Genome mapping problems in bioinformatics can be modelled as problems of finding sequences of vertices in hypergraphs, subject to consecutivity constraints. These problems are related to the consecutive ones property, a well-studied structural property on binary matrices. Many variants of this property have been introduced to include subtleties in the model, such as upper bounds on the number of times a vertex may appear in a sequence, the distance of the input from having the property, and confidence values for the consecutivity constraints. Most problems involving these variants are intractable, and efficient solutions call for restrictions on the structure of the input, exponential time algorithms, or approximations. The following document discusses these problems, from both a theoretical perspective, and from the genomics point of view. We encounter two main classes of problems, divided into models which account for repeated elements in genomes, and those which do not. Orthogonally, we divide the problems into decision and optimization questions. For models with repeats, we discuss when the given input can be used to reconstruct the genome map of interest, and if we can discard a minimal set of encoded consecutivity information from the model to obtain an input which can be used to reconstruct this genome map. We also discuss the problem of ambiguity introduced by repeats, and introduce the concept of repeat spanning intervals in order to address them. We show that the problem of optimizing over the set of repeat spanning intervals is NP-hard in general, and give an algorithm when the intervals are small. In models without repeated elements, we discuss the problem of optimization by finding a solution that minimizes the distortion in the consecutivity information, by generalizing the concepts of bandwidth and minimum linear arrangement to hypergraphs. We design approximation algorithms for two versions of the latter problem, with an approximation ratio of O (√ logn log logn ) . Finally, we provide details of implementations of some of the methods developed for genome mapping and scaffolding on ancestral genomes. We include results on real data for the genome of the Black Death agent, and for ancestral Anopheles mosquitoes.


The article analyzes the place of the "Theory of economic law" in the system of legal regulation of economic relations. It shows the historical development of economic legislation. The "Theory of economic law" is compared with economic, civil, business, commercial and economic law. The author believes that the " Theory of economic law "is an integral part of the "Theory of law". The article substantiates the need to use the "Theory of economic law" in its perspective, which will allow to coordinate economic legislation. The Theory considers economic institutions as the basis of legal influence. These institutions are the primary areas in the formation of legal regimes. Legal regimes have a complex cross-sectoral character.


We have studied the properties of a new type of gas microstrip counter built using flexible printed circuit technology. We describe the manufacturing procedures, the assembly of the device, as well as its operation under a variety of conditions, gases and types of radiation. We also describe two new passivation materials, tantalum and niobium, which produce effective surfaces.


Between the Ascension and Bode Verde Fracture Zones, an ∼200 km length of the axis of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge has a large positive residual depth anomaly and an axial high morphology that suggest a plume influence. New wide-angle seismic and gravity data from this area show that (1) the crustal thickness increases from 6 km at the propagating rift marking the northern limit of the anomalous zone to 10 km at the center of the zone and (2) the residual depth anomalies may be largely explained by Airy isostatic support for these crustal-thickness variations. These observations, combined with the lack of long-wavelength gravity and residual depth anomalies associated with the proposed Ascension plume, suggest either the presence of a weak and intermittent plume, or melting of a series of small mantle heterogeneities.


There are a few things you might need for an experiment involving beagles and the side effects of contraceptive pills. Animal research ethics aside, beagles might be a good start.


Abstract The current article addresses the empirical validity of the Cartesian view of language by first examining a sample of the results generated by over 30 years of chimpanzee sign language studies and then examining some neurological and behavioral data that accounts for the similarity between human and nonhuman communication systems. Finally an attempt will be made to propose a unified model of language that accounts for these findings and shows how the Cartesian world view has proposed a theory of language that is incomplete. [Neurol Res 2001; 23: 787-794]


Background Preoperative patients' vulnerabilities such as physical, social, and psychological are implicated in postoperative pain variability. Nevertheless, it is a challenge to analyze a patient's psychological profile in the preoperative period in a practical and consistent way. Thus, we sought to identify if high preoperative emotional stress, evaluated by the Brief Measure of Emotional Preoperative Stress (B-MEPS) scale is associated with higher postoperative pain levels and poor rehabilitation in patients submitted to intermediate or major surgery. Moreover, the possible neurobiological or neurophysiological mechanisms implicated in high preoperative emotional stress, evaluated through preoperative quantitative sensory pain tests and serum biomarkers BDNF and S100B were investigated. Methods We conducted a prospective, observational, cohort study of ASA 2 and 3 adult patients undergoing major urologic, gynecologic, proctologic and orthopedic surgeries from March 2017 to March 2018. B-MEPS and Central Sensitivity Inventory were evaluated preoperatively, followed by a sequence of experimental pain tests and serum biomarkers collection. Postoperative evaluation carried out within the first 48 hours after surgery comprehended pain at rest and movement-evoked pain, and the consumption of morphine. Quality-of-Recovery was also evaluated in the 3rd postoperative day. Results 23 (15%) out of 150 patients included in the study presented high emotional preoperative stress. Variables significantly related to preoperative stress were: previous psychiatric diagnosis and Central Sensitization Inventory result. Mean movement-evoked pain in the first 12 to 48 hours was 95–105% higher than pain at rest. A mixed model for repeated measures showed a sustainable effect of B-MEPS as a movement-evoked pain predictor. Previous pain, cancer surgery, and preoperative pressure pain tolerance were also independent predictors of postoperative pain. Moderate to severe postoperative movement-evoked pain was predictive of poor rehabilitation in 48 hours after surgery. Conclusion We confirmed that a brief screening method of preoperative emotional states could detect individuals prone to experience severe postoperative pain. Specific interventions considering the stress level may be planned in the future to improve perioperative outcomes.


As Moll Flanders struggles for survival amid the harsh social realities of seventeenth-century England, there is but one snare she is determined to avoid - the deadly snare of poverty. On the twisting path that leads from her birth in Newgate prison to her final prosperous respectability, love is regarded as worth no more than its weght in gold; and such matters as bigamy, incest, theft, and prostitution occasion but a brief blush before they are reckoned in terms of profit and losss. Yet so pure is her candor, so healthy her animal appetites, so indomitable her resilience through every vicissitude of fortune, that this extraordinary wench emerges as far more than a prototype of the mercantile mind. In "Moll Flanders" Defoe added a fresh dimension to the art of writing. "We seem to see Defoe's characters through the crytal-clear medium of his style with perfect verisimilitude, as real as if we saw them in a mirror that was so flawless that it was invisible, " writes Kennth Rexroth. Virginia Woolf ranked "Moll Flanders" as "among the few English novels which we can call indisputably great."


Abstract In line with the European Union's guidelines, the context of a mining resurgence in metropolitan France plans the prospective opening or reopening of mines. In this general context, the politicization of the post-mining subsurface is sparked by this mining industry rebirth, linked to reminiscences of its mismanagements. Politically and socially, research advances on post-mining issues become strategic knowledge to legitimise such a position. We hypothesise that the knowledge produced in the research has a longer reach (a more robust social impact) when it is co-constructed with the inhabitants, thus leaving the confined field of science to fertilise concrete action on the territory. Based on three case studies in the Cévennes informed by a review of scientific literature and the media, semi-structured interviews with scientists and local inhabitants, and informal interactions, this paper argues that even though they were not designed as participatory, the research processes investigated have become so, via spontaneous interactions with local inhabitants. We analyse the circulation of knowledge during the research processes and its impacts on the learning of researchers and inhabitants involved and on the territory. A reflection concerning a typology of forms of transdisciplinarity ongoing, and their influence is outlined.


Abstract Aim: To investigate differences in Achilles tendon structure between children with overweight/obesity and children with normal weight. Methods: Twenty-two children with obesity, 10 children with overweight, and 44 children with normal weight participated in the study. BMI% was calculated. The Achilles tendon was examined using ultrasound tissue characterization (UTC) imaging to capture a three-dimensional structure of four echo-type fibers and a cross-sectional area. Results: A significantly higher percentile of echo-types II, a lower percentile of echo-types III and IV, and a lower cross-sectional area were found for children with normal weight compared with children with overweight/obesity (p < .05). Following a piecewise linear regression model according to tendon structure, a BMI percentile of 75% was found to be the most accurate cutoff point of the children into the "unaffected" (BMI% <75%) and "affected" tendon structure groups (BMI% ≥ 75%), as the children with BMI%≥75% already had an Achilles tendon structure similar to that of the children with overweight/obesity. Conclusions: Tendon integrity as examined with UTC differs between children with obesity and children with normal weight. Children with a BMI percentile of ≥75 already demonstrate a different tendon structure pattern compared with children with BMI percentile of <75. This may put children with obesity at a greater risk of injury and should be addressed when applying an exercise program for children with overweight/obesity.


Our paper seeks to transfer the hairstyle of a reference image to an input photo for virtual hair tryon. We target a variety of challenges scenarios, such as transforming a long hairstyle with bangs to a pixie cut, which requires removing the existing hair and inferring how the forehead would look, or transferring partially visible hair from a hat-wearing person in a different pose. Past solutions leverage StyleGAN for hallucinating any missing parts and producing a seamless face-hair composite through so-called GAN inversion or projection. However, there remains a challenge in controlling the hallucinations to accurately transfer hairstyle and preserve the face shape and identity of the input. To overcome this, we propose a multi-view optimization framework that uses two different views of reference composites to semantically guide occluded or ambiguous regions. Our optimization shares information between two poses, which allows us to produce high fidelity and realistic results from incomplete references. Our framework produces high-quality results and outperforms prior work in a user study that consists of significantly more challenging hair transfer scenarios than previously studied. Project page: https://stylegan-salon.github.io/.


The correlation between benzodiazepine receptor affinity of 15 benzodiazepine derivatives an d their anti-conculsant activity was studied by reversible radioactive ligand binding and photoaffinity labeling methods. The binding characteristics of benzodiazepine receptor exhibited apparent heterogenecity with two dissociation constants (KD), ie, 0.276 and 5.960 nmol/L, respectively. They showed a good parallel between binding to receptor and anti-convulsant potency of benzodiazepine derivatives (r=0.958 for reversible binding and r=0.960 for photoaffinity labeling). The analysis of structure-activity relationship suggested that the affinity to BZ receptor of benzodiazepine derivatives and their pharmacological effects seemed to be dependent on the replacement of H atom by electrophilic groups at C7 in ring A, C2, in ring C and lactam structure of ring B. The BZ receptor seemed to have three positive electronic sites at least for binding to benzodiazepines.


Areas at risk of invasion by Procambarus clarkii (Decapoda: Cambaridae) a crayfish introduced in Colombia. Introduction: Biological invasions are a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystems, with current and potential impacts on public health and conservation. Procambarus clarkii is a decapod crustacean, native to the Southern United States and Northeastern Mexico, which may adapt to different environmental conditions due to its ecological plasticity. Objective: The existing fundamental ecological niche of Procambarus clarkii was characterized in order to predict areas with environmental suitability for the potential establishment of the species in South America and Colombia. Methods: We used models of calibrated ecological niches in the native area, elaborated with the Maxent algorithm, based on occurrence data extracted from GBIF and hydroclimatic variables of aquatic ecosystems at a resolution of 1 km2. Results: The model indicated a wide geographic area for invasion potential in South America, predicting environmentally suitable areas for the presence and expansion towards Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Guyana, Surinam, Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Chile. In Colombia, suitable areas predicted by the model are located mainly in the North and East of the country, spanning a diversity of ecosystems, such as tropical forests, basal forests, riparian forests and savannas. The species has a high possibility of expanding into low latitude distribution areas, occupying areas towards the Northern part of the Colombian Caribbean region, in the departments of Magdalena, Cesar, Cordoba and Atlántico. Suitability areas environmental were also predicted in Eastern Colombia, towards the extension of the Eastern plain of the Orinoquia, a low altitude region in Arauca, Casanare, Meta and Vichada. Conclusion: This study applies ecological niche models, which may be of interest in the planning of strategies or the creation of management plans, such as early warning systems that prevent the establishment of this species.


Abstract Objectives Based on the ellipse trial, liraglutide was recently approved for use in pediatric patients with type 2 diabetes. We report the comparative exposure of liraglutide in pediatric vs. adult patients. Methods In this pharmacokinetic (PK) and exposure-response meta-analysis, data from two pediatric trials (including ellipse) and two adult trials of liraglutide were compiled (1,137 PK observations from 116 patients) to determine the impact of body weight, age and sex on liraglutide exposure. The exposure-response relationship for glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and body weight was compared between pediatric and adult patients. Additionally, the relationships between exposure and change from baseline in body mass index (BMI) and BMI standard deviation score (SDS) were assessed. Results The same liraglutide dose showed comparable exposure levels in pediatric and adult patients. Body weight and sex were the most important covariates for liraglutide exposure. There was an increasing response with higher liraglutide concentrations, and greater reductions were observed from baseline in HbA1c at 26 weeks vs. placebo. A trend toward lower body weight, BMI and BMI SDS was observed at 26 weeks. Conclusions These results support use of the same liraglutide dosing regimen in children and adolescents, aged ≥10 years, as that used in adults.


Serological confirmation of an infectious acute myelitis injury is difficult to confirm as it is sometimes due to a post-infectious etiology. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to define the clinical, biological and prognostic patterns of infectious myelitis. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This retrospective study included 153 subjects hospitalized in the department of neurology between 1993 and 2002 for treatment of a noncompressive acute myelopathy. Biological confirmation of recent infection was obtained in 12 patients (8 p. 100). RESULTS: An infectious syndrome, beginning prior to the neurological symptoms, was found in 67 percent of patients. The clinical symptoms were severe with loss of sensoromotor and sphincter functions and ascending spinal cord dysfunction (acute transverse myelopathy). Spinal cord MRI showed extended centromedullar high intensity signals with rapid and complete regression. CSF analysis cell count was above 30/mm3 with hyperproteinorachia, in 75 percent and 58 percent of patients respectively. CSF electrophoresis did not detect oligoclonal bands. Clinical outcome was good in all patients except one, however sphincter disorders recovered slowly. DISCUSSION: Our study illustrates a stereotypical clinical, biological and prognostic pattern for infectious acute myelitis. These findings contribute significantly to therapeutic decision making and establishing prognosis at the initial phase of acute myelopathy.


Silt mantles the upland slopes and ridge tops throughout the unglaciated interior of Alaska, reaching maximum thickness along the north side of the Tanana River Valley. The silt is probably loess deposited during glacial advances by south winds blowing from the glaciated Alaska Range across outwash plains in the Tanana Valley. In the Fairbanks area, where it is best exposed, the upland silt is 1–80 feet thick on tops of low hills, 50–150 feet above the valley floor. It is 10–100 feet thick on middle slopes of higher hills and thins to a few feet on the higher slopes of ridges 800–2000 feet above the valley. Much silt has been reworked and moved by stream erosion into valley bottoms where it forms a fill 10–300 feet thick. The upland silt is well sorted. The texture and mineral composition are uniform throughout the Yukon-Tanana upland, whether the silt overlies schist, chert, granite or basalt. The silt stands in sheer cliffs and is massive, showing little or no stratification. During the past 50 years, fluviatile, marine, estuarine, lacustrine, residual, and eolian hypotheses have been proposed to explain the origin of the upland silt. The fluviatile marine and estuarine hypotheses never had strong support, but the lacustrine concept was popular in the early part of the century. Most of the upland silt is considered to be wind blown, derived from glacial outwash because: (1) it occurs as a surficial mantle (2) it is lithologically independent of the underlying material, (3) stratification is indistinct or absent, (4) it is associated with sand dunes and ventifacts, (5) it contains fossils of air-breathing land animals, (6) the sorting and texture are similar to upper Mississippi Valley loess and wind-blown dust, (7) the grains are angular and relatively fresh, and (8) loess is being deposited in the region today.


Quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping in livestock allows the identification of genes that determine the genetic variation affecting traits of economic interest. We analyzed the birth weight and weight at 60 days QTL segregating on bovine chromosome BTA14 in a F2 resource population using genotypes produced from seven microsatellite markers. Phenotypes were derived from 346 F2 progeny produced from crossing Bos indicus Gyr x Holstein Bos taurus F1 parents. Interval analysis to detect QTL for birth weight revealed the presence of a QTL (p < 0.05) at 1 centimorgan (cM) from the centromere with an additive effect of 1.210 ± 0.438 kg. Interval analysis for weight at 60 days revealed the presence of a QTL (p < 0.05) at 0 cM from the centromere with an additive effect of 2.122 ± 0.735 kg. The region to which the QTL were assigned is described in the literature as responsible for some growth traits, milk yield, milk composition, fat deposition and has also been related to reproductive traits such as daughter pregnancy rate and ovulation rate. The effects of the QTL described on other traits were not investigated.


An experiment was carried out to evaluate different criteria in feed formulation based on digestible amino acids for broilers during the grower phase. Diets were formulated according to the recommendations for digestible methionine, methionine + cysteine, lysine, and threonine. A total number of six hundred Cobb 500 male day-old chicks were distributed in a completely randomized experimental design, with three formulation criteria supplying the recommendations established by Baker & Chung (1992), Degussa (1997), and Rostagno et al. (2000), with 4 replicates of 50 birds each. No significant differences were observed for weight gain and feed intake. However, feed conversion ratio improved when birds were fed the diets containing the profiles recommended by Baker & Chung (1992) and Degussa (1997). No difference was observed in terms of leg, wings, back, and head yields. Broilers fed with the profile of Baker & Chung (1992) presented worst breast yield, whereas those fed the Degussa (1997) standard had better carcass yield.


There is no accepted definition of belief and it is likely that the everyday use of the term does not represent a single neuropsychological entity. Nevertheless, cognitive neuropsychiatry is likely to be useful in understanding belief-related phenomena, as it does not necessarily require the focus of study to be a unitary construct. The label 'delusion' is likely to be an umbrella term for a variety of pathologies that lead a person to make an unlikely belief-claim or to have an unlikely belief attributed to them on the basis of their behaviour, in tandem with the person experiencing significant distress and / or causing social stress. Social network analyses and case studies suggested that the traditional psychopathological boundaries of delusion are influenced by socio-cultural developments and that the diagnostic criteria need revising. Despite the central role of anomalous perceptual experience in many delusion formation models, it is unclear whether it is a necessary condition. A new, valid measure of perceptual anomalies, the Cardiff Anomalous Perceptions Scale (CAPS), was developed, and a study of delusional patients suggested that pathological levels of anomalous experience are not necessary for delusion formation. A principal components analysis suggested three factors underlying anomalous experience in the general population: 'clinical psychosis', 'chemosensation' and 'temporal lobe experience'. A study using transcranial magnetic stimulation indicated that disrupting the left lateral temporal cortex in healthy participants can alter processes related to magical thinking, suggesting these areas play a causal role in delusion formation. To investigate the determinants of pragmatically pathological beliefs, as opposed to simply 'magical' ones, participants with religious beliefs (Christians and Pagans) were compared to non-religious controls and delusional patients. Pagans reported similar levels of anomalous experience to psychotic patients, but were no more distressed than the general population, suggesting distress is the more important factor in delusion formation.


Denver's bond sale in 1922 showed some extra high spots in school administration. Superintendent Jesse Newlon was so new to the city that his great contribution was in some new visions. He had the bond vote so classified that the voters passed on other principles as well as the moncv issue. For instance, the people voted whether or not there should be a fine new school administrative building. There were two sides to that question and a chance for an honest difference of opinion. The voters-passed upon that question, for they had to vote definitely upon whether or not there should be a large bond issue for an adequate and creditable school administrative building in the city or be content to rent several floors in a large office building. Second, there was to be no question as to the purchase of land. for every dollar of the amount voted should be spent for building and not a penny for land. The Board of Education must save from the regular income the money for the purchase of sites. Third, for the first time, so far as we know, the entire electorate voted upon the junior high school proposition. The bond "sale contained a proposition, all by itself, of appropriating $1,700,000 for two junior high schools. This item carried by a big majority-, H. V. KEPNER'S LEADERSHIP. Mr. Newlon, who had been ill the city too short a time to acquaint himself with the details of leadership, had at command the best man in the city for administrative leadership in such a campaign. 1b Newlon had wisdom to make H. V. Kepner the director of the campaign. Mr. Kepner is a man of affairs, a .keen and successful business man than whom we know none superior in public school work. He is principal of one of the high schools of the city. a school that has made' a national reputation for efficiency in preparing boys and girls for personal success in liie. Prior to this principalship Mr. Kepner was in the department of city administration. He is better known by the principals and teachers than anyone else has been known in a quarter of a century. Mr. Kepner was also president of the State Association in the most critical year of its history, the year when ior the first time it met in three cities of the state in the same week, and the success was so remarkable that no change has been since suggested. What is much more important, Mr. Kepner has been on the State Board of Regents of the State Teachers College, one of the largest and most important in the country, and for several years he was president of this State Board. We have not known a public school principal of a city to have such state-wide responsibility in education for so long a. time as has Mr. Kepner in this office. Mr. Kepner organized the principals, teachers, students, pupils and a,1I sorts of organizations !;q superbly that despite the most terrific newspaper opposition we have known the vote was so decisive that there appeared to be no opposing sentiment. For skilful administration by the co-operation .of city department, principals and teachers of high and elementary schools we have not chanced to know its equal.


Seafood consumption is an important route of human exposure to organic contaminants. Residual levels of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), including DDTs, hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs), heptachlor, aldrin, α‐endosulfan, β‐endosulfan, dieldrin, endrin, endrin aldehyde, endrin ketone, methoxychlor, endosulfan sulfate, and heptachlor epoxide, were determined in a wide variety of seafood products collected from 11 coastal cities in southern China in June and October 2005. The results indicated that OCPs were predominated by DDTs and HCHs. The concentrations of other OCP components generally were low and were detectable in a small number of seafood samples only, probably reflective of the generally low levels of these OCPs in the study region and low bioaccumulation potentials in the species under investigation. Risk assessment against various standards clearly showed that seafood products were highly contaminated by DDTs and may pose health threat to local residents and the consumers all over the world. Furthermore, other OCP components, such as dieldrin and heptachlor, also impose lifetime cancer risk, especially to residents of coastal regions who often consume more seafood than those living inland. Therefore, continual monitoring of OCPs in various environment compartments, including biota and abiota, urgently is needed to mitigate effectively the impact of OCPs, particularly DDTs, on human health and the ecological environment.


The With-No-Lysine (WNK) kinase plays a significant role in controlling blood pressure and body fluid homeostasis. Consequently, WNK1 is considered a potential target for treating hypertension. However, the highly conserved ATP-binding pocket in human isoforms WNK1/2/3/4 poses an immense challenge in designing competitive inhibitors. In contrast, allosteric inhibitors that bind to a non-conserved site provide a promising approach. To better understand how the allosteric inhibitors induce an inactive state in WNK1, we have performed 1 μs long Gaussian accelerated molecular dynamics simulations (GaMD) of the apo and complex systems along with free energy calculations and structural analyses. Our results indicate that major structural variations come from the activation loop and αC-helix. Our studies suggest that the inactive state is characterized by an open catalytic cleft between the N- and C-lobe, outward movement of the αC-helix, open P-loop, distorted αC-helix, and an extended activation loop that rearranges with a vanished short helix in its N-terminal. The outward movement of the αC-helix breaks the salt-bridge between Glu268 and R348 and renders the kinase domain inactive. Overall, our study provides detailed insights into the inhibitor-induced allosteric mechanisms and may help design specific allosteric inhibitors against WNK1 for treating hypertension.


The unabated flurry of research activities to augment various mobile devices by leveraging heterogeneous cloud resources has created a new research domain called Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). In the core of such a non-uniform environment, facilitating interoperability, portability, and integration among heterogeneous platforms is nontrivial. Building such facilitators in MCC requires investigations to understand heterogeneity and its challenges over the roots. Although there are many research studies in mobile computing and cloud computing, convergence of these two areas grants further academic efforts towards flourishing MCC. In this paper, we define MCC, explain its major challenges, discuss heterogeneity in convergent computing (i.e. mobile computing and cloud computing) and networking (wired and wireless networks), and divide it into two dimensions, namely vertical and horizontal. Heterogeneity roots are analyzed and taxonomized as hardware, platform, feature, API, and network. Multidimensional heterogeneity in MCC results in application and code fragmentation problems that impede development of cross-platform mobile applications which is mathematically described. The impacts of heterogeneity in MCC are investigated, related opportunities and challenges are identified, and predominant heterogeneity handling approaches like virtualization, middleware, and service oriented architecture (SOA) are discussed. We outline open issues that help in identifying new research directions in MCC.


Objective. The purposes of this study were to identify mother, child, and dyadic determinants of effective mother–child collaboration and to determine the impact of this collaboration on children's cognitive development. Design. Ninety-two mother–child dyads from the Massachusetts site of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development participated in a site-specific, home-based instructional task through which they were assessed for scaffolding effectiveness. Cognitive characteristics of both mothers and children, as well as dyadic characteristics from infancy, were examined as predictors of effective dyadic scaffolding when the children were in 1st grade. In addition, concurrent cognitive capabilities of the children were regressed on scaffolding while controlling for earlier cognitive test scores. Results. Mothers' verbal intelligence and children's mental development, as well as shared sensitivity, predicted the effectiveness of scaffolding collaborations, which in turn uniquely predicted cognitive capabilities of the children. Conclusions. Effective mother–child scaffolding is a function of individual mother and child characteristics, as well as the nature of the mother–child relationship; scaffolding predicts children's cognitive outcomes.


BACKGROUND
This study explored the clinical significance of CD34(+)/133(+) circulating progenitor cell (CPC) counts in patients with stable angina pectoris (AP) who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

METHODS AND RESULTS
Subjects comprised 52 patients with stable AP requiring PCI and 50 control patients without AP. In the AP group, blood samples were taken before and 20 min and 24 h after PCI to measure CPC counts by fluorescence-activated cell sorter analysis. The baseline number of CPCs was smaller in the AP group than in controls. In the AP group, body mass index (BMI) correlated positively with the baseline number of CPCs and was an independent predictor of CPC count in multivariate regression analysis. Other conventional risk factors, daily exercise activity and statin administration showed no association with CPC count. CPC counts remained unchanged within 24 h after PCI.

CONCLUSIONS
CPC counts in patients with AP are influenced by BMI, but not by other coronary risk factors. CPC counts remain unchanged within 24 h after PCI.


The process of dyeing poly(ethylene terephthalate) - PET films at 50, 60 and 65oC and poly(hydroxybutyrate) - PHB granules at 60, 70 and 80oC using supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) as solvent and ethanol as cosolvent was studied by DSC, TGA analysis and measurements of shrinkage to determine the morphological modifications caused by the scCO2 treatment of these materials. A comparison of the effects of annealing both polymers in scCO2 provided evidence that PHB had plasticization activity due to its crystallinity and that PET favored the dyeing process at high pressure when its temperature was raised to close to the Tg value. DSC and TGA measurements were obtained for all the samples. The DSC results showed that there was no significant structural change and the TGA data showed that thermal stability was not affected in the samples analyzed.


Abstract Fungal resistance to different therapeutic drugs has become a growing challenge. This crucial health problem requires new effective drug alternatives. Herein, we report the study of Eucalyptus botryoides' resin used in folk medicine as antimicrobial. Thus, E. botryoides' resin was extracted with aqueous-ethanol and fractionated using Sephadex chromatography, furnishing its major compounds. The crude extracts and the isolated compounds were evaluated for their in vitro antimicrobial activity against bacteria and yeasts. The crude extract displayed MIC of 25 μg/mL against S. salivarius, and for C. albicans, C. glabrata, and C. tropicalis the MIC were between 2.9 and 5.9 μg/mL. The 7-O-Methyl-aromadendrin was the most effective against C. glabrata and C. krusei (MIC = 1.6 μg/mL). 2-O-Galloyl-1,6-O-di-trans-p-coumaroyl-β-D-glycopyranoside, first time reported, showed MIC of 3.1 μg/mL against C. glabrata and C. krusei. Overall, this work gave promising results, indicating that Eucalyptus botryoides' resin and its compounds have the potential for developing anti-yeast products. Graphical Abstract


Constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) framework is essentially characterized by the ubiquitous use of local consistency properties and enforcing techniques. The main objective of these techniques is to prune the search space and consequently to enhance the efficiency of the constraint solver. Several levels of local consistency were proposed in the literature among which arc consistency (AC) is the most used one due to its low time and space complexities. However, with the omnipresence of natural distributed real world applications, recently few efforts were directed to enforce local consistency in an entirely distributed manner. Nevertheless, most of these works are limited only to AC property due to the effective-cost of the other existing stronger forms. For some hard constraint network (CN) applying only AC enforcement may be fruitless, case of problems initially arc-consistent. In an attempt to overcome these limitations, the main contribution of this paper is to propose a refinement of the DRAC approach (distributed reinforcement of arc-consistency) to achieve higher level of local consistency, the restricted path consistency (RPC) in a distributed manner with the minimal amount of additional constraint checks, a comprehensive empirical study was performed to highlight the benefit of using the collected knowledge for enforcing arc-consistency on any binary CN, especially for hard arc-consistent problems. The inferred knowledge is used to prune some path inconsistent values (not all of them). The new approach DRAC/sup ++/ is discussed in terms of termination and complexity.


In this paper, we introduce a constraint-based reasoning approach to automatically generate test input for Java bytecode programs. Our goal-oriented method aims at building an input state of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that can drive program execution towards a given location within the bytecode. An innovative aspect of the method is the definition of a constraint model for each bytecode that allows backward exploration of the bytecode program, and permits to solve complex constraints over the memory shape (e.g., p == p.next enforces the creation of a cyclic data structure referenced by p). We implemented this constraint-based approach in a prototype tool called JAUT, that can generate input states for programs written in a subset of JVM including integers and references, dynamic-allocated structures, objects inheritance and polymorphism by virtual method call, conditional and backward jumps. Experimental results show that JAUT can generate test input for executing locations not reached by other state-of-the-art code-based test input generators such as jCUTE, JTEST and Pex.


Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in American men. Despite considerable advances in prostate cancer research, there is a major need for a systemic delivery platform that efficiently targets anti-cancer drugs to sites of disseminated prostate cancer while minimizing host toxicity. Human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are excellent candidates for cell-based drug delivery since they display tropism towards cancer sites and clinical studies have demonstrated that hundreds of millions of allogeneic human MSCs can be safely administered intravenously without adverse effects in a variety of pathological settings. Furthermore, we have previously documented that MSCs can be detected in radical prostatectomy tissue from men with prostate cancer. In this proof-of-concept study, human MSCs were loaded with poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microparticles (MPs) encapsulating the macromolecule G114, a thapsigargin-based prostate specific antigen (PSA)-activated prodrug. G114-loaded MPs were successfully internalized by MSCs without impacting MSC viability, followed by sustained release of G114 as an intact prodrug from loaded cells. Moreover, G114 released from G114 MP-loaded MSCs is selectively toxic to the PSA-secreting prostate cancer cell line, LNCaP. Finally, G114 MP-loaded MSCs inhibited tumor growth when co-inoculated with CWR22 prostate cancer xenografts, suggesting that cell-based delivery of G114 does not compromise potency of the prodrug in vitro or in vivo. We envision that this MSC-based platform may be developed into an effective, systemic 'Trojan Horse' therapy for the targeted delivery of therapeutic agents to sites of metastatic prostate cancer. Citation Format: Nathaniel Brennen, Oren Levy, Edward Han, David Marc Rosen, Juliet Musabeyezu, Helia Safaee, Sudhir Ranganath, Jessica Ngai, Martina Heinelt, Sandrine Billett, Neil Bhowmick, Samuel Denmeade, Jeffrey Karp, John Isaacs. Attacking prostate cancer with a prodrug-doped cellular Trojan horse. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 2067.


We report the structure and physical properties of two quasi-two-dimensional triangular antiferromagnetic materials, Co0.66Al2Se3.53 and Ni0.61Al2Se3.55, which show highly magnetically frustrated characters. Powder X-ray diffractions demonstrate that Co0.66Al2Se3.53 and Ni0.61Al2Se3.55 possess identical space group of P-3m1 with lattice parameters a = 3.8089(1) Å, c = 12.676(1) Å and a = 3.7880(1) Å, c = 12.650(1) Å, respectively. Analyzing the susceptibility data of Co0.66Al2Se3.53 reveal a Curie Weiss temperature of −216 K, and a spin-freezing transition temperature of 4.5 K, giving a frustration index f = −θcw/Tf ≈ 48. Ni0.61Al2Se3.55 possesses an effective moment of 2.38 µB, a Curie–Weiss temperature of −62 K with no sign of spin-freezing transition down to 2 K. The AC susceptibility data of Co0.66Al2Se3.53 suggest a spin glass-like transition, but no intersite mixing between Co2+ and Al3+ was observed from the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements.


Background: The quality of prenatal care is preventive health care that improves the health outcomes of women and infants. A comprehensive questionnaire can be used to assess the quality of prenatal care as well as to identify and investigate mother-child health outcomes. Method: In this cross-sectional study, 329 mothers were selected in Rafsanjan, Iran, from May 2019 to February 2020. The validity and reliability of the Quality of Prenatal Care Questionnaire- Persian (QPCQ-P) were determined using criterion validity, Cronbach's alpha, and test-retest reliability. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and cross-validation with the Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) were calculated.Results: The internal consistency of the QPCQ-P is good (α = 0.936) and the item-rest-correlations are fairly good [ICC of 0.476 and confidence interval (CI): 0.20-0.68]. The WHOQOL-BREF and QPCQ-P scores were found to be positively correlated (r = 0.371, p ≤ 0.001). Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the QPCQ-P is a reliable and valid measure for the quality of prenatal care. The QPCQ-P scale can be used to identify appropriate care strategies for pregnant mothers.


Presents a new direct model reference adaptive control algorithm for a class of large scale interconnected systems. It is assumed that the system is subjected to bounded disturbances and is characterised by unknown constant parameters which take values within a known bounded range. Conditions are determined under which the adaptive control law guarantees boundedness of the controller parameters and ensures asymptotic stability of the tracking error between the system and the model to a bounded residual set. Application of the algorithm to the problem of damping the electromechanical oscillations in multimachine power systems is also considered. A specific numerical example of a three-machine nine-bus system is presented to illustrate the results.


Design of monodisperse ultra-small nanocrystals (NCs) into large scale patterns with ad hoc features is demonstrated. The process makes use of solid state dewetting of a thin film templated through alloy liquid metal ion source focused ion beam (LMIS-FIB) nanopatterning. The solid state dewetting initiated at the edges of the patterns controllably creates the ordering of NCs with ad hoc placement and periodicity. The NC size is tuned by varying the nominal thickness of the film while their position results from the association of film retraction from the edges of the lay out and Rayleigh-like instability. The use of ultra-high resolution LMIS-FIB enables to produce monocrystalline NCs with size, periodicity, and placement tunable as well. It provides routes for the free design of nanostructures for generic applications in nanoelectronics.


The higher education market space has become increasingly competitive during the past few years. For instance, there are now hundreds of fully online master's programs in educational technology. Given this increased competition, it is more important than ever for those working in graduate education to understand what students, and specifically those who have graduated from their program, like and dislike about their coursework. We constructed a survey using Rovai's Classroom Community Scale (CCS) and some additional questions about the easiest, most difficult, and favourite courses to investigate what graduates thought about the coursework of the program they just completed. Results suggest that students in the program prefer courses with practical content, continuous interactions, and hands-on projects; and they dislike courses that are too theoretical. We conclude with implications for practice and additional research.


Nasal Type T/natural killer (NK)-cell lymphomas are rare clinical entities, highly aggressive with a very poor prognosis. We present a case of a 37-year-old immunocompetent man presenting with deep palatal ulceration and a 3-month history of symptoms, which appear to have been misdiagnosed by physicians. The final diagnosis was achieved by a 15-day diagnostic algorithm, during which time the clinical status of the patient worsened severely. In this article, we also provide a succinct update on the clinical and histopathological findings of Peripheral T/NK-cell lymphomas and propose that symptoms that are consistent with these clinical entities should be considered from the early stages to inform a suitable diagnostic pathway Because of their highly aggressive behavior, we suggest that early therapy of T/NK-cell lymphomas may be started before completing the specific diagnostic investigations.


The issue of Intellectual Property Rights has not been discussed or even described by classical fiqh scholars in-depth and thoroughly. One aspect that has not been studied is the issue of the period of copyright protection. The assumption is that if copyright protection is not limited in time, it will lead to a monopoly of creation by a few people. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to clearly describe and compare the terms of copyright protection in the Copyright Act and Islamic Law using the Maqashid Syariah perspective. The method used is a qualitative study (library research) with a comparative approach. The results of the study indicate that the period of copyright protection according to Islamic law, for the type of moral rights is valid forever, while for the type of economic rights it applies trade (willingness of the heart) with the provision that the shorter (reasonably) is, the better as long as it does not harm the creator. In addition, the State can determine the period of copyright protection through its regulations according to the country's ability.


In this abstract, the impact of series resistance on mobility extraction in conventional and recessed-gate ultra thin body (UTB) n-MOSFETs is investigated. High series resistance leads to an overestimation of the internal source / drain voltage and influences the measurement of the gate to channel capacitance. A specific MOSFET design that includes additional channel contacts and recessed gate technology are used to successfully extract mobility down to 0.9 nm silicon film thickness (4 atomic layers). Quantum mechanical effects are found to shift the threshold voltage and degrade mobility at these extreme scaling limits.


This paper investigates robust stability analysis for gene regulatory networks with cyclic interconnections where dynamics of each gene expression has a certain degree of uncertainty. By considering a class of perturbation, we treat the heterogeneity of gene's dynamics, and derive necessary and sufficient conditions for robust stability. To this end, we first show a graphical condition for robust stability based on a robustness analysis scheme for large-scale systems presented in a previous work. A key feature of the graphical condition is that robust stability is systematically confirmed by drawing elementary shapes that are determined by network structure, gene's dynamics and its uncertainty bounds. Moreover, it is shown that the criterion can be greatly simplified by using monotone properties of gene's dynamics. This reduction enables us to derive an analytic condition for robust stability, which is a main result of this paper. Finally, the results are interpreted from a biological viewpoint, and they are verified by numerical simulations.


Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online's data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. Abstract The assumptions that underlie software development often go unrecorded and form part of the implicit rationale on which design and implementation decisions are based. These assumptions can fail at any time, with serious consequences. This paper presents a lightweight approach to assumption management (AM) designed to suit agile development. Assumptions were monitored for three months within a small agile team. Two key indicators were proposed for measuring AM success but only one was detected in the research results. A number of strong correlations were found between properties of assumptions. Data collection largely depended on the subjective judgements of the first author, but they were validated with some success by his colleagues. In some ways, assumption management was found to complement agile development. However, AM was not fully integrated into the team's development process, due to difficulty in adopting an 'assumption-aware' way of thinking. Suggestions are offered on how this transition may be eased, and on how others might wish to build on this research.


One of the 3 goals for accountable care organizations is to improve population health. This will require that accountable care organizations bridge the schism between clinical care and public health. But do health care delivery organizations and public health agencies share a concept of "population"? We think not: whereas delivery systems define populations in terms of persons receiving care, public health agencies typically measure health on the basis of geography. This creates an attribution problem, particularly in large urban centers, where multiple health care providers often serve any given neighborhood. We suggest potential innovations that could allow urban accountable care organizations to accept accountability, and rewards, for measurably improving population health.


This narrative essay unfolds in two parts. Part 1—Feeling My Way into Embodied Research—reflects on my doctoral fieldwork, which involved living for a year in complete solitude in the remote wilderness of southern Chile. The life events that shaped this experience, including childhood, education, early career, and graduate studies, laid the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual groundwork for the project. A key challenge was to develop a methodology appropriate to the unusual context of my study. My methodology was grounded in mindful observation layered with analytic introspection, loosely based on autoethnography. Part 2 Feeling My Way into Embodied Writing—recounts the process of transforming my 900 page wilderness journal into a doctoral dissertation that was both academically rigorous and accessible to audiences. I abandoned the traditional academic approach of using a conceptual framework to organize the work in favour of a first person narrative, punctuated with analytic essays. Rather than write a dissertation about solitude, I let the voices of solitude speak directly to readers and evoke for them the actual experience as I had lived it.


We present new experimentally determined trace element partition coefficients for nine garnet/melt and two clinopyroxene/melt pairs at 2.9–3.1 GPa and 1325°–1390°C, applicable to anhydrous partial melting of MORB‐like eclogite in the upper mantle. Phase compositions are similar to those documented in partial melting experiments of eclogite at these conditions: garnets with 16–25% grossular component and 0.4–2.0 wt % TiO2 coexist with siliceous partial melts having 52.4–57.1 wt % SiO2 and 1.1–6.7 wt % TiO2. Observed garnet/melt partitioning depends on TiO2 concentrations in garnet. Among the high‐TiO2 garnets (1.4–2.0 wt % TiO2), partition coefficients (Dgt/melt) increase with increasing grossular content of garnet (16–24%), but for the low‐TiO2 garnets (0.4–0.6 wt % TiO2) there is no difference in partitioning behavior at 19–24% grossular. In general, partition coefficients for the low‐TiO2 garnets tend to be higher than for the high‐TiO2 garnets. DZr and DHf increase with higher grossular content, as does DZr/DHf, but DZr and DHf always remain smaller than unity, and TiO2 in garnet appears to have little effect on DZr/DHf. DTh and DU have average values of 0.0012 and 0.0111 for the high‐TiO2 garnets and 0.0074 and 0.0376 for the low‐TiO2 garnets (DU/DTh of 9.1 and 5.1, respectively), affirming that partial melting of eclogite in the upper mantle can produce liquids with significant (230Th)/(238U) excess. D values of highly charged cations (Nb, Ta, Th, U) are lower in high‐TiO2 garnets. This is likely because Ti4+ occupying the garnet Y site requires charge balance by 2+ cations in Y or 3+ cations in Z, thereby limiting the availability of these charge‐balancing substitutions to accommodate other highly charged cations. The overall range of our new garnet/melt partition coefficients, regardless of Ti and grossular content, is similar to literature garnet/melt partitioning data applicable to garnet peridotite melting, and therefore bulk partition coefficients for eclogite and peridotite depend largely on mineral modes and choice of partitioning data for clinopyroxene. Using our new data and previously published data from the literature, we calculate bulk partition coefficients appropriate for two MORB‐like eclogites (82% clinopyroxene + 18% garnet and 75% clinopyroxene + 25% garnet) and a garnet peridotite (60% olivine + 17% orthopyroxene + 13% clinopyroxene + 10% garnet). Bulk partition coefficients are generally much higher for MORB‐like eclogite when compared to garnet peridotite, with the exception of Th and U. However, the ratios of bulk partition coefficients of eclogite and garnet peridotite are similar for pairs such as DSm/DYb, DZr/DHf and DU/DTh, indicating that both lithologies can induce similar trace element fractionations during partial melting in the presence of garnet.


The thesis that mental states are physical states enjoys widespread popularity. After the abandonment of type-identity theories, however, this thesis has typically been framed in terms of state tokens. I argue that token states are a philosopher's fiction, and that debates about the identity of mental and physical state tokens thus rest on a mistake.


Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the common degenerative articular disorders that are related to decreased quality of life. Currently, novel biologic therapeutic approaches are introduced in the literature for OA management. In this study, the clinical efficiency of Dextrose prolotherapy, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and autologous conditioned serum (ACS) injection on the level of pain and function in Knee OA were compared. A randomized clinical trial was directed on 92 knee OA patients. Patients were randomly divided into three groups: 30 were received dextrose prolotherapy once in a week for three weeks, 30 received autologous PRP for two times with seven days interval, and in the remaining 32 patients 2ml of ACS were injected two times every seven days. Study participants were measured through the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities (WOMAC) score, the visual analogue scale (VAS), at baseline, 1 and 6 months post-intervention. Both ACS and PRP treated patients showed improvement in pain intensity and knee function during 1 and 6 months pursue; however, this progress was more significant in the ACS group. Dextrose prolotherapy showed no substantial changes in pain and function of the affected knee in treated patients. Treatment of Knee OA with ACS and PRP injections are associated with pain reduction and knee function improvement. Not only, ACS therapy is more effective than that of PRP, but also due to its less variability in processing and less reported side effects, it could be considered as a safe and effective non-surgical alternative for OA management.


We report on a new wet etching/ion implantation method for fabricating ridge waveguide on z -cut LiNbO3. The ridge structures are produced on LiNbO3 crystal by anisotropic wet etching via minus z face. Mode guiding at wavelength of 632.8 nm has been realized by using direct 4.5 MeV oxygen implantation without any implantation mask. The ridge waveguide shows a reduced propagation loss of 1.3 dB/cm after the thermal annealing process.


Ibopamine is an orally effective derivative of dopamine capable of eliciting peripheral and renal vasodilating activity and positive inotropic action. The compound is a prodrug which is enzymatically converted by plasma and peripheral tissues esterases to epinine (N-methyldopamine) which is the active drug. Effective plasma epinine levels are readily achieved, producing the hemodynamic action for 4-6 h. Acute and chronic studies demonstrated an improvement in cardiac output and a reduction in pre- and afterload.


An analytical and numerical investigation is undertaken to study the effects of non-standard orbit topology on the stochastic ripple diffusion of high energy ions in tokamaks. Finite orbit width effects are demonstrated to lead to large modifications of the threshold for the onset of stochastic motion. Trapped particles moving along trajectories with turning points on the inside of the torus are most severely affected. In particular, orbits close to the pinch orbit are very sensitive to magnetic field ripple, whereas orbits with bounce points close to the horizontal midplane are less easily perturbed than is suggested by small orbit width theory. Applying the results to recent ripple experiments on JET, it is found that the number of stochastically moving particles is only moderately affected by these effects. The reason for this is the large ripple amplitude and the steepness of the ripple gradient over most of the plasma cross-section


The behavior of retired lithium-ion battery (LIB) from its first-life application such as electric vehicles and electric aircraft for its second-life in a solar photovoltaic (PV) grid-tied system for residential applications is studied through mathematical modeling. The rate of capacity-fade and the useful remaining life of the retired- or used-LIB particularly investigated in this paper. The first part of this paper presents the optimal size of a small-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) to store a part of the solar energy for postponing consumption in the near future for a typical home in Akron, Ohio. The LIBs in this study has lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) chemistry. The sizing is determined based on a set of PV panels, power rate of the BESS, and hourly data of temperatures, irradiation and home demand load. Using PVWatts® Calculator from National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the hourly PV performance data of the PV generation system is obtained. In this study, the home is connected to the grid, but the net energy usage from the grid in one year is zero. The duty-cycle of the PV generation is obtained in order to design a LIB energy storage system using calculations of the PV system hourly energy production. The difference between the residential home demand and PV generation is used to evaluate the excess energy that charges the battery and is sold to the electric grid. In the second part, the retired- or the used-battery degradation rate and its remaining useful second-life in the BESS are estimated using an empirical battery model. This model includes the capacity-fade of the LIB for both first- and second-life applications under different operating and environmental conditions. It is shown that a used-LIB from first-life applications is still suitable to be used for this system. The results show that the investigated used-LIB is capable of being in-service for another 10 years in the PV system for residential application. The results of this paper can potentially reduce the battery cost for electric vehicles and electric aircraft because the retired battery from these applications have still value to serve for another applications such as PV system for residential homes. Since this study is based on mathematical modeling, several assumptions have been made in the model. Although the results of mathematical modeling is very promising, these results should be proved experimentally. The experimental studies is out of the scope of this paper.


The tumorigenesis of skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM) remains unclear. The tumor microenvironment (TME) is well known to play a vital role in the onset and progression of SKCM. However, the dynamic mechanisms of immune regulation are insufficient. We conducted a comprehensive analysis of immune cell infiltration in the TME. Based on the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in clusters grouped by immune infiltration status, a set of hub genes related to the clinical prognosis of SKCM and tumor immune infiltration was explored. Methods: We analyzed immune cell infiltration in two independent cohorts and assessed the relationship between the internal pattern of immune cell infiltration and SKCM characteristics, including clinicopathological features, potential biological pathways, and gene mutations. Genes related to the infiltration pattern of TME immune cells were determined. Furthermore, the unsupervised clustering method (k-means) was used to divide samples into three different categories according to TME, which were defined as TME cluster-A, -B, and -C. DEGs among three groups of samples were analyzed as signature genes. We further distinguished common DEGs between three groups of samples according to whether differences were significant and divided DEGs into the Signature gene-A group with significant differences and the Signature gene-B group with insignificant differences. The Signature gene-A gene set mainly had exon skipping in SKCM, while the Signature gene-B gene set had no obvious alternative splicing form. Subsequently, we analyzed genetic variations of the two signatures and constructed a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) regulatory network. LASSO Cox regression was used to determine the immune infiltration signature and risk score of SKCM. Finally, we obtained 13 hub genes and calculated the risk score based on the coefficient of each gene to explore the impact of the high- and low-risk scores on biologically related functions and prognosis of SKCM patients further. The correlation between the risk score and clinicopathological characteristics of SKCM patients indicated that a low-risk score was associated with TME cluster-A classification (p < 0.001) and metastatic SKCM (p < 0.001). Thirteen hub genes also showed different prognostic effects in pan-cancer. The results of univariate and multivariate Cox analyses revealed that risk score could be used as an independent risk factor for predicting the prognosis of SKCM patients. The nomogram that integrated clinicopathological characteristics and immune characteristics to predict survival probability was based on multivariate Cox regression. Finally, 13 hub genes that showed different prognostic effects in pan-cancers were obtained. According to immunohistochemistry staining results, Ube2L6, SRPX2, and IFIT2 were expressed at higher levels, while CLEC4E, END3, and KIR2DL4 were expressed at lower levels in 25 melanoma specimens. Conclusion: We performed a comprehensive assessment of the immune-associated TME. To elucidate the potential development of immune-genomic features in SKCM, we constructed an unprecedented set of immune characteristic genes (EDN3, CLEC4E, SRPX2, KIR2DL4, UBE2L6, and IFIT2) related to the immune landscape of TME. These genes are related to different prognoses and drug responses of SKCM. The immune gene signature constructed can be used as a robust prognostic biomarker of SKCM and a predictor of an immunotherapy effect.


The URNCST Journal Case Competition provides undergraduate students with the opportunity to experience the peer review and publication process through participation in a case competition. Participants submit an abstract of a research protocol based on a topic proposed by the URNCST Journal. The following abstracts were submitted by undergraduate students to the 3 URNCST Journal Case Competition held during April 2019. To learn more about this abstract competition and submit your own, please visit: https://urncst.com/index.php/competition/about. This case competition's topic was on sex-based comparisons research. The emergence of sex-based research has become more prominent within the last decade. Sex is often defined as the biological or genetic makeup of the body. The impact of sex-based differences has been observed in diverse fields, ranging from cardiovascular health, to addictions and mental wellness, to drug efficacy and its cellular implications. As a result, we welcomed abstract submissions from any science or technology discipline exploring sex-based comparisons in their research field.


A highly efficient, green and expeditious solvent-free method is described for the chemoselective conversion of aldehydes to the corresponding acylals in excellent yields, using acetic anhydride in the presence of catalytic amount (20 mol%) of silica-supported LiHSO4. Ketones does not react under these reaction conditions. LiHSO4/SiO2 can be recovered and reused without any significant loss of its catalytic activity.


Author(s): Bench, Shellie | Advisor(s): Zehr, Jonathan P. | Abstract: Crocosphaera watsonii is an ecologically important marine unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacterium. It is often abundant in oligotrophic ocean regions where it provides fixed nitrogen to nutrient-limited phytoplankton communities. Previous genetic studies have observed genetic rearrangements but very little sequence variation among natural populations or cultivated strains of Crocosphaera. Those strains exhibit two phenotypes (large- and small-cell) with characteristics that suggest different ecological roles and niches. Prior to this work, the genetic basis for the phenotypic differences was unknown, and molecular methods for enumerating natural C. watsonii could not differentiate between phenotypes. To address those unanswered scientific questions, these studies compared the genomes of six C. watsonii strains, three of each phenotype, which were isolated over large spatial and temporal distances. A large portion of those genome sequences were shared among all strains with nearly 100% nucleotide identity. However, there were also genes that were specific to each strain, and others were specific to each phenotype, including some which could explain phenotypic differences (e.g. EPS biosynthesis). Relative to small-cell strains, large-cell strains had larger genomes and additional genetic capabilities, including possibly increased adaptations to iron and phosphorus limitation. Clustering based on genome sequences and content showed that strains with a common phenotype were evolutionarily most closely related, regardless of their time and location of isolation. Surprisingly, the genome of the C. watsonii type-strain, WH8501, was quite unusual, even compared to those with the same phenotype, suggesting it may not be appropriately representative of the species. To investigate distributions of Crocosphaera types in the marine environment, molecular assays were developed, based on phenotype-specific genes, and applied to samples from the North and South Pacific. In those samples, small-cells dominated in the upper 75 m where abundance of both types was much greater, while large-cells dominated in samples with lower counts between 100 m and 175 m. There was also more evidence that large-cells form aggregates in the N. Pacific. Future studies will be important to determine which of the initial C. watsonii patterns described here can be generalized, both in genomes, and in natural distributions of the two types.


Abstract Objective We sought to compare neonatal outcomes in twin pregnancies following moderately preterm birth (MPTB), late preterm birth (LPTB), and term birth and determine the indications of LPTB. Study Design We performed a retrospective cohort study. MPTB was defined as delivery between 320/7 and 336/7 weeks and LPTB between 340/7 and 366/7 weeks. The composite neonatal adverse respiratory outcome was defined as respiratory distress syndrome and/or bronchopulmonary dysplasia. The composite neonatal adverse nonrespiratory outcome included early onset culture-proven sepsis, necrotizing enterocolitis, retinopathy of prematurity, intraventricular hemorrhage, or periventricular leukomalacia. LPTB cases were categorized as spontaneous (noniatrogenic), evidence-based iatrogenic, and non-evidence-based (NEB) iatrogenic. Results Of the 747 twin deliveries during the study period, 453 sets met the inclusion criteria with 22.7% (n = 145) MPTB, 32.1% (n = 206) LPTB, and 15.9% (n = 102) term births. Compared with term neonates, the composite neonatal adverse respiratory outcome was increased following MPTB (relative risk [RR] 24; 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.0 to 193.6) and LPTB (RR 13.7; 95% CI 1.8 to 101.8). Compared with term neonates, the composite neonatal adverse nonrespiratory outcome was increased following MPTB (RR 22.3; 95% CI 3.9 to 127.8) and LPTB (RR 5.5; 95% CI 1.1 to 27.6). Spontaneous delivery of LPTB was 63.6% (n = 131/206) and the rate of iatrogenic delivery was 36.4% (n = 75/206). The majority, 66.6% (n = 50/75), of these iatrogenic deliveries were deemed NEB, giving a total of 24.2% (50/206) NEB deliveries in LPTB group. Conclusion Our data demonstrate a high rate of late preterm birth among twin pregnancies, with over half of nonspontaneous early deliveries due to NEB indications. Although our morbidity data will be helpful to providers in counseling patients, our finding of high NEB indications underscores the need for systematic evaluation of indications for delivery in LPTB twin deliveries. Furthermore, this may lead to more effective LPTB rate reduction efforts.


Fatty acids (FA) are bioactive molecules which have potential as adjunctive chemotherapeutic agents. FA are classified as short-, medium; or long-chain on the basis of the number of carbon atoms in the aliphatic chain and have been reported to induce apoptosis in vitro in a range of cancer cell types, including breast, tongue, cervix and colorectal. However, to date the chain length exerting optimal anti-neoplastic properties remains undefined. Short chain fatty acids, such as butyrate (C4:0), have induced high rates of in vitro apoptosis, presumably related to epigenetic modification, cell cycle arrest and activation of pro-apoptotic genes. Medium chain fatty acids have demonstrated in vivo and in vitro cytotoxic and anti-microbial properties; however, scant evidence currently exists on their anti-neoplastic potential. Longer unsaturated fatty acids (C16-24: ω3-9), including conjugated linoleic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid, also exhibit in vitro anti-proliferative actions, including induction of oxidative stress and modification of intracellular signalling pathways. Although incorporation of FA into CRC chemotherapy regimens is in its infancy, evidence is accumulating to allow identification of the FA chain length capable of exerting the most effective anti-neoplastic activity.


Abstract Separate one-month current meter deployments in 1996 and 1997 over the Chatham Rise, east of New Zealand, show that tidal phases are both stable in time and close to those derived from a barotropic tidal model, while amplitudes show coefficients of variation as high as 30%. These observations are consistent with the presence of a baroclinic component to the tide that is phase-locked to the barotropic component. The near-zero phase difference between the model and observations suggests local generation of the barotropic tide. As well as the current meter data, two 24-hour time series of CTD casts are used to compute tidal vertical displacements. Vertical displacements up to 40 m lead to estimates of time-averaged potential energy ranging from 75 to 782 J m−2 for the semidiurnal tide and 40 to 147 J m−2 for the diurnal tide. Energy radiated from the Chatham Rise could be as high as 1.1 GW.


While past research on software platform has recognized the existence of cross-side network effects (CNEs) between the application side and the user side, little is known about the asymmetry between the CNEs of the two sides on each other. Informed by a perspective of complex adaptive systems, this study theorizes how the user-to-application CNE is temporally different from the application-to-user CNE, and how these CNEs may be influenced by the governance mechanisms of the platform. We empirically test our theoretical arguments using a longitudinal data about a leading software browser. Our first main finding is the temporal asymmetry between the user-to-application CNE and the application-to-user CNE. Specifically, while the increased installed base of end users has a primarily long-term impact on the growth of application number and variety, the increased number and variety of applications have primarily short-term impacts on the growth of end users. Our second finding is that the length of application review time weakens the long-term user-to-application effect, but not the short-term application-to-user effect. Third, we also find that frequent platform updating can significantly weaken both the long-term user-to-application CNE and the short-term application-to-user CNE. Our study generates important theoretical and practical implications.


To compare and evaluate different natural antioxidants treatment on the bond strength of composite resin to bleached enamel: an in-vitro study.Eighty five maxillary incisors were taken. Divided in seven groups. Group 1(n=5)- negative control group, no bleaching, Group 2(n=5) bleaching with 37.5% hydrogen peroxide gel, Group 3 (n= 15)- bleaching, 10% sodium ascorbate, Group 4 (n=15)- bleaching, 10% green tea, Group5 (n= 15)- bleaching, 10% white tea, Group 6 (n=15)- bleaching, 10% proanthocynadin, Group 7 (n=15)- bleaching, 10% aloe vera. Groups were subdivided into three subgroups based on whether composite buildup was done immediately (Subgroup A), after delay of 1 week (Subgroup B) , after delay of 2 weeks (subgroup C). Shear bond strength of the specimens was tested under universal testing machine. Data were statistically analysed using One way analysis of variance and post hoc Tukey's test. Shear bond strength of negative control group was significantly higher (6.57+1.38). Immediate application of Group 6 (sub group A) proanthocyanidin (6.00+0.93) showed higher bond strength after bleaching (P < 0.05).It can be concluded that immediate application of antioxidants on bleached enamel before composite restoration reversed the bond strength of composite restoration. Proanthocyanidin proved superior.


This paper aims to focus on the development and characterization of a new electrochemical sensor, designed for the detection of methylene blue present in aqueous medium.,This sensor is obtained through the coupling of a polymeric membrane and an ion-sensitive electrode (platinum electrode). The preparation of the polymeric membrane involves the incorporation of a receptor: β-cyclodextrin (β-CD), a polymer (polyvinylchloride) and a plasticizer (dioctylphtalate). Cyclic voltammetry method (CV) was used to investigate the electrical properties of this electrochemical sensor. The effect of the experimental parameters such as dye initial concentration, scan rate, interfering elements presence and additional Nafion membrane presence was investigated in this paper.,The results are interesting because the developed sensor gives a linear response in concentrations range of 10−13 M–10−3 M with a good correlation coefficient of 0.979 and a detection limit of 10−13 M, which reflects the sensitivity of this sensor to the target element. The sensibility value is equal to 2. 40 µA mol−1 L.,The present study has shown that the modified electrode is a very good candidate in terms of price, sensibility and reproducibility for the construction of the sensitive sensor for the control of wastewater containing methylene blue.


The ability of L. monocytogenes to grow in a series of Japanese ready-to-eat (RTE) foods, including boiled baby sardine and Japanese pickle, was tested at two different refrigeration temperatures. In RTE foods in which L. monocytogenes can grow, growth was significantly higher at 10°C than that at 4°C during their shelf lives and growth patterns varied extensively among the different types of foods. However, growth did not occur at 4°C within the shelf life of certain RTE foods, such as broiled squid. The patterns of growth were varied extensively with different sample types. These results suggest that some types of traditional Japanese RTE foods stored at 10°C may be potential sources of listeriosis. To reduce the risk of food-borne listeriosis, studies to determine the contamination levels in RTE foods and the effects of storage temperature on their shelf lives are needed.


Background: One of the option for treating unicompartmental osteoarthritis (OA) is high tibial osteotomy (HTO). HTO which can shift the mechanical axis to the lateral compartment, can performed with microfracture which provides cells capable of producing cartilage. And this procedure is one of the common combinations that orthopaedic surgeons are in practice recently. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the degree of regeneration of cartilage after performing microfracture (MF) with high tibial osteotomy (HTO) after 2- year follow up and identify the factors influencing the regeneration of cartilage after the procedure. We also evaluated whether the regenerated cartilage status affects clinical outcomes. Methods: A total of 81 cases that underwent second-look arthroscopy at the time of plate removal after MF and HTO with a minimum two-year follow-up were included. The patients were divided into two groups according to femoral cartilage regeneration. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were performend to identify independent factors that influence cartilage regeneration. We also compared differences in functional outcomes between the two groups. Results: On the femoral side, grade I cartilage regeneration was found in seven (8.6%), grade II in 19 (23.5%), grade III in 26 (32.1%), and grade IV in 29 cases (35.8%), resulting in 26 (32.1%) patients belonging to well regenerated group (group A) and 55 (67.9%) to the poorly regenerated group (group B). Among factors, the size of the cartilage lesion (P=.011) and the presence of kissing lesions (P=.027) significantly affected cartilage regeneration. There were no statistically significant differences between group A and group B in terms of KSS and WOMAC scores. Conclusions: A large cartilage defect and the presence of kissing lesions are associated with poor cartilage regeneration after combined MF and HTO surgery. However, the quality of regenerated cartilage does not affect functional outcomes in patients with MF and HTO. Keywords: High tibial osteotomy, Microfracture, Second-look arthroscopy, Cartilage regeneration, risk factor


The essential oils are a powerful natural resource with antibacterial activity. This work aims at the mode of action of Lippia graveolens Kunth essential oil of plants growing in Cuba on Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium. The effects of this oil on cell integrity were determined by time-kill, bacteriolysis and loss of 260 and 280-nm-absorbing material assays and total proteins leakage. Also, depolarization of the membrane by essential oil was monitored and intracellular and extracellular ATP was measured. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used for observed morphologic change. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of L. graveolens essential oil and minimum bactericide concentration (MBC) were 0.4 and 0.8 mg/mL respectively. This essential oil showed a bactericidal action against over S . Typhimurium in a few minutes. After treatment, the cell lysis was not occurred, but little intracellular material and total proteins leakage were observed. This essential oil depolarizes the cell membrane, disturb metabolic processes and changes the structure of cytoplasmic membrane. These results suggest as primary mode of action of L. graveolens essential oil over S . Typhimurium an increased permeability of the membrane and depolarization of inside membrane, inhibition of ATPase or disturbance in proton motive force that finally provokes death of cells. L. graveolens essential oil is a botanic resource can be used for the control of the salmonellosis, foodborne disease.


Background: Despite declining lead exposure among U.S. children, childhood blood lead level (BLL) undertesting and elevation remains a public health issue. This study explores the impacts of maternal, infant, and neighborhood characteristics on the receipt of lead testing and having elevated BLLs (EBLLs) among children under age two. Methods: Pennsylvania infants born in 2015 and 2016 were followed to 24 months. Birth certificate data were linked to 2015 through 2018 blood lead surveillance data and neighborhood data on household income, poverty, and the burden of houses built before 1970. Generalized linear mixed models were used to examine the individual and neighborhood characteristics independently and/or interactively affecting the likelihood of lead testing and of having EBLLs. Results: A total of 48.6% of children were tested for BLLs, and 2.6% of them had confirmed EBLLs. The likelihood of lead testing and of having EBLLs among non-Hispanic black children was respectively 7% and 18% higher than white children. Children born to mothers with the lowest educational attainment (<high school), with self-payment as a payment source for delivery, and without WIC enrollment were at higher risk of undertesting. Children living in neighborhoods of the lowest quartile of household income and the highest quartile of poverty and old housing were more likely to have EBLLs. Different neighborhood characteristics modified the associations between some individual factors (such as race/ethnicity, payment source for delivery, and WIC enrollment) and the odds of undertesting and of having EBLLs. Conclusion: This cohort analysis provides more accurate estimates of lead screening rates and the percentages of EBLLs than cross-sectional analysis. Some maternal and infant demographics significantly impact the risk of undertesting and of having EBLLs, and some of the effects vary across different neighborhood characteristics. These findings can help lead prevention programs to target screening and treatment resources to children with specific characteristics.


The literature indicates that adopted adolescents with conduct disorders are overrepresented in psychiatric treatment facilities for children and adolescents. In the present study adopted adolescents with conduct disorders and non-adopted adolescents with conduct disorders were compared with regard to biological and psychosocial risk factors known to play a role in the development of such disorders. The groups were carefully matched for age and sex. The results showed that the adopted subjects were a distinct group with a significantly lower number of risk factors for the development of conduct disorders. This suggests that the adoptive situation has a role in pathogenesis.


The influence of auditory and/or visual information on the neuromuscular control of chewing a crispy food was investigated. Participants chewed biscuits of three different levels of crispness under four experimental conditions: no masking, auditory masking, visual masking, and auditory plus visual masking. The order of the four masking condition blocks was randomized. The sound of chewing was masked by loud sounds on a headphone, and visual masking of the food was achieved by closing the eyes. Mechanical tests were performed on the biscuits to determine their characteristics, yield force, and sound production. Skull vibration, jaw-muscle activity, and jaw movement were measured while the subjects chewed and swallowed the food. Auditory and/or visual masking did not have a significant effect on skull vibration, muscle activity, and number of chewing cycles until swallowing. However, auditory and/or visual masking significantly increased the chewing cycle duration, but only for the participants who started the experiments with auditory and/or visual masking. The other participants were not influenced by masking. The memory of the unmodified stimuli helped these subjects to maintain their habitual chewing rate in later trials.


In 1566, after Sultan Suleiman's death, Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524-1576) sent condolences and congratulations to Sultan Selim II (r. 1566-1574) along with several gifts, including a magnificent Quran and an exquisite illustrated Shahnama copy, noteworthy in Iranian art history. However, the letter accompanying these gifts has often been overlooked, perceived as containing mere courtesies.
This letter marked a significant exchange between Safavid kings and Ottoman sultans, with participation from secretaries across Iran. Its authors aimed to portray an idealized king and their notable characteristics, demonstrating that the actions of these rulers (Sultan Suleiman, Sultan Selim, and particularly Shah Tahmasp) aligned with this ideal. Art-related activities were among these characteristics.
The authors detailed the Safavid king's palace, garden, and the artistic gifts to highlight their connection with the king's ideal image. This article explores the letter as a literary and artistic medium, delving into its intricate rhetoric as a tool for representing royal authority. Additionally, it addresses how the authors' descriptions of artworks as integral to the king's image conveyed political meaning, illustrating how art reflected royal power in public and political spheres.


Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, Western European societies experienced a deep crisis, involving economic turmoil and youth protest, that became most perceptible in an alleged crisis of the city. This dissertation argues that as a reaction to this crisis a spatialization of the social took place that established urban space as a prime object of governmental policies. It argues further that the transformation of social problems into questions of spatial order was mirrored in a growing reference by non-conforming youth to space as a site of liberation. Both developments supported and influenced each other and were based on the conception of certain socio-geographical spaces as counter-sites that differed entirely from all other spaces. Spaces of non-conforming youth are therefore at the heart of this dissertation. Meeting places of the heroin scene and squatted houses in Zurich and various West German cities, most notably West Berlin, serve as examples of such spaces and their significance for European societies in the early 1980s. This study employs a double perspective. It traces the spaces of youth deviance as an object of governmental technologies and seeks to deconstruct the underlying assumptions about normalcy, deviance, youth, and urban space. At the same time, it explores the practices and imaginations of those youth who were seeking to evade or rebel against the hegemonic order through squatting of, and sojourning at, specific urban spaces. To grasp the perspective of both governmental institutions and non-conforming youth, a combined analysis of their discursive and spatial practices is employed. Making use of Foucault's concept of heterotopia, or "other spaces", the possibilities and limitations in regulating and creating social change through urban spaces of deviance and rebellion comes into focus. This dissertation therefore contributes to a social and cultural historiography of the 1980s as well as furthers our understanding of the mutually constructed nature of space, youth, normalcy, and deviance.


Notwithstanding that each and every company, even the sweetshop around the corner has found its way to the Internet, some customers still hesitate to shop online or to shop from one site and ignore the other. In order to build an online effective communication between the participants, one of the most important factors is interactivity. In the last decade it received extensive attention in the marketing literature, but few are the studies which have seen new methods to measure it. Eye tracking technology has been broadly used in the cognitive sciences. The purpose of this study is to investigate the existing literature in order to give insights into the eye tracking methodology when measuring the online interactivity. It also describes the eye tracking technology in general, extracts various examples from the eye tracking research field, with different applications, highlights its importance when analyzing the online consumer behavior, giving examples from various studies and finds the key points of the methodological difficulties. Finally, this work has an important merit for the future studies when taking into consideration the eye tracking technology in the online interactivity research and further, it is relevant for marketers, regarding the enhancement of online interactive interfaces and web or mobile applications.


Developmental abnormalities in the embryo may lead to tumours in the sacro-coccygeal area, so-called sacral cysts and the teratomas (5, 7). At birth they are caudal tumours of variable size covered with thin, stretched skin. Blood vessels can be seen through the skin, particularly in the mid-line. One gains the impression that the stretched skin could burst at any moment. It is assumed that these teratomas derive from the pluripotent cells of Hensen's node and then grow in front of the coccyx (2). They grow and spread in various directions, particularly in a dorsal and caudal direction extra-rectally and, to a lesser extent, into the pelvis in a pre-sacral position. The classification of these tumours depends on their spread. The spread and localisation of these tumours may cause stenosis of elongation of the rectum and displacement of small and large bowel and of the bladder.


 Abstract — This paper offered the primary methodical proof on how director remuneration related to enterprise earnings in listed firms in China in light of most evidence focusing on cross-sectional data or data in a short span of time. Using full economic and business panel data on China's publicly listed enterprise from 1999 to 2020 over two decades in the China Stock Market & Accounting Research database, we found statistically significant positive associations between director pay and firm performance in privately owned firms over this period, supporting the agency theory. In contrast, among the state-owned enterprises, there was a reverse relation between director compensation and firm financial performance, contributing to the existing literature. But the results also revealed that state-owned enterprises financially performed as well as private enterprises. Such findings suggested that state ownership might line up officials' career incentives with party prime concern rather than pecuniary incentives. Also, CEO duality enhanced firm performance. As such, allegiance to the party and possible advancement to an upper-level political position would motivate company directors in state-owned enterprises. On the other hand, directors in privately owned enterprises might be motivated by monetary incentives. In addition, a statistical regression model was proposed and tested to get the results of the performance of state-owned enterprises. Finally, some suggestions were made about how to improve the institutional management of government-owned corporations in China.


The time taken for a tree to fall when felled can be expressed in closed form in terms of elliptic integrals. However, this form of the solution is of limited practical use to the non-mathematician. A straightforward numerical method is presented that can be programmed into a spreadsheet in a few lines without requiring any high level programming or mathematical skills. Good accuracy for practical purposes is obtained without any iteration, but accuracy is further improved with two or three iterations, each involving only one or two extra cells in the spreadsheet. Results are compared with the analytic solution. This article demonstrates how a challenging real problem is accurately solved numerically with basic office tools and limited mathematics.

 References Milton Abramowitz and Irene A Stegun. Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs and Mathematical Tables , volume 55 of Applied Mathematics . National Bureau of Standards, 1964. J.L. Meriam and L.G. Kraige. Engineering Mechanics Volume 2 Dynamics . 2nd edition, 1998.


We consider the family of the Bour's minimal surfaces in Euclidean 3space, and compute their classes, degrees and integral free representations.


Alemtuzumab is highly effective at treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in bone marrow, which is the usual site of residual disease after fludarabine‐based treatment. Eliminating residual disease potentially is associated with longer remission and overall survival. The authors of this report evaluated the ability of subcutaneous alemtuzumab to treat residual disease.


In this article, the authors have produced a set of spatially explicit global GDP based on SSP scenarios. This could be an interesting publication if the authors can improve the novelty of this approach. The authors can also improve the paper in many other ways. First of all, the authors could provide a better introduction for SSP. For example, what are the five SSP scenarios and why they are significant. In addition, the organization could also be imporved. The authors have discusses different terms and policies, but there is a very poor transition between paragraphs. In addition, there is a lack of novelty for the method. Furthremore, the authors need to check the writing and grammar. For example, in the abstract, "ScenarioMIP" is not explained; line 120 "with other auxiliary information but are not open accessed."; Line 133 you used "population count (density)" and in line 158 you separated the terms "population count, population density", any significance?; Line 846 are the 846 RMSE(s).


Stochastically fluctuating wind energy density has major influence on wind energy converters performance. Dynamic power flow variations in the power drain of wind energy converters lead, among others, to dynamical torque changes. Through the power drain, the load peaks are fed forward to the electrical grid and cause early damage of mechanical components, thermal overload of electrical components, as well as voltage variations on the electrical grid. In this paper the influence of control methods on the cumulated load in the wind energy converter's drive train is analyzed. The control methods considered in this paper are optimal rotational speed control, linear power average control, self searching optimum and stochastic dynamic optimization. Conventional control approaches, optimal speed, linear power average, and self searching optimum lead to high shares of critical drive train torque. The stochastic dynamic optimization control significantly reduces the occurrence of unfavorably high torque values.


Background: Balance issues in Stroke subjects are one of the major concerns during rehabilitation. Interventions to improve balance and functional outcome are integral part of therapy. Movement based therapy such as Pilates can be of help in these subjects.

Objectives: To evaluate the effects of Pilates training on functional balance and quality of life in sub-acute Stroke subjects.

Materials and Methods: This study was conducted at Neurological Physiotherapy Out Patient Department. A total of 23 ambulatory Sub-acute Stroke subjects were randomly assigned into two groups; Pilates Group (n=12: Pilates along with Conventional therapy) and Control Group (n=11: Conventional therapy). Participants in Pilates group were treated for 8 weeks with a series of 45 minute Pilates sessions thrice weekly along with conventional therapy and Control group received only conventional therapy. Functional reach test, Timed up and go test, Dynamic gait index and Stroke specific quality of life scale were recorded at baseline and after 8 weeks of training.

Results: There was significant improvement (p


The growth of hemangiomas of the orbital region varies greatly; it is unpredictable. Most lesions never reach sufficient size to impair vision; a few, however, may grow sufficiently to cause disastrous complications. Nine children with complete or partial occlusion of the vision by hemangioma of one eye are reported. (Functional vision was preserved only in those patients who had early subtotal excision of the eyelid hemangioma.) Two children with complete occlusion developed amblyopia in the involved eye. One had optic nerve atrophy. One of the four children with partial occlusion of vision had a permanent decrease in visual acuity. Of the remaining three children with normal vision, two had been operatively treated early, and one had unusually rapid involution of the hemangioma. We recommend that when a child has complete or partial visual occlusion due to hemangioma, subtotal or total excision of the hemangioma should be carried out within 1 week of the onset of visual occlusion to prevent amblyopia.