Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify Mothers' experience of elementary students diagnosed H1N1 in the year 2009 of the H1N1 outbreak to improve capabilities of the Government, local community and individual for a next infectious disease outbreak. Methods: A phenomenological approach was used for this study. Data were collected using indepth telephone interviews. Study participants were 6 mothers whose elementary children had diagnosed H1N1. The method proposed by Giorgi (1985) was used to guide the process of data analysis. Results: After comparative analysis, the core category was "H1N1 infection", "The stuffy actuality" "For getting over H1N1" and "After H1N1 recovery". The participants demonstrated the experience that their children were infected and recovered from H1N1 and the meaning that the sudden outbreak of this novel flu virus disappeared. Conclusion: To coping with pandemic infectious disease, the health services for isolation and treatment of infectious disease should be provided promptly in collaboration with the government and local community. The competent authorities should offer health care providers specific management and resources without delay. Because of caregiver's absence to carry out home quarantine practically, it is indispensable to support of societies and work places.


The challenges of very-large-scale systems are discussed and the process of systems engineering is described as a systematic method for increasing the efficiency of design and production engineering. A generalized definition of the term 'systems engineering' and some variations on that approach are presented, and the relationship between the level of systems engineering involvement and project size is explored. The systems engineering method is further dissected, with special emphasis placed on the requirements levied on the performing organization, in order to show the cost/benefit tradeoff associated with implementing this design methodology on a large project. Some conclusions are drawn with respect to the promise of systems engineering for providing an effective, efficient, technical and financial management system for large-scale projects.<<ETX>>


Introduction: Despite some long-term remissions, eventual drug resistance in most patients remains a critical obstacle in the treatment of multiple myeloma (MM). The development of new drugs/drug combinations with novel mechanisms of action are needed for continued improvement in patient outcomes. Initiation of tumor cell death via activation of the intrinsic (mitochondrial) and/or extrinsic (death receptor) apoptotic signaling pathways has been shown to be an effective therapeutic strategy in MM. Venetoclax (Ven) is a selective, small-molecule inhibitor of BCL-2 that exhibits clinical activity in MM cells, particularly in patients harboring the t(11;14) translocation. Navitoclax (Nav) is a small-molecule that targets multiple antiapoptotic BCL-2 family proteins, including BCL-XL, BCL-2, and BCL-W to initiate the intrinsic apoptotic pathway. Eftozanermin alfa (Eftoza) is a novel, second generation TRAIL receptor agonist that induces cell death via death receptor pathways and is under investigation in multiple solid and heme malignancies. In addition, the pan-BET inhibitor mivebresib (Miv) and the BDII selective BET inhibitor ABBV-744 have shown synergistic activity with Ven in cell line models of multiple heme malignancies. Results reported here describe ex vivo drug sensitivities and functional genomic analyses of Ven, Nav, Eftoza, Miv, and ABBV-744 alone or in combination with standard-of-care agents, including bortezomib, carfilzomib, panobinostat, daratumumab, or pomalidomide.
 Methods: A high-throughput ex vivo drug screening assay using a coculture system of bone marrow (BM)-derived MM and stromal cells was used to assess the sensitivity of MM patient tumor cells (Figure 1A). Paired whole exome sequencing (WES) and RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analyses were performed.
 Results: Primary MM patient specimens (n=52) were evaluated in the ex vivo platform, including treatment-naïve, early relapse (1-3 prior lines), and late relapse (4-8 prior lines) patients treated with proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulatory drugs, and monoclonal antibodies. As expected, t(11;14)-positive MM patient specimens were more sensitive than wildtype to Ven ex vivo (D AUC, -18.6, P=0.002), however MM cells harboring amp(1q) were more resistant than wildtype (D AUC, +5.07, P=0.032), suggesting MCL1 (1q21 gene locus) is a key resistance factor to Ven single-agent activity in MM. Gene set enrichment analysis identified B-cell receptor signaling (normalized enrichment score (NES), 1.96, adjusted P=0.010) and MYC pathway (NES, 1.95, adjusted P=0.010) overexpression as predictors of increased sensitivity to Ven ex vivo. A t(11;14) gene expression signature was also generated using a penalized regression model approach in an additional MMWG/ORIEN MM patient cohort (n=155). The t(11;14) predictive gene expression signature was confirmed by correlation with Ven AUC in the ex vivo model. Additional pathway analyses were performed to identify potential predictive markers of sensitivity/resistance for each single agent and drug combination.
 Although ex vivo activity of Nav was higher in t(11;14) specimens compared to non-t(11;14) (D AUC, -17.8, P=0.011), ex vivo activity in non-t(11;14) specimens was also observed, indicating additional anti-MM activity by cotargeting of BCL-XL and BCL-2. Both Miv and ABBV-744 showed single-agent activity ex vivo, however Miv demonstrated higher activity (median LD50=88.4nM), suggesting that pan-BET inhibition is more effective than BDII-specific BET inhibition in MM. Finally, a novel drug-combination effect analysis was used that identified novel synergistic ex vivo combinations including Ven and panobinostat (P=0.0013) and Eftoza with bortezomib (P=1.8E-7) or carfilzomib (P=7E-4). Additionally, single-agent induction of macrophage-mediated phagocytosis was observed in both Ven and daratumumab, which was synergistic when the 2 drugs were combined (Figure 1B).
 Conclusion: An ex vivo functional genomic screen of MM patient specimens demonstrated the usefulness of this approach to identify candidate drugs and potential predictive biomarkers for continued evaluation in clinical trials. This approach confirmed known mechanisms of drug sensitivity and identified new ones, including a novel characterized immune-mediated synergy between Ven and daratumumab, and potential combination strategy for Eftoza and proteasome inhibitors.
 Figure 1

 Siqueira Silva: Karyopharm: Research Funding; NIH/NCI: Research Funding; AbbVie: Research Funding. Kulkarni:M2GEN: Current Employment. Mitchell:AbbVie: Other: payment for bioinformatics analysis, Research Funding; M2GEN: Current Employment, Research Funding. Dai:Cygnal Therapeutics: Current Employment; M2GEN: Ended employment in the past 24 months. Hampton:M2GEN: Current Employment. Lu:AbbVie: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Modi:AbbVie: Current Employment, Other: may own stock or stock options. Motwani:AbbVie: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Harb:AbbVie: Current Employment, Other: may hold stock or stock options. Ross:AbbVie: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Shain:Celgene: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; GlaxoSmithKline: Speakers Bureau; Sanofi/Genzyme: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Karyopharm: Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; AbbVie: Research Funding; Takeda: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Janssen: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Amgen: Speakers Bureau; Adaptive: Consultancy, Honoraria; BMS: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau.

 While this is a preclinical study, venetoclax for treatment of multiple myeloma is not an approved indication


Testing screens for good chips. However, when test fall out is high (low yield) it becomes necessary to diagnose faults so that the manufacturing process or physical design can be filed to improve yield. Several scan based diagnostic schemes are used in industry. They work when the scan chain itself is fault free. In this paper we describe a diagnosis system that can diagnose faults in a scan chain. >


Liver cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, for which therapeutic options are very limited and novel strategies alarmingly needed. The leading risk factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is cirrhosis due to HBV and HCV viruses, alcohol abuse, genotoxic exposure and metabolic disorders increasingly associated with diabetes and obesity. HCC is the paradigm of inflammation-associated cancer, with >80% of HCC emerging consecutively to a vast remodelling of liver stroma. To restrain inflammatory response, liver parenchyma physiologically harbours a specific microenvironment to prevent the establishment of inflammation. Immune cells largely orchestrate liver protection, in particular Kupffer cells, the liver macrophages, in partnership with fibroblasts. Nevertheless, when it gets into chronicity, liver inflammation sensitises to cancer development, tumor-associated stroma being recognised as a major hallmark of cancer, as described by Hanahan and Weinberg in 2011.1 During hepatocyte transformation, the surrounding cells, including cancer-associated fibroblasts, hepatic stellate cells, tumour-infiltrating leukocytes and tumour-associated macrophages (TAM) are abnormally activated and/or recruited. These cells secrete a cocktail of growth factors, cytokines and chemokines, which exacerbate liver inflammation and injury in favour of hepatocarcinogenesis.2 Macrophages are the major part of immune cell infiltrates in solid tumours, and the density of macrophages is strongly correlated to poor overall survival, including in HCC. Inversely, myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) have emerged as central …


ABSTRACT Based on a qualitative content analysis of two sets of comments to posts about the Netflix' series Grace and Frankie on Jane Fonda's Facebook page, the aim of this article is to discuss older women's intense appreciation of the series. Primarily on account of the comments from the older female writers in the sample (above the age of 50), the article asks in which ways are the older female characters and the series' portrayal of ageing appraised by the older female fans? The study concludes that the affective attachment to the characters and the series' universe is based on recognition and identification, at the same time as the series offers the women a humorous distance from the fact of ageing and being old. Moreover, the article concludes that commenters describe how the show adds value to their everyday lives and how they can hardly wait to binge-watch a new season. Finally, commenters' ordinary fandom is expressed through paying homage to two extraordinary older actresses whom the older fans have followed for a long time, and who are still going strong and projecting a positive image of ageing.


Control-based approaches to grasp synthesis create grasping behavior by sequencing and combining control primitives. In the absence of any other structure, these approaches must evaluate a large number of feasible control sequences as a function of object shape, object pose, and task. This paper explores a new approach to grasp synthesis that limits consideration to variations on a generalized localize-reach-grasp control policy. A new learning algorithm, known as schema structured learning, is used to learn which instantiations of the generalized policy are most likely to lead to a successful grasp in different problem contexts. Experiments are described where Dexter, a dexterous bimanual humanoid, learns to select appropriate grasp strategies for different objects as a function of object eccentricity and orientation. In addition, it is shown that grasp skills learned in this way generalize well to new objects. Results are presented showing that after learning how to grasp a small, representative set of objects, the robot's performance quantitatively improves for similar objects that it has not experienced before.


Serial EEG studies and full neuropathological investigations (optic and electronic microscopy of biopsy and necropsy material) were carried out on two patients: 1. A 68-year-old man: development in two and a half months of Creutzfeldt-Jakob's disease signalled by early clinical and EEG changes and confirmed by associated spongiosis of the triad characteristic of Alzheimer's disease, which was unexpected in this case. 2. A 43-year-old man: first phase of four years of progressive deterioration, followed by an encephalopathic syndrome with myoclonus developing in twelve months. The serial EEG studies showed discontinuous periodic paroxystic activity from the start of the second phase of the disease, although the first biopsy still showed nothing but the signs of Alzheimer's disease. A fortnight later, a second biopsy revealed ultrastructural microspongiosis. Examination of necropsy material confirmed the extensive association of the characteristic images of the two processes. On the basis of these two case studies and some similar cases published in the literature, the authors discuss the possible etiological links between these two diseases and stress the importance of the EEG and cerebral biopsy for the purposes of differential diagnosis. (Acta neurol. belg., 1977, 77, 202-212).


Illness perception influences patients' decision to adopt effective behavior and achieve positive results such as adapting with the disease and improving functionality, and the interventions that increase illness perception can promote health. This study aimed to investigate the effect of illness perception on the physical health-related quality of life of MS patients attending peer support groups. This study with a quasi-experimental before-and-after design included 33 MS patients in three groups: male-only(n=10), female-only(n=11) and one with both males and females (mixed, n=12) that selected by convenience sampling Participants were required to attend 8 weekly sessions comprising 2 hours each. Instruments used to assess physical health related quality of life and illness perception were the physical health section of "Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life Inventory (MSQLI)" and "Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire(IPQ-R)" respectively, which were completed by participants before and after attending the group sessions. The results showed that although illness perception of MS patients attending peer support groups did not show a significant increase, physical health significantly improved(p=0.001). Attending peer support group increased illness perception in the mixed group(p=0.01) and elevated physical health in men only and mixed group (p=0.03 for the mixed group and p=0.04 for men only group). Regression analysis showed a significant relationship between MS and physical health with efficacy of 0.54(p<0.001). The results showed that increased illness perception in MS patients improves their physical health. Therefore, we can improve MS patients' physical health-related quality of life through peer support groups and hence promote patients' quality of life.


Artificial intelligence (AI) has come to the frontline, paving the way toward a future of operational efficiency. Following the current, cardiac surgery has evolved as well. We live in a world where AI has brought immense progress in almost every aspect of the field, but still, the question remains; will there be a time when robots will replace cardiac surgeons? The currently used operating systems necessitate constant supervision. Upgrading the algorithms from visual augmentation and post-operative prognosis to completely operating software is not something to be taken lightly. However, if we manage to succeed, would you be receptive to a fully autonomous robot as your surgeon? Significant barriers concerning bioethics emerge; the potential for misuse, risk assessment, supervision, referrals, the need to respect and protect patient autonomy and transparency while using the algorithms, and above all the understanding of the dynamics of illness and the human condition. So, can we provide a simple response to such a prime issue? The truth is, we cannot provide an answer for the future where an answer cannot be delivered effortlessly.


Background
Depressed affect is observed during primary treatment for early-stage breast cancer and often persists into survivorship. Pain can influence the long-term emotions of women with breast cancer. Behavioral mechanisms explaining this relationship are less clear. Coping during primary treatment may play a role in the association between pain and depressed affect.

Aims
Our observational study examined a longitudinal mediation model testing whether post-surgical pain intensity predicted depressed affect 5 years later via disengagement and/or engagement coping at the end of treatment.

Method
Women (N = 240) with stage 0-III breast cancer completed measures of pain, coping, and depressed affect 4-10 weeks post-surgery, and 12 months and 5 years later.

Results
Structural modeling yielded measurement models of 12-month disengagement and engagement coping. Direct effects emerged between post-surgical pain intensity and 12-month disengagement (β = .37, p < .001) and engagement coping (β = .16, p < .05). Post-surgical pain intensity was also related to 5-year depressed affect (β = .25, p < .05). Disengagement and engagement coping were not associated with depressed affect at 5-year follow-up, and there was no evidence of mediation.

Limitations
This is a secondary analysis of data from a trial conducted several years ago, and may not generalize due to a homogenous sample with attrition at long-term follow-up.

Conclusions
Greater post-surgical pain intensity predicts more disengagement and engagement coping at the end of primary treatment, as well as depressed affect during survivorship. Managing post-surgical pain may influence the emotions of survivors of breast cancer up to 5 years later, possibly through coping or non-coping processes.


Frequency-dependent horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios (HVSRs) of Fourier amplitudes from three-component recordings can provide useful information for site response modeling. However, such information is not incorporated into most ground-motion models, including those from Next-Generation Attenuation projects, which instead use the time-averaged shear-wave velocity (VS) in the upper 30 m of the site and sediment depth terms. To facilitate utilization of HVSR, we developed a publicly accessible relational database. This database is adapted from a similar repository for VS data and provides microtremor-based HVSR data (mHVSR) and supporting metadata, but not parameters derived from the data. Users can interact with the data directly within a web portal that contains a graphical user interface (GUI) or through external tools that perform cloud-based computations. Within the database GUI, the median horizontal-component mHVSR can be plotted against frequency, with the mean and mean ± one standard deviation (representing variability across time windows) provided. Using external interactive tools (provided as a Jupyter Notebook and an R script), users can replot mHVSR (as in the database) or create polar plots. These tools can also derive parameters of potential interest for modeling purposes, including a binary variable indicating whether an mHVSR plot contains peaks, as well as the fitted properties of those peaks (frequencies, amplitudes, and widths). Metadata are also accessible, which includes site location, details about the instruments used to make the measurements, and data processing information related to windowing, antitrigger routines, and filtering.


The application of ultrasound and microbubble (USmb) has been shown to enhance chemotherapy and radiotherapy (XRT) both in vivo and in vitro. The hypothesis guiding this research is that the combination of ultrasound and microbubbles with chemotherapy (Taxotere – TXT) improves treatment response of radiotherapy of in vitro prostate (PC3) cancer cells. USmb synergistically decreased cell viability when combined with TXT2h+XRT and XRT. Cell viability with the combined treatment (TXT2h+USmb+XRT=2%) decreased by ~28-folds, ~19-folds and ~11-folds compared to XRT alone (57%), TXT2h+XRT (37%) and USmb+XRT (22%), respectively. Cell viability with USmb+XRT (22%) decreased by ~2.5 folds compared to XRT alone. Effectiveness of the combined treatment depended on chemotherapy dose and treatment duration as well as microbubble concentration. The therapeutic application of USmb may enhance cancer cell death by chemotherapy and radiotherapy and reduce their toxic side effects.


The annotated list of 155 species of Lepidoptera, in addition to five records on unidentified species with known generic affinity, from the Taymyr national district is the first comprehensive account from this area. It is based on the results of the collecting trip of 2002, and on old materials collected by different researchers, and all published records collected by intensive bibliographic search and through consultations with colleagues. Four species erroneously reported from Taymyr are excluded from the list; 65 species are new for this district, including Clepsis mehli that is new to Russia and East Palaearctic, and Argyroploce mengelana reported from Asia for the first time. Records of 32 species are based exclusively on earlier publications; occurrence of other species is confirmed by the investigated material (listed in the paper). We expect that some hundreds of species are still yet to be discovered in Taymyr. The fauna of moths and butterflies of Taymyr is clearly more similar to that of East Palaearctic or Polar Ural than to that of northwestern Europe. In an European perspective, this fauna looks quite exotic and may resemble one that existed in Europe during the ice ages.


The mosque is a religious institution with two functions: a place of worship and the formation of religious awareness (education). The role is also found in the Jendral Sudirman Mosque (MJS), which functions as a place of worship and for forming religious awareness. The construction of religious understanding at MJS is dynamic. In the 1980s, MJS was known as a place of indoctrination for Salafi-jihadi views, while in the 2010s, it was known as a cultural mosque. The change from an Islamic mosque to a cultural mosque underwent a long process. This study aims to analyze the role of agents in providing change while also forming an awareness of local culture-based religious moderation in the millennial generation. This study uses observation and interviews to find data. This study uses Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction to analyze an agent's role in shaping a mosque's identity. This research found three things: First, the transformation of the MJS from an Islamic mosque to a culture-moderate mosque occurred because of the accumulation of agent capital at stake in the mosque arena and formed a new habitual space. Second, MJS is a discursive space that leads to the dissemination of local culture-based religious moderation with contextualization patterns between Islam, culture, and modernity. Third, mosque-based moderation is disseminated using popular language styles and humour to make it easier for congregations to understand the material. This study concludes that the agent has an essential role in determining the identity of the mosque


The purpose of this article is to highlight the aspects of integration of entrepreneurship into higher education (Educational sciences) in Lithuania and Latvia. The article maintains that proper entrepreneurial competencies are required to successfully start, operate and ensure the new business in the marketplace. From an educational perspective, scholars are primarily concerned with the development of individual-level competencies for entrepreneurship. Therefore the following question arises: what competencies for entrepreneurship should individuals be able to manifest when facing an entrepreneurial venture? More specifically, from educational and higher education perspectives, the question is: what competencies for entrepreneurship should universities address in their curricula for graduate programmes specifically in Educational sciences. Models of students' entrepreneurial competencies are highlighted theoretically and some empirical insights on which competencies students in Educational sciences from Lithuanian and Latvian universities would like to have acquired are provided. The article presupposes that competence–based education can be designed to promote entrepreneurial activity among university students. Key words: entrepreneurship, higher education, Educational sciences. JEL CODES: L 26, I 23 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15181/rfds.v18i1.1250


The financial and human costs of unintentional injury, particularly to children, are cause for global concern. Many local, national and international agencies have thus incorporated unintentional injury prevention into their top strategic priorities. Yet, it can be argued that unintentional injury is not commonly associated with an important area of international normative structure: human rights. This study primarily aims to display how deeply unintentional injury is already anchored into core human rights areas. Secondarily, this study highlights gaps between unintentional injury and human rights and provides a map for how the injury prevention community can fill these gaps while harnessing existing injury-based rights. A content analysis of fourteen international and regional human rights texts was conducted to determine if they provide any protections from unintentional injury. A clause was identified as explicitly protecting from unintentional injury if it met two conditions: 1) the content of the clause included any form of the words 'injury', 'safety', 'accident' or 'hazard', and 2) these words referred to physical injury that is not intentionally inflicted. 19 explicit protections were found in the analyzed texts; 12 pertain to workplace injuries. Populations with specific protections include children, individuals with disabilities, women and migrant workers. There were no references to specific injury mechanisms. A number of populations vulnerable to injury, such as older persons, were not referenced. This analysis reveals a clear relationship between unintentional injury and human rights. Injury prevention professionals can utilize these protections in myriad ways. There is a possibility for the injury prevention community to advocate for additional protections around high-priority injury mechanisms and additional vulnerable populations. There is also an opportunity to conduct research to better understand how unintentional injury already intersects with other manifestations of human rights such as social norms, policy, philosophy, and written language.


Although there are numerous reports on surgical treatment of medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ), the effectiveness of surgical treatment at an early stage has recently been reported. Here, we report a case of MRONJ in a female patient in her 60s who was successfully managed by surgical treatment with a titanium plate. She was referred to our hospital due to jaw pain while eating. She had been receiving bisphosphonate therapy for osteoporosis and conservative therapy for MRONJ, but her symptoms did not improve and the bone exposure progressed, increasing the risk of pathological fractures of the jaw. We diagnosed her with MRONJ stage 2 and resected the necrotic bone under general anesthesia. We used a titanium plate to reduce the risk of pathological fractures, and applied a polyglycolic acid sheet and fibrin glue spray on the bone surface after resection. The wound was completely coated by a mucous membrane after 11 days. For 24 months after the operation, the patient exhibited no clinical or radiographic evidence of recurrence. The patient wears a full set of upper and lower dentures, and maintains good mastication.


Equations are derived for the prediction of radial velocity distributions for fully developed turbulent flow in smooth tubes both with and without heat transfer. The analysis results in an equation which represents both the conventional buffer layer and the laminar layer. In order to check the analysis and determine values for the constants appearing in the equations, tests were conducted to determine fully developed velocity distributions for air flowing without heat transfer in a smooth tube. The results are correlated by using conventional velocity and distance parameters, and agree closely with those of Nikuradse and other investigators. The analysis is extended to include flow with heat transfer, and equations for this case are obtained for Prandtl number of 1 in which the effects of the variation of fluid properties due to temperature variation across the tube were considered. By use of the equations for velocity and temperature distributions, relations are also obtained among Nusselt number, Reynolds number, and friction factor for a fluid with a Prandtl number of 1 for the case where the variation of fluid properties across the tube is large. The trends predicted analytically were found to be similar to those determined experimentally by measurement of average surface heat-transfer coefficients and friction factors of air flowing in tubes.


Objective
Gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA)/hyaluronic acid methacryloyl (HAMA)/chitosan oligosaccharide (COS) hydrogel was used to construct islet biomimetic microenvironment, and to explore the improvement effect of GelMA/HAMA/COS on islet activity and function under hypoxia.

Methods
Islets cultured on the tissue culture plate was set as the control group, on the GelMA/HAMA/COS hydrogel with COS concentrations of 0, 1, 5, 10, and 20 mg/mL respectively as the experimental groups. Scanning electron microscopy was used to observe the microscopic morphology, rheometer test to evaluate the gel-forming properties, contact angle to detect the hydrophilicity, and the biocompatibility was evaluated by the scaffold extract to L929 cells [using cell counting kit 8 (CCK-8) assay]. The islets were extracted from the pancreas of 8-week-old Sprague Dawley rats and the islet purity and function were identified by dithizone staining and glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) assays, respectively. Islets were cultured under hypoxia (1%O 2) for 24, 48, and 72 hours, respectively. Calcein-acetyl methyl/propidium iodide (Calcein-AM/PI) staining was used to evaluate the effect of hypoxia on islet viability. Islets were cultured in GelMA/HAMA/COS hydrogels with different COS concentrations for 48 hours, and the reactive oxygen species kits were used to evaluate the antagonism of COS against islet reactive oxygen species production under normoxia (20%O 2) and hypoxia (1%O 2) conditions. Calcein-AM/PI staining was used to evaluate the effect of COS on islet activity under hypoxia (1%O 2) conditions. Islets were cultured in tissue culture plates (group A), GelMA/HAMA hydrogels (group B), and GelMA/HAMA/COS hydrogels (group C) for 48 hours, respectively. Immunofluorescence and GSIS assays were used to evaluate the effect of COS on islet activity under hypoxia (1%O 2) conditions, respectively.

Results
GelMA/HAMA/COS hydrogel had a porous structure, the rheometer test showed that it had good gel-forming properties, and the contact angle test showed good hydrophilicity. CCK-8 assay showed that the hydrogel in each group had good biocompatibility. The isolated rat islets were almost round, with high islet purity and insulin secretion ability. Islets were treated with hypoxia for 24, 48, and 72 hours, Calcein-AM/PI staining showed that the number of dead cells gradually increased with time, which were significantly higher than those in the non-hypoxia-treated group ( P<0.001). Reactive oxygen staining showed that GelMA/HAMA/COS hydrogels with different COS concentrations could antagonize the production of reactive oxygen under normal oxygen and hypoxia conditions, and this ability was positively correlated with COS concentration. Calcein-AM/PI staining indicated that GelMA/HAMA/COS hydrogels with different COS concentrations could improve islet viability under hypoxia conditions, and cell viability was positively correlated with COS concentration. Immunofluorescence staining showed that GelMA/HAMA/COS hydrogel could promote the expression of islet function-related genes under hypoxia conditions. GSIS assay results showed that the insulin secretion of islets in hypoxia condition of group C was significantly higher than that of groups B and C ( P<0.05).

Conclusion
GelMA/HAMA/COS hydrogel has good biocompatibility, promotes islet survival and function by inhibiting reactive oxygen species, and is an ideal carrier for building islet biomimetic microenvironment for islet culture and transplantation.


The enormous attention and interest by both academics and industrial field for greener, biodegradable and renewable materials implicate a persuasive trends towards the encroachment of nano-materials science and technology in the polymer composite field. Nanocomposites creates high impacts on the development of nano materials with advanced features to solve potential risks with their wider industrial applications. Nano fibres are highly engineered fibres with diameters less than 100 nm that offer several advantages over conventional fibres. One dimensional (1D) nanostructure fillers such as carbon nanofibre and cellulose nanofibre are the most common, promising and unique for developing multifunctional nanocomposites with better properties and extensive applications compared to micro size fibres. Nano fibre technology brings revolution by providing products that are completely safe, truly greener, reliable and environmentally friendly for industries, researchers and users. This review article is intended to present valuable literature data on research and trend in the fields of carbon and cellulose nano fiber, nanocomposites with specific focus on various applications for a sustainable and greener environment.


Objectives We aimed to evaluate discrepancies between self-awareness of memory functions and actual memory functions in the elderly community. Methods A total of 369 individuals aged over 65 years from four elderly community centers completed clinical evaluation, neuropsychological batteries of the Korean version of the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's disease (CERAD-K), the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL), and the Hachinski Ischemic Score. Results Among the elderly particpants, 26.3% showed incorrect awareness regarding their memory function. Those with subjective memory complaints included 73.5% with no memory impairment, while those without memory complaints included 11.3% of those with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and 4.3% of those with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Subjective memory complaints were significantly associated with depression. Among the elderly with no memory complaints, incorrect awareness was associated with 'no previous education' (OR 3.6, 95% CI 1.3-9.8), 'age over 80' (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.1-5.4), and 'male' (OR 2.3, 95% CI 1.0-5.2) ; however, it was not significantly associated with depression. Conclusion Incorrect awareness of memory impairment is prevalent among the elderly. Further, elderly individuals of an advanced age with no education may have memory impairment without memory complaints.


Background: Previous cohorts studied the association of various types of physical activities with the incidence of cognitive disorders. The objective of this work was to analyze the association of leisure, domestic and professional physical activities with mild and moderate cognitive disorders in older people living in the community. Methods: We used retrospective data from the "FRéLE" (FRagilité: étude Longitudinale de ses Expressions) a longitudinal and observational study. Data collected included socio-demographic variables, lifestyle and health status. Cognitive disorders were assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Two cut-offs of MoCA were used to analyze mild and moderate cognitive disorders. Physical activity was assessed by the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly (PASE) structured in three sections: leisure, household, and professional activities. Spline and logistic regression models were used to estimate the risk of cognitive disorders. Results: At baseline, 428 participants (for study of mild disorders) and 1,271 participants (for study of moderate disorders) without cognitive disorders were included in the analysis. The mean ages were 74 and 78 years, respectively. After a 2-year follow-up, we found mild cognitive disorders in 154 participants (36%) and 71 cases of moderate cognitive disorders (5.6%). In multi-adjusted logistic models, domestic activities were associated with cognitive disorders, but not leisure and professional activities. Conclusion: We found an inverse relation between domestic sub-score and cognitive disorders defined by MoCA < 18. With a specific questionnaire and quantitative information on the type of activities, this study contributed to the debate on the beneficial effects of physical activity on cognition.


Most theoretical and computational studies of turbulence in Navier—Stokes fluids and/or guiding-centre plasmas have been carried out in the presence of spatially periodic boundary conditions. In view of the frequently reproduced result that two-dimensional and/or MHD decaying turbulence leads to structures comparable in length scale to a box dimension, it is natural to ask if periodic boundary conditions are an adequate representation of any physical situation. Here, we study, computationally, the decay of two-dimensional turbulence in a Navier—Stokes fluid or guiding-centre plasma in the presence of circular no-slip rigid walls. The method is wholly spectral, and relies on a Galerkin approximation by a set of functions that obey two boundary conditions at the wall radius (analogues of the Chandrasekhar— Reid functions). It is possible to explore Reynolds numbers up to the order of 1250, based on an RMS velocity and a box radius. It is found that decaying turbulence is altered significantly by the no-slip boundaries. First, strong boundary layers serve as sources of vorticity and enstrophy and enhance the early-time energy decay rate, for a given Reynolds number, well above the periodic boundary condition values. More importantly, angular momentum turns out to be an even more slowly decaying ideal invariant than energy, and to a considerable extent governs the dynamics of the decay. Angular momentum must be taken into account, for example, in order to achieve quantitative agreeement with the predicition of maximum entropy, or 'most probable', states. These are predicitions of conditions that are established after several eddy turnover times but before the energy has decayed away. Angular momentum will cascade to lower azimuthal mode numbers, even if absent there initially, and the angular momentum modal spectrum is eventually dominated by the lowest mode available. When no initial angular momentum is present, no behaviour that suggests the likelihood of inverse cascades is observed.


Increasing the ease and the rapidity of processing in micro and nanotechnology is an ongoing task, which is pursued in both the academic environment for investigation of novel systems and in industry for fabrication of complex circuits on a large scale. In the field of nanoelectronics, the major challenge is to demonstrate a feasible method for device implementation based on individual nanosize objects, such as nanowires, nanotubes and nanocrystals. However, integrating these small objects in a macroscopic circuit is a difficult task. So far, nanostructures have been wired by highly sophisticated techniques not suitable for large-scale integration in macroscopic circuits, such as electron-beam lithography or focused ion-beam deposition. Here we present a 'one-pot' and rapid approach to electrically interconnect individual nanowires from random spatial distribution, with high spatial and positioning resolution and a remarkable reduction in overall fabrication time with respect to the other expensive and laborious techniques. The reliability of such technique is demonstrated by implementing a single semiconductor nanowire device


Given the confluence of a vast body of research about urban China and the heated debates about urban theory, revisiting Park seems at first glance like an untimely, limiting tactic for setting a research agenda. Taking Park as a starting point does not, however, dictate rules about speaking in his terms, nor does it require a re-treading of the Los Angeles School critiques of his work. Rather, it can be a valuable way to review the research on urban China in order to situate this work within greater theoretical issues. This concluding chapter reflects on the general issues of exceptionalism and methodology haunting the research on urban China. It suggests that rather than a research agenda like the one Park outlines in his essay on "The City," perhaps the future of research demands a reconsideration of approach.


This paper discusses the contact less palm veinauthentication device that uses blood vessel patterns as a personal identifying factor. The vein information is hard to duplicate since veins are internal to the human Body. This paper presents a review on the palm vein authentication process and its relevance and competence as compared to the contemporary Biometric methods. Th is authentication technology offers a high level of Accuracy. The importance of biometrics in the current field of Security has been illustrated in this paper. We have also outlined opinions about the utility of biometric authentication systems, comparison between different techniques and their advantages and disadvantage. Its significance is studied in this paper with reference to the banks, E-Voting, point of sale outlets and card/document less security system. Fujitsu plans to further expand applications for this technology by downsizing the sensor and improving the certification speed. I.2.m C.2.0


This article explores the uses of the terms social exclusion and social inclusion in a mental health context. We briefly describe the origins of the term social exclusion and analyse its connotations in relation to four key dimensions: the relative, multifactorial, dynamic and transactional. We discuss Levitas's three discourses concerning social exclusion (the redistributionist, moral underclass and social integrationist) and present a case in favour of a fourth perspective, societal oppression. Focusing on social inclusion as a remedy for the ills of social exclusion, we discuss implications for contemporary mental health policy, practice and research. We highlight the potential contribution of social psychology to social inclusion theory. We conclude that a better theoretical understanding of causal mechanisms is needed to enable the development of more socially inclusive mental health services.


This paper describes the use of a finite element (FE) modeling approach to investigate the influence of different hydrophone designs in laboratory scale reactor vessels. In addition to conventional PVDF membrane and piezoceramic hydrophone, the performance of a conceptual array hydrophone, comprising a 2D matrix of PVDF array elements, will be simulated. The FE modeling concentrates on two issues: the disturbance to the field through the introduction of each hydrophone configuration; and their suitability and response to measuring non-linear effects. To simplify the model the ultrasonic transducer is not directly represented. Here, a pressure loading function is used as the excitation technique, with a sawtooth waveform applied for the simulation of the non-linear detection capability of each hydrophone configuration. The results from the simulation programme demonstrate that the dynamics of the reactor vessel are critical to optimize the performance of the ultrasonic system. In addition, the introduction of a hydrophone alters the wave propagation, and hence the field distribution beyond a given probe location. Nevertheless, the spatial pressure distribution at the active area remains reasonably accurate if within the useable bandwidth of the device. Accordingly, the broadband nature of the membrane device is suited to operation in both the linear and non-linear regimes, with the PVDF array membrane device offering a fast, convenient measurement of the pressure field distribution for industrial applications.


Corrosion in cooling water system pipelines brings a major concern towards many industries processing plants. Widely used of steel and copper causes galvanic corrosion to occur within the system. To overcome the corrosion issue, most industries have used inorganic chemical like chromate as corrosion inhibitors. Therefore, the aims of this project are to study the corrosion rate of steel when it is galvanically in contact with copper and to study the performance of organic corrosion inhibitors (CI) in controlling the corrosion process. Mini flow loop experiment is set up as per in ASTM D688 as the testing method to acquire reliable results for this project. Simulated cooling water (SCW) is prepared in the laboratory at pH 8.0 with room temperature to match the composition of cooling water in the plant. Two parameters are tested in these experiments which are low velocity condition of 0.25 m/s and high velocity condition of 1.1 m/s. The average corrosion rate for non-coupled steel experiment in low velocity of uninhibited SCW is 2.74 mmpy while in high velocity is 1.17 mmpy. When steel is coupled with copper alloy in low velocity condition, the highest corrosion rate of the steel in uninhibited SCW is 2.78 mmpy, whereas the lowest corrosion rate is 0.89 mmpy in SCW with the addition of 16% of tobacco extract water solution. In high velocity condition, the highest corrosion rate of the steel is 3.97 mmpy in uninhibited SCW, whereas the lowest corrosion rate is 0.78 mmpy in SCW with the addition of tobacco solution. The copper alloy shows a small value of corrosion rate in low and high velocity – 0.35 mmpy and 0.41 mmpy in uninhibited SCW. In the presence of CI, the corrosion rate of copper reduced to 0.03 mmpy in low velocity and 0.04 mmpy in high velocity. Based on the results, it shows that the corrosion rate of steel increased dramatically when coupled with copper both in low and high velocity. The performance of CI is efficient in high velocity condition which achieved the inhibition efficiency (IE) of 72.03% compared to low velocity condition which gives 67.8% of IE.


For the performability evaluation of complex systems simulation remains often the only feasible method. Unfortunately, simulation experiments tend to be very time consuming if rare events have to be considered. This paper describes an algorithmic approach for fast simulation of rare events applied in a Petri net modeling environment. The technique is based on the RESTART method, which is applicable for rare events in a wide range of simulation models, and has the potential to reduce the simulation overhead extremely. The paper presents selection and refinement techniques for the most important input parameters of RESTART. The techniques allow an efficient execution of RESTART simulations especially in a flexible evaluation tool. The results show run length reductions up to six orders of magnitude.


For commercial availability reasons, most actual multi-hops ad-hoc simulations and test-beds are based on IEEE 802.11 standard [1] and its medium access method CSMA/CA. But this standard has not been designed for that kind of network and presents serious flaws in this context. In this paper, we shall try to highlight problems that can appear in the non-direct neighborhood of important data flows in ad-hoc networks. In some situations, the fairness of the medium access can indeed be very poor. Various techniques could be used to solve this problem. In this paper we present one solution, which only requires minor modifications to the standard.


One of the favorite activities in any of the architecture or design courses is to discuss antipatterns - design ideas hatched with good intentions that prove problematic over time. The few books on antipatterns focus primarily on introducing problems and straightforward solutions, which makes them hard to distinguish from better-known books that present design or programming guidelines or refactoring advice. However, there's a slight but significant difference between antipatterns and style guidance. A style guide typically covers good practices - what to do and what to avoid. An antipattern is somewhat more ambitious. It seeks to explain how good intentions can go awry and suggest meaningful ways to repair broken systems. The point isn't so much to say "do this" or "avoid doing that" as to suggest ways to prevent a problem or to skillfully apply a set of corrective actions.


In this paper, a hierarchical system, in which each level is composed by a neural-based classifier, is proposed to recognize objects in underwater images. The system has been designed to help an autonomous underwater vehicle in sea-bottom survey operations, like pipeline inspections. The input image is divided into square regions (macro-pixels) and a neural tree is used to classify each region into different object classes (pipeline, sea-bottom, or anodes). Each macro-pixel is then analyzed according to some geometric and environment constraints: macro-pixels with doubt classification are divided into four parts and re-classified. The process is iterated until the desired accuracy is reached. Experimental results, which have been performed on a large set of real underwater images acquired in different sea environments, demonstrate the robustness and the accuracy of the proposed system.


In this study, we report an investigation into the steric (cone angle, θ) and electronic properties of ligands in Ru-catalyzed C–H arylation of aromatic benzamides bearing 8-aminoquinoline as an N,N'-bidentate-directing group. The study employs [RuCl2(p-cymene)]2 as a precatalyst, and a ligand, under study, as a cocatalyst. Various electronically and sterically different monodentate and bidentate phosphine ligands were examined. Other ligands such as phosphites and amines were also tested. The study reveals that while bidentate phosphines, phosphites, and aryl and alkyl amines were found to be ineffective, monodentate triarylphosphines represented by triphenylphosphine were found to be the most effective ligands in the Ru-catalyzed C–H arylation under the conditions specified. In addition, the study reveals that there is a correlation between the steric effects, cone angle (θ) and the reaction efficiency. Thus, for symmetrical phosphine ligands, as the cone angle increases, the yield of the CH arylation product gradually decreased. Moreover, the electronic properties of triarylphosphine ligands influenced the reaction as demonstrated by the decreased ability of electron-poor ligands to promote the reaction. The study also reveals a correlation between the electronic parameter, υCO, of the triarylphosphine ligand and the reaction efficiency. As the carbonyl stretching frequency increases, the reaction yield gradually decreased.


To investigate critical care delivery in intensive care units (ICUs), we propose a qualitative and quantitative coupling approach to developing an ICU digital twin model. The Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) 2.0 model was adapted to conceptualise the current ICU system. A hybrid simulation model was developed to characterise major care delivery processes as discrete-time events, feature patients, clinicians, and other artifacts as autonomous agents, and integrate them in the same simulation environment to capture their interactions under a variety of ICU production conditions. Electronic health record (EHR) data from a medical ICU of Mayo Clinic Rochester, Minnesota, were used to calibrate model parameters. Upon iterative refinement and validation, the model has the potential to be integrated with the hospital information system to simulate real-life events as a full-fledged digital twin of the system. It can be used as an in-silico testbed to investigate the real-time allocation of ICU resources such as medical equipment, flexible staffing, workflow change, and support decisions of patient admission, discharge, and transfer, for healthcare delivery innovation. The interdisciplinary nature of this framework demonstrates and promotes the partnership between healthcare and engineering communities to building a better delivery system.


Objectives: To employ metabolomics-based pathway and network analyses to evaluate the cerebrospinal fluid metabolome after severe traumatic brain injury in children and the capacity of combination therapy with probenecid and N-acetylcysteine to impact glutathione-related and other pathways and networks, relative to placebo treatment. Design: Analysis of cerebrospinal fluid obtained from children enrolled in an Institutional Review Board–approved, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of a combination of probenecid and N-acetylcysteine after severe traumatic brain injury (Trial Registration NCT01322009). Setting: Thirty-six–bed PICU in a university-affiliated children's hospital. Patients and Subjects: Twelve children 2–18 years old after severe traumatic brain injury and five age-matched control subjects. Intervention: Probenecid (25 mg/kg) and N-acetylcysteine (140 mg/kg) or placebo administered via naso/orogastric tube. Measurements and Main Results: The cerebrospinal fluid metabolome was analyzed in samples from traumatic brain injury patients 24 hours after the first dose of drugs or placebo and control subjects. Feature detection, retention time, alignment, annotation, and principal component analysis and statistical analysis were conducted using XCMS-online. The software "mummichog" was used for pathway and network analyses. A two-component principal component analysis revealed clustering of each of the groups, with distinct metabolomics signatures. Several novel pathways with plausible mechanistic involvement in traumatic brain injury were identified. A combination of metabolomics and pathway/network analyses showed that seven glutathione-centered pathways and two networks were enriched in the cerebrospinal fluid of traumatic brain injury patients treated with probenecid and N-acetylcysteine versus placebo-treated patients. Several additional pathways/networks consisting of components that are known substrates of probenecid-inhibitable transporters were also identified, providing additional mechanistic validation. Conclusions: This proof-of-concept neuropharmacometabolomics assessment reveals alterations in known and previously unidentified metabolic pathways and supports therapeutic target engagement of the combination of probenecid and N-acetylcysteine treatment after severe traumatic brain injury in children.


The theory of the synthesis of diamond by the polycondensation of light carbon-containing molecules is examined, and the optimum stoichiometric, thermodynamic, and kinetic conditions for diamond and graphite polycondensation and the reverse conversion of diamond and graphite by water vapour and carbon dioxide are described. The formation of critical nuclei of diamond shows no specific restrictions, and can take place under static conditions. The growth of these nuclei and their transformation into macrocrystals require specific macrokinetic conditions, which can be produced only in non-equilibrium open catalytic systems. The conclusions from the theory are confirmed by analysis of the conditions of experiments on the growth of diamond crystals and the synthesis of diamond films on various supports, and of the formation and growth of diamond meta-crystals in nature. The bibliography includes 74 references.


Design flood estimation is an important task that is required in the planning and design of many civil engineering projects. Finding the most suitable distribution to flood samples and selecting the appropriate parameter estimation method are of great importance for flood frequency analysis. In this study, L-moments and LH-moments have been used to characterise the upper part of distributions and larger events in flood data. Three extreme value distributions, that is, generalised extreme value (GEV), generalised logistic (GLO) and generalised Pareto (GPA), through different levels of the LH-moments have been applied to describe the annual maximum flood data obtained from 34 sites in Lake Urmia Basin, northwest Iran. The performances of these distributions have been assessed by evaluating the relative root-mean-square error and the minimum L-kurtosis difference criterion. The result shows that the LH-moments are more efficient for obtaining improved values of flood peaks than the L-moments. For the upper p...


A document discusses a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) integrated- circuit operational amplifier to be replicated and incorporated into sensor and actuator systems of Mars-explorer robots. This amplifier is designed to function at a supply potential less than or equal to 5.5 V, at any temperature from -180 to +120 C. The design is implemented on a commercial radiation-hard SOI CMOS process rated for a supply potential of less than or equal to 3.6 V and temperatures from -55 to +110 C. The design incorporates several innovations to achieve this, the main ones being the following: NMOS transistor channel lengths below 1 m are generally not used because research showed that this change could reduce the adverse effect of hot carrier injection on the lifetimes of transistors at low temperatures. To enable the amplifier to withstand the 5.5-V supply potential, a circuit topology including cascade devices, clamping devices, and dynamic voltage biasing was adopted so that no individual transistor would be exposed to more than 3.6 V. To minimize undesired variations in performance over the temperature range, the transistors in the amplifier are biased by circuitry that maintains a constant inversion coefficient over the temperature range.


In two studies, one among 94 Moroccan and 203 Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands and one among 1844 people of the Dutch majority, we examined how these groups react to four different adaptation strategies of people with a Moroccan and a Turkish background. These strategies are: assimilation (original culture is considered unimportant whereas contact with the majority is considered important), integration (both the original culture and contact with the majority are important), separation (original culture is considered important whereas contact with the majority is not), and marginalization (both the original culture and contact with the majority are considered unimportant). The respondents were confronted with a scenario (a fictitious newspaper article) representing one of the four strategies. Moroccans and Turks had to indicate whether they identified themselves with the person in the scenario. Their affective and normative reactions towards that person were also measured. Both Moroccans and Turks appeared to react most positively to integration and to identify themselves most with an integrating person. Dutch majority members were asked to estimate the percentage of Moroccans or Turks that use a particular adaptation form, and were also asked to give their affective and normative reactions towards the person in the scenario. The Dutch have positive attitudes towards assimilation and integration. Remarkably, they believe that separation, which is the least liked strategy by them, is the one chosen most frequently by the immigrants. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The exploration/exploitation (E&E) dilemma lies at the core of interactive systems such as online advertising, for which contextual bandit algorithms have been proposed. Bayesian approaches provide guided exploration via uncertainty estimation, but the applicability is often limited due to over-simplified assumptions. Non-Bayesian bootstrap methods, on the other hand, can apply to complex problems by using deep reward models, but lack a clear guidance to the exploration behavior. It still remains largely unsolved to develop a practical method for complex deep contextual bandits. In this paper, we introduce Guided Bootstrap (GuideBoot), combining the best of both worlds. GuideBoot provides explicit guidance to the exploration behavior by training multiple models over both real samples and noisy samples with fake labels, where the noise is added according to the predictive uncertainty. The proposed method is efficient as it can make decisions on-the-fly by utilizing only one randomly chosen model, but is also effective as we show that it can be viewed as a non-Bayesian approximation of Thompson sampling. Moreover, we extend it to an online version that can learn solely from streaming data, which is favored in real applications. Extensive experiments on both synthetic tasks and large-scale advertising environments show that GuideBoot achieves significant improvements against previous state-of-the-art methods.


Gastrointestinal disea ses  caused  by  foodstuffs  contaminated with  Salmonella enterica implicate  important  social  and economic  issues,  making  it  necessary  to  have  fast,  sensitive,  and  specific  systems  for  opportune  detection  of  the pathogen.  An  endpoint  PCR  protocol  for  identification  of  S.  enterica in  milk  is  presented  using  primer  pairs previously  validated  as  specific  to  the  genus  Salmonella (STM3098-f2/STM3098-r2),  subspecies  enterica (subspecies  I)  (STM4057-f/STM4057-r),  and  serotype  Typhimurium  (STM4497-f/  STM4497-r).  This  protocol allowed  for  detection  of  1  CFU/25  mL  of  spiked  milk  after  a  12  h  pre-enrichment  period  by  means  of  simple  and multiplex  PCR  assay  with  the  three  used  primer  pairs.  The  designed  protocol  can  be  applied  in  sanita ry  survey programs  for  detection  of  S.  enterica in  milk.


The failure of proteins to fold correctly result in amyloidosis. Therefore, amyloid plaque prediction has become
significant to narrow down the exploration of anti- amyloidosis and related drugs. In this research article, we propose a
unique hybrid approach to computationally predict the formation of amyloid plaques by exploiting diversity in the feature
vector extracted from protein sequences and structures. The diversity in the sequence of feature space is exploited using
structure dependent features besides the physico-chemical information from amino acid chemistry and frequency spectrum
based parameters. We explored the prediction capability with independent and integrated feature vectors by an ensemble machine learning classifier, Random Forests. Computational analysis evidence that the assimilation of diverse feature set outperform individual feature array with a balanced prediction accuracy of 0.830 and Receiver Characteristic Curve area of 0.918 on stratified10-fold cross-validation test.


In Turkey, forest fires are often occurring due to anthropogenic effect and natural conditions. The Mediterranean region is the beginning of the regions where the forest fire case is frequently experienced in Turkey. One of the natural causes of fires occurring in this area is the overheating of the ground surface, depending on the high temperatures. In this study, the last period of the forest fires in the Erdemli district were analyzed and the average ground surface temperature during the months of these fires will be examined. In this context, we have used MOD11A2 satellite data for 4 months between June and September, which is the most heated period of Erdemli District during the year. In this way, areas where the risk of forest fire in the field of study were set up. The results are seen that a large portion of the recent forest fires coincide with the months of August and September. These months are also the hottest periods, according to the results obtained from LST data. As a result, this study shows that the risk of forest fire using LST data can be determined by the remote sensing methodology of high areas.


The title steroidal compound, C31H49NO5, resulted from the selective oximation of (23R)-23-acetylsarsasapogenin acetate. One- and two-dimensional 1H and 13C NMR spectra, as well as IR data, are in agreement with the presence of a ketoxime group at C-23. However, recrystallization in slightly acidic media affords the title compound in the rare zwitterionic oxime form, as a consequence of migration of the hydroxy H atom to the N atom in the oxime group. This H atom is clearly detected and its position was refined from X-ray data. The geometry for the C=N+(H)—O− group features long C=N and short N—O bond lengths compared to non-zwitterionic oximes. The ketoxime is stabilized with the E configuration, avoiding steric hindrance between the oxime O atom and H atom at C-23. The sum of the angles around the oxime N atom is 359.6°, giving a planar configuration for that atom, as expected for sp 2 hybridization.


A facile form of hydrothermal synthesis was utilized to obtain BaZrxTi1−xO3 (BZT) nanoparticles (NPs) with a wide range of Zr concentrations. The amorphous B-site precursor prepared by the hydrolysis of alkoxide using an ammonia solution, efficiently promotes the reaction with the A-site precursor solution. Subsequently, the BZT NPs were adopted for a flexible piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) by employing a simple, low-cost, and scalable spin-casting method. The output performance achieved by the fabricated flexible PEH depends on the Zr/Ti ratio inside a piezoelectric nanocomposite. The BZT NP-embedded PEH with Zr concentration of 32 mol% generated a stable output voltage of ∼20 V and a current signal of 400 nA without performance decay.


Dead wood is important for woodpeckers, providing foraging, roost and nest-sites. In this paper, data from long-term studies of woodpeckers and dead wood in oakwoods in southern England are used to examine the dead wood requirements of the three British resident woodpecker species. Both Great Dendrocopos major and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers Dendrocopos minor select dead trees for nest-sites although the former is able to nest in living trees too. On the other hand a smaller fraction of Lesser Spotted Woodpecker nests are in living trees. Green Woodpecker Picus viridis shows no selection for dead nesting trees. Hence the smallest woodpecker species appears to be most dependent on dead and decaying trees for nest-sites. Great and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers show no preference for foraging on dead trees although they both make use of dead branches on living trees. Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers forage on smaller branches higher in the tree than Great Spotted Woodpeckers. There has been a trend for increasing dead wood resources in the study woods with both dead wood on the ground and standing dead trees (snags) increasing in the last 20 years. The levels of dead wood are shown to be the result of continual processes of creation and decay. Around 0.5% of oak Quercus spp., Ash Fraxinus excelsior and Hornbeam Carpinus betulus and 3.4% of the birch Betula spp. trees die each year in the woods resulting in a continuity of new dead snags and fallen trees. There is a high turnover of standing dead snags of oak and birch with 95% and 80% annual survival, respectively. Snags are only suitable for nesting Great Spotted Woodpeckers for a few years after their creation. It is suggested that these stand and dead wood dynamics are likely to provide habitats more favourable for the Great Spotted than the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.


Background: Atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis (RAS) is frequently treated by angioplasty and stent placement. Duplex sonography is an established noninvasive technique for patient follow-up. There is lack of evidence that routine monitoring of asymptomatic patients with stable blood pressure is needed. Methods: Renal duplex sonography was performed in 64 patients who had received percutaneous angioplasty and stenting of an atherosclerotic RAS. Duplex sonographic diagnosis was made by a combination of direct flow measurement in the renal artery and evaluation of intrarenal resistive indices. Renal function was determined by serum creatinine and calculated glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Results: With a mean follow-up of 28 months after angioplasty, a flow velocity of >2.0 m/s was detected within the stented arteries in 11/64 patients. While the initial blood pressure and GFR as well as the influence of angioplasty on these parameters were not different, the decrease in renal function over time was significantly higher in patients with flow enhancement (annual GFR decrease, 8.0 ml/min vs. 0.8 ml/min; p < 0.05). Conclusion: Follow-up duplex sonography in patients after renal artery stenting detected an unexpectedly high rate of in-stent restenosis associated with enhanced loss of renal function. Routine duplex sonographic follow-up may detect patients at risk of more rapidly declining renal function.


The proposed protocols of diagnostics and treatment of acute calculous cholecystitis were developed in St. Petersburg Djanelidze Research Institute of Emergency Medicine where the problems of treatment of patients with acute inflammatory diseases of the bile ducts are investigated in collaboration with the leading experts in this field in Saint Petersburg and Leningradskaya oblast. The protocols are based on the collective experience of many authors, who realized in their work different strategic directives and methods of treatment of complicated forms of cholelithiasis and nevertheless came to similar conclusions. They contain recent developments of the organization and carrying out diagnostic and medical measures for patients with this pathology which could improve results of treatment of this not simple category of patients.


Programmable routers supporting virtualization are a key building block for bridging the gap between new Internet protocols and their deployment in real operational networks. This article presents the design and implementation of PEARL, a programmable virtual router platform with relatively high performance. It offers high flexibility by allowing users to control the configuration of both hardware and software data paths. The platform makes use of fast lookup in hardware and software exceptions in commodity multicore CPUs to achieve highspeed packet processing. Multiple isolated packet streams and virtualization techniques ensure isolation among virtual router instances.


Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been extensively used in commercial products, including textiles, cosmetics, and health care items, due to their strong antimicrobial effects. They also may be released into the environment and accumulate in the ocean. Therefore, AgNPs are the major source of Ag contamination, and public awareness of the environmental toxicity of Ag is increasing. Previous studies have demonstrated the bioaccumulation (in producers) and magnification (in consumers/predators) of Ag. Cetaceans, as the apex predators of ocean, may have been negatively affected by the Ag/Ag compounds. Although the concentrations of Ag/Ag compounds in cetacean tissues can be measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS), the use of ICP-MS is limited by its high capital cost and the requirement for tissue storage/preparation. Therefore, an autometallography (AMG) method with an image quantitative analysis by using formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue may be an adjuvant method to localize Ag distribution at the suborgan level and estimate the Ag concentration in cetacean tissues. The AMG positive signals are mainly brown to black granules of various sizes in the cytoplasm of proximal renal tubular epithelium, hepatocytes, and Kupffer cells. Occasionally, some amorphous golden yellow to brown AMG positive signals are noted in the lumen and basement membrane of some proximal renal tubules. The assay for estimating the Ag concentration is named the Cetacean Histological Ag Assay (CHAA), which is a regression model established by the data from image quantitative analysis of the AMG method and ICP-MS. The use of AMG with CHAA to localize and semi-quantify heavy metals provides a convenient methodology for spatio-temporal and cross-species studies.


Suicide rates for adolescents 15-19 years of age have quadrupled from 2.7 per 100,000 in 1950 to 11.3 in 1988 (1,2). Data from earlier decades are not available to assess similar trends in rates of attempted suicide in this population. Attempted suicide is a potentially lethal health event, a risk factor for future completed suicide, and a potential indicator of other health problems such as substance abuse, depression, or adjustment and stress reactions (3). This report examines self-reported data to estimate the annual prevalence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among U.S. high school students.


: Acute neurologic disease associated with intracranial migration of a first instar larva of a warble fly, Hypoderma bovis (Linnaeus), was observed in a 14-year-old Quarter Horse gelding in western Montana. The disease was characterized by incoordination of gait, circling to the left, head tilt to the right, partial paralysis of the right side of the face, and impaired vision in the right eye. Two and one-half hours after it was first noticed sick, the horse collapsed and was euthanized. Massive hemorrhage unaccompanied by necrosis or significant cellular response was present in the right side of the midbrain and pons.


The absence of the negative sign problem in quantum Monte Carlo simulations of spin and fermion systems has different origins. World-line based algorithms for spins require positivity of matrix elements whereas auxiliary field approaches for fermions depend on symmetries such as particle-hole symmetry. For negative-sign-free spin and fermionic systems, we show that one can formulate a negative-sign-free auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo algorithm that allows Kondo coupling of fermions with the spins. Using this general approach, we study a half-filled Kondo lattice model on the honeycomb lattice with geometric frustration. In addition to the conventional Kondo insulator and antiferromagnetically ordered phases, we find a partial Kondo screened state where spins are selectively screened so as to alleviate frustration, and the lattice rotation symmetry is broken nematically.


We reported concurrent chemoradiation for postoperative recurrent esophageal cancer patients with lymph node metastases and a pulmonary metastasis. From October 2001 to January 2004, we treated 6 consecutive patients with radiation and concurrent chemotherapy using daily low-doses of CDDP and UFT-E. Of the 6 patients, 4 (67%) had a complete response and 2 (33%) a partial response, yielding an overall response rate of 100% (6/6). Five patients are now alive without cancers, and 1 patient died with cancer. Concurrent chemoradiation using daily low-doses of CDDP and UFT-E is feasible and seems to offer good results for recurrent esophageal cancer patients.


Traditional power systems have been gradually shifting to power-electronic-based ones, with more power electronic devices (including converters) incorporated recently. Faced with much more complicated dynamics, it is a great challenge to uncover its physical mechanisms for system stability and/or instability (oscillation). In this paper, we first establish a nonlinear model of a multi-converter power system within the DC-link voltage timescale, from the first principle. Then, we obtain a linearized model with the associated characteristic matrix, whose eigenvalues determine the system stability, and finally get independent subsystems by using symmetry approximation conditions under the assumptions that all converters' parameters and their susceptance to the infinite bus (Bg) are identical. Based on these mathematical analyses, we find that the whole system can be decomposed into several equivalent single-converter systems and its small-signal stability is solely determined by a simple converter system connected to an infinite bus under the same susceptance Bg. These results of large-scale multi-converter analysis help to understand the power-electronic-based power system dynamics, such as renewable energy integration. As well, they are expected to stimulate broad interests among researchers in the fields of network dynamics theory and applications.


Recognition of natural gestures is a key issue in many applications including videogames and other immersive applications. Whatever is the motion capture device, the key problem is to recognize a motion that could be performed by a range of different users, at an interactive frame rate. Hidden Markov Models (HMM) that are commonly used to recognize the performance of a user however rely on a motion representation that strongly affects the overall recognition rate of the system. In this paper, we propose to use a compact motion representation based on Morphology-Independent features and we evaluate its performance compared to classical representations. When dealing with 15 very similar upper limb motions, HMM based on Morphology-Independent features yield significantly higher recognition rate (84.9%) than classical Cartesian or angular data (70.4% and 55.0%, respectively). Moreover, when the unknown motions are performed by a large number of users who have never contributed to the learning process, the recognition rate of Morphology-Independent input feature only decreases slightly (down to 68.2% for a HMM trained with the motions of only one subject) compared to other features (25.3% for Cartesian features and 17.8% for angular features in the same conditions). The method is illustrated through an interactive demo in which three virtual humans have to interactively recognize and replay the performance of the user. Each virtual human is associated with a HMM recognizer based on the three different input features.


Crowdsourcing is widely accepted as a means for resolving tasks that are hard for computers, e.g., entity resolution. Unfortunately, Crowdsourcing may yield relatively low-quality results if there is no proper quality control. Although previous studies attempt to eliminate workers by estimating workers' qualities via qualification tests or hidden tests, the qualities estimated may not be accurate, because workers may have diverse qualities across tasks. Thus, the quality of the results could be further improved by wisely assigning tasks to the workers who are specialized in the tasks and online task assignment is an effective way to achieve this goal. However, existing crowdsourcing platforms either do not support online task assignment (e.g., CrowdFlower) or are not user-friendly because they require to write complicated codes (e.g., Amazon MTurk). To address these limitations, we develop an online task assignment system, which can on-the-fly assign workers with appropriate tasks. We have deployed our system on top of MTurk. We demonstrate the following scenarios using our system. Firstly, requesters can easily utilize our system to enable online task assignment in order to improve answer quality. Moreover, requesters do not need to write any code. Secondly, our system can infer the quality of workers, and requesters can design and test their own task assignment algorithms using our proposed information. Thirdly, our system can monitor tasks and workers in real time, and the requesters can eliminate bad workers or terminate the crowdsourcing process to reduce the unnecessary cost.


Cooking loss (CL) and water content (X) during wet cooking were measured on 5 mm thick discs, 3x3x3 cm and 5x5x5 cm cubes of five muscles of pork: semimembranosus (SM), biceps femoris (BF), rectus femoris (RF), semitendinosus (ST) and longissimus thoracis (LT). During heating, water content in meat decreased to reach an equilibrium state (X eqCL ). Salt content, dimension and muscle type influenced X eqCL but effect of temperature remained preponderant. Equilibrium water content differed when sample was vacuum-packed or not, but it was difficult to determine whether it was due to the ef fect of the surrounding juice or to the difference in pressure.


In the frame of the European sixth framework programme (FP6), antennas have been recognised as a strategic technology where a deep research restructuring is needed to keep future competitive edges. An ambitious Information Society Technologies (IST) project, implemented by a "Network of Excellence", started in 2004 with a duration of 4 years, aimed at increasing the efficiency and the level of innovation in the antenna research by creating a synergic network of European organisations. The participation of the entire chain of academic/industry researchers guarantees the highest level of applicability of the results produced by the network activities.


Aims: The purpose was to examine the changes in alcoholic beverage preferences among 14- and 16-year-olds in Finland from the year 1999 to 2017. In addition, the effects of age, gender and drinking style on beverage preference was studied. Methods: Nationally representative surveys of adolescent health behaviours in Finland from 1999 (n = 4943) and 2017 (n = 2451) among 14- and 16-year-olds were analysed using cross-tabulations and logistic regression modelling. Beverage data were coded from an open-ended question concerning the latest drinking occasion. Results: While the prevalence of 14- and 16-year-old adolescents' alcohol drinking was more than halved between 1999 and 2017, the popularities of different beverages did not change equally. Drinking beer, cider and strong beverages mirrored the total decrease, as did the drinking of several different beverage types at a time. Wine drinking decreased only a little and alcopops actually increased in popularity. Taking the amounts of pure ethanol in the beverages into account, the proportion of alcohol drunk in the forms of beer and cider decreased notably, and in the form of wine it decreased a little. Strong beverages increased their share of alcohol drunk, but the most notable increase was seen in the share of alcopops, which more than doubled their share of the pure ethanol drunk. Conclusions: Increased popularity of alcopops among the under-aged together with the recent alcohol law change increasing the availability of alcopops in Finland call for attention to be paid both to marketing and the control of age limits of these products.


This study was investigated to develop mass evaluation system for the contents of crude protein, oil and fatty acid in soybean germplasm using NIRS. NIRS equations were created with 345 soybeans, multiple correlation coefficients of crude protein, oil, palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic and linolenic acid between data obtained from NIRS and quantitative analysis were 0.983, 0.969, 0.592, 0.514, 0.978, 0.961 and 0.957, respectively. Equation statistics indicated that contents of crude protein, oil and unsaturated fatty acid except palmitic and stearic acid in soybean seed were suitable for determination by NIRS. Those NIRS equations were applied to examine crude protein, oil and unsaturated fatty acid of 854 soybean landraces from Korea. The average contents and ranges of crude protein and oil were 39.2% with a range of 33.7-47.0% and 15.0% with a range of 9.8-20.3%, individually. In addition, those of oleic, linoleic and linolenic acid were 21.4% with a range of 12.1-30.2%, 55.6% with a 47.8-62.3% and 8.1% with a range of 5.9-10.7% respectively. We conducted quantitative analysis to reconfirm with IT154552 (45.1%) and IT023955(46.9%) above 45% of crude protein, the results were similar from NIRS (45.2%, 47.0%). NIRS data for protein from this study made no difference with lab data, which would be useful for mass evaluation. There was negative correlation (-0.203) between crude protein and oil, positive correlation (0.379) between crude oil and oleic acid, and significantly negative correlation (-0.879) between oleic and linoleic acid.


In this paper, we introduce DirectDraw technique, MPEG¿|4 video coding technique, and IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack VIDS (Video Intelligent Diagnosis System). The author expounds the design of the monitoring center in VIDS system. In order to solve the instantaneity and fluency problem of video display, we present a method of regulation video-frequency-display rate according to the size of video data quantity. The test result shows that this method has obvious effect.


In the medical field, brain tumor identification and segmentation is still a challenging task. Due to its complex structure, the region segmentation of the tumor from medical images is a strenuous process. Existing techniques are failed to predict the tumor cell from the brain in an accurate manner. To overcome this hindrance, we develop an H-Dense U-Net CNN architecture model fused with a pattern based learning strategy that ensures a better performance criterion. In every field of research, CNN plays a vital role and improvised system performance. The hybrid densely connected U-Net contains a 2D Dense U-Net which extracts the intra-slice features and 3D counterpart accumulating volumetric context. The intra-slice representation and inter-slice features are merged through a hybrid feature fusion layer (HFF). H-Dense U-Net also called an end to end system. We utilize the HGG Tumour imaging data from BRATS 2018 dataset where four different modalities are available (T1, T1c, T2, and FLAIR). Among the different modalities, we preferred FLAIR images. It is subject to preprocessing and then the segmentation process. After segmentation, the tumor region gets masked. Thus the tumor is detected and the system measures the area occupied by the tumor through region props. The key contribution of the paper is to segment the tumor accurately from the healthy tissue and provide better visualization for the physicians. The accuracy of our approach is about 98.74%. Hence our proposed system provides high accuracy and efficient value in segmenting the brain tumors. It also promotes the segmentation performance to the next level in the medical field.


Search Engines are the most common data on the World Wide Web Although Search Engine Optimization deals with growing visibility of search results web pages, this study work focuses on the search algorithm that will provide the most appropriate, relevant and needed records with the anticipated search query. A comparative research of the intersection algorithm and its variants provided the requirement for the fresh algorithm. CRANTOP database is a conventional WWW database that not only provides a database of documents and queries, but also provides appropriate queries for real appropriate documents. The study was conducted on that database, available in the Appendix, and the analysis is based on the values of precision, recall and F-measure. The proposal algorithm, which preference of the search queries, is at the core of the study job. This algorithm indicates fetching phrases methodology and then looking for all possible sentences in order to increase the recall value. In this respect, the most significant problem is the use of such sparse matrix representation, which promotes the effective search of sentences into the papers. For doing it, sparse matrix representation was suggested, which contains Columns corresponding to the papers, making searching for any possible sentence effective. Rows Linked Representations preserve the vibrant nature of papers and insert and delete phrases from papers. In addition, emphasis was placed on general words and query words into the dictionary, resulting in precision search outcomes. Synonyms were also regarded for document retrieval, thereby enhancing comprehension.


We consider the action of a linear subspace $U$ of $\{0,1\}^n$ on the set of AC$^0$ formulas with inputs labeled by literals in the set $\{X_1,\overline X_1,\dots,X_n,\overline X_n\}$, where an element $u \in U$ acts on formulas by transposing the $i$th pair of literals for all $i \in [n]$ such that $u_i=1$. A formula is {\em $U$-invariant} if it is fixed by this action. For example, there is a well-known recursive construction of depth $d+1$ formulas of size $O(n{\cdot}2^{dn^{1/d}})$ computing the $n$-variable PARITY function; these formulas are easily seen to be $P$-invariant where $P$ is the subspace of even-weight elements of $\{0,1\}^n$. In this paper we establish a nearly matching $2^{d(n^{1/d}-1)}$ lower bound on the $P$-invariant depth $d+1$ formula size of PARITY. Quantitatively this improves the best known $\Omega(2^{\frac{1}{84}d(n^{1/d}-1)})$ lower bound for {\em unrestricted} depth $d+1$ formulas, while avoiding the use of the switching lemma. More generally, for any linear subspaces $U \subset V$, we show that if a Boolean function is $U$-invariant and non-constant over $V$, then its $U$-invariant depth $d+1$ formula size is at least $2^{d(m^{1/d}-1)}$ where $m$ is the minimum Hamming weight of a vector in $U^\bot \setminus V^\bot$.


The prompt gamma neutron activation analysis (PGNAA) system is a useful tool to detect the concentrations of the various composite elements of a sample by measuring the prompt gammas that are activated by neutrons. The composition in terms of the constituent elements is essential information for the identification of the material species of any unknown object. A PGNAA system initiated by a high-power laser has been designed and optimized by using a Monte-Carlo simulation. In order to improve the signal-to-background ratio, we designed an improved neutron-shielding structure and imposed a proper time window in the analysis. In particular, the yield ratio of nitrogen to carbon in a TNT sample was investigated in detail. These simulation results demonstrate that the gamma rays from an explosive sample under a vast level of background can indeed be identified.


OBJECTIVES
Children with various single ventricle anomalies are at risk of developing systemic ventricular outflow tract obstruction (SVOTO) following volume unloading with cavopulmonary connection (CPC). We aim to evaluate the value of Damus-Kaye-Stansel (DKS) anastomosis at the time of CPC in eliminating late SVOTO risk.

METHODS
Retrospective review of single ventricle patients who underwent DKS concurrent with CPC between 1997 and 2012 was performed. Clinical, echocardiographic and angiographic outcomes were analysed.

RESULTS
Thirty-six children with single ventricle underwent DKS at the time of Glenn bidirectional CPC (n = 29) or Fontan total CPC (n = 7). The underlying anatomy was double inlet left ventricle (n = 18), double outlet right ventricle (n = 8), unbalanced atrioventricular septal defect (n = 4) and other (n = 6). Prior palliation included pulmonary artery band (n = 35), coarctation/arch repair (n = 11) and atrial septectomy (n = 8). Median age at the time of DKS was 8.9 months (range 3.6 months-9.1 years) and the median weight was 6.7 kg (range 5-27 kg). At the time of DKS, 17 patients (47%) had no SVOT gradient and 19 (53%) had SVOT gradient (mean 23.4 ± 18.7 mmHg). Overall survival was 89 and 83% at 1 month and 5 years, respectively. None of the deaths were related to SVOTO or DKS complications. When present, SVOT gradient decreased from 23.4 ± 18.7 mmHg preoperatively to 0 after DKS (P < 0.001). At the last follow-up, none of the patients developed any SVOT gradient; 78% of them had zero or trivial aortic/neoaortic valve regurgitation while 22% had mild regurgitation. None of the patients had evidence of compression of the left pulmonary artery or bronchus. Eighty-one percent of patients have reached or are suitable candidates awaiting final palliative surgery.

CONCLUSIONS
DKS can be safely performed in conjunction with CPC without added mortality risk. It is very effective in mitigating SVOTO risk, with sustainable good semilunar valves function. Our data support an aggressive approach to performing DKS concurrent with CPC in children with single ventricle pathologies at risk of developing SVOTO.


This paper deals with the restoration of colored images, distorted by both intra- and inter-channel blur, and corrupted by additive white Gaussian noise. The image is modeled as a Markov Random Field (MRF), and color image restoration is cast as a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation problem. We propose a First Order Interchannel Interaction (FOII) model for image restoration. Simulated annealing algorithm is then used to minimize the posterior energy function. We compare the simulation results of the conventional non-interaction (NI) approach and the proposed FOII approach. The proposed model is fairly general, and the results are satisfactory even when interchannel degradation parameter is unknown.


Abstract Background When patients with gastroenteritis (GE) seek health care, they are generally managed in primary care. Little is known about the use of antibiotic treatment in these cases. Objective The aim of this study was to investigate time trends and patient characteristics associated with antibiotic treatment for GE in Norwegian primary care in a 10-year period. Methods We linked data from two nationwide registries, reimbursement claims data from Norwegian primary care (the KUHR database) and The Norwegian Prescription Database, for the period 2006–15. GE consultations were extracted, and courses of systemic antibiotics dispensed within 1 day were included for further analyses. Results Antibiotic treatment was linked to 1.8% (n = 23 663) of the 1 279 867 consultations for GE in Norwegian primary care in the period 2006–15. The proportion of GE consultations with antibiotic treatment increased from 1.4% in 2006 to 2.2% in 2012 and then decreased to 1.8% in 2015. Fluoroquinolones (28.9%) and metronidazole (26.8%) were most frequently used. Whereas the number of fluoroquinolones courses decreased after 2012, the number of metronidazole courses continued to increase until year 2015. The antibiotic treatment proportion of GE consultations was lowest in young children and increased with increasing age. Conclusion Antibiotic treatment is infrequently used in GE consultations in Norwegian primary care. Although there was an overall increase in use during the study period, we observed a reduction in overall use after year 2012. Young children were treated with antibiotics in GE consultations less frequent than older patients.


The symbolic representation of gray-value variations is studied, with emphasis on the gradient of the image function. The goal is to relate the results of this analysis to the structure of the picture, which is determined by the physics of the image generation process. Candidates for contour points are the maximal magnitudes of the gray-value gradient for different scales in the direction of the gradient. Based on the output of such a bank of gradient filters, a procedure is proposed to select automatically a suitable scale, and with that, the size of the right convolution kernel. The application of poorly adapted filters, which make the exact localization of gray-value corners or T-, X-, and Y-junctions more difficult, is thus avoided. Possible gaps at such junctions are discussed for images of real scenes, and possibilities for the closure of some of these gaps are demonstrated when the extrema of the magnitudes of the gray-value gradients are used. >


First-principles density functional theory (DFT) is employed to study the electronic structure of oxygen and gallium vacancies in monoclinic bulk β-Ga2O3 crystals. Hybrid exchange–correlation functional B3LYP within the density functional theory and supercell approach were successfully used to simulate isolated point defects in β-Ga2O3. Based on the results of our calculations, we predict that an oxygen vacancy in β-Ga2O3 is a deep donor defect which cannot be an effective source of electrons and, thus, is not responsible for n-type conductivity in β-Ga2O3. On the other hand, all types of charge states of gallium vacancies are sufficiently deep acceptors with transition levels more than 1.5 eV above the valence band of the crystal. Due to high formation energy of above 10 eV, they cannot be considered as a source of p-type conductivity in β-Ga2O3.


When Bangladesh achieved its long-cherished independence in 1971, the literacy rate was only 17.61%. With the taking of some necessary initiatives, the rate gradually went up as it was 25.8 % in 1974, 29.2% in 1981, 35.3% in 1990 and 52.8% in 2000. The rate has increased by 0.9% per year from 1971 to 2000. In 2010, the literacy rate became 59.82%. However, despite this phenomenal growth, the country's overall condition in terms of education is still falling behind in comparison to the same-age countries like Malaysia. One of the key factors for this is the lack of a comprehensive education policy while the other would be the inadequacy and incoherence within multiple streams in the primary education sector. In order to address this issue, a comprehensive study is required, which is not readily available. Using a triangulation between qualitative and quantitative techniques this study attempts to fill this gap with a particular focus on the comparison within different streams of primary education of which no reliable data is still available for some of the categories.


Mechanical and technical complications associated with a peritoneal dialysis catheter are seen frequently but inserting the catheter into the bladder is a rare complication. The Tenchkoff catheter was inserted into the bladder accidentally in a 64-year-old male patient and this complication was understood by the beginning of peritoneal dialysis (PD). This is the first case reported in the national literature. It is presented to highlight the importance of this complication that may be asymptomatic until the initiation of PD treatment.


Experimental and analytical studies on oblique ion implantation into a Si trench sidewall are discussed. The observation that implanted ions at small incident angle are reflected at the trench sidewall cannot be explained by the conventional Gaussian distribution model. A simple analytical model for oblique ion reflection, considering the Rutherford scattering collision between implanted ions and the Si nucleus, is introduced. As the ion incident angle becomes smaller than 10 degrees , more and more ions are reflected at the trench sidewall. In addition, the reflection index of arsenic ions is larger than that of phosphorus ions. >