Dark-grown y-l mutant cells of Chiamydomonas reinhardtii accumulate protochlorophyllide (Pchlide) in both 635 nanometers (P635) and 650 nanometers (P650) forms. Plastids in these cells lack the normal thylakoid membrane structure except some remnants of membrane vesicles. Using difference spectrophotometry, P635 is shown to be photoconverted to chlorophyWide at 672 nanometers (C672) and P650 is photoconverted to C688 followed by a rapid shift to C672 (Shibata shift) and regeneration of P650. Some of the Pchlide is not photoconverted despite repeated illumination. Although P650 is destroyed by freezing and thawing, it is not transformed into P635. Freezing and thawing treatment also made Pchlide no longer photoactive. Etiolated higher plants have etioplasts containing crystalline prolamellar bodies and P650 as the predominant form of Pchlide. When etiolated leaves are exposed to light, P650 is transformed to chlide at 678 nm (C678) which is shifted rapidly to C684 (6, 17) followed by Shibata shift to C672 (1, 17). These spectral shifts which take place when etiolated leaves are illuminated have been associated with the disruption of PLB' structure in the etioplasts (2, 8). Butler and Briggs (2) demonstrated that when etiolated leaves were subjected to freezing and thawing, P650 was changed to P630 which could then be photoconverted to C673. The treatment also caused structural disruption for the PLB. Freezing and thawing of etiolated leaves immediately after illumination caused the Shibata shift to happen faster than normal. They proposed that the two long wavelength forms, P650 and C685, are aggregates of pigment molecules within structure ofPLB. The disruption ofthat structure either by illumination or by freezing and thawing causes the disaggregation of pigment molecules and the shifts to short wavelength forms (P635 and C673). Longer to shorter wavelength changes have also been observed when etiolated bean leaves were subjected to heat or freezing and thawing treatments (8). Proplastids of dark-grown Euglena cells do not have crystalline PLB or the long wavelength forms of pigments; P635 is the predominant form which is photoconverted to C673 (10). Following the development of bean etioplasts in the dark, Klein and Schiff (12) showed that in young bean leaves (3-4 days), PLB are absent and P635 is the predominant form which is photoconverted directly to C673. As the etiolation proceeds further, crystalline PLB appear and P650 becomes the predominant form which is photoconverted to C685 and then Shibata shifted back to C673. All of the evidence pointed to the correlation among the presence of P650, the formation of crystalline PLB, and the Shibata shift. 'Abbreviations: PLB: prolamellar bodies; HSA: high salt acetate. The y-l mutant of Chlamydomonas has lost the ability to synthesize Chl in the dark; instead, it accumulates a small amount of Pchlide (21) and has an undifferentiated plastid (16). When illuminated, dark-grown y-J cells start synthesizing Chl and eventually become phenotypically undistinguishable from wild type cells (15). Synthesis of Chl and development of the chloroplast in Chlamydomonas have been well studied in greening y-J cells. This paper describes the initial events which lead to the photoconversion of Pchlide to chlide and presents evidence suggesting that P635 and P650 represent two independent pools of Pchlide. A preliminary form of this paper has been presented earlier (20). MATERIALS AND METHODS Strains and Culture Conditions. They-I mutant of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Dang. was isolated as a result of a spontaneous mutation from a wild type strain (137c, mating type plus) and was reported earlier (22). The only medium used in this study is the HSA medium (18) either in liquid form or solidified with the addition of 1.5% Difco agar. Cells were first grown on agar medium, transferred into 300 ml liquid medium in 500-ml Erlenmeyer flasks, and pregrown under dim light (21) on a shaker until the cell concentration reached about 2 x 106 cells/ml. The pregrown culture was diluted to 25% with fresh HSA medium. The diluted culture was allowed to grow in the dark. At different stages of the culture, samples were taken for pigment determination, photoconversion of Pchlide and other experiments. Cell number was determined by counting with a hemocytometer. When necessary, the culture was diluted with fresh medium. Photoconversion of Pchlide. Cells in 35 ml liquid culture were harvested by centrifugation at 2,500g for 10 min, resuspended in 3 ml fresh HSA medium, put in a cuvette, and scanned against a frosted glass in an Aminco DW-2 spectrophotometer equipped with a quartz diffuser to determine the absorption spectrum. When measuring difference spectra, a flat base line was usually obtained if identical cell suspensions were put in sample and reference cells. When necessary, the base line was corrected by adjusting the trimpots. The difference spectra were obtained by scanning the samples, after they were illuminated, against the reference. After the initial illumination, difference spectra were scanned at various time intervals in the dark to follow the Shibata shift as well as the regeneration of Pchlide. Effects of Freezing and Thawing. Duplicate samples were taken. One sample was cooled to liquid N2 temperature in a Dewar flask, thawed, and scanned against a frosted glass to detect any change of spectrum. The same sample was also scanned against the untreated sample to measure the difference spectrum. Extraction and analysis of pigments were performed as described before (21).


Throughout this note L/K denotes a purely inseparable field extension of characteristic p and nonzero exponent. In [5, p. 745], Rygg proves that when L/K has bounded exponent, then a subset M of L is a relative ?-base of L/K if and only if M is a minimal generating set of L/K. The purpose of this note is to answer the following question : If every relative ?-base of L/K is a minimal generating set, then must L/K he of bounded exponent? The answer is known to be yes when K and 2>* are linearly disjoint, * = 1, 2, • • • , see [l]. We give two examples for which the answer is no: One in which the maximal perfect subfield of L is contained in K, and the other in which it is not. The following lemmas are needed for our examples. An intermediate field V of L/K is called proper if KCLL'EL.


The article presents the investigative results of a case study that was realized between 2006 and 2007 around the politics of attending displaced populations...


The Chapeu d'Uvas Reservoir, built in 1995 at superior course of Paraibuna river, Paraiba do Sul river basin, MG, is 23 Km long and has no hydroelectric purpose. The damming impact, of this reservoir was evaluated using the species composition and longitudinal distribution of the fishfauna. The collections were carried out for 13 months in three sites: upstream, reservoir and downstream. It were registered 33 species. The upstream site is the more resembled to conditions before damming and was useful as comparison parameter to evaluate the habitat alteration and homogenization on diversity and richness. The upstream site had the biggest values of richness, diversity and evenness, while in the reservoir were registered the minor values. The biggest similarity was found between upstream and downstream points, and the smallest between upstream and the reservoir.


Learning media applications are learning concepts that are carried out through electronic media networks in the form of mobile and non-mobile applications. The development of very advanced technology in the modern era and globalization allows various activities to be carried out quickly and efficiently. Technological developments have had a lot of influence on our way of life, one of which is in the field of education by using online or online learning media applications in learning activities in schools, colleges, courses and even online communities have started using concepts like this. The purpose of this study was to find out how the role of learning media applications in geography subjects in education was during the covid-19 pandemic. As we all know, the losses due to the COVID-19 virus have had a huge impact on all sectors, including the education sector. To achieve this goal, this research will use a qualitative research approach. This research is a type of qualitative descriptive research. Analysis of the data used in processing questionnaire data through google form by describing the results of the questionnaires distributed online.


The South African context gives rise to a number of significant adversities that challenge the stability of the individual child and the survival of their families. The repercussions of these adversities are profound. Once risk begins to accumulate, the probability of a negative developmental trajectory increases. A group of South African children that are a particularly vulnerable, at-risk, and marginalized group are those youth who are excluded from school. Access to the schooling system represents an important node of care and support with the potential of linking vulnerable children to key services. Eight youth from a town in a former homeland in rural KwaZulu Natal, who are excluded from the schooling system, participated in this research. The research aimed to map their experiences of school exclusion through a participatory photo interview technique. Using Bronfenbrenner's (1979) socio-ecological systems theory, this study has indicated that exclusion from school relates to risk factors present in the five contextual systems that a child functions within. From this research one can see how each risk factor adds to the web of exclusion that makes these youth hard to identify, access and help. The findings indicate that there is a need to further investigate the South African child care grant system and the impact it has on access to schooling, as well as to develop macrosystemic interventions to alleviate poverty.


A new optical technique based on light-matter interaction is devised in-house to detect thermo-acoustic disturbances generated after ignition and during propagation of a premixed flame front in a half open channel. The technique involves passing a polarized laser light through a medium whose density or refractive index varies due to the passage of acoustic waves and/or flame front and then capturing the leaked depolarised light through an analyser by a photo-detector. The technique is applied to combustor involving premixed flame propagation and tulip inversion. The thermo-acoustic signals and the flame front are distinguished by comparing the oscilloscope signal with high speed photography of the flow-field. Acoustic waves are found to intercept the flame propagation at various axial locations and time instants.


The present invention relates to an anisotropic conductive film used for bonding of an IC as a liquid crystal display, wherein the conductive film comprises a thermosetting adhesive, a metal oxide, superparamagnetic particles, and conductive particles, superparamagnetic particles and the conductive particles in the thermosetting composition It characterized in that the configuration is dispersed. By having such a configuration the present invention, through the low-temperature curing by high frequency during the adhesion of the IC as a liquid crystal display avoid damage to the components due to heat of high temperature, minute through particle control by a magnetic field, pitch (pitch) connected to the electrode to the advantage that can be granted for a higher connection reliability. The anisotropic conductive adhesive film, the metal oxide superparamagnetic particles, conductive particles, a thermosetting adhesive


The invention discloses a dry type medical electrode. The electrode is an elastic-clip-shaped electrode formed by a pair of conductive clips which are symmetric by two edges and crossed in tooth shape. A plurality of projections contacting with scalp are arranged at the bottoms of the conductive clips. By adopting the elastic clip-shaped electrode formed by a pair of the conductive rubber clips which are symmetric by two edges and crossed in tooth shaped, hairs are separated by the conductive tooth-shaped elastic clips, the conductive electrode fixed by the clipped hair can directly contact with the scalp, and meanwhile, rough projections are arranged on the surface of the bottom of the tooth-shaped electrode and can directly contact with the scalp, so that the skin of the scalp can be pressed to be rough, friction coefficient between the electrode and the scalp is increased, contact surface of the electrode and the scalp is enlarged, and contact impedance of the electrode and the scalp is reduced without hurting the hairs and the scalp. The dry type medical electrode is convenient to operate, and many problems caused by using of electrode adhesives (paste) in the prior art are avoided.


Professor Robert E Rakel delivered the keynote address at the Academy's 10th Congress in Grahamstown. Professor Rakel is probably best known for his sterling work in editing one of the 'largest' Family Medicine textbooks in circulation - the Textbook of Family Practice. The first part of his address is reproduced here.


ABSTRACT: The aim of the program is to design English learning combined with the religious lesson namely Fiqh. The program was conducted in Ramadhan month.  The materials of the programs are specialized for public speaking skill improvement such as Speech and Master of ceremony and Fiqh which focuses on sexual health and reproduction for teenagers. The program was implemented in SMK Ibnu Sina Genteng district, Banyuwangi Regency. Through this program, it is hoped to provide opportunities for practice teaching method for IAI Darussalam students assisted by lectures, and to build a tight corporation between IAI Darussalam and community. The result of the program is the students are very enthusiast and having adequate knowledge about public speaking in English as well as a proper knowledge about Fiqh.

Keyword: Ramadhan Camp, English Learning, Public Speaking


On the basis of Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, the large-amplitude free vibration analysis of functionally graded beams is investigated by means of a finite element formulation. The von K´arm´an type nonlinear strain-displacement relationship is employed where the ends of the beam are constrained to move axially. The material properties are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to the power-law and sigmoid distributions. The finite element method is employed to discretize the nonlinear governing equations, which are then solved by the direct numerical integration technique in order to obtain the nonlinear vibration frequencies of functionally graded beams with different boundary conditions. The influences of power-law index, vibration amplitude, beam geometrical parameters and end supports on the free vibration frequencies are studied. The present numerical results compare very well with the results available from the literature where possible.


The antiepileptic drug hypersensitivity syndrome (AHS) is associated with treatment with aromatic antiepileptic drugs. We describe a case in which AHS followed exposure to carbamazepine (CBZ) and, unusually, recurred during treatment with valproate.

A 36-year-old man was admitted because of fever, rash and lymphadenopathy. He had been well until 32 days earlier when epilepsy was diagnosed and CBZ treatment started. Two weeks before admission he complained of toothache. Examination revealed left cervical lymphadenopathy and clarithromycin was prescribeded. Five days before admission he consulted because of rash. Fever and left submaxillary lymph nodes were noted. Clarithromycin was discontinued. Worsening of the rash (Figure 1) led to his admission. He denied other symptoms. There was no history of exposure to tuberculosis or of drugs allergies. His temperature was 37.8°C. There was an erythematous maculo-papular rash on his arms, thighs and trunk and oronasal ulcers with features of Stevens–Johnson syndrome. Conjunctival erythema, pharyngitis and bilateral cervical and submaxillary lymphadenopathy were present. Full blood count revealed lymphocytosis (8000 mm−3) with slight eosinophilia (500 mm−3). A computed tomographic scan revealed a 1.5 cm right parahilar node. Biopsy of a cervical node showed follicular hyperplasia. Other investigations including blood cultures, HIV, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, hepatitis B and C virus, Brucella sp., Rickettsia sp. (IgG), Borrelia sp. and Leishmania sp. and tuberculin test were negative.

Figure 1

Exanthematous eruption; red, symmetrical and widespread.

Treatment with CBZ was discontinued and methylprednisolone started. The patient improved. Two weeks later, lymphadenopathy had resolved and valproate was started. Immediately a widespread exanthematous rash similar his previous one, fever and adenopathy recurred. Skin biopsy revealed findings consistent with Stevens–Johnson syndrome. Valproate was discontinued. Patch testing to CBZ and valproic acid performed 4 months later was positive for each . He is now being treated with gabapentin and remains well.

The incidence of AHS is 1 per 1-10 thousand patients treated with aromatic anticonvulsants. Onset usually occurs within 3 months of initiating treatment [1], but patients who are rechallenged can develop the symptoms almost immediately. The rash is commonly an exanthem, but more severe reactions including Stevens–Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis also occur [2].

Phenytoin, CBZ and phenobarbitone each contain an aromatic ring that is metabolized to reactive arene oxides by cytochrome P450. Further metabolism involves epoxide hydrolase. It has been postulated that deficient reduction by epoxide hydrolase leads to accumulation of reactive intermediates [3]. These may bind tissue macromolecules causing cell damage or act as haptens stimulating T-cells and triggering a systemic autoimmune response [4].

Valproic acid is not an aromatic compound. To our knowledge, only two cases of AHS caused by valproate have been reported previously [5, 6]. The mechanism is unknown. The present case, in which symptoms recurred rapidly after valproate was initiated in a patient who had recently recovered from CBZ-associated AHS, is consistent with an immunological mechanism, such as a reaction to circulating antibodies to antiepileptic drugs probably triggered by a clinical cross-reactivity between CBZ and valproate.


This article introduces the application of imagery teaching method and presents the application of golden section coefficient and center of gravity about regular tetrahedron to butadiene π MO coefficient radio.The purpose is to calculate the butadiene's π MO by golden section relation and to get radio of positive and negative ions,whose coordination number is 4 by regular tetrahedron.The teaching method of imagery can strengthen the students' understanding and memory of the structure of matter,whose content is very abstract.


OBJECTIVES
To determine the association between chronotype-type and the prevalence of caries among in-school pupils aged 6-16-year-olds residing in a sub-urban area in Nigeria.

METHODS
This secondary analysis of a dataset collected in 2019 from 1502 children aged 6-16-year-old attending private and public primary and secondary schools in Ife Central Local Government Area, Nigeria. The dependent variable was caries prevalence. The explanatory variable was participants' chronotype profile (morning, intermediate and evening). The confounding variables were caries risk factors (socioeconomic status, age at last birthday, sex, use of fluoridated toothpaste, frequency of consumption of refined carbohydrates and oral hygiene status). Poisson regression analysis was conducted.

RESULTS
Data of 1001 (66.6%) students were retrieved. Of these, 59 (5.9%) had caries, 42 (4.2%) were evening type, 526 (52.5%) were intermediate type, and 433 (43.3%) were morning type. There was no significant association between chronotype and the prevalence of caries though children who were intermediate type (APR= 0.83; 95%CI: 0.41-1.66) and morning type (APR= 0.57; 95% CI: 0.27-1.18) were less likely to have caries than were those who were evening type.

CONCLUSION
The children and adolescents' chronotype was not a significant risk indicator for caries in the study population.


Vitellogenic follicles of two insect species have been investigated in the electron microscope and with fluorescence technique. In the cotton bug Dysdercus intermedius (Distant 1902) broad intercellular spaces are present between the follicle cells, and these keep close contact among each other with a thick protuberance towards each neighbour. Long protrusions of the follicle cells reach through the broad perivitelline space and touch the surface of the oocyte. Between the microvilli on the surface of the oocyte an electron-dense material is found, which is taken up into the oocyte by endocytosis on the membrane of the microvilli, in between of them, and in infoldings of the oocyte membrane; in the interior of the oocyte this material is accumulated in big yolk spheres. In the honey bee Apis mellifera (Linnaeus 1758) only pore-like canals are found in the triangular comers formed by three follicle cells. Inside the cells these canals are associated with F-actin filaments. Apically the follicle cells protrude numerous, finger-like protrusions deep into the oocyte, which are densely filled with F-actin filaments. Endocytosis is seen on the surface of the oocyte between the short microvilli and along the surface pockets enclosing the follicle cell fingers. The two exampels show that in insects very different structures and mechanisms exist which may improve yolk uptake.


The article, from developing the civil aircraft and international cooperation program, describes the important action of the metrological work in the national economy and presents the main methods of the metroloical work in Xi'an Aircraft Industry (group) Company Ltd. (XAC) in line with the international practice for ways to deal with the situation after China's entry into WTO.


Device-to-device communication (D2DC) is an important and challenge technique in the next generation of wireless communication that it can effectively reduce the load of base stations and simultaneously allows user equipment (UE) to proceed in direct communications. In D2DC, devices are very close among themselves and therefore the resulting interferences maybe quite serious, it becomes an important issue of how to properly select a UE owner so that when this UE owner searches for its associated communicating UEs in its service range they will suffer the least interference effect. In this paper, as UEs are distributed and clusters of UEs are formed in the D2D communication area; we propose to use K-Means to locating a UE around the cluster center as the UE Owner of the cluster. With this formation of UE clusters and UE owners they still have the chance to incur interferences among UE clusters due to they may be possibly use the same frequency band in their communications. Frequency hopping technique is then considered in this paper to further reduce the co-channel interference. In this paper it proposes to use Genetic Algorithm (GA) with frequency hopping technique to optimally select the number of frequency channels required in the system and then allocate these frequency channels to the UE clusters for their D2D communications. Simulations have been performed in a D2DC system with the proposed GA algorithm to reveal the effectiveness of the designed algorithm in the allocation of frequency channels to the clusters with minimum interference effect.


Abstract Introduction Significant morbidity and mortality is seen with high volume burn resuscitations. Surpassing the Ivy Index, defined as 250 milliliters/kilogram (ml/kg), has been correlated with increased incidence of complications such as abdominal compartment syndrome. Cognizance of factors contributing to over-resuscitation can help optimize fluid administration strategies to minimize associated morbidity. Methods A single-center Quality Improvement review was performed of all adult (age ≧ 18 years) burn-injured patients presenting to a major metropolitan burn center with burns ≧ 20% total body surface area (TBSA) between 12/2020-8/2021. Those not surviving the first 24 hours were excluded. Patient demographics and injury characteristics were collected, and resuscitation volumes and timing were recorded prospectively. Patients were categorized by whether their initial 24-hour intake exceeded their Ivy Index, and groups were compared to assess factors associated with over-resuscitation. Results During the study period 11 patients met inclusion criteria, and one early mortality was excluded. Patients were predominantly male (70.0%), with mean age 49.9±17.4 years. Burns were primarily due to flame injury, with mean TBSA 41.4±18.6%. Patients required resuscitation volumes of 5.9±1.7 ml/kg/TBSA%, with half surpassing their Ivy Index in the first 24 hours. These patients had larger burns (55.1±17.0% v. 27.7±5.1%) with a significantly higher third degree component (41.4±15.8% v. 15.4±15.2%, p = 0.029). None had diagnosed inhalation injury, and none required abdominal decompression for resuscitation-related compartment syndrome. Observed mortality rate was 30.0%. Patients resuscitating beyond their Ivy Index had significantly higher hourly urine output rates (0.96 v. 0.52 ml/kg, p = 0.024), and hourly urine output was significantly higher among non-survivors as compared to survivors (1.10 v. 0.60 ml/kg, p = 0.033). Conclusions Patients with severe burn injury are at high risk for over-resuscitation and associated complications. While traditional teaching instructs a goal of hourly urine output of 0.5-1.0 ml/kg, our study shows that patients resuscitated on the higher end of this range were significantly more likely to surpass their Ivy Index and less likely to survive.


This paper raises some methodological concerns about the conduct, analysis and interpretation of results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study. While in many respects PISA represents an advance on previous attempts at international comparative assessment studies, it retains certain problematic aspects. The article comments on the restricted nature of the data modelling and analysis, and the resulting interpretations. It points to certain features of the results that raise questions about the adequacy of the data and it stresses the failure to introduce a longitudinal component. The paper makes suggestions for ways in which such studies can be improved.


In weather and climate science statistical modeling is applied for manifold problems. Due to the increasing number of input variables, overfitting can easily deteriorate the performance for model predictions.  In order to avoid this, it is often meaningful to apply model selection approaches. Since conventional approaches can be very time-consuming especially for many predictors, we are using the boosting approach, which combines model selection and parameter estimation.  This iterative algorithm identifies and updates in each step only the most important coefficient, such that in the end most important predictor variables have non-zero coefficients and less relevant variables are ignored.
Boosting has been originally developed for classification problems but has also been extended and used for other applications; i.a. non-homogeneous gaussian regression. Based on the  non-homogeneous boosting proposed by Messner et al. (2016), which is used to model mean and variance of a forecast distribution simultaneously, we have developed a boosting algorithm for a non-stationary Generalized Extreme Value distribution (GEV). Thus, it is possible to identify the most relevant predictor variables for location, scale and shape parameter concurrently. We apply this algorithm to various toy model simulations to assess the effect of this novel approach.


Homomorphic encryption (HE) schemes, such as fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), support a number of useful computations on ciphertext in a broad range of applications, such as e-voting, private information retrieval, cloud security, and privacy protection. While FHE schemes do not require any interaction during computation, the key limitations are large ciphertext expansion and inefficiency. Thus, to overcome these limitations, we develop a novel cryptographic tool, MAS-Encryption (MASE), to support real-value input and secure computation on the multiply-add structure. The multiply-add structures exist in many important protocols, such as classifiers and outsourced protocols, and we will explain how MASE can be used to protect the privacy of these protocols, using two case study examples. Specifically, the first case study example is the privacy-preserving Naive Bayes classifier that can achieve minimal Bayes risk, and the other example is the privacy-preserving support vector machine. We prove that the constructed classifiers are secure and evaluate their performance using real-world datasets. Experiments show that our proposed MASE scheme and MASE based classifiers are efficient, in the sense that we achieve an optimal tradeoff between computation efficiency and communication interactions. Thus, we avoid the inefficiency of FHE based paradigm.


Scene understanding, as a broad field encompassing many subtopics, has gained great interest in recent years. Among these subtopics, indoor scene understanding, having its own specific attributes and challenges compared to outdoor scene understanding, has drawn a lot of attention. It has potential applications in a wide variety of domains, such as robotic navigation, object grasping for personal robotics, augmented reality, etc. To our knowledge, existing research for indoor scenes typically makes use of depth sensors, such as Kinect, that is however not always available. In this thesis, we focused on addressing the indoor scene understanding tasks in a general case, where only a monocular color image of the scene is available. Specifically, we first studied the problem of estimating a detailed depth map from a monocular image. Then, benefiting from deep-learning-based depth estimation, we tackled the higher-level tasks of 3D box proposal generation, and scene parsing with instance segmentation, semantic labeling and support relationship inference from a monocular image. Our research on indoor scene understanding provides a comprehensive scene interpretation at various perspectives and scales. For monocular image depth estimation, previous approaches are limited in that they only reason about depth locally on a single scale, and do not utilize the important information of geometric scene structures. Here, we developed a novel graphical model, which reasons about detailed depth while leveraging geometric scene structures at multiple scales. For 3D box proposals, to our best knowledge, our approach constitutes the first attempt to reason about class-independent 3D box proposals from a single monocular image. To this end, we developed a novel integrated, differentiable framework that estimates depth, extracts a volumetric scene representation and generates 3D proposals. At the core of this framework lies a novel residual, differentiable truncated signed distance function module, which is able to handle the relatively low accuracy of the predicted depth map. For scene parsing, we tackled its three subtasks of instance segmentation, semantic labeling, and the support relationship inference on instances. Existing work typically reasons about these individual subtasks independently. Here, we leverage the fact that they bear strong connections, which can facilitate addressing these subtasks if modeled properly. To this end, we developed an integrated graphical model that reasons about the mutual relationships of the above subtasks. In summary, in this thesis, we introduced novel and effective methodologies for each of three indoor scene understanding tasks, i.e., depth estimation, 3D box proposal generation, and scene parsing, and exploited the dependencies on depth estimates of the latter two tasks. Evaluation on several benchmark datasets demonstrated the effectiveness of our algorithms and the benefits of utilizing depth esti-


A new non-resonant electromagnetic energy harvester is presented for improving the energy-scavenging efficiency and the output power. Unlike the conventional energy harvester which uses a permanent magnet attached on a cantilever beam to respond to the vibration, the proposed energy harvester uses a magnet ball located in the cavity of the harvester to respond to the vibration. The ball can move freely in the cavity under the vibration condition and its movement has less dependence on the frequency of the vibration. Moreover, the proposed harvester is very sensitive to the vibration and can obtain an output power (~ 4.0 µW) even at a quite low acceleration of 0.02 g. As the acceleration increases to 0.1 g, the output power can be up to 17.7 µW (power density~2.0 µW/cm3). This harvester is particularly suitable for scavenging vibration energy with wide bandwidth and low acceleration.


Efficacy of a low molecular weight heparin (Kabi 2165) was compared with that of non-fractionated heparin in the prevention of abdominal surgery postoperative venous thrombosis by means of a double-blind randomized trial in 79 patients. Determination of D. dimers in these patients allowed assessment of specificity of this assay for detection of postoperative venous thrombosis.


Ifosfamide (IF) alone or combined with etoposide (ET) was reported to be effective in the treatment of patients with Ewing's sarcoma who relapsed after treatment with the VACA regimen, which consisted of vincristine (VC), actinomycin (AC), cyclophosphamide (CP), and doxorubicin (AD). The purpose of this article is to report the results achieved in a new neoadjuvant protocol in which IF and ET were added to the conventional VACA regimen and administered to patients with localized disease.


An outbreak of Brachiaria decumbens poisoning in goats in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, is described. Out of a herd of about 1,000 goats, seven goats died after showing photosensitivity (3 out 7 goats) and icterus (4/7). Other clinical signs included lethargy, dehydration and weight loss (7/7). At necropsy there was either hepatomegaly or liver atrophy; orange, yellow or gray discoloration - were observed in the liver of six goats. Two had accentuation of lobular pattern and punctate, linear or stellar fibrous depressions were randomly distributedover the capsular surface. Macroscopic changesattributedto liver failure consisting of hydropericardium (2/7) and ascites (2/7) were observed. Histologically, there was accumulation of refringent crystals in the bile ducts and infiltration of foamy macrophages in the liver of all goats. Foamy macrophages were also present in the hepatic and mesenteric lymph nodes of two goats. The diagnosis of B. decumbens poisoning was based on epidemiology, clinical signs, necropsy findings and histopathology.


Unburdened by regulation, the practice of sending domestic long-distance and international voice communications over the Internet has flourished. In less than twenty years, Internet calls are expected to dominate the telecommunications landscape.' At present, providers of phone-tophone Voice over Internet Protocol ("VoIP" or "IP telephony"), services are not burdened with the same regulatory obligations imposed upon traditional providers of circuit-switched telecommunications services ("Plain Old Telephone Service" or "POTS"). Unlike their competitors in the heavily regulated telephone industry, the current regulatory regime exempts IP telephony providers


Chinese language and Uyghur language belong to different language families.The negative transfer of Chinese language into Uyghur language in phonetics and characters make Chinese learning become a most difficult barrier for Uyghur students.The paper analyzes the difficulties that Uyghur students meet in their learning and proposes some solutions.


The best known of these inverted rim engraved vessels is Womack Engraved (Duffield and Jelks 1961 :34-38; Harris et al. 1965:299-304; Story et al. 1967: 114-124). Womack Engraved vessels are decomted on the rim with a variety of engraved motifs, including cross-hatched pendant triangles (Duffield and Jelks 1961: Figure J Oa) and-for our purposes here-negative meandering scrolls (Figure la-c). These negative meandering scrolls have a line running through the middle of the scroll, sometimes with tick marks (Figure la-b), but not always (Figure lc). The scrolls are bordered by crosshatched triangular-shaped areas or scroll dividers on either side of the engraved line running longitudinally along the scroll. This central engraved scroll line is either a continuous line as in Figure 1 b from the Womack site, or is comprised of repeated tight scrolls that have two arms hooked together towards one another, but not actually touching (Figure I a, c).


Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of single-incision thoracoscopic surgery (SITS) talc pleurodesis for malignant pleural effusion. Material and Methods: We examined the medical records of all consecutive patients with malignant pleural effusion who underwent single port thoracoscopic pleurodesis from 2014 to 2018 at the Health Sciences University Antalya Practice and Research Center. Therewere 30 males (54.5%) and 25 females (45.4%), ranging in age from 35 to 88 years (mean age: 64.0 years). Pleurodesis was achieved by insufflation of 4g of sterile asbestos-free talc; the chest tube was left in place a minimum of 3 days and was removedwhen fluid drainage was less than 100 ml/24 h. Patients were discharged the day after chest tube removal and a return visit was scheduled on the 30th post-operative day, for clinical evaluation and for a new chest radiograph. Pleurodesis was regarded as successful if the amount of the fluid on chest radiograph on the 30th post-operative dayshowed a pleural effusion occupying less than one-fourth of the pleural space. Results: The main causes of malignant pleural effusion were non-small cell lung carcinoma and breast cancer. Major symptoms were dyspnea, chest pain and radiographic findings of pleural fluid. The effusion was on the right side in 40 patients (72.7%) and on the left side in 15 (27.2%). There was no intraoperative mortality.The postoperative complication rate was 10.9% (6 patients), and includedfever in 1.8% (one patient) and chest pain in 9.0% (5 patients) of the patients.Duration of postoperative pleural drainage ranged between 3 and 13 days (mean: 3.36 days).The postoperative hospital stay ranged from 3 to 15 days (mean: 5.6 days). A successful pleurodesis was achieved in 34 of 55 patients (61.8%). Conclusion: SITS talc pleurodesis is an effective and safe treatment for the management of malignant pleural effusion.


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of some issues and controversies surrounding arguments for regulating cyberspace.Design/methodology/approach – The paper begins with a brief investigation of some background questions such as "What is cyberspace?" and "What is meant by 'regulation'?" It then considers some distinctions between descriptive and normative aspects of questions involving internet regulation. Next, the paper examines Lawrence Lessig's model, which describes four modes of regulation that can be applied to cyberspace. The paper then considers some recent controversies that have emerged because of "regulation by code" and the "privatization of information policy."Findings – Cyberspace regulation raises ethical concerns.Research limitations/implications – Internet regulation is evolving.Originality/value – The way cyberspace is viewed, either as a "place" or as a "medium," affects how it will be regulated.


The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of literacy knowledge, TV ad and service quality simultaneously to the customer"s savings intention to use the savings in the Branch of BNI Syariah UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, to determine the effect of literacy knowledge, TV ad and service quality partially to the customer"s savings intention to use the savings in the Branch of BNI Syariah UIN Syarif Hidayatullah. Sample used in this study were 100 respondents from customers who have saving in the branch of BNI Syariah UIN Syarif Hidayatullah. The analytical method use is multiple linear regression analysis. The data obtained is the primary data form the respondents" answers to the distributed questionnaire. The result of this research shows that there is a simultaneous effect between literacy knowledge, TV ad and service quality toward savings intention. The result of this result also shows that there are partially, literacy knowledge, TV ad and service quality have a significant influence on savings intention. The coefficient of determination shows that customer savings intention can be explained by literacy knowledge, TV ad and service quality by 52,4% while the remaining 47,6% are influenced by other variables which not included in this research.


In this article, monitoring of ballast water after its treatment by any of BWTS (Ballast Water Treatment System) on board ships has been analyzed. The efficiency of those systems has shown to be the major problem as there are no systems for tracking ship ballast operations. The overall aim of the study was to emphasize the necessity of monitoring the ballast water treatment on board ships and to propose a solution. The flow cytometry technology and applications of flow cytometers have been analyzed as well. The functionality and possibility of using this technology for detection of the treated ballast water quality has been explained. The results of the flow cytometry detection have been confirmed mathematically. The possibility of finding the remaining microorganisms in the treated ballast water has been calculated and the result was a very high percentage of 82%. The study presented in this paper aids in the understanding of how important it is for results of the ballast water treatment systems operation to be monitored since such monitoring is also in the interest of protecting the environment.


The Sahelian countries are increasingly affected by lack of water, soil erosion, desertification and loss of biodiversity. Land and water resources are currently facing an overwhelming pressure due to population growth and to a significant decrease in rainfall rates since the 1970s. Nevertheless, the decrease of the number of rainy days did not affect neither rainfall aggressiveness nor daily rainfall extreme values. Rill and gully erosion, the progressive disappearance of the vegetation and the extension of soil surface crusting result in the reduction of soil thickness, the decrease of nutrients holding capability and water storage loss.


The (Z)-O-acyl isoamides (7)(which do not themselves thermally rearrange) may be photoisomerised to the (E)isomers (8) which undergo a ready thermal rearrangement to the more stable N-acyl isomers (9). The mechanism of this rearrangement was investigated using solvent effects (a linear free energy correlation with dielectric constant was observed but with an overall low sensitivity to solvent) and substituent effects in the migrating aroyl group (8; R2= Ar)(ρ+ 0.65) and the aryl group attached to carbon (ρ–0.49) and to nitrogen (ρ–0.91). The mechanisms discussed include a sigmatropic π2s+σ2a pathway, but that favoured is rate-determining nucleophilic attack by the nitrogen lone pair on the carbonyl carbon with an early transition state. Intermolecular acylation of water by (7) and (8)(which is acid and base catalysed) and of piperidine were examined as analogues of the intramolecular process. In general, the rates of intermolecular reactions of the (Z)-and (E)-O-acyl isoamide isomers (7) and (8) are similar to one another and show the same sensitivity to substituent effects.


Mucormycosis is a rare life-threatening fungal infection caused by group of molds called Mucormycetes. Mucormycosis is particularly dangerous because it spreads quickly throughout the body. Left untreated, the infection can spread to the lungs or the brain and may cause brain infection, paralysis, pneumonia, seizures, death [1]. A 66-year-old female with known comorbidity of Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension and IHD presented to trauma and emergency care with symptoms of LRTI and was tested positive for the COVID-19. She was treated as per COVID-19 protocols. After 15 days she developed headache and left eye swelling and was diagnosed with Mucormycosis for which surgical debridement of sinuses had to be done. Doctors should identify risk factors and should use steroid judicially to prevent rare life-threatening condition. Unfortunately, despite disfiguring surgical debridement and adjunct antifungal therapy, the overall mortality rate for Mucormycosis remains >50%, and it approaches 100% among patients with disseminated disease or those with persistent neutropenia [2,3].


A slip rate control system aimed at improving the working efficiency and driving stability of a high clearance sprayer was developed. First, the two-pump, two-anti-slip control (ASC) valve, four-motor "X" drive scheme hydraulic slip rate control system was designed, and a mathematical model of the system as well as a vehicle dynamics model were established. The system includes a slip rate control strategy, a proportional-integral-derivative control method and a fuzzy adaptive proportional-integral-derivative sprayer control method. To verify the performance of the system, a simulation model was developed using MATLAB/Simulink, and the performance of the two control methods were compared. Additionally, an actual vehicle test platform was built based on 3WPG-3000 high clearance self-propelled sprayer independently developed by the research group. The simulation results revealed that when a wheel slipped, the slip rate control system was able to control the wheel slip rate and keep it within the threshold value of 0.1, thus meeting the operating requirements of the sprayer. The field test results revealed that in field operations with a low adhesion coefficient, the system was able to maintain a nearly unchanged wheel speed in both fixed speed mode and variable speed mode, maintaining a slip rate below the target of 0.1 "when in a straight running mode" in both cases. Altogether, the results of the simulation and field test verify the stability, accuracy, and practicability of the system.


The nonorganic and organic pollutants in air are mainly from combustion of fossil fuel.This paper enumerate nonorganic, organic pollutants and their toxicity produced by fossil fuel. NO 2、SO 2、H 2S、CO、Pb、Hg nonorganic pollutions impact heavily human health. Carcinogenic PAHs and organic heterocyclic N、S、O compounds are paid close attention. We study and contrast the organic pollutants concentrations in aerosol of several main cities in China, and study stressly general characteristics of organic pollutants in aerosol of Beijing district, More than 80 kinds of PAHs are detected in the aerosol of Beijing area, among which the unsubstituted PAHs are the principle components with proportion of about 60%. About 90% of unsubstituted PAHs belongs to the priority pollutants proposed by EPA,such as pyrene, fluoranthene, benzo[a] pyrene, benzo\perylene etc. Among these PAHs, benzo[a] pyrene is heavy carcinogenic, while others are carcinogenic or suspiciously carcinogenic pollutants


Collaborative filtering(CF) is one of the most important algorithms applied in e-commerce recommendation systems.The traditional methods are inefficient when the user rating data is extremely sparse.In order to overcome the limitations,a novel algorithm named MACF(Multi-dimensional Adaptive Collaborative Filtering Recommendation Algorithm) is proposed in this paper.The MACF algorithm creatively combines three recommendation models: user-based CF,item-based CF and review-based CF.It successfully integrates opinion mining technology with collaborative filtering algorithm.In addition,a dynamic measurement approach would help determine the weight of three dimensions: user,item and review,and hence get the final prediction result.The experimental results show that MACF can effectively alleviate the dataset sparsity problem and achieve better prediction accuracy compared to other well-performing collaborative filtering algorithms.


Taking Shawan Tunnel as background,the influence of tunnel's stability resulting from the time of closing the support in large section tunnel with double-side-drift method is studied by finite element software ANSYS with the load-releasing method.Through analyzing vertical displacement of the vault,horizontal displacement of the middle point of sidewall,plastic zone of surrounding rock and stresses of preliminary lining,the result shows that sealing the primary shoring quickly is favorable to control the stresses and displacements of the tunnel.So in construction process the distance between adjacent excavation faces should be shortened and the speed of closure should be stepped up to achieve stability of the tunnel.The state of reinforcing parts of surrounding rock is simulated in order to further search for some way to improve the stresses of the tunnel.It is shown that reinforcing the surrounding rock near the contact area of the temporary support and preliminary lining will improve the stresses condition of the tunnel.Meanwhile,the contact area of the temporary support and preliminary lining,where a great deal of concentrated tensile stress appears,should be paid attention to in the design and construction process.


Psycho- and physiological effects of noise point to the necessity of establishing hygienically based, critical limits of noise. Paper confronts these values with laws and regulations in effect, in order to expose the still existing discrepancy in their evaluation. That discrepancy is even more evident in a, contained in paper, representation of actually occurring in large cities noise intensities such as in: vehicular or aircraft transportation, residential noise, etc. In parallel paper examines means for abatement of noise. In conclusion paper outlines criteria that should be considered in discussion of noise, surveys and registers. Paper aims at reaching urbanistic planners, transportation experts, and communal authorities, for whose benefit a catalog of various preventive measures is included.


This paper proposes a multi-serial extension system solution based on ARM9 CPLD TL16C554. There is first a general introduction of the micro-processor S3C2440, CPLD chipset EPM3128 and four-channel serial extension chip TL16C554. Following the brief introduction, the paper presents hardware design of multi-serial extension system. Finally the paper describes the CPLD hardware process and the WinCE driver program of TL16C554 , and the application program design of TL16C554 based on WinCE.


The nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation is an example of a universal nonlinear model that describes many physical nonlinear systems. The equation can be applied to hydrodynamics, nonlinear optics, nonlinear acoustics, quantum condensates, heat pulses in solids and various other nonlinear instability phenomena. It describes small modulations in time and space of a spatially and temporally oscillating wave packet advancing in a laboratory frame. It has first been derived for the so called water wave problem in 1968 and the proof that it makes correct predictions has been recently the subject of intensive research. The present work shows that in general this approximation is not valid without further assumptions. The proof that an approximation property (APP) for the NLS equation holds if the approximation is stable in the system for the three wave interaction (TWI) associated with the resonances already exists. However the situation is less clear when an instability arises. We prove that the NLS approximation breaks down after a time scale O(ε−1|lnε|) which is much smaller then the natural time scale O(ε−2) of the NLS approximation. We construct a counter example showing that the NLS approximation makes wrong predictions for the water wave problem in case of small surface tension and spatially periodic boundary conditions. The resonant four wave interaction (FWI) system appears as an amplitude equation in the description of gravity driven surface water waves and other dispersive wave systems. In case of non-resonant quadratic terms in the original system error estimates justifying this approximation can be established with the help of normal form transformations and Gronwall's inequality. In this thesis we explain that the four wave interaction system makes wrong predictions in case of additional unstable quadratic resonances as they appear for instance for capillarygravity surface water waves. The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) system is an example of macroscopic wave packets in infinite chains of coupled oscillators and it can be described by well known modulation equations like the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) or the NLS equation. The proof that the NLS equation approximates the evolution of a slowly varying envelope of small amplitude of an underlying oscillating wave packet in the FPU system exists in the literature. We consider a diatomic FPU system and construct a counter example to show how the NLS equation fails for the FPU system. The counter example is again based on the existence of an unstable subspace.


Rate expressions were determined for the abstraction of hydrogen atom from pentamethylcyclopentadienyltricarbonyl-molybdenum hydride (Me/sub 5/CpMo(CO)/sub 3/H). The radical clocks hept-6-en-2-yl, produced from bromine atom abstraction from 7-bromoheptene, and hex-5-enyl, produced from bromine atom abstraction from 6-bromohexene, were utilized to compete intramolecular cyclization (kcyc) with bimolecular abstraction (kabs) from Me/sub 5/CpMo(CO)/sub 3/H in n-octane. Using known rate expressions for the cyclization of the primary clock, and separate rate expressions for cyclization of the secondary clock to give cis- and trans-cyclized products, rate expressions for abstraction were developed from ratios of unrearranged and rearranged hydrocarbon products. For the primary clock, log(kabs/M/sup 1/s/sup -1/) = 9.0 +/- 0.3 - (0.93 +/- 0.2)/theta, theta = 2.3RT kcal/mole, kabs = 2.1 x 10/sup 8/ M/sup -1/s/sup -1/. For the secondary clock, log(kabs/M/sup -1/s/sup -1/) = 8.6 +/- 0.3 -(0.81 +/- 0.1)/theta, and kabs = 1.0 x 10/sup 8/ M/sup -1/s/sup -1/. The bimolecular rates are slower by a factor of ten than expected for diffusion control. The activation barriers are lower than activation barriers expected for diffusion-controlled hydrogen abstraction by ca. 1.5 kcal/mole. The results are discussed in terms of the thermochemistry of the reactions and in terms of rates of biomolecular reactions approaching diffusionmore » control. The synthetic utility of the reduction reaction is discussed.« less


Sonography accurately identifies bihiary obstruction and often defines the level and cause of the obstruction [1-4]. We present the sonographic findings in a case of scherosing cholangitis presenting with bihiary obstruction associated with marked, concentric thickening of the intraand extrahepatic bihiary tree. These manifestations of scherosing cholangitis may be indistinguishable from bihiary tract primary or metastatic tumor. Thickening of bile duct walls has not been previously reported as a sonographic manifestation of scherosing cholangitis. The importance of assessing not only the bile duct lumen but the thickness of the wall of the bile duct is stressed.


Tachycardia is a prominent feature of thyrotoxicosis. We present an unusual case of Graves' thyrotoxicosis presenting as profound symptomatic bradycardia.


To promote sustainable development of China's service outsourcing industry,and after analysis of the current IT service outsourcing talent training problems,this paper investigates a series of reforms.Combination of social needs,we propose to apply the Talent-based curriculum reform,school-enterprise cooperation,international exchange and so on.It provides a reference for the high quality of IT service outsourcing talent training.


Background: While preoperative antibiotic therapy is standard to prevent surgical site infections in acute calculous cholecystitis, prescribing antibiotics after discharge is controversial. This study aimed to investigate the effect of antibiotic administration in discharge prescription on surgical site infections.
Methods: Data from patients who underwent emergency laparoscopic cholecystectomy for acute calculous cholecystitis between January 2018 and February 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. Those with a decompensated systemic disease, those who were converted to open cholecystectomy, those with stage 3 disease, and those who underwent open cholecystectomy and cholecystostomy were excluded. Ampicillin-sulbactam 1 g was administered parenterally three times a day before and after surgery.
The patients were divided into two groups according to their discharge prescriptions: those who were given antibiotics (AB group) and those who were not given antibiotics (NA group). The primary outcome was the development of surgical site infections.
Results: 107 patients in the AB group and 109 in the NA group. Surgical site infection developed in 29 (13.4%) patients, 11 (10.3%) in the AB group, and 18 (16.5%) in the NA group. No significant difference was found between the two groups regarding surgical site infection rate (p>0.05). In logistic regression analysis, obesity was a risk factor for surgical site infections.
Conclusions: Failure to prescribe ampicillin-sulbactam to acute calculous cholecystitis patients discharged after laparoscopic surgery does not increase surgical site infections. However, prescribing ampicillin-sulbactam to obese patients may reduce surgical site infections.
Keywords: Surgical site infections, acute calculous cholecystitis, emergency laparoscopic cholecystectomy, obesity


Context. Infrared-faint radio sources (IFRS) are extragalactic emitters clearly detected at radio wavelengths but barely detected or undetected at optical and infrared wavelengths, with 5σ sensitivities as low as 1 μJy. Aims. Spectral energy distribution (hereafter SED) modelling and analyses of their radio properties indicate that IFRS are consistent with a population of (potentially extremely obscured) high-redshift AGN at 3 ≤ z ≤ 6. We demonstrate some astrophysical implications of this population and compare them to predictions from models of galaxy evolution and structure formation. Methods. We compiled a list of IFRS from four deep extragalactic surveys and extrapolated the IFRS number density to a surveyindependent value of (30.8 ± 15.0) deg −2 . We computed the IFRS contribution to the total number of AGN in the Universe to account for the cosmic X-ray background. By estimating the black hole mass contained in IFRS, we present conclusions for the SMBH mass density in the early universe and compare it to relevant simulations of structure formation after the Big Bang. Results. The number density of AGN derived from the IFRS density was found to be ∼310 deg −2 , which is equivalent to a SMBH


This paper reviews the technical background of electric vehicle technology and its applications. A number of important concepts frequently used in this field are explained, and the technical details, including the theoretical principles, are given alongside practical systems pertaining to several kinds of electric charging piles. It critically appraises a number of state-of-the-art research progresses in this field developed within the last ten years. Finally, it points out the future potential research directions regarding electric vehicle technology and its applications, especially of charging techniques. By reading this review paper, readers will not only grasp a technical background of electric vehicle technology, but also gain a full picture of the research field.


The morphological and physiological parameters of three inbred lines of Petunia hybrids were measured under the simulated high temperature.The results indicate that hot injury index can be used as a reliable morphological parameter,while plant height,crown width and leaf number can not.There is no significant difference between the changes of SOD,CAT activity and the hot resistance of the plants.Heat stability of cell membrane,chlorophyll content,MDA content,O2·-content,POD activity have demonstrated desirable physiological parameters of hot resistance.


. Let L be a J -subspace lattice on a Banach space X and Alg L the associated J -subspace lattice algebra. Assume that δ : Alg L → Alg L is an additive map. It is shown that δ satisfies δ ( AB + BA ) = δ ( A ) B + Aδ ( B ) + δ ( B ) A + Bδ ( A ) for any A, B ∈ Alg L with AB + BA = 0 if and only if δ ( A ) = τ ( A ) + δ ( I ) A for all A , where τ is an additive derivation; if X is complex with dim X ≥ 3 and if δ is linear, then δ satisfies δ ( AB + BA ) = δ ( A ) B + Aδ ( B )+ δ ( B ) A + Bδ ( A ) for any A, B ∈ Alg L with AB + BA = I if and only if δ is a derivation. , , δ ( A ) B + Aδ ( B ) for all A, B ∈ A with AB = Z , and Jordan derivable at Z ∈ A if δ ( AB + BA ) = δ ( A ) B + Aδ ( B ) + δ ( B ) A + Bδ ( A ) for all A, B ∈ A with AB + BA = Z . Lu [L] proved that every continuous linear map derivable at a left (or right) invertible element on a Banach algebra is a Jordan derivation.


Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world: it is the fourth leading cause of death in the world and further increases in prevalence and mortality can be predicted in the coming decades(1,2). The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) has significantly contributed to increasing awareness of COPD in order to decrease morbidity and mortality from the disease(3). In the first GOLD consensus report clear management goals are put forward. Effective management should be aimed to relieve symptoms, prevent disease progression, improve exercise tolerance, improve health status, prevent and treat complications, prevent and treat exacerbations and reduce mortality(3). Airflow limitation, not fully reversible and usually progressive over time, is still considered as the key characteristic of COPD. This airflow limitation is assumed to be associated with an abnormal inflammatory response of the lungs to noxious particles or gases(3). This physiological approach putting forward abnormalities in the structure and function of the lungs fits with the medical anthropological approach in the 20th century that physicians need to diagnose and treat "diseases", while the illness, experiences of disvalued changes in states of being and states of social function, belong to the patient(4). Irreversibility in this approach is the product of lung function technology and vagueness about the limits of reversibility is still existing. Chronicity is defined as an accelerated declination of lung function impairment over time, and during many decades pharmacological treatment was directed to attenuate this decline in airflow limitation. Indeed, such a singular concept of airflow limitation is easily to grasp and still dominates the therapeutic approach of COPD. Although guidelines as GOLD formulate that assessment of COPD severity needs to be based on the patient's level of symptoms, the presence of complications, the level of airflow limitation is still considered as the key component in the assessment of COPD severity(5). Important to notify is that applied cut-off points to define different levels of severity are used for purposes of simplicity and have not been clinically validated(5). This approach can be considered as a form of reductionism: an attempt to explain a complex set of facts, entities, phenomena, or structures by another simpler set. Stressing in this context the dominant role of FEV1 can


Bronchial asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airway characterized by the Th2 immune response.Recently,a great deal of studies has revealed that regulatory T cells have the ability to suppress Th2 cells.It is the hot spot in the field of bronchial asthma that curing this disease through the intervention to the regulatory T cells in patients.

Key words:
Regulatory T cells;  Th2 cells;  Bronchial asthma


This paper proposes a transient voltage and current detection scheme for a typical hybrid HVDC circuit breaker, and evaluates its characteristics. Due to the energy transfer characteristics of hybrid HVDC circuit breakers, the voltage and current transient parameters of each circuit are closely related to the reliability and safe operation of the circuit breaker. The transient characteristics of voltage and current of each branch also directly reflect the working status and operating conditions of the circuit breaker. This study first established a hybrid DC circuit breaker topology model based on the working principle of the traditional hybrid DC circuit breaker. And selecting the characteristic parameters that can reflect the working status of the DC circuit breaker in the transient process, the measurement method and diagnosis method for the characteristic parameters are formulated, and the status assessment of the transient process of the DC circuit breaker is performed through simulation. The research results have certain guiding significance for the on-line monitoring and status assessment of a 500kV true hybrid DC circuit breaker.


An emerging trend in advanced manufacturing is the increased prevalence of mobile, right-sized robots that work safely and flexibly alongside humans across a wide variety of tasks. Currently in such environments, human workers are responsible for completing a variety of assembly tasks, such as welding or torquing parts into place. While the assembly tasks may require the skill and dexterity of a human worker, a mobile robotic assistant could help fetch parts and tools, increasing the overall productivity of the system. The rob@work platform (Figure 1) by Fraunhofer IPA is an example of one such mobile robot that is capable of fetching and picking parts on behalf of its human coworkers. A rob@work consists of a mobile base with four independent and individually actuated wheels, and can be equipped with other sensors and actuators, such as a robotic arm, to successfully interact with its environment. A major challenge is that the manufacturing environments in which these types of robots are designed to operate are densely populated, dynamic, and human-oriented. Human workers intuitively shuffle by each other through the narrow corridors that emerge between conveyor belts, various part bins, and tool carts. In most cases, this type of coordination between humans is accomplished with little or no explicit communication: humans quickly perceive and adapt to the intentions and conventions of their coworkers. We coin the term co-navigation to describe this natural and intuitive coordinated dance that human teams perform with ease. This poses an overarching challenge for a mobile robotic assistant: how to safely integrate itself in this intuitively choreographed shuffle of human workers in the presence of a cluttered, dynamic environment. Next, we highlight the particular challenges that await, along with our proposed approaches for addressing them, en route to realizing our goal of effective human-robot co-navigation.


I write due to concern that persons who wish to restrict misoprostol use, because of personal biases against termination of pregnancy, might attempt to use the article by Chu, Brhlikova, and Pollock to influence policy. The safety and efficacy of misoprostol has been demonstrated in hospital settings, and does not merit debate.

The authors review only four studies of misoprostol use in community and home births. Studies of community and home births are difficult, comparison with placebo is deemed unethical by many, and blinding of misoprostol use is essentially impossible due to the shivering. The one study, by Hoj, which utilized a placebo found a significant difference in severe blood loss, the outcome (other than death) which is most critical. The authors attempt to discredit studies due to exclusion of high risk patients. The exclusion criteria listed for the Mobeen study include planning not to deliver at the birth center, previous Cesarean section, and 'unlikely to deliver vaginally', conditions which would appropriately and ethically mandate referral for hospital delivery. The excluded women would be at increased risk of uterine rupture, which is not primarily treated with uterotonics. They note that Mobeen's study shows that PPH rates in both groups decreased as the study progressed, and hypothesized this was due to later-recruited midwives being more skilled. This supports the use of misoprostol by less-skilled birth attendants, rather than not using it at all, if one wants to decrease PPH.

Oxytocin alone does not always work, whether for induction of labor or prevention or treatment of hemorrhage. Those of us who attend births in the developed world often use misoprostol in addition to oxytocin. I would hate to have misoprostol withdrawn from my pharmacopeia in the USA. The issue is not whether WHO should keep misoprostol on the essential drug list, but rather who should be allowed access to misoprostol, which is an issue that each nation should decide, depending on its own national needs and priorities.


The article examines the technology of a new type of attack using viruses that are remotely introduced into Microsoft Word document templates. Microsoft Word has a feature that allows the user to create a document with a template. Whenever a Word document with a template is written/read, those templates are downloaded/used from the local or remote machine. In this way, attackers can place a Word document template (.dotm) file with malicious macros on their servers. Every time a victim opens a Word document, the document receives a malicious template from the attacker's server and executes it. The attack algorithm and methods of countering such attacks have been studied.


A developmentally supportive family-centered approach to care is extremely valuable for even the most critically ill infant. This case presentation of Martha, a severely small for gestational age twin born at 30 weeks gestation, highlights three major areas in which clinical care is enhanced through the integration of neurobehavioral observation: self-regulation, comfort, and family advocacy. The ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, and integrity were relied upon to ensure her humane care.


Starting from 4-piperidone monohydrate hydrochloride (or the hydrochloride of its ethylene ketal) alone, otherwise in tandem with a C-2-substituted 2-aminopropane-1,3-diol ("serinol") as amino-nucl...


O r g n g n 2 5 2 T a x o n o m y 2 5 2 C h ro m o so m e s 2 8 2 N um ber or h l gy and Morphology 28..... 2 M e oieio sis 2 8 2 P o y l i y y p oid y 29 2 H aploids P ly m ry n and Po........y.....mbryony 29... 2 T r p odr p o d s 3 0 3 T e tra p lo d s 30 3 T ri mcso m ic s 31 3 I n l r s e c e e e 3 1 3 F lo w e r r Co lo r 31 3 P e ta l g h Len g th 32 3 S te rility 3 2 3 F ru it ra t r ..Ch aracters 33........ 3 O rie n ta tio n 3 3 3 S h a p e 3 3 3 W id th .... ..... .... .... ..... .. ... .. .. .... ...... ..... ....... ....... .. ... .... ... . .. .3 3...... ... ... 3 S ize d W e g t and Weig h t 34........ 3 A p e x . . ... ... ... ... ..... ... ... . ... .. .. ..... ... .... . ...... ... .... ....... ... . ...3 4..... .. ... .... ... .. ... ... .. 3 Base n a yx C nd to ....and Ca.........yx.........Condition 34.... 3 P ed ice gtl Len g th 34......... 3 S o ft e h Fle sh 3 4 3 W all i k es ....... Th ick n ess 3 3 L ocu N m er e Nu m b er 35......... 3 Im m a tu re Co lo r 35......... 3 M a tu re r Co lo r 3 6 3 A scorbic C o t n Acid Content 37..... 3 P u n g e n c y.37 3 Internal t r li e at ton .........Fruit Pro.........iferatation 37... 3 P la n t ra t r Ch aracters 38........ 3 H eig h t a i and Hab it 38....... 3 M a tu rity 3 8 3 P u b e sc e n c e 3 9 3 L e a f t n s Mu ta n ts 39 3 Plant l r n V r e ato ...Color and Variegation 39... 3 R esistance e s to Disease 40...... 4 B a c te ria l Sp o t 4 0......... 4 C e rc o sp o ra 4 0 4 P h y to p h th o ra 4 0 4 V iru s e s 4 1 4 P o ta to Y 4 1 4 T o b a c c o Etch 4 1 4 T o b acco i Mosaic 41........ 4 V e in -b a n d in g 4 2 4 R esistancea o es to Nem atodes 42..... 4 G enes sed A p ab tca l .....Listed Alphabetically 42.... 4 L inkage t on h p Relationships 45.... Vegetative s nd G af H b id ......Grafts and........Graft Hybrids 45.. 4 H e te ro sis 4 8 4 L ite ra tu re Cite d 4 8........ 4


A breeding program has been developed since 1994 (done by Dr A. Trigui), by controlled pollinations of the Tunisian olive oil variety Chemlali Sfax in order to improve the qualities of this variety (higher oil percentage and a better chemical composition). These controlled pollinations have produced a population of new genotypes presented a wide genetic diversity which was very interesting for choice of future selections. The study was undertaken to obtain further information on morphological characters of inflorescence and phonological stages on some new olive selections obtained through self and free pollination of Chemlali Sfax. The impact of climatic conditions on the initiation date and the duration of bud break and full bloom was also investigated. Morphological characteristics of inflorescences showed a comparative variability between descendants within both type of pollination confirmed by higher variation coefficients (CV>20%) and significant differences (p ≤ 0.001). Inflorescence length varied from 11.14 to 30.36 mm. Number of flowers per inflorescence was between 7.11 and 21.53. Percentage of perfect flowers ranged from 31% to 95%. Variability was also observed among olive descendants within crossings on the timing of phonological phase. Full bloom took place on average from April 3 rd to May 15 th


In the article the case of HELLPof syndrome is described for an expectant mother entering separation of urgent surgery with a diagnosis sharp cholecystitis. Information over is brought about differential diagnostics between HELLPby a syndrome and sharp cholecystitis.


A decisive factor for the development of tyres and road surfaces is the ability to conduct representative
and reproducible measurements of selected characteristics related to the interaction of tyres and road
surfaces. In terms of tyre/road noise measurements in Europe two methods described in ISO/FDIS 11819-2 and ECE Regulation No.117 are used. The latter is compulsory for assigning the tyre noise labels. The methodologies differ in both load and tyre inflation pressure, positioning of microphones (on-board versus stationary) and distance from the microphones to the test tyres. Within the Polish-Norwegian project LEO two research institutions - SINTEF, Norway and Technical University of Gdansk, Poland conducted a series of road and laboratory tests to determine the effects of measuring methodology, inflation pressure and tyre load as well as road pavement on noise levels and sound
spectra. The obtained results were also compared with the information stated on the tyres' labels. Analysis of the results indicates that changing test parameters such as load and inflation pressure has an important impact on the noise emitted by tested tyres. It was also found that the tyre/road noise measured on typical European road surfaces correlates very poorly with the noise labels of tyres. This observation puts into question the correctness of the procedures described in Regulation No 117. It seems that the methodology for determining noise values, which are the basis for the labelling, should
be substantially amended and should be based on one of the typical road pavements.


This research examines the effectiveness of multi sensory approach for the purpose of improving the knowledge on English Letter sound correspondence among mild disabled students in the state of Kuwait. The discussion in this study is based on the multisensory approach that could be applied in the teaching of reading skills as well as phonemic awareness skills which could enable the students to acquire the early skills of reading. A total of 20 respondents were involved in the process of gathering data through the quantitative study method, which compromises of male and female mild intellectual disabled students. A pretest-postest method was applied in order to examine the effectiveness of the multisensory approach that could make it possible for them to identify the letters and its sounds. T test for the paired sample was used to figure out the significant differences between the pretest and posttest scores achieved by the students. The findings of the study showed the effect of the multi sensory approach in the teaching process of identifying the English letters and its sounds, which at the same time pave a way for the students to apply the mentioned skills in their learning process to read. This study is also significant for schools, centres, and institutes that are involved in the field of special education. Finally, it is considered as a road map to enable the students to learn and acquire the early skills of reading. Keywords : Multi sensory approach, English language letter identification, letter sound correspondence, mild intellectual disability.


The genotype by environment interaction was analyzed for early indica rice in 1998 and 1999 in southern China regional trial with the methods by Zhu Jun et al . The results indicated that there existed large year effects for all of the studied traits,and genotype by year ineractions for some traits. The significant differences among 16 early indica rices yield and combined trait showed that the yield of Zhongzu 1 and Xiang-zaoxian 19 was high, and combined trait value for Xiangzaoxian 19 and 351A/9279 was high too. Besides, the sensitivity degree of combined trait to environmental index was analyzed.


Karst regions have a shallow soil layer, discontinuous soil cover, high rock exposure rate, calcium-rich and alkaline soil, and a fertile but small total soil [...]


This article examines the scope and meaning of the principles of consent, neutrality/impartiality and self-defence in peacekeeping and claims that they play a constitutional role. More specifically, they distinguish peacekeeping from peace enforcement and allow the United Nations to play an active role in collective security. The author however claims that the demands of modern peacekeeping have put pressure on these principles and, therefore, the United Nations needs to reconsider their meaning in conjunction with its own principles and values.


Quantitative accuracy assessment of a SPOT DEM (Digital Elevation Model) generated by a fully automatic software is performed along the 90km long coast around Donghae city. The theoretical requirement on the layout of the CPS (Global Positioning System) check points is derived: the Nyquist sampling. Since in practice the Nyquist frequency of a terrain is difficult to determine, the relaxed requirements are introduced and 31 check points are collected accordingly. Accuracy of the SPOT DEM is calculated to be 8.9, 11.5 and 12.0m r.m.s. in latitudinal, longitudinal and elevation directions. The bias is distinguishable from zero only for elevation and is 2.2m. The simple comparison with the world's leading commercial softwares reveals the similar accuracy level.


Al~(3+)-doped ZnO(ZAO) nanometer powder is prepared by the sol-gel method.The structure,crystallization and infrared absorbency of ZAO powder are studied with XRD and infrared spectra.Results of XRD show that the crystal structure of ZnO phase is not influenced basically when Al~(3+) is doped in,and the shift of the diffraction angle is supposed to be resulted from the replacement of Al~(3+) for Zn~(2+) resulting in distortion of crystal lattice,and the particle size of ZAO becomes smaller with the increase of Al~(3+) content.The infrared spectra indicates that the infrared absorbency of ZAO nanometer powder changes with the added Al~(3+) contents.A synthetic material having low infrared emissivity can be obtained by controlling carrier concentration of ZAO in theory.


Objective To evaluate the preemptive analgesic effect and side effect of butorphanol tartrate on laparoscopic cholecystectomy.Methods40 patiens of ASAⅠ~Ⅱ undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy were randomized into 4 groups(10 cases in each group).Patients in group A were injected butorphanol tartrate 1 mg intravenously,patients in group B were injected flurbiprofen axetil 50 mg before intubation,and patiens in group C were injected butorphanol tartrate 1 mg at the end of surgery,nothing was given to group D.The analgesic effect was evaluated by VAS score at 0,1,2,3 and 4 h after surgery.Meanwhile,the score of sedation was evaluated by Rammesay systerm at 5,10,15 and 20 min after surgery.ResultsThe VAS scores of group D at each time point were significantly higher than other groups,and the sedation scores were lower(P0.05).The VAS scores of group C were significantly higher than group A and B at all time points(P0.05).There was no significant difference between group A and B(P0.05).The sedation scores of group C were significantly higher than group A and B at the points of 15 and 20 min(P0.05).The sedation scores of group A were higher than group B and C at the points of 5 and 10 min(P0.05).There was no significant difference between all groups at other time points.No significant side effect was found.ConclusionPreemptive analgesic with butorphanol tartrate is effective and safe in patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy.Compared with other drugs in preemptive analgesic,butorphanol tartrate was more effective in sedation,which can reduce the restlessness after surgery.


The molding technology in IC assembly is to protect the ICs avoiding the external damage and indirectly provide the heat dissipation. The molding pattern design, transfer-mold system, providing the drawing pipeline for liquid molding compound in molding is not only the technical index, but the key in the assembly throughput. Furthermore, the integrity of molding compound in plastic assembly is the main role of assembly quality. Analyzing these two factors impacting the assembly performance is the chief investigation in this work.


Padilla v. Kentucky's recognition of deportation consequences as a component of the Sixth Amendment effective assistance of counsel guarantee promised dramatic impact on criminal proceedings involving noncitizen defendants. Realizing this promise depends on courts' ability to require defense attorneys to provide accurate advice about the deportation consequences of a conviction. Because state courts decide most ineffective assistance of counsel claims, a review of their treatment of Padilla-based claims offers an insightful glimpse into this decision's impact on criminal representation of noncitizen defendants. This article examines state court decisions from the first six months after Padilla was issued and concludes that state courts' lack of familiarity with immigration law has manifested itself in a concerning failure to grant Padilla-based relief when attorneys have inaccurately advised defendants about the prospect of deportation.


The world population has grown from about 1 billion at the start of the 19th century to more than 7 billion today. This chapter describes how demographic systems rapidly changed around the world: mortality rates declined while fertility rates declined as well, albeit at lower and varying speeds. The first demographic transition took place in Western Europe and the Western Offshoots during the 19th century and had huge consequences for labour force participation, for the role of women, and for educational investment in children. Elsewhere the transition is still ongoing as new technologies in health and fertility control were introduced in the course of the 20th century, initiating a move away from high mortality and fertility rates to longer life expectancy and fewer children per women. Initially, this provided a demographic dividend facilitating economic growth, but soon this will turn into a demographic burden.


The pea crab, Pinnotheres tsingtaoensis, symbiotic with the bivalve mollusk, Sanguinolaria acuta, was collected in the estuary of Bazhan Stream on the west coast of Taiwan from May, 1992 to November, 1993. More than 90% of the bivalves were infested and most infested specimens (90-97%) hosted one crab. Two cohorts, i.e., year classes, of the bivalves were observed in May, but only one was seen between July and November; the life span of the crab is less than 2 years at the site. Recruitment of both the bivalves and the crabs apparently occurred between November and May next year. Positive size correlation between hosts and symbionts was found in larger sized females, but was not consistent in smaller sized males. All females had a soft carapace whereas most males had a hard carapace; females were less likely to leave the hosts than males upon collection of the host bivalves. Females accompanied by males were more likely to carry eggs. Mating probably took place inside the hosts where female crabs remained stationary, with males visiting different bivalves and spending much time outside the bivalves.


ABSTRACT This paper addresses the potential contribution of service design for improving the implementation of shared decision-making in healthcare. The iterative approach of design research is compared with the more linear, (social) scientific approaches often seen in health services research. Five foundational principles of service design are explored regarding their potential contribution to the improvement of the implementation of shared decision-making. Thus, this position paper can be seen as a call on service designers and healthcare professionals to combine their efforts to improve the implementation of shared decision-making in healthcare.


According to the IEEE standard glossary of software engineering, object oriented design is becoming more important in software development environment and software metrics are essential in software engineering for measuring the software complexity, estimating size, quality and project efforts. There are various approaches through which we can estimate the software cost and predicates on various kinds of deliverable items. These tools are used to measure the estimations of lines of codes, functions points and object points. This paper highlight the classification of different metrics like software quality metrics, object oriented metrics, size metrics, CK metrics, QMOOD metrics, GQM metrics, MOOSE metrics and EMOOSE metrics proposed from early 90's. It also maintains comparison tables that analyze the difference between all object oriented metrics easily.


My approach to science developed from a conservative education and an inquiring father. My father loved to discuss almost any question, and id so with great enthusiasm. He began to discuss the meaning and philosophy of life with me when 1 was 6 , and continued to d o so for the rest of his life. I often found this difficult to handle. I struggled to find simple conclusions from these discussions that I could understand, with limited success. Some 10 years later, my cousin told me how much she enjoyed engaging my father in a discussion. He would bring forth a strong opinion on some question, which might be philosophical, and she would take the opposite position. She would then


Measurements of the frequencies of the normal modes of vibration of niobium at 296 °K have been made by inelastic neutron scattering techniques. Results are presented for several hundred phonons with wave vectors at general positions in the [11, macron0] reciprocal lattice plane. The phonon dispersion relations in symmetry directions agree well with the previous work of Nakagawa and Woods. The measured frequencies cannot be fitted well by tensor force-constant models even when the range of the forces extends to tenth-nearest neighbours, but the critical points in the phonon density of states derived from the eighth-neighbour model agree with those observed in superconducting tunnelling experiments, and the calculated Debye temperature also agrees quite well with measured values.


Randy Moore9s horror film Escape from Tomorrow (2013) was shot at Disneyland, Epcot, and Disney World, without either the authorization or knowledge of the Disney corporation. The result is a fascinating example of guerrilla filmmaking that makes use of gothic conventions to craft a new narrative of corporate horror. Both the film and its promotional materials narrate the vicissitudes of countering a mass-culture corporation that has become synonymous with American fantasies and imaginaries. And yet, however revolutionary his methods and overall narrative, Moore relies on long-familiar images of monstrous femininity to convey the circumstances of mass-culture seduction. The end result is less an attack on the institution of Disney itself than a gothic account of the parks9 co-option by a dangerous female consumerism that nullifies male resistance or escape.


In the current context of strong globalization, firms have concentrated their efforts in developing international and global brands. As a result, many local brands have been eliminated from companies' brand portfolios. However, local brands often represent franchises that are very successful in local markets. The objective of this article is to better understand what the strengths of local brands are in comparison to international brands. To achieve this, the authors have analyzed a database of 9,739 people and examined more than 500 brands across the four largest countries in Europe, that is UK, Germany, France and Italy. The results show that local brands present a number of strong equity advantages, and also that they are different structurally from their international variety. The authors offer an interpretation and discuss the implications and limitations of their findings. They also make recommendations concerning the appropriate responses for both international and local companies.


Recently, the combination of increasing costs for the provisions of blood products1, increasing recognition of the risks associated with transfusion and growing awareness of the possible future shortage of blood supply has raised the interest of the scientific community in the concept of "blood management"2.

Blood management should not be confused with the concept of bloodless medicine, which is a programmatic approach to dealing with a small subset of patients who refuse blood transfusions3.

Patients' blood management is "the timely application of evidence-based medical and surgical concepts designed to maintain haemoglobin concentration, optimise haemostasis and minimise blood loss in an effort to improve patient outcome"4. The principle at the basis of this concept is the improvement of patients' outcome through the integration of all available techniques to ensure safety, availability, and appropriate allocation of blood products5.

This new strategy covers the whole peri-operative period and is characterised by a patient-specific multidisciplinary and multifaceted team approach which entails a partnership between transfusion medicine specialists and the many different health care specialists who interact with the blood bank1,6.

It does, therefore, represent "a model of multidisciplinary care where the changes in culture are system directed on the basis of evidence-based medicine", as stated by Kumar and colleagues5. It also includes the appropriate provision of blood components in compliance with transfusion guidelines and suggests alternatives when they are appropriate1.

Sharing and multidisciplinary work are really the best ingredients to ensure success and safety in multimodal approaches to blood management which comprises an array of different strategies that exploit appropriate combinations of drugs, technological devices and surgical and medical techniques in the pre-, intra- and post-operative periods7.

The creation of "multidisciplinary blood management team (including surgeons, perfusionists, nurses, anesthesiologists, intensive care unit care providers, housestaff, bloodbankers, cardiologist and so forth)" is fundamental for any blood management programme and has also been recently recommended by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists as a "reasonable means of limiting blood transfusion and decreasing perioperative bleeding while still maintaining safe outcome (level of evidence B)"8. All blood saving protocols adopted should also be shared with patients.

Implementation of blood management strategies not only reduces transfusion requirements but also improves post-operative outcomes, at least in patients undergoing orthopaedic and cardiac surgery9,10.

The first strategy to contain the use of blood is an early diagnosis of anaemia in patients who are to undergo elective surgery. In fact, the leading risk factor for allogeneic blood transfusion is the presence of anaemia before surgery. Furthermore, pre-operative anaemia, even if only mild, is independently associated with an increased risk of 30-day morbidity and mortality in patients undergoing major non-cardiac surgery11, as recently shown by a large retrospective cohort study by Musallam and colleagues. This study obtained data from 227,425 patients and strongly suggests that implementation of detection and treatment of anaemia as part of a universal patients' blood management strategy should become standard of care in patients undergoing elective surgical procedures, particularly in those in whom substantial blood loss is expected6.

Pre-operative anaemia is easy to detect and, in many situations, cheap to treat. Previously undiagnosed anaemia before elective surgical interventions is common12. The overall prevalence of pre-operative anaemia (defined, according to World Health Organization's sex-based criteria13, as a haematocrit of less than 36% in women and less than 39% in men) in the general population increases with age and it has been estimated that in the elderly (over 65-year olds) it is 11% and 10.2% for men and women14, respectively.

An algorithm for the detection, evaluation and management of pre-operative anaemia in elective orthopaedic surgery was recently proposed by the Network for Advancement in Transfusion Alternatives (NATA) which issued practice guidelines on the topic15. This algorithm is based on a few simple tests useful to detect the various forms of anaemia and treat them with the relevant pharmacological therapies (iron, vitamin B12 and/or folic acid, and erythropoiesis-stimulating agents). Early diagnosis of pre-operative anaemia should be undertaken at least 28 days before the scheduled surgery in order to enable adequate treatment and reduce exposure to allogeneic blood transfusions.

In this issue of Blood transfusion, Manuel Munoz and colleagues of the Anaemia Working Group Espana (AWGE, http://www.awge.org), a multidisciplinary group for the study and clinical management of anaemia in the surgical patient, published an interesting and updated review on the role of iron therapy in reducing allogeneic blood transfusion in orthopaedic surgery16. The authors pragmatically suggest the possible clinical and laboratory approaches to the diagnosis of iron deficiency and propose a simplified and very easy-to-adopt algorithm for the diagnosis of iron deficiency anaemia.

Although it is widely recognised that the objective of successful treatment of iron deficiency anaemia is the adequate and quick supply of iron to increase haemoglobin levels to normal values within 4–6 weeks and to replenish iron stores, the route for iron administration is still a matter of debate.

Because of the limitations of oral iron therapy in patients scheduled for surgery, Munoz and co-workers correctly suggest that intravenous iron be preferred, even though many patients will respond to oral iron. They clearly show that peri-operative intravenous iron reduces allogeneic blood transfusion requirements in orthopaedic and trauma surgery, and may hasten recovery from postoperative anaemia, while preserving iron stores. These effects seem to be augmented by the addition of a single dose of erythropoietin. In addition, with the exception of high molecular weight iron dextran, the safety profile of intravenous iron preparations is optimal and quite homogeneous, and higher than that of allogeneic red cell transfusion.

In conclusion, although misinterpretation of adverse events caused underuse of this important treatment modality, intravenous iron has earned an undeniable, relevant role in blood saving protocols due to the large amount of available clinical and experimental data. Indeed, the value of intravenous iron in blood management is continuously and progressively increasing as it has changed "from anathema to standard of care"17.


In this present study, six F1 hybrids (Maya, Roma, Rio Grande, Emotion F1 Hybrid, Tomato 55 and Western Hybrid) were grown and their 15 crosses were evaluated. Out of 15 combination of crosses, 10 were recorded as successful viable hybrids, that is, Maya x Roma, Maya x Rio Grande, Maya x Western Hybrid, Roma x Rio Grande, Roma x Western Hybrid, Rio Grande x Tomato 55, Rio Grande x Western Hybrid, Emotion F1 Hybrid x Tomato 55, Emotion F1 hybrid x Western hybrid, Western Hybrid x Tomato 55. In F1 hybrids, average plant height, average flowers per cluster, average number of fruits per cluster, average weight of fruits, average days to harvest and 100 seed weight were recorded maximum in western hybrid, while average number of fruits per plant and average fruit yield per plant were recorded maximum in emotion F1 hybrid. In double cross hybrids, average flowers per cluster, average number of fruits per cluster and average fruit yield per plant were recorded maximum in emotion F1 hybrid x western hybrid. Average fruits weight and 100 seed weight were recorded maximum in emotion F1 hybrid x tomato 55, while average plant height, average number of fruits and average days to harvest were recorded maximum in western hybrid x tomato 55, Maya X Roma and Rio Grande X Western hybrid, respectively. Overall, a general trend was found that all F1 plants within the same variety were similar while plants within the same double cross hybrid showed segregation and distinct characteristics were noted. This study showed that there are greater chances of improvement through double cross hybrid production. The adopted pattern is an ideal way of exploiting variability which usually arises during the hybridization of two parental lines.

 Key words: F1 hybrids, double cross hybrids, hybrids variability.