The objective of this project undertaken by the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory (NCEL) is to develop a recycling technology for reducing the volume of boiler hydroblasting wastewater at Naval Shipyards by up to 90 percent. Steam boiler tubes of a Navy ship undergoing regular overhaul are cleaned twice by hydroblasting. The first washing is performed before ship overhaul and the second washing after ship overhaul. The initial feasibility study, completed in FY88, involved bench scale work at NCEL and pilot scale tests at Long Beach (LBNSY) and Norfolk Naval Shipyards (NNSY). Full scale field tests were conducted at NNSY in FY89. The wastewater recycling process consisted of five steps: collecting, settling, filtering, reconditioning, and reusing. All five steps were successfully demonstrated in the three series of field tests. These tests were assisted by and coordinated with NNSY and Naval Ship Systems Engineering Station (NAVSSES). The results show that the hydroblasting wastewater could be recycled nine times to achieve 90 percent reduction without any adverse effect.


As ostial stenoses of internal thoracic artery (ITA) grafts rarely occur after coronary artery bypass grafting, little is known about their Doppler flow profile. This report describes changes in the Doppler flow of ITA grafts with ostial stenosis after surgical repair of the stenosis. A 54-year-old male underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in which the left ITA was anastomosed to the left anterior descending coronary artery. The follow-up coronary angiography revealed an ostial 90% stenosis of the ITA. The patient underwent elective surgery during which the radial artery was interposed between the left subclavian artery and the ITA. Intraoperative ultrasonography was performed immediately before cut down of the ITA graft and again immediately after completion of all anastomoses. Both diastolic and systolic velocities and the velocity time integral increased more than 2-fold after the repair. Neither the diastolic-to-systolic peak velocity ratio nor the diastolic velocity time integral fraction showed remarkable change. These profiles were different from those reported previously for distal stenosis.


Epidermolysis bullosa acquisita is a blistering disorder that has been associated with other autoimmune diseases. It has not previously been associated with relapsing polychondritis (RPC). RPC is an autoimmune disorder that frequently displays peripheral eosinophilia. The eosinophil has been implicated in mediation of tissue damage and bullae formation. RPC should be added to the list of diseases seen in association with EBA.


Transformation of uterine spiral arteries (SAs) is critical for healthy human pregnancy. Endothelial damageand dysfunction are common features of all of the pathological features of pre-eclampsia, stimulating the activation of platelets, neutrophils and the coagulation system, and promoting further vascular damage. 58 specimens of the placental tissues were obtained at 6-9 weeks of physiological pregnancy and pregnancy with gestational endotheliopathy. There were investigated morphological parameters that were reflected the processes of optimal transformation of SAs during the first trimester. It was found that pregnancy with gestational endotheliopathy was accompanied by the significant decrease of the intravascular cytotrophoblast invasion, decrease in the formation of cytotrophoblast plugs, accompanied by a slight expansion of lumen SA.


We find all the sources of asymmetries in Stokes profiles available for a unidimensional line of sight. The analytical solution for the transfer equation for polarized light obtained by López Ariste & Semel is used for this purpose. Three sources of asymmetries are obtained: the first is the well-known case of depth-dependent velocity fields; the two others are due to wavelength asymmetries in the absorption matrix and the emission vector. These emission vector asymmetries can be produced by the presence of a polarized (but symmetric) source function. Some formulae are derived describing the asymmetries owing to depth-dependent velocity fields in Stokes V for the case of the Zeeman effect in a multiplet, as well as for the net area of the Stokes V profile, the so-called net circular polarization (NCP). An implication of this last formula is that Milne-Eddington atmospheric models, even when generalized to velocity and magnetic fields that vary linearly with optical depth, cannot account for the observed NCPs.


PURPOSE
The control of postoperative discomfort may improve the patient's quality of life as well as treatment acceptance. The aim of the present preliminary report was to assess if the use of autologous platelet concentrate during maxillary sinus augmentation may have a favorable impact on pain and other factors related to patient's quality of life in the first week after surgery.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This is an interim report of a randomized single-blind study. Fifteen patients with atrophic edentulous posterior maxilla underwent maxillary sinus augmentation using deproteinized bovine bone matrix (DBBM) as the grafting material (control group). In other 15 patients (test group), autologous plasma rich in growth factors (P-PRP) was added to DBBM, then a P-PRP clot was applied to covering the graft before suturing and finally P-PRP was placed over the suture in liquid form. During the first week postsurgery, all patients filled in a questionnaire for evaluation of main symptoms and daily activities. The outcomes of the questionnaires of the two groups were statistically compared.

RESULTS
In the first days postsurgery, the group using P-PRP reported significantly less pain, swelling, and hematoma, and improved functional activities with respect to the control group.

CONCLUSIONS
The adjunct of P-PRP to the maxillary sinus augmentation procedure produced a beneficial effect to patients' quality of life in the early postsurgical phase.


We study the LHC signatures of new gauge bosons in the gauge-invariant minimal Higgsless model. It predicts an extra pair of W{sub 1} and Z{sub 1} bosons which can be as light as {approx}400 GeV and play a key role in the delay of unitarity violation. We analyze the W{sub 1} signals in pp{yields}W{sub 0}Z{sub 0}Z{sub 0}{yields}jj4l and pp{yields}W{sub 0}Z{sub 0}jj{yields}{nu}3ljj processes at the LHC, including the complete electroweak and QCD backgrounds. We reveal the complementarity between these two channels for discovering the W{sub 1} boson, and demonstrate the LHC discovery potential over the full range of allowed W{sub 1} mass.


The perception of Korean housewives was investigated on commercial Korean basic side dishes. The ques-tionnaires were distributed to 464 housewives in Busan area. According to the survey, the housewives preferred discount stores (44.1%) to purchase basic side dishes. The reasons for purchasing them were convenience (54.6%) and readiness in small amount (23.1%). The housewives had high perception scores on saving cooking time (4.90/5.00), the possibility of purchasing when they need (3.93/5.00), and convenient use (3.85/5.00). However, they doubted the propriety of making use of chemical seasoning (2.15/5.00), the original place of raw food materials (2.21/5.00), and shelf life control (2.44/5.00). The satisfaction scores on the commercial basic side dishes were 3.06/5.00 in braised perilla leaves, 2.98/5.00 in braised soybean, 2.96/5.00 in pickled garlic, and 2.95/5.00 in stir-fried/muchim dried fish. The priorities on the improvement demand for the basic side dishes were appeared in order of the sanitary preparation, the consistent tastes, the proper amounts of chemical seasonings, and sanitary distribution systems.


For more than 300 years the US marsh lands were thought to be of no economic value. They were considered useless wastelands. Today, they are recognized as valuable and highly productive environments. As a renewable resource that operates with minimum capital expenditures, the wetlands are epitomized in Louisiana. Even so, south Louisiana's first settlers were unaware of the wetlands value. These coastal lowlands were considered a nuisance. They bred yellow fever-carrying mosquitos and contributed directly and indirectly to flooding. Consequently, to overcome the hardships of being sea-level citizens, for more than 250 years the inhabitants have systematically reclaimed the marshes and swamps. As a result of the intense utilization of levees and pumps, normally wet property began to dry out, losing some of its natural buoyancy, increasing regional subsidence. Man-induced negative land surfaces are producing an urbanized population that must face the realities of subsidence caused by unregulated reclamation. New Orleans has, in fact, become North America's premier sinking city. The population has been forced to learn how to live with the problem. Nevertheless, these people are at risk, particularly if the current predicted sea-level rise of 1.2 mm/yr is correct. In the main, Louisiana's coastal issues will become thosemore » of the nation and represent the precursor of things to come. Louisiana's reaction and solutions to these issues will establish a precedent for the remainder of the country to follow.« less


Soil samples for a nematode assay were taken in 1983 within the root zone of highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) plants in mature experimental and commercial plantings. Xiphinema americanum Cobb and Paratrichodorus christiei Allen were the predominant nematode species found. Nematode populations were not affected by cultivar. Mulched plots had significantly fewer P. christiei while X. americanum populations were similar in mulched and nonmulched plots.


We provide an approximation algorithm for k-means clustering in the one-round (aka non-interactive) local model of differential privacy (DP). This algorithm achieves an approximation ratio arbitrarily close to the best non private approximation algorithm, improving upon previously known algorithms that only guarantee large (constant) approximation ratios. Furthermore, this is the first constant-factor approximation algorithm for k-means that requires only one round of communication in the local DP model, positively resolving an open question of Stemmer (SODA 2020). Our algorithmic framework is quite flexible; we demonstrate this by showing that it also yields a similar near-optimal approximation algorithm in the (one-round) shuffle DP model.


The paper is about the role of the African middle class as a base for entrepreneurship development. The key question is what the growth of the African middle class means for the emergence of an entrepreneurial class in Africa. In this context, the «missing middle» in Africa, the gap in small and medium sized companies between microenterprises and large companies, is of interest. So far the theoretical work and the empirical evidence on the relation between middle class growth and entrepreneurship development are quite scarce.

First, the main concepts of defining and measuring the African middle class - via income and consumption, assets, vulnerability, and livelihoods - will be discussed. These differences in definition and measurement have implications for the assumed developmental implications of the growth of the African middle class and the growth of an entrepreneurial class. There are so many statements in the literature about the developmental potentials and the impacts of the African middle class. It is argued that the African middle class is a seedbed of entrepreneurship and management staff; a base for start-ups and high tech companies; that it has an impact on market competition and labour mobility; an impact on level and structure of consumption and marketing, on housing, car and finance markets; an impact on local saving, local investment and on a more long-term investment behaviour; a role in developing a new consumer society based on higher quality and branded goods; a role in participation, empowerment and the formation of economic interest groups; a role in the redistribution of income, assets and economic power; that it leads to a widespread use of new technologies and has a tremendous role in technology diffusion; that it is creating space for upward mobility and societal change; that it pushes the transition from survival firms to growth-oriented firms; that it has a role in pushing for more rational economic policies and that it is also demanding public goods and fair taxation; and that it is providing stability to the political regime, etc. Most of these arguments lack so far empirical evidence, and there is tremendous speculation and experimentation based on the way of defining and measuring the African middle class and the entrepreneurial class which is coming forth on this basis. A main instrument used for this endeavour is aggregation of some few data over Africa; but this is not enough to draw strong conclusions.

Second, the scarce evidence on the assumed role of the African middle class as a seedbed of entrepreneurship and managerial competencies is discussed and evaluated. The main issue is the role of the African middle class in overcoming the «missing middle» of small and medium sized companies. There is a general discussion about Africa's «missing middle», the assumed gap in terms of small and medium sized companies between the many mostly informal microenterprises and the large public and private companies. It is argued that the concepts of the African middle class used in the literature and the ways of defining and measuring it do not allow a deep investigation of entrepreneurship development and the identification of a growing entrepreneurial class in Africa. The main reason is that the economic lives of the various segments of the African middle class are so different. Also, the poor and the rich classes in Africa have distinct economic lives which partly overlap with those of lower and upper segments of the African middle class.

Third, there is a lack of differentiating the African middle class with regard of the potential for entrepreneurship development, the establishment of entrepreneurial value systems (education, health, saving and investing), and the role in developing local industries (based on increasing middle class consumption). Any change towards the development of growth oriented small and medium-sized enterprises - between survival and micro enterprises at the lower end and large capitalist and conglomerate enterprises at the upper end - is of interest. Most important is to know more about the role of the African middle class in developing growth-oriented enterprises. It is also of interest to see how governments in Africa can support entrepreneurship and management competences based on specific African middle class segments, along with strategies to use the entrepreneurial potential of the poor and the rich classes.

The purpose of the paper is to give evidence on the developmental role of the African Middle Class, by focussing on the «missing middle» of enterprises in Africa and the types of entrepreneurship being associated with the growth of the middle class. After the Introduction in Section 1 there is in Section 2 a discussion on Defining and Measuring the African Middle Class: What about Developmental Implications and Prospects? In Section 3 is a presentation on Africa's Middle Class and the «Missing Middle» of Enterprises: New Potentials for the Growth of Enterprises? In Section 4 there are Conclusions and Policy Recommendations. This is an economists' view, but much more interdisciplinary work is needed to cover the issues (and this is done in the collection of essays by Henning Melber,
Editor, 2016).


We introduce and study twelve multivariable theta functions defined by pfaffians with elliptic function entries. We show that, when the crossing parameter is a cubic root of unity, the domain wall partition function for the eight-vertex-solid-on-solid model can be written as a sum of two of these pfaffians. As a limit case, we express the domain wall partition function for the three-colour model as a sum of two Hankel determinants. We also show that certain solutions of the TQ-equation for the supersymmetric eight-vertex model can be expressed in terms of elliptic pfaffians.


Glycolipid metabolic disorder is an important cause for the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Clarification of the molecular mechanism of metabolic disorder and exploration of drug targets are crucial for the treatment of T2DM. Methods: We examined miR-125a-5p levels in palmitic acid-induced AML12 cells and the livers of type 2 diabetic rats and mice, and then validated its target gene. Through gain- and loss-of-function studies, the effects of miR-125a-5p via targeting of STAT3 on regulating glycolipid metabolism were further illustrated in vitro and in vivo. Results: We found that miR-125a-5p was significantly decreased in the livers of diabetic mice and rats, and STAT3 was identified as the target gene of miR-125a-5p. Overexpression of miR-125a-5p in C57BL/6 mice decreased STAT3 level and downregulated the expression levels of p-STAT3 and SOCS3. Consequently, SREBP-1c-mediated lipogenesis pathway was inhibited, and PI3K/AKT pathway was activated. Moreover, silencing of miR-125a-5p significantly increased the expression levels of STAT3, p-STAT3 and SOCS3, thus activating SREBP-1c pathway and suppressing PI3K/AKT pathway. Therefore, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia and decreased liver glycogen appeared in C57BL/6 mice. In palmitic acid-induced AML12 cells, miR-125a-5p mimic markedly increased glucose consumption and uptake and decreased the accumulation of lipid droplets by regulating STAT3 signaling pathway. Consistently, miR-125a-5p overexpression obviously inhibited STAT3 expression in diabetic KK-Ay mice, thereby decreasing blood glucose and lipid levels, increasing hepatic glycogen content, and decreasing accumulation of hepatic lipid droplets in diabetic mice. Furthermore, inhibition of miR-125a-5p in KK-Ay mice aggravated glycolipid metabolism dysfunction through regulating STAT3. Conclusions: Our results confirmed that miR-125a-5p should be considered as a regulator of glycolipid metabolism in T2DM, which can inhibit hepatic lipogenesis and gluconeogenesis and elevate glycogen synthesis by targeting STAT3.


Bucked triangular, β12 and χ3 are the three lattices of atomic-thin boron sheet which have been realized experimental very recently. The three lattices all are metallic and dynamical unstable. By adopting the first-principles method based on the density functional theory, we predict the biaxial strain under which the β12 and χ3 boron sheets are stabilized. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of hydrogenation on stabilize the buckled triangular boron sheet. Additional, our calculations show that neither uniaxial nor biaxial strain stabilizes the buckled triangular boron sheet, and when the applied biaxial strain is larger than 14%, its anisotropic conductivity no longer exists. Moreover, the electronic band structures of the three boron sheets are controllable by modifying the hydrogen coverage. We find the Dirac cone in the fully hydrogenated buckled triangular boron sheet, and the metal-semiconducting transition in β12 and χ3 boron sheet caused by 100% and 50% hydrogenation. Our results reveal new electronic properties for the new class of 2D materials, borophene in the applications of electronics.


We consider a wavelet thresholding approach to adaptive variance function estimation in heteroscedastic nonparametric regression. A data-driven estimator is constructed by applying wavelet thresholding to the squared first-order differences of the observations. We show that the variance function estimator is nearly optimally adaptive to the smoothness of both the mean and variance functions. The estimator is shown to achieve the optimal adaptive rate of convergence under the pointwise squared error simultaneously over a range of smoothness classes. The estimator is also adaptively within a logarithmic factor of the minimax risk under the global mean integrated squared error over a collection of spatially inhomogeneous function classes. Numerical implementation and simulation results are also discussed.


Active learning aims to reduce labeling costs by selecting only the most informative samples on a dataset. Few existing works have addressed active learning for object detection. Most of these methods are based on multiple models or are straightforward extensions of classification methods, hence estimate an image's informativeness using only the classification head. In this paper, we propose a novel deep active learning approach for object detection. Our approach relies on mixture density networks that estimate a probabilistic distribution for each localization and classification head's output. We explicitly estimate the aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty in a single forward pass of a single model. Our method uses a scoring function that aggregates these two types of uncertainties for both heads to obtain every image's informativeness score. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach in PASCAL VOC and MS-COCO datasets. Our approach outperforms single-model based methods and performs on par with multi-model based methods at a fraction of the computing cost. Code is available at https://github.com/NVlabs/AL-MDN.


Background This study is designed to evaluate management, length of stay (LOS), and readmission rates (RRs) of patients cared for by a hospitalist, generalist, or cardiologist with congestive heart failure (CHF). Methods Patients discharged with a primary diagnosis of CHF between 4/1/02 and 3/31/03 were identified for possible enrollment. A chart review was performed assessing: 1. Management. 2. LOS. 3. RRs. 211 patient admissions were reviewed. Fisher's exact testing was used for statistical analysis. Results Patients' age and sex were evenly dispersed. Class III or IV CHF was seen in 48% of patients cared for by cardiologists, 35% by generalists, and 21.5% by hospitalists. Left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) was assessed 61% of the time by hospitalists, 43% by generalists, and 70% by cardiologists. With a cardiology consultation (CC), hospitalists increased to 91% and generalists to 85% (p = .122). LOS equaled 4.6 days for hospitalists, 4.8 days for generalists, and 4.3 days for cardiologists. CCs increased the hospitalist patient LOS to 5.1 days and generalists to 7.5 days (p = .041). ACE inhibitors/ARBs were prescribed by hospitalists 71% of the time, by generalists 48%, and by cardiologists 41%. CCs decreased the hospitalist rate to 69% and increased the generalists to 64% (p = .025). Diuretics were provided by hospitalists at a rate of 97%, by generalists 65%, and by cardiologists 100%. CCs increased hospitalists to 94% and generalists to 84%. Beta-blockers were written for 52% of hospitalist patients, 44% of generalist patients, and 60% of cardiologist patients. CCs increased these rates to 66% of hospitalist patients and 60% of generalist patients (p = .558). Digoxin was prescribed to 29% of hospitalist patients, 22% of generalist patients, and to 56% of cardiology patients. CCs kept the number at 29% for hospitalists and increased generalists to 33% (p = .010). RRs within a year were 39% for hospitalist patients, 44% for generalist patients, and 33% for cardiologist patients. CCs decreased these rates to 26% for hospitalist patients and 29% for generalist patients (p = .074). Conclusions Cardiologists cared for patients with more severe heart failure. Cardiologists were more likely to assess EF. CCs added one-half day LOS to hospitalist patients and almost two days LOS to generalist patients. Hospitalists were more likely to use ACE inhibitors/ARBs. Cardiologists used ACE inhibitors significantly less. RRs were similar amongst the doctors. Adding a CC during the hospitalization led to a lower chance of readmission within a year.


Policymakers in both the developed and less developed worlds have increasingly considered intellectual property protection as a major means to attract foreign direct investment (Yu, 2007, pp. 892–901). However, stronger intellectual property protection is not always needed to attract such investment. In the case of China, foreign investors were not attracted by the strong intellectual property protection the country offers. Rather, they entered the Chinese market because of the drastically lower production costs, the country's enormous market, its inefficient economic system and the preferential treatment of foreign investors. Thus, some commentators consider China a paradigmatic case for showing how rapid economic development can take place despite limited intellectual property protection (Abbott, 2005, p. 81; Chow, 2007, p. 199).


Libraries in India are striving to provide necessary and relevant information to their users. Limited resources have been one main barrier to satisfying the growing informational needs of the users. Now, the Indian libraries are planning various methods of resource sharing to help meet information demands. Attitudes of library and institutional managements have undergone a change, to become more open to the benefi ts of resource sharing. A number of formal arrangements are being made for resource sharing among the libraries. A number of resource-sharing activities are discussed in this article, broadly arranged under four headings: National Information System in Science and Technology (NISSAT) National Information Centres (NIC); library consortia; document delivery services; and interlibrary cooperation.


Numerical simulations have become an essential part of design in every field of engineering, and the boundaries of technology are pushed further out every year. In structural engineering, the desire to design structures that have complex shapes or that are simply cheaper and more efficient, has necessitated the use of complex numerical simulations. This necessity is further substantiated when taking into consideration structures such as wind turbines that are subjected to extreme environmental conditions. In many cases, however, such simulations are prohibitively expensive due to complex material behaviour or the many-query nature of design optimization. The lack of knowledge and understanding of the behaviour and failure mechanisms is compensated by adopting less complex designs and/or high safety factors, which leads to less efficient and more expensive designs. In recent years, methods to circumvent such high computational costs have been developed. Acceleration techniques such as model-order reduction (MOR) are now widely researched, and significant developments are being made to overcome the issues of prohibitively expensive high-fidelity models. This thesis uses Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) to drastically reduce the degrees of freedom of a simply supported beam that is loaded in the downwards direction along the span. The result of the MOR process is a reduced-order model (ROM) that accurately approximates the behaviour of the full-order model (FOM). The ROM is constructed by determining a set of basis vectors that contain compressed information of representative full-order solutions collected in an \textit{offline} training phase. The goal in this thesis is so collect the information and construct the reduced basis as efficiently as possible while guaranteeing a given accuracy of the ROM. Two methods are presented to iteratively construct the reduced basis. The first one is the \textit{Surrogate Parameter Space} (SPS) method, where greedy sampling is performed on incrementally finer grids of points along the beam. Each individual grid is referred to as an SPS, and they are exhausted by selecting the load location that in each iteration will add the most new information to the ROM. The other method is the \textit{Gaussian Process Regression} (GPR). Greedy sampling using a Bayesian machine learning algorithm involving GPR is used to predict load locations along the beam that add the most new information to the ROM. A method to efficiently combine and compress information obtained in each iteration was also developed. The results showed that the SPS method is efficient to construct an accurate ROM for the beam model in this thesis, but the GPR managed to recognize that some areas in the span did not have to be sampled as much as others. This makes GPR the more promising method for other high-fidelity models when high accuracy is desired. The results also showed that both methods depend greatly on input parameters that define how much information is kept in each iteration, and for GPR an additional parameter that determines how much accurate the regression itself should be. In order to execute an efficient offline phase, these parameters must be chosen carefully, and it is recommended for future work to develop methods to adaptively choose them. It was also shown that the number of ROMs that have to be run as part of the greedy sampling is the bottleneck of efficiency for both methods. For high-fidelity models with higher-dimensional parameter spaces, this bottleneck necessitates the use of hyper-reduction techniques such as the Empirical Cubature Method (ECM) to reduce the computation time of the ROM itself. It is recommended that the methods investigated and the corresponding results in this thesis are used as a stepping stone to implement automatic and efficient sampling methods to other high-fidelity models.


The human development would not be possible without energy. But the way electricity has been generated and fuels have been burnt causes serious impacts in environment. Our current society is concerned about these problems, and studies have been carried out to find renewable power sources and ways to use energy as efficient as possible. In this context, we will study the electrical generator park of Rio de Janeiro State, which is composed by hydroelectric plants, one wind farm, thermal plants and two conventional thermonuclear plants, having reached an installed capacity of 7.991 MW in 2012. In this same year, the electric generation in the state was 51.633 GWh, which accounted for 9,3% of national production, while the electricity consumption of 50.746 GWh represented 10,2% of the country's consumption. An increase in electricity consumption is expected for the next years due to the heating of the state economy, the large industrial investments and the great international events which will take place there. Therefore, the state will have to expand the capacity of its electric generating facilities, preferably in a sustainable and efficient way. This project aims to study how energy is used and generated in Rio de Janeiro State and begin to compile its energy inventory, so that, further studies can be conducted in order to make a comparative of these energy sources through the life cycle energy analysis seeking viable alternatives to the electricity demand in the state.


This research was conducted in Dinder National Park which lie in eastern part of Sudan, during the dry season of 2016 from February to May with the aims to estimate the population size and structure of Warthog (Phacochoerus aethipicus), and to determine the habitat preference and use in the park. The method used for data collection was road count techniques. The method used to estimate the population size was Jolly's method II for unequal size sampling units, the population estimated was found to be 3245 individual, during the study period. This number is higher than the result obtained by Yousif who estimate a number of 1858 animals. Warthog mainly prefer to live in un burnt area. In terms of group structure the percentages of each segment was computed as the males (30%), the young (38%) to females (31%).


Physical impairments like IQ imbalance and phase noise can cause significant degradation in the performance of wireless communication systems. In this paper, the joint effects of IQ imbalance and phase noise on OFDM systems are analyzed, and a compensation scheme is proposed to improve the system performance in the presence of IQ imbalance and phase noise. The scheme consists of a joint estimation of channel and impairment parameters and a joint data symbol estimation algorithm. It is shown both by theory and computer simulations that the proposed scheme can effectively improve the signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver. As a result, the sensitivity of OFDM receivers to the physical impairments can be significantly lowered, simplifying the RF and analog circuitry design in terms of implementation cost, power consumption, and silicon fabrication yield.


Background: Brief (30 min to 60 min) applications of weak, physiologically-patterned magnetic fields have been
demonstrated to produce analgesia in rodents and reduction of depression in patients who have sustained Traumatic
Brain Injuries (TBI). To discern if the effects from one effective field pattern could be measured by quantitative
electroencephalography (QEEG) and reflected in psychometric inferences of depressed mood, normal volunteers
were measured.
Methods: A total of 22 normal volunteers were exposed for 30 min to sham field conditions or to a burst-firing
magnetic field (1 μT) that was applied across the temporal lobes during QEEG measurements. The Profile of Mood
Scores short-form (POMS-sf) was administered before and after the exposures and correlations between these
scores and bands of QEEG power were completed.
Results: The subjects exposed to the burst-firing magnetic field displayed a significant decrease in depression
scores compared to those exposed to the sham fields. The treatment effects accommodated about one-quarter of the
variance in scores. Like previous studies the other components of the POMS-sf did not differ significantly between
treatments. Field exposed subjects displayed significant increases in beta power over the prefrontal regions and left
temporoparietal areas the magnitude of which was strongly correlated with the depression mood scores.
Conclusion: Brief exposures to weak, physiologically-patterned magnetic fields that can be generated by
contemporary computer systems produced reliable changes in QEEG activity and were even reflected in relatively
insensitive psychometric indicators in normal individuals. The development of this technology for self-treatment of
patients who have sustained TBIs may be a useful adjunctive therapeutic intervention.


Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (ESBL-E) are a major focus of multidrug-resistant organisms (MRO) surveillance programmes in France. To describe the temporal and geographical trends of these pathogens, we conducted an epidemiological study based on data extracted from the nationwide MRO surveillance network from 2009 to 2013. During this time, the incidence of ESBL-E infections in French hospitals increased by 73%, from 0.35 to 0.60 per 1,000 patient days (PD) (p<0.001) and ESBL-E bacteraemia by 77%, from 0.03 to 0.05 per 1,000 PD (p<0.001). The incidence of ESBL-E infections was higher in intensive-care units (1.62 to 2.44 per 1,000 PD (p<0.001)) than in recovery and long-term care facilities (0.20 to 0.31 per 1,000 PD (p<0.001)). Escherichia coli was the most frequent extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing (ESBL) pathogen, representing 59% (26,238/44,425) of all ESBL isolates, followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae (20%; 8,856/44,425) in 2013. The most frequent infection was urinary tract infection, for all species. The incidence of ESBL-E varied by region but showed an upward trend overall. Reinforcement of control measures for halting the spread of such MRO is crucial.


IL-12, a cytokine produced by microglia, may regulate cellular immunity at a localized level in the CNS. To investigate this further, we examined the consequences of peripheral immune stimulation without specific autoantigen in wild-type or transgenic (termed GF-IL12) mice with astrocyte production of the bioactive IL-12 p75 heterodimer. Active immunization with CFA and pertussis toxin, a procedure known to stimulate a robust type 1-biased immune response, produced CNS immune pathology from which GF-IL12 but not wild-type mice developed signs of clinical disease consisting of loss of activity, piloerection, mild tremor, and motor change. All immunized mice had some degree of mononuclear cell infiltration into the brain; however, the severity of this was markedly increased in GF-IL12 mice where leukocytes accumulated in perivascular and parenchymal locations. Accumulating cells consisted of CD4 (cid:1) and CD8 (cid:1) T cells and macrophage/microglia. Moreover, expression of cytokines (IFN- (cid:2) and TNF), chemokines (IFN-inducible protein-10 and RANTES), the immune accessory molecules, MHC class II, B7.2, ICAM-1 and VCAM-1, and NO synthase-2 was induced in the CNS of the GF-IL12 mice. Therefore, peripheral immunization of GF-IL12 but not wild-type mice can provoke active type 1 immunity in the brain—a process that does not require CNS-specific immunizing autoantigen. These findings indicate that the cytokine milieu of a tissue can dramatically influence the development of intrinsic immune responses and associated pathology. The Journal of Immunology, 2001, 167: 5485–5493.


Aquaporins are membrane proteins, that act as water channels in biological membranes. Members of this family form tetrameric, or rarely pentameric, complexes in the lipid bilayer. In order to better understand the folding and multimeric assembly of these proteins, we have constructed a series of destabilized proteins by modifying the interface between monomers in Aquaporin Z from E.coli. We have characterized these mutants to test the effects on the folding of the monomeric unit and their ability to form tetramers. We have also examined the consequences modified structures on the function of the water channel and the dynamics of the protein. Structure and folding has been examined at the level of the protein topology to control the helices insertion in the membrane. These methods indicate that the surface mutations do not detactably modify the structure of the monomeric Aquaporin Z. Assembly into tetramers has been investigated by hydrodynamics methods (Gel filtration or DLS, Fluorescence anisotropy and FCS). These methods suggest that, in some mutants, tetramers are not properly formed and monomeric Aquaporins predominate. Some other mutants are able to tetramerize but contrary to the wild type, the assembly do not resist to SDS denaturation. We report the consequences of these changes in assembly on function and dynamics.


We present a novel approach to combined textual and visual programming by allowing visual, interactive objects to be embedded within textual source code and segments of source code to be further embedded within those objects. We retain the strengths of text‐based source code, while enabling visual programming where it is beneficial. Additionally, embedded objects and code provide a simple object‐oriented approach to adding a visual form of LISP‐style macros to a language. The ability to freely combine source code and visual, interactive objects with one another allows for the construction of interactive programming tools and experimentation with novel programming language extensions. Our visual programming system is supported by a type coercion‐based presentation protocol that displays normal Java and Python objects in a visual, interactive form. We have implemented our system within a prototype interactive programming environment called 'The Larch Environment'. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The flow analysis inside the centrifugal pump is high cavitation and unsteadiness. In recent years, a growin methods brought turbo machinery Computational Flu markets. The critical review of CFD analysis of cent this paper. CFD technique has been applied by the re prediction at design and off-design conditions, par running in turbine mode etc. Unsteady Reynolds-av were found to be appropriate for CFD analysis of c interesting research fields for the further improvemen the analysis of two phase flow, pump handling non-N © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and University, Ahmedabad.


This study aimed to evaluate the preparation of professors through university postgraduation programs, and try to learn the contradictions and possibilities of overcoming the problems that surround this formation. Also, to understand the dynamic process that encircles this activity, as well as the historical and current conjunctures of the university institution, for then discuss the profession in the ambit of Dentistry. Fifty-eight experts were invited to compose a specialists' panel. The Delphi Method was used, and the axes explored were: a) university and higher education models in Brazil; and b) formation and professional development of the university professor: teaching at higher education – formation of formers. Many inadequacies in the postgraduate formation were observed, with predomination of an instrumental preparation, with a low level of themes related to didactic-pedagogical, political, and social aspects. Changes are necessary in the way of allowing advances in this practice which is essentially linked to the civilizing progress of societies.


The purpose of this analysis is to investigate the effect of leading characters in picture books on self concept in children. For this study, we selected a total of 55 picture books, all of which were best sellers in four internet book stores. The method used for the study was based on content analysis. The results of this analysis were as follows: First, the gender of leading characters was male more often than female, and the majority of picture books were creative story books and translation books. Second, subordinate parts related to the self-concept were most frequently found in the social self-concept. Social self-concept was positively expressed through the relationship between friend and family characters in story books. Cognitive self-concept was the least. Third, when the frequency of positive and negative expressions in picture books was analyzed, the social self-concept was found to be positively expressed in the subordinate parts of relationships between friends and family. The social self-concept was negatively expressed, however, in the subordinate parts of relationship between non-significant others, and the emotional self-concept was also negatively expressed in the subordinate parts of the emotional recognition and expression. In summary, instances of cognitive self-concept and positive expression were found to be more significant than negative ones.


Although recent studies have suggested pathways of olfactory transduction in the primary neuron, the mechanisms by which the brain differentiates and remembers different smells, such as banana and rose, are only starting to be understood. Similarly, using improved methods of evaluating patients with olfactory complaints, clinicians have categorized different types of olfactory losses and distortions. The pathophysiology and treatment of these problems, however, remain poorly understood. The papers reviewed here have added valuable information to both the basic science and the clinical understanding of human olfaction.


Study Design. An in vivo study to examine the differentiation of endogenous neural progenitor cells in an adult rat model of post-traumatic syringomyelia. Objective. To quantitatively evaluate the phenotypic fate of endogenous neural progenitor cells in post-traumatic syringomyelia. Summary of Background Data. Although neural progenitors have been identified in the central nervous system, their differentiation in experimental post-traumatic syringomyelia and possible role in the pathophysiology of this condition have not been investigated. Methods. Bromodeoxyuridine was used to label proliferating cells in a time-dependent rat model of post-traumatic syringomyelia. Eight neural markers were quantitatively analyzed to phenotype the cellular fate of these cells by double labeling immunohistochemistry. Results. Following syrinx induction, cell proliferation rate increased to 25–115 times that of cells in the intact and sham-operated controls with a peak at day 14 post-injury. In the earliest time points post-syrinx induction, ED1-expressing inflammatory cells formed a significant proportion of the proliferating population. Proliferating neural progenitor cells predominantly differentiated into NG2-expressing immature oligodendrocytes at all stages post-syrinx induction, except the final time point of 56 days. At this time, there was a peak in the number of newly generated astrocytes identified to have developed from labeled proliferating precursor cells. Conclusions. Endogenous neural progenitors proliferate markedly following induction of post-traumatic syringomyelia which consists of two stages, initial cyst formation and progressive cyst enlargement. During the former stage, macrophages proliferate in situ and contribute to the inflammatory process. The predominant cell type formed from progeny of the induced neural progenitors was characterized to be immature oliggodendrocytes. However, during the latter stage of cyst development, there was an increase in astrocytic progeny which may represent an environment more conductive to glial scar formation acting to limit further cyst enlargement.


We present the strand and formed method of manufacturing Ag-sheathed Bi-system superconducting round wire. The method strands three round multifilamentary wires into a single round wire. For the strand and formed Bi2Sr2Ca1Cu2Ox (Bi-2212) wire, the critical current Ic exhibited almost no change until the bending strain exceeded 0.6%, while for the conventional round Bi-2212 wire Ic deteriorated when the bending strain exceeded 0.2%. Also, we have measured the alternating-current transport loss of both a strand formed round Bi-Pb2Sr2Ca2Cu3Ox (Bi-2223) wire with a barrier and a conventional tape Bi-2223 wire without a barrier. The measured loss normalized by the Ic of the former was more reduced than that of the latter.


We present an experiment for 5 months with 30 residents in a caregiving facility to collect big data and to analyze the correlation between sleep and daytime activities. Analysis of sleep is useful for health care and for self analysis. Especially, knowing how daytime activities are influenced by sleep quality, and vice versa, are important as well as analyzing the sleep status itself. Existing analysis of correlation between sleep and the daytime activities collected at maximum 1 week and the recorded activities are primitive such as 'activity levels'. In this paper, we performed a sensing experiment at a caregiving facility to collect big data for 30 subjects and for 5 months. Furthermore, by collecting care records for subject, it is possible to collect the daytime activities data. Finally, we analyzed the data of five subjects for 26 days, and found that (1) the sleeping situation can estimate whether users will do daytime exercise with an accuracy of 91% for specific users, and (2) that the information of the daytime exercise influences the time when users start to sleep for specific users.


Despite the challenging sub-Arctic conditions, we have run a continuous year-round network at Askja since 2008. Thanks to experience gained over successive years, modifications to the network have allowed the number of stations that operate through the winter to increase. This has allowed extensive monitoring of the highly unusual lower crustal earthquakes beneath Askja, which are thought to be caused by melt moving into the lower crust from the mantle and has shown that they are a persistent ongoing feature. Travel time tomography has been completed showing a low velocity body beneath the caldera thought to be the magma chamber. The Askja network forms part of a larger network along the length of the Northern Volcanic Zone of Iceland, which will be used to constrain the structure of the entire rift.


ABSTRACT This article explores how local inhabitants living near the Katimok Forest in Baringo County, Kenya, engage with the traces of their past embedded in the landscape, and refigure them into politically powerful ruins. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, the study examines the traces left behind by former forest dwellers before they were relocated by colonial and post-colonial governments, and analyses the current residents' interactions with these traces. The article shows that traces are mnemonic and affective devices that remind the local inhabitants of emotional stories of a lost past and foster a sense of belonging. In addition, former forest dwellers and their descendants use these traces as evidence and symbols of their belonging and suffering to demand recognition of their historical loss from current national authorities. By performing the traces as ruins of a lost past, claimants harness their political power. This study highlights the importance of considering forest politics in relation to affective and political engagements with the material landscape.


Fisheries management has a considerable capacity to precipitate legal and illegal introductions of fish species to new geographical areas. Consequently, there are many examples of such introductions and their subsequent short-term effects on native fish. However, longer-term impacts which may be expected to be more substantial have been less frequently studied in detail. For this overview, long-term datasets up to a number of decades in duration have been assembled from published and unpublished sources on the native lake fish communities of the English Lake District in north-west England, UK. These communities are dominated by simple salmonid-percid assemblages and contain England's only vendace (Coregonus albula), whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) and Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) populations, all of which are protected under nature conservation legislation. In addition, they have historically supported commercial or semi-commercial fisheries for perch (Perca fluviatilis), whitefish and Arctic charr, the latter of which still persist on two major lakes. In recent years, fisheries activities have resulted in the region experiencing a number of illegal fish introductions including the cyprinids roach (Rutilus rutilus) and dace (Leuciscus leuciscus) and the percid ruffe (Gymnocephalus cernuus). Although these introductions have benefited some local recreational fisheries, several instances of cultural eutrophication and a more widespread increase in lake temperature are likely to benefit these introduced species and disadvantage native salmonids and percids. The resulting changes in fish community compositions and the performances of local fisheries are described and discussed.


This study aimed to analyze the irrigation water requirement (IWR) of bean in Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil, based on current climate and future climate scenarios. The future projections for the years 2030 and 2060 were performed for the following scenarios: C1considering monthly increase of air temperature of 1°C (2030) and 2°C (2060), and C2 considering monthly increase of temperature air 1°C and 2°C and rainfall of 10 mm and 20 mm, respectively, for 2030 and 2060. To calculate the IWR during the cycle (difference between crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and effective rainfall (Reff)) and total net irrigation of bean, Cropwat 8.0 software was used. We considered three sowing dates for the 1st season (20 September, 20 October and 20 November) and a date for the 2nd season (January 10) of bean. In the current climate, the IWR (ETc-Reff) increases gradually from northeast to south-central of RS, being lower depths, for sowing in early January and the highest, for sowing in late October and/or November. For net irrigation, for the later sowing of the 1st season, higher is the water requirement. For each 1°C increase in temperature (C1) IWR (ETc-Reff) tends to increase 4-10 mm for sowing of the 1st season. The simultaneous increase of air temperature and rainfall (C2) results in lower IWR (ETc-Reff), despite differences in relation to that observed in the current climate are small.


The system of thematic, interpretational and motivational relevance is the model expounded by Schutz to highlight how the constitution of meaning. The relationship between the system of relevance belonging to different finite provinces of meaning is fundamental. Just as important are the fluctuations in the modes of experiences, in relation to appresentational processes of meaning in the shift from one sphere to another. This paper will focus on the shift from one province of meaning to another, i.e., enclaves. According to Schutz, enclaves can be understood as both symbolic entities and necessary discontinuities in the shift from one finite province of meaning to another, discontinuities that can be identified as vacancies to be filled.


This chapter looks at the contribution to the innovation capability measurement that is made through innovation surveys. The increased availability of data at the firm level provides new and comprehensive indicators on the accumulation of innovation capabilities. Better understanding of long-term dynamics and the heterogeneity of sectoral trajectories of innovation capabilities sets the stage for adaptable and targeted innovation policy and facilitates new insights on the technology upgrading and economic catch-up mechanics. The chapter presents an approach to assessing innovation capabilities at the national and sectoral levels using composite indicators of output-based innovation modes and illustrates the proposed ideas using the data from the Russian innovation survey. The proposed indicators bring empirical evidence to the discussions of path dependence and gradual change in the technological upgrading studies. Identification of the heterogeneity of innovation capabilities at firm and industry level contributes to a more profound understanding of the upgrading dynamics and helps to draw implications for effective policymaking.


An investigation of unequal error protection (UEP) methods applied to JPEG image transmission using turbo codes is presented. The JPEG image is partitioned into two groups, i.e., DC components and AC components according to their respective sensitivity to channel noise. The highly sensitive DC components are better protected with a lower coding rate, while the less sensitive AC components use a higher coding rate. Simulation results are given to demonstrate how the UEP schemes outperforms the equal error protection (EEP) scheme in terms of bit error rate (BER) and peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR).


The polarization effects in hydrodynamics are studied. Hydrodynamic equation for the nonlinear wave is used along with the polarized nonlinear waves and seismic waves act as initial waves. The model is then solved by Fourier spectral and Runge-Kutta 4 methods, and the surface plot is drawn. The output demonstrates the inundation behaviors. Consequently, the polarized seismic waves along with the polarized nonlinear waves tend to generate dissimilar inundation which is more disastrous.


Itch, the unpleasant sensation that elicits a desire to scratch, is mediated by specific subtypes of cutaneous sensory neuron. Here, we identify a subpopulation of itch‐sensing neurons based on their expression of the receptor tyrosine kinase Ret. We apply flow cytometry to isolate Ret‐positive neurons from dorsal root ganglia and detected a distinct population marked by low levels of Ret and absence of isolectin B4 binding. We determine the transcriptional profile of these neurons and demonstrate that they express neuropeptides such as somatostatin (Sst), the NGF receptor TrkA, and multiple transcripts associated with itch. We validate the selective expression of Sst using an Sst‐Cre driver line and ablated these neurons by generating mice in which the diphtheria toxin receptor is conditionally expressed from the sensory neuron‐specific Avil locus. Sst‐Cre::AviliDTR mice display normal nociceptive responses to thermal and mechanical stimuli. However, scratching behavior evoked by interleukin‐31 (IL‐31) or agonist at the 5HT1F receptor is significantly reduced. Our data provide a molecular signature for a subpopulation of neurons activated by multiple pruritogens.


This paper deals with parametric optimization of erosion wear of ZA-27 metal matrix composites (MMCs) reinforced with silicon carbide (SiC) particle in different weight proportions (0, 3, 6 and 9 wt %) using Taguchi experimental design. This technique is a powerful analysis tool for modeling and analyzing the influence of control factors on performance output. Erosion wear test are carried out following Taguchi's L16 orthogonal array. Significant control factors influencing the wear rate are identified. The analysis shows that among all the factors, impact velocity is the most significant factor followed by filler content while others has relatively less significance on wear rate of the particulate filled composites under this investigation. This work shows the optimization of different parameters effecting erosion wear of ZA-27 MMCs.


In this paper, we study the problem of image denoising by using an adaptive lifting scheme. Such a scheme can adapt itself well to the analyzed signal, which allows to keep important information for denoising applications. However, it results in a non-isometric transform which can be an important limitation as most of the denoising approaches rely on the estimation of the noise energy in the subbands. In a previous work, it has been shown how to evaluate the subband energies of an uncorrelated signal, in the wavelet domain when using such an adaptive scheme. Based on this previous work, we propose in this paper an estimation of the noise energies in the subband and use it to perform image denoising. Experimental results illustrate that this approach is more effective, in image denoising, than the classical non adaptive lifting schemes both considering perceptual and non perceptual image quality measures.


Enterocytozoon bieneusi is a widespread parasite with high genetic diversity among hosts. Its natural reservoir remains elusive and data on population structure are available only in isolates from primates. Here we describe a population genetic study of 101 E. bieneusi isolates from pigs using sequence analysis of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and four mini- and microsatellite markers. The presence of strong linkage disequilibrium (LD) and limited genetic recombination indicated a clonal structure for the population. Bayesian inference of phylogeny, structural analysis, and principal coordinates analysis separated the overall population into three subpopulations (SP3 to SP5) with genetic segregation of the isolates at some geographic level. Comparative analysis showed the differentiation of SP3 to SP5 from the two known E. bieneusi subpopulations (SP1 and SP2) from primates. The placement of a human E. bieneusi isolate in pig subpopulation SP4 supported the zoonotic potential of some E. bieneusi isolates. Network analysis showed directed evolution of SP5 to SP3/SP4 and SP1 to SP2. The high LD and low number of inferred recombination events are consistent with the possibility of host adaptation in SP2, SP3, and SP4. In contrast, the reduced LD and high genetic diversity in SP1 and SP5 might be results of broad host range and adaptation to new host environment. The data provide evidence of the potential occurrence of host adaptation in some of E. bieneusi isolates that belong to the zoonotic ITS Group 1.


Depth image based rendering (DIBR) is an important technique to generate virtual view images with limited 3-D data. However, disocclusion is a critical problem that the regions occluded by foreground objects become visible in virtual views, which is difficult to be visual-plausibly inferred. In this paper, we propose a novel temporally consistent filling method using multiple sprites with depth (MSD) to fill the disocclusions faithfully. MSD stores the background as well as intermediate foreground objects of past frames in multiple sprites, so that amounts of pixels in disocclusions can be recovered from MSD. Moreover, we also introduce a method to recognize the source space for exemplar based inpainting to fill the remaining disocclusions. The experimental results show the proposed method achieves objective and subjective improvement compared with the state-of-the-art methods. The synthesized sequences by the proposed method have higher spatio-temporal consistency.


In May 2019, Shell UK E&P contacted the Helix Well Ops Light Well Intervention Vessel; Well Enhancer to conduct a Coiled Tubing Intervention in a horizontal well using their riser system for production optimisation. This CT system had been in active use since 2016, however, based on operational lessons learnt, it underwent a series of upgrades and improvements to create a more efficient and reliable means of Coiled Tubing Deployment. The intervention carried out in May was the first since the upgrades were completed.
 The technical objectives for the intervention were:
 Drift and clean-up using a motorised venturi to 14,700 ft Perform shut-in and flowing PLT log across 4,000ft of perforations Re- perforate 1,000ft of reservoir section
 The operations were completed on time and on budget.
 This technology application has now been proven and enables Coiled Tubing opportunities, previously considered uneconomical or technically unachievable unless using a rig, to be sanctioned.


COHERENS (COupled Hydrodynamical and Ecological model for REgioNal and Shelf seas), a 3D hydrodynamic multi-purpose model, has been implemented for the coastal and shelf seas of eastern Arabian Sea to study the flow characteristics. The model has been tested and verified with one month measurements of surface and bottom currents collected off Mangalore, Ratnagiri, Mumbai and Dwarka on the west coast of India (WCI). After calibration, the model was allowed to perform under tide and wind forcings. The flow characteristics at these select locations have been well reproduced by the model. A shift in current direction from south to southeast has been observed at several occasions, and this could be attributed to shamal events. The low amplitudes of the residual currents in the measurements off Mumbai and Dwarka suggest that the influence of the West India Coastal Current is weak or negligible in the northern part of the WCI and the currents are mainly tide-dominant. Certain discrepancies are noticed especially in the southern domain, off Mangalore, where the shallow water dynamics is not only driven by the local wind forcing and tides, but also by the remotely driven currents. In order to get a comprehensive picture of the prevailing dynamics, the model domain has to be extended to the entire Indian Ocean.


Experiences with a newly developed plastics support bandage on 1007 patients are reported. A polyurethane hard foam composition developed specially for medical purposes was used, which is created by blending the two components A (polyol) and B (isocyanate). The principle of our support bandage lies in the fact that after being mixed in a 1:1 ratio, the two highly viscous components are packed into a cotton stocking having a high transverse elasticity. After being rolled out to the desired thickness, the stocking is wrapped around the extremity which it is to support, where it hardens out into a polyurethane hard foam composition. By reason of the moisture content of the scoured cotton stocking, a 1 to 2 mm thick layer of foam forms in the contact region and renders any further padding unnecessary. Correspondingly, by using a double chamber stocking, circular bandages have been produced which can be removed, by means of incorporated zip and interengaging hook fasteners. Reclining shells, abduction bandages and body corsets can be made in the same way. The physical properties of the support bandage are illustrated: apart from its low weight, the bandage is particularly advantageous by reason of its high strength, insensitivity to water and ideal permeability to X-rays. The support bandages are easily made up and entail negligible cost.


In this paper, a new offline handwritten signature identification and verification system based on Contourlet transform is proposed. Contourlet transform (CT) is used as feature extractor in proposed system. Signature image is enhanced by removing noise and then it is normalized by size. After preprocessing stage, by applying a special type of Contourlet transform on signature image, related Contourlet coefficients are computed and feature vector is created. Euclidean distance is used as classifier. One of the most important features of proposed system is its independency from signer's nationality. Experimental results show that proposed system has so reliable results for both Persian and English signatures.


Background: The appendectomy is the most frequently performed surgery in the Emergency Service. The introduction of the lapa- roscopic approach (LA) in the treatment of acute appendicitis has not received, in the surgical community, the same acceptance that it obtained in other acute conditions. With this work, the authors present the growing acceptance that the LA has been acquiring in the Surgical Service that they represent, and they also want to demonstrate the advantages of this approach towards the laparotomic approach. Materials and Methods: Observational retrospective study consisting of patients undergoing appendectomy for acute appendicitis between 01/11/2008 to 31/10/2010 in the Emergency Service of the CHTS, EPE. Results: In the presented series 477 patients were subjected to an appendectomy, 9,6% of which through an LA. For both surgical approaches, the average age was  33,1 years (CI 91%:29,6-37,4) to LA and 37,3 years (CI 91%:31,7-38, 9) to laparotomic approach, p = 0,11; the female gender represented 19,0% of patients undergoing LA and 42,0% of patients undergoing laparotomy, p = 0,03. The duration of the hospital stay in LA was 3,2 days (CI 91% :2,4-4, 0) and 4,2 days (CI 91%:3,9-4, 4) in the laparotomic approach, p = 0,041 ; postoperative complications occurred in 7,7% of patients undergoing laparotomy and 8,7% of patients receiving LA, p = 0,8. There was no mortal- ity in this series. Conclusions: The LA, in the treatment of acute appendicitis, increased considerably over the two years of the study. It allows better cosmetic results and shorter hospital stay. It revelas a complication rate similar to the one of the laparotomic approach and can be used safely in patients with complicated acute appendicitis.  Keywords: acute appendicitis, appendectomy, laparoscopic approach


Aim - short-term outcomes of cerebral and coronary artery revascularisation surgeries performed with different methods and different timing have been well studied, but the long-term outcomes have not. The study aim was to determine the long-term survival rates in patients with combined atherosclerotic cerebral and coronary artery lesions who underwent surgical revascularisation of both territories. We evaluated the survival functions of six groups of patients with combined atherosclerotic cerebral and coronary artery lesions who underwent revascularisation using different methods in different sequences and at different time periods of both territories. Survival in each group was determined from postoperative Day 30 by using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared by using the log-rank test. Survival was also compared among the groups in which alternative methods of carotid and coronary territories revascularisation were used. The 5-year survival rates were similar between patients who underwent endovascular revascularisation of both territories (cerebral and coronary arteries stenting) or combined surgery (coronary arteries stenting + carotid endarterectomy). The 5-10-year survival rate was higher in patients who underwent combined surgery than in the other patients (p=0.026). The main causes of death in all groups were cardiac or cerebral events. The 10-year survival rates did not significantly differ between patients who underwent cerebral artery stenting prior to coronary artery bypass grafting and those who underwent simultaneous carotid endarterectomy + coronary artery bypass grafting (p=0.532). The results of this study can be useful for selecting the tactics of surgical cerebral and coronary artery revascularisation, identifying the sequence of respective surgeries and time management.


VIBURNUM PRUNIFOLIUM IN ABORTION. I SHOITLD like to answer one or two remarks of Dr. Leith Napiei's upon my cases treated by viburnum. 1. I take it that the signs of impending abortion are regular pains, softening of the external os, an(n a bloody or muco-sanious discharge. My experience shows these, generally, to be followed by the emptying of the uterus. 2. When the ovum is presenting, I do not give viburnum, but ondeavour to hasten the delivery. Viburnum is most useful in checking false pains, and in relieving of pain even when not successful in preventing mis2arriage. I have had two interesting cases lately. One was that of a lady, live monthls pregniant, who was recovering fromn a perinephritic abscess, anid in wlhorn rhythmical contractions came on. It was most iml)ortant to prevent abortion, and two-graiin doses, every three hours, completely relieved her. Her husband, a medical maii, watched the action of th'e drug with great interest. The other case was one in which drachm doses of Parke Davis' liquid extract completely relieved the pains and stopped the hwmorrhage, and yet, two days afterwards, abortion took place. Chlorate of potash I have used in habitual miscarriage, but my paper only referred to the immediate treatment, when the symptoms had appeared; and I certainly feel more confidence in viburnum than in any druig I have heretofore used. W. MACFIE CAMPBELL, M. D., Liverpool.


Hypoglycemia increases the risk related to stroke and neurodegenerative diseases, however, the underlying mechanisms are unclear. For the first time, we studied the effect of a single episode (acute) of severe (ASH) and mild (AMH) hypoglycemia on mouse brain microvascular proteome. After four-hour fasting, insulin was administered (i.p) to lower mean blood glucose in mice and induce ∼30 minutes of ASH (∼30 mg/dL) or AMH (∼75 mg/dL), whereas a similar volume of saline was given to control mice (∼130 mg/dL). Blood glucose was allowed to recover over 60 minutes either spontaneously or by 20% dextrose administration (i.p). Twenty-four hours later, the brain microvessels (BMVs) were isolated, and tandem mass tag (TMT)-based quantitative proteomics was performed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS). When compared to control, ASH significantly downregulated 13 proteins (p ≤ 0.05) whereas 23 proteins showed a strong trend toward decrease (p ≤ 0.10). When compared to AMH, ASH significantly induced the expression of 35 proteins with 13 proteins showing an increasing trend. AMH downregulated only 3 proteins. ASH-induced downregulated proteins are involved in actin cytoskeleton maintenance needed for cell shape and migration which are critical for blood-brain barrier maintenance and angiogenesis. In contrast, ASH-induced upregulated proteins are RNA-binding proteins involved in RNA splicing, transport, and stability. Thus, ASH alters BMV proteomics to impair cytoskeletal integrity and RNA processing which are critical for cerebrovascular function.


Accurately ascertaining risk for subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is critical to making appropriate diagnostic decisions. Risk is often based on response to the question "Is this the worst headache of your life?" We sought to determine whether the manner and order in which historical questions are asked significantly alter the response. Methods Adult patients complaining of headache in the ER were presented with one of two questionnaires each containing a series of five questions, two pertinent and three distracters. The two pertinent questions were "Is this the worst headache of your life?" and "When was the last time you had a headache this bad?" The two versions varied in regards to the order in which the questions were asked. Version 1 first asked "Is this the worst headache of you life?" while version 2 reversed the order by first asking "When was the last time you had headache this bad?" A population of 120 was determined to be adequate to achieve 80% power and detect a difference of 20 to 25%. Data were analyzed to determine (1) what percentage of patients answer these questions concordantly and (2) whether the order in which the questions are asked influences the outcome, in this case the rate of concordance. To correct for the element of chance responsible for a certain degree of concordance we utilized a kappa (K) statistic. Results For research question 1 the percentages of patients who answered the questions concordantly were 60% and 75% respectively for version 1 and version 2. For research question 2 the agreement corrected for chance for version 2, _ = 0.51, is higher than the agreement corrected for chance for version 1, _ = 0.28, a difference of 0.23 with a 95% CI (-0.03, 0.49; p = .08; SE = 0.13). Comparing percentages, 75% vs 60%, produces a difference of 15% with a 95% CI of (-2%, 32%; p = .08). Conclusion Asking patients "Is this the worst headache of your life?" does not provide the clinical information most clinicians assume it does and is not sufficient justification to do a work-up for SAH. Knowing the patient has had a similar headache in the past could be an essential component of the history and aid in preventing invasive and costly procedures. Our study indicates that up 38% answer these two very similar questions discordantly. Also, there appears to be a higher degree of concordance (15%) when patients are first asked "When was the last time you had a headache this bad?" These data raise the question of whether the wording of these two questions plays a statistically significant role, in addition to order in which they are asked. Supported by University of New Mexico (UNM) School of Medicine.


This paper has two main parts. First, we consider the Tutte symmetric function XB, a generalization of the chromatic symmetric function. We introduce a vertex-weighted version of XB and show that this function admits a deletion-contraction relation. We also demonstrate that the vertex-weighted XB admits spanning-tree and spanning-forest expansions generalizing those of the Tutte polynomial by connecting XB to other graph functions. Second, we give several methods for constructing nonisomorphic graphs with equal chromatic and Tutte symmetric functions, and use them to provide specific examples.


The student movements of The North-Jiandao(北間島) in 1920s what started the role of autogenous national education institution in 1910s. Especially, teachers and students's activity of national education institution like 3ㆍ13 movements(3ㆍ13 運動) in 1919 what was represented the student movements in 1910s. Since the new trend of thought to The North-Jiandao in 1920s, The change was started about the student movements. The opening part of the 1920s, Dong-yang academy(東洋學院) which is part of the Dae-sung(大成) middle school expropriated and educated socialism. And the formation of 'Reading Group(讀書會)' spread out stable and organizational propaganda activity. This tendency was concretized in of the mid-1920s. The student movements in this time spread to of the popular movements. The activity of The East-Manchuria youngman general combination(東滿靑年總同盟) was starting the tendency. Also, Most of The North-Jiandao's national education institution had strong religious colors. Myung-dong(明東) middle school, Eun-jin(恩眞) school, Young-sin (永新) school were Christian school and Dong-heung(東興) middle school was school by the Cheondo religion(天道敎). But, The student movements asserted separation of religion and education gradually. The students who expropriated the new trend of thought considered the reverse functions of religion about education. For example Dong-heung(東興) middle school case, Ik-sun, Yoon(尹益善) was criticized by students that because of submitted the demand of the Korea government-general(朝鮮總督府). In spite of he was in activity for executive of the Cheondo religion to longtime. This disturbance brought about the elimination of religion subjects. The main student members of The East-Manchuria youngman general combination and The CK-band(CK團) that organized in January 1926 was attached to The North-Jiandao's national education institution. Japanese imperialism arrestted many students throughout 1st and 2nd Jiandao Communist Party(間島共産黨) case. They hope to weaken Anti-Japanese struggle of The North-Jiandao area. Fastest accommodation to socialism in the borderland with Russia, The property of North-Jiandao's national education institution that close reciprocal action of the teachers and the students brought to a conclusion as systematization of the student movements. Just 'the student movements were stoppaged to 1930s' what was out of the question. For example Gye-hak, Lim(林啓學) as the teacher of Dong-heung(東興) middle school case, For all that imprison according to 1st Jiandao Communist Party(間島共産黨) case, Since then came back to North-Jiandao society and he spread out national movements. In this point, The resources of national movement was achieved expansive reproduction. Especially, After establishment of Korea Communist Party Manchuria station(朝鮮共産黨滿洲總局), recognition conversion and systematization of the student movements was progressed. By branch movements, The student movements lead the whole movements. It was vanguard. In short, The student movements in 1920s took the brunt of The Nation problem(抗日) and The Class problem(封建) of The North-Jiandao(北間島) society.


In the concern of being a nation and state, Pancasila is kalimatun sawa' (common platform) for Indonesian. As a common platform, Pancasila values are bases for nation in living with others. The values are basically taken from public agreement in which derives from various cultures and faiths lives of nation cultural wealth. The case is the values of Pancasila (can also be read: Indonesian values) are not yet fully integrated in nation's faiths. On the other hand, Pancasila confronts marketable transnational and radical ideologies among youth generation as well as Moslem students as the major nation generation. The abandoned ideological philosophy and socio-politic phenomenon would replace Pancasila, and it will not anymore be strong nation ideology and philosophy. Consequently, concept design and Pancasila study are highly required for moslem youth generation as well as moslem students to integrate Islamic vision and nationality. Finally, the study would give Pancasila study design which integrates both Islamic values and Indonesian values.
Keywords: Pancasila; nationality; Islamic values; Indonesian values


Epidermoid carcinomas of the lower extremity are infrequent tumors and references in the literature are inconsistent regarding prognosis and etiology. Some authors consider them slow growing and late to metastasize,3,5,8while others regard these lesions are more malignant than other skin cancer.7 Material Among 31,200 consecutive admissions to the Ellis Fischel State Cancer Hospital, 26 (0.09%) had epidermoid carcinoma and nine (0.03%) had carcinomas in situ of the lower extremities. The 26 invasive cancers were subdivided into group 1, containing 13 cancers that arose primarily from the skin of the leg without any antecedent benign condition being recognized, and group 2, containing 13 invasive cancers arising at the site of a recognized antecedent benign lesion. Eight carcinomas in situ fell in group 1 and one in group 2. Various characteristics of the cancers and hosts are given in Tables 1-5 and Fig 1, serving as a basis for


Editor's Note: This previously unpublished paper was prepared by Dr. Stern for the Marburg Symposium on Compact Courses organized by the Federation internationale des professeurs de langues vivantes (FIPLV) in 1981. At first glance, it may appear to deal with foreign language teaching rather than ESL. However, a second look will show its relevance to the teaching of English as a second language to Canada's native people, to francophones in Quebec, New Brunswick and other areas with French school systems, in certain multicultural settings, and in other countries. PML


vided no response (p < 0.001). SVR was obtained in 66.7%, 42.9%, and 28.3% of CC, CT, and TT groups (p = 0.001). The rates of rapid virological response (RVR), early virological response (EVR), end-of-treatment response (ETR), and SVR were higher in the CC group than other groups (p = 0.216, p < 0.001, p = 0.001, p = 0.001, respectively). The relapse and null response (NR) rates were higher in TT group and that partial response rate was higher in CT group. CONCLUSION: IL28B rs12979860 C/T gene polymorphism affects the response to antiviral treatment in the patients with chronic HCV genotypes 1b and 4 infections.


Obesity, a complex metabolic disorder linked to the development of several diseases, is characterized by both hypertrophy and hyperplasia of adipocytes. While white adipose tissue (WAT) is an energy storage site, brown adipose tissue (BAT) activation generates heat from nutrients by non-shivering thermogenesis. The human orthologue of silencing information regulator 2 (Sir2) which was recognized as a regulator of life span in S. cerevisiae , includes seven sirtuins which are NAD + -dependent protein deacetylases distributed in different subcellular compartments. Sirtuins, particularly Sirt1, have emerged as important nutrient sensors and regulators of metabolism. Sirt1 has been shown to play a role in retarding the expansion of WAT while stimulating both differen - tiation and activation of brown adipose tissue as well as browning of WAT. This chapter focuses on the role of sirtuins in adipose tissue biology, their implications in obesity and potential as therapeutic targets.


The central action of periplanetin CC-1 (Pea-HrTH) (Glp-Val-Asn-Phe-Ser-Pro-Asn-TrpNH2), octapeptide of the insect adipokinetic hormone family (AKH-family), isolated from American cockroach-Periplaneta americana, was studied in Albino Swiss mice (20-25 g). CC-1 was injected intracerebroventricularly (i.c.v.) in the volume of 5 microliters at the dose of 50 ng/mouse. It was found that CC-1 showed strong analgesic activity in "writhing syndrome" test and in "hot plate" test. In addition, periplanetin CC-1 decreased the threshold for tonic seizures and increased mortality in pentetrazole-induced seizures, having no influence on the electric convulsions. CC-1 is known to be a glucagon-like AKH in insects. However, administered i.c.v. to mice, it did not increase the peripheral blood glucose level. The obtained results indicate that periplanetin CC-1 shows a biological action in vertebrates, but its metabolic effects are different than in insects.


SUMMARY A series of experiments was designed to evaluate a wide range of possible cropping systems for deep Vertisols of the Indian semi-arid tropics. The introduction of a rainy season maize crop, compared with traditional fallowing, had little effect on the yields of post-rainy season crops of sorghum, chickpea and pigeonpea. Introducing a rainy season sorghum crop caused severe yield reductions of post-rainy season crops in one year but only slight reductions in two subsequent years. Intercrop systems of maize/pigeonpea or sorghum/pigeonpea, and a three-crop system of maize/pigeonpea/chickpea, appeared very promising. Gross returns were usually much higher for the improved systems that utilized both the rainy and post-rainy seasons, though differences in net returns were not quite so great because of the extra costs of growing the additional rainy season crops.


The electrochemical vapor deposition (EVD) method is a very promising technique for making gas-tight dense solidelectrolyte films on porous substrates. In this paper, theoretical and experimental studies on the kinetics of the depositionof dense yttria-stabilized zirconia films on porous ceramic substrates by the EVD method are presented. The more systematictheoretical analysis is based on a model which takes into account pore diffusion, bulk electrochemical transport, andsurface charge-transfer reactions in the film growing process. The experimental work is focused on examining the effectsof the oxygen partial pressure and substrate pore dimension on the EVD film growth rates. In accordance with thetheoretical prediction, the pressure of oxygen source reactant (e.g., water vapor), the partial pressure of oxygen and substratepore dimension are very important in affecting the rate-limiting step and film growth rate of the EVD process. In thepresent experimental conditions (e.g., low pressure of oxygen source reactant and small substrate pore-size/thicknessratio), the diffusion of the oxygen source reactant in the substrate pore is found to be the rate-limiting step for the EVDprocess.


Purpose: This prototype catheter is a newly-developed distal access catheter featuring a self-expanding, flexible, funnel-shaped tip. The purpose of its design is to reduce the risk of thrombus fragmentation during mechanical thrombectomy and improve first-pass recanalization (TICI 3). In this experimental setup, we preclinically evaluated the effectiveness and navigability of the new catheter. Methods: A vessel model was filled with a blood-like-viscous medium, and the image was projected with the corresponding vessel area by camera transmission to correspond to the conditions in an angiography. Thrombi from porcine blood were placed into the Arteria Carotis interna of the vascular model and subsequently mechanically thrombectomized with a stent retriever. In the first part, the prototype was compared to a standard distal-access-catheter without using an external catheter. (N = 20 for each catheter). In the second part the prototype was inserted through a guiding catheter (n=11) to determine the navigability performance. Results: In the first experimental series, mechanical thrombectomy was successful 19 out of 20 times (95% success rate) for the prototype catheter versus 15 out of 20 times (75% success rate) for the standard distal-access-catheter. In the second experimental series, the prototype catheter achieved first-pass recanalization 10 out of 11 times (91 % success rate) and 1 out of 11 times at second pass (9%). Conclusion: This series of experiments demonstrated higher first-pass recanalization rates for the newly-developed funnel-shaped prototype featuring a self-expanding tip in comparison to a cylindrical standard distal-access-catheter.


Learning is an obligation for every believer to gain knowledge in order to improve the degree of life for them. To be able to absorb optimal learning, the application of effective learning is needed. This paper aims to provide information to educators on the effective learning concept, the concept of apperception and how to do apperception in creating effective learning. The apperception conducted in the early stages of learning is generally considered to be a small thing and sometimes forgotten that many learning activities leads to failure. The apperception can create effective learning because the apperception can lead learners to condition (zone) alpha, which is the best condition for learning so that learners more easily absorb the lesson material. The research method used is a qualitative method. The expected results of this paper are the achievement of effective learning for students so that the learning process can be optimized


Arthrobacter sp. SPG utilized p-nitrophenol (pNP) as the sole carbon, nitrogen, and energy source. The stoichiometric amounts of nitrite ions were released from pNP. The pathway of pNP degradation was studied for strain SPG. On the basis of thin layer chromatography, high performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, hydroquinone (HQ) was identified as major intermediate product. HQ dioxygenase activity was found in crude extract of pNP induced cells of strain SPG that suggested the cleavage of HQ into gamma-hydroxymuconic semialdehyde. This study clearly showed that strain SPG degraded pNP via HQ pathway. Arthrobacter sp. SPG degrades various nitroaromatic compounds including pNP, 2-chloro-4nitrophenol, 3-methyl-4-nitrophenol, 2-nitrocatechol and 2-nitrobenzoate. This strain would be a suitable candidate for bioremediation of nitroaromatic compounds contaminated sites.


The distribution of absorbed nitrogen derived from basal and top-dressed fertilizer was investigated by tracing 15N. In the basally fertilized plots, at rooting stage, nitrogen derived from fertilizer was distributed apparently more in leaf sheaths than in laminae, and in the top-dressed plots, it was distributed apparently more in leaf sheaths than in laminae just after top-dressing, because there were new growing organs in leaf sheaths. The nitrogen derived from fertilizer in rice plants translocated gradually from sheaths to laminae with emergence of new laeves. So, it could be assumed that a large amount of absorbed nitrogen distributed in new growing organs. At the later growth stage the rice plants were top-dressed, it took the less number of days to accumulate the maximum amount of nitrogen in the laminae. Nitrogen applied at the ear emergence was firstly found in leaf sheaths, culms and laminae, and it translocated to ears with the progress of ripening. At maturity, nearly 70 percent of absorbed top-dressing nitrogen was found in the ear. At the earlier growth stage of rice plants fertilizer was applied, the higher ratio of tagged nitrogen in the laminae to that of the whole plant was there at the ear emergence, and the lower ratio of tagged nitrogen in the cars to that of the whole plant was there at maturilty.


An all-semiconductor reactor safety system is described which consists of a dc amplifier, an adjustable trip level bistable circuit, a diode logic circuit, and a power switching circuit. The dc amplifier is a simple emitter follower transistor stage. Three transistors are used in the bistable circuit, two in a Schmitt-trigger arrangement and one as an output drive. The diode logic circuit uses a combination of OR and AND gates to give 2-out-of-3 coincidence of the bistable circuit outputs. A unijunction transistor and two silicon controlled rectifiers are the active elements in the power switching circuit. These components are particularly well suited for the on-off control needed in reactors and the circuitry is reasonably fail-safe.


Background: A key issue in the clinical management of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NET) is early identification and the prediction of disease progression or recurrence. Strategies include imaging and biomarker measurement e.g., CgA or NSE. The former is limited by sensitivity and the latter by low specificity and poor reproducibility. We evaluated the role of a blood-based multianalyte gene algorithmic analysis (MAAA) using a 51 NET gene signature (NETest) as an alternative circulating biomarker and assessed its clinical utility in GEP-NET. Patients and Methods: We investigated 180 well-differentiated GEP-NET (small intestine: n = 93, pancreatic: n = 52, colorectal: n = 11, stomach: n = 3, appendix: n = 2 and CUP: n = 19; histological grade: G1: n = 80, G2: n = 86, no data: n = 14). Baseline imaging (SRI: n = 103, CT/MRI: n = 77) were available. Surgery was undertaken in 27 and 28 had somatostatin analog (SSA) therapy. Disease recurrence or progression (RECIST 1.0 criteria) was determined by CT/MRI in treated cohorts. Transcript analysis was by qPCR and multianalyte algorithmic analysis. NETest defines disease activity risk: 80% high. Transcripts measured by the NETest included genes involved in proliferation e.g., Ki-67, growth factor signaling e.g., RAF pathway and somatostatin receptor expression. Statistical analyses included regression analyses, performance metrics analysis and progression-free survival (PFS: Kaplan-Meier). Results: The NETest was positive in 175 (97%) with image-proven GEP-NET. In the surgical samples, matched blood/ tumor sample were significantly correlated (R 2 = 0.7, p 2 = 0.42-0.8, p 2 = 0.29, p = 0.02). Elevated post-resection levels (>40%) predicted recurrence (100%). Baseline disease status (RECIST) was concordant with the NETest in 84% of the 62 evaluable patients; metrics were: sensitivity: 100%, specificity: 70%, PPV: 80% and NPV: 100%. In 28 patients treated with SSAs, NETest at baseline predicted treatment response (median PFS: 245 days NETest >80% vs. undetermined, NETest 80%) in the NETest occurred 105 days (48-252) prior to image-proven disease progression. Conclusions: A blood-based NET MAAA accurately correlated (97%) with image-proven disease. Blood levels were concordant with tissue and correlated with genes regulating tumor activity. NETest levels were decreased by surgery and elevated levels (>40%) were predictive (100%) of recurrence. NETest levels were also correlated (84%) with clinical disease status (RECIST) and values >80% predicted disease progression (100%) on somatostatin analogs. Citation Format: Irvin Modlin, Mark Kidd, Jaroslaw Cwikla, Ignat Drozdov, Lisa Bodei. Translational clinical utility of a circulating neuroendocrine tumor transcript measurement. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 3115.


We studied the ability of Culex pipiens, Aedes circumluteolus, and Ae. mcintoshi, exposed as larvae to liver tissue from a Rift Valley fever (RVF) virus-infected hamster, to become infected and transstadially transmit virus to the adult and for the adults to transmit virus by bite to hamsters. After exposure as larvae, 9% (5/54) of adult Cx. pipiens and 8% (38/505) of the adult Ae. (Neomelaniconion) species were infected. All of the infected Cx. pipiens and about half of the infected Ae. circumluteolus and Ae. mcintoshi tested transmitted RVF virus by bite to hamsters. Transmission rates for mosquitoes orally infected as larvae were higher than those for mosquitoes orally infected as adults. Animals infected with RVF virus may abort or die in the vicinity of mosquito larvae breeding habitats and infected tissue from these animals may contaminate the water.


OBJECTIVES
To determine: (i) the gender-based differences of physicians in prescribing antihypertensive drugs in the management of hypertension; (ii) the influence of patient comorbidity such as diabetes mellitus on the gender-based pattern of antihypertensive prescription, and (iii) gender-based prescription patterns among family physicians (FPs) and general practitioners (GPs).

METHODS
A survey study was carried out at 15 out of 20 health centres in Bahrain during May and June 2000. A total of 3971 prescriptions, issued to 2705 patients with uncomplicated hypertension and 1266 patients with diabetic hypertension by 77 FPs (female = 54, male = 23) and 41 GPs (female = 11, male = 30), were analysed.

RESULTS
As monotherapy, female physicians preferred ACE inhibitors (OR: 0.82, CI: 0.68-0.98, P = 0.033). In terms of overall drug utilization (monotherapy + combination therapy): (i) male physicians preferred beta blockers (OR: 1.17, CI: 1.03-1.31, P = 0.014) and diuretics (OR: 1.15, CI: 1.00-1.32, P = 0.047), while female physicians preferred methyldopa (OR: 0.73, CI: 0.56-0.94, P = 0.019); (ii) in uncomplicated hypertension, female physicians preferred calcium channel blockers (OR: 0.83, CI: 0.69-0.99, P = 0.038) and methyldopa (OR: 0.69, CI: 0.49-0.98, P = 0.042), and (iii) in diabetic hypertension, male physicians preferred beta blockers (OR: 1.26, CI: 1.00-1.57, P = 0.047). While female FPs prescribed methyldopa more extensively (OR: 0.66, CI: 0.47-0.92, P = 0.018), male GPs prescribed beta blockers (OR: 1.28, CI: 1.00-1.62, P = 0.046).

CONCLUSIONS
Within the same practice setting, gender-based differences in the prescription of antihypertensive drugs were seen. Such preference for a particular class of antihypertensives was also influenced by the presence of comorbidity in patients and, to a limited extent, by the training level of primary care physicians.


A simple model has been derived for expansion of a thin (up to 100s of nm thickness) target initially of solid density irradiated by an ultraintense laser. In this regime, ion acceleration mechanisms, such as the Break-Out Afterburner (BOA) [1], emerge with the potential for dramatically improved energy, efficiency, and energy spread. Ion beams have been proposed [2] as drivers for fast ignition inertial confinement fusion [3]. Analysis of kinetic simulations of the BOA shows the period of enhanced acceleration occurs between times t1, when the target becomes relativistically transparent to the laser, and t2, when the target becomes classically underdense and the enhanced acceleration terminates. A simple model for target expansion has been derived that contains early, one-dimensional (1D) expansion of the target and three-dimensional (3D) expansion at late times. The model assumes expansion is slab-like at the instantaneous ion sound speed and requires as input target composition, laser intensity, laser spot area, and the efficiency of laser absorption into electron thermal energy.