The XXV World Congress of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) was held in Curitiba (Brazil) from September 25 to October 5, 2019. Representatives (2725 people) of forest academic, university and sector science, forestry business, and forestry governmental and non-governmental organizations from 96 countries attended the Congress and made over 2600 reports and presentations. For the first ever time this Congress was held in South America. The Congress motto "Forest Research and Cooperation for Sustainable Development" highlighted the broad subject of the Congress and showed the results of the five major directions of the IUFRO Strategy 2015–2019. The work of the Congress began with general events, including Tree Planting Ceremony, Congress Opening Ceremony, and Welcome Reception for all participants. Plenary Sessions, Technical Sessions, Thematic Discussions, Lectures and Presentations, and Poster Sessions were held according to the Official Program. Professional Excursions, namely Technical Tours and Thematic Exhibitions of products, technologies and services needed and available for the forest sector and forest research were provided. During the Congress, numerous IUFRO awards were delivered to the laureates, including the IUFRO Scientific Achievement Award, Distinguished Service Award, IUFRO Best Poster Award, as well as awards for students. Among the most important decisions of the XXV IUFRO World Congress are the following: Stockholm was selected as the next venue for the XXVI IUFRO World Congress in 2024; Dr. John Parrotta (USA) was elected President of IUFRO (2019– 2024); Professor Daniela Kleinschmit (Germany) and Professor Shirong Liu (China) were elected IUFRO Vice Presidents. The representative of our country Olga Shaitarova from the Saint-Petersburg State Forest Technical University named after S.M. Kirov became a member of the Board. Only eight participants from our country attended the Congress that confirms the insufficient level of financing of forest science in our country. Nevertheless, there is undoubtedly a significant prospect for the participation of Russian scientists in subsequent congresses and the activity within the IUFRO framework in general.


Systems where both machines and workers are treated as constraints are termed dual- resource constrained (DRC) systems. In the last few decades, DRC scheduling has attracted much attention from researchers. This paper addresses the dual-resource constrained flexible job-shop scheduling problem (DRCFJSP) to minimize makespan. This problem is NP-hard and mainly includes three sub-problems: (1) assigning each operation to a machine out of a set of compatible machines, (2) determining a worker among a set of skilled workers for operating each operation on the selected machine, and (3) sequencing the operations on the machines considering workers in order to optimize the performance measure. This paper presents two meta-heuristic algorithms, namely simulated annealing (SA) and vibration damping optimization (VDO), to solve the DRCFJSP. The proposed algorithms make use of various neighborhood structures to search in the solution space. The Taguchi experimental design method as an optimization technique is employed to tune different parameters and operators of the presented algorithms. Numerical experiments with randomly generated test problems are used to evaluate performance of the developed algorithms. A lower bound is used to obtain the minimum value of makespan for the test problems. The computational study confirms the proper quality of results of the proposed algorithms.


Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a barley disease, which occurs every year in various areas of barley cultivation all over the world and the increasing incidence has been confirmed in the Czech Republic also during the last years. We aimed to emply AFLP (Amplified fragment length polymorphism) and SSR (Single sequence repeats) markers to describe diversity among breeding lines with a sufficient level of resistance towards FHB and to find marker(s) as - sociated with the analysed traits. The number of eight accessions including five expected resistance donors and three sensitive lines were tested in the field and laboratory. The field values and the amount of deoxynivalenol were posi - tively correlated (r = 0.92). The laboratory test and content DON manifested also a high correlation (r = 0.73). Several DH lines developed from androgenetic barley progenies of the F1 hybrids between the susceptible line PI 383933 and resistant line PEC 210 or the susceptible line PI 383933 and resistant cultivar Chevron were found resistant towards Fusarium infection in both the field and laboratory tests. Low infestation was found at line DH 37 from combination Chevron × PI 383933 and lines DH48, DH49, DH50 and DH55 from the combination PEC 210 × PI 383933. Cluster analyses based on 68 AFLP and 18 SSR markers demonstrate a genetic relationship among parental genotypes and DH lines. Some DH lines combined a sufficient degree of resistance against FHB and extract content (basic param- eters malting quality). Statistically significant differences in malt-extract values were observed between groups of the DH lines possessing and not possessing the AFLP marker CAA/AGC 341bp. The markers will be further evaluated and optionally used for MAS.


The influence of environmental gradients on the foliar nutrient economy of forests has been well documented; however, we have little understanding of what drives variability among individuals within a single forest stand, especially tropical forests. We evaluated inter‐ and intra‐specific variation in nutrient resorption, foliar nutrient concentrations and physical leaf traits of nine canopy tree species within a 1‐ha secondary tropical rain forest in northeastern Costa Rica. Both nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) resorption efficiency (RE) and proficiency of the nine tree species varied significantly among species, but not within. Both N and P RE were significantly negatively related to leaf specific strength. Green leaf N and P concentrations were strongly negatively related to leaf mass per area, and senesced leaf nutrient concentrations were significantly positively related to green leaf nutrient concentrations. This study reveals a strong influence of physical leaf traits on foliar nutrient and resorption traits of co‐occurring species in a secondary wet tropical forest stand.


Study Design This was a retrospective cohort study. Objective We evaluated the feasibility, safety, and accuracy of full-endoscopic posterior lumbar interbody fusion (FE-PLIF) by assessing the learning curve and initial clinical outcomes. Summary of Background Data Low back pain is one of the crucial medical conditions worldwide. FE-PLIF has been reported to be a minimally invasive method to treat mechanical low back pain, but there lacks a thorough evaluation on this new technique. Methods The patients were divided into three groups in the order of operating date, implying that Group A consisted of the initial 12 cases, Group B the subsequent 12 cases, and Group C the last 12 cases. The data of patients were reviewed for gender, age, preoperative symptoms, satisfaction, as well as clinical outcomes demonstrated by visual analog scale (VAS). The operative time and intraoperative fluoroscopy were recorded to demonstrate the learning curve and the extent of radiographic exposure. Statistical significance was set at a p < 0.05 (two-sided). Results The patients enrolled in this study were followed up at an average of 1.41 ± 0.24 years. Overall, patients were satisfied with the surgery. The average number of intraoperative fluoroscopy was 6.97 ± 0.74. A significant improvement was observed in the VAS of both lumbar pain and leg pain. The overall fusion rate was 77.7%. Complications were reported in two patients in Group A, one in Group B, and none in Group C. The average operative time showed a trend of gradual decline. The learning curve was characterized using a cubic regression analysis as y = –27.07x + 1.42x2–0.24x3 + 521.84 (R2 = 0.617, p = 0.000). Conclusions FE-PLIF is an effective and safe method for treating low back pain caused by short-segmental degenerative diseases. The learning curve of this technique is steep at the initial stage but acceptable and shows great potential for improvement.


Revision control is a vital component in the collaborative development of artifacts such as software code and multimedia. While revision control has been widely deployed for text files, very few attempts to control the versioning of binary files can be found in the literature. This can be inconvenient for graphics applications that use a significant amount of binary data, such as images, videos, meshes, and animations. Existing strategies such as storing whole files for individual revisions or simple binary deltas, respectively consume significant storage and obscure semantic information. To overcome these limitations, in this paper we present a revision control system for digital images that stores revisions in form of graphs. Besides, being integrated with Git, our revision control system also facilitates artistic creation processes in common image editing and digital painting workflows. A preliminary user study demonstrates the usability of the proposed system.


Objective To assess the individual and combined effects of exercise and weight loss on the cardiovascular risk factors and cardiac left ventricular structure and function in overweight individuals. Methods A randomized, parallel-group, crossover study design was adopted. The following treatments were employed: exercise three times a week at 70% maximum work capacity for 30 min; dietary modification to achieve weight loss involving 4200 kJ/day dietary restriction; and a combination of both exercise and dietary modification weight-loss programmes. Each subject was randomly assigned to one group only and was studied after a 12-week treatment and 12-week control period, performed in a random order. Thirty subjects entered the trial, 23 completing both treatment and control phases. Results Body weight remained unchanged with exercise alone and fell significantly both with weight loss and with the combination. The corresponding effects on blood pressure were also significant. Exercising groups also showed a significant increase in maximal oxygen consumption and a reduction in heart rate. Serum cholesterol and triglycerides fell significantly only after the combination, whereas high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol increased with exercise, decreased with weight loss and did not change with the combination. Interventricular septum and posterior wall thickness measurements remained unchanged after 12 weeks' treatment in all groups. No significant changes occurred in left ventricular internal diastolic diameter, wall thickness: radius ratio or the heart rate corrected ratio of peak early diastolic filling velocity: peak late diastolic filling velocity. Left ventricular mass and mass indexed to body surface area were not changed in any group. Conclusions The results indicate that the effects of exercise and weight reduction on blood pressure are additive, although a positive interaction may exist with respect to lipids. Despite lowering blood pressure, exercise and weight loss had no effect on cardiac left ventricular structure or function in these overweight individuals.


HDAC inhibitor Spiruchostatin A was synthesized via a route that differs significantly from previously reported routes. The key step involves a latent thioester that initiates a chemoselective transformation similar to native chemical ligation to form the macrocyclic alanine-cysteine amide bond. The easily prepared latent thioester--the first such moiety reported in enantiomerically pure form--is designed with a pendant carboxylic acid to serve as a solid-phase linker for the synthesis of cyclic, cysteine-containing, peptidic materials.


IL-17 is secreted by T helper (Th) 17 cells, and might play important roles in host defense against extracellular bacterial infection and fungal infection and contribute to the pathogenesis of various autoimmune inflammatory diseases. Here we have, for the first time, generated the monoclonal antibody against the rat IL-17 protein, which is secreted by T helper (Th) 17 cells. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and Western immunoblotting were used to screen the hybridomas. As a result, one MAb named Y11 (IgG1) was characterized, which was effective in detecting the recombinant and the cellular protein. Then the MAb was used to detect the expression of IL-17 in rat intestine graft tissues by immunohistochemical analysis. Thus, Y11 could be considered a useful tool for studies of IL-17 expression and function.


A technique is described which allows overlapping images to be combined into a photomosaic in which the visual impact of the introduced seam. has been minimized. Images which have been brought into geometric and gray scale register are combined on a line-by-line basis by choosing a "best" seam point for each line. The resulting artificial edge at the seam point is then locally smoothed.


Living with a different sense of hearing is a silencing experience that can change persons'patterns of relating and even deprive them of effective ways to give and receive messages with other human beings. People who live with having a different sense of hearing are often stigmatized, labeled, and judged by nurses, healthcare professionals, and family members alike. This column examines practice possibilities for nurses who choose the human becoming way of being with persons living with a different sense of hearing.


Manganese is a strong magnetic resonance imaging relaxation agent with unique biological properties that make it suitable for in vivo studies of neuroachitecture, neuronal tracts and neuronal function in animals. However, in humans large doses of manganese are neurotoxic and cause damage, primarily to the basal ganglia, resulting in a form of parkinsonism termed manganism. If low doses can be safely used and detected in the human brain, manganese will provide insight into neuroanatomy, connectivity, function and neuropathology.


A method for evaluating Floquet characteristic exponents (FCE) of linear periodic (LP) systems has been developed in by Zhu and Vemula (1993), based on a so called harmonic balanced PD-characteristic equation. By iterating suitably modified such (nonlinear) equations using Newton's method, bifurcation diagrams are obtained which are shown to be the stability boundaries of the LP system. Illustrative examples are given for second-order Hill's equations. Owing to its computational efficiency and accuracy, the new method reveals nontrivial domains of stability for the classical Mathieu's equation which appear have been overlooked by previous researchers.<<ETX>>


The joint optimization of the reconstruction and classification error is a hard non convex problem, especially when a non linear mapping is utilized. In order to overcome this obstacle, a novel optimization strategy is proposed, in which a Convolutional Autoencoder for dimensionality reduction and a classifier composed by a Fully Connected Network, are combined to simultaneously produce supervised dimensionality reduction and predictions. It turned out that this methodology can also be greatly beneficial in enforcing explainability of deep learning architectures. Additionally, the resulting Latent Space, optimized for the classification task, can be utilized to improve traditional, interpretable classification algorithms. The experimental results, showed that the proposed methodology achieved competitive results against the state of the art deep learning methods, while being much more efficient in terms of parameter count. Finally, it was empirically justified that the proposed methodology introduces advanced explainability regarding, not only the data structure through the produced latent space, but also about the classification behaviour.


Objective: To analyze cow milk production cost in farm production units (UPPs), in a semi-specialized system, in the mountainous region of Veracruz, Mexico.
Design/Methodology/Approach: A questionnaire was applied to milk producers; additionally, the production units were visited.
Results: The main elements of the variable cost of milk production included: feeding, animal health, and fuel (86% of the total). The workforce accounted for 35 to 60% of the fixed costs. The production cost per liter fluctuated between USD$0.26 and USD$0.352 and the selling price ranged from USD$0.28 to USD$0.30; consequently, the profit margin is low. The profit per liter of milk fluctuated between USD$0.02 and USD$-0.04. The improvement in milk quality can increase profitability.
Study Limitations/Implications: The analysis focuses in the last year of operations and only takes into account six production units; therefore, the conclusions are only valid in that context.
Findings/Conclusions: Some UPPs have a positive profit; however, the combination of production factors must be reviewed. Additionally, in order to guarantee that more producers obtain a profit, some adjustments must be made.


Objective. The purpose of this study was to investigate postoperative stability and the correlation between hyoid, tongue, and mandible position following surgery for mandibular prognathism. Materials and Methods. Thirty-seven patients, treated for mandibular prognathism using intraoral vertical ramus osteotomy (IVRO), were evaluated cephalometrically. A set of four standardized lateral cephalograms were obtained from each subject preoperatively (T1), immediately postoperatively (T2), six weeks to three months postoperatively (T3), and more than one year postoperatively (T4). The Student t-tests, the Pearson correlation coefficient, and the multiple linear regression were used for statistical analysis. Results. Immediately after surgery, menton (Me) setback was 12.8 mm, hyoid (H) setback was 4.9 mm, and vallecula epiglottica (V) setback was 5.8 mm. The postoperative stability significantly correlated (r = −0.512, p < 0.01) with the amount of setback. The hyoid bone and tongue did not have significant effects on postoperative stability. Multiple linear regression model (R 2 = 0.2658, p < 0.05) showed predictability: Horizontal Relapse Me (T4-T2) = −6.406 − 0.488Me (T2-T1) + 0.069H (T2-T1) − 0.0619V (T2-T1). Conclusion. Mandibular setback surgery may push the hyoid and tongue significantly backward, but this did not correlate with mandibular relapse. Postoperative stability significantly correlated with the amount of mandibular setback.


The broad objective of research described in this thesis was the experimental determination of the solid / liquid transition in both stoichiometric and hyperstoichiometric uranium dioxide. Experimental information in this field constitutes a necessary reference for the analysis of hypothetical nuclear reactor accidents and, in particular, for the formulation of an equation of state (EOS) for uranium dioxide.

A review of previous research on the same topic revealed that only few and uncertain experimental data were available prior to this work, obtained with conventional thermal analysis techniques in which it was not possible, at temperatures close to melting, to prevent sample contamination from the containing material and non- congruent evaporation.

The experimental approach in the current research consisted mainly of the development of a laser heating method that enabled fast (tens of ms) melting / freezing experiments under containerless conditions, during which the sample could be kept under a buffer gas at high pressure (tens of MPa) in order to suppress any evaporation. In this way, the main difficulties encountered by previous researchers were overcome. U02~x samples with 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.21 were prepared starting from original nuclear-grade pellets and analysed. Thermograms were recorded with fast pyrometers and interpreted with the help of a one-dimensional codesimulation of the measurements. In addition, a novel method for measurement of phase transition points was developed, based on the precise detection of surface reflectivity variations. The point of congruent melting was determined for the stoichiometric oxide in the pressure range between 0.1 and 250 MPa. Liquidus and solidus lines were established, for pressures between 50 and 250 MPa, in the hyperstoichiometric range investigated. The results obtained, which in a number of cases significantly differed from the existing data, were finally used for a better assessment of the phase diagram of the system U02~x in the vicinity of the melting transition.


The effect of porosity on the kinetics of the austenite to bainite isothermal transformation in steels was characterized using a high-speed quenching dilatometer. The measurements revealed that the presence of porosity shortens the incubation time as well as the overall isothermal transformation time. An Avrami-type equation was fitted to the measured data and the effect of porosity on the nucleation rate of bainite was quantified. In addition, the activation energy for diffusion of carbon atoms during nucleation of bainite was calculated and was found to decrease with increasing porosity.


In this paper, we establish Gevrey class regularity of solutions to a class of dissipative equations with an analytic nonlinearity in the whole space. This generalizes the results of Ferrari and Titi in the periodic space case with initial data in $L^2-$based Sobolev spaces to the $L^p$ setting and in the whole space. Our generalization also includes considering rougher initial data, in negative Sobolev spaces in some cases including the Navier-Stokes and the subcritical quasi-geostrophic equations, and allowing the dissipation operator to be a fractional Laplacian. Moreover, we derive global (in time) estimates in Gevrey norms which yields decay of higher order derivatives which are optimal. Applications include (temporal) decay of solutions in higher Sobolev norms for a large class of equations including the Navier-Stokes equations, the subcritical quasi-geostrophic equations, nonlinear heat equations with fractional dissipation, a variant of the Burgers' equation with a cubic or higher order nonlinearity, and the generalized Cahn-Hilliard equation. The decay results for the last three cases seem to be new while our approach provides an alternate proof for the recently obtained $L^p\, (1<p<2)$ decay result for the Navier-Stokes equations by Bae, Biswas and Tadmor. These applications follow from our global Gevrey regularity result for initial data in \emph{critical spaces} with low regularity.


OBJECTIVE
We pretend to improve the knowledge and management of pityriasis rosea by family practitioners.

DESIGN
A retrospective qualitative study by the review of the registry in a outpatient Dermatology clinic.

SETTING
This work is made in the Dermatology clinic attending to San Sebastián de los Reyes population (Madrid) that's situated in the V Centenario Center.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
46 patients (28 females) were diagnosticated (mean age 25 +/- 13). Incidence was 85/100,000 hab; 12 patients were derivated urgently; 38 cases showed herald patch (82.6%). Lesions had characteristical distribution in 36 patients (78.3%); 43 cases had a clinic diagnosis (93.5%). Treatment wasn't necessary in 20 patients (43.5%). Most usual General Practitioner's presumption diagnosis was pityriasis rosea (21.7%); there was no diagnosis in 36.9%.

CONCLUSIONS
We find inexperience in general practitioners about pityriasis rosea. It's necessary a correct knowledge and management of this pathology in Primary Care.


One way of evaluating the salience of a linguistic feature is by assessing the extent to which listeners associate the feature with a social category such as a particular socioeconomic class, gender, or nationality. Such 'top–down' associations will inevitably differ somewhat from listener to listener, as a linguistic feature – the pronunciation of a vowel or consonant, for instance – can evoke multiple social category associations, depending upon the dialect in which the feature is embedded and the context in which it is heard. In a given speech community it is reasonable to expect, as a consequence of the salience of the linguistic form in question, a certain level of intersubjective agreement on social category associations. Two metrics we can use to quantify the salience of a linguistic feature are (a) the speed with which the association is made, and (b) the degree to which members of a speech community appear to share the association. Through the use of a new technique, designed as an adaptation of the Implicit Association Test, this paper examines levels of agreement among 40 informants from the Scottish/English border region with respect to the associations they make between four key phonetic variables and the social categories of 'Scotland' and 'England.' Our findings reveal that the participants exhibit differential agreement patterns across the set of phonetic variables, and that listeners' responses vary in line with whether participants are members of the Scottish or the English listener groups. These results demonstrate the importance of community-level agreement with respect to the associations that listeners make between social categories and linguistic forms, and as a means of ranking the forms' relative salience.


The PANDA detector will be located at the future GSI accelerator FAIR. Its primary objective is the investigation of strong interaction with anti-proton beams, in the range up to 15 GeV/c as momentum of the incoming anti-proton. The PANDA offline simulation framework is called 'PandaRoot', as it is based upon the ROOT 5.14 package. It is characterized by a high versatility; it allows to perform simulation and analysis, to run different event generators (EvtGen, Pluto, UrQmd), different transport models (Geant3, Geant4, Fluka) with the same code, thus to compare the results simply by changing few macro lines without recompiling at all. Moreover auto-configuration scripts allow installing the full framework easily in different Linux distributions and with different compilers (the framework was installed and tested in more than 10 Linux platforms) without further manipulation. The final data are in a tree format, easily accessible and readable through simple clicks on the root browsers. The presentation will report on the actual status of the computing development inside the PandaRoot framework, in terms of detector implementation and event reconstruction.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
This study intended to quantify electronic medical record (EMR) use in family practice residencies, associate program characteristics with EMR use, and identify perceptions and issues about the use of EMRs.

METHODS
A survey was mailed to all 454 US family practice residency programs, with a 72% response rate. The survey, which was pretested and revised, was designed to identify benefits, problems, perceptions, and trends regarding the use of EMRs.

RESULTS
Fifty-five of 329 programs (17%) were using an EMR, while 10 (3%) had used an EMR but discontinued. Programs in the South reported the highest EMR use (21%, 21/99), and those in the North Central region reported the lowest use (11%, 11/102). EMR use was highest in university settings (19%, 15/81), programs offering fellowships (26%, 24/92), new programs (36%, 18/48), and programs that require research (22%, 20/91). Of the 329 programs that responded, 43% (143 programs) reported having information systems (IS) committees. Of the 55 programs currently using EMRs, 78% had at least one full-time equivalent IS technician. Of programs that discontinued use, software inadequacy was the most frequently cited reason (40%, 4/10). Programs that had never used EMR systems (n = 264) were more likely than those that had used EMRs (n = 65) to favorably perceive EMRs with respect to 1) meeting program requirements (44% versus 34%), 2) documenting improved patient care (65% versus 43%), 3) providing a reliable research database (94% versus 55%), and 4) documenting resident experience (92% versus 53%). Of the 264 (80%) programs that had never used an EMR, 172 (65%) plan to implement one.

CONCLUSIONS
EMR use is low among US family practice residency programs, but some success in implementation of EMRs has been achieved. Based on the responses to this survey, use will likely increase from 55 of 329 programs (17%) to 153 of 329 (47%) by 2000.


In this graduation thesis, a novel semi-analytical method for collision avoidance maneuver optimization is presented. It is based on a linearization of the accurate Dromo orbital elements formulation, which allows to write the optimization problem in a simple way. Predicted direct impacts have analytical solution, while non-direct impacts are reduced to a simple non-linear equation easily solvable. In this way, maximum achievable miss distance or minimum Gaussian collision probability for a fixed delta-V magnitude, or minimum delta-V magnitude for a fixed Gaussian collision probability are calculated. The accuracy of the algorithm is verified in representative mission scenarios including real cases with actual data. The method can be used for collision avoidance maneuver planning with reduced computational cost, compared to fully numerical algorithm, and is implemented in the software tool OCCAM (Optimal Computation of Collision Avoidance Maneuvers). A demo version of OCCAM is available at: http://sdg.aero.upm.es/index.php/online-apps/occam-lite


In man under halothane-nitrous oxide-oxygen anaesthesia, suxamethonium-induced neuromuscular block can be divided into two phases using the train-of-four ratio: the first phase of minimal train-of-four fade and the second phase of marked train-of-four fade. The second phase is characterized by a low train-of-four ratio, 0.3 or less, and resembles tubocurarine-block) in many details. It corresponds to Phase II (dual block in the literature. Contrary to the prevailing belief, Phase II block has a rather abrupt onset. In this study of seven patients, Phase I covered up to a total of 1--3 mg/kg of suxamethonium, while 3--5 mg/kg established Phase II block, with a transitional zone of only 2 mg/kg. Establishment of Phase II also coincided with onset of unequivocal tachyphylaxis. The possibility of a causal relationship between tachyphylaxis and Phase II block is suggested.


Hemolysis is known to cause acute kidney injury (AKI). The iron regulatory hormone hepcidin, produced by renal distal tubules, is suggested to exert a renoprotective role during this pathology. We aimed to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of renal hepcidin synthesis and its protection against hemoglobin-induced AKI. In contrast to known hepatic hepcidin induction, incubation of mouse cortical collecting duct (mCCDcl1) cells with IL-6 or LPS did not induce Hamp1 mRNA expression, whereas iron (FeS) and hemin significantly induced hepcidin synthesis (p < 0.05). Moreover, iron/heme-mediated hepcidin induction in mCCDcl1 cells was caused by the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) pathway, as indicated by increased nuclear Nrf2 translocation and induced expression of Nrf2 downstream targets GCLM (p < 0.001), NQO1 (p < 0.001), and TXNRD1 (p < 0.005), which could be prevented by the known Nrf2 inhibitor trigonelline. Newly created inducible kidney-specific hepcidin KO mice demonstrated a significant reduction in renal Hamp1 mRNA expression. Phenylhydrazine (PHZ)-induced hemolysis caused renal iron loading and oxidative stress in both wildtype (Wt) and KO mice. PHZ treatment in Wt induced inflammatory markers (IL-6, TNFα) but not Hamp1. However, since PHZ treatment also significantly reduced systemic hepcidin levels in both Wt and KO mice (both p < 0.001), a dissection between the roles of systemic and renal hepcidin could not be made. Combined, the results of our study indicate that there are kidney-specific mechanisms in hepcidin regulation, as indicated by the dominant role of iron and not inflammation as an inducer of renal hepcidin, but also emphasize the complex interplay of various iron regulatory mechanisms during AKI on a local and systemic level.


Low-power devices require energy-aware design and dynamic power management techniques to reduce the power consumption. Communication intensive devices make the decision of shutting down idle components very difficult, especially in wireless communication. This paper presents a new system-level dynamic power management technique to reduce the power consumption of communication intensive sensor nodes in wireless sensor networks. It analyzes the application-level information to determine the need for communication and to selectively shutdown hardware components, specially the radio. The hybrid automata framework is used to dynamically change duty cycles, making the best trade-off between energy conservation and quality of service, according to the application requirements. Simulation results reveal that application-level information is crucial to reduce power consumption and to increase the sensor node lifetime


The choice of reserpine as practically the sole model substance used in research in depression over two decades was not dictated by rational considerations alone: hypothetical notions, prospects of the rapid realization of experimental research aims and the fascination of the exotic origin of this "natural" drug made a significant contribution.


A completely unique coronavirus effect event has emerged as a virus poignant public health globally. Screening of huge numbers of people is that the would like of the hour to curb the unfold of malady within the community. Real- time PCR may be a commonplace diagnostic tool getting used for pathological testing. however the increasing variety of false check results has opened the trail for exploration of other testing tools. Chest X-Rays of COVID-19 and respiratory disorder T.B. and respiratory illness Chronic patients have verified to be a vital various indicator in Diseases screening. But again, accuracy depends upon imaging experience. A diagnosing recommender system which {will that may} assist the doctor to look at the respiratory organ pictures of the patients will scale back the diagnostic burden of the doctor. Deep Learning techniques specifically Convolution Neural Networks (CNN) have tried prospering in medical imaging classification. Four totally different deep CNN architectures were investigated on pictures of chest X-Rays for diagnosing of malady. These models are pre-trained on the keras and tensor flow Image internet info thereby reducing the requirement for big coaching sets as they need pre-trained weights. it had been ascertained that CNN based mostly architectures have the potential for diagnosing of malady.


Well abandonment has been associated and considered since in the Field Development Plan stage. Worldwide, government and legislative authorities are having specific requirement and regulation in ensuring the oil and gas industry to seal and permanently take offline unproductive wells to prevent them from impacting the environment and safety. When all feasible opportunity is exhausted and no remaining economic potential is proven in a well or field, it will proceed to abandonment, saving money spent on well liability cost. In effort to reduce the P&A cost which has no financial return, operators and regulators strive to improve P&A method to increase efficiency without compromising safety.
 The production of oil and gas, whether or not enhanced by the injection of water or gas, will cause a change of pressure, stress and temperature in the reservoir and its surrounding formations. Additionally, chemical characteristics of the injectant, may reactive gases for storage or production enhancement, may lead to changes in petrophysical, geomechanical and chemical properties of subsurface formations, faults and wells equipment. These changes may or may not have a detrimental effect on the containment of toxic or otherwise harmful fluids and gasses in the subsurface. The comprehensive P&A analysis and program is vital to ensure the security of well containment. Loss of containment may lead to potential loss of life, assets, environment and reputation.
 This paper will discuss the analysis done by Petrophysicist in supporting the decision and design of well P&A design, either isolation at reservoir level or caprock level. After no remaining potential and shallow hydrocarbon is verified, the well will be conditioned for pressure analysis and caprock assessment, by formulating well dynamic strength parameters, namely Young modulus and UCS and establishing pressure column. The competent caprock at the proposed barrier depth will be assessed, benchmarked and inventoried for regional caprock understanding, taking account input from multidiscipline.
 In addition to additional assessment on rock strength in well P&A design, this paper also recommend the multidiscipline future collaboration assessment technique for better regional caprock understanding. When possible, this method is able to provide feasible P&A design with some confidence level at the competency of the withholding caprock.


This thesis is concerned with aspects of quantum theory of fields in flat and curved spacetimes of arbitrary dimensions along with detecting bosons and fermions on these spacetimes. The thesis is divided into two main parts. In the first part, we analyse an Unruh-DeWitt particle detector that is coupled linearly to the scalar density of a massless Dirac field (neutrino field) in Minkowski spacetimes of dimension d ≥ 2 and on the two-dimensional static Minkowski cylinder, allowing the detector's motion to remain arbitrary and working to leading order in perturbation theory. In d-dimensional Minkowski spacetime, with the field in the usual Fock vacuum, we show that the detector's response is identical to that of a detector coupled linearly to a massless scalar field in 2d-dimensional Minkowski. In the special case of uniform linear acceleration, the detector's response hence exhibits the Unruh effect with a Planckian factor in both even and odd dimensions, in contrast to the Rindler power spectrum of the Dirac field, which has a Planckian factor for odd d but a Fermi-Dirac factor for even d. On the two-dimensional cylinder, we set the oscillator modes in the usual Fock vacuum but allow an arbitrary state for the zero mode of the periodic spinor. We show that the detector's response distinguishes the periodic and antiperiodic spin structures, and the zero mode of the periodic spinor contributes to the response by a state-dependent but well defined amount. Explicit analytic and numerical results on the cylinder are obtained for inertial and uniformly accelerated trajectories, recovering the d = 2 Minkowski results in the limit of large circumference. The detector's response has no infrared ambiguity for d = 2, neither in Minkowski nor on the cylinder.

In the second part, firstly, we give a thorough discussion for the Bogolubov transformation for Dirac field, and discuss pair creation in a non-stationary spacetime.

Secondly, we derive the in and out vacua Wightman two-point functions for the Dirac field and the Klein-Gordon field for certain class of spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmological spacetimes wherein the two-point functions have the Hadamard form. We then establish the equivalence between the adiabatic vacuum of infinite order and the conformal vacuum in the massless limit. With the field in the conformal Fock vacuum, we then show that the detector's response to an UDW particle detector coupled linearly to the scalar density of a massless Dirac field in the spatially flat FRW spacetimes in d-dimensions is identical to the response of a detector coupled to the massless scalar field in the spatially flat FRW spacetimes in 2d-dimensions.

Lastly, we discuss a massive scalar field in the spatially compactified (1 + 1)-dimensional FRW spacetime. There, the issue of the conformal zero momentum mode arises. To resolve this issue, we develop a new scheme for quantizing the conformal zero-mode. This new quantization scheme introduces a family of two real parameters for every zero-momentum mode with an associated two-real-parameter set of in/out vacua. We then show that the zero momentum initial state's wave functional corresponds to a two-real parameter set of Gaussian wave packets. For applications, we examine the finite-time detector's response to a massive scalar field in the (1 + 1)-dimensional, spatially compactified Milne spacetime. Explicit analytic results are obtained for the comoving and inertially non-comoving trajectories.

Numerical results are provided for the comoving trajectory. The numerical results suggest that when the in-vacuum is chosen to be very far from the conventional Minkowski vacuum state, then it contains particles. As result, spontaneous excitation of the comoving detector occurs.


The main cause of chronic liver disease in Iran is Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). A common pathological feature of chronic liver disease is fibrosis, so particular vigilance against patients with liver fibrosis is necessary to lead healthcare resource planning. The aims of the current study were to determine the prevalence and predictors of significant fibrosis and advanced ones among individuals with NAFLD. In the current cross-sectional study conducted during 2013-2016, the presence of fibrosis among NAFLD patients was assessed using the NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS) and AST to Platelet Ratio Index (APRI) systems. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to predict significant fibrosis or advanced fibrosis among NAFLD patients. Analysis of the results of over 999 patients (569 females and 430 males) with the mean age of 43.28±14.034 years in Iran during 2015-2016 showed that the overall prevalence of NAFLD among Iranian adults was 19.6%. NAFLD prevalence was not significantly higher in males compared to females (51.5% vs. 48.5%, P=0.66). On multivariate logistic regression analyses, females were less likely to have NAFLD compared to males (OR 0.32, 95% CI 0.24-0.42, P<0.001). The overall prevalence of liver fibrosis among NAFLD patients was 38.8%.20.4% and 6.12% of NAFLD patients had evidence of significant and advanced fibrosis, respectively. Our most recent dataset analysis emphasized the major burden of NAFLD among people of Iranian origin. A high prevalence of individuals with NAFLD and advanced fibrosis was observed.


MAX phases are layered solids with unique properties combining characteristics of ceramics and metals. MXenes are their two-dimensional siblings that can be synthesized as van der Waals stacked and multi-/single-layer nanosheets, which possess chemical and physical properties that make them interesting for a plethora of applications. Both families of materials are highly versatile in terms of their chemical composition and theoretical studies suggest that many more members are stable and can be synthesized. This is very intriguing because new combinations of elements, and potentially new structures, can lead to further (tunable) properties. In this review, we focus on the synthesis science (including non-conventional approaches) and structure of members less investigated, namely compounds with more exotic M-, A-, and X-elements, for example nitrides and (carbo)nitrides, and the related family of MAB phases.


Recently, the validity of the guiding-center approach to model relativistic runaway electrons in tokamaks has been challenged by full-orbit simulations that demonstrate the breakdown of the standard magnetic moment conservation. In this paper, we derive a new expression for the magnetic moment of relativistic runaway electrons, which is conserved significantly better than the standard one. The new result includes one of the second-order corrections in the standard guiding-center theory which, in case of runaway electrons with $p_{\parallel}\gg p_{\perp}$, can peculiarly be of the same order as the lowest-order term. The better conservation of the new magnetic moment also explains the collisionless pitch-angle-scattering effect observed in full-orbit simulations since it allows momentum transfer between the perpendicular and parallel directions when the runaway electron is accelerated by an electric field. While the derivation of the second-order correction to the magnetic moment in general case would require the full extent of the relativistic second-order guiding-center theory, we exploit the Lie-perturbation method at the limit $p_{\parallel}\gg p_{\perp}$ which simplifies the computations significantly. Consequently, we present the corresponding guiding-center equations applicable to the highly relativistic runaway electrons.


The objective of this research was to evaluate the yield and whipping characteristics of dehydrated egg so as to establish the optimum conditions for commercial applications of powdered egg. Eggs were cracked, separated into their components by gravity. Each of the egg components (egg yolk, albumin, whole liquid egg) were subjected to agitation in a master chef blender using 2.5 min. interval at 1000 rev/min. for 10 min. The volume formed by the whole liquid egg, egg yolk, and albumins were recorded and three consecutive readings were taken. Results showed that whole liquid eggs attained optimal foam formation after 5 min. whipping while the albumin had optimal whipping duration at 2.5 min. However, albumin produced the highest foam at 2.5 min. whipping duration. At higher agitation beyond 2.5 min., the density was reduced. The yolk on the other hand was found to possess no foam since the observed increase in volume may have been contributed by the albumin during gravitational separation. It was also found that whole liquid eggs could be dried at 50oC for 3h with about 20% the solid recovered after drying. Therefore, the reconstitution ratio of the dried egg powder to water was estimated to be approximately 1:5. Keywords : Whipping duration, albumin, protein, density, dehydration


In kittens of the age from 39 days to 4 months the influence was studied of the sensorimotor cortex (SMC) ablation on formation and preservation of previously elaborated reflex to a simultaneous complex stimulus (light + sound) with extinction of reaction to nonreinforced components of the complex signal. It is shown that SMC ablation in the age up to 2.5 months does not affect the formation or preservation of the conditioned reflex. The SMC ablation in preliminarily trained kittens in the age of 3.5 months and older leads to disinhibition of components differentiation with preservation of the positive conditioned reflex to the complex signal. In untrained kittens of the same age the SMC ablation leads to disability of animals to inhibit the motor reaction to differentiation signal. The question is discussed of SMC significance in the ontogenesis at formation of adequate forms of behaviour requiring heterosensory interaction.


We have used the Breit-Wigner resonance formula to model a class of molecular electronics devices with the aim to establish an abstract model for a molecular electronic device that can be used in a general cross bar architecture of future nanoelectronic systems. We show that the molecular I-V curves can be characterized by a very small number of variables including the couplings between the contact and leads.


Exposure to commercial real estate (CRE) loans at regional and small banks and thrifts has soared over the last two decades. As banks' balance sheets become more concentrated in these types of loans, banks have become more sensitive to swings in CRE fundamentals. The concentration in CRE loans peaked in 2007, just as commercial real estate prices started a historic free fall, declining more than 30 percent in just two years. Over this same time CRE concentration has been a significant factor in recent bank failures. Default and loss models of CRE mortgages have previously been estimated using loan data from large, income-generating properties financed by insurance companies and the commercial real estate mortgage (CMBS) market. Early research used data from insurance companies (Synderman (1991), Esaki et al (1999), Vandell et al (1993), Ciochetti et al (2003), while more recently researchers have used data from the CMBS market (Ambrose and Sanders (2003), Archer et al (2002), Deng et al (2004), Seslen and Wheaton (2010), An et al (2009). Black et al (2010) found that loans in CMBS pools that had been originated by portfolio lenders, such as insurance companies or commercial banks, were of a higher quality and outperformed loans originated by conduit lenders or investment banks. The CMBS and insurance company loans used in these studies differ in structure and underlying collateral from the loans backed by bank CRE loans. Roughly a third of bank CRE loans are backed by owner-occupied CRE and another 20 to 30 percent by land and construction loans. The owner-occupied properties, which lack an external and explicit rental stream, are usually not candidates for securitisation. The loans in bank portfolios backed by land acquisition, development, and construction (ADC) projects are even less similar to those in CMBS and in insurance company portfolios. Land and construction loans are short term and the collateral is the raw land or the partially completed construction project. Finally, the loans on banks' books backed by existing income-generating commercial properties are likely to be different from those found in CMBS pools or in insurance company portfolios.Regional and small banks also make much smaller loans than those usually seen in CMBS pools or in insurance company portfolios. Clearly, each of these types of loans has performed differently during this recent financial crisis, yet we are still dependent on default and loss models estimated using data from only one type of loan.Ours is the first paper to estimate CRE default and loss models using a loan-level dataset drawn from bank portfolios. We develop a unique dataset consisting of loan-level information on CRE portfolios for a sample of banks entering FDIC receivership over the past several years. We use this dataset to estimate a series of default and loss models. We estimate these models on the loans backed by existing CRE properties and compare the results with those from other papers that estimate CRE default using data from the CMBS and insurance companies. We then extend our analysis to the performance of land and construction loans, providing the first loan-level analysis of the performance of such loans.Full publication: Property markets and financial stability


The results of recent studies indicate that certain visuomotor actions, such as grasping and pointing, are unaffected by visual size illusions. The present study investigated whether the Poggendorff illusion of alignment influences pointing to a target's location. 15 subjects pointed with their unseen hands to the apparent location of the extension of the oblique line onto the target line of a version of the Poggendorff illusion. Analysis indicated the pointing action was influenced by the Poggendorff illusion. The implications of this finding for the claim that different cortical streams of visual processing subserve visuomotor actions and conscious visual perception are discussed.


Summary Genome-scale metabolic network reconstructions (GENREs) are valuable for understanding cellular metabolism in silico. Several tools exist for automatic GENRE generation. However, these tools frequently (1) do not readily integrate with some of the widely-used suites of packaged methods available for network analysis, (2) lack effective network curation tools, and (3) are not sufficiently user-friendly. Here, we present Reconstructor, a user-friendly COBRApy compatible tool with ModelSEED namespace compatibility and a pFBA-based gap-filling technique. We demonstrate how Reconstructor readily generates high-quality GENRES that are useful for further biological discovery. Availability and Implementation The Reconstructor package is freely available for download via pip in the command line (pip install reconstructor). Usage instructions and benchmarking data are available at http://github.com/emmamglass/reconstructor. Contact Jason Papin: firstname.lastname@example.com


Economic outcomes in the United States are highly correlated with race, but it is not clear what causal mechanisms underlie these correlations. In particular, how much is due to discrimination? How much is due to other characteristics— such as education—that vary across racial groups? Assuming that discrimination does occur, it is also unclear how much is "taste-based" (against race itself) rather than "statistical" (where race is used as a proxy for unobservable negative characteristics). The relative importance of these various effects has important policy implications. Economists have worked for years to identify discrimination and disentangle these two different sources. Much of this research has used field experiments to avoid the biases that can plague observational studies. (Observational studies, which compare groups of black subjects and white subjects, typically have non-random samples and cannot control for unobservable characteristics.) Experiments can of course have their own shortcomings. For example, actor-based audit studies—in which actors apply for jobs, consider housing, or negotiate sales—attempt to match different-race candidates on as many dimensions as possible, but the match quality will never be perfect and these studies are typically not double-blind. Other researchers, beginning with Bertrand and


HEMISPHERICAL bulging of a portion of the right diaphragm into the thorax has been revealed roentgenologically in children in a significant number of cases. In the isolated instances in which this type of abnormality has been reported previously,1it has usually been described as an eventration. The use of this term has done little to aid in the understanding of the clinical significance of this abnormality. A large group of cases in which the abnormality has ordinarily been described as an eventration is that in which diaphragmatic elevation has occurred secondary to phrenic palsy. Other allusions to eventration refer to the extremely rare situation in which one side of the diaphragm is entirely replaced by a thin membrane containing no muscle. If, however, one considers such a transformation as affecting only a portion of the diaphragm, with bulging upward of the membrane, the condition is anatomically indistinguishable from a


Since the 1990s, Vietnam has made the transformation from being a net rice importer to becoming one of the world's largest exporters of rice. In fact, Vietnamese farmers have been highly successful at increasing food production since the reformation (Doi moi) in 1986 so that by 2010, rice yields had more than doubled (General Statistics Office of Vietnam, 2012). However, Vietnam, because of its geographical location and characteristics, is highly vulnerable to natural disasters, with a World Bank report (2010) estimating that 59% of Vietnam's total area and 71% of its population are susceptible to the impacts of tropical cyclones and floods. Furthermore, the regularity of extreme flood events during the last decade in central Vietnam has raised concern, with three flood classes, 1:10, 1:20 and 1:100-year floods occurring in Quang Nam province in 2004, 2009 and 2007, respectively (Institute of Geography, 2012; Institute of Water Resources Planning, 2011). In this study we use a three-stage approach to estimate the direct losses to rice production caused by 1:10, 1:20 and 1:100-year flood events in Quang Nam, central Vietnam. Firstly, utilising information from geo-spatial inundation maps together with the timing of the floods with respect to crop rotation, we calculate flood-depth susceptibility rates for rice crops. Secondly, we calculate the loss to rice production experienced under the three flood classes. Thirdly, using 2010 prices, cost-benefit analyses were conducted for rice production when impacted by the three flood classes. These include scenario (pessimistic, optimistic and likely) and sensitivity analyses. The estimated value of direct losses to rice production for 1:10, 1:20, and 1:100-year flood events were VND11billion, VND100 billion and VND121 billion, respectively. Benefit-cost ratios, already very low for subsistence rice farmers, are further eroded in years of extreme floods.


Our previous studies demonstrated promising outcomes after haploidentical donor transplant combined with unrelated umbilical cord blood (haplo-cord- hematopoietic stem cell transplantation [HSCT]) for hematological disorders. However, clinical profiling regarding chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) has not yet been fully described under this protocol. This study analyzed the clinical characteristics of cGVHD among 300 patients with hematological malignancies who received haplo-cord-HSCT between January 2012 and July 2016 at our center. During the follow-up, the 5-year cumulative incidence of cGVHD based on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) consensus criteria was 32.2% (95% confidence interval [CI], 28.7-35.7); the 5-year cumulative incidence of moderate to severe cGVHD was 11.4% (95% CI, 9.4-13.4). After the multivariate analysis, the GVHD overall survival (GOS) was associated with relapse, thrombocytopenia, bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome, and steroid-refractory cGVHD. The infused CD34+ cells (≥3.46 × 106/kg) from haploidentical grafts were a protective factor affecting GOS. This study proposed a nomogram for predicting GOS using the aforementioned five variables. The concordance index was 0.877 (95% CI, 0.859-0.895) for the accuracy evaluation of the nomogram. Our results suggested that the 5-year cumulative incidence of NIH-defined cGVHD after haplo-cord-HSCT was 32.2%, and this nomogram may help clinicians select reasonable treatment strategies.


Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) has the highest mortality rate of all gynecological cancers. Approximately 70% of all EOC patients are diagnosed at advanced stages of the disease. In these patients, ovarian cancer cells shed from the primary tumor and accumulate in ascites in the peritoneal cavity. These shed cells have shown the ability to attach and form secondary tumors throughout the peritoneal cavity, making EOC more difficult to treat. A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the survival of ovarian cancer cells in ascites could lead to the development of improved chemotherapeutics aimed at eradicating this nonadhesive subset of cells and thus resulting in better survival rates of EOC patients. While non-tumorigenic epithelial cells require attachment to the extracellular matrix (ECM) for survival, ovarian cancer cells surviving in ascites gain the ability to survive in anchorage independence. Striking increases of reactive oxygen species (ROS) mediated by ECM-detachment has been shown to inhibit energy production and inhibit cell viability in non-tumorigenic mammary epithelial cells. Consequently, neutralization of ROS with antioxidant compounds enhance ATP production and promote survival in anchorage independence. Furthermore, previous publications from our laboratory suggest that antioxidant enzymes are critical for metabolic maintenance and survival of ECM-detached breast cancer cells. While these recent studies reveal a novel role for antioxidant activity in metastatic breast cancer, antioxidant activity and its effects on ECM-detached ovarian cancer cells has yet to be unveiled. Currently, we have found that neutralization of ROS through treatment with a variety of antioxidant compounds increases metabolic efficacy in ECM-detached ovarian cancer cells. More specifically, ECM-detached SKOV3 ovarian cancer cells treated with antioxidant compounds Trolox (a vitamin E analog), Vitamin C, and Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) results in large increases in ATP levels. Given these data, we are further working to understand the mechanisms involved in this metabolic increase. In addition, we are working to understand the relationship between this increase in metabolism and survival in anchorage independence. Future studies include looking at this phenomenon in other ovarian cancer cell lines as well as using mouse xenograft studies to examine the effects of antioxidant compounds on survival of metastatic ovarian cancer cells. Citation Format: Calli A. Davison-Versagli. Antioxidant compounds and their effects on ECM-detached ovarian cancer cells. [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 2811.


In an experiment, the effects of types of outcomes on social value orientations (individualism, competition, pro-social orientation) were investigated. Ninety-nine students made 28 choices which affected outcomes (points to be converted into money) for themselves and another (unknown) person. About half of them started out with nothing but they could allocate positive outcomes (gains) to themselves and/or the other. The other half were told that they themselves and another person would start out with some outcomes but they could lose outcomes depending on the choices. For about half the participants it was certain that their choices would result in outcomes while for the other half outcomes would be likely rather than certain. The expected utility of the outcomes was the same in the four conditions. In accordance with prospect theory, it was expected and found that participants would be more individualistic in the conditions with losses than in the conditions with gains. In accordance with social comparison theory, it was expected and found that participants would be more competitive in the conditions with probable outcomes than in the conditions with certain outcomes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Power system skeleton restoration is a typical semi-structured problem and difficult to establish accurate mathematical model. Constrains such as transient overvoltages, sustained power frequency overvoltages, self-excitation, and restoration duration are comprehensively considered in this paper. A model of group intelligent decision support system for power system skeleton restoration is constructed, three parts of which are comprehensive data platform, intelligent control sub-system and group decision support sub-system. The multi-attribute utility theory is employed to dynamically determine next restoration target. This system can not only generate feasible cases for case-based reasoning, but also provide online supports in actual process of restoration.


Background: Methylene blue dye uses as adsorbent to study the ability of different surface activities as adsorbents. The adsorbents can be used in the extraction of certain pollutant substances from solution on solids which is one of the cheapest and easiest separation methods. Furthermore, some of the extracted substances are economically important. In previous work, the ability of English bentonite to extract methylene blue dye from aqueous solution was carried out. In this work, Iraqi locally bentonite was used as a cheaper adsorbent for methylene blue from aqueous solution. The second aim of the present study is to make a comparison between English bentonite and Iraqi bentonite in different parameters of adsorption of Methylene blue dye from aqueous solution. Some practical parameters affecting adsorption process, in both clays, such as initial dye concentration and the thermodynamic parameters (ΔHo, ΔGo, ΔSo) for the adsorption process also computed and compared. Materials and Methods: Ten milliliters of different concentrations of methylene blue solutions (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 mg/L) were mixed in water shakerbath with 0.05g of bentonite clay. Supernatants were separated by centrifugation. UV-Visible spectrophotometer technique used to follow up the adsorbed quantities after mixing the dye solution with bentonite. The experiment repeated at three different temperatures (5, 25, 45°C) to measure the thermodynamic parameters (ΔHo, ΔGo, ΔSo) for the adsorption process. Results: The extent of the methylene blue removal by Iraqi bentonite increased with increase in the initial concentration of the dye and with decrease temperature. Thermodynamic parameters, such as ΔHo, ΔGo, and ΔSo have been calculated by using the thermodynamic equilibrium coefficient obtained at different temperatures and concentrations. Iraqi bentonite :( ΔHo=-32.04 KJ.mol -1 , ΔGo=-14.78 KJ.mol -1 , ΔSo=-9.751J.mol -1 . oK -1 ). English bentonite: (ΔHo=20.21 KJ.mol -1 , ΔGo=-5.17KJ.mol -1 , ΔSo=85.16 J.mol -1 . oK -1 ). Conclusion: Both English and Iraqi bentonite clays have ability to adsorb methylene blue. The dye removal increased with increase in the initial concentration of the dye. There is no significant difference in the amounts of dye adsorbed by both clays indicated the possible symmetry in the active sites of bentonite clays even they come from different origin. Thermodynamical data indicate that the adsorption of methylene blue on Iraqi bentonite is exothermic and spontaneous and high heat of adsorption indicates possibility of chemisorption process in addition to other ordinary forces including in adsorption. While same process on English bentonite is endothermic, spontaneous with very low free energy change. In conclusion, Iraqi bentonite clay is cheaper, available and has identical adsorptive activities for methylene blue. This research opens a series of studies for the uses of this Iraqi bentonite as adsorbent for different substances in pollution, medicine, supporter, and different fields in industry.


BACKGROUND
Pectin is composed of complex polysaccharides that can inhibit cancer metastasis and proliferation with no evidence of toxicity. In the present study, the apoptotic and necrotic effects of pectic acid (PA) on the rat pituitary GH3/B6 tumor cells has been investigated.

METHODS
GH3/B6 cells were cultured in the Ham's F12 medium enriched with 15% horse serum and 2.5% fetal bovine serum for 3 days. Then, they were treated by various amounts of PA in different periods (6, 24 and 48 hours). Bromocriptine was used as positive control and the cell viability was detected by MTT test. The nuclear morphology of cells was explored by florescent stains including acridine orange (AO)/ethidium bromide (EB). In addition, percentages of apoptotic and necrotic cells were studied with triphosphate nick-end labeling (TUNEL) assay, cell cycle analysis and propidium iodide (PI) staining.

RESULTS
Long-term incubation with PA results in increased cell death and DNA damage as detected by MTT assay and AO/EB staining. TUNEL assay showed that PA (100 microg/ml to 1 mg/ml) could induce apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner, while higher concentrations of PA (2.5 and 5 mg/ml) induced necrosis which was confirmed by PI staining. Furthermore, cell cycle analysis indicated that PA induced sub G1 events, and DNA fragmentation was also correlated with the number of the apoptotic cells.

CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that PA is responsible for apoptosis in the rat pituitary tumor cells. Therefore, one may suggest that this group of polysaccharides can be used in treatment of pituitary tumors.


One hundred and sixteen restorers whose hybrid combinations had been, evaluated in the national testing were critically evaluated in the field for two years. Those were grouped as high, medium and low based on Duncan's Multiple Range Test (DMRT) and mean and standard deviation of joint scores. More than 75% of the entries were found in the same groups in both the years indicating a very high reproducibility and repeatability of the method of grouping. Only 50 restorers out of 116 were found to give heterotic hybrids with an yield advantage of 1.0 t ha−1 or more over the best inbred check variety. Majority of the restorers (>86%) showing heterosis were from the medium group emphasizing the need to select restorers from this group in order to develop heterotic hybrids. In another experiment, 28 F5 lines derived from a EMS based hybrid IR 62829A/WGL 3962 were crossed with IR 62829A to assess the potential of newly developed iso-cytoplasmic restorers. The F1 crosses were evaluated along with the original hybrid, IR 62829A/WGL 3962. Results indicated that only 32% of the restorers were able to restore the complete fertility in hybrids implying that the restoration is governed by more than one gene. Nearly 14% of the crosses involving new restorers showed significant heterosis over the original hybrid from which they were derived indicating that there were heritable genetic factors responsible for heterosis. Selection of restorers based on the joint scores of a number of dependent traits appears to be a sound criteria to develop heterotic rice hybrids.


The fact that there is a specific age marking the emergence of adulthood in the United States has been well documented. The starting point for the studies included in this special issue is the assumption that the same can be said for European countries. Thus, a comparison of characteristics of emerging adulthood between different European countries was performed. In this special issue, contributions of scholars from five different European countries are taken as representative of different regions: Spain, Italy, Finland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. The efforts of the research are twofold. The first is to look at how the traditional markers of adulthood have changed and how the concept of adulthood is seen in the different countries. The second is to highlight the influence that the entrance into the working world and romantic partnership have on emerging adults and to detect the impact of the timing of entering adulthood on identity achievement. The results are presented here as different pathways that emerging adults follow to reach the same goal of mature adulthood.


Sir,

Sarcoidosis is a granulomatous disorder of unknown aetiology characterized by the presence of noncaseating granulomas in multiple organs1. Mycobacterial nucleic acids have been demonstrated in sarcoidosis lesions2, and we have reported 50 per cent prevalence of mycobacterial DNA in sarcoidosis samples using PCR for 65 kDa protein gene3. Genes located on the region of difference 1 (RD1) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis such as the 6-kDa early secreted antigenic target (ESAT-6) and the 10-kDa culture filtrate protein (CFP-10) are not shared by BCG strains and most non-tuberculous mycobacteria, and these antigens are specific indicators of M. tuberculosis complex infection4. We hypothesized that if mycobacteria are aetiologically linked to sarcoidosis, the humoral responses against ESAT-6 and CFP-10 should be demonstrable in the serum samples of sarcoidosis patients.

Newly diagnosed glucocorticoid-naive cases of pulmonary sarcoidosis [18 patients (8 females); mean (95% CI) age, 34.9 (31.9-35.9) yr] defined on the following criteria were included consecutively in this study conducted at the department of Pulmonary Medicine, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, during January - March 2008. (i) Clinico-radiological presentation consistent with sarcoidosis; (ii) demonstration of non-caseating granulomas on bronchoscopic lung biopsy; (iii) absence of other known causes of granulomatous lung disease such as mycobacteria or fungal diseases on histopathology; and, (iv) response to steroid therapy5. All patients underwent clinical evaluation and investigations, including serum calcium, chest radiograph and high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scan of the chest, and tuberculin skin testing (TST) with one tuberculin unit (TU) purified protein derivative (PPD). The subjects were followed up for twelve months after the diagnosis. Patients with pulmonary TB [n=10 (4 females), mean (95% CI) age, 31.4 (22.4-40.4) yr] with clinico-radiological evidence of PTB and sputum smear positive for acid-fast bacilli (AFB), were also included. Patients with any immunodeficiency state were excluded from the study. All patients underwent TST with 1 TU PPD, and were followed up for six months after the diagnosis. The controls were healthy volunteers [20 subjects (7 females), mean (95% CI) age, 31 (26.3-31.7) yr] defined as asymptomatic individuals without any diagnosed illness and were normal on detailed physical examination. The controls were recruited from the healthy attendants accompanying the patients attending the outpatient departments. Hospital employees and direct family members of the study patients were not recruited as controls. All of them underwent routine physical examination, chest radiography, HIV serology, and TST with one TU PPD, and were followed up for twelve months after inclusion for any evidence of active TB. A written informed consent was taken from all patients and controls, and the study was approved by the Institute's Ethics Committee.

Venous blood (5 ml) was collected from patients and controls into tubes without anticoagulant (Becton Dickinson, USA) and serum was separated. Microtiter ELISA plates (Immulon 2HB, DYNAX, USA) were prepared by coating ESAT-6 and CFP-10 antigens [5 μg/ml, 50 μl/well) dissolved in coating buffer (1.59 g sodium bicarbonate, 2.93 g sodium carbonate, pH 9.6 in 1 liter phosphate buffer saline (PBS)]. The ELISA plates were incubated at 4° C overnight to enable binding to wells. The plates were then washed with 0.05 per cent PBS with tween-20 (PBST) three times and blocked with 200 μl of blocking buffer [1% bovine serum albumin (BSA) in PBST for 2 h]. The plates were washed again with 250 μl of 0.05 per cent PBST three times. Fifty μl of 1:50 diluted serum (diluted in 0.1× 1% BSA-PBST) was then added and the plates were again incubated at 37° C for 90 min. The plates were washed six times with 300 μl/well of washing buffer (0.05% PBST). Fifty μl per well of protein-A alkaline phosphatase conjugate (1:2000) and anti-human IgA-alkaline phosphatase (1:1000) diluted in 0.1× BSA-PBST were added and the plates were again incubated at 37°C for one hour. The plates were washed eight times with 300 μl/well of 0.05M Tris. Next, the Substrate (Invitrogen, ELISA amplification system, USA), 50 μl/well was added and incubated for 12 min followed by addition of 50 μl/well of amplifier. The plates were then read at 490 nm. The mean optical density (OD) plus three standard deviations obtained with serum samples from healthy controls was used as the cut-off. The ELISA was performed thrice for every protein for each patient, and two positives out of the three ELISAs performed were taken as positive for every serum.

The sample size for the study was calculated (StatsDirect 2.7.2, www.statsdirect.com) assuming a positivity rate of mycobacterial antibodies being 95 per cent in the TB arm vs. 45 per cent in the sarcoidosis group6,7. With this calculation, 12 patients were required in each group to detect these differences [confidence level (1-α) 95%, power level (1-β) 80%8.

Difference between categorical variables was assessed using Fisher's exact test. Difference between continuous variables was analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis test.

The baseline characteristics of the study population were similar in the three groups with respect to age and gender. Four patients with sarcoidosis had inappropriately received anti-tuberculous therapy in the past. Nine patients with pulmonary TB were TST positive while none with sarcoidosis was TST positive. The cut-off values for OD at 490 nm for PPD negative control subjects were 0.219, 0.197, 0.182 and 0.395, 0.312, 0.318 for ESAT-6 and CFP-10, respectively (Fig.). If both PPD negative and PPD positive control subjects were included, the cut-off values were 0.214, 0.211, 0.219 and 0.351, 0.299, 0.323 for ESAT-6 and CFP-10, respectively. None of the PPD positive controls were positive for either ESAT-6 or CFP-10 antibodies by the PPD negative cut-off. The overall prevalence of antibodies against any antigen was eight out of 18 (44.4%) in sarcoidosis and nine out of 10 (90%) in PTB if both PPD +/- were used as controls, whereas 11 of 18 (61.1%) and nine of 10 (90%) with sarcoidosis and PTB, respectively showed overall reactivity to either of the antigens if only PPD- subjects were used as controls.

Fig.

Optical density (OD) values of individual patients for each antigen with tuberculin skin test (TST) - (n=9) and TST+/- (n=19) as controls. Panel A in both the columns are the cut-off OD values derived from controls. In the first column (TST- controls) ...

The humoral response in sarcoidosis against RD1 antigens of M. tuberculosis has not been extensively studied despite numerous studies of T cell responses to RD1 antigens6,7,9–11. Demonstration of humoral responses to specific mycobacterial proteins in patients with TB and sarcoidosis could help in elucidating the relationship between these two granulomatous pathologies. Song et al12 found anti-mycobacterial katG IgG in the serum of 48 per cent sarcoidosis patients versus none of healthy PPD negative controls. Dubaniewicz et al13 demonstrated a humoral response to M. tuberculosis heat shock protein 70 (hsp70) in 12 of 37 patients with sarcoidosis and six of 29 TB subjects versus none in the 18 controls. However, B cell responses to specific mycobacterial proteins have not been studied, and none has been published from high TB prevalence countries14. The detection of antibodies against specific mycobacterial proteins would suggest that these antigens are the target of adaptive immune response in sarcoidosis, providing evidence of a mycobacterial aetiology in a subset of patients with sarcoidosis. We found similar frequency of circulating antibodies to RD1 antigens in patients with sarcoidosis and PTB. Moreover, none of the PPD positive controls were positive for either ESAT-6 or CFP-10 antibodies by the PPD negative cut-off suggesting a possible role of mycobacteria in the pathogenesis of sarcoidosis. Sarcoidosis patients may develop tuberculosis or both diseases may co-exist15, however, it seems unlikely in our patients because all patients were treated with glucocorticoids and followed up for one year.

Our study had certain limitations. The major limitation was the small number of study subjects although the sample size was calculated a priori. Another limitation was that only B cell responses were evaluated in patients with sarcoidosis and PTB. It would have been interesting to note the T cell responses and mycobacterial DNA amplification in these patients. Other limitation was the choice of control group. We chose a healthy control group not related to the patients. Inclusion of control group from family members would have reduced bias due to environmental, economic and social conditions, thus leading to a better method group to allow direct comparison for the disease. The strength of the study included the fact that all blood samples were drawn from patients before any specific therapy was started (glucocorticoids in sarcoidosis and anti-tuberculosis drugs in PTB). Finally, the study was based on patients selected from those attending the hospital and thus the results of study might not be applicable to general population.

In conclusion, patients with PTB and sarcoidosis showed evidence of seroreactivity to RD1 antigens. The positive results in patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis but not in PPD+ controls indicate a possible pathogenic role of mycobacterial antigens in sarcoidosis.


Popular news media play an instrumental role in shaping public perception of issues like the opioid crisis. Using a detailed coding instrument, we analyzed how opioid-related scholarly publications were covered in 149 news stories published by nine major US and Canadian online news outlets at the height of the crisis. We find that a small proportion of available studies receive coverage, mostly within issue-focused rather than science communication news stories. While most studies are framed as established "facts," stories rarely provide sufficient information for news consumers to critically evaluate the validity of the research. Potential implications for science communication and public perception of the opioid crisis are discussed.


The formation of space charge in EPDM (ethylene-propylene-diene terpolymer) filled with ATH (alumina trihydrate) or clay has been investigated by measuring charge distributions. It is found that the type and amount of space charge developed in crosslinked EPDM or its compounds is governed by the type of diene in EPDM and the composition of the semicon electrodes. The amount of charge in the EPDM compounds containing 1,4-hexadiene decreases with an increase of ATH content and increases with an increase of clay content. The heat treatment of EPDM compounds in a vacuum oven increases the amount of space charge in them. These features were explained by the effects of low molecular weight molecules present at the surface of fillers. It is found that the homocharge increases as the clay content increases, while EVA decreases the homocharge in the EPDM compounds. Possible reasons for these results are discussed.


This paper examines the impact of frozen tissue and molecular collections on traditional natural history museum collections. This was carried out by an examination of current literature, by talking to people who work with frozen tissue and molecular collections and by input of my own views as a curator of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) at The Natural History Museum, London. The first part deals with definitions of natural history museum collections and what they are used for. Then there is an examination of the issues surrounding the storage facilities for tissues and molecules, deposition of molecular material and the suitability of current and future museum specimens for molecular work. A large part of the future of systematics and taxonomy lie with molecular studies. As one of the main purposes of natural history museums is the study of systematics and taxonomy then natural history museums have to embrace frozen tissue and molecular collections to survive. I conclude that molecular collections are an important part of the future of natural history collections.


AbstractA 2-D computer simulation of a coaxial plasma device depending on the conservation equations of electrons, ions and excited atoms together with the Poisson equation for a plasma gun is carried out. Some characteristics of the plasma focus device (PF) such as critical wave numbers ac and voltages Uc in the cases of various pressures Pare estimated in order to satisfy the necessary conditions of traveling particle densities (i.e. plasma patterns) via a linear analysis. Oscillatory solutions are characterized by a nonzero imaginary part of the growth rate $$
\Im
$$(σ) for all cases. The model also predicts the minimal voltage ranges of the system for certain pressure intervals.


The stability of a strong-coupling singlet optical bipolaron is studied for the first time in two- and three-dimensional parabolic quantum dots using the Landau - Pekar variational method. It is shown that the confining potential of the quantum dot reduces the stability of the bipolaron.


The discovery of genetic defects underlying long-QT syndrome (LQTS) has allowed to identify important genotype-phenotype correlations that are now being used for risk stratification. The next challenge is to exploit the new information on the pathophysiology of the disease derived from molecular genetics to devise more effective therapies. The successful response of LQT1 patients to -blockers, the QT-shortening action of sodium channel blockers in at least some LQT3 patients, and the importance of maintaining adequate plasma potassium levels in LQT2 patients clearly demonstrate the importance of selecting therapy in the context of the molecular substrate. The hurdles on the road toward the development of novel therapeutic strategies are represented by the variable expressivity of the disease, the high prevalence of "private" mutations, and the role of genetic and nongenetic factors that act as modifiers of the phenotype. Given the large number of mutations identified and their phenotypic complexity, it is clearly impossible to anticipate a scenario in which each mutation will be managed through a specific therapy. However, the evidence that mutations in the LQTS gene may be clustered based on their electrophysiological profile and on their response to specific drugs may provide the rationale for the development of mutation-specific therapies. In this article, we will review the most relevant genotypephenotype features of LQTS and the strategies explored to develop novel therapeutic approaches.


The influence of two different reinforcers of aggression was investigated: Frustration (intrinsic primary reinforcement) and instrumental value of aggression (extrinsic primary reinforcement). In the first part of the experiment frustration was manipulated on two levels by having the stooge interfere very often or seldom in the 'building a village' task of the subject. In the second part of the study the stooge had to judge distances in traffic while the subject was allowed to give him electrical shocks in order to startle and hinder the stooge in his estimation task. The aggression score of the subject was formed by the number and the intensity of the shocks delivered. Instrumentality of aggression was manipulated on two levels by indicating or not that the subjects could earn more money the more and stronger they shocked their partner. Confirming the predictions, significantly more aggression was expressed when this could lead to earning more money than in those conditions where this was not the case. Also confirming predictions, the impact of instrumentality on aggression was stronger than the influence of frustration. Frustration did not lead to a significant increase in the level of aggression.


Previous years have seen a rise in the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Reaching a large endurance and range while being able to perform Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) landings allows a broad range of applications. For this purpose the DelftaCopter (DC) was developed, a tilt-body tailsitter UAV. It hovers using a single helicopter rotor for lift and transitions to forward flight by pitching its body down by 90°. In this forward flight state, wings generate the lift, while the helicopter rotor now provides thrust. The single rotor is more efficient than using multiple smaller rotors and helicopter swashplate is used for attitude and speed control. The heavy single helicopter rotor introduces significant gyroscopic moments, as is the case for all helicopters. In contrast with normal helicopters, the DC has a heavy fuselage putting the attitude dynamics between a helicopter and aircraft. In previous research, a controller based on a model incorporating the rotor as a rotating cylinder was implemented. This controller was unable to counteract the gyroscopic pitch-roll coupling, leading to the question of this thesis: how should the DC be modeled to allow control design. In this thesis, the previous model is called the Cylinder Dynamics (CD) model, and is compared with another model from literature. The latter model, in this thesis called the Tip-Path Plane (TPP) model, includes the flapping dynamics through the tip-path plane dynamics and is also a linear state-space model. In flight tests, chirps were used to cover a broad frequency range. Fitting both the CD and TPP models on this flight test data, it is shown that the CD model lacks accuracy in the high-frequency area, while the TPP is able to accurately model these dynamics. This shows that the flapping dynamics are important to the attitude dynamics of the DC. An Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controller was implemented based on the fitted TPP model, and shows adequate tracking performance, further validating the applicability of the model to the DC. For forward flight, extensions to the hover models are proposed. The extension including the elevator and aerodynamic damping is shown to simulate key dynamics of the DC in forward flight with reasonable accuracy. The parameters and eigenfrequencies of this model are not significantly different from the hover model. Therefore it can be concluded that the gyroscopic effect plays an important role in forward flight attitude dynamics. Another extension which estimates of angle of attack and sideslip using highpass filtered rotational rates, yields better accuracy, but significantly changes the model parameters also present in the hover model. More research with angle of attack and sideslip vanes could validate this modeling approach. It was also found that for a new version of the DC with a smaller, more quickly rotating rotor, the modeling done before resulted in much worse fits. It was shown that the CD and TPP model response is much more comparable for this version. Control performance also suffers due to this lower accuracy model fit. Further research is required to understand why this is the case.


PURPOSE: This book provides step-by-step guidance on developing a sound publication strategy for how to prepare and get research papers published. The book is a user-friendly guide, a route map for publishing that covers many topics, ranging from abstracts and blogs, tables and trial registration to ethical principles and conventions for writing scientific papers. Publishing the results of scientific research in the form of a scientific paper is the ultimate goal and the final stage of the research of each scientist. To write and publish papers is never going to be an easy task. With this book as their guide, researchers will be better informed and therefore should have an easier and altogether more pleasant path to publication with clear direction on how to choose the right journal, avoid publication delays, and resolve authorship disputes and many other problems associated with scientific publishing.CONTENTS: The 188 pages of the book are distributed in 5 chapters in Part I and 249 entries ordered by the letters of Alphabet in Part II creating an A to Z of publication strategy. In the Appendices there are four sections covering further reading, organizations, guidelines and principles of good publication practice for company-sponsored medical research. The book also contains key references and useful websites within many entries where it seemed helpful. The last ten pages of the book present an index to help users to find the information of interest in the book.CONCLUSION: The book is intended to help all authors, young and old, novice and experienced, to plan their research and publications effectively and prepare manuscripts for journals and other publications, increasing the likelihood that their work will be published. Providing essential information on publishing strategy and process, the book should be extremely useful to everyone who wants to publish research results.


Background: Anemia is common in patients with heart failure (HF) and is associated with worse outcomes. However, the effects of anemia are unknown in an unselected group of HF patients encountered in routine clinical practice in Japan. The impact of anemia on long-term outcomes including mortality and rehospitalization among patients hospitalized with HF was thus assessed. Methods and Results: The Japanese Cardiac Registry of Heart Failure in Cardiology (JCARE-CARD) prospectively studied the characteristics and treatments in a broad sample of patients hospitalized with worsening HF and the outcomes were followed. Study cohorts (n=1,960) were classified into 4 groups by discharge hemoglobin quartiles: <10.1 g/dl (n=482), 10.1-11.9 g/dl (n=479), 12.0-13.6 g/dl (n=487), and ≥13.7 g/dl (n=512). Of the total cohort of HF patients, 57% had anemia, defined by using the World Health Organization definition. Patients with lower hemoglobin quartiles had higher rates of all-cause death, cardiac death, and rehospitalization due to worsening HF. After multivariable adjustment, the risk for all-cause death, cardiac death, and rehospitalization significantly increased with low hemoglobin concentrations. Conclusions: Anemia was quite common especially in patients with HF encountered in routine clinical practice in Japan, and lower hemoglobin was independently associated with long-term adverse outcomes in these patients. (Circ J 2009; 73: 1901-1908)


Abstract Aspidistra subrotata Y. Wan & C.C. Huang, 1987 is considered for the first time as a widespread polyploidy complex in the genus Aspidistra Ker Gawler, 1823 from limestone areas of Asia. The chromosome number of the tetraploid is 2n = 76 and the karyotype is formulated as 2n = 44 m + 8 sm + 24 st, while the chromosome number of the diploid is 2n = 38 and the karyotype formula 2n = 22 m + 4 sm + 12 st. In our studies, diploids occupy broader geographical and environmental niche spaces than tetraploids. Although the leaf-shape of Aspidistra subrotata varies quantitatively between and within diploid and/or tetraploid population(s), no obvious discontinuity in the width of leaf has been observed. The tetraploid plants may be distinguished from the diploid plants by their rigid petioles as well as thick deep green lamina. Aspidistra subrotata is therefore an interesting material to explore the formation and the evolutionary dynamics of a natural polyploid complex from limestone areas of the tropical regions.


Optimal link adaption to the scattering function of wide-sense stationary uncorrelated scattering (WSSUS) mobile communication channels is still an unsolved problem despite its importance for next-generation system design. In multicarrier transmission, such link adaption is performed by pulse shaping, i.e., by properly adjusting the transmit and receive filters. For example, pulse-shaped offset-quadrature amplitude modulation (OQAM) systems have recently been shown to have superior performance over standard cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) (while operating at higher spectral efficiency). In this paper, we establish a general mathematical framework for joint transmitter and receiver pulse shape optimization for so-called Weyl-Heisenberg or Gabor signaling with respect to the scattering function of the WSSUS channel. In our framework, the pulse shape optimization problem is translated to an optimization problem over trace class operators which, in turn, is related to fidelity optimization in quantum information processing. By convexity relaxation, the problem is shown to be equivalent to a convex constraint quasi-convex maximization problem thereby revealing the nonconvex nature of the overall WSSUS pulse design problem. We present several iterative algorithms for optimization providing applicable results even for large-scale problem constellations. We show that with transmitter-side knowledge of the channel statistics a gain of 3-6 dB in signal-to-interference-and-noise-ratio (SINR) can be expected.


The first molybdenum-catalyzed highly regio- and enantioselective allylic amination of both aryl- and alkyl-substituted branched allylic carbonates has been developed. A wide variety of amines, including drugs and complex bioactive molecules, underwent successful amination with excellent reaction outcomes (up to 96% yield, >99% ee, and >20:1 b/l). The reaction could be scaled up and has been applied to the total synthesis of chiral drug molecule (S)-clopidogrel (Plavix).


We operated two identical atmospheric optical turbulence profiling instruments over a period from 15 Mar. to 20 Apr. 1985 at the Air Force Maui Optical Station on Mount Haleakala. The daily average results of looking along common lines of sight through identical atmospheres show systematic differences at lower altitudes and near agreement at higher altitudes. We suspect that spatially nonuniform PMT photocathode responses and incompletely subtracted background noise could significantly affect the turbulence values measured at lower altitudes and contribute to the low altitude systematic differences. The average results of looking along two different lines of sight through different regions of the atmosphere show additional systematic differences at higher altitudes, which are not due to instrument bias. We believe these to be due to genuine horizontal structure in the distribution of atmospheric optical turbulence above the 10-km level.


When approximating the expectations of a functional of a solution to a stochastic differential equation, the numerical performance of deterministic quadrature methods, such as sparse grid quadrature and quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods, may critically depend on the regularity of the integrand. To overcome this issue and improve the regularity structure of the problem, we consider cases in which analytic smoothing (bias-free mollification) cannot be performed and introduce a novel numerical smoothing approach by combining a root-finding method with a one-dimensional numerical integration with respect to a single well-chosen variable. We prove that, under appropriate conditions, the resulting function of the remaining variables is highly smooth, potentially affording the improved efficiency of adaptive sparse grid quadrature (ASGQ) and QMC methods, particularly when combined with hierarchical transformations (i.e. the Brownian bridge and Richardson extrapolation on the weak error). This approach facilitates the effective treatment of high dimensionality. Our study is motivated by option pricing problems, focusing on dynamics where the discretization of the asset price is necessary. Based on our analysis and numerical experiments, we demonstrate the advantages of combining numerical smoothing with the ASGQ and QMC methods over these methods without smoothing and the Monte Carlo approach. Finally, our approach is generic and can be applied to solve a broad class of problems, particularly approximating distribution functions, computing financial Greeks, and estimating risk quantities.