This paper analyses the historical origins and the popularity of 'Koch's Postulates'. In 1884 Friedrich Löffler wrote down the well-known three steps of isolation, cultivation and inoculation as conditions for establishing the existence of a pathogen. These postulates are frequently invoked in textbooks of medical history. Yet they seem to have had little relevance in medical research. Their assumed inventor, Robert Koch, produced numerous variations in his own methodology. However, underlying his work was a sort of trivial ontology of diseases which rendered an experimental reconstruction of human pathologies in animal models practical and meaningful. There were many ways to pursue this end. Koch usually limited his discussion to practical questions related to the course that investigations had to take, while matters of principle were only treated implicitly in his writings. Löffler's achievement was to popularise Koch's views in his postulates. Given that, it is not surprising that the countless references to Koch's postulates which one finds in the 20th century usually refer to the spirit rather than the literal meaning of the postulates. For example, proponents of virology or molecular medicine devise variations of Koch's postulates that serve to relate their own work to Koch's bacteriology. The latter is perceived as the origin of modern experimental medicine. The nature of such references is less historical than anecdotal: referring to a historical object that did not exist as such, these references produce ex traditione credentials for experimental medicine.


1. Crying has therapeutic value. For the patient and family, crying can facilitate working through grief, promote emotional healing, and release emotions that might otherwise lead to crippling emotional or physical illness. 2. Crying may be precipitated by a variety of emotions and may be related to a variety of situations. When patients cry, the behavior may express sadness and grief, release emotion, manipulate others, be a means to cope with unresolved stress, reduce distance, and may represent emotional lability related to organic brain impairment. 3. When the patient is crying, the nurse's action should be based on an assessment of the crying and the nursing strategies appropriate for the patient's unique situation. Generally, crying should be accepted nonjudgmentally and emotional support should be provided.


Background: Breast cancer (BC) is a clinically and molecularly heterogeneous disease where tailoring therapy to specific tumor subtypes is a focus of today9s clinical developments. The availability of relevant preclinical models replicating BC9s molecular diversity is therefore of crucial importance for the success of IND translation to the clinic. We present a collection of 34 BC tumor xenografts established directly onto Nude mice from patients9 tumor sample for in vivo preclinical evaluation of drug efficacy. These in vivo models reproduce accurately the molecular and drug response profile of human tumors, and provide an invaluable tool for translational research. Methods: Post-surgery tumor specimens were transplanted either by grafting tumor fragments in the interscapular region of nude mice or by injection of tumor cells into the fat pad of NOD-Scid mice; this fat pad being previously cleared of murine gland and humanized by injection of normal human fibroblasts. BC xenografts were amplified by serial transplantation, and tissue samples were retained at each passage for comparison with the patient9s tumor. Molecular analyses included gene expression (Affymetrix® Hu133), gene copy number (Affymetrix® Human Genome 6.0) and IHC markers on FFPE samples. In vivo drug efficacy assays were performed with standards of care as single agent or in combinations. Results: Among the 34 BC xenografts, 32 are ductal carcinoma, 2 lobular carcinomas and among them 4 are inflammatory breast cancers. Twenty two tumors express low or no hormone receptors and do not overexpress ERBB2, they can be considered as triple-negative tumors. Five tumors overexpress ERBB2, one of which also express hormonal receptors. Seven tumors express both estrogen and progesterone receptors and do not overexpress ERBB2, they can thus be considered as luminal-like tumors. Hence, this panel mostly reflects the molecular heterogeneity of breast cancer. To confirm this further, tumorgraft gene expression data were crossed with patient datasets, and hierarchical clustering was performed by using patient-derived gene lists that stratify breast cancer according to molecular phenotype. This analysis showed that breast cancer tumorgrafts evenly distributed among human samples and properly classified within the molecular subtypes corresponding to their histopathological features. A panel of standard chemotherapies was tested in vivo (adriamycin/cyclophosphamide, capecitabine, docetaxel, trastuzumab and lapatinib) to generate a profile of drug sensitivity for each model. Conclusion: This panel of 34 BC xenografts allows preclinical assays in clinically relevant models encompassing the molecular diversity of BC. Its broadness and extensive molecular characterization will also be useful to identify molecular determinants of drug response. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2011 Nov 12-16; San Francisco, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2011;10(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B11.


A new microcell configuration scheme in urban areas is proposed in order to increase the reuse efficiency of radio resources. Multiple directional-beam antennas lined up along a street form a cigar-shaped cell. Antennas are located at intersection and are directed along the intersecting streets. Two antennas facing each other form a microzone and, therefore, a cigar-shaped cell consists of multiple microzones in a line. Each microzone is protected against cochannel interference from neighboring microzones by confinement of transmitted signals to a microzone using down-tilting of antenna beams. Therefore, a radio channel which is occupied in one microzone can be used in adjacent microzones. An increase in system capacity is achieved by the high reuse efficiency of radio resources. The proposed system increases system capacity up to 560% with a call blocking probability of 1% when compared with a conventional system. In addition, a macrodiversity scheme using two antennas in a microzone improves the call quality on the reverse link.


Recent research has revealed that the security of deep neural networks that directly process 3D point clouds to classify objects can be threatened by adversarial samples. Al-though existing adversarial attack methods achieve high success rates, they do not restrict the point modifications enough to preserve the point cloud appearance. To overcome this shortcoming, two constraints are proposed. These include applying hard boundary constraints on the number of modified points and on the point perturbation norms. Due to the restrictive nature of the problem, the search space contains many local maxima. The proposed method addresses this issue by using a high step-size at the beginning of the algorithm to search the main surface of the point cloud fast and effectively. Then, in order to converge to the desired output, the step-size is gradually decreased. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, it is run on the ModelNet40 and ScanObjectNN datasets by employing the state-of-the-art point cloud classification models; including PointNet, PointNet++, and DGCNN. The obtained results show that it can perform successful attacks and achieve state-of-the-art results by only a limited number of point modifications while preserving the appearance of the point cloud. Moreover, due to the effective search algorithm, it can perform successful attacks in just a few steps. Additionally, the proposed step-size scheduling algorithm shows an improvement of up to 14.5% when adopted by other methods as well. The proposed method also performs effectively against popular defense methods.


No recent studies have analyzed the rates of or reasons for unanticipated revision surgery within 30 days of primary surgery in spinal deformity patients. Our aim was to examine the incidence, characteristics, reasons, and risk factors for unplanned revision surgery in spinal deformity patients treated at one institution. All patients with a diagnosis of spinal deformity presenting for primary instrumented spinal fusion at a single institution from 1998 to 2012 were reviewed. All unplanned reoperations performed within 30 days after primary surgery were analyzed in terms of demographics, surgical data, and complications. Statistical analyses were performed to obtain correlations and risk factors for anticipated revision. Of 2758 patients [aged 16.07 years (range, 2–71), 69.8% female] who underwent spinal fusion surgery, 59 (2.1%) required reoperation within 30 days after primary surgery. The length of follow up for each patient was more than 30 days. Of those that required reoperation, 87.0% had posterior surgery only, 5.7% had anterior surgery, and 7.3% underwent an anteroposterior approach. The reasons for reoperation included implant failure (n = 20), wound infection (n = 12), neurologic deficit (n = 9), pulmonary complications (n = 17), and coronal plane imbalance (n = 1). The risk factors for reoperation were age, diagnosis, and surgical procedure with osteotomy.


This special issue spreads from the XIII International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR2010) held in June 2010 in Lecce, Italy. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is one of the mostly assessed and exploited technologies for non-destructive subsurface sensing and imaging. As a matter of fact, its flexibility (as far as systems, measurement protocols and processing strategies are concerned) makes it a powerful tool to handle many different observation and sensing applications, ranging from structural monitoring to demining, security and geophysical surveys. Due to the challenging needs arisen by such a widespread application, GPR is an extremely active field for scientific research as indeed efforts aimed at developing new modeling tools, imaging methods and systems concepts can either improve the outcome of GPR surveys or open the way to new, not yet explored, applications. In this respect, this special issue presents a selection of papers that provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the state of the art of research activities carried out on the most relevant and promising trends of development of GPR technology.


Environmental questions that involve temperature and heat dissipation are discussed. A description is given of work on passive (no machinery to move coolant) cooling techniques, which can replace active (machinery-powered) cooling systems, and studies to ascertain the effect of temperature on equipment reliability. The following conclusions are reached. Passive cooling techniques can produce temperatures approximately equivalent to those of active cooling. Heat transfer enhancement techniques can extend the application of passive cooling. Geometry and arrangement are important for achieving good heat transfer with passive cooling. Active cooling can incur high prices beyond the immediately visible costs of the active cooling systems alone. System configuration decisions can continue into future or derivative programs because of nontechnical considerations, making careful thought in early stages essential. The influence of temperature as a failure accelerator in moderate temperature ranges cannot be readily confirmed. Passive cooling minimizes the interface definition for application of electronic equipment, thus simplifying use of a box in multiple applications.<<ETX>>


Daily affective reactivity refers to the within-subject relationship between daily stress and daily mood. Most stress researchers have conceptualized daily affective reactivity as a dependent variable to be predicted by individual difference variables such as personality and psychopathology. In contrast, in our recent research, we have conceptualized daily affective reactivity as an independent variable that can predict depressive symptoms. In this article, we summarize three studies that relied on a daily process methodology and multilevel modeling to assess affective reactivity in the context of daily stressful events. Two of the studies (Cohen, Butler, Gunthert, & Beck, 2005; Gunthert, Cohen, Butler, & Beck, 2005) sampled adult outpatients in cognitive therapy and evaluated the predictive role of daily affective reactivity in treatment outcome (depression reduction). A third study (O'Neill, Cohen, Tolpin, & Gunthert, 2004) evaluated the predictive role of college students' daily affective reactivity in the development of depressive symptoms. We consider the strengths and weaknesses of a daily process methodology for research on depression in both clinical and nonclinical samples.


This study on environmental economics has noticed that a growing concern for healthy food and environmentally friendly production has resulted in increased attention towards organic food. In South Africa, the market for organic food is still in the infancy stage. Food marketers continue to grapple in designing marketing campaigns to attract organic food consumers. Using a survey method, self-completed questionnaires were collected from customers aged 18 and above, by means of convenience sampling technique from a sample of 120 customers at the Hazel food market (HFM) in Pretoria. A total of 118 questionnaires were received back. STATA software was used to analyze the data. This is a quantitative study in which data analysis consisted of descriptive statistics, the Chi-square test and reliability analysis. The results suggested that customers at HFM have the intention to purchase organic food. The major findings of the study indicated that factors such as consumer values, attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control significantly influence consumer's intention to purchase organic food. This study intends to provide valuable insights into current studies of consumer behavior towards organic food in South Africa. Potential beneficiaries of this research study include consumers, vendors and government agencies.


Abstract An aircraft instrument is described that gives a real-time measurement of the number of ice crystal particles per unit volume in cirriform clouds. Its method of detection is based on the mechanisms of contact electrification, as applied to the collision between a stainless steel wire and an ice crystal. The signal conditioner, which employs a series of integrated circuits, converts the frequency of crystal collisions into a voltage. Several examples of actual flights are shown.


This article reviews the Thailand monetary policy rule and its performance under the adoption of inflation targeting regime since 2000. The study estimates the policy reaction function to see if the inflation targeting has been linked with an inflation-responsive monetary policy rule, and investigates whether the monetary policy rule would actually have its transmission effect on inflation, through tracing the impulse responses of inflation rate to monetary policy shocks. The main findings are as follows. The estimation outcomes of the policy reaction function show that the Thailand monetary policy rule is characterized as an inflation- and exchange-rate- responsive rule with forward-looking manner, which is countercyclical against inflation in the long run, but is accompanied with slow adjustment toward a target policy rate. The impulse response analyses imply that the Thailand monetary policy has only a marginal transmission effect on inflation probably due to the slow adjustment of policy rate.


Computed tomography has been proven to be useful for non-destructive inspection of structures and materials. We build a three-dimensional imaging system with the photonically generated incoherent noise source and the Schottky barrier diode detector in the terahertz frequency band (90–140 GHz). Based on the computed tomography technique, the three-dimensional image of a ceramic sample is reconstructed successfully by stacking the slices at different heights. The imaging results not only indicate the ability of terahertz wave in the non-invasive sensing and non-destructive inspection applications, but also prove the effectiveness and superiority of the uni-traveling-carrier photodiode as a terahertz source in the imaging applications.


A quantum-mechanical inverse scattering method is used to find local exchange potentials which are exact within the context of the static-exchange approximation for e-He scattering at energies between 19 and 200 eV. These local exchange potentials are also successful in the presence of other potentials, such as polarization and absorptive potentials. The present exchange potentials are compared with the semiclassical exchange potentials in common use in the energy range under consideration.


NEERMULLI CHOORANAM:
The drug NEERMULLI CHOORNAM has been taken to
establish its efficacy in treating Paandu. The dose of neermulli choornam is 1gm twice daily with Honey before food.
A brief description pertaining to its botanical aspect,
phytochemistry and Gunapadam has been referred.
Collection information from various literature and website has been referred.
Bio chemical analysis of the drug shows the presence of
Calcium, Ferrous iron, Unsaturated compound.
Pharmacological analysis shows that the drug has got
significant heamatinic activity.
Microbiological analysis shows that the drug has got
sensitivity to streptococcus pneumoniae and staphylococcus
aureus.
Bio statistical analysis shows that the drug is effective in
controlling Paandu.
From the clinical assessment it is inferred that Neermulli
choornam possesses remarkable efficacy in treating Paandu and the drug has got no adverse reactions.
CONCLUSION:
It is concluded that the test drug NEERMULLI CHOORNAM has significant Haematinic effect and it has no adverse effects.

ANNABEDI CHENDURAM:
In this dissertation, the test drug 'Annabedi chenduram' has been taken to prove its haemostatic activity in treating perumbaadu. The dose of this chenduram 100mg twice daily with honey after food.
The review of literatures above the drug and its significance in medicine from traditional books were collected.
Information about the drug from various sources have been
documented.
Bio – chemical analysis showed the presence of Calcium, Ferrous Iron, Sulphate,Carbonate and Amino acid and their biological significance has been discussed.
Pharmacological analysis revealed that the test drug has good haemostatic activity and analgesic activity.
Acute Toxicity study of the test drug revealed that there is no toxin related remarkable pathological changes on Albino rats. So the drug is safe for long term as well as short term therapies.
Micro-biological analysis revealed that the test drug is moderately sensitive against Staphylococcus.
Bio-statistical analysis also revealed that the test drug has significant effect in treating perumbaadu.
For the clinical assessment, 40 patients were selected. Among these 27 cases (67.5%) showed good response, 10 cases (25%) showed fair response and 3cases (7.5%) showed poor response. From this, it is inferred that the test drug has effective and potent haemostatic activity and has no untoward effects.
CONCLUSION:
From the above studies, it can be concluded that the test drug "Annabedi chenduram" has good haemostatic activity and it has no untoward effects in the clinical trial.


Objective To investigate the densities of Hydrotaea chalcogaster(Wiedemann) and Synthesiomyia nudiseta(ven der Wulp) and to discuss the importance of the two biovectors.Methods Two different ecological sites were selected in Xinhui port.The cages with fish intestines and fermented wheat bran were used to trap flies,respectively.All individuals of the fly species were classified and counted.Results The density of Chrysomya megacephala(Fabricius) was the highest,followed by that of Musca domestica(Linnaeus),Hydrotaea chalcogaster and Synthesiomyia nudiseta.There were no significant differences found in densities of the last three species with the two bait trapping methods.The four species were dominant fly faunas in Xinhui port while Hydrotaea chalcogaster and Synthesiomyia nudiseta were also main species of flies in Zhujiang Delta of China.Conclusion Hydrotaea chalcogaster and Synthesiomyia nudiseta should be monitored in South China due to their wide existences and potentialities for carrying and spreading infectious diseases.


This manuscript presents a case study of a Nepalese woman experiencing breast cancer. Six themes were identified to have an impact on the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. They include: cultural impact on women's roles, socioeconomic status and education, surgical oncologist-patient relationship, surgical oncologist-nurse relationship, nurses' lack of oncology knowledge, and lack of a cancer screening and prevention program in Nepal. Cancer care is on the rise in Nepal. However, many of the variables identified above are not considered in the cancer care provided. Nepal has just opened its first national cancer center with the intent to improve cancer care throughout the country.


What shall we expect from the year 2020? The coronavirus pandemic is not the worst thing that humanity can face in the near future. According to the observations of the scientists, in March, 2020, the planet temperature warmed up to the record-high level. Also, the temperature of the world's oceans exceeded its average temperatures by 80%, and prognosis of the meteorological observations is not good. The warming seas had already led to catastrophic disaster. The average temperature increase can also lead to hurricanes, drought, invasion of locusts and, the worst, to forest fires. Natural disasters lead to loss of life, destruction of properties and infrastructure, loss of animal natural habitats, displacement of humans. And the results of these all lead to humanitarian catastrophes, including social and economic.The situations related to the nature are always very serious, as the whole world is involved. This is like butterfly effect, i.e., the natural disaster in Australia affect the economic and ecologic situation in USA and England. Taking the Australia, they faced problem that cannot be avoided. Nevertheless, the world can be prepared and prevent from the huge disasters. The forecasting of forest fires can really be helpful, as well as the inquiry of the weather impact on fires. The current paper is focused on the study of fire forecasting and weather influence on fire. The relevance of the study is important, as the global warming and human caused fires are increasing and there is a trend that Australia's fires became more dangerous and longer lasting. The artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning algorithms, can help to make appropriate calculations and predictions to safe the ecosystem and human lives.According to the preliminary research results we acquire; in-depth multidimensional analysis confirms almost 100 percent dependence of bushfires on the weather conditions. Using the machine learning algorithms, it would be possible to predict the time and positioning of inflammation source.


Segregation occurs during most particulate materials-related unit operations including mixing,
conveying, discharging, filling, and compaction. A redesigned, second generation primary segregation
shear cell was fabricated to simulate and quantify the percolation and sieving mechanisms-based
segregation. Several binary mixtures were tested to quantify the effect of size ratios, absolute size, and
different constituents. In powder handling process, a mixture usually is comprised of different
constituents. The constituents of binary mixtures studied were spherical shaped glass beads and irregular
shaped poultry feed particles. The glass beads were considered as an ideal material whereas mashed
poultry feed was considered as real-world material. Three binary size ratios 4:1, 6:1, and 8:1 were tested.
For a given size ratio, three different absolute coarse (710-850, 1000-1200, and 1400-1700 µm) to fine
particle sizes were studied. Three key conclusions were drawn based on the PSSC-II test results: 1) The
higher density and smoother surface of fine component of a binary mixture, the higher is the segregation
potential. 2) The coarse particle shape effect, i.e., the irregular shaped coarse particles or higher porosity
of coarse component of a binary mixture lead to higher segregation potential. 3) The fine particle
properties play a major role in determination of the segregation potential of a binary mixture. The fine
particle properties, to a certain extent, determine the particle size-related effects such as absolute size
and size ratios, i.e., if fine particle properties of a binary mixture change, the size-related effect on
segregation potential would definitely change.


Immunity mechanisms of cytomegalovirus infection control have been studied recently and have contributed to the better understanding of the pathogenesis of this disease in patients with a solid organ transplant. These studies suggest that a relationship exists between cytomegalovirus and the development of acute rejection. This relationship is more evident if the patient develops cytomegalovirus disease and if the donor is cytomegalovirus-positive and the recipient is cytomegalovirusnegative. There is also evidence that the association is probable if there is coinfection with cytomegalovirus and other herpesviruses (human herpesvirus 7). Over the past 30 years, many attempts have been made to design vaccines able to prevent cytomegalovirus infection and disease; however, few vaccines progressed to clinical studies and none have been licensed yet. The purpose of this review is to provide a critical analysis of the most recent evidences from the medical literature with respect to the pathogenesis of cytomegalovirus infection and its association with acute and chronic rejection, as well as the possible implications that the development of future vaccines could have in the prevention of cytomegalovirus disease and acute or chronic rejection. (Trends in Transplant. 2009;3:103-12)


In mammals, 24-h rhythms of physiology and behavior are organized by a body-wide network of clock genes and proteins. Despite the well-known function of the adult circadian system, the roles of maternal, fetal and placental clocks during pregnancy are poorly defined. In the mature mouse placenta, the labyrinth zone (LZ) is of fetal origin and key for selective nutrient and waste exchange. Recently, clock gene expression has been detected in LZ and other fetal tissues; however, there is no evidence of a placental function controlled by the LZ clock. Here, we demonstrate that specifically the trophoblast layer of the LZ harbors an already functional clock by late gestation, able to regulate in a circadian manner the expression and activity of the xenobiotic efflux pump, ATP-binding cassette sub-family B member 1 (ABCB1), likely gating the fetal exposure to drugs from the maternal circulation to certain times of the day. As more than 300 endogenous and exogenous compounds are substrates of ABCB1, our results might have implications in choosing the maternal treatment time when aiming either maximal/minimal drug availability to the fetus/mother.


The significance of RFID for problem solving of the supply chain is underlined. RFID is an excellent element for all industries to work smoothly. The overwhelming utility of RFID technology is widely used. There is hardly a sector where we do not use RFID, whether it is manufacturing, retail, marketing and sales, shipping, etc. Each pallet, container and commodity to be manufactured, supplied and sold is defined from RFID. It ensures quite simple and error-free business operations. It allows the industry to achieve the right quality, the right price and the right time for end users. In terms of sales and customer satisfaction it gives full benefit. The paper proposes an efficient conceptual model RFID in procurement process. Furthermore, they define attributes which facilitate the choice of RFID. Finally, the section presents the problems and advantages businesses will achieve from using this application. The supply chain mechanism is carried out through various phases called supply chain stages.


Three leaders in Canada's health care debate recently told medical educators that the Canada Health Act needs to be revamped, but each had different views about how the change should be managed. Different perspectives were provided by Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, National Forum on Health member Dr. Tom Noseworthy and CMA President-Elect Judith Kazimirski.


Considering proposal. Although the question Robert "What Hariman constitutes has done a democratic well to categorize style?" is a various tricky prop sal. Although Rob rt Hariman has done well to c teg rize various political styles realist, courtly, republican, and bureaucratic it is unclear that "democracy" operates in an analogous fashion.1 What if democracy cannot be delineated in much the same way as realism, monarchism, republicanism, or bureaucratism? What if democracy is understood as empty or devoid of positive political content? In such a case, democracy may be more comparable to "the law" in that it is a conceptual or ideographic label that encompasses varied sets of political and aesthetic commitments. Just as Hariman turns to various styles of politics and Pierre Schlag turns to various "aesthetics of American law," so too must we be careful to articulate not a single democratic style but multiple, intersecting, and sometimes competing democratic aesthetics.2 As such, we should be attentive to deliberative, pluralist, liberal, republican, progressive, and other styles that function as particular instantiations of the aesthetics of American democracy. Approaching the question of democratic style from the perspective of radical democratic theory, I argue in this essay that a radical democratic style is best defined in the negative. If political style is, according to Hariman, "a coherent repertoire of rhetorical conventions depending on aesthetic reactions for political effect," then the marker of a radical democratic style is anticonventional conventions.3 Put differently, a radical democratic style's rhetorical repertoire is contingent to such an extent that, once it is nailed down as a concrete set of practices, it ceases to be radically democratic which is, itself, a particular kind of aesthetic marked by tradition, hybridity, and intersectionality. In what follows, I explore these dimensions by first expanding on my initial analogy with the law, then explaining three features of a radical democratic perspective that confounds stylistic analysis, and finally turning to the Young Lords Organization as one possible example of a radical democratic aesthetic in practice.


Synopses A suite of unusual acicular hornblende schists is found at Warsak (34° 10′ N. 71°C 23′ E.), some 30 km WNW. of Peshawar, North-West Pakistan. The schists occur in association with sill-like masses of amphibolite facies meta-igneous rocks, possibly a metamorphosed gabbroic and doleritic, dioritic, and granitic calc-alkaline series, and intrusions of alkaline granite and microgranite. These rocks lie within Palaeozoic metasediments and all are folded synclinally. The area was first described by Ahmad et al. (1969). The rocks of the acicular hornblende schist suite (fig. I) consist essentially of large, idioblastic hornblende crystals—comprising some 30–60 % of the rock—in a fine-grained granoblastic matrix of oligoclase feldspar with minor quartz, iron oxide, biotite, and rutile. The boat-shaped, blue-green hornblendes, twinned on {100}, reach 5 mm in length and are often grouped in sprays or clusters; they are sieved with quartz, ilmenite, and patchy calcite. The groundmass also contains patches and veins of calcite, associated with ragged patchy areas of reddish brown, amorphous iron oxide or hydroxide, perhaps introduced hydrothermally. The schists coarsen in grain size outwards through the sill-form, the hornblendes reaching 4 cm, become rich in chlorite and biotite, and grade into the apparently metagabbroic amphibolitic rocks. The acicular hornblende schists have a generally basaltic composition, while the hornblendes are tschermakitic. An analysed amphibole has 16·5% Al2O3, is slightly zoned with alumina increasing from core to rim, and has the formula: Three hypotheses of the origin of the rocks were considered; metamorphism of a suite of basic tufts is the most favoured. Origins involving metamorphism of a lamprophyre-appinite suite or of a gabbroic marginal facies are therefore rejected. Texturally the rocks strongly resemble metatuffs (fig. 2) that occur associated with metagreywackes in the Otago schists of New Zealand (Turner, 1933); like many similar Alpine schists they also contain tschermakitic hornblendes. The Warsak tufts could have formed originally, together with the meta-igneous rocks, possibly as lavas, in an inter-plate tectonic environment; the high A1 content of the hornblende, which is typical of many amphiboles from the surrounding alpine environment in North-West Pakistan, and other mineralogical evidence in the region support a highpressure environment for the metamorphism of the rocks to just within the amphibolite facies, at moderate temperatures of approximately 465 °C.


This study analyzes how web audiences flow across online digital features. We construct a directed network of user flows based on sequential user clickstreams for all popular websites(n=1761), using traffic data obtained from a panel of a million web users in the United States. We analyze these data to identify constellations of websites that are frequently browsed together in temporal sequences, both by similar user groups in different browsing sessions as well as by disparate users. Our analyses thus render visible previously hidden online collectives and generate insight into the varied roles that curatorial infrastructures may play in shaping audience fragmentation on the web.


Arizona and California have passed ballot initiatives that were expected to divert minor, nonviolent drug offenders from incarceration to treatment? But what are the characteristics of imprisoned low-level drug offenders? Did the quantity or type of drug involved influence the prosecution pattern, and were there differences across racial groups in the prosecution of low-level drug offenders? This study is intended to fill those knowledge gaps.


We introduce a new class of isolated magnetic skyrmions emerging within tilted ferromagnetic phases of polar magnets with easy-plane anisotropy. The asymmetric magnetic structure of these skyrmions is associated with an intricate pattern of the energy density, which exhibits positive and negative asymptotics with respect to the surrounding state with a ferromagnetic moment tilted away from the polar axis. Correspondingly, the skyrmion-skyrmion interaction has an anisotropic character and can be either attractive or repulsive depending on the relative orientation of the skyrmion pair. We investigate the stability of these novel asymmetric skyrmions against the elliptical cone state and follow their transformation into axisymmetric skyrmions, when the tilted ferromagnetic moment of the host phase is reduced. Our theory gives clear directions for experimental studies of isolated asymmetric skyrmions and their clusters embedded in tilted ferromagnetic phases.


Very high level oxidative damage to DNA occurs during normal metabolism. In each rat cell the steady-state level of this damage is estimated to be about 10(6) oxidative adducts, and about 10(5) new adducts are formed daily. This endogenous DNA damage appears to be a major contributor to aging and to the degenerative diseases associated with aging such as cancer. The oxidative damage rate in mammalian species with a high metabolic rate, short life span, and high age-specific cancer rate such as rats is much higher than the rate in humans, long-lived mammals with a lower metabolic rate and a lower age-specific cancer rate. It is argued that deficiency of micronutrients that protect against oxidative DNA damage is a major contributor to human cancer. Epidemiological studies, a large body of experimental evidence, and theoretical work on the mechanisms of carcinogenesis point to mitogenesis as a major contributor to cancer. Dividing cells compared to nondividing cells are at an enormously increased risk for mutations in part due to the conversion of DNA adducts to mutations. Mitogenesis also increases the probability of gene amplification and loss of 5-methylcytosine. Dietary interventions that lower mitogenesis, such as calorie restriction, decrease the incidence of cancer.


One of the patients (case 2) had unequivocal polycythaemia rubra vera. The other was diagnosed and managed at a time when estimations of arterial pressure of oxygen and red cell volume were not freely available, but nevertheless we believe that the diagnosis was firmly established. There are few previous reports of polycythaemia rubra vera occurring in siblings,2-5 none of whom were twins. We believe that this report, together with the previous description of primary thrombocythaemia in monozygotic twins, supports the possibility that a genetic factor may play some part in the pathogenesis of myeloproliferative diseases. We can find no reference to any association between polycythaemia rubra vera and deafness and assume the occurrence to be fortuitous.


In this study, the authors pay particular attention to mistreatment directed toward an organizational member from fellow workgroup members. The study contributes to the growing body of literature that examines the mistreatment of employees in the workplace. The authors propose that mistreatment by the workgroup would contribute to feelings of rejection, over and above mistreatment by the supervisor. In addition, the authors tested the mediating role of perceived rejection between workgroup mistreatment and affective outcomes such as depression and organization-based self-esteem. Part-time working participants (N = 142) took part in the study, which required them to complete a questionnaire on workplace behaviors. Results indicated that workgroup mistreatment contributed additional variance to perceived rejection over and above supervisory mistreatment when predicting depression and organization-based self-esteem. The results also indicated that perceived rejection mediates the relationship between mistreatment and affective outcomes. Results are discussed and implications for research and practice are considered.


Surfactant substitution has been a major breakthrough in the treatment of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), primarily caused by a lack of pulmonary surfactant; it has significantly reduced mortality and acute pulmonary morbidity in preterm infants. Some very immature infants, however, have a poor response to surfactant replacement or an early relapse. This brief article is based on the hypothesis that neonatal RDS has a complex and multifactorial pathogenesis characterized by an injurious inflammatory sequence in the immature lung. Fetal exposure to chorioamnionitis has been shown to initiate an inflammatory reaction beginning in utero. A 'low-grade' inflammatory stimulus in utero may 'prime' the fetal lung for accelerated maturation of the surfactant system, especially in conjunction with prenatal steroids, and may protect the preterm infant from developing moderate to severe RDS. Depending on the severity of inflammatory injury to the alveolar-capillary unit, however, serum proteins will leak into the airways and induce surfactant inactivation. Following this intrauterine 'first hit', the immature infant may develop severe RDS and have a poor response to surfactant substitution. Secondary insults such as traumatic stabilization techniques, oxygen toxicity, initiation of mechanical ventilation and others injure the immature lung immediately after birth and perpetuate and may aggravate the inflammatory process. Observational studies in preterm infants and animal experiments support this concept. Whenever surfactant inactivation is suspected, higher or repetitive doses of natural surfactant may help to overcome surfactant inactivation and to restore lung function.


Since the pupil function is defined as a time-invariant system, the traditional partially coherent imaging model is time-consuming to calculate the effect of spatially varying wavefront aberrations on the scanning image. A fast reconstruction method of the aberrated scanning aerial image is presented for the scanning projection lithographic tool. In the proposed method, the principal components (PCs) are used to decompose and reconstruct the aberrated aerial image. Due to the exact quadratic relationship between the PC coefficients and the Zernike coefficients, the integration of the PCs in the intensity domain can be transformed into the integration of quadratic Zernike vectors when reconstructing the scanning aerial image. An integral transfer function is introduced to describe this process. This method can not only reconstruct the aberrated scanning image quickly but can also obtain the explicit relationship between the Zernike coefficients and the aberrated scanning aerial image.


Background Acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) is the most prevalent cancer of childhood. Impairment in linguistic and memory skills is a possible late sequela in cancer survivors that can limit their quality of life and the overall performance of the individual in society. There is evidence that survivors of ALL treated exclusively with chemotherapy demonstrate significant differences in long-term linguistic and memory functions and also changes in neuroanatomical integrity. However, most studies described do not count on a speech-language pathologist in their team, which we consider important to discuss. Thus, the objective of the present study was to assess memory and vocabulary skills in the pediatric population diagnosed with acute lymphoid leukemia during chemotherapy treatment. Materials and Methods An observational cohort study was conducted over a 1.8-year period. Participants of this research were children diagnosed with ALL. All participants were assessed on their linguistic-cognitive skills (ie, vocabulary, short-term memory and lexical access). All data underwent statistical analyses. Results The results of the current study found no major significant difference in the linguistic-cognitive performance of children with ALL and their healthy controls. Regarding the linguistic variables, we believe that there should be a differentiation between the effects of the drugs and the effects of social communication skills on performance. Conclusion This first characterization of the linguistic-cognitive abilities of children with ALL did not identify differences between these children and their healthy peers, although we were able to identify variables regarding the multidisciplinary team and social communication that should be considered in future studies.


Complex control system is heterogeneous and imposes great challenges for control system design. This paper presents a component-oriented modeling and design methodology that reduces complexity by separating data-related computational parts (components) and interaction among components (design pattern). Frameworks are composed hierarchically to manage heterogeneous models and achieve component and design pattern reuse. We introduce a notion of supervisor to characterize the property that a framework can aggregate individual component's computation into a well-defined composite computation such that heterogeneous models can be composed. A simplified component-oriented hierarchically hybrid control system in a distributed real-time platform is implemented to prove the feasibility and flexibility of our methodology.


The aim of this retrospective study was to review the outcome of 216 patients (pts), investigated for severe mitral regurgitation (MR) between January 1980 and December 1987. Definition of 'severe' was mainly clinical: MR sufficiently advanced for the cardiologist to investigate whether surgery should be imminent. One hundred and sixty two pts (group 1) were operated on; 54 (group 2) did not undergo surgery. Baseline characteristics were similar in the two groups, except for aetiology (less dystrophic and more ischaemic MR in group 2), functional class (88.3% class III or IV in group 1 vs 48.1% in group 2; P = 0.001), pulmonary pressures (lower in group 2) and left ventricular ejection fraction (group 1: 0.66 +/- 0.13; group 2: 0.56 +/- 0.17; P = 0.001). Mean follow-up after hospital admission or surgery was comparable in the two groups (group 1: 3.9 +/- 2.5 years; group 2: 3.5 +/- 2.7 years). Three pts (group 2) were lost to follow-up. Sixty-three pts died; 35 of the 162 operated on; 28 of the 54 non-operated on. Actuarial survival rate at 8 years was 74.0 +/- 4.3% in group 1 vs 33.2 +/- 9.2% in group 2 (P = 0.001). These results confirm that the prognosis of severe MR is poor if it is not operated on, whereas the postoperative course of severe MR, when operated on in time, is good.


A new method is employed to directly predict the development of yield stress distributions in injection molded products of glassy polymers. The approach is based on the results of a study on the temperature dependence of the evolution of yield stress during annealing of polycarbonate below Tg. In combination with the process-related thermal history, derived from numerical simulations of the injection molding process, an estimate of the yield stress distribution throughout a product can be obtained. Computed yield stresses of injection molded plates prove to be in excellent agreement with the experimental values, including their dependence on mold temperature and plate thickness. 1Reproduced from: L.E. Govaert, T.A.P. Engels, E.T.J. Klompen, G.W.M. Peters, and H.E.H. Meijer, Processing-induced properties in glassy polymers: development of the yield stress in polycarbonate, International Polymer Processing, XX(2), 170-177, (2005)


Let $m$, $n$, and $k$ be integers satisfying $0 < k \leq n < 2k \leq m$. A family of sets $\mathcal{F}$ is called an $(m,n,k)$-intersecting family if $\binom{[n]}{k} \subseteq \mathcal{F} \subseteq \binom{[m]}{k}$ and any pair of members of $\mathcal{F}$ have nonempty intersection. Maximum $(m,k,k)$- and $(m,k+1,k)$-intersecting families are determined by the theorems of Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado and Hilton-Milner, respectively. We determine the maximum families for the cases $n = 2k-1, 2k-2, 2k-3$, and $m$ sufficiently large.


Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) developed as a post-rainy season, spring-sown crop early in its evolution and spread into warm subtropical regions, in contrast to its wild relatives that have remained as winter annuals in West and Central Asia. To test whether these different life cycles selected for different phenological strategies in wild and cultivated Cicer, germplasm from a wide range of habitats was subjected to different cold treatments (vernalisation, control) at germination, and phenology evaluated at warm and cool field sites (14.8-15.1 ◦ C and 13.1 ◦ C, respectively). All wild Cicer species, except for C. yamashitae, responded positively to vernalisation and accelerated the dates of flowering, podding, and maturity. There was no vernalisation response in cultivated chickpea, whereas C. arietinum/C. echinospermum and C. arietinum/C. reticulatum interspecific hybrids were intermediate, flowering 6-16 days earlier after vernalisation. Relative podding dates differed between sites. Chickpea podded earlier than most vernalised wild species under warm conditions, but not at the cool site. Regression against post- anthesis temperature showed that the delay in podding was consistent with a lack of cold tolerance in the cultigen. The interspecific hybrids were significantly more cold tolerant than chickpea, and the wild species were almost insensitive to the temperature range recorded at the cool site. Vernalisation responsiveness and a greater tolerance of low temperatures during the reproductive phase demonstrate that the annual wild Cicer species harbour important traits that can be used to widen adaptation in the cultigen, and may help to improve the performance of chickpea as a Mediterranean cool-season crop.


Advancement in technology result in the demand for machine power that in turns has semiconductor diode to the creation of large-scale knowledge centers. They consume monumental amounts of power leading to high operational prices and CO2 emissions. Moreover, fashionable Cloud computing environments ought to give prime quality of Service (QoS) for his or her customers leading to the requirement to agitate power-performance trade-off. We are going to propose AN economical resource management policy for virtualized Cloud knowledge centers. Planned theme thinks about the utmost and minimum utilization threshold price. If the employment of hardware for a bunch falls below the minimum threshold, all VMs ought to be migrated from this host and also the host needs to be transitioned so as to eliminate idle power consumption. We tend to gift analysis results showing that dynamic reallocation of VMs brings substantial energy savings, so justifying any development of the planned policy. Keywords— Virtualisation, Energy efficiency, Cloud Computing, Energy Consumption, CPU Scheduling, Allocation of VM's, CloudSim.


SignS and StructureS: Formal approacheS to Sign la n g uag e Sy n ta x is a collection of papers published as a special issue of Sign Language & Linguistics 16(2) (2013); the papers were initially presented at the Warsaw conference on Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign Language Theory in 2012. Since this conference was not devoted to one particular topic, the book is also not thematically homogeneous. Nevertheless, the motivation for publishing this collection is clear and commendable: Its contributions reflect some of the most important directions in the current research on the syntax of sign languages within formal linguistics. The topics discussed in the book have been widely explored recently, and these papers add valuable data, analyses, and theoretical implications to the debate. The first contribution, by Natasha Abner, is devoted to the ASL possessive marker poss, which can be used attributively (e.g., bruno poss book "Bruno's book") and predicatively (book poss bruno "The book belongs to Bruno"). Contrary to previous analyses, Abner argues that the attributive poss is derived from the predicative poss. She provides several convincing arguments (from morphology, syntax, and semantics) in favor of her analysis. For instance, she notes that the predicative poss but not the attributive poss has a transitive agreement pattern and that some of the word orders possible for the predicative poss are not possible in the attributive construction. Semantically, the predicative poss is more restricted: It can express only ownership (strict possession), but not other interpretations, such as authorship, so book poss bruno can mean only that he owns it, not that he wrote it. Focusing on the predicative poss, Abner shows that it is a verb: It appears in the same positions as lexical verbs, shows


The landscape in several countries of Central and Eastern Europe went through the most dramatic change in the socialist period. Agricultural land was considered only as a productive area. The size of arable land plots increased and stabilizing elements in the landscape were removed. This land consolidation of agriculture has led to the development of soil erosion. This paper presents a case study focused on comparison of landscape structure of model territory in two periods. The first period shows landscape before collectivization of agriculture, and the second one presents current landscape. The research dealt especially with evaluation of ecological stability and water erosion risk of the landscape. The identification of land use trends helps to characterize landscape of the model territory during monitored period. The following trends: decreasing area of arable land, increasing area of built‐up areas and other areas and increase area of vineyards showed different character of current landscape. The evaluation of ecological stability confirmed the loss of stable landscape elements. Based on the calculated values of ecological stability coefficient, the evaluated landscape has degraded from the category of "disturbed landscape capable of self‐regulation" to "devastated landscape". The results also show the vulnerability of current large plots of arable land and vineyards


With the increasing popularity of the World Wide Web, the amount of information available and the use of Web servers are growing exponentially. As a consequence, the number of requests to popular Web servers increases exponentially as well. In order to reduce the overhead induced by frequent requests to the same documents, server caching, also referred to as main memory caching, has been proposed and implemented. In this work, we propose a static caching mechanism which consists in updating the contents of the cache periodically and, at the update time, brings in the cache only the most requested documents in the previous time interval. This caching policy has a lower management overhead. Under some statistical assumptions we show that static caching has the highest hit rate. We also provide empirical comparison results obtained by trace-driven simulations. It turns out that static caching is more eecient in terms of hit rate than those analyzed in the literature.


The Italian ISO is going to update the multi-area representation of the Italian electric system with meshed interconnection schemes, whose maximum complication may reach a certain number of triangular meshes, each other radially interconnected. This paper proposes a direct (non-iterative) method to settle the market price in each area at the vertices of a triangular mesh, with the objective of maximizing the overall social benefit. The problem is a quadratic programming one, and it is solved implementing the Kuhn-Tucker optimality conditions by means of a particular technique avoiding iterations, called "geometric engine" and already well experienced on radial interconnection schemes. This approach is rigorous and first of all rapid, as well as robust and rather simple. The technique is described in detail and numeric examples are provided. It is applicable not only to problems of price clearing in multi-area power systems under market conditions, but also to problems of conventional dispatching. This paper has been funded as a "Ricerca di Sistema", according to the decree of the Italian Ministry of Industry DM MICA 26/01/2000.


The Samarco pipeline, the longest in the world for iron ore slurry transportation, started operation in 1977 to transport concentrate from the Germano facilities, in the state of Minas Gerais, to the pelletizing plant, located 396 km away, in the state of Espirito Santo, on the south-east coast of Brazil. Designed for a nominal capacity of 12 million tons per year, the pipeline reached 15.5 million/year due to operational improvement and, in late 2005, it was resized to transport 16.5 million tons per year, with the installation of a booster station. In order to ensure the accurate performance of the system, a pipeline cleaning programme was carried out and, since it has been 29 years from the operation start-up, precise knowledge of the pipe condition would be fundamental to guarantee the success of the project. The cleaning programme demonstrated the potential of operational gains from this initiative, and its effect on the corrosion control and future measures, which should be permanently adopted to maintain the improved capacity. The intelligent pig runs provided essential data used to establish a pipeline integrity programme that allowed Samarco to develop a pipe repair plan based on the severity and significance of the features and to implement a future pipe replacement plan.


Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, increasing ambient temperature and associated precipitation are major concerns for future weed management and crop production. Weeds with C3 and C4 photosynthetic pathways may exhibit differential responses to higher CO2 levels and temperatures, which can affect the dynamics of crop–weed competition. Since photosynthetic biochemistry depends on climatic factors, the photosynthetic pathway of weeds C3 and C4 had shown varied responses to elevated concentrations of CO2 and elevated temperature, the main source of carbon for plants, directly impacts gas exchange parameters at increased concentration of temperature and CO2. This study evaluated the performance of Trianthema portulacastrum gas exchange parameter viz., photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate had positively interacted with increased temperature, excess moisture and also under drought condition. Hence, under this climatic condition, the Trianthema portulacastrum very well survives with adverse environmental conditions also by reduced transpiration rate and photosynthetic rate.


The design and fabrication of several families of parasitic transistors available in a standard CMOS process are discussed and their application to process control examined. These transistors are characterized and their extracted parameters correlated with those obtained from CMOS devices. From these correlations it is concluded that parasitic transistors are very sensitive to changes in the process that influence the performance of MOS transistors. As a result parasitic transistors can be used in conjunction with standard MOS devices and test structures to provide a more complete picture of CMOS process variation. >


With common-source RF application amplifier, it is well known that the small substrate resistance helps to improve the output resistance as well as the transconductance. This idea can be easily extended to all CMOS transistors in RF applications. However, with cascode amplifier at high frequencies, the maximum available gain, noise figure minimum, and the tuned output impedance are improved by increasing the substrate resistance of the common-gate transistor, so that the range of operational frequency can be extended. These contradicting phenomenons between the common-source and common-gate topology can be explained theoretically, and the supporting measurement results are presented base on a 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS technology.


The first purpose of this study is to find out the number of hours that residents of remote islands can stay in the nearby major cities, and to determine possibilities for the islanders to engage in their daily living activities more readily during their one day trip to a nearby major city. The second purpose is to analyze factors which can affect the number of hours that the residents of remote islands can stay in the nearby major cities. The residents of 255 remote islands were studied. The result of this study may be summarized as follows:(1) The calculation of hours that the remote island residents can stay in a nearby major city with local government revealed that 87.6% of them were able to stay in the cities for their purposes. In other words, many remote islands are located within a distance that makes the residents eligible to receive financial benefit or service in the city and return home in one day. However, the residents of 33 remote islands were unable to go to the nearby major cities and return in one day. It is strongly recommended that convenient transportation be provided for these islanders to and from the remote islands.(2) Many remote islands are within the jurisdiction of a nearby major city's administration, and islanders can readily visit the nearby major cities and return home in one day. However, the amount of time they are able to spend in the cities is limited. There exists a big disparity among different remote islands. Only a few remote islands are known to have residents who can afford to work in nearby major cities while living on their remote islands. In many cases they do not have enough time or money to keep their job in the major cities and live on the remote islands. Therefore, many remote islands are considered to be residential areas of the nearby major cities workers.(3) The most vital factor influencing islanders' time spent in the nearby major cities seems to be the ferry schedule to and from the remote islands. In many cases, a limited number of ferry trips between the remote islands and the nearby major cities is one of the main factors limiting their time spent in the nearby cities. If the ferry leaves the nearby cities at or before 17: 00 hours daily, many residents of the remote islands cannot afford to stay there for a long time. Another case is when the ferry leaves the ports of the remote islands and the nearby cities simultaneously, which also makes it difficult for the islanders to spend a lot of time in the nearby major cities.(4) Another factor to influence the length of stay for the residents of the remote islands in the nearby major cities is the island's remote geographic location. The length of their stay in the major cities is largely decided by the distance between the islands and the cities. The population of the remote islands and the location of the islands in relation to the nearby cities are other important factors. Other significant factors include the population of the nearby major cities with their own administrative government and the existence of coral reefs around the remote islands.


The research aimed to create a Scientific and Technological Knowledge Management Model for organizations of Profession and Technological Education, departing from the implementation of the institutional repository Dspace in São Paulo Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology (IFSP). Methodology comprehended an exploratory-descriptive case study composed of four methods: 1) Literary review on knowledge management (KM) in organizations of professional and technological education; 2) Empiric research with the use of a data collection technique questionnaire; 3) Creation of the proposed model; 4) Implementation of the institutional repository. The results are presented accordingly to the objectives of the study: 1) comprehension of the state of the knowledge management art in the professional and technological education context; 2) elaboration of a knowledge management model for organizations of professional and technological education. For the model composition it was used the community of practice technique, which presented itself opportune; 3) Implementation in initial stage of Dspace in São Paulo Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology; 4) structuration of storage and use of information policies in the institutional repository for the tool implementation. For considerations, the study points out that: a) the proposed model can offer a parameter for congener organizations; b) the proposed model, yet conceptual, will be able to be susceptible to replication; c) the inclusion of the administrative documentation in the institutional repository presents itself as relevant element in the organizational process; d) The institutional repository will be able to act as management tool in institutional decision-making; e) it is suggested greater exploration of the use of the community of practice technique in the academic-scientific context. We conclude that the proposed conceptual model presents the possibilities of implantation of the KM in IFSP and the applied questionnaires made possible to understand the panorama in KM of IFSP. We highlight the importance of the community of practice for the socialization and externalization of the organizational knowledge.


We present a generalized Gerchberg-Saxton (GS) algorithm for reconstructing a (2+1)-dimensional complex scalar wave field which obeys a known nonlinear nondissipative parabolic differential equation, given knowledge of the wave-field modulus at three or more values of an evolution parameter such as time. This algorithm is used to recover the complex wave function of a (2+1)-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) from simulated modulus data. The Gross-Pitaveskii equation is used to model the dynamics of the BEC, with the modulus information being provided by a temporal sequence of simulated absorption images of the condensate. The efficacy of the generalized GS algorithm is examined for a wide range of simulation conditions, including strong nonlinearities, vortex states and Poisson noise. The general form of this algorithm, which allows one to reconstruct a time-dependent wave function, will be useful for studying the phase dynamics of topological defects in coherent quantum systems.


Throughout morphogenesis, cells experience intracellular tensile and contractile forces on microscopic scales. Cells also experience extracellular forces, such as static forces mediated by the extracellular matrix and forces resulting from microscopic fluid flow. Although the biological ramifications of static forces have received much attention, little is known about the roles of fluid flows and forces during embryogenesis. Here, we focus on the microfluidic forces generated by cilia-driven fluid flow and heart-driven hemodynamics, as well as on the signaling pathways involved in flow sensing. We discuss recent studies that describe the functions and the biomechanical features of these fluid flows. These insights suggest that biological flow determines many aspects of cell behavior and identity through a specific set of physical stimuli and signaling pathways.


What are the consequences of bringing people from diverse groups together? Does it enhance trust and goodwill, or does it lead to mistrust and hostility? More than 60 years ago, social scientists offered initial evidence and theoretical perspectives regarding how contact between members of different groups can reduce intergroup hostility and promote positive intergroup attitudes (see Allport, 1954; Williams, 1947). Since then, Allport's (1954) formulation of intergroup contact theory has become one of the most enduring models in the history of social psychology (Brewer & Brown, 1998), as well as one of psychology's best strategies to improve intergroup relations (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011). This chapter provides an overview of recent theorizing and research on intergroup contact with a focus on three key developments in the literature. First, we highlight the special role of affective processes and friendship in improving intergroup attitudes while considering both direct and indirect forms of intergroup contact. We then review the differential effects and implications of contact among members of minority and majority groups and describe how contact effects reach far beyond shifts in intergroup attitudes. Finally, we discuss the effects of both positive and negative intergroup contact on attitudes and relations between groups. Effects of Direct Contact Research reveals the crucial roles that affective processes play in contact effects, both in terms of the kinds of contact that are most likely to improve intergroup attitudes and the kinds of positive outcomes we can expect from such contact (see Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011). With survey data from seven European samples, seminal work by Pettigrew (1997) showed that intergroup contact in the form of cross-group friendships was consistently and negatively associated with a range of prejudice measures, particularly those assessing feelings of sympathy and admiration toward the outgroup. In line with Pettigrew's (1997) findings, other studies indicate that cross-group friendships relate more strongly to reduced prejudice than more distant forms of contact (Herek & Capitanio, 1996), particularly when affective dimensions of prejudice such as feelings and emotions toward outgroup members are involved (Tropp & Pettigrew, 2005a). Cross-group friendships. Empirical interest in the special role of cross-group friendships has expanded and corroborated these early findings through longitudinal, meta-analytic, and experimental research. Longitudinal surveys in several countries have shown that greater cross-group friendships predict more positive intergroup attitudes over time (Binder et al., 2009; Levin, van Laar, & Sidanius, 2003; Swart, Hewstone, Christ, & Voci, 2011).


The purpose of the paper is to study the European Union - Turkey customs union (CU) of 1995 covering trade in industrial goods. The customs union decision of 1995 tending to rules and disciplines on various regulatory border and behind-the-border policies covers in particular customs reform, technical barriers to trade, competition policy, intellectual property rights, and administrative procedures. The paper after assessing in each case the status quo at the time of the entry of the CU into force evaluates the commitments undertaken under the CU, and assesses the degree of implementation of the CU requirements as well as the administrative costs of implementation of the CU. Finally, the paper shows how the CU has successfully moved the Turkish economy from a government-controlled regime to a market based one.


In the last few decades there have been substantial improvements in approaches for solving the Boolean satisfiability problem. Many of these improvements consisted in elaborating on existing algorithms. On the side of the complete solvers this led to more efficient branching heuristics and the use of watched literals for unit propagation; incomplete solvers on the other hand have benefited from using random walks and from integrating evolutionary algorithms into the search process. Another line of research has combined these developments by creating hybrid solvers. More recently, the rapid development of parallel architectures has led to improvements in the implementation of algorithms as well, both on the side of complete as on the side of incomplete solvers. Up until now this work has been limited mostly to grids or multicore CPU's. Recent advances such as the OpenCL framework however, make it possible to also exploit the processing power of today's GPU's, and do so together with the CPU. Our goal is to take advantage of this, by implementing a parallel version of a hybrid algorithm that has been proven remarkably succesful in the class of locally inconsistent SAT problems. By parallelizing local search, our solver will be competitive on consistent problems as well. The workload of the hybrid algorithm will be split between the GPU and CPU, the former performing a massively parallel local search and the latter an adapted version of MiniSAT, a popular complete solver. We present here the results for a first simplified implementation, and for simulations of the final solver.


Neuroblastoma is a severe childhood disease, accounting for ~10% of all infant cancers. The amplification of the MYCN gene, coding for the N-Myc transcriptional factor, is an essential marker correlated with tumor progression and poor prognosis. In neuroblastoma cells, the mitotic kinase Aurora-A (AURKA), also frequently overexpressed in cancer, prevents N-Myc degradation, by directly binding to a highly conserved N-Myc region, i.e. Myc Box I. As a result, elevated levels of N-Myc, which are required for the growth of MYCN amplified cells, are observed. During the last years, it has been demonstrated that the ATP competitive inhibitors of AURKA CD532, MLN8054 and Alisertib also cause essential conformational changes in the structure of the activation loop of the kinase that prevent N-Myc binding, thus impairing the formation of the AURKA/N-Myc complex. In this study, starting from a screening of crystal structures of AURKA in complex with known inhibitors, we identified additional compounds affecting the conformation of the kinase activation loop. We assessed the ability of such compounds to disrupt the interaction between AURKA and N-Myc in vitro, using Surface Plasmon Resonance competition assays, and in tumor cell lines overexpressing MYCN, by performing Proximity Ligation Assays. Finally, their effects on N-Myc cellular levels and cell viability were investigated. Our results, identifying PHA-680626 as an amphosteric inhibitor both in vitro and MYCN overexpressing cell lines, expand the repertoire of known conformational disrupting inhibitors of the AURKA/N-Myc complex, and confirm that altering the conformation of the activation loop of AURKA with a small molecule is an effective strategy to destabilize the AURKA/N-Myc interaction in neuroblastoma cancer cells.


Loosely packed MoS2 nanosheets with thin carbon coating were synthesized via a facile, one-pot hydrothermal growth method. In the resulting optimally-designed nanoarchitecture, the ultrathin nanosheets, with a wall-thickness of approximately 5–10 nm, provide a large electrode–electrolyte interface so as to facilitate faster lithium-ion intercalation and diffusion. The flexible and conductive carbon overcoats stabilize the disordered structure of flower-like MoS2 nanosheets to accommodate more lithium-ions intercalation and thus maintain the structural and electrical integrity during cycling processes. In favor of the synergy and interplay of the carbon effect and intrinsic structural advantages, C@MoS2 (2 : 1) composites synthesized with a D-glucose precursor: MoO3 molar ratio of 2 : 1 exhibit high reversible specific capacity of 1419 mA h g−1 at 0.1 A g−1, retain 80% of the capacity after 50 cycles, and excellent rate capability as high as 672 mA h g−1 at 10 A g−1 with nearly 100% coulombic efficiency. The good electrochemical performance suggests that these C@MoS2 composites with unique flower-like morphology could be a promising candidate as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries.


Correlation analysis is used to quantify the degree of linear association between two variables. Correlation coefficient is showed as "r" and it may have values between (-) 1 and (+)1. The symbols (-) or (+) in front of "r coefficient" show the direction of correlation. The direction of association does not affect the strength of association. A " r coefficient" which is equal or greater than 0.70 is accepted as a good association. Correlation coeefficient only remarks the strength of association. Finding a good correlation coefficient between two variables does not explain a causal relationship between these two variables. Statistical significance is much affected from sample size in also correlation analysis. Square of corrrelation coefficient is described as coefficient of determination. Correlation coefficient is also much affected from outliers as standard deviation does. The proper test selection may vary depend on the type of variable and their distribution characteristics (ordinal, continuous, normally distributed or not). Pearson, Spearman and Kendall's tau-B tests are the most common used tests. Partial correlation provides the explanation of the association between two variables when the third variable was controlled. When we interpret the correlation analysis results we firstly evaluate the strength of association and then indicate whether it is also statistically significant or not.


 Due to the inherent complexity of electric power systems, power plants and electrical equipment require more and more complex electric power management strategy to ensure adequate system performance and reliability. But traditional Electric Power Communication Management Network (EPCM Network) uses static, fixed network management model, resulting in a number of difficulties in practice. For example, bandwidth, distance, network security and scalability are key issues. The paper uses minimum connected dominated set to extract out key node from EPCM Network, dynamic forming "backbone network", then according to specific network structure of EPCM Network, optimal routing in EPCM Network is adjusted and deployed by shortest path algorithm. When it comes to irresistible natural disasters, "backbone network" can be reconstructed to achieve efficient and reliable management.


Experiences of Barriers and Facilitators for Physical Activity from People with Mental Disorders who Participated in a Physical Activity Project - An Interview Study Purpose: To explore the experiences regarding perceived barriers and facilitators for physical activity of three participants with mental disorders who took part in the Norwegian Physical Activity Mentor project. Design and methods: Descriptive qualitative design. Individual semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. Data from the interviews was used in two separate bachelor theses, written by Swedish and Norwegian physiotherapy students. This cooperation was part of the NordPlus Higher Education Program Joint Physiotherapy Education in Bachelor Thesis Module. Qualitative content analysis was used in processing the data. Findings: Perceived barriers for physical activity were: mental disorder symptoms, antipsychotics, undertaking physical activity independently and physical experiences. Perceived facilitators for physical activity were: positive mental effects, intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors, goal setting and routine. The experiences from the Physical Activity Mentor project, including the possibility of self-selected activities, were mainly positive. The support provided by the physical activity mentor was an important facilitator. Conclusion: Disease-related problems were perceived as barriers for physical activity. The most important perceived facilitator for physical activity was mental benefits from being physically active. External support from a physical activity mentor might facilitate physical activity for psychiatric outpatients. Key words: mental disorder, physical activity, barriers, facilitators, mentor


Background and Aims. Hypoxia regulates the survival of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) but the mechanism is unclear. In hypoxia, the level of high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) was increased in many cells which may be involved in the regulation of cell biology. The aim is to determine whether hypoxia affects the expression of HMGB1 in bone marrow MSCs (BM-MSCs) and to investigate the role of HMGB1 in the apoptosis and adhesion. Methods. BM-MSCs were exposed to hypoxia (1% O2) and normoxia (20% O2) and the expression of HMGB1 was measured by RT-PCR and western blotting. The apoptosis and adhesion of BM-MSCs were evaluated after interfered by different concentrations of HMGB1. Results. Expression of HMGB1 in BM-MSCs showed a significant upregulation in hypoxia when compared to those in normoxia. The adhesion of BM-MSCs was increased by HMGB1 in a concentration-dependent manner; the apoptosis effect of HMGB1 depended on its concentrations: HMGB1 at low concentration (50 ng/mL) promoted the apoptosis of BM-MSCs while HMGB1 at high concentration (≥100 ng/mL) reduced this apoptosis. Conclusions. Hypoxia enhanced the expression of HMGB1 in BM-MSCs with influences on apoptosis and adhesion and this could have a significant effect on the regenerative potential of MSC-based strategies.


Makerspaces and maker education are widely seen as means to democratize science and engineering education. A small but growing body of scholarly work warns against this assumption and calls for an explicit focus on equity in makerspaces both online and in person. With an understanding of learning as a social and cultural process, this paper proposes that disrupting the cycle of racial and cultural inequity in science education requires makerspace educators and staff to ground their work in multicultural theories and practices. In particular, culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) provides guidance for infusing science and engineering with equity approaches in order to cultivate both academic success and students' cultural identities. Recognizing the online world as a driving force of the maker movement, this paper reports the findings from a content analysis of twelve makerspace websites to determine the extent to which they address CRP in their guidance for the development and facilitation of makerspaces. Results indicate a low occurrence of the tenets of CRP and that guidance was not informed by existing literature in multicultural maker education. Recommendations include application of the framework of CRP in makerspaces and addressing both practical guidance for educators as well as recommendations for advancing scholarly dialogue regarding diversity, access, and equity in maker education.


Economists have long debated the relationships between market structure of banking sector and the profitability. General consensus asserts that more concentrated market is associated with higher profitability: banks with higher market share generally achieve higher profits. This empirical evidence can however hinge on two opposite explanations: in the first case banks increase their market share (via mergers and acquisitions) in order to exploit the resulting stronger market power and impose higher prices to their clients; the second explanation tells that more cost-efficient banks are able to lower the prices applied to their clients and therefore to gain new clients and finally enlarge their market share. In both cases there is a positive link between market share and profitability, but in the former what actually plays a crucial role is a non-competitive force (Relative Market Power Hypothesis, henceforth RMP), in the latter the relationship is driven by the greater efficiency of banks which enlarge their market share by reducing prices (X-Efficiency Hypothesis, ESX). We run a 4-years panel data analysis (2008-2011) in order to disentangle the above alternatives hypothesis (RMP versus ESX) for the Italian market. First we estimate the cost efficiency for a sample of more than 200 banks by applying the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). In the second step we regress bank spreads on efficiency scores and market structure variables in order to identify which process leads the price setting of Italian banks. Difference in the legal organization of bank (mutual, cooperative, and commercial banks) and type of business relationships established are controlled for.


This paper proposes a hybrid formulation to solve the problem of optimal reactive power dispatch using genetic algorithms (GAs) combined with the nonlinear method of interior point (IP). GAs are computational models that mimics natural evolution and genetics by the combinations of the concepts of adaptive selection and the survival of the fittest principle. The main peculiarity of GAs is dealing with binary, integer and discrete variables. The IP method has the attractive feature of dealing with nonconvergent power flow. In this composite formulation, IF represents the real variables, such as generator voltage and OLTC tap, while the GA represents the binary variable, i.e. bank of capacitors and reactors. The proposed formulation is applied to an equivalent of an area of the Southeastern Brazilian system and to the IEEE 118 bus test system and the results are presented and discussed.


The brain-gut axis represents a complex bi-directional system comprising multiple interconnections between the neuroendocrine pathways, the autonomous nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), comprising Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, is a chronic, relapsing-remitting inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal tract with a multifactorial etiology. Depression and anxiety are prevalent among patients with chronic disorders characterized by a strong immune component, such as diabetes mellitus, cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and IBD. Although psychological problems are an important aspect of morbidity and of impaired quality of life in patients with IBD, depression and anxiety continue to be under-diagnosed. There is lack of evidence regarding the exact mechanisms by which depression, anxiety and cognitive dysfunction may occur in these patients, and whether psychological disorders are the result of disease activity or determinants of the IBD occurrence. In this comprehensive review, we summarize the role of the brain-gut axis in the psychological functioning of patients with IBD, and discuss current preclinical and clinical data on the topic and therapeutic strategies potentially useful for the clinical management of these patients. Personalized pathways of psychological supports are needed to improve the quality of life in patients with IBD.


The natural incidence of spontaneous triplet pregnancy is approximately 1 in 8000 births. Premature delivery of one fetus, compromise of one fetus, and death of one fetus of a multiple gestation with healthy co-fetuses are complications unique to multiple gestations. Our purpose was to evaluate the outcome of spontaneous triplet gestations.
In this retrospective study, maternal, neonatal data were collected from 25 sets of triplet pregnancies that were diagnosed between 2011 March and December 2013 in Zekai Tahir Burak WomenÂ's Health Education and Research Hospital - Obstetric Department. There were 15 sets of trichorionic triamniotic triplet pregnancies and 10 sets of triplet pregnancies with a monochorionic pair (ie, dichorionic triamniotic triplets). The mean maternal age was 28 (20-33). 75% of patients were primigravida. 50% of patients (12 patient) had abortus (gave birth before 20 weeks). 3 patients gave birth about 33 weeks, birth weights were about 2100-2150 grams.4 patients gave birth about 30 weeks ,with birth weigths of 1800-1850 grams. 2 patients had spontaneous abortion of all fetuses after fetal reduction. Two patients (8%) had complication of postoperative endometritis. 3 patients had preeclampsia (12%). The incidence of dichorionicity in our study of spontaneous triplet pregnancy is 40%. Perinatal mortality was increased in dichorionic pregnancies. The abortus rate was 80%. Although abortus rate was high in spontaneous triplet pregnancy,gestational age at delivery was about 33 weeks. This is because of our hospitalÂ's condition to be a tertiary hospital in obstetrics and neonatology.


We present a study on the effects of cross-linking on the adhesive properties of bio-inspired 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA). DOPA has a unique catechol moiety found in adhesive proteins in marine organisms, such as mussels and polychaete, which results in strong adhesion in aquatic conditions. Incorporation of this functional group in synthetic polymers provides the basis for pressure-sensitive adhesives for use in a broad range of environments. A series of cross-linked DOPA-containing polymers were prepared by adding divinyl cross-linking agent ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) to monomer mixtures of dopamine methacrylamide (DMA) and 2-methoxyethyl acrylate (MEA). Samples were prepared using a solvent-free microwave-assisted polymerization reaction and compared to a similar series of cross-linked MEA materials. Cross-linking with EGDMA tunes the viscoelastic properties of the adhesive material and has the advantage of not reacting with the catechol group that is responsible for the excellent adhesive performance of this material. Adhesion strength was measured by uniaxial indentation tests, which indicated that 0.001 mol % of EGDMA-cross-linked copolymer showed the highest work of adhesion in dry conditions, but non-cross-linked DMA was the highest in wet conditions. The results suggest that there is an optimal cross-linking degree that displays the highest adhesion by balancing viscous and elastic behaviors of the polymer but this appears to depend on the conditions. This concentration of cross-linker is well below the theoretical percolation threshold, and we propose that subtle changes in polymer viscoelastic properties can result in significant improvements in adhesion of DOPA-based materials. The properties of lightly cross-linked poly(DMA-co-MEA) were investigated by measurement of the frequency dependence of the storage modulus (G') and loss modulus (G''). The frequency-dependence of G' and magnitude of G'' showed gradual decreases with the fraction of EGDMA. Loosely cross-linked DMA copolymers, containing 0% and 0.001 mol % of EGDMA-cross-linked copolymers, displayed rheological behavior appropriate for pressure-sensitive adhesives characterized by a higher G' at high frequencies and lower G' at low frequencies. Our results indicate that dimethacrylate cross-linking of DMA copolymers can be used to enhance the adhesive properties of this unique material.


The theory of condensing systems of J.E. Mayer is generalized for a mixture of an arbitrary number of gases. Strict equations for chemical equilibrium in a mixture of gases are derived. For sufficiently small pressures they reduce to the law of mass action.


Traction detachment of the macula from extensive disc neovascularization developed after a branch vein occlusion. This rare complication was effectively treated by vitrectomy with membrane segmentation.


This study examined the interrater reliability of multiple, experienced raters on the Cross Motor Scale of the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales (PD-GMS). The Cross Motor Scale was administered to 33 children ages 4 and 5 years. One third were children without known delays and two thirds were children with identified delays who were enrolled in a public special education preschool. There were a total of 12 raters, three each in four rater groups. For data analysis, groups were pooled according to the number of children rated in each of the four groups. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) statistic was used to examine interrater reliability based on total scores. For the one group of children without delay the ICC was r = 0.94. The ICC values for the two pooled groups of children with delay were: group A, r = 0.84, and group B, r = 0.93. These results indicated good reliability and no appreciable variance due to differences among therapists. The results suggest that the PD-GMS includes enough items so that the differences in total scores obtained independently by multiple experienced raters was minimal.


Objectives: Self-perceptions of aging have been shown to predict mental and physical health and even longevity. This study examined the aging perceptions of patients with rheumatic disease and compared them with the general Dutch population. Methods: Consecutive patients visiting a rheumatology clinic completed the Personal Experience of Aging Scale (PEAS) subscales: physical decline, social loss, continuous growth, and two sentence stems from the SELE instrument (What I like/do not like about getting older …) as qualitative measures of the subjective experience of aging. A representative sample from the general Dutch population between 40 and 85 years was used as a comparison group. Participants included in this study were 208 patients with a rheumatic disease and 975 persons from the Dutch Aging Survey (DAS). Results: Both quantitative and qualitative data showed that patients perceived aging more strongly as physical decline. These negative experiences did not extend to social and psychological domains of aging. Age-group comparisons revealed that patients in middle adulthood experienced physical aging similar to older people without a rheumatic disease. Conclusion: The negative experience of aging in patients is limited to the physical domain and does not extend to other domains of life. The negative experience of physical aging even in middle-aged groups warrants further studies on its effects on mental and physical health outcomes and health behavior in patients with rheumatic disease.


Introduction Childhood overweight and obesity tracks into adulthood, increasing the risk of developing future chronic disease. Implementing initiatives promoting healthy eating and physical activity in childcare settings has been identified as a priority to prevent excessive child weight gain. Despite this, few trials have been conducted to assess the effectiveness of interventions to support population-wide implementation of such initiatives. The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention in increasing the implementation of healthy eating and physical activity policies and practices by centre-based childcare services. Methods and analysis The study will employ a parallel group randomised controlled trial design. A sample of 128 childcare services in the Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia, will be recruited to participate in the trial. 64 services will be randomly allocated to a 12-month implementation intervention. The remaining 64 services will be allocated to a usual care control group. The intervention will consist of a number of strategies to facilitate childcare service implementation of healthy eating and physical activity policies and practices. Intervention strategies will include implementation support staff, securing executive support, consensus processes, staff training, academic detailing visits, performance monitoring and feedback, tools and resources, and a communications strategy. The primary outcome of the trial will be the prevalence of services implementing all healthy eating and physical activity policies and practices targeted by the intervention. To assess the effectiveness of the intervention, telephone surveys with nominated supervisors and room leaders of childcare services will be conducted at baseline and immediately postintervention. Ethics and dissemination The study was approved by the Hunter New England Human Research Ethics Committee and the University of Newcastle Human Research Ethics Committee. Study findings will be disseminated widely through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations. Trial registration number Australian Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12612000927820.


The surface spin polarization in the epitaxial films of a prototype manganite, La0.7Sr0.3MnO3, has been investigated by Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy with ferromagnetic SP tips at room temperature. The manganite surface splits into ferromagnetic (FM) and paramagnetic(PM) regions characterized by metallic and insulating like behavior respectively. Spin polarized spectroscopy with Ni tips has been performed separately for the two phases, and the results compared with standard W and Pt tips. While PM exhibits featureless tunneling characteristics, the FM regions exhibit at room temperature strongly nonlinear behavior with a band-gap like behavior. The spin resolved density of states of the FM regions of the manganite has been extracted by the deconvolution of the spectroscopic curves. It indicates very high spin polarization (nearly halfmetallic behavior) with the spin down band separated from Fermi level by 0.4 eV. This value corresponds exactly to the gap value measured for the whole surface of this manganite at low temperatures. Thus the surface of the La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films maintain even at room temperature nano- and micrometric islands of very high spin polarization, while the total polarization is given by the coverage of the surface by FM regions. This result is extremely important for spintronic applications of this material and indicates possible roots for the realization of manganite nanosized devices with extremely high spin polarization.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the effects of Taijiquan practice on knee proprioception in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA).

METHODS
We conducted a randomized controlled trial comparing Taijiquan with a control condition (wellness education) in patients with knee OA. The patients participated in either a 60-min Taijiquan session three times weekly or a 60-min weekly educational session, for 24 consecutive weeks. The primary outcomes were changes in knee proprioception. Secondary outcomes were changes in the Western Ontario and McMaster University Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC).

RESULTS
After 24 weeks, compared with the control group, the Taijiquan group demonstrated better improvements in the joint position sense in knee flexion (left: -2.12?; right: -2.02?), and knee extension (left: -2.22?; right: -1.54?). In addition, the Taijiquan group showed significantly greater improvements in the WOMAC scores (P < 0.05) for knee pain (left: -3.17 points; right: -3.74 points), stiffness (left: -2.43 points; right: -2.13 points), and physical function (left: -10.99 points; right: -8.00 points), compared with the control group.

CONCLUSION
A 24-week Taijiquan practice resulted in a significant improvement in knee proprioception in patients with knee OA. The present findings add increasing evidence regarding the clinical benefits of Taijiquan as a therapeutic modality for patients to improve the reflex protection of knee joints against potentially harmful forces.


The generalized Hamiltonian formalism for the relativistic particle with torsion in a D-dimensional spacetime is constructed. A complete set of constraints in the phase space is obtained and their separation into the first- and second-class constraints is accomplished. On this basis, the canonical quantization of the model is fulfilled. For D=3 the mass spectrum is obtained in the sector without tachyonic states, the mass of the state being dependent on its spin. When the spin increases the mass of the state decreases. It is shown that in the framework of this model one has the possibility to describe the states with an integral, half-odd-integral and continuous spin (D=3). In all these cases the wavefunction in the rest frame is a scalar 2 pi -periodic function of the angular variable.


Diabetes is the most common and systemic disorder associated with hyperglycemia which is the significant factor in the development of micro- and macrovascular changes. Many mechanistic approaches i.e. activation of Protein kinase C, glycation end products production, hexosamine pathway and polyol pathway induce cellular damage and lead to the development of diabetic complications like nephropathy, neuropathy, retinopathy, and myopathy. One of the adverse effects of long-lasting hyperglycemia is activation of PKC (intracellular signaling enzyme) and has become a field of great research interest. Hence, in this review special emphasis is placed on microvascular complications which are due to activation of PKC. Clinical trials have also been conducted using selective PKC inhibitors and have shown positive results against hyperglycemia.