The factors involved in obesity genesis are not conclusive, including the function of diet macronutrients concerning susceptibility of weight gain. Carbohydrate can be considered an important component in satiety. Its substitution for sweeteners decreases the diet caloric value, consequently decreasing body mass. The effects of sweeteners on appetite rely on nature and density of the nutrients that are consumed simultaneously with sweeteners. There are no sufficient evidences showing that sweeteners cause weight gain, but the use of sweeteners may result on energetic compensation with lipid-rich foods. Lipids tend to increase diet energetic density promoting high passive consumption of energy, besides its low oxidative priority, which is associated with low satiety. Lipid substitution has been related to caloric ingestion compensation, mainly for carbohydrates. A disciplined dietetic plan should include foods that decrease diet energetic density without increasing food consumption


In semantic web ontology heterogeneity is a big bottleneck of ontology application, and ontology mapping is the base for integration of heterogeneous ontology. The ontology mapping model contains several aspects, and concept similarity computing is the most important part. This paper presents a concept similarity computing algorithm combining lexical matching to achieve semantic enrichment and high accuracy results. It has been proved that the evaluation of concept similarity between ontologies is more accurate by considering both semantic similarity and semantic relativity.


We address the problem of automatically finding an acoustic representation (i.e. a transcription) of unknown words as a sequence of subword units, given a few sample utterances of the unknown words, and an inventory of speaker-independent subword units. The problem arises if a user wants to add his own vocabulary to a speaker-independent recognition system simply by speaking the words a few times. Two methods are investigated which are both based on a maximum-likelihood formulation of the problem. The experimental results show that both automatic transcription methods provide a good estimate of the acoustic models of unknown words. The recognition error rates obtained with such models in a speaker-independent recognition task are clearly better than those resulting from separate whole-word models. They are comparable with the performance of transcriptions drawn from a dictionary.


The experiments performed as a part of this study were conducted to evaluate the effect of magnetic field treatment upon the scale forming tendency of brine solution composed primarily of calcium bicarbonate ions. The reported results were generated using a Dynamic Scale Loop system with the brine solution exposed to a magnetic field generated by a 6480 Gauss magnet of grade N45SH in a diametrical orientation for 2.5 seconds. Following magnetic exposure, the brine solution was exposed to an elevated temperature 150°C at 1bar to promote the formation of scale within a capillary tube. The extent of scaling was measured by recording the differential pressure across the tube as scaling proceeded. Three important conclusions regarding the effect of magnetic field treatment upon scale formation in calcium bicarbonate solutions were reached. Firstly, the ratio of calcium to bicarbonate plays a key role in determining how magnetic fields influence scale formation, whether promoting or inhibiting it. Solutions containing high concentrations of the bicarbonate, or equal concentrations of the bicarbonate and calcium species showed inhibited scale formation following magnetic exposure. Secondly, the electrical conductivity of the calcium carbonate solution was noticeably impacted by the exposure to the magnetic field through manipulation of the ionic hydration shell and may also provide a measure of the extent of scale formation. Finally, the application of magnetic field treatment for scale inhibition may provide an alternative eco-friendly scale inhibition strategy in place of traditional chemical scale inhibitors.


Evolutionary transfer multiobjective optimization (ETMO) has been becoming a hot research topic in the field of evolutionary computation, which is based on the fact that knowledge learning and transfer across the related optimization exercises can improve the efficiency of others. Besides, the potential for transfer optimization is deemed invaluable from the standpoint of human-like problem-solving capabilities where knowledge gather and reuse are instinctive. To promote the research on ETMO, benchmark problems are of great importance to ETMO algorithm analysis, which helps designers or practitioners to understand the merit and demerit better of ETMO algorithms. Therefore, a total number of 40 benchmark functions are proposed in this report, covering diverse types and properties in the case of knowledge transfer, such as various formulation models, various PS geometries and PF shapes, large-scale of variables, dynamically changed environment, and so on. All the benchmark functions have been implemented in JAVA code, which can be downloaded on the following website: https://github.com/songbai-liu/etmo.


The purpose of the service is to train elementary school teachers to have the competence of Scientific Publication on Elementary Teachers in the City of Surakarta. In addition to training teachers, this service also aims to analyze teacher competencies in Scientific Publications on Elementary Teachers in Surakarta. The subject of this service is an elementary school teacher in the city of Surakarta. The method used in this service starts with Workshop, Practice, and Implementation. In conducting this training, the subjects were asked to take a test related to the preparation of articles and Scientific Publications. Analysis of the data used is pre-test and post-test. The result of this activity is that there is an increase in teacher's knowledge and understanding of the preparation of scientific articles and Scientific Publications.


This paper approaches the problem of analog circuit synthesis through the use of a Simulated Annealing algorithm with capability of performing crossovers with past anchor solutions (solutions better than all the others in one of the specifications) and modifying the weight of the Aggregate Objective Function specifications in order to escape local minimums. Search for the global optimum is followed by search for the Pareto front, which represents the trade-offs involved in the design and it is performed using the proposed algorithm together with Particle Swarm Optimization. In order to check the performance of the algorithm, the synthesis of a Miller Amplifier was accomplished in two different situations. The first was the comparison of 40 syntheses for Adaptive Simulated Annealing (ASA), Simulate Annealing/Quenching (SA/SQ) and the proposed SA/SQ algorithm with crossovers using a 20-minute bounded optimization with the aim of comparing the solutions of each method. Results were compared using Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test with a significance of 0.05 and showed that simulated annealing with crossovers have higher change of returning a good solution than the other algorithms used in this test.The second situation was the synthesis not bounded by time aim-ing to achieve the best circuit in order to test the use of crossovers in SA/SQ. The final amplifier using the proposed algorithm had 15.6 MHz of UGF, 82.6 dBV, 61º phase margin, 26 MV/s slew rate, area of 980 µm² and current supply of 297 µA in a 0.35 µm technology and was performed in 84 minutes.


A case of tympanic foreign body is presented because of its being a rare case and its way of occurrence. Report of the Case A 35-year-old female patient had complaints of pain and a feeling of something moving in her left ear. These complaints had started after a wave struck while she was swimming in August, 1963. Otological Examinations External ear was normal. There were several pieces of sand in the external canal. The complaints were attributed to these findings, and an external canal lavage was performed. On inspection, having seen that there was still another sand particle the lavage was repeated, but still its removal was unsuccessful. In order to determine the exact location of the sand and to remove it I attempted to touch the sand with a probe. To my surprise, I observed that it was behind the drum. In the history of the patient, neither immediately


Introduction of diazotrophic rhizobacteria to oil palm tissues during the in vitro micropropagation process establishes an early associative interaction between the plant cells and bacteria. In the association, the diazotrophs provide the host plants with phytohormones and fixed nitrogen. This study was conducted to observe growth of bacterised tissue cultured oil palm plants under ex vitro conditions after 280 days of growth. Root dry weight, shoot dry weight, root volume, bacterial colonisation, leaf protein and chlorophyll content of the host plants were observed. The results revealed that the inocula successfully colonised roots of the host plants. Plants inoculated with Acetobacter diazotrophicus (R12) had more root dry weight and volume than plants inoculated with Azospirillum brasilense (Sp7). Leaf protein and chlorophyll content were higher in the bacterised plants compared to Control 2 plants (inoculated with killed Sp7). These results suggest that the diazotrophs successfully improved the growth of the host plant (oil palm) and minimised the amount of N fertiliser necessary for growth.


In terms of governance, British policing seems to arise from a history of local traditions influenced more recently by centralist managerial demands. A creeping process of privatisation has led social scientists to argue that patterns of governance in British policing are changing in several directions. This has included the way police officers not only are challenged, but also challenge these changing modes of governance in terms of ethical codes of behaviour. There is evidence that police officers, as meaningful actors, have made attempts to diverge from these strictures and have forged their own ways, via their cultural knowledge and practices, to 'do policing', rather than relying upon codes of practice or rules and regulations.


It is often difficult to obtain sufficient training data for adaptive signal detection, which is required to calculate the unknown noise covariance matrix. Additionally, interference is frequently present, which complicates the detecting issue. We provide a two-step method, termed interference cancellation before detection (ICBD), to address the issue of signal detection in the unknown Gaussian noise and subspace interference. The first involves projecting the test and training data to the interference-orthogonal subspace in order to suppress the interference. Utilizing traditional adaptive detector design ideas is the next stage. Due to the smaller dimension of the projected data, the ICBD-based detectors can function with little training data. The ICBD has two additional benefits over traditional detectors. Lower computational burden and proper operation with interference being in the training data are two additional benefits of ICBD-based detectors over conventional ones. We also give the statistical properties of the ICBD-based detectors and demonstrate their equivalence with the traditional ones in the special case of a large amount of training data containing no interference.


In this paper, we consider secure communications between a single antenna transmitter and a single antenna receiver in the presence of a multiple antenna eavesdropper employing MRC or SDC reception. We show that an M-antenna eavesdropper performing SDC reception has precisely the same degrading effect on secrecy as M single antenna eavesdroppers under independent fading conditions. We also show that an M-antenna eavesdropper performing MRC reception causes greater secrecy degradation than an M-antenna eavesdropper performing SDC reception or M single antenna eavesdroppers. We also derive closed-form expressions for the asymptotic high SNR outage secrecy capacity for both the MRC and the SDC eavesdropper cases. Various numerical results are presented that corroborate the analysis.


Abstract. Civil applications for small size unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have become quite important in recent years and so have accurate orientation and navigation of these devices in unknown terrain. In this work we focus on on-line compatible positioning in facade observation based on monocular low resolution still images acquired by a camera mounted on a UAV. Also, a 3D point cloud of the facade is generated. This allows further processing steps, e.g. navigation assistance, collision avoidance or the evaluation of the point cloud density, verifying completeness of the data. To be able to deal with the increasing amount of observations and unknown parameters we implement an incremental bundle adjustment based on automatically determined tie points and sliding image triplets. The tripletwise orientation allows for an efficient double cross-check of the detected feature points and hence guarantees reliable initial values for the nonlinear bundle adjustment. The initial values are estimated within a convex formulation delivering a sound basis for the incremental adjustment. Our algorithm is evaluated by means of imagery we took of the facade of the Welfenschloss in Hannover, captured from a manually flown Microdrones md4-200 micro-UAV.We compare the orientation results of our approach with an approach in which initial values for the unknown object coordinates are computed algebraically.


Cachexia is one of the most common manifestations in advanced cancer patients, but too often it remains under- recognized and under-treated. Starvation is not the same of cachexia. Cachexia is defined by "weight loss >5% over past 6 months in absence of simple starvation or the combination of ongoing weight loss>2% with BMI <20 or sarcopenia". The pathogenesis of cancer cachexia is not fully understood, but inflammation and an increased catabolic response to a number of cancer-related factors seem to represent the basis of any assumption. Early diagnosis of a pre-cachectic or cachectic state is a key moment for the treatment of this complex syndrome, in order to guarantee an adequate food intake and suitable exercise and to interfere with the inflammatory processes that are typical of cachexia. Therefore, one of the main aims is to identify those patients most likely to develop the syndrome early. A multimodality baseline approach to cancer cachexia addresses reversible clinical contributory factors. There are currently no medicinal products that have a proven efficacy in the medical approach to cancer cachexia. Recently, anamorelin, a synthetic orally active ghrelin receptor agonist, showed promising results, but the best approach to cancer cachexia probably remains an early multimodal interventions consisting in nutritional intervention, exercise and rehabilitation program, and multi-target drug therapies. This review summarizes what we know and what still need to know about cancer cachexia syndrome.


Few would argue that the introduction of transvaginal ultrasound (TVUS) revolutionized the practice of assisted reproduction. For example, full-bladder follicular scanning and laparoscopic oocyte retrievals were converted to TVUS-guided procedures. The application of higher-frequency scanning probes provided greater resolution and improved the clinician's ability to evaluate the ovary for pathologic conditions, for determination of ovarian reserve, and for therapeutic decisions during ovarian stimulation cycles. All these uses of TVUS of the ovary will be discussed in this article.


A bacterial culture of E. carotovora 8638 lysed by virulent phage 62 after treatment with UV rays produces a moderate phage. The virulent and moderate viruses, antigenically unrealted, have a similar prolonged latent period (100 min) and the period of lysis (60 min). They also differ in the sizes of the capsids and the length of processes which are 750+/-30 and 2000+/-50A in the virulent phage and 600+/-30 and 1500+/-50A, in the moderate phage, respectively. The sedimentation constants are 602 and 340 S, respectively. In the virulent virus, the volume of the cavity of the protein capsid contianing 8 major and 5 minor peptides is twice as large as that in the moderate one (with 8 peptides); the molecular weight of their DNA shows approximately similar ratios: 52.53+/-17X10(6) and 29.79+/-0.88X10(6) daltons. Evidently, the moderate phage because of the reduced size of the genome contains less message for coding for structural proteins and nucleoprotein as a whole.


Background: Brucella microti is a pathogen of rodents and wild mammals. Here, we report the first probable infection with B. microti in a mammalogist. Methods: In the study, we provided complete clinical description as well as laboratory analysis of probable human infection caused by B. microti. Results: Considering the clinical course of the infection, the obvious epidemiological link (a bite by an infected rodent), the isolation of a pathogen from a sick vole that was affected by clinical infection with B. microti, and the specific serological response (slow agglutination test) in human patient, we can conclude that the human disease described here was probably caused by B. microti, an emerging bacterial pathogen transmitted by rodents. Conclusion: Rodents and other wildlife need to be monitored not only for established zoonotic agents such as hantaviruses, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, Leptospira spp., Francisella tularensis, but also for Brucella microti and other atypical rodent-borne brucellae.


Screening films outside of the traditional classroom setting is a useful supplement to what an instructor may cover in their courses. Also, public viewings create a better sense of community at George Mason University. However, knowing where to begin and what steps to take to organize a screening might seem confusing and expensive. In this poster session, Laura and Mika'il will show you both how to find films and how to organize a screening. This is a useful how-to for Mason community members, whether they are faculty, involved in student organizations, or just plain cinephiles. The presenters will provide an overview of how to begin the process with brainstorming, where to look for film titles, why university copyright policies must be upheld, how to estimate potential costs, who to contact for co-sponsorship, and what offices might provide assistance.


The development of spatial modeling for soil properties has progressed in recent decades. This responds to the growing demand for land spatial data and exact soil property prediction for agronomical reasons, particularly in precision farming, in order to speed up precision agricultural activities. In this regards a comparison of the GWR and RF models was carried out in order to determine which model is the best at forecasting surface soil texture and how dependable each model is at doing so. The purpose of this research is to get the best model in predicting particle soil fraction (PSF). 50 topsoil samples were collected from several locations in the Kalikonto Watershed, Indonesia, and the soil PSF (sand, silt, and clay) in the upper 10 cm varied. The LMV, slope, and elevation were calculated using DEM data and utilized as predictor variables. As a result, the weighting of the GWR model has a considerable impact on the final model, and all other factors have a major effect on the PSF determination. The RF, on the other hand, looks to be superior than the GWR variants. The RF model outperformed the other models in every PSF variable. This study reveals that topsoil quality and terrain attributes are linked, which may be assessed using field measurements and model projections. More research is needed to generate more efficient input parameters that will help with soil variability precision and accuracy of soil map products.


Sexual experimentation in Lars von Trier's Nymph()maniac functions as a vehicle for a devastating critique of moral and conscious man. This critique is enabled via the integration of two models of Nature: Spinoza's vital reserve of affects (a vision woven around the film's analogy between trees and human souls), and Artaud's idea of Nature as cruelty (a debt that is immanent to life before it is sadistically levied on our bodies by others). This essay focuses on the film's unresolved tension between a seemingly affirmative model of Nature and a much darker vision of cruelty.


The results of the histopathologic examination of 262 appendices after incidental appendectomy were reviewed. Only 17.5% of the histologies were regarded as normal. Fibrosis, obliteration and chronic appendicitis were described frequently. It is discussed whether these findings belong only to the normal histologic appearance of appendices in more advanced age.


This presentation will attempt to shed some light on hypercholesterolemia, the mechanism of its development, and its prevention by relatively simple surgical procedures aimed at changing the body's basic physiological responses. These investigations assume clinical importance in light of the fact that hypercholesterolemia is considered an important factor in atherosclerosis, the latter being the number-one cause of death in the United States today. The following is a report of our continued experience with biliary diversion procedures on induced hypercholesterolemia in dogs, and a revaluation of the importance of the distal ileum in the bile salt enterohepatic circulation. Materials and Methods Hypercholesterolemia was induced in 40 adult, mongrel dogs by a modification of the procedure described by Scott and his colleagues. 1 This consisted of a standard beef canned dog food mixed with 10 gm of cholesterol, 0.25 gm of thiouracil, and 40 gm of cottonseed oil. Since we employed a


ABSTRACT Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092-1167), the renowned exegete and grammarian who was as well a mathematician and an astronomer, a liturgist and an author of secular Hebrew poetry left his mark on the pages of history as a consummate Renaissance man who greatly contributed to diverse knowledge areas. He was the first to introduce to Hebrew secular poetry the debate genre, realism, humor, and the instructional genre. All of these already existed in Arabic poetry, but they had not been adopted by the Hebrew poets of Spain during the classical period. Ibn Ezra made use of them in his poetry. The introduction at this moment of features from Arabic literature that previously had passed over the Spanish Hebrew classics is at first glance perplexing, and worthy of our interest.


Summary form only given. We present new results that show directly that the spatial motion of the wavepacket can be controlled by the laser excitation. For excitation below and above the center of the Wannier-Stark ladder (WSL), the wave packet performs a pronounced harmonic oscillation. In between, temporal oscillations, which are only associated with small center-of-mass amplitudes (so-called breathing modes), are observed. We shows total peak shifts of the WSL transition in a 67/17 /spl Aring/ GaAs-AlGaAs semiconductor superlattice (SL) as a function of the center energy of the excitation laser pulse.


The subject of this paper is the integration of food production and processing, distribution, and consumption on local markets in rural areas. We approach this integration from the point of view of an alternative food supply chain, a local food system as an example. The data were gathered through semistructured interviews with 12 entrepreneurs and 9 representatives of institutional food service units and restaurants in Eastern Finland.


Computer–added design of single-electron nanoelectronic circuits on quantum majority components has been implemented. Proposed methods of building logic-arithmetic computing devices of the combinational type, which implement an almost complete system of logical functions in both the majority and Boolean bases. Quantum cellular automata is a technology that emerged two decades ago, in which the values of logical states correspond to the positions of individual electrons. Quantum cells are used to construct logic nanoelements and arithmetic nanodevices. The work is dedicated to the computer design of modern logic and arithmetic devices, which include universal majority elements. In the work, quantum nano-devices are modeled using QCADesiner automated design system.


False tendons are fibrous strings that originate from the ventricular endocardium, but do not insert into the atrioventricular valve leaflets. Until recently these structures were recognized only at autopsy: recent reports have described some echocardiographic features of false tendons. In this paper we report our experience about false tendons in the left ventricle and some considerations on the echocardiographic differential diagnosis of these structures. In 4 of 1500 consecutive patients evaluated by M-mode and bidimensional echocardiography we have observed, throughout the cardiac cycle, an anomalous string-like linear echo stretched from the upper part of the interventricular septum to the apex (two cases) or to the lateral wall of the left ventricle (two cases). Associated cardiovascular diseases included mitral valve prolapse in two cases, systemic arterial hypertension in two cases and disturbances of cardiac rhythm in one case. Abnormal echoes in the left ventricular outflow tract are a common finding in several disorders such as discrete subaortic stenosis and aortic valve prolapse or vegetations. Furthermore a false tendon running parallel to the interventricular septum can mimick septal hypertrophy. Bidimensional echocardiographic examination, can identify these different conditions. Further studies will be necessary to firmly establish the diagnostic criteria of these structures at echocardiography.


This paper presents the INDIeAuthor authoring tool, which has been developed at the Digital Content Production Center, Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT). INDIeAuthor has been developed in order for the university to have its own tool that supports all the desired features, in addition to a platform with which to investigate innovative features. When building INDIeAuthor, we have overcome some limitations identified for existing authoring tools: 1) Lack of two essential content reuse mechanisms: defined-user templates and course-independent units; 2) No support to sequence the units on a course; 3) Gamification feature is either very limited or does not exist. Two new aspects of the proposal are: providing a family of four textual domain-specific languages rather than a graphical user interface and applying model-based software engineering techniques during the implementation of the languages. Four essential aspects in the course definition can be specified to the language family: content, assessment, gamification, and sequencing. We discuss the benefits of representing courses as models and present two utilities developed as a proof of concept. This paper also contributes with the definition of a feature model that establishes a conceptual framework in which to compare authoring tools. An evaluation of INDIeAuthor is also presented: a case study was carried to evaluate the language characteristics, and the tool is contrasted with eight widely-used authoring tools. This paper presented here is the baseline of INDIe Erasmus+ European project that is currently ongoing.


Recently, the demand of duplex stainless steels has been continuously increased in different types of application, especially, tubing of heat exchanger, thermal generator, vessels and pumps. The duplex steel grades exhibit high strength property and excellent corrosion resistance. However, after welding and heat treatment their toughness and corrosion resistance could be significantly decreased due to the occurrences of various detrimental intermetallic phases like sigma phase. In this work, effect of heat treatment on microstructure and mechanical behavior of super duplex stainless steel grade SAF 2507 were investigated. Firstly, samples of the examined steel were heat-treated at the temperature of 850°C for different holding times. Then, microstructure evolutions of heat-treated samples were characterized by an optical and scanning electron microscopy. The emerged phases were identified, their phase fractions were determined and the Vickers hardness tests were performed for the different phase constituents. In addition, tensile tests and Charpy impact tests of heat-treated specimens were carried out. The steel samples subjected to the holding time of 90 min exhibited significantly deteriorated toughness property. This was caused by large amount of occurred brittle intermetallic precipitates.


We describe a computer program that has been used to maintain a record of the known complexity results for a class of 4536 machine scheduling problems. The input of the program consists of a listing of known "easy" problems and a listing of known "hard" problems. The program employs the structure of the problem class to determine the implications of these results. The output provides a listing of essential results in the form of maximal easy and minimal hard problems as well as listings of minimal and maximal open problems, which are helpful in indicating the direction of future research. The application of the program to a restricted class of 120 single-machine problems is demonstrated. Possible refinements and extensions to other research areas are suggested. It is also shown that the problem of determining the minimum number of results needed to resolve the status of all remaining open problems in a complexity classification such as ours is itself a hard problem.


Synchronous motors appear to offer a number of advantages over induction motors when used on variable-frequency supplies for the final drive of a high-power servo. The paper examines two aspects of such drives relevant to synchronous motors when so used; limiting acceleration and frequency-response characteristics, and their dependence on certain pertinent variables such as field excitation and amplitude of excursion. Analytical and semianalytical methods, backed by experimental results, are given to predict the dynamic behaviour of synchronous motors.


Postmenopausal frontal fibrosing alopecia (PFFA) is a new clinical entity that can be regarded as a version of lichen plano-pilaris with fronto-temporal, and more rarely, eyebrow localization. Kossard et al. (1) was the first to describe the first six cases in elderly Australian female patients. Later on, a clinical and immune-histological evaluation of another 10 cases (2), as well as further cases (3) have been published. This alopecia with characteristic localization and clinical picture was also observed by others. Till now over 20 cases have been reported in the literature (4,5). The present paper deals with our first typical case of such alopecia.


The effect of periodic two-dimensional excitation on the development of a turbulent mixing region in open-channel parallel coflows was investigated experimentally by making use of visual study and hot-film anemometers. Controlled oscillations of variable frequency were applied at the initiation of mixing between two parallel water flows. When the frequency of the forced oscillations was lower than the fundamental frequency (in the present case it was about 1Hz) which might describe the interaction of vortices, i. e. pairing, the spreading rate of flow was increased by enhancing the coalescence of neighbouring eddies. On the other hand, at the frequency higher than the fundamental one, the controlled and resonant vortices were generated in a single array of large vortices, which did not interact with each other. Consequently, the spreading rate of flow was depressed, and also the Reynolds stress became negative.


Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is a particular subtype of breast cancer accounting for 15% to 20% of all breast cancer. It is defined on
immunohistochemistry (IHC) by negative estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptors (PR) and negative human epidermal growth factor
receptor 2 (HER2) and characterized by aggressive nature, distinct metastatic patterns, lack of targeted therapies and poor outcomes. Cytotoxic
chemotherapy was the mainstay of treatment for long decades and the development of new treatments for selected patients was complicated
because of the heterogeneity of TNBC. The good understanding of molecular and genomic mechanisms of TNBC has allowed the development
of new targeted therapies more efficient. Although the heterogeneity of genetic alterations in TNBCs based on the ethnicity and the age, BRCA
mutations are found in around 20% to 25% of patients and especially in those of the basal-like immune-phenotype. Thus, targeting the defects
in the DNA repair pathway becomes a promising field of research for this selected category of TNBC patients. Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase
(PARP) inhibitors exploit this DNA defects through synthetic lethality and therefore represent a promising treatment especially in BRCA1/ BRCA2
mutation carriers. These findings have finally allowed bringing personalized treatment to this orphan disease. In this work we tried to explain the
rationale and mechanisms of targeting the immune system in TNBC, to report the results from recent clinical trials that put immunotherapy as a
new standard of care in TNBC.


Rationale Sleep is an emerging risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). We examined the relationship between sleep duration and haemostatic factors important in CVD development, in a well-characterised occupational cohort. Methodology The relationship between self-reported sleep duration and von Willebrand factor (vWF), fibrinogen and factor VII in 6400 individuals from the Whitehall II study was examined. Results Owing to significant gender interactions (p<0.001), the analysis was stratified by gender. After multiple adjustments, vWF levels were significantly higher in men with both short (<6 h per night; 1.05 (95% CI 1.01 to 1.08)) and long (>8 h per night; 1.05 (95% CI 1.02 to 1.08)) duration of sleep compared with those who slept 7 h (p<0.05 for both). In women, levels of vWF were significantly higher in individuals who slept >8 h (1.11 (95% CI 1.06 to 1.16)) than in those who slept for 7 h (p<0.05). This difference was observed in premenopausal and postmenopausal women (p<0.05 for each). The association seen in women appears to be non-linear (p=0.02), but not in men (p=0.09). No statistically significant associations between sleep duration and fibrinogen or factor VII were seen. Conclusions Men sleeping for both short and long periods had higher vWF levels than those who slept for 7 h. In women, there was a significant non-linear association with the highest levels mainly seen in long sleepers, irrespective of menopausal status. No major associations between sleep and either factor VII or fibrinogen were observed. Further longitudinal studies are required to fully investigate possible temporal relationships between sleep and vWF and the possible associated risk of CVD.


Background and objectives: As degenerative changes in dopaminergic neurons occur only in the substantia nigra and striatum of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), cellular therapy is suitable for this condition. However, previous clinical studies using stem cells for treatment of PD have short follow-ups. Thus, studies with longer follow-ups are required to further investigate the efficacy of stem cell-based therapy. Design: A non-randomized controlled trial. Methods: Ninety eligible PD patients will be recruited from the Department of Neurology at the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, China. These patients will be assigned to three groups according to each patient's or their legal guardians' wishes (n = 30 per group). In the control group, 12-week routine drug treatment will be performed. In intrathecal administration and intravenous administration groups, intrathecal administration of autologous neural stem cells (NSCs) into the subarachnoid space or intravenous administration of autologous NSCs will be performed once a week for 4 successive weeks in addition to the 12-week routine drug treatment. Outcome measures: The primary outcome measure is symptom improvement rate at 36 months post-treatment. Secondary outcome measures are nigrostriatal dopamine content, α-synuclein content in blood and cerebrospinal fluid, Barthel index, and safety indicators. Discussion: This study will be performed to demonstrate efficacy of autologous NSC transplantation as a prospective treatment for PD and investigate differences between intrathecal and intravenous transplantation routes, thus providing objective quantitative evidence for clinical applications. Ethics and dissemination: This study was designed in July 2017. Ethics approval from Medical Ethics Committee of the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University of China was achieved on December 22, 2017 (approval No. XYFY2017-KL052-01). The study protocol was registered on December 25, 2017. Patient recruitment began in January 2018 and will end in January 2019. Each patient will be followed up for 36 months. Follow-ups will be completed in January 2022. Data analysis will be performed in July 2022. Results will be disseminated by publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Trial registration: This trial was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (registration number: ChiCTR-ONC-17014141). Protocol version (1.0).


OBJECTIVES
The issue of levamisole-adulterated cocaine is emerging as a rapidly growing public health concern due to an increasing number of reports describing its role in cutaneous vasculitis and agranulocytosis. Of note, levamisole is recognized as a contaminant in 69% of the cocaine used within the United States.

METHODS
We describe a patient who was a chronic cocaine user and developed systemic vasculitis characterized by polyarthralgia, bullous skin lesions, agranulocytosis, and antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-positive rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis.

RESULTS
The skin biopsy specimen demonstrated leukocytoclastic vasculitis. The renal biopsy specimen revealed pauci-immune necrotizing and crescentic glomerulonephritis and unusual deposits with medium electron density composed of granules, microspherules, and rare single fibrils on electron microscopy.

CONCLUSIONS
The electron microscopic features of levamisole-adulterated cocaine toxicity are novel findings that are presented for the first time, to our knowledge, in this report.


Fe dopedZnO nanowires,nanorods, and urchin-like nanostructures have been grown using an evaporation-deposition method with compacted mixtures of ZnS and Fe_2O_3 powders, with different Fe contents as precursors. Treatments at 950 °C under argon flow lead to the growth of irondopednanowires,nanorods, and other nanostructures on the surface of the compacted sample. The incorporation of iron into the nanostructures has been investigated via energy dispersive spectroscopy as well as by cathodoluminescence in a scanning electron microscope and photoluminescence in an optical microscope. The iron content in the structures is limited to the range of 0.5–0.7 at.% and does not depend on the content in the precursor. Bright and dark field imaging and twist contour analysis via transmission electron microscopy support the possibility of a dislocation driven growth of the nanowires.


Background: We recently reported that the International Prognostic Scoring System for Waldenström macroglobulinemia (ISSWM), which is widely used to predict the prognosis of WM patients, might not be applicable to Japanese patients, and evidence of pleural effusion might be a novel adverse prognostic factor for symptomatic WM in the rituximab era. Further studies with a large number of patients are deemed to be conducted.
 Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 498 patients with WM diagnosed between January 2001 and December 2015 from 44 institutes involved with the Japanese Society of Myeloma. The overall survival (OS) was analyzed using Kaplan-Meier methods and compared using log-rank test. Several clinical characteristics at the diagnosis were assessed by Cox regression for univariate and multivariate analyses of the OS.
 Results: We included 420 cases diagnosed with symptomatic (n=314) and asymptomatic WM (n=106) in accordance with the classification of the Second International Workshop on WM. The median age at the diagnosis was 69 (range, 32-91) years, with 75.5% male, and 16.0% had an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (ECOG PS) of 2-4. Oral alkylating agents, purine analogs, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisolone (CHOP) or CHOP-like regimens ± rituximab, rituximab monotherapy, or dexamethasone, rituximab and cyclophosphamide (DRC) were mainly administered as initial treatment. Rituximab-containing therapy was administered in 76.8% of all patients. The median follow-up was 45 months. The 5-year OS rate for all patients was 77.9%, while the rates for those with symptomatic and asymptomatic WM were 72.9% and 92.2%, respectively. Significant differences in the survival were seen between risk groups of ISSWM in symptomatic WM patients (5-year OS: high, 55.4%; intermediate, 81.2%; low, 90.2%; p<0.0001) (Figure 1). A univariate analysis showed that age >65 years, platelet count ≤10×104/µL, serum β2-microglobulin (β2-MG) >3 mg/L, ECOG PS 2-4, abnormal karyotype, pleural involvement, WBC <4000/µL, amyloidosis, fluid retention, pleural effusion, ascites, serum albumin ≤3.5 g/dL, serum creatinine >1.5 mg/dL, CRP >2.0 mg/dL and sIL-2R >4000 U/mL were significant adverse prognostic factors for the OS. A multivariate analysis revealed that a platelet count ≤10×104/µL (hazard ratio [HR] 5.942; 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.265-14.761), serum β2-MG >3 mg/L (HR 2.748; 95% CI 1.091-7.655), ECOG PS 2-4 (HR 2.899; 95% CI 1.219-6.290), and pleural involvement (HR 11.066; 95% CI 3.672-29.829) were adverse independent risk factors for symptomatic WM. We constructed a prognostic model by combining these prognostic variables as follows: patients with good risk (n=219), no adverse factors or only serum β2-MG >3 mg/L or ECOG PS 2-4; patients with poor risk (n=81), ≥1 adverse factors with a platelet count ≤10×104/µL, pleural involvement, or both serum β2-MG >3 mg/L and ECOG PS 2-4. The 5-year OS rates were 82.3% for good risk and 44.4% for poor risk, and this prognostic model significantly stratified symptomatic WM patients separately by the survival (p<0.0001) (Figure 2). The survival of patients with both poor risk in our model and high risk in ISSWM were extremely poor (5-year OS: poor and high [n=57], 24.7%; poor and intermediate [n=14], 80.0%; poor and low [n=2], not available; p=0.0031). In contrast, no significant differences were observed for the survival for the ISSWM risk groups in patients with good risk in our model (5-year OS: good and high [n=69], 76.0%; good and intermediate [n=83], 81.6%; good and low [n=42], 89.5%; p=0.2045).
 Conclusion: Although ISSWM may be useful for survival risk stratification in Japanese patients, we found that intermediate- and high-risk patients seemed to have a better prognosis than those in Western studies in the rituximab era (Dimopoulos MA, et al. Haematologica. 2008; 93: 1420-22). Thrombocytopenia and pleural involvement were found to be strong adverse prognostic factors in symptomatic WM, and our new prognostic index including them was easy to use in daily clinical practice and superior to ISSWM for detecting high-risk patients. Further studies are warranted to validate our prognostic index, especially in the era of novel agents.

 Yamamoto: Bristol-Myers Squibb: Honoraria. Hagiwara:Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Bristol Myers Squibb: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Sunami:Celgene: Honoraria, Research Funding; Sanofi: Research Funding; Janssen: Research Funding; Daiichi-Sankyo: Research Funding; Ono: Honoraria, Research Funding; Bristol-Myers Squibb K.K.: Honoraria, Research Funding; AbbVie: Research Funding; Takeda: Research Funding; MSD: Research Funding; GlaxoSmithKline: Research Funding; Novartis: Research Funding. Kurokawa:Teijin Pharma: Research Funding; Eizai: Research Funding; Kyowa Hakko Kirin: Honoraria, Research Funding; Chugai Pharmaceutical: Research Funding; Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma: Research Funding; Pfizer: Research Funding; Takeda Pharmaceutical: Research Funding; MSD: Honoraria, Research Funding; Ono Pharmaceutical: Honoraria, Research Funding; Nippon Sinyaku: Honoraria, Research Funding; Astellas Pharma: Research Funding; Otsuka Pharmaceutical: Research Funding. Takamatsu:Janssen: Honoraria; Celgene: Honoraria, Research Funding; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Research Funding; Ono: Research Funding. Ito:Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene: Honoraria. Tamura:Bristol-Myers Squibb: Honoraria; Celgene: Honoraria, Research Funding; Ono Pharmaceutical: Honoraria; Takeda Pharmaceutical: Honoraria.


This The present article have the issue of child and teenager labor in Bolivia, from a review of the current legislation, that pretends to protect them, the statistics number about this kind of works and the relation between the legal dispositions and the job reality in the street and also outside it, showing that much remains to be done to produce a real protection of the rights of working children.


This article analyses the foreign policy of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova as well as the evolution of institutional establishment in the region of the Danube. Research shows that the Danube Commission is the main platform for policy coordination but at the same time the interstate dialogue on regional problems is maintained at other levels, by implementing the EU Strategy for the Danube Region and establishing Euroregions for cross-border cooperation. Considering this, it is necessary to specify the concrete spheres of cooperation between the countries: the development of transport, infrastructure, communication, as well as cooperation in environmental protection and the humanitarian field. The article draws attention to certain factors that determine the moderate character of the relations between the countries of the Triangle "Romania–Ukraine–Moldova". First and foremost the problems of bilateral cooperation, second — the existing external and internal conditions. In this regard, the author specifies certain risks that the countries of the region face. It is difficult to resolve disputes between the states because of their different statuses. It is also worth noting that ignoring strategic risks can also lead to transport isolation.


Rapid solidification leads to unique microstructural features, where a less studied topic is the formation of various crystalline defects, including high dislocation densities, as well as gradients and splitting of the crystalline orientation. As these defects critically affect the material's mechanical properties and performance features, it is important to understand the defect formation mechanisms, and how they depend on the solidification conditions and alloying. To illuminate the formation mechanisms of the rapid solidification induced crystalline defects, we conduct a multiscale modelling analysis consisting of bond-order potential-based molecular dynamics (MD), phase field crystal-based amplitude expansion simulations, and sequentially coupled phase field–crystal plasticity simulations. The resulting dislocation densities are quantified and compared to past experiments. The atomistic approaches (MD, PFC) can be used to calibrate continuum level crystal plasticity models, and the framework adds mechanistic insights arising from the multiscale analysis. This article is part of the theme issue 'Transport phenomena in complex systems (part 2)'.


In order to solve the identification problem of oil pollutants containing micro content, the fluorescence characteristics of oil samples were studied using fluorescence excitation emission matrix spectra (EEMs) combined with parallel factor (PARAFAC) analysis. According to the conventional standard of oil content in water, simulated the component of oil pollution in I-V water was simulated by preparing samples of CCL4 with oil content. Firstly, measured the EEMs of 97# gasoline, 0# diesel, kerosene and CCL4 were measured individually, then the EEMs of 97# gasoline, 0# diesel, and kerosene in CCL4 were measured, and finally, the EEMs of the composite sample with all three oil contents in CCL4 were measured. The EEMs of the composite sample were superimposed by the EEMs of all its different components. It is therefore difficult to analyze the fluorescence component by chemical separation or simple fluorescence analysis. Since the EEMs of each oil component are already measured, we used the PARAFAC analysis to decompose the EEMs of the composite sample, and then extract the concentration ratio of each component. In this work, we solved the problem of identifying and quantifying the main micro-content petroleum pollutant in composite oil samples using EEMs and PARAFAC analysis.


Current design lives for US Air Force turbine engine materials are based on a 1 in 1000 rate of nucleation of an engineering sized crack (B0.1). These lives are determined from models fitted to test coupon fatigue data at many different loading conditions. It has been shown that this methodology can sometimes lead to excess conservatism, and it often does not fully incorporate understanding of the mechanisms that drive crack initiation, growth, and fracture. A mechanism based probabilistic life forecasting methodology has been previously proposed with the objective to improve the prediction of minimum fatigue life or design life through understanding of the type and frequency of the material mechanisms that lead to early or immediate fatigue crack initiation.
 An approach is proposed and demonstrated for the estimation of probabilistic mechanism-based design life prediction confidence bounds. These confidence bounds on the calculated B0.1 or minimum life predictions are dependent on the quality and quantity of the data used in the analysis. The effect of additional data from either small crack growth tests or microstructural characterization or fractography analysis on the extent of the calculated confidence bounds is shown. The analysis presented can ultimately be used to describe a relationship between the required confidence in the design life predictions to the cost of the test program required to collect the necessary data. Comparisons are made between data requirements and the level of confidence in empirical statistical predictions from fatigue test data and the new probabilistic mechanism-based design life predictions for laboratory specimens in a turbine engine material.


Statistical dialog systems (SDSs) are motivated by the need for a data-driven framework that reduces the cost of laboriously handcrafting complex dialog managers and that provides robustness against the errors created by speech recognizers operating in noisy environments. By including an explicit Bayesian model of uncertainty and by optimizing the policy via a reward-driven process, partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) provide such a framework. However, exact model representation and optimization is computationally intractable. Hence, the practical application of POMDP-based systems requires efficient algorithms and carefully constructed approximations. This review article provides an overview of the current state of the art in the development of POMDP-based spoken dialog systems.


The paper analyses the way fisheries livelihoods of Kyzylorda region, Kazakhstan have evolved following desiccation of the Aral Sea and the collapse of the former Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991. The ecologic problems of Aral region are introduced at a glance focusing on the past, current and potential policy interventions considering the complexity of the political scene in the Aral Sea Basin shared by seven Central Asian States. The document examines the initiatives endeavoured by the Government of Kazakhstan in order to ensure sustainable use of renewed resource base and well-being of adjacent livelihoods following the success of the joint project of the Government of Kazakhstan and the World Bank resulting in partial restoration of the North Aral Sea. In particular, the attention is drawn to Kyzylorda regional programme for fisheries development 2010-2020 intended to increase the fish production in the Aral Sea – Syr Darya region through attracting private investors to the sector. The paper investigates the proposed Programme using the "five capital model" assessing Kyzylorda region households' accessibility to resources and livelihood opportunities. Examples are given of state and non‐governmental initiatives attempting to revive the fisheries in the Aral, along with the coping strategies that have evolved for those households which have been traditionally deriving income from the fisheries sector. The concluding chapter discusses the findings and anticipates the need for further inter‐governmental co‐operation and research.


A whole-body computed tomography system for single-photon emitters was used to investigate the clinical utility of this imaging modality. We have explored its application in brain, lung, liver, kidney, cardiac, bone, and gallium imaging in over 200 patients. Brain images demonstrated better lesion contrast than that in standard scintiphotos. Images of the lung and liver showed radionuclide distribution that was not readily apparent in standard scintiphotos. Moderate or strongly positive pyrophosphate myocardial images demonstrate the potential for infarct quantitation. ECG-gated cardiac blood-pool images in cross section, displayed in cine formate, permit evaluation of segmental motion of the free and septal walls of both ventricles. These results suggest significant clinical potential for this imaging modality using standard radiopharmaceuticals, but some increase in system sensitivity will likely be necessary to realize the full benefit of the technique.


BACKGROUND
Thoracotomy, video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) and robotic assisted thoracoscopic surgery (RATS)-lobectomy are widely accepted procedures for the surgical treatment of clinical (c)stage I non- small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In the current literature which procedure gives more benefits is still debated. We present a comparison between these three procedures in term of advantages and postoperative outcomes.

METHODS
A multicentric study about 259 lobectomies from 2013 to 2019: 128 patients underwent TL, 96 VATS and 35 RATS. Different variables were retrospectively analyzed among these three cohorts of patients with diagnosis of cStage I NSCLC.

RESULTS
Rate of major complications comparable in VATS, RATS and TL; Advantages for RATS in minor complications (TL 34.4% vs. VATS 18.75% vs. RATS 8.57%. P=0.0015), postoperative days in Intensive Care Unit, days to chest tube removal, length of postoperative hospitalization (P<0.0001) and number of lymph nodes dissected (P=0.0257). Operating times are shorter in VATS than RATS (P<0.05). Pain (NRS Scale) is comparable.

CONCLUSIONS
TL remains the conventional approach for stage II-IIIA(N2) NSCLC. RATS showed great advantages, but its higher operating time and costs, mostly, today don't justify its adoption as gold standard for the surgical treatment of cStage I NSCLC, instead of VATS.


Anaerobic microbial processes are commonly applied in the treatment of domestic and industrial wastewaters. Anaerobic digestion (AD) of wastewater has received a great deal of attention, but many aspects related to the complex interactions between microorganism, and how that is affected by the presence of certain toxic, are not yet fully understood. A particular case of this is the effect of heavy metals or chlorinated compounds. These compounds are known to have a strong impact in methanogens, a phylogenetic diverse group responsible for the last step of the AD process. The negative effect of sulphate towards methanogenesis is mainly related to outcompetition of methanogens by sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB), or to toxicity caused by the sulphide generated from sulphate reduction. Heavy metals are part of many enzymes and cofactors and, in low concentrations, may beneficiate microbial activity. However, high concentrations of metals may disrupt enzyme function and structure. In cases where metal concentration is high, the presence of sulphate or sulphide might be favourable because sulphide precipitate with metals and detoxify the environment. In Chapter 2 we provide a review on the current knowledge on the effects of heavy metals and sulphate on AD, with special focus on methanogenesis. From this literature study, it came out that the influence of some metals, such as Co, is not extensively studied and that the potential of biologically produced sulphide as metal detoxification method in AD is still quite unexplored. In Chapter 3 we explored different strategies to improve methane production. Low concentrations of Ni and Co were supplemented to anaerobic sludge and the impact on methane production was evaluated. Although in contrast with other studies, no beneficial effect of metal supplementation was observed. Further on, the impact of high concentrations of Ni and Co added to anaerobic sludge was evaluated, as well as the use of sulphide as a detoxification strategy. This was evaluated in terms of impact on methane production and in changes in the microbial communities. The results showed that sulphide can be used as a method for metal detoxification, but in the case of biological produced sulphide, the competition between SRB and methanogens needs to be considered. Chlorinated compounds are widely used and commonly found in wastewaters. Several methanogenic metal-containing cofactors are reported to be involved in reductive dechlorination. Therefore, in Chapters 4 and 5 the potential of metal supplementation to enhance the dechlorination process was studied. In Chapter 4, the enrichment of methanogenic cultures able to perform reductive dechlorination of 1,2-dichloroethene (DCE) and tetrachlorethene (TCE) using different inoculum sources and substrates is described. Differences in physiological performance and in the microbial communities were evaluated. The results showed that the microbial community can be influenced by inoculum and substrate as well as by the chlorinated compound used. The enriched cultures presenting the best dechlorination performance were selected and used for metal supplementation studies with Ni, Co, and Fe. The results showed a clear positive impact of metal addition, both on methane production and reductive dechlorination. Further research on metal supplementation to enhance dechlorination was performed in pure cultures of Methanosarcina barkeri, a methanogen known to be able to reduce DCE (Chapter 5). In this case, it was observed that metal supplementation could improve methane production and reductive dechlorination, but the effect is dependent on the metal and concentration used. It was found that methanogenesis and reductive dechlorination can be affected in a different way by the same metal. Finally, in Chapter 6 the impact of sulphate on a methane-producing bioelectrochemical system (BES), an emerging technology that can be applied to wastewater treatment, was studied. The results showed an unexpected fast sulphate removal in the system and a limited impact caused by sulphate addition on methane production. The sulphate removal could only partially be explained by microbial activity, but the results demonstrated the ability of microbial communities to evolve and adapt to new operational conditions. In conclusion, the work presented in this thesis gave insights on the impact of heavy metals and sulphate in methanogenic systems. Furthermore, different approaches to maximise methane production were evaluated. In particular, it was shown that metal supplementation can be a promising strategy to improve anaerobic microbial processes, such as methanogenesis and reductive dechlorination.


The 2009 National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP) Annual Meeting provided an opportunity to exchange viewpoints and consider current information regarding the evolution of selected commercial nuclear power trends worldwide. Within the overall topical context of radiation-related regulation, focus was placed on activities in the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States, although general global developments were reviewed to some extent. This paper provides the reader with a sense of these activities as described by the authors and presenters: David Bennett (Environmental Agency, United Kingdom), Alan Hanson (AREVA), Shojiro Matsuura (Japan Nuclear Safety Research Association), and Alexander Marion (Nuclear Energy Institute).


Bulk metallic glasses are new class of engineering materials that exhibit high resistance to crystallization in the under cooled liquid state. The development of bulk metallic glasses of thickness 1cm or less has opened new doors for fundamental studies of both liquid state and glass transition previously not feasible in metallic materials. Moreover, bulk metallic glasses exhibit superior hardness, strength, specific strength, and elastic strain limit, along with good corrosion and wear resistance. Thus they are potential candidates in various sports, structural, engineering and medical applications. Among several BMGs investigated, magnesium‐based BMGs have attracted considerable attention because of their low density and superior mechanical properties. The major drawback of this magnesium based BMGs is poor ductility. This can be overcome by the addition of ductile particles/reinforcement to the matrix. In this study, a new technique named disintegrated melt deposition technique was used to synthesize magnesium based BMGs. Rods of different sizes are cast using the current method. Mechanical characterization studies revealed that the amorphous rods produced by the current technique showed superior mechanical properties.Bulk metallic glasses are new class of engineering materials that exhibit high resistance to crystallization in the under cooled liquid state. The development of bulk metallic glasses of thickness 1cm or less has opened new doors for fundamental studies of both liquid state and glass transition previously not feasible in metallic materials. Moreover, bulk metallic glasses exhibit superior hardness, strength, specific strength, and elastic strain limit, along with good corrosion and wear resistance. Thus they are potential candidates in various sports, structural, engineering and medical applications. Among several BMGs investigated, magnesium‐based BMGs have attracted considerable attention because of their low density and superior mechanical properties. The major drawback of this magnesium based BMGs is poor ductility. This can be overcome by the addition of ductile particles/reinforcement to the matrix. In this study, a new technique named disintegrated melt deposition technique was used to synthesize m...


With the development of advanced communication systems such as ITS-G5 (C2C, C2I), mobile, and in-car communication systems, more and more systems are operating simultaneously. To verify their reliability in a coexistence scenario, all systems have to be tested under realistic conditions. The so-called two-stage method provides a test procedure for such systems. Unfortunately, it does not consider self or inter-system interference for which the radiated two-stage method was developed. Based on this method, this contribution proposes an approach which allows to test large objects with multiple antennas/antenna-systems under realistic propagation conditions. It is realized in an over-the-air setup for wide-band applications by creating orthogonal wireless channels, a technique also known as wireless cable.


The paper presents the dynamic change of wetland landscape pattern from 2002 to 2009 using RS and GIS technology along the lower Yellow River. Results show that: (1) the total area of wetland reduces obviously. (2) Disturbed by human activity, landscape diversity index ascends. (3) The total area of the rice wetland and mud flat decreases while the other area increases.


OBJECTIVE
To obtain information on the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Japan.

DESIGN
Nationwide, random-sampled and population-weighted telephone survey.

METHODS
The survey was conducted by a telephone survey company in April 2001. The sample size of respondents was 1000. Using a region-, gender- and age-weighted sampling table, professional operators called respondents with random-digit dialling. Respondents were asked questions about their use of CAM in the past 12 months, out-of-pocket expenditures on CAM and orthodox Western medicine, reasons for the use of CAM and so on, as well as general socio-demographics.

RESULTS
The percentage of respondents who had used at least one CAM therapy in the past 12 months was greater than those who had used orthodox Western medicine (76.0% (95% CI: 73.4-78.6) vs 65.6% (95% CI: 62.7-68.5). The percentage of use for each CAM therapy was as follows: nutritional and tonic drinks (43.1%), dietary supplements (43.1%), health-related appliances (21.5%), herbs or over-the-counter Kampo (17.2%), massage or acupressure (14.8%), ethical Kampo (Kampo prescribed by medical doctors) (10.0%), aromatherapy (9.3%), chiropractic or osteopathy (7.1%), acupuncture and moxibustion (6.7%), homeopathy (0.3%), and other therapies (6.5%). Regarding the reasons for the use of CAM, 60.4% responded that 'the condition was not serious enough to warrant orthodox Western medicine', and 49.3% were 'expecting health promotion or disease prevention'. Average annual out-of-pocket expenditures of all the 1000 respondents for CAM were half as much as those for orthodox Western medicine (19,080 yen (95% CI: 15,824-22,336) vs 38,360 yen (95% CI: 30,439-46,280)).

CONCLUSIONS
CAM is very popular in Japan and the expenditures for them are not negligible, although there is still an overwhelming dominance of orthodox Western medicine with regard to cost, variety of indications, and severity of conditions.


This document shows the evolution of calculation of the industrial production index in Ukraine. Since theSoviet Union collapsed, in order to adapt Ukraine's industrial statistics to the conditions of a market economy andinternational standards, especially of the EU and the UN, a series of notable improvements were implemented in themethodology for the calculation of the industrial production index. Ultimately, according to the methodology for theindustrial production index calculation introduced in 2009, which is currently implemented in Ukraine, the index isconstructed by methods used in statistical practice in the majority of countries all over the world and the European statisticalservice (the so-called method of permanent set of goods). The article also describes the features of the construction of theindex of industrial production in Ukraine in accordance with this methodology.


Aim: The aim of the present research was to report on the characteristics of ear, nose, and throat foreign bodies in patients admitted to a tertiary medical center in Turkey and to analyze the extraction procedure, results, and complications.
Material and Methods: A retrospective study conducted between August 2015 and May 2019 included 1042 patients referred to the emergency and otolaryngology department with ear, nose, and throat foreign bodies. The pediatric group included 612 cases, while the adult group included 430 cases. Sex, the type of foreign bodies, symptoms, extraction method, and complications were analyzed.
Results: The most common foreign bodies were hard round objects frequently found in front of the middle turbine in the nose of children, while pieces of cotton buds were found in the outer ear canal in adults. In the pediatric group, the distribution of foreign bodies was 53.43% in boys and 46.57% in girls. Furthermore, the intervention was performed in three children (0.49%) admitted to the emergency department because of the organic foreign body escaping to the throat, as a result of which foreign bodies were removed. However, the prognosis for these patients was poor: a neurological sequela in one patient, death in two patients. In the adult group, the distribution of foreign bodies was 49.76% in males and 50.24% in females. No fatal cases were observed in this group. The ratio of foreign bodies removed under general anesthesia in the pediatric group was 3.43%, while it was 0.23% in the adult group, and the difference between them was statistically significant (p = 0.018). No statistical difference was observed between the groups with regard to complication rates (p>0.05).
Conclusion: Otolaryngological foreign bodies are usually harmless, but they can cause infections and minor complications when they are overlooked or there is prolonged exposure, and these objects in the throat may be fatal, especially in children.


The Improved Price Estimation Guidelines, IPEG, program provides a simple yet accurate estimate of the price of a manufactured product. IPEG facilitates sensitivity studies of price estimates at considerably less expense than would be incurred by using the Standard Assembly-line Manufacturing Industry Simulation, SAMIS, program (COSMIC program NPO-16032). A difference of less than one percent between the IPEG and SAMIS price estimates has been observed with realistic test cases. However, the IPEG simplification of SAMIS allows the analyst with limited time and computing resources to perform a greater number of sensitivity studies than with SAMIS. Although IPEG was developed for the photovoltaics industry, it is readily adaptable to any standard assembly line type of manufacturing industry. IPEG estimates the annual production price per unit. The input data includes cost of equipment, space, labor, materials, supplies, and utilities. Production on an industry wide basis or a process wide basis can be simulated. Once the IPEG input file is prepared, the original price is estimated and sensitivity studies may be performed. The IPEG user selects a sensitivity variable and a set of values. IPEG will compute a price estimate and a variety of other cost parameters for every specified value of the sensitivity variable. IPEG is designed as an interactive system and prompts the user for all required information and offers a variety of output options. The IPEG/PC program is written in TURBO PASCAL for interactive execution on an IBM PC computer under DOS 2.0 or above with at least 64K of memory. The IBM PC color display and color graphics adapter are needed to use the plotting capabilities in IPEG/PC. IPEG/PC was developed in 1984. The original IPEG program is written in SIMSCRIPT II.5 for interactive execution and has been implemented on an IBM 370 series computer with a central memory requirement of approximately 300K of 8 bit bytes. The original IPEG was developed in 1980.


In the article on the basis of present knowledge are considered the problems of diagnosis and treatment of ishemic strokes in a system of posterior cerebral arteries (PCA) taking into account their causation, clinical presentation and neuroimaging data. Paired posterior cerebral arteries, which are shaped by basilar artery bifurcation and are its terminal branches, are the main sources of blood supply of the upside of midbrain, thalamus and back and bottom parts of cerebral hemispheres, including occipital lobes, mediobasal branches of temporal lobes and lower medial crown branches.Ishemic strokes in a system of posterior cerebral arteries amount to 5-10% or up to 25% of all ishemic strokes.The most common cause of isolated heart attacks in a system of PCA is the embolic occlusion of PCA and its branches, which occurs in about 82% of cases. In 9% of cases in PCA is revealed thrombosis, in other 9% of cases the cause of stroke are vasoconstriction associated with migraine, and coagulopathy. A very seldom reason for a heart attack in this system can be artery dissection which affects PCA.The most frequent and characteristic features of heart attacks in a system of PCA are visual impairments (equilateral hemianopsia), central paresis of facial nerve, headache, sensation disorders, aphatic disorders, hemiparesis and neglect.Key words: ischemic stroke, cerebrovascular accident, posterior cerebral artery, neuroimaging, thrombolytic therapy.


In the era of big data, it is particularly necessary to use Internet plus technology to promote tax law teaching reform and innovation. This paper analyzes the current situation, points out the existing problems, and puts forward specific measures for Internet plus promoting tax reform and innovation in the era of big data, so as to facilitate the reform and development of tax law teaching in Chinese universities. In the era of big data, with the rapid development of computer technology and the continuous improvement of Internet plus, people's lives have entered the information society. People are increasingly demanding information, big data has become a hot term, and infiltrate into various industries. Nowadays, science and technology are developed, big data information is unblocked, people communicate more closely, life is more convenient, big data is the product of high-tech era." Internet plus" is the new form of Internet development under the innovation, which promotes social and economic entities and becomes a platform for reform, innovation and development. Internet plus relying on Internet technology to integrate Internet and traditional industries, optimize production factors and restructure business models to achieve economic transformation and upgrading, give full play to the advantages of the Internet, upgrade industrial productivity and increase social wealth by upgrading industries. Through the characteristics of openness, equality and interaction, the Internet uses big data analysis to transform the traditional industrial model and enhance the power of economic development, so as to promote the healthy and rapid development of national economy [1]. Based on the background of Internet plus in the era of big data, this article discusses the development and innovation of tax law teaching reform in our country. It expects that the traditional tax law teaching mode can help students integrate new teaching and big data technology with the help of big data technology and Internet plus platform, and better train new talents suitable for the big data era. It is a contribution to the construction and economic development of "double first-class" in universities in China.


With no adjustable parameters the ground-state properties of the spin-polarized bosonic fluids H down arrow and T down arrow are obtained via quantum thermodynamic perturbation theory. Here, perturbations are developed around the corresponding repulsive-sphere gas. The attractive and repulsive portions of the interatomic interaction potential (Lennard-Jones and Kolos-Wolniewicz) are decomposed as proposed by Barker and Henderson and by Weeks, Chandler and Anderson. The various density series for the energy are extrapolated, order by order, to physical densities via Pade and related approximants. The pressure and the sound velocity curves can be obtained from the energy. The difference between our results and variational results is only significant at higher densities, where our energy curves generally lie lower.


An improved method for integration of exogenous DNA fragments at a defined site within the genome of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was developed. The method relies on two integration-proficient vectors, mini-CTX1 and mini-CTX2. These two vectors contain (1) a tetracycline (tet) selectable marker, (2) an oriT for conjugation-mediated plasmid transfer, (3) the pMB1-derived origin of replication, (4) a modified φCTX integrase (int) gene, (5) a versatile multiple cloning site (MCS) flanked by T4 transcriptional termination sequences (Omega elements), and (6) the φCTX attachment site. The MCS and Omega elements are flanked by yeast Flp recombinase target sites that allow in vivo excision of unwanted plasmid backbone sequences, including tet and int, from the genome of integrants by Flp recombinase. In the mini-CTX2 vector int transcription is driven from the strong trc promoter, which is regulated by the Lac repressor that is encoded by lacI(q) also contained on the plasmid. Upon conjugal transfer, mini-CTX1 and mini-CTX2 integrated at frequencies of 10(-8) and 10(-7), respectively. The usefulness of the integration vectors for gene fusion analyses was demonstrated by chromosomal insertion of autoinducer (AI)-regulated lasB-lacZ and rhlA-lacZ fusions into wild-type and AI synthase mutants. In wild-type, the fusions responded in a cell density-dependent manner and expression of both fusions was either greatly reduced or abolished in AI synthase mutants. Finally, an expression cassette containing the T7 polymerase gene under Lac repressor control was constructed, integrated into the P. aeruginosa chromosome, and used to express the hexahistidine-tagged P. aeruginosa AI synthase RhlI.


This paper presents a proposed model regarding Heterogeneous Data Reduction. The model reduces data over a heterogeneous environment through feature selection/extraction. The feature is selected/extracted directly from its data source and prepared without an initial integration for all data sources. After that the selected/extracted prepared feature is integrated into a new reduced data set Feature selection/extraction is made according to business requirements, domain expert feedbacks, and the organization's Service Level Agreement and Corporate Household to give high accuracy results. The proposed model is built by hybrid data reduction techniques: Stepwise Backward Elimination, Stepwise Forward Selection and Decision Tree Induction. Such proposed model building depends on the CRoss Industry Standard Process model of data mining as a reference model The proposed model works with any kind of data types. The model applies to real telecommunication data relating to the Direct Debit processes. It is used to produce a Standard Converted Reduced Payment Request File to just keep on the important attributes. The model helps to cut down the user work time to generate that new data set.


Abstract Experiencing positive emotions together facilitates interpersonal understanding and promotes subsequent social interaction among individuals. However, the neural underpinnings of such emotional-social effect remain to be discovered. The current study employed the functional near-infrared spectroscopy–based hyperscanning to investigate the abovementioned relationship. After participants in dyad watched movie clips with happily or neutral emotion, they were asked to perform the interpersonal cooperative task, with their neural activation of prefrontal cortex being recorded simultaneously via functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Results suggested that compared with the neutral movie watching together, a higher interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) in left inferior frontal gyrus during participant dyads watching happiness movie together was observed. Subsequently, dyads in happiness showed more effective coordination interaction during the interpersonal cooperation task compared to those in the neutral condition, and such facilitated effect was associated with increased cooperation-related INS at left middle frontal cortex. A mediation analysis showed that the coordination interaction fully mediated the relationship between the emotion-induced INS during the happiness movie-viewing and the cooperation-related INS in interpersonal cooperation. Taken together, our findings suggest that the faciliatory effect experiencing happiness together has on interpersonal cooperation can be reliably reflected by the INS magnitude at the brain level.


Although Transformer-based language representations achieve state-of-the-art accuracy on various natural language processing (NLP) tasks, the large model size has been challenging the resource constrained computing platforms. Weight pruning, as a popular and effective technique in reducing the number of weight parameters and accelerating the Transformer, has been investigated on GPUs. However, the Transformer acceleration using weight pruning on field-programmable gate array (FPGAs) remains unexplored. This paper investigates the column balanced block-wise pruning on Transformer and designs an FPGA acceleration engine to customize the balanced blockwise matrix multiplication. We implement the Transformer model with proper hardware scheduling, and the experiments show that the Transformer inference on FPGA achieves 10.35 ms latency with the batch size of 32, which is $10.96 \times$ speed up comparing to CPU platform and $2.08 \times$ speed up comparing to GPU platform.


Me present here an improved method of determining the intrinsic SSB mixer noise figure from noise measurements in single and "imperfect''balanced configurations. We describe the experimental set-up as applied to beam-lead Schottky diodes at 94GHz, and give results of NF, suppression factor and LO noise level.


The David Rumsey Map Collection is an online resource that provides free access to a rich collection of digitized historical maps and other cartographic materials. It is a private collection owned by the entrepreneur and philanthropist David Rumsey, who is the president of Cartography
 Associates, a not-for-profit volunteer organization. The portal is a result of an ongoing mass digitalization that began in 1997, with the long-term goal of making David Rumsey's rich collection freely available to the public. The collection contains high-resolution images of scanned maps,
 atlases, books, and other artifacts, as well as three-dimensional pictures such as interactive globes.


Conventional differentiation has many problems, they are no smoothness, singularity, and non simultaneous.The origin of those problems is:1. Since the differentiation value of conventional differentiation has the infinitesimal real number (include the 10 problem of direction) direction), simultaneous equations are impossible rotation, vibration, and instability Moreover , it generates singularity.2. The problem concerning the existence of minus, There is no apple of a minus piece.A minus piece (a minus time and a minus space) does not exist in the macro world , although it is able to exist in the world of the uncertainty principle. Therefore , don't use the number of minuses absolutely . It is defined as an absolute arithmetic. Relatively the number of minuses should be used. It is defined as a relative arithmetic (operation).In this study, relative differential equation (RDE) by Zai Pair which elementized Nature World solves those problems. Concretely, RDE is able to obtain smoothness by Str Zai, obtain the solution from the singularity by Zai Pair, obtain Kyoku without the infinitesimal real number by Zai Pair and obtain independent from the conventional absolute coordinate system. Moreover, the RDE has self-operating computing, the RDE self-operating computer (SOC) is not model, and the RDE SOC is solution itself and the graph itself. In an example, inflammation itself is RDE SOC itself.


Ataxia Telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) and Checkpoint kinase 1 (CHK1) stabilize stalled replication forks and prevent their collapse into DNA double strand breaks (DSBs). Inhibition of ATR in cells experiencing oncogenic stress or harboring other cancer-associated defects synergistically increases the formation of DSBs and causes synthetic lethality. Thus specific targeting of ATR represents an emerging strategy to treat a broad spectrum of cancers, most notably those that currently lack effective treatments. Atrin Pharmaceuticals has synthesized a novel series of small molecules that inhibit ATR at low nanomolar concentrations in cultured cells. These compounds have the highest known potency for inhibiting ATR and maintain >800-fold lower cellular activity towards other kinases of the same family (ATM, DNA-PKcs and mTOR), which are substantially off-targeted by previously reported ATR inhibitors. Atrin9s lead compound (ATRN-119), as a single agent, selectively kills cancer cells subjected to oncogenic stress, alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) or loss of double strand break (DSB) homologous recombination repair mechanism (BRCA1 or BRCA2 deficiency). Furthermore, ATRN-119 cytotoxicity is synergistically enhanced when combined with conventional chemotherapeutics, such as etoposide, cisplatin and olaparib. Therefore, this inhibitor can be used in combination with other therapeutics to potentiate its anti-tumor activity. In vivo studies of RAS oncogene driven HCT116 p53-null flank tumors in mice demonstrate the ability of our lead compound to slow tumor progression, with minimal toxicity to tissues under normal proliferative control, including the bone marrow and intestine. Additionally, mice engrafted with BRCA2-mutant patient-derived ovarian tumors show a significant reduction in progression after 5 weeks treatment (100 mg/kg BID) of ATRN-119, and display no toxicity or significant weight loss. Thus, ATRN-119 is highly efficacious in suppressing tumor growth in multiple murine models, including suppression of patient-derived BRCA2-mutant ovarian cancer, suggesting that the clinical application of the ATRN series will provide a new and effective treatment for human malignancies with fewer side effects than conventional chemotherapies. Citation Format: Laura R. Butler, Ryan L. Ragland, Hank J. Breslin, Tina Gill, Erin George, Fiona Simpkins, Eric J. Brown, Oren Gilad. Highly specific ATR inhibitors as a therapeutic approach for a broad spectrum of cancers. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 1226.


In recent years a variety of conservative treatment modalities are being used to remove Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia (CIN). A series of 568 cases of patients affected by CIN, detected in our Department over a period of 10 years and treated following a balanced use of colposcopy guided cryosurgery and cold knife conization, has been reviewed. One-hundred-fifty-three patients, 111 with CIN 1 and 42 with CIN 2, were treated by the use of a nitrous oxide cryoprobe. The remaining 415 patients underwent cold knife conization, under general anesthesia and hospitalization. Routine follow-up for all cases included cytology, colposcopy and aimed biopsy when required. Cryotherapy had a success-rate of 90.1% (CIN 1-CIN 2 only) and "complete" conization 94.6% (included CIN 3 cases). Complications of conization, such as late haemorrhage and cervical stenosis, were more frequent with the "open technique" than the "suture technique". Nine pregnancies after cryotherapy and 34 after conization have been reported, no significant differences were noted in the pregnancy outcome following either treatment.


It is known that Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) can leave an imprint on Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy power spectra, due to their accretion-powered injection of energy into the recombining plasma. Here we study a qualitatively new CMB observable sourced by accreting PBHs: the temperature trispectrum or connected 4-point function. This non-Gaussian signature is due to the strong spatial modulation of the PBH accretion luminosity, thus ionization perturbations, by large-scale supersonic relative velocities between PBHs and the accreted baryons. We first derive a factorizable quadratic transfer function for free-electron fraction inhomogeneities induced by accreting PBHs. We then compute the perturbation to the CMB temperature anisotropy due to a general modification of recombination, and apply our results to accreting PBHs. We calculate a new contribution to the temperature power spectrum due to the spatial fluctuations of the ionization perturbation induced by accreting PBHs, going beyond past studies which only accounted for its homogeneous part. While these contributions are formally comparable, we find the new part to be subdominant, due to the poor correlation of the perturbed temperature field with the standard CMB anisotropy. For the first time, we compute the temperature trispectrum due to accreting PBHs. This trispectrum is weakly correlated with the local-type primordial non-Gaussianity trispectrum, hence constraints on the latter do not lead to competitive bounds on accreting PBHs. We also forecast Planck's sensitivity to the temperature trispectrum sourced by accreting PBHs. Excitingly, we find it to be more sensitive to PBHs under $\sim 10^3 M_{\odot}$ than current temperature-only power spectrum constraints. This result motivates our future work extending this study to temperature and polarization trispectra induced by inhomogeneously-accreting PBHs.


Abstract Recent years have seen much attention being given to self-assembly of dipeptide-based structures, especially to self-regulation of dipeptide structures with different amino acid sequences. In this study we investigated the effects of varying solvent environments on the self-assembly of glycine-histidine (Gly-His) dipeptide structures. First we determined the morphological properties of Gly-His films formed in different solvent environments with scanning electron microscopy and then structural properties with Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. In addition, we studied the effects of Gly-His films on silver nanoparticle (AgNP) formation and the antioxidant and cytotoxic properties of AgNPs obtained in this way. We also, assessed antibacterial activities of Gly-His films against Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus. Silver nanoparticle-decorated Gly-His films were not significantly cytotoxic at concentrations below 2 mg/mL but had antibacterial activity. We therefore believe that AgNP-decorated Gly-His films at concentrations below 2 mg/mL can be used safely against bacteria.


The emphasis on pressure area care in all nursing specialties and the need to reduce actively the incidence of pressure sores, means that pressure areas must be monitored from the time the patient arrives in hospital to the time of discharge and afterwards. The use of effective pressure-relieving equipment plays a major part in the prevention of pressure sores (Hitch 1995). This paper examines the way Salisbury Health Care NHS Trust tackled this problem in hospitals and, in doing so, established an in-house pressure care service.


"Facts are stubborn things," A. R. Lesage (1668–1747), once said. The accompanying article claims that "the crux of the argument is one of global energetics," in other words that the existence of an energy content in protons comparable to that in electrons is enough to uproot the time-honored notion that electrons are the principal mediator of energy transport during solar flares. However, simply having a large enough reservoir of energy in high-energy particles is not sufficient; one must also make sure that this energy is distributed amongst the high-energy particles in a manner that accounts for the intense hard X ray bursts that are such a ubiquitous signature of the impulsive phase of flares. Further, the energy must be deposited at the right place to account for a host of other observable signatures, such as the dramatic increase in the amount of 107K plasma that characterizes the main phase of the flare. Only deka-keV electrons and ˜MeV protons satisfy the energy deposition requirements and, while such electrons naturally account for the impulsive-phase hard X ray burst, MeV protons do not.


BACKGROUND Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are multipotent cell populations obtained from fetal and adult tissues. They share some characteristics with limb bud mesodermal cells such as differentiation potential into osteogenic, chondrogenic, and tenogenic lineages and an embryonic mesodermal origin. Although MSCs differentiate into skeletal-related lineages in vitro, they have not been shown to self-organize into complex skeletal structures or connective tissues, as in the limb. In this work, we demonstrate that the expression of molecular markers to commit MSCs to skeletal lineages is not sufficient to generate skeletal elements in vivo. AIM To evaluate the potential of MSCs to differentiate into skeletal lineages and generate complex skeletal structures using the recombinant limb (RL) system. METHODS We used the experimental system of RLs from dissociated-reaggregated human placenta (PL) and umbilical cord blood (UCB) MSCs. After being harvested and reaggregated in a pellet, cultured cells were introduced into an ectodermal cover obtained from an early chicken limb bud. Next, this filled ectoderm was grafted into the back of a donor chick embryo. Under these conditions, the cells received and responded to the ectoderm's embryonic signals in a spatiotemporal manner to differentiate and pattern into skeletal elements. Their response to differentiation and morphogenetic signals was evaluated by quantitative polymerase chain reaction, histology, immunofluorescence, scanning electron microscopy, and in situ hybridization. RESULTS We found that human PL-MSCs and UCB-MSCs constituting the RLs expressed chondrogenic, osteogenic, and tenogenic molecular markers while differentially committing into limb lineages but could not generate complex structures in vivo. MSCs-RL from PL or UCB were committed early to chondrogenic lineage. Nevertheless, the UCB-RL osteogenic commitment was favored, although preferentially to a tenogenic cell fate. These findings suggest that the commitment of MSCs to differentiate into skeletal lineages differs according to the source and is independent of their capacity to generate skeletal elements or connective tissue in vivo. Our results suggest that the failure to form skeletal structures may be due to the intrinsic characteristics of MSCs. Thus, it is necessary to thoroughly evaluate the biological aspects of MSCs and how they respond to morphogenetic signals in an in vivo context. CONCLUSION PL-MSCs and UCB-MSCs express molecular markers of differentiation into skeletal lineages, but they are not sufficient to generate complex skeletal structures in vivo.


In this paper, a broadband vibrational energy harvester (VEH) is developed based on a soft magneto-sensitive elastomer (SMSE). The utilization of SMSE provides the VEH with a strong softening effect when it is subjected to the magnetic field of a permanent magnet. A polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) layer is attached to the SMSE to convert vibrational energy into electricity. A magneto-electro-mechanical model based on finite element method is developed and is further reduced using assumed modes. Two prototypes are fabricated with different SMSE thicknesses (3 mm and 5 mm respectively). Frequency sweep experiments are conducted to investigate their broadband behavior. The difference between jumping frequencies are 2.39 and 4.34 Hz at a low acceleration level of 0.3 g. With the broadband characteristics of SMSE, the two prototypes are capable of providing power over a wide frequency range and generating an average power of 0.096 μW and 0.11 μW respectively with a load of 4.7 MΩ.


ABSTRACT Electrical penetration graph (EPG) monitoring is the most rigorous means of observation and quantification of feeding by piercing-sucking arthropods. Previous EPG studies with aphids and leafhoppers have demonstrated that the X wave identifies when the stylets of these phloem fluid-ingesting insects make contact with their preferred plant vascular cell, phloem sieve elements. This article presents the first direct evidence of an X wave identifying ingestion from a xylem tracheary element by a xylem fluid-ingesting type of leafhopper Homalodisca liturata Ball (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Cicadellinae), whose waveforms are nearly identical to those of the glassy-winged sharpshooter, Homalodisca vitripennis (Germar). We document consistent association of the sharpshooter X wave with salivary sheath termini in xylem, especially lignified secondary xylem cells, and absence of the X wave in the rare instance of ingestion from a nonxylem cell. The sharpshooter X wave is a complex, multicomponent waveform, composed of X wave-specific variants of waveform subtypes B1w (representing salivation), B1s (representing precibarial valve movement for tasting), types C1 (a new waveform type that may represent egestion) and C2 (a new designation for the waveform type representing ingestion/cibarial pumping). It is proposed that the sharpshooter X wave represents a blended suite of behaviors that function to 1) physically seal stylet tips into the cell via sheath salivation, 2) repeatedly taste then eject (egest) chemical constituents of the cell to determine acceptability, and 3) mechanically test the strength of the stylet seal via trial cibarial pumping (ingestion). It is further hypothesized that the X wave represents vector behaviors that control inoculation of the Pierce's disease bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa. The ingestion-(salivation and egestion) hypothesis is stated for the mechanism of transmission of X. fastidiosa.


The Veneto region EQA program has been developed on the basis of the law that created the national health service and then on the regional social-health plans. Organizer and reference laboratory is the Biomedical Research Center in Castelfranco Veneto (TV). The aim of the program is to describe the state of the art in the public and private laboratories, and to evaluate the performances of each laboratory according to the schemes recommended by the European Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (ECCLS). Even though the program was not obligatory, participation has always been about 80% for public laboratories and increased from 70% to almost 100% in the private ones. The results showed very good interlaboratory agreement for electrolytes; iron assay has improved in the last two years; there have been standardization problems for urea and creatinine; among enzymes, the results are good for GGT and ALT, but not satisfactory for AST and more so for ALP. Since 1990, accuracy evaluation for 9 constituents has been introduced. The results are good for electrolytes and organic constituents but standardization problems are shown for enzyme methods, especially with ALP and AST.