We report the discovery and follow-up observations of a system of three objects identified by the ALFALFA extragalactic HI survey, cataloged as (almost) dark extragalactic sources, i.e., extragalactic HI detections with no discernible counterpart in publicly available, wide-field, imaging surveys. We have obtained deep optical imaging with WIYN pODI and HI synthesis maps with WSRT of the HI1232+20 system. The source with the highest HI flux has a newly discovered ultra-low surface brightness (LSB) optical counterpart associated with it, while the other two sources have no detected optical counterparts in our images. Our optical observations show that the detected LSB optical counterpart has a peak surface brightness of ∼26.4 mag arcsec−2 in g′, which is exceptionally faint. This source (AGC 229385) has the largest accurately measured HI mass-to-light ratio of an isolated object: M HI / L g ′ ?> = 46 M ⊙ / L ⊙ ?> , and has an HI mass of 7.2 × 10 8 M ⊙ ?> . The other two HI sources (with HI masses 2.0 × 108 and 1.2 × 10 8 M ⊙ ?> ) without optical counterparts have upper limit surface brightnesses of 27.9 and 27.8 mag arcsec−2 in g′, and lower limits on their gas mass-to-light ratio of M HI / L g ′ ?> > 57 and > 31 M ⊙ / L ⊙ ?> . This system lies relatively close in projection to the Virgo Cluster, but velocity flow models indicate that it is located at 25 Mpc, substantially beyond Virgo. The system appears to be quite isolated, with no known object closer than ∼500 kpc. These HI sources may represent both sides of the threshold between "dark" star-less galaxies and galaxies with stellar populations. We discuss a variety of possible formation scenarios for the HI1232+20 system.


Convolutional neural networks (CNN) have been hugely successful recently with superior accuracy and performance in various imaging applications, such as classification, object detection, and segmentation. However, a highly accurate CNN model requires millions of parameters to be trained and utilized. Even to increase its performance slightly would require significantly more parameters due to adding more layers and/or increasing the number of filters per layer. Apparently, many of these weight parameters turn out to be redundant and extraneous, so the original, dense model can be replaced by its compressed version attained by imposing inter- and intra-group sparsity onto the layer weights during training. In this paper, we propose a nonconvex family of sparse group lasso that blends nonconvex regularization (e.g., transformed ℓ 1 , ℓ 1 − ℓ 2 , and ℓ 0 ) that induces sparsity onto the individual weights and ℓ 2,1 regularization onto the output channels of a layer. We apply variable splitting onto the proposed regularization to develop an algorithm that consists of two steps per iteration: gradient descent and thresholding. Numerical experiments are demonstrated on various CNN architectures showcasing the effectiveness of the nonconvex family of sparse group lasso in network sparsification and test accuracy on par with the current state of the art.


The research aims at describing politeness used by Americans in Bad Neighbors movie to express apology. This is a qualitative descriptive research which identified, observed, transcribed the data as well as described them in the sentences. The findings present the strategy of apologizing and the use of address terms overviewed from politeness strategies such as positive politeness, negative politeness and off record. The use of address terms in expressing apology covered terms of addressing in negative politeness includes the use of title plus last name (TLN) (such as Mr. Haywood and Maam) and positive politeness includes different nick names (NN) (such as Mac, Baby, Scoonie, Guys, etc). The variation of apologizing includes direct apology (sorry and I am sorry). In the application of direct apology I am sorry, no address term was used in the expression and it indicates positive politeness. In a direct expression of apology sorry, there was a term of address used preceded the expression and sometimes it also occurred afterward. Based on the description, it can be inferred that most of expression of direct apology expressed in positive politeness because the first speaker wanted to show a more intimate relationship to the second speaker. The position of the terms also affects the purpose and the quality of sincerity of the speakers. This strategy considered to be an effective way to express apology to show that the speaker who committed a responsibility of apologizing regretted the mistakes.
Keyword: politeness, apologizing, term of address


Granulite facies lithologies from the Adirondack Mountains of New York contain alteration assemblages composed dominantly of calcite +/- chlorite +/- sericite. These assemblages document fluid infiltration at middle to upper crustal levels. Cathodoluminescence of samples from the Marcy anorthosite massif indicates that the late fluid infiltration is more widespread than initially indicated by transmitted-light petrography alone. Samples that appear unaltered in transmitted light show extensive anastomosing veins of calcite (< 0.05 mm wide) along grain boundaries, in crosscutting fractures, and along mineral cleavages. The presence of the retrograde calcite documents paleopermeability in crystalline rocks and is related to the formation of high-density CO/sub 2/-rich fluid inclusions. Recognition of this process has important implications for studies of granulite genesis and the geophysical properties of the crust.


Papers by Matlon, Mclntire and Cooper and Bailey provide assessments of the risks associated with agricultural change in semi-arid areas, with particular reference to pastoralism, and the greater risk as animal numbers increase. Ian Stewart's paper on response farming for managing risk associated with climatic change, discussed in relation to the Sahel, will interest many, though many will disagree with his analysis. Economists may be particularly interested in the paper by Duncan on pricing policy in relation to risk, and that by Gudger on the relative effectiveness of public and private sector crop insurance schemes. Altogether this is a useful contribution to the literature, which loses little because it appeared more than a year after the symposium was held despite the World Bank's 'quick publication' policy for this series.


Detection of severe heart defects without unnecessary delay is a primary task for providers of infant care. Screening is challenged by the fact that a normal physical examination after birth does not exclude severe defects. Shorter hospital stay for newborn infants and a reduced number of examinations may further hamper a successful mission. Reassuringly, most critical heart defects are reported to be identified early. Conclusion: Increased awareness of the limitations of screening and continued monitoring of detection rates, as well as studies on how they can be improved, are warranted.


Simulation is a teaching learning and assessment strategy used in medical education to prepare medical laboratory students for clinical practice. Simulation-based learning is aimed at bridging the gap between theory and practice through the use of innovative teaching strategies and thus it is considered the best alternative teaching, learning and assessment tool in preparing medical laboratory students for practical and professional life. Traditional methods of educating medical laboratory students are no longer sufficient in the present times largely influenced by the emergence of new infections, technology, and multimedia. In general, scarce literature supports the use of simulation to benefit medical laboratory student in areas of knowledge, value and realism. However, little emphasis has been placed to make application of the method.  The aim of the study was to determine the extent of the application of innovative simulation-based medical teaching and learning among staff in selected Kenya medical training campuses offering medical laboratory sciences in Kenya, with a view of improving the application of the simulation strategy. The study employed the census sampling technique. Data collection tools were structured questionnaire, interview, checklist and observation which were used for data collection to obtain information from the respondents.  Quantitative data analysis was conducted using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software version 22 for windows. Qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics particularly the Chi-square test statistics were used in data analysis. P-value was used to test the normality of the spread of the ages. From the findings, majority of the lecturers, 39 (83.0%) indicated that they understood and defined simulated medical laboratory experiences both actual and anticipated. The respondents reported that simulation-based teaching and learning enables them to earn continuous professional development (CPD) points. All the lecturers 47(100%) agreed that educational validity of simulation-based teaching and learning was one among the factors that shaped their decision to implement simulations. The principals cited issues such as untrained simulator instructor staff in MLS, lack of adequate infrastructure, as part of challenges they encountered while implementing innovative simulation-based teaching and learning. From the study, it was concluded that simulation-based teaching and learning was not applied uniformly across the MLS department, indicating a lack of standardization in training hence the knowledge, attitudes as well as skills acquired by the students before they graduate were not in line with the public expectation. There is a need for Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) management to ensure uniform application of innovative simulation-based teaching and learning across all MLS departments and hence standardization in training of medical laboratory sciences professionals.


We propose a new graphical method for selecting a pair of optical and housing materials to simultaneously athermalize and achromatize an LWIR optical system. To have a much better opportunity to select the IR glasses and housing materials, an athermal glass map is expanded by introducing the DOE with negative chromatic power. Additionally, from the depth of focus in an LWIR optical system, the tolerable housing boundary is provided to realize an athermal and achromatic system even for not readily available housing material. Thus, we can effectively determine a pair of optical and housing materials by reducing the thermal shift to be less than the depth of focus. By applying this method to design a night vision camera lens, the chromatic and thermal defocuses are reduced to less than the depth of focus, over the specified waveband and temperature ranges.


Experiments were conducted with suckling male C57BL mice and Sprague-Dawley rats to investigate the relationship between copper deficiency and elevated serum cholesterol. Brindled mice, which have a genetic defect that affects copper distribution, were compared to their normal brothers. Dietary copper deficiency was produced in dams heterozygous for the brindled gene, in normal mouse dams and in rat dams. The subsequent male offspring were compared to those from copper-supplemented dams. Copper deficiency, as assessed by liver copper levels or ceruloplasmin activity, was demonstrated in 12-d-old rats, brindled mice, and in genotypically normal mice from dams fed the copper-deficient diet. However, serum cholesterol levels were not elevated in these "copper-deficient" rats or mice. In one experiment serum cholesterol levels of brindled mice were significantly lower than that of their littermate controls. An additional study was done with older mice. Their dams were fed a low copper diet from parturition throughout lactation, and the pups were fed the same copper-deficient diet for 4 wk after weaning. The 7-wk-old male copper-deficient mice had liver copper levels below 1 microgram/g, but no elevation in serum cholesterol was observed. The failure to demonstrate a rise in serum cholesterol in these perinatal models may be due in part to less severe hepatic copper deficiency because of neonatal copper reserves in liver.


The incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder is widespread among refugees who have been exposed to violence or torture. Many families struggle with side effects of this condition, such as recurrent nightmares, flashbacks, emotional detachment, and difficulty trusting people. Some unwittingly become involved in a pattern of alcoholism, family violence, and somatic illness that is rooted in traumatization. Service providers must often struggle with overwhelmed clients whose multiple needs make long-term therapy impractical. Thus, brief treatment appears to be especially well suited to this population. This article describes a case study using short-term psychotherapy (10 to 20 sessions) that aims to restore refugees who are in reasonable emotional health to their premorbid level of functioning. A 4-stage treatment process involving specific tools is described, and the case study is used as an illustration. Contraindications for time-limited therapy are also outlined.


Abstract Synthetic seed banks are a useful tool for tracking how weed populations change over time. By sowing a known number of seeds of a given species within a quadrat with defined boundaries, an investigator can measure the number remaining and thereby calculate demographic rates (e.g., mortality). The alternative is to use in situ seeds and estimate their initial population density via sampling. To make a synthetic seed bank approach useful within an agricultural system subjected to soil disturbances such as tillage, one would need a way to account for seeds leaving the initial quadrat (i.e., a way to follow how the area encompassing the sown seeds changes over time). Without accounting for the change in location/extent of the synthetic seed bank, any field operation moving soil will create additional uncertainty in population size. Depending on the "aggressiveness" of specific field operations and the initial size of the quadrat, this effect might be negligible or so large as to be intractable. Here, we describe a method for following a synthetic seed bank over time using a "living boundary" of nondormant seeds, which effectively play the role of tracers used in the study of dynamics in other scientific disciplines. Study quadrats in East Lansing, MI, and Arlington, WI, were sown with giant foxtail and velvetleaf at a rate of 2,000 seeds m−2. The study quadrats were marked on the perimeter and diagonals using nondormant seeds of three marker species: kale, radish, and rye. The areas were then subjected to tillage and planting operations. Spatial coordinates of seedling locations for the marker and weed species were obtained through digital image processing. A nonparametric comparison of the spatial displacement of marker and weed species indicated that their empirical spatial distributions did not differ. The marker species quadrats described by the 50th, 90th, and 99th quantiles of movement contained all velvetleaf seedlings in Wisconsin, all velvetleaf seedlings in Michigan, and all giant foxtail seedlings in Michigan, respectively. The results suggest a simple rule for applying the method to field demography studies: after the original quadrat is deformed and seedlings have emerged, flag the polygon containing all marker seedlings to obtain the expanded quadrat containing the study weed population. Nomenclature: Giant foxtail, Setaria faberi Herrm.; velvetleaf, Abutilon theophrasti Medik.; kale, Brassica oleracea L.; radish, Raphanus sativus L.; rye, Secale cereale L


In this paper we deal with the problem of user-driven Call Admission Control for Voice over IP communications in a Wireless LAN environment. We argue that state-of-the-art solutions to this problem are suboptimal, since they leverage on analytical models whose assumptions are not necessarily verified in the scenario considered. To overcome this problem, we propose a cognitive solution based on Multilayer Feed-forward Neural Networks. According to our solution, the mobile station learns from past experience how application-layer service quality depends on the wireless link conditions. Our performance evaluation, carried out both by simulation and testbed experiments, shows that this solution effectively outperforms state-of-the-art strategies in performing a correct admission decision.


With the rapid of China's society development, chinese content and function words had their own development in static and dynamic form in grammatical form. Indonesian students have to know well about the functions and characteristics of Chinese content and function words in order to learn and used Chinese words. This research used qualitative method and the category based on Modern Chinese Dictionary (现代汉语词典Xiandai Hanyu Cidian) to categorize the vocabularies in Contemporary Chinese textbook. The results showed that 46% of content words were nouns, 26% were verbs, and 13% were adjectives. The content words in Contemporary Chinese textbook include six parts of speech in the category of content words were nouns, verbs, adjectives, numerals, measure words and pronouns. The function words in these content words were categorized into four of six parts, there were adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary words. There were no exclamation words, onomatopoetic words in the textbook. 42% of function words were adverbs, 17% conjunction words, 13% were prepositions, and some function words category had unique characteristics, such as the adverb ―把ba and―离li, the auxiliary words (―的de,―得de,―地de).


The subject of this article is the analysis of the particle number and mass road emission from a hybrid vehicle in real operating conditions. Additionally, the operating conditions of the tested vehicle and engine were also analyzed. To this end, particulate emissions and performance tests were carried out from a light hybrid vehicle, equipped with a 77 kW engine with a displacement of 1.58 dm3. The tests were conducted in real traffic conditions, following the standard RDE (Real Driving Emission) procedure. The test was performed within the Poznan agglomeration, the route included roads with different maximum speed limits. The research involved the use of mobile measuring equipment, belonging to the PEMS (Portable Emissions Measurement System) group, which included equipment such as: SEMTECH DS, AVL MSS (Micro Soot Sensor) and EEPS 3090 (Engine Exhaust Particle Sizer). The results obtained have been referred to the vehicle exhaust emission limit values in accordance with the Euro 6 norm.


Combinations of BRAF inhibitors and MEK inhibitors (BRAFi + MEKi) are FDA-approved to treat BRAF V600E/K mutant melanoma. Efficacy of BRAFi + MEKi associates with cancer cell death and alterations in the tumor immune microenvironment; however, the links are poorly understood. We show that BRAFi + MEKi caused durable melanoma regression in an immune-mediated manner. BRAFi + MEKi treatment promoted cleavage of gasdermin E (GSDME) and release of high mobility group protein B1 (HMGB1), markers of pyroptotic cell death. GSDME-deficient melanoma showed defective HMGB1 release, reduced tumor-associated T cell and activated dendritic cell infiltrates in response to BRAFi + MEKi, and more frequent tumor regrowth after drug removal. Importantly, BRAFi + MEKi-resistant disease lacked pyroptosis markers, showed decreased intra-tumoral T cell infiltration but was sensitive to pyroptosis-inducing chemotherapy. These data implicate BRAFi + MEKi-induced pyroptosis in anti-tumor immune responses and highlight new therapeutic strategies for resistant melanoma.


Mineral reserve estimation involves large amounts of geological data, and the traditional manual computation method is a heavy and fussy work. Computing mineral reserve with 3D orebody modeling can increase the efficiency heavily of reserve estimation and management. On the basis of analyzing several 3D orebody modeling methods, this paper choose tetrahedral mesh model to construct orebody, and introduces a mineral reserve estimation method based on neural network. The main advantages of this technique are an according management for orebody boundary and inner grade distribution, as well as its precision. Therefore, this technique has an academic and practical value.


Introduction: Obesity is associated with a substantial burden of physical disability. Intramuscular fat may in part mediate some of these associations.

Hypothesis: We hypothesized that muscle attenuation, an estimation of intramuscular fat, is associated with increased mobility disability, as well as decreased grip strength and walking speed, two physical performance measures associated with functional decline.

Methods: The sample (n=1152, 56% women, mean age 66 years) consisted of Framingham Heart Study participants who underwent computed tomography scanning and an examination in 2005-2008. Muscle attenuation was estimated from scans by placing regions of interest on the paraspinous muscles bilaterally and averaging the resulting Hounsfield units. Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) were measured using standard protocols. Hand grip strength was measured with a handheld dynamometer bilaterally, walking speed was measured over a 4 m course, and mobility disability via self-report of inability to walk half a mile or climb a flight of stairs. Multivariable logistic and linear regression models were used to investigate the association between muscle attenuation and mobility disability, grip strength, and walking speed after accounting for standard covariates; models additionally adjusted for body mass index (BMI) and VAT volume separately. Additional models were used to investigate the association between VAT and SAT volumes and mobility disability and physical performance measures.

Results: Mean BMI was 28.3 kg/m2, average walking speed was 1.23 m/s, and average grip strength was 31.9 kg. Per 1 standard deviation decrease in muscle attenuation (i.e. more muscle fat), we observed a 1.29 (95% CI 1.09 – 1.53, p=0.0009) increased odds of walking speed ≤ 1 m/s, a cutoff associated with increased mortality. This persisted even after adjustment for BMI and VAT volume separately (p<0.02). In men only (sex interaction p<0.0001), there was a 1.29 (95% CI 0.46 – 2.12, p=0.0005) kg decrease in grip strength, which persisted after adjustment for BMI and VAT volume separately (p≤0.0004). No associations were observed with mobility disability. For VAT and SAT volumes, no associations with grip strength (p≥0.19) were observed. Furthermore, no associations with walking speed ≤ 1 m/s were observed after adjustment for BMI (p≥0.18).

Conclusion: Intramuscular fat is associated with increased odds of walking speed ≤ 1m/s in both sexes and decreased grip strength in men, associations which persist after adjustment for VAT volume and BMI. Similar associations for VAT and SAT volumes were not observed. These findings highlight the specificity of intramuscular fat and important indices of physical performance.


Racial/ethnic minority, low socioeconomic status, and rural populations are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Developing and evaluating interventions to address COVID-19 testing and vaccination among these populations are crucial to improving health inequities. The purpose of this paper is to describe the application of a rapid-cycle design and adaptation process from an ongoing trial to address COVID-19 among safety-net healthcare system patients. The rapid-cycle design and adaptation process included: (a) assessing context and determining relevant models/frameworks; (b) determining core and modifiable components of interventions; and (c) conducting iterative adaptations using Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles. PDSA cycles included: Plan. Gather information from potential adopters/implementers (e.g., Community Health Center [CHC] staff/patients) and design initial interventions; Do. Implement interventions in single CHC or patient cohort; Study. Examine process, outcome, and context data (e.g., infection rates); and, Act. If necessary, refine interventions based on process and outcome data, then disseminate interventions to other CHCs and patient cohorts. Seven CHC systems with 26 clinics participated in the trial. Rapid-cycle, PDSA-based adaptations were made to adapt to evolving COVID-19-related needs. Near real-time data used for adaptation included data on infection hot spots, CHC capacity, stakeholder priorities, local/national policies, and testing/vaccine availability. Adaptations included those to study design, intervention content, and intervention cohorts. Decision-making included multiple stakeholders (e.g., State Department of Health, Primary Care Association, CHCs, patients, researchers). Rapid-cycle designs may improve the relevance and timeliness of interventions for CHCs and other settings that provide care to populations experiencing health inequities, and for rapidly evolving healthcare challenges such as COVID-19.


The purpose of this study was to investigate how elementary pre-service teachers perceive of 'good' citizenship. Prior to any instruction in their methods courses, 309 pre-service elementary teachers from nine different states were asked to respond to the prompt "What is a good citizen?" The two most common responses were "helping others/community involvement" (n=180) and "following laws" (n=163). Using the framework created by Westheimer and Kahne (2004), the authors make the conclusion that a majority of undergraduates have adopted a "Personally Responsible" model of citizenship. The authors argue that social studies methods instructors should attempt to move students in the direction of adopting a more "justice-oriented" model of citizenship when teaching elementary students in their future classrooms.


Fast local and global motion estimation (ME) is crucial for a wide variety of different video processing applications, but poses significant requirements on CPU resources. Interestingly, application scenarios shift more and more from traditional PC processing to embedded devices, mostly driven by home automation, machine vision and autonomous navigation. In this paper, we demonstrate how to use DSP capabilities on embedded ARM-based OMAP Systems-On-Chip (SoCs) to provide motion analysis up to HD at speeds of 15-30 fps. We show how to acquire reliable classification of motion types like zoom, rotation or translation, and how to calculate and decompose the so-called homography matrix for further refinement. Our focus lies on navigation sequences from automotive test scenarios, but we also demonstrate the accuracy of the approach on natural video sequences.


Firebrands, small pieces of burning vegetation or debris generated by fires, are one of the primary ways wildfires ignite structures. Due to their small size, firebrands can be carried several kilometers by high winds before landing on combustible surfaces such as decks or roofs and potentially igniting homes. Until recently, little has been known about the heat transfer capabilities of firebrands to the surfaces on which they land. Understanding the heat transfer from firebrands is an essential step in engineering for greater fire resilience. In the first phase of this research, heat transfer from individual firebrands to horizontal surfaces was investigated using oak firebrands made from commercially available lumber. The firebrand shape, wind speed, and wind direction were varied to see how these variables affect the heat transfer. A method of inverse heat transfer analysis based on infrared thermographs was used to measure distributed heat fluxes from firebrands to the surfaces through time. This measurement technique provided spatial resolutions of < 0.5 mm, approximately 10 times higher than previous experiments in this field. Results showed that localized heat transfer was significantly higher than had previously been reported, reaching as high as 80 kW/m in some cases. It was also found that wind speed, wind direction, and firebrand shape all affected the heat transfer from individual firebrands. Firebrands have also been shown to accumulate in piles on decks or roofs creating complex systems that have different ignition capabilities than individual firebrands. Potentially many factors could influence the heat transfer from firebrand piles including wood moisture content, wood type (hardwood or softwood), wood density, wood state (live, dead, or artificial), wind speed, pile mass, firebrand diameter, and firebrand length. The second phase of this research used the same method of high-resolution heat transfer measurement to assess which of these factors significantly impacted the heat transfer from firebrand piles. Design of experiments was used to develop the test matrices and a rigorous statistical framework was employed to evaluate results at the α = 0.05 level. It was found that wind speed, firebrand length, and an interaction between firebrand length and diameter were important. Additionally, it was found that there was a difference between the heat transfer from piles made with artificial and real firebrands. Pile mass did not appear to significantly impact the heat flux from firebrand piles. The last phase of this research developed a simple engineering model to predict the ignition of common building materials by firebrand piles. The model used time-varying heat transfer data from firebrand pile tests and material properties developed by testing on select building materials in a cone calorimeter. The model predicted the surface temperature rise of the material due to an exposure heat flux with ignition being predicted when the surface temperature exceeded the ignition temperature of the material. The model was used to predict ignition for a number of pile/fuel combinations and experiments were run to validate the predictions. It was found that the model did an excellent job in predicting ignition for materials which did not melt. Factors Affecting Heat Transfer from Firebrands and Firebrand Piles and the Ignition of Building Materials


Mycoplasma synoviae (M. synoviae) infection is a cause of great economic loss in commercial egg layer hens. The aims of this study were to investigate the prevalence of M. synoviae and to compare the characteristics of M. synoviae infected and free flocks of commercial layers. A total of 400 tracheal swabs and 400 blood serum samples were collected from 20 different layer flocks. Random Amplified Polymorfic DNA (RAPD) analysis was used for the molecular typing of M. synoviae isolates to determine the source of infection. M. synoviae was isolated from 89 tracheal swabs collected from 5 out of 20 flocks. The genetic similarity between field strains ranged from 53% to 100% as determined by RAPD analysis. All M. synoviae strains separated into 2 main-clusters in UPGMA dendogram. These results revealed that the 5 infected flocks were contaminated from 2 different sources. The egg production of positive flocks was statistically lower (P<0.05) than that of the pathogen free flocks. Infection was more frequent in multi-age farms and on sites with several houses. The mortality of infected flocks was higher than uninfected flocks, but this difference was not statistically significant. The mean weight of eggs and the average live weight of hens were similar in free and infected flocks. In conclusion, M. synoviae infection significantly decreased egg production in layer hens and was more frequent in multiage farms.


Huanglongbing (HLB) is presently the most devastating citrus disease worldwide. As an intracellular plant pathogen and insect symbiont, the HLB bacterium, 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus' (Las), retains the entire flagellum-encoding gene cluster in its significantly reduced genome. Las encodes a flagellin and hook-associated protein (Fla) of 452 amino acids that contains a conserved 22 amino acid domain (flg22) at positions 29 to 50 in the N-terminus. The phenotypic alteration in motility of a Sinorhizobium meliloti mutant lacking the fla genes was partially restored by constitutive expression of FlaLas. Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression in planta revealed that FlaLas induced cell death and callose deposition in Nicotiana benthamiana, and that the transcription of BAK1 and SGT1, which are associated with plant innate immunity, was upregulated. Amino acid substitution experiments revealed that residues 38 (serine) and 39 (aspartate) of FlaLas were essential for callose induction. The synthetic flg22Las peptide could not induce plant cell death but retained the ability to induce callose deposition at a concentration of 20 µM or above. This demonstrated that the pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) activity of flg22 in Las was weaker than those in other well-studied plant pathogenic bacteria. These results indicate that FlaLas acts as a PAMP and may play an important role in triggering host plant resistance to the HLB bacteria.


This Appendix summarizes the published isotopic age data for Myanmar up to early 2017. It is intended as a resource for geoscientists to stimulate future investigations. A variety of age dating methods have been applied in Myanmar since the mid-1960s, when Searle & Ba Than Haq (1964) published ages of rocks from the Mogok area data based on their uranium contents. During the 1970s the K–Ar and Rb–Sr methods were applied to date biotite, muscovite and amphibole and aggregates of these minerals ('whole-rock method'), mainly of granitic rocks. In the K–Ar dating method the original sample was split into two halves. One half of the sample was analysed for K and the second half of the sample for Ar. Ideally the K–Ar isotope data document the closure temperatures when the magmatic minerals stabilized, such as biotite (250–350°C), muscovite (300–400°C) and hornblende (450–500°C), the results being used to date the solidification of an igneous rock.

In practice K–Ar age data were often ambiguous due to resetting of the magmatic Ar and K isotope system by later tectonic and metasomatic events. However, it was found that the isotopes of Rb and Sr in magmatic minerals were more stable and not so affected by later events. Dating of intrusion of magma could be derived from the linear plot of the ratios of 87Sr/86Sr v. 87Rb/86Sr from a collection of related igneous rock types from a locality to plot an 'isochron age'. In addition, the initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios gave an indication of the source of an igneous rock. 87Sr/86Sr ratios less than 0.705 suggested a mantle origin, while higher 87Sr/86Sr ratios indicated crustal contaminations of some nature.

The analysis of Rb and Sr isotopes, major oxides and trace elements …


Relatively little is known about the long-term response of Caribbean mangroves to human and natural disturbances during the 'Little Ice Age' (LIA). We present new palynological information on the dynamics of the Bahia Honda mangrove from the eastern coast of San Andres Island in the southwestern Caribbean for the late Holocene. Major changes in the Bahia Honda pollen record show the combined effects of natural events (strong storms and sea-level rise), and human disturbances. These changes are supported by 14C dates, sedimentological and palynological information. A storm (most probably a hurricane) was recorded around AD 1600, caused sediment reworking and the subsequent loss of about 2000 years of the vegetation record. The devastation of tree vegetation by this event allowed the expansion of heliophytic vegetation (e.g. grasses and vines). Mangroves and coastal vegetation started to recover at AD 1700, reaching their maximum extent within a few decades, when microforaminifera shells became abundant at the coring site, thus suggesting a relative sea-level rise because of the geomorphic reconfiguration of the coastal plain after the storm. Furthermore, the pollen evidence indicates more humid regional climates during the late LIA (AD 1700—1850). Mangrove and coastal vegetation declined sharply as a consequence of the establishment of coconut plantations around AD 1850. The recovery of the mangroves after AD 1960 is a result of the combined effect of relative sea-level rise and drastic changes in the local economy from coconut plantations to commerce.


Subjects with posttraumatic stress disorder exhibit abnormalities in many psychobiological systems. Studies of the effects of stress on learning and memory processes suggest that fear conditioning, behavioural sensitisation, and a failure of extinction may be important in the persistence and reexperiencing of traumatic memories and stress sensitivity. All these symptoms are supported by specific biological mechanisms including NMDA receptors, noradrenergic system, etc. Recent findings show that amino acid transmitters, glutamate and GABA, are intimately involved in the process of factual memory registration, and suggest that amine neurotransmitters, norepinephrine and serotonin, are involved in encoding emotional memory. In addition, research suggests that 5-HT neurones have directs effects on both adrenergic and HPA function. Such findings provide important information that should guide current pharmacological practice and the development of innovative biological therapeutics.


The strong competition between firms and the global pressures such as globalization are driving the business firms, and the role of social media (Facebook, Twitter) becomes effective as a marketing tool which gathered the firm with its consumers. The aim of this study is to make a deeply study about the relationship and the effects of social media (Facebook, Twitter) on consumer's behaviours in the field of social media (Facebook, Twitter). The research study is represent a study which aim to investigate the relationship between social media (Facebook, Twitter) and how it effects positively on the enhancing the capabilities of consume behaviour. The main goal for this study is investigating and giving more information about how social media (Facebook, Twitter) represented by (Facebook, twitter) can effect on the behaviour of consumer which represented by (Creating, Contributing, and Consuming). Focusing on previous variables came from studying and clarifying the main effects of social media (Facebook, Twitter) in todays, and providing more information about tis effects on consumers. The research study collected all the needed information based on study interviews designed by Yes/No questions.


The under-representation of Asia in the International Criminal Court is an issue of serious concern. This article addresses criminal justice in Asia and Japan, hoping to help enhance the understanding of their special circumstances and assist in increasing the number of State Parties to the ICC. More specifically, it (i) identifies common features surrounding society and culture in many Asian countries that are hindrances or possible reasons why they haven't acceded; (ii) discusses the main characteristics of the Japanese criminal investigation and trial system that reflect the influence of both the civil law and common law legal systems; (iii) gives a brief overview of the history of the development of the Japanese criminal law since the late 19th century; (iv) touches upon some of the main legal issues that Japan needs to consider before acceding to the Statute; and (v) clarifies the significance of Japan becoming a State Party.


The different types of signal models, depending on the spatial distribution of the change of temperature, the mathematical model of the typical background formations.


A number of platinum-group element (PGE) oxides and hydroxides have been discovered in a PGE mineralization in the New Caledonia ophiolite complex. They include Pt-Fe oxides containing variable amounts of oxygen (5-50 at. %), Ir-Fe-Rh oxides (metal/oxygen = approximately 3), Fe-Rh-Pt oxides and Pt-Ir-Fe-Rh oxides (metal/oxygen = 1), and an Ru-Mn-Fe phase with a very low metal/oxygen ratio interpreted as hydroxide. These minerals have been found either as inclusions in chromite crystals from chromitite or as discrete grains from alluvial concentrates. Pt-Fe oxides are characterized by unusual textures, including zoning and symplectite. Optical and scanning electron microscope descriptions of all the PGE oxides are given, together with electron microprobe analyses (including the quantitative determination of oxygen).The PGE oxides may result from the alteration of magmatic PGM alloys and from primary crystallization of oxides in lateritic conditions. Their presence indicates the existence of mechanisms of transport and crystallization of PGE (as oxide) in surface conditions, mechanisms contributing to the redistribution and enrichment of PGE in laterite.


Various studies that have investigated the detection of gamma coincidence events have revealed that design factors and image reconstruction approaches dictate the spatial resolution, coincidence efficiency, and levels of statistical noise of the detection system. In the case of imaging, cascade gamma-ray coincidence (CGC) imagers coupled with collimated detectors offer promising values for both spatial resolution and coincidence efficiency. However, to date, no CGC imager with single or multiple collimated detectors has reported a performance level beyond 6.7 mm spatial resolution (FWHM) and 6.0 ×1ncidence efficiency. Given the recent developments and the current interests in high resolution and localization of an individual decaying nucleus, there is a need for CGC imagers with higher performance in terms of spatial resolution and efficiency. Therefore, deploying a CGC imager coupled with multiple collimated detectors may prove to be of value in nuclear imaging and probably in clinical applications


This essay traces the lines of development of cost accounting to the present state. Based on the historical evidence we carve out the topics and approaches that determine the current state and the expected developments in the next years and decades.


This study adopted a descriptive survey method to investigate the views of parents on education and healthcare services provided to the children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and help them explain their views in their own words. The sample was composed of 25 parents of children diagnosed with ADHD, who were attending primary schools in Konya city center. A semi-structured interview form was used for parent interviews. The data were analysed through content analysis. The results revealed that according to the parents' views, the service provided to the children mostly included either healthcare or education services, but a very little number of children received both services. The great majority of the families stated that the medicines that their children were prescribed increased their attention; however, negatively affected their social development. The parents expressed their opinion that a training programme for parents should be arranged and multimodal interventions should be provided.
Keywords: Education, healthcare, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder.


Transverse‐mode‐stabilized GaAlAs high‐power visible lasers have been developed in such a way as to have a self‐aligned strip buried heterostructure. Analysis of their waveguide properties shows that asymmetric AlAs composition in cladding layers, as well as a thin active layer, are important for increasing optical spot size and stabilizing the transverse mode. Lasers with such a waveguide structure operate in the fundamental transverse mode up to an output power as high as 30 mW, and at a lasing wavelength of around 780 nm under cw operation. In addition, fundamental transverse mode operation up to 75 mW under cw conditions has been achieved with optimization of facet reflectivities.


In a commercial oyster mushroom farm, fruiting body base (FBB) was not harvested compared to the common cap and stem of the fruiting body parts, and thus remained as waste. In the present study, unused FBB was powdered and subjected to proximate analysis as floured FBB (FFBB). FFBB was found to contain 71.2% carbohydrate, 8.93% moisture, 7.18% fibre, 5.72% ash, 5.57% protein, and 1.4% fat, while raw-FBB (RFBB) contained 7.57% carbohydrate, 84.4% moisture, 5.17% fibre, 5.72% ash, 1.54% protein, and 0.85% fat. The high carbohydrate content of FFBB was subjected to hot-water extraction and yielded 7.40 g of FFBB polysaccharide (FFBBP). Total phenolic content (TPC) of FFBBP contained 1.80 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/g, exhibiting the reducing activity of 1.74 mM Fe(II)/g by ferric reducing antioxidant power assay, and reduced the stable 2,2'-azinobis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate radical forms at IC 50 of 25.08 mg/mL, which was comparable with other parts of oyster mushroom species. Different percentages of FFBB mixtures were utilized in the production of cookies (10% and 20%) and steamed buns (10%, 20% and 30%). Thirty-seven panellists were selected for sensory testing, which showed that 10% of FFBB in a steamed bun was more acceptable than 30% of FFBB, while the overall acceptance of cookies with 10% FBB was insignificant ( p > 0.05) but 20% FFBB in cookies was significantly different from control ( p < 0.05). This study indicates that potential value of FFBB as an economical antioxidative flour in the development of functional foods.


This thesis develops a new approach to evolving Binary Decision Diagrams, and uses it to study evolvability issues. For reasons that are not yet fully understood, current approaches to artificial evolution fail to exhibit the evolvability so readily exhibited in nature. To be able to apply evolvability to artificial evolution the field must first understand and characterise it; this will then lead to systems which are much more capable than they are currently. An experimental approach is taken. Carefully crafted, controlled experiments elucidate the mechanisms and properties that facilitate evolvability, focusing on the roles and interplay between neutrality, modularity, gradualism, robustness and diversity. Evolvability is found to emerge under gradual evolution as a biased distribution of functionality within the genotype-phenotype map, which serves to direct phenotypic variation. Neutrality facilitates fitness-conserving exploration, completely alleviating local optima. Population diversity, in conjunction with neutrality, is shown to facilitate the evolution of evolvability. The search is robust, scalable, and insensitive to the absence of initial diversity. The thesis concludes that gradual evolution in a search space that is free of local optima by way of neutrality can be a viable alternative to problematic evolution on multi-modal landscapes.


Background/Aim: Abnormal expression of CD44 may promote cancer invasion. However, a limited number of studies have investigated the expression of CD44 in soft tissue sarcoma such as myxofibrosarcoma. We evaluated the relationship between expression of the standard form of CD44 (CD44s) and the clinical course of myxofibrosarcoma. Materials and Methods: Forty-four myxofibrosarcoma patients were retrospectively enrolled. Patient information including the proportion of CD44s-positive cells was collected, and multivariate analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between CD44s expression and clinicopathological factors. Results: Although CD44s did not affect prognosis, multivariate analysis indicated that high expression of CD44s predicted poor event-free survival (p=0.004) and local recurrence (p=0.049). CD44s expression was not associated with the occurrence of distant metastasis but was significantly higher in those with lung metastasis (p=0.044). Conclusion: Increased expression of CD44s predicted poor event-free survival and local recurrence and was observed in myxofibrosarcoma patients with lung metastasis.


In this paper the complex-image approximation to the reflection coefficient for water over a seabed half-space is used to generate an image representation for a bounded acoustic waveguide with an underlying layered seabed. The images are true point sources; they have constant amplitudes which are raypath independent and, in the case of a Pekeris waveguide, frequency-independent. This image representation is ideal for constructing the Green's function kernel of the boundary integral equation method for target scattering in a waveguide. The singular behavior of the Green's function for an infinitesimal source/receiver separation, possibly with the target adjacent to one of the interfaces, is modeled correctly and the image expansion has a simple analytic form which can be analytically differentiated. The method is also accurate for significant source/receiver separations, which means that it can be used in the modeling of scattering from large-sized objects and can also be used as an efficient and accurate short-range propagation model for harmonic and broadband propagation in a penetrable waveguide.


Between 1965 and 1975 43384 operations were performed (including general surgical, vascular and traumatological operations). 79 patients (0,18%) died postoperatively due to myocardial infraction (all confirmed by autopsy). 67 cases (27 women, 40 men) between 51 and 90 years of age were analysed. 63% of these patients died during the first postoperative week. Due to the difficult clinical diagnosis clinical and pathological cause of death was only identical in 35%. The immediate postoperative ECG-monitoring of risk patients and cooperation with experienced cardiologists are emphasized.


The richly structured linearly polarized spectrum that is produced by coherent scattering in the Sun's atmosphere contains a number of spectral features for which no explana- tion has been found within the standard scattering theory. Ac- cording to this quantum-mechanical framework, the intrinsic polarizability of a given line should be determined by the total angular momentum quantum numbers of the atomic levels in- volved in the scattering transition (which may be resonant or flu- orescent). Well defined polarization peaks have been observed in many lines, which according to these theoretical concepts should be intrinsically unpolarizable. A possible explanation for these anomalous spectral structures could be that the ini- tial ground state of the scattering transition becomes polarized by an optical pumping process. However, such an explanation is contradicted by other observations, since it seems to require that much of the solar atmosphere must be filled with extremely weak magnetic fields ( < 10 mG). We have searched through the whole visible solar spectrum for lines with the quantum num- bers that should normally make them unpolarizable, and have carried out a systematic observing program for the most promi- nent of these lines. Here we report on the observed properties of the polarized line profiles of these lines and explain in what respect their behaviors are anomalous and cannot be understood within current conceptual frameworks.


A novel method to obtain the formulations of the return signals in the 2-D frequency domain for both monostatic and bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is proposed. In this study, the squinted effective wavelength (SEW) is firstly used, so that the 2-D spectrums can be derived directly from their imaging geometries. For monostatic SAR (MoSAR), the 2-D spectrum is obtained without a lengthy derivation by using the widely-used principle of stationary phase. For the bistatic SAR (BiSAR), based on the assumption that the azimuth time durations of the transmitter and the receiver are the same, two individual SEWs can be derived, as well as the 2-D spectrums that are both concise and of high accuracy. Then, two modified omega-K algorithms based on the two 2-D spectrums are developed to process MoSAR and translational-invariant BiSAR data. Furthermore, as important processing steps of the proposed omega-K algorithms, a modified reference function multiplication and a modified Stolt mapping, which are much more suitable for SAR data processing than the conventional ones, are proposed. Simulations under a wide range of MoSAR and BiSAR system parameters are conducted. Finally, the proposed algorithms are applied to the analysis of acquired data and the results confirm not only the validity of the derived 2-D spectrums for both MoSAR and BiSAR but also the effectiveness of the proposed method.


Human ES (embryonic stem) cells and iPS (induced pluripotent stem) cells have been heralded as a source of differentiated cells that could be used in the treatment of degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease or diabetes. Despite the great potential for their use in regenerative therapy, the challenge remains to understand the basic biology of these remarkable cells, in order to differentiate them into any functional cell type. Given the scale of the task, high-throughput screening of agents and culture conditions offers one way to accelerate these studies. The screening of small-compound libraries is particularly amenable to such high-throughput methods. Coupled with high-content screening technology that enables simultaneous assessment of multiple cellular features in an automated and quantitative way, this approach is proving powerful in identifying both small molecules as tools for manipulating stem cell fates and novel mechanisms of differentiation not previously associated with stem cell biology. Such screens performed on human ES cells also demonstrate the usefulness of human ES/iPS cells as cellular models for pharmacological testing of drug efficacy and toxicity, possibly a more imminent use of these cells than in regenerative medicine.


Starting from palinavir (1), our lead HIV protease inhibitor, we have discovered a new series of truncated analogues in which the P(3)-P(2) quinaldic-valine portion of 1 was replaced by 2', 6'-dimethylphenoxyacetyl. With EC(50)'s in the 1-2 nM range, some of these compounds are among the most potent inhibitors of HIV replication in vitro, reported to date. One of the most promising members in this series (compound 27, BILA 2185 BS) exhibited a favorable overall pharmacokinetic profile, with 61% apparent oral bioavailability in rat. X-ray crystal structures and molecular modeling were used to rationalize the high potency resulting from incorporation of this structurally simple, achiral ligand into the P(3)-P(2) position of hydroxyethylamine-based HIV protease inhibitors.


Meyer Weinberg's documentary reference, America's Economic Heritage, provides a first-hand view of our nation's economic development. Volume I, From a Colonial to a Capitalist Economy, examines topics such as the growth of manufacturing and a home market, supplying a labor force, the change from imperial rule to self-government, agricultural expansion and industrialization, tariffs, slavery, the growth of transportation, wage labor, and the business-government relationship. Volume II, A Mature Economy, continues themes introduced in Volume I, and includes modern issues such as mass production, advertising, the world economy, and the modern labor force. The documents are grouped around nine broad themes--land, agriculture, commerce, labor, manufacturing, foreign trade, government, money and banking, and industrial research. Explicit cross-references and a detailed index help the reader to locate related materials in different periods.


The development and application of luminescence dating and dosimetry techniques have grown exponentially in the last several decades. Luminescence methods provide age control for a broad range of geological and archaeological contexts and can characterize mineral and glass properties linked to geologic origin, Earth-surface processes, and past exposure to light, heat, and ionizing radiation. The applicable age range for luminescence methods spans the last 500,000 years or more, which covers the period of modern human evolution, and provides context for rates and magnitudes of geological processes, hazards, and climate change. Given the growth in applications and publications of luminescence data, there is a need for unified, community-driven guidance regarding the publication and interpretation of luminescence results.
 This paper presents a guide to the essential information necessary for publishing and archiving luminescence ages as well as supporting data that is transportable and expandable for different research objectives and publication outlets. We outline the information needed for the interpretation of luminescence data sets, including data associated with equivalent dose, dose rate, age models, and stratigraphic context. A brief review of the fundamentals of luminescence techniques and applications, including guidance on sample collection and insight into laboratory processing and analysis steps, is presented to provide context for publishing and data archiving.


On the basis of MA Da-You's sound absorbing theory for the micro-perforated sheet, in this work, the sound absorption mechanism of multi-layer compound micro-perforated sheet and the effects of its structural parameters on overall sound absorption characteristics are studied in detail. Firstly, the basic sound absorption theory of single micro-perforated sheet is briefly reviewed. Secondly, many types of two-layer compound micro-perforated absorption structures are put forward. These compound structures are mainly made up of series or parallel micro-perforated sheets with the different pore sizes, sheet thicknesses, and perforation rates. Further, aiming at above-mentioned structures, theoretical acoustic calculations are performed and the corresponding results are presented and analyzed. Finally, the effects of geometrical and acoustic parameters of each perforated sheet on the sound absorption characteristics of sound absorbing compound are given; the concluding theoretical analyses are made also.


The abstract for your paper is included below. This will appear online only. Looking back on the Edwardian suffrage campaign, the militant suffragette Annie Kenney thought it 'more like a religious revival than a political movement'. Its language and iconography were steeped in Christian imagery, yet the religious arguments for enfranchisement have rarely received close attention. This article shows how campaigners grappled with patriarchal readings of Genesis, St Paul and the traditions of the Church to construct a Christian case for equality. It focuses, in particular, on the Church League for Women's Suffrage, an Anglican organisation boasting nearly 6,000 members by 1914. Inspired by the incarnational theology of Charles Gore, the League recruited over 500 clergy and eight bishops, convinced that enfranchisement was not merely compatible with, but actively demanded by, the teaching of Christ. Activists preached sermons, wrote pamphlets and debated theology in the religious press, establishing a powerful theological case for reform. Using the League as a case-study, the article explores the wider relationship between gender ideology and religious thought, at a time when Christianity was the central referent of British culture. Interrogating the religious roots of 'militancy', it shows how the conception of suffragism as a spiritual struggle collapsed any easy distinction between 'religion' and 'politics', establishing prayer, worship and Biblical exegesis as weapons of political warfare. The churches, it is concluded, did not simply respond to changing ideas about sex and gender; they were themselves sites of new thinking about the roles of men and women, forming one of the many tributaries that fed the flood-tide of feminist thought.


We consider the response of a linear structural system when coupled to an attachment containing strong or even essential nonlinearities. For this system, the attachment, designated as a nonlinear energy sink, is designed as a nonlinear vibration absorber, serving to dissipate energy from the structural system. Moreover, the attachment not only leads to a reduction in the total energy of the system, but also nonlinearly couples together the vibration modes of the linear structural system. When the structure is impulsively loaded, the nonlinear energy sink serves to both dissipate and redistribute energy, thus enhancing the observed structural dissipation. The effect of the nonlinear attachment on the linear primary system can be quantified in terms of equivalent measures for the damping and frequency of each mode, derived through consideration of the instantaneous energy balance in each mode. The influence of the nonlinear energy sink on the structural response is illustrated with an impulsively forced two-degree-of-freedom primary system, representing a two-story structure, with different types of nonlinear energy sink attached to the top floor. We perform optimization studies in order to design the nonlinear energy sink for optimal shock mitigation of the primary system. The proposed methodology is based only on measured time series without resorting to frequency analysis. As such, it is valid for strongly nonlinear systems as well as for systems with nonsmooth nonlinearities, and is suited to both simulated and experimental results. Finally, an experimental validation of the enhanced dissipation introduced by the nonlinear energy sink is provided, and the experimental response is compared against numerical simulation of the corresponding analytical model to illustrate the effectiveness of the nonlinear energy sink design. Thus, we analytically predict and experimentally verify the efficacy of the nonlinear energy sink to significantly reduce the response of the two degree-of-freedom system subject to shock excitation.


We calculate the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a five-qubit isotropic Heisenberg model in an external magnetic field, and give analytical results for the concurrence of two nearest-neighbor qubits. A magnetic field can eliminate degeneration and change the ground state of the system. Therefore increasing the value of the magnetic field can induce entanglement in a certain range both for the antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic case.


The longitudinal relations between physiological markers of child emotion regulation and maternal parenting practices were examined from 2 to 4 years of age. At Time 1, cardiac vagal tone was assessed for one hundred four 2-year-olds (54 females); their mothers completed an assessment of parenting styles. Two years later, at Time 2, 84 of the original participants were reassessed on measures of cardiac vagal tone and parenting style. Results indicated both baseline cardiac vagal tone and maternal parenting practices to be stable from 2 to 4 years of age. Children's cardiac vagal tone predicted specific parenting practices from the toddler to preschool years. Further, child cardiac vagal tone moderated maternal restrictive-parenting practices from 2 to 4 years of age; mothers of children who were highly or moderately physiologically dysregulated were more likely to report restrictive parenting practices at both 2 and 4 years of age.


In many Mediterranean regions industrial activities have drastically affected soil evolution. As a case study, reference is made to an important Chemical Industrial District of southern Italy (Sardinia). Its setting up and development resulted in the formation of human-altered and human-transported (HAHT) soils, largely through physical-mechanical excavation, transportation and rolling out the original soils (Palexeralfs, Haploxeralfs), as well as mixing and covering them with innocuous artifacts referred to as human-transported materials (HTM). On this basis, research began with a view to evaluating the anthropogenic processes in addition to the main morphological and physical–chemical characteristics of HAHT soils as compared with reference soils (RefS), their pedovariability and the classification of HAHT soils through Soil Taxonomy. The anthro-pedoturbation induced by mixing HTM to preexisting- presently buried- soils has dramatically disturbed the "natural" pedogenetic evolution, and driven the pro-isotropic processes leading the HAHT soils to much more simplified morphology and homogenization of chemical–physical features, with an impressive loss of pedovariability. They currently meet the requirements for a "mantle" classifiable as Alfic Xerarents, as an expression of the "entisolization" that induced a taxonomic shift from Alfisols to anthropogenic Entisols.


The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between critical-thinking tendency and problem-solving skills of pre-service teachers. Research was modelled as relational screening model. The population of the research consisted of pre-service teachers from a faculty of education during the 2013-2014 academic year. The sample of the research consisted of 656 students who were studying different fields of education at the faculty. Stratified sampling method was used in choosing the sample. The variable of students' field was taken as stratified according to the ratio in the population. Facione, Facione, and Giancarlo's (1998) "California Critical Thinking Tendency Inventory" and Heppner and Petersen's (1982) "Problem Solving Inventory" and a personal information form were used to collect the data. The collected data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, parametric tests and correlation analysis. In this study, a near moderate-level and positive correlation was found between the Critical thinking tendency and Problem solving skills of pre-service


A unequal Wilkinson power divider based on asymmetrical coupled line section is presented in this paper. The proposed unequal Wilkinson power divider topology uses asymmetrical coupled-line section and two transmission-line transformers. For simpliflcation, a section asymmetrical coupled line is applied to obtain front compact matching structure. For generalization, three ports terminated impedances are deflned as arbitrary values. In particular, the output ports impedances are arbitrary complex values. Design parameters and analysis equations for scattering parameters are also provided. In addition, the theoretical external performances of several examples are illustrated. Finally, the EM simulated results are validated with the characterization of two microstrip unequal power dividers at 2GHz.


Emotion is a compelling factor in the retention and job satisfaction of professionals, and the impacts of emotional feelings and reactions have become an indispensable issue in the nursing workforce. Drawing on the cognitive theory of emotions, this study bridges the research gap to investigate the relationships among emotional blackmail, emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions of nurses. A cross-sectional design was used to collect data from a sample of 374 full-time nurses in Northern Taiwan. Hypotheses were tested and analyzed by means of SPSS 22, structural equation modeling (SEM), and PROCESS v3.3. The results revealed the direct relationships between emotional blackmail, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions, and job satisfaction partially mediated the relationship between emotional blackmail and turnover intentions. However, there is no statistical support that emotional intelligence moderates the relationships between emotional blackmail and job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Healthcare organizations must take the initiative and form strategies that will help balance nurses' work stresses. These strategies should aim to reduce unnecessary demands from supervisors, patients, and co-workers, as well as in the socio-emotional domain.


If we are to achieve sustainable development and secure targets for carbon reduction then universities have a role to play in educating students to address sustainable development (SD) and influencing behaviour change. Some universities have already developed approaches to address SD within the curriculum, on campus and in the community; others have done far less, or very little. The assumption might be that students from a university which is formally addressing SD, should exhibit different attitudes and behaviours to students from a university where SD is not a concern. This paper will compare the environmental consciousness level and "green" behaviour of students from a university in Portugal which has no formal sustainable policies, nor a structure supporting the development of global citizenship, with a University in the UK where a formal policy has been implemented which embraces a holistic approach to SD and global citizenship. Analysis of survey data from the two student populations reveals significant differences in environmental attitudes, with students from the UK University displaying greater concern about the environment, greater belief that their actions can influence change and more concern with conservation and buying locally sourced food. The Portuguese students are more concerned about future generations. The conclusion suggests that formal policies do have an impact however the cultural context must also be considered.


Tectonic is Facebook's exabyte-scale distributed filesystem. Tectonic consolidates large tenants that previously used service-specific systems into general multitenant filesystem instances that achieve performance comparable to the specialized systems. The exabyte-scale consolidated instances enable better resource utilization, simpler services, and less operational complexity than our previous approach. This paper describes Tectonic's design, explaining how it achieves scalability, supports multitenancy, and allows tenants to specialize operations to optimize for diverse workloads. The paper also presents insights from designing, deploying, and operating Tectonic.


This thesis examines certain key problems that the existence of forward rational expectations poses for policy analysis. The separate stages of estimating, testing and solving an econometric model are dealt with in turn. The main body of original work is in chapters four and six. In chapter four the problem of the existence of a continuum of solutions to a rational expectations model is addressed. We show that the existing practice of imposing terminal conditions is arbitrary and a procedure is advanced which in principle at least, can be used to estimate the solution jointly with the parameters. In chapter six analytical closed forms for the first order conditions of the likelihood function of the endogenous variables of a general rational expectations model are derived. We believe this is a major contribution to the literature because it opens the door to computationally efficient and cheap likelihood estimation, something not previously available. The first order conditions for a class of models with no predetermined variables has been programmed in Fortran IV and this has been used in chapter seven to estimate a model of financial asset demands. A likelihood ratio test of restrictions implied by rational expectations is comfortably passed so establishing empirical support for the hypothesis. Other original work in the thesis is contained in chapter five. Here we scrutinise the validity of a simulation technique advanced by Fair and Anderson which it is claimed solves a standard non rational model to yield an approximate rational expectations solution. The results of the chapter suggest the method is better in certain circumstances than in others and these circumstances pertain to the make up of the model in question. Finally, chapters two and three cast a critical eye over the policy analysis literature to which a minor contribution is made.


Motor interaction and its sociocultural context are aspects that determine the type of motor game, providing it with specific characteristics that make it different in the Physical Education class. Thus, this motor activity should be studied from the emotional perspective to optimise the educational process. This study aims to identify the affective perception of 5th and 6th year primary school students in popular cooperation and cooperation-opposition games in Physical Education classes. The study used a quantitative approach, involving 70 students (35 boys and 35 girls) aged between 10 and 12 from the province of Alicante. The data were collected using the PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) survey validated in Spanish for children and adolescents. The main results indicate that positive affects obtained the highest perception in the two types of popular games studied, whereas negative affects obtained the lowest perception. It is concluded that this type of sociomotor games with sociocultural content allows students to develop social skills in a positive learning environment.


BACKGROUND
Skin-infiltrating lymphocytes expressing type 1 cytokines have been linked to the pathophysiology of psoriasis. We evaluated the safety and efficacy of a human interleukin-12/23 monoclonal antibody in treating psoriasis.

METHODS
In this double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 320 patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis underwent randomization to treatment with the interleukin-12/23 monoclonal antibody (one 45-mg dose, one 90-mg dose, four weekly 45-mg doses, or four weekly 90-mg doses) or placebo; 64 patients were randomly assigned to each group. Patients assigned to the interleukin-12/23 monoclonal antibody received one additional dose at week 16 if needed. Patients assigned to placebo crossed over to receive one 90-mg dose of interleukin-12/23 monoclonal antibody at week 20.

RESULTS
There was at least 75% improvement in the psoriasis area-and-severity index at week 12 (the primary end point) in 52% of patients who received 45 mg of the interleukin-12/23 monoclonal antibody, in 59% of those who received 90 mg, in 67% of those who received four weekly 45-mg doses, and in 81% of those who received four weekly 90-mg doses, as compared with 2% of those who received placebo (P<0.001 for each comparison), and there was at least 90% improvement in 23%, 30%, 44%, and 52%, respectively, of patients who received the monoclonal antibody as compared with 2% of patients who received placebo (P<0.001 for each comparison). Adverse events occurred in 79% of patients treated with the interleukin-12/23 monoclonal antibody as compared with 72% of patients in the placebo group (P=0.19). Serious adverse events occurred in 4% of patients who received the monoclonal antibody and in 1% of those who received placebo (P=0.69).

CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrates the therapeutic efficacy of an interleukin-12/23 monoclonal antibody in psoriasis and provides further evidence of a role of the interleukin-12/23 p40 cytokines in the pathophysiology of psoriasis. Larger studies are needed to determine whether serious adverse events might limit the clinical usefulness of this new therapeutic target. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00320216 [ClinicalTrials.gov].).


An indirect imager working at terahertz band is presented and implemented, which is suitable for high-resolution planar object detection. The proposed imager employs a simple quasi-optics design to transmit and to receive terahertz waves, and adopts incoherent detection technology to extract the intensity of echoed signal, which results in a relatively low complexity and cost. Moreover, the Fienup Fourier phase-retrieval algorithm is successfully modified and is applied to retrieve the phase of the echoed signal and reconstruct the target image. Imaging experiments on typical planar objects are performed with the imager working at 0.2 THz, and the experimental results demonstrate the good performance of the proposed imager and validate the effectiveness of the reconstruction algorithm.


In this study, the education system of the Republic of South Africa was explored. The study focused on the successes as well as problems faced by the educational system. The research questions focused on the quality of education in the country. It also explored the problems faced by students as they try to gain access to schooling at all levels of the education system. Qualitative methods were used to collect data for the study. More than 120 local newspapers were sampled for the study. The main findings from the study are that although some of the universities are highly ranked among universities in the world, the education system contains inherent problems which include poor teacher quality and outmoded curriculums.

 Key words: Education system, content analysis, South African Republic, media messages, colonialism.


The field of salary management is at a crossroad. Traditional salary management practices were developed for an organization model that has largely disappeared. The critics of those practices were first heard a decade ago. The "next generation" program model moves in a different direction but is still not fully developed. The newer salary systems reflect common core principles; however, there are unresolved design issues that affect system management. A key change is the shift in control from human resources to line managers, which makes it important to create simple, transparent and credible programs. The experience of three companies—Dow Chemical, IBM, and Marriott Lodging—confirms that managers can effectively handle this new role when they are provided with adequate information. This article looks at the focal issues in designing a next generation salary system. It considers the rationale for assigning jobs to salary bands and for managing individual salaries within the bands. It also suggests criteria for evaluating system changes.


AIM
To explore the possibility of repression of chloromycetin (Cm) acyl transferase by using external guided sequence (EGS) in order to converse the clinical E coli isolates from Cm- resistant to Cm- sensitive.

METHODS
EGS directed against chloromycetin acetyl transferase gene (cat) was cloned to vector pEGFP-C1 which contains the kanamycin (Km) resistance gene. The recombinant plasmid pEGFP-C1+EGScat1+cat2 was constructed and the blank vector without EGS fragment was used as control plasmids. By using the CaCl(2) transformation method, the recombinant plasmids were introduced into the clinically isolated Cm resistant but Km sensitive E coli strains. Transformants were screened on LB agar plates containing Km. Extraction of plasmids and PCR were applied to identify the positive clones. The growth curve of EGS transformed bacteria cultured in broth with Cm resistance was determined by using spectrophotometer at A(600). Drug sensitivity was tested in solid culture containing Cm by using KB method.

RESULTS
Transformation studies were carried out on 16 clinically isolated Cm-resistant (250 microg/mL of Cm) E coli strains by using pEGFP-C1-EGScat1cat2 recombinant plasmid. Transformants were screened on LB-agar plates containing Km after the transformation using EGS. Of the 16 tested strains, 4 strains were transformed successfully. Transformants with EGS plasmid showed growth inhibition when grown in liquid broth culture containing 200 microg/mL of Cm. In drug sensitivity test, these strains were sensitive to Cm on LB-agar plates containing 200 microg/mL of Cm. Extraction of plasmids and PCR amplification showed the existence of EGS plasmids in these four transformed strains. These results indicated that the Cat of the four clinical isolates had been suppressed and the four strains were converted to Cm sensitive ones.

CONCLUSION
The EGS directed against Cat is able to inhibit the expression of Cat, and hence convert Cm-resistant bacteria to Cm-sensitive ones. Thus, the EGS has the capability of converting the phenotype of clinical drug-resistant isolates strains to drug-sensitive ones.


Introduction People experiencing homelessness face lower life expectancy, higher prevalence of somatic and mental diseases and a more difficult access to healthcare compared to people in secure living. During the COVID-19 pandemic transmission rates were higher among people experiencing homelessness and preventive public health measures were not properly adapted to the specific needs of people experiencing homelessness. Thus, goal of our study was understanding the determinants of acceptability and access of the COVID-19 vaccine. Materials and methods We conducted a qualitative interview study with twenty guideline interviews with adult people currently experiencing homelessness in Berlin, Germany (August 2021 – April 2022). Participants were approached in a purposive sampling strategy. The interviews were analyzed with qualitative content analysis according to Mayring. Results Acceptance and attitude toward the COVID-19 vaccine is influenced by confidence in the vaccine as well as in the political and healthcare system, the individual COVID-19 risk perception and sense of collective responsibility. Overall, the acceptance of the vaccine was high among our participants. Facilities offering low threshold COVID-19 vaccines for people experiencing homelessness were perceived as helpful. Language barriers and the need for identity documents were major barriers to access the COVID 19 vaccine. Discussion People experiencing homelessness are a marginalized and vulnerable group often underrepresented in the public and scientific discourse. During the COVID-19 pandemic, preventive public health measures, including the COVID-19 vaccine, failed to consider specific needs of people experiencing homelessness. Multidimensional strategy to enhance inclusive healthcare are needed to improve access and to reduce discrimination and stigmatization.


The inner stability and resilience of Islamic finance will not hold, and the low risk element therein is bound to diminish unless the shari'ah principles are diligently observed. The world experienced two major financial crises within a decade: the currency and stock market crises of 1997-98, and now a crippling recession that began with the US subprime debacle caused by excessive lending to borrowers unable to make repayment. Both originated in 'asset bubbles' and unlimited creation of fiat money that loaded the market with the sale of debts, or bay' al-dayn, as it is known in the jargon of shari'ah law. Dealing in debts that lacked any asset base overwhelmed the financial system.


Summary: The intracellular location of methane mono-oxygenase (MMO) (soluble or particulate) in Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b is dependent on the availability of copper in the growth medium. Raising the Cu2+ concentration from 1 μM to 5 μM effected a transition from soluble to particulate MMO activity, and changes in major cell polypeptides were observed on SDS-polyacrylamide gels. Organisms containing soluble MMO oxidized a wide range of substrates including n-alkanes, n-alkenes, aromatic and alicyclic compounds. By contrast, organisms containing particulate MMO did not oxidize aromatic or alicyclic compounds. These observations provide further evidence that the two types of MMO are fundamentally different.


intention of MapReduce Sets for Job Merging expressions analysis has to suggest criteria how Job Merging expressions in Job Merging data can be defined in a meaningful way and how they should be compared. Similitude based MapReduce Sets for Job Merging Expression Analysis and MapReduce Sets for Assignment is expected to adhere to fundamental principles of the scientific Job Merging process that are expressiveness of Job Merging models and reproducibility of their Job Merging inference. Job Merging expressions are assumed to be elements of a Job Merging expression space or Conjecture class and Job Merging data provide "information" which of these Job Merging expressions should be used to interpret the Job Merging data. An inference Job Merging algorithm constructs the mapping between Job Merging data and Job Merging expressions, in particular by a Job Merging cost minimization process. Fluctuations in the Job Merging data often limit the Job Merging precision, which we can achieve to uniquely identify a single Job Merging expression as interpretation of the Job Merging data. We advocate an information theoretic perspective on Job Merging expression analysis to resolve this dilemma where the tradeoff between Job Merging informativeness of statistical inference Job Merging and their Job Merging stability is mirrored in the information-theoretic Job Merging optimum of high Job Merging information rate and zero communication expression error. The inference Job Merging algorithm is considered as an outlier object Job Merging path, which naturally limits the resolution of the Job Merging expression space given the uncertainty of the Job Merging data. KeywordsJob Merging expressions, kernel function.


Over the last decades there has been a reduction in the number of institutional beds in psychiatric care in Norway. This has led to more psychiatric patients being dependent on community care and consequently an increased need for collaboration with the parents of these patients. In most cases parents are an important source of support in helping patients manage their everyday life. The aim of this study was to explore how parents of adult psychiatric patients experience collaboration with health professionals in the community healthcare services. The data collection in this study is based on 12 interviews with six parents, and a qualitative analysis method was employed. Four themes emerged: (1) communication and relationship between parents and health professionals; (2) lack of information; (3) parents' participation in the treatment of their son or daughter; and (4) the need for guidance and support. It was reported that health professionals are suspicious of parental involvement and often refuse to allow them to participate in the care. Further research on parents' experiences of collaboration is necessary. The value of parents as an important source of support can be enhanced by means of increased collaboration.


We deal with five different problems from convex geometry, each on its own chapter of this Thesis. These problems are the following. Random copies of a convex body: We study the probability that a random copy of a convex body intersects the integer lattice in a certain way. A conjecture by Erdos: We study the statement by Erdos "On every convex curve there exists a point P such that every circle with centre P intersects the curve in at most 2 points." A Yao-Yao type theorem: Given a nice measure in R^d, we show that there is a partition P of R^d into 3*2^(d/2) convex pieces of equal measure such that every hyperplane avoids at least 2 elements of P. Line transversals: Given a family F of balls in R^d such that every three have a transversal line, we bound the blow-up factor l needed so that lF has a line transversal. Longest lattice convex chains: Given a triangle with two specified vertices v_1, v_2 in Z^2, we bound the size of the largest lattice convex chain from v_1 to v_2. The techniques used to tackle these problems are very diverse and include results from analysis, combinatorics, number theory and topology, as well as the use of computers.


This research investigates the effect of green perceived value, perceived ease of use, and green perceived usefulness on using intentions, and discusses the mediation constructs of perceived ease of use and green perceived usefulness for green transportation consciousness. The objective of this research focuses on how to establish using intentions of green transportation via green perceived value to green perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use based on the technology acceptance model (TAM). This research utilizes the methodology of structural equation modeling to establish the theoretical implications of the empirical results. The findings indicate that green perceived value has no significant influence on using intentions, while green perceived usefulness has more powerfully positive effects, and perceived ease of use has a weak positive effect. Hence a mediation effect of green perceived usefulness exists between using intentions and green perceived value. Moreover, the findings also indicate that the mediation effect of green perceived usefulness has the strongest power to influence using intention. For the diffusion theory of innovations, the early majority was found to be the greatest proportion in the analysis of the diffusion theory's five adopters. Consequently, governmental institutions should increase their efforts to foster users' green perceived value and green perceived usefulness so as to enhance the general public's using intentions for green transportation such as YouBike.


Abstract Flowers have been part of human life since antiquity. Several civilizations have left the legacy of using flowers in art, natural medicine, as well as in cooking to color, flavor and embellish various dishes. Edible flowers (EF) are those that can be consumed without endangering consumer's health. Although not all countries in the world use flowers for food, their use has increased in general, as well as the interest of researchers from different areas of knowledge, as they are considered new sources of nutrients and bioactive compounds. However, the safety of its use is still questioned due to the lack of more information about the maximum safe amount of daily intake. This review aimed to gather information about the traditional use of EF, safety in consumption and consumers' perception of these products.


In this article, the catalysts of hydrotalcite-derived Ni1.5Co0.5AlO nanosheet-supported highly dispersed Pt nanoparticles (Ptn/Ni1.5Co0.5AlO, where n% is the weigh percentage of the Pt element in the catalysts) were elaborately fabricated by the gas-bubble-assisted membrane--reduction method. The specific porous structure formed by the stack of hydrotalcite-derived Ni1.5Co0.5AlO nanosheets can increase the transfer mass efficiency of the reactants (O2, NO, and soot) and the strong Pt–Ni1.5Co0.5AlO interaction can weaken the Ni/Co-O bond for promoting the mobility of lattice oxygen and the formation of surface-oxygen vacancies. The Ptn/Ni1.5Co0.5AlO catalysts exhibited excellent catalytic activity and stability during diesel soot combustion under the loose contact mode between soot particles and catalysts. Among all the catalysts, the Pt2/Ni1.5Co0.5AlO catalyst showed the highest catalytic activities for soot combustion (T50 = 350 °C, TOF = 6.63 × 10−3 s−1). Based on the characterization results, the catalytic mechanism for soot combustion is proposed: the synergistic effect of Pt and dual Ni/Co cations in the Pt/Ni1.5Co0.5AlO catalysts can promote the vital step of catalyzing NO oxidation to NO2 in the NO-assisted soot oxidation mechanism. This insight into the synergistic effect of Pt and dual Ni/Co cations for soot combustion provides new strategies for reducing the amounts of noble metals in high-efficient catalysts.


With substantial public concerns on potential cancer risks and health hazards caused by the accumulated radiation exposure in medical imaging, reducing radiation dose in X-ray based medical imaging such as Computed Tomography Perfusion (CTP) has raised significant research interests. In this paper, we embrace the deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) based approaches and introduce Smoothed Dense-Convolution Neural Network (SDCNet) to recover high-dose quality CTP images from low-dose ones. SDCNet is composed of sub-network blocks cascaded by skip-connections to infer the noise (differentials) from paired low/high-dose CT scans. SDCNet can effectively remove the noise in real low-dose CT scans and enhance the quality of medical images. We evaluate the proposed architecture on thousands of CT perfusion frames for both reconstructed image denoising and perfusion map quantification including cerebral blood flow (CBF) and cerebral blood volume (CBV). SDCNet achieves high performance in both visual and quantitative results with promising computational efficiency, comparing favorably with state-of-the-art approaches.


Introducing inequality constraints in Gaussian process (GP) models can lead to more realistic uncertainties in learning a great variety of real-world problems. We consider the finite-dimensional Gaussian approach from Maatouk and Bay (2017) which can satisfy inequality conditions everywhere (either boundedness, monotonicity or convexity). Our contributions are threefold. First, we extend their approach in order to deal with general sets of linear inequalities. Second, we explore several Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques to approximate the posterior distribution. Third, we investigate theoretical and numerical properties of the constrained likelihood for covariance parameter estimation. According to experiments on both artificial and real data, our full framework together with a Hamiltonian Monte Carlo-based sampler provides efficient results on both data fitting and uncertainty quantification.


When aligning biological sequences, the choice of scoring scheme is critical. Even small changes in gap penalties, for example, can yield radically different alignments. A rigorous way to learn parameter values that are appropriate for biological sequences is through inverse parametric sequence alignment. Given a collection of examples of biologically correct reference alignments, this is the problem of finding parameter values that make the scores of the reference alignments be as close as possible to those of optimal alignments of their sequences. We extend prior work on inverse parametric alignment to partial examples, which contain regions where the reference alignment is not specified, and to an improved formulation based on minimizing the average error between the scores of the reference alignments and the scores of optimal alignments. Experiments on benchmark biological alignments show we can learn scoring schemes that generalize across protein families, and that boost the accuracy of multiple sequence alignment by as much as 25 percent.


In December 2007 my 56 year old younger brother, living and working in a major city in the United States, underwent his routine yearly company medical examination. He phoned me afterwards to ask what the "PSA" was, because his was high. I, an NHS gastroenterologist, gave him our party line: the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test can indicate prostate cancer but has too many flaws to be useful for screening. He had a transrectal biopsy, which he described to me vividly, and it showed cancer. His urologist proposed robot assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy. The urologist said that this was the only operation considered these days; he did no other. It was, he said, best for reducing blood loss, for speed of recovery, and for nerve sparing and hence potency; any right thinking second opinion giver would say the same.

I did what many patients, relatives, and doctors do: I consulted the internet. Among many helpful (and unhelpful) things I learnt was that a major risk factor for prostate cancer is a positive family history. We had no …


Objectives The purpose of this study was to evaluate the epidemic profile and the survival rate of endometrial carcinoma in women ≤45 years of age in Tunisia Methods It is a retrospective study of a prospective mono-centric database from January 2008 to January 2019. We evaluated the clinical history, treatment, and follow-up of 20 women ≤45 years of age diagnosed with endometrial cancer, from a global cohort of 228 patients diagnosed in our center with endometrial cancer during the same period. Results The mean age was 40 years (29–45). Fifteen patients (75%) were married at the time of diagnosis and 12 (60%) were nulliparous. Menorragia was the main revealing symptom (60%). According to the FIGO classification for endometrial cancer: IA, 9 (45%); IB, 4 (20%). Tumors were well differentiated in 6 (30%), moderately differentiated in 5 (25%), and poorly differentiated in 9 (45%).A fertility-sparing technique was proposed in 9 cases (45%) and only one patient did not have hysterectomy. All patients had laparotomy when surgery was performed. External Radiotherapy was indicated in 25% of the patients and curitherapy in 10%.35% of the patients had chemotherapy. The mean overall survival (OS) was 104 months ±10. The OS and the disease free survival (DFS) at 3 and 5 years were equal, respectively at 95% and 80%. Conclusions Patients ≤45 years of age with endometrial cancer represent less than 10% of all endometrial cancer patients. Although, advanced stage disease is prevalent (45%), the prognosis at 5 years seems acceptable (OS and DFS 80%).


An attempt was made to ascertain the circumstances under which unilateral nephrectomy maximally sensitized rats to hypertensive cardiovascular disease induced by desoxycorticosterone acetate in the presence of augmented NACl intake. The experiments showed that animals in which hormone treatment was delayed until 2 weeks after uninephrectomy were much more sensitive than animals in which hormone treatment was begun on the day of kidney removal. This was indicated by earlier onset and greater severity of hypertension; by a larger percentage of animals in such groups being affected, and by a greater incidence and severity of cardiovascular lesions in the former as compared with the latter. The much greater kidney size of the former clearly makes it difficult to ascribe the greater sensitivity to a reduction in renal mass as such. It is thought that during active compensatory renal hypertrophy the renal tubules are probably less responsive to the action of the hormone and therefore less prone to develop sodium retention and hence hypertension.