The Faroe–Shetland Regional Geological Report produced
jointly by the BGS and Jarðfeingi provides an
illustrated descriptive summary of diverse topics of
geoscience organised into twelve separate chapters (see
contents) within the offshore area to the north and
north-west of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland Isles,
and around the Faroe Islands (Figure 1). Although the
UK/Faroese median line effectively separates the area
into north-west and south-east portions, this national
boundary has little relevance with regard to the geoscientific
description of the Faroe–Shetland report area.
In terms of geographical area and geoscientific content,
this report partially supersedes a previous version entitled
'The geology of the Hebrides and West Shetland shelves,
and adjacent deep-water area' by Stoker et al. (1993).
The eastern and southern margins of the report area
utilise the same boundary as that of Stoker et al. (1993),
whereas the south-west limit marked by the Wyville
Thomson Ridge (Figure 1) is specifically adopted to
align with the north-east boundary of a sister report
prepared concurrently and focused on the Rockall Basin.


A first of its kind threshold activation proportional counter is developed using copper for the measurement of pulsed 14 MeV neutrons. The detector is of 26 mm outer diameter and 200 mm overall length. Tests at D-T facility showed that the detector is capable of measuring high-energy neutrons. The high-energy neutron sensitivity of the detector is estimated as 7.6 × 10−5 counts/neutrons cm-2/s, and pulsed neutron sensitivity is estimated as 3.3 × 107 neutrons pulse−1 count−1. The low-energy response of the detector can be discriminated by curve fitting method to the decay counts. An identical dimension silver-lined proportional counter with 0.5 counts/neutrons cm-2/s thermal neutron sensitivity is developed for comparison with the copper detector. The silver activation detectors are conventionally used for neutron yield measurement of D-T-pulsed source. Experiments confirmed that compared to silver detector which is sensitive to low-energy neutrons, the copper detector is able to measure high-energy neutrons directly by threshold reaction.


A total of ninety-eight wild birds, comprising eleven different species were captured alive from Zaria environs. These birds were used for the study, to determine the possible role they play as reservoirs of blood parasites. Thin blood smears (TBS) were prepared from the blood samples collected from these wild birds. The slides were stained and viewed under the microscope for the identification of blood parasites. Values of packed cell volume (PCV), haemoglobin (Hb) and total protein (TP) were also determined from the blood samples. Sera from the birds were used for the determination of haemagglutination inhibition (HI) antibody titres to Newcastle disease virus (NDV). Haemoparasites, such as Plasmodium circumflexum, P. relictum, P. nouxi, Haemoproteus nisi, H. columbae, and Aegyptienella pullorum were identified from the blood of some of the wild birds. The highest mean HI antibody titre to Newcastle disease virus( NDV) (log 9.50 ± 0.1) and lowest mean HI antibody titre to 2 NDV (log 2.50 ± 1.7) were obtained from Senegal parrot (Poicephalus senegalus) and Northern red bishop 2 (Euplectes franciscanus), respectively. The highest mean PCV and Hb values of 49.00 ± 0.01% and 16.30 ± 0.1g%, respectively were obtained from Senegal parrot (Poicephalus senegalus), while the lowest mean PCV and Hb values of 36.50 ± 8.35% and 12.18 ± 2.77g%, respectively were recorded from African marsked weaver (Ploceus velatus). The highest mean TP value (7.00 ± 0.01g/dl) and lowest mean TP value (1.88 ± 0.54g/dl) were obtained from Laughing dove (Streptopelia senegalensis) and Zebra waxbill (Sporaeginthus subflavus), respectively. It was concluded that wild birds could serve as reservoirs of haemoparasites and viral pathogens which could be potential dangers to domestic birds in Zaria, Nigeria.


Nanotechnology is a rapidly developing field due to the amalgamation of different science disciplines such as physical, chemical, biological and engineering. The unique size-dependent properties of nanomaterials make them superior and indispensable in many areas of human activity. Today, more than 1800 nano-enabled consumer products are available across engineering, medicine, agriculture, food industries and biotechnology sectors. However, nanoparticles are being incorporated into commercial products at a faster rate than the development of knowledge and regulations to mitigate potential health and environmental impacts associated with their manufacture, application and disposal. At present, the methods used for assessing the toxicity of chemicals in living systems, are used to evaluate the toxicity of nanoparticles. However, several novel properties associated with nanoparticles are responsible for false results. Also the reproducibility of the data in nanotoxicity-based experiments is a big concern. Therefore, in this chapter, an attempt is made to address the different challenges in the toxicity assessment of nanoparticles.


Prohibitin is an evolutionarily conserved and ubiquitously expressed protein in eukaryocyte. It mediate many important roles in cell survival, apoptosis, autophagy and senescence. In the present study, we aimed to explore the role of prohibitin in cigarette smoke extract (CSE)-induced apoptosis of human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (HPMECs). For this purpose, HPMECs were trasfected with prohibitin and challenged with CSE. Our results showed that CSE exposure inhibited prohibitin expression in a dose-dependent manner in HPMECs. Overexpression of prohibitin could protect cell from CSE-induced injury by inhibiting CSE-induced cell apoptosis, inhibiting reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, increase mitochondrial membrane potential, increase the content of mitochondrial transcription factor A (mtTFA), IKKα/β phosphorylation and IκB-α degradation. CSE decreases prohibitin expression in endothelial cells and restoration of prohibitin expression in these cells can protect against the deleterious effects of CSE on mitochondrial and cells. We identified prohibitin is a novel regulator of endothelial cell apoptosis and survival in the context of cigarette smoke exposure.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to establish a risk scoring system based on miRNAs to evaluate the prognosis in pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

METHODS
Using a miRNA microarray dataset (179 pancreatic adenocarcinoma specimens and 4 normal control specimens) from TCGA, differentially expressed miRNAs were identified. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to identify significant prognostic miRNAs, with which a risk scoring system was established and tested on a validation set. Cox regression analysis was performed to identify independent predictors of survival from clinical characteristics. Stratified Cox regression analyses were conducted to unravel the associations of clinical characteristics with survival. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened followed by functional annotation of the DEGs.

RESULTS
Eight miRNAs (miR-1301, miR-598, miR-1180, miR-155, miR-496, miR-203, miR-193b, miR-135b) were independent predictors for survival. A risk scoring system was established with the 8 signature miRNAs. Upon Cox multivariate regression analysis, risk score, new tumor and targeted molecular therapy were independent predictors of prognosis. Stratified Cox regression analyses found that targeted molecular therapy and new tumor are associated with survival of patients. Survival-related DEGs were significantly enriched with regulation of transforming growth factor beta receptor, potassium ion transport and MAPK signaling pathway.

CONCLUSIONS
The study proposes 8-miRNA expression-based risk scoring system to predict prognosis in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. New tumor and targeted molecular therapy were independent predictors of prognosis. Transforming growth factor beta receptor, potassium ion transport and MAPK signaling pathway may be related to prognosis in pancreatic adenocarcinoma.


The spring is the widespread resilient element which is used in the industrial machinery and automotive systems, as diesel fuel pumps, valvetrains, brakes, suspensions, seats, doors and control elements. For reducing impact events in some heavy trucks and railroad cars primarily, helical, or coil, springs are applied. In some vehicles torsion bars are used instead of the coil springs. The reduction of weight of the suspension springs causes the decrease of unsprung mass of the axle and has a positive influence on the comfort, traction and steering properties of the car. The development of modern passenger cars has highlighted a trend towards reduced package space for suspension components in order to maximize package space for occupants and loads. Such requirements lead to reduction in spring dimensions and wire cross-section. Springs can be found in high-precision testing devices, where springs play the role of energy harvesters. The efficient design procedures for spring elements are based on the modern simulation and optimization methods. The design formulas for linear helical springs with an inconstant wire diameter and with a variable mean diameter of spring are presented. Based on these formulas the optimization of spring for given spring rate and strength of the wire is per-formed.


Dramatic structural changes are taking places within the rapidly growing web advertising sector, the most notable being the rise to prominence of Keyword Search Advertising (KSA). KSA emerged from the pressure to create new, more effective and non-intrusive web advertising formats. Presumably, advertisers prefer KSA because of favourable consumer responses but it seems that no scholarly research has explored such consumer behaviour. The purpose of this research is to propose a theoretical model identifying the impact of KSA on consumers' cognitive and behavioural responses.


Abstract This paper proposes a new conceptualization of business model (BM) that rigorously exploits the important insights this notion offers and links them to related views developed in economics and business studies. We develop the foundations of a BM concept consistent with the principles of generalized Darwinism (GD) and with contributions already developed within this framework. Thus, we demonstrate the relevance of GD as a unifying framework for developing the evolutionary theory of firm and industry. We suggest analysing BM as a generative replicator hosted by the firm, which structures interactions between the members of this organization and the social entities of its industrial environment. We argue that GD allows us to clarify the nature and boundaries of the BM concept and to specify its relationships to other key evolutionary concepts, such as organizational routines.


Growth was evaluated in 144 boys and 71 girls hospitalized for malnutrition from 1961 through 1971 at mean ages of 13.1 and 10.7 months, respectively. During the period 1961 through 1966, ex-patients were measured at irregular intervals, while from 1966 through 1976, ex-patients and siblings were measured yearly. Average follow-up was seven years. Female ex-patients were 2.0 cm shorter than boys at 1 year and 7.0 cm taller at 13 years; their better growth was possibly due to earlier hospitalization, more adoptions, and renewed pubertal "catch-up." Ex-patents were compared with siblings at the same age; girls apparently caught up with sisters during puberty and both matched or exceeded maternal heights, while boys lagged behind brothers. Stunting, usually reported after severe infant malnutrition, seems more the result of continued poor environment and diet than of a limited episode of marasmus or kwashiorkor.


Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA) is a congenital red blood cell aplasia inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern caused by mutations in ribosomal protein (RP) genes and in an X-linked recessive pattern by GATA1 mutations. Heterozygous mutations and large deletions in 11 RP genes, RPS19, RPS24, RPS17, RPL5, RPL11, RPL35A, RPS7, RPS10, RPS26, RPL26 , and RPL15, are present in ∼65% of DBA patients. DBA is associated with congenital abnormalities in ∼50% of patients and with increased risk of malignancy. To investigate the molecular pathogenesis of RPL5 and RPS24 gene mutations, we generated two murine lines of heterozygous mice, Rpl5 and Rps24, by knocking-out exons 1-8 in the Rpl5 gene and exons 2-3 in the Rps24 gene in C57BL/6 mice. Knock-out of both alleles of Rpl5 and Rps24 genes are embryonic lethal. In contrast, heterozygous mice exhibited normal hematological phenotype, as well as normal Rpl5 and Rps24 RNA and protein levels in their tissues, suggesting that the presence of one allele was sufficient to support the normal function of ribosomal proteins L5 and S24 in mice. To evaluate the risk of cancer development in Rpl5 +/- and Rps24 +/- mice, we monitored these mice and wild type mice until late age. Out of 21 Rpl5 +/- mice (between the ages of 14 and 26 months), two mice developed tumors at 22 months of age and two mice were euthanized due to severe dermatitis at the same age. Similarly, we have been monitoring 23 Rps24 +/- mice between 15 and 26 months of age. One of these mice developed a tumor at 17 months of age, five mice were euthanized due to severe dermatitis between the ages of 17 and 19 months, and two mice were euthanized due to injuries at ages 15 and 29 months. We also monitored 20 control wild-type mice ranging from 13 to 26 months of age. To this date, no tumors have been detected in wild-type mice, although nine of these mice developed severe dermatitis and were euthanized. Histological and immunohistochemical studies were performed to determine the nature of tumors in Rpl5 +/- and Rps24 +/- mice. Comparison of tumor tissues with normal skin from wild-type or Rpl5 +/- and Rps24 +/- with no detected tumors showed that all tissues had normal epidermis and underlying dermis, but connective tissues from tumor sections consisted of a densely cellular neoplasms composed of predominantly atypical spindle shaped cells arranged in intersecting fascicles. The tumor cells had strong cytoplasmic reactivity for vimentin and negative staining for S100, CD45, and pan-keratin, consistent with a high-grade spindle cell sarcoma. Recent studies conducted by the DBA Registry of North America revealed that out of 608 DBA patients, 18 with median age of 41 years developed various types of cancer including sarcomas, colon cancer, and acute myeloid leukemia. The relative risk of cancer in DBA was increased 5.4 fold compared to general population (Vlachos, et al., 2012). Our studies also suggest the correlation between ribosomal protein gene mutations and cancer. However, further studies are required to better understand the underlying molecular mechanism.

Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


The aim of this paper is to critically review neonatal polycythaemia (NP) literature, in terms of definition, diagnosis and management. We reviewed all Medline articles on NP up to December 2009. (i) The textbook definition of NP [venous haematocrit (HCT) > 65%] is empirical and not based on statistical definition, symptoms or complications. (ii) Measurement of viscosity is not better than HCT in predicting complications. (iii) Normovolaemic NP because of increased erythropoiesis may be different from hypervolaemic polycythaemia because of excessive foetal transfusion. (iv) Coexisting hypoglycaemia may worsen long‐term outcome. (v) Four clinical trials (CTs) studied partial exchange transfusion (PET) on outcomes. In all trials, PET was performed after 6 h of life. There is no evidence that PET improves neurodevelopmental outcome of asymptomatic NP, and it might increase the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis. These CTs have inherent design flaws: (a) CNS 'damage' may occur before PET. (b) Confounding variables that may affect outcome have not been studied. (vi) If PET is performed, normal saline is the best alternative. (vii) The long‐term effect of PET on symptomatic infants has not been studied.


Behavioral studies revealed that time perception is affected by the presence of a reward. Both the experience of time and the reward processing were shown to be distorted in major depressive disorder (MDD). We aimed to investigate how neural correlates of time perception and reward anticipation interact in patients with MDD. Participants (17 healthy, seven MDD) performed a time perception task during fMRI scanning that requires estimating the speed of a moving rectangle which was briefly occluded. In the control condition, participants attended to the change in color tone of the rectangle. Half of the runs were rewarded with a monetary payment per correctly done trial to evaluate the effect of a reward. The fMRI data were acquired with a 3T scanner and analyzed with repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) using SPM12. The activations related to the integration of time with reward were different between both groups in the supplementary motor area, intraparietal sulcus, thalamus, frontal eye field and caudate nucleus. Increased coupling between supplementary motor area and caudate/putamen region during timing was found in MDD patients more than in controls. Overall, our findings suggest that functional differences related to the interaction of time perception with reward anticipation in MDD occur via dysfunction of the cortico-striatal-thalamic network.


This paper presents an 8-b two-step subranging analog-to-digital (ADC) using interpolation, averaging, offset compensation, and pipelining techniques to accomplish an effective number of bits of 7.6 b at 125 MSample/s. The 0.13-μm CMOS ADC occupies 0.09 mm 2 and consumes 21 mW.


A new species of the genus Bathytanais is described and its impact on the unstable taxonomy of the family Paratanaidae is discussed. A full description of the adult female and the manca of Bathytanais juergeni, new species, is presented. Males remain unknown for the genus. Scanning electron micrographs of B. juergeni reveal that the carapace consists of articulated plates, not a uniform carapace, and that the coxae of pereiopods 4-6 are expanded to form sternal plates. The genus Bathytanais is retained in the family Paratanaidae, but the family is redefined. The related families/subfamilies Anarthruridae, Typhlotanaidae, and Leptognathiinae are critically reviewed. The taxonomic concepts that were suggested by Sieg for the above-mentioned families fail when setal homologies are critically evaluated. The number of articles in the uropodal rami, often used in generic and family diagnoses, is found to be ambiguous, owing to partial fusion of articles.


While limited advances have occurred in the past 30 years in the pharmacological management of anxiety and stress-related disorders, novel molecular pathways both within and without the monoamine systems are currently under investigation and offer promising new avenues for more effective future treatments. Enhancing psychotherapy approaches with pharmacological compounds offers the potential to not only transform the standard of care of these conditions, but more broadly would introduce a paradigm shift in the way medications and their role in psychiatric care are conceptualised. Although further human trials and more translational research are sorely needed, continuing to pursue innovative mechanisms and treatments is hoped to yield substantial results in the coming decades and a departure from the reliance on chemical agents of the 20th century.


Many cryptographic primitives that are used in cryptographic schemes and security protocols such as SET, PKI, IPSec, and VPNs utilize hash functions, which form a special family of cryptographic algorithms. Applications that use these security schemes are becoming very popular as time goes by and this means that some of these applications call for higher throughput either due to their rapid acceptance by the market or due to their nature. In this work, a new methodology is presented for achieving high operating frequency and throughput for the implementations of all widely used-and those expected to be used in the near future-hash functions such as MD-5, SHA-1, RIPEMD (all versions), SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, and so forth. In the proposed methodology, five different techniques have been developed and combined with the finest way so as to achieve the maximum performance. Compared to conventional pipelined implementations of hash functions (in FPGAs), the proposed methodology can lead even to a 160 percent throughput increase.


Under the global trend of urbanization, a city ecosystem could be viewed as an integration of various service systems with the Service-Dominant Logic (S-DL) view. To study the composition of the service systems, social capital accumulation could be used to assess the resource distribution in the system development under the value-oriented perspectives of S-DL. Prior researches on related topics usually focused on the performance of social capital. This paper aims to assess social capital by studying the resource integration process, and to answer how social capital was accumulated along with the service system development. Grounded on the S-DL, this research studies the service system development of a traditional market revitalization project by actornetwork analysis using the field data from a 30-month ethnographical work. A conceptual framework integrating social capital theory and S-DL perspective was developed. We demonstrate the process of evaluating the social capital generation and integration during value creation, which approaches its accumulation process. We anticipate the framework of accessing the social capital accumulation can reveal the structural holes of service systems by analyzing the accumulated conditions, facilitating the involved actors' decision making, and communicating the value propositions with the public.


Background In England and Wales the two most likely places of death are hospitals (52%) and nursing homes (22%). The Department of Health published its National End of Life Care Strategy in July 2008 (Department of Health. End of Life Care Strategy: Promoting High Quality Care For All Adults at the End of Life . London: Department of Health; 2008) to improve the provision of care, recommending the use of the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP). Aim The original aim was to assess the impact of the LCP on care in two settings: nursing homes and intensive care units (ICUs). Design Qualitative, matched case study. Methods Data were collected from 12 ICUs and 11 nursing homes in England: (1) documentary analysis of provider end-of-life care policy documents; (2) retrospective analysis of 10 deaths in each location using written case notes; (3) interviews with staff about end-of-life care; (4) observation of the care of dying patients; (5) analysis of the case notes pertaining to the observed patient's death; (6) interview with a member of staff providing care during the observed period; (7) interview with a bereaved relative present during the observation; (8) economic analysis focused on the observed patients; and (9) strict inclusion and selection criteria for nursing homes and ICUs applied to match sites on LCP use/non-LCP use. Results It was not possible to meet the stated aims of the study. Although 23 sites were recruited, observations were conducted in only 12 sites (eight using the LCP). A robust comparison on the basis of LCP use could not, therefore, take place. Although nurses in both settings reported that the LCP supported good care, the LCP was interpreted and used differently across sites, with the greatest variation in ICUs. Although not able to address the original research question, this study provides an unprecedented insight into care at the end of life in two different settings. The majority of nursing homes had implemented some kind of 'pathway' for dying patients and most homes participating in the observational stage were using the LCP. However, training in care of the dying was variable and specific issues were identified relating to general practitioner involvement, the use of anticipatory drugs and the assessment of consciousness and the swallowing reflex. In ICUs, end-of-life care was inextricably linked with the withdrawal of active treatment and controlling the pace of death. The data highlight how the decision to withdraw was made and, importantly, how relatives were involved in this process. The fact that most patients died soon after the withdrawal of interventions was reported to limit the appropriateness of the LCP in this setting. Limitations Although the recruitment of matched sites was achieved, variable site participation resulted in a skewed sample. Issues with the sample size and a blurring of LCP use and non-use limit the extent to which the ambitious aims of the study were achieved. Conclusions This study makes a unique contribution to understanding the complexity of care at the end of life in two very different settings. More research is needed into the ways in which an organisational culture can be created within which the principles of good end-of-life care become translated into practice. Funding The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme.


Results of the radical copolymerisation of chlorotrifluoroethylene (CTFE) with isobutyl vinyl ether (iBuVE) initiated by ˙CF3 radicals generated by β-scission of perfluoro-3-ethyl-2,4-dimethyl-3-pentyl radical (PPFR) at 90 °C in a batch reactor are reported. 19F NMR spectroscopy enabled the assessment of the molecular weights of the poly(CTFE-alt-iBuVE) copolymer by end-group analysis. It was found that, at low initiator concentrations (≤10 mol%), the ˙CF3 radicals preferably attack the vinyl ether monomer to initiate chain propagation and produce alternating poly(CTFE-alt-iBuVE) copolymers. At initiator ratios of 20 mol%, 19F NMR signals in the CF3 region other than the expected CH2–CF3 are observed and are attributed to ˙CF3 addition patterns due to kinetic effects brought on by monomer solubility. The molecular weights for the copolymer produced from 1%, 5%, and 10% PPFR were found to be 340 000, 237 000 and 122 000 g mol−1, respectively. The copolymer produced from 20% PPFR was oligomeric in nature with a molecular weight of 18 000 g mol−1.


Recent advances in the growth of aluminum scandium nitride films on silicon suggest that this material platform could be applied for quantum electromechanical applications. Here, we model, fabricate, and characterize microwave frequency silicon phononic delay lines with transducers formed in an adjacent aluminum scandium nitride layer to evaluate aluminum scandium nitride films, at 32% scandium, on silicon interdigital transducers for piezoelectric transduction into suspended silicon membranes. We achieve an electromechanical coupling coefficient of 2.7% for the extensional symmetric-like Lamb mode supported in the suspended material stack and show how this coupling coefficient could be increased to at least 8.5%, which would further boost transduction efficiency and reduce the device footprint. The one-sided transduction efficiency, which quantifies the efficiency at which the source of microwave photons is converted to microwave phonons in the silicon membrane, is 10% at 5 GHz at room temperature and, as we discuss, there is a path to increase this toward near-unity efficiency based on a combination of modified device design and operation at cryogenic temperatures.


An unusual two-level fracture dislocation of the spine in a patient with rheumatoid spondylitis is presented. Thorough clinical and roentgenographic examination of the entire vertebral column in recommended in patients with rheumatoid spondylitis who have sustained injury.


This paper extends the flux scattering method to study the carrier transport property in nanoscale MOSFETs with special emphasis on the low-field mobility and the transport mechanism transition. A unified analytical expression for the low-field mobility is proposed, which covers the entire regime from drift-diffusion transport to quasi-ballistic transport in 1-D, 2-D and 3-D MOSFETs. Two key parameters, namely the long-channel low-field mobility (μ0) and the low-field mean free path (λ0), are obtained from the experimental data, and the transport mechanism transition in MOSFETs is further discussed both experimentally and theoretically. Our work shows that λ0 is available to characterize the inherent transition of the carrier transport mechanism rather than the low-field mobility. The mobility reduces in the MOSFET with the shrinking of the channel length; however, λ0 is nearly a constant, and λ0 can be used as the "entry criterion"to determine whether the device begins to operate under quasi-ballistic transport to some extent.


Cytofluorometric analysis was performed to characterize the surface phenotype and activation status of freshly isolated synovial tissue lymphocytes (STL) and peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) from 7 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Proliferative synovium was enzymatically digested to obtain tissue-derived lymphocytes. Indirect immunofluorescent staining of patient PBL and STL with a variety of monoclonal antibodies failed to reveal a consistent alteration in the number of CD4+ (helper/inducer) PBL or STL. However, there was a significant decrease in the number of CD8+ (suppressor/cytotoxic) cells in rheumatoid STL (P less than 0.05). A significant reduction in the density of the T cell differentiation antigens CD3 and CD4 was observed in RA PBL and STL, compared with control PBL. These differences in antigen density were not seen when normal PBL were subjected to the same enzymatic digestion. Both RA PBL and STL manifested increased expression of HLA-DR antigens, without augmentation of interleukin-2 receptor expression. Alterations in the expression of the T cell differentiation antigens and activation antigens by patient PBL closely paralleled the abnormalities observed in STL. In contrast, STL of patients with RA exhibited an increase in the expression of the adhesion-related glycoproteins (leukocyte function-associated 1 [LFA-1] and very late activation 1 [VLA-1] antigens), not observed with autologous PBL. These studies demonstrate that lymphocytes isolated from the synovial tissues of RA patients bear an activated phenotype, exemplified by the modulation of CD3 and CD4 and the expression of HLA-DR.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Aims: The aim was to compare the recession coverage outcomes when done macrosurgically and microsurgically. Background: Increasing interest in esthetics and the related problems such as hypersensitivity and root caries have favored the development of many root coverage procedures. Recession coverage up to a certain extent has solved these problems, but these procedures need good maintenance after the surgery for long-term benefits. With increasing advances in the field of recession coverage, microscope has added another dimension in undertaking the surgical procedure. Materials and Methods: Thirty Miller′s Class I and II recession were treated using the sub-epithelial connective tissue graft from the palate. In 15 sites, the graft was placed at the recipient site with unaided eye (Group A) and in other 15 sites the graft was placed using surgical microscope (Group B). Clinical evaluation was done at baseline, 12 weeks and 24 weeks postoperatively using plaque index, gingival index, vertical recession (VR), probing depth, clinical attachment level (CAL), width of attached gingiva, papilla height (PH) and width, malalignment index (MI) and esthetic appearance. Statistical Analysis Used: Paired and unpaired Student′s t-test along with Wilcoxon Z-test were used to analyze the results and probability of P < 0.05 were accepted to reject the null hypothesis. Pearson correlation was used to correlate two parameters such as VR and CAL and MI and VR. Results: Both the techniques demonstrated predictable mean root coverage (Group A 61.78% and Group B 67.58%) at 6 months postsurgery. CAL gain was slightly better in Group B patients when compared to Group A patients. A moderate positive correlation for Group A while a mild correlation in Group B was seen between the MI and VR. Conclusion: The use of the microscope enhances the results, but obtaining an expertise in using needs a lot of practice. The periodontal healing by both techniques should be evaluated histologically.


The effect of epidermal growth factor (EGF) on clone MC3T3-El cells that have osteoblastic activity was examined by phase-contrast microscopy and electron microscopy; hydroxyproline content, collagen synthesis, collagen pattern, and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity were also determined. We found that EGF (0.4 ng/ml) transformed the cells from their normal polygonal shape to a spindle-like morphology by 8 h. This hormone also caused dose-related suppression of hydroxyproline content and ALP activity which was detectable 2 days and 1 day, respectively, after EGF addition. Indomethacin did not affect hydroxyproline content and ALP activity, suggesting that the effect of EGF on the cells may not be mediated by prostaglandins. Epidermal growth factor at concentrations of 2 to 50 ng/ml significantly decreased collagen synthesis in the cells, whereas protein synthesis was stimulated. Electron microscopy demonstrated that collagen fiber formation was also reduced by EGF; an immature type of fibril was observed compared with the typical cross-striated one in the controls. Moreover, the hormone treatment also resulted in the appearance of type III collagen in addition to the type I already present in the cells. These suppressive effects of EGF on MC3T3-El cells in vitro suggest that this hormone may be involved in bone remodelling in vivo as well.


OAuth 2.0 is one of the most widely used Internet protocols for authorization/single sign-on (SSO) and is also the foundation of the new SSO protocol OpenID Connect. Due to its complexity and its flexibility, it is difficult to comprehensively analyze the security of the OAuth 2.0 standard, yet it is critical to obtain practical security guarantees for OAuth 2.0. In this paper, we present the first computationally sound security analysis of OAuth 2.0. First, we introduce a new primitive, the three-party authenticated secret distribution (3P-ASD for short) protocol, which plays the role of issuing the secret and captures the token issue process of OAuth 2.0. As far as we know, this is the first attempt to formally abstract the authorization technology into a general primitive and then define its security. Then, we present a sufficiently rich three-party security model for OAuth protocols, covering all kinds of authorization flows, providing reasonably strong security guarantees and moreover capturing various web features. To confirm the soundness of our model, we also identify the known attacks against OAuth 2.0 in the model. Furthermore, we prove that two main modes of OAuth 2.0 can achieve our desired security by abstracting the token issue process into a 3P-ASD protocol. Our analysis is not only modular which can reflect the compositional nature of OAuth 2.0, but also fine-grained which can evaluate how the intermediate parameters affect the final security of OAuth 2.0.


This research aims at discovering the traits and abilities which characterize ideal leaders in the minds of employees in an Iranian context. After employing the strategy of phenomenology to reach the components of ideal leadership, 15 tenured middle managers and employees possessing decent management knowledge in the context were interviewed and after theme analysis, global, basic, and organizing themes were extracted. The results showed that the whole themes could be categorized into two groups of prototypes and anti-prototype. Five of the themes are the prototypes labeled as charismatic, humane oriented, employee's servant, emotionally mature, and decisive and three of them are the anti-prototype labeled as selfish, deceptive, and narrow-minded. Although some of the components of Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs) are generalizable, the context can produce some distinct features of ILTs. This research tried to discover implicit leadership theories in an Iranian context. According to the available themes in the literature of ILTs, employee's servant, emotionally mature and decisive are the three novel prototypes and deceptive and narrow-minded are the new anti-prototypeanti-prototype. Moreover, this is the first study using interview to discover ILTs with the inclusion of data retrieved from participants' semantic memory.


purpura, abdominal pain, and vessel wall granulocytes on biopsy specimens (2).However, the diagnostic criteria of HSP were recently modified by the EULAR ⁄PReS (European League against Rheumatism and Paediatric Rheumatology European Society) (3). They highlighted the need to include ''predominant IgAdeposition'' in any biopsy specimen (skin or kidney), because IgA deposition has been regarded as highly characteristic of HSP. They also suggested the deletion of the age criterion (because HSP also occurs in adults), and the addition of arthritis and renal involvement to the group of criteria (because these are common presentations of HSP) (3). Using the new EULAR ⁄PReS criteria for HSP, Aalberse et al (4) recently reported that HSP (characterized by a leukocytoclastic vasculitis with IgA deposits) could be diagnosed in only 160 of the 179 patients with nonthrombocytopenic purpura if skin biopsy is used as a diagnostic tool for HSP. Therefore, they speculated that a number of patients classified as HSP might present in fact with hypersensitivity vasculitis (characterized by a leucocytoclastic vasculitis without IgA deposits), and concluded that the correct diagnosis using skin biopsy might be important at the initial stage of the disease, becauseHSPnephritis can lead to chronic renal failure at long-term even after apparent complete recovery, while hypersensitivity vasculitis has complete recovery (4–6). However, Davin et al (7) reported that the cutaneous punch biopsy should be performed at the edge of fresh lesions to maximize the chance of finding IgA deposits and to avoid the disappearance of IgA deposits by proteolytic effects in the center of necrotic lesions and by phagocytosis with time. Thus, these situations should be considered if skin biopsy in a patient withHSP shows no IgA deposition as in the Chan et al (1) patient. In conclusion, IgA deposition in biopsy specimens emerged as one of the important diagnostic cirteria for differentiating HSP from hypersensitivity vasculitis. Therefore, skin biopsy should be considered in patients presenting with nonthrombocytopenic purpura not only for correct diagnosis but also for prognostic evaluation.


Background: Age at menarche is an important developmental milestone known to be modified by social and environmental factors. The determinants and potential change over time of age at menarche in Colombia are not well documented. Aims: To obtain a current estimate of age at menarche in Colombia and to examine the associations between socio-demographic characteristics and age at menarche. Subjects and methods: Between 1998 and 2001, we obtained recalled age at menarche, socio-demographic characteristics, and physical activity information in a group of 3206 students at the National University of Colombia who completed a self-administered questionnaire. We examined the cross-sectional associations between mean age at menarche and migratory pattern, parental education, socio-economic status indicators, practice of physical activity, and year of birth using linear regression. Results: Mean age at menarche (± SD) was 12.68 ± 1.31. In a multivariate adjusted regression model, age at menarche was positively associated with family size and the practice of at least 2 daily hours of physical activity, and was inversely related to urbanization level, socio-economic status, and year of birth. Conclusions: Socio-economic status is a strong predictor of menarche in this population. There appears to be a trend towards earlier menarche by year of birth.


Dr P. McL. D. Duff congratulated the author on his presentation of a most interesting paper and said that, in general, he welcomed all attempts to describe cyclic sedimentation in an objective manner. He would, however, appreciate clarification of certain basic points of the technique used. In at least one of the data matrices he noticed that shale never 'changed' into shale whereas limestone 'changed' into limestone. In more than one case sandstone 'changed' into sandstone. How did Dr Selley decide when one rock type followed itself? If there were differences in the sandstones they could not all be assigned to the same 'state' and presumably extra rows and columns should appear in the matrix corresponding to the different types of sandstones. If on the other hand the same sort of sandstone followed itself, what was the evidence for this and how did the criterion used compare in geological significance with a change from one rock type to another? The Author agreed with Dr Duff that the problem of recognizing multi-storey sequences in shales was difficult, if not sometimes impossible. In sandstone and limestone sections, however, bedding planes were generally present, and these could be used to distinguish both similar and dissimilar units. Geologists who were uncertain of how to recognize bedding planes in the field could construct a transition matrix using a fixed sampling interval. As discussed in the text of the paper, however, this procedure was suspect since the operator could alter the transitional probabilities at will by


The kinetics of ammonia absorption into magnesium chloride is measured as ammonia pressure change in the temperature range 170-430°C. The actual pressure minus that at equilibrium drops quickly, with a half life of less than a minute. It varies with the square-root of time, suggesting diffusion limited absorption. The diffusion coefficient of ammonia in solid magnesium chloride inferred from these data is on the order 10−11-10−13 cm2/s, considerably faster than many solid-phase diffusivities. While optical microscopy and BET surface area experiments indicate recrystallization and agglomeration of the absorbent at ammonia synthesis temperatures, the absorption rate remains high. The dependence of absorption rate on temperature, particle size and the presence of a silica support is also investigated. The results suggest both improved ammonia separation and ways to develop high-conversion, small-scale, multifunctional ammonia synthesis reactors. © 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2012


Molecular orbital wave functions for methane and silane are set up as harmonic expansions about the central nucleus as origin. This method avoids the many-centred integrals of the l. c. a. o. theory. Energies, bond lengths and force constants are obtained quite accurately using only the first term in each expansion. In this case the radial wave functions may be calculated by the Hartree s. c. f. method as for atoms. Scale-factor methods are developed to obtain the bond length and force constant from the s. c. f. wave functions calculated for a single internuclear distance, and to determine the approximate effect of exchange terms. It is shown that higher terms in the expansions of the m. o. 's are important in the calculation of some molecular properties, particularly angular momentum and diamagnetic susceptibility.


Objective: To investigate the prevalence, clinical features and outcomes of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among sarcoidosis patients. Methods: We retrospectively collected features of COVID-19 in a cohort of patients with sarcoidosis followed in a single tertiary university hospital. Results: Among 199 sarcoidosis patients [mean age 58.8 (±14) years, 86 (43.2%) men], 26 (13%) were diagnosed with COVID-19 [definite (n=7), probable (n=12) and possible (n=7)]. Twenty-four out of 26 patients (92%) had at least one comorbidity, and 11/26 (42%) had two or more comorbidities. Demographic and clinical features of COVID-19 positive patients were similar to those of COVID-19 negative patients. The administration of hydroxychloroquine or immunosuppressant was not associated with the occurrence or the severity of COVID-19. Four out of 26 (15.4%) COVID-19 positive patients required admission to hospital and two of them died. Hospitalized patients [mean age of 61 (±11.5) years] were receiving higher doses of long term treatment with corticosteroids than non-hospitalized patients; 4/4 had pulmonary and 2/4 cardiac involvement of sarcoidosis, and all one or more comorbidity. Conclusion: The prevalence of COVID-19 in sarcoidosis is slightly higher to that of the general population. Almost half of the COVID-19 positive patients have two or more comorbidities and about 15% present a severe course.


The feasibility of furosemide test for the detection of endolymphatic hydrops has previously been discussed (Authors, 1973, 1975). The glycerol test also has been reported as being effective for the same purpose but only in Meniere patients with fluctuating hearing loss (Klockhoff & Lindblom, 1966). In 48 patients with Meniere's disease, both the furosemide test (F-test) and the glycerol test (G-test) were performed on 51 ears including 3 cases of bilateral involvement. The average value of urine volume in the F-test was significantly greater than that for the G-test. The decrease in tinnitus was 40% in the former, 45% in the latter. The F-test yielded a positive rate of 73%, and the G-test, 45%. The results were thus: positive in the both tests, i.e., F+: G+ were 17 (33%); F+: G-, 20 (39%); F-: G+, 6 (12%), and both negative, F-: G-, only (16%). The side effects of the F-test were nil, but those of the G-test were as follows: headache (29%), nausea (4%), and increase in tinnitus (9%). The response increase of the hydropic labyrinth caused by the two kinds of systemic dehydration over-lapped in part and differed in part, as a result of the differing diuretic mechanisms and their respective affinities to the cochlea and the vestibulum. The furosemide test may be based on the action of the vestibular response type, which is caused by natriuretic dehydration accompanying the more sensitive response increase in caloric-induced nystagmus, while the glycerol test may be based on the action of the cochlear response type, owing to osmotic diuresis manifested as hearing shift. The correlation between labyrinthine hydrops and dehydration was discussed and it was concluded that these double test were quite adequate methods for choice of treatment of not only unilateral Meniere's disease in its various stages but also in bilateral involvements.


People's desired levels of inequality are informed by the levels of inequality they perceive to exist. Perceived economic inequality is used as a reference point in determining people's ideal level of inequality. However, recent research has suggested that the strength of this relationship depends on people's endorsement of system-justifying beliefs. The current article extends this body of research by replicating these findings across 41 countries (N = 42,078), showing the impact of system-justifying beliefs at both the individual and the societal levels. We conducted a multilevel analysis and found that the higher the endorsement of equality of opportunity beliefs—both at the individual and the societal levels—and meritocratic beliefs—at the individual level—the stronger the relationship between perceived and ideal economic inequality. These findings are in support of a motivated account of the perceived legitimacy of economic inequality.


The study of the loop gain frequency response in a power converter is a powerful tool commonly used for the design of the controllers used in the control stage. As the control of medium- and high-power electronic converters is usually performed digitally, it is useful to find a method to measure the digital loop gains. The purpose of this paper is to present a method for properly measuring the loop gain frequency response of digitally controlled power converters by means of an analog frequency response analyzer (FRA). An analog sinusoidal reference signal generated by the FRA is injected through an analog-to-digital converter into the digital controller, and added to the discrete feedback signal. To obtain the frequency response of the open-loop gain, both feedback and disturbed feedback signals are sent back to the FRA by using the pulsewidth modulation peripherals of the controller.


Acoustic waves are currently being used in a wide range of sensor fields including physical sensing, chemical sensing and biosensing. Their implementation requires specific knowledge of materials, acoustic wave properties, device design and the sensing mechanisms involved for a wide range of applications. In this paper, the authors report on commonly used acoustic wave devices in sensor applications as well as the design techniques and fabrication processes. Sensing mechanisms and a portable sensor array system are described. The development of IC-based processes, thin-film deposition and sensitive layer fixation will allow for the integration of a total physical and chemical analysis system in the one IC package, leading to the evolution of smart sensors.


Liquid dielectrics are different from each other, but are used to perform the same tasks in high-voltage electrical equipment, especially transformers. In similar conditions, the insulation performance of transformer oils under different types of voltage will provide dielectric resistance. In this study, three different dielectric liquids applied in transformers, namely mineral oil, natural ester and synthetic ester, were tested. Tests under AC and negative DC voltage were performed at electrode gaps of 2.5 mm, 2 mm and 1 mm using disk and VDE type electrodes as per ASTM D1816-84A and ASTM D877-87 standards, respectively. In turn, the impulse voltage tests were performed under an electrode configuration suggested by the IEC 60897 standard. The current data of 500 ms prior to breakdown under AC electrical field stress was decomposed using the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and variational mode decomposition (VMD) methods. These analyses were conducted before the full electrical breakdown. Although synthetic ester has the highest dielectric strength under AC and negative DC electrical field stress, mineral oil has been assessed to be the most resistant liquid dielectric at lightning impulse voltages. In addition, stabilization of mineral oil under AC and negative DC voltage was also seen to be good with the help of calculated standard deviation values. However, synthetic ester has a significant advantage, especially in terms of dielectric performance, over mineral oil in spite of the stability of mineral oil. This indicates that liquid dielectric selection for transformers must be carried out as a combined evaluation of multiple parameters.


Water quality is a state of biological, physical, and chemical characteristics of water in collaboration with anticipated use and a set of standards. Samplings were taken in wet and dry seasons from twenty-nine stations within the river basin. Six parameters were used base on National Water Quality Standard (NWQS). Individual Water Quality Index (WQI) is used to compare the parameters with WQI table to show results on many impacts of natural and anthropogenic factors. Six parameters have been calculated to have the WQI which is wet season has a range of 62.10 to 75.46 with a mean of 72.81, while dry season ranging from 56.3 74.14 with an average of 70.47 which based on water quality classification is slightly polluted. It is suggested that monitoring and treatment should be appropriately carried out on measured parameters that fall in Class III and IV along with the river.


The goal of the paper is to introduce our third-eye camera projects using dynamic and static hyperspectrum imaging with integration of several cameras including a new super harp camera, IR camera. The third-eye camera is able to capture value-added images of objects with a wide range of spectrum from radio wave, long IR, IR, visible light, ultraviolet, or X-ray by neural feature extraction. Static hyperspectrum imaging can be used for inspection of buildings and bridges, investigating the status of tiles, underground and moss, investigation of coral, measuring gases for health of plants, measuring the taste of food, discovering counterfeit money, minute blood vessel and so on. An artificial retina camera is also introduced for dynamic spectrum imaging for many applications including optical flow imaging, edging, and so on. A real-time gesture interpreter using the retina camera is addressed.


Morphology of Uvularia. -Miss ALDEN27 has investigated the life history of Uvularia sessilifolia, chiefly as to the sequence of events, presumably in the region of New York City. The archesporium of the microsporangium (3-6 cells) becomes differentiated the first of August, at which time also the division into parietal and sporogenous eries occurs. Mature microspore mother cells were found in the middle of September, and the tetrad divisions occurred in October, so that the winter is passed with the microspores fully formed. In the latter part of the following April the division of the microspore nucleus into generative and tube nuclei occurs, and probably the former divides after the shedding of pollen. The archesporium of the megasporangium is differentiated early in March (seven months later than the microsporangiate archesporium), and consists of a single hypodermal cell which does not cut off a parietal cell. The reduction division occurs the last week of April.-J. M. C.


In terms of the Voronoi-Dirichlet partition of the crystal space, definitions are given for such concepts as ;void', ;channel' and ;migration path' for inorganic structures with three-dimensional networks of chemical bonds. A number of criteria are proposed for selecting significant voids and migration channels for alkali cations Li+-Cs+ based on the average characteristics of the Voronoi-Dirichlet polyhedra for alkali metals in oxygen-containing compounds. A general algorithm to analyze the voids in crystal structures has been developed and implemented in the computer package TOPOS. This approach was used to predict the positions of Li+ and Na+ cations and to analyze their possible migration paths in the solid superionic materials Li3M2P3O12 (M=Sc, Fe; LIPHOS) and Na1+xZr2SixP3-xO12 (NASICON), whose framework structures consist of connected M octahedra and T tetrahedra. Using this approach we determine the most probable places for charge carriers (coordinates of alkali cations) and the dimensionality of their conducting sublattice with high accuracy. The theoretically calculated coordinates of the alkali cations in MT frameworks are found to correlate to within 0.33 A with experimental data for various phases of NASICON and LIPHOS. The proposed method of computer analysis is universal and suitable for investigating fast-ion conductors with other conducting components.


The objective of this thesis is to detect high level semantic ideas to help to impose a structure on television talk shows. Indexing TV-shows is a subject that, to our knowledge, is rarely talked about in the scientific community. There is no common understanding of what this imposed structure should look like. We can say that the purpose is to organise the audiovisual content into sections that convey a specific information. It thus encompasses issues as diverse as scene segmentation, speech noise detection, speaker identification, etc. The basic problem of structuring is the gap between the information extracted from visual data flow and human interpretation made by the user of these data. Numerous studies have examined the organisation of highly structured video content. Thus, the state of the art has many studies on sport or newscast transmissions. Our goal is to detect key audiovisual events using a variety of descriptors and generic classifiers. We propose a generic approach that is able to assess all TV-show indexing problems. This enables an operator to use one single tool to infer a logical structure. Our approach can be considered as ``semi-automatic'' in the sense that the training data is collected on the fly by the operator who is asked to arbitrarily select one video excerpt of each concept involved. We have assessed a wide selection of audio and video features, used MKL as a feature selection algorithm and then built various content detectors and segmentors useful for imposing broad semantic classes on television data. This master's thesis was set forth by TELECOM ParisTech and was begun there March 1, 2010. This final report was submitted to TELECOM ParisTech, NTNU and Institute EURECOM August 29, 2010.


The paper presents power electronics research opportunities provided by PSIM simulation software and high performance floating point DSP controller. Advantages of PSIM's C/C++ modeling capabilities are shown by modeling of DSP controller runtime environment (RTE). Thanks to this feature source code of control algorithm targeted for the DSP can be embedded in power electronics circuit simulation. Therefore, more detailed system description can be built As a proof of this idea, simulation as well as experimental results of sensorless active rectifier control are provided.


New cryogels for selective dye removal from aqueous solution were prepared by free radical polymerization from the highly water-soluble crosslinker N,N,N',N'-tetramethyl-N,N'-bis(2-ethylmethacrylate)-propyl-1,3-diammonium dibromide and the sulfobetaine monomer 2-(N-3-sulfopropyl-N,N-dimethyl ammonium)ethyl methacrylate. The resulting white and opaque cryogels have micrometer sized pores with a smaller substructure. They adsorb methyl orange (MO) but not methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution. Mixtures of MO and MB can be separated through selective adsorption of the MO to the cryogels while the MB remains in solution. The resulting cryogels are thus candidates for the removal of hazardous organic substances, as exemplified by MO and MB, from water. Clearly, it is possible that the cryogels are also potentially interesting for removal of other compounds such as pharmaceuticals or pesticides, but this must be investigated further.


Proceedings: AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010‐‐ Apr 17‐21, 2010; Washington, DC

Clinical trials in a number of solid tumor indications have shown that the addition of NOV-002 (a formulation of disodium glutathione disulfide) to a range of cytotoxic chemotherapeutic regimens potentiates their anti-tumor efficacy. However, the specific mechanisms involved remain unclear. Previous in vitro studies demonstrated that NOV-002 generates oxidative signals in human tumor cell lines resulting in apoptosis and decreased proliferation. In addition, NOV-002 has been reported to display in vivo immunomodulatory properties in oncology settings. Hence, NOV-002: (i) significantly increases circulating T-lymphocyte subsets [CD4+, CD8+, NK-T lymphocytes] in non-small lung cancer patients receiving chemotherapy plus NOV-002 vs. chemotherapy alone; (ii) reverses T-cell suppressive effect of myeloid suppressor cells in mice; (iii) potentiates anti-tumor effect of adoptive immunotherapy in a mouse melanoma model; (iv) increases intra-tumoral memory T-cells and anti-tumor immune responsiveness in a mouse model of ovarian cancer. Here, we sought to test the hypothesis that NOV-002 potentiates the anti-tumor effect of chemotherapy through immune-mediated mechanisms. To this end in the CT26 murine colon cancer model, tumor-bearing mice were treated with NOV-002 (25 mg/kg, i.p.) or saline (daily on days 1-14, then Monday-Friday, beginning 5 days post-tumor injection until tumor progression), followed by 200mg/kg cyclophosphamide (CTX) on days 6 and 9. In three independent experiments we found that while NOV-002 alone had only a modest effect on tumor growth rate, the addition of NOV-002 to CTX resulted in significantly slower tumor growth compared to CTX alone. Mean overall survival was significantly longer in CTX/NOV mice [90 vs 47 days; P=0.005]. Interestingly, all mice receiving CTX alone developed tumors, while approximately 40% of CTX/NOV-002 mice showed no tumor development. To further investigate whether failure of tumor development in these mice was due to an immune mechanism, they underwent tumor rechallenge. In two independent experiments only 1/7 mice (14%) developed tumors after rechallenge. To test the contribution of memory T-cells, which are known to home to the bone marrow, CTX/NOV-002 mice with tumor failure were sacrificed and marrows adoptively transferred to mice bearing 7 day old CT26 tumors. A significant delay in tumor progression was observed in mice receiving adoptively transferred marrow suggesting that the immunologic memory generated after CTX/NOV-002 treatment was sufficient to effectively prevent or regress tumor formation. Taken together, these data provide further support to the hypothesis that, when combined with chemotherapy, NOV-002's anti-tumor efficacy may be due at least in part to enhancement of anti-tumor cellular immune responsiveness.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5620.


Using synchrotron radiation of 6-32 eV the reflection spectrum and excitation spectra for 5.7, 4.6 and 2.8 eV emissions have been measured for a freshly cleaved CaO crystal at LHeT. In CaO, indirect band-to-band transitions take place in the region of hv>or=6.4 eV. The excitation spectra for intrinsic emissions of 5.9 and 4.2 eV were measured in a YAlO3 crystal at LHeT as well. As in many other dielectrics the electron-hole mechanism of multiplication of electronic excitations connected with the creation of secondary electron-hole pairs by hot photoelectrons also occurs in CaO and YAlO3 crystals. The creation of secondary excitons by hot photoelectrons has been detected in YAlO3 for the first time. The excitonic mechanism of multiplication of electronic excitations has a high efficiency in crystals with self-trapping excitons of small radii.


This Special Issue is devoted to nutrition genomics, which is the characterization of the whole genome response to nutrients, in an effort to gather all the available pertinent information and to establish the foundation for a future encyclopedia of genomic responses driven by diets or nutrients [...].


In recent years, the need to minimise environmental impact has led to the exploration of sustainable materials, avoiding those derived from petroleum, considering that these materials should proceed from nature and be harmless and durable. Therefore, throughout this work, the following raw materials were used: furan resin, which comes from agricultural by-products, and basalt fibre, obtained by melting basaltic volcanic rock. Specifically, this work studies the development of a flame-retarded furan prepreg manufactured by means of a continuous process combining a double-belt lamination equipment with an impregnation system. Once the prepregs (flame- and non-flame-retarded) were obtained, they were subjected to various tests to analyse their fire behaviour, with both showing an adequate performance. However, comparing both, concerning the toxicity index (CITG), the flame-retarded prepreg generated fewer toxic gases during combustion than the non-flame-retarded one, although the latter showed a lower smoke density. In short, the developed flame-retarded material falls into the R1HL3 (Requirement 1 and Hazard Level 3) classification demanded by products with large areas in railway vehicle interiors, which is the maximum safety level according to the risk index established in applicable regulations. Therefore, this material could be used in any railway vehicle for indoor applications.


The experimental energy level spectrum of 24Mg is compared with potential energy surfaces calculated from the Nilsson-Strutinsky cranking formalism. Positive-parity states are also compared with the Glasgow school sd shell-model calculations. Emphasis is placed on the high spin and energy states. The subshell occupancies are used in the investigation of similarities and differences of the two complementary models. Predictions about high spin states are presented and useful experiments suggested.


Molecular-based approaches are particularly well suited to three-dimensional flow field diagnostics. Images simultaneously capture a wide range of scales and give both vector and scalar quantities. The diagnostic approaches discussed here include flow tagging by RELIEF and PHANTOMM in air and water, respectively; planar imaging in air with Rayleigh Scattering and Filtered Rayleigh Scattering; and planar imaging in water with Laser-Induced Fluorescence. For the tagging approaches, images can be captured using a stereoscopic camera pair to observe the threedimensional displacement of patterns written into the flow field. In the case of Rayleigh Scattering and Laser-Induced Fluorescence, three-dimensional images are captured by sequential or simultaneous images of planar cross sections through the three-dimensional volume. The visualization of these three-dimensional volume data sets requires transparent reprojection, preferably with partial obscuration and motion, if the full complex structure is to be visualized.


This paper reconsiders optimal inflation targeting in a model where persistence is generated by rational choices of the price makers because of a time-dependent pricing mechanism. In this framework, which generalizes the traditional Calvo model, inflation persistence is intrinsic, as it is micro-founded assuming that firms' pricing decisions depend on the time elapsed from the last price reset. We use a linear–quadratic approach to study the welfare effects and optimal policies. We disentangled two distortion sources showing how welfare falls in both the average of the probability of changing prices and its distribution among different firms. Described the underlying distortions of our setup, we analyze its normative implications for optimal inflation. The issues of uncertainty and robustness are also considered: By using robust control techniques, we, in fact, consider the consequences of implementing a "wrong†monetary rule due to a misinterpretation of sources of inflation inertia.


ABSTRACT We have identified a gene encoding a heterotrimeric G protein γ subunit, gng-1, from the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa. gng-1 possesses a gene structure similar to that of mammalian Gγ genes, consisting of three exons and two introns, with introns present in both the open reading frame and 5′-untranslated region. The GNG-1 amino acid sequence displays high identity to predicted Gγ subunits from other filamentous fungi, including Giberella zeae, Cryphonectria parasitica, Trichoderma harzianum, and Magnaporthe grisea. Deletion of gng-1 leads to developmental defects similar to those previously characterized for Δgnb-1 (Gβ) mutants. Δgng-1, Δgnb-1, and Δgng-1 Δgnb-1 strains conidiate inappropriately in submerged cultures and are female sterile, producing aberrant female reproductive structures. Similar to previous results obtained with Δgnb-1 mutants, loss of gng-1 negatively influences levels of Gα proteins (GNA-1, GNA-2, and GNA-3) in plasma membrane fractions isolated from various tissues of N. crassa and leads to a significant reduction in the amount of intracellular cyclic AMP. In addition, we show that GNB-1 is essential for maintenance of normal steady-state levels of GNG-1, suggesting a functional interaction between GNB-1 and GNG-1. Direct evidence for a physical association between GNB-1 and GNG-1 in vivo was provided by coimmunoprecipitation.


In an attempt to minimize the need for hospitalization and the associated perioperative and postoperative morbidity, alternatives to transurethral resection of the prostate (the standard treatment modality for benign prostatic hyperplasia) have been sought. Various types of laser prostatectomy have been proposed. Interstitial laser coagulation is performed by placing laser-diffusing fibers directly in the hyperplastic prostatic adenoma. The goal is to achieve coagulation necrosis within the adenoma, which causes the prostatic lobes to regress and thereby relieves the bladder outlet obstruction. Either the transurethral cystoscopic approach or the perineal approach can be used for laser application. Numerous published studies have shown that this laser procedure safely and effectively decreases symptoms of prostatism, increases the urinary flow rate, and reduces the volume of the prostate. Because of substantial tissue edema after treatment, catheter drainage may be necessary for 7 to 21 days. Although retrograde ejaculation has occurred occasionally (affecting from 0 to 11.9% of patients in reported studies) and uncomplicated urinary tract infections are common after interstitial laser coagulation, no cases of impotence or sustained incontinence have been described. Because interstitial laser coagulation is not associated with blood loss or intravascular fluid shifts and, if necessary, can be performed with a combination of local anesthesia and intravenous sedation, even high-risk patients are candidates for this procedure.


The paper considers the issue of improving the methods of uninterruptible power supply intelligent control based on adaptive algorithms with the use of artificial neural network technologies. An adaptive PID regulation method of the UPS battery charge current is proposed. A neural network based control scheme with adjustment of PID regulation coefficients has been developed. The simulation modeling was used to search for the artificial neural network topology, which would be the most effective according to the criteria of the battery charge current regulation accuracy. The use of artificial neural networks in the uninterruptible power supply control system made it possible to obtain more effective results for maintaining a stable battery charge current in the transient.


Aim The aim of this project is to work with healthcare professionals (HCPs) and parents/carers to co-design resources aimed at improving medication safety and reducing parental anxiety for those giving medications to neonates at home. Method Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) in national and international sites and parent/caregiver networks were identified using a stakeholder map. An electronic-survey (e-survey) was developed by a multi-disciplinary study management group including HCPs and expert parents. This was circulated to HCPs involved in the care of neonates and parents/carers whose babies had recently been discharged from hospital. A small number of participants from five hospital sites will be invited to take part in focus groups. Current medication issues will be identified, and resources will be co-designed with parents/carers to support caregivers with medicines administration. Results To date 27 parents/carers have responded to the e-survey. 70% of the parent/carer group reported having 'very little' or 'no experience' giving medicines prior to their hospital stay. 48% reported administering between four and six medicines at home. Parents/carers were asked a question about how confident they felt administering medicines at home; on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being 'very confident' and 1 being not 'confident at all'. The average level of confidence reported was 3.6; with 20% selecting 'not confident at all'. 44% received information about their baby's medicines from the hospital prior to discharge. This information was most frequently given face to face individually with written information being the second most common method. 48% or parents/carers reported finding some resources themselves. Parents/carers were asked about challenges they experienced, and responses included: supply issues, running out of medication or syringes, difficult to find the time to administer, forgetting to take medicines out, storage issues and reluctance to leave house. They were also asked about the timing of the information given and when was most appropriate with 'throughout the hospital stay' being the most popular (49%). To date 38 HCPs have responded to the e-survey, 81% were from Pharmacists. Nurses and Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioners accounting for the remainder, there were no responses from doctors at present. 58% of HCPs stated that resources or information to support parents/carers were used at their hospital. The most popular method being face to face information given individually and written information. 66% reported using the resources prior to discharge and 24% throughout the inpatient stay. 86% thought the resources were helpful. 64% felt they could be improved. When HCPs were asked about the problems the most common response being supply of medicines or administration difficulties. 79% reported that parents/carers at their hospital were given the opportunity to administer medicines whilst their baby was an inpatient. Conclusion Preliminary results show there is room for improvement with the information and support provided to parents/carers. The timing that the information is provided is key with 'throughout the hospital stay' being the most popular parent/carer response however, only 24% of HCPs reported information being given throughout the hospital stay. Both groups identified some of the same challenges.


We have studied the electronic structure and magnetism of the spin chain compounds Ca3ZnMnO6 and Ca3ZnCoO6 using density functional theory with generalised gradient approximation (GGA). In agreement with experiment our calculations reveal that high spin (HS) state for Mn4+ ion and low spin (LS) state for Co4+ ion stabilize the magnetic structure of the respective compounds. The magnetic exchange paths, calculated using Nth order muffin-tin orbital downfolding method, shows dominant intra-chain exchange interaction between the magnetic ions (Mn, Co) is antiferromagnetic for Ca3ZnMnO6 and ferromagnetic for Ca3ZnCoO6. The magnetic order of both the compounds is in accordance with the Goodenough–Kanamori–Anderson rules and is consistent with the experimental results. Finally we have investigated the importance of spin–orbit coupling (SOC) in these compounds. While SOC practically has no effect for the Mn system, it is strong enough to favor the spin quantization along the chain direction for the Co system in the LS state.


This paper explores the statistical distribution characteristics of coating film thickness, so as to present a new method for determining coating endpoint based on 3σ criterion and logic regression. Firstly, the spectrum and thickness of 4 batch samples were collected. Secondly, the spectral range of normal products was obtained by 3σ criterion, with the spectral feature NI as the number of test spectrum in the above range. Then, the model based on 3σ criterion and logic regression was built according to the best condition in K-fold cross-validation and the determined threshold of qualified rate in the coating endpoint. Finally, the qualified rate of test set samples at different time points was calculated by the above model, and the above change trend and the threshold value were combined to determine the coating endpoint. The results of KS analysis showed the distribution of thickness of the qualified products followed the normal distribution(P=0.081>0.05). The accuracy of the coating endpoint determination was as high as 100% by the model based on 3σ criterion and logic regression when the determined threshold of qualified rate was 90%. Therefore, the 3σ criterion was feasible to the research of coating eligibility. This paper reveals certain random phenomena in the coating process, and the method features a high accuracy, quick analysis and a good interpretability, which provides a reference for online detection and qualify evaluation in future.


The eIF4E protein is the key regulator of translation initiation. The interaction of eIF4E with eIF4G triggers the translation of mRNA, and several proteins interrupt this association to modulate translation. Human 4E-T is one of the eIF4E-binding partners that represses the translation of bound mRNAs, and it is involved in the transport of eIF4E to processing bodies (P-bodies). Although Clast4, the mouse homolog of human 4E-T, might play critical roles in the regulation of translation, its properties are not well known. In this report, we deciphered the properties of Clast4 by determining its phosphorylation state, binding to eIF4E, and effects of overexpression on cell proliferation. Clast4 was phosphorylated by protein kinase A (PKA) in vivo on several residues of its amino terminus. Nevertheless, the PKA phosphorylation of Clast4 appeared to have no effect on either its eIF4E-binding ability or localization. Clast4 interacted with eIF4E1 and CPEB. The conserved eIF4E-binding sequence in Clast4, YXXXXL?, was important for binding eIF4E1A but not eIF4E1B. Similar to that of another well-known eIF4E regulator, the eIF4E binding protein (4E-BP), the overexpression of Clast4 decreased cell proliferation. These results suggest that Clast4 acts as a global translation regulator in cells.


A new trigonometrically fitted two-derivative explicit Runge-Kutta (TFTDRK) method of order five with FSAL property for solving system of first-order ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with oscillatory solutions are derived. The new method is derived using the property of First Same As Last (FSAL). This method has the advantageous to merge totally first-order ordinary differential systems which their solutions are linear composition of the set of functions {e (u );e (−u)}, or equivalently {s (u );c (u)} when u > 0 is the dominant frequency of the problem. We analyzed the stabilityof our method. The numerical results are presented to illustrate the competence of TFTDRK method compared with some well-known TFRK methods.


BACKGROUND
Women's intrahousehold bargaining power is an important determinant of child nutrition in Nepal, but a better understanding is needed on how men's bargaining power is related to child nutrition.

OBJECTIVES
We examined the relation of women's and men's household bargaining power with child height-for-age z score (HAZ).

METHODS
We analyzed cross-sectional data from 2012, collected as an impact evaluation baseline of the Suaahara 1 program. A subsample of households with data on women's and men's intrahousehold bargaining power (n = 2170) with children aged 0-59 mo across Nepal was considered for this analysis. Intrahousehold bargaining power consisted of 4 domains: 1) ownership and control of assets, 2) social participation, 3) time allocation to work activities (workload), and 4) household decision-making control. Using multilevel methods, we analyzed associations between HAZ and 1) women's bargaining power, 2) men's bargaining power, and 3) women's and men's bargaining power, adjusted for individual- and household-level confounding factors and clustering.

RESULTS
Women's ownership and control of assets was positively associated with HAZ when women's and men's domains were modeled together (β: 0.0597, P = 0.026). Men's social participation was positively associated with HAZ in the men's model (β: 0.233, P < 0.001) and the model with women's and men's domains (β: 0.188, P = 0.001). Women's workload was negatively associated with HAZ in the women's model (β: -0.0503, P = 0.014) and in the model with women's and men's domains (β: -0.056, P = 0.008). Household decision making for women (β: -0.0631, P = 0.007) and for men (β: -0.0546, P = 0.017) were negatively associated with HAZ in the gender-specific models. Women's social participation, men's ownership and control of assets, and men's workload were not associated with HAZ.

CONCLUSIONS
Women's workload and ownership and control of assets and men's social participation may be important in improving child HAZ in Nepal. Nutrition interventions should address women's intrahousehold bargaining power and promote men's social engagement.


Is there too much violence in hip-hop music? What's the difference between Kimberly Jones and the artist Lil' Kim? Is hip-hop culture a "black" thing? Is it okay for N.W.A. to call themselves niggaz and for Dave Chappelle to call everybody bitches? These witty, provocative essays ponder these and other thorny questions, linking the searing cultural issues implicit -- and often explicit -- in hip-hop to the weighty matters examined by the great philosophers of the past. The book shows that rap classics by Lauryn Hill, OutKast, and the Notorious B.I.G. can help uncover the meanings of love articulated in Plato's "Symposium; that Rakim, 2Pac, and Nas can shed light on the conception of God's essence expressed in St. Thomas Aquinas's "Summa Theologica; and explores the connection between Run-D.M.C., Snoop Dogg, and Hegel. "Hip-Hop and Philosophy proves that rhyme and reason, far from being incompatible, can be mixed and mastered to contemplate life's most profound mysteries.


The surgical risk and complication rates for the elective excision of benign osteochondromas and associated surgical procedures is presented. Eighty patients had excision of 285 osteochondromas and underwent 22 other related surgical procedures. There were 10 complications in the group (12.5% per patient population); the most common were peroneal neurapraxias. Other complications included an arterial laceration, a compartment syndrome, and a fibula fracture. The surgical risk for the management of osteochondromas is low and is comparable to the risk of other related, elective procedures. However, osteochondromas should not be routinely excised unless proper indications exist for their removal.


Backgroud: Online teaching has become the main educational method in higher learning institutions during the Covid-19 pandemic. There is, however, no unified online teaching model in colleges and universities, and the pros and cons of different models and their teaching effects have not yet been reported. Methods: An anonymous online survey of students and teachers of Medical Laboratory Science at the Hubei University of Medicine, who participated in online teaching during the pandemic was conducted by the website Questionnaire Star.Results: The results found that 63.5 percent of students and 53.9 percent of teachers believed that the synchronous online teaching model in the form of live video streaming was more conducive to students' understanding of the course content than Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Additionally, 64.1 percent of teachers believed that online teaching generally had a substantial impact on students' learning effects compared with face-to-face lectures, and that this was mainly because students were less able to focus their attention online. Although teachers and students agree that the methods of individual teachers are the most important factor in determining the effect of online teaching, their opinions on the influence of other factors vary. Interestingly, 41.4 percent of students interacted more online than they did in traditional offline classes, with only 25.5 percent recording fewer interactions. Conclusions: Both teachers and students are inclined to live video streaming than MOOC in online teaching, and teachers should take various influencing factors into consideration to improve their teaching effects.


Introduction: Confinement has fostered the debate on digitalization and virtual teaching The objective is to expose the disadvantages of the telematic education system adopted during the quarantine on subjects like equal opportunities, well-being and satisfaction, and teaching quality;focusing on the university education level and taking into account the management of communications with the students Methodology: Two surveys, both distributed by online means, were conducted on university students, one at the beginning of the confinement (n: 1612), and another in the examination period (n: 872) Results: 90% of students prefer face-to-face teaching and 80% consider that their university has not adapted adequately Most believe that they will learn less, that their academic record will be affected, and that they will have more difficulties while finding a job More than a half of the students have suffered close experiences related to coronavirus and they feel a lack of understanding on the university side Conclusions: Universities have shown a poor institutional communication performance during the pandemic, both in communication with students and in listening to them


Why does International Relations (IR) still remain `a not so international discipline'? What promotes/constrains the diffusion of non-American ideas to national IR epistemic communities beyond the trans-Atlantic community as well as Europe? In this article, I tell the story of how the English School (ES) as a non-mainstream approach to theorizing about IR has travelled to China. I examine the way in which the transmission of ideas associated with the ES has influenced the IR theoretical discourse in China to date. Borrowing insights from recent constructivist theorization on how norms and ideas diffuse, I offer sociologically informed explanations of how and why the American intellectual hegemony in IR has been reproduced in a national IR academic community. They suggest that the enduring dominance of the American scholarship in peripheral IR epistemic communities has less to do with either the power or the persuasiveness of ideas than with the American entrepreneurship in promoting international studies. The lessons learned from this story argue strongly for an additional agenda for the reconvened ES.


Forest disturbances, such as wildfires, the southern pine beetle, and the hemlock woolly adelgid, affect millions of hectares of forest each year in North America with significant implications for forest health and management. This dissertation presents new methods to quantify and monitor disturbance through time in the forests of the eastern United States using remotely sensed imagery from the Landsat family of satellites, detect clouds and cloud-shadow in imagery, generate composite images from the clear-sky regions of multiple images acquired at different times, delineate the extents of disturbance events, identify the years in which they occur, and label those events with an agent and severity. These methods operate at a 30×30 m spatial resolution and a yearly temporal resolution. Overall accuracy for cloud and cloud-shadow detection is 98.7% and is significantly better than a leading method. Overall accuracy for designating a specific space and time as disturbed, stable, or regenerating is 85%, and accuracy for labeling disturbance events with a causal agent ranges from 42% to 90%, depending on agent, with overall accuracy, excluding samples marked as 'uncertain', of 81%. Due to the high spatial resolution of the imagery and resulting output, these methods are valuable for managers interested in monitoring specific forested areas. Additionally, these methods enable the discovery and quantification of forest dynamics at larger spatial scales in a way other datasets cannot. Applying these methods over the entire extent of the eastern United States highlands reveals significant differences in disturbance frequency by ecoregion, from less than 1% of forested area per year in the Central Appalachians, to over 5% in the Piedmont. Yearly variations from these means are substantial, with disturbance frequency being twice as high as the mean in some years. Additionally, these analyses reveal that some disturbance agents, such as the southern pine beetle, exhibit periodic dynamics. Finally, although these methods are applied here to the problem of forest disturbance in the eastern United States, the core innovations are easily extended to other locations or even to other applications of landscape change, such as vegetation succession, shifting coastlines, or urbanization.


Indium hydroxide (In(OH)3) nanorods have been synthesized via a novel hydrothermal process at 200 °C without addition of any surfactant. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns show that the nanorods are indium hydroxide. The selected area electron diffraction (SAED) patterns indicate that the In(OH)3 nanorods are single crystalline in nature. Furthermore, the growth mechanism of hydrothermal synthesis of In(OH)3 nanorods has been preliminarily presented.


Pregnancy blocking in M. agrestis was associated with a rapid degeneration of CL, growth of follicles, a loss of embryos and return of the uterus to its non-pregnant state, and a return to cornified vaginal smears. These results are discussed in relation to the proposal that the immediate cause of pregnancy block is a failure of prolactin secretion resulting in a failure of CL function.


ABSTRACT Calcineurin B-like protein 9 (CBL9) plays important roles in response to ABA, K+ deprivation in plants. However, whether CBL9 modulates plant adaptation to low-temperature stress is elusive. In this study, we demonstrated that the cbl9 mutants increased freezing tolerance under both cold-acclimating and nonacclimating conditions in Arabidopsis. Cold-induced changes of cytosolic free calcium concentration ([Ca2+]cyt) were then monitored by aequorin-expressed Arabidopsis plants. The results showed that the cold-triggered increases in [Ca2+]cyt levels in cbl9 mutants were clearly higher than those in wild type (WT) plants, while cold-affected changes in free calcium concentration within cytosolic microdomains adjacent to the vacuolar membrane ([Ca2+]md) in cbl9 mutants were similar to those in WT plants. In addition, treatments of seedlings with Ca2+ chelator ethylene glycol-bis(2-aminoethylether)-N,N,N′,N′-tetraacetic acid (EGTA) and Ca2+ channel blocker lanthanum chloride markedly inhibit changes of [Ca2+]cyt in cbl9 mutants, while the inhibition of calcium release by lithium chloride from intracellular pools demonstrated consistent suppression of [Ca2+]cyt in cbl9 mutants and WT plants. Together, these results indicate that CBL9 negatively modulates cold tolerance through decreasing [Ca2+]cyt in Arabidopsis.


An investigation was performed examining the effects of draw beads and blank holder forces on local forces in various regions of a stamp forming process that produced oval aluminum panels. The results showed that provided there was sufficient blank holder forces to prevent wrinkling, the regions with draw beads were affected more by draw bead height than by blank holder force. However, at the die ends, away from the draw beads, blank holder force had more of an effect than the draw beads did with respect to local forces. Additionally, the draw bead height effects at the die end were not directly related but had to be interpreted based upon the effect on strains within the flange region at the die ends. This study may be especially useful for researchers in the automotive sector who are particularly interested in aluminum panel forming.


Transient transfections of steroid receptors have yielded much of the data used to construct the current models of steroid hormone action. These experiments invariably examine the ability of receptors to regulate transcription when occupied by saturating concentrations of steroid. We now report that other induction properties of a transiently transfected gene are not constant but vary with the concentration of transiently transfected glucocorticoid receptors. Thus, the percentage of maximal induction seen with subsaturating concentrations of glucocorticoid could be dramatically increased, and an antiglucocorticoid could be converted into a partial glucocorticoid, simply by increasing the concentration of glucocorticoid receptors. This behavior was observed in HeLa cells, containing endogenous receptors, or in CV-1 cells, containing almost no endogenous receptor, with either homologous or heterologous receptors. These increases were relatively insensitive to the concentration of reporter gene, suggesting the titration of some transcription factor(s) involved in regulating the position of the glucocorticoid dose-response curve and the agonist activity of an antiglucocorticoid. This property of transfected glucocorticoid receptors required a full-length, functionally active receptor but was retained, albeit reduced in magnitude, in the absence of binding to a glucocorticoid response element. Furthermore, this phenomenon was specific in that the A form of the human progesterone receptor had no effect under the same conditions. These variations in induction properties of antiglucocorticoids and of subsaturating concentrations of glucocorticoid, in a manner that was proportional to the amount of transfected receptor, reveal processes that are not operative with saturating concentrations of glucocorticoid. These variations also demonstrate that caution should be exercised in making mechanistic conclusions based solely on experiments conducted with saturating concentrations of glucocorticoid.


Parkinson's disease is a progressive disorder and no permanent cure has ever been documented. The clinical onset, which usually occurs at an age of 55–65 years, is probably preceded by a preclinical period of two or more decades. The progression rate of the disease is extremely variable in different patients; in individual patients on the other hand, the progression of motor symptoms is fairly constant. The tremor‐dominant type of the disease usually has a more favourable prognosis than the hypokinetic type. Onset at an older age may be associated with a faster progression rate and the development of cognitive failure. In natural conditions, the average duration of Parkinson's disease is 10 years, although with a considerable range. The disease shortens life expectancy, which can be restored at least partially by treating patients with levodopa and other modern drugs. The highest benefit in increasing life expectancy is obtained when the treatment is initiated at a relatively early stage of the disease.


In order to further reduce the weight of car components while at the same time
maintaining performance and safe life it is necessary to enhance the simulation process. This
is especially important for chassis parts which have not only a high dynamic load but are also
partly undamped. To reach this goal, the logical step is to couple the successive operations of
forming, assembly and virtual performance testing.
The objective is a complete determination of the mechanical state of the (sub-)assemblies.
It is therefore necessary to consider all forming and joining processes a part has previously
undergone and to consider them in the virtual model. This virtual model is ideally suited for
virtual prototyping (e.g. structural analysis, fatigue, crash) because the complete history of
every part is contained. In contrast to standard models, the changed thickness of sheet metal
parts and residual stresses due to forming and joining as well as the new material state at
every point are known prior to any external loading. This results in a more reliable prediction
of product performance.
Using a relatively simple part it is demonstrated how the performance of chassis parts
changes with the inclusion of plastic forming effects as compared to the exclusion of these
effects. The transfer of the results of the forming process to the comprehensive model is shown
first. Hereafter the model is subjected to static and dynamic external loads. The results are
compared to calculations that use a standard model and show clearly that the inclusion of the
plastic history has a significant influence on the product performance.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the efficacy of switching to subcutaneous fentanyl with or without midazolam to prevent withdrawal after prolonged sedation in children in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU).

DESIGN
Retrospective review of hospital records.

SETTING
Tertiary care center, PICU.

PATIENTS
The cohort for the study included patients who had received subcutaneous fentanyl with or without midazolam to prevent withdrawal after prolonged sedation in the PICU.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
Subcutaneous fentanyl with or without midazolam was administered to nine patients ranging in age from 3 to 7 yrs (mean, 4.4 +/- 1.8 yrs) and ranging in weight from 11 to 31 kg (mean, 20.1 +/- 6.8 kg). All patients required prolonged administration of fentanyl with or without midazolam during mechanical ventilation for respiratory failure. The starting infusion rate for subcutaneous fentanyl varied from 5 to 9 microg/kg/hr (mean, 7.1 +/- 1.4 microg/kg/hr). Four patients also received subcutaneous midazolam at a rate of 0.15 to 0.3 mg/kg/hr (mean, 0.24 mg/kg/hr). Subcutaneous access was maintained for 3-7 days (mean, 5.7 +/- 1.4 days) in the nine patients. No problems with the subcutaneous access were noted during treatment. The fentanyl infusion was decreased by 1 microg/kg/hr every 12-24 hrs and the midazolam infusion was decreased by 0.05 mg/kg/hr every 12-24 hrs. No patient demonstrated signs of symptoms of moderate to severe withdrawal.

CONCLUSION
The subcutaneous route provides an effective alternative to intravenous administration. It allows for gradual weaning from sedative/analgesic agents after prolonged sedation while eliminating the need to maintain intravenous access.