Deep learning approaches to 3D shape segmentation are typically formulated as a multi-class labeling problem. These models are trained for a fixed set of labels, which greatly limits their flexibility and adaptivity. We opt for top-down recursive decomposition and develop the first deep learning model for hierarchical segmentation of 3D shapes, based on recursive neural networks. Starting from a full shape represented as a point cloud, our model performs recursive binary decomposition, where the decomposition network at all nodes in the hierarchy share weights. At each node, a node classifier is trained to determine the type (adjacency or symmetry) and stopping criteria of its decomposition. The features extracted in higher level nodes are recursively propagated to lower level ones. Thus, the meaningful decompositions in higher levels provide strong contextual cues constraining the segmentations in lower levels. Meanwhile, to increase the segmentation accuracy at each node, we enhance the recursive contextual feature with the shape feature extracted for the corresponding part. Our method segments a 3D shape in point cloud into an arbitrary number of parts, depending on the shape complexity, showing strong generality and flexibility. It achieves the state-of-the-art performance, both for fine-grained and semantic segmentation, on the public benchmark and a new benchmark of fine-grained segmentation proposed in this work. We also demonstrate its application for fine-grained part refinements in image-to-shape reconstruction.


This research paper aimed to explain the social engineering model of Islamic religious education carried out by the principals and Islamic religious education teachers at the Khadijah and Muhammadiyah 3 senior high schools in Surabaya in warding off intolerance and radicalism in the school environment. This research used a qualitative descriptive phenomenology approach by extracting data from observations and in-depth interviews with key informants. The results demonstrated that: (1) there was intolerance and radicalism in both schools that were wrapped in social prejudice; (2) the principal and the Islamic religious teachers acted as 'agents of change' in the social engineering of education, which has prevented intolerance and radicalism through two models in Islamic religious education – the social engineering model of education carried out by the principal with the ASWAJA Islamic religious education curriculum model, and the ISMUBA Islamic religious education curriculum model; (3) the teachers of ASWAJA and ISMUBA Islamic religious education have practiced their learning and educating processes to support the goal of the principals; and (4) the obstacles faced by the principals and teachers in these efforts include the influence of online media, which contains messages of intolerance and radicalism and which is accessed by the students inside and outside of the school, and the limitations of the principals and teachers to carry out a control function for the students continuously.
Keywords: social engineering, Islamic religious education, intolerance, radicalism


Background: Automated Insulin Delivery systems (AIDs) can improve glucose control in people with type 1 diabetes but study of their use during childbirth is limited. Some commercially available AIDs use the inControl algorithm (iCa) to automate insulin dosing. Tight glycemic control during labor and childbirth is believed to reduce the risk of neonatal hypoglycemia. Immediately postpartum insulin resistance drops leading to large reductions in insulin requirements.
 Aim: To examine the performance of the iCa at time of childbirth and develop guidance for pump setting adjustments to maintain euglycemia during labor and childbirth and to prevent hypoglycemia postpartum. Cases: Five women chose to use iCa during childbirth. Two had scheduled caesarean births (CS) . One had a CS after a failed induction of labour. Two had vaginal births. All switched to lower basal rates (at least two-thirds less than their prepregnancy dose) and higher insulin sensitivity factors at least 1 hour prior to childbirth. Sleep activity (SA) was maintained prior to and during CS. Those with vaginal births switched from SA to exercise activity (EA) at time of pushing. iCa stops insulin delivery when glucose is predicted to go below 70 mmol/L in SA or 80 mmol/L in EA in the next 30 minutes.
 Results: Hypoglycemia during childbirth and early postpartum was avoided in all five cases despite substantial reduction in insulin need following childbirth. Glucose levels increased after the insulin adjustments were made prior to childbirth, but rose especially after childbirth. There were larger glucose increments among those who changed from SA to EA.
 Conclusion: Early adopters of iCa safely used iCa during childbirth. Precautionary reductions in insulin doses made prior to childbirth prevented hypoglycemia at time of childbirth and early postpartum. Mild hyperglycemia resulted in some. Further study is required to assess if these precautionary pump setting adjustments are necessary during labor and childbirth when using the iCa.

 L.E.Donovan: Other Relationship; Dexcom, Inc., Inner Analytics, Medtronic, Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc. J.Mckeen: None. D.Feig: Advisory Panel; Novo Nordisk, Research Support; Apotex.


AIMS
To assess the vital capacity (VC), tidal volume, minute volume and respiratory rate during the first four postoperative days of elective craniotomy and how they are correlated with smoking, associated diseases and respiratory symptoms.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Ninety-four patients were initially evaluated for elective craniotomy and they were included in this study only if they presented normal consciousness level and spontaneous breathing at the first postoperative. The preoperative and postoperative evaluations comprised physical examination and ventilometry up to the fourth postoperative. The repeated measures analysis of variance was used to the ventilation measurements. The significance level adopted for all the statistical tests was p = 0.05.

RESULTS
Sixty-two patients were included in this study. There was a 20% fall in the VC from the first to the third postoperative (p = 0.001). Patients with systemic arterial hypertension presented in the preoperative period a lower mean VC (2.59 L) than the patients without (3.28 L) (p = 0.045). Smokers presented a lower mean VC (2.65 and 1.95 L) than the nonsmokers (3.13 and 2.43 L), both in the preoperative and in the postoperative, but with no statistic significance (p = 0.090).

CONCLUSION
After elective craniotomy, there is a significant decrease in VC immediately after surgery, improving gradually thereafter; there was no difference in VC between the smoking and nonsmoking patients in the pre- and postoperative as well.


The ubiquitous proliferation of online social networks has led to the widescale emergence of relational graphs expressing unique patterns in link formation and descriptive user node features. Matrix Factorization and Completion have become popular methods for Link Prediction due to the low rank nature of mutual node friendship information, and the availability of parallel computer architectures for rapid matrix processing. Current Link Prediction literature has demonstrated vast performance improvement through the utilization of sparsity in addition to the low rank matrix assumption. However, the majority of research has introduced sparsity through the limited L1 or Frobenius norms, instead of considering the more detailed distributions which led to the graph formation and relationship evolution. In particular, social networks have been found to express either Pareto, or more recently discovered, Log Normal distributions. Employing the convexity-inducing Lovasz Extension, we demonstrate how incorporating specific degree distribution information can lead to large scale improvements in Matrix Completion based Link prediction. We introduce Log-Normal Matrix Completion (LNMC), and solve the complex optimization problem by employing Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers. Using data from three popular social networks, our experiments yield up to 5% AUC increase over top-performing non-structured sparsity based methods.


This paper addresses changing meanings attached to the concept of "community" in languages education in the school setting in Australia. The change consists of a shift from "community" as a necessary definitional category, created in the mid 1970s to mark the recognition of languages other than English used in the Australian community, to a recognition, in the current context of increasing mobility of people and ideas, of the need to problematise the concept of "community" towards working with the complexity of the lived, dynamic languages and cultures in the repertoires of students. Intercultural language learning is discussed as a way of thinking about communities in languages education in current times.


The clinical laboratory in the management of viral infections. Validation of Clinical Laboratory Tests. Assessment of Diagnostic Tests. Molecular Amplication Methods in diagnostic virology. Detection methods for nucleic acid amplification products. Design of molecular virologic tests. Virus isolation. Virus isolation. Diagnosis by antigen detection. Serological tests in clinical virology. Microscopy and cytology of viral infections. Electon microscopy of viral infections. Antiviral therapy. Upper respiratory tract infections. Lower respiratory tract infections. Common viral infections of childhood. Gastrointestinal tract infections. Infections of the skin and mucosa. Viral hepatitis. Hemmorrhagic fevers. Infections of the nervous system. Sexually transmitted infections. Immunodeficiency viruses. Infections of the immunosuppressed host. Ocular infections. Prion diseases.


Why capital does not flow more heavily into poorer countries with lower capital-labor ratios is a question that development economists have been asking for decades. Caselli and Feyrer (2007) developed adjusted marginal product of capital (MPK) models that are very similar across rich and poor countries, proving that capital is indeed allocated efficiently across the world and there are no major frictions preventing optimal allocation of capital. This paper uses updated and improved national accounts data to replicate the methodology set forth in Caselli and Feyrer (2007), testing the long-term validity of their conclusions as well as the effects of the Great Recession on international capital flows between developed and developing countries. I find that while the Great Recession negatively impacted MPKs in both rich and poor countries, capital flows and output growth have since recovered, and MPKs are still very similar across all countries. This study provides support for Caselli and Feyrer's conclusions on the causes of low capital-labor ratios in poorer countries, as well as the view that capital is indeed allocated efficiently across countries.


Production-oriented virtual enterprise is a more important form in the virtual enterprise, quality information management plays an irreplaceable role in production-oriented virtual enterprise. According to life-cycle theory of the virtual enterprise and the condition of information technology, combing with quality assurance model and started with customer relations, quality information management system of production-oriented virtual enterprise was built. It is conducive to identify, acquire and deal with quality information, in order to provide quality information management guarantee for production-oriented virtual enterprise.


Traditional rigid robotic hand manipulator has been used in many field nowadays due to its advantages of large gripping force and stable performance. However, this kind of rigid manipulator is not suitable for gripping fragile objects since it is motorized and force control can be a problem. It is also not suitable to grip object with different shapes since the manipulator is rigid and not compliant. In this study, a novel manipulator with gripping capability is designed and fabricated. The manipulator combines electrostatic adhesion actuation with soft manipulators. The manipulator has high flexibility and can be compliant to different shapes due to the property of the materials. It is very promising to do delicate manipulations in industry field and biomedical field.


Part of Speech tagging in Manipuri is a very complex task as Manipuri is highly agglutinating in nature. There is no enough tagged corpus for Manipuri which can be used in any statistical analysis of the language. In this tagging model we are using tagged output of the Manipuri rule-based tagger as tagged corpus. The present paper expounds the Part of Speech Tagging in Manipuri by applying a stochastic model called Hidden Markov Model.


Is Rotation a Concern with Anatomical Breast Implants? A Statistical Analysis of Factors Predisposing to Rotation Sir: T percentage of rotation in breast implants is one of the four causes that place into question the use of these devices. The other three causes are the need for more accurate surgery, the higher cost of these implants, and the appearance of a sagging breast in some cases. I agree with Montemurro et al.1 that more meticulous and precise surgery is needed to decrease the degree of rotation, but it is also advisable to use implants with a larger vertical length to limit the horizontal dissection of the pocket, provided that the measurements of the patient`s chest and the type of patient allow it.2 Other factors that help to reduce rotation are the use of macrotexture implants,3 careful hemostasis, a highly aseptic technique, and the use of suction drains.4–6 All of these actions prevent the formation of fluids and biofilm. In my private practice from January of 2009 to June of 2017 with 438 patients with macrotexture anatomical implants (Nagor, Glasgow, United Kingdom), we had nine patients with unilateral rotation and one patient with bilateral rotation caused by bilateral seroma. The unilateral cases were resolved with surgery with capsulorrhaphy on two planes and nonabsorbable mononylon sutures; in the bilateral case, both implants were changed to round ones and their size was increased by 10 percent. With our routine, we use the subfascial plane with the subareolar approach in most patients, and when the areola size does not allow us to use the submammary approach, we always place suction drainage for 3 to 4 days. Surgery is performed with sedation and the anesthetist using pectoral and intercostal block with ultrasound control. The surgery is ambulatory, and 4 hours later the patient is discharged to home and returns the next day. I do not agree with the opinion of the authors of the discussion,7 who consider that there are many cases of clinically undetectable rotations that can be detected only with high-resolution ultrasound. All of our patients—in the postoperative period—are advised to undergo ultrasound control yearly, and from the age of 40 onward, annual mammographic and ultrasound examinations are recommended to prevent breast cancer. I personally use anatomical implants in approximately 70 percent of primary breast augmentations, and I consider that there is a group of patients mostly older than 35 years who prefer this type of implant because of their more natural results. Unfortunately, many colleagues discredit these devices which, when well indicated and in patients who request them, yield exceptional results. In conclusion, a suitable selection of patients is very important, and a meticulous dissection of the pocket with an electric scalpel and use of suction drains are essential to avoid serous collections that cause rotation of the implant. DOI: 10.1097/PRS.0000000000003994


ABSTRACT A new bioflocculant named pKr produced by hydrocarbonoclastic strain Kocuria rosea BU22S (KC152976) was investigated. Gas chromatography–flame ionization detector (GC-FID) analysis confirmed the high potential of the strain BU22S in the degradation of n-alkanes. Plackett–Burman experimental design and response surface methodology were carried out to optimize pKr production. Glucose, peptone and incubation time were found to be the most significant factors affecting bioflocculant production. Maximum pKr production was about 4.72 ± 0.02 g/L achieved with 15.61 g/L glucose, 6.45 g/L peptone and 3 days incubation time. Chemical analysis of pKr indicated that it contained 71.62% polysaccharides, 16.36% uronic acid and 2.83% proteins. Thin layer chromatography analysis showed that polysaccharides fraction consisted of galactose and xylose. Fourier transform infrared analysis revealed the presence of many functional groups, hydroxyl, carboxyl, methoxyl, acetyl and amide that likely contribute to flocculation. K. rosea pKr showed high flocculant potential using kaolin clay at different pH (2–11), temperature (0–100°C) and cation concentrations. The bioflocculant was particularly effective in flocculating soluble anionic dyes, Reactive Blue 4 and Acid Yellow, with a decolorization efficiency of 76.4% and 72.6%, respectively. The outstanding flocculating performances suggest that pKr could be useful for bioremediation applications. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT


We investigated halothane's effects on the function of L-type Ca2+ channels in a human neuronal cell line, SH-SY5Y, by using the cell-attached patch voltage clamp configuration and Ba2+ as the charge carrier. In multiple-channel patches, halothane decreased the peak and persistent Ba2+ currents, accelerated the rate of inactivation, and slowed the rate of activation. Single-channel analysis showed that halothane (0.14-1.26 mM) increased the latency time for the first channel opening, increased the lifetime of nonconducting events, increased the proportion of short-lived open events, decreased the lifetime of the two open populations, and increased the percentage of current traces without channel activity. All of the observed halothane effects contribute to the halothane-induced decrease in macroscopic Ba2+ currents. The halothane concentration producing 50% reduction (IC50) of the peak Ba2+ current was 0.80 mM (approximately 1.9 hypothetical minimum alveolar anesthetic concentration [H-MAC] at 28[degree sign]C) and of the persistent Ba2+ current was 0.69 mM (approximately 1.7 H-MAC). The halothane effects did not always occur together, and the Hill slope of 1.6 suggested the presence of more than one interaction site or of more than one population of L-type Ca2+ channels. Halothane reduces L-type Ca2+ channel currents in human neuronal cells primarily through the stabilization of nonconducting states such as closed (before and after channel opening) and inactivated states. Implications: Calcium is a signaling molecule in neurons. We measured the effect of halothane on Ba2+ (a Ca2+ surrogate) movement into a human neuron-like cell electronically. Ba2+ entry through the L-type channel was depressed. Halothane decreased the likelihood of the channel opening and enhanced the rate at which the channel closed and inactivated. These actions of halothane are probably related to its anesthetic action. (Anesth Analg 1998;86:885-95)


Though normal flora of upper respiratory tract, Candida species are a significant clinical problem for a variety of immune compromised patients worldwide. Impaired salivary gland function, drugs, dentures, high carbohydrate diet, age, smoking, diabetes mellitus, Cushing's syndrome, malignancies, and immunosuppressive conditions are the associated risk factors for the Candidiasis. The study was designed with the objectives of describing the distribution pattern of Candida species and some molds in the elderly and non elderly population randomly sampled from the three Oldage Care Centers. A total of 304 samples each of sputum and throat swabs were collected from the study objects having age 20-80 years. The specimens were cultured on Sabouraud's Dextrose Agar (SDA). Candida isolates were identified on the basis of Gram stain, germ tube test, production of chlamydospore, sugar fermentation and assimilation test. The mold isolates were identified by cultural and microscopic characteristics. Out of total 304 samples of each sputum and throat swabs 16.45% and 5.3% samples respectively were growth positive for fungal culture. Among elderly population, 32.87% (47/143) of sputum and 9.8% (14/143) throat swabs showed culture positivity. In case of non elderly population however only 1.9% (3/161) sputum and 1.24% (2/161) throat swab samples were culture positive. In total, 56 Candida isolates (41 from sputum and 14 from throat swabs) were obtained. Significantly higher number of isolates was obtained from elderly population (38 from sputum and 12 from throat swabs) than non elderly population. Among three antimycotic drugs used, the Candida isolates were highly susceptible against Ketoconazole and resistant towards Fluconazole. Candida distribution was significantly associated with the age, respiratory tract problem and smoking habits of the study population. Elderly population having age above 50 years are in the high risk of drug resistant Candida infection.
 Key Words: Candida, elderly population, sputum, throat swab, antimycotic susceptibility


This study was conducted to find out a desirable screening condition for the salinity tolerance in germination of rice. Seeds of 33 rice varieties were tested in NaCl solutions with various concentration levels. The germination percentage had a decreasing tendency with increasing NaCl concentration and inhibition concentration of 50% germination was 320mM. Standard deviation of germination percentage was highest (28.6) under 300mM NaCl. There was a highly significant correlation between the 50% germination concentration and the germination percentage at 20th day after seeding in 300mM NaCl. Also in 300mM NaCl, the germination percentage at 20th day after seeding was significantly correlated with the germination percentage at the 6th day after seeding. The salinity tolerance on the basis of germination percentage at 6th day after seeding in 300mM NaCl, was strong in 'Hyangnambyeo', 'Ilmibyeo', 'Kancheogbyeo', and 'Namwonbyeo', while weak in 'Ansanbyeo', 'Odaebyeo', 'Nonganbyeo', 'Dasanbyeo', and 'Namcheonbyeo'.


This study characterizes exercise-induced lipid peroxidation during graded aerobic exercise in seven healthy men and women (36.4 +/- 3 yr). Levels of ethane and pentane in expired breath during cardiopulmonary exercise stress testing were measured at rest, lactic acidosis threshold (LAT), maximal exercise (VO2max), and recovery. Serum malonaldehyde (MDA) levels were measured at rest before exercise and 5 min after maximal exercise. Expired ethane and pentane flux levels were increased above resting levels at LAT, continued to rise at VO2max, then declined during recovery. Serum MDA levels were not significantly different before and after maximal exercise. Substantial exercise-induced lipid peroxidation (by expired ethane and pentane) apparently occurred in healthy individuals at LAT and continued to increase at VO2max, yet rapidly attenuated during post-exercise recovery. These findings indicate that in healthy individuals physical exercise induced lipid peroxidation transiently and that there was a removal of lipid peroxidation byproducts during recovery.


Last year THE PHYSICIAN AND SPORTSMEDICINE published a list Of professional organizations that represented the growing diversity in the field of sports medicine. The list has been updated, and we've added a list of resource groups and committees that generate sports medicine information. While THE PHYSICIAN AND SPORTSMEDICINE does not endorse any of the groups listed, we do encourage you to contact ones that interest you. Organizations are arranged alphabetically within the two lists. When appropriate, we have given the name of an administrative head along with the chief elected officer. Ali correspondance should be addressed to the organization. Organizations with an emphasis in sports medicine that wish to be added to these lists Should contact THE PHYSICIAN AND SPORTSMEDICINE, Organizations Project, 4530 W 77th St, Minneapolis 55435.


OBJECTIVE To compare the incidence rate of IDDM in the age-groups 0–14 and 15–39 years in Antwerp, Belgium, and to compare demographic, clinical, and biological data from Antwerp IDDM patients with 92% ascertainment with those from a larger Belgian patient group with 40% ascertainment. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Incident cases of IDDM were reported by physicians of the Belgian Diabetes Registry and in Antwerp by several other sources. In Antwerp, completeness of ascertainment was calculated by the capture-recapture method. Demographic and clinical data were collected by questionnaire. Blood was sampled for HLA-DQ genotyping and, in new-inset patients, for autoantibodies. RESULTS In Antwerp, the age- and sex-standardized IDDM incidence rates were similar in both age-groups (0–14 years: 11.8/100,000; 15–39 years: 8.9/100,000). The incidence rate decreased in girls above age 15 years (6.9/100,000; P = 0.003) but not in boys (11.0/100,000). Both in Antwerp and Belgium, IDDM was diagnosed more frequently in the 15–39 years age-group (60% of all cases) than under age 15 years, with a lower prevalence of acute symptoms, ketonuria, high-risk HLA-DQ genotype, and autoantibodies against insulin, islet cells, and IA-2, but with a higher prevalence of GAD65 autoantibodies. CONCLUSIONS In Antwerp, the incidence rate of IDDM under age 15 years is intermediately high compared with the rates in other European regions. It is similar in the 15–39 years age-group, but with a marked male predominance. Demographic, clinical, and biological data show the same age-dependent heterogeneity as the data collected nationwide, with 40% ascertainment indicating the representativeness of the latter.


Ovarian cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women due to the development of therapeutic resistance. Natural killer (NK) cells are cytotoxic lymphocytes that can kill neoplastic cells without prior sensitization. A key anti-tumor function of human NK cells is antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), mediated exclusively by the IgG Fcy (FcyR) receptor CD16A. The mechanism of action of several clinically successful antitumor therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) involves ADCC; however, their therapeutic efficacy is reduced due to regulatory checkpoints of CD16A, which include its low IgG binding affinity and rapid downregulation upon NK cell activation by the membrane metalloprotease ADAM17.1–3 CD64, the highest affinity FcyR, is expressed on myeloid-derived cells and not lymphocytes and is also not cleaved by ADAM17. To enhance ADCC, we generated CD64/16A, a novel recombinant FcyR consisting of extracellular CD64 and intracellular and transmembrane CD16A to mediate high affinity IgG binding and potent cell signaling.4 5Engineered NK cells expressing CD64/16A were derived from human induced pluripotent stem-cells (iPSCs), referred to here as iNKs, which are clonal and clinically scalable NK cells. ADCC and natural cytotoxicity of three ovarian cancer cell lines were measured in vitro using Delfia EuTDA and IncuCyte cytotoxicity assays, and production of anti-tumor cytokines was determined via flow cytometry. Finally, tumor cell killing was assessed in vivo using a human xenograft mouse model of peritoneal metastatic ovarian cancer.Our data show that iNK-CD64/16A cells uniquely facilitate mAb absorption, robustly produce IFN-y and TNF-alpha, and kill several ovarian cancer cell lines in the presence of the therapeutic mAbs trastuzumab or cetuximab, which target HER2 or EGFR, respectively. We found that iNK-CD64/16A cells can capture soluble mAbs and retain antibody arming and ADCC efficacy after cryopreservation. Additionally, iNK-CD64/16A cells robustly mediate ADCC and reduce overall tumor burden of HER2+ tumor cells in vivo in the described metastatic ovarian cancer xenograft model.Our findings provide new insights into using high affinity Fc receptor-based adoptive NK cell therapies and lay the preclinical foundation necessary for developing an 'off-the-shelf' cellular therapy that can be combined with therapeutic tumor-targeting mAbs for the treatment of ovarian cancer. Importantly, iNK-CD64/16A cells can serve as a docking platform for therapeutic antibodies that can be switched and mixed for universal tumor antigen targeting to treat multiple malignancies.NIH R01CA203348, HHMI Medical Research Fellows Program/Burroughs Wellcome FundJing Y, Ni Z, Wu J, et al. Identification of an ADAM17 cleavage region in human CD16 (FcgammaRIII) and the engineering of a non-cleavable version of the receptor in NK cells. PLoS One 2015;10(3):e0121788.Wu J, Mishra HK, Walcheck B. Role of ADAM17 as a regulatory checkpoint of CD16A in NK cells and as a potential target for cancer immunotherapy. J Leukoc Biol 2019;105(6):1297–303.Dixon KJ, Wu J, Walcheck B. Engineering Anti-Tumor Monoclonal Antibodies and Fc Receptors to Enhance ADCC by Human NK Cells. Cancers (Basel) 2021;13(2).Snyder KM, Hullsiek R, Mishra HK, et al. Expression of a Recombinant High Affinity IgG Fc Receptor by Engineered NK Cells as a Docking Platform for Therapeutic mAbs to Target Cancer Cells. Front Immunol 2018;9:2873.Walcheck B, Wu J. iNK-CD64/16A cells: a promising approach for ADCC? Expert Opin Biol Ther 2019;19(12):1229–32.This study was approved by the University of Minnesota's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, protocol number 1902–36768A.


Heavy metals are rapidly polluting the environment as a result of growing industrialization and urbanization. The presence of high concentrations of chromium (Cr), along with other pollutants, is widespread in tannery wastewater. In Pakistan, as a result of a severe shortage of irrigation water, farmers use tannery wastewater to grow various crops with a consequent decline in plants' yield. This experiment was performed to assess growth revival in sunflower plants irrigated with 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% tannery wastewater, by foliar application of 0, 2.5, and 5.0 mM citric acid (CA). The wastewater treatment curtailed biomass accumulation, the growth rate, and chlorophyll contents by exacerbating the oxidative stress in sunflowers. Foliar application of CA considerably alleviated the outcomes of Cr toxicity by curbing the Cr absorption and oxidative damage, leading to improvements in plant growth, biological yield, and chlorophyll contents. It is concluded that foliar application of CA can successfully mitigate the Cr toxicity in sunflower plants irrigated with tannery wastewater.


Objective The purpose of this study was to propose a novel subclassification of pT4 gastric cancers according to the width of serosal changes and to investigate the validity and clinical utility of this subclassification as a predictor of prognosis. Methods A total of 780 pT4 stage gastric cancer patients classified according to the 7th American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system were reviewed. Clinicopathologic features were compared between patients with narrow serosal changes (nSE), wide serosal changes (wSE) and invasions of adjacent structures (SI). Prognostic factors were evaluated by univariate and multivariate analyses. The 7th AJCC and novel pT4 subclassification were compared for prognostic performance using the linear trend chi-square test, likelihood ratio chi-square test, and Akaike information criterion (AIC) in the Cox regression analysis. Results The appropriate serosa infiltrate cutoff value was 8 cm. Most of the evaluated clinicopathologic features significantly differed between nSE and SI cancers. Only 3 factors were significantly different between wSE and SI cancers. The 5-year survival rates for patients with the novel pT4a and pT4b cancers were 47.2% and 14.52%, respectively, while they were 41.66% and 16.34% for the 7th AJCC pT4a and pT4b cancers, respectively. The novel pT4 subclassification had better discriminatory ability, monotonicity of gradients, and homogeneity and had smaller AIC values compared with the 7th AJCC pT4. Conclusions It is reasonable to subclassify pT4 to pT4a (nSE) and pT4b (wSE/SI) because the novel pT4 subclassification had more potential to identify the different prognoses for patients with gastric cancer.


It is shown theoretically that additional illumination by a squeezed field of a thin layer of two-level atoms, which interact with a resonant coherent electromagnetic wave, results in bistable transmission/reflection of this wave. This bistability depends strongly on the difference between the phases of the coherent and squeezed fields.


The fields of gender studies, gender and organizations, diversity and diversity management, and intersectionality studies have all grown extensively in recent years as ways of analyzing social divisions. Each and all of these have major implications for the analysis of professions, even if the issues they raise have often not been at the forefront of mainstream studies. In this chapter we consider the relevance of gendered intersectional analysis for the understanding of professions, potential professions and professionalization. Indeed put this way, we may ask: is it really possible to analyze professions and professionalization without considering gender and gender relations? To read some of the classics in the vast literature on professions, you would think so.


ABSTRACT Since about 2009, increasing budgetary constraints forced the Russian state to become notably less tolerant of lower-level corruption and predatory behavior by state agencies. In this paper, we argue that after a first stage of decentralized corruption and state capture during the 1990s, and a second period of decentralized corruption and business capture during the 2000s, Russia has entered a third stage of more centralized corruption since 2009. We build our argument on a detailed discussion of property rights relations in Russia, and support it with indicative quantitative data, suggesting that raiding attacks on businesses and corrupt behavior by state agencies have become less frequent and more centralized between 2009 and 2016. The sustainability of this move towards a more centralized mode of corruption remains questionable, however, mainly due to the lack of a long-term vision for the development of the country.


Short-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has been associated with increased risks of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), but whether such associations are supportive of a causal relationship is unclear, and few studies have employed formal causal analysis methods to address this. We employed nonparametric methods to examine the associations between daily concentrations of PM2.5 and hospital admissions (HAs) for CVD among adults aged 75 years and older in Texas, USA. We first quantified the associations in partial dependence plots generated using the random forest approach. We next used a Bayesian network learning algorithm to identify conditional dependencies between CVD HAs of older men and women and several predictor variables. We found that geographic location (county), time (e.g., month and year), and temperature satisfied necessary information conditions for being causes of CVD HAs among older men and women, but daily PM2.5 concentrations did not. We also found that CVD HAs of disjoint subpopulations were strongly predictive of CVD HAs among older men and women, indicating the presence of unmeasured confounders. Our findings from nonparametric analyses do not support PM2.5 as a direct cause of CVD HAs among older adults.


BACKGROUND
Syphilis incognito is a subtype of latent syphilis (early or late) characterized by no signs or symptoms of primary or secondary syphilis and diagnosed by positive serologic results for syphilis during routine screening.

OBJECTIVE
To study the epidemiological characteristics, causes, and implications of syphilis incognito in Greece.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
All new adult patients diagnosed as having syphilis in Andreas Sygros Hospital for Skin and Venereal Diseases, Athens, Greece, from 1989 through 1996 were studied prospectively and retrospectively (history, physical examination, serologic tests, cerebrospinal fluid examination, and imaging) to determine the stage of their disease. The epidemiological, clinical, and serologic characteristics of patients with syphilis incognito were recorded and analyzed.

RESULTS
During the 8-year period, 711 new syphilis cases were detected; of these, 480 cases (67.5%) fulfilled the definition criteria of syphilis incognito. The male-female ratio was 1.8:1. Patients with syphilis incognito were most commonly heterosexual, had a median socioeconomic status, and were aged 20 to 39 years, and their conditions were diagnosed during routine screening for syphilis (prenatal care, hospital admission, or blood donation). However, the number of syphilis incognito cases appeared to decline during the period studied.

CONCLUSIONS
The incidence of syphilis in Greece has decreased dramatically, following the trends in western Europe. The most common form of syphilis is syphilis incognito, affecting adults who are older and have a higher socioeconomic status than those in the past. Improved hygiene and wide use of antibiotics that minimize or abolish symptoms of early disease may have contributed to the frequency of syphilis incognito in recent years. Screening of asymptomatic persons, especially those at high risk, should continue and be reenforced to prevent the devastating consequences of unrecognized and untreated syphilis.


© Institution of Engineering and Technology.All Rights Reserved. In passive Radio Frequency Identification Systems (RFIDs), the interrogator should energise clients within range and use their backscattered replies to identify an inventory as quickly as possible. However, at the interrogator replies from two or more energised clients may collide and collided clients may not be identified. Therefore, collisions increase the number of timeslots needed to record an inventory. Reducing the number and frequency of collisions is an important and topical area research in RFID. Previously for passive Ultra High Frequency RFID the problem of collisions has been addressed using an ALOHA based protocol called the Q-Selection Algorithm. In this paper, a more efficient algorithm is presented that is shown to reduce the number of timeslots needed to record an inventory by approximately 30% when compared to the existing Q algorithm.


Interleukin-23 is the first cytokine linked to proinflammatory Th17 cells. Although IL-23 is dispensable for the differentiation of Th17 cells in vitro, it is absolutely required for their late maturation and acquisition of pathogenicity in vivo. IL-23 signaling promotes and exacerbates autoimmunity in many disease settings. On the contrary, IL-23 protects mice from pathogen-induced infection. Key cellular mediators of IL-23 in various immune responses remain to be understood since the receptor of IL-23 (IL-23R) is expressed by multiple immune cells. To elucidate the major cellular mediators of IL-23 in both pathogenic and beneficiary immune responses, we developed IL-23R conditional knock-out and IL-23R conditional knock-in mice. These mice allow us to turn on/off IL-23R expression in desired cell types by crossing with lineage-specific Cre-recombinase mice. To understand the significance of Th17 cell-intrinsic and –extrinsic IL-23R signaling in vivo, we examined these mice in various diseases. Interestingly, we found that CD4-autonomous IL-23R signaling is necessary and sufficient for the development of EAE. In contrast, IL-23R mediated protection against Citrobacter rodentium, a mucosal pathogen, is not impaired in CD4 T cell-specific IL-23R deficient animals. Thus, our data suggests a contrasting requirement for the IL-23-Th17 axis in CNS vs. mucosal sites. These novel mice shall be valuable in studying IL-23 responses in other diseases.


The stone roof is a rare architectural design found in Tsushima. Here, these stone roofs are used for the storehouse. While it has been reported that the number of stone roof storehouses are currently decreasing, not all have been investigated for about 10 years. We conducted a survey on the distribution of stone roof storehouses since 2014 and clarified the latest situation on their state of survival. Due to this distribution survey, the survival of 43 stone roofs was confirmed. Roof shapes in the form of 13 gable roofs and 30 entrance hall roofs were noted. In addition, by comparing the number of buildings with stone roof storehouses in each village for the last 10 years with data from past research, it was observed that the rate of decrease varied from village to village.


A regenerative organic Rankine cycle (RORC) is modeled and optimized for the use of waste heat recovery from a prime mover (PM). Three PMs including, a diesel engine, a gas engine, and a microturbine are selected in this study. Four refrigerants including isobutane, R123, R134a, and R245fa are selected. The nominal capacity of the PM, PM operating partial load, turbine inlet pressure, condenser pressure, refrigerant mass flow rate, pump efficiency, turbine efficiency, and regenerator effectiveness are considered as the decision variables. Then, the Genetic Algorithm is applied to maximize the thermal efficiency and minimize the total annual cost (TAC), simultaneously. The optimum results demonstrate that the best working fluid and the PM are, respectively, R123 and the diesel engine, which have a thermal efficiency of 0.50 and a TAC of $170,276/year. The optimum results are compared with each of the other studied cases. For example, the optimum result in the case of a diesel engine working with R123 shows a 2% and 2.52% improvement in the thermal efficiency and the TAC, respectively, in comparison to the case of a gas engine working with R123. Furthermore, a 26% and an 18.38% improvement in the thermal efficiency and the TAC are found when the best-studied cycle is compared with a microturbine and R123.


Regulator of Cullins-1 (ROC1) or Ring Box Protein-1 (RBX1) is a RING component of SCF (Skp-1, cullins, F-box proteins) E3 ubiquitin ligases, which regulate diverse cellular processes by targeting a variety of substrates for degradation. However, little is known about the role of ROC1 in human cancer. Here, we report that ROC1 is ubiquitously overexpressed in primary human tumor tissues and human cancer cell lines. ROC1 silencing by siRNA significantly inhibited the growth of multiple human cancer cell lines via induction of senescence and apoptosis as well as G(2)-M arrest. Senescence induction is coupled with DNA damage in p53/p21- and p16/pRB-independent manners. Apoptosis is associated with accumulation of Puma and reduction of Bcl-2, Mcl-1, and survivin; and G(2)-M arrest is associated with accumulation of 14-3-3sigma and elimination of cyclin B1 and Cdc2. In U87 glioblastoma cells, these phenotypic changes occur sequentially upon ROC1 silencing, starting with G(2)-M arrest, followed by apoptosis and senescence. Thus, ROC1 silencing triggers multiple death and growth arrest pathways to effectively suppress tumor cell growth, suggesting that ROC1 may serve as a potential anticancer target.


Cross-lingual Machine Reading Comprehension (CLMRC) remains a challenging problem due to the lack of large-scale annotated datasets in low-source languages, such as Arabic, Hindi, and Vietnamese. Many previous approaches use translation data by translating from a rich-source language, such as English, to low-source languages as auxiliary supervision. However, how to effectively leverage translation data and reduce the impact of noise introduced by translation remains onerous. In this paper, we tackle this challenge and enhance the cross-lingual transferring performance by a novel augmentation approach named Language Branch Machine Reading Comprehension (LBMRC). A language branch is a group of passages in one single language paired with questions in all target languages. We train multiple machine reading comprehension (MRC) models proficient in individual language based on LBMRC. Then, we devise a multilingual distillation approach to amalgamate knowledge from multiple language branch models to a single model for all target languages. Combining the LBMRC and multilingual distillation can be more robust to the data noises, therefore, improving the model's cross-lingual ability. Meanwhile, the produced single multilingual model can apply to all target languages, which saves the cost of training, inference, and maintenance for multiple models. Extensive experiments on two CLMRC benchmarks clearly show the effectiveness of our proposed method.


technical, or are simply too brief. Type size and writing style often differ, suggesting that the abstracts were written by different people and sometimes compiled rather hurriedly. Some technical errors in spelling and grammar are noticeable. Nevertheless, the monograph is a valuable contribution to students and researchers in music for early childhood. A supplement updating the bibliography for 1973-75 is available for $1.Marvin Greenberg, Professor of Education, Curriculum Research and Development Group,


We read with interest the study by Bharathy et al. who found that medical students had improved attitudes towards mental illness following a social interaction session after their psychiatry clerkship. 1 As fourthyear medical students, we have just completed a fi veweek psychiatry placement. We agree that mental illness is highly stigmatised, even amongst medical students and health care workers, which can have a detrimental effect on the number of patients seeking help. 2


Book Overview: The retinal pigment epithelium is a critical tissue within the eye. It lies directly behind the retina, where it provides metabolic support to the photoreceptors and controls their local environment. As a result, the RPE is vital to retinal function, but also a site of aging and disease that cause dysfunction and visual loss. This book brings together comprehensive reviews of basic and clinical science concerning the RPE. It is organized to juxtapose chapters on RPE disease with chapters on the underlying pathophysiology. These include up-todate accounts of growth factors, laser effects, proliferative vitreoretinopathy, Bruch's membrane pathology, as well as new diagnostic tools such as ocular coherence tomography, in vivo imaging of lipofuscin and nonphotic electrical responses. Other chapters cover pharmacology and toxicology, mechanisms of retinal adhesion and detachment, RPE pigments and transport, congenital and dystrophic diseases, animal models of RPE disease, and different aspects of age-related macular degeneration. The history and evolutionary aspects of the RPE are also presented. The contributing authors are experienced clinicians and eminent basic scientists who work on this critical part of the eye. The book will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the eye, and a necessity for specialists in the fields of retinal physiology and retinal disease. Disciplines Eye Diseases | Medicine and Health Sciences | Ophthalmology | Veterinary Medicine This book chapter is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/vet_papers/111


We examine the impact of an optimal emissions tax on research and development of emission reducing green technology (E-R&D) in the presence of R&D spillovers. We show that the size and effectiveness of the optimal emissions tax depends on the type of the R&D spillover: input or output spillover. In the case of R&D input spillovers (where only knowledge spillovers are accounted for), the optimal emissions tax required to stimulate R&D is always higher than when there is an R&D output spillover (where abatement and knowledge spillovers exist simultaneously). We also find that optimal emissions taxation and cooperative R&D complement each other when R&D spillovers are small, leading to lower emissions.


Mammalian ribosomal protein (rp) mRNAs are subject to translational control, as illustrated by their selective release from polyribosomes in growth-arrested cells and their under-representation in polyribosomes of normally growing cells. Recent studies have localized the translational regulatory element to the 5' end of the rp mRNA and have demonstrated that an oligopyrimidine tract, which adjoins the cap structure in all known vertebrate rp mRNAs, is an essential part of this element. Possible factors that might interact with the oligopyrimidine tract are discussed.


We solve the robust regulation problem for single-input single-output plants by using the fractional ideal approach and without assuming the existence of coprime factorizations. In particular, we are able to formulate the famous internal model principle for stabilizable plants which do not necessarily admit coprime factorizations. We are able to give a necessary and sufficient solvability condition for the robust regulation problem, which leads to a design method for a robustly regulating controller. The theory is illustrated by examples.


In this paper, we analyse the Einstein and Einstein–Maxwell billiards for all spatially homogeneous cosmological models corresponding to three- and four-dimensional real unimodular Lie algebras and provide a list of those models which are chaotic in the Belinskii, Khalatnikov and Lifschitz (BKL) limit. Through the billiard picture, we confirm that, in D = 5 spacetime dimensions, chaos is present if off-diagonal metric elements are kept: the finite volume billiards can be identified with the fundamental Weyl chambers of hyperbolic Kac–Moody algebras. The most generic cases bring in the same algebras as in the inhomogeneous case, but other algebras appear through special initial conditions.


Abstract: Meibomian glands secrete lipids (meibum) that form the surface lipid layer of the tear film and thereby prevent excessive evaporation of tear fluid. Meibomian gland dysfunction is a major cause of evaporative dry eye, which is more prevalent than aqueous-deficient dry eye. Noninvasive meibography with infrared light and an infrared charge-coupled device camera can detect morphological changes of meibomian glands in both upper and lower eyelids, whereas tear interferometry allows qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the lipid layer of the tear film. Such assessment of meibomian gland morphology provides clinical information that contributes to the diagnosis of evaporative dry eye, whereas that of the lipid layer of the tear film allows the monitoring of meibomian gland function. In addition, the balance between the lipid and aqueous layers of the tear film revealed by tear interferometry has provided both support for the operation of a compensatory system that maintains tear film homeostasis as well as insight into the pathophysiology of dry eye.


Two different approaches intend to resolve the 'puzzling' slow convergence to purchasing power parity (PPP) reported in the literature [see Rogoff (1996), "Journal of Economic Literature", Vol. 34.] On the one hand, there are models that consider a non-linear adjustment of real exchange rate to PPP induced by transaction costs. Such costs imply the presence of a certain transaction band where adjustment is too costly to be undertaken. On the other hand, there are models that relax the 'classical' PPP assumption of constant equilibrium real exchange rates. A prominent theory put together by Balassa (1964, "Journal of Political Economy", Vol. 72) and Samuelson (1964 "Review of Economics and Statistics", Vol. 46), the BS effect, suggests that a non-constant real exchange rate equilibrium is induced by different productivity growth rates between countries. This paper reconciles those two approaches by considering an exponential smooth transition-in-deviation non-linear adjustment mechanism towards non-constant equilibrium real exchange rates within the EMS (European Monetary System) and effective rates. The equilibrium is proxied, in a theoretically appealing manner, using deterministic trends and the relative price of non-tradables to proxy for BS effects. The empirical results provide further support for the hypothesis that real exchange rates are well described by symmetric, nonlinear processes. Furthermore, the half-life of shocks in such models is found to be dramatically shorter than that obtained in linear models. Copyright 2003 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


In dynamically changing environments a planning system does not have all the required information at the first place and the world state can change, rendering the original plan invalid. Consequently, taking planning to complex, real-world domains calls for close coupling of planning and plan execution, known as continual planning.

In domains where a high degree of adaptability is crucial and little a priori knowledge is available, explorative approaches are suitable. In other domains where comprehensive knowledge is available and human life depends on plan execution, like in medical treatment planning, only approved and validated procedures are admitted. Even more, these procedures constitute a rich asset in the planning task. To combine the utilization of such knowledge with the flexibility necessary in real-world applications, the Asgaard system integrates time-oriented, skeletal planning with real-time monitoring. It features a monolithic framework for the creation, verification, execution, and critiquing of plans with extensive covering of temporal modeling and data abstraction. In this paper, we describe the monitoring and plan adaptation capabilities of Asgaard.


The crystallization of stoichiometric GaSb thin films was studied by combined in situ synchrotron techniques and static laser testing. It is demonstrated that upon crystallization, GaSb thin films exhibit an unusual behaviour with increasing thickness and concomitant decreasing mass density while its electrical resistance drops as commonly observed in phase change materials. Furthermore, beyond GaSb amorphous-to-crystalline phase transition, an elemental segregation and a separate crystallization of a pure Sb phase is evidenced.


Organic–inorganic halide perovskite materials exhibit excellent memristive properties, such as high ON/OFF ratio and low switching voltage. However, the toxicity of lead and poor stability strictly limit their further commercial applications. Herein, a high-quality nontoxic and stable AgBiI4 perovskite film is successfully synthesized via a low-temperature dynamic hot casting method, and resistive switching (RS) memory devices based on AgBiI4 are reported for the first time. The RS memory devices with the ITO substrate exhibit typical bipolar nonvolatile memory behaviors with an ultralow operating voltage (≈0.16 V), high ON/OFF ratio (≈104), reversible RS by pulse voltage operation (>700) and long data retention (>104 s), superior to those of most of the other perovskite-based memory devices. Furthermore, a high performance flexible nonvolatile resistive switching (RS) memory device based on a AgBiI4 perovskite with a PEN substrate is fabricated. The flexible device also displays good stability under repeated bending tests (>1000 cycles). By analyzing the current–voltage responses, and the transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results, we propose a mechanism involving conducting filaments formed by Ag cations to describe the RS behavior of the Ag/PMMA/AgBiI4/ITO device. Our work demonstrates that AgBiI4 is promising for nonvolatile memory devices and paves the way for realizing low-power consumption flexible nonvolatile memory devices.


A robust self-assembly of nanoparticles into fibers and 3D scaffolds is designed and fabricated by functionalizing a RAFT-polymerized amphiphilic triblock copolymer with designer ionic complementary peptides so that the assembled core-shell polymeric nanoparticles are directed by peptide assembly into continuous "nanoparticle fibers," ultimately leading to 3D fiber scaffolds. The assembled nanostructure is confirmed by FESEM and optical microscopy. The assembly is not hindered when a protein (insulin) is incorporated within the nanoparticles as an active ingredient. MTS cytotoxicity tests on SW-620 cell lines show that the peptides, copolymers, and peptide-copolymer conjugates are biocompatible. The methodology of self-assembled nanoparticle fibers and 3D scaffolds is intended to combine the advantages of a flexible hydrogel scaffold with the versatility of controlled release nanoparticles to offer unprecedented ability to incorporate desired drug(s) within a self-assembled scaffold system with individual control over the release of each drug.


Recent discourse on U.S. efforts to promote democracy has focused on military activities; especially the strategic and normative perils of democracy promotion at the point of bayonets. This paper explores the United States' use of economic statecraft to foster democratization, with particular attention to democracy incentive and assistance strategies. Incentive approaches attempt to promote democracy from the top-down, by leveraging aid and trade privileges to persuade authoritarian leaders to implement political reform. Assistance approaches aim to induce democratization from the inside, through funding and technical assistance to state institutions, and from the bottom-up, by providing support to civil society and elections. This study finds that while top-down incentive approaches can stimulate democratic change, this strategy tends to work only when aid and trade benefits are conditional; that is, when benefits are withheld until recipient states meet rigorous democratic benchmarks. Washington has historically eschewed democratic conditionality, however, and thus can claim very few aid-induced or trade-induced democratization events. Scant evidence exists to demonstrate that inside approaches—that is, institutional aid—possesses significant capacity to induce democracy. It is the bottom-up approach—empowering the masses to compel democratic change—that has registered the greatest number of democracy promotion successes.


Atopic dermatitis (AD) is an inflammatory chronic-relapsing skin disease affecting approximately 15% to 20% of children and 10% of adults in industrialized countries. Both loss of epidermal barrier permeability and immune dysregulation seem to be the most important actors in AD pathogenesis. Several studies have demonstrated the role of Janus kinase (JAK) enzymes in AD pathogenesis suggesting oral and topical JAK inhibitors as new emerging therapies for AD. Among the JAK inhibitors, abrocitinib is an oral JAK1-selective inhibitor. The aim of this study is reviewing current literature about the efficacy and safety of abrocitinib in AD. The literature search was carried out considering the main search engines relating to medical literature and clinical trials. The efficacy and safety of abrocitinib have been confirmed in several studies suggesting this drug as a valuable treatment for moderate to severe AD.


Hormone measurements, spermiograms and testicular biopsies studies were performed in young with varicocele. In addition, the testes and epididymides of 27 adults with varicocele were obtained from autopsies. Light and electron microscopic examination of biopsy and autopsy specimens revealed two types of lesions in testes with varicocele: 1) a diffuse lesion consisting of abnormal spermatozoa and spermatid morphology and sloughing of immature spermatozoa and spermatid; 2) focal lesion, distributed irregularly throughout the testicular parenchyma, affecting several small groups of seminiferous tubules. Each of these groups corresponded to a testicular lobule and showed different degrees of tubular atrophy, so that the focal lesions were distributed in a mosaic pattern. The testicular interstitium showed dilated veins and venules, and progressive collagenization. Some testes showed dilated veins in the rete testis, which compressed several tubuli recti and caused tubular atrophy in the seminiferous tubules opening into these tubuli recti. Other testes showed dilated young veins among the ductuli efferentes, and the rete testis channels appeared to be dilated. Among the different etiological mechanisms which have been suggested to for testicular lesions in varicocele, tubular obstruction at the level of either the tubuli recti or the ductuli efferentes might be responsible for lesions leading to testicular atrophy.


Selected plants used in Rwandan traditional medicine for the treatment of infections and/or rheumatoid diseases were investigated for antiviral activity in vitro against human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1). Of the 38 tested 80% ethanolic extracts, belonging to plants of 21 different families only the extracts from the leaves of Aspilia pluriseta (Asteraceae) and Rumex bequaertii (Polygonaceae) had interesting selectivity indices (SI = ratio of the 50% cytotoxic concentration to the 50% effective antiviral concentration) higher than 1. Further fractionation of the initially antivirally inactive ethanolic extract of Tithonia diversifolia, however, led to an aqueous fraction with a high anti-HIV-1 activity (SI > 461), indicating that the cytotoxicity of some plant components may mask the antiviral properties of the active plant substances in total plant extracts.


This study is assessing the requirements and necessary conditions that will enable black commercial farmers to access reliable and sustainable markets. It take cognisance of the amount of fresh produce sourced from black commercial farmers by the fresh produce markets in the country. It considers market agents in the fresh produce markets as strategically important to enhancing the growth and success of black commercial farmers. The market agents will enable the black commercial farmers to enter the fresh produce supply chain through the National Fresh Produce Markets in South Africa. In unveiling these possibilities, the study undertakes a situational analysis to determine the enabling and necessary conditions for market agents in the market. It also identifies the characteristics of fresh produce which are necessary to qualify black commercial farmers' fresh produce for marketing at the NFPMs in South Africa. It determines the conditions that market agents will require from black commercial farmers while maintaining their competitiveness. Methods used include situational analysis, descriptive statistics, ordinal logistic regression model and services supply chain analysis. Primary data was obtained through questionnaires and interviews with market agents and representatives of retail outlets; and secondary information was obtained through desktop review of literature. The findings of this research show the factors required for the success of a BEE fresh produce supply chain and a market agency in the NFPM. They state that the BEE fresh produce supply chain is equally capable of surviving in the prevailing macro- and micro-economic environment of the country. The results also state that black commercial farmers should ensure acceptable quality and quantity of fresh produce, in addition to meeting the requirements of the BEE market agency. The requirements for market agents included the need for farmers to supply consistent quantity and quality of fresh produce, use appropriate transport, and should be punctual and reliable. Black commercial farmers who supply fresh produce should take cognisance of these requirements for the competitiveness of market agents and adapt their way of doing business accordingly. The necessary conditions for the BEE fresh produce supply chain ensures an enabling environment in spite of the uncertainties and likelihood of risks, if managed accordingly. To ensure this, the BEE agency needs to manage and coordinate the sourcing and pooling of produce in a pack-house, which is strategically essential for the overall success of the chain. The success of the BEE fresh produce supply chain will mean the success of a BEE agency, on the condition that unforeseen inhibiting factors beyond the scope of this research are held constant.


Within the framework of a factorization model, we study the behaviour of nuclear modification factor in Au–Au collisions at RHIC and Pb–Pb collisions at LHC. We find that the nuclear modification factor is inversely proportional to the radius of the quark-gluon plasma and is dominated by the surface emission of hard jets. We predict the nuclear modification factor PLHSAA ∼ 0.15 in central Pb–Pb collisions at LHC. The study shows that the factorization model can be used to describe the centrality dependence of nuclear modification factor of the high transverse momentum particles produced in heavy ion collisions at both RHIC and LHC.


Re-planning in legged locomotion is crucial to track the desired user velocity while adapting to the terrain and rejecting external disturbances. In this work, we propose and test in experiments a real-time Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) tailored to a legged robot for achieving dynamic locomotion on a variety of terrains. We introduce a mobility-based criterion to define an NMPC cost that enhances the locomotion of quadruped robots while maximizing leg mobility and improves adaptation to the terrain features. Our NMPC is based on the real-time iteration scheme that allows us to re-plan online at 25 Hz with a prediction horizon of 2 seconds.We use the single rigid body dynamic model defined in the center of mass frame in order to increase the computational efficiency. In simulations, the NMPC is tested to traverse a set of pallets of different sizes, to walk into a V-shaped chimney, and to locomote over rough terrain. In real experiments, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our NMPC with the mobility feature that allowed IIT's 87 kg quadruped robot HyQ to achieve an omni-directional walk on flat terrain, to traverse a static pallet, and to adapt to a repositioned pallet during a walk.


Patients with stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are potentially cured by surgical resection. Over the last 10 years stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) has also become widely available as a treatment for some of these patients. The obvious benefits of SABR over surgery are the lack of immediate operative morality risk and post-operative complications, but the concern is that this early advantage may be off-set by tumour recurrence and reduced longer term survival. A prospective evaluation of SABR given between 2004 and 2006 to 59 medically inoperable patients with tumours less than 5cm diameter, showed that primary tumour control was excellent at 97%. Unfortunately a substantial number of cases (22% at 3 years) developed disseminated recurrence; 3.5% had hilar or mediastinal recurrence and the majority developed more distant metastases soon after SABR, suggesting occult disease at the time of treatment (1). A retrospective propensity matched analysis of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) lobectomy vs. SABR in early stage NSCLC (64 patients in each group) supported this finding: loco-regional control was superior in the SABR group although overall survival was not significantly different (2).


This study is an action research aiming at answering the question of: "How thescore of the TOEFL Listening Comprehension Test of the students taking listeningcomprehension 1 in the even semester of 2006/2007 can be improved?" Eighty fourstudents of three classes took part in the study. The data were collected through test,questionnaire, and field notes. The tests were used to measure the students' skill indoing the TOEFL listening comprehension test at the beginning of the research, afterthe first cycle, and at the end of the second cycle. The questionnaire was used to knowthe students' perception of the TOEFL listening comprehension test. The field noteswere used to record the students' responses and the effects of the treatment as a basis ofreflection. During the study, the skills of doing the TOEFL listening comprehensiontest were divided into 22 sub skills. There was a significant improvement at the end ofthe research. The pretest mean score of class A: 42.67, class B: 41.82, and class C:32.44. The mean score at the end of the first cycle of classA: 58.42, class B: 56.09, andclass C: 43.33. The mean score at the end of the second cycle of classA: 80.67, class B:80.67, and class C: 67.78. The percentage of the improvement of the mean score ofclass A: 52.89%, class B: 51.84%, and class C: 47.86%. A further detailed study isneeded to find a breakthrough in the method, technique, and material which will speedup the mastery ofTOEFLlistening comprehension test. Kata kunci: skor TOEFL, listening subskills, listening comprehension


Ramanujan's famous deathbed letter to G. H. Hardy concerns the asymptotic properties of modular forms and his so-called mock theta functions. For his mock theta function f(q), he asserts, as q approaches an even order 2k root of unity, that we have f(q) − (−1)(1 − q)(1 − q)(1 − q) · · · ` 1 − 2q + 2q − · · · ́ = O(1). We give two proofs of this claim by offering exact formulas for these limiting values. One formula is a specialization of a general result which relates Dyson's rank mock theta function and the Andrews-Garvan crank modular form. The second formula is ad hoc, and it relies on the elementary manipulation of qseries which are themselves mock modular forms. Both proofs show that the O(1) constants are not mysterious; they are values of special q-series which are finite sums at even order roots of unity.


Background: Despite increased annual mortality in long-term care (LTC) homes, research has shown that palliative approaches to care are currently suboptimal in these settings. The purpose of this study was to evaluate resident, family, and staff outcomes associated with the Strengthening a Palliative Approach in LTC (SPA-LTC) program, developed to help encourage meaningful end-of-life discussions and planning.
Methods: The study employs a mixed method design in four LTC homes across Southern Ontario. Data were collected from residents, families and staff of the LTC homes through chart reviews, surveys and interviews.
Results: In total, 39 residents/families agreed to participate in the study. Positive intervention outcomes included a reduction in the proportion of emergency department use at end-of-life and hospital deaths for those participating in SPA-LTC, an improvement in interdisciplinary communication between staff, support for both families and staff involved, and increased family involvement in the care of residents. However, there were no significant pre-post differences in staff collaboration or comfort in providing end of life care.
Conclusions: The benefits of SPA-LTC for families, residents and staff justify its continued use within LTC. Study results also suggest that certain enhancements of the program could further promote future integration of best practices within a palliative approach to care within the LTC context.


MCL is a relatively rare, but aggressive subtype of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The current standard therapeutic approach for MCL combines rituximab–containing chemotherapy, followed by autologous stem cell transplantation. Using such approach, most patients will achieve complete remission (CR). However, almost all patients will experience relapse with MCL being an uncurable disease. With this background, and given its curative potential, reduced intensity conditioning allogeneic stem cell transplantation (RIC-allo-SCT) may represent an attractive strategy in MCL. Here, we report a large multicenter retrospective analysis including 60 MCL patients who underwent RIC-allo-SCT. In this series, 43 patients were males. All patients but one, received at least one line of chemotherapy prior to RIC-allo-SCT including auto-SCT in 37 cases. The median number of previous therapies was 2 (range, 0–5). At time of RIC-allo-SCT, 26 patients were in CR, 20 in PR, while 14 were in stable/progressive or refractory disease. Median age at time of transplantation was 56 years (range, 33–67). Median time between diagnosis and transplantation was 3.5 years (range, 0.5–10). PBSCs were used in the majority of cases (n=56). HLA-identical sibling donors were used in 25 cases. HLA-mismatched or HLA-matched unrelated donors were used in the remaining 35 cases. Different RIC regimens were also used: fludarabine-busulfan-ATG in 17 cases, fludarabine and low-dose TBI in 10 cases, fludarabine-melphalan-ATG-rituximab in 6 cases, and other various regimens in 27 cases. In all, the RIC regimen included low-dose TBI in 14 cases, fludarabine in 56 cases and ATG in 34 cases. The median follow-up for surviving patients was 2 years (range, 0.1–8.5). Fifteen patients died of non-relapse-related causes, while 6 patients did not engraft. Disease-related deathes accounted for 6 cases. The 3-years OS estimate was 47% (95%CI, 31–60). According to disease status at transplantation, the 3-years OS estimates for patients who reached CR were 59% (95%CI, 34–77) as compared to 36%(95%CI, 8–65.5) for patients who reached PR and 17% (95%CI, 1– 49) for all others (P=0.001). According to disease status at transplantation (excluding those patients who failed to engraft), the 3-years EFS estimates for patients who reached CR were 68.5% (95%CI, 42–85) as compared to 45% (95%CI, 15–72) for patients who reached PR and 21% (95%CI, 1–57) for all others (P=0.005). Interestingly, the number of lines of chemotherapy administered prior to RIC-allo-SCT had no significant impact on OS and EFS Despite its retrospective nature, and the heterogeneity of the patients included in this analysis, these results suggest that RIC-allo-SCT may be an effective therapy in MCL, especially in those patients with a chemo-sensitive disease at time of transplantation, irrespective of the number of lines of prior therapy.


Occlusive disease of the vertebrobasilar system may cause a variety of syndromes depending on the artery or arteries involved and the available collateral circulation. Based on the clinical picture and the angiographic findings, some of the patients may benefit from a gross reconstructive surgical procedure in the vertebral or carotid arteries. When these arteries are not correctable by gross surgical techniques, an occipital artery-posterior inferior cerebellular artery microanastomosis may also prove beneficial. An early clinical diagnosis of the brain-stem and occipital lobes ischemia and angiographic studies of the cerebral arteries are of prime importance and the key to the surgical management of these patient.


Sheep milk is mainly intended to manufacture a wide variety of high-quality cheeses. The ovine cheese industry would benefit from an improvement, through genetic selection, of traits related to the milk coagulation properties and cheese-yield related traits, broadly denoted as "cheese-making traits". Considering that routine measurements of these traits needed for genetic selection are expensive and time-consuming, this study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of a cheese-making phenotype imputation method based on the information from official milk control records combined with the pH of the milk. For this study, we analyzed records of milk production traits, milk composition traits, and measurements of cheese-making traits available from a total of 1,145 dairy ewes of the Spanish Assaf sheep breed. Cheese-making traits included five related to the milk coagulation properties (MCP) and two cheese-yield related traits. The milk and cheese-making phenotypes were adjusted for significant effects based on a general linear model. The adjusted phenotypes were used to define a multiple phenotype imputation procedure for the cheese-making traits based on multivariate normality and Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. Five of the seven cheese-making traits considered in this study achieved a prediction accuracy of 0.60 computed as the correlation between the adjusted phenotypes and the imputed phenotypes. Particularly, the logarithm of curd-firming time since rennet addition (logK20) [0.68], which has been previously suggested as a potential candidate trait to improve the cheese ability in this breed, and the logarithm of the ratio between the rennet clotting time and the curd firmness at 60 min (logRCT/A60) [0.65], which has been defined by other studies as an indicator trait of milk coagulation efficiency. This study represents a first step towards the possible use of the phenotype imputation of cheese-making traits to develop a practical methodology for the dairy sheep industry to impute cheese-making traits only based on the analysis of a milk sample without the need of pedigree information. This information could be also be used in future planning of specific breeding programs considering the importance of the cheese-making efficiency in dairy sheep and highlights the potential of phenotype imputation to leverage sample size on expensive, hard to measure phenotypes.


Four decades of research on the health effects of 'connection to nature' identifies many wellbeing advantages for young people. Yet this literature has developed largely without reference to biophysical evidence about mass biodiversity loss, the degradation of marine environments and climate change.

As these interlocking planetary crises progress, children will be more likely to witness the marine environments they learn about degrade or disappear as they grow up.

Improving ocean literacy is important to protect marine environments into the future. However little is known about how learning about ocean degradation affects young people's emotional wellbeing.

We undertook qualitative research to investigate how ocean literacy educators in Aotearoa New Zealand view the content they deliver in relation to the emotional wellbeing of young people.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 21 key informants from non‐government organisations (NGOs), Ministry of Education funded programmes, university‐community partnerships, youth‐led initiatives and local and national museums and aquariums. Transcripts were analysed using the six steps of Braun and Clarke's (2022) reflexive thematic analysis.

Ocean literacy education was described as positively affecting young people's emotional wellbeing through interactive experiences in coastal environments. These provided opportunities for experiencing wonder, curiosity and a shared sense of connection and belonging.

Educators reported witnessing distress and overwhelm in young people when some information was delivered. This resulted in educators 'not focusing on the negative' and moving straight to solutions young people could take part in.

Our findings provide opportunities for re‐imagining ocean literacy education as a space for promoting mental wellbeing, especially when young people have the opportunity to be part of collective experiences that promote joy and wonder.

Intergenerational solutions where young people can be supported to take action with adults who work in solidarity with them are also recommended.

Further research into how educators can be resourced to acknowledge and facilitate support around young people's negative emotional responses (such as grief, overwhelm and anxiety) is required.

Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.


Dramatic changes under way in the Soviet Union and the world have significant implications for American security policy. Soviet expert Raymond L. Garthoff makes use of unique, newly available material - including a complete file of the confidential Soviet General Staff journal - to illuminate the development of Soviet military thinking. In this groundbreaking study, Garthoff explains that the Soviets regard nuclear deterrence as only a necessary interim safeguard, not a solution to the quest for security. He examines the implications of the "remarkable recasting of the Soviet concept of security" for U.S. policy and global security.


In this paper, we study a cooperative two-hop network with multiple sources and multiple relays where the energy required for the relays is transferred by the sources. In return, the relays transmit the sources' data, along with their own data, to the destination. We consider the setup where each node's objective is to maximize the amount of its own data delivered to the destination. We take a game theoretic approach and first model the selfish cooperation scenario with one source and one relay as a Stackelberg game where (i) the relay or (ii) the source is the leader. We demonstrate how the leader of the game takes advantage of its ability to compute the follower's optimal strategy to influence the follower and improve its own utility. In both cases, we also consider the case with multiple followers. We employ Vickrey auctions to model the inter-follower competition. We identify the winner of the auction in both cases and observe that the followers must compromise their individual utilities to win the auction. Consequently, the leader's utility turns out to be nondecreasing in the number of competing followers.


M3814 is a potent and selective inhibitor of DNA-PK, one of the key cellular regulators of DNA damage induced by ionizing radiation or certain cytostatics used in the treatment malignant disease. One of these drugs, Etoposide, induces double strand breaks (DSB) in cellular DNA. DSBs are most difficult to repair and, if left unrepaired, can lead to induction of cell cycle arrest and/or apoptosis and ultimately cell death. DNA-PK plays a critical role in the repair of DSB via the non-homologous end-joining pathway. M3814 was tested for activity in combination with Etoposide in a panel of 98 cancer cell lines derived from lung cancer. A broad potentiation effect of DNA-PK inhibitor was observed in most cancer cell lines. As a rule, cell lines sensitive to Etoposide demonstrated increased sensitivity to the combination. M3814 did not show significant effect on cancer cell growth/viability in combination with Cisplatin compared to Cisplatin alone at concentrations that effectively inhibit DNA-PK activity. At the same time, M3814 did not negatively affect the antitumor activity of Cisplatin. The therapeutic effect of M3814 in combination with the standard of care (SoC) regimen of Etoposide and Cisplatin was tested in the human small cell lung cancer xenograft model, NCI-H520. Triple combination of M3814, Etoposide and Cisplatin resulted in increased efficacy compared to SoC treatment arm. Since myeloid and lymphoid suppression is one of the dose limiting toxicities of the SoC regimen in patients, the effect of the triple combination on myeloid and lymphoid blood cells was investigated in immunocompetent mice. Whereas the SoC treatment showed reduction of the myeloid and lymphoid compartments, the addition of M3814 did not additionally reduce these cells neither in the treatment nor the recovery phase. Our results warrant further investigations to explore the potential of the combination in the clinical setting. Citation Format: Christian Sirrenberg, Astrid Zimmermann, Thomas Grombacher, Lyubomir T. Vassilev, Lars Damstrup, Frank T. Zenke, Andree Blaukat. A novel selective DNA-PK inhibitor, M3814, as a potential combination partner of Etoposide and Cisplatin in the therapy of lung cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4183. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-4183


In order to reduce on-site building time, the construction industry shows an increasing interest in stay-in-place formwork with a reinforcement function after concrete hardening, such as CFRP formwork confinement for columns. The current combined systems however do not answer the demand of the building industry for a material system that is both lightweight and fire safe. High performance textile reinforced cement (TRC) composites can address this need. They can be particularly interesting for the shear reinforcement of concrete beams. This paper describes a preliminary analysis and feasibility study on structural stay-in-place formwork made of TRC. Comparative bending experiments demonstrate that a fully steel reinforced beam and an equivalent beam with shear reinforcement in TRC formwork show similar yielding behaviour, indicating that the TRC shear reinforcement system actually works. Moreover, the cracking moment of the concrete was more or less doubled, resulting in a much lower deflection in serviceability limit state than calculated. Digital image correlation measurements show that the latter is due to the crack bridging capacity of the external TRC shear reinforcement.


A fibre-optic hydrophone consisting of a polarisation-maintaining fibre carrying light from a laser source has been used to measure the acoustic output parameters of a single focused hyperthermia transducer and a six-transducer assembly. Beam profiles of the transducers were measured using the fibre-optic hydrophone and the results compared with those obtained using a PVDF hydrophone. The acoustic power output from the hyperthermia transducer was measured using a radiation force balance. It was observed that the root mean square voltage of the fibre-optic hydrophone output is proportional to the square root of the acoustic power up to more than 80 W. It was also observed that, under continuous-wave operation, the fibre optic hydrophone can stand up to very high power (more than 200 W) without being damaged. As its sensing element is the fibre itself, whose diameter is considerably narrower than the width of the ultrasonic beam, it can provide resolution of about 80 microm in beam profile measurement. The fibre is a line sensor and a computer tomographic technique is used to recover the pressure profile from the hydrophone output voltage. In typical clinical operations, the six-transducer assembly is driven with less than 150 W of electrical power input. In such cases, each individual transducer receives less than 25 W of input power and non-linearity and generation of high frequency harmonics at the focus is not a significant problem.


In this article the author builds on the notion of "paradigm of development" to provide analytic instruments for the institutional analysis of international development. He identifies the following four main paradigms, each rooted in different disciplines and ethical foundations:1) economic growth; 2) social equity; 3) environmental sustainability; 4) beneficiaries' active role. Each paradigm implies different and measurable objectives, to be achieved by specific methodological approaches. The various paradigms give different consideration to relevance of specific articulations of culture, formal or informal norms and local conditions. It is accordingly possible to classify them based on their relativist attitude. The economic growth paradigm assumes generalized positive gain for the public. The beneficiaries of development are not really defined: they are an imagined community that cannot take any direct role in the design and implementation of programmes and project. As such, this paradigm stands in opposition to the highly relativist fourth paradigm that instead requires specific communities to take an active decisional role on the development process.
Equally diverging along the relativist gradient are the priorities defined by different sets of human rights, that on the whole provide the internationally agreed ethical dimension of international development. The transversal responsibilities for the application and promotion of the internationally agreed human rights have over the last two decades facilitated a process of hybridization of the development paradigms. Hybridization and inhomogeneity thus pervade the organizational culture of each international organisation, opening up space for both manipulations and negotiations. Throughout the paper, the author argues for the methodological and theoretical relevance of anthropology and the relativist approaches to development for mitigating the negative and, in some cases, devastating impacts that the first paradigm may produce on the most disadvantaged, "invisible" human communities.


Efforts to comprehend the structural–spectrochemical correlations of crystalline metal–organic framework materials of Pb(II) with (a)cyclic and aromatic chelators linked to photoluminescent applications led to the hydrothermal pH-specific synthesis of crystalline materials [Pb{H2BTC}(phen)(H2O)]n·2nH2O(1), [Pb2{CBTC}]n(2), [Pb4(phen)8{CBTC}2(H2O)4]3·70.3H2O(3), and [Pb{HCTA}(H2O)2]n·nH2O(4). X-ray studies showed that 1–4 exhibit unique architectures linked to 2D–3D coordination polymers formulated by Z-type units composed of Pb2O2 cores, unusually high number of lattice–water molecules, and π–π and H-bond interactions. The contribution of the nature–structure properties of the aliphatic-(a)cyclic organic (poly)carboxylic/aromatic chelators-ligands to binary-ternary Pb(II) reactivity weaves into the assembly of supramolecular networks, thereby providing clear structural–spectroscopic inter-relationships exemplifying the observed photoluminescent activity in a distinct MOF-linked fashion.


This communication addresses the problem of estimating the minimum size a phased-array antenna must have in order that analyses based on simple infinite-array models yield meaningful results. The measure of array size proposed herein is an efficiency parameter defined for an infinite array with truncated excitations. Numerical results are presented for arrays of slots and dipoles, showing the rate of convergence of the efficiency parameter for various spacings and scan angles. The conclusions deduced from this analysis as to the minimum array size are in substantial agreement with exact computations dealing with finite arrays published in the literature.


The study is an analysis of the reaction of students in a faculty of natural and agricultural sciences (NAS) to subtitles and also includes an investigation of their responses thereto. Reception of and responses to academic English (close to verbatim transcription), plain English, and keyword English subtitles were explored by showing participants subtitled videos related to the content of their module. Participants were then asked to complete demographic and affective questionnaires, and participated in focus group interviews to investigate their reception of the various subtitles. The results show that participants responded particularly well to plain English subtitles. The focus group interviews indicated that they found all three sets of subtitles useful for note-taking purposes, adjusting the speed at which they accessed and processed information by pausing the videos, highlighting important information in the study materials, and being able to engage aurally and visually with the materials. From a higher education perspective, this emphasises students' readiness for subtitles as an academic mediation tool.Contribution: This article aims to fill existing gaps in the fulfilment of higher education institutions' language policies, which have been exposed by the thrust for multilingualism in higher education. Research into academic subtitling as an academic mediation tool can be used to bridge this gap, thereby supporting innovative research in higher education.


OBJECTIVE--To compare cardiac output measurements in critically ill infants by the dual beam Doppler and thermodilution techniques. DESIGN--Prospective direct comparison of the two techniques. For statistical evaluation one randomly assigned paired measurement of every patient was used. SETTING--Paediatric intensive care unit in a university hospital. PATIENTS--18 infants after open heart surgery aged 4-25 months (weight 4-10 kg). INTERVENTIONS--Cardiac output measurements by dual beam Doppler and thermodilution techniques were performed within 10 minutes of each other and without knowledge of the results of the other methods. Multiple measurements were performed on some patients with a pharmacological or electrophysiological intervention or with a minimum of six hours between each pair of measurements. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS--Three patients were excluded because of an inadequate Doppler signal or a significant residual shunt. Cardiac output measurements ranged from 0.4 to 2.2 l/min for the thermodilution technique and from 0.5 to 2.1 l/min for the dual beam Doppler technique. Agreement between both methods was acceptable. The mean difference between the two methods was 0.026 l/min with two standard deviations ranging from -0.20 to 0.26 l/min. CONCLUSION--The dual beam Doppler technique was shown to have promise for the non-invasive determination of cardiac output in critically ill infants.


The association of organic ligands with nucleic acids is an important event in biology and in medicine because it may affect the regular function of the DNA. In this context, quadruplex DNA (G4-DNA) has gained special attention as a promising drug target. In this contribution, the complex formation between the tetracationic tetraazoniapentapheno[6,7-h]pentaphene and the oligonucleotide Tel26 [d(A3G3T2AG3T2AG3T2AG3A2)], which forms a (3+1) antiparallel/parallel structure (hybrid-1), was investigated by 1H-NMR spectroscopy. The analysis of the different developments of shifts and line broadening of the imino proton signals of the guanine residues revealed a preferential terminal π stacking of the ligand. Considering accessibility and steric constraints of the possible binding sites it is proposed that the ligand may stack on top of the A3–A9–A21 triplet at one terminal end of the quadruplex, rather than on a G4-quartet.


А genetic algorithm for construction of Moore finite state machines is described in the paper. This algorithm can be also applied to construct systems of interacting Mealy finite state machines. An example of application of these algorithms for "Artificial ant" problem is also described


Agricultural extension organizations in Bangladesh often work through groups or farmers This can be an cfTcctivc approach to extension Not only because Lcwin (195?) lias shown ncarlj 50 years ago that in a programme of change it is often more effective !o change groups of people llian to try to change individual behaviour Also farmers' organizations play in many countries an important role in agricultural development In Bangladesh, these organizations arc still weak, but Utc groups of farmers with which extension is now working could become nucleus of tlic farmers' organizations in live future. To be able to contribute to their growth it is important that extension agents realize which roles farmers' organization can play in agricultural development That is a reason to discuss in this article wliat wc sec as possible roles of these organizations.


The use of designations used for men and women has been discussed in German (as well as in other languages) very controversally since the seventies. Language use has been challenged by feminist linguists and some propositions have been supported by various regulatory interventions. In German, the most critical issue – the avoidance of generically used masculine forms – has been documented quite thoroughly as regards the individual phenomena (creation and use of personal nouns, alternative pronouns, strategies to avoid generically used masculine forms, etc.), but the actual extent of language use is still unknown so far and has given rise to very diverse appreciations: Whereas some experts reckon that alternative uses are achieving acceptance, others believe that there is stagnation or even a decrease of "nonsexist language".
In this paper we will discuss an explorative study, in which we have looked for evidence for a series of more or less conventional feminine personal nouns in two language corpora: on the one hand the new Schweizer Textkorpus and on the other the public collections that can be queried via COSMAS II. The analysis of the results show specific advantages and disadvantages of each corpus and poses some questions about future explorations in the field of linguistic equal treatment of women and men.


During diametral compression testing load-displacement curves were obtained for tablets made from some direct compression agents, by continually monitoring the force applied to the tablet and the distance moved by the lower compression platten. The area under these curves, termed work of failure, was calculated by numerically integrating the applied fbrce with respect to platten displacement. The resistance to breakage of the tablets was assessed by a semi-empirical multiple diametral impact test in which a tablet was subjected to repeated impact until failure occurred. Work of failure was related to the number of impacts required to cause failure and appears to be a better quantitative assessment of a tablet's mechanical properties than tensile strength.


. It is a commonplace of comparative politics that the democratic performance of the established democracies of the West is both uniform and superior to that of other democracies across the globe. This commonplace both reflects and reinforces the mainstream measures of democracy, like those of Freedom House or Polity III, that fail to differentiate the democratic performance of the West. This article examines this commonplace by deploying the measures of democratic performance contained in the newly constructed Database of Liberal Democratic Performance, and uses descriptive statistics (means and variance) to compare the performance of individual Western democracies, as well as the West overall with the 'rest'. The Database is designed to capture a wider normative range of performance than the mainstream measures, and shows that the performance of the West is neither uniform nor superior in every respect, especially with regard to civil and minority rights. These findings are explored and confirmed by comparative case studies of minorities in the criminal justice systems of those Western democracies that tend to perform worst in this respect. In conclusion, it is suggested that the findings may begin to change the way we view the relationships between economic growth and democracy, political culture and democracy, and even constitutional design and democracy.