Introduction Dysplasia is a marker of cancer risk in Barrett's oesophagus (BE), but this risk is variable and diagnosis is subject to inter-observer variability. Cancer risk in dysplastic and non-dysplastic BE is increased when large scale genomic instability (DNA ploidy) is present, with published data showing the incidence of aneuploidy in patients with HGD is 67%. Nuclear textural analysis (Nucleotyping) is a new method that uses ultra-high-resolution digital images of stained nuclei to classify DNA content, chromatin structure and organisation both quantitatively and qualitatively. This information is derived from the same sections used for image cytometric DNA ploidy analysis (ICDA). Our aim was to evaluate nucleotyping as a prognostic biomarker in Barrett's oesophagus, and compare with ICDA. Methods 120 patients with BE were studied. 60 patients had high-grade dysplasia or intramucosal cancer and went on to ablative therapy or surgery. A further 60 patients had specialised intestinal metaplasia only on two consecutive endoscopies with a median of 51 months follow-up (IQR=25–120 months). The two groups were then randomly assigned to a training set (30 HGD, 30 non-dysplastic) and a blinded test set. 40 micron sections were cut from formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) biopsies and a Feulgen stained nuclear monolayer was made as previously described for ICDA. Results Analysis of the training set demonstrated a DNA ploidy rate of 64% in the HGD group vs 0% in non-dysplastic. By comparison, nuclear textural analysis was abnormal in 71%. A correct classification rate (CCR) of 84% was achieved if the two features were combined. The test set was blindly analysed using the same textural features. DNA ploidy rate was 61% in the HGD group vs 0% in non-dysplastic group. Nucleotyping was again more accurate at 78%, and combining the two features gave a CCR of 84%. When all patients were analysed, sensitivity and specifity of combined nucleotyping with ICDA for detecting dysplasia was 75% and 94%, respectively. Conclusion Nucleotyping yields additional prognostic information vs image cytometry alone on the same nuclear monolayers. The textural features used to differentiate normal from dysplastic tissue were similar to those used in studies of other early cancers. These data demonstrate that nucleotyping is a promising additional test for separating at-risk groups in Barrett's oesophagus. This work is supported by the CRUK Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre at University College London and the NIHR Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre at UCLH.


We have used highly purified human early erythroid progenitors to study changes in cytoskeletal proteins during their maturation and terminal differentiation. When erythroid progenitors at the burst‐forming unit‐erythroid (BFU‐E) stage of development are grown in the presence of erythropoietin, the cells mature and terminally differentiate into reticulocytes during a 14–15‐day culture period. We have shown by immunofluorescence that spectrin is present in day 3 BFU‐E, at which time proteins band 3, ankyrin, and band 4.1 cannot be detected. Ankyrin and band 4.1 were detected in the majority of the cells by day 7 of culture, at the colony‐forming unit (CFU)‐E stage, whereas only 15% of the cells were positive for band 3 protein on day 7 of culture. The mRNA level for spectrin was already at its maximum on day 8 whereas the mRNAs for band 3, ankyrin, and band 4.1 were just beginning to accumulate. After enucleation, spectrin, band 3, ankyrin, and band 4.1 fluorescence were all associated with the reticulocytes. Actin was localized at the constriction between the extruding nucleus and the incipient reticulocyte in enucleating erythroblasts suggesting a key role for actin in the enucleation of human erythroblasts. Our investigations have also shown that purified human erythroid progenitors cultured in serum‐free suspension media are capable of enucleating without the requirement of an extracellular matrix. These results demonstrate that the synthesis and expression of major cytoskeletal proteins in the human erythrocyte membrane occur in an asynchronous manner and that the remodeling of the membrane skeleton begins at a very early stage during erythrocyte development. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Phakomatous choristoma is a rare congenital lesion of the eyelid that can be clinically and/or histologically mistaken for a cyst, cutaneous adnexal neoplasm, or an ocular adnexal oncocytoma. Only 13 such cases have been previously described, mostly in the English language ophthalmic literature. Zimmerman reported the first case in 1971 and proposed the lesion to be of lenticular anlage origin, a theory that has been widely accepted. We report an additional case occurring in an 8-week-old male infant with a firm nodule of the right lower eyelid that was present since birth. A 15 x 12 x 2 mm circumscribed solid nodule with a homogenously white cut surface was surgically excised. Histologically, this lesion was comprised of cuboidal cells forming cystically dilated and irregularly branched ducts and cords within a densely fibrotic stroma. Also present were eosinophilic basement membranelike material, psammoma body-like calcifications and intraluminal degenerated ghost cells. The immunohistochemical profile of the epithelial cells included strong immunoreactivity for vimentin, focal weak staining for S-100, and negative staining for cytokeratin, epithelial membrane antigen, synaptophysin, and chromogranin. The irregularity of the ducts and cords of epithelial cells within the densely fibrotic stroma resembled an infiltrative neoplasm of cutaneous adnexal or lacrimal duct origin. However, the site of involvement, the peculiar basement membrane material, ghost cells, and immunohistochemical profile were features that helped to distinguish phakomatous choristoma from an infiltrative carcinoma. The correct identification of this lesion is essential to avoid an aggressive surgical excision, thus sparing the eyelid and lacrimal system. The purpose of this article is to bring attention to this rare entity, because it has not been described in either the dermatology or dermatopathology literature and furthermore, is not mentioned in any of the major dermatopathology texts.


Wolf–Hirschhorn syndrome (WHS) is a malformation syndrome associated with growth retardation, mental retardation, and immunodeficiency resulting from a hemizygous deletion of the short arm of chromosome 4, called the WHS critical region (WHSC). The WHSC1 gene is located in this region, and its loss is believed to be responsible for a number of WHS characteristics. We identified WHSC1 in a genetic screen for genes involved in responding to replication stress, linking Wolf–Hirschhorn syndrome to the DNA damage response (DDR). Here, we report that the WHSC1 protein is a member of the DDR pathway. WHSC1 localizes to sites of DNA damage and replication stress and is required for resistance to many DNA-damaging and replication stress-inducing agents. Through its SET domain, WHSC1 regulates the methylation status of the histone H4 K20 residue and is required for the recruitment of 53BP1 to sites of DNA damage. We propose that Wolf–Hirschhorn syndrome results from a defect in the DDR.


OBJECTIVE
To describe differences in axial length scan (A-scan) and ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) parameters in eyes with exfoliation syndrome (XFS) and occludable angles (XFSOc), XFS and open angles (XFSOp), and eyes with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG).

DESIGN
Cross-sectional descriptive study.

PARTICIPANTS
Seventy-two eyes of 72 patients (mostly Caucasians) were identified through glaucoma clinics at the University of Ottawa;19 eyes had XFSOc, 31 eyes XFSOp, and 22 eyes POAG.

METHODS
After a detailed ophthalmic history and examination, A-scan biometry and UBM were done to assess anterior segment parameters: central anterior chamber depth (ACD), lens thickness, trabecular meshwork-iris angle, and angle opening distance (AOD). Lens/axial length factor and the relative lens position were calculated. The above measurements were compared across the 3 groups.

RESULTS
We found statistically significant differences in measurements among the groups. ACD was shallowest in eyes with XFSOc (1.88 [SD 0.07] mm), followed by XFSOp (2.37 [SD 0.05] mm), and POAG (2.64 [SD 0.08] mm). XFSOc had thicker lenses (5.28 [SD 0.09] mm) compared with the other groups: XFSOp (5.03 [SD 0.06] mm) and POAG (4.84 [SD 0.09] mm). Lens/axial length factor was highest in XFSOc (2.34 [SD 0.05] mm) versus XFSOp (2.12 [SD 0.03] mm) and POAG (2.02 [SD 0.05] mm); relative lens position was lowest in XFSOc (2.27 [SD 0.03] mm) versus XFSOp (2.31 [SD 0.02] mm) and POAG (2.36 [SD 0.03] mm).

CONCLUSIONS
Eyes with XFSOc in our study demonstrated lens thickening and shallow central ACD versus eyes with XFSOp and eyes with POAG. This suggests the possibility that cataract formation and (or) zonular weakness may contribute to the development of an occludable angle in eyes with XFS.


Infrared dark clouds (IRDCs) represent the earliest observed stages of clustered star formation, characterized by large column densities of cold and dense molecular material observed in silhouette against a bright background of mid-IR emission. Up to now, IRDCs were predominantly known toward the inner Galaxy where background infrared emission levels are high. We present Spitzer observations with the Infrared Array Camera toward object G111.80+0.58 (G111) in the outer Galactic plane, located at a distance of ~3 kpc from us and ~10 kpc from the Galactic center. Earlier results show that G111 is a massive, cold molecular clump very similar to IRDCs. The mid-IR Spitzer observations unambiguously detect object G111 in absorption. We have identified for the first time an IRDC in the outer Galaxy, which confirms the suggestion that cluster-forming clumps are present throughout the Galactic plane. However, against a low mid-IR background such as the outer Galaxy it takes some effort to find them.


Studies have already demonstrated the successful use of linear semiactive damping devices, such as variable orifice (VO) dampers, for semiactive TMD systems. More recently, nonlinear semiactive damping devices, such as magnetorheological (MR) dampers, have also been shown to be effective for semiactive control of TMDs. Though semiactive dampers differ widely, with responses ranging from linear (VO) to nonlinear (MR), criteria for choosing an optimal semiacive device for a TMD have not been rigorously developed. This paper expands knowledge of semiactive TMD systems by assessing the effect of nonlinearity in the damping device on the effectiveness of a semiactive TMD. This is achieved by simulating a variable damping device (linear), and a variable friction device (nonlinear). The variable damping device consists of a VO damper, while the variable friction device consists of a new mechanically robust and reliable damping device with a dynamic resembling the MR damper. These simulations allow the influence of nonlinearity to be investigated and provide further insight into selecting an optimal semiactive damping device for improving the performance of a passive TMD. Introduction Recent decades have marked a trend towards the design and construction of very tall buildings. Advancements in analysis, coupled with an increased use of lighter building materials and a decrease in heavy claddings, have led to structures that are not only taller but also more flexible. Consequently, most modern towers are especially prone to oscillations under persistent winds, which can lead to swaying motions of several meters on the top floors (Chang, 1973, Miller, et al., 1988). In many cases, these large deflections may not threaten the integrity of the structure, but the steady rocking can cause considerable discomfort and even illness to building occupants. If persistent, the dynamic response under severe winds may render the top floors completely uninhabitable. Studies by Chang and Hansen investigated the effects of this motion on the human body, creating benchmarks for the perception of and physiological response to various increments of lateral acceleration (Chang, 1973, Hansen, et al., 1979). The maximum amplitudes of these responses are ultimately dictated by the ability of the structure to dissipate energy; the more significant the energy dissipation, the smaller the vibrations. All structures naturally release some energy through mechanisms such as internal stressing, rubbing, and plastic deformations. In large modern steel structures, however, the total damping may amount to as little as 1% of critical, making them very vulnerable to dynamic resonance effects (Housner, et al., 1997). As a result, additional measures are generally necessary to meet serviceability standards. Since eliminating the excitation source is impractical, this necessitates implementing a control scheme to enhance the effective damping of the structure. 5WCSCM-274


The thesis of this essay is how literary texts are selected in the teaching of Swedish in upper secondary school, and how teachers reflect upon gender in these selections. To answer the thesis question three methods have been used. Firstly interviews were held with five teachers of Swedish, which have been the primary source for the essay. In addition to the interviews, I have examined two literary anthologies used as teaching aid in the teaching of Swedish and lastly I analyzed the literature and authors that the teachers explicitly express that they use in their tutoring. The secondary sources of this thesis contain research on selections of fictional texts, literary canon and students' re-production of gender. The conclusion of the essay is that four components affect the selection of texts. The superior components to the selection are the students and the teachers, mostly by the students' ability to identify with the text and the level of knowledge of both teachers and students. The subordinate components to the selections are the materials in form of teaching aids as well as the school via the curriculum and a literary canon. The essay also concludes that teachers do not reflect upon gender in the same way in their actual selections as they do in their rhetoric about the selections of texts.


Many networked systems such as electric networks, the brain, and social networks of opinion dynamics are known to obey conservation laws. Examples of this phenomenon include the Kirchoff laws in electric networks and opinion consensus in social networks. Conservation laws in networked systems may be modeled as balance equations of the form $X = B^{*} Y$, where the sparsity pattern of $B^{*}$ captures the connectivity of the network, and $Y, X \in \mathbb{R}^p$ are vectors of"potentials"and"injected flows"at the nodes respectively. The node potentials $Y$ cause flows across edges and the flows $X$ injected at the nodes are extraneous to the network dynamics. In several practical systems, the network structure is often unknown and needs to be estimated from data. Towards this, one has access to samples of the node potentials $Y$, but only the statistics of the node injections $X$. Motivated by this important problem, we study the estimation of the sparsity structure of the matrix $B^{*}$ from $n$ samples of $Y$ under the assumption that the node injections $X$ follow a Gaussian distribution with a known covariance $\Sigma_X$. We propose a new $\ell_{1}$-regularized maximum likelihood estimator for this problem in the high-dimensional regime where the size of the network $p$ is larger than sample size $n$. We show that this optimization problem is convex in the objective and admits a unique solution. Under a new mutual incoherence condition, we establish sufficient conditions on the triple $(n,p,d)$ for which exact sparsity recovery of $B^{*}$ is possible with high probability; $d$ is the degree of the graph. We also establish guarantees for the recovery of $B^{*}$ in the element-wise maximum, Frobenius, and operator norms. Finally, we complement these theoretical results with experimental validation of the performance of the proposed estimator on synthetic and real-world data.


Thalassemia is an autosomal recessive inherited blood disorder due to hemoglobin-production abnormalities. Over the past three decades, hyper-transfusion therapy in these patients has shown significant increase in life expectancy and quality of life. unfortunately, this type of therapy also increased the frequency of complications due to iron overload. The study aims to identify the Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of patients with thalassemia, and to assess transfusion related complication among them. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted in Thalassemia Center in Al-Najaf province in Iraq, during the period from the 1st of April to the 31st of August 2018. Data were collected through direct interview with patients/parents using a specially designed questionnaire form. A total of 175 transfusion dependent thalassemia major patients were included, the mean age 10. 5 years ranging from 5 m to 34years. Patients under 10 years of age represented the highest rate with Male: Female ratio 1.2:1. 60% were from rural area with high percentage of parental consanguinity (70%). The study documented the relationship between iron over load and appearance of complications. Development of preventive measures as genetic counseling, prenatal diagnosis, pre-marital screening are the best ways to decrease the incidence of disease, in addition to regular blood transfusion with optimum chelation therapy.


JProNet is a Java-based network tool for systematic analysis of structure-based topological properties of proteins. It incorporates new developments in network theory such as the scale-free and the small-world properties. JProNet can generate rich information of the residue packing topology of protein structure networks. JProNet is a platform independent, interactive and user-friendly tool. Users are empowered with the flexibility to input their customized protein structure-based network and define the weight of the edges in the network prior to the analysis.


Nanoporous Au and other dilute AgAu alloys are highly active and selective oxidation catalysts. Their ability to dissociate O2 is to a large extent unexplained, given that unsupported Au cannot generally dissociate O2, while large ensembles of Ag atoms (>4) are generally necessary to lower the O2 dissociation barrier significantly. Here, we identify a site on the surface of dilute AgAu alloys that is stable under reaction conditions and has a low O2 dissociation barrier, in agreement with experimental measurements. Although Ag generally prefers to disperse throughout Au, the presence of adsorbed O near surface steps creates sites of high local Ag concentration, where the Ag atoms sit in the rows next to the step Au atoms. O2 adsorbs on the Au step atoms, but the transition state involves significant Ag–O interaction, resulting in a barrier lower than expected from the adsorption energies of either the initial or final state.


Malaria is a major public health problem in tribal villages of India, where 8% of the country's population lives. Literacy level among tribal population is very low. This study aims to examine the relation between education status and knowledge about malaria among Indian tribal communities. 125 randomly selected tribal respondents from one tribal village each of 17 states were administered a close ended questionnaire by trained interviewers to assess their knowledge about various aspects of malaria. Effect of educational status on the level of knowledge was analyzed using chi square test. Stratified analysis was performed using Mantel Haenszel chi square test to eliminate gender bias. 2125 respondents', randomly selected from 17 tribal villages in as many states, findings were analyzed. Fifty seven percent male and 72% female respondents were illiterate. Only 2% respondents had college level education. Educated females were more knowledgeable than their male counterparts. Mantel Haenszel chi square analysis showed that educated respondents were more knowledgeable than the illiterates, after adjusting for sex of respondents. However, there was gross lack of knowledge regarding diagnosis and treatment of malaria and use of insecticides irrespective of gender and educational status. Improvement in literacy status of tribal population will help in increasing awareness about malaria. Opportunities for disseminating information about various aspects of malaria should be utilized during treatment of malaria cases by health workers.


One of the unique features of discrete-time quantum walks is called trapping, meaning the inability of the quantum walker to completely escape from its initial position, although the system is translationally invariant. The effect is dependent on the dimension and the explicit form of the local coin. A four-state discrete-time quantum walk on a square lattice is defined by its unitary coin operator, acting on the four-dimensional coin Hilbert space. The well-known example of the Grover coin leads to a partial trapping, i.e., there exists some escaping initial state for which the probability of staying at the initial position vanishes. On the other hand, some other coins are known to exhibit strong trapping, where such an escaping state does not exist. We present a systematic study of coins leading to trapping, explicitly construct all such coins for discrete-time quantum walks on the two-dimensional square lattice, and classify them according to the structure of the operator and the manifestation of the trapping effect. We distinguish three types of trapping coins exhibiting distinct dynamical properties, as exemplified by the existence or nonexistence of the escaping state and the area covered by the spreading wave packet.


Lithium titanate (Li 2 TiO 3 ) is an attractive ceramic material for various industrial applications, particularly as one of most promising breeder blanket materials in future nuclear fusion reactors. Previously-reported studies mainly focus on sintered polycrystalline samples of Li 2 TiO 3 . Surface structure of the single-crystal form is rarely reported, although the information of surface structures and stabilities can be critical for further understanding the surface-associated processes. In this work, we perform extensive first-principles density-functional-theory (DFT) calculations to obtain the surface energies of Li 2 TiO 3 (001) with different surface terminations. For four perfect (defect-free) Li-, O-, or LiTi-terminated (001) surfaces, Li- or O-terminated (001) surfaces can be most stable in a limited chemical-potential ranges corresponding to certain experimental conditions, while LiTi-terminated (001) surface is always unfavorable relative to Li or O terminations. By calculating total energies of various possible configurations with surface vacancies, we determine the energetically-most-favorable vacancy-defected surface terminations. From the corresponding ternary phase diagram, we analyze the stability of a specific surface termination with vacancies as well as the possible formation of oxides. Our stability analysis together with DFT-simulated


This fully updated second volume of the highly successful WWRF Book of Visions is a unique and timely book, presenting up-to-the-minute ideas and trends in mobile communications. This is a comprehensive single point of reference, focusing on the specifications and requirements of 4G and identifying potential business models, the research areas and required spectrum and enabling technologies. Comprising material from White Papers edited within the working expert groups as well as those from the Vision Committee of WWRF, a top-down approach has been adopted starting from perceived users requirements and their expectations in the Future Wireless World. © 2006 Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF).


We review previously published and newly obtained crater size-frequency distributions in the inner solar system. These data indicate that the Moon and the terrestrial planets have been bombarded by two populations of objects. Population 1, dominating at early times, had nearly the same size distribution as the present-day asteroid belt, and produced heavily cratered surfaces with a complex, multi-sloped crater size-frequency distribution. Population 2, dominating since about 3.8–3.7 Gyr, had the same size distribution as near-Earth objects (NEOs) and a much lower impact flux, and produced a crater size distribution characterized by a differential −3 single-slope power law in the crater diameter range 0.02 km to 100 km. Taken together with the results from a large body of work on age-dating of lunar and meteorite samples and theoretical work in solar system dynamics, a plausible interpretation of these data is as follows. The NEO population is the source of Population 2 and it has been in near-steady state over the past ∼ 3.7–3.8 Gyr; these objects are derived from the main asteroid belt by size-dependent non-gravitational effects that favor the ejection of smaller asteroids. However, Population 1 was composed of main belt asteroids ejected from their source region in a size-independent manner, possibly by means of gravitational resonance sweeping during orbit migration of giant planets; this caused the so-called Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB). The LHB began some time before ∼3.9 Gyr, peaked and declined rapidly over the next ∼ 100 to 300 Myr, and possibly more slowly from about 3.8–3.7 Gyr to ∼2 Gyr. A third crater population (Population S) consisted of secondary impact craters that can dominate the cratering record at small diameters.


The single-phase switched reluctance motor(SRM) drive requires DC source which is generally supplied through a rectifier connected with a commercial source. The rectifier is consist of a diode full bridge and a filter circuit. Usually the filter circuit uses capacitor with large value capacitance to reduce ripple component of DC power. Although the peak torque ripple of SRM is small, the short charge and discharge current of the filter capacitor draws the low power factor and system efficiency. A modified single phase SRM drive system is presented in this paper, which includes drive circuit realizing reduction of torque ripple and improvement of power factor. In the proposed drive circuit, one switching part and diode which can separate the output of AC/DC rectifier from the filter capacitor is added. Also, a upper switch of drive circuit is exchanged a diode in order to reduce power switching device. Therefore the number of power switch device is not changed, two diodes are only added in the SRM drive. To verify the proposed system, some simulation and experimental results are presented.


3D magnetic resonance imaging (3D MRI) is one of the most preferred medical imaging modalities for the analysis of anatomical structures where acquisition of multiple slices along the slice select gradient direction is very common. In 2D multi-slice acquisition, adjacent slices are highly correlated because of very narrow inter-slice gaps. Application of compressed sensing (CS) in MRI significantly reduces traditional MRI scan time due to random undersampling. The authors first propose a fast interpolation technique to estimate missing samples in the k-space of a highly undersampled slice (H-slice) from k-space (s) of neighbouring lightly undersampled slice/s (L-slice). Subsequently, an efficient multislice CS-MRI reconstruction technique based on weighted wavelet forest sparsity, and joint total variation regularisation norms is applied simultaneously on both interpolated H and non-interpolated L-slices. Simulation results show that the proposed CS reconstruction for 3D MRI is not only computationally faster but significant improvements in terms of visual quality and quantitative performance metrics are also achieved compared to the existing methods.


Background:A task force formulated by the Section on Women's Health of the American Physical Therapy Association published guidelines regarding the women's health curricular content that should be included in entry-level doctorate of physical therapy (DPT) programs in 2005. An updated Guideline was published in 2014. The Guideline was based on survey responses from academicians and clinicians. This article specifically discusses the results of the academic and clinician survey responses regarding inclusion of pelvic floor muscle examination in entry-level DPT curricula. Study Design:Survey research report. Outcomes:Academicians (97%) and clinicians (95%) were in agreement that psychomotor examination education of the pelvic floor muscles should not be required of students in entry-level DPT education. Clinicians (39.2%) supported the use of elective courses to teach this material, whereas academicians (33.7%) supported the use of verbal instruction with anatomic pictures and no demonstration as a way to provide education in this area. Discussion:While the area of women's health physical therapy has incurred significant growth as evidenced by a greater number of specialists and greater inclusion in entry-level curricula, there continues to be differences in opinion regarding how physical therapists should gain competence in examination skills for pelvic floor dysfunction. Conclusion:The majority of clinicians and academicians surveyed as part of the research for development of the "Guidelines for Women's Health Content in Professional Physical Therapist Education: 2014 Update" agreed that psychomotor internal examination skills should not be taught in entry-level DPT education.


The aim of this study was to determine the vascular indices of adrenal blood flow in healthy dogs (systolic velocity - SV; diastolic velocity - DV; resistance index - RI). Eighteen dogs (thirty six adrenal) were studied. Physical examination, biochemical profile and dexamethasone suppression test were performed to determine general health status. Echotexture, size, contours and margins, and overall shape of the adrenal gland (right and left) were assessed via ultrasound. By spectral Doppler of the phrenic-abdominal artery, the SV, DV, and RI were acquired. Animals did not show alterations in clinical and laboratory examination and suppression of cortisol. Normal homogeneous and echotexture, regular contours and margins and normal shape and size were verified via B mode. Spectral Doppler of the phrenic-abdominal artery showed monophasic-patterned waves and low vascular resistance and systolic peak evident with means values: left adrenal - SV = 31.34cm/s, DV = 9.54cm/s and RI = 0.69; and right adrenal - SV = 27.83cm/s, DV = 7.71cm/s and RI = 0.68. Doppler evaluation of adrenal was easily implemented and may provide base line data in the study, allowing for the use of this technique as a diagnostic tool for diseases of the dog's adrenal.


Plant specific NAC (NAM, ATAF1/2 and CUC2) transcription factors (TFs) play important roles in response to abiotic stress. In this study, we identified and characterized a NAC protein, ThNAC7, from Tamarix hispida. ThNAC7 is a nuclear localized protein and has transcriptional activation activity. ThNAC7 expression was markedly induced by salt and osmotic stresses. Transiently transformed T. hispida seedlings overexpressing ThNAC7 (OE) or with RNA interference (RNAi) silenced ThNAC7 were generated to investigate abiotic stress tolerance via the gain- and loss- of function. Overexpressing ThNAC7 showed an increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging capabilities and proline content, which was accomplished by enhancing the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) in transiently transformed T. hispida and stably transformed Arabidopsis plants. Additionally, ThNAC7 activated these physiological changes by regulating the transcription level of P5CS, SOD and POD genes. RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) comparison between wild-type and ThNAC7-transformed Arabidopsis showed that more than 40 known salt tolerance genes might regulated by ThNAC7, including stress tolerance-related genes and TF genes. The results indicated that ThNAC7 induces the transcription level of genes associated with stress tolerance to enhance salt and osmotic stress tolerance via an increase in osmotic potential and enhanced ROS scavenging.


Current seismic codes require from the seismically designed structures to be capable to withstand inelastic deformation. Many studies dealt with the development of different inelastic spectra with the aim to simplify the evaluation of inelastic deformation and performance of structures. Recently, the concept of inelastic spectra has been adopted in the global scheme of the performance-based seismic design through capacity-spectrum methods. In this paper, the median of the ductility demand ratio for 80
ground motions are presented for different levels of normalized yield strength, defined as the yield strength coefficient divided by the peak ground acceleration (PGA). The influence of the post-to-preyield stiffness ratio on the ductility demand is investigated. For fixed levels of normalized yield strength, the median ductility versus period plots demonstrated that they are independent of the earthquake magnitude and epicentral distance. Determined by regression analysis of the data, two design equations have been developed; one for the ductility demand as function of period, post-to-preyield stiffness ratio, and normalized yield strength, and the other for the inelastic deformation as function of period and peak ground acceleration valid for periods longer than 0.6 seconds. The equations are useful in estimating the ductility and inelastic deformation demands for structures in the preliminary design. It was found that the post-to-preyield stiffness has a negligible effect on the ductility factor if the yield strength coefficient is greater than the PGA of the design ground motion normalized by gravity.


Background: The aim was to evaluate the impact of weight gain on pouch outcomes after ileostomy closure. Methods: Consecutive inflammatory bowel disease patients with ileal pouches followed up at our subspecialty Pouch Center from 2002 to 2011 were studied. The association of excessive weight gain (defined as a 15% increase the index weight) with pouch outcomes were evaluated using univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: A total of 846 patients met inclusion criteria, with 470 (55.6%) being men. The mean age at the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease and at pouch surgery was 27.2 ± 11.9 years and 37.8 ± 12.8 years, respectively. Patients with weight gain more likely had mechanical or surgical complications of the pouch (18.4% versus 12.3%, P = 0.049), Crohn's disease of the pouch (30.6% versus 18.5%, P = 0.001), Pouch Center visits (2.0 [1.0–4.0] versus 2.0 [1.0–3.0], P = 0.008), and postoperative pouch-related hospitalization (21.1% versus 10.6%, P < 0.001). After a median follow-up of 9.0 (interquartile range = 4.0–14.0) years, 68 patients (8.0%) developed pouch failure. In the multivariate analysis, excessive weight gain was an independent risk factor for pouch failure with a hazard ratio of 1.69 (95% confidence interval = 1.01–2.84, P = 0.048) after adjusting for preoperative or postoperative use of anti-tumor necrosis factor biologics, postoperative use of immunosuppressants, Crohn's disease of the pouch, mechanical or surgical complications of the pouch, and postoperative pouch-associated hospitalization. Conclusions: Excessive weight gain after closure of the ileostomy is associated with worse pouch outcomes in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Appropriate weight control may help improve pouch retention.


Nb2O5 is an important material able to exist in many polymorphs with unique optical properties and morphologies that are dependent on the synthetic route. Here we report a novel ambient-pressure chemical vapor deposition route to Nb2O5 via aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition. The amorphous as-deposited films were annealed in air to obtain the the three most stable crystal structures: orthorhombic, tetragonal, and monoclinic. The films were thoroughly characterized for their material properties, and an in-depth study into the optical properties was carried out using state-of-the-art hybrid functional theory that allowed more insight into the optical properties of the materials.


In order to probe the features of DNA methylation for bamboo stand with different chronological ages, the technique of methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP) was employed to detect DNA methylation in the paper. Experiment material is Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys heterocycla var. pubescens) leaves with 3 various chronological ages (5, 31, and > 60 years after seed germination). During the procedure of genome DNA extration and MSAP analysis, total 35 pairs of MSAP primers were amplyfied. The results showed that MSAP value for bamboo with those three chronological ages were respectively 24.44%, 28.21% and 32.12%, and full-methylation ratios were 16.57%, 19.41% and 21.23%. Meanwhile, the value of variable sites for methylation reached 52.3% and for demethylation was 10.3%. Therefore, it could be concluded that with ages increasing MSAP value rising for Moso bamboo. Moreover the result of variance analysis for methylation ratio indicated that no significant (P = 0.307 > 0.05) difference among individuals with the same ages, while significant (P < 0.001) difference exsited among different chronological ages. Throuygh ANOVA it showed that 6 pairs (E3/HM2, E3/HM6, E3/HM7, E4/HM5, E4/HM6 and E5/HM5) of primers had obvious influence on DNA methylation for ones with different chronological ages and could be used for further research.


The author analyzes the impact of social networking on young adults specifically, youth of our country so the importance or impact of these online social networking can be highlighted. From this research the collected data from young adults working in organizations as well as researching in universities and coaching centers situated within and around Korangi, Karachi. In this research article, the authors describe the impact of these social networks on the attitude and behavior of the young adults. Here is a data which is collected through a questionnaire based on likert scale questions and all the collected data has been processed through statistical software and results are gathered and explained separately for each variable. Statistical Tests were conducted on the basis of regression analysis to check the stability and authentication of the variables. As per the data collected in this research and processing of results gathered through statistical analysis, the Social Networking Sites do have a strong impact on Attitude and Personality of young adults. As the results shows there is a strong relationship between SNS, Personality and Attitude. It also shows that the increased use of SNS affects both personality and attitude of young adults. Further, the author will recommend that marketing researchers should focus on this research topic because through social networking sites, quality first hand data can be gathered to analyze consumer behavior as well as market trends and demand. This research should not be limited to young adults only but should expand to elder people as well because they spend good time on social networking sites in their daily routine.


SINCE the advent of insulin therapy enabling survival of patients with diabetes, diabetic retinopathy has become and has remained one of the leading causes of incurable blindness. Both internists and ophthalmologists are haunted by the specter of diabetic retinopathy resulting in a hopelessly blind patient. Lack of effective treatment has prompted many therapeutic trials. Hypophysectomy for diabetic retinopathy is still controversial, although one decade has passed since the first report of its study in ophthalmic publications.1Many ophthalmologists believe that pituitary ablation is still in the stage of therapeutic trial rather than a proved cure, however promising some recent reports may seem.2 A Modern Therapeutic Dilemma.—The very nature of diabetic retinopathy makes evaluation of an apparently beneficial therapeutic response difficult. Although the incidence and severity of retinopathy inexorably progress with the duration of the diabetes as a general trend, the condition often will wax and wane


Karl Otto Apel and Jurgen Habermas have developed a theory based on moral and political philosophy to understand the mood of society's political, legal and moral structures. Both have bet on ethical discourse and public communication as mechanisms of social regulation and legitimating elements in normative decision-making. However, regarding these theories as salvific attractions of the precarious reality of Latin America suggests the need to analyze a set of phenomena that cannot be passed over as formal philosophical abstractions, such as social inequality, repression, political silencing, the poor quality of education and, above all, extreme poverty.


Instead of allowing financial markets to own the price and quotation data they produce, the SEC forces the markets to contribute the data to a central pool, in return for sharing in the revenues from the sale of the data. Even within this system of attenuated property rights, the SEC could foster competition by identifying and removing barriers that prevent data networks from competing with each other. It would be even better to restore proprietary ownership of price and quotation data to the markets that produce it. That would allow exchanges and other trading systems to protect the investments they made to develop and improve their trading and information systems. Proprietary ownership would foster multiple and diverse streams of data instead of the single source now in place, which gives rise to the market power the SEC seeks to control.


The news media's interaction with the criminal justice system and the publicspecifically, whether or not the news media's presence inside and outside the courtroom affects a defendant's right to a fair trial--is examined. In 1965, Dr. Sam Sheppard was convicted for the murder of his pregnant wife in their Cleveland suburban home. Since this case received an enormous amount of pretrial publicity, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Dr. Sheppard's Sixth Amendment rights were violated and overturned the trial court's decision. Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Supreme Court began focusing more on the media's First Amendment rights. In Richmond Newspapers vs. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled that for a courtroom to be closed, the trial judge must provide substantial proof showing that the defendant's right to a fair trial would be compromised by the media's presence. The Supreme Court, however, never set a standard that trial judges must follow: trial judges were left to their own best judgment. Experiments conducted by Roberts and Doob (1990), Moral and Cutler (1991) and Riedel (1993), show that pretrial publicity "can" affect a potential juror's or judge's decision. However, Davis' (1986) and part of Riedel's (1993) experiment revealed that potential jurors are able to set aside pretrial publicity and render a verdict on the evidence presented. This dichotomy shows that further research needs to be done, and that research should involve "actual trial participants" instead of "simulated trial participants." (Contains 17 references.) (Author/TB) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. '` *******************************************************************


A 20-channel micro-respirometer is described which replaces oxygen consumed by the respiring organism by that generated by the electrolysis of saturated copper sulphate solution. Electronic circuitry checks each respirometer once every second and provides a square-wave pulse 0.1 sec long and 1.0 mA in amplitude if oxygen is required. A single pulse produces 5.7 nl of oxygen at S.T.P. Electromechanical counters record when a pulse is required for oxygen generation. Total errors introduced by the electronics amount to less than 0.1%.


Abstract The aim of the study was to estimate the prognostic and clinicopathologic significance of miR-125a-5p in human cancers. Eligible studies were obtained from PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library. Combined hazard ratios (HRs) and odds ratios (ORs) were used to evaluate the prognostic and clinicopathologic value of miR-125a-5p. In pan-cancer, high miR-125a-5p expression was associated with better overall survival (OS) (HR = 0.459, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.369–0.57, P < .001), and disease-free survival (HR = 0.343, 95% CI: 0.237–0.496, P < .001). Furthermore, favorable OS was also found in lung cancer (HR = 0.343, 95% CI: 0.228–0.517, P < .001) and gastric cancer (HR = 0.341, 95% CI: 0.160–0.725, P = .005) patients with high miR-125a-5p expression. Besides, high miR-125a-5p expression was correlated with early stage (OR = 0.413, 95% CI: 0.228–0.749, P = .004) and negative lymph node metastasis (OR = 0.262, 95% CI: 0.073–0.941, P = .04) in gastric cancer, and was linked with better tumor differentiation in pan-cancer (OR = 1.623, 95% CI: 1.064–2.476, P = .025) and lung cancer (OR = 2.371, 95% CI: 1.358–4.141, P = .002). In conclusion, miR-125a-5p is a tumor suppressor with prognostic and clinicopathologic values for human cancer, and miR-125a-5p overexpression predicted favorable prognosis, early stage, negative lymph node metastasis, and better tumor differentiation. More research should be conducted to test these results.


An autopsy case of blue rubber bleb naevus syndrome (BRB-NS) is reported. There was the usual occurrence of cavernous haemangioma in the skin and intestine and cardiac involvement by a haemangiomatous lesion might have directly led to the patient's death. By light and electron microscopy, all the haemangiomatous lesions examined were cavernous with the exception of the cardiac tumour which was a mixed-vessel (capillary and cavernous) type of a haemangioma. These findings indicate that any vascular tumour-like lesions may occur in BRBNS. The principal combination of haemangiomas in the skin and intestine in BRBNS regardless of their type is the typical feature of this syndrome.


The dehydration of beta-hydroxy ketones and beta-hydroxy esters is a synthetically useful method for the conversion of these compounds to the corresponding alpha,beta-unsaturated derivatives. Cerium(III) chloride heptahydrate in combination with sodium iodide in refluxing acetonitrile acts as an efficient reagent for this conversion. The present procedure, which utilizes cheap and "friendly" reagents, offers the corresponding (E)-enones in good yields as the only isolable products.


Nowadays, a non-intrusive measurement tool of thermodynamic variables with high sensitivity is strongly demanded for analyses of highly rarefied gas flows. REMPI (resonantly enhanced multiphoton ionization) is the most suitable technique for measurement of gas molecules with very low density. In this study, to examine the fundamental properties of the REMPI spectra, 2R+2 N2-REMPI spectra including the spectral broadening are calculated and compared with the experimental results. From the calculated REMPI spectra, spectral lines adequate to measure temperature are proposed, especially at relatively high temperature where the measurement error becomes larger because of the overlap of the spectral lines.


At the close of the Cretaceous, the Antarctic Peninsula sector had a rather warm and dry climate, differentiated into summer and winter seasons, as indicated by annual growth-rings in petrified logs. Vegetation cover was probably patchy due to low amount of precipitation. -There is no indication of contemporaneous continental glaciation, however small ice-caps may have grown on tops of stratovolcanoes and in high mountain groups. The Early Tertiary saw climatic and environmental conditions initially similar to the precedent ones. Increase in amount of rainfall with time resulted in wide spreading of vegetation cover, with Nothofagus forests rich in fern undergrowth, including tree ferns, and with Araucaria, during Palaeocene and Eocene, followed by Nothofagus -podocarp forests poorer in fern undergrowth during Oligocene. Climatic seasonality is well marked in petrified wood logs as annual growth-rings. Terrestrial animaI life (marsupials, large birds) is recorded at the beginning of PaIaeogene. There is no indication of continental glaciation in the Antarctic Peninsula sector during the whole Palaeogene. The uppermost Oligocene plant-bearing beds (dated at about 24.5 Ma) still evidence a non-glacial -climate. There are, however, evidences from lahar-type debris-flow agglomerates of existence of local ice-caps on tops of stratovolcanoes. The onset of continental glaciation (ice-sheet at sea level) in the Antarctic Peninsula sector, :slightly post-dates the Oligocene/Miocene boundary. Early Miocene brachiopod-bearing shallow-marine sediments contain pieces of carbonized wood, and are still devoid of convincing glacial climate indicators. The succeeding Early Miocene highly fossiliferous glacio-marine strata are ;crowded with iceberg-rafted debris, often of large dimensions, of Antarctic continent provenance. Andesite dykes which cut through these strata have been K-Ar dated at about 20 Ma. The K-Ar dating of the geological events leaves a narrow bracket for the onset of continental glaciation in :the Antarctic Peninsula sector at between 24 and 20 Ma.


Compensation not only provides incentives to an existing manager but also affects the type of manager attracted to the firm. This paper examines the dual incentive and sorting effects of performance pay in a simple contracting model of endogenous participation. Unless the manager is highly risk averse, sorting dampens optimal pay-performance sensitivity PPS because PPS beyond a nominal amount transfers unnecessary information rent to the manager. This helps explain why empirical estimates of PPS are much lower than predictions from models of moral hazard alone. The model also predicts that sorting under asymmetric information causes the firm to turn away more candidates than would be efficient; PPS increases in the cost of hiring the manager and in the manager's outside option, but decreases in output risk, information risk, and managerial risk aversion; and the firm becomes more selective in hiring as either the manager's outside option, the cost of hiring, risk aversion, output risk, or information risk increases.

This paper was accepted by Mary Barth, accounting.


The link between seismic data and subsurface properties suffers from an intrinsic ambiguity, i.e., that many reservoir models fit the same data within the noise. In some pathological cases, this may cause biases in the interpretation of the structure of the earth models used in exploration and reservoir management. Inversion techniques for large seismic data sets encountered in the oil industry are well established and are assumed to be reliable. Although this is generally true, thanks to integrated knowledge from geology and other geophysical data, there is, in some cases, still a significant risk that traditional approaches may end up finding only part of the models which can explain the observed data, overlooking potentially different scenarios and, moreover, hampering a correct uncertainty quantification. This phenomenon is often observed in practice when different inversion contractors arrive at significantly different results from the same data sets. The impact of the unavoidable non-uniqueness should be assessed when performing inversion of seismic data. We investigate the magnitude of the ambiguity problem in seismic modelling of chalk reservoirs by explicitly taking ambiguity into account in the inverse problem. Our study is based on a careful selected test case from the the Danish North Sea sector.


OBJECTIVE
The pathogenesis of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) remains poorly understood. The underlying chronic inflammatory immune response is thought to be triggered by unknown environmental factors potentially arising from a defective immune function. We undertook this study to determine whether an impaired acute inflammatory response by dendritic cells (DCs) might compromise the clearance of bacteria and predispose to chronic inflammation.

METHODS
We determined cytokine production by DCs from healthy controls and from patients with rheumatoid arthritis, PsA, and psoriasis in response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis, and a range of other bacteria and Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands. Phenotypic differences involved in cellular responses against (myco)bacteria were determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and flow cytometry.

RESULTS
The secretion of proinflammatory cytokines by PsA DCs was impaired upon in vitro challenge with mycobacteria and TLR-2 ligands. This impairment was associated with elevated serum levels of C-reactive protein. The expression of TLR-2 and other receptors known to mediate mycobacterial recognition was unaltered. In contrast, the intracellular TLR inhibitors suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 and A20 were more highly expressed in DCs from PsA patients. PsA DCs further demonstrated up-regulated levels of ATG16L1, NADPH oxidase 2, and LL37, which are molecules implicated in the immune response against intracellular bacteria.

CONCLUSION
Our findings indicate that DCs from PsA patients have a disordered immune response toward some species of (myco)bacteria. This might predispose to impaired immune responses to, and in turn impaired clearance of, these bacteria, setting the stage for the chronic inflammation of joints, entheses, skin, and the gut.


Coherent x-ray diffraction was used to study the relaxation in single ultrathin strained silicon structures with nanoscale accuracy. The investigated structure was patterned from 20 nm thick strained silicon-on-insulator substrate with an initial biaxial tensile strain of 0.6%. Two-dimensional maps of the post-patterning relaxation were obtained for single 1 × 1 μm2 structures. We found that the relaxation is localized near the edges, which undergo a significant contraction due to the formation of free surfaces. The relaxation extent decreases exponentially towards the center with a decay length of 50 nm. Three-dimensional simulations confirmed that over-etching is needed to explain the relaxation behavior.


The magnetostriction of high permeability grain oriented silicon steel has been examined under zero applied stress at angles to the rolling direction from 0° to 90°. A system of domain switching processes has been considered to account for the magnetostriction levels measured over this range. It is concluded that the magnetostriction vs angle characteristic is determined by three principal types of domain activity. Each has a particular area of dominance with a gradual change over between them.


Abstract: The γ2 subunit of the GABAA receptor (GABAA‐R) is alternatively spliced. The long variant (γ2L) contains eight additional amino acids that possess a consensus sequence site for protein phosphorylation. Previous studies have demonstrated that a peptide or fusion protein containing these eight amino acids is a substrate for protein kinase C (PKC), but not cyclic AMP‐dependent protein kinase A (PKA)‐stimulated phosphorylation. We have examined the ability of PKA, PKC, and Ca2+/calmodulin‐dependent protein kinase (CAM kinase II) to phosphorylate a synthetic peptide corresponding to residues 336–351 of the intracellular loop of the γ2L subunit and inclusive of the alternatively spliced phosphorylation consensus sequence site. PKC and CAM kinase II produced significant phosphorylation of this peptide, but PKA was ineffective. The Km values for PKC‐and CAM kinase II‐stimulated phosphorylation of this peptide were 102 and 35 μM, respectively. Maximal velocities of 678 and 278 nmol of phosphate/min/mg were achieved by PKC and CAM kinase II, respectively. The phosphorylation site in the eight‐amino‐acid insert of the γ2L subunit has been shown to be necessary for ethanol potentiation of the GABAA‐R. Thus, our results suggest that PKC, CAM kinase II, or both may play a role in the effects of ethanol on GABAergic function.


We model DNA count data as a multiple change point problem, in which the data are divided in to different segments by an unknown number of change points. Each segment is supposed to be generated by unique distribution characteristics inherent to the underlying process. In this paper, we propose a modified version of the Cross-Entropy (CE) method, which utilizes Beta distribution to simulate locations of change points. Several stopping criterions are also discussed. The proposed CE method applies on over-dispersed count data, in which the observations are distributed as independent Negative Binomial. Furthermore, we incorporate the Bayesian Information Criterion to identify the optimal number of change points within the CE method while not fixing the maximum number of change points in the data sequence. We obtain estimates for the artificial data by using the modified CE method and compare the results with the general CE method, which utilizes normal distribution to simulate locations of the change points. The methods are applied to a real DNA count data set in order to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed modified CE method.


The Other Welfare: Supplemental Security Income and U.S. Social Policy Edward D. Berkowitz and Larry DeWitt Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, and London, 2013 ISBN-13: 978-0801451737The eight chapters of The Other Welfare cover several aspects of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, including its initial launch, the politics surrounding the program, the effect on it of various administrations and revisions, and the prominence of the disability benefits within the program. Chapter 1, "Creating a New Welfare Program," discusses the passage of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) law in 1972, an impressive and expansive feat that fulfilled an agenda for reform that spanned two decades. The new law specified that widows' and widowers' Social Security benefits would equal 100 percent of their spouse's basic benefits, overturning a 1939 decision reflecting a reduced percentage of benefits. The law also expanded for the first time the reach of Medicare, creating coverage for Social Security Disability Insurance beneficiaries, as well as people with end-stage renal disease.Chapter 2 discusses the new leadership at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), which was not sympathetic to the SSI program. This shift in leadership was occurring in the face of energy and financial crises, and Congress felt compelled to pass two key laws related to SSI before the program even took effect, given the high inflation rate. All of these factors led to problematic implementation.Chapter 3 discusses why the program began badly. The Social Security Administration's reputation suffered in the aftermath of the SSI program's launch. The SSA's acting deputy commissioner Arthur Hess defended the SSI program, citing statistics on the $400 million in aid that was reaching the neediest citizens on a monthly basis, largely without error, and helping a much greater volume of people than the prior system involving the states had. Conservatives focused on the program's errors, making the case that the long, ambitious arm of the federal government would lead to a wasteful, corrupt use of resources, whereas liberals worried that not enough help was getting to the needy.At first, policy makers heavily focused on a host of administrative problems associated with the SSI, such as inaccurate payments, a backlog of pending applications, and a flood of inquiries that kept the phone and office lines constantly busy. But after the first two years, it became apparent that people with disabilities were dominating the caseload. Congress, reflecting on the chaos that plagued the early years of the program and the need for more uniformity, introduced more federal oversight of the process of determining disability.The 1984 legislation reflected the trend of disability cases dominating the rolls; it introduced procedures to protect recipients and set the stage for changes in the program's disability standards. The new law provided for quick legislative and judicial responses to claims of injustice in the review process for disability. Program administrators experienced the 1980 law as requiring them to shrink the size of the rolls, the 1984 revisions sent the opposite message, one of reliberalization.Chapter 6 focuses on how the program expanded in a conservative age. The SSI program had entailed to that point a tightening and then loosening of restrictions affecting the disability rolls, and suddenly there was a dramatic jump in the provision of childhood disability benefits, attributable to a convergence of political factors. …


Zef was recently proposed to extend the low-latency, Byzantine-Fault Tolerant (BFT) payment protocol FastPay with anonymous coins. This report explores further extensions of FastPay and Lef beyond payments. We start by off-chain assets (e.g. NFTs). We introduce the idea of on-demand BFT consensus instances throught the example of atomic swaps between account owners.


Introduction/purpose Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH), otherwise known as pseudotumor cerebri or benign intracranial hypertension, is a syndrome defined by a severe headache in the setting of increased intracranial pressure (ICP) in the absence of an intracranial mass. The pathophysiology of IIH remains poorly understood. However, venous outflow obstruction detected by cerebral venous manometry at the transverse sinus has been recognized as a contributing factor in a subset of patients with IIH, and stent placement in this subset of patients is associated with good clinical outcomes. Surgeons often determine candidacy for stent placement based on the magnitude of the venous pressure gradient across the site of stenosis. Furthermore, there is little known about venous sinus pressure waveform morphology in patients with this condition or how it changes after stenting. The purpose of this study was to prospectively analyze patients' venous sinus waveforms, their component peaks, and the influence of stenosis or anesthesia on waveform morphology with a goal of ultimately providing insight into the waveform and pathological morphologic changes seen with venous sinus stenosis. Materials and methods Fifteen patients with IIH were enrolled prospectively and underwent waveform recording during catheter venography and manometry. Ten patients (Group A) with venous sinus stenosis and pressure gradient >8 mmHg underwent waveform recording during awake venography and then pre- and post-stent manometry while under general anesthesia. Five control IIH patients (Group B) without a trans-stenosis gradient underwent awake recording only. Results All Group A patients underwent successful stenting with reduction of their gradient from 15.1 (+6.19) mmHg to 1.2 (+0.60) mmHg. This resulted in statistically significant reduction of the transverse sinus amplitude from 8.3 mmHg to 2.8 mmHg (p<0.05). Qualitative evaluation of the venous sinus waveform morphology yielded a number of never before reported findings. In Group A patients before stenting, the observed venous waveform progressed from an ICP-dominated waveform to CVP-dominated waveform from the superior sagittal sinus to the internal jugular vein. Stenting abolished the pathologic high amplitude waveform and lowered the amplitude distal to the stenosis while smoothing the transition from the intracranial to central venous measurement points. Group B patients displayed respiratory variability of the waveform which was absent in 8/10 Group A patients. The use of general anesthesia appeared to blunt the waveform peaks in 5/10 Group A patients. Conclusion In conclusion, the cerebral venous waveform morphology appears to be influenced by both the intracranial pressure (ICP) waveform and the central venous pressure (CVP) waveform. Additionally, venous sinus stenosis with significant venous outflow obstruction results in morphologic changes to the waveforms. After performing stenting in patients with stenosis, waveforms return to match the control group. Future studies should expand on the qualitative patterns described in this study and place a significant amount of consideration in determining the clinical and hemodynamic ramifications of these findings. Disclosures J. West: None. R. Garner: None. G. Greeneway: None. J. Traunero: None. C. Aschenbrenner: None. J. Singh: None. S. Wolfe: None. K. Fargen: None.


In this paper we study the maximum displacement for linear probing hashing. We use the standard probabilistic model together with the insertion policy known as First-Come-(First-Served). The results are of asymptotic nature and focus on dense hash tables. That is, the number of occupied cells n and the size of the hash table m tend to infinity with ratio n/m → 1. We present distributions and moments for the size of the maximum displacement, as well as for the number of items with displacement larger than some critical value. This is done via process convergence of the (appropriately normalized) length of the largest block of consecutive occupied cells, when the total number of occupied cells n varies.


Lifelong learning and training of persons with severe intellectual disabilities (ID) involve a suitable rehabilitation programme. They include different neurotherapeutic methods and procedures. Hippotherapy has recently been recognized as one such method of medical treatment that might be useful for this purpose. In this study, we were interested in the views of various professional workers (special education and rehabilitation teachers, work therapists, speech and language therapists and physiotherapists) on hippotherapy. These professionals were all engaged in education and training of persons with special needs, mainly persons with ID and motor impairment. Results showed the general difference between professional workers in evaluating the effects of hippotherapy (improvement of perception, sensory integration, attention, concentration, speech and language, as well as broader social communication, motor skills, relaxation, self-concept, emotional expression). Statistically significant difference was determined in teachers' evaluation of the effects of hippotherapy. We can conclude that the positive effects of hippotherapy are better recognised by the teachers who are in direct day-to-day contact with the observed students.


Two iridium(iii) complexes with ligands containing morpholine groups were used to track mitochondrial pH fluctuation during cell apoptosis as their emissive intensities linearly increased with increase in pH values.

publisher-specific, author manuscript: http://rsc.li/journals-terms-of-use


The results of a complete census of the breeding population of the White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) in the Netherlands, carried out in the year 1950 by the State Forestry Service, have been published by MORZER BRUIJNS and BRAAKSMA in Beaufortia 5, Nr. 45, April 15, 1955, p. 23—42. A new census was performed during the year 1955 ; it is the intention to repeat the census from now on every year. The results of the last census are even more alarming than those from 1950 (see table, p. 113). The number of occupied nests decreased from 83 nests in 1950 to 58 nests in 1955. The number of fledged young decreased from 195 in 1950 to 96 in 1955. Many nests, still occupied in 1950, were either in a state that they could no longer be used or they had vanished altogether in 1955. On the other hand some new nests have been erected in recent time, some of them yielding good breeding results. The data have been arranged in tables according to the provinces. Every nest is numbered. The numbers of the 1950 census are given in parentheses. Nests marked + means that the nest was occupied by a pair of birds, but that no young were fledged. Nests marked — means that the nest was not inhabited, or that it was visited irregularly or else occupied by one solitary bird. The number of young fledged is marked by a figure. A gale in the spring of 1955 destroyed 4 nests ; 12 eggs got lost. Fighting was reported frequently, the unfortunate result being that 3 young storks and at least 37 eggs got lost. These figures probably indicate that at present an insufficient number of nesting sites is avaible in the Netherlands. Therefore it seems worth while to try to erect new nests in localities where fighting has been frequently reported, and to repair those nests that have been visited, but remained unoccupied, owing to the poor state of the nest. In this connection Mr. W. DRIESSEN got most remarkable results with a newly erected nest, made according to a special method. This method should be used for the nests which we hope can be erected or repaired before the new breeding season. Surely the alarming decrease of the White Stork in the Netherlands is not primarily caused by housing problems, but a more appropriate condition and a greater number of nesting sites probably helps to prevent the yearly destruction of perhaps ten or twenty eggs or chicks. Photomechanical reproduction


The Ukraine power grid cyberattacks remind us that the smart Internet of Things (IoT) can help us control our light-bulbs, but if under attacks it might also take us into darkness. Nowadays, many literatures have tried to address the concerns on IoT security, but few of them take into consideration the sever threats to IoT coming from the advances of quantum computing. As a promising candidate for the future post-quantum cryptography standard, lattice-based cryptography enjoys the advantages of strong security guarantees and high efficiency, which make it extremely suitable for IoT applications. In this paper, we summarize the advantages of lattice-based cryptography and the state of art of their implementations for IoT devices.


In this paper, we explore a way to find the right scheduling policy for WiMAX networks, that achieves the best compromise between an efficient use of the resource and a relative fairness among users. This problem is of primary importance as no scheduling policy has been recommended in the WiMAX standard. To do so, we develop an extension of our previous analytical model for WiMAX networks, that takes into account a more general scheduling policy than those previously studied (i.e., instantaneous throughput fairness, slot sharing fairness and opportunistic scheduling). We show that this general policy covers the two extreme cases, namely the instantaneous throughput fairness policy and the opportunistic policy, and offers intermediate policies that are good candidates for finding the right trade-off. In order to formulate the decision criterion, we introduce a new performance parameter, the mean throughput obtained by a user depending on its efficiency to use the resource. The model has a closed-form solution, and all performance parameters can be obtained instantaneously. This allows us to carry out dimensioning studies that require several thousands of evaluations, which would not be tractable with any simulation tool.


The performance of maximum-likelihood (ML) decoded binary linear block codes is addressed via the derivation of tightened upper bounds on their decoding error probability. The upper bounds on the block and bit error probabilities are valid for any memoryless, binary-input and output-symmetric communication channel. The effectiveness of these bounds is exemplified for ensembles of turbo-like codes


Abstract Genome-wide association studies have linked common variation in ZNF804A with an increased risk of schizophrenia. However, little is known about the biology of ZNF804A and its role in schizophrenia. Here, we investigate the function of ZNF804A using a variety of complementary molecular techniques. We show that ZNF804A is a nuclear protein that interacts with neuronal RNA splicing factors and RNA-binding proteins including RBFOX1, which is also associated with schizophrenia, CELF3/4, components of the ubiquitin-proteasome system and the ZNF804A paralog, GPATCH8. GPATCH8 also interacts with splicing factors and is localized to nuclear speckles indicative of a role in pre-messenger RNA (mRNA) processing. Sequence analysis showed that GPATCH8 contains ultraconserved, alternatively spliced poison exons that are also regulated by RBFOX proteins. ZNF804A knockdown in SH-SY5Y cells resulted in robust changes in gene expression and pre-mRNA splicing converging on pathways associated with nervous system development, synaptic contact, and cell adhesion. We observed enrichment (P = 1.66 × 10–9) for differentially spliced genes in ZNF804A-depleted cells among genes that contain RBFOX-dependent alternatively spliced exons. Differentially spliced genes in ZNF804A-depleted cells were also enriched for genes harboring de novo loss of function mutations in autism spectrum disorder (P = 6.25 × 10–7, enrichment 2.16) and common variant alleles associated with schizophrenia (P = .014), bipolar disorder and schizophrenia (P = .003), and autism spectrum disorder (P = .005). These data suggest that ZNF804A and its paralogs may interact with neuronal-splicing factors and RNA-binding proteins to regulate the expression of a subset of synaptic and neurodevelopmental genes.


To achieve the purpose of this study, forty-eight male Sprague-Dawley rats were assigned to control and three endurance exercise group. 36 rats were forced to exercise according to exercise intensity for 8 weeks and 12 rats were untrained for control group. Cardiac cytosol was extracted from cardiac tissue and cardiac mitochondria was purified from the cytosol. Purified mitochondria were separated into four fraction: inner membrane, outer membrane inter membrane space and matrix. The changes of cytosolic and mitochondrial LDH isozymes activity were measure. Relative activity of cytosol for low and control group showed the following order of prevalence $AB_3>A_2B_2>B_4>A_3B>A_4$ for moderate and high group : $AB_3>B_4>A_2B_2>A_3B>A_4$. Outer membrane for low group showed $AB_3>B_4>A_2B_2$, for moderate group:$ B_4>AB_3>A_2B_2$, for high and control group: $B_4>A_3B$. Inter membrane space for low, moderate and high group showed $B_4>AB_3>A_2B_2>A_3B>A_4$, for control group: $B_4>A_3B>AB_3>A_2B_2>A_4$. Inner membrane for all group showed $B_4>AB_3>A_2B_2>A_3B>A_4$. Matrix for control, low, moderate and high group showed $B_4>AB_3>A_2B_2>A_3B>A_4$. These results suggest that long term exercise intensity effect on cardiac tissue cytosolic and mitochondrial activity and isozymes were found entirely in mitochondrial fraction.


OBJECTIVE
A limited number of randomized clinical trials show that efficacious pharmacologic treatments exist for comorbid major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The aims of this effectiveness study were to describe the impact of a depression care management intervention on the persistence of comorbid GAD symptoms in a sample of primary care patients with MDD and to identify risk factors for persistent GAD.

METHOD
Data were collected from April 2003 to September 2005 for the Telemedicine-Enhanced Antidepressant Management (TEAM) study, a multisite, randomized effectiveness trial targeting US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) primary care patients with depression. Veterans aged 26.59-88.36 years received either the TEAM intervention or usual care in small VA community-based outpatient clinics. The TEAM care management intervention focused on optimizing antidepressant therapy through patient education and activation, symptom monitoring, adherence promotion, and side-effect management. Veterans who screened positive for MDD using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (based on DSM-IV criteria) and who met the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview criteria (maintaining consistency with DSM-IV-TR) for comorbid GAD at baseline were selected for the present study (N = 168). The primary outcome was persistence of GAD at 6 months and 12 months. All predictors available in the TEAM study data that were described in the literature to be associated with influencing GAD outcomes were examined.

RESULTS
Persistence of depression was the strongest predictor of persistence of comorbid GAD at both 6 months (OR = 5.75; 95% CI, 2.38-13.86; P < .05) and 12 months (OR = 15.56; 95% CI, 6.10-39.68; P < .05). Although the TEAM intervention significantly reduced depression symptom severity, it was not significantly associated with GAD persistence. Insomnia was a significant protective factor for persistence of GAD at 6 months (OR = 0.66; 95% CI, 0.44-0.99; P < .05).

CONCLUSIONS
Early screening for presence of comorbid GAD among those with MDD may be valuable both for further research and for enhancing clinical management of GAD and MDD comorbidity.


Soil remediation using Heated Soil Vapor Extraction System has gained a significant attention in recent years. The process, developed by Advanced Remedial Technology**, comprises of a heat well (heat source) and an extraction well (sink). These wells are pipes, which are implanted in the soil. Heating is accomplished by circulating hot oil through the heat exchange units in heat well. The extraction well has a blower, which sucks the air, and other volatile gases that are evaporated due to heating. An analysis aimed at improving the predictability of the process using numerical tools has been carried out. The key parameters in the process can be identified as the distance between the wells, the temperature that has to be maintained in the heat well and the time required vaporizing the gases and taking them off the soil. These parameters are strongly dependent on the properties of the soil and properties of the chemical pollutants present in the soil. An attempt has been made to model the real process of heating the soil and vaporizing of chemicals in the soil. Such comprehensive analysis will be very much helpful in predicting the different parameters as discussed above and result in increase in effectiveness and efficiency of the process.Copyright © 2003 by ASME


An experiment was carried out to study the development of sequential histological lesions and efficacy of certain diagnostic tests in experimentally induced subclinical paratuberculosis infection in goats. Twelve goats of 8-12 weeks age were infected with 4.23 x 109 Mycobacterium avium subsp. Paratuberculosis on 8 occasions. Eight goats were kept as in-contact controls and 4 as uninfected controls. Diagnostic tests, gross and histopathological studies were carried out at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months post-infection. Two goats were positive in the AGID test at 12MPI. Three goats, one at 9 MPI and two at 12 MPI were positive in faecal culture. Tissue PCR detected one goat positive each at 9 and 12 MPI. Six (50%) of 12 infected goats had gross and histological lesions. Marked enlargements of the mesenteric lymph nodes were observed in the early stages (3 and 6 months post infection) of infection. Mucosal thickening and corrugation of the jejunal and ileal mucosae, enlargement and oedema of the mesenteric lymph nodes, dilatation of lymphatics and gelatinisation of mesenteric fat were observed in goats euthanised at 9 and 12 MPI. Histological lesions consisting of flat and broad villi with mild infiltration of lymphocytes and macrophages in the intestinal villi and crypts were common at 3 MPI and 6 MPI. Focal infiltration of macrophages in Peyer's patches and giant cells were found in the mesenteric lymph nodes at 6 MPI. Broadened villi and increased infiltration of lymphocytes and macrophages with Langhan's giant cells were observed in the villi and crypts at 9 MPI and 12 MPI goats. Acid-fast bacilli were detected in 3 goats, one each at 6, 9 and 12 MPI.


Aberrant function or expression of potassium channels can be underlying in pathologies such as cardiac arrhythmia, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, preterm birth, and various types of cancer. The expression of potassium channels is altered in many types of diseases. Also, we have previously shown that natural polyphenols, such as resveratrol, and selective synthetic modulators of potassium channels, like pinacidil, can alter their function and lead to the desired outcome. Therefore, targeting potassium channels with substance, which has an influence on their function, is promising access to cancer, diabetes mellitus, preterm birth, or hypertension therapy. In this chapter, we could discuss strategies for targeting different types of potassium channels as potential targets for synthetic and natural molecules therapy.


The massive use of Web technologies has spurred a new revolution in information storing and retrieving. It has always been an issue whether to incorporate hyperlinks embedded in a document or to store them separately in a link base. Research effort has been concentrated on the development of link services that enable hypermedia functionality to be integrate into the general computing environment and allow linking from all tools on the browser or desktop. KIIT digital library is such an application that focuses mainly on architecture and protocols of Open Hypermedia Systems (OHS), providing on-line document authoring, browsing, cataloguing, searching and updating features. The WWW needs fundamentally new frameworks and concepts to support new search and indexing functionality. This is because of the frequent use of digital archives and to maintain huge amount of database and documents. These digital materials range from electronic versions of books and journals offered by traditional publishers to manuscripts, photographs, maps, sound recordings and similar materials digitized from libraries' own special collections to new electronic scholarly and scientific databases developed through the collaboration of researchers, computer and information scientists, and librarians. Metadata in catalogue systems are an indispensable tool to find information and services in networks. Technological advances provide new opportunities to facilitate the process of collecting and maintaining metadata and to facilitate using catalogue systems. The overall objective is how to make best use of catalogue systems. Information systems such as the World Wide Web, Digital Libraries, inventories of satellite images and other repositories contain more data than ever before, are globally distributed, easy to use and, therefore, become accessible to huge, heterogeneous user groups. For KIIT Digital Library, we have used Resource Development Framework (RDF) and Dublin Core (DC) standards to incorporate metadata. Overall KIIT digital library provides electronic access to information in many different forms. Recent technological advances make the storage and transmission of digital information possible. This project is to design and implement a cataloguing system of the digital library system suitable for storage, indexing, and retrieving information and providing that information across the Internet. The goal is to allow users to quickly search indices to locate segments of interests and view and manipulate these segments on their remote computers.


Despite the advantages of tangible interaction, physical controls like knobs seem to be disappearing from a wide range of products in our everyday life. The work presented in this paper explores how physical controls can become dynamic, in terms of both shape, and haptic force feedback. The paper contains two strands of work: First, we present a study that explores the relationship between haptic force feedback and different knob shapes, evaluating twelve distinct haptic stimuli in relation to six widely used knob shapes. Second, based on the insights collected in the study, we present the design of DynaKnob, a shape changing knob that can change between four different knob shapes. DynaKnob illustrates how dynamic content control, can be combined with dynamic shape and force feedback. Both the study and the design of DynaKnob contribute to understanding how adaptive physical interface controls could be designed in the future.


Major dependence on wheat-based foods with low bioavailability of nutrients led to high malnutrition rates, especially in developing counties. Four wheat genotypes (Albelad (BE), Aldwasair (AD), Australia (AU) and Najran (NJ)) grown in Albaha region were analyzed for the first time for the variation in micronutrient (Se, Mo, Cu, Zn, Mn, Fe, B and Na) and macronutrient concentrations (P, Ca, Mg and K) in the whole wheat grain using Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) in order to select genotype of high nutritional value of the wheat for human consumption for further breeding by farmers. Substantial micronutrient variation existed among the four genotypes according to their mean Se, Mo, Zn, and Na concentrations, while macronutrient variation existed in their P and Ca concentrations. The NJ genotype appeared to contain higher concentrations of Se, Na, and Ca than the other genotypes while AU contained higher concentrations of Zn and P than AD, BE, or NJ. The results of this study can provide information about microand macro-nutrient enriched wheat genotypes for agricultural strategies aimed at improving the nutritional value of wheat plants.


The enhanced growth rate of whistler mode waves has been evaluated during an injection event associated with an isolated terrestrial substorm that occurred at 23:00 UT, on January 21, 1991. The electron phase space density observed by an LEPA instrument on the board of the CRRES spacecraft is modelled by using a bi-loss-cone distribution function (composed of a high anisotropic component and a quasi-isotropic component). During the injection event, the path integrated gain may increase by a factor of 5 over a frequency range near a few tenths of the electron gyrofrequency, which is consistent with the enhancement observed in the CRRES plasma wave experiment (PWE) emissions. Scattering of electrons by the enhanced whistler mode waves causes the pitch angle distribution of resonant electrons to a quasi isotropic (flat-top) distribution during the terrestrial substorm injection event.


Thirty-two acute hypertensive unilateral, non granulomatous uveitis were clinically and functionally examined to try to determine the pathogenic factors of the occurrence of intraocular hypertension. The witness group included an equal number of acute non-hypertensive, non-granulomatous and unilateral uveitis cases, with a clinical aspect and etiology similar to the first group. The determination of the coefficient of outflow facility to the patients with hypertensive unilateral uveitis emphasized pathological values in 93.7% of the eyes with uveal inflammation and in 56.2% of the fellow eyes. Gonioscopy in the fellow eyes disclosed a narrow indocorneal angle in 90.6% of the cases. Corroboration of fellow eyes, all the examinations of the emphasized 4 had history cases of simple glaucoma (of which 2 had a familial of primitive glaucoma) and 6 cases of suspicious glaucoma (of which 4 had a familial history of primitive glaucoma). The patients with non-hypertensive unilateral uveitis presented normal values of the outflow facility in the two eyes. Clinically and functionally their fellow eyes were normal. Taking into account the statistically significant difference between the mean age of uveitis with and without hypertension, it is concluded that advanced age represents indirectly a factor of hypertension in uveitis, because, since, it diminishes the degree of opening of the camerular angle and as well, it reduces the outflow facility and increases the frequency of occurrence of simple and suspicious glaucomas.


Understanding how organisms adapt to aquatic life at high altitude is fundamental in evolutionary biology. This objective has been addressed primarily related to hypoxia adaptation by recent comparative studies, whereas highland fish has also long suffered extreme alkaline environment, insight into the genomic basis of alkaline adaptation has rarely been provided. Here, we compared the genomes or transcriptomes of 15 fish species, including two alkaline tolerant highland fish species and their six alkaline intolerant relatives, three alkaline tolerant lowland fish species and four alkaline intolerant species. We found putatively consistent patterns of molecular evolution in alkaline tolerant species in a large number of shared orthologs within highland and lowland fish taxa. Remarkably, we identified consistent signatures of accelerated evolution and positive selection in a set of shared genes associated with ion transport, apoptosis, immune response and energy metabolisms in alkaline tolerant species within both highland and lowland fish taxa. This is one of the first comparative studies that began to elucidate the consistent genomic signature of alkaline adaptation shared by highland and lowland fish. This finding also highlights the adaptive molecular evolution changes that support fish adapting to extreme environments at high altitude. Significance Statement Little is known about how wild fish responds to extreme alkaline stress besides hypoxia at high altitude. Comparative genomics has begun to elucidate the genomic basis of alkaline adaptation in lowland fish, such as killifish, but insight from highland fish has lagged behind. The common role of adaptive molecular evolution during alkaline adaptation in highland and lowland fish has rarely been discussed. We address this question by comparing 15 fish omics data. We find numbers of shared orthologs exhibited consistent patterns of molecular evolution in alkaline tolerant species relative to intolerant species. We further identify remarkably consistent signatures of rapidly evolving and positive selection in a substantial shared core of genes in both highland and lowland alkaline tolerant species.


The ab initio method is used to model the colour centers and self-trapped excit ons in KMgF3 3 . The geometry optimization of the defect cluster, incl uding the F center, shows that the relaxation of the lattice around the F center is very small. The calculated Mulliken populations for F center in its ground state and excite state show that the ground state wavefunction of F center is well localized, but the excited state wavefunction of it is more diffuse. Furthermore, our results show that the VK K center moves toward the nearby interstitia l site , but keeping the molecular axis along the[110] direction. The relaxation of the self-trapped excitons consists of an axial translation superimposed wit h a rotation. The calculated excitation energies of F center, VK K ce nter a nd the emission energy of self-trapped exciton are compared with their experim ental values.


In the spirit of previous ideas in the neuroscience community, but with a more physics-oriented perspective, we propose that consciousness can be described as the collective excitation of a brainwide web of neurones. This picture is inspired by the fact that, in all major areas of physics, a collective excitation has just as much physical reality as a particle or other localized object. The brainwide web extends into those regions (neuronal networks) where processed information is received from the senses, memories, etc. (emerging out of unconscious processes in prior networks). It unifies those regions (plus motor control regions) via the vast complexity of the neuronal interactions that it spans. A crude analogy is the worldwide web, which extends into servers which have been prepared by external agents. Other crude analogies are the many collective excitations in physics. True understanding of consciousness must rely mostly on experiment, but since probes of living brains have limited precision, there is an important role for large-scale simulations in revealing details and complementing experiment. Petascale computational facilities should make it possible to perform simulations with realistic complexity.


Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a great health burden to patients owing to its poor overall survival rate. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) interact with microRNAs (miRs) to participate in tumorigenesis. Therefore, we aim to uncover the role and related mechanism of LINC00473 in PC through the modulation of miR‐195‐5p and programmed death‐ligand 1 (PD‐L1). Increased LINC00473 and PD‐L1 but declined miR‐195‐5p were determined in PC tissues and cell lines, and it was found that LINC00473 mainly situated in the cytoplasm. Also, miR‐195‐5p was verified to bind with both LINC00473 and PD‐L1. Next, with the aim to examine the ability of LINC00473, miR‐195‐5p, and PD‐L1 on the PC progression, the expression of LINC00473, miR‐195‐5p and PD‐L1 were altered with mimics, inhibitors, overexpression vectors or siRNAs in PC cells and cocultured CD8+ T cells. It was demonstrated that LINC00473 sponged miR‐195‐5p to upregulate PD‐L1 expression. More important, the obtained results revealed that LINC00473 silencing or miR‐195‐5p upregulation elevated the expression of Bcl‐2 associated X protein (Bax), interferon (IFN)‐γ, and interleukin (IL)‐4 but reduced the expression of B‐cell lymphoma‐2 (Bcl‐2), matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)‐2, MMP‐9, and IL‐10, thus inducing the enhancement of the apoptosis as along with the inhibition of proliferation, invasion, and migration of the PC cells. LINC00473 silencing or miR‐195‐5p elevation activated the CD8+ T cells. Taken together, LINC00473 silencing blocked the PC progression through enhancing miR‐195‐5p‐targeted downregulation of PD‐L1. This finding offers new therapeutic options for treating this devastating disease.


The birational geometry of an arbitrary smooth quintic 4-fold is studied using the properties of log pairs. As a result, a new proof of its birational rigidity is given and all birational maps of a smooth quintic 4-fold into fibrations with general fibre of Kodaira dimension zero are described.In the Addendum similar results are obtained for all smooth hypersurfaces of degree in in the case of equal to 6, 7, or 8.


To the Editor: —I wish to comment on how false may be the impression of betterment of any one city's record comparable to neighboring cities as shown in the recent fifth annual report on typhoid fever. Each year the footnote reads that a false exaggeration is possible because nonresident deaths are recorded as well as resident deaths. For the cities in Connecticut there was reported to the state board of health for 1916, as total typhoid deaths, Bridgeport, 11; Hartford, 20, and New Haven, 12. This would give a rate per hundred thousand population of 9, 18.1 and 8, respectively. As printed inThe Journal, the rates read 9, 6.3 and 8, respectively. The difference I find is that Hartford alone of the three cities returned resident deaths alone, seven in number. Instead of leading, Hartford either has a record no different from the previous year, or else if nonresident


The human brain comprises an efficient communication network, with its macroscale connectome organization argued to be directly associated with the underlying microscale organization of the cortex. Here, we further examine this link in the human brain cortex by using the ultrahigh-resolution BigBrain dataset; 11,660 BigBrain profiles of laminar cell structure were extracted from the BigBrain data and mapped to the MRI based Desikan–Killiany atlas used for macroscale connectome reconstruction. Macroscale brain connectivity was reconstructed based on the diffusion-weighted imaging dataset from the Human Connectome Project and cross-correlated to the similarity of laminar profiles. We showed that the BigBrain profile similarity between interconnected cortical regions was significantly higher than those between nonconnected regions. The pattern of BigBrain profile similarity across the entire cortex was also found to be strongly correlated with the pattern of cortico-cortical connectivity at the macroscale. Our findings suggest that cortical regions with higher similarity in the laminar cytoarchitectonic patterns have a higher chance of being connected, extending the evidence for the linkage between macroscale connectome organization and microscale cytoarchitecture. Author Summary The human brain connectome organization has been suggested to associate with cytoarchitecture similarity. Here, we utilize the state-of-the-art ultrahigh-resolution BigBrain dataset and diffusion-weighted imaging dataset to examine this association. Our results show that cortical regions with higher cytoarchitecture similarity are more likely to be connected, as well as connected by stronger white matter tracts. This work further extends our understanding of the interaction between macroscale cortico-cortical connectivity organization and microscale cortical cytoarchitecture.


In the last decade, non-thermal processing for inactivating microorganisms has been developed in response to the worldwide interest for more fresh and improved quality of food products. Winter melon is a very perishable fruit, hence, processing into puree is a necessity. However application of heat in the production of puree could affect the nutritional values, thus, application of non thermal treatment in combination with preservation method is significant for this fruit. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of non-thermal processing in combining with preservation method on antioxidant activity, level of key antioxidant groups (total phenolic and ascorbic acid content) and the color of winter melon puree. Total phenolic content (TPC) was measured using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent. Ascorbic acid (AA) was determined using 2,6dichlorophenol-indophenol titration method. Antioxidant activity were determined using four antioxidant assays namely Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Potential (FRAP), Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC), 2,2-Diphenyl-1-Picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and β-Carotene Bleaching Assays. For the TPC, puree with pH 3 (28.5±1.3 GAE/g fresh weight) exhibited high in TPC as compared to puree with pH 3.5 and unprocessed puree. In contrast, unprocessed puree contains significantly high ascorbic acid (AA) content (35.9 ± 1.8 mg/100 g fresh mass) as compared to pH 3.0 and pH 3.5 purees. In general, antioxidant activity for all assays of pH 3.0 and pH 3.5 purees were significantly higher (p<0.05) than unprocessed puree. Color changes (∆E) were not significant between puree with pH 3.0 and pH 3.5. Therefore, processed winter melon puree using non-thermal processing in combination with chemical preservation method could be an efficient method to preserve the quality of winter melon puree more superior than unprocessed puree.