trary, since I accept the validity of the literature refuting the more catastrophic forecasts of the 1960s and 1970s. However, there is a significant problem of soil degradation for African agriculture overall, and it is not a Malthusian one of population growth that clearly contributes to the problem. Simply stated, African agriculturalists are taking more nutrients out of their soils than they are returning, either with manure (plant or animal) or synthetic fertilizer. Nutrient depletion eventually results in structural damage to the soil. There are not even remotely enough "natural" nutrients to sustain cropping in Africa or elsewhere. Yields have risen dramatically all over the world outside of Africa for a variety of reasons, including increased fertilizer use. In Africa, lack of a transportation infrastructure has made fertilizer prohibitively expensive, often twice as much or more than the price at the port, and problems of foreign exchange and political instability have made its availability unreliable. Borjeson's survey of the literature on African agriculture and ecology is outstanding and allows him to define his own course of analysis by navigating between them. He quotes Abe Goldman, who argues that "what threatens the sustainability of African crops, agricultural practices, and productivity is more commonly the insufficient use of modern technology" (21). Borjeson is sympathetic to a more "ecological" approach to African agriculture, but he recognizes its limitations; if this book had been about selecting strategies for African agricultural development, he would likely have relied on a large component of modern technology. He draws heavily, in fact, on Ester Boserup's work on the forces creating agricultural intensification without necessarily endorsing them. Borjeson's discussion of competing theories of agricultural intensification is largely a prelude to his own empirical study, which involves geography, ecology, and historical inquiry also encompassing culture, politics, and economics—all in 174 pages. It is a narrative that is so rich and densely textured that it is impossible to summarize, and it merits careful reading. Indeed, both books are highly recommended. Thomas R. DeGregori University of Houston Houston, Texas


As human beings, they must have many problems in their married life which, without their awareness, causes a divorce. This condition occurs in the Acehnese, particularly in this research, in the people of Ulee Kareng Subdistrict, Banda Aceh. In practice, the divorcing process in Ulee Kareng often done outside the court so that it is contrary to the Law on Marriage in Indonesia; namely, Law No. 1/1974 and to the Compilation of the Islamic Law. Some factors which cause the incidence of divorce without the Court's Ruling are economic factor, social factor, local tradition, and religious factor. In the scope of the origin of Islamic law (figh), the status of divorce without the Religious Court's/Mahkamah Syariah's Ruling is not contrary to Figh so that it is considered valid, and any action caused by the divorce (a new marriage and the children who are born from the new marriage) is valid. On the other hand, in the context of the Islamic law in Indonesia, the Compilation of the Islamic Law (KHI), a divorce without the Religious Court's/Mahkamah Syariah's Ruling is invalid because it is not in accordance with the provision on marriage as it is stipulated in Article 115 and Article 142 of KHI. The legal consequence of a divorce without the Court's Ruling is that it can cause mudlarat (harmful) since there is no legal certainty, the wedlock between husband and wife is not broken off since the divorce is without the Court's Ruling; in other words, their marriage is still valid.


Background Knowing the prevalence of schistosomiasis is key to informing programmes to control and eliminate the disease as a public health problem. It is also important to understand the impact of infection on child growth and development in order to allocate appropriate resources and effort to the control of the disease. Methods We conducted a survey to estimate the prevalence of schistosomiasis among school aged children in villages along the Albert-Nile shore line in the district of Pakwach, North Western Uganda. A total of 914 children aged between 10–15 years were screened for Schistosoma mansoni using the POC-CCA and Kato Katz (KK) techniques. The infection intensities were assessed by POC-CCA and KK as well as CAA tests. The KK intensities were also correlated with POC-CCA and with CAA intensity. Anthropometric measurements were also taken and multivariate analysis was carried out to investigate their association with infection status. Results The prevalence of schistosomiasis using the POC-CCA diagnostic test was estimated at 85% (95% CI: 83–87), being highest amongst children living closer to the Albert-Nile shoreline. Visual scoring of the POC-CCA results was more sensitive than the Kato Katz test and was positively correlated with the quantified infection intensities by the CAA test. The majority of the children were underweight (BMI<18.5), and most notably, boys had significantly lower height for age (stunting) than girls in the same age range (p < 0.0001), but this was not directly associated with S. mansoni infection. Conclusion High prevalence of S. mansoni infection in the region calls for more frequent mass drug administration with praziquantel. We observed high levels of stunting which was not associated with schistosomiasis. There is a need for improved nutrition among the children in the area.


Hegel's idea of life turned out to be productive in terms of understanding the present and the future of such a modern civilization as Russia. Turning to this idea allows us to answer some of the questions that concern us today, including what life is in its spiritual dimension and what may be the projection of the spirit on the development of a civilization. Firstly, we need to rethink Hegel's teaching about life and its spiritual dimension to find out what we lack in the understanding of contemporary facts of life. Nature in the idea of life not only reaches its external manifestation, but also transcends its own limits. Hegel sees life in its unity with the spirit, which frees life from objectivity and subjectivity, raising it to "absolute universality". All living things, including man, are a continuous ascent to the spirit, going beyond the boundaries of the bosom of nature. Only in man does life reach its spiritual development and go from nature to the kingdom of the spirit. Secondly, the present and the future of Russian civilization can be considered through the prism of Hegel's understanding of the levels and contradictions of the spiritual organization of human life by conducting a certain thought experiment. Russia is at a civilizational crossroads today. It has not been able to reach the end of the stage of the development of the objective spirit as the actual embodiment of the moral idea and complete the construction of the civilization, including creating a civil society and the rule of law. The country is still in the grip of civilizational dilemmas, both in its present and in the anticipated future. It can be assumed that Russia's living space is deformed and lies between two pairs of opposing trends: between traditionalization and modernization in the present and between informatization and ecologization in the possible future.


Particle image velocimetry (PIV) has been heavily used to measure the displacement and flow velocity in fluid mechanics. However, applications of this method to determining soil displacement in geotechnical laboratory tests are rare. This paper aims to verify the applicability of this method in determining the displacement of sandy soil under different saturation conditions and soil grain sizes. The results showed that this method could effectively determine soil displacement with an accuracy of 0.13 mm. Furthermore, the degree of saturation of soil did not influence the PIV results whereas the homogeneity of soil, as indicated by grain size distribution, reduced the precision of the PIV method.


In recent years, top referred methods on object detection like R-CNN have implemented this task as a combination of proposal region generation and supervised classification on the proposed bounding boxes. Although this pipeline has achieved state-of-the-art results in multiple datasets, it has inherent limitations that make object detection a very complex and inefficient task in computational terms. Instead of considering this standard strategy, in this paper we enhance Detection Transformers (DETR) which tackles object detection as a set-prediction problem directly in an end-to-end fully differentiable pipeline without requiring priors. In particular, we incorporate Feature Pyramids (FP) to the DETR architecture and demonstrate the effectiveness of the resulting DETR-FP approach on improving logo detection results thanks to the improved detection of small logos. So, without requiring any domain specific prior to be fed to the model, DETR-FP obtains competitive results on the OpenLogo and MS-COCO datasets offering a relative improvement of up to 30%, when compared to a Faster R-CNN baseline which strongly depends on hand-designed priors.


The objective of goal recognition is to infer a goal that accounts for the observed behavior of an actor. In this work, we introduce and formalize the notion of active goal recognition in which we endow the observer with agency to sense, reason, and act in the world with a view to enhancing and possibly expediting goal recognition, and/or to intervening in goal achievement. To this end, we present an algorithm for active goal recognition and a landmark-based approach to the elimination of hypothesized goals which leverages automated planning. Experiments demonstrate the merits of providing agency to the observer, and the effectiveness of our approach in potentially enhancing the observational power of the observer, as well as expediting and in some cases making possible the recognition of the actor's goal.


Our understanding of the fundamental physical limits of information handling has developed along a very convoluted path. Most of the initially plausible physical conjectures have turned out to be wrong. A participant's personal view of these events as not a disciplined contribution to the history of science. The author does, however, list his own mistakes along with those of others.<<ETX>>


The paper presents two illustrative examples about the utilization of structural health information for rational decision making in everyday bridge management. It is suggested that Bayesian decision analysis could be useful even in sample cases to help efficiently use specific and generic information about structural condition. However, there are some challenges concerning practical application.


Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 46, 2005

2562

A number of studies have previously shown that polymorphisms in genes in DNA repair pathways, - including APE1 and XRCC1 (base excision repair), ERCC1 (nucleotide excision repair), XRCC3 (homologous recombinant repair), are associated with risk of several cancers. DNA repair is also likely important in the ultimate effects of chemotherapeutic agents on both normal and tumor cells, and polymorphisms may be associated with both toxicity and survival. Thus, identification of individuals carrying genetic polymorphisms responsible for reduced DNA repair capacity could have substantial therapeutic implications. We conducted an analysis to evaluate the role of the APE1 (Asp148Glu), XRCC1 (Arg399Gln), XRCC3 (Thr241Met) and ERCC1 (C8092A) polymorphisms in both toxicity and overall survival rates of 200 SWOG adult patients with AML. AML is the most common type of adult leukemia, with CR rates under 55% and long-term survival rates for patients over 60 years of approximately 10%. All 200 patients were over 60 years of age with de novo or secondary (23%) AML and had received standard induction regimens (cytarabine, 200mg/m2 per day x 7 and daunorubicin, 45 mg/m2 per day x 3) plus either placebo or G-CSF. Using logistic and proportional hazards regression models, associations between genotypes and toxicities as well as response to induction therapy and overall survival were evaluated. ERCC1 polymorphisms were associated with both lung (p=0.037) and metabolic (p=0.041) toxicities. However, there were no statistically significant associations between any of the genotypes and response to induction therapy or to overall survival (Hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI): APE1 , HR= 1.09 (CI, 0.76-1.58) for TT; XRCC1 , HR=1.48 (CI, 0.85-2.56) for GG; XRCC3 , HR= 0.77 (CI, 0.44-1.35) for TT). There was a suggestion of increased risk for ERCC1 TT homozygotes (HR = 2.30 (CI, 0.84-6.29), but numbers were small and the confidence interval wide. Polymorphisms in XRCC1 , XRCC3 , and ERCC1 were associated with differential survival times by genotype, but none of the differences were significant. These data indicate that DNA repair polymorphisms do not significantly impact overall survival for patients with adult AML, but ERCC1 may have an effect on toxicities. Because the analyses were conducted in the context of clinical trials, the patient population was homogeneous and received the same treatments. However, larger sample sizes may be needed to determine small effects of DNA repair polymorphisms, if they exist.


The Stokes paradox, that moving a disk at finite velocity through an infinite two-dimensional (2D) viscous fluid requires no force, leads, via the Einstein relation, to an infinite diffusion coefficient D for the disk. Saffman and Delbrück proposed that if the 2D fluid is a thin film immersed in a 3D viscous medium, then the film should behave as if it were of finite size, and D∼ -ln(aη'), where a is the inclusion radius and η' is the viscosity of the 3D medium. By studying the Brownian motion of islands in freely suspended smectic liquid crystal films a few molecular layers thick, we verify this dependence using no free parameters, and confirm the subsequent prediction by Hughes, Pailthorpe, and White of a crossover to 3D Stokes-like behavior when the diffusing island is sufficiently large.


Abstract The progress of medicine in the recent decades has strongly improved perinatal care, especially its somatic-related aspects. Pregnancy and childbirth have become much safer, but the mental strain and stress have remained the same. The models of motherhood and the number of children in a family have changed, giving rise to significant requirements concerning the quality of life of the offspring. These changes have brought about new psychological challenge for women and a team of psychiatrists and gynaecologists – obstetricians. The aim of this study is to look at the affective disorders affecting women during pregnancy and postpartum: the postpartum depression and so-called baby blues, which were both compiled in the form of a table in the final part of this work to illustrate the differences between these two mental disorders.


This study aimed to analyze the frequency components present in spontaneous rhythmic diameter changes in rat pial arterioles. Pial microcirculation was visualized by fluorescence microscopy. Rhythmic luminal variations were evaluated via computer-assisted methods. Spectral analysis was carried out on 30-min recordings under baseline conditions and after administration of acetylcholine (Ach), papaverine (Pap), Nω-nitro-L-arginine (L-NNA) prior to Ach, indomethacin (INDO), INDO prior to Ach, charybdotoxin and apamin, and charybdotoxin and apamin prior to Ach. Under baseline conditions all arteriolar orders showed 3 frequency components in the ranges of 0.0095-0.02, 0.02-0.06, and 0.06-0.2 Hz, another 2 in the ranges of 0.2-2.0 and 2.5-4.5 Hz, and another ultra-low-frequency component in the range of 0.001-0.0095 Hz. Ach caused a significant increase in the spectral density of the frequency components in the range of 0.001-0.2 Hz. Pap was able to slightly increase spectral density in the ranges of 0.001-0.0095 and 0.0095-0.02 Hz. L-NNA mainly attenuated arteriolar responses to Ach. INDO prior to Ach did not affect the endothelial response to Ach. Charybdotoxin and apamin, suggested as endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor inhibitors, reduced spectral density in the range of 0.001-0.0095 Hz before and after Ach administration. In conclusion, regulation of the blood flow distribution is due to several mechanisms, one of which is affected by charibdotoxin and apamin, modulating the vascular tone.


As one of the experimental payloads on Luojia-1 satellite, the nighttime imaging camera works with a high sensitivity to acquire nighttime light on earth. Solar stray light is a fatal problem for optical satellite works in the polar orbit, even for nighttime scene imaging, resulting in image saturation and light signal detection failure. To solve this problem, an analysis of the range of solar incident angles was conducted firstly. Based on the result, a special-shaped baffle was designed to avoid direct sunlight incidence. Moreover, the capability of stray light elimination of the lens was enhanced by an order of magnitude via optimizing the internal structure. An evaluation of secondary scattering stray lights into the camera from surrounding parts was performed based on a real satellite model. The results showed that the stray light elimination reaches a 10−10 order, meeting design requirements. Utilizing on-orbit images, the ability of satellites in illuminated areas to obtain artificial lights in dawn-dusk area was verified, proving the effectiveness of the stray light elimination design.


Aim: To find out predictive significance and impact on neurosurgical treatment in EDH patients Setting & duration of study: Neurosurgery unit, Mardan Medical Complex, Mardan, from Dec, 2017 to Dec, 2019 Sample size: 120 individuals with traumatic epidural hematoma were treated through surgical intervention. Result: Out of 120 cases, 74% were male, while 26% were female. Motor vehicle accidents caused 86% of the injuries, while falls and heavy hits caused 14% of the injuries. On well defined tomography imaging of the brain, 14% individuals exhibited the swirl sign. The epidural hematoma had a strong association with preoperative Glasgow score, preoperative mydriasis, time from injury to CT scan, and intraoperative hematoma volume. Conclusion: Epidural hematoma has an excellent outcome, if managed on time. The epidural hematoma may be linked with a cataclysmic result, with comparatively high rates of mortality and morbidity. Keywords: Epidural hematoma, Glasgow Outcome Scale


This report presents probabilistic graphical models that are based on imprecise probabilities using a comprehensive language. In particular, the discussion is focused on credal networks and discrete domains. It describes the building blocks of credal networks, algorithms to perform inference, and discusses on complexity results and related work. The goal is to present an easy-to-follow introduction to the topic.


A series of Au-loaded porous g-C3N4 nanosheets were prepared by anchoring Au nanoparticles onto g-C3N4 surfaces. The as-prepared samples were characterized via x-ray powder diffraction, Fourier transform infrared, transmission electron microscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, photoluminescence, and ultraviolet–visible measurements, respectively. The activities of Au/g-C3N4 composites were evaluated by the photocatalytic degradation of gaseous isopropyl (IPA) under visible-light illumination. The results indicated that 2% Au/g-C3N4 exhibited the highest photocatalytic efficiency of gaseous IPA oxidation (11.51 ppm min−1), which was 2.4 times higher than that of pure g-C3N4 nanosheets. The remarkable improved photodegradation efficiency derived from the promoted photoinduced carriers separation and larger specific surface area. For one thing, the ultrathin mesoporous g-C3N4 nanosheets provided abundant reactive sites and facilitated electron diffusion. For another, the localized surface plasmon resonance and electron–sink effect of Au particles significantly suppress the recombination of the photoinduced holes and electrons. Therefore, the deposition of Au nanoparticles with porous g-C3N4 nanosheets could be regarded as an efficient way to enhance the photocatalytic activity of gaseous IPA pollutant removal.


The authors' preface and the editor's foreword both avow that the ultimate objective of this paperback Short Textbook of Medicine is to provide the medical student in his clinical years with a vade mecum "intended to be read and reread," and not with a comprehensive text for reference. The authors have adhered to this concept so scrupulously that they have come up with a publication that seems to have much to offer not only to medical students but to advanced nursing students, nurses aspiring to the role of clinical nurse specialist, as well as to the new breed of physician assistants. Having perused this work in a variety of medical settings, I find that I must view it with mixed emotions. First, it should be clear that I have not been intimately involved in the education of medical students for some years; my efforts have been directed almost entirely to


This paper explores how to share and improve the integration of Learning by Doing into the academic curriculum in the context of two software engineering programmes from universities in China and the UK. In recent years the use of software has permeated almost every aspect of the economy of developed countries, even in sectors that traditionally did not engage the use of computers or software. As a discipline software engineering holds great potential for the establishment of a successful and rewarding career for the individual as well as for enhancing the competitiveness and progress of the country as a whole. In order to remain competitive we must educate sufficient numbers of students with the competencies required to be able to fill the positions needed in the economy. In addition, the software engineering workforce is increasingly becoming a global one. It is therefore of mutual benefit to understand and incorporate the best ideas of educating software engineers from all over the world. In China the reform of undergraduate engineering education has received much attention in recent years.  In order for students to not only recognize the sometimes complex concepts of software engineering but also to enable them to fully comprehend and thus be able to actively apply these students need to be given sufficient opportunity to practically explore and experiment with the concepts while they are studying. The importance of Learning by Doing has been recognized in China as well as in the West. For example, the Conceiving—Designing— Implementing—Operating (CDIO) framework, which emphasises the teaching of engineering fundamentals in the context of real‐world systems and products, is an integral part of the "Excellent Engineer Education Training Program" lead by the Chinese Ministry of Education.  This paper outlines and compares the efforts undertaken by two software engineering programmes, the Software Engineering programme at Shenyang Institute of Engineering in Shenyang, China and the BSc (Hons) Software Development for Business at Glasgow Caledonian University in Glasgow, UK. A comparison of both programmes of study shows that both programmes recognise the significance of Learning by Doing and have undertaken steps to integrate it into the curriculum. This paper makes recommendations for the integration of Learning by Doing into the curriculum. It also highlights the opportunities for collaboration in the process of Learning by Doing, the need for a new type of practice-based learning outcome and a framework to further formalise their integration into the curriculum. The findings are potentially applicable to other disciplines.


Installing a large deck onto a platform, such as a spar, using the floatover method is gaining popularity. This is because the operational cost is much lower than other methods of installation, such as modular lifts or a single piece installation by a heavy lift barge. Deck integration can be performed on land, at quay side and will not depend on a heavy lift barge. A new concept for a floatover vessel has been developed for operations in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa. In this application sea state conditions are essential factors that must be considered in the Gulf of Mexico, especially for transportation. In West Africa, swell conditions will govern floatover deck (FOD) installation. Based on these two different environmental conditions, Technip Offshore, Inc. developed the FOD installation concept using semi-submersible barge type vessels. A significant amount of development work and model testing has been done on this method in recent years on spar floatover. These tests have validated our numerical methods. Another test was conducted to investigate the feasibility of a deck float-over operation onto a compliant tower for a West Africa project. The project consists of a compliant tower supporting a 25,401 metric ton (28,000 s. ton) integrated deck. This paper will describe comparisons between model test data and numerical predictions of the compliant tower floatover operation.


The evaluation method of knowledgeable manufacturing system is proposed to solve the selection of system caused by the diversity of knowledge mesh. According to the structure and generation of knowledge mesh, the metrics, which are the satisfaction degree of function, the redundancy degree of function, the relative amount of knowledge, the redundancy degree of multiple-number, the order degree and the interested degree of user, are proposed from the quantitative and qualitative aspects. The properties of relative amount of knowledge and redundancy degree of multiple-number are supposed to reveal the operation law. And the redundancy degree of multiple-number can distinguish the same knowledge meshes whose multiple set is different. Order degree is used to measure the rationality of structure. Finally, the metrics are exemplified and shown effectiveness and feasibility.


The reaction of (E)-4,5-epoxy-(E)-2-heptenal with butylamine and glycine methyl ester produced brown macromolecular pigments, which showed fluorescent characteristics similar to lipofuscins. This polymerization reaction implies in the first step the formation of 1-alkyl-2-(1'-hydroxyalkyl)pyrroles (IV, VI). Compounds IV and VI have been isolated and characterized from the above reactions, and their structures confirmed with the synthesis of 2-(1'-hydroxyethyl)-1-methylpyrrole (V). Compounds IV-VI resulted very unstable and even diluted solutions of them polymerized with time. The first step was the production of a dipyrrymethane VIII, which evolved more stable dipyrrylmethenes IX and X by intramolecular dehydration. These dimers continued polymerizing to produce 16H-tripyrrin derivatives XI and XII, and, in the next step, hexahydroglobins XIII and XIV. All these compounds have been characterized by 1H NMR and/or gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry or mass spectrometry. Additional polymerization produced higher molecular weight polymers that were the responsible for the brown color and the fluorescence. The above results suggest that the fluorescence produced by reaction between some oxidized lipids and amino acids may be related to polymerization more than to the formation of single structures.


ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: After the publication of the Regulation (EU) No 1235/2010 and Directive 2010/84/EU on 31st of December 2010, the new legislation on pharmacovigilance came into operation for the better protection of public health through a further strengthened EU system for medicines safety. REMARKS: The main changes include the new definition of adverse reactions, Eudravigilance becoming the single receipt point for all pharmacovigilance information through the EU, the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee, and strengthened PASS/PAES, and requirement of a risk management planning for all new medicines. The possible increase in PA(E)SS may be a concern in terms of access to appropriate data and so obtaining necessary authorisations without delays. CONCLUSION: The new legislation will provide good vigilance practice standards with increased transparency of pharmacovigilance data. The communication will improve with the involvement of patient and public. With better access to real-life data, better protection of public health will be ensured. KEYWORDS: pharmacovigilance legislation, pharmacoepidemiology, observational study, regulations, European Directive


I propose that Hannah Arendt's hermeneutical philosophy can make important contributions to ongoing debates in the study of epistemic injustice. Building on Kristie Dotson's concern that Miranda Fricker's formulation of hermeneutical injustice is needlessly restrictive, I argue that Arendt's concept of 'thinking' challenges us to imagine a form of hermeneutical virtue that is rigorously self-critical. The self-destructive tendency of Arendtian thinking may help to guard against the specific danger that Dotson identifies - namely, that an overly rigid approach to hermeneutical injustice and hermeneutical virtue can itself generate situations of epistemic injustice. Despite important differences that emerge, it is productive to bring together Fricker's concept of hermeneutical virtue and Arendt's concept of self-undermining thinking in order to reveal the ways in which these two corrective strategies might enrich and pose important challenges for the other.


Social Stories are widely used to teach social and
communication skills or concepts to individuals on the autistic
spectrum. This paper presents a theoretical framework for using
Social Stories in conjunction with the creative arts. The paper argues
that Bandura's social learning theory can be used to explain the
mechanisms behind Social Stories and the way they influence
changes in response, while Gardner's multiple intelligences theory
can be used simultaneously to demonstrate the role of the creative
arts in learning. By using Social Stories with the creative arts for
individuals on the autistic spectrum, the aim is to meet individual
needs and help individuals with autism to develop in different areas
of learning and communication.


ObjectiveTo characterize integrity of fronto-striatal circuitry in chronic traumatic brain injury (TBI). BackgroundDue to both direct and indirect effects, TBI is hypothesized to affect frontal and striatal function. On the basis of elegant animal, lesion, and neuroimaging literatures, oculomotor testing can provide a useful tool for in vivo assessments of neurophysiologic function. The predictive saccade paradigm in oculomotor function is well established to provide assessment of this fronto-striatal circuit. MethodsSixty patients with a history of chronic TBI completed 2 specific tests of oculomotor function, including a test of reflexive visually guided saccades to assess basic oculomotor function and a predictive saccade test to assess procedural learning. ResultsTBI (mild and moderate/severe) was associated with a decrease in rates of procedural learning, with degree of impairment increasing with injury severity. This was observed as a decrease in the proportion of anticipatory saccades (primary measure of learning). ConclusionsThis abnormal oculomotor performance supports the hypothesis that TBI results in chronic impairment of frontal-striatal functions proportionally to injury severity and demonstrate that oculomotor testing is sensitive to all severities of closed-head injury.


Moving pebbles jointly in formations called snakes has been integrated into the Parberry's algorithm for solving the (N^2-1) puzzle sub-optimally in the on-line mode. Using snakes consisting of 2 pebbles that are relocated jointly towards their goal positions after their opportunistic formation yields a measurable reduction of the total number of pebble movements at low extra computational cost. As the N×N-puzzle represents a special case of the cooperative path finding problem (CPF) we also transferred the concept of snake-like movements into the context of two rule-based sub-optimal algorithms for CPF -- BIBOX and PUSH-and-SWAP (PUSH-and-ROTATE). The evaluation indicates significant benefit from employing snakes within the BIBOX algorithm and also increasing benefit in PUSH-and-SWAP being applied on bi-connected graphs with growing size of ears.


The $\mathit{SD}$-pair shell model is employed to study $^{126}\mathrm{Xe}$ and $^{128}\mathrm{Ba}$. The results show that the spectra and electromagnetic transition strengths can be nicely described in terms of a three-parameter Hamiltonian. In our previous paper, we got a conclusion that the $\mathit{SD}$-pair approximation improves with the number of $\mathit{SD}$ pairs $N$. This work shows that this conclusion can be extrapolated to the case with $N=5$.


Across Britain, universities and employers are being encouraged to form partnerships for the development and delivery of workforce development programmes. In the social care sector, discussion about workforce development programmes usually focuses on large employers such as local authorities and children's trusts, overlooking the charities that comprise a significant sector of the workforce.
This paper explores an alternative dispersed model of workforce development that encourages voluntary & community sector children's agencies to share learning and development among volunteers, employees and employers within a learning network created by two children's charities (National Council for Voluntary Child Care Organizations and Barnardo's) and a university (the UK's Open University).
This learning network – the Children's Workforce Learning Network (CWLN) – operates through communities of practice, distance learning courses and e-learning.
Employer and student feedback suggests that a learning network developed through a partnership between children's charities and a university can be effective, particularly in meeting the needs of 'hard to reach' learners who are not well served by existing provision. However, it also appears that e-learning may not yet be a solution to the barriers to learning often faced by isolated, part-time and volunteer workers.


This study contributes to using ecosystem services as a concept for the design and planning of green spaces, taking the City of Xi'an, Central China, as a case study. The aims of the study were to (a) develop and apply an approach for the rapid appraisal of ecosystem services provided by urban green space; (b) identify the relationships between park features and their ecosystem services; (c) assess park visitors' use habits, perception and appreciation of ecosystem services; (d) draw conclusions for the future design and management of urban green space in Xi'an and Chinese cities.
The methodology consisted of a combination of methods from the natural and social sciences including documentary analyses, visual inspection of satellite imagery, and a questionnaire survey. Furthermore, based on the assessment indicators which were derived from the land cover, vegetation structure and the user questionnaire, an integrated approach was developed using simple rating rules to assess the ecosystem services generated by green spaces of Xi'an.
The results of the field survey reveal that older parks usually show more variations in compositions of land cover and vegetation structure. Larger parks located within the third ring road have a higher percentage cover of lawn and the older parks located within the second ring road of Xi'an have more playgrounds.
Respondents show preferences for passive recreational activities. They think that shading, O2 release, recreational places, contact with nature and aesthetics are the most important services provided by green spaces. Overall, there is a request for more vegetation coverage, improved microclimate, cleanliness and scenic beauty. Moreover, the respondents clearly expressed the need for more shade, opportunities to watch nature, flowers and better management of green spaces.
The personal backgrounds and park features also influence the respondents' use, perception and demands. For example, the elders enjoy a broader range of activities in green spaces compared with the other age groups. Also, respondents prefer to do activities in the larger and newer parks and in the parks with 26-50% of multi-layered vegetation and evergreen species.
Generally, in Xi'an city, urban parks provided similar levels of regulation for microclimate and air quality and these regulation functions were predominantly considered to be high or medium high. The older parks with a small to medium size and located within the second ring road received higher assessments on regulation functions. However, all parks were considered to have a low value in recreational services regardless of park character.
Finally, six general strategies using ecosystem services as approaches can be proposed to advance the quality of green spaces: to maintain sufficient green spaces in the limited available lands; to maintain the number of vegetation structure types and plant species; to balance the provisions of regulating and recreational services; to incorporate citizens' considerations into the process of green space planning; and to develop a system for better management of green spaces.


Abstract : The Center for the Army Profession and Ethic Annual Survey of the Army Profession (CASAP FY16) was distributed to a statistically sufficient, random, stratified sample of Army Professionals (PFC - COL and GS 9 -15) in April 2016. Its findings contribute to shared understanding of the State of the Army Profession within the Army Culture of Trust -- informing senior Army leaders regarding the effectiveness of policies and practices intended to inspire and motivate Army professionals to live by and uphold the Army Ethic. Specifically, CASAP FY16 focused on trust at all levels within the Army Profession and with the American people; the extent of training on Army Profession Doctrine and the FY15/16 Americas Army Our Profession (AA OP) theme, Living the Army Ethic, Why and How We Serve; and awareness and acceptance of the Sergeant Major of the Army initiative, Not In My Squad. Results indicate that Soldiers and Army Civilians embrace their shared identity and express commitment to live by and uphold the Army Ethic. However, coaching, counseling, mentoring, and trust among components and communities of practice require continued attention and steady improvement. These findings will drive training and education products supporting the FY17/18 AA OP theme, One Army, Indivisible. Assessment of the State of the Army Profession assists Senor Army leaders in understanding the effects of policies and programs on the Army Culture of Trust and on the development of Trusted Army Professionals. As such, CASAP is a strategically important asset and a recurring proponent responsibility (AR 5-22).


Curtain grouting for dam foundation treatment is one of the most crucial work items in dam construction to secure the impermeability of the foundation rock. Some decades ago, the Grouting Intensity Number (GIN) Method developed in Europe has been frequently applied to relatively simple geotechnical structures. On the other hand, the Conventional Method, which requires phased mix proportion and water pressure tests through a sequence of the works, is as yet reliable for inhomogeneous geology. This paper presents the development of a modified curtain grouting method and its application to the Nam Ngiep 1 Hydropower Project in Lao PDR, which has an inhomogeneous geology of sedimentary rock with weak layers affected by fold movement. The method has been dubbed as "hybrid" because it garners both the economical superiority of the GIN Method in that it enables the use of a single mix proportion, and the technical superiority of the Conventional Method in that the individual design pressure in each stage is based on water pressure tests.


Background The need for new, effective, and affordable drugs for the treatment of primary and metastatic brain tumors remains unsatisfactory. Preclinical studies of chlonisol (2-[3-(2-chloroethyl)-3-nitrosoureido]-1,3-propanediol) showed promising results in the treatment of experimental intracranial tumors. Objectives To apply a meta-analytical approach to estimate the combined effect size of chlonisol on overall survival (OS) in rodents with brain tumor transplants. Search strategy Data for the meta-analysis were obtained from the laboratory's internal database from reports of preclinical studies of chlonisol. Selection criteria Eligible studies were parallel preclinical trials in rodents (mice, rats) with intracranially transplanted tumors. Chlonisol was compared with active control treatment (lomustine or temozolomide). All cytostatics were administered at the maximum tolerated dose (MTD). The duration of the studies was at least 90 days. The main outcome was OS-HR (hazard ratio). Data analysis We applied the inverse variance technique for the meta-analysis of HRs. In HR analysis we adopted a random-effect model. Results The analysis included seven trials with 132 rodents. Studies were conducted between 2016 and 2022. As a murine intracranial grafts we used Ehrlich's carcinoma, Sarcoma 180 and the HER2-positive mammary tumor derived from a female FVB/N HER-2/neu transgenic mouse. Glioma 35 was transplanted into rats. Compared with active control, oral or intraperitoneal administration of chlonisol at MTD of 20 mg/kg, significantly reduced the risk of death by 63% (HR=0.37; 95% CI: 0.24-0.56; P<0.00001) in animals with intracranial tumors. The direction in favor of chlonisol was stable across studies despite the use of different animals and transplants, the routes of administration of chlonisol, and control treatment. No significant heterogeneity was observed between the studies (Tau2 = 0.03; Chi2 = 6.52; df = 6; P = 0.33; I2 = 8%). Conclusion Compared with lomustine and temozolomide, chlonisol treatment in MTD provides an important advantage in OS in animals with intracranial tumors. Our results may serve as a basis for further study of chlonisol as a chemotherapy agent for primary and metastatic brain tumors.


Purpose The Spanish Activity Questionnaire in COPD (SAQ-COPD) is a short, simple physical activity (PA) measurement instrument for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In this study, we analyzed its validity and sensitivity to change. Methods Prospective scale validation study. An accelerometer (DynaPort MoveMonitor®) and the Yale Physical Activity Survey (YPAS) were used as reference standards. The analyses examined the criterion validity (Spearman correlations), internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha), factorial structure, test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC), sensitivity to change and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve to classify patients with low PA. Results A total of 300 patients diagnosed with COPD were analyzed (73% males, mean age 66 ± 8 years, 40.3% with severe airflow limitation). Cronbach's alpha was 0.60 and Spearman's correlations with accelerometer measurements of PA [number of steps, metabolic equivalents (MET), physical activity level (PAL)] and YPAS ranged from 0.37 to 0.53 (all p < 0.001). ICC was 0.69 (95% CI 0.61–0.74) and the area under the ROC curve to identify low PA was 0.65 (95% confidence interval: 0.58–0.73). Significant variations in SAQ-COPD scores were found between groups defined by YPAS for change. Conclusion The SAQ-COPD questionnaire is a valid instrument for classifying PA in patients with COPD. Correlations with other instruments provide criterion validity and also demonstrate good sensitivity to change.


In this paper, we proposed a new algorithm of the guidance line extraction for autonomous weeding robot based on infrared vision sensor in wet paddy. It is the critical process for guidance line extraction which finds the central point or area of rice row. In order to improve accuracy of the guidance line, we are trying to use the morphological characteristics of rice that the direction of rice leaves have convergence to central area of rice row. Using Hough transform, we were represented the curved leaves as a combination of segmented straight lines on binary image that has been skeletonized and segmented object. A slope of the guidance line was gotten as calculate the average slope of all segmented lines. An initial point of the guidance line was determined that is the maximum pixel value of the accumulated white columns of a binary image which is rotated the slope of guidance line in the opposite direction. We also have verified an accuracy of the proposed algorithm by experiments in the real wet paddy.


Research has started investigating the support of sustainability within systems and software engineering.Yet there are few workshops that explore the topic, and there is only one so far in requirements engineering: RE4SuSy. The International Workshops on Requirements Engineering for Sustainable Systems (RE4SuSy) have been held at REFSQ in 2012 and at RE in 2013. We want to continue this series back in Europe at RE'14. We plan an interactive workshop that engages with authors well before the deadlines and that produces new results already during the workshop and will promote them throughout the conference. This is also the take-off point for new collaborations between participants. I. MOTIVATION AND OBJECTIVES


A case is presented showing external resorption of a maxillary lateral incisor associated with a labially placed canine. The histological appearance and differential diagnosis is discussed, and the treatment described.


We present in this paper a robust numerical procedure that allows extracting the risk neutral probability density data from a set of quoted European option prices. The procedure does not use any specific evolution model for the underlying; the probability density is the solution of a fitting problem to which we add a penalty term to ensure smoothness of the result. We give some examples from FOREX markets.


RNA interference (RNAi) is a post‐transcriptional RNA degradation process, which has become a very useful tool in gene function studies and gene therapy applications. Long‐term cellular expression of small interfering RNA (siRNA) molecules required for many gene therapy applications can be achieved by lentiviral vectors (LVs). The two most commonly used promoters to drive the short hairpin RNA (shRNA) expression are the human U6 small nuclear promoter (U6) and the human H1 promoter (H1).


Recent work has indicated that superoxide is involved in the manganese-stimulated oxidation of NADPH by crude granule preparations of guinea pig neutrophils. The characteristics of a model manganese-requiring NADPH-oxidizing system that employs a defined O2-generator have now been compared to the original neutrophil-granule system. With respect to pH dependence, cyanide sensitivity, and reduced pyridine nucleotide specificity, the properties of the two systems are very similar. Additional information has been obtained concerning cation specificity and the kinetics of the metal-catalyzed NADPH oxidation. From the similarities between the properties of the model and neutrophil particle systems, we postulate that the manganese-dependent NADPH oxidation observed in the presence of neutrophil granules represents in large part of nonenzymatic free radical chain involving the oxidation of NADPH to NADP, with O2- as both the chain initiator and one of the propagating species. In this reaction, the neutrophil particles serve only as a source of O2-. Further, the same changes in kinetics (decrease in apparent Km for NADPH) observed previously when granules from phagocytizing rather than resting cells were employed could be mimicked by varying the rate of O2-generation by the model system. We conclude from these results that it is unnecessary to invoke a manganese-requiring enzyme as a component of the phagocytically stimulated respiratory system of the neutrophil.


Secret image sharing, a technology of secret communication, transmits secret images by distributing camouflage images (shares) to a group of participants, where each camouflage image contains a part of secret images. Secret images can be reconstructed under the conditions of a sufficient number of shares gathered and processed using a revealing algorithm. In 2009, Tsai et al. proposed a novel secret image sharing scheme using exclusive-or operators, principal component analysis (PCA), and feed-forward (FF) neural networks. The performance of their scheme was better than that of more recently proposed schemes, however, PCA and FF neural networks are time-consuming technologies and secret images cannot be completely restored. In this paper, we proposed an improved secret image sharing scheme to solve these problems. Experimental results show that camouflage image qualities of the proposed method were 54.26 dB on average, which is higher than that of Tsai et al.¡¦s scheme. Meanwhile, hiding capacity of the proposed mechanism was 1.125 times larger than that of Tsai et al.¡¦s scheme. Additionally, results also contribute to the literature by illustrating that original secret images can be reversed.


Chandra and XMM-Newton observations have confirmed the presence of large temperature gradients within the cores of many relaxed clusters of galaxies. Here we investigate whether thermal conduction operating over those gradients can supply sufficient heat to offset radiative cooling. Narayan & Medredev and Gruzinov have noted, using published results on cluster temperatures, that conduction within a factor of a few of the Spitzer rate is sufficient to balance bremsstrahlung cooling. From a detailed study of the temperature and emission measure profiles of Abell 2199 and Abell 1835, we find that the heat flux required by conduction is consistent with or below the rate predicted by Spitzer in the outer regions of the core. Conduction may therefore explain the lack of observational evidence for large mass cooling rates inferred from arguments based simply on radiative cooling, provided that conductivity is suppressed by no more than a factor of 3 below the full Spitzer rate. To stem cooling in the central 20 kpc however, would necessitate conductivity values of at least a factor of 2 larger than the Spitzer values, which we consider implausible. This may provide an explanation for the observed star formation and optical nebulosities in cluster cores. The solution is likely to be time-dependent. We briefly discuss the possible origin of the cooler gas and the implications for massive


People with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) have increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. This appears to be due to increased prevalence, insufficient identification and poor control of classical CVD risk factors including dyslipidaemia, hypertension, physical inactivity, obesity and insulin resistance; and the presence of additional risk factors, particularly systemic inflammation (and its direct or indirect effects on the vasculature), and many of the anti-rheumatic drugs that have significant vasoactive and cardio-metabolic effects, amongst others. Their combination may lead to acceleration of atherosclerosis, plaque instability and rupture and pro-thrombotic phenomena expressed clinically as the whole range of syndromes, from stable ischaemia to acute CVD events and death. Processes other than atherothrombosis, including myocarditis, vasculitis, microvascular dysfunction, and cardiac autonomic dysfunction are now receiving increasing attention. At the clinical level, the question remains as to how we can identify early on the high-risk patients and what primary prevention strategies we can implement to reduce their risk. Algorithms developed in the general population appear to underestimate risk in people with RA, and development of RA-specific CVD risk algorithms has proven very challenging predominantly due to massive heterogeneity of data in different RA populations. The effects of primary prevention strategies including lifestyle modification, pharmacological reduction of classical CVD risk factors (mainly lipids and blood pressure) and of inflammation (using antirheumatic medications) on cardiovascular outcomes have not been assessed through randomised controlled trials; available data are limited to small interventional studies assessing surrogates of CVD and to retrospective analysis of observational studies. On such a backdrop, a practical approach will be presented that can be used in many different clinical settings. Disclosure of Interest None declared


The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of emitter-detector separation distance and arterial depth in reflectance photoplethysmography (PPG), utilizing a homogenous pulsatile phantom that exhibits the broad optical absorbance and scattering properties of human tissue. The developed phantom comprised of embedded silicone arteries (outer diameter = 4 mm) that were arranged parallel to one another at nine increasing depths (3.2 mm to 24.4 mm). A pulsatile pump (Harvard Apparatus, MA, USA) circulated a blood imitating fluid through the vessels at the desired heart rate (60 bpm) and stroke volume (5 Lmin-1). The PPG sensor's emitter and detector were isolated on a translation bridge to provide a computer-controlled separation distance between them. Recordings were taken at each vessel depth for emitter-detector separation distances from 2 mm to 8 mm in 0.1 mm steps. The optimum separation distance between the emitter and detector for vessels between depths of 3.2 mm and 10.5 mm was between 3.7 and 4.3 mm, suggesting that the maximum penetration of IR (930 nm) light in a homogenous pulsatile phantom is no greater than 10.5 mm.


Critical aircraft assets are required to be available when needed, while exhibiting attributes of reliability, robustness and high confidence under a variety of flight regimes, and maintained on the basis of their current condition rather than on the basis of scheduled maintenance practices. New and innovative technologies must be developed and implemented to address these concerns. Condition based maintenance (CBM) requires that the health of critical components/systems be monitored and diagnostics/prognostic strategies be developed to detect and identify incipient failures and predict the failing component's remaining useful life (RUL). Typically, vibration and other key indicators on-board on aircraft are severely corrupted by noise thus curtailing our ability to accurately diagnose and predict failures. This paper introduces a novel blind deconvolution de-noising scheme that employs vibration model in the frequency domain and attempts to arrive at the true vibration signal through an iterative optimization process. Performance indexes are defined and data from a helicopter are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.


Abstract. In high alpine environments, climate change leads to an increase in rockfall destabilizations. They represent a threat for sports and tourism activities in high mountain and especially for mountaineering. This danger of rockfall is particularly important on the classic route up Mont Blanc (4,809 m a.s.l., Mont Blanc massif, France), on the west face of the Aiguille du Goûter (3,863 m a.s.l.), and is responsible for at least 29 % of the accidents that occur in this sector. Despite the intensity of the geomorphological processes at work and the vulnerability of climbers, few scientific studies have been carried out on the occurrence of rockfalls and their triggering factors in the Goûter area. Based on a multi-method monitoring system (5 seismic sensors, an automatic digital camera, 3 subsurface temperature sensors, a pyroelectric sensor, a high-resolution topographical survey, 2 weather stations and a rain gauge) the objective of our study is therefore to quantitatively document the occurrence of rockfalls and their triggering factors in the Grand Couloir du Goûter in order to better assess the vulnerability of mountaineers in this sector. Our results show that in the high-Alpine and permafrost-affected Aiguille du Goûter west face, rockfalls are mostly frequent during the snowmelt period which favors the action of thermo-mechanical processes linked to the infiltration of liquid water into the cracks of the rock. During periods when the couloir is completely clear of snow, rockfalls are 2.5 times less frequent, and the thermo-mechanical processes involved in the rockfall triggering are limited by the absence of moisture in the ground. These results also show that climbers' awareness of the risk of rockfalls remains limited. What's more, they do not adapt – or only slightly – their behavior to this risk, despite a particularly high accident rate. Important work on prevention and dissemination of the knowledge here acquired (newsletters, training for professionals and amateurs, awareness campaigns) among mountaineers is therefore still really necessary.


In this paper we propose a new agent communication language which separates agent dialogue from any specific agent reasoning technology. This language is intended to address a number of perceived shortcomings with the mentalistic model of agent communication on which the FIPA-ACL standard is founded. Our language expresses inter-agent dialogue through the use of agent protocols, and is intended to be independent of the technology used for message delivery. In this paper we specify the syntax of our communication language, together with an operation semantics which defines an implementation of the language. Our language specification is derived from process calculus and thus forms a sound basis for the verification of our agent protocols.


A new mealybug species, Chorizococcus pazoukii Moghaddam sp. n. is described on the root of an unknown plant from Iran. The new species is taxonomically near to the Iranian species Chorizococcus viticola Kaydan & Kozár but it is distinguished by the oral rim tubular ducts occur in two rows across of dorsum, two sizes of oral rim tubular ducts on both surfaces of the body and the presence of multilocular disc pores on the ventral abdominal segments VI-VIII + IX.


We consider mechanisms for producing a significant population of primordial black holes (PBHs) within string inspired single field models of inflation. The production of PBHs requires a large amplification in the power spectrum of curvature perturbations between scales associated with CMB and PBH formation. In principle, this can be achieved by temporarily breaking the slow-roll conditions during inflation. In this work, we identify two string setups that can realise this process. In string axion models of inflation, subleading non-perturbative effects can superimpose steep cliffs and gentle plateaus onto the leading axion potential. The cliffs can momentarily violate the slow-roll conditions, and the plateaus can lead to phases of ultra slow-roll inflation. We thus achieve a string motivated model which both matches the Planck observations at CMB scales and produces a population of light PBHs, which can account for an order one fraction of dark matter. In DBI models of inflation, a sharp increase in the speed of sound sourced by a steep downward step in the warp factor can drive the amplification. In this scenario, discovery of PBHs could indicate non-trivial dynamics in the bulk, such as flux-antibrane annihilation at the tip of a warped throat.


This book covers all the fifteen doctrines of the Christian Faith. As one reads it, they discover the wealth of the Bible as one uncovers the different verses which refer to each doctrine. It brings to the reader a fulfillment of spiritual understanding of the Bible and how to use it for everyday need. It is satisfying to open a chapter and study most of the scripture references which refer to that particular topic. May God bless you as you unearth the truth of the Holy Scriptures. This book will take the reader from creation, through the fall, God's plan of redeeming mankind; to the abundant life and onward to eternity. It is an eye opener to those who find it difficult to understand the Bible on their own. It is easy to read and to understand. This book asks questions at the end of each chapter which helps the reader to go over the chapter again so as to grasp the main theme of each chapter. Once you begin to read it, it is almost impossible to stop. The writer studied the doctrines for fifteen years and was convinced and persuaded by her students to put it down in writing so that others may benefit from the study. May each one of you live to understand why Christ had to die


In financial markets, volatility modeling has been a strategy widely used because it reflects uncertainties about changes in asset prices. Incorporating peculiarities of financial series, this study estimated the volatility for the intraday index of the Brazilian stock market (Ibovespa) using ARIMA-APARCH models in different time frequencies with the aid of the wavelet MODWT decomposition technique. This work proposes an analysis of the impacts of the frequency components on the behavior of the volatility of intraday returns using the series of details wavelet in different time horizons, in an atypical period in the global financial markets, generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical results suggest low unconditional volatility and strong signs of persistence in all analyzed frequencies. The asymmetry in volatility is evidenced in the higher frequencies, the leverage effect being present only in the series of details with variations of 15-120 min., which is corroborated with the results obtained with the reconstructed series. The evidenced behaviors have an impact on the elaboration of short-term investment strategies and risk management, since the positive and negative shocks, such as those given by the world pandemic of COVID-19, have different impacts on the volatility of returns in shorter periods. The information obtained can contribute to the analysis of future atypical events in the Brazilian stock market, supporting the decision-making of economic agents.


We analyze the consequences of imperfect output markets for the land-use decisions of semi-subsistence farmers in an agricultural frontier of southern Mexico. Our approach is motivated by previous applications of the agriculture household model establishing that the farm household´s model estabblishing that the farm household´s production and consumption decisions are analytically non-separable when markets are not used. Econometric results generated by a switching regression model suggest the importance of distinguishing the discrete choice of market participation from that of area cultivated.


Background Breast cancers lacking the estrogen receptor (ER) can be distinguished from other breast cancers on the basis of poor prognosis, high grade, distinctive histopathology and unique molecular signatures. These features further distinguish estrogen receptor negative (ER−) tumor subtypes, but targeted therapy is currently limited to tumors over-expressing the ErbB2 receptor. Methodology/Principal Findings To uncover the pathways against which future therapies could be developed we undertook a meta-analysis of gene expression from five large microarray datasets relative to ER status. A measure of association with ER status was calculated for every Affymetrix HG-U133A probe set and the pathways that distinguished ER− tumors were defined by testing for enrichment of biologically defined gene sets using Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA). As expected, the expression of the direct transcriptional targets of the ER was muted in ER− tumors, but the expression of genes indirectly regulated by estrogen was enhanced. We also observed enrichment of independent MYC- and E2F-driven transcriptional programs. We used a cell model of estrogen and MYC action to define the interaction between estrogen and MYC transcriptional activity in breast cancer. We found that the basal subgroup of ER− breast cancer showed a strong MYC transcriptional response that reproduced the indirect estrogen response seen in estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer cells. Conclusions/Significance Increased transcriptional activity of MYC is a characteristic of basal breast cancers where it mimics a large part of an estrogen response in the absence of the ER, suggesting a mechanism by which these cancers achieve estrogen-independence and providing a potential therapeutic target for this poor prognosis sub group of breast cancer.


A new method for revealing the diagnostic character of bowel sounds (BS) was applied on BS, recorded from controls and pre-confirmed patients with gastrointestinal dysfunction and de-noised using the WTST-NST filter. Experimental results showed that the technique is suitable in discriminating the intestinal pathologies using only the information provided by the BS. The non-invasiveness and the effectiveness of the method along with its fast and easy implementation provide a feasible tool for clinical evaluation of BS.


Decisions in the architecture, engineering and construction industry need to be supported by decision-making methods. Choosing By Advantages (CBA) offers methods that support the creation of transparency and collaborative environments in which to make decisions. This paper provides an example of how CBA can be of support when choosing materials, in this case ceiling tiles, in a commercial-building interior-design project considering global supply-chain issues. The results show that CBA is helpful in integrating multiple stakeholders' perspectives, in identifying relevant sustainability factors based on the decision context, in making transparent trade-offs between advantages of the alternatives, in providing documentation for the decision rationale, and in separating "value" and cost. Materials that are judged to be more sustainable than others in one geographic location, may be judged less sustainable than others elsewhere.


Photoemission studies of oxidized overlayer systems reveal shifts in overlayer core-levels to lower binding energies. Thin overlayers of Ce, ~5–15 A, were deposited on Al, Cu and Ta. About 1 monolayer K was deposited on Ta. The systems were subsequently exposed to oxygen. A common feature for these samples is the formation of a thin substrate oxide layer for relatively light doses of oxygen. The core-level shifts are explained by lack of Fermi-level equilibration between overlayer and substrate due to insufficient charge transfer. Core levels are therefore referenced to the local vacuum-level, and thus are sensitive to work-function changes.


Although there is evidence of some measure of clinical benefit as well as immunologic change during the early phase of immunotherapy, a sustained clinical response is only possible with prolonged therapy. Immunotherapy has to be administered for about 3 to 5 years for such sustained clinical efficacy. This study aimed at investigating the dynamics of IgE and IgG4 antibodies after more than 5 years of immunotherapy, to examine the statistical correlation between these antibodies and symptom scores. Our study demonstrated that the allergen-specific IgE antibody level significantly decreases and the IgG4 antibody level significantly increases following immunotherapy. However, the percent decrease in IgE antibodies did not correlate with the percent decrease in symptom scores. On the other hand, the percent increase in IgG4 antibodies correlated with the percent decrease in symptom scores. We infer that an elevation of IgG4 antibodies is not simply an epiphenomenon unrelated to the underlying working mechanism of clinically successful immunotherapy, but probably makes an active contribution to symptom relief.


This project has focused on the development of a complex assembly of mutually corresponding technological units: - a low temperature thermal process for the desorption of PCBs and other organics from soils and other contaminated solid wastes; - the extraction of PCBs from soils by an ecological friendly aqueous solution of selected surfactants; - the chemical decontamination of PCBs in oils and in oil-in-water emulsions by metallic sodium and potassium in polyethylene glycols in the presence of aluminum powder; - the modified alkaline catalyzed chemical decontamination of PCBs in oils and in oil-in-water dispersions in a solid-state reactor (in a film of reacting emulsion on solid carriers); and - the breakdown of PCBs in aqueous emulsions with activated hydroxyl radicals enhanced by UV radiation The processes operate in a closed loop configuration with effluents circulating among the process unit. These technologies have been verified at laboratory and pilot-plant scales.


In this paper we study the question of debt sustainability from a risk management perspective. The debt accumulation equation for any country involves variables that are stochastic and closely intertwined. When these aspects are taken into consideration the notion of debt sustainability is expanded to studying the stochastic properties of the debt dynamics. We illustrate the methodology by studying the Brazilian case. We find that even though the debt could be sustainable in the absence of risk, there are paths in which it is clearly unsustainable. Furthermore, we show that properties of the debt dynamics are closely related to the spreads on sovereign dollar denominated debt.


Adiabatic logic is an alternative architecture design style to reduce the power consumption of digital cores by using AC power supply instead of DC ones. The energy saving of the digital gates is strongly related to the efficiency of adiabatic AC power supplies. In this paper, we propose a resonant reversible power-clock supply design with four different phases. The resonance deviation between the four power-clock supplies is synchronized thanks to 12 control signals (3 controls signals per power-clock supply).We derive the energy dissipation of a 4-stage PFAL pipeline circuit supplied with the proposed resonant powerclock supply, which can dissipate up to 2.9 times less energy than a non-adiabatic CMOS pipeline.


A critical review of the methods for producing pyrolysis waste oils was carried out, the possibilities and limitations of each approach were discussed. Liquid pyrolysis products (pyrolysis oils) are promising source of valuable chemical compounds, and can be also used as a fuel. A reliable analysis of pyrolysis oils is necessary to study their component composition, basic characteristics and to select the most suitable methods for the extraction of the necessary compounds. It is known that the results of GC-MS analysis of liquid pyrolysis products are usually ambiguous: there are problems of peaks overlapping and incorrect interpretation of the data, due to the complexity of the matrix and the multicomponent composition of the object. The paper presents data on the chemical composition of pyrolysis oils obtained by elemental analysis, IR spectroscopy, NMR spectrometry, GC-MS, GC-GC/MS. Based on the presented results, pyrolysis oil usually contains aromatic compounds, water-soluble substances and hydrocarbons. It was found out that there are conflicting data on the chemical composition of the pyrolysis oils of waste tires in the scientific literature. It is proposed to carry out sequential extraction sample preparation of pyrolysis mixtures to increase the reliability and accuracy of the componential and quantitative composition of the GC-MS method. Obviously, a reliable analysis of complex pyrolysis mixtures without preliminary targeted sample preparation seems unlikely.


In a series of thirty-seven patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 50% showed a defect of phagocytosis of Candida albicans by synovial fluid polymorphonuclear leucocytes (SF-PMN) and 40% yielded a defect in peripheral blood (PB-PMN). There was a positive correlation between the defective phagocytosis of SF-PMN and PB-PMN suggesting that defective PB-PMN migrate into the synovial fluid. The defect was associated with the lack of a functional C3b receptor on SF-PMN in 64% of patients and on PB-PMN in 40% of patients. SF-PMN or PB-PMN contained intracellular IgG, IgM and C3 in some patients but the presence of these factors could not be correlated with defective phagocytosis of either cell population. There was no correlation between phagocytosis and the differential agglutination test (DAT) ratio of either serum or synovial fluid. The killing of Candida by SF-PMN and BP-PMN was normal. The results could explain the increased susceptibility to joint infection of patients with RA.


In this paper, we introduce a contact-free moving-magnet type of positioner that uses magnetic levitation to eliminate friction, the major limiting factor to high resolution on the micromanufacturing level. The promising magnetic structure consists of permanent magnets mounted on the stage and air-core solenoids, with little uncertainty, fixed on the stator. Since magnetically levitated systems are inherently unstable, the design concept focuses on stability. Combining the above elements with the repulsive force property, we suggest a novel six degrees-of-freedom Maglev positioner stabilized with minimum sensory feedback in space and have formulated the dynamic equation of the system by the linear perturbation technique. The chief design parameters are optimized to maximize the stable boundary. We present test results to verify the dynamic characteristics.


Remediation of Leaking Underground Storage Tanks (LUST) is estimated to cost more than $41 billion in the United States. As of May 1992, 1.5 million Underground Storage Tanks were registered in USA. By September 1992, 184,000 confirmed releases (leaks) were reported in USA. Due to such a vast impact on the environment due to leaking USTS, United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) published final UST regulations in the Federal Register on September 23,1988 (40CFR Part 280) which affected almost every commercial underground storage tank (UST). In a rush to comply with UST regulations, it is important that sufficient attention has been paid to engineering aspects of the work. Due to wide array of UST leak prevention and detection products available, selection of appropriate instrumentation can be time consuming. Most states have taken federal government standards on USTs and incorporated them as state regulations with their state specific modifications depending on their local geological conditions and environmental priorities. However, it is important to find out that state`s UST program has been approved by USEPA. This paper consists of discussion of issues based on the author`s UST project related experience from current and previous employment. Following are the major UST related regulatorymore » topics discussed in this paper: Specifications;Hiring a contractor; Piping Selection and Installation; UST Selection and Installation; Leak Detection System Environmental Sampling.« less


Aim: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of hypersensitivity in molar-incisor hypomineralization (MIH)-affected molars through a census carried out in 8-year-old schoolchildren. Methods: Examinations were conducted by a calibrated examiner, using the Nyvad criteria for caries diagnosis and a new criterion for MIH assessment. For hypersensitivity assessment, all MIH-affected molars were included. Nonaffected molars from the same child were used as controls. Air blast reaction was measured using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the Schiff Cold Air Sensitivity Scale (SCASS) scale, while tactile hypersensitivity was scored using VAS only. Statistical analysis was performed using the Kruskal-Wallis test followed by Dunn's multiple comparisons test for quantitative data. χ2 was used for the comparison of categorical data. Results: In total, 631 children were assessed, of whom 102 had MIH-affected molars (16.1%). Of these, 51.7 and 8.7% presented enamel and dentin carious lesions, respectively. Regarding the number of teeth, 239 molars were MIH affected (59.8%), with 188 (78.7%) being classified as mild (opacities only), 20 (8.4%) as moderate (posteruptive enamel breakdown), and 31 (13%) as severe (posteruptive breakdown involving dentin/atypical restorations). Hypersensitivity was recorded in only one control molar, while the prevalence of hypersensitivity in MIH-affected molars was 34.7%, being of low intensity and more prevalent in moderate (55%) and severe cases (51.6 %) than in mild cases (29.8%, p = 0.008). An association between hypersensitivity and the presence of mild and moderate cases was observed. Although the same association was observed for severe cases, it was not considered a reliable information as 90% of the MIH-affected molars with posteruptive breakdown involving dentin were affected by carious lesions. It is known that dental caries is a confounding factor for the presence of hypersensitivity. Conclusions: Hypersensitivity was significantly higher in MIH-affected molars than in nonaffected molars, being associated with MIH teeth presenting opacities and posteruptive enamel breakdown.


The physiology of biological cells evolved under physical and chemical constraints, such as mass conservation across the network of biochemical reactions, nonlinear reaction kinetics, and limits on cell density. For unicellular organisms, the fitness that governs this evolution is mainly determined by the balanced cellular growth rate. We previously introduced growth balance analysis (GBA) as a general framework to model and analyze such nonlinear systems, revealing important analytical properties of optimal balanced growth states. It has been shown that at optimality, only a minimal subset of reactions can have nonzero flux. However, no general principles have been established to determine if a specific reaction is active at optimality. Here, we extend the GBA framework to study the optimality of each biochemical reaction, and we identify the mathematical conditions determining whether a reaction is active or not at optimal growth in a given environment. We reformulate the mathematical problem in terms of a minimal number of dimensionless variables and use the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions to identify fundamental principles of optimal resource allocation in GBA models of any size and complexity. Our approach helps to identify from first principles the economic values of biochemical reactions, expressed as marginal changes in cellular growth rate; these economic values can be related to the costs and benefits of proteome allocation into the reactions' catalysts. Our formulation also generalizes the concepts of Metabolic Control Analysis to models of growing cells. We show how the extended GBA framework unifies and extends previous approaches of cellular modeling and analysis, putting forward a program to analyze cellular growth through the stationarity conditions of a Lagrangian function. GBA thereby provides a general theoretical toolbox for the study of fundamental mathematical properties of balanced cellular growth.


On the basis of introducing the status quo of land use in Luan County, the existing problems in the process of land use are analyzed as follows. First, the farmland is the majority, the area of garden land and forests is small and the farmland quality degenerates; second, the scale of construction use land is large, but me intensification level is low; third, reserve resources are scanty and the pressure of protecting farmland mounts. This paper discusses the orientation of Luan County in provincial and municipal land use strategy and geographical conditions of Luan County, analyzes the future development status of Luan County, and proposes that we should take guaranteeing land use strategy realization of Hebei Province and Tangshan City as important condition of land use strategy selection of Luan County. It points out that we should implement land use strategy of Luan County from the following aspects: first, strictly protect farmland, especially the basic farmland; second, focus on economic development and adopt intensive and high-efficiency land use pattern; third, pay equal attention to ecological protection and construction, and adopt many means to improve ecological environment.


Ambulatory surgery seeks to offer improved patient outcomes and cost-containment benefits. Three organisational models have evolved: hospital-associated ambulatory surgery programmes, freestanding ambulatory surgery centres (ASC) and office-based surgery (OBS).


OBJECTIVE: To examine whether the association between childhood IQ and later mortality risk was explained by early developmental advantages or mediated by adult sociodemographic factors and health behaviors. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: Participants were 10 620 men and women from the 1958 British Birth Cohort Study whose IQ was assessed at the age of 11 years and who were followed up to age 46. Childhood covariates included birth weight, childhood height at 11 years of age, problem behaviors, father's occupational class, parents' interest in child's education, family size, and family difficulties. Adult risk factors were assessed at ages 23, 33, and 42 years, and they included education, occupational class, marital status, smoking, BMI, alcohol use, and psychosomatic symptoms. RESULTS: Between ages 23 and 46 years, 192 participants died. Higher childhood IQ was related to lower mortality risk (standardized odds ratio [OR]: 0.80 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.69–0.93]) with no gender differences (OR: 0.81 [95% CI: 0.67–0.98] [men] and 0.79 [95% CI: 0.63–0.98] [women]). Adjusting for parents' interest in child's education attenuated the IQ-mortality association by 15% to 20%, and adult education and psychosomatic symptoms both attenuated the association by 25%. Other covariates were less influential. CONCLUSIONS: In a cohort of British men and women, the most important explanatory factors for the lower mortality rate among individuals with high IQ were parental interest in child's education, high adult educational level, and low prevalence of psychosomatic symptoms. However, common sociodemographic risk factors and health behaviors may not be sufficient to explain the association between IQ and early mortality completely.


Purpose: To investigate the correlation between aqueous flare and macular microvascular status assessed by optic coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in diabetes mellitus. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 52 diabetic patients with nonproliferative retinopathy, 44 diabetic patients without retinopathy, and 20 nondiabetic age-matched controls. Spectral domain OCT, OCTA, and laser flare-cell meter were performed. Results: Compared to eyes without retinopathy, eyes with retinopathy had higher flare intensity (p = 0.024), enlarged capillary nonperfusion area (p < 0.001), and enlarged foveal avascular zone (p < 0.001). There was a significant correlation between flare intensity and capillary nonperfusion areas (p < 0.001, r = 0.511) and superficial capillary density (p = 0.005, r = –0.388) in diabetic eyes with retinopathy. Conclusion: The results demonstrated a positive correlation between aqueous flare levels, an indicator of intraocular inflammation, and microvascular damage demonstrated by OCTA in the early stages of diabetic retinopathy (DR). This finding supports the role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of DR.


Introduction: Radiological imaging has a key role in multidrug-resistant (MDR) pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) screening and diagnosis. However, new cases of MDR pulmonary TB are often overlooked; therefore, its transmission might continue before its diagnosis. The most widely used and affordable radiological modality is a chest radiograph. This study aims to describe the characteristics of primary and secondary MDR pulmonary TB chest x-ray findings for differential diagnosis.
Methods: This study was an analytic observational study with a retrospective design. Researchers evaluated medical record data of primary and secondary MDR pulmonary TB patients who underwent chest x-ray examinations. The patient's chest x-rays were then evaluated. Evaluated variables were lung, pleural, and mediastinal abnormalities and severity category.
Results: The most common chest x-ray finding in primary MDR pulmonary TB was consolidation (96.2%), which was mostly unilateral (52.0%), accompanied by cavities (71.2%), most of which were multiple (83.8%) with a moderate category of severity. The most common chest x-ray finding in secondary MDR pulmonary TB was consolidation (100%), which was mostly bilateral (60.4%), accompanied by cavities (80.2%), most of which were multiple (90.1%) with severe category of severity. Pleural thickening (47.5%) was also found.
Conclusion: There was a significant difference between primary and secondary MDR pulmonary TB in terms of mild severity category, and pleural thickening. Mild severity category is mostly found in primary MDR-TB and pleural thickening is mostly found in secondary TB.


The multi-level computing architecture (MLCA) is a novel system-on-chip architecture for embedded systems designed to exploit task-level and instruction-level parallelism in multimedia applications. The MLCA provides a unique two-level programming model that simplifies the development of embedded applications. To cope with increasing intra-system communication delays, we introduce a distributed memory version of the MLCA where separate storage is used for global and local application data. Global data is stored on multiple on-chip scratch-pad memories (SPMs) with non-uniform-memory access (NUMA) latencies, while local data is stored on PU-private memories. In such designs, one of the key factors affecting application performance is the locality of access to global data. We introduce programming constructs and run-time support to dynamically manage data stored in the SPMs and to influence run-time task scheduling. Collectively, our techniques improve performance by 6%-40%, compared to simple static memory management and scheduling approaches


In our most recent issue (November 2010), one thing stood out: The list of referees whom we thanked. Not only were their numbers great (some 1500), they were a veritable "who's who" of our profession, were more international and of more varied perspectives than ever before, and—we have to remind ourselves—none of them received a dime for their services. Almost all of them wrote thorough, careful, and helpful reviews and thus served the community of scholars selflessly. We are often drawn into longer correspondence with them, to explore further points they have raised or to discuss disagreement among referees, and we are all repeatedly impressed by their seriousness, dedication, and openness to contrary views. We also hear again and again from authors—yes, even ones whose articles we turn down—how greatly they have been helped by the referees' comments. We all owe these reviewers a large debt of gratitude; their work is at the core of our scholarly and scientific community.


The regulation or self-regulation of online media is one of the key dilemmas of contemporary digital media and policy environment. This includes the new digital intermediary gatekeepers such as social media. The private rules of intermediaries, such as their 'terms of service' and content policies, importantly define their functioning and are sometimes thought of as self-regulatory mechanisms. Online intermediaries are increasingly being called upon to engage in codes of conduct or decisions about content. We focus on Twitter as one of the largest and most relevant new gatekeepers because of its use as source of news. The terms and other documents of Twitter are analysed as tools of self-regulation, and as the context within which the individual users and mass media (must) function in today's digital environment. We also look at how Twitter has applied this framework in two high profile cases.


Methylation AFLP® is a novel PCR-based method to detect methylation of restriction sites randomly over the genome. In framework of the AFLP®-related technology development, a modification of the AFLP method was developed, called the methylation AFLP® method. Several features of the methylation AFLP as a novel PCR-based method to detect methylation of restriction sites randomly over the genome, are described. It is illustrated how the technique can be used 1) to estimate the extent of CpG and CpNpG methylation for maize, 2) to demonstrate that most moderately to highly repetitive DNA sequences in maize are strongly methylated and 3) to generate AFLP fragments originally bounded by a methylated restriction site, in order to study hypermethylated portions of the genome. In support of application projects, the inheritance of AFLP markers, whether or not bounded by a methylated restriction site, relative to already known RFLP markers and isozymes, was investigated in two segregating populations of maize and outlined. To my knowledge, this is the first detailed report of mapping C-methylation and its stable transmission from parent to offspring. The efficiency of generating high-density linkage maps using the AFLP technology was evaluated in terms of multiplex ( M ), effective multiplex ( EM ) and effective mapped multiplex ( EMM ) ratio. Both genetic maps of maize could be aligned on the basis of common AFLP markers and the allele-specificity of AFLP markers across both populations could be investigated. AFLP markers generated by CNG methylation sensitive and CNG methylation insensitive enzyme combinations and AFLP markers collected from hypomethylated and hypermethylated regions were compared for their genomic distribution and their position relative to the centromere. Aiming at further characterization of AFLP data as tool for the breeder, AFLP markers associated with different enzyme combinations and originating from different methylated genomic regions were compared for their polymorphism information content (PIC), marker index (MI) and patterns of genetic diversity among a representative sample of maize inbred lines. Furthermore, the effect of reducing marker information redundancy, the choice of enzyme combination and the bootstrap sample size on the bootstrap sample variance of marker data in the estimation of genetic similarities among inbred lines, was determined. In contrast with the chapters mentioned so far, where the application and evaluation of the AFLP and the methylation AFLP method have been restricted to general questions encountered in many crop species, the last chapter addresses a more maize-specific issue. Identification of genetic factors contributing to hybrid performance and/or heterosis and finding a suitable method that could predict hybrid performance and/or heterosis with some accuracy before field evaluation of hybrid performance and heterosis for grain yield are of particular interest in maize breeding. A novel approach towards the prediction of heterosis and hybrid performance is presented here. This approach is based on 1) the assessment of associations between markers and hybrid performance across a number of hybrids and 2) the assumption that the joint effect of genetic factors (loci) determined this way can be obtained by addition. Since the map position of the selected markers is known, putative QTL affecting the trait of interest are identified.


Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is not only an objective measure of habitual physical activity, but also a useful diagnostic and prognostic health indicator for patients in clinical settings. Although compelling evidence has shown that CRF is a strong and independent predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality, the importance of CRF is often overlooked from a clinical perspective compared with other risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, smoking, or obesity. Several prospective studies indicate that CRF is at least as important as the traditional risk factors, and is often more strongly associated with mortality. In addition, previous studies report that CRF appears to attenuate the increased risk of death associated with obesity. Most individuals can improve their CRF through regular physical activity. Several biological mechanisms suggest that CRF improves insulin sensitivity, blood lipid profile, body composition, inflammation, and blood pressure. Based on the evidence, health professionals should encourage their patients to improve CRF through regular physical activity.


Aromatic monomers with various functional groups were utilized in horseradish peroxidase-catalyzed polymerization reactions with metal ions Cu(II), Ni(II), and Fe(III) as imprinting templates. The approach described combines molecular imprinting with enzymatic free radical coupling. Selectivity in metal ion affinity between the various polymer products was assessed and found to depend on the metal used in the imprinting process using aniline, tyramine, and phenol as monomers. Selectivity in binding metals was found when polymers imprinted with copper, nickel, or iron were screened against the three metals, with preference for the metal used in the imprinting step. A model for the structural features of the putative imprinted polymers is proposed based on electron paramagnetic resonance, NMR, and IR analysis. Specific potential benefits to this imprinting method include reactivity with a wide range of aromatic monomers to provide more diverse options for molecular recognition with the target analyte and thus polymer products with higher selectivity, mild reaction conditions for the enzyme polymerization step to enable imprinting against labile substrates, imprinted polymeric products that contain conjugated backbones that could be suitable for electronics-based biosensor applications, and a potential for combinatorial selection to further enhance specificity.


The compensation for costs of experts of the parties [Rule 181] exceeding the expenses referred to in Rule 180.1 shall be based on the rates that are customary in the respective sector, with due regard to the required expertise, the complexity of the issue and the time spent by the expert for the services rendered.


Molecular dynamics methods have been used in a quantitative study of the growth and decay of Taylor vortices in a fluid confined between concentric cylinders when the rotation of the inner cylinder is instantaneously started or stopped. Analysis of the temporal evolution of the vortex flow fields shows that the behavior of this microscopic system agrees with experiment. In order to make the analysis entirely self-contained, torque measurements have been used to determine the effective viscosity of the fluid.


A complete series of configurationally isomers (L‐L, L‐D, D‐L AND D‐D) of a dipeptide Leu‐Phe benzyl ester have been synthesized and assayed for chymotrypsin. In the conformational analysis by 400 MMz 1H NMR, the L‐D and D‐L isomers, but not hte L‐L and D‐D isomers, showed fairly large up field shifts (0.2–0.4 ppm) of Leu‐βCH2 and γCH proton signals, indicating the presence of shielding effects from the benzene ring. In addition to distinct signal splitting of Phe‐βCH2, the NOE enhancement observed between Leu‐δCH3 and Phe‐phenyl groups revealed that these groups are in close proximity. These data indicated that L‐D and D‐L isomers from a hydrophobic core between side chains of adjacent Leu and Phe residues. When the dipeptides were examined for inhibition of chymotrypsin using Ac‐Try‐OEt as a substrate, the L‐L isomer showed no inhibition, itself becoming a substrate. However, the other three isomers inhibited chymotrypsin in a competitive manner, and the D‐L isomer was strongest with Ki of 2.2 × 10−5 M. It was found that the D‐L isomer was only slowly hydrolysed but the L(or D)‐D isomer was not. H‐D‐Phe‐L‐Leu‐OBzl with the inverse sequence of H‐D‐Leu‐L‐Pre‐OBzl inhibited chymotrypsin more strongly (Ki = 6.3 × 10−6 M). Since the free acid analogue of the D‐L isomer exhibited no inhibition, the benzyl ester moiety itself was thought to be involved in the enzyme inhibition. It is assumed that in the inhibitory conformation the ester‐benzyl group fits the S1 site of chymotrypsin, while the side chain‐side chain complexing hydrophobic core fits the S2 site.


Pets.com, Inc. (Pets) was formed as an Internet retailer of pet supplies in 1999. After experiencing rapid sales growth and hemorrhaging cash in it s first year, an initial public offering (IPO) was scheduled for February 2000. In this instructional case, you will evaluate the ability of this real‐world company to continue as a going concern by analyzing the financial information and business risk disclosures included in Pets' Prospectus. The case is ideal for an auditing class as it provides a background to examine how going concern and fraud risks impact the audit reporting decision. A focus on corporate governance issues, financial statement analysis techniques, bankruptcy prediction models, and e‐commerce company business models would also make this case useful for financial accounting courses (e.g., accounting theory and/or financial statement analysis).


Almost 10% of worldwide skin cancers are located at the eyelid level. In European countries, malign eyelid tumours are mostly represented by basal and squamous cell carcinomas, and usually affect elderly patients. In order to study the clinical features of eyelid tumours, and potential correlations between tumour parameters, we have enrolled a cohort of 98 subjects from a south-western region of Romania. Our study confirmed the majority of results from other European studies, as basal cell carcinoma was the most frequent malign form, being diagnosed for more than 85% of patients with declared prolonged sun exposure; tumours were mostly located on the superior eyelid, especially for males, and may present slow progression rates. We have identified significant correlations only between the tumour stage and symptoms' duration, and also between the tumour stage and smoking habit, for females.