Deconditioning produced through HU in rats, results in cardiac sympathovagal imbalance, which may increase arrhythmic risk. Reduced LV Cx43 expression and phosphorylation status may also play a role in autonomic arrhythmogenesis. We hypothesized that HU would result in an increased predisposition to spontaneous and provoked (isoproterenol 0.15mg/kg, s.c, plus brief handling/restraint) arrhythmias. We further hypothesized reduced total and increased unphosphorylated LV Cx43 expression in HU rats. Radiotelemetry probes were implanted in male, Sprague‐Dawley rats for collection of electrocardiographic data during the 10–14 day HU (n=6)/casted control (CC; n=6) protocol, at the end of the protocol in the normal posture at rest, and during an acute stressor. Arrhythmias were quantified by an established scoring method. In a separate group of HU (n=2) and CC (n=2) rats, total and unphosphorylated LV Cx43 protein expression was quantified by Western blot analysis via polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies, respectively. HU rats had significantly more spontaneous arrhythmias and a higher arrhythmic burden during an acute stressor (CC: 19±3.2 vs. HU: 51±8.2). Paradoxically, there was an increase in the phosphorylated form of LV Cx43 expression in HU as compared to CC animals. These data indicate that HU results in increased arrhythmogenesis although the cellular mechanisms remain unclear. IOER‐3726


The lack of dystrophin expression in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) leads to muscle necrosis and replacement of muscle tissue by fibro-adipose tissue. Although the role of some growth factors in the process of fibrogenesis has been previously studied, the pathways that are activated by PDGF-AA in muscular dystrophies have not been described so far. Herein we report the effects of PDGF-AA on the fibrotic process in muscular dystrophies by performing a quantitative proteomic study in DMD isolated fibro-adipogenic precursor cells (FAPs) treated with PDGF-AA. In vitro studies showed that RhoA/ROCK2 pathway is activated by PDGF-AA and induces the activation of FAPs. The inhibition of RhoA/ROCK signalling pathway by C3-exoenzyme or fasudil attenuated the effects of PDGF-AA. The blocking effects of RhoA/ROCK pathway were analysed in the dba/2J-mdx murine model with fasudil. Grip strength test showed an improvement in the muscle function and histological studies demonstrated reduction of the fibrotic area. Our results suggest that blockade of RhoA/ROCK could attenuate the activation of FAPs and could be considered a potential therapeutic approach for muscular dystrophies.


Medical biochemistry (synonyms: clinical chemistry or clinical biochemistry) in the terms of professional and scientific discipline, stems from and/or has developed along with the natural sciences and its influences (mathematics, physics, chemistry and biochemistry) and medical sciences as well (physiology, genetics, cell biology). As a scientific discipline, medical biochemistry studies metabolic processes of physiological and pathological changes with humans and animals. Applying analytical chemistry's and biochemistry's techniques enables medical biochemists to gain plenty of information related to diagnosis and prognosis which serve physicians to asses the gravity of illness and prescribe healing therapy. Therefore medical biochemistry is an integral part of modern medicine. This discipline was dubbed various, often confusing names such as pathology, physiology, clinical biology, clinical pathology, chemical pathology, clinical biochemistry, medical biochemistry, clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine, all depending on place of origin. The official, internationally accepted name - clinical chemistry, was mentioned for the first time in 1912 by Johan Scherer, who described his laboratory as Clinical Chemistry Laboratory (Klinisch Chemische Laboratorium) in the hospital Julius in Wurzburg in Germany. After creating national societies of clinical chemists, Professor Earl J. King of Royal Postgraduate Medical School from London incited an initiative to unite national societies into the organization with worldwide character - it was the International Association of Clinical Biochemists, monitored by the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). On 24 July 1952 in Paris, a Second International Congress of Biochemistry was held. A year later, in Stockholm, the name of a newly formed association was altered into International Federation of Clinical Chemistry, which was officially accepted in 1955 in Brussels. Today this federation-s name is International Federation for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC). Right after the World War II our medical biochemists began to gather within their expert societies. Even before 1950 Pharmaceutical Society of Serbia hosted laboratory experts among whom the most active were Prof. Dr. Aleksandar Damanski for bromatology, Prof. Dr. Momcilo Mokranjac for toxicology and Docent Dr. Pavle Trpinac for biochemistry. When the Managing Board of the Pharmaceutical Society of National Republic of Serbia held its session on 22 December 1950, an issue was raised with reference to creation of a Section that would gather together the laboratory experts. Section for Sanitary Chemistry, combining all three profiles of laboratory staff, i.e. medical biochemists, sanitary chemists and toxicologists, was founded on 1st of January 1951. On 15 May 1955, during the sixth plenum of the Society of Pharmaceutical Societies of Yugoslavia (SFRY) held in Split, the decision was passed to set up a Section for Medical Biochemistry in SFDJ. The Section for Medical Biochemistry in SFDJ was renamed into Society for Medical Biochemistry of SFDJ based on the decision passed during the 16th plenum of SFDJ, held on 15 May 1965 in Banja Luka. Pursuant to the decision passed by SMBY on 6 April 1995 and based on the historic data, 15 May was declared as being the official Day of the Society of Medical Biochemists of Yugoslavia. The purpose of YuSMB (currently SMBSCG) is to gather medical biochemists who would develop and enhance all the branches of medical biochemistry in health industry. Its tasks are as following: to standardize operations in clinical-biochemical laboratories, education of young biochemists on all levels, encouraging scientific research, setting up of working norms and implementation, execution and abiding by the ethics codices with health workers. SMBSCG is to promote the systemized standards in the field of medical biochemistry with the relevant federal and republican institutions. SMBSCG is to enable exchange of experiences of its members with the members of affiliate associations in the country and abroad. .


It would be generally agreed that the weather is not without effect upon mortality and further that, in this respect, its most important component is the prevailing temperature. For example, it has been shown (Russell, 1924, 1926) that part at least of the increase in mortality associated with the occurrence of fog is, in fact, attributable not to the fog per se but to the associated low air temperatures, and it is significant that the disastrous London "smog" of December, 1952 (Logan, 1953) was accompanied by bitterly cold weather. Even in the State ofNew South Wales, where mild winters are experienced, more deaths occur in winter than in summer. However, when a more precise assessment of the effect of temperature on mortality is attempted, the problem arises of associating each death with its appropriate air temperature. Daily returns of deaths with respect to their occurrence, as distinct from their registration, may not be available, and weekly or monthly returns cannot be used in association with average weekly or monthly temperatures, as these mean values may obscure significant extremes. Again, large differences in temperature can exist withineven small geographical areas, so thatpublished meteorological data can be applied with confidence only to a restricted area adjacent to the station at which the observations were made. This, in turn, restricts the number of deaths to which the information on the temperature can be applied, so that these may, in consequence, prove too few to provide reliable conclusions. In the investigation reported here, an attempt was made to overcome these difficulties by making systematic daily observations of the temperature in an area of concentrated mortality in which details of the deaths occurring each day were readily available, thus ensuring both a reliable measure of the temperature with which each death was associated and an adequate number of deaths for statistical purposes. The results confirm that a relation exists between the mortality and the temperature prevailing on the day of death, but that it is modified by such factors as age and the temperature of the preceding day.


Balancing urban and rural development is an important political goal in China. The failure of rural land privatization has led to a low level of rural economic development and a vast property income gap between citizens and farmers. This paper illustrates the reasons for property income inequality from the perspective of the land tenure system and the dualistic household registration system. After evaluating the segmentation of the rural land market and the rigid nature of rural land assets, a population–land coupling urbanization mechanism is proposed. The paper argues that China's land property system has externalized a high degree of geospatial and social urban and rural intertwinement. Major reform of the rural land property rights system is required to correct the situation (further development of the social security system and stable urbanization) and to increase property income potential for farmers.


Hidden Markov Model derived structural alphabets are a probabilistic framework in which the complete conformational space of a peptidic chain is described in terms of probability distributions that can be sampled to identify conformations of largest probabilities. Here, we assess how three strategies to sample sub‐optimal conformations—Viterbi k‐best, forward backtrack and a taboo sampling approach—can lead to the efficient generation of peptide conformations. We show that the diversity of sampling is essential to compensate biases introduced in the estimates of the probabilities, and we find that only the forward backtrack and a taboo sampling strategies can efficiently generate native or near‐native models. Finally, we also find such approaches are as efficient as former protocols, while being one order of magnitude faster, opening the door to the large scale de novo modeling of peptides and mini‐proteins. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Aims. We describe our newly developed approach to detailed abundance analysis from integrated-light high-dispersion spectra of star clusters. As a pilot project, we measure abundances of several Fe-peak, α- and neutron capture elements from spectra of three globular clusters (GCs) in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy, obtained with UVES on the ESO Very Large Telescope. Methods. We divided the cluster colour−magnitude diagrams into about 100 bins and used the Kurucz ATLAS9 and SYNTHE codes to compute synthetic spectra for each bin. Stellar parameters were derived empirically from Hubble Space Telescope data for the brighter stars, while theoretical isochrones were used for extrapolation below the detection limit. The individual model spectra were co-added and the abundances were iteratively adjusted until the best match to the observed spectra was achieved. Results. We find [Fe/H] = −2.3, −1. 4a nd−2.1 for Fornax 3, 4 and 5, with estimated ±0.1 dex uncertainties. Fornax 3 and 5 are thus similar in metallicity to the most metal-poor Milky Way GCs and fall near the extreme metal-poor end of the field star metallicity distribution in Fornax. The [α/Fe] ratios, as traced by Ca and Ti, are enhanced with respect to the solar composition at the level of ∼+0.25 dex for Fornax 3 and 5, and possibly slightly less (∼+0.13 dex) for Fornax 4. For all three clusters the [Mg/Fe] ratio is significantly lesselevated than [Ca/Fe]and [Ti/Fe], possibly an effect of the abundance anomalies that arewell-known inGalactic GCs. We thus confirm that Mg may be a poor proxy for the overall α-element abundances for GCs. The abundance patterns of heavy elements (Y, Ba and Eu) indicate a dominant contribution to nucleosynthesis from the r-process in all three clusters, with a mean [Ba/Eu] ∼− 0.7, suggesting rapid formation of the GCs. Conclusions. Combining our results with literature data for Fornax 1 and 2, it is now clear that four of the five Fornax GCs fall in the range −2.5 < [Fe/H] < −2, while Fornax 4 is unambiguously and substantially more metal-rich than the others. The indications that abundance anomalies are detectable in integrated light are encouraging, particularly for the prospects of detecting such anomalies in young, massive star clusters of which few are close enough for individual stars to be observed in detail.


We report on the detection of the first extragalactic, classical chemically peculiar (CP) stars more than 100 years after the discovery of this group. Using the tool of CCD $\Delta a$-photometry, eight definite positive detections in the globular-like stellar cluster NGC 1866 and its surrounding in the Large Magellanic Cloud were made. More than 1950 objects within a radius of 9.5′ of the cluster center down to 20.5 magnitude were observed in this three filter, narrow band photometric system. Averaging more than 70 individual frames for all three filters yielded a 3 σ detection limit of 0.015 mag for stars with $V=20$ mag. Furthermore we found three objects with significantly negative $\Delta a$-values indicating either an Ae/shell or λ Bootis nature. The overall percentage of chemically peculiar stars for NGC 1866 (1.5% ) seems lower than for the majority of open clusters in our Milky Way whereas the incidence within the LMC field is decisively less (0.3% ).


We have studied the interaction between the perennial host Pulsatilla pratensis and the systemic rust fungus Puccinia pulsatillae. The disease sterilizes plants by inhibiting the production of flowers. Diseased plants were also vegetatively more vigorous, producing more leaves than healthy ones. This enhanced growth of diseased plants is interpreted as being due to a trade-off between loss of reproductive capacity and vegetative growth. A 3-yr demographic study detected a tendency for greater survivorship among diseased P. pratensis plants. This may be due to the increased vigour of infected plants. No herbivore (leaf eating insects or cattle) was observed to consume P. pratensis, but disease levels varied greatly between localities that had been grazed and ungrazed by cattle. On grazed localities low disease levels prevailed while at ungrazed localities disease levels were high. This pattern appears to be due to greater survivorship among diseased plants and the failure of seedlings to establish in ungrazed localities


A recent publication and other sources in the nadiologic literature state that when CT shows definitive fat within a renal mass, renal cell carcinoma can be excluded and angiomyolipoma can be established as the diagnosis [i -4]. We report a renal mass that was proved to be an oncocytoma containing focal areas of intnatumonal, engulfed sinus fat. This finding should not be misinterpreted as intrinsic tumor fat, which would lead to the erroneous diagnosis of angiomyolipoma.


Aero-sledges were first used in the Soviet Arctic on the ice-cap of Novaya Zemlya in 1932-–33; but the experiment was, on the whole, unsuccessful. It may be of interest to describe the experiences of two other expeditions, on which they were used with highly satisfactory results, proving them to be an extremely effective and convenient means of transport.


A high-quality organic thin film for integrated nonlinear optics is produced by molecular beam deposition of a compact molecule that has a high specific third-order
 polarizability. The resulting dense, homogenous, amorphous supramolecular assembly with a large third-order nonlinearity and high-optical quality enables novel applications in integrated
 nonlinear optics.


As a well-known conventional finishing process, the grinding is commonly used to manufacture seal mating surfaces and bearing surfaces. It would lead to generate another finishing machining, which more cost-and energy-efficient, so the grinding process could be replaced by machining with roller burnishing or special type of polishing. The machined surfaces by turning or grinding usually have twist structure on the surfaces, which can convey lubricants such as conveyor screw. To avoid this phenomenon have to use special kind of techniques or machine, for example, rotation turning, tangential turning, ultrasonic protection or special toll geometries. All of these solutions have a high cost and difficult usability. In this paper, the authors describe a system and summarize the results of the experimental research carried out mainly in the field of Magnetic Abrasive Polishing (MAP) and Magnetic Roller Burnishing (MRB). These technologies are simple and also cheap while result the twist-free surfaces. During the tests, C45 normalized steel was used as workpiece material which was machined by simple and Wiper geometrical turning inserts in a CNC turning lathe. After the turning was used the MAP and MRB technologies to reduce the twist of surfaces. The evaluation was completed by advanced measuring and IT equipment.


This research conducted discusses the crime rate in South Sulawesi Province. There are several main factors that can lead to crime, especially in South Sulawesi Province. This research was conducted to see the Spatial Seemingly Unrealated Regression SUR) model at the crime rate in South Sulawesi Province, but there are assumptions that do not meet the SUR Spatial Analysis, so the model obtained is limited to the Spatial Autoregressive (SAR) and Spatial Eror Model (SEM). The SAR model obtained shows that the population, the number of poor people, and the GDP per capita have a positive and significant effect on the risk of the population being affected by crime. The SEM model obtained shows a positive and significant effect between the population, the number of unemployed has a negative and significant effect on the risk of the population being exposed to crime.


In this paper we present an multi-robotic system for underwater exploration, specifically for coastal seas. The novelty of this system is its enhanced performance in underwater localization using underwater acoustic ranging and data transfer between the floats. This process is not dependent on any fixed infrastructure, which is usually a requirement for such missions. An algorithm is implemented in the floats for underwater localization, based on an Extended Kalman Filter. Extensive real scenario simulation test results are presented.


An air-energy infant incubator comprises an incubator body, an air energy apparatus, a controller and a smart phone. The incubator body comprises a transparent case, a transparent case cover, an automatic cover opening apparatus, a cover locking apparatus, a drawer and a drawer driving apparatus. The controller is provided with control lines to be connected with the air energy apparatus, the drawer driving apparatus, the cover locking apparatus, an outside-case temperature sensor and the human body sensor. Once power is off, the transparent case cover of the incubator body can be opened automatically, so that an infant is prevented from being smothered in the case, and air ventilation in the incubator body is maintained; once the temperature of the incubator body is out of control, an infanette and the infant can be moved out of the incubator body by the drawer driving apparatus, so that the health and the life of the infant are prevented from being affected by the out-of-control temperature; the smart phone which uploads video and audio signals of the infant on the infanette to the internet is arranged, so that the infant parents or related persons can observe the condition of the infant at any time through the internet.


The invention provides a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor (CMOS) image sensor structure and a formation method. The silicon-on-insulator CMOS image sensor structure sequentially comprises a wafer back gettering layer, a silicon base layer as a support layer, a buried oxide layer as an insulating layer, a silicon top layer as an active layer, an interlayer dielectric layer and a metal interconnection layer from bottom to top, wherein a device unit and a pixel unit are formed in the silicon top layer; a photodiode, a transmission pipe, a reset pipe and a source follow pipe are formed in the pixel unit; additional gettering structures for absorbing impurities are formed in the silicon top layer and the interlayer dielectric layer, and surround the pixel unit; through the gettering structures, the impurities in the silicon top layer can be effectively absorbed; noise current is reduced; and the image quality is improved.


Binary-black-hole orbits precess when the black-hole spins are misaligned with the binary's orbital angular momentum. The apparently complicated dynamics can in most cases be described as simple precession of the orbital angular momentum about an approximately fixed total angular momentum. However, the imprint of the precession on the observed gravitational-wave signal is yet more complicated, with a nontrivial time-varying dependence on the black-hole dynamics, the binary's orientation and the detector polarization. As a result, it is difficult to predict under which conditions precession effects are measurable in gravitational-wave observations, and their impact on both signal detection and source characterization. We show that the observed waveform can be simplified by decomposing it as a power series in a new precession parameter b = tan ( β / 2 ) , where β is the opening angle between the orbital and total angular momenta. The power series is made up of five harmonics, with frequencies that differ by the binary's precession frequency, and individually do not exhibit amplitude and phase modulations. In many cases, the waveform can be well approximated by the two leading harmonics. In this approximation we are able to obtain a simple picture of precession as caused by the beating of two waveforms of similar frequency. This enables us to identify regions of the parameter space where precession is likely to have an observable effect on the waveform, and to propose a new approach to searching for signals from precessing binaries, based upon the two-harmonic approximation.


The basic concepts of wavelet transform, median filter and average filter are introduced. Their application in magnetic induction sensor for processing imagine gets across a good practicality. The export wave forms of the magnetic sensor become perfect through wavelet noise immune. This method acquires successfully right effects in the application to this field.


The leaf color of seedling populations derived from ornamental genotypes of Japanese barberry ( Berberis thunbergii DC.) was evaluated to determine whether nursery selections of this important landscape plant could be expected to produce green-leaf progeny or seedlings with leaf color resembling the purple-leaf or yellow-leaf parent. This is a compelling inquiry since nearly all B. thunbergii plants found within invasive populations possess green foliage and the potential contribution of seedlings by ornamental purple- and yellow-leaf genotypes is unknown. Seed lots collected from cultivated barberry genotypes located in landscape settings were processed and raised in a greenhouse to observe leaf color phenotype. It was found that all genotypes studied produced at least some green seedlings. The percentage of green progeny produced varied widely by genotype. Green-leaf cultivars yielded close to 100% green seedlings and all purple- and yellow-leaf forms produced at least 20% green of fspring. Among purple-leaf genotype accessions located adjacent to potential purple-leaf pollen donors, var . atropurpurea produced significantly fewer green seedlings (18.5%) than 'Crimson Pygmy' (71%) and 'Rose Glow' (45%). 'Rose Glow' individuals growing adjacent to other purple Japanese barberry forms produced significantly fewer green seedlings (45%) than 'Rose Glow' accessions that were isolated from additional purple Japanese barberry (88%). This study demonstrates that some invasive green-leaf B. thunbergii could be derived from popular garden forms since purple- and yellowleaf genotypes readily produce green-leaf of fspring which resemble feral barberry. These findings do not, however, provide any definitive link between cultivated and naturalized Japanese barberry.


Purpose

To fully understand the concept of social entrepreneurship (SE), contextual factors need to be accounted as the influence of the institutional environment on individual behaviour has received little attention in the literature. By heeding the research call for quantitative work in this emerging field, hypotheses are formulated which predict the influence of different institutional profiles on SE intentions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

A cross-sectional survey design was administered in an under-researched emerging market context – South Africa. Hypotheses were then statistically tested using correlational analysis and structural equation modelling.

Findings

The results indicate that the regulatory environment has a positive and significant impact on feasibility and desirability, and furthermore both feasibility and desirability positively affect intentions.

Originality/value

The study contributes towards a new understanding of the influence of the institutional environment on social entrepreneurial intentions and its antecedents in an African emerging market context, and may serve as a catalyst for this emerging and important global activity.


Introduction and Objective: Cytochrome P450 1B1 (CYP1B1) has been shown to be up-regulated in many types of cancer including renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Several reports have shown that CYP1B1 can influence the regulation of tumor development; however, its role in RCC has not been well investigated. The aim of the present study was to determine the functional effects of CYP1B1 gene on tumorigenesis in RCC. Methods: Expression of CYP1B1 was determined in RCC cell lines, and tissue microarrays of 96 RCC and 25 normal tissues. To determine the biological significance of CYP1B1 in RCC progression, we silenced the gene in Caki-1 and 769-P cells by RNA interference and performed various functional analyses. Results: First, we confirmed that CYP1B1 protein expression was significantly higher in RCC cell lines compared to normal kidney tissue. This trend was also observed in RCC samples (p Conclusions: CYP1B1 may promote RCC development by inducing CDC20 expression and inhibiting apoptosis through the down-regulation of DAPK1. Our results demonstrate that CYP1B1 can be a potential tumor biomarker and a target for anticancer therapy in RCC. Citation Format: Yozo Mitsui, Inik Chang, Shinichiro Fukuhar, Hiroshi Hirata, Ryan Kenji Wong, Soichiro Yamamura, Varahram Shahryari, Guoren Deng, Saini Sharanjot, Shahana Majid, Hiroaki Shiina, Rajvir Dahiya, Yuichiro Tanaka. Inhibitory effect of CYP1B1 on antitumor activities induced by dysregulated CDC20 and DAPK1 in renal cell carcinoma. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 1155.


In interrelations of adjacent occupations every occupation shows clearly the possibility or the impossibility of its professionalizing. Accordingly I analyze the interrelations on medical occupations, legal ones, and so on.Between adjacent occupations, one occupation is prevented from professionalizing by the other occupation when the job territory of the former overlaps with that of the latter, or the function of the former can be included by that of the latter. The cause of non-professionalizing is A or B.A. The theoretical knowledges which both or either of those occupations uses are insufficiently systematic.B. The technology of the former occupation is confined in a part of vertically divided service process while that of the latter occupation is not confined.Therefore, by the removal of each cause, the occupations whose job territories overlap with those of their adjacent occupations, or whose functions can be included by those of their adjacent occupations professionalize to a high degree. But all the occupations can not remove each cause. Some of the occupations can remove it and others can not.


808 Background: To clarify the prognostic factors in breast cancer patients with axillary soft tissue metastases.

METHODS
620 connective breast carcinoma patients with modified redical mastectomy were involved in this study, axillary lymph nodes dissection including level I, level II and level III. At least 20 lymph nodes were found for pathology diagnosis in each case. The follow up rate was 99.7%(2/620).

RESULTS
49.8% (309/620) of all the patients were local regional lymph nodes metastases, 29.8%(92/309) of them were axillary soft tissue metastases. The five year overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS) of those with lymph nodes metastases were both 72.8% (158/217), respectively. OS and DFS of 10 years were 64.5% (140/217) and 62.2%, respectively. 5 and 10 years OS of the patients with both axillary lymph nodes and soft tissue metastases was 40.2% (37/92) and 27.1% (25/92) respectively,x2 was 29.5, 36.2, p=0.000. There were 84 cases with more than 10 lymph nodes metastases and level III lymph node metastases. Out of these 84 cases, there were 24 cases without soft tissue involved, 10 year OS was 20.8% (5/24); There were 35 cases with all three level axillary soft tissue metastases, the 10 year OS was 8.6% (3/35), x2 =0.93, p0.25. Statistical analysis showed that axillary soft tissue metastases correlated with survival negatively, r =-0.404, p=0.000. COX regression analysis showed that x2 =173.016, p=0.000, RR=2.055 (95%CI, 1.81∼2.321), demonstrating that cases with axillary soft tissue metastases have two time possibility of distant metastases and mortality comparing with the cases without axillary soft tissue metastases, x2 =104.638, p=0.000. The axillary soft tissue metastases is another independent prognostic factor comparing with the metastases level and number of the regional lymph nodes, x2 =185.169, p=0.000.

CONCLUSIONS
Although the influence of axillary soft tissue metastases to the survival was weaker than that of level and number of local regional lymph nodes metastases, it still correlated with the survival period of breast carcinoma patients and was a significant prognostic and therapeutic index in breast cancer patients. No significant financial relationships to disclose.


We treat supply chain of business enterprises as a distributed system of collaborative processes, where the system dynamics is governed by the events that occur within each enterprise and/or across several enterprises. While each enterprise has its own middleware for handling business transactions, we argue that there is also need for a meta-middleware across the whole supply chain. We present a formalism to build the control structure, which must be embedded in such a meta-middleware. We provide an illustrative example.


The telephone network had a remarkably clear overriding service objective: It had to sustain a human conversation. Now this must be able to carry a signal which is a human voice. To be discernible to human listeners, its necessary to carry audio frequencies of between 300 and 3,500 Hz. Most of the energy in a human voice signal is below 1Khz, and speaking would fit within a dynamic range of 50db from quiet to loud. In terms of perception, we may have 50db of dynamic range, but we find it hard to distinguish between similar amplitude levels and for an intelligible reproduction of the human voice we only need to use somewhere between 200 and 300 discrete amplitude levels. Human perception about what constitutes an interactive conversation tends to have a delay threshold of 300ms. If the delay between the two conversing parties is less than this threshold, they will not speak over each other, whereas higher delays cause us to trip over each other by interrupting because we interpret a pause as a silence gap, not a result of signal propagation delay. Out of this comes a set of parameters for a digitised voice signal, using an 8-bit sample (giving 256 discrete levels) taken every 125us (being able to encode a maximum frequency of 4,000 Hz). A voice signal can therefore be encoded as a digital voice channel of a constant rate of 64Kbps. If a digital network is precise in switching time, such that jitter and drop are minimised, and if the end-to-end delay is held to within 300ms, then such a network would meet the minimum quality levels to be able to carry clearly discernible human conversations. However, switching these synchronous circuits is challenging. The sharing technique used in the telephone network was Time Division Multiplexing, relying on highly stable and tightly synchronised clocks at the sender and receiver. This time switching element was probably the most significant cost point for digital telephone networks.


The India–France SARAL/AltiKa mission is the first Ka-band altimetric mission dedicated primarily to oceanography. The mission objectives were firstly the observation of the oceanic mesoscales but also global and regional sea level monitoring, including the coastal zone, data assimilation, and operational oceanography. SARAL/AltiKa proved also to be a great opportunity for inland waters applications, for observing ice sheet or icebergs, as well as for geodetic investigations. The mission ended its nominal phase after three years in orbit and began a new phase (drifting orbit) in July 2016. The objective of this paper is to highlight some of the most remarkable achievements of the SARAL/AltiKa mission in terms of scientific applications. Compared to the standard Ku-band altimetry measurements, the Ka-band provides substantial improvements in terms of spatial resolution and data accuracy. We show here that this leads to remarkable advances in terms of observation of the mesoscale and coastal ocean, waves, river water levels, ice sheets, icebergs, fine scale bathymetry features as well as for the many related applications.


For the nonlinear third order system x…+g()+f(x,)+h(x)=p(x,,),a better Lyapunov function is constructed in this paper,and the original stronger requirement is removed here as the Lyapunov function must trend to infinity,and there is only one need that the positive half orbit of the system is bounded.The results improve the conclusions of relevant literature.At last,the simulation of example shows the conditions for the effectiveness.


. The pathology of maxillary sinusitis has been worked out by Dmochowsky in adults and confirmed by Dean in children. On this basis it would seem as though the time had arrived when we might attempt a clinical classification of symptoms based on the pathology present at the time, not only for diagnostic purposes, but also as influencing our prognosis and treatment. This is of particular importance, as the writer believes that certain pathologic conditions in maxillary sinusitis are the basis of chronic invalidism or may cause death. Moreover, it should be possible to determine and remedy such conditions in time to save the patient. Such cases are not infrequent, and it is a practical question to not only make adiagnosis, but for rhinologists to come to some agreement on how such cases should be treated. For this purpose, let us analyze the accepted classification Of chronic maxillary sinusitis to determine what cases give symptoms over which we. need have no concern, and what cases require immediate and radical surgery.


Most coastal habitats exhibit a degree of successional change and have the potential to reestablish after extreme events, hence in an unmodified state they could be relatively resilient to some elements of climate change. The legacy of past intervention has resulted in a reduced capacity for adaptation to coastal change without significant intervention in some places. In particular the reduction in sediment supply is critical as it underpins coastal form and function.


: The high-voltage distribution device is an important part of the power supply system which shoulders the dual tasks of control and protection. The function of the high-voltage distribution device is closely related to the safe operation of the power supply system. The condition monitoring of high-voltage distribution device can detect the specific parts of the fault in a timely and effective way which can improve the stability of the system. The mechanical vibration signal of circuit breaker body in mine high-voltage distribution device is a rich information carrier which contains a large number of device operating status information. Using modern information processing technology, the special parameters of mechanical faults are extracted from vibration signals, which have very important practical significance. Based on the analysis of the common mechanical faults in the high-voltage power distribution unit, a set of online vibration signal processing system with perfect function and reliable operation has been developed, which provides the technical guarantee for the reliable operation of the high-voltage power distribution unit.


Abstract. The applicability of a previously proposed finite strain model of nonlocal damage is analyzed. The model kinematics is based on the multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient into three parts: porosity-induced dilatation, elastic strain, and plastic strain. The nonlocality is introduced by integral-based averaging operator, applied to the so-called continuity parameter, which is dual to porosity. Withing the advocated modelling framework, basic principles like objectivity and thermodynamic consistency are satisfied. Using a home-made FEM code, we compare simulation results with actual experimental data regarding crack initiation and propagation. The underlying problem of destruction of a plate with a hole is considered, naturally involving large inelastic deformations prior to strain localization. The plate's material is Russian structural steel 20. A quantitative comparison is carried out in terms of force-displacement curves. Experimentally measured strain distributions and crack growth are used for a qualitative validation of the nonlocal model.


This paper reports on a survey of literature on the implementation of information technology IT, primarily in small businesses. The result of this survey is the identification of key factors that impact an IT implementation, with a special focus on the infusion stage. Infusion is the last stage of a suggested IT implementation model. This stage, representing IT implementation success, is important because studies show that increasing the depth and breadth of IT penetration into a small business should lead to increased efficiency and effectiveness. From this literature review, we develop a conceptual model showing how the infusion stage is evaluated using a stepwise scheme of analysis. The model is an extension of the Ein-Dor and Segev model originally used to evaluate management information systems and later, end-user computing.


: The shortcomings of the graphic statements on electrode polarization curves and electrolysis curves in current physical chemistry textbook were discussed. The electrolysis curves were recorded using Pt as the electrode, and 1.0 mol ∙ L - 1 KOH and 0.50 mol ∙ L - 1 H 2 SO 4 as electrolytes. The key experimental phenomena in both low-voltage and high-voltage regions were discussed, which would be helpful for the profound understanding of the electrolysis process. On this basis, the electrolysis and polarization curves in the forms helpful for the physical chemistry teaching were suggested.


Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are a group of oxidants formed during oxygen metabolism. ROS appears to be involved in the pathogenesis of many human diseases. In reproductive medicine, ROS have both physiological and pathological role in male and female reproduction. Oxidative stress causes damage to spermatozoa, oocyte and embryos. It appears to play a role in both natural and in vitro fertilization and pregnancy.  In In recent years there has been a tremendous increase in couples seeking assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures in order to have children. However, the success rates of these procedures still remain very low. The negative impact of oxidative stress on fertility has become widely recognized. Several studies have demonstrated its negative effect on the number and quality of retrieved oocytes and embryos following in-vitro fertilization (IVF).   One of the major contributing factors to the low success rate in ART has been the damage caused by free radicals to the gametes and the developing embryo. Oxidative stress can originate from the early steps of ART involving the oocyte, sperm and embryo, as well as in the endometrial environment later on following embryo transfer. The patients with oxidative stress may benefit from the strategies to reduce oxidative stress and treatment with antioxidants. This review assessed the evidence for the effectiveness of different antioxidants in female and male subfertility. Keywords : infertility, assisted reproductive techniques, antioxidants, vitamin E, coenzyme Q10,  L-Carnitine ,  pentoxifylline, N-Acetyl cysteine, Zinc, melatonin, vitamin C


On the basis of situ data observed at Lijin station from 1950 to 2011, the regional differences and abrupt changes of water discharge and sediment load are divided into different phases using the methods of Mann- Kendall test and order clustering. The abrupt change of water discharge and sediment load existed at Lijin station in 1985, and discharge and sediment decreased insignificantly from 1985 to 2011. The characteristics of the periodicities of water discharge and sediment load from the Yellow River estuary are studied by using power- spectrum, cross- spectrum and wavelet analysis. The periodic oscillations of water discharge and sediment load from the Yellow River are found at inter-annual scale and decadal scale. The significant correlation coefficients between two datasets occur at the scales of 2.86a, 4.44a and 13.33a. The phase characteristics of water discharge and sediment load are related to the precipitation and human activities; after the 1980s the decreases are mainly induced by human activities, especially due to the use of the reservoirs, water diversion and engineering projects related with soil and water conservation. Moreover, the inter-annual and decadal fluctuation of water discharge and sediment load from the Yellow River are caused directly by the oscillation of the precipitation at the drainage basin, and the rudimentary mechanism of multi- scale fluctuations are due to the northwest Pacific subtropical high,whose location oscillates in inter- annual and decadal periods, as well as sun spot and precipitation,. The decadal scale periodic oscillation of water discharge and sediment load from the Yellow River cause abrupt changes. The main reason for the stepwise step of phase is related with human activities.


Current research aims at studying the methods of assessing energy-efficient technologies. An overview of architectural and constructive solutions based on the principles of bioclimatic architecture has been presented. Solutions that are targeted at protecting the building from excessive solar radiation as well as increasing the level of energy efficiency of the building have been evaluated. Relevant architectural and construction schemes of buildings have been presented. The operation of phase-change materials and the effectiveness of their application in construction has been analyzed and compared with classical building materials. The experimental setup of N. Yu and his co-authors has been considered, and their studies devoted to the comparison of two phase-change materials such as GH-33 and GH-37 have been described. The method of climatic analysis of regions based on the Givoni chart has been studied. The climatic zoning of Libya based on the analysis of the average monthly maximum and minimum temperature proposed by P. C. Agrawal is presented.


Through investigating nine community health service centers of Shenhe District in Shenyang and analyzing related materials,discuss cooperation feasibility between the large-scale comprehensive hospital and community health service centers,such as staff training and technology supporting,checking clinical results,as well as the "return consultant",providing a reference basis for establishing new city medical health service system.


Abstract Five duodenally and ruminally cannulated Holstein heifers were used in a 5 × 5 Latin square design to determine the potential of substituting NDF of soyhulls or corn gluten feed for forage NDF, and effects on site of nutrient digestion. All diets were formulated to contain 31% NDF, and diets had 85% (control), 65 or 45% (low or high corn gluten feed), and 65 or 45% (low or high soyhulls) of total NDF from corn silage and alfalfa hay (1: 1). Ruminal pH was lower at 3 h postfeeding in heifers fed high versus low substitution diets. Ruminal disappearance in situ of NDF of alfalfa hay was higher when heifers were fed control diet and lower when they were fed high soyhulls, possibly mediated by ruminal pH. Total tract NDF digestibility was lower in heifers fed control than other diets, perhaps due to its higher proportion of less degradable forage NDF. Heifers fed low corn gluten feed or high soyhulls had reduced ruminal NDF digestibilities but greater total tract (and hindgut) NDF digestibilities than those fed high corn gluten feed or low soyhulls; heifers fed low corn gluten feed had faster ruminal fluid outflow, which may have increased passage of small, soluble particles. Low ruminal pH may have depressed ruminal digestibility of NDF by heifers fed high soyhulls. Duodenal N flow and efficiency of bacterial growth in the rumen were not affected by treatment. Apparent ruminal escape of soyhull protein was greater than for corn gluten feed protein. Results are interpreted to suggest that, in dairy rations containing by-products, 65% of dietary NDF as forage may be sufficient.


Lymphoedema and chronic oedema often affect those requiring residential and nursing care. In the first part of a series on lymphoedema, Joanne Jones sets out to define both lymphoedema and chronic oedema


As a new financial model and financial system,Internet finance has direct impact on the basis of social integrity in its development process. In order to ensure Internet finance releasing"positive energy"to the largest extent in the socio-economic development,it's necessary to steadily push forward credit reference system building compatible with Internet finance,and improve the regulatory system of Internet finance and relavant legal institutions.


To solve chemical problems with variable and nonrigid constraints, a method based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was presented. By mathematical analysis and transform, the variable constraints were regard as an item to be optimized. Then the item multiplied by penalty and combined with the primary objective function. So the primary problem was transferred to the multi-objective function, and can be solved by multi-objective PSO algorithm. With problems solved by multi-objective PSO and analysis of the solutions related with variable constraints, reasonable solution and optimal scheme can be obtained. The proposed method was used to optimize a chemical design problem and a parameter estimation problem. The results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective.


High-throughput sequencing measurements of the vaginal microbiome have yielded intriguing potential 16 relationships between the vaginal microbiome and preterm birth (PTB; live birth prior to 37 weeks of 17 gestation). However, results across studies have been inconsistent. Here we perform an integrated analysis 18 of previously published datasets from 12 cohorts of pregnant women whose vaginal microbiomes were 19 measured by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Of 1926 women included in our analysis, 568 went on to deliver 20 prematurely. Substantial variation between these datasets existed in their definition of preterm birth, 21 characteristics of the study populations, and sequencing methodology. Nevertheless, a small group of taxa 22 comprised a vast majority of the measured microbiome in all cohorts. We trained machine learning (ML) 23 models to predict PTB from the composition of the vaginal microbiome, finding low to modest predictive 24 accuracy (0.28-0.79). Predictive accuracy was typically lower when ML models trained in one dataset 25 predicted PTB in another dataset. Earlier preterm birth (<32 weeks, <34 weeks) was more predictable from 26 the vaginal microbiome than late preterm birth (34 - 37 weeks), both within and across datasets. Integrated differential abundance analysis revealed a highly significant negative association between L. crispatus and 28 PTB that was consistent across almost all studies. The presence of the majority (18 out of 25) of genera 29 was associated with a higher risk of PTB, with L. iners , Prevotella , and Gardnerella showing particularly 30 consistent and significant associations. Some example discrepancies between studies could be attributed to specific methodological differences, but not most study-to-study variations in the relationship between 32 the vaginal microbiome and preterm birth. We believe future studies of the vaginal microbiome and PTB will 33 benefit from a focus on earlier preterm births, and improved reporting of specific patient metadata shown to influence the vaginal microbiome and/or birth outcomes. 90 pregnant women (88% African American; PTBs <34 weeks). DiGiulio et al. (2015) reported that 57 lower Lactobacillus and higher Gardnerella abundances in the vaginal microbiome were associated with a higher 58 risk of PTB (55%+ white; PTBs <37 weeks). Callahan et al. (2017) replicated these findings in a study cohort 59 drawn from the same population as DiGiulio et al. (2015), but not in a different cohort with a prior history of PTB 60 (82% African American; PTBs <37 weeks). Kindinger et al. (2017) found a lack of Lactobacillus crispatus and 61 Lactobacillus iners dominance were risk factors for PTB in a cohort of UK women (65% white; PTBs <34 weeks). 62 Fettweis et al. (2019) reported lower L. crispatus abundance was a risk factor for PTB in a predominantly black cohort 63 of women (75% African American; PTBs <37 weeks). These studies employed a variety of different sequencing 64 methodologies, including targeting different regions of the 16S rRNA gene, and varied in how they included and 65 reported spontaneous versus indicated preterm births. longitudinal vaginal microbiome datasets with batch correction and reported several microbial genera as associated with PTB. However, they did not explore the heterogeneity cross-study and did not perform predictive analyses. Gudnadottir et al. (2022) performed a network-based meta-analysis of 17 longitudinal vaginal microbiome datasets using community state types (CSTs). Their results supported the predictivity of preterm birth using the vaginal microbiome but did not build any prediction models and CSTs reduce the description of the vaginal microbiome to the identity of its most abundant member. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of 12 prospective case-control PTB datasets obtained using 16S rRNA gene sequencing to measure the vaginal microbiome during pregnancy. 12 preterm. After sequencing consistent bioinformatics pipeline, we used a machine learning approach to investigate the predictability of PTB from the composition of the vaginal microbiome each study We evaluated cross-dataset reproducibility of PTB predictions from the vaginal microbiome, and investigated PTB and study-specific factors that affected prediction accuracy. We explored the association between specific microbial 107 taxa and PTB within and across studies. Finally, we synthesized these results into specific recommendations and 108 cautions applicable to future study of the vaginal microbiome in PTB, and perhaps to the study of microbiomes in 109 health and disease more broadly. in which this pattern was not evident were also the two datasets in which PTB was the least 309 predictable overall. A strength of this analysis is the strong control of between-study differences: Comparisons are 310 being made between early and late preterm births within a study, and the number of preterm births in each category 311 per study is held constant. We believe these results support the prioritization of earlier preterm birth (< 34 weeks, 312 or even earlier) in future studies of the relationship between the vaginal microbiome and PTB. Prioritization of earlier 313 preterm births is consistent with their much higher morbidity and mortality. It is also supported by the arbitrariness 314 cutoff, which can result in weak differences between term births - 40 weeks) and the late preterm 315 births - weeks) that predominate in study cohorts targeting all preterm births.


We prove that a weak solution u = (u 1, u 2, u 3) to the Navier–Stokes equations is strong, if any two components of u satisfy Prodi–Ohyama–Serrin's criterion. As a local regularity criterion, we prove u is bounded locally if any two components of the velocity lie in L 6, ∞.


Zeolites are microporos minerals that consist of aluminasilicates and are widely used commercially in different applications. They are used as components in detergents, for ion-exchange in water ...


170Background: In May 2005, the Curie Institute in Paris opened the first supportive care day hospital in France. This type of new ward is now very frequent in the French comprehensive cancer centers. Methods: Patients are managed by the palliative care team with a two-part team of a physician and a nurse in order to address their supportive care needs: advanced-care symptoms, psychosocial distress, medical questions and concerns, support need in decision making, end of life care preference and advance care plan when patients or caregivers when needed. Depending of the needs identified by the palliative care team assess, at least 2 of the following healthcare professionals will intervene: oncologist, pain physician, psycho-oncologist, dietitician, social worker, physiotherapist. Coordination with the home care team takes systematically place (with general practitioner, nurse and home palliative care team). New symptoms occurrence are explored with biological test or radiographic examination when necessary...


In this article, a compact dual‐port dual‐frequency slot antenna compatible with printed circuit board (PCB) technology is proposed. The antenna has two feed structures for two frequencies with slots and the capacitive matching circuits. The antenna radiates at specific frequency with the matching network and the frequency of the antenna can be adjustable by changing the matching element parameters. Taking the advantage of resonance by the subwavelength feed slots, the efficient radiation can be achieved at the outer ground edge of the PCB board, thus contributing to the excellent performance of gain and the good isolation between two frequency band paths. In consideration given to the wireless communication application bands, the antenna is designed to work at 1.57 and 2.4 GHz. The experimental radiation patterns show a unidirectional antenna with maximum radiation of 0.86 dBi in 171° direction at 1.57 GHz and maximum radiation of 5.2 dBi in 278° direction at 2.4 GHz, respectively. The proposed compact cost‐effective antenna demonstrates the potential of application in small multifrequency Internet of Things devices to drive WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS.


Vitamin A intoxication as a consequence of megavitamin therapy for minimal brain dysfunction occurred in a 4-year-old boy. An early clue to diagnosis was provided by an abnormal bone scan.


Introductory biology students, at both the secondary school and college levels, are customarily introduced to the light microscope early in their courses, but instruction in the use of micrometers is usually omitted. This omission occurs not because the methods of measurement are complex, but because the instruments required-a stage and ocular micrometer-are too fragile and expensive to be placed in inexperienced hands. Because it is desirable to introduce students to quantitative concepts in the study of cells and tissues, we produced simple, inexpensive, replicas of stage and ocular micrometers. (Replicas of ocular micrometers are not, to our knowledge, commercially produced. We did discover an excellent replica of a stage micrometer that is available from Ann Arbor Biological Center, Inc., 6780 Jackson Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103, after we had prepared this article.)


In the years after 1980, drug trials departed increasingly from the concept of treating real patients. Clinical trials accompanied psychopharmacology as a basic means of gathering evidence in the field, but they also served as the premier means of evasion and distortion used fraudulently and covertly to corrupt the evidence base of psychopharmacology. The fundamental problem in running clinical trials of depression treatments was that the "patients" were considered heterogeneous or "fantasy patients" who really had nothing. Leo Hollister recommended that depression trials be confined to patients with serious or "endogenous" depression, who were the minority of patients encountered in clinical practice.


This paper proposes a method whereby a set of computed mode shapes for a structure and set of measured mode shapes may be compared through the mass matrix. The errors between the two are found to fall into three categories: (a) mutual orthogonality of the measured modes is not satisfied, (b) the sets of modal vectors do not span the same subspaces, and (c) the modes are not perfectly aligned with the common subspace. In all three cases, the errors emerge as a set of angles, and the number of angles associated with each class of error is the same as the number of modes in the sets being compared. The sets of angles can each be combined into a single error angle for each class and ultimately a single angle, which reflects the degree of agreement between the measured and computed mode shapes.


Eyetracking is one of the latest technologies that has shown potential in several areas including human-computer interaction for people with and without disabilities, and for noninvasive monitoring, detection, and even diagnosis of physiological and neurological problems in individuals. Current non-invasive eyetracking methods achieve a 30 Hz rate with possibly low accuracy in gaze estimation, that is insufficient for many applications. We propose a new non-invasive visual eyetracking system that is capable of operating at speeds as high as 6-12 KHz. A new CCD video camera and hardware architecture is used, and a novel fast image processing algorithm leverages specific features of the input CCD camera to yield a real-time eyetracking system. A field programmable gate array (FPGA) is used to control the CCD camera and execute the image processing operations. Initial results show the excellent performance of our system under severe head motion and low contrast conditions.


We study the shift of global research interests from 1985 to 2016. We consider the 252 research areas in Web of Science and analyse the temporal variation of their rankings. In the last three decades, science dominates over both social sciences and humanities in the high ranks. The average ranking of science continues to rise. In contrast, a decline is observed in both social sciences and humanities. A widening gap is noted between science and humanities. The shift of research interests can be observed in the continuing change of similarity between two distributions from different years. However, the Lorenz curve remains stationary in the last thirty years. The 70/30 rule can be applied, where 70% of annual publications can be attributed to 30% of research areas.


Soots of four types were extracted from two different formulated diesel oils, namely oil 'A', a 15W40, and oil 'B', a 20W40, after engine (50 h) and tribological (20 h + 20 h) tests. The soots were dispersed into four different model solvents and base oils, and analysed by Photon Correlation Technique.

In a first study, soot particle size measurements were conducted after dilution in n-heptane, Kerdane solvent, 60N and 130N base oils. The influences of engine running-time and solvent nature have been particularly considered. The second study has been devoted to the aggregation kinetic of soots in these solvents.

These data are important for a better understanding of soot dispersion stability and the rheology of used oils in diesel engines.


A biomedical instrumentation system is composedfor a set of biosensors to estimate and delivering an approximation of abiological variable. In the acquisition process, the signals can be affected bydifferent types of noises causing a signal distortion; moreover, there are manytypes of noise sources that can be classified in two main groups:  natural sources (caused by physiologicalsystems) and artificial sources (caused by electrical and electronics devicesnear to the biomedical instrumentation system).A typical example of artificial sources ofnoise is the power distribution system; it produces electromagneticdisturbances affecting low voltage signals transmitted using a conductor cable.As result, the original signal is transformed into a composed waveform withdistortion.This chapter provides a guide to simulateelectromagnetic disturbances; making emphasis into the design andimplementation of tools based in digital signal processing for remove undesiredcomponents of the composed waveform. These Tools are applied to remove noisecaused by electromagnetic disturbances in biomedical instrumentation systems.These solutions are implemented throughalgorithms designed in MATLAB and the reader will appreciate the differencebetween traditional and alternatives strategies for the main purpose.


Objective: To observe the efficacy of MEBO in treating infected wounds with bone exposed. Method: 26 patients with infected wounds and bone exposure were treated locally with MEBO in association with sys- temic administration of antibacterial agents. Result: 17 cases had their wounds healed and 9 cases were subjected to skin grafting. Conclusion: MEBO has reliable efficacy in treating infected wounds with bone exposure. It is safe and worthy to be popularized.


Writing on "The European Economic Community and the Most-FavoredNation Clause," L. G. Jahnke of the Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia, discusses the compatibility of a free trade area with members' commitments under the GATT (p. 269). On the question of whether the E.E.C. countries have departed from their most-favored-nation commitments, some readers of the article might conceivably feel that the evidence is not yet complete and that a final conclusion might well await further developments. To a "News and Comments" section of the new Yearbook Donat Pharand of the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa has contributed a useful analysis of the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in the Expenses case. Geoffrey N. Pratt, Lecturer and Assistant to the Director of the Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University, has a brief but informative note on the Institute; there is, he submits, ' ' every expectation that the Institute may become a significant agent in the future developmen of air and space law research and teaching." Members of the American Society of International Law have every reason to congratulate their Canadian colleagues on the auspicious beginning of the Canadian Yearbook.


We consider a class of location-scale mixture of elliptical distributions. This class of distributions takes skewness into consideration and presents a mathematically tractable extension of the multivariate elliptical distribution. We give some sufficient and/or necessary conditions for various integral stochastic orders such as usual stochastic order, convex order, increasing convex order and directionally convex order. Two important assumptions are given in this paper to compare random variables under usual stochastic order and increasing convex order.


What could it mean for educators within the "core disciplines" to teach in ways that challenge multiple forms of oppression? This article explores the implications of various "posts" perspectives on anti-oppressive education—especially poststructuralist perspectives—for social studies, English, mathematics, and science classrooms. The author focuses on two main theoretical constructs: unknowability, multiplicity, and looking beyond the known; and resistance, crisis, and resignifying the self. Implications for teacher education conclude the article.


Technical elastomers are indispensable in the field of mechanical engineering, due to their material properties. Based on their damping characteristic, they are often used to avoid load peaks and to influence the vibration behavior of dynamically loaded systems. Nevertheless, elastomers have not been investigated as intensively as other materials in the field of damage accumulation and lifetime prediction.This paper presents a simulation model for lifetime prediction of elastomer components. The lifetime is defined as the number of load cycles till the global damage reaches the value 1. This damage is calculated by a failure criterion based on the change of a characteristic value like the dynamic stiffness degradation from a finite-element (FE) simulation. The presented lifetime prediction model uses a damage-dependent material model (Yeoh-Model) and a nonlinear damage accumulation model (nlSAM), which was developed at the chair of Engineering Design and Plastics Machinery at the University of Duisburg-Es...


Objective:To investigate the effect of anti-CD3 plus anti-CD28 antibody co-stimulation on the release of interleukin-17 A (IL-17A) in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). And the effect of triptolide on IL-17A release was also studied. Methods:PBMCs were stimulated with anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody (10 μg / ml) and anti-CD28 monoclonal antibody (10 μg / ml). ELISA was applied to measure the concentration of IL-17A in the supernatant of the cell culture. Results:IL-17A was released in time-dependant manner by PBMCs due to anti-CD3 plus anti-CD28 co-stimulation,however the release could be inhibited by triptolide at the concentration of either 100 nmol / L or 500 nmol / L. Conclusion:IL-17A produced by PBMCs might play an important role in the mechanism of asthma. Triptolide might inhibit the Th2 type allergic inflammation in asthma through reducing the release of the IL-17A.


This invention relates to carton type materials based on mineral fibers. A composition of such material preferably comprises from 10 to 50% by weight of an inorganic material based on silica or silicate in fibrous form prepared from the melt, from 10 to 70 % by weight of clay, and a small proportion of a clean organic binder to hold the constituent minerals into a coherent structure, at least during manufacture, processing and implementation of the finished product the total organic matter exceeds not 8% by weight of dry materials. The material can be used in various thermal protection applications. It retains good high temperature strength through the combination of an organic binder with an inorganic binder.


We analyzed the theoretical performances and some clinical investigational results of a new low-vision aid system first described by CHOYCE and subsequently studied by DONN, KOESTER and BAYLEY.


Electron beam access to nonvolatile block-organized data stored on 6-μm centers has been accomplished with 15 μs latency and 32 Mb/s system throughput. Mechanisms internal to the MOSC target will be described and ultimate limitations to data packing, latency, READ and WRITE throughputs reviewed.


Morphological traits of the whole udder (circumference, width, height, and length), teats (angle, length and width), udder cistern (teat opening and cistern height), and milk yield were measured over one lactation in a total of 18 ewes (nine Chilota and nine Suffolk Down sheep) belonging to the same experimental flock (Centro Experimental INIA Butalcura, Chiloe, Chile). Analysis of variance showed significant effects for breed, sheep within breed, and stage of lactation. Chilota ewes evidenced greater udder circumference (433 mm), udder length (86 mm), teat opening (96o), and milk yield (947 mL d -1 ) than Suffolk Down ewes (410 mm, 77 mm, 93o, and 559 mL d -1 , respectively). Udder circumference, udder width, udder length, cistern height and teat size significantly decreased throughout lactation. Repeatabilities of all traits were between 0.17 and 0.60; the highest repeatability was for udder circumference. This trait is easy to measure and had a discriminatory value for breed differentiation. In conclusion, Chilota sheep had a dairy aptitude greater than Suffolk Down sheep and similar to Spanish and Mediterranean dairy sheep breeds at beginning of their breeding programs.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of root canal preparation with Nitiflex file and Flexofile. Forty mesio-buccal upper molar roots were used. After the preparation, the root canals were molded using an impression paste being then examined for the presence or absence of apical deviation, taper and surface. The results did not indicate any statistical difference between the use of the two types of instruments.


When one of the crops is a legume, intercropping has potential to reduce fertilizer nitrogen (N) needs and increase food quality. Total dry matter (DM) and grain yields of different plant populations of intercropped maize (Zea mays L.) and climbing beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata [L.] Walp.), or velvet beans (Mucuna pruriens [L.] DC. var utilis [Wight] Bruck.) were compared in two experiments. Maize populations were 40,400 and 50,500 plants ha−1 in combination with climbing bean populations of 0, 20,200, 40,400 and 80,800 plants ha−1 in Experiment 1. In the second experiment, climbing beans, cowpeas and velvet beans at 215,200 plants ha−1 were intercropped with maize at 64,600 plants ha−1. Climbing beans contributed up to 5% to total DM yields in the first experiment. In the second experiment legume contributions to total DM were 20% for climbing beans, 12% for cowpeas and 8% for velvet beans. Increasing populations of maize and climbing beans increased grain and DM yields. Dry matter yield of maize was lowered by intercropping. However, DM yields of the intercrop were not different to maize sole cropped. Maize/cowpeas produced more total DM than maize/climbing beans. Cowpeas increased the total yield of crude protein by over 15% without lowering total DM yield of the intercrop compared to maize alone and are promising as a legume for intercropping with maize. Climbing beans show little promise as a possible legume for intercropping with maize.


An apparatus is described for measuring the flow rate of cellulose xanthate solutions at known pressure gradients across spinning jets. It is shown that the jet hole behaves more like a capillary than an orifice in its effect on flow and that similar relationships exist for flow through spinning jet holes and a narrow pipe characterized by an equation of the form Q = Apb, where b has a value of approximately 1.5 for the high rates of shear strain found in spinning jets and 1.4 for the lower rates found in the pipe. A fundamental approach shows a similar discontinuity when comparing the relation between apparent viscosity coefficient and rate of shear strain, between low and high rates of shear. Experimental results are given for the effect of certain chemical factors in viscose solutions and the effect of spinning jet hole size, on the flow rate/pressure gradient curve.


The effective development of ejection seats for military aircraft depends on accurate measurement of seat trajectories during trials. While trajectory measurement systems have existed for some time the extraction of the trajectory from raw measurements has been laborious and the accuracy has been questionable. Further, development programmes have become more exacting in their requirements and as a result the existing systems have had to be replaced. This paper describes a number of alternative approaches which have been considered recently and discarded in favour of a computer vision solution based on high-speed digital cameras (initially digitised cine film) and manually supervised computer vision processing implemented on a standard PC. The computer vision software package integrates camera calibration, feature extraction, tracking and stereo processing to provide a 3D trajectory for each of the objects of interest. After a manual initialisation stage, the system runs automatically, but allows the operator the ability to intervene if necessary. Initial experiences with this new system indicate that it is providing notable timesavings and providing superior trajectory data compared with the earlier methods.


This research aims to determine the effect of cooperative learning model Listening Team on Mathematics Learning Outcomes Grade VIII MTs Thamrin Yahya Rambah Hilir. This research is a Quasi-Experiment. The sampling technique used was simple random sampling, which means a simple random sample. The sample in this research is class VIII-1 and VIII-2, in which the class VIII-2 as the experimental class using cooperative learning model Listening Team and class VIII-1 as a control class with conventional learning. The instrument used was a form of essay test. The hypothesis testing using test calculation results obtained is 4.353 > 2.0590 for = 0.05. Because , then H0 is rejected and H1 is accepted. Thus there is the effect of cooperative learning model Listening Team on mathematics learning outcomes eighth grade students of MTs Thamrin Yahya Rambah Hilir 2014/2015.


Background: Endometriosis defined as the presence of endometrial glands and stroma like tissues outside the uterine cavity. Scar endometriosis (SE) is a rare entity that is difficult to reach diagnosis due to the absence of a uniform clinical presentation with a variety in symptomatology and signs. It is usually a conflict for physicians of different specialists (surgeon, dermatologist, obstetrician, and gynecologist) that delay diagnosis.  Objective Studying the effect of medical treatment with luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) analogue on pain and mass size as a short-term therapy for cases with scar endometriosis that help postponing and reducing dissection size of the surgical intervention.  Patients and Methods: Our study included 14 patients, aged 18 to 40 y, having a previous gynecological or obstetric operation, a painful scar that may increase with menstruation, tender scar and mass palpable under scar diagnosed as scar endometriosis seen in our Mansoura University Hospital (MUH) and Private Clinic over 4.5 years. All patients underwent the following steps to reach a diagnosis ; history taking, examination and lab investigation, operative details and pain (visual analog scale). VAS scores pre-treatment were recorded then patients referred to ultrasound evaluation where any patients with suspicion of scar endometrioma underwent confirmation with FNAC (fine needle aspiration cytology). Patients diagnosed as scar endometriomas received LHRH analogue (Zoladex 3.6mg/month) for 6 months, then VAS score and ultrasound mass size were performed monthly and at the end of the medical treatment period. Patients who had no pain relief at the end of the treatment period were prepared for wide surgical excision with safety margins. Evaluation of the effect of short-term medical treatment as the post-treatment pain VAS score and mass size in comparison to their pretreatment findings were recorded in addition to its effect on surgical intervention postpone.Results: The study of the 14 patients showed that mean±SD of age was 28.79±4.99, mean±SD of BMI was 26.4 ±1.7, previous operation scar (Umbilical laparoscopic port 2 [14.3%], episiotomy 3 [21.4%] and cesarean scar (CS) scar 9[64.3%]). Cystic mass was 8[57.1%], heterogeneous mass was 6 [42.9%] and mean±SD of US size/cm was 2.42±0.67 (1.6-4.1). Median of pain duration/months was 26.0 (5.0-60.0). Mean±SD of pain VAS score before treatment was 8.0 (6.0-10.0), while after was 2.0 (0-8.0). Median of pain VAS score in cases with cystic lesions before and after treatment was 7.5 (6.0-9.0) and 1.0(0.0-7.0), respectively, with a statistically significant difference. Also, median of pain VAS score in cases with heterogeneous lesions before and after treatment was 9.0 (7.0-10.0) and 7.0 (2.0-8.0), respectively, with a statistically significant difference with more pain relieve in cystic cases than heterogenous one. Patients needed for surgical intervention and not responding to medical treatment were 8 [57.1%]. The cut of the level of US size of cystic lesions was ≤2.65cm, while for heterogeneous lesions was ≤2.20cm with an accuracy of 87.5% and 83.3 %, respectively.Conclusion: LHRH analogue short-term treatment for scar endometriosis is significantly effective in pain to relieve and decrease mass size in cystic lesions ≤2.65cm and heterogeneous lesions ≤2.05cm that allow surgical intervention postpone and minimize surgical dissection site.


This paper presents a new a‐Si:H gate driver circuit for large panel applications. Consisting of 12 TFTs and three capacitors, the proposed circuit is fabricated for measurement. The threshold voltage shift of TFTs is significantly reduced by reducing clock duty ratio. Experimental results indicate that the gate driver circuit operates stably under long‐term and high temperature testing.


By using the comparison theorem of differential equation,sufficient conditions which guarantee the permanence of the three-species food chain system with Beddington-DeAngelis functional response are obtained.


10 INTRODUCTION 11 MATERIALS AND METHODS 15 RESULTS 21 DISCUSSION 26 CHAPTER 2 Mechanism(s) involved in controlling levels of DrrB 43 ABSTRACT 44 INTRODUCTION 45 MATERIALS AND METHODS 48 RESULTS 55 DISCUSSION 67 DISCUSSION 98 REFERENCES 10244 INTRODUCTION 45 MATERIALS AND METHODS 48 RESULTS 55 DISCUSSION 67 DISCUSSION 98 REFERENCES 102


This Retrospective seeks to provide a synopsis of the history and achievements of Macquarie University Special Education Centre (MUSEC) over its first 25 years (1975-2000). It was compiled by Freya Purnell under the supervision of Robyn Beaman (MUSEC) and in liaison with Megan Etheridge and Anne Stadler of Macquarie University's Public Relations Unit, who had the original idea for the Retrospective.


The key objectives of insurance companies on a yearly basis are two-fold.
First, given the high competition in the insurance market, insurers compete intensively on price, quality of service, financial strength and many other factors across every lines of business. However, they are mainly concerned in increasing their profit, generate more sales and retain existing customers at the end of the calendar year in order to stand out from their competitors. In this respect, a new and evolving concept has recently been introduced in the scope of insurance; Price Optimisation. It is referred to the practice of increasing or decreasing premium rates of policyholders based on non-related risk factors. In this thesis, we show that the optimisation problems rely on an appropriate modeling of the elasticity of the customer due to premium change for the cases of new and renewal business.
Secondly, nowadays, insurance companies are governed by new regulations requiring them to hold a certain amount of capital, usually known as the Economic Capital, to cover their unexpected losses. The calculation of this capital falls under the Solvency II in Europe or the Swiss Solvency Test (SST) in Switzerland, for instance, and is based on an appropriate modeling of the dependence structure between insurance risks. This dependency is described by means of a copula. Therefore, in this thesis, we shall present applications of the copula approach in several insurance areas, namely in the computation of reinsurance premiums (Stop-Loss and Excess-of-Loss), risk aggregation and capital allocation when considering dependency between claims sizes and/or number of claims for two or more insurance portfolios as well as the fit of a copula model to some concrete insurance dataset.
In this thesis, we shall explore both objectives in details.


We show that the method of distributed noise-shaping beta-quantization offers superior performance for the problem of spectral super-resolution with quantization whenever there is redundancy in the number of measurements. More precisely, if the (integer) oversampling ratio λ is such that $\left\lfloor {M/\lambda } \right\rfloor - 1 \geq 4/\Delta $, where M denotes the number of Fourier measurements and ∆ is the minimum separation distance associated with the atomic measure to be resolved, then for any number K ≥ 2 of quantization levels available for the real and imaginary parts of the measurements, our quantization method guarantees reconstruction accuracy of order O(λ3/2 K−λ/2), up to constants which are independent of K and λ. In contrast, memoryless scalar quantization offers a guarantee of order O(K−1) only.


We calculate numerically the spectral power distributions (SPDs) which maximize luminous efficacies of radiation (LERs) for white light of particular color rendering indices (<formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$R _{a}$</tex></formula>'s) and color temperatures (CTs). We find that, except for the very highest color rendering indices, the spectra are spiky rather than continuous. We present a useful analytic expression for the dependences of the maximum white luminous efficacy of radiation (MWLER) on <formula formulatype="inline"> <tex Notation="TeX">$R _{a}$</tex></formula> and CT and discuss these dependences. We propose that, for any white light source of a given <formula formulatype="inline"> <tex Notation="TeX">$R _{a}$</tex></formula> and CT, its absolute spectral efficiency is simply the ratio of its LER to the MWLER at that same <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$R _{a}$</tex></formula> and CT. We discuss the absolute spectral efficiency, defined in this way, of various lighting technologies: incandescent, fluorescent, high-intensity discharge, and solid-state lighting. Finally, we discuss the possibility of alternative MWLERs based on alternative indices for color rendering quality.


There are three general themes for this semester: • convergence and approximation in the space of holomorphic functions, • conformal mapping, • the range of holomorphic functions. The first item includes infinite products, the Weierstrass factorization theorem, Mittag-Leffler's theorem, normal families, and Runge's approximation theorem. The second item includes the Riemann mapping theorem and the theory of Möbius transformations. The third item includes Picard's theorems. The emphasis this semester is on techniques that are, at least in principle, constructive. Here is a starting point for the problem of approximation.


Ever since 1904, when Argentine President Julio Argentino Roca attended a match between local team Alumni and English club Southampton in Buenos Aires, the relationship between sports and politics in Latin America has always been close. This is especially true for football: as the sport became a practice and product consumed by the popular classes —known as the process of popularisation, from 1910 to the 1930s throughout the whole continent—, the political elites tried to utilise it as a space to obtain visibility and popularity. But as of the '30s, another political possibility emerged: sport as a tool in the construction of popular national narratives through which nations represent themselves as the incarnation of its people and in which sports stars are the new heroes. These processes not only accompanied the successful emergence of Latin American populist experiences —Brazilian Varguism and Argentine Peronism, in particular—, but they also installed a way of narrating the sport that continues to be used today. This chapter presents an analysis of the aforementioned process and a balance of the contemporary situation, paying special attention to the fluctuations between the populisms of the Left —the Pink Tide of Latin America between 2000 and 2015— and the Right —the conservative restorations of recent years.


Lakes in the beech (Nothofagus sp.) forest foothills between Greymouth and Hokitika, Westland, are characterised by amber‐coloured waters. Microbiological, biochemical, and chemical analyses of samples from nine such lakes during March 1976 indicate that they are unproductive. Microbial biomass was intensively investigated in heavily stained Lakes Haupiri and Lady and in least‐stained Lake Brunner. A combination of adenosine triphosphate assays, Utermohl phytoplankton counts, and autoradiographic biomass determinations revealed a greater bacterial than algal biomass in heavily stained lakes, a highly unusual phenomenon which suggests that most of the production of organic matter was allochthonous. Autochthonous productivity was low, probably because biologically available phosphorus was very scarce and because discoloration reduced the transparency of the water. Hypqlimnetic oxygen depletion was slight during this period of maximum thermal stratification; decomposition of organic matter was apparently inc...


Remote sensing is a field of technology designed to enable people to look beyond the range of human vision. Whether it is over the horizon, beyond our limited human range, or in a spectral range outside human perception, we are in search of information. The focus here will be on imaging systems that extend our range of perception, particularly in the realms of intelligence, strategy, tactics, and military applications.

To begin, consider one of the first remote-sensing images. Figure 1.1 shows a photograph by Gaspard-FA©lix Tournachon (Gaspard was also known by his pseudonym, Nadar). Gaspard took this aerial photo of Paris in 1868 from the Hippodrome Balloon, tethered 1700 ft above Paris. Contrast this with the cover photo taken by Apollo 17, just one hundred years later.

This is a fairly classic remote-sensing image—a representation from a specific place and time of an area of interest. What sorts of things can be learned from such an image? Where, for instance, are the streets? What buildings are there? What are the purposes of those buildings? Which buildings are still there today? These are the elements of information that we want to extract from our imagery.

In the material that follows, a model is established for extracting information from remote-sensing data. Following that section, remote-sensing data from a variety of systems is introduced to provide an early overview of the domains of the field.


ABSTRACT
Pregnancy and birth care should be concerned with the experience for the woman as it will be
marked in the memory. Therefore, seeking to respect the choices of the parturient and family,
there arises the concern with the destination of the placenta, which for many cultures has
meaning. Thus, there is the Lotus Birth, a practice where the umbilical cord is not cut after
delivery and the newborn remains attached to the placenta until the natural fall, taking from
three to ten days. Therefore, virtual tools like YouTube play an important role in making
decisions. Thus, this study aims to analyze YouTube videos about the lotus birth in terms of
care practices for puerperal and newborn. This is a documentary study, with a quantitative
approach, being the field of studies analyzed the video site Youtube. The sample was obtained
through search using the advanced tools and filtering of the Google search platform, thus,
following the criteria of inclusion and exclusion, 33 videos were selected, which presented
conceptual information of lotus birth, brought reports of experience , videos showing
delivery, care of the placenta and others with different information. However, since this is a
well-known topic, most of the generated content is derived from empirical knowledge and
where only 27.27% of the analyzed videos were recorded by health professionals and lacking
scientific basis. The main care with the placenta was the use of ingredients for drying and
avoiding bad smell, such as the use of salt, the most common, followed by the use of lavender
and rosemary. Thus, lotus birth requires research that promotes safety for mothers and health
professionals involved in the birth process in order to avoid harm to the health of the mother
and baby.


The meaning producing of The Analects of Confucius is closely connected with the change of hermeneutic paradigm. The hermeneutic paradigms of The Analects of Confucius varied along with the transformation of academic thoughts. Four primary methodological transitions took place in the hermeneutic history of The Analects of Confucius —— from textual exegesis of ancient prose to significance study of Dark Learning; from using Buddhism thoughts in the explanation of Confucian classics to meaning judgment of Sonxue; from individual percipience to precise textual research; from digging profound meaning of ancient prose to using modern academic thoughts to explain the classics. The meaning of The Analects of Confucius is extended under different paradigms. Explanations in different eras constructed the historical relations between the meaning of The Analects of Confucius and praxis and endowed it with a discursive power over contemporary society. Thus, the classic status of The Analects of Confucius is constructed.


The low microbial flocculant yields and efficiencies limit their industrial applications. There is a need to identify bacteria with high bioflocculant production. The aim of this study was to isolate and identify a bioflocculant-producing bacterium from activated sludge wastewater and characterise its bioflocculant activity. The identification of the isolated bacterium was performed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis. The optimal medium composition (carbon and nitrogen sources, cations and inoculum size) and culture conditions (temperature, pH, shaking speed and time) were evaluated by the one-factor-at-a-time method. The morphology, functional groups, crystallinity and pyrolysis profile of the bioflocculant were analysed using scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and thermogravimetric (TGA) analysis. The bacterium was identified as Proteus mirabilis AB 932526.1. Its optimal medium and culture conditions were: sucrose (20 g/L), yeast extract (1.2 g/L), MnCl2 (1 g/L), pH 6, 30 °C, inoculation volume (3%), shaking speed (120 rpm) for 72 h of cultivation. SEM micrograph revealed the bioflocculant to be amorphous. FTIR analysis indicated the presence of hydroxyl, carboxyl and amino groups. The bioflocculant was completely pyrolyzed at temperatures above 800 °C. The bacterium has potential to produce bioflocculant of industrial importance.


Sound ( ultrasonic) velocity and density have been determined at 2 MHz frequency for the Thermo-Acoustical Investigation of the system ( binary mixture) Amino acid ( Glycine) vitamins at 283.15-298.15k temp the various thermoacoustical characteristics, such as adiabatic Compressibility, relaxation Strength, surafce tension and relative Association have been calculated using the obtained ultrasonic velocity and density. This study aims to characterise the kind and strength of molecular interactions in a binary mixture of aqueous vitamin C solution (0.2) and amino acid solution (0.02 - 0.2 mol/kg).The obtained result supports the occurrence of moderate potential of intermolecular interaction follows by association in the adopted liquid mixture.


ABSTRACT Human influenza A viruses replicate in the upper respiratory tract at a temperature of about 33°C, whereas avian viruses replicate in the intestinal tract at a temperature close to 41°C. In the present study, we analyzed the influence of low temperature (33°C) on RNA replication of avian and human viruses in cultured cells. The kinetics of replication of the NP segment were similar at 33 and 37°C for the human A/Puerto-Rico/8/34 and A/Sydney/5/97 viruses, whereas replication was delayed at 33°C compared to 37°C for the avian A/FPV/Rostock/34 and A/Mallard/NY/6750/78 viruses. Making use of a genetic system for the in vivo reconstitution of functional ribonucleoproteins, we observed that the polymerase complexes derived from avian viruses but not human viruses exhibited cold sensitivity in mammalian cells, which was determined mostly by residue 627 of PB2. Our results suggest that a reduced ability of the polymerase complex of avian viruses to ensure replication of the viral genome at 33°C could contribute to their inability to grow efficiently in humans.


【Objective】 To study the clinical significance of serum Acetylcholine receptor antibody(AchR-Ab) and Titin antibody(Titin-Ab) test in patients with myasthenia gravis(MG). AchR-Ab and Titin-Ab were detected with ELISA in sera from 18 cases of MG with thymoma(MGT), 23 cases of MG without thymoma(NTMG), 21 cases of other neurological disease(OND) and 26 cases of health control(HC) groups. The positive rate was compared among these groups. 【Results】The positive rate of AchR-Ab in MGT group was 83.3%, significantly higher than those of NTMG(21.7%), OND group(0.0%), HC group(0.0%)(P 0.01). The positive rate of Titin-Ab in MGT group was 88.9%,significantly higher than those of NTMG(13.0%), OND group(9.2%), HC group(0.0%)(P 0.01).The positive rate of two kinds antibodies of the systemic MG patients were higher than these of ocular MG patients (P 0.01). There was a positive correlation between AchR-Ab and Titin-Ab in patients with MG. 【Conclusion】 Serum AchRAb and Titin-Ab test are helpful in diagnosis of MG,especially to MGT with Titin-Ab.


Gas turbine engine bearing supports is an important part in providing product efficiency of general and special-purpose engineering industry. Attempts are being made to increase efficiency of bearing support. Such attempts are caused by the modern tendency of the development of engineering striving for compact machines and units possessing increased reliability and durability. Researches on finding discrepancies in operation of support for this purpose have been executed. The reasons of occurrence the fatigue crumbling on external bearing races at different stages development of working surface damage have been investigated. The basic constructions of support of shaft for the aviation gas turbine engine and methods of their lubrication have been considered. Shortcomings of existing methods of lubrication of bearing supports have been marked. The upgraded construction of the module of gas turbine bearing shaft, which allows to improve conditions of lubrication and bearing cooling as a result of a uniform oil feed to the contact zones of outside bearing race and rolling elements and forced oil removal from contact zones of inside bearing race and rolling elements has been suggested. The task of improving conditions of lubrication supply to an internal holder of the bearing has been solved. The developed design allows applying unconventional methods of lubrication and cooling of a bearing support. Thus it is recommended to use process of regulation of a microrough on working surfaces bearing support during grinding-in. It will allow to improve a stage grinding-in and to increase reliability and durability of bearing support.


Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a manufacturing strategy that aims to eliminate equipment loss in the manufacturing process. Our case study examines a food processing company in Sweden where implementation of TPM was begun but has not gone as smoothly as expected. The principal problem appears to have been around a resistance to change among the personnel due to a variety of unknown factors. The aim of our study was to identify the causes of the resistance and to offer recommendations on how to accelerate the implementation of TPM. The research used qualitative interviews with a large cross section of employees within the organization. One of the principal conclusions of the research is that successful implementation of TPM requires support from senior management within the organization, and should involve the people who will be affected by TPM in its planning and implementation.


Abstract In the present study, postural behaviour was compared between gilts kept in service unit with different types of flooring during all seasons. The study included four 28-day production cycles and 10 gilts per cycle, equally divided into a control and an experimental group. Control gilts were housed in gestation stalls with slatted concrete floor, whereas in the experimental group the floor was covered with an adjusted rubber mat. Postural behaviour of gilts was observed 4 times per cycle for 4 hours. Study results showed that during cooler seasons, gilts in concrete stalls spent more time standing and lying sternally, whereas gilts in matted stalls were mostly lying, predominantly laterally (P<0.001 all). There were no significant between group differences according to the time the gilts spent sitting or the frequency of changing posture in any season observed. Nevertheless, experimental animals spent significantly less time changing standing to both lying positions during all seasons (P<0.01 all). In conclusion, rubber mats may improve lying comfort in gilts; however, when using rubber mats, the house thermal conditions should be taken in consideration.


The successful commercialisation of innovations such as remotely sensed feed-on-offer (FOO) and pasture growth rate (PGR) technologies (Henry et al, 2002, this volume) requires an understanding of the characteristics market into which the technology is being transferred. The commercialisation of FOO-PGR technologies in the wool production sector requires a marketing approach to identify those producers most likely to adopt these technologies, how they may use them on farm and how the message about these technologies may be diffused effectively.