CONTEXT
Public-private partnerships began under President Ricardo Lagos, driven by the need to provide roads and other hard facilities. Over time, they expanded into social concessions such as prisons and hospitals. During the Bachelet administration, the construction of two mid-sized hospitals of Santiago was tendered with private finance initiative. During the government of Sebastián Piñera, three more hospitals were tendered.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This article critically examines the grounds on which social concessions have been introduced in different parts of the world. I argue that the there are two main rationales underlying the position of those favorable to concession arrangements: pragmatic reasons and ideological-utopian reasons. I refute the arguments related to closing the infrastructure gap, effect on public debt, transfer of risk to the private sector, greater efficiency of the private sector, freeing-up of public funds and quality of health care.

CONCLUSIONS
Review of the international literature does not yield evidence in favor of hospital concessions consistent with the principles and drivers that promote them. Quite the contrary, when the "Value for Money" methodology has been used, concessions have proven to decrease the overall capacity of the health system and to negatively affect quality of health care. I also note that there is a potential impact on intergenerational equity with projects that span for long periods, as is the case of hospital concessions. I conclude that, since there is no evidence base grounded on sound technical principles in favor of this policy, the real underlying reasons to promote private financing of public health infrastructure are ideological, and functional to market interests but not to collective preferences.


The flow of misinformation and disinformation around the 2016 U.S. presidential election put the problem of "fake news" on the agenda all over the world. As a result, news organizations and companies have taken measures to reduce or eliminate the production and dissemination of fake news. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was employed in the current study to examine 1,500 randomly selected tweets that were used to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Results showed fake news are less likely to have analytical thinking. Moreover, both alt-Right troll accounts and alt-Left troll accounts posted fake news on Twitter. Lastly, Cluster analysis revealed that the fake news tweets are more likely to be retweeted and use fewer analytical thinking.


OBJECTIVE
To revise the 2000 Bureau of Health Professions Pharmacist Supply Model based on new data.

DESIGN
Stock-flow model.

SETTING
United States.

PARTICIPANTS
A 2004 estimate of active pharmacists reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was used to derive the base count for the 2007 supply model.

INTERVENTIONS
Starting with a 2004 base of active pharmacists, new graduates are added to the supply annually and losses resulting from death and retirement are subtracted.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Age- and gender-based pharmacist supply estimates, 2004-2020.

RESULTS
Increased U.S. pharmacist supply estimates (236,227 in 2007 to 304,986 in 2020) indicate that pharmacists will remain the third largest professional health group behind nurses and physicians. Increases were driven by longer persistence in the workforce (59%), increased numbers of U.S. graduates (35%), and increases from international pharmacy graduates (IPGs) achieving U.S. licensure (6%). Since more pharmacists are expected to be working part time the full-time equivalent (FTE) supply will be reduced by about 15%. The mean age of pharmacists was projected to decline from 47 to 43 by 2020. Because of unequal distribution across age groups, large pharmacist cohorts approaching retirement age will result in fewer pharmacists available to replace them. The ratio of pharmacists to the over-65 population is expected to decrease after 2011 and continue to fall beyond 2020; this is likely a reflection of baby boomers passing through older age cohorts.

CONCLUSION
The revised estimated active U.S. pharmacist head count in 2006 is 232,597, with equivalent FTEs totaling approximately 198,000. The substantial increase over the 2000 pharmacist supply model estimates is primarily attributable to pharmacists remaining in the workforce longer and educational expansion. U.S. licensed IPGs account for less than 6% of overall increases. The pharmacist work-force is projected to become younger on average by about 4 years by 2020. Coincident demands for more physicians and nurses over the same period and shortages in all three professions stipulate that active steps be taken, including continued monitoring of work trends among pharmacists and other health professionals.


The ability to modulate DNA repair has been proposed as an effective method to overcome cytotoxic drug resistance in human tumors. However, no studies have shown that it is possible to achieve modulation of DNA repair in humans in vivo. This study analyzes modulation of O6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase, a DNA repair protein that protects cells from cytotoxic DNA adducts formed by nitrosoureas. Streptozotocin has been shown to inactivate the alkyltransferase in vitro and sensitize tumor cells to other nitrosoureas. Thus, we determined whether biochemical modulation of alkyltransferase activity could be documented in patients receiving therapeutic doses of streptozotocin and whether the modulation was specific to streptozotocin or occurred in patients undergoing treatment with other DNA-damaging agents as well. Normal peripheral blood lymphocytes were used to analyze modulation of the alkyltransferase. We found that lymphocyte alkyltransferase activity was significantly decreased 20 h after treatment with streptozotocin (500 mg/m2) or high dose 1,3-bis-(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea (350 mg/m2) but not after treatment with the other DNA-damaging agents or lower doses of 1,3-bis-(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea. A cumulative decline in lymphocyte alkyltransferase activity occurred with daily streptozotocin treatment, reaching 26 +/- 9% of control after the third day of treatment (P less than 0.0005). Thus, the alkyltransferase DNA repair protein can be modulated in vivo in humans given systemic drug treatment. While further studies are needed to document that biochemical modulation can be achieved in the target tumor in humans, this study supports the development of clinical trials using streptozotocin as a biochemical modulator of nitrosourea resistance in human malignancies.


Aim: The present study was intended to develop some novel imidazole derivatives via multi-component reaction catalysed by Ceric Ammonium Nitrate (CAN) in polyethylene glycol-400 (PEG-400) and its HMG-CoA reductase inhibitory activity for benefit in atherosclerosis.
Methods: The one-pot synthesis has been achieved by taking benzyl, benzaldehyde, 3-amino-1, 2, 4- triazole-5- carboxylic acid (0.01 mol) in PEG-400 with CAN as a catalyst. These derivatives were subjected for anti-oxidant activity using DPPH free radical scavenging assay, together with determination of inhibitory activity against HMG-CoA reductase.
Results: Among the tested compounds, compound 4i was identified as most promising compound exhibiting considerable quenching activity with IC50=3.1 ± 0.7 μM in DPPH assay. The compounds were further screened for HMG-CoA reductase inhibitory activity, where few analogues found to exhibit potent activity.
Conclusion: All target derivatives have may exert beneficial effect in atherosclerosis via inhibition of HMG-CoA reductase together with anti-oxidant activity.


Abstract
Angstrom-Prescott equation is one of the most commonly used methods for the estimation of global solar radiation (Rs) based on sunshine hours. The critical step in the application of this method's is the calibration of its coefficients for each region. Although the coefficients of the equation have been calibrated in different parts of the World, the effect of different time scales has not been considered clearly. In this article, variations of the coefficients of A-P equation in different time scales and their effects on the estimation of global solar radiation are studied. For this purpose data for the 15-year period of 1992-2006 from the Tehran-North (Aghdasieh) station in daily and monthly time scales are used. The values of the coefficients derived from the daily and monthly data were clearly different, and the equation based on monthly data has higher coefficient of determination (R2=0.92) compared to that based on the daily data (R2=0.48). We also found that the daily total solar radiation incident at the surface can be estimated well by using the A-P equation derived based on monthly data.

Keywords: Calibration of Angstrom-Prescott equation, Global solar radiation estimation, North of Tehran station, Time scales


BACKGROUND
Empirical study on the migration trends in the Czech Republic was a part of the larger research project run by the Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs in Prague. The physicians were identified as a high risk professional group from the point of view of "brain drain" which was expected after accession of the Czech Republic to EU. To identify how many of the Czech physicians consider migration during their professional life, the probability of the implementation of the migration intention, the most frequent destination countries and push-pull migratory factors.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Questionnaire survey was basically a pilot study in which 462 respondents participated. Sample was not representative. Very high migration potential of the Czech physicians was empirically verified; 45% of the respondents theoretically considered migration as a possible life's career. Probability that they will actually emigrate is substantially lower. Based on the used migratory behavior model it is estimated that in the forthcoming years about 6% of the Czech hospital physicians will leave their homeland to work abroad. The most popular destination countries are the Great Britain, the Ireland, and the Germany. Push-pull migratory factors are as follows to get better income, to improve language competencies, to experience more professional working conditions.

CONCLUSIONS
Decline of the Czech physicians due to migration is continuously mitigated by the physicians coming from Slovakia. To consider the total number of the physicians, dramatic shortage is not expected in the nearest future. There are some indicators suggesting higher probability of real migration among high specialized middle aged Czech physicians in comparison to the young physicians.


In this paper, we introduce a new cost function for SIR-Based uplink power control algorithms that takes into account transmission power level as well as target Signal-to-Interference Ratio (SIR) deviation. Existence of Nash equilibrium point, its uniqueness and the algorithm convergence are proved in the framework of so-called standard power control schemes. As shown through simulations, the proposed method results in significant transmit power reduction while achieving almost the same average SIR level. In addition, it is shown that the new scheme results in improved overall network fairness in comparison with another algorithm.


Cognitive behavioral therapy and aerobic exercise provide only modest relief from symptoms of Gulf War veterans' illnesses. Unfortunately, over 80% of the patients showed no improvement of symptoms after 1 year of either or both treatments. With the Iraqi war ending, the outcomes of veterans of this previous conflict may prove significant.


This study aims to make a theoretical consideration of the climate environment crisis and collaborative governance to overcome it. Climate crisis has emerged as a representative environmental problem that threatens the survival of mankind. In order to overcome the climate crisis, the IPCC suggested that the global average temperature increase should be suppressed within 1.5℃, and that 2050 carbon neutrality should be realized for this purpose. The international community is seeking a major transition to a decarbonized economic and social structure such as energy conversion and the Green New Deal policy. Response to the climate crisis and transition to a green society can be achieved through extensive civic participation and collaboration from various social groups. In the Chungbuk region, various practical collaboration activities have been carried out to realize carbon neutrality. In this study, implications were derived by collecting five cases of systematic practical collaboration activities promoted in Chungbuk and comparing and analyzing the evaluation results. Based on this, the direction of the carbon neutral policy in Chungbuk and the establishment of a practical collaboration system for realizing carbon neutrality were proposed.


Purpose Early identification of trauma patients at risk of developing acute traumatic coagulopathy is important in initiating appropriate, coagulopathy-focused treatment. A clinical acute traumatic coagulopathy prediction tool is a quick, simple method to evaluate risk. The COAST score was developed in Australia and we hypothesised that it could predict coagulopathy and bleeding-related adverse outcomes in other advanced trauma systems. We validated COAST on a single-centre cohort of trauma patients from a trauma centre in Belgium. Methods The COAST score was modified to suit available data; we used entrapment, blood pressure, temperature, major chest injury and abdominal injury to calculate the score. Acute traumatic coagulopathy was defined as international normalised ratio >1.5 or activated partial thromboplastin time >60 s upon arrival of the patient to the hospital. Data were extracted from the local trauma registry on patients that presented between 1 January and 31 December 2015. Results In all, 133 patients met the inclusion criteria (>16 years old, available COAST and outcome data) for analysis. The COAST score had an area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of 0.941 (95% CI: 0.884–0.999) and at COAST ≥3, it had 80% sensitivity and 96% specificity. The score also identified patients with higher rates of mortality, blood transfusion and emergent surgery. Conclusion This retrospective cohort study demonstrated the utility of the COAST score in identifying trauma patients who are likely to have bleeding-related poor outcomes. The early identification of these patients will facilitate timely, appropriate treatment for acute traumatic coagulopathy and minimise the risk of over-treatment. It can also be used to select patients with acute traumatic coagulopathy for trials involving therapeutic agents targeted at acute traumatic coagulopathy.


This work aims to experimentally determine the polarizability of confined electron in CdSe quantum dots (QD). The dielectric response of uncharged and charged CdSe quantum dots (3.2 and 6.3 nm) has been measured using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy in the frequency range of 2.0-7.0 THz. A strong coupling between the surface plasmon and surface phonons appears upon charging the QDs. The absolute polarizability of an electron in 3.2 and 6.3 nm charged QDs are experimentally determined to be 0.5 +/- 0.1 x 10(3) A3 and 14.6 +/- 0.3 x 10(3) A3, respectively, and the values agree reasonably well with theory and the previous experiment. The observed plasmon-phonon coupling is expected to play an important role in electron relaxation in absence of a hole in CdSe QDs.


Abstract. Thirteen species of West Indian boas (Chilabothrus) are distributed across the islands of the Greater Antilles and Lucayan Archipelago. Hispaniola is unique among this group of islands in having more than two species of Chilabothrus—three are currently recognized. Here we describe a fourth species from Hispaniola, a newly discovered distinctive species of small boa from the dry forest of the Barahona Peninsula, southwestern Dominican Republic, near the border with Haiti. This new species resembles in body size and in other aspects its closest relative Chilabothrus fordii (Günther 1861), with which it appears to be allopatric. The new species, which we describe as Chilabothrus ampelophis sp. nov., differs from C. fordii in body, head, and snout shape; in scalation; in both coloration and color pattern; and in phylogenetic uniqueness. Some relevant meristic characters from C. ampelophis sp. nov. fall between C. fordii and C. gracilis (Fischer 1888), accentuating the morphological and likely ecological differences from its sister species C. fordii. The discovery of this new species is especially important as it appears to be among the smallest boid (Boidae) species, has an arboreal specialization, and is found in a very restricted and highly threatened habitat.


Abstract : Individual copy number variations in the genome may play a substantial role in influencing trait variation, yet due to technical limitations they have been understudied. We have performed the first genome-wide association of copy number variants and risk for prostate cancer in Mexican Americans. Our results from direct testing of CNVs are consistent with the growing consensus that there are not common genetic variants of large additive effects on prostate cancer predisposition, regardless of variant type. We found a highly protective rare deletion on 8q24 which is present in Mexican Americans but extremely rare in Caucasians. Due to the strong effect of this deletion, this discovery has implications for prostate cancer risk assessment and for understanding the etiology of prostate cancer. This variant warrants further study. We have also identified a rare 900 bp deletion in the PTEN gene to be associated with increased risk for prostate cancer and have provided confirmatory data that a rare heritable deletion on 2p24.3 is associated with prostate cancer risk in non-Hispanic Caucasians. These data support our hypothesis that heritable structural variation may affect risk for prostate cancer and/or its progression, but these variants are likely rare. Moreover, these variants may be unique to ethnic population and underscores the need to investigate genetic risk in multiple populations. As genes are identified from these studies, they may prove to be both useful biomarkers for early diagnosis and/or novel therapeutic targets for both prevention and treatment of prostate cancer.


Social virtual reality learning environments (VR-LEs) provide immersive experience to users with increased accessibility to remote learning. Lack of maintaining high-performance and secured data delivery in critical VRLE application domains (e.g., military training, manufacturing) can disrupt application functionality and induce cybersickness. In this paper, we present a novel rule-based 3QS-adaptation framework that performs risk and cost aware trade-off analysis to control cybersickness due to performance/security anomaly events during a VRLE session. Our framework implementation in a social VRLE viz., vSocial monitors performance/security anomaly events in network/session data. In the event of an anomaly, the framework features rule-based adaptations that are triggered by using various decision metrics. Based on our experimental results, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our rule-based 3QS-adaptation framework in reducing cybersickness levels, while maintaining application functionality. Using our key findings, we enlist suitable practices for addressing performance and security issues towards a more high-performing and robust social VRLE.


Human senses are nonlinear to physical quantities, and a change in a minute stimulus is considered to bring a change in any sense. In the study of tone/timbre, most research considers relatively loud sounds. However, even if the physical characteristics of a tone are similar, the sensory evaluations may differ. For example, in a sound amplifier, although the differences in the physical characteristics are very small, they can be described with the adjectives, "metallic" and "soft". Usually, specialist evaluations using adjectives are often in agreement. In this study, we examine how minute changes in sound influence a tone. Therefore, the threshold amplitude compression/ expansion (ThACE) method for changing the sound in minute ways was proposed. The results of the listening test conducted in this study show the effectiveness of the proposed method. Furthermore, in case of "metallic" and "soft," the frequency band that influences the sensitivity evaluation was found.


Susceptibility of some vertebrates was examined to the early third-stage larvae (EL3) of Gnathostoma hispidum. The larvae collected from the Chinese loaches were infected to 4 silk carps, 3 snake heads, 3 bullfrogs, 5 mice and 9 albino rats. No worms were detected in fish, silk carps and snake heads. In 3 bullfrogs fed 30 larvae, a total of 9 EL3 was recovered in the gastrointestinal tract (8 larvae) and liver (one). In 5 mice infected with 50 larvae, a total of 37 (74.0%) advanced third-stage larvae (AdL3) was recovered from the muscle (31 larvae), liver (5 larvae) and kidney at 4 weeks after infection. In 9 albino rats infected with 115 larvae, a total of 40 (34.8%) AdL3 was found in the muscle. The mammalian hosts were found susceptible to the EL3 of G. hispidum from Chinese loaches.


October 8-9, 2019, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, marked a unique moment in the history of baseball and American Judaism. Three Major League post-season games began between sundown Tuesday and sundown Wednesday. One team in each game featured a Jewish player as a star or significant contributor. Each Jewish player appeared in the game. Each team lost. One journalist labeled this result the "Koufax Curse" -- the curse of the Jewish player who plays on Yom Kippur, rather than following in the footsteps of Hall-of-Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, who did not pitch Game One of the 1965 World Series when it fell on the holy day.

This paper empirically tests the Koufax Curse. Looking at 18 Jewish Major Leaguers since 1966 (the year after Koufax's career-defining game), the paper charts how the players and their teams performed in games played during any part of Yom Kippur. It also examines statistics for Rod Carew, the Hall-of-Famer who is not Jewish but enjoys a unique familial and cultural connection to Judaism. From this, we can measure whether players or teams are haunted by the Koufax Curse. And whether Yom Kippur 5780 was an anomaly or reflects a broader trend.


The effect of mycophenolic acid (MPA) on the growth of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-transformed B cells and on EBV lytic-cycle gene expression was investigated. MPA inhibited the proliferation of newly infected or established EBV-transformed B-cell lines but was not able to block cell growth transformation or the viral lytic cycle. These results suggest that MPA might reduce transformed-cell proliferation in transplant patients and possibly decrease the risk of development of EBV-related lymphoproliferative disorders.


Magnetic anisotropy of alternately layered FeNi thin films grown on Ni(3--21 ML)/Cu(001) is investigated by means of the X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy is observed when the substrate Ni is thicker than 15 and 20 ML for 4 and 6 ML FeNi films, respectively, while in-plane magnetic anisotropy appears at the thinner substrate Ni region. By comparing with the magnetic phase diagram calculated from the magnetic anisotropy energies, which are obtained by the XMCD study [M. Sakamaki and K. Amemiya, Appl. Phys. Express 4, 073002 (2011)], we show that the phase boundary of the present samples shifts so as to prefer the in-plane magnetic anisotropy. This might be caused by the structural relaxation in the substrate Ni. [DOI: 10.1380/ejssnt.2012.97]


Phase retrieval (PR) is an important component in modern computational imaging systems. Recent advances in deep learning have introduced new possibilities for a robust and fast PR. An emerging technique called deep unfolding provides a systematic connection between conventional model-based iterative algorithms and modern data-based deep learning. Unfolded algorithms, which are powered by data learning, have shown remarkable performance and convergence speed improvement over original algorithms. Despite their potential, most existing unfolded algorithms are strictly confined to a fixed number of iterations when layer-dependent parameters are used. In this study, we develop a novel framework for deep unfolding to overcome existing limitations. Our development is based on an unfolded generalized expectation consistent signal recovery (GEC-SR) algorithm, wherein damping factors are left for data-driven learning. In particular, we introduce a hypernetwork to generate the damping factors for GEC-SR. Instead of learning a set of optimal damping factors directly, the hypernetwork learns how to generate the optimal damping factors according to the clinical settings, thereby ensuring its adaptivity to different scenarios. To enable the hypernetwork to adapt to varying layer numbers, we use a recurrent architecture to develop a dynamic hypernetwork that generates a damping factor that can vary online across layers. We also exploit a self-attention mechanism to enhance the robustness of the hypernetwork. Extensive experiments show that the proposed algorithm outperforms existing ones in terms of convergence speed and accuracy and still works well under very harsh settings, even under which many classical PR algorithms are unstable.


I expand modal normativism, a theory of metaphysical modality, to give a normativist account of metaphysical explanation. According to modal normativism, basic modal claims do not have a descriptive function, but instead have the normative function of enabling language users to express semantic rules that govern the use of ordinary non-modal vocabulary. However, a worry for modal normativism is that it doesn't keep up with all of the important and interesting metaphysics we can do by giving and evaluating metaphysical explanations. So, I advance modal normativism by arguing that metaphysical explanations also have a normative rather than descriptive function. In particular, non-causal explanatory claims have formal and semantic properties that make them expressively stricter than basic modal claims and so are better suited to express fine-grained aspects of semantic rules. A major payoff of my normativist account of metaphysical explanations is that it yields a plausible story about how we come to evaluate and know metaphysical explanations—we do this primarily by conceptual analysis. I also respond to a number of objections, including the objection that the epistemic payoffs of my view are not worth the metaphysical costs.


Introduction/objectives Multiple sclerosis (MS) leads to physical and cognitive disability, which in turn impacts the socioeconomic status of the individual. The altered socioeconomic trajectory combined with the critical role of aging in MS progression could potentially lead to pronounced differences between MS patients and the general population. Few nations have the ability to connect long-term clinical and socioeconomic data at the individual level, and Denmark's robust population-based registries offer unique insights. This study aimed to examine the socioeconomic aspects of elderly Danish MS patients in comparison to matched controls from the general population. Methods A nationwide population-based study in Denmark was conducted, comprising all living MS patients aged 50 years or older as of 1 January 2021. Patients were matched 1:10 based on sex, age, ethnicity, and residence with a 25% sample of the total Danish population. Demographic and clinical information was sourced from the Danish Multiple Sclerosis Registry, while socioeconomic data were derived from national population-based registries containing details on education, employment, social services, and household characteristics. Univariate comparisons between MS patients and matched controls were then carried out. Results The study included 8,215 MS patients and 82,150 matched individuals, with a mean age of 63.4 years (SD: 8.9) and a 2:1 female-to-male ratio. For those aged 50–64 years, MS patients demonstrated lower educational attainment (high education: 28.3 vs. 34.4%, P < 0.001) and fewer received income from employment (46.0 vs. 78.9%, P < 0.001), and working individuals had a lower annual income (48,500 vs. 53,500€, P < 0.001) in comparison to the controls. Additionally, MS patients within this age group were more likely to receive publicly funded practical assistance (14.3 vs. 1.6%, P < 0.001) and personal care (10.5 vs. 0.8%, P < 0.001). Across the entire population, MS patients were more likely to live alone (38.7 vs. 33.8%, P < 0.001) and less likely to have one or more children (84.2 vs. 87.0%, P < 0.001). Conclusion MS presents significant socioeconomic challenges among the elderly population, such as unemployment, reduced income, and increased dependence on social care. These findings underscore the pervasive impact of MS on an individual's life course, extending beyond the clinical symptoms of cognitive and physical impairment.


High performance magnetic gears are competitive with mechanical gears in terms of their torque transmission capability, and they offer significant operational benefits. Various topologies of magnetic gear have been developed, the one which is described in this paper being particularly appropriate for use in applications for which a high gear ratio is required. It is the magnetic equivalent of a mechanical harmonic gear, and can transmit ripple-free torque at a torque density of up to ~110 kNm/m3 when high energy permanent magnets are employed. The paper will describe the operating principle, design and analysis of a harmonic magnetic gear, including a dual-stage configuration which enables much higher gear ratios to be achieved. Finally, the practical realization of such a magnetic gear will be described.


Next-generation SONET/SDH provides carriers with new capabilities for building advanced Ethernet data services. Along these lines, numerous Ethernet-over-SONET studies have been done, with most focusing on point-to-point private line type services. This paper introduces the more challenging problem of provisioning multi-point-to-multi-point Ethernet LAN services over inverse-multiplexing networks and proposes novel overlay strategies based upon star, bus, and minimum spanning tree topologies. Multi-tiered protection schemes are also developed to help set up these respective overlay designs. Detailed simulation results are then presented along with directions for future work. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


Hereditary cerebral hemorrhage with amyloidosis in Dutch patients is an autosomal dominant form of vascular amyloidosis restricted to the leptomeninges and cerebral cortex. Clinically the disease is characterized by cerebral hemorrhages leading to an early death. Immunohistochemical studies of five patients revealed that the vascular amyloid deposits reacted intensely with an antiserum raised against a synthetic peptide homologous to the Alzheimer disease-related beta-protein. Silver stain-positive, "senile plaque-like" structures were also labeled by the antiserum, yet these lesions lacked the dense amyloid cores present in typical plaques of Alzheimer disease. No neurofibrillary tangles were present. Amyloid fibrils were purified from the leptomeningeal vessels of one patient who clinically had no signs of dementia. The protein had a molecular weight of approximately equal to 4000 and its partial amino acid sequence to position 21 showed homology to the beta-protein of Alzheimer disease and Down syndrome. These results suggest that hereditary cerebral hemorrhage with amyloidosis of Dutch origin is pathogenetically related to Alzheimer disease and support the concept that the initial amyloid deposition in this disorder occurs in the vessel walls before damaging the brain parenchyma. Thus, deposition of beta-protein in brain tissue seems to be related to a spectrum of diseases involving vascular syndromes, progressive dementia, or both.


Based on dual-order stimulated-Raman-scattering of single pump laser, hybrid Raman/EDFA is realized by introducing erbium doped fiber (EDF) within the span. Gain and noise performance can be improved by optimizing the position of EDF.


Movement of herbicides, particularly atrazine [2-chloro-N-ethyl-N'-(1-methylethyl)-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-diamine], is of great interest, as farming systems are designed to protect water quality. The effects of time and precipitation on the distribution of atrazine banded over corn (Zea mays L.) rows were measured for 2 yr in a ridge-tillage corn-soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotation. The soil was a Zimmerman fine sand (mixed, frigid Lamellic Udipsamment). During the growing season, soil atrazine was determined at 0.1-m horizontal intervals perpendicular to the row to a depth of 0.3 m. Within the first 22 days after treatment (DAT), atrazine concentrations decreased 65% in the application zone and had not leached below 0.075 m. A 60-mm rain between 22 and 29 DAT first moved atrazine into the 0.075- to 0.15-m depth increment. By 60 DAT and 240 mm of accumulated rain, atrazine concentrations had decreased by an estimated 90% in the zone of application. Atrazine movement appeared to be greater on the windward side of the row. An estimated 98% of applied atrazine was dissipated by the end of the first growing season and by the end of the second year, detections of residual atrazine were very limited and confined to the zone directly below the treated area. Significant horizontal movement of atrazine was never observed. Atrazine was not detected in soil samples below 0.6 m to a depth of 2.4 m.


A less studied topic about fake news is the gap between the perceived and actual ability to identify it. This study examines the topic using a panel survey during Israel's 2019– 2020 election campaigns (Wave 1—N = 1,427; Wave 2—N = 758). Our research, which measured participants' perceived ability to identify fake news during the April 2019 elections and their actual ability to do so during the September 2019 elections, allowed us to measure the gap between the two. Our analysis reveals that although various political and media variables predict citizens' perceived ability to identify fake news, most of those indicators are not useful in explaining their actual ability to do so. The gap between the two is explained by political interest and exposure to diverse sources. In addition, we examine the Dunning-Kruger effect, focusing on the overestimation versus the underestimation of fake news identification. The findings indicate that the high political interest and knowledge, alongside high news exposure from diverse sources, leads people to feel complacent and fails people in fake news identification.


From two real time camera video outputs a limited range of new perspective views can be created consistent with the individual camera positions and resolutions. This approach is readily extended to multiple cameras which improves range and or resolution. This has application in video teleconferencing where user control of the viewpoint would provide new capability for remote presentation of true three dimensional objects. This would have value for either a single perspective view or for simultaneous presentation of a stereo pair of separate left and right eye views. The user could remotely change the perspective view in a manner equivalent to typical physical observer motion in the examination of a real object. This could also have application in passive navigation for autonomous vehicles where information on trajectories predicted from video input would supplement input from other instrumentation. For both applications, new views can be created either by explicitly creating a three dimensional scene model, from the multiple views of by using interpolation and masking operations to create new views from an implicit model. Algorithms for performing these operations are presented and performance limitations are determined.


It was established that acrylonitrile (AN) toxic action resulted in changes in the morphofunctional characteristics of white blood cells. Deviations were found in the activity of the marker enzymes of alkaline phosphatase neutrophil secretory granules and myeloperoxidase. Other changes were established in the markers of acid phosphatase lysosomes, the enzyme of plasma membrane--5 nucleotidase, in the endoplasm network of glucose-6-phosphatase, in succinate dehydrogenase mitochondria, and in alpha-glycerolphosphate dehydrogenase. Along with a considerably lowered succinate dehydrogenase activity, lymphocyte cell deformation against the activity of this enzyme was detected. The data obtained specified newly revealed changes in the blood at AN intoxication and indicated to innovated means of its prophylaxis.


We present a generic framework that supports efficient generation of the traditional Boolean difference function of some output with respect to any line in a combinational circuit, which is important when testing for logic defects. The framework also allows for the generation of generalized Boolean difference functions, which reflect sensitivity on event propagation from a given line to some circuit output. This generalized function could apply in timing verification, analysis, and test. We implemented the proposed framework using various function representation environments, including binary decision diagrams, Boolean expression diagrams, and Boolean networks, and report experimental results on the ISCAS'85 and ISCAS'89 benchmarks.


Aim: The aim of this study was to report the preliminary experience with the techniques and utility of navigation-guided, 3D, computed tomography–dacryocystography (CT-DCG) in the management of secondary acquired lacrimal drainage obstructions. Methods: Stereotactic surgeries using CT-DCG as the intraoperative image-guiding tool were performed in 3 patients. One patient had nasolacrimal duct obstruction (NLDO) following a complete maxillectomy for a sinus malignancy, and the other 2 had NLDO following extensive maxillofacial trauma. All patients underwent a 3D CT-DCG. Image-guided dacryolocalization (IGDL) was performed using the intraoperative image-guided StealthStation™ system in the electromagnetic mode. All patients underwent navigation-guided powered endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy (DCR). The utility of intraoperative dacryocystographic guidance and the ability to localize the lacrimal drainage system in the altered endoscopic anatomical milieu were noted. Results: Intraoperative geometric localization of the lacrimal sac and the nasolacrimal duct could be easily achieved. Constant orientation of the lacrimal drainage system was possible while navigating in the vicinity of altered endoscopic perilacrimal anatomy. Useful clues with regard to modifications while performing a powered endoscopic DCR could be obtained. Surgeries could be performed with utmost safety and precision, thereby avoiding complications. Detailed preoperative 3D CT-DCG reconstructions with constant intraoperative dacryolocalization were found to be essential for successful outcomes. Conclusion: The 3D CT-DCG-guided navigation procedure is very useful while performing endoscopic DCRs in cases of secondary acquired and complex NLDOs.


While many authors since as early as 1906 have noted that any one of various lipoid solvents will induce growth in body cells when injected locally, no one succeeded in producing carcinoma by this method until Yamagiwa and Itchikawa (1) had completed their work in 1918. The earlier authors had studied the effect of single applications or injections. B. Fischer (2) in 1906 introduced a drop of olive oil saturated with Scharlach R under the epidermis of the skin of the ears of rabbits. The adjacent epithelial cells of the epidermis and hair follicles grew down to enclose the oil droplets and to produce a picture not unlike that seen in cancer of the skin. The growth stopped in these cases after a short time when the oil was absorbed. Reinke (3) 1907 noted atypical growths of epithelium after the injection of a 4 per cent solution of ether into the eye of a salamander. Pieces of these growths transplanted into the peritoneum of other salamanders continued to grow for a time. Many of them resembled carcinomata in many of their morphological characteristics. Askanazy (4) added ether to emulsions of embryonic tissue. He found these emulsions when injected into hosts grew more vigorously than those which had not been treated with ether.


Prof Patrick Serruys is an expert in interventional cardiology, He and a colleague developed drug-eluting stents, which drastically reduced restenosis after procedures. He later devised a fully biodegradable drug-eluting scaffold so a permanent metallic stent would not need to be implanted in patients. He previously led on establishing the methodology of quantitative coronary angiography. Along with having an office "full of diplomas and medals", he has won career achievement awards from TCT and the American College of Cardiology, as well as the gold medal of the European Society of Cardiology. He acknowledges that introducing something new has immense ethical issues and advises practitioners to remain curious and open to novelty.


Effective vascular compliance determined by the delta V/delta P relationship was measured repeatedly in anesthetized open-chest dogs without circulatory arrest utilizing a closed circuit venous bypass system with a constant cardiac output. Production of acute heart failure by gradual aortic constriction was associated with a significant decrease in total effective vascular compliance. The effect of loading and 20-min maintenance doses of different drugs on vascular compliance of animals in acute heart failure was studied. Phenoxybenzamine (total dose 2 mg/kg) produced a rapid and sustained increase in effective vascular compliance and theophylline (12 mg/kg) produced an increase which was more gradual in development than with phenoxybenzamine. Morphine (1 mg/kg) produced a rapid but transient increase in compliance. In contrast, ethacrynic acid (100 mg) or nitroglycerin (0.6 or 1.2 mg) did not alter vascular compliance significantly. These agents differ markedly in the magnitude and time-course of effect on effective vascular compliance.


Besides glyphosate, which is widely utilized, other herbicides such as triclopyr and carfentrazone-ethyl, have a potential use in eucalypt plantations. However, the non-selective nature of these herbicides may lead to plant intoxication due to leaf contact during application. This work aims to evaluate the effects of some herbicides drift on Eucalyptus urophylla, simulated by applying the following subdoses: 0, 43.2, 86.4 and 172.8 g ha-1 of glyphosate; 14.4, 28.8 and 57.6 g ha-1 of triclopyr; 0.84, 1.68 and 3.36 g ha-1 of carfentrazone-ethyl; and the following mixtures: 43.2 g ha-1 of glyphosate + 14.4 g ha-1 of triclopyr; 86.4 g ha-1 of glyphosate + 28.6 g ha1 of triclopyr; 43.2 g ha-1 of glyphosate + 1.68 g ha-1 of carfentrazone-ethyl; and 86.4 g ha1 of glyphosate + 3.36 g ha-1 of carfentrazone-ethyl. The seedlings, about 50 cm high, were applied the herbicides in such a way that their superior third was not reached 45 days after transference. Glyphosate drift caused the most damage to the plant, followed by carfentrazone-ethyl and triclopyr, respectively. Eucalypt plants exposed to a subdose of 172.8 g ha-1 of glyphosate and to glyphosate + carfentrazone-ethyl mixtures, had the highest percentage of intoxication and the lowest growth during the evaluation periods. The plants exposed to triclopyr drift presenting 56.25 and 15.10% of intoxication at 15 and 30 days after application, respectively, were recovered, indicating a lesser triclopyr drift risk, compared with the other herbicides and mixtures studied.


Understanding the mechanisms which control gene expression is one of the fundamental problems of molecular biology. Detailed experimental studies of regulation are laborious due to the complex and combinatorial nature of interactions among involved molecules. Therefore, computational techniques are used to suggest candidate mechanisms for further investigation. This thesis presents three methods improving the predictions of regulation of gene transcription. The first approach finds binding sites recognized by a transcription factor based on statistical over-representation of short motifs in a set of promoter sequences. A succesful application of this method to several gene families of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is shown. More advanced techniques are needed for the analysis of gene regulation in higher eukaryotes. Hundreds of profiles recognized by transcription factors are provided by libraries. Dependencies between them result in multiple predictions of the same binding sites which need later to be filtered out. Therefore, the second method presented here offers a way to reduce the number of profiles by identifying similarities between them. Still, the complex nature of interaction between transcription factors makes reliable predictions of binding sites difficult. Exploiting independent sources of information reduces the false predictions rate. The third method described here proposes a novel approach associating gene annotations with regulation of multiple transcription factors and binding sites recognized by them. The utility of the method is demonstrated on several well-known sets of transcription factors. Although the regulation of transcription is the major cellular mechanism of controlling gene expression, RNA interference provides a way of efficient down-regulation of specific genes in experiments. Difficulties in predicting efficient siRNA sequences motivated the development of a library containing siRNA sequences and related experimental details described in the literature. This library, presented in details in the last chapter, is publicly available at http://www.human-sirna-database.net.


The macrophage migratory inhibitory factor (MIF) plays a pivotal role in inflammatory and immune diseases; however, its role in gastrointestinal diseases has not been clarified. This study intended to determine the expression of MIF, by gastric epithelial cells, T cells, and macrophages, in Helicobacter pylori-induced gastritis. Sixty-four patients (30 males, 34 females; mean age, 47 years) referred for upper endoscopy were recruited. Biopsy specimens from the gastric antrum and corpus were obtained for (1) detection of H. pylori and histological examination, (2) single and double immunostaining to test for expression of MIF protein in epithelial cells, T cells, and macrophages, and (2) in situ hybridization for expression of MIF mRNA within the lamina propria. In mucosal specimens from each of the 2 sites, both the percentage of MIF(+) epithelial cells and the numbers of MIF mRNA(+) inflammatory cells, MIF(+) T cells, and MIF(+) macrophages were significantly higher in H. pylori-positive patients than in H. pylori-negative patients. Overall, the percentage of MIF(+) epithelial cells and the numbers of MIF mRNA(+) cells, MIF(+) T cells, and MIF(+) macrophages were higher in the antrum than in the corpus. The percentage of MIF(+) epithelial cells and the numbers of MIF mRNA(+) cells, MIF(+) T cells, and MIF(+) macrophages increased in chronic gastritis, but, in the absence of H. pylori infection, this increase disappeared for all except MIF(+) T cells. Therefore, H. pylori infection is associated with increased expression of the MIF protein and MIF mRNA in gastric epithelial and inflammatory cells; along with other cytokines, MIF may play a significant role in gastric inflammation related to H. pylori infection.


Four cases of spontaneous adenocarcinoma of the canine exocrine pancreas were studied by thin section and freeze-fracture electron microscopy. The neoplastic cells in all 4 cases were of acinar origin and showed many alterations of cytoarchitecture compared with normal acinar cells. In the neoplastic cells, zymogen granules varied in number and appearance and contained an abnormal secretory product characterized by 24-nm-thick microtubules. The nuclear volume and surface area and the nuclear cytoplasmic ratio were increased; although the nuclear pore density per nuclear surface area was significantly decreased, there was no change in the nuclear pore density per nuclear volume. There was a decrease in number and size of gap junctions; focal proliferation, fragmentation, and discontinuation of the tight junctions were also noted. The basal lamina (BL) of the neoplastic cells was discontinuous. The tumor microvasculature often appeared as sinusoids and had sparse discontinuous BL. Finally, the endothelium in both tumor and normal tissue contained "tubulo-reticular inclusions" (TRI) which simulated distemper virus and were located in the rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) and the perinuclear cisternae.


Infective endocarditis (IE) is an infection of the endocardium and/or heart valves that involves thrombus formation (vegetation). This condition might damage the endocardial tissue and/or valves. An indwelling central venous catheter is a major risk factor for bacteremia at-risked pediatric populations such as premature infants; children with cancer and/or connective tissue disorders. Herbaspirillum huttiense is a Gram-negative opportunistic bacillus that may cause bacteremia and pneumonia rarely in this fragile population. Herein we report the very first case of bacteremia and IE in a pediatric oncology patient caused by H. huttiense.


By using electrochemical activated FTO glass as both a substrate and catalyst, we developed a facile and fast method to fabricate a WO3·2H2O thin film with a thickness of ∼100 nm. Due to the specific layered crystal structure of the dihydrated phase and the good contact with the transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) layer, the as-prepared WO3·2H2O thin film achieved a fast coloration/bleaching response speed (tc,90% = 3.2 s, tb,90% = 1.2 s), excellent cyclic stability, wide optical modulation range up to 53.8% and a high coloration efficiency of 107.8 cm2 C−1. A solid-state electrochromic device with a size of 5 cm × 5 cm was also fabricated, exhibiting high transparency contrast and good reversibility between the bleached and colored states.


Background: Hepatitis C virus infection is the most common viral infection in patients on hemodialysis and is a leading cause of chronic liver disease in end-stage renal disease patients. The main aim of this study was to review the outcome of the treatment of HCV in hemodialysis patients with second-generation anti-HCV drugs at Azzawiyah Kidney Hospital. Patients and Methods: Thirty-two hemodialysis patients with proven HCV infection (HCV-polymerase chain reaction-positive) received antiviral treatment for 12 weeks and followed up for 12 months, with liver function tests and repeated HCV-RNA. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients who achieved sustained virological response at 12 weeks posttreatment (SVR-12). Results: 32 patients (32/280, 11.4%) out of the total number of (280) regular hemodialysis patients were proven to have HCV infection, during the period from December 2016 to December 2019. The median age of the study population was 53.5 ± 12 years, and 55% were females. The median duration of dialysis was 9.6 years (range 3–25 years). The causes of chronic kidney disease were diabetes mellitus at 43.7%, hypertension at 25.5%, adult polycystic kidney disease at 12.5%, and chronic glomerulonephritis at 9.3%. Twenty nine (29/32) patients received antiviral treatment with sofosbuvir/daclatasvir (SOF/DLC) and ( 3/32) patients with elbasvir and grazoprevir (ERB/GZR). 96.9% of SOF/DLC achieved SVR 12 and 100% of EBR/GSR by the end of the treatment, only one patient ( 3.1 %) failed to achieve it. No significant side effects were reported for the treatment drugs. Conclusion: This study confirmed that the treatment of hemodialysis patients with chronic hepatitis C infection with second-generation anti-HCV drugs is safe and has elicited a sustained negative virological response.


The rapid growth of software intensive active safety functions in modern cars resulted in adoption of new safety development standards like ISO 26262 by the automotive industry. Hazard analysis, safety assessment and adequate verification and validation methods for software and car electronics require effort but in the long run save lives. We argue that in the face of complex software development set-up with distributed functionality, Model-Based Development (MBD) and safety criticality of software embedded in modern cars, there is a need for evolving existing methods of MBD and complementing them with methods already used in the development of other systems (Fault Injection and Mutation Testing). Our position is that significant effectiveness and efficiency improvements can be made by applying fault injection techniques combined with mutation testing approach for verification and validation of automotive software at the model level. The improvements include such aspects as identification of safety related defects early in the development process thus providing enough time to remove the defects. The argument is based on our industrial case studies, the studies of ISO 26262 standard and academic experiments with new verification and validation methods applied to models.


Proceedings: AACR 106th Annual Meeting 2015; April 18-22, 2015; Philadelphia, PA

Pancreatic Cancer is a disease for which there are very limited efficacious treatments, resulting in a 5-year survival rate for affected patients around only 6%. A recombinant oncolytic adenovirus (OAd-IFN) developed by our group to target pancreatic cancer utilizes enhanced oncolysis with an overexpression of the adenoviral death protein, enhanced infectivity with a genetically modified fiber, conditional replication targeted to pancreatic cancer using the Cox-2 promoter, and an expression of human interferonαto enhance the therapeutic effects of chemotherapy and radiation through the antitumor effects of the cytokine. Our previous work analyzing the therapeutic abilities of IFN expressing vectors in human pancreatic cancer xenografts in immonudeficient nude mice and in syngeneic hamster pancreatic cancer nodules in immunocompetent Syrian hamsters, showed a more evident antitumor effect of OAd-IFN in the latter models. This suggests the success of OAd-IFN as an immune system stimulator, making it a promising candidate for combination therapy approaches. The goal of this study is to investigate the possibility for use of OAd-IFN as a therapy for pancreatic cancer in conjunction with 5FU and radiation. Specifically, the adenoviral replicative ability was measured within pancreatic cancer Mia-Paca 2 cells under various conditions of 5FU and radiation exposure. Replication was analyzed by a correlation to the increase in amount of viral DNA extracted from treated cells at two time points post infection. In two preliminary trials, cells were infected with the virus two days prior to receiving 5FU and radiation, and another group of cells was treated with 5FU before viral infection. Based on the initial data collected, radiation seemed to have no effect on viral replication. 5FU treatment prior to viral infection resulted in an increase in replication at low dose, and a decrease in replication with high dose, however, this effect was only seen at the first time point 3 days after infection. Similarly, 5FU treatment post infection showed a minor dose dependent inhibition of viral replication at high doses, with little to no effect observed in the low dose. Combining viral infection with 5FU appears to have an impact on the replication of OAd-IFN in vitro; however, further trials need to be done to explore the effect of various timing among viral infection and therapy treatments as well as different therapy concentrations and viral titers to further analyze the potential combination therapies.

Citation Format: Jordan Sell. Impact of 5FU and radiation on replication of interferon-expressing adenovirus. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 1816. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-1816


The ontogenetic development of the rat brain cortex Na+, K(+)-ATPase and Mg(2+)-ATPase activities under female ethanol (20% v/v) consumption in the third trimester of gestation or in postpartum period was studied. The weight characteristics (body, whole brain and cortex weight) of viable rats on the first day after birth were not affected critically by prenatal alcohol exposure. It is revealed that the delay of postnatal rat growth 10 days after birth under translactational ethanol consumption is accompanied by reliable decrease of plasma membrane Na+, K(+)-ATPase activity in comparison with control animals. The comparable decrease in activities was observed for the ouabain-sensitive and ouabain-resistant Na+, K(+)-ATPase components (isoform species). From the 20th day the differences in enzyme activity were not revealed. Mg(2+)-ATPase increases in postnatal period independent of Na+, K(+)-ATPase activity and it remains insensitive to postnatal maternal alcohol intake. It is suggested, the first ten day period of lactation is critical for ethanol effect on the developmental control of the brain Na+, K(+)-ATPase functional expression and the course of adaptive processes in the rat organism.


Advances in polymeric nanoparticles are rapidly progressing and offers new opportunities for targeted treatment of cancer. Nanoparticulate drug-delivery systems are capable of preferentially targeting large doses of chemotherapeutic agents or therapeutic genes into malignant cells while leaving the healthy cells free. Nanoparticles (NPs) used as drug delivery systems are submicronsized particles or colloidal systems that are constructed from a large variety of materials such as polymers (polymeric NPs, micelles, dendrimers), lipids (liposomes) viruses (viral NPs) as well as organo-metallic compounds. Various polymers are currently being explored to modify the properties of polymeric matrix which enables greater encapsulation efficiency and high therapeutic load with controlled release ability for the treatment of cancer. The present review explores the various types of polymeric NPs and the different ways in which they can be utilized for the successful treatment of cancer. The targeting approaches namely passive targeting and ligand based targeting using NPs have been discussed in detail and the applications of the different types of NPs in the effective treatment of cancer has been exemplified.


Recently, methods have been developed to accurately predict the testing performance of a Deep Neural Network (DNN) on a particular task, given statistics of its underlying topological structure. However, further leveraging this newly found insight for practical applications is intractable due to the high computational cost in terms of time and memory. In this work, we define a new class of topological features that accurately characterize the progress of learning while being quick to compute during running time. Additionally, our proposed topological features are readily equipped for backpropagation, meaning that they can be incorporated in end-to-end training. Our newly developed practical topological characterization of DNNs allows for an additional set of applications. We first show we can predict the performance of a DNN without a testing set and without the need for high-performance computing. We also demonstrate our topological characterization of DNNs is effective in estimating task similarity. Lastly, we show we can induce learning in DNNs by actively constraining the DNN's topological structure. This opens up new avenues in constricting the underlying structure of DNNs in a meta-learning framework.


With the constant increase in transport traffic, existing traffic management solutions have become inefficient. Urbanization has diode to a rise in traffic jams and accidents in major cities. So as to accommodate the growing wants of transport systems today, there's a desire for an Intelligent Transport System. Vehicular Adhoc Network (VANET) may be a growing technology that assists in Intelligent Transport Systems. Vanets modify communication between vehicles similarly as fastened infrastructure known as Road side Units (RSU). We tend to propose a distributed, cooperative traffic congestion detection and dissemination system that uses VANET. Every of the driver"s sensible phones is equipped with a Traffic App that is capable of location detection through Geographic Position primarily based System (GPS). This info is relayed to a foreign server that detects traffic jam. Once congestion is confirmed the congestion info is disseminated to the tip user phone through rsus. The Mobile App transmits the placement info at periodic intervals. Victimization the latitude, line of longitude and the current time, the placement of every vehicle is traced. Victimization location info, the space moved by the vehicle at a given time is monitored. If the value is below a set threshold, congestion is suspected during a specific space. If several vehicles within the same space send similar messages, traffic jam is confirmed. Once traffic jam is confirmed, the vehicles approaching the engorged space area unit well-read about the traffic through show boards that area unit available within the nearest rsus (traffic signals). The congestion info is additionally created accessible through the Mobile App gift in vehicles approaching the engorged space. The approaching vehicles might take diversion and alleviate congestion.


In order to reduce the lacrimal elimination and to increase the intraocular penetration of betaxolol after ocular administration, we prepared a new drug carrier, polycaprolactone nanocapsules, containing betaxolol in the base form. The instillation of nanocapsules containing only 0.1% of betaxolol into glaucomatous rabbit eyes induced a greater decrease of IOP in intensity, time and stability compared to the reduction of IOP induced after instillation of the commercial eye drops (Betoptic) containing 5 times more betaxolol (0.56%). This new pharmaceutical dosage form produces very interesting therapeutic effects with much lower drug concentrations than that commonly used in aqueous commercial eye drops; thus, systemic and local side effects could be minimized. All drugs used in medical treatments of eye diseases should be able to be included in this carrier. In addition, effective drugs not used because of their toxicity will become suitable for use at lower and safer doses.


Social wearables promise to augment and enhance social interactions. However, despite two decades of HCI research on wearables, we are yet to see widespread adoption of social wearables into everyday life. More in-situ investigations into the social dynamics and cultural practices afforded by wearing interactive technology are needed to understand the drivers and barriers to adoption. To this end, we study social wearables in the context of Nordic student culture and the students' practice of adorning boiler suits. Through a co-creation process, we designed Digi Merkki, a personalised interactive clothing patch. In a two-week elicitation diary study, we captured how 16 students adopted Digi Merkki into their social practices. We found that Digi Merkki afforded a variety of social interaction strategies, including sharing, spamming, and stealing pictures, which supported meaning-making and community-building. Based on our findings, we articulate "Memetic Expression" as a strong concept for designing social wearables.


During the 2011 construction season, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) completed an in-place pavement recycling project to rehabilitate a section of pavement on I-81 near Staunton, Virginia. The project consisted of a 3.66-mile section of southbound I-81 in Augusta County. VDOT employed three in-place pavement recycling techniques and a unique traffic management plan to accomplish the work. The recycling processes included full-depth reclamation (FDR), cold in-place recycling (CIR), and cold central-plant recycling (CCPR). This project marked the first time in the United States that these three recycling techniques were combined in one project on the interstate system. Materials for both the CIR and CCPR were produced using hydraulic cement and foamed asphalt. A combination of hydraulic cement and lime kiln dust was chosen for the FDR process. The purpose of this research portion of this construction project was threefold: (1) to allow VDOT personnel to gain experience with the specific laboratory mix designs, field evaluation, and quality assurance procedures; (2) to characterize the structural properties of the materials used in the recycling project; and (3) to document the performance of the entire rehabilitated section during its initial 3-year service period. Various laboratory tests were conducted on materials collected before, during, and after construction to characterize the materials. These tests included gradation, resilient modulus, indirect tensile strength, dynamic modulus, and flow number. Additional tests to document the performance of the project included ride quality testing and rut-depth measurements collected via a traffic-speed profiler; pavement layer thickness measurements by ground penetrating radar; and structural capacity measurements by the falling weight deflectometer. From the results of this study, the combined structural layer coefficient for the CCPR and FDR materials was calculated as 0.37. The structural layer coefficient for the CIR material was calculated as 0.39. The structural layer coefficient for the CCPR material was calculated to have a likely range of 0.37 to 0.44. Laboratory testing showed that the performance of the CCPR and CIR materials is expected to be similar. The field performance tests demonstrated that the section of pavement rehabilitated by the three in-place recycling methods continues to perform well after nearly 3 years of high-volume interstate traffic. This study recommends that VDOT pursue in-place recycling where it is most suitable. The study also recommends that VDOT consider increasing the structural layer coefficients used in the design for recycled materials. Further, VDOT should continue to monitor the performance of the I-81 project and other in-place recycling projects in an effort to develop long-term performance data. Finally, the study recommends that VDOT consider using long-term lane closure strategies similar to those employed in this project on other major pavement rehabilitation projects.


Collision detection performance is one of the major bottlenecks of Automated Offline Programming (AOLP). Simplifying CAD models allows collision detection algorithms to run more quickly, as a result more complex procedures are able to be calculated in a reasonable amount of time using AOLP. This paper presents a randomised bounding volume method for calculating a sphere based representation of a CAD model while conservatively removing small features. The output has fewer spheres when compared with other sphere packing techniques due to the first stage of the algorithm which removes small features from the model. Using the representation generated by the bounding sphere simplification algorithm for collision detection can dramatically improve performance in simulations and motion planning processes commonly used in AOLP.


Coniferyl alcohol, 1-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-propanediol-(1,3) and 1-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-propanediol-(1,2) have been found to react with hydrogen sulfide. From the results of paper chromatography and U.V. spectra a portion of the sulfidation products obtained from the first and second compounds appear to be identical. Upon alkali treatment, these products readily yielded a double bond conjugated to aromatic nucleus. From the last-named compound, a crystalline compound was obtained and its structure is discussed here. In accordance with previous works, it was found that symplocosigenol and dehydrodi-isoeugenol do not react with hydrogen sulfide.


htmlabstractMany applications with manually implemented data management exhibit a data storage pattern in which semantically related data items are stored closer in memory than unrelated data items. The strong sematic relationship between these data items commonly induces contemporary accesses to them. This is called the principle of data locality and has been recognized by hardware vendors. It is commonly exploited to improve the performance of hardware. General Purpose Database Management Systems (DBMSs), whose main goal is to simplify optimal data storage and processing, generally fall short of this claim because the usage pattern of the stored data cannot be anticipated when designing the system. The current interest in column oriented databases indicates that one strategy does not fit all applications. A DBMS that automatically adapts it's storage strategy to the workload of the database promises a significant performance increase by maximizing the benefit of hardware optimizations that are based on the principle of data locality.
This thesis gives an overview of optimizations that are based on the principle of data locality and the effect they have on the data access performance of applications. Based on the findings, a model is introduced that allows an estimation of the costs of data accesses based on the arrangement of the data in the main memory. This model is evaluated through a series of experiments and incorporated into an automatic layouting component for a DBMS. This layouting component allows the calculation of an analytically optimal storage layout. The performance benefits brought by this component are evaluated in an application benchmark.


Despite limited reporting in the open literature describing the effects of ionising radiation on MicroElectroMechanical System (MEMS) devices or components, there are indications that some MEMS technologies exhibit vulnerability to radiation effects. To begin to gain an understanding of the issues surrounding the susceptibility of MEMS technologies, an investigation into the effects of radiation damage on the electronic and the mechanical properties of a specific MEMS silicon strain gauge will be conducted. The methodology followed is outlined in this report.


This paper deals with the evaluation of soil water retention in two small catchments, which are used in different ways. Both catchments are located in the headwater area of the Blanice River (Šumava Mts., Czech Republic). The experimental catchments of the Zbytinský Brook and the Tetřívčí Brook are the matter of a comparative paired catchment research aimed to runoff response monitoring in prevailing forest and meadow habitats. The evaluation of soil components is based on a detailed hydropedological research and on laboratory analyses with the use of the soil classification HOST and a dominant direction of water flow according to the DHF system. Then, potential and current retention for each soil type in both catchments were calculated. The calculations were compared with the antecedent precipitation index (API) and with runoff response. A higher retention capacity was discovered in the non-forest Zbytinský Brook catchment with the correlation of causal conditions of about 30–40 mm. The diverse conditions of both catchments and different soil water retention of disadvantageous forested catchment are connected with historic changes in a land use and drainage arrangements. The study proves that forest should be assessed as a complex of interactive factors when only a mere land cover does not have any direct impact on the runoff in the catchment. Klíčová slova: párová povodí, experimentální výzkum, krajinný a půdní pokryv, objemová půdní vlhkost, retenční kapacita půd, Šumava, Česká republika


Objective: To establish the key question list for the development of evidence- based guideline in China according to the content and limitation of current evidence-based guidelines around the world. Methods: First, we introduced the evidence-based guidelines in detail which met the criteria based on World Health Organization guideline development handbook and then formulated the draft list of key questions for the development of evidence-based guidelines. At last, the Delphi method was used to determine the list of key questions in developing evidence-based guidelines of colorectal cancer screening. Results: Totally, 34 questionnaires were collected, with experts from clinical and epidemiological fields. The average experts' authority coefficient was 0.81, indicating a high degree of authority. The concentration of opinions on all items in the questionnaire was relatively high, with the full score ratio greater than 75% and the coefficient of variation less than 0.3. The list of key questions on evidence-based guidelines for colorectal cancer screening has been divided into six parts: epidemiological problems, risk classification, screening age, screening tools, implementation and selection of steering group members, which covers the issues that need to be considered in the development of evidence-based colorectal cancer screening guidelines in China. Conclusion: The key question list for evidence-based guideline development in our study can be applied to the development of evidence-based guidelines for colorectal cancer screening in the future, as well as the development of evidence-based guidelines for other cancer screening in China.


Granger causality is a fundamental technique for causal inference in time series data, commonly used in the social and biological sciences. Typical operationalizations of Granger causality make a strong assumption that every time point of the effect time series is influenced by a combination of other time series with a fixed time delay. The assumption of fixed time delay also exists in Transfer Entropy, which is considered to be a non-linear version of Granger causality. However, the assumption of the fixed time delay does not hold in many applications, such as collective behavior, financial markets, and many natural phenomena. To address this issue, we develop Variable-lag Granger causality and Variable-lag Transfer Entropy, generalizations of both Granger causality and Transfer Entropy that relax the assumption of the fixed time delay and allow causes to influence effects with arbitrary time delays. In addition, we propose methods for inferring both Variable-lag Granger causality and Transfer Entropy relations. In our approaches, we utilize an optimal warping path of Dynamic Time Warping to infer variable-lag causal relations. We demonstrate our approaches on an application for studying coordinated collective behavior and other real-world casual-inference datasets and show that our proposed approaches perform better than several existing methods in both simulated and real-world datasets. Our approaches can be applied in any domain of time series analysis. The software of this work is available in the R-CRAN package: VLTimeCausality.


Most discussions concerning how to evaluate theories make reference to empirical, methodological, logical, or normative criticisms. Less attention is given to how challenges in the theory itself affect the choice of cases. In this paper, I put forward the concept of observational criticism, which aims to trace biases in the empirical employment of a theory. While it overlaps with some of the criticisms mentioned above, observational criticism distinctly focuses on what we can learn about a theory through the prominence or absence of cases, or types of case, in the scholarship. To this end, I suggest a three-stage approach for this criticism and I demonstrate each of these stages, as well as the utility of this framework, through a consideration of securitization scholarship—and more specifically of how securitization studies have overlooked the case of securitization moves in Israel. I suggest that although the concept of securitization has generated a great many studies on various theoretical and empirical issues, and despite the prominence of security discourse and practices in Israel, securitization scholarship has tended to avoid studying the securitization processes of this country. Following this mode of criticism, I argue that securitization theory could be more easily implemented in the case of Israel by, among other things, further clarifying the meaning of securitization success and its duration.


Alumina-based spherical granules were prepared by disk granulation. Products of gibbsite thermoactivation in various reactors were used as the initial materials. In the course of molding, combustible additives (starch, carbon, wood meal) were added to the thermoactivated gibbsite powder, and NaOH (10 %), C 2 H 5 OH (15 %), Н 3 ВО 3 (6 %) to the wetting solution (H 2 O). With the product of centrifugal thermoactivation of hydrargillite, the prepared granules were stronger at the larger average size of pores; addition of NaOH, C 2 H 5 OH and H 3 BO 3 led to an increase in the specific surface area and micropore proportion but had different effects on the mechanical strength of the granules. Introduction of combustible additives (wood meal, activated carbon) affected only slightly the specific surface area, favored an increase in the total pore volume and mesopore volume, resulted in a decrease in bulk density and mechanical strength of the granules. Conditions were determined for preparation of a highly effective strong dessicant with large specific surface area (up to 340 m 2 /g) and average pore diameter up to 3.4 nm. Conditions were determined for preparation of strong ultramacroporous granules that are highly active to the Klaus process.


Prohibits the United States from operating a U.S. consulate in Jerusalem unless it is under the supervision of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Requires any official U.S. Government document which lists countries and their capital cities to identify Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.Declares that, for purposes of registration of birth, certification of nationality, or issuance of a passport of a U.S. citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary of State shall, upon the citizen's (or the citizen's legal guardian's) request, record the place of birth as Israel.


The spatial variation in the physico-chemical variables and macrobenthic invertebrates assemblage of a stretch of Ethiope River, Nigeria were evaluated for 6 months at five study stations. The results showed that temperature, dissolved oxygen and bicarbonates were similar across the study stations. The highest values of conductivity and total dissolved solids were recorded at station 1. The physico-chemical variables showed no significant different (P < 0.05) in the study stations. The abundance of the macrobenthic invertebrates comprises 61 taxa in 34 families, and the highest and least values occurred at stations 3 and 1 respectively. The Diptera which accounted for 52.77% of the overall abundance was the dominant group encountered, while the Decapoda (10.97%) which was prevalent in station 1 and the Ephemeroptera (8.05%) which was common in stations 2, 3 and 4 constituted the subdominant group. Over 68% of the oligochaetes recorded were restricted to station 3 except Dero limnosa and Nais sp that occurred in all the study stations. The overall abundance of the macrobenthic invertebrates was not significantly different (p < 0.05) among the study stations. Based on the canonical correspondence analyses, total dissolved solids, biochemical oxygen demand, bicarbonates and pH influenced the macrobenthic invertebrate assemblage. The study stretch of Ethiope River was reasonably free from gross pollution as indicated by the presence of Ephemeroptera, Tricoptera, Odonata and Decapoda at the study sites. However, there were indications of organic contamination as shown by the preponderance of naidid oligochaetes and certain dipteran species including the chironomids. This study revealed a high diversity of macrobenthic invertebrates, and this was attributed to the relative spatial homogeneity of the physico-chemical variables recorded at the study stations.


We compared two behavioral strategies (i.e., self-monitoring [SM] and differential reinforcement of an alternative behavior [DRA]) to promote on-task behavior by three children with cerebral palsy and developmental disabilities during classroom activities. The first objective of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness and the suitability of each strategy individually within a school setting, and make their systematic comparison. A second aim of the study was to assess the effects of the intervention on participants' mood as an outcome measure concerning the quality of life. The third objective was to assess the preference checks for each participant. Finally, a social validation procedure, involving 24 teachers as raters, was conducted for corroborating the clinical validity and providing the study with a formal endorsement by sensitive and expert professionals. The study was carried out according to an alternating treatment embedded in a non-concurrent multiple baseline 1 Department of Neurosciences, University of Bari, (Italy). E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com 2 Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari (Italy). E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com 3 Department of Neurosciences, University of Bari, (Italy). E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com 4 Department of Neurosciences, University of Bari, (Italy). E-mail: email@example.com 5 Department of Neurosciences, University of Bari, (Italy). E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com 6 Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari (Italy). E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com 7 Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari (Italy). E-mail: email@example.com Correspondence to: Fabrizio Stasolla: firstname.lastname@example.com; email@example.com Received: December 27, 2016; Revised: April 15, 2017; Accepted: May 20, 2017 © 2017 Associazione Oasi Maria SS. IRCCS Life Span and Disability Stasolla F. et al. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 64 reversal design across participants. Furthermore, a maintenance phase, three months after the end of the intervention, was realized. Results showed that both interventions were successful, increasing on-task behavior for all participants involved, as well as improving their mood. All participants preferred self-monitoring during preference checks. Raters involved in the social validation assessment considered SM as more positive than DRA. Clinical, educational, psychological and rehabilitative implications of the findings were discussed.


Credit risk has been a topic widely studied and analyzed in the banking sector for many years. Nowadays, such topic keeps as the most important and difcult to manage and to evaluate. This paper presents an articial neural network (ANN) based upon the multilayer perceptrón in order to identify potential failing debtors. Development of the model required data processing from a database consisting of 360 clients belonging to a nancial institution, from which 288 had asked for a credit and the other customers were used to validate the analysis. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that ANN forecasting models enable accurate results, rather than other classes of techniques (since they only consider variables that are difcult to quantify through simple equations). In this technical contribution, the developed ANN model allowed lead to a deduction on the fact that monthly expenditure should be the main variable that has to analyzed by nancial institutions before approving a loan to their customers.


We present a simple and efficient method for measuring the atomic lifetimes in order of tens of microseconds and demonstrate it in the lifetime determination of barium Rydberg states. This method extracts the lifetime information from the time-of-flight spectrum directly, which is much more efficient than other methods such as the time-delayed field ionization and the traditional laser induced fluorescence. The lifetimes determined with our method for barium Rydberg 6snp (n=37–59) series are well coincident with the values deduced from the absolute oscillator strengths of barium which were given in the literature [J. Phys. B 14 (1981) 4489, 29 (1996) 655] on experiments.


Symptom management at the end of life relies heavily on medications. For this reason, pharmacists are an ideal addition to the interdisciplinary hospice team (IDT). The aim of this study is to characterize the utilization of pharmacists in hospices from the hospice administrator and pharmacist perspectives and to determine the impact utilization has on per diem medication requirement and costs. Surveys were sent to 2824 hospice administrators and 658 pharmacists to obtain their perceptions on what clinical, administrative, and dispensing services were being performed. Responses were returned by 9.4% of administrators and 12.6% of pharmacists. The majority of administrators and pharmacists reported a mix of clinical, administrative, and dispensing responsibilities. Medication requirements and costs were not significantly impacted as the administrator's perception of pharmacist clinical, administrative, or dispensing time increased from 0% to 100%.


Adult mosquitoes, sometimes in vast numbers, visit flowers in their search for floral nectar. However, the ability of mosquitoes to pollinate the flowers they visit is often neglected and sometimes even presumptively dismissed. Despite this, mosquito pollination has been reported in many instances, although many questions linger about its extent, importance, and the breadth of floral species or mosquito species which may be involved. In this protocol, I describe methodology to assess whether mosquitoes pollinate a flowering plant they visit, which can create a foundation for future investigations into this topic.


Metronidazole has a bactericidal effect against many anaerobic gram positive and gram negative bacteria, but has no activity against aerobic bacteria. Metronidazole activity is mostly contributed to its reduced form that produced from anaerobic reduction inside the micro-organisms. In this research, the reduced form of metronidazole was synthesized and termed compound ( I ) which diazonated to form a diazonium interme-diate, this intermediate coupled with two phenolic compounds to give compounds ( II ) and ( III ) which are azo derivatives. The structures of these compounds were identified by physical and spectroscopic ( U.V. and FTIR ) techniques. The antibacterial activity of the synthesized compounds were examined against two aerobic gram positive bacteria ( Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae ); two aerobic gram negative bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli ) and one anaerobic gram positive bacteria ( Clostridium Perfringens ) by using two techniques: dilution and disc diffusion methods. Opposite to our expectance, these products showed no antibacterial activity against the tested bacteria at the concentrations used.


This study investigated how player-avatar interaction (PAX) and player-avatar relationship (PAR) are associated with spatial presence, social presence, and self-presence in video games, and additionally how the associations differ between Chinese and American players. American and Chinese players were recruited to answer a survey king about these variables. The survey was translated from English to Chinese for the different samples. Regression models and ANOVA analysis were used to analyze data, and the results revealed several significant associations between dimensions of PAX and the three types of presence. Additionally, results indicated that player-avatar relationships characterized by identity play and extension are generally associated with higher level of presence than the other two relationship types. Cultural differences were also found, with American and Chinese players differing in how PAR associated with social presence. Thus, the present study adds more understanding to presence in video game, avatar-moderated gameplay, and cross-cultural differences in video gaming, and suggests avenues for future research.


PURPOSE
To evaluate changes in comeal sensitivity and tear function following myopic LASIK with thin femtosecond flaps.

METHODS
A retrospective study was performed to compare corneal sensitivity (filament), tear breakup time, and anesthetized Schirmer test preoperatively and at 1 week and 2 and 6 months postoperatively.

RESULTS
Seventy-two eyes of 38 consecutive patients (20 women and 18 men) who underwent LASIK for myopia or myopic astigmatism with thin femtosecond flaps (IntraLase femtosecond laser system and Technolas 217 PlanoScan V2.9992 or wavefront-guided Zyoptix 3.1 excimer laser) were evaluated. Preoperative mean corneal sensitivity was 5.3+/-1.5 mm, which decreased to 4.6+/-1.7 mm at 1 week, increased to 5.0+/-1.3 mm at 2 months, and returned to baseline values at 6 months postoperatively. Mean Schirmer score was 13.7+/-5.7 mm preoperatively and 12.1+/-5.1, 13.1+/-4.8, and 13.0+/-5.1 mm at 1 week and 2 and 6 months postoperatively, respectively. Mean tear breakup time was 7.7+/-2.6 seconds preoperatively and 7.8+/-3.5, 9.2+/-4.6, and 8.8+/-4.5 seconds at 1 week and 2 and 6 months postoperatively, respectively. No significant increase in fluorescein staining was observed throughout follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS
Reductions in corneal sensitivity and tear function tests were minimal after myopic LASIK with thin femtosecond flaps. Despite the relatively narrow hinge, the thin, uniform femtosecond flap does not appear to have an adverse effect on corneal sensitivity and dry eye signs at 6 months postoperatively.


Abstract The red list has become a ubiquitous tool in the conservation of species. We analyzed contemporary trends in the threat levels of European orchids, in total 166 species characterized in 27 national red lists, in relation to their reproductive biology and growth form, distribution area, and land cover where they occur. We found that species in central Europe are more threatened than those in the northern, southern, or Atlantic parts of Europe, while species were least threatened in southern Europe. Nectarless and tuberous species are significantly more threatened than nectariferous and rhizomatous taxa. Land cover (ratios of artificial land cover, area of pastures and grasslands, forests and inland wetlands) also significantly impacted the threat level. A bigger share of artificial land cover increases threat, and a bigger share of pasture and grassland lowers it. Unexpectedly, a bigger share of inland wetland area in a country increased threat level, which we believe may be due to the threatened nature of wetlands themselves relative to other natural land cover types. Finally, species occurring in multiple countries are on average less threatened. We believe that large‐scale analysis of current IUCN national red lists as based on their specific categories and criteria may particularly inform the development of coordinated regional or larger‐scale management strategies. In this case, we advocate for a coordinated EU protection and restoration strategy particularly aimed at central European orchids and those occurring in wetland area.


We give a characterization of subsets of effect algebras, that can be embedded into a range of an observable. To give this characterization, we introduce a new notion of compatibility support mappings.


With the prevalence of sensor-rich smartphones, MCS has become an emerging paradigm to perform urban sensing tasks in recent years. In MCS systems, it is important to minimize the energy consumption on devices of mobile users, as high energy consumption severely reduces their participation willingness. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of energy saving techniques in MCS and identify future research opportunities. Specifically, we analyze the main causes of energy consumption in MCS and present a general energy saving framework named ESCrowd that we use to describe the different detailed MCS energy saving techniques. We further present how the various energy saving techniques are utilized and adopted within MCS applications and point out their existing limitations, which inform and guide future research directions.


Optical interconnects can provide chip-to-chip data communication with much needed bandwidth as processor speed and density keep growing. Optical waveguides and couplers are essential components for implementing optical interconnections. Techniques for directly dispensing polymer waveguides in laser-ablated trenches on printed circuit boards and for fabricating optical couplers are presented for quick prototype of optical interconnects. High-quality UV curable polymer waveguides were routinely fabricated. High-efficiency couplers, blazed grating couplers on sloped waveguides, sloped facet metal film couplers, and reflective-undercut facet couplers can be fabricated by using excimer laser ablation.


This article addresses the question of the lawfulness under international law of the use of force to implement the part of the UN Security Council Resolution 1973 (2011) establishing a no-fly zone (NFZ) over Libya. This question, so far neglected by the doctrine, raises thorny legal issues as the legal contours of a NFZ are not settled. According to available information, it will be demonstrated that the intervention of the States acting individually or within NATO to enforce the NFZ over Libya comes under scrutiny mainly in relation to the lawfulness of the use of force with respect to air-to-ground attacks, as it is dubious that a NFZ allows strikes against ground targets. In the article it is argued that, even admitting that such strikes are permitted, the relevant legal criteria that emerge from the combination of the jus in bello and jus ad bellum rules have to be respected. In particular, according to the interplay between these two branches of the law, only those objects (including aircraft) being used, or intended to be used to attack or threaten civilians could be lawfully targeted.


Introduction: The clinicopathological findings of lupus nephritis (LN) are responsible for the ultimate prognosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). But these findings show geographical variations. Data on LN of Bangladeshi patients are extremely rare in the literature and most of them describe mostly clinical features rather than the pathological findings. Objectives: This study was carried out in an effort to find out the clinicopathological characteristics and correlations of LN patients from this region. Patients and Methods: A total of 34 patients were included in the study; all these underwent renal biopsy. Each biopsy was classified according to International Society of Nephrology/Renal Pathology Society (ISN/RPS) 2003 LN classification system and compared with the clinical, biochemical and immunological findings. Results: Arthralgia and edema were found to be the most common clinical presentations and both were present in 28 (82.4%) cases. Out of 34 cases, 22 (64.7%) belonged to ISN/RPS class IVG. Among clinical and biochemical findings, arthralgia and serum creatinine showed significant association with the ISN/RPS 2003 classification system of LN. The most common deposited immunoglobulin was IgG. This was present in 29 (85.29%) cases. Conclusion: Observations made from the present study suggest that clinical and laboratory parameters of Bangladeshi patients do not predict the histological findings; though, some of the clinical and biochemical parameters correlated with histological findings in the present study. It was also found that these findings are different from other regional studies on LN.


This paper introduces a new attack against the Kirchhoff–Law–Johnson-Noise (KLJN) secure key exchange scheme. The attack is based on the nonlinearity of the noise generators. We explore the effect of total distortion ([Formula: see text]) at the second order ([Formula: see text]), third order ([Formula: see text]) and a combination of the second and third orders ([Formula: see text]) on the security of the KLJN scheme. It is demonstrated that as little as 1% results in a notable power flow along the information channel, which leads to a significant information leak. We also show that decreasing the effective temperature (that is, the wire voltage) and, in this way reducing nonlinearity, results in the KLJN scheme approaching perfect security.


ANYONE confronted with a case of severe malignant exophthalmos, who searches the literature for guidance in therapy, must soon perceive the confusion of thought and experience that exists regarding this condition, the solution of which is one of the most pressing problems facing thyroid surgery today. By some, the administration of thyroid is claimed to cure the condition, while others recommend such measures as orbital decompression, the administration of sex hormones, and irradiation of the pituitary. None of these remedies, however, produces consistently good results, and there are authorities who will disclaim each one of them. Even the aetiological basis of the condition is in dispute. Undoubtedly there is a connection between malignant exophthalmos, the secretion of the pituitary thyrotropic hormone, and thyrotoxicosis, but the relationship seems to be indirect and the connecting linkages are unknown. The current theories concerning the condition will, therefore, be reviewed. Fortunately malignant exophthalmos is uncommon. It may be defined as that type or phase of Graves' disease in which the eye component is more noticeable than the thyrotoxic (Means, 1948). In the common form of " exophthalmic goitre " there may be, besides a goitre and manifestations of thyrotoxicosis, a retraction of the upper eyelid which gives the appearance of stare. The degree of protrusion of the eyeballs however is slight, and not sufficient to endanger them. Further, the stare recedes after thyroidectomy pari passu with the relief of thyrotoxic symptoms; but in a very small minority of patients the protrusion of the eyeballs may increase and be associated with varying degrees of weakness of the oculomotor muscles (ophthalmoplegia). Indeed the protrusion may become so marked that the eyeball is endangered from exposure of the cornea. We then have the condition known widely as " malignant exophthalmos" (Rosenbaum, 1937; Robertson, 1945), and also under other