Purpose: The purpose of teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to laypersons is to give them the confidence and willingness to perform CPR in a real cardiac arrest, as well as the basic required knowledge and skills. However, no study has examined laypersons' confidence and willingness to act in a real, life-threatening situation. Therefore, we investigated the effects of CPR education on bystanders' confidence and attitude in performing bystander CPR. Methods: From March to May 2008, 168 participants receiving 4 hours of CPR education were asked using a questionnaire about their confidence and willingness to perform bystander CPR before the education, after theoretical education, and after practical education. Those who answered that they wouldn't perform bystander CPR were asked for the reasons. Results: Scores in confidence of bystander CPR were 50.4 ±27.9 before the education, 64.9±22.5 after the theoretical education, and 79.5±16.1(p<0.001) after the practical education. The 'definitely yes' answer to 'willingness to perform CPR on a strange adult', increased from only 8.3% before the education to 18.5% after the theoretical education and 32.7% after the practical education (p<0.001). Among the reasons for not performing bystander CPR, 'fear of poor knowledge/performance' and 'fear of disease transmission' seemed to decrease as the education was carried on. However, the reasons 'fear of legal liability' and 'reluctance to perform mouth-to-mouth' showed no significant difference. Conclusion: Adequate education, including theoretical and practical CPR education, among laypersons significantly increased their confidence and willingness to perform bystander CPR.


Protein molecules, which typically have a hydrophobic core and a zwitterionic shell with a polypeptide backbone, could be ideal materials for nanodrug vehicles (NDVs) with low side effects. Here, we synthesized poly(l-aspartic acid(lysine))-b-poly(l-lysine(Z)) (PAsp(Lys)-b-PLys(Z)) (PALLZ), a novel amphiphilic block polypeptide with key structures of protein to investigate the possibility for use as a NDV. This polypeptide can spontaneously self-assemble into micelles in aqueous solution with a zwitterionic brush (the PAsp(Lys) part) to provide the nonfouling shell and a hydrophobic core (the PLys(Z) part) for loading hydrophobic drugs. The doxorubicin (DOX) loaded PALLZ micelles showed excellent resistance to nonspecific protein adsorption in FBS, which leads to very low internalization. Moreover, PALLZ micelles showed no cytotoxicity to MCF7, HeLa and HepG-2 cells up to 500 μg mL-1. All these results indicated that zwitterionic amphiphilic block polypeptides could be promising materials for NDVs.


Using data from over 1,000 male and female twins participating in the Minnesota Twin Family Study, the authors examined developmental change, gender differences, and genetic and environmental contributions to the symptom levels of four externalizing disorders (adult antisocial behavior, alcohol dependence, nicotine dependence, and drug dependence) from ages 17 to 24. Both men and women increased in symptoms for each externalizing disorder, with men increasing at a greater rate than women, such that a modest gender gap at age 17 widened to a large one at age 24. Additionally, a mean-level gender difference on a latent Externalizing factor could account for the mean-level gender differences for the individual disorders. Biometric analyses revealed increasing genetic variation and heritability for men but a trend toward decreasing genetic variation and increasing environmental effects for women. Results illustrate the importance of gender and developmental context for symptom expression and the utility of structural models to integrate general trends and disorder-specific characteristics.


Scheduling jobs of decentralized decision makers that are in competition will usually lead to cost inefficiencies. This cost inefficiency is studied using the Price of Anarchy (PoA), i.e., the ratio between the worst Nash equilibrium cost and the cost attained at the centralized optimum. First, we provide a tight upperbound for the PoA that depends on the number of machines involved. Second, we show that it is impossible to design a scheduled-based coordinating mechanism in which a Nash equilibrium enforces the centralized or first best optimum. Finally, by simulations we illustrate that on average the PoA is relatively small with respect to the established tight upperbound.


Flexible overlay systems often fail before reaching their design life due to the occurrence of reflective cracking caused by stress concentrations in the vicinity of joints and cracks in the underlying pavement. In this paper, a two-dimensional finite-element fracture model of a rehabilitated airfield overlay system subjected to mixed-mode loadings was developed to obtain accurate nonarbitrary critical fracture responses in asphalt overlays placed over rigid airfield pavements. A stress-intensity factor (SIF) and J-contour integral approach based on the fracture mechanics theory was selected and implemented to analyze the mechanism of airfield pavement cracking. The predicted SIFs using singular elements were verified by comparison with reference solutions based on the displacement correlation technique. The verified fracture model was applied to investigate a number of complicated environmental effects and critical aircraft gear loading conditions in an airfield overlay system associated with heavy aircraft. The gear configuration and tire pressure of a Boeing 777 aircraft were selected and applied at 12 different loading positions. Temperature-induced Mode-I SIFs were found to be extremely high, and although the magnitude of the responses would be expected to be lower with improved material models and more advanced temperature gradient modeling, the simulations nevertheless emphasized the importance of modeling temperature change in addition to gear loading in climates where daily diurnal temperature cycling is significant. A surprising finding was that aircraft gear loadings placed in the vicinity of the crack tip did not produce the most critical Mode-I stress intensities at the crack tip. Instead, counterflexure produced by gears located 3–4 m from the underlying joint produced higher stress intensities.


The study was conducted under the farmer greenhouses at Arsuz province of Hatay where has being promising new production area. The cultivar of 'Grand Nain' was used which produced in selected greenhouses. In the study, pseudostem circumference, bunch parameters ( bunch weight , bunch circumference, bunch length, number of hands per bunch, hand weight, number of fingers per bunch), fruit quality parameters (width and length of fingers, finger weight, peel weight, peel thickness, peel/pulp ratio and soluble solid content and acidity) and yield parameters (yield per decare and yield per pseudostem section) were evaluated. As a result, the yield was determined between 5112 and 7802 kg/da at Arsuz, Hatay condition. The yield per pseudostem section area was measured between 65.35 and 100.87 gcm -2 . The pseudostem circumferencewas determined between 65.0 and 95.0 cm ; bunch weight between 30.8 and 47.0 kg ; bunch circumference between 118.2 and 129.0 cm ; bunch length between 90.4 and 113.8 cm. The number of hands per bunch was 12.4-13.8 pieces, hands weight was 1286.36-1481.96 g; number of fingers per bunch was 198.6-289.6 pieces. The finger circumference, finger length, and finger weight were measured between 39.68 and 40.51 mm, 21.43 and 26.42 cm, 126.16 - 148.02 g, respectively. Total soluble solid contents (TSS) was determined between 16.64 and 18.48%, peel/pulp ratio 67.68 % and 69.47 %. The results of the study clearly show that bananas can be successfully grown in protected cultivation in this area and will be an important production area in the future.


Headaches are very common in today's society and of all presenting types of headaches, tension - type headaches are the most common. At a neurologic outpatient clinic 40% of 1152 of all patients referred had tension-type headache (Lance et al. 1965). The purpose of this study was to determine if manual traction is an effective adjunct to the chiropractic treatment (the adjustment) of tension - type headaches, and to determine if the adjustment alone or the adjustment and manual traction have an effect on tension - type headaches. It was hypothesised that the combination of manual traction and adjustments would be more effective than adjustments alone. The study was a randomised, uncontrolled clinical trial conducted at the Technikon Natal Chiropractic Day Clinic. Thirty patients, presenting with tension - type headaches, were selected for the study and randomly allocated to two groups of fifteen each. Patients in Group A received adjustmen~s and Group B r~eived adjustments and manual traction as treatment. The subjective findings of the patients were recorded by means of the Short - form McGill Pain Questionnaire, the CMCC Neck Disability Index, the Numerical Pain Rating Scale 101 and the Headache Diary. The first three questionnaire were completed by the patients \xE1t the beginning of the first, fifth, final and follow up consultations. The Headache Diary, on the other hand, was completed on a daily basis by the patients for the period of the study. Objective findings consisted of the six cervical ranges of motion obtained by means of the Cervical Range of Motion Instrument (CROM).


Abstract Near the end of his career, Raymond Aron explained that he had never ceased to 'think or dream or hope – in the light of the idea of Reason – for a humanized society', a hope that extended to the conduct of international affairs as well. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Aron's liberalism manifested itself in his theorising about international relations and in some of his less abstract diplomatic recommendations. In tracing the effects of Aron's fundamental theoretical commitments on his more concrete policy analyses, we examine how Aron's liberalism affected his approach to two of the most contentious issues in French foreign policy, namely, the decolonisation of Algeria and the creation of the force de frappe, France's nuclear weapons programme. We argue that the tensions and contradictions in Aron's foreign policy prescriptions have their origins in his ambivalence over the source and character of human reason.


The complexities inherent in a field are seldom appreciated prior to production and their impact poorly quantified. In order to exploit a reservoir fully, continuous and focused reappraisal is required throughout field life. Evaluation of reservoir performance through the integration of effective surveillance programmes and the analysis of development well results is critical to reduce the uncertainty carried at the planning/early development stage. Successful development of Clyde has resulted from the application of appropriate techniques within an integrated multidisciplinary team. The timely acquisition of sufficient relevant data also proved an essential part of this process. The integration of seismic, sedimentological, biostratigraphic and dynamic data from Clyde has provided significant improvements in intra-reservoir resolution, reservoir description and the identification of flow units. This has permitted the discrimination between reservoir models and has reduced uncertainty in field and future infill well performance. Various advanced techniques, such as absolute acoustic impedance and dip and azimuth plots, have been used to enhance our understanding of the Clyde Field. Their application, together with techniques such as parasequence mapping and pressure data analysis, is described. Through the development of a 'reactive' reservoir simulator, improvements in the geoscience model are easily incorporated and the simulator updated. This approach permits rapid quantification of the value of future development wells, recompletions and other reservoir management options. This is part of a continuous process which allows the integrated asset team to optimize the development strategy.


Rupture of the stomach complicating resuscitative measures is usually fatal. A 74-year-old man who suffered a myocardial infarction and cardiac arrest had perforation of the stomach when the esophagus was inadvertently intubated, ventilating the stomach. Laparotomy was performed and the gastric perforation sutured. In spite of the extensive trauma, the patient, incredibly, recovered. Although very few cases have been reported in which the esophagus has inadvertently been intubated resulting in gastric perforation, this is a potential possibility and should be borne in mind when intubation is followed by abdominal distension, rigidity and tenderness.


In this research, two sepiolite samples of different origins were studied by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimeter, and thermogravimetry. It was observed that both sepiolite samples are nearly pure and well crystallized sepiolite. Thermal studies (thermogravimetry) showed that four distinct weight loss regions are observed in both sepiolite samples studied. It was noticed that these structural changes play an important role to the properties and uses of the sepiolite samples studied. Kinetic parameters of the sepiolite samples were determined by the Arrhenius method at three different heating rates and it was observed that activation energies of the raw and treated sepiolite samples were in the range of 112–208 kJ mol−1.


Hermetic encapsulation of long-term implantable devices using ceramics has been investigated over several decades. Our studies focus on the miniaturization of ceramic encapsulations for large numbers of stimulation channels. Laser-patterning of screen printed platinum (Pt) paste on cofired ceramics has been shown to enable the construction of features comparable in size to classical screen printing. A novel technique for embedding Pt structures into the surface of Al2O3 substrates is shown to produce features with a line width minimum of 20 μm and a pitch of 40 μm. Polishing the ceramic substrates enables flip-chip bonding of application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) using gold stud bumps. A new technique for fine tuning of an ASIC stimulator with stud bump bridges is described. The technique eliminates the need for wire bond loops and increases reliability and integration density of the system, which are major requirements used to construct a visual prosthesis or other implantable devices requiring miniaturization. The methods for laser-patterned Pt tracks in alumina for fine pitch structures are described. Feasibility studies for flip-chip bonding and stud bump bridges were undertaken and the results were found to be promising.


Two acid-base strategies, pH-stat and alpha-stat, are used in hypothennic cardiac
pulmonary bypass (CPB) although wide spread practice has not clarified which is the
better (Swan, 1984; Takao, 1991; Aoki et al, 1994). pH-stat exists among the
hibernators, which tends to preserve normothennic pH and PC02 values as body
temperature falls (Malan, 1982). Alpha-stat, a term used to describe the responses of
ectotherms and heterotherms, which tends to maintain an optimal function in all organ
systems at all temperatures with a lower PC02 and a higher pH, but no change in
plasma HC03- or C02 stores (Reeves, 1972). Previous investigations have compared
pH-stat and alpha-stat and postulated that a more alkaline pH would be even more
effective in preserving myocardial and cerebral function during hypothermia
(Buckberg, 1985; Becker et al, 1981).
In this study the effects of pre-alkalinization and pre-acidification on cerebral and
cardiovascular function during and after hypothermia were investigated in 37 fentanylanaesthetised
New Zealand rabbits.
Animals were divided into four groups: a normothennic (Norn, n=6) and 3
hypothermic groups a) hypothennic control (HCo, n=9); b) hypothermic acidosis
(HAc, n=lO); c) hypothennic alkalosis (HAI, n=12). Alkalosis was induced by
injection of carbicarb (0.33 M Na2C03 and 0.33 M NaHC03, 2 ml kg-I, Rhee et al,
1993) and acidosis by NH4Cl (2 M, 2.5 ml kg-I) before reducing body temperature
(Tb). Animals were sedated with fentanyl (4.2 µg kg-I min-I) during surgical
operation and 2.1 µg kg-I min-1 during monitoring and ventilated with 35% Oi in N1.
The experiment was divided into 5 phases: 1. normothennic control; 2. cooling; 3.
profound hypothennia (Tb = 25±1°C for one hour); 4. rewanning and 5.
normothennic recovery. Blood samples were taken for P02, PC02 and pH analysis.
Heart rate (HR), mean aortic pressure (MAP), central venous pressure (CVP), carotid
arterial blood flow (CrdBF), electrocardiograph (ECG) and electroencephalogram
(EEG) were monitored. Cerebral oxygen delivery (D02), oxygen consumption (\! 0 2)
and oxygen extraction (ER) were calculated from oxygen content (CtQi) and CrdBF.
pH increased when Tb was reduced. All pHa and pHv values were higher in HAI than
those in other groups (P<0.01). During the one hour of profound hypothermia (phase
3), pHa was constant within the three hypothermic groups ( HCo: 7.52 ± 0.07 to 7.52
± 0.08; HAI: 7.69 ± 0.06 to 7.67 ± 0.06; HAc: 7.43 ± 0.05 to 7.40 ± 0.05). After
rewarming, only pHa of HAI in hypothennic group was 7 .37±0.09 and not different
from the value of Norn (7.38±0.04). The other two groups were significantly lower,
with values of 7 .17±0.08 for HCo and 7 .06±0.06 for HAc (P < 0.05). ECG records from HAI often showed conduction disturbances during cooling and
hypothermia but returned to normal after rewarming. Conduction disturbances and
arrhythmias were most severe and frequent in HAc during rewarming, and persisted
after the Tb had returned to normal. HR fell during cooling and hypothermia in all
animals but recovered better in HAI after rewarming. Also in HAI, MAP was higher,
and stayed at a relatively constant level during hypothennia and returned to normal
after rewarming.
CrdBF and D02 decreased when Tb was reduced and were slightly higher in HAI than
in HAc. ER was lower in HAI than in HAc during rewarming (P<0.05). Suppression
of EEG started earlier in HAc and HCo than in HAI during cooling and recovered
faster in HAI than in the other two groups. The results showed 1) a normal pH was attained after rewanning in HAI; 2) Prealkalinization
has beneficial effects on cerebral and myocardial performance; 3) the
rabbit provides a suitable small animal model for induced hypothermia, and has been
successfully tested for experiments over 6 or more hours duration.
This work suggests that alkalinization before cooling could reduce or eliminate
anaerobic metabolism and subsequent acidosis, and thus could be the optimal acidbase
strategy during induced hypothermia and during rewarming.


Eukaryotic chromosomes are organized in multiple scales, from nucleosomes to chromosome territories. Recently, genome-wide methods identified an intermediate level of chromosome organization, topologically associating domains (TADs), that play key roles in transcriptional regulation. However, these methods cannot directly examine the interplay between transcriptional activation and chromosome organization while maintaining spatiotemporal information. Here, we present a multiplexed, sequential imaging approach (Hi-M) that permits the simultaneous detection of chromosome organization and transcription in single nuclei. We used Hi-M to study chromosome organization during the awakening of the zygotic genome in intact Drosophila embryos. By visualizing chromosome architecture and gene expression simultaneously in single nuclei, we were able to unveil the changes in 3D chromatin organization occurring upon transcriptional activation and homologous chromosome un-pairing. Excitingly, the ability of Hi-M to explore the multi-scale chromosome architecture in time and space will be key to understand the mechanisms and consequences of the 4D organization of the genome.


Objective
To investigate the effect of a porous calcium phosphate/bone matrix gelatin (BMG) composite cement (hereinafter referred to as the "porous composite cement") for repairing lumbar vertebral bone defect in a rabbit model.

Methods
BMG was extracted from adult New Zealand rabbits according to the Urist's method. Poly (lactic-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA) microsphere was prepared by W/O/W double emulsion method. The porous composite cement was developed by using calcium phosphate cement (CPC) composited with BMG and PLGA microsphere. The physicochemical characterizations of the porous composite cement were assessed by anti-washout property, porosity, and biomechanical experiment, also compared with the CPC. Thirty 2-month-old New Zealand rabbits were used to construct vertebral bone defect at L 3 in size of 4 mm×3 mm×3 mm. Then, the bone defect was repaired with porous composite cement (experimental group, n=15) or CPC (control group, n=15). At 4, 8, and 12 weeks after implantation, each bone specimen was assessed by X-ray films for bone fusion, micro-CT for bone mineral density (BMD), bone volume fraction (BVF), trabecular thickness (Tb. Th.), trabecular number (Tb.N.), and trabecular spacing (Tb. Sp.), and histological section with toluidine blue staining for new-born bone formation.

Results
The study demonstrated well anti-washout property in 2 groups. The porous composite cement has 55.06%±1.18% of porosity and (51.63±6.73) MPa of compressive strength. The CPC has 49.38%±1.75% of porosity and (63.34±3.27) MPa of compressive strength. There were significant differences in porosity and compressive strength between different cements ( t=4.254, P=0.006; t=2.476, P=0.034). X-ray films revealed that the zone between the cement and host bone gradually blurred with the time extending. At 12 weeks after implantation, the zone was disappeared in the experimental group, but clear in the control group. There were significant differences in BMD, BVF, Tb. Th., Tb. N., and Tb. Sp. between 2 groups at each time point ( P<0.05). Histological observation revealed that there was new-born bone in the cement with the time extending in 2 groups. Among them, bony connection was observed between the new-born bone and the host in the experimental group, which was prior to the control group.

Conclusion
The porous composite cement has dual bioactivity of osteoinductivity and osteoconductivity, which are effective to promote bone defect healing and reconstruction.


Memcomputing is a novel computing paradigm that employs time non-local dynamical systems to compute with and in memory. The digital version of these machines [digital memcomputing machines or (DMMs)] is scalable, and is particularly suited to solve combinatorial optimization problems. One of its possible realizations is by means of standard electronic circuits, with and without memory. Since these elements are non-quantum, they can be described by ordinary differential equations. Therefore, the circuit representation of DMMs can also be simulated efficiently on our traditional computers. We have indeed previously shown that these simulations only require time and memory resources that scale linearly with the problem size when applied to finding a good approximation to the optimum of hard instances of the maximum-satisfiability problem. The state-of-the-art algorithms, instead, require exponential resources for the same instances. However, in that work, we did not push the simulations to the limit of the processor used. Since linear scalability at smaller problem sizes cannot guarantee linear scalability at much larger sizes, we have extended these results in a stress-test up to $64\times 10^{6}$ variables (corresponding to about 1 billion literals), namely the largest case that we could fit on a single core of an Intel Xeon E5-2860 with 128 GB of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). For this test, we have employed a commercial simulator, Falcon of MemComputing, Inc. We find that the simulations of DMMs still scale linearly in both time and memory up to these very large problem sizes versus the exponential requirements of the state-of-the-art solvers. These results further reinforce the advantages of the physics-based memcomputing approach compared with traditional ones.


The present study has been undertaken to formulate and evaluate the herbomineral ointment containing Bauhinia variegata L. extract. The ointment formulation was designed by using aqueous extract of stem barks of Bauhinia variegata (Linn.), mineral and other excipients needed for formulation. Wound healing activity of herbomineral ointment was evaluated in excision and incision wound models in rats. The ointment was prepared by using B. variegata extract, prawal bhasma, propylene glycol, stearyl alcohol, white petrolatum and required amount of distilled water. The prepared herbomineral ointment was evaluated for physical appearance, pH, spreadability, skin irritation to observe side effects and also for wound healing activity. The herbomineral formulation was found to be good in appearance, homogeneity and it possessed significant ( P <0.001) wound healing effect compared to the positive control group and nearly comparable with a standard group. In the incision wound model of rats, the formulation showed a significant increase in the skin breaking strength compared to control and reference standard. The results suggested that herbomineral formulation possessed significant wound healing potential.


The aim of the article is to present the names of the valuables in testaments of the Russian great and appanage princes of the 14th-16th century. Special attention has been paid to clothing terminology (names of textiles, colours and dyes, individual garments, clothing details). Lexicographical and etymological data, as well as a semantic classification of dress and clothing detail names are provided. According to Jean Baudrillard, far from the primary status of an object being a pragmatic one, it is the sign exchange value which is fundamental. Thereupon, the attempt to present the social meaning and the unconscious discourse of the valuables mentioned in the testaments of the Rurik dynasty members is also made in this article.


Silver sheathed Bi(Pb)SrCaCuO (BSCCO) based mono- and multifilamentary superconductors were manufactured by the 'powder in a tube' method of working. The plate-line oriented structure was revealed to form in the core of a conductor. The rolling is shown to be more efficient in producing the oriented structure than the drawing and this is likely to result in the higher critical current density of rolled tapes.


The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (2003) 'hidden harm' report estimates that there are between 250,000 and 350,000 children of problem drug users in the UK – about one for every problem drug user. The Social Work Task Force (2009) final report, and the Review (2011) both identify drug dependence as being a dominant factor and core issue that negatively affects families, in particular within the children and family department (Galvani and Forrester 2008; Brandon et al 2010: in (Galvani 2012 p. 09). Significantly however, parental drug dependency remains to be an under researched topic. Therefore leading to the question:
Is the Quality of Parenting Affected by Drug Dependence?

The author undertook a systematic qualitative literature review of academic journals published in Great Britain from 1998 to date. This enabled the identification of three dominant themes. Firstly, parenting qualities and drug dependency. Secondly, personal, cultural, and structural levels of parental drug dependency and stigmatisation and lastly, effect of professional knowledge on engagement with services. The author recommends extensive research on parental drug dependency but from the perspectives of parents.


With climate change becoming a cause of concern worldwide, it becomes essential to gauge people's reactions. This can help educate and spread awareness about it and help leaders improve decision-making. This work explores the fine-grained classification and Stance detection of climate change-related social media text. Firstly, we create two datasets, ClimateStance and ClimateEng, consisting of 3777 tweets each, posted during the 2019 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and comprehensively outline the dataset collection, annotation methodology, and dataset composition. Secondly, we propose the task of Climate Change stance detection based on our proposed ClimateStance dataset. Thirdly, we propose a fine-grained classification based on the ClimateEng dataset, classifying social media text into five categories: Disaster, Ocean/Water, Agriculture/Forestry, Politics, and General. We benchmark both the datasets for climate change stance detection and fine-grained classification using state-of-the-art methods in text classification. We also create a Reddit-based dataset for both the tasks, ClimateReddit, consisting of 6262 pseudo-labeled comments along with 329 manually annotated comments for the label. We then perform semi-supervised experiments for both the tasks and benchmark their results using the best-performing model for the supervised experiments. Lastly, we provide insights into the ClimateStance and ClimateReddit using part-of-speech tagging and named-entity recognition.


The author discusses the role of information and information exchange in logistic supply network strategies. First, the difference between the logistic supply chains and logistic supply networks are discussed. Next, two types of information flows are distinguished, that is to say: information flow aiding coordination activities and information flow aiding operational activities. The relations occurring in the supply networks, constituting the source of the advantage, are dealt with. The author touches upon the following factors affecting information exchange in logistic supply networks: changes in consumers' behaviour, the increase in the consumers' spending power, internationalization and globalization of economy, consolidation processes and technological development. Then, the main areas of potential conflicts affecting the information exchange preferences between industry and commerce are listed. Finally, two basic types of relations (as far as the interrelations between network links are concerned) are enumerated: (i) confrontative approach to the participant, and (ii) co-operative behaviour. The changeability and uncertainty of demand is also a very important logistic problem, which is especially visible in the so-called Bullwhip Effect (or Whiplash Effect). Many companies resort to forecasting when they try to protect themselves against the demand uncertainty and changes. Finally, the impact of new technologies on the information exchange is presented.


Abstract Objective Stanford type A acute aortic dissection (AAD) is associated with carotid artery dissections (CADs). We report two cases of carotid artery stenting (CAS) for symptomatic CAD after ascending aortic replacement (AAR) for AAD. Case Presentation Case 1: A 51-year-old man with AAD was transferred to our institute. He had no notable paralysis symptoms on initial presentation. However, after AAR for AAD was performed, left paralysis developed within a few hours. Emergency angiography revealed right CAD and pseudo-occlusion. CAS was performed successfully using intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). He was transferred to a rehabilitation hospital with a modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of 2. Case 2: A 55-year-old man underwent AAR for AAD, but asymptomatic left CAD remained. Two weeks after the operation, he presented with slight signs of aphasia. Aspirin was prescribed and follow-up was performed, but his symptoms did not improve. He underwent magnetic resonance imaging in our department, which revealed acute cerebral infarction on the left pars opercularis and an artery-to-artery embolism from CAD. CAS was performed via the retrograde approach with direct puncture of the normal left common carotid artery using IVUS. He was discharged with no complications and a mRS score of 1. Conclusion IVUS can be useful for CAS to confirm the true lumen and extension of long CAD lesions developing from AAD.


ABSTRACT Rural areas generally have lower and more dispersed demands for travel which cannot sustain conventional public transport services and consequently have a greater number of flexible and demand responsive transport services operating. These services usually operate on a stand-alone basis, are often subsidized and are typically only accessible by certain passenger types or for specific trip purposes. This generally results in uncoordinated and inefficient transport provision overall. The Flexible integrated transport services (FITS) system featured in this paper has been designed to address this problem. FITS can be used as a planning tool to assess potential benefits from relaxing operating constraints (e.g., a service's operating boundaries), which can potentially suggest service redesign. It also includes the capacity to assign subsidy payments on a trip by trip basis to increase cost efficiency whilst meeting a greater proportion of transport needs. The case study in the paper focusses on transport to health in the Aberdeenshire and Morayshire areas of Scotland in the UK. Despite flexible transport operators receiving public funds to meet passenger needs, this is currently being supplemented by public bodies paying large amounts in taxi fares in instances where there is a statutory obligation to provide travel but where no other suitable transport service exists. The results demonstrate the potential substantial savings which could be realized by allowing transport operators to redesign their services by relaxing constraints and by the reassignment of subsidies: resulting in more passenger demands being met and a reduction in public spending on taxi fares.


The female genital and urinary systems exists in close anatomical and functional proximity, disorders of one resulting in dysfunction of the other. The investigation and management of lower urinary tract disorders must take this important relationship into consideration, as neither can be viewed in isolation. The value of estrogen replacement therapy as a treatment of urinary incontinence is controversial and until today there is a little substantial evidence to conclude that estrogen therapy alone is of value in the treatment of this symptom. This conflicting evidence concerning the therapeutic benefit of estrogen therapy in stress urinary incontinence seems to be outweighed with other advantages of estrogen replacement therapy. Clear evidence exists to suggest that recurrent urinary tract infections can be prevented or even treated by the use of estrogen therapy. Systemic estrogen replacement appears to relieve the symptoms of urgency, urge incontinence, frequency, nycturia and dysuria, and low-dose topical estrogen is effective in the management of atrophic vaginitis. Even with postulating the HRT to be of enormous therapeutic value to postmenopausal women in urogynecology it may stay only a mean of support of other causal methods of treatment of dysfunction of lower urinary tract.


In clinical settings, we have found a high rate of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) drug resistance among antiretroviral-naive patients for whom the duration of infection was unknown. These high rates were most likely the result of both transmitted resistance and informal antiretroviral use, and they suggest that routine resistance testing among antiretroviral-naive patients would be a cost-effective clinical practice.


Synthesis of coupled microring resonator photonic circuits can be extended beyond linear time-invariant systems (filters) to nonlinear and time-varying (modulated) circuits to enable optimized performance and novel functions. I describe a wavelength converter, a quantum biphoton joint spectral distribution synthesizer, and a laser noise eater concept.


Statin drug is a category of lipid lowering agent widely used in clinic and plays an important role in the treatment of various cardiovascular diseases.With the increasing use of these drugs,the adverse drug reactions(ADRs) were reported increasingly.Its common ADRs include statin related myopathy,hepatic injury,allergic reactions,external ophthalmoplegia,sexual dysfunction,polyuria,digestive reaction,arthralgia,restless legs syndrome,et al.Recent reports of ADRs of statins and the prevention and cure measures are reviewed in this paper.Clinician and pharmacists should pay more attention to ADRs induced by statins in clinical practice and promote their rational use.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a Cardiovascular Disease Resilience (CDR) scale to evaluate disease specific resilience for recovery. Methods: The study was conducted as follows: items generation, and test of validity and reliability. Items were developed via literature review, review of instruments, and data acquired from the interviews. In order to test validity and reliability, seven panels of experts reviewed the preliminary questionnaire and then data were collected from 550 cardiovascular disease patients. Factor analysis, Pearson correlation, ANOVA, and Cronbach's alpha were used to analyze the data. Results: In the preliminary stage, forty-four items were generated. A reduction to 40 items was accomplished through content validity analysis. Factor analysis extracted 7 factors with a total of 25 items. The CDR items were moderately correlated with the subscales of the CD-RISC (Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale) and the mean score of CDR was associated with quality of life measured with CD-QOL (Cardiovascular Disease Quality of Life). Cronbach's =.84. ? Conclusion: Content validity, construct validity, criterion validity, and reliability of the CDR were established. The CDR is a reliable and valid instrument which the resilience of cardiovascular disease specific recovery state can be evaluated.


Keggin heteropolyanions [XM(12)O(40)](n-) have various isomeric structures, alpha and beta being the most common. Conventionally, the alpha structure appears to be the most stable, but calculations carried out at the DFT level for X = P(V), Si(IV), Al(III), As(V), Ge(IV), and Ga(III) and M = W(VI) and Mo(VI) show that this stability depends on several factors, particularly on the nature of the heteroatom (X) and the total charge of the cluster. In this paper, we apply the clathrate model to the Keggin molecule to carry out a fragment-interaction study to elucidate when and why the traditional relative stability of various isomers can be inverted. The fully oxidized anions that have inverted the traditional stability trend in this series are [AlW(12)O(40)](5-) and [GaW(12)O(40)](5-), both of which contain a third-group heteroatom and an overall charge of -5. beta-isomers are always more easily reduced than alpha-isomers. This experimental observation suggests that reduction favors the stability of beta-isomers and one of the most important results of this study is that the alpha/beta inversion is achieved in most cases after the second reduction. The alpha- and beta-isomers may have different properties because the energy of the LUMO, a symmetry-adapted d(xy)-metal orbital, is different.


A new method is proposed for the synthesis of variable frequency sinusoidal oscillators SRCO which are canonical with respect to their passive elements. The theoretical scheme can be implemented with various active elements which were chosen in order to achieve some given characteristics required for the whole electronic structure. Several of the most significant reported oscillating structures are revised, showing that they follow the scheme presented here. Developing this new approach and testing its efficiency are the aims of this work. Two new structures are deduced to justify the suitability of the method. Experimental results for these two structures confirm their correct performance.


One of the most important machines in the olive oil extraction line is the horizontal three-phase centrifugal separator machine or Tricanter. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the machine designed on the basis of Tricanter and to evaluate the quality of extracted olive oil. For this purpose, four different olive cultivars from Gilan Province in Iran were used. In this research the rotational speed of the Tricanter machine was tested at three levels of 2 500, 3 000, and 3 500 rpm and the content of water added to olive paste was used at three levels of 10, 20, and 30% of the paste mass. Peroxide value (PV) and percentage of acidity were measured for oil extracted from all four olive cultivars. The results of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) test showed that rotational speed and the content of added water had an effect on the acidity and PV for all samples of olive cultivars. The measured values showed that the best speed for the Tricanter machine is 3 500 rpm. At this rotational speed, the peroxide and acidity values are lower than the standard values.


Antibacterial materials are often bothered by the problems of drug-resistance-induction and adhesion-to-invalidation, coming from the exposure of reusable bactericidal materials before or after utilization. Herein, an efficient and easily transformable supramolecular switching surface for antifouling and bactericidal was successfully fabricated, through introducing a negatively charged macrocyclic host S6-corona[3]arene[3]pyridazine (S6-CAP) to a contact-killing surface constructed by a positively charged amphiphilic bactericide. The S6-CAP was able to fully switch off the bactericidal activity and make the surfaces antifouling. After switched on by simply washing off much of S6-CAP, the bactericidal activity was even better than the original contact-killing surfaces.


Ovarian cancer (OC) is one of the most lethal gynecological malignancies. The use of biological compounds such as non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) is being considered as a therapeutic option to improve or complement current treatments since the deregulation of ncRNAs has been implicated in the pathogenesis and progression of OC. Old drugs with antitumoral properties have also been studied in the context of cancer, although their antitumor mechanisms are not fully clear. For instance, the antidiabetic drug metformin has shown pleiotropic effects in several in vitro models of cancer, including OC. Interestingly, metformin has been reported to regulate ncRNAs, which could explain its diverse effects on tumor cells. In this review, we discuss the mechanism of epigenetic regulation described for metformin, with a focus on the evidence of metformin-dependent microRNA (miRNAs) and long non-coding RNA (lncRNAs) regulation in OC.


The long-range goal of this project is to elucidate and understand the surface chemistry and catalytic properties of well-defined, highly-reactive organometallic molecules (principally based upon abundant actinide, lanthanide, and early transition elements) adsorbed on metal oxides and halides. The nature of the adsorbed species is probed by a battery of chemical and physicochemical techniques, to understand the nature of the molecular-surface coordination chemistry and how this can give rise to extremely high catalytic activity. A complementary objective is to delineate the scope and mechanisms of the heterogeneous catalytic reactions, as well as to relate them both conceptually and functionally to model systems generated in solution.


Abstract Objective Nowadays, one of the issues that matter in infertility is abortion or teratogenicity of embryos, followed by environmental pollution. Additionally, the continuous use of pesticides as the requirements of modern agriculture can increase the number of released radicals, which ultimately affects cell membranes and cell death via apoptosis pathway. Materials and methods NMRI mice were divided into 3 groups: (1) Chlorpyrifos received group, (2) DMSO received as the sham group, (3) Control group. The mice were mated and euthanized 10 days post gestation. The number of embryos, progesterone and estradiol hormones and the liver enzymes levels of mouse mothers were evaluated in each group. The apoptosis pathway genes (Bax and Bcl2) and protein expressions (Caspase3 and Caspase9) were evaluated in the embryos of each group by qPCR and immunohistochemistry staining, respectively. Results The number of embryos in the experimental group was significantly lower than from the other groups. The liver enzymes and hormone levels were higher in CPF induced mice in comparison to the others. The mRNA expression of Bax in the embryos was significantly higher in the CPF group compared to sham and control groups. Caspase3 and Caspase9 protein expression revealed a higher rate of apoptosis in CPF group embryos. Conclusions Continuous use of Chlorpyrifos can be regarded as having a negative effect on pregnancy as well as raising the mechanism of apoptosis in the development of embryos that may contribute to abortion or the birth of teratogenic disorders embryos.


Deep learning techniques have achieved success in aspect-based sentiment analysis in recent years. However, there are two important issues that still remain to be further studied, i.e., 1) how to efficiently represent the target especially when the target contains multiple words; 2) how to utilize the interaction between target and left/right contexts to capture the most important words in them. In this paper, we propose an approach, called left-center-right separated neural network with rotatory attention (LCR-Rot), to better address the two problems. Our approach has two characteristics: 1) it has three separated LSTMs, i.e., left, center and right LSTMs, corresponding to three parts of a review (left context, target phrase and right context); 2) it has a rotatory attention mechanism which models the relation between target and left/right contexts. The target2context attention is used to capture the most indicative sentiment words in left/right contexts. Subsequently, the context2target attention is used to capture the most important word in the target. This leads to a two-side representation of the target: left-aware target and right-aware target. We compare our approach on three benchmark datasets with ten related methods proposed recently. The results show that our approach significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art techniques.


Superscrew dislocations in SiC have been investigated using synchrotron topography in order to probe the details of the direct dislocation image at a magnified level. In view of the fact that the conventional extinction contrast theory cannot fully explain the contrast features of superscrew dislocations, a simplified orientation contrast model is developed. This model enables more accurate simulations of the observed dislocation images, and the results obtained from this model indicate that, in the low absorption case, the direct dislocation image comprises a significant orientation contrast contribution arising from the overlap and separation of the inhomogeneously diffracted x-rays with continuously varying directions. A new insight into the general contrast formation mechanisms of direct dislocation images on x-ray topographs is thus presented.


Two trials were conducted to evaluate the effects of chromium (Cr) supplementation (4 mg/hd/day in a yeast form) or no supplementation, with or without revaccination with a modified live viral vaccine at 9 days postweaning o n performance, health, and ability to withstand an IBR challenge infection. In Trial 1, Cr supplementation had no effect on performance of newly weaned calves in a 28-day receiving study, but reduced the incidence of respiratory disease by 37%. Revaccinati on depressed dry matter intake and had no effect on animal health. In trial 2, blood plasma levels of cortisol and ACTH (stress hormones ) were measured at 6 and 26 days postweaning. Cortisol levels were unaffected by treatment or by time after weaning. Plasma ACTH conc e ntrations were lower at 26 vs 6 days postweaning, and were reduced at 26 days by revaccination. Despite some slight differences in rectal temperature, treatment did not appear to affect the animals' ability to withstand a live IBR challenge. We concluded that supplemental Cr was beneficial in reducing the incidence of bovine respiratory disease, although mediation of stress hormones was not involved. Revaccination of newly weaned calves with a modified live viral vaccine showed no performance or health benefit.


Background: While atrial fibrillation (AF) increases the risk of cardioembolic stroke, some ischemic strokes in AF patients are noncardioembolic. Objectives: To assess ischemic stroke mechanisms in AF and to compare their responses to antithrombotic therapies. Methods: On-therapy analyses of ischemic strokes occurring in 3,950 participants in the Stroke Prevention in Atrial Fibrillation I–III clinical trials. Strokes were classified by presumed mechanism according to specified neurologic features by neurologists unaware of antithrombotic therapy. Results: Of 217 ischemic strokes, 52% were classified as probably cardioembolic, 24% as noncardioembolic, and 24% as of uncertain cause (i.e., 68% of classifiable infarcts were deemed cardioembolic). Compared to those receiving placebo or no antithrombotic therapy, the proportion of cardioembolic stroke was lower in patients taking adjusted-dose warfarin (p = 0.02), while the proportion of noncardioembolic stroke was lower in those taking aspirin (p = 0.06). Most (56%) ischemic strokes occurring in AF patients taking adjusted-dose warfarin were noncardioembolic vs. 16% of strokes in those taking aspirin. Adjusted-dose warfarin reduced cardioembolic strokes by 83% (p < 0.001) relative to aspirin. Cardioembolic strokes were particularly disabling (p = 0.05). Conclusions: Most ischemic strokes in AF patients are probably cardioembolic, and these are sharply reduced by adjusted-dose warfarin. Aspirin in AF patients appears to primarily reduce noncardioembolic strokes. AF patients at highest risk for stroke have the highest rates of cardioembolic stroke and have the greatest reduction in stroke by warfarin.


The authors present a novel approach to improve three-dimensional (3D) structure estimation from an image stream in urban scenes. The authors consider a particular setup, where the camera is installed on a moving vehicle. Applying traditional structure from motion (SfM) technique in this case generates poor estimation of the 3D structure because of several reasons such as texture-less images, small baseline variations and dominant forward camera motion. The authors idea is to introduce the monocular depth cues that exist in a single image, and add time constraints on the estimated 3D structure. The scene is modelled as a set of small planar patches obtained using over-segmentation, and the goal is to estimate the 3D positioning of these planes. The authors propose a fusion scheme that employs Markov random field model to integrate spatial and temporal depth features. Spatial depth is obtained by learning a set of global and local image features. Temporal depth is obtained via sparse optical flow based SfM approach. That allows decreasing the estimation ambiguity by forcing some constraints on camera motion. Finally, the authors apply a fusion scheme to create unique 3D structure estimation.


We present a new method of measuring optical near-fields within ~1 nm of a metal surface based on rescattering of photoemitted electrons. With this method, we precisely measure the field enhancement factor for tungsten and gold nanotips as a function of tip radius. The agreement with Maxwell simulations is very good. Further simulations yield a field enhancement map for all materials, which shows that optical near-fields at nanotips are governed by a geometric effect under most conditions, while plasmon resonances play only a minor role. Last, we consider the implications of our results on quantum mechanical effects near the surface of nanostructures and discuss features of quantum plasmonics.


The increase in the level of integration of components on silicon became possible to build systems with multiple processors on a single chip. These systems are named MPSoCs (Multi-Processor Systems-on-Chip), and some of them use Networks-on-Chip (NoC) as the communication infrastructure to interconnect their components. This work presents an MPSoC platform designed for performance evaluation of an NoC in FPGA. The platform relies on the use of 32-bit programmable processors and an MPI (Message Passing Interface) communication library, providing a flexible infrastructure for traffic generation and analysis, and enabling the development of parallel applications. For evaluation, we implemented a proof-of-concept instance of the proposed platform in FPGA, and the experimental results show that the software layer of the communication infrastructure dominates communication latency.


Ascites as a main feature of Chlamydia trachomatis infection in two young women was successfully treated with doxycycline. In both patients, ascitic fluid protein levels and lymphocyte counts were very high. This report, as well as six previously published cases, suggest that ascitic fluid culture for C. trachomatis and blood antibody determinations should be performed in all cases of protein-rich lymphocytic ascites in sexually active women.


The information approach to organization of educational process in higher education institutions, which on the basis of creation of uniform educational space allows improving the quality of training of specialists and their competitiveness at the labor market, is considered.


Vegetative propagation studies were carried out at Maseno University, Kenya in the year 2004 and 2005 using stem cuttings on three endangered indigenous tree species namely Asystasia schimperi, carissa edulis and Toddalia asiatica to test the effect of IBA on rooting of the stem cuttings of these plant species. Juvenile stem cuttings of these plant species were dipped in different concentrations of auxin (indole Butyric Acid (IBA) of 0, 100 ppm, 200ppm, 400ppm and 500ppm. Completely, randomized design (C.R.D) was used and the treatments replicated three times in a non mist polypropagator. The treated cuttings were planted in polythene pots. The duration of the experiment was four months. Data taken were plant height, number of leaves and number of rooted cuttings every 2 weeks. Data was subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and means separated by L.S.D at 5% significance level. The results showed that hormone concentration, species and date of sampling affected the number of rooted plants, plant height and number of leaves Asystasia schimperi had the best rooting and subsequent plant growth followed by Carissa edulis and lastly Toddalia asiatica. It can be concluded that Asystasia schimperi and Toddalia asiatica can be propagated by stem cuttings easily hence farmers can cultivate them.


Maria Rentetzi surveys the experimental practices of radioactivity research in early-twentieth-century Vienna, focusing on radioactive materials, instruments, women's work in physics, and gendered skills. She shows how experimental cultures in radioactivity-scientific practices employed by gendered subjects who shared a certain material and epistemic style of research--were constructed and reshaped by socialist politics in Vienna at that time. She also explores the different ways experimental practices affected men and women in laboratory sciences. Rentetzi expands the notion of material culture to include not only instruments and objects but also materials that operated as both commodities and objects of scientific inquiry. She tells a multifaceted story of how purified radium ended up on laboratory benches and who extracted and isolated it from tons of residues; the individuals who designed experiments and instruments for probing radium's properties; and those who carried radium outside of the physics laboratory and into the clinic and medical amphitheatres. Rentetzi examines how the architecture of the laboratory affected men's and women's scientific work and the way in which its urban setting reflected assumptions about scientific cross-disciplinary collaborations. Following the circulation of radium and the pursuit of power through strategies of partnership and collaboration, Rentetzi redraws paths of scientific exchange and transfers the reader from scientific laboratories to hospitals and from academic to industrial sites.


In this paper we propose a simple powerful method to increase search performance in large p2p-network communities, especially, but not limited to Internet. Our approach is based on introducing common functional language methods "map" and "reduce" in distributed network environment. The method exploits different connectivity levels of p2p nodes, dividing them into two groups – master nodes, performing preliminary search processing and worker nodes, performing actual search. We show that approach could be effectively used in Grid network, built over common P2P-network utilizing benefits of routing in Grid environment. An experimental implementation of the method confirms the theoretical analysis of the method.


1. Mechanisms of nucleic acid (NA) unwinding by helicases 432 2. Helicases may take advantage of 'breathing' fluctuations in dsNAs 434 2.1 Stability and dynamics of dsNAs 434 2.2 dsNAs 'breathe' in isolation 435 2.3 Thermodynamics of terminal base pairs of dsNA 438 2.4 Thermal fluctuations may be responsible for sequential base-pair opening at replication forks 439 2.5 Helicases may capture single base-pair opening events sequentially 440 3. Biochemical properties of helicases 443 3.1 Binding of NAs 443 3.2 Binding and hydrolysis of NTP 445 3.3 Coordination between NA binding and NTP binding and hydrolysis activities 446 4. Helicase structures and mechanistic consequences 447 4.1 Amino-acid sequence analysis reveals conserved motifs that constitute the NTP-binding pocket and a portion of the NA-binding site 447 4.2 Organization of hepatitis virus C NS3 RNA helicase 449 4.2.1 Biochemical properties of HCV NS3 449 4.2.2 Crystal structures of HCV NS3 helicase 450 126.96.36.199 The apoprotein 450 126.96.36.199 The protein–dU8 complex 450 4.2.3 A possible unwinding mechanism 452 4.2.4 What is the functional oligomeric state of HCV NS3? 452 4.3 Organization of the PcrA helicase 453 4.3.1 The apoenzyme and ADP–PcrA complex 454 4.3.2 The protein–DNA–sulfate complex 456 4.3.3 The PcrA–DNA–ADPNP complex 456 4.3.4 A closer look at the NTP-binding site in the crystal structure of PcrA–ADPNP–DNA 457 4.3.5 Communication between domains A and B 457 4.3.6 How might ssDNA stimulate the ATPase activity of PcrA? 457 4.3.7 A possible helicase translocation mechanism 458 4.3.8 A possible unwinding mechanism 458 4.4 Organization of the Rep helicase 459 4.4.1 Biochemical properties 459 4.4.2 Crystal structure of Rep bound to ssDNA 462 4.5 Organization of the RecG helicase 462 4.6 Hexameric helicases 466 4.6.1 Insights from crystal structures of hexameric helicases 467 4.6.2 Possible translocation and unwinding mechanisms 468 5. Conclusions 469 6. Acknowledgments 472 7. References 472 Helicases are proteins that harness the chemical free energy of ATP hydrolysis to catalyze the unwinding of double-stranded nucleic acids. These enzymes have been much studied in isolation, and here we review what is known about the mechanisms of the unwinding process. We begin by considering the thermally driven 'breathing' of double-stranded nucleic acids by themselves, in order to ask whether helicases might take advantage of some of these breathing modes. We next provide a brief summary of helicase mechanisms that have been elucidated by biochemical, thermodynamic, and kinetic studies, and then review in detail recent structural studies of helicases in isolation, in order to correlate structural findings with biophysical and biochemical results. We conclude that there are certainly common mechanistic themes for helicase function, but that different helicases have devised solutions to the nucleic acid unwinding problem that differ in structural detail. In Part II of this review (to be published in the next issue of this journal) we consider how these mechanisms are further modified to reflect the functional coupling of these proteins into macromolecular machines, and discuss the role of helicases in several central biological processes to illustrate how this coupling actually works in the various processes of gene expression.


One transeccional quantitative study was conducted to establish the variables related to the family that differentiate one group of students who reported violent behavior toward peers at school, versus those who do not report such behaviors. Participated in the study 937 students from ten public high schools in the state, which were divided into two groups according to whether reported or not carry out violent behaviors toward their peers at school. The results showed that family variables such as socioeconomic status, family adjustment, the level of coexistence and conflict differed to both groups of students, which demonstrates the importance of studying the family context for understanding the violent behavior of adolescents within schools


It recently has been suggested that some cases of Hodgkin's disease (HD) are derived from B lymphocytes. We therefore examined immunoglobulin heavy chain gene rearrangement and transcription by polymerase chain reaction in 30 cases of HD and compared them with 25 cases of non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphoma. Clonal VDJ gene rearrangements were observed in 6 cases of HD. Of these 6 cases, clonal VDJ gene transcription was found by RNA-dependent polymerase chain reaction in only 2 cases. One of these 2 cases histologically showed composite lymphoma of HD and diffuse large B cell lymphoma. We performed in situ hybridization with a clonal VDJ gene probe in this case to determine the localization of the genetic clonality. The large lymphoma cells reacted positively, but Hodgkin's and Reed-Sternberg cells showed only nonspecific staining. No discrepancy between immunoglobulin gene rearrangement and transcription was observed in 24 of the 25 cases of non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphoma. The discordance between clonal gene rearrangement and transcription in HD contrasts sharply with the high correlation of those processes in non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphoma.


A Network on Chip (NoC) provides the interconnection among Processing Elements (PEs) through routers, which permit hop-by-hop communications between PEs. To cope with higher traffic demands, PEs and routers are running at increasingly higher clock frequencies. Thus the chip power consumption grows rapidly and limits NoC scalability. This paper considers a Manhattan-like mesh (grid) NoC topology. We show how to leverage the traffic unbalancing within the topology to fully exploit the classical technique of Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) to minimize the power consumption. We model the optimal NoC power control problem, and we evaluate the maximum achievable power reduction. Furthermore, we propose three different load-balancing routing schemes, simple to implement, that approximate quite accurately the optimal solution. Simulation results show that, in most of the cases, it is enough to consider only two paths among PEs to balance the traffic and to approach the minimum possible power consumption.


The study of entrepreneurship now has become a research trend. The concept of TRA / TPB-based entrepreneurial intentions has attracted the attention of many scientists so that many scientists who have examined Entrepreneurial Intention through TRA / TPB [1], SEE [2], KEI [3] because it is very important to explore one's intentions to be able to focus on the business. For beginners or start-up businesses, starting a new business need to have motivation. Entrepreneurial motivation plays an important role in determining someone's intention in entrepreneurship because it can encourage them to do their intentions, many studies of new business creation intentions, or in other words referred to as entrepreneurial intentions. This research illustrates Perceived Desirability as a driver for entrepreneurial orientation, which plays an important role in determining one's intention to create a new business or entrepreneurship. However, in several studies on Perceived Desirability, there are still results that do not significantly affect Entrepreneurial Intention [4, 5, 6]. An understanding of the relationship between Perceived Desirability and Entrepreneurial Intention also requires further empirical research. The results of the study have an interesting research gap for further research. To fill in the gaps in the concepts of Perceived Desirability and Entrepreneurial Intention has attracted the researcher to develop them. There are still inconsistencies in the above research, so researchers try to fill the gap by adding entrepreneurial motivation variables [7, 8, 9] as a driver in developing entrepreneurial intentions. As well as financial capital as a moderating variable that provides novelty that is perceived as supporting the motivation of entrepreneurship towards the intention to create new businesses, which are also expected to strengthen or weaken the intention to create new businesses [10, 11]. Thus, the built agendas are still wide open to receive criticism and academic advice to be able to develop well theoretical logic. This study seeks to make a conceptual contribution by filling this gap by adopting entrepreneurial motivation [7, 8, 9] and Financial Capital as a moderating variable to increase Entrepreneurial Intention. This model will be empirically tested in one area in North Kalimantan.


OBJECTIVES: Knowing about the rate of tuberculous infection and disease in prison population and workers in Huelva prison, and the association of tuberculosis with the sociosanitary risk factors. EQUIPMENT AND METHODS: Descriptive research for a year in 141 male prisoners at the age of 20 to 52 years old, from the 1sT of February in 1994 to the 1sT in 1995. RESULTS: The prevalence on tuberculous infection is 46.4% (accumulative incidence); and tuberculous disease 3.5% (accumulative incidence 1.4%) on the prisoners and the prevalence on tuberculous infection on the prison officers is 18.8% (there wasn't incidence) and the was no disease. CONCLUSIONS: It's perceived a high rate of tuberculous disease on the prisoners at the expense of people with infection by HIV and drugs addicts by parenteral way. The socio-cultural variables affect the tuberculous infection and disease tuberculous.


The formation of a stably linked complex of tritiated S-adenosyl-L-methionine (AdoMet) and catechol O-methyltransferase (COMT) has been achieved by irradiating the enzyme and ligand in Tris-HCl buffer (pH 7.5) with ultraviolet light at 254 nm. The reaction is specific as shown by a number of criteria. COMT inhibitors such as S-adenosylhomocysteine can block this photoactivated linkage. The [3H]AdoMet-COMT adduct has been shown to be a homogeneous protein by Sephadex gel filtration, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and isoelectric focussing. After extensive proteolysis of the [3H]AdoMet-COMT adduct with pronase P, one major labelled product was released. This fragment could be separated by paper chromatography and was shown to be chromatographically identical to that released from the [3H]AdoMet-phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase adduct.


study is to improve our understanding via the use of combined advanced nondestructive methods of sulfur analysis. This study combines selective oxidation, analytical pyrolysis, and sulfur X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure Spectroscopy (XANES) analysis. Samples with a wide variety of sulfur contents, (0.63% to 4.40%) have been prepared for use in this study. This includes steam gasification chars, oxidized coals and desulfurized coals as well of the original unaltered coals. Mild pyrolysis and preliminary XANES data shows that the sulfur chemistry of gasification chars is significantly different fromthatof the original coals. Mild pyrolysis of the samples that were oxidized with peroxyacetic acid showed that the level of simple thiophene structures observed in the pyrolysis products declines with increasing levels of oxidation. Sulfur XANES spectra of treated samples showed various effects depending on the treatment severity. The XANES spectra of less severely treated samples were similar, although not identical, to the untreated coal spectra. XANES of gasification chars indicated conversion of pyrite to pyrrhotite, removal of organic sulfide sulfur and dissolution of soluble inorganic sulfur species during gasification. Mild oxidation with peroxyacetic acid results in preferential oxidation of sulfide forms before thiophene forms but increasing oxidation severity leads to virtually all sulfur species being oxidized. A project extension of 3 months was granted so that collaboration with researchers in Belgium could be used to gather further sulfur characterization data. Further XANES analysis is to be performed during this extension period also.


Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) outbreak is an ongoing pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) with considerable mortality worldwide. The main clinical manifestation of COVID‐19 is the presence of respiratory symptoms, but some patients develop severe cardiovascular and renal complications. There is an urgency to understand the mechanism by which this virus causes complications so as to develop treatment options. Curcumin, a natural polyphenolic compound, could be a potential treatment option for patients with coronavirus disease. In this study, we review some of the potential effects of curcumin such as inhibiting the entry of virus to the cell, inhibiting encapsulation of the virus and viral protease, as well as modulating various cellular signaling pathways. This review provides a basis for further research and development of clinical applications of curcumin for the treatment of newly emerged SARS‐CoV‐2.


In order to support the physical and neurodevelopment of infants, they should be protected from intense light and noise in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). For this reason, specially designed incubator covers may be used to reduce noise and light in the NICU. Material and methods. The study was conducted as a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study, on a single group between February and May of 2015, in the NICU of a training and research hospital. The study sample consisted of 30 preterm infants selected randomly and according to inclusion criteria. Written and verbal consent was obtained from the family before starting the study. Data were collected using an information form, registration form, and sound level meter and a vital sign monitor. Results. The 30 134.93±14.63 per minute (bpm) in preterm infants in the incubator without a cover, and 131.63±11.95 bpm for preterm infants in the covered incubator. There was a statistically significant difference between the means. The mean respiratory rate at 30 minutes was 45.16±10.48 in preterms in the incubator without a cover and 41.95±9.86 in preterms in the covered incubator, and the difference between the means was significant. Conclusions. Incubator covers were effective at decreasing noise levels, and had a positive impact on the physiological parameters of preterms. an prevent...


Tenascin-X (TN-X) is an extracellular matrix protein encoded by a large gene that overlaps the steroid 21-hydroxylase (P450c21) gene in the HLA locus on chromosome 6p21.3. This may be the most complex locus in the human genome identified to date, containing 13 overlapping transcription units in 160 kb of DNA. Previous studies determined the sequence of 39 TN-X exons, encoding a 12 kb open reading frame, but the promoter(s) of the gene had not been located. We identify the principal TN-X promoter and a previously unknown 5' untranslated exon that lies more than 10 kb upstream from the previously known exons. This promoter, which is substantially different from the promoter for TN-C, initiates transcription in human fetal adrenal and muscle, but expression in human NCI-H295 adrenocortical carcinoma cells is initiated by two other promoters lying further upstream. One of these is the same as the promoter for a recently identified Creb-related protein (Creb-rp), but transcripts initiated form this promoter in human adrenal NCI-H295 tumor cells are spliced differently from Creb-rp, and are largely retained in the nuclei of these cells. By analogy with the other two members of the tenascin family, TN-C and TN-R, it has been predicted that TN-X should undergo alternate splicing in its fibronectin-like domains. RACE cloning and RNase protection experiments reveal no such alternate splicing. The TN-X gene appears to be unique in having both its 5' and 3' ends buried in other genes.


Precise identification of causative variants from whole-genome sequencing data, including both coding and non-coding variants, is challenging. The CAGI5 SickKids clinical genome challenge provided an opportunity to assess our ability to extract such information. Participants in the challenge were required to match each of 24 whole-genome sequences to the correct phenotypic profile and to identify the disease class of each genome. These are all rare disease cases that have resisted genetic diagnosis in a state-of-the-art pipeline. The patients have a range of eye, neurological, and connective-tissue disorders. We used a gene-centric approach to address this problem, assigning each gene a multi-phenotype-matching score. Mutations in the top scoring genes for each phenotype profile were ranked on a six-point scale of pathogenicity probability, resulting in an approximately equal number of top ranked coding and non-coding candidate variants overall. We were able to assign the correct disease class for 12 cases and the correct genome to a clinical profile for five cases. The challenge assessor found genes in three of these five cases as likely appropriate. In the post-submission phase, after careful screening of the genes in the correct genome we identified additional potential diagnostic variants, a high proportion of which are non-coding.


This short paper presents a design technique for determining a suboptimal feedback control law for linear systems actuated by the quantized control signals. This control law is easily implemented in the form of the switching hyperplanes characterized by a nonlinear matrix difference equation for discrete-time systems or by a differential equation for continuous-time systems. The properties of this control law are investigated in detail.


The impact of terrorism in Nigeria is felt mostly in the north eastern geo-political region as a result of the activities of Boko Haram insurgency. While poverty remains a critical issue considered as a precipitating factor in the contentious discourse of violence and insecurity, the impact played by it in the north eastern region of Nigeria in relation to acts of terrorism perpetrated by Boko Haram insurgents remains a critical issue of discourse that this paper examines. The paper adopted qualitative research design approach with the use of secondary sources of data. As theoretical framework, the paper adopted poverty breeds conflict hypothesis and the Ted Gurr deprivation theory. The data gathered were analyzed through content analysis. The findings reveal that poverty negatively impacted on terrorism in the north eastern region as sustained conflict in the zone is known to be "both caused by and contribute to poverty". Poverty therefore remains a major socio-economic factor that causes terrorism. The study recommended that the federal government should declare a state of emergency on poverty in the north east region of Nigeria through the implementation of a systematic poverty elevation programme aimed at improving the wellbeing of the citizenry. Government should also work towards implementing a de-radicalization of the insurgent. This will greatly help to re-integrate them into the society.


Ultrathin zirconium-doped hafnium oxide high dielectric constant films, e.g., with an equivalent oxide thickness less than 1 nm, have been prepared by high-power sputtering and low oxygen content annealing conditions on the p-type Si( 100) substrate. The influence of the process conditions on the film's material and electrical properties were investigated with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis and electrical measurements. The low equivalent oxide film also shows a small charge trapping density, a low leakage current density, and a moderate interface state density. This is a viable gate dielectric film for future complementary metal oxide semiconductor devices.


Multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) are necessary to deliver the best sarcoma care. Planning the optimal therapeutic strategy per patient requires input and expertise from several disciplines. Case/cohort studies have reported improved patient outcomes associated with treatment by MDTs and/or treatment in sarcoma centres. Many countries have established national networks of sarcoma reference centres and most have developed evidence-based clinical practice guidelines agreed using multidisciplinary expertise. In many countries, sarcoma networks are organised as cooperative groups. These groups are committed to delivering continuing medical education and are open to collaboration with other groups. Among their many benefits, cooperative groups have huge capacity for accrual, which is essential for rare cancers such as sarcoma. Since its beginnings in 1994 with a small core of oncologists focussing on soft tissue sarcoma, the Spanish Group for Research on Sarcomas (GEIS) has expanded to 376 members from more than 10 disciplines (as at June 2017). GEIS is currently actively collaborating with several international cooperative groups. As MDTs are essential to offer the best outcome in sarcoma care, and international cooperation between sarcoma groups is essential to address the many unanswered questions in sarcoma management, both approaches should be made mandatory.


Background: Current research on early childhood education (ECE) leadership as well as on policy reform in Finland suggests that pedagogical leadership must be considered as a purposeful and planned process. Pedagogical leadership plans play a key role in the purposeful and effective enactment of pedagogical leadership in ECE settings.Aim: This study aimed at examining the contents of pedagogical leadership plans drawn up in Finnish ECE centres to interpret the perceptions of the centre directors on the implementation of pedagogical leadership in their settings.Setting: This study examines pedagogical leadership plans in ECE settings in Finland.Methods: We used inductive content analysis to examine documents drawn up by nine ECE centre directors as pedagogical leadership plans for their centres. Our analysis identified four main categories that describe how the ECE centre directors conceive the enactment of pedagogical leadership.Results: The findings revealed that the focus of the plans was on leading pedagogical issues and processes within the ECE centres. Creating structures for pedagogical development and reflection were emphasised in the plans. The plans reflected a distributed leadership approach.Conclusion: The findings of the study provide information about how the ECE directors intend to enact pedagogical leadership and assist ECE leaders to develop leadership planning in their work settings. In this way, the study contributes to leadership development within the ECE sector.


Study Design. Retrospective chart and radiographical review. Objective. To present the demographics of patients with scoliosis and neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF-1), to record the incidence of dystrophic features, and to determine whether the presence of dystrophic features increase the risk of surgery in patients with NF-1 and associated spinal pathology. Summary of Background Data. The most common of the osseous complications of NF-1 is spinal deformity, occurring in 10% to 30% of individuals with NF-1. Many of these patients will eventually require surgery for curve progression, which makes study of demographics and identification of features predicting the need for surgery essential in this patient population. Methods. A retrospective review was performed in patients with NF-1 and spinal deformities, followed in a multidisciplinary neurofibromatosis center. A subset of 56 patients with complete radiographical evaluation was reviewed for identification of risk factors for spine surgery. Results. One hundred thirty-one patients from a population of 694 patients with NF-1 (19%) had scoliosis. Mean age at diagnosis of scoliosis was 9 years (range; 1–17 yr). Scoliosis and need for surgery were equally distributed between males and females. In the group of 56 patients, 63% had 3 or more dystrophic features. The presence of 3 or more dystrophic features was the strongest predictor of the need for surgery (odds ratio = 14.34; P < 0.001). Individual features most predictive of need for surgery were the presence of vertebral scalloping (odds ratio = 13.19; P < 0.001) followed by the presence of dural ectasia (odds ratio = 6.38; P = 0.005). Patients with no dystrophic features were unlikely to progress to need for surgery. Conclusion. Scoliosis and need for surgery were equally distributed between males and females. The presence of 3 or more dystrophic features was highly predictive of the need for surgery, with the most significant individual predictors being vertebral scalloping and dural ectasia. A combination of radiographical and MRI features can be used to predict need for spinal surgery. Level of Evidence: 3


Resumo—The aim of this paper is to provide an efficient control design technique for discrete-time positive periodic systems. In particular, stability, positivity and periodic invariance of such systems are studied. Moreover, the concept of periodic invariance with respect to a collection of boxes is introduced and investigated with connection to stability. It is shown how such concept can be used for deriving a stabilizing state-feedback control that maintains the positivity of the closed-loop system and respects states and control signals constraints. In addition, all the proposed results can be efficiently solved in terms of linear programming.


In the 90s, based on presentations of 3-manifolds by Heegaard diagrams, Kuperberg associated a scalar invariant of 3-manifolds to each finite dimensional involutory Hopf algebra over a field. We generalize this construction to the case of involutory Hopf algebras in arbitrary symmetric monoidal categories admitting certain pairs of morphisms called good pairs. We construct examples of such good pairs for involutory Hopf algebras whose distinguished grouplike elements are central. The generalized construction is illustrated by an example of an involutory super Hopf algebra.


Abstract This paper shows, using data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey, that housing credit has become increasingly available over time in Japan, especially since 2000, and that this has made it easier for Japanese households to purchase housing and enabled them to do so at an earlier age. However, it also shows that the greater availability of housing credit has increased households' housing loan repayment burden, which has resulted in their cutting back on their other consumption expenditures and created the potential for retirement insecurity. Another concern is that the increasing availability of housing credit has been accompanied by a pronounced shift from fixed-rate to variable-rate housing loans. This is cause for concern given the low level of financial literacy that prevails among the Japanese population and the likelihood that interest rates on variable-rate housing loans will be raised sooner or later as monetary policy is tightened.


This study examined the effect of an interference task on the consolidation of duration in long-term memory. In a temporal generalization task, the participants performed a learning phase with a reference duration that either was, or was not, followed 30 min later by a 15-min interference task. They were then given a memory test, 24 h later. Using different participant groups, several reference durations were examined, from several hundred milliseconds (600 ms) to several seconds (2.5, 4, and 8 s). The results showed that the scalar timing property (i.e., precision proportional to judged duration) was preserved despite the interference task given during the memory consolidation process. However, the interference task increased the variability of time judgment and tended to produce a lengthening effect in all reference duration conditions. The modeling of individual data with parameters derived from scalar expectancy theory suggests that disrupting the memory consolidation of learned reference durations introduces noise in their representation in memory, with time being specifically distorted toward a lengthened duration.


Factor XIII zymogen activation is a complex series of events that involve fibrinogen acting in several different roles. This report focuses on the role of fibrinogen as a cofactor in factor XIII activation by thrombin. We demonstrate that fibrinogen has two distinct activities that lead to an increased rate of factor XIII activation. First, the thrombin proteolytic activity is increased by fibrin. The cleavage rates of both a small chromogenic substrate and the factor XIII activation peptide are increased in the presence of either the major fibrin isoform, γA/γA fibrin, or a minor variant form, γA/γ′ fibrin. This enhancement of thrombin activity by fibrin is independent of fibrin polymerization and requires only cleavage of the fibrinopeptides. Subsequently, γA/γ′ fibrinogen accelerates plasma factor XIII activation by a non-proteolytic mechanism. This increased rate of activation results in a slightly more rapid cross-linking of fibrin γA and γ′ chains and a significantly more rapid cross-linking of fibrin α chain multimers. Together, these results show that although both forms of fibrin increase the rate of activation peptide cleavage by thrombin, γA/γ′ fibrinogen also increases the rate of factor XIII activation in a non-proteolytic manner. A revised model of factor XIII activation is presented below.


This paper points out that in order to arrive at a rational classification of alternating-current motors it is necessary to base all suggestions on one and the same theory. The author thinks that the component field theory is best suited to this purpose, and urges that it be always so applied as to bring out the very great similarity between the alternating-and the well understood direct-current machines. Descriptive names are suggested for some 44 alternating-current motors, including the principal forms of single-phase, polyphase, commutator and commutatorless machines now known. These names are such as to positively identify each of these machines. The rules followed in preparing the diagrams illustrating the various forms of motors and in selecting the proposed names, are given. In order to enable the reader to quickly judge of the aptness of these names, the theory of each of the motors dealt with is briefly outlined. It is thought that the information given will make it easy to correctly represent, describe and classify any motor which may have been omitted. It is further pointed out that the term ``repulsion'' as applied to motors, has never been defined, that no practical motors operate on what has been known as the repulsion principle ever since 1820, and that there is no justification whatsoever for the use of this term in connection with alternating-current motors. Such an indefinite term leads merely to endless confusion and should be abandoned.


This paper presents an application of simulation optimization in construction utilizing genetic algorithms. The paper focuses on the use of genetic algorithms (GAs) as a tool for optimizing the total cost of earthmoving operations accounting for available equipment models to contractors and their corresponding quantities. The developed genetic algorithm has a powerful computational utility that increases its efficiency. The fitness of generated chromosomes is calculated utilizing a simulation engine dedicated for earthmoving operations which is dynamically linked to the developed genetic algorithm. The impact of the algorithm's control parameters on its conversion is also examined. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the capabilities of the developed algorithm in selecting near-optimum fleet configurations.


The gazetted forest area in Lamu District is 50093.4 ha of which mangroves occupy 46,184 ha. and 85% of mangroves in Kenya. The Bajuni in Lamu depend on mangrove harvesting
and fishing as their main source of income. They use traditional techniques when harvesting the mangroves since Forest Department does not have alternative harvesting methods. The
Forest Department carried out inventories in 1967 and 1981 that assessed the then existing mangrove-growing stock. The inventories revealed that Rhizophora mucronata and Ceriops
tagal the most preferred species in the Southern Mangrove Swamps had been depleted. The Government placed a ban on mangrove harvesting for charcoal production in 1972 and poles
for export in 1983. The Southern Mangrove Swamps were closed to harvesting. However, the harvesting of poles for the local market was allowed in the Northern Mangrove Swamps. There have been subsequent prohibitions on mangrove harvesting for local market by the Government. There have been outcries from the mangroves dependant community over these prohibitions. The community believes that its harvesting techniques do not deplete the
growing stock. The purpose of this study was therefore to determine the effects of traditional harvesting techniques on the growing stock of the mangroves in Lamu. The study assessed
combined carrying capacities of regeneration potential, established regeneration and the growing stock for Rhizophora mucronata and Ceriops tagal in the previousily harvested and
un-harvested sites before the closure of Southern Mangrove Swamps in 1983. It also assessed the activities undertake-during harvesting through demonstration by one of the mangrove cutters; how harvesting techniques are acquired and effects of the harvesting prohibitions on the mangrove dependent community was investigated through a semi-structured interview. The study was carried out at Mokowe, Kizuke and Funga Mbuzi in the Southern Mangrove Swamps. The data on regeneration potenti~l, established regeneration and growing stock were analyzed using sample means. A two-sample t significance test was used in
finding out if there are any significance differences in regeneration potential and growing stock between harvested sites and those that that had not been harvested at Kizuke and Funga
Mbuzi. Sample means in the closed canopies at Mokowe, Kizuke and Funga Mbuzi for regeneration potential, established regeneration and the growing stock were compared. The
results indicated that there were significant differences in regeneration potential and the growing stock between harvested and un-harvested sites. Harvested sites had higher regeneration potential and growing stock than un-harvested sites. At Mokowe, where we had maximum forest policing, carrying capacity for regeneration potential was lower than at Kizuke and Funga Mbuzi. It was observed that harvesting techniques are non destructive.
From the semi-structured interview, harvesting techniques are passed from generation to generation through family lines and that Lamu mangrove dependant community main source
of income is mangrove trade. Any prohibition on mangrove harvesting has negative impact on their livelihood. It is therefore recommended that selective harvesting of mangroves poles
using traditional harvesting techniques should be allowed given that it enhances regeneration potential and subsequently the growing stock. This would also alleviate poverty to mangrove
dependant communities at the Kenyan coast. Traditional harvesting techniques should be enriched with the scientific knowledge to develop mangrove management plans for Kenyan
mangroves. Commercially exploitable forests should be managed for suitable yield while adequate protection should be accorded to depleted portions of the forest. Poorly stocked areas especially where there are a few or no mother trees, should be protected until they regenerate and replanting should be carried out in completely depleted sites.


In this article we have investigated whether the determinants of excess returns (especially of target excess returns) are valid for purchased goodwill as well. Among them are acquirer's and target's Tobin's q, and debt assets ratio, that explain value creation of acquisitions, and relative size, source of financing of the acquisition, number of bidders, and relatedness of businesses of acquiror and target, that explain overpayment or overvaluation of acquisitions. The study is confined to mergers and acquisitions between US publicly quoted companies announced and effective in between January 2002 and December 2005. Databases used are SDC Platinum, CRSP and Compustat industrial annual file. Goodwill amounts are derived from acquirer's 10-K forms in Edgar database of SEC. Results show that in line with our expectations, the correlation coefficient for target excess return amounts and goodwill is positive, whereas it is negative for acquirer and combined excess returns. Further it turns out that goodwill is significant positively influenced by acquisitions of high Tobin's q targets by either low or high Tobin's q acquirers, compared to acquisitions of low Tobin's q targets by low Tobin's q acquirers. Also the method of payment matters: payments other than cash or stock negatively influence goodwill. Moreover, a higher leverage of the target positively influences purchased goodwill. Although some of the determinants of excess return have a significant influence on goodwill, the pattern is sometimes different. Therefore, further research needs to take into account both the nature of goodwill and its unique determinants.


Background: Faecal occult blood test (FOBT) has demonstrated effectiveness in colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. Faecal calprotectin (FC) has proven efficient for evaluating activity in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but its value in CRC detection is less established. Most symptomatic patients have benign pathologies, but still undergo colonoscopy in many settings. Aims: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and cost-effectiveness of the combination of FOBT plus FC in symptomatic patients. Methods: Patients who completed colonic investigations and returned stool samples, on which FOBT and FC were performed, were recruited prospectively. CRC, advanced adenoma, IBD and angiodysplasia were considered as relevant pathologies. Results: A total of 404 patients were included, of whom 87 (21.5%) had relevant pathologies. Sensitivity and specificity were 50.6% and 69.6% for FOBT, 78.2% and 54.4% for FC. Negative predictive value (NPV) was 90.1% for FC and 86.9% for FOBT. NPV for the combination of FOBT and FC was 94.1%, with a sensitivity and specificity of 88.5% and 50.3%. The area under ROC (receiver operator curve) (AUC) was 0.741 for FOBT, 0.736 for FC and 0.816 for the combination. The total cost for visits and procedures was €233,016 (€577/patient). Using a combination of FOBT and FC as pre-endoscopic tool allows colonoscopies to be reduced by 39.4%, reducing total costs by 20.5%. Conclusion: The combination of FOBT and FC has a better diagnostic accuracy compared with each test alone. Performing both tests before colonoscopy is a less costly and more effective strategy, reducing unnecessary procedures and complications.


This research is an effort to analyze the change in the mobile communications device subsidy policy of Korea, especially with a focus on regulation of asymmetrical competition and consumer welfare, by applying Kindon's Policy Stream Framework (PSF). Though a legislative bill to revise the law on electric communications businesses banning the offering of subsidies for devices was passed by the National Assembly on November 12th, 2002, this was a temporary law that was only effective until March 26th, 2006. Thus it acted as a trigger, or political stream that was expected to give rise to debates about whether to maintain or relieve such regulations come 2006. Such a trigger opened a window for policy change and in this window interactions such as policy learning of the non-political area and legislate strategies of the political area. This became the connection that allowed the National Assembly to pass the '2+1.5' bill, the context of which was ban for 2 years and grant subsidies to users of 16 months or longer, on March 2nd, 2006, as it was a way to promote consumer welfare, such as the people's rights to usage. This law was put into effect on March 27th. As a result, the device subsidy policy has changed from banning subsidies to allowing them, and this process took 5 years.


Abstract Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a major pediatric cancer in developed countries. Although treatment outcome has improved owing to advances in chemotherapy, there is still a group of patients who experience severe adverse events. L-Asparaginase is an effective antineoplastic agent used in chemotherapy of ALL. Despite its indisputable indication, hypersensitivity reactions are common. In those cases, discontinuation of treatment is usually needed and anti-asparaginase antibody production may also attenuate asparaginase activity, compromising its antileukemic effect. Till now, six pharmacogenetic studies have been performed in order to elucidate possible genetic predisposition for inter-individual differences in asparaginase hypersensitivity. In this review we have summarized the results of those studies which describe the involvement of four different genes, being polymorphisms in the glutamate receptor, ionotropic, AMPA 1 (GRIA1) the most frequently associated with asparaginase hypersensitivity. We also point to new approaches focusing on epigenetics that could be interesting for consideration in the near future.


Bromamine T (BAT) oxidises diphenylmethanol and substituted diphenylmethanols smoothly and quantitatively to the respective benzophenones in aquoeus acetic acid. Mineral acids catalyse the reaction and the rate law is found to be –d[BAT]/dt=k[BAT][Alcohol][H+]. The reaction is characterised by the absence of any kinetic isotope effect and a break in the Hammett plot with ρ values of –4.2 and –0.4 for the two limbs. Three alternative mechanistic pathways have been proposed involving (i) diphenylmethyl cation, (ii) a 'phenonium ion' type intermediate from the decomposition of the alkyl hypobromite ester, or (iii)ipso substitution at the benzene ring followed by dehydrobromination and aromatization.