BACKGROUND
Ambulatory electrocardiography (ECG) monitors are often used to detect cardiac arrhythmia. For patients with symptoms, an external cardiac loop recorder will often be recommended. The improved recording capacity of newer Holter monitors and similar devices, collectively known as longterm continuous ambulatory ECG monitors, suggests that they will perform just as well as, or better than, external loop recorders. This health technology assessment aimed to evaluate the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and budget impact of longterm continuous ECG monitors compared with external loop recorders in detecting symptoms of cardiac arrhythmia.

METHODS
Based on our systematic search for studies published up to January 15, 2016, we did not identify any studies directly comparing the clinical effectiveness of longterm continuous ECG monitors and external loop recorders. Therefore, we conducted an indirect comparison, using a 24-hour Holter monitor as a common comparator. We used a meta-regression model to control for bias due to variation in device-wearing time and baseline syncope rate across studies. We conducted a similar systematic search for cost-utility and cost-effectiveness studies comparing the two types of devices; none were found. Finally, we used historical claims data (2006-2014) to estimate the future 5-year budget impact in Ontario, Canada, of continued public funding for both types of longterm ambulatory ECG monitors.

RESULTS
Our clinical literature search yielded 7,815 non-duplicate citations, of which 12 cohort studies were eligible for indirect comparison. Seven studies assessed the effectiveness of longterm continuous monitors and five assessed external loop recorders. Both types of devices were more effective than a 24-hour Holter monitor, and we found no substantial difference between them in their ability to detect symptoms (risk difference 0.01; 95% confidence interval -0.18, 0.20). Using GRADE for network meta-analysis, we evaluated the quality of the evidence as low. Our budget impact analysis showed that use of the longterm continuous monitors has grown steadily in Ontario since they became publicly funded in 2006, particularly since 2011 when monitors that can record for 14 days or longer became funded, and the use of external cardiac loop recorders has correspondingly declined. The analysis suggests that, with these trends, continued public funding of both types of longterm ambulatory ECG testing will result in additional costs ranging from $130,000 to $370,000 per year over the next 5 years.

CONCLUSIONS
Although both longterm continuous ambulatory ECG monitors and external cardiac loop recorders were more effective than a 24-hour Holter monitor in detecting symptoms of cardiac arrhythmia, we found no evidence to suggest that these two devices differ in effectiveness. Assuming that the use of longterm continuous monitors will continue to increase in the next 5 years, the public health care system in Ontario can expect to see added costs of $130,000 to $370,000 per year.


We report on a dynamic simulation of defective color vision. Using an RGB video camera connected to a PC or laptop, the captured and displayed RGB colors are translated by our software into modified RGB values that simulate the color appearance of a person with a color deficiency. Usually, the simulation of deficient color vision is restricted to static images and to dichromats (lacking one cone type). We are now able to also simulate color blindness in near real time video, and for both dichromats and anomalous trichromats. We discuss how these techniques were applied in a field study into color vision requirements in Dutch maritime practice and present visualization examples thereof.


To analyze the clinical characteristics, diagnosis, treatment and outcome of patients with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP). The clinical data of 69 adult patients with TTP were retrospectively analyzed. There were 19 males and 50 females with a median age of 42 (18-79) years. PLASMIC score 6-7 was recognized in 82.8% (53/64) patients. The activity of von Willebrand factor-cleaving protease (ADAMTS13), which was detected in 21 patients before treatment, was less than 5% in 17 patients and 5%-10% in 3 patients. All 69 patients were treated with plasma exchange (PEX) and/or fresh frozen plasma infusion (PI), 43 of whom were also given glucocorticoid. In addition to PEX/PI and glucocorticoid, rituximab and/or immunosuppressants were administrated in 20 patients. The median follow-up time was 12 (1-57) months. The remission rate was 69.6%, while the relapse rate was 11.6%. The 2-year overall survival (OS) rate was 69.6%±5.5%. The univariate and multivariate analysis showed that relapsed/refractory disease was an independent risk factor for OS. The 2-year OS rate of relapsed/refractory patients was significantly lower than that of the rest patients (41.5%±9.8% vs. 83.7%±5.6%, P<0.001). Regarding the unfavorable prognosis in relapsed/refractory patients, rituximab and/or immunosuppressants are strongly recommended for sake of improving the overall survival.


With the increase of smartphone ownership year by year, the accessibility of mobile application increases too. Application sideloading is a behaviour identified as the act of installing applications through unofficial means. Moreover, sideloading as a study is insufficiently researched in relation to its occurrence in smartphone usage. This position paper describes sideloading behaviour in context to accessibility, interaction, security, problematic smartphone uses and its occurrences in other devices. The research aims to identify those who sideload, the causes of sideloading and the behavioural differences dependent on the device used with a future intention of reviving and highlighting this field of research.


A comparison between stochastic and deterministic depletion calculations based on a graphite-filled MOX fuel assembly configuration is presented in this paper. The infinite multiplication factors and isotope inventory changes as a function of burnup obtained by Monte Carlo method module SCALE/KENO and deterministic method module SCALE/NEWT are compared with those obtained by deterministic code HELIOS. The impact in calculation results by using different nuclear data library is also investigated. The SCALE/KENO results show a good agreement with SCALE/NEWT results in the eigenvalue as a function of burnup (less than 0.1%). However, the absolute difference in the initial k between SCALE/KENO and NEWT modules and HELIOS results is quite large (around 1.1%) and the isotope inventory changes show quite differently at the end of cycle. The uranium and plutonium depletion rates calculated by SCALE/KENO and SCALE/NEWT have quite good agreement. By using the same data library, the good agreement between stochastic and deterministic code's results were confirmed.


Generalisations of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process defined through Langevin equation $dU_t = - \Theta U_t dt + dG_t,$ such as fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes, have recently received a lot of attention in the literature. In particular, estimation of the unknown parameter $\Theta$ is widely studied under Gaussian stationary increment noise $G$. Langevin equation is well-known for its connections to physics. In addition to that, motivation for studying Langevin equation with a general noise $G$ stems from the fact that the equation characterises all univariate stationary processes. Most of the literature on the topic focuses on the one-dimensional case with Gaussian noise $G$. In this article, we consider estimation of the unknown model parameter in the multidimensional version of the Langevin equation, where the parameter $\Theta$ is a matrix and $G$ is a general, not necessarily Gaussian, vector-valued process with stationary increments. Based on algebraic Riccati equations, we construct an estimator for the matrix $\Theta$. Moreover, we prove the consistency of the estimator and derive its limiting distribution under natural assumptions. In addition, to motivate our work, we prove that the Langevin equation characterises all stationary processes in a multidimensional setting as well.


In this paper we study efficient numerical methods for obtaining consistent initial conditions for systems of differential-algebraic equations (DAEs) with higher index arising, for example, from electronic circuits. We show that the class of Gear's backward differentiation formulas, unlike other multi-step techniques, are a useful means for obtaining consistent initial conditions when carefully implemented. Because the method employs sparse matrix techniques, it is efficient even for large circuits, The numerical experiments suggest that the method works reliably even for index-3 DAEs.


A non cirrhotic patient with esophageal varices and portal vein thrombosis had recurrent variceal bleeding unsuccessfully controlled by endoscopy and esophageal transection. Emergency transhepatic portography confirmed the thrombosed right branch of the portal vein, while the left branch appeared angulated, shifted and stenotic. A stent was successfully implanted into the left branch and the collateral vessels along the epatoduodenal ligament disappeared. In patients with esophageal variceal hemorrhage and portal thrombosis if endoscopy fails, emergency esophageal transection or nonselective portocaval shunting are indicated. The rare patients with only partial portal thrombosis can be treated directly with stenting through an angioradiologic approach.


BACKGROUND
The aim of this study was to clarify the histological, ultrastructural and biomechanical effects of pentoxifylline (PTX) on the survival of random skin flaps (RSFs) in rats.

MATERIAL/METHODS
Thirty male rats were randomly divided into experimental, sham and control groups. The experimental group received PTX 20 mg/kg/day, and the sham group received saline. A 20x70-mm RSF was made 30 days after the commencement of treatment for the three groups. PTX and saline were continued postoperatively for 7 days in the experimental and sham groups, respectively. On the seventh postoperative day, the surviving parts of the flaps were determined and examined through light and transmission electron microscopes. The wounds (incisions) on the margins of the flaps were evaluated histologically and biomechanically.

RESULTS
Analysis of variance showed that, in the experimental group, the mean of the surviving parts of the RSFs, fibroblast proliferation, collagen organization and granulation tissue of the wounds was significantly higher than in the sham and control groups (P=0.007, P=0.001, P=0.041, P=0.000, respectively). There were swollen mitochondria in the endothelium of the blood vessels of the surviving flap parts in the control and sham groups, whereas in the experimental group the mitochondria were normal.

CONCLUSIONS
Thirty days of pretreatment of RSFs with PTX significantly increased the survival of the flaps. PTX appeared to have healed wounds and reversed ultrastructural changes resulting from hypoxia in the blood vessel endothelium of the flaps.


The paper derives closed form (nonmatrix) expression for the deterministic Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) for the direction-of-arrival associated with a target embedded in a noisy, multipath channel using the time reversal (TR) MIMO system. By incorporating the TR built-in adaptive waveform processing feature to reshape the MIMO probing signals, we prove that the CRBs for the direction of arrival can be improved in ways not foreseen with the conventional MIMO radars. A second contribution of the paper is the analytical derivation of the Angular Resolution Limit (ARL) defined as the minimal separation between two targets to be separately resolved by the MIMO radar. At high signal-to-noise ratio, we show that the TR ARL inherits the properties of the TR CRB and is superior to its conventional counterpart by a factor proportional to the order of the channel multipath.


This study was carried out to test the effectiveness of Bacillus salmalaya strain 139I and its biosurfactant to decontaminate soil using an ex-situ washing technique. The experimental variables include temperature (25, 37, 42 and 55°C), concentration of mixed liquor (0.01, 0.1, 1 and 10%-v/v), volume of mixed liquor (5, 10, 15 and 20 ml), shaking speed (80, 120, 160 and 200 strokes/min) and washing time (5, 10, 15 and 20 min). To determine the most optimal environmental conditions for the treatment, Taguchi Experimental Design Method was applied based on the Orthogonal Array L16' 4˄5. Results showed that the percentage removal of used engine oil ranged from 15.48% to 47.36%. The highest removal of 47.36% can be obtained when washing temperature was at 25°C, with 20 ml of 10% v/v mixed liquor, 200 strokes min-1 shaking speed and 20 min washing time. However, removal equilibrium cannot attained at these maximum points, except shaking speed which indicated maximum removal efficiency at third level (160 stroke/min). Washing time was found to be the most influential variable for the treatment. C/N ratio of 23:1 of contaminated soil sample is within range required to degrade hydrocarbon contaminated soils mentioned in literature. However, after 30 days of treatment the degradation of used engine indicated the need of providing nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen and sulphur, oxygen and water in order to guarantee bacterial growth and acceleration in the degradation rate of contaminants. As 83% of used engine oil degradation achieved in period of only 2 months of treatment, Bacillus salmalaya 139I can be considered as an effective microbe to decontaminate soil.


Prediction of Dragon's Blood Tree (Dracaena Cinnabari Balf.) Stand Sample Density on Soqotra Island Dracaena cinnabari Balf. On The Soqotra Island is a spectacural relict of the Tethys tropical forest. This unique endemic plant, producing medicinally valuable sap, used to cover larger areas in the past. Natural regeneration of this species is restricted to inaccessible localities with steep slopes. All seedlings are threatened by goats grazing. Age structure of Dracaena populations indicates maturity and overmaturity depending on browsing. The objective of this work is to predict growing dynamics of Dragon's Blood Trees in permanent sample plot at Firmihin, where there is the largest existing stand of Dracaena species. The prediction and visualization of variation in abundance of trees over 100 years is based on direct field measurements supported by mathematical calculations. The study presents options in forest regeneration and identifies threats that might occur during the implementation.


A new type of alpha-particle irradiator allows survival of each cell to be observed individually along with the size and shape of its nucleus and the positions of the hits it receives. This paper discusses methods of data analysis that can utilize these additional data. Using idealizations of the cell nucleus geometry (i.e., spheres, ellipsoids), the path length (l), energy deposited (e), and specific energy (z) has been determined on a cell-by-cell basis for 772 cells all subjected to the same fluence. Each cell is regarded as a Bernoulli trial with a different probability for success (colony formation). For the survival expectation, A exp(-z/z(o)), the values of A and z(o) are chosen to maximize the likelihood for the observed outcome. Similar results are presented using the alternate functional forms A exp(-e/e(o)) and A exp(-l/l(o)). With these parameter values, the goodness of fit is also evaluated using a chi-square method with variances given by the binary (Bernoulli) methods. A further purpose of the paper is to assess the validity of the microdosimetric computations that would have had to be made if these individual cell-by-cell experimental measurements were not available or were incomplete.


In this work we propose a new task: artistic visualization of classical Chinese poems, where the goal is to generatepaintings of a certain artistic style for classical Chinese poems. For this purpose, we construct a new dataset called Paint4Poem. Thefirst part of Paint4Poem consists of 301 high-quality poem-painting pairs collected manually from an influential modern Chinese artistFeng Zikai. As its small scale poses challenges for effectively training poem-to-painting generation models, we introduce the secondpart of Paint4Poem, which consists of 3,648 caption-painting pairs collected manually from Feng Zikai's paintings and 89,204 poem-painting pairs collected automatically from the web. We expect the former to help learning the artist painting style as it containshis most paintings, and the latter to help learning the semantic relevance between poems and paintings. Further, we analyze Paint4Poem regarding poem diversity, painting style, and the semantic relevance between poems and paintings. We create abenchmark for Paint4Poem: we train two representative text-to-image generation models: AttnGAN and MirrorGAN, and evaluate theirperformance regarding painting pictorial quality, painting stylistic relevance, and semantic relevance between poems and paintings.The results indicate that the models are able to generate paintings that have good pictorial quality and mimic Feng Zikai's style, but thereflection of poem semantics is limited. The dataset also poses many interesting research directions on this task, including transferlearning, few-shot learning, text-to-image generation for low-resource data etc. The dataset is publicly available.(https://github.com/paint4poem/paint4poem)


OBJECTIVE
To explore the molecular mechanism of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) gene expression induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in monocytes or macrophages.

METHODS
Luciferase report gene vector pGL2iNOSLuc driven by murine iNOS promoter region was constructed using gene recombination technique. RAW264.7 cells were cultured and transfected with luciferase report gene vector pGL2iNOSLuc. Twenty four hours later, PKC inhibitor H-7, calcium channel blocker verapamil, was added into the culture. LPS or PKC activator PMA was added 2 hours later to stimulate the cells. The activity of beta-galactosidase and luciferase was examined and the relative luciferase activity, representing the iNOS transactivity, was calculated. Modified Griess method was used to measure the concentration of NO(2)(-)/NO(3)(-) in the culture so as to evaluate the effect of PKC inhibitor on NO production induced by LPS. RT-PCR was used to study the effect of LPS on iNOS gene expression in RAW264.7 cells.

RESULTS
Thirty minutes after stimulation of RAW264.7 cells by LPS, the activity of PKC in cytomembrane increased and the activity of PKC in cytoplasm decreased significantly in comparison with the baseline levels (P < 0.01). The NO concentration was 30.1 micro mol/L +/- 5.4 micro mol/L 12 hours after the stimulation of LPS on RAW264.7 cells, and was much more higher 24 and 48 hours after, all significantly higher than before (all P < 0.01). The NO concentration in the supernatant with H-7 at any time point was significantly lower than those in corresponding samples without H-7 (all P < 0.01). After stimulation of LPS and PMA, the relative luciferase activity was 25.3 +/- 4.6, significantly higher than the baseline level (P < 0.01). H-7 and verapamil significantly inhibited the LPS-induced iNOS transactivity (both P < 0.01). iNOS mRNA expression was increased greatly, and H-7 significantly inhibited this expression 12, 24, and 48 hours after LPS stimulation.

CONCLUSION
In RAW264.7 cells, LPS stimulation increases intracellular calcium and activates PKC, thus inducing iNOS gene expression that contributes to the production of NO, which is an important signaling mechanism of NO production in septic shock.


Radium isotopes are powerful proxies in oceanography and hydrology. Radium mass balance models, including assessments of submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), often overlook particle scavenging (PS) as a pathway for dissolved radium removal from the world ocean. Here, we build a global ocean 226Ra mass balance model and reevaluate the potential importance of PS. We find that PS is the major 226Ra sink for the upper ocean, removing about 96% of the total input from various sources. Aside from vertical exchange with the lower ocean, SGD is the largest 226Ra source into the upper ocean. The biological pump transfers particles to the deep ocean, resulting in a major but often overlooked impact on the global 226Ra marine budget. Our findings suggest that radium mass balance models should consider PS in systems with high siliceous algae production and export fluxes and long water residence times to prevent underestimation of large‐scale SGD fluxes.


Engine induced sound and vibration levels in boats for professional and leisure use is in many cases unacceptably high in term of comfort and the environment. Classical methods for passive treatmen ...


Narcolepsy with associated cataplexy is a disabling sleep disorder that affects 0.05% of the general population. Whereas narcolepsy-cataplexy is largely considered as etiologically homogeneous, hypersomnias without cataplexy represent a very heterogeneous group of clinical entities that must be thoroughly explored before final diagnosis of narcolepsy is given. A typical treatment for narcolepsy-cataplexy associates amphetamine-like stimulants for sleepiness and antidepressant therapy for abnormal rapid eye movement sleep (cataplexy, sleep paralysis, and hypnagogic hallucinations). This treatment is purely symptomatic and involves activation of central dopaminergic and adrenergic activity respectively. Genetic research indicates a role for the immune system rather than abnormalities in monoaminergic or cholinergic systems as the primary cause for narcolepsy. Human narcolepsy is tightly associated with HLA-DQB1*0602; canine narcolepsy is linked with a DNA segment with high homology with the human immunoglobulin mu-switch segment, and the onset of canine narcolepsy is associated with increased microglial expression of major histocompatibility complex DQ and DR molecules. Taken together with the lack of direct evidence for an autoimmune process in narcolepsy, these results may suggest the existence of novel neuroimmune interactions in narcolepsy and open new perspectives in the treatment of this disabling disorder.


Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) is a rare autosomal recessive disease, characterized by a genetic defect in DNA repair. The consequence is a high incidence of skin cancers on sun‐exposed cutaneous surfaces of affected children. First lesions appear in the first years of life: telangiectasia, actinic keratosis and keratoacanthomas. Squamous cell and basal cell carcinomas are the most frequent neoplasms. We report the case of a 6‐year‐old girl affected with XP, who developed two unusual tumors: an atypical fibroxanthoma and a basosquamous carcinoma. In both tumors, immunohistochemical study showed abnormal accumulation of the p53 protein, suggesting the presence of mutation of the p53 tumor suppressor gene. Such p53 mutations may be ultraviolet (UV)‐induced, as they are frequently observed in tumors occuring in XP.


Breast cancer is the most fatal among the cancers detected in women. Mammography is the most common and efficient tool for early detection of breast cancer. In mammography images of breast are captured in two standard views namely Mediolateral oblique (MLO) view and Craniocaudal (CC) view. Radiologists generally analyze both the views during diagnosis. In recent years as the number of cases to be diagnosed is increasing significantly, computer aided diagnosis (CAD) systems were developed. In the datasets used by these systems, often there is a chance for the presence of missing values (MVs) in any one of mammographic views due to various reasons. Some of these include obscuration of mass by a dense breast tissue, region of interest being out of frame during the image acquisition etc. This results in the use of data from single view alone for diagnosis. But the diagnostic performance of CAD systems is better when multi-view data is used. In this paper the use of Iterative Singular Value Decomposition (ISVD) imputation is proposed to handle missing values in order to preserve the advantage of using multi-view data during the diagnosis. Classification accuracy and Kappa statistics are the metrics used to assess the performance of ISVD scheme for different percentages of MVs ranging from 1-15%. Experimental results demonstrated that diagnosis using multi-view following ISVD performed at least as well as and most of the time better than the systems using single view.


Electrides are ionic solids with cavity-trapped electrons, which serve as the anions. Localization of electrons in well-defined trapping sites and their mutual interactions provide early examples of quantum confinement, a subject of intense current interest. We synthesized the first crystalline electride, Cs(+)(18-crown-6)(2)e(-), in 1983 and determined its structure in 1986; seven others have been made since. This Account describes progress in the synthesis of both organic and inorganic electrides and points to their promise as new electronic materials. Combined studies of solvated electrons in alkali metal solutions and the complexation of alkali cations by crown ethers and cryptands made electride synthesis possible. After our synthesis of crystalline alkalides, in which alkali metal anions and encapsulated alkali cations are present, we managed to grow crystalline electrides from solutions that contained complexed alkali cations and solvated electrons. Electride research is complicated by thermal instability. Above approximately -30 degrees C, trapped electrons react with the ether groups of crown ethers and cryptands. Aza-cryptands replace ether oxygens with less reactive tertiary amine groups, and using those compounds, we recently synthesized the first room-temperature-stable organic electride. The magnetic and electronic properties of electrides depend on the geometry of the trapping sites and the size of the open channels that connect them. Two extremes are Cs(+)(15-crown-5)(2)e(-) with nearly isolated trapped electrons and K(+)(cryptand 2.2.2)e(-), in which spin-pairing of electrons in adjacent cavities predominates below 400 K. These two electrides also differ in their electrical conductivity by nearly 10 orders of magnitude. The pronounced effect of defects on conductivity and on thermonic electron emission suggests that holes as well as electrons play important roles. Now that thermally stable organic electrides can be made, it should be possible to control the electron-hole ratio by incorporation of neutral complexant molecules. We expect that in further syntheses researchers will elaborate the parent aza-cryptands to produce new organic electrides. The promise of electrides as new electronic materials with low work functions led us and others to search for inorganic electrides. The body of extensive research studies of alkali metal inclusion in the pores of alumino-silicate zeolites provided the background for our studies of pure silica zeolites as hosts for M(+) and e(-) and our later use of nanoporous silica gel as a carrier of high concentrations of alkali metals. Both systems have some of the characteristics of inorganic electrides, but the electrons and cations share the same space. In 2003, researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology synthesized an inorganic electride that has separated electrons and countercations. This thermally stable electride has a number of potentially useful properties, such as air-stability, low work function, and metallic conductivity. Now that both organic and inorganic electrides have been synthesized, we expect that experimental and theoretical research on this interesting class of materials will accelerate.


Chapter 1 introduced the objectives of the thesis and background information regarding the production of nanomaterials (NMs) and their release in the environment. The concepts of environmental and bio-mediated transformations of NMs were defined and their implication on the NM exposure assessment is explained. Silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) were selected as model NM because they are widely produced, undergo transformations that represent all the most relevant transformations of NMs in soil and specific analytical methods are available to quantify them at relatively low concentrations. A short review regarding previous toxicological studies of Ag-NPs in soil organisms and the importance of performing toxicokinetic studies was presented. Finally, selected model organisms (earthworms Eisenia fetida and Lumbricus rubellus) were briefly described. Chapter 2 reported a short-term (28 days) toxicokinetic study in E. fetida exposed to Ag-NPs, aged Ag-NPs (Ag2S-NPs), and AgNO3. A one-compartment model was applied to calculate separately the kinetic constants for uptake and elimination of particulate and ionic forms of Ag. The uptake and elimination rate constants for earthworms exposed to pristine Ag-NP or AgNO3 were not significantly different from each other. Uptake rate constants of (hardly dissolvable) Ag2S-NPs which resemble the environmental relevant form of Ag-NPs was significantly lower. spICP-MS analysis demonstrated that ~85% (average of both Ag-NP and AgNO3 treatments) of the Ag within the earthworms was present as ionic Ag, regardless of the actual form of Ag that the earthworms were exposed to. Indeed, the biogenic formation of particulate Ag (~10 % of total Ag accumulated overtime) in earthworms exposed to AgNO3 led to a kinetic pattern of particulate Ag body burden similar to pristine Ag-NPs. NP size analysis and imaging techniques showed evidences that the particles in the tissues were not the same as those to which worms were exposed, highlighting that biotransformation and/or biogenic formation took place also in the case of the Ag-NP exposure. Chapter 3 investigated the influence of dissolution on the uptake of metal NPs in earthworms by the use of bimetallic NPs. E. fetida specimens were exposed to Au core-Ag shell NPs (Au@Ag-NPs) and to a combination of Au-NPs, Ag-NPs, Ag and Au ions containing natural soil for 28 days. Our hypothesis was that Ag shell would dissolve partially or completely and that Au core would not interact with the exposure media and would therefore behave as a tracer of the particulate uptake. Analysis of earthworm tissues showed that concentrations of Ag in the earthworms were not statistically different in organisms exposed to the different forms of Ag. However, the concentration of Au in the earthworms exposed to HAuCl4 (ionic Au) exceeded around twenty times the Au concentrations in the exposures to particulate Au, which did not differ among each other. Mass measurements by spICP-TOFMS provided evidence that the uptake of the metals in their bimetallic particulate form represents approximately 5 % of the total metal amount. Size measurements by spICP-TOFMS showed that the Au core remained similar after the uptake, while the Ag shell increased in thickness suggesting that biotransformation processes took place at the surface of the NPs (e.g. aggregation, adsorption of Ag ions on the surface of existing particles). The study confirmed that dissolution is the main factor driving the uptake of (dissolving) metal NPs in earthworms. Additionally, different uptake patterns resulted from the co-exposure to Au and Ag-NP and Ag+, indicating that the Ag form can lead to different interactions with Au in the soil affecting the uptake in the earthworms. Chapter 4 presented a toxicokinetic study performed to assess the potential impacts of long-term exposure (nine months) on the uptake of pristine Ag-NP, aged Ag-NP (Ag2S-NP) and ionic Ag in earthworms E. fetida. The study was conducted with same species and conditions similar to the short-term experiment which was previously conducted for 4 weeks (chapter 2), in order to allow comparison between the two models. The accumulation of Ag in Ag-NP and AgNO3 exposed earthworms did not statistically differ after nine months exposure. In Ag2S-NPs exposed earthworms, the internalized concentrations were five times lower compared to the other treatments. The Ag concentrations in pore water did not reflect the uptake pattern and metallothionein concentrations were not different from the control group. The overall conclusion of this chapter was that even after a prolonged period of time the uptake kinetic rate constants of Ag-NP and AgNO3 were not statistically different, while the one of Ag2S-NP was statistically significant lower than the other treatments. Additionally, the short-term kinetic rate constants predicted the average bioaccumulation of pristine Ag-NP and AgNO3 in the earthworms exposed for nine months, while the bioaccumulation of Ag2S-NPs in earthworms was under-predicted somewhat. This was likely because the short-term did not take into account the late dissolution of Ag2-NPs. Ag bioaccumulation of Ag2S-NP could not be related to the concentrations of Ag measured at a specific time in pore water. Chapter 5 reports a study which demonstrated that earthworm bioturbation plays an important role in the vertical transport of Ag2S-NPs in soil. In the soil columns, daily rainfall from artificial rain water did not lead to displacement of Ag2S-NPs within 28 days indicating that in the case of hardly soluble metal NPs and unsaturated soil conditions, bio-mediated transport overcomes physical chemical transport.  Bioturbation from L. rubellus was quantified by assessing the changes of the macro porosity in the soil columns. Results indicated that earthworms burrowing activity was not affected by the presence of Ag2S-NPs at the experimental concentrations. The study proposed a linear relationship between bioturbation rate and the abundance of earthworms that is applicable to future bioturbation studies. Chapter 6 presented an overall discussion of the results obtained in the thesis, and concluded with the implication of such findings in the risk assessment of NMs.


Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) is an uncommon form of strokes. The most common radiological findings are thrombus in the dural sinus or cortical veins, paranchimal hemorrhagic infarctions, focal edema with or without hemorrhage. However, in a review of the literature, only a few cases of CVST were associated with subdural effusion. We report superior sagital sinus and cortical veins thrombosis with bilateral subdural effusion in a 17 year-old girl with leukemia


The aim of this study is to examine the analysis of studies that investigate the impacts of puppets on learning. The scope of the study was to work on literature with 20 independent papers that published between 1972 and 2014 by the document analysis method. These papers were examined on direction of their dependent – independent variable, research method, field, level and results. According to findings of the study, it can be used for guiding educators that what are the results of puppet using on learning and if it can be used for similar studies. In general, it has been found that, using puppets have a positive effect on cognitive and sensory aspects


Severity classification systems (ie pain scales, categories of invasiveness, degrees of severity etc) are used to classify the adverse effects experienced by animals used for scientific purposes. Currently, eleven countries use severity classification systems. These systems have developed in various ways, depending on each country's process for overseeing the use of animals in science, as well as the particular aspects emphasised by those individuals who have championed their implementation. Severity classification serves four main purposes: as a tool to assist animal ethics committees in ethical review; education of animal users about concepts for humane animal experimentation; provision of data to inform the public about scientific animal use; and provision of data to inform national policies. At a time when the newly accepted European Union Directive will make the reporting of severity data mandatory, we review the characteristics of international severity classification systems and how they have evolved; analyse the effectiveness of some systems; and identify emerging challenges for severity classification.


The skin is a barrier which protects us against daily attacks of foreign substances. From a pharmaceutical perspective it is also an interesting delivery route with its large surface and possibility to reach the blood stream circumventing first passage metabolism. With the varied size, structure etc. of active pharmaceutical substances, as well as the structure and function of the tissue, skin penetration is challenging.

The work included in this thesis mainly focus on exploring the lipid based cubic liquid crystalline phases as dermal drug delivery vehicles. Of particular interest has been systems based on glyceryl monooleyl ether (GME), while cubic phase containing glyceryl monooleate (GMO) and water was used as reference system. These lipids and cubic phases are very similar but an important difference is that GME requires a solvent to form a cubic phase in excess water while GMO does not. The cubic phases made of GME, are less studied but have potential to be effective dermal delivery vehicles. The phase behavior of the GME systems has been thoroughly investigated and the dermal delivery of active compounds from the cubic formulations evaluated. Examples of the methods used are small angle X-ray diffraction, in vivo fluorescence spectrophotometry, two photon microscopy, and high performance liquid chromatography.

The GME-based formulations showed to be as good as the GMO-based cubic phase for dermal delivery of small molecules. The cubic formulations significantly enhanced the delivery, both in amount and depth, compared to a commercial product. For larger molecules and nanoparticles, however, skin penetration was found only when a GME-based cubic formulation was used as delivery vehicle.

Through combining all obtained results, a hypothesis of the dermal delivery mechanism was formed. The skin adherence and the occluding and hydrating effects of the formulations are important for effective delivery. However, the phase behavior of the formulations is also important to explain the mechanism. The GME-based cubic phase turns into a reversed hexagonal phase in excess water, whereas the GMO-based formulation maintains its cubic structure. This small but significant difference may be the reason for the difference in ability to deliver larger molecules and particles into skin.


Beds of Tertiary age in the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana constitute one of the most prolific producing oil provinces in the world, yet there is little regional folding and an absence of large tectonic movements, and therefore no major structural features of great relief which characterize many other oil-producing provinces. The Gulf Coast was, and still is, an area of low relief, both inside and beyond the coast line, with deposits through the Tertiary made up principally of continental beds and of sediments deposited in shallow marine waters, with a series of regressions and transgressions, with the net effect of moving the shore line toward the south. During these oscillations there occurred erosional periods and consequent minor, but effective, truncation of beds nd traps for accumulation of oil and gas. Despite the absence of structures of great relief, accumulations of hydrocarbons are present in the Gulf Coast with less intense features of every known type: anticlines, faults, faulted anticlines, sand lenses, stratigraphic traps of all types, reefs, and a combination of these structural and stratigraphic forms. The general progressive and thick deposition during the Tertiary in this large Gulf Coast homocline, amounting to a total of 50,000 feet, has resulted in certain structural features, among which the most outstanding are the salt domes. The motive force of the uplift of these domes has been the static weight of the thick Tertiary sediments, so that the great vertical growth of the domes has taken place during the Tertiary. The various types of hydrocarbon accumulations have been proved by drilling on the Gulf Coast salt domes, and one of these, the South Liberty salt dome, in Liberty County, Texas, 45 miles east of Houston, is the subject of this paper, because it exemplifies the economic importance of various types of oil traps which were formed at several stages in the growth of the dome. This field is now being extensively and successfully explored for additional producing zones.


There are many different genetic programming (GP) frameworks that can be used to implement algorithms to solve a particular optimization problem. In order to use a framework, users need to become familiar with a large numbers of source code before actually implementing the algorithm, adding a learning overhead. In some cases, this can prevent users from trying out different frameworks. This paper discusses the implementation of a code generator in the EpochX framework to facilitate the implementation of GP algorithms. The code generator is based on the GP definition language (GPDL), which is a framework-independent language that can be used to specify GP problems.


This article discusses some conceptual frameworks and notions used in, or with the potential to further develop, theories and understandings regarding the specific processes and forms of knowledge in creative practices of architecture, design and art. More articulate conceptual frameworks are not only of importance for strengthening disciplines and practices, but can also make valid contributions in wider societal contexts in relation to contemporary challenges in built environments. With the point of departure in the notions "material practice" by Stan Allen and "making disciplines" by Halina Dunin-Woyseth, theoretical frameworks and approaches by, for example, Andrew Pickering, Nigel Cross, Albena Yaneva, and Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari are discussed. The contemporary world has brought challenging societal developments and complex transformations of built environments, but new tools have also enabled other forms of design experiments, including non-verbal languages and various model worlds. The article argues that we must constantly study the contemporary situation, but also reflect upon our means of designing and production, as well as our forms of working and collaboration. New relationships between theory and practice, between research and practical designing, between academia, architectural practice and different actors in society, must be articulated and established through conscious strategies.


The rapid scale-up of HIV care and treatment in resource-limited settings has overwhelmed many public health laboratory services already burdened with human resource shortages, an aging and inadequate infrastructure, and a lack of quality systems. There is, however, a growing appreciation of the opportunity to use HIV-related laboratory strengthening as means to strengthen health systems in general. We briefly describe ongoing efforts to integrate HIV laboratory support into HIV care and treatment systems, thereby strengthening laboratory systems in support of both HIV scale-up and overall health systems strengthening.


When a three-level inverter is used in three-phase four-wire systems, the problem of mid-point voltage variation becomes significant because of the existence of balanced and unbalanced loads. Therefore sizing of the dc-link capacitors with respect to mid-point voltage variation should be studied. This paper presents an analytical study of dc-link capacitors sizing when using a three-level NPC inverter in four-wire systems, where positive, negative and zero sequence load currents are separately analyzed. The calculation of dc-link mid-point currents, mid-point voltage ripples and capacitor sizes are all mathematically derived. Result of this study on one hand establishes the calculation of DC-link capacitor sizes of a three-level NPC inverter when the load characteristics are known. On the other hand, it can be used to analyze the trade-off between using larger dc-link capacitors, and using an additional balancing circuit


Ciborinia camelliae Kohn is the causal agent of camellia flower blight. The fungus infects only the flowers of camellias. C. camelliae isolates obtained from symptomatic samples, collected in 13 different localities worldwide, were characterized by Multi-Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) using the following: (i) a nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer; (ii) subunit 2 of β-tubulin (β-TUB II), (iii) elongation factor 1-α (EF1α); and (iv) glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH). The variability of the strains was assessed using a universally primed–polymerase chain reaction (UP-PCR) with six universal primers. Gene sequence comparison showed high similarity among all the European strains and highlighted the diversity of the New Zealand and Chinese representative strains. The profiles obtained by UP-PCR confirmed the significant diversity of extra-European strains and identified subgroups within the European population. The presence of shared genetic profiles obtained from strains isolated in different countries (New Zealand and France) suggests the movement of strains from one location to another, which is probably due to the exchange of infected plant material. Moreover, our study shows the overall high intraspecific variability of C. camelliae, which is likely due to the sexual reproduction of the fungus, suggesting the risk of emergence of new pathotypes adapting to novel camellia varieties.


We introduce C-Slate, a new vision-based system, which utilizes stereo cameras above a commercially available tablet technology to support remote collaboration. The horizontally mounted tablet provides the user with high resolution stylus input, which is augmented by multi-touch interaction and recognition of untagged everyday physical objects using new stereo vision and machine learning techniques. This provides a novel and interesting interactive tabletop arrangement, capable of supporting a variety of fluid multi-touch interactions, including symmetric and asymmetric bimanual input, coupled with the potential for incorporating tangible objects into the user interface. When used in a remote context, these features are combined with the ability to see visual representations of remote users' hands and remote physical objects placed on top of the surface. This combination of bimanual and tangible interaction and sharing of remote gestures and physical objects provides a new way to collaborate remotely, complementing existing channels such as audio and video conferencing.


In Scotland horticultural food crops occupy about 1·4% of the tillage land, and contribute about 4% of the total Scottish agricultural output. Climate, soil type and factors such as distance to markets and availability of labour have influenced the location of horticultural crops. This has changed with time, particularly because of the influence of the processing industry. Soft fruit production (3,630 hectares), with raspberries being the dominant crop, is concentrated in the Tayside region; more than 90% of the raspberry crop is processed by pulping (for jam, etc.), freezing or canning. Vegetable production (6,130 hectares) is somewhat more dispersed from the Border region to the Moray Firth; more than half the total area is occupied by peas for canning and freezing. Glasshouse production of tomatoes is now only 25 hectares located mainly in the Clyde Valley. The future for Scottish horticultural food production will continue to be influenced by the requirements of the processing industry, but there is also an increasing outlet for fresh fruit and vegetables in supermarkets. Expansion of the production of horticultural food crops in Scotland depends on the ability of the industry to meet market demands in terms of quality and continuity of supply. Increasing reference to the need for an improved British diet may stimulate the consumption of fruit and vegetables on the home market and there continue to be opportunities for increasing the export of processed and fresh produce. Scotland has the land resources, crop production expertise and processing and marketing facilities to respond to these opportunities.


Successful bone regeneration benefits from three‐dimensional (3D) bioresorbable scaffolds that mimic the hierarchical architecture and mechanical characteristics of native tissue extracellular matrix (ECM). A scaffold platform that integrates unique material chemistry with nanotopography while mimicking the 3D hierarchical bone architecture and bone mechanics is reported. A biocompatible dipeptide polyphosphazene‐polyester blend is electrospun to produce fibers in the diameter range of 50–500 nm to emulate dimensions of collagen fibrils present in the natural bone ECM. Various electrospinning and process parameters are optimized to produce blend nanofibers with good uniformity, appropriate mechanical strength, and suitable porosity. Biomimetic 3D scaffolds are created by orienting blend nanofiber matrices in a concentric manner with an open central cavity to replicate bone marrow cavity, as well as the lamellar structure of bone. This biomimicry results in scaffold stress–strain curve similar to that of native bone with a compressive modulus in the mid‐range of values for human trabecular bone. Blend nanofiber matrices support adhesion and proliferation of osteoblasts and show an elevated phenotype expression compared to polyester nanofibers. Furthermore, the 3D structure encourages osteoblast infiltration and ECM secretion, bridging the gaps of scaffold concentric walls during in vitro culture. The results also highlight the importance of in situ ECM secretion by cells in maintaining scaffold mechanical properties following scaffold degradation with time. This study for the first time demonstrates the feasibility of developing a mechanically competent nanofiber matrix via a biomimetic strategy and the advantages of polyphosphazene blends in promoting osteoblast phenotype progression for bone regeneration.


OBJECTIVES
Community-genotype methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) clones have emerged in the community worldwide and recently have been spreading into the hospitals. To identify predictors of sequence type 72-MRSA-SCCmec type IV (ST72-MRSA-IV) in patients with community-onset (CO) S. aureus infection, a case-control study was conducted among CO S. aureus infections, including healthcare-associated infections.

METHODS
Eighty-four patients with CO infections caused by ST72-MRSA-IV strains in Korea between 2007 and 2009 were selected as cases. Members of the control group were those with CO methicillin-susceptible S. aureus infections and they were matched by the admission date in a 1 : 1 ratio.

RESULTS
The most common type of infection was skin and soft tissue infection in both groups (48.8% versus 52.4%), followed by pneumonia. Female sex (OR 2.55, 95% CI 1.30-5.04), severe sepsis or septic shock (OR 3.05, 95% CI 1.09-8.55), prior hospitalization within the previous year (OR 2.18, 95% CI 1.10-4.32) and surgical site infection (SSI) (OR 4.63, 95% CI 1.38-15.59) were associated with ST72-MRSA-IV infections in multivariate analyses.

CONCLUSIONS
Female sex, SSI, severe sepsis or septic shock and prior hospitalization within the previous year were predictors of ST72-MRSA-IV among patients with CO S. aureus infection.


A42 Introduction: Pancreatic cancer is a highly lethal cancer due to early metastasis and prevalent drug resistance. Abnormal AKT activation is known to be one of the mechanisms of chemoresistance to gemcitabine in pancreatic cancer. We tested the hypothesis that combining an AKT inhibitor, triciribine (TCN), to gemcitabine augments antitumor activity in vitro. Methods: Gemcitabine and TCN, alone or in combination were given to a human pancreatic cancer cell line, MIA PaCa-2 that expresses phosphorylated AKT. The effects of treatments were evaluated by trypan blue assay, MTT assay, and CellDeath ELISA. Colorimetric data of MTT assay were computationally analyzed for synergism of the combination therapy by CalcuSyn2. Results: Both gemcitabine and TCN inhibited cell growth in dose-dependent manner. TCN synergistically enhanced the cytotoxic activity of gemcitabine. Combination index at ED50 in 1:500 ratio (gemcitabine:TCN) was 0.74. The combination treatment with the non-apoptotic dose of each agent distinctly induced apoptosis. Conclusion: Gemcitabine in combination with TCN synergistically inhibits pancreatic cancer cell growth and induces apoptosis. These findings support the novel combination be tested in vivo and translated to the clinical setting.


The rapid evolution of biomedical knowledge and techniques has resulted in new life expectations, nourishing hope not only of adding years to life, but also quality of life (QoL) to years. The aim of the present study was to review the national and international literature concerning QoL and the elderly, and to outline the conceptual developments of QoL that have guided the research and development of different measurement instruments used for the assessment of QoL among the elderly population. From the review it emerged that the questionnaires most used to assess QoL in the research on the elderly are: the Short Form 36 (SF36), the Short Form 12 (SF12), the EuroQol (EQ5D), Life-Quality-Gerontology Centre Scale (LGC-Scale), and Quality of Life-Alzheimer's Disease (QoL-AD).


Digitalization of work processes is advancing, and this is increasingly supported by complex information systems (IS). However, whether such systems are used by employees largely depends on users' trust in these IS. Because there are few systematic studies on this topic, this research provides an initial exploration and validation of preconditions for trust in work-related IS. In Study 1, N = 30 professionals were asked to describe occupational incidents in which they had highly trusted or distrusted an IS. Content analysis of 111 critical incidents described in the in-depth interviews led to 12 predictors of trust and distrust in IS, which partly correspond to the structure of the established IS success model (Delone & McLean, 2003) but also exceed this structure. The resulting integrative model of trust in IS at work was validated in Study 2 using an online questionnaire with N = 179 professionals. Based on regression analyses, reliability (system quality) and credibility (information quality) of IS were identified as the most important predictors for both trust and distrust in IS at work. Contrasting analyses revealed diverging qualities of trust and distrust in IS : whereas well-being and performance were rated higher in trust events, experienced strain was rated higher in distrust events. Together, this study offers a first comprehensive model of trust in IS at work based on systematic empirical research. In addition to implications for theory advancement, we suggest practical implications for how to support trust and to avoid distrust in IS at work.


Further results from microgravity flight experiments on acoustic shaping are discussed. In previous experiments, the authors showed that straight and curved walls could be formed using styrofoam and cereal pellets of arbitrary shape seeded in a sound field in a resonant chamber. The wall shapes corresponded to constant-pressure-amplitude contours of the sound field; however, the walls have multiple stable locations near the nodal planes. Low acoustic energy input found to be sufficient in microgravity. Here the observations are related to predictions of particle and flowfield behavior. For the low-order modes used here, acoustic streaming is an important factor in transporting particles through the chamber. Simulations using multiple harmonics indicates possibilities for constructing and transporting shapes inside the container. Flow visualization supports the streaming predictions. The streaming velocity corresponds to the predicted values for the measured standing wave pressure amplitude. Visualizations of nodal planes show the formation of shapes of specified curvature. G-jitter is of the order of 0.03g, comparable to the peak accelerations due to acoustic radiation force, limits wall formation and control time during each parabola. Complex shapes can be formed with a variety of materials in microgravity. Tailoring the sound field to specific shapes and materials appears to be within reach.


The Brief Holt Handbook, Second Edition, serves as a concise writing reference for first-year composition classes and beyond. It provides thorough coverage of grammar, punctuation, word choice, spelling, and effective style. The process of writing essays, paragraphs, research papers, and business documents is fully discussed. Distinct from the competition, this reference text also covers critical thinking and reading, argumentation, writing about literature, writing essay exams, and writing in the workplace. In addition, The Brief Holt Handbook addresses the use of computers and the Internet in every stage of writing and research.


Subjectivity and difference of opinion are key social phenomena, and it is crucial to take these into account in the annotation and detection process of derogatory textual content. In this paper, we use four datasets provided by SemEval-2023 Task 11 and fine-tune a BERT model to capture the disagreement in the annotation. We find individual annotator modeling and aggregation lowers the Cross-Entropy score by an average of 0.21, compared to the direct training on the soft labels. Our findings further demonstrate that annotator metadata contributes to the average 0.029 reduction in the Cross-Entropy score.


Proteinuria is a major promoter that induces tubulointerstitial injury in glomerulopathy. Dietary salt restriction may reduce proteinuria, although the mechanism is not clear. We investigated the effects of dietary salt restriction on rat kidneys in an animal model of glomerular proteinuria. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were used and divided into 3 groups: vehicle-treated normal-salt controls, puromycin aminonucleoside (PA)-treated normal-salt rats, and PA-treated low-salt rats. PA was given at a dose of 150 mg/kg BW at time 0, followed by 50 mg/kg BW on days 28, 35, and 42. Sodium-deficient rodent diet with and without additional NaCl (0.5%) were provided for normal-salt rats and low-salt rats, respectively. On day 63, kidneys were harvested for histopathologic examination and immunohistochemistry. PA treatment produced overt proteinuria and renal damage. Dietary salt restriction insignificantly reduced proteinuria in PA-treated rats, and PA-treated low-salt rats had lower urine output and lower creatinine clearance than vehicle-treated normal-salt controls. When tubulointerstitial injury was semiquantitatively evaluated, it had a positive correlation with proteinuria. The tubulointerstitial injury score was significantly increased by PA treatment and relieved by low-salt diet. ED1-positive infiltrating cells and immunostaining for interstitial collagen III were significantly increased by PA treatment. These changes appeared to be less common in PA-treated low-salt rats, although the differences in PA-treated normal-salt versus low-salt rats did not reach statistical significance. Our results suggest that renal histopathology in PA nephrosis may potentially be improved by dietary salt restriction. Non-hemodynamic mechanisms induced by low-sodium diet might contribute to renoprotection.


We propose a modularity optimization method, Mod-CSA, based on stochastic global optimization algorithm, conformational space annealing (CSA). Our method outperforms simulated annealing in terms of both efficiency and accuracy, finding higher modularity partitions with less computational resources required. The high modularity values found by our method are higher than, or equal to, the largest values previously reported. In addition, the method can be combined with other heuristic methods, and implemented in parallel fashion, allowing it to be applicable to large graphs with more than 10,000 nodes.


Epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC) is known for high mortality due to diagnosis at advanced stages and frequent therapy resistance. Previous findings suggested that the DNA repair system is involved in the therapeutic response of cancer patients and DNA repair genes are promising targets for novel therapies. This study aimed to address complex inter-relations among gene expression levels, methylation profiles, and somatic mutations in DNA repair genes and EOC prognosis and therapy resistance status. We found significant associations of DUT expression with the presence of peritoneal metastases in EOC patients. The high-grade serous EOC subtype was enriched with TP53 mutations compared to other subtypes. Furthermore, somatic mutations in XPC and PRKDC were significantly associated with worse overall survival of EOC patients, and higher FAAP20 expression in platinum-resistant than platinum-sensitive patients was observed. We found higher methylation of RAD50 in platinum-resistant than in platinum-sensitive patients. Somatic mutations in BRCA1 and RAD9A were significantly associated with higher RBBP8 methylation in platinum-sensitive compared to platinum-resistant EOC patients. In conclusion, we discovered associations of several candidate genes from the DNA repair pathway with the prognosis and platinum resistance status of EOC patients, which deserve further validation as potential predictive biomarkers.


Summary Mathematical models are potentially useful tools to aid in the design of control programmes for parasitic diseases. In this paper, a fully age structured epidemiological model of human schistosomiasis is developed and parameterized, and used to predict trends in infection prevalence, intensity and prevalence of heavy infections over age and time during several rounds of mass and age targeted treatment. The model is validated against data from a Schistosoma mansoni control programme in Kenya.


Tourism has been growing fast as a global industry. Promoting national tourism is therefore an important part of a country's economic plan and can contribute to its economic success. Tourism slogans have always been part of the promotion of national tourism. Almost every country has their own catchy, pungent taglines to attract new tourists. This study examined 100 tourism slogans available online and investigated the frequency of occurrences of the syntactic structures in the slogans. After the most frequently used syntactic structures were identified, they were analysed further for classifications of sentence types and structures in order to gain insight into patterns of grammatical forms and functions. The findings showed that in terms of occurrences, noun phrases were most frequently used in tourism slogans, followed by simple declarative sentences. Further analysis demonstrated that the most common form of noun phrase in the tourism slogans consisted of an adjective (modifier) and a noun (head). In addition, the most common form of sentence was declarative and its function was to make a statement. PASAA Vol. 53 January June 2017 | 183 Other interesting findings such as linguistic playfulness and incongruence of forms and functions were also discussed in the study.


Abstract:  Histoplasma capsulatum is a dimorphic fungus that is widely distributed in the tropical or subtropical areas of the world and infects several mammalian hosts, mainly bats. Infective propagules grow in bat and bird droppings. A specific molecular marker, a highly sensitive fragment of a co-activator protein-coding gene (Hcp100), was used to detect H. capsulatum in lung samples of wild and captive bats from France using a nested polymerase chain reaction. To determine whether bats in France are potential carriers of H. capsulatum, 83 bats were sampled from two regions in France. Sixty-one specimens belonging to the Pteropus rodricensis (n = 45) and Rousettus aegyptiacus (n = 16) species were collected from a zoologic park (La Palmyre, western France). Twenty-two specimens were recovered from the Natural History Museum (Bourges) including the species Plecotus austriacus (n = 1), Pipistrellus pipistrellus (n = 3), and Nyctalus noctula (n = 18). From the lung DNA samples of 83 dead bats, only one sample of an N. noctula bat from Bourges amplified the H. capsulatum Hcp100 marker. The amplified product was sequenced and revealed a high similarity to the G217B H. capsulatum reference strain sequence that was deposited in the GenBank database. This finding suggests that H. capsulatum is an environmental pathogen in France that may infect bats.


The thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) of a 2D material is a fundamental parameter for both material property and applications. A joint study is hereby reported, using Raman microspectroscopy and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, of the substrate effects on thermal properties of graphene. It is found that besides the lateral strain induced by the substrate, out-of-plane coupling strongly affects the temperature-dependent vibrational modes and TEC of graphene. MD simulation shows significant reduction of the density of states for longer wavelength out-of-plane vibrations when the graphene is supported on an alkane substrate. The negative TEC of freestanding graphene becomes smaller when out-of-plane rippling is suppressed. In order to measure TEC of 2D materials with the out-of-plane coupling being taken into consideration, a Raman microspectroscopic scheme to separate the contributions of lateral strain and out-of-plane coupling to TEC is developed. The TEC of graphene on octadecyltrichlorosilane substrate is found to be (-0.6 ± 0.5) × 10-6 K-1 at room temperature, which is fundamentally smaller than that of freestanding graphene. These results shed light on the fundamental understanding of the interaction between 2D material and substrate, and offer a general recipe for studying separately in-plane and out-of-plane couplings on supported materials.


Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) provides a powerful tool to resolve the structure of biological macromolecules in natural state. One advantage of cryo-EM technology is that different conformation states of a protein complex structure can be simultaneously built, and the distribution of different states can be measured. This provides a tool to push cryo-EM technology beyond just to resolve protein structures, but to obtain the thermodynamic properties of protein machines. Here, we used a deep manifold learning framework to get the conformational landscape of KaiC proteins, and further obtained the thermodynamic properties of this central oscillator component in the circadian clock by means of statistical physics.


SUMMARY: Salmonella typhimurium was grown in a number of media containing compounds related either to the tricarboxylic acid (Krebs) cycle or to glucose metabolism. Organisms grown on compounds related to the Krebs cycle are pink when looked at by reflected light, whereas those grown on compounds related to glucose are white. Organisms growing in media containing compounds from one group continue to grow when transferred to media containing another compound of the same group, but not when transferred to media containing a compound from the other group. Growth of organisms in a mixture of one compound from each group leads to the formation of white organisms, i.e. the glucose-like state appears to predominate.


A new approach to instrument identification based on individual partials is presented. It makes identification possible even when the concurrently played instrument sounds have a high degree of spectral overlapping. A pairwise comparison scheme which emphasizes the specific differences between each pair of instruments is used for classification. Finally, the proposed method only requires a single note from each instrument to perform the classification. If more than one partial is available the resulting multiple classification decisions can be summarized to further improve instrument identification for the whole signal. Encouraging classification results have been obtained in the identification of four instruments (saxophone, piano, violin and guitar).


Background

Recent studies indicated that exosomal programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) derived from cancers could induce immunosuppression and tumor pathogenesis. However, it is unclear how the exosome influences the osteosarcoma (OS) progression and whether PD-L1 also exists in serum exosomes (Sr-exosomes) of patients with osteosarcoma.
Methods

We examined serum exosomes from 70 patients with osteosarcoma, 9 patients with benign tumors and 22 healthy donors. Osteosarcoma-derived exosomes and exosomal-PD-L1 were functionally evaluated using in vivo and in vitro models.
Results

The characteristics of serum exosomes of OS patients and OS cell line exosomes were confirmed by several methods. Bioinformatic analysis demonstrated that Sr-exosomes isolated from OS patients may involve in the important process of immune function and cancer pathogenesis for OS patients. Meanwhile, exosomes derived from OS cell line and serum of OS patients could induce osteosarcoma migration and invision in vitro. Then, we confirmed PD-L1 existing in Sr-exosomes of patients with osteosarcoma and higher level of Sr-exosomal PD-L1 in OS patients compared to healthy donors and patients with benign tumor. Furthermore, exosomal-PD-L1 derived from osteosarcoma promoted the pulmonary metastasis, which was demonstrated in the osteosarcoma metastatic model.
Conclusion

We confirm that osteosarcoma releases the exosomes carrying PD-L1 on their surface and induces the pathogenesis of pulmonary metastasis for OS patients.


: Haptic interfaces allow natural physical interactions with virtual environments. By measuring the user's movements and providing force feedback, they recreate a physical sense of presence in the virtual world, thus improving the user's immersion. These characteristics led to their adoption in various VR applications, e.g. fitting, training or ergonomic studies. Until recently however, most of the commercially available systems were equipped with a handle which constraints the simulated movements to the manipulation of tools having a shape similar to the handgrip. More dexterous devices which do not constraint the hand's posture are required to allow for the simulation of more various grasps and fine manipulation. Such interfaces are currently the subject of intense research, with new products arrived recently on the market. Some of these devices allow generic force feedback on the fingers thanks to multidirectional actuation. They remain however complex and cumbersome. To overcome this limitation, some other devices limit the number of actuators. More compact solutions can be obtained this way, but force feedback is limited to only few directions. In this paper, we present a different approach. By combining force and local pseudo-force feedback, we aim at allowing a rich and multidirectional haptic feedback in a light and compact fashion. This paper presents an innovative haptic glove implementing such hybrid haptic feedback developed for interactions with digital mock-ups, with details on its main components and its integration in a VR application.


In this paper, we developed and tested the effective gas safety management system by using wireless intelligent gas safety appliances to monitor gas flow and pressure, earthquake in a micom-gas-meter, to check combustible gas leaks and temperature (upper 100°C) in an automatic extinguisher and to measure smoke and CO gas. Then our system takes safety measures such as cutoff, warning and messages to protect a serious risk if results of event are abnormal, communicates with a wall-pad including a gateway with ZigBee network in buildings and to inform the event to user via the safety management program in our server. Also, the inner cutoff valve of intelligent gas meters and automatic extinguishers are operated automatically if irregular events are occurred.


This paper studies the relationship between the positive limit sets of continuous semiflows and the newly introduced definition of persistently excited (PE) sets and associated subspaces of reproducing kernel Hilbert (RKH) spaces. It is shown that if the RKH space contains a rich collection of cut-off functions, persistently excited sets are contained as subsets of the positive limit set of the semiflow. The paper demonstrates how the new PE condition can be used to guarantee convergence of function estimates in the RKH space embedding method for adaptive estimation. In particular, the paper is applied to uncertain ODE systems with positive limit sets given by certain types of smooth manifolds, and it establishes convergence of adaptive function estimates over the manifolds.


Abstract A participatory system dynamics modelling approach is advanced to support conceptualization of feedback processes underlying ecosystem services and to foster a shared understanding of leverage intervention points. The process includes systems mapping workshop and follow-up tasks aiming at the collaborative construction of causal loop diagrams. A case study developed in a natural area in Portugal illustrates how a stakeholder group was actively engaged in the development of a conceptual model depicting policies for sustaining the climate regulation ecosystem service.


In the cultural imagination, libraries often conjure images of pristine aisles of books managed by strict, shushing librarians. However, libraries in the United States, both large and small, have embraced the sights and sounds of music concerts for well over a century. As a crucial point in this historical trajectory, the Great Depression provides a fascinating window onto the multi-layered music histories of American libraries and their patrons. In the midst of economic struggle, libraries joined concert halls and community centers to host high-profile Library of Congress concert series, local "Evenings with the Victrola," and WPA composer forums. In their repurposed reading rooms and lecture halls, libraries served as symbolic spaces that promoted Progressive-Era democratized knowledge and New Deal cultural democracy. This study, informed by U.S. newspaper reports and archival materials between 1929 and 1940, locates the library as an overlooked space across intersecting cultural axes that has served as a symbolic musical center for a variety of music networks and philosophies. Libraries were central to federal programs, private citizens, and charities alike, and their distinct ideologies were articulated in concert locations, times, and repertoires. In addition to digital visualizations of American library concerts and context via the histories of music ensembles, performance spaces, and libraries in the Great Depression, this paper seeks to restore the image of the library as a musical-cultural center in American concert life.


This study was aimed at determining the effect of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and season on the in vitro maturation, fertilization and embryo development of bovine oocytes. Bovine ovaries obtained from a local slaughter house were transported to the laboratory within 2–3 h in a thermos flask containing antibiotic-supplemented physiological saline (0.9%) and at a fixed temperature of 30°C. Bovine oocytes collected in spring and autumn were incubated in culture media containing FSH at concentrations of 0.2 and 0.8 μg/ml. After maturation, oocytes were fertilized. Fertilized oocytes were incubated in CR1aa culture medium for 7 days at 38.5°C for in vitro development. The assessment made after the completion of the maturation process revealed that, for both FSH doses, the maturation rates obtained with the oocytes collected in spring were higher than those obtained with the oocytes collected in autumn. The incubation of the oocytes collected in autumn in culture media supplemented with 0.2 μg/ml of FSH resulted in a low level of oocyte maturation. After maturation, oocytes were subjected to fertilization. Fertilized oocytes were incubated in CR1aa culture medium for 7 days at 38.5°C for in vitro development. In both seasons, 0.8 μg/ml FSH application was higher than the maturation values obtained with 0.2 μg/ml FSH in terms of fertilization and embryo development rates. The study was repeated 9 times for each season. Although there was no significant difference between fertilizations and embryo development in the seasons, better results were obtained in spring season.


This article deals with social and economic essence of strategy of the housing industry development, both complex system of economic relations in field of production and consumption, which is regulated through the mechanism of prices and implemented through formation and realization of priority directions. Developed criteria for classification of housing construction projects as environmentally friendly and the quality criteria of variables for assessment of the environmental friendliness of residential buildings allowed to determine the ways of development of the industry on the basis of creation of competitive projects in interrelation with quality, environmental friendliness and price of consumption.


A subharmonically pumped (SHP) mixer with very low conversion loss is proposed. The mixer employed the newly developed spiral compact microstrip resonant cell (SCMRC) and compact dual-band stub (DBS). Incorporating the in-line SCMRC and DBS into a second SHP mixer, we can provide proper terminations for the IF, RF, and local-oscillator (LO) signal simultaneously in addition to all major unwanted mixing products, leading to a unique low conversion-loss design. Our SHP mixer with a measured 3.9-dB single-sideband (SSB) down-conversion loss at 11.6-GHz RF signal outperforms typical designs of 8-12 dB, and represents a state-of-the-art performance for a planar X-band harmonic mixer. With a broad-band operation, our mixer shows an SSB down-conversion loss of less than 8.2 dB from 9 to 12.8 GHz. Moreover, the measured LO-RF isolation is better than 45 dB for LO frequency ranges of 4-5.8 GHz. Large-signal two-tone measurements reveal an excellent linear response of the working prototype, showing 7.5 dBm and 52 dB for the 1- dB power compression point and spurious-free dynamic range, respectively.


LBA9000^ Background: The humanized monoclonal IgG4 anti-PD-1 antibody MK-3475 has demonstrated durable antitumor activity in MEL and NSCLC. We evaluated MK-3475 efficacy and safety in a pooled analysis of 411 MEL pts.

METHODS
A nonrandomized cohort of ipilimumab-naive (IPI-N) and IPI-treated (IPI-T) pts treated with MK-3475 10 mg/kg Q2W, 10 mg/kg Q3W, or 2 mg/kg Q3W and randomized cohorts of IPI-N and IPI-T pts treated with 2 Q3W or 10 Q3W were included. Response was assessed every 12 wk by RECIST 1.1 by independent central review and by immune-related response criteria (irRC) by investigator.

RESULTS
162 pts were treated at 2 Q3W, 192 at 10 Q3W, and 57 at 10 Q2W. 190 pts were IPI-N and 221 were IPI-T. As of the 10/18/2013 cutoff, all pts had ≥6 mo follow-up and >75% had ≥9 mo follow-up. Among the 365 pts with measurable disease at baseline, ORR by RECIST was 40% (95% CI 32%-48%) in IPI-N and 28% (95% CI 22%-35%) in IPI-T pts. Responses were durable (88% ongoing at analysis). Median PFS by RECIST was 24 wk in IPI-N and 23 wk in IPI-T pts. Median OS was not reached, with 1-y OS of 71% in all pts. Benefit was observed by both RECIST and irRC at all doses and schedules in IPI-N and IPI-T pts (Table). MK-3475 demonstrated activity in all major subgroups irrespective of ECOG PS, LDH levels, BRAFmutation, M stage, and number and type of prior therapy. Overall, 12% of pts experienced drug-related grade 3/4 AEs and 4% discontinued due to a drug-related AE. There were no drug-related deaths.

CONCLUSIONS
MK-3475 showed durable responses and a manageable safety profile across dose and schedules in IPI-N and IPI-T MEL pts. The observed efficacy and safety suggest MK-3475 may be an appropriate treatment for all pts with MEL.

CLINICAL TRIAL INFORMATION
NCT01295827. [Table: see text].


There is no proven effective treatment for tardive dyskinesia (TD). However, clozapine has been reported to be effective in suppressing TD symptoms. In this article, we report a TD case who received clozapine. The patient recovered from TD symptoms with a dose of 450 mg/day clozapine. At the end of the first year, clozapine was decreased to a dose of 250 mg/day and TD symptoms re-emerged.


Perceived usefulness and ease of use have proved to be key determinants of the acceptance and usage of e-learning systems. On the contrary, little is known about students" perceptions in Adaptive Educational Hypermedia Systems (AEHS). In this paper, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was utilized to investigate university students" attitudes towards AEHSs. The goal of the study was to investigate whether students" perceptions towards AEHS that adapts basing on cognitive styles were comparable to perceptions of students using AEHS that adapts basing on prior knowledge. This is part of a project to determine how prior knowledge and cognitive styles could be combined in AEHS to maximize learning and comprehension of educational materials. To this end, the study presented in this paper developed two AEHSs, one tailored to students" prior knowledge while the other to their cognitive styles with emphasis on Holist-Serialist dimension. Comparative effects of using the two systems employing perceptions and attitudes as a measure were then investigated. In total, 104 students participated in the study, 60 students using the prior knowledge version while 44 participated on the cognitive styles version. The findings indicate that students using the cognitive styles version had more positive attitudes and perceptions towards their version than those who used the prior knowledge version. The implications of these results for the design of effective AEHSs combining prior knowledge and cognitive styles are discussed.


The purpose of this study was to analyze features and development process of the U.S. GSA Design Excellence Program. Precedent researches on the GSA Design Excellence Program were conducted to propose improvement of the public architecture design selection process, introduction of a public building design guideline and establishment of an agency involving peer professionals. However, the GSA Design Excellence Program has not been discussed comprehensively but was mentioned as a part of comparative studies. Only evaluation of certain period of Design Excellence Program was included to support necessity of new policies and institutions without investigating transformation and development process of the system and the organization. This study focuses on the case study of GSA's Design Excellence Program from 1994 till 2014, based upon exploration of courthouse projects initiated with inception of Design Excellence Program, GSA Design Award winning projects including the notable San Francisco Federal Building and Eisenhower Memorial Competition. With this research, uniqueness of GSA Design Excellence Program can be discovered with its evolutionary developments in its detailed guidelines for transformative procedures, policies, building types and design values.


Professor Kark has made a great contribution to the study of renal disease by developing a really reliable and safe method of renal biopsy which has been widely adopted. This new technique is already paying dividends in many hands; our knowledge of the natural history of renal disease and of histological changes, particularly when evaluated with both light and electron microscopy, has developed rapidly as a result of it. This volume contains the study of lupus nephritis previously published by Professor Kark's team in Medicine in March I957. It is, in fact, a bound reprint, with the original figures and 307 references. There is, of course, the usual table of contents, but no index. This is a most careful and well-documented study of the author's cases, giving full details of the clinical features and course, the pathological findings and the histological changes revealed mainly by biopsy. Many of the sections are reproduced in colour. The authors have produced a beautiful monograph and their findings are of the greatest interest and importance. Their discussion of the relationship of S.L.E. and lupus nephritis to other diseases, in which they collect together many important earlier observations, occupies I8 pages and will be particularly valuable to those interested in other fields. Very often, as in their discussion of the relationship of S.L.E. to rheumatoid arthritis (a problem often confronting the general physician), the authors are able to add an account of a carefully studied case of their own to illustrate it. They have certainly been fortunate in collecting such magnificent material to study. Of their 33 cases, 22 were studied more than once during steroid therapy; unfortunately, though we are told that steroids did not influence the histological changes, nothing is said of their effect on the prognosis. This volume is, of course, as beautifully produced as the parent journal. What a pity that the junior author's name is misspelt on the title page. MEDICAL LABORATORY INVESTIGATIONS: THEIR USE AND INTERPRETATION


Introduction Systemic Lupus Erthematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterised by multisystem involvement. It is complicated by neurological manifestations in 25–95% of the patients. Acute transverse myelitis may be a complication in 1–2% of patients but in some it may even be the initial manifestation of SLE. Case report 13 years old previously healthy girl was admitted with a history of pain in her lower limbs for 2 weeks, fever for 2 days and sensory loss. She developed acute flaccid quadriparesis over the next 48hrs, with bilateral weakness of her lower limbs, urinary retention and sensory loss from T2 spinal segment down for light touch and pain. Her vibratory and proprioception were absent in her lower limbs. Power in her upper limbs was reduced. She had no cranial nerve involvement and her ophthalmology assessment was unremarkable. She did not have bulbar involvement or respiratory difficulties. Investigations revealed raised inflammatory markers and CSF showed pleocytosis with an elevated protein. She didn't fulfil the ACR criteria for SLE but her blood results were consistent for an active SLE (ANA positive – speckled pattern, double stranded DNA, Anti Sm and Anti RNP antibody positive with low complement C3 and C4 level). Her cultures for blood, urine, CSF were negative as well as extensive virology screen and serology for Lyme's disease. MRI Spine showed high signal within the spinal cord from C5 down to the conus suggestive of multiregional multifocal transverse myelitis. Her MRI brain was normal. She was treated with 7 cycles of cyclophosphamide and methylprednisolone and plasmapharesis. She was wheelchair bound but has responded well to the treatment and is able to walk few steps without support, manage with crutches only to walk and only uses wheelchair occasionally. She doesn't have any upper limb problems at the moment although still has neuropathic bladder. Conclusion It is important to include autoimmune screen as part of transverse myelitis work up as SLE may not present with typical clinical features at the outset. Early diagnosis and aggressive treatment of transverse myelitis is important in SLE to prevent long-term disability.


SUMMARY The growth of primary clones and serial subclones of HeLa cells and of diploid human fibroblast-like cells were compared both in the presence and absence of feeder layers; the latter had no significant effects upon the results. Clones and subclones of both cell types displayed great heterogeneity in growth rates, typically with a bimodality of growth distributions. Serial passages of clones selected on the basis of superior rates of proliferation showed attentuation of growth potentials; the extent of such attentuations was much less in the case of HeLa cells, suggesting at least one possible basis for the differences in long-term growth potential between these two classes of cell lines.


The human face assumes a tremendous part for programmed acknowledgment of feeling in the field of recognizable proof of human feeling and the connection amongst human and PC for some genuine application like driver state observation, customized learning, wellbeing checking and so on. Most announced facial feeling acknowledgment frameworks, in any case, are not completely thought to be subject-autonomous dynamic highlights, so they are not sufficiently vigorous for genuine acknowledgment assignments with subject (human face) variety, head development and brightening change. In this article we have endeavored to outline a computerized structure for feeling location utilizing outward appearance. For human-PC cooperation outward appearance makes a stage for non-verbal correspondence. The feelings are adequately variable happenings that are evoked because of actuating power. So, in actuality, application, discovery of feeling is exceptionally testing undertaking. Outward appearance acknowledgment framework requires to defeat the human face having various changeability, for example, shading, introduction, demeanor, stance and surface so on. In our structure we have taken edge from live gushing and prepared it utilizing Grabor highlight extraction and neural system. To distinguish the feeling facial traits extraction by foremost segment investigation is utilized and a clusterization of various outward appearance with individual feelings. At long last to decide outward appearances independently, the handled element vector is directed through the officially learned example classifiers. Outward appearances offer essential information concerning feelings of somebody. Understanding outward appearances precisely is one in all the troublesome assignments for social connections. Programmed feeling identification abuse outward appearances acknowledgment is as of now a principle space of enthusiasm among changed fields like registering, drug, and science. HCI examination groups also utilize machine-controlled facial highlights acknowledgment framework for higher outcomes. changed element extraction systems are produced for acknowledgment of articulations from static pictures in addition as ongoing recordings. This paper gives an audit of investigation work dispensed and uncovered inside the field of facial highlights acknowledgment and changed methods utilized for facial highlights acknowledgment.


[Background] Innate adjuvant receptors are expressed in immune cells and some types of cancers. If antitumor therapies targeting adjuvant receptors in cancer cells are established, it could be therapeutically useful because antitumor effects and activation of the immune system can be induced simultaneously. [Objective]Poly(I:C) is one of innate adjuvant receptors ligands and triggers signaling through not only endosome Toll-like receptor (TLR) 3 but also cytoplasmic melanoma differentiation-associated gene (MDA) 5. In this study, we investigated antitumor effects of poly(I:C) on human breast cancer cell lines, and then elucidated the mechanisms. [Methods] Three breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, and BT-549) were used in this study. Poly(I:C) was transfected into these cancer cells, and cell viability and apoptosis were evaluated by WST8 assay and flow cytometry, respectively. The expression of adjuvant receptors and cell cycle-related molecules were examined by immunobotting. Autophagy was evaluated by immunoblotting and confocal imaging. In vivo antitumor effect was determined using a xenograft mouse model. [Results] All three cell lines were positive for both TLR3 and MDA5. Poly(I:C) transfection drastically reduced their cell viabilities in a partially MDA5-dependent manner. Poly(I:C)-transfected cancer cells showed caspase-dependent apoptosis and growth arrest as a result of suppression of c-Myc and cyclinD1. Interestingly, poly(I:C) transfection was accompanied by autophagy, which is known to work cytoprotectively under starvation and stress, and knockdown of beclin-1, an essential molecule for autophagy, by RNA interference promoted poly(I:C) transfection-induced apoptosis. In vivo poly(I:C) transfection exerted the antitumor effect on xenografted MDA-MB-231 in nude mice. [Conclusions] These results suggest that the innate adjuvant receptors are promising targets in human breast cancer and that autophagy plays a protective role in this treatment modality. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2013;73(24 Suppl): Abstract nr P5-01-13.


CRITICS HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING about Ruskin's inconsistencies since the 1840s. In 1856, Elizabeth Rigby wrote contemptuously of Ruskin's "crochety contradictions and peevish paradoxes" (187). Marshall Mather lamented in 1897 that the critic's "so-called inconsistencies roused the laughter and sneer of superficial readers" (xi). By 1933, R. H. Wilenski simply affirmed that "Ruskin's art criticism . . . is an appalling muddle" (192). And in our own time, scholars as various as John Rosenberg, Elizabeth Helsinger, and Gary Wihl have pointed not so much to the connections as to the shifts, gaps, and breaks that interrupt the succession of Ruskin's first nine major volumes — Modern Painters, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, and The Stones of Venice.1


The treatment of uncinariasis may be considered under three headings: First, the prophylactic treatment, or that directed toward the prevention of infection by the hook-worm; second, the means used to cause the expulsion of the parasite; third, the treatment of the anemia and debility resulting from the infection. Prophylaxis is of very great importance, and is a subject which requires careful consideration. It seems probable that infection takes place chiefly through the mouth, either in infected water or food, or through contaminated hands, which carry the parasite to the mouth. Looss, however, has apparently proven that the larvae may penetrate the skin. A possible entrance through the air passages has also been suggested, but does not seem probable. A most important fact, and one which greatly simplifies the treatment of uncinariasis, is that there is no increase in the number of parasites in the intestinal tract of the victim. Each


INTRODUCTION
In osteosarcoma, the most significant indicator of prognosis is the histologic changes related to tumor response to preoperative chemotherapy, such as necrosis. We have developed a method to measure the osteosarcoma treatment effect using whole slide image (WSI) with an open-source digital image analytical software Qupath.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In Qupath, each osteosarcoma case was treated as a project. All H&E slides from the entire representative slice of osteosarcoma were scanned into WSIs and imported into a project in Qupath. The regions of tumor and tumor necrosis were annotated, and their areas were measured in Qupath. In order to measure the osteosarcoma treatment effect, we needed to calculate the percentage of total necrosis area over total tumor area. We developed a tool that can automatically extract all values of tumor and necrosis areas from a Qupath project into an Excel file, sum these values for necrosis and whole tumor respectively, and calculate necrosis/tumor percentage.

CONCLUSION
Our method that combines WSI with Qupath can provide an objective measurement to facilitate pathologist's assessment of osteosarcoma response to treatment. The proposed approach can also be used for other types of tumors that have clinical need for post-treatment response assessment.


The stage-2 CoCl2 graphite intercalation compound behaves magnetically like a quasi-two-dimensional XY-like ferromagnet with a very weak antiferromagnetic interplanar exchange interaction. This compound undergoes two magnetic phase transitions at Tcl ( = 6.8-7.2 K) and Tcu ( = 8.9 K). The SQUID AC magnetic susceptibility at a fixed AC frequency (f = 1 Hz) has been measured as a function of AC magnetic field strength h (1 mOe⩽h⩽4.2 Oe), temperature T (1.9⩽T⩽12 K) and external magnetic field (0⩽H⩽1 kOe). The dispersion (Θ1'/h) and absorption (Θ1''/h) are strongly dependent on h for h>50 mOe in the vicinity of Tcl and Tcu, where Θ1'/h = χ1' + 3χ3'h2/4 + ··· and Θ1''/h = χ1'' + 3χ3''h2/4 + ···. We find (i) a shift of Tcl in χ1'' to the low-temperature side with decreasing frequency and (ii) a positive local maximum in χ3' at 7.3 K. These results are indicative of a re-entrant spin-glass-like phase below Tcl, where the AF phase and spin-glass phase coexist. A positive broad peak of χ3' around 8.4-8.9 K shows the occurrence of two-dimensional ferromagnetic order below Tcu. The H-T phase diagram is also determined for H along the c plane.


Recent studies have revealed the localization of RhoA protein in the cell nucleus, in addition to its distribution in the cytosol and cell membrane. The results of previous studies by our group indicated that nuclear RhoA expression is increased, or RhoA is transported into the nucleus, when cells become cancerous or damaged. Furthermore, application of the anticancer agent Taxol appeared to reduce nuclear RhoA localization, indicating an association between the nuclear translocation of RhoA and tumor progression. Bilobol is a traditional Chinese medicine ingredient, however, its anticancer effect has remained unclear. The present study aimed to demonstrate the anticarcinogenic action of bilobol against hepatocellular carcinoma, in order to lay the foundations for subsequent research into the mechanisms underlying its anticancer effects. In the present study, HepG2 cells were treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), to induce inflammation, and/or bilobol. By performing an ELISA, it was observed that bilobol was able to suppress the inflammation induced by LPS. In addition, immunofluorescence and western blot analyses indicated that bilobol may reduce the expression of RhoA, suppress translocation of RhoA into the nucleus and inhibit the RhoA/Rho-associated protein kinase signaling pathway. In conclusion, the present study revealed the potential anticancer effects of bilobol.