In this study, we assessed the rate of estradiol degradation via the 17 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (HSD) enzyme in breast tumors from postmenopausal women. We initially studied the effects of time, level of enzyme activity, amount of tissue assayed, and substrate concentration on the linearity of conversion of estradiol to estrone in breast tumor homogenates. The reaction was demonstrated to be linear when less than 15% conversion of estradiol to estrone occurred over 30 min with homogenates produced from 2.5 mg of tissue. Detailed kinetic experiments demonstrated the presence of two classes of enzyme activity, one with high affinity and the other with low affinity. In 83% of the tumors examined, the high affinity form was present and had a median Km of 0.62 microM and Vmax of 82 nmol/g protein/h. In 29 tumors, HSD activity could be precisely quantified and correlated with clinical parameters. No statistically significant correlation of enzyme activity with estrogen receptor (r2 = 0.06) or progesterone receptor (r2 = 0.006) or with patient age could be detected (r2 = 0.001). In 12 additional tumors, activity exceeded 15% conversion of estradiol to estrone at 30 min and precise quantitation was not possible. The average content of progesterone receptor was similar for these 12 tumors as for the 19 with lower HSD activity. However, estrogen receptor content and patient age were lower in the group with high HSD activity. The finding of a high affinity form of HSD in this study provides support for the biological importance of this enzyme in breast cancer tissues.


It is widely accepted that heavy metal contamination in sediment, soil, and groundwater is one of the largest threats to environmental and human health. Sediments are the principle sinks for heavy metals in aquatic environments and can result in a secondary contamination source affecting the ecosystem. Analysis of heavy metal amounts in sediments and comparison with reference levels is a reliable indicator of ecosystem health, however understanding the distribution of pollutants is among most essential information for environmental research and critical for environmental management and decision-making. 64 samples were collected from surface (0–0.6 m) and subsurface (0.6–1.2 m) layers of sediments in the northern part (bay) of Lake Babrukas, which had undergone pollution by municipal wastewater in 1964–2002. The level of pollution attributed to heavy metals was evaluated using X-Ray fluorescence analysis and comparison with several reference levels (maximum allowable concentrations in soil, background concentrations in Lithuanian soils and background concentrations in Lithuanian lake sediments) in order to determine anthropogenically derived sediment contamination of bottom sediments. Spatial distribution patterns of metals in sediments were demonstrated by employing ordinary kriging interpolation. Results of heavy metal pollution analysis reveal a significant anthropogenic impact on the northern part of Lake Babrukas with concentrations of several heavy metals in both surface and subsurface layers of sediments exceeding not only background concentrations in Lithuanian soils and lake sediments, but even maximum concentrations allowable by Lithuanian legislation. Detected levels of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), antimony (Sb), mercury (Hg) and tin (Sn) demonstrate a significant pollution anomaly and high potential threat to the water ecosystem and even human health by exceeding maximum allowable concentration up to 10.6 times, while detected levels of chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), and zinc (Zn) show the effects of anthropogenic activity on the lake by exceeding background concentrations in Lithuanian soils and lake sediments up to 7.25 times. A comparison of heavy metal amounts and spatial distribution patterns in the two layers of sediments reveals much higher pollution levels in the subsurface (0.6–1.2 m) than surface (0–0.6 m) level by most metals, namely As, Cd, Hg, Ni, Sb and Sn, while Zn was the only metal with higher concentrations in the surface level. Spatial distribution analysis demonstrates irregular distribution of most metals due to complexity of influencing physical and chemical processes, but the general trend of high concentration anomalies stretching through the south-eastern and north-eastern parts of the bay towards its northern point is explained by former discharges of wastewater into the littoral zone of the eastern shoreline and water currents towards excess water overflow into Lake Lovka (Olauka), interconnected with Lake Babrukas in the north.


Almost two decades after the establishment of the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE), the European VLBI Network is a thriving scientific infrastructure with a significant user community and a healthy proposal pressure. It offers opportunities to address a breadth of important scientific topics, which feature in national and European astronomy roadmaps. Most of these science themes call for further enhancements of the sensitivity and image quality delivered by VLBI networks. The exceptional progress of e-VLBI over the last five years demonstrates how sensitive VLBI should be done in the future. At the same time JIVE is pushing the technology for large capacity correlators that can connect VLBI networks with many elements in real-time. Indeed, many new initiatives to build or outfit telescopes for VLBI are emerging from around the world. The technological VLBI developments have a great synergy with the SKA preparations. This is recognized in the SKA pathfinder role that e-VLBI has in the European VLBI Network for exploring connectivity and real-time science techniques. Moreover, VLBI with its locally visible elements offers great possibilities for training and outreach. With the new scientific capabilities, especially those complementary to other SKA pathfinders, VLBI will be a flourishing scientific instrument for the future.


A distinctive feature of the presence of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in QCD is the condensation of low modes of the Dirac operator near the origin. The rate of condensation must be equal to the slope of M(π)(2)F(π)(2)/2 with respect to the quark mass m in the chiral limit, where M(π) and F(π) are the mass and the decay constant of the Nambu-Goldstone bosons. We compute the spectral density of the (Hermitian) Dirac operator, the quark mass, the pseudoscalar meson mass, and decay constant by numerical simulations of lattice QCD with two light degenerate Wilson quarks. We use lattices generated by the Coordinated Lattice Simulation (CLS) group at three values of the lattice spacing in the range 0.05-0.08 fm, and for several quark masses corresponding to pseudoscalar mesons masses down to 190 MeV. Thanks to this coverage of parameters space, we can extrapolate all quantities to the chiral and continuum limits with confidence. The results show that the low quark modes do condense in the continuum as expected by the Banks-Casher mechanism, and the rate of condensation agrees with the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation. For the renormalization-group-invariant ratios we obtain [Σ(RGI)](1/3)/F=2.77(2)(4) and Λ(M̅S)/F=3.6(2), which correspond to [Σ(M̅S)(2  GeV)](1/3)=263(3)(4)  MeV and F=85.8(7)(20)  MeV if F(K) is used to set the scale by supplementing the theory with a quenched strange quark.


Results of unsteady two-dimensional numerical simulations for the turbulent flow over the semi-cylindrical profile at Reynolds number 45000 are presented. Three different turbulence RANS eddy viscosity models are used for the simulation. The calculations show the formation of alternating large-scale vortices shed in the wake of the body. The calculated averaged pressure distribution on the contour demonstrate a good agreement with the experimental data. A series of calculations have been performed for the estimation of influence of mesh resolution in the wake of streamlined body on the unsteady solution accuracy. It was found that a mesh size ~0.04 of chord length is sufficient to resolve the vortex street.


A 24-year-old male presented to the department with a 1-week history of sudden onset posterior headache and multiple episodes of vomiting. He reported similar episodes 8 months prior with ataxia which resolved itself. He has a past medical history of dandy walker malformation (DWM) diagnosed in early infancy and a shunt inserted at 3 months old due to hydrocephalus.
 Initial blood investigations revealed extremely low platelets, low TLC and markedly raised potassium along with splenomegaly. Neurological examination was unremarkable with GCS of E4V5M6. A CT scan revealed hydrocephalus requiring revision shunt surgery. However, surgery was avoided due to the risks associated with thrombocytopenia therefore multiple specialists were consulted before a final decision could be reached.

 DWM is a rare congenital malformation typically presenting in early childhood characterised by hypoplasia of the cerebellar vermis, posterior fossa dilation and cystic enlargement of 4th ventricle. A complication of DWM is hydrocephalus, which requires surgery to correct via shunt insertion. However, this patients' haematological instabilities risks deterioration and even death during surgery as preoperative thrombocytopenia has been associated with increased intra- and post-operative mortality. As such the patient was not advised surgery initially however the hydrocephalus was causing severe headaches to the patient ultimately making it difficult for surgeons to decide when surgery should be performed. On follow up, the patient was discharged with no shunt revision due to resolution of symptoms. This case highlighted the need for skilled physicians across multiple specialities to make a shared decision about surgical or conservative management.


We study the evolution of public cooperation on two interdependent networks that are connected by means of a utility function, which determines to what extent payoffs in one network influence the success of players in the other network. We find that the stronger the bias in the utility function, the higher the level of public cooperation. Yet the benefits of enhanced public cooperation on the two networks are just as biased as the utility functions themselves. While cooperation may thrive on one network, the other may still be plagued by defectors. Nevertheless, the aggregate level of cooperation on both networks is higher than the one attainable on an isolated network. This positive effect of biased utility functions is due to the suppressed feedback of individual success, which leads to a spontaneous separation of characteristic time scales of the evolutionary process on the two interdependent networks. As a result, cooperation is promoted because the aggressive invasion of defectors is more sensitive to the slowing-down than the build-up of collective efforts in sizable groups.


We implement an agent-based simulation of financial market model. Agent-based simulations are used nowadays as an alternative to the traditional models, based on predetermined equilibrium state theory. Agent technology brings some kind of local intelligence and rational expectations to the decision support system of financial market participants. Agents follow technical and fundamental trading rules to determine their speculative investment positions. We consider direct interactions between speculators and they may decide to change their trading behaviour. If a technical trader meets a fundamental trader and they realize that fundamental trading has been more profitable than technical trading in recent past, the probability that the technical trader switches to the fundamental trading rules is relatively high. In particular the influence of transaction costs is studied in this paper. Transaction costs can be increased by the off-market regulation (for example in the form of taxes) on financial market stability, by overall volume of trade and other market characteristics. The paper shows a positive impact of suitable transaction costs on the financial market stability in the long run.


Nurses from St Thomas' Hospital in London paid a visit to the Department of Health and Social Security last week, in the latest stage of their campaign against the closure of 137 beds. A petition with 8,000 signatures was handed in by nurses (from left] Jacquie Alleyne, Elena Agbulos, Sally Colter, Caroline Ford and Lisa Elliman, who were joined by Labour MP for Vauxhall, Stewart Holland.


The revolution in technology affects many fields and among them the Healthcare system. The application-based computer was developed to help specialists to detect diseases, and to perform some basics operations. In this paper, focus is given on the proposed attempts to detect Epilepsy Disease (ED). Several Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) methods were used to provide the brain's disease status according to signals related to brain activities. These applications achieved acceptable results but still have their limitations. An intelligence CAD based on the Balanced Communication-Avoiding Support Vector Machine (BCA-SVM) is proposed to detect ED using Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. This attempt is implemented on a Raspberry Pi 4 as a real board to ensure real-time processing. The CAD-based on BCA-SVM achieved an accuracy of 99.8% and the execution time was around 3.2s satisfying the real-time requirement.


At its core a $t$-design is a method for sampling from a set of unitaries in a way which mimics sampling randomly from the Haar measure on the unitary group, with applications across quantum information processing and physics. We construct new families of quantum circuits on $n$-qubits giving rise to $\varepsilon$-approximate unitary $t$-designs efficiently in $O(n^3t^{12})$ depth. These quantum circuits are based on a relaxation of technical requirements in previous constructions. In particular, the construction of circuits which give efficient approximate $t$-designs by Brandao, Harrow, and Horodecki (F.G.S.L Brandao, A.W Harrow, and M. Horodecki, Commun. Math. Phys. (2016).) required choosing gates from ensembles which contained inverses for all elements, and that the entries of the unitaries are algebraic. We reduce these requirements, to sets that contain elements without inverses in the set, and non-algebraic entries, which we dub partially invertible universal sets. We then adapt this circuit construction to the framework of measurement based quantum computation(MBQC) and give new explicit examples of $n$-qubit graph states with fixed assignments of measurements (graph gadgets) giving rise to unitary $t$-designs based on partially invertible universal sets, in a natural way. We further show that these graph gadgets demonstrate a quantum speedup, up to standard complexity theoretic conjectures. We provide numerical and analytical evidence that almost any assignment of fixed measurement angles on an $n$-qubit cluster state give efficient $t$-designs and demonstrate a quantum speedup.


Fifty nine rhizobial strains, isolated from root nodules of wood legume trees (Amorpha fruticosa, Cercis racemosa Oliv. and Wisteria (Sims) Sweet) in middle and eastern China, were studied by performing analysis of 135 phenotypic characteristics and 16SrDNA PCR RFLP. At the 82% similarity level in numerical taxonomy or at the 92% similarity level in 16SrDNA PCR RFLP, seven groups were clustered. The results indicated that most rhizobial strains from root nodules of Amorpha fruticosa belong to genera Mesorhizobium, and to a greater or lesser extent it also showed a geographical variation; Most rhizobial strains from root nodules of Cercis racemosa belong to genera Bradyrhizobium, but did not show the obvious difference among geographical origins; Most rhizobial strains from root nodules of Wisteria sinensis belong to fast growing rhizobia, and there was an obvious geographical diversity among the strains from Jiangsu, Zhejiang province and other provinces. Meanwhile, most rhizobial strains from root nodules of Wisteria sinensis have high stress resistance. For example, some strains can grow on YMA medium with some higher concentration of antibiotics(300 μg ml -1 ), higher concentration of salt (3%NaCl) or higher alkaline environment (pH 11.0), respectively. In addition, the results also indicated that some strains in group 2, group 5 and group 7 of numerical taxonomy might be new taxa.


Official water quality and flow data from Jaguari River were used to assess the diffused loads of nutrients from rural areas into surface waters. Mathematical models of mean daily loads of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) were generated through the application of simple statistical procedures to field data collected from 1999 to 2002. The models obtained were validated with field data collected from 1996 to 1998. The application of the model showed that, on average, 68.2% of the TN annual loads and 77.3% of the TP annual loads were transported through the sub-basin during the raining season. Assuming the mean baseflow loads as 1706.5 kg TN d-1 and 165.7 kg TP d-1, the annual diffused loads obtained – primarily from rural sources – were equivalent to 55.1 and 69.4% of the total annual loads of TN and TP transported through the sub – basin, respectively. The mean export coefficients from diffused loads for TN and TP were equal to 230 and 40 kg km-2 year-1, respectively. In may be concluded that controlling the diffused loads of TP from rural areas should decrease the high concentrations observed.


CRM, which aims to enhance the effectiveness and performance of the businesses by improving the customer satisfaction and loyalty, has now become a leading business strategy in highly competitive business environment. The objective of this research is to improve customer satisfaction on productpsilas colors with the aid of the expert system developed by the authors by using artificial neural networks. The expert systempsilas role is to capture the knowledge of the experts and the data from the customer requirements, and then, process the collected data and form the appropriate rules for choosing productpsilas colors. In order to identify the hidden pattern of the customerpsilas needs, the artificial neural networks technique has been applied to classify the colors based upon a list of selected information. Moreover, the expert system has the capability to make decisions in ranking the scores of the colors presented in the selection. In addition, the expert system has been validated with a variety of customer types.


Auditory forms of nonpersonal communication have rarely been evaluated in informal settings like parks and museums. This study evaluated the effect of an interpretive audio tour on visitor knowledge and social behavior at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. A cross-sectional pretest/posttest quasi-experimental design compared the responses of audio tour users (n = 123) and nonusers (n = 131) on several knowledge questions. Observations (n = 700) conducted at seven sites within the caverns documented sign reading, time spent listening to the audio, within group conversation, and other social behaviors for a different sample of visitors. Pretested tour users and nonusers did not differ in visitor characteristics, knowledge, or attitude variables, suggesting the two populations were similar. On a 12-item knowledge quiz, tour users' scores increased from 5.7 to 10.3, and nonusers' scores increased from 6.2 to 8.4. Most visitors were able to identify some of the park's major messages when presented with a multiple-choice question, but more audio users than nonusers identified resource preservation as a primary message in an open-ended question. Based on observations, audio tour users and nonusers did not differ substantially in their interactions with other members of their group or in their reading of interpretive signs in the cave. Audio tour users had positive reactions to the tour, and these reactions, coupled with the positive learning outcomes and negligible effects on social interaction, suggest that audio tours can be an effective communication medium in informal educational settings. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed91:260–277, 2007


In this paper, various aspects of trigeneration power plants including advantages, challenges and criteria for high efficiency operation are discussed. In trigeneration systems, prime movers are treated to be the heart of the plant and thus an appropriate selection is crucial for successful operation. A comparative analysis of potential prime movers, together with a comprehensive literature review used in trigeneration and, their selection criteria are presented. A case study of a trigeneration plant based on solid oxide fuel cells and an organic Rankine cycle is examined using thermodynamic analysis. This thermodynamic analysis includes performance assessment of the system through energy and exergy efficiencies. An environmental impact assessment is also conducted based on CO2 emissions as a measure. The present study reveals that compared to power cycle efficiency (considering net electrical efficiency), there is a minimum potential of 22% gain in efficiency when trigeneration is used. Also, it is shown that there is more than 200 kg MWh−1 reduction in CO2 emissions when trigeneration is used compared to the case where a power cycle is only used. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


To achieve a modal shift towards waterborne transport and to deal with the shortage of crewmembers, a platooning concept called the "Vessel Train" is explored for the inland navigation sector. A Vessel Train consists of a lead and various follower vessels. The lead vessel is fully manned and takes over the navigational and situational awareness responsibilities for the follower vessels. This leading action benefits the followers through increasing the vessels' productivity and enabling crew cost savings.
This article investigates the viability of the concept for the lower Rhine region, by presenting a cost model that compares the Vessel Train conditions to the current sailing conditions. This model is used to assess a case study where lead vessels operate on a liner service between Antwerp and Duisburg. Economically viable cases for the concepts' early-stage application and fully matured implementation are identified, and boundary conditions are presented. The viable conditions vary depending on the vessel type and the operating regime of the reference vessel. A fully matured VT implementation requires a minimum of 26 participants, whereas an early-stage implementation requires 40 participants. The early-stage implementation additionally includes a minimum distance of 200 km to be spent sailing in the VT and the distance sailed in the VT has to amount to a minimum of 50% of the entire trip.


Nuclear steam generator is a highly complex, nonlinear, non-minimum phase and time-varying system, which is caused by the swell and shrink effects. So the control of the steam generator water level is very difficult. Conventional double PI control method can not reach a good performance. There are many methodologies applied to water level controller design. But many methodologies are model based, as we all known, model-based methods cannot offer a satisfactory control for steam generator water level since the system is very complex. In this paper, Model-Free Adaptive Control (MFAC) is applied for the steam generator water level control. The MFAC has received much attention as a powerful tool for the control of industrial process systems. Simulation results show the effectiveness and the good performance of the method.


Community detection is a fundamental and widely-studied problem that finds all densely-connected groups of nodes and well separates them from others in graphs. With the proliferation of rich information available for entities in real-world networks, it is useful to discover communities in attributed graphs where nodes tend to have attributes. However, most existing attributed community detection methods directly utilize the original network topology leading to poor results due to ignoring inherent community structures. In this paper, we propose a novel embedding based model to discover communities in attributed graphs. Specifically, based on the observation of densely-connected structures in communities, we develop a novel community structure embedding method to encode inherent community structures via underlying community memberships. Based on node attributes and community structure embedding, we formulate the attributed community detection as a nonnegative matrix factorization optimization problem. Moreover, we carefully design iterative updating rules to make sure of finding a converging solution. Extensive experiments conducted on 19 attributed graph datasets with overlapping and non-overlapping ground-truth communities show that our proposed model CDE can accurately identify attributed communities and significantly outperform 7 state-of-the-art methods.


OBJECTIVES
This paper analyzes the impact of seven chronic conditions (three nonfatal: arthritis, visual impairment, hearing impairment; four fatal: ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, malignant neoplasms) on US adults aged 18 and older. Impact refers to how readily a condition prompts activity limitations, physician visits, and hospital stays.

METHODS
Data come from three national health surveys and vital statistics. For comparability, a single disease classification scheme was applied, and new rates were estimated. Frequency, impact, and prominence of the target conditions are studied via rates, ratios of rates, and ranks, respectively.

RESULTS
In young adulthood, the nonfatal conditions prompt limitations less readily than do the fatal ones, but by older ages, arthritis and visual impairment have a limiting impact equivalent to that of fatal conditions. Despite high prevalence and limitations, nonfatal conditions stand well below fatal conditions for health services use.

CONCLUSIONS
Although statistics on frequency, impact, and prominence all indicate conditions "importance," they give only weak clues about specific service needs of affected persons. The persistent finding that nonfatal conditions do not receive health services care commensurate with their prevalence and impact reflects long-standing imbalanced attention on fatal conditions in research and medical care.


Spinocerebellar Ataxias (SCAs) are a group of rare, autosomal dominant diseases that result in progressive degeneration of the cerebellum. Of these, SCA1 is the fastest progressing. SCA3, the most prevalent SCA worldwide, is relentlessly progressive, disabling, and eventually fatal with no efficacious treatments other than supportive therapy. There is a strong need to improve our mechanistic understanding of the changes in the cerebello-cerebral circuitry prior to disease manifestation so that novel therapeutic strategies can be developed. Analyzing high quality magnetic resonance imaging data from the NIH-funded project, "Clinical Trial Readiness for SCA1 and SCA3 (READISCA)," will guide such efforts.


Atractylodin (ATR) has anticancer effects on some tumor cells by inducing apoptosis, but its mechanism in lung cancer remains unclear. This study investigates the inhibitory effect of ATR on A549 lung cancer cells. Cell viability was detected by the Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, and results showed that ATR could significantly inhibit the proliferation of A549 cells. Apoptosis was detected by Annexin V-FITC/PI staining, and apoptosis rate and mitochondrial membrane potential were detected by flow cytometry. Results showed that the effect of ATR on the apoptosis of A549 cells was negatively correlated with the change in mitochondrial membrane potential. Western blot analysis showed that ATR regulated apoptosis induced by mitogen-activated protein kinase, signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, and nuclear factor kappa B signaling pathways. Analyses of reactive oxygen species (ROS), cell cycle, and cell migration showed that ATR induced intracellular ROS accumulation as an initiation signal to induce cell cycle arrest regulated by the AKT signaling pathway and cell migration inhibition regulated by the Wnt signaling pathway. Results showed that ATR can inhibit cell proliferation, induce cell apoptosis, induce cell cycle arrest, and inhibit the migration of A549 cells (p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01 and *** p < 0.001).


In this study, we have analyzed the data for assessing the environmental status and effective future monitoring of environmental safety of individual territories in the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation, estimating whether these data were complete and sufficient for the given purposes. Based on analysis of the currently available official statistical data for the one of the regions of the Arctic Zone (Murmansk Region), we have selected indicators reflecting the level of environmental safety in the Arctic as a whole. Indicators for ensuring environmental safety in the Murmansk Region have been proposed for each target corresponding to the chosen strategy. We have collected the relevant statistical information for these indicators and assessed the possibility of using the obtained data to monitor the implementation of the environmental safety strategy. We have formulated conclusions on the degree to which the data were accessible and complete. As a result of analysis of the collected data for assessing and monitoring environmental safety of the Russian Arctic territories, we have found that data were partially or totally missing for some indicators. We propose to introduce revisions, including the indicators for the targets "Improving the legal regulation of environmental management and protection" and "Providing access to eco-friendly products to the population" as the statistical environmental data mandatory for monitoring.


Introduction: Pain in the post-operative period is a major concern following tonsillectomy in an adult resulting in prolonged hospital stay, decreased oral intake and absence from work. Various techniques and medications have been tried to reduce the pain.
Objectives We attempted to study the efficacy of diclofenac gargle in reducing the post-tonsillectomy pain in adults.
Methodology We conducted a double-blind randomized study in patients 18 years or older undergoing tonsillectomy. Cases were given diclofenac gargle in post-operative period whereas controls were given normal saline gargle. Other modality of treatment and medication were same in both the groups. Pain was assessed at rest and during swallowing with Visual Analogue Score (VAS) on first and second post-operative day, and then at the end of first and second week of the surgery. Pain scores between two groups were compared.
Results There were 64 participants equally divided into cases and controls by block randomization. Pain score during swallowing was significantly less in cases. The difference at rest was not significant at any point of time studied. The pain gradually increased over a week in both the groups and then rapidly decreased by the end of second week.
Conclusion Diclofenac gargle is effective in reducing the posttonsillectomy pain, especially during swallowing, in adults.


Background & Aim: Breast carcinoma is the most common malignant tumor and the leading cause of death from carcinoma in women. Tumor grading is important as a prognostic factor in the treatment of patients and is routinely done on histologic specimens. Although breast cytology is a proven diagnostic technique in clinical practice, its use is frequently limited to establishing the benign or malignant character of a given lesion. However, a number of authors have shown that this method can provide additional information about tumor grading and its prognosis. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the importance of cytologic grading of breast carcinoma and its association with histologic grading. Material & Method: In the present study, 73 samples of open biopsy for frozen section examination which were sent to the pathology department of Rasoul-e-Akram and Milad hospitals between 2004 and 2005 were selected. Touch-imprint or scraping was used to prepare smears which were then stained by pap and rapid H&E methods. The smears were evaluated based on the grading system described by khan et al which takes 6 parameters into account: pleomorphism, nuclear size, nuclear margin, naked nuclear size, nucleoli and mitotic counts. Histologic samples were evaluated based on the Nottingham modification of the Bloom-Richardson system. Results: The 73 cases included 67 ductal carcinoma NOS(Non-Otherwise Specified), 2 papillary, 1 tubular, 1 lobular, 1 medullary, and 1 cribriform. The concordance rate between cytologic and histologic grading was 76.7%, which is nearly identical to the past study results. The concordance rate for grade-I tumors was 69.2%, grade-II 85.7% and grade-III 61.1%. 5 out of 6 parameters including pleomorphism, nuclear size, naked nuclear size, nuclear margin, and mitotic counts were statistically significant(P-value<0.05). Necrosis had a significant relation with histologic grading but was not used for scoring. Nucleoli, cell dispersion, cellularity, and tubule formation were not statistically significant. Also, there was no statistically significant correlation between cytologic grading and lymph node metastasis. Conclusion: In summary, expertise and sophistication in breast cancer cytopathology and cytologic grading have developed significantly in recent years. This information should be assimilated into the pre-operative plan so that the biologic behavior of the tumor can be determined in order to avoid a blind therapeutic approach. Prospective follow-up studies are needed to evaluate these cytodiagnostic criteria for cytologic grading of breast carcinoma.


A miniature thermal dissociation atmospheric chemical ionization (TDCI) source, coupled with LTQ-MS, has been developed for rapid trace detection of pesticide residues such as dimethoate in highly viscous fruit juice samples. Instead of toxic organic solvents and the high electric field used in the conventional ionizations, an ionic liquid, a "green solvent", was employed to directly generate reagent ions in the TDCI process, followed by the proton or charge transfer with the analytes prior to the LTQ instrument for mass analysis. Trace amounts of dimethoate in fresh orange juices have been quantitatively detected, without any sample pretreatment or aid of high-pressure gas. A low limit of detection (LOD = 8.76 × 10(-11) g mL(-1)), acceptable relative standard deviation (RSD = 3.1-10.0%), and reasonable recoveries (91.2-102.8%) were achieved with this method for direct detection of dimethoate in highly viscous orange juice samples. The average analysis time for each single sample was less than 30 seconds. These experimental results showed that the miniature TDCI developed here is a powerful tool for the fast trace detection of pesticide residues in complex viscous fruit juices, with the advantage of high sensitivity, high speed, and high-throughput, ease of operation, and so on. Because of no chemical contamination and high voltage damage to the analytes and the environment, the technique has promising applications for online quality monitoring in the area of food safety.


Societal moral decadence has given rise to a lot of vices in various communities, and this has lead to instability in the society. Social instability is the bases for underdevelopment and economic backwardness in the society. It hampers and hinders every effort and opportunity for human and material development. The deplorable situation has given rise to the cry for an effective medium to stabilize the society. Dance has been suggested as an effective tool to actualize this true African dream. As a live art, dance has the flexibility to incorporate the current trends in the society in its package. A dance project can present the happenings of a society to a community and can suggest how the community ought to be. Most importantly, dance is an art form that is so involving that dancers and audience could get so encompassed in participatory communalism that differences can be shade or forgotten in the course of performances. The Umuada burial performance is a typical example of a dance performance that can be so involving that in the process, it may become a medium for social stability.


Satellight was a 3 year-European research program (Jan. 1996-March 1999) with the objective of making available on Internet a database of solar radiation and daylight for Western and Central Europe. The data was obtained by processing the information provided by the Meteosat satellite every 30 minutes. We first developed and validated models to derive radiation and daylight data on ground from the satellite measurements. Then, we produced two years of data: 1996 and 1997, and made it accessible via a web server (its address is www.satel-light.com). The server provides statistics on the direct, diffuse and global illuminances or irradiances, on horizontal or tilted plane, for various zones in Europe or for specific locations. The information is presented as maps, figures or tables. In 2001, thanks to a new European project called SODA (see http://www-helioserve.cma.fr/soda/), three more years will be added to the database to make it more relevant of long term climatic trends


This article documents the design and implementation of an electronic field guide for bird watchers-named RB Birds-developed to run on mobile smart phones and aimed at looking up, checking, and identifying 362 bird species that are encountered at the Rio Blanco Ecological Reserve, "which is located on the outskirts of Manizales, Colombia. This application package has a database that contains information corresponding to each species including images, songs, physical descriptions, feeding habits, migratory movements in time and space, and habitat requirements, among others. RB Birds has a specialized search engine that allows the identification of specimens based on observed physical attributes.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the use of a 3.5/2.7 mm CastLess Plate (CLP) for pancarpal arthrodesis (PCA) in dogs.

STUDY DESIGN
Case series.

ANIMALS
Dogs with traumatic/degenerative carpal disease (n=11).

METHODS
Records (September 2006-July 2007) of dogs that had PCA using a 3.5/2.7 mm CLP were reviewed to determine intra- and postoperative complications and use of external coaptation. Follow-up (> or =12 months) was obtained by telephone interview of owners.

RESULTS
Thirteen PCA procedures were performed; 5 intraoperative complications occurred in 4 procedures and included iatrogenic metacarpal fissure fracture (2), inability to remove an alignment pin (1), and poor distal plate position (2). External coaptation was used in 4 dogs: concomitant or iatrogenic injuries (3), bilateral PCA (1), for 3-6 weeks. Clinical evaluation 6-24 weeks postoperatively revealed iatrogenic metacarpal fractures to have healed and that 1 postoperative complication (infection) developed. Telephone follow-up for 10 dogs (mean, 14 months; range, 12-20 months) revealed no further problems.

CONCLUSION
PCA using a 3.5/2.7 mm CLP reduces the need for external coaptation and seemingly reduces postoperative morbidity associated with other internal fixation techniques.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
PCA can be performed safely and successfully using a 3.5/2.7 mm CLP, with low postoperative morbidity compared with other PCA techniques. Particular attention should be taken when applying the distal component of the plate.


Wingtip vortices are strongly associated with induced drag for a three-dimensional wing. So it is important to neglect the wingtip vortices in order to reduce the induced drag. The drag breakdown of a typical transport aircraft shows that the lift-induced drag can amount to as much as 40% of the total drag at cruise conditions and 80– 90% of the total drag in take-off configuration. One way of reducing lift-induced drag is by using wingtip devices. By applying biomimetic abstraction of the principle behind a bird's wingtip feathers, we study spiroid wingtips, which look like an extended blended wingtip that bends upward by 360 degrees to form a large rigid ribbon.In this paper a configuration of different winglets are studied. A model composed of wing of boeing-737 is designed using CATIA and also the spiroid winglet are designed and attached with a boeing 737 wing using CATIA. Then the modelled wing is meshed using ICEM-CFD. The meshed model will be analysed using ANSYS FLUENT. Finally the percentage decrement of wingtip vortices is calculated using the analysis results.


Background Celastrus have been long used to treat various inflammatory disorders including Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), SLE and Ankylosing Spondylitis in China. Celastrol is one of the main bioactive component of Celastrus. Previous study have reported both celastrus and celastrol can reduce the severity of clinical symptom in the rat adjuvant-induced arthritis (AA) model or human RA, supporting a potent anti-inflammatory activity of Celastrus. However, the direct role of Celastrol on osteoclast remain unknown. Objectives To examine the effects of Celastrol on osteoclastogenesis in osteoclast precursors RAW264.7 cell line and bone erosion in collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). Methods The roles of Celastrol on osteoclastogenesis in RAW264.7 was evaluated by tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) staining, Real-Time PCR and Western-blot. Activity of bone resorption was tested by pit formation assay in the presence or absence of Celastrol. The effects of Celastrol bone erosion in CIA mice was analyzed using histological analysis and Micro-CT. Results Celastrol inhibited RANKL-induced formation of TRAP+ multinucleated cells and bone-resorbing activity in a dose-dependent manner. The osteoclast formation was completely blocked with 0.3 μM of Celastrol. Celastrol reduced the RANKL-induced expression of osteoclastic genes and transcriptional factors including Trap, Ctsk, Ctr, Mmp-9, NFATc1, c-Jun and c-Fos and phosphorylation of NF-kB and MAPK signals in RAW264.7. In CIA mice, administration of Celastrol markedly suppressed the arthritis score and reduced bone damage in the joints as demonstrated by histology and bone Micro-CT, which was accompanied by a decreased bone resorption marker of TRAP5b in serum and osteoclasts number in inflamed joint. Conclusions These findings revealed a directly inhibitory role of Celastrol on osteoclast formation and function, which is distinct from previous report, suggesting Celastrol provide a unique therapeutic strategy for RA and especially in light of preventing bone destruction. Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.3939


Iron oxide sludge was recovered from a channel at an abandoned coal mine, processed, and used as a raw material in pigment production. The site is a former coal mining and processing facility in southwestern PA. Over the last 60 years, a channel carrying the mine discharge (1500-1800 gpm, pH 6.3, Fe 73 mg/L, alkalinity 313 mg/L as CaCO3) had filled with iron sludge. As a "proof-of- principle" project, approximately 2000 tons of sludge were removed and processed. The sludge was screened and dewatered using frame filter presses. Screening removed vegetative debris, litter, and coal refuse. Dewatering increased the solids content of the product from 25-30% (in place sludge) to 50- 52%. A total of 1,000 tons of product were trucked to a pigment manufacturer where it was further dried, calcined, and milled. The company is using the finished product to produce pigments used in a variety of coloring applications. The mine drainage product is replacing natural (mined) sources of iron oxide obtained in the United States and imported from Mediterranean and Asian countries. Work is continuing on developing methods that will decrease the processing costs so that iron oxide can be produced from mine drainage in a profitable manner.


Abstract The patient with compression neuropathies of the median and ulnar nerves at the wrist commonly presents with pain, paresthesias, and weakness in the hand and digits. Diagnosis of these conditions is becoming more widespread with the increased attention given to "cumulative trauma disorders" during the past decade. Successful management requires a thorough understanding of the patho-physiology of compression neuropathy and how it relates to the various diagnostic tests available today. The authors review the epidemiology, etiology, and evaluation of compression neuropathy and discuss common clinical presentations, treatment recommendations, and controversies surrounding carpal and ulnar tunnel syndromes.


SUMMARY We report a kindred in which three children suffer from partial trisomy lq and partial monosomy 3p, transmitted by a balanced translocation which is maternal in one family and paternal in the other. The clinical features of the three children are similar and include severe mental handicap and severe scoliosis in the older two.


The main body of this paper is studied specifically for the problem of low-power consumption in wireless sensor network (WSN), and then carries out an experiment. On comparing greedy algorithm and Floyd algorithm with dynamic programming algorithm, finally we adopt the dynamic programming algorithm to improve the route protocol of WSN, and explore an optimal route from Resource node to SINK node, on the purpose of reducing energy consumption of WSN. At last we use NS2 to testify the improved route algorithm, the result shows that it has a huge development in route overhead and end to end transmission delay.


Multi-epoch photometry from AllWISE provides the opportunity to investigate variability at 3.4 and 4.6μm for most known brown dwarfs. WISE observed the same patch of sky repeatedly and within a day's time, roughly 12 observations were obtained on a given patch of sky; then, another 12 were obtained roughly six months later when that patch of sky was again in view. For most of the sky, AllWISE contains two separate epochs of about a dozen observations each, although ∼30% of the sky has three such epochs available in AllWISE. With the AllWISE multi-epoch photometry of ∼1500 known M, L, T, and Y dwarfs, I computed the Stetson J Index and quantified variability as a function of spectral type. I found that the average single-exposure photometric uncertainty in AllWISE (∼0.2 magnitudes) is too large to robustly identify flux variability smaller than ∼20%. However, multi-epoch photometry from AllWISE remains a useful resource in cases where flux variability is known to be present with large amplitudes, or for bright nearby objects with lower photometric uncertainties.


Analysis of independently isolated clones from a mouse liver cDNA library identified a splice variant of gamma-GH mRNA with novel nucleotide sequence at the 5' end. Genomic sequencing now shows that this variant (variant II) incorporates two new alternates (exons Bla and Blb) of exon 1 in the murine gamma-GH gene remotely situated with respect to the rest of the gene. Further analysis of this variant also showed that it incorporates a small segment at the 3' end of exon A1, revealing that the previously described exon 1 consists of two individual exons (Ala and Alb) joined at a cryptic splice site. The 5' UTR and a segment of the ORF of variant II results from splicing of exon Bla to exon Blb which in turn is spliced to exon Alb and through this splicing to the rest of the exons within this gene. Remarkably, this splicing occurs even though exons Bla and Blb are located >45 Kb upstream of exons Ala and Alb. Our results also show that transcription starting at exons Bla and Blb is under the control of a separate and bidirectional promoter (promoter B). Exons Bla and Blb are located on the sense DNA strand within the complement C3 gene locus which is encoded on the antisense strand. This promoter is less efficient than the downstream promoter (promoter A) in regulating transcription at least in the context of reporter gene and primer extension assays. However, in these same contexts, this region of DNA sequence in the reverse orientation is markedly more efficient in driving transcription of an unidentified gene. Deletion of specific regions of sequence within this promoter have different effects depending upon the orientation (forward or reverse) within the reporter gene construct.


The purpose of the current study was to examine the influence of perceived demographic dissimilarity and interaction on customer-service satisfaction. Data were collected from 301 spectators at a professional men's tennis tournament. Results indicate that perceived demographic dissimilarity was negatively associated with customer service satisfaction. Further, this relationship was moderated by the amount of interaction between the employee and customer, such that the negative relationship was strongest when interaction was high. Results are discussed in terms of the theoretical implications related to relational demography and practical implications in terms of the "business case" for diversity.


This study aims to examine the strategies students at different education levels (7th-12th grade) use to examine to solve proportional and non-proportional problems. The study uses a cross-sectional research design. The study group consists of 49 middle school students, 24 of whom are in 7th and 25 of whom are in 8th grade, and 130 high school students, 38 of whom are 9th, 33 of whom are 10th, 32 of whom are 11th, and 27 of whom are 12th grade. The study uses a measuring tool created in line with the literature and it contains two problems for each of the four different problem groups, which are missing value, numerical comparison, qualitative reasoning, and non-proportional problems for the data collection. The findings of the study indicate that there were no notable differences between grade levels in the strategies used in missing value and numerical comparison problems, and in qualitative reasoning problems, high school students resorted to more appropriate strategies than middle school students. The study found that 7th, 8th, and 9th-grade students for non-proportional problems that contain a constant relationship and the majority of students from all grade levels for problems that contained an additive relationship made wrong interpretations through multiplicative thinking.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the effect of electrical stimulation on the differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into cardiomyocytes in vitro.

METHODS
Classical hanging-drop method was used to induce iPSCs from mice to form embryoid bodies (EBs) and vitamin C was contained in the medium through the induction period. According to whether or not electrical stimulation was used in the whole induction period, iPSCs were divided to electrical stimulation group and non-stimulation group. During the induction, dynamic morphological changes of the EBs were observed and photographed, the time point when beating EBs in each group appeared was recorded and the number of them was counted. The percentage of beating ones in all EBs was calculated as the differentiation rate of cardiomyocytes induced from iPSCs. Furthermore, expression of cardiac troponin T (cTnT) was observed by immunofluorescent staining under a confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM), and mRNA expression levels of the related genes Oct-4, GATA-4 and α-MHC were analyzed by RT-PCR.

RESULTS
Compared with the non-stimulation group, beating cells in electrical stimulation group appeared in a shorter time, and the differentiation rate of cardiomyocytes was higher [(68.89 ± 5.09)% vs (52.22 ± 3.85)%, P<0.05]. c-TnT was expressed in the beating area of both groups, but the cells in the electrical stimulation group showed a more clear cytoskeleton. The mRNA level of Oct-4 decreased in a time-dependent manner in the whole period of induction and in the electrical stimulated group it decreased faster than the non-stimulation group (P<0.05). In addition, more GATA4 and α-MHC mRNA in electrical stimulation group were expressed than the non-stimulated group at the same point-in-time (P<0.05).

CONCLUSION
The electrical stimulation which simulates cardiac electrical microenvironment to some extent improved the differentiation of iPSCs into functional cardiomyocytes induced by vitamin C in vitro.


This qualitative phenomenological study aimed at exploring the perceptions of geography among Ghanaian senior high school students. A total of 48 students comprising 24 males and 24 females were selected from two different public senior high schools in the Kumasi metropolis of Ghana to participate in the study. Data were obtained using in-depth interview and results were processed and presented using the thematic analysis approach with reference to the research objectives. Results from the study revealed that more than half of the students interviewed had positive perception of geography in terms of its relevance to people in the society. Regarding the definition and scope of geography, the overwhelming majority of the student respondents perceived geography as a description of the physical environment such as rivers, rocks, the universe, weather and climates, formation of landforms, among others. Others also perceived geography as the drawing of maps to show earth's features. Interestingly, more than half of the students expressed keener interest in physical geography with reasons being that physical geography lessons are more interesting and practical. More so, the majority of the students viewed geography lessons to be very interesting but difficult as compared to other social science disciplines. Significantly too, most of the students ranked geography as either second or third choice in considering programmes for higher education. The study recommends a further research into how students' perception of employment prospects in geography influence their attitudes towards geography.


Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is endemic in China, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. However, this disease is rare in North America and the Caribbean. This paper discusses the clinical features, prognosis, treatment outcomes, and survival rates of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Jamaica. The incidence in Jamaica is 1.4 per 100,000. The National Cancer Registry in Jamaica keeps a record of all cancers. A retrospective cohort study of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma between 1988-2000 was reviewed. The presenting features, staging, histological diagnosis, treatment, and patient outcome were assessed. All patients received radiation therapy, and 89% of the patients completed the course of therapy. Seventeen percent received chemotherapy, consisting of cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil. Surgery played a minor role in the definitive management of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in this study. Three-year survival rates were 21%. The study demonstrates findings unique to the Caribbean nation of Jamaica. There is a bimodal pattern to the age distribution typical in non-endemic areas, such as shown in this study. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma evades early diagnosis because of its anatomic location and varied symptomatology. Prognostic indicators include intracranial extension, cervical node, and distant metastasis.


Previous research on credit scoring that used statistical and intelligent methods was mostly focused on commercial and consumer lending. The main purpose of this paper is to extract important features for credit scoring in small-business lending on a dataset with specific transitional economic conditions using a relatively small dataset. To do this, we compare the accuracy of the best models extracted by different methodologies, such as logistic regression, neural networks (NNs), and CART decision trees. Four different NN algorithms are tested, including backpropagation, radial basis function network, probabilistic and learning vector quantization, by using the forward nonlinear variable selection strategy. Although the test of differences in proportion and McNemar's test do not show a statistically significant difference in the models tested, the probabilistic NN model produces the highest hit rate and the lowest type I error. According to the measures of association, the best NN model also shows the highest degree of association with the data, and it yields the lowest total relative cost of misclassification for all scenarios examined. The best model extracts a set of important features for small-business credit scoring for the observed sample, emphasizing credit programme characteristics, as well as entrepreneur's personal and business characteristics as the most important ones. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Besides its classical actions in calcium metabolism, it is clear that the hormonal form of vitamin D has many new functions, which have only been discovered as a result of following the appearance of its receptor. Furthermore, because of the vitamin D-based endocrine system, the use of vitamin D compounds in treating a variety of diseases has been expanded. We now know that 1.25-(OH)2D3 not only stimulates the intestine to absorb calcium and phosphorus, the bones to mobilize calcium and phosphorus, and the kidney to cause increased renal reabsorption of calcium, but also directly suppresses the parathyroid hormone and is a developmental hormone necessary for the recruitment of cells for osteoclast formation, for female reproduction, for development of skin, and for the treatment of certain malignant conditions.


We report a method to determine the chemical composition of the first few layers of molecules making up the intimal surface of the bovine aorta. We gently and uniformly spray-abrade the opened, flat surface of the aorta with fine, dry potassium bromide (KBr) powder. Surface molecules are rubbed off and collected with the KBr powder. This powder is pressed into a disk and analyzed by infrared spectroscopy. The thickness of the surface sample is estimated from the density-mass-volume (area times thickness) relationship. We designed and constructed a mechanical spray abrader to analyze blood vessel surfaces. The uniformity and depth of abrasion are controlled by the angle of spray, pressure, distance, and rate of traverse of sample drum. Several successive surface samples may be removed from one blood vessel. In complementary work, a method was developed for the physical removal and mounting of the intima of arteries and veins as intact films for infrared analysis. Preliminary experiments on bovine aortas gave surface samples as thin as 57 Å (estimated) and with an infrared spectrum markedly different from that of the total aortic intimal film. The major infrared bands found in the surface samples were: NH (3300 cm−1); CH (lipid) (2920 cm−1); amides I and II (1650 and 1540 cm−1); and, as a tentative assignment, sulfate (1050 cm−1). Comparison of surface spectra with intimal film spectra suggests that the surface protein is different from intimal protein. The surface spectra resemble chondroitin sulfate, but not heparin. Possibly the first few molecular layers of intimal surface contain chondroitin sulfate. These methods may prove to be of value in determining the role of the intima and intimal surface in cardiovascular disease.


A study to evaluate the feasibility of using ground freezing technology to immobilize tritium contaminants was performed as part of the Waste Area Grouping (WAG) 6 Technology Demonstrations initiated by the WAG 6 Record of Agreement. The study included a review of ground freezing technology, evaluation of this technology for environmental restoration, and identification of key technical issues. A proposed ground freezing demonstration for containment of tritium at a candidate Oak Ridge National Laboratory site was developed. The planning requirements for the demonstration were organized into seven tasks including site selection, site characterization, conceptual design, laboratory evaluation, demonstration design, field implementation, and monitoring design. A brief discussion of each of these tasks is provided. Additional effort beyond the scope of this study is currently being directed to the selection of a demonstration site and the identification of funding.


Introduction: Charcot–Marie–Tooth (CMT) disease type 1A is the most common form of CMT. The main clinical features are distal weakness, sensory loss, and skeletal deformities. Although pain is a frequent complaint, small fiber involvement in CMT1A has not been studied extensively. Methods: We assessed pain and small fiber involvement in 49 CMT1A patients using a variety of pain scales, pain questionnaires, and thermal thresholds. Results: Forty‐three of 49 patients (88%) complained of pain. The pain was localized to the feet in 61% of patients. Only 18% of patients had neuropathic pain. Cold and warm detection thresholds were elevated in 53% and 12% of patients, respectively. Conclusions: Our findings confirm that CMT1A patients have significant pain, which is more likely to be multifactorial in origin and suggests that a proportion of patients have small fiber dysfunction affecting mainly thinly myelinated Aδ fibers. Muscle Nerve 50: 366–371, 2014


Historical trends in face perception research during the past half century are summarized. The dual process model offered by cognitive neuroscientists to account for the perception of identity and emotion expression in the face is briefly reviewed together with supporting evidence. An ecological approach that incorporates missing pieces of face perception is offered as an additional, broader conceptual framework. It is argued that a comprehensive theory of face perception must account for the extraction from a facial image of all the attributes that are perceived (social category, identity, emotion, psychological and physical traits) as well as the interdependence of attributes as shown in moderating influences of one attribute on the perception of others. It also must specify the stimulus information that conveys each attribute, perceiver attunements that influence detection of each attribute, the development of these attunements, the neural mechanisms engaged in processing various attributes, and the be...


This is a graduate-level introduction to graph theory, corresponding to a quarter-long course. It covers simple graphs, multigraphs as well as their directed analogues, and more restrictive classes such as tournaments, trees and arborescences. Among the features discussed are Eulerian circuits, Hamiltonian cycles, spanning trees, the matrix-tree and BEST theorems, proper colorings, Turan's theorem, bipartite matching and the Menger and Gallai--Milgram theorems. The basics of network flows are introduced in order to prove Hall's marriage theorem. Around a hundred exercises are included (without solutions).


Breast ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), by definition, is proliferation of neoplastic epithelial cells within the confines of the breast duct, without breaching the collagenous basement membrane. While DCIS is a non-obligate precursor to invasive breast cancers, the molecular mechanisms and cell populations that permit progression to invasive cancer are not fully known. To determine if progenitor cells capable of invasion existed within the DCIS cell population, we developed a methodology for collecting and culturing sterile human breast tissue at the time of surgery, without enzymatic disruption of tissue. Sterile breast tissue containing ductal segments is harvested from surgically excised breast tissue following routine pathological examination. Tissue containing DCIS is placed in nutrient rich, antibiotic-containing, serum free medium, and transported to the tissue culture laboratory. The breast tissue is further dissected to isolate the calcified areas. Multiple breast tissue pieces (organoids) are placed in a minimal volume of serum free medium in a flask with a removable lid and cultured in a humidified CO₂ incubator. Epithelial and fibroblast cell populations emerge from the organoid after 10 - 14 days. Mammospheres spontaneously form on and around the epithelial cell monolayer. Specific cell populations can be harvested directly from the flask without disrupting neighboring cells. Our non-enzymatic tissue culture system reliably reveals cytogenetically abnormal, invasive progenitor cells from fresh human DCIS lesions.


Detecting genetic variants in metagenomic data is a priority for understanding the evolution, ecology, and functional characteristics of microbial communities. Many recent tools that perform this metagenotyping rely on aligning reads of unknown origin to a reference database of sequences from many species before calling variants. Using simulations designed to represent a wide range of scenarios, we demonstrate that diverse and closely related species both reduce the power and accuracy of reference-based metagenotyping. We identify multi-mapping reads as a prevalent source of errors and illustrate a tradeoff between retaining correct alignments versus limiting incorrect alignments, many of which map reads to the wrong species. Then we quantitatively evaluate several actionable mitigation strategies and review emerging methods with promise to further improve metagenotyping. These findings document a critical challenge that has come to light through the rapid growth of genome collections that push the limits of current alignment algorithms. Our results have implications beyond metagenotyping to the many tools in microbial genomics that depend upon accurate read mapping. HIGHLIGHTS Most microbial species are genetically diverse. Their single nucleotide variants can be genotyped using metagenomic data aligned to databases constructed from genome collections ("metagenotyping"). Microbial genome collections have grown and now contain many pairs of closely related species. Closely related species produce high-scoring but incorrect alignments while also reducing the uniqueness of correct alignments. Both cause metagenotype errors. This dilemma can be mitigated by leveraging paired-end reads, customizing databases to species detected in the sample, and adjusting post-alignment filters.


This paper describes the design and performance of a new compact and low cost Transmitter for Ka band VSAT satellite communication ground terminal. The main features of the transmitter are: 32.5dBm minimum output power for ¿16 dBm input power over the frequency range of 27.5-31GHz. The Transmitter consists of low power MMIC amplifier, band pass filter, a medium power MMIC amplifier, a four way microstrip power divider, a high power module with four MMIC power amplifiers, a four way waveguide power combiner and DC supply unit. The Transmitter size is 15.5×11×2.5 cm and weighs less than 0.6 Kg.


The ability to produce malleable parallel applications that can be stopped and reconfigured during the execution can offer attractive benefits for both the system and the applications. The reconfiguration can be in terms of varying the parallelism for the applications, changing the data distributions during the executions or dynamically changing the software components involved in the application execution. In distributed and Grid computing systems, migration and reconfiguration of such malleable applications across distributed heterogeneous sites which do not share common file systems provides flexibility for scheduling and resource management in such distributed environments. The present reconfiguration systems do not support migration of parallel applications to distributed locations. In this paper, we discuss a framework for developing malleable and migratable MPI message-passing parallel applications for distributed systems. The framework includes a user-level checkpointing library called SRS and a runtime support system that manages the checkpointed data for distribution to distributed locations. Our experiments and results indicate that the parallel applications, with instrumentation to SRS library, were able to achieve reconfigurability incurring about 15-35% overhead.


A proposed adequation of NBR 6118, Item 7.4, related to shear strength of reinforced concrete beams is presented with aims to application on circular cross-section. The actual expressions are most suitable to rectangular cross-section and some misleading occurs when applied to circular sections at determination of VRd2, Vc and Vsw, as consequence of bw (beam width) and d (effective depth) definitions as well as the real effectiveness of circular stirrups. The proposed adequation is based on extensive bibliographic review and practical experience with a great number of infrastructure elements, such as anchored retaining pile walls, where the use of circular reinforced concrete members is frequent.


Fracture toughness results are measured in the transition region for an ASTM A471 Ni-Cr-Mo-V steel on two specimen sizes IT compact tension (CT) and 4T-CT. The results are typical for steels in the transition in that the smaller specimen toughness values are greater than the larger specimen results. Two explanations are given for this behavior. One explanation, based on loss of constraint, suggests that small specimens cannot be used to characterize the toughness of a large structure in the transition region. A second explanation, based on a statistical model, suggests that small specimen results when properly analyzed can be used to characterize the toughness of large structures. The results of these tests and others support the statistical model as the proper explanation for the observed difference in toughness between small and large specimens in the transition. The model gives a method for analyzing small specimen results to properly predict the toughness of a large structure.


This research is entitled "The Effectiveness of Using Cooperative Script Method to Improve Students' Reading Comprehension on Recount Text of 8th Grade Students of SMP N Kewapante, Maumere in Academic Year 2017/ 2018". The objective of this research is to investigate and to find out whether the use of cooperative script method effective to improve students' reading comprehension on recount text. The method of this research is experimental research especially quasi experimental research. In analyzing the data, the researcher combined both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. In qualitative data analysis, the researcher used interview technique in order to get information about students' perceptions in reading, while in quantitative data analysis, the researcher used SPSS version 16. The result of the research showed that the implementation of Cooperative Script Method in experimental class was more effective to help the students in reading comprehension on recount text compared to the use of the conventional method in control class of the eighth grade students of SMP N Kewapante, Maumere. It is also found that cooperative script method positively contributed to improve students' reading comprehension. Therefore ,the researcher  suggests the teachers to use cooperative script method in order to improve students reading comprehension Additionally, cooperative script method can also motivate students to be more active, relax and enthusiastic to comprehend reading texts.


Over the years Yoga has gained popularity throughout the world because of its various health benefits. Yoga is mindbody intervention which includes breathing, body postures and meditation (1). The studies on Yoga have documented to lower the stress and depression and are believed to improve biological cardiovascular risk factors (2–4). Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is a program designed to strengthen cardiovascular health if you have experienced the heart related problems, and it has been shown to improve cardiovascular mortality and hospital re-admissions in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). Yoga could, therefore, be a useful addition to CR. In this UK-based randomized report (Yoga and Cardiovascular Health Trial (YACHT), the hypothesis was that Yoga could be related to primarily with improvements in cardiovascular function in patients suitable for CR.


Nonoxinol 9 effectively inactivates high titres of HIV in vitro, which suggest its use for reducing HIV-transmission via sexual intercourse. Therefore, the suggestion has been made for the treatment of sexual assault victims with a topical anti-HIV agent such as nonoxinol 9 as soon as possible after a sexual assault has occurred. From the forensic point of view it becomes pertinent to determine whether or not nonoxinol 9 would have an adverse effect on the high-molecular weight deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in vaginal swabs and thereby impact RFLP results. The study demonstrates that nonoxinol 9 does not have a negative effect on the ability to produce RFLP patterns. Therefore, the early administration of the topical anti-HIV agent nonoxinol 9 has to be considered as an important step in the medical treatment of sexual assault victims.


Abstract Imaging studies including ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging may be required to evaluate the median nerve in patients with suspected carpal tunnel syndrome. However, the radial and ulnar nerves contribute to sensory and motor innervations to the hand as well. Compressive, traumatic, and iatrogenic events may damage the small terminal branches of these nerves. In the hand, US is able to identify injuries of the median, ulnar, radial nerve, and terminal branches. This article presents the role of imaging to evaluate the nerves of the hand with an emphasis on US. Due to its high-resolution capabilities, US is useful to determine the location, extent, and type of nerve lesion. Moreover, US is useful for a postsurgical assessment. The anterior interosseous nerve, Guyon's tunnel syndrome, and Wartenberg's syndrome are also described.


OBJECTIVE
Organic acidurias (OAs) are a group of rare metabolic disorders that disrupt the regular amino acid metabolism. OAs are characterized by recurrent episodes of acidemia, ketonuria and hyperammonemia which can result in brain/liver damage and renal failure, and despite the life-long protein-restricted diet, impaired growth and long-term complications can occur. Consequently, a long-term management of OAs patients is required, aimed principally at reducing the frequency and duration of metabolic decompensation/hyperammonemia episodes. Nevertheless, unlike the acute phase, evidence on the chronic management of OAs patients is less consolidated.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
To expand the knowledge on this field, 13 Italian referral centers for the management of OAs were involved in a survey focused on the long-term use of carglumic acid (Carbaglu®, Recordati Rare Diseases).

RESULTS
Participating centers reported a reduction between 69% and 81% in the annual number of metabolic decompensations with the chronic use of carglumic acid and an improvement in protein intake. Most centers reported no difficulty using carglumic acid as a long-term therapy, along with a great compliance.

CONCLUSIONS
Taken together, obtained data align with the available literature and support a positive clinical experience with the long-term carglumic acid administration. Additional studies aimed at better defining a proper dosage for the chronic administration of carglumic acid and the clinical and biochemical characteristics of patients treated chronically are needed. In addition, the potential impact of this treatment regimen on the neurological development and growth of patients should be elucidated.


ABSTRACT Objectives : The aim of this study was to evaluate the antitumor effects of Cheongpyesagan-tang(CST) and YKK012 on colon cancer.Methods : MTT assay was used to evaluate the cytotoxicity of Single herb s and combinations of CST and YKK012 on murine colon cancer cells, Colon 38. To explain effec ts of apoptosis in colon cancer, we performed the western blot. Effects of CST and YKK012 on antitumor activi ty of CPT-11 using the murine colon38 allograft tumor in BDF1 mice. Results : Single herbs and combinations of CST and YKK012 was tested in vitro, Rhei Radix (RH) and Scutellariae Radix (SC) and YKK012 showed dose-response cytotox icity on Colon 38. This might be due to the apoptosis, as we see Bax and Caspase-3, which are apoptotic factors, was expressed in RH and SC treated cells. YKK012 also showed increased expression of Caspase-3.In mouse colorectal cancer xenograft model of colon38 cells, he rbal combinations showed tendencies of tumor regression, but was not significant. Furthermore, because toxic ity was observed in CST group, we reduced the dose of CST for the next experiment. The anti-tumor effects of herbal combinations were insufficient to be used as single anti-tumor agent. With simultaneous usage of CPT -11, contrary to that CST showed no synergistic effects, YKK012 which was composed by the combinati on of four ERβ selective herbs, significantly reduced the size of tumor and Bax expression was increased.Conclusions : We suggest YKK012 can be a effective cancer adjuvant therapy w ith CPT-11 on colon cancer.Key words : Colon38 cell, Xenograft model , Cheongpyesagan-tang, YKK012, CPT-11


As contact of blood with artificial membranes may activate cell adhesiveness, we investigated in 5 patients the expression of several adhesion-promoting molecules on monocytes and granulocytes during hemodialysis on cuprophane (CU), cellulose acetate (CA), and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membranes. After staining with specific fluorescent monoclonal antibodies, flow cytometric analysis was performed to evaluate the expression of CD11b (= Mac 1, CR3, or C3bi receptor), CD11a (= leukocyte function antigen 1 or LFA-1, or gp 180/95), CD54 (= intercellular adhesion molecule 1 or ICAM 1), and CD45 (= leukocyte common antigen) on circulating leukocytes. Granulocytopenia occurred at 15 minutes with CU and CA but not with PAN; significant monocytopenia occurred on the contrary with all 3 membranes. The drop in monocyte counts was maximal at 15 minutes on CU and CA, and at 180 minutes on PAN; it was also more important with CU (88 +/- 2.6%, alpha = 0.005) and CA (66.4 +/- 4.1%, alpha = 0.01) than with PAN (36.2 +/- 6.2%). Hemodialysis on CU, CA, and PAN was associated with a 2- to 3-fold CD11b and CD45 overexpression on peripheral monocytes; these molecules also increased on circulating granulocytes but to a lesser extent on PAN than on CU and CA (alpha < 0.05). There were no hemodialysis-induced changes in CD11a and CD54 expression on circulating monocytes or granulocytes. The upregulation of CD11b may provide a molecular mechanism for the sequestration of monocytes and granulocytes in the circulation during hemodialysis, while upregulation of CD45 might reflect mechanisms regulating the leukocyte activation state.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Agricultural activity is largely different from other activities that the entities perform in order to achieve profit. Unlike other business entities, agricultural produce is significantly dependent on natural climatic conditions, and therefore a particular specialization of agricultural produce depends on geographic location. Agricultural producers use every form of business organization, from small farms to large publicly held corporations. Although most entrepreneurs working in agriculture are small and medium enterprises, the specifics of agriculture are significantly reflected in the financial reporting intended primarily for large corporations traded on the capital markets. Aim of this paper is to review the possibilities of implementation of the provisions relating to agriculture in the frame of IFRS for SMEs into practice of entities concerned whose object is agricultural production and to recommend appropriate application in practice. There are designed specific procedures of recording in relation to the nature of biological assets and agricultural produce and ways of measurement in this paper. The nature of biological assets is considered as distinguishing criterion (consumable assets, bearer assets and consumable assets with long production cycle).


Background: Infection prevention and control (IPC) preparation and how it relates to the use and reuse of personal protective Equipment (PPE), as well as behavioural changes among doctors has been an area of interest for researchers since the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreaks. The aim of this study is to describe the role of IPC practices of doctors at a large urban public hospital in South Africa during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic of 2020. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was performed on doctors from the general medical and surgical disciplines of the hospital. All levels of staff were interviewed using an anonymous voluntary self-administered questionnaire administered over a 4-week period. Results: We determined that the majority of the participants (87.5%) were involved in the care of COVID-19 patients. Internal Medicine participants were more likely to work in a respiratory ward compared to their surgical counterparts. Of the surveyed sample, 90.4% indicated that they received formal IPC training during the COVID-19 pandemic. Contrasting this, only half (52.9%) felt prepared to apply these principles when working with COVID-19 patients. Almost all respondents (90.0%) surveyed reported using PPE. Of the respondents using PPE, 94.4% were reusing their PPE. From the total sample population, 95.2% reported implementing behavioural changes. Conclusion:


Cytosolic and mitochondrial alterations induced by exposure of rat astroglial primary cultures to reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by a xanthine/xanthine oxidase (X/XO) mixture or by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) have been investigated biochemically and immunochemically. In the presence of ROS generated by X/XO, a significant decrease in Cu,Zn superoxide dismutase (Cu,Zn-SOD) and in glutamine synthetase (GS) activity was observed whereas mitochondrial Mn-SOD activity and enzyme protein levels were significantly enhanced. Similar effects on GS, Cu,Zn- and Mn-SOD activities were observed by glucose/glucose oxidase treatment of the cells. Addition of LPS to the cell growth medium also specifically induces Mn-SOD synthesis but was without effect on Cu,Zn-SOD. It is suggested that in all these tested situations, hydrogen peroxide could represent a specific inducer of the observed phenomenon and it may therefore be considered as an intracellular messenger involved in the regulation of some aspects of astroglial oxidative metabolism, particularly the defence against ROS.


Background: Pakistan is a resource limited country with one of the highest neonatal mortality rate (NMR) in the world. Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) helps in reducing the mortality and improving the care of preterm babies. The objective of this study was to identify the benefits of KMC in hospitalized newborns in terms of better weight gain and early discharge from hospital.
Subjects and methods: A retrospective case-control study was conducted in the Neonatal Department of Services Hospital from 01.02.2019 to 31.01.2020. A total of 144 case notes, who met inclusion criteria were included. Subjects were divided in 2 Groups of 77 each. Group 1 did not receive KMC and Group 2 received KMC (partial or complete). Admission weight, gestational age at birth, duration of hospital stay and the average weight gain was noted for subjects in both groups. SPSS version 23 was used to analyze data. Independent samples t-test was applied. A p-value of ˂0.05 is taken as significant.
Results: Mean weight gain in Group 1 was 5.521 g/kg/day (±6.664), whereas in Group 2 was 15.635 g/kg/day (±9.268). Mean hospital stay in Group 1 was 12.558 days (±10.856) and in Group 2 it was 8.208 days (±6.473). Weight gain and duration of hospital stay was significantly better in KMC Group with a p-value ˂0.05. This benefit was observed both for partial and complete KMC.
Conclusion: KMC (partial or complete) leads to better weight gain and reduces the duration of hospital stay.


This paper examines how a notion of stable explanation developed elsewhere in Defeasible Logic can be expressed in the context of formal argumentation. With this done, we discuss the deontic meaning of this reconstruction and show how to build from argumentation neighborhood structures for deontic logic where this notion of explanation can be characterised. Some direct complexity results are offered.


Lymphomatoid granulomatosis (LYG) is a rare Epstein-Barr virus-associated lymphoproliferative disorder. The disease lacks specific clinical and radiological manifestations, which may delay a definitive diagnosis. We report the case of a 39-year-old man with pulmonary LYG who presented to a hospital after experiencing three months of fever, weight loss, dry cough and exertional dyspnea. He was initially misdiagnosed with pneumonia, granulomatosis with polyangiitis and infectious mononucleosis due to the non-specific manifestations of the disease. We herein present the clinical and radiological characteristics of this case and discuss the procedure for pathological diagnosis, which will likely help clinicians in making a timely definitive diagnosis of this disease.


Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA

BACKGROUND:

Adenocarcinoma of the distal esophagus and esophagogastric junction (EGJ) have received much attention because of increasing frequency and poor outcome despite multimodality therapy. Driver mutations and gene amplifications in resected esophageal adenocarcinoma are not widely investigated. Opportunity exists to discover actionable mutations in resected esophageal adenocarcinoma.

METHODS:

We analyzed driver mutations harbored in coding regions of 25 selected genes (∼95 point mutations) using a multiplex PCR-based assay. EGFR, HER2, MET, and PI3K amplifications were tested using fluorescent in situ hybridization in patients who underwent esophagectomy for distal esophagus and EGJ adenocarcinoma from 2009 to 2013. Disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were compared between patients with TP53, KRAS, PI3K, BRAF, APC mutant and wild-type tumors using Kaplan-Meier methods and Cox regression models. The impact of HER2 expression and outcomes were also analyzed.

RESULTS:

Of 54 distal esophagus and EGJ adenocarcinoma patients, 5 different driver mutations were observed in 39 patients, including TP53 (11/39, 28.2%), KRAS (6/39,15.4%), PI3K (2/11,5.1%), BRAF(1/39, 2.6%) and APC (2/39,5.1%). Double driver mutations (3/39, 7.9%) were shared in 3 patients with TP53 and KRAS (1/39, 2.6%), TP53 and PI3K (1/39, 2.6%), KRAS and PI3K (1/39, 2.6%), respectively. Amplifications in HER2 (10/45, 22.2%), MET (1/34, 2.9%) and EGFR (2/17, 11.8%) were observed where directed therapy was altered in 5 patients (1 patient received induction herceptin and 4 patients received adjuvant herceptin). In the targeted patients with HER2 amplification who received herceptin, mean progression-free survival was 18.8 (range 7-41 months) vs. 8.9 (1-28 months) [p=0.089] and OS was 35.7 (range 26-46 months) vs. 24.2 (range 20-29 months) [p=0.053], compared to herceptin naive patients. We did not identify any significant difference in DFS and OS (inclusive of all stages) between TP53, KRAS or any mutation compared to wild type patients.

DISCUSSION:

Oncogenic driver mutations are under-investigated in resected distal esophageal and EGJ adenocarcinoma. Different therapeutic opportunities may become available if routine tumor genotyping is employed in the treatment of esophageal adenocarcinoma. We recommend the routine use of driver mutation and gene amplification analysis for esophageal cancer.

Citation Format: Haiyu Zhou, Luis Tapias Vargas, Justin Elliot, Douglas J. Mathisen, Michael Lanuti. Identification of driver mutations and gene amplifications in resected asophageal adenocarcinoma: Impact on clinical care. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 4696. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-4696


Changes in cognitive function and disturbances in behavior are commonly seen in parkinsonian patients and they are inherent features of the disease. Estimates on the prevalence of dementia in this disorder are quite variable, ranging from 15 to 25%. Advanced age, depression, severity of akinesia, and the presence of dopaminomimetic psychosis, are considered as risk factors in the development of cognitive deterioration within this patient population. Cognitive dysfunction may manifest as relatively circumscribed deficits or overt dementia. The finding of mild cognitive deficits is common in Parkinson's disease, such as reduced flexibility, psychomotor slowing, reduction in learning capacity and information retrieval, and disturbances in visuospatial tasks. The most prevalent cognitive disturbance is an impairment in visuospatial tasks, not necessarily related to the degree of motor disability. Dementia, when present early on in the course of the disease may suggest alternative diagnoses (Diffuse Lewy body dementia, Alzheimer's disease with extrapyramidal features, Fronto-temporal dementia, etc.), while in those cases in whom the dementing disorder develops at a later stage, it is assumed to be an integral part of the disease, albeit corresponding to variable pathogenetic mechanisms.


Green innovation plays an important role in reducing pollution and promoting sustainable development. However, not all managers, as decision-makers of enterprises, have a long-term vision to implement green innovation. The impact of managerial myopia on firm green innovation has not been examined by existing literature. Drawn on time-oriented theory in social psychology and upper echelon theory in management, this paper puts forward the relationship between managerial myopia and firm green innovation, and then constructs a managerial myopia index by text analysis and machine learning. Using a sample of publicly listed Chinese firms from 2009 to 2020, this paper finds that managerial myopia is significantly negatively associated with firms' green innovation. Every one standard deviation increase in managerial myopia makes enterprise green innovation decrease by about 1.9% standard deviation. Further analysis reveals that equity incentives and institutional investors both weaken the negative effect of managerial myopia on green innovation. This study contributes to the literature on green innovation and upper echelons theory and it also has several implications for firms' engagement in green innovation.


Distributed Feed Back (DFB) lasers working in the third telecom window are essential for optical communications, eyesafe
sensors and lab-on-chip devices. Glass integrated optics technology allows realizing such devices by using rareearth
doped substrates. Despite their good output power and spectral characteristic, DFB lasers still present some
reliability issues concerning the Bragg grating protection. Moreover Erbium doped glasses are not compatible with the
realization of passive optical functions. In order to solve the DFB lasers reliability issues and to ensure a monolithic
integration between active and passive functions, we propose an hybrid-device architecture based on ion-exchange
technology and wafer bonding. The Ag + /Na + ion-exchange in the silicate glass wafer is used to realize the passive
functions and the lateral confinement of the electromagnetic field. Through a second ion exchange step, a slab
waveguide is made on the Erbium-Ytterbium doped glass wafer. The Bragg grating is processed on the passive substrate
and the two glasses are bonded. The potential of this structure has been demonstrated through the realization of a DFB
hybrid laser with a fully encapsulated Bragg grating.


This research study was qualitative with Class Action Research (PTK) was Elementary School fourth grade students know n teachings Ambon 63 20 1 1/201 second with the number of students by 37 people. Formulation of the problem in this research is using NHT cooperative learning model to improve learning outcomes and student materials Creativity Operation Count Numbers Count? The results showed that, by using cooperative learning model Numbered Heads Together (NHT) to improve student learning outcomes as seen in the results of the test cycle I gained mastery Minimum Criteria (KKM) In as much as 62.2% and the third cycle increased to 78.4%.


Abstract : The goal of this hypothesis development project is (1) to determine if ectopic expression of LINE-1 elements in prostate cancer contribute to its progression by activating oncogenic DNA sequences, or silencing tumor suppressor like sequences. We have RNA-sequencing data that we are part way through processing, but suggests so far significant activation of non-coding RNA-sequences derived from RNA from a lymph node metastasis from the prostate. Furthermore, we have subcloned a LINE-1 Open reading frame sequence and will determine the effect of its expression in non-tumorigenic prostate cells. Finally, we have cloned the PIWIL-1 gene, known as a repressor of LINE-1 retroelement sequences in the testis, and have it under the control of a doxycycline-inducible promoter in a lentiviral system, and expressed this inLNCaP and PC-3 prostate cancer cells. Experiments are ongoing to determine if PIWIL-1expression in prostate cancer cells will reduce their growth, thereby providing proof of principle for future gene-based therapeutics for this cancer.


A winning personality is the physical attribute of a person and is considered as his or her success in personal, academic, and professional careers. However, in the ESL context, most engineering students seem to be unaware of the need for and importance of an appealing personality for achieving success in both personal and professional careers. Although students are given a short-term training in soft-skills by their respective college or institute, engineering students seem to lack aspects of a pleasing personality which helps them in job placements and later in the work environment. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to understand and build engineering students' personality traits such as enthusiasm, dependability, and teamwork for a successful career. For this purpose, to understand the students' personality types, 25 engineering students were administered a pre-test based on Carl Jung and Isabel Briggs Myers' typological approach to personality. Students were helped in building personality through the soft-skills training. The data was analyzed and interpreted both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results indicated that having a pleasing personality and exhibiting soft-skills enables in building students' individual personality for employment readiness. Implications were offered to students, placement trainers, and teachers. It is concluded that having a charming personality will support students in landing their desired jobs.


Abstract Internationally, the autonomy of schools and teachers is under pressure. In Norway, recent policies emphasise output control through national testing, combined with holding schools and teachers accountable for students' results. Whereas recent research documents that the autonomy of schools and teachers is weakening in Oslo, there is little research on the rural parts of Norway. Recent political intentions aim to improve the results by establishing a better learning environment and classroom management. These intentions are related to the regulative discourse, 'the rules of social order', which is crucial to control as it dominates the instructional discourse. Two different projects were implemented in a rural municipality. Analysing their positions on three levels (author, actor and identity) this study finds considerable autonomy from the state in the pedagogic recontextualising field. However, this autonomy may be fragile as the teachers seem to have surrendered personal values. If teachers are disciplined, then the state may effectively reduce the potential discursive gap by reducing the autonomy of key agents in education. Investigating teachers' rationalisations is imperative if we are to understand the relations between interests, ideology and class, and thereby the potential for autonomy in the recontextualising field in a performativity culture.


The implementation of 1,3 β-d-glucan (BDG) has been proposed as a diagnostic tool in antifungal stewardship programs (ASPs). We aimed to analyze the influence of serum BDG in an ASP for oncologic patients and solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients. We conducted a pre–post study. In the initial period (PRE), the ASP was based on bedside advice, and this was complemented with BDG in the post-period (POST). Performance parameters of the BDG assay were determined. Antifungal (AF) use adequacy was evaluated using a point score. Clinical outcomes and AF costs were also compared before and after the intervention. Overall, 85 patients were included in the PRE-period and 112 in the POST-period. Probable or proven fungal infections were similar in both groups (54.1% vs. 57.1%; p = 0.67). The determination of BDG contributed to improved management in 75 of 112 patients (66.9%). The AF adequacy score improved in the POST-period (mean 7.75 vs. 9.29; p < 0.001). Median days of empiric AF treatment was reduced in the POST-period (9 vs. 5 days, p = 0.04). All-cause mortality (44.7% vs. 34.8%; p = 0.16) was similar in both periods. The cost of AF treatments was reduced in the POST-period with a difference of 779.6 €/patient. Our data suggest that the use of BDG was a cost-effective strategy that contributed to safely improving the results of an ASP for SOT and oncologic patients.


The PZT based piezoelectric thick films prepared by screen printing method have been mainly used as a functional material for MEMS applications due to their compatibility of MEMS process. However the screen printed thick films generally reveal poor electrical and mechanical properties because of their porous microstructure. To improve microstructure we mixed attrition milled powder with ball milled powder of 0.01Pb(Mg1/2W1/2)O3-0.41Pb(Ni1/3Nb2/3)O30.35PbTiO3-0.23PbZrO3+ 0.1 wt% Y2O3+ 1.5 wt% ZnO composition. By mixing 25 % of attrition milled powder and 75 % of ball milled powder, the broadest particle size distribution was obtained, leading to a dense thick film with crack-free microstructure and improved dielectric properties. The X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that the film was in wellcrystallized perovskite phase. The remanent polarization was increased from 13.7 μC/cm to 23.3 μC/cm at the addition of 25 % attrition milled powder.