Attempting to extract useful and reliable information about semen quality and its fertility potential remains a difficult exercise, partly because the sperm heterogeneity within samples often renders simple statistical analyses rather meaningless. In fact, a mean and standard deviation may reflect neither the very fast swimming activities of the most active cells nor the slow and sluggish activities of others. Herein we propose that the information value within semen samples can be maximised if current knowledge about sperm activation mechanisms is exploited before undertaking the measurements. We explain, using boar semen as an example, that estimating and defining relative sperm subpopulation sizes, after activation by bicarbonate, provides a means of quantifying sperm quality. Although such estimates may indeed be related to in vivo fertility, the general approach also suggests potential new avenues that could be exploited for the elaboration of novel in vitro tests for the characterisation of toxic environmental chemicals and, indeed, to reduce the number of animals used in such testing programs.


Population risk is always of primary interest in machine learning; however, learning algorithms only have access to the empirical risk. Even for applications with nonconvex non-smooth losses (such as modern deep networks), the population risk is generally significantly more well behaved from an optimization point of view than the empirical risk. In particular, sampling can create many spurious local minima. We consider a general framework which aims to optimize a smooth nonconvex function $F$ (population risk) given only access to an approximation $f$ (empirical risk) that is pointwise close to $F$ (i.e., $\norm{F-f}_{\infty} \le \nu$). Our objective is to find the $\epsilon$-approximate local minima of the underlying function $F$ while avoiding the shallow local minima---arising because of the tolerance $\nu$---which exist only in $f$. We propose a simple algorithm based on stochastic gradient descent (SGD) on a smoothed version of $f$ that is guaranteed to achieve our goal as long as $\nu \le O(\epsilon^{1.5}/d)$. We also provide an almost matching lower bound showing that our algorithm achieves optimal error tolerance $\nu$ among all algorithms making a polynomial number of queries of $f$. As a concrete example, we show that our results can be directly used to give sample complexities for learning a ReLU unit.


This paper which begins with the experiments of Wyart and Sabatier, and of Winkler and von Platen, is a short review of several earlier experiments (end of the XVIIIth-beginning of the XIXth century). H. B. de Saussure cooled melted granite to show that it did not produce basalt, but a glass. Dolomieu was the first to state that basalt occurred beneath the granite of the earth9s crust. Sir James Hall, in his famous experiments, showed that either glass or a "stone" formed according to cooling rates. Later on, in order to solve the question of the origin of granite, which separated magmatists from anti-magmatists, Senarmont, Daubree, and H. Rose produced quartz and silicates at low temperature by wet techniques. They opened a new epoch by showing the role of water.


Uganda is a leader in Sub-Saharan Africa, in recognizing linkages between economic growth and gender issues. These linkages are critical for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The study assesses the legal and administrative barriers faced by women, as identified by the Bank's Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS) and the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) Gender-Entrepreneurship-Markets Unit. The structure of the report mirrors that of the FIAS 2003 Administrative Barriers to Investment Report, and is designed to highlight the gender dimensions of that research to encourage further replication. The findings of this report indicate the considerable potential for economic growth that exists, if Uganda is to unleash the power of women, and support their full economic participation in the private sector. This assessment considers the relationship between gender and economic growth in Uganda in the context of promoting women's participation in business and entrepreneurship. Men and women both play substantial, albeit different, economic roles in the Ugandan economy. Each contributes about 50 percent of GDP, and women represent 39 percent of businesses with registered premises.


Few objective analysis techniques have been developed for, or applied to, the auditory evoked middle latency response (MLR). This report demonstrates the applicability of the Fsp statistical technique (Elberling and Don, 1984) to the MLR time domain. Subjects for this study were 10 normal hearing young adults. The stimuli were 60, 40, 20 dB nHL clicks and a NS control. Evoked responses were obtained as a series of 10,000 individual traces for each stimulus presentation and analyzed off line to determine the applicability of the Fsp technique. In addition, the effects of filtering and time window size were examined to determine the optimum collection characteristics for the Fsp analysis method. The results indicate that the Fsp technique is a viable tool for estimating signal-to-noise characteristics of the MLR. When using the Fsp technique with the MLR the high-pass filter should be set to 20 Hz so that a 50-msec time window can be used.


The population of Western Australia (WA) is concentrated mainly in the Perth metropolitan area and the coastal hinterland of the southwestern tip of the continent. Its climate is dry and warm and is described as Mediterranean. Yet Legionella infection in WA has been associated with exposure to garden products such as potting mix contaminated with L. longbeachae. The Legionella urinary antigen test is not available in WA. The majority of cases of Legionella infection are therefore diagnosed by serological means. Nucleic acid amplification methods for diagnosis of Legionella infection (a mip-based PCR protocol) were only introduced to WA in 1998 and have led to more diagnoses of L. pneumophila serogroup 1 infection than L. longbeachae infection since then, though the L. longbeachae type culture strain is negative by the mip-PCR. There was no evidence of temporal clustering of seropositive Legionella cases in WA from mid-1994 to mid-2000. During 1997, L. longbeachae was isolated from cooling tower water on three consecutive monthly samplings. Nevertheless, they suggest that the epidemiology of Legionella infection in WA is significantly different from what has been described elsewhere. The authors have been unable to find any laboratory-based evidence for the occurrence of time or space clusters of legionellosis cases in WA. Further studies into the epidemiology of Legionella infection in WA may generate useful insight into the environmental biology of this disease.


BACKGROUND
High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is emerging as a valid minimally-invasive image-guided treatment of malignancies. We aimed to review to current state of the art of HIFU therapy applied to the digestive system and discuss some promising avenues of the technology.

METHODS
Pertinent studies were identified through PubMed and Embase search engines using the following keywords, combined in different ways: HIFU, esophagus, stomach, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, colon, rectum, and cancer. Experimental proof of the concept of endoluminal HIFU mucosa/submucosa ablation using a custom-made transducer has been obtained in vivo in the porcine model.

RESULTS
Forty-four studies reported on the clinical use of HIFU to treat liver lesions, while 19 series were found on HIFU treatment of pancreatic cancers and four studies included patients suffering from both liver and pancreatic cancers, reporting on a total of 1,682 and 823 cases for liver and pancreas, respectively. Only very limited comparative prospective studies have been reported.

CONCLUSIONS
Digestive system clinical applications of HIFU are limited to pancreatic and liver cancer. It is safe and well tolerated. The exact place in the hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) management algorithm remains to be defined. HIFU seems to add clear survival advantages over trans arterial chemo embolization (TACE) alone and similar results when compared to radio frequency (RF). For pancreatic cancer, HIFU achieves consistent cancer-related pain relief. Further research is warranted to improve targeting accuracy and efficacy monitoring. Furthermore, additional work is required to transfer this technology on appealing treatments such as endoscopic HIFU-based therapies.


An experimental study has been carried out for Jatropha biodiesel blended with diesel used in single cylinder diesel engine. Jatropha biodiesel is obtained from Jatropha oil by tranesterification process. Blending of Jatropha biodiesel with diesel in maximum possible proportion helps to reduce the consumption of diesel fuel. In this study, the effects of parameters' i.e. load, blend proportion and compression ratio are taken as variable for optimization. As the experiment required simultaneously optimization of three parameters with three levels, taguchi method of optimization is used in this experiment. The results of the taguchi experiment identifies that 0% blend ratio, compression ratio 18 and engine load 10kg are optimum parameter setting for lowest bsfc. Engine performance is mostly influenced by engine load and is least influenced by blend ratio. Confirmation experiment was done using optimum combination showed that bsfc was found by experiment is closer to the predicated value.


Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third leading cause of cancer mortality and the incidence of HCC is rising in the United States. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a subset of neoplastic cells that possess distinct survival mechanisms and plasticity crucial for tumor maintenance and propagation. The induction of epithelial-mesenchymal-transition (EMT) by Transforming Growth Factor-β (TGF-β) has been linked to the acquisition of CSC characteristics in breast cancer. In patients with HCC, either a CSC or EMT phenotype correlates with a worse prognosis. In this report, we aim to link EMT to CSCs and to further elucidate the mechanism by which cells acquire CSC characteristics during EMT. We utilized human (Huh7, MHCC97-L) and murine (P2E, P2M; Ding et al Hepatology. 2010) liver cancer cell lines, and analysis included gene and protein expression, FACS, migration and invasion assays, and chemotherapy resistance assay. Human mesenchymal MHCC97 cells demonstrate decreased E-cadherin, increased Snail1, and enhanced migration and invasion compared to epithelial Huh7 cells. MHCC97 cells demonstrate significant upregulation of stem cell markers (Oct4, Nanog, BMI-1, and CD44; p<0.01), increased CD44high population (95% vs. 2% Huh7, p<0.01), resistance to chemotherapy, resistance to TRAIL-induced apoptosis, increased tumor-sphere formation and slower cell cycle compared to epithelial Huh7 cells. We recently reported EMT in murine epithelial liver cell lines, P2E and P2M (post EMT). Mesenchymal P2M cells demonstrate loss of E-cadherin, gain of Snail1, increased tumor-sphere formation, and increased expression of stem cell markers (Nanog, Oct4, CD44, and EpCam; p<0.001). As TGF-β induces EMT through Snail1, we hypothesize that Snail1 signaling plays a role in the induction of an EMT and CSC phenotype in HCC. TGF-β treatment, epithelial P2E cells demonstrate fibroblastic-like morphology, 14-fold increase in Snail1 (p<0.01) and 8 fold increase in Nanog expression (p<0.01), increased tumor-sphere formation and migration. siRNA knockdown of Snail1 in mesenchymal P2M cells resulted in significant decrease in EMT and CSC characteristics, with decreased tumor-sphere formation, decreased migration, and decreased stem cell gene expression (Nanog and CD44, p<0.01). In conclusion, both murine and human mesenchymal HCC cells possess multiple CSC characteristics compared to epithelial counterparts. The transient knockdown of Snail1 in mesenchymal HCC cells results in the reversal of EMT as well as loss of CSC characteristics. We propose that Snail1 may play an important role in the regulation of EMT and CSC phenotypes.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3429. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-3429


Introduction: Although health promotion strategies have been made to promote reproductive health, women's reproductive health problems have not dropped significantly. This study aimed to examine the relationship between early sexual behavior and reproductive health of women of reproductive-aged 15-49 years old for North Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. Methods: D escriptive correlational design was used to examine the relationship between the age of first sexual intercourse and pregnancy complications, decision making about the use of birth control, and knowledge about HIV-AIDS.  Data were obtained from 585 women aged 15-49-year-old selected from the 2017 Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey (SDKI 2017). Results: Cramer's V correlation coefficient showed a strong correlation between age at first sexual intercourse and pregnancy complications and moderate correlation between decision making about the use of birth control, and knowledge about HIV-AIDS. Forty percent of sexually active women were 10-19 years old. In addition, decisions about the use of contraceptive strategies among those ages have the potential to be not users in accordance with rational contraception use because they might not seek health workers' advice. This study also found a low proportion of women understood HIV transmission. Conclusions: Findings from this study affirm the hypothesis that women's sexual behavior correlates with their reproductive health. Therefore, improving sexual behavior may improve reproductive health. These findings also may be used to inform the effectiveness of the implemented reproductive health programs in North Sulawesi Province.  Several culturally sensitive strategies are recommended to overcome problems and improve reproductive health.


Transmitting signals over multipath fading channels causes distortions and variations at the receiver. For narrow-band signals, the envelope of the received signal is well characterized by a Rayleigh random process. Rayleigh fading causes large variations in the signal envelope. For wide-band signals, the effect of Rayleigh fading is mitigated. The paper considers the effect of receiver processing on the mitigation effect for wide-band DS/CDMA signals. The mitigation effect is shown by a reduction of the coefficient of variation of the received power as a function of bandwidth spreading. The parameters chip rate, processing gain, and the number of multipath components tracked are investigated for their effect upon the mitigation-the mitigation effect is sensitive to combinations of these parameters. >


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the expansion of the CD34+ cells of umbilical cord blood in vitro culture comprising different cytokines and the potential hematopoiesis function of the expanded CD34+ cells.

METHOD
Expanding the purified CD34+ cells from the fresh umbilical cord blood for 6 days in vitro with the use of different combination of FL, SCF, TPO, IL-3 and IL-6. Getting one better combination by analyses of the results from flowcytometry, LTC-IC, and progenitor clonogenic assays.

RESULTS
The numbers of CD34+ cells expanded by use of different combination of cytokines were 3.1-8.6 times as large as the numbers of ordinary ones, thus making 16 cases of insufficient CD34+ cells become able to satisfy the needs of the adults weighing 50 kg. No significant difference was observed between the function of the expanded cells and the original ones in hematopoiesis. Meanwhile, it was proved that TPO in combination with other cytokines could strengthen the expansion of CD34+ cells, but using TPO alone for long time culture would cause more CD34+ cells to be megalocaryocytes.

CONCLUSION
The combination of FST36 cytokines can expand the CD34+ cells of the umbilical cord blood to meet the adults' needs in laboratory's methods.


This study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of al-Ihsan in the view of the Koran. The less harmonious relationship in society encourages researchers to conduct research on the concept of al-Ihsan from the perspective of the Koran. The main problem of this research is how is al-Ihsan the perspective of the Qur'an? The main problems, namely 1) What is the nature of al-Ihsan from the perspective of the Koran?; 2) What is the form of al-Ihsan in the study of the Koran?; and what is the urgency of al-Ihsan in the view of the Qur'an? This research is library research or library research that is descriptive qualitative. The sources of data used are verses of the Qur'an, books of interpretation and hadith as well as other scientific books. This research uses a science of interpretation approach with thematic interpretation method (maudu'i). The data obtained were collected and sorted accordingly. The technique of analyzing and presenting data is done by content analysis. From the description and analysis carried out in the research, it is concluded that al-Ihsan from the perspective of the Koran is the best form of human action performed perfectly. Al-Ihsan is a plus (more) value of the best deed done according to its level. The best deeds are carried out both towards God, fellow human beings, and the natural environment. The actualization of ihsan is carried out with knowledge, solemnity, and sincerity and is manifested in the form of his personality integrity. All actions taken will be intended as a form of worship to Allah swt. For humans and other creatures created by Allah, it will provide more benefits and favors than doing justice. All these best deeds will continue to be improved for the sake of self-perfection.


The 1/ν neoclassical transport is computed for the standard, the drift-orbit-optimized and the quasi-axisymmetric versions of CHS. For the computations, a new method is used which is based on the integration along magnetic field lines. The calculations show the advantage of the quasi-axisymmetric CHS configuration over the standard configuration resulting in a reduced 1/ν transport. It is shown that also for the drift-orbit-optimized configuration the 1/ν transport is reduced; however, by a smaller amount than for the quasi-axisymmetric configuration.


Three monoclonal antibodies were developed to the placenta-specific glycoprotein SP1. The antibodies were used in the characterization of SP1 in placental tissue, pregnancy serum and urine, cancer serum, and cell culture. The three antibodies reacted similarly with purified SP1 of placental origin in radio- and enzyme immunoassay, and all three decorated the syncytiotrophoblast layer of placental villi in immunoperoxidase staining applied to fixed placental tissue. However, the three antibodies were found to have different and unique specificities and affinities. One antibody of relatively low affinity was used to isolate SP1 from placenta and fibroblast culture medium. The other two antibodies were used to develop a new and simple immunoassay for SP1. A panel of samples including cancer sera, pregnancy sera and urine, as well as cell culture fluids gave similar results in the monoclonal assay as in a conventional radioimmunoassay. Our work with monoclonal antibodies to SP1 provides further evidence for the production of authentic SP1 by fibroblastic cells in vitro and offers improved reagents for the isolation, characterization, and quantitation of an important marker of cancer and fetal development.


Scoparia dulcis L. (Family: Scrophulariaceae) is an herb native to America and in tropics and widely present in Karnataka, India. This plant has been traditionally used to cure many liver aliments. Phytochemical screening has revealed that the plant contains diterpenoids, flavonoids, tannins, alkaloids, triterpenes, hexacosonol, ?-sitosterol, ketone, dulcitone and amellin. Liver cirrhosis represents the common pathological outcome for the majority of chronic liver insults (e.g. alcohol, autoimmune, or viral injury, even oxidative stress). The therapeutic potential of antioxidants with respect to liver toxicity has been realized marginally so far. In the present study the in vitro antioxidant activity and antihepatotoxic activity of hydroalcoholic extract of S. dulcis (HASD) was investigated against CCl4 induced liver damage in rats. The extracts showed in vitro free radical scavenging activity against DPPH free radicals. The in vivo hepatoprotective activity study for HASD extracts at an oral dose of 500 mg/kg and 800 mg/kg, exhibited a significant (P<0.01) protective effect against CCl4 induced changes in serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT), glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT), serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP), total billirubin and an increased level of total protein in treated rats and on liver histopathology, as compared to positive control. The above results are comparable to the standard, silymarin. In conclusion, the hydroalcoholic extract of S. dulcis exhibits significant hepatoprotective activity against CCl4 induced liver damage in rats because of their free radical scavenging ability.


A rich poriferan assemblage was identified within the easternmost part of the Getic Carbonate Platform of Romania (Grădiștei Gorges). The excellent preservation state of most poriferans here led to the discovery of a new species (Neuropora gigantea Pleș & Schlagintweit, n. sp.) and to the identification of previously unknown diagnostic features in some species (Sarsteinia babai Schlagintweit & Gawlick, 2006 emend., Neuropora lusitanica Termier, 1985, Sphaeractinia steinmanni Canavari, 1893). Calciagglutispongia yabei Reitner, 1992, Sarsteinia babai and Sphaeractinia steinmanni are reported for the first time from the Upper Jurassic carbonates of the Getic Carbonate Platform. The sedimentary input fluctuations and the nutrient competition had an important role in understanding the morphological adaptations of the analysed species. The existing palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental conditions generated different distribution patterns towards the reef profile and also preferential adaptations to a specific Tethyan domain. As opposed to the poriferan assemblages from the northern Tethyan shelves, these organisms formed sponge-coral-microencruster boundstones at the margins and fore-reefal zones of isolated carbonate platforms within the intra-Tethyan realm. The importance of calcified sponges in reef-zonation is highlighted by the establishment of a general zonation model. Three zones can be distinguished: 1) Cladocoropsis-Milleporidium zone (back-reef area); 2) Bauneia-Chaetetopsis-Parastromatopora zone (central reef area); and 3) Sphaeractinia/Ellipsactinia-Neuropora zone for the fore-reef area. In the absence of a true reef framework these calcified sponges developed typical morphologies, environmental adaptations and partnerships with other biotic groups which strongly influenced the carbonate production throughout the intra-Tethyan domain.


The influence of water on the hardness values of a series of neutral and charged molecules has been studied in the framework of density functional theory using the polarizable continuum model to take into account solvent effects. Three working formulas already widely tested in gas-phase have been used and the results compared. Two of the methods employed going from gas phase to solvent phase give values that do not change, while the results of the third method show remarkable changes. To check the reliability of the hardness behavior found, a test based on the hard-soft/acid-base principle and the calculation of the free energy of reaction has been applied using the adopted procedures.


Abstract In this paper, a compact, low-profile, coplanar waveguide-fed metamaterial inspired dual-band microstrip antenna is presented for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) application. To achieve the goal a triangular split ring resonator is used along with an open-ended stub. The proposed antenna has a compact size of 20 × 24 mm2 fabricated on an FR-4 epoxy substrate with dielectric constant (εr) 4.4. The antenna provides two distinct bands I from 2.40 to 2.48 GHz and II from 4.7 to 6.04 GHz with reflection coefficient better than −10 dB, covering the entire WLAN (2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz) band spectrum. The performance of the proposed metamaterial inspired antenna is also studied in terms of the radiation pattern, efficiency, and the realized gain. A comparative study is also presented to show the performance of the proposed metamaterial inspired antenna with respect to other conventional antenna structures in terms of overall size, bandwidth, gain, and reflection coefficient. Finally, the antenna is fabricated and tested. The simulated results show good agreement with the measured results.


School of Engineering and Applied Scienc 02138, USA. E-mail: email@example.com Department of Civil and Environmental Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA. E Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Tec MA, 02138, USA † Electronic supplementary informa 10.1039/c4sm00952e ‡ These authors contributed equally to th § Current address: Schlumberger-Doll Re USA. { Current address: Faculté des Sciences Bruxelles 1050, Belgium. Cite this: DOI: 10.1039/c4sm00952e


Objectives Large deletions and duplications are recognized as a cause of many inherited cancer syndromes; however, few studies have examined the frequency. In one study, large rearrangements accounted for 11-14% of pathogenic variants in BRCA1 and 1-3% of pathogenic variants in BRCA2 (Judkins 2012). Additionally, in a study of invasive ovarian cancer patients, large deletions and duplications accounted for 6% of BRCA1 and 3% of BRCA2 pathogenic variants (Zhang 2011). The frequency of large deletions and duplications in moderate penetrance genes, such as ATM, CHEK2, and PALB2, has not been carefully studied. We therefore sought to determine the frequency of pathogenic and likely pathogenic (P/LP) large deletions and duplications in BRCA1, BRCA2, ATM, CHEK2, and PALB2. Methods We analyzed a consecutive case series of patients who had BRCA1/2 and cancer panel testing. The data were analyzed to determine the percentage of deletions or duplications of greater than 250 bp identified on array comparative genome hybridization as a percentage of all pathogenic variants (PVs)/likely pathogenic variants (LPVs) in each of BRCA1, BRCA2, ATM, CHEK2, and PALB2. Results Large deletions/duplications accounted for 10.1% (55/545) of cases with a BRCA1 PV/LPV and 1.8% (10/556) of cases with a BRCA2 PV/LPV. By ethnicity, BRCA1/2 large deletions/duplications accounted for a higher fraction of PV/LPVs in Asians (11.3%) and Hispanics (8.1%). In Hispanic individuals, all of the large deletions/duplications were identified in BRCA1, accounting for 14.6% of all BRCA1 PV/LPV in this group. In the moderate penetrance genes, large deletions/duplications accounted for 4.6% (9/195), 5.1% (22/436), and 9.9% (13/132) of cases with a PV/LPV in ATM, CHEK2, and PALB2, respectively. There were two recurrent deletions in our cohort: the CHEK2 founder Slavic deletion of exons 9-10 observed in 16 of our cases, and a deletion of exon 11 in PALB2 observed in 6 cases. Conclusions Large deletions/duplications account for a substantial proportion of clinically significant variants in hereditary cancer genes. The proportion of large deletions/duplications in BRCA1 and BRCA2 reported here is similar to previous data. However, our cohort suggests that Asian individuals may have a higher proportion of mutations due to large deletions/duplications than previously reported. Among moderate risk cancer genes, PALB2 has the highest proportion of large deletions/duplications. Citation Format: Bissonnette J, Doonanco K, Xu Z, Klein RT, Hruska KS. Frequency of large rearrangements in BRCA1, BRCA2, ATM, CHEK2, and PALB2 in hereditary cancer testing. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-09-17.


Abstract To adequately capture the market structure of vegetables in Japan, it is necessary to develop an oligopolistic model due to the potential market power of producers vs. retailers. We first estimate the market power between producers and retailers by extending the bilateral oligopoly model. Next, we evaluate the role of the wholesale market and its effect on economic welfare. Our results indicate that the wholesale market benefits both producers and consumers through a reduction in retail margins. This study contributes to the industrial organization literature by developing a bilateral oligopoly model and empirically measuring the wholesale market system in Japan.


DURING the past 15 years, we have become increasingly aware of the importance of arrhythmias associated with sinus node dysfunction as a cause of cardiac and neurological symptoms. These arrhythmias currently afflict more than 100,000 Americans, and as a group constitute the most common indication for permanent cardiac pacemaker implantation. The objectives of this review are (1) to discuss the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of arrhythmias associated with sinus node dysfunction, (2) to provide a clinical, electrocardiographic, and electrophysiological basis for their diagnosis, and (3) to discuss principles of management, including the use of the cardiac electrophysiology laboratory. Anatomy and Pathophysiology The sinus node is located in the posterior right atrial wall at the junction of the right atrium and superior vena cava. 1 It consists of three types of cells: P cells, transitional cells, and Purkinje's cells. 2,3 The P cells, which are located in the midst of a collagen


New interoperability problems will arise, when 5G millimeter wave (mmW) radios will be integrated into mobile devices and small cell base stations with other radios. Current LTE (Long Term Evolution) and Wi-Fi radio transceivers have not been designed, verified or specified for simultaneous operation with 5G mmW radios. Wi-Fi or LTE-LAA (Licensed Assisted Access) may introduce co-channel interference due to the harmonics falling over 5G mmW frequencies. Alternatively, the fundamental LTE or Wi-Fi transmission may block the 5G mmW receiver. This paper studies requirements for RF filtering in the LTE and Wi-Fi radios, which operate in conjunction with a 5G mmW system. Antenna isolation measurements of 5G proof-of-concept (PoC) antenna array show that mmW antenna array resonates with multiple lower frequencies due to the antenna array physical dimensions, e.g. overall module dimensions, sub-array dimensions and sub-array locations from the edges of the antenna module. Thus, lower frequency interoperability is a new optimization criterion for dimensions of mmW antenna module. Measurement results verify that a previously developed 5G mmW PoC radio and antenna module operating at 28 GHz and LTE-LAA/Wi-Fi operating at 5 GHz as well as LTE at 2.7 GHz can operate simultaneously without interference problems within the same radio unit.


We have prepared phthalocyanine heterojunctions out of MnPc and F16CoPc, which were studied by means of X-ray absorption spectroscopy. This heterojunction is characterized by a charge transfer at the interface, resulting in charged MnPc(δ +) and F16CoPc(δ -) species. Our data reveal that the molecules are well ordered and oriented parallel to the substrate surface. Furthermore, we demonstrate the filling of the Co 3d(z(2)) orbital due to the charge transfer, which supports the explanation of the density functional theory, that the charge transfer is local and affects the metal centers only.


A new form of government of the Polish state was combined with its rather intensive influence on the character of the educational system, including general secondary schools. That time is distinguished by numerous controversies, which then appeared in various social circles, political parties, and referred to the constitutional and organizational structure as well as the program structure of this school level. In the first years the controversies were more of an evolutionary character, as at that time discussion and exchange of opinions concerning differing standpoints and concepts for the Polish route to socialism were still possible. After 1948 there was no more room for discussion; the decisions about this sphere were also made by one group - the people related to the communist party (Pol. abbr. PZPR). Already right after the cessation of war activities, the tendencies leading to the centralization of education management were noticeable, and consequently, ever more intense influence of the government o f the working classes (lub the people's government) on the functioning of schools, but, above all, on the teaching content. The process of centralization was linked with the so-called democratization process of school i.e., the question, of which the ruling communists made their priority.A consequence of democratization of the general secondary school and rendering it a tool for the manufacture of future citizens - devoted to and subjected to the government of the working classes - was the aspiration for closing private general secondary schools, and also the expulsion of religion from school. Such changes, falsely justified by the necessity to observe the principle of freedom of conscience and confession, led to the secularization of the school system. The discussed expulsion of the Church from schools, and at the same time from the sphere of educating a young generation, was supposed to serve the formation of a new socialist society in the future.


Ionizing radiation and other free radical‐generating systems induce a great variety of oxidative damage to DNA bases. The major known lesions are repaired by two well‐characterized DNA glycosylases of Escherichia coli, endonuclease III (Nth) and formamidopyrimidine‐DNA glycosylase (Fpg), which have associated AP lyase activities. To detect and characterize potentially harmful oxidative base DNA lesions that may be repaired by alternative means, we exposed plasmid DNA to low doses γ‐rays and removed the major base lesions by treatment with Nth and Fpg proteins. The closed circular DNA remaining after these treatments was used as a substrate of the UvrABC endonuclease complex from E. coli and as a template in a DNA polymerase arrest assay in vitro. The circular DNA contained lesions that were recognized and incised by the UvrABC nuclease and also lesions that blocked DNA polymerization in vitro. The blocking lesions were more abundant in DNA irradiated under nitrogen than under air and occurred mainly at tandem guanines; however, they were also frequent at tandem adenines and tandem cytosines. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Microwave detection of the abnormally developing tissue structure is a new noninvasive technique, using human body emission radiometry. The research is discussing practical aspects of implementing this type of early breast cancer detection. A special software have been implemented in order to map the measured values and to constitute a microwave image data base. The patient anamnesis is stored together with the images at each stage of the medical diagnosis and survey.


BACKGROUND
Outbreaks of human salmonella infections are increasingly associated with contact with live poultry, but effective control measures are elusive. In 2005, a cluster of human salmonella Montevideo infections with a rare pattern on pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (the outbreak strain) was identified by PulseNet, a national subtyping network.

METHODS
In cooperation with public health and animal health agencies, we conducted multistate investigations involving patient interviews, trace-back investigations, and environmental testing at a mail-order hatchery linked to the outbreak in order to identify the source of infections and prevent additional illnesses. A case was defined as an infection with the outbreak strain between 2004 and 2011.

RESULTS
From 2004 through 2011, we identified 316 cases in 43 states. The median age of the patient was 4 years. Interviews were completed with 156 patients (or their caretakers) (49%), and 36 of these patients (23%) were hospitalized. Among the 145 patients for whom information was available, 80 (55%) had bloody diarrhea. Information on contact with live young poultry was available for 159 patients, and 122 of these patients (77%) reported having such contact. A mail-order hatchery in the western United States was identified in 81% of the trace-back investigations, and the outbreak strain was isolated from samples collected at the hatchery. After interventions at the hatchery, the number of human infections declined, but transmission continued.

CONCLUSIONS
We identified a prolonged multistate outbreak of salmonellosis, predominantly affecting young children and associated with contact with live young poultry from a mail-order hatchery. Interventions performed at the hatchery reduced, but did not eliminate, associated human infections, demonstrating the difficulty of eliminating salmonella transmission from live poultry.


Single-electron capture and single- and double-electron loss cross sections in collisions of C atoms with He have been measured in the energy range 0.3-1.5 MeV. The measured single-electron capture and loss cross sections join smoothly to the lower energy data of Fogel et al. (1959).


Nurul Qaimah: Internalization religious value in student collage character
establishmentat Ma'had Al-Jami'ah IAIN Antasari
Banjarmasin. Supervisor: (1) Prof. Dr.
MahyudinBarni, M.Ag and (2) Dr. DzikriNirwana, M.Ag. Thesis
of Magister Program in IAIN Antasari Banjarmasin, 2016
Key word: Internalization religious value, student collage character
establishment, Ma'hadAl-Jami'ah
Student collage must have a good character, because they are the future
generation that should continue the nation development. One of internal campus
program that give a religious education is program of Ma'had Al-Jami'ah IAIN
Antasari Banjarmasin. Ma'had Al-Jami'ah is charged to have a role in guidance
student collage to produce religious character.
Ma'had Al-Jami'ahconsist of Ma'had Al-Jami'ah I, Ma'had Al-Jami'ah II,
Ma'had Al-Jami'ah III, and Ma'had Al-Jami'ah IV. Research problems are: what
kind of values had embedded in Ma'had Al-Jami'ah IAIN Antasari Banjarmasin in
student collage character establishment? How the processes of internalization
religious values at Ma'had Al-Jami'ah in establishment student collage character?
What are the supporting factors and the obstacle factors faced at Ma'had Al-Jami'ah
in embedding religious values to establish student collage character.
This research is using field research and qualitative approach. Source of data
are MudirMa'had Al-Jami'ah, Ma'had Al-Jami'ah's caretaker, student collage,
murobbi/murobbiah, musyrif/musyrifah, work program, vision and mission. Data
collection techniques: observation, interview and documentation. The result shows
that: (1) religious values that embedded through activities in Ma'had Al-Jami'ah
covering Islamic values that are faith values, sharia values and moral values.(2)
religious values that embedded in Ma'had Al-Jami'ah in student collage
establishment produce a few character values that are religious, honest, tolerance,
discipline, working hard, creative, independently, democratic, curiosity, national
spirit, love of country, appreciate the achievements, friendly/communicative, love
peace, like to read, environmental care, social care, and responsible. Have a skill to
read Al Quran, have a strong commitment in worship and morals, have mastering
foreign language and translate Quran generally. (3) internalization religious values
process in Ma'had Al-Jami'ah in character establishment are done by three stages that
are knowledge moral stage, feeling moral stage and doing moral stage. (4) Supporting
factors that faced by Ma'had Al-Jami'ah in student collage character establishment
that are proctor Ma'had Al-Jami'ah , activities of working program, Ma'had as a
central of religious activity, library, Ma'had Al-Jami'ah environment , parents and
families supporting, teacher. Obstacle factors that are lack of student collage interest,
graduates, time allocation, lack of discipline, and facilities and infrastructure.


The images of the clown and the freak and representations of the grotesque body are recurrent motifs in modern Jewish literature, film, art, theatre and dance. Kafka's novella Metamorphosis is an early prototype of the changeling who leaves conventional human appearance behind and is gradually transformed into an insect-like creature. The story served as a prototype for Woody Allen's film Zelig, in which the main protagonist adopts a variety of different personas, amongst them a Nazi in the Third Reich. The theme of morphing into a freak, clown, or grotesque body reappears in various forms in contemporary Jewish culture and art: The American Jewish writer Philip Roth declared in the 1960s that he was not a Jewish sage but a Jewish freak. Freakishness, clowns, and the circus have a subversive potential: they constitute a digression from what is considered normal appearance and behaviour and play with presumptions, expectations, and social values. A study of this subject reveals the constant dialogue between religion and culture as far as Judaism is concerned.


Male breast cancer is a rare disease, making up less than 1% of all breast cancers. A review of the literature does not disclose major differences between male and female breast cancer regarding etiological, prognostic or diagnostic features. In male breast cancer endocrine therapy is more widely used, but there are otherwise no differences in the therapeutic strategies used.


Given a pre-trained in-distribution (ID) model, the inference-time out-of-distribution (OOD) detection aims to recognize OOD data during the inference stage. However, some representative methods share an unproven assumption that the probability that OOD data belong to every ID class should be the same, i.e., these OOD-to-ID probabilities actually form a uniform distribution . In this paper, we show that this assumption makes the above methods incapable when the ID model is trained with class-imbalanced data . Fortunately, by analyzing the causal relations between ID/OOD classes and features, we identify several common scenarios where the OOD-to-ID probabilities should be the ID-class-prior distribution and propose two strategies to modify existing inference-time detection methods: 1) replace the uniform distribution with the ID-class-prior distribution if they explicitly use the uniform distribution; 2) otherwise, reweight their scores according to the similarity between the ID-class-prior distribution and the softmax outputs of the pre-trained model. Extensive experiments show that both strategies can improve the OOD detection performance when the ID model is pre-trained with imbalanced data, reflecting the importance of ID-class prior in OOD detection. The codes are available at https://github. com/tmlr-group/class_prior .


Nine subjects (seven male, two female) underwent transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) toward the evaluation of spinal cord injury (SCI). The evaluation of SCI with TMS tended to support clinical findings. Those subjects with clinically complete injuries demonstrated no evoked muscle response below the level of injury. Those subjects with clinically incomplete injuries showed trends toward prolonged evoked muscle latencies on the weaker side. Facilitation tended to enhance distal muscle responses. With incomplete spinal injury, the facilitation maneuver allowed the recording of weak muscle responses as well as those otherwise not present at rest. Maximum anal sphincter contraction also helped facilitate muscle responses and tended to impart less noise in the recordings. Facilitation failed, however to produce a response in those subjects with clinically complete injuries. No subject experienced adverse effects during the study. TMS promises to be an effective tool for the evaluation of SCI.


In this paper, squeeze film damping in a micro-beam resonator based on micro-polar theory has been investigated. The proposed model for this study consists of a clamped-clamped micro-beam bounded between two fixed layers. The gap between the micro-beam and layers is filled with air. As fluid behaves differently in micro scale than macro, the micro-scale fluid field in the gap has been modeled based on micro-polar theory. Equation of motion governing transverse deflection of the micro- beam based on modified couple stress theory and also non-linear Reynolds equation of the fluid field based on micropolar theory have been non-dimensionalized, linearized and solved simultaneously in order to calculate the quality factor of the resonator. The effect of micropolar parameters of air on the quality factor has been investigated. The quality factor of the of the micro-beam resonator for different values of non-dimensionalized length scale of the beam, squeeze number and also non-dimensionalized pressure has been calculated and compared to the obtained values of quality factor based on classical theory.


Today, a trade mark may signify not only the commercial origin or the quality features of the products bearing it but also a brand image that consumers might wish to be associated with. Some trade mark owners have been investing in the creation and development of a brand image through advertising and other marketing techniques in order to attract consumers to their trademarked products. In order to safeguard the investment by trade mark proprietors, the protection given to trade marks under Article 5 (1) (a) of the Trade Mark Directive (TMD), which used to protect merely the origin and quality guarantee functions under the essential function theory, has been expanded to cover the communication, investment or advertising functions (so-called ?modern? functions) through the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This expansion was not met with universal approval and resulted in an ongoing debate that had a direct impact on number of areas within the European trade mark law. On the other hand, there is a long-recognized conflict between the exercise of the exclusive rights associated with trade marks and one of the main principles of the European Union (EU), namely the free movements of goods principle. This principle, which aimed to integrate the economies of member states, requires that traders should be free to move their goods within the European Economic Area (EEA), without any ?artificial? obstacles such as the territorial nature of trade marks and their associated exclusive right. The case law of the CJEU resolved this conflict through recognizing the principle of European exhaustion which later was implemented by Article 7 (1) of the TMD. According to this principle, the rights of trademark holders are exhausted in relation to goods which have been put on the market under the trade mark within the EEA by the owners or with their consent. However, there is an exception to this general provision. According to Article 7 (2) of the TMD, the rights of trade mark owners will not be exhausted if the owners have a legitimate reason for opposing the further commercialization of the goods in order to ensure that their trade mark can continue to perform its functions. This thesis examines the expansion of trade mark protection under Article 5 (1) (a) of the TMD and it is impact on the rights given to the trade mark owners under Article 7 (2) of the TMD to oppose the further commercialization of their branded products in the context of parallel importation.


Published studies involving different feeding strategies and diet inclusion rates of corn distillers dried grains with solubles (cDDGS) for broilers have resulted in variable growth performance responses. Therefore, a meta-analysis was conducted to quantitatively summarize the impact of feeding diets containing cDDGS on growth performance of broilers using a total of 16 publications with 56 observations in the database. The mean difference (MD) of BWG, FI, and G/F ratio were expressed as percentage between feeding corn-soybean meal-based (CSB) diet and addition of cDDGS into CSB diet of broilers. Individual observations were analyzed using a multivariable model (Proc GLIMMIX, SAS) to evaluate growth performance responses based on feeding phase, inclusion level of cDDGS, and oil content of cDDGS as a fixed effect. Broilers fed cDDGS diet had decreased BWG (-0.1 %, P < 0.01) and increased FI (0.3 %, P < 0.01) compared with broilers fed CSB diet. Moreover, every percentage unit increase in the inclusion level of cDDGS in CSB diet was associated with a decrease in BWG (0.30 %, P < 0.01) and FI (2.64 %, P < 0.01). The MD of BWG was greater for broilers fed cDDGS in the starter (4.70 %, P < 0.01) and entire (3.00 %, P < 0.01) period compared with the finisher feeding period. However, entire feeding period showed greater MD of G/F ratio (2.11 %, P < 0.01) compared with starter and finisher periods. The MD of BWG (-1.02 %, P < 0.01) and FI (-2.48%, P < 0.01) were decreased for broilers fed more than 20 % in the diet. In conclusion, including more than 20 % cDDGS into the broiler diet decreased BWG and FI. The recommended inclusion level of cDDGS into the broiler diet is 10 to 20 % during the entire period.


The authors have much experience in diagnosing and managing ventricular arrhythmias in patients with coronary heart disease. In most cases, the arrhythmogenic areas are present in the subendocardium and surgeries aimed at improving myocardial revascularization prove to be frequently ineffective in managing arrhythmias. Subendocardial resection proposed by the authors was used in 284 patients. Mortality rates were in 15%, the deaths were mainly due to phenomena of heart failure. Positive results were achieved in 160 (67%) patients. To evaluate the efficacy of the surgical management, the authors consider it advisable to apply programmed endocardial stimulation. The value of pre- and intraoperative mapping is the most important factor that determines the outcome of the surgical management. Subendocardial resection should be regarded as the method of choice just at early stages of the disease in patients with recurrent ventricular tachycardias occurring after acute myocardial infarction.


With the increasing number of accessible web pages on Internet, it has become gradually difficult for users to find the web pages that are relevant to their particular needs. Knowledge about computer users is very beneficial for assisting them, predicting their future actions. Seed URLs selection for focused Web crawler intends to guide related and valuable information that meets a user's personal information requirement and provide more effective information retrieval. In this paper, a seed URLs selection approach is proposed based on user-interest ontology. In order to enrich semantic query, first intend to apply Formal Concept Analysis to construct user-interest concept lattice with user log profile. By using concept lattice merger, construct the user-interest ontology which can describe the implicit concepts and relationships between them more appropriately for semantic representation and query match. On the other hand, make full use of the user-interest ontology for extracting the user interest topic area and expanding user queries to receive the most related pages as seed URLs, which is an entrance of the focused crawler. In particular, focus on how to refine the user topic area using the bipartite directed graph.


Multiple myeloma (MM) is a plasma cell malignancy which accounts for approximately 10% of hematologic malignancies. Despite the introduction of new therapeutic agents, MM remains incurable and nearly all patients ultimately relapse. About 20% of MM are due to a chromosomal translocation t(4;14) leading to overexpression of the NSD2 histone methyltransferase. NSD2 catalyzes dimethylation of lysine 36 on histone H3 (H3K36me2) and is associated with transcriptionally active regions. Several studies have shown that in MM harboring the translocation t(4;14), oncogenic programming is dependent on the methyltransferase activity of NSD2. In addition, the NSD2 overactivity is also observed in prostate and lung cancers. Thus, NSD2 is a potential target for cancers, for which no selective drug is available to date. Using the AlphaLisa™ technology, we screened 240,000 compounds coming from our proprietary library. The assay is based on the detection of H3K36me2 on nucleosome by a specific antibody. False positives hits were removed by a technological counterscreen, and compounds with redox activity were excluded. This strategy allowed us to identify about 200 compounds. To focus on the most interesting ones, an orthogonal counterscreen based on 3H SAM incorporation is being completed. In parallel to the biochemical screening, we are developing secondary cellular assays based on the H3K36me2 methylation and proliferation to further confirm hit activity. To our knowledge, no NSD2 inhibitor have been identified to date despite several screening effort performed by other groups. Our library has already produced new chemical starting points for other KMTs, and we believe that our hits could be promising starting points to generate potent and selective NSD2 inhibitors. Citation Format: Claudia Fromond, Xavier Espanel, Anne Soude, Laurent Chene, Philippe Masson, Benaissa Boubia, Christian Montalbetti, Pierre Broqua. A rational approach for the discovery of inhibitors of NSD2 for the treatment of cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 105. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-105


This thesis investigates the revenue management (RM) problem encountered inan airport carpark of finite capacity, where the available parking spaces should besold optimally in advance in order to maximise the revenues on a given day. Customerdemand is stochastic, where random pre-booking times and stay lengthsoverlap with each other, a setting that generates strong inter-dependence amongconsecutive days and hence leads to a complex network optimisation problem.Several mathematical models are introduced to approximate the problem; a modelbased on a discrete-time formulation which is solved using Monte Carlo (MC) simulationsand two single-resource models, the first based on a stochastic processand the other on a deterministic one, both developed in continuous-time thatlead to a partial differential equation (PDE). The optimisation for the spaces isbased on the expected displacement costs which are then used in a bid-price con-trol mechanism to optimise the value of the carpark.Numerical tests are conducted to examine the methods? performance under thenetwork setting. Taking into account the methods? efficiency, the computationtimes and the resulting expected revenues, the stochastic PDE approach is shownto be the preferable method.Since the pricing structure among operators varies, an adjusted model based onthe stochastic PDE is derived in order to facilitate the solution applicable in allsettings. Further, for large carparks facing high demand levels, an alternativesecond-order PDE model is proposed.Finally, an attempt to incorporate more information about the network structureand the inter-dependence between consecutive days leads to a weighted PDEscheme. Given a customer staying on day T, a weighting kernel is introducedto evaluate the conditional probability of stay on a neighbouring day. Then aweighted average is applied on the expected marginal values over all neighbouringdays. The weighted PDE scheme shows significant improvement in revenue forsmall-size carparks. The use of the weighted PDE opens the possibility for newways to approximate network RM problems and thus motivates further researchin this direction.


OBJECTIVES
Inflammation at the entheses is a distinguishing feature of psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Enthesitis at the heel is the most common location at the Achilles and plantar fascia insertions on the calcaneus. This study aimed to 1) describe the morphological features and measurements of plantar calcaneal spurs in subjects with PsA and controls and 2) determine radiological features that differentiate between inflammatory and non-inflammatory calcaneal spurs.

METHODS
Weight bearing lateral foot radiographs of 101 subjects with PsA and 38 control subjects without inflammatory arthritis were examined for plantar calcaneal and Achilles spurs. Three measurements were taken from each radiograph: plantar spur base, mid-segment, and length in millimeters. The differences in radiographic measurements, and the presence of fluffy periostitis of the plantar spurs were then compared between PsA patients and controls.

RESULTS
Of the 101 subjects with PsA, 76 (75%) had at least one plantar calcaneal spur and 32 (31.5%) had at least one Achilles tendon spur, compared to 18 (47%) and 3 (8%) respectively in control group (p=0.004). Fluffy plantar periostitis was identified in 14 PsA subjects and none of the controls (p=0.01). The dimensions of plantar spurs were significantly different between groups - longer mid-segment distinguished patients with PsA from controls.

CONCLUSIONS
Calcaneal spurs are more common in subjects with PsA than controls. Longer mid-segment measurement was associated with PsA. This study indicates that the presence of fluffy plantar periostitis and broad based and longer mid-segment dimensions are radiological features for inflammatory spurs.


Purpose :A variation in the circle of Willis is not so common, but the most frequent type is hypoplasia/aplasia of the precommunicating anterior cerebral arteries (A1 segment). We aimed to examine the incidence and the clinical significance of A1 segment hypoplasia/aplasia in neuropediatric patients. Methods :We retrospectively studied children with A1 segment hypoplasia/aplasia in brain magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) and compared the clinical and radiological aspects between children with A1 segment hypoplasia/aplasia alone and with other variations in the circle of Willis. Results :Among 301 patients, 34 patients (11.3%) had A1 segment hypoplasia/ aplasia. They presented neurological symptoms such as chronic headache, dizziness and visual disturbance. Seven (20.6%) had family history of neurological illness. Twenty seven (79.4%) had A1 segment hypoplasia/aplasia only, and seven (20.6%) had another vascular abnormality. Seven (20.6%) showed abnormal brain magnetic resonance angiography (MRI) results, cerebral atrophy being the most frequent (n= 5, 14.7%). The incidence of abnormal brain MRI was 11.1% (n=3) in single vascular abnormality and 57.1% (n=4), significantly higher (p-value 0.02) in combined abnormality group. Conclusion : Structural alterations in the cerebral vasculature in children have important pathophysiological and clinical implications. Evaluation of variations in the circle of Willis, especially of A1 segment hypoplasia/aplasia using MRA is recommended.


Hypersensitivity reactions to orthopedic implanted materials exist but are rare. Potential allergens include metals and bone cement components. Clinical presentation can include localized or generalized cutaneous reactions and noncutaneous reactions. Preimplant patch testing for implant hypersensitivity reactions (IHRs) is only recommended if metal allergy is strongly suspected; postimplant patch testing to relevant allergens can be completed if symptoms are concerning for implant hypersensitivity. The decision to remove or revise an orthopedic implant should be made as a joint decision between the surgeon and patient.


'Once upon a time, when New York City lived and breathed, there was a man marked for death, like us all ...' Arnold Rothstein was one of the most mysterious figures in Manhattan's history: a godfather of organized crime - rumoured to have fixed baseball's World Series - yet a peer of the Morgans and Rockefellers. But one night in 1928, he was shot in the stomach and died shortly afterwards, refusing to speak a word concerning his own murder. Nick Tosches jumps feet first into Rothstein's life to lay bare his legacy - to New York and to the whole Western world - and to try and make some sense of what the 'king of the Jews' means to us. What we get back is an angry howl right out of the tortured heart of America itself.


Background

Kenya is in the process of implementing universal health care whose success and sustainability will be determined by its funding mechanism and by uptake of National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) by its populace. Unfortunately, NHIF enrollment is currently voluntary hence geared to those in formal employment who represent only 16.4% of the population. To improve the voluntary uptake of the scheme, it is important to have increased awareness as well as implement strategies that address factors that currently affect NHIF uptake.
Methods

This was a cross sectional community-based survey conducted in Busia, Trans Nzoia, Vihiga and Siaya counties between October and December 2018. It utilized multistage stratified sampling technique. Interviewer assisted questionnaires were used to collect socio-demographic, socio-economic, Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) knowledge, NHIF awareness and uptake data. Descriptive statistical analysis and multiple logistic regression were conducted using STATA version 15.
Results

Out of a representative sample of 3597 participants interviewed, NHIF awareness was noted to be 81.5%, with low uptake in the four counties ranging between 21–25%. Being older than 69 years, having a low level of education and income status as well as lower health risk were significantly associated with low rates of NHIF uptake.
Conclusion

Despite high rates of NHIF awareness noted in this study, there is still very low uptake to this scheme in rural western Kenya especially among those with low socioeconomic status and risk of chronic illnesses. There is need for further qualitative studies to explore contextual factors affecting NHIF uptake.


One key task in virtual screening is to accurately predict the binding affinity (△G) of protein-ligand complexes. Recently, deep learning (DL) has significantly increased the predicting accuracy of scoring functions due to the extraordinary ability of DL to extract useful features from raw data. Nevertheless, more efforts still need to be paid in many aspects, for the aim of increasing prediction accuracy and decreasing computational cost. In this study, we proposed a simple scoring function (called OnionNet-2) based on convolutional neural network to predict △G. The protein-ligand interactions are characterized by the number of contacts between protein residues and ligand atoms in multiple distance shells. Compared to published models, the efficacy of OnionNet-2 is demonstrated to be the best for two widely used datasets CASF-2016 and CASF-2013 benchmarks. The OnionNet-2 model was further verified by non-experimental decoy structures from docking program and the CSAR NRC-HiQ data set (a high-quality data set provided by CSAR), which showed great success. Thus, our study provides a simple but efficient scoring function for predicting protein-ligand binding free energy.


Awareness during anesthesia is as old as anesthesia itself. Using muscle relaxing drugs, operations can be done on a relaxed but fully aware patient. The problem of intra-anesthetic awareness still exists despite the advances in anesthetic drugs and monitoring. This article reviews the subject from some aspects including its causes, signs, tests and medico-legal points. Awareness during anesthesia can be looked at as 'the invisible scars of surgery.'


Aim. To assess the risk factors, gender, age and social features of patients with urolithiasis who live in the northern regions of Azerbaijan. Methods. Patients with urolithiasis who live in the northern regions of Azerbaijan and were admitted to the Central Hospitals of Gusar and Khachmaz districts (113 and 81 patients respectively) were included in the study. In Gusar district, 70 (61.95%) male patients and 43 (38.05%) female patients were included, in Khachmaz region, 51 (62.96%) male and 30 (37.04%) female patients were included. Results. In Gusar district, urolithiasis was most commonly found in patients aged from 16 to 30 years and from 41 to 50 years. In Khachmaz district, the highest prevalence of urolithiasis was registered in people aged from 41 to 50 years. In Gusar district, urolithiasis was more common in patient groups with body mass index of 25-29.9 kg/m 2and 30-34.9 kg/m 2. In Khachmaz district, urolithiasis was diagnosed mainly in patients with body mass index of 25-29.9 kg/m 2and 18.5-24.9 kg/m 2; in female patients - mainly in patients with body mass index of 25-29.9 kg/m 2and 30-34.9 kg/m 2). In both districts, urolithiasis mainly occurred in unemployed and white collars. Conclusion. Overweight, aged and elderly, unemployed and white collars are patient categories with highest risk for urolithiasis, which should be considered at prevention.


Background: Mast cells and eicosanoid mediators play an important role in asthma. There are few studies comparing eicosanoid release from different human mast cell models. Objective: We characterized release of eicosanoids from the LAD2 human mast cell line and primary cultured-human mast cells from cord blood (CBMC) and peripheral blood (PBMC). Methods: Mast cells were stimulated with anti-human IgE via cross-linking of IgE antibodies for 30 minutes, and β-hexosaminidase, cysteinyl leukotrienes (CysLTs), LTB 4 , prostaglandin D 2 (PGD 2 ) were measured, and expression of cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 and COX-2 were studied by western blot. Results: LAD2 released β-hexosaminidase and PGD 2 after stimulation with anti-human IgE in a dose-dependent manner, but not CysLTs or LTB 4 . CBMC and PBMC showed significant increase of cysLTs and LTB 4 in addition to β-hexosaminidase and PGD 2 after stimulation. IL-4 priming did not enhance CysLTs release in any of the mast cell models. IL-4 primed LAD2 however showed significant enhancement of PGD 2 release. The PGD 2 release from the three human mast cell models was consistently abolished by the selective COX-1 inhibitor, FR122047 (p 2 release after treatment with COX-1 siRNA. Conclusion: LAD2 is a good model for studies of PGD 2 release, but not for CysLTs. The PGD 2 release from the isolated human mast cells is dependent on COX-1, in line with recent in vivo findings in asthmatics (Daham K et al. Clin Exp Allergy 2011;41:36-45) This abstract was supported by ERS/Marie Curie joint research fellowship (MC 1549-2010).


Abstract Oscar Wilde once quipped, 'Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.' Whilst business scholars have challenged this premise, debate rages concerning what elements are most worth knowing. Specifically, the value of rigorous academic research is often weighed against the merits of specific student experiences that may have more immediate value in the marketplace. Within this changed context, academics are challenged to embrace collaborative forms of research activity and re-imagine the nature of the academic-practitioner exchange and accompanying knowledge transfer. We explore this changing role of the business school with an eye towards outlining potential bridges between academic knowledge and benefits of interactions with practice. Specifically, we consider the academic-practitioner interface in the context of the wider debate on 'rigour and relevance' in management education and research. Participatory modes of knowledge production are discussed, and current ideas on the 'management practice' gap are discussed. We conclude that more innovative forms of research engagement are required to encourage academic-practitioner collaboration. To that end, we discuss a number of potential approaches to help foster co-learning and discovery and debate their student, educator and broader instructional implications.


This article explores the conduct of research on the cultural construction of craftswomen's work and self-employment, drawing on characteristics of feminist geographies and gender development methodology in a third world perspective. It discusses how the fieldwork has become an increasingly contested terrain and ambiguously problematised in feminist studies. It explores and describes the methodological and interpretive issues raised by a feminist narrative perspective when attempting to develop knowledge about the relations of power, women's perceptions, beliefs, and attitude concerning cultural constructions of female work and self-employment. Reflecting gendered spaces, the author has situated women workers' knowledge and specific type of consciousness valuable to them, while exploring intersections of narratives, gendered spaces and self-employment.


Mutants resistant to dihydrostreptomycin were isolated and genetically analyzed in Bacillus subtilis. Two new classes of mutants distinct from the ribosomal strA locus were found. One class, strB, was located between metC3 and ura-1 on the chromosome. The second class, strC, mapped in the spore gene region close to the spoA locus. Both mutant classes were resistant to dihydrostreptomycin during growth but sensitive to the antibiotic during sporulation. Resuspension sporulation experiments with a strB mutant showed that sensitivity to the antibiotic was acquired early in the sporulation process. The germination and outgrowth of strB spores was sensitive to the antibiotic until growth commenced, whereupon the culture was resistant. Thus the mutants are sensitive to dihydrostreptomycin during both sporulation and germination but resistant during the growth phase.


The approach to treating febrile non-neutropenic hematooncologic patients with central venous catheters varies. We recently introduced once-daily administration of cefonicid and gentamicin for such children who were in good clinical condition and without focal signs of infection. Our 2-year experience of 125 episodes in 54 children is hereby reported. Absolute neutrophil counts were 550 to 16,700/mm3. Bacteremia occurred in 6.4% episodes: only in patients with Hickman/Broviac catheters and not in those with port-a-caths [8/37 (21.6%) vs. 0/17 patients, P=0.046; 8/86 (9.3%) vs. 0/39 episodes, P=0.056]. The pathogens were coagulase-negative staphylococci (3), Streptococcus pneumoniae (2), Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae (1), methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (1), and Streptococcus milleri (1). All patients remained in stable clinical condition and all, except for 2 who became neutropenic and 1 with S. aureus bacteremia who developed cellulitis, defervesced while on the empiric therapy. Three episodes could not be managed as outpatients. No adverse effects were observed. We conclude that our approach is efficacious and safe and, furthermore, that empiric antibiotic therapy may not be indicated for selected patients with port-a-caths. Future study of children with Hickman/Broviac catheters will evaluate the use of cefonicid alone.


This thesis explores the use of Mobile Thermography1, a significantly less investigated sensing capability, with the aim of reliably extracting a person's multiple physiological signatures and recognising mental stress in an automatic, contactless manner. Mobile thermography has greater potentials for real-world applications because of its light-weight, low computation-cost characteristics. In addition, thermography itself does not necessarily require the sensors to be worn directly on the skin. It raises less privacy concerns and is less sensitive to ambient lighting conditions. The work presented in this thesis is structured through a three-stage approach that aims to address the following challenges: i) thermal image processing for mobile thermography in variable thermal range scenes; ii) creation of rich and robust physiology measurements; and iii) automated stress recognition based on such measurements. Through the first stage (Chapter 4), this thesis contributes new processing techniques to address negative effects of environmental temperature changes upon automatic tracking of regions-of-interest and measuring of surface temperature patterns. In the second stage (Chapters 5,6,7), the main contributions are: robustness in tracking respiratory and cardiovascular thermal signatures both in constrained and unconstrained settings (e.g. respiration: strong correlation with ground truth, r=0.9987), and investigation of novel cortical thermal signatures associated with mental stress. The final stage (Chapters 8,9) contributes automatic stress inference systems that focus on capturing richer dynamic information of physiological variability: firstly, a novel respiration representation-based system (which has achieved state-of-the-art performance: 84.59% accuracy, two stress levels), and secondly, a novel cardiovascular representation-based system using short-term measurements of nasal thermal variability and heartrate variability from another sensing channel (78.33% accuracy achieved from 20seconds measurements). Finally, this thesis contributes software libraries and incrementally built labelled datasets of thermal images in both constrained and everyday ubiquitous settings. These are used to evaluate performance of our proposed computational methods across the three-stages.


The aim of this study was to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to classify the morphological changes and remodeling of the right ventricle (RV) that occur in different clinical situations and that have an impact on RV function. Most literature has traditionally focused on the left ventricle (LV) and as a result, few studies analyze RV behavior and remodeling. The study evaluated all cardiac MRI performed at our center from 2008 to 2010. We retrospectively identified 159 patients who had some sign of right ventricular dysfunction (RVD) based on MRI findings. We classified patients according to a combination of criteria for RVD and the presence of left ventricle dysfunction (LVD). We considered RVD as any of the following abnormalities: i) depressed RV function; ii) RV dilatation; iii) RV hypertrophy. LVD was considered when there was atrial dilatation, LV hypertrophy, LV dilatation and/or depressed LV function. We obtained 6 pathophysiological patterns: RV pressure overload (1.9%), RV volume overload (15.7%), RV volume overload + LVD (32.7%), depressed RV function + LVD (42.1%), mixed RV overload + LVD (6.9%) and other (0.6%). The most frequent etiology was congenital heart disease (33.3%), followed by idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (18.2%), left valvular disease (17.6%), ischemic heart disease (15%), pulmonary disease (9.8%), and other (6.1%). This study helps to classify the different patterns that RV can adopt in different clinical situations and can, therefore, help us to understand the RV pathophysiology.


Content characterization of sport videos is a subject of great interest to researchers working on the analysis of multimedia documents. In this paper, we propose a semantic indexing algorithm which uses both audio and visual information for salient event detection in soccer. The video signal is processed first by extracting low-level visual descriptors directly from an MPEG-2 bit stream. It is assumed that any instance of an event of interest typically affects two consecutive shots and is characterized by a different temporal evolution of the visual descriptors in the two shots. This motivates the introduction of a controlled Markov chain to describe such evolution during an event of interest, with the control input modeling the occurrence of a shot transition. After adequately training different controlled Markov chain models, a list of video segments can be extracted to represent a specific event of interest using the maximum likelihood criterion. To reduce the presence of false alarms, low-level audio descriptors are processed to order the candidate video segments in the list so that those associated to the event of interest are likely to be found in the very first positions. We focus in particular on goal detection, which represents a key event in a soccer game, using camera motion information as a visual cue and the "loudness" as an audio descriptor. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed multimodal approach.


Background Adoption of molecular techniques to detect Plasmodium falciparum infection has revealed many previously undetected (yet transmissible) low-density infections in areas of low malaria transmission. In a world where numerous countries are approaching elimination, additional data from low transmission areas are required to better understand the determinants of submicroscopic infection and their potential relevance in these settings. Methods We updated a systematic review of studies assessing asexual P. falciparum prevalence by microscopy and PCR in the same population. PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched up to July 2017. Bayesian regression modelling was used to explore determinants of the size of the submicroscopic reservoir across endemic populations and define when and where submicroscopic infections are likely to be most relevant to malaria control efforts. Findings A total of 105 references containing 387 microscopy/PCR prevalence pairs were included. Our results highlight marked geographical variation in the proportion of submicroscopically infected individuals across settings, with the submicroscopic reservoir largest in regions with historically low levels of transmission and smaller in areas that have only more recently reduced transmission. Age was also a significant determinant, with submicroscopic infection more likely in adults than infants (0-5 years) and older children (5-15 years), although we did not observe a statistically significant influence of seasonality. Integrating these results with estimates of infectivity in relation to parasite density suggests the contribution of this submicroscopic infections to transmission across different settings is likely to be highly variable. Interpretation Significant variation in the prevalence of submicroscopic infection exists even across settings characterised by similar current levels of transmission. These differences in submicroscopic epidemiology potentially warrant different approaches to targeting this infected sub-group in the approach to elimination. Funding None Research in Context Evidence before this study Cross-sectional studies of malaria prevalence in endemic populations have revealed the widespread presence of infections with parasite densities lower than the threshold of detection by microscopy. Previous systematic reviews of these surveys have highlighted that the fraction of P.falciparum infections missed by microscopy can be substantial (∼45% of all infections detected by PCR on average), that submicroscopic infection is more likely in adults than in children (a phenomenon attributed to increased levels of immunity), and that this missed fraction (the "submicroscopic reservoir") is typically highest in areas with low transmission intensity. Although further work is required, a number of studies have also demonstrated the capacity of these submicroscopic, low density infections to infect mosquitoes and therefore contribute to onwards transmission. Added value of this study Although previous studies have found that infections in older, more immune individuals are more likely to be submicroscopic, in lower transmission settings where individuals generally develop less immunity, a larger proportion of infections are also typically submicroscopic. Here we present an updated systematic review to explore this apparent paradox across a range of transmission settings and define contexts in which submicroscopic infections are likely to be most relevant to malaria control efforts. Leveraging the substantial increase in the availability of malaria cross-sectional surveys reporting prevalence by molecular methods, we explore the association of submicroscopic infection with a number of novel factors – these include age (at a finer resolution than has previously been possible), seasonality, geography and historical transmission patterns. Our findings highlight striking geographical variation in the size of the submicroscopic reservoir - this variation can be explained in-part by the historical patterns of transmission characterising each area, with the submicroscopic reservoir largest in areas with historically low levels of transmission. Integrating this information with estimates of the infectivity of submicroscopic and microscopically-detectable infections allows us to better define when and where submicroscopic malaria infections may be relevant to control efforts and highlights that the contribution of these low-density infections to transmission is likely to vary substantially across different settings. Implications of all the available evidence Our work highlights important and material differences in submicroscopic malaria epidemiology across settings and suggests the absence of a one-size-fits-all solution for malaria control efforts targeting this infected sub-group. Whether or not the submicroscopic reservoir requires targeting in the approach to elimination will depend on the particular setting, and likely warrant different approaches if the infection is to be controlled most effectively in the approach to elimination.


Traditional signal direction of arrival (DOA) estimation algorithm has exist some problems, such as a large amount of calculation and slow convergence speed. In this paper, neural network method is used to improve the performance of DOA estimation. Due to the fact that BP neural network is inclined to be trapped in local minimum point, particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is applied to optimization the weights and threshold. The model of DOA estimation based on PSO-BP neural network is constructed and trained. Simulation results show that, compared with classical RBFNN method and traditional MUSIC algorithm, the optimized BP neural network method has higher estimation accuracy and real-time performance.


Abstract Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) causes early-onset immune dysregulation increasing the risk of infection, second malignancies, and autoimmune complications by poorly understood mechanisms. Targeted therapy has improved therapeutic outcomes but persistent immune deficiency remains an unresolved problem. Severe infections (20/100 patient-years) cause or contribute to over 35% of CLL-related deaths. Most identified infections are bacterial (~70%) with the commonest blood isolates being Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus. Viral infections (~25%) are disproportionately caused by Herpes viruses and influenza. Most common infection sites are lower respiratory tract, skin, and urogenital tract. CLL patients have an increased risk (~2-fold) of second malignancies with the commonest being squamous and basal cell skin cancer, melanoma, and lung cancer. There is a significantly increased risk of additional clonal and non-clonal non-Hodgkin lymphomas and Hodgkin lymphoma. Autoimmune cytopenias affect ~10% of CLL patients causing anemia (hemolysis and red cell aplasia), thrombocytopenia, and neutropenia. Nonhematological autoimmune complications are rare. Management of these complications requires a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach including education, preventative medicine, active monitoring, and early diagnosis and treatment. Research to better understand CLL-related immune defects and determine how to reverse them is essential for improved clinical care.


Object or part recognition is of major interest in industrial environments. Current methods implement expensive camera based solutions. There is a need for a cost effective alternative to be developed. One of the proposed methods is to overcome the hardware, camera, problem by implementing a software solution.  Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) is to be used as the underlying intelligent software as they have high tolerance for noise and have the ability to generalize. As an initial concept basic ANN software has been implemented within an industrial programmable logic control (PLC) system.  This is not practical for industrial use in a production environment where there are a large quantity of different parts to be identified that change relatively regularly. The ability to easily and accurately train more parts is required. Difficulties associated with traditional mathematically guided training methods are highlighted, which leads to the development of a Genetic Algorithm (GA) based evolutionary training method that overcomes these difficulties and makes accurate part recognition possible. An ANN hybridised with GA training is introduced and a general solution encoding scheme which is used to encode the required ANN connection weights. Experimental tests were performed in order to determine the ideal GA performance and control parameters as studies have indicated that different GA control parameters can lead to large differences in training efficiency and accuracy. After performing these tests, the training accuracy was analyzed by investigation into GA performance as well as hardware based part recognition performance. This analysis identified the ideal GA control parameters when training an ANN for the purpose of part recognition and showed that the ANN generally trained well and could generalize well on data not presented to it during training.


PURPOSE
To develop a pencil beam dose calculation algorithm for scanned proton beams that improves modeling of scatter events.

METHODS
Our pencil beam algorithm (PBA) was developed for calculating dose from monoenergetic, parallel proton beams in homogeneous media. Fermi-Eyges theory was implemented for pencil beam transport. Elastic and nonelastic scatter effects were each modeled as a Gaussian distribution, with root mean square (RMS) widths determined from theoretical calculations and a nonlinear fit to a Monte Carlo (MC) simulated 1mm × 1mm proton beam, respectively. The PBA was commissioned using MC simulations in a flat water phantom. Resulting PBA calculations were compared with results of other models reported in the literature on the basis of differences between PBA and MC calculations of 80-20% penumbral widths. Our model was further tested by comparing PBA and MC results for oblique beams (45 degree incidence) and surface irregularities (step heights of 1 and 4 cm) for energies of 50-250 MeV and field sizes of 4cm × 4cm and 10cm × 10cm. Agreement between PBA and MC distributions was quantified by computing the percentage of points within 2% dose difference or 1mm distance to agreement.

RESULTS
Our PBA improved agreement between calculated and simulated penumbral widths by an order of magnitude compared with previously reported values. For comparisons of oblique beams and surface irregularities, agreement between PBA and MC distributions was better than 99%.

CONCLUSIONS
Our algorithm showed improved accuracy over other models reported in the literature in predicting the overall shape of the lateral profile through the Bragg peak. This improvement was achieved by incorporating nonelastic scatter events into our PBA. The increased modeling accuracy of our PBA, incorporated into a treatment planning system, may improve the reliability of treatment planning calculations for patient treatments. This research was supported by contract W81XWH-10-1-0005 awarded by The U.S. Army Research Acquisition Activity, 820 Chandler Street, Fort Detrick, MD 21702-5014. This report does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.


relieved. All attempts to reduce the gut to within the abdominal cavity failed, though a finger could easily be passed through the internal ring. A sudden subserous haemorrhage into the gut wall, stripping up the serous coat for several inches, made resection of about ten inches of gut with end-to-end anastomosis necessary. It was easy to draw down additional gut to perform the resection wide of the injured area. Again attempts to reduce the remainder of the loop of gut failed. Laparotomy through a low left-paramedian incision revealed the reason for this inability to reduce the intestine to within the peritoneal caviLy. About three inches above and internal to the internal inguinal ring there was a narrow-mouthed pouch formed by the posterior parietal peritoneum, through which the intestine passed. This pouch expanded downwards and outwards into a wide serouslined cavity, which narrowed as it passed through the internal inguinal ring and was prolonged into the inguinal canal as the hernial sac. The abdominal mouth of this long serous-lined cavity was narrow, and, though firmly holding the loop of small intestine, was not causing strangulation. By pulling gently from above and pushing from below the gut was easily returned inside the peritoneal cavity. The abdominal opening of the sac was ligatured and the abdominal and hernial wounds closed. The patient's condition caused some anxiety for the next twenty-four hours, but subsequently recovery was rapid. I am indebted to the Director of Medical Services for permission to publish this case.


Purpose. Determination of improvement ways of admissible speeds of train movement on the difficult sections of а railroad plan. Methodology. Mathematical modeling of the train traffic is used to achieve the purpose of research. The average weighted speed and elevation of outer rail is predicted on this basis. Findings. The case analysis of the speeds determination in curved sections of track was carried out. The above mentioned track sections adversely affect the ride comfort and the intensity of the way disorder, as well as the reasons that contribute to the speed limits traffic on the railways of Ukraine. The technique of performing the calculations for determining the permissible train speeds was developed and tested on real curves of railways, were the accelerated movement of trains was introduced. Proposals on automate calculations in distances and services by way of determining the permissible speeds in curves were developed. Originality. Methodology of determining the permissible motion speeds and elevation of outer rails on the difficult sections of the railway plan was developed. This approach allows you to get a rational decisions on reorganization of plan based on local conditions. Practical value . The developed technique of definition of admissible speeds of motion in curves was implemented as a program DopShvid. The program was tested on real railway sections, where the accelerated train motion was introduced.


Certain types of impotence, primary or secondary, are due to an "escape" through the superficial venous network of the penis, connecting distally with the femoral veins. Until now, the treatment was surgical and marred with recurrences. The use of sclerotherapy on these superficial veins enables their "closure" which is elegant, fast, almost painless, effective and inexpensive, leading to the cure of the disorder and a normal erection.


Optimal block designs for complete diallel cross system IV was investigated by several authors in presence and absence of specific combining ability parameters in the model. But there are drawbacks in their designs. Firstly, their designs consume more experimental units when these are used for experiments to estimate general and specific combining ability effects and secondly, these designs are not available for every value of p of parental lines. In the present paper we are proposing a simple method of construction of balanced and orthogonal block designs for every value for p of parental lines for complete diallel cross plans connected for cross effects through cycle permutation of initial block with minimum possible number of experimental units and at the same time these designs allow same precision for estimation of contrasts of general and specific combining ability of participating lines. The analysis is presented for data obtainable from proposed designs. The statistical analysis includes the analysis of variance and the estimation of general and specific combining abilities.

 Key words: Incomplete block design, complete diallel cross, general combining ability, specific combining ability, mating-environment design, variance balanced.


ABSTRACT Background: Maternal mortality in Indonesia is caused by multifactors that are both direct and indirect factors. Complications during pregnancy and after delivery, including preeclampsia is the direct cause of 90% of maternal deaths. This case report aimed to describe the anaesthesia management on the incidence of severe preeclampsia to prevent the complications. Subjects and Method: We reported a 33-year-old G3P2A0 woman with 33 weeks of gestational age, diagnosed with severe pre-eclampsia partial HELLP syndrome, fetal dis-tress, type II diabetes mellitus pro SCTP emergency with physical status ASA II. Regional anaesthesia with sub-arachnoid block was performed by using Lidodex 75 mg and fentanyl 25 mcg intrathecally. Results: From the operation process, a baby boy with birth weight 2.900 gram and APGAR Score 7-8-9 was born. Two-hour post operation examination on patient showed compos mentis (consciousness), blood pressure 121/ 80 mmHg, heart rate 64 bpm, respiration rate 20 breath per minute, blood oxygen saturation levels (SpO2) 99% with 3 L/min nasal cannula. Patient was administered to HCU post operation to be monitored vital sign and signs of impending eclampsia. Post-operative refeeding was performed after bowel sound was positive. Conclusion: Selection of appropriate anaesthetic management in severe preeclampsia cases can prevent complications. Keywords: severe preeclampsia, sectio caesaria, regional anesthesia, subarachnoid block Correspondence: R. Th. Supraptomo. Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Therapy Dr. Moewardi Hospital. Jl Kolonel Sutarto 132 Jebres, Surakarta, Central Java, 57126. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com. Mobile: +6281329025599. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26911/the7thicph.05.29


A paradoxical reduction in anxiety levels in chronic predator stress paradigm (PS) in Sprague–Dawley rats has recently been shown in previous works. In this paper, we studied the possible neurobiological mechanism of this phenomenon. We segregated PS-exposed Sprague–Dawley rats into the high- and low-anxiety phenotypes. The long-lasting effects of PS on corticosterone levels, blood flow speed in the carotid arteries, diffusion coefficient, and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectra in the hippocampus were compared in the high-anxiety and low-anxiety rats. In addition, we evaluated the gene BDNF expression in the hippocampus which is considered to be a main factor of neuroplasticity. We demonstrated that in low-anxiety rats, the corticosterone level was decreased and carotid blood flow speed was increased. Moreover, in the hippocampus of low-anxiety rats compared to the control group and high-anxiety rats, the following changes were observed: (a) a decrease in N-acetyl aspartate levels with a simultaneous increase in phosphoryl ethanol amine levels; (b) an increase in lipid peroxidation levels; (c) a decrease in apparent diffusion coefficient value; (d) an increase in BDNF gene expression. Based on these findings, we proposed that stress-induced anxiety reduction is associated with the elevation of BDNF gene expression directly. Low corticosterone levels and a rise in carotid blood flow speed might facilitate BDNF gene expression. Meanwhile, the decrease in apparent diffusion coefficient value and decrease in N-acetyl aspartate levels, as well as an increase in the lipid peroxidation levels, in the hippocampus possibly reflected destructive changes in the hippocampus. We suggested that in Sprague–Dawley rats, these morphological alterations might be considered as an impetus for further increase in neuroplasticity in the hippocampus.


The Tripuri tribe from the state of Tripura constitutes around 50 percent of the total tribal population and can be found in all eight districts of the state. The tribe follows its own culture and tradition in terms of marriage and other customary practices. This study investigates the role of gender in inheritance of property among the Tripuri tribe and how Tripuri women are excluded from ownership of property. It also attempts to discover how property ownership affects their income and position in the household. The study has been conducted in the districts of West Tripura and Dhalai. Focus Group Discussion and interview schedules are employed as methods for collection of data.
Results show that while 20 out of 54 married women from rural areas of West Tripura have inherited property, only 2 out of 13 married women have inherited property in the urban area. In comparison with West Tripura, Dhalai features a low ratio among women in inheriting property (only 4 out of 38 married women). A few causes include low level of literacy, slow urbanization and less inter-community marriages. The reasons for not inheriting property include: a woman failing to live up to the concept of a 'good sister' in the brother's eyes, son needs property to care for parents, cost of marriage is borne by brother or parents so no right to claim, and to avoid unnecessary conflict in the family. In this manner, societal perceptions prevent women from claiming the legitimate share of their ancestral property.