Familial congenital horizontal gaze paralysis is a rare disorder supposedly transmitted in an autosomal recessive fashion. Typically, all horizontal, conjugate eye movements are absent. Most patients are orthotropic with regular binocular function. The complete lack of horizontal eye movements is compensated for by turning the head in the desired direction. Another compensating mechanism is the use of convergent eye movements, when horizontal gaze is attempted. Eye movements in the vertical plane are only mildly affected. The majority of patients suffer from a scoliosis that manifests itself in early infancy and usually requires operative treatment. Maldevelopment of neurons of the abducens nuclei and the caudal longitudinal fascicle is said to be the cause. The possible outcome of the disease and the importance of a prompt diagnosis are discussed.


Recent adversarial attack research reveals the vulnerability of learning-based deep learning models (DNN) against well-designed perturbations. However, most existing attack methods have inherent limitations in image quality as they rely on a relatively loose noise budget, i.e., limit the perturbations by Lp-norm. Resulting that the perturbations generated by these methods can be easily detected by defense mechanisms and are easily perceptible to the human visual system (HVS). To circumvent the former problem, we propose a novel framework, called DualFlow, to craft adversarial examples by disturbing the image's latent representations with spatial transform techniques. In this way, we are able to fool classifiers with human imperceptible adversarial examples and step forward in exploring the existing DNN's fragility. For imperceptibility, we introduce the flow-based model and spatial transform strategy to ensure the calculated adversarial examples are perceptually distinguishable from the original clean images. Extensive experiments on three computer vision benchmark datasets (CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100 and ImageNet) indicate that our method can yield superior attack performance in most situations. Additionally, the visualization results and quantitative performance (in terms of six different metrics) show that the proposed method can generate more imperceptible adversarial examples than the existing imperceptible attack methods.


ABSTRACT Hopanoids are pentacyclic triterpenoids that are thought to be bacterial surrogates for eukaryotic sterols, such as cholesterol, acting to stabilize membranes and to regulate their fluidity and permeability. To date, very few studies have evaluated the role of hopanoids in bacterial physiology. The synthesis of hopanoids depends on the enzyme squalene-hopene cyclase (Shc), which converts the linear squalene into the basic hopene structure. Deletion of the 2 genes encoding Shc enzymes in Burkholderia cenocepacia K56-2, BCAM2831 and BCAS0167, resulted in a strain that was unable to produce hopanoids, as demonstrated by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. Complementation of the Δshc mutant with only BCAM2831 was sufficient to restore hopanoid production to wild-type levels, while introducing a copy of BCAS0167 alone into the Δshc mutant produced only very small amounts of the hopanoid peak. The Δshc mutant grew as well as the wild type in medium buffered to pH 7 and demonstrated no defect in its ability to survive and replicate within macrophages, despite transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealing defects in the organization of the cell envelope. The Δshc mutant displayed increased sensitivity to low pH, detergent, and various antibiotics, including polymyxin B and erythromycin. Loss of hopanoid production also resulted in severe defects in both swimming and swarming motility. This suggests that hopanoid production plays an important role in the physiology of B. cenocepacia.


Many current language models such as BERT utilize attention mechanisms to transform sequence representations. We ask whether we can influence BERT's attention with human reading patterns by using eye-tracking and brain imaging data. We fine-tune BERT for relation extraction with auxiliary attention supervision in which BERT's attention weights are supervised by cognitive data. Through a variety of metrics we find that this attention supervision can be used to increase similarity between model attention distributions over sequences and the cognitive data without significantly affecting classification performance while making unique errors from the baseline. In particular, models with cognitive attention supervision more often correctly classified samples misclassified by the baseline.


Hg1-xCdxTe (MCT) is the most important semiconductor for infrared detection. MCT films have been obtained by ISOVPE technique. Thin film growth is described by a nonlinear convective diffusive model. The evolution of the nonlinear diffusion problem with boundary values was numerically solved by means of discrete mathematics. Two finite differences methods (explicit and implicit iterative algorithms) were used. The obtained results were compared. The experimental results are compared with the predictions of the model , the discrepancies between them are discussed.


PURPOSE
Accurate measurement of alveolar bone and adjacent anatomic structures is of paramount importance in implant insertion. This study was conducted to compare the linear measurement accuracy of 64-channel computed tomography (CT) and cone-beam CT (CBCT).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Twenty-seven sites were marked on three dry human skulls, with the positions of the buccal and palatal fiducial markers ensuring the representation of one plane by each buccal-palatal pair. The skulls were imaged using Somatom Sensation 64-channel CT (Siemens) and Pro Max 3D CBCT (Planmeca). The two fiducial markers and alveolar bone height were measured on the printed films of the cross-sectional views representing the best buccal and palatal markers. The maxillae were then sawed in marked locations, and direct measurements of the fiducial markers and alveolar bone height were then made. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was employed for statistical analysis.

RESULTS
The measurement errors for the buccal fiducial markers, palatal fiducial markers, and crest height for CBCT were 0.38 +/- 0.39 mm, 0.37 +/- 0.33 mm, and 0.58 +/- 0.45mm, respectively; for the 64-channel CT they were 0.59 +/- 0.61 mm, 0.37 +/- 0.42 mm, and 0.72 +/- 0.92 mm, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in measurement error between the two methods (P > .05).

CONCLUSION
There was no statistically significant difference in terms of linear measurement accuracy between the two systems; it could, therefore, be concluded that CBCT is a useful tool for a preliminary assessment of anticipated implant sites.


Mitotic chromosome loss induced by methyl benzimidazole-2-yl-carbamate has been utilized as a rapid and simple method for assigning genes to individual chromosomes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This technique relied on the segregation of heterozygous markers in a diploid strain after methyl benzimidazole-2-yl-carbamate treatment due to loss of whole chromosomes. Correlations between the expression of an unmapped gene and that of a previously mapped recessive marker indicated chromosomal linkage. Depending on whether the unmapped gene and the marker were located in coupling or in repulsion, either positive or negative correlations were seen. The chromosomal location of several previously mapped genes were confirmed as a test of the method, and one previously unmapped gene, nib1, was mapped.


Protection of normal tissue from radiation-induced damage has been demonstrated in the murine lung and esophagus using human manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) plasmid/liposome complex (PL). C57BL/6J mice were injected intratracheally with MnSOD-PL, LacZ-PL, or metallothionein (MT2)-PL and irradiated 24 hours later at 2,000 cGy to the pulmonary cavity. Mice injected with MnSOD-PL had significantly increased survival compared with control, LacZ-PL, or MT2-PL irradiated mice. In an esophagitis model, male C3H/HeJ mice were injected intraesophageally with either MnSOD-PL or LacZ-PL and irradiated 24 hours later at 3,500 cGy to the pulmonary cavity. Mice injected with MnSOD-PL had significantly increased survival after irradiation at 3,500 cGy compared with control or LacZ-PL injected mice. However, orthotopic 3LL lung tumors in C57BL/6J mice were not protected from radiation following injection of MnSOD-PL, as seen by increased survival of mice with these tumors following irradiation. MnSOD-PL gene therapy protected normal lung and esophagus but not 3LL orthotopic lung tumors from radiation-induced damage.


We provide efficient parallel algorithms for the minimum separation, offset range, and optimal offset problems for single-layer channel routing. We consider all the variations of these problems that have linear-time sequential solutions rather than limiting attention to the "river-routing" context, where single-sided connections are disallowed. For the minimum separation problem, we obtain O(lg N) time on a CREW PRAM or O(lg N/lg lg N) time on a CRCW PRAM, both with optimal work (processor-time product) of O(N), where N is the number of terminals. For the offset range problem, we obtain the same time and processor bounds as long as only one side of the channel contains single-sided nets. For the optimal offset problem with single-sided nets on one side of the channel, we obtain time O(lg N lg lg N) on a CREW PRAM or O(lg N) time on a CRCW PRAM with O(N lg lg N) work. Not only does this improve on previous results for river routing, but we can obtain an even better time of O((lg lg N)2) on the CRCW PRAM in the river routing context.


The negative correlation between carbon isotope discrimination and water-use efficiency in C3 species, including alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), suggests that carbon isotope discrimination that might be useful in the selection of alfalfa cultivars that use water more efficiently. We initiated field experiments with alfalfa in northern Utah to determine genetic variation for carbon isotope discrimination within representative breeding populations, the effect of drought on carbon isotope discrimination, magnitudes of heritability for carbon isotope discimination, genetic regulation of carbon isotope discrimination, and how carbon isotope discrimination differs among plant parts. In an experiment conducted under a rainout shelter facility equipped with a line-source sprinkler system, genetic variability for carbon isotope discrimination was not detected in 15 clones each from the NC-83-1 germplasm and 'Spredor 2' cultivar. In another experiment with 25 clones from the NC-83-1 germplasm, there was significant (P < 0.01) genetic variation for carbon isotope discrimination with a range of 1.6 per thousand, and broad-sense heritabilities exceeded 0.80. In a field trial with 78 cultivars and elite breeding lines, significant genetic variation for carbon isotope discrimination was observed, although the range for carbon isotope discrimination was only 0.8 per thousand. We also detected significant genetic variation for carbon isotope discrimination in a diallel experiment with 196 crosses from 14 parent clones from NC-83-1. Furthermore, general combining ability was significant, but specific combining ability and reciprocal effects were not, indicating that standard breeding techniques could be used to alter carbon isotope discrimination response in alfalfa. Plant parts differed significantly for carbon isotope discrimination with stems having the lowest value (18.7 per thousand) followed by the entire shoot (19.0 per thousand), upper leaves (19.4 per thousand), and bottom leaves (20.2 per thouand). The lack of significant statistical interactions among plant parts suggested that any plant part could be sampled to determine carbon isotope discrimination. The results from these experiments indicated that promise exists for using carbon isotope discrimination to improve water-use efficiency in alfalfa; however, use of more diverse germplasm may be necessary to expand opportunities for selection in North American alfalfa germplasm.


This article aims to implementation of National Health Insurance in Kediri City that was not going smoothly and to know about advantages and disadvantages of the implementation of national health insurance (JKN) in Kediri City. The implementation of JKN was not going well, because participant did not know their first health service and they did not know about procedure of JKN. So every stakeholder like BPJS (Social Security Administrative Bodies), Health Departement, and Health facility must give information to participant about the regulation. The advantages are: the new rules are immediate to implement, Puskesmas has adequate facility, P-care program, Identity card can use to get treatment in Puskesmas. The disadvantages are priority, lack of information, system information, lack information between health facility, and the 40% of capitation fund.


Abstract In this paper we present an algorithm for 3D reconstruction of the beating left ventricule from echocardiographic image sequences. We especially stress on the automatic tracking process of the ventricular wall. Our algorithm is based on a combination of active shape modelling (snakes) and methods for computing the ventricular wall motion between two frames. We also investigate anisotropic diffusion filtering methods to improve the ventricule detection. Results are presented which prove the efficiency of our method.


Resource exploitation was measured for two spittlebugs using shelters on host plants. Approximately 80% of the older nymphs of Philaenus spumarius and Lepyronia quadrangularis lived cradled in leaf axils. Manipulative experiments showed that preference for leaf axils over adjacent internodes is related to shelter rather than food, and that spittlebugs favor wide over narrow axils. Preference for a host species was correlated with the quality of shelter provided by the host's axils. Leaves reduce runoff and evaporation of spittle, the frothy excrement that surrounds and protects the nymph. Sampling of old-field vegetation indicated that the two spittlebug species concentrated in shelters at different heights in the vegetation; the larger species (L. quadrangularis) extended beyond the vegetation height range of the smaller (P. spumarius), and overlap between the species was greatest on short plants ( 50 cm) than intermediate (25-50 cm) stems. Tall stems offer less available stem length because hard lower stem tissues make stylet penetration difficult. The supply of shelters far exceeded demand even after excluding axils made useless by narrow width, trichomes, tissue hardness, and distance from the occupied site. Despite the abundance of empty axils, individuals of the same or different spittlebug species often lived together in the same axil. Crowding did not delay development or stunt growth; in field samples, the instar and dry mass of nymphs were independent of density over the observed range in density among spittlemasses (1- 12 nymphs per spittlemass) and among stems ( 1- 17 nymphs per stem). In accord with recent reviewers who conclude that competition for food rarely occurs among insect herbivores, this study demonstrates that use of shelters is similarly characterized by high overlap, undersaturation, and absence of density- dependent effects on growth and development.


BACKGROUND
The effects of histamine H1 antagonist chlorcyclizine on rat palate development were characterized following in utero exposure.

METHODS
To identify the optimum dose for inducing cleft palate, pregnant rats were administered 30, 60, or 90 mg/kg chlorcyclizine on Gestation Days 11 to 14. Fetal palate gene expression was also assessed after 90 mg/kg chlorcyclizine at 8, 15 and 30 hours post-dose on Gestation Day 14 using microarray and qRT-PCR.

RESULTS
Rats in the 60- and 90-mg/kg groups exhibited adverse clinical signs and body weight loss. Rats in the 90-mg/kg group also demonstrated increases in late resorptions and decreases in fetal weight. Effects in the low-dose group were limited to decreases in body weight gain. Fetal assessment on Gestation Day 21 revealed that findings were limited to the 60- and 90-mg/kg groups, and included cleft palate (80% of litters for both groups), high arched palate, small nose, micrognathia, high domed head, digits shortened/absent and small limb. The fetal incidence of cleft palate was higher at 90 mg/kg, thus this dose was selected to assess palate gene expression. The altered genes associated with chlorcyclizine-induced cleft palate included Wnt5a, Bmp2, Bmp4, Fgf10, Fgfr2, Msx1, and Insig1 but the magnitude of the change was relatively small (1.5- to 2-fold).

CONCLUSIONS
Expression of several genes involved in palate, limb and digit development was altered in the fetal palate following in utero exposure to chlorcyclizine. The subtle perturbation and interplay of these genes may have profound effects on the dynamics of fetal palate development.


GLUT4 is the insulin-regulated glucose transporter found in muscle and adipose tissue. On insulin stimulation, GLUT4 translocates from a slowly recycling storage compartment (GLUT4 storage vesicles or GSVs) to the plasma membrane.
This allows glucose to enter cells by diffusion down its concentration gradient, clearing glucose from the plasma. This response is defective in the disease states of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. The aim of this study is to
understand how GLUT4 enters GSVs, which will hopefully extend our knowledge of insulin responsive tissues.
Previous studies from our lab, expressing GLUT4 in yeast, have shown that GLUT4 is subject to the same nitrogen- and ubiquitin-dependent trafficking as the yeast amino acid permease Gap1p. In my thesis I have extended these
studies into 3T3-L1 adipocytes, and shown that GLUT4 is ubiquitinated in this insulin responsive cell line. A ubiquitin resistant version of GLUT4 (HA-GLUT4
7K/R) has an impaired ability to enter GSVs and does not translocate in response to insulin. However GLUT4 mutants with single ubiquitination sites outwith the large intracellular loop are ubiquitinated and traffic in an identical manner to wild type GLUT4, addressing concerns that mutation of the large intracellular loop of GLUT4 in HA-GLUT4 7K/R affects its trafficking.
The GGA family of clathrin adaptor proteins have previously been implicated in sorting of newly synthesised GLUT4 into GSVs. Our lab has shown previously that the two yeast Ggas are required for ubiquitin dependent trafficking of GLUT4 in
yeast, as is the case for Gap1p. I have gone on to show that the ubiquitin binding function of the GGA3 GAT domain is, at least partially, required for an in vitro interaction between GLUT4 and the VHS-GAT domains of GGA3. When expressed in adipocytes, a ubiquitin binding deficient mutant of myc-GGA3 reduces the proportion of GLUT4 loaded into a subcellular fraction enriched in GSVs, suggesting that GLUT4 ubiquitination is one of the signals for GGA
dependent sorting into GSVs.
As ubiquitination is usually thought of as a signal to direct lysosomal degradation, and only 0.1 % of total GLUT4 is ubiquitinated at any one time, there may be a role for a deubiquitination step in ubiquitin dependent GLUT4
traffic. Work by our collaborator (Nai-Wen Chi, UCSD) has demonstrated that the GSV cargo IRAP and its binding partner tankyrase-1 are required for normal insulin responsive GLUT4 traffic. An interaction between tankyrase and the deubiquitinase (DUB) USP25 has been demonstrated by yeast two hybrid analysis, and this DUB contains a putative tankyrase binding motif. USP25 may therefore be recruited to GSVs by IRAP, with tankyrase acting as a scaffold. I
demonstrated that GST-USP25 binds tankyrase-1 from an adipocyte lysate, and that a version of the enzyme with a mutation in the putative tankyrase binding motif (GST-USP25 R1049A) does not. I also used siRNA to deplete USP25 from
3T3-L1 adipocytes, and found that this results in a reduction of GLUT4 levels in these cells. A concomitant reduction in the fold change of insulin-stimulated
glucose transport into these cells suggests that GLUT4 is not sequestered in GSVs, but is rather directed to the lysosome.
In summary, my data show that ubiquitination of GLUT4 is required for the transporter to be loaded into its insulin responsive compartment (GSVs). I also began to characterise the role of the ubiquitin binding GAT domain of GGA3 and
the deubiquitinase USP25 in GLUT4 traffic, opening up two further avenues for research into the insulin regulated trafficking of GLUT4.


This paper is part of a larger project that sets out to explore the utility of network concepts for political communications research. In recent years there have been efforts to develop the theoretical basis of political communications research using approaches from institutionalist sociology and Bourdieuan field theory (Cook 1998, Sparrow 1999, Benson and Neveu 2005). I would argue that a network approach offers advantages over these in its ability to link a sophisticated theoretical language to a rigorous methodological approach. The paper is organized in four sections. In the first I outline some of the challenges facing political communications research, in the second I explore the various elements of network analysis and how they differ from other 'network' approaches. The third section offers an example of how network analysis concepts can be used to investigate the way in which network structure shapes the news in Anglo-American liberal media systems and in Northern European media systems. I explore this question from a micro level, looking at the way network configuration shapes the exchange between journalists and their sources and then at a meso level using the Dutch case as an example of how the embedding of media organizations within a broader set of social relations can shape the news. This section demonstrates that network approaches can both account for standard research findings and generate new hypotheses. The final section of the paper introduces some additional implications of a network perspective for political communications research.


The aim of this paper is to analyze whether the worldwide financial crisis integrates the regional markets in Asia more strongly. Secondly, it is also to examine whether the integration of regional markets in Asia necessarily leads to a weak form of market efficiency. To examine this we have considered the different broad based and liquid stock indices such as the Sensex and BSE 100 from the Bombay Stock Exchange; the S&P CNX Nifty from the National Stock Exchange, representing India; the Hang Seng Index from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, representing China; the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLSE), Bursa Malaysia representing Malaysia; the Nikkei 225 from the Tokyo Stock Exchange representing Japan, and the Straits Times Index (STI) from the Singapore Exchange representing Singapore. The study considered the daily data spanning from 4th January 1994 to 2nd May 2012. The full sample period was split into three forms such as the whole sample, the Global financial crisis and the post global financial crisis. The short term interaction was studied by using Toda Yamamoto's procedure of Granger's Causality in VAR Block Exogenity form and the long run equilibrium relationship was tested by applying the Johansen Maximum Likelihood procedure. And so the paper explored the possible, integrating relationship at the volatility level among the regional stock indices by applying the ARCH school of models. Finally, the Random Walk Hypothesis was tested by employing the Chow-Denning (1993) and the Lo and Mackinlay (1988) multiple variance ratio test to examine the efficiency of the market. The major findings of the study indicated that the worldwide financial crisis integrates the regional markets in Asia more strongly in the short term from 2007 onwards. There is no long run equilibrium relationship among the regional stock markets. The study also found that the integration of the financial market does not necessarily contribute to market efficiency.


Speculation is the crucial idea behind this paper, which explores questions such as: What is the future of labor law? What will the next twenty-five years bring in the field of comparative labor law: Will the field whither or grow and why? If the latter, in what direction will it move? What questions will press to the fore and call for comparative scholarship and why? What would bring that call about? Assuming that what one says about the future reveals much more how one sees the present and the possibilities it holds than how the future will actually be, the paper presents a discussion, from a Brazilian perspective, about the changes in labor and its impact on labor law and the labor courts, respectively, in the first and second sections. In the third and last section, it tries to relate the previous parts to the comparative field, pointing out different questions that may set forth a good agenda for the field in the following years.


Large observatory for x-ray timing (LOFT) is a concept of a next-generation x-ray telescope considered in the context of the "Cosmic Vision" program of the European Space Agency. The Large Area Detector on board of LOFT will be a collimator-type telescope with an unprecedentedly large collecting area of about 10(5) cm(2) in the energy band between 2 and 100 keV. We demonstrate that LOFT will be a powerful dark matter detector, suitable for the search of the x-ray line emission expected from decays of light dark matter particles in galactic halos. We show that LOFT will have sensitivity for dark matter line search more than an order of magnitude higher than that of all existing x-ray telescopes. In this way, LOFT will be able to provide a new insight into the fundamental problem of the nature of dark matter.


Summary This paper reports that in the rat coadministration of calcium (calcium chloride, CAS 10043-52-4, Ca2+) enhances intestinal absorption and bioavailability of monofluorophosphate (sodium monofluorophosphate, CAS 10163-15-2, MFP). Evidence obtained with two different experimental models is presented indicating that the latter effects are indirect consequences of the inhibitory effect of Ca2+ on alkaline phosphatase. Pharmacokinetic experiments in previous studies showed that fluorine bound to plasma proteins is the variable that determines the bioavailability of MFP. The area under the curve of fluorine bound to plasma proteins in rats receiving MFP+Ca2+ was significantly greater than in controls In isolated duodenal loops in situ, Ca2+ increased the intestinal rate constant of MFP absorption and decreased the rate constant of MFP hydrolysis. Inhibition of hydrolysis increased the concentration of MFP at the intestinal lumen. This fact, however, is not only the cause of increased MFP absorption. Inhibition of alkaline phosphatase with L-phenylalanine, to the same extent as with Ca2+, increased MFP absorption with respect to controls but to a lower degree than with Ca2+. The rate constant of MFP hydrolysis by purified rat intestinal alkaline phosphatase was significantly inhibited by 50 mmol/l Ca 2+ in comparison to control levels. Ca2+ decreased significantly Vmax of the enzyme (p-nitrophenyl phosphate as substrate) and had no effect on Km value. Lineweaver-Burk plots suggested a noncompetitive inhibition mechanism.


A new advanced space- and time-resolved Brillouin light scattering technique is used to study diffraction of two-dimensional beams and pulses of dipolar spin waves excited by strip-line antennas in tangentially magnetized garnet films. The technique is an effective tool for investigations of two-dimensional spin wave propagation with high spatial and temporal resolution. Nonlinear effects such as stationary and nonstationary self-focusing are investigated in detail. It is shown that nonlinear diffraction of a stationary backward volume magnetostatic wave (BVMSW) beam, having a finite transverse aperture, leads to self-focusing of the beam at one spatial point. Diffraction of a finite-duration (nonstationary) BVMSW pulse leads to space–time self-focusing and formation of a strongly localized two-dimensional wave packet (spin wave bullet).


Aim . Study of biological properties in natural strains of genovariants of V. cholerae biovar El Tor, affecting their adaptation capacities under nutrient deficiency while comparing them with typical strains. Materials and methods . Competitive sampling was carried out through plating a mixture of cells of the two strains under investigation into autoclaved river water. Growth rate was evaluated through the optic density values. Gene expression was studied applying RT-PCR with designed primers and probes. Results . It is established that during combined cultivation of V. cholerae El Tor typical strains and genovariants under the shortage of nutrient substances (autoclaved river water), at room temperature, the level of survivability in genetically altered strains is higher than in typical strains, which points to their expressed adaptation advantages over the typical ones under the stated conditions. It is demonstrated that selective benefits of genovariant strains are provided by higher cell growth rate and increased rpoS gene expression. Conclusion . Obtained have been new data on the ability of bacterial strains of V. cholerae El Tor genovariants to rapidly grow and better express global regulator of stress response, rpoS gene, which, probably, contributes to their enhanced adaptation not only under nutrient deficiency, but under the influence of other stress factors too.


Terbium-activated YAl3(BO3)4 (YAl3(BO3)4:Tb3+) phosphors were synthesized by both combustion method and solid-state reaction. It was found that the pure-phase YAl3(BO3)4 phosphors synthesized by combustion method were obtained at 1000°C, which was 200°C lower than that by solid-state reaction. The average particle size of the combustion-derived phosphors increased with increasing temperatures. The luminescence characteristics in ultraviolet (UV) — vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) ranges for the YAl3(BO3)4:Tb3+ phosphors were investigated. The bands from 175 nm to 300 nm were attributed to the 4f8-4f75d1 transitions of Tb3+. The other strong bands in the region from 125 nm to 175 nm were assigned to host absorption. The emission spectra showed the strongest emission at 542 nm corresponding to the 5D4→7F5 transition of Tb3+. Moreover, the combustion-derived YAl3(BO3)4:Tb3+ phosphors generated more intense luminescence than the solid-state-derived phosphors under UV excitation.


Recent research developments have suggested that microwave assisted comminution could provide a step change in ore processing. This is based on the fact that microwave-absorbent phases within a multi-mineral ore can be selectively heated by microwave energy hence inducing internal stresses that create fracture.

A detailed review of existing literature revealed that little or no information is available which relates and examines the influence of hydrated minerals on microwave assisted fracture despite the fact that most important ores are associated with phyllosilicates, the vast majority of which are hydrated. A study was carried out on two Kimberlite diamond ores containing various types of hydrated minerals but devoid of any semiconducting minerals which are known to be good microwave heaters. The results confirmed that dehydration of minerals containing interlayer adsorbed water induces significant micro and macro fractures after microwave treatment.

The significance of microwave induced fracture on beneficiation was investigated by conducting liberation and flotation tests on two porphyry copper ores. It was demonstrated that microwave pre-treatment improves beneficiation at sizes suitable for flotation and that higher improvements in degree of liberation are attained in coarser particle sizes between 212 and 425 µm. Flotation tests demonstrated a potential for real economic benefits in terms of value proposition. An increase of 8-10% in copper sulphides recovery from coarse sized particles (-400+200 µm) and an overall increase in grade/recovery of between 1-2% was obtained. The results also showed that microwave pre-treatment enhances selective mineral recovery as the grade-recovery of iron sulphides decreased in all but one microwave treated samples.

The major drawback to further developments towards industrial scale application was found to be the lack of an effective continuous processing microwave applicator. Any future applicator designs must be able to ensure localised hot spots and confinement of all the microwave energy.


Hands are the primary mode for the spread of microbes. For infection control, the first-line of defense as well as personal hygiene, are mandatory. Hand sanitizers that contain ethanol as the main constituent are used to kill a broad range of microbes. Demand for petroleum-derived ethanol is increasing with the COVID-19 outbreak and primary suppliers are searching for alternatives to overcome this problem. Objective of this study is to produce bioethanol from ripen papaw peel waste using Saccharomyces cerevisiae and to determine the potential utilization of bioethanol generated from papaw peel waste for a pilot study of which the end aim is hand sanitizer production. The blended ripened papaw (Carica papaya) fruit peel (100g/L) was inoculated with the S. cerevisiae (2g/L) in a fermentation medium that contains 10 g/L yeast extract, 10 g/L KH2PO4, 2 g/L (NH4)2SO4 and 0.5 g/L MgSO4•7H2O and allowed to ferment for 6-36 hours at room temperature. The bioethanol yield obtained after 12 hours, was 0.6% (V/V). The fermentation conditions were optimized by changing one factor at a time, while keeping the other variables constant. Significantly higher bioethanol yield (6.2 times, 3.7% V/V [p<0.05]) was obtained from papaya peels at the optimized conditions of 12 hours of incubation period, 5:1 ratio between air space and fermentation solution, 5g/L of yeast inoculum, 15g/100ml of papaw fruit peel, 1g/100ml of soybean powder as nitrogen source, 60ml/100ml of diluted sulfuric acid at pH 5. When the agar well diffusion assay was performed against pathogenic bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus spp. and Pseudomonas spp, all the bacterial strains showed an inhibition zone, i.e., they were sensitive for the bioethanol extract.


HUMANS ARE NOW MAKING UNprecedented changes to the global environment. Economic development has been fostered by the use of fossil fuels but the accompanying accumulation of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide and methane, has implications for the world's climate (BOX). Since the 1850s when temperature records began, the world has warmed by approximately 0.6°C, largely in the last 3 decades. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects an increase of between 1.8°C and 5.8°C and an increase in sea levels between 9 and 88 cm during the next century. Warming is likely to be greater at the poles than at the equator. The residence time in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide exceeds 100 years; therefore, our actions affect the prospects of future generations. The IPCC concluded, "There is now good evidence that regional changes in climate, particularly increases in temperature, have already affected a diverse set of physical and biological systems in many parts of the world." Earlier break-up of ice on rivers and lakes and movements of plant and animal ranges to higher altitudes are some examples. There is also potential for large-scale and potentially irreversible changes in Earth systems, such as slowing of the ocean circulation that transports warm water to the North Atlantic, large-scale melting of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, and accelerated global warming because of the positive feedbacks of the carbon cycle (eg, methane released from thawing arctic tundra). The probability of these events may be very low but is likely to be affected by the speed and duration of climate change. The potential pathways by which climate change may affect health are shown in the FIGURE.


This work aims to analyze the features related to bather safety at Pontal do Parana – PR. The study is concentrated on environmental risks, on bather behavior and spatial distribution of bather rescue. A GIS was structured with information about beaches infrastructure, the permanent and temporary risks, bather's density in each beach, the safeguards houses and rescue statistics. Generally Pontal do Parana bathers are neglect with their security. Only 54% of them to bath in patrolled places, 74% don't ask for the lifeguard's information about the sea condition and 17% don't observe the sea condition before bather. About the bather capability of swimming was found that 50% of the bathers don't know to swim. Despite this, 44% of the bathers go to the sea with the water at level of their thorax or above. This finding may help explain the large amount of rescue. The most part of bathers ignore the environmental risks of sea bathing like: surf zone currents; tides which continually change water depth and current velocities; wind-driven currents, and rip currents. So the hazards during sea bathing happen by an equivocated perception of the beach environment. The GIS show be useful to understand the relationship among the behavior of the bather on the beach, the physics parameters that drive the beach morphodynamic and the available lifeguards patrolling infrastructure.


Gaussian processes (GPs) are well-known tools for modeling dependent data with applications in spatial statistics, time series analysis, or econometrics. In this article, we present the R package varycoef that implements estimation, prediction, and variable selection of linear models with spatially varying coefficients (SVC) defined by GPs, so called GP-based SVC models. Such models offer a high degree of flexibility while being relatively easy to interpret. Using varycoef, we show versatile applications of (spatially) varying coefficient models on spatial and time series data. This includes model and coefficient estimation with predictions and variable selection. The package uses state-of-the-art computational statistics techniques like parallelization, model-based optimization, and covariance tapering. This allows the user to work with (S)VC models in a computationally efficient manner, i.e., model estimation on large data sets is possible in a feasible amount of time.


Abstract. Many independent observations have shown that resonant field line Pc5 pulsations (typical periods of about several minutes) are preferably excited inside the auroral oval. Consideration of the most evident interpretation schemes shows that there is no simple explanation of this effect. Here we consider theoretically the generation of toroidal Pc5 Alfven waves by fluctuating magnetospheric field-aligned currents. It is shown that the Alfven wave latitudinal structure has the same features as in the case of the classical field line resonance driven by external sources: a peak localized in latitude and a 180° phase shift across the resonant magnetic shell. This model suggests an additional mechanism of ultra-low-frequency (ULF) wave excitation which can operate at auroral latitudes.


The effects of formate on the Hill reaction in isolated broken pea chloroplasts were investigated. Addition of formate to chloroplasts has two distinct effects: I. basal electron flow can be stimulated 3-fold; 2. uncoupled electron flow is inhibited. The stimulating effect is due to uncoupling by formate and appears instantaneous. Maximal inhibition by form ate is only observed after prolonged illumination. The inhibitory action of form ate on electron flow can be relieved by bicarbonate *.


An optical technique is proposed for measuring the principal axis angle, retardance, and rotation angle of optical samples in this study. A rotating-wave-plate Stokes polarimeter is used to extract the 2 × 2 central elements of the Mueller matrix of the sample via two probe lights linearly polarized at angles of 0 and 45 degrees, respectively. The validity of the method is demonstrated using a half-wave plate positioned in series with a quarter-wave plate, the measured values of the principal axis angle and retardance of the quarter-wave plate are found to have average normalized errors of 0.56 % and 1.16 % respectively, while the measured rotation angle of the half-wave plate has an error of just 0.39 %. When analyzing glucose solutions with concentrations ranging from 0 to 1.2 g/dl positioned in front of a half-wave plate, the average normalized errors in the principal axis angle and retardance measurements of the half-wave plate are 0.69 % and 2.65 % respectively, while the error in the rotation angle measurement of the glucose solutions is 2.13 %. Overall, the uncertainty analysis for the rotation angle measurement is simulated and experimental results demonstrate the ability of the proposed system to accurately measure the linear and circular birefringence.


Background: The fatty acid composition of human colostrum lipids is influenced by maternal diet. We measured the fatty acid composition of colostrum lipids in Slovenia. Methods: Milk samples were collected on the 3rd day postpartum from 41 women recruited in three Slovenian regions (Celje, Ljubljana and Koper). Dietary habits were examined by a food-frequency questionnaire. In situ transesterification and capillary gas chromatography were performed to determine the fatty acid composition. Results: The coefficients of variation of the determinations of individual fatty acids accounting for >0.09 wt% were 1.87–5.91%. Between regional areas there were differences in the contents of linoleic (12.62–17.35 wt%; p < 0.001) and α-linolenic acid (0.70–1.07 wt%; p < 0.01), whereas the linoleic/α-linolenic acid ratios were similar (15.8 in Celje, 16.3 in Ljubljana and 17.9 in Koper). The highest proportion of docosahexaenoic acid (C22:6n–3) was in Celje (0.49 wt%), the lowest in Ljubljana (0.35 wt%; p < 0.05). The long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LCP) content did not correlate with linoleic and α-linolenic acid, but there was a correlation between the sum of n–3 and n–6 LCPs. The colostrum linoleic/α-linolenic acid ratio was positively correlated with the body mass index during pregnancy. Conclusions: The fatty acid composition of colostrum lipids in Slovenia shows some variation according to geographical regions.


Pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma (PHEO-PGL) and cyanotic congenital heart disease (CCHD) are both rare diseases. We reported a 30-year-old patient with a right adrenal gland nodule and a retroperitoneal mass and history of functional single atrium and ventricle. 123I-metaiodobenzylguanidine scintigraphy showed intense uptake in both lesions. Laboratory investigation demonstrated elevated urinary norepinephrine. Preoperative α-blockade was initiated. A successful open resection of right adrenal and retroperitoneal masses was performed. Pathological examination confirmed PHEO-PGL. Postoperative urinary norepinephrine returned to normal level. A systematic case review in English publications in PubMed and EMBASE suggested a hypothesis that there may exist a possible link between PHEO-PGL and hypoxia from CCHD, which was also indicated in our case. Due to higher risk for PHEO-PGL, a lower threshold of suspicion should be considered in CCHD patients. Therefore, active screening and early treatment of PHEO-PGL are recommended in CCHD patients and clinicians should keep on a long-term follow-up to monitor PHEO-PGL recurrence if hypoxia is not corrected.


Solving transportation problems is one of the chief tasks confronting governments in developing countries. Despite large expenditures on urban transport systems, ranging from 15 to 25 percent of their total animal expenditures, the current problems have not eased; on the contrary they seem to get worse. Devel~ oping countries, therefore, have a major crisis on their hands. The scale and nature of the mobility problem in the Third World and the role of nonmotorized and intermediate-type motorized modes in meeting the mobility needs of the growing population are discussed. Background on the transportation situation in developing countries is provided. The prevailing transport policies are examined, and the basic characteristics of nonmotorized and intermediate-type motorized transportation with respect to speeddistance-time relationships are described. City.size and city form vis-a-vis nonmotorized transport are examined. What constitutes a good environment for nonmotorized and intermediate motorized modes is discussed, and transport projects that would benefit the poor are described.


The present paper aimed the synthesis of a functional biopolymer based on chitosan-graft-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (CS-g-PNIPAAm) using the "grafting from" technique via reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. Two different chain transfer agents, both compatible with the acrylic monomer were used. All intermediary products obtained from each step of chemical synthesis were quantified by ATR-FT-IR, 1 H-NMR and elemental analysis. Thermal properties confirmed that, with the chemical modification, chitosan structures became more complex and more thermally stable. The grafting efficiency was quantified as 40% and the final copolymer had double functionality, free amino groups and PNIPAAm segments on the side chains. Thanks to this, water solubility, pH and temperature sensitivity were achieved. The particle size of the aqueous solutions increased from 500 nm to 3.5 μm, with the increase of temperature from 25 to 50 °C. The lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of the solution was determined as 38-42 °C. CS-g-PNIPAAm could be used as a polymeric carrier within a pharmaceutical formulation for topical applications.


Physical activity is a leading determinant of health and well-being in older adults; however, participation is low. Social support can significantly influence physical activity uptake and maintenance; however, most research is cross-sectional and does not differentiate among types of support. The current study assessed four types of social support for physical activity reported over 9 years by adults aged 60-65 at baseline (n = 1,984). Data were collected using a mail survey at four time points. Data were analyzed using linear mixed models. The most common type of support was emotional, with 25% of participants reporting this often/very often. Total support for activity declined by 16% across the 9 years (p < .001). Companionship had the greatest decline among types (17%-18%, p < .001). More work is needed to understand the factors contributing to the decline in support and how to enable access to support for physical activity in older adults.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the relationship between hospital patients' quality of care ratings and their experiences with health-related information exchanges and communication during hospitalization.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional multivariate dimensional analysis of data from a quality of care experience questionnaire of hospital patients comparing scores across three levels of reported satisfaction.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS
Five thousand nine hundred and fifty-two patients from a Swiss University Hospital responded to the questionnaire at discharge during 2010.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Survey questions measuring patients' evaluation of quality of care, patient loyalty and overall satisfaction.

RESULTS
Different levels of reported satisfaction are associated with differing experiences of health-related information and communication during a hospital stay.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients who report lower satisfaction appear to attribute to the hospital staff enduring negative dispositions from behaviours that may be due to specific situational contexts. Negative experiences appear to influence scores on most other communication and information domains. Patients who report higher satisfaction, in contrast, appear to differentiate negative experiences and positive experiences and they appear to relativize and compartmentalize negative experiences associated with their hospital stay.


Electricity crisis that occurred encourages the implementation of renewable energy in a way to occupy the electricity supply needs. Implementation of the MHP(Micro Hydro Powerplant) is the best alternative to escape the electricity crisis. Given the potential of hydropower spread almost throughout Indonesia, the power is estimated at 75000 MW, 500 MW which is the potential for micro hydro power plant (MHP). Unfortunately, the potential of  micro hydro is only 500 MW, is used only 4% of its course is 20 MW. Another problem is how to build a micro-hydro power plants in areas with limited water supply source. At this research project a micro hydro power plant has designed using cross-flow turbines that can be installed acording to the conditions above, as the efforts of using renewable energy to occupy the electricity supply needs. The design of the turbine is later evaluated to obtain optimal value of the calculation. Cross-flow turbines are designed at 13 m and the discharge head is 0.03 m 3 / s. According to the design the maximum speed is 412.63 rpm, the maximum speed is expected to be produced not far adrift from the design. Maximum power turbine which is expected to reach the amount of 1 kW with an efficiency of 80%.


Fifty emergency laparotomies were performed over a period of 5 years for rupture of the gravid uterus at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto, Nigeria. The associated morbidity and mortality rates were very high. Contributory factors were lack of antenatal care, high parity, late presentation, inadequate resuscitation, delayed surgery and poor perioperative monitoring and anaesthetic management. More widespread and efficient antenatal care and better referral centre services will improve patient outcome.


Introduction Every evening, the Al Jazeera satellite channel features a one-hour, comprehensive newscast of world events. Superimposed in the corner of the television screen is a box containing a sign language interpreter who translates the spoken Arabic of the newscaster. The interpreter is one of a team of Jordanian Sign Language (LIU) interpreters who regularly interpret the newscast. However, the sign language they use is not strictly LIU. Heavily influenced by LIU, it is a newly devised sign language which uses vocabulary drawn from different Arab sign languages, including Egyptian Sign Language and Saudi Sign Language. The vocabulary was compiled in a dictionary by the Council of Arab Ministers of Social Affairs (CAMSA), a committee within the League of Arab States (LAS). The effort by CAMSA to encourage a standard pan-Arab Sign Language (ArSL) has been met with wide resistance, in large part because deaf viewers say they cannot understand the language. In this paper, we describe the geography of sign languages in Arab countries. As we explain, there already exists a number of sign languages used by Arab deaf communities. Some are designated as nation-state sign languages and are used in the instruction of deaf students in their educational systems. The adoption of ArSL by Arab countries potentially threatens the future of these nation-state sign languages as well as an unknown number of smaller sign languages existing within this region.


The new guidelines on hearing loss from the Dutch College of General Practitioners are well stated and supported by clearly described evidence. Rightfully so, new screening methods for detecting hearing loss in young infants are included in the guidelines. However, these new techniques may generate many false-positive test results, notably in children with a low risk ofhearing impairment. The general practitioner should inform parents about these adverse effects of screening. Another important role for the general practitioner is in the detection of relevant hearing loss in the elderly, especially in those who show signs of depression and cognitive impairment.


CAS 105-60-2 1. Summary The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) is required to develop guidelines for conducting health risk assessments under the Air Toxics Hot Spots Program (Health and Safety Code Section 44360 (b) (2)). OEHHA developed a Technical Support Document (TSD) in response to this statutory requirement that describes acute, 8-hour and chronic RELs and was adopted in December 2008. The TSD presents methodology reflecting the latest scientific knowledge and techniques, and in particular explicitly includes consideration of possible differential effects on the health of infants, children and other sensitive subpopulations, in accordance with the mandate of the Children's Environmental Health Protection Act (Senate Bill 25, Escutia, chapter 731, statutes of 1999, Health and Safety Code Sections 39669.5 et seq.). These guidelines have been used to develop the following RELs for caprolactam: this document will be added to Appendix D of the TSD. Exposure to caprolactam has been found to cause upper respiratory and eye irritation in both animals and humans. Exposure causes inflammation of the nasal and laryngeal epithelium in exposed rodents. The site-of-contact nature of the lesion to the most sensitive cells lining the upper respiratory tract indicates that caprolactam is primarily a direct-acting irritant, rather than a chemical requiring metabolic activation in nasal mucosa to cause tissue injury. Although there is no evidence for reproductive or developmental effects at levels that produce sensory irritation, considerably higher doses administered orally to pregnant rats have resulted in reduced weight of offspring. Literature summarized and referenced in this document covers the relevant published literature for caprolactam through Fall 2010.


We prove that the homology of the mapping class group of any 3-manifold stabilizes under connected sum and boundary connected sum with an arbitrary 3-manifold when both manifolds are compact and orientable. The stabilization also holds for the quotient group by twists along spheres and disks, and includes as particular cases homological stability for symmetric automorphisms of free groups, automorphisms of certain free products, and handlebody mapping class groups. Our methods also apply to manifolds of other dimensions in the case of stabilization by punctures.


Across a range of manufacturing contexts, automated quality control has been gaining significantattention because it offers competitive advantages such as cost reduction, high accuracy in defect detection, and system stability over time. Although computer vision has historically been the most commonly applied method in this context, novel approaches such as deep learning have recently become more frequent and are used in cases where traditional methods cannot be applied. Because of the surface texture and curvature of many metallic parts, detection of defects such as scratches, cracks, and dents can be challenging for traditional computer vision methods. In this study, an image acquisition system supported by a special lighting device that provides processable images from an extremely reflective cylindrical metallic surface has been developed. Multiple images obtained from a single lateral line of the surface, which is rotated at a specified speed, are combined using photometric stereo and given as input to a convolutional neural network that is employed to classify defective and non-defective samples. The results obtained from this method are close to 98.5% accurate.


Out of a total of 159 cases involving operations on the knee joint, we have operated in thirty-eight cases in which there was injury to the cartilage of the patella. Of these thirty-eight cases, the results in twelve (32 per cent.) may be classified as being exceptionally good; in seventeen (45 per cent.), as good; in seven (18 per cent.), as fair or satisfactory; while in two (5 per cent.), treatment has not been completed.

The best results are obtained from partial resection of the cartilage. The period of treatment, with the resultant inability to work, is reduced to one or two months if functional after-care is maintained. Full functional restoration, with disappearance of the symptoms, is attained in this time. Total resection of the cartilage, followed by plastic covering over with fascia, noticeably protracts the period of healing from two to five months, but it likewise gives good functional results. The type of operation to be preferred is determined by the nature and the extent of the anatomical changes.


It has been well established by recording, inactivation, and neuroanatomical studies that the caudate nucleus is important for the control of saccadic eye movements. However, until now, there has been little evidence that the caudate nucleus plays a role in smooth pursuit eye movements. In the present study, we physiologically identified the smooth pursuit subregion of the frontal eye field (FEFsem) and the saccadic subregion of the frontal eye field (FEFsac) in four Cebus monkeys. Anterogradely transported tracers (biotinylated dextran amines and wheat germ aglutinin conjugated to horseradish peroxidase) were then used to determine the efferent connections of the FEFsem to the caudate nucleus and to compare those connections with projections arising in the FEFsac. We observed dense projections from the FEFsem to the head and body of the caudate. The FEFsem and FEFsac terminal fields were of approximately equal density and total area. The region of FEFsem-labeled axon terminals overlapped only slightly with the region of FEFsac-labeled terminals. These results suggest that the caudate nucleus may play an important role in the control of smooth pursuit eye movements via feedback loops involving the basal ganglia and thalamus. Our results further suggest that the basal ganglia circuitry concerned with controlling visual pursuit is physically segregated from that concerned with controlling saccadic eye movements.


This paper considers a conditional decode-and-forward (DF) based cooperative system where a source (S) with multiple (M) antennas transmits information to a single-antenna destination (D) with the help of multiple (L ≤ M - 1) single-antenna relays ({Ri}). The optimal transmit weighting vector at the source is not available in the literature due to the non-linear conditional DF operation, which renders the problem non-convex. To solve this problem, we first show that the optimal transmit vector for the single-relay system can be determined by comparing the S-D beamformer (maximum-ratio-transmit beamforming vector for the S-D link) with the one that utilizes "just sufficient" energy to activate the relay-link. However, it is difficult to directly apply the above idea to the multi-relay system, due to the fact that the S-R and S-D links are normally not orthogonal. To tackle this issue, we propose to utilize basis functions that are orthogonal to the S-D and S-R links, respectively, which enables the activating of one S-R link without considering the S-D link and the other S-R links. We then apply the new basis functions to the multi-relay system and propose a selective relay-activation algorithm, where the optimal solution is obtained by comparing the S-D beamformer with schemes that selectively activate different combinations of the relay-links. The selective relay-activation algorithm is different from the conventional water-filling in the sense that the energy is filled to discrete levels to activate the S-R links, a unique feature arising from the conditional DF operation.


Attaining a competitive advantage through strategic communication is an object of researchers and organizations.In this context, the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) stands out by assisting in strategy implementation, evaluatingfinancial and non-financial aspects. This study aimed to build a BSC for a real estate organization inFlorianopolis, through a participative process, observing that the BSC assists in the optimization of strategicplanning. This research is characterized as descriptive, and adopts two inquiry techniques: (a) bibliographyresearch, in which it rescues concepts related to the subject (perspectives, strategic maps and performancepanel); and (b) the Delphi technique, adopted in communicating the BSC, which consists of a participativeprocess, where the objectives are repeated on each round, so that the participants re-value their answers andjustify them. As a result, the strategic map and performance panel were built, contemplating the elements ofthe mission translation, making possible a more effective structure and language in the mission and strategycommunication.


The motion and shape evolution of viscous drops made from a dilute suspension of tiny, spherical glass beads sedimenting in an otherwise quiescent liquid is investigated both experimentally and theoretically for conditions of low Reynolds number. In the (presumed) absence of any significant interfacial tension, the Bond number [Bscr ] = (Δρ)gR2/σ is effectively infinite. The key stages of deformation of single drops and pairs of interacting drops are identified. Of particular interest are (i) the coalescence of two trailing drops, (ii) the subsequent formation of a torus, and (iii) the breakup of the torus into two or more droplets in a repeating cascade. To overcome limitations of the boundary-integral method in tracking highly deformed interfaces and coalescing and dividing drops, we develop a formal analogy between drops of homogeneous liquid and a dilute, uniformly distributed swarm of sedimenting particles, for which only the 1/r far-field hydrodynamic interactions are important. Simple, robust numerical simulations using only swarms of Stokeslets reproduce the main phenomena observed in the classical experiments and in our flow-visualization studies. Detailed particle image velocimetry (PIV) for axisymmetric configurations enable a mechanistic analysis and confirm the theoretical results. We expose the crucial importance of the initial condition – why a single spherical drop does not deform substantially, but a pair of spherical drops, or a bell-shaped drop similar to what is actually formed in the laboratory, does undergo the torus/breakup transformation. The extreme sensitivity of the streamlines to the shape of the ring-like swarm explains why the ring that initially forms in the experiments does not behave like the slender open torus analysed asymptotically by Kojima, Hinch & Acrivos (1984). Essentially all of the phenomena described above can be explained within the realm of Stokes flow, without resort to interfacial tension or inertial effects.


Field experiments with rain-fed Bragg soybeans (Glycine max) were carried out at 30 sites in central south-eastern Queensland over six years. The sites covered a wide range of soil types and P buffer capacities. Several rates of P fertilizer were band-applied in 0.9 m rows at planting. Relative grain yield at each site was correlated with 0.5 M NaHC03 extractable (PB) and 0.01 M CaCl2 extractable (PC) phosphorus. Mitscherlich equations of best fit indicated that PC was better correlated (r2 = 0.85) with relative grain yield than PB (r2 = 0.59). At 90% maximum grain yield, the 'critical' PC value was 43 µg P kg-1. The Mitscherlich curvature coefficient, c, was correlated (r2 = 0.49, P < 0.001) with the amount of P fertilizer required for 90% maximum grain yield, but not with soil P buffer capacity, as measured by a single point sorption index (r2 = 0.06). Factors other than the P sorbing ability of the soil were affecting the curvature coefficient, but could not be identified in this work. PC was sufficiently well correlated (r2 = 0.66, P < 0.001) with P fertilizer requirements to have use as a predictor of these requirements. The findings are compared with those obtained for other crops and P fertilizer application methods.


In this study, two methods for solving economic dispatch problems, namely Hopfield neural network and lambda iteration method are compared. Three sample of power system with 3, 6 and 20 units have been considered. The time required for CPU, for solving economic dispatch of these two systems has been calculated. It has been shown that for on-line economic dispatch, Hopfield neural network is more efficient and the time required for convergence is considerably smaller compared to classical methods


Both capacitive indicators derived from the water retention curve and dynamic measurements of the flow‐weighted mean pore radius, R0, were used to assess the soil physical quality of two agricultural areas (cropland and olive orchard) and two natural areas (grassland and managed woodlot plantation) potentially subject to soil degradation. The overall idea of the study was to investigate whether a dynamic indicator quantitatively derived from hydraulic conductivity measurements could be used to supplement the traditionally applied capacitive indicators retrieved from water retention measurements. According to the available criteria, only the surface layer of the cropland site showed optimal soil physical quality. In the grassland and woodlot sites, the physical quality was deteriorated also as a consequence of compaction because of grazing. Overall, the physical quality was better in tilled than nontilled soils. The optimal soil in terms of capacitive indicators had hydraulic conductivity close to saturation that was intermediate among the different land uses, and it remained 1·3–1·9 times higher than that observed in the natural sites even when the largest pores emptied. A depth effect on R0 was observed only when larger macropores were activated. It was suggested that water transmission parameters are more affected by changes in large pore domain. The plant available water content and Dexter's S‐index showed inverse statistically significant regressions with R0. The empirical relationships were physically convincing given that, at increasing R0, the contribution of macropores increases, water is transmitted faster below the root zone and the soil's ability to store water is reduced. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In the framework of an energetic model, which is based on a stochastic description of the macroscopic magnetization process, we want to explain how misalignments of microscopic magnetic dipoles influence the magnetization curve. In contrast to previous work, the orientation of the elementary magnetic dipoles is modeled via statistical distribution functions that are characterized by a mean orientation and a corresponding variance that accounts for misalignments. This nonuniform orientation can result from structural defects in the crystal lattice, for example. The model is applied to thin-film permalloy samples that are used in anisotropic magnetoresistive sensor elements. Here, the variance of the angular distribution function is a measure for inhomogeneities in the film. Furthermore, it can be shown how technological parameters of the sputter process influence the alignment of the magnetic moments and, thus, determine the magnetoresistive characteristics of the sensor element.


We develop a framework of canonical correlation analysis for distribution-valued functional data within the geometry of Wasserstein spaces. Specifically, we formulate an intrinsic concept of correlation between random distributions, propose estimation methods based on functional principal component analysis (FPCA) and Tikhonov regularization, respectively, for the correlation and its corresponding weight functions, and establish the minimax convergence rates of the estimators. The key idea is to extend the framework of tensor Hilbert spaces to distribution-valued functional data to overcome the challenging issue raised by nonlinearity of Wasserstein spaces. The finite-sample performance of the proposed estimators is illustrated via simulation studies, and the practical merit is demonstrated via a study on the association of distributions of brain activities between two brain regions.


Background: The use of cellular models as tools in drug discovery is almost universal. However, in disease areas such as metabolic diseases, are they relevant to the process and do they add value? Objective: In this article, we explore the variety of cellular models now used in drug discovery in metabolic diseases as revealed by publication. We have tried to make some connections between drug phenotypes in these models with clinical parallels. We also ask the question as to whether such models add value in the drug discovery process. This overview is not about recombinant cell systems used in target-based screening; rather, we focus on in vitro, including ex vivo, models as physiological systems in drug discovery in obesity and diabetes. Conclusion: In terms of building target confidence, in vitro models are often the only mechanistic link to human systems early in a projects life. Many of the current targets in metabolic diseases in the early discovery phase are not yet clinically supported, let alone validated. In this respect, therefore, in vitro models warrant a place in the critical path in early discovery. In terms of any predictive role for decision-making today, this is much more difficult and is more likely pushed to a supporting role as part of a wider package. However, there is a rapid rate of advancement in this field and future developments hold much promise.


As Vietnam emerges into world markets, Vietnamese organizations are facing the predicament of how to avoid the low-cost labor trap and move up the production value-chain by improving quality and productivity. Continuous improvement (CI) practices have proved fundamental to building and sustaining competitive advantage in other Asian countries such as Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia. If Vietnamese organizations are to pursue higher value-added activities, CI will be critical for them, too. Despite the tremendous interest in Vietnam from the international business community, little research on Vietnamese management practices has been done, particularly on the use of CI techniques. The language barrier, lack of reliable business data, and the culture of government and corporate secrecy in Vietnam make it extremely difficult to do management research in that country. This paper is a report on an ongoing multiyear research project to study the state of CI in Vietnam. It surveys the current management literature relevant to Vietnam. Then, based on fieldwork in five companies and extensive interviews with business leaders and managers, directors of professional and business associations, and other individuals who have extensive knowledge of Vietnam, the authors identify a number of unique challenges to managing CI in that country, and offer approaches to overcome them.


Several application in digital signal processing demand variable digital filters with arbitrary variable frequency response. For example, in dynamic gravimetry, the main vibration noise is changed by kinds or size of measurement and spec of conveying means. In this case, if a part of main noise is changed, it is important that changing characteristics of filter at once. FIR digital filter are always stable. However, because FIR digital filter generally needs high order, the delay is increased and it is problem in high speed and high accuracy signal processing. Then this paper describes a design method for IIR digital filters with variable stopbands. Numerator filter coefficients are approximated by polynomials using a variable parameter. We solve its transfer function by semidefinite programming in the frequency domain. Finally, a design example is given to demonstrate the proposed techniques.


We report an application of fuzzy relations in fuzzy set theory to the calculation of the similarity between colors, and apply it to the color image retrieval, where only a membership function is used as a measure of the similarity between the characteristic color vectors of a query image and of the images in the database. A match between two colors is defined as the α-cut fuzzy relation.In the comparison process, screening with decreasing by orders for comparisons and a method of regional color vector comparison are developed, which effectively reduce the color correlation in the red-green-blue (RGB) space and save from massive unnecessary calculations. Our theoretical and experimental results show clearly the advantages of our approach in both accuracy and speed of the color image retrieval.


AIM OF THE STUDY
To demonstrate how, on the basis of the personal experience, the rendezvous technique, in the management of cholelithiasis associated with choledocolithiasis , whenever there is the indication, is better than the sequential treatment.

METHODS
From January 2008 to May 2011, 48 patients with cholelithiasis and choledocolithiasis combined were treated with endolaparoscopic technique. Of these patients, 23 were treated with the sequential treatment and 25 with the rendezvous method. We attempted to define the indications for endolaparoscopic rendezvous: - cholelithiasis associated with choledocolithiasis or biliary sludge not bigger than 1 cm; - permeability of the colecystic duct; - a clinical picture of medium-low importance.

CONCLUSIONS
The data of the study confirm the superiority of the rendezvous technique because it resolves cholelithiasis associated with choledocolithiasis in a single surgical act with greater acceptance of the patient who avoids a second invasive surgical act; moreover it requires shorter hospitalization and convalescence, resulting in reduced costs. Finally the data analyzed show a reduction in complications compared to sequential treatment.


Venous Thrombosis (VT) of deep vein is a life-threatening condition. Deep vein thrombosis also known as Phlebothrombosis is a semisolid clot in vein which has got high tendency to develop pulmonary embolism and sudden death. It has an incidence of 1 per 1000 annually in adult population and is the third most common vascular disease, after Ischemic heart disease (IHD). DVT occurs most commonly in the lower extremities. The superficial femoral and popliteal veins in the thighs and the posterior tibial and peroneal veins in the calves are most commonly affected. Conventional treatment for DVT has some reported limitations and often requires expensive hospitalization. The present case study deals with a 49-year-old male, with a known history of heart attack 3 months before and lies in hospital bed for several days without sufficiently moving his legs, who noticed weakness, pain and swelling of bilateral lower limbs after discharge from hospital. In Doppler sonography it was found to have thrombosis of anterior and posterior tibial veins of right and left lower limbs. In Ayurveda the disease is not mentioned as it is but it can be correlated to Gambhira-vatarakta, Siragata-vata etc. This case study is about management of DVT with multi-modality treatment in the form of Panchakarma procedures such as Rooksha sweda, Rooksha vasti, Upanaha, Jaloukavacharana, Kashaya dhara, Kashaya vasti, Ksheeravasti along with oral medications. Treatment shown remarkable result especially in reducing swelling, pain and weakness. Assessment was done on the basis of signs and symptoms and doppler sonography. Venous doppler study showed normal superficial and deep venous system on both sides.


The proposed technique of cryomassage in outpatient setting promotes a complete healing of duodenal ulcer (DU) in patients with DU exacerbation. Healing of the ulcer is accompanied by improvement of blood flow in the zones of segmental innervation of the gastroduodenal system and by recovery of impaired cellular and humoral immunity in most of the patients.


The Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center (PETC) developed a triboelectrostatic separation (TES) process which is capable of removing mineral matter fi-om coal without using water. A distinct advantage of this dry coal cleaning process is that it does not entail costly steps of dewatering which is a common problem associated with conventional fine coal cleaning processes. It is the objective of this project to conduct a series of proof-of-concept (POC) scale tests at a throughput of 200-250 k g h and obtain scale-up information. Prior to the POC testing, bench-scale test work will be conducted with the objective of increasing the separation efficiency and throughput, for which changes in the basic designs for the charger and the separator may be necessary. The benchand POC-scale test work will be carried out to evaluate various operating parameters and establish a reliable scale-up procedure. The scale-up data will be used to analyze the economic merits of the TES process. At present, the project is at the stage of engineering design (Task 3). Work accomplished during this reporting period are summarized as follows: i An on-line triicharge analyzer has been developed to study triielectrification ii. The effects of aeration rate, feed rate and particle size on the triicharging mechanisms using the on-line triicharge analyzer. iii A continuous bench-scale triielectrostatic separator has been constructed. iv. Shakedown testing of the bench-scale triielectrostatic separator is on-going.


In the digital filter bank context, many design methods have been proposed. Most of them are for 2-band QMF FIR filter banks. The paper considers the design of (QMF) quadrature mirror filter banks using the iterative method proposed by Chang-Kann Chen and Ju-Hong Lee (1992). Simulations show that the Chen and Lee method needs much iteration. It was examined and improved by using certain modifications based on the weighted least squares (WLS) updating scheme proposed by S. Sunder et al. (1994) to design two channel QMF filter banks. As the current weighting function is adjusted from iteration to iteration, QMF bank design with equiripple reconstruction error and stopband error can be achieved. Computer simulation shows that the proposed approach produced better results than those reported previously by author Chen and Lee. The paper concludes with design examples that illustrate the effectiveness of the approach on the efficiency and performance. Furthermore, the proposed approach requires less iterations compared with existing methods and leads to filter bank design with improved performance. The resultant filter banks are efficient in terms of computational requirements.


The identification of new genotypes tolerant to the boron toxicity is very important for the breeding programs carried out in the arid and semiarid regions of West Asia and North Africa region. This study aims to determine the genotypes tolerant to the boron toxicity in 141 F 6 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) of durum wheat. 141 RILs were characterized in terms of their tolerance to boron toxicity using the parameters: 1–5 scale of symptom score, dry matter yield, biomass reduction, tissue boron concentration. The component of variance varied from 0.69 to 0.95. 22 RILs tolerant for 1–5 scale, 121 RILs ranged from moderately tolerant to tolerant for the biomass reduction, 22 RILs moderately tolerant for the tissue concentration, and 75 RILs varied from moderately tolerant to the most tolerant for the boron content. The B toxicity evaluation parameters used in this study are efficient when they are used all together, and they produced fast and reliable results. However, the principal component analyses displayed that BC, DMY (%) and BR parameters were the most effective and reliable for the evaluation of B toxicity tolerance. The RILs represented a wide range of the genetic variation in response to the B toxicity treatments. The boron toxicity tolerance could be improved by the breeding studies.


Pseudotumor cerebri remains a scarcely known pathology. We present the experience of a multidisciplinary working group which studied this disorder focusing on the venous alterations of the dural sinuses. Seventeen cases were studied, diagnosed, controlled and treated by our team. In one of the cases, we placed a stent in the left lateral sinus with good result. In all the patients we observed various degrees of stenosis in the brain venous sinuses quantified by pressure measurement. Nevertheless, to determine the exact cause of this pathology, more studies are necessary.


Induction of CTL responses against protein antigens is an important aim in vaccine development. In this paper we present fusion-active virosomes as a vaccine delivery system capable of efficient induction of CTL responses in vivo. Virosomes are reconstituted viral membranes which do not contain the genetic material of the virus they are derived from. Foreign macromolecules, including protein antigens, can be encapsulated in virosomes during the reconstitution process. Functionally reconstituted virosomes retain the cell binding and fusion characteristics of the native virus. Thus, upon uptake by cells through receptor-mediated endocytosis, virosomes will deliver their content to the cell cytosol. In a previous study, we demonstrated that protein antigens delivered in this manner to dendritic cells are efficiently processed for both MHC class I and II presentation. Here, we studied in vivo induction of cellular immune responses against virosome-encapsulated ovalbumin (OVA) in mice. As little as 0.75 μg OVA delivered by fusion-active virosomes was sufficient to induce a powerful class I MHC-restricted CTL response. All immunization routes that were used (i.m., i.p. and s.c.) resulted in efficient induction of CTL activity. The CTLs induced were cytotoxic in a standard 51Cr-release assay and produced IFNγ in response to OVA peptide. Thus, virosomes represent an ideal antigen delivery system for induction of cellular immunity against encapsulated protein antigens.


Vibrational behavior prediction of a laminated composite beam on Winkler-Pasternak's medium is analyzed in the present article. The proposed beam contains four smart actuating layers of magnetostrictive material to vibration control of the system with a simple constant feedback control gain distribution. The designed structure undergoes an external force in x direction and a magnetic field. A higher-order shear deformation theory with an exponential shape function is used to model the proposed system. Hamilton's principle and Navier's approach are used to obtain and solve the dynamic system. The natural frequencies, deflections, and suppression time of the studied system are computed for different thickness ratios, ply orientations, number and location of the magnetostrictive layers, foundation stiffness, velocity feedback gain value, and external force.


Bioenergy is a very heterogeneous aggregation of different feedstocks, conversion technologies and end-uses, and are often promoted as a "green" alternative to fossil fuels. In the case of fossil fuels, extraction energy costs would become higher than the actual energy yield due to increased energy costs for research, deep drilling, as well as to the lower quality and accessibility of the still available oil storages. The objective of this manuscript is to discuss the main myths, challenges, biotechnology progress and emerging possibilities about the bioenergy sources throughout the world. Bioenergy production systems are sometimes claimed to be able to fill the future fossil fuel shortages as well as to decrease carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. The success of bioenergy production depends on the quantity and quality of biomass available and the ability to cost effectively utilize it for energy production. The global effects of the development of biofuel production will depend crucially on where and how feedstocks are produced. Advances in biotechnology are needed to develop bioenergy crops more adapted to adverse environmental conditions with higher growth rate and high caloric value. Life-cycle analysis and evaluation of external costs are important for assessing the social and environmental advantages and disadvantages of bioenergy system.

 Key words: Renewable energy, biomass, biofuel, environment, fossil fuel.


For the study of genetic variability and correlation analysis among grain yield and its contributing traits an experiment was conducted in the research area of Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan during crop season of 2011. The heritability was found 96.06 to 99.99% while genetic advance was from 15.939 to 63.439%. Significant genotypic correlation was found for grain yield per plant with stem diameter, cob diameter, cob length, cob weight, 100-seed weight, dry matter yield, leaves per plant, chlorophyll contents, grain rows per cob and cobs per plant. It was accomplished that higher heritability and genetic advance was found. It was suggested that selection of higher grain yielding genotypes may be helpful to enhance crop yield and productivity.

 Key words: Zea mays, heritability, genetic advance, genotypic, phenotypic, correlation.


Drawing on the first wave of the IAB panel study 'Labor market and social security' (PASS), this analysis explores factors associated with exits from basic income sup-port for needy jobseekers to gainful employment. The impact of household context on work prospects of females and males is focused as well as the prevalence of multiple labor market barriers and their effect on leaving benefit receipt. There are both similarities and differences between the sexes. Prospects for economic self-sufficiency of single and partnered females and males without children don't differ. Having children however impedes labor market participation of mothers in general while it promotes exits from basic income support to work of partnered fathers. With regard to multiple labor market barriers, bad health, higher age and long lasting benefit receipt are frequently combined attributes. When multiple barriers are co-occurring, every additional barrier halves the probability of a transition from basic income support to work, which is of high relevance for social politics.


One hundred diabetic patients were watched while testing urine with "Clinitest" tablets. Only 20 made no mistakes. The main errors were in the use of the dropper and timing. We consider that more time should be spent on the initial instruction of patients.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
This study reports on current child sleep difficulties reported by parents of children with Fragile X syndrome (FXS). We address prevalence and type of sleep problems (e.g., difficulty falling asleep, frequent awakenings); type and effectiveness of medical and behavioral treatments (e.g., medication, surgery, environmental changes); and explore specific child and family characteristics (e.g., child age, child gender, co-occurring conditions) as possible predictors of child sleep difficulties.

DESIGN/PARTICIPANTS
This study is part of a larger survey addressing needs of families with children with FXS. This article focuses on the families who responded to the survey sleep questions, had one or more children with the full mutation FXS, and who reside in the United States. The mean age for male and female children in this group was 15 years and 16 years respectively (N=1295).

RESULTS
Parents reported that 32% of the children with FXS currently experience sleep difficulties; 84% of those children are reported to have > or =2 current sleep problems. Problems falling asleep and frequent night awakenings were the most frequently reported difficulties; 47% of males and 40% of females received > or =1 medication to help with sleep. Children with more problematic health or behavioral characteristics had a higher likelihood of having current sleep problems.

CONCLUSIONS
Our survey provides the most representative sample to date of sleep problems in children with FXS or any other neurodevelopmental disability. This large scale survey establishes a foundation for the prevalence of sleep disorders in children with FXS.


To avoid abrupt torsional failure due to concrete crushing before yielding of torsional reinforcement and control the diagonal crack width, design codes specify the limitations on the yield strength of torsional reinforcement of RC members. In 2012, Korean Concrete Institute design code increased the allowable maximum yield strength of torsional reinforcement from 400 MPa to 500 MPa based on the analytical and experimental research results. Although there are many studies regarding the shear behavior of RC members with high strength stirrups, limited studies of the RC members regarding the yield strength of torsional reinforcement are available. In this study, twelve RC beams having different yield strength of torsional reinforcement and compressive strength of concrete were tested. The experimental test results indicated that the torsional failure modes of RC beams were influenced by the yield strength of torsional reinforcement and the compressive strength of concrete. The test beams with normal strength torsional reinforcement showed torsional tension failure, while the test beams with high strength torsional reinforcement greater than 480 MPa showed torsional compression failure. Therefore, additional analytical and experimental works on the RC members subjected to torsion, especially the beams with high strength torsional reinforcement, are needed to find an allowable maximum yield strength of torsional reinforcement.


Community detection is a fundamental task in graph data mining. Most existing studies in contact networks, collaboration networks, and social networks do not utilize the temporal information associated with edges for community detection. In this article, we study a problem of finding stable communities in a temporal network, where each edge is associated with a timestamp. Our goal is to identify the communities in a temporal network that are stable over time. To efficiently find the stable communities, we develop a new community detection algorithm based on the density-based graph clustering framework. We also propose several carefully-designed pruning techniques to significantly speed up the proposed algorithm. We conduct extensive experiments on four real-life temporal networks to evaluate our algorithm. The results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.


Since the turn of the century, urban scholars have argued that cities are the sites par excellence where new political subjects are emerging and changing the face of citizenship. Undocumented activism is often invoked as an example of this phenomenon and an object of renewed interest. What remains unclear, however, is how these precarious actors, who are barred from institutional channels for voicing their grievances and who have little access to resources, become political. This article argues that the urban interstices-or the spaces in between legality and illegality, visibility and invisibility and formality and informality-offer strategic opportunities for undocumented activism. I introduce a theoretical understanding of liminal politics that focuses on the spatial and symbolic practices by means of which the undocumented, who find themselves betwixt and between statuses, develop innovative methods of political expression. Based on a multi-sited ethnography, I demonstrate that undocumented activists craft urban space as a 'backstage' as well as a 'frontstage' for their struggles over citizenship. On the one hand, undocumented immigrants build safe spaces in which they can (re)imagine their subjectivities and develop political scripts. On the other hand, they stage and enact these political scripts by appropriating public space. This study therefore highlights the spatiality, theatricality and performativity of emerging forms of urban citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]


Compressible vortex sheets are fundamental waves, along with shocks and rarefaction waves, in entropy solutions to multidimensional hyperbolic systems of conservation laws. Understanding the behavior of compressible vortex sheets is an important step towards our full understanding of fluid motions and the behavior of entropy solutions. For the Euler equations in two-dimensional gas dynamics, the classical linearized stability analysis on compressible vortex sheets predicts stability when the Mach number M > √ 2 and instability when M < √ 2; and Artola and Majda's analysis reveals that the nonlinear instability may occur if planar vortex sheets are perturbed by highly oscillatory waves even when M > √ 2. For the Euler equations in three dimensions, every compressible vortex sheet is violently unstable and this instability is the analogue of the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability for incompressible fluids. The purpose of this paper is to understand whether compressible vortex sheets in three dimensions, which are unstable in the regime of pure gas dynamics, become stable under the magnetic effect in threedimensional magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). One of the main features is that the stability problem is equivalent to a free-boundary problem whose free boundary is a characteristic surface, which is more delicate than noncharacteristic free-boundary problems. Another feature is that the linearized problem for current-vortex sheets in MHD does not meet the uniform Kreiss–Lopatinskii condition. These features cause additional analytical difficulties and especially prevent a direct use of the standard Picard iteration to the nonlinear problem. In this paper, we develop a nonlinear approach to deal with these difficulties in three-dimensional MHD. We first carefully formulate the linearized problem for the current-vortex sheets to show rigorously that the magnetic effect makes the problem weakly stable and establish energy estimates, especially high-order energy estimates, in terms of the nonhomogeneous terms and variable coefficients. Then we exploit these results to develop a suitable iteration scheme of the Nash–Moser–Hörmander type to deal with the loss of the order of derivative in the nonlinear level and establish its convergence, 370 Gui-Qiang Chen & Ya-Guang Wang which leads to the existence and stability of compressible current-vortex sheets, locally in time, in three-dimensional MHD.


Background: Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is an area where intensive nursing and medical care are provided round the clock in a hospital. Intensive care beds account for at least 12% of the hospital beds and 20-40% of all hospital operating costs. Cost calculation is necessary to enhance conceptual uniformity and to optimize resource consumption. Based on the National Sample Survey in 2014, 63 million individuals or 12 million households fell below poverty line due to health expenditures (6.2% of all households). Even more disconcerting is the fact that more than 40% of those admitted to an ICU had to borrow money or sell assets. Cost analytic studies are needed for better knowledge of the costs and economics involved in intensive care of a developing country like India. Aim: To analyse the profitability margin of ventilator usage in a hospital. Six Intensive Care units were considered for the study purpose, which housed 46 ventilators. The Variable Costs, Fixed Costs and the Revenue were collected during a 3-month duration. Results: There was a 70% contribution margin from each ventilator towards the fixed costs. The Cost-Volume-Profit from total ventilators was Rs. 23,51,363/- (Rs. 51,116/- per ventilator) during the study period.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the feasibility of using thermo-sensitive chitosan hydrogen as a scaffold to construct tissue engineered injectable nucleus pulposus (NP).

METHODS
Three-month-old neonatal New Zealand rabbits (male or female) weighing 150-200 g were selected to isolate and culture NP cells. The thermo-sensitive chitosan hydrogel scaffold was made of chitosan, disodium beta-glycerophosphate and hydroxyethyl cellulose. Its physical properties and gross condition were observed. The tissue engineered NP was constructed by compounding the scaffold and rabbit NP cells. Then, the viability of NP cells in the chitosan hydrogel was observed 2 days after compound culture and the growth condition of NP cells on the scaffold was observed by SEM 7 days after compound culture. NP cells went through histology and immunohistochemistry detection and their secretion of aggrecan and expression of Col II mRNA were analyzed by RT-PCR 21 days after compound culture.

RESULTS
The thermo-sensitive chitosan hydrogel was liquid at room temperature and solidified into gel at 37 degrees C (15 minutes) due to crosslinking reaction. Acridine orange-propidium iodide staining showed that the viability rate of NP cells in chitosan hydrogel was above 90%. Scanning electron microscope observation demonstrated that the NP cells were distributed in the reticulate scaffold, with ECM on their surfaces. The results of HE, toluidine blue, safranin O and histology and immunohistochemistry staining confirmed that the NP cells in chitosan hydrogel were capable of producing ECM. RT-PCR results showed that the secretion of Col II and aggrecan mRNA in NP cells cultured three-dimensionally by chitosan hydrogen scaffold were 0.631 +/- 0.064 and 0.832 +/- 0.052, respectively, showing more strengths of producing matrix than that of monolayer culture (0.528 +/- 0.039, 0.773 +/- 0.046) with a significant difference (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
With good cellular compatibilities, the thermo-sensitive chitosan hydrogel makes it possible for NP cells to maintain their normal morphology and secretion after compound culture, and may be a potential NP cells carrier for tissue engineered NP.