Background Streptomycin (SM) is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a part of standard regimens for retreating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) cases. The incidence of MDR-TB in retreatment cases was 19% in Thailand. To date, information on SM resistance (SMR) gene mutations correlated to the SMR of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Thai isolates is limited. In this study, the mutations in rpsL, rrs, gidB, and whiB7 were investigated and their association to SMR and the lineage of M. tuberculosis were explored. Methods The lineages of 287 M. tuberculosis collected from 2007 to 2011 were identified by spoligotyping. Drug susceptibility profiles were evaluated by the absolute concentration method. Mutations in SMR genes of 46 SM-resistant and 55 SM-susceptible isolates were examined by DNA sequencing. Results Three rpsL (Lys43Arg, Lys88Arg, and Lys88Thr) and two gidB (Trp45Ter and Gly69Asp) mutations were present exclusively in the SM resistant M. tuberculosis. Lys43Arg rpsL was the most predominant SMR mutations (69.6%) and prevailed among Beijing isolates (p<0.001). No SMR-related mutation in was found rrs. The combination of rpsL and gidB mutations provided 76.1% sensitivity for detecting SMR in M. tuberculosis Thai isolates. whiB7 was not responsible for SMR in SM resistant isolates lacking rpsL and rrs mutations. The significance of the three gidB mutations, 276A>C, 615A>G, and 330G>T, as lineage signatures for Beijing and EAI were underscored. This study identified 423G>A gidB as a novel sub-lineage marker for EAI6-BGD1. Conclusion Our study suggested that the majority of SMR in M. tuberculosis Thai isolates were responsible by rpsL and gidB polymorphisms constantly providing the novel lineage specific makers.


Proteinuric conditions demonstrate structural and compositional changes of the foot processes and slit diaphragms between podocytes. p130Cas in podocytes serves as an adapter protein anchoring glomerular basement membrane to actin filaments of podocyte cytoskeleton. To investigate the effect of ginseng total saponin (GTS) on the pathologic changes of podocyte p130Cas induced by diabetic conditions, we cultured mouse podocytes under: 1) normal glucose (5 mM, control); 2) high glucose (HG, 30 mM); 3) advanced glycosylation endproducts (AGE)-added; or 4) HG plus AGE-added conditions and treated with GTS. In confocal imaging, p130Cas colocalized with zonula occludens-1 and synaptopodin connecting to F-actin. However, diabetic conditions relocalized p130Cas molecules at perinuclear cytoplasmic area and reduced the intensity of p130Cas. In Western blotting, diabetic conditions, especially HG plus AGE-added condition, decreased cellular p130Cas protein levels at 24 and 48 h. GTS improved such quantitative and qualitative changes. These findings imply that HG and AGE have an influence on the redistribution and amount of p130Cas of podocytes, which can be reversed by GTS.


Abstract The present study offers a new critical edition of fifteen letters of the bishop of Tabrīz Gregory Chioniades (fl. ca. 1300) and of one further anonymous letter, all preserved in the manuscript Vind. theol. gr. 203, as well as the first edition of yet another letter penned by Chioniades and preserved in the manuscript New York, Columbia University, Smith Western, Add. 10. An attempt at the reconstruction of Chioniades' career is made, and the content of his letters is analysed, especially with a view to exploring the cultural and political history of the Empire of Trebizond. Codex Vind. hist. gr. 4, the archetype of the medieval tradition of Arrianos' Anabasis and Indike and one of the most important Greek manuscripts held by the Austrian National Library (ÖNB), is shown to have belonged to Gregory Chioniades and to have passed through the hands of several owners in Trebizond before reaching Constantinople via Demetrios Angelos, a physician and copyist active in the Ottoman capital shortly after the Turkish conquest.


We review orientifold constructions in the presence of magnetic backgrounds both in the open and closed sectors. Generically, the resulting orientifold models have a nice geometric description in terms of rotated D‐branes and/or O‐planes. In the case of multiple magnetic backgrounds, some amount of supersymmetry is recovered if the magnetic fields are suitably chosen and part of the original D‐branes and/or O‐planes are transmuted into new ones.


The RHAPS (Redox-Activity And Health-Effects Of Atmospheric Primary And Secondary Aerosol) project was launched in 2019 with the major objective of identifying specific properties of the fine atmospheric aerosol from combustion sources that are responsible for toxicological effects and can be used as new metrics for health-related outdoor pollution studies. In this paper, we present the overall methodology of RHAPS and introduce the phenomenology and the first data observed. A comprehensive physico-chemical aerosol characterization has been achieved by means of high-time resolution measurements (e.g., number size distributions, refractory chemical components, elemental composition) and low-time resolution analyses (e.g., oxidative potential, toxicological assays, chemical composition). Preliminary results indicate that, at the real atmospheric conditions observed (i.e., daily PM1 from less than 4 to more than 50 μg m−3), high/low mass concentrations of PM1, as well as black carbon (BC) and water soluble Oxidative Potential (WSOP,) do not necessarily translate into high/low toxicity. Notably, these findings were observed during a variety of atmospheric conditions and aerosol properties and with different toxicological assessments. Findings suggest a higher complexity in the relations observed between atmospheric aerosol and toxicological endpoints that go beyond the currently used PM1 metrics. Finally, we provide an outlook to companion papers where data will be analyzed in more detail, with the focus on source apportionment of PM1 and the role of source emissions on aerosol toxicity, the OP as a predictive variable for PM1 toxicity, and the related role of SOA possessing redox-active capacity, exposure-response relationships for PM1, and air quality models to forecast PM1 toxicity.


Real-time, accurate, and robust pupil detection is an essential prerequisite for pervasive video-based eye-tracking. However, automated pupil detection in real-world scenarios has proven to be an intricate challenge due to fast illumination changes, pupil occlusion, non centered and off-axis eye recording, and physiological eye characteristics. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a method based on a novel dual convolutional neural network pipeline. In its first stage the pipeline performs coarse pupil position identification using a convolutional neural network and subregions from a downscaled input image to decrease computational costs. Using subregions derived from a small window around the initial pupil position estimate, the second pipeline stage employs another convolutional neural network to refine this position, resulting in an increased pupil detection rate up to 25% in comparison with the best performing state-of-the-art algorithm. Annotated data sets can be made available upon request.


This paper addresses the problem of determining bandwidth allocation and traffic routes in fixed microwave networks such that overall bandwidth cost is minimized while traffic demands are satisfied with a required reliability level. These networks exhibit high variability in link throughput as modulations schemes are adapted dynamically to ensure acceptable bit-error rate at the receivers according to external conditions such as the weather. First, we formulate an optimal optimization approach based on mixed-integer linear programming, which is subsequently reinforced by inserting problem-specific valid inequalities based on global network capacity and feasible bandwidth/modulation combinations. Then, we introduce a Lagrangian-based heuristic that provides near optimal solutions while reducing drastically the computation time. In comparison to previous work, our experimental results show that our approaches are capable to solve large real-world network instances in an effective manner. Furthermore, the results evaluate the impact of reliability and transported traffic demands on bandwidth cost.


Sketch-based 3D scene retrieval is to retrieve 3D scene models given a user's hand-drawn 2D scene sketch. It is a brand new but also very challenging research topic in the field of 3D object retrieval due to the semantic gap in their representations: 3D scene models or views differ from non-realistic 2D scene sketches. To boost this interesting research, we organized a 2D Scene Sketch-Based 3D Scene Retrieval track in SHREC'18, resulting a SceneSBR18 benchmark which contains 10 scene classes. In order to make it more comprehensive, we have extended the number of the scene categories from the initial 10 classes in the SceneSBR2018 benchmark to 30 classes, resulting in a new and more challenging benchmark SceneSBR2019 which has 750 2D scene sketches and 3,000 3D scene models. Therefore, the objective of this track is to further evaluate the performance and scalability of different 2D scene sketch-based 3D scene model retrieval algorithms using this extended and more comprehensive new benchmark. In this track, two groups from USA and Vietnam have successfully submitted 4 runs. Based on 7 commonly used retrieval metrics, we evaluate their retrieval performance. We have also conducted a comprehensive analysis and discussion of these methods and proposed several future research directions to deal with this challenging research topic. Deep learning techniques have been proved their great potentials again in dealing with this challenging retrieval task, in terms of both retrieval accuracy and scalability to a larger dataset. We hope this publicly available benchmark, together with its evaluation results and source code, will further enrich and promote 2D scene sketch-based 3D scene retrieval research area and its corresponding applications.


The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the country in the world which reported the highest number of cholera cases to WHO from 2002 to 2007 (128 936 cases out of a worldwide 902 071 cases). We, therefore, implemented research work which intends to understand the epidemiology of cholera in the DRC and to ensure improvements in the strategy to fight against cholera. This broad study enabled us to accurately determine the cholera epidemic's mechanisms on different scales; to identify the source zones of the disease, and the groups of populations acting as vectors of the spread. It was then possible to demonstrate the role of "sanctuary", played by some suburbs of lakeside cities. A collaborative network, including several scientific institutions in Europe and in the DRC, local and national government administrations in the field of public health and sanitation, international agencies, NGOs and private foundations, was progressively set up. Following the conclusions of our epidemiological studies, a drastic change of strategy was proposed: the limited curative approach on the one hand, the few existing water/sanitation programs on the other hand, have been merged in a global approach involving a larger scale water and sanitation infrastructure improvement, environmental protection, hygiene awareness and medical surveys targeting a few focus areas playing a central role in the epidemics. In conclusion, by better targeting intervention zones, one can gather human and technical resources previously scattered on the vast territory of the DRC. The strategy presented here revives the hope to eliminate cholera in the DRC.


ABSTRACT This paper addresses the question of when and why institutional conflicts break out over decision-making competencies in the European Union. It argues there is untapped potential in constructivist approaches to explain the occurrence of such conflicts. Rationalist institutionalist (RI) models based on the idea of the Commission as a 'competence maximizer', while serving as shorthand for understanding institutional dynamics, risk producing simplistic accounts of institutional conflicts. Tensions between broad collective understandings of policy issues and formal institutional rules can help explain why the Commission initiates institutional conflict in specific instances. This general argument is formulated as a social mechanism termed the rupture mechanism, its potential demonstrated by evidence from an in-depth process tracing study of one of the most controversial institutional conflicts between the Council and the Commission in the 2000s.


Several variables have been reported to affect the expression of sex differences in the analgesic potency of morphine. Although the effect of genetic background on morphine analgesia has been well documented, the relevance of genotype to sex differences in morphine analgesia has rarely been considered. The present study investigated morphine dose-response relationships in male and female mice of 11 inbred mouse strains on the tail-withdrawal test after i.c.v. administration. Large differences in morphine analgesic potency were observed between strains, reflecting the important influence of genotype on this trait. We identified three strains (AKR/J, C57BL/6J, and SWR/J) in which males displayed approximately 3.5- to 7.0-fold greater sensitivities to the analgesic effects of morphine than did their female counterparts. In contrast, in the CBA/J strain, females were found to be approximately 5-fold more sensitive to morphine than were the males. In all other strains, morphine potency estimates between the sexes were not statistically different. These data support the importance of genotype, sex, and their interaction in the mediation of morphine analgesia and suggest that equivocal findings regarding opioid sex differences in the literature may be partially accounted for by the use of different subject populations. The fact that female mice of the AKR/J and CBA/J strains exhibit 35-fold different morphine analgesic potency and that males of these strains are equally sensitive should facilitate the mapping and identification of sex-specific genes of relevance to morphine analgesia.


In spite of the efforts of marketers and managers to boost a favourable destination image, with a focus on encouraging tourists" revisit, other factors contribute to tourists" decision-making processes with regard to revisiting destinations. Moreover, recommendation from family and friends are considered to be the most credible source of information in the process of choosing a holiday destination, becoming relevant that studies on destination loyalty focus on this variable. Therefore, this research aims to identify the attributes which contribute to tourists" willingness to recommend a destination. The first stage of this study involved identifying the attributes to measure the image of Lagos in the Algarve region, an important Portuguese destination, through open-ended questions. In the second phase, the application of the Chi-Square Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) to survey responses from a sample of 379 tourists allowed to identify the features that explain the intention to recommend the destination. The results show that culture is the attribute with the strongest power to explain recommendation, highlighting the need for sun and sand tourism destinations to diversify their offer. Of the seven terminal nodes produced by CHAID, two segments with opposite trends were found, for which profiles were drawn.


Trefoil factors are wound-healing peptides important in protection and healing of the human gastrointestinal tract. Their potential for therapy of gastrointestinal ulcers has been established. This study investigated the hypothesis that trefoil factors are also present in human salivary gland. Tissues from surgical biopsy specimens were collected fresh into ice and stored in liquid nitrogen. Breast, stomach, and colon constituted positive controls. Trefoil factor mRNAs were detected by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) or by in situ hybridization (ISH) with formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded sections. Amplified DNA fragments were ligated into pGEM-T Easy vector and used to transform competent Escherichia coli JM109, allowing sequencing to confirm identity of cloned fragments. Generation of amplifiable cDNA was confirmed using primers specific to the ubiquitously expressed abl gene. By RT-PCR, TFF1 (pS2) mRNA was detected in 14 of 15 glands, TFF3 (hITF) mRNA in 13, and TFF2 (hSP) in only 1 gland. ISH of 15 glands (7 of which had been studied by RT-PCR) showed the same pattern of expression and indicated that TFF1 mRNA was usually expressed at low levels by a few mucous cells, whereas TFF3 was produced abundantly by most mucous cells. There was no difference in patterns of expression comparing parotid, submandibular, and minor mucous glands. Nor was there an obvious relationship between trefoil factor expression and pathology, but those glands not expressing TFF1 or TFF3 had evidence of chronic inflammation or atrophy. Trefoil factors are likely to be important in healing, predisposition to, and therapy of, oral diseases.


Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) play a fundamental role in the survival of plant species in marginal soils, particularly low halomorphic funds (sebkhas). Twelve sites around a sebkha in north-eastern Tunisia were surveyed for flora diversity and soil characteristics. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi colonization was examined on the roots of sampled plants. The extraction of AMF spores from the soil samples was carried out in the spring period.The isolated spores were counted and seven AMF species were identified: Funneliformis geosporus, Rhizophagus irregularis, Claroideoglomus etunicatum, Funneliformis mosseae, Septoglomus constrictum, Rhizophagus diaphanus and Rhizophagus fasciculatus. Diversity of AMF and plant species in the investigated sites varied depending on soil salinity. The soil electrical conductivity ranged from 2.18 mS /cm (S5) to 98.67 mS /cm (S3). All studied sites, except S2, S5 and S8, were classified as very highly saline soils (> to 16 mS/cm).These later were characterized by the presence of the AMF species: Funneliformis geosporus and Claroideoglomus etunicatum. Only 29 on the 68 collected plant species presented arbuscular mycorrhizal structures in their roots. These plants belong to five botanical families: Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Oxalidaceae, Malvaceae and Poaceae. Fourty one percent of the sampled plants belongs to the Asteraceae family.


As the diseases to be discussed are usually designated by the practitioner as chronic rheumatism, this title is chosen. Under this title are two distinct diseases, each differing from the other in etiology, pathology and clinical signs and symptoms. The only points in common are chronicity and involvement of the joints. As the mortality from either type is practically nil, there are no statistics in this country to indicate the incidence of the two diseases. In England, with its industrial insurance, statistics are available. Glover 1 reported: ". . . In any 1,000 insured males of all ages there will be found one case of rheumatoid arthritis and three cases of osteoarthritis. . . . In any 1,000 insured females of all ages, we should expect three cases of rheumatoid arthritis and two of osteoarthritis." The figures on osteo-arthritis include only the cases of persons who consult the panel doctor on account of discomfort from the


Multiculturalism is an inevitable topic facing with our daily life.A film may represent a society,culture,class,sexuality,and a multitude of things.Therefore films should be a very valuable object for studying culture in the world.In this paper,I would like to analyze the film Welcome to show the conflicts of different cultures and how multiculturalism present in movie.The purpose of this study is to view and discuss how multiculturalism has been depicted in this film.


In traditionalist societies, as an individual who was an integral part of the cosmos and the community to which he belonged, man would not view his body as a separate entity, as he would become aware of his physical "rooting" in a limited network of correspondences and meanings. The main characteristic of holistic societies was to "emphasize and use social totality" (Dumont, 1983, p. 263) to the detriment of the individual, whose body did not exist as an element of individuality - as it would be the case later on, in modern societies, where individualism was primary and the body was a personalizing factor. In the post-'60s era, a new imagery of the body gained momentum, with a noted acceptance of individualism as a social structure and the embrace of a positive (lay) view upon nature. After that decade, "the Western man discovers that he has a body and this novelty follows its own route, whilst eliciting discourses and practices that carry a mass-media aura" (Dumont, 1983, p. 7). With the help of media representations, we will herein oppose two types of bodies and dress, as they are reflected in some ritualistic carnival festivities nowadays: the Carnival of Venice and the one in Rio de Janeiro; on the other hand, we will see to what extent the "play" component of homo ludens has kept its dimension in the current society.


Big Data applications are rapidly moving from a batch-oriented execution to a
real-time model in order to extract value from the streams of data just as
fast as they arrive. Such stream-based applications need to immediately ingest
and analyze data and in many use cases combine live (i.e., real-time streams)
and archived data in order to extract better insights. Current streaming
architectures are designed with distinct components for ingestion (e.g.,
Kafka) and storage (e.g., HDFS) of stream data. Unfortunately, this separation
is becoming an overhead especially when data needs to be archived for later
analysis (i.e., near real-time): in such use cases, stream data has to be
written twice to disk and may pass twice over high latency networks. Moreover,
current ingestion mechanisms offer no support for searching the acquired
streams in real time, an important requirement to promptly react to fast data.

In this paper we describe the design of Kera: a unified storage and
ingestion architecture that could better serve the specific needs of stream
processing. We identify a set of design principles for stream-based Big Data
processing that guide us in designing a novel architecture for streaming. We
design Kera in order to reduce the storage and network utilization
significantly, which can lead to reduced times for stream processing and
archival. To this end, we propose a set of optimization techniques for handling
streams with a log-structured (in memory and on disk) approach. On top of our
envisioned architecture we devise the implementation of an efficient interface
for data ingestion, processing, and storage (DIPS), an interplay between
processing engines and smart storage systems, with the goal to reduce the
end-to-end stream processing latency.


An indirect proton flux measuring tool based on discrimination of the energy deposited by protons in 128 × 128 pixel EIT CCD areas outside the solar disk images is presented. Single pixel intensity events are converted into proton incident energy flux using modeled energy deposition curves for angles of incidence ± 60 deg in four EIT spatial areas with different proton stopping power. The extracted proton flux is corrected for both the loss of one-pixel events in the range of angles of incidence as well as for the contribution to the single pixel events resulting from scattered middle-energy protons (low-energy or high-energy particles are stopped by the EIT components or pass through them, accordingly). A simple geometrical approach was found and applied to correct for a non-unique relation between the proton-associated CCD output signal and the incident proton energy. With this geometrical approximation four unique proton incident energy ranges were determined as 45–49, 145–154, 297–335, and 390–440 MeV. The indirect proton flux measuring tool has been tested by comparing Solar Energetic Particles (SEP) flux temporal profiles extracted from the EIT CCD frames and downloaded from the GOES database for the Bastille Day (BD) of 2000 July 14 and the more recent 2005 January 20 events. The SEP flux temporal profiles and proton spectra extracted from the EIT in the relatively narrow energy ranges between 45 and 440 MeV reported here are consistent with the related GOES profiles. The four additional EIT extracted ranges provide higher energy resolution of the SEP data.


There are many reasons to believe that political parties' fortunes and the ideological preferences of the electorate are tied together. Yet existing evidence finds no relationship between trends in the partisan and ideological identifications of the American electorate (Box-Steffensmeier, Knight, and Sigelman 1998). We argue that a portion of the electorate organizes political debate in terms of liberal and conservative referents and, in turn, links ideological and partisan identifications over time. Evidence from CBS News and New York Times survey data affirms the conclusion that for the more sophisticated portion of the electorate, partisan and ideological trends are mutually reinforcing in both the long and the short run. These groups are also more likely to vote than less politically sophisticated groups, so the incentives for politicians to link popular ideological sentiment with partisanship are strong; the people who pay attention to politics and put them in office (or kick them out) are the same people who connect ideology and partisanship.


The object-oriented, scripting language Ruby, is becoming popular in information technology and computer-oriented educational programs. Yukihiro Matsumoto has indicated that the language was designed with the principle of "least surprise" to help programmers convert ideas into working programs quickly and to have fun. Ruby was designed for applications in many of the modern application areas of software development, including text processing, network programming, interfacing to CGI and XML and addressing Internet-oriented applications. It is also intended to make programming fun for students. Ruby can also be used for embedded system programming. The general advantages of Ruby programming also apply to this domain. The Ruby interpreter allows rapid development and testing, including wireless tele-operation of mobile robots for prototyping. Since Ruby was not primarily designed for this type of application some adaptations are necessary. Extensions to the language are necessary to allow for real-time interfacing. These and related topics are discussed in the paper. This paper discusses a semester-long experience of adapting Ruby to serve the needs of a robotics-design, lab-oriented course and evaluates the benefits and disadvantages of Ruby both for embedded development in general and as a teaching tool. Introduction Although desktop and laptop computers are ubiquitous they are outnumbered by at least an order of magnitude by embedded computer systems. These embedded systems appear in devices ranging from microwave ovens and cars to PDAs, cell-phones and even network routers and switchers. Embedded systems were once dominated by small 8-bit microcontroller systems, with kilobytes or less of memory; Megahertz or slower CPU clocks and were programmed in assembly-language or in C. However as systems have been developed for small low-power, lowcost, high-capability devices, such as cell-phones and PDAs so 32 bit processing power with megabytes of memory; complete operating systems; networking and object-oriented languages, have started to appear even in small embedded systems. This trend has been further accelerated as notebook computers, and the compact low-power technologies they need, have overtaken desktops in sales 7 . These low-power, high performance, compact technologies also become available for embedded systems development. BYU has offered courses in embedded systems for some years. These elective courses are targeted at students who wish to explore computer applications beyond the traditional desktop or laptop environment. Over recent years this class has, like the marketplace, moved its focus from small 8-bit system to modern operating systems and programming environments 3 , but is still focused on physically small, mobile systems with real-time needs and IO capabilities far beyond the traditional keyboard/mouse/monitor peripherals. Applications are traditionally programmed in a remote desktop development system and then the executable code is uploaded into the target system, which may be running a different CPU, architecture and operating system than the development system. One of the elective courses offered is in Mechatronics. This course requires students to design and build a small autonomous robot with motors, sensors and actuators. The course typically attracts Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Information Technology (IT) students who work in teams. The ME students provide expertise in mechanical design and related engineering topics and the IT students provide expertise in operating systems, programming and computer systems integration. Both groups learn new skills in input/output handling, autonomous intelligence and related mechatronic concepts. The IT students have already completed several required courses in programming and computer configuration while the ME students have completed courses in mechanisms, instrumentation and related subjects, as well as a minimum of one required course in programming. The traditional languages of embedded systems development, mostly C and assemblylanguage, have much to recommend them. With no operating system, they are fast, compact, and capable and they have good access to hardware and peripherals. In addition they are well known and accepted by the many engineers working in this field. However they are, in some senses, holding back the development of embedded systems in that developers cannot easily take full advantage of the many libraries and utilities developed for 32-bit systems using modern operating systems like UNIX and Windows CE, nor do they have the advantages of modern object-oriented languages Many of these newer languages that may allow programmers to be more productive come with system costs that make them prohibitive for small embedded systems. These languages make the programmer's job easier at the expense of requiring better hardware and a full operating system on the embedded system to run the resulting program. Many of these more sophisticated systems also require per-user license fees, which poses a problem for price-sensitive embedded systems. Recently we explored the use of the popular Ruby scripting language as an alternative to C and assembly-language and found some interesting advantages in using this language for embedded systems development. This report will discuss how Ruby can be applied to the task of real-time embedded system programming, including some extensions to overcome difficulties. It will then analyze the suitability of Ruby for this class of applications. To more fully describe the role that Ruby can play the viability of several other modern languages will be discussed. Development Language Comparison There are several issues that must be considered when choosing an appropriate language for embedded systems development. One important issue is the difference between compiled and interpreted languages. In general compiled languages, such as Pascal, Java, or C++, are structured to help the programmer write error-free and maintainable code. Modular structure and variable typing, for example, constrain the programmer in ways that lead to better code being developed. These languages can be optimized by a good compiler and can produce fast and reliable executable code. This comes at a cost of being more verbose in programming and requiring compiling for each development cycle. One of the problems of embedded systems development is the fact that code is almost always developed on a development machine. The development system typically has a different architecture and OS than the target system, requiring special cross-compiler libraries to be used. When compiled the executable code is ported over to the target system where it is run. This makes debugging and changing code tedious. The target system is typically much less capable than the development system in terms of speed, memory and it usually doesn't support a standard keyboard, monitor and mouse. Typical workarounds include using very simple interpreted versions of languages like C which can be edited on the target system; running simulators on the development system to test the code before porting it; automating the compile and port process or, most expensively, running an emulator "pod" connecting the target and development systems so the target can be run under direct control of the development system. The cabling and connecting of emulators becomes very impractical in the later stages of developing very small systems or mobile systems. Most modern languages offer some provision for object-oriented programming. In an object-oriented language, a programmer's focus shifts from writing a list of instructions to writing the model to represent a real-life situation. This model can then be taught to solve problems in a very intuitive and maintainable way. Life for the programmer is easier, coding often happens faster, and teamwork and code reuse is encouraged. Object-oriented programs can suffer from a performance hit when compared to compiled procedural programs, but this can depend on compiler efficiency and, with modern fast hardware platforms, this may not be a significant factor. The weaknesses of OO languages for embedded systems development are the compile and upload time, the size of the executable code with associated libraries, the run-time performance, and, very significantly, the relative difficulty in directly accessing the hardware from the application language. In contrast to compiled languages interpreted languages can be quickly programmed and instantly run. Languages such as Perl or any of the many dialects of BASIC are loosely typed, relatively unstructured and designed for rapid code development by non-professional programmers. This has many advantages for an embedded systems development environment characterized by rapid development with many cycles of creation, testing and incremental improvement. The extensive IO requirements of embedded systems development are well supported by a development environment that permits many short experimental development loops as hardware communication and response is explored and tuned. The well-known costs of this approach are the lack of software structure and the consequent risk of poor coding habits and also code that is difficult to debug and maintain. Consequently interpreted code is often only recommended for short utility programs. For scripting applications run-time speed is not usually a major factor and the executiontime penalty of interpreted languages is acceptable, however for real-time applications the runtime speed may be a serious barrier. Many large applications are being written in interpreted or scripting languages. Faster computers make the slower speed of scripts less important. As these interpreted languages mature, they become more aligned with the good programming design that favors large and maintainable programs. Scripted languages also tend to be very portable, making programs written in


The paper is focused on searching for novel methods aimed at improving the performance and usability of a common decision-making process where a panel of experts are assisted by specialized software systems. An equivalent exchange method (EEM) is considered in the paper as a potential candidate for a versatile method applicable in expert decision-making process for solving problems in various subject domains. The method is formally described in the paper in the form of an iterative algorithm where each iteration leads to the reduce in the number of alternatives under consideration until it converges to the preferable one. The key feature of EEM consists in the fact that the original comparison between multiple alternatives described by many attributes measured in different units is replaced by the sequence of simple exchanges between pairs of alternatives where only two attributes are engaged at once. The numerical example illustrating the full run of the algorithm is thoroughly described, so the actions performed in the steps of the algorithm are explained. The case of the successful implementation of EEM as the module of Expert Decision Support System is also presented.


Eicosanoid production is reduced when the nitric oxide (NO.) pathway is inhibited or when the inducible NO synthase gene is deleted, indicating that the NO. and arachidonic acid pathways are linked. We hypothesized that peroxynitrite, formed by the reaction of NO. and superoxide anion, may cause signaling events leading to arachidonic acid release and subsequent eicosanoid generation. Western blot analysis of rat arterial smooth muscle cells demonstrated that peroxynitrite (100-500 microM) and 3-morpholinosydnonimine (SIN-1; 200 microM) stimulate phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), p38, and cytosolic phospholipase A(2) (cPLA(2)). We found that peroxynitrite-induced arachidonic acid release was completely abrogated by the mitogen-activated protein/ERK kinase (MEK) inhibitor U0126 and by calcium chelators. With the p38 inhibitor SB-20219, we demonstrated that peroxynitrite-induced p38 phosphorylation led to minor arachidonic acid release, whereas U0126 completely blocked p38 phosphorylation. Addition of arachidonic acid caused p38 phosphorylation, suggesting that arachidonic acid or its metabolites are responsible for p38 activation. KN-93, a specific inhibitor of Ca(2+)/calmodulin-dependent kinase II (CaMKII), revealed no role for this kinase in peroxynitrite-induced arachidonic acid release in our cell system. Together, these results show that in response to peroxynitrite the cell initiates the MEK/ERK cascade leading to cPLA(2) activation and arachidonic acid release. Thus studies investigating the role of the NO. pathway on eicosanoid production must consider the contribution of signaling pathways initiated by reactive nitrogen species. These findings may provide evidence for a new role of peroxynitrite as an important reactive nitrogen species in vascular disease.


Herein, the development of ruthenium complexes as potential apoptosis inducers, as well as their underlying mechanism has been reviewed. In recent years, various ruthenium complexes have been designed and their in vitro and in vivo inhibitory activities against various types of tumor cells have been evaluated extensively. It's demonstrated that ruthenium complexes can induce apoptosis of tumor cells through the signal pathway of mitochondria-mediated, death receptor-mediated, and/or endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress pathways. Alternately, the binding behavior of these ruthenium(II) complexes with DNA, especially with Gquadruplex DNA may play a key role in the DNA damage of tumor cells, and thus provides a versatile tool to rational design novel ruthenium complexes with high activity and selectivity.


Medical devices used in a home setting for treating a variety of chronic diseases lack the ability to convey meaningful information to the patients directly about how they are engaging with their devices in real-time. This research is focused on the development of a monitoring system that addresses this need. For this initial design and testing, the research team applied the technology to a positive airway pressure (PAP) system used in the treatment of those suffering from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Data from experimental testing showed results of 93.6% accuracy, 98.7% sensitivity, and 90.9% specificity in the monitoring system detecting events that are typical of issues occurring during standard PAP therapy use. Results indicate this technology can be considered as a viable solution for providing more meaningful information to users about their engagement with their prescribed medical devices.


Intraepithelial fibers do occur in the mucosa of the esophagus, as demonstrated by the osmium tetroxide-zinc iodide method in cats and rhesus monkeys. The esophagus is divided into three parts, in order to study the penetration incidence, and the uppermost and the lowest show the greatest density of penetration, while in the middle portion only occasional fibers in small numbers are found. The specific characteristics observed in this type of fiber, such as their distribution along the wall of the esophagus, the levels reached by their endings within the mucous epithelium itself and this same epithelium considered as the specified destination of the endings, lead to the belief that they may be functionally regarded as structures of a sensory character.


Nanofibrous poly(D,L)-lactide mats prepared by electrospinning are useful for numerous biomedical applications. However, it was observed that these mats tend to shrink under physiological conditions. In this research, a physical entrapment method to modify the polymer surface with poly(ethylene glycol) was developed to ensure dimensional stability and to increase the hydrophilicity of the surface of the mats. Nanofiber morphology was characterized by scanning electron microscopy. Surface element analysis was performed by high resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Water contact angles were determined to identify surface properties before and after surface entrapment. Canine fibroblasts were prepared and seeded onto the poly(D,L)-lactide mats, followed by cell morphology study by SEM and cell viability tests by MTT assay, which confirmed the improvement of biocompatibility by surface modification. Taking the results into account, hydrophilic and area-stable nanofibrous nonwoven mats were successfully produced, with potential applications as in vivo biomedical material. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011


Introduction: Bone is one of the tissues that have a true potential for regeneration. However, sometimes the bone defects are so outsized that there is no chance of bone self-repair and restoration or the damage is such that it is not possible to repair with medical or surgical interventions. In these situations, bone grafts are the treatment of choice, but due to several obstacles, including limitation in graft preparation and immunological incompatibility, bone grafts face some limitations. In these cases, with the help of regenerative medicine, the bone damages could be repaired. Regenerative medicine provides a new approach for large bone defects by cell therapy and tissue engineering. As, sometime the damaged tissues are so wide that there is no chance of self-repair, the engineered structures help to accelerate the tissue natural repairing. This review focuses on the importance of stem cells and scaffolding for bone tissue engineering. Also, the important characteristics of bone tissue engineered scaffolds like structure, porosity, stability, surface chemistry, bone induction and different met hods of scaffold fabrication are discussed. Up to now, various natural and synthet ic compounds were used for bone tissue engineering, including biopolymers, which are categorized to natural, synthet ic and ceramics. Bioceramics work as effective compound scaffolds in bone tissue engineering. From them bioglasses are one of the important materials which enhance the attachment, proliferation and differentiation of bone cells. Therefore, the current paper discussed biopolymers, as the effective compounds for regeneration of bone tissue.


The indications and the detailed technique of extravesical antirefluxplasty are presented. Realized on 409 ureters (247 cases), extravesical antirefluxplasty has been successful in 95% of these cases. The failures, i.e., obstructions (1,5%) and persistent reflux (3%), are analized.


During clinical electroretinographic examination of patients we observed a new phenomenon which we called "exhaustion phenomenon" ( phenomene d'epuisement ). This phenomenon has been further studied in cats. Briefly, it is as follows: If the darkadapted cat retina is stimulated intermittently with light of 50 lux intensity (measured at the cornea), one-tenth second duration, and one second frequency, the b-potential in the ERG is practically the same for each stimulus. If, however, the procedure is repeated on a cat with impaired oxygen supply, the b-potentials on intermittent stimulation become progressively smaller and finally may almost disappear. If the intermittent stimulation is now suspended for a time, e. g., one minute, while the cat still remains in darkness, the b-potential will be found to have returned to its former level, but on intermittent stimulation it will again become smaller. We ascribed this phenomenon to a delayed recovery of the adaption state in hypoxemia.


A series of 257 cases of carcinoma of the male breast in Denmark has been examined with a view to establishing the factors which might influence the prognosis. Observed and corrected 5-year survival rates of 36% and 46% respectively correspond well with the results in other series. Expressed by corrected survival rate, the prognosis appears to be somewhat more favourable during the period 1958-71 than during the period 1943-57. This improvement of prognosis can be related to a significantly better clinical stage of advancement during the latter period. Comparison of the 5-year corrected survival rates in series of male and female breast cancer shows that the prognosis in male breast cancer is not much worse than the prognosis in females. It has been proved that the duration of disease, the clinical stage and the histological degree of malignancy influence the prognosis considerably. The therapeutic results in our series correspond well with the results found in other series. We did not find any evidence to indicate that it would be better to carry out radical mastectomy than to do simple mastectomy since radical mastectomy has not given consistently better results. It is recommended that treatment of this rather uncommon disease be centralized as far as possible.


Background: Although limiting prescription refills is considered as a strategy to increase compliance with the treatment regimen and follow-up, no literature exists to support its effectiveness. We sought to investigate whether decreasing the number of prescription refills affects no-show rate at an urban teaching primary care continuity clinic in New York. Methods: Eight teaching attending physicians and 19 residents implemented a "new prescribing strategy" from February 9 to 22, 2012, which limited the number of refills only to cover until the next intended clinic visit. All adult patient visits were included if follow-up visits were requested to be scheduled within 3 months and prescriptions were given through an electronic prescription system. No-show rates for the first follow-up visits up to 120 days from the initial visits during the interventional period were compared with those during the baseline period (December 15-28, 2011). Results: Two hundred twenty-one patients in the baseline period and 278 in the interventional period were included in the analysis. Median total supply of prescription was 6 and 3 months, respectively (P < .001). The no-show rates were not significantly different between the 2 periods (19.0% [42/221] vs 16.6% [46/278], P = .5). In multivariate regression analysis, the no-show rate did not change significantly during the interventional period compared with the baseline period (odds ratio [OR] 1.0; 95% confidence interval, 0.6-1.5; P = .8). Younger age (OR 1.03 per year, P = .008), male gender (OR 2.0, P = .003), Medicaid or Medicare insurance (OR 3.7, P = .01; OR 4.2, P = .02), and diagnosis of diabetes (OR 1.8, P = .04) or asthma (OR 2.0, P = .03) were associated with higher no-show rates. Conclusions: Reducing the number of refills did not significantly affect no-show rates in the immediate follow-up. Alternative strategies should be considered to minimize no-shows.


Migration of nursing workforce from India to overseas is very common and unfortunate. Migration and recruitment of nurses from India has grown exponentially over the years. We are a population of 1.3 billion (2019), India's public expenditure on health is less than 2 percent of GDP which is even less than lower income countries. [1] A stable nursing health workforce is required in India so that a uniform care can be given to patients and promote community health care at primary level. Increased turnover of nurses in hospitals and community areas makes difficult for the management to deliver continuity of care. India has been facing shortage of Nurses since Independence and the disparities in health care system in India pushing migration and the status quo is grim to turn around. Ironically with more population facing difficulties to retain adequate number of nurses required to keep a health care system in place and countries with less population. The migration of qualified nurses is considerable and further strains the system. In this article, push and pull factors have been discussed extensively related to migration of Nurses to abroad.


The selective hydrogenolysis of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) platform molecule to 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) has attracted increasing attention due to its broad range of applications. However, HMF, with multiple functional groups, produces various byproducts, hindering its use on an industrial scale. Herein, a bimetallic Pt-FeOx/AC catalyst with low Pt and FeOx loadings for selective HMF hydrogenolysis to DMF was prepared by incipient wetness impregnation. The structures and properties of different catalysts were characterized by XRD, XPS, TEM, ICP-OES and Py-FTIR techniques. The addition of FeOx enhanced Pt dispersion and the Lewis acidic site density of the catalysts, and was found to be able to inhibit C=C hydrogenation, thereby im-proving DMF yield. Moreover, the presence of Pt promoted the reduction of iron oxide, creating a strong interaction between Pt and FeOx. This synergistic effect originated from the activation of the C–O bond over FeOx species followed by hydrogenolysis over the adjacent Pt, and played a critical role in hydrogenolysis of HMF to DMF, achieving a yield of 91% under optimal reaction conditions. However, the leaching of Fe species caused a metal–acid imbalance, which led to an increase in ring hydrogenation products.


Aging decreases the efficiency of several physiological processes, including immune function, which has been associated with an increased incidence of infections, autoimmune diseases and cancer. Human B cell populations, like naïve and memory B cells, suffer significant quantitative and qualitative changes in the elderly. The frequency and function of human B-1 cells, which play critical housekeeping and anti-microbial defensive roles, have not been studied. In the present work we analyzed how the frequency and function of human B-1 cells (CD20+CD27+CD43+CD38low) change with age. Our results show that not only the percentage of B-1 cells but also their capacity to spontaneously secrete IgM decreased with age. In fact, expression levels of Xbp1 and Blimp1, associated with a secreting B cell phenotype, were significantly lower, while those of Pax5, characteristic of non-secreting B cells, were significantly higher in elderly donors. Since aging affects the humoral immune response both quantitatively and qualitatively, next we studied the antibody repertoire of B-1 cells of healthy young and elderly donors. Elderly donors showed a higher number of repeated clones and therefore, a reduction of the antibody repertoire variability in comparison with young individuals. Furthermore it was interesting to observe in aged individuals an increased frequency of VH3-23 and VH4-34 usage, genes which have been linked to autoimmune diseases and hematopoietic malignancies. Moreover, there is a significant reduction in older individuals of clones expressing the sequence VH3-33, frequently found on antibodies against PC, oxidized LDL, apoptotic cells and induced after vaccination with Pneumavax23.


Relationship is clarified between the notions of linear extension of algebraic theories, and central extension, in the sense of commutator calculus, of their models. Varieties of algebras turn out to be nilpotent Maltsev precisely when their theories may be obtained as results of iterated linear extensions by bifunctors from the so called abelian theories. The latter theories are described; they are slightly more general than theories of modules over a ring.


A Volterra-series analysis is presented to study the package and printed circuit board (PCB) effects on the linearity of two wideband code-division multiple-access upconverter RF integrated circuit (RFIC) designs. The first design adopts a recently popular micromixer with a class AB input stage. The second design is based on a commonly used Gilbert mixer with emitter degeneration. Both upconverter RFICs are designed to have the same adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR) in the chip-level simulation. After fabrication, packaging, and testing on the PCB, the micromixer-based design consumes less direct current, but causes more degradation in the ACPR performance due to the influence of package and PCB when compared to the Gilbert mixer-based design. The theoretical analysis indicates that the micromixer-based upconverter RFIC is rather susceptible to the parasitic effects from the ground interconnect and, therefore, it needs a better package solution with a lower ground inductance for practical use. Comparison between theory and measurement shows good agreement in predicting the variations of conversion gain and ACPR due to the presence of the package and PCB


The advancement of small satellite technology relies on the development of effective thermal management systems that can be made smaller, safer, and more robust. This paper presents the results and analysis of a nucleate boiling experiment in sustained microgravity aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor (STS-108). Bubble growth and departure were observed from a single and a braid of three 0.16 mm diameter and 80 mm long nickel-chromium resistive wires. Analysis showed that the braided wire provides a unique surface configuration to enhance the onset of boiling. The braid of wires was also observed to produce several bubble explosions; this is the first observation of such phenomenon under microgravity conditions. Bubble explosions are being researched on Earth due to their ability to remove large amounts of heat. Large spherical bubbles enclosing the wire were not observed, in contrast to many previous thin wire microgravity boiling experiments which often lead to the burnout of the heating element in microgravity. Measured bubble propagation was in good agreement with several prediction models based on drag forces. The effects of bubble formation, departure, and propagation on the temperature gradients in the fluid were analyzed. Applications for the development of microgravity heat transfer systems based on boiling mechanisms are discussed, along with the potential for further research utilizing small satellite technology.


We previously identified peptides derived from round scad as potential Nrf2 activators. However, the neuroprotection of these peptides is still unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate the neuroprotective effect of WCPFSRSF against glutamate-induced neurotoxicity, and the memory-improving effects of WCPFSRSF in mice were also explored. Results showed that WCPFSRSF ameliorated oxidative stress by improving the activities of antioxidant enzymes and promoting the Nrf2-mediated endogenous defense system. Moreover, there is an interaction between the up-regulation of Nrf2 and the down-regulation of NFκB induced by the peptide, which was related to the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and could be abolished by the Akt inhibitor LY294002. Further analysis demonstrated that WCPFSRSF may act as a radical scavenger and Nrf2 activator. The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects might be related to the Cys and Trp in WCPFSRSF. Moreover, WCPFSRSF could improve spatial memory impairment in sleep-deprived mice. Thus, this work provided evidence for WCPFSRSF as a potential candidate against neurotoxicity and memory deficits.


The object of the present paper is to express the conclusions of mathematical crystallography in a form which shall be immediately useful to workers using homogeneous X-rays for the analysis of crystal structures. The results are directly applicable to such methods as the Bragg ionisation method, the powder method, the rotating crystal method, etc., and summarise in as compact a form as possible what inferences may be made from the experimental observations, whichever one of the 230 possible space-groups may happen to be under examination. It is only in certain cases that the spacings of crystal planes as determined by the aid of homogeneous X-rays agree with the values of those spacings which would be expected from ordinary crystallographic calculations. In the majority of cases the relative arrangement of the molecules in the unit cell leads to apparent anomalies in the experimental results, the observed spacings of certain planes or sets of planes being sub-multiples of the calculated spacings. The simplest case (fig. 8) of such an apparent anomaly is found in the space-group C22 of the monoclinic system, where the presence of a two-fold screw-axis, because it interleaves halfway the (010) planes by molecules which are exactly like those lying in the (010) planes, except that they have been rotated through 180°, leads to an observed periodicity which is half the periodicity to be inferred from the dimensions of the unit cell, that is, leads to an observed spacing for (010) which is half the calculated. All screw-axes produce similar results, and, in general, a p -fold screw-axis leads to an observed spacing for the plane perpendicular to it which is 1/ p th that to be inferred from the dimensions of the cell. Besides those produced by the screw-axes, other abnormalities arise out of the presence of glide-planes. The simplest case of this is shown by the space-group C s 2 (fig. 4) of the monoclinic system, in which the second molecule is obtained from the first by a reflection in a plane parallel to (010) and half a primitive translation parallel to that plane. If we look along a direction perpendicular to this glide-plane, the projections of the two molecules on the (010) plane are indistinguishable except in position, which is equivalent to saying that, for the purposes of X-ray interference, certain planes perpendicular to this plane of projection are interleaved by an identical molecular distribution. Furthermore, since the translation associated with the glide-plane must always be half a primitive translation parallel to the glide-plane, we know that the interleaving is always a submultiple of the full spacing and the periodicity is again reduced in a corresponding manner. The use of this method for discriminating between the various space-groups of the monoclinic system was described by Sir Wm. Bragg in a lecture to the Chemical Society. In the present paper the method has been extended to the whole of the 230 space-groups possible to crystalline structures. In general, it may be said that if a crystal possesses a certain glide-plane, a certain set of planes lying in the zone whose axis is perpendicular to that glide-plane will have their periodicity reduced by one-half.


Actinic keratosis (AK) is an evolving malignant cutaneous neoplasm. AK also is known as solar keratosis and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in situ, either solar keratotic type or keratinocytic intraepidermal neoplasia. AKs can be treated with destructive or topical therapies. This article reviews current and evolving topical therapeutic options for AKs, several of which have been shown to offer substantial benefit in the alleviation of these lesions. The topical therapies include 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), diclofenac sodium, colchicine, retinoids, and imiquimod. Topical treatment of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) with imiquimod also will be discussed.


UNLABELLED
This study concerns the testicular uptake and dosimetry of Auger electron-emitting radionuclides that are used during routine diagnostic nuclear medicine procedures. To consider the possible effects of these radionuclides on spermatogenic cells, a study has been undertaken to obtain in vivo data for quantification of (111)In chloride and (201)Tl chloride uptake into the human testis after intravenous administration. Values have been determined for uptake into the testis as a whole and to the seminiferous tubules where the germ cells are located.

METHODS
Data were obtained from patients with prostate cancer who opted for orchidectomy to effect hormone suppression. Patients were administered intravenously 1.5 MBq of either (111)In chloride or (201)Tl chloride at 24 or 48 h before orchidectomy. Upon removal, the testes were analyzed to assess uptake of radionuclide. Conventional dosimetry has been used to estimate testicular radiation doses using our values of percentage uptake.

RESULTS
Uptake of both (111)In chloride and (201)Tl chloride into the testes was seen at a level above that explained by simple homogeneous distribution of the radionuclide throughout the body; the testes as a whole demonstrated increased uptake by factors of 3.56 and 4.01 compared with nonspecific uptake for (111)In and (201)Tl, respectively, at 24 h after administration. Both radionuclides gained access to the seminiferous tubules.

CONCLUSION
The results obtained indicate that the values of testicular radiation doses quoted by the International Commission on Radiological Protection for (111)In might be too low by a factor of 4, whereas those for (201)Tl might be too high by a factor of 4. No data were obtained for uptake by individual germ cells within the testis and, therefore, no consideration of dosimetry at the cellular level was possible. However, it has been demonstrated that uptake of diagnostic Auger electron-emitting radionuclides by male germ cells within the testis is possible after intravenous administration.


The authors present a study of the transverse momentum distribution of relativistic alpha particles emerging from the interaction of 12C and emulsion at 4.5 GeV/c per nucleon. A large statistics study of 1200 events when compared with the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution reveals the existence of two temperatures, a hot and a cold, since a single Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution cannot fit the peak and the tail simultaneously. This yield of two distinctly different temperatures in the fragmentation region may be interpreted as a possible signal for the formation of a quark-gluon plasma.


Aim: This study aimed to investigate effects of rations containing formaldehyde-protected soybean meal on meat production in Kacang goats. Materials and Methods: Fourteen yearling Kacang bucks, weighing 15.8-19.8 kg, were arranged in a completely randomized design. The treatments included a control (PSBM0): 100% untreated SBM; PSBM50: 50% untreated SBM + 50% formaldehyde-protected SBM; and PSBM100: 100% formaldehyde-protected SBM. Results: The goats disliked the protected SBM. Therefore, differences in their intakes were reflected in their average daily gain (ADG). The ADG and slaughtered weight of the control group were the highest, while those of the PSBM100 and PSBM50 groups were similar. The carcass weights and meat production of the control group were higher than those of the PSBM50 group, but the retained protein to the meat conversion ratio of the PSBM50 group was lower than that of the control. The carcass percentages were similar between the treatments. Conclusion: The retained protein to meat conversion ratio of Kacang goats fed with 50% formaldehyde-protected SBM showed the lowest value, indicating that these rations efficiently produced meat in the carcass.


ANTARCTIC CHLAMYDOMONAS STRAINS C. SP. UWO241 AND ICE-MDV EXHIBIT DIFFERENTIAL RESTRUCTURING OF THE PHOTOSYNTHETIC APPPARATUS IN RESPONSE TO IRON by Gregory P. Cook Jr. As an integral cofactor for many redox-associated processes, iron (Fe) homeostasis is crucial in order to produce sufficient energy for the organism. Fe limitation, or excess, can cause major alterations in the function and structure of the photosynthetic apparatus. Photosynthetic psychrophiles grown under permanent low temperatures exhibit novel adaptations in their photosynthetic apparatus to deal with this permanent stress. The icecovered lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys harbor many species of cold-adapted algae, including Chlamydomonas sp. UWO241 (UWO241). As a consequence of adaptation to multiple permanent extreme conditions, UWO241 exhibits a remodeled photosynthetic apparatus for maintaining redox poise. One unusual characteristic of UWO241 is the absence of a PSI-associated 77K fluorescence emission under a wide range of growth conditions. This phenotype resembles Fe deficiency in other model organisms such as C. reinhardtii. We hypothesized that adaptation to permanent iron deficiency in its native environment may contribute to this unusual phenotype. We compared the effect of Fe availability on the physiology and photobiology of UWO241 with the model C. reinhardtii as well as a second psychrophilic alga, Chlamydomonas sp. ICE-MDV (ICE). The impacts of a restructured photosynthetic apparatus on the unique Fe-associated phenotype in UWO241 will be discussed. ANTARCTIC CHLAMYDOMONAS STRAINS C. SP. UWO241 AND ICE-MDV EXHIBIT DIFFERENTIAL RESTRUCTURING OF THE PHOTOSYNTHETIC APPPARATUS IN RESPONSE TO IRON


INTRODUCTION
Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) is a curable and partially preventable complication, with a substantial incidence, leading to severe morbidity and mortality. The aim of the present study was to find out the incidence of CTEPH secondary to acute pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) using non-invasive procedures such as ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) scintigraphy and pulmonary multidetector CT (MDCT) angiography in determining the diagnosis of CTEPH.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study included a total of 99 patients diagnosed with initial PTE between January 2010 and December 2012. The patients who received anticoagulant therapy at least for three months underwent transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) (n= 85). Thirty one patients with a SPAP value > 30 mmHg and/or an evidence of right ventricular dysfunction in TTE underwent MDCT pulmonary angiography and V/Q scintigraphy. The patients with an evidence of residual chronic thromboembolic signs in MDCT pulmonary angiography and/or segmental perfusion defect(s) in V/Q scintigraphy underwent right heart catheterization (RHC) (n= 7). The mean PAP was measured, and a vasoreactivity test was performed. During RHC, a non-contrast medium was delivered to the pulmonary arteries for pulmonary arteriography imaging.

RESULTS
Among patients diagnosed with PTE, 44 were male and 55 were female. The mean age was 60 ± 17 years. Of these patients, 63.6% had history of at least one additional disease and at least one risk factor for PTE. During diagnosis, 24 subjects were considered having massive, 61 submassive and 14 non-massive PTE. Nineteen (19.1%) patients received thrombolythic therapy. Other 80 (80.8%) patients received standard anticoagulant therapy with an INR value within the therapeutic range. In 79.8% of patients, thromboembolism was bilateral, and it was unilateral in 21.8%. After a minimum of 1 year, and maximum of 2 years follow up five subjects (5.5%) were diagnosed with CTEPH. The univariate analysis showed no association between the development of CTEPH and factors like; age, etiologic risk factors for PTE, receiving thrombolytic treatment, prevalence and type of PTE.

CONCLUSION
Potentially preventabl complication of pulmonary embolism; CTEPH, had a substantial incidence during follow-up.


Electron transfer rates are predicted by numerical methods, in a collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory . Emphasis is on electron transfer involving ions known to be important in enhancing stress corrosion cracking in light water reactors and on electron transfer at oxide surfaces. We have produced a new theory for description of the Jahn Teller effect in the solvation shell of the cuprous ion in aqueous solution, have implemented it in a molecular dynamics simulation and compared the results with experimental neutron scattering measurements on solutions containing the cuprous ion. A large amount of numerical data has been collected on the transition state of the ferrous ferric electron transfer reaction at an electrode. Work was completed on a polarizable and dissociable model of water for use in the electron transfer studies. New calculations of the conductivity in models of oxides have shown the existence of impurity conduction bands in such models for the first time.


This paper investigates the performance of several kernel functions of support vector machine in detecting asphyxia from infant cries. In this study, Mel frequency cepstrum coefficients derived from the recorded infant cries were used as the input vectors. These input vectors were trained and classified using support vector machine. Four types of kernels - linear, quadratic, polynomial and radial basic function, were experimented and compared. Accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were adopted as criteria to obtain the best kernel. Experimental results showed that radial basic function kernel (σ = 35) is the best kernel with an accuracy of 85.15%, sensitivity of 91% and specificity of 71%.


The Croatian offshore hydrocarbon province is highly under-explored. From a total number of 128 exploration wells, 96 were drilled in the North Adriatic Sea, 27 in the Central Adriatic Sea and only 5 in the South Adriatic Sea. Most of exploration wells were drilled to test the Pliocene shallow sandstone biogenic gas play, which has been in production since the end of the twentieth century. However, the deep Mesozoic oil plays are still heavily under-explored. By interpreting regional studies, offshore well datasets and 2D seismic lines acquired by Spectrum in 2013, this study identified two new interesting explorative plays: Structural Karst play (Triassic/Jurassic); Slope Calciturbidites play (Cretaceous/Eocene). 2D petroleum system modeling was performed along a representative interpreted seismic section to define the potential and the exploration risk of  the two plays. The results show that all critical elements for a working petroleum system are present for both plays. Several fluid-saturated traps are present in the Cretaceous and Jurassic reservoirs with an indicative total depth between 3500 and 5500 m and in water depth from 500 to 1200 m. For the Structural Karst play the main uncertainties are related to the quality and efficiency of the reservoir, while for the Slope Calciturbidites play the main uncertainty is related to the sealing efficiency.


Ripening changes in respiration rates, ethylene emanation, flesh firmness and color development of plum (Prunus salicina Lindl.) fruits were investigated using 3 cultivars of `Ooishi Wase', `Beauty' and `Santa Rosa'. The fruits were picked 2-6 times at different stages of maturity and stored at 20°C. Respiration rate on the tree, which was estimated by measuring the CO2 output of the fruit 24 hours after harvest, showed a climacteric pattern in all of the 3 cultivars. In early maturing cultivars (`Ooishi Wase' and `Beauty'), the rise of respiration rate occurred earlier and progressed more rapidly than that of late maturing cultivar (`Santa Rosa'). The changes in respiration rate during 20°C storage were different with the stages at harvest in all of the 3 cultivars. That is, there were no respiratory climactric rise nor rise in ethylene emanation, unless the fruits were harvested at and after climacteric minimum on the tree. In `Ooishi Wase' and `Beauty', the climacteric rise advanced rapidly with red color development and softening of flesh, while in `Santa Rosa', the climacteric rise and softening of flesh advanced much more slowly than color development. The free abscisic acid content of attached fruits increased with the rise in respiration rate during ripening on the tree. That of detached fruits also increased even when the fruit was harvested earlier and showed no climacteric rise during storage. The fruits treated with 500 ppm ethylene for 48 hours after harvest did not induce a respiratory climacteric, an ethylene rise nor hastening of ripening, unless they were harvested at and after climacteric minimum.


Background:Intensive care unit (ICU) stays are 2.5 times more costly than other hospital stays, and 93.3% of ICU use is for respiratory disease with ventilator support. The aim of this study was to assess the role of bronchoscopy on discontinuation of mechanical ventilation, and prompt discharge from ICU in our institution. Methods:Retrospective review of medical records of patients referred for bronchoscopic intervention for acute respiratory failure from malignant or benign central airway diseases requiring ICU admission. Results:Twelve critically ill patients were studied. Median (range) age was 63 years (range, 35 to 85 y). Nine (75%) had endotracheal tube, and 3 (25%) had tracheostomy tube. Nine (75%) of 12 patients admitted to ICU could be transferred to general ward after median (range) interval of 2 days (range, 1 to 7 d) after the day of intervention. Median (range) prebronchoscopy and postbronchoscopy PaO2/FiO2 ratio was 102.8 (range, 99.2 to 328) and 180 (range, 129 to 380), respectively, with significant improvement postintervention (P=0.002). Radiologically, all 8 patients with lung atelectasis on presentation experienced complete reexpansion of the lung on the day after bronchoscopic intervention. Conclusion:The majority of patients in our cohort (75%) of benign and malignant etiology could be promptly (within 2 d postbronchoscopy) transferred out from ICU to general ward after successful discontinuation of mechanical ventilation and extubation after bronchoscopic intervention. We advocate early recognition and bronchoscopic intervention in suitable patients.


The Indian sex ratio has shown a secular decline since beginning of the 20th century, with exceptional improvements during 1951, 1981 and 2001.The female sex ratio is continuously decreasing from 1961 (941 per 1000 male) and now in 2011 it is 940 per 1000 males. Similarly, the child sex ratio (0-6 age) decreased from 976 to 914 per 1000. The child sex ratio in Rajasthan is declining from the last three decades; it was 915 and 910 in 1991, and 2001, respectively. At present in 2011 it is 883 per 1000 boys (0-6 year). The study is an attempt to understand the socio-cultural factors of the female foeticide or decline sex ratio. The purpose of the study was to identify status of the girl child in Indian society; it is an assessment of the knowledge, awareness and practices of the community which are responsible for the decline sex ratio in India. Rajasthan, the desert state of India, was selected for the study. It is a cross-sectional study (rural and urban) and determined factors for female foeticide. Total 329 respondents from different categories-.Married Women, Abortion Users, Married Male and Unmarried Girls, were selected for the study.


These regulations authorize the following exceptions to the one child per couple policy for urban couples: a couple may have a second child when a) the first child is deformed with a non-hereditary disease that prevents the child from growing up to be an able-bodied worker; b) when one spouse of a remarried couple has had only one child and the other spouse has had none, or when both have had a child, but the children have been placed by court order in the custody of the ex-spouses; c) when the wife becomes pregnant and the couple has already adopted a child because either one or both spouses was medically determined to be sterile; d) when both spouses are single children; and e) when either or both of the spouses have worked in a mine or under water continuously for more than five years. For rural couples, the regulations described in a) to d) above are applicable. In addition, a couple may have a second child if their first child is a girl. The interval between the birth of the two children must be no less than four years. Ethnic minority couples living in minority regions are allowed to have two children, and in special circumstances three children. Having a fourth child is strictly forbidden.


Fibrinogen (Fg) is a pro-inflammatory protein with pro-healing properties. Previous work showed that Fg scaffolds (Fg-3D) promote bone regeneration, but the cellular players were not identified. Osteoclasts are bone resorbing cells, that promote bone remodeling in close crosstalk with osteoblasts. Herein, the capacity of osteoclasts differentiated on Fg-3D to degrade the scaffolds and promote osteoblast differentiation were evaluated in vitro. Fg-3D scaffolds were prepared by freeze-drying and osteoclasts were differentiated from primary human peripheral blood monocytes. Results obtained showed osteoclasts expressing the enzymes cathepsin K and tartrate resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) colonizing Fg-3D scaffolds. Osteoclasts were able to significantly degrade Fg-3D, reducing the scaffold's area, and increasing D-dimer concentration, a Fg degradation product, in their culture media. Osteoclast conditioned media from the first week of differentiation promoted significantly stronger human primary mesenchymal stem/stromal cell (MSC) osteogenic differentiation, evaluated by alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity. Moreover, week 1 osteoclast conditioned media promoted earlier MSC osteogenic differentiation, than chemical osteogenesis inductors. TGF-β1 was found increased in osteoclast conditioned media from week 1, when compared to week 3 of differentiation. Taken together, our results suggest that osteoclasts are able to differentiate and degrade Fg-3D, producing factors like TGF-β1 that promote MSC osteogenic differentiation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Optimization problems in cancer radiation therapy are considered, with the efficiency functional defined as the difference between expected survival probabilities for normal and neoplastic tissues. Precise upper bounds of the efficiency functional over natural classes of cellular response functions are found. The 'Lipschitz' upper bound gives rise to a new family of probability metrics. In the framework of the 'm hit-one target' model of irradiated cell survival the problem of optimal fractionation of the given total dose into n fractions is treated. For m = 1, n arbitrary, and n = 1, 2, m arbitrary, complete solution is obtained. In other cases an approximation procedure is constructed. Stability of extremal values and upper bounds of the efficiency functional with respect to perturbation of radiosensitivity distributions for normal and tumor tissues is demonstrated.


Purpose Bone marrow biopsy is a standard method for the evaluation of bone marrow infiltration by lymphoma; however, it is an invasive and painful procedure. Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography–computed tomography (FDG PET-CT) is a noninvasive imaging technique with the potential to detect bone marrow involvement by lymphoma. Materials and Methods We retrospectively reviewed medical records of lymphoma patients. All patients were examined by FDG PET-CT and iliac crest bone marrow biopsy for initial staging work-up. Results The study population comprised 94 patients (median age, 60 years; 56 males) with Hodgkin's lymphoma (n=8) or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (n=86). Maximum standardized uptake values on the iliac crest of patients with lymphoma infiltrated bone marrow were significantly higher than those of patients with intact bone marrow (2.2±1.2 g/mL vs. 1.3±0.4 g/mL; p=0.001). The calculated values for FDG PET-CT during evaluation of bone marrow involvement were as follows: sensitivity 50%, specificity 96%, positive predictive value 80%, negative predictive value 85%, and positive likelihood ratio (LR+) 11.7. The value of LR+ was 16.0 in patients with aggressive subtypes of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Conclusion FDG PET-CT could not replace bone marrow biopsy due to the low sensitivity of FDG PET-CT for detection of bone marrow infiltration in lymphoma patients. Conversely, FDG PET-CT had high specificity and LR+; therefore, it could be a useful tool for image-guided biopsy for lymphoma staging, especially for aggressive subtypes of NHL. In addition, unilateral bone marrow biopsy could be substituted for bilateral bone marrow biopsy in lymphoma patients with increased FDG uptake on any iliac crest.


We study information-theoretic security for discrete memoryless interference and broadcast channels with independent confidential messages sent to two receivers. Confidential messages are transmitted to their respective receivers while ensuring mutual information-theoretic secrecy. That is, each receiver is kept in total ignorance with respect to the message intended for the other receiver. The secrecy level is measured by the equivocation rate at the eavesdropping receiver. In this paper, we present inner and outer bounds on secrecy capacity regions for these two communication systems. The derived outer bounds have an identical mutual information expression that applies to both channel models. The difference is in the input distributions over which the expression is optimized. The inner bound rate regions are achieved by random binning techniques. For the broadcast channel, a double-binning coding scheme allows for both joint encoding and preserving of confidentiality. Furthermore, we show that, for a special case of the interference channel, referred to as the switch channel, derived bounds meet. Finally, we describe several transmission schemes for Gaussian interference channels and derive their achievable rate regions while ensuring mutual information-theoretic secrecy. An encoding scheme in which transmitters dedicate some of their power to create artificial noise is proposed and shown to outperform both time-sharing and simple multiplexed transmission of the confidential messages.


Biological staging of individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) may improve diagnostic and prognostic work-up of dementia in clinical practice and the design of clinical trials. Here, we created a staging model using the Subtype and Stage Inference (SuStaIn) algorithm by evaluating cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) amyloid-{beta} (A{beta}) and tau biomarkers in 426 participants from BioFINDER-2, that represent the entire spectrum of AD. The model composition and main analyses were replicated in 222 participants from the Knight ADRC cohort. SuStaIn revealed in the two cohorts that the data was best explained by a single biomarker sequence (one subtype), and that five CSF biomarkers (ordered: A{beta}42/40, tau phosphorylation occupancies at the residues 217 and 205 [pT217/T217 and pT205/T205], microtubule-binding region of tau containing the residue 243 [MTBR-tau243], and total tau) were sufficient to create an accurate disease staging model. Increasing CSF stages (0-5) were associated with increased abnormality in other AD-related biomarkers, such as A{beta}- and tau-PET, and aligned with different phases of longitudinal biomarker changes consistent with current models of AD progression. Higher CSF stages at baseline were associated with higher hazard ratio of clinical decline. Our findings indicate that a common pathophysiologic molecular pathway develops across all AD patients, and that a single CSF collection is sufficient to reliably indicate the presence of both AD pathologies and the degree and stage of disease progression.


In this paper, we address natural human-robot interaction (HRI) in a smart assisted living (SAIL) system for the elderly and the disabled. Two common HRI problems are studied: hand gesture recognition and daily activity recognition. For hand gesture recognition, we implemented a neural network for gesture spotting and a hierarchical hidden Markov model for context-based recognition. For daily activity recognition, a multisensor fusion scheme is developed to process motion data collected from the foot and the waist of a human subject. Experiments using a prototype wearable sensor system show the effectiveness and accuracy of our algorithms.


Synthesis of enantiomerically pure propargyl alcohols is one of the most important tools in organic synthesis. Base-induced elimination of β-alkoxy chlorides could offer enantiomerically pure propargyl alcohols corresponding to their precursor. This protocol has been serving organic synthesis methods for three decades and has shown its enormous utility in the synthesis of a variety of natural products and small molecules. In this review, for the first time we compile the applications of the "base-induced elimination of β-alkoxy chlorides" protocol (BIEP) in the total synthesis of natural products. Furthermore, we discuss the scope and how this protocol could be a promising tool to generate propargyl alcohols.


Previous research has highlighted the advantages of graphical argument representations. A number of tutoring systems have been built that support students in rendering arguments graphically, as they learn argumentation skills. The relative tutoring benefits of graphical argument representations have not been reliably shown, however. In this paper we present an evaluation of the LARGO system which enables law students graphically to represent examples of legal interpretation with hypotheticals they observe while reading texts of U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments. We hypothesized that LARGO's graphical representations and advice would help students to identify important elements of the arguments (i.e., proposed hypotheses, hypothetical challenges, and responses) and to reflect on their significance to the argument's merits better than a purely text-based alternative. In an experiment, we found some empirical support for this hypothesis.


Particle accelerator has mainly used in nuclear field only because of the large scale of the facility. However, since laser-plasma particle accelerator which has smaller size and spends less cost developed, the availability of this accelerator is expended to various research fields such as industrial and medical. This paper suggests a visualization system to control the laser-plasma particle accelerator efficiently. This system offers real-time 3D images via convert HDF file comes from plasma data obtained from PIC simulation into OpenGL texture type to analyse and modify plasma data. After that, it stores high-resolution rendering images of the data with external renderer hereafter.


BRTNICKÝ MARTIN, ELBL JAKUB, DVOŘÁČKOVÁ HELENA, KYNICKÝ JINDŘICH, HLADKÝ JAN. 2017. Changes in Soil Aggregate Stability Induced by Mineral Nitrogen Fertilizer Application. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, 65(5): 1477–1482. The stability of soil aggregates is one of the most important characteristics of the soil affecting the overall soil quality and its health. In locality Březová nad Svitavou, experiment to reveal the effect of nitrogen dose on the stability of soil aggregates of Rendzina soil was carried out. The aim was to detect changes in soil aggregate stability after 4 and 5 years from the beginning of the experiment. There were tested 7 variants, prepared in triplicate. The results revealed that the stability of soil aggregates decreases with increasing amounts of applied N. Effect of N application was not statistically significant in the fourth but in the fifth year of the experiment. The results also revealed a significant deterioration in the stability of soil aggregates in the fifth year compared to the fourth year of the experiment.


Grazing is considered a normal behavior for dairy cattle, although they may not be able to meet their nutritional requirements from grazing alone, and so to sustain higher yields requires access to a total mixed ration (TMR). The study aim was to provide dairy cows with access to TMR indoors and on pasture to establish influence on behavior and preference for each location. The study took place from August to November, 2009, using 36 late-lactation Holstein-Friesian dairy cows. The cows were allocated to 1 of 3 26-d study periods (n=12×3). Within each period the cows were further divided into a control (n=6) or treatment (n=6) group using a crossover design, where the cows were changed between the control and treatment group after 13 d. Treatment cows had access to TMR indoors and on pasture, whereas control cows only had access to TMR indoors. Following a.m. and p.m. milkings the cows were taken to a point equidistant between indoors and pasture and given the choice of going to pasture (1.5 ha) or to a freestall barn. Between milkings the cows had free access between the locations. Initial choice was recorded and a video camera was used to record time spent in each location. Behavior observations were recorded to establish how the cows spent their time during the day. To determine what factors influenced preference, weather conditions, milk yield, body condition score, and lameness were recorded. Initially, the cows chose indoors following milking (96.4±0.80%). Overall, the cows expressed a partial preference for pasture (71.1±1.82%), which was different from 100, 50, and 0%. Study period influenced preference with cows spending less time on pasture as the season progressed (86.7 vs. 68.3 vs. 58.3% for study periods 1, 2, and 3, respectively). Providing the cows with TMR outdoors did not affect pasture use, but resulted in an increase in TMR intake of 2.2±0.41 kg of dry matter/d. The cows spent more time on pasture as the temperature-humidity index indoors (55.6±0.92) and outdoors (54.6±0.82) increased, but rainfall and milk yield did not influence preference. Cows with lameness score >1.5 spent more time indoors (35.4±4.52 vs. 25.2±2.64% for cows with >1.5 vs. ≤1.5 lameness score, respectively). In conclusion, the cows expressed a partial preference for pasture, which was not influenced by providing TMR on pasture.


Background Interferon (IFN)-α has been largely implicated in the ethiopathogenesis of SLE. The activation of IFN-α might be important in the prognosis and activity assessment of the disease. CD64 (FcγRI) is upregulated on monocytes as a response to IFN-I1. Flow cytometry analysis of mCD64 expression (Mean Fluorescence Intensity) is a convenient and rapid approach for estimating IFN-α levels in SLE patients. Additionally, macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF), which is involved in the differentiation of monocyte/macrophage, affects CD64 expression on monocyte2 has been reported to increase in levels in SLE patients,3 and is also involved in SLE disease activity4. mCD64 can be the quantified easily and the measurement is consistent among the respective facilities. However, the quantitative mCD64 of SLE patients has not been reported. Objectives We investigated the levels of mCD64 by quantitative flow cytometry to assess the usefulness of it as a SLE disease activity biomarker. Methods 30 SLE patients (10 active SLE, 20 inactive SLE) and 20 healthy controls (HC) were in this study. SLE disease activity was evaluated using by SLE-Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI) score. mCD64, SLE activity biomarkers (anti-DNA antibody and complement titer (CH50)), IFN-α and M-CSF were measured in SLE patients. mCD64 was measured by a quantitative flow cytometry using fluorescene microbeads. INF-α and M-CSF levels were measured using an enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay (ELISA). Correlational analysis between levels of mCD64, SLEDAI, SLE activity biomarkers, INF-α and M-CSF in each group were evaluated. Results Disease activity markers are shown Table 1. The variables with significant difference between active SLE and inactive SLE were SLEDAI (p<0.05), CH50 (p<0.05), anti DNA antibody (p<0.05), mCD64 (p<0.05), IFN-α (p<0.05), M-CSF (p<0.05).mCD64 levels were correlated with SLEDAI (r=0.6669, p<0.001), anti-DNA antibody (r=0.6887, p<0.05) and CH50 (r=-0.6928, p<0.001), but were not correlated with C3 or C4 levels (data not shown). Further, mCD64 levels were correlated with IFN-α (r=0.6089, p<0.001) and M-CSF (r=0.64443, p<0.001) Table 1. Disease activity markers in SLE patients (mean ± SD) Active SLE Inactive SLE SLEDAI 1.3±30.39 3.0±4.92 Anti-DNA antibody (IU/ml) 144.1±146.7 12.4±10.83 CH50 (U/ml) 25.3±19.16 41.4±13.08 mCD64 (molecules/cell) 38152±15323 21955±5359 IFN-α (pg/ml) 30.4±57.1 7.7±4.9 M-CSF (pg/ml) 752.9±580.7 356.9±124 Conclusions This study suggests that quantitative CD64 molecules expressed on monocytes can be a useful disease activity biomarker in SLE patients. References Li, Y. et al. Arthritis Research & Therapy 2010, 12:R90 Ji XH et al. Acta Pharmacol Sin. 2004; 25(10): 1361-5 Yang PT et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2008, 67(3): 429-30 Tsuji S. et al. The Journal of Tokyo Medical University vol.70, No.1: 151-8 Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.2824


Disturbance sounds to deter antagonists are widespread among insects but have never been recorded for the larvae of bees. Here, we report on the production of disturbance sounds by the postdefecating larva ("prepupa") of the Palaearctic osmiine bee Hoplitis (Alcidamea) tridentata, which constructs linear series of brood cells in excavated burrows in pithy plant stems. Upon disturbance, the prepupa produces two types of sounds, one of which can be heard up to a distance of 2–3 m ("stroking sounds"), whereas the other is scarcely audible by bare ear ("tapping sounds"). To produce the stroking sounds, the prepupa rapidly pulls a horseshoe-shaped callosity around the anus one to five times in quick succession over the cocoon wall before it starts to produce tapping sounds by knocking a triangularly shaped callosity on the clypeus against the cocoon wall in long uninterrupted series of one to four knocks per second. Sound analysis revealed that the stroking sounds consist of several syllables, which are very similar to the single syllables of the tapping sounds: both last about 0.5 ms and spread over 40 kHz bandwidth from the audible far into the ultrasonic range. The production of stroking sounds by a prepupa induces other prepupae of the same nest to stroke and/or to tap resulting in a long-lasting and simultaneous albeit unsynchronized percussion by numerous prepupae along the whole nest stem. We hypothesize that these disturbance sounds serve an anti-antagonist function and that they have evolved to disturb the reflectance signals that parasitoid wasps use to localize concealed hosts during vibrational sounding.


Abstract Using a set of 80 globally distributed time series of near-inertial and semidiurnal energy E and energy flux F computed from historical moorings, the group velocity ĉg ≡ FE−1 is estimated. For a single free wave, observed group speed |ĉg| should equal that expected from linear wave theory. For comparison, the latitude dependence of perceived group speed for perfectly standing waves is also derived. The latitudinal dependence of observed semidiurnal |ĉg| closely follows that expected for free waves at all latitudes, implying that 1) low-mode internal tides obey linear theory and 2) standing internal-tidal waves are rare in the deep ocean for latitudes equatorward of about 35°. At higher latitudes, standing waves cannot be easily distinguished from free waves using this method because their expected group speeds are similar. Near-inertial waves exhibit scattered |ĉg| values consistent with the passage of events generated at various latitudes, with implied frequencies ω ≈ 1.05–1.25 × f, as typically...


Abstract. Efendi M. 2019. Native Begonia Baturaden Botanic Gardens, Central Java. Pros Sem Nas Masy Biodiv Indon 5: 13-17. A survey on native Begonia was conducted on Baturaden Botanic Gardens, Central Java. Exploration methods were used to inventory of wild begonia in thus areas. Five begonias, namely B. areolata, B. longifolia, B. multangula, B. atricha, and B. muricata were described. Locally, Begonia atricha, B. multangula and B. longifolia were used for medicinal plants, while Begonia atricha, with red leaves and green spotted, have been sold as ornamental plants. Further, begonia cultivation training needed to prevent over-exploitation in their natural habitat.


In this short note, we prove the supersymmetric Kawai-Lewellen-Tye (KLT) relations between [FORMULA] supergravity (SUGRA) and [FORMULA] super Yang-Mills (SYM) tree-level amplitudes in the frame of S-matrix program, especially we do not use string theory or the explicit Lagrangian form of corresponding theories. Our supersymmetric KLT relations naturally unify the non-supersymmetric KLT relations and newly discovered gauge theory identities and produce more identities for amplitudes involving scalars and fermions. We point out also that these newly discovered identities can be used to reduce helicity basis from (n − 3)! further down.


Individuals within populations often show consistent variation in behavioural and physiological traits which are frequently inter-correlated, potentially leading to phenotypic integration. Understanding the mechanisms behind such integration is a key task in evolutionary ecology, and melanin based colouration has been suggested to play a pivotal role. In birds, most of plumage colour variation is determined by two types of melanin, eumelanin and phaeomelanin, but the role of phaeomelanin in avian phenotype integration has been barely investigated. Here, we test for covariation between phaeomelanin-based colouration, behavioural traits (i.e. nest territoriality, aggressiveness, breath rate and parental behaviour) and corticosterone in feathers in the polymorphic scops owl Otus scops, a bird species in which more phaeomelanic individuals display reddish colourations. In males, we observed that reddish males took longer to return to their nests and showed higher levels of feather CORT than more greyish ones. Behaviour and feather CORT were not associated to plumage colour in females. The found associations between redness, behaviour and feather CORT in males, but not in females, might suggest the existence of a sex-specific integrated phaeomelanic phenotype in scops owls.