced in number, were to occupy commanding and isolated sites, their burial grounds being outside the City. For reasons which it is here not necessary to discuss, this proposal was not accepted; and so the City grew again, more or less on its old irregular lines. To Wren, however, was assigned the task of rebuilding or repairing not only St. Paul's Cathedral, but, if we include St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Sepulchre, both only repaired, no fewer than fifty-two other churches, The remainder were not rebuilt, their parishes being united -with adjoining parishes which continued to possess churches. The ancient burial grounds were, to a great extent, retained, and burials continued in them until after the middle of the nineteenth century.


Since humanity ceased to be nomadic and began to settle in localities, the generated waste became a concern. In Brazil, solid waste was more prominent with the creation of the National Basic Sanitation Policy Law No. 11,445 of 2010 and the National Solid Waste Policy Law No. 12,305 of 2007. These two policies aim to create guidelines and obligations to be followed by Brazilian cities and towns, in order to better manage and manage solid waste. The present study aimed to make a general analysis of the solid wastes, management, treatment, final disposal, conditioning, collection, transportation, sweeping, weeding and cleaning processes in the municipality of Matipo (MG). For this investigation, information was collected from the local City Hall and a questionnaire was applied. Comparisons were also made with Brazilian data and the Southeast region. Matipo presents a lower daily average annual production of urban solid waste and health, which can be explained by the low economic development of the region and the performance of an association of waste pickers. The municipality had a controlled landfill, but due to lack of public authority, it became an open dump. In the environmental sphere, the city has been carrying out environmental education measures in conjunction with the population, but the caveat is due to the low financial investments allocated to the area.


Significance While alcohol is widely known for its proinflammatory effects, there is also evidence that it may improve outcomes in several autoimmune conditions. Alcohol's mechanism of potential beneficial effects is unclear, and there are no clinical guidelines on the acceptable level of patient consumption. Using a model of autoimmune neuroinflammation, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, we present data that moderate alcohol consumption ameliorates disease symptoms, decreases central nervous system (CNS) microglia, and enriches protective gut microbial networks in a sex-specific pattern. Our results implicate the gut–CNS axis in alcohol's effects in autoimmunity and raise important broader implications about sex-specific diet effects. Alcohol is a widely consumed dietary component by patients with autoimmune neuroinflammatory diseases, but current evidence on the effects of alcohol in these conditions is confounding. Epidemiological studies suggest moderate consumption of alcohol may be protective in some autoimmune diseases; however, this correlation has not been directly investigated. Here, we characterize the effects of moderate-dose alcohol in a model system of autoimmune neuroinflammation, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Male and female C57BL/6J mice were fed a 2.6% alcohol or isocaloric diet for 3 wk prior to MOG35–55 EAE induction. Surprisingly, alcohol-fed males experienced significantly greater disease remission compared to alcohol-fed females and control-fed counterparts. We observed a male-specific decrease in microglial density in alcohol-consuming animals in cervical and thoracic spinal cord in late-stage disease. In the gut, alcohol diet resulted in several sex-specific alterations in key microbiota known for their regulatory immune roles, including Turicibacter, Akkermansia, Prevotella, and Clostridium. Using a correlation network modeling approach, we identified unique bacterial modules that are significantly enriched in response to treatment and sex, composed of Clostridial taxa and several Firmicutes known to be protective in EAE. Together, these data demonstrate the potential of alcohol to significantly alter the course of autoimmunity differentially in males and females via effects on gut bacterial networks and support further need to evaluate dose and sex-specific alcohol effects in multiple sclerosis (MS) and other autoimmune neuroinflammatory conditions.


The English language is a language of "fertility" due to its continuous formation of new words in modern times. However, the Chinese language is "infertile" because it has basically stopped creating totally new words. The general trend in the development of a Chinese character in the Chinese history has been moving from complexity to simplicity. As a result, it leads to the "infertility" of the Chinese language and makes it difficult to combine a limited number of different strokes within a limited space known as方块字Fāngkuaizi 'Square Block Word'. What is a totally new word in English is simply a combination of used words in Chinese. The Chinese language's capability of saving horizontal and linear space makes this combination feasible to express a new meaning. Three types of constraint arising from limited type and number of Strokes, General Trend toward Simplicity and Square-Framed Space have made their concurrent contribution to the "infertility" of the Chinese word formation. The preference of the Chinese language for new combinations of used words over the creation of total new Chinese words in modern times constitutes a major difference between the formation of English words and the formation of Chinese words in modern times.


Saccorhiza polyschides (Lightf.) Batt. is a laminarian alga found in the sublittoral region. It is widely distributed around the shores of the British Isles and is particularly common on the south west coast of Ireland. A puzzling aspect of the distribution of the species in Southern Ireland is its absence from Lough Ine, in County Cork.


The spatial distributions of cytochrome P450 (CYP450) and glutathione (GSH) in liver lobules determine the heterogeneous hepatotoxicity of acetaminophen (APAP). Their interplay in conjunction with blood flow is not well understood. In this paper, we integrate a cellular APAP metabolism model with a sinusoidal blood flow to simulate the temporal‐spatial patterns of APAP‐induced hepatotoxicity. The heterogeneous distribution of CYP450 and GSH is modeled by linearly varying their reaction rates along the portal triad to the central vein axis of a sinusoid. We found that the spatial distribution of GSH, glutathione S‐transferases (GSTs), and CYP450 all contributes to the high acetaminophen protein adduct formation at zone 3 of the lobules. The reversed spatial gradients of CYP450 and GSH cause quick depletion of GSH, which is further accelerated by the distribution of GST. The hepatic flow congestion and hyperperfusion however do not seem to play a significant role in the zonal hepatotoxicity. The simulation results may be useful for understanding the APAP‐induced hepatotoxicity and associated pharmaceutical treatment.


Objective—Because extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer (EMMPRIN), a tumor cell–derived protein, induces matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in fibroblasts and because MMPs are important in atheroma formation, we investigated if EMMPRIN was expressed in granulocyte/macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF)–differentiated human peripheral blood monocytes (HPBM) and macrophage foam cells. In addition, EMMPRIN was studied for its expression in human atheroma. Methods and Results—After 10 days of GM-CSF–induced monocyte differentiation, EMMPRIN mRNA increased 5- to 8-fold relative to undifferentiated monocytes. GM-CSF treatment of HPBM revealed that both EMMPRIN mRNA and protein were upregulated by day 2 over undifferentiated monocytes. GM-CSF–differentiated HPBM showed characteristic macrophage phenotype by showing increases in pancake-like morphology and increases in biochemical markers such as apolipoprotein E, MMP-9, and cholesterol ester (CE). While acetylated LDL treatment of the 10-day GM-CSF–differentiated HPBM increased CE mass 13- to 321-fold, EMMPRIN expression was unchanged relative to nonlipid-loaded macrophages. In human coronary atherosclerotic samples, EMMPRIN was observed in CD68(+) macrophage-rich areas as well as areas of MMP-9 expressions. Conclusions—Based on these data, we conclude that monocyte differentiation induces EMMPRIN expression, CE enrichment of foam cells has no further effect on EMMPRIN expression, and EMMPRIN is present in human atheroma. Therefore, EMMPRIN may play a role in atherosclerosis development.


An ergonomic seat or mattress has to provide optimal and uniform support for the body of a man or a woman with similar or slightly differing size centiles. It is a common opinion that spring systems in upholstered furniture are much more durable and more user-friendly than foam systems. The aim of this study was to develop a new construction of an upholstery spring of bilinear stiffness. On the basis of the conducted studies and analysis of their results, it was shown that traditional bonnell and barrel springs exhibit linear stiffness within the range of defl ections of up to 70 % of their initial pitch. New spring designs change stiffness already at defl ections of 34% of their pitch. Thanks to this fact they may be used in designs of seats and mattresses for individual users, patients or disabled individuals.


This paper focuses on aspects in the Code of Best Practice for Wool Sheep Farming in South Africa, assessment of producers against the Code and vendor declarations. Subsequently has a National Development Programme for Wool Sheep Farming in SA been finalised in 2009. This will guide the Production Advisory Service into the future within an environment where climate change has become a topic of scientific discussion and political instrument. Finally will consideration be given to eco-labelling and its relevance to the primary producer and the NWGA Production Advisory Service.


The article gives an example of constructing a small area networks of the standard wireless nanonet. The conditional drawings area were used for network construction.


Proto-planetary nebulae (pPN) and planetary nebulae (PN) seem to be formed by interacting winds from asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. The observational issue that most pPN are bipolar but most older PN are elliptical is addressed. We present 2.5D hydrodynamical numerical simulations of episodic cooling interacting winds to investigate the long term evolution of PN morphologies. We track wind acceleration, decrease in mass-loss and episodic change in wind geometry from spherical (AGB) to collimated (pPN) and back to spherical again (PN). This outflow sequence is found to produce realistic PN dynamics and morphological histories. Effects from different AGB distributions and jet duty cycles are also investigated.


The main purpose of present investigation is to e xtend the release of drug from the dosage form at a particular site and controlling the release of drug from the dosage form and achieving controlled plasma level of the drug as well as improving bioavailability. The study was performed by selecting Glipizide and Parecoxib drugs . The m ucoadhesive tablet s were prepared to achieve controlled plasma level of the drug which is especially in diabetes mellitus patients with pain therapy . The tablets wer e prepared by d irect compression technique. Both the drugs were found compatible with the e xcipients used. All the formulations were found to have goo d pre compression and post compression parameters. The optimized formulation was subjected to accelerated s tability studies.


Although the visual perception of 3D shape from 2D images is a basic capability of human beings, it remains challenging to computers. Hence, one goal of vision research is to computationally understand and model the latent 3D scene from the captured images, and provide human-like visual system for machines. In this paper, we present a method that is capable of building a realistic 3D model for the latent scene from multiple images taken at different viewpoints. Specifically, the reconstruction proceeds in two steps. First, generate dense depth map for each input image by a Bayesian-based inference model. Second, build a complete 3D model for the latent scene by integrating all reliable 3D information embedded in the depth maps. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


Although with small circulation,Taoist moral books have exerted a widespread and profound influence.Including "Tai Shang Gan Ying Pian" as the first one,and later "Wen Chang Di Jun Yin Zhi Wen","Tai Wei Xian Jun Gong Guo Ge" and "Wen Chang Di Jun Jiao Chuang Sheng Xun",they integrate the thoughts of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism and take the view of encouraging kindness and punishing evil as the main content.Since these books are about the moral aspects of daily life,they provide ethical lessons for the construction of harmonious society in China.


Objective: To investigate the differences in the allele and genotype frequency of the polymorphism CYP2E1 PstI(rs3813867) between the alcohol-dependent individuals and the controls among Yi population in Yunnan province and try to discover the dangerous gene of alcohol dependence and secondly to compare it with other populations. Methods: The allele and genotype frequencies of the polymorphism CYP2E1 PstI were determined in 110 alcohol-dependent individuals and 330 healthy volunteers who do not drink alcohol(control group). Genotyping was performed by PCR-RFLP methods on white cell DNA. Results: The allele and genotype frequencies of the polymorphism CYP2E1 PstI were similar with that in the alcohol-dependent individuals and the control group(72.7% vs 72.1%for c1/c1),(25.5% vs 25.8% for c1/c2),(1.8% vs 2.1% for c1/c2) and(85.5% vs 85% for c1),(14.5% vs 15% for c2). Conclusion: Differences in the CYP2E1 allele and genotype distribution between the alcohol-dependent group and the control group were not significant(P0.05). There was no difference for allele frequencies of AD group and control group in two nations(P0.05), while there was difference in genotype distribution of AD group and control group in two nations(P0.001).


The effects of growth hormone (GH) deficiency in childhood are well recognized. These include shortness of stature with normal proportions, slow linear growth rate, delayed bone age with reduced bone density, excess adiposity with a predominantly truncal distribution, reduced lean tissue mass, and fasting hypoglycaemia (Collip et al., 1973; Hopwood et al., 1975; Tanner et al., 1977; Milner et al., 1979; Parra et al., 1979, Shore et al., 1980). These effects reflect the known metabolic actions of GH (Davidson, 1987; Press, 1988); GH promotes anabolism and lipolysis, and has complex actions on carbohydrate metabolism which can be summarized as insulinotrophic and insulin antagonistic. The effects of GH deficiency in adults have been appreciated only recently. There may be several reasons for this. Firstly, adults who developed panhypopituitarism from mass effects of a pituitary tumour or the treatment of the tumour survived, often returning to reasonably functional lives with conventional pituitary hormone replacement therapy. Secondly, GH treatment of such patients was not possible due to limited supplies of human pituitary-derived GH. The introduction of recombinant DNA technology has resulted in the production of authentic sequence human GH (rhGH) in potentially unlimited supplies, allowing treatment of conditions other than short stature. The aims of this review are to summarize the recent studies of GH treatment in adults with GH deficiency, thereby defining the syndrome of GH deficiency in adults, and to highlight areas for future investigation.


There is no single best approach to managing chronic back pain, although improving fitness has been shown to help. How should this exercise be


In 2015 a connection between the Polish and Lithuanian power systems become fully operational. The connection consists of a 400 kV double circuit transmission line and a back-to-back HVDC substation located on the Lithuanian side. A magnetic couplings between the circuits of the transmission line cause that during power transmission a different values of active power losses are observed in both circuits. This situation may cause a financial settlement problems for transmitted energy between the operators of the connected systems.


During the past eleven years (1925-35) several equilibrium diagrams involving iron as one of the components have been investigated at the National Physical Laboratory. The provision of the numerous alloys required for these researches has necessitated the production of quantities of high purity iron. Tritton and Hanson, when they began work on the iron-oxygen system at the National physical Laboratory, considered that the best commercial iron then obtainable was unsuitable for their work, and in the period 1922-24 prepared iron electronically according to the method of Cain, Schram, and Cleaves. At first the present authors produced iron in a somewhat similar manner, but when improvements in analytical methods revealed impurities in samples originally considered satisfactory, alterations were made in the method of preparation. Comprehensive analyses indicate that the latent batch of iron prepared the authors is very low in impurities, yet the physical properties of this material suggest that some disturbing factor may still be present. The problem is apparently complex and a rapid solution appears unlikely In these circumstances it was thought that the present publication of data concerning several batches of iron prepared at the National Physical Laboratory would serve a useful purpose. In addition to information obtained by the authors, particulars of a batch of iron prepared by Mr. W. E. Prytherch, M. Sc., also of the Metallurgy Department, N. P. L., are included, together with occasional results obtained by older members of tde staff. The results of Tritton and Hanson ( loc. cit .) are omitted, how-ever, as these have already been published.


Laryngeal carcinoma related gene LCRG1, cloned by the laboratory using mRNA differential display, has the suppressive function to none expression LCRG1 Hep-2 cell line. Bioinformatics analysis using software showed LCRG1 may play function in cellular signal transduction. In order to further elucidate the function of LCRG1, RT-PCR and colony efficiency were used to identify whether LCRG1 expressed and had the tumor suppressive function in incubated Hep-2/LCRG1 cell lines. The results suggested LCRG1 was expressed in Hep-2/LCRG1 cell lines and had the significant suppressive proliferation ability. Hence, the total proteins of Hep-2/LCRG1 and Hep-2/pcDNA3.1(+) cell lines were separated by immobilized pH gradient(IPG)-based two-dimensional gel electrophoresis(2DGE), coupled with anti-tyrosine phosphorylated antibody immunoblotting and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry(MALDI-TOF-MS) identifying tyrosine-phosphorylated proteins. The well-resolved, reproducible 2DGE patterns of Hep-2/LCRG1 and Hep-2/pcDNA3.1(+) cell lines were established and 13 differential tyrosine-phosphorylated proteins were identified using immunoblotting, analysis software and MALDI-TOF-MS methods. These proteins were involved in the signal transduction and cell cycle. So it was speculated that LCRG1 may be involved in the processes of cellular proliferation, metabolic pathways and apoptosis etc. and play tumor suppressive functions through regulating the phosphorylation/ dephosphorylation status of these proteins. These data will be helpful to elucidate the molecular mechanism of LCRG1 tumor suppressive function.


The English Court of Appeal in Rubin v Eurofinance took a courageous step to enforce a monetary judgment rendered by the US bankruptcy court that would not otherwise be enforceable under ordinary conflict of laws rules. But its reasoning relies on pure legal fiction that bankruptcy proceedings are neither in rem nor in personam. The decision is in the final analysis a most unhelpful development of the common law.


The importance of ports in the European context is proved by studying the various management characteristics and difficulties in developing a common European policy, as well as the measures taken by the EC to improve competition in this area. The main provisions of the Green Paper as a means of increasing competitiveness are considered and its main points are analyzed. The directions of the EU policy on the development of the port industry by regulating the competitive strategies of ports, in order to promote, regulate and ensure port competition at the local, regional and international levels, are considered. Transport is becoming an integral part of the production process, as globalization, ports and the maritime sector are key factors in logistics concepts. The EU's experience has shown that a cost-effective, reliable and competitive port system is of strategic importance for achieving the liberalization of competitive trade. Moreover, to ensure that the role of ports contributes to the success of these principles, the EU is trying to create a single national policy. The main purpose of this policy is to promote the means of managing port financing, competition and improving the state of the port industry. It was emphasized that the EU proposals can be reduced to four main areas: improvement and modernization of port infrastructure and their inclusion in the trans-European transport network; creation of a competitive playing field; promotion of research and development for ports; establishing a dialogue between all partners to address relevant issues. However, the first difficulty with the formation of a unified national policy in the port industry is the difference in the size of ports, capacity, geographical location, management, operation and employment. The main differences between European ports are the result of different cultures and ways of thinking. First of all, the three control theories are similar between the ports under study. Further, the size of the port can be local, national or international. There is a very important similarity between these ports, as they are all international; they serve the same great theory and are the gateway to Europe. Employment is an important factor, as in Europe you can find two part-time or basic wage or permanent jobs. On the other hand, the main differences that can be identified are the way of working and the geographical location. In other words, if the port is an estuary or coastal, it is a natural harbor or a system of closed docks. This factor is one of the main differences between ports, as it provides a comparative advantage in terms of maneuverability. others. These differences are actually one of the reasons why the EC initiated the EU Law, which should apply to ports.


The activation rate parameters of three model compounds for an acrylate/α-olefin atom transfer radical copolymerization were investigated. It appeared that the activation of the model compound for the dormant acrylate chain (methyl-2-bromopropionate) was quite fast (k a c t = 0.018 (′0.001) L mot - 1 . s - 1 at 0 °C). The activation of the model compound for the dormant α-olefin chain end (2-bromobutane) did not take place at any appreciable rate (0 and 35 °C). The introduction of a penultimate acrylate unit in the model compound for the dormant α-olefin chain end (H-MA-hexene-Br) did not result in any activation at 0 and 35 °C. Only at 70 °C some activation was visible after 18 h reaction time. By inference, these results confirm our earlier conclusion that the ATR copolymerization of acrylates and α-olefins is possible due to the fast crosspropagation of an α-olefin chain end radical with an acrylate.


Fifty-four consecutive admissions to an inpatient adolescent psychiatric unit were studied within 2 weeks of hospitalization. Of 54 subjects, 17 acknowledged a history of sexual abuse, intra- or extrafamilial (37.9% of girls, 24% of boys). Although the two groups did not differ in age, IQ, or occurrence of parental death, the sexually-abused group was of lower socioeconomic status and had had higher scores on psychosocial stressors in the past year. These patients had significantly greater severity of depressive symptoms, more hallucinations, had more suicide attempts, and were more likely to be referred for long-term inpatient treatment. Compared with the non-sexually victimized patients, the abused group also showed trends toward more conduct symptoms and more often required neuroleptic medication and longer hospital stays for acute management. The authors emphasize the importance of eliciting a history of sexual abuse from disturbed adolescents in an inpatient unit, especially when severe depressive symptoms are noted.


An apparatus for recording video data sequence signal in the record carrier is proposed. The apparatus comprises input means for receiving video data signals 1 and a characteristic and generating means for generating point information signal 100, the characteristics of characteristic point information signals for a plurality of characteristic points in the point information signal (CPI) and the image processing unit 100 and the record carrier for processing a sequence recording means 102 for recording video data sequence signal and characteristic point information signal sequence. Characteristic point information signals identifying a characteristic point is in a video data signal sequence. For the purpose of improving the quality of trick play and random-access playback operation in relation to the CPI it has been proposed several measures.


THE INVENTION RELATES TO AN ENGINE HYDROSTATIC AXIAL VANE SLIDING IN rotor HOUSING AND AGAINST AN AREA CONTINUES TO BOTTOM A STATOR RECESSES. MOTOR CIRCUIT INCLUDES INTERCOMMUNICATION 7 BETWEEN VANE 1 bEHIND THEM, WHICH ALLOWS CIRCUIT PRESSURE INTEGRAL TRANSMISSION BETWEEN VANE FOLLOWING THEIR POSITION VARIABLE AGAINST THAT SURFACE BOTTOM STATOR A rECESSES E PALLETS RECESS IN THEIR SEATS ACTING UP PRESSURE IN SAID CIRCUIT INTERCOMMUNICATION, PADDLE ON SURFACE HOUSING OUT. THE iNVENTION APPLIES, OF gENERALLY, THE ENGINES.


A photonic implementation of a reconfigurable microwave transversal filter is proposed. The implementation allows the filter taps to be both positive and negative. This allows for greater flexibility in the design of the filter so that bandpass and lowpass filters with flatter passbands could be realised. A four-tap version of the filter is demonstrated.


The introduction to this edited book explains why it is focused on the role of art in today's diverse society. Art is part of the worldviews and mindsets from which it results and as a complex and ambiguous product of culture and perception, it must be understood from multiple perspectives. As such, this book includes in the first part seminal chapters with a theoretical scope, which highlight conceptual, contextual and cultural issues of contemporary art. The chapters in the second and third parts of the book are exemplary case studies, describing concrete intervention projects, which use some form of art or composed artistic expression as a medium for communication and intervention in the contexts of social and professional organizations, public spaces or the community. A summary of each chapter is provided and linked to the main goal of the book.


THE YEARS the archival profession has developed a degree of unanimity on what constitutes a satisfactory minimal inventory of records holdings in an archival repository. Over a much shorter period, records management specialists have established a doctrine on what constitutes an adequate minimal inventory of records in the creating and maintaining establishment. In both cases the point of view has been largely confined to textual records. Archivists with large holdings of maps, charts, engineering drawings, sound recordings, still pictures, and motion pictures have had to develop a different methodology for inventorying these types of records, and there is reason to believe that this methodology, too, will soon become standard.


Machine learning utilizes algorithms to run predictive models that learn from a large dataset in an iterative manner. Predictive models are used in many business applications to gain competitive advantages and understand customers better. This paper concentrates on analyzing New York taxi trips and fares and presenting the methodology we used to address the problem and results reached by building through Azure Machine learning studio. Our practical approach starts with an exploratory analysis of NYC taxi data via Microsoft Power BI. Then more extensive analysis was conducted through Apache Hive data warehouse. Hive was built on top of Hadoop enabling data synopsis, query, and analysis. We implemented Hive queries to create tables in Microsoft Azure blob storage and store the data in external tables. Finally, we conducted our experiment by creating, training and testing the module. The finding and insights pertain to the main variables of our experiment: pick up time, drop off time and tip amount that could be integrated into an application and enhance business by picking the location with the highest tip for example.


Dietary pattern analysis is an alternative approach investi-gating the association between diet and atherosclerosis. This study examined the association of dietary patterns with prevalent atherosclerosis in community-dwelling men older than 65 years. We used data from the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) Hong Kong (HK) cohort (N=1768) and MrOS US cohort (N=5006). Diet was assessed with country-specific food frequency questionnaire. Principal component analysis identified three a posterior dietary patterns: "vegetables-fruits dominated", "dim sum-meat-fish dominated", and "fast foods dominated" in HK site and two patterns: "vegetables-fruits-fish-poultry dominated" and "fast foods-red meat dominated" in US site. Ankle–brachial index (ABI) was measured and a cut-off value of <0.9 was used to define prevalent atherosclerosis. Multiple logistic regression was used to assess the association between dietary patterns and ABI controlling for demographic, socio-demographic and lifestyle variables, and comorbidities. There were 5% and 6.2% MrOS HK and US men with ABI <0.9 respectively ( p =0.06). In was 8.5%. Ratio of animal to vegetable protein was 2:1. The frequency of elderly who consumed less than 25g of protein in the breakfast was 98%, in the dinner 67% and 33% at lunch. Being that, most protein was consumed during lunch (43.0%). Milk and bakery groups had the highest relative contribution for protein intake at breakfast and snack meals, and meat at lunch and dinner. Higher prevalence of inad-equate micronutrient intake, except vitamin C and sodium, was found among elderly who consumed less protein (g/kg). In conclusion, protein intake should be monitored to ensure the quantity, quality and adequate distribution between meals for health promotion and prevention of fragility related sarcopenia.


Under EU medicinal law, any substance or combination of substances presented as having properties for treating or preventing disease in human beings is a medicinal product by virtue of its presentation. Under EU food law it is prohibited to attribute to any food the property of preventing, treating or curing a human disease. However, if certain conditions are fulfilled, it is allowed to make health claims for foods. Medicines are excluded from the definition of food. A product cannot at the same be both a food and a medicinal product.Authorities in the Netherlands take the position that the EU prohibition on medicinal claims for foods is redundant because every product for which such claim is made, is a medicinal product by virtue of its presentation. By consequence, claims not (fully) authorised as health claims are enforced as infringements on medicinal law.Against this background, the authors systematically and comparatively analyse the food aw prohibition on medicinal claims in relation to the concept of medicinal product by presentation. They argue that the presentation criterion is structural in nature and depends on the overall impression an averagely well-informed consumer acquires regarding a product. The prohibition on medicinal claims is behavioural in nature. In the view of the authors, it is possible to promise consumers too much regarding beneficial properties of a food without actually making them believe that the food is a medicinal product. Thus, they argue against the Dutch interpretation regarding the delineation of EU medicinal law and EU food law and in favour of a interpretation adhered to by most other EU member states.


The purpose of this study was to Effectiveness of the Reality Therapy Based on Group Choice Theory on Cognitive Flexibility and Marital Satisfaction of Married Women. Methods and Materials: The research method was semi-experimental and the study population included married women in 1397 that lived in Tehran. In this study, available sampling method was used. Sample size According to the conditions of access to the subjects, 30 patients (15 control and 15 experimental groups) were considered. The instrument of this study was a structured diagnostic interview, Cognitive Flexibility Questionnaire (CFI), and Enrique's Satisfaction Questionnaire. The statistical method used in the research was repeated measures. Results: Findings showed that the reality therapy based on choice theory in group method has a significant effect on cognitive flexibility as well as its subscales in married women. Also, reality therapy could have a significant effect on women's satisfaction.


undergone significant metamorphism of the water area, the level of total mineralization of water in various parts of it, the coastline, the composition of bottom sediments and the bottom surface – and the biota inhabiting it. The investigations carried out on the material of the IORAN expeditions made it possible to trace the main changes in the bottom biota and ichthyofauna of the Large Aral Sea during the stage of ultragalinization of waters (the process of steady salting, which continues beyond the ultra-galaline physiological barrier of 75 ppt), during the stage of changes from 2002 to 2017. The last species of fish (Caspian aterin Atherina boyeri caspia and Black Sea plaice Platichthys flesus luscus), and mollusks (Syndosmya segmentum) inhabiting the Large Sea disappeared by 2004, with an increase in total mineralization in shallows above 90 ppt. Of the representatives of the bottom macrofauna, by 2015 only the larvae of the chaeronids Baeotendipes noctivaga have survived, from the pelagic-bottom by 2017, the crustacean Artemia parthenogenetica. The most diverse group of organisms
inhabiting the ultra-galaline Aral during the studied stage were bottom microphytes (mainly diatoms and cyanoprokaryotes): in the newly formed biotopes stable associations of these creatures were formed, some of which were preserved in the Aral Sea, adapting to an extremely changing environment, others were planted, despite the growth of mineralization, and the third gradually died out. Against the background of the general growth trend of mineralization, it was possible to distinguish between the main formations of bottom microphyte cenoses.


A sequence of femtosecond laser pulses propagating through atmosphere and delayed near the rotational recurrence period of N${}_{2}$ can resonantly drive molecular alignment. Through the polarization density, the molecular alignment provides an index of refraction contribution that acts as a lens copropagating with each laser pulse. Each pulse enhances this contribution to the index, modifying the propagation of subsequent pulses. Here we present propagation simulations of femtosecond pulse sequences in which we have implemented a self-consistent calculation of the rotational polarization density using linearized density matrix theory. We find that a femtosecond pulse sequence can enhance pulse compression or collimation in atmosphere. In particular, when the pulses are delayed by exactly the rotational recurrence period, each subsequent pulse is increasingly compressed due to a combination of spectral broadening and negative dispersion. Alternatively, when the intensity peak of each pulse is centered on the maximum index generated by the preceding pulses, each pulse is increasingly collimated.


AIM
This study aimed to measure cytokine and lactate levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with suspected post-neurosurgical meningitis.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Interleukin-8,12,and 13, interferon gamma, and lactate concentrations were determined in the CSF of patients diagnosed with meningitis, who were undergoing follow-up after neurosurgical procedures at the Neurosurgery Clinic between May 2016 and November 2017. The demographic, clinical, biochemical, CSF cell count, CSF biochemistry, and CSF culture results of 119 patients were recorded.

RESULTS
The study group consisted of 39 patients diagnosed with post-neurosurgical meningitis. The control group comprised of 80 patients without pleocytosis, who had undergone lumbar puncture due to various indications. In the study group, 59% of the patients had fever, 66.7% had deterioration in the level of consciousness, and 35.9% had neck stiffness. The levels of interleukin-8 (96.5ng/L vs. 86.6ng/L, p 0.001), interleukin-12 (10.1ng/L vs. 3ng/L, p 0.001), and lactate (5.9 mmol/L vs. 2.1 mmol/L, p 0.001) were higher in the CSF of the patient group compared to the control group. However,interleukin-13 (32.7ng/L vs. 42.5ng/L, p = 0.003) and interferon gamma (73.3ng/L vs. 260.4ng/L, p 0.001) levels were lower in patients compared to controls. The mortality rate in post-neurosurgical meningitis patients was estimated to be 35.9%.

CONCLUSION
Post-neurosurgical meningitis prolongs the duration of hospital stay and causes long-term sequelae. Therefore, measurement of CSF cytokine and lactate levels alongside meningitis diagnostic processes may facilitate early and accurate diagnosis. Measuring CSF lactate is inexpensive and cost effective, particularly in post-neurosurgical patients.


Abstract Molybdenum and niobium wires 1 mm in diameter were irradiated to epithermal neutron doses of 1, 2, 3 and 4 x 1019 n.v.t. at a temperature of about 40×c. The thermal recovery of the increases in electrical resistivity caused by the irradiations was studied by plotting isoehronal recovery curves for each neutron dose and metal. These curves revealed recovery stages at about 160°c for molybdenum and 120°c for niobium. From the results of isothermal recovery measurements it was found that the associated activation enthalpies were 1•20 ± 0•08 ev for molybdenum and 1•22 ± 0•02 ev for niobium. In both cases a plot of the magnitude of the recovery stage against the neutron dose showed a maximum at a dose of about 3 x 1019 n.v.t. The interpretation of these recovery stages is discussed in terms of a model in which the defects responsible for the recovery, which are probably lattice vacancies, diffuse either to interstitial impurity atoms, where they are trapped, or to defect clusters created by the irradi...


A retrospective cohort was studied in order to evaluate mortality of patients with disseminated non-tuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) disease in Brazil. This diagnosis was neglected in 44.4% of patients, and in-hospital mortality was 41.7%.


Despite much research, the benefits of follow up after curative resection for colorectal cancer have been uncertain. Although systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials has demonstrated that intensive follow up is associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality, significantly earlier detection of recurrent disease and an increased detection of isolated local recurrences, it has not been clear whether the reported increased survival rates were due to cancer-specific interventions or increased contact with healthcare providers in general [1]. The potential benefits of earlier detection of recurrence that have been identified include resection of isolated local or distant disease and improved outcomes from adjuvant therapy. Current recommendations for follow up in the UK are a minimum of two CT scans of the chest abdomen and pelvis in the first 3 years and regular carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) testing at least every 6 months for the first 3 years [2]. Primrose and colleagues [3] have recently published the results of the FACS randomized clinical trial which examined the effect of 3–5 years of scheduled CEA and CT follow up to detect recurrence of colorectal cancer. Participants who had undergone curative resection for primary colorectal cancer with no evidence of residual disease (confirmed by CT or MRI imaging liver scan and chest CT scan) were randomized from 39 National Health Service hospitals in the UK between 2003 and 2009. A total of 1202 participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: CEA only (n = 300), CT only (n = 299), CEA and CT (n = 302) or minimum follow up (n = 302). CEA was measured every 3 months for 2 years, then every 6 months for 3 years. CT scanning was performed every 6 months for 2 years, then annually for 3 years. The minimum follow-up group received follow up if symptoms occurred (a single CT of the chest, abdomen and pelvis at 12–18 months was allowed if requested by the hospital clinician). The main outcome was surgical treatment of recurrence with curative intent; secondary outcomes were survival after treatment of recurrence with curative intent, time to detection of recurrence and mortality. After a mean of 4.4 years of observation, cancer recurrence was detected in 199 (16.6%). Seventy-one (5.9%) had surgery with curative intent: 2.3% in the minimum follow-up group, 6.7% in the CEA group, 8% in the CT group and 6.6% in the CEA and CT group. Compared with minimum follow up, the absolute difference in the percentage of patients treated with curative intent in the CEA group was 4.4% (95% CI 1.0–7.9%), in the CT group 5.7% (95% CI 2.2–9.5%) and in the CEA and CT group 4.3% (95% CI 1.0–7.9%). The absolute difference in the proportion treated and surviving compared with the minimum follow-up group was 3.3% (95% CI, 0.5– 6.2%). The number of deaths and the number of disease-specific colorectal cancer deaths was not different between the intensive and minimal follow-up groups. The authors concluded that intensive imaging or CEA screening provided an increased rate of surgical treatment of recurrence with curative intent compared with minimal follow up. There was no advantage to combining CEA and CT. The absolute difference in the proportion of patients treated with curative intent was approximately 5% in the intention-to-treat analysis and 8% in the per-protocol analysis, indicating that the number needed to screen for recurrence to identify one potentially curative recurrence is between 12 and 20. For comparison, a metaanalysis of randomized trials of flexible sigmoidoscopybased screening showed by intention-to-treat analysis that the number needed to screen to prevent one case of colorectal cancer was 361 and to prevent one colorectal cancer death was 850 [4]. Success in treating liver metastases is convincing, with 40% surviving for 5 years after curative resection. Pulmonary metastectomy is increasingly performed. There have as yet been no randomized trials and the effectiveness of surgery for lung metastases in colorectal cancer remains uncertain. The Pulmonary Metastectomy in Colorectal Cancer (PulMiCC) randomized controlled trial is important in this regard [5]. There were two additional important findings from the FACS trial. Firstly, there was little difference between participants according to Dukes stage. Secondly, the absolute number of treatable recurrences was low and the proportion of recurrences treated with curative intent was high, indicating high-quality surgery and radiology across a large number of colorectal cancer units. Patient expectations following cancer treatment are increasing, and colorectal cancer-specific outcomes are improving. It is likely that further improvements in outcome will come from small incremental gains. The FACS trial has demonstrated that just such a gain may be achieved with intensive follow up. In order to


Background: There is a lack of studies examining the meanings attributed to disability in Eastern contexts. This is especially true in the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Studies – accessible for non-Farsi readers – dealing with the existence and position of persons with disabilities in contemporary Iran are rare. Purpose: The present study is part of an investigative journalistic project submitted to and approved by the Fund Pascal Decroos for Investigative Journalism. The aim of the project was to discover if and how progressive Iranian artists were able to work and express critical ideas in contemporary Iran. Method: Based on a journalistic stay of five weeks in the cities of Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Yazd, the authors attempt to present a particular and up till now neglected perspective on disability in Iranian society. Interviews were conducted with contemporary Iranian artists, including painters, photographers and film directors to see how the bodily reality of disability was transformed into a meaningful, effective and efficient metaphorical instrument. Results: Some of the Iranian painters, directors and photographers considered the artistic representations of disability as a powerful means to engage in present-day political and religious public debate. For the artists the symbolic representations of disability enabled them to express their particular worldviews and give voice to their creative insights. For some, war-related disabilities mirrored the cruelty of military hostilities; for others it symbolized the struggle for freedom in Iranian society since the very beginnings of the Twentieth century. One of the results that came out of this journalistic investigation is that some Iranian artists turn towards disability issues and persons with disabilities in order to continue to publicly express their particular world-views. Conclusion: Given that the interviewed artists belonged to rather progressive circles of Iranian society, these findings are limited and cannot be generalized, but reflect one aspect of the manifold ways persons with disabilities are represented in contemporary society. In order to provide a complete view on the divergent positions of, and daily life circumstances faced by, persons with disabilities in Iran much more research is needed. DOI: 10.5463/dcid.v22i3.75


This paper reports the use of an electronic nose based on tin dioxide multisensor array and two different sampling methods (static headspace and purge and trap) for recognition of some typical aromas (clove, vanilla, coconut, green belt pepper, toasted, peach, anisette and mint) in red wine. The multisensor array is constituted by 16 thin film tin oxide sensors, some of them doped with chromium and indium either as surface or intermediate layer. Multivariate analysis, including linear techniques as principal component analysis (PCA) and nonlinear techniques as probabilistic neural networks (PNN), has been used to identify and classify the main aroma of the wine.


The following paper is an analysis ofthe speech and social relations in and around Zinacantan in the highlands ofChiapas, Mexico. The villages in the region, populated chiefly by Tzotzil speaking Indians, are the focus of the claim t hat natives' cultural understandings typically connect language and speech with social life and sociability. The actual act of speaking becomes a basic Instrument of social action, äs seen in the example of changing habits of address towards Indians in Tonalä, on the Chiapas coast. People experience their social order through everyday encounters, whose medium is language. The tenor of these encounters, also expressed in language, sets the tenor of the relationships. In modern Chiapas, speech relations display an asymmetry that reflects a social, economic, andpolitical asymmetry. In Zinacantan, äs elsewhere, native theory, insofar äs it is reflected in vocabulary, makes explicit the link between formal and informal talk and both social institutions and sociability. The features of inier action through speech — the resources it uses, the circumstances under which it occurs, and so on — are thus multiply connected with the social order, and conversely, the facts of social organization help us to under stand language — both its form and its functions.


An efficient method to solve numerically the kinetic equations of thermally stimulated exoelectron emission (TSEE) is found using the integrated glow curves of TSEE. A curve fitting technique with this method is able to analyze completely the experimental glow curves. Moreover, a criterion for evaluation of a background included in the experimental glow curves is reported.