This study introduces a multivariable covariance index (MVCI) to illustrate the synoptic features of mei-yu in the Yangtze River valley (YRV) region, which contains information of three indicators of mei-yu including precipitation, surface relative humidity, and tropospheric vertical motion. The interdecadal variation in the synoptic features of mei-yu during 1961–2016 is investigated using the MVCI. The date of mei-yu peak and the intensity of mei-yu underwent noticeable interdecadal variations over past decades, which are characterized by a delayed (relatively early) mei-yu peak and a relatively large (small) mei-yu intensity during 1985–97 (1961–80 and 2006–16). The mechanisms of these interdecadal variations are further discussed. The interdecadal variation in the date of mei-yu peak is mainly modulated by the meridional water vapor transport over eastern China during June, which may be partially attributed to an influence of the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) on the clockwise gyre over the North Pacific during boreal summer. The interdecadal variation in mei-yu intensity is associated with the interdecadal variation of tropospheric vertical motion over the YRV region during boreal summer, which may be partially attributed to an interaction between the PDO and the large-scale tropical east–west circulation during boreal summer. In addition, the interdecadal variation in the water vapor flux budget and relative humidity over the YRV region also exerted an impact on the interdecadal variation of mei-yu intensity in the YRV region.


Relevance: Fibrocystic mastopathy is one of the
most complex breast pathologies, occurring in about
60% of women. The causes and molecular mechanisms of cyst formation in fibrocystic mastopathy are
not fully understood, and effective treatment methods are not widely implemented. However, there is
evidence of the fibrocystic mastopathy malignization
risk. We studied the molecular effect of the active agent
danazol on the respiratory complex in mitochondria,
which occur in various concentrations and are considered the cell energy center.
A method of permeation with special substances
was developed to improve the cell membrane permeability in the intracellular proteins and nucleic acids
analysis. The scientists aimed to study the Mcf10a cell
line mitochondrial respiratory complex using the permeabilization method.
Purpose: To study the effect of different danazol
concentrations on Mcf10a breast cells redox phosphorylation in women with fibrocystic mastopathy.
Results: Monitoring the redox phosphorylation
process using the respiratory complex substrates
affecting the Msf10A breast cells respiratory chain
showed the danazol 30 μM effect on the respiratory
complex I.
Conclusions: According to oxygraphic records, 10
minutes' exposure to danazol 30 μM after permeabilization with digitonin increased the Msf10A cells' oxidative phosphorylation compared with the control. The
respiratory rate decreased by 45% ten minutes after
treatment with digitonin.


Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved great success in several face-related tasks, such as face detection, alignment and recognition. As a fundamental problem in computer vision, face tracking plays a crucial role in various applications, such as video surveillance, human emotion detection and human-computer interaction. However, few CNN-based approaches are proposed for face (bounding box) tracking. In this article, we propose a face tracking method based on Siamese CNNs, which takes advantages of powerful representations of hierarchical CNN features learned from massive face images. The proposed method captures discriminative face information at both local and global levels. At the local level, representations for attribute patches (i.e., eyes, nose and mouth) are learned to distinguish a face from another one, which are robust to pose changes and occlusions. At the global level, representations for each whole face are learned, which take into account the spatial relationships among local patches and facial characters, such as skin color and nevus. In addition, we build a new large-scale challenging face tracking dataset to evaluate face tracking methods and to facilitate the research forward in this field. Extensive experiments on the collected dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in comparison to several state-of-the-art visual tracking methods.


In this paper, a new Lyapunov-based adaptive control scheme for the position tracking of an electro-hydraulic Stewart–Gough platform type six-degree-of-freedom (DOF) driving simulator is proposed. The kinematics and the dynamics of both the moving platform and the hydraulic actuator are first derived, and the linearized dynamic equation of the moving platform is developed for the controller design. Two control loops are employed, in which the platform controller is in the outer loop and the actuator controllers are in the inner loop. In the platform controller, the compound proportional-differential (PD) feedback and adaptive compensation controller is designed. The PD part is used to create the principal control signal, and the adaptive part is used to compensate for the parameter uncertainty and external disturbance. To suppose that the upper bound of the perturbation is known, a gradient descent method-based adaptive law is developed for parameter estimation. For each actuator controller a servo force control scheme is designed to ensure the actuator to accurately track the desired force output by the platform controller. All the controllers are designed together based on the Lyapunov method to guarantee the stability of the whole system. Numerical simulation on a six-DOF simulator shows that the proposed control scheme has better tracking performance than its non-adaptive counterpart.


The present study aimed to provide a comparative analysis of the effects of penetrative stunning, non-penetrative stunning and post-slaughter stunning on biochemical parameters and electroencephalogram (EEG) associated with stress in heifers and steers. Ten animals were assigned to each of the following four treatment groups: (1) animals were subjected to conventional halal slaughter (a clean incision through the structures on the ventral neck at the approximate level of vertebrae C2–C3 – the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries and jugular veins) and post-cut penetrating mechanical stun within 10–20 s of the halal cut (U); (2) high-power non-penetrating mechanical stunning using a mushroom-headed humane killer, followed by conventional halal slaughter (HPNP); (3) low-power non-penetrating mechanical percussive stunning using a mushroom-headed humane killer, followed by conventional halal slaughter (LPNP); and (4) penetrative stunning using a captive-bolt pistol humane killer, followed by conventional halal slaughter (P). For each animal, blood samples and electroencephalogram recordings were taken before stunning, post-stunning (if applicable) and post-slaughter, and plasma concentrations of cortisol, adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH), adrenaline, noradrenaline and β-endorphin were determined. Irrespective of the stunning method, except for percentage change in plasma concentrations of noradrenaline, the values of blood parameters attained before and after stunning were not significantly different. The plasma noradrenaline concentration of the HPNP animals was significantly elevated following stunning. Following slaughter, the percentage change of plasma ACTH concentration in the P animals was significantly elevated. Neither stunning method nor sampling time had a significant effect on plasma β-endorphin concentration. On the basis of the EEG results, penetrative stunning seemed to be better in maximising the possibility of post-stunning insensibility, whereas U animals appeared to demonstrate an evident increase in EEG activity which is consistent with the presence of post-slaughter noxious stimuli associated with tissue cut and injury. The U animals had consistently higher, if not the highest, RMS values than did other stunned animals. This indicates a degree of EEG changes associated with stress and pain. On the basis of EEG data, our results suggested that penetrative stunning would be the most reliable method of ensuring insensibility and minimising pain. However, at slaughter, the P animals showed a dramatic elevation in the percentage change of circulating ACTH, suggesting physiological stress response. On a cautionary note, the results are not unequivocal, and it may be that the range of analyses available to researchers at this point of time are not sufficiently specific to allow definitive conclusions to be drawn.


Background: Hair loss is seen as an irreversible process. Most research concentrates on how to elongate the anagen, reduce the negative factors of obstructing hair growth and improve the hair number and size. Aim: In our experiment, we tried to prove that the cow placenta extract can promote hair growth by elongating hair shaft and increasing hair follicle number. Materials and Methods: Cow placenta extract (CPE), water and minoxidil applied separately on the back of depilated B57CL/6 mice for the case, negative and positive control respectively. We checked the proliferation of cells which are resident in hair sheath, and the expression of a few growth factors which stimulate hair growth. Results: Result shows that placenta extract more efficiently accelerates cell division and growth factor expression, by raising the insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) mRNA and protein level to increase HF size and hair length. Conclusions: The extract is not a purified product; so, it is less effective than minoxidil, which is approved by the US FDA for the treatment of male pattern baldness. If refinement is done, the placenta extract would be a good candidate medicine for hair loss.


In order to determine whether there is a general difference in the splicing mechanism of animal and plant pre-mRNAs, we cloned part of the gene for the small subunit of the ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase containing both introns into the SP64 vector. RNA was synthesized with SP6 polymerase and used as substrate for in vitro processing in a HeLa cell nuclear splicing extract. Analyses of the processed RNA demonstrate that both introns of the plant pre-mRNA are efficiently removed in an ordered fashion yielding a faithfully ligated mRNA. Two branch points were identified for intron A and three for intron B. The branched nucleotides are adenosine residues in all cases and are located within a distance from the 3' splice site found to be crucial for lariat formation in animal pre-mRNAs. The implications of these results are discussed in light of our previous observation, that a functional pre-mRNA of the human growth hormone gene was not processed in plant tissue in vivo.


With the exponentially increasing demand for performance and scalability in cloud applications and systems, data center architectures evolved to integrate heterogeneous computing fabrics that leverage CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs. FPGAs differ from traditional processing platforms such as CPUs and GPUs in that they are reconfigurable at run-time, providing increased and customized performance, flexibility, and acceleration. FPGAs can perform large-scale search optimization, acceleration, and signal processing tasks compared with power, latency, and processing speed. Many public cloud provider giants, including Amazon, Huawei, Microsoft, Alibaba, etc., have already started integrating FPGA-based cloud acceleration services. While FPGAs in cloud applications enable customized acceleration with low power consumption, it also incurs new security challenges that still need to be reviewed. Allowing cloud users to reconfigure the hardware design after deployment could open the backdoors for malicious attackers, potentially putting the cloud platform at risk. Considering security risks, public cloud providers still don't offer multi-tenant FPGA services. This paper analyzes the security concerns of multi-tenant cloud FPGAs, gives a thorough description of the security problems associated with them, and discusses upcoming future challenges in this field of study.


Due to its capacity in retrieving the angular resolution of ground-based optical telescopes together with their intrinsic sensitivity, adaptive optics (AO) is well known to be of fundamental importance for a wide range of astronomical applications. In the case of very high-contrast imaging it is even more critical given the limitation due to the atmospheric residuals. The ability of an AO system in "cleaning" the obtained point-spread function before a coronagraphic stage is therefore of central importance - and so the robustness of a given coronagraphic stage with respect to the post-AO atmospheric residuals. Within this framework, the present paper describes the physical ingredients that are necessary to be modelized when designing a detailed numerical simulation study of this kind, together with a typical numerical tool used in this context. An example involving a very high-order AO system is given, a simple implementation of different coronagraphic concepts is exposed, and an illustrative preliminary result involving the high-order AO-correction stage coupled with the different coronagraphic devices implemented is shown.


Data from a three percent sample of the 1980 census of Brazil are used to analyze nuptiality trends by ethnic group. The focus is on the homogamy of marriage by color and age and on the marriage patterns of the black population. (ANNOTATION)


The definition, clinical spectrum and risk factors, incidence, pathophysiology, clinical manifestations and diagnosis, and prevention of stress ulcers are reviewed. Stress ulcers are acute, multiple, superficial ulcerations of the gastric mucosa. All patients who are severely injured or ill may develop stress ulcers. Risk factors include sepsis, shock, multiple organ failure, trauma, burns, and major surgery. Prevention of bleeding from stress ulcers is desirable because medical and surgical treatment of established ulcers is not very effective and has a poor prognosis. Antacids, cimetidine, nutritional support, vitamin A, and corticosteroids have been used. Antacid titration appears to be the method of choice. The preventive value of cimetidine in preventing stress ulcers is controversial.


BACKGROUND
High academic anxiety is associated with poor academic performance. One proposed mechanism of this association is that academic anxiety promotes learning avoidance behaviours, which in turn hinders students' opportunities to learn and grow. However, this proposition has not been thoroughly examined, particularly in afterschool learning settings. The present study aimed to address this gap.

AIMS
First, we investigated whether individual differences in academic anxiety across three domains (mathematics, native language or L1, and second language learning or L2) predicted students' academic avoidance in the corresponding domain in high school. Second, given that individual differences in personality may result in employing different coping strategies to deal with academic anxiety, we examined how mental toughness (MT) moderated the relation between academic anxiety and academic avoidance.

SAMPLE
Two waves of longitudinal data that were one semester apart were available for four hundred and forty-four high school students.

METHODS
Students self-reported their MT, academic anxiety, and academic avoidance (i.e., time spent on studying a subject afterschool) in mathematics, L1, and L2.

RESULTS
For students with higher MT, higher mathematics, L1, and L2 anxiety in the first semester predicted more time spent on learning the corresponding subject in the following semester, even after controlling for general anxiety, academic achievement, and initial academic avoidance.

CONCLUSIONS
These results challenge the proposition that all students with higher domain-specific anxiety are more likely to avoid learning altogether in that domain. Rather, among students from the general school population who generally exhibit low to moderate levels of academic anxiety, higher academic anxiety is associated with more time investment in afterschool learning in mentally tough students.


Coloured light and colour perception are the scientific phenomena close to every one. However, results from the preliminary work using conceptual test showed that the students taught with traditional teaching have a lot of misconceptions about coloured light and colour perception. This conceptual test are composed of six open-ended questions used to probe the students' understanding of primary coloured lights and their combination, colour perception under the white light or others coloured light conditions and the phenomenon named "after image". This result implies that traditional teaching can not make the students to understand in these topics, clearly. Therefore we construct the coloured light mixing box with removable light emitted diode (LED) sockets and use the white, orange, purple, red, green and blue LEDs as the light sources. Then we introduced this instrument into an interactive classroom with hands-on activities. As a result, students can learn and gain correct understanding of the phenomena of coloured light by themselves.


©2018 Integrated Device Technology, Inc. August 7, 2018 Description The 8V97051L is a high-performance Wideband RF Synthesizer / PLL optimized for use as the local oscillator (LO) in Multi-Carrier, Multi-mode FDD, and TDD Base Station radio card. It is offered in a compact 5 5, 32-VFQFN package with 50 differential RF output impedances for ease of integration into the receiver or transmitter lineup.


Methods of biomedical optics employed to study and characterize biological media involve measuring light diffusely transmitted though tissue. In this paper we describe boundary conditions for the propagation of light at interfaces of biological media. Boundary conditions are derived for a generalized radiative transfer model that accounts for the propagation of light in biological media with a spatially varying refractive index and includes the effects of ray divergence. This work will improve the accuracy of the measurements in biomedical optics techniques and will enhance our understanding of tissue physiology.


Introduction: Hypertensive response to exercise (HRE) is defined as a peak systolic blood pressure >210 mmHg in Men and >190 in women or difference between peak and baseline SBP for at least 60 mmHg in men and 50 mmHg in women during exercise testing. Non-hypertensive individuals with exaggerated blood pressure responses during exercise stress testing are more likely to develop hypertension. A HRE is not associated with increased mortality when baseline blood pressure is taken into account. However, a HRE during submaximal exercise may be associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular death in non-hypertensive individuals. [1,2,3] Objectives: Our aim is to know the magnitude of difference in HRE during treadmill exercise between subjects with a history of hypertension and those without and factors affecting or affected by it. Methods: This was a cross-sectional observational study. Their subjects were 326 consecutive army personnel who were referred to cardiology and vascular department for further cardiovascular examination from medical check-up unit in Central Army Hospital Gatot Soebroto. 59 subjects were excluded because treadmill test was not ordered. Out of 267 subjects, 102 were hypertensive and 165 were not hypertensive. Results: Hypertensive response to exercise was more frequently found in those with a history of hypertension (OR 1.924, 95% CI 1.17–3.28, p = 0.013). There was a decreasing trend in HRE with higher physical activity (p = 0.009). Presence of LVH is more common in those with HRE (OR 1.835, 95% CI 1.033–3.261, p = 0.037). There was no significant difference between those with or without HRE and presence of diseased vessel. There was also no difference in prevalence of one VD, two VD and three VD. We analysed subjects with HRE, there was 47.4% with history of hypertension and 50.5% without. There was no association between LVH and presence of traditional risk factors, physical activity and impaired renal function in subjects with in these subjects. Conclusion: Hypertensive response to exercise during treadmill exercise test was significantly higher in patients with a history of hypertension and tends to lower with increasing physical activity. Left ventricular hypertrophy was also more frequently found in these subjects.


Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease with a high prevalence worldwide. Asthma therapy includes drugs for asthma control and for quick relief. Especially for controller therapy, adherence is crucial to reduce the risk of exacerbations.

Objective: To systematically review the association between adherence to asthma controller therapy and risk of severe exacerbations in children and adults.

Methods: Systematic literature search of the PUBMED, EMBASE and Web of Knowledge databases from inception until 2013. Studies were included if there were empirical data about adherence, exacerbations and their association. Quality was assessed using a modified version of the Newcastle Ottawa Scale.

Results: The search yielded 2956 unique publications. 33 articles met the inclusion criteria and underwent data extraction and quality scoring. 24 studies used objective measures and 9 used subjective measures to assess adherence. Included studies were published between 1993-2013. Sample sizes ranged from 24 to 97,743 individuals. High levels of heterogeneity across studies in adherence and exacerbation measurements, designs and strategies for evaluating the association, precluded a formal meta-analysis. Although effect measures varied widely and were inconsistent, in high quality studies better adherence tended to be associated with fewer exacerbations.

Conclusions: Based on current literature, it is difficult to make strong statements on adherence to asthma therapy and risk of exacerbations. New, well designed prospective studies, using standardized definitions for adherence and treatment outcomes are needed. This is essential to disentangle their association, and to ultimately increase patient adherence.


This study investigates the use of social compliance audits in the supply chain of multinational corporations (MNCs). Particularly, we explore the use of such audits in assessing and managing the working conditions of factory workers in the garment industry in a developing nation. Through a range of interviews with MNCs' internal auditors, with commissioned external auditors and with representatives of the suppliers in Bangladesh, this study finds that social compliance audits become ritual strategies and are not a primary means of advancing workers' rights. Drawing on the concept of surrogate accountability, the study suggests that to create real change in workers' conditions and in order to hold MNCs and their suppliers accountable, some form of surrogate (government, non-governmental organisations or media) intervention is necessary. This is, we argue, preferable to leaving it in the hands of 'markets' and simply waiting for another major incident such as Rana Plaza to stir public concern. This study contributes to the literature by investigating how social compliance audits are undertaken by MNCs sourcing products from a developing nation, what motivations drive the adoption of such audits, and what, if anything, are the likely outcomes from the process.


A challenging problem in task-free continual learning is the online selection of a representative replay memory from data streams. In this work, we investigate the online memory selection problem from an information-theoretic perspective. To gather the most information, we propose the \textit{surprise} and the \textit{learnability} criteria to pick informative points and to avoid outliers. We present a Bayesian model to compute the criteria efficiently by exploiting rank-one matrix structures. We demonstrate that these criteria encourage selecting informative points in a greedy algorithm for online memory selection. Furthermore, by identifying the importance of \textit{the timing to update the memory}, we introduce a stochastic information-theoretic reservoir sampler (InfoRS), which conducts sampling among selective points with high information. Compared to reservoir sampling, InfoRS demonstrates improved robustness against data imbalance. Finally, empirical performances over continual learning benchmarks manifest its efficiency and efficacy.


This essay examines Marilyn Chin's revisionary work on the aural, visual, and racial aspects of writing the lyric in the "Broken Chord Sequence" from her Rhapsody in Plain Yellow (2002). Addressing the interventions of the American modernists and Asian American activist writers in the relationship between the Chinese ideogram and the lyric in English, the lyric voice created by Chin is both divided from the unity of the self and palpably distinct from the other, linguistically enacting the condition of the immigrant, who not only lives as a foreigner within the boundaries of her adopted country but also creates the past as a foreign space by assimilating a second culture. The ideogram first became a poetic strategy in English in the work of Ezra Pound, which played upon the foreign to express the native self. As Josephine Nock-Hee Park, David Leiwei Li, and others note, Pound's adoption of the ideogram constitutes a particular problem for Asian Americans, especially Chinese Americans, whose native language has been made American, troubling both assimilation and ethnicity. Chin's exploration of sound in the previously silenced ideogram develops the possibility of translating the aural and visual effects of the ideogram. Chin adapts a form of traditional Chinese wordplay that operates through association by sound into a poetic device that hovers between English and Chinese, between writing and speaking. Through figures such as the broken chord and an ai that represents love, loss, a way of perceiving, and the self, Chin articulates the complex relationship of the always foreign self to the lyric. While the difficulty of voicing the I is a problem fundamental to the lyric, the tension between ai and I is specific to the border between English and Chinese, an aural answer to the Imagist appropriation of the ideogram. The displacement of metaphor to the border between Chinese and English, like the I existing on the border between Chinese and English, articulates and obscures the ghosted manifestation of the diasporic subject. Ai, Ai, Ai, Ai Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong named their 1974 anthology of Asian American writers Aiiieeeee/in the spirit of protest. Fronted by the brown and yellow image of a screaming man resembling Chinatown-Hong Kong-Hollywood native Bruce Lee (deceased only the year before), the anthology verbally and pictorially stages a stereotypical image of an inarticulate Asian man erupting with mysterious aggression. Drawn out--literally--with three Is and five Es, punctuated for emphasis, the cry "aiiieeeee!" is the "picture" of the "yellow man," "more than a whine, shout, or scream"; "it is fifty years of our whole voice," declares the preface. But it is also the voice given to the Asian American by the radio, the cinema, the television, the comic book, and the "pushers of white American culture," a single utterance chosen to encompass being "wounded, sad, or angry, or swearing, or wondering," a cry of adaptable amplitude and expression (F. Chin, Preface ix-x). "Aiiieeeee!" is an invented voice, a battlecry in the Babel of Chinese American, Japanese American, and Filipino American writers assembled or recovered in 1960s and 1970s America, these disparate voices necessarily united in order to be heard, it is the despised, recognizable, and expected expression of the yellow man in white popular culture, yet it is also the measure of his discontent phrased in the idiom of the understood. Metaphorically and linguistically, the diphthong articulates a multiplicity of tones in a space not fully excavated for their expression. Despite its parodic bent, Aiiieeeee! "turn[s] a dying cry into a shout of resistance and triumph" (Shawn Wong 91)--like the "very stereotypical bamboo lettering" (93) marking the volumes of "Asian" literature hunted out by Wong and Chin in bookstores in early 1970s San Francisco before there was a recognized difference among "Asian," "Asian American," and their imitations. …


[ANGLES] The advent of mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets demanding high capacity services drives a solution for next generation wireless networks. Wireless and optical networks are converging to increase the bandwidth available for the end users. The deployment of Radio-over-Fiber technologies, which allow the distribution of millimeter-wave signals on the optical domain, is a very promising solution for the migration towards higher frequency bands. This would allow fulfilling capacity requirements of next-generation access networks. Passive distribution of Radio-over-Fiber channels is now well understood; however, it does not rip all the benefits optical networks can provide. Active distribution, where signals are routed on-the-fly by the network, is currently under heavy research. This bachelor thesis presents a possible solution to provide the next generation base stations with high-speed communications. This thesis has focused on the distribution of optical channels in a Radio-over-Fiber system. Dynamic and Hybrid Channel Allocation techniques are presented as a way to increase the capacity in optical-wireless systems. In this thesis, we have developed a novel algorithm for the distribution of optical channels based on the blocking probability reduction. We present it as a technique to increase the performance of the network. Furthermore, we report on an experimental characterization of an optical switch, which is the main building block to construct networks supporting Hybrid Channel Allocation methods.


BACKGROUND
Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common liver neoplasm, the sixth most common cancer worldwide, and the third most common cause of cancer mortality. Moreover, its incidence has increased dramatically in the past decade. While surgical resection and liver transplantation are the main curative treatments, only around 20% of people with early hepatocellular carcinoma may benefit from these therapies. Current treatment options for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma include various ablative and transarterial therapies in addition to the drug sorafenib.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the benefits and harms of external beam radiotherapy in the management of localised unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Hepato-Biliary Group Controlled Trials Register, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE (OvidSP), Embase (OvidSP), Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), and clinicaltrials.gov registry. We also checked reference lists of primary original studies and review articles manually for further related articles (cross-references) up to October 6, 2016.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Eligible studies included all randomised clinical trials comparing external beam radiotherapy either as a monotherapy or in combination with other systemic or locoregional therapies versus placebo, no treatment, or other systemic or locoregional therapies for people with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
We used standard methodological procedures expected by Cochrane. We used a random-effects model as well as a fixed-effect model meta-analysis but in case of discrepancy between the two models (e.g. one giving a significant intervention effect, the other no significant intervention effect), we reported both results; otherwise, we reported only the results from the fixed-effect model meta-analysis. We assessed risk of bias of the included trials using predefined risk of bias domains; assessed risks of random errors with Trial Sequential Analysis; and presented the review results incorporating the methodological quality of the trials using GRADE.

MAIN RESULTS
Nine randomised clinical trials with 879 participants fulfilled our inclusion criteria. All trials were at high risk of bias, and we rated the evidence as low to very low quality. All of the included trials compared combined external beam radiotherapy plus chemoembolisation versus chemoembolisation alone in people with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma; moreover, three of the trials compared external beam radiotherapy alone versus chemoembolisation alone. All trials were conducted in China. The median age in most of the included trials was around 52 years, and most trial participants were male. The median follow-up duration ranged from one to three years. None of the trials reported data on cancer-related mortality, quality of life, serious adverse events, or time to progression of the tumour. For the comparison of radiotherapy plus chemoembolisation versus chemoembolisation alone, the risk ratio for one-year all-cause mortality was 0.51 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.41 to 0.62; P < 0.001; 9 trials; low-quality evidence); for complete response rate was 2.14 (95% CI 1.47 to 3.13; P < 0.001; 7 trials; low-quality evidence); and for overall response rate defined as complete response plus partial response was 1.58 (95% CI 1.40 to 1.78; P < 0.001; 7 trials; low-quality evidence), all in favour of combined treatment with external beam radiotherapy plus transarterial chemoembolisation and seemingly supported by our Trial Sequential Analysis. Additionally, the combined treatment was associated with a higher risk of elevated total bilirubin and elevated alanine aminotransferase. The risk ratio for the risk of elevated alanine aminotransferase was 1.41 (95% CI 1.08 to 1.84; P = 0.01; very low-quality evidence), while for elevated total bilirubin it was 2.69 (95% CI 1.34 to 5.40; P = 0.005; very low-quality evidence). For the comparison of radiotherapy versus chemoembolisation, the risk ratio for one-year all-cause mortality was 1.21 (95% CI 0.97 to 1.50; 3 trials; I2 = 0%; very low-quality evidence) which was not supported by our Trial Sequential Analysis.In addition, we found seven ongoing randomised clinical trials evaluating different external beam radiotherapy techniques for people with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
We found very low- and low-quality evidence suggesting that combined external beam radiotherapy and chemoembolisation may be associated with lower mortality and increased complete and overall response rates, despite an increased toxicity as expressed by a higher rise of bilirubin and alanine aminotransferase. A high risk of systematic errors (bias) as well as imprecision and inconsistency suggest that these findings should be considered cautiously and that high-quality trials are needed to assess further the role of external beam radiotherapy for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.


The kinetics of proton transfer in Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) have been studied as a model system for characterizing the correlation between dynamics and function of proteins in general. The kinetics in EGFP (a variant of GFP) were monitored by using a laser‐induced pH jump method. The pH was jumped from 8 to 5 by nanosecond flash photolysis of the "caged proton," o‐nitrobenzaldehyde, and subsequent proton transfer was monitored by following the decrease in fluorescence intensity. The modulation of proton transfer kinetics by external perturbants such as viscosity, pH, and subdenaturing concentrations of GdnHCl as well as of salts was studied. The rate of proton transfer was inversely proportional to solvent viscosity, suggesting that the rate‐limiting step is the transfer of protons through the protein matrix. The rate is accelerated at lower pH values, and measurements of the fluorescence properties of tryptophan 57 suggest that the enhancement in rate is associated with an enhancement in protein dynamics. The rate of proton transfer is nearly independent of temperature, unlike the rate of the reverse process. When the stability of the protein was either decreased or increased by the addition of co‐solutes, including the salts KCl, KNO3, and K2SO4, a significant decrease in the rate of proton transfer was observed in all cases. The lack of correlation between the rate of proton transfer and the stability of the protein suggests that the structure is tuned to ensure maximum efficiency of the dynamics that control the proton transfer function of the protein.


Sarcomas is a complex group of malignant diseasse with undetermined molecular mechanisms. Receptor interacting serine/threonine kinase 3 (RIPK3) is a necroptosis- and apoptosis-related marker that has been implicated in several immune-associated diseases and aggressive malignant tumours. In the present study, publicly available transcriptome sequencing data were collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Therapeutically Applicable Research To Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) databases and extensive data mining was performed, focusing on RIPK3 and its potential function in the modulation of gene expression and signaling pathways, immune checkpoints and cell infiltration. Analysis of TCGA and TARGET data revealed 603 up- and 260 downregulated genes in the higher RIPK3 expression group compared with the lower RIPK3 expression groups, with transmembrane channel like 8 and transmembrane protein 97 as the top up- and downregulated genes, respectively. Further pathway analysis revealed that the overexpressed genes were enriched in 'cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction'. Higher RIPK3 was found to be associated with improved survival, the immune checkpoint gene hepatitis A virus cellular receptor 2 (HAVCR2) and an improved response to immune blockade therapy. The potential modulation of HAVCR2 expression by RIPK3 was confirmed by reverse transcription-quantiative PCR in KHOS and 143B human osteosarcoma cell lines. Immune cell infiltration analysis revealed that RIPK3 was positively associated with macrophage and monocyte infiltration, suggesting that RIPK3 executes its function through these immune cells. These findings led to the hypothesis that increased RIPK3 expression may result in improved survival, possibly by regulating the immune checkpoint HAVCR2. In conclusion, the present study comprehensively elucidated the RIPK3 profile with regard to sarcoma survival, transcriptome expression, immune checkpoint therapy and immune cell infiltration. These findings suggest that RIPK3 is potentially a therapeutic target for sarcoma.


In recent years, research efforts in the developing countries have focused on the improvement of protein quality of food products due to mass malnutrition. Plantains are invaluable source of carbohydrate, comparable in nutritive value to yam or potato and are useful as a variant on the usual staple foods. It is consumed mainly in Nigeria as snacks and it is gradually finding applications in weaning food formulation and composite flour preparations. This study therefore aimed at evaluating the effect of soy flour fortification on chemical, physicochemical properties and consumer acceptability of plantain flour for probable industrial uses. The plantain- soy mixes were prepared from green matured plantain and defatted soybean. Substituted plantain flour with soy flour at varying proportions (100:0; 90:10; 80:20; 70:30; 60:40) was evaluated for proximate composition and physico-chemical properties. Reconstituted thick paste "amala" prepared from all the flour samples were evaluated for consumer acceptability. The proximate composition of the flour samples showed an increase of about 23 to 85 % in protein content, 148 to 840% in fat content, 3 to 7% in ash contents while the carbohydrate decreased from 3 to 12%  depending on the level of substitution. The bulk density (BD), swelling power (SP) and solubility (Sol) of the flour samples decreased while the water absorption capacity (WAC) increased on soy substitution. The pasting viscosity analysis showed that soy flour addition decreased the peak viscosity of the flour. The sensory evaluation of the reconstituted plantain thick paste indicated a sharp difference at 5% probability level in all quality attributes between 0- to 10% and 20 to 40% substitution, while that of 10% soy flour reconstituted thick paste "amala" was more preferred.

 Key words: Plantain flour, soy flour, plantain-soy mixes, reconstituted thick paste, plantain.


T cell stimulation via glucocorticoid-induced tumor necrosis factor receptor family-related protein (GITR) can evoke effective tumor immunity. A single administration of agonistic anti-GITR monoclonal antibody (mAb) to tumor-bearing mice intravenously or directly into tumors provoked potent tumor-specific immunity and eradicated established tumors without eliciting overt autoimmune disease. A large number of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, including interferon (IFN)-gamma-secreting cells, infiltrated regressing tumors. Tumor-specific IFN-gamma-secreting CD4+ and CD8+ T cells also increased in the spleen. The treatment led to tumor rejection in IFN-gamma-intact mice but not IFN-gamma-deficient mice. Furthermore, coadministration of anti-GITR and anti-CTLA-4 mAbs had a synergistic effect, leading to eradication of more advanced tumors. In contrast, coadministration of anti-CD25 and anti-GITR mAbs was less effective than anti-GITR treatment alone, because anti-CD25 depleted both CD25+-activated effector T cells and CD25+CD4+ naturally occurring regulatory T (T reg) cells. Importantly, CD4+ T cells expressing the T reg-specific transcription factor Foxp3 predominantly infiltrated growing tumors in control mice, indicating that tumor-infiltrating natural Foxp3+CD25+CD4+ T reg cells may hamper the development of effective tumor immunity. Taken together, T cell stimulation through GITR attenuates T reg-mediated suppression or enhances tumor-killing by CD4+ and CD8+ effector T cells, including those secreting IFN-gamma, or both. Agonistic anti-GITR mAb is therefore instrumental in treating advanced cancers.


A photopolymerisable monomer/liquid crystal (LC)/chiral dopant/photoinitiator mixture with a smectic A (SmA*)–chiral nematic (N*) phase transition was prepared. After the SmA* phase was homeotropically oriented and then irradiated by ultraviolet light, a homeotropically oriented polymer network was formed in the SmA* phase and then a homeotropically oriented polymer network‐stabilised liquid crystal (PSLC) film with a SmA*–N* phase transition was prepared. In the temperature range of the SmA* phase, the LC molecules were homeotropically oriented and the film exhibited a transparent state. However, in the temperature range of the N* phase, the film exhibited a strong light‐scattering state owing to the fact that the LC molecules adopted a focal conic alignment affected by the homeotropically oriented polymer network. The strong light‐scattering state of the N* phase could be changed into a transparent one when an electric field was applied. The focus of this study was on the effects of composition of the PSLC film on its thermo‐optical and electro‐optical properties.


The field of branding and brand equity is new area of research in Ethiopia. The study adapts an exploratory approach to measure the effects of advertising spending and event sponsorship effect on consumer-based brand equity because there is no study conducted in the Ethiopia beer market. Accordingly, the study assumes advertising spending and event sponsorships affecting brand equity dimensions positively. Hence, a conceptual model has been built and structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to verify the model. A quantitative research was undertaken and a cross-sectional descriptive survey research design in nature was applied in the study. The study confirmed that from advertising spending intensity: television advertising spending has a positive effect on brand awareness; and outdoor advertising has a positive effect on brand awareness, brand association, and perceived quality. On the contrary radio advertising has a negative effect on perceived quality, and print advertising has a negative effect on brand awareness. Furthermore, event sponsorship has a positive effect on brand awareness and brand associations. Keywords : Advertising Spending Frequency, Event Sponsorship, Brand equity Dimensions, Ethiopia


Abstract Background: Fumes released form welding activities are capable of initiating several acute and chronic respiratory effects. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to evaluate respiratory symptoms and spirometry parameters in welders of a steel industry. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a steel industry and involved 60 welders and 40 non-welders. A questionnaire was used to record participants' details, and to determine pulmonary function values the spirometric test was used. Pearson correlation, paired and independent t test as statistic tests were used for data analysis. Results: Comparison between pulmonary function values (PFV) showed a significant relationship between forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) and 25% - 75% forced expiratory flow (FEF25 - 75%) of the two groups. These values in the welder group had a significant reduction and declines were from 6 to 11 mL. Age and work experience showed a significant correlation with PFV in the two groups. Conclusions: All workers that participated in this study were relatively young and considering them being young and not having long history of work experience, our results revealed that welders had less respiratory capacity and this was related to increasing work experience and age, but inconsistent with smoking habits of the two groups. Keywords: WeldingWorkers, Steel Industry, Respiratory Symptoms, Pulmonary Function Test


dsRNA blocks specific gene expression even when ex-9 Cambridge Center pressed by bacteria fed to the worms (Timmons and Fire, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 1998). RNAi in animals may also represent an ancient antiviral response, just as posttranscriptional gene silencing appears to protect plants from viral infection The breadth of RNAi-like processes suggests that RNAi may Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) directs the sequence-encompass gene silencing phenomena, including cellu-specific degradation of mRNA through a process lar strategies for gene regulation, well beyond the initial known as RNA interference (RNAi). Using a recently observation that dsRNA can produce RNAi. developed Drosophila in vitro system, we examined Genetic screens in both C. elegans and Neurospora the molecular mechanism underlying RNAi. We find have identified genes required for RNAi (Cogoni and that RNAi is ATP dependent yet uncoupled from mRNA Macino, 1997; Tabara et al., 1999). Mutations in a subset translation. During the RNAi reaction, both strands of of these genes, including rde-2, rde-3, mut-2, and mut-7, the dsRNA are processed to RNA segments 21–23 permit the mobilization of transposons in the worm nucleotides in length. small RNA fragments does not require the targeted et al., 2000). A second class of mutants, including the mRNA. The mRNA is cleaved only within the region of rde-1 and rde-4 loci, are defective for RNAi but show identity with the dsRNA. Cleavage occurs at sites no other phenotypic abnormalities (Tabara et al., 1999). 21–23 nucleotides apart, the same interval observed for The rde-1 and rde-4 genes are required for the initiation the dsRNA itself, suggesting that the 21–23 nucleotide of heritable RNAi, a phenomenon in which RNAi estab-fragments from the dsRNA are guiding mRNA cleavage. lished by injection of dsRNA in a worm leads to heritable gene silencing in the F2 generation and beyond (Grishok et al., 2000). In contrast, rde-2 and mut-7 are not required Introduction for the initiation of heritable interference but are required downstream in the tissue where the interference occurs. The term RNA interference, or " RNAi, " was initially Mello and colleagues have proposed that rde-1 and coined by Fire and coworkers (Fire et al., 1998) to de-rde-4 respond to dsRNA by producing a secondary ex-scribe the observation that double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) tragenic agent that is used by the downstream genes can block gene expression when it is introduced into rde-2 and mut-7 to target specific mRNAs for posttran-Their discovery built upon the previous, …


The effects of different environmental variables on the fish community structure were evaluated in a small temperate estuary. The biological and environmental data were collected bimonthly between 2007 and 2009 along the main estuarine axis. Multivariate analyses were applied (CLUSTER, SIMPER, CCA) to determine the spatial structure of fish community and to estimate the environmental influence on it. A total of 48 species of "teleost" fishes were observed, with the families Characidae and Sciaenidae presenting the largest number of species, 90% of the catches being juveniles. The fish community was overwhelmingly dominated by one species (Micropogonias furnieri, 88.9%), and only four species contributed more than 1% of total catch (Odontesthes argentinensis5.4%, Brevoortia aurea 1.1%, Paralonchurus brasiliensis 1.1%, and Mugil platanus 1.0%). Estuarine and freshwater stragglers dominated in number of species, followed by freshwater migrants and marine migrants. Three areas with different fish assemblages, with distinctive species and functional guilds, were defined along the main axis. The occurrence and spatial spread of these areas were linked to spatial variation in salinity, which was consistently influenced by discharge from the Rio de la Plata and local precipitation. The results highlight the importance of shallow environments as nursery areas and permit emphasis on their susceptibility to environmental changes.


This study estimates the demand for domestic water in a fast-growing city of a developing country. Monthly data for 40 randomly selected households for a six-year period were used for the estimation. There were three price hikes during the study period, which provided adequate variation in the prices for an econometric estimation. A log-log model was selected as a proper specification for the demand function. Marginal price, difference price, income, and household size were used as the independent variables. After correcting the data for auto-correlation and heteroscedasticity, the final model was estimated. Results show all the expected signs with statistical significance. Price elasticity (marginal) and income elasticity for water in the study area are estimated to be - 0.34 and 0.08, respectively. Thus, our findings confirm the previous findings that water is neither price- nor income-elastic. Given these responses, a price hike may not help conserve water in the study area. However, very low price responsiveness can be used to increase water revenues of the municipality.


Metabolic bone disease (osteodystrophy) is an important complication of patients with chronic liver disease; its etiology is complex and multifactorial. Osteodystrophy is manifested as osteopenia/osteoporosis. Osteoporosis can predispose patients to bone fractures, increasing morbidity and mortality, especially after liver transplantation. Early evaluation, screening, and treatment of bone disorders in patients with liver disease are essential to minimize fracture risk and to improve clinical outcome and quality of life.


Objective To evaluate the use of routine laboratory monitoring in terms of clinical outcomes among patients receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Uganda. Design Randomised clinical trial Setting A home based ART programme in rural Uganda. Participants All participants were people with HIV who were members of the AIDS Support Organisation. Participants had CD4 cell counts <250 cells × 106/L or World Health Organization stage 3 or 4 disease. Interventions Participants were randomised to one of three different monitoring arms: a viral load arm (clinical monitoring, quarterly CD4 counts, and viral load measurements), CD4 arm (clinical monitoring and CD4 counts), or clinical arm (clinical monitoring alone). Main outcome measures Serious morbidity (newly diagnosed AIDS defining illness) and mortality. Results 1094 participants started ART; median CD4 count at baseline was 129 cells × 106/L. Median follow-up was three years. In total, 126 participants died (12%), 148 (14%) experienced new AIDS defining illnesses, and 61(6%) experienced virological failure, defined as two consecutive viral loads >500 copies/mL occurring more than three months after the start of ART. After adjustment for age, sex, baseline CD4 count, viral load, and body mass index, the rate of new AIDS defining events or death was higher in the clinical arm than the viral load arm (adjusted hazard ratio 1.83, P=0.002) or the CD4 arm (1.49, P=0.032). There was no significant difference between the CD4 arm and the viral load arm (1.23, P=0.31). Conclusion In patients receiving ART for HIV infection in Uganda, routine laboratory monitoring is associated with improved health and survival compared with clinical monitoring alone. Trial registration Clinical Trials NCT00119093.


The article analyzes the project activity as an innovative technology of national-patriotic education among children and youth. Peculiarities of project activity implementation as an effective means of realization of tasks of national-patriotic education and to determine optimal types and forms of project activity in the conditions of children's recreation are revealed. It is determined that the project technology is considered as a set of educational and cognitive techniques, the application of which allows children to apply the acquired knowledge, skills and abilities in practice. The project technology is based on independent research, cognitive and productive activities of children, which is recognized as a priority in terms of reformatting education in accordance with the competence approach. In the process of preparation and implementation of patriotic projects, children become self-aware of the importance of this direction and their own involvement in building the future of the country. Competitions of projects that promote active citizenship lead to rethinking children's own behaviour and individual actions, analysis of their life position and awareness of their own responsibility for the results of their activities. The main thing is formation and affirmation of generally accepted values of national-patriotic education namely respect for the cultural and historical past of Ukraine; love for the native land, state, family, people; honouring the national memory; ability to cultural dialogue between representatives of ethnic groups of Ukraine – is currently an imperative of the educational process.


Enlightenment, natural law and economic liberalism engendered the grand concept of modern private law. Nearly simultaneously the ongoing process of industrial revolution paved the path into another modernity. Its new paradigms were technical risks, enterprises and insurance. Insurability of losses caused by risky commercial activities created the demand for 'stricter' forms of liability beyond fault. The paper presents three different answers to these challenges to civil responsibility. Germany is but a prominent example for the continental EU member states with its mixed system of social insurance, special legislation on strict liability and general fault liability. The US adheres to the negligence system with only marginal corrections. The liability law of the new Russian civil code combines the French and German legal legacy with the revolutionary ideas of the 1922 code leading to two general clauses of quasi-strict and strict liability.


In this paper, the development of a hydraulically interconnected suspension (HIS) system model and its integration into a four degree-of-freedom half-car system is briefly introduced. Frequency response functions are derived in order to simulate the system response to a stochastic road profile. The sprung mass vertical and roll accelerations are considered in the frequency domain up to 1000 Hz. Four key hydraulic system parameters which affect the systems high frequency dynamics but not its low frequency response are identified and investigated. The results indicate that HIS system performance in the high frequency range (50-1000 Hz) can be greatly affected by these hydraulic parameters, while the favourable ride characteristics typical of HIS vehicles are retained.


Direct drive wave energy converters (DDWECs) have gradually become the mainstream of wave energy converters (WECs). In order to make better use of wave energy, energy storage devices and other renewable energy sources are often used to suppress power fluctuation in DDWECs. However, the addition of other energy sources will increase the complexity of the converter system and the number of power switches. Considering the flexibility of nine-switch converters (NSCs), this paper proposes a novel nine-switch grid-connected/off-grid multiport hybrid wave energy system (HWES). First, the system structure and modulation principle are described. Then, a model for a generator, a grid and energy storage are built, including a control strategy of each part. Finally, a simulation for the grid-connected/off-grid application and an experiment on the off-grid HWES are carried out. The results show that the multiport wave energy system can achieve the objective of stable and reliable power transmission by reducing power devices.


Purpose Combination therapy with aprepitant, serotonin receptor antagonist, and steroids improves the complete response rate of both acute and delayed chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). However, it is not known whether ramosetron is suitable for administration in combination with aprepitant. Therefore, we conducted a multicenter, open-label, prospective, phase II study in order to assess the efficacy and tolerability of combination therapy with ramosetron, aprepitant, and dexamethasone (RAD) for prevention of cisplatin-based CINV in chemotherapy-naïve patients with solid cancers. Materials and Methods Forty-one patients with various solid cancers (31 male and 10 female; median age, 59 years) who received treatment with highly emetogenic chemotherapy (median cisplatin dose, 70 mg/m2; range 50 to 75 mg/m2) were enrolled in this study. Oral aprepitant (125 mg on day 1; 80 mg on days 2 and 3), intravenous ramosetron (0.6 mg on day 1), and oral dexamethasone (12 mg on day 1; 8 mg on days 2-4) were administered for prevention of CINV. Results The complete response (no emesisand retching and no rescue medication) rate was 94.9% in the acute period (24 hours post-chemotherapy), 92.3% in the delayed period (24-120 hours post-chemotherapy), and 92.3% in the overall period (0-120 hours). The absolute complete response (complete response plus no nausea) rate was 74.4% in the acute period, 51.3% in the delayed period, and 46.2% in the overall period. There were no grade 3 or 4 toxicities related to these antiemetic combinations. Conclusion RAD regimen is a safe and effective antiemetic treatment for prevention of CINV in patients receiving highly emetogenic chemotherapy.


In drylands, scientific research shows that mobile livestock systems derive the maximum social, environmental and economic benefits from these areas. These systems ensure both short-term security in case of shocks and, in the right conditions, investment capacity. However, it is difficult to develop indicators to understand and assess their contribution to territorial development, as they sit at the intersection between several scales of space and time, as well as of social and institutional organisation. The operational framework proposed here is aimed at rethinking the role of livestock systems in the sustainability of resources and societies in drylands. Six types of development indicators compare these three dimensions: characteristics of herds and of goods and services provided by the species bred, herd size, herd management system, management of land and resources use, access to state support, and dependence on markets. This framework invites policymakers to integrate these different scales in order to understand the adaption mechanisms and the risks associated with intervention.


Abstract Samata Urban Village is located in Gowa Regency, the emergence of new areas in the Samata Urban Village replaces the land that was originally occupied by the local community to be transformed into an elite and luxurious area, both that occurred in the city center and in the periphery. The process of rehabilitation and urban renewal is what is referred to as gentrification which in the end urban spaces are utilized by those with high income into real estate. This study aims to identify general condition, to determine the reproduction of space and the impact to social and economic. The analytical method used is superimpose analysis and descriptive analysis. Based on the analysis it was found that with the reproduction of space for the construction of economic and residential facilities that have a high value impact, so many people sell their land. Changes in social and economic conditions according to the correlation analysis of the influence of the development of the Village Samata gave a large influence on population growth with a correlation value of 0.98 with a very strong influence and job development with a correlation value of 0.80 with a very strong influence. So the influence of spatial reproduction in Samata Village has a big impact on the development of physical space in the Samata Village.


This volume presents the proceedings of the Second International Sym posium on Genetic Aspects ofPlant Minerai Nutrition, held in Madison, Wisconsin in 1985. The mechanisms by which plants acquire, transport and utilize essential minerai nutrients are highly complex. The means by which plants either exclude or tolerate ions of metals toxic to plants are equally complex. The first symposium attempted to convene research scientists con cerned with minerai nutrition for the purpose of exploring the kinds of minerai nutrition phenomena identified as being under genetic contro!. The first symposium also placed much emphasis on research to which genetic intervention might be applied. At the second symposium more papers were presented on genetic and breeding research, a long-term objective of the first symposium. The second symposium also included biotic interactions under genetic con trol that either enhanced or impeded ion uptake, e.g. mycorrhizae and nitrogen fixing bacteria. This continuing dialogue is essential for a research area the complexity of which is due to its interdisciplinary nature."


Recently, to improve the unsupervised image retrieval performance, plenty of unsupervised hashing methods have been proposed by designing a semantic similarity matrix, which is based on the similarities between image features extracted by a pre-trained CNN model. However, most of these methods tend to ignore high-level abstract semantic concepts contained in images. Intuitively, concepts play an important role in calculating the similarity among images. In real-world scenarios, each image is associated with some concepts, and the similarity between two images will be larger if they share more identical concepts. Inspired by the above intuition, in this work, we propose a novel Unsupervised Hashing with Semantic Concept Mining, called UHSCM, which leverages a VLP model to construct a high-quality similarity matrix. Specifically, a set of randomly chosen concepts is first collected. Then, by employing a vision-language pretraining (VLP) model with the prompt engineering which has shown strong power in visual representation learning, the set of concepts is denoised according to the training images. Next, the proposed method UHSCM applies the VLP model with prompting again to mine the concept distribution of each image and construct a high-quality semantic similarity matrix based on the mined concept distributions. Finally, with the semantic similarity matrix as guiding information, a novel hashing loss with a modified contrastive loss based regularization item is proposed to optimize the hashing network. Extensive experiments on three benchmark datasets show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines in the image retrieval task.


Acetaldophosphamide (A-ALD), a novel in vitro active and stable derivative of aldophosphamide, kills human bone marrow-derived granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming cells (GM-CFC) independent of the cell cycle. The surviving fraction of GM-CFC is an exponential function of the drug concentration and time of exposure. Variation of marrow light-density cell concentration between 2 x 10(6) and 10 x 10(6)/ml does not significantly influence its GM-CFC toxicity. Marrow depleted of GM-CFC by A-ALD subsequently generates GM-CFC when grown in suspension cultures. During the early period after treatment with A-ALD the number of surviving GM-CFC (size of surviving GM-CFC compartment) does influence the speed of the GM-CFC repopulation in suspension cultures. The importance of the number of surviving GM-CFCs for the growth and maintenance of GM-CFC population in such suspension cultures diminishes with time. No significant differences are observed after 2 wk, indicating that the ancestor stem cell population and its regenerative potential responsible for in vitro hematopoiesis have not been significantly affected by the drug treatment. A-ALD-treated progenitor cells retain their ability to integrate with the previously established marrow stromal cell layer and generate GM-CFC within this layer to an extent comparable to that of untreated marrow cells. The effect of A-ALD on human hematopoiesis is comparable to that of 4-hydroperoxycyclophosphamide. Its advantage over 4-hydroperoxycyclophosphamide is a greater stability in vitro. It has sparing effect on GM-CFC ancestor cells. Its toxicity to myeloid leukemia cell line (KBM-3)-derived clonogeneic cells is higher than to the GM-CFC. It is similar in doxorubicin-sensitive (KBM-3) and -resistant (KBM-3/DOX) leukemic cells. Thus, A-ALD appears to be a promising drug for in vitro purging of bone marrow cells.


Background: Drug-related problem is any event involving drug therapy that may interfere in a patient's desired clinical outcome. It has been pointed out that hospitalized pediatric patients are particularly prone to drug-related problems. Thus, this study aimed to assess drug-related problems and its predictors among pediatric patients diagnosed with infectious diseases admitted to Jimma University Medical Center, Southwest Ethiopia. Methodology: A prospective observational study was conducted among pediatric patients with infectious diseases admitted to the Jimma University Medical Center. Drug-related problems were classified based on Cipolle, Morley, and Strand's drug-related problems classification method. The patient's specific data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Data were entered into Epi data version 4.0.2 and then exported to statistical software package version 21.0 for analysis. To identify predictors of drug-related problems occurrence, multiple stepwise backward logistic regression analysis was done. Statistical significance was considered at a p-value < 0.05. Results: Of the total 304 participants, 226 (74.3%) of them had at least one drug-related problem during their hospital stay. A total of 356 drug-related problems were identified among 226 patients. Anti-infective medication was the major class of drug involved in drug-related problems. Noncompliance (28.65%) and dose too low (27.53%) were the most common type of drug-related problems identified. Presence of disease comorbidity (adjusted odds ratio = 3.39, 95% confidence interval = 1.89–6.08), polypharmacy (adjusted odds ratio = 3.16, 95% confidence interval = 1.61–6.20), and more than 6 days stay in hospital (adjusted odds ratio = 3.37, 95% confidence interval = 1.71–6.64) were independent predictors for the occurrence of drug-related problems.. Conclusion: Drug-related problems were high among pediatric patients with infectious disease in the study setting. The presence of comorbidity, polypharmacy, and prolonged hospital stay were predictors of drug-related problems in this finding. Therefore, to prevent these problems, the collaboration of clinical pharmacists, pediatricians, and other health care professionals is needed during the provision of pharmaceutical care.


A precise characterization of therapeutic proton pencil beams is essential for the commissioning of any treatment planning system (TPS). The dose profile characterization includes measurement of the beam lateral dose profile in the beam core and far from the beam core, in the so called low-dose envelope, and requires a sophisticated detection system with a few orders of magnitude dynamic range. We propose the use of a single-quantum-sensitive MiniPix Timepix detector, along with an in-house-designed holder to perform measurements of the pencil beam dose profile in air and in water. We validated the manufacturer calibration of the MiniPix Timepix detector in proton beams of various energies and compared the deposited energy spectra to Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The precision of the lateral dose profile measurements has been systematically validated against Krakow proton facility commissioning data and dose profile simulations performed with MC codes Gate/Geant4 and Fred. We obtained an excellent agreement between MiniPix Timepix measurements and simulations demonstrating the feasibility of the system for a simple characterization and validation of proton pencil beams. The proposed approach can be implemented at any proton therapy facility to acquire experimental data needed to commission and validate analytical and MC-based TPS.


This work focuses on designing a grammar detection system that understands both structural and contextual information of sentences for validating whether the English sentences are grammatically correct. Most existing systems model a grammar detector by translating the sentences into sequences of either words appearing in the sentences or syntactic tags holding the grammar knowledge of the sentences. In this paper, we show that both these sequencing approaches have limitations. The former model is over specific, whereas the latter model is over generalized, which in turn affects the performance of the grammar classifier. Therefore, the paper proposes a new sequencing approach that contains both information, linguistic as well as syntactic, of a sentence. We call this sequence a Lex-Pos sequence. The main objective of the paper is to demonstrate that the proposed Lex-Pos sequence has the potential to imbibe the specific nature of the linguistic words (i.e., lexicals) and generic structural characteristics of a sentence via Part-Of-Speech (POS) tags, and so, can lead to a significant improvement in detecting grammar errors. Furthermore, the paper proposes a new vector representation technique, Word Embedding One-Hot Encoding (WEOE) to transform this Lex-Pos into mathematical values. The paper also introduces a new error induction technique to artificially generate the POS tag specific incorrect sentences for training. The classifier is trained using two corpora of incorrect sentences, one with general errors and another with POS tag specific errors. Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural network architecture has been employed to build the grammar classifier. The study conducts nine experiments to validate the strength of the Lex-Pos sequences. The Lex-Pos -based models are observed as superior in two ways: (1) they give more accurate predictions; and (2) they are more stable as lesser accuracy drops have been recorded from training to testing. To further prove the potential of the proposed Lex-Pos -based model, we compare it with some well known existing studies.


Throughout Thailand, hundreds of private children's homes have become established largely under the radar of the government (Sawatzky, 2018, A hidden crisis: The proliferation of private children's homes in Thailand). This report will look at One Sky Foundation's experience over six years to establish holistic child and family support services as a viable alternative to the long-established reliance on private children's homes in the rural border district of Sangkhlaburi. The report will look at the challenges, successes and learnings in the journey to keep families together.


COVID-19 has resulted in nearly 598 million infections and over 6.46 million deaths since the start of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in 2019. The rapid onset of the pandemic, combined with the emergence of viral variants, crippled many health systems particularly from the perspective of coping with massive diagnostic loads. Shortages of diagnostic kits and capacity forced laboratories to store clinical samples resulting in huge backlogs, the effects of this on diagnostic pickup have not been fully understood. Herein, we investigated the impact of storing SARS-CoV-2 inoculated dry swabs on the detection and viability of four viral strains over a period of 7 days. Viral load, as detected by qRT-PCR, displayed no significant degradation during this time for all viral loads tested. In contrast, there was a ca. 2 log reduction in viral viability as measured by the tissue culture infectious dose (TCID) assay, with 1-3 log viable virus detected on dry swabs after 7 days. When swabs were coated with 102 viral copies of the Omicron variant, no viable virus was detected after 24 hours following storage at 4°C or room temperature. However there was no loss of PCR signal over 7 days. All four strains showed comparable growth kinetics and survival when cultured in Vero E6 cells. Our data provide information on the viability of SARS-CoV-2 on stored swabs in a clinical setting with important implications for diagnostic pickup and laboratory processing protocols. Survival after 7 days of SARS-CoV-2 strains on swabs with high viral loads may impact public health and biosafety practices in diagnostic laboratories.


Cutaneous lymphomas represent a heterogeneous group of T‐, NK‐ and B‐cell neoplasms, with mycosis fungoides (MF) being the most common subtype. MF has a plethora of clinicopathological manifestations. Many variants of this lymphoma differ substantially from the 'classical' Alibert–Bazin disease and are therefore sometimes referred to as 'atypical' forms of the disease. This review addresses the whole clinicopathological spectrum of mycosis fungoides with respect to epidemiology, clinical, histopathological, immunophenotypic and genotypic features and the clinical course and prognosis of its variants: classical, erythrodermic, follicular, syringotropic, bullous/vesicular, granulomatous, poikilodermic, hypo‐ and hyperpigmented, unilesional, palmoplantar, hyperkeratotic/verrucous, vegetating/papillomatous, ichthyosiform, pigmented purpura‐like, pustular and mucosal involvement in MF.


The scads (Decapterus spp) in North Maluku waters is highly potential and the utilization in developing phase. However, there is an indication of overexploited found in the coastal waters. The aims of this research are: (1) to determine population parameters of Decapterus macarellus based on the biological approach; and (2) to find out fishing season of the scads. The research was conducted from January to December 2008, in the North Maluku waters. Data for the research consisted of primary and secondary data. The data were analyzed using methods of the growth coefficient and the length infinity, the length-weight relationship, maturity level in fishes, estimating the size at first maturity in fishes, fecundity and moving average analyses. The results show that growth of female D. macarellus was quicker than masculine, and both had a maximum length-growth at the age of 4 year. Growth pattern of D. macarellus had a specific characteristic, called "minor alometrik", meaning that length-growth was quicker than weight-growth of the body. The catch of D. macarellus was dominated by inmature species. The most maturity of the D. macarellus was found in March. The size at first maturity was reached at a length of 25,8 cm. Spawning took place in April or May. Fecundity ranged from 28875 to 84000 eggs with a total length of 268 to 310 mm. Fishing season of scads occurred from March to October with the peak season in August.


Device-to-Device (D2D) communication as an underlaying cellular network empowers rich multimedia application, improves local communication, and enables local services, which would also bring out interference between cellular users and D2D terminals. In this paper, we study the challenges of the interference management in a hybrid network that D2D communication reuses uplink resource of cellular networks. We first introduce an interference coordination strategy for D2D communication. Then we design an optimal channel reusing selection algorithm for single cell scenario which is based on Hungarian algorithm. We also propose a heuristic algorithm to reduce the computational complexity. Our simulation results show that the heuristic algorithm has a close performance as the optimal algorithm with a significant decreasing of computational complexity, and both of the proposed algorithms could improve the system performance.


Understanding the performance of parallel applications for prevalent clusters of commodity PCs is still not an easy task: One must understand performance characteristics of all subsystems in the cluster machine, besides the inherently required knowledge about the applications' behaviour. While there are already many benchmarks that characterise a single node's subsystems like CPU, memory and I/O. as well as a few to evaluate its network interface with point-to-point data streams, there are to the best of our knowledge no benchmarks available that characterise a cluster network or LAN as a whole. We present Switchbench (2005), a set of three microbenchmarks that thoroughly evaluate the throughput characteristics of networks for clusters. A first microbenchmark tests the basic processing limitations of the switches, by sending and receiving data concurrently at maximum throughputs on all network interfaces. A second microbenchmark tests arbitrary communication patterns by pairwise connecting nodes for high-speed throughput tests. A third and slightly more realistic microbenchmark executes an all-to-all personalised communication (AAPC) algorithm to test many different patterns and critical bisections in the network. The microbenchmarks already proved to be extremely useful in a previous study to experimentally quantify performance limitations in different networks of clusters of PCs with up to 128 nodes. We also establish the suitability of our microbenchmarks by comparing their results with two application benchmarks. The benchmarks consist of two C programs supported by shell scripts to start the programs on all nodes of the cluster with the correct execution parameters to automatically scale the workloads from a few nodes up to the full cluster size.


Nd substituted Tl-1212 type phase high-temperature superconductors with nominal starting composition Tl(Sr1-x Ndx )2 CaCu2 O7 (x = 0-1.0) have been prepared and characterized. The x-ray diffraction patterns indicate that Nd substitution for x = 0.1-0.5 showed a dominant 1212 phase and a 1201 minor phase. This system showed a metallic normal state behaviour for x 0.4 and semiconducting-like behaviour for x 0.5. Scanning electron micrographs indicate a similar grain size for the x = 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 samples which is approximately 2-4 ?m. The transport critical current density, Jc , for the superconducting samples (x = 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3) at various temperatures together with a self-field approximation model indicates that the characteristic length (Lc ) associated with the pinning force becomes lower with Nd substitution.


Technology and information in Indonesia are growing over time. The use of internet media is also growing and increasing. This growth is supported by the growing use of mobile devices, especially smartphones. This research aims to find out how much influence social media, e-lifestyle and digital culture have on the consumptive behavior of Go Food services in the Jakarta area. This study assessed in terms of consumptive behavior with the presence of social media, e-lifestyle and digital culture. By using a quantitative approach with research instruments in the form of questionnaires. The population used in this study was go food users in the Jakarta area with sampling techniques using Krejie tables of 270 respondents. The data analysis technique used in this study is multiple linear regression analysis using SPSS. Based on the results of the analysis in this study concluded that: (1) Social media has an effect on consumptive behavior; (2) E-Lifestyle affects consumptive behavior; (3) Digital culture affects consumptive behavior. Simultaneously social media, e-lifestyle and digital culture have an influence on consumptive behavior. The magnitude of influence shown by the coefficient of determination of 0.865 shows that 86.5% of consumptive behavior is influenced by social media, e-lifestyle and digital culture and the remaining 13.5% is explained by other variables not used in the study. e-lifestyle and digital culture have an influence on consumptive behavior. The magnitude of influence shown by the coefficient of determination of 0.865 shows that 86.5% of consumptive behavior is influenced by social media, e-lifestyle and digital culture and the remaining 13.5% is explained by other variables not used in the study. e-lifestyle and digital culture have an influence on consumptive behavior. The magnitude of influence shown by the coefficient of determination of 0.865 shows that 86.5% of consumptive behavior is influenced by social media, e-lifestyle and digital culture and the remaining 13.5% is explained by other variables not used in the study.


The correction formula for Charge Transfer Efficiency (CTE) that is used in the HSTCAL CALSTIS pipeline CCD data reduction has not been significantly updated since 2006. Correcting for CTE losses is crucial to the goal of 1% precision in the STIS spectrophotometric fluxes that are the basis for all HST and JWST flux calibrations. Precision in the CTE correction is especially relevant for the faintest flux standards, where the amount of correction can exceed 20%. The comparison of new datasets of STIS spectra and ACS photometry of faint stars reveals the required updates to the parameters of the STIS CTE correction formula. After replacing the original with the new parameters, the change in the spectral energy distribution (SED), i.e. the flux decrease in physical units, for a very faint star NGC2506-G31 ranges from 4 to 6% over most of the G430L and G750L spectral wavelength ranges. No observations of the faint stars with G230LB or the medium dispersion modes were made; but the CTE correction depends only on signal level and should apply to all CCD spectroscopic modes. With the new formulation for the STIS CTE correction the STIS, ACS, and WFC3 flux measures are in accord at the 1% level, not only for the primary standards and other stars in the neighborhood of V=13 and brighter, but also now for fainter stars in the V=16 range.


The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the ability of individuals with severe or global aphasia to identify and produce graphic symbols using a software program that turns a microcomputer into an electronic communication device. During the first phase of the treatment program, subjects were trained to identify single symbols and two-symbol combinations from different grammatical categories. The second phase involved training on production of simple subject-verb and subject-verb-object constructions using symbols correctly identified by subjects in the first phase. A single-subject, multiple-baseline design across behaviors replicated across five subjects was used to assess the effects of treatment on symbol identification. Results indicated that all subjects identified noun symbols with a greater degree of accuracy than symbols representing verb referents. Performance on symbol production task varied across subjects. The most frequently observed errors on the symbol production task were omission...


This paper presents a video annotator that supports multimodal annotation and is applied to contemporary dance as a creation tool. The Creation-Tool was conceived and designed to assist the creative processes of choreographers, working as a digital notebook for personal annotations. The prototype, developed for Tablet PCs, is a real-time multimodal video annotator based on keyboard, pen and voice inputs. In addition, a remote control for mobile devices was added to the system. Two types of annotations were defined: annotation marks and regular annotations. The annotations marks are defined by a keyword and an icon, in contrast to regular annotations that do not have a pre-defined structure. Motion tracking defines the dynamic behavior of the annotations and voice input complements the other modalities.


A simple, sensitive and selective method has been developed for the determination of 2-aminophenol and catechol with 4-aminoantipyrine. The method is based on the reaction of 2-aminophenol and catechol with 4-aminoantipyrine and potassium iodate at pH 3.7 and 3.3 respectively. The reactions gave an intense water soluble color products that have maximum absorption at 427, 378 nm and ?max0.19104 and 0.12104 for 2-aminophenol and catechol respectively . A linear correlations (1-9 ?g ml-1) for both compounds were found between absorbance at ?max and concentration. The results obtained are both precise (RSD were better than 1.3 % and 2.2 % respectively) and accurate (relative error were better than 0.03 % and 0.4 %) . The colored products were found to be 1:1 for 2-aminophenol:4-aminoantipyrine and catechol : 4-aminoantipyrine . The stability constants and the rate constants of the reactions under optimized conditions and at room temperature were 0.1×103 L.mole-1, 1.8×10-2 min-1 and 3.5×104 L.mole -1 , 2.6×10-2 min-1 respectively. Key words: 4-Aminoantipyrine, Catechol and[2-Aminophenol, Spectrophotometry .


ABSTRACT Dear Sir: —Permit me to thank you for your kindly interest in the subject, and for your generous treatment of my note of recent date.You have fully explained that the term member elect as used in the paragraph you quote: "Every member elect prior to the permanent organization of the annual meeting, or before voting on any question after the meeting has been organized, must exhibit his credentials to the proper committee and sign these regulations," was intended to include and did include all classes of members, or as you put it, "actually includes every member presenting himself for admission or registration." Your construction being official, must of necessity be accepted. As the opinion of an individual it might possibly be criticised, but as the official utterance of the organ of the Association, it, to members, must be conclusive.The importance of having one source of authoritative interpretation seems


Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a well-known etiological factor of colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CAC) and has a significant role in CAC progression. In addition, hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) serves a primary role in the progression of CAC. However, the association between IL-6 and HIF-1α during the progression of CAC remains unclear. To investigate this association, the present study induced CAC in a mouse model using azoxymethane and dextran sulfate sodium. In addition, an anti-IL-6 receptor antibody was used to inhibit IL-6. In this model, anti-IL-6 receptor antibody treatment significantly inhibited the development of CAC and the expression of HIF-1α, in colorectal adenomas and adenocarcinomas. In patients with CAC, the HIF-1α gene was demonstrated to be overexpressed in tumor tissue compared with adjacent non-malignant tissue. Furthermore, HIF-1α mRNA expression was positively correlated with serum IL-6 concentration. The results of the present study suggest that IL-6 promotes CAC progression, in the early stage of the disease, through HIF-1α regulation.


There is a very real danger that the transition from the Construction Boom in 2009 to a rapidly growing sustainable normal economy in Aceh will not happen unless both preventive and effective constructive measures are implemented during the coming two years. Instead what could easily happen is a collapse into a deep recession caused by the economy of Aceh being uncompetitive relative to the rest of Indonesia because of its high costs and because in anticipation of this high cost economy situation insufficient investments were made by the private sector in 2006 and the coming two years.


Active fibers can serve as artificial muscles in robotics or components of smart textiles. Here, we present an origami hand robot, where single fibers control the reversible movement of the fingers. A recovery/contracting force of 0.2 N with a work capacity of 0.175 kJ kg−1 was observed in crosslinked poly[ethylene-co-(vinyl acetate)] (cPEVA) fibers, which could enable the bending movement of the fingers by contraction upon heating. The reversible opening of the fingers was attributed to a combination of elastic recovery force of the origami structure and crystallization-induced elongation of the fibers upon cooling.


Objective:This study was undertaken to discover if impaired blood clearance functions and killing capacity of the reticuloendothelial system contribute to the high occurrence rate of septic complications after shock, trauma, and thermal injury. Design:Prospective, randomized, controlled trial. Setting:Experimental laboratory in a university teaching hospital. Subjects:Thirty-three standard-breed rabbits of either sex. Interventions:Defined numbers of Escherichia coli (1.3 x 108 colony-forming units were injected intravenously 60 mins after induction of hypoxia, standardized by defined reduction of oxygen uptake (60% to 75% of baseline) induced by hy-poventilation (n = 6) or hemorrhage (n = 6), after complete defibrination caused by the snake toxin, ancrod (n = 6), and after 60 mins without intervention (controls, n = 6). At 180 mins after bacterial injection, the animals were killed and tissue samples of liver, kidney, spleen, and lung were collected for microbiological examinations. Measurements and Main Results:Bacterial elimination from the blood and distribution pattern of viable bacteria in liver, spleen, kidney, and lung were investigated in hemorrhagic, hypoxic, and defibrinated rabbits. Compared with controls, there was a distinct alteration of the elimination kinetics of bacteria from the circulating blood in the experimental groups. First, the initial counts of viable E. coli were up to 300% (p < .05) higher in the defibrination, hemorrhage, and hypoxia groups than in controls. Second, greater numbers of E. coli were found in the blood for a significantly (p < .001) longer period, coupled with up to four times higher counts in organ homogenates in the hemorrhagic and defibrinated group (p < .01) and more than 100 times higher counts than control values in the hypoxic animals (p < .001). Conclusion:Hemorrhage, hypoxia, and intravascular coagulation induce impaired bacterial clearance from the blood that is associated with altered organ distribution patterns, thus reflecting dysfunction of the reticuloendothelial system. (Crit Care Med 1993; 21:1758–1764)


Abstract Background/Aim: Targeted therapy has become increasingly important in treating lung adenocarcinoma, the most common subtype of lung cancer. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) enables precise identification of specific genetic alterations in individual tumor tissues, thereby guiding targeted therapy selection. This study aimed to analyze mutations present in adenocarcinoma tissues using NGS, assess the benefit of targeted therapy and evaluate the progress in availability of targeted therapies over last five years. Patients and Methods: The study included 237 lung adenocarcinoma patients treated between 2018-2020. The Archer FusionPlex CTL panel was used for NGS analysis. Results: Gene variants covered by the panel were detected in 57% patients and fusion genes in 5.9% patients. At the time of the study, 34 patients (14.3% of patients) were identified with a targetable variant. Twenty-five patients with EGFR variants, 8 patients with EML4-ALK fusion and one patient with CD74-ROS1 fusion received targeted therapy. Prognosis of patients at advanced stages with EGFR variants treated by tyrosine kinase inhibitors and patients with EML4-ALK fusion treated by alectinib was significantly favorable compared to patients without any targetable variant treated by chemotherapy (p=0.0172, p=0.0096, respectively). Based on treatment guidelines applicable in May 2023, the number of patients who could profit from targeted therapy would be 64 (27.0% of patients), this is an increase by 88% in comparison to recommendations valid in 2018-2020. Conclusion: As lung adenocarcinoma patients significantly benefit from targeted therapy, the assessment of mutational profiles using NGS could become a crucial approach in the routine management of oncological patients.


In recent years, organizational culture and climate have gained more importance, also in connection with the satisfaction of employees. From the original use in the economy, the very awareness of the meaning of their evaluation, interpretation, as well as changing or maintaining is passed on schools and similar institutions. Despite dealing with phenomena which have a long tradition in the field of research, the use of their terminology still proves to be rather inconsistent. Some researchers describe them as a single phenomenon, whereas others make a clear distinction between them or define one as a dimension of the other. In the following thesis, both phenomena are dealt with separately, whereas in the interpretation phase they are combined, considering the assumption that organizational culture reflects the symbolic side and organizational climate the psychological side of the employees' life at school, in order to highlight the overall image of school culture and climate.

School culture and climate are researched within goal clarity, decision-making model, responsibility, autonomy, leadership, quality work criteria, rewards, communication, warmth and support, sense of community, as well as openness towards problems shown at school. School culture and climate are further researched in connection to employees' job satisfaction and creating learning communities.
The research is centered on the role of principals and school counsellors in the process of forming, evaluating and changing the culture and climate.

The aim of the present research was to discover what kind of culture is recognized among the Slovenian primary and secondary school employees, evaluated and desired climate, employees' job satisfaction, as well as to outline the school counsellor and principal role in the field of organizational culture and climate.

The research was divided into two parts, using a combined, complementary approach towards research. In the first part, a survey among teachers, school counsellors and principals was carried out, based on a representative sample of Slovenian primary and secondary schools. In the second part, however, detailed interviews among principals and school counsellors were conducted in order to get a deeper insight into their roles and positions. Complementarity is shown in separate analyses which are united in the interpretation phase.

According to the results, the employees at Slovenian schools identify a strong organizational culture which appreciates knowledge and achievements, as well as an open and supportive climate, regardless of the school type or its size. Nevertheless, there are differences in evaluation of principals, teachers and school counsellors, wherein principals perceive much stronger culture and more open and supportive climate than others.
There is a clear discrepancy between evaluated and desired climate, the latter being even more open and supportive. Considering the results, the more supportive climate, the stronger feeling of autonomy and security at work.
The climate evaluation correlates to the idea of remaining in a job and the motivation of taking a sick leave due to bad condition. The more open and supportive climate, the stronger idea of remaining in a job and lesser motivation of taking a sick leave.
Culture and climate evaluations are intertwined, each correlating to job satisfaction. There is a high job satisfaction level among the employees where job permanence and work itself are ranked the highest.

Principals play an essential role in the whole process of forming, evaluating and changing school culture and climate, as well as providing satisfaction and conditions for an efficient learning environment due to their role and position in the process of work organization and achieving educational goals.
Maintaining culture and climate affects all employees. However, a school counsellor is in the position of being actively involved in the process of common creating and changing of culture and climate