In recent years, it has become apparent that astrocytes (at least in vitro) harbor functional receptors to almost all possible neurotransmitters (with the potential noticeable exception of acetylcholine nicotinic receptors). Peptides are no exception, since receptors to all neuropeptides known to be produced in the CNS have been found on cultured astrocytes, and the presence of many of these has been confirmed on astrocytes in vivo. A variety of methodologies have been used to detect peptide receptors on astrocytes, as summarized in the current review. Special emphasis is also put on the possible roles that peptides may play in the regulation of astrocyte functions. These include proliferation, morphology, release of eicosanoids and arachidonic acid, induction of calcium transients and calcium waves, and control of internal pH, glucose uptake, glycogen metabolism, and gap junctional conductance. Recent data concerning the effects of natriuretic peptides on astrocytes are reviewed, and why these peptides may constitute priviledged tools to test the effects of peptides on astrocyte-neuron interactions is also discussed.


Objectives To assess the effect of 2-way short message service (SMS) with a nurse on postpartum contraceptive use among individual women and couples. Methods From 2016 to 2017, we conducted a randomized controlled trial at 2 public hospitals in western Kenya. We assigned eligible pregnant women to receive 2-way SMS with a nurse or no SMS, with the option to include male partners. We delivered automated family planning-focused SMS messages weekly until 6 months postpartum. Women and men receiving SMS could interact with nurses via SMS. In intention-to-treat analysis, we compared highly effective contraceptive (HEC) use at 6 months postpartum between groups using the χ2 test. We used Poisson regression in adjusted analysis. Results We randomized 260 women to 2-way SMS or control, and we enrolled 103 male partners. At 6 months postpartum, 69.9% women receiving SMS reported HEC use, compared with 57.4% in control (relative risk = 1.22; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.01, 1.47; P = .04). In analysis adjusted for baseline demographic differences, the adjusted relative risk for HEC use in the SMS group was 1.26 (95% CI = 1.04, 1.52; P = .02). Conclusions Two-way SMS with a nurse, including optional male participation, increased postpartum contraceptive use. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov; identifier: NCT02781714.


This article shows that observed patterns in the relative returns of style-defined stock indices are the result of differences in the interest rate sensitivities of growth relative to value stocks and large relative to small stocks. Specifically, the author shows that growth and large-capitalization stocks exhibit greater interest rate sensitivity than value and smallcap stocks, respectively. Persistent style cycles are thus explained by patterns in interest rate movements rather than investor herding or other behavioral systems. This finding suggests that style investing can be used to manage interest rate exposure in much the same fashion as traditional and alternative fixed income strategies.


Anomaly detection has been an active research topic in the field of network intrusion detection for many years. A novel method is presented for anomaly detection based on system calls into the kernels of Unix or Linux systems. The method uses the data mining technique to model the normal behavior of a privileged program and uses a variable-length pattern matching algorithm to perform the comparison of the current behavior and historic normal behavior, which is more suitable for this problem than the fixed-length pattern matching algorithm proposed by Forrest et al. At the detection stage, the particularity of the audit data is taken into account, and two alternative schemes could be used to distinguish between normalities and intrusions. The method gives attention to both computational efficiency and detection accuracy and is especially applicable for on-line detection. The performance of the method is evaluated using the typical testing data set, and the results show that it is significantly better than the anomaly detection method based on hidden Markov models proposed by Yan et al. and the method based on fixed-length patterns proposed by Forrest and Hofmeyr. The novel method has been applied to practical hosted-based intrusion detection systems and achieved high detection performance.


A novel well-defined amphiphilic block copolymer, with the polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) moiety at the junction of the two blocks of polystyrene and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), was designed and synthesized. First, a macroinitiator containing a POSS moiety and a PEO chain was prepared and then atom transfer radical polymerization of styrene was carried out in the presence of the macroinitiator in bulk. The polymerization results show that the process bears the characteristics of controlled/living free radical polymerizations. The structure and molecular weight of the polymers were characterized by GPC, (1) H NMR, and FT-IR spectroscopy. The self-assembly behaviors of the polymers was investigated by TEM and SEM. It was observed that the polymers can self-assemble into vesicles in aqueous solution.


Although they were a minority among seigneurs in the St. Lawrence Valley, resident seigneurs maintained a much more "intimate" relationship to their community than those who were absent from their fiefs. This article, which examines ten resident seigneurial families from their beginnings in the seventeenth century to the abolition of the Canadian seigneurial regime in the nineteenth, discovers harmonious social relations between the two central actors of the preindustrial rural world: the seigneur and the habitant. While the historiography of the last several decades insisted on the "feudal" and binding character of the Canadian seigneurial system, the study of resident seigneurs suggests a different understanding of seigneurial relationships. Seigneurial godfathers and godmothers, shared family or collective festivities, and beneficent actions of seigneurs are evidence for a kinder, gentler Canadian seigneurie in which the time of arrival of the seigneurial family and the social origin of the seigneur (noble or commoner) were important factors. Resident seigneurs thus call into question the oppressive character of the regime, despite the existence of various conflicts.


Background: Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] oil is a complex mixture of five fatty acids (oleic, linoleic, linolenic, palmitic and stearic). As a vegetable oils, soybean oil has a less than desirable fatty acid composition. The high content of linoleic acid contributes to poor oil oxidative stability. Soybean oil with lower linoleic acid content is desirable. To investigate the genetic architecture of linoleic acid in soybean seed, 510 soybean germplasms from China were collected as natural populations. Results: Phenotypic identification results showed that the content of linoleic acid varied from 36.22% to 72.18%. After a total of 2,423,512 nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) were obtained, a new candidate gene Glyma.04G116500.1 (GmWRI14) related to linoleic acid was discovered by 3-year long Genome-wide association analysis (GWAS). GmWRI14 belongs to the plant WRI1 protein family. The GmWRI14 showed a negative correlation with the linoleic acid content and the correlation coefficient was -0.912. To test whether GmWRI14 can lead to lower linoleic acid content in soybean seed, we introduced GmWRI14 into the soybean genome. Overexpression of GmWRI14 leads to higher accumulation of oil with lower linoleic acid content in soybean seed. RNA-seq verified that GmWRI14-overexpressed lines showed lower accumulation of GmFAD2-1 and GmFAD2-2b than non-transgenic lines. Conclusions: These results indicate that the down-regulation of FAD2 gene triggered by the transcription factor WRI1 is the underlying mechanism reducing linoleic acid level of seed oil. GmWRI14 is a new key candidate gene related to linoleic acid. These results will significantly improve understanding of the transcriptional control exerted by GmWRI14.


We have measured the step response in thin film Permalloy as a function of both a hard-axis pulsed field amplitude and an easy-axis longitudinal magnetic bias field using a pulsed inductive microwave magnetometer. The bias field ranged from 0 to 8000 A/m (0 to 100 Oe) and the pulsed field varied from 0.32 to 320 A/m (0.004 to 4 Oe). The rotation angle of the equilibrium magnetization direction varied from 0.002° to 40° for this range of field values. Data were analyzed to extract the Gilbert damping parameter, α. The damping parameter decreased monotonically with an increase in longitudinal bias field. However, there is no observed dependence of α on the pulse amplitude, indicating that the damping is independent of the angle of rotation. We conclude that there is no significant nonlinear generation of spin waves that affects the damping in the case of free induction decay for the range of field pulses employed.


Established in 1995, the Western Australian Data Linkage Branch (DLB) is Australia's longest running data linkage agency. The Western Australian Data Linkage System (WADLS) employs an enduring linkage model spanning over 60 data collections supported by internally developed and supported software and IT infrastructure. DLB has delivered, and continues to deliver, a range of significant data linkage innovations, many of which have been adopted elsewhere. A current restructure within the Western Australian Department of Health (which we will refer to as the Department of Health) will provide an improved funding model geared toward addressing issues with staff retention, capacity and customer service, as well as fostering improvements to data management, governance and availability. Research using linked data provided by DLB has been used in over 800 projects resulting in over 2350 publications and outcomes for policy development, service delivery and public health. Demand continues to grow for data linkage services and with the Department of Health's bolstered commitment to resourcing, DLB looks forward to a future for data linkage in Western Australia that is sustainable, high quality, efficient, and safe.


The development of a high-temperature laboratory test to evaluate the erosion resistance of new turbine-blade thermal barrier coatings (TBC) for aircraft gas turbine engines is described. The focus is on improvements to a previously reported design, specifically: (1) larger duct and nozzle diameters leading to a larger and more uniform wear pattern; (2) incorporation of a new auger-style feeder for precise feeding of fine particles at low flow rates; (3) an aperture after the duct to limit the erosive damage at the edges of button specimens; (4) bag filters for particle feed rate measurements. The results of both extensive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and experiments concentrating on laboratory specimens fabricated from turbine-blade superalloys were used to demonstrate the validity of the test results to meaningfully evaluate the performance of new coating compositions in representative erosive environments, and to help understand damage mechanisms under such conditions. Two specimen geometries were tested in the improved rig using Mach 0.5 jets: "teardrop" burner bar and button specimens. Both types of specimens had electron beam-physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD) prepared ceramic layers of either ZrO₂-Y₂O₃ (7YSZ) or ZrO ₂-Y₂O₃-Gd₂O₃-Yb ₂O₃ (ZYGdYb) applied over PtAl bond coats using various processing parameters or interface treatments. Specimen temperatures for this study were either 980 °C (1800 °F) or 1090 °C (2000 °F). ZrO2-Y2O3-Gd2O3-Yb2O3 (ZYGdYb)ZrO2-Y2O3-Gd2O3-Yb2O3 (ZYGdYb)


Yersinia enterocolitica biotype 1A (B1A) strains are considered as non‐pathogenic; however, some reports have identified some strains as the causal agents of infection. In South America, few studies molecularly characterized the strains of this biotype. This work typed 51 B1A strains isolated from clinical and non‐clinical sources from Brazil and Chile by Enterobacterial Repetitive Intergenic Consensus‐PCR (ERIC‐PCR) to elucidate their genotypic diversity, and verify the distribution of 11 virulence markers by PCR. The strains were divided into two groups, ERIC‐A and ERIC‐B, clustered independently of their clinical or non‐clinical origin. No differences were observed in the frequencies of the virulence markers between clinical and non‐clinical strains. However, the genes ystB, hreP and myfA occurred exclusively in the strains of the group ERIC‐A. Some clinical and non‐clinical strains were clustered in the same genetic group and presented the same number of virulence markers, which might suggest the role of the environment and food as a potential source of infection for humans and animals. The results corroborate with the hypothesis that B1A strains are divided into two main clusters that differ in the frequency of some virulence markers, a fact observed for the first time in South American strains.


Investigates the use of constructive neural networks for credit assessment. Since machine learning methods are commonly used in credit assessment tasks, the objective of this paper is to investigate the behavior of constructive neural networks, comparing their performance with that achieved by a conventional multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network. Constructive neural networks differ from standard networks due to their ability to change their own number of elements by adding units and connections. Five constructive algorithms were used in this work: cascade correlation, tower, pyramid, upstart and M-tiling. Their main features, as well as an experiment using a credit assessment data set, are described in this work.


An Al(salen)Cl efficiently catalyzed the enantiospecific (3+2) cycloaddition of unactivated chiral aziridines with isothiocyanates to furnish functionalized iminothiazolidines at room temperature with 94-99% ee. The use of an aluminum Lewis acid as the catalyst, high enantiomeric purities, mild reaction conditions, broad substrate scope, and the high atom economy are the significant practical features.


The object of the study was to investigate the effects of nitric oxide on the growth and glutathione dependent antioxidative system in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. cv. Jinchun 2) seedlings. The results showed that exogenous nitric oxide increased the growth of cucumber seedlings in normal growth conditions. But exogenous methylene blue, the inhibitor of the key enzyme cGC during signal transfer of nitric oxide, markedly decreased the growth of cucumber seedlings. Exogenous nitric oxide alleviated the injured cucumber seedlings under NaCl stress. The activities of CR and DHAR, and the content of APX, GSH, ASA, GSH/GSSG was increased while the content of GSSG was decreased. The activity of MDAR was not affected under NaCl stress. But methylene blue blocked some effects of exogenous nitric oxide under NaCl stress, so the activity of GR and the content of GSH, ASA, GSH/GSSG was decreased. It was observed that the content of GSSG was increased, however, the activity of DHAR, MDAR and APX was not affected markedly under NaCl stress. Therefore nitric oxide was not adjusted the activity of CR, the content of CSH and AM, GSH/GSSG through cGC. Nitric oxide couldn't affect on the activity of MDAR. And there were some other ways width adjusted the activity of DHAR and the content of APX.


Logistics, today, is considered one of the most coveted disciplines within the companies. Actually, thanks to productivity profits it realizes at the company level as well as on the interfaces level throughout the supply chain, logistics has amply deserved the strategic dimension it enjoys within diverse organizations. The measurement and the logistic performance evaluation conducted within companies and the company's circuit constitutes one of the most important means to maintain and develop the capacity of the organizations in satisfying their customer's needs and requirements together with their own objectives. The raised problems in this work relate to the logistic audit step and its adaptation to the specificities of the Moroccan company. The results obtained are inherent with the identification of the logistic dysfunctions and the initiation of an action plan with dimensions and the development of a logistic audit tool inspired by the international reference framework and adapted to the needs for the Moroccan company of the other.


A ROUND TABLE PRESENTATION Amy F. Westbrook, Coweta County School System Jane West, Mercer University EXTENDED ABSTRACT This roundtable session engaged participants in thinking about how Kapur's (2008) productive failure model can promote transformational thinking in college classroom settings. The productive failure model for problem solving is based on the idea that students have a greater capacity to understand novel concepts when they are initially afforded opportunities to problem solve, even though the problem-solving activity may not produce correct answers (Kapur & Bielaczyc, 2011).  Productive failure tasks must provide context in order to activate prior knowledge and initiate multiple representations; encourage students to cultivate a critical analysis of the targeted concepts, and allow for connections between failed attempts and successful endeavors of the targeted concepts.  The use of this model delays initial instruction of a novel concept in order to allow students to grapple with these concepts. The delaying process is intended to allow students time to better understand why the targeted concepts—representations and methods—are assembled in the way that they are (Kapur & Bielaczyc, 2011). Presenters explained the productive failure model, explained findings from current research, provided examples of tasks, and shared how the productive failure model created puzzlement and promoted learning in a ninth-grade mathematics classroom (Author, 2014). This current research showed how students persisted during a productive failure modeled task and revealed three main themes: (a) the group's processes of interaction, (b) the roles the group members played during the task, and (c) the problem solving approaches the group utilized during the task.  We demonstrated ways in which productive failure aligns with elements of transformative learning (Mezirow, 1997), beginning with the disorienting dilemma that the productive failure model can provide for learners. The disorienting dilemma causes a disequilibrium that evokes new ways of knowing to aid in a paradigm shift.  Since the productive failure model promotes error making to assist students in making connections between failed attempts and successful learning gains, students naturally experience disequilibrium during their learning process.  Therefore, the productive failure model could be used as a catalyst for transformational thinking.  Participants discussed ways of adapting Kapur's model for use in college classroom settings, considering applications for teaching in their own disciplines. Questions for discussion: What are faculty members already doing in their classrooms to invoke puzzlement? How might the productive failure model differ with adult learners? What types of assignments would best align with the productive failure model? How can the productive failure model serve as a catalyst for transformative learning? Future research is needed to determine if this model would have the same learning outcomes in a college classroom setting for a different course of study.  The round-robin table provided necessary feedback to determine how a productive failure model task could be utilized as a catalyst for transformational thinking in a college classroom. For further information, contact the lead presenter: Amy F. Westbrook Math Teacher and Department Head Northgate High School Coweta County Schools 3220 Fischer Road Newnan, GA 30277 Phone: (770) 678-457-4242 E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


We provide a comparative performance evaluation of packet queuing and link admission strategies for low-speed wide area network Links (e.g. 9600 bps, 64 kbps) that interconnect relatively highspeed, connectionless local area networks (e.g. 10 Mbps). In particular, we are concerned with the problem of providing differential quality of service to interLAN remote terminal and file transfer sessions, and throughput fairness between interLAN file transfer sessions. We use analytical and simulation models to study a variety of strategies. Our work also serves to address the performance comparison of connectionless vs. connection-oriented interconnection of CLNS LANS.

When provision of priority at the physical transmission level is not feasible, we show, for low-speed WAN links (e.g. 9600 bps), the superiority of connection-oriented interconnection of connectionless LANs, with segregation of traffic streams with different QoS requirements into different window flow controlled connections. Such an implementation can easily be obtained by transporting IP packets over an X.25 WAN. For 64 kbps WAN links, there is a drop in file transfer throughputs, owing to connection overheads, but the other advantages are retained, The same solution also helps to provide throughput fairness between interLAN file transfer sessions. We also provide a corroboration of some of our modelling results with results from an experimental test-bed.


We characterize the third order nonlinear optical response of the interband transition of bulk InN and the intraband transition of GaN/AIN quantum dots, both of them in the spectral region around 1.5 mufrac14m. The results show that these materials can be very suitable for optical signal processing applications in the spectral region of wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) transmission. Considering the temporal behavior of the nonlinear response, InN seems particularly useful in all-optical control of light speed (slow-light generation), whereas GaN/AIN quantum dots are promising for switching and wavelength conversion applications.


The growing need to use large amounts of data as the basis for sophisticated business analysis conflicts with the current capabilities of statistical software systems as well as the functions provided by most modern databases. We developed two novel approaches towards a solution for this basic conflict, based on the widely-used statistical software package R and the SAP In-Memory Computing Engine (IMCE). We thereby propose an alternative data exchange mechanism with R. Instead of using standard SQL interfaces like JDBC or ODBC we introduced SQL-SHM, a shared memory-based data exchange to incorporate R's vertical data structure. Furthermore, we extended this approach to R-Op introducing R scripts equivalent to native database operations like join or aggregation within the execution plans. With the calculation engine, IMCE provides a framework to model logical execution plans and thereby offers a convenient way to use the full functionality of R via SQL interface. Moreover, this enables us to run R scripts in parallel without the necessity of extending the R interpreter itself.


In 7 men with normal weight and 9 man with overweight and healthy metabolism the resting and fasting energy expenditure was indirectly calorimetrically pursued in the open system over 24 hours. The total energy expenditure over 24 hours revealed an ascertained dependence on body-weight and nutrition. The persons with overweight had a higher absolute energy expenditure, however, the activity of the energy metabolism of the body mass free from fat and the active body mass, respectively, decreased with increasing overweight. The resting and fasting energy expenditure showed in all measured parameters (oxygen consumption, respiratory quotient and nitrogen excretion in the urine) an ascertained daily periodicity (circadian rhythm), which was widely independent of body weight. Only the average daily level C0 (rhythm adjusted level) of the resting and fasting energy expenditure was positively correlated with the body weight and the food energy intake. A negative energy balance (reduction 1.2 MJ/d over 28 days) influenced only the total energy and substrate balance over 24 hours and the daily average level, respectively. The circadian conditions remained unchanged (Chossat's phenomenon). The variability in daily rhythm of the energy expenditure of nearly 25% of the daily average should be taken into consideration in the judgment of exogenically stimulated changes in the energy metabolism.


Background: Poor nutritional status has been shown to be associated with a significant decline in lung function in patients with cystic fibrosis. There are few data published on the lung function decline and the effects of nutritional status in cystic fibrosis (CF) in South Africa. Aim: To assess anthropometric parameters (weight, height, body mass index Z-score) in relation to lung function parameters in CF patients. Methodology: A retrospective chart review of clinical records of participants over the age of five years attending the CF clinic at Steve Biko Academic Hospital from 2005 to 2010. Results: Twenty files were reviewed for lung function, anthropometric measurements, gender and CF-causing mutations. For anthropometric measurements the average changes were –0.8, –0.5 and 2.0 for weight, BMI and height Z-scores, respectively. A decline in FEV1 of –25.3 (95% CI 39.4; –13.3) over the five-year period was noted, with an average decline of 5.3% per year. For FEF25-75, the average change was –22.4 (95% CI-34.6; –10.2) with a decline of 4.5% per year. Using multivariate analysis, the FEV1 was found to be significantly influenced by: age –3.96 (95% CI –7.4; –0.5); p = 0.03, weight 1.8 (95% CI –3.4; –0.9); p = 0.04, BMI Z-score 4.3 (95% CI 5.3; 23.3); p = 0.02 and gender (p = 0.02). The FEF25-75 was significantly influenced by BMI Z-score and gender. Conclusion: The average lung function decline per year for FEV1 was higher than that seen in developed countries. The decline in FEV1 was related to gender, age, weight and BMI. The decline in FEF25-75 was affected only by BMI Z-score and gender.


Abstract We examined the bathtub drowning mortality among older adults in Japan. Mortality data from Japan and 30 other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries were extracted from World Health Organization Cause of Death Query Online. During 2012–2014, unintentional drowning mortality rates in Japan were 9.5, 28.2 and 39.7 per 100,000 population for adults aged 65–74, 75–84 and ≥85 years, respectively—rates highest among the 31 OECD countries. In total, 6377 older adults aged ≥65 years died from unintentional drowning in 2014, of which 4857 (76%) deaths involved bathtubs. During 1995–2014, the bathtub drowning mortality rate for adults aged ≥65 years was stable in Japan. During 2011–2014, approximately 4800 older adults died from bathtub drowning annually. Death predominantly occurred 'while in a bathtub', rather than 'following a fall into a bathtub'. In 2014, 95% and 87% of bathtub drowning deaths among older women and men aged ≥65 years, respectively, occurred at home. In conclusion, bathtub drowning deaths at home is an important public health problem among older adults Japanese and efforts are needed to reduce these preventable deaths.


Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) is commercially used to increase the shelf life of packaged produce by reducing the produce respiration rate, delaying senescence, and inhibiting the growth of many spoilage organisms, ultimately increasing product shelf life. MAP systems typically optimize O(2) levels to achieve these effects while preventing anaerobic fermentation but fail to optimize CO(2) concentrations. Altering film permselectivity (i.e., beta, which is the ratio of CO(2)/O(2) permeation coefficients) could be utilized to concurrently optimize levels of both CO(2) and O(2) in MAP systems. We investigated the effect of modifying film permselectivity on the equilibrium gas composition of a model MAP produce system packaged in containers incorporating modified poly(ethylene) ionomer films with CO(2)/O(2) permselectivites between 4-5 and 0.8-1.3. To compare empirical to calculated data of the effect of permselectivity on the equilibrium gas composition of the MAP produce system, a mathematical model commonly used to optimize MAP of respiring produce was applied. The calculated gas composition agreed with observed values, using empirical respiration data from fresh cut apples as a test system and permeability data from tested and theoretical films. The results suggest that packaging films with CO(2)/O(2) permselectivities lower than those commercially available (<3) would further optimize O(2) and CO(2) concentration in MAP of respiring produce, particularly highly respiring and minimally processed produce.


In the recent years, considerable progress has been made in the understanding of the unique silicon surface passivation properties of aluminum oxide (Al2O3) films including its underlying mechanisms. Containing a high fixed negative charge density located close to the Si interface, Al2O3 provides a key merit over other available materials for the passivation of p-type surfaces and p+ emitters in silicon photovoltaics. The Al2O3 films also induce a high level of chemical passivation, which is vital to obtain excellent surface passivation properties. In this contribution, we highlight some recent work on the application and understanding of Al2O3 surface passivation films. We will discuss the material properties of Al2O3 including new data on the optical properties of ultrathin Al2O3 films (band gap is 6.4 ± 0.1 eV) for a large wavelength range. It will be shown that Al2O3 applied on top of SiO2 resulted in a firing stable double layer passivation scheme. The application of Al2O3 in solar cells will also be briefly addressed. The beneficial effect of enhanced rear reflectance and increased passivation will be discussed. The industrial feasibility will be assessed on the basis of excellent surface passivation properties (Seff <6 cm/s) and firing stability for ~2 cm p-type Si wafers with Al2O3 deposited in an inline thermal (H2O-based) ALD tool (Levitech's Levitrack), and in an industrial ASM batch reactor with O3 as the oxidant. We furthermore demonstrate that "solar grade" Al(CH3)3, a precursor with reduced purity, resulted in Al2O3 films with similar passivation properties as semiconductor grade, high purity Al(CH3)3.


This paper comments the work performed to implement the basic features of a Cyclic Prefix-Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (CP-COFDM) based wireless communications system, operating in the 28 GHz 5G-mmWave band, and to evaluate its behavior for Urban Micro cells (UMi) environments and typical Line Of Sight/ Non Line Of Sight (LOS/NLOS) scenarios. Simulations are implemented on Simulink using Communications and DSP toolboxes available on MATLAB ®. Realistic mmWave channels are achieved using reference models derived from intensive simulations on NYUSIM. From these models, the main propagation parameters are extracted and the system is adjusted to ensure effective communications by avoiding multipath related problems, such as Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) and Inter-Channel Interference (ICI). This system uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), QPSK and 8-PSK modulations, Reed-Solomon (RS) channel coding and two different schemes for pilots insertion whose performance in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER) and spectral efficiency is evaluated.


Do artificial immune systems (AIS) have something to offer the world of optimisation? Indeed do they have any new to offer at all? This paper reports the initial findings of a comparison between two immune inspired algorithms and a hybrid genetic algorithm for function optimisation. This work is part of ongoing research which forms part of a larger project to assess the performance and viability of AIS. The investigation employs standard benchmark functions, and demonstrates that for these functions the opt-aiNET algorithm, when compared to the B-cell algorithm and hybrid GA, on average, takes longer to find the solution, without necessarily a better quality solution. Reasons for these differences are proposed and it is acknowledged that this is preliminary empirical work. It is felt that a more theoretical approach may well be required to ascertain real performance and applicability issues.


Abstract I investigated sleeping-site preference in habituated wild Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) for each season (254 days total) on predator-free Kinkazan Island, northern Japan, during 2000–2007. I focused on the effectsof nonpredatory, environmental factors (vegetation type, altitude, and topography), to which little attention has been paid. Macaques used 24–79 sleeping sites in each season (227 sites in total, all on the ground). The frequencies of sleeping sites in each season followed a Poisson distribution, except for spring when several sites were used repeatedly. In spring macaques preferred sleeping in Zoysia japonica grassland, where several staple food species (Berberis thunbergii and Zelkova serrata) are abundant in this season. In summer and fall macaques avoided sleeping in high-altitude forest dominated by Fagus spp., and in the latter season they also preferred Zoysia grassland; these preferences likely reflect an avoidance of strong winds rather than the lower food availability at higher altitudes. In winter macaques avoided sleeping in Zoysia grassland, mainly due to the poor food supply. Macaques preferred valleys to ridges in spring and winter, possibly due to greater densities of shelters such as rocks and fallen trees that facilitate energy conservation in the face of strong/cold winds at night. Additional quantitative data for other mammalian species are needed for generalizations to be made about the importance of nonpredatory factors on sleeping-site preferences.


The preparation of chronic gastric fistula rats, their care and how they may be used for physiological and pharmacological studies on gastric secretion is described. The rat has a large interdigestive secretion and secretes free acid (pH 4.5) after 48–72 hours of fasting. For controlled studies this requires the replacement of fluid and chlorides. Statistically significant differences between the control output of acid and the response to 1 mg of histamine diphosphate were obtained. The threshold dose of the diphosphate is approximately 0.1 for a 350-gm rat. The least amount of histamine diphosphate to yield an average maximum output of acid (10 mg/hr.) is 0.5 mg subcutaneously every 15 minutes. The body dose of histamine required to stimulate gastric secretion is about the same in man, dog, cat and the rat. On the basis of body weight, the amount of histamine base required to yield a maximum output of acid in the rat is 34.6 µg/kg/min. as compared with 1.6 µg/kg/min. in the dog.


This essay is written as a thesis project for my bachelors' degree in the field of urban planning at Royal Institute of Technology. It discusses a small area called Boo situated in Nacka outside of Stockholm. This area is currently subjected to investigation by the local municipality due to the fact that it consists of a large part of small summerhouses, which are not plugged in to the communal water supply. This threatens the quality of the ground water. While questions about the future of this area have arisen, planners and politicians take much precaution because of the delicate cultural heritage that has been proclaimed there. Due to these circumstances this thesis is of importance to survey what kind of values is present and to what extent these values could go lost if not handled properly. To tackle this subject, several theories on cultural heritage are discussed which includes both older and more modern views. The method for which the study is performed is mainly from a method called DIVE. DIVE is developed by Riksantikvarieambetet with purpose of applying to progressing areas with cultural heritage. The essay presents the current view of the area and the values which to this date has been decided, but then attempts to develop a more detailed picture of the area. It finally discusses vulnerability and possibilities of the area. Is it possible these values could go lost or rather; is it possible they might be enhanced in some way?


The adsorption of hydrogen on evaporated nickel films has been studied under a variety of experimental conditions. It has been shown that, in comparison to the uptake of hydrogen on a vacuum deposited film, enhancement of the amount of hydrogen adsorbed can be achieved by depositing the metal film in the presence of the adsorbate. Some such slight degree of enhancement is observed at 273 K, but this is very much more marked at 77 K. At this low temperature, uptakes approaching one hydrogen atom adsorbed per nickel atom have been observed. The phenomenon can be explained by postulating that, in the case of a vacuum deposited film, the nickel atoms in the bulk of the structure are capable of adsorbing hydrogen but do not do so simply because hydrogen does not have access to them; in the case of a film formed in the presence of hydrogen, on the other hand, the gas has the opportunity to be adsorbed on each nickel atom as it is deposited. It is thought that the absence of greatly enhanced adsorption on films deposited in hydrogen at 273 K is due to the fact that both the adsorbed hydrogen and the nickel atoms are mobile at that temperature, and thermal movement of both species leads to elimination of hydrogen from the internal surfaces of the structure. The manner in which the hydrogen held by a film deposited at 77 K is released from its state of enhanced adsorption as the temperature rises has been studied. This has shown that the additional amount of hydrogen which is adsorbed when the temperature is decreased has reached a saturation value at a temperature above 77 K, and consequently that the measurements made at liquid nitrogen temperature have a fundamental significance as being the maximum possible. To gain information as to the manner in which the hydrogen is held by the nickel, exchange experiments have been carried out. Using tritium labelled hydrogen as the adsorbate, a radioactive tracer technique has been developed to study its exchange with gas phase inactive hydrogen. It has been found that a quantity of hydrogen equivalent to 0. 6 hydrogen atom per metal atom does not take part in the exchange process. Similar adsorption and exchange experiments have been carried out on palladium films for comparison purposes. These have shown that, although hydrogen sorption occurs to a greater extent on palladium than on nickel (owing to an additional mode of incorporation of hydrogen in palladium for which access of the adsorbate is not rate determining), the non-exchangeable ratio is still 0.6. This figure is significant in that it is in excellent agreement with the amount of hydrogen which, if bonded to the d-band of either metal, would exactly fill the electron vacancies there. It is suggested that the total filling of the d-band with electrons from the hydrogen in this way results in the absence of a type C chemisorbed component to act as an intermediate in exchange. The extent of the present work has not enabled any definite conclusions to be drawn as to the manner in which the exchangeable hydrogen is held by the metal, but experimental observations have led to the elimination of certain possibilities (i. e. physical adsorption and type C chemisorption to the d-band) as being unlikely.


In this paper, a new image hashing scheme satisfying robustness and security is proposed. We exploit the property of dimensionality reduction inherent in compressive sensing/sampling (CS) for image hash design. The gained benefits include (1) the hash size can be kept small and (2) the CS-based hash is computationally secure. We study the use of visual information fidelity (VIF) for hash comparison under Stirmark attacks. We further derive the relationships between the hash of an image and both of its MSE distortion and visual quality measured by VIF, respectively. Hence, based on hash comparisons, both the distortion and visual quality of a query image can be approximately estimated without accessing its original version. We also derive the minimum distortion for manipulating an image to be unauthentic to measure the security of our scheme.


This thesis addresses one of the last hurdles to optoelectronic integration on silicon, namely the incorporation of room-temperature, electrically-pumped edge-emitting laser diodes. To this end, thin (-6 pm) InP-based multiple quantum well (MQW) ridge laser platelets emitting at a wavelength of 1550 nm have been manufactured and integrated by metal-to-metal bonding onto silicon substrates. These laser platelets can be thought of as freestanding optoelectronic building blocks that can be integrated as desired on diverse substrates. These blocks are fully processed lasers, with both top side and bottom side electrical contacts. The thinness of these optoelectronic building blocks and the precision with which their dimensions are defined are conducive to assembling them in dielectric recesses on a substrate, such as silicon, as part of an end-fire coupled, coaxial alignment optoelectronic integration strategy. They are assembled by a micro-scale pick and place technique that allows the blocks to be picked up individually and placed as desired on any substrate. Integration is accomplished by metal-to-metal solder bonding. To enable the manufacture of these laser blocks, a novel micro-cleaving process technology has been developed. This novel micro-cleaving process is used to simultaneously obtain both smooth end laser facets and precisely defined laser cavity lengths. As a proof of concept, this process has been shown to achieve nominal cavity lengths of 300 pm +/1.25 pm. It is believed that this micro-cleaving process could be used in the future to make thin platelet lasers having much shorter cavity lengths and with better than 1.25 pm length precision. For the 300 pm long, 6 ,am thin, micro-cleaved ridge platelet lasers integrated onto silicon substrates, continuous-wave lasing at temperatures as high as 55 "C and pulsed lasing at temperatures to at least 80 oC have been achieved. These lasers have output powers as high as 26.8 mW (at T = 10.3 oC), differential efficiencies as high as 81% (at T = 10.3 oC), and threshold currents as low as 18 mA (at T = 10.3 oC). The characteristic temperatures, To and T1, of the lasers on silicon were measured to be 43 K and 85 K, respectively. To put the performance of these integrated micro-cleaved ridge lasers on silicon in perspective, conventionally cleaved multiple quantum well (MQW) ridge lasers on their native InP substrate were also fabricated and tested. The thin micro-cleaved ridge platelet lasers integrated onto silicon outperformed the conventional lasers on InP in terms of thermal characteristics (maximum operating temperature, To, and T1), output power, and differential efficiency. The structure of this thesis is as follows. First, the motivation for this work and the historical evolution of the optoelectronics field are briefly described. Next, the various optoelectronic integration techniques that have been pursued over the years and their limits are presented. The novel fabrication processes developed to manufacture these platelet lasers is then described in detail. Specifics on the characterization methods and measurement results of both the micro-cleaved ridge lasers on silicon and the conventionally cleaved ridge lasers on native InP substrates are presented. A technique, Magnetically Assisted Statistical Assembly, that could be potentially used to scale the integration technology to ultra-high densities of optoelectronic components is then theoretically described. Finally, the thesis concludes with a comparison with other state of the art results in the literature and proposes further directions for this research effort. Thesis Supervisor: Clifton G. Fonstad, Jr. Title: Professor


This study involves an the analysis of health problems and psychosomatic disorders between wives of alcoholics and those of non-alcoholics. The subjects of the study were 122 wives of alcoholics who accompanied their husbands for outpatient alcoholism treatment at Kurihama National Hospital. For an appropriate comparison, 88 aged-matched wives of non-alcoholic husbands were asked to cooperate as controls. The subjects were given Cornell Medical Index (CMI) and our original questionnaire on their own and their husbands' health problems on their first outpatient visit. The controls were also given them during the same research period. The results are briefly summarized as follows: 1. The most obvious health problem of wives of alcoholics with an incidence significantly higher than that of wives of non-alcoholics was genital disease; 13.9% of the subjects had such diseases, in contrast to 1.1% of the controls. 2. The second health problem of the subjects which significantly exceeded that of the controls was cardiovascular disease (9.0% vs 1.1%). 3. The mean number of past illnesses of the subjects was 0.78 (SD 1.08) compared with 0.51 (SD 0.82) for the controls. 4. The rate of current illness of the subjects was 28.2% compared with 19.3% for the controls. 5. The rate of CMI Category IV (indicates "neurotic") of the subjects was 5.0% compared with 0.0% for the controls. 6. As a whole, our results were more moderate than those of previous studies, but wives of alcoholics had more current and past illness, and were more neurotic than the controls.


Infection often triggers an exacerbation of chronic ITP. The precise mechanism for the decreased platelet count associated with infection is not completely understood. However, interference with megakaryopoiesis is often invoked, and increased production of autoantibodies is also possible. We hypothesized that stimulation of innate immunity could enhance phagocytosis in the reticuloendothelial system and thus contribute to an exacerbation of chronic ITP in the setting of infection. The innate immune response involves activation of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) that initiate intracellular signaling through MyD88 kinase as well as through other incompletely characterized MyD88-independent pathways. We have previously shown that Syk is a crucial signaling tyrosine kinase involved in Fcγ receptor-mediated platelet phagocytosis and that Syk-specific dsRNA inhibits antibody-mediated platelet phagocytosis. Furthermore, the ligand binding requirements for Syk are not stringently limited to classical tandem immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs. We speculated that TLR4 might employ Syk tyrosine kinase intracellular signaling in human macrophages as a mechanism to enhance immune platelet phagocytosis. The present study was undertaken to address the following questions: Does lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation, an in vitro model for innate immunity triggered by gram-negative bacterial infection, augment antibody-dependent phagocytosis of platelets? Does TLR4 associate with Syk tyrosine kinase in macrophages? Does LPS stimulation induce phosphorylation of Syk?

Methods: Antibody-mediated phagocytosis of platelets by THP-1 (human macrophage) cells in culture was assayed by co-incubation of THP-1 cells with or without LPS stimulation at 37°C with platelets that were labeled with 5-(and 6-) carboxyfluorescein diacetate mixed isomers (CFDA) in the presence of human serum containing antihuman GPIIIa IgG antibody. Association of TLR4 with the tyrosine kinase, Syk, was studied in THP-1 cells by immunoprecipitation and immunoblotting after ligation with anti-TLR4 monoclonal antibody (mAb) or stimulation with LPS. Phosphorylation of TLR4-associated Syk after LPS stimulation was studied by immunoprecipitation and immunodetection with anti-TLR4, antiphosphotyrosine (PY99), and anti-Syk mAbs.

Results: Antibody-mediated platelet phagocytosis by THP-1 cells was enhanced by 50% after LPS exposure. In five experiments a mean of 21.8% ± 4.1% CFDA-labeled platelets were ingested by THP-1 cells upon antiplatelet antibody exposure in the absence of LPS, while 32.8% ± 6.3% were phagocytosed after LPS (p<0.001.) Syk protein was coimmunoprecipitated with TLR4 from THP-1 cell lysates by anti-TLR4 mAb. Furthermore, intracellular Syk became phosphorylated upon LPS stimulation of THP-1 cells.

Conclusions: These studies support the hypothesis that activation of TLR4 in the setting of infection contributes to enhanced antibody-mediated platelet phagocytosis by macrophages and thus exacerbates chronic ITP. Syk becomes phosphorylated upon TLR4 stimulation of macrophages and may play a role in signal transduction triggered by the innate immune system through TLR4. These novel findings may have an impact on the understanding and management of immune thrombocytopenia in the setting of infectious diseases and offer a new therapeutic target for chronic ITP.


As part of the MATADOR-project measurement methods have been developed for the evaluation of the energy consumption and emissions of vehicles with advanced propulsion systems, such as battery-electric, hybrid electric and fuel cell vehicles. Based on an inventory of existing and prospective standard test procedures and of technology-specific problems associated with testing electric, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles, a number of topics has been selected for in-depth study. Computer simulations and vehicle tests have been performed to analyse these problems and to evaluate possible solutions, This research has resulted in recommendations for test and evaluation methods for dealing with test problems related to the various electric propulsion systems. Using these recommended test methods in combination with elements from existing (draft) test procedures, frameworks are developed that sketch the general structure and contents of test procedures for battery-electric, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles. The MATADOR-project has started and will end June 2000. This paper presents some final results of Task 2 of the project. Preliminary results have already been presented at EVS-15 and EVS-16.


In a retrospective study, from 1994 to 1998, of inseminations with frozen semen in dogs, a total of 312 bitches of 70 different breeds were inseminated with imported (n = 183) or domestic (n = 129) semen. The overall whelping rate was 70% and mean (+/- SEM) litter size was 5.3 +/- 0.2 pups. The whelping rate was higher after intrauterine insemination (71%; n = 305) than after intravaginal insemination (29%; n = 7; P < 0.05). Timing of insemination was crucial; timing classified as optimal resulted in a higher whelping rate and larger litter size (P < 0.05) than did timing classified as early, late or too late. In the too late category, none of the bitches (n = 5) whelped. For optimal timing, whelping rate and mean (+/- SEM) litter size were 76% (n = 252) and 5.6 +/- 0.2, for early 33% (n = 6) and 1.5 +/- 0.5, and for late 47% (n = 19) and 2.8 +/- 0.7. Two inseminations yielded a higher whelping rate (P < 0.05) and greater mean litter size (P < 0.05) than that of one insemination, 77% and 5.6 +/- 0.3, and 60% and 4.6 +/- 0.3, respectively. However, the results obtained after one insemination were poorer partly because of an over-representation of late insemination in this group. Semen classified as of poor quality (progressive motility < 50% or percentage of abnormal spermatozoa > 20%) gave a lower whelping rate (53%) than did semen of medium (progressive motility = 50%) or good quality (progressive motility > 50% and percentage of abnormal spermatozoa < 20%), which gave whelping rates of 76 and 74%, respectively (P < 0.05). The mean litter sizes were not significantly different. Eighty-two per cent of bitches (120 of 147) inseminated twice into the uterus at a time classified as optimal with frozen semen of good or medium quality whelped. The mean (+/- SEM) litter size was 5.6 +/- 0.3 pups in this group. These results show the potential of transcervical intrauterine insemination for routine artificial insemination in dogs.


Supported amines are promising candidate adsorbents for the removal of CO2 from flue gases and directly from ambient air. The incorporation of additives into polymeric amines such as poly(ethylenimine) (PEI) supported on mesoporous oxides is an effective strategy to improve the performance of the materials. Here, several practical aspects of this strategy are addressed with regards to direct air capture. The influence of three additives (CTAB, PEG200, PEG1000) was systematically explored under dry simulated air capture conditions (400 ppm of CO2, 30 °C). With SBA-15 as a model support for poly(ethylenimine) (PEI), the nature of the additive induced heterogeneities in the deposition of organic on the interior and exterior of the particles, an important consideration for future scale up to practical systems. The PEG200 additive increased the observed thermodynamic performance (∼60% increase in amine efficiency) of the adsorbents regardless of the PEI content, while the other molecules had less positive effects. A threshold PEG200/PEI value was identified at which the diffusional limitations of CO2 within the materials were nearly eliminated. The threshold PEG/PEI ratio may have physical origin in the interactions between PEI and PEG, as the optimal ratio corresponded to nearly equimolar OH/reactive (1°, 2°) amine ratios. The strategy is shown to be robust to the characteristics of the host support, as PEG200 improved the amine efficiency of PEI when supported on two varieties of mesoporous γ-alumina with PEI.


An analysis of association patterns revealed breed-specific deviations from random distribution of the participating chromosomes. The investigation of the distribution of associations also showed several deviations from randomness. The strong involvement of a rearranged chromosome in associations is high-lighted.


Summary form only given. A breakthrough, paving the way to serious research into the properties of neutral antimatter, would be the wall-free confinement of cold antihydrogen atoms. To produce such cold antihydrogen atoms and catch them before they annihilate with matter is the primary goal of the ATRAP (antihydrogen trap) collaboration. Once trapped, cold antihydrogen atoms can be used for experiments such as tests of CPT invariance or gravity measurements. Here we present a new recombination scheme using pulsed electric fields as slow as 1 ns.


Experimental analysis of a bulb turbine during the start-up sequence and in speed-no-load (SNL) operating conditions was performed in a closed-loop circuit. This study focuses on pressure fluctuations across the machine. The turbine was equipped with 26 pressure sensors on one runner blade and 16 in the stationary reference frame. Strain measurements were also performed on two other runner blades. The first section of this analysis focuses on SNL operating conditions using standard Fourier data processing. The results show that three rotating flow phenomena are only present close to the runner. One of them corresponds to the interblade vortex at f/fr=4.00, whereas the two others, which have subsynchronous runner frequencies, are consistent with a possible rotating stall. These phenomena, which exist predominantly on the suction side, have a strong influence on runner blade strain. The second section of the study concentrates on a time-frequency analysis using the Morlet wavelet transform. It reveals that the two subsynchronous flow structures appear at the end of the start-up and exhibit bistable behavior. As well, each of these phenomena acts differently on the blade. These phenomena also interact with the interblade vortex.


The last half of the 20th Century witnessed an increase in the occurrence and recognition of urban zoonoses caused by members of the genera Bartonella, Coxiella, Ehrlichia, and Rickettsia, all traditionally considered to be members of the family Rickettsiaceae. In recent years, new human pathogens (Bartonella elizabethae, Bartonella henselae, and Rickettsia felis) have been recognized in urban environments. Other newly recognized pathogens (Ehrlichia chaffeensis and Ehrlichia phagocytophila in the United States) have sylvan zoonotic cycles but are present in urban areas because their vertebrate hosts and associated ectoparasitic arthropod vectors are able to survive in cities. Still other agents, which were primarily of historical importance (Bartonella quintana) or have not traditionally been associated with urban environments (Rickettsia rickettsii), have been recognized as causes of human disease in urban areas. Some diseases that have traditionally been associated with urban environments, such as rickettsialpox (caused by Rickettsia akari) and murine typhus (caused by Rickettsia typhi), still occur in large cities at low or undetermined frequencies and often go undetected, despite the availability of effective measures to diagnose and control them. In addition, alternate transmission cycles have been discovered for Coxiella burnetii, Rickettsia prowazekii, and R. typhi that differ substantially from their established, classic cycles, indicating that the epidemiology of these agents is more complex than originally thought and may be changing. Factors leading to an increase in the incidence of illnesses caused by these bacteria in urban areas include societal changes as well as intrinsic components of the natural history of these organisms that favor their survival in cities. Transovarial and transstadial transmission of many of the agents in their arthropod hosts contributes to the highly focal nature of many of the diseases they cause by allowing the pathogens to persist in areas during adverse times when vertebrate amplifying hosts may be scarce or absent. Domesticated animals (primarily cats, dogs, and livestock) or commensal rodents [primarily Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) and house mice (Mus musculus)] can serve as vertebrate amplifying hosts and bring these agents and their ectoparasitic arthropod vectors into direct association with humans and help maintain transmission cycles in densely populated urban areas. The reasons for the increase in these urban zoonoses are complex. Increasing population density worldwide, shifts in populations from rural areas to cities, increased domestic and international mobility, an increase in homelessness, the decline of inner-city neighborhoods, and an increase in the population of immunosuppressed individuals all contribute to the emergence and recognition of human diseases caused by these groups of agents. Due to the focal nature of infections in urban areas, control or prevention of these diseases is possible. Increased physician awareness and public health surveillance support will be required to detect and treat existing urban infections caused by these agents, to determine the disease burden caused by them, to design and implement control programs to combat and prevent their spread, and to recognize emerging or resurging infections caused by members of these genera as they occur.


Objective: To compare patients submitted to conventional ultrafiltration (CUF) with and without a technical modification that allows the use of residual blood from the circuit tubes and oxygenator. Method: From March 2002 to January 2005, 301 patients undergoing congenital heart defect surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) were retrospectively analyzed and divided into two groups: Group A 130 submitted to CUF and Group B, 171 patients submitted to CUF with a technical modification that uses residual blood. Demographic data, diagnosis, surgical treatment, intra-operative and postoperative data, the need and amount of blood transfusions, laboratorial results and length of hospital stay were compared between the groups. Results: There was no differences in the initial hematocrit before CPB (p = 0.06), but in Group B, the values after ultrafiltration were higher (p <0.0001). Group B patients received more transfusions in the first 48 hours of the postoperative period (p <0.0001). There was no significant difference in the time of mechanical ventilation (p = 0.34), but the inotropic support (p <0.0001), antibiotic therapy (p = 0.0006), length of stay in the intensive care unit (p <0.0001) and length of hospital stay (p <0.0001) were greater for Group B. Conclusions: CUF with the technical modification was not better than conventional CUF, because in spite of elevating the hematocrit after CBP, it caused greater postoperative bleeding with a greater need of blood transfusions and longer hospital stays. Descriptors: Ultrafiltration. Extracorporeal circulation. Heart defects, congenital.


Basal cell carcinoma of the penis is rare. A patient who presented with a penile and scrotal ulcer due to basal cell carcinoma is reported. Wide local excision and split skin grafting were performed to excise the lesion completely.


In any city we find spaces that, either because of unsustainable exploitation or because of the wrong approach, fail to reach their full potential. As a result, there is a need to pay particular attention to these types of sites for their introduction into the landscape circuit. Thus, the paper intends to come up with a solution that transforms a space without identity of 35,125 m2, with a great need for completion, innovation, within a reasonable limit, in a spacevolumetric environment that is more accessible to both the inhabitants of Orăștie city, as well as for the municipal administration. The architecture of the present arrangement proposes a different architectural concept, in which the landscape elements that come into its composition define the mixed style. The scenario, is proposed to be constructed from regular shapes that combine with free forms and creates a harmonious, balanced rhythm and thus strengthens the feeling of spatiality. The interior path of the proposed green spaces within the layout, offers a gradual transition, between the different functional areas. By designing the rehabilitation solution within this project, we aspired to increase the value of the subconscious and the consciousness of the inhabitants of Orăștie city, adopting a timely energetic attitude to heal a land of no value.


Introduction family planning programmes have helped in increasing the prevalence of contraceptive use and reducing total fertility rate in developing countries from six to three births per woman. However, its uptake is lower in the rural areas compared to urban areas. This study seeks to elucidate the effect of community mobilisation on awareness, approval and use of family planning among women of reproductive age in the rural areas of Ebonyi state, Nigeria. Methods we conducted a quasi-experimental study among women aged 15 to 49 years in two rural communities in Ebonyi state. Using simple random method, we recruited 484 women for the study. We used pre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire to collect information from the participants. Community awareness and distribution of information, education and communication materials were carried out within one month. We estimated the effect of the intervention on the level of awareness, approval and uptake of family planning methods. Results level of awareness increased by 19% (p<0.001) while uptake of family planning increased by 16.7% (p<0.001) in the intervention group. The approval rate was higher in the intervention group compared to the control group (p=0.008). The most commonly used method of family planning was the natural method in intervention and control arms. Conclusion although uptake of family planning increased significantly in the study population, the rate is generally low. Given the critical role of the community in family planning programmes, community mobilisation may be deployed to increase uptake of family planning in similar rural communities.


Lessors brought a declaratory judgment action seeking to terminate several oil and gas leases executed in 2002 and 2003. The leases' habendum clause provided for a primary term of one year and a secondary term continuing so long as lessee produced oil or gas, there were production operations on the leasehold, or lessee tendered delay rental payments. Assignee-lessees made delay rental payments but did not make any efforts to drill any wells on the leaseholds. The trial court granted summary judgment for lessors on the grounds that leases would not be construed to create a perpetual term unless the intention is clear and unequivocal. The Superior Court initially noted that an oil and gas lease conveys an inchoate interest that becomes vested as a fee simple determinable upon production. The court then affirmed, holding that delay rental payments could not hold the leases during the secondary terms, relying heavily on the rationale that the purpose of a lease is to promote the development of the leasehold. The court additionally held that to find that a lease can be held indefinitely by delay rental payments was inconsistent with the nature of a lease as a fee simple determinable, because it only becomes such a vested interest when production in paying quantities is achieved.


Urinary and blood porphyrin contents were measured in rats exposed to diazinon in order to examine the usefulness of porphyrin profiles as biomarkers of diazinon (organophosphorus insecticide) exposure. Rats were given diazinon(10, 30 and 90 mg/kg b.w) once per day for 5 weeks by gavage and thereafter were given distilled water for further 5weeks. Among the urinary porphyrins, coproporphyrin and uroporphyrin began to increase from the 3rd week of the administration of diazinon and the tendency of increment continued up to 5 weeks(coproporphyrin) or 3 weeks(uroporphyrin) after the withdrawal of diazinon exposure. Protoporphyrin content showed no significant change compared with that of control throughout the whole period of experiment. Of the blood porphyrins, protoporphyrin content of diazinon-treated group was higher than that of control group from the 5th week of exposure to the end of experiment. Uroporphyrin was not detected in the both of control and treatment group. Coproporphyrin level of the treatment group was not significantly differnt from that of control. The results suggest that urinary and blood porphyrin profiles may contribute as biomarkers for diagnosis of diazinon exposure.


A study of the plants, and their associated poisons, in the Poison Garden at The Alnwick Garden was undertaken across a calendar year. By selecting 25 plants in the Poison Garden, we have been able to develop a single chromatographic method for the determination and quantification of 15 plant toxins by liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Chromatographic separation was achieved on a C18 column (3.5 µm, 100 × 4.6 mm) with a gradient method using water +0.1% formic acid and methanol +0.1% formic acid. The developed method was validated for precision, linearity, limits of detection and quantification and extraction recoveries. The method showed good linearity with a R2 value of >0.995 for all 15 compounds with good precision of 10.7%, 6.7% and 0.3% for the low, medium and high calibration points, respectively. The LC-MS method was used to analyse 25 plant species, as well as their respective parts (i.e., bulb, flower, fruit, leaf, pollen, seed, stem and root), to assess the human risk assessment to children (aged 1 to <2 years) in relation to the plant toxin and its respective LD50. The analysis found that the greatest potential health risks were due to the ingestion of Colchicum autumnale and Atropa belladonna. As a caution, all identified plants should be handled with care with additional precautionary steps to ensure nil contact by children because of the potential likelihood of hand-to-mouth ingestion.


Ideally, photoreceptor voltages are discharged to a low residual in background regions of the document being copied. However, large fluctuations of photoreceptor potential caused by charge nonuniformity, photoreceptor defects, or imperfect cleaning can be tolerated if the perturbations are spatially small. A linearized model of electroded development systems is used to develop a methodology to determine the relationship between the spatial frequency of photoreceptor voltage and developed mass. The results are used to derive a realistic specification on allowable photoreceptor fluctuations.


Hernias through the posterior abdominal wall are called lumbar hernias. These hernias can occur spontaneously, after surgery, or after an injury, and they can cause acute or chronic low-back pain. Their prevalence is not known. In the orthopaedic literature, lumbar hernia has been reported after the harvesting of a bone graft from the posterior iliac crest1-5, but we found no reports of spontaneous lumbar hernia. In addition, we found only a single article in the Japanese-language literature, and none in the English-language literature, on the appearance of a lumbar hernia on a magnetic resonance image6.

Lumbar hernias can occur anywhere within the boundaries of the posterior abdominal wall; however, two areas within this region consist of only fascia, and it is in these two areas that most lumbar hernias occur. The superior lumbar space is triangular and is bounded by the twelfth rib superiorly, the erector spinae muscle medially, and the internal oblique muscle laterally. The latissimus dorsi muscle may cover the superior lumbar space but does not provide support for it. The inferior lumbar space is also triangular and is bounded by the latissimus dorsi muscle medially, the external oblique muscle laterally, and the iliac crest inferiorly.

Thorek reviewed the prior medical observations and descriptions of lumbar hernia7. He stated that in 1733, Petit reported on a patient who had a lumbar hernia, for which he described the anatomic boundaries. This hernia was in the inferior lumbar space. Since then, a hernia through this …


The spectrum of the VATER association has been debated ever since its description more than two decades ago. To assess the spectrum of congenital anomalies associated with VATER while minimizing the distortions due to small samples and referral patterns typical of clinical series, we studied infants with VATER association reported to the combined registry of infants with multiple congenital anomalies from 17 birth defects registries worldwide that are part of the International Clearinghouse for Birth Defects Monitoring Systems (ICB-DMS). Among approximately 10 million infants born from 1983 through 1991, the ICB-DMS registered 2,295 infants with 3 or more of 25 unrelated major congenital anomalies of unknown cause. Of these infants, 286 had the VATER association, defined as at least three of the five VATER anomalies (vertebral defects, anal atresia, esophageal atresia, renal defects, and radial-ray limb deficiency), when we expected 219 (P<0.001). Of these 286 infants, 51 had at least four VATER anomalies, and 8 had all five anomalies. We found that preaxial but not other limb anomalies were significantly associated with any combination of the four nonlimb VATER anomalies (P<0.001). Of the 286 infants with VATER association, 214 (74.8%) had additional defects. Genital defects, cardiovascular anomalies, and small intestinal atresias were positively associated with VATER association (P<0.001). Infants with VATER association that included both renal anomalies and anorectal atresia were significantly more likely to have genital defects. Finally, a subset of infants with VATER association also had defects described in other associations, including diaphragmatic defects, oral clefts, bladder exstrophy, omphalocele, and neural tube defects. These results offer evidence for the specificity of the VATER association, suggest the existence of distinct subsets within the association, and raise the question of a common pathway for patterns of VATER and other types of defects in at least a subset of infants with multiple congenital anomalies.


In decentralized applications requirements on latency are high. For instance, in trading applications a millisecond latency advantage can save companies millions of dollars. In this thesis a design is proposed for an overlay in a decentralized peer-to-peer system that lowers the latency between connected peers. The overlay is designed and implemented on top of Tribler, a BitTorrent client developed at Delft University of Technology. The client continually connects toward the peers with the lowest latency to keep an established connection towards them. Next to that, the introductions in the peer discovery mechanism are chosen in such a way that introduced peers have a low latency toward each other. To achieve this latency estimation algorithms are used that estimate the latency between arbitrary peers in the network. These algorithms require a limited amount of measured latencies between peers in the network and can estimate the others. Latencies are continually measured toward peers that have an established connection to a client. These measured latencies are shared to other peers for further improvements on the quality of the latency estimation algorithms. The overlay design is evaluated on the accuracy of the latency estimation algorithms, computation time and to what extent the connections of a peer are low latency. The results show that the peers in the overlay are able to connect toward their lowest latency peers despite low accuracy of the latency estimation algorithms.


Software resources are always important and expensive for users. Sharing existing software resources and paying for their usages become big challenges in grid environment. While existing license management systems are only suitable for LAN environment, a novel grid middleware, named LicTraveler, is developed for global license sharing across various domains. The two-leveled hierarchical architecture allows both autonomous local service and cooperative global service. It provides strong security and flexible reservation & quota policies for licensing activities. Flexible license distributing and scheduling policies are also provided. Experiments show that LicTraveler helps corporations reducing their redundant investments and promoting license efficiencies as much as 50%.


Disseminated Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) infection is an important opportunistic infection in AIDS patients. Because cells of macrophage lineage are targets for both human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and MAC, the monocytoid cell line U937 was coinfected with both pathogens. Coinfected cultures had increased HIV replication (more than threefold at day 6) and an increased percentage of HIV-infected cells compared with cultures infected only with HIV. The kinetics of HIV replication were significantly increased in this coinfection system as measured by flow cytometry. When cells were infected concurrently, the rate of intracellular growth of MAC was not significantly affected. However, cells preinfected with HIV before infection with MAC showed significant enhancement of MAC growth compared with control cells. The kinetics of cell death were also increased in the coinfection system compared with singly infected controls. Thus, coinfection of monocytoid cells with HIV and MAC in vitro results in reciprocal enhancement of multiplication.


Nowadays, most openly available knowledge bases (KBs) are incomplete, since they are not synchronized with the emerging facts happening in the real world. Therefore, knowledge base population (KBP) from external data sources, which extracts knowledge from unstructured text to populate KBs, becomes a vital task. Recent research proposes two types of solutions that partially address this problem, but the performance of these solutions is limited. The first solution, dynamic KB construction from unstructured text, requires specifications of which predicates are of interest to the KB, which needs preliminary setups and is not suitable for an in-time population scenario. The second solution, Open Information Extraction (Open IE) from unstructured text, has limitations in producing facts that can be directly linked to the target KB without redundancy and ambiguity. In this paper, we present an end-to-end system, KBPearl, for KBP, which takes an incomplete KB and a large corpus of text as input, to (1) organize the noisy extraction from Open IE into canonicalized facts; and (2) populate the KB by joint entity and relation linking, utilizing the context knowledge of the facts and the side information inferred from the source text. We demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of KBPearl against the state-of-the-art techniques, through extensive experiments on real-world datasets.


Pancreatic β cells undergo significant expansion and maturation during human and rodent postnatal development. Here, we used single-cell RNA-seq to characterize gene expression patterns at various stages of mouse islet cell development and uncovered a population of cells that is most abundant during the early postnatal period. This cell population lacks expression of FLTP and expresses PDGF receptors. Each of these conditions have previously been associated with proliferative capacity in β cells suggesting that we have identified the proliferative competent of β cell mass expansion. The subpopulation co-express many endocrine lineage-specific genes and exhibits a downregulation of genes associated with mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and global protein synthesis. It has upregulated activity of genes in the Wnt, Hippo, PDGF, and Notch pathways and has a significantly higher proliferation potential than the more mature β population. We show that activity of the Notch pathway is required in postnatal β cell expansion where it serves to maintain an undifferentiated endocrine state in the polyhormonal cell population. Collectively, our study identifies a proliferative, progenitor-like cell subpopulation in the postnatal islet as the source of postnatal β cell expansion.


Intimate partner violence (IPV) constitutes a major public health problem in the United States. This cross-sectional survey of 108 emergency department (ED) care providers and 146 ED visitors at three metropolitan EDs compared the beliefs of ED health care providers with those of community members about the relative benefits of the helpfulness of resources for IPV victims using hypothetical case scenarios. Although providers generally indicated that help resources were helpful in all scenarios, visitors were more discriminating, showing less support for resources in the lower-risk scenario. Regarding differences between groups, visitors selected police and attorneys more frequently than providers as a helpful resource, whereas providers selected shelters and counselors more frequently than visitors. Adjustment for previous experience with IPV did not change these results. Understanding the differences between health care providers' and community members' perceptions of resources for victims of IPV may improve the effectiveness of referral to IPV resources.


The purpose of this study was to develop Information Delivery Manual (IDM) which defines when and which part of the data should be exchanged for structural design of composite beams and composite columns focused on check for limit states. To achieve this purpose, user requirements of information exchange were defined for the scope of data exchange and, within this scope, process map (PM) for composite beams and columns were defined. And, according to these PMs, context, material, geometry, required strength, provided strength, and serviceability were derived as exchange requirement (ER). Also, based on these ERs, unit, id, material_steel, material_concrete, geometry_H_section, geometry_concrete, deckplate, stud_bolt, rebar, load_combination, load, force, displacement, and capacity were derived as functional part (FP). Then, the entities and Psets in IFC4 were mapped to the corresponding FPs. In some cases, new Psets were created. Finally, the developed IDM was tested using a program based on Excel and VBA. The test results showed that the required data for structural design of composite beams and columns can be exchanged successfully according to the developed PMs, ERs, FPs in the IDM.


We investigate the spin state of LaCoO3 using state-of-the-art photoemission spectroscopy and ab initio band structure calculations. The GGA+U calculations provide a good description of the ground state for the experimentally estimated value of electron correlation strength, U. In addition to the correlation effect, spin-orbit interaction is observed to play a significant role in the case of intermediate spin and high spin configurations. The comparison of the calculated Co 3d and O 2p partial density of states with the experimental valence band spectra indicates that at room temperature, Co has dominant intermediate spin state configuration and that the high spin configuration may not be significant at this temperature. The lineshape of the La 5p and O 2s core level spectra could be reproduced well within these ab initio calculations.


N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is one of the most widely studied epigenetic modifications, which plays an important role in many biological processes, such as splicing, RNA localization, and degradation. Studies have shown that m6A on lncRNA has important functions, including regulating the expression and functions of lncRNA, regulating the synthesis of pre-mRNA, promoting the proliferation of cancer cells, and affecting cell differentiation and many others. Although a number of methods have been proposed to predict m6A RNA methylation sites, most of these methods aimed at general m6A sites prediction without noticing the uniqueness of the lncRNA methylation prediction problem. Since many lncRNAs do not have a polyA tail and cannot be captured in the polyA selection step of the most widely adopted RNA-seq library preparation protocol, lncRNA methylation sites cannot be effectively captured and are thus likely to be significantly underrepresented in existing experimental data affecting the accuracy of existing predictors. In this paper, we propose a new computational framework, LITHOPHONE, which stands for long noncoding RNA methylation sites prediction from sequence characteristics and genomic information with an ensemble predictor. We show that the methylation sites of lncRNA and mRNA have different patterns exhibited in the extracted features and should be differently handled when making predictions. Due to the used experiment protocols, the number of known lncRNA m6A sites is limited, and insufficient to train a reliable predictor; thus, the performance can be improved by combining both lncRNA and mRNA data using an ensemble predictor. We show that the newly developed LITHOPHONE approach achieved a reasonably good performance when tested on independent datasets (AUC: 0.966 and 0.835 under full transcript and mature mRNA modes, respectively), marking a substantial improvement compared with existing methods. Additionally, LITHOPHONE was applied to scan the entire human lncRNAome for all possible lncRNA m6A sites, and the results are freely accessible at: http://18.104.22.168/lith/.


A major problem of medical care in recent years has been the decline in the number of physicians in rural areas. Various studies of the causes of this situation and suggestions for improvement have been made. Among these suggestions has been the proposal that special consideration in the selection of medical students be given to applicants from rural communities. To investigate the validity of this suggestion the following study was made. METHOD AND RESULTS OF STUDY The names and addresses of all graduates of the University of Minnesota Medical School who established practice in Minnesota over the past 15 years were obtained from the office of the Minnesota State Medical Society. From the records of the medical school, the size of community in which each of these physicians spent his early years was then determined. For purposes of tabulation and analysis, the communities of practice and of early life were


Electroanalytical techniques over the past few years have been applied to study real‐time release of various signaling molecules in the GI tract. These approaches have become highly attractive as they provide dynamic spatial information on the amount of signaling molecules released. Although these approaches are relatively new to the field, the studies to date have provided useful insights into the alterations in signaling mechanisms during maturation, obesity and in a model of colitis. New methods and techniques have also allowed the possibility to obtain information on the signaling process and future developments will provide a wide diverse array of information that will be of benefit to all researchers in the field of gastroenterology. This review focuses on the types of techniques utilized, the information they can provide, their potential advantages and disadvantages in monitoring signaling processes in the gastrointestinal tract, the existing scientific studies that have utilized electroanalytical methods to date and the future potential impact of such approaches.


Building Energy Modeling (BEM) intends to quantify buildings' energy performance to help designers and architects better understand the environmental impacts of their decisions. Building Information Modeling (BIM) refers to a digital, model-based representation, where information about building design can be shared among different stakeholders and used during all stages of buildings' lifecycle. The purpose of this research was to investigate integration of BEM and BIM, using one modeling and two analysis tools. Green Building Studio (GBS) and Sefaira are two performance analysis software programs, which can be used both in the form of BIM plug-in/built-in tools, as well as web applications to analyze and quantify energy performance of buildings. To capture their level of integration with BIM, an existing Campus Recreation Building on UMass Amherst campus was used as a case study to evaluate modeling processes, requirements, and workflows. Comparative analysis between modeled and actual energy consumption data was also performed to analyze accuracy of the different simulation programs. This paper discusses each tool capabilities and drawbacks in providing accurate energy analysis procedures and results.


The aim of this double-blind study was to assess the efficacy and tolerability of propinox administered i.v. and to establish a dose-response relationship according to three dose levels (10 mg, 20 mg and 30 mg), vs. placebo in patients with moderate-to-severe acute intestinal colic pain. Four hundred patients (100 per treatment group) were included and allocated to the following treatment groups: propinox 10 mg, 20 mg, 30 mg and placebo. All treatments induced significant and progressive pain reduction as from the 20 min evaluation of 20.3% in the placebo group, 45% in the group treated with propinox 10 mg; 52% in the group receiving propinox 20 mg and 56% in the propinox 30 mg group. Statistical comparison showed differences between placebo and the three active doses as well as between propinox 10 mg and the 20 mg and 30 mg doses. The 20 min evaluation revealed that 40% of patients receiving placebo had to be excluded from the study due to lack of efficacy; the percentage of which was significantly higher compared with those observed with the three doses of propinox ranging between 10% and 13%. The 120 min evaluation revealed that 47.7% of patients treated with propinox 10 mg were free from pain vs. 68.8% and 73.5% of those receiving 20 mg and 30 mg, respectively. These percentages were considerably higher than the 15% found with placebo. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences between the 10 mg vs. the 20 mg and 30 mg groups with not differences between the latter doses. No differences in blood pressure or heart rate were found among treatments. The incidence of mouth dryness was significantly more frequent with the 20 mg and 30 mg doses of propinox than with the placebo or the 10 mg dose.


Trefoil factor family 2 (TFF2) is up-regulated in Helicobacter spp.-infected gastric tissues of both humans and mice. To ascertain the biological effects of TFF2 in vivo, TFF2(-/-) C57BL/6 x Sv129 and wild-type (WT) C57BL/6 x Sv129 mice were orally infected with Helicobacter pylori SS1. Mice were evaluated for gastric H. pylori colonization, pathology, and cytokine profiles at 6 and 19 months post inoculation (pi). At 6 months pi, there was a significant difference (P < 0.05) for epithelial criteria (mucosal defects, atrophy, hyperplasia, pseudopyloric metaplasia, and dysplasia) in the corpus of TFF2(-/-) versus WT mice. At 19 months pi, a similar statistical difference in epithelial parameters was noted in the antrum of TFF2(-/-) versus WT mice (P < 0.01). All of the TFF2(-/-) H. pylori-infected mice had high-grade antral dysplasia, including gastric intraepithelial neoplasia, which was statistically significant (P < 0.05) compared with the infected WT mice. Levels of interferon-gamma were markedly elevated in the gastric mucosa of infected TFF2(-/-) mice at both 6 and 19 months pi. TFF2 provided a cytoprotective and/or anti-inflammatory effect against the progression of premalignant lesions of the gastric corpus at 6 months pi and in the pyloric antrum in H. pylori-infected mice at 19 months pi. These data support a protective role for TFF2 in part by modulating levels of gastric interferon-gamma in the development of H. pylori-associated premalignancy of the distal stomach.


The Korea Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (KCDC) has announced a control program against latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection (LTBI), for a "TB-safe country" this year with the goal of a "TB-free Korea" by 2025. The program includes high school students as one target group; however, some school health teachers and parents have expressed their opposition to this. The 2015 World Health Organization guidelines do not recommend inclusion of asymptomatic high school students in LTBI control programs. Based on this guideline, the KCDC should consider excluding this population from the program.


Endoscopic treatment by placement of a vacuum sponge drainage system is a new option in the management of leakages in the digestive tract. We now distinguish between two treatment variants: the intracavitary and intraluminal techniques. A drainage system comprising an appropriately trimmed polyurethane foam sponge and a gastric-type tube is either placed through the esophageal defect into an extraluminal wound cavity (intracavitary method), or directly onto the defect with the sponge remaining within the esophageal lumen (intraluminal method). Continuous negative pressure of 125 mmHg is then applied, resulting in stabilizing of the sponge and continuous drainage and sealing of the defect. We report a case series of 14 patients, presenting the full range of possible esophageal defects that were successfully treated with either intracavitary or intraluminal vacuum therapy. Complete healing of the esophageal defect was achieved in 13 patients; one patient died due to fulminant pseudomembranous colitis while the esophageal defect was nearly healed.


A centrifugal compressor for HFC-134a has been newly designed and developed. Flow analysis using commercial programs was used to evaluate performance and internal flow of the impeller, inlet guide vane and diffuser etc. The purpose of this study is to establish the design theory necessary to the development of HFC-134a centrifugal compressors and to supply basic data related to design by reviewing design values and experimental values through the performance test. The compressor for HFC-134a was also investigated experimentally to check compression performance. The calculated data coincide the test results of compressor. The data obtained in the present study are useful for design of HFC-134a centrifugal compressors.


In a short essay, I will examine the issues that plague education (e.g., achievement gaps, lack of learning materials, and access to learning) and how the COVID-19 pandemic brought them to the public's attention. I will share my experience teaching during the pandemic and note the importance of seizing the opportunity to correct the inequities that have long afflicted educational institutions. I will explain the challenges of adapting a standards-based curriculum to an online format and how we must use the pandemic as a time of rebirth for America's education system.


Background: Distraction osteogenesis has widespread clinical use in the treatment of congenital and acquired craniofacial deformities. Nonetheless, during the prolonged consolidation period, the newly regenerated bone carries the risk of complications. A known method for enhancing bone healing is extracorporeal shock wave therapy, which has been shown to induce neovascularization and promote tissue regeneration. The authors investigated whether extracorporeal shock wave therapy can accelerate bony consolidation and regeneration in distraction osteogenesis of the rat mandible and at which stage of distraction osteogenesis it should be applied. Methods: Twenty-four male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to distraction osteogenesis of the right mandible (latency period, 3 days; distraction period, 10 days; 0.5 mm/day). Experimental groups consisted of the following: group I (control), no extracorporeal shock wave therapy; group II, extracorporeal shock wave therapy (0.18 mJ/mm2) at the latency period; and group III, extracorporeal shock wave therapy (0.18 mJ/mm2) at the consolidation period. Explants were removed for evaluation after 4 weeks of consolidation. Results: Histologic evaluation showed well-developed cortical cortex and a higher degree of bone formation and mature bone in group III; micro–computed tomography showed significantly increased bone mineral density, bone volume fraction, and trabecular thickness; immunohistochemistry demonstrated significantly increased expression of bone morphogenetic protein-2, vascular endothelial growth factor, and proliferating cell nuclear antigen. Conclusion: Extracorporeal shock wave therapy application at the consolidation period during distraction osteogenesis in the rat mandible enhances bone formation and osteogenic and angiogenic growth factors, improves bone mechanical properties, and accelerates bone mineralization.


Introduction . Ameloblastoma is a quite rare case but a common odontogenic tumor found, about 11% of all odontogenic tumors. The tumor is locally aggressive odontogenic one with a tendency to have recurrence and may cause severe facial deformity and dysfunction if not treated properly. The slow growing nature of this tumor usually lead to a delay in diagnostic. Recurrence rate of ameloblastoma reported as 15–25% after radical treatment and 75–90% after conservative treatment. This study aimed to find out the characteristics and influencing factors that contributed to postoperative complication. Method. Those diagnosed as ameloblastoma who underwent total mandibulectomy, hemi–mandibulectomy, segmental mandibulectomy, and subtotal mandibulectomy as the first surgery followed by reconstruction using with reconstruction plate or bone graft in dr Cipto Mangunkusumo general hospital in during January 2008 – December 2012 were reviewed descriptively using cross sectional retrospective study. Results. Twenty–three subjects managed in the oncology surgery division, Department of Surgery, dr Cipto Mangunkusumo general hospital during such a period. There were 7 males and 9 females aged in ranged of 20–55–year–old. The majority complained painless swelling (9 subjects, 39.1%) for less than 2 years (12 subjects, 52.2%). The most factor found to be related was tooth extraction (8 subjects, 34.8%), following removal of teeth cyst (6 subjects, 26.1%). The most x–ray finding of panoramic view was multilocular (19 subjects, 82.6%) and the most surgical procedure preceded was partial resection of hemi–mandibulectomy (17 subjects, 73.9%). The most histopathological finding was follicular type (8 subjects (34.8%). Morbidity rate was 21.7%, no mortality. The most complication found was plate exposed (3 subjects, 13.08%). Median length of stay was 9 days (ranged of 7–26 days). There was no recurrence found in this study for 1–year postoperative follow–up. No significance relation between characteristics and complication. Conclusion. The postoperative recurrence rate of mandibular ameloblastoma might be be minimized by a wide excision beyond safety margin. Keywords : mandibular ameloblastoma, wide excision, safety margin, complication


INTRODUCTION
Optic nerve sheath fenestration or ventricular shunting are classically proposed after failure of medical treatment. Idiopathic intracranial hypertension is caused by venous sinus obstruction in an unknown percentage of cases. Recently, endoluminal venous sinus stenting was proposed as an alternative treatment.

PATIENTS AND METHOD
Between September 2003 and December 2004, eight consecutive patients with a diagnosis of idiopathic intracranial hypertension underwent MRI venography and direct retrograde cerebral angiography.

RESULTS
There were five females and three males aged 22 to 55 years. All patients had vision disorders. The cerebrospinal fluid pressure ranged from 27 to 45 mmHg with normal composition. All patients presented at least one sinus stenosis. Endovascular stenting of the stenotic venous sinus was performed under intravenous heparin administration. Anti-platelet therapy was administered for 3 months post treatment. Intra-sinus pressures were invariably reduced by stenting. Mean follow-up was 18 months. All patients improved clinically. The cerebrospinal fluid pressure had normalized at 3-month follow-up in all patients. In all patients, multidetector row CT-angiography or MRI venography was performed at 3-, 6- and 12-month follow-up and demonstrated the patency of the stent.

DISCUSSION
The importance of venous sinus disease as a cause of idiopathic intracranial hypertension is probably underestimated. Patients with idiopathic intracranial hypertension should be evaluated with direct retrograde cerebral venography and manometry. In patients with venous sinus lesions, treatment by an endoluminal venous sinus stent is a safe and effective alternative for amenable lesions.