In the 107th Congress, the most prominent air quality issue has been whether state and federal regulations designed to protect air quality are having a negative impact on energy production, and, if so, whether legislation should be enacted to reform such regulations. The early discussion focused primarily on California, but with the release of the Administration's energy policy recommendations in May 2001 and subsequent congressional action, attention shifted to issues more national in scope.


Background: One of the major barriers to smoking cessation practice is that many health professionals do not have the knowledge and skills on how to intervene. Objectives: To assess the effect of a training program on physicians' knowledge about tobacco dependence and cessation interventions. Subjects and Methods: A comprehensive training program was given to internal medicine residents in Cairo University Hospitals, Egypt during 2008-2009. An anonymous, 11- item questionnaire was administered before and after the training program. The training process was evaluated by participants' satisfaction using a 13- item checklist. The objective of the study was adequately explained to participants and their consensus was obtained with assured confidentiality. Results: A total of 163 internists entered the training program. Improvement in overall knowledge was evidenced by higher mean score in the post-test than pre-test (6.2 vs. 4.7; p<0.001). Significant improvement were seen in the participants' knowledge related to assessment of tobacco dependence (61% vs. 27%; p<0.001), interventions for smokers willing to quit (51.6 vs. 28.2%; p<0.001), interventions for smokers unwilling to quit (40.8 vs. 19.6%; p<0.001) and coping skills to handle withdrawal symptoms (52.9 vs. 30.7; p<0.001). Almost all participants reported that the training was very useful (96%) and applicable (85.6%) in their medical practices. Conclusions: Targeted training of health professionals has a potential to translate into improved smoking cessation counseling and to increase their inclination to intervene. Policy message: Continued medical education and regular/targeted training of health providers should be done.


The seismic cycle in Nevada, corresponding to the re-rupture time for major faults, is of the order of thousands of years long. Following the occurrence of a large (M > 7) earthquake, aftershock activity in the rupture zone continues for about a century. From earthquakes reported in the meizoseismal zones of the 1915 Pleasant Valley and 1954 Dixie Valley earthquakes, it appears that great Nevada earthquakes are also preceded by a moderate increase in seismicity, lasting several decades. Faults considered to be "active" on geologic grounds are distributed fairly evenly over most of the Nevada region, so that fault mapping alone is not enough for determination of seismic potential. In addition, because of the length of the seismic cycle, the distribution of large historic earthquakes is by itself inadequate for seismic regionalization. A better method for this region may be to spatially correlate epicenter lineups for microearthquakes and small earthquakes with mapped geologic faults or lineaments. A correlation of this type based on earthquakes recorded for the period 1970-1974 suggests that a number of northwest-trending zones in an area of west-central Nevada may have high potential for large earthquakes in the future. On the other hand, high seismicity, complex faulting and scattered epicenter distribution in the seismic "gap" between the 1932 Cedar Mountains and 1872 Owens Valley earthquakes suggests that tectonic stress in this zone may be relieved by a continuous series of small-to-moderate earthquakes.


Knowledge sharing is one of the most efficient management processes in supporting
organizational effectiveness. Extant literature notes a number of behavioural factors with an
impact on knowledge sharing. In this paper we introduce the behavioural factor of ignorance
to empirically examine its direct effect on organizational knowledge sharing. Conducting a
qualitative study within an organizational context we argue that knowledge sharing
effectiveness could be greatly improved, by managing employees' ignorance i.e. knowing
what needs to be known and also acknowledging the existence of unknowns. Moreover, based
on the findings we identify the moderating role of Knowledge Processors in the linkage
between ignorance and knowledge sharing in their capacity as both source and recipient of
knowledge. Suggestions are further made regarding new roles in knowledge management
whilst limitations and future research implications are also discussed.


Intercity railway and high-speed railway have been developed in China for a lot of years. The operation speed and level of service have been significantly improved from common railways. Simultaneously, aviation industry is growing up rapidly. Key airports such as Shanghai Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao Airport have amazing growth of patronage and cargo and parcel. In developed areas such as Yangtze Delta Area and Pearl River Area, economic vigor and regional communications lead to a typical trip-chain pattern which is aviation and railway. This paper analyzes traveler's characteristics of this pattern. And some key problems such as demand and service pattern are discussed. Air-rail inter-modality has been developed in Europe for many years. In china, with different mechanism and infrastructure conditions, exploration of its implementation feasibility is also the research purpose of this paper.


In recent years, Business Model Canvas design has evolved from being a paper-based activity to one that involves the use of dedicated computer-aided business model design tools. We propose a set of guidelines to help design more coherent business models. When combined with functionalities offered by CAD tools, they show great potential to improve business model design as an ongoing activity. However, in order to create complex solutions, it is necessary to compare basic business model design tasks, using a CAD system over its paper-based counterpart. To this end, we carried out an experiment to measure user perceptions of both solutions. Performance was evaluated by applying our guidelines to both solutions and then carrying out a comparison of business model designs. Although CAD did not outperform paper-based design, the results are very encouraging for the future of computer-aided business model design.


paper describes a A matrix operation (vector and transpose) can be performed in queueing parallel model by using multithreading software are showing. Multithreading is useful in reducing the latency by switching among a set of threads in order to improve the processor utilization. Closed queueing network model is suitable for large number of job arrivals. The model is validated by comparison of analytical parallel and simulation result.


Objectives: To report our institutional experience using definitive chemoradiation via whole bladder (WB) and partial bladder (PB) treatment in muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Combining intensity-modulated radiation therapy with image-guidance can improve the therapeutic ratio. Materials and Methods: Retrospective analysis of 26 patients with clinical stage T2-4 N0-2 M0 urothelial cancer treated in 2009 to 2012; 16 received WB radiation and 10 received PB radiation. PB/tumor boost volume included visibly thickened bladder wall or tumor localized on cystoscopy. WB radiation delivered 45 to 50.4 Gy to bladder/lymph nodes, then sequential 19.8 to 21.6 Gy tumor boost (1.8 Gy/fx). PB radiation was 45 to 50 Gy to lymph nodes (1.8 to 2 Gy/fx) and simultaneous integrated boost to 55 to 62.5 Gy to tumor only (2.2 to 2.5 Gy/fx). The primary endpoint was local control, defined as no muscle-invasive recurrence. Secondary endpoints were overall survival, toxicity, and cost. Results: Mean age was 77 and median follow-up was 20 months. Freedom from local recurrence was 86% at 2 years (PB 100%, WB 77%). Overall survival was 80% at 1 year (PB 88%, WB 75%), and 55% at 2 years (PB 70%, WB 48%, P=0.38). Failure was predominantly distant. Toxicities were minimal (3 late grade 3 ureteral, 1 acute grade 4 renal), and all resolved. No cystectomies were performed for toxicity. Hypofractionation reduces treatment time and costs by one third. Conclusions: Image-guided hypofractionated PB radiation provides local control with similar survival to WB therapy, with minimal toxicity. Hypofractionation also offers time and cost advantages. Our results need to be validated in a larger, multi-institutional cohort.


Real-time traffic information disseminated through VMS is known to have effects not only on driver to plan a route choice, detour the congestion, and cope with incident, but also on VMS operator to manage the traffic volume indirectly. But, the dissemination of traffic information is operated in the side of provider, not of user. Importance-Performance analysis (IPA) offers a simple, useful method for simultaneously considering both the importance and performance dimensions when evaluating or improving strategy. This technique has been successfully used in a variety of settings to define priorities and guide resource optimization decisions. This study uses IPA to evaluate traffic information strategies through VMS to make resource improvement recommendations. It gained 760 samples by field surveys, which are conducted in Korean Thanksgiving Day, weekday and weekend at the service areas of expressways. The results indicate that the motivations in quadrant Ⅰ(concentrate here) are dissemination of exactly information and quick transmission, while distance of VMS, most drivers are not satisfied with that is located in quadrant Ⅲ(low priority).


The curriculum of the primary school science course was redesigned on the basis of constructivism in 2005-2006 academic years, in Turkey. In this context, the name of this course has been changed as "Science and Technology"; and both content and course books, students workbooks for this course have been redesigned in light of constructivism. The aim of this study is to determine whether the Science and Technology course books and student work books for primary school 5 grade are appropriate for the constructivism by evaluating them in terms of the fundamental principles of constructivism. In this study, out of qualitative research methods, documentation technique (i.e. document analysis) is applied; while selecting samples, criterion-sampling is used out of purposeful sampling techniques. When the Science and Technology course book and workbook for the 5 grade in primary education are examined, it is seen that both books complete each other in certain areas. Consequently, it can be claimed that in spite of some inadequate and missing points in the course book and workbook of the primary school Science and Technology course for the 5 grade students, these books are attempted to be designed in terms of the principles of constructivism. To overcome the inadequacies in the books, it can be suggested to redesign them. In addition to them, not to ignore the technology dimension of the course, the activities that encourage the students to prepare projects using technology cycle should be included. Keywords—Constructivism, Coursebooks, Science and Technology Education.


The resolution of recent bank distresses has been executed through both bail-out and bail-in mechanisms. Market reaction to the use of these resolution mechanisms is analysed with an event study approach, showing that bail-in events generated worse reactions relative to bail-out. Overall, with a second-stage regression analysis of Cumulative Abnormal Returns, findings show that negative returns due to bail-in events are smaller in magnitude after the approval of the BRRD regulation. Furthermore, bank distress cases in troubled countries are more expected than in strong countries and contagion effects appear stronger in the Eurozone rather than in the rest of Europe.


Many men age 50+ with HIV (MWH age 50+) are sexually active. However, little is known about the relationship between the number of sexual partners and patient-reported outcomes in this population. To help address this need, analyses were performed on data from the Aging with Dignity, Health, Optimism and Community cohort, an observational study of adults age 50+ with HIV. Of 876 MWH age 50+, 26.8% had 0 sexual partners in the past year, 27.9% had 1, 21.5% had 2-5, and 23.9% had >5. Men with one partner were significantly less lonely and less depressed than any other group (p < .01 for pairwise comparisons). Men with zero partners were more depressed than any other group. Linear regression controlling for race and relationship status showed men with one partner had lower levels of loneliness than any other group. They also had lower levels of depression than men with zero or more than than five sexual partners, although depression levels were not significantly different for men with one or with two to five partners. Linear regression also showed that men in relationships were less lonely and less depressed than men who were not in relationships, after controlling for race and number of sexual partners. Better understanding of the roles that number of sex partners and relationships play in the mental health of MWH age 50+ may help ameliorate the burden of loneliness and depression in this vulnerable population. ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT04311554).


In this study, we attempted to reduce firing voltage of AC-PDP by alloying MgO protective Layer with CaO. Also, spray coating of single crystal MgO powder has been used to improving Exo-electron emission characteristics and reducing the statistical discharge delay in plasma displays. The properties of discharge depending upon the single crystal MgO powder are investigated. Plasma display having powder coated MgCaO Protective Layer shows lower driving voltage and higher efficacy than of uncoated, conventional panel.


Any Banach space can be realized as a direct summand of a uniform algebra, and one does not expect an arbitrary uniform algebra to have an abundance of properties not common to all Banach spaces. One general result concerning arbitrary uniform algebras is that no proper uniform algebra is linearly homeomorphic to a C(K)-space. Nevertheless many speciic uniform algebras arising in complex analysis share (or are suspected to share) certain Banach space properties of C(K). We discuss the family of tight algebras, which includes algebras of analytic functions on strictly pseudocon-vex domains and algebras associated with rational approximation theory in the plane. Tight algebras are in some sense close to C(K)-spaces, and along with C(K)-spaces they have the Pee lczy nski and the Dunford{Pettis properties. We also focus on certain properties of C(K)-spaces that are inherited by the disk algebra. This includes a discussion of interpolation between H p-spaces and Bourgain's extension of Grothendieck's theorem to the disk algebra. We conclude with a brief description of linear deformations of uniform algebras and a brief survey of the known classiication results.


The tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) apoptotic pathway has emerged as a cancer therapeutic target; however, clinical trials have proven that the vast majority of human cancers are resistant to TRAIL apoptotic pathway-targeted therapies. We show here that A20-mediated ubiquitination inhibits caspase-8 cleavage and TRAIL-induced apoptosis in glioblastoma through two signaling complexes. A20 is highly expressed in glioblastomas and, together with the death receptor 5 (DR5) and receptor-interacting protein 1 (RIP1), forms a DR5-associated plasma membrane bound signaling complex that we named the preligand assembly complex (PLAC) under physiologic conditions. TRAIL treatment leads to the recruitment of caspase-8 to the PLAC for the assembly of a death-inducing signaling complex (DISC). In the DISC, the C-terminal Zinc finger domain of the A20 ubiquitin ligase mediates RIP1 ubiquitination through lysine (K)-63-linked polyubiquitin chains, which bind to the protease domain of caspase-8 and inhibits its dimerization, cleavage and the initiation of TRAIL-induced apoptosis in glioblastoma-derived cell lines and tumor-initiating cells. These results identify A20 ubiquitin ligase as a therapeutic target whose inhibition can overcome TRAIL resistance in glioblastoma and thus have an impact on ongoing clinical trials of TRAIL apoptotic pathway-targeted combination cancer therapies (the manuscript was published online first in Cancer Discovery). Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-72. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-LB-72


Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is often detected incidentally and early. Currently, open partial nephrectomy and laparoscopic total nephrectomy form competing technologies. The former is invasive, but nephron-sparing; the other is considered less invasive but with more loss of renal mass. Traditionally, emphasis has been placed on oncologic outcomes. However, a patient with an excellent oncologic outcome may suffer from morbidity and mortality related to renal failure. Animal models with hypertension and diabetic renal disease indicate accelerated progression of pre-existing disease after nephrectomy. Patients with RCC are older and they have a high prevalence of diabetes and hypertension. The progression of renal failure may also be accelerated after a nephrectomy. Our analysis of the available literature indicates that renal outcomes in RCC patients after surgery are relatively poorly defined. A strategy to systematically evaluate the renal function of patients with RCC, with joint discussion between the nephrologist and the oncologic team, is strongly advocated.


This paper addresses our proposed method to automatically segment out a person's face from a given image that consists of a head-and-shoulders view of the person and a complex background scene. The method involves a fast, reliable, and effective algorithm that exploits the spatial distribution characteristics of human skin color. A universal skin-color map is derived and used on the chrominance component of the input image to detect pixels with skin-color appearance. Then, based on the spatial distribution of the detected skin-color pixels and their corresponding luminance values, the algorithm employs a set of novel regularization processes to reinforce regions of skin-color pixels that are more likely to belong to the facial regions and eliminate those that are not. The performance of the face-segmentation algorithm is illustrated by some simulation results carried out on various head-and-shoulders test images. The use of face segmentation for video coding in applications such as videotelephony is then presented. We explain how the face-segmentation results can be used to improve the perceptual quality of a videophone sequence encoded by the H.261-compliant coder.


We designed and fabricated a novel terahertz (THz) otoscope to help physicians to diagnose otitis media (OM) with both THz diagnostics and conventional optical diagnostics. We verified the potential of this tool for diagnosing OM using mouse skin tissue and a human tympanic membrane samples prior to clinical application.


The present study has been designed to evaluate the potent role of healing efficacy of lanolin (which is also called wool wax), is an oily product secreted by the sebaceous glands beneath the skin of sheep which is have anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, skin protecting properties, a forty-eight mature albino rats (weighted 250-350 g) were randomly assigned to two groups; control group and eczema group which is induced by 99.9% pure acetone. By squad cotton and put it on shaved skin, after 3 days of acetone application the eczema group were divided randomly into two equal groups each group 16 rats, treat these 32 rats with glycerin and lanolin, after 24h five rats from each group were sacrificed, and remaining rats were treated with glycerin and lanolin for 72h and then sacrificed at the third day, the histopathology there is a lot of histopathological changes occur in tissue section in eczematous skin in comparison with control section; there were obvious thickness and enlargement in the length of outermost layer of skin, also there is fissures and cracks in the epidermal layer due to the dryness of skin and aggregation of inflammatory cells. And as well as keratinization of epithelial layer and changes in skin color, the results indicate there were optimum healing effect of lanolin group in compare with glycerin group after 72h, Showed back the outer most layer of the skin to its normal length, also decrease in inflammatory cells number.


An analysis is presented of the oscillations of keyhole pressure and plasma radiation emitted during welding with a continuous wave (CW) CO2 laser. Welding was done with a CW CO2 laser, Photon Sources VFA 2500, operating at the power of 1.75 kW. The welded materials were mild and stainless steel sheets, 0.8-2 mm thick. The shielding gas was argon or helium. Oscillations of plasma radiation were registered in monochromatic or broad band radiation with the use of a photomultiplier or photodiode and pressure variations with a microphone in the frequency range of 20-2×104 Hz. It has been found that the optical signal from the plasma plume is closely connected with the acoustic signal and that the source of the acoustic signal is the pulsating movement of the plasma plume. Spectral analysis of the measured oscillations shows differences in power spectra depending on the welding conditions. Generally, two intrinsic frequency peaks in the range of 0.5-4 kHz are always present but the amplitude, frequency and width of the peaks depend on the material and welding conditions. The results show that the optical and acoustic signals emitted during the welding process can be useful for process monitoring. The behaviour of the observed oscillations is characteristic for deterministic chaos. Considerable regularization of the process was observed as an effect of modulation of the laser beam. The modulation factor (Pmax -Pmin )/Pmax was equal to 0.2 and the modulation frequency was 2 kHz. In this case, the intense peak corresponding to the modulation frequency was observed in the power spectrum together with smaller peaks corresponding to the harmonic frequencies.


Enterococcus faecalis is a multidrug resistant, opportunistic human pathogen and a leading cause of hospital acquired infections. Recently, isolates have been recovered from the air and surfaces onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Pangenomic and functional analyses were carried out to assess their potential impact on astronaut health. Genomes of each ISS isolate, and both clinical and commensal reference strains, were evaluated for their core and unique gene content, acquired antibiotic resistance genes, phage, plasmid content, and virulence traits. In order to determine their potential survival when outside of the human host, isolates were also challenged with three weeks of desiccation at 30% relative humidity. Finally, pathogenicity of the ISS strains was evaluated in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. At the culmination of this study, there were no defining signatures that separated known pathogenic strains from the more commensal phenotypes using the currently available resources. As a result, the current reliance on database information alone must be shifted to experimentally evaluated genotypic and phenotypic characteristics of clinically relevant microorganisms.


Spotlight on the construction industry

For ages people have been building shelters and houses using bricks and blocks bound together by mortar. As a result, the trade of bricklayer gradually evolved into what it is today. However, working methods, materials, tools, equipment, and workplaces may vary between workers, construction projects,1 and countries, leading to differences in health and safety risks.

In the Netherlands, codes of practice are developed for various professions in the construction industry aimed at reducing health and safety risks. These codes are based on consensus between health and safety experts, employers, and employee organisations. Recently, such a code of practice was developed for bricklayers.2 The facts presented here are based on that document or other sources as research studies, expert opinions, questionnaires, and interviews conducted with employers and employees. The risk assessments are compared with international standards and scientific literature. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the tasks, health and safety risks, and control measures to reduce or eliminate hazards of the job and in the workplaces of bricklayers and their assistants.

Bricklayers are engaged in building and renovating houses, offices, and industrial complexes using bricks, blocks, and mortar. Each day the Dutch bricklayer handles some 800–1100 bricks or an average of 165–220 blocks.3,4 The bricks and blocks are delivered to the construction sites by truck, in packages or in bulk. The bricklayers' assistant is responsible for the preparation and the transportation of materials and equipment to the actual workplaces. The bricklayer builds the walls by adding mortar and placing the bricks (one handed) or blocks (two handed) in their correct position. In general, one assistant works for two to five bricklayers. Over the years, bricklaying, transporting materials and equipment, and block laying have developed into three specialised …


Silk fibers, animal-based protein fibers, are composed of two fibroin protein filaments embedded in sericin, a glue-like protein coating. The exploitation of silk fibers as sutures and textiles has been done for centuries and industrial-scale production of silk fibers has further expanded their utilization. At present, both silk fibers and their protein component, known as regenerated silk fibroin, can be effectively used as either matrices or biofillers/reinforcements for the fabrication of composite materials because of their remarkable characteristics in terms of mechanical properties, degradability, and biocompatibility. The silk-based composites can be prepared in several forms, including fibers, films, and sponges or scaffolds. In recent years, silk-based composites have gained much more attention as one of the most promising candidates for use in various fields, such as technical textiles, structural applications, biosensors, biomedical applications, tissue engineering, and drug delivery systems. Since the incorporation of either the silk fibers or the regenerated silk makes the fabricated composites "greener", silk-based composites should be potential alternatives to traditional composites on the basis of an environmentally friendly viewpoint.


Web Services are gradually becoming main platform-independent software components and will widely exist in the distributed environment, INTERNET. This kind of software developing method that the creation of new software systems will mainly depend on Web Services composition is attracting more and more researchers' attention. There is still not a systematic and mature approach for Web Services composition which can be used to instruct the whole composition process. This paper provides a "feature model driven Web Service composition" approach, which makes Feature Model as the modeling tool to cross through the whole Web Services composition process and can be used to drive and direct all the phases in this process, including requirement analysis, business flow modeling, services composition, business flow deployment and execution. Then, combining with a concrete example, the basic idea, rationale and key steps of FWSC (feature model driven Web Services composition) solution are introduced. The work presented in this paper enhances the speed of modeling, development and quality of Web Services composition, and increases the abilities which can make the system dynamically adjust and quickly evolve when requirement changes.


Author(s): Groban, Eli S. | Advisor(s): Jacobson, Matthew P; Voigt, Christopher A | Abstract: Cells use a variety of different mechanisms to sense and respond to the constantly changing environment. Single celled organisms use signaling pathways to find food, escape toxins, and protect themselves in dangerous or overcrowded environments. The failure of cell signaling in these organisms usually leads to the death of the cell. In a multi-celled organism, individual cells rely on signaling pathways to cooperate with the rest of the organism. A failure in cell to cell signaling in higher organisms may lead to the brief survival of the cell but the eventual failure and death of the organism as a whole. We chose to apply various methods to study cell signaling and communication in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. The first two approaches we took to this problem were entirely computational. We developed parameters for phosphorylated amino acids and used these parameters to predict structural changes as a function of phosphorylation. In addition, we showed that both phosphate charge and the geometry by which this phosphate interacts with other residues determine the energy gained or lost as a result of this interaction. Next, we joined computation and experiment to successfully predict agonists and antagonists for a G-protein coupled receptor. In a follow up study, we used the information gained on the G-protein coupled receptor to investigate selectivity among a set of similar receptors from different mammals. In the final section of this work, we use a mixture of computation and experiment to show that two component signaling pathways do not interfere with one another in vivo. We then apply this knowledge to deconstruct the bacterial chemotaxis pathway into two separate, orthogonal signaling systems.


The characteristics of proliferation of leukemic cells in four children with untreated acute leukemia have been studied. In all four of these children a population of marrow leukemic cells was found which were dividing with a generation time of about 15 to 20 hours. In two of these patients it was possible to demonstrate that these dividing cells after one or more mitotic divisions became smaller and stopped dividing. In all of these patients 70 per cent or more of the leukemic cells of the marrow and almost all leukemic cells of the blood were nonproliferative at the time of these studies. These nondividing cells would be relatively unaffected by chemotherapeutic agents designed to inhibit cell division.


This paper presents a novel method to compute the lubricant pressure distribution between a rough and a smooth surface in relative motion. The originality of this method is to combine a deterministic approach for the large scales and a stochastic model for the small scales of the problem. As a result, the new method allows a significant mesh reduction while maintaining an accurate prediction of the generated load.Copyright © 2011 by ASME


of the cardiac adrenergic receptors (beta adrenergic receptors in Ahlquist's terminology). When noradrenaline is infused at a moderate rate into the intact circulation (of the order of 20 pg./minute in man) one usually observes a slight decrease in heart rate and in cardiac output. These effects of noradrenaline are entirely indirect; they are reflex effects originating from the sino-aortic baroreceptors which are activated by the peripheral pressor action of the agent. At a high rate of administration the reflex effects are overwhelmed, the direct effects of noradrenaline on the heart predominate, and the heart rate rises above normal. When the action of the cardiac moderator reflex is prevented (atropinization, inactivation of the baroreceptors, administration of a blocker of the alpha adrenergic receptors) the direct cardiac effects of noradrenaline are apparent even at low rates of administration. It would be most unfortunate if Ahlquist's suggested classification of adrenergic receptors were misunderstood to mean that sympathomimetic amines which are primarily alpha-receptor stimulators in the peripheral blood-vessels cannot have highly effective actions on the heart. A bit of reflection as final evidence: since noradrenaline is the sympathetic transmitter substance, how could the heart respond to sympathetic stimulation unless the beta adrenergic receptors in the myocardium were stimulated by noradrenaline ?-I am, etc.,


A study on to identify the relationship between blood lead and cognitive development was conducted on primary school
children in Malaysia. About 413 children aged 6½ - 8½ years from urban (236), rural (80) and industrial areas (97) were studied. Blood lead was analyzed using the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (GFAAS). Cognitive development was measured by the 'McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities Test' (MSCA). Significant differences found in the mean cognitive scores between the urban (94.40), industrial (102.90) and suburban children (101.24) (p ≤ 0.001), with the blood lead between the urban (3.66 μg/dL), industrial (3.54 μg/dL) and suburban children (3.04 μg/dL) (p = 0.022). Significant inverse correlations between blood lead and cognitive scores found for all groups (p ≤ 0.001), urban (p ≤ 0.001) and suburban children (p < 0.001). Low blood lead significantly influenced the cognitive development for all children after adjusting for confounders (p ≤ 0.001). The urban children's cognitive scores were significantly influenced by blood lead levels and household income (p ≤ 0.001). However, for the suburban children, the cognitive score were significantly influenced by the blood lead levels, the mothers' education, number of siblings, sequence in the family and the household income (p < 0.001). Blood lead below 10 μg/dL influenced the cognitive development. Urban children had higher blood lead
but suburban children with lower blood lead were also vulnerable to the effect of lead on their cognitive development.


PREVIEW Awareness of the signs and symptoms of eating disorders is essential for primary care physicians who work with children, adolescents, and young adults. In this article, Drs Kondo and Sokol describe the clinical manifestations of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder, which usually occur in adolescence and early adulthood, and pica and rumination disorder, which are more characteristic of infancy and early childhood. The authors also discuss risk factors for and medical complications of eating disorders and present current treatment methods.


Spectrum asked three IEEE members from the telecommunications sector to comment on the industry's current woes and prospects. Roch Guerin discusses bandwidth as a commodity and how to deal with it. The impact of technological change on telecommunications is enormous and calls for a shift in business models. Technology is making bandwidth a commodity and it should not matter who supplies it. Competition is vital and commodity providers must be decoupled from value providers. Frank Ferrante points out that the Year 2000 crisis resulted in manufacturers being deluged with orders for new upgraded systems. Vast sums were spent to meet the demand in time. However, when Y2K was over, production stayed high and inventories continued to build, while demand effectively stopped overnight. Dazzling new innovations are needed to compel the masses to spend and manufacturers must apply their resources to deliver quickly and efficiently. Jules A. Bellisio discusses the role of engineers in bringing new ideas to the market place. Many engineers have put together ventures for the sole purpose of attracting capital. The underlying technology and business propositions were there solely to lure the unsuspecting. By allowing engineers to use technology simply to cover for a scam, then the profession is also to blame for the current problems.


Using logical clauses to represent patterns, Tsetlin machines (TMs) have recently obtained competitive performance in terms of accuracy, memory footprint, energy, and learning speed on several benchmarks. A team of Tsetlin automata (TAs) composes each clause, thus driving the entire learning process. These are rewarded/penalized according to three local rules that optimize global behaviour. Each clause votes for or against a particular class, with classification resolved using a majority vote. In the parallel and asynchronous architecture that we propose here, every clause runs in its own thread for massive parallelism. For each training example, we keep track of the class votes obtained from the clauses in local voting tallies. The local voting tallies allow us to detach the processing of each clause from the rest of the clauses, supporting decentralized learning. Thus, rather than processing training examples one-by-one as in the original TM, the clauses access the training examples simultaneously, updating themselves and the local voting tallies in parallel. There is no synchronization among the clause threads, apart from atomic adds to the local voting tallies. Operating asynchronously, each team of TA will most of the time operate on partially calculated or outdated voting tallies. However, across diverse learning tasks, it turns out that our decentralized TM learning algorithm copes well with working on outdated data, resulting in no significant loss in learning accuracy. Further, we show that the approach provides up to 50 times faster learning. Finally, learning time is almost constant for reasonable clause amounts. For sufficiently large clause numbers, computation time increases approximately proportionally. Our parallel and asynchronous architecture thus allows processing of more massive datasets and operating with more clauses for higher accuracy.


Background: Soluble adhesion molecules are involved in the gathering and joining of inflammatory cells to vascular endothelium. Therefore, they serve as potential markers of endothelial dysfunction in vascular diseases including sickle cell disease (SCD). In Ghana, there are scarcely any report on the levels of adhesion molecules among SCD patients. The current study aimed to determine plasma levels of ICAM-1, VCAM-1 and E-Selectin as markers of endothelial dysfunction in SCD patients in steady state, complications and controls. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study involving 60 HbAA controls, 46 HbSS steady state, 57 HbSS VOC, 18 HbSC VOC, 21 HbSS with leg ulcer and 11 HbSS with priapism. Blood samples were collected from all the study subjects (n = 213) and processed into plasma. The plasma levels of VCAM-1, ICAM-1 and E-Selectin concentrations of SCD patients and controls were measured using a double sandwich ELISA technique. Demographic information was also collected from the study subjects. Results: Levels of all soluble proteins (ICAM-1, VCAM-1 and E-Selectin) were significantly higher in HbSS steady-state patients compared to non-SCD controls (p < 0.001). Generally, SCD patients with complications had relatively higher levels of the soluble proteins compared to those in the steady-state. Of the SCD patients with complications, those with vaso-occlusion crisis (HbSS VOC) had relatively higher levels of ICAM-1, VCAM-1 and E-Selectin at (62.42 ng/mL ± 26.09), (634.99 ng/mL ± 324.31) and (236.77 ng/mL ± 114.40) respectively; Conclusion: Although levels of adhesion molecules were high in all the SCD patients with complications, those with vaso-occlusive crisis had higher levels. This might reflect an ongoing endothelial dysfunction in these patients. SCD patients with vaso-occlusive crisis presents with a more severe pathophysiology condition.


By Aya Samra, Pre-pharmacy
 Advisor: Christopher Gulgas
 Presentation ID: PM_C11
 Abstract: Menthol is a naturally occurring molecule containing an alcohol functional group which can be readily dehydrated to form a variety of alkene products. The goals of this project were to (1) customize and fine tune the dehydration procedure and (2) characterize the product mixture using infrared (IR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopies as well as gas chromatography (GC). The reaction was successful in producing a mixture of menthene products which was analyzed to identify major products. The procedure was then adapted to be employed at the microscale level in the organic laboratories at UC Blue Ash. The reaction procedure and characterization methods shall be presented.


This paper reports the observed changes for equilibrium factors between 226Ra and 222Rn with sealing time of the samples. The samples include soil, raw coal, mineral water, cement, rock, etc. Especially the conceptions of "pre-equilibrium time" and "pre-equilibrium factor" have been put forward and methods of measuring and processing data have been given which can be used for rapidly reporting activity of 226Ra in samples with unknown equilibrium factor. It is definitely concluded that, using methods given in the paper, a test report will be completed in 3—7 days, instead of one month, after receiving the sample whose activity is not lower than LLD of the spectrometer.


In this study, three kinds of photo-reactive polymers, namely positively charged azidophenyl-derived polyallylamine (AzPhPAAm), negatively charged azidophenyl-derived poly(acrylic acid) (AzPhPAAc) and neutral azidophenyl-derived poly(ethylene glycol) (AzPhPEG), were synthesized by introduction of photo-reactive group (-N3) into polyallylamine, poly(acrylic acid) and poly(ethylene glycol), respectively. The structure of the azidophenyl-derived polymers was confirmed by 1H-NMR measurement. All of the photo-reactive polymers can be pattern-grafted on the surface of cells culture plate, which was confirmed by the optical microscopy observation. The contact angle decreased after surface modification by the photo-reactive polymers. Human mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) cultured on the modified surfaces showed different morphology. The cells adhered and spread more on the PAAm- and PAAc-grafted surfaces than on the PEG-grafted surface. The pellets formed on PAAm- and PEG-grafted surfaces in condrogenic differentiation medium were positively stained by safranin O/ fast green. But the pellet formed on PAAc-grafted surface did not show obviously positive staining for safranin O/ fast green. These results indicate that the PAAm- and PEG-grafted surfaces promoted chondrogenic differentiation of MSC.


A multi-target localization algorithm based on compressed sensing was proposed in this paper. The issue of multi-target localization was transformed into compressed sensing. The algorithm greatly reduced the amount of wireless network's communication data by transferring most of the computing work to the central server. This method made full uses of the priori information of the signal and the support set. It combined Kalman filter with Bayesian compressed sensing to improve the localization accuracy and noise immunity. Simulation results showed that the proposed method has good noise immunity, robustness and localization accuracy compared with traditional localization methods.


This study uses American (Manchester, New Hampshire) and Japanese (Shizuoka) cohorts in 1910-1950 to explore the similarities and differences between "life-course transitions, " defined as the movements of individuals and families within socially constructed time-tables; and "life-course turning points," which represent individuals' subjective assessment of continuities and discontinuities over their lives. Considerable differences are found among cohorts in each society, but there are also similarities that cut across both societies. Whereas cultural differences in the timing of life transitions and the subjective construction of the life course are significant, the common experience of cohorts in response to shared historical events may transcend cultural differences.


This paper proposes a novel hybrid model for an internal combustion engine, with the power generated due to combustion as the input and the crankshaft speed fluctuations as the output. The individual cylinders of the engine are considered as subsystems for which a nonlinear model, based on the physical principles, is derived. The proposed model is linearized at an operating point, and a switched linear model is formed. The simulation results of the proposed model are validated by matching the results with the experimentally observed data. Using the properties of the validated model, it is shown that the crankshaft speed variations observed in the engine are a Markov process. A novel algorithm that is based on the Markov chain is proposed to detect the misfire in the spark ignition engines. In the ensuing engine rig experiments, an igniter misfire is introduced in the system and is successfully detected. The analysis of the data shows that the engine also has an air leakage in a cylinder (a developing misfire), which is experimentally confirmed later.


This letter considers the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication systems in urban areas under the general Rician fading channel. A hybrid offline-online design is proposed to improve the system performance by leveraging both the statistical channel state information (S-CSI) and instantaneous channel state information (I-CSI). For the offline phase, we aim to maximize the expected average achievable rate based on the S-CSI by jointly optimizing the RIS's phase-shift and UAV trajectory. The formulated stochastic optimization problem is difficult to solve due to its non-convexity. To tackle this problem, we propose an efficient algorithm by leveraging the stochastic successive convex approximation (SSCA) techniques. For the online phase, the UAV adaptively adjusts the transmit beamforming and user scheduling according to the effective I-CSI. Numerical results verify that the proposed hybrid design performs better than various benchmark schemes, and also demonstrate a favorable trade-off between system performance and CSI overhead.


A reversible method of sterilization to be performed during cesarean section by moving the ovary through the mesosalpinx to the front of the tube is described. 22 patients at a Mexican Institute of Social Security Hospital who did not wish further pregnancies but did not want definitive sterilizations have undergone the procedure with no pregnancies to date. Most of the procedure is done with the fingers to avoid lesions to the ovary and tube; the steps are briefly described and diagrammed. 1 or 2 silk stitches hold the ovary in place. The surgical technique is simple and rapid, postoperative complications were absent and recovery was the same as that following any cesarean operation. After periods of up to 6 months no pregnancies have been reported. No menstrual or other alterations attributable to the procedure have been identified. It is expected that patients will be followed up for several years to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of the procedure, as well as its reversibility if some patients desiring restored fertility undergo reversal operations and and achieve pregnancy.


This paper questions the presumption that transferable quota licenses are worth more and result in higher welfare. We show that the price of a transferable license will tend to be higher than that of its nontransferable counterpart only if the underlying quota is quite restrictive. Despite this, if consumer surplus and license revenue have equal weight in the welfare function, transferability is preferable to nontransferability. If their weights are unequal, then the comparison could go either way. We also show that increased uncertainty, in the form of a mean preserving spread, does not affect the license price under nontransferability and could raise or lower the level of the license price with transferability depending on the restrictiveness of the quota.


The incidence of diabetes is increasing not only in Korea, but also globally. Diabetes mellitus is a disease with problematic complications. Diabetic foot is a typical complication that reduces the quality of life and is a burden on the economy. Active foot examination and foot care education are methods to prevent diabetic foot at a minimum cost. Early detection, treatment, and education are the primary responsibilities of healthcare providers.


Proteus mirabilis, a common cause of urinary tract infections, expresses iron-regulated outer-membrane proteins (OMPs) in response to iron restriction. It has been suggested that a 64 kDa OMP is involved in haemoprotein uptake and that this might have a role in pathogenesis. In order to confirm this hypothesis, this study generated a P. mirabilis mutant strain (P7) that did not express the 64 kDa OMP, by insertion of the TnphoA transposon. The nucleotide sequence of the interrupted gene revealed that it corresponded to a haemin receptor precursor. Moreover, in vitro growth assays showed that the mutant was unable to grow using haemoglobin and haemin as unique iron sources. The authors also carried out in vivo growth and infectivity assays and demonstrated that P7 was not able to survive in an in vivo model and was less efficient than wild-type strain Pr 6515 in colonizing the urinary tract. These results confirmed that the P. mirabilis 64 kDa iron-regulated OMP is a haem receptor that has an important role for survival and multiplication of these bacteria in the mammalian host and in the development of urinary tract infection.


For the original article see ibid., vol.37, no.12, p.2067-73 (1989). The commenter asks the authors of the above-titled paper to explain how the data shown support their summarized result, where they state that 'the addition of more transputers will also reduce the computational time'. He also asks for clarification of the extent to which the configuration of the transputer network and/or the task sharing of the transputers was different in the different cases discussed. Finally, he asks if it is correct to assume that the transputers were on commercially available mass-produced boards and that the OCCAM software used was a standard (as opposed to custom) language package. The authors provide answers to all of the queries. >


The rapid rise in the grid integration of low-carbon technologies, e.g. renewable energy sources (RESs) and plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), has led to several challenges in distribution networks (DNs). This is due to the intermittent generation of RESs and uncertain loads of PEVs, both of which necessitate enhancing the flexibility requirements at the distribution level so as to accommodate the high penetration of these clean technologies in the future. To address such issues, this study proposes a mixed-integer linear programming-based expansion planning model for DNs considering the impact of high RES and PEV penetration, the associated uncertainties, and providing flexibility requirements at the distribution level. In this respect, the spherical simplex unscented transformation, an analytical uncertainty modelling method, is implemented in the planning model to take into account the forecasting errors of the uncertain green technologies. Also, in order to estimate the electric vehicle parking lot demand at each load node of the network, a new approach for PEV-charging model is suggested. To investigate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed probabilistic planning model, it is implemented on two test DNs, and the obtained results are thoroughly discussed.


Traceability in food chains is mandatory in the near future for the most companies interested in food processing. Every food chain is made up of a variable number of companies. To realize a full traceability system we propose a distributed collaborative information system where every company exchanges traceability data with the others over a network. XML was used as the format to represent data, for its ability to cope with different size data structures. WebServices based technology has been adopted to interface different suppliers which communicate through HTTP protocol. A prototype has been implemented and evaluated. Access time is the performance index we chose to discuss in the paper because, considered the complexity of the traceability system and the scattering of the information, it represents a key factor for the users. The performances obtained on the testbed demonstrate the real applicability of this architecture in large production systems.


Vestimentifera is a peculiar group of marine gutless siboglinids which has uncertain position in annelid tree. The detailed study of the fragmentary explored central nervous system of vestimentiferans and other siboglinids is requested to trace the evolution of the siboglinid group. Among all siboglinids the vestimentiferans preserve the gut rudiment what makes them a key group to homologize main cerebral structures with the ones of typical annelids, such as supra- and subesophageal commissures, cirsumesophageal connectives etc. Histologically we revealed main annelid brain structures in the compact large brain of Riftia pachyptila: circumesophageal connectives (longitudinal nerve tracts) and commissures (dorsal, supra- and subenteral commissures). Innervation of tentacles makes them homologous to peristomial palps of the rest annelids. The single nerve cord is represented by paired intraepidermal longitudinal strands associated with the ventral ciliary field in vestimentum and bearing giant axons originating from at least four pairs of perikarya. The absence of regularly positioned ganglia and lateral nerves in the nerve cord in vestimentum and trunk and presence of them in the opisthosome segments. Among siboglinids, the vestimentiferans distinguished by a large and significatly differentiated brain which is reflection of the high development of the palp apparatus. Osedax, frenulates and Sclerolinum have less developped brain. Frenulates and Sclerolinum have good ganglionization in the opisthosome, which probably indicates its high mobility. Comparative neuroanatomical analysis of the siboglinids and annelid sister clades allows us to hypothesize that the last common ancestor of siboglinids might had brain with a dorsal commissure giving rise neurite bundles to palps and paired ventral nerve cord.


The biomechanical and biochemical properties of collagen are changed by non-enzymatic glycation culminating in increased cross-linking. We have previously shown that dibasic amino acids such as L-arginine inhibit in vitro the non-enzymatic glycation of soluble proteins and insoluble connective tissue macromolecules. In the present in vitro study we obtained evidence that the nucleophilic hydrazine derivative aminoguanidine and the non-steroidal antirheumatic drug ibuprofen inhibit the formation of fluorescent advanced glycation end products (AGEs) to a comparable extent, while arginine is ineffective as a consequence of its tendency to form AGEs itself. Periodic replacement of glycated arginine in the rat tail tendon system, however, engendered an inhibition of fluorescence similar to that obtained by the other inhibitors. Long-term glycation of rat tail tendons caused a significant increase in Young's modulus, which could also be inhibited by periodically renewed arginine. In contrast to ibuprofen, aminoguanidine and arginine-lysine inhibited the marked increase in maximum contraction force of long-term glycated rat tail tendons. As opposed to other inhibitors, aminoguanidine also reduced the thermal contraction force of native tendons, shifted the maximum contraction temperature to markedly lower values and solubilized a significant part of the rat tail tendon collagen. These findings indicate that the in vitro alterations of rat tail tendon collagen induced by non-enzymatic glycation can be prevented by arginine, arginine-lysine and aminoguanidine. However, collagen structure is seriously affected by aminoguanidine.


In this paper, the structured uncertainty description of non-minimum phase systems in the linear quadratic Gaussian and loop transfer recovery (LQG/LTR) process is firstly proposed. With above process, we can confirm that there is no difference between minimum-phase and nonminimum-phase systems in Kalman filter design. Furthermore, the well-developed eigenstructure assignment (ESA) method applied to a LTR process is firstly proposed. The proposed method can efficiently improve the high-gain problem in a conventional LQG/LTR one. In addition, our method provides better performance in time-domain and frequency-domain responses. With the ESA technique in a LTR process, the control system can simultaneously provide prescribed stability and take into account of both time-domain and frequency-domain specifications. Finally, the numerical results illustrate the advantage of our proposed method.


The enhancement of power distribution system reliability requires a great investment but not all the utilities are in a position to assume it. Therefore, any strategy that allows the improvement of reliability should be reflected directly in the decrease of the duration and frequency of interruptions. In this paper an alternative solution to the problems of continuity associated to fault location is presented. A methodology of statistical nature is proposed using mixture of distributions. With this approach a statistical model is obtained from the extraction of characteristic patterns of the signals registered by measurement equipments, along with the parameters and own topology of the network during an event. The purpose of this methodology is to offer an economic alternative of easy implementation for the development of strategies oriented to improve the reliability from the decrease in the times of attention and recovery of the system


Crack characterisation is one of the central tasks of NDT&E (the Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation) of industrial components and structures. These days data necessary for carrying out this task are often collected using ultrasonic phased arrays. Many ultrasonic phased array inspections are automated but interpretation of the data they produce is not. This paper offers an approach to designing an explainable AI (Augmented Intelligence) to meet this challenge. It describes a C code called AutoNDE, which comprises a signal-processing module based on a modified total focusing method that creates a sequence of two-dimensional images of an evaluated specimen; an image-processing module, which filters and enhances these images; and an explainable AI module—a decision tree, which selects images of possible cracks, groups those of them that appear to represent the same crack and produces for each group a possible inspection report for perusal by a human inspector. AutoNDE has been trained on 16 datasets collected in a laboratory by imaging steel specimens with large smooth planar notches, both embedded and surface-breaking. It has been tested on two other similar datasets. The paper presents results of this training and testing and describes in detail an approach to dealing with the main source of error in ultrasonic data—undulations in the specimens' surfaces.


In this letter, we utilize a lower thermal budget with an aluminum doped p-well to minimize the effect of "step bunching" and a new structural design with deep spacer implants to prevent the JFET "pinching" action at small p-well spacings (5 /spl mu/m) in planar vertical double implanted MOSFET (DIMOS) devices fabricated on 6H-SiC. A specific ON-resistance of 42 m/spl Omega/-cm/sup 2/ (further reducible by 35% through simple design modification), which represents a 100% reduction over devices which did not receive the spacer implants, is observed on the 2-/spl mu/m channel devices. This novel scheme will allow increased packing densities for high power applications using the DIMOS structure in SiC.


The author refutes the interpretation of Matthew 1.18 found in the book, using both contextual and syntactic arguments. With respect to the theory of Ideas, the author disagrees with the book, pointing out that, from the dialogue Meno, where it appears, to its complete development in the Republic, no solution of continuity is found, but rather an unintemunped sequence. The author stresses the global meaning of the Book of Ecclesiastes, and, regarding the notion of God as creator (Republic 597bc, book X), he observes that it is not incongruous, but that this notion has nothing to do with God the creator as found in the Bible, and, as a consequence, they cannot be compared.


Summary: Lacerations to the dorsum of the hand are frequently complicated by involvement of extensor tendons. Bedside repair of these injuries in the emergency room decreases time to treatment and avoids operating room expenses and anesthetic associated risks. Optimal outcomes require prompt follow-up and initiation of hand therapy to promote tendon gliding and prevent tethering of scar tissue. Here, we present our improvised relative motion extension splint utilized in treatment of zone five and six extensor tendon lacerations. This orthosis is preferred in isolated extensor tendon injuries that are amenable to primary repair at the bedside in the appropriately compliant and motivated patient. Our design is comprised of readily available supplies in the emergency room setting. Our improvised relative motion extension splint is lighter weight versus a traditional plaster orthosis and frees the patient to engage in activities of daily living with the injured hand on day four following tendon repair. With repeated application we have become facile with this design, which also permits flexibility such as placement of a wrist extension splint component if needed. Relative motion extension splinting is an established method of treatment following extensor tendon repair. Here, we present a straightforward method of fabricating such a device in the emergency room without the availability of thermoplastic materials. Future study will be needed to establish the efficacy of this device versus its thermoplastic counterpart.


Magnetization measurements with a superconducting quantum inference device magnetometer of various tissues of the Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar L.) have shown the presence of magnetic material associated with the lateral line. The data suggest that the material is magnetite and of a size suitable for magnetoreception. Magnetic particles were isolated from the lateral line and nerve tissue, which have characteristics suggesting that the material is magnetite and of biogenic origin. The magnetic particles and their association with the lateral line are discussed in relation to their possible role in allowing the salmon to orientate with respect to the geomagnetic field during the high-seas phase of their migration.


Tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a national and global priority. Despite this, much of our understanding of the epidemiology and transmission of AMR outside the hospital, and thus, how we might control it, remains limited. Long term care facilities (LTCFs) play an important role in the care of older people. However, there have been few studies of the epidemiology and transmission of AMR in this setting. LTCF residents present with frequent co-morbidities which increase their risk of hospitalisation and of AMR infection. LTCFs also offer opportunities for transmission of AMR strains due to the long lengths of stay of residents and the lack of strictly applied infection control measures. This thesis focuses on urinary tract infections (UTIs), one of the most common bacterial infections in LTCFs, hospitals and the community. I first present a systematic review of mathematical models of infectious disease transmission set in LTCFs and a critical review of mathematical models evaluating interventions against AMR bacteria in LTCFs. A checklist for good quality models in this area is proposed. Next, using data from routinely collected microbiology samples, the frequency of AMR in urinary tract E. coli and Klebsiella was compared in LTCF residents with that in older people living in their own homes. Residents of LTCFs had more than four times the rate of E. coli and Klebsiella UTI caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria compared with those living in the community. The seasonality of UTI consultations was also assessed. A September to November peak in UTI consultation incidence was observed for ages 14-69. This seasonality progressively faded in older age groups and no seasonality was found in individuals aged 85 and over. Finally, a stochastic compartmental mathematical model was developed to explore the transmission of trimethoprim-resistant E. coli in LTCFs. Different treatment, importation and transmission scenarios were addressed.


Objective: Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) are efficacious against ulcerative colitis (UC). In recent years, the number of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of TCM has increased. Thus, it is very important to summarize the basic characteristics, quality, and types of TCM interventions in published RCTs. This scoping review was performed to systematically identify and describe the current situations about RCTs of TCMs for treating UC. Hope to express the focus and specifics of nowadays research in TCM interventions in RCTs and evaluate their common disadvantages exposed to help advance in TCM researching. Materials and Methods: A scoping review was conducted according to the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews. We searched two English databases and four Chinese databases from the date of establishment of each database to January 2020. Data from RCTs focusing on any TCM treatment for patients with UC were extracted and evaluated. Selection and characterization were performed by two independent reviewers using predefined forms. All discrepancies were resolved by consensus discussion with a third reviewer. Microsoft Excel 2010 was used to extract the following data from the included studies: (1) basic information of the included studies including research ID, article title, publication language, journal, year of publication, and funding information; (2) patient information including gender, age, disease course, disease stage, severity, sample size; and (3) information on intervention measures, types of intervention measures, drug dosage forms, and treatment courses. Results: The search identified 2225 RCTs published between 1987 and 2020. These studies covered 36 provinces in China. The time frame of the RCTs was <28 days in approximately one-third of the RCTs (647, 29.08%). Only one RCT was published in English. Nearly three-quarters of RCTs (1665, 74.83%) did not report the severity of the disease. Three types of interventions were included in the RCTs: pharmacotherapy (2028, 91.15%), nonpharmacotherapy (57, 2.56%), and a combination of the two (140, 6.29%). The administration modes of the intervention groups were evaluated. Drug therapy involved 12 types of TCM dosage forms, which were decoctions, troches, powders, capsules, granules, pills, suppositories, ointments, injections, gels, oral liquids, and substitute tea according to the frequency of use. Nondrug intervention measures involved 10 treatment options, namely, acupuncture, moxibustion, hemospasia, auricular point, acupoint catgut embedding, acupoint injection, scrapping, tuina, acupoint application, and five-tone therapy according to the frequency of use. Most studies included in this review were low in quality. This underscores the need for improvement in the quality of trial methodology in TCM RCTs.


Tulane is currently ranked #2 nationally in percentage of undergraduate degrees in engineering awarded to women-tied with MIT. There is still work to be done to improve the diversity of the student population with respect to ethnicity. This paper provides a snapshot of the current diversity along with a diversity plan and support programs at Tulane aimed at supporting a diverse student population. One important strategy is to create an environment in the school of science and engineering which is focused on Inclusion. Keyword-diversity, inclusion, faculty learning community


Appeal medals were produced in Western Australia over the first four years of World War I in support of various worthy causes, including the Red Cross, Children's Hospital and returned injured soldiers and widows of those who fought for Australia, the latter through the Ugly Men's Voluntary Workers' Association of Western Australia (Incorporated). There has been very little known about these medals, not even their manufacturer, but an analysis of the die characteristics together with an examination of newspapers of the day and other contemporary records leads us to their common manufacturer, Cumpston's City Electric Engraving Works, then located in Hay Street, Perth.


In this experiment. CCl4, was used to induce liver injury in mice. Different dosages of Spirulina are given in each group respectively for 45d. ALT activity in serum, SOD activity and MDA content in the mice's brain were assayed, the functions between the dosage of Spirulina ( C) and ALT, SOD, MDA values were formed with statistical methods. Relative critical values were calculated according to these functions and their biological meanings were explained. The results show that Spirulina can reduce ALT activity, improve SOD activity and reduce MDA content,and when the dosage of Spirulina overruns a certain value, the antioxidant ability of Spirulina is reduced. The specific parameters are as follows, the minimum effectual dosage to decrease ALT is 106. 4mg/kg; and that of MDA is 121. 3mg/kg, the maximum dosage to increase SOD is 385. 3mg/kg. It proves that Spirulina can enhance the antioxidant ability of liver in mice and alleviate liver injury caused by CCl4.


Context. The light curves of tidally locked hot Jupiters transiting fast-rotating, early-type stars are a rich source of information about both the planet and star, with full-phase coverage enabling a detailed atmospheric characterisation of the planet. Although it is possible to determine the true spin-orbit angle Ψ – a notoriously di ffi cult parameter to measure – from any transit asymmetry resulting from gravity darkening induced by the stellar rotation, the correlations that exist between the transit parameters have led to large disagreements in published values of Ψ for some systems. Aims. We aimed to study these phenomena in the light curves of the ultra-hot Jupiter MASCARA-1b, which is characteristically similar to well-studied contemporaries such as KELT-9b and WASP-33b. Methods. We obtained optical CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite ( CHEOPS ) transit and occultation light curves of MASCARA-1b, and analysed them jointly with a Spitzer / IRAC 4 . 5 µ m full-phase curve to model the asymmetric transits, occultations, and phase-dependent flux modulation. For the latter, we employed a novel physics-driven approach to jointly fit the phase modulation by generating a single 2D temperature map and integrating it over the two bandpasses as a function of phase to account for the di ff ering planet-star flux contrasts. The reflected light component was modelled using the general ab initio solution for a semi-infinite atmosphere. Results. When fitting the CHEOPS and Spitzer transits together, the degeneracies are greatly diminished and return results consistent with pre- viously published Doppler tomography. Placing priors informed by the tomography achieves even better precision, allowing a determination of Ψ = 72 . 1 + 2 . 5 − 2 . 4 deg. From the occultations and phase variations, we derived dayside and nightside temperatures of 3062 + 66 − 68 K and 1720 ± 330 K, respectively. Our retrieval suggests that the dayside emission spectrum closely follows that of a blackbody. As the CHEOPS occultation is too deep to be attributed to blackbody flux alone, we could separately derive geometric albedo A g = 0 . 171 + 0 . 066 − 0 . 068 and spherical albedo A s = 0 . 266 + 0 . 097 − 0 . 100 from the CHEOPS data, and Bond albedo A B = 0 . 057 + 0 . 083 − 0 . 101 from the Spitzer phase curve. Although small, the A g and A s indicate that MASCARA-1b is more reflective than most other ultra-hot Jupiters, where H – absorption is expected to dominate. Conclusions. Where possible, priors informed by Doppler tomography should be used when fitting transits of fast-rotating stars, though multi- colour photometry may also unlock an accurate measurement of Ψ . Our approach to modelling the phase variations at di ff erent wavelengths provides a template for how to separate thermal emission from reflected light in spectrally resolved James Webb Space Telescope phase curve data.


Abstract : With the current fiscal constrains placed on the Army to help combat the national debt, the acquisition community must find cost savings avenues without sacrificing mission readiness. During the acquisition process in the DoD, extended warranties are often made available by a supplier, a third party, or through self-insurance. The cost impact of extended warranties can be significant. Furthermore, the ability to service and maintain equipment, either at sea or on land, has a critical impact on the Army's and the DoD's mission capability. I will do a review of warranty planning system in the Army and provide a case study on the purchase of 55 Hewlett Packard Laser Printers in Afghanistan to illustrate the potential cost savings by electing to use extended warranties based on a formal model and simulations in order to bridge the gap between the academic literature and the professional experiences of the service members in order to help solve the difficult task of determining the terms of extended warranty contracts and its value to the Army. While warranty planning is not required, it can potentially save the Army millions of dollars in day to day commercial products acquisitions. The result of the model and simulation show that by making a large upfront purchase of an extended for 3 years versus the free standard warranty of one year, the unit can save on average 11.16%. Due to the budget constraints, Contracting Officers with the assistance of everyone in the acquisition process should emphasis extended warranty purchase in commercial products to reduce risk and lengthen the life-cycle replacement cost to the government. The Army has a regulation emplace for the warranty management program in AR 700-139, but I believe more guidance is needed from the Army's key leadership in order to fully realize the cost savings from extended warranties.


PAHO/WHO proposes to implement the role of Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) in Latin America, to reduce gaps in coverage and access to health care. For this purpose, it is necessary to train nursing professionals with an expanded role, which allows them to collaborate in the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of people with specific diseases, under established protocols and clinical guidelines and within consolidated interdisciplinary health teams in a cost-effective way. One of the areas with the greatest coverage deficit in Latin America is adult oncology, with inequality in care opportunities for these patients. Part of the premature deaths attributable to this disease are due to the lack of access to timely diagnosis and treatment. As a contribution to the reduction of this gap, a training program of Advanced Nursing Practice was developed, addressing the most urgent needs in the field of oncology. The necessary competencies were defined to develop a professional-level master's degree program, considering prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of people with oncological diseases at different levels of care. A program of this kind is an opportunity to reduce the access gap and coverage of health care for people with cancer, improving their quality of life and their survival.


Objective Proteome analyses in patients with newly diagnosed, untreated giant cell arteritis (GCA) have not been reported previously, nor are changes of protein expression upon treatment with glucocorticoids (GC) and/or tocilizumab (TCZ) known. The GUSTO trial allows to address these questions, provides the opportunity to learn about the differential effects of GC and TCZ on proteomics and may help to identify serum proteins to monitor disease activity. Methods Serum samples obtained from 16 patients with new-onset GCA at different time points (day 0, 3, 10, and week 4, 24, 52) during the GUSTO trial (NCT03745586) were examined for 1436 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) based on proximity extension assay technology. The patients received 500 mg methylprednisolone intravenously for 3 consecutive days followed by TCZ monotherapy. Results When comparing day 0 (before the first GC infusion) with week 52 (lasting remission), 434 DEPs (213↑, 221↓) were identified. In response to treatment, the majority of changes occurred within 10 days. GC inversely regulated 25 proteins compared to remission. No difference was observed between weeks 24 and 52 during established remission and ongoing TCZ treatment. Expression of CCL7, MMP12, and CXCL9 was not regulated by IL6. Conclusion Disease-regulated serum proteins improved within 10 days and were normalized within 24 weeks, showing a kinetic corresponding to the gradual achievement of clinical remission. The proteins inversely regulated by GC and TCZ shed light on the differential effects of the two drugs. CCL7, CXCL9, and MMP12 are biomarkers that reflect disease activity despite normalized C-reactive protein levels.


This study had as goal to discuss some aspects about the management processes in the care production in nursing. It's made up by a critic reflective analysis, which aims to reflect on the questioning that was brought from the reading of texts used in a doctor and master's course. During the subject's development it was possible to identify, through the analysis of the suggested bibliography, the drifting away visualized by the nurses between the management and the care. However it's possible to conclude that this is due to, in great part to these professionals' graduation, which lead to the distortion on the comprehension of these subjects about the care procedures.


This activity aim was to learn aplication of preventive deseases at P4S Mupu Amerta cattle farm, Banjar Sale, Desa Abuan, Bangli as student obligation for apprentice study at Animal Husbandry Faculty, Udayana University. This studi show that Mupu's farm good preventive deseases  was aplicated, through biosecurity, sanitation, vaccination and others.  Biosecurity measure which is implemented in that farm including permanent stable, apropriate distance to neighberhood, has private equipment and tight selection for visitors. In addition to Biosecurity, Sanitation, was applied not only to make stable clean and tidy but also farm as a hole.  Vaccination, on the other hand, the owner regularly give their catle SE vaccine, vitamin and worm medication. In conclusion, in Mupu's farm comprehensive preventive deseasses was applied and the student obtain knowledge on deseasses prevention.


Event stream processing (ESP) is the application of a computation to a set of input sequences of arbitrary data objects, called "events", in order to produce other sequences of data objects. In recent years, a large number of ESP systems have been developed; however, none of them is easily amenable to a formal verification of properties on their execution. In this paper, we show how stream processing pipelines built with an existing ESP library called BeepBeep 3 can be exported as a Kripke structure for the NuXmv model checker. This makes it possible to formally verify properties on these pipelines, and opens the way to the use of such pipelines directly within a model checker as an extension of its specification language. 2012 ACM Subject Classification Theory of computation → Streaming models


Cellular telephones have taken on many new functions beyond just making calls. Companies are developing new technologies and standards that enable the broadcast of digital TV programming to mobile phones, PDAs, and other portable devices. Some proponents hope to broadcast programming over current third-generation (3G) cellular networks, while others are designing specific mobile-TV networks.


In the paper the detailed review of the present-day results related to problems of continuum damage mechanics is given. The survey shows the development of ideas of Y.N. Rabotnov who together with L.M. Kachanov introduced damage and continuity variables which characterize the damage state. In the paper the recent studies in the elasticity, plasticity and creep theories accounting for damage accumulation processes are discussed.


Mycobacterium abscessus (M. abscessus) is a non-tuberculous mycobacterium and an important emerging pathogen causing skin, soft tissue and pulmonary infections. The case of a 59-year-old man with a history of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and current pulmonary infection due to M. abscessus, complicated with pneumocardial disease and bronchiectasis, is described. Zhiel—Neelsen stain and acid Lowenstein—Jensen culture were both positive for acid-fast bacillus. The patient was initially misdiagnosed and ineffectively treated for pulmonary TB. Antimycobacterial susceptibility tests found the isolate to be resistant to four first-line and seven second-line antituberculosis drugs. The isolate was finally identified as M. abscessus using 16S ribosomal RNA and hsp65 and rpoB gene sequence analysis. Species of mycobacterium should be included in the differential diagnosis when patients do not respond to standard antituberculosis therapy. Molecular methods are useful for rapid and species-specific identification.


The inability of college students to traditionally interact with post-secondary personnel might have unintended limitations on career readiness and post-graduation outcomes. Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) persists as a healthcare concern; however, it has and continues to impact various sectors. In higher education, the global pandemic has affected university operations from in-person to virtual based support. However, little is known about the unintended consequences of collegiate support services' virtual operations, such as career services. This conceptual paper will objectively analyze the potential inequities of the COVID-19 pandemic on job prospects and social capital for students of color. Recommendations for the economic and social factors are discussed. In addition, this paper may contribute to disrupting the overlooked consequences of offering college services remotely.


Laser treatment improved the thermal shock resistance of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs). Thermal diffusivity measurement revealed that post-treated coatings are not effective for reducing heat flux. However, laser-hybridsprayed TBCs with segmented feather-like microcracks decreased the thermal diffusivity by 60% of the as-sprayed value at specific laser-hybrid conditions. The post-treated TBCs with dense layers showed abrupt collapse of laser-treated layers but hybrid sprayed coatings exhibited improved erosion resistance. And the reliability of TBC with segmented cracks was also confirmed from the cyclic oxidation test. From those investigations, a new approach for manufacturing advanced TBCs by laser-hybrid plasma spraying was suggested.


Virtual colonoscopy provides a safe, minimal-invasive approach to detect colonic polyps using medical imaging and computer graphics technologies. Residual stool and fluid are problematic for optimal viewing of the colonic mucosa. Electronic cleansing techniques combining bowel preparation, oral contrast agents, and image segmentation were developed to extract the colon lumen from computed tomography (CT) images of the colon. In this paper, we present a new electronic colon cleansing technology, which employs a hidden Markov random filed (MRF) model to integrate the neighborhood information for overcoming the non-uniformity problems within the tagged stool/fluid region. Prior to obtaining CT images, the patient undergoes a bowel preparation. A statistical method for maximum a posterior probability (MAP) was developed to identify the enhanced regions of residual stool/fluid. The method utilizes a hidden MRF Gibbs model to integrate the spatial information into the Expectation Maximization (EM) model-fitting MAP algorithm. The algorithm estimates the model parameters and segments the voxels iteratively in an interleaved manner, converging to a solution where the model parameters and voxel labels are stabilized within a specified criterion. Experimental results are promising.


M oday, M arch 7, 2017 RESULTS: Patients that were sent reminders were up to 5-times more likely to ask their provider regarding their testresults than Controls; 15/29 patients in Group-A 'asked' compared to only 2/33 controls (p<0.001). Conversely 31/33 controls 'did-not-ask'; 24/29 Group-A patients indicated that the reminders were helpful (in-fact 25 patients felt reminders were 'necessary'). Neither gender nor age seemed predictive factors of patient engagement.


We consider the problem of constructing a fixed-width confidence interval for a lognormal mean. We give a Birnbaum-Healy type two-stage procedure to construct such a confidence interval. We discuss some asymptotic properties of the procedure. A three-stage procedure and an accelerated sequential procedure are also given for the comparison of efficiency among these three multistage methodologies.


© 2015 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Importance:The prevalence of psychological distress among mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suggests a need for interventions that address parental mental health during the critical period after the child's autism diagnosis when parents are learning to navigate the complex system of autism services.Objective: To investigate whether a brief cognitive behavioral intervention, problem-solving education (PSE), decreases parenting stress and maternal depressive symptoms during the period immediately following a child's diagnosis of ASD.Design, Setting, and Participants: A randomized clinical trial compared 6 sessions of PSE with usual care. Settings included an autism clinic and 6 community-based early intervention programs that primarily serve low-income families. Participants were mothers of 122 young children (mean age, 34 months) who recently received a diagnosis of ASD. Among mothers assessed for eligibility, 17.0%declined participation. We report outcomes after 3 months of follow-up (immediate postdiagnosis period).INTERVENTIONS Problem-solving education is a brief, cognitive intervention delivered in six 30-minute individualized sessions by existing staff (early intervention programs) or research staff without formal mental health training (autism clinic).Main Outcomes and Measures: Primary outcomeswere parental stress and maternal depressive symptoms.RESULTS: Fifty-nine mothers were randomized to receive PSE and 63 to receive usual care. The follow-up rate was 91.0%. Most intervention mothers (78.0%) received the full PSE course. At the 3-month follow-up assessment, PSE mothers were significantly less likely than those serving as controls to have clinically significant parental stress (3.8% vs 29.3%; adjusted relative risk [aRR], 0.17; 95%CI, 0.04 to 0.65). For depressive symptoms, the risk reduction in clinically significant symptoms did not reach statistical significance (5.7%vs 22.4%; aRR, 0.33; 95%CI, 0.10 to 1.08); however, the reduction in mean depressive symptoms was statistically significant (Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology score, 4.6 with PSE vs 6.9 with usual care; adjusted mean difference, -1.67; 95%CI, -3.17 to -0.18).Conclusions and Relevance: The positive effects of PSE in reducing parenting stress and depressive symptoms during the critical postdiagnosis period, when parents are asked to navigate a complex service delivery system, suggest that itmay have a place in clinical practice. Furtherwork will monitor these families for a total of 9 months to determine the trajectory of outcomes..


We classify the groups from the title. The result is interpreted in terms of nearfields, and applied to a problem in the model theory of permutation groups


Abstract : This report summarizes various theoretical and experimental studies designed to yield information on electron interactions with various communications materials. Experimental electron slowing-down spectra have been obtained for Si and for Al2O3 and various theoretical models proposed to account for these spectra. Attempts to measure electron attenuation lengths for photo-excited electrons in carbon, polystyrene, and gold over a range of photon energies from 20 to 64 eV, are described. A critique of photoelectric yield methods for measuring electron attenuation lengths stresses the difficulty of obtaining small values of this quantity to an accuracy of even 10%. Theoretical models combined with experimental data have resulted in tabulations of mean free path, energy loss, energy straggling, range, and range straggling for electrons in Al, Al2O3, Si, SiO2, Ni, Cu, Ag, Au, Ge, and GaAs. (Author)


On the question of whether prices are higher in poor, urban neighborhoods, the prior research is decidedly mixed. This paper revisits the question by analyzing unpublished price-level data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for construction of the Consumer Price Index. Using this large, statistically representative sample of stores in poor and affluent neighborhoods, I first estimate if a price difference exists. I then empirically test the major arguments in support of disparate prices such as differences in quality, operating and consumer search costs. I also explore the relationship between pricing strategies and the racial and ethnic composition of poor neighborhoods. I find that market prices are up to 6 percent less in poor neighborhoods after controlling for a variety of covariates. In addition, I find that poor, predominantly white and Hispanic neighborhoods experience significant discounts, while market prices in poor, predominantly black neighborhoods are comparable to those in affluent white areas.


Purpose of review Placement of automated external defibrillators in public facilities is a cost-effective treatment for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. This review describes the literature citing the benefits of early defibrillation, ease of use, and relative cost of automated external defibrillators. Recent findings Placement of automated external defibrillators in public places was recommended by the American Heart Association in the early 1990s. Compared with waiting for traditional emergency medical services, immediate use of automated external defibrillators by laypersons can dramatically increase survival to hospital discharge rates. Placement of automated external defibrillators at locations such as casinos, airports, and airplanes that are frequented by large numbers of at-risk people is cost-effective compared with other economically acceptable health measures. Studies using simulations to predict numbers of quality-adjusted life years that would be gained from implementation of public access defibrillation programs in high-incidence locations find that the cost would be less than the typically acceptable $50 000 per quality-adjusted life year. The cost estimates, however, depend on the incidence of cardiac arrest at the sites, with low-incidence sites being prohibitively expensive. Summary Automated external defibrillators appear to be cost-effective in locations with high incidences of cardiac arrest.


objective: Paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity is a disorder poor studied and understood in pediatrics. It is mainly associated with cranioencephalic trauma and hypoxia. Is characterized by self-limited and recurrent episodes of hypertension, tachycardia, tachypnea, hyperthermia, sialorrhea, mydriasis, hyperhidrosis, decreased level of consciousness and increased muscle tone with extension posture. In pediatric age, a prevalence of 12-29% is estimated. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted with patients admitted in the period from January 2002 to January 2017 in pediatric intensive care. Seven cases met the diagnostic criteria of paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity. results: The mean age was 1-14 years, the most frequent etiology was associated with cardiorespiratory arrest. They started with the disorder in an average of 21.74 days (standard deviation [SD] 18.37), the treatment started on average of 2.00 days (SD 2.07) and internment time in a range of 20-180 days, therapy stay with a range of 10-40 days. The drugs used to control the condition were propranolol, baclofen, buprenorphine and gabapentin, achieving control on average of 5.14 days (SD 2.17). The most frequent findings in magnetic resonance were hypoxic ischemic lesions in white matter, basal ganglia and thalami. Conclusions: Paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity is a serious condition associated with high morbidity and mortality. The prevalence in our series was 1.12%, very low compared to that reported by other authors. A consensus must be established to establish diagnostic criteria and treatment in the pediatric population.


Contemporary biological research has suggested that some host–microbiome multispecies systems (referred to as "holobionts") can in certain circumstances evolve as unique biological individual, thus being a unit of selection in evolution. If this is so, then it is arguably the case that some biological adaptations have evolved at the level of the multispecies system, what we call hologenomic adaptations. However, no research has yet been devoted to investigating their nature, or how these adaptations can be distinguished from adaptations at the species-level (genomic adaptations). In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the nature of hologenomic adaptations. By drawing on the case of the evolution of sanguivory diet in vampire bats, we argue that a trait constitutes a hologenomic adaptation when its evolution can only be explained if the holobiont is considered the biological individual that manifests this adaptation, while the bacterial taxa that bear the trait are only opportunistic beneficiaries of it. We then use the philosophical notions of emergence and inter-identity to explain the nature of this form of individuality and argue why it is special of holobionts. Overall, our paper illustrates how the use of philosophical concepts can illuminate scientific discussions, in the trend of what has recently been called metaphysics of biology.


Routine examination in pre-operative patients revealed the presence of anti-erythrocyte antibodies in 1.23 per cent of cases. Such examination made it possible to avoid, despite strict compability in ABO Rhesus groups, a transfusional immunological conflict in 0.45 per cent of cases, i.e. 7 patients in one year. This provides preventive cover wihich would seem, in surgical context, to be the easiest ti undertake, the most reliable and, in fact, the most economical: widened application of examinations for anti-erythrocyte antibodies together with the avoidance of all unnecessary transfusions.


A 47-year-old Thai man, who had recently been diagnosed with active pemphigus vulgaris (PV) and treated with oral prednisolone together with intravenous dexamethasone, presented with severe ocular pain and light perception vision of the left eye for 4 days. Ophthalmic examination revealed periorbital soft tissue swelling with marked intraocular inflammation in the left eye. Severe panophthalmitis was diagnosed. Enucleation was performed after failure of intravenous antibiotics administration. Vitreous culture revealed Aeromonas hydrophila but no primary source of infection was clearly identified. An immunocompromised status accompanied with corticosteroid treatment is a risk factor for septicemia. A. hydrophilapanophthalmitis was detected in the PV patient, and this organism caused a rapid disease progression with poor visual prognosis.


This paper reviews critical discourse analysis (CDA) research in the fields of media, politics, racism and sexism discourse with voices raised against socio-political inequality, which is also one of the fundamental goals CDA has been attempting to attain. Literature review shows that CDA research describing and criticizing socio-political inequality through language use is enormous and so is its impact on individuals and groups as members of our conflicting society. CD analysts, using emancipatory discourse, can contest the maintenance and reproduction of domination and subordination patterns in society through language practices by raising people's awareness of the asymmetrical relation of power.


The growth of any developing economy depends largely on its transport sector. Growing economy leads to more job opportunities and movement of people from rural to urban areas. Public road transport hence plays a significant role as a support system in carrying passengers. This paper discusses the efficiency of State Transport Undertakings of India, in particular, Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) using the technique of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and regression analysis. A data set of 46 State Transport Undertakings of India have been considered for the study. DEA was applied to compute the efficiencies of units under study. Potential improvements in the input and output variables were computed for the inefficient units. Regression analysis was then performed to identify the explanatory variables that significantly affect the input and output variables. It was observed that DTC is one amongst the worst performers. It showed a technical inefficiency of 50.94% and was operating on decreasing returns to scale. Further, DTC needs to increase its output substantially in order to attain the level of efficiency. Also it is not utilizing its resources optimally as it needs to reduce all its inputs. In other words, DTC is not utilizing its resources as optimally as its efficient peers. This paper is an attempt to apply regression technique along with the non parametric technique of Data Envelopment Analysis so that the decision makers of DTC can identify the areas where improvement is required and plan a strategy to improve their performance. This would enable DTC to move from a loss incurring to a profit making unit.