This paper proposes a novel lightweight thumbnail container-based summarization (LTC-SUM) framework for full feature-length videos. This framework generates a personalized keyshot summary for concurrent users by using the computational resource of the end-user device. State-of-the-art methods that acquire and process entire video data to generate video summaries are highly computationally intensive. In this regard, the proposed LTC-SUM method uses lightweight thumbnails to handle the complex process of detecting events. This significantly reduces computational complexity and improves communication and storage efficiency by resolving computational and privacy bottlenecks in resource-constrained end-user devices. These improvements were achieved by designing a lightweight 2D CNN model to extract features from thumbnails, which helped select and retrieve only a handful of specific segments. Extensive quantitative experiments on a set of full 18 feature-length videos (approximately 32.9 h in duration) showed that the proposed method is significantly computationally efficient than state-of-the-art methods on the same end-user device configurations. Joint qualitative assessments of the results of 56 participants showed that participants gave higher ratings to the summaries generated using the proposed method. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt in designing a fully client-driven personalized keyshot video summarization framework using thumbnail containers for feature-length videos. Our code and trained models are publicly available at https://github.com/iamgmujtaba/LTC-SUM.


The paper analyzes the impact of various millimeter-range electromagnetic radiation schedules on immunological parameters in 152 patients with new-onset respiratory sarcoidosis. It shows that the immunomodulatory effect of millimeter-range therapy depends on the treatment regimen chosen. There is evidence for the advantages of millimeter-range noise electromagnetic radiation.


The design, analysis and trade-offs of a novel method to sense the inductor and DC output currents of PWM converters are presented. By sensing and adding appropriately the currents in the transistor, rectifier and capacitors of a converter using current transformers, the waveforms of inductor and DC output currents can be reconstructed accurately while maintaining isolation. This method offers high bandwidth, clean waveform, practically zero power dissipation and simple circuit. The technique is applicable to all PWM converters in both continuous and discontinuous modes, and is most suitable for the implementation of current mode control schemes like hysteretic, PWM conductance control, and output current feedforward. This approach has been experimentally verified at a wide range of current levels, duty cycles, and switching frequencies up to 1.4 MHz. >


The aim of this study was to evaluate if the presence of supragingival plaque can influence measurements of gingival crevicular fluid flow (CFF) taken with the Periotron 6000 unit. Sixty-seven experimental sites and 67 contralateral control sites were randomly chosen. Crevicular fluid was collected on a filter paper strip for 15 seconds and the CFF was measured using the Periotron 6000 unit: CFF1. The supragingival plaque was removed from the experimental site with a Gracey curette and the plaque index (PI) was estimated. Five minutes later, a second CFF measurement was taken: CFF2. On the control tooth, the plaque was not removed, and the PI was established after the second CFF measurement. There was no significant difference between the CFF1 and the CFF2 values for the control teeth. In the experimental teeth, a PI of 3.0 increased the CFF1 (pre-plaque removal) compared to the CFF2 (post-plaque removal) value by 20.6 Periotron units (PU) (p = 0.0004). A PI of 2.0 caused a 7.3 PU increase (p = 0.0370). There were no significant changes for a PI of 1.0 or 0. In this type of experimental protocol, the results also indicated that CFF differences were not affected by the gingival index (GI) for either the experimental or control groups. These results indicate that large amounts of supragingival plaque can significantly elevate CFF measurements, as determined by the Periotron 6000 unit.


We report on the high-resolution multidimensional real-time mapping of H2+ and D2+ nuclear wave packets performed employing time-resolved three-dimensional Coulomb explosion imaging with intense laser pulses. Exploiting a combination of a "reaction microscope" spectrometer and a pump-probe setup with two intense 6-7 fs laser pulses, we simultaneously visualize both vibrational and rotational motion of the molecule, and obtain a sequence of snapshots of the squared ro-vibrational wave function with time-step resolution of ~ 0.3 fs, allowing us to reconstruct a real-time movie of the ultrafast molecular motion. We observe fast dephasing, or 'collapse' of the vibrational wave packet and its subsequent revival, as well as signatures of rotational excitation. For D2+ we resolve also the fractional revivals resulting from the interference between the counter-propagating parts of the wave packet.


Interest in the dielectric electroactive polymer is growing in the medical field because of the large similarity with the biological muscles. With the objective to create an artificial pump based on DEAP, this paper presents the concept of an innovative spring with a negative stiffness and radial displacement. It was demonstrated that coupling a spring with such characteristic and the DEAP allows to improve the performance of DEAP actuators. The final design is close to a stent with monostable beams instead of current bistable one. The complete spring is composed of several modules which include one beam and one rigid support. The radial displacement is induced by the tangential compression of each beams and the equations of deformations demonstrates that the radial displacement is increased if the number of modules is higher than 6. In the design procedure, relevant choices have allowed to reduce computation time of the FE simulation. The different equations are validated through FEM results and less than 1.5% of error is obtained. The proposed spring is finally coupled with a tubular dielectric electroactive polymer membrane in order to create a cylindrical actuator. The radial displacement is around 3 mm. The result has been validated through FEM and an error of 6.8% is obtained.


Nipah Virus is a recently emerging zoonotic virus with disease causing potential in both animals and humans. Nipah virus belongs to the family of paramyxovirida, genus Henipavirus along with Hendra virus. (1) The knowledge of human infection with Henipavirus was limited to a very small number of cases infected with Hendra virus in Australia during 1994-1999 which was responsible for deaths of two humans and seventeen horses. (2) Nipah virus was first identified and isolated in 1999 in Malaysia during an outbreak of febrile illness among pig farmers and people who were in close contacts with pigs. (3) In 2001, Nipah virus was identified as the causative agent of outbreak in Bangladesh. Since then number of outbreaks has been reported in various districts of Bangladesh. (4) In India, a total of three outbreaks of Nipah have been reported, latest being on 19th May 2018, from Kozhikode district of Kerala. (5) With a fatality rate of 58%, Nipah virus is primarily seen to cause encephalitis and severe respiratory distress. Despite of the severe pathogenicity and high pandemic potential there is no specific treatment for Nipah virus encephalitis except for supportive and symptomatic treatment.


Pavement deterioration and abnormal climate induced by global warming lead to a constant rise in the number of potholes. Accordingly, the loss cost for maintenance and accidents also increases. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a method of classifying pavement potholes and detecting their locations. This study proposes the pothole region extraction based on similarity evaluation scale classification using image processing. The proposed technique sets up a classification threshold appropriately by considering the structure, brightness, and other factors of the grayscale-converted image through SSIM (Structural Similarity Index Measure). It binarizes porthole images classified according to the threshold, and then extracts pothole regions through the threshold based segmentation. A conventional image classification method utilizes the rules found in objects or the label selected by a user. The proposed method can take into account detailed factors by comparing image similarity in the unit of pixel. According to the performance evaluation, the proposed classification method's F1-score is 0.83, and its accuracy of pothole region extraction is 0.851. Therefore, with the proposed technique, it is possible to make classification in consideration of similarity between images. In addition, the proposed method makes it possible to detect the regions similar to actual potholes accurately.


Many attempts at providing a single-scale exponent and mechanism to explain metabolic rate assert a monolithic selective mechanism for allometries, characterized by a universal allometric scale power (usually chosen to be 0.75). To test for the deviations from universal allometric scaling, we gathered data from previously published metabolic measurements on 903 bird species and performed regressions of log(basal metabolic rate) and log(body mass) for (1) all birds and (2) 20 monophyletic clades within birds. We constructed two Bayesian linear mixed models—one included ecological variables and the other included data for mammals from Sieg et al. (2009). Overall allometric patterns differed significantly among clades of birds, and some clades were not consistent with the 0.75 scale power. We were unable to find apparent physiological, morphological, phylogenetic, or ecological characteristics among clades, predicting a difference in allometry or consistency with any previously proposed universal allometry. The Bayesian analysis illuminated novel bivariate, clade-specific differences in scaling slope-intercept space, separating large groups of birds and mammals. While significantly related to basal metabolic rate, feeding guild and migratory tendency had small effects compared to clade and body mass. We propose that allometric hypotheses, in general, must extend beyond simple overarching mechanisms to allow for conflicting and interacting influences that produce allometric patterns at narrower taxonomic scales—perhaps including other processes whose optimization may interfere with that of the system proposed by the metabolic theory of ecology.


This paper presents an accurate half-pixel variable block size motion estimation algorithm and its hardware architecture. The proposed algorithm does not require interpolation of the reference frame pixels and has near performance to the conventional interpolation-search methods. These simplifications cause high level reduction in computational time and gate count without the need for internal or external half-pixel accuracy search memory. A simple, low latency, high throughput and fully utilized pipelined architecture of proposed algorithm is implemented in VHDL. The proposed hardware architecture uses shift registers for multiplication and pipelining technique and can support half-pixel accuracy variable block size motion estimation for the real time HDTV format (1920 times 1280 resolution and 30 Frames/sec).


The prognosis of adult NC pB-ALL has not improved over the last decade mainly because separation into distinct molecular subsets has been lacking. We conducted a proof-of-principle experiment to screen the genome of blasts from adult NC pB-ALL patients for novel genomic alterations using 19,000 bacterial artificial chromosomes (BAC) by array CGH and verified our results with gene expression profiling (GEP, Agilent oligonucleotide expression arrays) and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) using the same BAC probes or commercially available probes if available. The median age at diagnosis of the 6 males and 4 females was 55 years; all were treated with a 5-drug induction regimen followed by intensive consolidation and maintenance regimens. Five achieved CR of whom 3 relapsed with complex karyotype; samples were available on 2 of the patients at relapse. Samples with 95% purity by sorting according to their immunophenotype pattern. Only one case had a normal CGH pattern. A decreased copy number of p16 was found in 4 of the 10 diagnostic samples; 3 on whom mRNA was available demonstrated a decreased p16 mRNA expression by GEP. In addition, a loss at 9p21.2 and a loss and a gain at 8q21.2 were detected in one sample each; those were verified by FISH. Copy number losses were also observed across multiple samples at 1p34–1p36, 4p16, 5p15.33, 8q24, 9q34, 10q26, 11q12–11q13, 12q24, 14q32, 17p, 19p13.3, 22q11, and 22q13. Copy number gains across multiple samples were observed at 15q11.2 and 18q21. Those are currently being verified by FISH. Comparison of samples at diagnosis and at relapse revealed a disparate molecular pattern. In summary, enriching samples by sorting from NC pB-ALL to be studied by CGH is feasible; normal chromosome pattern does not correlate with normal molecular pattern; and diagnostic and relapsed samples have a different molecular pattern. Our work on 10 patient samples at diagnosis and 2 at relapse demonstrates the feasibility to detect specific molecular aberrations in NC pB-ALL. Since attaining good quality metaphase cells in ALL is often suboptimal, this work suggests that array CGH can complement conventional cytogenetic analysis to better characterize NC pB-ALL by identifying cryptic copy number changes. Work on a larger number of samples is warranted to determine the prognostic significance of the aberrations detected herein.


Neuroblastoma (NB) is a malignant pediatric tumor requiring new treatments. Accumulating evidence has confirmed that microRNAs (miRNAs) have a major effect on NB metastasis. The present study aimed to characterize a novel miRNA, miR-32-5p, by exploring its expression, function, as well as action mechanism in NB metastasis. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) as well as Western blotting was utilized to measure the expression of miR-32-5p and its target-vacuolar protein sorting 4B (VPS4B). Transwell assay was conducted to test the cell migration as well as its invasion in vitro, and the metastasis xenograft model of nude mice was set up by injections through the caudal vein in vivo. In comparison with the normal tissue and cell line, the miR-32-5p expression showed a marked downregulation in human NB samples and cell lines. Furthermore, the miR-32-5p upregulation suppressed NB cell metastasis in culture and the tumor xenograft model. Although in NB cell lines, VPS4B was found to be miR-32-5p's direct target, its overexpression would reverse miR-32-5p's suppressive effects. Moreover, miR-32-5p increased the sensitivity to dihydroartemisinin in neuroblastoma. The current outcomes implicated that the axis of miR-32-5p/VPS4B can be NB metastasis's novel therapeutic target.


The Optoelectronic Technology Consortium (OETC) 16 Gbit/s, 32-channel parallel fiber optic bus introduces new requirements for modeling and simulation of an optical bus which were not present for previous single-channel optical link systems. These requirements include the simulation of the statistical variation in component parameters, timing skew, and crosstalk. Due to the required simulation of statistical variation in component parameters, a time efficient simulation approach such as the quasi-analytical simulation methodology is vital. In addition, the adoption of a block-oriented simulation environment facilitates mixed-level simulation which minimizes the computational requirements of the bus simulation while achieving the required accuracy in the simulation of all bus components. Simulation results indicate that while noise is not a limiting factor in the performance of the optical bus, timing skew, and device uniformity across the channels of the bus are the most important factors for satisfactory performance. Experimental measurements confirm these simulation results.


Experiments are presented that reveal an efficient optical energy conversion from the visible to the infrared wavelengths range as a result of photo-acoustic response (PAR) after light pulse incites onto the free surface of TlGaSe2 crystal. Excitation was carried out with a tunable wavelength of ns-pulse laser and the PAR was detected laterally with a focused cw- probe. The observed properties can be related to variety of successive factors: high electron- hole-phonon deformation potential, a high factor of refraction coefficient dependency on pressure, the absence of surface recombination and the band filling effect, in relation with low absorption coefficient due to the forbidden direct-band optical transition in TlGaSe2. All these ensure that the acoustic energy remain well confined under a wide pulse power and energy range suggesting that TlGaSe2 is a promising material for dynamic optical energy conversion.


We present a cost-directed heuristic planning algorithm, which uses an A* strategy for node selection. The heuristic evaluation function is computed by a deep lookahead that calculates the cost of complete plans for a set of pre-defined top-level subgoals, under the (generally false) assumption that they do not interact. This approach leads to finding low-cost plans, and in many circumstances it also leads to a significant decrease in total planning time. This is due in part to the fact that generating plans for subgoals individually is often much less costly than generating a complete plan taking interactions into account, and in part to the fact that the heuristic can effectively focus the search. We provide both analytic and experimental results.


The aim of this research is to outline some key trends in the development and state of contemporary global and Bulgarian agricultural markets. The research comprises the occurring changes in agricultural markets. The analysis of on-going transformations includes the state and dynamics of their global dimensions, and the influence of social, technological and other factors. We have analysed the GMO, organic and online markets of agricultural products in relation to their prospects for development on a global scale and at a regional level – in Bulgaria. We have ascertained tha,t as a whole, the trends of expanding agricultural markets – conventional, organic, genetically modified foods and online - are the result of social transformations and technological development. We have observed a significant delay in Bulgarian agricultural markets compared to the trends and development of world agricultural markets. We have ascertained a strong discrepancy – bearing in mind the development of agricultural business in Bulgaria throughout the last decade and a significantly slower development of national agricultural markets, infrastructure and market relations. Particular difficulties exist related to the realization of agricultural produce created in Bulgaria.


ABSTRACT Streptomyces sp. AOA40, which produces halotolerant and thermotolerant xylanase, was isolated from Mersin soil. Various carbon sources were tested for xylanase production with selected fermentation medium. The best carbon source was selected as corn stover. The effect of corn stover concentration and particle size, composition of fermentation medium, fermentation condition such as initial pH and agitation rate on xylanase production was determined. After production, xylanase was partially purified with ion-exchange chromatography and gel filtration chromatography for characterization of xylanase and application in fruit juice and dough improvement. The optimum pH for the activity of xylanase occurred at pH 6.0 in phosphate buffer, while the optimum temperature was 60°C. The relative xylanase activity in the pH ranges of 4–9 remained between 59.93 and 54.43% of the activity at pH 6.0 (100.00%). The xylanase activity showed a half-life of 172 min at 70°C, which was reduced to 75 min at 80°C. The enzyme was highly inhibited by 10–100 mM of Hg+2, EDTA, Mg+2, SDS and 100 mM Cu+2. Clarity of fruit juices increased after enzymatic treatment of apple (17.85%), grape (17.19%) and orange juice (18.36%) with partially purified xylanase and also reducing sugar concentrations of these fruit juices were improved by 17.21, 16.79 and 19.57%, respectively. Also, dough volume was raised 17.06% with using partially purified Streptomyces sp. AOA40 xylanase in bread making.


While numerous efforts have been made to understand the impact of child sexual abuse, little has been done to examine the childhood experiences of those who abuse children. Child sexual abusers have been studied from quantitative perspectives using behavioral checklists, parental-bonding surveys, and sexual history questionnaires. The purpose of this study was to explore incarcerated child sexual abusers' recollections of their childhood experiences using the descriptive existential lens of phenomenology. Eight incarcerated male child sexual abusers described their childhood from existential perspectives of lived space, lived other, lived body, and lived time via face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Analysis was accomplished through the qualitative, descriptive method of Max van Manen. Rich descriptions of the participants' insights into their daily childhood life experiences that shaped their self-concepts and contributed to their adult behaviors were gathered. Four major themes were identified: (1) failure to root, (2) what you see is what you learn, (3) stupid is as stupid does, and (4) life's moments. Data from this study suggest that the experiences of childhood significantly contribute to an adult self-concept that can be distorted by the lack of a secure home space, maladaptive relationships, internalization of inappropriate behavior, and a lack of significant family development. This study explores the psychosocial and behavioral consequences of early childhood experiences. The findings support the need for family and psychological mental health nurse practitioners to be more aware of early home environments; improve their assessment of children's developing self-concept and the potential for abusive relationships.


Introduction Workplace violence in health care settings is a significant problem world wide. The aim of this study is to identify the proportion of interns affected by all three types of violence, the study of it's sources and consequences. Methods This descriptive study was conducted between April and May 2017. We've tried to collect data from all the 100 interns that work in the university hospital of Casablanca, but only managed to get information from 60 of them. The study was done by the help of a questionnaire that included questions about sociodemographic characteristics, physical violence, verbal violence, sexual harassment and working conditions. Results Participants were between 21 and 26 years of age. 67,8% were female. history of physical violence was found in 23,3% of the cases, the aggressor was either the patient or his family in 85,7% of the times. We found that 88,3% of the interns experienced episodes of verbal abuse, at least once every three months in 34,6% of the cases. Sexual abuse was seen in 11,7% of the cases, where 71,5% of the victims were female. Of the participants, only 58,3% said that they were encouraged to report those types of incidents. Discussion The most frequent type of violence amongst interns was verbal in nature. Previous studies showed the same results (that verbal abuse occurs more often than physical or sexual harassment). The study shows also that patients' companions and patients themselves do the most violence, which confirms what other studies found. Sexual harassment rate was found to be 62,5% in women in a study in Turkey which confirms what we found. Conclusion The results of the study suggest that violence is a major problem among interns and serious measures need to be taken immediately to avoid the growing number of these incidents.


Unsatisfactory results of cholecystectomy for noncalculous cholecystitis are a frequent occurrence. Errors in diagnosis and incomplete surgical procedures are believed to be the cause of some of these failures. The purpose of this report is to discuss surgical methods for improving the results of treatment of noncalculous biliary tract disease. Cole1reports that 50% of gallbladders removed in the United States are noncalculous. Maingot2states that less than 25% of patients are free of symptoms after cholecystectomy for noncalculous gallbladder disease. Snodgrass3found 64% poor surgical results in this group. Bockus4says that colic occurs in one-third of patients with symptoms due to chronic cholecystitis without stones. Presuming these estimates are relatively accurate, one is impressed by the large number of patients who are chronically ill from noncalculous biliary tract disease or are disabled by pain after removal of their gallbladder. A regrettable tendency to teach


Background Morbidity due to high disease activity, damage, as well as co-morbidities in patients with lupus erythematosus (LE) lead to impairments and disabilities, limiting activities of daily living. In Germany compensations for persons with disabilities according to the EU charter of fundamental rights are complex. The prerequisite for compensation is an official governmental approval of the disability which grades severity from 30 to 100%. Objectives The aim was to highlight possible influential factors for limitations and disability in patients with long-standing lupus. Methods The LuLa-Study is a longitudinal cross-sectional survey of the German LE self help community on a multitude of LE associated factors that is being conducted annually by means of a self-reported questionnaire since 2001 and is ongoing. Data on the disability status have been collected in the reference periods 2003 (n=864) and 2009 (n=604) with census of the application for disability, the grade of disability, the year of approval and the retirement because of disabilities from LE or other reasons. Results In 2009 76.3% had submitted an application for disability, 11.0% more than in 2003, of which more than 96.5% were approved (grade of at least 30%). The mean grade increased from 59.0% in 2003 to 61.8% in 2009. 414 pts (66.8% of the 2009 cohort) completed both assessments in 2003 and 2009. Within this 6-year interval 10.9% (n=45) made an application for disability, of which only 3 application were not approved. The mean grade of disability was 50.7±18.5% (30-100), the mean age at receipt was 44.4±15.0 years and the mean disease duration 9.4±6.4 years. When comparing these patients with a new application for disability with those that had never made an application in 2009 (n=156) they showed a lower score in the mental component summary of the SF-12 (SF-12 MCS), a higher number of specific lupus medication and co-medication, a higher disease activity (VAS 0-10) and more damage (SLICC) (all p<0,05). In 224 patients a 6-year follow-up of disability was possible. 23.7% showed an increase and 2.7% a decrease in the grade of disability whereas the rest remained stable. The mean percentage increase in grade of disability was 20.0%, the mean percentage decrease 11.7%. The group with a percentage increase showed significantly more co-medications and differed significantly in age at approval, with the highest mean age in the group with increased percentage (44.0 years) (31.2 years in the decrease % group, 39.8 years in the stable group). Conclusions Accumulated damage, disease activity, the number of lupus medication and co-medication, and SF-12 MCS appear to play a role in the evaluation and approval of disability, whereas a higher number of co-medications as well as a higher age at approval seem to predict a deterioration of disability over time. Disease control with avoidance of damage and development of co-morbidities might improve quality of life in patients and reduce the economic burden by disabilities. The relationship between the investigated parameters and other influencing factors need further evaluation. References Sander O et al. [Disability in lupus erythematosus]. Versicherungsmedizin. 2006; 58(3):120-5. Fischer-Betz R et al. [Lupus in Germany: analysis within the German lupus self-help organization (LULA)]. Z Rheumatol. 2005; 64(2):111-22. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


The study empirically analyzes the impact of media coverage of corporate social responsibility projects both in the media and by the official press centers of companies on the market value of the shares of these companies. Such coverage can have both positive and negative effects. The research interest is whether corporate social responsibility projects are important to investors. The purpose of this study is to create a model for assessing the impact of media coverage of corporate social responsibility projects on the market value of companies' shares. Based on data on the market value of shares of Russian companies, using regression models, the influence of the press coverage of such projects on the market value of shares was estimated. Thus, the hypothesis was confirmed that official company news about corporate social projects and news published by external sources have a connection with the market value of shares. In addition, the study found that corporate social responsibility project news published by a company has a greater impact on institutional investors, while news published by external sources has a greater impact on individual investors. An industry-specific phenomenon has been identified. News published by the company on corporate social responsibility projects has a greater impact on stock prices in the metals, telecommunications, fuel, oil and gas and energy industries, while the coverage of such projects in external sources has a greater impact in the banking sector, construction and development, and the financial sector. The models proposed in the study have fairly high predictive and explanatory quality. This suggests that Russian public companies are following an international trend towards an increase in the number of corporate social responsibility projects and information about such projects is quite important for investors. The application of the proposed model allows us to understand how the market expectations will change as a whole, and therefore to predict the movement of shares in the short term.


The concept of the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) alters our understanding of what constitutes "health" or "disease" intended as chronic, non-communicable diseases, which develop over the life course in high income and emerging countries. It implies a change in paradigm forming a basis for prevention policies across the globe. It also impacts psychological, social, economic, ethical and legal sciences. In line with the unanticipated underpinning epigenetic mechanisms are also the social issues (including public policies) that could be produced by the knowledge related to DOHaD that opens a wide field of inquiry. The information unveiled by epigenetics coupled with information on lifestyle including during the development phase, is of unforeseen nature, raising issues of different nature. Therefore it requires specific attention and research, and a specific support by a pluridisciplinary reflection since the very beginning of its production, to anticipate the questions that might be raised in the future.


"Microplankton, spores of Pteridophyta, and pollen grains of Gymnosperms and Fagaceae have been already studied from this Formation. The purpose of this paper is to begin with the study of fungal remains and Angiosperm pollen (other than Nothofagidites Potonie). Eigtheen samples in the about 400 m deep w eH D-15 were analized. The fossils are described, measured and discussed. The most important taxa were: Plochmopeltinites masonii Cookson emend. Selkirk, germlings of Microthyriaceae, Pluricellaesporites psilatus Clarke, Lacrimasporonites sp, and a new species of Tulosporonites, among the Fungi, and Concopites leptos Fartridge, Gothanipollis bassensis Stover, Triatriopollenites latejlexus Archangelsky, Tricolpites gillii Cookson, Tricolpites reticulatus Cookson, Striatricolporites gamerroi Archangelsky and Ilexpollenites cliidenensis McIntyre among the Angiosperms. Problems of nomenclature and delimitation were found in Tricolpites Cookson ex Couper and Pluricellaesporites Van der Hammen emend. Sheffy and Drlcher. The taxa studied are varied though never dominant. Most species could be compared with a living genus or Iamily. The age indicated by the fossils is Eocene."


The morphological transitions induced by external stimuli in shape-memory polymers (SMPs) can be exploited with the real-time response of far-field diffraction patterns in diffractive optical elements (DOEs). In this paper, we combine the temperature characteristics of SMPs and the display characteristics of DOEs to obtain an optical temperature sensing film where the temperature information is taken as a change of far-field diffraction images. This process was achieved by imprinting the micropatterns of the DOEs on the epoxy-based SMP film, which can be programmed to hold a temporary optical image and revert to its original image upon exposure to a specific temperature. Furthermore, the specific temperature at which the image transformation occurs can be customized by varying the chain flexibility of the SMP. Based on a range of transition points, by imprinting the desired combination of SMP-DOEs on a film, a sensor that can record and inform the temperature history is demonstrated. As for the feasible application of this technique, it can be used for the compact and reliable optical temperature indicators, which can be applied in temperature-sensitive industries such as food and pharmaceuticals.


Cellular cross-talk between tumors and M2-polarized tumor-associated macrophages (TAM) favors tumor progression. Upregulation of IL4 receptor (IL4R) is observed in diverse tumors and TAMs. We tested whether an IL4R-targeted proapoptotic peptide could inhibit tumor progression. The IL4R-binding peptide (IL4RPep-1) preferentially bound to IL4R-expressing tumor cells and M2-polarized macrophages both in vitro and in 4T1 breast tumors in vivo. To selectively kill IL4R-expressing cells, we designed an IL4R-targeted proapoptotic peptide, IL4RPep-1-K, by adding the proapoptotic peptide (KLAKLAK)2 to the end of IL4RPep-1. IL4RPep-1-K exerted selective cytotoxicity against diverse IL4R-expressing tumor cells and M2-polarized macrophages. Systemic administration of IL4RPep-1-K inhibited tumor growth and metastasis in 4T1 breast tumor-bearing mice. Interestingly, IL4RPep-1-K treatment increased the number of activated cytotoxic CD8+ T cells while reducing the numbers of immunosuppressive regulatory T cells and M2-polarized TAMs. No significant systemic side effects were observed. These results suggest that IL4R-targeted proapoptotic peptide has potential for treating diverse IL4R-expressing cancers. Mol Cancer Ther; 16(12); 2803–16. ©2017 AACR.


The paper shows the results of a sociological research, which is related to the protection of rural dwellings. The empiric data were collected in seven villages in Hungary and Slovakia from 2005 to 2008. The text is based on the questionnaire produced in 2005 in Szendro (north-east Hungary, Borsod County). The interviewed respondents could choose from eight buildings, four of which they had to evaluate in detail using a semantic differential scale. The photos of the buildings represent three in today´s settlements existing architectural periods: the traditional vernacular epoch, the socialist period and the current trends. The evaluation of dwellings varies mostly by size. Today´s buildings obtained high ratings in every parameter. The typical multi-storeyed family house of the 1970s and 1980s is less suited to create an impression. The traditional vernacular dwelling achieved a medium average rating, but not performing as well as the two larger buildings. The ranking of the older socialist building with a
nearly square ground plan and pyramid hip roof was in every respect the worst. There is also the analysis of a similar questionnaire, which collected attitudes in an urban environment. In Budapest the oldest buildings had the highest acceptance; however the socialist era and today´s architecture became the critic. After comparing the results of both researches a working hypothesis was formulated which suggests that the vernacular monuments in Szendro are in a transitional period: they are not yet able to reassure the social claims of the inhabitants and they do not yet have a value as cultural heritage.


Staphylococcus aureus and particularly methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) infections are currently associated with extremely high morbidity and mortality rates worldwide. The global escalation in the development of antibiotic-resistant human pathogens and S. aureus ability in developing new clones with the capacity to invade community settings, leads to an urgent need to develop accurate and efficient assessments of S. aureus colonization in occupational settings, particularly those with increased risk of human and animal colonization and food contamination. Here we present cross-sectional studies with the aim to assemble crucial information regarding MRSA prevalence in workers from five different Portuguese occupational environments (bakeries, swineries (humans and animals), ambulance crews, veterinary clinics and healthcare facilities). Our data demonstrated high prevalence of S. aureus asymptomatic carriers among bakery workers (40%; 75% MSSA and 25% MRSA), swinery workers (54%; 8% MSSA and 46% MRSA), firefighters (48.5%; 24% MSSA and 21% MRSA) and healthcare workers (Study 1: 42.2%; 18.4% MSSA and 23.7% MRSA, Study 2: 43.3% MRSA). S. aureus prevalence in veterinary staff was 7.1% (MSSA), lower than the results obtained in control groups (33.3% S. aureus; MRSA 4% to 10%). The present study sustains the urge to develop accurate and efficient assessment of S. aureus human and animal colonization, particularly in high risk occupational settings, with proper guidelines and validated procedures in order to avoid potential hazardous health outcomes associated with bioaerosol exposure and associated infectious diseases.


We present ALMA (0.87 and 1.3 mm) and VLA (9 mm) observations toward the candidate intermediate-mass protostar OMC2-FIR3 (HOPS-370; L bol ∼ 314 L ⊙) at ∼01 (40 au) resolution for the continuum emission and ∼025 (100 au) resolution of nine molecular lines. The dust continuum observed with ALMA at 0.87 and 1.3 mm resolves a near edge-on disk toward HOPS-370 with an apparent radius of ∼100 au. The VLA observations detect both the disk in dust continuum and free–free emission extended along the jet direction. The ALMA observations of molecular lines (H2CO, SO, CH3OH, 13CO, C18O, NS, and H13CN) reveal rotation of the apparent disk surrounding HOPS-370 orthogonal to the jet/outflow direction. We fit radiative transfer models to both the dust continuum structure of the disk and molecular line kinematics of the inner envelope and disk for the H2CO, CH3OH, NS, and SO lines. The central protostar mass is determined to be ∼2.5 M ⊙ with a disk radius of ∼94 au, when fit using combinations of the H2CO, CH3OH, NS, and SO lines, consistent with an intermediate-mass protostar. Modeling of the dust continuum and spectral energy distribution yields a disk mass of 0.035 M ⊙ (inferred dust+gas) and a dust disk radius of 62 au; thus, the dust disk may have a smaller radius than the gas disk, similar to Class II disks. In order to explain the observed luminosity with the measured protostar mass, HOPS-370 must be accreting at a rate of (1.7−3.2) × 10−5 M ⊙ yr−1.


The dependence of the electron energy distribution function on the axial position is measured in a microwave surface wave sustained plasma. On the basis of these electron energy distribution functions the axial variations of the average electron energy and the frequencies of different processes initiated by electron impact are calculated. The results are coupled to the local electron energy balance in order to obtain the axial variations of the maintenance electric field intensity towards the end of the plasma column. Radial orientation of the measuring probe, compensation technique and an advantageous positioning of the large electrode probe are used.


A closed-form equation is derived for the critical nucleus charge at which a discrete level with the Dirac quantum number touches the lower continuum of the Dirac equation solutions. For the Coulomb potential cut off rectangularly at the short distance , , the critical nucleus charge values are obtained for several values of and . It is shown that the partial scattering matrix of elastic positron-nucleus scattering, , is also unitary for . For this range, the scattering phase is calculated as a function of the positron energy = , as are the positions and widths of quasidiscrete levels corresponding to the scattering matrix poles. The implication is that the single-particle approximation for the Dirac equation is valid not only for but also for and that there is no spontaneous creation of pairs from the vacuum.


Export strategy in India confronts several issues, especially the choice of policy instruments. Questions are raised about the utility of the prevailing export promotion schemes, even while these interventions are considered necessary to keep India's exports competitive in the international market. The appreciation of the rupee vis-A? -vis the US dollar raises concerns regarding its adverse consequences on export performance. This paper observes a positive association between exchange rate movements and exports, which defies the conventional wisdom. Instead of treating this phenomenon as perverse, as in the literature, the paper underscores the crucial role of explicit or implicit subsidies and market structure. The paper argues for a reorientation of IndiaA¢Â?Â?s export strategy.


The interaction between the bentonite buffer and alkaline plume from degrading cementitious material used in the construction and operation of the repository is envisaged to constitute a risk to the long-term chemical stability of bentonite. In this report, first model calculations to shed light on the possible extent of mineralogical alteration of bentonite due to the plume have been carried out. A common feature of the model outcome for every case is the clogging of the pore space at the interface between the buffer and the rock fracture carrying the plume. Depending on the pH considered in the calculations for the plume (12.17, 11.60 and 9.70), this clogging will occur after 10, 18 and 5,900 years after the onset on interaction, respectively. For each case, the heavily altered zone in bentonite is confined very close to the interface. There are uncertainties related to the present calculations, the greatest ones pertaining to the poor knowledge of mineral dissolution/precipitation kinetics and to constraining the set of secondary minerals possible to form. The effects of the latter were clearly illustrated in two model cases (pH 11.60 and 9.70), where initially supersaturated secondary mineral phases were omitted; the pore clogging did not take place at the fracture-buffer interface and the buffer was continuously exposed to the alkaline plume. According to the present model calculations, it seems that the evolution of the interfacial porosity in the model system with pH 12.17 is not very sensitive to the selection of the secondary minerals as the pore space was clogged regardless.


Leptospirosis in pregnancy is often underdiagnosed and not commonly reported due to its unusual appearance and rarity. It looks like HELLP syndrome, obstetric cholestasis, viral hepatitis & pregnancy-related acute fatty liver. Miscarriages in the first trimester, stillbirths, and neonatal leptospirosis are serious complications that necessitate a high degree of concern, heightened sensitivity, and prompt diagnosis and treatment. We have one such incidence of leptospirosis in a COVID-19 positive pregnant female. A 21-year-old Primigravida with a predisposition of serious anaemia & thrombocytopenia, presented with fever, haematemesis, malena and sore throat at 38 weeks and 2 days gestation, during the COVID-19 pandemic. She had pallor, oedema, and haematuria on catheterization, rest all investigations were within normal limits. Proteinuria, haemolysis, low platelets, and elevated bilirubin were discovered during the investigation. Due to the lack of hypertension and elevated transaminases, the working diagnosis was atypical haemolysis, low platelets (HELLP) syndrome. The patient was tested for COVID-19 RT-PCR, came out to be positive and the fever spikes continued, leading to further investigations for Dengue, Malaria, Scrub Typhus, and Leptospirosis due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. After the EIA (Enzyme Immunoassay) IgM antibody (confirmatory for Leptospirosis) tested positive for Leptospirosis, the decision to start Doxycycline was made. Meanwhile, the patient's CTG (Cardio tocograph) revealed signs of foetal distress, and a decision for an emergency LSCS was taken (Lower Segment Caesarean Section). The histology of the placenta after the section revealed normal findings. Doxycycline was initiated with a neonatal feeding regimen that was acceptable. On day two of life, the newborn had no indications of inherited leptospirosis and was removed from Neonatal Intensive Care. Within one week, the patient's symptoms had disappeared, and her biochemistry had went back to normal within 2 weeks.


A connection between precision and downside expected lost revenue for linear systems was developed in previous work. Having the value of precision and accuracy in economic terms helps justify the upgrade of instrumentation and/or the increase in corrective maintenance repair rate. The connection between accuracy and economic value is extended in this article to the case where biases are present and in the context of existing corrective maintenance capabilities. © 2005 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2006


This study aims to determine the consumption effect of Coleus tuberosus flour and crackers rich in resistant starch type 3 to glucose and lipids profiles in diabetic mice. The study was conducted with four treatments (normal mice with AIN 93 diet, diabetic mice with AIN 93 diet, diabetic mice with Coleus tuberosus flour diet, diabetic mice with coleus tuberosus crackers rich in resistant starch type 3). The analysis of blood glucose levels and lipids profile were determined using an enzymatic colorimetric method with a commercial kit. The results showed that the consumption of Coleus tuberosus flour and crackers rich in resistant starch type 3 can improve glucose and lipids profile (total cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein, high-density lipoprotein) in alloxan-induced diabetic mice. The atherogenic index was smaller on the diet treatment of Coleus tuberosus flour rich in resistant starch type 3 and Coleus tuberosus crackers rich in resistant starch type 3 compared to the AIN 93 feed. This study shows that the raw material (Coleus tuberosus flour rich in resistant starch type 3) and Coleus tuberosus crackers that are rich in resistant starch type 3 can potentially be consumed as a functional food to improve glucose and lipid profiles in diabetes mellitus condition. Current Research in Nutrition and Food Science Journal Website:www.foodandnutritionjournal.org ISSN: 2347-467X, Vol. 05, No. (3) 2017, Pg. CONTACT Mutiara Nugraheni firstname.lastname@example.com Department of Culinary Art Vocational Education, Yogyakarta State University, Indonesia. © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Enviro Research Publishers This is an Open Access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ ), which permits unrestricted NonCommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To link to this article: Article history Received: 17 September 2017 Accepted:14 December 2017


© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The global banking industry has seen dramatic changes in the past 40 years. Most recently, the financial liberalization of emerging markets and the global financial crisis have significantly impacted the market share of banks worldwide. This article investigates the impact of the 2007-2008 financial crisis on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the banking sector and emphasizes the role of emerging-market banks in the postcrisis consolidation trend. Using M&A data and concentration data over the period 2000-2013, our analysis indicates that the financial crisis had a significant impact on worldwide M&As, especially on the direction of the transactions. Emerging-market banks appear to be major acquirers in the postcrisis period, targeting both neighboring countries and developed economies in Europe. We also observe an increase in bank concentration in developed markets most hit by the financial crisis, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, whereas bank concentration decreased in emerging markets.


Background: The purpose of our study was to investigate the presence of myocardial fibrosis in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy compared to clinical and functional patterns and in comparison to a control cohort. Methods: We examined 45 consecutive patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and no coronary artery disease (ejection fraction (EF) 38.5±8.9%). Results were compared with 46 controls similarly distributed for age with normal EF (63±5.5%). Late gadolinium enhancement sequences and functional parameters of left ventricular function were obtained. Results: We observed a significant difference between patients and controls in late gadolinium enhancement, that is, 30 (67 %) of the patients presented subepicardial or midmyocardial lesions of enhancement, whereas only 5 (11%) of the controls did so, (p<0.0001). Stroke volume and cardiac output were significantly lower in patients with lesions, compared to patients without lesions. Patients with lesions had a higher NYHA class. There were significantly more patients than controls with enhancement of the pericardium (47% vs 15%, p =0.001). Conclusion: In patients with dilated cardiomyopathy, the presence of myocardial lesions correlates with LV functional parameters and clinical markers of heart failure. The regional distribution pattern indicates an important role of remote myocarditis and perimyocarditis in the etiology of this disease.


ABSTRACTThe thermal treatment of coal fly ash (FA) utilized by industries will inevitably lead to the emission of mercury, potentially causing atmospheric pollution. The present study is aimed at understanding the emission amount and species distribution of mercury during FA thermal treatment, and attempts were made to further provide basic data of mercury emission for environmental utilization of the FA by industries as raw materials. The physio-chemical properties of FA were analyzed and FA samples were heated at 200–1200°C in a tubular furnace in an oxidizing atmosphere. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was carried out to determine the content of residual carbon in FA. The mercury species distribution was determined using United States EPA method 3200. The results indicated that semi-mobile mercury was the main mercury species in FA. Owing to the adsorption of residual carbon on Hg0, more residual carbon which lead to higher proportion of semi-mobile obtained in coarser size grades. 20% of total mercury emitted at 206°C, followed by a rapid growth of the emission rate of mercury at above 206°C, and the emission of total mercury achieved to be 50% and 90% corresponding to 291°C and 515°C, respectively. A distinct transformation from semi-mobile mercury to extractable mercury occurred at 200°C due to catalytic oxidation of Hg0 and enhance the mobility and potential toxicity of mercury. Both extractable and semi-mobile mercury decreased sharply at 300–400°C. Finally, the non-mobile mercury was emitted with combustion of residual carbon in FA at 600–800°C. It was thus concluded that measures would be taken to control emission of mercury for environmentally friendly utilization of coal FA by industries when the FA was heated higher than 300°C.


In order to solve the problems of time-consuming, laborconsuming and low accuracy of manual statistical calculation of maintenance interval in current communication equipment operation and maintenance management, a communication equipment condition based maintenance decision-making system based on real-time condition monitoring is proposed. Based on the actual operation status information data of communication equipment in the real-time database, the system uses the life prediction calculation method of communication equipment related components to calculate the service life (operation hours and startup times) under the current state, convert it into the equivalent service life under the benchmark operation conditions, and then compare it with the maximum maintenance life to predict the remaining life Based on the product of maintenance coefficient and service coefficient of line hours and startup times, the concept of equivalent service coefficient is proposed. According to whether the equivalent service coefficient of operation period and forecast period is equal, four maintenance decision-making models are established, and then the specific maintenance opportunity of communication equipment related components is determined.


Seronegative children undergoing primary infection sensitively reflect the residual virulence of an experimental attenuated respiratory vitral vaccine. Two temperature sensitive (ts) A/Hong Kong influenza vaccines derived following chemical mutagenesis of a cloned stock of A/Great Lakes/65 have been evaluated in vaccine trials in seronegative children. The two vaccines, ts-1[A] and ts 1[E], differ in their laboratory characteristics. Ts-1[A] has a lower shut-off temperature, 37 degrees C vs 38 degrees C, and more limited replication in the Syrian hamster model system than ts-1[E]. In A/HK seronegative adults ts-1[A] is noninfectious whereas ts-1[E] will replicate and induce an antibody response. The genetic lesion of ts-1[A] was stable in the young child; in contrast, late in the course of virus shedding, ts-1[E] exhibited genetic instability with 4 individuals shedding virus which had lost the ts marker. Transmission to controls was rare with both vaccines being observed in only 1 of 5 controls with ts-1[A] and none of six controls with ts-1[E]. There were no respiratory symptoms associated with ts-1[A] vaccine virus shedding. Ts-1[E] virus shedding had a suggestive association with fever and cough in the seronegative child. The trials in seronegative children extent and confirm the inherent differences between ts-1[A] and ts-1[E] vaccine strains and support the concept that laboratory markers of attenuation are predictive of vaccine behavior in the seronegative child.


To study the effects of interruption of stria terminalis on ovarian activity in immature rats, bilateral electrolytic lesions were placed in 69 female Holtzmann rats at 18–20 days of age; 41 nonoperated littermates served as controls. All animals were killed at 33 days of age and the endocrine organs and uteri were weighed. Brains were serially sectioned and examined histologically for lesion localization. Seventeen rats with bilateral interruption of stria terminalis had a mean uterine weight of 146.1 ± 13.60 mg compared with 85.3 ± 4.38 mg for the controls (P < .01). Although the vaginas of all control rats remained closed, five rats with bilateral transection of stria terminalis had open vaginas prior to autopsy. Similar stimulatory effects were not observed with bilateral lesions of thalamus, caudate-putamen, fimbria of the fornix or internal capsule. The results support the inclusion of the amygdaloid complex in neural mechanisms that inhibit gonadotrophin secretion in the immature female rat and sug...


We examine the influence of the superconducting proximity effect on the transport properties of a T-shaped double quantum dot strongly coupled to two normal, nonmagnetic or ferromagnetic leads. We show that the two-stage Kondo screening may be suppressed or enhanced by the presence of pairing correlations, depending on the specific geometric arrangement of the device. We explain our results by invoking effective decrease of Coulomb interactions by proximity effect and find qualitatively correct description in many cases, although spin-filtering effect stemming from spin-dependent Fano-Kondo interference occurs to be surprisingly fragile to the presence of induced pairing. The results are obtained within the numerical renormalization group framework in the limit of large superconducting gap, which allows for a reliable examination of the low-temperature sub-gap properties of the considered system. Nevertheless, finite temperature effects are also taken into account.


Raman spectroscopy is a fundamental form of molecular spectroscopy that is widely used to investigate structures and properties of molecules using their vibrational transitions. It relies on inelastic scattering of monochromatic laser light irradiating the specimen. After appropriate filtering the scattered light is dispersed onto a detector to determine the shift from the excitation wavelength, which appears in the form of characteristic spectral patterns. The technique can investigate biological samples and provide real-time diagnosis of diseases. However, despite its intrinsic advantages of specificity and minimal perturbation, the Raman scattered light is typically very weak and limits applications of Raman spectroscopy due to measurement (im)precision, driven by inherent noise in the acquired spectra. In this article, we review the principal noise sources that impact quantitative biological Raman spectroscopy. Further, we discuss how such noise effects can be reduced by innovative changes in the constructed Raman system and appropriate signal processing methods.


We report the first outdoor study of the intrinsic photochemical stability of a series of conjugated polymers encapsulated in an inert atmosphere and exposed to natural sunlight illumination conditions in the Negev Desert. The photoinduced aging effects resulting in the modification of the chemical structures of the materials and the appearance of persistent radical species in the samples were revealed by EPR spectroscopy. Comparing the degradation profiles normalized to the total number of absorbed photons allowed us to establish some correlations between the chemical structures of polymers (and even particular building blocks) and their photostability. Our approach may be widely used for the facile screening of many existing conjugated polymers with respect to their intrinsic photostability under outdoor solar conditions as well as for the elaboration of guidelines for designing novel promising materials for stable and efficient organic photovoltaics.


Background . Different studies have shown that dysmorphic uterus may be associated with reproductive failure and adverse reproductive outcomes. Eu-ploid embryos may fail to implant if the uterine environment is not appropriate. Nevertheless, a causal relationship between dysmorphic uterus and impaired endometrial receptivity remains unproven. Case presentation . Therapeutic management of T-shaped uterus is challenging while some authors advice expectant management others find encouraging results after enlargement of uterine cavity by hysteroscopic metroplasty. Here we present a case of primary infertility in a 35 years-old woman, who presented a dysmorphic uterus on her fertility workup. She followed IVF cycle and had two failed embryo transfers besides personalized embryo transfer according to ERA test result and correction of mild dysbiosis according to EMMA test recommendations. She was offered hysteroscopic metroplasty and a sequential oestrogen-progestagen therapy for two months. The anatomical outcome was evaluated through second look hysteroscopy and 3D transvaginal ultrasound, and a new evaluation of endometrial receptivity was performed: her ERA test result before hysteroscopy was post-receptive and after the procedure showed receptive endometrium with 5 full days of progesterone administration, an optimal window of implantation, Alice test found no pathogens and no dysbiotic endometrial microenvironment. She had a spontaneous pregnancy afterwards. Conclusions . This is first report to describe the impact of hysteroscopic metro-plasty for U1a dysmorphic uterus on endometrial receptivity. This could shed some light for further research in order to explain improvement on reproductive outcome found by different authors after hysteroscopic metroplasty for correction of T-shaped uterus.


Keenan and Comrie's Accessibility Hierarchy (AH) applied to c1efting predicts greater c1eftability of subject (s U) than direct object (D 0). However, in some Eastern Austronesian languages, particularly Tongan, some transitive SUs are less c1eftable than other transitive SUs or DOs, and some DOs are less c1eftable than other DOs. This split pattern relates to both transitivity and ergativity. On the one hand, reduced c1eftability cooccurs with middle verbs which have weaker transitivity. On the other hand, the lesser c1eftability of 3SG transitive SU exhibits a split ergative pattern, whose apparent conflict with the AH may be resolved by reinterpreting the absolutive NP as SU and the ergative N P as DO. In any case, an adequate description of c1eftability needs to address interaction between the AH and other parts of the grammar.


Introduction caustic pharyngoesophageal strictures are life-threatening injuries with important management difficulties, lacking clear therapeutic guidelines. The aim of this study is to evaluate the surgical procedures and outcomes of severe caustic pharyngoesophageal strictures in our institution. Methods a total of 29 patients who underwent surgery for severe caustic pharyngoesophageal injury at the National Cardiothoracic Center from June 2006 to December 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. The age distribution, sex, management procedures, complications after surgery, and the outcome were analyzed. Results there were 17 males. The mean age was 11.7 years (range 2- 56 years). All patients accidentally swallowed caustic soda, except the oldest patient who ingested an unidentified substance. The treatment procedures included colopharyngoplasty in 15 (51.7%) patients, colon-flap augmentation pharyngoesophagoplasty (CFAP) in 10 (34.5%), and colopharyngoplasty with tracheostomy in 4 (13.8%). There was one case of graft obstruction from a retrosternal adhesive band and one case of postoperative reflux with nocturnal regurgitation. No cervical anastomotic leak occurred. Rehabilitative training for oral feeding was required for less than a month in most patients. Follow-up period ranged from one to twelve years. Four patients died within this period; two were immediate post-operative deaths and two occurred late. One patient was lost to follow-up. Conclusion outcome of surgery for caustic pharyngoesophageal stricture is satisfactory. Colon-flap augmentation pharyngoesophagoplasty reduces the need for tracheostomy before surgery, and our patients start eating early without aspiration.


An exposition of the results on synchronization and state estimation of nonlinear systems over the limitedband communication channel is given. Relevance of passifiability condition for controlled synchronization of master-slave nonlinear systems for first order and full-order coder/decoder pairs is demonstrated. The algorithm for state estimation of spatially distributed systems based on the local measurements and quantization of the transmitted data is developed, and its limit opportunities are studied. The numerical and experimental results for various physical systems are described, demonstrating practical applicability of the theoretical statements and high efficiency of the proposed estimation and synchronization schemes.


Non-glial intermediate filament (IMF) proteins, as well as glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and vimentin, were studied by immunohistochemistry in 24 gliomas including low grade astrocytoma, pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma, anaplastic astrocytoma, glioblastoma, oligodendroglioma, ependymoma and ependymoblastoma, which were fixed in ethanol and embedded in paraffin. Cytoskeletal elements isolated from two glioblastomas were examined with immunoblot analysis. All tumors had GFAP-positive neoplastic cells and vimentin was also found in all the tumors except one oligodendroglioma. Twenty-three gliomas were immunostained with anti-desmin polyclonal antibody (DM-P), but anti-desmin monoclonal antibody reacted to only one glioblastoma. DM-P might crossreact with GFAP and vimentin. Cytokeratin expression was investigated with six antibodies. Twenty gliomas (83%) were positive for the antibody against epidermal keratin (CK-SE), however positive immunoreactivity varied from 58 to 8% with other cytokeratin antibodies. With the Western blot method, CK-SE had protein bands at 53 and 60-66 kDa. Neurofilament was expressed in one pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma, one anaplastic astrocytoma, one glioblastoma and one ependymoblastoma. Expression of nonglial IMF proteins were observed in 21 tumors (88%), and coexpression of 4 or 5 classes of IMF proteins in 3 tumors (13%). We conclude that, in addition to GFAP and vimentin, gliomas express several types of non-glial IMF proteins.


New applications of liquid crystalline materials have increased the need for precise engineering of elastic properties. Recently, Sidky et al. presented methods by which the elastic coefficients of molecular models with atomistic detail can be accurately calculated, demonstrating the result for the ubiquitous mesogen 5CB. In this work, these techniques are applied to the homologous series of nCB materials, focusing on the standard bend, twist, and splay deformations, using an entirely automated process. Our results show strong agreement with published experimental measurements for the nCBs and present a path forward to computational molecular engineering of liquid crystal elasticity for novel molecules and mixtures.


The frequency dependence of non-sequential double ionization (NSDI) of Ne is studied using a semiclassical rescattering model. It is found that the ratio (Ne2+/Ne+), calculated for a laser intensity of 1.0 × 1015 W cm−2, increases while the wavelength decreases down to about 250 nm, the limit of the applied model. Careful investigations of the trajectories show that there are two categories of double ionization: 'instant ionization' and 'delayed ionization'. By limiting the time interval between the re-collision time and ionization time, the 'delayed ionization' is identified to give rise to the high probability of NSDI in the short wavelength region.


Interleukin-8 (IL-8, CXCL8) was originally discovered as a powerful attractor and activator of polymorphonuclear leukocytes. It was soon recognized that IL-8 also affects proliferation and migration of cancer cells, tumor angiogenesis and metastasis, and that it is expressed in many cancerous cell types. IL-8 protein expression is usually increased in serum of cancer patients, but markedly higher concentrations are found in cancer-associated non-vascular extracellular fluids, such as pleural effusion, ascites and cyst fluid. Elevated concentrations of IL-8 are indicative of malignant processes also in cerebrospinal fluid, urine, saliva, interstitial fluid and cervicovaginal secretions. Higher IL-8 levels are typically found in high-grade peritumoral fluids rather than low-grade tumors and benign conditions, with the exception of inflammatory processes. In line with recent molecular biology investigations, it appears that the local IL-8 production is related to its malignant origin and to tumor progression. Hence, IL-8 in peritumoral fluid is to be taken into consideration while assessing tumor character and monitoring the tumor progression/remission status. Besides, the data here collected justify the attempts to find an IL-8-targeted inhibitory therapy.


We computationally study the transport of active, self-propelled particles suspended in a two-dimensional chaotic flow. The pointlike, spherical particles have their own intrinsic swimming velocity, which modifies the dynamical system so that the particles can break the transport barriers present in the carrier flow. Surprisingly, we find that swimming does not necessarily lead to enhanced particle transport. Small but finite swimming speed can result in reduced transport, as swimmers get stuck for long times in traps that form near elliptic islands in the background flow. Our results have implications for models of transport and encounter rates for small marine organisms.


Introduction: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous, hematologic malignancy characterized by clonal proliferation of myeloid precursors. Overall survival for patients with AML remains dismal (<50% for younger patients and <10% for older patients) due to high relapse rates, necessitating the identification of novel therapeutic targets. CD97 is a glycoprotein belonging to the EGF-TM7 molecule family, a subgroup of adhesion G-protein coupled receptors. CD97 was shown to play a role in cell migration, adhesion and interaction with cell surface proteins and components of the extracellular matrix. In several solid cancers, CD97 association with integrin was shown to regulate invasion, migration, angiogenesis, and poor survival outcome. Even though CD97 is normally expressed on myeloids and leukocytes, there is sparse data related to its expression on myeloid leukemia cells. In this study, we characterized CD97 expression in patients with AML using publically available data sets to determine its association with patient's clinical and molecular characteristics and clinical outcome.
 Methods: CD97 mRNA (RNA Seq V2 RSEM) expression and Z-score data was downloaded from TCGA. We generated Kaplan-Meier survival curves to compare overall (OS) and event-free (EFS) survival between patients with CD97 high (Z≥1) and CD97 low (Z<1) expression after stratification by age, cytogenetic status, transplant status and NPM1 mutation status. Association between CD97 expression and patient clinical and molecular characteristics was performed by Mann-Whitney U's non-parametric t-test and Fisher's exact test. STATA 12.0 SE was used to perform a Cox Proportional Hazards Model.
 Results: Patients with cytogenetically normal AML (CN-AML) had significantly higher CD97 expression than cytogenetically abnormal AML (CA-AML) (1.31 fold, p=0.023). Patients with high CD97 expression had significantly higher WBC count (median: 56.1 vs 13.1, p=0.004) and % bone marrow blasts (median: 83 vs 71%, p=0.019). CD97 was significantly higher in patients with NPM1 mutation (n=48) compared with patients with NPM1 wild type (n=125) (1.56 fold, p<0.000). CD97 was also significantly higher in patients with FLT3 mutation (ITD and point mutations) (n=49) compared with patients with FLT3 wild type (n=124) (1.4 fold, p=0.0008). Additionally, CD97 was significantly lower in the patients with RUNX1 mutation (n=17) compared with wildtype gene (n=156) (42.1% lower; p=0.0002).
 The OS of the CD97 high was significantly shorter than that of the CD97 low patients (median: 7.35 vs. 24.1 months; p=0.0015). Patients with CD97 high expression had significantly shorter EFS than that of CD97 low (median: 5.35 vs. 12 months; p=0.0015). Furthermore, in CN-AML CD97 high patients had shorter OS than CD97 low patients in CN-AML (median: 7.5 vs 20.5 months; p=0.0045; Figure 3B). In multivariate survival analysis, CD97 high expression was associated with shorter OS when adjusted for age, cytogenetic risk and transplant status (HR= 1.96; 95% Cl: 1.19-3.24; p=0.009).
 Because CD97 expression was associated with NPM1 mutation in AML, we stratified patients according to NPM1 mutational status and found that in patients with wildtype NPM1, CD97 high expression was associated with significantly shorter OS (Median survival: 6.35 vs 22.3 months; P= 0.0081) and EFS (Median survival: 5.35 vs 13.4 months; P=0.0006). In patients with NPM1 mutation, a similar but not significant association was observed with CD97 high expression and shorter OS (median survival: 7.5 vs 24.1 months; P=0.1) and EFS (median survival: 5.8 vs 11.1 months; P=0.27).
 Furthermore, in patients ≥ 60; CD97 high expression was associated with shorter OS compared with CD97 low (median survival 3.3 vs 11 months; p=0.0019) and EFS (Median survival 2.9 vs 9.2 months; p=0.0092). Similar but not significant association was observed in in patients<60 (Median OS: 27.5 vs 53.9; p=0.2) and (Median EFS 8.5 vs 53.9; p=0.2).
 Conclusion: Patients with high CD97 expression had shorter OS and EFS. CD97 was higher in CN-AML compared with CA-AML patients. Additionally, high CD97 was also associated with NPM1 mutation. Our findings demonstrate that CD97 expression contributes to the clinical outcome of patients with AML, particularly in older patients. This study provides rationale for further functional and mechanistic studies aiming to understand the role of CD97 in AML.

 No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Background: Overexpression of HER2 occurs in ~25% of breast cancers. Despite the treatment successes achieved to date, improved clinical outcomes remain needed, including prevention and treatment of CNS metastases. Small-molecule HER2 inhibitors may have the advantage of being able to treat CNS and systemic disease simultaneously, particularly if used in combination with antibody-based therapy. However, currently available small molecules also target EGFR, with associated use limiting toxicities. Therefore, a specific small-molecule inhibitor of HER2 is needed. ARRY-380 is an oral, potent, reversible, ATP competitive, small molecule inhibitor of HER2. In cell-based assays, ARRY-380 was ~500-fold selective for HER2 versus EGFR. In multiple preclinical models, ARRY-380 demonstrated significant single agent and combination activity. In models of CNS disease, ARRY-380 was highly active as a single agent and demonstrated superior activity compared to lapatinib or neratinib. Thus, ARRY-380 was evaluated in a first in human clinical study. Methods: A Phase 1 clinical study of ARRY-380 was conducted in patients with advanced solid tumors that are believed to express HER2, with both dose-escalation (25 to 800 mg BID) and MTD expansion components. ARRY-380 was administered BID in 28 day cycles. Safety was assessed by AEs, clinical laboratory test results, physical examinations, vital signs and ECGs. Tumor response was assessed by RECIST every 2 cycles. Serial PK assessments were conducted in Cycle 1 on Days 1 and 3 and at steady state on Day 15. Results: A total of 50 patients were enrolled (33 dose-escalation and 17 expansion). These results focus on the 31 patients treated at doses ≥ MTD: 27 at the MTD of 600/650 mg BID and 4 at 800 mg BID. All 31 patients had HER2+ metastatic breast cancer (MBC) that had progressed on a prior trastuzumab containing regimen and 94% had received prior lapatinib, many who progressed on treatment. Dose limiting toxicity consisting of reversible Grade (G) 3 AST (n=1) and AST/ALT elevations (n=1) occurred in 2 of 4 patients treated at 800 mg BID, with an onset that occurred within 1 week, resolved within 2 weeks, and patients resumed treatment at a lower dose. Overall, ARRY-380 demonstrated an acceptable safety profile at the MTD. The most common treatment-related AEs were nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, vomiting, liver enzyme elevations and rash, and were primarily G1 with a low incidence of G2 (gastrointestinal events [n=2], fatigue [n=3], liver enzyme elevations [n=2]) or G3 (rash [n=1], liver enzyme elevations [n=1]) events. There were no treatment-related cardiac events, serious AEs or G4 AEs. ARRY-380 Cmax and AUC increased with increasing dose, with a Tmax of 2 hours and a t1/2 of 5 hours. Twenty-two HER2+ MBC patients with measurable disease were treated with ARRY-380 at doses ≥ 600 mg BID. In this heavily pretreated population, there was a clinical benefit rate (PR [n=3] plus SD for at least 6 months [n=3]) of 27%. Notably, 2 patients with PRs on ARRY-380 had confirmed progressions while on prior lapatinib- and trastuzumab-containing regimens. Conclusions: ARRY-380 has demonstrated an acceptable safety and PK profile at the MTD. As predicted for a HER2-selective agent that does not inhibit EGFR, there was a very low incidence of Grade 2/3 rash and diarrhea. ARRY-380 has shown promising signs of antitumor activity in a heavily pretreated HER2+ MBC population. These safety and preliminary efficacy data support the continued clinical development of ARRY-380 at the recommended dose of 600 mg BID. Citation Format: Virginia F. Borges, Steven K.L Chia, Susan D9Aloisio, Gina Fernetich, Bessie Sajan, Tessa McSpadden, Renae Chavira, Emma Barrett, Kari Guthrie, Jennifer Garrus, Tara Baetz, Stacy Moulder. ARRY-380, an oral HER2 inhibitor: Final phase 1 results and conclusions. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Advances in Breast Cancer Research: Genetics, Biology, and Clinical Applications; Oct 3-6, 2013; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Res 2013;11(10 Suppl):Abstract nr A050.


New conjugated oligomers, oligo(9,9-didodecylfluorene-bis-sulphurdiimide), consisting of 9,9-didodecylfluorene separated by -N=S=N- moieties, are reported. These oligomers are stable purple solids under ambient conditions with absorption covering a broad spectral window in the UV-vis range and a main broad peak centered at 555 nm with onset extending to 700 nm. These oligomers show an obviously longer conjugation length than its dimeric analogue, bis-9,9-didodecyl-fluorene-2-sulfurdiimide that shows a band-edge absorption centered at 484 nm with onset at 590 nm. The dimer and oligomers are soluble in a variety of organic solvents. Moreover, we found that the oligomer with an average repeating-unit number of six could significantly quench the photoluminescence (PL) of poly[2-methoxy-5-(2'-ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene vinylene] (MEH-PPV) or poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) in the solid state. More importantly, the composites of this oligomer with P3HT showed a nearly 10-fold enhancement of the photocurrent, compared with that of P3HT itself. In addition, the PL of this oligomer could be quenched by the presence of phenyl-C 61 -butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) in toluene. These results suggest the presence of photoinduced charge transfer in composites of these oligomers blended with an electronic partner that either donates or accepts electrons.


Abstract Background Little is known about disparities in economic burden due to premature cancer deaths by race or ethnicity in the United States. This study aimed to compare person-years of life lost (PYLLs) and lost earnings due to premature cancer deaths by race/ethnicity. Methods PYLLs were calculated using recent national cancer death and life expectancy data. PYLLs were combined with annual median earnings to generate lost earnings. We compared PYLLs and lost earnings among individuals who died at age 16-84 years due to cancer by racial/ethnic groups (non-Hispanic [NH] White, NH Black, NH Asian or Pacific Islander, and Hispanic). Results In 2015, PYLLs due to all premature cancer deaths were 6 512 810 for NH Whites, 1 196 709 for NH Blacks, 279 721 for NH Asian or Pacific Islanders, and 665 968 for Hispanics, translating to age-standardized lost earning rates (per 100 000 person-years) of $34.9 million, $43.5 million, $22.2 million, and $24.5 million, respectively. NH Blacks had higher age-standardized PYLL and lost earning rates than NH Whites for 13 of 19 selected cancer sites. If age-specific PYLL and lost earning rates for NH Blacks were the same as those of NH Whites, 241 334 PYLLs and $3.2 billion lost earnings (22.6% of the total lost earnings among NH Blacks) would have been avoided. Disparities were also observed for average PYLLs and lost earnings per cancer death for all cancers combined and 18 of 19 cancer sites. Conclusions Improving equal access to effective cancer prevention, screening, and treatment will be important in reducing the disproportional economic burden associated with racial/ethnic disparities.


The aim of this study is to contribute to the valorization of the cocoa bean varieties "Mercedes" and "Forastero" grown in Côte d'Ivoire. A comparative characterisation of phenolic compounds and minerals in the beans of the "Mercedes" and "Forastero" varieties from two major cocoa production areas of Côte d'Ivoire were determined. The phenolic compounds of cocoa beans were determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and the minerals by atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The study showed that a significant difference at the 5% level was observed in the averages of minerals, cinnamic acid, protocatechic acid, quercetin, coumaric acid, rutin, ellagic acid, veratric acid, epicatechin, ferulic acid and naringenin. On the other hand, no significant difference at the 5% level was observed in the averages of arbutin, catechin, vanillic acid and caffeic acid in the bean kernels analysed in the Divo and Abengourou regions. The proportion of cinnamic acid is (6.18±0.63 mg/100g "Mercedes" Divo), that of ellagic acid is (18.48±0.44 mg/100g "Mercedes" Divo) and that of naringenin is (5.95±0.35 mg/100g "Mercedes" Divo). The amount of potassium is (7569.97±1.51 mg/kg "Forastero" of Abengourou) and that of iron is (179.9 ± 0.70 mg/Kg "Forastero" of Divo). The phenolic compounds and minerals in the cocoa bean samples analysed are highly correlated and rich in antioxidants. They would be beneficial for many biological functions. They can be recommended in pharmacology and cosmetics to fight against oxidative stress and cardiovascular diseases.


Tracking failures and poor performance across a widely distributed system of resources has proven challenging for many ongoing DOE applications. An example is the Open Science Grid (OSG) project, which currently experiences a roughly 15% job failure rate. This can be an issue not only for Grid computing but for anyone performing large-scale data transfers to remote machines because of the large number of interconnected components and services. As part of the Center for Enabling Distributed Petascale Science (CEDPS) project we have been building an infrastructure to work with current middleware and existing system tools to more easily track failures and discover anomalous behavior. This consists of a common logging format, the extension of syslog-ng for centralized collection of data, a data summarizer to more easily manage the volume of logging, and an anomaly detection system that can connect to a warning system when unexpected behaviors occur. We are currently working with OSG to deploy a prototype of the full system. The initial logs gathered will be used to extend the analysis tools and to increase the reliability of the services for the SciDAC end user community.


Hydrogen (H2) nonpremixed combustion has been showcased as a potentially viable and preferable strategy for direct-injection compression-ignition (DICI) engines for its ability to deliver high heat release rates and low heat transfer losses, in addition to potentially zero CO2 emissions. However, this concept requires a different optimization strategy compared to conventional diesel engines, prioritizing a combustion mode dominated by free turbulent jet mixing. In the present work, this optimization strategy is realized and studied computationally using the CONVERGE CFD solver. It involves adopting wide piston bowl designs with shapes adapted to the H2 jets, altered injector umbrella angle, and an increased number of nozzle orifices with either smaller orifice diameter or reduced injection pressure to maintain constant injector flow rate capacity. This work shows that these modifications are effective at maximizing free-jet mixing, thus enabling more favorable heat release profiles, reducing wall heat transfer by 35%, and improving indicated efficiency by 2.2 percentage points. However, they also caused elevated incomplete combustion losses at low excess air ratios, which may be eliminated by implementing a moderate swirl, small post-injections, and further optimized jet momentum and piston design. Noise emissions with the optimized DICI H2 combustion are shown to be comparable to those from conventional diesel engines. Finally, it is demonstrated that modern engine concepts, such as the double compression-expansion engine, may achieve around 56% brake thermal efficiency with the DICI H2 combustion, which is 1.1 percentage point higher than with diesel fuel. Thus, this work contributes to the knowledge base required for future improvements in H2 engine efficiency.


Job shop scheduling problem (JSP) is one of the most difficult NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems due to the "combination explosion" effect. This paper presents the implementation of ant colony system on JSP by proposing a novel combination of path-construction and pheromone-representation. Based on the simple traditional path-construction, a kind of more effective pheromone is employed to improve the optimization performance. Numerical experiment is executed on several benchmark JSP cases, and yields favorable results compared with results obtained by traditional implementation of ACS for JSP.


Silver nanowires with diameters ranging from 150 to 2OO11111 and lengths of 20 µm ∼ 40 µm or more were prepared by synthesizing in solution-phase. After preparing Ag nanowires, we removed PVP on the surface of Ag nanowires. The methods to remove PVP are followed. We stirred Ag nanowires / 5M HNO3 solutions for 30 minutes. This method makes PVP on an Ag nanowire surface be etched and corroded. Next, we made the nanosized chemical gas sensor using an Ag nanowire between two electrodes on the silicon substrate to use DEP force. Upon exposure to ammonia(NH3) vapor, ensembles of these Ag nanowires showed a resistance increase, that was large, fast and reversible. The reason is that the PVP on the surface of Ag nanowires are removed. These PVP have played role in protecting from by ammonia(NH3) vapor. After removing PVP, the corrosion parts are made on the surface of Ag nanowire. These corrosion parts on an Ag nanowire surface respond with NH3 vapor in the air. We guess that this chemical responding is influenced by some reasons, which interrupt electron's transfer through an Ag nanowire backbone. However, more data will be needed in order to unambiguously reveal the structure and chemical composition.


Synopsis : It has been known that crystallization of mold powder is effective on the disturbance of heat transfer between mold and solidified shell in production of middle carbon steel slabs in continuous casting process. But it has not yet been made clear which composition of mold powder is the most suitable for crystallization. The crystallization behavior of Li2O-SiO2, Na2O-SiO2 and Na2O-CaO-SiO2 glasses was observed by differential thermal analysis (DTA) and hot-thermocouple methods with DTA in the present work. As a result, addition of alkaline metal and alkaline earth metal oxides to SiO2 increased the critical cooling rate for glass formation in binary system of Li2O-SiO2 and Na2O-SiO2 ,and Li2O-SiO2 system crystallized easier than Na2O-SiO2 system. In ternary system of Na2OCaO-SiO2, addition of Na2O hurried the critical cooling rate at CaO/SiO2= 0.93 mass ratio, but the rate was almost constant in the composition range of more than 15 mass% Na20. The slag of CaO/SiO2= 0.93 made the rate faster than the slag of CaO/SiO2 = 0.47 at constant content of 10mass% Na2O.


GAS gangrene has been recognized for many years as a possible complication in war wounds, in badly contaminated wounds in civilian life, and possibly in grossly infected cases involving intra-abdominal surgery when fecal soilage has occurred. In such instances, the alert surgeon will always consider gas gangrene as a possibility and will be prepared to treat it when the first signs develop. However, when the case is one of an elective abdominal operation, in which everything appeared to go as planned, no contamination was apparent, and the early convalescence was quite routine, the development of gas gangrene will come as a shock to the totally unprepared surgeon. In the early stage of this disease the correct diagnosis is often difficult to establish because many other possible complications appear to be more logical to the surgeon than does gas gangrene. The obvious classic sign (presence of gas infiltrating the subcutaneous tissue)


Indian tide gauges can be used to estimate sea level rise. To separate relative sea level rise from vertical land motion at the tide gauges, various GNSS stations have been installed in the last years at, or nearby, tide gauges. Using the PSMSL database, we have computed new sea level rise estimates for seven Indian tide gauges with realistic error bars. These error bars should be combined with the uncertainty of the vertical land motion to obtain the error bar of the absolute sea level rise. Using the GNSS properties of two inland stations, Hyderabad and Bangalore, as a proxy of the noise observed at the coastal stations, we conclude that around 5 years of observations are required to estimate the vertical land motion with an accuracy of around 0.1 mm/yr. Since the error by which the relative sea level rise can be estimated at the Indian tide gauges is mostly larger than 0.2 mm/yr, with the exception of Mumbai, such a small error of the vertical land motion is sufficient to cause no noticeable effect on the accuracy of the estimated absolute sea level rise


The number of insect species now occurring in Florida is estimated at about 12,500. Statements from specialists in 28 insect taxa (at the level of family or higher), representing some 40% of the fauna, suggest that about 12% of the total fauna (13% of the indigenous fauna, with range 0-43% among taxa) is precinctive. Immigrants form less than 8% of the total fauna. Only 42 (0.3%) species are known to have been introduced deliberately, for purposes of biological control. The proportions of immigrants and of precinctive species are far lower than in the Hawaiian insect fauna, but the proportion of immigrants exceeds that of the fauna of the contiguous United States as a whole.


Electrocardiographic abnormalities in lead aVR and V1 are rarely analyzed on exercise electrocardiograms. Clinical significance of exercise-induced ST-segment changes in lead aVR and V1 during strongly positive electrocardiographic exercise test (EET) in patients with chronic stable angina pectoris remains unclear. The aim of the study was to assess the value of lead aVR and V1 on the exercise electrocardiogram for the detection of left main coronary artery stenosis (LMCAS) and its equivalent (LMCASE) in patients with chronic stable angina pectoris and the strongly positive EET result. The study group consisted of 118 consecutive patients (mean age 58.8 +/- 9.5 years, range 38-77 years), including 30 (25.4%) women. Patients were divided into three groups. In group I, 31 patients with ST elevation in lead aVR and V1, in group II 66 patients with isolated ST elevation in lead aVR, and in group III 21 patients without ST elevation in lead aVR, induced with exercise, were included. Coronary arteriography results were compared among these groups. In patients with isolated exercise-induced ST elevation in lead aVR, the prevalence of LMCAS was five times more frequent than in patients without lead aVR ST elevation (25.8% vs 4.8% p<0.05). There were no differences in the prevalence of LMCASE and multi-vessel coronary disease in the studied groups. In patients with LMCAS significant ST elevation in lead aVR during strongly positive EET were observed (0.25 +/- 0,4 mm vs 1.43 +/- 0.6 mm p = 0.003), whereas there were no significant exercise-induced electrocardiographic changes in lead V1 (0.61 +/- 0.6 mm vs 0.77 +/- 0.6 mm p = 0.08). Sensitivity of isolated exercise-induced ST elevation in lead aVR in detection of LMCAS was 85.0%, specificity - 50.0%, positive predictive value - 25.8%, negative predictive value - 94.2%, and total accuracy - 55.9%. Exercise-induced ST elevation in lead aVR on the strongly positive exercise ECG may detect LMCAS in patients with chronic stable angina pectoris.


The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the results obtained for bovine embryo sexing using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and to compare them in order to decide which of the two methods is more accurate and yields better results while necessitating less effort. We took into consideration the pregnancy rate obtained after the transfer of biopsied embryos, the percentage of correctly sexed embryos evaluated at birth (when the predicted sex was compared with the actual sex of the newborn) as well as other characteristics related to the difficulty of the method, expenses and suitability to a minimally equipped laboratory. We concluded that the polymerase chain reaction is more accurate and suitable for sexing preimplantation bovine embryos, being in the same time easier to perform than the fluorescence in situ hybridization.


This study was conducted to evaluate the susceptibility of grapevine varieties to powdery mildew. Powdery mildew is a disease caused by a fungal, Erysiphenecator, and an obligate parasite of grapevine ( Vitisvinifera L.). Powdery mildew causes drastic yield losses of 50 to 70%. Commercial grapevines grown in producing countries are susceptible to powdery mildew. Use of fungicides to control the disease is expensive and not environmentally friendly. Therefore, use of grapevine resistant varieties to powdery mildew is cost-effective control method. In this study, ten varieties (Black rose, Regina, Queen of Vineyards, Alphoncelavallee, Makutupora red, Chancellor, Halilibelyji, Syrah, Ruby seedless and Makutupora white) were screened for resistance to powdery mildew, using artificial inoculation of spore suspension and dry inoculums. Infected grape leaves were sampled from the field and grounded to obtain powder which was used as dry inoculum. The spore suspension inoculum was made by mixing powder with sterilized distilled water. The inoculation was done in two blocks with concentration of 2x10 5 spore/ml. Disease severity was evaluated based on a scale of 0 – 5; 0, means immune and 5, high level of disease severity. Results showed significant difference (P<0.05) of disease among grape vine varieties evaluated. It was found that 11.1% were resistant, 33.4% tolerant and 55% susceptible to disease. Grapevine variety Chancellor showed the highest level of resistance, and Black rose the most susceptible. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of using inoculation methods in screening resistance to powdery mildew.


Introduction. This article analyses the representation of women in Spanish commercial cinema: as film directors and as characters. Methods. The study is based on the analysis of primary and secondary sources; the quantitative and diachronic analysis of the highest-grossing Spanish films from 2001 to 2016; the qualitative and descriptive examination of the protagonists, plots and stereotypes of a sample of 26 films. Results. Comedy is the dominant genre. There are 36 male protagonists and 23 female protagonists. The selected films revolve around the wishes of men. Discussion. Men lead the action, are antiheroes, and their sentimentality is underrepresented. Women are companions of men and are in charge of family caretaking and mediation. Conclusions. In Spain, no woman has directed a film that has grossed more than 10 million euros. This situation will not change until representation changes. Commercial cinema can build civic, respectful and human citizens; and not mere consumers, who respond to the commercial interests of the film industry.


Different from the pure financial investors, investors of established company not only take financial returns into account, but also strategic benefits. The existence of strategic benefits distorts the behavior of industrial capital for investment. And high valuation is one of its manifestations. This paper constructs a model to illustrate the high valuation of industrial capital investment. If a complementary relationship exists between invested projects and industrial capital investor's core business (i.e. strategic benefit is positive), then the industrial capital investment will result in high valuation; besides, if a substitute relationship exists between the invested projects and industrial capital investor' score business (i.e. strategic benefit is negative), high valuation problem also appears. This paper highlights the origin of high valuation problem, and puts forward corresponding proposals to solve this problem.


Abstract Surgery is the treatment of choice in the management of glomus tumours. There are several different approaches to the surgical excision of these tumours, the choice depending on the size, site of origin and pattern of spread of the tumour. The patterns of glomus tumour invasion in the temporal bone are demonstrated by reviewing the histological findings in four temporal bones with glomus tumours. The surgical techniques used in the management of 14 glomus tumours are also discussed.


The investigation was done at Anand district of Gujarat State. A random sample of 120 farmers who had participated in Krishi Mahotsav was studied. Ex-post-facto research design was used for the study. Major constraints faced by farmers were lack of training program regarding improved agricultural practices during Krishi Mahotsav, lack of time for discussion, lack of proper market-oriented information and lack of value addition related information. Major suggestions given were training programmes should be conducted for the farmers regarding improved agricultural practices during Krishi Mahotsav, place of organization of Krishi Mahotsav should be based on Agro-ecosystem basis rather than panchayat basis, providing market-oriented information and providing value addition related information.