AACR Annual Meeting-- Apr 18-22, 2009; Denver, CO

Temozolomide (TMZ) is an orally administered alkylating agent for the treatment of malignant gliomas. Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common subtype of Non- Hodgkin\#8217;s Lymphoma. Since TMZ was shown to have activity in Primary CNS lymphoma, and DLBCL is responsive to alkylating agents, we hypothesized that TMZ could have activity in DLBCLs. It is important to note that response to TMZ is associated with epigenetic silencing of Methyl-guanine DNA methyltransferase (MGMT), a DNA repair protein. We therefore hypothesized that MGMT expression or promoter methylation may predict response in DLBCL as well. We therefore exposed a panel of 15 DLBCL cell lines to different doses of TMZ in both single and multi-day schedules. We divided our panel into two groups \#8220;sensitive\#8221; and \#8220;resistant\#8221; using a single dose IC50 cutoff of 150 µM, which represents the clinically achievable concentration of drug. Using a multi-day dosing schedule consistent with typical clinical regimens, we found cell kill 80%-90% even in the \#8220;TMZ resistant\#8221; cell lines after 5 consecutive daily IC25 doses. To determine whether MGMT expression or promoter methylation could predict resistance or sensitivity amongst the DLBCL cells, we first compared MGMT RNA and protein levels to response to TMZ in these cell lines. All \#8220;TMZ sensitive\#8221; group cell lines expressed some MGMT RNA/protein, however lack of MGMT did not confer sensitivity to TMZ, as 50% of \#8220;TMZ resistant\#8221; cell lines were MGMT negative. Using the MassArray technique, we found that MGMT promoter hypermethylation correlated with MGMT silencing in DLBCL cell lines, but there was no direct correlation of percent promoter methylation to TMZ IC50 values. Since an intact mismatch repair function is critically required to rescue cells from DNA damage from alkylating agents, we further investigated the role of MLH1 (human mutL homolog 1) in determining resistance of DLBCL cell lines to TMZ. We found that \#8220;TMZ sensitive\#8221; group of cell lines had decreased MLH1 protein expression. All MGMT negative cell lines in our panel were found to reciprocally show robust MLH1 protein expression. We therefore hypothesized that MGMT and MLH1 may have combinatorial effects in determining resistance to TMZ in DLBCL cell lines. To test this, we treated both MGMT positive and MGMT negative DLBCL cell lines with small interfering RNA (siRNA) targeting MLH1. Upon sequential treatment with TMZ, we found that MLH1 knock-down increases cell kill in DLBCL cells by TMZ as compared to controls. This effect was more pronounced in MGMT negative DLBCL cell lines, all of which are in the \#8220;TMZ resistant\#8221;. We therefore conclude that MLH1 has a combinatorial role with MGMT in determining resistance to TMZ in DLBCLs. We expect the cell line and murine experiments to provide evidence to support a clinical trial of TMZ in DLBCL patients. Moreover, modulation of MLH1 and MGMT may prove to be of therapeutic benefit in combination with TMZ in this disease.

Citation Information: In: Proc Am Assoc Cancer Res; 2009 Apr 18-22; Denver, CO. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; 2009. Abstract nr 5550.


The color of mammalian skin is determined by many factors, for which visible ones are the degree and distribution of melanin pigmentation. Because tyrosinase, (polyphenol oxidase) is the key enzyme for melanin biosynthesis, the use of various tyrosinase inhibitors is a common practice for whitening purpose in cosmetics. In the present study, the inhibition of tyrosinase by 4,4'-dihydroxybiphenyl (44'-BP) was investigated. In addition to tyrosinase inhibiting activity, melanin biosynthesis was assessed in B16F10 melanoma cells (B16 cells). The results showed that 44'-BP exhibits a strong anti-tyrosinase activity with IC50=1.91 microM. The kinetic analysis of tyrosinase inhibition revealed that 44'-BP acts a competitive inhibitor (Ki=4.0 x 10(-4) M at 2.5 microM and Ki =21 x 10(-5) M at 5 microM). Furthermore, data on melanin biosynthesis indicated that the amount of melanin was clearly suppressed by 44'-BP.


Several echoviruses (EVs) have previously been shown to use decay accelerating factor (DAF) as a cellular receptor. Since DAF is expressed on erythrocytes, EVs that use this receptor cause haemagglutination. Here we show that all EVs that haemagglutinate do so via attachment to DAF and that this interaction can be inhibited by a monoclonal antibody (MAb) specific for DAF domain SCR3. Although the viruses haemagglutinate via DAF some can bind to rhabdomyosarcoma cells from which DAF has been removed and infect in the presence of a MAb against DAF. This suggests that some EVs have the capacity to interact with more than one cellular receptor.


BACKGROUND
Intravenous therapy has been shown to be beneficial in the prevention of acute platelet-associated thrombotic events. However, orally active agents would be advantageous for chronic therapy. Fibrinogen receptor antagonists block the fibrinogen/platelet interaction and thus inhibit a step required for thrombus formation. To date, no orally active fibrinogen binding inhibitors have been characterized. SC-54684A, now in clinical trial, is the orally active prodrug of a potent and specific fibrinogen binding antagonist.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We measured inhibition of 125I-fibrinogen binding to activated platelets and inhibition of aggregation in platelet-rich plasma to selected agonists and showed IC50s of 1.0 x 10(-8) and 3 to 7 x 10(-8) mol/L, respectively. Specificity of the active moiety was determined by studying its effect on the binding of (1) neutrophils to interleukin (IL)-1 beta-stimulated endothelial cells, (2) endothelial cells to fibronectin, and (3) vitronectin to isolated vitronectin and fibrinogen receptors. No effect was observed on the binding neutrophils to IL-stimulated endothelial cells or endothelial cell binding to fibronectin. There was a fivefold separation between binding to isolated receptors of vitronectin and fibrinogen. Collagen-induced aggregation was inhibited by 80%, and bleeding time was increased approximately 2.5-fold when the active moiety was infused to steady state at 0.2 micrograms/kg per minute in dogs. When the ester prodrug was given orally and the active moiety was given intravenously, the oral systemic activity was approximately 20%. Pharmacokinetic analysis after intravenous infusion of the prodrug or active moiety showed that the prodrug was rapidly converted to the active moiety; the active moiety had a t1/2 of 6.5 hours. When the prodrug was administered both orally and intravenously, the systemic availability of the active moiety was 62%.

CONCLUSIONS
SC-54684A, an orally active antiplatelet drug now in clinical trial, is shown to be a potent, specific fibrinogen binding inhibitor that blocks platelet aggregation to a wide variety of known stimuli and has good bioavailability in animals.


Abstract The Bróna Basin lies on the eastern margin of the Rockall Basin and has a NNE-SSW trend. Although at present undrilled it is believed to contain Carboniferous, Triassic and Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous strata. It probably formed as a product of Late Jurassic rifting, which ultimately resulted in the creation of the Rockall Basin. The basin history is complex and its present form is the result of pre-Jurassic structuring, Late Jurassic rifting, later (latest Jurassic to earliest Cretaceous, and Early Tertiary) compressional pulses, and the effects of thermal subsidence in the adjacent Rockall Basin. The development of the Bróna Basin is of direct relevance to understanding the geological evolution of the other marginal basins lying on the flanks of the Rockall Basin, and to the Rockall region as a whole.


The New World genus Erythrothrips is redefined and a key to the species provided. A new genus and species, Erythridothrips cubilis, is described from Australian tropical rain-forest. The South African genus Audiothrips is withdrawn from synonymy with Erythrothrips and a new species, A. senckenbergiana, is described. The sole African species in the American genus Stomatothrips is transferred to the African genus Allelothrips. The relationships of these taxa are discussed, together with reasons for questioning the validity of the tribe Orothripini.


With the integration of large-scale wind power, cascading tripping out of numerous wind turbines has been a serious threat to the security of power grid. This paper discusses the failure mechanism of cascading trips, and focuses on the strategies to prevent this kind of failure. Firstly, the typical development process of the failures has been analyzed. Furthermore, based on the topology structure and parameters of an actual power grid in China, the cascading trip-off failure has been simulated. According to the failure mechanism and characters, two optional voltage control strategies, have been presented. The computer simulation has been carried to verify the validity of the proposed strategies.


Bioeconomy regions are a young concept representing emerging amalgamation points for the implementation of cross-sectoral value-added chains. When sustainable bioeconomy strategies are rolled out, their proof-of-concept implies that industrial R&D activities should lead to impact decoupling and that the valorization of locally available lignocellulosic biomass has to contribute to an increase in added value. Furthermore, regional co-benefits for society and a positive influence on local environmental and socioeconomic conditions are major factors. The fulfillment of these strategic goals would be a milestone achievement when progressing from the blueprint development and the road-mapping stage towards socially accepted and sustainable wood-based bioeconomy strategies. For regional industrial and science stakeholders who run pilot facilities for process upscaling and for energy and material flow integration, this requires well-orchestrated integrative processes, which go beyond conventional "Life Cycle Management" approaches. It is obvious that assessing and monitoring such integrative systems will have to account for different stakeholder perspectives and for detailed technology deployment and resource conversion scenarios. Applying a sustainability index methodology in a case study region must include an evaluation of the whole supply chain and the process networks associated with the characteristic products of the evaluated region. To date, no such integrative assessment methods exist in the literature. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to lay out, on the basis of a practical example in the case study region of Central Germany, an assessment of the sustainability level of wood-based bioeconomy networks by applying the Sustainability Monitoring Tool -SUMINISTRO"- to examine regional bio-based industry networks.


During late gestation, the lungs of rats contain retinyl esters, but their concentration decreases considerably at the time of birth. The regulation of the acquisition and utilization of these stored retinoids remains poorly understood, although it has been hypothesized that they are involved in surfactant production and alveolar septal formation. Previous investigations demonstrated that exogenous retinoic acid increases elastin production in cultured neonatal lung fibroblasts and increases the number of alveoli when it is administered to neonatal rats. It has been hypothesized that these pulmonary stores of retinyl esters may regulate the perinatal expression of various genes in the lung, including elastin. To test this hypothesis, inhibitors of retinoid metabolism were used to reduce the flux of retinyl esters to retinoic acid, and the effects of this maneuver on elastin gene expression were analyzed. Inhibitors of alcohol and aldehyde dehydrogenases and of retinyl ester hydrolases decreased the steady-state level of tropoelastin mRNA without reducing alpha 1(I) procollagen mRNA. The magnitude of the effects of the inhibitors was retinol dependent and was significantly reduced in lung tissue that was obtained from vitamin A-deficient fetuses. These findings suggest that the late gestational pulmonary stores of retinoids may increase elastin gene expression during the fetal and early postnatal life in the rat.


A magnetic measurement system utilizing a vector magnetic sensor for analyzing and mapping low frequency magnetic properties of metals has been developed for nondestructive evaluation. The measurement system consists mainly of an induction coil which can expose a large sample area, a vector magnetic sensor for detecting magnetic fields emanating from a sample, a lock-in amplifier, and a two-dimensional scanning stage. The system was determined to have a high magnetic sensitivity corresponding to less than 1nT in the locked-in state. The magnetic field strength change was detected in a sample that contained a slit of width greater than 1mm. Time sequential vector component (normal and tangential) maps were developed. An iron plate as an example of a ferromagnetic metal and an aluminum plate as an example of a good conducting and nonferromagnetic material were compared using this system. Analyzing the vector component maps could differentiate differences in the magnetic properties, such as permeability, edd...


The research aims to study and optimize the formulation of materials required for advanced ceramic production using response surface methodology (RSM). In this research effort, the five (5) process independent variables studied with their corresponding levels are: Antang corundum powder, A (92.2 – 100 %W); polyvinyl alcohol, B (0 – 5 %W); CaO, C (0 – 2.3 %W); MgO, D (0 – 0.5 %W); and the sintering temperature, E (1200 – 1500 °C). The mechanical property responses determined were density, ρ , compressive strength, C/S, flexural strength, F/S ; which are key characteristics of ceramics for armour applications. The optimized density, compressive strength and flexural strength of the sintered Antang corundum are 3.45 g/cm 3 g, 1982 MPa and 295 MPa respectively; while the respective RSM prediction values are 3.45 g/cm 3 g, 1982 MPa and 295 MPa. On comparing the determined optimum mechanical responses of the sintered Antang ceramic with the maximum RSM prediction values, there is high level of assurance in using RSM for the formulation process in ceramic armour development.


Attention is paid to the popular FEMM (Finite Element Method Magnetics) program which is effective in the numerical calculations of the magnetic fields of electrical machines. The principles of the automated calculations providing the analysis of the dynamics of electromagnetic processes in turbo-generators are presented. This is realized in the form of a script on the algorithmic language Lua integrated with FEMM. The temporal functions of electromagnetic quantities are obtained by multi-position calculations of the magnetic field with ensuring its rotation together with the turbo-generator rotor. The developed program is universal in terms of the geometry and dimensions of turbo-generators, as well as the modes of their work with a minimum of input data in numerical form. This paper shows "extraction" of discrete temporal functions: the magnetic flux linkage of the phase stator winding; forces acting on the current-carrying and ferromagnetic elements of the structure; the magnetic induction at the fixed points; electromagnetic moment. This list can be expanded as part of the created program, as well as the use of the program can be extended to other types of electrical machines. The obtaining of a change period of any functions is provided by rotating the rotor to 60°.


Objective: Children with asthma who are physically active have a better quality of life, emphasizing the importance of activity monitoring and promotion in daily life. The validity of self-reported activity measurements has been questioned in pediatric populations. In this study, we aim to compare the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Children (PAQ-C) with objectively measured PA using accelerometry. Design: In this comparison study, the pooled dataset of two cross-sectional studies was used, which prospectively home-monitored PA using the alternative self-report PAQ-C questionnaire as well as with the criterion standard accelerometry (Actigraph wGT3X-BT and GT1M). Participants:Ninety children with pediatrician-diagnosed asthma participated in the study. Main Outcome Measures:Correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the relation between the PAQ-C and accelerometer data. The predictive value of the PAQ-C in differentiating between achieving and failing the recommended daily level of moderate-to-vigorous activity (MVPA) was evaluated with receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis. Results: The results showed weak to moderate correlations of the PAQ-C with the accelerometer data (r = 0.29–0.47). A PAQ-C cutoff of 3.09 showed the best performance on predicting whether the recommended level of MVPA was achieved. With this cutoff, 21 of the 39 children that did achieve their daily MVPA level (53.8% sensitivity) and 33 of the 46 children that did fail their daily MVPA level (71.7% specificity) were correctly classified. A PAQ-C score of 3.5 revealed a negative predictive value of 100% for assessing physical inactivity. Conclusion: This study revealed a weak relation between the PAQ-C and PA assessed with accelerometry. However, a PAQ-C score of 3.5 or higher might be used as a low-cost and easy-to-use PA screening tool for ruling out physical inactivity in a portion of the pediatric asthma population. Clinical Trial Registration: Netherlands Trial Register: Trial NL6087.


Singing voice detection or vocal detection is a classification task that determines whether there is a singing voice in a given audio segment. This process is a crucial preprocessing step that can be used to improve the performance of other tasks such as automatic lyrics alignment, singing melody transcription, singing voice separation, vocal melody extraction, and many more. This paper presents a survey on the techniques of singing voice detection with a deep focus on state-of-the-art algorithms such as convolutional LSTM and GRU-RNN. It illustrates a comparison between existing methods for singing voice detection, mainly based on the Jamendo and RWC datasets. Long-term recurrent convolutional networks have reached impressive results on public datasets. The main goal of the present paper is to investigate both classical and state-of-the-art approaches to singing voice detection.


The Association of Biomedical Communications Directors (ABCD) has recently completed the fifth in its series of surveys of biomedical communications units. The fourth survey, published in 1975, reported staffing patterns, salary data, degrees held, and a variety of other information from units directed by members of the ABCD in the United States and Canada. The current report covers similar data from the 1977-78 academic year and in addition includes information from units whose directors were not members of ABCD but who wished to cooperate in the survey.


This paper investigates the impact of trade protectionism in the form of tariff barriers on Spanish goods exports. The Spanish economy has significantly increased its degree of openness, which improves potential economic growth, but also implies a higher exposure to the protectionist shift in the international environment observed in the last years. With the purpose of assessing exports sensitivity to tariff increases, we obtain a database combining annual tariffs applied to Spanish products over the years 1995-2019 from WITS and bilateral extra-EU Spanish goods exports from Eurostat, with a product disaggregation level at 6 digits. We estimate the effect of tariffs both on exporting probability (i.e. exports extensive margin) through a linear probability model and exports levels (i.e. exports intensive margin) through a gravity equation. The findings of this paper show that higher tariffs reduce exports levels through extensive an intensive margins. A 1% tariff increase reduces on average the probability of exporting to a specific market by nearly 0.08 pp. and exported values by around 1%.


Objective: Skin inflammation is a universal characteristic of the multisystem inflammatory myopathy dermatomyositis (DM). About 35% of DM patients have a polycyclic or chronic disease course, usually due to active skin disease, despite standard of care therapy, demonstrating a significant unmet need for novel treatment options. To test the efficacy of novel therapeutics, feasible prospective clinical trials must be designed that employ quantitative endpoints. The Cutaneous Dermatomyositis Disease Area and Severity Index (CDASI) is a validated, reliable, and responsive measurement of cutaneous DM disease activity and damage. The primary objectives were to identify requisite design parameters (e.g., target trial population, duration, frequency of assessments, treatment difference, sample size) for a proofofconcept clinical trial of a novel therapy in patients with DM. Methods: Trial simulations were conducted to determine sample size and statistical power. Simulation inputs were obtained from analyses of CDASI natural history data obtained from 115 adult DM patients followed at Stanford University. Results: A population with baseline CDASI Activity scores ≥ 15 was simulated to eliminate a potential floor effect in patients with milder disease and to mimic a clinical trial population with moderate to severe skin disease. Given a 24 weeks trial with monthly disease assessments, simulations demonstrated that 45 patients per group were required to detect a 5 point treatment difference and 12 patients per group were required to detect a 10 point treatment difference with 80% statistical power using a 2 sided test. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that the CDASI is a practical and feasible primary efficacy endpoint for DM clinical trials and lays out a framework for a clinical trial using CDASI as a primary endpoint.


The stability of alexithymia in acute and nonacute disease was studied in 69 patients with 'psychosomatic' digestive disease and in 47 control patients. Methods used were the Beth Israel Hospital Questionnaire, Lazare's Personality Test, and the Rorschach Test. Subjects were interviewed to assess their somatic well-being and the psychological meaning of the illness. Three different alexithymia groups were found. The first consisted of the nonalexithymic patients who scored low in both testings and who seemed to be 'average persons' in the light of personality tests. The second comprised the patients who developed alexithymia as a reaction to illness. They had good cognitive control but a tendency to hypochondriac worry. The last consisted of patients whose alexithymia decreased during an acute disease. They were egocentric and rigid personalities who enjoyed being ill because they then felt that they were loved and noticed. This division was found to be independent of the patients' medical diagnosis.


Biodegradable poly (lactic acid) (PLA) based biocomposites reinforced with rice hulls were prepared by
compression molding and their properties were compared to those of commonly used thermoplastic based-polymer, polypropylene
(PP) containing the same reinforcements.
Rice hulls from rice processing plants represent renewable sources that could be utilized for production of new class of
eco-materials. In this study, rice-hulls-fi lled poly (lactic acid) (PLA) biocomposites were prepared through addition of 5
wt. % PLA-grafted-MA (CA) for enhancement of adhesion between polymer matrix and natural fi ller. The composites
containing 30% wt. rice hulls (RH) were prepared and the possibility of recycling and reuse of these biocomposites were
investigated. For all biocomposites, the mechanical and thermal properties were analyzed and compared to those of commonly
used thermoplastic based-polymer, polypropylene (PP) containing the same reinforcement. Thermal stability of
neat biocomposites and of the new composites produced from recycled ones was practically unchanged. Utilization of
the mixture obtained after the thermal-mechanical recycling of the whole biocomposite has resulted into composite with
slightly increased fl exural modulus and decreased fl exural strength.
The obtained results have shown that rice-hull-fi lled poly(lactic acid) biocomposites could be recycled and utilized for
production of new eco-materials with acceptable thermal and mechanical properties. Namely, the results for fl exural
strength and modulus of the recycled biocomposite samples are comparable to those of conventional formaldehyde wood
medium density fi berboards used as construction elements for indoor applications.


This document presents and compares methodologies to generate discrete adjoint codes. These methods can be implemented when hand writing adjoints, or within Automatic Differentiation tools. Automatic differentiation has been applied successfully to industrial codes that are large and general enough to fully validate this new technology. Future AD tools will make use of some general methods presented in this paper but still not implemented within present tools. In this paper, we try to compare these strategies in terms of accuracy, execution time and memory requirement on a one dimension- al thermal-hydraulic module for two-phase flow modeling.


In this paper we extend naturally the scalarization proximal point method to solve multiobjective unconstrained minimization problems, proposed by Apolinario et al.[1], from Euclidean spaces to Hadamard manifolds for locally Lipschitz and quasiconvex vector objective functions. Moreover, we present a convergence analysis, under some mild assumptions on the multiobjective function, for two inexact variants of the scalarization proximal point algorithm for this kind of functions. In this sense, strong convergence of all the sequences produced by the methods are obtained. Indeed, each accumulation point, of any sequence generated by these algorithm, is a Pareto critical point for the multiobjective function.


The Ebola virus disease has been infection countries in Africa since its first emergence in Zaire in 1976. However, the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been unanimously described as the World's most devastating outbreak in history and the first ever witnessed in West Africa. The devastating nature of the 2014 Ebola epidemic made the international community becoming increasing worried as the disease continued to spread across borders. This stud therefore, aimed at evaluating the economic impact of the epidemic in West African countries affected by the outbreak. The study adopted an innovative methodology that scientifically captures the contemporaneous impact of the outbreak on key socioeconomic variables of interest. The results from the study revealed that in addition to the adverse impact of the Ebola outbreak on economic growth, commodity prices and government budget deficits, the isolation of countries hardest hit by the epidemic contributed significantly in worsening the socioeconomic conditions faced by these countries. By way of policy recommendations, the study noted the need to strengthen health care systems in the region, training of more health care workers, and avoidance of actions restriction the movement of persons and goods from epidemic affected areas and the need for regional coordination efforts for the effective combating of epidemic outbreaks in the future. Key w ords :  Ebola, epidemic, outbreak, devastating, West African, health care, growth


Objective: Vaginal infections are common and when they are not treated, they can cause serious health problems such as getting infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The aim of this study was to determine the behavioral risk factors for vaginal infections among women with and without vaginal infections. Methodology: This study was done in a large women's hospital. The sample consisted of 200 women between the ages of 15 and 49. A pelvic examination and clinical assessment were conducted on each woman. Risk factors were analyzed through the use of cross-tabs, t-test, odds ratio and percent analysis. Results: Behaviors such as washing from back to front after defecation (OR=3.79; 95% CI, 2.05-7.01), cleaning with bare hand in the toilet (OR=4.75; 95% CI, 1.71-13.23), bathing by sitting on a stool (OR=2.64; 95% CI, 1.44-4.84, p<0.001), infrequent change of underwear (OR=6.15; 95% CI, 2.43-15.55, p<0.001) and douching after intercourse (OR=1.84; 95% CI, 1.09-3.07, p <0.05) were risk factors associated with vaginal infections. Conclusion: The results can provide physicians with the evidence based data to be used when counseling, educating and treating women for vaginal infections.


Ice floes in the marginal ice zone (MIZ) are exposed to wind, wave, and current forces which greatly influence the dynamics of the ice floes. ISO 19906 recommends considering combined wave and ice actions while designing offshore structures for arctic and cold regions. Few studies have focused on ice-structure interactions in waves. There are not many tools available to estimate these combined loads on structures. A numerical tool "SAMICE" has been developed to simulate the hydrodynamics of wave-ice interactions, but there exists a lack of data for a realistic MIZ under wave actions for validation studies of the numerical code.
 To address this gap and to investigate the hydrodynamics of ice floes under waves, a set of experiments was conducted at the wave tank of Ocean Engineering Research Center (OERC) of Memorial University of Newfoundland. A six-component dynamometer was used to measure the loads on a model scale aluminum cylindrical gravity-based offshore structure. Loads were measured for five regular waves of various steepness in combination with three current speeds. Two ice concentrations with various floe sizes of random shapes were prepared from polypropylene sheets to represent the MIZ. Most of the tests were repeated three times and a statistical approach was used to analyze the loads. The preliminary analysis shows that the average wave-ice loads may be determined by ISO guidelines, but the predictions of impulse loads from individual wave-driven ice floes are very uncertain.


In this contribution a 44.5 dBm gallium nitride (GaN) based Doherty amplifier for a center frequency of 4900 MHz is presented. The developed Doherty amplifier uses an unsymmetrical power division and offset lines for optimization of the load modulation over the dynamic output range. Various drain supply voltages of the carrier and the peak amplifier are used to optimize the gain. Furthermore, the error vector magnitude (EVM) and the adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) are reduced by using a memoryless digital predistortion (DPD) based on lookup table (LUT) model. All this design strategies improve the linearity of the Doherty amplifier.


In this study, we explore the global phase behavior of a simple model for self-associating fluids where association reduces the strength of the dispersion interactions between bonded particles. Recent research shows that this type of behavior likely explains the thermodynamic properties of strongly polar fluids and certain micellar solutions. Based on Wertheim's theory of associating liquids [M. S. Wertheim, J. Stat. Phys. 42, 459 (1986); 42, 477 (1986)], our model takes into account the effect that dissimilar particle interactions have on the equilibrium constant for self-association in the system. We find that weaker interactions between bonded molecules tend to favor the dissociation of chains at any temperature and density. This effect stabilizes a monomeric liquid phase at high densities, enriching the global phase behavior of the system. In particular, for systems in which the energy of mixing between bonded and unbonded species is positive, we find a triple point involving a vapor, a dense phase of chain aggregates, and a monomeric liquid. Phase coexistence between the vapor and the monomeric fluid is always more stable at temperatures above the triple point, but a highly associated fluid may exist as a metastable phase under these conditions. The presence of this metastable phase may explain the characteristic nucleation behavior of the liquid phase in strongly dipolar fluids.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to estimate the contact-consistent object poses during contact-rich manipulation tasks based only on visual sensors.

Design/methodology/approach
The method follows a four-step procedure. Initially, the raw object poses are retrieved using the available object pose estimation method and filtered using Kalman filter with nominal model; second, a group of particles are randomly generated for each pose and evaluated the corresponding object contact state using the contact simulation software. A probability guided particle averaging method is proposed to balance the accuracy and safety issues; third, the independently estimated contact states are fused in a hidden Markov model to remove the abnormal contact state observations; finally, the object poses are refined by averaging the contact state consistent particles.

Findings
The experiments are performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. The results show that the method can achieve smooth and accurate pose estimation results and the estimated contact states are consistent with ground truth.

Originality/value
This paper proposes a method to obtain contact-consistent poses and contact states of objects using only visual sensors. The method tries to recover the true contact state from inaccurate visual information by fusing contact simulations results and contact consistency assumptions. The method can be used to extract pose and contact information from object manipulation tasks by just observing the demonstration, which can provide a new way for the robot to learn complex manipulation tasks.


In this paper, studies were conducted in the field of adhesive strength of plasma coatings and the surface of the part. The propagation of a crack front in a plasma coating material with composite inclusions is simulated. It was proposed to consider the possibility of introducing into the composition of the material sputtering additional composite inclusions that have a greater plasticity and a size greater than the size of the particles in the coating.


The development and metastasis of uterine tumors depend highly on tumor angiogenesis. Multiphase dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging can quantitatively describe the hemodynamic changes of uterine tumors based on a variety of tracer kinetic models and time-signal curves and by simulating the distribution of contrast inside and outside the blood vessels. Functional parameters can accurately and noninvasively assess tumor angiogenesis. It provides a non-invasive functional evaluation method for the differential diagnosis,staging,response evaluation,and prognostic prediction of uterine tumors.


The traditional method of morphometric observation along with anatomical and biochemical analysis has been conducted in farme3d reared composite species of Indian major carps and Exotic carps to study its biodiversity. Isozyme , Esterase in gill, muscle, heart and kidney were also separated in native-PAGE (7% gradient). Polymorphic loci were not detected under the present study but all the enzyme activity were found synchronised with the feeding, metabolic, habitat and environmental factors.


Convolution operations dominate the overall execution time of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). This paper proposes an easy yet efficient technique for both Convolutional Neural Network training and testing. The conventional convolution and pooling operations are replaced by Easy Convolution and Random Pooling (ECP). In ECP, we randomly select one pixel out of four and only conduct convolution operations of the selected pixel. As a result, only a quarter of the conventional convolution computations are needed. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed EasyConvPooling can achieve 1.45x speedup on training time and 1.64x on testing time. What's more, a speedup of 5.09x on pure Easy Convolution operations is obtained compared to conventional convolution operations.


Soy intake reduces cholesterol levels, but neither the exact component in soy causing this reduction nor the mechanism by which cholesterol is reduced is known with certainty. In this study, a genetic screen was performed to identify hepatic mRNA in gerbils regulated by soy or soy isoflavones. Gerbils were fed casein, an alcohol-washed soy-based diet (containing low levels of isoflavones), and the soy-based diet supplemented with an isoflavone-containing soy extract. After feeding for 28 d, gerbils were killed, hepatic RNA was isolated, and genes that were differentially expressed in any of the three dietary conditions were identified. Fifteen different mRNA were originally selected, including two mRNA that were studied further and shown to be highly regulated. Messenger RNA levels for both cytochrome P450-2A and phosphoribosylpyrophosphate synthetase-associated protein were up-regulated in a dose-dependent manner when soy replaced casein in the diet at 0, 33, 67 and 100% of original casein levels. A subsequent experiment used purified amino acid mixtures resembling the percentage amino acid composition of soy and casein to ensure that isoflavone-free protein sources could be tested. Using these mixtures, a 2 x 2 x 2 design tested: natural vs. synthetic protein sources, casein- vs. soy-based diets, and isoflavone extract-supplemented or supplement-free diets. This design demonstrated that these two mRNA were again significantly up-regulated more than twofold (P < 0.05) in gerbils fed all diets containing isoflavones. Induction of these two mRNA by soy may be due to the aryl hydrocarbon receptor element in the promoter region of both genes.


Most supervised learning models are trained for full automation. However, their predictions are sometimes worse than those by human experts on some specific instances. Motivated by this empirical observation, our goal is to design classifiers that are optimized to operate under different automation levels. More specifically, we focus on convex margin-based classifiers and first show that the problem is NP-hard. Then, we further show that, for support vector machines, the corresponding objective function can be expressed as the difference of two functions f = g - c, where g is monotone, non-negative and gamma-weakly submodular, and c is non-negative and modular. This representation allows a recently introduced deterministic greedy algorithm, as well as a more efficient randomized variant of the algorithm, to enjoy approximation guarantees at solving the problem. Experiments on synthetic and real-world data from several applications in medical diagnosis illustrate our theoretical findings and demonstrate that, under human assistance, supervised learning models trained to operate under different automation levels can outperform those trained for full automation as well as humans operating alone.


Wave forcing from hurricanes, nor'easters, and energetic storms can cause erosion of the berm and beach face resulting in increased vulnerability of dunes and coastal infrastructure. LIDAR or other surveying techniques have quantified post-event morphology, but there is a lack of in situ hydrodynamic and morphodynamic measurements during extreme storm events. Two field studies were conducted in March 2018 and April 2019 at Bethany Beach, Delaware, where in situ hydrodynamic and morphodynamic measurements were made during a nor'easter (Nor'easter Riley) and an energetic storm (Easter Eve Storm). An array of sensors to measure water velocity, water depth, water elevation and bed elevation were mounted to scaffold pipes and deployed in a single cross-shore transect. Water velocity was measured using an electro-magnetic current meter while water and bed elevations were measured using an acoustic distance meter along with an algorithm to differentiate between the water and bed during swash processes. GPS profiles of the beach face were measured during every day-time low tide throughout the storm events. Both accretion and erosion were measured at different cross-shore positions and at different times during the storm events. Morphodynamic change along the back-beach was found to be related to berm erosion, suggesting an important morphologic feedback mechanism. Accumulated wave energy and wave energy flux per unit area between Nor'easter Riley and a recent mid-Atlantic hurricane (Hurricane Dorian) were calculated and compared. Coastal Observations: JALBTCX/NCMP emergency-response airborne Lidar coastal mapping & quick response data products for 2016/2017/2018 hurricane impact assessments


Liquid paraffin‐in‐water emulsions prepared with cetomacrogol 1000 and alcohols cetostearyl (A), cetyl (B), stearyl (C) and myristyl (D) were examined by microscopical, particle size analytical and rheological (continuous shear, small strain creep and oscillation) techniques at 25° as they aged over 30 days. The particle sizes of the emulsions were similar and did not increase significantly with age. Thus the rheological stabilities were not correlated with particle size distributions, but rather with viscoelastic networks formed in the continuous phases when the non‐ionic mixed emulsifiers interacted with water. The rheological properties of emulsions B and D differed from those of emulsion C. Emulsion A, of mixed homologue composition, showed some properties similar to each of the pure alcohol emulsions. Emulsions B and D were semi‐solid immediately after preparation whereas emulsion C was so mobile initially that small strain data were not derived. On ageing, the consistencies of B and D changed slightly initially, and then remained essentially constant. In contrast, the consistency of emulsion C increased on ageing, especially over the first few days when there was a change from mobile liquid to semisolid. Emulsion A was a semisolid initially but like emulsion C increased in consistency especially over the first 24 h. Continuous shear data indicated that this emulsion was the most resistant to structure breakdown. Microscopical examinations supported the view that the networks formed in emulsion A were the most extensive and that stearyl alcohol networks in C formed comparatively slowly. Although the cetomacrogol/pure alcohol networks were diffuse and sometimes crystallized, they did not rapidly disintegrate on storage as did the ionic surfactant/pure alcohol networks examined previously.


BACKGROUND
To evaluate the effects of CoQ10 on myocardial protection in patients undergoing cardiac valve replacement and direct scavenging free radicals activity in vitro.

METHODS
Twenty-four patients were randomly divided into two groups. Twelve patients in the CoQ10 group received intravenous and intracoronary CoQ10-treated "round the operative period". Twelve patients in the control group received no CoQ10-treatment.

MEASURES
Plasma malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration, erythrocyte superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and serum cardiac isoenzyme of creatine kinase (CK-MB) were measured in the perioperative and postoperative period. The effects of CoQ10 direct scavenging free radicals were determined with electron spin resonance (ESR) and spin-trapping techniques by an in vitro study.

RESULTS
Plasma MDA concentration and serum CK-MB levels in the CoQ10 group were significantly lower than those in the control group. Erythrocyte SOD activity in the CoQ10 group was significantly higher than that in the control group. CoQ10 showed an obvious hydroxyl radical scavenging activity, but it could not scavenge superoxide anion radicals.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings demonstrated that the use of intravenous and intracoronary CoQ10-treatment may play a more beneficial protective role during cardiac valve replacement through its antioxidant properties and membrane stabilization, as well as through its ability to scavenge hydroxyl radicals directly.


This article examines the extent to which industrial democracy theory may be applied to the operation of Canadian pension fund boards by analysing the balance of power between employers, employees and unions on joint consultative private and public sector pension boards in Ontario and Quebec. The article focuses on three indicators of industrial democracy: shareholder activism; involvement in fund investment policies (including socially responsible investment); and forms of collective action to invest pension funds in support of union objectives. It concludes that industrial democracy is stronger where it is supported by traditions of tripartism and concertation and by statutory employee rights to representation on private sector funds. Its conclusions also question whether Canada can be classed unequivocally as a 'liberal market economy', on the grounds that the economic regulatory regime in Quebec differs substantially from the rest of the country.


Protection techniques of functional groups within the structure of organic compounds are important synthetic methods against unwanted attacks from various reagents during synthetic sequences. Acetal and thioacetal groups are well known as protective functional groups in organic reactions. In this study, acetalization of carbonyl compounds with diols and dithiols and methoxymethylation of alcohols with formaldehyde dimethyl acetal (FDMA) have been carried out using sulfamic acid-functionalized magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles (SA-MNPs) as a heterogeneous solid acid catalyst. Products were characterized by FT-IR and NMR spectroscopies. The structural and electronic properties of some products were computed by quantum mechanical (QM) methods. Depending on the stereochemistry and electronic properties that were obtained by computational results, we have suggested that hyperconjugation plays a key role in the structural properties of 2-phenyl-1,3-dioxolane derivatives, and also the electron transfer between π-electrons of the aromatic ring with the 3d orbital of S-atoms influences the 2-phenyl-1,3-dithiane derivatives' structure.


Metal molybdates constitute a promising class of materials with a wide application range. Here, we report, to our knowledge for the first time, on the preparation and characterization of medium-entropy and high-entropy metal molybdates, synthesized by an oxalate-based coprecipitation approach. The high-entropy molybdate crystallizes in a triclinic structure, thus rendering it as high-entropy material with the lowest symmetry reported so far. This is noteworthy because high-entropy materials usually tend to crystallize into highly symmetrical structures. It is expected that application of the high-entropy concept to metal molybdates alters the material's characteristics and adds the features of high-entropy systems, that is, tailorable composition and properties. The phase purity and solid solution nature of the molybdates were confirmed by XRD, Raman spectroscopy, TEM, XPS, and ICP-OES.


Catabolism of tryptophan (Trp) is modulated by physical activity and provides a pool of active compounds: Trp is considered a calmative agent, kynurenine (Kyn) and 3-hydroxykynurenine (3-HKyn) show neurotoxic effects, kynurenic acid (Kyna) and xanthurenic acid (XA) have neuroprotective properties like nicotinamide (NAm), while serotonin is the neurotransmitter. The study was conducted to investigate the dependence of exercise intensity, measured by plasma lactic acid (LA) concentration, on the level of Trp, its catabolites (serotonin, Kyn, 3-HKyn, Kyna and XA), and NAm in Thoroughbred horses. A total of 18 young race Thoroughbred horses were investigated during exercise tests. Blood samples for analysis were collected: at rest, 10 min after the end of the exercise, and 60 min after the end of the exercise. Plasma LA was determined by the enzymatic method, Trp, and other metabolites using liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. In horses performing intense exercise, the concentration of LA, Kyn, XA and NAm was increased, while Trp was decreased. Significant correlations were detected for exercise-induced increase in LA and 3-HKyn, XA, and NAm. Considering the scope of changes in analyzed data, there is an expected neutral effect on the health status of exercised horses.


Hypoxia Inducible Factor-1α (HIF-1α) stabilisation activates a number of pro-survival pathways that enables increased cell survival in adverse environments. Hypoxic preconditioning (HP) is, therefore, a proposed strategy to increase cell survival for a number of clinical applications such as cell therapy, tissue engineering and organ transplantation. Changing the oxygen pressure can, however, cause undesirable cell behaviours including increased oxidative stress and cell death, in addition to practical difficulties in controlling oxygen levels in vitro (and in vivo). Here we investigate if stabilising HIF-1α through the use of HIF stabilising mimetics in normoxia, will offer a practical solution to activating prosurvival pathways, whilst limiting the undesirable effects of changing oxygen levels. Various cell survival models were investigated (cryopreservation, hypothermia, low nutrient condition), for their suitability to demonstrate enhanced cell survival following HP (1% O2, 24 h). The hypothermic (4oC) stress model reproducibly demonstrated increased cellular survival, resuscitation and recovery following HP. Using the same model, Hypoxia Mimetic Agents (HMAs): Cobalt (100μM) and DMOG (500μM) showed enhanced cell survival and recovery following hypothermic stress (P ≤ 0.001) in both liver hepatocellular carcinoma cells (HepG2) and adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSC). Interestingly HMAs treated daughter cells, which survived hypothermic stress for the first time, had enhanced cell survival when exposed to further cycles of hypothermic stress, suggesting an epigenetic effect. The HMAs dependent enhanced cell recovery observed in 2D culture was also observed in 3D (collagen type I hydrogel) culture. In 3D culture, the use of HMAs also appeared to enhance spheroid formation (as determined by measuring spheroid size following hypothermic stress). The mechanisms of enhanced cell survival were studied using functional assays and gene expression, where different HMAs showed different effects compared to HP. HMAs treated cells showed increased prosurvival factors expression such as HSP90α, COX2 and BNIP3 to enhance cell survival in adverse conditions. The use of HMAs could have an important role in improving the translation of regenerative medicine therapies.


Hotels cooperate with third-party websites to enhance their competitive position and attain sustainable development in the era of e-commerce. Furthermore, hotel managers overbook to hedge against last-minute cancellations and customer no-shows. This paper discusses pricing and overbooking strategies of a hotel in the context of cooperation with multiple third-party websites and analyzes how these strategies influence the cooperation process. The increase in profits resulting from the overbooking strategy is also examined. A model of a Stackelberg game between the hotel and third-party websites and a Nash game among the third-party websites are developed to analyze the process. Results indicate that the compensation coefficient has a slight influence on hotel pricing strategy, but causes a sharp decrease in overbooking level. As the hotel demands to lessen the probability of denying under higher compensation rate, the third-party websites would exert less sales effort to reduce the demand of online customers. Results also show that under a given market demand, hotel effort only serves to redistribute market shares among the hotel and third-party websites, without influencing hotel pricing and overbooking decisions. Specifically, the market shares of the third-party websites decrease in the effort level of the hotel resulting from an increase in the hotel market share. Finally, in the numerical example where one hotel and two websites are analyzed, hotel overbooking strategy improves hotel profit by 4.20%, whereas profit improvements for Websites 1 and 2 are as high as 5.26% and 5.21%, respectively. Managerial implications of the study are also provided.


Bisphenol A (BPA) is a xenobiotic endocrine-disrupting chemical. In vitro and in vivo studies have indicated that BPA alters endocrine-metabolic pathways in adipose tissue, which increases the risk of metabolic disorders and obesity. BPA can affect adipose tissue and increase fat cell numbers or sizes by regulating the expression of the genes that are directly involved in metabolic homeostasis and obesity. Several studies performed in animal models have accounted for an obesogen role of BPA, but its effects on human adipocytes - especially in children - have been poorly investigated. The aim of this study is to understand the molecular mechanisms by which environmentally relevant doses of BPA can interfere with the canonical endocrine function that regulates metabolism in mature human adipocytes from prepubertal, non-obese children. BPA can act as an estrogen agonist or antagonist depending on the physiological context. To identify the molecular signatures associated with metabolism, transcriptional modifications of mature adipocytes from prepubertal children exposed to estrogen were evaluated by means of microarray analysis. The analysis of deregulated genes associated with metabolic disorders allowed us to identify a small group of genes that are expressed in an opposite manner from that of adipocytes treated with BPA. In particular, we found that BPA increases the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and the expression of FABP4 and CD36, two genes involved in lipid metabolism. In addition, BPA decreases the expression of PCSK1, a gene involved in insulin production. These results indicate that exposure to BPA may be an important risk factor for developing metabolic disorders that are involved in childhood metabolism dysregulation.


In order for a robot to co-exist and operate with humans, not only must the robot be safe for the humans but it must perform comfortable motions. In this research, we had humans and robots cross operating paths and focused on avoidance motions at the places where the two would collide had they been allowed to continue. At this time, we considered having only the robot avoid the collision by slowing and/or stopping. Evaluation experiments were conducted using computer graphics to clarify the affects that the distance between humans and robots and the acceleration of the robot.


This study examines the stability of the SAT Reasoning Test™ score scales from 2005 to 2010. A 2005 old form (OF) was administered along with a 2010 new form (NF). A new conversion for OF was derived through direct equipercentile equating. A comparison of the newly derived and the original OF conversions showed that Critical Reading and Mathematics score scales have experienced, at most, a moderate upward scale drift (no greater than 5 points on average), and the drift may be explained by an accumulation of random equating errors. The Writing score scale has experienced a significant upward scale drift (11 points on average), which may be caused by sources other than random equating errors.


We consider weighted nonbinary repeat multiple-accumulate (WNRMA) code ensembles obtained from the serial concatenation of a nonbinary rate-1/n repetition code and the cascade of L≥1 accumulators, where each encoder is followed by a nonbinary random weighter. We derive the exact weight enumerator of nonbinary accumulators and subsequently give the weight enumerators for WNRMA code ensembles. We formally prove that the symbol-wise minimum distance of WNRMA code ensembles asymptotically grows linearly with the block length when L≥3 and n≥2, and L=2 and n≥3, for all powers of primes q ≥3 considered, where q is the field size. Thus, WNRMA code ensembles are asymptotically good for these parameters.


This study assessed the activities GIZ technology intervention on Shea nut processing in Niger State, Nigeria. The objectives were to identify the available improved shea nut processing technologies and the level of adoption of the improved GIZ shea nut processing technologies in the study area. A two-stage sampling technique was adopted for the study. Data were collected through interview schedule and analysed using percentages, and likert type scale. The data reveals that majority of the respondents (98.7%) adopted the GIZ improved processing technologies, while very few of the respondents (1.3%) did not adopt the GIZ improved processing technologies. In the seven sub-components in which a few of the respondents that did not adopt it might be due to some factors adduced to inadequate concrete platform, unavailability of some equipment/materials and inadequate knowledge of some concepts which they might have forgotten as taught under GIZ extension services. The study concluded that the intervention programme should be repeated and extended to non- beneficiary Local Government of the State to increase the economic activities of the processors on quality production of Shea butter.


State‐of‐the‐art methods for the assessment of building fragility consider the structural capacity and seismic demand variability in the estimation of the probability of exceeding different damage states. However, questions remain regarding the appropriate treatment of such sources of uncertainty from a statistical significance perspective. In this study, material, geometrical and mechanical properties of a number of building classes are simulated by means of a Monte Carlo sampling process in which the statistical distribution of the aforementioned parameters is taken into consideration. Record selection is performed in accordance with hazard‐consistent distributions of a comprehensive set of intensity measures, and issues related with sufficiency, efficiency, predictability and scaling robustness are addressed. Based on the appraised minimum number of ground motion records required to achieve statistically meaningful estimates of response variability conditioned on different levels of seismic intensity, the concept of conditional fragility functions is presented. These functions translate the probability of exceeding a set of damage states as a function of a secondary sufficient intensity measure, when records are selected and scaled for a particular level of primary seismic intensity parameter. It is demonstrated that this process allows a hazard‐consistent and statistically meaningful representation of uncertainty and correlation in the estimation of intensity‐dependent damage exceedance probabilities. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The factors of age, sex, specialty or primary interest, specialty board status, neighborhood of practice, and medical school are examined in relation to whether or not physicians in private practice in the Southern New York Region have appointments to a hospital medical staff. Evidence is adduced to suggest that the existence of the isolated practitioner is probably a function of several variables. While it appears that the medical staff of many hospitals utilize quite selective criteria pertaining to the admission of new members, it seems likely from the data that the individual physician's perception of the relevance of a hospital appointment is quite varied, being greatly affected by his personal and professional interests, and that as a consequence his motivation to achieve membership is also varied. The implications of such findings are that community, institutional, and individual responsibility should be exercised toward assuring opportunities for institutional affiliation to all licensed physicians and for motivating physicians to seek such opportunities.


This Paper gives information about Grid base multipath wireless sensor network. We give a brief introduction about wireless sensor network, how sensor works in this network. How the Routing is done and if there is congestion detected in sensors networks and then how it can be solved. Routing protocols are also classified in several types like Proactive, Reactive, and Hybrid in also given here the details of that. Also here we describe various routing techniques like Traditional and Current techniques. In flooding based techniques, sensor broadcast the information and the destination sensor receives that information. In gossiping techniques, sensor sends information to neighbour sensor and so on. In this paper we also see that if any sensor id dies due to lack of power or any other problems then another path will be routed. Routing protocols are having 3 types Flat routing, Hierarchical routing and Location based routing. In Flat routing SPIN,DD, Rumor routing, etc protocols are used. In hierarchical routing LEACH, PEGASIS, TEEN protocols are used. Now a day LEACH and PEGASIS are widely used in cluster base Wireless Sensor Network. In leach protocol reduced the path using cluster head formulation in this method randomly any sensor make the cluster head n send messages in the network. In pegasis protocol use chaining concept and find the best path from base station to the destination station. PEGASIS and LEACH provide best routing techniques in wireless sensor network but they also have some disadvantages. We also differentiate flat and hierarchical routing techniques in which case which one gives best performances. Here we introduce the readers to Location based routing protocols GEAR and how it route the path is also briefly described here. Keywords— Wireless Sensor Network protocols, GMCAR, Flooding, Gossiping, SPIN,LEACH, PEGASIS, TEEN


Upon review of Drs. Prause and Pfaus' manuscript, "Viewing Sexual Stimuli Associated with Greater Sexual Responsiveness, Not Erectile Dysfunction," I feel obliged to question the authors' presentation of their data, analysis, and far-ranging conclusions. The vast availability of pornographic videos through the Internet has led to a host of social, physical, interpersonal, and emotional problems for our patients 1–5. Drs. Prause and Pfaus are right in focusing the medical community's attention on one reported physical complication: pornography-induced erectile dysfunction. Unfortunately, I do not see how this study advances our understanding of the phenomenon.

The authors' description of the study population was seriously incomplete. The authors cite four published studies as the source of the study population (see Table 1) 6–9; however, upon examination of those studies, I can only source 234 of the 280 men assessed in this investigation. Forty-six men are unaccounted for. The authors provide no accounting of the origin of their study population, nor characterization or identification of the source of the subpopulations selected for assessment of the outcome measures. For instance, in only one study [6] were subjects assessed for erectile dysfunction through use of the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF). The 2013 Prause paper reports on IIEF results from 47 men, yet the authors of the present study report on IIEF findings in 133 men. Were these 86 additional subjects excluded from analysis in the 2013 study, or were they from some other uncharacterized database? Multiple other discrepancies are found between the manuscript and the cited sources (Table 1).

Table 1

Discrepancies identified in manuscript

The apparent inclusion of these subjects from the 2013 Prause study [6] in the analysis of sexual arousal and sexual desire raises further concerns. While this investigation was designed to address sexual arousal and desire in the laboratory setting in response to the viewing of pornographic films, the 47 men in the 2013 Prause study were shown still photographs rather than films. It seems unlikely that the viewing of still photographs generates a level of arousal comparable with explicit pornographic videos [10]. The authors offer no justification for the inclusion of data from these subjects, nor any accounting to indicate that these subjects were excluded from their analysis of sexual arousal and desire. Moreover, it is clear from the published manuscripts that the other three studies providing subjects for this investigation 7–9 used videos of inconsistent duration (20 seconds to 3 minutes). Without uniformity of the erotic stimulus, the legitimacy of pooling data from the various sources is questionable.

It is disturbing that the authors do not provide descriptive statistics about the study's central parameter: the hours of pornography viewed. While the authors report that they have clustered the data into three bins (none, less than 2 hours, more than 2 hours), they do not provide basic population statistics such as the mean, standard deviation, median, or range for hours of pornography viewing for the overall population or any subpopulation. Without understanding the populations in terms of the critical parameter, the reader cannot translate the study findings to the care of his/her individual patients.

The hours-viewed parameter itself is poorly defined. We are not told if the self-report of hours referenced the preceding week, the average over the last year, or was entirely left to subject interpretation. Were there subjects who were new porn users who had not had enough exposure to develop erectile or other sexual issues? Were there subjects who were previously heavy users who had recently cut down or eliminated their pornography viewing? Absent a well-defined and consistent referent, the porn use data are uninterpretable.

Furthermore, the authors do not report on relevant viewing parameters such as total pornography usage, age of onset, presence of escalation, and extent of sexual activity with partner which may have bearing on male sexual functioning [11],[12]. In addition, the exclusion of hypersexual men (the men who generally complain about pornography-induced erectile dysfunction) raises questions about the relevance and generalizability of the study's erectile function findings.

Even more disturbing is the total omission of statistical findings for the erectile function outcome measure. The statistical tests that the authors used are not identified, although the reader is told that there were "several." No statistical results whatsoever are provided. Instead, the authors ask the reader to simply believe their unsubstantiated statement that there was no association between hours of pornography viewed and erectile function. Given the authors' conflicting assertion that erectile function with a partner may actually be improved by viewing pornography (with fruit fly studies cited for support), and their boastful prepublication promotion of their findings on Twitter (https://twitter.com/NicolePrause/status/552862571485605890), the absence of statistical analysis is most egregious.

The authors clearly devoted much time and energy to their research project. It is unfortunate that they have not provided the reader with sufficient information about the population studied or the statistical analyses to justify their conclusion that pornography is unlikely to negatively impact erectile functioning. While there is some indication in the data that nonporn-addicted men watching brief pornography films may have increased sexual arousal and desire, this is hardly a novel finding.


Since modern Biology has been transformed to a quantitative science dealing with tremendous amounts of data, the applications of information science and technology on Biology, i.e. Bioinformatics, are so many that they comprise a separate dataset needing organization and indexing for optimum search and information retrieval. Metabasis, a web-based database system for organizing and maintaining information relevant to published bioinformatics tools and databases has been developed by our group. However, such an effort requires rapid and massive information update, an issue quite difficult since the bioinformatics tools production rate is very high and there is no standard protocol in the way they are presented in the literature. We present here a high throughput automatic retrieval procedure to keep alive a database of this kind, using certain methodology for automatic downloading, parsing and filtering data from the related literature.


As a consequence of his numerical local Langlands correspondence for $GL(n)$, Henniart deduced the following theorem: If $F$ is a nonarchimedean local field and if $\pi$ is an irreducible admissible representation of $GL(n,F)$, then, after a finite sequence of cyclic base changes, the image of $\pi$ contains a vector fixed under an Iwahori subgroup. This result was indispensable in all proofs of the local Langlands correspondence. Scholze later gave a different proof, based on the analysis of nearby cycles in the cohomology of the Lubin-Tate tower. Let $G$ be a reductive group over $F$. Assuming a theory of stable cyclic base change exists for $G$, we define an incorrigible supercuspidal representation $\pi$ of $G(F)$ to be one with the property that, after any sequence of cyclic base changes, the image of $\pi$ contains a supercuspidal member. If F is of positive characteristic then we define $\pi$ to be pure if the Langlands parameter attached to $\pi$ by Genestier and Lafforgue is pure in an appropriate sense. We conjecture that no pure supercuspidal representation is incorrigible. We prove this conjecture for $GL(n)$ and for classical groups, using properties of standard $L$-functions; and we show how this gives rise to a proof of Henniart's theorem and the local Langlands correspondence for $GL(n)$ based on V. Lafforgue's Langlands parametrization, and thus independent of point-counting on Shimura or Drinfel'd modular varieties.


In a field experiment conducted during the kharif season of 2015-16 in farmer's field at Shinganhalli village in Dharwad taluka. The status of soil nutrients, their depletion, build-up and crop productivity on Vertisol was studied. The differences in the values of available N, P2O5 and K2O in soil at 20 cm depth and crop productivity were found to be very marked. The data on yield shows that the application of balanced fertilizer dose of N, P and K as per STCR treatment with farm yard manure @ 10.0 t/ha helped in sustaining the yield of maize at higher. The inclusion of FYM in the treatment schedule maintaining the status of available N, P and K in soil thereby, sustaining the soil health. The under dosing of plant nutrients has caused a depletion in the available nutrients status of soil.


A method for post-processing compressed image data for reducing blocking artefacts is suggested, in which a set of primary image data (PID) is decomposed into data sets (IID1, IID2) containing the fine structure of the image with structure being smaller than the blocking artefacts and without the blocking artefacts and structures being larger than or comparable to the blocking artefacts as well as the blocking artefacts, respectively. In the decomposition of the primary image data (PID) a non-linear filtering process (F1) is involved. After decomposition of the primary image data (PID) a filtering process (F3) can be applied to the set of intermediate image data (IID2) containing larger details of the image as well as the blocking artefacts. Therefore, in the process of filtering out the blocking artefacts, the fine structure of the image is not influenced.


The sphingolipids galactosylceramide (GalCer), sulfatide (ST) and sphingomyelin (SM) are essential for myelin stability and function. GalCer and ST are synthesized mostly from C22-C24 ceramides, generated by Ceramide Synthase 2 (CerS2). To clarify the requirement for C22-C24 sphingolipid synthesis in myelin lipid biosynthesis and stability, we generated mice lacking CerS2 specifically in myelinating cells (CerS2ΔO/ΔO). At 6 weeks of age, normal-appearing myelin had formed in CerS2ΔO/ΔO mice, however there was a reduction in myelin thickness and the percentage of myelinated axons. Pronounced loss of C22-C24 sphingolipids in myelin of CerS2ΔO/ΔO mice was compensated by greatly increased levels of C18 sphingolipids. A distinct microglial population expressing high levels of activation and phagocytic markers such as CD64, CD11c, MHC class II, and CD68 was apparent at 6 weeks of age in CerS2ΔO/ΔO mice, and had increased by 10 weeks. Increased staining for denatured myelin basic protein was also apparent in 6-week-old CerS2ΔO/ΔO mice. By 16 weeks, CerS2ΔO/ΔO mice showed pronounced myelin atrophy, motor deficits, and axon beading, a hallmark of axon stress. 90% of CerS2ΔO/ΔO mice died between 16 and 26 weeks of age. This study highlights the importance of sphingolipid acyl chain length for the structural integrity of myelin, demonstrating how a modest reduction in lipid chain length causes exposure of a denatured myelin protein epitope and expansion of phagocytic microglia, followed by axon pathology, myelin degeneration, and motor deficits. Understanding the molecular trigger for microglial activation should aid the development of therapeutics for demyelinating and neurodegenerative diseases. Main Points Oligodendrocytes lacking CerS2 produce myelin using sphingolipids with C16/C18 instead of C22/C24 N-acyl chains C22/C24 myelin sphingolipids are essential for myelin stability, microglial quiescence, and survival beyond young adulthood Table of Contents Image


This paper presents a new algorithm for supporting fault tolerant objects in distributed systems. The fault tolerance provided by the algorithm is fully user transparent. The algorithm uses a variation of object replication scheme, which we call the Hot Replication Scheme. The algorithm supports nested object invocations. The chief advantages of the scheme are: a) No action is needed in the case of failure of a secondary replica, b) The time to recover from a primary failure is minimal, c) Separation of replication protocol and reliable communication protocol. To recover from a primary failure the system need to (detect the failure and) select one of the secondaries to become the primary. The designated secondary can become primary once it has made sure that its current state is equivalent to the state of the failed primary (it can do so by processing outstanding requests, if any). This is in contrast with the checkpointing and rollback recovery scheme, where the recovery time can be substantial. Our algorithm exploits the general features and concepts associated with the notion of the objects and object interactions to its advantage.


The influence of strong light injection on the reduction of the dynamical linewidth broadening of directly current-modulated semiconductor lasers at high bit rates is theoretically investigated and experimentally verified for 10 Gb/s NRZ pseudorandom modulation with a large current swing of 40 mA pp. Significant chirp reduction and single-mode operation are observed for bulk DFB, quantum well DFB lasers at 10 Gb/s and a weakly coupled bulk DFB laser at 8 Gb/s, so that an improvement of the transmission performance using standard monomode fibers in the 1.55 /spl mu/m low-loss wavelength region can be achieved for all these laser types, where dispersion otherwise causes severe penalties for long-haul transmission. The properties of injection-locked bulk DFB and quantum well DFB lasers with respect to high bit rate modulation have been systematically studied by the use of the rate equation formalism. A dynamically stable locking range of more than 30 GHz under modulation has been found for both laser types with injection ratios higher than 0.5. >


The inhibitory output from the internal pallidum and substantia nigra to the thalamus forms an important link in the transmission of basal ganglia processing to cortex. Two hypotheses consider either inhibition of thalamic activity or thalamic excitation via post-inhibitory rebound burst firing as the functional mode of this link. We used optogenetics to characterize the synaptic properties of nigral input to motor thalamus in adult mouse brain slices, and to determine in what conditions the nigral inhibition of motor thalamus is transmitted via inhibition or rebound firing. Our results are more consistent with graded inhibition of spiking for conditions expected in normal awake animals, because inhibitory potentials from nigral input were generally not sufficient to elicit rebound spikes when the thalamic neurons were actively firing. However, with bursty or fast trains of nigral input low-threshold rebound spike bursts could be triggered for low levels of excitation. This may form the basis of pathological burst generation and transmission in parkinsonian conditions.


The determination of the thrombic or prothrombic activity of blood or blood plasma preparations is beset with many difficulties. The use of a variety of methods and means of expressions of thrombin units has served to complicate rather than clarify the basic aspects of this problem. The application of existing assay methods to new prothrombin-containing systems likewise presents new problems. The work reported here represents a study of some of the factors affecting the assay of prothrombin in protein components of human plasma which has been fractionated by the low temperature-ethanol procedures of Cohn et al. (1). It was of particular interest to study the influence of different fractions derived from a parent substance on the "two-stage" assay method of Warner, Brinkhous and Smith (2) in which all -of the prothrombin is converted to thrombin prior to its addition to a system containing fibrinogen. In conjunction with this work, a photoelectric determination of the clotting time was developed and utilized.


Laboratory experiments have been performed to demonstrate significant levels of oxygen depletion within samples of Upnor Formation of the Lambeth Group deposits. These have been used to explain the reasons for several incidences of confined space hypoxia during underground construction within the stratum beneath London. Further investigation, using a relatively small-scale field pump-out test, revealed the rapid effects of dewatering on the generation of hypoxic gas (within the ground) and that the amount of oxygen falls to fatal levels within a very short time after commencement of pumping. Monitoring of boreholes during ground investigation for the Thames Tideway Tunnel has indicated barometric control on the release of hypoxic gas from installations within granular deposits of the Lambeth Group, namely the Upnor Formation, as well as channel sand deposits within the Laminated Beds. In these, reduced levels of oxygen coincide with low and/or falling barometric pressure. Continuous 24-hour monitoring demonstrates that the reduction is almost instantaneous and has serious implications for the Health and Safety of underground construction personnel.


Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are laboratory courses that integrate broadly relevant problems, discovery, use of the scientific process, collaboration, and iteration to provide more students with research experiences than is possible in individually mentored faculty laboratories. Members of the national Malate dehydrogenase CUREs Community (MCC) investigated the differences in student impacts between traditional laboratory courses (control), a short module CURE within traditional laboratory courses (mCURE), and CUREs lasting the entire course (cCURE). The sample included approximately 1,500 students taught by 22 faculty at 19 institutions. We investigated course structures for elements of a CURE and student outcomes including student knowledge, student learning, student attitudes, interest in future research, overall experience, future GPA, and retention in STEM. We also disaggregated the data to investigate whether underrepresented minority (URM) outcomes were different from White and Asian students. We found that the less time students spent in the CURE the less the course was reported to contain experiences indicative of a CURE. The cCURE imparted the largest impacts for experimental design, career interests, and plans to conduct future research, while the remaining outcomes were similar between the three conditions. The mCURE student outcomes were similar to control courses for most outcomes measured in this study. However, for experimental design, the mCURE was not significantly different than either the control or cCURE. Comparing URM and White/Asian student outcomes indicated no difference for condition, except for interest in future research. Notably, the URM students in the mCURE condition had significantly higher interest in conducting research in the future than White/Asian students.


This paper is one of the first attempts at empirically identifying organisational capabilities – in this work concerning Italian firms. Together, it proposes new evidence on the link between capabilities and economic performances. In order to do so, we employ the Indagine Multiscopo del Censimento Permanente delle Imprese (IMCPI), a survey carried out by the Italian Statistical Office (ISTAT) in 2019, covering the three-year period 2016–2018, addressing a wide range of organizational characteristics including various organizational routines, human resource management, internationalisation strategies and many others. Our contribution is threefold: first, we aim at detecting what practices and combinations of them result in underlying different capabilities; second, we propose a taxonomy of the production system, both at firmand sector-level based on the mapping of such capabilities, third we study the performance outcomes of different capability-taxa in terms of productivity and employment growth. JEL classification: D21, D22, D83, J24, J53


Cisplatin, a platinum compound, exerts its cytotoxic effects by coordinating to DNA where it inhibits both replication and transcription, and induces programmed cell death. It is used in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. In the present study, an attempt was made to achieve better treatment of lung cancer by direct lung delivery of cisplatin microparticulate systems, which helps to localize the drug in the lungs, and also provide sustained action. Cisplatin-loaded chitosan microspheres were prepared by emulsification and ionotropic gelation method, and characterized for drug content, particle size, densities, flow properties, moisture content, and surface topography by SEM and in vitro drug release was evaluated in simulated lung fluid at 37° at pH 7.4. The respirable or fine particle fraction (FPF) was determined by using twin stage impinger (TSI). Further stability evaluation of cisplatin-loaded DPI systems was carried out at 25°/60% RH and at 40°/75% RH.


This article contributes to our historical understanding of student experience in general, and more particularly, to our understanding of developing cross-group relationships within desegregated schools over the second half of the twentieth century. The article draws from a broader study that examines students' evolving relationships within a matrix of intersecting identities in a Baltimore County comprehensive high school in Maryland between 1950 and 2000. The focus in this article is on Miller High students of the 1950s and 1960s during the early years of desegregation. Relationships remembered by graduates bring to light the hierarchical structure that distinguished white students along class and gender lines within an academically tracked system and the limitations and possibilities afforded African-American youth across class and gender as they encountered Miller High established norms for the first time in 1956 when the school desegregated.


Patients' experiences are an indicator of health‐care performance in the accident and emergency department (A&E). The Consumer Quality Index for the Accident and Emergency department (CQI A&E), a questionnaire to assess the quality of care as experienced by patients, was investigated. The internal consistency, construct validity and discriminative capacity of the questionnaire were examined.


The Perceived Teacher Behavior Inventory was designed to measure three dimensions of students' perceptions of the behaviors of their teachers. This research was conducted to assess the statistical validity and reliability of the instrument administered to 770 students attending two coeducational high schools in Cape Town, South Africa. Factor analysis clearly identified three subscales indicating that the instrument distinguished the students' perceptions of their teachers' behaviors in three areas. Estimates of internal consistency of the subscales were assessed using the squared multiple correlation as the index of reliability.


Generally, conscience is understood as an individual and subjective character of human being; nevertheless, re- cently its rational character has been highlighted and subjected to external evaluation criteria. The application of moral conscience judgments is transversal to all health care fields, even in daily relations with patients. Health care professionals conscience objection has been criticized because it could neglect professional responsibility; never- theless, to follow an honest conscience is a moral duty for all, independently of role fulfilled in a certain moment. To prevent to do it means to damage autonomy and moral integrity of who seeks to act in conscience.


Investigating catalytic reactions with computational methods is a powerful approach to understand fundamental aspects of catalytic reactions and find ways to guide catalytic design. Partial methane oxidation is one example of a reaction with intriguing challenges, where a detailed atomistic approach may help to unravel the bottlenecks of this, as of yet, inefficient reaction. Although methane only needs one oxygen atom for conversion to methanol, the direct oxidation is difficult; it is in fact so difficult that at many oil extraction sites, the methane that inevitably accompanies the crude oil is flared into carbon dioxide and water as gas-phase methane is too inconvenient to store and transport. The main challenge with partial oxidation of methane is to selectively control the oxidation and steer it towards methanol and prevent over-oxidation to CO2. There exist natural enzymes that can partially oxidize methane to methanol at ambient pressure and temperature, although very slowly. One inorganic analogue to these naturally occurring enzymes are zeolites, a porous material that can readily be synthesized and that have been shown to convert methane to methanol at ambient conditions with a high selectivity (>90 %). This has been realized for zeolites ion-exchanged with different metals, such as iron, cobalt, nickel, and copper. Although there have been many attempts to determine the active site for the reaction, there is still no consensus. One candidate that has been put forth is a [Cu-O-Cu]2+ motif experimentally characterized in the ZSM-5 zeolite. In this thesis, partial oxidation of methane is investigated, focusing on this dimer motif. By combining density functional theory calculations with microkinetic modelling, the catalytic performance of the dimer motif is investigated with a simple reaction mechanism for copper, but also with the copper atoms exchanged with nickel, cobalt, iron, silver, or gold. From these results, it is clear that this particular dimer site is a relevant candidate only for copper, and can be excluded in the continued search for active sites in nickel, cobalt, and iron ion-exchanged ZSM-5. To further understand how methanol is formed and interacts with Cu-ZSM-5, experimental and calculated infrared frequencies are compared for methanol and other adsorbates. The partial oxidation of methane is also studied for other systems with oxidants other than oxygen. In particular, methane oxidation with H2S to CH3SH and H2 is explored on molybdenum sulfide clusters.


GaN films were grown by the MBE method on substrates. Photoluminescence (PL) of the epitaxial films has been studied to characterize the films ex situ. The room-temperature PL spectrum contains an edge PL band and also a broad band of deep-level emission at 2.6 eV. This deep-level emission becomes very small in comparison with the edge emission at helium temperatures. Analysis of the low-temperature data suggests that the films contain both hexagonal and cubic crystallites. The main PL lines at 5.7 K are due to emission of excitons bound on neutral donors in hexagonal and cubic phases of the epitaxial film (3.472 eV and 3.263 eV), D - A pair recombination (3.154 eV) and also free electron - neutral acceptor transition (3.185 eV) in c-GaN. The involved acceptor has a binding energy of about 115 meV.


Previous indices for measuring the potential impact of a diagnostic test on a physician's management of a given patient were derived based on a fixed threshold model. The authors adapted these indices to a stochastic threshold model. In the stochastic threshold model the physician's probability of treating the patient is a function of the patient's probability of disease. From this model the authors derived the management value index (the expected effect that the test has on the physician's probability for treating the patient) and the utility value index (the expected benefit to the patient if the diagnostic test is used). Graphs of the indices versus the patient's probability of disease may be useful in teaching appropriate use of diagnostic tests.


The nanoparticles generally show abnormal properties compared to those in the bulk phase, and they exhibit significant potential in various applications such as catalysis and energy conversion. However, the theoretical work for describing the properties of nanoparticles is limited with poor prediction capacity. In this work, the Gibbs free energy was studied, from both macroscope and microscope, predictive models were proposed to study the thermodynamic properties of nanoparticles with a generalized description of the Gibbs free energy considering the effects of surface-energy and the substrate contacted. The proposed model from the microscope was based on the corresponding states theory to describe the effect of the substrate on the Gibbs free energy of nanoparticles, in which the molecular parameter with a generalized constant was obtained from the melting point of metals due to sufficient experimental information. The comparison with the new measured experimental results proves the reliability of the model prediction. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 4595–4603, 2017


Data hiding is a serious topic for secret deliveries of confidential data through an unreliable computer network. Image is a useful media for covering secret data to achieve the purpose of delivering confidential data covertly. The techniques in the compression domain not only effectively reduce the size of image but also embed the confidential data into the compressed data. DWT based state-codebook search algorithm for vector quantization has better compression performance than side-match vector quantization for images with complex contents. The proposed method utilizes DWT based state-codebook search algorithm to reduce the size of image and embedding the secret data into the compressed image. In our design, unauthorized users cannot to know the secret data from stego-image without the decryption key. The experiment results showed that the proposed method successful embedded the secret data and maintained the visual quality of stego-image.


In most currently-used analytical models for studying rain-wind induced cable vibration, wind velocity relative to cable motion was determined by trigonometric decomposition and the aerodynamic coefficients of a cable were measured through wind tunnel tests using a horizontal cable model with two-dimensional flow field. In this paper, the aerodynamic coefficients of a cable were measured using a spatial cable model with a three-dimensional flow and an analytical model was developed to predict rain-wind induced cable vibration. The feasibility of the proposed analytical model was examined through the comparison with wind tunnel test results. The mechanism of rain-wind induced cable vibration was also investigated from viewpoints of rivulet motion and system energy. Further, an extensive parametric study was carried out in this study to investigate the properties of rain-wind induced vibration of a stay cable. The observation indicates that rain-wind induced cable vibration is essentially similar to cable galloping with limited amplitude, which is mainly induced by negative slope of lift coefficient curve and rivulet oscillation. The results from the parametric study indicate that the aerodynamic and motion parameters of cables may affect the maximum amplitude and the wind speed range for the occurrence of rain-wind induced vibration.


English language has some sentence types used in writing. The complex sentence is one of the sentence types that occur in writing. However, in the practice, it is found that some students still make errors and have difficulties in writing it. This study attempted to find the kinds of error on constructing complex sentences in students" writing. The purpose of this study is to identify the errors in the students" writing of English Education Study Program at STKIP PGRI Sidoarjo on the use of complex sentences. The methodology used in this study is descriptive qualitative method. The source of data of this study was the errors of complex sentences taken from the seventh semester students" written task of English Education Study Program at STKIP PGRI Sidoarjo. This study found that there were 74 errors in students" writing on constructing complex sentences. The errors of complex sentences were classified into errors of omission, errors of addition, errors of misformation, and errors of misordering. There were 70% of errors of misformation, 23% of errors of omission, 4% of errors of addition, and 3% of errors of misordering. Many students still make errors in using the correct form of verb in complex sentences which considered as error of misformation. To keep away doing the same mistakes, the students are supposed to try many times on writing complex sentences using correct form of verb.


Abstract There has been no study evaluating the change of limb alignment for patients with genu valgum. The purpose of this study was to investigate the change of limb alignments in children and adolescents with idiopathic genu valgum through evaluating distal femur, proximal tibia, and knee joint line. Consecutive children and adolescents, under the age of 18, with genu valgum were included. Mechanical tibiofemoral angle, mechanical lateral distal femoral angle, mechanical medial proximal tibia angle, and joint line convergence angle were measured. The rate of changes for each radiographic measurement were analyzed using a linear mixed model. A total of 1539 teleroentgenograms from 518 limbs of 273 individuals were included in this study. Linear mixed model showed that the change of limb alignment was significantly associated with age, but not associated with gender and laterality. The mechanical tibiofemoral angle was most valgus initially, decreasing until reaching its lowest value of 2.8° at 10 years old. The mechanical lateral distal femoral angle decreases from initial neutral alignment and increases in valgus continuously. The mechanical medial proximal tibia angle decreases from initial valgus and progresses to be neutral at around the age of 10. The joint line convergence angle decreases sharply from initial valgus alignment to 0° at the age of 5. Valgus alignment in children with idiopathic genu valgum decreases until approximately the age of 10. In younger children, the tibia and joint line contribute most to overall valgus alignment; in older children, the femur contributes the most. Based on our results, we recommend monitoring patient limb alignment until it stabilizes around the age of 10, and then carefully planning and performing corrective surgery with complete consideration of the changing bony alignment.


Twentieth century has been characterized by many structural changes on the planetary level. The changes were caused by social revolutions, the communist bloc collapse, huge technological advances, not least the significant increase of the international trade volume. The second part of the century brought the globalization as a major feature of our world. Globalization has manifested first in the Economical field and then gradually in other areas of the social life. This phenomenon brought undeniable benefits and a number of risks and negative effects for the countries of the world. The biggest threat in this respect is the extent of transnational organized crime. Implications: The originality of this paper is consisting in understanding of money laundering using the factors that define the formation and development of this crime, as well the favor factors. The added value of the paper comes from interdisciplinary presentation of this crime. This paper highlights the conditions and factors that cause serious consequences in this respect. Studying this crime and its features could be a key for solving many problems in the area of Economical crimes. This paper could contribute to the work of police officers, prosecutors or judges on daily bases fight against crime and its social consequences.


Future autonomous service robots are intended to operate in open and complex environments. This in turn implies complications ensuring safe operation. The tenor of few available investigations is the need for dynamically assessing operational risks. Furthermore, a new kind of hazards being implicated by the robot's capability to manipulate the environment occurs: hazardous environmental object interactions. One of the open questions in safety research is integrating safety knowledge into robotic systems, enabling these systems behaving safety-conscious in hazardous situations. In this paper a safety procedure is described, in which learning of safety knowledge from human demonstration is considered. Within the procedure, a task is demonstrated to the robot, which observes object-to-object relations and labels situational data as commanded by the human. Based on this data, several supervised learning techniques are evaluated used for finally extracting safety knowledge. Results indicate that Decision Trees allow interesting opportunities.