This study aimed to analyze the data of patients presenting with dizziness at our hospital's emergency department (ED) by determining the etiology of dizziness and to contribute to the medical data of our country and the literature. This prospective study was conducted with 116 volunteering patients who presented to the Emergency Department of Afyon Kocatepe University, Faculty of Medicine for one year with dizziness complaints. After the anamnesis, physical examination, diagnostic tests (blood tests, Dix-Hallpike maneuver, audiological-vestibular tests, carotid-vertebral artery color Doppler ultrasonography, and computerized brain tomography), and psychiatric interrogation, the patients were divided into four etiology groups: Peripheral, central, psychogenic, and other causes of dizziness. Clinical features were compared between peripheral and central dizziness groups. A total of 116 (3.4%) of patient admissions to the emergency department complained of dizziness. Forty-nine (42.2%) of these patients were male, 67 (57.8%) were female. In the cohort, 33.9% were under 40, and dizziness increased with older age. Seventy (60.3%) patients had no formal education or were primary school graduates. The initial evaluation at the ED revealed that dizziness mostly shifted with the position (71.6%) and was mainly accompanied by headache (67.2%). Based on their diagnosis, 50 patients (43.1%) were in the peripheral group, 30 patients (25.8%) were in the central group, 22 patients (19%) were in the psychogenic dizziness group, and 14 patients (12%) were in the other causes group. Intergroup analysis between peripheral and central vertigo groups identified that the hearing loss, ear fullness, recent upper respiratory tract infection (URTI), nausea, vomiting, and shifting position was statistically significant (p<0.05). Dizziness is one of the common complaints of admission to the ED and may arise from different etiologies. Our study demonstrated that psychogenic dizziness was common in this patient cohort.


This volume realizes a fine concept in a fine way. A study of the meaning of Christ to women, as attained by his work in them in all ,parts of the world, is written by twelve women in as many sections of the world. S9me of the names of the writers are household words the world over. All of them are by women in which Christ has wrought redemption in a large sense and who in turn have been instruments of his redemption in a lar.ge way. They tell their own stories and the power of Christ in their own sections of the world. Here one sees Christ in the womanhood of Japan, China, Korea, the Netherlands East Indies, India, South Africa, Argentina, London's s1ums, etc., etc. The book lacks only photographs of the writers. W. O. CARVER


This paper gives some very general results on the generalized quasi-variational-like inequality problem. Since the problem includes all the existing extensions of the classical variational inequality problem as special cases, our existence theorems extend the previous results in the literature by relaxing both continuity and concavity of the functional. The approach adopted in this paper is based on continuous selection-type arguments and thus is quite different from the Berge Maximum Theorem or Hahn-Banach Theorem approach used in the literature.


We investigated the effects of E. edulis bioproducts (lyophilized pulp [LEE], defatted lyophilized pulp [LDEE], and oil [EO]) on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) induced by a high-fat diet (HFD) in rats. All products were chemically analyzed. In vivo, 42 rats were equally randomized into seven groups receiving standard diet, HFD alone or combined with EO, LEE, or LDEE. After NAFLD induction, LEE, LDEE, or EO was added to the animals' diet for 4 weeks. LEE was rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids. From LEE degreasing, LDEE presented higher levels of anthocyanins and antioxidant capacity in vitro. Dietary intake of LEE and especially LDEE, but not EO, attenuated diet-induced NAFLD, reducing inflammatory infiltrate, steatosis, and lipid peroxidation in liver tissue. Although both E. edulis bioproducts were not hepatotoxic, only LDEE presented sufficient benefits to treat NAFLD in rats, possibly by its low lipid content and high amount of phenols and anthocyanins.


New records of two Trichomycterus species are herein added to the existing checklist of catfishes living at elevations above 3,000 m in the Andes of South America. Trichomycterus alterus and T. corduvensis are recorded at 3,430 m above sea level from the High Andean Plateau (or Puna) in a stream near Antofagasta de la Sierra, Provincia de Catamarca, Argentina. Morphometric and meristic data of examined specimens are included.


During the process of using traditional particle swarm optimization (PSO) to identify electric parameters, the algorithm can be easily caught in locally optimal solution, thus leading to relatively large identification result error. Therefore, the article proposes a simulated annealing particle swarm optimization (SA-PSO) algorithm to integrate the advantages, namely the strong global optimization capability of simulated annealing (SA) algorithm and the fast convergence speed of PSO algorithm, in order to improve the traditional PSO algorithm, and uses simulated annealing principle to determine inertia weight of PSO algorithm. Meanwhile, DFIG with the unit capacity of 1.5MW has been taken as the research object for simulation analysis. The test system employs LabVIEW software for experiment design, and the result shows: compared with the identification result of traditional PSO algorithm, SA-PSO algorithm can rapidly and accurately identify DFIG electric parameters and the identification result has higher precision.


The synthetic potential and the mechanistic aspects of inorganic insertion reactions of carbon monoxide, especially into metal-carbon σ-bonds, are considered. Reactions of this type are encountered among most 3d, 4d, and 5d elements. In one case it has been demonstrated that the CO insertion proceeds by alkyl migration; this is likely to be a general feature of all such reactions. If an alkyl migration takes place, then insertion of CO into the MC bond is governed kinetically by the cleavage of that bond. CO abstraction from RCOM bonds most commonly proceeds by rate-determining vacation of a coordination position. Both CO insertion and abstraction are usually highly stereospecific.


This case report describes the experience of undergraduate medical and nursing students participating in the Educational Program for Health Work (PET-Saude) at the University of Brasilia, the objective of which was to conduct health education activities in cervical cancer prevention in Ceres and Santa Isabel, Goias State. The following communications activities were used: preparation and distribution of posters and leaflets; production of a radio program; and conversation groups held in the waiting rooms of primary healthcare units. This activity provided an opportunity to share experiences and feelings, as well as discussing ideas and concepts aimed at building new knowledge, with contributions from the students' academic training and the users' practical knowhow. The users' doubts and questions were consistent with those found in the literature, and the activities proved to be a good way for clearing up users' doubts and drawing the health system and the population closer, as well as promoting health education, especially in the areas of self-esteem, prevention, and health promotion.


Earlier studies identified higher recombinational activity and increased somatic instability at various loci in the F1 and F2 progeny of particular stocks of a maize inbred line, A188. Hypothesizing that this may reflect a genome-wide perturbation of chromosome structure which would be detectable cytologically, aberrant meiotic behaviour in these stocks was investigated. Microsporocytes from a population of F2 plants derived from these stocks displayed the following aberrations: varying frequencies of metaphase and anaphase laggards, 'stickiness' at anaphase I resulting in chromosome bridges from pole to pole, acentric fragments and a spontaneous translocation of the NOR on chromosome 6. The frequencies of metaphase I and anaphase I abnormalities in these stocks were higher to a statistically significant extent than in control F2 populations, suggesting that these aberrations may be related to the unusual genetic behaviour of these stocks.


This study aimed to explore whether the use of coordinated visual and verbal cues in narrated diagrams would support novices in learning soccer scenes. Eighty female university students (Mage = 20 years, SD = 1.2) in physical education (PE) were randomly exposed to four multimedia material versions: (a) simple without cues, (b) simple with cues, (c) complex without cues, and (d) complex with cues. In the non-cued versions, students learned the evolution of soccer scenes via arrow-based diagrams accompanied by oral explanations. In the cued versions, game actions in narrations were spoken with a louder accent (verbal cueing), while at the same time, the corresponding arrows turned red in diagrams (visual cueing). After studying one of the four versions, participants were asked to complete immediate and delayed recall–reconstruction tests, and to indicate their attitudes towards instructional materials. The results demonstrate the instructional benefits of using coordinated dual-modality cues in the complex multimedia material, in terms of immediate (p = 0.03, d = 0.53) and delayed (p = 0.02, d = 0.85) recall performances. The findings encourage soccer teachers to verbalize game actions with a louder accent, while simultaneously coloring the corresponding arrows in the diagram when explaining complex game situations for novices.


In a buggy configurable system, configuration-dependent bugs cause the failures in only certain configurations due to unexpected interactions among features. Manually localizing configuration-dependent faults in configurable systems could be highly time-consuming due to their complexity. However, the cause of configuration-dependent bugs is not considered by existing automated fault localization techniques, which are designed to localize bugs in non-configurable code. Thus, their capacity for efficient configuration-dependent localization is limited. In this work, we propose COFL, a novel approach to localize configuration-dependent bugs by identifying and analyzing suspicious feature interactions that potentially cause the failures in buggy configurable systems. We evaluated the efficiency of COFL in fault localization of artificial configuration-dependent faults in a highly-configurable system. We found that COFL significantly improves the baseline spectrum-based approaches. With COFL, on average, the correctness in ranking the buggy statements increases more than 7 times, and the search space is significantly narrowed down, about 15 times.


This work examines the use of single response surface (SRS) and multiple response surface (MRS) techniques for modeling spatial nonuniformity in semiconductor applications. Previous works have suggested that the MRS estimation techniques better measure the nonuniformity due to the underlying spatial function of the process, whereas SRS estimation methods measure the total process nonuniformity (systematic spatial nonuniformity plus random site nonuniformity). This work further highlights this fact in an analytical setting. It is demonstrated that the MRS estimation technique is biased and that this bias can lead to the choice of a nonoptimal process. Experimental data from a chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) process confirms these observations and demonstrates that careful use of the MRS estimator is required in achieving meaningful results for estimating spatial nonuniformity. Modified versions of each method, which measure spatial nonuniformity alone, as well as versions which measure total nonuniformity, are proposed for the case when one is comparing discrete process settings. Analytical expressions for the expected value and variance of both the SRS and MRS estimators are determined. These are used to compare the efficiency (estimator variance) of these modified estimators. When comparing spatial nonuniformity, it is found that the unbiased MRS estimator is more efficient than the SRS estimator modified to measure spatial nonuniformity. However, it is shown that the MRS estimator, when modified to measure total nonuniformity, is not necessarily more efficient than the SRS method. Finally, the continuous response surface modeling case is considered. It is demonstrated how confidence intervals on the underlying continuous site models lead to a nonuniform bias in the response surface generated by the MRS method. This suggests that care must be taken when using the MRS technique in creating continuous response surfaces of spatial nonuniformity as a function of the process settings.


With aspect-oriented programming, changes can be treated explicitly and directly at the programming language level. An approach to aspect-oriented change realization based on a two-level change type model is presented in this paper. In this approach, aspect-oriented change realizations are mainly based on aspect-oriented design patterns or themselves constitute pattern-like forms in connection to which domain independent change types can be identified. However, it is more convenient to plan changes in a domain specific manner. Domain specific change types can be seen as subtypes of generally applicable change types. These relationships can be maintained in a form of a catalog. Some changes can actually affect existing aspect-oriented change realizations, which can be solved by adapting the existing change implementation or by implementing an aspect-oriented change realization of the existing change without having to modify its source code. As demonstrated partially by the approach evaluation, the problem of change interaction may be avoided to a large extent by using appropriate aspect-oriented development tools, but for a large number of changes, dependencies between them have to be tracked. Constructing partial feature models in which changes are represented by variable features is sufficient to discover indirect change dependencies that may lead to change interaction.


Executive summary DEMOGRAPHICS The HIV Futures 7 survey was completed by 1058 HIV positive Australians from all states and territories. This represents approximately 4.3% of the estimated HIV positive population. 92.2% were male (975), 6.7% were female (70) and 0.3% were transgender (3). §§ 83.1% were gay men, 6.1% heterosexual women, 4.3% heterosexual men, 3.8% bisexual men, 0.1% lesbian women and 0.5% bisexual women. The remaining 2.1% fell into other categories. The respondents' ages ranged 19 to 84 years with a mean of 49.0 years and a median of 49 years. The majority of participants were Australian born (78.2%). Twenty two respondents (2.1%) were of Aboriginal/Torres Strait Island origin. Health HIV antibody testing 24.5% tested for HIV because they became ill 18.9% tested as part of routine health screening 8.7% tested because they were a member of a risk group 10.9% tested because of a particular risk episode 2.8% were tested without their knowledge Current Health Status 71.4% rated their health as good or excellent and 62.7% rated their general well-being as good or excellent Almost all PLHIV had taken a CD4/T-cell test and a viral load test. HIV-related and other health conditions 22.3% of respondents had been diagnosed with an AIDS defining illness, 3.3% in the previous two years 40.6% of respondents indicated that they had experienced HIV-related illnesses 46.0% indicated that they had a major heath condition other than HIV/AIDS. The most common conditions were asthma (8.3%), cancer (6.4%), cardiovascular disease (e.g. high blood pressure) (7.3%), type II diabetes (4.2%), hepatitis C (6.0%).


In this paper, we address the problem of weakly supervised Audio-Visual Video Parsing (AVVP), where the goal is to temporally localize events that are audible or visible and simultaneously classify them into known event categories. This is a challenging task, as we only have access to the video-level event labels during training but need to predict event labels at the segment level during evaluation. Existing multiple-instance learning (MIL) based methods use a form of attentive pooling over segment-level predictions. These methods only optimize for a subset of most discriminative segments that satisfy the weak-supervision constraints, which miss identifying positive segments. To address this, we focus on improving the proportion of positive segments detected in a video. To this end, we model the number of positive segments in a video as a latent variable and show that it can be modeled as Poisson binomial distribution over segment-level predictions, which can be computed exactly. Given the absence of fine-grained super-vision, we propose an Expectation-Maximization approach to learn the model parameters by maximizing the evidence lower bound (ELBO). We iteratively estimate the minimum positive segments in a video and refine them to capture more positive segments. We conducted extensive experiments on AVVP tasks to evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed approach, and the results clearly demonstrate that it increases the number of positive segments captured compared to existing methods. Additionally, our experiments on Temporal Action Localization (TAL) demonstrate the potential of our method for generalization to similar MIL tasks.


In multilevel modeling of clustered survival data, to account for the differences among different clusters, a commonly used approach is to introduce cluster effects, either random or fixed, into the model. Modeling with random effects may lead to difficulties in the implementation of the estimation procedure for the unknown parameters of interest because the numerical computation of multiple integrals may become unavoidable when the cluster effects are not scalars. On the other hand, if fixed effects are used, there is a danger of having estimators with large variances because there are too many nuisance parameters involved in the model. In this article, using the idea of the homogeneity pursuit, we propose a new multilevel modeling approach for clustered survival data. The proposed modeling approach does not have the potential computational problem as modeling with random effects, and it also involves far fewer unknown parameters than modeling with fixed effects. We also establish asymptotic properties to show the advantages of the proposed model and conduct intensive simulation studies to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. Finally, the proposed method is applied to analyze a dataset on the second-birth interval in Bangladesh. The most interesting finding is the impact of some important factors on the length of the second-birth interval variation over clusters and its homogeneous structure.


While communication is an innate ability to most of us, individuals with severe motor disability such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have difficulty in daily communication. Nowadays, with the help of human-computer interface (HCI), they can communicate using bio-signal which can be measured from the human body and monitored. Electrooculography (EOG) is one type of bio-signal, it can be measured as the electrical potential difference generated by eye movement. This project aims to develop a low-cost wireless EOG based speller. The EOG signal acquisition used 5 surface electrodes, which captures horizontal and vertical eye movement. A low cost wireless EOG signal acquisition circuit was designed and implemented. A real-time EOG classifying algorithm was developed on the Arduino to classify up to 10 different types of eye movement. This classified information is transmitted wirelessly to a virtual keyboard ona computer. A self-design keyboard was developed by placing the most frequently used alphabets closer initial point to increase the efficiency of the speller. A test was conducted on eight subjects to compare the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed low cost wireless EOG speller. The proposed system was able to outperform most of the spellers reported in literature by providing an average accuracy of 89 % and speed of 6.48 lpm.


Chronic shoulder pain caused by shoulder impingement syndrome (SIS) is a common pathology that leads to worse quality of life and disability. The local administration of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is a promising treatment for SIS. Objective: to evaluate the efficiency of subacromial injection of PRP in chronic shoulder pain caused by SIS. Patients and methods. The investigation enrolled 30 patients (13 women and 17 men; mean age, 45.8±14.1 years) with chronic shoulder pain lasting ≥3 months after rotator tendons injury confirmed by ultrasound and/or magnetic resonance imaging and inefficiency of previously medical therapy. All the patients received three subacromial injections of 5 ml of PRP at a 7-day interval. The investigators assessed the course of pain during movement (100-mm visual analogue scale (VAS)) and functional ability according to the ASES and CSC questionnaires at baseline and 1, 3 and 6 months after treatment. Results and discussion. During the treatment, there was a considerable improvement in all indicators. At baseline and 1 and 3 months, the mean pain severity measured on VAS was 49.3±10.3, 32.4±21.3, and 20.6±21.3 mm, respectively; in this case, the positive effect persisted at 6-month follow-up: 10 [0; 30] mm (p<0.001). The mean ASES values were 59.5±11.5, 75.9±17.4, 82.6±17.6, and 86.7±17.1 (p<0.001) and the mean CSC scores were 72.3±14.1, 81.0±16.2, 88.5±16.1, and 92.8±16.2 (p<0.001), respectively. There were no serious adverse reactions. Conclusion. Subacromial injection of PRP is an effective and safe treatment for chronic shoulder pain associated with SIS.


A clinical outbreak of infectious bovine rhinotracheitis with a morbidity of 11.3% in unvaccinated bulls of a test station is described. The outbreak began explosively in one pen and appeared in others over a period of two weeks. After intranasal vaccination of all bulls, the sporadic occurrence of clinical infectious bovine rhinotracheitis ceased. Although no animals died as a result of infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, the periodic weighing necessary in a bull test station revealed that affected bulls were set back in their average daily rate of gain. While on test, affected Angus bulls never returned to an average daily gain comparable to unaffected bulls of the same breed.


Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 45, 2004

5435

6-Methoxy-3- (3', 4', 5'-trimethoxy-benzoyl)-1H-indole (BPR0L075) is a novel synthetic compound that was identified in a mission-oriented study to discover new anti-tubulin drugs. BPR0L075 prevented tubulin polymerization in vitro and depolymerized microtubules in cultured cells. Competition-binding assay had shown that BPR0L075 destabilizes microtubules due to binding to colchicine-binding domain on tubulin. The cytotoxic activity of BPR0L075 in a variety of human tumor cell lines from different organs was performed with IC50 ranges from 2 ∼ 30 nM. The effect of BPR0L075 on cell growth was associated with cell cycle arrest in G2-M and apoptosis. As determined by flow cytometry, KB cells were concentration–and time–dependent arrested in G2-M phase before cell death. TUNEL assay further indicated that BPR0L075–induced cell death proceeds through an apoptotic pathway not necrosis. The effect of BPR0L075 on cell cycle arrest was associated with an increase of the Cyclin B1 levels and caused a mobility shift of Cdc2 and Cdc25C. The changes in Cdc2 and Cdc25C coincided with the appearance of phosphoepitopes recognized by a marker of mitosis, MPM-2. Furthermore, phosphorylated of Bcl-2, perturbed mitochondria membrane potential and activation of the caspase 3 cascades may be involved in BPR0L075-induced apoptosis. Notably, multidrug–resistant cell lines overexpressed P-gp170/MDR and MRP were rendered resistant toward vincristine, paclitaxel, and colchicine but not towards BPR0L075. In animal studies, no signs of systemic toxicity were observed after intravenous dosage up to 50 mg/kg of BPR0L075. In xenograft experiments with the human oral epidermoid carcinoma KB and gastric carcinoma MKN-45 cells, BPR0L075 was active with treatment resulting in a significantly tumor growth delay at 50 mg/kg. These findings indicate BPR0L075 is a promising new tubulin-binding compound with anti-mitotic activity that has significant potential for the treatment of various malignancies, particularly in patients with drug resistance.


We aim to reduce the overhead of information gathering and updates in a scenario of semi-autonomous resource management agents in a multi-agent environment. We investigate the importance of coordinating timing of events compared with the level of information exchange among the agents; and how this affects deviations from best-case management as predicted by theoretical models. We demonstrate that asynchronous interaction between management agents requires only a small amount of information exchange between the agents to achieve near-optimal results. This suggests that there are lightweight alternatives to centralized data gathering and planning to achieve autonomic service management.


Notes on Contributors Introduction Part I: Teachers' Curriculum Reports Changing Settings within the School A new learning environment for business and information studies, Joan Bishop, Mike Moore & Gilly Walker Creating and appropriate environment for design education, David Dickinson The Pottery Development, Tom Cooley Multi-skills bases, ACS Staff Structured play: the railway station, Helen Strahan The 'Mansfield Park' project, Margaret Howard PIlot scheme in GCSE mathematics, Adrian Harrington General Comments Using Settings outside the School The residential, Jean-Pierre Kirkland Link courses, Lorna Borland Nursery placements, Finn Deloughry The community farm project, Leslie Howard Turkish Girls' Centre - Berlin, Kristel Hautmann Changing Time and Space Individually negotiated timetables, Diane King International Women's Week, Sue Botcherby In the middle of the night, Jorgen Lund The Dublin Work Exploration Centre, Kathy August The Open Learning Environment, Beryl Jackson The trip, Brendan Agnew General Comments Part II: Pupils' Learning, Teachers' Learning and the Quality of Learning Teachers and Learners, Gordon Baddeley Teachers Learning, John Coghill and Alan Goodwin Assessing Learning, Mick Cockett Pupils' Judgements, David Hustler Concluding Comments Bibliography Index


Morning-glory spillways are usually used in dams constructed in narrow valleys or those on steeply sloped supports. Furthermore, one can adopt this type of spillway in cases where guiding and diversion tunnels of adequate diameter are available. One of positive characteristics of these spillways is that, their maximum capacity can be approached at relatively low head. This characteristic can be seen as an advantage in cases wherein maximum outflow from the spillway shall be limited. On the other hand, should water head on top of the spillway exceeds the project baseline head, changes in output discharge will be negligible. Morning-glory spillways are commonly used in large dam construction projects across Iran (e.g. Sefid-Rood Dam, Alborz Dam, Haraz Dam, etc.). Given that spillway is one of the most important axillary structures for dams, accurate and realistic characterization of the hydraulic conditions affecting them seems to be necessary. On this basis, the present research is aimed at accurate determination of flow behavior and discharge coefficient of morning-glory spillways from the flow inlet down to horizontal tunnel of the morning-glory spillway of Haraz Dam. For this purpose, the most significant hydraulic parameters (including flow depth, flow velocity, flow pressure at different sections of the spillway, and rate of outflow at spillway) will be determined. In this study, an effort was made to use the numerical model of Flow3D to numerically model three-dimensional flow based on physical model and actual data from one of the largest and most important morning-glory spillways for calibration and verification purposes, and determine accuracy of the numerical modeling and associated error with simulating the numerical model. Results of this study show that, the flow at morning-glory spillways is controlled in either of three modes: flow control at crest, orifice control, and pipe control.


Internet sharing systems aim at federating and utilizing distributed computing resources across the Internet. This paper presents a user-level virtual machine (VM) approach to MPI program execution in an Internet sharing framework. In this approach, the resource consumer has its own operating system running on top of and isolated from, the operating system of the resource provider. We propose an efficient socket virtualization technique to optimize VM network performance. Socket virtualization achieves the same network bandwidth as the physical network. In our LAN environment, it reduces the latency overhead from 112% (using existing TUN/TAP technique) to 35.6%. Performance results on MPI benchmarks show that our virtualization technique incurs small overhead compared with the physical host platform, while gaining in return a higher degree of guest isolation and customization. We also describe the key mechanisms that allow the employment of VMs in an existing Internet sharing system


Background: The measurement of patient temperature by nursing staff is a common activity. In recent years this area of practice has been largely under-investigated despite the introduction of new technologies into clinical practice, such as infrared tympanic thermometry (IRTT). Study aim: To investigate current practice in clinical temperature measurement in general, and the use of IRTT in particular by nursing staff. Sample and methods: 139 nursing staff from a general hospital in the UK were surveyed via a self-administered questionnaire. Main findings and conclusions: The group most involved in temperature measurement was characterized as nursing auxiliary grades with the fewest years of experience. IRTT was the most frequently-used method for measuring patient temperatures, with high perceived accuracy, reliability, ease of use and acceptability to patients. A poor level of understanding and training in the use of IRTT was revealed across all clinical grades. Recommendations for future investigations are made.


Ascaris lumbricoides is one of the most common human helminthic diseases worldwide. On ultrasound, it is seen as linear non-shadowing echogenic structures with target appearance in cross section, and the live worm may show writhing movements in real time. On barium meal follow through, it appears as radiolucent tubular filling defects within the bowel lumen. Though not sensitive, direct real-time visualization of Ascaris on ultrasound is quick, non-invasive, and definitive.


In most cases, newly harvested upland oak stands contain sufficient numbers of red oak stems to form a fully stocked oak stand in the future. Unfortunately, many stands will not reach full stocking of oak due to intense competition from other non-oak reproduction. There are few feasible options to release established oak reproduction from other broadleaf woody or non-woody vegetation. This study assessed the year 1 results of an over-the-top application of the herbicide Oust (0.2 kg/ha) during the growing season to reduce the competitiveness of non-oak species. The first year after treatment, Oust reduced the total height and diameter of non-oak species by about 20 percent without affecting mortality or growth of red oak stems. The application of Oust over the top of actively growing mixed oak stand, while not a labeled use, does show promise as an effective and operationally feasible release treatment.


Multinational companies (MNCs) employ a significant proportion of the Australian workforce and are influential in shaping local human resource management (HRM) practices. Notwithstanding this influence, there have been few studies of Australian HRM comparing local companies with MNCs. This study systematically compares the nature of the HRM function in local and overseas firms using data from the 1999 Pricewaterhouse Coopers-Cranfield Project on HR in Australia. The study makes these comparisons against the backdrop of theoretical arguments for overseas companies to either adapt to the local HR environment or adopt HR practices from other parts of their overseas networks.

The main conclusions are that while overseas companies as a group differ from locals in some important ways, particularly in having higher levels of representation on company boards and being more influential in overall decision on HR matters, in terms of formal HR policies the two groups are substantially similar. The main differences between the three main overseas groups are that UK companies report a lower level of influence and representation than their US or European counterparts.


This study aims to investigate the productivity of employee performance from the Department of Public Works and Spatial Planning of the Bali Province. Employee performance from this department has been the benchmark for the implementation of National Development. Improvement on infrastructure facilities and infrastructures in Bali Province continues to be carried out in supporting national development. This is fairly uneasy and requires optimum employee performance and consistency in assigning their duties. Moreover, restrictions on development activities amidst the pandemic of covid-19 surely bring about an impact on the slow pace of national development. This research examines and develops important factors that affect employee performance including spiritual quotient and self-efficacy as independent variables, organization commitment and organization citizenship behavior as intervening variables in influencing employee performance. The sample in this study was 86 respondents with data analysis techniques using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through the Part lease square (PLS) approach with the Smart PLS 3.2 program. The results found that the influence of spiritual quotient on organization citizenship behavior was rejected, while other factors had a positive and significant effect on employee performance. © 2021. RIGEO. All Rights Reserved.


We estimate the electromagnetic fields generated by a cluster of dielectric nanoparticles embedded into a background made of a vacuum. The dielectric nanoparticles are small scaled but enjoy high contrast of their relative permittivity. Such scales/contrasts can be ensured using the Lorentz model with incident frequencies chosen appropriately close to the undamped resonance (appearing in the Lorentz model). Under certain ratio between their size and contrast, these nanoparticles generate resonances, called dielectric resonances. These resonances are characterized and computed via the spectrum of the electric Newtonian operator, stated on the support of nanoparticles, projected on the space of divergence-free fields with vanishing boundary normal components. We characterize the dominant field generated by a cluster of such dielectric-resonating nanoparticles. In this point-interaction approximation, the nanoparticles can be distributed to occupy volume-like domains or low dimensional hypersurfaces where periodicity is not required. The form of these approximations suggests that the effective electromagnetic medium, equivalent to the cluster of such nanoparticles, is a perturbation of the magnetic permeability and not the electric permittivity. The cluster can be tuned such that the equivalent permeability has positive or negative values (while the permittivity stays unchanged).


The subsequent effect of preoperative maxillofacial orthopedics and early bone grafting on the development of the soft tissue profile of the face was studied with roentgencephalometric analysis on cleft patients between 7 and 13 years of age. They were divided into two unilateral and one bilateral complete-cleft group, all having been bone grafted early with the "four-flap" technique. The two unilateral groups were one group of 39 children operated on between 1960 and 1965 without preoperative orthopedics and one group of 46 children operated on between 1965 and 1972 after preoperative orthopedics ("T-traction"). The bilateral group comprised 19 children operated on between 1960 and 1972 after premaxillary retropositioning pressure, combined when necessary, with outward rotation of the lateral maxillary segments. Comparisons of facial growth were made with U.S. non-grafted clefts and with nonclefts. The effect of the preoperative orthopedic management facilitated the subsequent surgical procedure by a narrowing of the cleft and replacement of the deviated maxillary and nasal structures. The results were within limits of the non-grafted cases, with the exception of the soft tissue overlying the subnasal region. The reduced prominence of that region was explained by the primary surgical procedure, which made the lip adherent to the alveolar crest. In comparison with nonclefts, all parameters indicated a reduced growth capacity.


The factor structure of several self-report questionnaires assessing depression-relevant cognitions frequently employed in clinical research was examined in a sample of 390 adolescents (M age = 14.54; 216 girls; 74% Caucasian) with current major depressive disorder enrolled in the Treatment of Adolescents with Depression Study. A four-factor solution resulted, accounting for 65% of the total variance. The factors were labeled (a) Cognitive Distortions and Maladaptive Beliefs, (b) Cognitive Avoidance, (c) Positive Outlook, and (d) Solution-Focused Thinking. Internal consistencies for the factor-based composite scores were .83, .85, .84, and .82, respectively. Girls endorsed more negative cognitions than boys on three of the four factors. Maladaptive cognitions were positively related to severity of depression and predicted treatment response. Taken together, findings indicated that there are four distinct domains of cognitions that are present among adolescents with depression that are tapped by several widely used self-report measures of cognitions.


Rapid effects of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) on the mechanical properties of cell wall, and sugar compositions, intrinsic viscosity and molecular weight distribution of cell wall polysaccharides were investigated with excised epicotyl segments of Vigna angularis Ohwi et Ohashi cv. Takara.

1
IAA caused cell wall loosening as studied by stress-relaxation analysis within 15 min after the IAA application.

2
IAA stimulated the decrease in the content of arabinose and galactose in the hemicellulose 1 h after its application. The amounts of other component sugars in the cell wall polysaccharides remained constant during the IAA-induced segment growth.

3
The intrinsic viscocity of the pectin increased as early as 30 min after the IAA application. This effect was not prevented when elongation growth of the segment was osmotically suppressed by 0.15 M mannitol.

4
Gel permeation chromatography of the pectin on a Sepharose 4 B column demonstrated that IAA caused increase in the mass-average molecular weight of the pectin. Analysis of the sugar compositions of the pectin eluted from the Sepharose 4 B column indicated that IAA increased the molecular weight of the polysaccharides composed of uronic acid, galactose, rhamnose and arabinose. This effect became apparent within 30 min after the IAA application. Furthermore, IAA increased the molecular weight of the pectin when elongation growth of the epicotyl segments was osmotically suppressed by 0.15 M mannitol.

5
Hemicellulose of the cell wall chromatographed on a Sepharose CL-4 B column. Analysis of the neutral sugar compositions and the iodine staining property (specific for xyloglucans) of the polysaccharide solution eluted from the column indicated that the hemicellulose consisted of xyloglucans, arabinogalactans and polysaccharides composed of xylose and/or mannose. IAA caused a decrease in the arabinogalactan content and depolymerization of xyloglucans. These IAA effects became apparent within 30 min after the IAA application. These changes occurred even when elongation growth of the epicotyl segments was osmotically suppressed by 0.15 M mannitol.

Polymerization of the pectin, degradation of arabinogalactans and depolymerization of xyloglucans appear to be involved in the mechanism by which IAA induces cell wall loosening and therefore extension growth of cells.


OBJECTIVES
Fibrosis of the vocal fold lamina propria reduces vocal cord vibration resulting in a chronically hoarse voice. We describe a novel approach using umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells in a dehydrated collagen matrix (cellogen) to reconstruct the delicate balance of extracellular matrix within the vocal fold lamina propria whilst limiting the host inflammatory response to the implant.

METHODS
Human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem-cells were embedded in bovine type I collagen hydrogel and dehydrated using the RAFT™ 3D culture system. The extracellular matrix, cellular viability and composition, paracrine profile, and genomic profile were assessed and the scaffold engrafted onto the hind muscle of NUDE mice.

RESULTS
The cells retained stem-cell markers following fabrication and secreted collagen III, fibronectin, and glycosaminoglycans within the scaffold. Electron microscopy showed the scaffold consisted of single strands of protein with interspersed bundles of a similar size to native vocal fold lamina propria. The use of the dehydration step improved cell viability and upregulated the expression of genes important in wound healing and matrix organization compared with unmodified collagen hydrogel carriers. The cells were shown to secrete exosomes and cytokines and, following engraftment within an immunocompromised mouse model, appeared to modulate the host inflammatory response compared with controls.

CONCLUSION
This article provides a scalable cell-protein scaffold that with further modifications could provide a replacement for lost or damaged vocal fold mucosa. Further investigations are required to assess the mechanical properties of the scaffold and inhibit the differentiation of the umbilical cord-derived stem-cells following implantation. Laryngoscope, 2023.


In this paper we focus on the recognition of threedimensional objects captured by an active stereo vision sensor. The study is related to our research project Cyclope, this embedded sensor based on active stereo-vision approach allows real time 3D objects reconstruction. Our medical application requires differentiation between hyperplastic and adenomatous polyps during 3D endoscopic imaging. The detection algorithm consists of SVM classifier trained on robust feature descriptors of a surfacic 3D point cloud extracted from the surface of studied object. We compared our feature extraction method with others. Experimental results were encouraging and show correct classification rate of approximately 97%. The work contains many techniques concerning image processing and system calibration and provides detailed statistics about the detection rate and the computing complexity.


The influence of some constructive discharge system elements on the electric excitation modes and stable maintaining of pulse glow discharge plasma in N2 in a hollow tube cathode has been investigated. The following discharge system changes have been performed: the position of a hollow electrode-cathode in the dielectric tube-holder; the method of plasma forming gas feeding to the discharge area; the distance between the electrode-cathode and counter-electrode (grounded anode). The investigation has been carried out within 50–700 Pa N2 pressure range. The obtained results may be used in the design of gas discharge systems with hollow cathode effect.


Enrofloxacin (ENR) is a veterinary antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections in livestock. It chiefly persists in foods and dairy products, which in turn pose severe risks to human health. Hence it is very important to detect the ENR in foods and dairy products to safeguard human health. Herein, we attempted to develop a single-step detection lateral flow immunochromatographic assay (LFIA) using gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for the rapid and on-site detection of ENR in milk samples. An anti-enrofloxacin monoclonal antibody (ENR-Ab) was conjugated with AuNPs for the specific detection of ENR in milk samples. For sensitivity improvement, many optimization steps were conducted on LFIA test strips. The visual limit of detection (vLOD) was found to be 20 ng/ml with a cut-off value of 50 ng/ml in the milk samples. The obtained LOD and cut-off value were within the safety limit guidelines of the Ministry of food and drug safety, South Korea. The test strip showed negligible cross-reactivity with ENR analogs, and other components of antibiotics, this indicates the high specificity of the LFIA test strip towards ENR. The designed test strip showed good reliability. The visual test results can be seen within 10 min without the need for special equipment. Therefore, the test strip can be employed as a potential detection strategy for the qualitative on-site detection of enrofloxacin in milk samples. Graphical Abstract Rapid on-site detection of enrofloxacin in milk.


In this study we propose a security architecture for mobile Health (mHealth) communications. mHealth is a term used for medical-related services or communication, delivered using mobile devices such as mobile phones, tablet computers and PDAs. Communication in the health-related field often involve sensitive information (e.g., an email about a patient's illness is sent between doctors), which is transmitted over the Internet. However, although the Internet greatly facilitates the communication, it is undeniable that the threats to the Internet are becoming more prevalent. A multi-agent security architecture is presented in this study to provide a secure environment for mHealth communication. Agents are skilled in order to handle the communication processes at both sender's and recipient's side. This includes the security processes, which make use of cryptography protocols to secure data at both sides.


Obstructions of the upper venous system may be due to spontaneous thrombosis or the presence of hemodialysis or chemotherapy catheters, or even the presence of extrinsic compression due to intra-thoracic tumors. The use of endoprosthesis for the treatment of these obstructions has become common practice, and its indications include situations of risk for pulmonary embolism, superior vena cava syndrome, and loss of vascular access. Within this context, the use of intracardiac ultrasound may be useful in evaluating the extension and severity of the obstructive lesion, besides providing important information about the mural and intraluminal morphology of the venous system. The authors report the case of a patient with superior vena cava syndrome caused by thrombosis at the entry pathway of the right atrium, besides discussing the subject by means of literature review.


More companies build the next generation networks for developing applications, it gives birth to more solutions and products for the needs of the market. The voice email system is definitely one of them and it becomes another trend for the technology savvy users. The voice email system becomes a starting point of the voice browsing technologies over the phone where there is a wide spreading of applications and services from different areas, such as stock trading and voice conferencing


Mycological examination.-A portion of the sediment from the digestion procedure was used for the inocula-tion of Sabouraud's, Littman's OSCV and blood agar media. No growth had occurred in three weeks. The remainder of the sediment was used in the preparation of wet mounts and permanent mounts in lacto-fuchsin.3 These preparations revealed numerous spherules, some containing endospores diagnostic of C. immitis (Fig. 3). Whereas the few organisms seen in histological sections stained by H and E or by PAS techniques were con-sidered suggestive, the mycological preparations were diagnostic. organism


Trials of transfusions of platelets (PLTs) treated with amotosalen‐based pathogen reduction (PR) showed lower corrected count increments (CCIs) compared to conventional PLT components (PCs). However, PR‐PLTs and conventional PCs often differed in various factors besides PR. We compared transfusion efficacy of single‐donor apheresis PCs treated with PR or gamma irradiation.


Article history: Ultra-fine grained (UFG) structure (~0.6 µm) was produced in the stir zone (SZ) of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy joints using friction stir processing (FSP) cooled by liquid nitrogen (N2). A new experimental set-up was used to simultaneously quench the lower and upper surfaces of the samples during the processing. In addition, FSPed joints were produced using a steel backing plate at room temperature as a reference. Sub-structural studies were carried out to investigate the occurrence of dynamic recrystallization and grain growth in the weld area of the samples. The results indicate that the microstructure was not fully recrystallized as a high dislocation density (3.5×10 14 m -2 ) was measured in the stir zone (SZ) of rapidly cooled joints compared with that of the air-cooled joints (1.5×10 14 m -2 ). Moreover, rapid cooling generated a very high dislocation density of about 6.5×10 14 m -2 in the thermo-mechanical affected zone (TMAZ). Accordingly, better mechanical properties were obtained in the SZ. In contrast, lower strain hardening capacity and hardening exponent values were obtained in the rapidly cooled joints where the highest fraction of low angle grain boundaries (LAGBs) and largest number of dislocations were measured.


Phase change material (PCM), which enables heat storage based on phase transition, plays an important role for efficient energy utilization. This paper briefly describes our recent study about all-solid PCM by combination of vanadium dioxide (VO2) with latent heat storage capacity and multicomponent glass, i.e., VO2-dispersed glass. A B2O3-P2O5-V2O5 glass system is used as a matrix for the VO2-dispersed glass. An attempt to describe its latent heat storage function is given. Endothermic behavior due to structural phase transition of the VO2 crystals was observed in the VO2-dispersed sample, and the transition enthalpy corresponding to latent heat storage capacity was estimated to be ΔH~9.5 J/g. The value of the studied sample was larger than the value of dispersed glass in the BaO-TeO2-V2O5 system that was previously reported. Potential for PCM was considered in the studied sample.


Due to the unavailability of GPS indoors, various indoor pedestrian positioning approaches have been designed to estimate the position of the user leveraging sensory data measured from inertial measurement units (IMUs) and wireless signal receivers, such as pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) and received signal strength (RSS) fingerprinting. This study is similar to the previous study in that it estimates the user position by fusing noisy positional information obtained from the PDR and RSS fingerprinting using the Bayes filter in the indoor pedestrian positioning system. However, this study differs from the previous study in that it uses an enhanced state estimation approach based on the ensemble transform Kalman filter (ETKF), called QETKF, as the Bayes filer for the indoor pedestrian positioning instead of the SKPF proposed in the previous study. The QETKF estimates the updated user position by fusing the predicted position by the PDR and the positional measurement estimated by the RSS fingerprinting scheme using the ensemble transformation, whereas the SKPF calculates the updated user position by fusing them using both the unscented transformation (UT) of UKF and the weighting method of PF. In the field of Earth science, the ETKF has been widely used to estimate the state of the atmospheric and ocean models. However, the ETKF algorithm does not consider the model error in the state prediction model; that is, it assumes a perfect model without any model errors. Hence, the error covariance estimated by the ETKF can be systematically underestimated, thereby yielding inaccurate state estimation results due to underweighted observations. The QETKF proposed in this paper is an efficient approach to implementing the ETKF applied to the indoor pedestrian localization system that should consider the model error. Unlike the ETKF, the QETKF can avoid the systematic underestimation of the error covariance by considering the model error in the state prediction model. The main goal of this study is to investigate the feasibility of the pedestrian position estimation for the QETKF in the indoor localization system that uses the PDR and RSS fingerprinting. Pedestrian positioning experiments performed using the indoor localization system implemented on the smartphone in a campus building show that the QETKF can offer more accurate positioning results than the ETKF and other ensemble-based Kalman filters (EBKFs). This indicates that the QETKF has great potential in performing better position estimation with more accurately estimated error covariances for the indoor pedestrian localization system.


Background Gut microbial shifts have great potential to predict the risk of colorectal cancer, but how gut microbes respond to the development of colorectal cancer in males and females at the community scale is unknown. To address this question, we reanalyzed the dataset from a published project and grouped these data depending on sex into three groups, healthy, colorectal adenoma and carcinoma individuals, and community assembly and network patterns of gut microbes were evaluated by null model and co-occurrence network-based methods. Results The study showed that distinct changes in microbial α -diversities and community composition were observed between the male and female gut. Specifically, the microbial α -diversities did not significantly change in the male gut ( P > 0.05) but were lowered in the female gut ( P < 0.05), suggesting that permanent species loss might occur in the female gut during the development of colorectal cancer. These distinct changes in microbial α -diversities and community composition between the male and female gut might result from host immunity mechanisms and different microbial community assemblies in males and females. Indeed, we found that the microbial community tended to be primarily stochastic in males, whereas it became increasingly deterministic in females with the development of colorectal cancer. Moreover, microbial co-occurrence associations tended to be more complicated when communities were primarily driven by stochastic processes in males; rare species were enriched in the co-occurrence network of the male gut, whereas key species loss was observed in the co-occurrence network of the female gut. Conclusions Our findings indicate that microbial communities in the male gut are more stable than those in the female gut and that microbial community assembly in the gut is sex-dependent with the development of colorectal cancer. Our study suggests that sexual dimorphism needs to be taken into account to better predict the risk of colorectal cancer based on microbial shifts.


Celithemis eponina Drury, the Halloween pennant dragonfly, is a brightly colored dragonfly found in the eastern United States (Figure 1). The Halloween pennant gets its name from its orange colored wings, which have dark brown bands marking them. It can often be seen perched on tips of vegetation near the edges of waterways (Taber 2005).


The English so-inversion construction places the expression so in the pre-auxiliary position followed by the subject. In the traditional analysis, the auxiliary preceding the subject has been taken to undergo the I-to-C movement. However, complication arises with the possibility of having a cluster of auxiliary verbs in the C position or leaving a VP (or remnants) after the subject. In this paper, we claim that there are in fact two different types of so-inversion, which behave alike in many respects but are quite different. We show that these two types, called SAI so-inversion and Focus so-inversion, respectively, are licensed due to the possible mapping relations between form and function.


This paper presents a novel approach to camera calibration that improves final accuracy with respect to standard methods using precision planar targets, even if now inaccurate, unmeasured, roughly planar targets can be used. The work builds on a recent trend in camera calibration, namely concurrent optimization of scene structure together with the intrinsic camera parameters [4, 8, 1]. A novel formulation is presented that allows maximum likelihood estimation in the case of inaccurate targets, as it extends the camera extrinsic parameters into a tight parametrization of the whole scene structure. It furthermore observes the special characteristics of multi-view perspective projection of planar targets. Its natural extensions to stereo camera calibration and hand-eye calibration are also presented. Experiments demonstrate improvements in the parametrization of the camera model as well as in eventual stereo reconstruction.


Objective To investigate the association between venous thromboembolism (VTE) and antidepressant use in an Asian population. Methods The authors conducted a nested case-control study of 1888 patients with VTE and 11,222 matched controls enrolled in the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan from 2001 to 2009. The antidepressant exposure status and potential confounding factors were measured and included in the analyses. Conditional logistic regressions were applied to determine the effect of antidepressant use on VTE. Results We found a significant association of current antidepressant use with VTE in the total study sample (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.59; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.27–2.00). With regard to antidepressant classes and potency, we found that tricyclic antidepressants (aOR, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.11–2.18), serotonin 5-HT2A receptor blockers (aOR, 2.03; 95% CI, 1.27–3.24), and antidepressants with a low potency of serotonin reuptake inhibition (aOR, 1.57; 95% CI, 1.18–2.08) were associated with a significantly increased risk of VTE. When further stratifying by age, sex, and comorbid conditions, the VTE risk with antidepressant use was elevated among young and middle-aged adults, but not among the elderly. In addition, an elevated risk of VTE was observed in women and subjects without severe comorbid conditions, but not in men and subjects with severe comorbid conditions. Conclusions There was a small increase in VTE risk with antidepressant use. The prescription of antidepressant drugs should be cautious, and especially, should be based on clinical evaluations of benefits and risks. The underlying mechanisms of the interaction between antidepressants and VTE warrant further investigation.


In view of the high incidence of early distant tumor relapses in apparently completely resected (R0, M0) non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), there is a need for an adjuvant therapy. Considering the low tumor burden in these patients, an adjuvant therapy with monoclonal antibodies (i.e., the 17‐1A MAb) might be appropriate. The purpose of our study was to test whether the 17‐1A antigen is expressed on primary and metastatic NSCLC carcinoma cells. Using immunohistochemistry, the expression of 17‐1A was analysed in primary tumors (n = 60) and in lymph node metastases (n = 7) of patients with NSCLC. Additionally, we investigated in 6 patients the expression of 17‐1A on disseminated tumor cells in the bone marrow, which were detected by the pan‐cytokeratin MAb A45‐B/B3 using a double‐labeling technique. The 17‐1A antigen was homogeneously expressed in 47 (78.3%) out of 60 primary NSCLCs. The expression of 17‐1A was independent from the tumor histology, the grade of differentiation, and other clinicopathological parameters (ploidy status, TNM‐stage). Lymph node metastases were positive in 4 (57.4%) out of 7 cases. The double‐labeling experiments demonstrated that 17‐1A is coexpressed on disseminated tumor cells in the bone marrow in 5 (83%) out of 6 patients. The 17‐1A antigen is expressed on the majority of primary, metastatic, and disseminated NSCLC cells. Patients with 17‐1A‐positive tumors might benefit from an adjuvant therapy with MAb 17‐1A after completely resected NSCLC. Int. J. Cancer 87:548–552, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Erythrocyte aggregation and dissociation play an important role in the determination of hemodynamical properties of blood flow in microcirculation. This paper intends to investigate the adhesion and dissociation kinetics of erythrocytes through computational
modeling. The technique of immersed boundary-fictitious domain method has been applied to the study of erythrocyte aggregates traversing modeled stenotic microchannels. The effects of stenosis geometry, cell membrane stiffness, and intercellular interaction strength on aggregate hemodynamics including transit velocity are studied. It is found that the width of the stenosis throat and shape of stenosis have a significant influence on the dissociation of the aggregates. Moreover, horizontally orientated erythrocyte aggregates are observed to dissociate much easier than their vertical counterparts under the same simulation conditions. Results from this study contribute to the fundamental understanding and knowledge on the biophysical characteristics of erythrocyte aggregates in microscopic blood flow, which will provide pathological insights into some human diseases, such as malaria.


The Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics (Athena) is the X-ray observatory large mission selected by the European Space Agency (ESA), within its Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme, to address the "Hot and Energetic Universe" scientific theme (Nandra et al. 2013), and it is provisionally due for launch in the early 2030s. The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is the next generation radio observatory and consists of two telescopes, one comprised of dishes operating at mid frequencies (SKA1-MID) and located in South Africa, and the other comprised of Log-Periodic antennas operating at low radio frequencies (SKA1-LOW), which will be located in Australia (Braun et al. 2017). The scientific commissioning of the radio telescope is planned to begin in 2021-2022. The SKA-Athena Synergy Team (SAST) has been tasked to single out the potential scientific synergies between Athena and SKA. The astrophysical community was involved in this exercise primarily through a dedicated SKA-Athena Synergy Workshop, which took place on April 24-25, 2017 at SKAO, Jodrell Bank, Manchester. The final result of the synergy exercise, this White Paper, describes in detail a number of scientific opportunities that will be opened up by the combination of Athena and SKA, these include: 1. the Cosmic Dawn; 2. the Evolution of black holes and galaxies; 3. Active galaxy feedback in galaxy clusters; 4. Non-thermal phenomena in galaxy clusters; 5. Detecting the cosmic web; 6. Black-hole accretion physics and astrophysical transients; 7. Galactic astronomy: stars, planets, pulsars and supernovae.


The publication highlights the progression of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) for youth and adult learners as an alternative to traditional education delivery, reinforcing the importance of change, and updating and reimagining existing practices taking cognisance of the context and needs of youth and adult learners, especially after the significant disruptions of COVID-19 on the education system. It further elaborates on the existing literature regarding adult literacy programmes and educational provision employing ODL, but asserts that "no specific guidelines for planning, designing, developing, implementing and evaluating youth and adult literacy programmes using ODL have been published to date" (p. 2). It is estimated that 773 million youth and adults, the majority being women, lack literacy skills, which are fundamental for growth. The recommendations contained within these guidelines are critical for institutions and literacy training providers, focus on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through socio-economic transformation and ensure the right to education. The aim of this book in the form of guidelines is to "offer an introduction to and guidance on the design of ODL programmes for youth and adults who lack basic literacy and numeracy skills" (p. 3), featuring issues that youth and adult learners face. The book is organised into, two key parts: Part 1 focuses on the four key steps for planning and implementing ODL programmes for youth and adult literacy, and Part 2 focuses on media and technologies for literacy.


The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a complex organelle responsible for a range of functions including protein folding and secretion, lipid biosynthesis, and ion homeostasis. Despite its central and essential roles in eukaryotic cells during development, growth, and disease, many ER proteins are poorly characterized. Moreover, the range of biochemical reactions that occur within the ER membranes, let alone how these different activities are coordinated, is not yet defined. In recent years, focused studies on specific ER functions have been complemented by systematic approaches and innovative technologies for high-throughput analysis of the location, levels, and biological impact of given components. This article focuses on the recent progress of these efforts, largely pioneered in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and also addresses how future systematic studies can be geared to uncover the "dark matter" of uncharted ER functions.


This article asserts the need to distinguish among "individual," "self," and "person" as biologistic, psychologistic, and sociologistic modes of conceptualizing human beings. The concepts differentiate individual as member of the human kind, self as locus of experience, and person as agent-in-society. The author follows out various descriptive and analytical implications. Ethnographic examples are used to illustrate and clarify points relevant to single-case studies and comparativist work. Within a particular local scheme, concepts of individual, self, and person are interrelated, sometimes hierarchically so. The article briefly takes up issues following from the double nature of these concepts as "native" categories and outsiders' analytical constructs. It is held that adopting as analytically central any one mode of conceptualizing human beings has consequences for the analyst's view of culture and/or social structure.


Excess lipid induced metabolic disorders are one of the major existing challenges for the society. Among many different causes of lipid disorders, overproduction and compromised catabolism of triacylglycerol-rich very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) have become increasingly prevalent leading to hyperlipidemia worldwide. This review provides the latest understanding in different aspects of VLDL assembly process, including structure-function relationships within apoB, mutations in APOB causing hypobetalipoproteinemia, significance of modulating microsomal triglyceridetransfer protein activity in VLDL assembly, alterations of VLDL assembly by different fatty acid species, and hepatic proteins involved in vesicular trafficking, and cytosolic lipid droplet metabolism that contribute to VLDL assembly. The role of lipoprotein receptors and exchangeable apolipoproteins that promote or diminish VLDL assembly and secretion is discussed. New understanding on dysregulated insulin signaling as a consequence of excessive triacylglycerol-rich VLDL in the plasma is also presented. It is hoped that a comprehensive view of protein and lipid factors that contribute to molecular and cellular events associated with VLDL assembly and secretion will assist in the identification of pharmaceutical targets to reduce disease complications related to hyperlipidemia. Introduction Lipids of dietary origin as well as those stored in the adipose tissues act as energy sources for mammalian cells. Since lipids are hydrophobic in nature, mammals have evolved a mechanism such that the insoluble lipids are made soluble in the form of lipoproteins for transportation and delivery to various organs and tissues by the circulatory system. Formation and secretion of lipoprotein particles is primarily achieved in the liver (as VLDL) and in the intestine (as chylomicrons). The process involved in the assembly and secretion of hepatic VLDL or intestinal chylomicrons is complex and has been studied extensively for the past 2-3 decades. Lipid and protein factors that affect various steps during the assembly and secretion of VLDL and chylomicrons have been identified. The assembly process of hepatic VLDL is initiated in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) as soon as apoB-100 is translated and translocated into the lumenal side where the elongating apoB-100 polypeptide chain recruits various lipids co-translationally. Each VLDL is composed of one molecule of apoB-100, multiple copies of other apolipoproteins, together with varied amounts of triacylglycerol (TAG) and cholesteryl esters, depending upon the size of resulting particles. Cellular and molecular mechanisms by which different lipid and protein components are brought together for VLDL assembly are not fully understood and remain to be defined. A protein factor other than apoB that is absolutely required for VLDL assembly is the microsomal triglyceride-transfer protein (MTP). The obligatory role of MTP in VLDL assembly/secretion is exemplified by human familial abetalipoproteinemia, characterized by nearly a complete absence of apoB-containing lipoproteins including VLDL (and chylomicrons as well). Available evidence indicates that among different lipid and protein constituents of VLDL, the availability of functional apoB-100 and TAG are by far the most critical for the assembly of secretion-competent VLDL within the ER lumen. An array of protein factors involved in secretory protein translation and translocation across the ER membrane are responsible for initial apoB-100 folding * Correspondence: email@example.com 1 Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology, University of Ottawa, 451 Smyth Road, Ottawa, Ontario K1H 8M5, Canada Full list of author information is available at the end of the article BioMed Central © 2010 Sundaram and Yao; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Sundaram and Y ao Nutrition & Metabolism 2010, 7:35 http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/7/1/35 Page 2 of 17 to attain lipid-binding capability within the microsomal lumen. Pathological conditions that disfavor apoB-100 folding or binding of lipids to apoB will result in aborted VLDL assembly and premature intracellular degradation of apoB-100 during or after translation. Structural and functional elements within apoB100 The human APOB gene, located on the distal end of the short arm of chromosome 2 (2p23-2p24), encodes a ~20 kb mRNA that is translated into the full-length apoB-100 consisting of 4,536 amino acids in the liver [1-3]. A truncated form of apoB, known as apoB-48, represents the Nterminal 48% of apoB-100 and is produced in the intestine by an mRNA editing mechanism [4]. In humans, apoB-100 and apoB-48 are obligatory proteins for the assembly of respective hepatic VLDL and intestinal chylomicrons [5]. In mouse and rat, the liver synthesizes apoB-48 in addition to apoB-100 [6]. Because of their enormous size, extreme hydrophobicity along with varied extents in lipid-binding, the 3-D structure of apoB-100 or apoB-48 has not been solved at the atomic level. However, attempts have been made, using various algorithms, to compute the structures of various domains of apoB100. The modeled human apoB-100 molecule is composed of five domains enriched with alternating amphipathic α-helices and amphipathic β-strands, designated βα1-β1-α2-β2-α3 [7]. Various domains and their approximate locations in apoB-100 are depicted in Fig. 1A. Moreover, based on the homology to lamprey lipovitellin, a modeled structure for the N-terminal ~930 amino acids of human apoB-100 has been proposed [8,9]. This model predicts a βα1 domain structure consisting of β-barrel (the first 264 residues) and α-helical bundle (residues 292-593), followed by two amphipathic β-sheets termed C sheet (residues 611-782) and A sheet (residues 783930), respectively, that may form a lipid-binding pocket [10]. Scanning transmission electron microscopy studies have provided direct evidence that nanogold-labeled apoB fragment (apoB6.4-17) interacted with lipids [11]. A model of human apoB-100 associated with low density lipoprotein (LDL) has been obtained using images captured by electron cryomicroscopy, in which a single apoB-100 molecule with its α-helix and β-sheet rich domains across the LDL surface is proposed [12]. The N-terminal region of apoB contains several binding sites for MTP, an apoB-specific molecular chaperone essential for apoB-100 to fold properly during VLDL assembly/secretion [13,14]. Multiple MTP-binding sites have been identified within the N-terminal βα1 domain of apoB [13,15,16], and the affinity of MTP-binding is inversely related to the apoB polypeptide length [17]. Apart from binding to MTP, the βα1 domain of apoB-100 also binds to scavenger receptors in human macrophages [18] and to lipoprotein lipase [19]. The β1 domain (amino acids 827-1880) of apoB-100 is predominantly made of amphipathic β strands and is involved in irreversible lipid-binding [20,21]. The β2 domain located at the C-terminal half of apoB-100 possesses LDL receptor-binding property [22,23]. The role of the intervening amphipathic α-helix enriched domain α2 and the C-terminal α3 of apoB-100 may represent a flexible region that imparts elasticity to the molecule allowing recruitment of various amounts of core lipids [24]. The amino acid sequences within apoB-100 essential for lipoprotein assembly and secretion have been investigated extensively using two approaches, namely truncation mutagenesis and chimeric protein expression analysis. Incremental truncation of human apoB polypeptide from the carboxyl terminus successively decreased its ability to form buoyant lipoprotein particles [25,26]. Under lipid rich conditions, the ability of apoB to assemble VLDL resides at the length transition between the Nterminal ~30% and ~40% of the polypeptide, a region enriched with amphipathic β strands (i.e. the β1 domain) [26]. Studies with chimera proteins, in which segments of apoB derived from the β1 domain were fused with apoAI, have shown that inclusion of the amphipathic β strands conferred the ability to assemble VLDL [26]. The amino acid sequences within the β1 domain also influence the rate of apoB translocation across the ER membrane and its susceptibility to proteasomal degradation [27] (for apoB degradation, see below). These studies suggest that the amino acid sequences within the β1 domain are important for lipid-binding in the VLDL assembly process. Human apoB-100 undergoes several posttranslational modifications, including disulfide bond formation, Nlinked glycosylation, and palmitoylation. Mutational analysis has shown that among six disulfide linkages within the βα1 domain, the two involving Cys51/Cys70 and Cys218/Cys234 are essential for apoB-lipoprotein assembly and secretion [28,29]. Results from the cysteine mutagenesis studies corroborate with data obtained from dithiothreitol treatment experiment in which abolishing apoB disulfide bond formation with the reducing agent resulted in decreased apoB secretion [30]. There are 20 potential N-linked glycosylation sites within human apoB-100, of which 16 Asn residues are conjugated with oligosaccharides in apoB-100 associated with plasma LDL [31]. The requirement of Asn158, Asn956, Asn1341, Asn1350, and Asn1496 residues within the amino terminus of apoB-100 has been determined by mutagenesis experiments; results from these studies suggested that the loss of N-glycans, particularly at Asn1496, resulted in decreased stability of apoB and reduced secretion of TAG-rich lipoproteins [32]. Thus, in addition to lipid binding sequences of apoB, the N-linked oligosaccharides Sundaram and Yao Nutrition & Metabolism 2010, 7:35 h


(1) Background: Missed nursing care, an omission error characterized by delayed or omitted nursing interventions, poses significant risks to patients' safety and quality of car.; (2) Methods: This is a quantitative cross-sectional study on 151 nurses who work in NICUs in three main networks in the Eastern Health Province, Saudi Arabia: Dammam (n = 84), Qatif (n = 53), and Jubail (n = 14). The study uses a self-reported questionnaire (MISSCARE) and applies the 5-point Likert Scale. Statistical analysis data were analyzed using SPSS version 23.0. (3) Results: The primary reasons for missed care were shortage of nursing staff and unbalanced patient assignments. Missed nursing care negatively affects job satisfaction and was positively correlated with nurses' intentions to quit their jobs. Inadequate equipment, supplies, and breakdowns in communication between nurses and other healthcare professionals were also significant factors contributing to missed care. (4) Conclusions: Missed nursing care is associated with overwork, nursing shortages, and lower job satisfaction, impacting the quality of care provided in the NICU. Improving working conditions, nurse staffing, and patient assignment planning should be prioritized to address this issue effectively.


Key-based workload partitioning is now commonly used in parallel stream processing, enabling effective key-value tuple distribution over worker threads in a logical operator. While randomized hashing on the keys is capable of balancing the workload for key-based partitioning when the keys generally follow a static distribution, it is likely to generate poor balancing performance when workload variance occurs on the incoming data stream. This paper presents a new key-based workload partitioning framework, with practical algorithms to support dynamic workload assignment for stateful operators. The framework combines hash-based and explicit key-based routing strategies for workload distribution, which specifies the destination worker threads for a handful of keys and assigns the other keys with the hashing function. We formulate the rebalance operation as an optimization problem, with multiple objectives on minimizing state migration costs, controlling the size of the routing table and breaking workload imbalance among the worker threads. Despite of the NP-hardness nature behind the optimization formulation, we carefully investigate and justify the heuristics behind key (re)routing and state migration, to facilitate fast response to workload variance with ignorable cost to the normal processing in the distributed system. Empirical studies on synthetic data and real-world stream applications validate the usefulness of our proposals and prove the huge advantage of our approaches over state-of-the-art solutions in the literature.


Multilingual terminological resources do not always include the equivalents of specialized verbs that occur in legal texts. This study aims to bridge that gap by proposing a methodology to assign the equivalents of this kind of predicative units. We use a comparable corpus of judgments produced by the Supreme Court of Canada and by the Supremo Tribunal de Justiça de Portugal. From this corpus, 200 English and Portuguese verbs are selected. The description of the verbs is based on the theory of Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1977, 1977, 1982, 1985) as well as on the FrameNet methodology (Ruppenhofer et al. 2010). Specialized verbs are said to evoke a semantic frame, a sort of conceptual scenario in which a number of mandatory elements play specific roles (e.g. the role of judge, the role of defendant). Given that semantic frames are language independent to a fair degree (Boas 2005; Baker 2009), the labels attributed to each of the 76 identified frames (e.g. [Crime], [Regulations]) were used to group together 165 pairs of candidate equivalents. 71% of them are full equivalents, whereas 29% are only partial equivalents.


New hazards of health care: accumulating risks for the individual provider Occupational hazards from contact with patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) have become an important concern in the medical community. Using quality adjusted life analysis (QALA), Owens and Nease recently reported that the occupational risk of HIV is comparable to HBV'. They found that the loss of life-expectancy due to a single needle stick exposure from a symptomatic HIV-positive patient is 39 days, compared to 38 days from a similar accident with an HBV e-antigen positive patient. However, they did not give clear weight to the possible extra stress felt by the health care providers (HCPs) to HIV patients. Personnel are sometimes influenced by previous incidents of persecution of HIV-infected HCPs, the implications of such a serious disease, or simply the anonymous HIV-positivity status in a given patient. Another recent report showed that 23% of residents are not willing to work in an area with a high prevalence of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) because of concern about contracting the disease2. If these factors are taken into consideration, the final impact on the reduction of QALA span (QALAS) could have a much greater impact on HCPs of HIV-infected patients. The risk of contracting a disease like AIDS from patients seen by a HCP is largely unknown. The issue is complicated by the fact that many patients may be still in the grey zone (HIV-infected but antibody-negative by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay) and the infectivity status of a large number of patients is unknown. Interns, residents, emergency physicians, nurses and other paramedical personnel coming in to contact with acutely ill patients, with or without profuse bleeding, and unavailable AIDS tests may be more exposed to such risks. This has particular significance in developing countries where confirmatory AIDS tests are possible only at few centres, and done infrequently because of economic and other reasons. The estimated reduction of QALAS of 45 days after a single needle stick injury from an HIV-positive patient and 48-109 days in the case of an HBV-infected patient is quite alarming'. New pathogens like hepatitis-c virus are becoming more widespread, and HCPs in developing countries are a t a serious disadvantage: they lag behind in the technology and standards of diagnosis. Moreover, they often have limited access to preventive measures like immunization. Even if the risks of HIV are comparable to HBV, all such risks add up to produce a cumulative effect on the life of an individual HCP. Eventually, medicine may not attract the best students if such cumulative risks are perceived as substantial. Are the current members and new entrants of the profession willing to trade off these risks for the satisfaction they might derive out of practising medicine? Can we formulate and implement programmes to minimize the emerging hazards to HCPs? If not, the resulting dissatisfaction will affect the quality of care3. P DILEEP KUMAR MD Department of Medicine, Sur Central Hospital, Sur. PB 259, Code 41 I , Sultanate of Omun


Background
Multiple myeloma (MM) is a B-cell malignancy that is incurable for the majority of patients. New treatments are urgently needed. Recombinant immunotoxins (RITs) are chimeric proteins that are composed of the Fv or Fab portion of an antibody fused to a bacterial toxin. B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) is a lineage-restricted differentiation protein and an ideal target for antibody-based treatments for MM.

Methods
RITs were produced by expressing plasmids encoding the components of the anti-BCMA RITs in Escherichia coli followed by inclusion body preparation, solubilization, renaturation, and purification by column chromatography. The cytotoxic activity of RITs was tested in vitro by WST-8 assays. We also measured their binding to human and mouse serum albumins and to BCMA and measured their serum half-life in mice.

Results
Using Fvs from different anti-BCMA antibodies, we produced RITs that specifically kill BCMA-expressing MM cells in vitro. To increase the serum half-life in vivo, we generated RITs that are fused with albumin-binding domains (ABDs). All RITs with ABDs have some decreased activity compared to the parent RIT, which is not due to decreased binding to BCMA.

Conclusions
Various new anti-BCMA immunotoxins were produced and evaluated. None of these were better than LMB-75 (anti-BCMA BM306-disulfide-stabilized Fv-LRggs) supporting the further preclinical development of LMB-75.


Comment. Contrary to our original hypothesis, we did not find reduced levels of macular pigments in our lightsensitive subjects. Instead, we found that subjects with migraine had significantly higher levels of macular pigments compared with a control group. Although patients with blepharospasm had lower levels of macular pigments, this difference was not statistically significant. It is not possible to tell from our experiments why migraineurs with chronic light sensitivity accumulate higher levels of macular pigment or whether this accumulation is clinically significant. It is possible that the macula accumulates these compounds in an effort to mitigate light sensitivity. The mechanisms that underlie carotenoid absorption, protein binding, transport, and storage are highly complex. There are numerous points in these processes where carotenoid metabolism could be affected in some light-sensitive individuals. In conclusion, a deficiency of macular pigments does not appear to be involved in the pathogenesis of photophobia in patients with light sensitivity. Further research will need to be completed to elucidate the pathophysiology of photophobia.


In this study the friction-stir processing (FSP) technique was applied for the development of surface composites of aluminium alloy (AA 1050) reinforced with titanium carbide (TiC) powder of particle size range below 60 μm compressed into the groove. Rotational speeds of 1200 min and 1600 min and the travel rates of (100, 200 and 300) mm/min were used for the process. This study investigates the effect of processing parameters on the wear-resistance behavior of friction-stir processed Al-TiC composites. This was achieved through microstructural characterization using optical and scanning electron (SEM) microscopes equipped with Oxford energy-dispersion spectrometry (EDS) (Tescan), microhardness profiling and wear resistance tests. From the results, it was found that the processing parameters influenced the distribution of the TiC particles. The microhardness profiling of the processed samples revealed an increase in the hardness value compared to the parent material. The wear-resistance test results confirmed the FSP technique enhanced properties in surface engineering.


To further our knowledge of HLA polymorphism in different ethnic populations and to increase the number of full HLA class I typed potential bone marrow donors on the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust register, HLA-A, -B and -C polymorphism was characterised in 412 Ashkenazi Jewish potential donors. Serological typings and limited molecular analysis was performed for HLA-A and -B, and molecular typings were performed for HLA-C. Gene and haplotype frequencies were calculated using the maximum likelihood method and compared with UK Caucasoid and other Jewish populations. While the specificities identified were in general overlapping with the UK Caucasoid data, a difference in the frequencies of individual specificities was observed. For example, HLA-B62, a common serotype found in the UK Caucasoid population, is almost absent in the Ashkenazim. HLA-A, -C, -B haplotype frequencies also differ between the two populations with A26-Cw*1203-B38 and A24-Cw*04-B35 significant in the Ashkenazim, whilst A1-Cw*07-B8, a common Caucasoid haplotype, was found to be less frequent. Overall the results for the UK Ashkenazi population were most similar to previous reports on Polish/Russian Jews.


Stiff baby syndrome (hyperekplexia) is a rare genetic disorder. The condition can easily be misdiagnosed as epilepsy or severe sepsis because of hypertonicity and seizure-like episodes and has an increased risk of severe apnoea and sudden infant death. Tapping of the nasal bridge inducing a startle response is the clinical hallmark. We report cases of two sisters born with stiff baby syndrome with hypertonicity, exaggerated startle reaction and cyanosis. The syndrome has a good prognosis if treated with clonazepam and both cases were developmental normal after one year.


Malignant melanoma is the malignancy with the highest propensity for cardiac metastasis. Metastasis to the heart usually occurs in the setting of disseminated disease and is therefore commonly associated with a poor prognosis. We report the case of a 51-year-old woman with a previous history of cutaneous malignant melanoma who presented with a symptomatic, isolated right atrial metastasis attached via a narrow stalk to the interatrial septum, thus resembling a myxoma. The lesion was completely resected, rendering the patient symptom and, potentially, disease-free. The case illustrates the importance of cardiac evaluation in the management of patients with melanoma.


Background In Mexico, the HIV estimated prevalence among men who have sex with men (MSM) is 17%, being the sexual transmission the most important via (90%). In other countries, studies report that almost 43% of MSM with HIV (MSM-H) have unsafe sex. Use of alcohol, substances, misinformation of HIV transmission, perceived low-risk of infection, self-stigma, and others, are related to this type of sexual behaviour. Self-stigma in MSM-H who have unsafe sex has been poorly studied, and had contradictory results. Methods Over 2012, after the ethical requirements, we asked MSM-H about unsafe sex with the Behavioral Surveillance Survey for MSM of 2006, and self-stigma with the HIV/AIDS Stigma Instrument-PLWA (HASI-P). This study was conducted at the Condesa Specialized Clinic in Mexico City, which is the largest Latin American clinic for people with HIV. We determinate unsafe sex dichotomously if the participant had not used condom, or had used non-water soluble lubricants during anal sex. We observed that self-stigma score had a non-normal distribution, so we used the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test to compare it between the two groups. Results The total sample was 200 MSM-H, and the mean age was 33.6 (S.D., 8.3) years old, and the level of education was 12.9 (S.D., 3.1) years (high-school equivalent). The 52.5% of the sample had unsafe sex and the median score of self-stigma was 6 (range: 0–28) points. After comparative analysis we didn't find any significant differences of self-stigma between the two groups (p = 0.23). Conclusion The self-stigma among MSM-H is not a factor related to unsafe sex, because this behaviour involves other social factors that must be deeply studied, particularly in this population. We have to include in future studies factors such as impulsivity, mental disorders, use of alcohol or substances, or others aspects that could probably be related to this behaviour.


An implementation of a texture segmentation algorithm on two high-performance computers, the Connection Machine CM-2 and the Convex mini-supercomputer, is presented. Texture segmentation is the process of identifying regions with similar texture and separating regions with different textures and is one of the early steps towards identifying surfaces and objects in an image. A segmentation algorithm is described which first extracts texture tokens from the input image, then computes the Voronoi tessellation of the extracted tokens and measures shape features (moments of area) of the resulting Voronoi polygons. Feature similarity is used to obtain an initial labeling of texture tokens as interior or border with four quantized directions. This labeling is then refrained using probabilistic relaxation labeling. The computation of the Voronoi tessellation and the probabilistic relaxation labeling process, which are highly data-parallel procedures, are discussed. Substantial speedups were obtained over a sequential (Sun-4/280) implementation.<<ETX>>


The Research is based on the finding that the learning biology was still dominated by lecturing method. The lack of students in involvement the learning process has an impact on the ability of literacy science students. To overcome the problem, the Research conduited the learning using learning problem-based learning model. This research aims to analyze the influence of problembased learning model to the ability of students Science literacy on the material of ecosystem. The method used is the method of quasi experiment with research design Nonequivalent Control Group Design. The sample of the research are the students of grade X IPA 1 and X IPA 3 SMAN Jatinangor. The Sampling technique is using done with the technique of Cluster random sampling. The results of the study shows that the ability of students Science literacy on the material of ecosystem using the problem-based learning model resulted the average score of pretest 52,97, posttest 79,03 and N-Gain 56 %. While in the grade using the method of lectures And discussions resulted in the value of the average score of pretest 62,91, posttest 75,39 and N-Gain 27 %. Based on the results of the main analysis N-Gain, Z count (5,63) ≥ Z table (1.65) with α of 0.05 (5%), then H0 is rejected and Ha is accepted. This shows that the problem-based learning model affect significantly to the ability of students Science literacy on the material of ecosystem.


For pt. I see ibid., vol.12 , no.1, (2000).We introduce two models for predicting the rate and distortion of the matching-pursuit video codec. The first model is based on a pre-coding analysis pass using the full matching-pursuit dictionary. The second model is based on a reduced-complexity analysis pass. We evaluate these models for use within existing rate-distortion optimization techniques. Our prediction results suggest that the models have sufficient accuracy to be useful in this context, and that significant complexity reductions could be achieved compared to exact rate-distortion computation.


Microwave (MW) dielectric ceramics are used in numerous electronic components for modern wireless communication systems, including antennas, resonators, capacitors and filters. However, to date, MW ceramics are manufactured by an energy-intensive, conventional high-temperature (> 1000 °C) sintering technology and thus cannot be co-sintered with low melting point and base electrodes (Ag, Al, etc., < 1000 °C), nor directly integrated with polymers (< 200 °C). Cold sintering is able to densify ceramics at < 200 °C via a combination of external pressure and a transient liquid phase, reducing the energy consumed and facilitating greater integration with dissimilar materials. This review outlines the basics of MW ceramics alongside the mechanism of cold sintering. Recent developments in cold sintering of MW ceramics, composites and devices are described, emphasizing new materials and progress towards component/device fabrication. Future prospects and critical issues for advancing cold-sintered MW materials and devices, such as unclear mechanism, low Q × f values and poor mechanical properties, are discussed.


Toxic epidermal necrolysis also known as Lyell syndrome, is a rare and severe adverse reaction predominantly affecting the skin and mucous membranes. It is characterized by the widespread death of keratinocytes of the epidermis and dermal-epidermal junction levels. The skin manifestations include maculopapular rash, similar to a morbilliform rash that precedes the formation of sero-hematic content blisters, mucosal erosions and subsequent detachment of the epidermis, reaching over 30% of the total body surface. It has a low incidence and high mortality, setting an extremely serious situation and therefore should be readily recognized. This article reports the case of a patient with clinical and pathology consistent with toxic epidermal necrolysis triggered by the use of antibiotic sulfamethoxazoletrimethoprim, with the addition of characteristic mucocutaneous involvement and associated neurological complications such as ataxia, disorientation, seizures, aphasia and dystonia.


Abstract Morphological, cytological, and isozyme studies of three plants of Polystichum fibrillosopaleaceum var. marginale (Dryopteridaceae) from Gotenba, at the foot of Mt. Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, and comparative observations of their lamina, scales, sori, spores, and perispore ornamentation, revealed them to be intermediate between P. fibrillosopaleaceum and P. igaense. Cytologically, the meiotic chromosome number of n = c. 38II + 6I (2x) and the malformed spores of the three plants are characteristic of hybrid sterility. The electrophoretic polymorphisms of four isozymes (Pgi, Pgm-1, Pgm-2, and Skdh) were examined in the three plants and in 22 individuals of the putative parental species, P. fibrillosopaleaceum (11) and P. igaense (11). The heterozygous genetic patterns (Pgi-ab, Pgm-1ab, Pgm-2ab, and Skdh-ab) fixed in the putative hybrids indicate that they have a combination of the Pgi-b, Pgm-1b, Pgm-2a, and Skdh-a alleles of P. igaense and Pgi-a, Pgm-1a, Pgm-2b, and Skdh-b alleles of P. fibrillosopaleaceum. The morphological, electrophoretic features and chromosome numbers confirm the three plants to be diploid hybrids of P. fibrillosopaleaceum and P. igaense. We therefore conclude that P. fibrillosopaleaceum var. marginale is in fact a diploid hybrid and thus should not be given the variety status.