Abstract Objective. Modified levels of pro- (caspase3, Bax) and anti-apoptotic (Bcl-2) regulatory proteins have been detected in certain brain areas of schizophrenic patients indicating a possible dysregulation of apoptosis. In the present study, effects of antipsychotics, haloperidol (HAL) and olanzapine (OLA), on the gene expression of caspase3 (casp3), Bax and Bcl-2 were studied in vitro in mouse hippocampal mHippoE-2 cell line and in vivo in the hippocampus of MK-801 animal schizophrenia model with the aim to provide evidence that antipsychotics may affect the activity of apoptosis-related markers. Methods. mHippoE-2 cells were incubated with MK-801 (20 µM), HAL (10 µM), and OLA (10 µM) alone or combined, MK-801+HAL/OLA, for 24, 48, and 72 h. Male Sprague Dawley rats were injected with saline or MK-801 (0.5 mg/kg) for 6 days and since the 7th day, they were treated with vehicle (VEH), HAL (1 mg/kg) or OLA (2 mg/kg) for the next 7 days. The casp3, Bax and Bcl-2 gene expression in mHippoE-2 cells and rat hippocampus was measured by RT-PCR. Results. In mHippoE-2 cells, casp3 gene expression was increased by MK-801 and OLA treatments alone for 48 h, HAL treatment alone for 24 and 72 h, and co-treatment with MK-801+OLA for 24 and 72 h compared to controls. HAL and OLA suppressed the stimulatory effect of MK-801 on casp3 mRNA levels in cells after 48 h of incubation. Bax mRNA levels in mHippoE-2 cells were decreased after HAL treatment for 24 and 48 h, and also after co-treatment with MK-801+HAL for 72 h. In vivo, MK-801 decreased mRNA levels of both pro-apoptotic markers, casp3 and Bax, in hippocampus of VEH-treated rats and Bax mRNA levels in hippocampus of HAL-treated animals. OLA reversed the inhibitory effect of MK-801 on casp3 expression in the VEH-treated animals. Neither MK-801 nor antipsychotics induced changes in the gene expression of anti-apoptotic marker Bcl-2 in mHippoE-2 cells as well as hippocampus of rats. Conclusions. The results of the present study demonstrate that antipsychotics, HAL and OLA, may affect mRNA levels of pro-apoptotic markers in hippocampal cells in vitro, but not in vivo. The obtained data do not clearly support the assumed potentiating role of MK-801 in inducing apoptosis in specific brain areas and a possible protective role of antipsychotics against induction of apoptosis. The obtained data may contribute to a deeper insight into the neurodevelopmental changes connected with schizophrenia.


There is still no cure for dementia, but that could change; scientists now have more tools for understanding neurodegeneration, and funding for research is at unprecedented levels. 'The future of dementia' explores the challenges facing sufferers and their families, including the lack of a cure or treatment based on the amyloid hypothesis, and economic and psychological demands on carers in an overstretched system dependent on unpaid labour. Our recent history of modern conveniences—cheap food, pollution, and climate change—may create more dementia patients. Making small changes in our lives can reduce our own risk of dementia and help us make life easier for those who already have it.


The main idea of this paper is to represent shopping items through vectors because these vectors act as the base for building em- beddings for customers and shopping carts. Also, these vectors are input to the mathematical models that act as either a recommendation engine or help in targeting potential customers. We have used exponential family embeddings as the tool to construct two basic vectors - product embeddings and context vectors. Using the basic vectors, we build combined embeddings, trip embeddings and customer embeddings. Combined embeddings mix linguistic properties of product names with their shopping patterns. The customer embeddings establish an understand- ing of the buying pattern of customers in a group and help in building customer profile. For example a customer profile can represent customers frequently buying pet-food. Identifying such profiles can help us bring out offers and discounts. Similarly, trip embeddings are used to build trip profiles. People happen to buy similar set of products in a trip and hence their trip embeddings can be used to predict the next product they would like to buy. This is a novel technique and the first of its kind to make recommendation using product, trip and customer embeddings.


While Algeria is among the countries with the lowest renewable water resources per capita in the world, agriculture accounts for 70-80% of the total water use and municipal water use is expected to almost double in the next twenty years. As potato is in Algeria the main irrigated crop and the first vegetable crop in terms of area and production, improving the potato production system and rationalizing the use of water is key to sustain the production in the future and to maintain and enhance food safety. Coherent information of the current potato production system is crucial to improve a system and since this is lacking, we research what is the current situation for potato production in two main production areas of Algeria, in a Mediterranean and desert climate. Through interviews with farmers, other stakeholders and field visits in both areas the current systems are described, analysed on main weaknesses, followed by and advice regarding improvement and implementation of the subsequent project which will be a setup of a demonstration farm to introduce a more productive and sustainable system. It was found that the systems have many points for improvement regarding productivity and sustainability. That both regions have a lack of technology and accurate data of 1) the exact inputs applied, and 2) the exact requirements, especially regarding water supply, lies on the basis of most weaknesses, resulting in rough irrigation, fertilizer and pest management. The main recommendation is to elaborate research of the current system with productivity as focal point to make clear what are the economic advantages for a farmer to adapt the new system. Farmer Field Schools are proposed as a practical and hands-on management approach to implement suggested improvement practices and to introduce a new production system.


Introduction: Although the National Health Insurance regulations for 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor (5ARI) use is well documented, urologists and medical claims review committee members have sometimes felt confused when determining claims for 5ARI use in certain circumstances. Thus, a consensus meeting was held to discuss how to use 5ARI appropriately in such circumstances. Materials and Methods: The expert urologists and medical claim review committee members reviewed seven controversial cases with related clinical evidence and voted for approval of the use of 5ARI after vigorous discussion. Results: Among the seven cases, a consensus was achieved in four. First, transrectal ultrasound of the prostate was not necessary if the patient already had other images. Second, prescribing 5ARI was affirmed in patients who had high prostate-specific antigen but who refused biopsy. Third, the normal prostate-specific antigen range was based on the 2003 version of the consensus of prostatic cancer of the National Health Research Institutes. Four, 5ARI could be prescribed in patients with improved clinical data but who were unable to meet the other regulatory criteria. Finally, of the three remaining cases, one case was denied, and in two cases, half of the members approved, and half rejected the claim for 5ARI use. Conclusion: This consensus report provided clarification for Taiwanese urologists and medical claims review committee members on reimbursable use of 5ARI in controversial cases.


Most statistical process control (SPC) methods assume that faulty products are the result of independent and identically distributed error modes in the production system. This paper proposes a general framework for extending SPC methods to autocorrelated and state dependent processes. The suggested methodology does not require an α-priori knowledge of the process distribution. A context identification model is used to estimate the probabilities of different process outputs based on the contexts in which they appear. The Kullback-Leibler measure for the discrimination between distributions is adapted for dealing with distribution that can be described with context models. It is demonstrated that the Kullback-Leibler statistic is approximately Chisquare distributed with the number of degrees of freedom depending on the number of contexts and symbol types. Control limits are developed for the dependent processes, and numerical examples are presented.


Nowadays Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply-chain management (SCM) are key role players in resulting high business growth across various industries. But there are some limitations of ERP system. By incorporating some new practices in resource planning will reduce the limitations of ERP. One of the options for ERP system will be Open source ERP system. Integration of ERP system with SCM will proves to be beneficial to both user and industries. In this paper we mainly concentrate on textile industry and ERP practices followed in this type of industries. Textile industry is mainly related to machines. The management of material and supply of that material is also very important task in that industry. To manage these business processes ERP system is required. In textile industry not all processes are carried out at the same place. And hence for such distributed business one common and easily accessible system is must. Open source ERP system is fulfilling all these requirements so that, open source SCM is beneficial to this industry. As open source ERP is managing internal work of business, it is also important to handle the supply chain. And that's why we are trying to implement the integration of open source ERP with SCM.


Background Studies of mental health in patients with osteoarthritis (OA) are topical at the present time. This applies especially to OA patients with such comorbidity as obesity, metabolic syndrome (MS) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Psychological features, quality of life (QoL) and depression degree also can be linked with immunopathogenesis of OA with obesity, MS, T2DM. Objectives To explore the mental health in knee OA patients with obesity, MS, T2DM and to estimate association between psychological and immunological features. Methods Patients (n=128) with bilateral knee OA according to ACR criteria were divided into four groups. Group 1 (n=17) had obesity, group 2 (n=17) had MS, group 3 (n=56) had T2DM and group 4 (n=38) had only knee OA without comorbidity. All patients were comparable by age, sex and duration of OA. We assessed serum cytokine levels (IL-1b, IL-6, IL-10, IL-18), NO and adipokines (adiponectin, leptin) using ELISA. The parameters of QoL, mental health and depression degree were measured by short form 36 (SF-36), Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score – (KOOS) and with patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). We also studied coping strategies to overcome pain by Coping Strategy Questionnaire (CSQ). U-Mann-Whitney test was applied to detect differences between groups. Correlation was assessed using Spearman correlation coefficient (rs). Results During comparative analysis, we found many statistically significant differences in such indexes and questionnaires as SF-36, KOOS, PHQ-9, CSQ between groups knee OA patients with comorbidity and group knee OA patients without concomitant diseases. Patients with OA and obesity were characterized by low values of mental health (SF-MH) (median (Me) 52; interquartile range (IQR) 38–64; p=0.01). Patients from group 2 (MS) and 3 (T2DM) had significant impairment of QoL parameters, mental health values. Patients of these groups also had the higher degree of depression and built coping strategies to overcome pain of OA worse than patients of OA group. Differences in serum cytokine levels were found in patients with OA and T2DM (IL-6 p=0.0018; IL-18 p=0.0006; NO p<0.001). Significant high leptin level had OA patients with obesity (p=0.03) and OA patients with T2DM (p=0.0002). Correlation analysis identified the association between mental health and cytokines in OA patients with obesity and OA patients with T2DM. Some data are presented (Table). Conclusions This study suggests that OA patients with obesity, MS and T2DM have special mental features which may be linked with immunological parameters. This data should be verified by larger studies and can be the part for an integrated program of treatment and rehabilitation of OA patients with comorbidity. References Perruccio, A.V. Cross-Sectional Contrast Between Individuals With Foot/Ankle vs Knee Osteoarthritis for Obesity and Low Education on Health-Related Quality of Life/A.V. Perruccio et al. // Foot & Ankle Int. – 2016.– Vol. 36, N 1. – P. 24–32. Siervo, M. Metabolic syndrome and longitudinal changes in cognitive function: a systematic review and meta-analysis/M. Siervo et al. // J. Alzheimers Dis. – 2014. – Vol. 41, N 1. – P. 151–161. Berge, L.I. Comorbidity between Type 2 Diabetes and Depression in the Adult Population: Directions of the Association and Its Possible Pathophysiological Mechanisms/L.I. Berge, T. Riise // Int. J. Endocrinol. – 2015. – Vol. 2015. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Jit Phumisak (1930–66) is one of the most well-known figures among Thai leftist scholars and activists in the 1950s. He was born slightly before monarchical absolutism was abolished, and he grew up in an anti-American atmosphere when socialism was booming. Apart from his numerous writings, what makes Jit different from other socialists and Marxists of his time is his legendary life and untimely death. He became a cultural hero and a legendary figure among young activists in the mid-1970s democracy movement. His image, however, was constructed and modified by different actors under different agendas. This paper reviews Jit's life and work by focusing on the construction of his image by the military regime, Communist organization, scholars, political activists, and local authorities from the 1970s to the present, taking into account the different political situations in Thailand throughout these periods. radical movement can be identified.


Computable analysis and effective descriptive set theory are both concerned with complete metric spaces, functions between them and subsets thereof in an effective setting. The precise relationship of the various definitions used in the two disciplines has so far been neglected, a situation this paper is meant to remedy. As the role of the Cauchy completion is relevant for both effective approaches to Polish spaces, we consider the interplay of effectivity and completion in some more detail.


Although Title VII of the Civil Rights Act nominally affirmed employees' right to wear hijab in the workplace, the courts have taken an increasingly narrow view of the term "religion" and failed to uphold the right to wear hijab in both private and public sector settings on several occasions. This is because Title VII and its attendant protections are grounded in a framework that presumes Christianity as normative, and religiously mandated accoutrements as communicative in function. The manner in which harassment or discriminatory behavior takes place, however, often occurs outside of existing frameworks for employee protection, leaving employees with little opportunity for recourse. This paper will use a mix of critical race theory and gender studies scholarship to provide an overview and analysis of recent decisions regarding protections for wearing hijab in the workplace. It will also discuss how protections on religious freedoms protect the status quo rather than the rights of religio-cultural minorities.


Adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) is a multifunctional tumor suppressor that is frequently mutated or lost in most epithelial-derived tumor types, including colorectal, breast and renal cancer. We have previously demonstrated that germline heterozygous Apc mutation disrupts mammary epithelial integrity. In addition, Apc mutation advances polyoma middle T antigen (PyMT)-mediated mammary tumorigenesis. Interestingly, in both of these models, the effect of Apc mutation was independent of Wnt/β-catenin pathway activation. The objective of the present study was to extend these observations to in vitro models and identify the molecular mechanism by which APC exerts its tumor suppressive function through regulation of epithelial polarity and morphogenesis. Using lentiviral-mediated RNA interference, APC was stably suppressed in non-transformed HC11 mammary and MDCK kidney epithelial cells. Although the APC-knockdown cells did not show any significant morphological or growth differences compared to control vector-only or scrambled shRNA-infected cells on plastic, they showed a dramatic multi-layering phenotype when cultured on permeable supports. Moreover, the polarized localization of basolateral markers, such as Dlg and Scrib tumor suppressor proteins, and apical proteins, including MUC1, was severely disrupted. When the cells were cultured under three-dimensional conditions and compared to controls, the APC-knockdown epithelial cells formed enlarged, non-spherical acini and cysts with filled-in lumens, many of which were invasive into the surrounding matrix. Remarkably, in the MDCK APC-knockdown cells, inverted polarity was observed with the apical marker gp135 localized to the periphery of the cysts. Similar to our previous in vivo studies, these polarization defects associated with APC loss did not appear to require activation of the Wnt signaling pathway but likely involve dysregulation of APC-associated cytoskeletal and polarity complex components. These data indicate that APC is a potent regulator of epithelial polarization and morphogenesis and suggest that one mechanism by which APC loss promotes tumorigenesis is by disrupting epithelial architecture to subsequently drive tumor cell growth, survival and invasion. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5263. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-5263


Background: Trichomoniasis, caused by Trichomonas vaginalis protozoan, may lead to clinical or subclinical urethritis or prostatitis in men. Despite the importance of men in the epidemiology of trichomoniasis, there is little information about this topic. This epidemiological study was performed on men in Hamedan, western Iran. Methods: During Oct 2018 to Mar 2019, 214 male individuals, presenting to the Urology Clinic of Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Hamadan, were enrolled and evaluated for trichomoniasis. First-voided urine specimen was used for detection of T. vaginalis infection using molecular and parasitological methods. Results: Trichomoniasis was detected in 10 of 214 male participants (4.7%, 95% CI: 7.5–1.8%) using PCR assay. Culture and wet mount preparation of urine sediment were unable to isolates any T. vaginalis parasite. Nine of the 10 infected men were married, and six of them were ≥49 yr of age. Urinary frequency and dysuria were the most complaints (80%) among infected individuals. Conclusion: Given the notable prevalence of the infection, the prevalence of male trichomoniasis will be underestimated if only conventional diagnostic methods are used. Therefore, the risk of infection as well as the molecular survey of T. vaginalis infection should be considered in men with or without clinical symptoms.


Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNT) are the etiological agents responsible for botulism, a disease characterized by peripheral neuromuscular blockade and a characteristic flaccid paralysis of humans. BoNT/A is the most toxic protein known to man and has been classified by the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) as one of the six highest-risk threat agents for bioterrorism. Of particular concern is the apparent lack of clinical interventions that can reverse cellular intoxication. Efforts to uncover molecules that can act within an intoxicated cell so as to provide symptomatic relief to BoNT/A are paramount. Aminopyridines have shown clinical efficacy for multiple sclerosis treatment as well as BoNT/A intoxication; yet, aminopyridines for BoNT/A treatment has been abandoned because of blood brain barrier (BBB) penetration producing undesired neurotoxic side effects. Two aminopyridines (5 and 11) exhibited inhibitory activity toward Shaker-IR voltage-gated potassium (K(V)1.x) channels with potencies similar to that of the previous "gold-standard", 3,4-diaminopyridine (3,4-DAP), including reversal of symptoms from BoNT-induced paralysis in phrenic nerve-hemidiaphragm preparations. Importantly, pharmacokinetic experiments revealed a lack of BBB penetration of 5, which is a significant advancement toward resolving the neurotoxicity issues associated with prolonged 3,4-DAP treatments. Finally, 5 was found to be as effective as 3,4-DAP in rescuing BoNT-poisoned mice in the mouse lethality assay, signifying an optimized balance between the undesired permeability across the BBB and the required permeability across lipid cellular membranes. The results demonstrate that 5 is the most promising small molecule K(+) channel inhibitor discovered to date for the treatment of BoNT/A intoxication.


Stylolites within the Caballos Novaculite developed by pressure solution in response to lithostatic pressure after the original sediment had been converted to a novaculite. Estimates of minimum stratigraphic thinning of the novaculite are fairly uniform across the Marathon basin; they range from 3.5% to 5.6% on the basis of stylolite column amplitude.


The aim of this study is characterize and determine the weighing ratio of chemical components in the oil residues in the Kirkuk oil wells by separating each component alone then studying them spectrally to know the types of oils in this area and getting chemical information for other studies . This study has been completed according to the separating way of the chromatographic column by using organic solvents like nHexane, Toluene and which separate resin, Aromatics and Paraffin compounds. The isolation of the inorganic materials happens by using (CCl4) and distillation the isolated parts and studying them spectrally by X ray and determine the active groups.


Although both women and the elderly are assumed to be disadvantaged in much of the world, systematic empirically based studies of interactions between gender and aging are rare. We examine the gender dimensions of elderly support and economic well-being in Vietnam based on data from the 1999 3% census sample and two regional surveys of the elderly conducted in 1996 and 1997. The study incorporates both descriptive and multivariate analysis of sources of support including work, non-familial support, and especially familial support through intergenerational exchange, the most import source for most elderly Vietnamese. We consider the gender of both the recipient and provider of support. Vietnam provides a particularly interesting context for the study given substantial regional cultural differences in the extent of the patriarchal/patrilineal family systems. These differences are most readily apparent in the wide regional variation in preferences of elderly to reside with married sons rather than married daughters. The receipt of intergenerational transfers, the most important form of elderly support in Vietnam shows little significant variation across gender once the mediating effect of marital status differences is taken into account. In addition, gender differences in economic well-being, as measured by an index of household wealth and through self-perceptions of economic satisfaction, are very modest once other factors, most notably marital status and age, that are correlated both with gender and the receipt of familial and non-familial support are taken into account.


OBJECTIVE
Presence of autoantibodies against troponin I (cTnI) or T (cTnT) has been reported to interfere with troponin assays. However, the extent of the interference with the measurement has not been explored sufficiently. The aims of this study were to examine the frequencies of autoantibodies against troponin I and troponin T and how much these antibodies would affect the measurement.

METHODS
The study comprised 52 subjects who visited Hokkaido University Hospital with suspected ischemic heart diseases. To evaluate the presence of autoantibodies, we calculated the recoveries of cTnI or cTnT after immunoglobulin G depletion, and the distributions of peaks reactive with cTnI or cTnT by high-performance liquid chromatography were examined.

RESULTS
Autoantibodies against cTnI and cTnT were identified in 8 subjects (15.4%) and 1 subject (1.9%), respectively. Although the greatest difference between cTnI and cTnT was 32-fold, the distributions of cTnI-to-cTnT ratios in groups with and without anti-cTnI were not statistically different.

CONCLUSION
Autoantibodies against cTnI were more frequent by several fold than those against cTnT. Their presence did not significantly expand the discrepancy between cTnI and cTnT assays.


SIR,-I should like to comment on the statement made in the leading article on tetracyclines (28 November, p. 509). "Because of serious effects on tooth development, tetracyclines are absolutely contraindicated for children aged under eight and for pregnant or lactating women." Reference 9 attributes this to A. Manten, in Side Effects of Drugs, edited by L. Meyler and A. Herxheimer, Vol. 6, p.283. Unless I am mistaken this would appear to be a misquotation, as I am unable to locate any reference to work by Manten in the section relating to the effect of tetracyclines on teeth and bone. I do note a comment that "at any time between the 4th month of gestation and the 7th or 8th year of life ... discoloration of teeth" may be caused. Also on page 286, the rather mildly worded advice appears that "Tetracyclines should preferably not be given to children younger than 8 years.. This is very different from your leader writer's comment that they are "absolutely contraindicated", and I should appreciate clarification as to how these two diverging statements can be reconciled.-I am, etc.,


Completely autotrophic nitrogen removal over nitrite (CANON) is a cost-effective nitrogen removal process. Implementation of the CANON process relies on the cooperation of ammonium-oxidizing and Anammox bacteria, as well as the inhibition of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria. Strict limitations on dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration in the reactor, and the addition of sufficient inorganic carbon in the influent, were adopted as the main operational strategies. The reactor was fed with synthetic inorganic wastewater composed mainly of NH(4)(+)-N, and operated for 106 days. Stable nitrogen removal rates (NRR) of around 1.4 kg N m(-3) d(-1) were obtained at ambient temperature. Morphological characteristics and analysis of bacterial community confirmed the formation of functional outer aerobic and inner anaerobic granular sludge, providing evidence of stable nitrogen removal.


This paper presents the dynamic modeling and vibration suppression methods for axially deploying beams subjected to gravity. A modal modeling method is employed to develop the lateral vibration model for axially deploying beams. Simulation is made to validate the proposed model as well as to investigate the dynamics of axially deploying beams. This paper rigorously investigates the gravity effect as a source of vibration for axially deploying beams. In order to suppress lateral vibration for deploying beams, the moving speed command is modified by using the input shaping method, Experiments are also performed to prove the proposed vibration suppression method. The simulations and experiments show that the proposed modeling and input shaping methods are effective for the dynamic analysis and vibration suppression of axially deploying beams subjected to gravity.


A power allocation strategy is proposed for spectrum-sharing channels, in which two users share the spectrum band with one of them having a primary access to the band. The secondary user can utilize the spectrum as long as it complies with the service requirements of the primary user. Specifically, the latter allows the former to utilize the channel as long as its rate degradation as a results of the secondary user transmission is limited to a certain threshold with a predefined probability. The secondary and primary users employ truncated channel inversion with fixed rate (TIFR) transmission policy. We obtain the power allocation and capacity of the secondary user's link under joint secondary transmit power constraint and service-outage constraint imposed by the primary user. Numerical simulations are conducted to corroborate our theoretical results.


The intrinsic alignments of galaxies are recognised as a contaminant to weak gravitational lensing measurements. In this work, we study the alignment of galaxy shapes and spins at low redshift ($z\sim 0.5$) in Horizon-AGN, an adaptive-mesh-refinement hydrodynamical cosmological simulation box of 100 Mpc/h a side with AGN feedback implementation. We find that spheroidal galaxies in the simulation show a tendency to be aligned radially towards over-densities in the dark matter density field and other spheroidals. This trend is in agreement with observations, but the amplitude of the signal depends strongly on how shapes are measured and how galaxies are selected in the simulation. Disc galaxies show a tendency to be oriented tangentially around spheroidals in three-dimensions. While this signal seems suppressed in projection, this does not guarantee that disc alignments can be safely ignored in future weak lensing surveys. The shape alignments of luminous galaxies in Horizon-AGN are in agreement with observations and other simulation works, but we find less alignment for lower luminosity populations. We also characterize the systematics of galaxy shapes in the simulation and show that they can be safely neglected when measuring the correlation of the density field and galaxy ellipticities.


Proceedings: AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010‐‐ Apr 17‐21, 2010; Washington, DC

Family history is a major risk factor for colorectal cancer (CRC), since individuals with an affected first-degree relative have more than twice as high risk of developing this malignancy than the general population. Hereditary factors are estimated to underlie approximately 35% of CRC, but germline mutations in high-penetrance genes, including MLH1, MSH2, APC, and MYH account for only ∼5% of all cases. According to the "common disease - common variant" concept, much of the uncharacterized inheritance is caused by large numbers of common low-penetrance variants. Genome-wide association studies have recently identified ten independent chromosomal loci that predispose to CRC with allelic odds ratios of ∼1.2. Although the individual effect of each variant is modest, the proportion of CRC attributed to the ten variants is large due to the high frequencies of risk alleles in the population. Paradoxically, it has been estimated that they explain only a small proportion of the empirical excess familial risk of CRC. The aim of this study was to evaluate the combined contribution of the ten low-penetrance loci on familial CRC and other clinical characteristics. The analyzed variants were rs6983267 at 8q24, rs4779584 at 15q13, rs4939827 at 18q21, rs16892766 at 8q23, rs10795668 at 10p14, rs3802842 at 11q23, rs4444235 at 14q22, rs9929218 at 16q22, rs10411210 at 19q13, and [rs961253][1] at 20p12. Our Finnish population-based series of CRC samples consisted of 826 cases, of which genotypes in the ten loci and registry-based clinical data was available. There were 37 cases known to carry high-penetrance germline mutations, and these were excluded from the analysis. The remaining cases consisted of 97 patients with at least one affected first-degree relative and 691 with no affected first-degree relatives. The overall number of risk alleles (0-20) was counted for each individual, after which their association with familial CRC and other clinical characteristics was analyzed by logistic regression. We observed a linear association between increasing numbers of risk alleles in the ten loci and odds of having familial CRC (P=0.006). With each one unit increase in the number of risk alleles, the odds of having an affected family member increased by a factor of 1.16 (95% CI 1.04-1.30). Furthermore, we estimated which proportion of the familial aggregation of CRC can be attributed to the ten loci, by calculating excess familial risk. This was performed based on age-, sex-, and calendar period incidence rates in the first-degree relatives of the probands and in the general population of Finland. The ten low-penetrance variants explain approximately 9% (upper 95% CI 19%) of the variance in familial risk of CRC. Our results provide robust evidence to support the previous indirect estimations that these low-penetrance variants account for only a small proportion of familial CRC and emphasize the need to characterize the remaining inherited predisposition to this malignancy.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3864.

 [1]: /lookup/external-ref?link_type=GEN&access_num=rs961253&atom=%2Fcanres%2F70%2F8_Supplement%2F3864.atom


We describe a case of a 40-year-old lady diabetic and hypertensive, who presented with increasing fatigue and decreased physical endurance attributable to deterioration in renal function. The renal biopsy revealed drug-induced acute tubulointerstitial nephritis and the chronology of the events suggested the aetiology to be a recent intake of aceclofenac for knee pain. The patient improved with oral corticosteroids and the renal functions returned to baseline in 3 weeks. We did not come across a case of aceclofenac-induced acute tubulointerstitial nephritis on extensive electronic search of literature. This is probably the first case report of acute tubulointerstitial nephritis associated with the use of aceclofenac, a newer potent non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug.


This study aimed to investigate whether mass drug administration (MDA) intervention has an equivalent effect on reducing the prevalence and intensity of Schistosoma haematobium infection regardless of the baseline values. A repeated cross-sectional survey was performed targeting students of 12 primary schools in Al Jabalain and El Salam districts of White Nile State, Sudan, at both 1 week before and 8 months after the MDA. Prior to the baseline survey, school-aged children in Al Jabalain had received MDA interventions twice in 4 years, while those in El Salam had not. The baseline prevalence was 9.1% in Al Jabalain and 35.2% in El Salam, which were reduced to 1.8% and 5.5% at 8 months after the MDA, respectively. The corresponding reduction rates were 80.3% and 84.4%, not significant difference between both districts. However, changes in the geometric mean intensity (GMI) of egg counts were significantly different between both districts. The baseline GMIs were 14.5 eggs per 10 ml of urine (EP10) in Al Jabalain and 18.5 EP10 in El Salam, which were reduced to 7.1 and 11.2 EP10 after treatment, respectively. The corresponding reduction rates were 51.0% and 39.5%. In conclusion, MDA interventions were found to bring about similar relative reduction in prevalence regardless of the baseline value; however, the relative reduction in infection intensity was more salient in the district with a low baseline value for both prevalence and intensity. This clearly points to the importance of repeated MDA interventions in endemic areas, which will eventually contribute to schistosomiasis elimination.


Nitric oxide (NO) has emerged as an essential biological messenger in plant biology that usually transmits its bioactivity by post-translational modifications such as S-nitrosylation, the reversible addition of an NO group to a protein cysteine residue leading to S-nitrosothiols (SNOs). In recent years, SNOs have risen as key signalling molecules mainly involved in plant response to stress. Chief among SNOs is S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO), generated by S-nitrosylation of the key antioxidant glutathione (GSH). GSNO is considered the major NO reservoir and a phloem mobile signal that confers to NO the capacity to be a long-distance signalling molecule. GSNO is able to regulate protein function and gene expression, resulting in a key role for GSNO in fundamental processes in plants, such as development and response to a wide range of environmental stresses. In addition, GSNO is also able to regulate the total SNO pool and, consequently, it could be considered the storage of NO in cells that may control NO signalling under basal and stress-related responses. Thus, GSNO function could be crucial during plant response to environmental stresses. Besides the importance of GSNO in plant biology, its mode of action has not been widely discussed in the literature. In this review, we will first discuss the GSNO turnover in cells and secondly the role of GSNO as a mediator of physiological and stress-related processes in plants, highlighting those aspects for which there is still some controversy.


Effects of choline fortification and various dietary protein levels on liver lipid content in pyridoxine-deficient rats were studied. Choline fortification did not prevent the accumulation of liver lipids in pyridoxine-deficient rats. Considerable accumulation of liver lipids was observed in the 70% casein pyridoxine-deprived group. Reducing the protein level in the diet decreased the extent of lipid accumulation. A highly negative correlation was found between liver lipid content and liver GPT activity, indicating that the fatty infiltration of the liver may be intimately related to the pyridoxine deficiency state. The time course of fatty liver induction upon feeding of a 70% casein pyridoxine-deficient diet was also studied. The liver lipid content increased gradually and reached the highest value by the third week with a concomitant decrease in food intake. Effect of change of dietary compositions on fatty liver caused by 70% casein pyridoxine-free diet was examined. Feeding of a 70% casein pyridoxine-supplemented diet or a 20% casein pyridoxine-free diet caused decreases in the liver lipids.


Active deskewing is an important technique for managing variability in clock distributions but introduces latency and power-supply-noise sensitivity to the resulting networks. In this paper, we demonstrate how active deskewing can be achieved with resonant distributions without introducing significant jitter. The prototype network operates at a nominal 2-GHz frequency in a 0.18 mum CMOS technology with more than 25 pF/mm of clock loading.


Formative evaluation is relatively more scientific and accurate as compared to traditional teaching evaluation. Formative evaluation is a method of professional evaluation of students' learning process, which is very important in the entire course of teaching. In the actual teaching process, formative evaluation can better help teachers understand the situation of students, and take effective improvement measures to address the problems existing in the process of learning. As a contribution to the teaching of foreign languages in the colleges and universities, this paper will start with an introduction of formative evaluation, and then the application of formative evaluation in teaching.


The parallelisation and implementation of Gauss-Seidel (G-S) algorithms for power flow analysis have been investigated previously. Numerous runs to demonstrate the speedup have been illustrated on a Sequent Balance shared-memory multi-instruction, multidata access (SM MIMD) machine. The authors extend the idea and investigate-the effects of acceleration factors. It is shown on systems ranging from teens to thousands that when the acceleration factors are used, the implementation using colour-by-colour synchronisation is more reliable and has better convergence rate, even though it takes a longer time to synchronise. The authors also analyse the dependence of synchronisation overhead in terms of system sizes, network connection and number of processors. Comparisons between G-S and fast decoupled load-flow algorithms are also made. The implications on nCUBE implementations are also discussed. It is also shown that the idea of parallel G-S algorithm can be easily extended to solve the transient stability problem which involves a set of algebraic differential equations.


This study investigates the effect of substrate conditions on supersonic jet flow pattern, particle acceleration and substrate preheating process in cold spraying. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) approach is employed in the present work to achieve this objective. The simulated results show that substrate diameter has some effects on gas flow regime and thus particle acceleration. When the substrate diameter is smaller than the nozzle exit diameter, the size of the bow shock formed in front of the substrate is rather small, which contributes to increase the particle impact velocity. With increasing the substrate diameter gradually, the flow regime becomes more and more insensitive to the substrate diameter and the pattern becomes uniform. Moreover, the current numerical work also reveals that substrate preheating process can be significantly influenced by substrate thickness. With the increment in substrate thickness, the preheating effect becomes increasingly undesirable and the substrate surface temperature presents a downward trend.


Improving the quality of life for poor families in preindustrialized nations depends on successful family planning programs implemented concurrently with successful economic and social development programs. Success on these 2 fronts holds the potential for breaking the link between population growth and malnutrition among the poor within this century. Improvement in reproductive performance of fertile women is pivotal to this success. This chapter discusses issues surrounding the fertility consequences of improved maternal nutrition. Improved nutrition during pregnancy is likely to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality and, during lactation, to favor successful breastfeeding. A discussion is presented as to how, given the deprived conditions, breastfeeding with a timely introduction of other foods, appropriately prepared and fed to complement breast milk, should prolong birth intervals through the reduction of infant mortality and lengthened periods of postpartum infertility. Evidence is also presented which indicates that improved maternal nutrition during the period of lactation may, under some circumstances, hasten the return of postpartum fertility. The modernization and industrialization of currently preindustrialized societies and the increasing economic burden which is being carried by poor families is anticipated to create such circumstances. Appropriate natural and artificial contraceptive strategies which are available to protect poor lactating women who choose to limit their fertility are discussed. A plea is made for strategies to be considered as programs and policies are developed and implemented in the critical years ahead in which there is an effort to meet the WHO goal of "health for all" by the year 2000.


INTRODUCTION The use of high-dose cyclophosphamide as post-transplant Graft versus Host Disease (GvHD) prophylaxis has revolutionized haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (haplo-HSCT), allowing the safe infusion of T cell replete grafts. The efficacy of post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PT-Cy) has its basis in its capacity to selectively eliminate proliferating cells, including alloreactive T cells. It is however to date unknown whether PT-Cy affects the reconstitution of Natural Killer (NK) cells, whose alloreactivity is known to play a major role in T cell-depleted haplo-HSCT. PATIENTS AND METHODS We analyzed the grafts and serial peripheral blood (PB) and bone marrow (BM) samples from 14 patients who received T cell replete haplo-HSCT followed by PT-Cy at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan (n=10, OSR) or the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (n=4, JHU). OSR patient received a myeloablative conditioning, PB stem cell grafts, and sirolimus and mycophenolate as pharmacological GvHD prophylaxis. JHU patients received the "classical" Baltimore nonmyeloablative conditioning, unmanipulated BM grafts, and tacrolimus and mycophenolate as pharmacological GvHD prophylaxis. To characterize NK cells reconstitution, we monitored absolute counts and employed a 27-marker flow cytometry panel with high dimensional single-cell analysis using the bh-SNE algorithm. We used intracellular staining to determine the frequency of Ki67+ proliferating cells and expression of Aldehyde Dehydrogenase (ALDH), known to confer resistance to PT-Cy. Interleukin-15 (IL-15) serum concentration was quantified using the Bio-Plex Pro Human Cytokine 4-plex assay. To directly assess the effect of PT-Cy on proliferating NK cells we exposed graft NK cells to IL-15 and mafosfamide, a cyclophosphamide analogue active in vitro. Functional assays against leukemic cell lines and primary AML blasts were performed measuring CD107A degranulation on NK cells and Annexin V on targets. RESULTS All patients received high numbers of mature donor NK cells as part of the graft (OSR median 17x10 6 /kg, JHU median 7.25x10 6 /kg ), and donor-derived NK cells were detectable as early as day 3 after HSCT and throughout the entire follow-up. At day 3 after HSCT, all subsets of NK cells, including single KIR + alloreactive cells, were actively proliferating (mean 61.23% of Ki-67 + cells for OSR patients, and 58% for JHU patients), possibly driven by the high levels of IL-15 detected in patient serum after conditioning (Fig.1A). After PT-Cy, a marked reduction in the frequency and counts of proliferating NK cells was evident irrespectively of the transplantation platform, suggesting selective killing of dividing cells by PT-Cy. In line with this hypothesis, NK cells from the graft and from patient PB at day 3 after HSCT showed no detectable ALDH expression, and NK cells prompted to proliferate in vitro were killed in a dose-dependent manner by mafosfamide (Fig.1B). The phenotype of NK cells also changed upon PT-Cy: whereas before the infusion they resembled their mature counterparts from the graft, after PT-Cy an immature phenotype, CD62L + NKG2A + KIR - , became prevalent, suggesting derivation from donor HSCs rather than from infused NK cells (Fig.1C). Accordingly, bhSNE maps demonstrated differential clustering of NK cells from the graft and analyzed 30 days after HSCT (Fig.1D). In line with these features, we detected very low numbers of putatively alloreactive single KIR + NK cells both in the PB and in the BM of patients at day 30 after HSCT, and these NK cells displayed impaired cytotoxic potential against leukemic targets. Finally, consistent with these observations, when we analyzed the impact of predicted NK alloreactivity in an extended series of 99 patients who received myeloablative haplo-HSCT with PT-Cy, we detected no significant difference in progression-free survival (Fig.1E). CONCLUSION Our data suggest that the majority of mature NK cells infused with unmanipulated grafts are eliminated upon PT-Cy administration and that in this transplantation platform NK cell alloreactivity might be blunted by the elimination of donor single KIR + NK cells and by the competition between reconstituting NK and T cells. Still, the high levels of IL-15 detected in patients9 sera at early time-points might provide a biological rationale for the infusion of mature donor NK cells early after PT-Cy administration. Disclosures Bonini: TxCell: Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees; Molmed SpA: Consultancy. Ciceri: MolMed SpA: Consultancy.


High sampling frequencies in acoustic wireless sensor network (AWSN) are required to achieve precise sound localisation. But they are also mean analysis time and memory intensive (i.e., huge data to be processed and more memory space to be occupied which form a burden on the nodes limited resources). Decreasing sampling rates below Nyquist criterion in acoustic source localisation (ASL) applications requires development of the existing time delay estimation techniques in order to overcome the challenge of low time resolution. This work proposes using envelope and wavelet transform to enhance the resolution of the received signals through the combination of different time-frequency contents. Enhanced signals are processed using cross-correlation in conjunction with a parabolic fit interpolation to calculate the time delay accurately. Experimental results show that using this technique, estimation accuracy was improved by almost a factor of 5 in the case of using 4.8 kHz sampling rate. Such a conclusion is useful for developing precise ASL without the need of any excessive sensor resources, particularly for structural health monitoring applications.


This paper presents a software that creates a fractal screensaver. The application generates both fractal images and music based on the Julia and Mandelbrot fractals. The four coloring algorithms implemented are founded on: escape-time, distance estimators, escape angle and curvature estimation algorithm. The music is created for different instruments on 32 voices. The horizontal scan is an 1/32 notes at a tempo of quarter note with the value 60. The iteration data from the Julia calculations is mapped to key velocity. The higher the iteration result, the louder the pitch presence. The application is configurable and permits the user to select the color palette, a region in the fractal and even the instruments to be played.


Poly (N-isopropylacrylamide-methyl methacrylic acid, PNIPAAm-MAA)-grafted magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized using silane-coated magnetic nanoparticles as a template for radical polymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide and methacrylic acid. Properties of these nanoparticles, such as size, drug-loading efficiency, and drug release kinetics, were evaluated in vitro for targeted and controlled drug delivery. The resulting nanoparticles had a diameter of 100 nm and a doxorubicin-loading efficiency of 75%, significantly higher doxorubicin release at 40°C compared with 37°C, and pH 5.8 compared with pH 7.4, demonstrating their temperature and pH sensitivity, respectively. In addition, the particles were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometry. In vitro cytotoxicity testing showed that the PNIPAAm-MAA-coated magnetic nanoparticles had no cytotoxicity and were biocompatible, indicating their potential for biomedical application.


Mathematics uses a wide range of representations, but the mathematical symbol is not the only way to code information. Different ways of representing mathematical concepts and relationships are used, especially in the early stages of learning. Generally, the teacher decides on the choice of representational forms to use. But in the process of solving mathematical problems, it is the pupils – not the teacher – who are engaged in the problem-solving, and the coding used should support their cognitive work. This paper analyses how different representations can influence the results of work on an untypical mathematical problem. The task was solved by a group of 7–8 year-old pupils participating in a mathematics club. The examples selected for analysis indicate a strong relationship between the choice of representations and the final result of the pupils' work.


Paints based on cadmium sulfide (CdS) were popular among artists beginning in the mid-19th century. Some paint formulations are prone to degrade, discoloring and disfiguring paintings where they have been used. Pablo Picasso's Femme (Époque des "Demoiselles d'Avignon") (1907) includes two commercial formulations of CdS: one is visibly degraded and now appears brownish yellow, while the other appears relatively intact and is vibrant yellow. This observation inspired the study reported here of the photoluminescence emission from trap states of the two CdS paints, complemented by data from multispectral imaging, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, micro-FTIR, and SEM-EDS. The two paints exhibit trap state emissions that differ in terms of spectrum, intensity, and decay kinetics. In the now-brownish yellow paint, trap state emission is highly favored with respect to near band edge optical recombination. This observation suggests a higher density of surface defects in the now-brownish yellow paint that promotes the surface reactivity of CdS particles and their subsequent paint degradation. CdS is a semiconductor, and surface defects in semiconductors can trap free charge carriers; this interaction becomes stronger at reduced particle size or, equivalently, with increased surface to volume ratio. Here, we speculate that the strong trap state emission in the now-brownish cadmium yellow paint is linked to the presence of CdS particles with a nanocrystalline phase, possibly resulting from a low degree of calcination during pigment synthesis. Taken together, the results presented here demonstrate how photoluminescence studies can probe surface defects in CdS paints and lead to an improved understanding of their complex degradation mechanisms.


This article is a review of the literature on religion, spirituality and its role in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. First determine the overall context of religion vs spirituality related to living with HIV, then investigates the constraints with the major religions around the world regarding the stigma of the disease and finally, describes the actions which have been beneficial by religious communities.


Air pollution is an increasing cause of concern among the scientific community, policymakers and the general public. This interest has led to a sharp increase in the number of scientific papers on air pollution. This paper provides a summary of the most prominent recent economic literature on the effects of air pollution, the main policy lessons that can be drawn from it, and the areas in which more research would be especially valuable. The literature has found sizable negative effects of air pollution on health and mortality. There is also some evidence that air pollution may have negative non-health effects, reducing labour supply and productivity, although the evidence is more mixed on the latter aspect. The literature also suggests that effects on both health and non-health dimensions may be heterogeneous in a number of dimensions, most prominently age, with more negative effects for the elderly. Finally, more research is needed on which policies to tackle air pollution would be more cost-effective.


Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were employed to study the mechanical response of various bicrystal graphene consisting of symmetric tilt boundary subject to uniaxial tensile loading at room temperature. We found that the strength of zigzag-oriented graphene increases slightly with mis-orientation angle, while the strength of armchair-oriented graphene deceases slightly with mis-orientation angle. Given that the difference in strength is small, one might conclude that the dependence of strength of graphene sheet containing grain boundaries upon tilt mis-orientation angle is rather weak. The origin for such weak dependence is believed to be that these grain boundaries all consisting of pentagon-heptagon pairs do not resemble nano-cracks, which result in rather heterogeneous stress field around the crack tip and therefore stress gradient plays an important role.


The Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA) of the Department of Transportation is required to identify areas unusually sensitive to environmental damage in the event of a hazardous liquid pipeline accident. Pipeline operators that can affect these unusually sensitive areas (USAs) must develop and follow an integrity management program to continually assess and evaluate the integrity of their pipelines. After extensive consultation and pilot testing with conservation biologists, government agencies, drinking water experts, and other stakeholders, a process has been developed to identify USAs for both ecological resources and drinking water. The process begins by designating and assessing environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs), then determining which ESAs are potentially more susceptible to permanent or long-term damage from a hazardous liquid release. Finally, criteria were identified to determine which resources can be affected by a release and sustain permanent or long-term damage. Ecological USAs are defined and mapped based on the presence of critically imperiled species, assemblages of multiple imperiled or endangered species, the presence of sensitive species that are aquatically dependent or have a limited terrestrial range, and concentrations of migratory waterbirds.Mapping these areas nationwide made use of ecological data from several sources, the majority coming from the Association for Biodiversity Information (ABI). Once created, maps of the USAs are posted on the RSPA Internet website in viewable format (http://www.npms.rspa.dot.gov/), and electronic versions of the GIS data layers are made available to pipeline operators for use with their GIS pipeline mapping systems. To identify and locate USAs, RSPA needed ecological data in a timely and standardized format. This included the location of imperiled, threatened, and endangered species. ABI aggregated data on the location and condition of species produced by its member organizations—the Natural Heritage Programs. This project represents the first time that detailed natural heritage data on specific locations of imperiled and endangered species have been aggregated nationwide for natural resource protection purposes. Previously, accomplishing this would have required a planning or regulatory agency to seek data from over fifty organizations across the country. ABI's aggregated dataset represents the most authoritative collection of locational information on imperiled species available. This paper focuses on the process developed to identify USAs, development and provision of ecological data, and the mapping of USAs across the country.


The continental margin is a key area for studying the sedimentary processes related to the advance and retreat of the Ross Ice Shelf (Antarctica); nevertheless, much remains to be investigated. The aim of this study is to increase the knowledge of the last glacial/deglacial dynamics in the Central Basin slope–basin system using a multidisciplinary approach, including integrated sedimentological, micropaleontological and tephrochronological information. The analyses carried out on three box cores highlighted sedimentary sequences characterised by tree stratigraphic units. Collected sediments represent a time interval from 24 ka Before Present (BP) to the present time. Grain size clustering and data on the sortable silt component, together with diatom, silicoflagellate and foraminifera assemblages indicate the influence of the ice shelf calving zone (Unit 1, 24–17 ka BP), progressive receding due to Circumpolar Deep Water inflow (Unit 2, 17–10.2 ka BP) and (Unit 3, 10.2 ka BP–present) the establishment of seasonal sea ice with a strengthening of bottom currents. The dominant and persistent process is a sedimentation controlled by contour currents, which tend to modulate intensity in time and space. A primary volcanic ash layer dated back at around 22 ka BP is correlated with the explosive activity of Mount Rittmann.


The paper presents the results of parallel observations on the structurography and the rhythmic-intonational patterns of subordinate clauses attached to copular main clauses in the Bulgarian language. It focuses on complex sentences, whose intonation contours are almost unexplored. One exception is the study of the intonation in com-plex sentences with a subordinate subject clause by Vladislav Marinov. The aim of this paper is to describe the structure of complex-compound sentences by examining a selection from a small corpus of sentences with copular main clauses. Using acoustic analysis programmes, I observe the intonation curves of these sentences and attempt at identifying intonational patterns associated with the variations of the basic sentence model NP cop NP in which the left and/or the right-hand noun group is substituted by a main or a subordinate clause (S): S1 cop S2, NP cop S, S cop NP. The main goal is to identify the characteristic features of the intonational connectivity within the complex-compound sentence and to study whether predicatives and their constituents are associated with particular intonational patterns. The object of study is predicative connectivity in complex-compound sentences and its reflection in their intonation contours. In particular, I observe subordinate clauses attached to copular main clauses, traditionally divided into subject clauses and subject complement clauses. An important prerequisite for this work is a previous pilot study on a corpus of complex-compound sentences, which has shown that subject complement clauses are characterised by extremely low frequency. Keywords: rhythmic-intonational patterns, subordinate clauses attached to copular main clauses, complex sentences


It has been proposed that a hypoxia-induced inhibition of the Na(+)-Ca(2+) exchanger (NCX) contributes to hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV). By recording isometric tension development in rat intrapulmonary arteries (IPA), we examined the effect on HPV of maneuvers that reduce the ability of NCX to regulate intracellular Ca(2+) concentration ([Ca(2+)](i)). In some experiments, fura pentakis(acetoxymethyl) ester-3 (fura PE-3) was also used to monitor [Ca(2+)](i). HPV was elicited in IPA that were pretreated with 10 microM diltiazem and slightly preconstricted with PGF(2alpha), which enhances the hypoxic response. Substitution of Na(+) with Li(+) increased HPV and the associated rise in [Ca(2+)](i). Pretreatment with ouabain (100 microM) to diminish the Na(+) gradient or with the reverse-mode NCX inhibitor KB-R7943 (3 or 10 microM) had no significant effect on HPV. Combined treatment with ouabain and low-[Na(+)] (24 mM) solution enhanced HPV strongly. The role of NCX in Ca(2+) extrusion was examined by assessing the decrease in [Ca(2+)](i) in Ca(2+)-free physiological saline solution either containing or lacking Na(+) following a high K(+)-induced loading of cellular [Ca(2+)]. Although the large initial rapid fall in [Ca(2+)] was Na(+) independent, final recovery of [Ca(2+)] to its basal level was delayed in the absence of Na(+). Therefore, HPV persisted or was increased under conditions in which forward-mode NCX was already attenuated or prevented, demonstrating that inhibition of NCX by hypoxia is unlikely to initiate HPV. Instead, NCX appears to act to inhibit HPV as would be expected if it is functioning to extrude Ca(2+).


The webbing clothes moth Tineola bisselliella is economically the most import pest on wool, fur, and feathers. The larvae cause damage in stores, museums and households. Infestation can be through import of infested material or by new infestations out of natural reservoirs. Natural reservoirs are believed to be bird, rodent or insect nests. Rearing experiments with collected different nesting materials have shown that T. bisselliella is capable to breed in animal nests as well as on stored seeds. Outdoor trapping with pheromones for catching males or with attractive food for the larvae to catch females indicate that the presence of T. bisselliella outside buildings is very limited. Although the webbing clothes moth has the potential to survive in non-synanthropic environments, it does not frequently occur there. Intra-guild competition with other tineid moths prevents T. bisselliella from establishing sustainable outdoor population. New infestations from the field are unlikely and preventive control must focus on quarantine to avoid the pest's introduction via contaminated material.


Large language models (LLMs) demonstrate promising translation performance among various natural languages. However, many LLMs especially the open-sourced ones, such as BLOOM (Scao et al., 2023) and LLaMA (Tou-vron et al., 2023), are English-dominant and support only dozens of natural languages, making the potential of LLMs on language translation less explored. In this work, we present BigTrans which adapts LLaMA that covers only 20 languages and enhances it with multilingual translation capability on more than 100 languages. BigTrans is built upon LLaMA-13B and it is optimized in three steps. First, we continue training LLaMA with massive Chinese monolingual data. Second, we continue training the model with a large-scale parallel dataset that covers 102 natural languages. Third, we instruct-tune the foundation model with multilingual translation instructions, lead-ing to our BigTrans model. The preliminary experiments on multilingual translation show that BigTrans performs comparably with ChatGPT and Google Translate in many languages and even outperforms ChatGPT in 8 language pairs. We release the BigTrans model 1 and hope it can advance the research progress.


This letter presents a novel type-II hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) transmission scheme which is based on pruned convolutional codes (CCs) and supports unequal error protection (UEP). The data to be transmitted is assumed to consist of important bits (IB) and standard bits (SB). In the proposed scheme, all the bits are first encoded using a single mother CC and transmitted over the channel. If a decoding error is detected in the IB, then retransmission of only the IB takes place using a CC, typically with a better error correction capability. Next, taking advantage of the properties of pruned CCs, the decoded IB are used to increase the decoding reliability for the SB. Numerical simulations indicate that the proposed scheme offers strong protection for the IB along with improved reliability for the remaining bits compared to other UEP schemes.


We propose to develop a design for a reliable distributed relational database management system to safeguard sensitive information. Each day, increasingly more highly sophisticated computer attacks are occurring in the information storage systems of financial institutions, eCommerce businesses, universities, hospitals and government agencies. We urgently need to develop a secure and dependable way to safeguard our information repositories and storage systems. In this research, we propose to develop a highly robust, dependable and secure relational database management system to prevent sensitive information from being lost, stolen or corrupted. The basic idea is to i) include a (k, n) threshold-based secret sharing scheme (k ≤ n) to provide privacy and durability in order to prevent sensitive information from being lost or stolen, ii) incorporate an efficient distributed database management design to enhance system performance and minimize interfered accesses contentions, and iii) integrate private information storage (PIS) schemes to reduce communication overhead and improve robustness of the system.


Background: Adenylosuccinate synthase (ADSS) catalyzes the first committed step of AMP synthesis. It was suggested that the blood-derived RNA of ADSS was down-regulated in schizophrenia (SZ) and one of the eight putative biomarker genes to discriminate SZ from normal controls. However, it remains unclear whether the reduction of ADSS RNA is due to the polymorphisms of the gene or not.


The PRESIDENT congratulated the Section on the very interesting discussion which had taken place during the two evenings allotted to it. Before calling upon Mr. Swinford Edwards to reply, he said he would like to mention that he knew one case in which carcinoma of the rectum did not recur until ten years after removal, and then the recurrence took place in both the lung and the rectum. He had been much struck, when doing the combined operation, with the small amount of shock which resulted. It did not seem to matter whether the operation were done quickly or slowly; in fact, sometimes the more slowly it was done in moderation the better. The real point of importance was to avoid stretching and pulling on the structures. Even in the prolonged operations there was a small amount of shock compared.with that from Kraske's operation. What appeared to be the great objection to the combined operation was that he at all events could not be sure, however carefully it was performed, that there would not be sloughing of the posterior part of the bowel. He had no dread of peritonitis; that did not occur if the peritoneum were sewn up carefully. He did not succeed in any large proportion of cases in getting healing by first intention; in fact, he only remembered one genuine case. Therefore, he was becoming convinced that the operation of choice in the immediate future was the removal of the rectum and lower part of the sigmoid flexure, leaving a permanent colostomy wound. An unsatisfactory anus in the right position was less satisfactory than a satisfactory colostomy wound.


For the most recent years, risk has become one of the essential parameters in portfolio optimization problems. Today most practitioners and researchers in portfolio optimization have used variance as a standard risk measure. This approach has been found subjective. The Markowitz (1952) mean-variance model considered variance as an adequate portfolio risk measure, and asset returns are multivariate normally distributed and that investors have a quadratic utility function which is subjective too. Other risk measures have been suggested to overcome the limitations of the mean-variance model. This paper analyzes which portfolio optimization models can better explain the optimal portfolio performance (high return, low risk) for the Uganda Security Exchange (USE). We compare Mean-Variance (MV), Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD), Robust Portfolios and Covariance Estimation Models (The Shrinked Mean-Variance (SMV) Models & Alternative Covariance Estimator (ACE) Models) and Mean-Conditional Value-at-Risk (Mean-CVaR) models in terms of the risk and performance. For the computed monthly returns and price data (February 2010 to January 2021) for USE selected stocks, we considered the results to show that Mean-CVaR and ACE portfolios have the highest performance ratio compared to other models. We find that VaR is the best risk measure for portfolio optimization for the USE since it has lower values across all models than other risk measures. It is vital to consider all the available risk measures for a regulator or practitioner to make a good decision since using one can be subjective; as seen in our results, different risk measures yield different results.


Age-related multifactorial diseases, such as the neurodegenerative Alzheimer's disease (AD), still remain a challenge to today's society. One mechanism associated with AD and aging in general is mitochondrial dysfunction (MD). Increasing MD is suggested to trigger other pathological processes commonly associated with neurodegenerative diseases. Silibinin A (SIL) is the main bioactive compound of the Silymarin extract from the Mediterranean plant Silybum marianum (L.) (GAERTN/Compositae). It is readily available as a herbal drug and well established in the treatment of liver diseases as a potent radical scavenger reducing lipid peroxidation and stabilize membrane properties. Recent data suggest that SIL might also act on neurological changes related to MD. PC12APPsw cells produce low levels of human Aβ and thus act as a cellular model of early AD showing changed mitochondrial function. We investigated whether SIL could affect mitochondrial function by measuring ATP, MMP, as well as respiration, mitochondrial mass, cellular ROS and lactate/pyruvate concentrations. Furthermore, we investigated its effects on the mitochondrial membrane parameters of swelling and fluidity in mitochondria isolated from the brains of mice. In PC12APPsw cells, SIL exhibits strong protective effects by rescuing MMP and ATP levels from SNP-induced mitochondrial damage and improving basal ATP levels. However, SIL did not affect mitochondrial respiration and mitochondrial content. SIL significantly reduced cellular ROS and pyruvate concentrations. Incubation of murine brain mitochondria with SIL significantly reduces Ca2+ induced swelling and improves membrane fluidity. Although OXPHOS activity was unaffected at this early stage of a developing mitochondrial dysfunction, SIL showed protective effects on MMP, ATP- after SNP-insult and ROS-levels in APPsw-transfected PC12 cells. Results from experiments with isolated mitochondria imply that positive effects possibly result from an interaction of SIL with mitochondrial membranes and/or its antioxidant activity. Thus, SIL might be a promising compound to improve cellular health when changes to mitochondrial function occur.


Abstract Bernard Bolzano repeatedly tried to provide an analysis of the concept of time. This paper develops a detailed reconstruction of Bolzano's analysis. Thereby it clarifies the logical form of the analysis and thus discovers its principal problem:While the analysis may well incorporate an important insight on our conception of time, it cannot succeed as an analysis.


Pulsed air jet impingement heat transfer is one of the most important area of heat transfer studies due to its wide engineering applications in heating and cooling such as in textile drying and electronics cooling. In this paper, the tests parameters used are a constant Reynolds number of 16000, copper impingement plate surface temperature of 100C, radial distance to nozzle outlet diameter ratio (r/d) in the range of 0 and 6 and different pulse frequencies between 0 Hz and 60 Hz. The nozzles have duty cycles of 0.18, 0.27, 0.31 and 0.35, the cylindrical pulse mechanism shape with four different circular areas of 314.16, 514.16, 614.16, and 714.16 mm and two different nozzle diameters of 15 and 20 mm are used. The objectives of this paper are to determine the effect of pulse shape and the nozzle diameter towards the heat transfer enhancement. Results obtained show that for nozzle with diameter of 20 mm (pulse shape 4), the maximum heat transfer rate is recorded at plate distance to nozzle outlet ratio (z/d) equals to 4 and for 15 mm nozzle diameter (pulse shape 1), the maximum heat transfer rate is recorded at z/d equals to 2. Optimum frequency is between 30 Hz and 50 Hz while highest heat transfer enhancement is between z/d of 2 and 4.