Background: Peroperative identification and subsequent division or preservation of the inguinal nerves during open hernia repair may influence the incidence of chronic postoperative pain. Methods: A systematic literature review was performed to identify studies investigating the influence of different types of nerve management. Results: Based on three randomized studies the pooled mean percentage of patients with chronic pain after identification and division of the ilioinguinal nerve was similar to that after identification and preservation of the ilioinguinal nerve. Two cohort studies suggested that the incidence of chronic pain was significantly lower after identification of all inguinal nerves compared with no identification of any nerve. Another cohort study reported a significant difference in the incidence of chronic pain in favour of identification and facultative pragmatic division of the genital branch of the genitofemoral nerve compared with no identification at all. Conclusion: The nerves should be identified during open hernia repair. Division of and preservation of the ilioinguinal nerve show similar results. Incidence of postoperative chronic pain may be decreased by preservation of inguinal nerves in open hernia repair. DOI: 10.3329/bja.v8i1.6108 Bangladesh Journal of Anatomy January 2010, Vol. 8 No. 1 pp. 39-42


Although silicon (Si) nanowires (NWs) grown by a vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism have been demonstrated for a range of photonic, electronic, and solar-energy applications, continued progress with these NW-based technologies requires increasingly precise compositional and morphological control of the growth process. However, VLS growth typically encounters problems such as nonselective deposition on sidewalls, inadvertent kinking, unintentional or inhomogeneous doping, and catalyst-induced compositional gradients. Here, we overcome several of these difficulties and report the synthesis of uniform, linear, and degenerately doped Si NW superlattices with abrupt transitions between p-type, intrinsic, and n-type segments. The synthesis of these structures is enabled by in situ chlorination of the NW surface with hydrochloric acid (HCl) at temperatures ranging from 500 to 700 °C, yielding uniform NWs with minimal nonselective growth. Surprisingly, we find the boron (B) doping level in p-type segments to be at least 1 order of magnitude above the solid solubility limit, an effect that we attribute to a high incorporation of B in the liquid catalyst and kinetic trapping of B during crystallization at the liquid-solid interface to yield a highly nonequilibrium concentration. For growth at 510 °C, four-point-probe measurements yield active doping levels of at least 4.5 × 1019 cm-3, which is comparable to the phosphorus (P) doping level of n-type segments. Because the B and P dopants are in sufficiently high concentrations for the Si to be degenerately doped, both segments inhibit the etching of Si in aqueous potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution. Moreover, we find that the dopant transitions are abrupt, facilitating nanoscale morphological control in both B- and P-doped segments through selective KOH etching of the NW with a spatial resolution of ∼10 nm. The results presented herein enable the growth of complex, degenerately doped p-n junction nanostructures that can be explored for a variety of advanced applications, such as Esaki diodes, multijunction solar cells, and tunneling field-effect transistors.


Plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI)-1 is the main inhibitor of the fibrinolytic system and is known to play an essential role in tissue remodeling. Recent evidence indicates that chronic asthma may lead to tissue remodeling such as subepithelial fibrosis and extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition in the airways. However, the role of PAI-1 in asthma is unknown. Recently the mast cell (MC), which plays a major role in asthma, was found as a novel source of PAI-1, and a large number of MCs expressing PAI-1 are infiltrated in the airways of patients with severe asthma. Furthermore, PAI-1-deficient mice show reduced ECM deposition in the airways of a murine model of chronic asthma by inhibiting MMP-9 activity and fibrinolysis. In a human study, the 4G allele frequency was significantly higher in the asthmatic patients than in the control group. In view of the findings that the 4G allele is associated with elevated plasma PAI-1 level, elevated PAI-1 level in the lung may contribute to the development of asthma. In summary, PAI-1 may play an important role in the pathogenesis of asthma and further studies evaluating the mechanisms of PAI-1 action may lead to the development of a novel therapeutic target for the treatment and prevention of asthma.


Objective:  In the present study, we retrospectively evaluated the ratio of pulmonary venous to mitral A velocity (PV-A/A) in patients with left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction with three specific types of LV filling patterns. Method:Transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography were performed in 44 patients with LV systolic dysfunction in sinus rhythm, aged 20 to 73 years (mean 54±12), and in 11 control subjects without cardiovascular disease aged 24 to 69 years (mean 53±7). Patients were divided into three groups according to LV filling pattern: Group I; those with an impaired relaxation filling pattern (E wave/A wave 2, n=16). Results: The control group and the three patient groups were not different with respect to age, gender and heart rate. All patient groups showed significantly lower LV ejection fraction than the control group, and was lowest in group III.  The mitral peak A wave velocity was significantly lower in group III than in the first, control and second groups (p<0.001, p<0.01and p<0.05, respectively) and was highest in group I. The pulmonary A wave velocity did not differ among groups I, III and the controls, and was higher in group II than in the controls (p<0.01). The PV-A/A ratio was significantly higher in group III than in the control, groups I and II (p<0.001, p<0.001and p<0.05, respectively). The ratio did not differ between the controls and group I, but were lower compared to the group II (p<0.05). Conclusion: An increased ratio of PV-A/A was noted in subjects with LV systolic dysfunction with restrictive and pseudonormal  LV filling patterns. This supports the idea that the PV-A/A ratio reflects LV filling pressures. Key words: Ventricular filling patern to mitral A velocity, ventricular systolic dysfunction


This study investigates the association between types of trust and inter-firm learning in buyer–supplier exchanges in an industrial cluster. More specifically, the study explores the impact of trust types on knowledge sharing among manufacturer and retailer SMEs in a furniture cluster. The results of empirical data from 158 manufacturers suggest no significant association between trust based on competence, reliability and predictability and inter-firm learning and a significant positive association between trust based on goodwill, benevolence and non-opportunism and inter-firm learning. The study findings integrate research on the relational and knowledge-related aspects of knowledge exchange at the dyadic inter-firm level.


Medical Ethics is a relatively new field in developing countries and, to date, Lebanon is the only Arab country that offers bedside ethics consults; however, this is limited to a single medical center, the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC). The clinical ethicist running the bedside clinical ethics service was trained in the United States and the United Kingdom. However, once she began practicing in Lebanon, she realized that much of what she learned in terms of theory and practice as well as navigating ethical issues did not apply to the local context. Rather, much needed to be sifted and adapted to a different culture, social decorum, and mentality. This is more evident when working with patients in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), where parents coming from various areas in the region bring in their unique values and beliefs. The admission of a premature newborn to the NICU is often a strenuous experience for parents and a challenge for healthcare providers. Ethical conundrums often arise when there is a potential partial success with a plan of treatment(s). For example, from an ethical point of view resuscitation is less problematic than surviving severe illness with brain damage, and thus controversial issues linked to quality of life surface as living in a vegetative or incapacitated state can be deemed worse than death. In this article, we present our own experience as neonatologists and clinical ethics consultant (CEC) teaming up at the AUBMC's NICU in an attempt at navigating the muddy waters of decision-making and ethical controversies within an Arab culture characterized with specificities that are often neglected and thus might negatively impact the decision regarding the right plan of treatment. The aim is trying to come up with a recommendation that is in the best interest of the infant and his/her parents and in an attempt to ensure that parents understand the importance of them being part of the decision-making process.


Photosystem II, the multisubunit protein complex that oxidizes water to O2, requires the inorganic cofactors Ca2+ and Cl- to exhibit optimal activity. Chloride can be replaced functionally by a small number of anionic cofactors (Br-, NO3-, NO2-, I-), but among these anions, only Br- is capable of restoring rates of oxygen evolution comparable to those observed with Cl-. UV absorption difference spectroscopy was utilized in the experiments described here as a probe to monitor donor side reactions in photosystem II in the presence of Cl- or surrogate anions. The rate of the final step of the water oxidation cycle was found to depend on the activating anion bound at the Cl- site, but the kinetics of this step did not limit the light-saturated rate of oxygen evolution. Instead, the lower oxygen evolution rates supported by surrogate anions appeared to be correlated with an instability of the higher oxidation states of the oxygen-evolving complex that was induced by addition of these anions. Reduction of these states takes place not only with I- but also with NO2- and to a lesser extent even with NO3- and Br- and is not related to the ability of these anions to bind at the Cl- binding site. Rather, it appears that these anions can attack higher oxidation states of the oxygen evolving complex from a second site that is not shielded by the extrinsic 17 and 23 kDa polypeptides and cause a one-electron reduction. The decrease of the oxygen evolution rate may result from accumulated damage to the reaction center protein by the one-electron oxidation product of the anion.


The goal of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of four global high‐resolution satellite rainfall products (CMORPH, TMPA 3B42RT, TMPA 3B42, and PERSIANN) through the hydrologic simulation of a 1656 km2 mountainous watershed in the fully distributed MIKE SHE hydrologic model. This study shows that there are significant biases in the satellite rainfall estimates and large variations in rainfall amounts, leading to large variations in hydrologic simulations. The rainfall algorithms that use primarily microwave data (CMORPH and TMPA 3B42RT) show consistent and better performance in streamflow simulation (bias in the order of −53% to −3%, Nash‐Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) from 0.34 to 0.65); the rainfall algorithm that uses primarily infrared data (PERSIANN) shows lower performance (bias from −82% to −3%, Nash‐Sutcliffe efficiency from −0.39 to 0.43); and the rainfall algorithm that merges the satellite data with rain gage data (TMPA 3B42) shows inconsistencies and the lowest performance (bias from −86% to 0.43%, Nash‐Sutcliffe efficiency from −0.50 to 0.27). A dilemma between calibrating the hydrologic model with rain gage data and calibrating it with the corresponding satellite rainfall data is presented. Calibrating the model with corresponding satellite rainfall data increases the performance of satellite streamflow simulation compared to the model calibrated with rain gage data, but decreases the performance of satellite evapotranspiration simulation.


Abstract Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is an important disease in dairy calves due to its long-lasting effects. Early identification results in better outcomes for the animal, but producers struggle to identify all calves with BRD. Sickness behavior, or the behavioral changes that accompany illness, has been investigated for its usefulness as a disease detection tool. Behavioral changes associated with BRD include decreased milk intake and drinking speed, depressed attitude, and less likelihood of approaching a novel object or stationary human. Behavioral measurements are useful, as they can be collected automatically or with little financial input. However, one limitation of many BRD behavioral studies includes the use of either lung auscultation or clinical signs as reference methods, which are imperfect. Additionally, external factors may influence the expression of sickness behavior, which can affect if and when behavior can be used to identify calves with BRD. Behavioral measures available to detect BRD lack adequate sensitivity and specificity to be the sole means of disease detection, especially when detection tools, such as calf lung ultrasound, have better test characteristics. However, using behavioral assessments in addition to other detection methods can allow for a robust BRD detection program that can ameliorate the consequences of BRD.


Although caution is expressed by some in relying solely on caries detector dye for diagnosis until more research is done, many aspects of microdentistry are bringing exciting potential to operative dentistry. Perhaps pediatric dentists will find microdentistry the most promising because of its application for long-lasting sealants and less traumatic restorations. To dentistry's benefit, fewer injections and less frequent drilling are predicted to create a whole new generation of nonphobic adults.


An efficient method for the direct C–H olefination of sulfocoumarins with a wide range of alkenes is developed. Moreover, O2 was successfully utilized as the sole oxidant for the oxidative Heck reaction. This approach enables the rapid generation of various 3-alkenylated sulfocoumarins.


A major determinant in the change of the avian influenza virus host range to humans is the E627K substitution in the PB2 polymerase protein. However, the polymerase activity of avian influenza viruses with a single PB2-E627K mutation is still lower than that of seasonal human influenza viruses, implying that avian viruses require polymerase mutations in addition to PB2-627K for human adaptation. Here, we used a database search of H5N1 clade 2.2.1 virus sequences with the PB2-627K mutation to identify other polymerase adaptation mutations that have been selected in infected patients. Several of the mutations identified acted cooperatively with PB2-627K to increase viral growth in human airway epithelial cells and mouse lungs. These mutations were in multiple domains of the polymerase complex other than the PB2-627 domain, highlighting a complicated avian-to-human adaptation pathway of avian influenza viruses. Thus, H5N1 viruses could rapidly acquire multiple polymerase mutations that function cooperatively with PB2-627K in infected patients for optimal human adaptation.


Crosstalk-induced noise of 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS Technology is characterized using time domain reflectometry and scattering parameters. The interconnect lines are quantitatively modeled in RF range, whose accuracy was verified with the use of TDR data and its comparison with HSPICE simulation. The modeled interconnect line is used to simulate comprehensively crosstalk-induced noise voltage in various real routing environments using HSPICE. The crosstalk voltage exhibited a strong dependence on line width rather than line space.


The method of obtaining pure polycrystalline silicon is described, followed by short accounts of how this material is converted into single-crystal form either by the Czochralski (CZ) pulling method or the float-zone (FZ) method. It is shown that the silicon contains various impurities including oxygen, carbon, boron and possibly hydrogen. The defects and impurities often show a nonhomogeneous distribution in the form of helical swirls. Heat treatment of silicon-containing oxygen leads to the clustering of this impurity. At 450 degrees C there is formation of small complexes that act as shallow donors. Investigations using IR and ESR spectroscopy have so far failed to determine the atomic configuration of the defects. Heating at higher temperatures causes wide-scale precipitation of oxygen. There are interactions with carbon and there can be formation of silicon carbide precipitates. Contamination from Cu, Au, Fe, etc., can occur during these treatments and methods for gettering these metals are discussed, involving dislocations and silica precipitates. Low-temperature irradiations produce vacancies and self-interstitials which combine with impurities to form complexes on heating from 4K to 300K. Evidence is presented to illustrate the possible charge states of self-interstitials. Damage produced by fast neutrons is discussed next, followed by a brief account of neutron transmutation doping whereby neutrally occurring 30Si is converted to 31P by the capture of thermal neutrons. Some aspects of high-temperature diffusion are discussed and attempts are made to correlate the data with that derived from the irradiation studies.


Large area tactile sensing is finding more and more interest in technical applications from robotics to smart environments. Existing solutions could be improved with regard to increase of resolution or reduction of power consumption. In this paper, a concept of a variable or multi resolution and low-power system for tactile sensors based on conductive foam or rubber. A small-scale prototype has been conceived for a smart or sensate floor, in which tiles in sleep mode can be reduced in spatial and value resolution to a minimum until a touch or step brings them back to life and full resolution activity. Readout, recognition, and tracking of the tiled smart floor can be then organized as for state-of-the-art solutions. Furthermore, the best performance contact geometry has been explored in order to obtain the maximum sensitivity and the minimum hysteresis in the pressure. The current prototype from discrete electronics offers improvement potential in future work by dedicated integrated silicon or organic realization of switch and readout electronics.


To assess the learning needs and nursing care needs perceived by the postnatal women and their nurses and find association with the selected variables. A descriptive survey was conducted in eight selected hospitals of Udupi District, Karnataka. Three hundred postnatal women, 1-7 days postpartum and one hundred and thirty nurses working in the maternity areas were surveyed using the demographic proforma, rating scales for the assessment of learning needs and nursing care needs, which were developed separately for the postnatal women and the nurses. Perineal care or surgical wound care', 'Management of minor ailments after delivery' and 'Infant care needs' were the areas of highest priority for postnatal women whereas the nurses expressed 'Management of minor ailments after delivery' as the least priority area. The nurses gave high priority to areas of 'Perineal care or surgical wound care','Psychological changes' and 'Infant care needs'.There was a significant difference (p<0.01) between the responses given by the two groups for the learning needs of postnatal women and a significant association between learning needs and age of the postnatal women (p=0.029). The postnatal care should be provided by the nurses based on the needs of the clients.


Abstract Academic institutions worldwide have been tasked with embedding interprofessional education (IPE) into the curricula of health and human service professions. There are few internationally shared examples of interprofessional (IP) learning activities reported in the literature. This report describes the formation of an international IPE research network and provides a summary of the implementation and evaluation of one such shared IPE example, the Health Care Team Challenge™ (HCTC™). We outline the format, key features and evaluation strategies of the HCTC™ IPE. An international research agenda to test cases and assess learning processes are described, and directions for dissemination and sustainability are proposed.


AbstractThe atomic structure of the iron–gallium alloy containing 18 at % Ga has been studied by X-ray diffraction. The samples were annealed in the paramagnetic ( T > T _C) and ferromagnetic ( T < T _C) state. In the first case, the structural state was fixed by quenching from the annealing temperature into water; in the second case, the structural state was obtained by slow cooling. The structural studies of the single-crystal samples were conducted on a four-circle X-ray diffractometer at room temperature. From the X-ray diffraction data, it follows that the alloy, independently on the heat treatment, contains B 2 clusters, i.e., locally ordered regions with the CsCl-type structure observed in alloys of iron with silicon (to 10 at % Si) and aluminum (7 at % Al) before. In addition to the B 2‑clusters, regions with the D 0_3 short-range order are observed in the quenched sample; the sizes of these regions significantly increases after annealing in the ferromagnetic state, i.e., a long-range order forms. The relation of the fine structural changes in the alloy due to various heat treatments with its magnetoelastic and magnetostriction properties is discussed.


In this paper, n -poly/SiO /SiO /p-sub capacitors with enhanced electron injection under substrate accumulation are extensively studied. First, systematic investigation of the role of technology parameters in the PECVD deposition of the SiO films is presented. In particular, the effect of the silane dilution parameter on the device performance is investigated and the SiO film optimized in terms of reliability and electron injection enhancement. Then, investigation of the electrical behavior of n -poly/SiO /SiO /p-sub MOS capacitors is presented. As a re- sult, a picture of the space defect distribution in the SiO films is proposed. In SiO films, a relevant density of trapped charge adds to ionized impurities. In particular, the net charge is negative in the bulk of the dielectric, indicating that trapped electrons exceed all the other charge contributions. The space distribution of defects is strongly nonuniform and has the maximum in the vicinity of the SiO /SiO interface. After dc current stress, the devices undergo electrical degradation, the dominant mechanism of degradation being the creation of interface hole traps. The trap generation model is based on the release of hydrogen and pairs generation in the SiO films. The time-scale of trap filling during the stress is tens of seconds, which suggests that the stress-induced traps are deep in the energy gap.


Femtocells are widely used to improve poor indoor coverage and decrease the cellular networks high cost. The fact that femtocells and macrocells share similar frequency bands leads to a major challenge in time/frequency resources allocation. Addressing fairness among femtocells and improving time/frequency resources utilization are the main objectives of the previous studies. The balance between femtocell level fairness and utilization is considered in some of the previous studies. Providing user level fairness with respect to User Equipments (UEs) demands is the issue that has not received adequate attention so far. Here, a centralized resource allocation algorithm is proposed to improve the balance between user level fairness and radio resource utilization where the demand of UEs for radio resources are involved. In this algorithm, two independent phases are followed. The first phase assigns resources to femtocells in a greedy manner to increase the reused spectrum utilization based on the proposed priority. The second phase is planned in a manner to guarantee the fairness between UEs by considering their required resources whenever the residual resources are not proportional to the unmet requirements. Compared to the conventional methods, this proposed approach leads to an improvement in terms of utilization, fairness, and average amount of satisfied demands.


INTRODUCTION:
Helicobacter pylori is a Gram-negative organism which ismicroaerophilic, It is slow-growing, processing flagella and is spiral-shaped.It can survive in an acid environment of the human gastric mucosa. It is the most common cause of gastritis caused by bacterial infection. Its incidence rate is as high as 50% worldwide. In World Health Organization classification, it comes under type 1 carcinogen. It causes acid peptic disease, carcinoma of stomach, and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphomas(MALT).
AIM OF THE STUDY:
1. To identify the mucosal patterns of H. pylori associated gastritis using video upper G.I endoscopy.
2. To determine the association of virulence genes of H. pylori to that of the mucosal changes on endoscopy and histopathology.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
This is a hospital based cross-sectional study conducted in the Department of Digestive Health and Diseases (DDHD), Government peripheral hospital, Chennai from December 2012 to January 2014.
Patients with Active peptic ulcer disease, Confirmed history of peptic ulcer, Gastric MALT-lymphoma, Following endoscopic resection of early gastric cancer, Uninvestigated dyspepsia were included. Functional dyspepsia, GERD, Persons using NSAIDs, Current or recent use of medications such as antibiotics, bismuth-containing compounds, or acid inhibitors, especially PPIs were excluded. Helicobacter pylori testing by rapid urease test and histological examination by antral biopsy done using gastroscopy. Patients with positive or negative rapid urease test were subjected for molecular characterisation by PCR targeting glmm for presence of H.Pylori. glmm positive specimen were analysed for presence of cag and vac genes by PCR.
RESULTS:
In the study population of 147, 59 patients were positive for H. pylori diagnosed by the presence of genetic studies. Out of the 59 patients Type 1 and 2 gastritis were seen in 5 patients, while Type 3 and 4 gastritis were seen in 27 patients thus indicating a more severe gastritis seen in individuals infected with H. pylori. Ulcers were seen in 9 patients out of which duodenal ulcer was seen in 7 patients while there were 2 patients with gastric ulcer. There were no mucosal abnormalities as observed on conventional endoscope in 18 patients.
PCR positivity of glm gene of H. pylori was seen in 59(40%) patients of the study population, meanwhile the incidence of the virulence genes by the way of Cag positivity was seen in 6 patients, Vac positivity in 22 patients and both virulence genes were seen in 31 .Among patients with Vac positivity the subtype s1m2 constituted 50% while s1m1 was seen in 37.7%, both were seen in 11.3% of individuals. In the VacA positive group precancerous lesions i.e., atrophic gastritis and intestinal metaplasia were seen in 7 patients on subtyping 6 patients in s1m2and only one had both s1m1 and s1m2. In the Cag subgroup only one person had a precancerous lesion.In the subgroup who had both Cag and VacA genes, 22 had gastritis and 9 patients had precancerous lesion.There was significant correlation s1/m2 virulent gene of H. pylori to that of intestinal metaplasia and atrophic gastritis.
In this study there was an insignificant difference in between PCR and RUT, thus confirming that RUT even though a cheap test is valuable in establishing the diagnosis of H. pylori in an office setting.
CONCLUSION:
Our study identified predominant type 3 and 4 mucosal pattern followed by type 1 and type 2. Also PCR correlates well with type 3 and type 4 pattern. Among the prevalence of virulent genes, Vac gene is most common than Cag, with the predominant subtype being s1m2. There was significant correlation of H. pylori virulent genes s1m2 to that of intestinal metaplasia and atrophic gastritis. In this study disease positivity of RUT is more or less equal with PCR, confirming that RUT is valuable in establishing the diagnosis of H. pylori.


BACKGROUND: The oxytocin (OXT)-oxytocin receptor (OXTR) system provides promising candidate gene for studies of genetic contributions to prematurity. OBJECTIVE: Quantification and comparison of oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene expression and serum OXT levels in the blood and amnion of women delivering preterm and evaluation of the correlation between OXTR gene expression in blood and amnion with serum OXT levels in them. METHODS: 70 pregnant women in spontaneous labor delivering vaginally preterm i.e < 37 weeks and equal number of matched controls delivering spontaneously at term (37-42 weeks) were recruited. Maternal serum OXT levels taken in active stage of labor (i.e 4 cm cervical dilatation) were quantified by ELISA. Gene expression studies in the maternal blood and amnion were done by using real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). RESULTS: The mean serum OXT level in PTL was 48.56 +- 6.97 pg/ml; significantly higher than in controls (43.00 +- 3.96 pg/ml), p<0.001. OXTR gene expression both in maternal blood (2.5 times) and amnion (3.5 times) were significantly higher in PTL. A significant positive correlation was observed between serum OXT levels and OXTR gene expression in amnion (r = -0.190, p = 0.025). CONCLUSIONS: The serum OXT levels and OXTR gene expression in amnion surge significantly in active phase of PTL. Thus, amnion probably links OXT-PTGs autocrine paracrine circuit to facilitate PTL. Future studies are needed to devise better OXTR receptor antagonists preferably acting on amnionic OXTRs to prevent PTL. KEYWORDS: Preterm birth, Preterm labor, Oxytocin, Oxytocin receptor, Placenta, Amnion


Photochemical reactions are intrinsically difficult to control because they involve high-energy excited state species. Herein, we report a novel approach towards controlling photochemical reactions via using spatially selective excitation of specific electronic transitions. This can be performed using photochemical irradiation with plane-polarized light of a photoreactive compound uniformly aligned in a nematic liquid crystalline (LC) medium. Having chosen cyclopropenone photodecarbonylation as a proof-of-concept reaction, we demonstrated that it could be controlled via changing an angle between the incident light polarization plane and the LC director. We showed that two specific partially forbidden electronic transitions were mostly responsible for this photochemical reaction. We envision that this simple general method can be useful in experimental studies of fundamental details of various photochemical processes, as well as can help to increase selectivity of photochemical transformations.


The properties of anhydrous hydrogen fluoride (HF) as a reagent for the acidolysis of various protective groups have been studied. Amino acids with various protective groups were each treated with HF at 0 or 20°C in the presence of anisole, and the reaction products were tested. Thus, HF was found to be much better than the other known reagents, such as hydrogen bromide and trifluoroacetic acid. In the present study, the following groups were shown, for the first time, to be removed safely: the nitro group in nitroarginine, the diphenylmethyl group in diphenylmethylamide, the t-butyl group in S-t-butylcysteine, the isopropyloxycarbonyl group, and the isopropyl ester group. A new and convenient apparatus was designed for the safe handling of HF for peptide synthesis.


We present a new variational wave function for liquid 3He which allows for the first time to obtain good agreement with the experimental energy. In this description, liquid 3He appears to possess a strong local crystalline order, favouring quite convincingly the nearly solid picture of Castaing and Nozières. Nevertheless, our results are at variance with the commonly accepted Landau-Fermi liquid description as the Fermi momentum has no particular role in our picture.


This study, investigates the possibility of applying artificial neural network (ANN) as an alternative method to estimate the pore size of the asymmetric hollow fiber membranes. ANN, a connectionist-based (black box) model, consists of layers of nodes with nonlinear basis functions and weighted connections that link the nodes. Using the nodes and weights, the inputs are mapped to the outputs after being trained with a set of training data. The input data needed for training the ANN model, the solute rejection and the permeation rate, are obtained from permeation experiments. Since the number of experimental data points needed for training the ANN model is limited, stacked neural network is utilized instead of the more common and simple feedforward ANN. With the development of this ANN model, the procedure to estimate membrane pore size was found to be easier and faster with a testing error of less than 2% compared to the experimental data.


Recent advances in glioblastoma therapy have led to optimism that more effective therapies will improve outcomes. Immunotherapy is a promising approach that has demonstrated the potential to eradicate cancer cells with cellular-level accuracy while minimizing damage to surrounding healthy tissue. Several vaccination strategies have been evaluated for activity against glioblastoma in clinical trials. These include peptide vaccines, polyvalent dendritic cell vaccines, heat shock protein vaccines and adoptive immunotherapy. In this review, we highlight clinical trials representative of each of these approaches and discuss strategies for integrating these therapies into routine patient care.


Capital is the lifeblood of a modern economy. Traditionally, capital was the money that was saved and lent. But in modern banking, with fractional-reserve lending, banks can create capital digitally out of thin air. This increased availability of capital helps economic growth, but if not properly managed, it can be disastrous. Economist Hyman Minsky blamed excessive debt for most financial crises. He identified three types of debt. The safest debt, which he called 'hedge financing', is responsible for creating economic growth. The borrower invests capital in productive economic activities, from which cash flows can service the interest and eventually pay off the principal. A riskier debt, called 'speculative financing', involves credit to marginal businesses—often forced by the government through priority-lending schemes—where current cash flows are sufficient only to pay the interest, and the principal has to be rolled over to a later date. Sometimes that works out, but an economic downturn exacerbates the risk of default. The third kind of debt, which Minsky called 'Ponzi financing', was most dangerous because borrowers use the capital not to invest in productive activities, but to buy assets hoping to flip them at a higher price, repay the debt, and book a profit. This paper simply analyse the banking nationalization and its sector reforms in India. Key Words:-Bank Nationlization, Non-Performing Assets, Financial Crisis


Proceedings: AACR 107th Annual Meeting 2016; April 16-20, 2016; New Orleans, LA

PURPOSE

Clinical care and outcome in Glioblastoma (GBM) remains challenging due to the tumor's invasive grwoth. To establish personalized treatment options in GBM, discovery of genetic mechanisms essential for the tumor's invasion is needed. We have previously described radiogenomic approaches to diagnose gene networks non invasively by analyzing genomic data from TCGA. The purpose of the current reseach is to identify a genetic network that drives GBM invasion and can be targeted specifically.

METHOD AND MATERIALS

Using Kaplan-Meier statistics, the data of the two independent databases TCGA and REMBRANDT were used to validate the genetic netowork's impact on clinical outcome. The genes' staus was assessed in a panel of human glioma stem cells (GSCs) and conventional proneural, classical and mesenchymal GBM cell lines using RT-PCR. Differentiation potential (Tuj1+ve, S100A+ve, and GFAP+ve), self-renewal (limiting dilution assays), invasion (Boyden chamber) and proliferation (BrdU) were assessed. Gain (lentiviral vectors) and loss (SMARTchoice Inducible shRNA) of function experiments were performed. Orthotopic xenograft models (nude mice) were used to characterize the genes impact in vivo. Potential FDA approved therapeutics were identified using connectivity map.

RESULTS

Texture analysis based on radiogenomics significantly predicted the genes responsible for invasion of GBM in a non-invasive manner. Invasion in both, in vitro and in vivo was significantly decreased upun downregulation of this gene network. Transcriptome micro-array analysis showed that an upregulation of the described genes results in class switching from proneural to mesenchymal sub-types. Cmap derived therapeutics could significantly inhibit the gene network's activitiy and hence invasion.

CONCLUSION

The describend genes could be essential drivers of molecular subtypes and invasion in GBM. The therapeutics defined with cmap offer a targetted therapy to adress these key features of GBM pathogenesis. Noninvasive radiogenomics-based identification of tumor subgroups and potential treatment approaches can significantly contribute to personalized therapy.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE/APPLICATION

The described gene network seems to be key for GBM pathogenesis. Noninvasive, radiogenomics-based subgroup identification and specific novel treatment approaches can significanty contribution to personalized GBM therapy.

Citation Format: Rivka R. Colen, Markus Luedi, Sanjay K. Singh, Islam Hassan, Joy Gumin, Erik P. Sulman, Frederick F. Lang, Pascal O. Zinn. Radiogenomics defines key genomic network driving GBM invasion. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 1505.


Automatic speech recognition (ASR) is vital for very
low-resource languages for mitigating the extinction trouble. Chaha is one of
the low-resource languages, which suffers from the problem of resource
insufficiency and some of its phonological, morphological, and orthographic
features challenge the development and initiatives in the area of ASR. By
considering these challenges, this study is the first endeavor, which analyzed
the characteristics of the language, prepared speech corpus, and developed different
ASR systems. A small 3-hour read speech corpus was prepared and transcribed.
Different basic and rounded phone unit-based speech recognizers were explored
using multilingual deep neural network (DNN) modeling methods. The experimental
results demonstrated that all the basic phone and rounded phone unit-based
multilingual models outperformed the corresponding unilingual models with the
relative performance improvements of 5.47% to 19.87% and 5.74% to 16.77%,
respectively. The rounded phone unit-based multilingual models outperformed the
equivalent basic phone unit-based models with relative performance improvements
of 0.95% to 4.98%. Overall, we discovered that multilingual DNN modeling
methods are profoundly effective to develop Chaha speech recognizers. Both the
basic and rounded phone acoustic units are convenient to build Chaha ASR
system. However, the rounded phone unit-based models are superior in
performance and faster in recognition speed over the corresponding basic phone
unit-based models. Hence, the rounded phone units are the most suitable
acoustic units to develop Chaha ASR systems.


A novel fabrication process for a fixed-fixed membrane structure in RF microelectromechanical-systems switches is implemented to alter the stress-distribution and deformation of the membrane and thus vary the required actuation force. This two-step process removes UV-light-exposed photoresist first by wet dissolution of a sacrificial photoresist layer and then by oxygen reactive ion etching. During wet release, the patterned but unexposed photoresist above the membrane helps prevent stiction. Further designs of photoresist-aided membranes are demonstrated to control the measured pull-down voltage level of the switches, which is consistent with the multiphysics simulation work.


Reference RF and timing systems were developed at SPring-8 in order to handle beams in a stable and flexible manner under various conditions of machine operation. A synchronous universal counter plays an essential role in the timing system. Here, the method to realize highprecision timing is described, as well as the tools that were required to confirm that the system operates as designed. Furthermore, a new scheme for the synchronization of the different RF signals from linear and circular accelerators is described.


Abstract For solving linear ill-posed problems regularization methods are required when the right-hand side is with some noise. In the present paper regularized solutions are obtained by multi-parameter regularization and the regularization parameters are chosen by a multi-parameter discrepancy principle. Under certain smoothness assumptions we provide order optimal error bounds that characterize the accuracy of the regularized solutions. For the computation of the regularization parameters fast algorithms of Newton type are applied which are based on special transformations. These algorithms are globally and monotonically convergent. Some of our theoretical results are illustrated by numerical experiments. We also show how the proposed approach may be employed for multi-task approximation.


Four olive oils with varying amounts of total phenols were exposed to four different heating conditions. Chemical parameters such as free fatty acid, peroxide values, UV absorbency, total phenols, individual phenols, α-tocopherol, squalene, oleocanthal, fatty acid profile and smoke point were measured before and after heating to evaluate the impact of heating conditions on the oils. We found olive oils have reasonably high smoke point that is suitable for typical home-cooking conditions and fresh olive oil with low FFA and high phenolics are important for the conservation of olive oil quality and health benefits.  A larger degree of oxidation occurred as with increase of heating time and temperature, oils with high level of phenols produced less polar compounds than oils with lower levels of phenols, including refined oils. A significant amount of total phenols and individual phenols such as oleocanthal remained after heating at 121 °C for 10 and 20 minutes, most of squalene stay intact even after heating at 220 °C.


If history is aligned with metaphysics, it can promote universality, and until this alignment occurs, one culture, or one people, or one age has little chance of being successfully compared with another. Individual histories of isolated periods of time, such as ancient Egypt, or Aztec America, or the age of Louis XIV are important individually, but they confer little meaning when compared with others, that is, if they are comparable at all. It is the task of historians to search for humanity among all humans who lived in bygone ages. Certainly, universality indicates that the world is the result of a process of individuals pulling together and pushing apart, of support for underlying proposals and denials of the same. History signifies a process that is the result of the unknown, and a process is simply a series of steps, actions, or procedures producing a result. Whether the result is desirable is irrelevant to the process itself because the latter manifests an indifference to its outcome.


This study focuses on the issue of long-run and short-run relationships between sector-specific indices of Bursa Malaysia and macroeconomic variables. The traditional variable under observation in analyzing stock market performance has been an aggregate stock market index. However, the application of an aggregate index could lead to misleading interpretation on the actual performance of each sector in Bursa Malaysia. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to analyze the dynamic properties of the relationship between sector-specific indices of Bursa Malaysia and macroeconomic variations. The sectoral indices of Bursa Malaysia selected for this study are namely, Construction, Plantation, Consumer Product, Finance, Industrial Product, Mining, Hotel, Property and Trading and Services. The macroeconomic variables are represented by real economic activity, interest rate, inflation rate, money supply and exchange rate. The monthly data series of the macroeconomic variables and stock market indices are obtained for the period from 1993 to 2006. This study has identified various trends of responses among the sector-specific indices towards the innovation in macroeconomic variables. The results suggest that unanticipated changes in macroeconomic variables could lead to similar patterns in some of the sector-specific indices with the effects differing mainly in terms of speed of adjustments towards equilibrium level in the long-run.


A large integration of renewable energy sources such as wind power generation and photovoltaic generation causes some problems in power systems, e.g., distribution voltage rise and frequency fluctuation. Battery energy storage system (BESS) is one of the effective solutions to these problems. Due to a high cost of the BESS, an application of controllable loads such as electric vehicle (EV) and heat pump water heater (HPWH) to the power system control is considered in this paper for reduction of the required capacity of the BESS. This paper proposes a new supplementary load frequency control (LFC) method by use of a number of both the EVs and the HPWHs as controllable loads. The effectiveness of the proposed LFC method is shown by numerical simulations conducted on the power system model with a large integration of wind power generation and photovoltaic generation.


Systems generalizing Lorenz's are considered in a bounded subdomain of . It is shown that under certain conditions of uniform hyperbolicity small non-autonomous perturbations do not lead to the formation of stable trajectories.


This study attempted to distinguish the borderline personality disorder (BPD) from other personality disorders (OPD) on the basis of the Lachar and Wrobel critical item list. Seventy-five male psychiatric inpatients with diagnoses fitting DSM-III criteria for BPD and OPD and ranging in age from 24 to 47 years completed the MMPI. Lachar's critical item set, composed of 111 items taken from the MMPI, was then selected from each of the 75 subjects' response items. BPD and OPD patients significantly differed on only the Lachar Substance Abuse subscale. Implications of this study are discussed with regard to the concept that personality structure involves a continuum of psychopathology. The Lachar critical item list provided support for drug abuse as part of the diagnostic criteria for BPD and displayed promise for identifying areas of psychopathology on which treatment may be focused.


[1] Seasonal circulation of the Yellow Sea (YS) in response to wind and tidal forces is examined using a three-dimensional numerical model. Wind forcing affects the wintertime circulation of the YS; on the other hand, the summer southerly monsoon is weak and therefore has little impact on the circulation, on the basis of comparative experiments with and without wind conditions. Results indicate that the Yellow Sea Warm Current (YSWC) along the YS trough exists regardless of wind forcing. However, strong winter northerly winds intensify the southward coastal flows along both coasts of the YS, and therefore, the northward intrusion of the YSWC becomes stronger. These flows in the YS are substantially weakened when wind forcing is not applied to the model. In addition to wind-driven circulation, tide-induced circulation is also dominant in the YS, particularly in summer. In winter, the tidal effect weakens the upwind and downwind flows in response to the strong northerly winds, while in summer, tidal forcing induces a strong southward residual flow along the western slope and a cyclonic gyre with a bottom cold water dome at the central region of the YS. The southward residual current possibly explains the southward movement of the Yellow Sea Bottom Cold Water as observed in summer. Comparison to the effects of parameterized tidal mixing suggests that residual flow driven by explicit tidal forcing plays an important role in the summertime circulation of the YS.


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

Cellular DNA repair mechanisms limit the success of temozolomide (TMZ) therapy in the treatment of glioblastoma (GBM) by countering TMZ induced DNA damage and contributing towards TMZ resistance. Hence DNA repair inhibition has the potential to overcome TMZ resistance in GBM. KU-55933 is a small molecule inhibitor of Ataxia telangiectasia (A-T) mutated protein (ATM), which plays a critical role in DNA repair. In this study, the chemosensitizing effects of KU-55933 were studied in combination with TMZ in two glioblastoma cell lines, U251 and U87. Treatment with a combination of TMZ and KU-55933, compared to TMZ alone, resulted in a significant increase in cell killing [U251 survival: 0.004 ± 0.0015 vs. 0.08 ± 0.01 (p 0.1), respectively, and U87TMZ survival: 0.62 ± 0.03 vs 0.63 ± 0.09 (p>0.1), respectively]. To investigate the potential mechanism of resistance to TMZ sensitization by KU-55933, the effect of KU-55933 on TMZ induced G2 arrest was analyzed by flow cytometry. Consistent with the clonogenic survival data, a combination of TMZ and KU-55933 significantly increased the number of cells arrested in the G2 phase in both parental lines, compared to treatment with TMZ alone [U251 G2 fraction: 61.8 ± 1.1% vs. 35 ± 0.8% (p 0.1), respectively]. Preliminary evaluation of double stranded break (DSB) repair by immunofluorescent monitoring of γH2AX foci formation 72 hours after treatment demonstrated a 2-fold increase in the number of unrepaired DSBs in U251 cells treated with a combination of TMZ and KU-55933, as compared to TMZ alone, (p 0.1). In conclusion, KU-55933 sensitizes only inherently TMZ sensitive lines to TMZ and these effects may be linked to inhibition of ATM-mediated DNA damage repair following TMZ treatment.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5375.


The essays in the book covered aspects of Tradition and Change. The aspect of tradition largely referred to illness etiologies, utilization of services of healers and other traditional health care service providers. Change is referred to the 'changed logic' and 'conflicting logic' to change. The themes selected for study are traditional, but what is apparent is that the effort to approach them is different. The book covers a range of topics and questions: How illness and suffering are seen as consequences of social disruptions? How decisions to seek cure from healers and sorcerers are seen as 'rational' and 'appropriate'? How do we understand the politics of medicine? What are the determinants of Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) models in Reproductive Child Health (RCH)? How to understand the community system of risk classification in anaemia? What matters in case of breast cancer in regard to body image?


Five turfgrass species and 46 cultivars were investigated for difference of spring greenup and living ground cover. Turf color and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for greenup were investigated between species and cultivars. Turf color and NDVI were showed significantly different among species and cultivars. Turf color was showed significantly different among 20 cultivars of kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.). NDVI was significantly difference among 20 cultivars of kentucky bluegrass and 6 cultivars of tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb). The percentage living ground cover was showed significantly different among creeping bentgrass (Agrostis palustris Huds) cultivars and fineleaf fescue cultivars in spring.


It has been known for some years that a partial deglycosylation of transferrin occurs in the sera of alcohol abusers. Different methods have been proposed in order to evaluate this carbohydrate-deficient fraction of serum transferrin. Chromatofocusing or isoelectric focusing followed by direct immunofixation have been used until now. Recently, a new method called the carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) test based on ion-exchange chromatography has been developed by Stibler et al. (Alcohol Clin Exp Res 10:535-544, 1986). Here we compare this new method with results obtained using our Tf index determination method. The upper limit of normal values was set to the 90th percentile of the values observed in a reference population. The population under investigation consisted of 50 healthy volunteers and 160 alcohol abusers whose ethanol consumption was evaluated through a questionnaire. Sensitivity and specificity of the CDT test have been found higher than 0.76 and 0.90, respectively. The correlation between both methods was 0.794, a satisfactory result considering that the CDT test and the Tf index do not exactly measure the same part of the carbohydrate-deficient transferrin. In a population of 23 patients with liver diseases not related to alcohol abuse, no abnormal CDT value was observed. We can conclude from these results that the CDT test now seems to be the best test to detect alcohol abusers.


BACKGROUND
Several factors, including anemia, diabetes, and hypertension, potentially could disturb the cerebral autoregulation mechanism in hemodialysis (HD) patients. This study examined the effect of hemodynamic and rheological changes on mean cerebral blood flow (CBF) velocity (MV) during HD.

METHODS
Continuous online monitoring of MV and pulsatility index in the middle cerebral artery were performed in 18 HD patients by transcranial Doppler ultrasound during the entire HD period (range, 3 to 4 hours). In addition, blood pressure, hematocrit (Hct), and relative decrease in blood volume were continuously monitored. Blood samples were obtained at the beginning and end of HD to measure hemorheological variables.

RESULTS
After HD, Hct increased significantly from 33.6% +/- 5.9% to 41.4% +/- 5.7% (P < 0.001). Blood and plasma viscosity increased significantly from 3.33 +/- 0.77 to 4.36 +/- 1.3 mPa.s (P < 0.001) and from 1.35 +/- 0.29 to 1.54 +/- 0.38 mPa.s (P < 0.001), respectively. The change in MV (DeltaMV) was not significantly different from zero and correlated significantly with change in Hct. During HD, mean arterial pressure (MAP) in 15 patients changed within the normal range (group I), whereas 3 patients developed hypotension (group II) and their MAP decreased from 99 +/- 5 to 60 +/- 8 mm Hg (P < 0.05). In both groups, DeltaMV were not significant.

CONCLUSION
Results of this study suggest that CBF does not appear to be diminished significantly during HD.


The authors identified relationships between quantitative academic variables–specifically, grade-point averages (GPAs) and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores–and the admission decisions of 58 students from minority groups underrepresented in medicine. These students had participated in a summer enrichment program at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and had applied to medical school. A total of 49 of the students were offered admission, and ultimately enrolled in 17 different medical schools. Results of a stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that scores on the Skills Analysis: Quantitative Subtest of the MCAT explained the greatest percentage of the variance related to medical school admission (26%); scores on the Skills Analysis: Reading Subtest contributed an additional 7% to the explained variance, and scores on the Physics Knowledge Subtest, another 5%. The overall GPAs did not contribute significantly to the explanation of the variance in admission decisions. These results differ from published findings based on data from minorities' admissions to individual institutions. Caution must therefore be exercised when using GPAs and MCATs as medical school admission predictors for students from minority groups.


Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics of and prognostic factors for primary malignant melanoma of the vagina. Methods Clinical data from 31 patients treated for primary malignant melanoma of the vagina at the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center between March 1970 and June 2005 were retrospectively analyzed. Results The median age was 58 years (range, 18 to 73 years), and the main symptoms reported were vaginal bleeding and vaginal discharge. Most tumors were of the nodular type and classified as stage I according to International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics staging criteria. Surgery was performed on 22 patients, chemotherapy was administered to 7 patients, and immunotherapy was administered to 19 patients. Recurrent tumors developed in 11 patients (35.5%) during a median follow-up period of 20.2 months (range, 1 month to 18 years). The 5-year overall survival rate was 32.3%. Univariate analysis revealed that macroscopic tumor growth and the treatment method significantly affected survival outcome (p=0.039 and p<0.001, respectively), whereas the radicality of surgery did not (p=0.296). Multivariate analysis revealed that macroscopic tumor growth (hazard ratio [HR], 4.1; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.4 to 12.1; p=0.010) and treatment method (HR, 0.3; 95% CI, 0.1 to 0.9; p=0.025) were independent prognostic factors for overall survival. Conclusion Patients with primary vaginal melanoma have a poor prognosis. Macroscopic tumor growth and treatment method are prognostic factors for primary malignant melanoma of the vagina.


Abstract The occurrence of a hydraulic connection between piezometers is identified based on similar changes in water levels. Some piezometers react to changing upper or lower water levels, some may also react to atmospheric precipitation. If the reaction to variable upper water levels is significant, then leakage of seepage control devices is identified and the dam is subjected to repair works. The aim of this research paper is to present and analyse the dynamics of variability of water levels in open piezometers of the Chańcza dam, located at the 36 km of the Czarna Staszowska River in the town of Korytnica in Świętokrzyskie province (Poland). Before the analysis of the piezometric data was commenced, the Grubbs statistical test was used to identify and reject the outliers. The scope of the research includes the data captured between January 14, 2014 and January 13, 2017. A hypothesis was formulated that the change in the trend occurred after the spring of 2015 when the water level in the reservoir was reduced by approx. 1.5 m. Two trend lines were adapted for the water levels of each piezometer using the least squares method – the first one for the period from January 2014 to May 2015, and the second one from June 2015 to January 2017. In this way, two slopes of the linear function were obtained together with an estimation of their errors. These slopes were compared using a statistical parallelism test.


This research provides a customer interpurchase model for a wide application in marketing management. In this model, the author proposes the multiinterpurchase periodes as mixture exponential distribution and the proportion of different type interpurchases "P" is followed Dirichlet prior distribution which is based on Bayesian Theory. This model can descript mixture heterogeneous customer segments. In this topic, the customers are belongs to different groups but their interpurchase data are mixed in the same database. The mixture interpurchase model can conduct the estimation in the macro view and also can be extended to explore customer hazard rate and the variables which influence the alive probability of customer. Finally, we can calculate the customer value for companies to make strategy decision. KeywordsBayesian Theory, Dirichlet distribution, interpurchase, mixture exponentail


This study concerns the continuing professional development (CPD) of vocational teachers, with a particular focus on professional development within their vocational subject areas. The theoretical departure are socio-cultural theory of identity formation focusing the boundary-crossing between different communities of practice, and theory of adults' participation in education, which is relevant when it comes to conditions for learning and identity formation among vocational teachers. The subject knowledge of the vocational teacher is normally based on vocational education and work-life experience, which means specific conditions as compared to other groups of teachers. Changes in working life poses new demands of vocational teachers' competence in their subject knowledge at the same time as there are demands of strengthening the quality of vocational education. The knowledge and skills related to the vocational subject in school are situated in a specific community of practice, that is, a vocational practice. In so, to be knowledgeable to teach the vocational subject requires the teacher to have a vocational identity related the specific vocational subject, and to have the knowledge and skills of the contemporary main tasks of the vocational practice. It has been shown that boundary crossings between the vocational practices and the practice of school are crucial for vocational teachers to maintain and develop their vocational/professional knowledge and identity and that there are various conditions/barriers for such boundary crossings. In this paper we are analysing the participation among Swedish vocational teachers in a national initiative targeting vocational teachers and their professional development within the vocational subjects. The analysis is based on statistical data on participation in this initiative. The findings are discussed in terms of varying opportunities of participation and boundary crossing in and between different communities of practice, and consequences for the development of teachers' professional identity. The opportunities of participation could be influenced by for example institutional and situational factors.


Recently, space-time block codes (STBCs) have gained much attention as an effective transmit diversity technique to increase the capacity of wireless communication systems. In this paper, we consider a general technique for direct equalization of space-time block-coding systems with unknown channel state information (CSI). This technique is suitable for several existing hybrid STBC schemes, such as STBC/orthogonal-frequency-division multiplexing (STBC-OFDM) and STBC/code-division multiple access (STBC-CDMA). We show that by exploiting the redundancy in the structure of STBC, a zero-forcing equalizer can be constructed without channel estimation. The conditions for the identifiability of the zero-forcing equalizer are also derived to ensure correct equalization. To further improve the performance of the proposed method, a new iterative algorithm is developed by incorporating the finite alphabet property of information symbols. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms can outperform comparative schemes in most simulation conditions


The R1 subunit of herpes simplex virus (HSV) ribonucleotide reductase, which in addition to its C-terminal reductase domain possesses a unique N-terminal domain of about 400 amino acids, is thought to have an additional, as yet unknown, function. Here, we report that the full-length HSV-2 R1 has an anti-apoptotic function able to protect cells against death triggered by expression of R1(Delta2-357), an HSV-2 R1 subunit with its first 357 amino acids deleted. We further substantiate the R1 anti-apoptotic activity by showing that its accumulation at low level could completely block apoptosis induced by TNF-receptor family triggering. Activation of caspase-8 induced either by TNF or by Fas ligand expression was prevented by the R1 protein. As HSV R1 did not inhibit cell death mediated by several agents acting via the mitochondrial pathway (Bax overexpression, etoposide, staurosporine and menadione), it is proposed that it functions to interrupt specifically death receptor-mediated signalling at, or upstream of, caspase-8 activation. The N-terminal domain on its own did not exhibit anti-apoptotic activity, suggesting that both domains of R1 or part(s) of them are necessary for this new function. Evidence for the importance of HSV R1 in protecting HSV-infected cells against cytokine-induced apoptosis was obtained with the HSV-1 R1 deletion mutants ICP6Delta and hrR3. These results show that, in addition to its ribonucleotide reductase function, which is essential for virus reactivation, HSV R1 could contribute to virus propagation by preventing apoptosis induced by the immune system.


Stress relaxation of amorphous silica films deposited by low pressure thermal decomposition of diacetoxy di-t-butoxy silane (DADBS) was studied. Significant reduction in film stress along with structural changes were observed at temperatures as low as 600°C. The activation energy for stress relaxation was found to be 75.8 kJ/mol. The low value of activation energy is attributed to the effect of water which was present in the form of silanol groups. The changes in film stress are attributed in a semi-quantitative manner to the changes in Si-O-Si angle distributions in the film.


This study was carried out to determine the coliform contamination of public boreholes and pipe borne water supplies within Bosso town. Twenty (20) water samples comprising of 10 each of borehole and pipe borne samples were aseptically collected from Bosso Town and analyzed using membrane filtration technique. The results obtained revealed that most (60.0%) of the water samples from the borehole sources except the samples from Rafin-Yashi, Maikunkele, Federal University of Technology (F.U.T) Minna, Tudun Fulani, contained coliform counts within 10cfu/100ml while all (100.0%) of the pipe borne water samples had coliform counts above 10cfu/100ml. The organisms isolated included species of Escherichia ,  Pseudomonas , Streptococcus , Staphylococcus , Salmonella , Shigella , Clostridium , Bacillus ,  Yersinia and Serratia . E.coli had the highest frequency of occurrence (20%) followed by  Staphylococcus aureus (11.7%), Salmonella spp (11.7%), Shigella spp (11.7%), Clostridium spp (8.3), Streptococcus faecalis (8.3%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (6.7%), Bacillus subtilis  (6.7%),  Streptococcus pyrogenes (5%), Klebsiella spp (3.3%), Proteus vulgaris (3.3%), Yersinia spp (1.7%) and Serratia spp (1.7%). This study revealed that pipe borne water and borehole water samples were contaminated in Bosso, with greater contamination observed with pipe borne water. This highlights the need for continuous assessment of the quality of public water supply and intervention measures to prevent outbreak of water-borne diseases in the area. Keywords: Water; Boreholes; Pipe borne; Coliforms; Water-borne disease


Candelilla wax coatings with good gloss were made. The gloss of coatings from ammonia-based microemulsions was improved by addition of gelatin or hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, which also decreased oxygen permeability and decreased water vapor permeability. As coatings on grapefruit, candelilla wax with up to 25% gelatin was usable; much higher gelatin content resulted in anaerobic fermentation. Candelilla coatings with good gloss were also made from morpholine-based wax microemulsions with minimal oleic acid content.


Large-scale adoption of virtual containers has stimulated concerns by practitioners and academics about the viability of data acquisition and reliability due to the decreasing window to gather relevant data points. These concerns prompted the idea that introspection tools, which are able to acquire data from a system as it is running, can be utilized as both an early warning system to protect that system and as a data capture system that collects data that would be valuable from a digital forensic perspective. An exploratory case study was conducted utilizing a Docker engine and Prometheus as the introspection tool. The research contribution of this research is two-fold. First, it provides empirical support for the idea that introspection tools can be utilized to ascertain differences between pristine and infected containers. Second, it provides the ground work for future research conducting an analysis of large-scale containerized applications in a virtual cloud.


In this paper, a lattice Boltzmann BGK (LBGK) model is proposed for simulating incompressible axisymmetric flows. Unlike other existing axisymmetric lattice Boltzmann models, the present LBGK model can eliminate the compressible effects only with the small Mach number limit. Furthermore the source terms of the model are simple and contain no velocity gradients. Through the Chapman-Enskog expansion, the macroscopic equations for incompressible axisymmetric flows can be exactly recovered from the present LBGK model. Numerical simulations of the Hagen-Poiseuille flow, the pulsatile Womersley flow, the flow over a sphere, and the swirling flow in a closed cylindrical cavity are performed. The results agree well with the analytic solutions and the existing numerical or experimental data reported in some previous studies.


Objective: To determine whether patients with an ankle injury obtained the same results as clinicians when applying the Ottawa ankle rules (a validated clinical decision rule) to themselves. Methods: Patients aged >15 years presenting to an inner city emergency department within 48 h of an ankle injury were asked to assess their own injury using the Ottawa ankle rules. The results of their self-assessment were compared with those of a treating clinician. Results: Poor interobserver agreement was found between patients and clinicians. Conclusions: Making the Ottawa ankle rule more widely available to the general public is unlikely to reduce healthcare demand. Indeed, given the apparently low specificity of the rule, demand could actually increase as a result.


Bike sharing system are popular around the world. Traditional bike sharing system require the bikes to be returned to fixed stations, while morden system allows users to leave bikes wherever they like, ready for the next user to pick them up. Smartphone use GPS signal to keep track of its bikes and monitor where most bikes are used and where to place them. Smartphone simultaneously collect many other information such as weather condition, temperature and so on, these features have influence on the delivering amount of bikes. Due to the extensive number of smartphone users, big data technique is requried to handle this situation. We apply subsample method to this smartphone collected big data. In this paper, we derive non-uniform sampling distributions and propose optimal subsampling algorithm. We apply the proposed optimal subsampling algorithm to analyze the smartphone collected bike sharing data set, perfrom extensive computer experiments to evaluate the numerical performance of the proposed sampling algorithm. Our results indicated that the proposed optimal algorithm outperformed the uniform method and have faster running time than using the whole data set.


It is a challenge to adequately characterize the fish assemblages of large rivers because of their sizes and high spatial–temporal habitat heterogeneity. Multiple sampling methods are often needed, but their uses increase cost and present difficulty for data standardization. In this study, we examined how much new information central-channel electrofishing sampling could add to typical shoreline electrofishing in a large and relatively shallow river, the lower Wabash River, in the U.S. Midwest. We found that the two types of samples differed markedly in species composition, and each was strongly associated with a subset of species. Shoreline samples captured more fish individuals and species, and reached higher functional diversity, but central-channel samples often captured several large benthivore and migratory species such as Redhorse and Shovelnose Sturgeon. Central-channel electrofishing appears to be a quick and low-cost method to supplement shoreline sampling in monitoring and assessing large shallow rivers.


Cloud Computing support better computation through improved resources utilization and reduced infrastructure costs. Number of big providers like Google, Oracle, and Amazon sell services of Cloud Computing which are managed by Cloud Management Systems. It is very difficult to setup research on live cloud environments for individuals and small institutions due to the costs involved in setting up a cloud. Thus, Cloud Simulators are a cost effective way to study cloud components behavior and performance against different situations and work load. Several Cloud Simulators were developed over the years and this paper presents an evaluation study of most of them. We discuss the common architecture of Cloud Simulators. Then we evaluate 33 Cloud Simulators based on different criteria. The results are discussed. We are showing different capabilities, suitability for problems, and extendibility of the studied Cloud Simulators.


A 3-graph is a pair H = (V, E) of sets, where elements of V are called points or vertices and E contains some 3-element subsets of V , called edges. A 3-graph is called linear if any two distinct edges intersect in at most one vertex.There is a recent interest in extremal properties of 3-graphs containing no crown, three pairwise disjoint edges and a fourth edge which intersects all of them. We show that every linear 3-graph with minimum degree 4 contains a crown. This is not true if 4 is replaced by 3.


PURPOSE OF REVIEW
The lack of effective treatments for various neurodegenerative disorders has placed huge burdens on society. We review the current status in applying induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology for the cellular therapy, drug screening, and in-vitro modeling of neurodegenerative diseases.

RECENT FINDINGS
iPSCs are generated from somatic cells by overexpressing four reprogramming factors (Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and Myc). Like human embryonic stem cells, iPSCs have features of self-renewal and pluripotency, and allow in-vitro disease modeling, drug screening, and cell replacement therapy. Disease-specific iPSCs were derived from patients of several neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and spinal muscular atrophy. Neurons differentiated from these iPSCs recapitulated the in-vivo phenotypes, providing platforms for drug screening. In the case of Parkinson's disease, iPSC-derived dopaminergic neurons gave positive therapeutic effect on a rodent Parkinson's disease model as a proof of principle in using iPSCs as sources of cell replacement therapy. Beyond iPSC technology, much effort is being made to generate neurons directly from dermal fibroblasts with neuron-specific transcription factors, which does not require making iPSCs as an intermediate cell type.

SUMMARY
We summarize recent progress in using iPSCs for modeling the progress and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and provide evidence for future perspectives in this field.


A variety of arrhythmias following myocardial infarction are implicated with ectopic beats (EBs) resulting from spontaneous calcium (Ca2+) release (SCR) events. However, investigation of these arrhythmias is hampered by the lack of adequate techniques to assess with certainty abnormalities at the subcellular scale and arrhythmogenic events at the organ level. The aim of this study was to construct a multiscale computational model to investigate SCR-mediated ectopy within the infarcted human heart. To achieve this goal, an experimentally based phenomenological model of SCR events was integrated in the equations for Ca2+ cycling of an human ventricular action potential model. This augmented myocyte model was used in in-silico experiments with a postinfarction biventricular (BiV) model constructed based on magnetic resonance imaging data. The infarct scar and border zone (BZ) were segmented by thresholding the voxel intensity within the ventricular wall. These were then used to build a finite element mesh. Within the multiscale human BiV model we show that SCR-mediated DADs in cells interspersed with fibrosis in the infarcted BZ are capable of overcoming local source-sink mismatches to trigger an EB. The results presented here are the first to show that EBs resulting from abnormalities at the subcellular level can be studied using highly detailed human heart models.


Inelastic neutron scattering spectra of YBa2Cu3O6+δ sample with several different oxygen contents δ have been obtained in the energy range from 10 to 150 meV at a new wide angle (~30°) Be-filter detecter spectrometer, CIAE,Beijing. The experiments show that :(l)For samples with δ=0 and δ=0.2, some strong high frequency modes appear in the energy range from ~60 to ~150 meV,and the intensity of modes does not decrease as the temperature is above Neel point until 466K. For samples with δ=0.78 and 0.97, however, the high frequency modes are not present and the scattering intensity spetra in the energe range from 70 to 150 meV seem to be a featureless background. (2)In the measured energe range from 10 to 150 meV the scattering intensities of sample with δ=0 and 0.2 is about two to three times as that of sample with δ = 0.78 and 0.97. (3) In the energe range below 60 meV, there are many distinct scattering peaks which are almost not shifted with δ, most of peaks are in a-greement with results of Renker and Parshin, and other peaks are observed for the first time. The strong dependence of high frequency modes and scattering intensities on the oxygen content δ would attribute to antiferromagnetics spin wave excitation.


Pimelea poisoning of cattle (also known as St. George or Marree disease) is a poisoning unique to Australia and caused by inadvertent grazing of native Pimelea within pastures. The toxin responsible for the poisoning was previously isolated and identified as the novel diterpenoid orthoester simplexin, but no effective treatments for poisoned animals exist. A previous feeding trial reported that cattle fed daily with increasing low doses of simplexin showed reduced poisoning symptoms over time which suggested cattle developed resistance against the toxin, potentially via by the adaptation of rumen microorganisms. To date, there are no reports on simplexin degradation by rumen microorganisms.
This study aims to develop a microbial probiotic derived from the rumen fluid of field-exposed animals that is capable of detoxifying simplexin, thus allowing cattle to consume Pimelea with less adverse effects. Investigations are ongoing to identify rumen bacteria able to hydrolyse simplexin in in vitro mixed rumen-based anaerobic fermentations fed daily with Pimelea plant species (P. trichostachya) and to assess isolated rumen bacteria in in vitro incubation trials. Simplexin levels in both studies were analysed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution, accurate mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) which allows simplexin quantification at ppb concentrations (ng/mL) on a Thermo Scientific Q-Exactive Orbitrap mass spectrometer. Results to date showed decreases in simplexin levels, suggestive of simplexin detoxification by rumen microorganisms. Simplexin acid hydrolysis studies were also performed to create a metabolite database to aid in future elucidation of potential simplexin degradation pathways. UPLC-MS/MS analysis based on predicted molecular formulae enabled identification of three hydrolysed simplexin products which also shared several fragment ions with simplexin. Future studies will include the identification and characterisation of simplexin metabolites from fermentation and incubation trials in which simplexin levels indicate that degradation has occurred.


Ecosystem services (ES) were conceived to emphasize the role of ecological processes in supporting societal needs and to allow their inclusion in the decision-making process. Currently climate change mitigation is one of the most important services ecosystems can provide to enhance sinks of greenhouse gas emissions as the planet warms and related extreme events take their toll on societies. Because ES cannot always be directly measured and because measurements are often cost prohibitive, process-based models are used to estimate their supply, delivery and/or value. We ran the MC2 dynamic global vegetation model for the conterminous US with/without land use for several future scenarios. We translated results into key ES such as carbon sequestration, which contributes to climate regulation, into a regulatory service or aboveground forest carbon into timber biomass, a provisioning service, and evaluated constraints to maintain them. By comparing projections with/without land use we illustrated differences between managed and natural lands and provided information to help the valuation of societally relevant services.


IEEE 802.16, the specification for fixed, portable and even mobile broadband wireless access (BWA) systems, is promising to support heterogeneous classes of traffic with differentiated quality of service (QoS). The proposed medium access control (MAC) protocol defines a wide variety of mechanisms for bandwidth allocation and QoS provision. However, the details of how to schedule traffic are left unspecified so that the vendor may differentiate their product through implementation. In this paper, a new and efficient QoS scheduling strategy based on the hierarchical and distributed architecture is proposed for 802.16 BWA systems. Analytical and simulation results show that the proposed scheduling architecture can provide QoS guarantees for all types of traffic as defined in the standard


This paper presents a mathematical model validated with experimental data for the analysis of biodiesel production from microalgae biomass, using as an alternative substrate industrial wastewater. System dynamics methodology was used for its development, by which the mathematical model representing the production of biomass and lipids was obtained, as well as the generation of biodiesel from microalgae oil. Biomass generation was represented by a basic growth model which assumes that there is no restriction for nutrients. This biomass generates a quantity of lipids according to the nitrogen-phosphorus ratio present in the industrial effluent, with higher production under low nitrogen concentration. Finally, these lipids are transformed into an amount of fatty acid methyl-ester that varies at a rate of transesterification. Validation and calibration of model behavior, was performed with experimental data obtained in tests of the Scenedesmus sp. microalgae growth in wastewater from the textile and tanning industry. The simulation of the model represented with significant approximation the growth and the generation of lipids for Scenedesmus sp. Furthermore, it was shown that wastewater from tanneries would allow increased production of biodiesel by favoring the generation of biomass rich in amount of lipids. Thus, the proposed model can be a useful tool for assessing the production of biodiesel using industrial wastewater as alternative growth substrates.


Deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) is an emerging technique, which can measure the metabolism in the brain non-invasively after intake of deuterated glucose. In this work, we construct a versatile and dedicated 1H/2H dual-nuclear transceiver for a 9.4T pre-clinical research system. The performance of the transceiver was evaluated by measuring the in vivo 2H spectra data. The metabolites of water, glucose, Glx and lactate after glucose infusion were quantified in healthy and glioma rats using the constructed double-nuclear transceiver.


Stable nations and societies are largely based on stable family law and policy. Questions of family preservation and stability in immigration policy present new dimensions of legal intervention. Offering a review of the relevant literature, this paper presents the challenges in the family law and policy discussion. It considers challenges to United States policies, particularly regarding marriage definitions, Mexican migration, and the challenge of family preservation and restoration. This research further examines global concerns, namely national stability and the need for family restoration in light of diminishing fertility rates, and multiculturalism. Finally, it offers policy principles for developing national immigration regulation, particularly toward building national stability through strong families. A comprehensive approach to family law and immigration policy is necessary, and possible. Providing principles for the formulation of strong family policy promoting national stability in the face of global mobilization of families is the key to building strong and stable future nations.


Abstract Motivated by the analysis of behavioral data taken from an economic experiment based on the Hawk-and-Dove game, this article describes a multilevel hidden Markov model, that includes covariates, autoregression, and endogenous initial conditions under a unified framework. The data at hand are affected by multiple sources of latent heterogeneity, due to multilevel unobserved factors that operate in conjunction with observed covariates at all the levels of the data hierarchy. We fit a multilevel logistic regression model for repeated measurements of player behaviors, nested within groups of interacting players. The model integrates discrete random effects at the group level and Markovian sequences of discrete random effects at the player level. Parameters are estimated by a computationally feasible expectation-maximization algorithm. We model the probability of playing the Hawk strategy, which implies fighting aggressively for controlling an asset, and test the role played by initial possession, property, and other player-specific characteristics in driving hawkish behaviors. The results from our study suggest that crucial factors in determining hawkish behavior are both the way possession is achieved – which depends on our treatment manipulation- and possession itself. Furthermore, a clear time-dependence is observed in the data at the player level as accounted for by the Markovian random effects.


The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between food security and parents' self-efficacy to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and sugary snacks in a sample of parents in waiting rooms in community-based primary care clinics in West Tennessee. Results from logistic regression models underscore the need for nuanced analysis, as the results from the pooled regression models differ from those stratified by food security status. Self-efficacy is an important factor for behavior change, and our study highlights the need for additional research examining how social, psychological, and behavioral factors have implications for behavior change self-efficacy.


It is an essential requirement to clarify the metabolites of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) injections, which contain numerous ingredients, to assess their safe and effective use in clinic. Salvianolic acid for injection (SAFI), made from hydrophilic phenolic acids in Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, has been widely used for the treatment of cerebrovascular diseases, but information on its metabolites in vivo is still lacking. In the present study, we aimed to holistically characterize the metabolites of the main active ingredients in rat plasma, bile, urine and feces following intravenous administration of SAFI. An ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/Q-TOF-MS) method was developed. Combining information on retention behaviors, multistage mass spectra and literature data, a total of eight prototypes and 52 metabolites were tentatively characterized. Metabolites originated from rosmarinic acid and salvianolic acid B comprised the majority of identified compounds. Meanwhile, four metabolites derived from salvianolic acid D and five from salvianolic acid B are reported for the first time. This study revealed that methylation, sulfation and glucuronidation were the major metabolic pathways of phenolic acids in SAFI in vivo. Furthermore, the developed UPLC/Q-TOF-MS method could also benefit the metabolic investigation of extracts and preparations in TCM with hydrophilic ingredients. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


PRS5 REDUCTION INTOTALTREATMENT COSTSTHROUGH IMPROVED PHARMACEUTICALTREATMENT OF OBSTRUCTIVE AIRWAY DISEASES Hallinen T, Karjalainen J, Hahl J,Torvinen S, Martikainen JA Centre for Pharmaceutical Policy and Economics (CEPPE), Kuopio, Finland, Suomen Terveystalo Oyj, Helsinki, Finland, GlaxoSmithKline Oy, Espoo, Finland, Centre for Pharmaceutical Policy and Economics (CEPPE), Department of Social Pharmacy, University of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to estimate the economic impact of improved pharmaceutical care in obstructive airway diseases (OAD) by evaluating the effects of the introduction of new pharmaceutical treatments in the costs of OAD treatment between 1996 and 2005. METHODS: To analyse the real change in the costs of OAD treatment, we estimated costs in 2005 assuming that the treatment practices (pharmaceuticals, hospitalizations, outpatient visits) had been similar to 1996 and subsequently compared these expected costs to the actual costs in 2005. The change in real costs due to improved pharmaceutical care was estimated by evaluating the change in the number of exacerbations requiring treatment. A spreadsheet based probabilistic simulation model was used. The data on health care resources, pharmaceuticals and costs were obtained from national registries. The effectiveness of pharmaceutical treatments in reducing exacerbations was obtained from three published meta-analyses. RESULTS: Compared to 1996, the improved pharmaceutical treatment decreased other OAD treatment costs in 2005 by 33.7 (95% CI: 19.4–50.9) million euros explaining 42.1% of the decrease in secondary health care costs of OAD in Finland. When adjusting for the increase in the number of patients, the extra costs of new pharmaceutical treatments were 5.1 million euros. Thus the increase in pharmaceutical costs was offset more than 6-fold by the reduction in the secondary health care costs. CONCLUSION: The OAD treatment costs in Finland have decreased significantly as a result of increased use of more effective pharmaceuticals. When pharmaceuticals are properly evaluated as one part of the treatment process, the expressed concerns over the increasing pharmaceutical costs seem to be unfounded in the case of OAD.


The teacher is an indispensable tool for national development. It is in realization of this fact that teacher education occupies a position of prominence in the educational enterprise. In the light of the above, this paper discusses the concept of teacher education and national development. Also, a number of challenges confronting teacher education are examined. The paper concludes by drawing the importance of teacher education for the development of a nation and relevant recommendations were proffered to reposition teacher education and the teaching profession. Key Words : Teacher, Education, Profession, Teacher Education and National Development


A non-pickling combination tanning based on reactive benzenesulphonate (rBS) and Tannic acid (TA) has been developed for the chrome-free leather manufacturing. By optimizing the tanning process, the two-bath combination tanning with 4% rBS and 10% TA at the final pH 3.0-3.5 can raise the shrinkage temperature (Ts) of goatskins to ~86°C. Morphological analysis results reveal that the chrome-free leather exhibits a clear even grain surface and isolated collagen fiber network structure. The novel combination tanning approach not only improves light fastness, but also confers high physical and mechanical properties to the chrome-free leather which can meet the Chinese standard requirements for furniture leather and shoe upper leather. The non-pickling tanning without use of salt or acid is also benefit to clean leather-making production.


In order to make the whole traffic goes smoothly, affection and coordination between vehicles, intersections, traffic signal lights, video cameras and so on must be considered. This paper presents a new coordinated algorithm to achieve an optimization control strategy by applying the mobile agent into vehicles, intersections, regions and video cameras, and by which communicating with each other. So traffic congestion and traffic accidents will be avoided and discovered quickly. Compared with the timing control method, the simulation results show that this method can obviously reduce the vehicle travel time.


This paper compares SPEEX and OPUS speech codecs for wireless sensor networks (WSN) based speech/voice transmission between two wireless nodes. The characteristics and parameters for both the codecs has been discussed below with their Graphs (Quality versus Bit-rate) based on the listening test conducted by Google. The OPUS codec represents itself the best among other codecs for the transmission of voice over wireless sensor network (WSN) in the current scenario and in coming future.


A randomized controlled trial to evaluate the long-term outcomes of laparoscopic distal gastrectomy for gastric cancer is currently ongoing in Korea. Patients with cT1N0M0-cT2aN0M0 (American Joint Committee on Cancer, 6th edition) distal gastric cancer were randomized to receive either laparoscopic or open distal gastrectomy. For surgical quality control, the surgeons participating in this trial had to have performed at least 50 cases each of laparoscopy-assisted distal gastrectomy and open distal gastrectomy and their institutions should have performed more than 80 cases each of both procedures each year. Fifteen surgeons from 12 institutions recruited 1,415 patients. The primary endpoint is overall survival. The secondary endpoints are disease-free survival, morbidity, mortality, quality of life, inflammatory and immune responses, and cost-effectiveness (ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT00452751).


Badgers belong to the genus Meles Brisson, 1762, which comprise four extant species (M. anakuma Temminck, 1844, M. leucurus (Hodgson, 1847), M. canescens Blanford, 1875, and M. meles (Linnaeus, 1758)). The genus is included in the subfamily Melinae Bonaparte, 1838, a polyphyletic group of Eurasian mustelids whose evolutionary relationships need further clarification. The evolutive relationships of the genus are complex and far from being resolved. This work aims to describe a nearly 1 Ma unpublished badger mandible from the Sierra de Quibas (Murcia) and to help clarify the evolutionary patterns of Euroasiatic badgers. To this end, we used 2D geometric morphometric techniques to measure 57 landmarks and semilandmarks in 79 first lower molars (m1) of Meles, ranging from Pleistocene to extant species. Our results show evidence for differentiating between primitive badgers and living species of Meles. The new m1 of Meles from the Quibas site is more gracile (relatively narrower and longer) than the other Eurasian extinct species, and shows that this specimen can be placed in the subspecies M. meles meles (Linnaeus, 1758). Our results also show that the denomination of M. meles atavus Kormos, 1914 as a related subspecies with a primitive morphology is morphologically supported. Therefore, we conclude that the living subspecies of badger M. meles meles was already differentiated in the south of the Iberian Peninsula at around 1 Ma, but some primitive remnant populations persisted in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, for which we recognize the subspecies M. meles atavus.


Introduction By nearly every measure, the distribution of wages in the United States has been growing more unequal since the late 1970s (see, for example, Congressional Budget Office, 2011). In this article, we show how data from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) can be used to measure the changing distribution of wages in the United States since the late 1990s, and we describe aspects of this changing distribution of wages that the OES data are uniquely well suited to describe.


This paper reports the first evidence for significant
overpressures in the Otway Basin, southern Australia,
where most previous studies have assumed near-hydrostatic
pore pressures. Overpressures are observed in the Upper
Cretaceous Shipwreck supersequence in several wells in
the Voluta Trough, such as Bridgewater Bay–1, Normanby–1
and Callister–1. One of these wells penetrated successions
of Pliocene-Recent marine clastic sediments nearly 700 m
thick that were deposited rapidly in submarine channels
and that were probably carved during the late-Miocene
to early-Pliocene. Wireline and drilling data suggest that
overpressures present in Upper Cretaceous shales and
sandstones in the Belfast Mudstone and Flaxman and
Waarre formations developed either due to disequilibrium
compaction—where there is no evidence of hydrocarbon
generation and thick Pliocene stratigraphy is present—
or due to fluid expansion where there is evidence of
hydrocarbon generation and the Pliocene stratigraphy
is thin to absent. The two key factors that may indicate
abnormal pore pressures in Upper Cretaceous sediments
in the central Otway Basin are the thickness of Pliocene
stratigraphy and whether or not hydrocarbons are actively
generating from source rocks.