A technique for purification of glutamine asparaginase from Pseudomonas boreopolis 526 is described which provides a 37% yield of the enzyme homogeneous according to electrophoresis in polyacrylamide gel in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate. The effect of pH, freezing, thawing and lyophilic drying on the stability of glutamine asparaginase was studied. The enzyme is rather stable at pH 4.8 and 4 degrees C. Lyophilic drying of the homogeneous enzyme without addition of stabilizers resulted in a decrease of its activity an is accompanied by formation of protein conglomerates with molecular weights of 280,000 and 660,000 D. Freezing and thawing decreased the activity of the nature enzyme by 40-50%.


Agreeing with the scientific literacy as the purpose of science education and with the recent propositions that in order to achieve it we should favor the engagement of students in practices of scientific culture, this study intends to analyze the production of explanations and arguments in an inquiry based teaching activity in order to characterize students' mobilization of theoretical and empirical knowledge by engaging in these practices. Analyzing the scientific reports elaborated by the students (14-15 years old) after the inquiry activity on population dynamics, we highlight the importance of empirical knowledge about the experimental context as a repertoire for construction of explanations, especially when students deal with anomalous data. This knowledge was also important for production of valid arguments, since most of the justifications were empirical, regardless of whether or not the data were in accordance with the explanatory model already known. These results reinforce the importance of students' engagement in inquiry activities, as already defended by different authors of this research area, and indicate that the inquiry practice allowed the engagement in epistemic practices, since the knowledge about the experimental conditions and the V22 (2) – Ago. 2017 pp. 139 153 Investigações em Ensino de Ciências – V22 (2), pp. 139-153, 2017 140 procedures of data collection provided a repertoire for the production of explanations and arguments. Finally, we discuss the relevance of this research to the field of biology teaching, seeking to defend the promotion of inquiry activities with an experimental approach as an opportunity to integrate conceptual and epistemic objectives and overcome the difficulties generated by the specificities of this area of knowledge in relation to the other disciplines in nature sciences.


Due to limitations in data quality, some essential visual tasks are difficult to perform independently. Introducing previously unavailable information to transfer informative dark knowledge has been a common way to solve such hard tasks. However, research on why transferred knowledge works has not been extensively explored. To address this issue, in this paper, we discover the correlation between feature discriminability and dimensional structure (DS) by analyzing and observing features extracted from simple and hard tasks. On this basis, we express DS using deep channel-wise correlation and intermediate spatial distribution, and propose a novel cross-modal knowledge distillation (CMKD) method for better supervised cross-modal learning (CML) performance. The proposed method enforces output features to be channel-wise independent and intermediate ones to be uniformly distributed, thereby learning semantically irrelevant features from the hard task to boost its accuracy. This is especially useful in specific applications where the performance gap between dual modalities is relatively large. Furthermore, we collect a real-world CML dataset to promote community development. The dataset contains more than 10,000 paired optical and radar images and is continuously being updated. Experimental results on real-world and benchmark datasets validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.


In the world of religion, sacrifice is believed as a form of devotion toward the deities. Some theories suggest that every religion has its own system as well as function of sacrifice. Therefore, sacrifice cannot be perceived to have a singular meaning. This research focuses on the sacrifice practiced by the Ahmadiyah community, which is a controversial sect within Islam. By looking at the Ahmadi women in Indonesia, this study attempts to find out how women use sacrifice as an expression of agency. Instead of being victims or objects of sacrifice, women can, in fact, play a significant role in resisting discrimination against them by their male-dominated organization through sacrifice.


Abstract This paper is part of a research theme to develop methods that enhance risk assessment studies by the use of 'automated' failure analysis. The paper presents an approach to mechanical failure analysis and introduces a mechanical failure analysis module that can be used in a virtual reality (VR) environment. The module is used to analyse and predict failures in mechanical assemblies; it considers stress related failures within components, as well as failures due to component interactions. Mechanical failures are divided into two categories in this paper: material failures and interference failures. The former occur in components and the latter happen at the interface between components. Individual component failures can be analysed readily; a contribution of the mechanical failure analysis module is to predict interference failures. A mechanical failure analysis system that analyses and visualizes mechanical failures in a virtual environment has been developed. Two case studies demonstrate how the system carries out failure analysis and visualization as design parameters are changed.


The study has been carried to investigate the nature of resistance in rice varieties against bacterial leaf blight caused by Xanthomonas oryzae (Uyeda et. Ishiyama) Dowson. In this study, differences on several morphological histological and bacterial growth in rice leaf extract from different varieties were examined. Shirogane and Norm 6 as resistant varieties, Paldal as moderately resistant, and Jinheung, Kimmaze and Suwon 213 as susceptible varieties were used throughout the experiment. 1. Susceptible varieties Jinheung, Kimmaze have more hydathods in flag leaf than resistant varieties but there were no difference between resistant varieties and moderatly resistant varieties. 2. Average length of xylem vessel elements were 50r longer in leaf veins of susceptible varieties Jinheung, Kimnaze and Suwon 213 than those of resistant varieties, but there were no difference among Paldal, Norm 6 and Shirogane. 3. Kimmaze and Suwon 213 have larger diameter of xylem vessel elements than those of other varieties examined. However, it did not differ significantly between resistant varieries and susceptible varieties statistically. 4. Jinheung and Kimmaze have more secondary xylem vessels in root of 6-7th leaf stage than those of Shirogane and Norm 6. Suwon 213, however, showed least number of secondary xylem vessels exceptionally. 5. Leaf extract from resistnat variety Shirogane, suppressed bacterial growth significantly when compared with those from other varieties. 6. Bacterial growth in autoclaved leaf extract from resistant varieties and susceptible varieties did not show any noticeable difference. In general, fresh extract maintained more bacteria than in autoclaved extract after 48 hours of incubation period.


A significant portion of the population (0.5% - 0.8%) suffers from epilepsy. This study is an effort to predict seizures in epileptic patients. Electroencephalogram (EEG) continues to be an attractive tool in clinical practice due to its non-invasive nature and its real time depiction of brain function. The Short time Fourier Transform (STFT) is used for time frequency analysis of signals. In the present analysis, the authors adopted an effective technique for the denoising of EEG signals corrupted by non- stationary noises using Undecimated Wavelet Transform (UWT) which is implemented through Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench LabVIEW platform This Technique has overcome some of the short comings of the STFT by performing a multi - resolution analysis of signals. In the Wavelet Transform, high frequency components are analyzed with a sharp time resolution than low frequency components. This is the most desirable property, especially in analyzing fast transient waveforms such as EEG spikes. This paper deals with EEG spike detection based on wavelet representation using LabVIEW. The results obtained through this technique, show the superior performance of the Wavelet Transform Technique over the other techniques for detecting EEG spikes in terms of higher resolution and robust noise immunity.


F Miller During the first 10 years of the AIDS pandemic the clinical features of the syndrome have been extensively reported. By January 1992 there had been 5451 cases of AIDS in the United Kingdom, 3391 patients having died, and 16 828 people were known to have antibodies to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), with the potential to progress to AIDS. Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, despite widespread use of effective prophylaxis, rema opportunist pneumocystis pneumonia in patients immunosuppressed by malignancy, chemotherapy, corticosteroids, or HIV results from reactivation from a focus of organisms in the lungs that may, by analogy with tuberculosis, be the residuum of asymptomatic, self healed childhood infection. This assumption has recently been challenged by the application of molecular biology to the study of P carinii.


We designed a superconducting front-end circuit for an analog-to-digital converter and experimentally evaluated its signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) at a sampling frequency of 10 GHz. The modulator was based on a first-order sigma-delta modulation with an LR integrator. Correct noise shaping was experimentally confirmed, and an SNR of 70.9 dB at a bandwidth of 10 MHz was achieved. In the circuit design, we investigated the effect of leakage in the LR integrator and thermal noise on the SNR by using transfer function analysis and circuit simulations with noise sources. Circuit parameters were designed to keep the discrepancy of the SNR from the ideal value (77.6 dB) within 6 dB. In the experimental evaluation, the modulated data signal from the superconducting chip was accumulated with room-temperature electronics. A fast Fourier transform (FFT) calculation was performed to obtain power spectra and SNRs. The power spectra and SNRs were consistent with the predictions of the transfer function analysis and circuit simulations.


Overweight is a public health problem that may raise general health complication. Excess weight people often have complaints about the state of oral health especially salivary secretions. Saliva is very important for human life, not only for mastication digesting food and also cleaning and lubricating the oral cavity. reduced salivary production can increase the prevalence of dental caries. It is known that people who are overweight have teeth with numbers of caries. it is suspected that the complaint of people who have overweight, may have feeling of dryness in the oral cavity. this can be the cause of poor oral hygiene. The aim of this research to know the difference of average amount status of saliva in women with normal weight, overweight and obesity. This research analitic study with cross-sectional design. Retrieval of unstimulated saliva was done with the method of draining at 60 persons: 20 persons normal weight, 20 persons overweight and 20 persons obesity. Salivary pH measurements using Hanna instruments and measurement of flow rate and volume using digital scales. The result of Kruskal-Wallis test showed that different significant status of saliva in women with normal weight, overweight and obesity. The conclusion of this research that overweight will influence oral cavity status of saliva. The higher of weight of an individual, getting lower of flow rate, volume and pH saliva. This condition may cause dry mouth and increase the prevalence of caries of the teeth.


Abstract. Early stand decrease in alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) throughout New Mexico is increasingly being attributed to root systems damaged by larvae of whitefringed beetle, Naupactus leucoloma Dejean. Entomopathogenic nematodes (Steinernema carpocapsae Weiser, Steinernema feltiae Filipjev, and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora Poinar) effectively control other species that inflict similar damage to alfalfa and other crops, but it is not known if they occur naturally or can persist if released in irrigated semiarid lands. Persistent strains of entomopathogenic nematodes were released in May 2017 by the New Mexico State University Rex E. Kirksey Agricultural Science Center at Tucumcari into an irrigated alfalfa field not known to be infested with whitefringed beetle. Treatments were mixtures of nematode species Steinernema carpocapsae (NY 001) + S. feltiae (NY 04) or S. feltiae (NY 04) + Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Oswego) in a randomized complete block design with four replications near nontreated check plots. Twenty soil cores were collected per plot in autumn 2017 and 2018 to bioassay for establishment of entomopathogenic nematodes. After inoculation, S. carpocapsae was not found in any sample either year, while H. bacteriophora was found only in 4% of samples from S. feltiae + H. bacteriophora plots in 2017. Similar percentages of S. feltiae were found each year (∼20% of cores in S. feltiae + S. carpocapsae and S. feltiae + H. bacteriophora plots). No entomopathogenic nematode was detected in nontreated check plots, suggesting lack of native entomopathogenic nematodes and lack of spread from treated plots. The multiyear persistence of S. feltiae 'NY 04' and perhaps H. bacteriophora 'Oswego' in the arid Southwestern US was not reported previously. Because entomopathogenic nematodes can control whitefringed beetle and a plethora of other crop pests with similar larval root-feeding behavior on many economic crops, establishing locally adapted sources of entomopathogenic nematodes for widespread distribution would be appropriate.


Low bone mineral density (BMD) has been highlighted as a potential problem in children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which is one of the most common chronic childhood diseases in the westernized world. The mechanisms behind reduced BMD in pediatric IBD are still not completely understood, but several factors that influence bone mineralization have been discussed. These include the chronic inflammation itself, which causes the release of cytokines from the inflamed bowel, treatment with corticosteroids, low body weight, limited physical activity, vitamin D deficiency and genetics. Decreased peak bone mass in young adulthood may predispose for the development of osteoporosis later in life and this in turn may lead to osteoporosis-related fractures. The aim of this thesis was to investigate BMD, body composition and growth in a population of Swedish children and adolescents with IBD over a two-year period. A second objective was to study the familial resemblance of BMD in pediatric IBD patients. The thesis was designed as a prospective, longitudinal, population-based project with patients from two pediatric centres in Western Sweden (Goteborg and Boras). In order to evaluate BMD and body composition the patients and their parents underwent dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) at the time of inclusion in the study. Two years later the DXA measurement was repeated in the IBD patients. Additionally, clinical data, body weight, height, Tanner stage, bone age and blood samples for various hormone analyses were obtained. Age at peak height velocity (PHV) was calculated using special software. Low bone mass was found to be prevalent in this population of Swedish pediatric patients with IBD both at baseline and at follow-up two years later. Possible risk factors for lower BMD are male gender, low BMI and treatment with azathioprine, which is a likely marker of disease course severity. However, the data indicate that both males and females have the potential to recover BMD into early adulthood. Furthermore, this study demonstrated that, regardless of the presence of a chronic inflammatory condition, the BMD of children and adolescents with IBD is significantly related to that of their parents. Normal vitamin D levels were present in the group of pediatric IBD patients and showed a significant seasonal variation with lower levels during winter time. No significant correlation was found between vitamin D levels and BMD. Elevated levels of intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH) were seen in the patients under 16 years of age despite normal vitamin D levels. Vitamin D and iPTH levels were inversely related. Lean mass deficits were present in the oldest age groups and were most pronounced in males and those with Crohn's disease. Age at PHV was significantly delayed by around one year in both females and males and this may indicate suboptimal growth. The data from this thesis support the conclusion that pediatric patients with IBD should be evaluated with DXA at some point during the course of their disease, if possible soon after being diagnosed.


On December 2002, The Nasdaq Stock Market completed the roll out of its new trading platform SuperMontage. It was initially conceived to centralize the order flow for Nasdaq stocks. However, Island, one of the biggest ECN, decided not to participate to the montage and stopped to be "hard-linked" to Nasdaq systems. To what extent this increase in order flow fragmentation affected market functioning? Are orders executed at the best available prices on the market? We find no evidence that market quality worsened following this exit. Effective and realized spreads remained unchanged. This suggests that information dissemination and third-parties smart routing services has been sufficient to counterbalance the lack of built-in linkages. Additionally, we observed a persistent frequency of trade-through of around 15%, testifying of a non-negligible proportion of orders executed at a price worse than the best available one. However, using simulations, we showed that even when Island quote is better than the actual transaction price, an investor trading in Nasdaq would have generally experienced losses if the order were rerouted to Island. This suggests that trade-through regulation should consider depth as a major dimension.


I think Mr. Yang Peng's lecture has made a great contribution to our understanding of the similarities and differences between the God in ancient Chinese books and the God in the Bible. It is very specific and real. The "seven characteristics" he summarized, summed up the attributes of God in the Bible or Christianity into seven characteristics, which I think is quite accurate: an adjective in front, a noun in the back, and adjectives are indispensable (if I have time later, I will explain it ), and the nouns are also very accurate (if I have time, I will also say my improvement opinions on his summary, which is more important in my opinion). He has done in-depth research on ancient Chinese books, such as paying attention to how many times "God" and "Heaven" appear in oracle bone inscriptions. This is a very real academic work, which I admire very much.


This research is motivated by barriers to student learning on the topic of division. The problem solving ability is the impact of the less effective learning that has been carried out. In this case, the importance of learning is based on Realistic Mathematics Education (RME). The research was conducted by developing valid, practical and effective Local Instructional Theory (LIT) through development research revealed by Gravemeijer & Cobb. The subjects of the trial came from third grade students of SDN region IV, Koto Tangah sub-district, Padang City. Research is supported by data collection techniques in the form of document analysis, observation, interviews, questionnaires, and tests. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and parametric statistics. Validation results show valid LIT which can be seen from aspects of content, language, didactic, and presentation that are in accordance with the principles and characteristics of the RME. The trial results also show very practical categories that are seen in terms of ease of use, student readability and availability of time so that students can carry out a series of LIT learning activities. In addition, LIT has an impact on students' effective problem solving abilities. This can be seen from the comparison of the average mathematical problem solving abilities of students who use LIT by not using LIT. The hypothesis test addresses the experimental class data higher than the control class data.
Keywords: LIT, RME, Division


Nineteenth-century philologist and Biblical critic William Robertson Smith famously concluded that the sacred status of holy places derives not from their intrinsic nature, but from their social character. Building upon this insight, "Mecca and Eden" uses Islamic exegetical and legal texts to analyze the rituals and objects associated with the sanctuary at Mecca. Integrating Islamic examples into the comparative study of religion, Brannon Wheeler shows how the treatment of rituals, relics, and territory is related to the more general mythological depiction of the origins of Islamic civilization. Along the way, Wheeler considers the contrast between Mecca and Eden in Muslim rituals, the dispersal and collection of relics of the prophet Muhammad, their relationship to the sanctuary at Mecca, and long tombs associated with the gigantic size of certain prophets mentioned in the Quran. "Mecca and Eden" succeeds, as few books have done, in making Islamic sources available to the broader study of religion.


Model of the study: This is an exploratory and descriptive study which was executed in sector of Nutrology nursing at University Hospital, Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto, University of Sao Paulo (HCFMRPUSP). Objective: The aim of this research was to evaluate the perception of quality of life of individuals with short bowel syndrome (SBS) with the help of the Quality of Life Core 30 Questionnaire (QLQ C30). Methods: The instrument used was the EORTCQLQ-C30 (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire/ Quality of Life Core 30 Questionnaire) version 3.0 in Portuguese. The study was conducted on six patients with SBS. Results: The applicability of the questionnaire was adequate and the mean score obtained for this sample (70.7) was considered to be satisfactory. Conclusions: The most affected domains were: Emotional Function and Symptoms: pain, insomnia, fatigue, and diarrhea. The application of the QLQ C30 permitted us to evaluate the perception of the patient regarding his condition and quality of life, important aspects that should be considered by the team.


In this study, in order to eliminate the performance losses experienced in the processing of big data, a distributed combined model working on the Hadoop ecosystem was designed and developed. A new model was used by combining dictionary-based methods and machine learning-based methods which are commonly used in sentiment analysis. The combined model we developed has been programmed and implemented as both the distributed version on Hadoop architecture and the serial version on traditional programming architecture and performance results have been compared and reported. Parallel model on Hadoop Distributed File System, which we believe will contribute significantly to the literature, developed it in this study process, and used in big data analysis, has achieved a higher performance by significantly eliminating performance losses. In addition, with this study, it is aimed to keep a perspective on the migration-migrant-refugeeimmigrant problem, which concerns many countries of the world. Twitter users in European countries were selected as the target audience. It has been determined that the perceptions of Twitter users included in the analysis vary by country. The results of the study showed that the reflex and reactions to the immigrant problem can vary from country to country. It is thought that these results also provide important data to the researchers.


Background
A multitude of endoscopic findings post-gastric bypass procedures have been previously reported in the literature, but to our knowledge, no present rules exist that could guide clinicians regarding which findings should be actively sought, once an initial finding is identified.

Objective
To identify co-occurrence patterns among endoscopic findings of patients having undergone past gastric bypass procedure.

Methods
Our registry involves all consecutive patients undergoing an upper endoscopic evaluation after a gastric bypass procedure. We collected information on the presence of the endoscopic findings in post-gastric bypass surgery patients. Co-occurrence evaluation involved the use of intersection, cluster and item factor analyses.

Results
A total of 396 endoscopic evaluations were made on 339 patients. Most patients were female (81.1%), with an average BMI of 31.88±6.7 at the time of endoscopy. Esophagitis was the most common isolated finding (35.3%). Endoscopic findings clustered around two groups, (1) the ring-related complications involving ring displacement, ring slips and gastric pouch, while (2) stenosis-related findings involved dilation and stenosis (P<0.01).

Conclusion
While most endoscopic findings after gastric bypass endoscopic procedures are isolated, ring and stenosis-related clusters should be used as a set of rules by clinicians, as it might enhance their probability of finding co-occurring conditions.


Building on technical advances from the BioNLP 2009 Shared Task Challenge, the 2011 challenge sets forth to generalize techniques to other complex biological event extraction tasks. In this paper, we present the implementation and evaluation of a signature-based machine-learning technique to predict events from full texts of infectious disease documents. Specifically, our approach uses novel signatures composed of traditional linguistic features and semantic knowledge to predict event triggers and their candidate arguments. Using a leave-one out analysis, we report the contribution of linguistic and shallow semantic features in the trigger prediction and candidate argument extraction. Lastly, we examine evaluations and posit causes for errors in our complex biological event extraction.


In recent years, advances in sensor technology, connectedness and computational power have come together to produce huge data-sets. The treatment and analysis of these data-sets is known as big data analytics (BDA), and the somewhat related term data mining. Fields allied to human factors/ergonomics (HFE), e.g. statistics, have developed computational methods to derive meaningful, actionable conclusions from these data bases. This paper examines BDA, often characterised by volume, velocity and variety, giving examples of successful BDA use. This examination provides context by considering examples of using BDA on human data, using BDA in HFE studies, and studies of how people perform BDA. Significant issues for HFE are the reliance of BDA on correlation rather than hypotheses and theory, the ethics of BDA and the use of HFE in data visualisation. Practitioner Summary: Human factors/ergonomics practitioners are increasingly likely to work with the large data bases and novel software associated with big data analytics (BDA) and similar fields such as data mining. This paper shows the characteristics of BDA and details methodological and ethical issues that arise in BDA.


Co-operative communication has been shown to significantly improve energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks. The outdated channel state information (CSI) problem will result in severe performance degradation of co-operative communication systems including energy efficiency. In this study, the authors analyse the impact of outdated CSI on energy efficiency of amplify-and-forward co-operative hybrid automatic repeat reQuest system. The authors derive the expression of the average energy consumption per bit of data transmission under outdated CSI. Numerical results show the deteriorating effects of outdated CSI on the performance of energy efficiency and transmission reliability in co-operative communication system. It is also shown that energy efficiency can be improved by error correcting codes mechanism when end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio at the destination node is within a certain range.


The electric power consumer positioning analysis is a very important aspect of the electric power consumer relationship management, and the decision tree is a usual tool to implement classification analysis. Based on the segmentation of electric power consumers, this article mainly discusses how to construct the decision tree of electric power consumer positioning by ID3 algorithm, introduce this concrete operation process, and accordingly offers technical supports for the electric power marketing department to better hold consumer characters and implement individual services.


The congruent evaporation temperature Tc is a fundamental surface characteristic of GaAs and similar compounds. Above Tc the rate of As evaporation exceeds that of Ga during Langmuir (free) evaporation into a vacuum. However, during molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) there is generally an external As flux F incident on the surface. Here we show that this flux directly controls Tc. We introduce a sensitive approach to measure Tc based on Ga droplet stability, and determine the dependence of Tc on F. This dependence is explained by a simple model for evaporation in the presence of external flux. The capability of manipulating Tc via changing F offers a means of controlling congruent evaporation with relevance to MBE, surface preparation methods, and droplet epitaxy.


The volitional illuminance preferences of 9 closely related, captive-born cactus mice were determined by allowing them a choice between 10 illuminance levels ranging from darkness to 1.1 lux. The levels could be altered bidirectionally to brighter or dimmer values, one step at a time in predetermined sequence, by instrumental means. The mice were confined in exercise-wheel enclosures and tested and retested at ages of 4 to 35 months. For all 9 animals, the time spent running in the wheel had marked, minor, incipient, or presumptive peaks at level 5 (0.0014 lux) or level 6 (0.0025 lux) ; these peaks probably reveal the optimum illuminance range for the animals' vision. But the major peak in the active time of most individuals was in darkness (or extremely dim light). There was generally a marked tendency for the animals to spend a greater percentage of inactive time than active time in darkness. Five animals retested after a lapse of at least 5 months showed changes in illuminance preferences, there being a tendency for the minor preference for dim light either to increase with age or to appear first long after maturity. In addition, one 5-month-old mouse showed a remarkable series of changes in illuminance preferences over a period of several weeks. The illuminance regimes to which small nocturnal mammals are exposed are analysed in terms of a paradigm involving two sets of factors-illuminance preferences and factors unrelated to these preferences. It is proposed that, although both sets of factors determine illuminance exposures in the wild, only factors in the illuminance preference category determine illuminance exposures (selectivity) in captivity. The major preference of cactus mice for darkness and the lahility of their preferences are analysed in terms of this paradigm.


To The Editor:

In the article entitled "Increased Frequency of Acute Local Reaction to Intra-Articular Hylan GF-20 (Synvisc) in Patients Receiving More Than One Course of Treatment" (2002;84;1619-23), Leopold and colleagues reported a higher rate of local adverse events in patients who had had more than one course of Hylan G-F 20 therapy compared with patients who had received one course of therapy. They reported a 2% rate of local adverse reactions in the group of patients who had received one course of therapy and a 21% rate in patients who had received multiple courses of therapy. As an orthopaedic clinician who has performed, to date, 7245 Hylan G-F 20 injections in 2415 knees in 1660 patients, I would like to address several issues pertaining to this report.

The fact that the incidence of local adverse events increases with more than one course of therapy is not a new observation. In November 2001, at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), we presented data from our patient database (1130 knees in 791 patients at that time) that demonstrated similar results 1. Despite the facts that our data corroborate those of Leopold et al. and that the data make a dramatic numerical impact, presenting adverse-event data on a per-patient basis does not provide an accurate picture. First, an individual patient may only have one reaction during a treatment course of three injections or after receiving multiple courses of treatments with several injections. Second, patients in the multiple-treatment group in the study by Leopold et al. received a different number of injections because some patients underwent two or three courses of therapy (or more) and some received bilateral injections. Therefore, reporting adverse events on a per-injection basis would be more appropriate. Our overall local-adverse-event data reported on a …


Background: In order to detect HIV-associated neurocognitive decline, it is important to accurately estimate individuals' premorbid levels of cognitive functioning. Although previous studies have operated under the assumption that word reading tests are valid and stable indicators of premorbid abilities in HIV infection, studies of other populations have found that this is not always the case. Therefore, it is important to empirically examine the validity of word reading tests as estimates of premorbid functioning specifically within the HIV population. Method: The Wide Range Achievement Test–4 Reading subtest (WRAT–4 Reading) was administered along with comprehensive neurocognitive assessments to 150 HIV seropositive (HIV+) and 76 HIV seronegative (HIV–) age-, education-, and sex-matched participants; a subset of 48 HIV+ individuals completed a second study visit (M = 14.4 months), in which the alternate version of the WRAT–4 was administered. Results: Although HIV+ individuals evidenced worse current neurocognitive functioning than HIV– participants, WRAT–4 Reading performance was comparable between groups. Longitudinally, HIV+ participants evidenced improved disease and neuropsychological functioning, yet WRAT–4 Reading demonstrated strong test–retest reliability and no practice effect, and did not differ between the initial and follow-up assessments. Test–retest differences in reading performance were minor and were not associated with changes in neurocognitive performance or changes in HIV disease. Conclusions: We found no evidence of WRAT–4 Reading performance decline in HIV infection, despite HIV+/HIV– group differences in neurocognitive functioning. Additionally, reading performances among HIV+ individuals demonstrated consistency across study visits. These results begin to support the validity of the WRAT–4 Reading subtest as an indicator of premorbid cognitive functioning in HIV+ individuals.


We have used double immunofluorescence and electron microscopy to examine the distribution of tubulin and vimentin during the stimulation of mouse splenic lymphocytes by the mitogen concanavalin A. In unstimulated cells, vimentin forms a filamentous network partially coincident with the radial pattern of microtubules. In stimulated cells, the numbers of microtubules assembled from the centrosome have increased and vimentin is organized as an aggregate located near the centrosome. When these cells enter mitosis, vimentin is arranged into a filamentous cage enclosing the mitotic apparatus. During cytokinesis, the polar centrosomes are observed at a position adjacent to the midbody and vimentin is detected as an aggregate, similar to that seen prior to mitosis, close to the centrosome in each daughter cell. Using several agents, such as colchicine, colcemid, nocodazole, and taxol, which affect microtubule assembly, we have observed that the vimentin system, although closely related spatially to the microtubule complex in lymphocytes, can still reorganize independently as these cells progress through the cell cycle. Throughout mitogenic stimulation in the continued presence of taxol, microtubules are reorganized into a few thick bundles while the vimentin system undergoes a sequence of rearrangements similar to those observed during normal stimulation. These data suggest that vimentin dynamics may be important in the progression of lymphocytes through the cell cycle in response to mitogen.


Morphematic reorientation of German orthography takes place in conformity with a general law in the history of writing. Alphabetic writing systems, being necessarily phonographic, tend to develop towards the encoding of non-phonetic units. The emergence of morphematic elements in German is preceeded by the evolution of word-separation by regular spaces which had been adopted throughout Europe by the end of the 13th century. Based on a corpus containing 157 High German texts (late 15th to late 18th centuries), this paper will demonstrate that morphematic reorientation of German orthography can be explained neither as an invisible-hand-process nor as the outcome of prescriptive grammar, but as the result of interaction between orthograpic norm and usage.
Three cases will be considered in detail:
(1) Graphic assimilation of allomorphic plosive variation emerges as early as the 12th century, reflecting regional final devoicing. By the early 17th century, the rule governing orthographic reprensentation of final devoicing in present-day German is fully adopted in usage. Its morphematic reinterpretation does not follow before the end of the 17th century.
(2) Morphematic graphic representation of [a]-Umlaut emerges during the 14th century in Upper Germany as a phonetic reflex of open [e]. It is recommended by Middle German grammarians since the 1560s, with explicit mention of morphological factors. Around 1700 the writing rule imposes itself in usage.
(3) The use of double consonant letters occuring in final positions of 'graphic' syllables ( according to ) rests inhibited until the 18th century, in particular to prevent tri- or tessaragraphs ( , ). It is the influence of Adelung's grammar which leads to the final adaption of the present-day rule.


Background: Cervical dystonia, characterized by involuntary contraction of the cervical muscles, is the most common form of adult dystonia. We compared the preoperative versus postoperative 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) scans to confirm the efficacy of selective peripheral denervation (SPD) for treating cervical dystonia. Case Description: A 38-year-old male with the right-sided cervical dystonia underwent a left pallidothalamic tractotomy. However, the involuntary neck movement persisted and correlated with the 18F-FDG-PET/CT imaging that showed persistent FDG uptake in the right obliquus capitis inferior muscle. A subsequent SPD resulted in resolution of the dystonia that correlated with lack of further 18F-FDG-PET/CT uptake in the right obliquus capitis inferior muscle. Conclusion: The postoperative 18F-FDG-PET/CT documented the efficacy of an SPD in resolving a patient's cervical dystonia.


A lotus leaf exhibits excellent superhydrophobic properties because of its hierarchical microstructure and a waxy hydrophobic material covering its surface. Herein, the lotus leaf was used as a template and a copper surface layer with a microstructure similar to the lotus leaf was prepared by electroplating. Experimental results show that the plating samples saved micron-sized structure of the lotus leaf, such as papillae. At the same time, owing to the specificity of the electroplating method, smaller grains were formed as the second-level structure on the papillae, forming a hierarchical structure that makes it possible to obtain a superhydrophobic surface. The plated copper surface exhibited excellent hydrophobic properties with a contact angle of 160 (cid:155) , which is higher than that of the lotus leaf (157 (cid:155) ) and also much higher than that of smooth copper covered with an identical fluroalkyl silane (112 (cid:155) ). This affords a novel idea for preparing of superhydrophobic surfaces. (Received


Focal liver lesions are common, with a prevalence up to 20%. The lesions must be evaluated in context of risk factors associated with malignancy. Risk factors include age >40 years, known current or past malignancy, presence of liver cirrhosis or chronic liver disease (i.e. suspected by elevated liver elastography measurement ≥8 kPa or FIB-4 score ≥1.3), unintentional weight loss, fever or night sweats, newly detected focal liver lesions, documented growth of focal liver lesions, current or past use of androgens (e.g. testosterone, oxymetholone, danazol), increased serum tumour markers (i.e. alpha-fetoprotein, carbohydrate antigen 19-9 [CA19-9], carcinoembryonic antigen [CEA]) and family history of malignancy.
In patients without risk factors of malignancy, regional (non-)fatty changes, simple liver cysts and typical haemangiomas can be diagnosed by conventional ultrasound (without contrast). Conventional ultrasound Doppler is recommended to rule out vascular malformations such as portosystemic shunts.
In all other cases of focal liver lesions, contrast-enhanced imaging is indicated for differentiation in benign and malignant dignity.
Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) as a first diagnostic step and contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are accurate tests to diagnose haemangioma and focal nodular hyperplasia.
Hepatocellular adenoma is diagnosed by contrast-enhanced MRI and/or histology.
"Wash out" on CEUS is highly suspicious for a malignant focal liver lesion. Additional investigations aimed at identifying the primary tumour, as well as staging-computed tomography, MRI and/or histology may be necessary and should be decided on a case-by-case basis.
A biopsy of focal liver lesions is indicated in cases of unclear dignity, malignant aspect and focal liver lesions of unclear origin as well as for guiding surgical and oncological management.


After the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare set the provisional regulation values for radioactive materials in foods by adopting Indices for Food and Beverage Intake Restriction. The indices were established based on 5 mSv of effective dose and 50 mSv of committed equivalent dose to the thyroid in compliance with the recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection and others. On April 1, 2012, the present standard limits were put in force for the exiting exposure situations. The standard limits were intended not to exceed 1 mSv/year from food intake. One milli-Sievert per year of maximum permitted level conforms with the intervention exemption level (reference level) adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The provisional regulation values and the present standard limits of Japan are lower than the derived intervention levels of the U.S., the EU and Codex. Immediately after the monitoring of foods began, public concern was raised since many samples of leafy vegetables and raw milk were found to be above the provisional regulation values. Thus, several public health protection measures were taken to decrease the concentrations of radioactive materials in foods by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the local governments and the farmers, such as feeding livestock with safe food and the application of potassium fertilizer. Due to these measures, almost all of the marketed foods in Japan are below the standard limits and concentrations of radioactive cesium are sufficiently low at this moment. Results of dose estimation with the monitoring data and total diet studies also show committed effective doses from food are well below the maximum permissible level; thus, it can be concluded that the measures taken by Japan after the Fukushima accident were reasonably successful. However, there are still some foods found with radiocesium concentrations above the standard limit like wild mushrooms, wild animal meat, wild vegetables, freshwater fish, and some saltwater fish whose feeding or cultivation management are difficult to control. Thus, monitoring of those foods should be continued. keywords: standard limit, provisional regulation value, radioactive cesium, dose estimation, total diet study (accepted for publication, 15th February 2018) I.Introduction Even before the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident, there existed regulatory values for radioactive materials in foods, namely the interim limit and Indices for Food and Beverage Intake Restriction (hereinafter referred to as "the indices") in Japan. The interim limit was established for foods imported from the European region after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident [1]. The Ministry of the Health and Welfare set the limit to 370 Bq/kg as a sum of the radiocesium concentration (Cs + Cs). Any lots of such foods that exceeded the limit were recalled, reshipped or disposed of Topics: Lessons learned on public health from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident


Named entity recognition (NER) is a popular language processing task with wide applications. Progress in NER has been noteworthy, as evidenced by the F1 scores obtained on standard datasets. In practice, however, the end-user uses an NER model on their dataset out-of-the-box, on text that may not be pristine. In this paper we present four model-agnostic adversarial attacks to gauge the resilience of NER models in such scenarios. Our experiments on four state-of-the-art NER methods with five English datasets suggest that the NER models are over-reliant on case information and do not utilise contextual information well. As such, they are highly susceptible to adversarial attacks based on these features.


The African buffalo Syncerus caffer was studied in Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania. Emphasis was placed on the study of (individual) buffalo cows, which live in mixed herds. Buffalo herds are discrete social units and females were never observed in another herd than their own. The herd showed a structure with respect to the distribution of sex-age classes. Individual cows generally kept the same location within the herd. The location in the herd appeared to be coupled to food intake and was strongly related to physical condition. The best location (highest intake and best condition) was between the front and the centre of the herd, the worst location was the rear of the herd (when moving or grazing). Females with calves appeared to have the highest position in the hierarchy as determined from the rate of displacement over food; adult bulls did not interact with cows. Few births were observed during the late dry season and it appears that there is a calving peak at the end of the long rains. Conception rate increased when cows increased in condition and dropped when cows lost condition. Cows showed a strong seasonality in condition but bulls on average hardly changed in condition, except for a loss in condition during the inferred conception peak. Buffalo herds in Manyara showed a fusion-fission pattern independent of season but strongly influenced by the size of the herd: large herds split more often than smaller ones. In large herds, buffalo grazed closer together than in small herds and it appeared likely that competition was more severe in large herds. Animals in the rear of a large herd lost condition faster during the dry season than animals in the best location in the herd, and especially cows in the rear split off most frequently from the herd to graze in a smaller fragment. From the literature on cattle, it is inferred that the reproductive success of cows in the rear of the herd will be lower than of cows in the best location, and this differential is confirmed by the behaviour of adult bulls. It is as yet unclear what the advantage is for adult cows in the rear of a large herd to stay in that herd but the sharing of information with more successful individuals seems a good candidate.


Self-oriented perfectionism has two aspects: pursuing perfection simply as a goal (Personal Standard: PS) and not accepting imperfection (Concern for Mistake: CM, Doubting of Action: D). The former is said to enhance mental health, while the latter deteriorates it. The latter aspect may also have vulnerability to uncontrollable events. The present study used causal modeling to investigate the relation of these two aspects, self-evaluative depression (composed of Self-Esteem and Depression: SED), and styles of coping with uncontrollable events. A questionnaire measuring these concepts was completed by 169 college students, and the following results were yielded: Of the two aspects of self-oriented perfectionism, PS lowered SED, while CM and D heightened SED. PS increased such coping styles that attempt to control uncontrollable events as "Face and Act", "Positive expectation" and "Rumination", whereas CM increased "Avoidance", "Negative expectation" and "Self-blame" copings, which represent vulnerability to uncontrollable events. Moreover, Self-blame coping increased SED. These results suggested that CM was related, via Self-blame, to negative evaluation of imperfect self.


This study was designed to examine the composite scores that combine the individual components of the test battery using scale scores resulting from different raw-toscale score transformations under the multivariate proficiency distribution using IRT. The purpose was to evaluate the impact of the three conversion approaches of the linear, the normalizing, and the arcsine transformation on the composite scores obtained by using IRT with the consideration that correlations existed among the examinees' proficiencies. The effects of the transformation were explored via the special case of Kolen, Wang, and Lee's (2012) IRT modeling using empirical data. The five tests of the Basic Competence Test were employed, with a random sample of 5,000 examinees drawn from the data in 2008. The analyses included the summary statistics and frequency distributions of the composite scores, overall SEMs, reliability values and the CSEMs. The results showed that the different transformations led to diverse outcomes of the composite score attributes. Their descriptive statistics, frequency distributions as well as CSEMs were not the same among the various conversion procedures. Composite scores are often formed based on scale scores attained from different forms of conversion; the role of the transformation can be critical in influencing the test results of the examinees' composite scores. Assessing the effects of the score transformation through Kolen et al.'s modeling has helped to understand more about the characteristics of the composite scores under the multivariate environment via IRT.


Objective: To quantify the short-term clinical consequences of nonadherence to concomitant antihypertensive (AH) and lipid-lowering (LL) therapy among primary prevention patients with hypertension and multiple risk factors. Design and Methods: A microsimulation model was developed to compare cardiovascular event rates over 3 years under 3 treatment scenarios: no treatment, typical adherence, and ideal adherence. Population characteristics were modeled on the ASCOT-LLA study. The "no treatment" scenario represented a natural-history model, with CHD (non-fatal MI, angina pectoris, or CHD death) and stroke probabilities determined by Framingham Heart Study risk equations. "Ideal adherence" incorporated adherence levels and risk reduction from ASCOT-LLA. "Typical adherence" reflected time-dependent annual transitions among three adherence categories based on data from a U.S. Medicaid population: non-adherent (≤ 20% days covered), partially adherent (20 − 80%), or fully adherent (≥ 80%). This scenario assumed a linear association between adherence and risk reduction. Results: In the "no treatment" scenario, event rates per 1,000 patient-years were 15.1 and 8.1 for CHD and stroke, respectively. The typical adherence scenario yielded fewer CHD events (relative risk 0.68 [95% CI 0.63– 0.72]) and stroke events (0.68 [0.62– 0.74]). Full adherence to both treatments would yield greater reductions in CHD (0.40 [0.37– 0.43]) and stroke (0.51 [0.47– 0.57]). Increasing adherence from typical to ideal levels would prevent an incremental 1200 CHD events and 400 stroke events per 100,000 treated patients over a 3-year period. Conclusions: With typical AH and LL adherence, hypertensive primary prevention patients with multiple risk factors can be expected to receive approximately 57% of the potential protection from CHD and stroke events associated with full adherence.


The role of iron chelation therapy in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) remains controversial. Averting cardiac dysfunction in low-grade MDS patients who have sufficient longevity to experience deleterious cardiac effects of iron overload has been the major argument in favor of iron chelation. Although there is significant evidence showing the adverse impact of transfusion dependency on survival in MDS, direct evidence linking tissue iron overload to poor survival or in particular to cardiac dysfunction is lacking. Given the heterogeneity of MDS, it is likely that the pathophysiology of iron overload is equally heterogeneous and complex in these patients. In this article, I argue that prevention of cardiac dysfunction in patients with lower grades of MDS may not be the major benefit of iron chelation therapy, and present evidence suggesting a potential benefit of iron chelation on 3 other outcomes, namely (1) lowering infection risk, (2) improving the outcome of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and (3) delaying leukemic transformation. These outcomes have particular relevance for patients with higher grades of MDS and should be evaluated in future prospective clinical trials that include patients with all grades of MDS to fully evaluate the benefit of iron chelation therapy.


The Extend Kalman Filter based algorithm for simultaneous localization and mapping cannot satisfy the requirement of real time map updating because of the increasing number of landmarks and the heavy calculating cost while AUV working for long time endurance. The Compressed EKF based SLAM is introduced in this paper. And the method of map management and the local map switch strategy are addressed, which divide the AUV navigating area into several local sub-maps. The navigation error calculating based on landmarks in sub-map is completed in local area by using Extend Kalman filter, and the global map updating is done only when the condition satisfied the switch rule of the sub-map. Finally the CEKF-SLAM based navigating method is tested with the trial data, and by comparing with the dead reckoning navigating result, the test results show that the navigation error of CEKF-SLAM algorithm is less than that of dead reckoning algorithm, and on the same time, the former reduces the calculation cost for AUV navigation.


Abstract : The work of the two previous reports is reviewed and the last year's work is reported in detail. The latter involved the use of 'staircase wave cyclic voltammetry,' a technique designed to characterize the transport properties of an electrode material over a wide composition range. This technique was applied to the compounds Fex, Si, a glassy metal of composition (Fe95Si7)B15, and a newly found prospective negative plate material HgxLi. An analysis of composite electrodes - those containing an additional ionic conductor, e.g. a solid electrolyte, as the grain boundary phase of the charge storage material shows that the criteria initially applied to the selection of an electrode may be significantly relaxed. Experiments with the composite of lithium-aluminum alloy with the solid electrolyte polyethylene oxide-lithium trifluoromethane sulphonate have verified the analysis which can be applied to many more systems.


For over a decade the Hawaiian crow (Corvus hawaiiensis), or 'alalā, has been extinct in the wild, the only remaining birds living their lives in captivity. As the time for possible release approaches, questions of species identity – in particular focused on how birds have been changed by captivity – have become increasingly pressing. This article explores how identity is imagined and managed in this programme to produce 'authentic' crows. In particular, it asks what possibilities might be opened up by a move beyond relatively static notions of how these birds ought to be, towards more performative understandings of species identity. This shift in focus prompts us to ask how we might take up the task of learning to be part of these birds' own experiments in emergent forms of 'crow-ness', so that we might begin to craft vital new forms of 'polite' conservation in this era of incredible biodiversity loss.


Introduction: The family of a low birth weight baby faces new challenges on taking care of him after the hospital discharge, suffering a great impact when they get home, being in need of support to face the situation and to become adapted to the new reality in their lives. Objective: The aim of this study was to understand the support network and the type of support received by families in caring for low weight babies in the first six months after hospital discharge. Methodology: This is a longitudinal descriptive study of qualitative approach and it was developed together with six families living in Maringa, PR - Brazil. The data was collected from February to September 2008 through semi-structured interviews and non-systematic observation in four meetings: one week, one month, three and six months after hospital discharge. To analyze the information, the content analysis proposed by Bardin (1977) was used. The results showed that the support network is formed by family members, non-family members, professionals and institutions, highlighting the various forms of participation of parents and grandparents. However, the professional support at home is practically nonexistent. We conclude that the support to the families makes their daily lives easier, reduces the burden, brings security to them and provides welfare to all members. Implications for nursing practice: The results put in evidence the necessity of professional formation that favors the strengthening and instrumentalization of the future professionals for a more efficient performance along with the families that face the birth of a low birth weight baby. Deepening the researches related to family beliefs, especially on behavior, will allow professionals to redo the ways to narrow the gap in the continuity of care to family and low birth weight baby after the hospital discharge.


This study presents data to support the hypothesis that a major portion of the coding sequence of the amelogenin gene may have arisen by tandem duplication of internal sequences which as a consequence has introduced several additional potential RNA splice acceptor sites into the sequence. This duplication of splice sites has led to an increase in the heterogeneity of amelogenin forms found in developing enamel. By screening a rat enamel organ cDNA library for alternatively spliced products, it appears that as much as 20% of the amelogenin mRNA molecules may be alternatively spliced forms.


Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has a wide range of severity ranging from concussion to severe brain injury and death [1]. A wide body of literature has documented adverse outcomes in cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and physical functioning after TBI, as well as increased risk for poor family and social functioning [2–5]. TBI presents a major challenge to health care systems because of residual functional impairments along with difficulties with activities of daily living, education, community integration, and employment [6–8]. To date, few studies have investigated these issues using longitudinal and mixed method research designs. Studies from different countries are required to allow a better understanding of international differences, cultural aspects, and patients' needs for health care services and additional support [9, 10].

The aim of this special issue is to present international multidisciplinary research on long-term functional and psychosocial consequences of TBI in populations of adolescents, adults, and the elderly. More specifically, authors of this issue addressed methods for the development of assessment tools in TBI, neurophysiology of cognitive capacity, cognitive, executive, emotional, behavioral, and vocational functioning, and health-related quality of life after TBI. It is our goal that the articles published in this issue will contribute to a better understanding of the long-term consequences and health care needs after TBI.

The development of culturally meaningful assessment tools for the measurement of outcomes and needs in TBI has been limited, which may in part be due to a limited focus on cultural aspects of TBI in international classification systems. Researchers from New Zealand, H. Elder and P. Kersten, used Whakawhiti korero, an indigenous research method that emphasizes discussion and negotiation, in the development of a cultural needs assessment tool for Māori traumatic brain injury. This method may have wider applicability in other fields, such as mental health and addiction services, to ensure a robust process of outcome measurement and needs assessment.

Accurate assessment of level of awareness and cognitive capacity of patients in a state of disordered consciousness after severe TBI is of utmost importance for rendering a correct diagnosis and designing treatment plans. S. L. Hauger et al. from Norway employed electrophysiological approaches to assess residual cognitive capacity using two tasks that differed as a function of cognitive load and stimulus type in this unique patient population. The findings revealed that an active task performed by the patients was robust in probing for volitional cognitive capacity, indicating that this can be an important tool for providing diagnostic information for patients in a minimally conscious state.

Suffering a TBI during adolescence may not only cause TBI-related impairments but also disrupt the adolescent's process of development towards an independent life as an adult. Thus adolescent TBI brings with it special issues and as such a research focus on this age group is welcomed. K. Doser et al. from Denmark focus on adolescents with severe TBI in their study of psychological outcome and agreement between self-ratings and proxy-ratings by "significant others." Whilst a good degree of agreement was found between patients' and significant others' ratings regarding somatic problems, a lesser degree of agreement was found for nonovert problems such as withdrawal and attention, thought problems, and personal strength.

Moving into adult populations of moderate and severe TBI, T. G. Finnanger et al. evaluated a number of issues regarding executive, emotional, and behavioral problems 2–5 years after injury. This Norwegian neuropsychological study demonstrates significantly more attentional, emotional regulation and psychological difficulties in the TBI group compared to healthy controls. Age, education, traumatic axonal injury, and early depression were important predictors of later executive dysfunctions. This study gives new information to guide the clinical management of TBI survivors.

Most studies of severe TBI have focused on deficits in memory, processing speed, visual spatial abilities, and abstract reasoning. The impact on affective functions as well as awareness during the early stages after brain injury has not been studied to the same extent. A Swedish Icelandic study by M. Stenberg et al. assesses the clinical course of cognitive and emotional impairments in patients with severe TBI from 3 weeks to 1 year after injury and its associations with global and cognitive functioning outcomes at 1 year. Cognition seemed to improve over time and appeared to be rather stable from 3 months to 1 year. Results indicate that early screening of cognitive function could be of importance for rehabilitation planning in a clinical setting.

Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) has only recently gained momentum in the TBI field with novel assessments scales becoming available to be applied to this population. Related to this N. von Steinbuechel et al. from 10 different countries evaluated psychometric performance of a disease-specific QOLIBRI (Quality of Life after Brain Injury) instrument and a generic HRQoL instrument (SF-36) in a large sample of TBI survivors (N = 795). QOLIBRI was recommended as the preferable instrument to differentiate between individuals within a health state. QOLIBRI can be an important tool to detect individual recovery patterns after TBI (e.g., disability, depression) and prioritize therapeutic goals.

Few studies have examined sexual functioning in women with TBI, and studies are particularly lacking from regions such as Latin America where a lack of resources for patients with brain injury is well documented. In order to close some of the knowledge gap on this topic, J. Strizzi et al. administered standardized questionnaires which assessed various aspects of sexual functioning, desire, and satisfaction to a group of female TBI survivors and healthy controls from Colombia. Results indicated that nearly all aspects of sexuality are affected after moderate to severe TBI. Researchers also identified a number of unique predictors of poor sexual functioning, suggesting future research directions and rehabilitation interventions strategies.

Mortality and long-term outcomes are assumed to be worse in elderly compared with younger TBI patients. The assumed poor prognosis may influence the treatment strategies applied in older patients. C. Roe et al. evaluate the mortality and functional outcome in old (65–74 years) and very old (>75 years) patients with severe TBI and compare the observed mortality and outcome to the predicted outcome according to the CRASH (Corticosteroid Randomization After Significant Head Injury) models. Results indicated that the CRASH model overestimated mortality and unfavorable outcome in old and very old Norwegian patients with severe TBI. Using such a model in clinical practice may possibly bias treatment decisions in old patients.

In recognition of cultural aspects of TBI, J. Yu et al. reviewed the research and practice in rehabilitation services in Hong Kong. In their exploration of the TBI field they have focused on the Chinese cultural conception of work, stigma associated with TBI, and burden among families. This paper presents a review of 7 studies of rehabilitation trials for brain injured patients in Hong Kong. Existing research shows that rehabilitation services have generally satisfied most of the TBI patients' needs. J. Yu et al. find that future efforts must be diverted to improve vocational rehabilitation and to educate and inform caregivers on the patient's impairments.

In the aftermath of TBI, returning to work (RTW) may be highly desired but is a challenging process for many patients. E. Vikane et al. aimed to identify predictors of RTW 12 months after mild TBI for patients with persistent postconcussion symptoms (PCS) at 6 to 8 weeks of follow-up. Early functional outcomes (i.e., being on sick leave and having disability) together with psychological distress and sick leave during the last year before injury were predictors of RTW. Multidisciplinary outpatient treatment was negatively associated with RTW. Giving much attention to PCS symptoms rather than focusing on aspects concerning RTW may be one exploratory factor for the negative outcome. These findings should be taken into consideration when evaluating future vocational rehabilitation models.

Specific evaluation procedures and methods used by vocational rehabilitation providers have not been studied in depth, and in this special issue C. Dillahunt-Aspillaga et al. from the USA present the results of their online survey of professionals on this topic. The authors discuss their findings in the context of the complexities which individuals with TBI face after injury and argue for evidence-based frameworks of vocational evaluation to be adopted by rehabilitation educators, counselors, vocational evaluators, and other rehabilitation providers.

Many patients who have suffered a TBI require some form of help from caregivers, and it is often relatives who become caregivers. Rehabilitation programs that take caregivers' needs into account have the potential both to promote participation levels for patients and to minimize possible health consequences for the caregivers themselves. L. F. Stevens et al. consider this second aspect, reporting an exploratory study from the USA, of training for caregivers of military service members who have suffered TBI and polytrauma. They find an association between caregiver training and mental health outcomes for caregivers. As the authors suggest, this is an area ripe for future research.


Summary: Frequent unwanted side effects and development of tolerance are the main disadvantages of clonazepam (CZP) in long‐term treatment of epileptic patients. A review of the literature shows that CZP tolerance more often appears in severe forms of childhood epilepsy (West and Lennox‐Gastaut syndromes) than in other epileptic syndromes. We prospectively studied the consequences of CZP discontinuation in 40 consecutive children with difficult‐to‐treat epilepsies and multiple‐drug therapy. The CZP was reduced stepwise in a variable daily reduction rate (0.003‐0.16 mg/kg), while serum levels of the comedication were kept unchanged. In only three children (7.5%), CZP was believed to have had some antiepileptic effect; in 30 (75%) it had been ineffective, whereas in six (15%), a decrease in seizure frequency after CZP discontinuation even suggested a negative therapeutic effect. Discontinuation symptoms, mostly in the form of a transitory exacerbation of seizure frequency, occurred in 19 children (47.5%). These children had a significantly higher CZP dose and longer duration of treatment than did children without discontinuation symptoms, but there was no difference between the two groups related to the rate of CZP discontinuance.


Evolutionary mechanisms have shaped the genomic architecture of Colombian Creole cattle breeds. The mating and selection processes have impacted several traits, promoting differences within and between populations. Studies of population structure and selection signatures in Colombian Creole breeds are scarce, and need more attention to better understand genetic differentiation, gene flow, and genetic distance. This study aimed to analyze the population structure and identify selection imprints in the Criollo Caqueteño (CAQ) population. It used 127 CAQ animals genotyped with Chip HD 777,000 SNPs. The population structure analyses used discriminant principal component analysis (DAPC), integrated haplotype scoring (iHS), and index-fixing (Fst) methodologies to detect selection signals. We can highlight SNP regions on the genes TMPRSS15, PGAM2, and EGFR, identified by the Fst method. Additionally, the iHS regions for cluster 1 identified candidate genes on BTA 3 (CMPK1 and FOXD2), BTA 11 (RCAN1), and BTA 22 (ARPP21). In group 2, we can highlight the genes on BTA 4 (SLC13A4, BRAF), BTA 9 (ULBP), BTA 14 (CSMD3) and BTA 19 (KRTAP9-2). These candidate genes have been associated with fertility traits, precocity, growth, and environmental and disease resistance, indicating a genetic potential in CAQ animals. All this promotes a better understanding of the diversity and genetic structure in the CAQ population. Based on that, our study can significantly assist the sustainable development and conservation of the breed in the Colombian Amazon.


Garut sheep (GG) is one of some native sheep that had been well known to the people of West Java. This sheep have some advantages including their ability to produce multiple birth, reach sexual maturity faster and resistant to internal parasite. However, this sheep have also some disadvantages including low milk production, high mortality and low weaning weight. Crossbreeding is one way to improve animal genetic quality. The objective of this study is to evaluate whether the Garut, St.Croix cross (HG), and Moulton Charollais cross (MG) are superior in milk production when compared to Garut sheep. This study was conducted at small ruminant experimental station of Research Institute for Animal production from June to August 2002.  The superiority of the crossed sheep was determined by subtracting the average milk production of the crossed sheep (HG or MG) and Garut sheep and then divided the values by the average milk production of Garut sheep, except for the threeway crosses (MHG and HMG) is calculated from the difference in milk production between the means of threeway crossbred with the means of two parents (MG and HG). The data had been corrected by parity and type of birth.  The General Linear model of SAS was used to calculate the least square means. Average milk production from GG, MG, HG, MHG and HMG ewes in this study were respectivelly 53.41, 59.48, 55.89, 44.87 and 54.66 kg. The relative superiority for milk production of MG and HG were 11% and 5% over Garut sheep respectively and for the threeway crossbred MHG/HMG  was -14% over their parents (MG and HG). Key Words : Milk Production, St.Croix, Moulton Charollais , Garut, Crossing


Temporal gap detection was measured as a function of absolute signal bandwidth at a low-, a mid-, and a high-frequency region in six listeners with normal hearing sensitivity. Gap detection threshold decreased monotonically with increasing stimulus bandwidth at each of the three frequency regions. Given conditions of equivalent absolute bandwidth, gap detection thresholds were not significantly different for upper cutoff frequencies ranging from 600 to 4400 Hz. A second experiment investigated gap detection thresholds at two pressure-spectrum levels, conditions typically resulting in substantially different estimates of frequency selectivity. Estimates of frequency selectivity were collected at the two levels using a notched-noise masker technique. The gap threshold-signal bandwidth functions were almost identical at pressure-spectrum levels of 70 dB and 40 dB for the two subjects in experiment II, while estimates of frequency selectivity showed poorer frequency selectivity at the 70-dB level than at 40 dB. Data from both experiments indicated that gap detection in bandlimited noise was inversely related to signal bandwidth and that gap detection did not vary significantly with changes in signal frequency over the range of 600 to 4400 Hz. Over the range of frequencies investigated, the results indicated no clear relation between gap detection for noise stimuli and peripheral auditory filtering.


To persist in oligotrophic waters, reef-building corals rely on nutritional interactions with their intracellular symbionts: photosynthetic dinoflagellates of the genus Symbiodinium. This relationship is threatened by increasing environmental stress, which can stimulate loss of these symbionts from coral tissues ('coral bleaching'). Members of the genus Symbiodinium display high levels of genetic diversity, and demonstrate a corresponding diversity in physiological responses to environmental change. However, the true diversity and potential for genetic adaptation in this genus remain poorly characterised.  This thesis aimed to further the understanding of symbiont diversity and adaptive potential by conducting assessments of Symbiodinium at Atauro Island and the neighbouring Timor-Leste mainland. These sites have previously been shown to be of outstanding conservation value, with extremely high levels of coral diversity. Atauro Island also possibly hosts the highest diversity of reef fish in the world. However, the Symbiodinium communities at these sites have never been assessed. Two specific objectives were therefore addressed here. The first was to measure Symbiodinium diversity at Atauro Island (four sites) and Timor (three sites), using direct sequencing of three gene regions: cob gene, mitochondrion; ITS2 region, nucleus; and psbAncr region, chloroplast; in addition to Next Generation Sequencing of the ITS2 region. The second objective was to establish evidence for Symbiodinium hybridisation, a potentially rapid evolutionary mechanism that may facilitate adaptation to environmental stress, by looking for genetic incongruences between Symbiodinium organelles.  Coral symbionts of Timor-Leste were found to be similar to those from other coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific, with several host generalist and multiple host specific types observed. However, there were also several novel Symbiodinium types found (C15p, C15q, C1x, C1z). Despite their geographic proximity, there were strong differences observed between the symbiont communities of Atauro Island and mainland Timor. In particular, the coral genus Pocillopora hosted clade C symbionts exclusively at Atauro Island, while it hosted clade D exclusively at Timor sites. Other symbiont types also showed geographic partitioning, and diversity was 1.25 times higher at Atauro Island, a figure consistent for the cob and ITS2 regions. While Timor sites have comparable Symbiodinium diversity to other reefs globally, Atauro has noticeably elevated Symbiodinium diversity. Next Generation Sequencing affirmed these patterns, with Atauro Island sites having much more diverse cryptic populations of Symbiodinium, largely driven by symbionts in clade C. The exception was clade D symbionts, which were proportionally far more diverse at Timor, a pattern consistent in multiple coral genera.  There was strong evidence of genetic incongruence at two Atauro Island sites, with all testing procedures identifying genetic discordance between organellar and nuclear genomes, consistent with theoretical predictions of hybridisation. This study therefore presents strong evidence for Symbiodinium hybridisation, and its corroboration by multiple loci is significant. Putative hybrid Symbiodinium always had a common type as one of the possible parents, with a rarer symbiont as the other. For example, one putative hybrid had organellar genes of the common generalist Symbiodinium C40, while it was identified as the rare type C3z with the ITS2 region. Both of these Symbiodinium types were also found in congruent relationships, which strongly supports the possibility that they sexually reproduced to produce the incongruent putative hybrid.   Environmental stressors, such as increased temperature, turbidity and sedimentation, are suggested reasons for lowered Symbiodinium diversity at Timor, as they may impose a selection pressure on corals to only keep highly beneficial symbionts. This reduction in diversity likely limits the potential for adaptive change through methods like hybridisation, and highlights the need to assess and conserve symbiont diversity to the same extent as coral diversity.


In this paper, we investigate the problem of evaluating Basic Graph Patterns (BGP, for short, a subclass of SPARQL queries) over dynamic Linked Data graphs; i.e., Linked Data graphs that are continuously updated. We consider a setting where the updates are continuously received through a stream of messages and support both insertions and deletions of triples (updates are straightforwardly handled as a combination of deletions and insertions). In this context, we propose a set of in-memory algorithms minimizing the cached data for efficiently and continuously answering main subclasses of BGP queries. The queries are typically submitted into a system and continuously result the delta answers while the update messages are processed. Consolidating all the historical delta answers, the algorithms ensure that the answer of each query is constructed at any given time.


Over recent years, anti-TNFα have been used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The principal secondary effect of anti-TNFα is tuberculosis infections. Another paradoxical effect, previously less well understood, is the development of sarcoid-like granulomatous reactions. We report the case of a 36 year old woman who had been treated for 9 years with anti-TNF alpha. She developed a pulmonary sarcoid-like gra-nulomatosis, complication that is rare but not exceptional in patients treated with TNF-blockers. Discontinuation of anti TNF usually led to recovery. It has been suggested that these reactions mainly occur with etanercept, but this requires further confirmation.


The theorists vary in their conceptualizations of diaspora and cultural identity of immigrants. Broadly speaking, the theorizations of diaspora can be categorized into four different groups with their focus on diverse aspects of immigrants' lives. The first classical phase describes the forced migration of immigrants including victimhood diaspora of Jewish, Africans and Armenians. The second conceptualization incorporates historical, cultural and social diversities of people living in the diaspora. Critiquing the second phase, the third group of theorists deconstructs bipolar notions of the home and host country, and celebrates the inconsistencies, and fluidities of immigrants' identities in diasporic third space. In contrast, the fourth conceptualizations emphasizes on relevance of the origin and historical exploitation of people of poor countries. Both the historical experiences and present negotiations play decisive roles in the formation of cultural identity of immigrants. The present article briefly reviews different conceptualizations of the diaspora and cultural identity of immigrants.


The time of onset of survival of ciliate protozoa in the equine hindgut in new born foals was investigated. Daily faecal samples were collected from 6 new-born foals and studied under a microscope for examples of ciliates within the samples. The results of this study show that ciliates are first seen in faecal samples from the foal on day 5 post partum although these appeared to be voided and were assumed to be non-viable. However, by the following day the ciliates collected seen in the faecal samples appeared to be intact and were assumed to be viable. This observation is 5 days earlier than ciliates have previously been observed in faeces collected from the digestive tract of newborn foals.


A good production schedule in a semiconductor back-end facility is critical for the on time delivery of customer orders. However, the scheduling process is usually difficult due to the wide product mix, large number of parallel machines, product family-related setups, and high weekly demand consisting of thousands of lots. In this paper, we present a new mixed-integer-linear-programming (MILP) model for the batch production scheduling of a semiconductor back-end facility with serial production stages. Computational results are provided for finding optimal solutions to small problem instances. Due to the limitation on the solvable size of the MILP formulation, a deterministic scheduling system (DSS), including an optimizer and a scheduler, is proposed to provide suboptimal solutions in a reasonable time for large real-world problem instances. Small problem instances are randomly generated to compare the performances of the optimization model and the DSS. An experimental design is utilized to understand the behavior of the DSS under different production scenarios.


This study was to investigate the effect of high-fat diet on macrophage immunocompetence in C57BL/6 mice. C57BL/6 male mice (4 weeks aged, n=16) were divided into two groups. HD groups fed high-fat diet (45% of fat) and ND groups fed chow diet (10% of fat). Peritoneal macrophages were obtained from each mouse intra-peritoneal by sterile lavage method. Macrophage were stimulated with 1 μg/ml of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) for 24 hr. Body weight was significantly increased by high-fat diet. Macrophage phagocytosis of HD was significantly lower than that of ND. After 24 hr of LPS stimulation, NO, IL-1β and IFN-γ production of HD were significantly lower than those of ND. There were no significant differences in the production of TNF-α and IL-12 between HD and ND. These findings suggest that high fat diet-induced obesity is associated with decreased Immunocompetence and antigen-stimulated sensitivity of peritoneal macrophage, and lower production of NO, IL-1β and IFN-γ may contribute to these changes.


Georgia Inst. of Tech., Atlanta. School of Information Sciences. Spons Agency-National Science Foundation. Washington. D.C. Report No-GUIS -68 -04 Pub Date 68 Note -IS. MRS Price Mfg 1026 He-SO.85 Descriptors-*Clarlication, *Concept Formation. *Distinctive Features. *Documentation The purpose of this paper 6 to describe a method of finding the significant attributes of documents established during the course of research on the automatic classification of documents. The problem was first approached by examining the way in which an existing hierarchical classification system classifies things. The study of biological classification lead the research into the specific study of concept formation. At that point a method was devised of applying a set of rules for forming definitions concerning the problem of concept formation. It is first necessary to have a group or set of things that are members of the concept in order to obtain the essential attributes of the concept. Given a set of things. the attributes of the members may then be listed. From the attributes listed. the essential or significant attributes must be abstracted in order to describe the concept. author/RN9 U 001 696


Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) treatment of an adult female patient detained within a high secure hospital with complex mental health difficulties, including complex trauma, factitious disorder, self-injury and a history of offending. The EMDR treatment addressed the patient's urges to engage in severe and sometimes life-threatening self-injury, a primary motive of which was to access physical healthcare interventions within a general hospital. The paper describes the wide-ranging benefits of the treatment and incorporates feedback from the patient and clinicians within her multi-disciplinary team (MDT). Design/methodology/approach: Four triggers for self-injury were processed during the therapy using the DeTUR Protocol (Popky, 2005, 2009) and the Constant Installation of Present Orientation and Safety (CIPOS, Knipe, 2009a) Method: In total, 18 one-hour therapy sessions were delivered plus three follow-up sessions to continue to offer support and complete the post-treatment evaluation. Findings The level of urge for each trigger was reduced to 0 which the patient defined as no urge to self-injure. Benefits went well beyond self-injury with reported positive impacts on mood, thinking, sleep, concentration, memory and experience of flashbacks. Practical implications: This case report demonstrates that the EMDR DeTUR Protocol together with the CIPOS method can be extremely valuable in the treatment of patients who self-injure. Originality/value: The case report offers an important contribution to ANDREW M. LEEDS, PH.D.


An elevated risk of recessive conditions associated with the practice of consanguineous marriage may be relevant for some couples of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim origin, but counsellors need to avoid stigmatizing couples who are consanguineous and should focus instead on establishing risk and strategies for risk management. Patients' prior understandings of illness causality, inheritance and risk; their religious beliefs; their language use and aspects of their family structure may also influence their access to and use of genetic information in important ways. However, these factors are not static markers of 'ethnic' or 'cultural' difference but are subject to continual negotiation within and between families and their significance varies from case to case. Genetic counsellors need to be aware of the range of ideas that patients may bring to a genetics consultation, without presuming that any particular set of ideas will apply in any given case.

Key concepts

An effective counselling service for British Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim families should avoid giving undue negative emphasis to cousin marriages.

Genetic counsellors should be sensitive to the range of understandings of illness causality and inheritance that patients may bring to a genetics consultation.

A patient's gender, status and position in their family can influence their access to and interpretation of genetic risk information.

Genetic counsellors should avoid stereotyping Muslim patients and be sensitive to the range of personal and religious considerations involved in the use of medical technologies in pregnancy.

Access to services would be improved by employing appropriately trained bilingual genetic professionals and interpreters.

Keywords:

Bangladeshis;
first-cousin marriages;
genetic counselling;
inheritance, cross-cultural communication;
Pakistanis


Purpose of the study: To determine the tensile bond strength of three commercially available soft liners to a polymethyl methacrylate denture base resin, to help the clinicians to select the liner for their patients, and to provide a comparative database when new materials are introduced. Basic procedures: In this study, tensile bond test was considered a good method of investigating and comparing the bond strength of three resilient lining materials, because it gives information on the strength of the bond in comparison to the tensile strength of the material. Main findings: The tensile bond strength of SuperSoft (acrylic-based liner) was better compared to Molloplast B (silicone-based liner) and Mucopren (silicone-based liner). Principle conclusion: The tensile test used in this study was effective in evaluating and comparing the tensile bond strength of the three liners. Factors such as processing methods, water sorption, bonding agents, changes in compliance, changes in the bond strength in the harsh oral environment, and chemistry of the material need further investigations to increase the serviceable life of the material.


Vehicle communication system has a data processing speed and processing power limitations occur in the development of the IT technology. The Ethernet AVB is being considered as the next generation of communication. In this paper, Applying the Ethernet AVB technologies for multimedia systems looked out the possibility of vehicle applications.


Objective Depression is associated with a major disease burden, and many individuals suffer from depressive symptoms due to an insufficient response to ostensibly adequate antidepressant treatment. Therefore, it is important to identify reliable treatment response predictors for use in developing personalized treatment strategies. Methods The MAKE Biomarker discovery for Enhancing anTidepressant Treatment Effect and Response (MAKE BETTER) study was performed to identify predictors of antidepressant response using a 2-year naturalistic prospective design. Participants in the MAKE BETTER study were consecutively recruited from patients who visited the Psychiatry Department of Chonnam National University Hospital, Gwangju, South Korea for treatment of a depressive disorder. Data on demographic and clinical characteristics, genetic markers measured by whole-exome sequencing, and blood markers were obtained. The types and doses of antidepressants were determined based on the clinical judgment of the psychiatrist, and the treatment outcomes (e.g., depressive and other psychiatric symptoms and issues related to safety) were assessed. Results We will be able to use the data collected in this study to develop a treatment-response prediction index composed of biomarkers. Conclusion The MAKE BETTER study will provide an empirical basis for a personalized medicine approach to depression by enabling the prediction of antidepressant treatment response according the characteristics of each patient. It will thereby support evidencebased decision-making that decreases the use of a trial-and-error approach to the treatment of depressive disorders.


Higher capital ratios are believed to improve system-wide financial stability through three main channels: (i) higher loss-absorption capacity, (ii) lower moral hazard, (iii) stabilization of the financial cycle if capital ratios are increased during good times. We examine these mechanisms in a laboratory asset market experiment with indebted participants. We find support for the loss-absorption channel: higher capital ratios reduce the bankruptcy rate. However, we do not find support for the moral hazard channel. Higher capital ratios (insignificantly) increase asset price bubbles, an aggregate measure of excessive risk-taking. Additional evidence suggests that bankruptcy aversion explains this surprising result. Finally, the evidence supports the idea that higher capital ratios in good times stabilize the financial cycle. ∗We gratefully acknowledge research support from the Research Center SAFE, funded by the State of Hessen initiative for research LOEWE. †Goethe University Frankfurt and SAFE, email@example.com ‡Goethe University Frankfurt and SAFE, firstname.lastname@example.com


Inadequate diastolic closure of the aortic valve causes aortic regurgitation (AR). Diastolic regurgitation towards the left ventricle (LV) causes LV volume overload, resulting in eccentric LV remodelling. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is the first line examination in the work-up of AR. TTE allows quantification of left ventricular end-diastolic diameter and volume and left ventricular ejection fraction, which are key elements in the clinical decision making regarding the timing of valve surgery. The qualitative echocardiographic features contributing to the AR severity grading are discussed: fluttering of the anterior mitral valve leaflet, density and shape of the continuous wave Doppler signal of the AR jet, colour flow imaging of the AR jet width, and holodiastolic flow reversal in the descending thoracic aorta and abdominal aorta. Volumetric assessment of the AR is performed by measuring the velocity time integral of the left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) and transmitral valve (MV) plane, and diameters of LVOT and MV. We explain how the regurgitant fraction and effective regurgitant orifice area (EROA) can be calculated. Alternatively, the proximal isovelocity surface area can be used to determine the EROA. We overview the utility of pressure half time and vena contracta width to assess AR severity. Further, we discuss the role of transoesophageal echocardiography, echocardiography speckle tracking strain imaging, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography of the thoracic aorta in the work-up of AR. Finally, we overview the criteria for valve surgery in AR.

https://www.termedia.pl/Journal/-118/pdf-43682-10?filename=Comprehensive - Part II.pdf


Zwitterionic peptides are facile low-fouling compounds for environmental applications as they are biocompatible and fully biodegradable as their degradation products are just amino acids. Here, a set of histidine (H) and glutamic acid (E), as well as lysine (K) and glutamic acid (E) based peptide sequences with zwitterionic properties were synthesized. Both oligopeptides (KE)4K and (HE)4H were synthesized in d and l configurations to test their ability to resist the nonspecific adsorption of the proteins lysozyme and fibrinogen. The coatings were additionally tested against the attachment of the marine organisms Navicula perminuta and Cobetia marina as well as the freshwater bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens on the developed coatings. While the peptides containing lysine performed better in protein resistance assays and against freshwater bacteria, the sequences containing histidine were generally more resistant against marine organisms. The contribution of amino acid-intrinsic properties such as side chain pKa values and hydrophobicity, as well as external parameters such as pH and salinity of fresh water and seawater on the resistance of the coatings is discussed. In this way, a detailed picture emerges as to which zwitterionic sequences show advantages in future generations of biocompatible, sustainable, and nontoxic fouling release coatings.


Hirudin, the thrombin-specific inhibitor from the leech Hirudo medicinalis, is a single-chain polypeptide (65 amino-acid residues) linked by three disulfide bridges. Localization of the three disulfide bonds could be assigned on the basis of the structures of cystine peptides derived by high performance liquid chromatography separations of thermolysinolytic digest of native hirudin. By characterization of the nine major fragments by amino-acid analysis, N-terminal amino-acid determination and sequence analysis, the following disulfide linkages were identified: Cys6-Cys14, Cys16-Cys28 and Cys22-Cys39. Due to the lack of any closer sequence homology and topological structural homology to other serine proteinase inhibitor proteins, hirudin seems to be unique in its primary structure and hence designates an unknown inhibitor family.


To elucidate the relationship between prototropic tautomerism and the cold crystallization phenomenon, o-hydroxy aryl Schiff base compounds derived from three different toluidine isomers were examined. Comparing their thermal behavior, we confirmed that cold crystallization occurred to give a different crystalline phase compared to the initial state. To elucidate the mechanisms of the cold crystallization of the materials, their thermal, structural, and energetic properties were investigated. The DFT calculation of the molecules in their OH- and NH-forms suggested that the NH-form has higher molecular flexibility, which may prevent normal crystallization upon cooling, compared to the OH-form. Spectroscopic analyses implied that the molecules are present as a mixture of the OH- and NH-forms, and that they efficiently crystallize when a preferable OH/NH ratio is achieved. For this molecular system, we concluded that the equilibrium between NH- and OH-forms controls the supercooling of the liquid as well as ...