Excerpt] There have been several recent reviews of different subtopics within the general performance appraisal literature. The reader of these reviews will find, however, that the accompanying citations may be of limited utility for one or more reasons. For example, the reference sections of these reviews are usually composed of citations which support a specific theory or practical approach to the evaluation of human performance. Consequently, the citation lists for these reviews are, as they must be, highly selective and do not include works that may have only a peripheral relationship to a given reviewer's target concerns. Another problem is that the citations are out of date. That is, review articles frequently contain many citations that are fifteen or more years old. The generation of new studies and knowledge in this field occurs very rapidly. This creates a need for additional reference information solely devoted to identifying the wealth of new research, ideas, and writing that is changing the field.


The identification of antagonists of protein-protein interactions is a critical challenge to the pharmaceutical industry. The selection of a protein target, which is amenable to antagonism, is the first of many decisions that determine the success of these efforts. In addition, the definition of strategies and the development and application of methodologies appropriate to that target will be vital to the success of efforts to identify antagonists of a protein-protein interaction. An analysis of current approaches to the identification of lead molecules demonstrates that a search for competitors of a known binder is the basis of traditional screening as well as more modern approaches based on structure activity relationship (SAR) by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), molecular fragments, rational design, and tethering. The latter methods employ a structural perspective, throughout the discovery and optimization of a lead, to provide the practitioner with some control over the success of the process.


For the development of any country, the development f economy is crucial and for the development of economy nourishment and proper burgeon of the business must be ensured. Bangladesh has recently stepped up to the "Developing" ranking and aiming for sustainable development. Entrepreneurship had been the most important contributor in economic development interms of employment,innovations and healthy market competition over the last decades.As such, Entrepreneurship is the primary factor in the development of economies. A new business always affects the people and the economy of the locality as a new opportunity gets created for employment, earnings and better living standard. A new business in a local area may engender other related business and transactions. For example, an opening of a new branch of the bank may inspire the entrepreneurs of that area to implement their business plans. The Theory of Kirzner (1973-2005) about entrepreneurship explains how the improvement of economic health affects individuals in the first world. It is needless to say, how the development of services such as roads, public transportations, health, education, and entertainment are backed by the growth of industries and companies in various fields. The implementation of those industrial activities resulted in the development of a more vibrant economy.
As such, for an economy to operate smoothly and to be in a good state, it highly depends on the Financial Institutions which assists to keep economy hydrated. Hence, a regular and even flow of fund encourages business development or entrepreneurship and operations which ensure economic growth. In Bangladesh, there are Banks and Non-Banking Financial Institutions for this very purpose. But there come some limitationsunder the decision-making system of these institutions when the subject customer is new entrepreneurship or developing or Greenfield Company, which has high growth potential as well as high risk of default. Therefore,there is still a gap between the required fund for any new business and actual funds that can be disbursed from Banks and NBFIs.
Venture Capital is a category of equity or debt finance or combination of both which is generally offered to entrepreneurs and small companies, which bear high growth potential but also prone to high risk. Venture capital funds differ from the other investment companies as the others try to limit their risk-taking actions up to a specified ceiling with specified rules and guidelines made by the company articles of association and memorandum of association and management principlesgoverned bythe board.
Even though Venture Capital is a still-developing concept in Bangladesh as a vital source of funds and assistance, it is already a popular way of business development for developed countries. This paper is aimed to discuss the prospect of Venture Capital in Bangladesh and how this financing assists as co-entrepreneur of start-ups and growing ventures speciallyfor the sector of SMEs and IT.


Reading ranges are being extended in the wake of recent advances in UHF radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, and with the advent of larger reading ranges, tag localization has moved into the spotlight. Recently, we introduced a new UHF RFID tag localization technique. The proposed method is based on phase measurements taken along a synthetic aperture. A holographic image is calculated based on the scanned phase values. The image represents the spatial probability density function for the actual tag location. This paper presents this innovative method in detail. Simulations that illustrate the effect of the given trajectory are included. Extensive measurements obtained in a reflective lab environment are presented. We discuss the method's effectiveness with respect to measurement errors, antenna phase center distortions, and the available phase information. The results show the potential practical applications for the method in moving reader antennas, such as handheld readers or readers mounted on vehicles like forklifts or mobile robotic systems.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to find out what are the major motivations of middle and high school students to quit attempts and stay as non-smokers. Method: Data was collected through focus group interviews with 3 groups(15 students), and was analyzed according to Morgan and Kruger(1998)'s analytic method. Results: We identified 6 categories of motivations for Smoking Cessation. They include perceptions of negative consequences of smoking on health, influences in significant others, being ashamed of oneself, drop of academic achievements, narrowness in interpersonal relationships, determining priorities for a student. Although 'perceptions about negative health consequences' was one of the most significant motivation of smoking cessation for adolescents, participants did not know the seriousness of nicotine addiction. Moreover, their contents of motivations were different from those of adults such as responsibility for their family, decreasing curiosity about smoking and test of self willingness. Also most of them were extrinsic motivations and related to their highly competitive school life. Conclusion: To conclude, considering the results of our analysis, smoking cessation programs should be carefully developed to more effectively help adolescents quit and stay away from smoking.


Findings on topography of dorsal motor vagal nucleus neurons from which axons towards functionally different regions of digestive tract extend were analysed. Based on that and on the data available in literature main peculiarities of these cells topical organization were formulated. It is noted that "gastrointestinal" neurons are localised in dorsal motor nucleus as narrow stripes oriented caudo-rostrad. Stripes (or columns) of neurons from axons towards the digestive trace different parts arise do not cross. Digestive tract oral parts receive parasympathetic efferent inputs from neurons of medial and dorsomedial parts of the nucleus and caudal--from ventromedial cells of dorsal motor nucleus. Sites of maximal accumulation of initial "gastrointestinal" neurons that occupy an area within +0.5-(+)2.0 mm of functionally different regions of stomach and gut were demonstrated in cat and rat.


INTRODUCTION :
Since the first appearance of Tuberculosis in humans probably some 8000
years ago its control has continued to elude the brightest minds and to challenge both
the human and economic resources of the countries around the world. Several authors
have estimated the magnitude of the problems in the last two decades. All these
publications represent estimates but they all indicate very clearly that Tuberculosis is
still one of the major killer diseases in the world wide.
It is estimated that one third of the worlds population (1.7 billion) are infected
with Mycobacterium Tuberculosis. 1% of the worlds population are infected every
year among these 95% of the affected individuals are in developing countries and
98% deaths due to Tuberculosis are also found to be in developing countries. These
deaths accounts for 25% of all avoidable deaths in developing countries. Among the
affected people 75 % are in the economically productive age.
India has 28.4 % of entire world's Tuberculosis burden. Every second one
Indian above the age of 20 years is infected. There are about 14 million cases among
which 3.5 million are sputum positive. Every year 2.2 Million people contact
Tuberculosis. One Indian dies every minute which accounts for 5 lakhs per year.
Estimates of prevalence of drug resistance in the community will be useful for
formulating policies of the treatment with highly effective regiments to ensure cure
and good drug compliance by patients and prevent emergence of drug resistance.
Drug resistance Tuberculosis adds to the burden of illness in the community with the
several constraints in the managements of patients. Highly efficacious treatment
regimens utilizing drugs that have not been prescribed previously and known to
possess good anti-mycobacterial activity need to be employed which could increase
the operational costs in terms of drugs monitoring of toxicity to drugs and supervision
of administration of drugs to ensure drug regularity.
AIM OF THE STUDY :
Evaluating drug resistance profile among patients reporting at institute of
Thoracic Medicine Chennai with sputum positivity after taking cat II under RNTCP
and either failed/relapsed or defaulted from category II.
MATERIALS AND METHODS :
1. The study was conducted at Institute of Thoracic Medicine Chennai.
2. Patients who had reported with sputum positivity with the H/O
treatment under RNTCP with cat II and subsequently
failed/defaulted/relapsed were included in the study.
3. All of them were subjected to sputum AFB culture and sensitivity
studies.
4. Sensitivity pattern were evaluated with their previous ATT prior to
cat II. Total of 140 patients were included, 34 were excluded based on
the exclusion criteria. The study conducted during 2004 & 2005.
The remaining 106 patients were evaluated in this study.
5. It is a retrospective study cohort. The culture sensitivity obtained were
analyzed retrospectively.
INCLUSION CRITERIA :
Patients who had reported with sputum positivity with history of treatment
under RNTCP with Cat II and subsequently failed / defaulted / relapsed were included
in the study.
EXCLUSION CRITERIA :
The following were the exclusion criteria;
24
1. Those who had diabetes mellitus (18 patients) at the time of enrollment
into the study.
2. Those who had HIV positivity (6 patients) at the time of enrollment
into the study.
3. Those patients whose AFB sputum cultures were contaminated (10
patients).
CONCLUSION :
The drug resistance profile among patients reporting Institute of Thoracic
Medicine Chennai with sputum positivity after taking CAT II regimen under
RNTCP and either failed / relapsed or defaulted from CAT II were evaluated and
the following conclusions were made.
1. Possibility of MDR TB is found to be 87% when a patient fails
with cat II under RNTCP.
2. Possibility of having MDR TB is to the tune of 90% when a patient
fails with CAT II preceded by a failure in CAT I.
3. It is preferable to have culture and sensitivity study when the
patient fails with cat I or atleast when the patient does not get
converted at the end of intensive phase of cat II.
By doing so unnecessary time delay in initiating appropriate reserve regimen can be
avoided and can prevent the diseases transmission to others.


Filtration membranes (FMs) are an integral part of electrodialysis with filtration membranes (EDFM), a green and promising technology for bioactive peptide fractionation. Therefore, it is paramount to understand how physicochemical properties of FMs impact global and selective peptide migration to anionic (A−RC) and cationic (C+RC) peptide recovery compartments during their simultaneous separation by EDFM. In this context, six polyether sulfone (PES) membranes with molecular weight cut-offs (MWCO) of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 300 kDa were characterized and used during EDFM to separate peptides from a complex whey protein hydrolysate. Surface charge, roughness, thickness and surface/pores nature of studied PES membranes were similar with small differences in conductivity, porosity and pore size distribution. Interestingly, global peptides migration to both recovery compartments increased linearly as a function of MWCO. However, peptide selectivity changed according to the recovery compartments and/or the peptide's charge and MW with an increase in MWCO of FMs. Indeed, in A−RC, the relative abundance (RA) of peptides having low negative charge and MW (IDALNENK and VLVLDTDYK) decreased (45% to 19%) with an increase in MWCO, while the opposite for peptides having high negative charge and MW (TPEVDDEALEK, TPEVDDEALEKFDK & VYVEELKPTPEGDLEILLQK) (increased from 16% to 43%). Concurrently, in C+RC, regardless of MWCO used, the highest RA was observed for peptides having low positive charge and MW (IPAVFK & ALPMHIR). It was the first time that the significant impact of charge, MWCO and pore size distribution of PES membranes on a wide range of MWCO was demonstrated on EDFM performances.


This study assessed the effect of petrol and spent lubricating oil on the major growth traits (such as root length, stem length, leaf area, and biomass), and the changes in epidermal layer of leaf and its mitotic index in Guinea Corn ( Sorghum bicolor L.) exposed to 0% (control), 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% concentrations of petrol and spent lubricating oil. Each concentration was mixed with 3 kg of soil in a plastic pot and each treatment was carried out in three replicates. Forty days after planting, the leaf areas of guinea corn plant were 95.83 cm2, 89.67 cm2, 89.47 cm2, and 77.80 cm2 in control, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% respectively of petrol pollutant. The means of stem length were 32.50±0.5 cm, 22.60±0.65 cm, 21.27±0.75 cm, 20.83±0.28 cm and 20.33±0.28 cm in control, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% respectively. Both leaf area and stem length of treated seedlings reduced with increased concentration of the pollutants. Additionally, reduction in the dry weight of the seedlings increased with increasing concentration of both petrol and spent oil. The micrograph of the internal anatomy of the upper epidermal layers of the leaf revealed broken and scattered epidermal cells and smaller sizes of the stomata, and were increased with the increasing concentration of the treatment. Statistical analysis of the treatment shows that there was a significant reduction (P<0.05) in the stem length and leaf area of the seedlings. This study revealed that petroleum pollutant adversely affected germination, growth and development of guinea corn but petroleum products like spent oil can provide nutrition necessary for growth and yield of plant at low concentration.


Recently, highway safety control under extreme natural hazards in Taiwan has faced critical challenges because of latest extreme climates. In an effort to develop an efficient early warning system for highway safety, the authors have developed an early warning method based on disastrous rainfall indices and rainfall patterns. Fundamental concept of such a methodology is to reform risk prediction and risk management from passive mode to active mode to acquire more time for mitigation mobilization and safety evacuation. The threshold rainfall indices are used to characterize triggering mechanisms of rainfall-induced natural hazards and further applied as the early warning criteria for highway safety control. In this paper, development of such early warning system for highway safety control is introduced in detail. Deployments of the proposed rainfall pattern analysis model in real storm events are also presented to verify feasibility of the developed system as well as sharing Taiwan's experience in hazard mitigation. Progress of this study is hoped to improve hazard prevention and safety control for highway facilities during critical natural hazards.


Abstract:In this article, I discuss the historical imperative for art to create new forms. This imperative has become especially pronounced in the Age of the Avant-Garde. For that reason, I focus on the way in which avant-garde creativity typically proceeds. To that end, I rely on Paul Grice's theory of communication.


Turner syndrome is a sex-chromosome disorder; occurring in 1 in 2,500 female births. There are sporadic few case reports of concomitant Turner syndrome with schizophrenia worldwide. Most Turner females had a 45,X monosomy, whereas the majority of comorbidity between Turner syndrome and schizophrenia had a mosaic karyotype (45,X/46,XX). We present a case of a 21-year-old woman with Turner syndrome, mosaic karyotype (45,X/46,XX), showing mental retardation, hypothyroidism, and schizophrenia. HOPA gene within Xq13 is related to mental retardation, hypothyroidism, and schizophrenia. Our case may be a potential clue which supports the hypothesis for involvement of genes on X chromosome in development of schizophrenia. Further studies including comorbid cases reports are need in order to discern the cause of schizophrenia in patients having Turner syndrome.


Background The adduction of the first pedal ray in humans, such that the hallux is incapable of functional opposability, is a major feature of the evolution of the hominin foot (e.g. Darwin 1872, Haeckel 1879, Latimer and Lovejoy 1990). While hallucal adduction facilitates obligate bipedalism, it inhibits but does not eliminate arboreal grasping ability. The angle of the hallux (as determined by the longitudinal axis of the first metatarsal) relative to the rest of the foot (as determined by the longitudinal axis of the second metatarsal) is a product of both hard-and soft-tissues. Given the failure of soft tissue to fossilize, direct evidence for hallucal angle evolution is scanty, and consensus has not emerged as to when and how the modern human condition of hallucal non-opposability evolved. Methodology/Principal Findings Analysis of a large sample (n = 331) of radiographs taken from the dorsal aspect of living human feet elucidates the relationship between osteological measures and the magnitude of hallucal adduction, which is resultant of both hard-and soft-tissue anatomy (Lovejoy et al. 2009). I describe the correlation of hallucal convergence with first metatarsal posterior articular facet morphology, which allows inference of hallucal convergence in the absence of the medial cuneiform. I report parameters of modern human hallucal convergence variation and offer insight into the hominin fossil record. I infer that the hallucal convergence of the recently reported specimen from Burtele (BRT-VP-2/73) falls within the range of living human variation, inconsistent with the interpretation that this hominin retained the ability to oppose its great toe for the purpose of arboreal locomotion (Haile-Selassie et al. 2012). Of the fossil hominin first metatarsals surveyed, all fall within the range of living human variation, consistent with previous research on medial cuneiform (McHenry and Jones 2006) and first metatarsal (Berillon 1999) morphology. Conclusions/Significance This study finds that the modern human condition of hallucal non-opposability was present in the genus Australopithecus. However, while the Burtele specimen (BRT-VP-2/73) falls within the range of living human variation, it displays a markedly divergent hallux compared to most living humans. This study suggests that, as in humans today, there was variation in hallucal divergence in Plio-Pleistocene hominins. Rather than using the terms 'opposability' and the ambiguously synonymous 'grasping,' I suggest here the term 'clamping' (as in the motion performed by a clamp) be used to describe the less powerful and less dexterous ability of modern humans to place and hold a thin, narrow object between the great toe and second toe ray in a limited, albeit functional, manner.


The work presented in this paper compares the burnt areas in continental Portugal in 2017 and 2018 mapped by three initiatives, namely the Portuguese Institute of Nature and Forests Conservation (ICNF), the Corine Land Cover (CLC) inventory of the Copernicus programme and the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). Then, the Land Use Land Cover (LULC) classes affected by the 2017 burnt areas mapped by ICNF are analysed considering CLC 2018 and the 2018 LULC map produced by the Portuguese National Mapping Agency (Direção Geral do Território) "Carta de Ocupação do Solo" (COS 2018). To enable a comparison between the classes of both LULC products, a nomenclature was selected and both CLC 2018 and COS 2018 were mapped into the chosen classes. The comparison of the burnt area's extent showed that there are large differences in both area and levels of detail between the analysed data sources. The results regarding the LULC classes affected by the 2017 fires mapped by ICNF show large differences in terms of burnt area in each class as well as the proportion of the burnt areas associated to the classes. This analysis shows that very different results may be reached if different products are used, and therefore a large level of uncertainty is associated with the conclusions achieved with these products.


Novel reflectometry with millimetre or submillimetre spatial resolution is proposed to evaluate optical components or circuits. The optical coherence is modulated to have a periodic delta-function shape along the optical path, and the backscattering intensity is obtained directly. The experiment demonstrates a resolution of about 10 mm in air with a Fabry-Perot laser diode.


Stable IspF substrate analogs were synthesized. In the presence of substrate analogs, the E. coli IspF-MEP complex shows activities distinct from IspF, and bisphosphonates (BP) behave differently than their diphosphate (DP) counterparts. Bisphosphonate analogs activate and/or stabilize IspF, and only the closest structural substrate analog weakly inhibits the IspF-MEP complex.


The temperature rise and heat flux induced by a CW (continuous wave) double-Gaussian-distributed laser beam have been investigated numerically in a semi-infinite substrate. The temperature-dependent thermal conductivity and surface reflectivity of the substrate material are incorporated in the calculation model. The results show that the double-Gaussian-distributed laser beam can provide a high temperature rise in a narrower region with low local heat flux, which implies low thermal stress at the irradiated area. One can change the temperature profile by manipulating the radiuses and powers of two portions in the double-Gaussian-distributed laser beam. The power of the individual beams in the double Gaussian can be used to control the resulting temperature and heat fluxes during processing of the electronic materials.


Introduction: The role of fibrocytes in COPD is unknown. We sought to enumerate blood and tissue fibrocytes in COPD and determine the association of blood fibrocytes with clinical features of disease. Methods: Utilising flow cytometry to identify circulating, collagen type-1 + cells we found two populations 1) CD45 + CD34 + (fibrocytes) and 2) CD45 + CD34 - (myeloid-derived suppressor cell [MDSC]-like fibrocytes) in 41 stable COPD and 19 control subjects. Lung resection material, from a separate group of subjects, with (n=11) or without (n=11) COPD was collected for tissue fibrocyte detection. We examined circulating fibrocyte populations for correlations with clinical parameters including quantitative computed tomography (qCT) and determined pathways of association between correlated variables using a structural equation model. Results: Blood and tissue fibrocytes were not increased compared to control subjects nor were blood fibrocytes associated with lung function or qCT, but were increased in eosinophilic COPD. MDSC-like fibrocytes were increased in COPD compared to controls (3-fold [1.2-7.7], p= 0.025). Our structural equation model showed that collagen type-1 intensity for MDSC-like fibrocytes was positively associated with lung function through associations with air trapping (standardised β co-efficient -0.39, p= 0.015) predominately in the upper lobes. Conclusion: We have demonstrated that two circulating populations of fibrocyte exist in COPD, with distinct clinical associations, but are not prevalent in proximal or small airway airway tissue. Blood MDSC-like fibrocytes, however, are increased and associated with preserved lung function in COPD.


We describe an implementation of adaptive self-organizing concurrent system (ASOCS) using content addressable memory (CAM). ASOCS is an artificial neural network with supervised online learning trained by incrementally introduced Boolean propositional logic rules or instances. Words stored in CAM represent modified instances after they are processed by ASOCS to ensure consistency and minimality of the entire collection of instances. CAM permits fast training and execution. Main advantages of our implementation are simplicity, scalability to handle wider input and output vectors, ability to preset the network structure in advance based on software simulation.<<ETX>>


The purpose of this study is to examine the mother symbol for a female client in her early thirties by focusing on the dream series and sandplay box referred to in the sandplay therapy course. By focusing on the three themes of nurturing mother, ambivalent mother, and terrible mother, this female client integrates the personal unconscious and the mother archetype energy of the collective conscious in an interesting and sincere journey. As a result, it is possible to see how negative mother archetype transforms into creative and positive energy. Sand play therapy, which provides a safe place for the client's unconscious work, and the mother symbols which appeared in the dream to aid in the healthy self-function of consciousness, helped the client to have appropriate emotional control. It also had a positive effect on improving her physical illness. In addition, this study will examine examples of sandplay of both adults and children, archetypal products and others in order to help understand the three mother symbols. The frequent appearance of the mother figure during the individual process, through the exploration of the inner world, is significant of the many things that need to be resolved within the relationships with one's own mother and even with the archetypal mother.


The main inhibitory neurotransmitter receptors in the adult central nervous system (CNS) are type A γ-aminobutyric acid receptors (GABAARs) and glycine receptors (GlyRs). Synaptic responses mediated by GlyR and GABAAR display a hyperpolarizing shift during development. This shift relies mainly on the developmental up-regulation of the K+-Cl− co-transporter KCC2 responsible for the extrusion of Cl−. In mature neurons, altered KCC2 function—mainly through increased endocytosis—leads to the re-emergence of depolarizing GABAergic and glycinergic signaling, which promotes hyperexcitability and pathological activities. Identifying signaling pathways and molecular partners that control KCC2 surface stability thus represents a key step in the development of novel therapeutic strategies. Here, we present our current knowledge on the cellular and molecular mechanisms governing the plasma membrane turnover rate of the transporter under resting conditions and in response to synaptic activity. We also discuss the notion that KCC2 lateral diffusion is one of the first parameters modulating the transporter membrane stability, allowing for rapid adaptation of Cl− transport to changes in neuronal activity.


A reconstruction problem is formulated for multisets over commutative groupoids. The cards of a multiset are obtained by replacing a pair of its elements by their sum. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the reconstructibility of multisets are determined. These results find an application in a different kind of reconstruction problem for functions of several arguments and identification minors: classes of linear or affine functions over nonassociative semirings are shown to be weakly reconstructible. Moreover, affine functions of sufficiently large arity over finite fields are reconstructible.


The name of someone, something, institution had a certain meaning. A meaning depended so much on someone's perception to an object. Perception of society to Sharia Bank had an impact to society behavior towa rd Sharia Bank. There was a gap here between bank and society which had to be acted as a bridge through policy and socialization program. Socialization policy which was planned, adaptive, and interesting could minimize the misperception risk. Socially, sosialization program was the enculturization of sharia bank values process, and it was understood as the form of civil education.


This paper proposes two image enhancement algorithms that are based on utilizing histogram data gathered from wavelet transform domain coefficients. Computer simulations demonstrate that combining the spatial method of histogram equalization with the wavelet transform domain coefficient histograms achieves a much more balanced enhancement, which outperforms classical histogram equalization algorithms.


Motivated by online crowdsourcing platforms as well as applications that span human-resource management in industrial and research organizations researchers have studied extensively the team-formation problem. This problem has been primarily formalized as an optimization problem where the goal is to optimize some metric of the team performance, subject to the constraint that the team members should cover all the skills required by the task.
In this paper, we generalize this problem formulation and set as our objective to optimize a function that maximizes the coverage of skills minus the cost of the corresponding team. This formulation appears as a more natural one, particularly in cases where one needs to strike a balance between the coverage achieved and the cost being paid. To the best of our knowledge we are the first to formalize the team-formation problem in this manner.
From the algorithmic perspective, we demonstrate that by using simple variants of the standard greedy algorithm (used for submodular optimization) we can design algorithms that have provable approximation guarantees, are extremely efficient and work very well in practice. Our experiments with real data from online crowdsourcing platforms demonstrate the efficiency and the efficacy of our methods. Finally, we believe that our problem formulation and algorithms are of independent interest and can be used in many applications where there is a submodular objective and a linear cost.


The onset of multidrug resistance (MDR) in ovarian cancer is one of the main causes of treatment failure and low survival rates. Inadequate drug exposure and treatment-free periods due to intermittent chemotherapy select for cancer cells overexpressing drug efflux transporters, resulting in resistant disease. The present study examines the sustained administration of the chemotherapeutic agent docetaxel (DTX) alone and in combination with cepharanthine (CEP), a potent drug efflux transporter inhibitor. DTX and CEP were delivered via the intraperitoneal route in a sustained manner using an injectable polymer-lipid formulation. In vitro, the combination strategy resulted in significantly (p < 0.05) more apoptosis, greater intracellular accumulation of DTX, and lower DTX efflux in ovarian cancer cells showing the MDR phenotype. In vivo, sustained treatment with DTX and CEP showed significantly greater (p < 0.05) tumor inhibition (91 ± 4%) in a murine model of multidrug resistant ovarian cancer compared to sustained DTX treatment (76 ± 6%) and was more than twice as efficacious as intermittent DTX treatment. Overall findings from these studies highlight the impact of sustained delivery of monotherapy and combination therapy in the management of refractory ovarian cancer displaying the MDR phenotype.


AbstractAsthma is a chronic disease that affects approximately 300 million people worldwide, and the prevalence is increasing. It has become clear that asthma is a highly heterogeneous disease, with overlapping symptoms but with diverse immunopathology and clinical phenotypes. Also, a significant proportion of asthma patients have remaining symptoms despite treatment. In addition to different phenotypes, it is thus important to consider asthma control across the severity spectrum. Asthma control is determined by a combination of several factors such as symptoms, changes in lung function, functional ability and quality of life. Although remodeling is now generally accepted as a defining characteristic of asthma, its cause and role in the pathophysiology of asthma needs further elucidating. Chronic inflammation can be a driving force behind remodeling processes, though it is now recognized that inflammation and remodeling can also be two parallel processes independent of each other. Asthma was first considered a disease of the central airways, however there is now little doubt about the importance of small airways and the alveolar compartment in asthma pathology. More research is needed on differentiating pathological backgrounds of the diverse phenotypes of asthma to be able to develop more personalized therapies. The specific aims of the studies presented in this thesis were to:1. Examine if distal inflammation in asthmatics leads to structural alterations also in the alveolar parenchyma. Furthermore, we wanted to investigate whether patients with uncontrolled asthma had a distinct tissue composition compared to patients with controlled asthma.2. Examine the populations of mast cells and if there is a connection between a profibrotic subset of mast cells and collagen composition in central airways and alveolar parenchyma in patients with controlled and uncontrolled asthma.3. Investigate if there is a link between exhaled nitric oxide, inducible nitric oxide synthase and remodeling in the distal airways of patients with mild untreated asthma.4. Evaluate if patchy subepithelial remodeling in patients with severe asthma treated with oral corticosteroids could differentiate patients with sufficient control from those with remaining symptoms.5. Investigate recruitment of circulating fibrocyte subtypes and possible recruitment factors in a human allergen provocation study.We found that the lung matrix composition differs between uncontrolled and controlled asthmatics on equivalent doses of ICS, in both central and distal airways. Proteoglycans, including versican, decorin and biglycan, and collagen was altered, as well as matrix modulators. We also saw changes in number of myofibroblasts.Further, patients with uncontrolled atopic asthma, but not patients with controlled asthma, were found to have an altered pro-fibrotic mast cell phenotype in the alveolar parenchyma that is correlated to alveolar collagen VI deposition.When analyzing the link between NO, NO synthases and remodeling events in asthma, it was found that iNOS is linked to remodeling, with a possibly modulatory role, in the distal lung of patients with mild steroid-naive asthma.Severe asthma was found to be associated with patchy remodeling and regeneration in the central airways. Also, it is unlikely that the detected remodeling accounts for the differences in asthma control between stable and symptomatic patients with severe asthma. Perhaps the determinants of asthma control should be sought after in small airways or alveolar parenchyma.Finally, we successfully isolated CD45+/lin-/CD115-/CD16-/CD34+/dim/CD11b+ fibrocytes from peripheral blood using FACS. (Less)


Natural phenomena simulation, such as water and smoke, is a very important topic to increase real time scene realism in video-games. However, the computational fluid simulation is an expensive task since we must numerically solve the Navier-Stokes equations. Additionally, an immersing simulation requires interaction between the flow and the objects in the scene, increasing even more the computational work. In this paper we propose an heterogeneous multicore CPU and GPU scalable architecture for fluid simulation with two-ways interaction with solid objects. We also show the impact of this architecture over GPU and CPU bounded simulations and present results that can reproduce complex fluid behavior in real time applications like games.


There are currently no treatments that hinder or halt the inexorable progression of Parkinson's disease (PD). While the etiology of PD remains elusive, evidence suggests that early dysfunction of mitochondrial respiration and homeostasis play a major role in PD pathogenesis. The mitochondrial structural protein Mic60, also known as mitofilin, is critical for maintaining mitochondrial architecture and function. Loss of Mic60 is associated with detrimental effects on mitochondrial homeostasis. Growing evidence now implicates Mic60 in the pathogenesis of PD. In this review, we discuss the data supporting a role of Mic60 and mitochondrial dysfunction in PD. We will also consider the potential of Mic60 as a therapeutic target for treating neurological disorders.


It is well known that semiconductor detectors operating at room temperature can be read out at high rate, with good noise performance and low sensitivity to ballistic deficit, by using trapezoidal (flat-topped) pulse shaping. Nevertheless, the energy resolution of these detectors is also affected by chargetrapping inside the detector crystal, which can not be compensated by the standard trapezoidal pulse shaping. A new digital algorithm based on trapezoidal pulse shaping, to compensate for the charge-trapping effect while minimizing the electronic noise, has been developed. The application of the pulse processing algorithm to a 5 × 5 × 1 mm3 planar Schottky CdTe detector leads to an energy resolution of 1.15% FWHM at 662 keV at room temperature, which is considerably superior to the results of the standard pulse filters.


The influence of mono-energetic beam electrons on the behaviour of a plane plasma boundary is investigated assuming that the ion, electron and beam electron components in the pre-sheath act as three coupled fluids. The sheath edge is identified by the singularity in the electric field appearing under the quasi-neutral assumption, and the Bohm criterion is solved for a range of beam and plasma parameters. Collisions between the plasma particles and the neutral species are considered in a regime in which Coulomb interactions are unimportant. The plasma is generated by beam and thermal electron impact ionization of the neutral gas. Under collision-free conditions, sheath-edge potentials and ion energies are found to increase with the ratio of beam to thermal electron density, up to a critical ratio of about 0.3, above which no sheath edge is predicted to exist. Ion - neutral species collisions further raise the Bohm speed; however, the attenuation of the electron beam through scattering and ionization does not appreciably alter the sheath-edge conditions, but changes the width of the boundary layer. The results of this model, which are relevant to industrial plasma discharges containing beam electrons, are compared with those found from other treatments of the beam - plasma boundary.


Background and purpose: Lipid metabolism plays an important role in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and recent evidence suggests that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the StAR-related lipid transfer domain 6 ( STARD6 ) and near the enzyme enoyl CoA hydratase domain containing 3 ( ECHDC3 ) gene are related to plasma lipid levels or lipid traits in AD. Materials and methods: To identify whether the variants in or near the STARD6 and ECHDC3 genes contribute to AD susceptibility, we carried out an association analysis of STARD6 rs10164112 and ECHDC3 rs7920721 in combination with the apolipoprotein E ( APOE ) ε 4 allele in a case–control study (278 cases, 509 controls) in China. Results: We identified that SNP rs10164112 in the STARD6 gene was a risk factor associated with AD and the APOE ε 4 carriers (all P , 0.05) after Bonferroni correction. However, multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that only the minor T allele of STARD6 rs10164112 combined with the APOE ε 4 allele increased the risk of AD under the additive and dominant models (additive model: P = 0.0078, OR = 1.988, 95 % CI: 1.198–3.298; dominant model: P = 0.0172, OR = 2.169, 95% CI: 1.147–4.102). Conclusion: These results suggest that the rs10164112-T allele is not an independent risk factor for AD patients. However, in combination with the APOE ε 4 allele, the rs10164112-T allele has been found to be a risk factor for AD in the Han Chinese population reported in this study.


We have already reported that transcription reaction by phage T7 or SP6 RNA polymerase (RNAP) can be reversibly photo-regulated with azobenzene-tethered promoter. Transcription reaction proceeded faster by UV irradiation than visible light irradiation. In the present study, binding of T7 RNAP to its azobenzene-tethered promoter was directly monitored by use of affinity biosensor. When azobenzene-tethered T7 promoter was immobilized on the sensor surface, response based on the binding of RNAP increased by UV light irradiation rather than by visible light irradiation. Thus, photo-regulation of transcription reaction by azobenzene-tethered promoter was attributed to the change of binding property of RNAP to the promoter by trans-cis isomerization of azobenzene.


Patients with Parkinson's disease are unable to adjust the firing rate of motor units that initiate contraction from zero to higher rates; the frequency modulation of motor units is not normal, but motor units recruit normally as effort is increased. Treatment with levodopa makes these motor units accessible to activation and frequency control. Elderly subjects also have difficulty in the activation of minimal contraction and in the maintenance of firing but to a significantly lesser degree than do parkinsonian patients. In this respect, the elderly patient and the parkinsonian patient are qualitatively similar.


There is rising global concern for the recently emerged novel Coronavirus (2019-nCov). Full genomic sequences have been released by the worldwide scientific community in the last few weeks in order to understand the evolutionary origin and molecular characteristics of this virus. Taking advantage of all the genomic information currently available, we constructed a phylogenetic tree including also representatives of other coronaviridae, such as Bat coronavirus (BCoV) and SARS. We confirm high sequence similarity (>99%) between all sequenced 2019-nCoVs genomes available, with the closest BCoV sequence sharing 96.2% sequence identity, confirming the notion of a zoonotic origin of 2019-nCoV. Despite the low heterogeneity of the 2019-nCoV genomes, we could identify at least two hyper-variable genomic hotspots, one of which is responsible for a Serine/Leucine variation in the viral ORF8-encoded protein. Finally, we perform a full proteomic comparison with other coronaviridae, identifying key aminoacidic differences to be considered for antiviral strategies deriving from previous anti-coronavirus approaches.


Aims. The UVA-induced Persistent Pigment Darkening (PPD) in vivo bas been proposed as an end point for the evaluation of UVA protection. This study was designed to determine whether PPD can be used to correctly evaluate the in vivo effectiveness of UVA filters such as oxybenzone, avobenzone, ecamsule and zinc oxide concentrated and together with UVB filters. Methods. The UVA protection effectiveness of a number of commercial sunscreen products with either SPF 15 or SPF 30 was determined. Results. The UVA protection increased closely with the concentration of the UVA filters and was independent of UVB filters. The PPD method proved sensitive to all UVA filters irrespective of their range of absorbance within the UVA range. Conclusions. The results show PPD to be a stable end point inducible by all the UVA wavelengths, not affected by fluence rate, i.e. a reliable endogenous UVA dosimeter in the skin.


Using survey data from 110 randomly selected honey producers from two divisions in Baringo this paper analyzes the constraints and drivers of value addition in honey, an economic activity with a potential to improve household livelihoods but whose development has remained rudimentary. Baringo District undergoes frequent and prolonged drought that impacts on household livelihood assets. The livelihoods have traditionally been agro-based but due to variations in climatic conditions, crop production has been very low. Livestock production has also been adversely affected by these trends, leaving honey production as a viable alternative for smallholder farmers since it is less dependent on, or affected by climatic variations and is not resource intensive. This study uses Heckman two stage and the logistic regression models to determine the extent of value addition contingent on the decision of a honey producer to participate in value addition activity, and to assess the link between honey value addition and household poverty status, respectively. The results show that the decision to add value is positively and significantly influenced by the amount of honey harvested, group membership and amount of hours spent on off-farm activities, while it is negatively influenced the age of the farmers and the education level of the household head. Value addition contributes to the reduction of poverty through the improvement of household incomes. This paper concludes measures need to be put in place that would encourage and facilitate the practice of value addition if the welfare of the poor rural population is to be improved.


Recognition of the advantages of anaerobic wastewater treatment induced the development of high rate processes, i.e. reactors designed to allow an efficient treatment of even diluted streams. The performance of these advanced reactors is mainly dependent on the retention within the reactor of high bacterial concentrations. The prevailing mechanism is either the formation of bacterial aggregates with good settling characteristics, the development of methanogenic biolayers at the surface of inert carriers or both. During the past decade information on the biology of methanogenic ecosystems became available at an increasing rate. From a practical point of view it can be stated that the biological conversion of organic compounds to methane is reasonably well understood. However the current knowledge on the aggregation and adhesion of methanogenic consortia remains very limited. In most cases reactor start-up procedures are rather long and appear to be more empirical than rational. This paper is a brief presentation on the current knowledge of methanogenic aggregates and biofilms. The fundamental aspects of bacterial adhesion and the modelling of anaerobic biofilms growth are presented elsewhere.


This article suggests that opportunities exist to harness the potential of history and citizenship education with the processes of transition in developing programmes, which support young people in exploring conflict and the challenges associated with attending to its legacy. Drawing on the experience of Northern Ireland, it is suggested that the narratives of those who have been involved directly as both combatants in conflict and latterly as agents of change in their communities provide unique opportunities for young people to reflect on these issues. By way of illustration, an account of one such initiative is presented: From Prison to Peace: Learning From the Experience of Political Ex-Prisoners; a structured programme which invites young people to engage directly with loyalist and republican ex-combatants in the Northern Ireland conflict. The article suggests that such programmes have the potential to assist young people in exploring the complexity of conflict and the intricacies of transition. Furthermore, it is suggested that the relationships which exist between these ex-combatants arguably can challenge sectarian perspectives and foster capacity for 'political generosity' towards those with opposing political aspirations.


Abstract Casting is a fairly well-established option for the reduction of contractures due to spasticity, as well as a method for reducing tone. Some research suggests that casting is more effective than traditional therapy techniques in reducing contracture and is inconsistently better at decreasing hypertonicity. Traumatic brain injury and cerebral palsy are the most common diagnostic groups that are identified in the literature as benefiting from casting, but severe spasticity resulting from a stroke may also be positively affected by this technique. Several forms of casting are mentioned in the literature, including serial casting, inhibitive casting, drop-out casts, and bivalve casts. The purpose of this article is to review the differences and similarities between these kinds of casting and offer guidelines for their use in individuals who have suffered a stroke.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the prevalence of low back pain and some related variables among adults of both genders.

METHODS
Was conduct a cross-sectional study of population-based in the urban area of Presidente Prudente, São Paulo. The sample consisted of 743 adult residents for over two years in this city. Low back pain, quality of sleep and physical activity were collected through face to face interview at the residence of respondents. Was used the chi-square test to analyze the association between variables, later was created tree multivariate models with hierarchical inclusion of confounding factors.

RESULTS
The prevalence of low back pain reported last year was 50.2% (95% CI: 46.6, 53.8), and the last week 32.3% (95% CI: 28.9, 35.6). Was association among low back pain and females (p-value = 0.031), older age, lower education, altered sleep and overweight, the adjusted model found that people over the age of 45 years (45 to 59.9 years, OR = 13.1 [1.72-98.5] and ≥ 60 years, OR = 9.10 [1.15-71.7]), with some alteration of sleep (OR = 3.21 [1.84-5.61]) and obese (OR = 2.33 [1:26 to 4:33]) seems to be a risk group for low back pain.

CONCLUSION
The prevalence of low back pain is high and obese people aged over 45 years, with any sleep disturbance are a group at higher risk for low back pain.


In Tanzania, the magnitude of forest loss is high whereby approximately 372,000 ha of forest are lost per annum. Primary drivers of forest loss include agricultural expansion, charcoal making, fuel wood and timber harvesting. The forest cover in Tanzania is approximately 40% whereby the miombo woodland is the most dominant forest type; others include coastal, sub-montane rainforests and plantation forests. Miombo ecosystems are very vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbances in particular tree felling for meeting the high charcoal demands in urban areas. This paper aims at highlighting the tree species regeneration level in harvested miombo woodland areas in Eastern Tanzania. This information is deemed necessary for informing sustainable tree harvesting regimes in miombo ecosystems The study was conducted in eight villages of Kilosa District that were selected purposefully based on prevalence of miombo woodlands and tree harvesting activities. A total of 69 circular plots with 15 m radius were established for regeneration measurements. Data were analyzed by Microsoft excel spreadsheet. About 50% of the measured stumps regardless of diameter class were found to regenerate in form of coppices which averaged six individuals per stump. The overall mean coppice height was 102.30 ± 3.47 cm. Also, about 37% of the stumps were observed to develop new root sprouts/suckers averaging five individuals per stump. The overall sprouts/suckers' mean height was 87.53 ± 3.33 cm. About 48.4% of the total stumps were developing both coppices and root sprouts on the same plant. The most frequently harvested tree species for charcoal making were Brachystegia boehmii and Brachystegia spiciformis. The average seedling height was 37 ± 3.6 cm and no seedlings of invasive tree species were observed. This study concludes that tree species preferred for charcoal production in the Eastern Tanzania Miombo ecosystems regenerate robustly through both coppicing and root sprouts /suckers. The recommended diameter at breast height for optimizing both regeneration and biomass for charcoal or timber is between 20 and 30 cm.


A Multidisciplinary methodology that describes for the watershed of Laguna de Tuxpan the climate, topography, geology, soil, vegetation and land use through GIS. The topography (maximum altitude of 1731 m). The bathymetry(capacity of 18.89 Mm, an area of 4.1 Mm and a maximum depth of 7.86 m). The physicochemical and environmental parameters, show the generation of 107.01 kg of nitrogen per year (22.93% by point sources and 77.07% by diffuse sources). Tomatal river produces 18.7 t of sediment on the regions of average sloping, this equates to a lost of 7.45 t ha on average throughout the basin. The water quality is within the maximum permissible limits for the development of aquatic life. The lake is classified as warm water body, shallow and tropical, with a holomíctic blend, or a water body mesotrophic — eutrophic, through plankton community. The pollution and toxicity by Vibrio fischeri, Daphnia magna, Selenastrumcapricornutum and Microcistinawas not present in the lake. The presence of six types of phthalates, plus the incidence of herbicide atrazine in the lake, point out as source of pollution to the trash of the area and agricultural activity. There are contamination by the presence of fecal coliform and total suspended solids of human and natural origin in the watershed. Is proposed a strategic plan of recuperation: 1) a program of promotion and adoption of conservation practices for hillside land, 2) construction of little dams within channels for the control sediment and runoff infiltration to help the recharge the aquifer, 3) the river corridor recovery through of reforestation, 4) management of less polluting agrochemicals, 5) relocation of human settlements of the river corridor, 6) rechanneling of the river,7) control of invasive species management of the corridor and the lake, and 8) management of the water urban residuals through social participation.


Connecting to recent debates on the party politics of foreign policy and political contestation, the chapter introduces the content and methodology of the Parliamentary Deployment Votes Database, a collection of votes on military missions across a set of eleven countries in Europe and America. The chapter discusses problems related to the scope of the database against divergent cultures 1 Corresponding author: Falk Ostermann, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Department of Political Science, KarlGlöckner-Strasse 21E, 35394 Giessen, Germany, email@example.com 2 This chapter was presented prior to publication at the ECPR General Conference 2018 in Hamburg. We are grateful for Patrick Mello's valuable remarks as discussant. Further thanks go to the Giessen Graduate Centre Social Sciences, Economics and Law section on Norms and Change in World Politics for hosting a colloquium discussing the draft chapter, and especially to Helmut Breitmeier, Julia Drubel, Jacob B. Manderbach, and Sandra Schwindenhammer. Additionally, we would like to thank Joen Magieres for his competent work collecting data for the Danish case. We are also grateful for the anonymous reviewers' valuable comments. Ostermann et al. | Voting on the Use of Armed Force 2 of national security, voting practices in parliaments, and disparate data availability; namely defining guidelines for data collection. It discusses how clustering into party families and cabinets helps structure collected data, how regional parties are classified, and how to make further sense of data using voting-shares, cabinets, and government-opposition dynamics. The chapter also shows how Hix, Nouri and Roland's Agreement Index, used in European Studies, can be used to measure agreement and dissent on military missions. Empirically, the chapter corroborates recent research demonstrating that party politics underlie deployment votes.


In this paper, a procedure for optimal transformer design with a variable set of constraints for pulse transformers with a pulse range of 3-140 μs is presented. During the optimization procedure, the pulse shape is analyzed in the time domain, ensuring that the pulse constraints, such as rise time and overshoot are met. For accurate prediction of the pulse shape, analytical approaches are proposed to estimate the distributed capacitance and leakage inductance of the transformer. The analytical approach is verified by 2-D-FEM simulations and measurements. The optimization procedure considers pulse, core, winding, demagnetization losses, and losses of the primary switches. First, the procedure is applied to an existing pulse transformer with specifications for SwissFEL. An improvement of 16.6% in conversion efficiency is achieved in comparison with the existing design. In a second step, the procedure is applied to specifications of the compact linear collider, which demands high conversion efficiency. The resulting optimal transformer consists of three cores with five primary turns and requires a tank volume of 0.915 m3. In an optimal configuration, an overall conversion efficiency of 97.7% is achieved for the considered system including pulse losses.


Objective: The bone scan plays an important role for detecting number of conditions relating to bones, including: bone cancer or bone metastasis, bone inflammation. Extraosseous uptake, in particular, myocardial uptake, was observed in some patients examined with the bone scans. Positive uptake of 99mTc-labeled bone radiotracers is associated with cardiac amyloidosis. However, the frequency and cause of positive cardiac 99mTc-MDP uptake have not been fully studied. In this regard, the aim of this study was to assess the frequency and characteristics of patients with high myocardi-al uptake of bone scintigraphy in daily clinical practice setting. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 4180 bone scintigraphies performed in daily clinical practice during 7-years period. The intensity of the myocardial uptake was graded based on a visual scale ranging from 0 to 3 points. Score 0 indicates the absence of uptake. Score 1 defined uptake less than that of bone (referred to as the adjacent rib). Uptake similar to that of bone was classified score 2. Score 3 was defined as uptake greater than that of reference bone. Positive myocardial uptake included a visual score 2 or 3. Result: Positive 99mTc-MDP myocardial uptake occurred in 12 patients among 4180 patients (0.3%). 7 of 12 positive scan patients were consistent with amyloidosis confirmed by biopsy. In these patients, the mean age was 75.6 ± 5.2 years old. Ten cases showed biventricular uptake and 2 showed LV uptake only. Conclusion: Positive cardiac uptake of bone scintigraphic agents was present in 0.3% of bone scintigraphies in a clinical practice setting. This may be a sign of cardiac amyloidosis involvement which may give the presence of extraosseous bone tracer uptake its own importance and a new role.


The transport of fluids through pipes is a very common application. Corrugated pipes have characteristics such as local stiffness and flexibility that makes them convenient in several application areas such as offshore LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) transfer, cryogenic engineering, domestic appliances, etc. Nonetheless, the introduction of pipes with corrugated walls increases the difficulty of simulating flow and heat transfer in these type of pipes. The present thesis addresses the development of efficient models and numerical methods for simulating fluid flow and heat transfer in arbitrarily shaped pipes. The presented work combines both, numerical and analytical techniques with this goal in mind. We start by providing a general framework to the governing equations of fluid flow and heat transfer. We present the Boussinesq approximation and on basis we derive the governing equations for isothermal flow and non-isothermal flow. In the case of non-isothermal flow, we consider the limiting cases of forced and natural convection. We put special attention to the computation of the losses of mechanical energy and derive integral expressions for the friction factor (for periodic corrugated pipes) and for the loss coefficient (for arbitrary conduits). In the case of isothermal laminar flow we develop a very efficient analytical formula for computing the friction factor in slowly varying pipes. For non-slowly varying geometries we present an efficient numerical model which uses a periodicity decomposition in order to reduce the numerical domain to just one period. We use the numerical model for systematically evaluating the accuracy of the analytical formula. Based on the presented models, we also address the problem of wall-shape design. For the problem of non-isothermal laminar flow we consider two limiting cases, namely forced and natural convection. In the case of forced convection, we consider the problem of constant prescribed heat flux at the walls. As in the case of isothermal flow, we use periodicity decomposition for reducing the computational domain. For natural convection, first we take a more practically oriented approach and concentrate on an industrial application involving a cryogenic storage tank featuring a thermosyphon loop. We present a numerical model to simulate the involved phenomena. With this numerical model, we show that it is possible to optimize the wall-shape of the thermosyphon. However the computational cost of such a numerical model are considerable. This happens mainly because the problem does not allow for a periodicity decomposition and the whole extension of the domain needs to be considered. In addition, the corrugations introduce multiple scales which further increase the computational requirements for handling this problem. We provide a more efficient alternative for simulating natural convection by using the method of homogenization. The homogenization method allows us to replace the boundary conditions on a complex boundary by certain effective boundary condition on a homogenized (much simpler) boundary. This is advantageous from a computational point of view, the generation of an adequate mesh becomes straight forward and it is also easier to numerically solve the equations. At the same time, the effects of wall-shape are kept via the effective boundary conditions. The homogenized model is able to handle developing flows and can capture boundary layers. The homogenized model accurately predicts local and averaged quantities in a fraction of the costs of the direct numerical approach. We continue with the case of isothermal turbulent flow. We first present the (RANS) Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations. On this framework, we introduce two turbulence models, the two-equation k-epsilon model and the algebraic LVEL model. We validate both models with experimental data and provide a comparison between both models.


Exploring supercritical fluids and investigations of their characteristics for geothermal use requires risk minimization similar to those in oil and gas applications. The geothermal operating company leading the DESCRAMBLE (DESCRAMBLE 2018) project consortium within the European Union's (EU) research and innovation programme Horizon 2020, requested a tailored cement slurry suitable as a dependable long-term barrier and appropriate cementing practices which suit the targeted K-horizon's expected supercritical conditions.
 A scouting study was performed testing two different Portland-cement silica flour blends under targeted conditions. Additionally, a blend comprising calcium aluminate phosphate cement was selected for this test series. Non-Portland slurry designs have been used in high-temperature geothermal wells (Berard, 2009) as well as in steam injection applications (Li, 2016).
 Because of testing equipment limitations, samples were cured at 200°C/206 bar and then heated to 450°C at ambient pressure during the scouting phase. The non-Portland design proved to be the best candidate, although all three cement designs showed cracking. As a result, it was decided to further improve the non-Portland cement's mechanical properties by adding modifiers that would not affect the high-temperature rating of the cement. During the second phase, it was also necessary to consider the operational side of slurry design, as placement temperature was 200 °C with a requirement of more than 5 hours thickening time, which is near the upper limit for a non-Portland cement blend. Additionally, testing conditions were ramped up close to supercritical conditions during initial curing, and samples then underwent further curing at 550 °C and ambient pressure. Tri-axial mechanical properties were evaluated after cooldown.
 From an operational aspect, it became apparent during lab testing that mixing order was important as well as extended temperature simulation to help ensure the well was properly cooled down before cement placement. Once all laboratory testing, simulations, and operational preparations were complete the actual 7-inch liner cementing operation was performed with the desired results. Use of a specially modified calcium aluminate phosphate cement blend was successful and initial results from the well showed that this cement system was properly tailored to the geothermal well conditions.
 Only a few geothermal wells have been attempted previously under such conditions, hence it was necessary to create and deliver a modified cement slurry design for both geothermal and oil and gas applications. Further monitoring of the cement sheath will be conducted to evaluate long-term properties.


In this article, the generation of fault gases in FR3 fluid was investigated under various thermal stresses using a sealed vessel with full fluid circulation, and the results were compared with Gemini X under similar conditions. The DGA measurements from an online dissolved-gas monitor were generally comparable with laboratory analysis. The FR3 is more thermally stable than Gemini X, as indicated by less free gas-bubble formation, less violent fluid convection, and less fault gas generation above 300°C.


Bounded verification has proved useful to detect bugs and to increase confidence in the correctness of a program. In contrast to unbounded verification, reasoning about calls via (bounded) inlining and about loops via (bounded) unrolling does not require method specifications and loop invariants and, therefore, reduces the annotation overhead to the bare minimum, namely specifications of the properties to be verified. For verifiers based on traditional program logics, verification is preserved by inlining (and unrolling): successful unbounded verification of a program w.r.t. some annotation implies successful verification of the inlined program. That is, any error detected in the inlined program reveals a true error in the original program. However, this essential property might not hold for automatic separation logic verifiers such as Caper, GRASShopper, RefinedC, Steel, VeriFast, and verifiers based on Viper. In this setting, inlining generally changes the resources owned by method executions, which may affect automatic proof search algorithms and introduce spurious errors. In this paper, we present the first technique for verification-preserving inlining in automatic separation logic verifiers. We identify a semantic condition on programs and prove in Isabelle/HOL that it ensures verification-preserving inlining for state-of-the-art automatic separation logic verifiers. We also prove a dual result: successful verification of the inlined program ensures that there are method and loop annotations that enable the verification of the original program for bounded executions. To check our semantic condition automatically, we present two approximations that can be checked syntactically and with a program verifier, respectively. We implement these checks in Viper and demonstrate that they are effective for non-trivial examples from different verifiers.


Phytoplankton is an autotrophic organism that produce its own food through the process of photosynthesis with the help of sunlight which forms the basis of water productivity to be utilized for trophic organisms above. In freshwater, river plankton are categorized as potamoplankton. Rivers are a dominant freshwater ecosystem and have a more stable morphology than other freshwaters. Changes in land function is triggered by an increase in human population, an increase in the number of residential areas and industrial activities that discharge untreated waste into the river. Because of the importance of phytoplankton for life, it is necessary to conduct research on the Comparison of Phytoplankton Composition and Abundance Based on Different Land Uses in the Cisadane River, Tangerang Regency. In this study, sampling was carried out using a purposive sampling method by measuring parameters such as pH, temperature, and water transparency. Identification of phytoplankton composition and abundance was carried out using the Sedgwick Rafter Counting Cell (SRCC) using the sweep method. The results of this study obtained 23 phytoplankton genera from 6 classes consisting of: Bacillaryophyceae, Cyanophyceae, Chlorophyceae, Conjugatophyceae, Trebouxiophyceae, and Zygnematophyceae. Phytoplankton abundance was 185-490 Ind/L with the highest abundance in both areas are Bacillaryopiceae and Navicula. The diversity index was 1.307-2.124 and the dominance index was 0.201-0.461. Water quality parameters that affect the composition and abundance of phytoplankton are water-transparency, pH, and water temperature. The fertility level of the Cisadane River waters has an oligotrophic fertility level.


AbstractThis article focuses on the 'The Constitutive Committee', the 1971–2 mass-movement to create a general trade union in Bahrain. The first mass-movement after independence, it was also the country's first public non-sectarian organised movement. Initially a joint effort between 'The Popular Front' and the 'National Liberation Front', it represented the first formal collaboration between the two major factions of the Left, which had historically entertained an ambivalent relationship. This article traces the committee's establishment and development, culminating with the 'March 1972 uprising'. The article places the Constitutive Committee within a historical narrative that begins with the Higher Executive Committee movement of 1954–6 and leads up to the February 2011 Arab uprisings. The framework emphasises the dialectical struggles of popular movements searching for a united front for political change, faced by a regime that has mastered the use of divide and rule to entrench social and political fragmentation.


Introduction: Extensive investigation has been undertaken regarding drug delivery systems for the management of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The infiltrative behavior of GBM cells within the brain tissue is primarily attributed to their heterogeneity, the movement of interstitial fluid (IFF), and the presence of chemokines. These factors contribute to the limited effectiveness of current conventional treatments. To address the dissemination of GBM cells, a proposed therapeutic approach involves utilizing a controlled release gradient of CXC-chemokine-ligand-12 (CXCL12). However, the impact of IFF on GBM cell migration within the brain underscores its critical importance as a significant parameter, which, surprisingly, has not been extensively studied in the context of localized drug delivery targeting the brain.Methods: Hydrogels are known for their inherent capacity to entrap various agents and exert precise control over their subsequent release. In the present investigation, we aimed to elucidate the release kinetics of CXCL12, whether in its free form or encapsulated within nanoparticles, from alginate-based hydrogels, both under static and dynamic conditions. To investigate the impact of convective forces mimicking the interstitial fluid flow (IFF) within the peritumoral environment of the brain, a three-dimensional in vitro model was developed. This model enabled the evaluation of CXCL12 release as a function of time and position, specifically accounting for the contribution of simulated IFF on the release behavior.Results: We first demonstrated that the release kinetic profiles under static culture conditions were independent of the initial mass loading and the predominant phenomenon occurring was diffusion. Subsequently, we investigated the release of CXCL12, which was loaded into Alginate/Chitosan-Nanoparticles (Alg/Chit-NPs) and embedded within an alginate hydrogel matrix. Mathematical modeling results also indicated the presence of electrostatic interactions between alginate and CXCL12. The Alg/Chit-NPs effectively slowed down the initial burst release, leading to a reduction in the diffusion coefficient of CXCL12. To further study the release behavior, we developed a perfusion bioreactor with a unique culture chamber designed to recapitulate the peritumoral environment and varied the fluid flow rates at 0.5 µL/min, 3 µL/min, 6.5 µL/min, and 10 µL/min. As the flow rate increased, the cumulative amount of released CXCL12 also increased for all three initial mass loadings. Beyond 3 µL/min, convection became the dominant mechanism governing CXCL12 release, whereas below this threshold, diffusion played a more prominent role.Conclusion: The indirect perfusion flow had a crucial impact on CXCL12 release and distribution inside the hydrogel in and against its direction. This system highlights the importance of considering the IFF in brain targeting delivery system and will be used in the future to study GBM cell behaviors in response to CXCL12 gradient.


ABSTRACT:This essay interrogates and expands conventional views of the archive by considering how subjects who write themselves engage in processes of archival thinking and practices of curation in autobiographical discourse. It tracks features of alternative archives of the self in life writing through six microstudies that engage different concerns in autobiographical texts by women in recent centuries. The issues explored are affective archives of feelings and impressions; archives for rewriting the past; the imaginary archives of possible selves; digital archives of embodiment and desire; archives in global circulation; and archival remediation. The conclusion poses questions for those developing theoretical frameworks and methodologies to interpret the archival imaginary in the lives women inscribe and the afterlives they acquire. This article looks to expand methodologies in the field of archival studies that do not sufficiently attended to the status of the evidentiary in autobiographical materials and the archival imaginary mobilized in some autobiographical acts and practices and their afterlives.


Measurements of height–gain interference patterns at 35 GHz are carried out in order to obtain multipath interference data over various types of terrain viz. grass, road surface and concrete. The antenna with a beam width of 21° is used both at transmitting and receiving ends to ensure full illumination of Fresnel zones. The transmitting antenna height is kept at 1 m and receiving antenna height is vertically translated from 1 through 4 m, with a horizontal range separation of 74 m. The polarisation combination is vertical transmit and vertical receive. The system geometry provides low-grazing angle incidence. The recorded height–gain curves indicate the presence of specular and diffuse multipath components. Specular and diffuse multipath components are separated out using discrete fourier transform-based filtering technique and reflection coefficients are computed for various types of terrain covers. The results can be vitally useful for millimetre wave radar, guidance, remote sensing and communication systems operating near the surface in arid conditions.


AIM: This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention in Sanliurfa Gynecology and Obstetrics Hospital (SGOH), which is designed to overcome the obstacles encountered in the application of HBsAg testing to all delivering women, the administration of hepatitis B vaccine and Hepatitis B Immunglobulin(HBIG) to newborns of HBsAg positive pregnant women. METHOD: This is an intervention study, conducted between December 15, 2007 and December 30, 2008. Intervention procedure is composed of four methods; namely, motivation of all parties through academic leadership, implementation of workshops to determine the obstacles, provision of administrative commitment, and training of healthcare personnel. RESULTS: In 2007, a total of 18,709 deliveries were realized in SGOH; HBsAg testing was performed in only 16.5% of the pregnant women and 0.8% of these women were found to be HBsAg positive. It was determined that HBIG was administered to 28.2% of newborns of HBsAg positive mothers and hepatitis B vaccine was given to 71.4% (n=13349) of all newborns. After the intervention, the increase in HBsAg test application status, HBsAg positivity, HIBG administration and hepatitis B vaccination was 6.0, 5.8, 2.0 and 1.2 fold, respectively (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: In order to reduce the incidence of hepatitis B and maintain patient safety in newborns, HBsAg testing should be included in routine pregnancy screening programs and this approach should be supported by legal arrangements and systematic continuous training activities.


The space F(H), or simply F, is a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) of analytic (nonlinear) functional (Volterra functional) on a separable Hilbert space H. It was introduced in the late 1970's by the author, in collaboration with T.A.W. Dwyer, III, and L. Zyla, to represent input-output maps of large scale nonlinear dynamical systems. In the present paper we show how the properties of F, and, in particular, its reproducing kernel, can be used to model the structure and behavior of recurrent neural networks (RNNs).


This work is included in a largest project focused on the improvement of transgenic rice plants resistance against pests and phytopathogens. Our goal is the obtention of an improvement of the rice resistance against the lepidopterean Chilo suppressalis, the most important rice pest. The chosen strategy was the expression of the mpi gene (Maize Proteinase Inhibitor, coding for a proteinase inhibitor) on rice, by both biolistic and Agrobacterium transformation methods. The proteinase inhibitors are part of the natural defence system of plants against insect predation. Expression of this gene, and accumulation of the MPI protein, is stable through successive generations of rice transgenic lines. We have demonstrated that constitutive expression of the mpi gene confers resistance towards Chilo suppressalis larvae infestation in transgenic rice. Bioassays performed with transgenic rice plants expressing the mpi gene constitutively that were infested with Chilo larvae, showed that ingestion of the MPI lead to a significant reduction of the larvae weight with respect to the control larvae group (as far as 60 %). It is also important to point out that larvae fed on transgenic MPI plants showed a significant delay in their development, preventing the achievement of the L4 larval stage in most of them.
The mpi promoter is functional in rice and confers wound-inducibility of gus reporter gene. The 2K fragment of mpi promoter confers a more rapid and intense induction than shortest C1 fragment. Moreover, 2K fragment of mpi promoter doesnt confer expression of gus reporter gene in the rice seed endosperm.
On the other hand, the maize mpi gene is correctly expressed in rice plants under control of his own regulatory regions. The observed expression levels allow obtaining similar effects on Chilo larvae than those obtained with constitutive mpi expression.
Besides, we fixed the optimal pH of digestive proteinase activities of Chilo suppressalis and Cacyreus marshalli (Geranium pest) as alkaline (pH 10.5 and 10 respectively). In Chilo digestive system participate serine proteinases activities of trypsin and chimotryspsin type, and also carboxy and aspartic proteinases. We also observed an adaptation effect on Chilo digestive system of larvae feed on transgenic rice plants, with an increase of 40% of total proteolytic activities in comparison to the control larvae activities. Nevertheless, this increase is not effective to overcome the MPI inhibitor effect.
The analysis of AFP (Antifungal Protein) allows to conclude that this protein shows an elevated antifungal activity against F. verticillioides and M. grisea at low nM concentrations. Besides, AFP shows activity against the oomycete Phytophthora infestans at low mM concentrations. The presence of AFP protein leads to important morphological abnormalities of these phytopathogens. We have not detect toxic effects of AFP protein towards rice protoplasts at high AFP concentrations. The topic application of AFP protein on rice plants confers protection to Magnaporthe grisea infection.


Thirteen subjects with essential hypertension controlled on oral enalapril (20 mg/day) therapy were entered into a protocol to assess serially 24-hour blood pressure, the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, angiotensin-converting enzyme activity, and plasma and urine enalaprilat drug levels, following both chronic oral administration of enalapril and its replacement with intravenous enalaprilat. Results indicate that systolic and diastolic blood pressures remain well controlled following cessation of oral enalapril and replacement with intravenous enalaprilat. Enalaprilat drug levels, following oral enalapril and intravenous enalaprilat, remained above the therapeutic levels required for angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition. However, therapeutic enalaprilat levels can probably be achieved with one fourth of the total cumulative dose of enalapril, administered as enalaprilat at 6-hour intervals. Intravenous enalaprilat stimulated plasma renin activity and decreased immunoreactive plasma angiotensin II and plasma aldosterone concentrations. However, immunoreactive plasma angiotensin II concentrations were not suppressed below pretreatment values, suggesting that chronic enalapril/acute enalaprilat therapy controls blood pressure through a nonangiotensin-mediated antihypertension mechanism.


Peer victimization can have a profound effect on children's wellbeing and is a known risk factor for depression in childhood. Migrant children experience peer victimization at higher rates than non-migrant peers; however, limited research has examined psychological factors that may serve to reduce depression risk for this group. In particular, no studies have yet investigated whether resilience, including personal characteristics, and a strong social support network, may moderate the relationship between peer victimization and depressive symptoms for migrant children. This study utilized a latent interaction model to examine the effect of resilience on the relationship between peer victimization and depressive symptoms among 721 rural-to-urban migrant children in Beijing, China. Results indicated that peer victimization was positively associated with depressive symptoms. Resilience was found to be a protective factor for depressive symptoms and also mitigated the effects of peer victimization on depressive symptoms. Exploratory analyses suggest that enrollment in private migrant schools may be linked with poorer psychosocial outcomes for Chinese migrant children. Strengthening the internal resilience and social supports for all migrant children may be an effective strategy to lower their risk for depression. Implications for intervention are discussed.


Host cells respond to viral infections by synthesizing and producing antiviral molecules such as type I interferons (IFN). The Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) encodes multiple proteins expressed during the lytic replication cycle that alter the antiviral response of the host. Considering that in Kaposi sarcoma lesions and primary effusion lymphoma cells KSHV is latent in the vast majority of cells, we were interested in determining whether latently expressed viral proteins have the ability to modulate IFN synthesis. The latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA-1) is a large nuclear protein that plays a role in the establishment and maintenance of latent KSHV episome in the nucleus of infected cells. LANA-1 is also described to modulate the cellular transcription. Here, we report that LANA-1 inhibits IFN-β transcription and synthesis by competing with the binding of interferon regulatory factor-3 (IRF3) to the IFNB promoter. Using mutants of LANA-1, we have identified the central acidic repeated region as the domain essential for interfering with the binding of IRF3 to the positive regulatory domains I–III of the IFNB promoter. In addition, the nuclear localization of LANA-1 proved essential for IFN-β inhibition. Thus, LANA-1 interferes with the formation of IFN-β enhanceosome by competing with the fixation of IRF3 and by inhibiting the expression of the CREB-binding protein. The ability of LANA-1 to inhibit IFNB gene expression highlights a new role for this protein in cellular gene modulation and immune evasion strategies.


Pancreatic cancer, mostly pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), is a devastating malignancy with an extremely poor prognosis. New insights are urgently needed into the tumorigenesis process and the tumor suppression mechanisms of pancreatic cancer. Genetic alterations in PDAC occur in a temporal sequence, usually initiating with activating mutations of the KRAS (~95%), and progressing by loss of tumor suppressors, including INK4A/ARF, TP53 and SMAD4/DPC4. Our recent work reveals that in mouse KrasG12D-driven PDAC cells, TGFβ induces a robust epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) response, which leads to cell apoptosis. To determine the KrasG12D-dependent mechanism of priming pancreatic epithelial cells to be sensitive to TGFβ-induced lethal EMT, we utilize systematic approaches to integrate the transcriptome profile and Smad2/3 binding patterns to the genome to identify candidate mediators that regulate TGFβ-induced lethal EMT. To identify TGFβ gene response changes mediated by KrasG12D, we perform RNA-Seq analysis of inducible Tet-On KrasG12D pancreatic epithelial cells (PECs) treating with TGFβ or SB505124. Systematic analyses reveal that mutant KrasG12D, but not KrasWT, enables robust TGFβ gene responses of Snai1, Has2, Has3 and IL11. The massive induction of these genes is crucial for TGFβ-induced lethal EMT. Smad2/3 ChIP-Seq analysis reveals that transcription factor binding motifs of Rreb1 are specially associated with these KrasG12D-enhanced Smad2/3 binding sites. Furthermore, depletion of Rreb1 greatly impairs TGFβ-induced apoptosis. In summary, oncogenic KrasG12D drives a cell state change and sensitizes premalignant PECs to respond to TGFβ-induced lethal EMT. This function switch of TGFβ is potentially mediated through Kras-activated Rreb1 as a specific DNA binding partner of Smads. Citation Format: Jie Su. Mem. Dissecting TGF beta-induced lethal EMT in Kras-driven pancreatic cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-015. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-LB-015


In recent years, the breakdown of spacetime symmetries has been identified as a promising research field in the context of Planck-scale phenomenology. For example, various theoretical approaches to the quantum-gravity problem are known to accommodate minute violations of CPT invariance. This talk covers various topics within this research area. In particular, some mechanisms for spacetime-symmetry breaking as well as the Standard-Model Extension (SME) test framework will be reviewed; the connection between CPT and Lorentz invariance in quantum field theory will be exposed; and the a few experimental CPT tests with emphasis on matter–antimatter comparisons will be discussed.


This paper presents a model for designing cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) by integrating system cost, machine reliability, and preventive maintenance (PM) planning. In a CMS, a part is processed using alternative process routes, each consisting of a sequence of visits to machines. Thus, a level of 'system reliability' is associated with the machines along the process route assigned to a part type. Assuming machine reliabilities to follow the Weibull distribution, the model assigns the machines to cells, and selects, for each part type, a process route which maximizes the overall system reliability and minimizes the total costs of manufacturing operations, machine underutilization, and inter-cell material handling. The model also incorporates a reliability based PM plan and an algorithm to implement the plan. The algorithm determines effective PM intervals for the CMS machines based on a group maintenance policy and thus minimizes the maintenance costs subject to acceptable machine reliability thresholds. The model is a large mixed integer linear program, and is solved using LINGO. The results point out that integrating PM in the CMS design improves the overall system reliability markedly, and reduces the total costs significantly.


It was shown in 1966 by MacDonald that the conventional relation Λ=πtan δ between spatial logarithmic decrement and loss tangent fails for high damping conditions and that the exact relation reads Λ = 2πtan δ/2. This means that if one calculates tan δ from the spatial logarithmic decrement and then uses the conventional relation, a value is found for tan δ which is too small. Moreover, in 1966 Parke showed that the same conventional relation Λ = πtan δ between the free-vibration logarithmic decrement Λ and the loss tangent, fails in the opposite direction, under conditions of high damping. It is the aim of this paper to show that: (i) the relation deduced by MacDonald is also valid for free vibrations provided that the proper, i.e. complex, frequency is used; (ii) the relations given by MacDonald can be deduced in a very simple way by making use of the concept of characteristic impedance. Moreover, our analysis of the energy dissipation in the material showed that in the relations for the components of the relevant complex elastic modulus, M1 and M2, where M* = M1+iM2, in highly attenuating materials the velocity of energy transport c1 is a more proper parameter than c the velocity of propagation.


During embryonic diapause, the development of the embryo is paused shortly after conception by metabolic or seasonal factors. When conditions become favorable, the embryo will resume development after reactivation by the maternal reproductive system. Inducing this resting state in in vivo or in vitro manipulated embryos may offer invaluable advantages in the long-term storage of embryos, therefore offering a potential worthwhile and novel alternative in assisted reproduction compared to the currently broadly explored cryopreservation. In this reflection paper, a discussion is launched on how diapause-induced embryo preservation may support breeding programs of threatened and endangered wildlife species. Detailed research on the pathways behind initiation and maintenance of the dormant state of a blastocyst should be the first priority to facilitate the introduction of embryonic diapause as a novel tool in assisted reproduction. In addition, the examples of giant pandas are used to discuss how research on diapause mechanism can be launched within captive breeding programs to better facilitate genetic biodiversity management in species that express diapause.


Lung cells from mink embryos were infected in vitro with a purified mammary tumor virus isolated from RIII mouse milk. Specific virus antigen at the cell surface was detected by membrane immunofluorescence; B-type virions budding from the cell membrane were seen by electron microscopy. Nucleic acid hybridization confirmed replication and specificity of the virus produced.


Objective: To identify the factors associated with long-term survival and guide the decision for primary surgery in patients with advanced high-grade serous ovarian cancer(HGSOC). Methods: In this case-control study, clinical parameters, including surgical and non-surgical associated factors, were collected and compared between the patients with short-term (<2 years) and long-term (>5 years) survival who all underwent primary debulking surgery (PDS) followed by carboplatin and paclitaxel chemotherapy from January 2004 to December 2016. Univariate analysis was examined by chi-square test and multivariate analysis was performed by logistic regression analysis. Results: There were 95 cases long-term survival (LTS group) and 77 cases short-term survival (STS group) in 698 newly diagnosed HGSOC patients with International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage Ⅲc and Ⅳ who met include and exclude criteria. (1) Univariate analysis showed that the proportion of complete cytoreduction with no visible residual disease (R0) at PDS and platinum sensitivity in LTS group were significantly higher than those in STS group (P<0.01). The surgical complexity score (SCS), the preoperative serum CA125 level and the ascites volume in the LTS group were significantly lower than those of the STS group (all P<0.05). In the LTS group, the preoperative incidence of lesions in retrograde peritoneum of the bladder, serosal and mesangial membrane of the small intestine, upper abdominal peritoneum and liver parenchyma were significantly lower than those in the STS group (all P<0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that platinum sensitivity (OR=0.016, 95%CI: 0.004-0.063, P<0.01), ascites volume >500 ml (OR=3.193, 95%CI: 1.285-7.930, P=0.012), and SCS ≥8 (OR=17.433, 95%CI: 2.281-133.25, P=0.003) were independent factors affecting long-term survival (P>0.05). (2) Totally 37 of 95 in long-term survival and 16 of 77 in short-term survival achieved R0 cytoreduction at PDS. Univariate analysis showed that preoperative serum CA125 level, preoperative lesion score, preoperative lesion (DS) score, ascites volume, platinum sensitivity,and SCS were significantly correlated with the R0 PDS (all P<0.05). Multivariate analysis showed that ascites volume >500 ml (OR=5.199, 95%CI: 2.015-13.409, P=0.001), DS >2 (OR=15.264, 95%CI: 5.843-39.874, P<0.01) and SCS ≥4 (OR=4.176, 95%CI: 1.618-10.777, P=0.003) were independent factors associated with R0 cytoreduction. In patients with DS ≤2 or SCS <4, but not those with DS >2 or SCS ≥4, R0 cytoreduction was significantly associated with long-term survival. Conclusion: The intrinsic biology of tumor is the factor influencing long-term survival of advanced HGSOC patients, and those who present with wide intraperitoneal metastases and need to remove multiple organs may not benefit from R0 cytoreduction.


Beach-placer sandstone deposits are concentrations of heavy minerals that formed by mechanical concentrations (i.e. settling) of heavy minerals on beaches or in longshore bars in a marginal-marine environment. Numerous deposits are found in the San Juan Basin, New Mexico that contain high concentrations of Ti, Zr, rare earth elements (REE), Sc, Y, U, Th, Nb, Ta, Fe, and other elements. Potential sources of these deposits include Proterozoic granitic and metamorphic rocks, such as those found in the Zuni Mountains, the Jurassic arc volcanism and magmatism forming the Mogollon Highlands to the south and west, and recycling of older sediments. Many of these elements, especially Ti and REE (including Y and Sc), are increasingly becoming more important in our technological society and are used in many of our electronic devices, such as cell phones, computer monitors, televisions, wind turbines, etc. It is unlikely that any of the heavy mineral, beach-placer sandstone deposits in the San Juan Basin will be mined in the near future because of small tonnage, low grades, high degree of cementation through lithification, high iron content, and distance to processing plants and markets. However, as the demand for some of these elements increases because of increased demand and short supplies, the dollar value per ton of ore rises, enhancing deposit economics. Detailed mapping and exploration drilling of some of these deposits, particularly the Sanostee deposit and the deposits on the Ute Indian Reservation (northern San Juan Basin), are essential to fully evaluate the economic potential. Although, Zech et al. (1994) provided chemical analyses of the deposits on the Ute Indian Reservation, detailed chemical analyses of the remaining deposits in the San Juan Basin are essential to fully evaluate their resource potential in today's ever changing economic market.