OBJECTIVE
To describe a new technique of suturing microvessels with persistent perfusion via a temporary intraluminal microshunt.

METHODS
Experiments were conducted in Wistar rats. Abdominal aorta grafts were explanted from donor rats. A soft silicon microcatheter was introduced into the lumen of this graft. The abdominal aorta of a recipient rat was prepared for end-to-side microvascular anastomosis. Acland clamps (S&T AG, Neuhausen, Switzerland) were applied, and a linear arteriotomy was made. One end of the graft-clad microcatheter was introduced into the lumen and occluded with a fenestrated Acland clamp. At a more distal part, a similar arteriotomy was performed, and the other end of the microcatheter was introduced into the lumen and clamped with a fenestrated Acland clip. This created a temporary shunt through the graft-clad microcatheter. Then, the graft was anastomosed to the arteriotomies at both ends, over the microcatheter, in an end-to-side manner. The microcatheter was explanted from the vessel lumen through an arteriotomy in the middle of the graft. The graft was clipped short to close this arteriotomy. The mean total occlusion time before perfusion was reestablished amounted to 3.7 minutes. This experiment was repeated in 12 animals (6 with and 6 without heparin) without technical complications. As controls, conventional anastomoses were made in 2 animals.

RESULTS
Suturing microvessels mandates their occlusion during the period of anastomosis. Although ischemia is well tolerated by other tissue types, the brain is quite sensitive to even short windows of ischemia. Nonocclusive anastomotic techniques have been developed recently. These are confined to vessels with luminal diameters greater than 3 mm. We have evolved a novel technique that can be used with microvessels, as pertinent to superficial temporal artery-to-middle cerebral artery bypass.

CONCLUSION
We have described a new technique for performing microvascular anastomoses over a temporary intraluminal microcatheter shunt.


The state of the art in music source separation employs neural networks trained in a supervised fashion on multi-track databases to estimate the sources from a given mixture. With only few datasets available, often extensive data augmentation is used to combat overfitting. Mixing random tracks, however, can even reduce separation performance as instruments in real music are strongly correlated. The key concept in our approach is that source estimates of an optimal separator should be indistinguishable from real source signals. Based on this idea, we drive the separator towards outputs deemed as realistic by discriminator networks that are trained to tell apart real from separator samples. This way, we can also use unpaired source and mixture recordings without the drawbacks of creating unrealistic music mixtures. Our framework is widely applicable as it does not assume a specific network architecture or number of sources. To our knowledge, this is the first adoption of adversarial training for music source separation. In a prototype experiment for singing voice separation, separation performance increases with our approach compared to purely supervised training.


Abstract Most of the nearly zonal, multiple, alternating jets observed in the oceans are latent, that is, their amplitudes are weak relative to the ambient mesoscale eddies. Yet, relatively strong jets are often observed in dynamical simulations. To explore mechanisms controlling the degree of latency, we analyse solutions of an idealized, eddy-resolving and flat-bottom quasigeostrophic model, in which dynamically generated mesoscale eddies maintain and interact with a set of multiple zonal jets. We find that the degree of the latency is controlled primarily by the bottom friction: the larger the friction parameter, the more latent are the jets; and the degree of the latency is substantial for a realistic range of the oceanic bottom friction coefficient. This result not only provides a plausible explanation for the latency of the oceanic jets, but it may also be relevant to the prominent atmospheric multiple jets observed on giant gas planets, such as Jupiter. We hypothesize that these jets can be so strong because of the relative absence of the bottom friction. The mechanism controlling the latency in our solutions is understood in terms of the changes induced in the linear eigenmodes of the time–mean flow by varying the bottom friction coefficient; these changes, in turn, affect and modify the jets. Effects of large Reynolds numbers on the eddies, jets, and the latency are also discussed.


During the last few years, several startling mergers have affected the German housing market. This raises the question whether such a concentration process is rational from an economic point of view. A justification of this practice could be the realization of economies of scale, assuming that the average cost for housing companies will reduce perceptibly with the size of the firm. According to Mansley, Ambrose, Fuerst and Wang (2016), economies of scale also exist for European Real Estate Companies. However, they conjecture, that the benefits of increasing scale derive in particular from internal growth, not from M&A activities. Furthermore, they suggest, that the benefits of economies of scale are greater for small companies than for larger companies. We analyze, whether these general across sector findings can be verified in the special case of the German housing industry. Due to eminent data problems, we discuss the possibilities and limits of different methods of measuring economies of scale, such as the cost estimation-approach, the profitability-approach and the survivor-approach.


Background Local adipose tissue (AT) cooling is used to manage obesity and overweight, but the mechanism is unclear. The current view is that acute local cooling of AT induces adipocyte cell disruption and inflammation ("cryolipolysis") that lead to adipocyte cell death, with loss of subcutaneous fat being recorded over a prolonged period of weeks/months. A contrasting view is that AT loss via targeted cryotherapy might be mediated by thermogenic fat metabolism without cell disruption. Methods In this retrospective study of individuals presenting for cryotherapy to the Clinic BioEsthetic, Paris, France, we recorded waist circumference, body weight, and body mass index (BMI) by direct measurement and by whole-body dual-energy X-ray absorptiometric scanning. In select individuals, blood analysis of markers of inflammation and fat mobilization was performed before and after the procedure. Results We report that (i) single sessions of tissue cryotherapy lead to significant loss of tissue volume in the time frame of hours and (ii) multiple daily procedures lead to a cumulative decline in AT, as assessed by waist circumference, body weight, and BMI, confirmed by whole-body dual-energy X-ray absorptiometric scanning. In addition, (iii) blood analysis following tissue cryotherapy found no significant changes in biochemical parameters including markers of inflammation. Moreover, (iv) calculations of heat extracted and of compensatory weight loss taking place through thermogenesis are substantially consistent with the observed loss of AT. Conclusions These findings argue that cold-induced thermogenesis ("cryothermogenesis") rather than adipocyte disruption underlies the reduction in AT volume, raising the prospect that more intensive cryotherapy may be a viable option for combating obesity and overweight.


Abstract. Machine learning (ML) and data-driven approaches are increasingly used in many research areas. XGBoost is a tree boosting method that has evolved into a state-of-the-art approach for many ML challenges. However, it has rarely been used in simulations of land use change so far. Xilingol, a typical region for research on serious grassland degradation and its drivers, was selected as a case study to test whether XGBoost can provide alternative insights that conventional land-use models are unable to generate. A set of twenty drivers was analysed using XGBoost, involving four alternative sampling strategies, and SHAP to interpret the results of the purely data-driven approach. The results indicated that, with three of the sampling strategies (over-balanced, balanced and imbalanced), XGBoost achieved similar and robust simulation results. SHAP values were useful for analysing the complex relationship between the different drivers of grassland degradation. Four drivers accounted for 99 % of the grassland degradation dynamics in Xilingol. These four drivers were spatially allocated, and a risk map of further degradation was produced. The limitations of using XGBoost to predict future land-use change are discussed.


Gillespie's exact stochastic simulation algorithm (SSA) [J. Phys. Chem. 81, 2350 (1977)] has been widely used to simulate the stochastic dynamics of chemically reacting systems. In this algorithm, it is assumed that all reactions occur instantly. While this is true in many cases, it is also possible that some chemical reactions, such as gene transcription and translation in living cells, take certain time to finish after they are initiated. Thus, the product of such reactions will emerge after certain delays. Apparently, Gillespie's SSA is not an exact algorithm for chemical reaction systems with delays. In this paper, the author develops an exact SSA for chemical reaction systems with delays, based upon the same fundamental premise of stochastic kinetics used by Gillespie in the development of his SSA. He then shows that an algorithm modified from Gillespie's SSA by Barrio et al. [PLOS Comput. Biol. 2, 1017 (2006)] is also an exact SSA for chemical reaction systems with delays, but it needs to generate more random variables than the author's algorithm.


Using a sample frame of seven hundred micro enterprises in some selected part of Benin City, the study considered electricity infrastructure failure and the development of micro sized enterprises in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. More than fifty nine percent of the owners of business agree that they usually experience light outages for more than five hours per day which usually peak in the afternoon; the boom of business period. This leads to financial and customer losses on the operators of micro enterprises. Further more, it sometimes leads to equipment damage. As regards infrastructure needs, electricity was rated first by the respondents followed by water and roads. Though, corruption by electricity supply officials and equipment failures were rated by enterprise owners as the major reason for poor power supply, they suggested that competition for electricity supply should be encouraged while electricity tariff be increased.


The political establishment are appealing against the EU Commission's ruling that Apple should pay e13 billion to Irish taxpayers - plus interest that will amount to between an extra e5 and e6 billion. They cite the 'reputational damage' that might follow acceptance of such a ruling. There was not, however, a similar level of concern when the UN found that Ireland's ban on abortion in the case of fatal foetal abnormality constituted 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment. The linking of the interest of the Irish state to those of a global corporation is only an accentuation of  an already established pattern. The state has a long established pattern of handing over its natural resources to foreign multi-nationals. It scores remarkably well on the Heritage Foundation's, 'Freedom Index'. It comes in eighth place in the world's wish list for neoliberal wonderlands.


Thermal energy storage for solar dryer has recently attracted increasing interest as the availability of solar energy is intermittent. The effectiveness of thermal energy storage using Phase Change Material (PCM) in solar dryer application was investigated in this work. A solar cabinet dryer having 3 evenly spaced trays that provide maximum heat flow with drying area of 0.5 m 2 (each)that caters to a family was constructed and its performance evaluated. The experiments were done on the dryer with and without thermal storage for 3 days each during the month of April when the sunshine remains considerable in Annamalai Nagar located at 11.39° N Latitude and 79.69° E Longitude. The temperature at different vital locations was recorded from 10 a.m. onwards until the cabinet temperature fell to that of the atmosphere. The mass flow rate of air during experimentation varied between 0.001-0.003 kg/s. A paraffin (n-docosane)-kerosene composite of 12.5 kg and 2:1 mass ratio was used for thermal storage in the dryer. The PCM was filled in 20 numbers of 20 mm diameter aluminum tubes having 500 mm length and 100 aluminum cans of 150 ml capacity (excluding space for phase change). The results were analysed for the variation of thermal absorption and storage based on air velocity, temperature gradient, and solar intensity. The cabinet temperature remained 25-30°C higher than that of atmosphere during mid-day.  The peak heat gain fell by 18% on the days of experimentation with thermal storage due to the heat conducted by PCM pipes. On an average, the thermal efficiency of the system with thermal storage improves by 50 % of its efficiency without thermal storage unit. It was found that the dryer with thermal storage can sustain the required temperature for 3 hours after  sunshine hours and then it falls gradually.


Evaluation of five types of silicon photodiode was undertaken to verify their suitability for absolute radiometry and also for their use as transfer standards in the spectral region from 1 nm to 1100 nm. Four types of photodiode were fabricated for this study; these were the p-on-n photodiode, n-on-p photodiodes with silicon dioxide front windows and n-on-p photodiodes with a metal-silicide front window. Fabrication of photodiodes with 100% internal quantum efficiency is demonstrated and their necessity for making absolute radiometric measurements with the lowest possible uncertainty is pointed out. The linearity characteristics of these devices, as measured by the ac/dc method, are far superior to those of the p-on-n diodes especially fabricated for this work and also to those exhibited by p-on-n diodes widely used at present by the radiometric community. Results on the stability of the quantum efficiency of the fabricated diodes after exposure to intense radiation of 13 nm, 120 nm, 157 nm, 193 nm and 254 nm radiation will also be presented. Photodiodes with a metal-silicide front window were the only devices stable when exposed to the intense beams of third-generation synchrotrons and UV excimer lasers.


Obesity is one of the major public health problems worldwide, mainly resulting from unhealthy lifestyles and diet. Gut microbiota dysbiosis may also lead to obese humans and animals. Modulating gut bacteria through fecal transplantation, the use of probiotics or certain dietary supplements, could normalize gut microbiota and subsequently alleviate obesity. Daily consumption of Fuzhuan brick tea (FBT) or its extracts have been observed to alleviate obesity in humans and experimental animals. In this study, high-fat diet-induced dysbiosis of gut microbiota in C57BL/6J mice was partially reversed by consumption of Eumtium cristatum, the dominant fungi during the manufacturing and storage of FBT. E. cristatum was able to modulate both gut fungi and bacteria composition, based on the analysis of microbiota composition of mice fecal samples. E. cristatum increased acetate and butyrate-producing bacteria in mice gut, and produced five times more butyrate than both obese and normal mice. Our results suggested that E. cristatum may be used as a fungi probiotic to beneficially modulate gut microbiota and to alleviate obesity in humans.


The fundamental objective of this work is to study the cold formability of AA-7075_O by a testing methodology known as repetitive bending under tension. The repetitive bending under tension is a testing methodology to create a similar deformation condition to that which occurs during incremental sheet forming. In the case of repetitive bending under tension tests, the sheet metal sample is subjected to localised bending under tensile loading. This additional bending during testing is applied by sliding a set of rollers over the gauge length of the tested sample. In order to study the influence of various strain conditions at the plastic deformation zone, specimens with different geometries were investigated. In addition, samples from three different orientations of 0˚, 45˚ and 90˚ with respect to the rolling direction were tested to study the effect of mechanical anisotropy on deformation behaviour. The results confirmed a significant increase in elongation to failure in samples subjected to repetitive bending under tension as compared to those subjected to standard tensile tests under similar conditions. It is shown that this could be due to a delay in localised necking during repetitive bending under tension. Finite element analysis (FEA) has also been used to simulate the process. In agreement with the experimental finding, FEA results show that the maximum force required to deform the material is less than that required during a standard tensile test. Analysis of 3D scanning of samples that went up to fracture during repetitive bending under tension and a standard tensile test revealed that the samples undergoing the former underwent a more uniform reduction in thickness and width along the gauge length, compared to the latter. TEM observations of the microstructure confirms grain refinement in the samples subjected to repetitive bending under tension. This could be due to a strain induced dynamic recrystallisation process occurring during the test. Analysing the crystallographic texture using neutron diffraction revealed that a strong {111}//ND fibre texture had been developed during the repetitive bending under tension test. This could be due plastic shear strain introduced by repetitively bending and unbending through the sheet thickness.


ABSTRACT The challenges of migration can jeopardize mental health, but also can provide opportunities for growth. This study investigated the association between levels of depression and socio-demographic and migration variables, and the role of resilience as a mediator between these features. A cross-sectional study was conducted of 182 Iranian immigrants living across Australia who completed an online questionnaire. Higher levels of depression were found in participants who were unemployed, experienced high levels of discrimination, had an incomplete tertiary education, and were younger and unmarried (p < 0.05). Higher levels of education, experience of moderate levels of discrimination and being married were associated with lower levels of depression mediated by resilience. Higher levels of depression were correlated with lower levels of resilience (r = −0.50, p < 0.001). The results of this study suggest several possible approaches to prevention of depression in immigrants. These may include improving employment opportunities, reducing discrimination, approaches that reduce the stress of the settlement process and interventions that aim to strengthen resilience.


The fed-batch cultivation process for the production of the recombinant protein,
superoxide dismutase (SOD) by E. coli BL21 (DE3) pLysS was carried out. The
cultivation process for recombinant SOD (ESOD) production was optimized through
several approaches and strategies. The first approach was to optimize medium and
culture conditions of the ESOD culture in shake flask via conventional and the
Response Surface Methodology (RSM) methods. Laboratory scale batch cultivation of
ESOD was then performed using a 2 L stirred tank bioreactor (STB) in order to further
optimize the medium and culture conditions. The effects of glucose concentrations (15
and 20 g/L), agitation speeds (300 – 1000 rpm) and controlled dissolved oxygen tension
(DOT) via agitation speeds (20%, 50% and 80%) on the growth performance of the
recombinant E. coli strain were investigated. In the final stage, fed-batch techniques were applied to the process for the development of high cell density cultivation. The
performance and kinetics of the ESOD fed-batch and batch cultivations were then
evaluated and compared.


We propose Keynesian utilities as a new class of non-expected utility functions representing the preferences of investors for optimism, defined as the composition of the investor's preferences for risk and her preferences for ambiguity. The optimism or pessimism of Keynesian utilities is determined by empirical proxies for risk and ambiguity. Bulls and bears are defined respectively as optimistic and pessimistic investors. The resulting family of Afriat inequalities are necessary and sufficient for rationalizing the asset demands of bulls and bears with Keynesian utilities.


SUMMARY:  Individual auditor brainstorming is an important input to group brainstorming. In a setting where multiple potential frauds exist, we examine the effect of brainstorming task representation (simultaneous versus sequential unpacking of potential frauds) on individual auditors' identification of potential frauds and fraud risk assessments. Results from an experiment with experienced auditors show that the sequential unpacking of the brainstorming task into risk categories (potential frauds identified for each category individually) leads to a greater quantity and quality of potential frauds identified by auditors compared to the simultaneous unpacking (potential frauds identified for the categories together). Additional analysis suggests that the positive effect of sequential unpacking on the quality of frauds identified persists when auditors subsequently receive frauds identified by other team members. We also find a potential negative effect of sequential unpacking as it reduces auditors' fraud...


The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of method of sample preparation on the degradation kinetics of herbage when applying the in situ technique. Ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum cv. Midmar) was harvested at three and four weeks after cutting and fertilizing with 200 kg nitrogen (N)/ha. Freshly cut herbage was used to investigate the following four sample preparation methods. In trial 1, herbage was (1) chopped with a paper-cutting guillotine into 5-10 mm lengths, representing fresh (FR) herbage; (2) chopped and stored frozen at –20 °C in a chest freezer, representing frozen (FN) herbage; (3) chopped, stored frozen at –20 °C for 12 h followed by freeze drying for 48 h and thereafter milled through a 2 mm screen, representing freeze dried (FD) herbage and (4) chopped and oven dried at 65 °C for 48 h and thereafter milled through a 2 mm screen, representing oven dried (OD) herbage. Prepared samples were incubated in three rumen cannulated, lactating Holstein-Friesian cows. The dry matter (DM) and N loss (%) of the FR, FN, FD and OD herbage differed significantly at 0 and 5 hours incubation but not at 24 or 48 hours. Sample characteristics (particle size, wet or dry sample) clearly influenced the degradability of herbage DM and N. Frozen herbage showed similar degradation characteristics to fresh herbage. In trial 2, ryegrass samples were prepared by the same four methods, but at a standardized particle size, namely, chopped into 5–10 mm lengths. The treatments were: chopped fresh, chopped frozen, chopped freeze dried and chopped oven dried. The N losses differed significantly between treatments for the 0, 5 and 10 hour incubations, but not at the 22 and 46 hour incubation periods. Although the a, b and c fractions differed significantly between treatments, the effective degradability did not differ for fresh, frozen and freeze dried chopped samples. Oven dried chopped samples had reduced effective degradability and are not recommended for determining effective degradability. It is proposed that fresh chopped herbage be used in degradability studies.. Keywords : Ruminal disappearance; degradability; nitrogen; annual ryegrass;dairy cows South African Journal of Animal Sciences Vol. 35 (2) 2005: pp.126-134


Take a series of scaled projectiles with the same quality, diameter, and different nose shape as the research objects, combined with numerical simulation and test of artillery, studied the influence of nose shapes to the projectile's attitude changes in the process of oblique penetrating through a steel plate. In the process of research and analysis, the projectile's axis rotation angle was the primary focus, the influence law of two main nose shape parameters: radius of curvature and truncated diameter were analyzed. The results show that, nose shape significantly affects the stress changes in the process of penetrating, causing obvious body attitude changes in direction and velocity; after penetrated target, the attack angle was increased with the curvature diameter ratio and decreases with the truncated diameter. Compared with sharp ogival nose projectile, truncated-ogival-nose projectile can reduce the axis rotation velocity, to ensure a well consistency body attitude fore-and-aft the penetration.


The determination of the glass transition temperature, T{sub g}, of polymers by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermomechanical analysis (TMA) is sometimes problematic and rather subjective. This was shown previously in the ICTA certificate (distributed by NBS as GM-754) for the certified reference material polystyrene (PS). The not very good reproducibility of the measured value of the onset is due to a variety of instrumental and experimental parameters. This is true also for the determination of the glass transition by TMA measurements. The main reasons are temperature gradients caused by the relatively high sample mass required for DSC and by the limited heat transfer in TMA, respectively. Their own experiments which were carried out with polystyrene and with [poly(ethyleneterephthalate)] (PET) proved that a combination of DSC with TOA (thermo-optical analysis or hot stage microscopy under polarized light) can solve some of these problems. TOA is a nonsubjective method since the changes in birefringence and light transmittance during the glass transition which are visible under the microscope are measured with a photocell. TOA allows T{sub g} measurements of small samples (fraction of milligrams).


The density of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors on membranes prepared from cultured cortical neurons was determined using binding assays with [125I]I-MK-801 after exposure of cultures to antagonists of the NMDA receptor complex. The density of binding sites for [125I]I-MK-801 was increased by 40-80% after exposure to D-2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid (D-AP5), with no change in the number or viability of neurons. The effect of D-AP5 was concentration dependent, with an EC50 of 10 microM. Up-regulation of NMDA receptors was observed after 2-7 days but not after 1 day of exposure to 100 microM D-AP5. The density of NMDA receptors was also increased after exposure of cells to CGS 19755 and MK-801 but not after exposure to the alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA)/kainate receptor antagonist 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione. The binding of [3H]AMPA was unaltered after exposure to D-AP5. These results demonstrate that the density of NMDA receptors on cultured neurons can be selectively up-regulated by exposure to NMDA receptor antagonists. Increases in the density of NMDA receptors occurring in vivo could complicate therapeutic approaches to the treatment of neurological disorders.


There are two ways of conventional thermal distortion analysis. One is thermal elastoplastic analysis and the other is equivalent forces method based on inherent strain. The former needs exorbitant analysis time, while the latter cannot obtain stress results and requires more time with loads modeling on curved plates. To solve those time-consuming problems, a new kind of thermal distortion analysis method was developed. In this method, inherent strains are devised to be used as direct input factors as boundary conditions. Suggested analysis method was already adopted at welding distortion analysis of large hull block, which was considered as impossible.


The Blackbeard VHF radio receiver on the Alexis satellite detects pairs of broadband chirps, each lasting about four microseconds. These chirps are separated by several tens of microseconds and extend in frequency to over 166 MHz. The characteristics of these signals suggest that they are caused by electrical discharges in the Earth's atmosphere, but there is some debate as to whether the discharges occur in the middle atmosphere or within tropospheric clouds. Previously, by comparing the time of the occurrence of these Trans‐Ionsopheric Pulse Pairs (TIPPs) with the occurrence of electric pulses recorded by the National Lightning Detection Network, we have found that they are associated with events classified as positive cloud pulses. Herein we examine one TIPP event that is associated with a near simultaneous (0.75 ms) detection at two stations of the ground network allowing us to determine that the causative event occurred over southeastern Kansas. Knowing the longitude and latitude of the pulse, we show that the interchirp separation time is consistent with the generation of the first chirp of the pair at 8 km altitude followed by the ground reflection of that signal to produce the second chirp of the TIPP.


Humanin (HN) is a 24‐aa polypeptide that offers protection from Alzheimer's disease and myocardial infarction, increases insulin sensitivity, improves survival of β cells, and delays onset of diabetes. Here we examined the acute effects of HN on insulin secretion and potential mechanisms through which they are mediated. Effects of a potent HN analog, HNGF6A, on glucose‐stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) were assessed in vivo and in isolated pancreatic islets and cultured murine β cell line (βTC3) in vitro. Sprague‐Dawley rats (3 mo old) that received HNGF6A required a significantly higher glucose infusion rate and demonstrated higher insulin levels during hyperglycemic clamps compared to saline controls. In vitro, compared to scrambled peptide controls, HNGF6A increased GSIS in isolated islets from both normal and diabetic mice as well as in βTC3 cells. Effects of HNGF6A on GSIS were dose dependent, K‐ATP channel independent, and associated with enhanced glucose metabolism. These findings demonstrate that HNGF6A increases GSIS in whole animals, from isolated islets and from cells in culture, which suggests a direct effect on the β cell. The glucose‐dependent effects on insulin secretion along with the established effects on insulin action suggest potential for HN and its analogs in the treatment of diabetes.—Kuliawat, R., Klein, L., Gong, Z., Nicoletta‐Gentile, M., Nemkal, A. Cui, L., Bastie, C., Su, K., Huffman, D., Surana, M., Barzilai, N., Fleischer, N., Muzumdar, R., Potent humanin analog increases glucose‐stimulated insulin secretion through enhanced metabolism in the β cell. FASEB J. 27, 4890–4898 (2013). www.fasebj.org


New part introduction is an important topic because customer expectations expanded and a large variety of parts must be produced by the production systems. Therefore, effect of new parts to the system performance at the operational level should be analysed in order to verify that the new parts can be processed within the cells using the current capacity of machines and workers or to identify if there will be any inter-cell flow due to new parts. In the current study, a methodology that incorporates both simulation methodology and Information Axiom of Axiomatic Design (AD) to identify the best system parameter levels is developed. The structural properties of a manufacturing system will be investigated with simulation technique to observe system performance metrics. Then based on observations, information content of each scenario is calculated and the best scenario with the most suitable parameter levels is selected. To indicate applicability of the methodology, a real hybrid manufacturing system where new parts are introduced is modelled for different levels of system parameters including different setup levels, numbers of workers and lot size, using the simulation technique and different scenarios are populated. The performance of the system for each scenario is observed using the simulation models. Then, based on the Information Axiom of Axiomatic Design total information content is calculated for each scenario, the best scenario that represents the most suitable system parameters is determined. Integration of simulation and Information Axiom of AD makes a distinction from other new product introduction studies.


The aim of this paper is to show the existence and attainability of Karush–Kuhn–Tucker optimality conditions for weakly efficient Pareto points for vector equilibrium problems with the addition of constraints in the novel context of Hadamard manifolds, as opposed to the classical examples of Banach, normed or Hausdorff spaces. More specifically, classical necessary and sufficient conditions for weakly efficient Pareto points to the constrained vector optimization problem are presented. The results described in this article generalize results obtained by Gong (2008) and Wei and Gong (2010) and Feng and Qiu (2014) from Hausdorff topological vector spaces, real normed spaces, and real Banach spaces to Hadamard manifolds, respectively. This is done using a notion of Riemannian symmetric spaces of a noncompact type as special Hadarmard manifolds.


Towards the end of the XIX th century and the beginning of the XX th century, the toy market created a number of toys based on an emerging educational method under-lined by a constructivist approach. Indeed, both in Europe and United States, many companies were inspired by what was happening, almost at the same time, in several schools of Art and Architecture, in which the design studio teaching was based on an "atelier" system and pupils developed skills and autonomy through their own action. The paradigm of practice based on task simulation, either scientific or artistic, is still clearly visible in a number of toys which promoted skills development through playing. German Anker blocks, Meccano or Guilbert construction sets, are perfect examples of toys which require intellectual and manual skills to successfully complete a specific exercise or experiment. The design of these kinds of toys reflected the shift in educational paradigms. The classical method was based on reproducing an existing solution, supported by instruction booklets provided by the toy's manufacturer. The new method afforded the user the opportunity to create something novel, not directed or limited by illustrations. These differences were reflected not only in the references provided by the toy companies or filtered through an adult worldview, but also in the toy design itself. Indeed, some construction sets were developed to be assembled in a limited number of forms, while others permitted a wide variety of permutations including the construction of unconventional shapes which may not be recognized as everyday objects like vehicles or buildings. Based on this background, this article highlights the idea that some toys facilitate actions which are similar to the propaedeutic exercises set, for example, during the first year in several architecture schools. Therefore, it is possible to consider specific kinds of toys, called architectural toys, as real educational devices.


I investigated instances of child abuse that second-stage primary school children experience in the family environment and their social skills. The research sample consisted of 347 children aged between 12 and 14 who attended primary education 6th, 7th, and 8th grades in the province of Konya, Turkey. To collect the data I used the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters (MESSY) Scale, which was developed by Matson, Rotatory, and Hessel in 1983, adapted to Turkish and tested for reliability and validity by Bacanli and Erdogan (2003); and the Domestic Child Abuse Scale-B Form, which was developed by Bekci (2006). I found that physical abuse had a positive relationship with directing to crime, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional threat, educational abuse, lack of rules, lack of support, and negative social skills. There was a negative relationship between supporting development and negative social skills.


A differential-in differential-out error amplifier and a load regulation enhancement mechanism are proposed in the buck converter that aims to improve load regulation and noise immunity. By using the proportional compensator in the proposed converter, there is no need of external compensation components in this design. As a result, a compact-size and high-performance dc-dc buck converter can be guaranteed. Experimental results show that load regulation can be improved from 0.5 to 0.025 mV/mA. The test chip was fabricated by 0.25 μm CMOS process and occupied 1.65 mm active silicon area.


The importance of behaviours as instigators or inhibitors of evolutionary change remains largely unresolved and this is in part because there are very few empirical examples of how behaviours affect evolutionary processes. By determining the environment of breeding, aggressive interactions over territories have the potential to strongly impact selection pressures experienced by individuals. Western bluebirds (Sialia mexicana) provide a unique opportunity to investigate the evolutionary importance of aggression, since their highly variable breeding habitat favours distinct foraging techniques and they also compete aggressively for nest boxes, a resource that is easy to manipulate. Here, I show experimentally that more aggressive males compete more effectively for territories with a high density of nest boxes and, as a consequence, aggressive and non-aggressive males are sorted into distinct breeding habitats that differ in the strength of selection on morphological traits. Specifically, males with longer tails and tarsi were favoured in open habitats where high agility is required to forage efficiently, whereas in forested habitats, where agility is less important, selection was weak. These results show that aggression can affect selection on a local scale by determining individual settlement patterns. More generally, because territorial interactions are important across a wide variety of taxa, these results suggest that aggressive behaviour has the potential to impact the evolutionary trajectory of many animal populations.


Author(s): Lee, Gi Jung | Advisor(s): Brouwer, Jack | Abstract: While advancement of power generation and grid management technologies has enabled their broader applications, recent changes in climate are projected to impose obstacles to performance and operation of the systems employing these technologies. As more renewables are prioritized over fossil fuels to alleviate changes in climate, the power systems are in need of further research to help meet public and environmental demands by complementing renewable intermittency. In this thesis, the combined-cycle plant technology was modeled in the MATLAB/SIMULINK and verified at two different scales: 1) a 19MW UC Irvine central power plant; 2) a 600MW utility-scale power plant. Three scenarios were generated using the Holistic Grid Resources Integration and Deployment (HiGRID) tool with the renewable penetration percentages set according to the original California Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS): 33%, 50% and 80%. Each scenario presented how various power generating classes contribute to electricity demands for a year-long period. For the scope of this study, load-follower power plant contributions to the general load profile for a week-long period were extracted, normalized and input into the utility model for simulation. The simulation results demonstrated possible consequences from increasing the renewable penetration to the grid. With the increasing penetration, the natural gas combined-cycle power plant needed to operate more dynamically as a load-follower to complement the renewables. The more dynamic operation of the power plant resulted in decrease of its efficiency from 63% to 44% and to 36% and its capacity factor from 75% to 59% and to 34% for the three scenarios, respectively.


The purpose of these studies was to measure cerebral, coronary, and renal blood flow in miniature swine during hemorrhagic hypotension. Blood flows (BF) were measured in 16 anesthetized, female, miniature swine (35-50 kg) with the radiolabeled microsphere technique using 15-microns spheres. The animals were exposed to a standard, stepwise hemorrhagic shock protocol which set mean aortic pressure at 65, 50, 35, and 20 mm Hg for 10-15 min at each stage. Heart rate and aortic and central venous pressures were measured throughout these studies. Arterial pCO2, pO2 pH, and Hct were measured at the time of BF measurements. BFs were measured under baseline conditions and during three of the four stages of hypotension in each animal. BF was measured in the following tissues: brain (13 samples), heart (120 samples), kidney (left and right), spleen, liver, muscle, and skin. Coronary BF was consistently decreased during hypotension. Endo/Epi flow ratios were also decreased; however, they remained greater than or equal to 1.0. Renal BF and BF to most other tissues showed graded decreases with hypotension. Cerebral BF did not change significantly at any level of hypotension. The maintenance of cerebral BF in swine at such low arterial pressures (22 mm Hg) may be related to the decrease in central venous pressure (-8 mm Hg), which results in a delta P of 30 mm Hg, and/or to the swine's carotid rete mirabile.


Insolubilization of pentane-soluble fraction from Athabasca bitumen in thermal cracking at 673 K was examined in N2 and H2 atmosphere and in the presence and absence of solvent. Reaction products were analyzed by 13C-nmr and VPO. In the absence of solvent, insolubilization occurred through two types of mechanisms; polymerization and dehydrogenation. The results of the thermal cracking of pentane-solubles in N2 and H2 atmosphere indicated that polymerization was dominant in the initial stages, while dehydrogenation took place predominantly in the later stages for nitrogen atmosphere. It was also observed that in the absence of solvent the main chemical reactions of pentane-solubles were naphthenic ring opening and consequential cracking of alkyl side chains. Whereas in the presence of solvents, 13C-nmr results indicated that aromatization of products without the naphthenic ring opening and gas formation by the cracking of alkyl side chains occurred in the both atmospheres . However, in the presence of tetralin as a solvent, yield of pentane-insolubles indicated that insolubilization of pentane-solubles was restricted, which could be due to the hydrogen donor ability and the dispersion of bitumen molecules in tetralin .


Students that are currently enrolled in bachelor studies belong to Generation Z, making them highly comfortable with using various devices with Internet access. Their permanent connection to the virtual world leads to a shift in the way they accumulate knowledge. Classical means of study, such as reading books or lecture notes, have lost ground to online oriented methods of instruction.
The challenge for today's academia is to adapt their teaching methods to these new trends, so that the students' attention is gained and maintained throughout the entire teaching activity. In teaching electronics, the laboratory classes are the most challenging part of the subject, for students, as they get to actively work with components, devices, lab instrumentation. However, a minimum amount of theoretical explanations is necessary, before actually building and analyzing any given circuit. Using a regular whiteboard for this part would make the students focus on writing down the explanations and drawing the circuit diagrams, rather than paying attention to what is explained. Moreover, the amount of information that fits on a whiteboard is limited, making the access to previously discussed topics virtually impossible.
This case study presents the effects of using a smartboard in teaching electronics laboratories to 1st and 2nd year students, an average of 200 students a year. The study was conducted over the last two academic years (2018-2019, 2017-2018) and the results are validated against two years of using a regular whiteboard (2016-2017, 2015-2016).
Some of the qualitative effects are: active participation during the theoretical explanations; undivided attention to explanations; ability to switch through the slides; emphasizing important content and comparing practical measurements to theoretical explanations; unlimited additional information can be added, to any of the slides, at any given time; easy access to laboratory explanations, emailed as pdf to the students; student access to correct laboratory explanations written by the teacher; possibility to use laboratory explanations as additional material in preparing for the final written exam.
Measureable effects include: a shortening of the theoretical explanations part at the beginning of the lab session (from 40 minutes to 25 minutes, on average), increased time for the practical experiments, increased grades at the final practical test, from 8.90 to 9.30, on average.


Simodense is a high-performance open-source RISC-V (RV32IM) softcore, optimised for exploring custom SIMD instructions. In order to maximise SIMD instruction performance, the design's memory system is optimised for streaming bandwidth, such as very wide blocks for the last-level cache. The approach is demonstrated on example memory-intensive applications with custom instructions. This paper also provides insights on the effectiveness of adding FPGA resources in general purpose processors in the form of reconfigurable SIMD instructions.


Method validation for quantitative analysis of aflatoxins (AFs), ochratoxin A (OTA) and zearalenone (ZEA) in cereals using HPLC with fluorescence detector (FLD) is described. Mycotoxins were extracted with methanol : water (80 : 20) and purified with a multifunctional AOZ immunoaffinity column before HPLC analysis. The validation of the analytical method was performed to establish the following parameters: specificity, selectivity, linearity, limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ), accuracy, precision (within- and between-day variability), stability, robustness, measurement of performance, and measurement of uncertainty. Calibration curves were linear (r > 0.999) over the concentration range, from the LOQ to 26, 40 and 400 ng/g for AFs, OTA and ZEA, respectively. LOD and LOQ were 0.0125 and 0.05 ng/g for aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and G1 (AFG1), 0.0037 and 0.015 ng/g for aflatoxin B2 (AFB2) and G2 (AFG2), as well as 0.05 and 0.2 ng/g for OTA and 0.5 and 2 ng/g for ZEA, respectively. The mean recovery values were 77–104% for different concentrations of AFs, OTA and ZEA in spiked cereal samples. Both intra- and inter-day accuracy and precision were within acceptable limits. This method was successfully applied for the simultaneous determination of mycotoxins for 60 cereal samples collected from Malaysian markets. Fifty per cent of the cereal samples were contaminated with at least one of these mycotoxins, at a level greater than the LOD. Only one wheat sample and two rice samples were contaminated with levels greater than the European Union regulatory limits for AFs and OTA (4 and 5 ng/g). The means and ranges of mycotoxins obtained for the cereal samples were 0.4 ng/g and 0.01–5.9 ng/g for total AFs; 0.18 ng/g and 0.03–5.3 ng/g for OTA; and 2.8 ng/g and 2.4–73.1 ng/g for ZEA, respectively. The results indicate that the method is suitable for the simultaneous determination of AFs, OTA and ZEA in cereals and is suitable for routine analysis.


Understanding the variability and coherence of surface ocean pCO2 on a global scale can provide insights into its physical and biogeochemical drivers and inform future samplings strategies and data assimilation methods. We present temporal and spatial autocorrelation analyses of surface ocean pCO2on a 5° × 5° grid using the Lamont‐Doherty Earth Observatory database. The seasonal cycle is robust with an interannual autocorrelation of ∼0.4 across multiple years. The global median spatial autocorrelation (e‐folding) length is 400 ± 250 km, with large variability across different regions. Autocorrelation lengths of up to 3,000 km are found along major currents and basin gyres while autocorrelation lengths as low as 50 km are found in coastal regions and other areas of physical turbulence. Zonal (east–west) autocorrelation lengths are typically longer than their meridional counterparts, reflecting the zonal nature of many major ocean features. Uncertainties in spatial autocorrelation in different ocean basins are between 42% and 73% of the calculated decorrelation length. The spatial autocorrelation length in air‐sea fluxes is much shorter than forpCO2 (200 ± 150 km) due to the high variability of the gas transfer velocity.


Dynamic wetting phenomena are omnipresent in nature and technology. The legs of the water-strider make use of a sophisticated hierarchical surface structure to achieve superhydrophobicity and to allow the insect to stand and run easily on a water surface. The ability to understand and control dynamic wetting processes is crucial for a variety of industrial and technical processes such as inkjet- or bioprinting or mass transport in microfluidic devices. On the other hand, the moving contact line problem, even in a largely simplified setting, still poses considerable challenges regarding fundamental mathematical modeling as well as numerical methods. The present work addresses both the fundamental modeling and the development of numerical methods based on the geometrical Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method.

The spreading dynamics of droplets on a bare silicon wafer and on a silicon wafer coated with a polymer brush is studied in cooperation with experimentalists within the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1194. An ordinary differential equation describing the spreading dynamics of spherical drops is derived and compared with experimental results. The model is a generalization of a classical model for perfectly wetting drops to the case of partial wetting. Besides these simplified modeling approaches, the main focus of the present work lies on the continuum mechanical description of dynamic wetting.

The moving contact line singularity in the classical hydrodynamic description based on the no-slip boundary condition motivated a lot of research in the past 50 years, aiming at a physically sound model. It has been shown that the Navier slip condition combined with a fixed contact angle leads to a so-called "weak singularity" and it was suspected by Ren and E that the solution may become completely regular for Navier slip combined with a dynamic contact angle (Phys. Fluids, 2007). The central mathematical tool developed in the present work allows to prove that the latter conjecture is false (as long as the slip length is finite). The basic idea is to study the kinematics of wetting in the sharp-interface sharp-contact-line setting independently from the specific continuum mechanical model. An evolution equation for the dynamic contact angle is derived and proven rigorously, assuming that a sufficiently regular velocity field is given on the moving hypersurface with boundary. Thanks to this very general setting, the result is applicable to a large class of continuum mechanical models including the mechanisms of mass transfer between the phases or mass transfer to a surface phase like in the Interface Formation Model. The kinematic result is applied to regular solutions of the "standard model" of dynamic wetting based on the Navier slip condition. It is shown that the system cannot relax to the equilibrium state with a regular solution. Hence, it is concluded that physically sound solutions in the standard model cannot be regular. Moreover, regular solutions to generalizations of the standard model are studied. In particular, it is shown that surface tension gradients at the contact line may give rise to regular solutions.

Furthermore, the compatibility of the boundary conditions at the contact line is studied for the standard model and an adaptation of the Interface Formation Model proposed recently by Lukyanov and Pryer (Langmuir, 2017). It is shown that, depending on the model parameters, the boundary conditions in the model by Lukyanov and Pryer may be compatible at the contact line. In this case, one can even compute explicit expressions for the curvature and the pressure at the moving contact line.

The second part of the present thesis is devoted to numerical methods for dynamic wetting. In order to make the kinematic results easily accessible, an open-source demonstrator code based on a level set representation of the interface is developed and published in an open repository. The current state-of-the-art methods for dynamic wetting based on the geometrical Volume-of-Fluid approach are briefly reviewed. In particular, it is shown that the method to enforce the dynamic contact angle proposed by Afkhami and Bussmann (Int. J. Numer. Methods Fluids, 2008) delivers inconsistent values for the curvature at the contact line. Motivated by the fundamental results on the kinematics of moving contact lines, novel interface reconstruction methods are developed and implemented that allow to reconstruct the free surface close to the domain boundary. In particular, the Boundary ELVIRA method delivers an accurate numerical transport of the contact angle that is consistent with the fundamental kinematics. The latter method greatly improves the accuracy of the VOF method in the presence of contact lines.

Moreover, the numerical approximation of the mean curvature based on the height function technique is studied thoroughly. A rigorous error analysis for the two-dimensional height function method in the presence of data errors is given. In particular, the discrete error amplification is estimated and studied in detail. The latter type of error is rarely discussed in the scientific literature on the topic. But in fact, the impact of the discrete error amplification on the total error can be significant, in particular when disturbances due to transport errors are present in the volume fraction data. The kinematic evolution equation for the mean curvature, which is derived in the first part of this work, serves as a reference solution to validate the numerical transport of the curvature at the contact line. As can be expected from the height function error analysis, the transport error for the curvature is found to be first-order divergent for the Boundary Youngs method and constant for the Boundary ELVIRA method. The latter results clearly show the need for higher-order interface advection methods.

The third part of this work closely investigates two particular wetting flow configurations, namely the capillary rise and the breakup of a liquid bridge on a chemically structured surface. A novel numerical benchmark for wetting flows based on the capillary rise is established with four numerical methods developed within the CRC 1194 at TU Darmstadt. Moreover, a novel adaptation of the Navier slip condition called "staggered slip" is introduced. The goal of the staggered slip condition is to reduce the "numerical slip" inherent to the method. This is achieved by defining the slip length with respect to a virtual boundary that is located in between the physical boundary and location of the face-centered velocity used to transport the volume fraction field. As a result, the discrete viscous dissipation is increased compared to the standard Navier slip implementation. It is shown that the convergence for the capillary rise can be significantly improved if the slip length is not yet resolved. On the other hand, the order of convergence is reduced compared to the standard implementation for a single-phase channel flow example.

The wetting of structured surfaces is studied in joint work with experimentalists in the CRC 1194. The goal is to quantitatively describe the breakup dynamics of a wetting capillary bridge on a structured surface. A major problem for the interpretation of both the experimental and the numerical data arises from the uncertainty in the precise time of pinch-off of the capillary bridge. In order to solve this problem, we introduce a systematic way to analyze the data without the need to determine the pinch-off time. The basic idea, which has been applied before by Li Sprittles (J. Fluid Mech., 2016), is to plot the speed of the breakup process (i.e. the time derivative of the minimum diameter) as a function of the minimum diameter itself. This procedure is well-defined since the minimum diameter is strictly decreasing with time. Indeed, we show that the transformation that maps from the standard representation to the phase space representation is invertible up to a shift in absolute time. With this technique, we are able to study the breakup process in great detail in both the three-dimensional VOF simulation and the experiment. In general, a good agreement is found between experiment and simulation both qualitatively and quantitatively in terms of the time evolution of the minimum diameter. The numerical simulations allowed to identify different regimes in the breakup dynamics that were also found in the experimental data. Remarkably, dynamic surface tension may play a significant role in the breakup dynamics. The agreement between simulation and experiment close to the breakup can be improved by increasing the value of the (constant) surface tension to 90 mN/m. The latter value has been proposed by Hauner et al. (J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 2017) for a freshly created water surface. Moreover, the local rate of interface generation is found to be quite high. However, a fully quantitative assessment of this phenomenon can only be achieved in future work. Finally, we revisit the capillary rise problem in the case of structured surfaces. Interestingly, the surface pattern can be used to construct an energy functional with two stable configurations. The resulting dynamic rise behavior is quite complex with a bifurcation between the two stable configurations at a critical initial rise height.


Oligopeptidic derivatives of anthracyclines unable to penetrate cells were prepared and screened for their stability in human blood and their reactivation by peptidases secreted by cancer cells. N-b-alanyl-L-leucyl-Lalanyl-L-leucyl-doxorubicin was selected as a new candidate prodrug. The NH2-terminal b-alanine allows a very good blood stability. A two-step activation by peptidases found in conditioned media of cancer cells ultimately yieldsN-L-leucyl-doxorubicin. In vitro, when MCF-7/6 cancer cells are exposed to the prodrug, they accumulate about 14 times more doxorubicin than MRC-5 normal fibroblasts, whereas when exposed to doxorubicin the uptake is slightly higher in fibroblasts than in MCF-7/6 cells. This increased specificity of the prodrug over doxorubicin was confirmed in cytotoxicity assays using the same cell types. In vivo, the prodrug proved about nine times less toxic than doxorubicin in the normal mouse and also much more efficient in two different experimental chemotherapy models of human breast tumors.


BACKGROUND
The Canadian Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) for the management of asthmatic patients were last published in 1999, with updates in 2001 and June 2004. Large disparities exist in the implementation of these guidelines into clinical practice.

OBJECTIVE
The present study evaluated the knowledge of Quebec-based primary care physicians regarding the CPGs, as well as patient outcomes before and after introducing physicians to a new clinical tool--a memory aid in the form of a self-inking paper stamp checklist summarizing CPG criteria and guidelines for assessing asthmatic patient control and therapy. The primary objective of the present study was to assess whether the stamp would improve physicians' knowledge of the CPGs, and as a secondary objective, to assess whether it would decrease patient emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

METHODS
A prospective, randomized, controlled study of 104 primary care physicians located in four Quebec regions was conducted. Each physician initially responded to questions on their knowledge of the CPGs, and was then randomly assigned to one of four groups that received information about the CPGs while implementing an intervention (the stamp tool) aimed at supporting their decision-making process at the point of care. Six months later, the physicians were retested, and patient outcomes for approximately one year were obtained from the Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec.

RESULTS
The stamp significantly improved physicians' knowledge of the CPGs in all Quebec regions tested, and reduced emergency room visits and hospitalizations in patients who were followed for at least one year.

CONCLUSION
A paper stamp summarizing CPGs for asthma can be used effectively to increase the knowledge of physicians and to positively affect patient outcomes.


Ethiopia is one of the developing countries; and many projects are being carried out with some of the firms acting unprofessionally, leading to lots of defects in buildings. This study was focused on identifying the types of defects and assessing the causes of defects occurring in residential and office buildings located in North Shoa zone, Ethiopia. To identify the types and causes of defect, questionnaires surveys were distributed for persons involved in the construction industry including clients, consultants and contractors. The data received in the questionnaires were analyzed by Relative Importance Index (RII) method to determine the relative importance of each factor, and the Spearman rank correlation coefficient was determined to test their significance. Observations were also done on buildings that suffered from the defects in the study area; and foundation, wall and window bay cracks were observed. The top causes of the defects in building construction in the study area according to data collected were lack of consultant timely response and proper solutions; unavailability of professionals for material control; delay of construction material delivery; shortage of construction equipment; and lack of coordination between professionals during design. The Spearman rank correlation for causes of defects in the building indicated that there is no positive significant relationship between stakeholders. These results showed that there was a problem of taking responsibility. Finally, to minimize the problem of defects, various minimizing measures should be taken. These may include; control the quality of design, provide appropriate supervision, train professionals on construction and manpower management, arrange the meeting for stakeholders for proper communication and coordination, and creating awareness on construction defects.

 Key words: Construction, defect, defect causes, Relative Importance Index (RII), correlation analysis, minimizing defect.


Poly(lactide) (PLA) is the most well known biodegradable and biocompatible material among the aliphatic polyesters nowadays explored for biomedical, pharmaceutical and environmental applications. Different poly(lactide)s are distinguished, namely stereoregular PLLA and PDLA, atactic, heterotactic, syndiotactic and stereoblock PLAs. Because the stereochemistry of the monomeric units in the polymer chains plays a decisive role in the mechanical, physical and degradation properties of PLA materials, stereospecific catalysts to prepare different polylactide architectures are a major topic. In this review, after a general introduction on metal catalyzed ring opening polymerization, we mainly focus on single site catalyst systems inducing stereoselective polymerization of lactides.


Methylation kinetics of newly formed DNA in bone marrow cell culture of animals and healthy humans was studied in order to investigate the role of DNA methylation in proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic cells. Synthesis of a DNA fraction with extremely high cytosine methylation level was observed under the incubation of cells with 14C-orotic acid for 0.5-1 hour. Long-term incubation (3 and more hours) with 14C-orotic acid resulted in a rapid decrease of 5-methylcytosine radioactivity and in an increase of thymine radioactivity. Elimination of 14C-orotate from the medium and inhibition of DNA synthesis with hydroxyurea did not change kinetics of the radioactivity content in 5-methylcytosine and thymine in newly synthesized DNA. No synthesis of hypermethylated DNA fraction was observed under incubation of cells with preformed pyrimidine precursors.


The refractive index (RI) is one of the most fundamental parameters differentiating aerosol species. It is important to constrain the RI of aerosol components since there is still significant uncertainty regarding the RI of biomass burning aerosols. Experimentally measured extinction cross sections, scattering cross sections and single scattering albedos, for white pine soot under two different burning and sampling conditions were modeled using T-Matrix theory. The refractive indices were extracted from the calculations. Experimental measurements were conducted using a cavity ring-down spectrometer to measure extinction and a nephelometer to measure scattering of size selected aerosols. Soot was obtained by burning white pine using (1) an outdoor burn drum, where the aerosols were collected in distilled water using an impinger and then re-aerosolized after several days, and (2) a tube furnace to directly introduce the soot particles into an indoor smog chamber, where soot particles were then sampled directly. In both cases, filter samples were also collected and electron microscopy images were used to obtain morphology and size information used in T-Matrix calculations. In this talk a brief introduction of major goals and activities (past and present) in the NCA&T Atmospheric Chemistry/physics group will be presented followed by results of our most recent work on modeling of refractive index of biomass burning aerosols from white pine will be presented.


The learning and analysis of algorithms and algorithm concepts are challenging to students due to the abstract and conceptual nature of algorithms. Research conducted at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa focused on the design of an extensible algorithm animation framework to support the generation of interactive algorithm animations. A comprehensive literature study showed that no unified and common instrument for evaluating the pedagogic effectiveness of algorithm animation systems exists. An output of this research was the compilation of a list of requirements that could serve as such an instrument. The value of this list is proven through the evaluation of extant systems as well as in developing a prototype in order to prove the effectiveness of the animation framework.


Climate change, desertifi cation, high risks of water supplies and increasing droughts in irrigation networks of rivers and canals (Karakalpakia, Aral); ethnic and linguistic barriers between titular nation and small nations (Kazakhs, Karakalpaks) in Uzbekistan, which hampers their internal migration and threatens assimilation within the country – all these reasons are not a survival strategy, but contribute to escape in search of asylum to other territories (Russia, Kazakhstan). There is a need to address the problem of environmental migration, therefore, the concept of an "environmental migrant", an "environmental refugee" should be introduced into practice. Why is environmental migration as a problem requiring detailed study? This is a complex process, which has the same characteristics with a general migration of the population, but which has its own characteristics. An analysis of this process shows that, despite the obvious relevance and signifi cance, the problems associated with it remain unresolved. Theoretical development of migration policy is interdisciplinary, therefore, political scientists, sociologists, lawyers, demographers, historians, psychologists are engaged in migration issues. The interdisciplinary approach will reveal the economic, political, ecological, psychological aspects of environmental migration will give an objective assessment of its condition, will identify the main areas of improvement in the fi eld of right regulation, socio-psychological adaptation in migrant resettlement areas.


Building communities through creative community garden projects is increasingly common and seems to create beneficial effects for participants. This study recognizes the need to understand the impact of gardens on low socioeconomic neighborhoods. By conducting a needs assessment study and establishing a community garden, we were able to study its impact on residents of a neighborhood in Bakersfield, California. Data were collected from residents and garden participants using surveys and focus groups. Findings show overwhelming support for the garden and identify benefits of gardens on physical and mental health, social capacities, and spiritual health of individuals and neighborhoods. The study shows how such university community engagement initiatives provide a macro practice intervention framework for students, practitioners, and leaders.


Wheel and rail wear is a fundamental and complicate problem in railway field. The life of railway is usually
limited by wear. The wheel surface is subjected to high normal and tangential contact stress. The removal of
material from the surface by wear is function of the sliding and contact stress. In the present paper, the wear
characteristic depended on slip rate, contact pressure and temperature are investigated and is used to twin disc
tester. The result shows that the wear in wheel-rail interface is remarkably depended on slip rate and contact
pressure.


Drought is a disastrous natural phenomenon. It is generally viewed as a sustained and regionally extensive occurrence of below average natural water availability either in the form of rainfall, river runoff or groundwater. Drought is defined based on different factors and generally assessed in meteorological, hydrological and agricultural contexts. Efficient management of drought over an area or catchment depends mainly on its correct assessment. In this study, Meteorological drought severity assessment was carried out based on the frequency analysis of IMD method producing Meteorological Drought Severity Index (MDSI). Agricultural drought severity assessment was carried out by developing an Agricultural Drought Severity Index (ADSI), which involves crop land and fallow land estimation, delineated from remote sensing data using NDVI analysis. The methodology was applied for Samba season (major crop season) of Palar Sub-basin encompassing Vellore (a chronic drought prone district), located in the North-East part of Tamil Nadu State, India. Block-wise drought severity maps were generated using geospatial environment to understand the drought severity status of the area. It is observed that 70% of the blocks in the study area were affected by moderate and severe droughts, which needs drought proofing measures.


Background: Microdermabrasion has recently become a popular procedure among physicians and patients, whereas few studies have assessed the efficacy of different microdermabrasion protocols nowadays applied.The objective of this study was to assess the effects of microdermabrasion, as well as to compare the effects of weekly and biweekly intervals of microdermabrasion sessions on skin biophysical parameters. Methods: Ten patients entered this randomized, investigator-blind, split face study and underwent a series of six microdermabrasion treatments. One side of the face was treated every week and the other side was treated every 2 weeks, randomly. Stratum corneum hydration, sebum secretion and skin pH measurements were taken before and after the procedure on all sessions and also 1 and 4 weeks after the last treatment. Results: After 6 sessions of microdermabrasion and following comparison to baseline, a significant decrease in sebum content and a significant increase in skin pH were observed only on the side treated with the intervals of 2 weeks. Changes in skin hydration were not significant on either side. Conclusion: Microdermabrasion may have noticeable effects on skin barrier functions. It is recommended to have 2 week interval between sessions. (Iran J Dermatol 2008;11:49-54)


Adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has increased significantly over the last few years. In France, the level of BIM adoption is measured as quite low compared to other countries. Many guides, protocols and mandates have been produced by governmental bodies and industry associations around the world to facilitate BIM adoption but it mainly focus on technical requirements or describe good practices. This paper is part of a research project that aims to facilitate BIM implementation for design firms by providing an implementation guide or method. This method would be organization-centered (based on the specificities of the company) with more organizational and managerial than technical considerations. Connecting BIM AdoptionImplementation literature with change management (a domain that provides models and strategies to analyze and conduct change) carries an interesting research potential that is insufficiently investigated. The objective of this article is to have a relatively comprehensive view of the factors that can influence the success or failure of BIM adoption, especially at the implementation phase. © 2018 The Authors. Published by Diamond Congress Ltd., Budapest University of Technology and Economics Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Creative Construction Conference 2018.


For all the variety of specific religious beliefs, there are fundamentally only two kinds of people: believers and non-believers. In the 20th century, no spokesman was more prominent for non-belief than Sigmund Freud, and nobody argued for belief more successfully than C.S. Lewis. Indeed, their arguments are remarkably parallel, and equally wide-ranging. From pain and suffering to love and sex, from God to morality, Lewis and Freud carefully argued opposing positions. After years of studying both men, and teaching a popular course at Harvard comparing the two, renowned psychiatrist and educator Armand Nicholi has gone public. Nicholi is a guide to the Great Debate, letting each man speak clearly and concisely. Drawing on published and unpublished sources, including wide access to Freud's letters, Nicholi offers a gem of a book that strikes at the deepest chords in our souls.


According to Lorentz (2012), Bernstein's polynomials (BP) were introduced by Bernstein around 1912 as an alternative to extreme value theorem proof. The Weierstrass' extreme value theorem, in turn, has been an important tool and has been used for many applications in calculus and analysis. The theorem is widely used to state that any continuous function over an interval [a, b] in R is limited and, in addition to, there is a maximum value and a minimum value in that interval. First, Bernstein showed there exists two reals k and K such that k ≤ Bm(x) ≤ K . So, the mathematician proved that if f(x) is uniformly continuous on [0, 1] then lim (x) (x) . m →∞ Bm = f Similarly, kernel functions, approximation splines and Bernstein's Polynomials can used to approximate functions. In 2012, Osman and Gosh proposed baseline risk non-parametric modelling for survival proportional hazards regression model. The authors approximate baseline risk function using BP and provide, among other results, proofs on asymptotics. The likelihood log-concavity property shown in this article leads to less costly computational procedures to find bayesian estimators and guarantees the uniqueness of maximum likelihood estimator. Bayesian inference isn't straightforward as numerical optimization methods already implemented in R that ease frequentist approach. However, this was elegantly done based on gibbs sampling and Adaptive Rejection Metropolis Sampling (ARMS) algorithm.


A technique has been developed to quantify ultratrace 231Pa (50-2000 ag; 1 ag = 10(-18) g) concentrations in seawater using isotope-dilution thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS). The method is a modification of a process developed by Pickett et al. (Pickett, D. A.; Murrell, M. T.; Williams, R. W. Anal. Chem. 1994, 66, 1044-1049) and extends the technique to very low levels of protactinium. The procedural blank is 16 +/- 15 ag (2sigma), and the ionization efficiency (ions generated/atom loaded) approaches 0.5%. Measurement time is <1 h. The amount of 231Pa needed to produce 231Pa data with an uncertainty of +/-4-12% is 100-1000 ag (approximately 3 x 10(5) to 3 x 10(6) atoms). Replicate measurements made on known standards and seawater samples demonstrate that the analytical precision approximates that expected from counting statistics and that, based on detection limits of 38 and 49 ag, protactinium can be detected in a minimum sample size of surface seawater of approximately 2 L for suspended particulate matter and <0.1 L for filtered (<0.4 microm) seawater, respectively. The concentration of 231Pa (tens of attograms per liter) can be determined with an uncertainty of +/-5-10% (2sigma) for suspended particulate matter filtered from 5 to 10 L of seawater. For the dissolved fraction, 0.5-1 L of seawater yields 231Pa measurements with a precision of 1-10%. Sample size requirements are orders of magnitude less than traditional decay-counting techniques and significantly less than previously reported ICP-MS techniques. Our technique can also be applied to other environmental samples, including cave waters, rivers, and igneous rocks.


The benefit of shifting load from the peak to the off-peak period is well known from the viewpoints of demand response and deferral of capacity upgrade. However, the impact of load leveling on reducing transmission and distribution (T&D) losses is often ignored or lightly mentioned in the literature. A detailed analysis of T&D loss reduction is very specific to the considered power system and cannot be readily generalized. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to identify the key parameters and quantify the saved T&D losses as a function of the size or power of the energy storage in a set of normalized charts to help assess the benefits of energy storage as a means to level a utility load. This is a benefit of utility-scale energy storage that is not fully recognized.


In this paper, we propose a general framework for nonlinear multigrid inversion applicable to any inverse problem in which the forward model can be naturally represented at differing resolutions. In multigrid inversion, the problem is adjusted at each resolution by using the solutions at both finer and coarser resolutions. To do this, we formulate a consistent set of cost functional across resolutions. At each resolution, both the forward and inverse problems are discretized at the lower resolution; thus reducing computation. Simulation results for the problem of optical diffusion tomography indicate that multigrid inversion can dramatically reduce computation in this application.


Prostate cancer (PCa) refers to one of the most common tumors in male's genitourinary system. Emerging research has confirmed that circRNAs play an important role in the occurrence and development of tumors. However, the correlation between circular RNA circITGA7 and PCa still remains unclear. Here, the role of circITGA7 in PCa was explored and the underlying mechanism was investigated as well. The circRNA expression profiles in PCa and the paracancerous tissues were established by high-throughput sequencing. The expression levels of circITGA7 in PCa tissues and cells were detected by qRT-PCR. Cell Counting Kit-8, colony formation, EdU, and flow cytometry assays were used to detect the effects of circITGA7 on PCa cell proliferation. To further explore the underlying mechanisms, bioinformatics analysis on downstream target genes was carried out. RNA immunoprecipitation and dual-luciferase reporter assays were used to verify the direct relationship between miR-370-3p and circITGA7 or P21CIP1. The present results demonstrated that circITGA7 was downregulated in PCa tissues and cells. Gain- or loss-of-function assays showed that circITGA7 inhibited the proliferation of PCa cells in vivo and in vitro. Mechanically, circITGA7 served as a sponge for miR-370-3p, and miR-370-3p could target P21CIP1 in PCa cells. The inhibition of cell proliferation induced by circITGA7 could be reversed by transfecting miR-370-3p mimic. Collectively, our data indicated that circITGA7 played an important role in inhibiting tumor proliferation in PCa and might be a potential therapeutic target.


BACKGROUND & AIMS
In previous studies in rodent models of food allergy, we identified that sensitization induces expression of CD23 on intestinal epithelial cells and results in enhanced IgE-dependent transepithelial antigen uptake; further studies in CD23-/- mice provided evidence that CD23 is involved in protected transport of antigen into the body. Little information exists in humans on receptor-mediated immunoglobulin (Ig)E transport across epithelia. The present study was designed to examine expression of CD23 by human epithelial cells, determine its isoform and regulation by interleukin (IL) 4, and identify the role of CD23 in transepithelial IgE transport.

METHODS
Epithelial expression of CD23 was studied in cell lines, ileal biopsy specimens, and explanted fetal intestine. Bidirectional transport of IgE was measured across filter-grown cells, either normal cells or those transfected with antisense CD23 oligonucleotides, or in the presence of blocking antibody.

RESULTS
Expression of the low-affinity IgE receptor was demonstrated in cultured epithelial cells as well as in situ cells in human intestine. CD23b was the isoform expressed by HT29, T84, and Caco-2 cells. IL-4 up-regulated the expression of epithelial CD23. IgE was transported in both the basal-to-apical direction and the apical-to-basal direction across filter-grown epithelial cells, a process that was inhibited by transfection of cells with CD23 antisense oligonucleotides or pretreatment with nonspecific IgE or anti-CD23 antibody.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings provide evidence that CD23 encodes a functional IgE receptor on human intestinal epithelial cells and that this epithelial receptor is likely to play an important role in food allergies.


During the last decade, citizens have put a lot of attention to agricultural policy dimensions like multifunctionality, animal welfare, food safety, food security and environmental issues. Based on quantitative survey data set (n=1,623), this research examines Finnish citizens concerns about various dimensions of agricultural policy. Principal component analysis resulted in a solution of four components. It seems that most worries by citizens relate to policy dimensions, which may cause personal risks in a long-term and which lie beyond personal control. Concerns that are more distant were not very worrying.


Active cancer immunotherapy remains an exciting and rapidly advancing field in oncology. Peptide cancer vaccines are an attractive therapeutic option as they are safe and easily produced and administered. Peptide cancer vaccines may be most effective in patients with a lower disease burden, when cancer tolerance is minimized. Our experience with three peptide cancer vaccines, E75, GP2 and AE37, in clinically disease-free breast cancer patients provides encouraging results that this method may be effective. Furthermore, the combined results of the initial trials suggest that the vaccine administered may need to be tailored to the specific subtype of cancer and tumor antigen expression level to achieve maximum effectiveness. The results also suggest that combining peptide vaccines with other immunotherapy may lead to a synergistic effect.


Day hiking is a popular outdoor recreation activity, yet relatively little is known about hikers and their reasons for participating. Focusing on the popular First Day Hikes initiative, we sought to discover who hikes, why, and how those motivations might differ among sub-groups of hikers. Data were collected using intercept surveys of First Day Hikers ( n = 1,934) across three states on January 1, 2016. We identified 10 broader categories of hiking motivations addressing a wide range of physiological and psychological needs. These included enjoying nature (reported by 27% of participants), trying something new (22%), celebrating the new year (19%), learning from others (15%), spending time with family (14%), and exercising (14%). Logistic regression models exploring motivation correlates showed that hikers' motivations varied across socio-demographic groups (e.g., age, first-time hikers, hikers with children) and influenced the types of hikes selected. Some of these differences were anticipated. For example, compared to other groups, first time hikers were more likely to be motivated by trying something new and hikers with children more likely to be motivated by spending time with family. Models also yielded new insights. Compared to repeat hikers, first time hikers were more likely to hike for exercise and health reasons and older participants were more likely to hike for exercise. Participants who chose easy hikes were more likely to be motivated by learning from others and spending time with family; participants who chose hikes close to home were more likely to be motivated by exercise and celebrating the New Year. Overall, a majority of First Day Hike participants lived within 30 miles of the state park they visited, highlighting the important contributions of local parks (especially state parks) to outdoor recreation. With enhanced knowledge of day hiking motivations, managers will be better equipped to create and advertise hiking opportunities with certain combinations of attributes that offer a variety of desired benefits to diverse constituents. Additional research exploring hiking motivations and preferences will continue to inform marketing and management approaches that appeal to different types of hikers. Subscribe to JPRA


In this paper, a finite element sub-modelling method is used to estimate the stress distribution and the crack propagation lifetime in Aluminium alloy, Al7075-T6 specimens. Different contact geometries, i.e. cylinder-on-flat and flat-on-flat, and different contact span width's with different pad's compression forces are analysed. It is found that fretting fatigue life for two based cylindrical pads is shorter than that for two based flat pads and in two based flat pads is shorter than that for perfectly flat pads. In the case of two based flat pads, stress distribution in the pad with width of 3.1 mm is about 14% higher than that in the pad with the width of 6.2 mm and about 21% higher than that in the pad with the width of 9.3 mm. Similarly, stress in cylindrical pads with width of 3.1 mm is 36% higher than that in the pad with width of 6.2 mm and 130% higher than that in the pad with width of 9.3 mm. Stresses increased by 21% for pad force of 1800 N and around 40% for pad force 2400 N compared with 1200 N pad force. Also it is observed that by increasing pad width for both flat and cylindrical pads, crack propagation lifetime increased. Furthermore, fretting fatigue crack growth rate raises when pads compression force increases.


Summary and Conclusions
Ninety patients with advanced neoplastic diseases were inoculated intramuscularly with the Egypt 101 isolate of West Nile virus, as part of an experimental clinical evaluation of the antineoplastic effect of viruses. The Egypt 19 and Egypt 21 isolates of this same virus were inoculated into three and five patients respectively. This paper describes the clinical course and virology of the resulting infections. Reports concerning antineoplastic effects, serology, and histopathology have been, or will be, published elsewhere.
All three of the Egypt isolates of West Nile virus infected man, as indicated by the presence of virus in blood at three days or later following virus inoculation. No significant differences between the pathogenicity of the three isolates were apparent, but the trials of Egypt 19 and Egypt 21 were too few to warrant definite conclusions. Egypt 21 infection was followed by suggestive clinical evidences of diffuse encephalitis in one patient.
Virus was recovered from blood of 95 per cent of the patients inoculated with Egypt 101. Viremia persisted through day six in 73 per cent, and longer than day twelve in 10 per cent. Virus was not present in feces, urine, or throat washings. Virus was demonstrated in spinal fluid of three patients during infection with Egypt 101 virus. All three of these patients had clinical evidences of encephalitis. Two of the virus isolations from spinal fluid occurred during the period of viremia, but virus was present in spinal fluid of one patient five days after the blood had become virus free. Spinal fluid specimens from 11 other patients did not contain virus during infection with Egypt 101 or Egypt 21 viruses, even at the time of clinical encephalitis (five patients), or during viremia (six patients).
Eighty-nine per cent of patients inoculated with Egypt 101 virus had no clinical evidence of virus disease other than fever, and temperature elevation did not exceed 3°F. in 73 per cent. Eleven per cent of patients had definite or suggestive signs of diffuse encephalitis characterized by twitching and mental confusion and one of the patients also had flaccid paralysis of extremities. Neurologic impairment was transient and recovery was complete in all patients who did not rapidly succumb to their neoplastic disease.
There was a direct correlation between the duration of viremia and the severity of clinical illness. Patients with neoplastic disease of reticulo-endothelial cell origin had a striking predisposition to prolonged viremia and increased severity of clinical illness. Age and sex showed no significant correlation with either duration of viremia or severity of the clinical illness. There was marked individual variation in duration of viremia and severity of illness among patients who received identical inocula.
The distribution of virus in tissues obtained at autopsy was studied in 15 patients who died within four weeks after inoculation of virus. Virus was demonstrated in neoplastic tissue of various histopathologic types. The normal tissues most frequently containing virus were spleen, lymph nodes, liver, and lungs, suggesting distribution determined by reticulo-endothelial cells. Central nervous tissue was only occasionally found to contain virus and there was no consistent anatomical localization of virus within the central nervous system.


The fair value determination of financial assets has been always a debatable issue since the 1990s. It has always been questioned, whether this value depends, only on fundamentally calculated pricing models or it might be affected by other psychological and behavioral factors. The behavioral finance field addressed those issues extensively and provided alternative asset pricing models that incorporate and reflect behavioral aspects of decision-making. It addressed and explained the different heuristics and biases behind various market reactions that lacked any rational fundamental explanation. Behavioral finance is a relatively new paradigm that emerged to fill in the gaps in "Modern Finance". It did not develop specific models or strategies to beat the market; however, it has highlighted lots of challenging ideas that have promising directions of further research and analysis that may be very useful in welfare analysis and in wealth management. In this paper, the author is introducing an empirical examination of some of these behavioral variables to the existing pricing models to enhance the predictability of the model. It also opens the door for further research and analysis in developing behavioral models.


The objective of the present study was to evaluate the accelerated stability study and estimation of piperine from Draksharishta. Accelerated stability study was done for 6 months to distinguish the stability of polyherbal formulation in reference to its physicochemical, phytoconstituents within. Asava and Arishta are self-generated herbal fermentations of traditional ayurvedic system. Draksharishta was prepared as per AFI part-1(The Ayurvedic formulary of India, part-1) using authenticated raw drugs. For accelerated stability study for six months period the prepared sample of Draksharishta was placed in the controlled situation following ICH (International Conference on Harmonization) guidelines. The intermediate sampling was done at initial, after 1, 3 and 6 months respectively. The organoleptic characters and physicochemical parameters of samples showed similar results to that sample at starting the month; it indicates that product was stable and having required stability. No significant variations in the value of alcohol content, acidity and sugar content of sample had been reported over 6-month storage. An only significant variation in the value of total phenolic content was observed. On the basis of this stability study, it could be said that this formulation was stable for the period of more than 24 months on the basis of arrhenius equation.


In a world where Artificial Intelligence revolutionizes inference, prediction and decision-making tasks, Digital Twins emerge as game-changing tools. A case in point is the development and optimization of Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITSs): a confluence of cyber-physical digital infrastructure and (semi)automated mobility. Herein we introduce Digital Twin for self-dRiving Intelligent VEhicles (DRIVE). The developed framework tackles shortcomings of traditional vehicular and network simulators. It provides a flexible, modular, and scalable implementation to ensure large-scale, city-wide experimentation with a moderate computational cost. The defining feature of our Digital Twin is a unique architecture allowing for submission of sequential queries, to which the Digital Twin provides instantaneous responses with the "state of the world", and hence is an Oracle. With such bidirectional interaction with external intelligent agents and realistic mobility traces, DRIVE provides the environment for development, training and optimization of Machine Learning based C-ITS solutions.


Since mixed venous oxygen saturation (SvO2) depends on O2-supply and O2-consumption, its measurement is said to indicate tissue O2-balance and to be suitable for ensuring tissue oxygenation in critically ill patients. Blood for SvO2 determinations should be drawn exclusively from the pulmonary artery, because mixing of systemic venous blood is incomplete in the right atrium and ventricle. SvO2 can be determined in vitro and in vivo. Current in vivo techniques determine oxygen saturation from the relation between light emitted into the blood stream and that reflected from blood cells, the use of 3 instead of 2 wavelengths greatly improving the accuracy of the method. For reasonable interpretation of SvO2 it is necessary to consider the concentration of haemoglobin and its derivatives, shifts of the O2-dissociation curve, intracardiac left-to-right shunts, and systemic arteriovenous shunts. Disturbances of macrocirculation (e.g. vascular surgery) and microcirculation (e.g. sepsis) also impair the diagnostic value of SvO2 determinations. The critical value of SvO2 appears to depend on the prevailing disease. Patients with chronically impaired O2 transport appear to tolerate very low SvO2 values better than acutely ill patients, presumably due to adaptive changes in the former group. Central venous oxygen saturation may indicate directional changes of the SvO2, but does not estimate the real SvO2-value. The hypothesis that continuous SvO2 measurements improve prognosis or lower treatment costs has not yet been confirmed. Measurements of mixed venous oxygen saturation may improve monitoring and treatment of critically ill patients in selected cases; however, these measurements are not suitable to indicate reliably the status of tissue oxygenation under all conditions.


INTRODUCTION
Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a well known risk factor of death from cardiovascular causes. Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus are at particularly high risk of developing cardiovascular disease, which accounts for 80% of deaths in this group. Type 2 diabetes mellitus is probably related to increased left ventricular mass (LVM). Existing data show that the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone (RAA) system may play a role in the development of LVH. Since the I/D polymorphism of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene influences the activity of RAA, it is likely that it could also have an impact on LVH.

AIM
To assess the relationship between I/D polymorphism of the ACE gene and the severity of LVH assessed by echocardiography (Echo) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

METHODS
The study group consisted of 103 patients (37 women and 66 men; mean age 60.1+/-9.1 years) suffering from type 2 diabetes mellitus with a mean duration of 9.0+/-6.5 years. BMI, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), arterial blood pressure, LVM and LVM index (LVM indexed for body surface area [g/m(2)] or height raised to the power 2.7 [g/m(2.7)]) were evaluated. I/D polymorphism of the ACE gene was determined using polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

RESULTS
Distribution of I/D polymorphism of the ACE gene in the study group was as follows: genotype II--32.0%, ID--42.7%, DD--25.2% of patients. LVH was diagnosed in 43-71% of patients (depending on criteria used). Distribution of individual genotypes was similar in patients with and without LVH. Genotypes II, ID and DD were observed in 37.3%, 31.4% and 31.4% of patients without LVH (according to the Levy criteria) and in 26.9%, 53.9%, 19.2% in the LVH group, respectively. In persons with DD genotype, when compared to group II, significantly higher values of systolic and diastolic blood pressure were noted (147.7+/-20.2 vs 138.2+/-16.7 mmHg, p=0.03 and 89.4+/-9.7 vs 81.9+/-8.7 mmHg, p=0.004, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
In patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus there is no relationship between I/D polymorphism of the ACE gene and LVH.