Edible bird's nest (BN) is a Chinese traditional medicine with innumerable health benefits, including anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective, and immunomodulatory effects. A small number of studies have reported the anti-viral effects of EBN against influenza infections using in vitro and in vivo models, highlighting the importance of sialic acid and thymol derivatives in their therapeutic effects. At present, studies have reported that EBN suppresses the replicated virus from exiting the host cells, reduces the viral replication, endosomal trafficking of the virus, intracellular viral autophagy process, secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines, reorient the actin cytoskeleton of the infected cells, and increase the lysosomal degradation of viral materials. In other models of disease, EBN attenuates oxidative stress-induced cellular apoptosis, enhances proliferation and activation of B-cells and their antibody secretion. Given the sum of its therapeutic actions, EBN appears to be a candidate that is worth further exploring for its protective effects against diseases transmitted through air droplets. At present, anti-viral drugs are employed as the first-line defense against respiratory viral infections, unless vaccines are available for the specific pathogens. In patients with severe symptoms due to exacerbated cytokine secretion, anti-inflammatory agents are applied. Treatment efficacy varies across the patients, and in times of a pandemic like COVID-19, many of the drugs are still at the experimental stage. In this review, we present a comprehensive overview of anti-viral and anti-inflammatory effects of EBN, chemical constituents from various EBN preparation techniques, and drugs currently used to treat influenza and novel coronavirus infections. We also aim to review the pathogenesis of influenza A and coronavirus, and the potential of EBN in their clinical application. We also describe the current literature in human consumption of EBN, known allergenic or contaminant presence, and the focus of future direction on how these can be addressed to further improve EBN for potential clinical application.


Digital behaviour interventions aim to encourage and support people to change their behaviour, for their own or communal benefits. Personalization plays an important role in this, as the most effective persuasive and motivational strategies are likely to depend on user characteristics. This tutorial covers the role of personalization in behaviour change technology, and methods and techniques to design personalized behaviour change technology.


In this paper, we focus on different strategies of radio resource allocation in cellular mobile networks. The paper proposes two models of ordered allocation of the time slots in a frame (with or without time slots reserved for data traffic) and in such a way that the available resources for an user can be maximized if we take into account the number of consecutive idle time slots. The analytical model is presented and the probabilities of finding any given number of consecutive idle time slots for the different models are shown. The results are presented for three different scenarios, which have two, one or none reserved resources available just for data traffic. For the different scenarios the quality of service requirements of data traffic is compared, without degrading in any case the voice service.


This paper proposes an improved maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method for the photovoltaic (PV) system using a modified particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The main advantage of the method is the reduction of the steady- state oscillation (to practically zero) once the maximum power point (MPP) is located. Furthermore, the proposed method has the ability to track the MPP for the extreme environmental condition, e.g., large fluctuations of insolation and partial shading condition. The algorithm is simple and can be computed very rapidly; thus, its implementation using a low-cost microcontroller is possible. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, MATLAB simulations are carried out under very challenging conditions, namely step changes in irradiance, step changes in load, and partial shading of the PV array. Its performance is compared with the conventional Hill Climbing (HC) method. Finally, an experimental rig that comprises of a buck-boost converter fed by a custom-designed solar array simulator is set up to emulate the simulation. The soft- ware development is carried out in the Dspace 1104 environment using a TMS320F240 digital signal processor. The superiority of the proposed method over the HC in terms of tracking speed and steady-state oscillations is highlighted by simulation and experimental results.


An obvious anti-aging effect was found by Bushen Shengxue drug to treat Wistar rats. Using a method about incorporation of 3H-labeled methyl group of S-adenosyl-methionine (SAM) into DNA bases, the DNA methylase activity was assayed. The specific activity of DNA methylase was increased by treatment of this drug. The chromatographic behaviour of DNA methylase from rat liver was also changed. These results showed that the mechanism of anti-aging effect of this drug is probably related to DNA methylation.


This paper describes our speech synthesis system participating in the Vietnamese Text-To-Speech track of the 2021 VLSP evaluation campaign. The goal of this challenge is to build a synthetic voice from a provided spontaneous speech corpus in Vietnamese. In this paper, we propose our implementation of FastSpeech2 model on spontaneous speech. We used a special strategy with spontaneous datasets using the TTS system. We present our utilization in generating mel-spectrograms from given texts and then synthesize speech from generated mel-spectrograms using a separately trained vocoder. In evaluation, our team achieved 3.943 mean score in MOS in-domain test, 3.3 in MOS out-domain test, and 85.00% SUS, which indicates the effectiveness of the proposed system.


Low density polyethylene (LDPE), carbon black (CB), and oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fiber composites were prepared by melt blending and compression molded into sheets. The effects of incorporated fibers on the electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, tensile properties, and thermal degradation of the composites were investigated. FTIR results suggest that the OPEFB fibers interact poorly with the polymer matrix and lead to a decrease in mechanical properties. The electrical conductivity of the composites decreased with increasing OPEFB fiber content. Despite the slight decline in conductivity, the composites still were sufficiently conductive relative to applications such as sensors and electromagnetic shielding after the fiber addition. Reduction in thermal conductivity by as much as 10.9% was observed with the addition of 20% OPEFB fiber into LDPE/CB composites. The thermal stability of LDPE/CB/OPEFB fiber composites decreased with increasing fiber content because of the low thermal stability of the incorporated natural fiber.


The heterogeneous decarboxylative cross-coupling reaction of potassium polyfluorobenzoates with aryl iodides and bromides was achieved in diglyme or DMAc at 130 or 160 C in the presence of 10–20 mol% of a 1,10-phenanthroline-functionalized MCM-41-immobilized copper(I) complex, [MCM-41-PhenCuI], yielding a variety of polyfluorobiaryls in good to excellent yields. This heterogeneous copper(I) complex could easily be prepared via a simple procedure from commercially readily available and inexpensive reagents, exhibited the same catalytic activity as the homogeneous CuI/Phen system, and was recovered by filtration of the reaction solution and recycled at least 8 times without significant loss of catalytic activity.


The aim of the Molteni Museum in Giussano (MB, Italy) is to preserve the Group's historic memory, and to promote cultural initiatives that will further consolidate the company's image at every level - strategic, commercial, cultural and institutional - managing the historic archive as a source of inspiration for creating new products and re-editions. In order to spread design culture, the Museum produces design, architecture and photographic exhibitions, in Italy and abroad, using publishing and multimedia tools, and especially the language of cinema, to engage with the many local and international communities that enjoy relations with the Company. In addition to the Archive and the Museum, the Industrial Compound features two installations, the QallaM multimedia space and the Glass Cube.


: We investigated the bryophyte flora of the Gayasan Mountain National Park in Korea by conducting 18 field surveys in from April of 2009 to November of 2016 at various sites on the mountains. During the surveys, we discovered 204 taxa comprising 57 families, 106 genera, 199 species, 2 subspecies, and 3 varieties. Among these, 145 species were reported as new to the flora of Gayasan Mountain. A checklist based on a study of 903 specimens is provided. The most notable species recorded during the surveys were the rare bryophytes Hattoria yakushimensis (Horik.) R. M. Schust., Nipponolejeunea pilifera (Steph.) S. Hatt., Drepanolejeunea angustifolia (Mitt.) Grolle, Lejeuena otiana S. Hatt., Cylindrocolea recurvifolia (Steph.) Inoue and Pogonatum contortum (Menzies ex Brid.) Lesq.


Software reuse has received much attention since the concept was introduced in 1968. Software reuse itself is a broad concept that has many levels of meaning, ranging from strict code reuse, to design/analysis reuse, to entire application reuse. Reusable software components are designed to apply the power and benefit of reusable, interchangeable parts from other industries to the field of software construction. Component-based Software Engineering is an approach to software development that relies on software reuse. Benefits of component reuse are sharing common code, making components available at one place and making development easier and quicker. Many companies, especially those in the defence and aerospace fields, have setup successful reuse programs. However, not all reuse programs are successful. There are many barriers to software reuse which impede the successful implementation of software reuse in software development. The barriers can be broadly categorized into three aspects namely, technical aspect, managerial/organizational aspect and cultural aspect. Technical barriers can be considered from technical point of view like lack of tools, lack of technologies, lack of methodologies etc. Managerial barriers are related to management in the organization like lack of management support, lack of incentives. Any barrier which is related to any change in the organization or related to processes will be related to cultural barriers. This thesis identifies all the barriers to software reuse, the reason behind these barriers and provides the solution for the barriers.


An exploratory study of charmless 3-body decays of B mesons was performed using a simple model based on the framework of the factorization approach. Main results are reported.


The strange hadronic matter with nucleon, Λ-hyperon and Ξ-hyperon is studied by using a chiral symmetry model in a mean-field approximation. The saturation properties and stabilities of the strange hadronic matter are discussed. The result indicates a quite large strangeness fraction (fS) region where the strange hadronic matter is stable against particle emission. In the large fS region, the Ξ component dominates, resulting in a deep minimum in the curve of the binding energy per baryon EB versus the strangeness fraction fS with (EB, fS) ≃ (-26.0 MeV, 1.23).


Radiotherapy for left breast cancer may increase risk of cardiovascular diseases. Exposing the anterior portion of the heart and left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) to the highest radiation dose depends on individual anatomical location of these structures. The purpose of this work was to assess the radiation doses delivered to the heart and the LAD for the left sided breast cancer patients treated with 3D conformal radiotherapy. Thirty two randomly selected patients referred for adjuvant radiotherapy after conservation surgery for left sided breast cancer were evaluated. The whole heart, the arch of the LAD (LADarch) and the whole LAD were contoured. The radiation doses (Dmax, Dmean) to these three anatomical cardiac structures were evaluated. For all 32 patients, the assessed radiotherapy plans were acceptable based on the dose constraints to critical structures: heart, LADarch. The average mean doses (Dmean) to the heart are well below 5 Gy and 7,3 (range, 3,82 – 17,15 Gy) for the LADarch respectively. For 21,9% of patients, the Dmean to the heart and dose to the LADarch was relatively low while the Dmean to the whole LAD was considerably higher. Conclusion. Evaluation of the mean dose to the heart only could lead to excessive heart irradiation. The results of the study indicate that it is necessary to assess the dose delivered to the whole heart as well as to the whole LAD for evaluation of the left breast irradiation treatment plan. This is very important to minimise the risk of clinically significant cardiac events after left breast radiotherapy.


Background: Sacral chordomas are rare, slow growing, locally aggressive tumors. Unfortunately, aggressive surgical resection is often associated with increased neurological morbidity. Methods: This technical note focuses on the utilization of partial sacrectomy for the resection of complex spinal chordomas. Results: The case presented documents the potential range of postoperative morbidity seen in patients undergoing partial sacrectomy for chordomas. Despite iatrogenic morbidity and tumor recurrence, with the cooperation of medical and surgical spine specialists, majority of patients can achieve good long-term outcomes. Conclusions: Sacral chordomas are rare lesions and pose a therapeutic challenge for spinal surgeons and oncologists. En-bloc surgical resection (e.g., partial sacrectomy) is the treatment of choice for these lesions, and the cooperation between subspecialists can lead to good neurologic outcomes, particularly if gross total resection is achieved.


A laboratory simulation technique that is able to study in situ drying of ink jet printed ink drops and to predict results of ink jet printing on a given substrate before mass production has been developed. The technique includes drop formation (ink jetting), imaging, and data processing. The imaging and data processing parts of the system also enable analyzing industrially-printed materials. A possibility to predict mass production results using less then 1 ml of ink is demonstrated. High fl exibility makes the system applicable for different optimization tasks such as ink-substrate matching, ink formulation optimization, drying technology development, etc. By analyzing different quality parameters we give a rigorous defi nition of roundness and show its importance in evaluating print quality.


There are relatively few proposals for inconsistency measures for propositional belief bases. However inconsistency measures are potentially as important as information measures for artificial intelligence, and more generally for computer science. In particular, they can be useful to define various operators for belief revision, belief merging, and negotiation. The measures that have been proposed so far can be split into two classes. The first class of measures takes into account the number of formulae required to produce an inconsistency: the more formulae required to produce an inconsistency, the less inconsistent the base. The second class takes into account the proportion of the language that is affected by the inconsistency: the more propositional variables affected, the more inconsistent the base. Both approaches are sensible, but there is no proposal for combining them. We address this need in this paper: our proposal takes into account both the number of variables affected by the inconsistency and the distribution of the inconsistency among the formulae of the base. Our idea is to use existing inconsistency measures (ones that takes into account the proportion of the language affected by the inconsistency, and so allow us to look inside the formulae) in order to define a game in coalitional form, and then to use the Shapley value to obtain an inconsistency measure that indicates the responsibility/contribution of each formula to the overall inconsistency in the base. This allows us to provide a more reliable image of the belief base and of the inconsistency in it.


The present paper should be considered as a review of the application of Fourier Transform Infra-Red for surface clay characterization. The application of surface clay materials for water treatment, oil adsorption, excipients or as active in drugs has largely increased these recent years. The surface clay material presents hydroxyl groups, which can link very easily water molecules. These hydroxyl groups can react with organic groups and by their vibration in the infra-red region, FT-IR can be easily used as a technical method for surface clay characterization. In this paper, we focus on the determination of Lewis and Bronsted acid sites on the clay surface, a critical review of the sample preparation, the surface characterization of bulk clay and the modified surface clay samples using FT-IR spectroscopy.


A method is presented for determining a local measure of the amount of electromagnetic field propagation as a function of direction. This determination is made for the region near a given point by using the known field in the vicinity of that point within a given plane. The method is developed by assuming the parabolic equation approximation. Then the resulting equations are cast in the path integral form. A reformation of the path integral formulation is then developed. This reformation contains a quantity which is interpreted as a reasonable measure of the amount of field (amplitude) propagating in each direction. The relationship of this model to the plane-wave expansion technique is noted. The use of the method in two dimensions is illustrated by several numerical calculations. These numerical calculations are shown to be consistent with the predictions of the geometric theory of diffraction. >


Printing engineering is an interdisciplinary specialty which involves a lot of intercross subjects such as optical engineering, information engineering, material science and engineering, mechanical engineering, control science and engineering, computer engineering, software engineering and so on. Nowadays, as those subjects progress, the content of printing engineering specialty is increasingly expanded, which places additional difficulty to the printing engineering education. The applied optics course of printing specialty aims at explaining the fundamental principles of optics which involve in printing-related domain. Therefore, it is of great significance for students to understand the basic imaging rules of the related equipments and thus further understand the whole subject. This study describes our teaching experience for applied optics course in school of printing and packaging, Wuhan University in China. The current teaching problems of the printing specialty as a whole were firstly collected by interview and questionnaire method. Afterwards, basing on the analysis of the problems, the specific teaching methods were proposed. The results showed that the teaching objectives were almost achieved and the vast majority of students were glad to accept such teaching methods.


Innovative financing strategies for global health are urgently needed to reinvigorate investment and new tools for impact. Bottleneck areas along the research and development (R&D) pipeline require particular attention, such as the transitions from preclinical discovery to clinical study, and product development to implementation and delivery. Successful organizations mobilizing and disbursing resources through innovating financing mechanisms include UNITAID, the Global Fund, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Although precise numbers are poorly documented, estimated investment in low-income settings falls seriously short of local need. This commentary discusses the newly established Global Health Investment Fund as a case study to support late-stage global health R&D.


We describe two different strategies for electrical modulation of terahertz radiation. The first relies on active metamaterial arrays, while the second uses the extraordinary optical transmission through a sub-wavelength plasmonic structure. In both cases, the transmission is switched by using an external bias to control the free electron carrier density in the substrate. These modulators are characterized by high contrast, high speed, and low cross-talk, which enables applications in real-time terahertz imaging.


We consider the problem of estimating the K-factor of a Rician fading wireless channel based on observations of the envelope only, i.e., without phase-information. An approximate Rician power density function (pdf) is introduced to overcome the complexity of the exact pdf. A closed-form maximum-likelihood estimator is derived based on this approximate Rician pdf, while a maximum-likelihood estimator based on the exact Rician pdf appears to be infeasible. An improved estimator is also proposed that features less bias and less variance than the first estimator. The performance of the latter estimator is compared to moment-based estimators that were previously proposed in the literature and is found to have superior performance to closed-form moment estimators, especially for low sample numbers and/or large K-values. The estimator is applied to real wireless macro-cell urban-area measurements. The results show generally low K-factors (below 3dB), with occasional higher values in particular circumstances.


The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement proposed by Francis M. Deng in 1998 offer three durable solutions to internal displacement. States are not unwilling alliances when it comes to drawing up elaborate policies as solutions in the best interests of their displaced populations, but which also, albeit most importantly, help to preserve the fragile national security situation of which IDPs are often a product. By counter-posing such dominant government and/or policy discourses on return to the lived realities of IDPs in a dynamic war-torn context, the paper seeks to highlight the 'subaltern' narratives of conflict-displaced IDPs in Vavuniya, in northern Sri Lanka, with regard to the solutions they consider viable in the face of ongoing conflict. Policy narratives and the discursive practices they produce, as well as an eclectic consideration of various concepts, should be useful in understanding not only the policy practices but also the extent to which the displaced are (or are not) part of the solutions that claim to address their displacement. Accordingly, a qualitative method of enquiry was judged to be a relevant approach to answering the question of whether the voices of internally displaced people (IDPs) feature in the discourses claiming to provide a solution to their displacement. The method was applied in an attempt to bring to the fore the perceptions and meanings which IDPs in Vavuniya assign to policies implemented on their behalf.


When homogenates of cat or rat superior cervical ganglia in Krebs-Ringer solution were incubated at 37 degrees C, the ensuing decrease in acetylcholinesterase (acetylcholine acylhydrolase, EC 126.96.36.199) activity was increased significantly by prior administration in vivo of tetramonoisopropylpyrophosphotetramide at doses that produced selective alkylphosphorylation of butyrylcholinesterase or propionylcholinesterase. These findings are consistent with the proposal that the latter enzymes are posttranscriptional precursors of acetylcholinesterase. Results of similar studies with homogenates of ganglia in water or in M NaCl/1% Triton X-100 were inconclusive, as were those of heat-inactivation studies and immunoprecipitation of the enzymes.


Background

To summary the clinical characteristics of common primary adrenal malignancies in adults, the survival time of the patients, and the prognostic factors associated with these rare malignancies.
Methods

The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (1975–2016) was queried for all patients who were diagnosed with primary adrenal malignancies, including adrenocortical carcinoma(ACC), pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma (PPGL), lymphoma, and sarcoma (SA). The clinical characteristics, overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) were analyzed, in which propensity score methodology, logistic regression modeling and Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used. The Multivariate Cox proportional hazard model was used to identify factors affecting the prognosis of patients with ACC.
Results

3204 patients with primary adrenal malignancies were identified, including 2180 with ACC, 593 with PPGL, 307 with lymphoma, and 124 with SA. Generally, PPGL had a better prognosis than others. For ACC and PPGL, the non-metastatic group had better OS and CSS than the metastatic group; for SA, the non-metastatic group had better OS, however, there was no significant difference in CSS between the two groups. Furthermore, For ACC, the single metastasis group had a better OS than the multiple metastasis group. After tumors metastasis, the surgery group, surgery of primary adrenal lesions, had better OS and CSS than the non-surgery group for ACC and PPGL. For lymphoma, the chemotherapy group had better OS and CSS; for ACC and PPGL, the chemotherapy group had better CSS and worse OS; for SA, the survival showed no significant difference between the two groups. Radiotherapy had the same effect on patients' survival as chemotherapy, except for the lymphoma and the ACC. As for lymphoma, the radiotherapy group had better CSS, whereas the survival showed no significant difference in OS between the two groups. For ACC, the non- radiotherapy group had better CSS and OS. More importantly, for lymphoma, under the condition that both cohorts were the same basically, the surgical group had a better prognosis. The prognosis of ACC was related to sex, age, seer historic stage, surgery, chemotherapy.
Conclusion

Understanding the clinical characteristics of these tumors and factors affecting prognosis can facilitate the selection of more appropriate clinical treatment options.


We discuss recent papers by Hartle, Hawking and Hertog, which proposed that quantum cosmology could predict an inflating universe in models with negative scalar potentials. Here we show that this is a result of an underlying symmetry which is manifest in both classical and quantum theory. Moreover, we show that inflating solutions in such models generally develop tachyonic and ghost instabilities and are therefore unphysical in realistic theories.


signs. If an abscess still cannot be found after investigation, whatever alternative diagnosis may be offered, that of cerebral abscess must remain under consideration until the patient has recovered. If the source of infection remains, or if a congenital heart lesion is still present, there is a risk of further infection, while in any inadequately treated abscess there is always a risk of its recrudescence. The primary focus of infection must be treated together with the cerebral abscess, and meningitis demands urgent control if it is present. Nevertheless, systemic antibiotics, even in massive doses, cannot reach the contents of an abscess or affect areas of brain which lack a blood supply. They may control infection in the surrounding tissue, but an abscess can be sterilized only by evacuating its contents and replacing them with an antibiotic ; alternatively the abscess and its capsule may be excised. Epilepsy is the chief hazard to the patient who has recovered, but it can usually be controlled adequately by drugs, and possibly by excision of the capsule if this has not been done already. Other disabilities may be a sequel to damage occurring at the time of acute infection. There is certainly much more to be learnt about the diagnosis and management of cerebral abscesses before the problem can be considered to have been solved.


ABSTRACT In this article, we study the C4- and D4-modules in terms of perspective direct summands, providing new characterizations and results. Endomorphism rings of C4-modules and extensions of right C4-rings are also investigated. Decompositions of C4-modules with restricted ACC on direct summands and D4-modules with restricted DCC on direct summands are obtained.


Objective: To determine the complications of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in patients of acute cholecystitis. Study Design: Prospective study. Place & Duration: Department of Surgery, Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar for duration of six months from January 2020 to June 2020. Methods: Total 120 patients of both genders with ages 20 to 60 years were included in this study. Patients' detailed demographics were recorded after taking written consent. Patients with history of abdominal surgery were excluded. All the patients underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy for gall bladder diseases. Post-operative pain was analyzed by VAS. Complications were recorded at 5th postoperative day. Data was analyzed by SPSS 24.0. Results: Out of 120 patients 30 (25%) patients were males and 75% patients were females. Most of the patients 50 (41.67%) were in the age group 31 to 40 years followed by 37 (30.83%) patients were ages between 41 to 50 years. 70 (58.33%) patients had surgical size port incision was 5mm and 50 (41.67%) patients had 10mm. Mean pain score was 2.24+1.1 at 5th postoperative day. Wound infection was found in 10 (8.33%). Port site hernia was found in 12 (10%). Conclusion: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is safe and effective treatment procedure with no major complications. Keywords: Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy, Acute Cholecystitis, Wound Infection, Port Site Hernia, Pain


In this paper we propose a group management specification and execution method that seeks a compromise between simple course design and complex adaptive group interaction. This is achieved through an authoring method that proposes predefined scenarios to the author. These scenarios already include complex learning interaction protocols in which student and group models use and update are automatically included. The method adopts ontologies to represent domain and student models, and object Petri nets to specify the group interaction protocols. During execution, the method is supported by a multi-agent architecture.


We propose SAINT+, a successor of SAINT which is a Transformer based knowledge tracing model that separately processes exercise information and student response information. Following the architecture of SAINT, SAINT+ has an encoder-decoder structure where the encoder applies self-attention layers to a stream of exercise embeddings, and the decoder alternately applies self-attention layers and encoder-decoder attention layers to streams of response embeddings and encoder output. Moreover, SAINT+ incorporates two temporal feature embeddings into the response embeddings: elapsed time, the time taken for a student to answer, and lag time, the time interval between adjacent learning activities. We empirically evaluate the effectiveness of SAINT+ on EdNet, the largest publicly available benchmark dataset in the education domain. Experimental results show that SAINT+ achieves state-of-the-art performance in knowledge tracing with an improvement of 1.25% in area under receiver operating characteristic curve compared to SAINT, the current state-of-the-art model in EdNet dataset.


Extraction of the aerial parts of Heliotropium indicum was conducted by continuous and exhaustive extraction of the powdered plant material using petroleum spirit (60-80oC) and methanol as solvents respectively. The extracts were obtained by concentration in vacuo at 40oC using rotary evaporator. Phytochemical screening of the extracts showed the presence of Alkaloids, saponins, tannins, glycosides and flavonoids while phlobotamins, steroids, coumarin and cardiac glycosides are absent in all the crude extracts. The antimicrobial screening of the extracts showed significant zones of inhibition against 70% of the test organisms. The Minimum Inhibition Concentration (MIC), Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) and Minimum Fungicidal Concentration (MFC) against various organisms were conducted. The antimicrobial analysis of the isolated components was also conducted. These prove the folkloric usage of the plant and also indicated a broad spectrum activity of the plant extracts. The methanolic extract afforded white crystalline solids which were characterized using Infra-red Spectroscopy and Gas-Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS) to be Indicum1, 2, 3 and 4.


Telomerase, the enzyme responsible for the length maintenance of telomeres is expressed in about 85% of cancer cells, being a key to tumorigenesis. Telomerase inhibitor drugs have been studied as a promising cancer therapy due to its specificity, with less side effects than conventional approach. However, the effects expected from these therapy require many cell divisions, and the consequences of these long-term therapies are poorly understood. This work evaluated the effects of a long term treatment in cancer cells (HeLa) using BRACO-19, a G-quadruplex-interactive molecule, evaluating the consequences of its use in cell viability and its potential to induce senescence. Telomerase positive HeLa cells were grown in DMEM medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum at pattern conditions. Culture medium was changed every 2 days. For preliminary citotoxicity assay, cells were seeded in 96 wells plate at 3.2x104 cells/cm2, incubated for 24 hours and treated for 24 hours with increasing concentrarions of BRACO-19 and vehicle (0.1% H2O). Cell viability was measured by MTT assay. For the long-term treatment, a subtoxic concentration was chosen. The cells (5.5x102 cells/cm2) were grown under continuous presence of the drug or 0.02% H2O for 11 weeks. During the long-term exposure to BRACO-19, the cells were splitted every 7 - 20 days, depending on its proliferation rate, viable and unviable cells were counted at these points through trypan blue dye exclusion assay. β-Galactosidase (β-gal) activity was used as cell senescence marker to evaluate the senescence after 24 hours treatment and after a long exposure to the telomerase inhibitor. Changes in cell morphology were accessed by phase contrast microscopy. The short-term (24h) treatment with BRACO-19 showed a dose-dependent effect on cell viability. The IC50% for HeLa was 5.25 µM. The subtoxic concentration of 1µM was used for long-term treatment, showing effect on cell proliferation in a way that HeLa cells exposed to the drug showed their proliferative profile decreased when compared to control. Furthemore, no senescent cells were found in control group, even after many passages; on the other hand, 24 hours and long-term exposure to BRACO-19 led to senescence. Long-term treatment was also associated with visual changes on cell morphology. The telomerase inhibitor BRACO-19 showed an expected dose-dependent effect on HeLa cells at short-term exposition, since cytotoxic effect of this compound has been demonstrated in several cell lines, but the impact of the long-term treatment on cell proliferation pattern points BRACO-19 as a potential prototype of a new telomere related drug for cancer therapy. Also, it was demonstrated the senescence inducing action of this drug, perhaps due to erosion of HeLa telomeres. These results show that HeLa is sensitive do BRACO-19 even under subtoxic concentrations. Its effectiveness against other cell lines and tumors is under investigation. Citation Format: Ana Flavia Reis Guimaraes, Diego M. de Oliveira. Effect of long term treatment with BRACO 19 on HeLa proliferation and senescence [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3476. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-3476


Diamond-based T1 relaxometry is a new technique that allows nanoscale magnetic resonance measurements. Here we present its first application in patient samples. More specifically, we demonstrate that relaxometry can determine the free radical load in samples from arthritis patients. We found that we can clearly differentiate between osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis patients in both the synovial fluid itself and cells derived from it. Furthermore, we tested how synovial fluid and its cells respond to piroxicam, a common nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). It is known that this drug leads to a reduction in reactive oxygen species production in fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS). Here, we investigated the formation of free radicals specifically. While FLS from osteoarthritis patients showed a drastic decrease in the free radical load, cells from rheumatoid arthritis retained a similar radical load after treatment. This offers a possible explanation for why piroxicam is more beneficial for patients with osteoarthritis than those with rheumatoid arthritis.


Decoste et al 1 report on transfusion-associated graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) in this issue of theArchivesand raise important considerations for dermatologists evaluating morbilliform erythemas and exanthems. In healthy individuals, such eruptions are frequently attributed (correctly or otherwise) to a drug sensitivity or reaction, often on criteria of history and temporal association. Occasionally, infectious origins are delineated by more objective criteria. Transient erythemas after a transfusion may be attributed to suspected minor mismatches in blood types, if no other cause is found. However, dermatologists must consider an infrequent but catastrophic process in patients with malignancy or immune deficiency, and even in immunocompetent patients, who receive blood or blood component transfusions. Graft-vs-host disease acquired from nonirradiated blood transfusions is a well-recognized and usually fatal complication, reported mostly in patients with malignancies. It manifests as a fever, preceding or associated with a morbilliform or follicular erythema, followed by erythroderma, elevated values for


Assessing generative models is not an easy task. Generative models should synthesize graphs which are not replicates of real networks but show topological features similar to real graphs. We introduce an approach for assessing graph generative models using graph classifiers. The inability of an established graph classifier for distinguishing real and synthesized graphs could be considered as a performance measurement for graph generators.


BACKGROUND
The extent of serious complications in people who have acquired chronic hepatitis C infection after a blood transfusion is unclear.

METHODS
We studied 131 patients with chronic post-transfusion hepatitis C who were referred to our center between February 1980 and June 1994. Eighty-two other patients were excluded because they had multiple transfusions, hemophilia, intravenous drug use, human immunodeficiency virus infection, hepatitis B infection, hemochromatosis, or alcoholic liver disease. Liver biopsies were performed in 101 patients; biopsies were not performed in the other 30 patients, all with signs of cirrhosis, because the results of coagulation tests were abnormal.

RESULTS
The mean age of the patients was 57 years (range, 21 to 81) at the time of our initial evaluation. The mean age at the time of the blood transfusion was 35 years (range, 1 to 76). The mean duration of follow-up after presentation to us was 3.9 years (range, 1 to 15). Eighty-eight of the patients (67.2 percent) initially had fatigue, and 89 (67.9 percent) had hepatomegaly. Twenty-seven patients (20.6 percent) initially had chronic hepatitis, 30 (22.9 percent) had chronic active hepatitis, 67 (51.1 percent) had cirrhosis, and 7 (5.3 percent) had hepatocellular carcinoma. Hepatocellular carcinoma developed in an additional seven patients an average of 36 months (range, 7 to 121) after the initial visit. During follow-up, 20 patients (15.3 percent) died: 8 from complications of cirrhosis (1 after a liver transplantation); 11 from hepatocellular carcinoma; and 1, with chronic active hepatitis, from pneumonia.

CONCLUSIONS
In a group of patients seen at a referral center, chronic post-transfusion hepatitis C was a progressive disease and, in some patients, led to death from either liver failure or hepatocellular carcinoma.


The role of 'inclusiveness' in assessing the legitimacy of international negotiations assumes a central position in both theoretical and empirical studies of conflict-management and resolution. The focus of this scholarship, however, has been often restricted to the dynamics of physical participation and reciprocal communication without paying due attention to the discursive and linguistic level at which intersubjective understanding occurs. This article re-conceptualizes inclusiveness as a discursive practice and develops a multidimensional framework to assess its implications within the context of international conflict resolution. Building on previous work on linguistics and metaphor analysis, we develop four categories that are used to assess the level discursive inclusiveness of Hamas in the Israeli government's official statements after 2006 and preceding the 2010 peace talks: (i) war-like; (ii) criminal-like; (iii) evil-like; and (iv) adversary-like. Furthermore, we show how the circumstances in which statements were made (i.e. their field of action) further influence the metaphorical structure of the Israeli official discourse.


Local people and scientists both hold ecological knowledge, respectively stemming from prolonged day-to-day contact with the environment and from systematic inquiry based on the scientific method. As the complementarity between scientific ecological knowledge (SEK) and local ecological knowledge (LEK) is increasingly acknowledged, LEK is starting to be involved in all branches of ecology, including ecological modeling. However, the integration of both knowledge types into ecological models raises methodological challenges, among which (1) consistency between the degree of LEK involvement and modeling objectives, (2) combination of concepts and methods from natural and social sciences, (3) reliability of the data collection process, and (4) model accuracy. We analyzed how 23 published studies dealt with those issues. We observed LEK reaches its full potential when involved at all steps of the research process. The validity of a modeling exercise is enhanced by an interdisciplinary approach and is jeopardized when LEK elicitation lacks rigor. Bayesian networks and fuzzy rule-based models are well suited to include LEK.


Tissue engineering opens up a new area to restore the function of damaged tissue or replace a defective organ. Common strategies in tissue engineering to repair and form new tissue containing a functional vascular network include the use of cells, growth factors, extracellular matrix proteins, and biophysical stimuli. Yet, formation of well-distributed, interconnected, and stable vascular network still remains challenging. In addition, anastomoses with host vasculature upon implantation and long-time survival of the new blood vessel in vivo are other critical issues to be addressed. This paper presents a brief review of recent advances in vascularization in vitro as well as in vivo for tissue engineering, along with suggestions for future research.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to explore changes in the sexual function of women who attended a rural nurse-led female sexual dysfunction clinic.

DESIGN
This exploratory study was designed as a one-group pre-test/post-test design from a convenience sample of women attending the clinic.

SETTING
The setting was a women's health centre located in regional Western Australia.

PARTICIPANTS
One hundred eleven women aged between 18 and 65 years were recruited from clinic attendees.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S)
The Australian version of the validated McCoy Female Sexuality Questionnaire was completed before the first appointment (T0), and 1 (T1) and 6 months (T2) after the last appointment.

RESULTS
Women attending the clinic reported significant increases in sexual desire, satisfaction and orgasm quality and achievement at 1 and 6 months after their last appointment. There was also a significant increase in satisfaction with their main sexual partner at 6 months.

CONCLUSIONS
This study confirmed the value of an innovative approach to managing female sexual dysfunction in a rural area with workforce shortages and limited health services. It is recommended that care by a nurse-led multidisciplinary team be used in the management of sexual dysfunction. Further research is needed to see if this model of care would be effective in other settings.


Advancement in next generation sequencing offers the possibility of routine use of whole genome sequencing (WGS) for Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) genomes in clinical reference laboratories. To date, the M. bovis genome could only be sequenced if the mycobacteria were cultured from tissue. This requirement for culture has been due to the overwhelmingly large amount of host DNA present when DNA is prepared directly from a granuloma. To overcome this formidable hurdle, we evaluated the usefulness of an RNA-based targeted enrichment method to sequence M. bovis DNA directly from tissue samples without culture. Initial spiking experiments for method development were established by spiking DNA extracted from tissue samples with serially diluted M. bovis BCG DNA at the following concentration range: 0.1 ng/μl to 0.1 pg/μl (10–1 to 10–4). Library preparation, hybridization and enrichment was performed using SureSelect custom capture library RNA baits and the SureSelect XT HS2 target enrichment system for Illumina paired-end sequencing. The method validation was then assessed using direct WGS of M. bovis DNA extracted from tissue samples from naturally (n = 6) and experimentally (n = 6) infected animals with variable Ct values. Direct WGS of spiked DNA samples achieved 99.1% mean genome coverage (mean depth of coverage: 108×) and 98.8% mean genome coverage (mean depth of coverage: 26.4×) for tissue samples spiked with BCG DNA at 10–1 (mean Ct value: 20.3) and 10–2 (mean Ct value: 23.4), respectively. The M. bovis genome from the experimentally and naturally infected tissue samples was successfully sequenced with a mean genome coverage of 99.56% and depth of genome coverage ranging from 9.2× to 72.1×. The spoligoyping and M. bovis group assignment derived from sequencing DNA directly from the infected tissue samples matched that of the cultured isolates from the same sample. Our results show that direct sequencing of M. bovis DNA from tissue samples has the potential to provide accurate sequencing of M. bovis genomes significantly faster than WGS from cultures in research and diagnostic settings.


In The Poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez: An Example of Modern Subjectivity, Julio Jenson has crafted a philosophical reading of subjectivity in Jiménez's "obra." His thoroughly painstaking, in-depth, even fastidious analysis is structured, he writes, around the split between an "absolute self" of plenitude and "an empirical self" of transience. In broad terms, the first half of his monograph focuses on Juan Ramón's spatial metaphors and symbols, while the second half reflects on time and temporal figures. There is a detailed reading of texts that manifest a dichotomous subject: heaven/earth, sacred/profane, sun/moon polarities. This is followed by a demonstration of the fact that space in Jiménez's work is "intrinsically dynamic" because the lyrical subject is forever projecting on to spatial imagery his infinite longing for perfection. Jensen, then, proceeds to discuss the notion that pantheism permits an empirical subject to participate in a cosmic totality and thereby avails itself of an "anonymous voice" to express the self-consciousness of the universe. He also argues that the perfection achieved in numerous parts of Jiménez's work should be seen as "monadic" plenitude: a perfect fullness that recurs eternally as, and when, future readers intuit such ecstatic fullness in their multifarious readings. Jensen also contrasts the lyrical subject's construction of an atemporal, self-enclosed, aesthetic realm with the agonized realization, achieved in the poet's late work, of the need to reconfigure such a realm in every moment of creative time (for example, "Estás viniendo hacia mi imán" from Animal de fondo). Added to this is an intriguing reading of the Diario in whose texts, Jensen argues, the lyrical subject attains an "ahistorical temporality" (as opposed, for example, to merely annotating an autobiographical snippet of a fleeting New York experience). A final chapter focuses on the concept of the "obra" itself: on the one hand, it expresses the perfection achieved by a divine, atemporal "I"; on the other, it will express, in Juan Ramón's late work, a fragmentation of the self that is impossible to overcome. Readers can encounter in this study a variety of thought-provoking insights and fascinating ideas. In addition, they can benefit, in each one of these six chapters, from the numerous, patient textual explications Jensen provides from every phase—early, mid, and late—of Jiménez's poetic evolution. But, in all likelihood, it will be readers who are at ease with modern European philosophical thought on subjectivity (and its dense manner of expression) who will derive inspiration and satisfaction from this study. If Jensen had managed to present these thoughts in terms more accessible to those in literature rather than philosophy, his work would, no doubt, have reached a wider audience. A further caveat concerns the author's oversight of prior readings of Jiménez's poetry. A single example must suffice: Jensen lists this reviewer's 1987 Self and Image in Juan Ramón Jiménez in his bibliography but never once addresses it in his monograph; as Jensen advances a reading of Espacio's "Fragmento Tercero" that is comparable to this reviewer's, such an omission could raise serious questions. Hence, if Julio Jensen had incorporated into his analyses much more prior criticism of the Jiménez opus, his contribution to the field would have been stronger. John C. Wilcox University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, USA


Agent-based models can be used to better understand the impacts of lifting restrictions or implementing interventions during a pandemic. However, agent-based models are computationally expensive, and running a model of a large population can result in a simulation taking too long to run for the model to be a useful analysis tool during a public health crisis. To reduce computing time and power while running a detailed agent-based model for the spread of COVID-19 in the Republic of Ireland, we introduce a scaling factor that equates 1 agent to 100 people in the population. We present the results from model validation and show that the scaling factor increases the variability in the model output, but the average model results are similar in scaled and un-scaled models of the same population, and the scaled model is able to accurately simulate the number of cases per day in Ireland during the autumn of 2020. We then test the usability of the model by using the model to explore the likely impacts of increasing community mixing when schools reopen after summer holidays.


This paper addresses feminist and post-colonial concerns in The Woman Who Owned the Shadows. By charting the mental collapse and gradual healing of Ephanie, Gunn Allen illustrates a woman's recreation of herself through the rediscovery of her Native American mythology, which ends her isolation, uniting her with a larger spiritual community.


For mission-critical applications such as emergency monitoring over wireless sensor networks, query deadline must be satisfied. Otherwise, the query results would be useless. Thus, it is better to query the nodes as many as possible within the deadline. On the other hand, the energy consumption should be saved to prolong the life of the network. For this purpose, we propose a slack factor based real-time query processing (SFQ) approach for wireless sensor networks, where a slack factor describes the relationship between the time of query processing and the deadline for a node. Since the data delivery mode between nodes is a key factor for data transmission time and energy consumption, we can choose the optimal data delivery mode by using slack factor so that we can maximize the query coverage as well as minimize the total energy cost. The simulation experimental results show that the SFQ approach is effective to get higher accuracy of query results within deadline with lower energy consumption than other traditional approaches.


This paper aims to develop a new multi-fiber element for predicting the structural behavior of planar-reinforced concrete (RC) members.,In this work, an exact multi-directional stiffness matrix is analytically derived based on the post-cracking bond-slip interaction between concrete and steel bars. The approach is also extended for large displacement analysis using Green–Lagrange finite strain tensor. In the proposed formulation, the weak form of governed differential equations is approximated by a trial-function expansion based on a finite strain-description and an additional degree of freedom for steel bars.,The findings provide a realistic description of cracking in the concrete structure. Numerical studies are conducted to examine the accuracy of the suggested approach and its capability to predict fairly complex responses of RC models. The findings prove that the proposed element can evaluate local and global responses of RC members, and it can be used as a reliable tool to reflect bond-slip effects in large displacement level. This leads to a robust and precise model for non-linear analysis of RC structures.,The methodology is capable of simulating coupled inelastic shear-flexural behavior of RC members through local stress field theory and Timoshenko beam model.


"Engel's law" explains that the share of household expenditure on food typically falls as income and expenditure increase. The objectives of this study are to investigate the food expenditure patterns of different income groups and the relationships between household characteristics and expenditure patterns. Household Expenditure Survey 2004/2005 data from Department of Statistics was used to analyze the food expenditure pattern of households. An expenditure model was developed and the coefficients are estimated by Working-Leser model. The estimated results are clearly a reflection of "Engel's law", resulting in higher income elasticity for lower income groups than higher income groups. The share of food expenditure increases with increase in income. The results also indicate that household size, races, age of household head, level of income, and gender are the main variables related to household food expenditure pattern.


The authors offer a revolutionary solution to risk management. Its the unknown risks that keep leaders awake at nightwondering how to prepare for and steer their organization clear from that which they cannot predict. Businesses, governments and regulatory bodies dedicate endless amounts of time and resources to the task of risk management, but every leader knows that the biggest threats will come from some new chain of events or unexpected surprisesnone of which will be predicted using conventional wisdom or current risk management technologies and so management will be caught completely off guard when the next crisis hits. By adopting a scientific approach to risk management, we can escape the limited and historical view of experience and statistical based risk management models to expose dynamic complexity risks and prepare for new and never experienced events.


INTRODUCTION : According to Sidhar's philosophy, disease in man do not originate himself, but influence which act upon him. As already stated, man is compared to the world, so any change in the elementary condition of external world has its corresponding change in the human organism. There is the feeling of oneness between the external and the internal world of man, and its is upon this oneness that the doctrine of humoural pathology i.e. the theory of Thridoshas (முபபிணி) is based. This may occur through different causes viz. 1. Derangement of the three humours, 2. Astral influences, 3. Poisonous substances, 4. Psycholigical causes, 5. Spiritual causes, 6. Disease originating from the soul. In Yugi Vaithiya chindamani, Yugi described 80 types of vadha disease, "Orutahalai Vaatham" is one of the entity of the vadha disease. AIM : The main aim of this study is to evaluate the pathology of the disease oruthalai vaatham with the help of siddha and modern parameters. To study the disease on the basis of Siddha physilogoy (Iyarkai thathuvam) and Siddha pathology (Noi-Naadal) emphasizing more impotance to Mukkutram, Suvaigal, Panjaboodha theory, Aayul thoda nirnayam, Udal thadhukal and dignosis the patient, on the basis of Ennvagai thervugal and confirm the prognosis of the disease. OBJECTIVES : The objectives marked out to aspire the above said words : To collect all literary evidences above Oruthalai Vaatham in the topic of its synonyms of definitions, aetiology classifications, signs and symptoms, humoral
pathogenesis, fate of the disease from various literature in siddha aspect. * To concentrate the clinical course of the disease Oruthalai Vaatham by observing carefully the aetilogy, pathogenesis (Mukkutra Verupadu), Clinical feature, diagnosis and prognosis of the disease. * To study the details about the incidence of the disease with age, sex occupations, thinai, socio-economic status, habits and prevalence. * To pave way for further studies and research in this field. MATERIALS AND METHODS : The clinical study on oruthalai vaatham was carried out Post Graduate department of Noi Naadal branch.
Case selection and supervision
The following 10 cases selection and supervision was done in
Dr.Alagesan Neuro Centre, G.K. Hospital Madurai. According to the
finding of Ennvagaithervu on oruthalai vaatham as mentioned by
Yugi vaithiya chinthamani.
The patients are carefully examined systematically under the
supervision of the professor and other staffs of post graduate Noi
Naadal department.
The detailed history of the patients and past illness and family
history were observed. Typical pictures of 10 cases was evaluated
under the siddha and modern parameters.
Evaluation of the clinical parameters: The detailed history and clinical features of the patients were
taken carefully, The clinical history, Detail history of present and past illness, Personal family history.
CONCLUSION :
Identification of disease and its pathogenesis are per requiste
for medical practice. A detailed history taking, clinical examinations
as per siddha guidelines is necessary to arrive at precise diagnosis.
The study on Oruthalai Vaatham was carried out in the
dissertation, giving importance to the characteristics of the disease
like one side headache, lancinating pain, lacrimation, burning
sensation of the eye, Deep expiration, Trembling of the body due to
fear, Short and frequent feeble cough, loss of appetite, horripillation.
Diagnosis can be carried out by detailed history taking, classical
clinical examination of siddha system via Envagaithervugal including
Neerkuri, Neikuri, and changes in seven physical constituents and
three humours.
This study on Oruthalai Vaatham may be correlates with cluster
headache which has given relevance to modern clinical entity.


During the past very few years a 50-year-old philosophy regarding radiation hazard has undergone an astounding and probably well warranted change. I review, with a red countenance, reports I made years ago which stated that a radiation hazard did not exist because the radiation level at the point of interest was below that necessary to produce an "erythema." With the exception of a very few voices to the contrary, the accepted criterion of safety was the absence of this erythema. In another application, hunts for the recovery of lost radium were based on the desire of the insurance company or of the uninsured physician to avoid monetary loss. These ideas have changed radically. Today no one even remotely includes "erythema" as one of the basic guideposts to radiation hazard. We have set our sights on far lower levels of exposure. The present basis of a radium hunt is


Computational methodologies to predict epitopes for cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) will galvanize vaccine research and pave the way toward targeted immunotherapy of infections and cancer. However, the classification of immunogenic epitopes and non-immunogenic major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I ligands in silico remains difficult. Here, we defined a novel framework quantifying the interactions between a given peptide and T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire. Using 4738 peptide sequences and a pooled TCR repertoire, an epitope classifier with unprecedented accuracy in hold-out validation was constructed. The classifier was applicable to multiple human leucocyte antigen supertypes. The classifier was further validated independently using pathogen epitope datasets and tumor neoepitope datasets. A panel of neoepitope-rich genes were identified using The Cancer Genome Atlas datasets. The R package Repitope was implemented to maximize code reusability. This is the first study demonstrating in silico CTL epitope prediction with clinically meaningful robustness, thus prospective validation is warranted.


This study looks at the Chinese-learning experiences of six classroom learners who continued to the end of
 secondary school in Victoria, Australia, through in-depth interviews. Various systemic deterrents to continued Chinese language
 study are identified by the participants, including: (1) the schooling journey, including transition between primary and high
 school and disruption from uninterested students in compulsory classes; (2) the curriculum and the learning demands dictated by
 the form of assessment; (3) the risk of poor assessment results prejudicing post-school study options, in particular because the
 cohort includes large numbers of home speaker learners. In Victoria, Australia, a large part of what schools provide is dictated
 by the metasystem of education and the assessments at which it aims. Thus the structural deterrents to Chinese classroom learner
 continuation identified are within the power of government agencies to change, in order to enable more of these students to
 continue.


Bell's palsy is a facial paralysis that affects one side of the face accompanied with facial weakness. The condition is less common in children, but if it appears the possible causes are trauma, infections, tumor, inflammation or it may be idiopathic. In the 8 year old treated patient the condition appeared because of stressful situation, experiencing dreadful fright. The facial muscle weakness was present on the left side of the face with inability to close the eye and drooped corner of the mouth. Before coming to our clinic doctors prescribed him Neurobion, Amoksiklav and Acyclovir, but none of the medications helped him. Five days after the situation we started the acupuncture treatment in our clinic for Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture. Treatments were done once weekly, with duration of 35-40 minutes, indoor. After 10 treatments the function of the facial muscles recovered completely, with normal muscle tone, full range of motion and no accompanying symptoms. In the treatment were used acupuncture points located on the meridians of Dumai, Liver, Stomach and Large Intestine. Acupuncture as part of the 5000 years old Traditional Chinese Medicine is very effective treatment and gave very fast and positive results in our pediatric patient with Bell's palsy, improving the condition fully.


Background: Ethiopia has been landlocked since Eritrea, a former province, gained independence. Its imports and exports by sea are now sent via neighbouring coastal states, mainly Djibouti, and it needs to ensure sustainable access to multiple transit corridors. Objective: This article aims to evaluate alternative transit corridors to Ethiopia in terms of basic port infrastructure, and logistics costs. The findings provide insights to inform policy on securing reliable maritime access to the country. Method: This study adopts a case study approach by using secondary data to evaluate alternative transit corridors. Following a critical review of theoretical and empirical literature, descriptive statistics are presented using tables, graphs and charts. Results: Low-cost, high-capacity and high-frequency global maritime freight trade is easier through Djibouti than through Mombasa in Kenya or Port Sudan, owing to its better liner shipping connectivity. Thus, Ethiopia should continue to import containerised cargo through the Port of Djibouti. However, direct access to the sea is also important for national defence and security. Conclusion: Ethiopia should therefore secure access through multiple ports to safeguard national security, regardless of economic feasibility. This can be realised by directing break-bulk, dry bulk and petroleum products through ports in Sudan and Kenya. In addition, particular emphasis should be given to seaports closest to the country's economic centre, such as Berbera in Somaliland and Asseb and Massawa in Eritrea.


Mice injected intracerebrally with infectious influenza virus (60 hemagglutinin units) developed lethargy, seizures, comas, and died 2 to 5 days postinfection. As early as 6 h after infection, the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in these animals was infiltrated with polymorphonuclear cells, mononuclear leukocytes, and large granular lymphocytes. Potent natural killer (NK) cell activity was observed for both CSF and spleen cell populations over the same period. This NK cell activity correlated with interferon (IFN) levels in the CSF and serum. Treatment of lethally infected mice with either anti-IFN alpha-IFN beta or anti-ganglio-n-tetraoglyceramide antiserum ameliorated the disease, reduced mortality, and effected changes in the relative proportions of inflammatory cell populations infiltrating the CSF. The possible significance of IFN and NK cell activity in the development of this influenza virus-induced encephalopathy is discussed.


According to the characteristics of harmonics in power system, formation method of training samples is researched. Based on the principle of harmonic measuring equipment, which is the type of parallel filtering, a new measuring method of harmonics based on wavelet neural network is proposed. The wavelet neural network is optimized by improving scale factor and displacement factor of wavelet basis function, adaptive learning rate to increase convergence rate and measuring accuracy of network. The measuring method proposed has been simulated by program, simulation result shows the feasibility and validity.


Carcinoid and neuroendocrine tumors of the colon and rectum arise from the amine precursor uptake and decarboxylation (APUD) cells of the intestine. Carcinoid tumors are most commonly found in the gastrointestinal tract and are located in decreasing order of frequency in appendix, ileum, rectum, stomach, and colon. The vast majority of lesions are asymptomatic and are found incidentally during endoscopy. The management of these lesions depends upon the size of the lesion, involvement of the muscularis, location, and presence of metastatic disease. Small lesions (1 cm) can often be treated locally, either endoscopically or transanally. However, larger lesions (> 2 cm) require a formal oncologic resection. Adjuvant therapy is indicated only for metastatic disease, and admirable advances have been made in the realm of chemotherapy for reduction of disease and palliation of the symptoms of carcinoid syndrome. In this article, we discuss the nature of these interesting and uncommon tumors, clinical presentation, treatment options, and prognosis.


BACKGROUND AND AIM
To evaluate CT findings of pulmonary alveolar microlithiasis and correlate the CT with the pathologic findings.

METHODS
The study included 10 patients with pathologically proven microlithiasis. Two independent observers evaluated the presence, extent and distribution of the CT findings. CT findings were compared with those at autopsy in two patients and with transbronchial biopsy in eight patients.

RESULTS
All patients had a myriad of calcified nodules measuring approximately 1 mm in diameter. Close apposition of the nodules resulted in areas of ground-glass attenuation and consolidation, which were the predominant abnormality on CT in all 10 patients, involving 41% +/- 16.3 (mean +/- SD) and 30% +/- 4.8 of the lung parenchyma, respectively. Calcifications were also seen along interlobular septa, bronchovascular bundles and pleura. Other findings included interlobular septal thickening, thickening of bronchovascular bundles, nodules, and subpleural cysts. There was a solid agreement between the observers for the presence (kappa value; 0.77) and extent (Spearman rank correlation; r = 0.81 to 1.0 p < 0.01) of abnormalities. Autopsy specimens demonstrated microliths in alveolar airspaces and along interlobular septa, bronchovascular bundles and pleura. Subpleural small cysts were shown to represent dilated alveolar ducts.

CONCLUSION
Pulmonary microlithiasis is characterised by the presence of numerous small, calcified nodules, calcifications along interlobular septa, bronchovascular bundles and pleura, ground-glass opacities, consolidation, and subpleural cysts. The cysts represent dilated alveolar ducts.


The present study is concerning a practice of assistance built and implemented with the health team members of an Oncology and Radiotherapy Service in a large general hospital in the east part of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, attempting to make the assistance more humane. It was a possibility of reflecting with the work team about the assistance provided to the patients in light of the proposals of SUS (New Public Health System) and with the perspective of the humanistic approach and its methodological proposals.


The present study investigated putative interaction effects between the DGAT1 K232A mutation and the polygenic term (i.e., all genes except DGAT1) for 5 milk production traits in the German Holstein dairy cattle population. Mixed models were used, and the test for interaction relied on the comparison of polygenic variance components depending on the sire's genotypes at DGAT1 K232A. Substitution effects were highly significant for all traits. Significant interaction effects were found for milk fat and protein percentage.


Sparse and dense pseudo-relevance feedback (PRF) approaches perform poorly on challenging queries due to low precision in first-pass retrieval. However, recent advances in neural language models (NLMs) can re-rank relevant documents to top ranks, even when few are in the re-ranking pool. This paper first addresses the problem of poor pseudo-relevance feedback by simply applying re-ranking prior to query expansion and re-executing this query. We find that this change alone can improve the retrieval effectiveness of sparse and dense PRF approaches by 5-8%. Going further, we propose a new expansion model, Latent Entity Expansion (LEE), a fine-grained word and entity-based relevance modelling incorporating localized features. Finally, we include an"adaptive"component to the retrieval process, which iteratively refines the re-ranking pool during scoring using the expansion model, i.e. we"re-rank - expand - repeat". Using LEE, we achieve (to our knowledge) the best NDCG, MAP and R@1000 results on the TREC Robust 2004 and CODEC adhoc document datasets, demonstrating a significant advancement in expansion effectiveness.


Direct methods that transform the geometry of a structure and conserve its static equilibrium are of particular interest for designers. They allow the exploration of alternative solutions at minimum computational cost. While parallel transformations (stretch, contraction, and skew) are easily understood and have been in use since long, nonparallel transformations that maintain static equilibrium have not been studied in detail. The contributions of this article are as follows. First, an extensive review of transformation methods maintaining static equilibrium of planar and spatial structures is carried out. Second, an alternative construction of projective transformation is developed as an original set of graphical operations. Third, the benefits and limitations of use of projective transformations are discussed for the first time. This article concludes that (1) projective transformations are of practical interest only for a restricted range of structural applications but (2) can significantly simplify the computational problem of geometric exploration of spatial networks in equilibrium with few or no external forces.


In this paper we address the issue of the trade-off between the tampering rate and the reconstruction quality of image authentication systems. We adopt the fountain coding paradigm and design an adaptive content reconstruction scheme. The scheme conforms the reconstruction quality of individual image fragments both to the local texture properties and to the specified requirements. Experimental evaluation confirms that a framework based on this approach is a valid and convenient model of the performance of the considered reconstruction problem.


Self-piercing riveting (SPR) is a sheet-joining method that can be used for materials that are difficult or unsuitable for weld, such as aluminum alloys and other steel sheet metals. The increased application of lightweight materials has initiated many investigations into new SPR conditions for riveting dissimilar materials. However, buckling of the semi-tubular rivet occurs during the riveting of AHSS. In this study, a helical SPR was designed for the riveting of AHSS and Al-alloy. In addition, the reinforced helical SPR which has straight parts was designed. The riveting of AHSS and Al-alloy was simulated. Simulated results were verified by comparison with experimental ones.


For central nervous system (CNS) impaired patients, e.g. after stroke, the achievement of an independent, stable gait function and endurance in walking is essential for independent mobility in daily life. Modern concepts of rehabilitation favor a task specific repetitive training, that facilitates natural motion and muscle activation patterns, i.e. in addition to commonly practiced floor walking other gait motions of daily living (ADL), such as stair climbing, should be trained. In gait rehabilitation of severely affected non-ambulatory patients, a guided training must be applied as no or only little voluntary motor control is left in the affected side. The rehabilitation robot HapticWalker is the first device that allows for robot assisted guided training of arbitrary foot trajectories, e.g. also stair climbing. The goal of this study was to assess the effect of guided training in stair climbing condition on the HapticWalker on the movement and muscle activation patterns of stroke patients. Generally rhythmic and phasic muscle activation patterns were observed, which is an important factor in gait rehabilitation. The training of stair climbing condition on the HapticWalker also facilitated body weight shift in all patients and proper activation of weight bearing muscles. The HapticWalker currently lacks a lateral hip guidance facility, hence individual differences in the ability of controlling hip movement and body weight shift depending on the level of gait ability were observed.


The largest proportion of energy consuming is the operations of separation in chemical industry, and the energy consumption of the distillation is the highest in separation. Therefore, it is very important to research energy-saving issues of the process of distillation in today's circumstances of the energy shortage. This article describes the model of the heat pump distillation column,and its characteristics, uses static simulation programs to simulate operating conditions in the same pressure for the propylene-propane material system, and studys effects of the different feed states on the energy-saving of heat pump distillation column. The results will be compared with the conventional distillation column, and it was showed that for propylene-propane system, the heat pump distillation column is more remarkable than the conventional distillation column in energy savings, and its energy saving rate can reach 56%.


Summary Background: Cone Beam Computer Tomography (CBCT) is representing a new concept of radiological diagnostics and its application occupies a special place in implantology. Today, preoperative planning, and quantitative and qualitative jaw bone analysis cannot be done without the use of these techniques. The latest in a series of achievements in this field is a method of making a guide for implant using a 3D printing technique. This way pre implantology planning reduces the chance of surgical complications to a minimum and allows installation of dental implants in the most optimal position for future prosthetic work. Aim: To show benefits of guide implantation in clinical practice. Case report: The patient M.D. 36 years old. After making CBCT there was a qualitative and quantitative analysis of bone tissue, after which we decided to install five implants in positions #36, #37, #45, #46 and #47. The software appliance made virtually implants in the most optimal positions; treatment plan was forwarded by the internet connection into the DICOM format to Simplant Company, along with a folder of scanned plaster models in order to develop a guide. A few days later, after approval sent, we received the guide. Preparation by the pilot bur we did through transmucosal plum of the guide, and then we continued the classic flap surgery technique. Control footage shows the optimal position of the implant from both surgical and prosthetic aspects. Conclusion: Application guide implantology represents a safe and modern method that provides ability of implant placement in optimal positions in terms of future prosthetic rehabilitation.


An expansion chamber muffler with the use of a micro-perforated panel (MPP) was developed to improve the acoustic performance. A simulation was carried out using the SysNoise application in the LMS Virtual Lab based on the boundary element method, and the model was verified with the transmission loss measurement using the two-load method and showed good agreement. There was a 40 % accuracy improvement in the BEM model compared to the analytical approach for the simple expansion chamber muffler. The results showed that the performance of this muffler with an 80 mm air cavity depth improved by 75 %, where the transmission loss curve of the muffler became broader, and the hump-shape of the curve was more flat at the top when compared with the performance of a conventional simple expansion chamber muffler. The new muffler with the MPP was applied to a small utility engine with a displacement of 35 cc and the results showed that the noise level was reduced by 20 dBA for the frequency band of 125 Hz to 4000 Hz.


Recently, video sharing websites that allow users to attach comments to video clips have attracted much attention. In this paper, we propose a method whereby users can easily retrieve video scenes relevant to their interest. Our system makes both a text and non-text analysis of a user's comment and then retrieves and displays relevant scenes for viewing of the scenes along with attached comments. The text analysis works in tandem with non-text features, namely, the pointing region and temporal duration of user comments. In this way, our system supports a better organized retrieval of scenes that have attached user comments with a higher degree of relevancy for the user than is currently available with conventional methods, for example, using matching keywords. We describe here our method and the relation between the scenes and discuss a prototype system.


Abstract This article argues that a theory of media selectivity needs a theory of attention, because attention to a media stimulus is the starting point of each process of reception. Attention sequences towards media stimuli – pages of newspapers and online-newspapers – were analyzed using eye-tracking patterns from three different perspectives. First, attention patterns were compared under varying task conditions. Second, different types of media were tested. Third, attention sequences towards different forms of news with different design patterns were compared. Attention was seen as a prerequisite for reception: Its selective functions for these processes are especially important. Reception itself was examined within an action-theoretical framework and therefore described as a form of interaction between recipient and the media. Eye-tracking data were used as indicators of attention. Starting with a hypothesis on the impact of different media such as printed newspapers and online newspapers on the agenda-setting process of their audience, the study examined how the type of media and the form of news influences attention and selectivity. Our findings showed that visual cues such as salient photos or graphics and information hierarchies signalled by design and layout guide attention processes, not as an automatic process driven from the bottom up, but as stimuli for an active, intention-driven selection process. The results indicate that the form of news affects these patterns of interactive attention more than the medium itself.


The romances in CA, Dimmick writes, "constitute a link between Amans's private preoccupations and Gower's broadest thematic concerns, and provide the poem's most confident affirmations of moral, familiar and social good" (pp. 127-28). Amans reveals his predilection for reading romances in Book 6 (876-89): identifying with the characters about whom he reads, he is led to hope that the outcome of his own pursuit of love will be as happy as theirs. He is almost immediately brought back to the realization of how different his prospects are, however. His disappointment provides an opening for Genius to attempt to modify his view of himself and to release him from his obsession, and one of his means of doing so is to through his use of examples of Amans's own favorite reading-material. The three tales that Dinnick examines as examples of romance in CA are "Florent," "Constance," and "Apollonius of Tyre." He has pertinent and interesting comments on each. "Florent" appears to be a wish-fulfillment fantasy, but the hero obtains what he desires not by an act of his own will, as one might expect in romance, but by giving away his own freedom of choice. At that moment, "he recognises for the first time something which the virtue of trowthe does not require him to perceive: his own good (even his own moral good) is not the sole criterion of value. By yielding his 'hole vois' to his wife, Florent acknowledges that she is a narrative subject in her own right, is not merely an adjunct to his own desires or self-worth" (p. 130). At the end of the tale, as the lady reveals the reason for her enchantment, the tale shifts from a "quest romance" to an "exile-romance" of which she is the heroine. "The values of the exile paradigm win out: the reorientation of heroism in 'Florent', away from action to endurance, and finally to a new sense of oneself as operating in the context of other selves – in a society – is a tacit rebuke to Amans's self-isolating obsession with his lady as merely the object of his desire" (ibid.). Overcoming this obsession is also a central concern of "Constance" and "Apollonius of Tyre," in each of which "sexual love is not seen in isolation, as a dominating passion which excludes all other considerations; instead it takes its place in a continuum of 'kindly' bonds of love, integrating the love of parents and children, husbands and wives, humans and God," and where Amans habitually isolates sexual love as an all-encompassing obsession, 'Constance' [and by implication 'Apollonius' too] aims to integrate sexuality into a broader pattern, both social and cosmic" (p. 131). The optimism of such tales, manifested particularly in the "morally- and socially-resolved closure" of their endings (p. 133), is challenged elsewhere within the poem, and Dinnick sets forth "Jason and Medea" as an example of "a romance which goes badly wrong" (p. 134). Not only does it end disastrously for the participants but it also lacks proper closure, for Medea goes unpunished, and Genius goes on to tell the story of "Phrixus and Helle" to explain the origin of the fleece, which only emphasizes how Medea's act is the perpetuation of a cycle of family violence which in turn is only part of the larger cycle of events extending from the fall of Thebes to the fall of Troy. The poem appears to privilege the more optimistic view by its placement of "Apollonius of Tyre" at the end, but the conclusion involving Amans is considerably more complex, and Gower's hopes that Richard II might be a new Apollonius obviously turned out to be premature. Dinnick's attempt to explore the generic links among these tales is salutary. He rec-ognizes some of the problems in adequately defining romance on page 133, but the definition by which he links these tales, which emphasizes the pattern of reconciliation and reunion over what he calls "generic markers," excludes other tales that are legitimately entitled to be included as romances (e.g. "The False Bachelor," 2.2501-2781), and it also passes over the long passage on prowess, heroism, and "gentilesse" in the middle of Book 4, certainly central romance concerns. There is more that one might say, therefore, about "romance" in CA, but such an objection does not diminish the value of Dinnicks' discussion of the thematic connections that he discerns among the four tales that he chooses to focuses on. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 19.2]


Contamination of water resources with organic substances like phenolic fungicides is undesirable due to the improvement of living standards, huge production and consumption of daily chemicals, and an increase in the population. In this study, ZIF-67(Co) was synthesized using the "one pot method", and the Co-magnetic porous carbon (Co-NPC) was prepared by ZIF-67 (Co) carbonization in an atmosphere of N2. The materials were tested using a X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), infrared spectroscopy (IR), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), N2 adsorption-desorption and magnetization analysis. These methods indicated that the Co-NPC was successfully prepared. With the original morphology of ZIF-67 (Co) crystal, the Co-NPC also has good porosity, magnetic properties and a large specific surface area. In water, Co-NPC-800 has a good adsorption capacity for triclosan (TCS) and p-chloro-m-xylenol (PCMX), which are kinds of aromatic fungicides. The adsorption of Co-NPC-800 on both reached equilibrium within 3 min, which is in accordance with the quasi-second-order kinetic model. At 298 K, the maximum adsorption capacity of Co-NPC-800 for TCS and PCMX was 163 and 39 mg·g-1, respectively. The adsorption of TCS and PCMX by Co-NPC-800 is a spontaneous endothermic process with reduced entropy. The combination of Co-NPC-800 and phenols come from multiple action of electrostatic, π-π and hydrogen bond effects. Moreover, Co-NPC-800 can be regenerated through simple washing and can be reused several times. Therefore, Co-NPC-800 has great potential to be applied across sewage treatments and other environmental fields.


The aim of this study was to propose a stem cell therapy for hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) based on plasma exchange (PE) for peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) collection and examine its safety and efficacy. Sixty patients (n=20 in each group) were randomized to PE (PE alone), granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) (PE after G-CSF treatment), and PBSC transplantation (PBSCT) (G-CSF, PE, PBSC collection and hepatic artery injection) groups. Patients were followed-up for 24 weeks. Liver function and adverse events were recorded. Survival analysis was performed. PBSCT improved blood ammonia levels at 1 week (P<0.05). The level of total bilirubin, international normalized ratio, and creatinine showed significant differences in the 4th week of treatment (P<0.05). The survival rates of the PE, G-CSF, and PBSCT groups were 50, 65, and 85% at 90 days (P=0.034). There was a significant difference in 90-day survival between the PE and PBSCT groups (P=0.021). The preliminary results suggested that PBSCT was safe, with a possibility of improved 90-day survival in patients with HBV-ACLF.


Rough inclusions are primitive notions of Rough Mereology, obtained by 'fuzzification' in a sense of the part relation which is the primitive notion of Mereology. Mereology goes back as an ideology to Aristotle's Ta Meta Ta Fysica, Book ∆, 1203b where the notion of a part was first outlined; a formal rendering of parts was achieved by S. Leśniewski (1916) who built a formal edifice of Mereology. Especially suited to reasoning about mass categories, e.g., concepts, figures, solids, etc., Mereology has become one of main tools for Spatial Reasoning, cf., Tarski's axiomatization of geometry of solids (1929), RCC calculi, Mereotopology in analysis of boundaries, etc. Rough Mereology goes a step further by considering the relation of a part to a degree, hence, with a liberty of language, one may set that Rough Mereology to Mereology = Fuzzy Set Theory to Na ive Set Theory. Implementations of the idea of a part to a degree are rough inclusions. Their study is one of principal problems in Rough Mereology. In this contribution, we establish topological conditions which guarantee that rough inclusions which satisfy them are of a particular form, e. g., they are residual implications induced by the Lukasiewicz t–norm. In what follows, basic notions are introduced and basic auxiliary results recalled, culminating in the aforementioned result.


Palladium-catalyzed carbonylation of aryl iodides and trimethylsilylacetonitrile to produce benzoylacetonitrile derivatives through a one-pot, three-component reaction is described. This preparation method provides good yields of the carbonylated products without any additional ligands. It has a broad substrate scope with a high tolerance for a variety of functional groups.


ZnO films were produced on the Si(100) and sapphire(0001) wafers by RF magnetron sputtering in terms of processing variables such as substrate temperature and RF power. The stress in films was obtained from the Stoney's formula using a laser scanning device. The stress levels in the films showed the range from MPa to MPa depending on processing variables. The specimens were thermally cycled from R.T. to to investigate the stress variation as a function of temperature. SEM was employed to characterize the microstructure of te films. As the substrate temperature increased, the film surface became rougher and the films showed coarser grains. The optical property o the films was studied by PL measurements. At the highest substrate temperature the film exhibited sharper UV peaks unlike other conditions.


[Purpose] Fibronectin type III domain containing 5 (FNDC5)/irisin is an exercise-induced myokine, which contributes to cognitive functions. However, the relationship between the neuroprotective effects of FNDC5/irisin and hippocampal dendritic remodeling and astrocyte-secreted factors remains unclear. Therefore, we explored whether subchronic recombinant irisin treatment affected hippocampal morphology and some astrocyte-derived molecules. [Methods] Mice were intraperitoneally injected with irisin (0.5 μg/kg/day) for seven days, followed by their sacrifice two days later. Hippocampal morphometric parameters were analyzed and pgc-1a, fndc5, bdnf, and some astrocyte-derived factors mRNA levels were measured. [Results] Dendritic length, arborization, and spine density were enhanced by irisin regimen in hippocampal CA1 and CA3 areas. Hippocampal pgc-1a, fndc5, and bdnf mRNA levels were significantly increased by irisin treatment. Moreover, hevin mRNA levels were significantly enhanced, whereas tgf-b1 levels downregulated by irisin treatment. [Conclusion] FNDC5/irisin has dendritogenic activity probably through hevin induction and TGF-β1 suppression.


Many anti-cancer agents induce macroautophagy (hereafter "autophagy") and it is widely thought that autophagy can regulate tumor chemosensitivity. Most work in this area asks if autophagy increases or decreases tumor cell killing. Using a targeted anti-cancer agent (DT-EGF, an EGF receptor-targeted diphtheria toxin), we demonstrated that autophagy can also control the characteristics of dying glioma cells. DT-EGF induces autophagy in glioma cells, however this autophagy has little impact on whether or not the cells die. Instead its major effect is to determine how the cells die. When autophagy is allowed, the cells die by a non-apoptotic mechanism that has little caspase activation, whereas if autophagy is inhibited, the glioma cells die by inducing caspase-dependent apoptosis. Here, we present data showing that the effects of this switch in death mechanism change the growth of other tumor cells that did not die in response to the drug. By mixing DT-EGF-sensitive and DT-EGF-resistant cells such that 99% of the tumor cells in the population die, we found that manipulation of autophagy in the dying cells affects the growth rates of the surviving 1% of tumor cells. If caspase-dependent apoptosis is allowed by inhibiting autophagy, the surviving tumor cells grow faster to repopulate the tumor. Conversely if autophagy is allowed in the dying cells, the resistant cells grow more slowly. We propose that cancer therapy should take account not just of how many tumor cells are killed but also the way that they are killed and that manipulating autophagy during cancer treatment could be used to improve outcomes by regulating the mechanism of tumor cell death as well as the amount of tumor cell death. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4846. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-4846


The paper describes a performance evaluation of the industrial pasta process system in Gaziantep, based in Turkey, on energy and exergy analyses. The case study covers the actual system data taken from the system. General energy and exergy analysis of the system are introduced. This analysis, applied to the system using actual thermodynamic data for its performance evaluation in terms of energy and exergy efficiencies, is presented. In addition a parametric study of the effect of varying reference state properties on the energy and exergy efficiencies of the system has been conducted to find optimum performance and operating conditions, and is explained.


When the dorsal surface of the young chick embryo is examined by SEM, long threads are visible, each of which appears to connect pairs of cells; these cells may be separated from each other by several intervening cells. Many of the threads possess a bead-like structure about half way along their length. When sections of the beads are examined by TEM they are found to resemble midbodies. Furthermore, the threads possess longitudinally arranged structures within them, which are probably the remnants of the microtubules which were part of a mitotic spindle. It is concluded that each bead is a midbody and that each beaded thread is the remains of a telophase bridge connecting two daughter cells which were incompletely separated after mitosis had taken place. The possible function of the beaded threads is considered.


[1] Here we report 420 kyr long records of sediment geochemical and color variations from the southwestern Iberian Margin. We synchronized the Iberian Margin sediment record to Antarctic ice cores and speleothem records on millennial time scales and investigated the phase responses relative to orbital forcing of multiple proxy records available from these cores. Iberian Margin sediments contain strong precession power. Sediment "redness" (a* and 570–560 nm) and the ratio of long-chain alcohols to n-alkanes (C26OH/(C26OH+C29)) are highly coherent and in-phase with precession. Redder layers and more oxidizing conditions (low alcohol ratio) occur near precession minima (summer insolation maxima). We suggest these proxies respond rapidly to low-latitude insolation forcing by wind-driven processes (e.g., dust transport, upwelling, precipitation). Most Iberian Margin sediment parameters lag obliquity maxima by 7–8 ka, indicating a consistent linear response to insolation forcing at obliquity frequencies driven mainly by high-latitude processes. Although the lengths of the time series are short (420 ka) for detecting 100 kyr eccentricity cycles, the phase relationships support those obtained by Shackleton [2000]. Antarctic temperature and the Iberian Margin alcohol ratios (C26OH/ (C26OH+C29)) lead eccentricity maxima by 6 kyr, with lower ratios (increased oxygenation) occurring at eccentricity maxima. CO2, CH4, and Iberian SST are nearly in phase with eccentricity, and minimum ice volume (as inferred from Pacific dOseawater) lags eccentricity maxima by 10 kyr. The phase relationships derived in this study continue to support a potential role of the Earth's carbon cycle in contributing to the 100 kyr cycle.