This paper describes ongoing PhD research on applications of graph algorithms in Geographical Information Systems. Many GIS problems can be translated into a graph problem, especially in the domain of routing in road networks. Our research aims to evaluate and develop efficient methods for different variants of the routing problem.
 Standard existing shortest path algorithms are not always suited for use in road networks, e.g. in a realistic situation forbidden turns and turn penalties need to be taken into account. An experimental evaluation of different methods for this purpose is presented.
 Another interesting problem is the generation of alternative routes. This can be modelled as a k shortest paths problem, where a ranking of k paths is desired rather than only the shortest path itself. A new heuristic approach for generating alternative routes is presented and evaluated.


The Stark broadening tables for hydrogen Lyman, Balmer and Paschen lines published in the early seventies give accurate results for the widths of the β lines down to relatively low electron densities, and for the far line wings in general. However, the half-widths of the α lines can be in error by as much as a factor of 30, particularly at intermediate densities. Modern theoretical methods are capable of producing accurate values over the entire density range. Recent developments in the Stark broadening of non-hydrogenic species are also considered.


AbstractPurpose/Aim: The aim of the thesis is to study the communicative ways in which this museum exhibition works to create an understanding of the complex problem of HIV/AIDS. The purpose of the study is to gain knowledge in how information is provided, and acquired, through modern strategies which aim at dimensions other than exclusively intellectual ones, to enable the individual to create his or her own understanding.Material/Method: The results are based on a close study of the exhibition's structure and bjects, followed by a thorough analysis of these according to contemporary theories within the areas of psychology, education and communication. The main theoretical approaches concern those of the human brain, perception, and information processing.Main results: The exhibition uses compound multimedia and a theme based on feelings. The multimodal impressions presented seem to work on level with a favourable environment for brain based learning, and the emotional approach creates attention and attaches meaning to the objects through primitive gateways, as well as creating encouraging learning conditions by simply acknowledging them. Multi-level brain activity as well as the construction of meaning and positive learning conditions is vital for the creation of understanding.


This study examines the influence of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) on corporate financial performance (CFP). Based on win-win paradigm, this study uncovers the mediating role of Quality of Work Life (QWL) on CSR-CFP nexus. A questionnaire based cross-sectional survey was conducted to accumulate data from 355 employees working in public and private sector banks of Pakistan. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to examine the hypotheses. The results depict that CSR is positively related with CFP, and employee QWL partially mediates this relationship. According to our noesis, the review of previous literature regarding the association of CSR and CFP reveals that QWL has not been empirically tested as a mediator between these two variables. This study findings proposes that banks engaged in CSR activities are actually establishing a healthy work environment for their employees which ultimately helps the banks to improve their financial performance. This study highlights the importance of CSR activities for enhancing the CFP of the banking sector in the developing countries. Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Quality of Work Life, Agency Theory, Financial Performance.


The students are the best witnesses to how the teachers perform their instructional duties. Students develop particular expectations to teaching style preferences. This study investigates the students' self-assessments of their teaching style preferences against their observed teaching styles that their year level teachers have used and determined the relevance of Teeters' (2001) teaching style model. Teeters' (2001) instructor style inventory was used to collect data from 114 high school students of an academy in Valencia, Bukidnon, Philippines. Results revealed that the students highly preferred all the teaching styles. Students in different year levels also rated their teachers' safe, stimulating, spontaneous, and systematic teaching styles moderate and high. Significant differences in all the students' observed teaching styles were found between the year levels. Teaching styles with "no difference" and "there is difference" depend on the year levels. School administrators and teachers in this academy may consider the viability of Teeters' teaching style model in their teaching-learning processes. Keywords: Education, teaching styles, teaching-learning process, Teeter's teaching stylemodel, Bukidnon, Philippines


Cores from subsurface Deadwood Formation contain faunas of Arenig age, trilobite Zone E and G, with position of Zone F marked by unfossiliferous sandstone. Gastropod steinkerns predominate, inarticulate brachiopods are common, trilobites are fragmentary and rare, and the gastropod 9Lytospira9 ornata n. sp. and the scolecodont Dentinella primaeva n. gen. et sp. are new in Zone E. Zone G has typical trilobite-brachiopod assemblage with few gastropods. New trilobite taxa are Aulacoparia (Praecoparia) wibauxensis n. sp., Aulacoparia (Aulacoparina) impressa n. sp., Ptyocephalus montanensis n. sp., Oculomagnus obreptus n. gen. n. sp., Peltabellia willistoni n. sp., Reubenella rex n. gen. n. sp., Strigigenalis amerada, and Lloydia (Leiostegium) valmyensis n. sp.


Parathyroid hormone‐related protein (PTHrP) has previously been shown to be expressed in human prostatic tissue and in prostatic cancer cell lines. In the present study, PTHrP immunoreactivity was detected in the glandular epithelium of normal prostate and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), as well as in prostatic adenocarcinoma (CaP). Epithelial cell cultures derived from normal, BPH, and CaP tissues were also stained by antibodies against PTHrP, and northern analysis revealed multiple transcripts of PTHrP in the cellular RNA. PTHrP (1–34) was measurable by radioimmunoassay (RIA) in media conditioned by the prostatic epithelial cell cultures, and PTHrP accumulated in conditioned media during a 72 hr time course. Addition of complete growth medium to starved cells resulted in increased PTHrP mRNA levels by 1 hr, with maximal stimulation at 8–24 hr. Several individual factors contained in the complete growth medium were tested for their ability to regulate PTHrP expression. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) was the major inducer of PTHrP expression, while cholera toxin, bovine pituitary extract, hydrocortisone, and insulin had minimal or no effect on PTHrP transcript levels. Since each of these factors is growth stimulatory, the unique ability of EGF to induce PTHrP is apparently unrelated to mitogenicity. 1,25‐Dihydroxyvitamin D3[1,25(OH)2D3], an inhibitor of PTHrP expression in several other cell types, had no effect on steady‐state levels of PTHrP mRNA expressed by epithelial cells in complete growth medium, although prostate cells have vitamin D receptors and are responsive to 1,25(OH)2D3 in other ways. Our results indicate that PTHrP expression is not confined to the neuroendocrine cells of the human prostate and that our culture system can be used as a model to investigate the role of PTHrP in the prostate. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The age is here of distance learning and new forms of e-learning. The rate at which a variety of institutions are entering the distance learning arena is increasing rapidly. In spite of the increased popularity and presence of online learning opportunities, however, many researchers and practitioners are decrying the lack of a researchvalidated framework to guide their design. Other researchers and practitioners point out that what works in effective traditional learning environments may or may not work in online environments. These concerns are addressed in this article through a review of relevant research and the presentation of a learner-centered framework. This framework is based on the American Psychological Association's (1997) research-validated Learner-Centered Psychological Principles, developed from over a century of research.


For a period of 11 years and 7 months (1st January 78-31 July 89), 1950 lymph nodes were received in the pathology laboratory of Cameroon. 333 of these, that is 17% revealed typical lesions of tuberculosis. Analysing the information associated to these tuberculoid adenitis revealed that: 46% of the patients were less than 10 years of age; 83.8% of the specimens were taken from the cervical region. 78% of patients had fever, cough was complained of by 56% and 40% had polyadenopathies. Finally, 81% of the tuberculoid lymph nodes analyzed had a diameter less than 5cm while only 33% showed acid fast bacilli on direct examination (Ziehl-Neelsen staining method) on the histologic slides.


– This study aims to attempt to understand the reading habits and attitudes of the Bachelor of IT students and the Bachelor of Arts students from the International Islamic University Malaysia. The study also aims to explore these differences in terms of gender., – The study used a survey approach in collecting the data. The population of the study was the undergraduate students from two academic faculties at the university. The faculties were Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology (KICT) (IT‐based) and Kuliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Science (KIRKH) (arts‐based). Based on the 400 sample drawn, 127 responses were received from the survey., – The study finds that the web site is seen as an increasingly important reading source. Significant differences exist between academic programs and types of reading materials and reading resources particularly use the web sites. Some differences in reading habits and attitudes were also observed between male and female participants., – Limitations in this study are related to the small sample size, the inclusion of only two academic faculties, and the limited amount of variables studied., – In general, the findings of the study should assist the University authority, especially the library and the computing department, to look into service matters pertaining to accommodating the reading as well as the studying habits of the student., – The pattern of reading, as is known from the past, may not be the same as reading as it is known today or in the future. Research in reading habits needs to be further updated by including current advancement in ICT, where the technology has enabled reading to be more timely and somewhat non‐linear by using devices such as computers, PDAs and wireless phones without the presence of any printed document.


In an effort to determine the optimal balance of electrical and mechanical performance for electrically conductive polymer composites, three figures of merit were evaluated. All three figures of merit displayed peaks and/or discontinuities at a particular filler loading. These loadings appear to correspond to the critical pigment volume concentration for a given system. Composite systems based upon latex as the matrix starting material showed peaks in the figures of merit at very low carbon black concentrations (10 vol%), while composites prepared with polymer solutions or melts had peaks above 20 vol% carbon black. These differences in behavior are attributed to differences in microstructural evolution that occur with filler loading.


A surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)-active extraction column based on propanethiol modified silver dendrites was fabricated. The column, which combines the advantages of solid phase extraction and SERS, may facilitate the development of rapid analysis with high reliability and accuracy. High temporal stability (under a continuous and intensive laser radiation) and excellent repeatability (repeated extraction and elution) were also achieved using this column. As an example, the quantitative analysis of fluoranthene was accomplished in the concentration range of 0.01-100 μg mL(-1) with this column. The extraction process could be accomplished in 10 s and the total time of one sample analysis including extraction, spectral acquisition, elution and intermediate process could be less than 30 s. This method can greatly simplify the sample preparation and reduce the total analysis time.


BACKGROUND
Prior reports have suggested that the iron-binding protein lactoferrin (LF) may either kill Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans (Aa) or interfere with its binding to host cells. Other studies have indicated that the degree of iron saturation of LF might play a role in these interactions. However, these studies utilized strains that had lost critical attachment characteristics found in well-preserved clinical isolates of Aa. The purpose of this work was to study the effect of LF iron levels on survival and attachment of well-preserved clinical isolates of Aa.

METHODS
LF containing 0%, 30%, and 100% iron saturation was tested for its ability to kill clinical isolates of Aa and to inhibit their binding to buccal epithelial cells (BECs).

RESULTS
Neither iron-free LF (apo-LF) nor iron-saturated LF killed Aa clinical isolates. Increasing the iron saturation of LF resulted in an increased inhibition of Aa binding to BECs (P < or =0.005). This effect was consistent for the 3 clinical isolates tested. Pretreatment of Aa with iron-saturated LF reduced binding to BECs by 58%, 61.8%, and 64.2%, respectively, for each of the 3 clinical strains tested (P < or =0.005). Pretreatment of Aa strains with apo-LF, iron alone, or bovine serum albumin had no effect on binding. Pretreatment of BECs with LF (either apo-LF or iron-containing LF) had no influence on Aa binding.

CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate that reduction in binding of Aa to epithelial cells is maximized by pretreatment of Aa cells with iron-saturated lactoferrin. These in vitro results suggest that patients with lactoferrin containing lowered levels of iron would be more susceptible to Aa colonization.


Purpose: Total wrist arthroplasty (TWA) is an established surgical treatment for wrist arthritis. The aim of the investigation is to report patient-perceived outcome measures after TWA operated at a single referral center in Sweden. Methods: In a cohort study with prospective collection of data, we evaluated 193 consecutive patients with a TWA (223 wrists) preoperatively, 1 and 5 years postoperatively. The wrists were implanted between 2002 and 2014. Outcome measures studied were range of motion (ROM), visual analogue scale (VAS) pain scores, hand grip strength, and patient-related outcome measures. Secondary outcome measures included implant survivorship, which was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method, and radiographic loosening 5 years postoperatively. Results: VAS pain scores and patient-related outcome measures improved significantly for all TWAs. Improved hand grip strength was noted for all TWAs except Universal 2. ROM improved somewhat, especially for the Biax and Maestro TWAs. Cumulative implant survival after 5 years was 99% for Remotion, 95% for Maestro, and 84% for Biax. Radiographic loosening was present in 26% of the Biax cases, 18% of the Remotion cases, and 2% of the Maestro cases. Conclusions: All TWA designs in this study offer a high level of patient satisfaction. The design of the implant may affect patient-perceived outcome 5 years postoperatively. Good mid to long-term results can be achieved in patients undergoing TWA.


In this article I discuss the ways in which the Turkish state uses Islam as a weapon to delegitimize and render unnecessary Kurdish distinctiveness and associated rights claims. Drawing on the particular discourse employed by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a series of political rallies in Diyarbakır, the symbolic capital of Turkish Kurdistan, I highlight key patterns in the instrumentalization of religion to maintain Turkish dominance. The Kurdish question as it is experienced by Kurds of Turkey, contrary to expectations, is not at all a matter of "discrimination" and "otherization." Rather, the Kurdish problem arises from a lack of recognition of the Kurds as a separate self.


Background: Histopathological grading is an important part for the characterization of breast cancer with regard to prognosis and treatment options. 30-60% of breast cancer patients have a grade 2 (G2) malignancy resulting in an intermediate prognosis and the challenge of finding individualized adequate treatment options. Moreover, the lack of objectivity of the grading system is criticized. With the genetic analysis of breast cancer, the deciphering of its genes and gene expression profiling using microarray technology is a new way of classifying breast cancer Patients, Materials, and Methods. Tumor tissue from 229 breast cancer patients collected from January 2009 - June 2010 was examined. A histological grading of the tumors was determined and gene expression profiling was performed by microarray technology (Agilent Technologies). Gene expression data were reduced and a novel molecular grade index (MGI-9) was defined as a G1 versus G3 classifier by SAM (Significance Analysis of Microarray) and PAM (Prediction Analysis of Microarray). The validity of the newly defined MGI-9 as a prognostic factor was tested by applying it to three published data sets with external follow-up information for a total of 760 patients Results: The significance analysis of gene expression profiles of 229 breast cancer patients using SAM showed more than 11,000 significantly differentially expressed genes according to the grading classes G1-2-3. The number of differentially expressed genes was reduced to 228 genes by SAM analysis using only the G1 vs. G3 cases (63 patients). PAM analysis resulted in a more reduced classifier of 44 molecular probes and we could show that a subset of 9 genes gave similar classification results and could reliably used in FFPE Material. The new MGI-9 index was tested in thee external data sets (GSE1456, GSE2034 and GSE3494) and could subdivide the histological G2 group in two molecular subgroups G2A and G2B with significant impact on survival in all test scenarios. Conclusion: The results show that MGI 9-gene molecular grade index is more informative than the conventional histopathological grading system. In order to validate MGI-9 a prospective, randomized study with long-term follow-up for local recurrence rate and distant metastases is urgently needed. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2013;73(24 Suppl): Abstract nr P6-05-02.


Programming of lymph node fibroblastic reticular cells by type I interferons is needed for effective antiviral CD8+ T cell responses. Stromal cells poised to defend Fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs) in lymph nodes help establish niches where productive cell interactions can engender effective immune defense. Perez-Shibayama et al. evaluated the contribution of type I interferons and interferon-stimulated genes to supporting normal FRC function by studying mice with conditional deletion of the type I interferon receptor (Ifnar) in FRCs. Single-cell RNA sequencing of Ifnar-deficient FRCs revealed baseline perturbations in FRC differentiation associated with changes in myeloid cell composition. Mice with Ifnar-deficient FRCs were compromised in their ability to control spread of a localized virus infection due, in part, to impaired CD8+ T cells displaying features of exhaustive activation. Sensing of type I interferons by FRCs is critical to maintaining secondary lymphoid tissues in a poised state ready to repel viral infections. Fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs) are stromal cells that actively promote the induction of immune responses by coordinating the interaction of innate and adaptive immune cells. However, whether and to which extent immune cell activation is determined by lymph node FRC reprogramming during acute viral infection has remained unexplored. Here, we genetically ablated expression of the type I interferon-α receptor (Ifnar) in Ccl19-Cre+ cells and found that sensing of type I interferon imprints an antiviral state in FRCs and thereby preserves myeloid cell composition in lymph nodes of naive mice. During localized lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection, IFNAR signaling precipitated profound phenotypic adaptation of all FRC subsets enhancing antigen presentation, chemokine-driven immune cell recruitment, and immune regulation. The IFNAR-dependent shift of all FRC subsets toward an immunostimulatory state reduced exhaustive CD8+ T cell activation. In sum, these results unveil intricate circuits underlying type I IFN sensing in lymph node FRCs that enable protective antiviral immunity.


Objective:To evaluate the extent to which sitting position and applied positive end-expiratory pressure improve respiratory mechanics of severely obese patients under mechanical ventilation. Design:Prospective cohort study. Settings:A 15-bed ICU of a tertiary hospital. Participants:Fifteen consecutive critically ill patients with a body mass index (the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) above 35 were compared to 15 controls with body mass index less than 30. Interventions:Respiratory mechanics was first assessed in the supine position, at zero end-expiratory pressure, and then at positive end-expiratory pressure set at the level of auto-positive endexpiratory pressure. Second, all measures were repeated in the sitting position. Measurements and Main Results:Assessment of respiratory mechanics included plateau pressure, auto-positive end-expiratory pressure, and flow-limited volume during manual compression of the abdomen, expressed as percentage of tidal volume to evaluate expiratory flow limitation. In supine position at zero end-expiratory pressure, all critically ill obese patients demonstrated expiratory flow limitation (flow-limited volume, 59.4% [51.3–81.4%] vs 0% [0–0%] in controls; p < 0.0001) and greater auto-positive end-expiratory pressure (10 [5–12.5] vs 0.7 [0.4–1.25] cm H2O in controls; p < 0.0001). Applied positive end-expiratory pressure reverses expiratory flow limitation (flow-limited volume, 0% [0–21%] vs 59.4% [51–81.4%] at zero end-expiratory pressure; p < 0.001) in almost all the obese patients, without increasing plateau pressure (24 [19–25] vs 22 [18–24] cm H2O at zero end-expiratory pressure; p = 0.94). Sitting position not only reverses partially or completely expiratory flow limitation at zero end-expiratory pressure (flow-limited volume, 0% [0–58%] vs 59.4% [51–81.4%] in supine obese patients; p < 0.001) but also results in a significant drop in auto-positive end-expiratory pressure (1.2 [0.6–4] vs 10 [5–12.5] cm H2O in supine obese patients; p < 0.001) and plateau pressure (15.6 [14–17] vs 22 [18–24] cm H2O in supine obese patients; p < 0.001). Conclusions:In critically ill obese patients under mechanical ventilation, sitting position constantly and significantly relieved expiratory flow limitation and auto-positive end-expiratory pressure resulting in a dramatic drop in alveolar pressures. Combining sitting position and applied positive end-expiratory pressure provides the best strategy.


Conditional quantiles are required in various economic, biomedical or industrial problems. Lack of objective basis for ordering multivariate observations is a major problem in extending the notion of quantiles or conditional quantiles (also called regression quantiles) in a multidimensional setting. We first recall some characterizations of the unconditional spatial quantiles and the corresponding estimators. Then, we consider the conditional case. In this work, we focus our study on the geometric (or spatial) notion of quantiles introduced by Chaudhuri (1992a, 1996). We generalize, in the conditional framework, the Theorem 2.1.2 of Chaudhuri (1996), and we present algorithms allowing the calculation of the unconditional and conditional spatial quantile estimators. Finally, these various concepts are illustrated using simulated data.


Coinciding monsoon and typhoon seasons in the Philippines cause torrential rainfall, and associated hazards such as flooding and landslides. While early warning systems require accurate radar-based rainfall estimates, low-density rain gauge networks in the Philippines make it challenging to monitor the calibration of the ground-based radars (GRs). As an alternative, we ::: We explore the potential of spaceborne radar (SR) observations from the Ku-band precipitation radars on board the TRMM and 5 GPM satellites as a reference to quantify the calibration bias of an S-band GRin the Philippines ::::: ground ::::: radar ::::: (GR) ::::::::: reflectivity ::: bias. To this end, the 3D volume-matching algorithm proposed by Schwaller and Morris (2009) ::::::::::::::::::::::: Schwaller and Morris (2011) is implemented and applied to five years (2012-2016) of observations. We further extend the procedure by a framework to take into account the data quality of each ground radar bin. Through these methods, we are able to assign a quality index to each matching SR-GR :::::: SR–GR : volume, and thus compute the GR calibration bias as a quality-weighted average of reflectivity 10 differences in any sample of matching GR-SR :::::: GR–SR : volumes. We exemplify the idea of quality-weighted averaging by using the beam blockage fraction as a :: the : basis of a quality index. As a result, we can increase the consistency of SR and GR observations, and thus the precision of calibration bias estimates. The remaining scatter between GR and SR reflectivity, as well as the variability of bias estimates between overpass events indicate, however, that other error sources are not yet fully addressed. Still, our study provides a framework to introduce any other quality variables that are considered relevant 15 in a specific context. The code that implements our analysis is based on the open source software library wradlib, and is, together with the data, publicly available to monitor radar calibration, or to scrutinize long series of archived radar data back to December 1997, when TRMM became operational. Copyright statement.


In the article there is an analysis of the dynamics and tendency of birth rate, level and structure of perinatal and infant mortality as well as contraceptive behaviour of females in Tumenskaya area. Importance of monitoring of the above-mentioned indices for planning of medico-organizational and preventive measures for optimization of reproductive-demographic processes regarding regional characteristics is emphasized.


The incidence of measles in the United States dramatically increased in the 1980s, from a low of 1,497 cases in 1983 to over 17,000 cases in 1989. Family physicians can help reverse this trend by following the revised immunization schedule, which includes a measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) booster for preschool-age children. New guidelines also recommend that either the two-dose MMR schedule or serologic evidence of immunity be required for all persons entering college or employed in the medical field. Immunization policies for physician's offices should ensure that all office staff have acquired measles immunity and that a triage policy separating patients with rash from those with other illnesses is utilized. Mild upper respiratory illness, a history of seizures, nonanaphylactic egg allergy and asymptomatic human immunodeficiency virus infection are not contraindications to measles vaccine. All cases of measles should be reported to the local health department.


Purpose: Quantify changes in blood flow velocity in the radial artery after local dynamic exercise and compare these results between a group of women and men. Acquire data of normal resting blood flow in the radial artery. Methods: We examined 42 healthy young volunteers (21 men and 21 women) of the age about 20. A pocket Doppler ultrasound device was used for measurements. Physical exercise was defined as one-minute-long, one-handed weightlifting. Hemodynamic parameters were registered during resting before exercise and immediately after exercise. Results: Resting baseline values: overall maximum blood flow velocity 26.49 cm/s (SD: 9.99 cm/s), mean blood flow velocity 8.46 cm/s (SD: 6.17 cm/s), and pulsatility index (PI) 5.46 (SD: 5.7) for the whole group. Mean percentage increase of maximum blood flow velocity is 36.5%, mean blood flow velocity 243%. PI was reduced by 52.8%. There was a presumed significant difference in the percentage change of PI between the group of women and men (p<0.05). There is also a typical change in velocity waveform after exercise. Conclusion: The most altered parameter is mean blood flow velocity, which corresponds to an observed change of velocity waveform probably caused by local vasodilatation lasting only for several seconds.


To represent object movement, the conventional approach is to embed the motion information into parametric and/or statistical motion models. However, the inherent complexity of this description is ill suited for application requiring rapid and automatic, albeit significant, responses. Surveillance applications belong to this class and are emerging as the most active field of research in computer vision. For this purpose, we observe that the differential invariants obtained by dense optic flow are capable of accurately describing complex object motion without requiring setting up and initializing models. In this letter, we demonstrate the novel use of such motion descriptors for spatio-temporal object segmentation and delayering of sequences. Our results show the ability of this approach to describe simply and accurately differently moving objects and to be incorporated in segmentation processes that deliver a hierarchical description of object, producing evident improvements to the segmented objects while being computationally efficient


Potato is often considered synonymous with Ireland, due to the great Irish famine in 1845, and remains the most important primary food crop in Ireland. Over the last 60 yr, the area of potatoes has reduced from 86,000 ha to 9,000 ha. This trend has occurred in most developed countries but in Ireland it is due to decreasing consumption, increasing yield, decline in seed production and potatoes no longer being use for animal feed. Significant specialisation occurred in the industry during the 1990s, with improvements in agronomy, on farm investment in storage and field equipment, consolidation of packing facilities, and a significant shift in cultivar choice, with Rooster becoming the dominant cultivar. These developments led to an increase in yield from 20 t/ha in the mid-1980s to over 40 t/ha today. Potato research in Ireland has focused on breeding, pathology and agronomy, while there have been significant changes in how knowledge is communicated to growers and the industry in this period. The industry faces many challenges in the future, largely framed by climate change, the need to reduce fertiliser and plant protection products as part of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy and industry size constraints. New superior potato varieties and novel breeding techniques will have potential to help address many challenges in combination with integrated pest management principles. Multi-actor approaches will be necessary to address all challenges but particularly to aid the industry grow and exploit emerging opportunities.


Background: Bony overgrowth over the lateral condyle, or "lateral spurring," is commonly identified after lateral condyle fractures of the humerus in children. Despite its frequent recognition, no prior study has defined the phenomenon, established an incidence rate, explored a correlation with any fracture or treatment characteristics, nor assessed whether it is of functional significance. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed information on 212 consecutive lateral condyle fractures in children. Spurring was defined as an overgrowth of bone over the lateral aspect of the lateral condyle resulting in an irregularity of the metaphyseal flare. The magnitude of the spurring was classified by measuring the increase in maximum interepicondylar width of the distal humerus on the latest follow-up radiograph. Results: Of the 212 fractures, 55% were treated with cast immobilization, 11% with closed reduction and percutaneous pinning, and 34% with open reduction and internal fixation. Of all fractures, 73% developed a lateral spur. Of those, 43% had a mild spur, 38% a moderate spur, and 19% a severe spur. Fractures that developed a spur had a mean initial displacement of 3.3 mm, as compared with 1.1 mm in those that did not develop spurring (P<0.0001). The amount of initial displacement was higher for fractures that developed mild (2.4 mm, P=0004), moderate (3.6 mm, P<0.00001), and severe (4.9 mm, P<0.00001) spurs, as compared with fractures with no spur. At the latest follow-up, patients that developed lateral spurring had a mean relative arc of motion of 93.7% of the normal contralateral elbow, whereas patients without a spur had a relative range of motion of 94.3% (P=0.4). Conclusions: Lateral spurring is an extremely common sequela of lateral humeral condyle fractures in children. The development of a spur correlates with initial displacement and surgical treatment. The size of the spur is associated with the amount of initial fracture displacement. Despite concerns from patients, families, and physicians alike, neither the presence nor the size of the lateral spur seems to influence the final outcome. Level of Evidence: Level II—retrospective study.


Generating robot motion that fulfills multiple tasks simultaneously is challenging due to the geometric constraints imposed on the robot. In this paper, we propose to solve multi-task problems through learning structured policies from human demonstrations. Our structured policy is inspired by RMPflow, a framework for combining subtask policies on different spaces. The policy structure provides the user an interface to 1) specifying the spaces that are directly relevant to the completion of the tasks, and 2) designing policies for certain tasks that do not need to be learned. We derive an end-to-end learning objective that is suitable for the multi-task problem, emphasizing the distance between generated motions and demonstrations measured on task spaces. Furthermore, the motion generated from the learned policy class is guaranteed to be stable. We validate the effectiveness of our proposed learning framework through qualitative and quantitative evaluations on three robotic tasks on a 7-DOF Rethink Sawyer robot.


The purpose of this study is to develop students worksheet based on information media literacy activity on the learning media subject. This study used research and development (R & D) method using Constructivist Instructional Design (C-ID) model. The procedure consists of 4 stages: defining, design, developing, disseminating. The research result has successfully developed students worksheet with some characteristics containing a series of learning activities including accessing, searching, analyzing information from various sources and processing, producing and informing in various forms through various sources. The student's worksheet has been developed with identification or defining procedures, designs, development, validation, and testing. The results of small-scale validation and testing indicate that the research product in the form of student worksheet based on information media literacy activity is feasible to be used in the real learning of the learning media subject.


Introduction: Coronary angiography (CA) is the gold standard test to identify patients with coronary artery disease. Despitea proportion of normal CAs is expected, this study should be minimized, given its invasive nature, the associated risk andincreased health costs.Objectives: The aim of this study was to establish the characteristics, epidemiological patterns and variables associated toangiographically "normal" coronary arteries in stable patients referred for CA.Methods: Coronary angiographies were analyzed in 12,686 patients from five centers in Buenos Aires. All data were retrospectivelyobtained from 2008 to 2013. Coronary angiographies with < 50% lesions were defined as "normal". Demographiccharacteristics, usual risk factors, chronic renal failure, hypothyroidism, peripheral vascular disease, symptoms, ischemiainducingtests and social coverage were compared between the group with "normal" CA and patients with ≥ 50% obstructivecoronary disease.Results: Among the 3,990 patients included in the study (31.5%), 38.6% had a normal CA, and female gender was the mostimportant independent predictor for this finding. In addition, younger age and absence of ischemic symptoms were associatedwith greater probability of "normal" CA.Conclusions: In a population referred for CA diagnosed with stable coronary artery disease, female gender, younger age andabsence of symptoms were associated with angiographically "normal" coronary arteries. Better use of clinical stratificationmodels could optimize CA performance to detect patients with significant coronary artery disease, limiting unnecessary studies.


We read the paper by Dias et al. with interest. This prospective blinded observational study demonstrated plasma procalcitonin (PCT), assessed by semi-quantitative strip test, as the only inflammatory marker to identify patients requiring surgery over conservative management, with superior sensitivity and specificity than C-reactive protein and leukocyte count. PCT is an established marker of bacteraemia in sepsis. The PCT testing kit has also been validated in sepsis. The study has commendable features. Surgeons were blinded to inflammatory markers, meaning the decision to operate was determined clinically, with PCT correlated retrospectively. All markers were measured on one sample. High PCT was identified in four patients with mesenteric ischaemia, a notoriously difficult clinical diagnosis. Implemented prospectively, this may reduce morbidity and mortality. We have reservations however. The cohort is small and true numbers of patients in each group were not clear. A flow chart such as CONSORT would clarify. 'Acute abdomen' is a loose definition. The authors state sudden onset of abdominal pain <24 h; however, table 1 of the study states that 38% of patients had symptoms >24 h pre-hospitalization. The actual diagnosis and method of diagnosis (computed tomography, ultrasound or surgery) were omitted. Many patients with infective, inflammatory, medical or gynaecological problems present with acute abdomens, but few require surgery. The diagnoses in both conservative and operated groups would be interesting. The number of surgeons and decision-making processes were not explained. Additionally, negative operative findings were not disclosed. The patients are predominantly young men with few comorbidities. This contrasts our experience in the West of Scotland where increasingly aged patients are presented as surgical emergencies. Radiologically guided percutaneous or endoscopic procedures are often used in their management. There is no disclosure of any such procedure in the observed study. PCT is determined by estimated colorimetric stick test, subject to user and operator bias, which is not discussed. Finally, there is no declaration of conflict of interest or funding.


Multinational corporations (MNCs) strategise in a dynamic multi-polar world consisting of changing environments at home and abroad. They continuously face a new set of push- and pull-factors for internationalising activities. In recent decades, internationalisation has been reaching into emerging markets, which are significantly different from MNCs' traditional locations. As globalisation progresses, internationalisation increasingly involves exploitation strategies, i.e., offshoring of production; market access; and exploration strategies such as internationalisation of innovation. This article looks into how Danish MNCs have evolved into the Chinese economy, investigating the trajectories of how and when four Danish MNCs entered the Chinese economy and how the strategy patterns have emerged from cost reduction, to market access, and recently to innovation. Over 30 years, China has developed into an important hub for MNC offshoring of innovation. The four MNCs have changed the mandate of the Chinese innovation sites into global centres of excellence.


In this paper, we propose a coordinate descent approach to low-rank structured semidefinite programming. The approach, which we call the Mixing method, is extremely simple to implement, has no free parameters, and typically attains an order of magnitude or better improvement in optimization performance over the current state of the art. We show that for certain problems, the method is strictly decreasing and guaranteed to converge to a critical point. We then apply the algorithm to three separate domains: solving the maximum cut semidefinite relaxation, solving a (novel) maximum satisfiability relaxation, and solving the GloVe word embedding optimization problem. In all settings, we demonstrate improvement over the existing state of the art along various dimensions. In total, this work substantially expands the scope and scale of problems that can be solved using semidefinite programming methods.


BACKGROUND
Fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-23 is a recently discovered phosphaturic hormone that increases in chronic kidney disease (CKD). It has been accepted as a determinant of mortality and a therapeutic target in these patients. Ghrelin is a hormone that has roles in energy and nutrient metabolism. Ghrelin level was found to be increased in CKD patients. This is a controlled study in which the relationship between FGF-23 and ghrelin levels in CKD patients has been studied.

METHODS
Three groups were involved: 88 individuals. Dialysis group (DG, 33 patients) including patients on hemodialysis (21 patients) or peritoneal dialysis program (12 patients); predialysis group (PG, 29 patients) consisting of patients with stage-3 CKD; and the control group (CG, 29 individuals) of healthy adults. Serum FGF-23 and ghrelin levels were measured as well as routine biochemical parameters.

RESULTS
FGF-23 levels were similar within the groups (CG: 268±45 pg/mL, PG: 284±94 pg/mL, DG: 259±87 pg/mL, P=0.11). Ghrelin level was higher in the PG group compared with the DG and CG, while DG had higher ghrelin level than the CG (CG: 2.79±0.38 ng/mL, PG: 4.53±1.18 ng/mL, DG: 3.98±0.89 ng/mL). When all groups were studied together; a strong correlation was found between FGF-23 and ghrelin levels. When the analysis was repeated with PG and DG accepted as CKD group; this strong correlation persisted; while it was not true for the CG.

CONCLUSIONS
There might be a strong correlation between FGF-23 and ghrelin levels irrespective of the stage of CKD and the dialysis modality. There is need for further studies to clarify the pathophysiological link between these parameters.


Here we report on an alternative approach for making spectral irradiance measurements of radiation sources traceable, employing our monochromator-based absolute cryogenic radiometer (ACR) facility to its full extent. The method makes use of the continuously tunable absolute radiant flux emerging from the ACR facility to characterize and calibrate the spectral irradiance responsivity of a second adjacent double-monochromator system. This system will be part of a new facility at NMi-VSL, called SIR, that will be used to measure spectral irradiance distributions of radiation sources from the ultraviolet to the far infrared. Following this traceability route, a fully characterized high-temperature Planckian radiator is not needed. Proof-of-principle measurements in the visible part of the spectrum show very encouraging results. Although the new facility is under construction, the theoretical background and a schematic description will be presented in this paper.


The objective of the current study was to determine the effects of the extracts isolated from the fruit body of Flammulina velutipes cultivated with oriental herbal plants on mouse splenocytes, B cells, and macrophages in vitro. The ethanol extracts B (EEB) directly induced the proliferation of spleen cells in a dose-dependent manner and increased IL-6, TNF-, and IFN- synthesis. The EEB also increased the proliferation of B cells in a dose-dependent manner. The production of immunoglobulin M, G1, G2a, G2b, and IgG3 in the presence of the EEB increased progressively in the culture supernatant. When the EEB were used in macrophage cell line (RAW264.7) stimulation, there was a marked induction of NO synthesis in a dose-dependent manner and an increased IL-6, TNF-, and GM-CSF synthesis. Intraperitoneal injection with EBB showed life prolongation effect of 16.1% in mice previously inoculated with sarcoma-180, respectively. These results suggest that the capacity of the EEB isolated from the fruit body of Flammulina velutipes cultivated with oriental herbal plants seems to act as a potent immunomodulator causing augmentation of immune cell activity, and with the absence of notable side-effects, Flammulina velutipes EEB could be used as a biological response modifier having possible therapeutic effects against immunological disorders. This study also showed that functional components of Flammulina velutipes were possibly improved by incorporating oriental herbal plants in a growth medium.


The results of the hoverfly (Syrphidae) collection by the 'Malloch Society' on the Greek island of Lesvos are presented.Fieldwork took place from February to March 2006 and from May to June 2010. An account of 66 species from 28 generais provided including two species new to science, five species new to Greece and data for several rarely recorded species.We describe Eumerus armatus Ricarte and Rotheray sp. nov., a medium size species with red abdomen. We also describe Sphiximorpha hiemalis Ricarte, Nedeljkovic and Hancock sp. nov., a hairy species with distinctive colour and pollinositypatterns and abdomen shape. The female of Eumerus claripennis Coe, 1957 is described and the male genitalia are figured.The majority of species encountered belonged to the typically Mediterranean genera Eumerus (8 spp.), Merodon (16 spp.)and Paragus (6 spp.). Approximately 71% of the recorded species also occur in Turkey. This supports the idea that West Mediterranean and Anatolian faunas overlap in Lesvos.


Marital distress is progressively becoming a severe social problem. Under sorne social circumstaoces, crime aod delinquency is greater for children of unhappy or brokeo heme,, alcoholism is more frequent among the sepaxated, and marital distress precedes about halfof the first admissions to mental hospitals. Recently, nurnerous behavior analysts have conducted research on the effects of behavioral technology on marital distress. The most reliable results point out that procedures such as behavioral contracting, training couples on verbal aoci nonverbal interactioo, target behaviors defioitioo, problem analysis and ne¬gotiating skills, among others, are successful it, alleviating marital distress. These procedures also show supetiority when they are compared with others derived from psychodynarnic conceptions. The research methodology of many of these behavioral studies, ho-wever, shows sorne severe limitations. The malo weaknesses include: lack of reliable dependentmeasures, lack of validity of independent procedures, incompetent experimental designs and personal research biases. Sorne methodological procedures are suggested to improve the quality of further studies and a summary table abstracts the status of this research aiea.


This study discussed multimodal analysis of GoFood and GrabFood advertisements. This study is aimed at finding out the linguistic, visual and gestural elements in GoFood and GrabFood advertisements and their differences in representing the concept of online advertising. This study was conducted by using descriptive approach. The data used in this study are the six video advertisements of GoFood and GrabFood which are analyzed by applying Halliday's Systemic Functional linguistic; Transitivity and mood, Kress and van Leeuwen's Representational Meaning, and Cheong's Generic Structure Potential. The data were in the form of text and images. The results of this study show that there are some similarities and differences of the linguistic, visual and gestural analysis between GoFood and GrabFood. The similarities found in the linguistic and gestural analysis between GoFood and GrabFood. Whilts, the differences found in the generic structure and visual analysis of GoFood and GrabFood. This research found that those elements are integrated in GoFood and GrabFood advertisements. In addition, the structure of GSP created in GoFood is a complete one (lead, display, emblem (visual), announcement, enhancer, emblem (linguistic), tag, and call-and-visit information), while GrabFood advertisements use call-and-visit information rarely. Thus, these advertisements involve the concept of online advertising.


This paper presents a novel analog-digital mix-mode low power IC implemented in a CMOS process used for a bi-directional digital wireless endoscope capsule. The proposed system can implement the diagnoses of whole human digestive tract. It has some characterized features such as real time endoscopy image monitoring, adjustment of the view angle and focus, 3-dimension range image acquisition, and controllability of capsule movement. The architecture, specifications and characteristics of the IC are demonstrated.


We have developed a method for encoding phase and amplitude in microscopic computer-generated holograms (microtags) for security applications. An 8 x 8 cell phase-only and an 8 x 8 cell phase-and-amplitude microtag design has been exposed in photoresist by the extreme-ultraviolet (13.4-nm) lithography tool developed at Sandia National Laboratories. Each microtag measures 80 microm x 160 microm and contains features that are 0.2 microm wide. Fraunhofer zone diffraction patterns can be obtained from fabricated microtags without any intervening optics and compare favorably with predicted diffraction patterns.


Loss-of-function mutations in DJ-1 cause a subset of familial Parkinson disease (PD). However, the mechanism underlying the selective vulnerability in dopaminergic pathway due to the inactivation of DJ-1 is unclear. Previously, we have reported that DJ-1 is a neuroprotective transcriptional co-activator interacting with the transcriptional co-repressor pyrimidine tract-binding protein-associated splicing factor (PSF). Here we show that DJ-1 and PSF bind and regulate the human tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) promoter. Inactivation of DJ-1 by small interference RNA (siRNA) results in decreased TH expression and l-DOPA production in human dopaminergic cell lines. Consistent with its role as a transcriptional regulator, DJ-1 specifically suppresses the global SUMO-1 modification. High molecular weight sumoylated protein species, including PSF, accumulate in the lymphoblast cells from the patients carrying pathogenic DJ-1 mutations. DJ-1 elevates the TH expression by inhibiting the sumoylation of PSF and preventing its sumoylation-dependent recruitment of histone deacetylase 1. Furthermore, siRNA silencing of DJ-1 decreases the acetylation of TH promoter-bound histones, and histone deacetylase inhibitors restore the DJ-1 siRNA-induced repression of TH. Therefore, our results suggest DJ-1 as a regulator of protein sumoylation and directly link the loss of DJ-1 expression and transcriptional dysfunction to impaired dopamine synthesis.


Peroxidases were screened for specfic enzyme activity in the extracts from sweet potato, cauliflower, soybean and sourlime, using acidic phosphate buffered saline (pH 6.5). The peroxidases activities were recorded using guaiacol and H2O2 by spectrophotometric absorbance. Enzyme concentrations were optimized as 0.30 mL, (1:5). 0.20 (1:15), 0.10(1:15), 0.20 (1:10) for sweet potato, cauliflower, soybean and sourlime peroxidases respectively, The maximum activities of sweet potato (0.080000), cauliflower (0.890DU), soybean (0.07IODU) and sourlime (0.089ODU) peroxidase were observed at the pH of 6.5, 6.5, 5.5 and 5.0 respectively. The soybean peroxidases was found more thermostable and against an elevation of 1EC in temperature, the drop in sweet potato, cauliflower, soyabean and sourlime peroxidase activity was of the order of 0.006, 0.007, 0.004 and 0.010, respectively. The total protein values for sweet potato, cauliflower, soybean and sourlime extracts were found to be 2.38, 2.050, 1.9 and 10.8 percent respectively.


As the number and scale of Semantic Web applications in use increases, so does the need to efficiently store and retrieve RDF data. Current published schemes for RDF data management either fail to embrace the schema flexibility inherent in RDF or make restrictive assumptions about application usage models. This paper describes a storage and indexing scheme based on linked lists and memory-mapped files, and presents theoretical and empirical analysis of its strengths and weaknesses versus other techniques. This scheme is currently used in Parliament (formerly DAML DB), a triple store with rule support that has recently been released as open source.


Explains the need for a valid and reliable instrument for course managers to evaluate their product through customer feedback as part of the system of quality assurance. Examines the justification for viewing higher education as a service provision with the student body as the customer. Provides a short review of the existing tools for measuring student experience along with the rationale for testing a modified version of the SERVQUAL instrument. The instrument was completed by volunteers from three undergraduate degrees (n = 134) in class time just before the Christmas vacation. Analysis of the results revealed higher average perception scores than expectation scores on every dimension except tangibles. However, analysis also revealed rather lower reliability coefficients than achieved by Parasuraman or later replication studies. Factor analysis did not support the original five SERVQUAL dimensions in line with other replication studies. Considers the reasons for the low reliability score and the different factor structure. In particular, proposes the modified instrument's lack of focus on a specific aspect of the complex service experience as a possible source of error. Recommends that the elements of service quality should be revisited and a higher education specific instrument for course managers should be constructed.


"The multi-layered political system of the European Union offers a unique environment for the study of comparative democracy. Its policies seek to give effect to an agreed range of values, including that of gender equality. This book explores gender equality and democratic politics in Europe. It discusses how democratic politics engages with gender equality in the European Union and examines what happens when a core democratic value of the European Union, equality between women and men, is given policy effect in supra-national and domestic level politics. It asks how embedded is this value in democratic politics and what degree of gender equality is expressed in this environment. The collection brings to light the gendered nature of democratic politics, offering a critical gaze on the workings of modern democracy in Europe. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of democracy, European studies, gender, and key to courses seeking to incorporate a deeper gender perspective or evaluating democracy and democratic performance in institutions and decision-making."


A specific real-time polymerase chain reaction followed by melt curve analysis was developed for the detection of the Swedish variant (nvCT) strain of Chlamydia trachomatis (CT). Surveillance was performed on 476 CT-positive clinical specimens obtained from 15 laboratories around the United States using nucleic acid amplification test assays, which would not miss the nvCT. All were negative for nvCT; thus, there is no evidence of the nvCT in the United States.


We study interacting particle systems on the real line which generalize the Hammersley process [D.sen point between their previous position and that of the forward neighbor, at a rate which may depend on the distance to the neighbor. A class of models is identified for which the invariant particle distribution is Poisson. The bulk of the paper is devoted to a model where the jump rate is constant and the jump length is a random fraction r of the distance to the forward neighbor, drawn from a probability density φ(r) on the unit interval. This is a special case of the random average process of Ferrari and Fontes [El. J. The discrete time version of the model has been considered previously in the context of force propagation in granular that the stationary two-point function of particle spacings factorizes for any choice of φ(r). Under the assumption that this implies pairwise independence , the invariant density of interparticle spacings for the case of uniform 1 φ(r) is found to be a gamma distribution with parameter ν, where ν = 1/2, 1 and 2 for continuous time, backward sequential and discrete time dynamics , respectively. A heuristic derivation of a nonlinear diffusion equation is presented, and the tracer diffusion coefficient is computed for arbitrary φ(r) and different types of dynamics.


Introduction Tyrosine-kinase inhibitors (TKIs) represent the best treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with common exon 19 deletion or exon 21 epidermal growth factor receptor mutation (EGFRm). This is an observational study investigating epidemiology, clinical features and treatment outcome of NSCLC cases harbouring rare/complex EGFRm. Results Among 764 non-squamous NSCLC cases with known EGFRm status, 26(3.4%) harboured rare/complex EGFRm. Patients receiving first-line TKIs (N = 17) achieved median Progression Free Survival (PFS) and Overall Survival (OS) of 53 (IC 95%, 2–105) and 84 (CI 95%, 27–141) weeks respectively, without significant covariate impact. Response Rate and Disease Control Rate (DCR) were 47% and 65%, respectively. Uncommon exon 19 mutations achieved longer OS and PFS and higher DCR compared with exon 18 and 20 mutations. No additional gene mutation was discovered by MassARRAY analysis. TKIs were globally well tolerated. Materials and methods A retrospective review of advanced non-squamous NSCLC harbouring rare/complex EGFRm referred to our Center between 2010 and 2015 was performed. Additional molecular pathways disregulation was explored in selected cases, through MassARRAY analysis. Conclusions Peculiar clinical features and lower TKIs sensitivity of uncommon/complex compared with common EGFRm were shown. Exon 19 EGFRm achieved the best TKIs treatment outcome, while the optimal treatment of exon 18 and 20 mutations should be further clarified.


Wider band-gap window layers can enhance the transmission of sunlight in the short-wavelength region and improve the performance of CdTe solar cells. In this work, we investigated the band structure of In-doped Zn1−xMgxO (ZMO:In) by using first-principles calculations with the GGA + U method and simulated the performance of ZMO:In/CdTe devices using the SCAPS program. The calculation results show that with the increased Mg doping concentration, the band gap of ZMO increases. However, the band gap of ZMO was decreased after In incorporation due to the downwards shifted conduction band. Owing to the improved short circuit current and fill factor, the conversion efficiency of the ZMO:In-based solar cells show better performance as compared with the CdS-based ones. A highest efficiency of 19.63% could be achieved owing to the wider band gap of ZMO:In and the appropriate conduction band offset (CBO) of ~0.23 eV at ZMO:In/CdTe interface when the Mg concentration x approaches 0.0625. Further investigations on thickness suggest an appropriate thickness of ZMO:In (x = 0.0625) in order to obtain better device performance would be 70–100 nm. This work provides a theoretical guidance for designing and fabricating highly efficient CdTe solar cells.


Ability to stimulate antimicrobial immunity has proven to be a useful therapeutic strategy in treating infections, especially in the face of increasing antibiotic resistance. Natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) exhibiting immunomodulatory functions normally encompass complex activities, which make it difficult to optimize their therapeutic benefits. Here, a chemotactic motif was harnessed as a template to design a series of AMPs with immunostimulatory activities plus bacteria-killing activities ("AMP plus"). An amphipathic peptide ((PhHAhPH)n) was employed to improve the antimicrobial impact and expand the therapeutic potential of the chemotactic motif that lacked obvious bacteria-killing properties. A total of 18 peptides were designed and evaluated for their structure-activity relationships. Among the designed, KWH2 (1) potently killed bacteria and exhibited a narrow antimicrobial spectrum against Gram-negative bacteria and (2) activated macrophages (i.e., inducing Ca2+ influx, cell migration, and reactive oxygen species production) as a macrophage chemoattractant. Membrane permeabilization is the major antimicrobial mechanism of KWH2. Furthermore, the mouse subcutaneous abscess model supported the dual immunomodulatory and antimicrobial potential of KWH2 in vivo. The above results confirmed the efficiency of KWH2 in treating bacterial infection and provided a viable approach to develop immunomodulatory antimicrobial materials with desired properties.


The breakthrough of immune checkpoint-targeting therapies has unveiled new hopes for cancer therapy. However, subsets of patients who do not see robust responses to immunotherapy remain. To address this hurdle, combination therapies – coupling agents with distinct mechanisms of action (MoA) – appear promising to enhance treatment success against various cancers. However, a major challenge in the development of novel combination therapies is the unmet need for preclinical models to predict efficacy and tolerability. Immunocompetent models featuring humanized immune checkpoints enable the assessment of human-targeted therapies in well-established syngeneic tumor models, allowing investigation with fully functional crosstalk among syngeneic tumor, immune, and stromal cells. While these models enable profiling evaluation of agents directed toward human targets, results still reflect mouse biology. Alternatively, immunodeficient mice reconstituted with a human immune system offer the possibility to investigate the efficacy and MoA of agents directed against human targets, with the advantage of exploring human biology using human tumor cell lines in a mouse model. This article discusses examples of applicability and complementarity of syngeneic and BRGSF– human immune system (HIS) models to assess the efficacy and MoA of immunotherapies, either in combination with inhibitory immune checkpoints or as monotherapy.


Abstract Mountainous areas in China account for two‐thirds of the total land area. Due to rapid urbanization, rural population emigration in China's mountainous areas is very significant. This raises the question to which degree such population emigration influences the vegetation greenness in these areas. In this study, 9,753 sample areas (each sample measured about 64 square kilometers) were randomly selected, and the influences of population emigration (population pressure change) on vegetation greenness during 2000–2010 were quantitatively expressed by the multivariate linear regression (MLR) model, using census data under the condition of controlling the natural elements such as climatic and landform factors. The results indicate that the vegetation index in the past 10 years has presented an increasing overall trend, albeit with local decrease in some regions. The combined area of the regions with improved vegetation accounted for 81.7% of the total mountainous areas in China. From 2000 to 2010, the rural population significantly decreased, with most significant decreases in the northern and central areas (17.2% and 16.8%, respectively). In China's mountainous areas and in most of the subregions, population emigration has significant impacts on vegetation change. In different subregions, population decrease differently influenced vegetation greenness, and the marginal effect of population decrease on vegetation change presented obvious differences from north to south. In the southwest, on the premise of controlling other factors, a population decrease by one unit could increase the slope of vegetation change by 16.4%; in contrast, in the southeastern, northern, northeastern, and central area, the proportion was about 15.5%, 10.6%, 9.7%, and 7.5%, respectively, for improving the trend of NDVI variation.


A1 pulley excision is a novel surgical technique that involves removing the entire pulley as opposed to merely dividing it. This may provide a solution for patients who are at higher risk of scarring or redevelopment of the pulley tissue, such as patients with diabetes. This study aims to compare outcomes of A1 pulley resection versus the standard release (or division) for patients with trigger finger. We hypothesize that complete resection of the A1 pulley will result in fewer instances of scarring and potential redevelopment of the pulley and subsequent postoperative referrals to occupational therapy (OT), steroid injections, or revision releases when compared to A1 pulley division only. A retrospective review was performed and 90 patients with 137 trigger finger releases were included in the study. Postoperative recovery comparisons as well as operative time were compared between the excision and division groups. Subgroup analysis was performed regarding outcomes of patients with diabetes and hypothyroidism. The excision group demonstrated improved outcomes compared to the incision group with lower rates of digital stiffness requiring OT referral (56% versus 61% p=0.529), a lower rate of repeat injections (10% versus 20% p=0.098) and a lower rate of revision release (2% versus 16% p=0.004). Average operative time was 4 minutes 10 seconds min longer in the excision group. Average follow up was 20.8 weeks in the excision group and 46.3 weeks in the incision group. Excision of the A1 pulley is a novel technique that may successfully reduce the rates of OT referrals and digital stiffness, but successfully reduces the need for postoperative injection, and most importantly, it reduces the incidence of revision surgeries with only a minor increase in operative time. We recommend this option for patients who are at an increased risk for redeveloping trigger finger.


Abstract In the present investigation a cylindrical electrostatic precipitator was built into a cyclone's outlet tubes, and was tested at various dusts and voltages. It has been found that the penetration (the unremoved fraction of the dust) for the airborne particles (d < 10 mm) in the case of working built in electrostatic precipitator, decreased to 5–10% of the penetration of the (only) mechanical cyclone operation. The penetration data is given at various dusts and voltages. All are proving that the method is working satisfactorily. If the voltage was smaller than the on set voltage of the discharge, the better performance could be observed. It means that with electric field it is possible to utilize the tribo-charge of the dust particles caused by the collision with the wall of the cyclone.


Pathogens comprised of viruses, bacteria, gut microbiome, and parasites are a leading cause of ever-emerging diseases in humans. Studying pathogens for their ability to cause diseases is a topic of critical discussion among scientists and pharmaceutical centers for effective drug development that diagnose, treat, and prevent infection-associated disorders. Pathogens impact health either directly by invading the host or by eliciting an acute inflammatory immune response. This paradigm of inflammatory immune responses is even more consequential in people who may be immunocompromised. In this regard, pregnancy offers an altered immunity scenario, which may allow the onset of severe diseases. Viruses, such as Influenza, HIV, and now SARS-CoV-2, associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, raise new concerns for maternal and fetal/neonatal health. Intrauterine bacterial and parasitic infections are also known to impact pregnancy outcomes and neonatal health. More importantly, viral and bacterial infections during pregnancy have been identified as a common contributor to fetal brain development defects. Infection-mediated inflammatory uterine immune milieu is thought to be the main trigger for causing poor fetal brain development, resulting in long-term cognitive impairments. The concept of in utero programming of childhood and adult disorders has revolutionized the field of neurodevelopment and its associated complications. Recent findings in mice and humans clearly support the idea that uterine immunity during pregnancy controls the health trajectory of the child and considerably influences the cognitive function and mental health. In this review, we focus on the in utero programming of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and assess the effects of pathogens on the onset of ASD-like symptoms.


Populations of the common bed bug Cimexlecturaliusare undergoing a huge resurgence, but little is known about their patterns of spread and dispersal. We have begun to address this information gap by conducting population genetic studies of bed bug infestations in the U.S. using microsatellite markers and mtDNA sequence data. In addition, we investigated the frequency of insecticide resistance (kdr) alleles in the U.S. Across 17 populations from the eastern U.S., we found high genetic diversity at microsatellite loci, suggesting that these populations likely have heterogeneous origins rather than being introduced from a single source population. However, within individual populations, genetic diversity was low, consistent with each population being started by a small number of individuals, even a single inseminated female. Microscale studies of aggregations within apartments in a single, multi-unit building indicate that the building was likely infested through a single introduction of an inseminated female which founded a population that subsequently expanded and spread to more than 20 apartments. Finally, we found high prevalence of one or both of two mutations for insecticide resistance in 38 populations in the U.S. Together our results provide important insights into the modes of dispersal, levels of genetic diversity and information on the frequency of insecticide resistance in U.S. populations of bed bugs.


Objective: To study the fetomaternal outcome in cesarean sections done in second stage of labor.
Method: It is a prospective observational study of 26 cases of cesarean sections done in second stage of labor in Adichunchanagiri institute of medical sciences from January to September 2014.
Result: There were 1533 deliveries including 468 cesarean sections in the study period. The cesarean rate was 30%. Of 468 cases 26 were performed in second stage of labor contributing 1.6% of total deliveries and 5.5% of all cesarean sections. Most common indication for cesarean section in second stage of labor is deep transverse arrest. Second stage cesarean sections are associated with increased risk of atonic PPH requiring surgical management (7.69%), lower segment tears including angle extension and broad ligament hematoma(15.38%) along with other complications like extraction difficulty, post operative fever, wound sepsis, longer duration of hospital stay. Meconium stained amniotic fluid is present in 30.76% cases. Though timely second stage ceserean sections reduce perinatal mortality few complications like neonatal hyperbilirubinemia occur.
Conclusion: Cesarean sections done in second stage of labor are associated with increased intra-operative maternal complications and neonatal morbidity.
Theme: Healthy mother, healthy baby: Timely intervention to reduce fetomaternal complications.

Key words: Cesarean section, Second stage of labor, Maternal morbidity, Complications


Abstract Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) is an alternative tool for breast cancer screening; however, the magnitude of peripheral organs dose is not well known. This study aimed to measure scattered dose and estimate organ dose during mammography under conventional (CM) and Tomo (TM) modes in a specific DBT system. Optically stimulated luminescence dosimeters (OSLDs), whose responses were corrected using a parallel‐plate ionization chamber, were pasted on the surface of custom‐made polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and RANDO phantoms to measure entrance surface air kerma (ESAK). ESAK measurements were also acquired with a 4.5‐cm thick breast phantom for a standard mammogram. Organ dose conversion factors (CFD) were determined as ratio of air kerma at a specific depth to that at the surface for the PMMA phantom and multiplied by the ratio of mass energy absorption coefficients of tissue to air. Normalized eye lens and thyroid gland doses were calculated using the RANDO phantom by multiplying CFD and ESAK values. Maximum variability in OSLD response to scatter radiation from the DBT system was 33% in the W/Rh spectrum and variations in scattered dose distribution were observed between CM and TM. The CFD values for eye lens and thyroid gland ranged between 0.58 to 0.66 and 0.29 to 0.33, respectively. Mean organ doses for two‐view unilateral imaging were 0.24 (CM) and 0.18 (TM) μGy/mAs for the eye lens and 0.24 (CM) and 0.25 (TM) μGy/mAs for the thyroid gland. Higher organ doses were observed during TM compared to CM as the automatic exposure control (AEC) system resulted in greater total mAs values in TM.


Until recently, psychotherapy and counselling techniques have rarely been used with people with dementia. However, the change in emphasis within dementia care towards a person-centred approach has meant that there is a growing clinical interest in their use. This paper reviews the published literature in this area which bears on psychotherapy assessment, intervention and evaluation. Although there is a developing clinical literature on intervention techniques drawn from all the main psychotherapeutic approaches, there has been little research into the effectiveness of this work and such research as does exist often uses methodologies that are inappropriate for such an early stage of clinical development. It is argued that clinical research should adopt case study or single-case designs that are more appropriate than group designs for evaluating new clinical developments.


Magneto-inductive (MI) wireless communications is an emerging subject with a rich set of applications, including local area networks for the Internet-of-Things, wireless body area networks, in-body and on-chip communications, and underwater and underground sensor networks as a low-cost alternative to radio frequency, acoustic or optical methods. Practical MI networks include multiple access channel (MAC) mechanisms for connecting a random number of coils without any specific topology or coil orientation assumptions covering both short and long ranges. However, there is not any information theoretical modeling of MI MAC (MIMAC) capacity of such universal networks with fully coupled frequency selective channel models and exact 3-D coupling model of circular coils instead of long range dipole approximations. In this paper, K-user MIMAC capacity is information theoretically modeled and analyzed, and two-user MIMACs are modeled with explicitly detailed channel responses, bandwidths and coupled thermal noise. K-user MIMAC capacity is achieved through Lagrangian solution with K-user water-filling optimization. Optimum orientations maximizing capacity and received power are theoretically analyzed, and numerically simulated for two-user MIMACs. Constructive gain and destructive interference mechanisms on MIMACs are introduced in comparison with the classical interference based approaches. The theoretical basis promises the utilization of MIMACs in 5G architectures.


Background

The gluten-free diet (GFD), the only effective treatment for celiac disease, is usually nutritionally imbalanced. The present work aimed to analyze the evolution of the nutritional status, dietary profile, and symptoms present among celiac people over one year on a GFD while receiving individualized dietary advice.
Methods

Twenty-seven adults and thirty-one celiac children/adolescents participated in the cohort study. They were followed by 3 visits, at diagnosis (vt0) and after 3 and 12 months (vt3;vt12). Participants filled out dietary and gastrointestinal symptoms questionnaires and received a personalized form from dietitians containing dietary advice and anthropometric and biochemical data evolution.
Results

Most patients presented normal BMI, fat and muscle mass, and biochemical parameters at diagnosis and vt12. By contrast, all participants consumed protein and lipids in excess and carbohydrates in defect, in both vt0 and vt12. Low intakes of cereals, fruits and vegetables and high of meat were observed, these also remain-ing unchanged after dietary counseling. Symptoms present decreased after vt3 but rebounded in vt12.
Conclusions

Few changes in dietary pattern and symptom elimination suggested that the intervention was not effective enough. More research is necessary to evaluate whether closer follow up and face-to-face dietary advice improve dietary habits of celiac people.
Trial registration:

 Code PI2016069, Ethical Comitee of the Clinical Investigation of the Basque Country. Registered on 15 July 2016.


Visibility arising from computer vision, geometrical design and complexity analysis is widely used in manufacturing processes. According to the definition of the visibility cone of a point, two kinds of visibility of a feature, namely a complete visibility cone and a partial visibility cone, are defined, and the relation between visibility map and complete visibility cone is also discussed. To solve a kind of accessibility and setup problem in mold parting, NC-machining and CMMs inspection path planning, a procedure is proposed to perform visibility analysis with respect to the geometry of the part, the shape of the effector, and degrees of freedom between part/effector. A new method for computing visibility cones is formulated by identifying C-obstacles in Configuration Space (C-Space), in which a general and efficient algorithm is presented and implemented using visibility culling. Compared with previous methods, the proposed algorithm is efficient even in very complex scenes. Finally, the contributions and limits of our work are discussed.


Approximately 60% of all human pregnancies terminate spontaneously before birth, mostly before being recognized. Exceptionally high prevalence of abnormalities has been found in this reproduction output. Original frequency of chromosomal (ChA) and developmental anomalies (DA) is not known, but may be very high. From 100 spontaneously aborted fetuses about 50 are ChA, approximately 70 are DA and only about 20 are without any pathological finding. Using data on ChA and DA distribution in newborns and those in abortuses--together with the knowledge on abortion rates in various gestation phases--the prenatal population structure may be reconstructed: in the pregnancy recognition phase about 7% ChA and 10-15% DA conceptuses remain in the population of surviving fetuses. Prenatal selection decreases gradually the frequency of anomalies to the values that are usually found in new-borns. The disappearance of particular anomalies is nonrandom, changing the malformation spectrum continually. The risk of prenatal elimination of the anomaly is not invariably proportional to the degree of phenotype damage of the fetus. Study of the hidden part of prenatal population offers the possibility to cover a considerably larger fraction of the whole reproduction output and supplies new valuable knowledge.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the interaction between p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase signal transduction pathway and nuclear factor (NF)-kappaB/IkappaB system on the proinflammatory cytokines release after burn trauma.

METHODS
Human monocyte line THP-1 were incubated with serum from eight healthy controls, burn sera, burn sera pretreatment with SB203580, and burn sera pretreatment with pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC). After 24 hours incubation with serum, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha and interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) levels in THP-1 culture supernatants were measured by ELISA. The activities of p38 MAPK and expressions of IkappaBalpha in THP-1 were measured by Western blot analysis. The EMSA method was used to characterize the binding activities of NF-kappaB and activating protein (AP)-1 in THP-1.

RESULTS
In comparison with normal controls, burn sera resulted in a significant higher level release of TNF-alpha and IL-1beta in THP-1 [(7.30 +/- 0.84) ng/ml vs (2.20 +/- 0.28) ng/ml, P < 0.05; (2.88 +/- 0.38) ng/ml vs (0.81 +/- 0.14) ng/ml, P < 0.05], which were significantly inhibited by pretreatment with SB203580 or PDTC. Burn sera showed increased activities of p38 MAPK and AP-1 in THP-1 (4728 +/- 582 vs 1291 +/- 163, P < 0.05; 946 +/- 137 vs 361 +/- 40, P < 0.05), which were abolished by pretreatment with SB203580 but not PDTC. The expression of IkappaBalpha in THP-1 incubated with burn sera was significantly decreased than those incubated with control sera (1211 +/- 115 vs 2658 +/- 318, P < 0.05), which were abolished by pretreatment with PDTC but not SB203580. Burn sera also leaded to an increased activity of NF-kappaB in THP-1 (1636 +/- 170 vs 317 +/- 32, P < 0.05), which were abolished by pretreatment with PDTC but not SB203580.

CONCLUSIONS
There are no direct interaction between p38 MAPK signal transduction pathway and NF-kappaB/IkappaB pathway. These two pathways, which regulate the production of TNF-alpha and IL-1beta in monocyte following burn trauma, are parallel and independent.


Sarcomeres are mainly composed of filament and signaling proteins and are the smallest molecular units of muscle contraction and relaxation. The sarcomere protein titin serves as a molecular spring whose stiffness mediates myofilament extensibility in skeletal and cardiac muscle. Due to the enormous size of titin and its tight integration into the sarcomere, the incorporation and degradation of the titin filament is a highly complex task. The details of the molecular processes involved in titin turnover are not fully understood, but the involvement of different intracellular degradation mechanisms has recently been described. This review summarizes the current state of research with particular emphasis on the relationship between titin and protein quality control. We highlight the involvement of the proteasome, autophagy, heat shock proteins, and proteases in the protection and degradation of titin in heart and skeletal muscle. Because the fine-tuned balance of degradation and protein expression can be disrupted under pathological conditions, the review also provides an overview of previously known perturbations in protein quality control and discusses how these affect sarcomeric proteins, and titin in particular, in various disease states.


Pleomorphic adenoma is a benign mixed tumor composed of epithelial and myoepithelial cells, less commonly occurring in minor salivary glands or in children. A case of juvenile pleomorphic adenoma missed clinically and incidentally found in cone beam CT images is described. Clinical, radiographic, and histologic images are presented.


We study the eavesdropping problem in the remotely distributed sensing of a privacy-sensible hypothesis from the Bayesian detection perspective. We consider a parallel distributed detection network where remote decision makers independently make local decisions defined on finite domains and forward them to the fusion center which makes the final decision. An eavesdropper is assumed to intercept a specific set of local decisions to make also a guess on the hypothesis. We propose a novel Bayesian detection-operational privacy metric given by the minimal achievable Bayesian risk of the eavesdropper. Further, we introduce two privacy-aware distributed Bayesian detection formulations, namely the privacy-constrained distributed Bayesian detection problem and the privacy-concerned distributed Bayesian detection problem where the detection performance is optimized under a privacy guarantee constraint and a weighted sum objective of the detection performance and privacy risk is minimized respectively. For an optimal privacy-aware distributed Bayesian detection design, the optimal decision strategy of employing a deterministic likelihood test or a randomized strategy thereof is identified. Further, it is shown that equivalent problems of different formulations always exist and lead to the same optimal privacy-aware distributed Bayesian detection design. The results are illustrated and discussed by numerical examples. The idea of privacy-aware distributed Bayesian detection design provides a novel solution to realize future trustworthy Internet of Things applications.


To investigate changes in the size of the deep and superficial venous systems associated with gender, age, body mass index and varicose veins, changes to the cross-sectional area of the femoral and the long saphenous veins were analysed in the Duesseldorf=Essen civil servant study population. Between December 1989 and July 1993 a total of 9935 employees were recruited; 9261 were then evaluated for this analysis. Diameters of the long saphenous and femoral veins were determined 2-3 cm distal to the confluence in lying (after 15 min rest) and standing (after 5 min) positions. Cross-sectional areas (CSA) were calculated. A total of 63% of all people were assigned to CEAP (clinical, etiological, anatomical pathophysiological) class 0, 27% to class 1, 8.5% to class 2, while 1.5% belonged to higher CEAP classes. In people without varicose veins (CEAP class 0) the CSA of the femoral and long saphenous veins were smaller in females than in males. In people with a normal body mass index (BMI) (20-25) the mean CSA of the femoral and long saphenous veins in a standing position was similar from the third up to the sixth decade of life. The volume increase due to a standing position expressed as the absolute increase in CSA of the femoral and long saphenous veins was not age-related, either. The relative volume increase expressed as a ratio remained unchanged with age. There was a strong relationship between the CSA of both veins and increasing BMI. In a lying position, the CSA of the femoral and long saphenous veins increased only slightly with increasing CEAP classes. In a standing position, the CSA of both veins increased even in CEAP class 1 (p < 0.001). In a stepwise multivariate regression analysis, the CSA of both veins in a standing position was not age-related but associated with BMI, CEAP classes and gender. The absolute increase in CSA was influenced by all four variables, but BMI and gender were most important. In Conclusion, this study shows that aging is not necessarily associated with an increase in venous CSA of the deep and superficial venous system. BMI is the most important determinant for an increase in CSA in standing position. Varicosity of the superficial venous system is always associated with similar changes in the deep venous system.


Predicting the global quality and local (residual-specific) quality of a single protein structural model is important for protein structure prediction and application. In this work, we developed a deep one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1DCNN) that predicts the absolute local quality of a single protein model as well as two 1DCNNs to predict both local and global quality simultaneously through a novel multi-task learning framework. The networks accept sequential and structural features (i.e. amino acid sequence, agreement of secondary structure and solvent accessibilities, residual disorder properties and Rosetta energies) of a protein model of any size as input to predict its quality, which is different from existing methods using a fixed number of hand-crafted features as input. Our three methods (InteractQA-net, JointQA-net and LocalQA-net) were trained on the structural models of the single-domain protein targets of CASP8, 9, 10 and evaluated on the models of CASP11 and CASP12 targets. The results show that the performance of our deep learning methods is comparable to the state-of-the-art quality assessment methods. Our study also demonstrates that combining local and global quality predictions together improves the global quality prediction accuracy. The source code and executable of our methods are available at: https://github.com/multicom-toolbox/DeepCovQA


For lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs), the dissolution of lithium polysulfide and the consequent "shuttle effect" remain major obstacles for their practical applications. In this study, we designed a new cathode material comprising MoSe2/graphene to selectively adsorb polysulfides on the selenium edges and thus to mitigate their dissolution. More specifically, few-layered MoSe2 was first grown on nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide (N-rGO) using the chemical vapor deposition method and then infiltrated with sulfur as the cathode for LSBs. An initial capacity of 1028 mA h g-1 was achieved for S/MoSe2/N-rGO at 0.2 C, higher than 981 and 405.1 mA h g-1 for pure graphene and sulfur, respectively, along with enhanced cycling durability and rate capability. Moreover, the density functional theory simulation, in addition to the experimental adsorption test, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis, and transmission electron microscopy technique, reveals the dual roles that MoSe2 plays in improving the performance of LSBs by functioning as the binding sites for lithium polysulfides and as the platform that enables fast Li-ion diffusion by reducing its diffusion barrier. The reported finding suggests that the transition-metal selenides could be an efficient alternative material as the cathode for LSBs.


Abstract Purpose With few treatment options available for non-ambulatory children with cerebral palsy (CP), a robotic lower extremity gait trainer may provide a non-invasive addition to conventional treatment options. This case study investigates the usage and impact of robotic lower extremity gait trainer use in a participant with CP over the initial 3 months of use. Materials and methods This prospective case study involves a 7-year old female (GMFCS V) with CP (registered clinical trial: NCT04251390). The participant used a Trexo Home robotic gait trainer (Trexo) in the community with assessments occurring in the home and school. Trexo usage and bowel movements (BMs) were tracked daily. Postural control and lower extremity range of motion (ROM) and spasticity were evaluated prior to Trexo use and weekly to biweekly thereafter. Results The participant used the device an average of 46 min/week, over 3.3 d/week. BM frequency increased from 0.4/d at baseline, to 1.2 (±0.5)/d during Trexo use. There were no diffuse systematic changes in postural stability, ROM or muscle spasticity, but specifically head control and spasticity in the knee flexors had improvements. Conclusions Data and anecdotal reports suggest that regular use of the Trexo Home robotic gait trainer has positive outcomes on frequency and quality of BMs, and may improve head control, and knee flexor spasticity. Larger controlled studies are needed to evaluate the impacts of Trexo use in children with CP. Implications for Rehabilitation Non-ambulatory children with CP can use and may experience benefits from using a robot-assisted gait trainer (RAGT). Constipation, aspects of balance and focal spasticity may improve.


Abstract Agroforestry and grass buffers have been developed as part of the management system for row crop areas in temperate regions to improve soil and water quality and diversify farm income. A study was conducted to evaluate the influence of agroforestry and grass buffers relative to row crop management on soil hydraulic properties (saturated hydraulic conductivity, soil water retention, and pore size distribution) for a claypan soil. The experimental watersheds for this project were located at the Greenley Memorial Research Center. The paired watersheds for the study area were under no-till management with a corn (Zea mays L.)–soybean (Glycine max L.) rotation since 1991. The agroforestry buffer watershed and grass buffer watershed had vegetative buffer strips planted between row crop areas, which were 4.5 m wide and 36.5 m apart with vegetation composed of grasses, legumes, and trees. Throughout the grass buffer and agroforestry buffer strips, redtop (Agrostis gigantea Roth), brome grass (Bromus spp.), and birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus L.) were planted. For the agroforestry buffers, pin oak (Quercus palustris Muenchh), swamp white oak (Quercus bicolar Willd.), and bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa Michx.) trees were planted. Soil cores were taken from four 10-cm depth increments with 6 replicates, and hydraulic and physical properties were determined. Significant differences (P < 0.05) were found among the treatments for bulk density, with the row crop treatment having higher values compared with the buffer treatments. Trends also showed higher saturated hydraulic conductivity for the agroforestry buffer treatment compared with the row crop treatment for the 0 to 10 cm and 30 to 40 cm soil depths. These buffer treatments slightly improved soil hydraulic properties after 17 years for this claypan soil.


Speciation is often portrayed as an "incomplete" or "incipient" process if two groups of organisms, technically distinguishable either by morphology or genetics, can exchange genes. The ultimate outcome of diversification, given this perspective, is complete reproductive isolation. But an increasing amount of evidence suggests that speciation is rarely complete and inter‐fertility between different taxonomically accepted species is consistently maintained. In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Linan et al. (2021) provide results that bridge evolutionary processes from populations to phylogenies that indicate suites of closely related tree species in the Mascarene Islands actively exchange genes, evolving as a nested set of syngameons with a hierarchical pattern of interfertility. The deep insight into diversification provided by this study is particularly powerful because of the genomic scale of the data and the complete taxonomic sampling of an island clade evolving in situ. The prevalence of syngameon dynamics in a broad range of organisms indicates that we should adopt a fluid and comprehensive approach to defining evolutionary units for conservation and research. We should move beyond focusing on single endangered species in evolutionary and ecological isolation from other species but consider the entire network of potentially interfertile species and the potential for future adaptation and innovation, particularly in a human dominated world.


Core collapse supernovae (SN) are the final stages of stellar evolution in massive stars during which the central region collapses, forms a neutron star (NS), and the outer layers are ejected. Recent explosion scenarios assumed that the ejection is due to energy deposition by neutrinos into the envelope but detailed models do not produce powerful explosions. There is new and mounting evidence for an asphericity and, in particular, for axial symmetry in several SNe which may be hard to reconcile within the spherical picture. This evidence includes the observed high polarization and its variation with time, pulsar kicks, high velocity iron-group and intermediate-mass elements material in remnants&direct observations of the debris of SN87A.Any successful mechanism must invoke some sort of axial symmetry for the explosion. As limiting case, we consider jet-induced/dominated explosions of"classical"core collapse SNe. Our study is based on detailed 3-D hydro and radiation transport models. The jet properties and of the progenitor structure influence on the final density and chemical structure. Our calculations show that low velocity, massive jets can explain the observations. Both asymmetric ionization and density/chemical distributions have been identified as crucial for the formation of asymmetric photospheres. Even within the picture of jet-induced explosion, the latter effect alone fails to explain early polarization in core collapse SNe with a massive, hydrogen-rich envelopes such as SN1999em.


Aiming to monitor and simulate the effect of the excess of soil salts in a protected environment, the experiment was carried out in a greenhouse located at the Department of Rural Engineering of the Universidade Estadual Paulista, Faculty of Agronomic Sciences, Campus of Botucatu - SP, from October 2011 to January 2012. The treatments consisted of the combination of two factors: initial soil salinity with 5 levels of electrical conductivity    (S 1 = 1.0; S 3 = 3.0; S 6 = 6.0; S 9 = 9.0; S 12 = 12.0 dS m -1 ) and two fertigation managements (M 1 = traditional; and        M 2 = with control of the ionic concentration of the soil solution) in beet ( Beta vulgaris L) cultivation. The design was a randomized complete block with 4 replications, organized in a 5 x 2 factorial scheme, totaling 40 experimental plots. During the cultivation cycle, the EC, K and pH were monitored in the soil solution. At the end of the cycle, soil analysis and the spatial distribution of EC in the soil profile were performed. The highest levels of soil salinity occurred in the deeper layers of the soil profile, being evidenced in the traditional fertigation management due to the high EC values observed in this treatment. With the help of porous cup extractors, it was possible to monitor the concentration of fertilizers applied via fertigation and to maintain the concentration at pre-established levels throughout the cultivation.