Reinforced concrete Intermediate Diaphragms (IDs) are currently being used in prestressed concrete (PC) girder bridges in Louisiana. Some of the advantages of providing IDs are disputed in the bridge community because the use of IDs increases the cost and time of construction. There is no consistency in the practice of providing IDs among various states and codes of practice, and the overall effectiveness of IDs, as well as the need for them in prestressed concrete bridges, is unclear. The objectives of this research were (1) to assess the need of reinforced concrete (RC) IDs in PC girder bridges and to determine their effectiveness, and (2) to search for a possible alternative steel diaphragm configuration that could replace concrete diaphragms if necessary. The research team has examined and reviewed state-of-the-art technology and current practices from many sources of information on IDs. Through a survey questionnaire and review of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD) Bridge Design Manual, the research team obtained relevant information regarding the ID practices in Louisiana. Through the LADOTD data base for all state bridges, and from direct interaction with district engineers, several of the bridges that are of interest for this study were selected for field inspection. From these field trips to various bridge locations, much information has been acquired from the bridges themselves, as well as from the district engineers. Systematic parametric studies for various bridge configurations, which are representative of an entire range of bridge geometries with different parameters, were analyzed through simplified and solid finite element models. This study was performed on right and skewed bridges, which are simply supported and continuous. A reduction factor that could be multiplied by the AASHTO load distribution factor to account for the influence of the diaphragm in load distribution was developed. A finite element analysis was carried out using 3-D solid models to assess the effectiveness of various diaphragms in protecting the girders against the lateral impact and to determine the design forces in the steel bracing members during construction of deck. The results from the parametric studies indicated that several parameters such as skew, span length, spacing, stiffness of diaphragm and girder have different levels of influence on the effectiveness of diaphragms in live load distribution for bridges. Correction factors that could quantify the ID influence on load distribution were developed. Results from various studies indicated that a steel diaphragm section can possibly replace the RC diaphragms.


In this paper, we propose a novel approach, to the best of our knowledge, for optical monitoring of integral properties of arbitrarily distributed substances by means of a specially designed optical element radially quadratic transmittance-apodizing filter. The developed remote sensing method deals with nonmatrix detectors and requires only one-step conversion of light energy into an electrical signal to investigate the substance under study. Due to the fact that detectors work in the linear sensitivity range, the nonlinear uncertainty of measurements is minimal. Theoretical studies have been performed to derive formulas characterizing the substance parameters: distribution center, drift and drift speed of the center, radial standard deviation and its changing rate, and diffusion. The technique is applied to remotely monitor the process of reduction of the artificial snow area on the mock-up surface covered with a soil.


We review our recent efforts to develop and apply computational models that can predict fluid, thermal and particle transport in semiconductor process equipment such as that used for chemical vapour deposition or plasma etching. The purpose of this work is to supply equipment designers and operators with models that allow them to optimize process conditions and to develop tool designs that reduce particle contamination levels. The algorithms for predicting particle transport are briefly described. A Lagrangian approach is used in this work when both particle inertia and applied forces are important, while a Eulerian approach is used when both particle Brownian motion and applied forces are important. As an example, a commercial finite-element code is used to calculate the fluid and thermal fields in a simple geometry representative of real single-wafer processing tools, namely axisymmetric flow between a showerhead and a parallel plate separated by a small gap. Using the calculated velocity field, both Lagrangian and Eulerian particle transport formulations give the same particle collection efficiency for terminal-velocity-dominated deposition when particle inertia can be neglected. Although plasma-induced forces on the particles are not treated in detail, we discuss how models for these forces can be incorporated into the Lagrangian and Eulerian framework as they become available.


The general direction of literature is that effective e-banking security strategies result in improved organisational performance by increasing market share through building customer's trust and confidence in the privacy and confidentiality of the services provided. It is quite important to note that this research aims at assessing the effectiveness of e-banking security strategies in use in a Zimbabwean organisation, thus after the literature review on e-banking had been confined to other parts of the world.The study is hoped to fulfill academic gaps in terms of literature on the subject in Zimbabwe and to research information to benefit the corporate world. This research was based on a single case study design of the Stanbic Bank.

In carrying out the study, the researcher used personal interviews and the audience group included Chief Executive, Finance Director, Head IT, five unit managers and two unit officers. Furthermore the research was elaborated using the qualitative philosophy whilst data displays in form of content analytic summary tables were used to analyse primary data gathered. Moreover gathering depth information from the respondents was done through the use of unstructured questions.
The study concludes that Stanbic bank is using effective e-banking security strategies and is constantly researching on more effective security strategies with the aim of eradicating fraud. The organization faced challenges on implementation emanating from the lack of finance and skills. The other obstacles were the legal issues surrounding regulation of adopting the strategies before implementation and misinterpretations of security messages due to lack of communication. In view of these findings this study recommends that Stanbic bank should send its employees for education and training on e-banking security so that they acquire necessary skills and expertise. It is also recommended that the organization should invest in continuous research and development on up to date e-banking security and ensure that relevant infrastructure is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of security strategies.


(Applause Books). "An analysis of script interpretation for the theater. The text includes theories on performance as well as examples from the works of Shelley, Ibsen and Pinter. In his new preface, Hornby laments the modernization of classic plays which he believes subverts the original text." Library Journal


In 1998, Persily published a review of commercial and institutional building airtightness data that found significant levels of air leakage and debunked the myth of the airtight commercial building. Since that time, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a database of measured airtightness levels of U.S. commercial building leakages, in part to support the development and technical evaluation of airtightness requirements for national and state codes, standards and programs. This paper presents the airtightness data from the NIST database and a summary of recent developments in U.S. codes and standards. The average airtightness of the 228 buildings in the database is 25 m 3 /h∙m 2 at 75 Pa, which is a little over 10 % tighter than the average reported by Persily in 1998. This average commercial and institutional building airtightness is tighter than the average of all U.S. houses but leakier than conventional new houses based on a large database of U.S. residential building airtightness. The data are examined for trends related to size, year of construction, type of construction and climate. The paper also discusses recent code and standards developments including the adoption of a continuous air barrier requirement in ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2010 Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, various U.S. state building codes, and the proposed International Green Construction Code.


Construction work is one of the most dangerous business lines. As a result of occupational accidents in construction works, there are consequences that will affect human life such as injury and death, as well as serious financial losses. Especially in developing countries, despite the increase in precautions regarding occupational safety, occupational accidents continue to occur. Human behavior is an important factor in construction work accidents. In the sector where generally low-educated level workers work, analyzing the precautions and occupational safety training results are important to reduce construction work accidents. Eye-tracking technique, a technology that is spreading around the world, finds its place in different sectors. Especially with the use of mobile eye trackers instead of fixed eye trackers, this eye-tracking technology has also become usable in site implementations in the construction industry. In the construction sector, some studies are done especially on occupational safety issues using eye-tracking techniques in recent years. In this study, a site study was done with construction workers using a mobile eye-tracking approach by creating a track with different hazard sources in construction where a fatal occupational accident occurred. In this context, the attention levels of construction workers against different sources of danger and the risk of accidents created by these sources were measured with the mobile eye-tracking technique. The results obtained from the study were shared with the occupational safety experts on the site and the results are interpreted. All workers participating in the experimental study were workers that previously got occupational safety training. Therefore, according to the outcomes of this experiment, the effectiveness of the occupational safety training they received is measured and some suggestions are made.


A new synthetic route to the bis(tetrafluoroborate) salt of the hexakis[(triphenylphosphane)gold(I)]methanium dication has been opened up through the reaction of trimethylsilyldiazomethane and tris[(triphenylphosphane)gold(I)]oxonium tetrafluoroborate in dichloromethane. Yields are close to 65% if the reaction is carried out in the presence of triethylamine as a base. The process is a sequence of desilylation, deprotonation and deazotation reactions at the carbon function of the diazomethane, as shown by the detection of intermediates. The crystal structure of the title compound (with three equivalents of crystal dichloromethane) has been determined in a single-crystal X-ray study. The dication has no crystallographically imposed symmetry, but the core is a distorted, carbon-centered octahedron of gold atoms. This result confirms the data from previous structural studies of salts with other anions and interstitial solvents.


The present paper suggests the continuum theory of Tkachenko modes in a rotating two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate taking into account density inhomogeneity and compressibility of the condensate. The theory is based on the solution of coupled hydrodynamic equations for vortex and liquid motion with proper boundary conditions, which were derived for the condensate described by the Thomas-Fermi approximation. Compressibility becomes essential at rapid rotation with angular velocity close to the trap frequency. The theory is in reasonable agreement with experimental observation of Tkachenko modes.


Solar technology operating at elevated temperature conditions demands accurate knowledge of the optical and thermal properties of the materials involved in the construction and operation of solar collectors, reactors, and energy storages, among many others. Thermal energy storage (TES) devices involve successive melting and crystallization processes, which result in high complexity materials where the morphology, composition, and porosity could be highly non-homogeneous. In these cases, contact techniques for determining the thermal properties are highly susceptible and do not provide reliable measurements. It is under these conditions that non-contact photothermal techniques can provide superior performance, because in this case, the heat inducing source is a laser beam and the detector is usually a photodiode or a thermographic camera which are in non-contact with samples. The materials applied as storage medium in a TES unit can be divided into four groups: metals and alloys, ceramics and glasses, polymers and elastomers, and composites that include natural materials. Soda lime silicate glass recyclable waste is a very promising material for storage medium due to its inexpensive and wide availability. In this paper, we examined soda lime silicate glass-graphite composites for use as storage medium in a TES unit. A simple one-dimensional model for thermal conductivity was developed based on equivalent thermal circuits for series-parallel composite walls, and we found that thermal conductivity values depend on the amount of graphite dispersed into the samples, the porous media, and their structure.Solar technology operating at elevated temperature conditions demands accurate knowledge of the optical and thermal properties of the materials involved in the construction and operation of solar collectors, reactors, and energy storages, among many others. Thermal energy storage (TES) devices involve successive melting and crystallization processes, which result in high complexity materials where the morphology, composition, and porosity could be highly non-homogeneous. In these cases, contact techniques for determining the thermal properties are highly susceptible and do not provide reliable measurements. It is under these conditions that non-contact photothermal techniques can provide superior performance, because in this case, the heat inducing source is a laser beam and the detector is usually a photodiode or a thermographic camera which are in non-contact with samples. The materials applied as storage medium in a TES unit can be divided into four groups: metals and alloys, ceramics and glasses, poly...


Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is a B-cell neoplasia that has been well characterized in recent years. Recognition of the t(11;14)(q13; q32) and cyclin D1 overexpression as the genetic and molecular hallmarks of the tumor have been key elements in recognizing the broad spectrum of clinical, pathological and biological manifestations of the disease [1]. Cyclin D1 expression is now routinely used as one of the most important elements in the diagnosis of this lymphoma. The term mantle cell lymphoma reflects the idea that the normal cell counterpart of this tumor is a lymphocyte whose physiological microenvironment is the mantle zone of the secondary lymphoid follicle. This view is supported by the tendency of the tumor cells to grow and expand this area and to express a phenotype also found in a subset of mantle cells. MCL is considered clinically one of the most aggressive lymphomas with short responses to current therapies, frequent relapses and a relatively short median survival. This behavior has led to the recommendation of intense therapeutic regimens and exploration of new strategies with more recently developed drugs targeting specific pathogenetic mechanisms. In spite of the good characterization of MCL, recent molecular studies and clinical observations are opening new perspectives on the ontogeny and pathogenesis of this lymphoma that challenge some of our previous ideas about the disease. Here we consider new developing concepts in MCL that may have an impact on our understanding of its pathogenesis and may influence our clinical practice.


In multiparty session types, interconnection networks identify which roles in a session engage in communication (i.e., two roles are connected if they exchange a message). In session-based interpretations of linear logic the analogue notion corresponds to determining which processes are composed, or cut, using compatible channels typed by linear propositions. In this work, we show that well-formed interactions represented in a session-based interpretation of classical linear logic (CLL) form strictly less-expressive interconnection networks than those of a multiparty session calculus. To achieve this result, we introduce a new compositional synthesis property dubbed partial multiparty compatibility (PMC), enabling us to build a global type denoting the interactions obtained by iterated composition of well-typed CLL threads. We then show that CLL composition induces PMC global types without circular interconnections between three (or more) participants. PMC is then used to define a new CLL composition rule that can form circular interconnections but preserves the deadlock-freedom of CLL.


The Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM), an integrated framework for heterogeneous network computing, lets scientists exploit collections of networked machines when carrying out complex scienti c computations. Under PVM, a user-de ned grouping of serial, parallel, and vector computers appears as one large distributed-memory machine. Con guring a personal parallel virtual computer involves simply listing the names of the machines in a le that is read when PVM is started. Applications can be written in Fortran 77 or C and parallelized by use of message-passing constructs common to most distributed-memory computers. With the use of messages sent over the network, multiple tasks of an application can cooperate to solve a problem in parallel. This article discusses components of PVM, including the programs and library of interface routines. It summarizes the characteristics of appropriate applications and discusses the current status and availability of PVM. In addition, the article introduces a recent extension to PVM known as the Heterogeneous Network Computing Environment (HeNCE).


Quantifying fish dispersal and identifying its general predictors is key for understanding temporal patterns in population dynamics, emigration and immigration, meta-community dynamics, many ecological processes and predicting recovery time or population responses to environmental changes. This is the first comprehensive quantitative meta-analysis of heterogeneous freshwater fish movement, aiming to determine mobile and stationary shares of fish communities, their dispersal distances and key predictors of dispersal patterns. By reviewing and analysing 160 empirical data sets from 71 studies covering 62 fishes in streams, it goes beyond previous studies of salmonids' heterogeneous movement. Based on fitted leptokurtic dispersal kernels, the movement distances of (i) a stationary component (σstat) and (ii) a mobile component (σmob) as well as the (iii) share of each component (p) were calculated. The median movement distance of the stationary and mobile component of a fish population was 36.4 and 361.7 m, respectively. The share of the stationary individuals was high (median = 66.6%), but unrelated to movement distance. Single and multiple linear regressions as well as mixed-effects models revealed movement distances positively related to fish length, aspect ratio of the caudal fin, stream size and duration of the study. Furthermore, movement distance differed between taxonomic families. The quantitative parameters of heterogeneous fish movement provided are prerequisite to estimate time lags in fish response to river rehabilitation, temporal patterns in species dispersal, and minimum effective size of potential founder populations for species conservation and stock recovery based on minimum numbers of specimen to disperse.


The design and construction of a computer-controlled beam transport system and its application to slow positron implantation spectroscopy is described. The control features include the facility to vary the positron beam energy, observe visually the associated spatial movement of the beam profile, and change the beam position so as to hit the sample centrally at all energies selected. This procedure allows the automatic collection of annihilation gamma ray energy spectra and calculation of lineshape parameters as a function of incident positron energy. Examples of such measurements for metallic and semiconductor samples are used to illustrate the performance of the system.


The reaction of the perfluoroalkenylzinc reagent, CF2=CFZnBr, with 1,3,5-tribromobenzene in the presence of a catalytic amount of Pd(Ph3)4 yielded a novel trifunctional monomer 1,3,5-tris(alpha,beta,beta-trifluorovinyl)benzene (1).


Abstract:In this essay, Greenberg explores trans and gender-nonconforming ways of being in contemporary Judaism, through a televised version of Abraham, as portrayed in the award-winning Amazon series Transparent. Transparent's challenge to the gender divide is made by citing, referencing, and reimagining the mythological call to the biblical figure of Abraham: "Go forth from your land, your birthplace, your father's house, to the land that I will show you" (Gen 12:1). The interconnection between the text's temporal and spatial gaps allows for a polysemic reading. It not only gives way to a renewed exploration of the two parts of the verse (the divine call to Abraham "Go forth," and "from your father's house") but also adds another possible transfeminist reading of the conclusion to Abraham's story: "Return to your parent's house, to care for your community," urging action and spiritual leadership.


Introduction: The Internet represents a central communication medium for patients and physicians. Some national information is available regarding the design of physicians' homepages and patient requirements regarding homepages of physicians in private practice. To date, no data are available for homepages of medical faculties and their users' needs. Methods: In 2008 the homepages of the 36 German medical faculties were analyzed according to a catalogue of 128 criteria assigned to five domains which had been developed from the literature. Structure, content and extent were compared. Results: The homepages covered the criteria to a very different extent. The best homepage reached 80%, the worst only 26% of the achievable points. The mean was slightly above 50% . Faculties addressed mainly applicants and students as their target groups, less frequently lecturers and alumni. Conclusion: This study shows differences in quality and quantity of the "teaching section" on websites of medical faculties. The results allow faculties to use the criteria to adjust their websites with regard to addressing the relevant target groups of students, applicants, lecturers and alumni comprehensively.


We study thermodynamic formalism for the family of robustly transitive diffeomorphisms introduced by Ma\~n\'e, establishing existence and uniqueness of equilibrium states for natural classes of potential functions. In particular, we characterize the SRB measures for these diffeomorphisms as unique equilibrium states for a suitable geometric potential. We also obtain large deviations and multifractal results for the unique equilibrium states produced by the main theorem.


The kinetics of cleaning under worst-case conditions is modeled from first principles. The model is based on diffusioncontrolled mass transfer in a laminar falling film, which typifies worst-case cleaning conditions for CIP operations. The effect of flowrate per unit width (Q/W) and fluid velocity (V) on mass transfer rate in film flow is characterized. An experimental approach for optimizing Q/W and V for identifying worst-case soils for cleaning validation is described. The model is also used to estimate fluid velocity, film thickness and Reynolds Number for a range of values of Q/W and angle of inclination (?).


The use of nominee shares through nominee shares agreement has grown and developed well in the investing world, especially within the investors who establish PT. PMA. In short, the concept of nominee shares are done by both localand foreign investors. One of the causes of the nominee shares usageis because there is no rules in the Company Law that regulate, prohibit, and unequivocally ban the nominee shares by making the stock agreement. The law of prohibition to make nominee shares agreement or stock statement can only be found in the Capital Market Law, Article 33 paragraph (1) and paragraph (2). This research is a normative legal research that moves from the void norm within our laws. The approach used in this study is the legislation and analytic approach. The legal materials in this study are taken from the primary materials, secondary legal materials, and tertiary legal materials. The results of this study indicate the cause of the nominee shares usage by making nominee stock agreement, has already stated in the Company Law. However, it only explainsthe requirement that the PT has to be founded by two (2) or more persons, it does not give any detail requirements of how to be the shareholders. Other than to fill the Company Law, by filling the requirement of the PT establishment,the use of nominee agreement is due to the restriction of the line business for PT. PMA. The void of the norm has resulted in the violation within the limited liability company, in which one of the shareholders in PT. PMA is not the actual owner or nominee, but only the registered owner from certain number of shares. The law of prohibition of nominee shares in UUPM is considered inefficient because there is no strict regulations and prohibitions in the Company Law, thus, in practice, the use of nominee shares by making the nominee shares agreementgrows and develops through the simulation or indirect agreement, known as the arrangement agreement.


This paper reports a molecular modelling study of the adsorption of protein subdomains with unlike secondary structures on different surfaces of ceramic titanium dioxide (TiO2), forming a passivating film on titanium biomaterials that provides the interface between the bulk metal and the physiological environment, affecting its biocompatibility and performance. Using molecular dynamics methods, we study the effect of the nanoscale structure of the common TiO2 polymorphs (rutile, anatase and brookite) on the adsorption of an albumin subdomain and on two connected fibronectin modules, respectively containing α-helices and β-sheets. We find that the larger protein subdomain shows a stronger adsorption, as expected because of its size, but also that the three surfaces behave differently. In particular, brookite shows the weakest adsorption, whereas anatase leads to the strongest intrinsic adsorption, in particular for the fibronectin modules. Moreover, the simulations indicate a significant conformational change of the adsorbed protein subdomains with extensive surface nanopatterning. These results show that classical molecular dynamics methods can provide useful information about the influence of nanostructure and topology on protein physisorption at a fixed surface chemistry.


Due to the high rate of data production and the need of researchers to have rapid access to new data, public databases have become the major medium through which genome mapping and sequencing data as well as macromolecular structural data are published. There are now more than 250 databases of biomolecular, structural, genetic, or phenotypic data, many of which are doubling in size annually. These databases, many of which were created and are maintained by experimentalists for their own research use, provide valuable collections of organized, validated data. However, the very number and diversity of databases now make efficient data resource discovery as important as effective data resource use. Existing autonomous biological databases contain related data which are more valuable when interconnected than when isolated. Political and scientific realities dictate that these databases will be built by different teams, in different locations, for different purposes, and using different data models and supporting DBMSs. As a consequence, connecting the related data they contain is not straightforward. Experience with existing biological databases indicates that it is possible to form useful queries across these databases, but that doing so usually requires expertise in the semantic structure of each source database. Advancing to the next level of integration among biological information resources poses significant technical and sociological challenges.


In this paper, a hybrid Simulated Annealing algorithm using Boltzmann and Bose-Einstein Distributions (SABBE) is proposed. SABBE was designed for solving satisfiability (SAT) instances, and it has three phases: i) BP (Boltzmann Phase), ii) BEP (Bose-Einstein Phase), and iii) DEP (Dynamical Equilibrium Phase). BP and BEP are simulated annealing searching procedures based on Boltzmann and Bose-Einstein distributions respectively. BP ranges from high to low temperature values, while BEP goes from low to very low temperatures. Another simulated annealing search procedure, DEP, is applied at the final temperature of the second phase. However, DEP uses a particular heuristic for detection of stochastic equilibrium by employing a least squares method during its execution. Finally, SABBE parameters are tuned with an analytical method, which considers the maximal and minimal deterioration of SAT instances.


This study aims to identify and analyze the extent to which CBT can have an impact on the income of local people originating from tourist expenditure in tourist destinations. This study uses quantitative research methods from the results of questionnaires to tourists, labor, business units, and managers at Cafe Sawah tourist destinations in Pujon Kidul Village, Malang Regency. The finding in this study is that the multiplier effect value in the Cafe Sawah tourist destination has a Keynesian Income Multiplier number of 0.27 or 00 1.00, so that the destination has not been able to have a significant impact on the surrounding community, especially those who do business in that location. The results of this study explain that Community Based Management has not been able to provide a significant impact, so there needs to be a fundamental evaluation of the local district government where the function of the government is as a regulation and providing assistance to existing tourism destinations in the area.

Keywords: Community Based Tourism, Sustainable Tourism, Tourism Economic Impact, Cafe Sawah


The integration of adsorption with ultrafiltration (UF) is a promising technology for the production of high quality drinking water, but it is still under debate whether the addition of an adsorbent can mitigate membrane fouling. This study was conducted to investigate the impact of properties of the adsorbent and natural organic matter (NOM) in feed water on membrane fouling in an integrated adsorption–UF system. A continuous-flow hollow fiber UF set-up with periodic backwash and aeration was used to imitate the operation of full-scale integrated adsorption–UF systems. Two types of adsorbents, commercial powdered activated carbon (PAC) and homemade mesoporous adsorbent resin (MAR), were examined. As for Songhua River water dominated by allochthonous NOM, membrane fouling of the PAC/UF system was increased by 39.5% compared with that of UF alone, whereas the addition of MAR mitigated membrane fouling by 66.4%. For the synthetic water composed of algal organic matter (AOM), membrane fouling of PAC/UF and MAR/UF systems was reduced by 40.7% and 83.3%, respectively. The results suggested that deposition of adsorbent particles and fouling resistance of the cake layer were determined by the hydrophobicity and molecular weight distribution of NOM as well as the properties of adsorbents. This study highlights the significance of adsorbent selection for the integrated adsorption–UF process according to the source and properties of NOM.


The principle motivation for using price-discriminating conservation auctions is that they are expected to be significantly more cost-effective than fixed-price mechanisms. This paper measures cost effectiveness for tenders from two rounds of the Auction for Landscape Recovery in Western Australia relative to counterfactual fixed-price mechanisms. If we assume that the bid equals the compliance cost, the auction gives a significant cost saving over fixed-price mechanisms. If instead we assume that bids include an element of rent, fixed-price mechanisms can be more cost effective than the auction. The significance of these results is that a fixed price scheme may achieve a similar level of cost effectiveness to a conservation auction, when one or more of the following apply: compliance costs do not vary significantly between producers, auction bids have a significant element of rent and the auction incurs a significant additional administrative cost.


Although both MRD and karyotype are powerful determinants of outcome in childhood ALL, few studies have examined the kinetics of MRD clearance by cytogenetic subgroup. ALL2003 is an ongoing UK trial open to all patients aged 1–19 years with ALL, except those with mature-B ALL. At diagnosis, patients are stratified by NCI criteria to receive a three drug (Regimen A - age 1–9 years and white cell count (WCC) 9 /L) or four drug (Regimen B - age 10–18 years or WCC >50×10 9 /L) induction. MRD is assessed at day 29 and week 11 of therapy using a standardised and quality controlled RQ-PCR of at least two patient specific immunoglobulin or T cell receptor rearrangements. MRD risk groups were defined as: MRD high risk (HR) MRD >10 −4 at day 29; MRD low risk (LR) MRD negative or −4 at day 29 and negative at week 11; MRD indeterminate risk - all other patients. Cytogenetic analysis was performed on pre-treatment samples and six abnormalities were defined as high risk: t(9;22)(q34;q11), near-haploidy (23–29 chromosomes), low hypodiploidy (30–39 chromosomes), 11q23/ MLL translocations, t(17;19)(q22;p13) and intrachromosomal amplification of chromosome 21 (iAMP21). Among the first 1000 patients entered into the trial, 979 (98%) patients were eligible for these analyses. A total of 920 (94%) had a successful cytogenetic result and 555 (57%) were assigned to MRD high or low risk groups. Of these 555 patients, 298 (54%) were classified as MRD-HR whereas 257 (45%) were classified as MRD-LR. Collectively, patients with high risk cytogenetics were more likely to be classified as MRD-HR [20/24 (83%) v 261/501 (52%), p=0.003]. Patients with ETV6-RUNX1 ( TEL-AML1 ) fusion were less likely to be classified as MRD-HR [40/145 (28%) v 241/380 (63%), p ETV6-RUNX1 positive patients and excluding these patients from the analysis revealed that high hyperdiploid patients were as likely to be MRD-HR as other ETV6-RUNX1 negative patients [99/155 (64%) v 142/225 (63%), p=0.880]. There was no difference between high hyperdiploid patients with and without the triple trisomy of +4, +10 and +17 with respect to MRD status. T-ALL patients were also more likely to be classified as MRD-HR compared to B-cell precursor ALL patients [32/46 (70%) v 249/479 (52%), p=0.022]. In particular, 9/10 patients with t(5;14)/ TLX3-BCL11B fusion and 6/6 patients with SIL-TAL1 fusion were classified as MRD-HR. In conclusion, we have clearly demonstrated that MRD status varies by cytogenetic subgroup with ETV6-RUNX1 patients having the fastest MRD clearance rate. Despite the good prognosis associated with high hyperdiploidy, these patients were as likely to be MRD-HR as other standard risk patients. Longer follow-up is required to determine the clinical significance of this finding.


Doing things "in the cloud" has become ubiquitous and the "cloud" has become a rich platform for the use of modeling and simulation (M&S) anywhere and anytime to provide solutions to complex problems. Creation of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for building and executing visual M&S applications "in the cloud" poses significant technical challenges. This paper presents an architecture and a design of a cloud-based visual M&S IDE for the example problem domain "traffic networks". The IDE consists of integrated software tools that provide computer-aided assistance in the composition and visualization of simulation models under a web browser on a client computer while the simulation model is being executed on a server computer. Based on a client-server architecture enabling distributed multitiered M&S development, the design employs an asynchronous visualization protocol with efficient resource utilization. The architecture and design can assist researchers and developers to create other cloudbased visual M&S IDEs.


Professor Cronbach accepts some but by no means all of Professor Jensen's empirical conclusions. In the following review he indicates some research that bears on their points of disagreement. Cronbach suggests that such distinctions as Jensen's dichotomy between "Level I" and "Level II" abilities over-simplify the many dimensions of individual differences, and he disagrees with the educational policy he feels is implied by Jensen's recommendations for education. Beyond this, Professor Cronbach poses a more basic question—"Intelligence for what?"—a question of the compatibility of current social aims of schooling with long range changes in our social and technological structure.


A Monte Carte simulation of electrons emitted from the cathode of a CO2 gas laser discharge is presented. The influence of a perpendicular magnetic field on the electron transport coefficients has been studied. Data on transverse and perpendicular velocities and electron energy distributions are evaluated at various magnetic field types and strengths. Ionization coefficients and excitation coefficients of 27 useful energy levels of CO2, N2 and He are obtained at the same time. The result shows that the application of a magnetic field perpendicular to the electric field decreases the transverse drift velocity, the mean energy and thus the ionization coefficient. As a result, the magnetic field leads to a very high perpendicular velocity, which may be responsible for the stability of our discharge experiments (where a perpendicular magnetic field near the cathode is used to stabilize the direct current discharge of a CO2 gas laser and to gain a higher input power loading). It is also found that the magnetic field distributions, as well as the field strength, had great effects on the electron transport coefficients and the discharge properties.


This paper reports a screening survey using a mobile unit to determine the prevalence of chronic disorders among persons aged 40-59 years in rural Thailand. A total of 4,812 persons from all the 54 rural villages in Mae Sot District, Tak Province, northern Thailand, were interviewed and examined in 1995. A higher proportion (59.3%) of men were current tobacco smokers than among women (40.4%). A higher proportion (69.6%) of men were current alcohol drinkers compared with women (38.6%). Cutting/piercing was the most frequently reported injury, followed by falls. About half (47.9%) of the persons surveyed had a body mass index (BMI) between 20 and 24.9 and only 2.6 per cent had a BMI of 30 or over. The overall prevalence rates of hypertension and diabetes in the persons surveyed were 13.3 per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively. Of the persons screened, 28.8 per cent had borderline-high blood cholesterol (200-239 mg/dl) and 12.9 per cent had high blood cholesterol (> or = 240 mg/dl). About 61 per cent of hypertensive persons, 92 per cent of diabetic persons, and nearly all of those with dyslipidaemia were first detected during this screening programme. Five women with breast cancer and 22 with benign breast disorders were also identified during the survey. A screening programme using a mobile unit may be useful in identifying treatable disorders in rural areas, where existing screening services cannot effectively cover the population at risk.


From the frontiers of contemporary information science research comes this helpful and timely volume for libraries preparing for the deluge of data that E-science can deliver to their patrons and institutions. The Data Deluge: Can Libraries Cope with E-Science? brings together nine of the worlds foremost authorities on the capabilities and requirements of E-science, offering their perspectives to librarians hoping to develop similar programs for their own institutions.The essays contained in The Data Deluge were adapted from papers first delivered at the prestigious annual Library Round Table at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology, where E-science has been the theme from the past two annual conferences. Now this groundbreaking work is available in convenient printed format for the first time. The essays are divided into three parts: an overview of E-science challenges for libraries; perspectives on E-science; and perspectives from individual research libraries.


In the advancing world of Science & Technology, computer simulations have become an integral part of research and development in various fields. Chemical dynamics simulations describe the atomic level motions in molecules and chemical reactions, and they lead to a greater understanding of the properties of molecules and chemical reactions. The use of current chemical dynamics simulation software involves substantial human effort and expertise to create and execute simulation models. This limits the use of the software to experts.

This research project proposed a generic framework for automating chemical dynamics simulations by abstracting complexity of creating and executing simulation models. The focus is on developing tools for creating & executing simulation models, generating animations and managing a simulation model repository through a graphical interface. These tools will be available through a web service. Extensibility and Scalability are important design considerations.

In order to improve the accessibility of the system to non-experts, a web interface is developed which makes application easily and globally accessible by a web browser. Different High Performance Computing technologies are evaluated for interfacing with the simulation software to perform the simulations results and then animate the results with visualization tools.

The proposed framework is implemented and tested using the chemical dynamics simulation software VENUS. This implementation provides a graphical-user interface for customizing simulation models and automats the process of job submission to different execution environments. Usability tests of the implementation have been conducted with a diverse group of users. Results of the usability tests are analyzed and recommendations are made for improvements in the proposed framework and implementation.


Green transportation is a kind of urban transportation system with low pollution and multiple urban environments. At present, the development of green transportation in China is progressing and gradually occupying a relatively important position. In order to understand the development of green transportation in China, based on the concept of green transportation, this paper analyzes the development of green transportation in Zhoushan as an example, and selects the data from three aspects: basic indicators, means of transportation and road construction in Zhoushan City. The entropy weight method is used to determine the entropy value and weight of each index, and the index evaluation system is established. In addition, the ideal solution method was used to calculate the relative closeness degree to analyze the development of green transportation in Zhoushan city from 2016 to 2018. According to the relative proximity degree calculation data, it can be shown that the calculation value of 2017 is larger than that of 2018. The results show that the development of green transportation in Zhoushan in 2017 is the best, followed by 2018. The above results help to understand the current development status of Zhoushan green transportation, further understand the existing problems and the important factors affecting the development of Zhoushan green transportation. In order to promote the development of urban green transportation in China, suggestions are put forward on the basis of the analysis of the development of Zhousan's green transportation to promote the development of green transportation in Zhoushan from four aspects: strengthening the construction of urban road transportation system, optimizing transportation, improving the infrastructure of new energy vehicles and promoting the concept of green transportation.


In social networks, control of rumor spread is an active area of research. SIR model is generally used to study the rumor dynamics in network while considering the rumor as an epidemic. In disease spreading model, epidemic is controlled by removing central nodes in the network. Full network information is needed for such removal. To have the information of complete network is difficult proposition. As a consequence, the search of an algorithm that may control epidemic without needing global information is a matter of great interest. In this paper, an immunization strategy is proposed that uses only local information available at a node, viz. degree of the node and average degree of its neighbour nodes. Proposed algorithm has been evaluated for scale-free network using SIR model. Numerical results show that proposed method has less complexity and gives significantly better results in comparison with other strategies while using only local information.


Metabolomics based on two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry is making high demands on accuracy at all stages of sample preparation, up to the storage and injection into the analytical system. In high sample flow conditions, good repeatability in peak areas and a list of detectable metabolites is sometimes challenging to obtain. In this research, we successfully obtained good repeatability for the peak areas of MSFTA-derivatives of 29 core blood plasma metabolites. Six different strategies of storage and injection were investigated and evaluated for the reproducibility of the obtained data. As the essential factors, we considered popular GC-MS syringe washing solvents (methanol and pyridine); storage conditions (freshly prepared samples and stored for 24 h in ambient temperature or in the refrigerator); scheme of injection (one injection per intact vial or three sequential injections per vial). Our GC×GC-MS results demonstrated that the usage of pyridine as a syringe wash solvent and triple injecting the sample from the same vial was the most appropriate for minimizing the coefficient of variation (CV) of the results obtained (in general, <10%). The prolonged storage of samples does not have a noticeable effect on the change in the areas of chromatographic peaks of metabolites, although it reduces CV in some cases. These storage and injection recommendations can be used in future study protocols for the GC×GC-MS analysis of blood plasma.


BACKGROUND
Filamentous fungi are the main contamination agent in the viticultural sector. Use of synthetic fungicides is the regular answer to these contaminations. Nevertheless, due to several problems associated with the use of synthetic compounds the industry demands new and safer methods. In the present work, the biopreservation potential of four lactic acid bacteria (LAB) strains was studied against the principal grape contaminant fungi.

RESULTS
Agar diffusion test evidenced that all four culture-free supernatant (CFS) had antifungal properties against all tested fungi. The Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) and Minimum Fungicidal Concentration (MFC) test values evidenced that media fermented by the Lactobacillus plantarum E3 and Lactobacillus plantarum E4 strains showed the highest antifungal activity, resulting in an MFC from 6.3 to 100 g L-1 . Analysis of CFS evidenced the presence of different antifungal compounds, such as lactic acid, phenyllactic acid and pyrazines. In tests on red grapes, an average reduction of 1.32 Log10 of the spores per gram of fruit was achieved by all CFS in grapes inoculated with Aspergillus ochraceous and by 0.94 Log10 for L. plantarum E3 CFS against Botrytis cinerea.

CONCLUSION
The antifungal activity of the fermented CFS by L. plantarum E3 reduced the growth of B. cinerea and A. ochraceous in grapes, which are the main contaminant and main productor of ochratoxin A in these crops, respectively. Therefore, based on the results obtained in this work use of the strain L. plantarum E3 can be an interesting option for the biopreservation of grapes. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


As an extension of the Panel session held at the seventh Accounting History International Conference (7AHIC) in Seville in September 2013, the pressures, issues, strategies and implications of the movement from regional to international in terms of publishing in accounting history are presented. These dimensions are analysed from the point of view of four European countries: France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Although these four countries have languages well disseminated around the globe, and/or possess a long history and tradition of discoveries and were strong players in commercial trade for centuries, academic publishing internationally is dominated by Anglo-Saxon countries and journals. Therefore, English is the main language and different challenges and hindrances are faced by researchers whose native language is other than English. More than arguing for a radical move from the regional to the international, a call is made for a more cooperative environment within international accounting history research which takes into account the cultural differences and embraces those differences.


There are two intuitive principles governing belief formation and argument evaluation that can potentially clash. After arguing that adopting them unrestrictedly leads to an infinite regress, we propose a formal framework in which qualified versions of both principles can be subscribed without falling into such a regress. The proposal integrates tools from two different traditions: structured argumentation and awareness epistemic logic. We show that our formalism satisfies certain rationality postulates and argue that the rest of them can be seen as too ideal when modelling resource-bounded agents.


Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CPKs/CDPKs) are Ca2+-sensors that decode Ca2+ signals into specific physiological responses. Research has reported that CDPKs constitute a large multigene family in various plant species, and play diverse roles in plant growth, development, and stress responses. Although numerous CDPKs have been exhaustively studied, and many of them have been found to be involved in plant hormone biosynthesis and response mechanisms, a comprehensive overview of the manner in which CDPKs participate in phytohormone signaling pathways, regulating nearly all aspects of plant growth, has not yet been undertaken. In this article, we reviewed the structure of CDPKs and the mechanism of their subcellular localization. Some CDPKs were elucidated to influence the intracellular localization of their substrates. Since little work has been done on the interaction between CDPKs and cytokinin signaling pathways, or on newly defined phytohormones such as brassinosteroids, strigolactones and salicylic acid, this paper mainly focused on discussing the integral associations between CDPKs and five plant hormones: auxins, gibberellins, ethylene, jasmonates, and abscisic acid. A perspective on future work is provided at the end.


Presents a performance measure, the actuation efficiency, which describes isotropy in acceleration capability for non-redundant manipulators. It measures the imbalance between the end-effector accelerations achievable in different directions. Prior to this, no measure of this characteristic was adequate for a six degree-of-freedom manipulator because its end-effector motions are referenced to a mix of linear and angular coordinates. The proposed measure addresses both linear and angular accelerations. It also indicates oversized actuators, since this contributes to the imbalance in achievable accelerations. The development of this measure is based on the formulation of the motion isotropy hypersurface. The shape of this hypersurface is a weak indicator a acceleration isotropy.


A collective system of atoms in a high-quality cavity can be described by a nonlinear interaction which arises due to the Lamb shift of the energy levels due to the cavity vacuum [Agarwal et al., Phys. Rev. A 56, 2249 (1997)]. We show how this collective interaction can be used to perform quantum logic. In particular we produce schemes to realize controlled-NOT gates not only for two-qubit but also for three-qubit systems. We also discuss realizations of Toffoli gates. Our effective Hamiltonian is also realized in other systems such as trapped ions or magnetic molecules.


Spatial statistics is an area of study devoted to the statistical analysis of data that have a spatial label associated with them. Geographers often refer to the"location information"associated with the"attribute information,"whose study defines a research area called"spatial analysis."Many of the ways to manipulate spatial data are driven by algorithms with no uncertainty quantification associated with them. When a spatial analysis is statistical, that is, it incorporates uncertainty quantification, it falls in the research area called spatial statistics. The primary feature of spatial statistical models is that nearby attribute values are more statistically dependent than distant attribute values; this is a paraphrasing of what is sometimes called the First Law of Geography (Tobler, 1970).


neck rigidity (2 patients) were also observed. Signs and symptoms at the time of hospitalization and at followup for 6 months (at 3-month intervals) were similar for persons infected with JEV and those infected with WNV. Neurologic sequelae observed at <6 months follow-up were impaired memory (6 patients), irritable behavior (5 patients), impaired hearing (3 patients), incoherent speech and disorientation (1 patient), breathing diffi culty (1 patient), impaired speech (1 patient), and quadriparesis (1 patient). We identifi ed WNV in regions of Assam to which JEV is endemic. The fi nding indicates that WNV might be the cause of a substantial number of acute encephalitis syndrome cases in this region. Fever and headache were the most common signs and symptoms, as reported (7). There were 3 deaths (all children) in 13 patients. Our results corroborate a similar observation in the Kolar District of Karnataka (8). In contrast, in western countries, the attack rate and casefatality rate for WNV infection are higher among immunocompromised elderly patients (9). Our fi ndings may be caused by strain variations and host susceptibility to the virus. Identifi cation of circulating genotypes of WNV and its vectors and epidemiologic studies are needed to obtain additional information on WNV infection in this region and identify WNV as a cause of acute encephalitis syndrome. Acknowledgments We thank Milind Gore for providing cell lines and helping with the neutralization test and Niranjan Kumar Barua, Robin Doloi, and Joy Prasanna Gogoi for excellent assistance in the laboratory and the fi eld.


Abstract
Legal certainty, a feature of the rule of law, constitutes a requirement for the operational necessities of market interactions. But, the compatibility of the principle of legal certainty with ideals such as liberalism and free market economy must not lead to the hastened conclusion that therefore the principle of legal certainty would be compatible and tantamount to the principle of economic efficiency. We intend to analyse the efficiency rationale of an important general principle of EU law—the principle of legal certainty. In this paper, we shall assert that not only does the EU legal certainty principle encapsulate an efficiency rationale, but most importantly, it has been interpreted by the ECJ as such. The economic perspective of the principle of legal certainty in the European context has, so far, never been adopted. Hence, we intend to fill in this gap and propose the representation of the principle of legal certainty as a principle of economic efficiency. After having deciphered the principle of legal certainty from a law and economics perspective (1), we shall delve into the jurisprudence of the ECJ so that the judicial reasoning of the Court as this reasoning proves the relevance of the proposed representation (2). Finally, we conclude in light of the findings of this paper (3).


Wikis are believed to be a powerful tool assisting the development of constructivist learning environments, as their very nature supports collaboration. However, not much research has been done into the types of collaborative interaction that take place in wikis when used for learning. The main purpose of this study is to explore the factors that affect the ways students collaborate in the wiki environment. To this end, a qualitative exploration of students' perceptions of collaboration in the wiki was carried out among sociology students at university level who used this environment in blended, problem based learning as part of their English for Specific Purposes course. The research shows that the wiki promoted many collaborative behaviours among students, such as learning from each other and communicating with the teacher. However, the data indicate that the wiki was less successful in facilitating other types of collaboration, such as communicating with peers and co-constructing products, primarily because the students had the opportunity to collaborate in live meetings and preferred to use Messenger and email to communicate. Overall, the results obtained here confirm that the wiki can be used to enhance effective collaboration in a constructivist approach to language learning.


Sexual ambiguities are due to varied congenital or hormonal causes. A retrospective study carried out from January 1995 to December 2000 and followed by a prospective study from January 2001 to September 2002 sought to describe the clinical aspects of sexual ambiguities in Internal Medicine in a tertiary hospital Mali. Among 12 patients out of 2223 consultants identified (0.54 percent), 10 of them were phenotypically feminine and 2 phenotypically masculine. The average age of the patients was 14.3+- 8.9 years. Clinically, 3 out of the 10 phenotypically feminine patients presented an anomaly of the external genital organs; 5 out of the 10 had low axillary and pubic hair growth; 4 out of the 10 had delayed puberty; 6 out of the 10 had primary amenorrhoea; 7 out of 10 had hypoplasia of the mammary glands; and3 out of 10 had an inguinal mass. For the the 2 phenotypically masculine patients, one had a bilateral gynecomastia, a macroskelia of 2m04, a low axillary and pubic hair growth and the other had an anomaly of the external genital organs.


Ehrlich ascites tumour (EAT) cells were cultured in vitro in Eagle's MEM and Medium 199 with a lowered amino-acid content. Under these conditions EAT cells lose their rounded shape typical of highly malignant cancer cells, and begin to spread on the substratum. The changes in EAT cell morphology are preceded by a decrease in the rate of protein synthesis. These changes were maintained for three days after returning the cells to Eagle's MEM with a normal amino-acid content, but the return to control media did not cause reasumption of growth in the once spread cells. The increase in glucose content (up to five-fold) or the presence of inhibitors of DNA synthesis did not prevent the attachment and flattening of EAT cells in media with a lowered amino acid content. Several possible mechanisms of the influence of restricted amino-acid availability on the changes in EAT cell surface properties are pointed out and the need for study of cancer cell responses to restricted nutrition is discussed.


Abstract Abstract. Multispectral video data were evaluated to determine their sensitivity to detect environmental conditions associated with hydrocarbon microseepage at the Pollard oil field. Biogeochemical analysis of soil and tree leaves indicates that plants are extracting available heavy metals from the soil environment. Anomalous concentrations of Mn were found in plant tissue. Correlation analysis reveals statistically significant relationships between Mn concentrations and vegetation growth around active producing wellsites. Although single‐band video data were generally not sensitive to biochemical variations, findings indicate that transformed video data may have the potential to detect environmental conditions associated with hydrocarbon microseepage.


32. He had some difficulties in that respect with the scope of the topic as proposed in section 1, paragraph 1, of the schematic outline, and in particular with the definition of the term "activity" in paragraph 2 (b). That definition was too broad and too abstract, and could even apply to the economic, financial and monetary activities of Governments. It would be entirely impractical for such activities to be included in the scope of the topic. The Special Rapporteur and several members of the Commission had rightly stressed the need for the progressive development of international law, as envisaged in principle 22 of the Stockholm Declaration and in article 235 of the Convention on the Law of the Sea. However, it would be pointless to lay down principles that did not have good prospects of being accepted by the majority of the international community, and he did not think that the international community was ready to accept the principles of absolute or strict liability. At the present stage, therefore, the Commission should aim at proposing guidelines or a framework for the consideration, negotiation or arbitration of specific cases, and not a convention or principles of a legally binding nature. The scope of the guidelines should be more limited and more carefully defined than the scope of the topic as suggested in the schematic outline. They should in fact do no more than supplement or strengthen existing international legal regimes relating to the protection of the environment. 33. The Special Rapporteur had proposed the balancing of interests as a means of solving the problem of reparation under a regime of strict liability. It should be borne in mind, however, that although a balancing of interests could solve that problem in some cases, it could not be used in cases where claims were settled on an ex gratia basis, a device to which Governments resorted when they wanted to avoid legal or political difficulties or did not wish to explain the legal basis for their decision to settle a claim. The notion of shared expectations mentioned in section 4, para. 2, of the schematic outline was of great interest and warranted further consideration, but in the light of the international community's experience with strict liability regimes it was difficult to see how it would be interpreted in specific cases. 34. He would appreciate it if the Special Rapporteur could explain whether the question of exhaustion of local remedies came within the topic. For example, could it be said that, in the Trail Smelter case, the Canadian Government could have required the United States nationals who had suffered loss or injury to exhaust local remedies before the Canadian courts? If Japan and New Zealand concluded a fishing agreement and Japanese fishing vessels were prevented from fishing in New Zealand waters because of water pollution caused by New Zealand, would the New Zealand Government be entitled to say that the Japanese fishermen concerned had to exhaust local remedies in the New Zealand courts before the matter could be taken up by the two Governments? The meeting rose at 1 p.m.


In the process of Socialist construction and modernization, the development of the population of national minorities deserves our attention because it is directly related to the economic and cultural development in the areas inhabited by such national minorities, and it has a great impact on the welfare and future of those people. Moreover, the population growth of the minorities is a key factor in the national population control strategy. A rapid population growth among the minorities has caused serious problems in distribution of farm land and food supply, low personal income, a rise in the unemployment rate, and a rise in the illiteracy rate. This has prevented a rise in the living standard among the minority population. In order to prevent and solve population problems among the minorities, we must take appropriate measures according to local conditions to control population increases. Through popularization of education, population growth may be put under control. For those people who volunteer to practice family planning, the government should provide all kinds of assistance. At the same time, an effort is needed to introduce the necessity of improving birth quality, to popularize new methods of child birth, and to develop health and medical care for the general public, so that the quality of the minority population may be gradually improved.


Objectives Pulmonary hypertension (PHT) is a life-threatening complication of sickle cell disease that occurs in 20% to 40% of adults. Measurement of maximal tricuspid regurgitant jet velocity (TRV) by echocardiography provides a noninvasive screening tool; TRV values ≥2.5 m/s are correlated with PHT and increased mortality. Our objective was to estimate the prevalence of PHT in our pediatric sickle cell population and its possible association with various clinical and laboratory findings, including obstructive sleep apnea and/or pulmonary dysfunction. Study Design Eligible children had measurement of the TRV. Clinical data were collected, including detailed history with a standardized sleep apnea questionnaire; those with suggestive histories had polysomonography. Pulmonary function was assessed using whole body plethysmography. Results Of 48 subjects (79% homozygous sickle cell anemia; median age 12 y; 11 receiving chronic transfusion) enrolled in the study, 4 (8.3%) had TRV >2.5 m/s; all had homozygous sickle cell anemia and 1 was receiving hydroxyurea after 3 years of transfusion for secondary stroke prevention. Subjects with elevated TRV had higher indirect bilirubin levels; we found no association between elevated TRV and obstructive apnea or pulmonary function abnormalities. Conclusions Elevation of TRV was relatively uncommon in our pediatric patients as compared with prevalence reported in adults and may be associated with increased hemolysis. There was no association with obstructive sleep apnea or abnormal pulmonary function.


In the former Soviet Union, there was a lack of valid and reliable social research on knowledge, attitudes, and practice of contraception. The few available studies have not been published outside the Soviet Union. This article reviews five surveys that were conducted in Moscow and two other cities (Saratov and Tartu) during the period 1976-84. In addition, some data from a large-scale survey conducted in 1990 and covering the entire former Soviet Union are presented. The surveys indicate that the rhythm method, condoms, vaginal douches, and withdrawal were the main contraceptive methods used; only 1 to 3 percent of the women interviewed were using oral contraceptives, and about 10 percent used intrauterine devices. The low prevalence of use of reliable modern methods may explain the high incidence of induced abortion in Russia. The chronic unavailability of reliable contraceptives is one of the main factors of poor family planning. Lack of knowledge and negative opinions about modern contraception also play an important role. Some possibilities for improving the family planning situation in Russia are discussed.


: Thirty-nine patients suffering from osteoarthrosis of the knee were repeatedly measured. The relationship was studied for two groups of variables. The first group consisted of subjective assessments of functional capacity and pain and a walking test. The second group consisted of isometric knee extension torque and isokinetic knee flexion and extension torque at 30 degrees/sec, 60 degrees/sec, 120 degrees/sec and 180 degrees/sec. High correlations between each of the static and dynamic torque values were found. Multiple regression analysis showed that isometric and isokinetic torque measures are unsatisfactory predictors of functional capacity, since only 23-35% of the variation of functional capacity, pain and walking test variables was explained by the variation of torque variables. Dynamic torque measurements had very little advantage over static torque tests. It is concluded that outcome measures in studies of osteoarthrosis should be problem-oriented and include direct assessments of functional capacity, pain and walking ability.


Book synopsis: Includes a variety of women's political writings from the Seventeenth Century. This collection highlights the principles inherent in female political action in its many and varied forms, from women's Civil War petitioning, to the efforts of Quaker women to reform prisons.


A method for coating rice with a novel substance, SHC [soybean hydrolysate with Cyclo Histidine-Proline (CHP)], was developed to produce functional rice for food production. The dip coating and spray coating method was tested to reduce the loss of functionality during the manufacturing of enriched rice. The dip coating method showed a very low absorption rate (0.079 min -1 ) of the functional substance compared to control (0.150 min -1 ), while the spray-coating method with protective coating materials [a methyl cellulose solution (l%, w/v) containing 5% (w/v) of the SHC] showed relatively adequate absorption characteristics. A light yellowish stain was observed in the rice samples processed by the spray-coating method (b value; surface1 0.69, flour 4.91) compared to raw rice (b value; surface 9.67, flour 4.86). The microscopic appearance of whole kernels and longitudinal sections revealed that cracks formed in all rice samples, regardless of the coating method. In conclusion, spray coating is a potential method for producing SHC-fortified rice with excellent physical characteristics.


Multiple myeloma is less frequently diagnosed in our part of the world. As per the hospital based cancer registry of Nepal, it accounts for 0.4% of all cancer cases diagnosed annually1. Usually they present with symptoms of chronic renal failure which is part of CRAB: elevated calcium (C), renal failure (R), anemia (A) and bone lesions (B). The symptoms and signs vary greatly as many organs can be affected by myeloma. Furthermore, the incidence is high in older age group with co morbidities demanding the patient tailored treatment. Here, we present a case of multiple myeloma which was treated with single agent dexamethasone. On initial evaluation patient had stage III disease with features of cord compression, so was started with immediate radiation therapy to the cervical and lumbar vertebrae followed by single agent dexamethasone as he denied further cytotoxic treatment. The patient is on regular follow up and in remission after six years of treatment. We are in the era where there is armor of chemotherapeutic agents along with bone marrow transplantation for the treatment of multiple myeloma. This case may represent an example and single agent dexamethasone can be an option for the treatment of the patient who is in poor general condition to receive the cytotoxic chemotherapy or denies to such therapy but it should be a choice only to a selected subgroup of patient population. Journal of Kathmandu Medical College, Vol. 4(1) 2015, 26-28


Objective. Low birth weight (LBW; <2500 g) is the result of complex and poorly understood interactions between the biological determinants of the mother and the fetus, the parent's socioeconomic status, and medical care. After controlling for these established risk factors, the extent of regional variation in LBW rates remains unknown. This study measures regional variation in LBW rates and identifies regions of neonatal health services with significantly high or low adjusted rates. Methods. Linking the United States 1998 singleton birth cohort (N = 3.8 million) with county and health care characteristics, we conducted a small area analysis of LBW across 246 regions of neonatal health services. We measured observed rates and then used a multivariable, hierarchical model to estimate adjusted LBW rates by regions. We then stratified these rates by race for the 208 regions with adequate sample size. Results. Observed LBW rates varied across regions from 3.8 to 10.6 per 100 live births (interquartile range: 5.0–6.8 [25th–75th percentile]; median: 5.9). After controlling for known maternal and area risk factors, 67 (27.0%) regions had rates significantly below and 98 (39.8%) regions had rates significantly higher than the national rate of 6.0 per 100 live births. Although black mothers were more likely to give birth to an LBW newborn, regional adjusted rates still varied >3-fold within both black and nonblack subgroups. Conclusions. After controlling for known maternal and area risk factors, LBW rates markedly varied across US regions of neonatal health services for both black and nonblack mothers. Additional analyses of these regions may provide opportunities for regional accountability in pregnancy outcomes, LBW research, and targeted improvement interventions, especially in high-risk populations.


STUDY QUESTION
Can we confirm in our population whether FMRI low sub-genotypes are associated with BRCA1/2 mutations, as recently proposed?

SUMMARY ANSWER
Our results indicate that the distribution of the FMR1 sub-genotypes in female BRCA1/2-mutation carriers is significantly different from what has been reported previously and resembles that of the control population. FMRI low sub-genotypes are not associated with BRCA1/2 mutations and this association is also absent among male mutation carriers.

WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY
Recently, BRCA1 mutations were reported to be associated with primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) in female carriers. In animal models, BRCA2-deficiency also results in impaired oogenesis. A recent study has reported that the POI in BRCA1/2-mutation carriers is most likely due to low FMR1 sub-genotype (CGG n < 26) and the authors also suggested that low sub-genotypes of the FMR1 gene might be important to rescue the BRCA1/2 embryos, which would otherwise be embryonically-lethal.

STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION
This retrospective study was performed in October and November of 2012, using genetic material of 464 patients who underwent genetic screening in our centre in the past.

PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS
We tested the FMR1 sub-genotypes in 60 female and 29 males with either BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations and 375 controls by PCR amplification and size fragment analysis.

MAIN RESULTS
We did not find any evidence for an association of FMR1 low sub-genotypes and BRCA1/2 mutations.

LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION
This association study assumes that the female BRCA1/2 population tested has POI.

WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS
Low FMR1 sub-genotypes are not responsible for the presumed rescue of embryos with BRCA1/2 mutations. Furthermore, the molecular mechanism of the POI in BRCA1/2-female carriers is not likely to be associated with low FMR1 sub-genotype.

STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S)
The Department of Clinical Genetics of the Maastricht University Medical Centre supported the study. The authors do not have any competing interests to declare.


Current guidelines recommend percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with ongoing stable angina symptoms despite optimal medical therapy (OMT), although trials have shown no reduction in death or myocardial infarction. The recently published ORBITA trial compared OMT + PCI with OMT + 'placebo' PCI in patients with angina and single-vessel coronary artery disease (CAD), and found no significant difference in treadmill exercise time between the two groups after six weeks. The trial concluded that invasive procedures can be assessed with placebo control while numerous editorials interpreted the trial as showing that PCI has no role in the management of stable angina. However, the highly selected patient population, low ischaemic burden and level of symptoms and high proportion of non-flow-limiting stenoses on invasive physiological testing mean that, while ground-breaking in terms of its methodology, ORBITA does not add to the current evidence base supporting ischaemia-guided revascularisation if symptoms are not controlled on medical therapy alone.


In this paper we further developed wave packet theory and proposed a new concept of chaotic wave packet mixing and transport to describe two types of wave mixing and transport processes, i.e., dynamically passive wave mixing and dynamically active wave mixing. When the path of the wave packet is chaotic, we have chaotic wave packet mixing and transport. The mechanism of passive tracer mixing, or dynamically passive wave mixing, is just advection by the medium flow. In a dynamically active wave system such as a dispersive wave system, however, there are two mechanisms operating the mixing and transport process. The first one is the advection by the medium flow; the second one is the dispersion process, which is directly related to energy dispersion of the waves. Hence, the passive wave mixing and transport is described by the Lagrangian trajectory of the basic flow whereas the dynamically active wave mixing and transport is described by the Lagrangian trajectory of the wave packet. We characterized the chaotic mixing and transport by a MIriety of means including the initially small blob experiments, correlation dimension and Lyapunov exponents. In the passive wave mixing, we superimposed a perturbation wave on the basic wave and investigated the dependence of perturbation wave velocity (or frequency) on the mixing and transport. Thii dependence is rather complicated. The complexity of geometry of structure of mixing and transport increases with the frequency. In a dispersive wave system, by varying the dispersive parameter, we studied the role of dispersion mechanism in the wave mixing and transport. We found that turning the dispersion mechanism on will affect the mixing and transport greatly. In our example, it is found that the greater the dispersive parameter, the more mixing and transport the dispersive wave system becomes. The dispersion mechanism enhances the mixing and transport. Furthermore, the dispersion mechanism results in mixing and transport on a large scale, whereas advection by the medium flow results in mixing and transport on a small scale. The governing dynamical system constitutes a Hamiltonian system. When the basic flow is periodic in time, thii Hamiltonian has more than two degrees of freedom, which results in Arnold diffmion and enhances mixing and transport in the system. Implications of the results in general waves are discussed. Received by the editors on November 5, 1992, and in revised form on March 24, 1993. Copyright 0 1 9 9 3 Rocky Mountain Mathemsticm Consortium


The paper proposes a methodology to solve wasteful power dissipation problems in the home network. To do so, we define and implement the Energy-aware Framework (EAF) to manage and control various Consumer Electronic (CE) devices operated throughout the home. The proposed framework is composed of a power management scheme to control power consumptions of devices based on Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) according to the classified service categories, but also helps to achieve control over various Energy-aware Control Elements (ECEs) that are minimum controllable resource units. It also includes a power management mechanism using an Energy-aware Plug and Play protocol (EPnP) to control and manage various ECEs and provides an open API for managing, controlling and monitoring the power control status of a designated device and controlling power levels from the various service applications in the home environments.


The digital transformation is concerning people in several aspects. In working environments of many workers, major changes and challenges are becoming apparent because of the proceeding dissemination of information and communication technologies (ICT). With the implementation of new digital technologies and digitalized work processes, the demands and burdens of employees are also inevitably changing. The rapid pace of technological development can increase mental strain on employees (Gimpel 2018), and as a result, impairment in the form of stress can occur among individual employees. Especially, public administrations are under pressure, not only because they are facing a digitalization-driven transformation, but also because employees are encountered with an increased workload in their daily work due to legislative requirements. The study focuses on public administrations in Germany and aims to answer the overarching question of how the digital transformation can succeed by involving the employees in the process of change. Its also analysed how to design mental stress factors in a human-oriented way. For this purpose, the stress factors of digital work are defined as the following, according to GIMPEL et al. (2020):•Invasion of privacy & performance monitoringConcern about invasion of privacy and favouring the perception of surveillance. •Modification & complexityContinuing ICT changes and upgrades unsettle users and create uncertainty. The complexity of new technologies leads users to feel inadequate regarding their computer skills. Individuals are forced to constantly learn new technologies and undergo frequent educational trainings. •Fewer completed work tasksDigitization can make it more difficult to assess completed tasks and can lead to the feeling of hardly making any work progress.•Interruptions in the workdayThe use of ICT often introduces frequent interruptions into individuals' daily work routine, leading to increased stress and lower productivity.•Unavailability and unreliabilityDue to e.g. organizational restrictions new technologies are prohibited and it comes to an increased workload because of unstable running systems. •Information overloadThe workload increases due to higher amount of provided information and acceleration of work.•Overload and invasionDue to the dissolution of boundaries between work and private life employees force to work faster and longer where ICTs is used. They feel of being constantly reachable and a shorter response time is expected.In the paper, results of an interview study will be presented. As part of the study, 19 semi-structured interviews have been conducted between the beginning of August 2022 and the beginning of November 2022 with a total of 17 experts from public administrations in Germany who deal with digital transformation in their administrations and three consultants who support public administration in the transformation process. In the interview study, first the above-mentioned stress factors of digital work affect employees (with and without management responsibility) in public administrations were be determined. Then, with the help of an interview guide, insights were gained which concrete measures can be taken to involve employees to reduce psychological stress factors. Furthermore, an outlook is given which competencies need to be developed in the long term about dealing with digital transformation, both on part of the employees and in the role as a manager, and which actions can be derived regarding manager-employee relationships. The qualitative content analysis of the transcribed interviews will be carried out according to the general content analytical process model according to MAYRING (2022). In the Paper, a focus is laid on the category formation of the content analysis and the summary of the text material with the most important findings. LiteratureGimpel, Henner et al. (2020): Belastungsfaktoren der digitalen Arbeit. Eine beispielhafte Darstellung der Faktoren, die digitalen Stress hervorrufen. Augsburg.Gimpel, Henner et al. (2018): Digitaler Stress in Deutschland. Eine Befragung von Erwerbstätigen zu Belastung und Beanspruchung durch Arbeit mit digitalen Technologien. Working Paper Forschungsförderung. Edt. Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (101).Mayring, Philipp (2022): Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Grundlagen und Techniken. 13., überarbeitete Auflage. Weinheim: Beltz (Ciando library). Online verfügbar unter https://ebooks.ciando.com/book/index.cfm/bok_id/3137418.


Bilateral Sympathetic Paralysis following Thrombosis of Bulbar Vessels.-NEILL HOBHOUSE, M.D. L. C., female, aged 66. In December, 1928, had a sudden attack of giddiness, with buzzing in both ears and failure of vision. Could not articulate clearly for some hours. Next day articulation became clearer, but she " rambled about things that happened long ago." For several days she was drowsy, and dropped things out of her left hand. When seen a week later there was severe vertigo, and she could only walk with support. Lateral nystagmus. Inco-ordinatiou and asynergy in left arm. Still some dysarthria. There was complete bilateral paralysis of the cervical sympathetic. Wassermann reaction negative. Blood-pressure 150. She made a good recovery, the only permanent residuum being the sympathetic paralysis.


A hierarchical game of two persons with random factors is considered. It is assumed that the top-level player has the right of the first move. It is believed that the lower level player at the time of decision making knows exactly the realization of the random factor and the choice of partner. And the top-level player at the time of decision making knows only a probabilistic measure on the set of values of an uncertain factor. The principle of optimality is new: it is believed that a top-level player is ready to neglect some of the "unpleasant" events, the total probability of which is given, but otherwise he is careful. Under these assumptions, the maximum guaranteed result of the top-level player is calculated. The structure of strategies providing such a result is clarified. Two cases were investigated: a game with and without feedback. To solve the problem, an original definition of the maximum guaranteed result is proposed. It is equivalent to the classical definition, but is simpler. Using this technique, solving of the problem reduces to identical transformations of the formulas for predicate calculus. As a result of the solution, the optimal strategy and the set of "unpleasant" cases which are excluded from consideration search task is reduced to calculating multiple maximins on finite-dimensional spaces. In this case, the operation of calculating the expected value with respect to given probabilistic measure is considered to be "elementary". Models of this type can have different interpretations. One can use them for methodological justification of the principle of maximum guaranteed result. One can use them when solving risk management tasks. One can consider them as models for managing the "customer base" of the service company. The proposed method allows to study such models at a qualitative level, and in some cases to obtain quantitative results.


Influence of complexed zinc supplementation on growth performance and meat quality of broiler chickens were assessed at 49 d of age. A total of 960 male broilers were assigned to four dietary treatments: negative control (C), positive control (C + IZn; 40 ppm ZnSO4), C + 40 ppm complexed Zn (C + OZn) and C + IZn + 40 ppm complexed Zn added to the positive control (C + IZn + OZn). Each treatment feed was provided in a three-stage feeding program. No differences (p>0.05) were observed in the body weight, feed conversion, carcass and component yields due to any of the dietary treatments. However, drip loss was significantly (p<0.05) increased in fillets from birds fed organic trace minerals when measured at 24 h post deboning. Overall, fillet color (L*, a* and b* measurements) did not differ significantly (p>0.05) but after 28 d of storage, fillets from birds with high levels of zinc showed increased (p<0.05) redness (a* value). Breast fillet quality and microbial profile over a 28 d storage period under refrigeration (4 C) were not different o (p>0.05) due to any of the dietary treatments.


The Knox method for detecting space-time interactions of point data has been widely used in infectious Epidemiology, and crime mapping. However, the parametric methods (chi-square, Poisson) used for testing the significance of space-time interaction suffer from a major flaw, the violation of the assumption of independence of pairs. A Monte Carlo method that consists of random switching of the time labels of points is also flawed because in the case of heavy clustering of either dimension (space or time) the power of the test is reduced due to the switching of already close labels. Recently, a new Monte Carlo method for testing significance has been proposed which consists of completely random sampling in space and time, i.e., an unconditional extension of the Knox test. Comparative evaluation of these statistical tests and empirical methodologies has never been conducted. Here we present the first comparative examination between the chi-square test and the random Monte Carlo unconditional extension of the Knox test. We use a space-time version of the kappa statistic for evaluation and show that the results of the unconditional Monte Carlo methodology are significantly different and superior to those of the chi-square test.


Exosomes are vesicular granules of about 100 nm and are secreted by many types of cells. Exosomes contain various proteins, lipids, and RNAs that are transported to target cells which induce functional and physiological changes. Exosomes are promising nano-vesicles for clinical application, owing to their high biocompatibility, low immunogenicity, and high drug delivery efficacy. Recent studies have demonstrated that exosomes from tumor cells or antigen presenting cells (APCs) regulate immune responses. Tumor derived exosomes express PD-L1 on their surface and suppress tumor immunity systemically. On the other hand, mature dendritic cells derived exosomes exert immune activation, and tumor immunotherapy using DCs exosome has been developed. However, few studies have been found to exert a significant effect on cancer treatment, may be because of low expression of costimulatory molecules and lack of cytokines on DCs derived exosomes.It has been demonstrated that GFP can be conveyed into exosomes by conjugating GFP with tetraspanins, exosome-specific surface proteins. First, we generated a tetraspanin fusion protein with a single-chain MHCI trimer (scMHCI). IL-2 is inserted on the second extracellular loop of CD81, allowing robust and functional expression of IL-2 on the exosome. We collected exosomes from HEK293 cells culture, which stably express scMHCI-CD81-IL2 and CD80-MFGE8, and used as Antigen-presenting exosome(AP-Exo).AP-Exo expresses high expression of MHCI-peptide complex, costimulatory molecule, and cytokine, activating cognate CD8 T cells as dendritic cells do. AP-Exo selectively delivered co-stimulation and IL-2 to antigen-specific CD8 T cells, resulting in a massive expansion of antigen-specific CD8 T cells without severe adverse effects in mice. AP-Exo can expand endogenous tumor-specific CD8 T cells and induce the potent anti-tumor effect.Our strategy for building engineered exosomes that work like APCs might develop novel methods for cancer immunotherapy.All mice were housed in a specific pathogen-free facility, and all animal experiments were performed according to a protocol approved by Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan.


An in situ study (Exp. 1) using 4 ruminally cannulated steers (343 ± 11 kg of BW) in a completely randomized design was used to compare ruminal degradation characteristics of low-quality cool-season (C3; Kentucky bluegrass straw; Poa pratensis; 6.3% CP; DM basis) and warm-season (C4; tallgrass prairie; 5.7% CP; DM basis) forage. Four ruminally cannulated steers (252 ± 8 kg of BW; Exp. 2) and 4 wethers (38 ± 1 kg of BW; Exp. 3) were used in two 2 × 2 factorial arrangements of treatments to determine the influence of supplemental CP (CPSupp; soybean meal; 0.09 and 0.19% of BW, CP basis, for steers and lambs, respectively) on nutrient intake and digestion of C3 and C4 forages. Steers and wethers were allotted to separate 4 × 4 Latin squares that ran simultaneously with 20-d periods. In Exp. 1, C3 had a greater A fraction (fraction of total pool disappearing at a rate too rapid to measure) and effective degradability of DM and NDF compared with C4 (P < 0.01). In addition, C3 had a greater (P < 0.01) A fraction and effective degradability of N, whereas the C fraction (fraction of total pool unavailable in the rumen) was less (P < 0.01) than those for C4. Consequently, RDP accounted for 84.7% of total CP in C3 as compared with 66% for C4 (P < 0.01). In Exp. 2, a CPSupp × forage interaction (P < 0.01) was noted for forage and total DMI, with CPSupp increasing intake of C4 by 47% and intake of C3 forage by only 7%. Dry matter digestibility responded similarly, with a CPSupp × forage interaction (P = 0.05; CPSupp increased digestibility by 21% with C4 and by 9% with C3 forage). In addition, CPSupp × forage interactions were noted for ruminal liquid retention time (P = 0.02; CPSupp decreased retention by 3.6 h with C4 and by only 0.6 h with C3 forage) and particulate passage rate (P = 0.02; CPSupp increased passage by 46% with C4 and by 10% with C3 forage). As in Exp. 2, a CPSupp × forage interaction (P = 0.01; CPSupp increased digestibility by 18% with C4 and by 7% with C3 forage) was observed with DM digestibility in Exp. 3. In contrast, only N balance (P < 0.01) and N digestibility (P < 0.01) were affected by CPSupp. These data suggest that intake and digestion of low-quality C3 and C4 forages by ruminants are not similar and, more important, that the physiological response of ruminants to protein supplementation of low-quality forage is dependent on forage type.


Abstract Marine debris ingestion and entanglement have caused morbidity and mortality in multiple marine species, including all seven species of sea turtles. This case series outlines six cases in which advanced imaging modalities were used to diagnose marine debris–induced foreign body obstructions and to aid in the treatment of wounds caused by marine debris entanglement. Prefemoral ultrasonography was used to correctly diagnose a monofilament fishing line linear foreign body obstruction in a juvenile female Kemp's Ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) and a subadult female loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta). Administration of iodinated contrast confirmed a complete upper gastrointestinal obstruction in a juvenile green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas). Traditional radiographs were nondiagnostic in all three animals. Barium-impregnated polyethylene spheres were used to identify a partial gastrointestinal foreign body obstruction in a juvenile green sea turtle. Endoscopy was used in multiple cases as both a diagnostic and a therapeutic tool. This case series demonstrates that contrast radiography, ultrasonography, and endoscopy are accurate diagnostic tools for the identification of marine debris–induced foreign body obstructions in sea turtles.


Bioactivity-guided fractionation was used to determine the cytotoxic alkaloids from the toxic plant Peganum harmala. Two novel indole alkaloids, together with ten known ones, were isolated and identified. The novel alkaloids were elucidated to be 2-(indol-3-yl)ethyl-α-l-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 6)-β-d-glucopyranoside (2) and 3-hydroxy-3-(N-acetyl-2-aminoethyl)-6-methoxyindol-2-one (3). The cytotoxicity against human leukemia cells was assayed for the alkaloids and some of them showed potent activity. Harmalacidine (compound 8, HMC) exhibited the highest cytotoxicity against U-937 cells with IC50 value of 3.1 ± 0.2 μmol/L. The cytotoxic mechanism of HMC was targeting the mitochondrial and protein tyrosine kinase signaling pathways (PTKs-Ras/Raf/ERK). The results strongly demonstrated that the alkaloids from Peganum harmala could be a promising candidate for the therapy of leukemia.