Abstract. Many approaches are using to improve the productivity of the pyramid solar still. Pyramid solar still provides a larger surface area than conventional types of solar still. In this research work, three sections have been evaluated. The first section has been studied by changing the water depth from 1 to 5 cm. In the second part of the experiment, increasing the inlet water temperature has been investigated, and finally, adding fins at the bottom of the still at certain inlet water depth has been achieved. The experimental results show that the still productivity could be influenced by the basin depth by up to 40.6 % when varying water depth from 1 to 5 cm, The freshwater production from the pyramid solar still was 1230.5, 1045, 998, 901, and 731 mL for the water depth from 1 to 5 cm, respectively. Moreover, it was found that productivity increased by 7.5 % when fins were used at the bottom of the pyramid solar still. In addition, the results showed that the still productivity could be influenced by varying inlet water temperature to 15.3 % and 21.2 % when varying the inlet water temperature from 30 °C to 40 °C and 50 °C, respectively.


Copy number variants (CNVs) are a substantial source of genomic variation and contribute to a wide range of human disorders. Gene-disrupting exonic CNVs have important clinical implications as they can underlie variability in disease presentation and susceptibility. The relationship between exonic CNVs and clinical traits has not been broadly explored at the population level, primarily due to technical challenges. We surveyed common and rare CNVs in the exome sequences of 50,726 adult DiscovEHR study participants with linked electronic health records (EHRs). We evaluated the diagnostic yield and clinical expressivity of known pathogenic CNVs, and performed tests of association with EHR-derived serum lipids, thereby evaluating the relationship between CNVs and complex traits and phenotypes in an unbiased, real-world clinical context. We identified CNVs from megabase to exon-level resolution, demonstrating reliable, high-throughput detection of clinically relevant exonic CNVs. In doing so, we created a catalog of high-confidence common and rare CNVs and refined population frequency estimates of known and novel gene-disrupting CNVs. Our survey among an unselected clinical population provides further evidence that neuropathy-associated duplications and deletions in 17p12 have similar population prevalence but are clinically under-diagnosed. Similarly, adults who harbor 22q11.2 deletions frequently had EHR documentation of neurodevelopmental/neuropsychiatric disorders and congenital anomalies, but not a formal genetic diagnosis (i.e., deletion). In an exome-wide association study of lipid levels, we identified a novel five-exon duplication within LDLR segregating in a large kindred with features of familial hypercholesterolemia. Exonic CNVs provide new opportunities to understand and diagnose human disease.


Deficiencies in convection trigger functions, used in deep convection parameterizations in General Circulation Models (GCMs), have critical impacts on climate simulations. A novel convection trigger function is developed using the machine learning (ML) classification model XGBoost. The large‐scale environmental information associated with convective events is obtained from the long‐term constrained variational analysis forcing data from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program at its Southern Great Plains (SGP) and Manaus (MAO) sites representing, respectively, continental mid‐latitude and tropical convection. The ML trigger is separately trained and evaluated per site, and jointly trained and evaluated at both sites as a unified trigger. The performance of the ML trigger is compared with four convective trigger functions commonly used in GCMs: dilute convective available potential energy (CAPE), undilute CAPE, dilute dynamic CAPE (dCAPE), and undilute dCAPE. The ML trigger substantially outperforms the four CAPE‐based triggers in terms of the F1 score metric, widely used to estimate the performance of ML methods. The site‐specific ML trigger functions can achieve, respectively, 91% and 93% F1 scores at SGP and MAO. The unified trigger also has a 91% F1 score, with virtually no degradation from the site‐specific training, suggesting the potential of a global ML trigger function. The ML trigger alleviates a GCM deficiency regarding the overprediction of convection occurrence, offering a promising improvement to the simulation of the diurnal cycle of precipitation. Furthermore, to overcome the black box issue of the ML methods, insights derived from the ML model are discussed, which may be leveraged to improve traditional CAPE‐based triggers.


In this chapter, a hardware processing architecture of real-time echo state network based on field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is proposed, which solves the problem that it is difficult to obtain the output weight of the network in real time. The design of this architecture strictly follows the reservoir calculation (RC) theory, and its five components are established in FPGA: input module, reservoir module, output module, training module, and system switch module. This paper implements the architecture in Altera FPGA chip and verifies it through the application of pattern recognition, waveform generation, and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel prediction. Experimental results show that the hardwareimplemented real-time echo state network can identify the duty cycle of different input signals, generate floating-point waveforms, and predict the MIMO channel by training. In this paper, a real-time echo state network based on field programmable gate array is proposed, which has the advantages of fast computation speed, less resource consumption, and ideal simple task execution.


The synthesis of amphiphilic dextran-g-poly(methyl methacrylate) glycopolymers (Dex-g-PMMA) is studied using "grafting from" concept and atom transfer radical polymerization. Two strategies have been examined to control the macromolecular parameters of such glycopolymers. One is involving four steps including a protection/deprotection approach and the second one only two steps. The introduction of initiators group onto a protected acetylated dextran (and directly onto dextran) was achieved resulting in protected DexAcBr (and in unprotected DexBr). These two types of polysaccharidic macroinitiators differ in term of solubility (hydrophilic DexBr vs. hydrophobic DexAcBr) and of position of the initiators groups on the glucosidic units (which are the sites of the future grafts). When evaluated as macroinitiators for ATRP of MMA, control was achieved in both cases but DexBr gave much faster polymerization and lower average grafting efficiency compared with DexAcBr or model initiator. Advantages and drawbacks of both pathways have finally been discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2010


The idea of 'Sustainability as a Real Utopia' elaborated on here adapts sociologist Erik Olin Wright's emancipatory social science and is a heuristic informed by critical realism and social theory for interdisciplinary research on viable alternatives that move society towards achieving sustainability. Starting from the proposition that many environmental problems are rooted in how social structures and institutions interact with nature by shaping human agency, we argue for concretely situated analysis aimed at guiding human agency towards changing those root causes. Then, drawing on concrete examples from sustainability research, we elaborate on three central tasks: diagnosing and critiquing environmental problems, elaborating viable alternatives and proposing a theory of transformation. Finally, we discuss, and welcome dialogue around two central and interlinked challenges of our approach to transformative sustainability research: that of scales, and that of the distinction and relationship between reforms and transformation.


Blood and fecal samples of chukar partridge (Alectoris chukar), albino pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), silver pheasant (Lophura nycthemera), rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri) and turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) were analyzed to check parasitic prevalence. To record parasites these five avian species were placed kept in separate cages at Avian Conservation and Research Center, Department of Wildlife an Ecology, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan. 100 fecal and 100 blood samples for each bird species were inspected to analyze internal parasites. During present study, 17 species of endoparasites 14 from fecal samples and three from blood were examined. Two species of ectoparasites i.e. mite Dermanyssus gallinae 42% and fowl ticks Args persicus 41%were studied. Blood parasites included Plasmodium juxtanucleare 50%, Leucoctoyzoon simond having parasitic prevalence 40%, and Aegyptinella pullorum having parasitic prevalence of 40%. Parasitic species recorded from fecal samples included 6 species of nematodes viz. Allodpa suctoria 2%. Syngamus trachea with parasitic prevalence of 60%, Capillaria annulata 37.5%, Ascardia galli 24%, Capillaria anatis 40% and Heterakis gallinarum 28.3%. Similarly, two species of trematodes viz. Prosthogonimus ovatus having parasitic prevalence of 50% and Prosthogonimus macrorchis 21% were also documented from fecal avian samples . Single cestode species Raillietina echinobothrida having parasitic prevalence of 72% and 3 protozoan species i.e. Eimeria maxima having parasitic prevalence of 21%, Giardia lamblia 41% and Histomonas meleagridis 18% were documented during corpological analysis. In our recommendation, proper sanitation, medication and vaccination of bird's enclousres are suggested to avoid parasites.


Many studies have been performed in the field of transferability of mode choice model. Both temporal and spatial transferability were covered in the previous studies although temporal transferability got main focus in this respect. Most of the research on spatial transferability was performed on identical data sets. This research examines the effect of omission of one of the most important variables (travel cost) in spatial transferability. Multinomial logit models are used for building mode choice models. Two sets of data from two different regions are used: one from Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) and another from the San Francisco Bay Area (BATS). Each of the datasets is randomly divided into two samples: estimated dataset (90% of the whole data) and application dataset (10% of the sample). Model estimated from BATS's estimated dataset is applied to BATS's application dataset as well as DFW's estimated dataset. In the same way model estimated from DFW's estimated dataset is applied to DFW's application dataset as well as BATS's estimated dataset. No adjustment is done for transferring the models. The study finds that the parameters of explanatory variable of the models estimated from two regional datasets are similar in terms of sign and magnitude. Modal shares predicted by models are almost same as sample shares within the region and outside the region. Keywords— Mode Choice, Discrete Model, Disaggregate Model, Multinomial Logit, Spatial Transferability,


This is a Solution for Japanese Companies Act and Comparative Law Analysis regarding Hypothetical Case on General Case on Directors' Duties.


Global history looms large in current historiography, yet its heuristic design and political functions remain ill-reflected. My article seeks to uncover the historical origins of the assumption that the "world" has one common history and that it is feasible and desirable to write it. I analyze the epistemic infrastructure underlying this assumption and argue that global history as practiced today is predicated on a specific mode of world-making that provides its basic template: Global history both grew out of and intellectually sustains the conception of an increasingly connected world. The type of connectedness thereby implied and reinscribed was established by what I call the "world-historical process," a cognitive framework that co-emerged with the early modern and modern European conquest of the world through expansion, discovery, commerce, and culture. The article investigates how this process-template emerged out of the crisis of universal history that could no longer integrate and reconcile the multiple pasts of the world. The format of the world-historical process was central to Enlightenment historians' assertion of the secular and scientific prestige of their craft, as much as to its ability to discern global epochs, in particular the modern and the premodern. My article traces the fortunes of this template through historicism up to present-day global history. Current global history remains structured around the growing connectedness of previously distinct parts of the planet whose pasts are transformed into relevant world history by the very process that makes them increasingly interrelated. Global history may be too much a product of the process of globalization it studies to develop epistemologically and politically tenable alternatives to "connectivity."


Extrapyramidal side effects (EPS) can be induced by neuroleptics that regulate the expression of transcription factor FosB and dopaminergic mediator DARPP-32 in the striatum. However, the long-term neurobiological changes in striatal projection neurons resulting from a cumulative dosage of typical and atypical antipsychotics are poorly understood. The present study aimed to determine the differential and long-lasting changes in FosB distribution and DARPP-32 phosphorylation in the striatum and nucleus accumbens (NAc) associated with chronic antipsychotic-induced EPS. Male C57Bl/6J mice received daily injections of Olanzapine (Olz, 15 mg/kg), Clozapine (Clz, 20 mg/kg), or Haloperidol (Hal, 1 mg/kg), for a period of 11 weeks with a 4-day withdrawal period before the last dosage. Catalepsy for detection of EPS, along with open-field and rotarod tests, were assessed as behavioral correlates of motor responses. Additionally, FosB and phosphorylated-DARPP-32 immunohistochemistry were examined in striatal regions after treatment. All antipsychotics produced catalepsy and reduced open-field exploration, such as impaired rota-rod performance after Olz and Hal. The washout period was critical for Clz-induced side effects reduction. Both Olz and Clz increased FosB in NAc Shell-region, and phosphoThr34-DARPP-32 in NAc. Only Clz reduced phosphoThr75-DARPP-32 in the dorsal striatum and showed FosB/phosphoThr34-Darpp-32-ir in the NAc Core region. This study provides evidence that atypical antipsychotics such as Olz and Clz also give rise to EPS effects frequently associated with a cumulative dosage of typical neuroleptics such as Hal. Nevertheless, FosB/phosphoThr34-Darpp-32-ir in the NAc Core region is associated with hypokinetic movements inhibition.


The electrocardiogram (ECG) signals are basically the combination of sequential electrical impulses generated by tissues in the heart. In the last decades, by using ECG signals, various studies such as heart beat classification, arrhythmia analysis, anomaly detection, and diagnosis of heart-related diseases have been conducted with various neural network (NN), and machine learning (ML) approaches. Regardless of the approach to obtain more accurate results, various preprocessing methods are applied to data. It is observed that performing preprocessing is crucial for the sake of the related analysis. In this paper, focused on studies in the last decade, ECG analysis steps are briefly explained and mentioned approaches are reviewed on their preprocessing methods in detail.


The porous pavement system is widely considered very effective in urban street because of its various benefits on safety and environment, but the pavement thickness design system has not been established yet. In porous pavement system. rainwater penetrates to the subgrade through porous pavements layers. Porous pavements are expected to reduce or alleviate the problems caused by impermeable pavement layer such as flood damage due to heavy rain in the city, drainage load, disorder in ecosystem, and heat island. However, its structural design methods in traffic roads has not been made mainly because of not being able to consider adequately the effect of rainwater on subgrade strength. In this study, structural design method of porous pavements is suggested after considering the subgrade weakness due to rainwater and numerical mechanical analysis. It is noted that elastic modulus of subgrade is reduced by 20% as subgrade moisture content is increased by 2% at optimum moisture content in the literature review. As a result of both finite element analysis and strength loss of subgrade by the existing design method, it is necessary to increase subbase thickness about 30㎝ in porous pavements compared with the existing traffic road pavement system. It is similar to premium thickness of structural design of porous pavements in Japan.


The latest progress made in the field of radioactive ion beam physics is outlined and the key problems still under investigation are indicated. The focal points are the limit of nuclear existence, shell evolution and new magic numbers, halo and cluster structures, new excitation modes, and strong coupling between reaction channels. This field is still at a starting phase and much more new outcomes are foreseen.


Eighty computer users with musculoskeletal disorders participated in a six-month, randomized, placebo-controlled trial evaluating the effects of four computer keyboards on clinical findings, pain severity, functional hand status, and comfort. The alternative geometry keyboards tested were: the Apple Adjustable Keyboard™ [kb1], Comfort Keyboard System™ [kb2], Microsoft Natural Keyboard™ [kb3] and placebo. Compared to placebo, kb3 and to a lesser extent kb1 groups demonstrated an improving trend in pain severity and hand function following six months of keyboard use. However, there was no corresponding consistent improvement in clinical findings in the alternative geometry keyboard groups compared to the placebo group. Overall, there was a significant correlation between improvement of pain severity and greater satisfaction with the keyboards. These results provide evidence that keyboard users may experience a reduction in hand pain after several months of use of some alternative geometry keyboards.


Food is a powerful natural reinforcer that guides feeding decisions. The vagus nerve conveys internal sensory information from the gut to the brain about nutritional value; however, the cellular and molecular basis of macronutrient-specific reward circuits are poorly understood. Here, we monitor in vivo calcium dynamics to provide direct evidence of independent vagal sensing pathways for detection of dietary fats and sugars. Using activity-dependent genetic capture of nutrient-specific vagal neurons activated in response gut infusions, we demonstrate the existence of separate hard-wired reward circuits for fat and sugar that are necessary and sufficient for nutrient-specific reinforcement. Even when controlling for calories, combined activation of fat and sugar circuits increases overeating compared to fat or sugar alone. This work provides new insight on the complex sensory circuitry that mediates motivated behavior and suggests that a subconscious internal drive to consume obesogenic diets (e.g., those high in both fat and sugar) may impede conscious dieting efforts.


In the present study, the effects of Reynolds number on the flow characteristics around rectangular cylinders in uniform flow with length-to-height aspect ratios (AR) of 1 and 4 were examined experimentally using particle image velocimetry. High spatial resolution experiments were performed at Reynolds numbers of 3000, 7200, 14700 and 21000 for each aspect ratio. The results show that the separated flow is directly shed into the near wake region for AR1, while mean flow reattachment occurs on AR4, irrespective of the Reynolds number. The characteristics of the primary, secondary and wake vortices formed around the cylinders show dependency on both aspect ratio and Reynolds number. The streamwise mean velocity, turbulence intensities, transport of turbulent kinetic energy by fluctuating velocities in terms of quadrant analyses are also discussed. One-dimensional profiles are presented to quantitatively assess the effects of Reynolds number and aspect ratio.


ABSTRACT Solitary fibrous tumor/hemangiopericytoma (SFT/HPC) is a rare tumor derived from mesenchymal tissue. Although standard chemotherapy for SHT/HPC has not been established, temozolomide plus bevacizumab (TMZ+Bev) therapy for SFT/HPC has been reported. The effectiveness and safety of TMZ+Bev (temozolomide 150 mg/m2 orally on days 1–7 and days 15–21 and bevacizumab 5 mg/kg intravenously on day 8 and day 22 on a 28-day cycle), which was administered from December 2013 until April 2019 to four patients with SFT/HPC, were retrospectively analyzed. Four patients with SFT/HPC received TMZ+Bev. The age of the patients ranged from 41 to 75 years. Two were male, and the primary tumor sites were the meninges in three patients and the pleura in one. One achieved partial response; the others, stable disease (SD). The progression-free survival time ranged from 9.4 to 29.6 months according to RECIST v1.1. One patient died 59 months after using TMZ+Bev, and the others survived for 17 to 64 months. All patients experienced Grade 3 or higher lymphopenia, and three had Grade 3 or higher leukopenia and neutropenia. One patient subsequently received doxorubicin; another, pazopanib. TMZ+Bev therapy for SFT/HPC is safe and effective for maintaining long-term SD.


4 Abstract: Diuretic agents have been used in the treatment of several situations such as cardiopulmonary and urinary diseases in humans and animals, but they have not been extensively studied in poultry. Some Iranian poultry producers traditionally use urotropin (hexamine), alhagi (Camelorum fisch) and malt beverage to get therapeutic effect in broiler or laying hens. Diuretics may be used after drug therapy in order to get rid of tissue residues and in some toxicity conditions in birds. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diuretic properties of several herbal and chemical agents in adult laying hens. Adult laying hens were randomly divided into 9 groups, each group consisting of 5 birds. Specific doses of diuretics were administrated to anesthetized hens (with xylazine and ketamine) following 24 h off-feed period. Urine samples were collected for 2 h after drug administration. Blood samples were also taken at 90 min. The concentrations of chloride, albumin, glucose, creatinine, uric acid and urea nitrogen were measured in serum and urine samples. Urine volume and specific gravity, sodium and potassium concentrations were also determined in urine. Statistical analysis of data showed that furosemide had a positive significant effect on urine volume compared to other agents. Urotropin also increased the urine volume but this effect was not significant. With respect to the effects on electrolytes (sodium, potassium and chloride), intramuscular furosemide, oral urotropin and hydrochlorothiazide exerted some changes, but no consistent pattern was observed with respect to the other factors measured in serum and/or in urine. Diuretic effect was more pronounced following intramuscular administration of furosemide.


【Multilateration(MLAT) may complement secondary surveillance radar and also act as a real-time backup for the ADS-B system. This System is using time difference of arrival (TDOA) and based on triangulation principle. Each TDOA measurement defines a hyperbola describing possible aircraft locations. The accuracy in MLAT system depends on the positional relationship of the receiver and aircraft. There are various algorithms to localize aircraft based on TOA estimation. In this paper, we use least square method and extended Kalman filter and compare their results. Study results show that the extend Kalman filter provides a better performance than the least square method.】


We present the logistic growth model to study the stochastic resonance (SR) in a bacterium growth system under the simultaneous action of two external multiplicative cross-correlation noises and periodic external forcing. The expression of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for a bacterium growth system is derived by using the theory of SNR in the adiabatic limit. Based on SNR, we discuss the effects of self-correlation time τ1 and τ2, cross-correlation time τ3 and cross-correlation strength λ on the SNR. It is found that the self-correlation time τ1 and τ2, and cross-correlation strength λ enhance the SR of the bacterium growth system, while cross-correlation time τ3 weakens the SR of the bacterium growth system.


Purpose Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women worldwide. However, the data on breast cancer incidence and survival over a long period, especially the dynamic changes in the role of race and socioeconomic status (SES), are scant. Materials and methods To evaluate treatment outcomes of patients with breast cancer over the past 3 decades, the data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries were used to assess the survival of patients with breast cancer. Period analysis was used to analyze the incidence and survival trend; survival was evaluated by the relative survival rates (RSRs) and Kaplan–Meier analyses. The HRs for age, race, stage, and SES were assessed by Cox regression. Results A total of 433,366 patients diagnosed with breast cancer between 1981 and 2010 were identified from the original nine SEER registries. The incidences of breast cancer in each decade were 107.1 per 100,000, 117.5 per 100,000, and 109.8 per 100,000. The 10-year RSRs improved each decade, from 70.8% to 81.5% to 85.6% (P<0.0001). The lower survival in black race and high-poverty group is confirmed by Kaplan–Meier analyses and RSRs. Furthermore, Cox regression analyses demonstrated that age, race, SES, and stage are independent risk factors for patients with breast cancer in each decade. Conclusion The current data demonstrated a fluctuating incidence trend with improving survival rates of patients with breast cancer over the past 3 decades. In addition, the survival disparity exists among different races, ages, SESs, and stages.


Flexible broad leaves are thought to reconfigure in the wind and water to reduce the drag forces that act upon them. Simple mathematical models of a flexible beam immersed in a two-dimensional flow will also exhibit this behavior. What is less understood is how the mechanical properties of a leaf in a three-dimensional flow will passively allow roll up into a cone shape and reduce both drag and vortex induced oscillations. In this fluid dynamics video, the flows around the leaves are compared with those of simplified sheets using 3D numerical simulations and physical models. For some reconfiguration shapes, large forces and oscillations due to strong vortex shedding are produced. In the actual leaf, a stable recirculation zone is formed within the wake of the reconfigured cone. In physical and numerical models that reconfigure into cones, a similar recirculation zone is observed with both rigid and flexible tethers. These results suggest that the three-dimensional cone structure in addition to flexibility is significant to both the reduction of vortex-induced vibrations and the forces experienced by the leaf.


In this paper, we develop a unified framework for analyzing the tracking error and dynamic regret of inexact online optimization methods under a variety of settings. Specifically, we leverage the quadratic constraint approach from control theory to formulate sequential semidefinite programs (SDPs) whose feasible points naturally correspond to tracking error bounds of various inexact online optimization methods including the inexact online gradient descent (OGD) method, the online gradient descent-ascent method, the online stochastic gradient method, and the inexact proximal online gradient method. We provide exact analytical solutions for our proposed sequential SDPs, and obtain fine-grained tracking error bounds for the online algorithms studied in this paper. We also provide a simple routine to convert the obtained tracking error bounds into dynamic regret bounds. The main novelty of our analysis is that we derive exact analytical solutions for our proposed sequential SDPs under various inexact oracle assumptions in a unified manner.


Orphan diseases are life-threatening, chronic, progressive and leading to a reduction in life expectancy or disability conditions. Patients with rare diseases are one of the vulnerable population groups, which is caused by several factors, such as insufficient awareness of practitioners about such diseases, complicated and lengthy diagnosis, and imperfection of legal environment in the area of pharmacological support of orphan diseases, when only 24 orphan diseases (List-24) are determined, which are treated at the expense of the RF subjects. Imperfection of federal orphan diseases legislation is shown on the example of providing patients with PAH-specific therapy: only idiopathic form of pulmonary hypertension is included in the federal List-24, there is no well-established mechanism of pharmacological support for patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) that is not included in the List-24. The article describes the successful experience in providing patients with orphan diseases, regardless of the inclusion of nosology in List-24 in Moscow, through the creation and implementation of the transparent medical and pharmacological support regulation for patients with orthopaedic diseases, which settled the timely process of provision of patients with the necessary therapy. As a result, patients with CTEPH also have access to existing pathogenetic treatment that can prolong life and improve the quality of life of such patients.


A tutorial-style framework is presented for understanding the current status of adaptive infinite-impulse-response (IIR) filters. The paper begins with a detailed discussion of the difference equation models that are useful as adaptive IIR filters. The particular form of the resulting prediction error generic to adaptive IIR filters is highlighted and the structures of provable convergent adaptive algorithms are derived. A brief summary of particular, currently known performance properties, drawn principally from the system identification literature, is followed by the formulation of three illustrative adaptive signal processing problems, to which these adaptive IIR filters are applicable. The concluding section discusses various open issues raised by the formulation of this framework.


BACKGROUND & AIMS
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is associated with increased apoptosis of intestinal epithelial cells (IECs). Mutations in the tumor suppressor p53 appear during early stages of progression from colitis to cancer. We investigated the role of p53 and its target, p53-upregulated modulator of apoptosis (PUMA), in inflammation-induced apoptosis of IECs.

METHODS
Apoptosis was induced in mouse models of mucosal inflammation. Responses of IECs to acute, T-cell activation were assessed in wild-type, p53⁻/⁻, Bid⁻/⁻, Bim⁻/⁻, Bax3⁻/⁻, Bak⁻/⁻, PUMA⁻/⁻, and Noxa⁻/⁻ mice. Responses of IECs to acute and chronic colitis were measured in mice following 1 or 3 cycles of dextran sulfate sodium (DSS), respectively. Apoptosis was assessed by TUNEL staining and measuring activity of caspases 3 and 9; levels of p53 and PUMA were assessed in colon tissue from patients with and without ulcerative colitis.

RESULTS
Apoptosis of IECs occurred in the lower crypts of colitic tissue from humans and mice. Colitis induction with anti-CD3 or 3 cycles of DSS increased apoptosis and protein levels of p53 and PUMA in colonic crypt IECs. In p53⁻/⁻ and PUMA⁻/⁻ mice, apoptosis of IECs was significantly reduced but inflammation was not. Levels of p53 and PUMA were increased in inflamed mucosal tissues of mice with colitis and in patients with UC, compared with controls. Induction of PUMA in IECs of p53⁻/⁻ mice indicated that PUMA-mediated apoptosis was independent of p53.

CONCLUSIONS
In mice and humans, colon inflammation induces apoptosis of IECs via p53-dependent and - independent mechanisms; PUMA also activates an intrinsic apoptosis pathway associated with colitis.


ABSTRACT Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a widespread pathogen that can cause severe disease in immunologically immature and immunocompromised patients. The current standard of therapy for the treatment of HCMV infections is ganciclovir (GCV). However, high incidence rates of adverse effects are prevalent and limit the use of this drug. Cyclopropavir (CPV) is 10-fold more effective against HCMV in vitro than GCV (50% effective concentrations [EC50s] = 0.46 and 4.1 μM, respectively) without any observed increase in cytotoxicity (S. Zhou, J. M. Breitenbach, K. Z. Borysko, J. C. Drach, E. R. Kern, E. Gullen, Y. C. Cheng, and J. Zemlicka, J. Med. Chem. 47:566–575, 2004, doi:10.1021/jm030316s). We have previously determined that the viral protein kinase pUL97 and endogenous cellular kinases are responsible for the conversion of CPV to a triphosphate (TP), the active compound responsible for inhibiting viral DNA synthesis and viral replication. However, this conversion has not been observed in HCMV-infected cells. To that end, we subjected HCMV-infected cells to equivalently effective concentrations (∼5 times the EC50) of either CPV or GCV and observed a time-dependent increase in triphosphate levels for both compounds (CPV-TP = 121 ± 11 pmol/106 cells; GCV-TP = 43.7 ± 0.4 pmol/106 cells). A longer half-life was observed for GCV-TP (48.2 ± 5.7 h) than for CPV-TP (23.8 ± 5.1 h). The area under the curve for CPV-TP produced from incubation with 2.5 μM CPV was 8,680 ± 930 pmol · h/106 cells, approximately 2-fold greater than the area under the curve for GCV-TP of 4,520 ± 420 pmol · h/106 cells produced from incubation with 25 μM GCV. We therefore conclude that the exposure of HCMV-infected cells to CPV-TP is greater than that of GCV-TP under these experimental conditions.


The authors consider hiding traffic flow on a communication network from an outside eavesdropper. It is assumed that the eavesdropper can detect transmissions, but cannot understand the encrypted messages being sent. The solution proposed for the network is to choose a transmitter activation schedule independent of the traffic demand, and to use this schedule for all data transfers. For the spread spectrum broadcast model, the authors analyze the cost of using this scheme, as reflected in a possible reduction of throughput.<<ETX>>


The international trading system is in flux. A spiral of protectionism threatens to expose the limits of the WTO's ability to protect against abuses and prevent trade wars. And the reason for this is astonishing: The US Administration believes that the existing rules – which the Americans themselves played a leading role in writing – disadvantage the United States. Currently the Trump Administration is working hard to dismantle the system.


We evaluate several concerns related to measuring the demand for public risk prevention policies, using an innovative national survey and new modeling strategies. We find that the omission of avoided morbidity leads to an upward bias in estimates of the marginal utility of avoided deaths. Individuals experience diminishing marginal utility in the scope of mortalityand morbidity-reducing policies. Individual attitudes towards government involvement and, particularly, perceptions of the personal benefits of different policies, appear to be important determinants of demand. Finally, we uncover little evidence of heterogeneity in demand for public health policies according to the proximate health threat (e.g. cancer, stroke, respiratory disease, injury) or the underlying cause (e.g. exposure to contaminants in air, water, food; highway hazards).


PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the everyday tasks and activities undertaken by retailer entrepreneurs and owner/managers when they strategize. Specifically, it interrogates the nature of the intuitive, idiosyncratic strategic agency of a retail owner/manager.Design/methodology/approachThrough adopting a combination of phenomenological and narrative approaches, focussing on illuminating the everyday operational and strategic practices of one retail entrepreneur and owner/manager, a richly contextualized, ideographic account of the procedures and outcomes of their strategizing is provided.FindingsBy revealing narratives that are seldom obvious – often kept behind the counter, and not on display – the authors are able to unravel the social reality of the retailer's decision-making, and the influences of identity, connections with customers and community, emotions and the spirit, and love and family. This study also illuminates how entrepreneurs retrospectively make sense out of the messiness of everyday life particularly when juggling the melding of personal and business realities.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper explores the experiences and reflections of the decision-making of one retail entrepreneur manager within a particular business setting. However, the use of an ideographic approach allowed for an in depth investigation of the realities of strategic practices undertaken by a retail owner that may be extrapolated beyond this immediate context.Originality/valueThis paper develops original insights into the retailer as an individual, vis-à-vis an organization, as well as nuanced understanding of the actual nature of work undertaken by retail entrepreneurs and owner/managers. To this end, this paper contributes to the "strategy-as-practice" debate in the strategic management literature, and to narrative analysis and advances insights to the perennial question: "what is a retailer?".


Abstract Alternative strategies are needed for management of glyphosate-resistant (GR) horseweed in soybean. Integrating a cereal rye cover crop with soybean planted in narrow rows may improve control and reduce herbicide selection pressure for herbicide-resistant horseweed biotypes. Four site-years of experiments were conducted in Michigan to determine whether fall-planted cereal rye terminated with glyphosate 1 wk prior to (early termination) or 1 wk after (planting green) planting in combination with narrow-row soybean improved GR horseweed management. At postemergence (POST) herbicide application, horseweed biomass was reduced by 71% to 90% when soybean was planted into cereal rye, regardless of termination time, compared with no cover across all row widths. Planting green or narrow-row soybean suppressed horseweed through soybean harvest. When glyphosate was applied POST (noneffective), horseweed biomass was 36% to 46% lower when planting green compared with early terminated cereal rye and no cover. Similarly, planting soybean in 19- and 38-cm rows reduced horseweed biomass by 48% and 28%, respectively, compared with 76-cm rows. Cereal rye did not affect soybean yield pooled over 3 of 4 site-years; however, narrow row soybean yielded 11% to 18% higher than 76-cm rows. Soybean yield was 11% higher when an effective POST herbicide was applied. In conclusion, fall-seeded cereal rye or narrow-row soybean suppressed horseweed compared with no cover and 76-cm rows; however, the effects of early termination did not last throughout the growing season in most cases. Delaying cover crop termination by planting green reduced horseweed biomass and density through soybean harvest, but reduced yield in 1 site-year due to an increased incidence of white mold. These cultural practices have a positive influence on suppressing horseweed that should be part of an overall horseweed management strategy; however, the use of an effective POST herbicide is still needed for complete season-long horseweed management. Nomenclature: Glyphosate; horseweed, Conyza canadensis L. Cronq.; cereal rye, Secale cereale L.; soybean, Glycine max (L.) Merr.


Loop fusion improves data locality and reduces synchronization in data-parallel applications. However, loop fusion is not always legal. Even when legal, fusion may introduce loop-carried dependences which prevent parallelism. In addition, performance losses result from cache conflicts in fused loops. In this paper, we present new techniques to: (1) allow fusion of loop nests in the presence of fusion-preventing dependences, (2) maintain parallelism and allow the parallel execution of fused loops with minimal synchronization, and (3) eliminate cache conflicts in fused loops. We describe algorithms for implementing these techniques in compilers. The techniques are evaluated on a 56-processor KSR2 multiprocessor and on a 18-processor Convex SPP-1000 multiprocessor. The results demonstrate performance improvements for both kernels and complete applications. The results also indicate that careful evaluation of the profitability of fusion is necessary as more processors are used.


The aim of this research was to access the impact of health education activities in the control of breast cancer in the district of Orobo, Pernambuco, Brazil. An action research was carried out in the Family Health Units with 246 women. The study was held from July 2007 to January 2008, before and after the performance of educative activities, with the application of pre- and post-tests to the participants. A family history of breast cancer was found in 20.32% of the women. When questioning on the risk factors that cause breast cancer it was demonstrated an increased knowledge on the part of women, resulting from the awareness after the lectures. With regard to those who did not know how to describe one or another step of self-examination, a significant decrease was observed through the answers, with 43.09% in the pre-test and 10.16% in the post-test. The actions allowed the identification of women at risk and their referral to the mastology unit of the Oswaldo Cruz University Hospital, in Recife, PE. Descriptors: Breast Neoplasms; Breast Cancer Prevention; Health Education; Primary Health Care.


RUFAS is a two-channel pulse counter for photoelectric occultation observations. The minimum pulse pair resolution is 80 nanoseconds, although under normal observing conditions the dead time is at least 200 nanoseconds. The counter can be used in other photoncounting applications; because of the large amount of data output, computer interfacing is desirable and possible. Key words: photon counting - occultations


The purpose of this study consists in preparing guidelines for future's effective management by analyzing use satisfaction measurement of small-sized fitness club membership and their demand of service improvement. For study object, 5 fitness clubs located in Suwon city, Gyeonggi-do were selected by convenience sampling, and 240 questionnaires were distributed to members of those five fitness clubs. Ultimately, except for 68 with insincere answer out of returned questionnaires, 172 questionnaires were used for the study. For the way of handling data, we conducted Independent sample of t-test, One-way ANOVA by using SPSS Version 12.0 statistical program for Window and used Scheffe for follow-up verification. Cronbach's a was used for reliability test 10 questions(α=.893) on the facilities, a factor subordinate to fitness club satisfaction, 7 questions(α=.935) on leaders, 6 questions(α=.891) on program, and 4 questions(α=.893) on effectiveness relatively have high reliability. The study result is as follows; As a result, the study reveals that satisfying customers using fitness club has a great effect on revisiting a fitness club. A managing style differentiated from other health clubs will have to be pursued by developing programs customized to personal feature of fitness club membership and checking leader's quality and ability.


During the recent years all crop species achieved the best possible field distribution so a high yield is to be expected. In this paper the solutions of two different diffusion equations are determined, which describe the optimal distribution of cereal grains over a field. Therefore, there are two different partial differential equations of cereal seed distribution-distinction is made between the longitudinal spacing (seeds in a row), and transverse distance (between two rows), as well as the sowing depth. In particular, closed forms of solutions are derived in each case. Although the result of the diffusion equation with respect to the distribution of the lateral seed distance of two adjacent rows is already known, a new solving method is presented in this paper. By this method, the partial differential equation is reduced to an ordinary one, which is easier to solve. In this paper it is shown that the distribution of lateral resp. longitudinal and in-depth wheat seed distances is achieved by a normal Gauss function resp. a log-normal function. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the fitting functions of the best experimental results of wheat seeding distributions are particular solutions of the individual differential equations. Normal Gauss function describes lateral distribution with R2 = 0.9325; RSME = 1.2450, and log-normal function describes longitudinal distribution with R2 = 0.9380; RSME = 1.4696 as well as depth distribution with R2 = 0.9225; RSME = 2.0187.


Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a neurological brain disorder marked by dementia and neurological dysfunction that affects memory, behavioral patterns, and reasoning. Alzheimer's disease is an incurable disease that primarily affects people over 40. Alzheimer's disease is diagnosed through a manual evaluation of a patient's MRI scan and neuro-psychological examinations. Deep Learning (DL), a type of Artificial Intelligence (AI), has pioneered new approaches to automate medical image diagnosis. This study aims to create a reliable and efficient system for classifying AD using MRI by applying the deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). In this paper, we propose a new CNN architecture for detecting AD with relatively few parameters, and the proposed solution is ideal for training a smaller dataset. This proposed model successfully distinguishes the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and shows class activation maps as a heat map on the brain. The proposed Alzheimer's Disease Detection Network (ADD-Net) is built from scratch to precisely classify the stages of AD by decreasing parameters and calculation costs. The Kaggle MRI image dataset has a significant class imbalance problem, and we exploited a synthetic oversampling technique to evenly distribute the image among the classes to prevent the problem of class imbalance. The proposed ADD-Net is extensively evaluated against DenseNet169, VGG19, and InceptionResNet V2 using precision, recall, F1-score, Area Under the Curve (AUC), and loss. The ADD-Net achieved the following values for evaluation metrics: 98.63%, 99.76%, 98.61%, 98.63%, 98.58%, and 0.0549% accuracy, AUC, F1-score, precision, recall, and loss, respectively. The simulation results show that the proposed ADD-Net outperforms other state-of-the-art models in all the evaluation metrics.


The hepatocytes of Pimelodus maculatus studied in thin sections revealed: 1. 3 physiological surfaces: a) in content with the Disse's space; b) in contact with neighboring hepatocytes; and c) showing grooves that delimit bile canaliculi; 2. bile canaliculi presenting, sometimes, intracellular diverticula; 3. junctional complexes joining hepatocytes close to the bile canaliculi; 4. gap junctions in great number; 5. a characteristic feature of the RER; 6. a commonly close relationship between mitochondria and RER; 7. Golgi complexes near the bile canaliculi and in the perinuclear area; 8. smooth endoplasmic reticulum, lysosomes, glycogen and lipids in small amounts.


Modernist theories in leadership were traditionally dominated by masculine incorporation and lacked feminine presence in development and language. The synergistic theory of leadership (SLT) seeks to explicate the need for a post‐modernist leadership theory by providing an alternative to, and not a replacement for, traditional theories. Six aspects particular to the SLT influence the ideas and include issues concerning diversity and the inclusion of the female voice in the theory. Four factors are key to the relational and interactive nature of the theory, which provides a useful framework for building and understanding the interdependent relationships. In a tetrahedron model, the theory uses four factors, including leadership behavior, organizational structure, external forces, and attitudes, beliefs, and values to demonstrate aspects not only of leadership but its effects on various institutions and positions. Developed through a qualitative approach, the theory has been validated qualitatively and quantitatively nationwide and is currently being validated internationally.


Patients who present with an anterior mediastinal mass requiring surgical intervention continue to be a challenge for anesthetic care. The risk for airway and hemodynamic collapse during general anesthesia with inhaled agents complicates the management of these patients. Anesthetics that maintain spontaneous ventilation are optimal in this setting. Dexmedetomidine, a selective alpha2 agonist, which is devoid of significant respiratory depression at clinically approved doses, may have a role. However, there is a paucity of data quantifying level of anesthesia, as well as respiratory and hemodynamic response with high dose dexmedetomidine in adult patients. Previous case reports demonstrate a wide range of doses necessary to provide anesthesia [1-3]. Voscopoulos et al., described a case involving an adult patient with critical tracheal stenosis and a large mediastinal mass undergoing a tracheal stent placement and diagnostic evaluation of the esophagus. They utilized a high dose dexmedetomidine infusion to facilitate the procedure (1 mcg/kg/hr for 10 minutes followed by 2 mcg/kg/hr for 60 minutes).


First-stage larvae of Protostrongylus spp. were more numerous in the core of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadiensis canadiensis) pellets than near the surface. As a result, only 22% could be extracted from whole pellets and the numbers collected did not reflect the total number of larvae present in samples. Crushing semi-dried pellets yielded seven times as many larvae and numbers collected were correlated with totals present. The use of tissue, in addition to a screen filter in a beaker extraction method, produced a cleaner sample and did not affect larval collection or the correlation. By comparison, most first-stage larvae of Parelaphostrongylus tenuis from white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) were near the surface of fecal pellets where they may be removed readily by water.


In the first quarter of the nineteenth century Ottoman society, especially in cities suffered from a dichotomy. On the one hand there existed for several centuries the Bektasi which was heterodox order. But in the eighteenth century there started to expand from India a new sufi order: the Naqshbandi – Mujaddidi order known to have been a shari'a minded and highly orthodox order. The result was a dichotomy between religious trends the clash between which reached a high level in 1826. Following the destruction of the janissaries, the Bektasi order lost its traditional protector and few weeks later was abolished. But a generation later it started to experience a beginning of a revival and by the mid 1860s it started to practice unhindered. But after the rise of Sultan Abdulhamid II (in 1876) the Bektasis were again forced to practice clandestinely. However, they supported Mustafa Kemal in the national struggle.


Here, we present a simple method for preparing thin few-layer sheets of hexagonal BN with micrometer-sized dimensions using chemical exfoliation in the solvent 1,2-dichloroethane. The atomic structure of both few-layer and monolayer BN sheets is directly imaged using aberration-corrected high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Electron beam induced sputtering effects are examined in real time. The removal of layers of BN by electron beam irradiation leads to the exposure of a step edge between a monolayer and bilayer region. We use HRTEM imaging combined with image simulations to show that BN bilayers can have AB stacking and are not limited to just AA stacking.


BACKGROUND
Bacterial translocation occurs in preseptic conditions such as intestinal obstruction through unclear mechanism. The C-reactive protein is an acute phase reactant and a marker of ischemia.

METHODS
45 albino male rats were divided into 3 groups each 15 rats. GI control, GII simple intestinal-obstruction and GIII strangulated obstruction. Outcome measures were: (1) Bacteriologic count and typing for intestinal contents, intestinal wall, liver, mesenteric lymph nodes and blood (cardiac and portal) (2) Histopathologic: mucosal injury score, inflammatory cell infiltrate in the wall, MLN, liver, (3) Biochemical: serum CRP, IL-10, mucosal stress pattern (glutathione peroxidase-malonyldialdhyde tissue levels).

RESULTS
(1) Intestinal obstruction associates with BT precursors (Bact-overgrowth, mucosal-acidosis, immuno-incomptence), (2) Bacterial translocation (frequency and density) was found higher in strangulated I.O, that was mainly enteric (aerobic and anaerobic) and mostly E.coli, (3) The pathogen commonality supports the gut origin hypothesis but the systemic inflammatory response goes with the cytokine generating one. (4) The CRP median values for GI, II, III were 0.5, 6.9, 8.5 mg/L, for BT +ve 8 mg/L and 0.75 mg/L for BT -ve rats.

CONCLUSION
Bacterial translocation occurs bi-directional (systemic-portal) in intestinal obstruction and the resultant inflammatory response pathogenesis is mostly 3 hit model. The CRP is a non selective marker of suspected I.O cases. However, it is a reliable marker of BT, BT density and vascular compromise during I.O.


Aims Zostera marina populations in northern China are rapidly declining due to both natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Efforts to prevent further losses and restore disturbed Z. marina habitats through transplanting are desirable. In this study, a transplanting experiment was conducted using the staple method in Swan Lake, which is a typical lagoon in the Rongcheng region of Shandong Peninsula, China. The objectives of this research are to: 1) investigate the plant response in terms of survivorship, morphology, and growth; 2) assess the establishment suc- cess of transplants; and 3) analyze the suitability of applying staple method in northern China. Methods Ninety planting units (PUs, 3 shoots/PU) with 4-6 leaves and about 10 cm rhizome on each shoot were monthly transplanted using the staple method in the subtidal zone of Swan Lake (water depth 0.5 m) from April to September 2009. Ten replicated plots of 50 cm × 50 cm were set up and nine PUs were randomly planted in each plot. Survival rate was calculated as the percentage of PUs that survived. Shoot morphology and individual shoot biomass of transplants and reference plants in the donor bed were monthly monitored from May to December 2009. Important findings Survival rate of transplants planted during spring (April, May, and June) ranged from 76.5% to 90.4% with the minimum value in April; whereas the survival rate of transplants planted during summer (July, August, and September) was 100%. The time required for the establishment of transplants was on average 1.0 month when planted from June to September, 2.0 months when planted in May, and 4.0 months when planted in April. With exception of some monitoring months, the leaf length and sheath length of transplants were signifi- cantly lower than those of reference plants; whereas no significant differences were found in rhizome diameter and root length between transplants and reference plants. Habitat suitability analysis showed that transplanting site should be chosen in shallow subtidal zone (water depth <1 m) with high transparency and high-silted sandy mud


In designing a vector quantizer using a training sequence (TS), the training algorithm tries to find an empirically optimal quantizer that minimizes the selected distortion criteria using the sequence. In order to evaluate the performance of the trained quantizer, we can use the empirically minimized distortion that we obtain when designing the quantizer. Several upper bounds on the empirically minimized distortions are proposed with numerical results. The bound holds pointwise, i.e., for each distribution with finite second moment in a class. From the pointwise bounds, it is possible to derive the worst case bound, which is better than the current bounds for practical training ratio /spl beta/, the ratio of the TS size to the codebook size. It is shown that the empirically minimized distortion underestimates the true minimum distortion by more than a factor of (1-1/m), where m is the sequence size. Furthermore, through an asymptotic analysis in the codebook size, a multiplication factor [1-(1-e/sup -/spl beta//)//spl beta/]/spl ap/(1-1//spl beta/) for an asymptotic bound is shown. Several asymptotic bounds in terms of the vector dimension and the type of source are also introduced.


Sphingomyelin hydrolysis is induced in myeloid cell-lines by tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin 1 beta (IL-1beta), and interferon gamma (IFN-gamma). Ceramide, a product of sphingomyelin hydrolysis, recapitulates many of the cellular responses elicited by these cytokines, and this has lead to the hypothesis that ceramide is a second messenger of cytokine signalling. Sphingomyelin hydrolysis is catalysed by an acid spingomyelinase (ASMase) and one or more neutral sphingomyelinases (NSMase); both ASMase and NSMase are activated during cytokine signalling. In the present study, the contribution of ASMase to TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, and IFN-gamma signalling in murine macrophages was addressed. Cytokine-induced responses were compared in macrophages derived from the bone marrow of AMSase null and wild-type mice. Specifically, TNF-alpha-and IFN-gamma-induced nitric oxide production and TNF-alpha- and IL-1beta-induced expression of the alpha-chemokine, KC, were intact in ASMase null macrophages. Furthermore, TNF-alpha induction of p42/p44 ERK and p38-MAPK phosphorylation, c-jun kinase activation, and IkappaBalpha degradation were normal. Also normal in ASMase null macrophages was TNF-alpha-, IL-1beta- and IFN-gamma-induced expression of a panel of early response genes. It is concluded that ASMase is non-essential for the inflammatory signals activated in murine macrophages by TNF-alpha, IL-1beta and IFN-gamma.


Different tissue‐engineering approaches have been developed to induce and promote cardiac regeneration; however, the impact of the immune system and its responses to the various scaffold components of the engineered grafts remains unclear. Fibrin‐based engineered heart tissue (EHT) was generated from neonatal Lewis (Lew) rat heart cells and transplanted onto the left ventricular surface of three different rat strains: syngeneic Lew, allogeneic Brown Norway, and immunodeficient Rowett Nude rats. Interferon spot frequency assay results showed similar degrees of systemic immune activation in the syngeneic and allogeneic groups, whereas no systemic immune response was detectable in the immunodeficient group (p < .001 vs. syngeneic and allogeneic). Histological analysis revealed much higher local infiltration of CD3‐ and CD68‐positive cells in syngeneic and allogeneic rats than in immunodeficient animals. Enzyme‐linked immunospot and immunofluorescence experiments revealed matrix‐directed TH1‐based rejection in syngeneic recipients without collateral impairment of heart cell survival. Bioluminescence imaging was used for in vivo longitudinal monitoring of transplanted luciferase‐positive EHT constructs. Survival was documented in syngeneic and immunodeficient recipients for a period of up to 110 days after transplant, whereas in the allogeneic setting, graft survival was limited to only 14 ± 1 days. EHT strategies using autologous cells are promising approaches for cardiac repair applications. Although fibrin‐based scaffold components elicited an immune response in our studies, syngeneic cells carried in the EHT were relatively unaffected.


Imidazolium salts are found to bind abnormally via C5 to iridium(I) and iridium(III) to give air-stable monodentate N-heterocyclic carbene complexes. Abnormal ligand binding was verified by X-ray diffraction in both Ir(I) and Ir(III) complexes. In the case of Ir(I), it is necessary to block the C2 and C4 positions to form a stable sterically protected C5-bound complex. Infrared spectroscopy on carbonyl derivatives indicates that abnormally bound N-heterocyclic carbenes are much stronger electron donors than their ubiquitous C2-bound counterparts. The Tolman electronic parameter for 1-isopropyl-2,4-diphenyl-3-methylimidazolin-5-ylidene is 2039 cm-1, compared to ca. 2050 cm-1 for typical NHCs.


This paper presents numerical experiments in applying a new technique for matrix compression and preconditioning to boundary element method (BEM)-based eddy-current analysis. Following these procedures, the classical problems of BEM approaches for eddy-currents analysis in industrial applications, such as large memory requirements and solver instability (ill-conditioning), are significantly reduced. The algorithm, based on hierarchical matrix arithmetic and adaptive cross approximation techniques, efficiently compresses the BEM matrix and produces a very important additional feature-a cheap and effective matrix preconditioner. The efficiency of this new technique is tested on various numerical examples and compared with other similar existing techniques (fast multipoles method)


Human HLA genes exhibit extreme polymorphism, the extent of which is emphasised by the identification of an ever increasing number of new alleles by DNA-based typing strategies. Here we describe a novel allele, belonging to the HLA-B*15 group, which was identified in an African patient awaiting a bone marrow transplant This individual was shown to exhibit two HLA-B alleles, B*5301 and a new allele which has been named B*1555. B*1555 differs from B*1531 in exon 3 by a single nucleotide substitution. This substitution results in a change in the amino acid residue at position 97, which is located within the beta-pleated sheet region of the HLA molecule.


As argued, the connection between Athenian BC society and tragedy - an area of research far from exhausted - should be examined on the basis of an anthropological/cultural, and rather comparatively oriented perspective, rather than a purely historical or literary one. A further defence holds that such an approach explores in a fresh way the connection between the two which is based on a model of self, on the one hand, and Sophocles' and Euripides' characters on the other - both proposed to consist of the same culturally framed, yet diversely expressed components which define an individual actor/self as would be portrayed by anthropological studies. Because of the proposed nexus of variously expressed components, the staged character is seen as an agent who exposes the complexity and ambiguity of one's own self of whom the individual agent was unaware of possessing. The above argument, approached mainly through primary sources, will be defended as follows. After defining in the introduction concepts such as `self' and `performance', the discussion on the components of self and character begins by exploring their background - the ideology and culture of Athens. As argued, because of particular factors linked to economic and military power, Athens is contrasted with other Greek cities, and at the same time, its performance culture becomes the topos of the performing self. The second chapter defends the concepts of self and dramatic character, as well as the elements associating them which are cultural projections of the society, but also are associated with the notion of `self as presented in recent anthropological discussions of human agency. Lastly, the third chapter argues on the actualisation of the self's model on stage; after the comparative analysis of the characters' actions in three plays by Sophocles, and three by Euripides, the conclusion reached is that the proposed model of self, cultural, but also self-reliant, is an entity which is utilised as a model agent of staged characters.


Vertically aligned nitrogen-doped nanocrystalline diamond nanorods are fabricated from nitrogen-doped nanocrystalline diamond films using reactive ion etching in oxygen plasma. These nanorods show enhanced thermionic electron emission (TEE) characteristics, viz., a high current density of 12.0 mA/cm^2 and a work function value of 4.5 eV with an applied voltage of 3 V at 923 K. The enhanced TEE characteristics of these nanorods are ascribed to the induction of nanographitic phases at the grain boundaries and the field penetration effect through the local field enhancement from nanorods owing to a high aspect ratio and an excellent field enhancement factor.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of robotic-assisted gait training (RAGT) on functional status and the quality of life in patients with subacute complete spinal cord injury (SCI). Thirty-seven patients with complete SCI were included in this study. All patients underwent conventional rehabilitation 5 days a week for 8 weeks. The patients were divided into two groups: those who received RAGT (group I, n = 17) and those who received only conventional rehabilitation (group II, n = 20) for 30 min twice a week for a total of 8 weeks. Evaluations were performed using the Walking Index SCI II (WISCI II) for ambulation, Functional Independence Measure (FIM) for functional status and Short Form 36 (SF-36) for the quality of life at the beginning and end of rehabilitation. The mean duration of injury was 3.5 ± 2.1 months in group I and 3.8 ± 2.6 months in group II (P > 0.05). Significant improvement was observed in both groups as per WISCI II and FIM scores (P < 0.05). However, no significant inter-group difference was noted in pre- and post-treatment FIM and WISCI II change scores (P > 0.05). In groups I and II, there was significant improvement only in physical activity scores of SF-36 compared with baseline scores (P < 0.05); however, other SF-36 subparameter scores did not differ significantly between pre- and post-treatment (P > 0.05). Treatment with RAGT has positive effects on functional independence, ambulation and the quality of life in patients with subacute complete SCI. RAGT combined with conventional therapy in patients with complete SCI may facilitate the improvement of patient condition more than conventional therapy alone.


An asymptotic "boundary-layer" set of quasimodes is constructed for the representation of fields in the vicinity of a convex reactive surface, whose formal structure is the same as that of the exact modes for the corresponding straight surface. These quasimodes are then used to solve for the scattering of a surface wave at a curvature discontinuity in a reactive surface. The present approach is a generalization of the perspective of the geometrical theory of surface waves, and is compared and contrasted with others presently available in the literature. Finally, the scattering at the discontinuity is compared with the power continuously radiated by the surface wave in traveling around the bend, providing some insight for design of curved surface waveguide structures.


PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to clarify how brand meaning evolves as an emergent property through the cocreation processes of stakeholders on multiple levels of a brand's service ecosystem. This provides new insight into the intersection between brands, consumers and society, and emphasizes the institutionally situated nature of brand meaning cocreation processes. It further lays a holistic foundation for a much-needed discussion on purpose-driven branding.Design/methodology/approachCombining the ecosystem perspective of branding with the concept of social emergence allows clarification of brand meaning cocreation at different levels of aggregation. Emergence means collective phenomena – like social structures, concepts, preferences, states, mechanisms, laws and brand meaning – manifest from the interactions of individuals. Drawing on Sawyer's (2005) social emergence perspective, the authors propose a processual multi-level framework to explore brand meaning emergence.FindingsOur framework spans five levels of brand meaning emergence: individual (e.g. employees and customers); interactional (e.g. where work teams or friend groups interact); relational (e.g. where internal and external actors meet); strategic (e.g. markets and strategic alliances); and systemic (e.g. regulators, NGOs and society). It acknowledges that brand positioning is an inherently co-creative process of negotiating value propositions and aligning behaviors and beliefs among broad sets of actors, as opposed to a firm-centric task.Originality/valueService research has only recently embraced a macro–micro perspective of branding processes. This paper extends that perspective by paying attention to the nested service ecosystems in which brand meaning emerges and the degree to which this process can (and cannot) be navigated by individual actors.


Abstract Microvascular decompression has been now accepted worldwide as a reasonable treatment for trigeminal neuralgia, yet, as a functional operation in the cerebellopontine angle, this process may be risky and the postoperative outcomes might not be good enough sometimes. To assess the effectiveness and safety of microvascular decompression for treatment of trigeminal neuralgia, we conducted a systematic review. Using the keywords "trigeminal neuralgia", "microvascular decompression", or "neurovascular conflict", manuscripts published in English-language journals and indexed in PubMed between January 1, 2000 and June 1, 2013 on the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia (TN) with microvascular decompression were considered for this study. The success and complications were analyzed. The success in this investigation was defined as complete pain free. Continuous outcomes were summarized using means or medians, and dichotomous outcomes were presented as percentage associated with 95% confidence interval. Twenty-six papers with 6,847 patients were finally enrolled in this review. Among them, the male-to-female ratio was 1:1.4, the left-to-right ratio was 1:1.6, and the pain was located in the innervation of V3 and/or V2 in most of the cases with only 2.3% (0.1–4.7) of V1 exclusively. The average age at surgery was 60.9 years (52.5–64.1) with TN symptoms duration of 24.7 months (6.1–42.1) before microvascular decompression (MVD). Operative findings confirmed the superior cerebellar artery, anterior inferior cerebellar artery, posterior inferior cerebellar artery, and multiple vascular contacts (including veins) as the most common sources of nerve compression. The average follow-up duration was 35.8 months (26.2–56.6). The success rate was 83.5% (79.6–89.1). Complications included incisional infection in 1.3% (0.1–2.5), facial palsy 2.9% (0.5–6.2), facial numbness 9.1% (1.3–19.6), cerebrospinal fluid leak 1.6% (0.7–2.5), and hearing deficit 1.9% (0.2–3.9). The postoperative mortality was 0.1% (0.02–0.2). Accordingly, MVD is the most effective treatment for patients with trigeminal neuralgia. An immediate pain free can be achieved by an experienced neurosurgeon with good knowledge of the regional anatomy. To avoid complications, each single step of the process cannot be overemphasized.


Aim . To establish the practical value of studying ultrasound markers of atherosclerosis for assessing cardiovascular risk as a part of screening of the population based on lean technologies. Material and methods . The study included 305 patients. The age of participants ranged from 31 to 84 years, the median age was 61,0 years. The object of study was 1830 extracranial vessels, including common carotid arteries, internal carotid arteries, subclavian arteries. Duplex ultrasound was using an Acuson 2000 ultrasound system with a frequency of 3-9 MHz. An abbreviated ultrasound protocol was used. The obtained data were processed using the software package Statistica 12.0 (StatSoft, USA). Results . As a result of lean technology application, the duration of procedure was significantly reduced, and the process was improved by 6 times. Changes in intimamedia thickness (IMT) were detected in 42,6% of cases, and significantly more changes in IMT were found in women (48,1%) than in men (25,0%), p=0,0005. Atherosclerotic plaques (ASP) were detected in 53,4% of cases (men — 68,1%; women — 48,9%), p=0,0043. In men <50 years of age, a more intense increase in ASP prevalence than in women was recorded. Starting from 50 years old, ASP prevalence has leveled off. The prevalence of carotid atherosclerosis at any age was higher in men. From the age of 50, sex differences had no significance, p=0,133. In 87,1% of cases, ASP was located within the bifurcation. In the studied groups, obstruction to 50% were more common (46,2%, p=0,0005). Questioning revealed that over the past three years, duplex ultrasound was performed in 21% of patients. Satisfaction with the quality of the procedure was 57,0% (174/305). Conclusion . The results of the study indicate the high practical value of ultrasonic markers of atherosclerosis using abbreviated ultrasound protocol as a part of screening of the population. The inclusion of noninvasive vascular imaging data in screening programs will help to achieve targets for reducing cardiovascular mortality and personalize the assessment of cardiovascular risk.


Muslims dominate a quarter of the world's population, and Indonesia is one of the most Muslim countries. Java is the island in Indonesia with the most population and is known as the place where Islam is growing. Sunan Ampel, one of Walisongo, succeeds in spreading Islam in Java. Some of the relics of Sunan Ampel, such as the mosque and his neighborhood, become a historical place that many people often visit. The hallmark of his legacy is the gate called Gapura . Many studies have been done about the uniqueness of Gapura ; however, none of them focus on the place attachment theory. Thus, this paper proposed the study of the combination between place attachment theory and the uniqueness of Gapura . The data were collected from the survey to the Area of Sunan Ampel. After that, qualitative research with a collaboration of interdisciplinary literature studies has been done to interpret the obtained data. Furthermore, the data will be synthesized and discussed to re-estimating the thought of Sunan Ampel. This study aims to get a holistic understanding of Sunan Ampel and the Gapura in the neighborhood of Sunan Ampel. Thus, the architecture and ornament of Gapura can show the past situation of the neighborhood and the development of Islam in Java. The result shows that the study with place attachment theory gives comprehensive results from the relation between local wisdom and the Gapura . By using the place attachment theory, it can be seen that the ornament during Sunan Ampel Era is similar to the previous Era, which is Majapahit. However, some elements of Islam are added in the Gapura , such as Pillar of Islam or called Rukun Islam. Thus, it can be concluded that there is local wisdom in Gapura of Sunan Ampel mosque related to the place attachment theory, which is believed it becomes a key to the succeed of Sunan Ampel in spreading Islam.


Curculigo latifolia is traditionally used in herbal medication. We determined the total phenolics profile, antioxidant capacity, and metabolomics of in vitro propagules compared to the mother plant organs, intending to disclose the prospective of in vitro cultured propagules as an alternative source of the essential metabolites of this species. Phenolic content was investigated by colorimetry. Antioxidant activities were determined by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS), and ferric reducing/antioxidant power (FRAP) assays. Ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole-orbital ion trap analyzer-high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap HRMS) and chemometrics were exploited for comparative analyses of the metabolite's composition. Total phenolic contents varied from 152.19 to 457.80 gallic acid equivalent g –1 . The lowest DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activities with the IC 50 values were obtained from the rhizome, and FRAP-reducing power activities were found in the leaves. UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap HRMS data and multivariate analysis classified and differentiated the compounds in the callus, plantlet leaves, rhizomes, petioles, and leaves. The marker compounds discriminating the in vitro propagules from the mother plant organs are orcinol glucoside, nyasicoside, and vanillin. This information would be valuable for the pharmaceutical industry, herbalists, or herbal medicine producers in using the plant organs as well as the in vitro callus.


A meta-analysis investigation based on literature data was conducted to estimate the effect size of nutritional and animal factors on phosphorus (P) excretion in feces and concentrations of P in milk. Two data sets were created for statistical analysis: One to derive prediction equations for P in feces (25 studies; 130 treatments) and another for P in milk (19 studies; 94 treatments). Prediction equations were derived using mixed model regression analysis with a random effect for study, and equations were evaluated based on values for Bayesian information criterion (BIC), root mean square prediction error (RMSPE), and concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) statistics. In terms of RMSPE and CCC values, fecal P excretion was best predicted by P intake, where P in feces (g/d)=-3.8(±3.45) + 0.64(±0.038) × P intake (g/d) (RMSPE: 18.3%, CCC: 0.869). However, significant effects of crude protein [g/kg of dry matter (DM)], neutral detergent fiber (g/kg of DM), and milk yield (kg/d) on fecal P excretion were also found. Despite a lack of improvement in terms of RMSPE and CCC values, these parameters may still explain part of the variation in fecal P excretion. For milk P, expressed as a fraction of P intake, the following equation had the highest CCC and the lowest RMSPE value: P in milk as a fraction of P intake (g/g)=0.42(±0.065) + 0.23(±0.018) × feed efficiency (i.e., fat- and protein-corrected milk yield/dry matter intake) - 0.11(±0.0199) × P in feed (g/kg of DM) (RMSPE: 19.7%; CCC: 0.761). Equations derived to predict fecal P as a fraction of P intake (g/g) or milk P content (g/kg) could not adequately explain the observed variation and did not perform well in terms of RMSPE and CCC values. Examination of the residuals showed that P balance was a seemingly confounding factor in some of the models. The results presented here can be used to estimate P in feces and milk based on commonly measured dietary and milk variables, but could also be used to guide development of mechanistic models on P metabolism in lactating dairy cattle. Factors to consider in future research and modeling efforts regarding efficiency of P use include the effects of dietary neutral detergent fiber, crude protein, starch, variation in P content of milk, and effects of P resorption from bone and body tissues during early lactation.


Rationale: Asthma is a chronic airway inflammation caused by overproduction of Th2 cytokines. IL-27 has been shown to inhibit differentiation of naive CD4+ cells into Th2 cells in mice.However, it is not clear whether IL-27 can inhibit Th2 cell differentiation in asthmatic patients. Methods: Purify CD4+ T cells from human PBMC and mice spleen were cultured under Th2 or Th2 + IL-27 conditions. IL-4 and IFN-gamma were detected by ELISA. IL-27R and p-STATs were determined by qRT-PCR and Western blot respectively. Results: human IL-27 suppressed Th2 differentiation in healthy subjects (p=0.006), but failed to do so in asthmatics (p=0.064). The suppressive effect of IL-27 on Th2 development was independent of IFN-r, IL-10 and T-bet. However studies with STAT1-knockout mice showed that this inhibitory effect of IL-27 was STAT1-dependent. IL-27 resistance to Th2 differentiation in asthmatics was not dependent on impairment of IL-27R.We further found that Th2-inducing conditions could induce resistance to IL-27 in a dose-dependent manner and IL-4 is the most critical factor. Although IL-2 is imperative in Th2 cell priming, it does not contribute to induction of the IL-27 resistance. We demonstrated that high dose of IL-4 treatment resulted in impairment of STAT1 phosphorylation, but not STAT3 or STAT4 phosphorylation. Conclusions: IL-27 suppresses the development of Th2 immune response in both mice and human, which is STAT1-dependant, but independent of IFN-r, IL-10 and T-bet. CD4+ T cells from asthmatics developed resistance to IL-27-mediated inhibition. IL-4 induced resistance to IL-27-mediated inhibition by impairing STAT1 signaling.


Facial emotion recognition (FER) is a field of research with multiple solutions in the state-of-the-art, focused on fields such as security, marketing or robotics. In the literature, several articles can be found in which algorithms are presented from different perspectives for detecting emotions. More specifically, in those emotion detection systems in the literature whose computational cores are low-cost, the results presented are usually in simulation or with quite limited real tests. This article presents a facial emotion detection system—detecting emotions such as anger, happiness, sadness or surprise—that was implemented under the Robot Operating System (ROS), Noetic version, and is based on the latest machine learning (ML) techniques proposed in the state-of-the-art. To make these techniques more efficient, and that they can be executed in real time on a low-cost board, extensive experiments were conducted in a real-world environment using a low-cost general purpose board, the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. The final achieved FER system proposed in this article is capable of plausibly running in real time, operating at more than 13 fps, without using any external accelerator hardware, as other works (widely introduced in this article) do need in order to achieve the same purpose.


Ultra-wideband propagation measurement results for body area network scenarios are presented. We assumed several different scenarios for around-body and on-body propagations, and for each scenario, we conducted both time domain and frequency domain measurements in an anechoic chamber. For the around-body case, we investigated the effects of human body parts blocking line-of-sight, which could be accounted for by diffraction. On-body measurement results indicate a more complicated propagation mechanism exists in on-body propagation than in around-body propagation and antenna characteristics are affected.


The study estimated the rates of returns to investment on research and development of summer onion in Bangladesh. The Economic Surplus Model with ex-post analysis using secondary data was used to determine the returns to investment and its distribution between the production and consumption. Several discounting techniques were also used to assess the impact of summer onion research. The results revealed that the growth of area and production of onion increased manifolds due to farm level adoption of summer onion. The summer onion adoption rate was found increasing trend over the period. The yield of summer onion was 57.04% higher than the local variety. The internal rate of return (IRR), net present value (NPV), and benefit cost ratio (BCR) were estimated to be 25%, Tk.35.29 million and 3.09 respectively. Sensitivity analysis revealed that under various assumptions IRR ranged from 20 to 41%, NPV from Tk.18.37 to Tk.64.05 million, and BCR from 2.31 to 5.95. The results indicated that investment in research and development of summer onion was a good investment.


Introduction:Coronaviruses (CoV) have been responsible for three epidemics in the 21st century, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Corona virus is a single strand ribonucleic acid which is genotypically and phenotypically diverse.Method:The phylogenetic tree and Entropy plot are used to show the strain variation with root difference or Boot strip changes among various nucleotide plots with mutational changes (19).Therefore, we would like to explain evolutionary changes in other countries compared to India and in different states of India. To evaluate the strain variation with their mutation and adaptation of the environment with the virus or may be due to several passages occurring over a period of time.Results:For phylogenetic tree analysis, we have selected 8-8 isolates from each state, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa, Maharashtra, Punjab, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Total 74 isolates were selected from given states for making of phylogenetic tree and mutational study. There were many point mutations found.Discussion:According to our study, we found a several point mutation occurred among the sequence submitted in gene bank database that is same as China which has been reported. This study was conducted to systematic analysis on the genomic data of NCBI. This work is also significant in terms of mutational research. Evolutionary changes and approach a new strain through the mutational study done by BioEdit and MEGA 6.0 software. The bioinformatics and the statistical genetic analysis may contribute for study of COVID-19 as other infection and complex disease. This study is used understand the host–pathogen interaction and to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.Conclusion:This study highlighted the evolutionary changes occurred in the COVID-19 disease severity variation in strain for the prevention and mutation. We reported the genetic study of COVID-19 disease with their association in already submitted strain of database for the study of their genetic variation as well as disease progression.


A case of a 32-year-old male with obesity and hypertension who was admitted to hospital with suspected acute myocardial infarction (MI) is presented. An initial diagnosis of MI was ruled-out, however, diabetes and marked hypertriglyceridemia were detected. Introduction of diet and proper diabetes control with insulin caused a marked decrease in triglyceride and cholesterol levels. After discharge the patient did not comply to dietary recommendations and stopped fibrates due to gastro-intestinal side effects which resulted in a marked elevation in lipid levels. Finally, statin therapy and better compliance to dietary recommendations resulted in the normalisation of cholesterol level, a marked decrease in triglyceride concentration and a loss of 5 kg of body weight. The need for combined treatment consisting of pharmacologic agents and life-style changes is stressed.


The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is known to bind to the receptor, ACE2, on the surface of target cells. The spike protein is processed by membrane proteases, including TMPRSS2, and either internalises or fuses directly with the cell, leading to infection. We have identified a human cell line that expresses both ACE2 and TMPRSS2, the RT4 urinary bladder transitional carcinoma, and used it to develop a proxy assay for viral interactions with host cells. A tagged recombinant form of the spike protein, containing both the S1 and S2 domains, interacted strongly with RT4 cells as determined by flow cytometry, whereas the S1 domain and the receptor binding domain (RBD) interacted weakly. S1S2 interaction was temperature dependent and increased sharply at 37°C, suggesting that processing of the intact spike protein is likely to be important in the interaction. S1S2 protein could associate with cells with a low dependence on ACE2 expression, while RBD required the presence of ACE2 for interaction. As the spike protein has previously been shown to bind heparin, a soluble glycosaminoglycan, we used a flow cytometric assay to determine the effect of heparin on spike protein interaction with RT4 cells. Unfractionated heparin inhibited spike protein interaction with an IC50 value of <0.05U/ml whereas two low molecular weight heparins were much less effective. A mutant form of the spike protein, lacking the Arg-rich region proposed to be a furin cleavage site, interacted very weakly with cells and had a lower affinity for unfractionated and lower molecular weight heparin than the wild type spike protein. This indicates that the furin cleavage site might also be a heparin binding site and potentially important in interactions with host cells. Taken together, our data suggest that heparin, particularly unfractionated forms, could be considered to reduce clinical manifestations of COVID-19 by inhibiting continuing viral infection. Author Summary Since the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in 2019, the world has faced a vast public health crisis. SARS-CoV-2 associates with human cells through interaction of the viral spike protein with the host receptor, ACE2. In the absence of a vaccine, new treatments are required to reduce the morbidity and mortality of SARS-CoV-2. Here, we use a novel technique to demonstrate spike protein interactions with human cells with low levels of ACE2 at the cell surface, suggesting a secondary receptor. We demonstrate the importance of a new heparin-binding site within the viral spike protein for these interactions. We also found that unfractionated heparin was able to bind to the viral spike protein and therefore, potently inhibit viral spike protein interactions with human cells. Our data demonstrate that ACE2 is not absolutely required for spike protein interactions with human cells and furthermore, that unfractionated heparin should be considered as a treatment to reduce SARS-CoV-2 viral infection.


In this chapter I maintain that, despite the endless condemnations of the vagueness of the concept and definition of sustainable development (SD), in practice we can see a rough consensus on what it includes. Claims about vagueness are the result of the on-going, open and divergent discourses on what is needed for sustainable development. This divergence has its roots in the shared tendency to disagree within and between academic disciplines; in the political arena; and the competitive framings of the concept in the market arena. However, despite this noisy cacophony, we see, in a few globally oriented communities of practice (of voluntary standards, GRI, LCA, LCSA, some of the well-developed sustainable development indicators), a rough consensus on the core elements of the concept of sustainable development, which is also well in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Some sub-elements still need some refining, while some other key elements may still be further refined with additional sub-elements, but a core structure exists and is being widely worked with. In this chapter I bring together widely shared views in diverse academic and practitioners' communities, which by smart combining can help to create an integrated view. I will reflect on the commonalities, some persistent confusion and show routes for further refinement


There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms. when students with disabilities are included in general education classrooms, such placements must be congruent with the concept of least restrictive environment (lre). five criteria are identified in this article as elements important to the establishment of an lre within inclusive general education classrooms. these criteria have implications for the preparation of preservice teachers. these implications are the foci for suggested teacher preparation program elements related to the efficacy of preservice classroom teachers.


RNA was degraded at 60 degrees C for 24 h by halophilic nuclease H in supernatants from broth cultures of Micrococcus varians subsp. halophilus containing 12% NaCl. Since contaminating 5'-nucleotidase exhibited almost no activity under these conditions, the 5'-GMP formed could be recovered from the reaction mixture, and the yield was 805 mg from 5 g of RNA.


Background To address the growing GP workforce crisis, NHS England (NHSE) launched the Clinical Pharmacists in General Practice scheme in 2015. The NHSE scheme promotes a newer, patient-facing role for pharmacists and, currently, there is little insight into the role and activities undertaken. All scheme pharmacists are enrolled on the general practice pharmacist training pathway (GPPTP). Aim To investigate the role evolution and integration of clinical pharmacists in general practice in England. Design and setting Longitudinal survey of all phase 1 GPPTP registrants working in general practice at start of (T1) and 6 months into (T2) training. Method An online longitudinal survey was administered to all phase 1 GPPTP registrants (n = 457) at T1 and T2, measuring their perceived knowledge, skill, and confidence, activities performed, and perceptions of practice integration, environment, and support. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests were conducted. Results Response rates were 46% (T1) and 52% (T2); 158 participants completed both questionnaires. Perceived knowledge, skill, and confidence levels increased significantly from T1 to T2 for all areas, except for managing acute or common illness. Scope of practice increased significantly, particularly in patient-facing activities. Sharing office space with administrative staff was common and 13% of participants reported having no designated work area. Perceived integration at T2 was fairly high (median = 5 on a scale of 1–7) but GP clinical support was 'too little' according to one-third of participants. Conclusion Findings show not only patient-facing role expansion, but also practice environment and support issues. Pharmacists may appreciate more GP time invested in their development. Practices need to be realistic about this support and not expect an immediate reduction in workload.


more prolonged than that normally associated vith suxamethonium, and may be reversed by an anticholinesterase. It has the characteristic of the phase II block following suxamethonium noted by some workers in nerve-muscle preparations,9 and is similar to the block which occurs in myasthenia gravis and the biphasic5' response that may occur in normal man during suxamethonium administration. It is possibly associated with some loss or redistribution of potassium ions at the neuromuscular junction. This is in keeping with the findings that oxytocin potentiates the potassium depression of the rat phrenic nervediaphragm preparation that has been demonstrated recently.11 In these circumstances, attempts to produce the immediate and profound respiratory depression normally associated with suxamethonium may lead to overdose, accumulative effects, and prolonged respiratory depression. Anaesthetic techniques incorporating suxamethonium, and obstetric technique utilizing infusion of posterior pituitary extracts, are both becoming more popular. It is imperative, therefore, that anaesthetists engaged in this branch of anaesthesia should be aware of the possible atypical effects which may occur.-I am, etc.,


This is the uncharted history of Hollywood reworkings from a Turkish Star Trek to a Bollywood Godfather. Did you know that there was a Turkish remake of The Exorcist in which Catholicism was replaced with Islam? Or that in 1966, a film was produced in the Philippines entitled James Batman in which James Bond and Batman team up to fight crime? Or that a Bollywood remake of Memento has been one of the biggest box-office successes in India of all time? The Hollywood Meme is the first comprehensive study of the unlicensed adaptations of American popular culture that appear in national cinema traditions around the world. Tracing the diverse ways in which US films, TV series and comic books have been appropriated and transformed in the film industries of Turkey, India and the Philippines, the book provides a new paradigm for understanding the global impact of Hollywood. It contains twelve detailed case studies including a Turkish reworking of Star Trek titled Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda (1973), a Filipino musical spoof named Alyas Batman en Robin (1993) and a Bollywood remake of The Godfather titled Sarkar (2005). It examines the global phenomenon of unlicensed film adaptations of American popular culture. It provides a historical introduction to the relationship between Hollywood and the popular film industries of Turkey, India and the Philippines. It offers a new methodology for studying film adaptation building upon Richard Dawkins' concept of the 'meme'.


This study focuses on the law and policy for the promotion of access to knowledge and learning materials in South Africa especially against the backdrop of the social and economic needs in the country. Essentially, the South African copyright regime is examined to determine whether it adequately creates a balance between copyright owners and users while promoting access to knowledge and learning materials. Some international frameworks in this regard are also examined. Among other findings, the study finds that the key pieces of legislation/regulation in the area of copyright law, the Copyright Act 98 of 1978 and its Regulations, do not make use of many of the flexibilities contained in TRIPs and other international copyright treaties and agreements, particularly in relation to copyright exceptions and limitations.