Abstract People age at different rates. This heterogeneity in aging has led to the concept of "frailty", a state of heightened vulnerability to adverse health outcomes at any age. Frailty challenges health care providers, as frail patients are more likely than non-frail patients to experience diseases, hospitalization, and death. We showed that frailty occurs not only in humans, but also in aging rodents. It can be measured with a "frailty index" (FI) based on age-related health deficit accumulation as originally established in humans. We found that maladaptive changes in heart structure and function in late life are correlated more so with frailty than age and are closely graded by FI score, especially in male mice. Adverse effects of frailty originate at cellular/subcellular levels and scale up to organ and system levels, predisposing towards cardiovascular disease. Poor overall health, quantified with an FI, may drive maladaptive cardiac remodeling, especially in older males.


Disclosed is a disposable pricking element for taking body fluid through the skin (22). Said pricking element comprises a support (12) and a pricking member (14) which distally protrudes therefrom and can prick the skin (22) in a pricking movement. A preloading means (16) which tightens the skin (22) in the area of the pricking point and is provided with a contact member (36) that impinges the skin (22) laterally from the pricking member (14) during a pricking movement is disposed on the support (12).


To develop an efficient magnetic labeling method to cabel the H-22 cells of mice by ultrasound,and to observe the effect of various physical parameters such as ultrasound exposure duration,acoustic density and the ferum oxide concentrations on both labeling efficiency and cell viability.The dimension size of(200~300 nm)×(400~600 nm)×(50~70 nm) dextran-coated meso-supermagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles is synthesised by the co-precipitation method and is used for H-22 cells labeling in vitro.The sonoporation study is performed when the output electrical power of amplifier is 2 W and the transducer is working in a continuous mode with resonant frequeacy 1.43 MHz.Labeling efficiency and viability of labeled cells is evaluated by prussian blue staining and trypan blue exclusion test.H-22 cells is efficiently labeled at 30 s exposure time and particle concentration is 410 μg/mL and the labeling efficiency is about 90%.Prussian blue staining confirmed iron uptake and showed numerous blue-stained iron particles in the cytoplasm and more than 92% labeled cells remained viable.Ultrasound might be feasible for in vitro labeling of the H-22 cells.


Bexarotene (Targretin®), approved since 1999 as a second-line treatment for late stage cutaneous T-cell lymphomas, has been shown to induce significant hypothyroidism through TSH suppression. This review revisits through a case report, mechanisms by which rexinoids repress the expression of TSHB gene as well as alphaTSH gene and TRH genes. It appears that rexinoids suppress TSH independently from triiodothyronine (T3). Bexarotene affects also differently gene expression of deiodinases 1 and 2 as well as the peripheral clearance of thyroxine. These data might open new ways of research on the potential interaction between thyroid axis and endogenous rexinoids. Page 2 of 28


The main aim of this paper is to contribute to the development of the corporate governance (CG) of non-profit organizations. The methodology is based on the comparison of the main parameters of the CG of for-profit vs non-profit organizations. The main parameters were extracted from the basic literature sources describing the CG systems of for-profit organizations as well as their characteristics. The characteristics of the parameters for nonprofit organizations were refined from the author's own research and the research of his students. The longitudinal research started in 2005 and continues up to now. Our statistical sample from 2016 is represented by almost two hundred public hospitals in the Czech Republic. They were analysed as representatives of non-profit organizations. Based on this statistical sample we can state that the characteristics of the parameters differ in for-profit and non-profit organizations. In some parameters, the characteristics differ distinctively and in others we can observe the tendency to convergence. The future tendencies are predicted and discussed.


Objective:To investigate the effects of TONGXINLUO capsule on the expressions of ATP-binding cassette transporter Al(ABCAl)in the rabbits with carotid artery atherosclerotic plaque, hereby to explore possible mechanism through which ABCAl affects the formation of atherosclerosis. Methods:Improved silicon callar was positioned at the carotid artery of male New Zealand white rabbits and they were fed with hypsocholesterol diet for 2 weeks to establish the experimental carotid artery ste- nosis models.Twenty-four rabbits with carotid artery atherosclerotic(CAS)plaque were randomly divide dinto three groups,which were subsequently treated with TONGXINLUO capsule(1g/kg·d~(-1))and sim- vastin(5mg/kg·d~(-1))respectively for 2 weeks.The rabbit carotid artery atherosclerotic plaque was ex- cised 2 weeks after treatment,the protein levels of ABCAl and RXRαwere detected by Western blot re- spectively.Results:The protein expression levels of ABCAl and RXRαall increased after treatments with TONGXINLUO capsules and simvastin.Conclusions:TONGXINLUO capsules may offer protective effects against CAS plaque.


This is a study of the application of the theoretical framework, total quality management (TQM) which has been developed in the private manufacturing sector, in the Swedish school system. The purpo ...


Background : Emotional intelligence is a set of teachable abilities and skills that prepare people for the sustainability and success in life. The purpose of the present study was to predict the emotional intelligence based on metacognitive beliefs and mindfulness beliefs in the students. Methods: A total of 341 students were selected from Islamic Azad University, West Islamabad branch, using random cluster sampling from different university majors at the faculty of Social Sciences. They responded to Bar-Anne's Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, the short form of the Wells Meta-Cognition Questionnaire, and Baer et al. Mindfulness Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression. Results: Among the participants 200 (67.5%) were girl students. the age of the participants ranged between18 and 52 years old. Also 254, (78%) had Bachelor's degree and 87 (21.97%) had Master's degree. Moreover, 105 (77.33%) were married. The mean (SD) of mindfulness were 107.3 (5.12), meta-cognitive beliefs 47.8 (5.01), and emotional intelligence 85.9 (13.43), respectively. The results of regression analysis showed that metacognitive beliefs were independent predictor of students' emotional intelligence ( P <0.001, F=34.59). Metacognitive beliefs predicted a total of 21% of students' emotional intelligence. Conclusion: Considering the findings of the present study, it can be stated that more attention should be paid to metacognitive beliefs as an independents predictor of emotional intelligence.


Nanoceria powder was treated by hydrogen or air at different temperatures and atmospheres, and the phases, oxygen vacancies, catalytic properties of the treated samples were investigated. After treating, the crystallites on the ceria surface were fused, and the SEM and TEM images indicated that the particle size increased with treatment temperature. Both Raman and XPS spectra showed the oxygen vacancies in nanoceria increased with treatment temperature in hydrogen, and at the same temperature CeO2 treated in hydrogen had a higher Ce3+ fraction than that treated in air. The nanoceria after being treated in hydrogen at 900 °C contained the Ce2O3 phase together with CeO2 which was revealed by XRD and TEM results. Oxygen vacancies were found to enhance CO conversion, but the high temperature needed to generate the oxygen vacancies caused the fusion of the crystallites on the ceria surface and thus its area decreased, which resulted in lower catalytic activity. The catalytic activity of nanoceria treated in hydrogen at 900 °C measured higher than that of the ceria powders treated at 700 °C in hydrogen or 900 °C in air, which indicated that the Ce2O3 phase present in the treated nanoceria particles enhanced the catalytic activity.


The problem with the study of culture, as with that of religion, has been an independent status assumed for both despite recognitions of their constructed nature. Consequently, cultural studies have relied almost exclusively on redundantly descriptive and relativistic hermeneutical methods. By focusing on the mental mechanisms of H. sapiens, shared in common as a consequence of evolutionary history, the emerging field of cognitive science is beginning to describe the architecture of the human mind/brain and to offer, thereby, a common human structure in terms of which culture is both constructed and constrained. This universal cognitive potential provides, thereby, a scientific basis for comparison in ethnographic and historical studies. This paper seeks to outline some of the recent developments in the biocognitive sciences and to suggest their relevance especially for the study of religion.


The solubility of carbon monoxide in pure liquid water was measured in the pressure range 60 to 110 kPa and the temperature range 278 to 323 K with a high-precision apparatus of the Benson-Krause type. These data are used to derive Henry coefficients H2, 1(T, Ps, 1), the temperature dependence of which is accounted for by both a Clarke-Glew type fitting equation and a power series in T−1. The imprecision of our measurements is characterized by an average deviation of H2, 1(T, Ps, 1) from these smoothing equations of about ±0.04%. From the temperature variation of H2, 1(T, Ps, 1) the partial molar quantities pertaining to the solution process (such as standard changes in enthalpy and heat capacity) are obtained. In addition, Ostwald coefficients are given in tabular form at rounded temperatures. Experimental results are compared with values calculated via scaled particle theory.


We report measured and calculated cross sections for elastic scattering of low-energy electrons by isopropanol (propan-2-ol). The experimental data were obtained using the relative flow technique with helium as the standard gas and a thin aperture as the collimating target gas source, which permits use of this method without the restrictions imposed by the relative flow pressure conditions on helium and the unknown gas. The differential cross sections were measured at energies of 1.5, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20, and 30 eV and for scattering angles from 10∘ to 130∘. The cross sections were computed over the same energy range employing the Schwinger multichannel method in the static-exchange plus polarization approximation. Agreement between theory and experiment is very good. The present data are compared with previously calculated and measured results for n-propanol, the other isomer of C_3H_7OH. Although the integral and momentum transfer cross sections for the isomers are very similar, the differential cross sections show a strong isomeric effect: In contrast to the f-wave behavior seen in scattering by n-propanol, d-wave behavior is observed in the cross sections of isopropanol. These results corroborate our previous observations in electron collisions with isomers of C_4H_9OH.


A Ka-band broadband TE01-mode overmoded waveguide bend based on an elliptical waveguide structure is proposed for high-power transmission line in this paper. To investigate the mode conversion inside the waveguide bend, the mode coupling coefficients of elliptical waveguide bend are theoretically deduced. The influence of the cross section on the power-handling capacity and the transmission efficiency is studied. Calculation and simulation results present that the proposed overmoded waveguide bend has a propagation bandwidth of 7 GHz (relative bandwidth of 21%) with an efficiency over 95%. A prototype is fabricated and measured. The average transmission efficiency is over 93% in the range of 29–36 GHz according to the S-parameter measurement. The results of near-field test demonstrated that a TE01 mode with high purity is obtained at the output port of waveguide bend. The high-power performance is investigated by connecting it with a Gyrotron traveling wave tube, and the waveguide bend works stable under a maximum output power of 150 kW. The measurement results demonstrate that a novel approach is proposed successfully for the design of high-power waveguide bend.


This article looks into a conflict and a seven-step process devised in preparing and arranging negotiations. Describing each step we determined some types of behavior acceptable to negotiators which should help them succeed and avoid conflict situations


This paper aims at showing the synergy of hyperspectral and polarimetric SAR remote sensing for the classification of vegetation scenes. The study is focusing on a set of images that were acquired over Garons (France) during the ENVIRO campaign in 2011. A classification process involving a segmentation of the scene, a characterization of each segment with hyperspectral and SAR features and a decision process is presented. A selection of discriminant features using both sensors and related to the observed classes is proposed. The application of the classification process on data leads to a significative improvement of overall accuracy by using both sensors rather then using each sensor alone.


This paper deals with what identifies the development of equestrian businesses in Iceland and why the lifestyle and hobby of the equestrian business operators was developed into a business or profession. The importance of tourism in this development is also analysed. The paper looks into how the horse industry and the tourism industry are intertwined in a thriving industry of equestrian tourism in Iceland, particularly in rural areas. The research was qualitative and conducted through open ended interviews with 16 operators within the horse industry in Iceland. The findings indicate that it is more likely that horse based businesses, including horse tourism businesses, are to be passed forward to new generations of operators than tourism businesses in general. Relations of the horse industry in one hand and the tourism industry on the other seem to be important. Businesses combining tourism and different kinds of horse based activities seem to be common. The combination varies from horse businesses with no direct relations to tourism to businesses entirely basing their income on tourism. It is however concluded that activities related to horse based businesses not offering tourism services do increase tourism in Iceland in an indirect way.


This paper aims to analyze the characteristic of Road deposited sediment (RDS) using West Chang Tan highway, Hunan, China as a study site. RDS samples were collected at five representative highway sites and the particle size distribution was generally less than 150 m. Particles with the grain size (<150 m) had high metal concentrations among all sampling sites (unit: mg/kg): Cu 74-178, Zn 309-2737, Pb 601-1160, Cd 9.8-44.5. There is significant spatial variability between the sediments metal content and sampling site, the variance coefficient of the five sites are 29%, 97%, 28%, 71%, respectively. In addition, Chemical compositions of road sediments were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy and their possible sources were appraised (asphalt, brake lining materials, building materials, cement, tire dust, automobile exhaust and lubrication). This study will be conducive to our better understanding of the characteristic of RDS and provide a theoretical research for road sediment potential pollution caused by rainfall runoff.


In this paper we construct a class of statistically recursive sets K by statistical contraction operators and prove the convergence and the measurability of K . Many important sets are the special cases of K . Then we investigate the statistically self-similar measure (or set). We have found some sufficient conditions to ensure the statistically recursive set to be statistically self-similar. We also investigate the distribution P 。 K -1 . The zero-one laws and the support of P 。 K -1 are obtained.Finally the Hausdorff dimension and Hausdorff exact measure function of a class of statistically recursive sets constructed by a collection of i.i.d. statistical contraction operators have been obtained.


The voltage-gated Kv1.3 potassium channel plays a key role in the activation of T lymphocytes. By blocking these channels the proliferation of T cells can be inhibited thus suppressing T-cell mediated immune responses, which has a great potential in the therapy of certain autoimmune diseases. Anuroctoxin (1) is a 35-amino acid scorpion peptide characterized previously as a high affinity blocker of Kv1.3. Although with lower affinity, Anuroctoxin blocks Kv1.2 as well, which is expressed in several tissues, thus this property limits the potential clinical use of the toxin.
In order to design new mutants of Anuroctoxin with improved selectivity profile, a detailed understanding of its interaction with voltage gated K+ ion channels is needed. We have prepared synthetic analogue of Anuroctoxin with solid phase synthesis and verified its activity with Kv1.2 and Kv1.3 channels. We have determined the solution structure of Anuroctxin using homonuclear NMR techniques and molecular dynamic simulations. The determinants of its interaction with Kv1.2 and Kv1.3 channels have been investigated and explored with docking calculations. Our results provide data for the design and future therapeutic application of new, more selective peptide toxins.
References
1. Bagdany M, Batista CV, Valdez-Cruz NA, Somodi S, Rodriguez de la Vega RC, Licea AF, et al. Anuroctoxin, a new scorpion toxin of the alpha-KTx 6 subfamily, is highly selective for Kv1.3 over IKCa1 ion channels of human T lymphocytes. Mol Pharmacol 2005;67:1034-44.


Based on the Mundaneum archives, this paper will highlight the two dimensions of UDC: an intellectual standard for a global documentary network and a universal language able to represent not only the whole knowledge but also the diversity of cultures. According the first dimension, UDC is the result of the project to apply standardization to knowledge working (the first apparition of the phrase "knowledge worker is by Otlet). In the second dimension, UDC is an attempt to adapt Dewey Decimal Classification to universality. The combination of both dimensions was aimed to international intellectual cooperation which can be compared to interoperability's issues of digital libraries on the internet.


This study examines whether locus and importance of causal attributions for poverty mediate effects of gender and political ideology on attitudes toward social welfare provision. The study also examines whether cultural differences moderate effects of causal attributions on attitudes toward social provision. Analyses of data from 14 cultures (N = 4,018) showed a positive relationship between importance of external causes of poverty and support for social provision of basic needs and a negative relationship between the internal causes and the support for social provision. Political conservatives, in particular men, ascribed less responsibility to government for need provision than did liberals. The ideological differences were partially mediated by external and internal attributions, whereas gender differences were mediated by external attributions. Not only did culture moderate effects of causal attributions, cultural differences in support of social provision were also partially but extremely differently (e.g., United States vs. Ireland) mediated by causal attributions


Anomalous systemic arterial supply tothelungs hasbeendescribed inseveral congenital pathologic entities: broncho-pulmonary sequestration, thescimitar syndrome, andanom-alous systemic supply without sequestration. Thelatter istherarest form ofaberrant systemic blood supply tothelung; only fourcases have been described intheEnglishliterature [1-4].Wereport afifth case ofthisvariety anddiscuss thespectrum ofanomalous pulmonary bloodsupply.


The geoscience and chemistry communities have numerous common practices and dependency on data standards. Recent efforts from the International Union on Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) are to explore and collaborate on approaches and sharing lessons learned on efforts to implement the FAIR Guiding Principles as they apply to data in their respective communities. This paper summarizes their efforts-to-date highlighting the importance of existing communities, Scientific Unions, standards bodies and societies in taking deliberate steps to move and encourage researcher adoption of the FAIR tenets.


A new ultra wideband(UWB),low-complexity and step recovery diode Gaussian pulse generator is introduced.The pulse-shaping network employs an amplifier to block the reflection wave and suppress the ringing.The circuit is realized on the coplanar waveguide.An ultra-short Gaussian pulse of 300 picoseconds pulse duration is achieved,and good symmetry has been demonstrated.


The mineral resource stands for a significant part of the county economies in China.Namely the resource-related processing takes over 30% of the total industry of the county,and that plays an important role in the global economic development of the county.However,recent challenges demand the change of the economic structure.


The new genus Andeocalynda n. gen. is described and the supposed relationships are discussed. The genus is restricted to the mountainous Andean regions of Ecuador and Colombia. Nine new species are described and illustrated: A. aspericollis n. sp., A. banosense n. sp., A. brevicercata n. sp. and A. lojaense n. sp. from Ecuador based on the males only, A. decorata n. sp., A. mutica n. sp., A. densegranuloa n. sp. and A. tuberculata n. sp. from Ecuador as well as A. putumayoense n. sp. from Colombia based on the male and female. The eggs of the two new Ecuadorian species A. decorata n. sp. and A. tenuis n. sp. are described and illustrated. Two species, previously attributed to other genera are transferred to Andeocalynda n. gen., this is: A. carrikeri (Hebard, 1919) from the genus Bacteria Berthold, 1827 (n. comb.) and A. comis (Bates, 1865) from the genus Clonistria Stål, 1875 (n. comb.). As a result, Andeocalynda n. gen. currently includes eleven known species.


A new superlattice avalanche photodiode structure consisting of repeated unit cells formed from a p-i-n Al 0.45 Ga 0.55 As region immediately followed by near intrinsic GaAs and Al 0.45 Ga 0.55 As layers is examined using an ensemble Monte Carlo calculation. The effects of various device parameters, such as the high-field layer width, GaAs well width, low-field AlGaAs layer width, and applied electric field on the electron and hole ionization coefficients is analyzed. In addition, the fraction of electrons which ionize in a spatially deterministic way, at the same place in each stage of the device, is determined. As is well known, completely noiseless amplification can be achieved if each electron ionizes in each stage of the device at precisely the same location while no holes ionize anywhere within the device. A comparison is made between the doped quantum well device and other existing superlattice APD's such as the quantum well and staircase APD's. It is seen that the doped quantum well device most nearly approximates photomultiplier-like behavior when applied to the GaAs/AlGaAs material system amongst the three devices. In addition, it is determined that none of the devices, when made from GaAs and AlGaAs, fully mimic ideal photomultiplier-like performance. As the fraction of electron ionizations per stage of the device is increased, through variations in the device geometry and applied electric field, the hole ionization rate invariably increases. It is expected that ideal performance can be more closely achieved in a material system in which the conduction band edge discontinuity is a greater fraction of the band gap energy in the narrow-band gap semiconductor.


We synthesized 1, 2-hexanediol galactoside (HD-Gal) from HD using Escherichia coli (E. coli) β -galactosidase (β-gal), in which the reaction is generally called as transgalactosylation (reverse hydrolysis). In this study, we investigated how much HD-Gal and HD had a cytotoxic effect on HaCaT cell, in order to compare HD-Gal with HD in terms of the cytotoxicity of human skin cell. Cell proliferation assay and phase-contrast microscope observation were used for investigating the cytotoxicity. As a result, HD-Gal had not cytotoxic effect on HaCaT cell in the concentration range from 42.2 to 211 mM. In addition, when we observed the cells using microscopy, there was no change in the cell morphology. Meanwhile, when 42.2 mM and 84.4 mM HD were treated on HaCaT cell, we did not observe the cytotoxicity; however, when 168.8 mM and 211 mM HD were on HaCaT cell, HD had a higher cytotoxic effect on HaCaT cell. In addition, when HD was treated on the cells regardless of the concentration of HD, there were obvious changes in cell morphology and cell number. It was expected hopefully that HD-Gal would be applicable as a substitute for HD as a less toxic preservative in views of safety, health, and well-being.


A socio-medical survey was conducted toward 463 TB cases who had discontinued chemotherapy more than 2 weeks among the patients registered at Health Center and the Clinic of Seoul-Branch of the Korean National Tuberculosis Association in Seoul from Sept. 22 to Oct. 21. 1965. The purpose of this study was to obtain the data of the reasons for discontinuing treatments. As the result of this study, following conclusions were obtained: 1. Pulmonary tuberculosis cases were highly prevalent in 20~24 years of age group with 13.4% in male and 25~29 years of age group with 22.5% in female. By the occupational classification, male were 44.6%, 70% in female with hose who had no occupation. Regarding the educational background, 29.6% were graduates of middle school in male, while 44.4% were graduates of primary school in female. 2. Of the total patients, 20.4% had more than seven family members but 3.7% didn't have any family member living together. Those who had other TB patient than themselves in the same household occupied 11.7%. 3. Among the total patients, 61.5% had family to support and 60.5% were living with spouses. Patients having own houses were 43.9% and 57.7% had income less than 5,000 won monthly. 4. In regard to initial diagnoses 81.4% were diagnosed by mass X-ray examination and 54.6% were diagnosed at Health Centers. According to extent of discases, moderately advanced cases were 40.8% with the highest proportions. 5. The majority of the patients started chemotherapy within one month after their initial diagnoses. 6. In the methods of treatments, 54.0% had received combined chemotherapy, while 44.1% had received single chemotherapy.(INH only) 7. Regarding the reasons of discontinuation of treatments 38.3% were due to certain relations for patients themselves, 32.3% for economic reasons, and 29.5% on account of medical institutions concerned. 8. Among the patients, 23.7% discontinued treatments less than one year after treatments and those who had stopped treatments for three years or over were 73.0% with the highest rate. 9. Out to the patients who discontinued treatments. Those having one time of interruptions occupied 76.2% with the highest rate. Among the motives started retrestmens subjective symptoms ranked highest with 30.4%. 10. In the view of state of patients after discontinuation of treatments, 55.5% were still untreating, 28.8% on domiciliary treatments, and 7.6% changed to other clinics from initial institutions. 11. It was confirmed that 55.7% of the patients had accurate knowledge on the sources of tuberculosis infection, 11.1% has some information on effective way of prevention of TB and 82.1% knew the method of diagnosis of tuberculosis.


Large networks such as protein-protein interaction networks are usually extremely difficult to understand as a whole. We developed ModClust, a Cytoscape plugin for modularity- based clustering of large networks. The aim of this plugin is first to establish classes of high density edges. It also allows to understand the relations between these classes, and how they are assembled within the whole graph. It can be used to predict new protein functions. It implements two novel algorithms: FT and TFit. Their results are compared both on random graphs and on benchmarks where the optimal partition is known. RESUME. Les grands graphes, comme les reseaux d'interaction proteine-proteine, sont d'une maniere generale difficiles a analyser. Nous avons developpe un plugin pour le logiciel Cy- toscape, appele ModClust, effectuant du partitionnement de graphes par optimisation de la modularite. L'objectif de ce plugin est de comprendre quelles sont les relations entre classes et comment ces dernieres sont assemblees dans le graphe. Il nous aide finalement a predire de nouvelles fonctions proteiques. Deux nouveaux algorithmes, FT et TFit, sont implementes. Leurs resultats sont compares sur des graphes aleatoires et sur des benchmarks dont on connait les partitions optimales.


Simple Summary Processing fish or by-products, as well as the so-called bycatch of fishing, generates a considerable amount of waste. The by-products of fish (or marine invertebrates) processing can be an interesting source of nutrients with high nutritional value. They can be reused as functional ingredients in the feed industry. Hydrolysates have been used as chemoattractants and fishmeal replacers in aquafeed, due to their low molecular weight compounds and balanced amino acid profiles. Peptides with predicted anti-inflammatory, immunostimulatory/anti-microbial properties were identified in the different fractions of the by-products using state-of-the-art peptidomics and bioinformatics techniques (often referred to as the in silico approach). Abstract The present study was designed to evaluate the effects of dietary levels of bioactive peptides (BPs) derived from salmon processing by-products on the presence and distribution of peptic cells (oxyntopeptic cells, OPs) and enteric endocrine cells (EECs) that contain GHR, NPY and SOM in the gastric mucosa of European seabass and gilthead seabream. In this study, 27 seabass and 27 seabreams were divided into three experimental groups: a control group (CTR) fed a control diet and two groups fed different levels of BP to replace fishmeal: 5% BP (BP5%) and 10% BP (BP10%). The stomach of each fish was sampled and processed for immunohistochemistry. Some SOM, NPY and GHR-IR cells exhibited alternating "open type" and "closed type" EECs morphologies. The BP10% group (16.8 ± 7.5) showed an increase in the number of NPY-IR cells compared to CTR (CTR 8.5 ± 4.8) and BP5% (BP10% vs. CTR p ≤ 0.01; BP10% vs. BP5% p ≤ 0.05) in the seabream gastric mucosa. In addition, in seabream gastric tissue, SOM-IR cells in the BP 10% diet (16.8 ± 3.5) were different from those in CTR (12.5 ± 5) (CTR vs. BP 10% p ≤ 0.05) and BP 5% (12.9 ± 2.5) (BP 5% vs. BP 10% p ≤ 0.01). EEC SOM-IR cells increased at 10% BP (5.3 ± 0.7) compared to 5% BP (4.4 ± 0.8) (5% BP vs. 10% BP p ≤ 0.05) in seabass. The results obtained may provide a good basis for a better understanding of the potential of salmon BPs as feed ingredients for seabass and seabream.


We present a novel method of bacterial image segmentation using machine learning based on Synthetic Micro-graphs of Bacteria (SyMBac). SyMBac allows for rapid, automatic creation of arbitrary amounts of training data that combines detailed models of cell growth, physical interactions, and microscope optics to create synthetic images which closely resemble real micrographs, with access to the ground truth positions of cells. We also demonstrate that models trained on SyMBac data generate more accurate and precise cell masks than those trained on human annotated data, because the model learns the true position of the cell irrespective of imaging artefacts.


Micro-arc oxidation(MAO) coatings with different thicknesss(10 μm,15 μm and 20 μm) were deposited on LD10 Al alloy samples using MAO processing.The samples were tested using a rotating bending fatigue tester to character their fatigue properties.Scanning electron microscopy(SEM) was used to observe the microstructure and fatigue fracture morphology of the specimen with MAO coatings.X-ray diffraction(XRD) was employed to analyze the phases and residual stress in the coatings.The results show that the MAO coating is mainly composed of AlSi_(0.5)O_(2.5) amorphous phase,and the net micro-cracks observed in the coating initiate in the discharge channel and end at the region near the discharge channel.The tensile residual stress presented at the interface of the substrate and the coating induces early crack initiation and propagation.Compared to the sample without MAO coating,the reduction of fatigue life are 63%,75% and 65%,and the reduction of fatigue limit are 9.5%,7.9% and 9.9% for the samples with the MAO coatings thickness of 10μm,15μm and 20μm,respectively.


The advent of big data is fundamentally changing the business landscape. We open the 'black box' of the firm to explore how firms transform big data in order to create value and why firms differ in their abilities to create value from big data. Grounded in detailed evidence from China, the world's largest digital market, where many firms actively engage in value creation activities from big data, we identify several novel features. We find that it is not the data itself, or individual data scientists, that generate value creation opportunities. Rather, value creation occurs through the process of data management, where managers are able to democratize, contextualize, experiment and execute data insights in a timely manner. We add richness to current theory by developing a conceptual framework of value creation from big data. We also identify avenues for future research and implications for practicing managers.


Military medical team members for peace-keeping should receive purposive and directive strengthening training before performing mission abroad based on the characteristics and current situation in targeting area.In the training there were two stresses:medical work and effective management.


ABSTRACT Small software firms that involved with developing web application are lacked of well defined development process. Many development methods have been proposed for developing web application in these firms. However, these methods have some limitations. This paper aims to identify the agile development methods that are suitable for small development teams and determine the enhancements needed to get high quality web application. In order to achieve these objectives a comparative study was conducted on the suitable agile development methods that have been selected. Comparisons were made according to a set of criteria that include development process, project management, requirement, testing and design. The findings of this paper will be used as baseline for building a new measurable web application development methodology for small software firms. Keywords : Comparative Study, Web Application, Agile, Small Software Firms, Measurement. I I)TRODUCTIO)


I was fortunate to be a part of the Fifth International Workshop on the Twin Peaks of Requirements and Architecture workshop at 37th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), Italy on May 17th, 2015. My article, Is Requirements Engineering Inherently Counterproductive?, coauthored with Dr. Paul Ralph, University of Auckland got accepted at this workshop. I presented my article and was able to garner immense interest from the community of requirements engineering and software architecture. The Twin Peaks model is about the synergy and relation between a system's requirements and its architecture. The focus here is to discover requirements while concurrently exploring multiple architectural decisions. My doctoral research aims to improve the process of requirements engineering by mitigating the ill-effects of human cognitive biases. My article at Twin Peaks workshop explores the possibility that requirements engineering, as described in a traditional life cycle model of software engineering, may be deleterious to software engineering success. Evidence suggests that while sense making aspect of requirements engineering may improve software design performance, increased problem structuring might degrade design performance. My main motivation to attend this workshop was to get the reaction and opinion of the RE community towards the feasibility of my topic which would direct my future thesis. In the following sections I would first summarize the various essential points of discussion and agreements during the one-day workshop, followed by illustrating the many benefits gained from attending the Twin Peaks workshop.


In Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, Ralph Fiennes gives a blistering performance as a motormouth rock impresario seeking to win back his former girlfriend. Here the director explains the evolution of the project and why he believes cinema is losing its identity as a visual medium.


Personalized news recommendation aims to alleviate information overload and help users find news of their interests. Accurately matching candidate news and users' interests is the key to news recommendation. Most existing methods separately encode each user and news into vectors by news contents and then match the two vectors. However, a user's interest may differ in each news or each topic of one news. It's necessary to dynamically learn user and news vector and model their interaction. In this work, we present Recurrent Reasoning Memory Network over BERT (RMBERT) for news recommendation. Compared with other methods, our approach can leverage the ability of content modeling from BERT. Moreover, the recurrent reasoning memory network which performs a series of attention based reasoning steps can dynamically learn user and news vector and model their interaction in each step. As a result, our approach can better model user's interests. We conduct extensive experiments on a real-world news recommendation dataset and the results show that our approach significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods.


In this study the influence of the digital resolution on the properties of a data sample is experimentally determined in mass measurements. A mass comparator with adjustable digital resolution interval, also known as the quantization step size, was used in well controlled repeatable conditions. The same measurement procedure with the resolution differing by up to a factor of 200 was repeatedly carried out, and at least 150 mass differences were recorded with every resolution setting. A clear relationship was observed between the digital resolution and the type of random process characteristics for the data sample. Analysis shows that a white noise process dominates for data sets measured with the smallest digital resolution step from 0.001 mg and up to 0.005 mg. For resolutions from 0.01 mg to 0.2 mg random walk noise is observed for which variance of the sample mean can increase proportionally with sample size. We demonstrate that instrumental resolution is a strictly limiting factor in mass measurements only for the data sets with significant positive correlations, such as those having random walk noise. Otherwise for the white noise process, the smallest possible variance is inversely proportional to averaging time, like in time-frequency metrology, and not limited by the instrumental resolution. Our measurement results show that in this case sample standard deviation of the mean (0.00003 mg) can be more than ten times smaller than that of a single result (0.0005 mg) or the Type B component of the digital resolution (0.00029 mg).


ABSTRACT Ca2+-binding tyrosine-phosphorylation-regulated protein (CABYR) has been implicated in sperm physiological function in several in vitro studies. It has also been implicated as a potential cause of and diagnostic tool in asthenozoospermic human males. CABYR is known to be localized to the fibrous sheath, an accessory structure in the flagellar principal piece. Utilizing the CRISPR–Cas9 technology, we have knocked out this gene in mice to understand its role in male fertility. Cabyr-knockout male mice showed severe subfertility with a defect in sperm motility as well as a significant disorganization in the fibrous sheath. Further, abnormal configuration of doublet microtubules was observed in the Cabyr-knockout spermatozoa, suggesting that the fibrous sheath is important for the correct organization of the axoneme. Our results show that it is the role of CABYR in the formation of the fibrous sheath that is essential for male fertility. Summary: Removal of Cabyr by using CRISPR-Cas9 results in mouse spermatozoa with a disorganized fibrous sheath, impaired motility and a subsequent loss of their ability to fertilize oocytes.


Domain Name is a scarcity finite resource and is the base for internet business operation as well.Enterprises could build websites to expand its value chain through register domain names,and further to realize their network value extension.But the phenomenon of improper competition frequently occurred because of many companies domain name has been Cyber-squatting,and brought very large negative impact on the function of market reputation mechanisms.The essay analyzes the problems of improper domain management firstly by reputation model in game theory and discusses the problems of the impact on the corporate reputation in the domain management in detail,then deduces the different damage conditions to the market reputation,and provides a theoretical reference for motivating enterprises to formulate their perfect domain name management strategies and systems.Finally it gives the domain name management measures from the inside enterprise and the domain name management proposals from the outside enterprise.


The use of different techniques and tools is a common practice to cover all stages in the development life-cycle of systems generating a significant number of work products. These artefacts are frequently encoded using diverse formats, and often require access through non-standard protocols and formats. In this context, Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) emerges as a methodology to shift the paradigm of Systems Engineering practice from a document-oriented environment to a model-intensive environment. To achieve this major goal, a formalised application of modelling is employed throughout the life-cycle of systems to generate various system artefacts represented as models, such as requirements, logical models, and multi-physics models. However, the mere use of models does not guarantee one of the main challenges in the Systems Engineering discipline, namely, the reuse of system artefacts. Considering the fact that models are becoming the main type of system artefact, it is necessary to provide the capability to properly and efficiently represent and retrieve the generated models. In light of this, traditional information retrieval techniques have been widely studied to match existing software assets according to a set of capabilities or restrictions. However, there is much more at stake than the simple retrieval of models or even any piece of knowledge. An environment for model reuse must provide the proper mechanisms to (1) represent any piece of data, information, or knowledge under a common and shared data model, and (2) provide advanced retrieval mechanisms to elevate the meaning of information resources from text-based descriptions to concept-based ones. This need has led to novel methods using word embeddings and vector-based representations to semantically encode information. Such methods are applied to encode the information of physical models while preserving their underlying semantics. In this study, a text corpus from MATLAB Simulink models was preprocessed using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques and trained to generate word vector representations. Then, the presented method was validated using a testbed of MATLAB Simulink physical models in which verbalisations of models are transformed into vectors. The effectiveness of the proposed solution was assessed through a use case study. Evaluation of the results demonstrates a precision value of 0.925, a recall value of 0.865, and an F1 score of 0.884.


Before children can learn to control their emotions they need to know how to name and recognise their emotions. Sharing a family album or magazine pictures and discussing the faces and expressions can be a valuable experience. Children are fascinated by pictures and photographs of people and they can spend long periods of time poring over them and making sense of them.


Anticoagulant is used to treat pulmonary vein stump thrombus after left upper lobectomy. However, the optimal length of anticoagulant therapy remains controversial. We report a case of pulmonary vein stump thrombus that regenerated after discontinuation of anticoagulation therapy despite the fact that the thrombus had disappeared after such therapy. A 71-year-old man underwent left upper lobectomy for lung cancer. Three months after the operation, contrast-enhanced CT showed a thrombus in the left superior pulmonary vein stump, and anticoagulant therapy was administered for three months. Irrespective of the disappearance of the left superior pulmonary vein stump thrombus, it regenerated 3 months after the discontinuation of anticoagulant. The newly regenerated thrombus disappeared after readministration of the anticoagulant. There is no report on patients with a recurred pulmonary vein stump thrombus after primary anticoagulant therapy. This case alerts us to the possibility of late postoperative development of pulmonary vein thrombus after successful primary treatment.


Repeatedly bred male and female rats develop arteriosclerosis spontaneously. Despite hyperlipidaemia, fatty liver and obesity the arterial lesions contain minuscule quantities of lipid. Because histopathological lipid techniques may not detect bound or "masked" lipid, we used thin layer chromatography, which affords extra sensitivity in detecting small quantities of lipids. A survey was made of the lipids in female breeder aortae on the basis of the severity of their grossly-visible arteriosclerosis. The aortae were divided into arch, thoracic and abdominal aortic segments to further delineate any lipid changes, according to the anatomical pathogenesis of the arterial disease. Adrenal lipid changes were also analysed by the TLC procedure, comparing adrenal glands of non-arteriosclerotic animals with those having severe, grossly visible arteriosclerosis.

The TLC method demonstrated that small quantities of lipid accumulate in the aortae of repeatedly bred rats, first in the abdominal aortic segment, increasing in concentration with progressive severity of arteriosclerosis and spreading from abdominal aorta to arch and thoracic aorta. Specifically, phospholipids, free fatty acids, cholesterol, di- and triglycerides are increased whereas cholesterol ester is decreased as arteriosclerosis becomes more advanced. Adrenocortical di- and triglycerides were found to be greatly increased in those animals having severe, grossly visible arteriosclerosis. However, total cholesterol was reduced. These adrenal lipid changes are construed to be a reflection of the eventual impairment of the steroidogenic capacity of arteriosclerotic breeder rats. Our conclusions are that the stimulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-gonadal axis occasioned by repeated breeding invokes first a condition of hyperadrenocorticism, followed by adrenal "exhaustion". The excess adrenal (and gonadal) steroids condition these animals towards hyperlipidaemia, fatty metamorphosis of the liver and obesity. However, these endogenous lipid changes do not contribute directly to the pathogenesis of the arterial lesions.


This paper summarises research on how ESG factors can influence companies, their fundamental and share price performance, and portfolios. By doing so, it helps to address some misunderstandings about ESG, risk and return. The relationship between ESG and risk/return has been a fertile ground of enquiry for researchers in past decades. In writing this paper, our aim was to give investors real of how ESG may affect their investments. is not an exhaustive review, we have tried to include that an emphasis on peer-reviewed academic research. We recognise that this there are a of drivers of and


The austenitic stainless steel materials modified with nano-SiC powder were prepared under the production conditions by foundry method. The corrosion resistance for different amount of SiC added to stainless steel was investigated. The results showed that with the addition of nano-SiC powder, the resistance to chemical corrosion and electrochemical corrosion was markedly improved. The addition of nano-SiC powders can significantly enhance the intergranular corrosion of stainless steel, and the anti-intergranular corrosion of the stainless steel was the result shown both by the metallographic and the bending methods. With the addition of nano-SiC powder, the ferritic and chromium of the stainless steel reduce segregation, so nanoSiC powders can help effectively avoiding the two-phase chromium depleted zones and areas prone to localized corrosion, such as the emergence of the region.


Self-reconfigurable robotic systems composed of multiple modules have been investigated intensively with respect to their versatility, flexibility, and fault-tolerance. In particular, recent studies examined their feasibility through hardware and software experiments [1]-[6]. Homogeneity enables the system to adapt itself to the external environment by changing its configuration. It can also repair itself if some part becomes faulty or damaged, as any module can function as any part in the system. This article focuses on a microsized model of a self-reconfigurable homogeneous modular robot that opens up many applications, such as inspection robots in hazardous environments or microscale simple manipulators. One example of an application is a microrobot that moves around inside pipes in nuclear or chemical plants by changing its shape and reorganizing itself as a manipulator to execute repairing tasks when it detects a fault (Fig. 1). Other applications include a robot that searches for survivors through narrow spaces in buildings destroyed by natural disasters and space applications like microsize planetary exploring robots, solar panels, or satellite antennas. Recently developed lightweight self-reconfigurable modular robots [2], [4], [6] use conventional electromagnetic motors that have limitations in microsizing; they become ineffective because the power-weight ratio decreases significantly on microscales. Moreover, self-reconfigurable microrobots require actuators that yield enough torque and motion range to transport other modules. These severe requirements have been major barriers to developing self-reconfigurable microrobots. Although some microscale self-assembly systems have been reported [7], they are passively assembled to predetermined shape by surface tension in an irreversible manner and cannot form arbitrary shapes. To develop a modular microrobot that can actively reconfigure itself, we adopt an actuating mechanism driven by a shape memory alloy (SMA). One of the advantages of an SMA actuator is that it keeps a higher power-weight ratio on microscales than electromagnetic motors [8]. It is especially difficult to find micromotors that have comparable size and torque to our second micromodule model, which is described later in this article. The simplicity of the overall actuator mechanism is another advantage, whereas microsize electromagnetic mechanisms require microsize gear reductions that are difficult to fabricate. In addition, the slow response (especially in cooling) becomes less significant as the ratio of surface area to volume becomes large on microscales. Although several types of SMA microactuators have been developed [8], [9], it is still difficult to provide the sufficient torque and wide motion range required for self-reconfigurable microrobots. Therefore, we devised a rotational actuator mechanism using SMA torsion coil springs that satisfies both requirements of torque and motion area. Using this SMA actuator, we designed two-dimensional (2-D) modules that measure 4 × 4 × 8 cm and weigh 80 g, respectively. Each module is equipped with a microprocessor and an intermodule communications device. The self-reconfiguration capacity of the modules will be verified by a multimodule experiment. To confirm the ease of microsizing SMA actuators, we developed a half-size model of the first model. The half-size module measures 2 cm and weighs 15 g without the control unit. Its self-reconfiguration function


A transflective LCD(Liquid Crystal Display) and a method for manufacturing the transflective LCD are provided to simplify a lower array substrate manufacturing process by forming a thick organic insulating pattern instead of a passivation layer, thereby improving the aperture ratio of the transflective LCD. A transflective LCD includes an upper array substrate(250), a lower array substrate(270), and a backlight unit. The upper array substrate includes a gate line, a data line(204) intersecting the gate line, a TFT(Thin Film Transistor) formed at the intersection of the gate line and the drain line, an organic passivation pattern(222) superposed on the data line and the TFT, and a pixel electrode(232) superposed on the data line having the organic passivation pattern formed between the pixel electrode and the data line. The lower array substrate includes a dispersion film(224) for dispersing external light, a reflection pattern(228) formed on the dispersion film in a reflection region, a color filter layer(254) formed on the reflection pattern and the dispersion film, and a common electrode(256) covering the color filter layer. A liquid crystal layer is interposed between the upper and lower array substrates. The backlight unit irradiates light to the lower array substrate.


The mid-IR supercontinuum generation has attracted much attention during the recent years because many unique molecular absorption bands of most of the molecules exist in this domain. Additionally, mid-IR supercontinuum light sources are expected to have potential applications including astro-photonics, bio-photonic diagnostics, nonlinear spectroscopy, infrared imaging and sensing. For high spatial resolution imaging a spatially coherent supercontinuum light source is desirable. The soft-glass optical fiber is the promising medium for the design and development of a high spatially coherent mid-IR light source with the high brightness. Earlier, the broadband mid-IR supercontinuum generation has been reported using the optical fibers in different materials including tellurite, and chalcogenide, but, its coherence property has not been demonstrated extensively. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the mid-IR supercontinuum spectrum spanning ⁓1.6 μm to 3.7 μm using a 3 cm long tapered chalcogenide step-index optical fiber pumped with femtosecond laser pulses at 2.6 μm. To justify the experimentally obtained results, a numerical simulation also carried out for the same fiber and pulse parameters. The measured supercontinuum spectrum matches well with the simulated spectrum and generated supercontinuum spectrum is highly coherent within the whole spectral range of the supercontinuum generation.


The following examination of the clinical features of depressive states is based on the detailed study of 61 cases examined and treated by the writer at the Maudsley Hospital, London.


The lifetime of offshore structures are ruled by accumulated fatigue damage so structural load monitoring is of special importance for re-assessment of offshore platforms. However, direct measuring of the actual loading is usually not feasible due to sensor limitations. An alternative approach to direct load measuring is load estimation from the limited number of measurements of dynamic responses of the structure. This paper presents two, conceptually different, model based, methods for load estimation in time domain: modal expansion method and Kalman filter based method. The Kalman filter based method uses the reduced FEM and provides estimations of limited number of signals, where the modal expansion method expands the mode shape vectors to estimate the displacements and stresses at all unmeasured locations. This paper is a part of ongoing development of methods for linear and nonlinear system identification, FEM updating, wave load calibration and lifetime prediction of offshore structures.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


In order to study the relationship between drastic effect of rhubarb and 5-HT and its receptor in duodenum tissues.Twenty SD adult rats were divided into two groups at random.group A:gastrogavaged with rhubarb group(n=10);group B:control group(n=10).The immunohistochemistry and MIPS were used to measure 5-HT cell number,square,mean grey level and the content of 5-HT and it′s receptor in their positive cells in every rat′s duodenum.In group A,rat duodenum 5-HT cell number(108 80±5 26),square(30 18±2 18)μm 2,the content of 5-HT(0 3409±0 0308)AU,the content of 5-HT receptor(0 3188±0 0312)AU were all higher than those in group B(P0 01),mean grey level(123 38±3 94)was lower than that in group B(P0 01).Rhubarb′s drastic effect was highly associated with the increase of 5-HT and 5-HT receptor′s content in dcodenum.


A high speed transistor device and a method for fabricating the same are provided. The transistor device comprises: a silicon substrate (200), and a gate stacking(201) on the silicon substrate, wherein, the gate stacking comprises a gate dielectric stacking(204) and a gate electrode layer(206), and the gate dielectric stacking comprises a SrTiO3 layer(204-1) and a LaAlO3 layer(204-2) thereon. By forming a trigonal potential well between the SrTiO3 layer and the LaAlO3 layer, two dimensional electron gas is generated, and electron density is improved. Meanwhile, because a channel is formed between the SrTiO3 layer and the LaAlO3 layer, separation of electrons and scattering centers can be achieved, electron mobility is improved, so that the operation speed of the transistor device is improved.


In order to save electrical energy, in the last ten years, LED lighting fixtures have replaced the fluorescent lighting fixtures used for indoor lighting, especially those in educational and administrative buildings. The LED illuminators have the same overall dimensions and luminous flux as the replaced ones, but with significantly less consumed power. Often, reducing lighting costs leads to neglecting some of the others qualitative and quantitative indicators of light sources, such as color rendering, light distribution curve, pulsations, etc. In this report, the possibilities for the reconstruction of existing lighting arrangements will be considered, and quantitative and qualitative indicators in these laboratories will be measured.


Using survey methodology and telephone interviews, this exploratory study proposes a framework for nonprofit leaders to promote accountability in their organizations, an important goal for both management and performance in the nonprofit sector. The study relies on Brody's (2001) four-part construct of organizational accountability (fiscal responsibility, good governance, adherence to mission, and program effectiveness) to examine the issue of promoting accountability in nonprofit organizations. We hypothesize that higher levels of nonprofit accountability are related to higher levels of an organization's commitment to operating standards and to higher levels of transformational leadership as exhibited by the organization's leader. Study results indicate that both predictor variables are positively and significantly related to nonprofit accountability, with transformational leadership being the stronger indicator of accountability. The findings of the study have significant implications for nonprofit managers and for nonprofit organizational performance.


vy mouseDNA methylationdietenvironmental epigenomicsepigenetics • parity The field of epigenetics continues to grow exponentially, doubling approximately every 2 to 3 years (1). Concomitant with this growth is an increased interest in using the agouti viable yellow (A vy ) isogenic mouse for envi- ronmental epigenomic studies investigating the developmental origins of health and dis- ease. The Agouti gene in this mouse model is metastable because of a retroviral intracister- nal A particle (IAP) insertion upstream of the Agouti transcription start site (1,2). Metastable genes are highly variable in their expression. This results from stochastic allelic changes in the epigenome rather than mutations in the genome.


There are several cognitive modeling approaches to capturing computer-generated forces (CGF) behavior. One approach is to use production rule systems, such as ACT-R, to mimic cognitive thought processes for CGF entities. Another technique is to classify and categorize behavioral patterns for analysis. The use of narrative, in the form of scenarios, presents another valid approach to modeling CGF behavior. Scenarios will allow narrative intelligence constructs to represent the context of CGF behaviors. Narrative intelligence is the cognitive ability to organize experience and understanding around stories. For computer-generated forces to be examined at both the object level and the abstract level there needs to be an intermediate form to encode behavior. The state of the simulation objects can be associated with the context of the object behavior. This context can be introduced through the use of narrative. The narrative structure is derived from simulation data to generate canonical stories from domain information. By using military doctrine to describe the scenarios that occur within a simulation, the lessons learned can be applied more directly to Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) systems. These scenarios are the basis for decision-making; strategic planning, training, lessons learned repositories, and systems development. This paper describes the hyperscenario framework: a narrativebased scenario ontology, a scenario grammar and XML-based language. A maze game simulation experiment was conducted with the behaviors of the participants encoded in narrative form to aid decisionmaking. The hyperscenario framework, the construction of the narrative behavior in the simulation, the results of the experiment and its implications for narrative-based behavior modeling of CGF entities are discussed in this paper.


To observe IL-1 production of glomerular M(GM@) derived from glomerulonephritis model and in-verstigate the effect of LSF (1 mol/L, 5mol/L,15mol/L, 25 mol/L), an inhibitor of phosphatidic acid,which blockpartial cell signal transduction pathways,on the IL-1 production of GM METHODS: Rat model of accelerated unti-basement membrane glomerulonephritis was adopted,GMd were isolated using a sterile sieving techniuqe. Own peritonealM of model rats (PM) and normal peritoneal Md (N-PM) were also obtained as control IL-1 activity was dethetedby thymocyte proliferation.IL-1 mRNA was detected by Northem blot. RESULTS: IL-1 activity of the supematant ofGM were significantly higher than that of the N - PM and P - M s(P 0. 01). Pretreatment with LSF,IL-1 activ-ity of GM were lower and showed dose dependent (15 mol/L, P 0. 01; 25 mol/L, P 0.01). IL-1 mRNA expres-sion of GM were higher than that of P-M, LSF can inhibit the IL-1 mRNA expression of GM. ONCLUSION: LSFcan inhibit the overachvity of infiltrated GM in producing IL-1, and may be of use for clinical intervention in glomeru-lonephritis.


We propose a model that explains the build-up of short term debt when the creditors are strategic and have different beliefs about the prospects of the borrowers' fundamentals. We define a dynamic game among creditors, whose outcome is the short term debt process as a function of the borrower's fundamentals. As common in the literature, this game has multiple Nash equilibria. We give a refinement of the Nash equilibrium concept that leads to a unique equilibrium. For the resulting debt-to-asset process of the borrower we define a notion of stability. Bank runs are predictable: a bank run begins when the debt-to-asset process leaves the stability region and becomes a mean-fleeing sub-martingale with tendency to reach the debt ceiling, which is the point when the borrower becomes illiquid. The debt ceiling and the stability region are computed explicitly. A critical ingredient in our model is the distribution of capital across the beliefs of the creditors and we allow for a wide variety of specifications for this distribution.


Whatever the other characteristics of the universal museum, education must be one of its core functions. That is, education both of regular visitors and those who are not but who are members of the local, regional or national communities served by the museum. In this sense, universal refers to making the museum accessible to all: accessible physically and intellectually. This relates to what I mean by education. It is far broader than what takes place between teachers and pupils in a formal setting. Education is also about providing environments where people will be inspired or provoked to know, to question. To reflect about themselves and the wider human and natural world. A universal museum should be a great facilitator of these learning processes. In this paper I shall focus on five ways in which there can be integration of educational opportunities in the universal museum. For examples to illustrate these themes I shall draw on practices in a small sample of museums in Europe and the USA.


Objective To observe the therapeutic effects of celecoxib combined with high frequency electric cutting under endoscopy on familial adenomatous polyposis.Methods Twelve patients diagnosed as familial adenomatous polyposis by colonoscopic,histopathological examinations and family history were randomly divided into 2 groups(n=6).The celecoxib+endoscopy group took 800 mg of celecoxib daily after endoscopy treatment;the endoscopy group took high frequency electric cutting under endoscopy only.The treatment duration lasted for 12 months.In both group,the changes of number,histopathological were compared before and after treatment.Results In the celecoxib+endoscopy group,the elimination rates of the adenomas after treatment for 4,8,12 months were 89.0%、93.1% and 97.8%;in the endoscopy group,they were 87.9%、86.9% and 81.8% respectively,and the difference was statistically significant(P0.05).Conclusion The treatment of celecoxib combined with endoscopy is effective in the reduction of numbers of adenomas in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis.


This article is about Hella Haasse as a life writer. It considers her life writing in the context of her work as a whole before focusing on her experimentation with biographical and autobiographical writing as textual performances of selves. I argue that the relationship between the writer and her historical, biographical subject is affected by her attempts to grapple with her own life, past and present, in autobiographical texts. More specifically, I analyse Haasse's literary experiment in terms of multiple, nomadic subjectivity with an emphasis on Haasse's textual representation of processes of becoming.


Condensation of 4-hydrazino-1,3-diphenylpyrazolo[3,4-d]-pyrimidine with the aldohexoses, namely, D-glucose, D-galactose, D-mannose and the aldopentoses, D-arabinose, D-xylose and D-ribose, by heating in an aqueous ethanol in the presence of a catalytic amount of HCl, gave the respective aldehydo-sugar hydrazones. Oxidative cyclisation of such hydrazones by stirring with iron(III) chloride in ethanol at room temperature afforded the expected acyclo C-nucleosides 3-substituted-7,9-diphenylpyrazolo[4,3-e][1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-c]-pyrimidines. The structures of the cyclised sugar hydrazones were confirmed by their elemental analyses and spectral data.


This book, developed from a doctoral thesis, contributes to the debate on whether the 1930s were "healthy or hungry" by exploring the variables affecting health in an area synonymous with mass unemployment and deprivation—South Wales. The first three chapters examine sources of income, the balancing of household budgets, and the consequences for diet and nutrition. This demonstrates that a straight division between the unwaged poor and those in work is misleading. For some, living on benefits provided, temporarily, a reasonable income, while wage earners might suffer prolonged periods of short-time working which plunged them into poverty.

Even more significant, however, may have been variations within the categories. As Thompson points out, different family units had to react and plan how they would spend the resources available. Social policy has traditionally assumed that redistribution stops at the door of the household—that is, that all household members have equal access to the resources available. Here, the analysis highlights one important factor that has previously been explored both historically by David Vincent, and contemporarily by Jan Pahl; the role of women as budget holders in poor households, particularly the need to keep the breadwinner active and its attendant consequences for the health of the women.

Other factors were important. South Wales had relatively high levels of owner occupiers whose resources were not depleted by rent payments. Non-monetary benefits—here represented by allotment cultivation and the keeping of pigs and other animals—also contributed to living standards, echoing contemporary debates about the definition of poverty in developing countries. Nonetheless, unemployed households generally spent significantly less, and consumption was weighted towards cheaper, bulkier items.

The next two chapters examine housing and environmental factors. Both housing standards and overcrowding contributed to poor health. New council housing was relatively restricted, and not until the 1933 Greenwood Act would new council house building directly impact on the poorest tenants. The heavy industry spread through the area had environmental effects. Given the nature of the work available in the South Wales area, it is surprising that neither industrial diseases nor industrial accidents feature in the index.

Classically the mixed economy of welfare is discussed in terms of the split between the funding and provision of services, and the matrix of possible methods of provision this produces, but in the next chapter on medical services available, it is used to identify the overlapping sectors of medical care used by the people of South Wales—the "popular", the "folk" and the "professional". Overall the picture confirms Julian Tudor Hart's inverse care law, with largely working-class communities reliant on lay resources and overworked doctors of varying quality.

The final two substantive chapters explore and disaggregate both general and child mortality statistics, producing insights into the possible effects of poverty on different groups. One problematic is that industrial depression and unemployment spark a natural response, which is migration in search of better employment opportunities. Among the young, the exodus was marked. To what extent did the migration of workers from the coalfields affect the medical outcomes of the remaining population?

This is a valuable and insightful study which deserves a wide readership. Its publication was funded by the Board of Celtic Studies, now defunct. It is to be hoped that other means of making studies in various aspects of Welsh History accessible to a wider audience will be found.


The article presents a theoretical and methodological analysis of specific features of provision of security for development in the context of society and state modernization. A particular attention is paid to global and regional risks and threats that are typical for implementation of non-organic (catchingup) type of modernization reforms.


System and related techniques, to manage the additional digital image or other media to an e-mail message to use a relatively simple insertion and transmission schemes. The user can choose to embed insert or a relatively low resolution version of the image or other media that is automatically published to the media server in an e-mail message. The receiving side of the medium corresponding message in the usual form of using an e-mail client, or other client, receives the e-mail text messages along with the low-resolution image can be seen. Receiving side, for example, to move the cursor, by clicking on the image or other object is selected, by linking or activate these images, one or more embedded images at higher resolution it can be selected to see. By activating an image or other media object from the e-mail pane within the user, transparently it is transported to the web page of the media server, for example using a media player, a higher resolution version of the image it can be seen. Video, audio, and other media, can be inserted into similarly message. Therefore, the sender, without loading the e-mail client or another client on the receiving side at increased the download time or storage requirements, the receiving side and various image selected, audio, video, or other media, it can be shared.


Summary The interconversion of lactate and pyruvate and its effect on the apparent oxidative decarboxylation of these substrates in Landschuetz ascites tumor cells and in normal rat kidney slices has been studied. This reaction, which apparently proceeds by the mediation of lactate dehydrogenase and DPN according to the equation CH.-CHOH-COOH—"C when one of the substrates used is labeled, is readily demonstrable in both these tissues, even under aerobic conditions. The rate of interconversion in the actively respiring kidney slices was at least as high as the oxidative decarboxylation of the substrates. It proceeded more rapidly in the tumor cells in which its rate was 4-5 times as high as that of the oxidative decarboxyla tion.The failure of pyruvate to suppress the radioactive COj-production from lactate-l-14C was observed only in the tumor cells, and only when these were present in excess with regard to the equilibration of the isotopie carbon. This phenomenon has been attributed to the rapid interconversion and high degree of equilibration of the radioactive carbon between the 2 substrates, obtained prior to their oxidative decarboxylation. lactate in the kidney slices and arrested it completely the the cells it 14C02 These results suggest the by the tumor cells from lactate-l-14C in the presence of an equimolar concentration of pyruvate is derived entirely via the interconversion of these substrates. They further suggest that the radioactive CO»production from lactate-l-"C is not a valid criterion for the ability of the mammalian cells to consume and oxidize this substrate, since it may result from the interconversion of the latter with endogenously generated pyruvate.


Current Control-Flow Integrity (CFI) implementations track control edges individually, insensitive to the context of preceding edges. Recent work demonstrates that this leaves sufficient leeway for powerful ROP attacks. Context-sensitive CFI, which can provide enhanced security, is widely considered impractical for real-world adoption. Our work shows that Context-sensitive CFI (CCFI) for both the backward and forward edge can be implemented efficiently on commodity hardware. We present PathArmor, a binary-level CCFI implementation which tracks paths to sensitive program states, and defines the set of valid control edges within the state context to yield higher precision than existing CFI implementations. Even with simple context-sensitive policies, PathArmor yields significantly stronger CFI invariants than context-insensitive CFI, with similar performance.


1. Abstract This paper presents new numerical solutions of generalized Michell structures subjected to multiple load conditions. These results were obtained using a new method to determine optimal topologies of multi-load trusses, recently developed by the first author of the paper. The method is based on the adaptive ground structure approach and stress-based formulation of the optimization problem. It leads to a huge but linear programming problem. Thus, the proposed method assures finding the global optimum for the given discretization of the design domain, represented here by the fully connected ground structure. The method makes use of both active set and interior point methods and allows solving a large-scale optimization problem even with more than billion design variables. The efficiency and robustness of the proposed method have been confirmed in several benchmark tests. An important result of this research is finding a new exact-analytical solution of a specific symmetrical two-load case problem. This solution was predicted numerically using the method described above, and then adjusted to obtain the exact formulae describing the layout of the optimal structure using the concept of component loads. 2.


The methanol-soluble components of Swertia musstii Franch have been studied.The methanol-soluble components of Swertia musstii Franch were obtained by ultrasonic wave and then separated and identified by GC-MS.The relative percentage of each composition was determined by area normalization. 34 peaks were found and 26 of them were identified representing 97.3% of the total contents.The relative contents of 2,6,10,15,19,23-hexamethyl2,6,10,14,18,22-tetracosahexaene(27.2%),palmitic acid(14.6%),1,E-11,Z-13-octadecatriene(12.1%),oleic acid(6.2%),2,3-dihydro-benzofuran(5.4%) were higher than other methanol-soluble components.Our result was reported for the first time and can be as a primary standard to identify Swertia musstii Franch.


Aqueous foams are usually made with solutions of low molecular weight surfactants. The properties of such surfactant foams are well characterized, and foams are now widely used in industry as well as everyday life. Today, in order to create new applications, it is important to develop new types of foams or emulsions having original behavior, especially in their aging. It is then also tempting to use foam as templates for creating responsive materials. Here we present our first attempts of making new type of foams by adding original chemical components in the foam formulation. We first present results on foams containing laponite particles. Solutions of laponite are an example of colloidal glasses. By adjusting the laponite concentration, we can tune the timescale of the laponite glass transition. In that respect, within the liquid network of the foam, this glass transition can be obtained at any desired time during the foam aging. We then show how this effect has an impact on the drainage, coarsening and rheological properties of the foam. We also report results with foams containing thermosensitive polymers, and show how the foam behavior can be tuned by the external temperature. Lastly, we present some results with foam stabilized by different types of surfactant di-mer (gemini-like molecules) and tri-mer. For all our experiments, we have monitored the foaming and the 3D foam stability by electrical, optical and acoustic methods. Different types of foams are made for all the systems : at various bubble size and liquid fraction, in order to determine for which conditions the effects are optimized.


We calculate the first quantum gravitational correction term to the trace anomaly in De Sitter space from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. This is obtained through an expansion of the full wave functional for gravity and a conformally coupled scalar field in powers of the Planck mass. We also discuss a quantum gravity induced violation of unitarity and comment on its possible relevance for inflation.


To satisfy the QoS requirements of individual users and improve efficient utilization of network resources at the same time,a novel service model and bandwidth dynamic allocation mechanism is proposed.It is composed of core and edge routers based on a distribution allotation structure.The core routers can monitor bandwidth availability and periodically report this information to ingress routers.The ingress routers perform a dynamic tracking of the effective number of active connections and their actual sending rate,and then perform a periodical re - allocation of unused bandwidth.Simulations show that the proposed dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithm exceeds other allocation model in respect of average packet delay.


A machine-vision-based electronic automobile insurance fee meter can capture lane departure behaviors, and record the distances and duration of the lane deviations in a memory module; can capture following-too-close behaviors, and record the distances and duration of dangerous following in the memory module; and also can calculate a journey-based mileage insurance fee, a total mileage insurance fee P being the product of a mileage L of a journey, a unit mileage (per kilometer) insurance rate R km and a safety floating factor f. The present technical solution charges the insurance fee according to the actual driving mileage, makes the charging of the insurance fee fairer and more reasonable, and encourages safe driving and driving less; and also can identify the most important dangerous driving risks including following-too-close and lane departure, making the pricing of the insurance fee more accurate and reasonable.


The outage probability of asymmetric decode -and -forward cooperation based on parallel coding is investigated, as well as the joint optimization of the parameters as relative position of nodes, power distribution and slot distribution, etc. Combined with the theoretical analysis and numerical simulation, an optimization method of simplifying parameter is proposed. The simulation results reveal that the performance of the method well approaches that of the joint optimization. Further more, its diversity gain is apparently improved, compared with symmetric decode-and-forward cooperative diversity.


Larges uncertainties are attached to hazard prediction in mountain streams, because of some limitations in our knowledge of physical processes, and overall, because of the lack of measurements for validation. This is particularly true for hydrological data, making the hydrology assessment of a mountain river a very difficult task, usually associated with large uncertainties. On the other hand, contrarily to lowland rivers, bed-load in mountain streams is often trapped in mitigation-structures, such as open check dams. This study aims to take advantage of these additional information for compensating the general lack of hydrological data, in order to converge toward a comprehensive diagnosis of the catchment hydrological behavior. A hydrology and sediment transport study has been done on the Roize torrent (16.1-km2 - Voreppe - 38-FR). After a classical historical study, a regional analysis of raingauges and water-discharge-stations situated in the calcareous north Pre-Alps massifs of the Vercors, Chartreuse and Bauges has been done. A catchment geomorphology study has been performed to get insight about the Roize torrential activity and sediment transport. The volumes of bed-load transported each year on average and during extreme floods have been computed using the estimated hydrology. The good bed-load predictions compare to the volume dredged in the Voreppe sediment trap are considered an indirect validation of the hydrology study.


Editors' note: This is a translation of the original text.1 Amorous relations outside marriage have been tolerated to a greater or lesser extent in different times and places. They have accordingly been more or less acknowledged by participants and more or less visible to contemporaries. During the years preceding the French Revolution, people talked about the "audacity" with which women "flaunted their amours" and, depending on their point of view, about the "disorders" or the "sweetness of life" at court (Versailles) and in town (Paris).2 It is surely not by chance that the modern meaning of the word "libertinism" evolved at this time, a period which was tolerant about sexuality and during which readers devoured Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons. Inspired by nineteenth-century prudishness, many authors of memoirs skipped quickly over their own youths and avoided the subject of libertinism.3 We must, therefore, go back to contemporary texts: correspondence (most commonly of foreigners living in France, such as Grimm, Kageneck, Meister, Métra, or Rivière) or works not published because of censorship, such as the celebrated nouvelles à la main (collections of news and gossip) that were later printed. The "free" press of the early 1790s provides additional details about the private live of Louis XVI's contemporaries, but these more or less defamatory texts, intended to ridicule and prejudice, must be used with caution. To these sources may be added notarial acts drawn up between lovers, often lifetime annuities. These documents, which have been little used until now, made amorous liaisons outside marriage, whether heterosexual or homosexual in nature, official in some sense.4


The time-scale non-shifted Hamiltonian dynamics are investigated, including both general holonomic systems and nonholonomic systems. The time-scale non-shifted Hamilton principle is presented and extended to nonconservative system, and the dynamic equations in Hamiltonian framework are deduced. The Noether symmetry, including its definition and criteria, for time-scale non-shifted Hamiltonian dynamics is put forward, and Noether's theorems for both holonomic and nonholonomic systems are presented and proved. The non-shifted Noether conservation laws are given. The validity of the theorems is verified by two examples.


ABSTRACTThe objective of this study was to examine test anxiety experienced by Pharm.D. students with respect to a comprehensive cumulative exam, the Milemarker exam. The instrument used elicited responses on five domains, namely: test anxiety, academic competence, test competence, study strategies and time management strategies used by students in preparation for the Milemarker exam. The students (N = 153, response rate 72.5%) were found to be somewhat anxious with respect to the Milemarker exam. Further, students responded that they felt competent with respect to course content and made use of study strategies in studying for the Mile-marker exam. They also exhibited low test competence with respect to the cumulative exam and were unable to manage their time effectively when studying for the exam. Significant correlations were obtained between test anxiety and the domains of test competence and time management. Intervention strategies aimed at reducing the test anxiety that students demonstrated, could ...


Simple random walk and Brownian motion are two strongly interconnected mathematical concepts. They are widely involved in not only pure math, but also in many other scientific fields. In this paper I will first introduce and define some basic concepts of discrete-time random walk. Then I will construct Brownian Motion with some basic properties, and use a method called the strong approximation of Brownian Motion to show that the simple random walk indeed converges to standard Brownian motion. Finally I will give an application of this fact, and demonstrate how considering Brownian motion as a limit of the simple random walk can be convenient when looking at problems, since it is often easier to deal with Brownian motions instead of simple random walks.


Sometimes, when one gets to a certain age or stage in life, some people want to know the history behind the present, perhaps to glean insights for their own evolution, or possibly to craft conjectures on the possible evolutions of others. As I reflect on my own journey into a more-authentic self, I think about how hard I've worked, how lucky I've been to have strong family and employer support, and how grateful I feel to all my mentors. Without question, no one gets to where they are without lots of help from lots of people. By definition, a mentor is someone who has more experience than you, that you trust to give you advice. In my personal and professional lives, I've been the recipient of tons and tons of advice, usually from people with more experience (or at least more opinions) than myself in a given area. Typically, the advice is well intentioned, and very often, the input is helpful. Sometimes, I'm also asked for advice or to be a mentor to others, which can be tricky. Because, really, a person can only become someone's mentor when they are permitted to do so, that is, when a mentor's advice is sincerely requested, genuinely received and intentionally reflected on. In other words, the power to transform an advice-giver into a mentor lies with the advice-receiver. The mentee makes the transformation happen, perhaps by acting on the advice, or by giving it serious consideration, or even just by absorbing it into their ways of thinking, seeing, or being. Some of my own mentors have never actually given me advice, per se. They just are who they are, and I've grown in myself simply from observing them. Sometimes, these "passive mentors," as I like to think of them, are positional or reputational leaders in the academic discipline, or at my institution, or within my myriad communities of identity, affection, or commitment. Sometimes, they are my peers in life or learning. And sometimes they are travelers on paths I may have already taken, but to which they've brought their own insights and wisdom. The bottom line is that my mentors (and yours) are everywhere. Any one of us can be someone's mentor, either by proactively looking out for them, by responsively and responsibly advising them, or even just by passively modeling for them something they might be needing or seeking in the moment – the latter simply by being our full, whole selves. Thank you to all my mentors, those from my past, those in my present, and those still to be revealed in my future, with special appreciation for those mentors who have graciously permitted me to continue evolving past the point where they felt their advice would be helpful. Because of you – all of y'all – I continue on that lifelong journey of becoming (cf. Hall, 1994).


The high‐frequency surface waves discovered by Allen, Alldredge, and de Wette, in numerical studies of three‐dimensional fcc crystals, have two‐dimensional analogs. Analytic solutions of the equations of motion for two‐dimensional close‐packed lattices reveal a high‐frequency surface‐mode branch linking together the high‐frequency and low‐frequency bulk‐mode bands. The dispersion relation for this branch is used to estimate the surface entropy. The estimate agrees well with Carman and Huckaby's recent cell‐cluster calculation. Both the dispersion‐relation and cell‐cluster surface entropy estimates lie slightly below an accurate value we obtain here by extrapolating small‐crystal entropies to the thermodynamic limit.


Gross hematuria or macroscopic hematuria is a high risk urologic condition that might occur in different settings. In the case of continued gross hematuria, blood clot size may grow and lead to complete obstruction of urinary outflow. Placement of three-way catheter, continuous bladder irrigation with normal saline, and cystoscopy are conventional treatments. Here we introduce a case with urinary obstruction who did not respond to conventional therapies. A subject of Hodgkin lymphoma with urinary obstruction caused by heavy gross hematuria was presented to emergency department. Three-way catheter was inserted to facilitate urination. However, there was no urinary drainage and bladder was distended. Consequently, 100 ml solution of hydrogen peroxide 0.15% was prepared and administered into the bladder to irrigate and evacuate the clots. A single intravesical infusion of hydrogen peroxide rapidly resolved urinary obstruction and improved patient distress. After administration of hydrogen peroxide solution, blood clots and bloody urine were evacuated successfully. These findings suggest that an intravesical injection of hydrogen peroxide can induce dissolution of blood clots and may be a simple and efficient therapy for urinary obstruction due to gross hematuria.


The effect of a nonuniform, weak, pulsed electromagnetic field of low frequency on the mechanical strength of glass bottles is investigated. It is proved experimentally that the effect of the pulsed fields during the formation of glass structure (within the vitrification interval) can produce an increase by 25-30% in the intemal pressure resistance of bottles.


Abstract. Concentrations of total estriol, progesterone, Cortisol, human placental lactogen and alpha‐fetoprotein were measured in maternal venous plasma at regular intervals from the seventh week of pregnancy until term in a woman with an anencephalic fetus. Except for the first trimester, during which the values were in the lower normal range, the concentration of estriol was constantly subnormal. The "physiological" rise in Cortisol levels was absent. Progesterone and HPL were both within the low normal range. The levels of alpha‐fetoprotein were transiently raised during the 13th‐25th weeks of pregnancy.


As a whole,the officials in the Han Dynasty have undergone the changes from few literates,coordination of Confucians,Taoists and Legalists to Confucianization in the cultural structure.This process has been made by the elements of politics,economy,cullure,etc.in the dymasty and also had positive effects upon its politics,economy,culture,etc.


This study aims to determine the effect of service quality, the influence of emotional marketing, the effect of spiritual marketing, on satisfaction, and to know the three variables jointly affect customer satisfaction. This research is a quantitative research. With a questionnaire instrument distributed to 90 customers. Statistical test using classical assumption test, hypothesis testing using regression analysis test multiple test T test, F test and R test the coefficient of determination. The results showed that service quality, emotional marketing and spiritual marketing each had a significant positive effect on customer satisfaction. Then the quality of service, emotional marketing and spiritual marketing simultaneously have an effect on satisfaction


RESULTS Serum VEGF levels elevated gradually after the onset of AMI and reached a peak on day 14. VEGF levels in the culture medium of PBMCs after incubation for 24 h (PBMC-VEGF) were maximally elevated 7 days after the onset. Maximum serum VEGF levels showed significant positive correlations with maximum creatine phosphokinase (CPK) levels (r 5 10.70, p , 0.001), but maximum PBMC-VEGF levels did not correlate with maximum CPK levels. Patients showing improvement in left ventricular systolic function during the course of AMI showed significantly higher PBMC-VEGF levels than patients without improvement.


UN sanctions and the vacuum left when UNSCOM inspectors were thrown out of the country. There is a veiled suggestion that given these conditions, that Iraq may have the capability reconstitute its WMD industry (p. 91). It is Part II that holds the bulk of the matter of the book. With each state under review, there are basic data, general, demographic, and economic data provided before defense-related information is laid out. With the presentation of information on the armed forces, OB (order-of-battle) is given without any provision of unit designation—a rarity for such a reference work— and ground, air, and naval forces for each state are then presented with great precision. As an assist to the researcher, data are compiled in different formats found in tables and charts, and a glossary at the end. The single greatest drawback to this worthy reference work is the gap between the publication date and intervening events. Thus, the researcher who looks at Iraq and the discussion on WMD (weapons of mass destruction), given the revelations available from the daily press and official US government publications and statements, will most certainly grimace. Sanford R. Silverburg Catawba College


In this paper we analyze the two major transport protocols that are currently under discussion for IPTV and propose extensions to support convergence. On the one hand, the MPEG-2 transport stream (MPEG2-TS) is well established in the broadcast world, whereas the real-time transport protocol (RTP) is widely adopted in the Internet and mobile world. Our analysis focuses on the timing aspects such as synchronization and buffer management. It is shown that the system target decoder (STD) defined in MPEG2-TS provides a well defined decoder model that allows minimum buffering delay and predictable behavior. In contrast, an RTP receiver is intentionally defined less accurately to allow flexibility for multiple applications. However, this flexibility results in less clear receiver behavior which is a problem for the design and integration of IPTV systems. By comparing the main differences in the timing models of the two protocols we derive additional constraints and definitions for RTP that minimize the difference to MPEG2-TS. It is proposed to specify these changes as part of an RTP/IPTV profile which also defines an RTP system target decoder (RTP-STD). An example for the application of these extensions is a protocol gateway supporting the convergence of broadcast and the Internet world in IPTV.


Magnetic field induced binding energy of two donors in a parabolic GaAs/AlGaAs nano dot is reported. The calculations are carried out using variation ansatz within the single band effective mass approximation. The binding energy is estimated for different inter-impurity distances in the presence of magnetic field. The correlation effect of two donors is introduced through the wave function. It is found that interimpurity distance, correlation of donors and the magnetic field strength make the electron more binding.