Despite the significant growth and development of e-learning we still do not have a relevant theory specifically stipulated to guide the practice up to date. The design, implementation and delivery of e-learning have been informed by the 20th Century classical theories of learning namely: Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism. In 2005, we saw the inclusion of the Connectivist theory of learning for the digital era. However, certain lacunae exist in these classical learning theories that need further examination and explanation. This research study therefore seeks to identify the contributions of the classical learning theories to e-learning as well as establish the gaps that exist in these theories in their application to e-learning with a view of extending the connectivist theory into an e-learning theory using the Grounded Theory (GT) Methodology.


A Data Acquisition (DAQ) system is designed for a high phase contrast medical computed tomography prototype, which is based on the three-grating interferometry technology. The DAQ system contains 43 detector boards including 16 512 channels, 3 data collection boards, and one data transmission board (DTB). All digitized data from 43 detector board are collected and transmitted to the DTB through a slip ring. The communication between the DTB and Personal Computer is based on gigabit Ethernet. The efficient resolution of readout electronics is up to 14.6 bit. For all channels, the integral nonlinearity is no more than 0.1%. An air scan algorithm is employed to calibrate the channel gain non-uniformity.


ABSTRACT This article aims to explain variation in employment commitment among employees in Europe with individual- and country-level factors. Country-level factors refer to cultural, institutional and macroeconomic factors, while individual-level factors refer to characteristics of employees and their current jobs. The cultural, institutional and macroeconomic approaches have rarely been taken account of when studying the employment commitment of employees. The data are based on Round 5 of the European Social Survey, collected in 2010 (N = 26 countries and N = 18,064 employees) and analyzed by means of a multilevel regression analysis. Results indicate that being female, having a higher tertiary education, displaying a high level of job discretion, perceiving low job insecurity and perceiving one's pay as adequate increased employment commitment. Of the country-level factors only the economic prosperity of a country, measured by Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, positively affected employment commitment. The GNI seemed to explain the relationship between country-level self-transcendence values and employment commitment.


Osteopontin (OPN) is a highly phosphorylated glycoprotein that is a prominent component of the mineralized extracellular matrix of bone. The secretion of OPN by immunocompetent cells plays a role in the differentiation of odontoblast-like cells during pulpal healing following tooth transplantation. This study aimed to clarify the role of OPN during reparative dentinogenesis. A groove-shaped cavity was prepared on the mesial surface of the upper first molars of wild-type (WT) and Opn knockout (KO) mice, and the samples were collected at intervals of 1 to 14 d. The demineralized sections were processed for immunohistochemistry for Ki67, nestin, OPN, dentin sialoprotein (DSP), integrin αvβ3, and type I collagen; in situ hybridization for Opn, col1a1, and dentin sialophosphoprotein (Dspp); and apoptosis assay. For the loss and gain of function experiments, an in vitro culture assay for evaluating dentin-pulp complex regeneration was performed. On day 1 in WT mice, odontoblasts beneath the affected dentin lost nestin immunoreactivity. On day 3, the expression of Opn was recognized at the mesial dental pulp, and OPN was deposited along the predentin-dentin border. Nestin-positive newly differentiated odontoblast-like cells expressed both Dspp and col1a1 and showed positive immunoreactivity for integrin αvβ3, DSP, and type I collagen. Until day 14, reparative dentin formation continued next to the preexisting dentin at the mesial coronal pulp. In contrast, there was no reparative dentin in the Opn KO mice where nestin- and DSP-positive newly differentiated odontoblast-like cells lacked immunoreaction for type I collagen. The in vitro organ culture demonstrated that the administration of recombinant OPN rescued the type I collagen secretion by odontoblast-like cells in the Opn KO mice. The results suggested that the deposition of OPN at the calcification front is essential for the type I collagen secretion by newly differentiated odontoblast-like cells to form reparative dentin during pulpal healing following cavity preparation.


Construction Project Eka Hospital BSD City was built because of increased activity surrounding communities BSD City, which means the need for health care facilities also increased. The development process of Eka Hospital BSD City workmanship entrusted to PT. Adhitama Multibangun Construction as contractor. The project was built with a building area of 19 915 m2 and consists of a basement floor and eight on the main floor. When the project is targeted for completion in April 2008. By Giving basement floor, then the necessary excavation work on land that would become the basement floor. To be effective, the contractor uses heavy equipment to help finish the job. Heavy equipment, such as excavators and dump trucks. So the calculation required for these tools to determine the efficiency of the appliance against the scheduled execution time.


Acquisition of high-resolution images from within internal organs using endoscopic optical imaging has several clinical applications. In particular, endoscopic optical coherence tomography (OCT) capable of visualizing tissue microstructures is emerging as a promising tool for detection, diagnosis, and monitoring of disease in luminal organs. However, difficulties associated with optical aberrations and the trade-off between transverse resolution and depth-of-focus significantly limits the scope of applications. This work presents a new class of optical imaging catheters termed nano-optic endoscopes that address the difficulties associated with current endoscopic imaging catheters. We incorporate a metalens with the ability to modify the phase of incident light at sub-wavelength level into the design of an OCT catheter to achieve near diffraction-limited imaging through negating non-chromatic aberrations. A metalens consists of a 2-dimentional array of subwavelength-spaced scatterers with specific geometric parameters and distribution that locally shift the phase of the incident light and modify its wavefront. The metalens ability to arbitrarily and accurately modify the phase allows the nano-optic endoscope to overcome spherical aberrations and astigmatism, the essential barriers to diffraction-limited imaging. Remarkably, the tailored chromatic dispersion of the metalens in the context of spectral interferometry is utilized to maintain high-resolution imaging beyond the input field Rayleigh range, overcoming the compromise between transverse resolution and depth-of-focus. Endoscopic imaging is demonstrated in resected human and swine airway specimens and in sheep airways in vivo. The versatility and design flexibility of the nano-optic endoscope significantly elevate endoscopic imaging capabilities that will likely impact clinical applications.


A systematic approach for modeling failure mechanisms on the circuit level and for using these models for optimization of both reliability and functionability is presented. Since optimization is done using a CAD system, it is possible to carry out such an optimization in a very early stage of the design process. The stress factors of the failure mechanisms are calculated using a circuit simulator and the effect of internal and external tolerances is incorporated in the simulation. From these results the sensitivity of failure behavior for so-called designable parameters on circuit level is determined. This information is used to optimize the design toward minimum occurrence of failures. For functional demands the same methodology is used.<<ETX>>


The aim of this article is to analyze the circulation of Rudolf von Jhering's ideas outside of Europe. More precisely, we will show how his thought was introduced in Japan and China, as well as in some Latin American countries: Especially Brazil, but also Chile, Argentina, Peru and Mexico. Before accomplishing this task we will make a draft on the major interpretations that Jhering's thought received within Europe, in order to identify the main hermeneutic orientations that have been proposed to apprehend his work. The methodological standpoint of this contribution states that the phenomenon of cultural translation does not imply a mechanical and passive reception of works or authors. Instead, the circulation of ideas usually leads to processes of transformation and hybridation of the original theories.


The indirect climatological effects of major volcanic eruptions can be of great importance because of the complex feedbacks that exist in the global climate system. One such effect is the melt area reduction on the Greenland ice sheet. Using passive microwave satellite data for the period 1979–1995, the melt conditions of the ice sheet before and after the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruptions are examined. Statistical tests indicate that an observed drop following the eruptions has a 97% to 99% probability of being outside the limits of undisturbed variability. Furthermore, this anomaly diminishes as the time from the eruption increases. These characteristics, in conjunction with an observed increasing melt trend prior to the eruptions indicate that Mt. Pinatubo has had a significant effect on the melt conditions, and consequently the energy balance characteristics of the Greenland ice sheet.


A simple isothermal model for the scrape-off layer (SOL) which includes toroidal geometry and radial electric field effects, but ignores viscosity and plasma - neutral interactions, is presented. For finite toroidicity and for the case of zero radial electric field , the model predicts pressure asymmetry in favour of the outer target and a non-zero radial current due to pressure-gradient terms. For the case of non-zero , is changed somewhat. The dependence of the current on the radial electric field, however, is too weak and non-monotonic against to explain experimental results on ion mobility obtained in biasing experiments on the tokamak de Varennes (TdeV). This may indicate that anomalous processes, not considered here, are dominant in TdeV. The direction of the pressure-gradient-driven current is inwards for the `normal' toroidal field (ion drift towards the single null divertor), and outwards for the `reversed' field. The current can cause significant changes in radial flux in the SOL between the two field directions in the case when the SOL width approaches the ion poloidal Larmor radius. Its effect on the SOL is proposed as a mechanism responsible for the dependence on the direction of the toroidal field of the threshold power needed to cause the L - H transition. The dependence of the current on the toroidicity , found in the calculations, suggests that the beneficial effects of the `normal' field direction on the confinement should be more pronounced at larger .


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the relationship between marked hyperferritinemia (MHF) and hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis(HLH).

METHODS
The clinical data of 123 patients with MHF admitted to Peking University People's Hospital from January 2017 to September 2018 were collected, including demographics, baseline characteristics, signs and symptoms, blood routine, blood biochemistry, coagulation function parameters, such as prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), fibrinogen (Fib), d-dimer (D-D), fibrin degradation product (FDP), blood ferritin, natural killer (NK) cell activity, soluble interleukin (IL)-2 receptor and bone marrow examination. According to the diagnosis of HLH, the patients were divided into HLH group and non HLH group. The patients were divided into death group and survival group according to the 3-month follow-up results. The groups were compared and statistically analyzed.

RESULTS
In the 123 patients with MHF, the average age was (44.2±17.4) years with a male/female ratio of 1.3 ∶1. The most common causes were hematolo-gic malignancies, rheumatologic and inflammatory disorders, iron overload, and HLH. HLH was enriched as the ferritin increased, and the HLH ratios were 28.8%, 40.0%, 54.5%, 50.0%, 50.0% in ferritin value of 10 000-19 999, 20 000-29 999, 30 000-39 999, 40 000-49 999 μg/L, more than 50 000 μg/L respectively. There were 46 cases of HLH, among which 15 cases were secondary to malignancies, 14 cases secondary to rheumatologic disorders, 2 cases secondary to infection, and 15 cases with no clear precipitating cause. There were significant differences between the HLH group and non-HLH group in hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, lymphadenectasis, albumin (ALB), fibrinogen(Fib), P < 0.05, and no significant differences in age, gender, fever, disturbance of consciousness, ferritin level on presentation, maximum ferritin level, cytopenia in 2 or more cell lines, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), total bilirubin (TBIL), direct bilirubin (DBIL), triglyceride (TG), coagulation parameters (PT, APTT, D-D, FDP, exception of Fib), and mortality rate (P > 0.05). There were significant differences between the death group and survival group in disturbance of consciousness, platelet count, PT, TBIL, and DBIL (P < 0.05), but no significant differences in age, gender, fever, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, lymphadenectasis, ferritin level on presentation, maximum ferritin level, neutrophils, hemoglobin, ALT, AST, ALB, TG, coagulation parameters (Fib, APTT, D-D, FDP, exception of PT) and the HLH ratio (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSION
HLH was enriched as the ferritin increased, but marked hyperferritinemia was not specific for HLH in adults.


Kundur or its scientific name Benincasa Hispida, is a member of cucurbitaceae family and it is categorized as one of the more famous crops that is grown primarily for its fruits. These plants are usually recognized for their nutritional and medicinal properties. Commonly, the antioxidant from plant has been extracted by conventional extraction such as Soxhlet extraction and includes supercritical carbon dioxide extraction. However, those methods have a lot of disadvantages such as the process need high temperature and low pH which the result may come in acidic condition and the process is difficult to achieve high percentage of yield in the product. Therefore, another type of extraction must be conducted to replace the entire problem mentioned before. So, enzymatic-assisted extraction has been choosing to replace all the conventional extraction method. Mostly, enzymatic extraction gives a lot of advantage compared to conventional extraction such as the process will give more yields in the product.The present study is to investigate the effectiveness of two methods either enzymatic extraction or Soxhlet extraction in obtaining of antioxidants from the Kundur plant. Generally, there are three major parts in completing the researches on extraction of antioxidant from Kundur plant. The first part is the sample preparation. The sample consists of Kundur peels and leaves were grounded into fine powder in order to be used in enzymatic extraction. The second part is the extraction process by using conventional extraction. The conventional extraction that used in our researches is Soxhlet extraction. Firstly, the samples were prepared in the Soxhlet apparatus. The oil were obtained by removal the excess of solvent by using the rotary evaporator. The reading of absorbance was obtained by usingUV–vis spectrophotometer. The third part is the enzymatic extraction. For this part, the phenolic compound has been extracted in order to get the absorbance of the antioxidant inside of the sample. The sample was prepared in different temperature which is in the range from 20◦C to 60◦C and different in time which is from 3 until 10 hours in order to obtain the optimum parameter for the extraction process. The phenolic content of the samples was determined by using UV–vis spectrophotometer. The fourth part is the antioxidant determination. The fruit extract was reacted with 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and the absorbance was taken about 515 nm. The results shows that the kundur peels have antioxidant activity inside the sample. The reading of the recorded value of the absorbance shows that the linear range was lower than the standard curve. The standard curve was linear at 25 and 800 μM. These results suggest that it is possible to produce antioxidant from Kundur content, peel and seedand it can expands the usage of Kundur plant and it also can reduce the cost in production of antioxidant in Malaysia.


This study describes the analysis of in-cylinder unsteady bulk flow in dual-intake-valve engine by using the laser sheet method and single frame particle tracking velocimetry(PTV). In order to investigate the visualization and application of optical system, a gasoline engine with four cylinders was modified into single cylinder visualization engine. Comparing the maximum pressure and mass flow rate of modified engine with base engine, the modified visualization engine is good enough to be used to analyze in-cylinder flow. Flow visualization indicated that various large and small vortex were appeared at induction stroke and the flow inducted through the right side of intake valve headed to exhaust port. The results of PTV showed that in-cylinder mean and maximum velocity is 2.60m/s and 8.10m/s respectively at BDC which are 2.2 and 6.9 times of average piston speed. And the mean flow velocities are investigated for the analysis of gas flow in cylinder during induction and compression stroke.


Art Rounds is an interprofessional workshop that uses art to develop nursing and medical students' observation skills and empathy. The workshop's joint emphasis on interprofessional education (IPE) and visual thinking strategies (VTS) is intended to improve patient outcomes, strengthen interprofessional collaboration, and maintain a climate of mutual respect and shared values. Interprofessional teams of 4 to 5 students practice faculty-guided VTS on artworks. Students then apply VTS and IPE competencies in observing, interviewing, and assessing evidence during 2 encounters with standardized patients (SPs). Students also write a chart note that includes differential diagnoses with supportive evidence for each of the 2 SPs. Art Rounds focuses on students' observation of details and interpretation of images and SPs' physical appearance; evaluation strategies include grading rubrics for the chart notes and a student-completed evaluation survey.


UNLABELLED
CORONARY REVASCULARIZATION: PTCA in patients with refractory unstable angina is associated with a substantial risk of the following complications: death, myocardial infarction, need for emergency surgery, and restenosis. The introduction of intracoronary stents, however, has improved both short-term and long-term outcomes. The newer adjunctive pharmacologic therapies enhance even further the benefits associated with the use of stents. The decision regarding the specific revascularization procedure to be used (e.g., CABG, PTCA, stent placement, or atherectomy) is based on the coronary anatomy, the left ventricular function, the experience of the medical and surgical personnel, the presence or absence of coexisting illnesses, and the preferences of both the patient and the physician.

RISK STRATIFICATION
Among patients with unstable angina or non-Q-wave myocardial infarction, there is an increased risk of death within 6 weeks in those with elevated troponin I levels and the risk of death continues to increase as the troponin level increases. Reversible ST segment depression is associated with an increase by a factor of 3-6 in the likelihood of death, myocardial infarction, ischemia at rest, or provocable ischemia during a test to stratify risk. Exercise or pharmacologic stress testing provides important information about a patient's risk. Although the conditions of the majority of patients with unstable angina will stabilize with effective antiischemic medications, approximately 50-60% of such patients will require coronary angiography and revascularization because of the "failure" of medical therapy. High-risk patients are those who have had angina at rest, prolonged angina, or persistent angina with dynamic ST segment changes or hemodynamic instability, and they urgently require simultaneous invasive evaluation and treatment. Medical therapy should be adjusted rapidly to relieve manifestations of ischemia and should include antiplatelet therapy (aspirin, or ticlopidine or clopidogrel if aspirin is contraindicated), antithrombotic therapy (unfractionated heparin or low-molecular-weight heparin), beta-blockers, nitrates, and possibly calcium-channel blockers. Early administration of glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors may be particularly important, especially in high-risk patients with positive troponin tests or those in whom implantation of coronary stents is anticipated.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effect of mitochondrial DNA(mtDNA) secondary mutations, haplotypes, GJB2 gene mutations on phenotype of 1494C>T mutation, and to study the molecular pathogenic mechanism of maternally transmitted aminoglycoside-induced and nonsyndromic hearing loss.

METHODS
Two Chinese Han pedigrees of maternally transmitted aminoglycoside induced and nonsyndromic hearing loss were collected. The two probands and their family members underwent clinical, genetic and molecular evaluations including audiological examinations and mutational analysis of mitochondrial genome and GJB2 gene.

RESULTS
Clinical evaluation revealed wide range of severity, age-at-onset and audiometric configuration of hearing impairment in matrilineal relatives in both families, for which the penetrance of hearing loss was respectively 42.9% and 28.6% when aminoglycoside-induced deafness was included. When the effect of aminoglycosides was excluded, the penetrances of hearing loss were 14.3% and 14.3%. Sequence analysis of mitochondrial genomes identified a known 12S rRNA 1494C>T mutation, in addition with distinct sets of mtDNA polymorphisms belonging to Eastern Asian haplogroups C4a1a and B4b1c, respectively.

CONCLUSION
Mitochondrial 12S rRNA 1494C>T mutation probably underlie the deafness in both families. Lack of significant mutation in the GJB2 gene ruled out involvement of GJB2 in the phenotypic expression. However, aminoglycosides and other nuclear modifier genes may still modify the phenotype of the 1494C>T mutation in these families. The B4b1c is a newly identified haplogroup in aminoglycoside-induced and nonsyndromic hearing loss family carrying the 1494C>T mutation. The 1494C>T mutation seems to have occurred sporadically through evolution.


We have employed structural equation models to explicitly distinguish functional status, and therefore "dementia-relevant" variance in cognitive task performance (i.e., "δ"). We previously associated δ with cytokines and other serum biomarkers in a well characterized Alzheimer's disease cohort, the Texas Alzheimer's Research and Care Consortium. However, that δ homolog did not exhibit factor equivalence across ethnicity. In this study, we construct a δ homolog that exhibits mean and factor equivalence across ethnicity [i.e., "d(=)"]. d(=) is associated significantly with ten of the twelve previously selected biomarkers. Most of these associations are again specific to Non-Hispanic White participants. These findings have yet to be validated in other cohorts, but may suggest cross-ethnic differences in dementia's pathobiological mechanisms between Hispanic Mexican-Americans and Non-Hispanic Whites.


We propose 600V new thin wafer PT (Punch Through) IGBT having a new concept of anode design. This proposed PT-IGBT has a very low dose p-type layer, called p-buffer, between a transparent p-emitter (anode) and an n-buffer layer. This provides a practical design for easy fabrication without deteriorating the good feature of the thin wafer PT-IGBTs. The n-buffer dose and the p-emitter dose can be precisely controlled by the doses of the two ion implantations. This is great merit in precise control of the p-emitter injection efficiency. An oscillation in the turn-off waveforms also disappears for the proposed PT-IGBT with p-buffer layer, because a smooth turn-off is achieved by a small tail current. The total power loss is not affected by the small tail loss.


Objective: To analyze the efficacy of retraction cord with a hemostatic agent in comparison with retraction paste on lateral gingival displacement, to achieve the success of fixed dental prostheses (FDP).  Material and Methods: Test samples included 32 teeth that required treatment with metal-porcelain FDP at RSKGM FKG Universitas Indonesia. Impressions were taken before the gingival retraction procedure. From the 32 samples, 16 teeth were retracted using a combination of retraction cord and hemostatic agent, whereas the other half were retracted with retraction paste. Impressions were then taken. The sample was made using cutting die. Lateral gingival displacement width was measured on die-cast using an optical microscope.  Results: The mean value of group A before gingival retraction was 0.1695 mm, and after gingival retraction was 0.4705 mm. The mean value of group B before gingival retraction was 0.1767 mm, and after gingival retraction was 0.3289 mm.  Lateral gingival displacement width between a combination of cord retraction and hemostatic agent group in comparison with the retraction paste group showed a significant difference (p<0.001). The combination of cord retraction and hemostatic agent group showed higher mean value.  Conclusion: Gingival displacement width as a result of cord retraction with the hemostatic agent was larger compared to the retraction paste. Even though both of them are still considered to be effective in providing access for impression material.


Spatial patterns of species richness follow climatic and environmental variation, but could reflect random dynamics of species ranges (the mid-domain effect, MDE). Using data on the global distribution of birds, we compared predictions based on energy availability (actual evapotranspiration, AET, the best single correlate of avian richness) with those of range dynamics models. MDE operating within the global terrestrial area provides a poor prediction of richness variation, but if it operates separately within traditional biogeographic realms, it explains more global variation in richness than AET. The best predictions, however, are given by a model of global range dynamics modulated by AET, such that the probability of a range spreading into an area is proportional to its AET. This model also accurately predicts the latitudinal variation in species richness and variation of species richness both within and between realms, thus representing a compelling mechanism for the major trends in global biodiversity.


This paper presents the design, analysis, and performance results for a mobile microrobot that was designed for competing in the 2010 NIST Mobile Microrobot Challenge. Inspired by a crab-like microrobot driven by pulsating cardiomyocyte cells, an asymmetrically dimensioned magnetostrictive thin film bimorph microrobot has been designed. Utilizing the magnetostrictive principle, different bending and blocking forces occur under the robot's feet due to the in-plane strain generated in the bimorphs by the application of external magnetic fields in the workspace of the microrobot. The differences in the resulting frictional forces drive the movement of the robot body. To calculate and simulate whether the feet of the robot can generate enough force for locomotion, the design was abstracted and translated into a piezoelectric cantilever FEM model. The results are consistent with the magnetostrictive theoretical equations. Microrobot fabrication and test-bed development based on this analysis is shown along with experimental results validating this approach. Finally, a discussion of the performance results and recommendations for future improvements are provided.


summary
Isozyme variation and somatic incompatibility were investigated in order to study intraspecific genetic variation and to identify genets in natural populations of the ectomycorrhizal fungus Suillus collinitus (Fr.) O. Kuntze, Forty-three isolates, obtained from basidiocarps collected in 11 forest sites under Pinus trees, were examined. Isozyme analysis indicated high intraspecific variation between isolates from the same location and from different locations. Phenetic analysis based on calculated dissimilarity values derived from isozyme banding patterns separated the isolates into two main groups (I and II) with 35% dissimilarity. A specific and highly active acid phosphatase isoform (ACP-2) was detected in most group II isolates. Dikaryotic isolates displaying isozyme similarity coefficient of 100 % were found to be somatically compatible and were considered to originate from the same genet. The same genet was never found at more than two forest sites. This study showed a high correlation between the results of electrophoretic isozyme analysis and those of somatic incompatibility reactions. The results were discussed in terms of population biology.


Title of dissertation: Towards Population of Knowledge Bases from Conversational Sources Ning Gao, Doctor of Philosophy, 2018 Dissertation directed by: Professor Douglas W. Oard College of Information Studies With an increasing amount of data created daily, it is challenging for users to organize and discover information from massive collections of digital content (e.g., text and speech). The population of knowledge bases requires linking information from unstructured sources (e.g., news articles and web pages) to structured external knowledge bases (e.g., Wikipedia), which has the potential to advance information archiving and access, and to support knowledge discovery and reasoning. Because of the complexity of this task, knowledge base population is composed of multiple sub-tasks, including the entity linking task, defined as linking the mention of entities (e.g., persons, organizations, and locations) found in documents to their referents in external knowledge bases and the event task, defined as extracting related information for events that should be entered in the knowledge base. Most prior work on tasks related to knowledge base population has focused on dissemination-oriented sources written in the third person (e.g., new articles) that benefit from two characteristics: the content is written in formal language and is to some degree self-contextualized, and the entities mentioned (e.g., persons) are likely to be widely known to the public so that rich information can be found from existing general knowledge bases (e.g., Wikipedia and DBpedia). The work proposed in this thesis focuses on tasks related to knowledge base population for conversational sources written in the first person (e.g., emails and phone recordings), which offers new challenges. One challenge is that most conversations (e.g., 68% of the person names and 53% of the organization names in Enron emails) refer to entities that are known to the conversational participants but not widely known. Thus, existing entity linking techniques relying on general knowledge bases are not appropriate. Another challenge is that some of the shared context between participants in firstperson conversations may be implicit and thus challenging to model, increasing the difficulty, even for human annotators, of identifying the true referents. This thesis focuses on several tasks relating to the population of knowledge bases for conversational content: the population of collection-specific knowledge bases for organization entities and meetings from email collections; the entity linking task that resolves the mention of three types of entities (person, organization, and location) found in both conversational text (emails) and speech (phone recordings) sources to multiple knowledge bases, including a general knowledge base built from Wikipedia and collection-specific knowledge bases; the meeting linking task that links meeting-related email messages to the referenced meeting entries in the collection-specific meeting knowledge base; and speaker identification techniques to improve the entity linking task for phone recordings without known speakers. Following the model-based evaluation paradigm, three collections (namely, Enron emails, Avocado emails, and Enron phone recordings) are used as the representations of conversational sources, new test collections are created for each task, and experiments are conducted for each task to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed methods and to provide a comparison to existing state-of-the-art systems. This work has implications in the research fields of e-discovery, scientific collaboration, speaker identification, speech retrieval, and privacy protection. TOWARDS POPULATION OF KNOWLEDGE BASES FROM CONVERSATIONAL SOURCES


Lipoprotein lipase (LPL) is a key enzyme that hydrolyzes circulating triglycerides to release fatty acid (FA). In adipose tissue, LPL is required for lipid storage. However, it is currently unknown whether alteration of LPL in white adipose tissue (WAT) contributes to the development of hypertriglyceridemia. Our present study indicated that WAT isolated from human obese patients have increased expression of PAR2 which is negatively associated with LPL gene. The reduced LPL expression is also negatively correlated with increased plasma TG levels, suggesting that adipose PAR2 may modulate hyperlipidemia through downregulating LPL. In mice, aging and high palmitic oil diet significantly increased PAR2 expression in adipose tissue which was associated with high plasma MIF levels. PAR2 deficiency attenuates the rise of MIF, suggesting a key role of PAR2 in regulating adipose MIF release. MIF reduced LPL expression and activity in adipocytes. In a MIF overexpressed animal model (Mif lung Tg), high circulating MIF levels inhibited adipose LPL which was associated with increased plasma triglyceride but not fatty acid. Following high palmitic oil diet feeding, adipose LPL expression and activity were also reduced, and this reduction was reversed in PAR2 knockout mice. Interestingly, PAR2 mediated LPL in adipose tissue regulates hypertriglyceridemia through controlling adipocyte lipid storage. In Par2-/- mice, recombinant MIF perfusion recovered high plasma MIF levels, which decreased LPL and attenuated adipocyte lipid storage leading to hypertriglyceridemia. These data together suggest that the downregulation of adipose LPL by PAR2/MIF is an important mechanism for the development of hypertriglyceridemia.

 Y.Huang: None. L.Li: None. L.Chen: None. X.Chen: None. P.Gao: None. Y.Qi: None. D.Qi: None.

 Canadian Institutes of Health Research (PJT156116)


Purpose The Wong-Kilbourne derivative of Chang conjunctiva-derived cell line has been widely used for toxicological and functional in vitro studies on the ocular surface. The common reserve to this cell line is the reported contamination with HeLa cells. Thus, the IOBA-NHC spontaneously immortalized conjunctival epithelial cell line has been recently developed and did not show other cell type contamination. Our purpose was to determine whether both cell lines would be equally suitable for in vitro toxicological studies. Therefore, we compared in these two cell types the toxic effects of the preservative, benzalkonium chloride (BAC); its toxicity has been often reported on conjunctival in vivo and in vitro models. Methods The necrotic, apoptotic, and oxidative effects of BAC were evaluated on Chang and IOBA-NHC cell lines using microplate cytofluorometry tests (neutral red, 2,7- dichlorofluorescein diacetate dye [H2DCF-DA], hydroethidine, and Yopro-1), flow cytometry (Annexin V/7-AAD and DNA content tests), and standard immunofluorescence stainings. Cells were exposed to five concentrations of BAC (10−2%, 5.10−3%, 10−3%, 10−4%, and 10−5%) for two incubation times: 15 min of treatment and 15 min of treatment followed by 24 h of cell recovery in complete medium. Results All parameters of toxicity increased in a BAC dose-dependent manner on both cell lines. Conclusions The comparison of BAC toxicity on both cell lines supported the use of IOBA-NHC and Chang cells for toxicological in vitro studies. Drawbacks of both cell lines have to be known and considered in studies performed on these cell lines.


To the Editor: Douglas and Swenerton first reported on the administration of labour analgesia in three parturients with lumbar tattoos and discussed the possible ramifications of neuraxial analgesia in women with tattoos in the lumbar area.1 All three women received uneventful epidural analgesia, and no anesthesia-related complications were reported. I herein present a similar case, and the first report of a minor anesthesia complication resulting from epidural needle insertion through tattoos during the performance of neuraxial block. A 34-yr-old, healthy female at term was in labour and requested labour analgesia. Preanesthetic back examination revealed the colourful tattoos covering her entire lumbar area. An epidural block was performed in a standard manner (one attempt at L2–3 interspace) with an 18-gauge Tuohy needle. Several hours after an uneventful delivery, the patient reported tenderness and burning in the lumbar area where the epidural catheter had been sited. Examination revealed a localized L2–3 interspace tenderness, however, due to the presence of a tattoo in this area, skin redness (irritation) could not be determined. The neurological examination was normal and her symptoms resolved over the next 24 hr. A pigment-containing tissue core from a tattoo seems a possible cause of deeper lumbar tissue irritation.


The multiple fluctuations, such as grid DC input voltage, mutual inductance and the plug-in and plug-out of battery, may lead to instability and deterioration of dynamic performance of electric vehicle (EV) wireless power transfer (WPT) system. The overshoot issue can bring great current stress to EV WPT system, and may induce potential disastrous malfunction of the lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery. This study theoretically reveals the slow dynamic response and large overshoot of a traditional WPT system. For solving these issues, a reliable adaptive feedforward control scheme is proposed and applied in the user-side DC-DC converter, where the communication unit is eliminated. The feedforward loop is proved theoretically to suppress overshoot and system dynamic response. Besides, the feedforward control increases the selective range of control parameters, which can improve the system dynamics. Experiment results verifies that the proposed adaptive feedforward gain allows faster dynamics, and the aforementioned disturbances in EV WPT system can be solved while the system performance is not affected.


Understanding sexual harassment as a form of discrimination "because of sex" has grown increasingly difficult as our understandings of both gender and sex have grown richer and more complex. This piece offers a new descriptive model for understanding gender bias in the context of sexual harassment law. The piece argues that two separate sets of ideas about gender have intersected to produce a new picture of gender "equality": one that is separated from a binary model of men and women, but that nonetheless continues to disadvantage women as compared to men. The paper refers to this idea as the androcentric-assimilation model of female liberation and argues that the adoption of this particular model of female liberation has presented an assimilation option to women who wish to "succeed" while obfuscating the fact that our ideas about gender remain hierarchically arranged. The paper suggests that this phenomenon may underlie some of the mystery surrounding gendered workplace outcomes, and specifically that this descriptive framing provides a foundation for understanding sexual harassment - an ostensibly gender-neutral behavior when one considers that women can harass men as well as one another - as a tool of discrimination that continues to disproportionately disadvantage women. The piece concludes, therefore, that sexual harassment law is properly conceptualized within an antidiscrimination framework.


Abstract We conducted a randomized controlled trial of a sexual risk-reduction intervention targeting non-injection drug users (NIDUs) and members of their drug-use/sexual networks (N=270). The intervention was based primarily on the social-influencing approach, and was delivered in four sessions. Sexual risk behaviors were examined at baseline, and 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after the completion of the intervention using the vaginal equivalent episodes (VEE), a weighted sexual risk behavior index. VEE scores decreased in both the active and control conditions in the first six months post-intervention and continued to decline in the control group. However, in the active condition, VEE scores increased after the nine-month assessment and approached baseline levels by the 12-month assessment. There was no evidence of significant differences in high-risk sexual behaviors between the intervention and control conditions. Future studies are needed to improve behavioral interventions in this population.


ABSTRACT Currently, international civil liability law has three tiers of compensation for damage caused by ship-source oil pollution, based on The International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage 1992 (CLC 1992), The International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage 1992 Fund 1992 (FUND 1992) and The Supplementary Fund Protocol. Currently, Vietnam only participated in CLC 1992, so the Vietnamese legal framework for civil liability for harm caused by ships-source oil pollution has been significantly strengthened. However, the compensation for damages is not really consistent with the actual damage that occurred. Besides, the oil spill in Vietnam's waters is fairly large, for many reasons. Thus, the question arises whether or not Vietnam should join FUND 1992. Based on the analysis of the additions of FUND 1992 compared to CLC 1992, as well as the actual situation, the legal system, the economy of Vietnam, the author will point out the advantages and disadvantages when Vietnam joined FUND 1992.


Immunosuppressed patients are highly susceptible to invasive fungal infections (IFI) such as invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, which is predominantly caused by the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus. An important component of the fungal cell wall is chitin, a polymer of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (GlcNAc). Chitin is not produced by humans, however, the chitin degrading enzymes (chitinases) chitotriosidase (Chit-1) and acidic mammalian chitinase (AMCase) are. Chitinase is predominantly produced by activated macrophages, and may possibly aid in the defense against chitin-containing pathogens. We show that serum and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) chitinase levels are increased in patients with IFI, and in mice after pulmonary exposure to A. fumigatus conidia. Several different stimuli, including stimulation with chitin can lead to chitinase responses. In vitro stimulation of U937 human monocytes and RAW mouse macrophages with either chitin-particles (7-12 µm) or GlcNAc increased secreted and intracellular chitinase activity, the accumulation of intracellular Chit-1, and significantly increased the mRNA levels of Chit-1 and AMCase. Accordingly, we hypothesize that Chit-1 expression is regulated through a positive feedback mechanism involving the degradation of chitin to GlcNAc by host chitinases and GlcNAc recognition that in turn upregulates chitinase expression. This potential feedback mechanism of chitinase regulation may have utility in the diagnosis of IFIs.


The bluish-purple petals of Chinese bellflower, Platycodon grandiflorum (kikyo in Japanese), contain platyconin (1) as the major anthocyanin. Platyconin (1) is a polyacylated anthocyanin with two caffeoyl residues at the 7-position, and its color is stable in a diluted, weakly acidic aqueous solutions. HPLC analysis of the fresh petal extract showed the presence of several minor pigments. Photo-diode array detection of minor pigments suggested that some of these were polyacylated anthocyanins. To establish the relationship between structure and stability of the acylated anthocyanins and to obtain information on their biosynthetic pathways, minor pigments were isolated from the petals, and their structures were determined by MS and NMR analyses. Four known (2–5) and three new anthocyanins (6–8) were identified, which contained a delphinidin chromophore, and four of these (5–8) were diacylated anthocyanins, in which the acyl-glucosyl-acyl-glucosyl chain was attached at the 7-O-position of the delphinidin chromophore. These diacylated anthocyanins exhibited a bluish-purple color at pH 6, which was stable for more than a week.


Developers frequently copy code snippets from publicly-available resources such as Stack Overflow (SO). While this may lead to a 'quick fix' for a development problem, little is known about how these copied code snippets affect the code quality of the recipient application, or how the quality of the recipient classes subsequently evolve over the time of the project. This has an impact on whether such code copying should be encouraged, and how classes that receive such code snippets should be monitored during evolution. To investigate this issue, we used instances from the SOTorrent database where Java snippets had been copied from Stack Overflow into GitHub projects. In each case, we measured the quality of the recipient class just prior to the addition of the snippet, immediately after the addition of the snippet, and at a later stage in the project. Our goal was to determine if the addition of the snippet caused quality to improve or deteriorate, and what the long-term implications were for the quality of the recipient class. Code quality was measured using the cohesion metrics Low-level Similarity-based Class Cohesion (LSCC) and Class Cohesion (CC). Over a random sample of 378 classes that received code snippets copied from Stack Overflow to GitHub, we found that in almost 70% of the cases where the copied snippet affected cohesion, the effect was to reduce the cohesion of the recipient class. Furthermore, this deterioration in cohesion tends to persist in the subsequent evolution of the recipient class. In over 70% of cases the recipient class never fully regained the cohesion it lost in receiving the snippet. These results suggest that when copying code snippets from external repositories, more attention should be paid to integrating the code with the recipient class.


Diabetes is an increasingly common medical condition affecting ∼29 million people (8 million of whom are undiagnosed), or 9% of the U.S. population. The estimated health expenditures to prevent and treat diabetes and associated direct and indirect complications totaled $245 billion in 2012, and this cost is on a trajectory to double by 2030 (1,2). An estimated 25% of patients with diabetes will require surgery (3). Twenty-eight percent of patients with diabetes are unaware that they have the disease (2). Furthermore, 5–10% of patients presenting for surgery are found to have previously unrecognized diabetes (4,5). This is particularly important because patients who are unaware of their diabetes have higher preoperative blood glucose levels (4) and a higher risk of perioperative mortality compared to patients who are aware of their diabetes (5).

Diabetes is a well-known risk factor for postoperative infection, acute renal failure, ileus, and prolonged hospital stay (6–9). Poor preoperative glycemic control portends poor intraoperative glycemic control, which is an established risk factor for perioperative morbidity (10,11). Surgical patients with perioperative hyperglycemia (with and without underlying diabetes) have a greater risk for infection and related adverse outcomes after surgery compared to patients without hyperglycemia. Patients with diabetes are more prone to these surgical complications due to the microangiopathy (e.g., nephropathy and neuropathy) and macroangiopathy (e.g., atherosclerosis) intrinsic to the disease and also have mortality rates significantly greater than those of patients without diabetes (12–16). When patients with poorly controlled diabetes present for surgery, they impose a significant financial health resource burden, including prolonged ventilator dependence, longer hospital stay, and greater postoperative loss of productivity.

As the prevalence of diabetes increases, optimal screening, management, and timing of elective surgery for patients with diabetes has become a matter of increasing …


Soil nitrogen and phosphorus influence physical, chemical, and biological processes in soil, therefore, clarifying their contents and spatial patterns is of great significance for soil resource management and utilization. The spatial patterns of soil total nitrogen (TN) and phosphorus (TP) and the influencing factors in Jungar Banner were studied using classical statistical and geostatistical methods. The results showed that soil TN and TP contents decreased with soil depth, and the weighted mean values of TN and TP were 0.29 g·kg-1 and 0.26 g·kg-1, respectively. The nugget effect values of soil TN and TP were concentrated in the ranges 0.15-0.43 and 0.34-0.53, respectively, indicating that soil TN (except in the 0-10 cm and 80-100 cm zones) and TP were moderately spatially dependent, dominated by structural and random factors. The spatial distributions of soil nutrients were related to soil layers and elements, even in same layer, while the distributions of TN and TP were not consistent. Soil total nitrogen was mainly affected by soil organic carbon, while TP was mainly affected by latitude, altitude, vegetation, and soil texture.


This study aims to highlight the global extent of social, psychological and political impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic with a critical perspective. The method followed in this study is primarily to examine the impacts of the strategies implemented within the scope of combating the pandemic on social structures around the World, and subsequently, the restrictions which are implemented in order to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey (explained by studies done in this area in the frame of the outbreak's social, psychological and political impacts on the public structure). The main feature that distinguishes COVID19 from the pandemics combated in the past, is that it is the first global epidemic in which digitalization was used to combat the epidemic. In this study, it is revealed that this feature, which makes the COVID-19 pandemic unique, has positive impacts on the social and political structure of societies as well as negative impacts, and it is aimed to address these impacts with concrete examples.


Fifty-four surface sediments covering the whole water body of the Bohai Sea in North China were collected and analyzed for PBDEs and PCBs, to acquire information about their levels, distributions and possible sources. The results show that BDE 209 is the predominant congener with a mean value of 7000 pg g(-1) dry weight, two orders of magnitude higher than other BDE congeners. The concentrations of SigmaPBDE(7) (including BDE 28, 47, 99, 100, 153, 154 and 183) range from 220 to 900 pg g(-1) dw. Significant correlations were found between BDE congeners and total organic content (TOC) (r(2) = 0.48-0.73). Pearson analysis shows that most tri- to hepta-BDE congeners were closely correlated (r(2) > 0.69). Congener patterns varied little among most of the samples and all the detected BDE congeners make a relatively equal mass contribution to SigmaPBDE(7). Such a profile is notably different from any of the BDE commercial products. As for PCBs, only a few congeners were detected in certain samples. They ranged from nd-610 pg g(-1) dw with a mean value of 145 pg g(-1) dw, at the lower end of the range reported in remote areas of Europe and North America. The overall burdens of SigmaPBDE(7) and BDE 209 within the upper 3 cm sediment layer were estimated to be 0.95-1.25 t and 11-19 t respectively. The latter accounts for about 0.008-0.014% of total BDE 209 produced in China from 1999 to 2006.


This paper illustrates and discusses recurrent sound correspondences between Pume (also known as Yaruro) and Chocoan languages. Pume is a language of the Apure state of Venezuela and has so far been considered an isolate. Chocoan is a small language family of western Colombia and eastern Panama. Until now, these language groups have never been considered together and compared systematically. It is argued here that the recurrent sound correspondences attested in Chocoan and Pume basic vocabulary are difficult to explain by coincidence or language contact. It is therefore concluded that there should be enough evidence to postulate a genealogical link between both language groups.


The Manchester Baby, built by F.C. Williams and Tom Kilburn and operational in June 1948, was the first stored-program electronic computer. The Williams-Kilburn tube memory, pioneered in the Baby, was subsequently adopted in many first-generation computers, including the Princeton IAS machine and the IBM 701. Part 1 of this article provides an overview of the Manchester project and its personnel and documents the origins of the Williams-Kilburn tube.


Objective: To investigate the efficacy of percutaneous extensor tendon reconstruction in treating spastic hammery deformity. Methods: From February 2009 to July 2018, the clinicaldata of 36 patients with fresh sputum hammer fingers treated in Jinan People's Hospital were analyzed retrospectively. The tendon was percutaneously sutured with PDS Ⅱmonofilament suture and the distal end of the tendon was fixed to the base of the distal phalanx through the bone hole. Removal of the K-wire 6 weeks after the operation, the brace was used to fix the affected finger in the dorsal extension. For 8-10 weeks, only the brace was worn at night and the flexion and extension of the affected finger was gradually strengthened.The extension and flexion function of the interphalangeal joint of the finger was compared pre and post the operation with t test. Results: A total of 36 patients were enrolled but only 33 patientswere followed up for 6 to 15 months. The hammer-shaped deformity was corrected and there was no pain when moving fingers after the operation.The straightening angle of the interphalangeal joint of the finger improved from 46.2°±6.3° before surgery to 7.5°±0.6° after (t=35.12, P<0.05). The passive straightening angle decreased from 3.2°±0.3° before surgery to 0.9°±0.2° after (t=37.11, P<0.05). According to the Crawford functional assessment: excellent in 19 fingers, good in 10 fingers, can be in 4 fingers. The excellent rate was 87.9%. There was no knot exposure, skin necrosis and other complications. Conclusions: Percutaneous resection of the extensor tendon is fixed in the basal phalanx. It is a simple and feasible minimally invasive surgery for hammer-shaped deformity. It can obviously correct the hammer-shaped deformity and has fewer complications.


The cyclophosph(III)azanes, (CIPNEt)3, Cl2P4(NEt)5, and the previously reported diphosphinoamine, Cl2P–NEt–PCl2, are formed by suitable variation of the stoicheiometry of a mixture of phosphorus trichloride and ethylamine hydrochloride in refluxing sym-tetrachloroethane solution. Oxo-derivatives of the cyclic products are also formed in low yields, and in the case of (CIPNEt)3, the same oxo-derivatives can be identified as a product of the reaction with oxygen or dimethyl sulphoxide. Both (CIPNEt)3 and bicyclo-Cl2P4(NEt)5 can be converted to the analogous fluorides by reaction with antimony trifluoride. The former also gives (Cl3PNEt)2 on reaction with chlorine. Cyclotriphosph(III)azanes, (CIPNR)3(R = Me or Et), were obtained in low yield by heating the diphosphinoamines, Cl2P–NR–PCl2. Isomeric forms of the cyclophosph(III)azanes have been distinguished by n.m.r. spectroscopy and their structures are discussed.


Supervisory Management blends skill-building techniques and traditional management principles to prepare students and instructors to become supervisors in today's business world. This text emphasizes that supervision is working through people to develop and empower them to become better and more efficient in their roles. It closely follows the SCANS requirements for the five workplace competencies and three-part foundation of skills and personal qualities needed for job performance. In this fifth edition, the authors continue their "hands on" approach. In addition to providing numerous self-checks and skill-building opportunities, even more applications exercises have been added throughout.


Finding the balance between economic development and environmental protection is a major problem for many countries around the world. Air pollution caused by economic growth has caused serious damage to humans' living environment, and as improving energy and resource efficiencies is the first priority, many countries are targeting to move towards a sustainable environment and economic development. This study uses the modified dynamic SBM (slack-based measure) model to explore the economic efficiency and air pollutants emission efficiency in Taiwan's counties and cities from 2012 to 2015 by taking labor, motor vehicles, and electricity consumption as inputs and average disposable income as output. Particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen oxide emissions (NO2), and sulfur oxide emissions (SO2) are undesirable outputs, whereas factory fixed assets are a carry-over variable, and the results show the following: (1) the regions with the best overall efficiency between 2012 and 2015 include Taipei City, Keelung City, Hsinchu City, Chiayi City, and Taitung County; (2) in counties and cities with poor overall efficiency performance, the average disposable income per household has no significant relationship with air pollutant emissions; (3) in counties and cities where overall efficiency is poor, the average efficiency of each household's disposable income is small; and (4) except for the five counties and cities with the best overall performance, the three air pollutants in the other fourteen counties and cities are high. Overall, the air pollution of most areas needs improvement.


Sterile product packaging systems consist of glass, rubber, and plastic materials that are in intimate contact with the formulation. These materials can significantly affect the stability of the formulation. The interaction between the packaging materials and the formulation can also affect the appropriate delivery of the product. Therefore, a parenteral formulation actually consists of the packaging system as well as the product that it contains. However, the majority of formulation development time only considers the product that is contained in the packaging system. Little time is spent studying the interaction of the packaging materials with the contents. Interaction between the packaging and the contents only becomes a concern when problems are encountered. For this reason, there are few scientific publications that describe the available packaging materials, their advantages and disadvantages, and their important product attributes. This article was created as a reference for product development and describes some of the packaging materials and systems that are available for parenteral products.


ABSTRACT Objective: To examine outcomes from a four-part webinar series on affirming approaches to working with trans and non-binary young people in terms of Australian psychologists' confidence in working with this population. Method: The author designed and ran a webinar series for the Australian Psychological Society (APS) in early 2018. Of the 76 webinar registrants, 55 completed a survey both before the first webinar, and after completing all of the webinar series. The first survey collected information about demographics, past clinical and training experiences, awareness of the DSM-5 diagnosis of "gender dysphoria", and confidence in working with trans and non-binary young people. The first survey also included open-ended questions asking participants to define "cisgenderism", "transgender", and "non-binary". The second survey included the same questions and additionally asked about understandings of gender diversity, pathways to care, and awareness of the APS information sheet on affirming approaches. Results: Participants who had previously undertaken training, and previously worked with trans and non-binary people reported greater confidence prior to the webinar series. Statistically significant associations with confidence were found following the webinar series. Greater understanding of gender diversity and the APS information sheet were associated with confidence. Content analysis of the open-ended responses identified improved understandings of the three definitions for most participants after the webinar series. Conclusions: Training for psychologists providing affirming care to trans and non-binary young people is important not only for those who specifically work with this population, but also for generalists, given that many young people may require mental health care beyond that specific to gender transition. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic: Previous training and experience in working with trans and non-binary adults are related to increased confidence in providing clinical care, Training for healthcare professionals related to trans and non-binary adults results in increased confidence and knowledge, and The evidence base for affirming approaches to clinical care for trans and non-binary young people is in its infancy. What this topic adds: Training for healthcare professionals related to trans and non-binary young people is specifically associated with confidence, Theoretically informed training opportunities are associated with knowledge about terminology pertaining to trans and non-binary young people, and The training of informed knowledgeable generalists working with trans and non-binary young people can usefully supplement existing specialist paediatric gender services.


Interferon regulatory factors (IRFs) play diverse roles in the regulation of the innate and adaptive immune responses in various diseases. In psoriasis, IRF2 is known to be involved in pathogenesis, while studies on other IRFs are limited. In this study, we investigated the role of IRF5 in psoriasis using imiquimod-induced psoriasis-like dermatitis. Although IRF5 is known to play a critical role in the induction of proinflammatory cytokines by immune cells, such as dendritic cells (DCs), macrophages, and monocytes, IRF5 deficiency unexpectedly exacerbated psoriasiform skin inflammation. The interferon-α and tumor necrosis factor-α mRNA expression levels were decreased, while levels of Th17 cytokines including IL-17, IL-22, and IL-23 were increased in IRF5-deficient mice. Furthermore, IL-23 expression in DCs from IRF5-deficient mice was upregulated both in steady state and after toll-like receptor 7/8 agonist stimulation. Importantly, the expression of IRF4, which is also important for the IL-23 production in DCs, was augmented in DCs from IRF5-deficient mice. Taken together, our results suggest that IRF5 deficiency induces the upregulation of IRF4 in DCs followed by augmented IL-23 production, resulting in the amplification of Th17 responses and the exacerbation of imiquimod-induced psoriasis-like skin inflammation. The regulation of IRF4 or IRF5 expression may be a novel therapeutic approach to psoriasis.


Fashion is a rather significant mechanism that organizes the life of any society and regulates the social behavior of people. It subordinates not only the choice of clothing, interior, personal hygiene items, gastronomic tastes, musical preferences, but also the way of thinking, the formation of criteria for assessing the phenomena of reality. At the same time, fashion is not only a powerful social regulator, but also a significant cultural phenomenon, the study of which is of particular importance nowadays. In this context, the vocabulary of fashion is interesting, as, on the one hand, it enriches the Russian language due to the abundant borrowing of foreign words, on the other hand, it indicates how actively the Russian language adapts new names for fashion items, and demonstrates how Russian mentality and culture accept this vocabulary. In order to consider the Russian vocabulary in the sphere of "fashion" in all three aspects, it is important to trace the derivation of the lexical meaning of the denotations of the "fashion" semantic field in their connection with the historical period and the change in the native speakers' way of thinking in different historical times of the country. To this end, it is necessary to turn to the etymology of the basic elements of the Russian wardrobe, identify their coherence with the gender of their owners and trace how this coherence has been changing over time, as well as analyze the ways of grammatical adaptation of borrowed vocabulary in the Russian language, and finally, note the functional specifics of the same lexemes in Russian and other donor languages.


Versatile biological activity of dihydropyrimidinone (DHPM) derivatives makes it more interesting in medicinal chemistry.In present work green synthesis method was used to prepare a series of DHPM derivative by Biginelli reaction at room temperature in common fruit juice. Spectroscopic methods were used to characterize structures of all synthesized compounds.The viscometric and surface tension measurements have been carried out in different percentage solvent system. Viscosity increases with increases in concentration for all the tested derivatives may be attributed to the increases in solute – solvent interactions.Study was extended to find conductivity of synthesized derivative in different solvents. The data obtained was used to evaluate nature and magnitude of ion-solvent and ion-ion interactions. The primary purpose of this study to evaluate antibacterial activity against some Grampositive and Gram-negative pathogens. It was observed that the compounds show poor or good activity which depend upon electronic factor of the phenyl ring of DHPM


A 70-year-old man presented to our vein clinic with intermittent and recurrent left testicular and groin pain, clinically resembling epididymo-orchitis. He had never had any genitourinary problems until contracting a severe flu-like illness in January 2020, strongly suspected to have been Covid-19. He had failed to respond on four separate occasions to antibiotics prescribed by his GP and had only responded on these occasions to aspirin. Duplex ultrasonography at our clinic showed thrombosis of the left testicular vein with venous collateral formation. The testicle itself showed mild oedema, but a reduced arterial flow supporting the pain to be secondary to thrombosis. Covid-19 is known to be associated with venous thromboembolic disease, but usually in patients sick enough to be hospitalised and particularly in those requiring intensive care. This man appears to have had a left testicular vein thrombosis secondary to relatively mild Covid-19 infection, as he did not require hospitalisation.


This paper discusses and determines the optimization process of sizing a hybrid renewable energy system designed for urban residential buildings in Armidale NSW, Australia. The considered renewable energy system comprises of solar photovoltaic (PV) system and wind turbines as small scale or microscale, thus it is a green sustainable system compared with already existing in use conventional traditional electricity generation based on fossil fuel, mainly coal burning which is definitely neither green nor sustainable. This proposed alternative renewable energy systems includes battery racks as storage device. Software called HOMER software developed by the National Renewable Energy USA utilized for the simulation and evaluation purposes. The optimisation process depends on a very common economic analysis which is the net present cost (NPC) analysis, meaning that the system of the highest energy production, the most optimum efficiency and the least NPC through the energy. Conclusions and recommendations are provided considering the residential buildings occupants' number and relevant electrical consumption with proposed renewable energy wind and solar PV combinations.


OBJECTIVES Vibration white finger (VWF), also known as "occupational Raynaud's phenomenon", is marked by arterial hyperresponsiveness and vasoconstriction during cold stimulation. The impact of tobacco use, and by extension stopping smoking, on the long term course of the disease has been inconclusively characterised. The objectives of this study included assessment of the impact of tobacco use on symptoms and on objective tests in shipyard workers exposed to vibration, and in gauging the natural history of the disorder after stopping exposure and changing smoking patterns. METHODS In a cross sectional investigation, 601 current and former users of pneumatic tools were evaluated subjectively for cold related vascular symptoms, and tested by cold challenge plethysmography. There was follow up and subsequent testing of 199 members of the severely effected subgroup of smokers and non-smokers, many of whom had stopped smoking in the interval between tests. Effects of smoking and stopping smoking on symptoms and plethsymographic results were assessed. RESULTS Symptoms and measured abnormal vascular responses related to cold were more severe in smokers than in non-smokers. Follow up of 199 severely effected members of the cohort, all removed from exposure for 2 years, indicated that smokers were almost twice as likely to have more severe vasospasm (test finger/control finger systolic blood pressure% (FSBP%) <30) than were non-smokers (−32.2% v 17.4%). 53 Subjects who stopped smoking during the interval between tests improved, and were indistinguishable from non-smokers similarly exposed to vibration. Additional physiological benefits of stopping smoking were still apparent at further follow up examination, 1 year later. Improvements evident on plethysmography were not accompanied by improvements in symptoms, which were unaffected by smoking. CONCLUSIONS Smoking seems to delay physiological improvement in response to cold challenge in workers with VWF, after the end of exposure to vibration. Symptoms were less likely to improve over time than digital blood pressure, and were less affected by smoking.


This paper points out a need for better education in applied magnetics in order to serve a broad spectrum of electrical engineering interests. Described here is a proposed partial solution to this need, an undergraduate course that demonstrates the wide applicability of a few fundamental principles. Two introductory concepts of the course are the characterization of a magnetic device in units of volt-seconds versus current, and the definition of a piecewise linear magnetic model. These are illustrated by an example in the Appendix. The piecewise linear model provides a point of departure for the study of magnetic materials while also allowing some analytical relief to the empirical aspects of magnetics design.


Actinomycosis is an infectious disease that rarely settles in the jaw. It is most commonly located in the cervicofacial, thoracic, abdominopelvic, and cerebral regions. Actinomycosis is mainly caused by Actinomyces israelii, a gram-positive facultative anaerobic bacterium. Surgical excision and antibiotic therapy are also required in the treatment approach. We present a rare case of surgical and medical treatment of Actinomycosis, which is rarely seen in the maxillary intraoral region. Actinomyces may be associated with a radicular cyst. The intraoral lesion of a 70-year-old diabetic female patient who applied to our clinic with long-term bleeding in the maxillary anterior region was surgically removed. The excised tissue was evaluated microscopically. Actinomyces associated with radicular cysts were seen. Short-term antibiotic therapy was then administered. An uneventful recovery was observed in the controls. J Microbiol Infect Dis 2022; 12(3):127-129.


Limited battery power and high transmission energy consumption in wireless sensor networks make in-network aggregation and prediction a challenging area for researchers. The most energy consumable operation is transmitting data by a sensor node, comparing it with the energy consumption of in-network computation which is negligible. The energy trade-off between communication and computation provides applications benefit when processing the data at the network side rather than simply transmitting sensor data. In this study, the authors consider a cluster-based technique with which data is sent periodically from sensor nodes to their appropriate cluster-heads (CH). The proposed technique manages energy efficiency in periodic sensor network and it consists of two phases: 'aggregation phase and adaptation phase'. The aggregation phase is used to find similarities between data (measurements captured during a period p) in order to eliminate redundancy from raw data, thus reducing the amount of data-sets sent to the CH. The adaptation phase provides sensors the ability to identify duplicate data-sets captured among successive periods, using the sets-similarity joins functions. To evaluate the performance of the proposed technique, experiments on real sensor data have been conducted. Results show that the proposed technique is effective in term of energy consumption and quality of data.


The turn to hydrogen as an energy source is a fundamentally important task facing the global energetics, aviation and automotive industries. This step would reduce the negative man-made impact on the environment on the one hand, and provide previously inaccessible power modes and increased resources for technical systems, predetermining the development of an absolutely new life cycle for important areas of technology, on the other. The most important aspect in this case is the development of next-generation technologies for hydrogen industry waste management that will definitely reduce the negative impact of technology on the environment. We consider the approaches and methods related to new technologies in the area of hydrogen storage (HS), which requires the use of specialized equipment equipped with efficient and controlled temperature control systems, as well as the involvement of innovative materials that allow HS in solid form. Technologies for controlling hydrogen production and storage systems are of great importance, and can be implemented using neural networks, making it possible to significantly improve all technological stages according to the criteria of energy efficiency reliability, safety, and eco-friendliness. The recent advantages in these directions are also reviewed.


In response to the American military's perceived inability to handle sexual assault cases, the Uniform Code of Military Justice is undergoing its most significant restructuring since its creation in 1950. Critics point to the high rates of sexual assault case attrition as a sign that the system is failing sexual assault victims. The theory is that commanders are predisposed to believe the offenders, who are often good soldiers, and to disbelieve the victims, who may have behaved in ways that commanders dislike. This bias then causes high levels of attrition as the commanders undervalue the cases and divert them away from the legal process.This study tests that causal inference. It measures the attrition of sexual assault cases in the precise phase of the case processing that the commanders control – the decision to take action in the case. Using data that I received from the Army through the Freedom of Information Act, this study measures how commanders disposed of every founded sexual assault and sexual contact offense in the Army from 2008-2011. Further, this study tests the counterfactual – how commanders treated other similar cases: homicides, robberies, and assaults.This study finds that commanders treat non-penetrative sexual assaults the same or more seriously than they treat simple assaults. Further, when commanders decide to take action on penetrative sexual assault cases, commanders send more of those cases to trial than they do with comparable crimes. However, commanders decide to take no action in penetrative sexual assault cases more frequently than they do with other comparable crimes. This study includes a secondary finding that commanders treat domestic violence cases more seriously than they treat other similar assault cases.The results of this study should inform the national debate on whether Congress should remove commanders from the process. These results suggest that step may not be necessary, and research and reform efforts should focus on how military law enforcement handles these cases.


Abstract We studied photoreactivation in cells carrying the multicopy ssb+ plasmid. These cells overproduce single‐stranded DNA‐binding protein (SSB). Overproduction of SSB enhances the capacity for photoreactivation in recA bacteria but not in the recA+ background. It is suggested that, in recA cells, SSB binds to the dimer region of DNA and that this binding stimulates the process of photoreactivation. In recA+ cells, the same stimulation might be achieved by RecA protein.


Cancers are complex adaptive diseases regulated by the nonlinear feedback systems between genetic instabilities, environmental signals, cellular protein flows, and gene regulatory networks. Understanding the cybernetics of cancer requires the integration of information dynamics across multidimensional spatiotemporal scales, including genetic, transcriptional, metabolic, proteomic, epigenetic, and multi-cellular networks. However, the time-series analysis of these complex networks remains vastly absent in cancer research. With longitudinal screening and time-series analysis of cellular dynamics, universally observed causal patterns pertaining to dynamical systems, may self-organize in the signaling or gene expression state-space of cancer triggering processes. A class of these patterns, strange attractors, may be mathematical biomarkers of cancer progression. The emergence of intracellular chaos and chaotic cell population dynamics remains a new paradigm in systems medicine. As such, chaotic and complex dynamics are discussed as mathematical hallmarks of cancer cell fate dynamics herein. Given the assumption that time-resolved single-cell datasets are made available, a survey of interdisciplinary tools and algorithms from complexity theory, are hereby reviewed to investigate critical phenomena and chaotic dynamics in cancer ecosystems. To conclude, the perspective cultivates an intuition for computational systems oncology in terms of nonlinear dynamics, information theory, inverse problems, and complexity. We highlight the limitations we see in the area of statistical machine learning but the opportunity at combining it with the symbolic computational power offered by the mathematical tools explored.


A three-part model of the differential input, singleended output operational amplifier is developed for use with ECAP dc, ac, and transient circuit analysis programs, respectively. The values of the model components are easily obtainable from information provided on manufacturers' data sheets. Amplifier parameters included in the model are input impedance, output resistance, voltage gain and phase shift as functions of frequency, amplifier input currents, offset voltage, common mode rejection ratio, and slew rate.


The dissemination of data costs much energy in wireless sensor network. In this paper, we incorporate a data gathering method which groups sensor nodes into clusters and gathers data efficiently. Considering characteristics of data in sensor networks and the good properties of wavelets, we further propose to compress sensor data at cluster head using wavelet transform and a novel threshold technique with bounded error. The analysis and experiment results show that our methods can compress data and gather compact data with efficiency. Besides, they exhibit significant conservation of energy cost at both node and network- level as a result of reduced data transmission overhead.


Pb and Sr isotope data have been collected from fluid inclusions trapped in syntectonic quartz veins associated with the Gavarnie thrust in the central Pyrenees, and from lithologies in the footwall and hanging wall of the thrust. These data suggest the occurrence of three distinct phases of fluid movement related to different periods in the structural evolution of the thrust zone. During the first phase, fluid interacting with the Silurian graphitic slates in the immediate hanging wall of the Gavarnie thrust moved along a carbonate mylonite zone beneath the thrust, enriching the deforming carbonates in 87 Sr and 207 Pb. The second phase of fluid movement occurred during imbricate thrusting and intense veining beneath the Gavarnie thrust. Isotope data from quartz-hosted fluid inclusions show a trend toward high 208 Pb/ 204 Pb ratios with increasing 207 Pb/ 204 Pb and 206 Pb/ 204 Pb and decreasing 87 Sr/ 86 Sr. The inclusions contain fluids equilibrated with several source lithologies: deformed Cretaceous and Silurian rocks within the thrust zone, Devonian phyllites located above the Silurian slates in the thrust hanging wall, and Triassic redbeds located beneath Cretaceous limestones in the thrust footwall. The mixture of fluids reflects both the transient chemical interaction of previously isolated rock types in the footwall and hanging wall via fault and fracture networks, and dilatancy pumping of fluid into opening veins. The last phase of fluid movement resulted in the precipitation of late carbonate vein fills and a return to more local fluid movement as stresses relaxed and fracture networks healed. Overpressured fluids trapped within and partially expelled from the thrust zone during phase 1 were still present during phases 2 and 3. This suggests that average permeabilities within the mylonites were low, and that transient high-permeability zones related to fracture networks were of limited extent.


Controversy regarding the restoration of eroded telomere length of donor cells after the nuclear transfer process has arisen from previous studies of cloned cattle, mice, and pigs. Little is known about telomere lengths in dogs from either natural breeding or somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). In this study, we investigated the amount of telomeric DNA (ATD) in the lymphocytes of growing dog clones and their somatic cell donors. One cloned male Afghan hound dog [Snuppy (Lee et al. 2005 Nature 436, 641)] and 3 cloned female Afghan hound dogs (Jang et al. 2006 Theriogenology; doi:10.1016J.THERIOGENOLOGY.2006.11.006) were obtained from somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) of ear skin fibroblasts. The lymphocytes were recovered from all dog clones: their nuclear donor dogs (male donor dog, female donor dog), and six normal Afghan hound dogs (control, and 10-, 20-, 26-, 49-, 55-, and 58-month-old, respectively). The ATD was analyzed by quantitative fluorescence in situ hybridization (Q-FISH) with a telomeric DNA probe. A telomeric probe containing the TTAGGG repeated DNA sequence was simultaneously amplified and labeled with digoxigenin (DIG) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using dog genomic DNA as template, a (GGGTAA)7 primer, and a DIG-labeling kit (Roche, Mannheim, Germany). To analyze the amount of telomeric DNA on the lymphocytes, at least 100 interphase nuclei were examined in each specimen. The image was captured by a digital camera (DP-70, Olympus) and analyzed using MetaMorph (Universal Imaging Co., Downingtown, PA, USA), an image analysis program. Our results indicated that the ATD in normal Afghan hounds gradually decreased with age. Although no difference in ATD was observed between 10- and 26-month-old dogs, the ATD in the 26-month-old dog was significantly higher than that in 49-, 55-, and 58-month-olds (P < 0.05). The mean percentage of telomeric DNA in Snuppy (18-month-old; 2.38%) was significantly higher than that in the nuclear donor dog (49-month-old; 2.12%) but less than that in the age-matched control (20-month-old; 2.72%; P < 0.05). The ATD in 3 female clone dogs (3-, 2-, and 2-month-olds; 3.47, 3.28, and 3.07%) were significantly higher than that in the nuclear donor (26-month-old; 2.65%). In conclusion, the mean percentages of telomeric DNA in dog clones were higher than in nuclear donor dogs, and the ATD of the cloned male dog was different from that in age-matched controls from natural reproduction. The results suggest that the amount of telomeric DNA in dog clones can be restored with the nuclear transfer of cultured donor fibroblasts, but further studies are required as to how telomere reprogramming occurs during the nuclear transfer process.


A novel VOF-type volume-tracking method for two-dimensional free-surface flows based on the unstructured triangular mesh is presented. Owing to the inherent merit of the unstructured triangular mesh in fitting curved boundaries, this method can handle the free-surface problems with complex geometries accurately and directly, without introducing any complicated boundary treatment or artificial diffusion. The method solves the volume transport equation geometrically through the Modified Lagrangian-Eulerian Re-map (MLER) method, which is applied to advective fluid volumes. Moreover, the PLIC method is adopted to give a second-order reconstructed interface approximation. To validate this method, two advection tests were performed for the establishment of the accuracy and convergence rate of the solutions. Numerical results for these complex tests provide convincing evidence for the excellent solution quality and fidelity of the method.


—The ability to accurately predict human motion is imperative for any human-robot interaction application in which the human and robot interact in close proximity to one another. Although a variety of human motion prediction approaches have already been developed, they are often designed for specific types of tasks or motions, and thus do not generalize well. Furthermore, it is not always obvious which of these methods is appropriate for a given task, making human motion prediction difficult to implement in practice. We address this problem by introducing a multiple-predictor system (MPS) for human motion prediction. In our approach, the system learns directly from task data in order to determine the most favorable parameters for each implemented prediction method and which combination of these predictors to use. Our implementation consists of three complementary methods: velocity-based position projection, time series classification, and sequence prediction. We describe the process of forming the MPS and our evaluation of its performance against the individual methods in terms of accuracy of predictions of human position over a range of look-ahead time values. We report that our method leads to a reduction in mean error of 18.5%, 28.9%, and 37.3% when compared with the three individual methods, respectively.


PURPOSE
The present report describes a full endovascular treatment of a multiple anomalous (Splenic artery aneurysms) SAA with combination of coils embolization and proximal occlusion of the splenic artery with the Amplatzer vascular plug.

CASE REPORT
A 53-year-old Jehovah witness woman presented with multiple aneurysms arising from an anomalous splenic artery. An endovascular treatment was performed by implantation of multiple coils and an Amplatzer Vascular Plug. A CT scan 2 months after the procedure showed complete thrombosis of the aneurysms.

DISCUSSION
Aneurysms involving an anomalous or aberrant splenic artery are rarely reported in the literature. Their surgical treatment involves potential difficulties as a consequence of anatomical position and vascular anomalies. A fully endovascular technique can be much more attractive compared to any surgical management, providing an effective and minimally invasive option.


This chapter, in drawing together the conclusion of this book The Right to Leave and Return and Chinese Migration Law, recommends the means by which the Chinese regulatory framework governing RLR might be improved. It explains six recommendations focused on the design of a new unified migration law. The existing regulatory framework governing RLR is incapable of delivering adequate protection for people who exit and enter China. The recommendations in this chapter are based on the premise that the regulatory structure crushes the possibility of exiting and entering China for part of Chinese population; especially huaqiao, irregular Chinese migrants; and all Chinese dissidents who want to return. It has also been argued that these issues undermine the protection of human rights, stifle political and economic reform, and discourage the spirit of creativity and the promotion of international exchange.Keywords: Chinese migration law; Chinese regulatory framework; international exchange; right to leave and return (RLR)


Central to any definition of Life is the ability to sense changes in one's environment and respond in kind. Adaptive phenomena can be found across the biological scales ranging from the nanosecond-scale conformational changes of proteins, to temporary rewiring of metabolic networks, to the 3.5 billion years of evolution that produced the enormous biodiversity we see today. This thesis presents a body of work which attempts to examine the overlap between these three scales of adaptation through the quantitative lens of statistical physics. Namely, we examine how molecular, physiological, and evolutionary adaptation governs a feature common to all life – the regulation of gene expression. We begin by examining the phenomenon of molecular adaptation in the context of allostery, specifically in the context of allosteric transcriptional repressors. Using simple tools of quasi-equilibrium thermodynamics, we derive and experimentally dissect a quantitative model of how such a repressor adapts to different concentrations of an extracellular inducer molecule, modulating the repressors activity and thereby gene expression. While the model is relatively simple, it is remarkably powerful in its ability to draw concrete, quantitative predictions about not only the level of gene expression at a given concentration of inducer, but details of how the repressor responds to changes in the inducer concentration. With a few lines of simple mathematics, we are able to use this model to derive a state variable of the simple repression motif which we term the free energy of the regulatory architecture. This permits us to collapse nearly 500 distinct measurements of the level of gene expression onto a master curve defined by this free energy. We leverage this feature of the model and use data collapse as a method to identify the effects of mutation, a strong evolutionary force responsible for much of the genetic diversity in bacteria. In Chapter 3, we examine how mutations within the allosteric repressor itself can be mapped to changes in the free energy. The precise value of these free energy shifts and their dependence on the inducer concentration reveal different classes of mutations with one class affecting only the DNA-repressor interaction and another class governing the allosteric nature of the repressor. We test these pen-and-paper predictions experimentally and illustrate that given sufficient knowledge of how single mutants behave, the complete phenotypic response of pairwise double mutants can be predicted with quantitative accuracy. With this framework in hand, we turn to exploring how changes in the physiological state of the cell influence the molecular biophysics of the regulatory architecture. We hypothesize that changes in the source of carbon in the growth medium or changes in the growth temperature can be accounted for by the existing model without any additional parameters. We experimentally show that the parameter values determined in one physiological state are inherited when the available carbon source is verified, but changes in the growth temperature require some additional considerations. Chapter 4 as a whole reveals that, while there remains work to be done both theoretically and experimentally when it comes to temperature variation, thermodynamic models can remain powerful tools to draw predictions of gene expression in different physiological contexts. Finally, in Chapter 5, we explore physiological adaptation and cellular decision making where it counts – in the survival of cells to environmental insults. We turn our focus beyond transcriptional regulation and consider the relationship between osmotic shocks, the abundance of mechanosensitive channels, and cellular survival with single cell resolution. Using a combination of quantitative microscopy and tricks of statistical inference, we infer how the probability of a cell surviving an osmotic shock scales as a function of the cell's number of mechanosensitive channels.


The fracture toughness of epoxy used in the bulk and adhesive form was measured by a previously developed technique. The uniform double cantilever-beam specimen, which was described earlier, was modified to a tapered beam, which simplified the experimental procedure and calculations for obtaining toughness measurements. by varying the ratio of hardener to resin and post-cure temperature on a single epoxy system (DER 332-TEPA), it was found that the toughness of the epoxy used in either bulk or bond form varied by a factor of approximately five. A particular combination of composition and post-curing temperature generally yielded higher toughness in the bulk than in the bond form. This was not always the case, however. At high post-cure temperatures, where the bonds were very tough, their toughness exceeded that of the bulk material. Hence, it does not appear possible to predict joint toughness from bulk toughness measurements. The toughness of joints was found to be a single-valued function of tensile modulus. For the bulk material, on the other hand, the toughness obtained on the epoxy having a specific modulus depended on the combination of composition and post-cure temperature. Joint toughness for any combination of composition and post-cure temperature depended only on the cracking rate. If the epoxy was the type that caused cracks to jump rapidly, the epoxy was tough and vice versa. For a particular epoxy system, toughness was increased by driving the crack at an increasing rate.


Abstract Sexual reproduction is often associated with intra- and intersexual conflict, especially in species where females mate multiple times. A strategy that has evolved in males to ensure offspring paternity is the ability to produce a complex, external mating plug called a sphragis.The sphragis has been found in 273 butterfly species; however, little is known about the sphragides of the butterflies in the nymphalid genus Pteronymia. In this study, we describe the sphragides of all sphragis-bearing species in Pteronymia, including the newly discovered sphragides of P. alissa (Hewitson), P. andreas (Weeks), P. ozia (Hewitson), and P. zerlina (Hewitson).Three additional species, P. fulvimargo Butler & Druce, P. oneida (Hewitson), and P. ticida (Hewitson), are found to bear an irregular sphragis-like structure. We use molecular and morphological data from a recent study to construct a phylogeny of species in the genus and examine the number of independent origins of the sphragis. Our ancestral state reconstruction using Bayesian inference suggests that the sphragis evolved three times in Pteronymia, whereas parsimony character optimization performed on a maximum likelihood tree suggests only one origin of this structure. Our data on ancestral state patterns, frequency of incomplete sphragides, and morphology of female external genitalia suggest that sphragis-bearing Pteronymia may be in active intersexual conflict, where females develop strategies to prevent male plugging.


OBJECTIVE: To evaluate pressures assessed at the aortic root as risk factors for severe atherosclerotic coronary heart disease in women with unstable angina/compatible clinical history associated with increase in cardiac enzymes (total CPK and CK-MB) 2 times greater than the standard value used in the hospital, with the absence of new Q waves on the electrocardiogram (UA/NSTEMI). METHODS: Five hundred and ninety-three female patients with clinical diagnosis of UA/NSTEMI underwent cinecoronariography from March 1993 to August 2001, and the risk factors for CHD were studied. During examination the pressures, at the aortic root, and coronary obstructions were visually assessed by 2 interventional cardiologists, and those stenosis over 70% were considered severe. RESULTS: Eight-one per cent of the population was white and 18.3% was black. Mean age was 59.2±11.2 years, and it was significantly higher in patients with severe coronary lesions: 61.9 ± 10.8 years versus 56.4 ± 10.8 years; smoking, diabetes mellitus and climacteric were more frequent in patients with CHD. The average mean arterial pressure and mean systolic blood pressure was the same in both groups, however, average left ventricle diastolic pressure (17.6 ± 8.7 x 15.1 ± 8.1, p=0.001), and aortic pulse pressure were significantly greater in patients with CHD (75.5 ± 22 x 70 ± 19, p=0.002), while average aortic diastolic pressure was significantly greater in patients without CHD (79.8 ± 16 x 75.3 ± 17.5, p=0.003). In the multivariated analysis, pulse pressure > 80 mmHg and systolic blood pressure > 165 were independently associated with severe CHD with odds ratio of 2.12 and 2.09, p 80 mmHg and systolic blood pressure > 165 mmHG determined risk two times greater of severe coronary disease.