Despite the rise of the global availability of biodiversity data by digitisation, essential regions of the world remain poorly documented (Peterson et al. 2015). Research-neglected regions that lack quality information, are mainly the species-rich and developing nations (Gaikwad and Chavan 2006). Mozambique is an African country without a wide-ranging knowledge regarding its fauna's diversity and distribution (Neves et al. 2018). Undeniably, this country's knowledge gaps constitute a significant impediment for the improvement of effective conservation measures. Primary species occurrence data across dispersed data sources can be a cost-effective resource for boosting knowledge about a country's biodiversity.
 Aiming to aggregate a comprehensive dataset of Mozambique's terrestrial mammals, we compiled primary species occurrence data from dispersed data sources. The produced dataset not only gathered digitalised accessible knowledge (DAK) from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and natural history collections, but also retrieved and digitalised species occurrence data enclosed in grey and scientific literature.
 Particularly for poorly documented countries, filling data gaps are crucial for new and broad insights for biodiversity research and preservation. Thus, quantification of the effects of data digitisation and mobilisation goes beyond the specific goals of organisations, institutions or data-sharing resources. The impact of data digitisation should be disseminated, not only by the number of publications and times data are accessed (Nelson and Ellis 2018), but also by the actual achievements in regions covered by DAK. To highlight the impact of further data digitisation in a poorly documented country, we examine the effective gain of further digitisation and data cleaning on the terrestrial mammals from Mozambique. We demonstrate the increase in the overall knowledge, not merely in terms of number of species, number of records, and country's coverage, but from the production of outputs with potential value for data-driven conservation research and planning.
 More than 17000 records were compiled. The digitisation of data in literature as well as data cleaning and quality improvements resulted in a substantial increase in the amount of DAK, which acknowledges Mozambique's high species diversity (Fig. 1). The digitisation and data mobilisation hereby described allowed for the update of the country's terrestrial mammals checklist (Neves et al. 2018). The final dataset also expands the knowledge of the most poorly documented provinces, allowing generation of a data-driven proposal of priority areas to survey (in review). Also, an assessment of Mozambique's conservation network effectiveness for mammal protection was performed, and additional relevant areas were suggested (in prep.).
 The dataset compiled is an important "stepping stone" towards an enhanced knowledge of Mozambique's fauna. Biodiversity conservation and management in developing countries rich in natural resources, which often must deal with a lack of internal capacity for applied research and conservation actions, are challenges. Considering that digitisation and mobilisation of biodiversity data are resourceful processes for improving knowledge, collaborative work between institutions of those countries and international data-provider communities could, in the short term, successfully improve the information baseline to support decision-making in future conservation and management actions.


Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome is a disabling reaction to neuroleptic drugs recently discussed in psychiatric literature in Europe, Japan, and the United States. It is rare but potentially fatal and is more likely to occur in men, especially young men, than in women. The cause is unknown, but dopamine depletion in the brain is suspected. Treatment usually begins by withdrawing the neuroleptics and then providing supportive therapy for the usual symptoms of high fever, muscular rigidity, labile blood pressure, and tachycardia. The Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome usually lasts two to three weeks.


The convergence of previously described output error identification procedures is examined. The convergence analysis uses the eigeninformation of the parameter correlation matrix (really its inverse, the Fisher information matrix) for the identified structure. Convergence rates are important in digital adaptive equalizer design, for example. The eigeninformation of the parameter information matrix related the system sensitivity and numerical conditioning in a manner which provides insight into the identification process. An interesting sideline of this work is that balanced-coordinate state-space structures appear to consistently have good information properties. The relevant eigeninformation is combined in a proposed scalar convergence time constant. An important result is that identification of the usually identified direct form II parameters (the standard ARMA parameters) does not necessarily yield the fastest parameter convergence for the system being identified.<<ETX>>


We have corrected typing errors related to the characterization of the dynamic range of the acrylamide photopolymer described in an earlier study [Appl. Opt. 42, 7008 (2003)]. The M number is expressed as M/# instead of M# as appears in the text. The value calculated from the experimental results that are included in the article is M/# = 3.8 instead of 38 as appears in the text.


Pelvic organ prolapse is a common condition in women that causes the pelvic organs to descend, often resulting from a weakened pelvic floor. Pelvic organs supported by the pelvic floor, such as the bladder, bowel, or uterus [5], can descend to such a degree that they project out from a woman's body typically via the vagina [6]. Pelvic floor stress or trauma, like vaginal childbirth, can cause pelvic organ prolapse. Women with pelvic organ prolapse also often experience other conditions, such as incontinence or the involuntary leakage of urine or fecal matter. As a result, while many women experience pressure or fullness from the prolapse itself, other common symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse are those involving the bladder or the bowel. Treatments for prolapse depend on the woman's symptoms, and include pessaries, surgery, and pelvic floor exercises. As of 2021, researchers and physicians continue to study pelvic organ prolapse to determine how different treatments can be tailored to specific causes or symptoms.


All-Interconnected Cascades is proposed as an example of production system to be designed to produce a number of side products of enriched uranium. To analyze the transient characteristics of the side product assays in the proposed cascades system, the code TWIN-SS is developed. If the rotor power supply loss for UF6 centrifuges occurs for a short time in the finishing and/or the base cascades, an allowable power loss time permitting the side product assays to be maintained within the product assay specifications is revealed. Furthermore, even if a long time power supply loss occurs in one base cascade, it is shown that the side product assays can be controlled without the shut-down of the operation of All-Interconnected Cascades by operating an interstage reflux in the finishing cascade.


Progress in understanding the causation and immunopathogenesis of Lyme disease has continued in the past year. Only by studying the complex relationship between the infecting organism, Borrelia burgdorferi, and the host will improvements in therapy be possible. Physicians in the United States have evaluated large numbers of patients with late neurologic Lyme disease, and a more consistent clinical description of the North American experience is emerging. Laboratory diagnosis remains a problem. Improvements are being made in both the sensitivity and specificity of existing tests and also in the selection of appropriate patients by physicians. Both of these factors will improve predictive value.


Two important hubs have emerged as cutting edge areas of research across a diverse array of medical conditions, the gut microbiome and mitochondria. This article highlights the role of melatonin in modulating changes in both the gut and mitochondria. The gut microbiome, especially via its production of the small chain fatty acid, butyate, can have a significant impact on immune inflammatory processes. Lower levels of butyrate producing bacteria can increase gut permeability, thereby increasing immune-inflammatory activity. Butyrate may also modulate immune and other cells via the regulation of the content of exosomes from intestinal epithelial cells. Butyrate also induces N-acetylserotonin and melatonin synthesis in the gut, suggesting that some of the effects of butyrate may be mediated via its induction of the melatonergic pathway. The induction of melatonin by butyrate may feedback on the microbiome via melatonin increasing gut bacteria swarming, as well as melatonin optimizing gut barrier and mitochondria functioning. As butyrate readily crosses into the circulation it is likely that the immuneand glia-dampening effects of butyrate also involve the induction of melatonin in these reactive cells. Butyrate also positively modulates mitochondria functioning, suggesting that butyrate, both directly and via melatonin, will have significant impacts on gut, immune, glia and other cells, via mitochondria regulation. Other factors that act to regulate melatonin, including dietary factors and stress, will therefore act to modulate many of butyrate's effects. The regulation of melatonin at these two important hubs has significant treatment and classification implications across a wide array of medical conditions. Overall, gut dysbiosis has a significant impact on central and systemic homeostasis, via decreased butyrate and melatonin driving suboptimal mitochondria functioning. This has implications for the pathoetiology and pathophysiology of a host of medical conditions associated with gut dysbiosis and decreased melatonin production.


This paper employs cognitive dissonance theory to investigate the mediating effect of Overcompensation of Rationalisation (OCR) on instrumental climate and escalation of corruption relationship. Moreover, this study examines the role of loyalty as a moderator to reduce the impact of instrumental climate on OCR. This study uses laboratory experiments with 94 master's degree students as participants. The results show that OCR fully mediates the relationship between the instrumental climate and the escalation of corruption. Instrumental climate leads an individual to OCR, which impacts on the corruption escalation. The analysis also shows that loyalty can moderate the effect of instrumental climate on OCR. It indicates that a level of loyalty enables an individual to filter the impact of instrumental climate on OCR. Besides, the intention of corruption also contributes to the escalation and snowballing effect of corruption. Surprisingly, it is also found that individuals with their experiences tend to be more expert, skilful, and efficient in committing acts of corruption. Those enable the perpetrator to be corrupt smoothly; the amount of corruption, in aggregate, is more massive without the increase of maximum scores so it can lead the evaluator on.


The Department of Biochemistry is internationally recognized for its research and education and offers a world-class interdisciplinary research environment in a beautiful mountain setting. As part of a commitment to continuing this tradition of excellence, the department provides a graduate program that integrates opportunities for cuttingedge creative research and study across a wide range of areas including:


This paper treats the control problem of a class of hyper-redundant robots. The dynamic model of the arm is described by hyperbolic partial differential equations with uncertain components. By using a spatial weighted error control, the infinite dimensional system control becomes a finite-dimensional control problem. The stability analysis and the resulting controllers are obtained using the concept of boundary geometric control and a spatial weighted error control technique. A robust algorithm that is based on weighted error sliding mode control is discussed. The boundary tendon control determines the system evolution toward a prescribed switching surface, and in order to avoid the oscillations around the switching surface, a damping control determines a direct evolution, along the switching surface, toward the origin. Numerical simulations and experimental results are also provided to verify the effectiveness of the presented approach.


Objective To establish a detailed phenotype of LGI1-antibody patients long-term through a cognitive, neuropsychiatric and quality of life (QoL) battery, and relate outcomes to biochemical, clinical and genetic factors. Methods 60 patients have now undergone detailed evaluation for the LGI1-QoL study, extending the previously-reported preliminary cohort. Selected assessments included domains clinically observed as impaired such as emotionality, fatigue and QoL. Results Patients (40 male) aged 44–92 were assessed at a median of three years post-onset (range 4 months-15 years). Compared to published thresholds in age-appropriate healthy controls, 32% were impaired on the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-Revised, 39% on the Frontal Assessment Battery, 39–52% on two different fatigue scales, 43–51% on the two different measures of the carer-reported Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire, and 40% on the Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (LSQ) – Life as a Whole. LGI1-antibody patients were significantly (p≤0.05) more impaired on five LSQ sub-domains compared to an available dataset for healthy elders. Analysis of retrospective pre- and post-illness analyses of LSQ, the EQ-5D-5L, another patient-related QoL measure, and the Modified Rankin Scale showed significant (p≤0.01) decreases in most domains. Further clinical and paraclinical correlations will be presented. Conclusions Many LGI1-antibody patients demonstrate sustained deficits across cognitive, neuropsychiatric, carer-reported and QoL domains.


It is well established that the ingestion of cereal prolamins, such as gluten, causes the characteristic symptoms of celiac disease (CD) in people predisposed to it. DNA-based PCR method provides new ways to detect gluten in processed foodstuffs, such as bread. The aim of this work was to adapt a new primer pair combination and to initiate a carefully elaborated PCR methodology to experiment with DNA-based analysis. At first, the purity of cleaned DNA was verified using B49317 and A49855 chloroplast DNA primer pair. Then TR01/2 wheat specific PCR primer pair was used for checking the origin of the DNA, and P1/2 microsatellite (SSR) adapted primer pair for detecting allergen (gluten) specific residues. Method optimisation was achieved with cereal flour samples, then bread and dry pasta products from wheat were used, which were analysed as heat-treated samples with three primer pairs. The gluten specific primer pair was tested on cross-reactive cereals such as rye, barley, triticale and on some questionable...


The need for better understanding, control, and optimization of supply chains is being recognized more than ever in the new economy. Simulation holds a great potential in portraying the dynamic evolution of supply chains and providing appropriate decision support to address challenges arising from high variability and stochastic uncertainty. Realizing high-fidelity supply chain simulation will require integration of individual supply chain component simulation models and planning systems, shielding to prevent sensitive data from being shared indiscriminately, and even the geographical distribution of the supply chain component models. The authors discuss various conceptual and technical issues that have been successfully addressed to realize a prototype of distributed semiconductor supply chain simulation as well as implementation approaches that can be pursued. The prototype emulates a semiconductor supply chain consisting of two wafer fabs, an assembly and test facility, a distribution center, a warehouse, a supply chain planning module, a logistics provider, and customers.


To investigate the role of genetic factors on susceptibility to atherosclerotic arterial disease, the influence of haptoglobin phenotypes (Hp) on serum elastase activity, neutrophil count, and elastin concentration in the aorta was measured in patients with abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA; n=52) and aortoiliac atherosclerotic occlusive disease (AOD; n=37). Findings (serum elastase activity, peripheral blood neutrophil count) were compared to a control group (CG) of 37 subjects without atherosclerosis. Hp phenotyping performed by starch-gel electrophoresis produced a haptoglobin-hemoglobin complex of three phenotypes: Hp1-1, Hp2-2, and Hp2-1. Distribution of Hp phenotypes was similar in the three study groups (AAA, AOD, CG). Significant increases in serum elastase activity and neutrophil count was measured in Hp2-1 phenotype of AAA patients. Although the aorta wall of aneurysm patients contained less (p<0.001) elastin than that of AOD patients, no significant difference of aorta elastin concentration between the three Hp phenotypes, including Hp2-1, was measured. The postulated association of AAA susceptibility with Hp2-1 phenotype was supported by the study data that demonstrated an increase in serum elastase activity in patients undergoing AAA repair.


This article offers a framework for considering how health care reform issues will impact the success of any national movement to implement Comprehensive School Health Education and the potential role that CSHE proponents can play in advocating reforms congruent with CSHE goals. The effectiveness of the CSHE movement within this arena will depend largely on its ability to critically self-diagnose its potential contributions to short-term and long-term positive health outcomes, and on its ability to join forces in ensuring that a variety of health, educational, and social services are made available in nontraditional sites--particularly schools--that are able to reach children and their families. An important step will be to expand the availability of Comprehensive School Health Education throughout the country: only one-half of all states currently mandate Comprehensive School Health Education programs, and implementation is spotty in some of these states. Another boost for the potential role of CSHE proponents can be found in the Year 2000 health objectives, of which more than one-third of 300 objectives geared to promoting health and disease prevention are devoted to the health behavior of school-age children and youth. Many of these objectives can be achieved directly or indirectly in schools, contingent upon appropriate financing and the establishment of CSHE goals as priorities at the policymaking level. An important factor will be the ability of the CSHE movement to provide its programs in the most cost-effective and cost-efficient manner, possibly including redeployment of staff and relocating resources as needed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


One tomato ( Lycopersicon esculentum) gene, LAT52, has been proved to be a suitable endogenous reference gene for genetically modified (GM) tomato detection in a previous study. Herein are reported the results of a collaborative ring trial for international validation of the LAT52 gene as endogenous reference gene and its analytical systems; 14 GMO detection laboratories from 8 countries were invited, and results were finally received from 13. These data confirmed the species specificity by testing 10 plant genomic DNAs, less allelic variation and stable single copy number of the LAT52 gene, among 12 different tomato cultivars. Furthermore, the limit of detection of LAT52 qualitative PCR was proved to be 0.1%, which corresponded to 11 copies of haploid tomato genomic DNA, and the limit of quantification for the quantitative PCR system was about 10 copies of haploid tomato genomic DNA with acceptable PCR efficiency and linearity. Additionally, the bias between the test and true values of 8 blind samples ranged from 1.94 to 10.64%. All of these validated results indicated that the LAT52 gene is suitable for use as an endogenous reference gene for the identification and quantification of GM tomato and its derivates.


A new quad-quaternion model is herein established for an electromagnetic vector-sensor array, under which a multidimensional algebra-based direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation algorithm, termed as quad-quaternion MUSIC (QQ-MUSIC), is proposed. This method provides DOA estimation (decoupled from polarization) by exploiting the orthogonality of the newly defined "quad-quaternion" signal and noise subspaces. Due to the stronger constraints that quad-quaternion orthogonality imposes on quad-quaternion vectors, QQ-MUSIC is shown to offer high robustness to model errors, and thus is very competent in practice. Simulation results have validated the proposed method.


Building upon the advancements in the recent years, a new paradigm in technology has emerged in Internet of Things (IoT). IoT has allowed for communication with the surrounding environment through a multitude of sensors and actuators, yet operating on limited energy. Several researchers have presented IoT architectures for respective applications, often challenged by requiring major updates for adoption to a different application. Further, this comes with several uncertainties such as type of computational device required at the edge, mode of wireless connectivity required, methods to obtain power efficiency, and not ensuring rapid deployment. This paper starts with providing a horizontal overview of each layer in IoT architecture and options for different applications. Then it presents a broad application-driven modular architecture, which can be easily customized for rapid deployment. This paper presents the diverse hardware used in several IoT layers such as sensors, embedded processors, wireless transceivers, internet gateway, and application management cloud server. Later, this paper presents implementation results for diverse applications including healthcare, structural health monitoring, agriculture, and indoor tour guide systems. It is hoped that this research will assist the potential user to easily choose IoT hardware and software as it pertains to their respective needs.


Activation and shielding analyses have been performed for a CN helium-cooled test blanket module (TBM) in the equatorial port of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). In this paper, we examine the neutron-induced radioactivity, decay heat, and shutdown contact dose rate for the CN TBM recent design. In addition, we assess the shielding efficiency of TBM to satisfy the nuclear shield requirement of ITER. The A-lite 40 ° ITER 3-D calculation model was used for the neutron transport calculations. Activation analysis was performed using the FISPACT-2007 code with activation cross-section data file EAF-2007. The shutdown dose rate distribution in the zone behind shielding was calculated using the rigorous two-step method. SA2 safety scenario was used as the irradiation scenario for activation analyses. The calculated results were discussed with a target of 100 μSv/h after 12 days of cooling for human access to the zones around the port cell. It was shown that the shield efficiency of the TBM system needs to be improved.


Objectives Endometrial stromal sarcoma(ESS) is a rare gynaecological malignancy accounting only.2percent of uterine neoplasm.According to WHO, one third of the ESS recurs.But there is no protocol to treat recurrent ESS. This study is to find out a standard protocol of treatment incase of recurrent endometrial stromal sarcoma. Methods Its a retrospective study of nineteen patients of ESS attending NICRH.All had hysterectomy outside our hospital and came with histopathology report of ESS.Time period was three years (2016–2018). Results The recurrence rate of nineteen cases were42.1percent.The median age of diagnosis was47.55 years and median time of first relapse was9 months.The number of recurrance ranges from 1 to 5.Incase of first relapse,second surgery was done in eight patients but three had third relapse.out of eleven patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy,six had relapse and out of seven patients who had adjuvant radiation,five had recurrance.As all primary histopathology was done outside NICRH,grade was undetermined in eleven patients.Out of four high grade patients,three had relapse.Incase of four low grade, two received aeromatase inhibitor and they remain relapse free. Conclusions In our study,it is clear that neither secondary cytoreduction nor adjuvant chemoradiation can prevent recurrence.There is limited data of immuno or target therapy.So long term multicentric study should be performed to set up a standard guideline of treatment in case of recurrent endometrial stromal sarcoma.


Because of a possible relationship between microenvironmental disturbances and meiotic abnormalities and of a straight relationship between lower-quality semen in patient carrying a varicocele and first meiotic non-disjunction, bilateral bipolar testicular biopsies are realized according the thermic differential gradient described in varicocele. Systematic meiotic studies of multiple testicular biopsies from 65 azoospermic men with bilateral varicocele were done in a multi-centric study on microsurgical correction of bilateral varicocele with microthermic intra-operative evaluation using minimally invasive thermal microsensors (Betatherm 10K3MCD2). In the present study abnormal temperature raising, histomorphometric abnormalities (spermatocyte arrest) and meiotic abnormalities (class IIC) are strongly correlated. In the ten patients submitted to another testicular biopsy procedure six months after surgery for TESE, normal thermal differential is registered and no meiotic abnormalities recurrences are found.


The Practical Guide to Medical and Veterinary Mycology by Vanbreuseghem et al is an excellent contribution to these fields and to dermatology in general. It is not only a practical guide, but can also be considered an atlas because of its well-done illustrations. The book is divided into three sections. The first gives a general review of mycosis and pseudomycosis, the second is a brief and very didactic summary of all agents causing mycosis or pseudomycosis, and the third describes the techniques and culture media the authors found most useful in detecting and diagnosing mycologic diseases. This book is a must for every medical library, for the dermatologist, mycologist, pathologist, veterinarian, and biologist, for any physician interested in mycology, and for medical students and general practitioners. I hope this book will be translated into other languages, since it deserves wider distribution.


The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of teaching communication on learning outcomes among students in SMK Negeri 1 Majene district. The method used is the method of correlation, which saw the relations between the variables studied. population in this study were all students in the class of SMK Negeri 1 Majene, the sample in this study amounted to 60 learners. In this study, the instruments used are questionnaires, observations, data were analyzed using descriptive percentages. The results showed that the average score level teacher's communication in learning on the learner in SMK Negeri 1 Majene is high. The results of the students learning outcomes obtained an average value of 70 083. These results illustrate that the average teacher's ability to communicate to students in SMK Negeri 1 Majene district academic year 2015/2016 of the subjects given quite good. Based on the results of correlation r xy value that is equal to 0462 with the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted that there is influence between teachers communication of students learning outcomes.


Introduction: Disorders of TMJ are complex and multifactorial. Studies comparing different treatment methods are found in the literature. Purpose: To verify the effectiveness of muscle and orofacial myofunctional rehabilitation for temporomandibular joint disorders (TMJ). Research strategy: This qualitative review of the literature analyzed international scientific publications in PubMed database that used the following keywords: temporomandibular disorders and oral motor therapy; orofacial myofunctional therapy and temporomandibular disorders; temporomandibular disorders and myofunctional rehabilitation. Our investigation was limited to articles published in English or Portuguese languages, between January 2006 and December 2016. Selection criteria: Scientific publications about rehabilitation strategies for TMJ associated to muscle exercises and/ or manual therapy were included. The publications that did not present access to the full text, that were repeated by overlapping keywords, case studies, letters to the editor and those that were not directly related to the topic of investigation were excluded. Results: One hundred and two studies were identified out of which 22 matched our inclusion criteria. Overall, most of the treatments described in the investigated studies presented positive outcomes for the patients with TMJ. The studies presented a wide variability in terms of treatment proposals and methodology used to verify treatment effectiveness. A very small number of studies included control groups. Combined techniques (e


Abstract Objective To determine the prevalence of Ureaplasma spp. DNA and its load in the cervical fluid in women with preterm labor with intact membranes (PTL) complicated by intra-amniotic infection (the presence of both microbial invasion of the amniotic cavity and intra-amniotic inflammation) or sterile intra-amniotic inflammation (the presence of intra-amniotic inflammation alone). Methods Overall, 115 women with singleton pregnancies complicated by PTL between gestational ages of 22 + 0 and 34 + 6 weeks were included in this study. Paired amniotic and cervical fluid samples were collected at the time of admission via transabdominal amniocentesis using a Dacron polyester swab. Microbial invasion of the amniotic cavity was diagnosed based on a combination of culture and molecular biology methods. Intra-amniotic inflammation was determined based on the concentration of interleukin-6 in the amniotic fluid. Bacterial and Ureaplasma spp. DNA loads were assessed in the cervical fluid using PCR. Results Intra-amniotic infection and sterile inflammation were identified in 14% (16/115) and 25% (29/115) of the women, respectively. Ureaplasma spp. DNA in the cervical fluid was identified in 51% (59/115) of women. The presence of Ureaplasma spp. DNA in the cervical fluid was higher in women with intra-amniotic infection (75% (12/16)) and sterile intra-amniotic inflammation (76% (22/29)) than in women without intra-amniotic inflammation (36% (25/70); p = .0002). Concurrent presence of Ureaplasma spp. and Mycoplasma hominis DNA was higher in women with intra-amniotic infection (42% (5/12)) than women with sterile intra-amniotic inflammation (7% (2/29)) and women without intra-amniotic inflammation (7% (5/70); p = .001). There were no differences in the load of Ureaplasma spp. DNA in the cervical fluid among women with intra-amniotic infection, sterile intra-amniotic inflammation, and those without intra-amniotic inflammation (median values; infection: 1.2 × 104 copies DNA/mL; sterile: 5.0 × 105 copies DNA/mL; without: 8.4 × 104 copies DNA/mL; p = .18). Conclusions In PTL , both forms of intra-amniotic inflammation were associated with a higher prevalence of Ureaplasma spp. DNA in the cervical fluid. The presence of intra-amniotic infection was related to a higher rate of concurrent Ureaplasma spp. and M. hominis DNA in the cervical fluid.


Based on a three-body micro-contact mechanism and contact temperature theory, a micro-contact temperature model was developed to investigate the effect of particle size, particle density, and rotational speed on temperature rise between particles and workpieces. The experiments with different particle sizes and rotational speeds verified the feasibility of the micro-contact temperature analysis. The results indicate that contact temperature between particles and workpieces linear increases as particle size and rotational speed increase. The particle density has a negligible effect on maximum contact temperature between particles and workpieces.


Abstract Angelica tsinlingensis is endemic in Shaanxi province (China), and is used as Angelica sinensis in folk. Owing to important medicinal value, wild A. sinensis has been over-exploited and become quite rare in China during over 2000 years. Angelica sensu lato (s.l.; Apiaceae subfamily Apioideae) is a taxonomically complex and controversial group, and A. tsinlingensis is clearly different from members of the Angelica s.s. clade with the morphological and molecular results. The complete chloroplast DNA sequence of A. tsinlingensis (GenBank accession number: MF924726) was determined in our study. The size of chloroplast genome of A. tsinlingensis is 147,104 bp, including a large single-copy (LSC) region of 93376 bp and a small single-copy (SSC) region of 17,574 bp separated by a pair of identical inverted repeat regions (IRs) of 18,077 bp each. A total of 125 genes were successfully annotated containing 83 protein-coding genes, 34 tRNA genes and 8 rRNA genes. GC content of IRs region is the highest (44.5%). The result of Phylogenomic analysis supports the difference of A. tsinlingensis from Angelica s.s. clade.


Multi-view multi-person 3D human pose estimation is a hot topic in the field of human pose estimation due to its wide range of application scenarios. With the introduction of end-to-end direct regression methods, the field has reached a new stage of development. However, the regression results are still not accurate enough even for the optimal method for the joints that are more heavily influenced by external factors. In this paper, we propose an effective feature recalibration module based on the channel attention mechanism and an optimal calibration strategy, which is applied to a multi-view multi-person 3D human pose estimation task backbone network to achieve improved detection accuracy for joints that are more severely affected by external factors. Specifically, we achieve optimal weight adjustment of joint feature information through a recalibration module based on a channel attention mechanism and an optimal calibration strategy, which enables the model to learn the dependencies between joints and the dependencies between people and their corresponding joints. We call this method the Efficient Recalibration Network (ER-Net). Finally, experiments were conducted on two benchmark datasets for this task, Campus, and Shelf, PCP reached 97.3 percent and 98.3 percent, respectively.


Social justice and water refers to fairness of access to water resources and equality of burden from poor water quality and water hazards. This chapter considers briefly the origins and definition of social justice, and ways in which social justice and water interact. Global scale water justice is considered mainly in respect of disease and the lack of progress towards effective provision of water and sanitation. A detailed case study of the links between water debt and deprivation in the UK is then examined, concluding with a consideration of the options available to resolve water debt issues whilst respecting social justice. We conclude with a consideration of the future constraints on water resources in the light of the latest UK climate projections, and recognise that difficult choices might be encountered in which social justice for people might have to have priority over environmental justice for river and land habitats.


Both environmental and human challenges, such as natural disasters, require scientifically sound simulations of physical phenomena to better understand the past and predict future trends for improved decision support. However, such simulations pose great computing challenges to both Earth and computer sciences. This book addresses those challenges through a series of strategies. Adaptively-coupled nested models are used to resolve the computational challenges and enable the computability of dust storm forecasting by dividing the large geographical area into multiple subdomains with much small area. Cloud computing platforms are adopted and optimized through spatiotemporal patterns to support loosely-coupled nested model execution. This book also investigates and utilizes interoperability technologies to facilitate data access, model input integration, model coupling, and output dissemination and utilization. The book provides a guide to address computing and model interoperability issues that arise when performing scientific model simulation.


This paper presents a new multi-scales range data filtering technique which produces a scale-space filtering analogous to Gaussian filtering but has several interesting properties such as viewpoint invariance and automatic edge preservation. One of the main contribution of this paper is that it takes into account a physical model of the sensor to ensure optimum filtering of the signal. Using this filter, new algorithms can be developed to detect at multi-scale depth and orientation discontinuities or segment robustly range data based on the sign of Gaussian and mean curvatures.


This paper is to introduce distinctive trends in Agrometeorological Information(AgMI) these days, as well as newly emerging technologies from advanced sciences that are promising to enhance production and dissemination of AgMI in the future. The basic concept and important characteristics of AgMI were described either in general or in technical terms. Then AgMI was rather arbitrarily classified here into several groups, simply to show the diversity of AgMI resources available and technologies employed. The production, management, dissemination and communication of AgMI are envisaged to some extent together with the introduction of current status of AgMI production in Korea. Finally a couple of personal prospects on AgMI for agricultural applications are listed in terms of applicable subjects in Agricultural activities, current practicing cases in Korea and future perspectives for sustainable agriculture.


Criminology has developed strong methodological tools over the past decades, establishing itself as a competitive, sophisticated, and independent social science. Perhaps because of its emphasis on matters of design, methodology, and quantitative analysis, criminology has had few significant advances in theory. Advances in Criminological Theory is the first series exclusively dedicated to the dissemination of original work on criminological theory. The Process and Structure of Crime, the ninth volume in this landmark series, is a thorough overview of the conceptual and empirical issues raised by the adoption of a criminal event perspective, which takes into account the multifaceted character of human behavior. This book is divided into three sections: conceptual bases of criminal events, the criminal event perspective itself, and responses to criminal events. Contributors analyze and explore a wide range of topics, including: how interpersonal routines are structured through past experience; the influence of social context on interpersonal routines; criminal opportunity and its impact on criminal events; the significance of neighborhood context; the effect of victimization and fear; how problem-oriented policing efforts need to be informed by and reflect the problems of repeat offenders, repeat victims, and hot spots of crime; and finally, how changes in the physical environment constrain or limit criminal opportunities. This fascinating work will be beneficial to criminologists, sociologists, and scholars of legal studies. Contributors to this volume include: Leslie W. Kennedy, Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot, Robert F. Meier, Mark Warr, Christopher Birkbeck, Luis Gerardo Gabaldon, Kriss A. Drass, Terance D. Miethe, Julie Horney, Jeffrey Fagan, Deanna L. Wilkinson, Robert J. Buskirk, Jr., Vincent F. Sacco, Ross Macmillan, John E. Eck, Paul J. Brantingham, and Pat Brantingham.


Decapitation strategies have often been linked to counterterrorism. The existing literature suggests the results of these strategies are mixed. Previous studies suggest that the death of a prominent leader may not necessarily end the crisis; it all depends on the group's infrastructure, ideology, leadership traditions, and extent of its penetration in society. This article takes a critical look at the impact of a recent leadership decapitation in Nigeria. Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram movement in the Lake Chad Basin countries, was killed on 19 May 2021 by a faction of the movement known as the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP). This article argues that Shekau's case has paradoxically helped to strengthen ISWAP's position, giving it new recruits and other resources and perhaps most importantly reinforced its position with local communities. This has implications for the Nigerian state, its neighbours and, because of Boko Haram's links to ISIS, the wider war on terrorism.


A method for incorporating probabilistic considerations into fatigue life prognosis based on experimental information for Paris' law is presented in this article. A truncated probability distribution of initial crack lengths is introduced to obviate a complication of the use of Paris' law. This formulation allows the calculation of several probabilities for various values of the truncation length, including the probability of the existence of a crack larger than a predetermined critical crack length and the probability of a crack in a prescribed domain of crack lengths, and the effect of an inspection on these probabilities. A probabilistic consideration for the fact that the Paris' law parameters are not constants but distributions is also addressed using a stochastic version of Paris' law and a Monte Carlo simulation. Finally, a novel Bayesian approach which highlights the effect of probability of detection, critical crack length, and applied stress versus the number of elapsed fatigue cycles is presented and ramifications explored. This article provides insight on how various factors affect diagnosis and prognosis in a probabilistic manner.


Introduction: Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common congenital anomaly in infancy affecting 1% of all live births worldwide of which the etiology in most affected children is unknown. The role of environmental pollutants from various sources is increasingly gaining attention. To explore the existing breadth of knowledge on this topic, we undertook a scoping review of studies examining the role of environmental pollution in relation to the development of CHD.

Methods: We searched various databases for studies reporting CHD and exposures to chemicals using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and non-MeSH including criteria pollutants (e.g. CO, SO2 NO2), occupational, non-occupational, industrial chemicals and emissions reported in pollutant release and transfer registries (PRTR) from 1980 to 2018.

Results: We identified 70 studies that were grouped into the categories of outdoor industrial chemical pollution; urban air pollution; occupational; and non-occupational exposures. There were no marked differences in proportions of studies in the first three categories, which ranged between 29-33%. Non-occupational exposures accounted for 7% of the studies. Proximity to industrial facilities and hazardous waste sites was associated with CHD in a modest number of studies that used PRTR. Urban criteria pollutants were consistently associated with CHD. Maternal occupational exposures were more commonly studied compared to paternal exposures and organic solvents were associated with CHD in these studies. There were limited studies that examined non-occupational and multipollutant exposures.

Conclusion: We identified associations between various chemicals and CHD, employing diverse methods of exposure assessment. Most studies examined single pollutant exposures and have demonstrated inconclusive findings. Future studies should examine multiple pollutant exposures and CHD. In addition to monitored data, exploratory studies could exploit PRTR in countries where such registries exist. Furthermore, multicenter studies that examine larger populations of affected patients could facilitate the discovery of the relationship between specific chemicals and CHD subtypes.


Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a result of insulin resistance and pancreatic β-cell dysfunction. Therefore, identifying agents that simultaneously reverse these two defects could be a novel strategy leading to more effective prevention and treatment of T2D. Recently, we generated a small molecule elenolic acid moiety (EA). Here, we report that oral administration of EA normalized glycemia, glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, and hepatic glucose production in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obese mice. These metabolic and antihyperglycemic effects of EA treatment were associated with increased circulating GLP-1 and peptide YY concentrations, but reduced blood insulin, leptin, and lipid levels. In addition, EA slowed gastric emptying and reduced food intake, body weight, and fat mass in HFD-fed obese mice. In vitro, EA directly induces glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) release from intestinal L-cells via a Gαq/phospholipase C-mediated mechanism. It also suppresses glucose production from HepG2 cells and stimulates glucose uptake in primary human skeletal muscle cells. These data suggest that EA may be a novel agent for developing drug to treat T2D. Disclosure Y. Wang: None. J. Luo: None. H.A. Alkhalidy: None. B. Xu: None. D. Liu: None. Funding National Institutes of Health (1R01AT007077, 1R01AT007566)


ABSTRACT The role of pharmacists in HIV outpatient clinics has greatly increased in the past decades. Given the limited resources of the health system, the prioritization of pharmacist consults is now a main concern. This study aimed to create a scoring system allowing for standardized prioritization of pharmacist consults for patients living with HIV. Data was retrospectively collected from 200 HIV patients attending the Chronic Viral Illness Service at the McGill University Health Center. An expert panel consisting of four pharmacists working in the field of HIV prioritized each patient individually, after which a consensus was established and was considered as the gold standard. In order to create a scoring system, two different methods (Delphi, statistical) were used to assign a weight to each characteristic considered to be important in patient prioritization. A third method (equal weight to each characteristic) was also evaluated. The total score per patient for each method was then compared to the expert consensus in order to establish the score cut-offs to indicate the appropriate categories of delay in which to see the patient. All three systems failed to accurately prioritize patients into urgency categories ("less than 48 h", "less than 1 month", "less than 3 months", "no consult required") according to expert pharmacist consensus. The presence of high level interactions between patient characteristics, the limited number of patients and the low prevalence of some characteristics were hypothesized as the main causes for the results. Creating a prioritization tool for pharmacy consults in HIV outpatient clinics is a complex task and developing a decision tree algorithm may be a more appropriate approach in the future to take into account the importance of combinations of patient characteristic.


China has over the last two decades been committed to creating a strategic partnership with Latin American states by persistently extending its economic and political involvement in the continent. China's efforts in this regard reflect not only its desire to intensify its economic cooperation and political relations with nations in Latin America, but also its strategic goals of creating its own sphere of influence in the region and enhancing its 'hard' and 'soft' power in order to elevate China's status at the systemic level. With access to Latin American markets, resources and investment destinations, China may sustain its economic and social progress that bases its long cherished dream of restoring its past glory of fuqiang (wealth and power) and rise as a global power capable of reshaping the current world system. The enormous economic benefits deriving from their economic cooperation and trade may persuade Latin American nations to accept the basic premise of China's economic strategy: that China's rise is not a threat, but an opportunity to gain wealth and prosperity. This will help China gain more 'soft' power in and leverage over its economic partners in Latin America, and thereby help it to rise in the global power hierarchy


Starting form nineteenth century, conveying the information fast and effectively was considered to be the central function of typography. The avant-garde and aesthetically pleasing solutions for the design problems were considered to be negligible because the ultimate purpose was to be succeed in effective communication. However, some early modernist objected these conventions long before digital media arrived. This thesis starts by analyzing the historical development of modern art movements that contradicted with the aforementioned function of typography and employed visually challenging and emotive typographic elements. Later it examines the emerging means of expressions through digital typography, and introduces the related project Moodface. Structure of Moodface is based on the assumption that writing (typing) is performance. Purpose of Moodface is to provide a responsive operational framework in which writing speed data could be collected. It processes time intervals between keystrokes, idle time and mistakes. Mistakes are controlled by 'backspace' strokes, time intervals are used to determine speed of individual keystrokes, rolling average speed and average speed of entire text and during the idle time it puts space between lines of text.


The luminescence properties of two compounds, [C(NH2)3][Eu(EDTA)(H2O)3] (I) and [C(NH2)3]2[Yb0.97Eu0.03(EDTA)(H2O)2]ClO4·6H2O (II), were determined. The weighted sum of luminescence spectra of I and II was used to reproduce the spectra of the Eu-EDTA system in aqueous solution in the temperature range 276-363 K. By implementing this method it was possible to determine the thermodynamic functions (ΔH = 18113 ± 506 J mole(-1) and ΔS = 62.5 ± 4.9 J mole(-1) K(-1)) of the reaction [Eu(EDTA)(H2O)3](-)⇆ [Eu(EDTA)(H2O)2](-) + H2O, which is difficult using other methods.


The falling weight deflectometer (FWD) produces pavement responses by a falling mass drop to evaluate structural parameters of the pavement. A reliable simulation model is helpful to calibrate the apparatus as well as the backcalculation programs. The key points in the finite element simulation of FWD tests were studied including model size, boundary conditions, and analysis time increment. The subgrade in the finite element model was formulated with springs of stiffness coefficient of subgrade and dashpots of the derived damping values. It was concluded that at least six times the radius of relative stiffness is required to avoid boundary cut-off error. A rigorous procedure is presented to derive subgrade reaction and damping for various types of subgrade soil. Subgrade damping plays an important role in simulations of the FWD test. Backcalculation programs without subgrade damping may over-predict structural condition of pavements.


Angiography of carotid stenosis is the preferred method for stenosis assessment, but the method is invasive and ionizing. The ultrasound technique Vector Flow Imaging (VFI) is proposed as a noninvasive and nonionizing alternative for stenosis assessment. Vessel stenosis and flow complexity are associated, and VFI can measure flow complexity with Vector Concentration (VC). VC goes towards 1 for laminar flow and 0 for complex flow. In this preliminary study, 5 patients treated with carotid stent for carotid artery stenosis were examined with VFI to evaluate if VC estimations were comparable with the corresponding digital substraction angiography (DSA) calculated stenosis degree percentage. VFI was obtained with a bk5000 ultrasound scanner and an 8L2 linear transducer with a frequency range from 2-8 MHz (BK Medical, Herlev, Denmark), while angiography data were obtained with Siemens Artis Q (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany). The flow in the stenosis was evaluated with VC as a mean over 100 frames with a frame rate of 30 Hz. VC of the stenotic carotid artery was low for all patients before stenting with a mean of 0.59 (SD:0.07), while mean VC increased to 0.97 (SD:0.02) after stenting (p=0.016). Mean DSA stenosis degree percentage was 82% (SD:9%) before stenting and was reduced to 11% (SD:6%) after stenting (p=0.001). Correlation coefficient between VC and DSA stenosis degree was strong 0.97. This is the first preliminary study that shows VFI can be used to evaluate stent treatment of carotid stenosis. The results indicate that VC is a useful parameter for flow complexity assessment, and that VC and stenosis degree are comparable for patients with carotid stenosis.


While significant advances in our understanding of the behavior of engineered nanoparticles in the environment continue, there remains a need to engage the nanoparticle research community directly in the development and evaluation of environmentally benign nanoparticles to ensure that nanomaterial‐based industries emerge as tools for sustainability rather than environmental liabilities. Current research efforts aimed at understanding the environmental implications of nanotechnology emphasize existing groups of nanoparticles and products already in commercial distribution. While this is clearly necessary, this approach fails to identify and address the many tradeoffs associated with product performance and environmental quality. We believe this to be a critical gap in the ongoing exploration of nanostructured materials and their properties and applications. We posit that a number of issues are not being holistically addressed, including resource availability and allocation, manufacturing energy requirements and embodied energy, material efficiency, environmental properties of nanomaterials and nanoproducts, and waste generation. An interdisciplinary approach to research, based on the life cycle paradigm and devoted to the identification, investigation, synthesis, testing, and analysis of groups of new, more environmentally conscious nanoparticles is needed. (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


As a first step towards a management plan for the Seewinkel area east of Lake Neusiedl, with a special consideration of the World Wildlife Fund Reserve situated in its center, the most important landscapes of the whole Lake Neusiedl region are described biogeographically. The Anatidae are classified in groups according to their ecology, and Coot grebes, divers and Cormorant have been included. Eighteen species which are ecologically most important for the region have been treated in detail, 10 species occurring in smaller numbers only briefly, and 21 species which are rare are simply listed. Quantitative, phenological and geographical data are given as far as available. The inter-relationships between the various habitats and the 1,200 breeding pairs (12 species) as well as the 50,000 autumn migrants (mainly 5 species) are described. The feeding habits of these birds and the three main habitat management problems (increasing expansion of reed, decrease of short-grass pastures and damage to crops) are discussed.


Abstract OBJECTIVES Implanting a durable left ventricular assist device (LVAD) in a patient on extracorporeal life support (ECLS) is challenging. The goal of this study was to compare the results of patients from a European registry who had a durable LVAD implanted with or without transition from ECLS to cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). METHODS A total of 531 patients on ECLS support who had an LVAD implant between January 2010 and August 2018 were analysed; after 1:1 propensity score matching, we identified and compared 175 patients in each group. RESULTS The duration of preoperative ECLS was 7 [standard deviation (SD) 6] vs 7 (SD 6) days in patients with or without CPB (P = 0.984). The surgical time was longer in the CPB group [285 (SD 72) vs 209 [SD 75] min; P ≤ 0.001). The postoperative chest tube output was comparable [1513 (SD 1311) vs 1390 (SD 1121) ml; P = 0.3]. However, re-exploration for bleeding was necessary in 41% vs 29% of patients with or without CPB (P = 0.01) and a significantly higher number of packed red blood cells and fresh frozen plasma [8 (SD 8) vs 6 (SD 4) units; P = 0.001 and 6 (SD 7) vs 5 (SD 5) units; P = 0.03] were administered to patients operated on with CPB. A postoperative mechanical right ventricular support device was necessary in 50% vs 41% of patients (P = 0.08). The stroke rate was not significantly different (P 0.99). No difference in survival was observed. CONCLUSIONS Omitting CPB for an LVAD implant in patients on ECLS is safe and results in shorter operating time, less re-exploration for bleeding and fewer blood products. However, no survival benefit is observed.


Actions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to stabilize warming at 2 degree Celsius, as agreed by the international community in 2009, will fall short if they do not include the transport sector. Transport is responsible for around 23 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions and emissions are expected to rise without further action to curb emission growth and invest in low carbon transport modes. Investment needs are estimated at around $3 trillion to increase the sustainability of existing and new transport systems and to mitigate climate change over the 2015-35 periods. This is in addition to existing annual investments estimated at $1-2 trillion. The actions taken today to send the right policy signals, and establish the enabling institutions and regulations to attract the necessary private finance will be critical to support this transformation. Significant investment opportunities exist in public transport systems, vehicle efficiency improvement, and reducing the need for travel through demand management, regional development policies, and land use planning. As the international community embarks on the road towards CoP 21 in Paris, there is a case to be made for more climate finance flowing towards transport.


Small copepods are important prey for fish larvae in the Kuroshio region off southern Japan. However, revealing entire community structures of small copepods is difficult using conventional methods. We applied a metabarcoding method to size-fractionated community samples of epipelagic copepods (small: 0.1-0.5 mm, medium: 0.5-1.0 mm, and large: 1.0-2.0 mm). Samples were collected from 2013 to 2016 from the shoreward (Kuroshio Slope, KS) and oceanic (Kuroshio Gyre, KG) sides of the Kuroshio Current at 138° E; the results were compared with those in the center of the subtropical gyre (SG). The KS and KG sites showed both spatial differences and seasonal changes, with distinct differences between winter-spring and summer-autumn in each size-fractionated community. Water temperature markedly influenced copepod diversity and community structure, especially in the small size fraction. Warm-water species in the SG intruded into the Kuroshio regions during high-temperature periods, leading to high diversity in summer-autumn. Inter-annual environmental variations influenced by temperature and productivity were evident in KS, leading to clear changes in the sequence proportions of dominant small copepods including Paracalanus sp. and immature stages of the large copepod Calanus sinicus. Immature stages of medium/large copepods formed a substantial proportion of small-copepod communities in the Kuroshio regions (KS: 28.8%; KG: 24.7%; SG: 11.9%; based on average proportions of sequence reads). Because of their ecological importance and sensitivity to environmental changes, monitoring communities of small copepods with high taxonomic resolution may provide further insights into marine ecosystems, including fish recruitment, in the Kuroshio region.


1844–Paris 1911) wrote a letter from Paris to Miguel Antonio Caro (1845– 1909), his fellow grammarian and president of Colombia from 1892 to 1898, who was then residing in Bogotá: "Do you know if somebody has thought about collecting [in Colombia] housemaid tales such as those collected by Grimm and Andersen?" (Cuervo 1978, 111). What was initially posed as a question soon became an affirmation. The apparent lack of documentation of a collected folk corpus has often led to the assertion that in the nineteenth century there were very few studies of folk expressions in Colombia. Gustavo Otero Muñoz, for example, wrote in 1928 in his book La literatura colonial de Colombia seguida de un cancionerillo popular [Colombian colonial literature followed by a small songbook]: "The Republic of Colombia is behind in the work that corresponds to it, as a civilized country, namely, that of contributing its fragment of truth regarding the common heritage of the species, formed by the science that Grimm, Max Muller, Bopp and so many other wise men have glorified, searching in the traditions of each regional folklore, the bond that brings into relation the different religions and languages of the peoples" (Otero Muñoz 1928, 241). This idea of the lack of serious studies of local expressive cultures (including music) has persisted well into the present.1 Whether through absence of documentation or through the use of inappropriate methodologies in the study of local expressive culture, this seeming lack has acquired a foundational character, the aura of a national truth that hauntingly returns during different intrODuctiOn The Ear and the Voice in the Lettered City's Geophysical History


The biennial variability is a large component of year-to-year variations in the Indian summer monsoon (ISM). Previous studies have shown that El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) plays an important role in the biennial variability of the ISM. The present study investigates the role of the Indian Ocean in the biennial transition of the ISM when the Pacific ENSO is absent. The influence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans on the biennial transition between the ISM and the Australian summer monsoon (ASM) is also examined. Controlled numerical experiments with a coupled general circulation model (CGCM) are used to address the above two issues. The CGCM captures the in-phase ISM to ASM transition (i.e., a wet ISM followed by a wet ASM or a dry ISM followed by a dry ASM) and the out-of-phase ASM to ISM transition (i.e., a wet ASM followed by a dry ISM or a dry ASM followed by a wet ISM). These transitions are more frequent than the out-of-phase ISM to ASM transition and the in-phase ASM to ISM transition in the coupled model, consistent with observations. The results of controlled coupled model experiments indicate that both the Indian and Pacific Ocean air–sea coupling are important for properly simulating the biennial transition between the ISM and ASM in the CGCM. The biennial transition of the ISM can occur through local air–sea interactions in the north Indian Ocean when the Pacific ENSO is suppressed. The local sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies induce the Indian monsoon transition through low-level moisture convergence. Surface evaporation anomalies, which are largely controlled by surface wind speed changes, play an important role for SST changes. Different from local air–sea interaction mechanisms proposed in previous studies, the atmospheric feedback is not strong enough to reverse the SST anomalies immediately at the end of the monsoon season. Instead, the reversal of the SST anomalies is accomplished in the spring of the following year, which in turn leads to the Indian monsoon transition.


In this study, the effects of different dopants such as camphorsulfonic acid (CSA), dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid sodium salt (DBSANa+), different solvents such as N,N'-dimethylformamide (DMF), and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and different mixing processes such as magnetic mixing and mechanical mixing on the morphology, conductivity and mechanical properties of PAN/PANi composite nanofibers are investigated. It has been seen that composite nanofibers had the smallest fiber diameter, lowest conductivity and lowest mechanical properties when CSA (dopant) and DMF (solvent) are used.  However, the composite nanofibers in which the polyaniline is doped with CSA in DMSO (solvent) had better conductivity and mechanical properties, besides having thicker diameters. When the mixing effects compared, mechanical mixing process resulted in higher mechanical properties of nanofibers compared to magnetic mixing process, while there was not much difference between fiber diameter and conductivity values.


All nanoscale technologies that are being proposed to replace CMOS, including nano-CMOS itself, will be unreliable: great parameter variations and high defect rates should be anticipated. Timing will be difficult to control and predict. Noise will be important. Soft errors will appear even at ground level. In many cases, like molecular nano-electronics, nanowires will be short, precluding the implementation of a global clocking network directly in nano. Consequently, asynchronous (clockless) logic seems an ideal, and probably unavoidable choice, for the design of digital circuits in nanotechnology. In this talk, I will report on a preliminary investigation in implementing asynchronous QDI logic in molecular nano-electronics, taking into account the restricted geometry, the lack of control on transistor strengths, the high timing variations. I will show how the main building blocks of QDI logic can be successfully implemented in a somewhat idealized molecular nanotechnology; I will illustrate the approach with the layout of an adder stage. Simulations will be used to demonstrate the remarkable robustness of those circuits in the presence of parameter variations and noise. Most results apply to nano-CMOS as well.


Water body detection is necessary to generate hydro break lines, which are in turn useful in creating deliverables such as TINs, contours, DEMs from LiDAR data. Hydro flattening follows the detection and delineation of water bodies (lakes, rivers, ponds, reservoirs, streams etc.) with hydro break lines. Manual hydro break line generation is time consuming and expensive. Accuracy and processing time depend on the number of vertices marked for delineation of break lines. Automation with minimal human intervention is desired for this operation. This paper proposes using a novel histogram analysis of LiDAR elevation data and LiDAR intensity data to automatically detect water bodies. Detection of water bodies using elevation information was verified by checking against LiDAR intensity data since the spectral reflectance of water bodies is very small compared with that of land and vegetation in near infra-red wavelength range. Detection of water bodies using LiDAR intensity data was also verified by checking against LiDAR elevation data. False detections were removed using morphological operations and 3D break lines were generated. Finally, a comparison of automatically generated break lines with their semi-automated/manual counterparts was performed to assess the accuracy of the proposed method and the results were discussed.


Glanzmann Thrombasthenia (GT) is a recessively inherited bleeding disorder caused by the quantitative or qualitative deficiency of integrin αIIbβ3. The recent solution of the crystal structure of αIIbβ3 revealed that the N-terminal domain of αIIb is folded in a complex structure, a β-propeller formed by seven blades. The role of the β-propeller is to bind fibrinogen and to associate to β3. In the endoplasmic reticulum pro-αIIb associates with β3, it is then transferred to the Golgi, where it is cleaved in two chains disulfide bonded (mature αIIb); mutations that impair the association of pro-αIIb to β3 are able to cause GT. The architecture of the propeller is sustained by several prolines that stabilize the entire structure. From molecular modeling studies it had been postulated that the residue spatially adjacent to proline 258 can only be a glycine because there is no physical space for other residues. Analyzing the GT mutations of Italian patients recently described by D'Andrea et al. (Thromb Haemost., 2002) we found that a patient with type I GT had a αIIb G236E missense substitution, hence we decided to verify if the substitution of glycine 236 was hampering αIIb β3 association. The G236E mutation was introduced by site directed mutagenesis in pCDNA3.1 containing normal human αIIb cDNA. Human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells were transfected either with normal or mutated αIIb in conjunction with pCDNA3.1 containing normal β3. By flow cytometry analysis the percentage of HEK cells transfected with αIIbG236Eβ3 that reacted with 10E5-FITC (anti αIIbβ3) was 7±1% while the percentage of cells transfected with αIIbβ3 that reacted with 10E5-FITC was 37±13%. When the binding of an antibody directed against β3 (VIPL-2-FITC) was evaluated, we observed that cells expressing αIIbG236Eβ3 did bind the antibody, indicating that the normal transfected β3 was associating with the endogenous αV. HEK cells transfected with either αIIbβ3 or αIIbG236Eβ3 were lysed; cells lysates were analysed by SDS-PAGE electrophoresis and immunoblotting. Both lysates were reacting at the same level with antibodies directed against β3. When immunoblotting was done in non-reducing conditions utilizing an antibody reacting with αIIb (mab1990) a band corresponding to αIIb was present in both lysates, although less intense in cells transfected with αIIbG236Eβ3. In reducing condition αIIb from cells transfected with αIIbβ3 was nearly all mature, while in cells transfected with αIIbG236Eβ3 the ratio pro-αIIb: αIIb was 1:1. Moreover, when tested against lysates of cells transfected with αIIbG236Eβ3, the antibody against αIIb recognized multiple bands of lower molecular weight, presumably degradation products of the mutated protein. Cell lysates were then immunoprecipitated with antibodies against αIIb or αIIbβ3 and immunoblotted with an antibody reacting with β3. While in immunoblots from cells transfected with αIIbβ3 a band corresponding to β3 was strongly detectable, in immunoblots originating from cells transfected with αIIbG236Eβ3 a very weak band at the same level of normal β3 was detected only in immunoprecipitates using 10E5, a complex dependent antibody. In conclusion we demonstrated that αIIbG236E is a mutation that causes GT by impairing the association with β3 in the endoplasmic reticulum; the effect of the mutation is likely to create a severe misfold of the β-propeller and the molecular modeling prediction of the need of a glycine at position 236 is probably confirmed.


Gastrodiae Rhizoma (GR) is a traditional herbal medicine in Korea, China, and Japan, which has been used for the treatment of headaches, hypertension, oxidative stress, mental disorders, inflammation, and cardiovascular diseases. This study investigated the anti-infammatory activity and main component content of processed (PGR) and fermented Gastrodiae Rhizoma (FPGR). Processed method was soaked in vinegar solution until completely absorbed and steaming for 2 hours. Fermentation was carried out using Lactobacillus brevis and incubated at 37□ for 1~3 day. The anti-inflammatory activites were determine pro-inflammatory factors such as nuclear factor κB (NF-κB), nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced RAW 264.7 cell line and major functional components (gastrodin, gastrodigenin, vanillylalcohol, p-hydroxybenzaldehyde) were also measured. The results showed that the FPGR reduced NO, PGE2, iNOS, COX-2, NF-κB production without cytotoxicity and improved major components. These results suggest that FPGR extracts may be a developed the functional food related to anti-inflammation due to the significant effects on inflammatory facters. Therefore, fermented and processed Gastrodiae Rhizoma can be useful methods which can help applied as functional resources in the industrial area.


We introduce the multipartite collision model, defined in terms of elementary interactions between subsystems and ancillas, and show that it can simulate the Markovian dynamics of any multipartite open quantum system. We develop a method to estimate an analytical error bound for any repeated interactions model, and we use it to prove that the error of our scheme displays an optimal scaling. Finally, we provide a simple decomposition of the multipartite collision model into elementary quantum gates, and show that it is efficiently simulable on a quantum computer according to the dissipative quantum Church-Turing theorem, i.e., it requires a polynomial number of resources.


Random matrices play a crucial role in the design and analysis of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. In particular, performance of MIMO systems depends on the statistical properties of a subclass of random matrices known as Wishart when the propagation environment is characterized by Rayleigh or Rician fading. This paper focuses on the stochastic analysis of this class of matrices and proposes a general methodology to evaluate some multiple nested integrals of interest. With this methodology we obtain a closed-form expression for the joint probability density function of k consecutive ordered eigenvalues and, as a special case, the PDF of the lscrth ordered eigenvalue of Wishart matrices. The distribution of the largest eigenvalue can be used to analyze the performance of MIMO maximal ratio combining systems. The PDF of the smallest eigenvalue can be used for MIMO antenna selection techniques. Finally, the PDF the kth largest eigenvalue finds applications in the performance analysis of MIMO singular value decomposition systems.


Classical query optimization relies on a predefined set of rewrite rules to re-order and substitute SQL operators at a logical level. This paper proposes Blitz, a system that can synthesize efficient query-specific operators using automated program reasoning. Blitz uses static analysis to identify sub-queries as potential targets for optimization. For each sub-query, it constructs a template that defines a large space of possible operator implementations, all restricted to have linear time and space complexity. Blitz then employs program synthesis to instantiate the template and obtain a data-parallel operator implementation that is functionally equivalent to the original sub-query up to a bound on the input size. Program synthesis is an undecidable problem in general and often difficult to scale, even for bounded inputs. Blitz therefore uses a series of analyses to judiciously use program synthesis and incrementally construct complex operators. We integrated Blitz with existing big-data query languages by embedding the synthesized operators back into the query as User Defined Operators. We evaluated Blitz on several production queries from Microsoft running on two state-of-the-art query engines: SparkSQL as well as Scope, the big-data engine of Microsoft. Blitz produces correct optimizations despite the synthesis being bounded. The resulting queries have much more succinct query plans and demonstrate significant performance improvements on both big-data systems (1.3x --- 4.7x).


Metabolism of locally applied 17&bgr;-estradiol (estradiol) to methoxyestradiols contributes to the growth inhibiting effects of estradiol on vascular smooth muscle cells via an estrogen receptor (ER)-independent mechanism. Because vascular smooth muscle cells are phenotypically similar to glomerular mesangial cells, it is feasible that estradiol inhibits glomerular mesangial cell growth via a similar mechanism, and this possibility was investigated. In human glomerular mesangail cells, estradiol concentration dependently (1 to 100 nmol/L) inhibited serum-induced proliferation (cell number) and DNA (3[H]-thymidine incorporation) and collagen (3[H]-proline incorporation) synthesis. The inhibitory effects of estradiol were mimicked by 2-hydroxyestradiol and 2-methoxyestradiol, metabolites of estradiol with little affinity for ERs. 2-Hydroxyestradiol and 2-methoxyestradiol were more potent growth inhibitors than estradiol. The inhibitory effects of estradiol were enhanced by CYP450 inducers 3-methylcholanthrene (10 &mgr;mol/L) and phenobarbital (10 &mgr;mol/L) and blocked by the CYP450 inhibitor 1-aminobenzotriazole (10 &mgr;mol/L). The growth inhibitory effects of estradiol were also blocked by quercetin (10 &mgr;mol/L) and OR 486 (10 &mgr;mol/L) inhibitors of catechol-O-methyltransferase (converts catecholestradiols to methoxyestradiols). ICI182780 (ER antagonist with ER binding affinity similar to estradiol) blocked the growth inhibitory effects of estradiol (1 to 100 nmol/L) only at concentrations (>50 &mgr;mol/L) that inhibited estradiol metabolism to catecholestradiols. The growth inhibitory effects of 2-hydroxyestradiol were abrogated by quercetin and OR486 (two structurally dissimilar catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitors), but not by ICI182780. However, the growth inhibitory effects of 2-methoxyestradiol were unaltered by catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitors and ICI182780. In conclusion, our findings provide the first evidence that methoxyestradiols mediate the growth inhibitory effects of locally applied estradiol on glomerular mesangial cell growth via an ER-independent mechanism.


Phytoextraction, the use of hyperaccumulator plant species to scavenge toxic heavy metals from contaminated soils are considered as an emerging technique for cost effective and environment friendly detoxification. The present study was conducted to evaluate and compare the scavenging efficiency of in-vivo grown climber plants, that is Cvcitmis sativus, Armenian cucumber, Lufa acutangula, Momordica charantia descourt and Lagenaria siceraria for the uptake of Nickel and lead using atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). Bioassays of field grown ( In-vivo ) plants were subjected to atomic absorption spectrophotometer for the analysis of scavenging efficiency of the aforementioned elements, after 98 days of growth in soils, contaminated with each of these, separately. The in-vivo grown climber plants absorbed much lesser amounts of Ni, that is, 0.79, 1.05, 0.45 and 1.61 ppm as compared to Pb plants which showed higher ranges of uptake, that is, 2.09, 10.39, 4.77 and 8.29 ppm, respectively. The metal uptake ratios were proportional to their concentrations in the contaminated soils. Maximum uptake for heavy metals was observed by the roots in all plants. Nodes also showed high heavy metal accumulation in the aerial region. Higher concentration of heavy metals in the soil showed a negative effect on their growth.


Abstract This paper deals about the robust stabilization of uncertain systems with time-varying state delays in the delay dependent framework. The system is represented using LFR and stability is deduced from Lyapunov-Krasovskii theorem and full-block S-procedure. We derive sufficient conditions to the existence of a robust H infin; state-feedback control law. As this sufficient condition is expressed in terms of NMI we propose a relaxation based on the cone-complementary algorithm which is known to lead to good results for such problems. We show the efficiency of our method trough an example.


To the Editor.— Caterpillar dermatitis has been recognized since Roman times. Several types of caterpillar spines can irritate the skin by direct contact. Hypodermal glands supply the hollow spines with poison. 1,2 Cocoon dermatitis is less well recognized. 2 The caterpillar breaks off the poisonous spines and incorporates them into the cocoon as protection during pupation. I report the case of a patient who unknowingly encountered such a cocoon. Report of a Case.— An 18-year-old man was seen at University Health Service, Madison, Wis, with an inflamed, swollen left middle finger of 3 days duration. It had started as an itchy stinging sensation following yardwork. He had worn his father's work gloves while mowing the lawn. He denied contact with chemicals. Physical examination revealed a healthy young man with an acutely swollen, tender, erythematous left middle finger. Tiny vesicles were noted on the dorsoradial aspect. Treatment was initiated with dicloxicillin


In terms of mathematical structure, the voltage-conductance kinetic systems for neural networks can be compared to a kinetic equations with a macroscopic limit which turns out to be the Integrate and Fire equation. This article is devoted to mathematical study of the slow-fast limit of the kinetic type equation to an I&F equation. After proving the weak convergence of the voltage-conductance kinetic problem to potential only I&F equation, we study the main qualitative properties of the solution of the I&F model, with respect to the strength of interconnections of the network. In particular, we obtain asymptotic convergence to a unique stationary state for weak connectivity regimes. For intermediate connectivities, we prove linear instability and numerically exhibit periodic solutions. These results about the I&F model suggest that the more complex kinetic equation shares some similar dynamics.


The present study investigated the utility of brief experimental analysis applied to reinforcer assessments in providing a data-based course of treatment targeting food consumption for an adult with Anorexia. Results of two brief experimental analyses indicated the subject consumed more grams of food during the contingent positive attention condition when compared to three other conditions. A brief extended analysis based on the results of the experimental analyses found that positive attention increased the subject's food consumption during lunch and dinner. Results provide preliminary evidence for using brief experimental analyses for identifying contingent relationships between food consumption and maintaining reinforcers. This might be helpful for those developing prescriptive treatments to increase food consumption of adults with Anorexia.


Background In clinical trials with imaging, Blinded Independent Central Review (BICR) with double reads ensures data blinding and reduces bias in drug evaluations. As double reads can cause discrepancies, evaluations require close monitoring which substantially increases clinical trial costs. We sought to document the variability of double reads at baseline, and variabilities across individual readers and lung trials. Material and methods We retrospectively analyzed data from five BICR clinical trials evaluating 1720 lung cancer patients treated with immunotherapy or targeted therapy. Fifteen radiologists were involved. The variability was analyzed using a set of 71 features derived from tumor selection, measurements, and disease location. We selected a subset of readers that evaluated ≥50 patients in ≥two trials, to compare individual reader's selections. Finally, we evaluated inter-trial homogeneity using a subset of patients for whom both readers assessed the exact same disease locations. Significance level was 0.05. Multiple pair-wise comparisons of continuous variables and proportions were performed using one-way ANOVA and Marascuilo procedure, respectively. Results Across trials, on average per patient, target lesion (TL) number ranged 1.9 to 3.0, sum of tumor diameter (SOD) 57.1 to 91.9 mm. MeanSOD=83.7 mm. In four trials, MeanSOD of double reads was significantly different. Less than 10% of patients had TLs selected in completely different organs and 43.5% had at least one selected in different organs. Discrepancies in disease locations happened mainly in lymph nodes (20.1%) and bones (12.2%). Discrepancies in measurable disease happened mainly in lung (19.6%). Between individual readers, the MeanSOD and disease selection were significantly different (p<0.001). In inter-trials comparisons, on average per patient, the number of selected TLs ranged 2.1 to 2.8, MeanSOD 61.0 to 92.4 mm. Trials were significantly different in MeanSOD (p<0.0001) and average number of selected TLs (p=0.007). The proportion of patients having one of the top diseases was significantly different only between two trials for lung. Significant differences were observed for all other disease locations (p<0.05). Conclusions We found significant double read variabilities at baseline, evidence of reading patterns and a means to compare trials. Clinical trial reliability is influenced by the interplay of readers, patients and trial design.


Ion etching has proven itself particularly useful as a method of preparation used for the investigation of special materials. By ion bombardement, the surfaces of materials can be etched or removed in a characteristic way. Ion beam etching of specimens in the electron microscopy is used, in particular where conventional chemical or electro-chemical thinning techniques fail, such as in examination of microstructures in metallography and ceramography. In these fields however, only relatively few of the methods for ion etching have been standardised. The purpose of this series of articles is therefore to demonstrate the possibilities, advantages and disadvantages of this type of etching technique for metallographical preparation. In the series of articles, the practical use of the different ion etching techniques is described, together with the theory of ion etching and the effect that the various parameters have on the sputtering rate.


ABSTRACT Objective: The present paper presents a brief overview on network analysis as a statistical approach for health psychology researchers. Networks comprise graphical representations of the relationships (edges) between variables (nodes). Network analysis provides the capacity to estimate complex patterns of relationships and the network structure can be analysed to reveal core features of the network. This paper provides an overview of networks, how they can be visualised and analysed, and presents a simple example of how to conduct network analysis in R using data on the Theory Planned Behaviour (TPB). Method: Participants (n = 200) completed a TPB survey on regular exercise. The survey comprised items on attitudes, normative beliefs, perceived behavioural control, and intentions. Data were analysed to examine the network structure of the variables. The EBICglasso was applied to the partial correlation matrix. Results: The network structure reveals the variation in relationships between the items. The network split into three distinct communities of items. The affective attitude item was the central node in the network. However, replication of the network in larger samples to produce more stable and robust estimates of network indices is required. Conclusions: The reported network reveals that the affective attitudinal variable was the most important node in the network and therefore interventions could prioritise targeting changing the emotional responses to exercise. Network analysis offers the potential for insight into structural relations among core psychological processes to inform the health psychology science and practice.


Improved understanding of the central North American rift system (CNARS) offers a new interpretation of the basement structure in certain parts of the Mid-Continent. In eastern Kansas, basement structure can be shown to control oil production from some producing fields. Structural End_Page 1324------------------------------ control includes rotated blocks along faults created by horst and graben tectonics typically associated with rift zones. A distinctive gravity signature, the Mid-Continent geophysical anomaly (MGA) is related directly to the CNARS and provides good data for interpretation of the basement structure. Some oil fields can be correlated directly with gravity-interpreted basement structure. Aeromagnetic and Landsat information, combined with the gravity data, further define exploration targets along the general trend of basement features. Migration of thermally matured hydrocarbons into pre-Pennsylvanian, rift generated traps in the ancestral north Kansas basin is postulated. The Nemaha ridge subsequently divided that basin into two smaller basins, the present Salina and Forest City basins. Several exploration targets could exist in this area, with the Arbuckle, Simpson, and Viola units being primary targets. The source of hydrocarbons also may lie in the deep but distant Anadarko basin. An additional totally untested hydrocarbon potential exists in the deep Precambrian/Cambrian sedimentary subbasins created along the flanks of the CNARS. Recent data points to sedimentary columns with depths of approximately 15,000 ft (4,500 m) which might be hosts to gas reserves similar to the Rome trough potential of the Appalachian region. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1325------------


The prison population in the United States has grown fivefold in the last 27 years. Like the general population, the inmate population is aging. With age comes infirmity, disability, and chronic conditions that may, over the course of years or decades, lead to death. Inmates enter the prison system in poorer health than their age-matched free counterparts. A growing number of inmates will die in prison. A few will receive medical or compassionate release in order to die "outside the walls." Whether inside or outside, these dying men and women are entitled to receive high quality health care, including palliative care. Dying inmates face many of the same issues as the terminally ill in free society. However, death behind bars also poses some unique challenges to the dying, their prison family, their biological family, their caregivers and health care providers, custody staff, prison administration, and society as a whole. Social workers can play an important role in the care of these individuals and the people they are connected to both in prison and beyond its confines. This article provides important background for understanding the unique and the ubiquitous aspects of dying inmates and offers direction to social work professionals in serving these inmates, their loved ones, their custodians, and the larger society.


During seismic imaging in anisotropic media, undesired SV waves may be detected when conventional wave equations are used for wavefield simulation, which will contaminate the final seismic image. A pure qP-wave equation that is free of S-wave artifacts is desired, such that crosstalk introduced from the interference of different waves can be eliminated. We have developed a new fully decoupled P-wave equation in transversely isotropic media with titled symmetry axis that avoids unwanted energy during migration. The qP and qSV phase velocities for the new approximations are plotted and compared with the exact solution and some other approximations and indicate high accuracy for various anisotropic models (from low to high degrees of anisotropy). During wavefield simulation, the finite-difference and pseudospectral methods also are combined to accelerate the computation. Moreover, a hybrid perfectly matched layer (H-PML) that combines two different perfectly matched layers for second-order wave equations in the wavenumber domain also is proposed and applied to eliminate the artificial boundary reflections. Comparisons of different absorbing boundary layers also are illustrated to validate the wavenumber domain H-PML. Finally, the new proposed wave approximation together with the new absorbing layer is further incorporated in a new 3D anisotropic reverse time migration (RTM). We test the RTM on the 3D synthetic SEAM data and offshore field data with a complicated overburden (salt and gas overburden) and obtain seismic images with high resolution. Benchmarks against commercial implementations also are demonstrated, which proves that the positioning of the reflectors is more reliable and accurate with the new algorithm.


There have been phase rules of coexistence point sets (Gibbs phase rule) and of critical point sets (Griffiths phase rule) in one order parameter systems. Other than these singular point sets, we have complex singular point sets like the critical end point and the critical double point which are attracting attentions recently. The generalized phase rule has been proved for all of these singluar point sets in a system with an arbitrary number of order parameters. It includes the Gibbs phase rule and the Griffiths phase rule as special cases. All possible singular point sets and their variance in relatively simple physical systems are also tabulated from the point of view of the catastrophe theory.


In 2020, an international group of experts proposed to replace the term of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease with metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD). This recent proposal reflects the close association of fatty liver with metabolic derangements, as demonstrated by previous robust data. Several factors [including genetics, inflammation, metabolic abnormalities, insulin resistance (IR), obesity, prenatal determinants, and gut-liver axis] have been found to be involved in MAFLD pathophysiology, but this tangled puzzle remains to be clearly understood. In particular, IR has been recognized as a key player in metabolic impairments development in children with fatty liver. On this ground, MAFLD definition focuses on the pathophysiological basis of the disease, by emphasizing the crucial role of metabolic impairments in this condition. Although primarily developed for adults, MAFLD diagnostic criteria have been recently updated with an age-appropriate definition for sex and age percentiles, because of the increasing attention to cardiometabolic risk in childhood. To date, accumulating evidence is available on the feasibility of MAFLD definition in clinical practice, but some data are still conflicting in highly selected populations. Considering the growing prevalence worldwide of fatty liver and its close relationship with metabolic dysfunction both in children and adults with subsequent increased cardiovascular risk, early strategies for MAFLD identification, treatment and prevention are needed. Novel therapeutic insights for MAFLD based on promising innovative biological techniques are also emerging. We aimed to summarize the most recent evidence in this intriguing research area both in children and adults.


Background - The neonatal mortality corresponds to almost half of deaths in children under 5 years old, according to information from the World Health Organization, the neonatal sepsis is the cause of a significant portion of these deaths. The non-specific clinical findings and the low sensitivity of blood culture hinder the diagnosis of sepsis and contribute to the overuse of antibiotics. Objective - to describe the epidemiological profile and diagnosis of HAI and early neonatal sepsis in a referral neonatal unit. Methods – This is a cohort made in a neonatal unit of reference for high obstetric risk and neonatal care. Results - It was observed that most cases of sepsis and health-related infections (HAIs) were used as clinical sepsis without a specific location, with a higher incidence in neonates of lower weight, that is the main isolated Gram-positive microorganism. The Empirical antibiotic therapy was introduced in these cases and propaedeutics performed contributed to the definitive diagnosis or suspension of antimicrobials, when the suspicion of infection was ruled out. Conclusion - A low percentage of microorganism isolation was observed in cases of early neonatal sepsis with a large number of clinical neonatal sepsis cases treated with antimicrobials. The need for a more accurate diagnosis to reduce empirical impacts is emphasized, and the use of tools that use clinical symptoms and maternal risk factors to reduce their use is recommended. Key words :  Neonatal sepsis; Streptococcus agalactiae; newborn, infant; Diseases; Antimicrobial agents.


INTRODUCTION
Motion sickness remains a significant problem for aircrew both in the flying environment (airsickness) and for aircrew deployed at sea (seasickness). While some anti-motion-sickness medications provide reasonable efficacy, adverse neurocognitive effects limit their use in military personnel engaged in safety-sensitive operational roles such as flying. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact on psychomotor performance of promethazine, meclizine, and dimenhydrinate and to determine if the addition of pseudoephedrine or damphetamine to promethazine would ameliorate its adverse effects.

METHODS
There were 21 subjects (11 men, 10 women), aged 22-59, who were assessed for psychomotor performance on 4 tasks as well as with sleepiness and drug side-effects questionnaires. Psychomotor testing was conducted prior to, and for 7 h after, ingestion of a single dose of each of placebo, promethazine 25 mg, meclizine 50 mg, dimenhydrinate 50 mg, promethazine 25 mg plus pseudoephedrine 60 mg, and promethazine 25 mg plus d-amphetamine 10 mg.

RESULTS
Relative to placebo, promethazine, meclizine, and promethazine plus pseudoephedrine impaired performance on all four tasks [serial reaction time (SRT), logical reasoning (LRT), serial subraction (SST), and multitask (MT)]. Dimenhydrinate impaired performance on the SRT only. Promethazine plus d-amphetamine did not impair performance on any task nor did it result in increased sleepiness. The times to recovery of normal performance for SRT with promethazine, meclizine, dimenhydrinate, and promethazine plus pseudoephedrine were > 7.25, 7.25, 4.25, and 7.25 h, respectively; for LRT were > 7.25, > 7.25, ns, and 7.25 h; for SST were > 7.25, > 7.25, ns, and 7.25 h; for MT were 7.25, 7.25, ns, and 7.25 h. Recovery times to baseline sleepiness levels for promethazine, meclizine, dimenhydrinate, and promethazine plus pseudoephedrine were 7.25, > 7.25, 6.25, and > 7.25 h.

CONCLUSION
Only promethazine plus d-amphetamine was free from impact on psychomotor performance and did not increase sleepiness.


Two-particle femtoscopic correlations between non-identical charged particles for different charge combinations are measured in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The three-dimensional two-particle correlation functions are studied in different centrality bins. The femtoscopic source size parameter ($R_{Out}$) and emission asymmetry ($\mu$) are extracted. It is observed that the average source size of the system and emission asymmetry between particles increase from peripheral to central events.