Mechanisms of locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) neoadjuvant chemoradiation resistance are poorly understood. Current research models to study this issue are incomplete and restricted by the limited supply of untreated tissue samples. Patient-derived xenografts (PDX) are commonly developed from surgical specimens and can serve as effective tools to investigate therapy. We previously demonstrated that the SNAI2/ miR-145 signaling axis enhanced the tumor-initiating cell (TIC) and chemotherapy resistance. We developed a unique PDX model from pre-neoadjuvant therapy LARC biopsy samples to study chemoradiation resistance. Further, we hypothesized that TICs isolated from LARC patient-derived xenografts would demonstrated increased SNAI2/ miR-145 signaling. Methods: Fresh LARC endoscopic biopsy samples were digested using Liberase DH to yield a dissociated single-cell solution. All in vivo experiments consisted of injecting cells with Matrigel subcutaneously into NSG NODSCID/IL2Rgnull immunocompromised mice. Xenograft (Passage 1, P1) single cells were resuspended in ALDEFLUOR assay buffer. ALDEFLUOR and EPCAM positive cells (ALDH+/EPCAM+) were then detected using a flow cytometer to identify the TICs. Using the negative control ALDH inhibitor, DEAB (1.5 μM), identify the ALDH+ cells compared with background. For limited dilution (LD) in vitro spheroid assay, 5000 EPCAM+/ALDH+ and ALDH- cells were cultured in ultra-low attachment plates in cancer stem-cell medium (DMEM-F12; 1X B-27, βEGF, βFGF, 1% penicillin/streptomycin, BSA, heparin, β-mercaptoethanol). For LD in vivo study, EPCAM+ ALDH sorted cells were implanted subcutaneously with Matrigel and closely observed. Droplet Digital PCR was conducted using the QX200 Droplet Digital PCR System. miR-145 PCR was performed using TaqMan MicroRNA Assays (Applied Biosystems) and normalized to RNU6B. Results: Our LARC PDX model had high outgrowth and engraftment rates of 70 and 85% respectively and maintained critical histologic features. Both LD in vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrated that EPCAM+/ALDH+ cells were highly tumorigenic suggestive of TICs (p Conclusions: The lack of novel strategies plays a central role in the inability to overcome therapeutic resistance in LARC. Our results demonstrate a novel model to investigate LARC and suggest that a novel miR-145 therapeutic strategy may be able to target the TIC in LARC patients. Citation Format: Ernest R. Camp, Cindy Wang, Katie Hurst, Lourdes M. Nogueira, Victoria J. Findlay. Improving rectal cancer therapy using a patient-derived tumor xenograft model. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-043.


Sexual selection theory asserts that females are well adapted to sense signals indicating the quality of potential mates. One crucial male quality parameter is functional fertility (i.e. the success of ejaculates in fertilizing eggs). The phenotype-linked fertility hypothesis (PLFH) predicts that functional fertility of males is reflected by phenotypic traits that influence female mate choice. Here, we show for Nasonia vitripennis, a parasitic wasp with haplodiploid sex determination and female-biased sex ratios, that females use olfactory cues to discriminate against sperm-limited males. We found sperm limitation in newly emerged and multiply mated males (seven or more previous matings) as indicated by a higher proportion of sons in the offspring fathered by these males. Sperm limitation correlated with clearly reduced pheromone titres. In behavioural bioassays, females oriented towards higher doses of the synthetic pheromone and were attracted more often to scent marks of males with a full sperm load than to those of sperm-limited males. Our data support the PLFH and suggest that N. vitripennis females are able to decrease the risk of getting constrained to produce suboptimal offspring sex ratios by orienting towards gradients of the male sex pheromone.


Background: PaO 2 at rest and presence of desaturation during a 6-minute walk test (6MWT) were shown to be prognostic factor in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). In Japan, classification of disease severity of IPF (stage I-IV) has been used for the decision of medical care subsidies. Stages of severity of IPF are as follows. stage I (PaO 2 ≥ 80 torr at rest), stage II (70-80 torr), stage III (60-70 torr), stage IV ( 2 during a 6MWT is less than 90%, then the severity should be increased by one stage. We hypothesized that patients whose PaO 2 is ≥ 80 torr with desaturation (classified as stage I in present) might have poor prognosis. Methods: Two hunred fifteen patients with IPF in 10 centers performing 6MWT routinely were studied by using a questionnaire survey. Results: The proportion of present stage I was 47.9%, and among them, 51.5% patients showed desaturation during 6MWT. The median survival time (MST) of stage I with and without desaturation were 50.5±1.9 mo. and 99.3±35.0 mo. respectively.( p =0.0033). In revised severity stages of patients with IPF, MST of stage I (n=44), stage II (n=77), stage III (n=50), and stage IV (n=44) were 99.3±35.0 mo., 52.0±2.7 mo., 38.6±8.7 mo., and 22.9±4.3 mo. respectively. New survival curves between the each stage have been adequately separated. Conclusion: The patients whose PaO 2 is ≥ 80 torr at rest with desaturation during 6MWT should be classified as stage II in revised classification of disease severity in patients with IPF. This work was supporteted in part by a grant-in-aid for interstitial lung diseases from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.


In intergrowth bismuth-layered compound Bi7Ti4NbO21, growth defects, such as disordered intergrowth with extra layers of Bi4Ti3O12 or Bi3NbTiO9 constituent sub-structures, or as the co-growth of Bi7Ti4NbO21 onto Bi4Ti3O12 grains, were frequently observed using high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM). In order to further find evidence to support the re-ordering picture that was proposed to explain formation of the intergrowth and associated defects, we employ the lowand medium-resolution high-angle annular-dark-field (HAADF) imaging combined with the quantitative energy dispersive X-ray spectroscope (EDXS) analysis to probe into a heavily defected intergrowth structure. A gradual transformation from the ordered intergrowth of both sub-structures to the dominance of Bi4Ti3O12 sub-structure was observed. A substantial level of Nb solution could be detected in n-layered (n≥2) Bi4Ti3O12 sub-structure by spatially-resolved compositional quantification to differentiate the contribution from the adjacent single Bi3NbTiO9 layer. The presence of a finite Nb concentration in the Bi4Ti3O12 sub-structure indicates a substantial and uniform cations inter-change occurred between the two sub-structures, which is inherited most likely from the parent phases via the partially dissolved sintering melts.


Randomized studies of the physiological and clinical consequences of cholecystectomy for uncomplicated gallbladder stones are very scarce. Bile acid malabsorption is increased postoperatively, probably giving rise to diarrhea in a few sensitive individuals. Preexisting abdominal distension and fat intolerance most often persist postoperatively. In adequately selected patients, abdominal pain may subside in 75% or more. The presence of functional bowel disease should always be considered in patients with uncomplicated gallstones.


In exhibition, lighting design should be planned in accordance with architecture considering interior design. Namely, lighting should be planned to harmonize with indoor space as an architectural material which is stuck on the ceiling, wall, and floor. Especially, lighting of the exhibition space is the most important fact to decide the quality of exhibition space and has close relation to space planning. In this paper, therefore, author investigated concepts and techniques of exhibition space and offered lighting presentation methods according to the exhibition style.


This study tested the hypothesis that EGF has a protective effect on the intestinal barrier function in experimental TNBS-induced colitis. EGF was given intraperitoneally one hour before and 24 hours after induction of colitis. The rats were killed 48 hours after induction of colitis: The distal colon was resected and mounted into Ussing chambers. Flux measurements were performed for Na+ and mannitol, and epithelial and subepithelial resistances were determined. A semiquantitative histological score was used to grade acute and chronic inflammation. Compared to controls, TNBS caused a 3-fold increase in both fluxy, indicating enhanced paracellular permeability. There rates was a severe reduction of total and epithelial resistances indicating a dramatic defect of epithelial barrier function. EGF failed to improve the electrophysiologic and histologic parameters. Therefore, EFG has no protective effective in experimental TNBS colitis.


Abstract Adolescence is a vulnerable period for developing anxiety-related mental disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which requires a long-term course of therapy when a traumatic event has been experienced during childhood. However, the biological mechanism underlying these age-dependent characteristics remains unclear. In the present study, we used early adolescent, late adolescent and adult (4-, 8-, and 15-week old) male mice to examine age differences in fear memory, fear extinction, and spontaneous recovery of fear. We also measured the activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) 2 in the dorsal hippocampus (dHip) and the basolateral amygdala (BLA) following a spontaneous recovery test. Our major findings were as follows: (1) early adolescent and adult mice did not recover the fear response; only late adolescent mice recovered the fear response. (2) The ERK2 in the dHip was more activated after the spontaneous recovery test in late adolescent mice than in adult mice, and the ERK2 in the BLA was more activated after the spontaneous recovery test in adult mice than in late adolescent mice. These results suggest that there exists a unique period in which spontaneous recovery occurs and that these late adolescent behavioral signatures may be related to alteration in the ERK2 phosphorylation in the dHip and BLA.


This study makes use of a dataset recently collected among young people in Stockholm, Sweden (N = 1122), to investigate the impact of fear on young people's mobility and precautionary behaviour, after controlling for previous victimization as well as situational characteristics of daily trips. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and logistic regression models underlie the methodology of the study. Previous victimization, especially for sexual crimes, triggers precautionary behaviour among young people using trains and the metro. Signs of poorly maintained transit environments also affect young riders' mobility patterns, as they state that they avoid particular stations or routes at particular times. Informed by principles of environmental criminology and the theory of fear of crime, the implications of the findings for both theory and practice are discussed.


An exponentially convergent observer is designed for a linearized Ginzburg-Landau model of vortex shedding in viscous flow past a bluff body. Measurements are restricted to be taken collocated with the actuation which is applied on the cylinder surface. The observer is used in conjuction with a state feedback boundary controller designed in previous work to attenuate vortex shedding. While the theoretical results apply to the linearized system under sufficiently smooth initial data that satisfy the boundary conditions, simulations demonstrate the performance of the linear output feedback scheme on the nonlinear plant model


In this paper, the effects of two factors including pH of the reaction mixture and temperature in heat treatment involved in synthesis of ZnWO4 nanoparticles are represented. ZnWO4 nanocrytsallites were obtained from zinc nitrate and sodium tungtsate. The different conditions of pH and calcination temperature were provided in order to scrutinize their impact on the structural and morphological changes. The obtained powders were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Nanocrystalline ZnWO4 powder synthesized at pH = 9 and calcined at 600C showed an excitation band at 295 nm and a broad emission band at 477 nm.


2 Abstract: Many countries and regions are suffering from huge amounts of construction waste, which is a heavy burden on the sustainable urban development. Efficient legal and regulatory measures and effective public policies and guidelines should be established and best waste management practices taken to address the waste problem. This paper critically reviews construction waste management practices in Hong Kong (a special administrative region of China) and draws experience and learns lessons from these practices with an objective to improve future practices in this region and to share some insights on sustainable waste management for other parts of the world.


The subject of this paper is quantum walks, which are expected to simulate several kinds of quantum dynamical systems. In this paper, we define analyticity for quantum walks on Z. Almost all the quantum walks on $\mathbb{Z}$ which have been already studied are analytic. In the framework of analytic quantum walks, we can enlarge the theory of quantum walks. We obtain not only several generalizations of known results, but also new types of theorems. It is proved that every analytic space-homogeneous quantum walk on Z is essentially a composite of shift operators and continuous-time analytic space-homogeneous quantum walks. We also prove existence of the weak limit distribution for analytic space-homogeneous quantum walks on Z.


Bioengineered corneas are substitutes for human donor tissue that are designed to replace part or the full thickness of damaged or diseased corneas. They range from prosthetic devices that solely address replacement of the cornea's function to tissue-engineered hydrogels that allow some regeneration of the host tissue. In addition, there are also bioengineered lenticules that may be implanted into the cornea to improve vision by altering the refractive properties of the eye, an alternative procedure to refractive surgery. In recent years, there have been significant developments in many areas of bioengineered corneas, such as the clinical trials of an artificial cornea designed as a prosthesis, the development of completely natural corneal replacements, and the development of biosynthetic matrices that permit host tissue regeneration. For correction of refractive errors, a synthetic corneal onlay that allows stable overgrowth of epithelium appears to be promising.


BACKGROUND
Several methods exist by which to assess type A behavior (TAB). Although the videotaped clinical interview is regarded as the "gold standard," self-report measures have also proved useful in assessing TAB in large population studies. The purpose of this study was to examine prospectively the relationship of TAB to risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) incidence with the use of the revised Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) Type A Scale. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first test of this scale in the context of predicting CHD incidence.

METHODS AND RESULTS
The study was performed in the VA Normative Aging Study, an ongoing cohort of older (mean age, 61 years) community-dwelling men. A total of 1305 men who were free of diagnosed CHD in 1986 completed the MMPI-2 Type A Scale. During an average 7.0 years of follow-up, 110 cases of incident CHD occurred. Compared with men in the lowest quartile of type A scores, men in the highest quartile had multivariate adjusted relative risks of 2.86 (95% CI, 1.19 to 6.89; P for trend=0.016) for combined CHD death and nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI) and 2.30 (95% CI, 1.32 to 4.01; P for trend=0.001) for combined CHD death/nonfatal MI plus angina pectoris. The relationship of TAB to CHD was independent of measures of anger and cynicism.

CONCLUSIONS
The MMPI-2 Type A Scale predicts CHD incidence. Further research is warranted to examine the correlation, if any, between this scale and the videotaped clinical interview.


The design of leakage-resilient password systems (LRPSes) in the absence of trusted devices remains a challenging problem today despite two decades of intensive research in the security community. In this paper, we investigate the inherent tradeoff between security and usability in designing LRPS. First, we demonstrate that most of the existing LRPS systems are subject to two types of generic attacks brute force and statistical attacks, whose power has been underestimated in the literature. Second, in order to defend against these two generic attacks, we introduce five design principles that are necessary to achieve leakage resilience in the absence of trusted devices. We also show that these attacks cannot be effectively mitigated without significantly sacrificing the usability of LRPS systems. Third, to better understand the tradeoff between security and usability of LRPS, we propose for the first time a quantitative analysis framework on usability costs of password systems. By decomposing the authentication process of existing LRPS systems into atomic cognitive operations in psychology, we show that a secure LRPS in practical settings always imposes a considerable amount of cognitive workload on its users, which indicates the inherent limitations of such systems and in turn implies that an LRPS has to incorporate certain trusted devices in order to be both


ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we present the¬ project "WITE 2.0". This project is at the crossroads of various issues related to mobility ("mobility turn", Urry, 2007) and use of ¬Information and Communication Technologies. Wite 2.0 is a part of the designing process of a collaborative communication tool: "a virtualized and unified platform". We define scenarios of teleworking practices, "equipped" by ICTs, and use these scenarios to better specify the platform. The project started at the end of 2010 and continued for a period of 18 months. The analysis is based on several complementary methodologies: a qualitative study (47 semi-structured interviews) and an experimentation of the platform. We present the main results of the interview survey through the following themes: remote management, skills, articulation of private and professional spheres, and the maturity of technologies. We also describe how these elements help the understanding of the evolution of worker's practices.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the effect of Dureping Injection (DRP) on the T-cells function of mice and the function of T-cells in killing MF infected by influenza virus subtype A mice-lung adaptive strain FM1 in vitro.

METHODS
Number of splenic normal and FM1 infected T-cells in mice were measured by MTT and double-antibody sandwich ELISA, after being treated with DRP at different concentrations (2.1, 8.5 and 17.0 microg/mL), and the effect of DRP on interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) production as well as on splenic T-cell killing FM1 infected Mphi/Ana-1 function were detected.

RESULTS
DRP inhibited the multiplication of normal spleen T cells induced by concanavalin A in vitro, suppressed Th2 cell factor IL-10 production, and maintained Th1 cell factor IFN-y at a definite level, moreover, it directly enhanced the power of T-cells in killing FM1 infected Mphi (P < 0.05, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSION
DRP could act on mice T-cells to enhance the immune response for antiinfluenza viral FM1 in vitro.


Some wine marketing studies make reference to the importance of wine labels and the information they contain. Others suggests that the information content of wine labels be grouped under seven information positioning statements: namely, parentage, nonpareil, manufacture, attributes, endorsements, end user and end use. Nested within some of these statements is other information commonly associated with wine lables. There is a dearth of research that examines the importance of these seven statements or their expanded state. A questionnaire, exploring the importance of an expanded list of information elements and the importance of front and back labels, was constructed. As these questions formed part of a larger research endeavour, eight versions and two wine types were presented in a mail survey to 1.144 participants. The survey sample was drawn from a national wine mailing list (n=640). plus staff (n=304) and students (n=200) of an academic institution. No follow‐up activity was undertaken and a 28% response rate was achieved. A range of behavioural and demographic information was collected. Using a 7‐point scale, respondents were asked to indicate how important 14 pieces of information were to them in deciding on which wine to buy. Varied and significant levels of importance exist for some elements of wine label information. For example, front labels were found to be more important than back labels, and this is supported by significant differences amongst some background information. The expansion of parentage into its component parts shows wine company and brand name to be more important than history of wine maker or history of wine region. The results of this research challenge a number of existing findings and beliefs on the importance of various elements of wine label information.


A reservoir model based on subsurface data as well as appropriate (reservoir) analogs is a critical field
management tool, and therefore should accurately incorporate features affecting fluid storage,
distribution and flow. However, the complexity of specifically carbonate reservoirs makes detailed
direct-characterisation of their 3D heterogeneity difficult, and this problem is worsened in the
subsurface where lateral constraint on facies architecture is typically poor to non-existent, while
information on vertical stacking maybe rich. A tantalizing strategy to mitigate this disjoint lies in the
use of Walther's Law, which offers the possibility of using vertical transitions to elucidate lateral
juxtaposition motifs (Doveton 1994; Parks et al. 2000; Elfeki & Dekking 2005; Riegl & Purkis 2009).
The implication being that a reservoir model, competent at least in terms of transition statistics, could
be built against information harvested down-core. Coupled with simple Markov theory, it can be
deduced that under such conditions, comparable facies frequencies and transition probabilities will
link vertical and lateral facies stacks. If one can be quantified, the other can be solved for. It therefore
follows that 2D or even 3D Markov chain models can be developed by assuming that spatial
variability in any direction can be characterised by a 1D Markov chain. Although this may seem like a
tenuous theoretical leap, the assumption here is merely that Markov chains might characterise spatial
variability not only in the vertical but in other stratigraphic directions such as dip or strike (Carle et al.
1998). In this paper we present a proof-of-concept Markov Random Field Simulator (MRFS) and test
its 3D geo-cellular modelling capabilities against a Cretaceous carbonate outcrop dataset. The
assumption Walther's Law can be applied has been verified successfully beforehand, based on two
case studies that call upon (carbonate) data from the Cretaceous, Miocene and Modern (Purkis et al.,
submitted).


Users install many apps on their smartphones, raising issues related to information overload for users and resource management for devices. Moreover, the recent increase in the use of personal assistants has made mobile devices even more pervasive in users' lives. This article addresses two research problems that are vital for developing effective personal mobile assistants: target apps selection and recommendation. The former is the key component of a unified mobile search system: a system that addresses the users' information needs for all the apps installed on their devices with a unified mode of access. The latter, instead, predicts the next apps that the users would want to launch. Here we focus on context-aware models to leverage the rich contextual information available to mobile devices. We design an in situ study to collect thousands of mobile queries enriched with mobile sensor data (now publicly available for research purposes). With the aid of this dataset, we study the user behavior in the context of these tasks and propose a family of context-aware neural models that take into account the sequential, temporal, and personal behavior of users. We study several state-of-the-art models and show that the proposed models significantly outperform the baselines.


Spinal muscular atropy (SMA) is the major genetic disease leading to childhood mortality and is caused by mutations in or deletions of the smn1 gene. The human survival of motor neurons (SMN) protein encoded by this gene plays an important role in the assembly of snRNPs (small nuclear ribonucleoprotein complexes) via binding to the spliceosomal Sm proteins. The tails of these Sm proteins contain symmetrically dimethylated arginines that are recognized by the central SMN Tudor domain. To gain insight in the molecular basis of this specific interaction, the SMN Tudor domain has been crystallized. The rapid crystallization of the protein and the high stability of the crystals is facilitated by redefinition of domain boundaries based on NMR relaxation experiments and the previously determined solution structure. The crystals diffract to high resolution (1.8 A) and a complete data set has been collected from a hexagonal crystal form (P6(1)/P6(5)), with unit-cell parameters a = b = 27.65, c = 110.30 A, alpha = beta = 90, gamma = 120 degrees. Crystal soaks and co-crystallization with peptides derived from the Sm protein tails have been initiated. Molecular replacement with the NMR coordinates is under way.


A large variability in the antiplatelet response to clopidogrel has been consistently reported. Recently, a P2Y12 haplotype was shown to be associated with enhanced adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-induced platelet aggregation in healthy volunteers. The aim of this study was to test in patients (n = 416) scheduled for coronary artery stenting whether P2Y12 haplotype H2 carriage is associated with increased ADP-induced platelet aggregation after administration of a 600 mg loading dose of clopidogrel. Blood was drawn from the arterial sheath at least 2 h after administration of 100 mg aspirin and 600 mg clopidogrel. ADP-induced platelet aggregation was assessed in platelet-rich plasma with light-transmission aggregometry. P2Y12 haplotypes (H1/H2) and P2Y12 C32T genotypes were determined with TaqMan assays. Haplotype combinations and genotypes were not associated with parameters of ADP-induced platelet aggregation after administration of a 600 mg loading dose of clopidogrel. Maximal ADP (5 μmol/l)-induced platelet aggregation was similar in patients carrying haplotype H2 and homozygous carriers of haplotype H1 (43.9 ± 21.4 versus 43.2 ± 21.1%, respectively; P = 0.77). Carriage of P2Y12 H2 haplotype does not seem to affect the platelet response to a 600 mg loading dose of clopidogrel in coronary artery disease patients prior to stenting.


This study explores the working mechanism and the influence factor of the pinning effect of advancing sessile droplets on micropillared superhydrophobic surfaces. Our experimental result reflects that the pinning effect of the advancing droplet is determined by a new parameter, which is named the local triple-phase contact line (LTCL). The pinning force is proved proportionate to the maximal value of the LTCL attainable along the actual droplet boundary. Meanwhile, a theoretical model is built to explain the pinning phenomena on various liquid/solid interfaces.


Drug–target interaction is the intercommunication between chemical drugs and target proteins to produce any kind of change in the human body. The laboratory experiments conducted to recognize these potential intercommunications are costly and tedious. Various computational methods have been established recently, including the chemogenomic approach for identifying drug–target intercommunication, that integrates the chemical data of the drugs and the genomic properties of the proteins for identifying the interactions between them. This paper proposes a novel technique based on hybrid ensemble to predict drug target interactions. Hybrid ensembles introduce diversity in classification that helps to improve the performance of prediction. The proposed method has been evaluated by comparing the technique with state–of‐the‐art methods on two different databases under three cross‐validation settings. The comparison clearly shows that the technique produced significant improvement in the interaction prediction.


Abstract Cracking susceptibility is an important issue that prevails in oil and gas industry, this is the main reason of the employment of high corrosion resistance materials with excellent performance. Duplex stainless steels satisfy those requirements. In the development of this work, two different stainless steels grades were used. Rectangular plates of the two steels were welded in butt joint using an arc welding, respectively for each pair of dissimilar plates. After the welding process, three strips were cut off from the welded plates, perpendicular to the welding line, and then were submerged in sea water in equilibrium with an H_2S atmosphere. After the exposure, the strips were weakened at the welding line leaving a seam weld 7 mm long. The strips were tensile tested until separation at the weld and the fracture surface was evaluated using 3D optical microscopy and SEM, in order to get details of the fractured material. Graphical abstract


ABSTRACT We describe inhibition of Mycobacterium tuberculosis topoisomerase I (MttopoI), an essential mycobacterial enzyme, by two related compounds, imipramine and norclomipramine, of which imipramine is clinically used as an antidepressant. These molecules showed growth inhibition of both Mycobacterium smegmatis and M. tuberculosis cells. The mechanism of action of these two molecules was investigated by analyzing the individual steps of the topoisomerase I (topoI) reaction cycle. The compounds stimulated cleavage, thereby perturbing the cleavage-religation equilibrium. Consequently, these molecules inhibited the growth of the cells overexpressing topoI at a low MIC. Docking of the molecules on the MttopoI model suggested that they bind near the metal binding site of the enzyme. The DNA relaxation activity of the metal binding mutants harboring mutations in the DxDxE motif was differentially affected by the molecules, suggesting that the metal coordinating residues contribute to the interaction of the enzyme with the drug. Taken together, the results highlight the potential of these small molecules, which poison the M. tuberculosis and M. smegmatis topoisomerase I, as leads for the development of improved molecules to combat mycobacterial infections. Moreover, targeting metal coordination in topoisomerases might be a general strategy to develop new lead molecules.


Abstract The presence of high levels of salts because of produced brine water disposal at flare pits and the presence of metals at sufficient concentrations to impact microbial activity are of concern to bioremediation of flare pit waste in the upstream oil and gas industry. Two slurry-phase biotreatment experiments based on three-level factorial statistical experimental design were conducted with a flare pit waste. The experiments separately studied the primary effect of cadmium [Cd(II)] and interaction effect between Cd(II) and salinity and the primary effect of zinc [Zn(II)] and interactioneffect between Zn(II) and salinity on hydrocarbon biodegradation. The results showed 42–52.5% hydrocarbon removal in slurries spiked with Cd and 47–62.5% in the slurries spiked with Zn. The analysis of variance showed that the primary effects of Cd and Cd–salinity interaction were statistically significant on hydrocarbon degradation. The primary effects of Zn and the Zn-salinity interaction were statistically insignificant, whereas the quadratic effect of Zn was highly significant on hydrocarbon degradation. The study on effects of metallic chloro-complexes showed that the total aqueous concentration of Cd or Zn does not give a reliable indication of overall toxicity to the microbial activity in the presence of high salinity levels.


Business organizations need to keep abreast of relevant information so as to be updated within the economy as globalization of the world made it possible to get a great deal of information in less time. Having several business units belonging to the same business venture comes along with some disadvantages such as duplication of processes that cuts across all units, duplication of records stored within the database, increase in the cost of maintaining and securing the database as well as increase in the cost of maintaining and managing each unit. This therefore shows the need for having an interoperable system that can enable the management of all units from a single point. The main objective of this work is to develop a web-based Business Information System Framework which can be adopted by business owners to perform specific operations within their respective organizations. A framework was proposed using a business logic which ensured that business rule in the real world were adhered to. The proposed framework specifies two levels of managements – unit administrator which cater for the individual business unit and the central or super admin who manages all available units from a single point. The research work presents a framework that provide central administrators the ability to get relevant information that cut across all functional business units created by the Business Venture, this interoperable framework in turn helps in reducing complexities within Business Ventures.


The aim was to establish a cell culture of adult primary bovine hepatocytes obtained from liver following slaughter and to cultivate the cells in a sandwich culture. Cells and medium samples were taken after separation of cells (day 0), during monolayer (days 1, 2 and 3) and during sandwich culture (days 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10 and 14). The mRNA expression of BAX, BCL2L, FAS, IGF-1 and GHR1A was measured as well as urea and LDH. Hepatocytes were obtained by using a two-step collagenase perfusion and were purified thereafter by density gradient centrifugation. The viability was 68.2 ± 9.5 %. In sandwich culture, cells have a typical polygonal hepatocyte-like shape, build cell-cell contacts, and show irregularity of cell borders suggesting bile canaliculi generation. The BAX mRNA expression increased on day 1 as well but decreased steadily until day 3 and remained constant for 14 days. Urea- and LDH-concentrations increased from day 4 to day 7. In conclusion, we found that it is possible to gather viable primary hepatocytes from adult bovine liver after slaughter, and that cells gathered this way show typical morphologies, urea-production and low LDH-leakage especially at day 4 in a sandwich system.


Introduction Malignant reprogramming, first described in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), occurs upon activation of the Wnt/b-catenin pathway in granulocyte-macrophage progenitors (GMPs) that gain the capacity to self-renew and contribute to the emergence of BCR-ABL1 tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) resistant blast crisis CML. Deregulation of the Wnt/b-catenin target gene, CD44, plays a vital role in leukemia stem cell (LSC) maintenance in the malignant microenvironment in mouse models of CML. However, extensive alternative mRNA splicing in humans results in expression of multiple CD44 isoforms, some of which have been implicated in cancer invasion and metastasis. In this study we investigated the role of CD44 splice variant expression on human blast crisis LSC maintenance in the malignant niche. Methods and Results CD44 Isoform Expression Analysis To investigate the splice isoform expression pattern of CD44, whole transcriptome RNA sequencing (RNA Seq; Illumina HiSeq 2000) was performed on FACS sorted chronic phase (CP; n=8) and blast crisis (BC; n=8) CML progenitors (CD34 + CD38 + Lin - ) as well as their normal counterparts from cord blood (CB) (n=7) and adult peripheral blood (NPB; n=4). While whole gene expression analysis revealed upregulation of CD44 in blast crisis compared with chronic phase and normal progenitors, a plethora of CD44 transcript variants were also detected including variants 3, 4 (CD44s), 5, 6, 7, 8. Notably, RNA Seq isoform analysis detected a higher expression of CD44 transcript variant 3 in BC compared to CP and CB and NPB. Moreover, CD44 transcript variant 3 gene expression was highly expressed in undifferentied human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) while differentiated hESCs (embryoid bodies) had low expression, suggesting CD44 transcript variant 3 to be important for pluripotency. Lentiviral CD44 Variant 3 Overexpression To directly determine the impact of CD44 variant 3 expression on malignant reprogramming of CP progenitors into self-renewing LSC, we developed a lentiviral human CD44 variant 3 overexpression vector and transduced CP CML progenitors. Transduced CP progenitors harbored increased expression of migration specific markers, such as osteopontin and ICAM1, as well as an upregulation of the pro-survival long isoforms of BCL2 family members BCLX and MCL1, thereby enhancing survival and replating in hematopoietic progenitor assays. Moreover, hESCs transduced with CD44 transcript variant 3 showed upregulation of pro-survival BCL2 isoforms, enhanced proliferation and as well as maintenance of an undifferentiated state, suggesting that CD44 transcript variant 3 promotes pluripotency. Targeted Inhibition of CD44 variant 3 Expressing LSC Humanized RAG2-/-gc-/-mice engrafted with CD34 + BC CML patient samples showed a significant reduction of human progenitor cells post treatment with a clinical grade CD44 mAb, both alone and in combination with Dasatinib in all hematopoietic niches. Bone marrow and spleen samples from primary transplanted mice show a reduced gene expression level of CD44 and CD44 transcript variant 3 upon combination treatment of CD44 and Dasatinib. Most importantly, serial transplantation of progenitors treated with the CD44 mAb as well as in combination with Dasatinib revealed a significant reduction in LSC self-renewal capacity commensurate with a reduction in CD44 variant 3 expression. Conclusions Upregulation of an embryonic splice variant of CD44, variant 3, expands pluripotent stem cell populations and promotes malignant reprogramming of CML progenitors into self-renewing LSC. Treatment with a humanized CD44 specific mAb sensitizes CML LSC residing in malignant niches to Dasatinib. From these results CD44 mAb appears to be an excellent antibody for future combination clinical studies aimed at eradicating therapy resistant blast crisis LSC in CML. In addition, these observations strongly suggest that CD44 transcript variant 3 upregulation serves as a biomarker of progression from CP to BC as well as the generation of TKI resistant LSCs, with the potential of being a more specific target for future combination therapies. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by communication difficulties during infancy (Jones et al., 2014). Additionally, infants with ASD learn to walk later than neurotypical infants (West, 2018). Overwhelmingly, studies focus on either communication or motor behavior, but infant development does not behave so independently. Motor delays may have cascading adverse effects on communication. This study bridges motor and communication research, investigating how learning to walk—a major motor achievement—affects how neurotypical infants and those with ASD gesture. One hundred and sixteen infants were seen in their homes on a monthly basis from 5-18 months of age. Twenty-five infants had no family history of ASD. Ninety-one infants had an older sibling with an ASD diagnosis and were assessed by a clinician at 36 months. Based on clinical best estimates, infants were assigned to one of three outcome categories: no diagnosis, language delay, or ASD diagnosis. This study focused on data from 7 monthly sessions, which were anchored by infants' walk onset. At each session, we coded the frequency of gestures and the extent to which they were paired with vocalizations or social gaze during 10 minutes of naturalistic play. Results revealed that infants who developed typically—regardless of genetic risk for ASD—increasingly coordinated gestures with vocalizations and gaze after they started walking. Conversely, infants later diagnosed with ASD produced fewer gestures overall and did not increase their coordinated gestures after they began walking. Findings may inform early intervention strategies for very young children with ASD. Specifically, comprehensive clinical strategies should integrate motor-based approaches (e.g., physical therapy) with communication-focused approaches (e.g., speech-language therapy) to maximize client progress.


This monograph summarizes in a very tight and efficient way much of the available information on the clinical characteristics, basic mechanisms, diagnosis, and treatment of the shock state. The opening chapter introduces the subject in a brief and general way. The next section deals with the indices (for some inexplicable reason repeatedly and persistently spelled indicies in the text) of blood volume in the shock state. The next four chapters review, in order, microcirculatory alterations, pathology, physiology, and the chemistry of shock. The topics of diagnosis and clinical evaluation, and of treatment are then considered. The final chapter, which is entitled "Toward a Concept of the Shock State," attempts briefly to synthesize known pathophysiological mechanisms into an integrated whole. Here, as well as in some of the earlier chapters, the author emphasizes that rational and effective treatment of the clinical state must be based on understanding the interplay of complex


Organic acids such as citric acid enhance the vaginal absorption of luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone, the potent analogue (leuprolide), and insulin. The mechanism of this absorption enhancement was investigated with leuprolide and hydrophilic markers such as phenol red and Evan's blue. The absorption of the analogue was increased by lowering the pH of the solution and increased more by adding citric, succinic, tartaric, and malonic acids. The absolute bioavailability after vaginal administration of the 5% citric acid solution was 16.7% at pH 3.5 and 38.4% at pH 1.8. The enhancing potency of the absorption correlated well with the chelating ability of the organic acids. The vaginal absorption of phenol red was also enhanced with citric acid and edetic acid, but the enhancing effect of edetic acid was eliminated by adding equimolar calcium ion. These results suggest that the acidifying and chelating abilities of the acids may result in a potent enhancement of the vaginal absorption of leuprolide. A leakage experiment using Evan's blue on the vaginal membrane indicated that the blood-vaginal epithelium barrier was loosened with the administration of citric acid; this change was overcome rapidly.


In this paper we describe methods of decomposing risk into subcomponents such as contributing instruments, subportfolios or underlying risk factors e.g., equity, foreign exchange, economy-wide systematic and interest rate risk factors. The Euler allocation principle for allocation of instrument and subportfolio risk contributions to the total portfolio risk is widely applied in practice for portfolio managers risk budgeting and economic capital allocations. However, the decomposition of risk factors into summable contributions is in general not possible and we describe a non-parametric method of extracting relative information of risk factors that is valid for general non-linear portfolios. The measure is based on the Kullback information theory and while it does not constitute a decomposition it can be used to judge the relative importance of risk factors in determining profit and loss. The measure is also useful for understanding the relevance of so-called reverse stress tests where a certain loss level is identified with certain risk factor values. The use of the information measure is illustrated with an application to a portfolio of derivatives.


&NA; Synthetic and nonsynthetic fiber granulomas can be easily diagnosed and treated. This is a case of a child who had a granulomatous inflammation surrounding a filamentous foreign body that was removed and identified by simple histopathologic techniques. The pathologic findings are remarkably similar to the few case reports in the literature. Accurate reporting of these findings may reveal a greater incidence of synthetic and nonsynthetic fiber granulomas.


The purpose of this descriptive study was to assess sexual orientation and Knowledge and attitudes with regards to AIDS in military personnel, and to provide basic data for developing a further sex education program for them. The data were collected in June 2002 on 242 service members of A Branch of the Ground Army located in Chung-Chung Do Region. They responded to a survey questionnaire that consisted of 68 items: 14 items on sexual orientation. 39 items on knowledge about AIDS, and 15 items on attitudes toward AIDS. The data were analyzed using SAS program. The study results are as follows: 1. Sexual orientation of the military personnel 1) In terms of sexual orientaion, harassment and assault, only of the subjects responded as, 'know well'. Appropriate awareness of the legal liability was reported by of the subjects regarding sexual harassment and of the subjects regarding sexual assault. 2) Pre-marital cohabitant was supported by of the subjects. 3) The Korean military personnel showed liberal attitudes toward sexuality as of them reported having sexual-relationship with the dating partner is acceptable. 4) The attitudes of the most subjects toward homosexuality was found to be unfavorable. 5) Subjects were m the need of appropriate sex education. of which substantial knowledge on sexual intercourse was the most needy area. 2. Knowledge and attitudes toward AIDS of the military personnel 1) The subjects' level of knowledge on AIDS was relatively low, showing the average score of points (range: 0-39 points). The higher level of knowledge was reported by those who had high level of education, father alive. and less number of brothers in their family. 2) The subjects' attitudes toward AIDS was relatively positive. The attitude toward AIDS was also found to be more positive in those who had high level of education and less number of brothers. 3) There was a positive but weak correlation between knowledge and attitude toward AIDS. The study finding showed that the sexual orientaion of the Korean military personnel was moderately positive and liberal. However, their awareness of sexual harassment and assault and AIDS was still found to be low. As Korean enlisted military service men are likely to be in the ages with strong sexual desire, it may be important for them to have appropriate sexual orientation and attitudes toward AIDS. Therefore, it is recommended to develop further practical and sound sex education programs within the military unit in order to meet their education needs as well as to utilize sex education specialists as the instructors of those programs.


Mammalian body mass strongly correlates with life history and population properties at the scale of mouse to elephant. Large body size is thus often associated with elevated extinction risk. I examined the North American fossil record (28–1 million years ago) of 276 terrestrial genera to uncover the relationship between body size and extinction probability above the species level. Phylogenetic comparative analysis revealed no correlation between sampling-adjusted durations and body masses ranging 7 orders of magnitude, an observation that was corroborated by survival analysis. Most of the ecological and temporal groups within the data set showed the same lack of relationship. Size-biased generic extinctions do not constitute a general feature of the Holarctic mammalian faunas in the Neogene. Rather, accelerated loss of large mammals occurred during intervals that experienced combinations of regional aridification and increased biomic heterogeneity within continents. The latter phenomenon is consistent with the macroecological prediction that large geographic ranges are critical to the survival of large mammals in evolutionary time. The frequent lack of size selectivity in generic extinctions can be reconciled with size-biased species loss if extinctions of large and small mammals at the species level are often driven by ecological perturbations of different spatial and temporal scales, while those at the genus level are more synchronized in time as a result of fundamental, multiscale environmental shifts.


Abstract Aristotle's discussion of Plato's Republic in Politics II is argued to be, at least in part, peirastic, on the grounds that nine premises that Aristotle uses in his arguments on unity and property in the city of the guardians are premises that Socrates himself proposes in the dialogue. The paper supports this claim with a table of parallel passages from the two works. The paper concludes that Aristotle uses a peirastic treatment of the Republic as an opportunity to work out his own answers to the problems of unity and property.


EXTENDED ABSTRACT:During the most productive period of his long lasting activity, namely in 1950's and 1970's of the 20th century, the Slovenian architect Edo Mihevc had a great impact on the development of landscape and urban architecture, especially in the Slovenian coastal region and Istria, where a great part of urban environment is either directly or indirectly related to his work. The Regional Archive of Koper obtained the architect's archive and made it accessible to the public by signing a donation agreement with the architect's widow Ana Jontez Mihevc. The archive was originally stored in three buildings (at his home in Portorož and Ljubljana, in his ex-office and in the basement at the Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana). The archive was then transmitted to the Regional Archive mainly for the sake of its preservation as it was endangered by inappropriate micro climate conditions (moist, dust) in all three depots. The archive located at the Faculty of Architecture was endangered as the documents were gradually taken away without any control although they had not been catalogued yet. The archive of Edo Mihevc (1911-1985) is gaining its importance for researches in the history of architecture as well as for studies of the period between the wars and especially for studies of the post war period in Slovenia. It is of great importance to the Slovenian coastal region and Istria as the architect and his students designed the regional architectural plan for the Slovenian coast and the north-west Istria as well as urban plans for individual cities and their enlargement which were mostly carried out. Thus, the architect had a great impact on the culture and identity of the local environment. In 2010 and 2011 the Regional Archive of Koper was allocated funds for the digitisation of plans which were considered to be the most sensitive part of the architect's archive. They were sketched on the tracing paper of different quality. As they were intensively used and sometimes combined with unsuitable materials they were damaged to such a degree that they needed to be restored before being digitised. They were digitised by the company Mikrografija of Novomesto. The storage of these documents represents a lot of problems, some of them being typical for all documents of modern architecture: great volume of documents due to numerous versions of a project, great volume of graphic documents of urban plans, the quality of tracing paper, documents are placed in other public archives (regional public committees) or in private archives, lack of basic data (dates, names …). There are also some specific problems: many documents have disappeared (they were either lost or destroyed) which might be related to the fact that Edo Mihevc had been severely criticised due to the controversy of his solutions. The problem of preserving his legacy is related to the historical and political circumstances in the recent past and the lack of historical distance to the waste corpus of his architectural heritage.


Museums' main functions are to preserve pieces of art, transmit and share knowledge. They are proposing more and more solutions to address the access to information. In this paper, our main purpose is to improve visitors' learning experience and knowledge transfer in museums. First, we did theoretical background review about museum experience and multi-sensory experience. Then, we propose a new method based on "Multi-sensory transformation matrix". Finally, we design the initial concept of a brand new multi-sensory solution that we plan to experiment with visitors in real museum environments.


A multidisciplinary placement optimization methodology for heat generating electronic components on a printed circuit board (PCB) subjected to forced convection in an enclosure is presented. In this methodology, thermal, electrical, and placement criteria involving junction temperature, wiring density, line length for high frequency signals, and critical component location are optimized simultaneously using the genetic algorithm. A board-level thermal performance prediction methodology based on channel flow forced convection boundary conditions is developed. The methodology consists of a combination of artificial neural networks (ANNs) and a superposition method that is able to predict PCB surface and component junction temperatures in a much shorter calculation time than the existing numerical methods. Three ANNs are used for predicting temperature rise at the PCB surface caused by a single heat source at an arbitrary location on the board, while temperature rise due to multiple heat sources is calculated using a superposition method. Compact thermal models are used for the electronic components thermal modeling. Using this optimization methodology, large calculation time reduction is achieved without losing accuracy. To demonstrate its capabilities, the present methodology is applied to a test case involving multiple heat generating component placement optimization on a PCB.


In Lisbon, a German married couple is about to get aboard the legendary n°28 tramway. How should you react when the brakes let go and embark you on a vertiginous race ... with a baby on board?


The characteristics of flow past a square cylinder submerged under the free surface have been numerically studied. An immersed boundary method was adopted for implementation of the cylinder cross-section in a Cartesian grid system. Also, a level-set method was used to capture the interface of the two fluids. The case for Reynolds number 150 was examined. At the specific Reynolds number, by varying the gap ratio(0.25, 0.40, 0.55, 0.70, 1.00, 1.50, 2.50, 5.00) the effects of the free surface on the force coefficients and Strouhal number of vortex shedding were identified. The presence of the free surface very close to the cylinder significantly affects the shedding pattern, resulting in considerable deviation of the force coefficients and Strouhal number from those of the single-phase flow. In addition, the influence of Froude number was considered in this study. By increasing Froude number(0.2-0.4), flow topology change was identified at the specific gap ratios(0.40, 0.70, 1.50, 5.00).


Nowadays the general interest on Cloud Computing as a technical and business solution is growing. The pool of available cloud applications, services and platforms is increasing leveraging new features for the cloud assets provisioned to the end user. This massive amount and divergence of cloud features across the cloud stack layers introduces considerable management overhead to the various stakeholders for the effective management of both the offered products and the system itself. In this paper we focus on the challenges arise for providing dynamic elasticity management as one the fundamental features of Clouds. To this direction, we introduce the concept of Elasticity as a Service and present a generic, service-oriented framework capable to fulfill, in a personalized manner, the elasticity management needs of any cloud environment and cloud-enabled application.


Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC

We investigated tumor cell heterogeneity in mouse models of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that recapitulate key genetic events in this disease. In tumors driven by simultaneous expression of an oncogenic Kras allele and loss of the tumor suppressor Trp53, only a relatively rare subset of tumor cells is capable of propagating tumor growth in both a clonogenic in vitro assay and an in vivo orthotopic transplantation assay. The tumor-propagating cell (TPC) population was enriched by sorting for the combination of the cell surface markers CD24, ITGB4 and Notch(1-4). We demonstrate a critical and specific role for Notch3 signaling in the maintenance of TPCs in the KrasG12D; Trp53fl/fl mouse model. Knock-down of Notch3, but not Notch 1, 2 or 4, decreased self-renewal of TPCs in vitro. In addition, knock-down of Notch3 was critical for tumor propagation in vivo. The relevance of these studies to human NSCLC was confirmed by demonstrating a significant effect of Notch inhibition on the self-renewal of primary human lung adenocarcinoma cells in ex vivo cultures established directly from patients. These findings identify a novel subpopulation of tumor cells with distinct functional capabilities, underscoring the importance of interrogating heterogeneity in NSCLC. The unique role of Notch3 in tumor propagation may provide a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.

Citation Format: Yanyan Zheng, Cecile de la Cruz, Leanne Sayles, Chris Alleyne-Chin, Yue Xu, Chuong D. Hoang, Joseph B. Shrager, Erica Jackson, Alejandro Sweet-Cordero. Notch3 is a marker of tumor-propagating cells in non-small cell lung cancer and is required for their self-renewal. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 266. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-266


This article reviews the imaging findings of pediatric mediastinal tumors and tumor-like lesions. The classification of the mediastinum is discussed with normal imaging appearance of the thymus in pediatric age group followed by a discussion on multiple mediastinal lesions in different compartments with emphasis on their imaging characteristics.


This paper presents a search model of unemployment with a new mechanism of job separation based on firms' demand constraints. The model is consistent with the cyclical behavior of labor market variables and can account for three stylized facts about unemployment that the Mortensen-Pissarides (1994) model has difficulties explaining jointly: (i) the unemployment-vacancy correlation is negative, (ii) the contribution of the job separation rate to unemployment fluctuations is small but non-trivial, (iii) movements in the job separation rate are sharp and short-lived while movements in the job finding rate are persistent. In addition, the model can rationalize two hitherto unexplained findings: why unemployment inflows were less important in the last two decades, and why the asymmetric behavior of unemployment weakened after 1985.


In this paper an attempt is being made to evaluate and elucidate the role of the women of Assam in the freedom struggle of India. The year 1920 had witnessed the outbreak of the great nationalist movement in India
under the leadership of Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi to make India free from the British bondage. Assam's contribution to the struggle of Independence as one of its provinces was not in any way less than the rest of the country. Along with the men, the women of Assam also responded to each and every phases of the freedom
movement launched by Gandhiji, namely, the Non−Cooperation Movement (1920 / 21), Civil Disobedience Movement (1930) and the Quit India Movement (1942). They participated in the movement by organizing processions and picketings and undertaking tours to the remotest areas to propagate the message of the movement. They whole−heartedly undertook Gandhiji's constructive programs like spinning and weaving in large scale along with the task of removal of untouchability and popularization of Hindi as a national language. That is why the glory of the Civil Disobedience Movement in Assam is attributed to the women. In 1942, the Assamese women perhaps surpassed all other women of the country in respect of courage and sacrifice. During
this period they participated in the movement both on non−violent Gandhian way and the revolutionary way. The revolutionary group of women helped their male counterparts in cutting telephone and telegraph lines, burning government buildings and damaging bridges to paralyze the British administration. Such activities led
the government to take repressive measures to suppress the women folk. They were harassed both mentally and physically, which in turn aroused the common people to fight for the noble cause of freedom.


The time evolution of a boson–fermion mixture that is strongly confined in one direction is studied when a magnetic field is suddenly brought close to an interspecies Feshbach resonance. We predict that the atom–molecule oscillations that occur in the three-dimensional case will also be present in the quasi-two-dimensional case and compute the change in frequency and the number of cold fermions remaining after the Feshbach regime is switched on.


ABSTRACT As a postoperative complication to cataract surgery [extracapsular extraction (ECCE), phacoemulsification (KPE)], the posterior capsule (PC) of the lens often becomes opacified with plaque, Elschnig's pearls, or fibrotic bands, resulting in decreased visual acuity (VA). A Q‐switched Nd:YAG ophthalmic laser was used to perform noninvasive micropuncturing of the posterior capsule. Two hundred thirteen patients (195 with existing intraocular lenses) underwent laser capsulotomy within a 14‐month clinical study. These patients were followed over a 6‐month postcapsulotomy period. Findings indicate excellent restored VA with minimal ocular complications.


The study on followership has intrigued researchers as it represents the 'say' of the group. In accomplishing task and team's objectives, understanding followers' behavior is fundamental. Followers move the strategies laid out by their leaders and will determine the pace of team success. Social identity theory asserts that uniformity usually exists in a group practicing the same routines and they will have the same category of temperaments. There is a need to explore these similarities should they exist in armed forces. Although there are proven assumptions that military men orchestrate coincident behaviors, this conception has limitedly been tested in terms of followership. Most common assumptions in the army are that they will follow what is instructed. To a certain extent, this might be true, but what drives them to follow, and are they 'characteristically' independent or active in following? Most studies have yet to deeply characterize this behavior in terms of group or team citizenship, especially in military settings. This research is carried out in an infantry unit located in Central North Malaysia. The objectives of this research are to identify the similarities in followers' typology, to explore the differences among followers' type in terms of followers' conformity and to examine the relationship between typologies' criteria (independent thinking and activity level) with followers' conformity. Of all four tested hypotheses, it is accepted that there is a similarity in the types of followers from the selected organization (H1), and there is a significant relationship between activity level and followers' conformity (H4). However, there is found to be no relationship between independent thinking and followers' conformity (H3) and there is no significant difference among followers in terms of their conformity (H2). This study contributes to multiple aspects of organizational behavior especially followership in the military.


Malaysia has been defined as a plural society, characterised by distinct racial communities, each having its own space and activities. Most literature implies that there is a still gap between races in terms of economic equity and property ownership. Despite the initiative by the government namely the New Economic Policy (NEP) introduced in 1971, to eradicate poverty and to achieve 30 percent of Bumiputera equity in all economic sectors, the performance of the Bumiputeras are not as encouraging. A more recent initiative is the launching of the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) to support the Vision 2020 aspiration to become a high income economic nation by 2020. Iskandar Malaysia (IM), a new development corridor in the southern part of Peninsular Malaysia has been identified as one of the catalysts for GDP growth through high-impact developments. The Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP), a blueprint of the area has outlined various development strategies in line with the vision of IM as a sustainable conurbation of international standing. Since then, the city-region has experienced a high rate development through several public–private urban renewal and new urban/suburban projects. This paper examines the strategic policies on social development generally, in particular, the development strategy that will result in the increase in the value of Bumiputera land as well as other benefits.


Understanding and predicting pedestrian behavior is an important and challenging area of research for realizing safe and effective navigation strategies in automated and advanced driver assistance technologies in urban scenes. This paper focuses on monocular pedestrian action recognition and 3D localization from an egocentric view for the purpose of predicting intention and forecasting future trajectory. A challenge in addressing this problem in urban traffic scenes is attributed to the unpredictable behavior of pedestrians, whereby actions and intentions are constantly in flux and depend on the pedestrians pose, their 3D spatial relations, and their interaction with other agents as well as with the environment. To partially address these challenges, we consider the importance of pose toward recognition and 3D localization of pedestrian actions. In particular, we propose an action recognition framework using a two-stream temporal relation network with inputs corresponding to the raw RGB image sequence of the tracked pedestrian as well as the pedestrian pose. The proposed method outperforms methods using a single-stream temporal relation network based on evaluations using the JAAD public dataset. The estimated pose and associated body key-points are also used as input to a network that estimates the 3D location of the pedestrian using a unique loss function. The evaluation of our 3D localization method on the KITTI dataset indicates the improvement of the average localization error as compared to existing state-of-the-art methods. Finally, we conduct qualitative tests of action recognition and 3D localization on HRI's H3D driving dataset.


Background Knee valgus braces are used to reduce knee load and varus deformities in individuals with medial compartment osteoarthritis (OA). The purpose of this study was to determine whether the kinematics and kinetics of the knee are improved when wearing a knee-ankle-foot orthosis (KAFO) compared with knee valgus braces while walking and stair climbing. Materials and Methods One male individual (with 10° of knee varus) was assessed with a control shoe, custom, and off-the-shelf (OTS) Unloader knee valgus braces, and a custom-made KAFO in situ during walking and stair climbing. Results The KAFO significantly reduced the knee varus angle compared with the shoe and both knee valgus braces during walking and stair climbing, as well as the first peak of the external knee adduction moment (EKAM) during walking and the knee adduction angular impulse (KAAI) during ascending compared with the shoe. No significant differences were noted between the custom and OTS knee valgus braces in any measures. Conclusions Knee-ankle-foot orthoses may be recommended for individuals with high knee varus angles.


The goal of statistical compressive sensing is to efficiently acquire and reconstruct high-dimensional signals with much fewer measurements, given access to a finite set of training signals from the underlying domain being sensed. We present a novel algorithmic framework based on autoencoders that jointly learns the acquisition (a.k.a. encoding) and recovery (a.k.a. decoding) functions while implicitly modeling domain structure. Our learning objective maximizes a variational lower bound to the mutual information between the signal and the measurements. Empirically, we show 20− 46% improvement in reconstruction accuracies over competing approaches on the MNIST dataset for the same number of measurements.


This paper presents a comprehensive framework for logic diagnosis consisting of two main phases. In the first phase, a set of suspected faulty sites is obtained by applying an approach based on an Effect-Cause analysis. Then, in the second phase, a set of realistic fault models is associated with each suspected faulty site by analyzing specific information, called fault evidences, collected during the first phase. The main advantage of the proposed methodology is its capability to deal with several fault models at the same time. Another advantage is that it is able to handle both single and multiple fault occurrences. Experiments on ISCAS85, ISCAS89, and ITC99 benchmark circuits show the efficiency of the proposed method both in terms of diagnosis resolution and accuracy of the predicted fault models.


ObjectiveAlthough infarct location may predict prognosis after primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for ST elevation myocardial infarction, previous studies were powered insufficiently to be able to show whether this association is independent of peak creatine kinase (CK) or left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). MethodsA large-scale, prospective, observational, single-center study was performed including all patients who underwent primary PCI between 1991 and 2004 in Zwolle (The Netherlands). The association between infarct location and 1-year outcome, was compared with the prognostic impact of peak CK and LVEF. ResultsOf 4990 patients, 2485 (49.8%) had an anterior infarction. Patients with anterior myocardial infarction had a higher peak CK (2960 vs. 2009 U/l, P<0.001) and a lower LVEF (40.0 vs. 50.0%, P<0.001). Mortality within 1 year was higher in patients with anterior infarction as well as in those with a high peak CK or a low LVEF. After multivariate analyses, patients with anterior infarction still had an increased risk of a high peak CK, a poor LVEF, and also a higher 1-year mortality, odds ratio (OR) 1.35 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.07–1.70]. Low LVEF was a significant stronger predictor of 1-year mortality, OR 4.4 (95% CI: 2.4–7.8), compared with peak CK, OR 2.0 (95% CI: 1.6–2.5) or anterior location, OR 1.6 (95% CI: 1.3–2.0). ConclusionIn patients undergoing primary PCI, location of infarction is an important independent predictor of high peak CK, low LVEF, and increased mortality. LVEF is a strong predictor of 1-year mortality.


The controversial introduction of rbST, a laboratory version of bST, a growth hormone that stimulates milk production in cows, may provide hopeful lessons for other foods produced by biotechnology. Milk sales remained steady after rbST became available to dairy farmers, even though a multitude of public opinion surveys documented widespread concern about food safety and biotechnology, and some analysts predicted a drop in milk consumption of up to 20 percent. The undiminished consumer demand for milk may indicate that consumers will also accept other animal food products from biotechnology. The rbST experience suggests that, while scientific evidence of food safety will not prevent controversy over biotech foods, controversy will not necessarily inhibit consumer demand for the food.


This paper aims to assess the healthcare leadership's role in crisis management, examine, and investigate the influencing factors. A quantitative analysis approach with a positivism philosophy is adopted. Primary data are collected using a structured questionnaire distributed to a sample of hospital employees in Lebanon. Data analysis used IBM SPSS version 25; whereby descriptive statistics (i.e., frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (i.e., factor analysis, multivariable linear regression) were obtained. Results revealed that leaders' traits and skills like proactivity and communication, gender, hospital location, organization's culture, and stakeholders' engagement influence the effectiveness of leaders' decision-making in a crisis management context. Also, the results confirmed the alternative hypotheses that the explanatory factors have a direct and statistically significant relationship with leaders' decision-making effectiveness. Outcomes of this research serve as an eye opener to policymakers, health care managers, and stakeholders that a fully integrated effort is a must to mitigate serious crisis consequences.


Due to the high technology and the complexity of medical equipment, as well as to the safety and effectiveness, it determines the high requirements of the medical equipment maintenance work. This paper introduces some basic methods of medical instrument maintenance, including fault tree analysis, node method and exclusive method which are the three important methods in the medical equipment maintenance, through using these three methods for the instruments that have circuit drawings, hardware breakdown maintenance can be done easily. And this paper introduces the processing methods of some special fault conditions, in order to reduce little detours in meeting the same problems. Learning is very important for stuff just engaged in this area.


Purpose: To investigate the expression of metadherin (MTDH) for its prognostic value in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its role in promoting HCC metastasis. Experimental Design: This study employed a tissue microarray containing samples from 323 HCC patients to examine the expression of MTDH and its correlation with other clinicopathologic characteristics. The role of MTDH in the regulation of HCC metastasis was investigated both in vitro and in vivo using short hairpin RNA (shRNA)–mediated downregulation of MTDH in HCC cell lines with various metastatic potentials. Results: The expression of MTDH was markedly higher in HCC tumors than in normal liver tissue. Particularly high MTDH expression was observed in tumors with microvascular invasion, pathologic satellites, poor differentiation, or tumor-node-metastasis stages II to III. Furthermore, the clinical outcome was consistently poorer for the MTDHhigh group than for the MTDHlow group in the 1-, 3-, and 5-year overall survival (OS) rates and in the 1-, 3-, 5-year cumulative recurrence rates. In a nude mice model, the shRNA-mediated downregulation of MTDH resulted in a reduced migratory capacity in HCC cell lines, as well as a reduction in pulmonary and abdominal metastasis. Furthermore, we found that the expression level of MTDH correlated with four epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers. Knockdown of MTDH expression in HCC cell lines resulted in downregulation of N-cadherin and snail, upregulation of E-cadherin, and translocation of β-catenin. Conclusions: MTDH may promote HCC metastasis through the induction of EMT process and may be a candidate biomarker for prognosis as well as a target for therapy. Clin Cancer Res; 17(23); 7294–302. ©2011 AACR.


This white paper addresses selected new (to X-ray astronomy) physics and data analysis issues that will impact ASTRO-H SWG observations as a result of its high-spectral-resolution X-ray microcalorimeter, the focussing hard X-ray optics and corresponding detectors, and the low background soft gamma-ray detector. We concentrate on issues of atomic and nuclear physics, including basic bound-bound and bound-free transitions as well as scattering and radiative transfer. The major topic categories include the physics of charge exchange, solar system X-ray sources, advanced spectral model, radiative transfer, and hard X-ray emission lines and sources.


Background The principal features of elastic pressure-volume curves of lungs or the respiratory system (Pel/V curves) recorded during reexpansion of collapsed lungs and subsequent deflation have been known since the 1950s. In acute respiratory failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome such curves have recently attracted increasing interest because new knowledge can be acquired from them, and because such curves may be useful as guidelines in setting the ventilator so as to avoid ventilator-induced lung injury. Discussion This article reviews recording methods, underlying physiology and utility of Pel/V curves in research and clinical work.


Introduction. Entry of enveloped viruses into host cells requires binding of the virus to one or more receptors present at the host cell surface followed by fusion of the viral envelope with a cellular membrane. After binding, viruses such as paramyxoviruses, retroviruses and herpesviruses are thought to fuse directly with the plasma membrane. For other viruses, including the alpha-, rhabdo- and ortho-myxoviruses, binding does not directly lead to fusion. Instead, the bound virus particles are first internalized and then, at the low-pH within this compartment, fuse with the endosomal membrane.
In this review, we will focus on this latter class of viruses. For alpha-, rhabdo- and orthomyxoviruses, a glycoprotein is responsible for both virus attachment and fusion. In the acidic environment of the endosome, the ectodomain portion of the glycoprotein undergoes a major structural rearrangement to generate a fusion-competent state.


An adult patient with micrencephaly combined with unusual multiple glioneural leptomeningeal heterotopias is presented. In spite of the large number of leptomeningeal heterotopias supra- and infratentorially, the cortices of the cerebrum and the cerebellum were well-organized and the white matter was well-myelinated. The heterotopias contained glial tissue and mature neurons, those in the cerebellum resembling Purkinje cells and granular cells, along with axons and mineralizations. The pathogenesis of the leptomeningeal heterotopias and micrencephaly is discussed.


The youth justice system manages children and young people who have committed, or allegedly committed, an offence. In Australia, youth justice is the responsibility of the states and territories, and each has its own legislation, policies and practices. However, the general processes by which young people are charged and sentenced, and the types of legal orders available to the courts, are similar. In Australia, young people can be charged with a criminal offence if they are aged 10 or older. The upper age limit for treatment as a young person under the law is 17 in all states and territories except Queensland, where the limit is 16. However, some young people aged 18 or older are also involved in the youth justice system (see 'Technical notes'). A young person first enters the youth justice system when they are investigated by police for allegedly committing a crime. Legal action taken by police might include court actions (the laying of charges to be answered in court) and non-court actions (such as cautions, conferencing, or infringement notices). If the matter proceeds to court and the charge is proven, the court may hand down any of a number of orders, either supervised or unsupervised. This report looks at the complete youth justice supervision history of 24,102 young people in Australia, who experienced supervision, both in the community and in detention, between 1 July 2000 and 30 June 2014 when they were aged 10–17. More than one-third (37%) of young people experienced the most common pathway of sentenced community-based supervision only. Young people spent a median of 303 days (about 10 months) under supervision in total, and completed a median of 2 periods of supervision. About 11% of young people had a pathway that was considered 'extensive', and these young people accounted for about one-third (32%) of the total days of supervision and nearly half (45%) of all supervision periods.


I read with pleasure Graham Anderson's learned and amusing note, but am unconvinced. One might question his methodology, in that he does not really go into the question of what shape or shapes the words mean at what times; and illustrates 'an aryballos' without indicating its date or place of origin (it turns out to be redrawn from an engraving after an archaic Etruscan tomb-painting). However, these are not, I think, points of substance. λήκυθος and ληκύθιον seem to have been loosely used over a long time and wide area for any form of portable oil-flask; and there is evidence for round aryballoi in fifth- and fourth-century Athens. Also the expressions may have long been in common use, though for us they only surface in Aristophanes and Demosthenes. I cannot, though, myself see any force in Henderson's view that the standard shapes of lekythia do not resemble male genitals; not in detail, certainly, but the white lekythos, the lekythos par excellence in Aristophanes' Athens, is surely phallic enough. If one dreamed of one, Freud would be in no doubt what it meant.


This article intends to understand how the Laws of the Guidelines and Bases of the National Education (LDB) and respective amendments has contemplated the training of teachers of sciences and biology teachers pointing out the main problems and implications, from a historical perspective. Through documentary and bibliographical analysis it was highlighted that there is a historical heritage in the degree of the "3 + 1" model, characterized as an appendix of the bachelor's degree, leading to the non-identification of the profile of the trained teacher; the knowledge separation in scientific and pedagogical of this model further fragmented the curriculum of the course; the poor quality of the teacher license (degrees) created mainly through private initiative after LDB/96 formed disqualified teachers hindering the learning of the teaching. Ultimately, current modifications in LDB went back by attesting to the possibility of assigning teaching to people with "notorious knowledge". The relevance of resorting to legal texts is highlighted, since the way in which teacher training is approached also reveals the importance attributed to this field by the set of social groups as a whole.


After its first description in 1873, anorexia nervosa seems not to have attracted much attention in countries of German language. Compared to French and English literature, German publications on the subject were rather scarce in the 19th century. This article gives an overview of those writings and an explanation of the lack of interest on the part of the German-speaking physicians. Apparently, to them anorexia nervosa did not appeal as a nosological entity distinct from the popular diagnosis of "nervous dyspepsia".


Pneumoperitoneum, gas under the diaphragm, is often a sign of significant intra-abdominal pathology, be it perforation in the stomach or duodenum secondary to peptic ulcer disease or in the small or large bowel as a result of inflammatory bowel diseases, diverticulitis or cancer, it can also be iatrogenic as a result of endoscopy or laparoscopy. The diagnosis is made with erect chest and abdominal radiographs, air is usually most visible under the right hemi-diaphragm. Here, we present a troublesome case of recurrent pneumoperitoneum, which despite extensive investigations and laparotomy no cause was found.


AbstractThe intensity of terrestrial gamma radiation is a function of a number of parameters: emissivity and spatial distribution of the radioactive material in the soil, snow/water cover above ground, soil moisture content, type, and height above ground of the detector. Thus, the conversion of gamma measurements into reliable information must be based on a solid knowledge of the behavior of the gamma detector under different conditions. Such a detector, using a cylindrical NaI(Tl) crystal, was developed to remotely and automatically provide information on snow water equivalent (SWE) and soil moisture content (M). It became rapidly obvious that the behavior of the detector [gamma monitor (GMON)] over an infinite source could not be exactly reproduced in a laboratory. Therefore, a relatively simple model to simulate the behavior of GMON and to establish the relevant data analysis algorithms was conceived. This paper presents the basic assumptions for developing the model, the resulting algorithms, a compar...


PURPOSE
To correlate the electrodiagnostic and clinical features of patients with demyelinating abnormalities and neuropathy of otherwise unknown etiology.

METHODS
We examined the records of patient with demyelinating abnormalities and no other cause for neuropathy that were evaluated in our electrophysiology laboratory over the course of a year, to correlate the clinical and electrodiagnostic features.

RESULTS
Eight percent of all patients had one or more demyelinating abnormalities. Demyelinating features were significantly more numerous in generalized or asymmetric neuropathy than in distal polyneuropathy. The peroneal nerve was the most commonly affected in all phenotypes, and none of the patients with distal neuropathy had F-wave prolongation in the demyelinating range.

CONCLUSIONS
The number and type of demyelinating abnormalities in patients with polyneuropathy vary with the clinical phenotype. The clinical presentation should be considered in developing or evaluating electrodiagnostic criteria for demyelinating neuropathies.


This book on nanoformulation of cancer drugs provides a naotechnology based practical approach towards solving the current problems of uncontrollable drug delivery and adverse effects associated with systemic chemotherapy. The research is applied on common chemotherapy drugs like 'Paclitaxel' and 'Tamoxifen' but not limited to therapeutic agents, as nanoformulation of 'Gadolinium', a MRI contrast agent is also described here. This work was performed at the nanotechnology labs of LA Tech University's well known "Institute for Micromanufacturing" (IFM),USA, under the guidance of one of the pioneers in this field, Dr. Yuri M. Lvov. Part of this work was featured as the cover story in 7th issue of the international pharmaceutical magazine "Pharma Focus Asia" as "R&D @ NANO LEVEL" in 2008 and also published in peer reviewed journals including the well celebrated drug delivery medical journal "Journal of Controlled Release." This research counted towards a US Patent application and received national level funding. In the April 2009 issue of IFM Newsletter, the author has been quoted as "A person who is a brilliant professional both in engineering and medicine."


IL-18, originally identified as interferon-gamma inducing factor (IGIF), is related to the IL-1 family in terms of its structure as well as its processing, receptor, signal transduction pathway and pro-inflammatory properties. IL-18 is also functionally related to IL-12, as it induces the production of Th1 cytokines and participates in cell-mediated immune cytotoxicity. A summary is made of recent advances in the understanding of IL-18 structure, processing, receptor expression and immunoregulatory functions. It focuses on the role of IL-18 modulation in tumours, infections and autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.


Iron is a cofactor of photosystems and electron carriers in the photosynthetic electron transport chain. Low concentrations of dissolved iron are, therefore, the predominant factor that limits the growth of phototrophs in large parts of the open sea like the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific, resulting in "high nutrient–low chlorophyll" (HNLC) areas. Diatoms are among the most abundant microalgae in HNLC zones. Besides efficient iron uptake mechanisms, efficient photoprotection might be one of the key traits enabling them to outcompete other algae in HNLC regions. In diatoms, Lhcx proteins play a crucial role in one of the main photoprotective mechanisms, the energy-dependent fluorescence quenching (qE). The expression of Lhcx proteins is strongly influenced by various environmental triggers. We show that Lhcx2 responds specifically and in a very sensitive manner to iron limitation in the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum on the same timescale as the known iron-regulated genes ISIP1 and CCHH11. By comparing Lhcx2 knockout lines with wild type cells, we reveal that a strongly increased qE under iron limitation is based on the upregulation of Lhcx2. Other observed iron acclimation phenotypes in P. tricornutum include a massively reduced chlorophyll a content/cell, a changed ratio of light harvesting and photoprotective pigments per chlorophyll a, a decreased amount of photosystem II and photosystem I cores, an increased functional photosystem II absorption cross section, and decoupled antenna complexes. H2O2 formation at photosystem I induced by high light is lowered in iron-limited cells, while the amount of total reactive oxygen species is rather increased. Our data indicate a possible reduction in singlet oxygen by Lhcx2-based qE, while the other iron acclimation phenotype parameters monitored are not affected by the amount of Lhcx2 and qE.


Improper Solid Waste management is a global problem. Solid waste management is not just a technical issue but it also has socio-political and cultural dimensions that need solution through policies, administration, re-orientation, organizational arrangements. The important thing is that the total solid waste generated is not equal to the solid waste reached to the dumping site. This study includes the details about total quantity of solid waste produced, its collection, physical structure, and transference, treating and dumping of solid waste in Rawalpindi city. Its focuses GIS based Solid Waste Management through Collection and Routing. The use of GIS to locate the position of waste bins is based on convenient distance to households, maximum service coverage and consideration of physical and socio-cultural context of the service area. GIS use to locate the position of waste bins is based on suitable space to households, maximum service coverage. A bin location point covers the built up areas. After the calculations of the required bins, a map is generated. Waste bins are located at the shoulders of roads after excluding unsuitable areas. Walk time service area analysis for dropping of the waste from houses is calculated. By using the network analysis service area the calculated walk time will be 3, 5 and 10 minutes. Proposed model include the arrangement of bins, routing, optimal routing. The generation of spatial data base bin locations, verify the same data using satellite information. Waste storage, width of the roads, accessibility of the space and the travel distance from the home. Dataset model analyze on the base of four layers.  These are stops, point barrier, line barrier, polygon barrier and polygon barrier. Route calculates between any two stops and give results. The current work examined the insufficiency of existing collection bins and their service areas. 5 cubic meter bin keeps 2.5 tons waste. Every bin is placed along the main roads. Total Rawalpindi city area is 276 sq km. 46 Km area can be accessed through walk time of 3, 5 and 10 minutes which is most of the built up area. 17% area of the city can access bin by the walk time of 3, 5 and 10 minutes.  The Proposed GIS model used for routing and planning uses statistics on the shortest routes (in terms of travel time or distance) between pairs of waste containers and between waste Bins and waste dumping site. Keywords: Waste management, Geographical information system, disposal site, open heaps.


Studies conducted in Western democratic countries with privately owned press presenting news from different ideological perspectives have found the phenomenon of news overload causes stress in media users (affective load) and this leads to news avoidance behavior. This study, conducting a structural equation modeling using AMOS 27, investigates the relationships between news overload, affective load, and consequent news avoidance behavior in China. The findings suggest, consistent with studies in Western democratic jurisdictions, that news overload and affective load influence users' news avoidance behavior. However, in contrast to studies outside of China, this study found demographic variables of age, gender, education, and occupation had no statistically significant influence on avoidance behavior by Chinese social media news consumers. The results suggest that either social attributes and responses by media users in China are significantly different from those in Western countries or ideology plays an important role in avoidance behavior and the impact of ideology is different across different demographic groups in Western jurisdictions.


SUMMARY Shifting cultivation is claimed as the major cause of drastic deforestation in the uplands of Eastern Bangladesh. Agroforestry is considered as one of the very few options to protect the existing forest and, additionally, lift people out of the poverty trap. This paper indicates that agroforestry may not only be good for (agro)biodiversity and sustainability, but has a good economic rate of return. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to analyse data. The financial analysis indicates that agroforestry systems give positive and much higher net present value (NPV) than shifting cultivation. In addition, it is more profitable and less risky than other agricultural options. Appropriate strategies leading to the right choice of species, optimal species combinations, solving land tenure problems, ensuring initial support and imparting training to farmers could promote agroforestry systems and enhance farm income.


ABSTRACT The simple assembly line balancing problem (SALBP) considers work division among different workstations of a serially arranged assembly process to maximise its efficiency under workload (cumulative) and technological (precedence) constraints. In this work, we consider a variant of the SALBP which allows parallel workstations. To study the effect of parallel stations, we propose a new problem (the parallel station assembly line balancing problem or PSALBP) in which the objective is to minimise the number of parallel stations required to obtain the maximum theoretical efficiency of the assembly process. We study the complexity of the problem and identify a polynomially solvable case. This result is then used as a building block for the development of a heuristic solution procedure. Finally, we carry out a computational experiment to identify the characteristics of assembly lines that may benefit from station paralleling and to evaluate the performance of the proposed heuristic.


Proceedings: AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010‐‐ Apr 17‐21, 2010; Washington, DC

Background: Research in carcinoid and neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) is limited by the lack of existing midgut derived cell lines. The two existing NET cell lines, BON and H727, are foregut derived. Foregut NETs are phenotypically distinct from midgut NETs, thus the development of a midgut derived NET cell line is of critical importance. Human NETs contain areas of stroma that likely effect carcinoid cell growth. In other types of cancer, cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs) have been shown to secrete factors that mediate tumor cell growth. In our preliminary studies, cultured human NET cells showed better attachment to plates when they were in close association with fibroblasts. Unfortunately, the relatively slow growth of NET cells allows fibroblast overgrowth and ultimately detachment of the cancer cells. We have developed a novel approach to processing and culturing NET cells through the isolation of autologous CAFs and their use as irradiated feeder layers.

Methods: Human NET surgical specimens are procured under sterile conditions and processed in our lab. The tissue is digested to a single cell suspension. Anti-fibroblast labeled beads (Miltenyi Biotec) are used to separate CAFs from tumor cells. CAFs are then cultured and irradiated to produce feeder layers for the tumor cells. The NET cells are initially maintained on extracellular matrix protein coated plates and then plated on top of the CAF monolayer.

Results: CAFs in culture can survive 40 Gy of irradiation and will not proliferate after this treatment. These cells were viable at 12 days, at which point they were split. These irradiated fibroblasts were able to reattach to standard culture flasks and were viable, but did not proliferate after splitting, while the non-irradiated CAF controls had reached confluence by day 12 of this second passage. We currently have 5 patient NET samples that have been processed and plated in vitro on autologous CAFs. NET cells can then be separated from the irradiated fibroblasts using standard trypsinization followed by fibroblast separation using anti-fibroblast beads as described above. The tumor cells can then be used for analysis or further culturing. Early observations shows that the cancer cells appear more elongated and flattened when adjacent to fibroblasts, possibly indicating better attachment and survival.

Conclusions: While NET cells remain difficult to culture, we have developed a system that utilizes autologous CAFs in our efforts to potentially establish new NET cell lines for in vitro and in vivo studies.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4106.