OBJECTIVE
To detect the expression of c-myc in the tissue of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma. RNA interference(RNAi) was employed to inhibit the expression of c-myc in Hep-2 cells and to evaluate the effects of c-myc as a target for gene therapy in laryngeal carcinoma.

METHOD
Immunohistochemistry was used to determine the protein levels of c-myc and Rb in 80 cases of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma and 30 cases of polyp of vocal cord. Hep-2 cells were transfected with c-myc siRNA, c-myc protein and mRNA levels were detected using Western Blotting and RT-PCR. Cell viability was detected by MTT after the Hep-2 cells were transfected with c-myc siRNA for different times or transfected with different concentrations c-myc siRNA. The sensitivity of Hep-2 cells to 5-Fu transfected with or without c-myc siRNA was evaluated also by MTT. Hep-2 cells were transfected with c-myc siRNA in combination with 5-Fu for 48 h and then analyzed cell apoptosis by flow cytometry.

RESULT
Immunohistochemical analysis showed that c-myc was highly expressed in the tissues of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma while the expression of Rb was lower. The protein and mRNA levels of c-myc decreased after transfected with c-myc siRNA. The results of MTT showed that the c-myc siRNA inhibited Hep-2 cells growth in a concentration-dependent manner. When transfected with c-myc siRNA(50 nmol/L), the cells were inhibited in a time-dependent manner. Compared with the untransfected cells, the viability of transfected Hep-2 cells was significantly suppressed at the same concentration of 5-Fu (P < 0.05). C-myc siRNA combination with 5-Fu could obviously increase cell apoptosis, even in the low concentration of 5-Fu (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
The protein level of C-myc has highly expressed in tumor tissues. C-myc siRNA can effectively inhibit the expression of c-myc and has anti-proliferation effects, increasing the sensitivity of Hep-2 cells to 5-Fu. Therefore,c-myc might be a good target for cancer treatment.


Seasonally dependent water quality data of Langat River was investigated during the period of December 2001 - May 2002, when twenty-four monthly samples were collected from four different plots containing up to 17 stations. For each sample, sixteen physico-chemical parameters were measured in situ. Multivariate treatments using cluster analysis, principal component analysis and factorial design were employed, in which the data were characterised as a function of season and sampling site, thus enabling significant discriminating factors to be discovered. Cluster analysis study based on data which were characterised as a function of sampling sites showed that at a chord distance of 75.25 two clusters are formed. Cluster I consists of 6 samples while Cluster II consists of 18 samples. The sampling plots from which these samples were taken are readily identified and the two clusters are discussed in terms of data variability. In addition, varimax rotations of principal components, which result in varimax factors, were used in interpreting the sources of pollution within the area. The work demonstrates the importance of historical data, if they are available, in planning sampling strategies to achieve desired research objectives, as well as to highlight the possibility of determining the optimum number of sampling stations which in turn would reduce cost and time of sampling.


In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility of using nanoimprint lithography (NIL) to make efficient low bandgap polymer solar cells with well-ordered heterojunction. High quality low bandgap conjugated polymer poly[2,6-(4,4-bis(2-ethylhexyl)-4H-cyclopenta[2,1-b;3,4-b']-dithiophene)-alt-4,7-(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)] (PCPDTBT) nanogratings are fabricated using this technique for the first time. The geometry effect of PCPDTBT nanostructures on the solar cell performance is investigated by making PCPDTBT/C70 solar cells with different feature sizes of PCPDTBT nanogratings. It is found that the power conversion efficiency (PCE) increases with increasing nanograting height, PCPDTBT/C70 junction area, and decreasing nanograting width. We also find that NIL makes PCPDTBT chains interact more strongly and form an improved structural ordering. Solar cells made on the highest aspect ratio PCPDTBT nanostructures are among the best reported devices using the same material with a PCE of 5.5%.


During the last few years, quinoa, a traditional Andean crop, has been cultivated at low elevations where pest pressure is high and farmers resort to intensive use of insecticides. This field study investigated the impact of four insecticides (cypermethrin, imidacloprid, teflubenzuron and emamectin benzoate) on insect pests of quinoa and their side effects on the arthropod community at the coastal level of Peru, by analysing the species composition, species diversity and population density. The arthropod community was examined with pitfall traps (for ground dwelling species), plant samplings (for pests and their natural enemies that inhabit the crop), and yellow pan traps (to catch flying insects). The results demonstrated that Macrosiphum euphorbiae, Frankliniella occidentalis and Spoladea recurvalis were efficiently controlled by cypermethrin and imidacloprid; the latter compound also showed long-term effects on Nysius simulans. Teflubenzuron and emamectin benzoate proved to be efficient to control S. recurvalis. Imidacloprid had the strongest adverse effects on the arthropod community in terms of species diversity, species composition and natural enemy density as compared to the other insecticides. Findings of this study may assist farmers intending to grow quinoa at the coastal level in selecting the most appropriate insecticides under an integrated pest management approach.


A computational model for color image segmentation is proposed based on the physical properties of sensors, illumination lights, and surface reflectances. For image segmentation to depend only on the change of material surface, variations of surface reflection due to illumination, shading, shadows, and highlights should be discounted from a measured image. The authors use the dichromatic model for dielectric materials and develop a metric space of intensity, hue, and saturation in order to interpret various light-surface interactions better. Using the established model for surface reflection, the authors perform color image segmentation based on the material change with detection of highlights and small interreflections between adjacent objects. A reference plate is used to whiten global illumination. The detected interreflections represent local variation of illumination.<<ETX>>


Nanotechnologies are in the process of increasing their development in research and in industries. Thus, there is also an increase in the production of waste in nanoscale. There is an alert point: as the challenges brought by nanotechnologies are not yet completely known, given the different physicochemical characteristics of the nano scale, the same will happen in the production of nano waste. Can garbage containing nano particles be added to waste with larger particles? What are the risks and how to establish the regulation? The paper intends to show that the documents already produced by the OECD-The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since the year 2006, in the series of studies entitled "Series on the Safety of Manufactured Nanomaterials", focusing on the safety assessment of nanomaterials, could be an alternative for the lack of regulation. In fact, 80 specific documents have already been published in this regard, and one study, specifically, entitled "Nanomaterials in Waste Streams: Current Knowledge on Risks and Impacts", handling waste. These documents may serve to develop a non-legislative regulatory framework through Dialogue between the sources of Law, anchored in legal pluralism (Gunther Teubner) in order to organize flexible legal rules, but in conditions of disciplining the safe treatment of nano waste.


Iraq today is a group of oil states funny and melodramatic paradox at the same time, despite what this country owned by huge oil reserves, has failed so far, the administration of the Gaza crude oil production to reach operational productivity to a level equivalent to the possibility of reserves. Also a petroleum industry is not less tragic, do believe that the country was one of the first oil-producing countries in the world and its national experience high over the rest of the region in the oil industry, we see today importer of petroleum products and has a disastrous deficit in those derivatives. Result of the terrorist operations and security turmoil that occurred after the American occupation in April 2003, oil refineries stopped working at full capacity, or half of their capacities sometimes, and led to a situation of almost total deficit of supplies of oil derivatives, forcing the government to rely on the import of those products of the neighboring countries. that those conditions can be met only by the presence of a strong government has a clear economic vision for the future of the oil industry in Iraq, and the results of the study showed that the future developments in the oil sector will remain linked to the fate of the development process and the reconstruction of the Iraqi economy, which in turn linked, the extent of success in the national reconciliation and the formulation of the national Iraqi political project based on democracy, development and national interest of common interests and away from the narrow ethnic and sectarian Without achieving those goals, it will be difficult to get the petroleum industry and the Iraqi economy of this long dark tunnel. After solving this problem will be easy to start in the implementation of actions required to complete the process of reconstruction which includes the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the oil fields and installations and re-establish the infrastructure destroyed in Iraq, an end to corruption and smuggling common in several regions, the dimensions of the petroleum industry on the impacts and political pressures, the founding National Oil Company as an interference in a federal Conventions regarding the operations of oil sector development and use of natural gas on a large scale in the broader economic sectors, as well as new refining capacities to meet the needs of domestic consumption and for export , Encourage Iraqi private sector and expanding its role in the petroleum industry, accelerating the issuance of oil and gas law , Act as legislation gives federal oil trust in the possibility of foreign investment in the oil and gas sector a necessity that should be met for the advancement of the oil sector suffering.


Palm oil sludge a by product of palm oil industry is not commonly used in poultry feed due to some limiting factors such as low protein and amino acids content and high fiber content. These limiting factors were expected to be reduced by fermentation technology. Therefore an experiment was conducted to study the use of fermented (FLS) and non-fermented palm oil sludge (LS) for broiler chicken feed. Two hundred and ten day-old broiler chicks were used for this study. The birds were allocated into 35 cages with 6 birds in each cage. Each 5 group of birds were fed with one of 7 experimental diets. All diets were formulated with similar nutrient contents containing either LS or FLS at 3 different levels (5, 10 and 15%) and a control diet with no LS or FLS. The experimental diets were fed for 6 weeks and the performances were observed. Carcass yield, abdominal fat, weight of liver and gizzard were also measured at the end of the trial. The results showed that LS or FLS can be included in broiler's diet, since the mortality, carcass yield, abdominal fat, liver and gizzard were not significantly affected. Best level inclusion of LS was 5%. Although inclusion of 10-15% LS did not affect growth and feed conversion significantly, the feed intake was significantly depressed. The best level inclusion of FLS was 10%, since higher level (15%) caused growth depression. Key words: Palm oil sludge, fermentation, broilers


Thank you very much for reading how to advertise and promote your retail store. As you may know, people have search hundreds times for their chosen novels like this how to advertise and promote your retail store, but end up in infectious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some harmful bugs inside their laptop. how to advertise and promote your retail store is available in our book collection an online access to it is set as public so you can get it instantly. Our digital library hosts in multiple countries, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Merely said, the how to advertise and promote your retail store is universally compatible with any devices to read.


Field experiment was conducted in 2014 rainy season at the Agricultural Research Station Farm, Minjibir (12 0 11ˈN and 8 0 25ˈE), and Bayero University, Kano (11 0 58ˈN and 8 0 25ˈE), Teaching and Research Farm. This work was aimed at studying the nature and magnitude of the associations of some growth characters and grain yield in Soybean, a basis of selection for further improvement. Treatments consisted of two levels of rhizobium inoculation, three (0, 10, and 20 kgN/ha) levels of nitrogen and three (0, 30, and 60 kg P 2 O 5 ha -1 ) levels of phosphorus. These were laid out in split-split plot design with three replications. Results of the study showed that number of branches was positively (p< 0.01) correlated to grain yield. The path analysis also revealed that number of branches has the greatest direct effect on the grain yield. The greatest combined contributions of growth characters to grain yield were recorded from number of leaves and number of branches. Based on these findings, attention can be given towards improvement of number of branches per plant and number of leaves as criteria for selection of Soybean for increased grain yield. Keywords : Correlation, Grain yield, Growth, Path coefficient analysis, Soybean


Bovine papillomavirus (BPV-1) contains two independent transforming genes that have been mapped to the E5 and E6 open reading frames (ORF's). The E5 transforming protein was identified by means of an antiserum against a synthetic peptide corresponding to the 20 COOH-terminal amino acids of the E5 ORF. The E5 polypeptide is the smallest viral transforming protein yet characterized; it had an apparent size of 7 kilodaltons. The transforming polypeptide is encoded entirely within the second half of the E5 ORF and its predicted amino acid composition is very unusual; 68% of the amino acids are strongly hydrophobic and 34% are leucine. Cell fractionation studies localized this polypeptide predominantly to cellular membranes.


Personal informatics systems for supporting health largely grew out of a "self"-centric orientation: self-tracking, self-reflection, self-knowledge, self-experimentation, self-improvement. Health management, however, even when self-driven, is inherently social and depends on a person's direct relationships and broader sociocultural contexts, as an emerging line of research is coming to recognize, study, and support. This is particularly true in the case of mental health. In this paper, we engage with individuals managing the serious mental illness bipolar disorder and members of their support circles to (a) identify key social relations and the roles they play in condition management, (b) characterize patients' complex interactions with these relations (e.g., positive or negative, direct or peripheral, steady or unstable), and (c) understand how personal informatics mediates these recovery relations. Based on these insights, we offer a model of this social ecology, along with design implications for personal informatics systems that are sensitive to these interpersonal contexts.


We introduce the two-user finite state compound interference channel. The main contributions involve both novel inner and outer bounds. For the Gaussian case, we characterize its capacity region to within one bit. The inner bound is multilevel superposition coding but the decoding of the levels is opportunistic, depending on the channel state. The genie aided outer bound is motivated by the typical error events of the achievable scheme.


Despite the recent rise in the popularity of 3D entertainment technology, there is surprisingly little research on the psychophysiological experience of watching 3D movies. Previous studies suggest that exposure to stereoscopic (3D) images in training environments (e.g., flight simulators) can cause discomforts including eyestrain and visually induced motion sickness. However, existing research on 3D entertainment has been mixed and has relied primarily on retrospective, non-experimental research designs, which do not allow us to draw clear causal conclusions. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychological and physiological effects of viewing 3D movies using a controlled, manipulated experiment. Eighty-two participants were randomly assigned to watch a segment of a nature movie in either stereoscopic (3D) or standard (2D) format and were measured on their psychological and physiological experiences. A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) revealed statistically significant adverse effects of the 3D movie format. Specifically, watching a movie segment in 3D resulted in significantly more ocular discomfort (e.g., eyestrain) and feelings of disorientation compared to watching the same segment in 2D. Most notably, these results were observed after controlling for an individual's self-reported level of intolerance for physical discomfort and pre-existing attitudes towards 3D movies. Interestingly, although nausea is often reported anecdotally in reaction to 3D movies, we did not find significant effects of the 3D format on feelings of nausea. These results suggest that the direct psychophysiological experience of 3D movies is complex and continued research is necessary to improve the comfort and safety of consumers.


This study aimed to assess the impact of a nationwide German diabetes mellitus disease management program (DMP) on survival time and costs in comparison to routine care. The authors conducted a retrospective observational cohort study using routine administration data from Germany's largest sickness fund to identify insured suffering from diabetes in 2002. A total of 95,443 insured with type 2 diabetes mellitus who were born before January 1, 1962 met the defined inclusion criteria, resulting in 19,888 pairs of DMP participants and nonparticipants matched for socioeconomic and health status using propensity score matching methods. This is the first time propensity score matching has been used to evaluate a survival benefit of DMPs. In the time frame analyzed (3 years), mean survival time for the DMP group was 1045 days vs. 985 days for the routine care group (P<0.001). Mean daily hospital and total costs (including DMP administration and medical costs) were lower for the DMP group in the case of deceased insureds (92€ vs. 139€ and 122€ vs. 169€, respectively) as well as for censored observations (6€ vs. 7€ and 12.9€ vs. 13.4€, respectively). Mean daily drug costs were slightly lower for deceased insured in the DMP group (difference 0.6€), while no identifiable difference was found for censored observations. In this study, insured who were enrolled in a DMP for diabetes mellitus in the German Statutory Health Insurance showed a significant benefit in survival time. They also incurred lower costs compared to propensity score matched insured in routine care.


Gastric adenosquamous carcinoma is known as an infrequent histological cancer with a poor prognosis. A 69-year-old man was revealed to have gastric squamous carcinoma on the gastric body remote from esophagus (cT4 cN3, cStage IV). A curative operation was impossible so he was treated with systemic chemotherapy using S-1+docetaxel. After 1 course, we changed to second-line chemotherapy combining CPT-11+CDDP because of heterochronic multiple hepatic metastases. PET-CT and CT findings after 5 courses of second-line therapy showed reduced primary tumor and metastatic lesions. The curative operation was performed based on the effective response with downstaging. The final histological diagnosis showed gastric adenosquamous carcinoma. The adjuvant chemotherapy of CPT-11 was continued without relapse for almost 2 years.


Defect perovskite oxynitrides containing lithium on the octahedral sites, i.e., Sr(1-x)(Li(x)Ta(1-x))(O(3.5-3x-3y)N(2y)), were produced by the ammonolytic heating of a layered perovskite, Sr2Ta2O7, with Li2CO3. The above phase evolution involved the thermal diffusion of Li(+) into the Sr2Ta2O7 lattice and concurrent 3O(2-) → 2N(3-) substitution. The concentrations of Li, N, and anion vacancies in the product oxynitride could be controlled by adjusting the Li2CO3 to Sr2Ta2O7 ratio in the reactant mixture. This study identified three different compositions, Sr(0.92)Li(0.08)Ta(0.92)O(1.91)N(0.89), Sr(0.83)Li(0.17)Ta(0.83)O(1.88)N(0.74) and Sr(0.73)Li(0.27)Ta(0.73)O(1.82)N(0.58), where an increase in the Li composition accompanied decreases in the a- and c-parameters of the tetragonal cell, along with an increase in the band gap. Neutron diffraction and solid state (7)Li nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of Sr(1-x)(Li(x)Ta(1-x))(O(3.5-3x-3y)N(2y)) showed that Li occupied the octahedral site, and these oxynitrides exhibited enhanced bond covalency compared to similar oxides.


Complex suture prostheses that deliver sensory and position feedback require a more sophisticated integration with the human user. Here a micro-size active implantable system that provides many-degree-of-freedom neural feedback in both sensory stimulation and motor control is shown, as one potential human-use solution in DARPA's HAPTIX program. Various electrical and mechanical challenge and solutions in meeting both sensory /motor performance as well as ISO 14708 FDA-acceptable human use in an aspirin-size active implementation are discussed.


Consulting for a startup company is an effective way for Master of Business Administration (MBA) students to learn about management consulting, and the ways and means of a startup company. This paper discusses the experience of an MBA startup project within the context of a core corporate finance course. The project requires the active engagement of several groups of stakeholders—MBA students, the university's entrepreneurship incubator, a selection of startup companies, and the project's academic collaborators. In line with the literature, we find that entrepreneurship education through student-startup collaboration contributes to the students' entrepreneurial learning, and that the offering of an experiential learning course provides students with the opportunities to work with the external business community that yield positive benefits for students, startups, and the university. Our findings add to the experiential learning literature in business education and show that practice-based learning offers an effective learning experience for students whereby all stakeholders are exposed to various communities of practice that facilitate multiple streams of learning. We provide insights on experiential learning from the implementation of a "new" learning pedagogy for MBA students at an Asian institute of higher learning.


Biomass is a renewable resource that can potentially be used to produce biofuels via the fast pyrolysis process. Oil palm biomass are a rich biomass resource in Malaysia, and it is therefore very important that they be utilized for more beneficial purposes, particularly in the context of the development of biofuels. The use of this pyrolysis technique can significantly contribute to reduce the biomass volume because more biomass can be consumed as raw material for bio-oil production. In this study, the thermal conversion of oil palm biomass via fast pyrolysis was carried out using a fluidised bed reactor. Several process parameters i.e types of oil palm biomass, pyrolysis temperature and particle size that can affect the yield of the pyrolysis products were investigated. EFB, trunk, frond and palm kernel shell (PKS) were used to investigate the effect of different oil palm biomass on pyrolysis products. The temperature used was in the range of 400-600 oC and particle size of EFB was < 90 – 180 µm. The results indicated that the optimum yield of bio-oils (47.4 wt.%) was obtained using EFB having a particle size of 107-125 µm at pyrolyzed temperature of 500 oC. The bio-oil and bio-char produced were characterized via physicochemical and spectrometric analyses. The calorific values of bio-oil ranged from 21 to 22 MJ kg -1 while that of bio-char 22-25 MJ kg -1 . Keywords: Pyrolysis, oil palm biomass, bio-oil, bio-char, renewable energy


Background/Aims Helicobacter pylori eradication may prevent the recurrence of gastric epithelial neoplasia after endoscopic treatment. However, H. pylori eradication therapy is unlikely to prevent gastric cancer. This study determined the long-term results and clinical outcomes of patients with gastric epithelial neoplasia based on H. pylori infection status and microsatellite stability (MSS). Methods Patients diagnosed with gastric epithelial neoplasia who underwent an endoscopic mucosal resection or submucosal dissection between 2004 and 2010 were included in this retrospective study. During the follow-up period (range, 4 to 14 years), disease recurrence was monitored, and tissue examinations were conducted for seven sets of microsatellite loci initially linked to the tumour suppressor gene locus. When H. pylori infection was identified, patients underwent eradication therapy. Results The patients (n = 120) were divided into three groups: H. pylori-negative with MSS, H. pylori-positive with MSS, and microsatellite instability (MSI). After H. pylori eradication, the rate of metachronous recurrence was significantly different in the MSI (28.2%) and MSS groups (3.7%, p < 0.01). The mean duration of recurrence was 77 months (range, 24 to 139) in the MSI group. There was no recurrence after eradication therapy in patients who were positive for H. pylori in the MSS group. Conclusion H. pylori eradication could help prevent gastric cancer recurrence in patients with stable microsatellite loci. Careful, long-term monitoring is required in patients with unstable microsatellite loci.


The characteristic pulmonary hypertensive effect of the heparin and protamine interaction has been studied in the isolated pig lung preparation using sequential autologous blood perfusate and dextran perfusate. A significant (p less than 0.001) increase in pulmonary artery pressure at constant flow was seen in 10 of 14 dextran and 12 of 15 blood perfusions. The average increase for dextran was 112 percent and for blood, 109 percent. Antihistamines did not inhibit the response. However, this was abolished in all 11 animals treated with aspirin. In 11 intact swine, thromboxane B2 blood levels increased significantly (p less than 0.01) from 0.46 +/- 0.38 ng/dl to 2.97 +/- 1.5 ng/dl. Thus, pulmonary hypertension associated with protamine reversal of heparinization is associated with prostaglandin release from the lung, and this does not require mediation of platelets or leukocytes.


When handling the near-wall regions of turbulent flows, it is necessary to account for the viscous effects which are important over the thin near-wall layers. Low-Reynolds-Number turbulence models do this by including explicit viscous and also damping terms which become active in the near-wall regions, and using very fine near-wall grids to properly resolve the steep gradients present. In order to overcome the cost associated with the low-Re turbulence models, a more advanced wall function approach has been implemented within OpenFoam, and tested together with a standard log-law based wall function in the prediction of flows which involve 2-D shock wave/turbulent boundary layer interactions (SWTBLIs). On the whole, from the calculation of the impinging shock interaction, the three turbulence modelling strategies, the Lauder-Sharma k-ε model with Yap correction (LS), the high-Re k-ε model with standard wall function (SWF) and analytical wall function (AWF), display good predictions of wall-pressure. However, the SWF approach tends to underestimate the tendency of the flow to separate as a result of the SWTBLI. The analytical wall function on the other hand, is able reproduce the shock-induced flow separation and returns predictions similar to those of the low-Re model, using a much coarser mesh.


Continental-scale maps of plant functional diversity are a fundamental piece of data of interest to ecosystem modelers and ecologists, yet such maps have been exceedingly hard to generate. The large effort to compile global plant functional trait databases largely for the purpose of mapping and analyzing the spatial distribution of function has resulted in very sparse data matrices thereby limiting progress. Identifying robust methodologies to gap fill or impute trait values in these databases is an important objective. Here I argue that existing statistical tools from phylogenetic comparative methods can be used to rapidly impute values into global plant functional trait databases due to the large amount of phylogenetic signal often in trait data. In particular, statistical models of phylogenetic signal in traits can be generated from existing data and used to predict missing values of closely related species often with a high degree of accuracy thereby facilitating the continental-scale mapping of plant function. Despite the promise of this approach, I also discuss potential pitfalls and future challenges that will need to be addressed.


BACKGROUND
Late incomplete stent apposition (LISA) develops following implantation of conventional bare-metal stents (BMS) or drug-eluting stents, or after adjunctive intracoronary radiation (IR). However, no study has systematically compared the morphology of LISA seen with various treatment modalities.

PURPOSE
To compare the morphometric features of LISA accompanying BMS, IR or sirolimus-eluting stents (SES) using serial intravascular ultrasound (IVUS).

METHODS
A query of Stanford University's IVUS database of the Cardiovascular Core Analysis Laboratory was performed to identify LISA cases. Dedicated software programs were used for volumetric IVUS analyses.

RESULTS
In 30 LISA cases (12 BMS, 6 IR and 12 SES), there was no intertreatment difference in the degree of LISA (lumen area minus stent area at follow up). Serial analyses of LISA segments showed that vessel area of SES and IR showed significant increase at follow up as compared with post procedure, while there was no significant change in plaque area. In contrast, the BMS group showed no increase in vessel area, whereas plaque area revealed significant reduction. Eight of 12 BMS cases were treated by directional atherectomy before stenting; however, there was no difference in the area change between patients with or without pre-stent atherectomy. Post-procedure plaque thickness beneath the stent struts of LISA was thinner for SES as compared with BMS.

CONCLUSIONS
Plaque reduction primarily contributes to LISA after BMS, whereas vessel expansion is the predominant factor in LISA development for IR and SES. Thus, the mechanism of LISA may vary among different interventional treatments.


Biofilms are multicellular communities of bacterial cells that usually grow on surfaces.
Bacteria in biofilms are non-motile and are surrounded by a complex meshwork containing proteins, polysaccharides and DNA, the so-called biofilm matrix. The matrix provides stability and rigidity to the biofilm and is important for sticking cells to the surface and towards each other. The transition from the motile planktonic growth state to the sessile biofilm state requires therefore tight regulation of motility and matrix synthesis. In this work, I have investigated the roles and regulation of motility during biofilm formation of Escherichia coli. I could show that flagella play roles at different stages of biofilm formation, providing swimming motility at biofilm initiation and structural integrity in mature biofilms. Swimming motility is required for initial cell attachment to the surface and helps to shape mature biofilm structures. My results show that during biofilm initiation, smooth swimming at the surface leads to hydrodynamic entrapment, thereby promoting cell attachment.
Additionally, swimming speed seems to influence surface attachment with enhanced swimming speed increasing attachment. Swimming speed is regulated by the second messenger bis-(3'-5')-cyclic dimeric guanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP), which is a key factor in the transition from motility to sessility. C-di-GMP on the one hand inhibits motility via the motor binding protein YcgR and on the other hand promotes the synthesis of biofilm matrix factors. With the requirement of swimming for cell attachment, I could show that c-di-GMP plays a dual role during the course of biofilm formation, inhibiting biofilm initiation through motility inhibition and promoting biofilm maturation through upregulation of adhesion factors. Cells with permanently decreased c-di-GMP levels show increased cell attachment, however, have defects in biofilm maturation and architecture. In contrast, cells with permanently increased c-di-GMP levels show decreased cell attachment, but are able to form elaborate three-dimensional structures in mature biofilms. The effect on attachment is mediated by the motor binding protein YcgR, which regulates swimming speed.
Based on the above described results, I could characterize a new regulator of c-di-GMP
signaling in Escherichia coli. My results suggest that the bacterial dynamin YjdA, together with the small protein YjcZ, regulates c-di-GMP production by the diguanylate
cyclase YegE. This is represented on the phenotypic level by changes in swimming motility, cell attachment and biofilm maturation in the yjdA deletion. It thereby phenotypically copies the deletion of the cyclase YegE. Additionally, the c-di-GMP dependent interaction of YcgR with the flagellar motor is decreased similarly in both yjdA and yegE deletion strains. Last but not least, bacterial two-hybrid experiments show an interaction between YjdA and YegE. My results further suggest the aid of the bacterial flotillins HflK/C in the regulation of YegE by the dynamin YjdA.
Altogether, the results in this thesis provide an overview of the roles of flagella and motility during biofilm formation of Escherichia coli, which includes a requirement of swimming during biofilm initiation, thereby tight regulation of c-di-GMP during the course of biofilm formation, and a structural role of flagella at the later biofilm stage.


The research was conducted to identify the types of apology strategy, to describe the factors which determine the choice strategy of apology used by the characters and to describe the function of apologizing expression in the film entitled "Tooth Fairy".
The research used pragmatics approach with apologizing as the topic analysis. This research is a descriptive qualitative research that takes total sampling. All dialogs containing apologizing expressions in the film were taken as data. There were 18 data employing apologizing expressions. The data were analyzed using Anna Trosborg's theory of apology classification, Fraser's theory in describing the factors which determine the choice of apology and also the function of apologizing expressions.
The result of the research shows that there are seven types of apology strategy in the film, namely expression of regret, request of forgiveness, explicit explanation, expression of self deficiency, expressing concern for hearer, offer of repair, and explicit acknowledgement.
The factors that determine the choice of apology are the nature of infraction, the severity of the infraction, the situation in which the infraction occurred, the relative familiarity between the participants. From the four factors, the situation in which the infraction occurred gives more influences to the choice of strategy of apology.
The function also influences the use of strategy of apology. There are four functions of strategy of apology including maintaining the harmony between the characters, restoring interactional balance, with the offended, reducing the strained situation, and reducing/preventing the anger.
Hopefully, this research can be useful for other researchers who are interested on studying about apologizing expressions and they may analyze it from different point of view and from other data source such as novel and drama.


We propose a general Variational Embedding Learning Framework (VELF) for alleviating the severe cold-start problem in CTR prediction. VELF addresses the cold start problem via alleviating over-fits caused by data-sparsity in two ways: learning probabilistic embedding, and incorporating trainable and regularized priors which utilize the rich side information of cold start users and advertisements (Ads). The two techniques are naturally integrated into a variational inference framework, forming an end-to-end training process. Abundant empirical tests on benchmark datasets well demonstrate the advantages of our proposed VELF. Besides, extended experiments confirmed that our parameterized and regularized priors provide more generalization capability than traditional fixed priors.


The hydrido copper(I) and silver(I) clusters incorporating 1,1-dicyanoethylene-2,2-dithiolate (i-MNT) ligands are presented in this paper. Reactions of M(I) (M = Cu, Ag) salts, [Bu(4)N](2)[S(2)CC(CN)(2)], with the anion sources ([Bu(4)N][BH(4)] for H(-), [Bu(4)N][BD(4)] for D(-)) in an 8:6:1 molar ratio in THF produce octanuclear penta-anionic Cu(I)/Ag(I) clusters, [Bu(4)N](5)[M(8)(X){S(2)CC(CN)(2)}(6)] (M = Cu, X = H, 1(H); X = D, 1(D); M = Ag, X = H, 2(H); X = D, 2(D)). They can also be produced from the stoichiometric reaction of M(8)(i-MNT)(6)(4-) with the ammonium borohydride. All four compounds have been fully characterized spectroscopically ((1)H and (13)C NMR, IR, UV-vis) and by elemental analyses. The deuteride-encapsulated Cu(8)/Ag(8) clusters of 1(D) and 2(D) are also characterized by (2)H NMR. X-ray crystal structures of 1(H) and 2(H) reveal a hydride-centered tetracapped tetrahedral Cu(8)/Ag(8) core, which is inscribed within an S(12) icosahedron formed by six i-MNT ligands, each in a tetrametallic-tetraconnective (μ(2), μ(2)) bonding mode. The encapsulated hydride in 2(H) is unequivocally characterized by both (1)H and (109)Ag NMR spectroscopies, and the results strongly suggest that the hydride is coupled to eight magnetically equivalent silver nuclei on the NMR time scale. Therefore, a fast interchange between the vertex and capping silver atoms in solution gives a plausible explanation for the perceived structural differences between the Ag(8) geometry deduced from the X-ray structure and the NMR spectra.


THE STEADY-STATE SEEPAGE FLOW UNDER AND THROUGH A LEAKY SHEETPILE PARTIALLY EMBEDDED IN A HOMOGENEOUS, ISOTROPIC POROUS MEDIUM UNDERLAIN BY AN IMPERVIOUS SUBSTRATUM IS STUDIED BY MEANS OF ITS ELECTRIC ANALOG. RESULTS ARE CORRELATED WITH LIMITED CASES OF PREVIOUS THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WORK, AND THEY ARE EXTENDED TO INCLUDE THE CASES OF A PARTIALLY EMBEDDED SHEETPILE CENTERED UNDER AN IMPERVIOUS DAM, AND A SINGLE SHEETPILE, EITHER FULLY OR PARTIALLY PENETRATING A POROUS STRATUM WITH HORIZONTAL POTENTIAL BOUNDARIES. THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A SHEETPILE IS SHOWN TO DECREASE MARKEDLY WITH A VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE OF HOLES IN THE SHEETPILE, AND CHARTS ARE GIVEN TO EVALUATE QUANTITATIVELY THE EXTENT OF THIS DECREASE. /AUTHOR/


Five psoriatic patients developed papular lesions of palms and soles, shortly after beginning treatment with etretinate. Histological examination in two cases was insignificant. The lesions disappeared without tapering the dose of etretinate. The fact that lesions appeared and subsided within a short period may explain why this unusual adverse reaction of etretinate therapy has not been reported previously.


The genetic determinant of the cohemolysin which is responsible for the CAMP phenomenon, a cohemolysis, of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae was cloned in Escherichia coli. Total DNA from the A. pleuropneumoniae serotype 1 type strain 4074 was used to construct a gene library in plasmid pUC18 in E. coli JM83. A total of 10,500 clones containing recombinant plasmids have been screened for hemolysis on blood plates. Fifty-five clones which showed a weak hemolytic response after 24 to 48 h of incubation were screened for the CAMP reaction with Staphylococcus aureus. This led to the identification of one clone which showed a positive CAMP reaction. Immunoblot analysis revealed that the recombinant strain expressed a protein with a molecular mass of 27,000 daltons, similar in size to the CAMP protein of the group B streptococci. Rabbit antibodies against the CAMP+ clone neutralized the CAMP reaction mediated by the E. coli strain containing the cloned CAMP gene as well as that of A. pleuropneumoniae. Antibodies raised against the cloned CAMP cohemolysin cross-reacted with Streptococcus agalactiae protein B. We designate the 27,000-dalton molecule CAMP factor protein and name its corresponding gene cfp.


Objective: This article examines the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Conners' Parent and Teacher Rating Scales-Revised: Short Forms (CPRS-R:S-C and CTRS-R:S-C) in a representative sample of 2,584 first to ninth graders in Taipei and 479 clinical participants (274 with ADHD). Method: The instruments include the CPRS-R:S-C, CTRS-R:S-C, and the Chinese version of the Swanson, Kotkin, Atkins, M-Flynn, and Pelham Scale. Results: Results show satisfactory factor structure, test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and convergent validity for all the subscales of the CTRS-R:S-C and CPRS-R:S-C. They clearly distinguish clinical participants with ADHD from those without. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the CPRS-R:S-C and CTRS-R:S-C are reliable and valid instruments for measuring inattention and hyperactivity in both clinical and community settings in the Chinese population in Taipei.


Health Care Financing Administration ("HCFA") created the National Correct Coding Council ("NCCC") to help ensure that providers across various jurisdictions received like payment for the same services and use the same codes and provide similar documentation for services performed. As a direct out growth of NCCC's work, HCFA established the National Correct Coding Policy in 1996 and eventually implemented the Medicare "Correct Coding Initiative" to identify and isolate inappropriate coding, unbundling, and other irregularities in coding. To appropriately implement National Correct Coding Policy in interventional pain management an interventional pain management specialist and their staff must be familiar with correct coding policies as well as understand the physicians current procedural terminology (CPT, medical surgical practice and packages, modifiers, separate procedures, comprehensive and component services, incorrect coding/unbundling and various specific issues relevant to practice of interventional pain management) Comprehensive codes include certain defined services that are separately identifiable by other codes known as component codes. Because component codes are captured by comprehensive codes they man not be listed separately when the complete procedure is done. For example, in interventional pain management, 62279, which is continuous lumbar epidural, is considered a comprehensive code. Various component codes include 62270, 62272 - 62274, 62276 - 62278, 62288 and 62289, among others. This review describes National Correct Coding Policy, correct procedural terminology, medical and surgical practice and packages, evaluation and management services along with description of most codes used in interventional pain management with correcting coding edits for comprehensive codes and for mutually exclusive codes.


Can monetary policy, and the exchange rate, affect military capability? If weapons systems are purchased on international markets, then a depreciating currency can reduce the import of arms, affecting the relative capabilities of military rivals. In this research note, we analyze the demand for arms imports using an error correction model. We show that arms are a ''normal'' good, with the quantity demanded directly related to price and with exchange rates serving as an instrument for price movements that are normally unobserved. Such price movements are increasingly important given currency volatility and a reliance on imported technology.


ABSTRACT We describe here the isolation and identification of a Shiga toxin 1 (Stx1)-producing Enterobacter cloacae strain, M12X01451, from a human clinical specimen. The bacterial isolate was identified as E. cloacae using a polyphasic approach that included phenotypic, genetic, and proteomic analyses. The M12X01451 stx 1 was sequenced, and the holotoxin was found to share only 87% amino acid sequence identity with the nearest Stx1 subtype reference sequence. Sequence analysis of the regions immediately flanking stx 1 displayed similarities with bacteriophage-related sequences, suggesting a prophage origin. The stx 1 gene was a stable element within the M12X01451 genome, as demonstrated by real-time PCR detection following successive subculturing of the bacterial isolate. Culture supernatant from M12X01451 was cytotoxic to Vero cells but was not neutralized by an anti-Stx1 monoclonal antibody. In addition, Stx1 from M12X01451 demonstrated limited antigenicity with two commercially available lateral flow immunoassays. The M12X01451 Stx represents a new Stx1 subtype based on the degree of sequence dissimilarity with Stx1 subtype reference sequences and its limited reactivity with anti-Stx1 antibodies.


Redox-active polymers have garnered significant attention as promising materials for redox capacitors, which are energy-storage devices that rely on reversible redox reactions to store and deliver electrical energy. Our focus was on optimizing the electrochemical performance in the design and synthesis of redox-active polymer electrodes. In this study, a redox-active polymer was prepared through step-by-step synthesis on a gold electrode. To achieve this, we designed an automatic sequential polymerization equipment that minimizes human intervention and enables a stepwise polymerization reaction. The electrochemical properties of the polymer gold electrodes were investigated. The degree of polymerization of the polymer grown on the gold electrode can be controlled by adjusting the cycle of the sequential operation. As the number of cycles increases, the amount of accumulated charge increases proportionally, indicating the potential for enhanced electrochemical performance.


BACKGROUND
We aimed to assess the structure, function and performance of Ashanti Region's emergency medical services system in the context of the regional need for prehospital emergency care.

DESIGN
A mixed-methods approach was employed, using retrospective collection of quantitative data and prospectively gathered qualitative data. Setting - pertinent data were collected from Ghanaian and international sources; interviews and technical assessments were performed primarily in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

PARTICIPANTS
All stakeholders relevant to emergency medical services in the Ashanti Region of Ghana were assessed; there was a special focus on National Ambulance Service (NAS) and Ashanti Region healthcare personnel.

INTERVENTION
This was an observational study using qualitative and quantitative assessment techniques.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The structure, function and performance of the Ashanti emergency medical services system, guided by a relevant technical assessment framework.

RESULTS
NAS is the premier and only true prehospital agency in the Ashanti Region. NAS has developed almost every essential aspect of an EMS system necessary to achieve its mission within a low-resource setting. NAS continues to increase its number of response units to address the overwhelming Ashanti region demand, especially primary calls. Deficient areas in need of development are governance, reliable revenue, public access, community integration, clinical care guidelines, research and quality assurance processes.

CONCLUSIONS
The Ashanti Region has a growing and thriving emergency medical services system. Although many essential areas for development were identified, NAS is well poised to meet the regional demand for prehospital emergency care and transport.


Background: Antroquinonol, which is contained in Antrodia camphorata, is recognized as having diverse biological activities, including liver protection. We conducted human clinical studies to evaluate the effects of Antrodia camphorate containing Antroquinonol on the metabolism of blood ethanol and acetaldehyde after alcohol consumption and on daily activities after work. Methods: We conducted two studies. First, a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover study evaluated the anti-alcohol effects of Antroquinonol-contained A. camphorata in healthy subjects before and after alcohol consumption. In this experiment, 40 healthy adult males and females ranging in age from 20 to 59 years ingested the equivalent of 0.5 g/kg of body weight (BW) of alcohol with either a placebo or Antroquinonolcontained A. camphorata. We then measured their post-ingestion blood ethanol and acetaldehyde levels as well as their antioxidative activity. The second was a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study of the effect of Antroquinonol-contained A. camphorata on the fatigue experienced by physical laborers. In this experiment, the subjects were 64 healthy adult males and females ranging in age from 40 to 64 who engaged in physical labor and who did not suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome. The subjects ingested either the Antroquinonol-contained A. camphorata or a placebo for a period of 12 weeks. We then measured their daily fatigue levels and their blood anti-oxidative function. Results: The results of anti-alcohol study indicated that the ingestion of the Antroquinonol-contained A. camphorata caused significant decreases in blood ethanol and acetaldehyde levels after alcohol consumption as compared to the placebo. Examination using a subjective index also indicated that the Antroquinonol-contained A. camphorata significantly suppressed the mood-lifting effect of alcohol as well as uncomfortable symptoms associated with alcohol consumption such as reddening of the face compared to the placebo. The results of anti-fatigue study indicated that during the ingestion period, the "vigor-activity" score on the Profile of Mood States (POMS), which is a subjective index of mood, was significantly higher for those who ingested the Antroquinonol-contained A. camphorata as compared to the placebo food. In addition, investigation of changes in blood markers indicated that the γ-GTP and urea nitrogen levels, markers of liver and kidney function respectively, showed significant decreases among those who ingested the food containing antroquinonol as compared to those who ingested the placebo. Conclusion: The ingestion of Antroquinonol-contained A. camphorata increased the metabolism of alcohol and acetaldehyde after alcohol consumption, decreased uncomfortable symptoms associated with alcohol consumption, and suppressed everyday feelings of fatigue. ISSN 2641-4295 Research Article Citation: Miles Chih-Ming Chen, Pei-Ni Chen, Howard Hao-Yu Cheng, et al. Clinical Benefits of Antrodia Camphorata Containing Antroquinonol on Daily Fatigue and Alcohol Syndrome. Food Sci Nutr Res. 2019; 2(3): 1-8.


In 2008, community government was abolished in the remote Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory and centralised in large shires. It seems safe to assume that, for the foreseeable future, the population of most of these communities will remain predominantly Aboriginal. While such communities will continue to be centres of change, the co-residence of large populations of Aboriginal people also facilitates the reproduction of values and practices, some of which create a 'seemingly intractable gulf between policy goals and actual community life' (M and R Tonkinson 2010, 68). Ignoring this problem is not the answer. Despite past problems with community government, it is one of the few avenues for real community development and a chance to build a notion of civil society.


Regional upwelling along the west coast of Southern Portugal is reflected in the surface sediments by relatively high abundance of diatom valves, dominated by the species Paralia sulcata. Loci of more intense or persistent upwelling have high relative abundance of Chaetoceros spores, which are characteristic of tate-stage succession in the plankton. Sediment chemistry is a less reliable indicator of productivity and upwelling in this case, because organic carbon and nitrogen are concentrated in the fine-grained sediment fraction and thus partly dependent on the turbulence of the depositional environment.


During the seventeenth century, philanthropy offered the Dutch a self-disciplinary opportunity to expend their globally attained fortunes. As Janus-faced emblems of the wealth and poverty generated by a merchant society, monumentally scaled almshouses, hospices, orphanages, and reformatories in both the Dutch Republic and its colonies commemorated leadership that privileged moderation over extravagance. In Disciplining Otherness in the Tropics: Dutch Philanthropic Sites and the Urbanization of Indonesian Ports, 1640–1730, Sim Hinman Wan considers buildings for organized philanthropy as integral to the Dutch settlement of Batavia and Amboina in Indonesia, arguing that the presence of philanthropic establishments in the peripheral territories of Asian inhabitants served to subject these neighborhoods to colonial power. Dutch builders configured architecture and urban space in these cosmopolitan port cities to reinforce an ethnoculturally determined social hierarchy.


Performance of steam turbines operating under wet steam is known to worsen proportionally to the increase in wetness at turbine exhaust. Numerous strategies have been attempted in the past to minimize the efficiency loss and mechanical damage associated with liquid phase formation, mostly with limited success and poor commercial viability due to increased complexity.
 The application of hydrophobic coatings is a simple economically favorable strategy and is expected to partially inhibit the formation of water films on blade surfaces and associated consequences.
 This paper addresses a need of turbine manufacturers: the development of a methodology to test, rapidly and economically, performance impact and endurance of coatings to allow a systematic selection. The resulting methodology employs specialized equipment to measure the fog rejection effectiveness of coatings and to generate droplet impingement and thermal loads comparable to real applications, all under laboratory conditions. Measurement results indicated that different materials cause different wetness losses and turbine efficiency can be improved with the coating of blades. Transfer functions used to generate the correspondence between laboratory and representative turbine conditions enabled the coating selection for turbine application. Finally, tests in a model turbine allowed validating the prediction of efficiency improvement, confirming the suitability of the developed methodology.
 This work demonstrates that this technology delivers an important improvement in turbine efficiency.


I present a preliminary determination of the Fragmentation Functions (FFs) of unidentified charged hadrons at next-to-leading order in quantum chromodynamics. The analysis is based on hadron production cross section data in single-inclusive electron-positron annihilation. It extends a recent determination of the FFs of identified charged pions, charged kaons and protons/antiprotons performed by the NNPDF Collaboration. I illustrate the quality of the FFs determined in this analysis and show how they describe the charged hadron spectra measured in proton-(anti)proton collisions.


Molten silicates are ordered solutions whose excess Gibbs energies cannot be well represented by the usual polynomial representation of deviations from ideal solution behavior. An adaptation of quasichemical theory has been proposed which is capable of describing the properties of ordered solutions and of representing the measured properties of binary silicates over broad ranges of composition and temperatures. For simple silicates such as the MgO-FeO-SiO2 ternary system in which silica is the only acid component, a combining rule generally leads to good predictions of the thermodynamic properties of ternary (and probably higher order) solutions from those of the binaries. In basic solutions, these predictions are consistent with those of the Conformal Ionic Solution Theory. Our results indicate that our approach could provide a potentially powerful tool for representing and predicting the thermodynamic properties of multicomponent molten silicates. A complete critical evaluation of the thermodynamic properties and phase diagrams of the FeO-MgO, FeO-SiO2, MgO-SiO2 and FeO-MgO-SiO2 systems is presented in which the modified quasichemical model is used for the liquid phase. Optimized equations for the thermodynamic properties of all phases are obtained which reproduce all thermodynamic and phase diagram data to within experimental error limits from 25°C to liquidus temperatures at all compositions. The optimized thermodynamic properties and phase diagrams are the best estimates presently available.


Friction spot welding is a new solid state welding process, invented and patented by the GKSS Research Centre GmbH in Germany, suitable for spot joining lightweight low melting point materials such as Al and Mg alloys. The process is performed with an especially designed rotating tool (comprised by a clamping ring, sleeve, and pin) that creates a joint between sheets in overlap configuration by means of frictional heat and mechanical work. The result is a spot welded lap joint with minimal material loss and a flat surface with no keyhole. In this work the application of Friction Spot Welding for spot joining the AA6181-T4 is investigated. Different rotational speeds (1900 to 2900 rpm) and welding times (2 to 3.4 s) were tested with the objective of finding the best suited ones for producing high quality joints in terms of microstructure and mechanical performance. Welds with strength in the order of 6.8 kN were obtained with high reproducibility. The results also show that geometric elements of the weld play an important role on the fracture mechanisms and hence on the mechanical performance of the joints. In sum, the results reveal the potential of this process for industrial applications


The flexible generation of electrical energy is heavily dependent on hydropower. Advanced control systems may offer an enhanced operational security. During power system disturbances, a generator may need to operate beyond its limits to maintain a stable operation. This increased performance can be obtained if the total thermal capacity of the generator is exploited by applying optimal control theory in the automatic voltage regulator. A low-order model is required for online implementation and prediction of critical thermal stresses in the machine. Periodic extension of the generator capability diagram has been historically overlooked. In this paper, a thermal network for air-cooled hydrogenerators for use in real-time monitoring and optimal control is proposed and validated. The thermal model is extended with a heat exchanger model. The dynamic model is developed from an energy balance of the system and verified through finite-element method (FEM) simulations and temperature measurements in a case study. Transient simulation results of the online low-order model are in good agreement with measurements. Finally, a satisfactory simulator speed is obtained which confirms the feasibility of this approach in real-world applications.


Abstract Extending the paradigm in L1 acquisition, scholars have begun to investigate whether participants' domain-general ability to represent, encode, and integrate spectral and temporal dimensions of sounds (i.e., auditory processing) could be a potential determinant of the outcomes of post-pubertal L2 speech learning. The current study set out to test the hypothesis that auditory processing makes a unique contribution to L2 speech acquisition, for 70 Japanese classroom learners of English with different levels of L2 proficiency when biographical backgrounds (length of instruction and immersion) and memory abilities (working, declarative, and procedural memory) are controlled for. Auditory processing loaded onto modality-general capacities to represent and incorporate anchor stimuli (relative to target stimuli) into long-term memory in an implicit fashion, but dissociated from explicit abilities to remember, associate, and elaborate sensory information. Auditory processing explained a small-to-medium amount of variance in L2 speech learning, even after the other potentially confounding variables were statistically factored out.


Given a multiple alignment of orthologous DNA sequences and a phylogenetic tree for these sequences, we investigate the problem of reconstructing a most parsimonious scenario of insertions and deletions capable of explaining the gaps observed in the alignment. This problem, called the Indel Parsimony Problem, is a crucial component of the problem of ancestral genome reconstruction, and its solution provides valuable information to many genome functional annotation approaches. We first show that the problem is NP-complete. Second, we provide an algorithm, based on the fractional relaxation of an integer linear programming formulation. The algorithm is fast in practice, and the solutions it produces are, in most cases, provably optimal. We describe a divide-and-conquer approach that makes it possible to solve very large instances on a simple desktop machine, while retaining guaranteed optimality. Our algorithms are tested and shown efficient and accurate on a set of 1.8 Mb mammalian orthologous sequences in the CFTR region.


Abstract This paper examines text formulations in the interaction between peers in primary school during dialogic reading, in inquiry learning settings. In this context pupils collaboratively use information from texts to answer their research questions. The data analyzed include 25 excerpts of pupils demonstrating understanding of text. We used Conversation Analysis to analyze how pupils demonstrate their understanding by the use of text formulations, as a specific type of formulations, and how these formulations function as a bridge between the reading action and the discussion of text content. Parallel to the types of conversational formulations (gist and upshot), we found two practices of demonstrating understanding, namely (1) formulating the gist of relevant text to demonstrate literal understanding, and (2) formulating an upshot to demonstrate how the text contributes to the reading goal. Both types are used to establish shared understanding of text, but focus the discussion as well on what participants find relevant information in the text to further talk about. To reach shared understanding and to use it for next steps, both interactants need to have access to the text in some way. This study contributes to our understanding of how pupils collaboratively use text to build their knowledge.


Gog and Magog, the apocalyptic destroyers prophesied in the book of Revelations, gave concrete expression to the apocalyptic climate that dominated medieval thinking about the future-and the present. They permeated medieval texts and appeared in most maps of the world. Historians are coming to understand medieval and early modern world maps not primarily as rather primitive technical tools but as cultural documents. Such maps expressed in graphic form the world view(s) of medieval elites (princely, scholarly, mercantile). The traditional contents of mappaemundi and early printed maps place them firmly in the tradition of medieval learning, yet they show signs very early on of skeptical and "empirical" questioning directed at received (mainly ancient) wisdom concerning the existence, location, population, and qualities of traditional cartographic *topoi (e.g., the kingdom of Prester John). As Renaissance source-scholarship, rules of evidence, and overseas exploration reshaped cartography, world maps underwent both a rapid transformation into sources of up-to-date information and a certain retrenchment of traditional contents, especially in distant and marginal areas. Gog and Magog are among the principal remnants of the medieval dream of the world. They appear, often with reference to Marco Polo, on world maps well into the seventeenth century. Early modern Europeans continued to view much of the world through medieval lenses.


PROBLEM
The aim of this study was to compare the serum levels of interleukin (IL)-6 of women with unexplained infertility with fertile subjects.

METHOD OF STUDY
Serum IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) levels of 45 infertile and 44 fertile women on day 3 of menstrual cycle were assessed and compared for this prospective controlled study.

RESULTS
The mean serum IL-6 level was significantly higher in women with unexplained infertility, compared with fertile women (5.71 +/- 1.81 and 4.31 +/- 1.79, P < 0.001, Student's t-test). There was no significant difference in TNF-alpha level among the groups.

CONCLUSION
Significant difference in serum IL-6 levels between unexplained infertile and fertile women suggests that this cytokine may be involved in pathophysiology of unexplained infertility.


Abstract. A comparison is made between the precipitation forecasts by the non-hydrostatic limited area model LME of the German Weather Service (DWD) and observations from a network of rain gauges in Cyprus. This is a first attempt to carry out a preliminary verification and evaluation of the LME precipitation forecasts over the area of Cyprus. For the verification, model forecasts and observations were used covering an eleven month period, from 1/2/2005 till 31/12/2005. The observations were made by three Automatic Weather Observing Systems (AWOS) located at Larnaka and Paphos airports and at Athalassa synoptic station, as well as at 6, 6 and 8 rain gauges within a radius of about 30 km around these stations, respectively. The observations were compared with the model outputs, separately for each of the three forecast days. The "probability of detection" (POD) of a precipitation event and the "false alarm rate" (FAR) were calculated. From the selected cases of the forecast precipitation events, the average forecast precipitation amounts in the area around the three stations were compared with the measured ones. An attempt was also made to evaluate the model's skill in predicting the spatial distribution of precipitation and, in this respect, the geographical position of the maximum forecast precipitation amount was contrasted to the position of the corresponding observed maximum. Maps with monthly precipitation totals observed by a local network of 150 rain gauges were compared with the corresponding forecast precipitation maps.


Interactive oracle proofs (IOPs) are a hybrid between interactive proofs and PCPs. In an IOP the prover is allowed to interact with a verifier (like in an interactive proof) by sending relatively long messages to the verifier, who in turn is only allowed to query a few of the bits that were sent (like in a PCP). Efficient IOPs are at the core of leading practical implementations of highly efficient proof-systems. In this work we construct, for a large class of NP relations, IOPs in which the communication complexity approaches the witness length. More precisely, for any NP relation for which membership can be decided in polynomial-time and bounded polynomial space (e.g., SAT, Hamiltonicity, Clique, Vertex-Cover, etc.) and for any constant γ > 0, we construct an IOP with communication complexity (1 + γ) · n, where n is the original witness length. The number of rounds, as well as the number of queries made by the IOP verifier, are constant. This result improves over prior works on short IOPs/PCPs in two ways. First, the communication complexity in these short IOPs is proportional to the complexity of verifying the NP witness, which can be polynomially larger than the witness size. Second, even ignoring the difference between witness length and non-deterministic verification time, prior works incur (at the very least) a large constant multiplicative overhead to the communication complexity. In particular, as a special case, we also obtain an IOP for CircuitSAT with communication complexity (1+γ) · t, for circuits of size t and any constant γ > 0. This improves upon the prior state-of-the-art work of Ben Sasson et al. (ICALP, 2017) who construct an IOP for CircuitSAT with communication length c · t for a large (unspecified) constant c ≥ 1. Our proof leverages the local testability and (relaxed) local correctability of high-rate tensor codes, as well as their support of a sumcheck-like procedure. In particular, we bypass the barrier imposed by the low rate of multiplication codes (e.g., Reed-Solomon, Reed-Muller or AG codes) a key building block of all known short PCP/IOP constructions. Department of Computer Science, University of Haifa. Email: email@example.com. Supported by the Milgrom family grant for Collaboration between the Technion and University of Haifa. Department of Computer Science, Technion. Email: email@example.com. Supported in part by the Milgrom family grant for Collaboration between the Technion and University of Haifa, by the Israeli Science Foundation (Grants No. 1262/18 and 2137/19), and the Technion Hiroshi Fujiwara cyber security research center and Israel cyber directorate.


Contemporary universities pursuing educational goals give order and meaning to life, help in the future of humanity and to discover their own potential. The objectives of education are the first point of reference, which you can try on three D (different elements, different criterias and different functions) of the school day. Project of grant submitted to National Center of Science in Krakow, designed by prof. hab. dr. Jozef Podgorecki, Social Communication Department, University of Opole, Poland and Giedrė Kvieskienė from Social Education Department in Social Education Department, Lithuanian University of Educational Science. International studies will allow finding causal factors – factors of emotional intelligence, networking, social partnership competencies, of empathy and communication skills of the modern education in Europe.

Keywords: Social communication, communication skills, social communication competency, pedeutology.


The precise genetic diagnosis of dystrophinopathies can be challenging, largely due to rare deep intronic variants and more complex structural variants (SVs). We report on the genetic characterization of a dystrophinopathy patient. He remained without a genetic diagnosis after routine genetic testing, dystrophin protein and mRNA analysis, and short‐ and long‐read whole DMD gene sequencing. We finally identified a novel complex SV in DMD via long‐read whole‐genome sequencing. The variant consists of a large‐scale (~1Mb) inversion/deletion‐insertion rearrangement mediated by LINE‐1s. Our study shows that long‐read whole‐genome sequencing can serve as a clinical diagnostic tool for genetically unsolved dystrophinopathies.


Stochastic discriminative EM (sdEM) is an online-EM-type algorithm for discriminative training of probabilistic generative models belonging to the exponential family. In this work, we introduce and justify this algorithm as a stochastic natural gradient descent method, i.e. a method which accounts for the information geometry in the parameter space of the statistical model. We show how this learning algorithm can be used to train probabilistic generative models by minimizing different discriminative loss functions, such as the negative conditional log-likelihood and the Hinge loss. The resulting models trained by sdEM are always generative (i.e. they define a joint probability distribution) and, in consequence, allows to deal with missing data and latent variables in a principled way either when being learned or when making predictions. The performance of this method is il-lustrated by several text classification problems for which a multinomial naive Bayes and a latent Dirichlet allocation based classifier are learned using different discriminative loss functions.


This study was carried out to compare handedness and footedness in a sample of 50 footballers in Jos, Nigeria and also to determine if any significant relationship exists between handedness of the footballers and that of their first degree relatives. 25 self-professed right handed and 25 self professed left handed were randomly selected from various teams in Jos and compared on preference measures. Their ages range between 18 -35 years. All information was obtained using a standard questionnaire and the data generated analyzed using ANOVA. The results showed that 84% of right handed footballers were also right footed, 4% were left footed, and 12% were mixed footed with no particular foot preference. Of the 25 left handed footballers, 28% were right footed while 72% were left footed. This shows that the left handed footballers were significantly less lateralized than the right handed footballers. Statistical analysis showed that the observed difference between the two groups was not significant (P > 0.05). The results showed that the incidence of left handedness was significantly higher among the male siblings of the left handed footballers. This study also showed that lateral preference between right handedness and left handedness is not significant and there was possibility of genetic factor involvement in the occurrence of left handedness among males. Keywords : Handedness, footedness, footballers, Jos


Experiments were conducted to investigate the effects on health of pregnant female rats exposed to pesticides glyphosate and carbendazim. Glyphosate is used as herbicide and carbendazim as a fungicide; all are commercially available readily for various agricultural and domestic purposes. The hypothesis tested in this investigation is that pesticide exposure during pregnancy causes changes in biomarker responses like serum glucose level, total protein, total cholesterol, triglycerides, SGOT, SGPT, and billirubin level. Significant changes were observed in all above biomarker responses, when compared with the reference. Histopathology of skin and kidney of rat neonates showed marked damage. Degenerative changes and vacuolization with eroded capsule were observed in kidney sample and thinning of epidermis in skin sample was seen in pesticides exposed neonates of rats. The serum biochemistry and histopathological findings are valuable markers for observing the changes caused by pesticide exposure.


This paper presents a novel real-time crack identification method to determine the position and depth of a transverse open crack on a rotating shaft. Wireless accelerometer capable of being mounted directly on the shaft is employed to monitor acceleration at different points of the shaft in a rotating coordinate system. The vibration parameters obtained from the wireless sensors and Finite Element Model provide operational data to perform Modal Analysis with different mock crack positions and depths, and an unique relation between the vibration parameters and crack characteristics is developed by Neural Networks Method working as function approximator to predict the crack size and location on the shaft. The method was experimentally validated and results have shown that the crack detection sensitivity parameters depend on the acceleration signals at different points of the shaft.Copyright © 2009 by ASME


Genetic instability is a hallmark of aneuploidy in budding and fission yeast. All aneuploid yeast strains analyzed to date harbor elevated levels of Rad52-GFP foci, a sign of DNA damage. Here we investigate how continuously elevated levels of DNA damage affect aneuploid cells. We show that Rad52-GFP foci form during S phase, consistent with the observation that DNA replication initiation and elongation are impaired in some aneuploid yeast strains. We furthermore find that although DNA damage is low in aneuploid cells, it nevertheless has dramatic consequences. Many aneuploid yeast strains adapt to DNA damage and undergo mitosis despite the presence of unrepaired DNA leading to cell death. Wild-type cells exposed to low levels of DNA damage exhibit a similar phenotype, indicating that adaptation to low levels of unrepaired DNA is a general property of the cell's response to DNA damage. Our results indicate that by causing low levels of DNA damage, whole-chromosome aneuploidies lead to DNA breaks that persist into mitosis. Such breaks provide the substrate for translocations and deletions that are a hallmark of cancer.


Our concept of a virtual transaction layer (VTL) architecture allows to directly map transaction-level communication channels onto a synthesizable multiprocessor SoC implementation. The VTL is above the physical MPSoC communication architecture, acting as a hardware abstraction layer for both HW and SW components. TLM channels are represented by virtual channels which efficiently route transactions between SW and HW entities through the on-chip communication network with respect to quality-of-service and realtime requirements. The goal is to methodically simplify MPSoC design by systematic HW/SW interface abstraction, thus enabling early SW verification, rapid prototyping and fast exploration of critical design issues. With TRAIN, we present our implementation of such a VTL architecture for Virtex-II Pro and PowerPC and illustrate its efficiency by experimentation.


MatNEC is a series of tools that use the popular analysis program MatLab to serve as both a pre- and post-processor for a NEC-2 computational engine. The pre-processing features of MatNEC, which include interactive structure development and the generation of an ASCII-text input file, were described in detail previously. This article details the post-processing features of MatNEC, which include automatic data extraction from a standard NEC-2 output file, and subsequent visualization via a series of MatLab control figures.


This article aims to identify, through a literature review, the best intensity-modulated technique (IMRT)/volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) for the breast/chest wall (Br/CW) as a function of the treatment planning system (TPS) and present the institutional dosimetric data for the same. A PubMed search was conducted following intensity-modulated irradiation techniques (IMRT) presented in the study: field-in-field (FiF), tangential IMRT (t-IMRT), multi-field IMRT, tangential VMAT (t-VMAT), half-arc VMAT (HA-VMAT), and large arc VMAT (LA-VMAT). The literature with at least one arm VMAT is included in this study. A total of 370 articles were identified between 2010 and 2022, out of which 19 articles were found to be unique. These articles were classified in terms of the TPS used: Eclipse (9), Monaco (6), RayStation (2), Pinnacle (1), and one unidentified TPS. Based on the literature review, dosimetric attributes, and second cancer risk analysis (SCRA), t-IMRT was found to be the most preferable technique in Eclipse, Pinnacle, and RayStation TPS. However, for Monaco TPS, t-VMAT (approximately 30° tangential arc) offers better dose coverage with lower organ-at-risk (OAR) doses. In terms of OAR doses and SCRA, LA-VMAT (≥210°) and HA-VMAT (180°) are avoidable techniques in any TPS, and FiF should be preferred over these two techniques. In our present institution, which uses the Eclipse TPS, data for 300 patients treated with t-IMRT were collected. The data included beam angle, monitor unit [MU], target coverage (D95% and V105% [cc]), and analysis of the maximum (%), and mean dose (%) of the OAR. t-IMRT utilizes two medial and three lateral tangential beams placed at a spread of approximately 10° and 20°, respectively. The results showed a D95% of 96.3 ± 1.2% and a V105% of 4.9 ± 7.0 cc. The mean doses to the heart and ipsilateral lung were 10.1 ± 20.9% and 11.4 ± 10.2%, respectively. The mean MU was 1282.7 ± 453.4. Based on the findings, the most preferred intensity-modulated technique for Eclipse, Pinnacle, and RayStation is t-IMRT, while for Monaco, it is t-VMAT. The data from the Eclipse planning system demonstrate a satisfactory dosimetric outcome for t-IMRT. However, the use of VMAT techniques employing an arc angle between 180° and 210° or higher is strongly discouraged.


In this paper, we study the cooperative strategies of relay stations in wireless relay networks. In such networks, relay stations distributed across the network and centrally controlled by the base station can be exploited to form cooperative antenna arrays. We show that via relay station cooperation, the achievable downstream rate of mobile stations can be enhanced. Thus, we determine which relay stations should cooperate with one another and which mobile stations should receive data from the cooperative relays such that the performance of the entire network can be optimized. The utility maximization relay station cooperation problem is formulated with the goal of maximizing system capacity and balancing user traffic demand. We analyze the complexity of this problem and show that it can be decomposed into two NP-hard sub-problems. To tackle this problem, we propose two algorithms with different degrees of efficiency and complexity. The simulation results show that relay station cooperation can not only enhance the throughput of the network, but also improve fairness among users. More importantly, we find that proper relay station placement can further enhance the throughput gain.


In the Hebrew Bible book of Deuteronomy, writing and the creation of texts is a widely shared activity. The deity writes, Moses writes, the people write, the (future) king is to have writing done for him. Apparently, part of what it means to be Israel and enact this subjectivity is to write. Maybe this is not surprising, since writing in Hebrew, a vernacular language, by those who are not part of an imperial bureaucracy and not serving imperial objectives, was fairly new when Deuteronomy was being written and assembled into a book. As a new technology, writing offered various affordances to writers, and at least three of them were realized and put into action in Deuteronomy. Writing fixes and stabilizes ideas and knowledge. In Deuteronomy, it gave a particular form and vocabulary to the commands, statutes, and ordinances of YHW and Moses, as well as to where, when, and who were understood to be present when these ideas were spoken (according to the text). Writing stabilizes and normalizes those ideas when it becomes part of social action. And writing offers itself for use in mechanisms of assessment once what is written becomes a norm for behavior. The commands, statutes, and ordinances of Deuteronomy create a metaphorical "path" for Israel, indicating how all three of these affordances play a role in creating and defining Israel's subjectivity, which is offered to readers. When individuals understand themselves to be addressed by the book and work to put into practice what it says, they become Deuteronomy's governable subjects.


The elderly are more prone to mortality from COVID-19 infection, as they are susceptible to develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). For COVID-19 patients with ARDS caused by sepsis or septic shock, high-dose parenteral vitamin B12 appears to be a potential new treatment option. Vitamin B12 may play a substantial impact in COVID-19 morbidity and mortality reduction owing to its function in DNA synthesis, cellular control, improvement of anti-inflammatory immune responses, and decrease of pro-inflammatory responses. This review aims to assess the functional role of Vitamin B12 in COVID-19 in terms of its immunomodulatory effect, role in cellular and humoral immunity and maintaining the gut microbe homeostasis. From data inception to June 2021, accessible electronic databases were searched for research/review articles reporting on the function of Vitamin B12 in COVID-19. Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, WHO worldwide research on COVID-19 and the clinical trials registration "https://clinicaltrials.gov/" were used to conduct the systematic search by using keywords: "COVID-19 and "Vitamin B12". Also, based on these outcomes, it can be concluded that Vitamin B12 may have a potential role in preventing COVID-19 complications. Further, studies evaluating the role of Vitamin B12 in COVID-19 may open a new array of ideas on the optimal and the well-tolerated dose and timing of its administration in COVID-19 patients.


The spatial wave-function switched field effect transistor (SWSFET) has two or three low band-gap quantum well channels inside the substrate of the semiconductor. Applied voltage at the gate region of the SWSFET, switches the charge carrier concentration in different channels from source to drain region. The switching of electron wave function in different channels can be explained by the device model of the SWSFET. A circuit model of SWSFET is developed in BSIM 4.0.0. The design of three bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) using one three wells SWSFET is explained in this work. Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuit design using less number of SWSFET will reduce the device count in future analog and digital circuit design.


ABSTRACT In 2019, Bangladesh has grappled with a record-breaking surge in dengue fever, experiencing the highest number of dengue cases since the year 2000. Together, the intensification of dengue fever combined with a lack of dengue vaccines and appropriate medicines is expected to further the public and government's interests in appropriate and potential dengue vaccines to control the epidemic. We considered people's characteristics, dengue experience, and knowledge to assess their willingness-to-accept (WTA) and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a hypothetical dengue vaccine and ex-post treatment in Bangladesh (June–July 2019). This study implemented a contingent valuation (CV) method with 3,251 respondents in 10 different locations of Bangladesh. All respondents participated in a hypothetical dengue vaccine scenario consisting of 65% (vaccine A), 80% (vaccine B), and 95% (vaccine C) effectiveness levels with three doses of each vaccine and ex-post dengue treatment. Around 71.2% of respondents were willing to pay for at least one of the hypothetical vaccines: A, B, or C. The average WTPs of the three vaccines amounted to US$ 47.0, US$ 66.0, and US$ 89.0, which were defined as the total cost of the doses necessary to obtain immunity. In Bangladesh, there is a significant demand for low-priced dengue vaccines, which was proven by people's higher acceptance of vaccination practices. Though dengue vaccines are not yet available in Bangladesh, this study provides significant support that both the government and private sectors should work together to develop a reliable and affordable dengue vaccine.


Students in Malaysian Polytechnics must enrol in a second language course as one of the compulsory courses offered by the institution. There is no placement test for polytechnics students to enrol in English language class. Therefore, students with different level of proficiency are mixed together in a classroom to learn English language. Consequently, students encountered difficulties in learning the second language due to feeling of anxiety. Hence, the aim of this study was to determine the correlation between students' language learning anxiety and their language proficiency. This study involved of 96 semester three students from Civil Engineering Department, Politeknik Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin which have been chosen randomly. A 33 item questionnaire of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was analysed using SPSS 22. The study revealed that the students experienced moderate level of language learning anxiety. Correlations – Spearman Test was used to determine the relationship between students' second language learning anxiety and language proficiency. Three types of anxiety was tested which are Test Anxiety, Communication Apprehension and Fear of Negative Evaluation. Correlations – Spearman Test demonstrated that only Test Anxiety showed significant relationship with students' language proficiency. Several implications have been discussed to offer suggestions to the lecturers in dealing with students learning anxiety. Lecturers should be careful in correcting students' error to avoid students feel humiliated. This is because students tend to feel anxious whenever lecturers correct their mistakes in the classroom. A further research should be carried out by using two approaches; qualitative and quantitative and adds more variables such as attitude and motivation towards learning a second language.


The modern electric power grid is a complex interconnected network of independent physical and electronic devices that utilize myriad technologies for communication between other devices and with centralized control centers. These technologies may be compromised by malicious parties which may, in turn, lead to degraded performance or a failure of the communications infrastructure, ultimately resulting in loss of power grid transmission and/or distribution capabilities. This paper presents a Survivable Systems Analysis (SSA) of the North American power grid communications infrastructure. The SSA is used to identify general classes of inherent and emergent weaknesses within the North American electric power grid and propose appropriate means to mediate them. The analytic technique is applicable to any national or regional power grid, and can be generalized to most widearea, complex, real-time control infrastructures such as transportation systems, natural gas distribution, and oil pipeline transmission systems.


In the estimation of production functions, ignoring risk considerations can cause inefficient estimates, while biased parameter estimates arise in the presence of sample selection. In the presence of uncertainty and selection bias, the latter introduced by the endogeneity of qualitative characteristics of inputs in crop choice, we show that correcting for risk considerations (a la Just and Pope, 1978, 1979) but not selection bias, can produce incorrect inferences in terms of risk behavior. The arguments raised in this study have estimation and policy implications for stochastic production analysis applied to all goods whose qualitative characteristics can affect sample selection.


Magnetic-resonance data in undoped trans-${(\mathrm{CH})}_{x}$, including nuclear relaxation time (${T}_{1}$) measurements versus frequency and ESR linewidth in the temperature range 300\char22{}4.2 K, are reported and analyzed. The results are comprehensively explained in terms of highly-one-dimensional diffusive spins which can be trapped in the presence of impurities, or defects, in particular those connected to oxygen contamination. The average number of diffusive spins, as given by the diffusive-spin population at thermal equilibrium, is a function of temperature through two parameters: the trap-site concentration and the trapping energy. Trap-site concentrations of 5% and 25% have been obtained for samples sealed under vacuum and air-contaminated samples, respectively. The trapping energy is found to be distributed, from chain to chain, from a maximum value ${E}_{0}\ensuremath{\simeq}0.06$ eV, which likely corresponds to the chain nearest to ${\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ impurities located at the fibril surface, to about zero for chains far inside the fibril. As the temperature decreases two effects take place, as reflected by the spin-dynamics studies. First, due to the trapping effect, there are fewer and fewer spins in the diffusive state. Second, the diffusion coefficient decreases. Starting from the room-temperature value $\mathcal{D}\ensuremath{\sim}5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$/s, the decrease is slow at first then for $Tl100$ K seems to obey a power law $\ensuremath{\propto}{T}^{2}$, similarly to a theoretical result derived by Wada and Schrieffer in the case of Brownian motion of domain walls upon two phonon processes. The spin delocalization has been evaluated for the trapped state from ESR, and for the diffusive state from ${T}_{1}$. In both cases the spin density has been found to be delocalized over 10 to 17 CH units. All characteristics and properties determined from the spins in trans-${(\mathrm{CH})}_{x}$ are consistent with the soliton\char22{}bond-alternation defect\char22{}picture, provided that the trapping effect is taken into account.


This contribution addresses the question regarding the legal nature of a cryopreserved embryo. Such preservation is a relatively modern development in the medical field. Neither Tennessee (USA) law nor European law provides an acceptable explanation regarding its legal nature. It is argued herein that this is mainly due to the fact that rather unscientific language is applied. It is suggested that the using of concise legal terminology may contribute to a better understanding. The terms legal subject and object and legal subjectivity are well-known and have definite legal content. By drawing an analogy between the legal status of an infant and such embryos, the conclusion is reached that embryos are not legal subjects sui iuris but indeed share the legal subjectivity of their parents. Keywords : Embryo; legal subjectivity; legal subject; legal object; cryopreserved ova; person; property; legal status; foetus.


Our contribution puts forward an examination of public spaces as infrastructures of care. The eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the "social distancing" measures imposed by several governments around the world, transformed the very use and conceptualization of urban public spaces. In Athens, Greece, public space, which had already been in different ways at the forefront of multifarious crises since 2010, reemerged, once again, as a critical site of sociopolitical antagonism. Public spaces, such as squares, became central places where people could come together to share knowledge and emotions, collectively alleviate anxieties, and thus (re)negotiate their positionality in the city. Such formations and enactments of social connection, affectivity, and antagonism, reflect the entanglement between everyday life and the political, and also draw attention to the association of public space with practices of care for collective well-being during precarious times. During the ever-increasing securitization and policing of urban spaces in Athens, in which everyday life has come to be ever more permeated by precarity and uncertainty, public spaces have been reenacted as safe and more inclusive environments where people can be and act together. Our contribution also employs a video to render more intelligible the affective interconnectedness of sounds, images, bodies, materialities, and practices in public space. By attending to the affective dynamics of a public square in central Athens, we examine the entanglements between the sociopolitical production of public space and forms of care during the COVID-19 pandemic.


Background: Person-Centered Care (PCC) is a promising approach towards improved quality of care and cost containment within health systems. It has been evaluated in Sweden and England. This feasibility study examines initial PCC implementation in a rehabilitation hospital for children in Poland. Methods: The WE-CARE Roadmap of enablers was used to guide implementation of PCC for patients with moderate scoliosis. A multi-disciplinary team of professionals were trained in the PCC approach and the hospital Information Technology (IT) system was modified to enhance PCC data capture. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the nine health care professionals involved in the pilot study and three patients/parents receiving care. Transcribed data were analyzed via content analysis. Results: 51 patients and their families were treated via a PCC approach. High proportions of new PCC data fields were completed by the professionals. The professionals were able to implement the three core PCC routines and perceived benefits using the PCC approach. Patients and their families also perceived improved quality care. The WE-CARE framework enablers facilitated PCC implementation in this setting. Conclusions: This feasibility pilot study indicates that the Gothenburg PCC approach can be successfully transferred to a rehabilitation hospital in Poland with favorable perceptions of implementation by both professionals and patients/their families.


Many seed lots of beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) nuts are characterized by various levels of infection with pathogenic fungi, such as Fusarium, Rhizoctonia and Cylindrocarpon spp. Favourable conditions for fungal infection of beechnuts are created especially during their long-term provisional storage without earlier drying to the moisture content of 8–10%. Strongly infected seed lots are not suitable for long-term storage. During the pre-sowing treatment of seeds by stratification without medium, fungi develop under the moist conditions and infect many healthy seeds. To assess the quality of beechnuts, a vigour test has been developed. Seeds removed from the pericarp (4 replications of 50 nuts each) are placed in boxes between two layers of moist tissue paper and incubated at 25°C for 120 hours. After this period decayed seeds (mouldy seeds) are excluded, and the remained are subjected to embryo viability by the tetrazolium test. When the percentage of decaying seeds (including those with necroses) does not exceed 10–15%, such seed lot can be used for long-term storage. If the percentage exceeds 50%, the seed lot should be considered unsuitable both for storage and for pre-sowing treatment, because only a very small proportion of seeds will emerge in the nursery. Additional key words: Fagus sylvatica; seed quality, pathogenic fungi; seedling emergence Address: T. Tylkowski, Institute of Dendrology, Parkowa 5, 62-035 Kórnik, Poland e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com