A new signal processing scheme is presented for extracting neural control information from the multi-channel surface electromyographic signal (sEMG). The extracted information can be used to proportionally control a multi-degree of freedom (DOF) prosthesis. Four time-domain (TD) features were extracted from the multi-channel sEMG during a series of anisotonic, isometric wrist contractions, which involved simultaneous activations of the three DOF of the wrist. The forces produced at the three wrist DOFs during these contractions were also collected using a customized force sensor. The extracted features and the recorded force signals, as input/target pairs, were then used to train a multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network. A five-fold cross-validation training/testing method was applied. The resulting performance is a significant improvement over a previously proposed sEMG processing method for the proportional, multi-DOF myoelectric control task.


A dielectric sheet in contact with the radiating structure of a phased array gives rise to scan volume limited by blind spots arising in phase synchronization of one of the Floquet modes with a guided surface wave. Different ways can be utilized to reduce the effects of surface wave propagation such as introducing a gap between the dielectric (cover) and the planar/conformal antenna, appropriate reactive loading of the surface of the antenna, or the inclusion of a high Z surface either on the surface or on the ground plane. These different methods are analyzed and compared for convenient optimum utilization.


Investigation of the Arkansas bauxite deposits by the U. S. Geological Survey during the years 1942 to 1945 has brought out the fact that secondary kaolinization or silication of the bauxite is much more common than has been generally recognized. On the other hand no direct evidence was found of the development of bauxite from kaolin. These facts have led us to reconsider the genetic relations of bauxite and kaolin.We do not mean to deny that there has been direct kaolinization of the nepheline syenite; but in view of the above observations and of the character of the kaolin derived from bauxite, we believe that the relations of bauxite and kaolin in the Arkansas deposits are more readily explained on the assumption that the bauxite is derived directly from the nepheline syenite, rather than from kaolinized nepheline syenite. The silica causing its subsequent kaolinization may be derived from overlying sediments or from remnants of unbauxitized nepheline syenite within or adjacent to it.Our conclusions about the relations of the kaolinized and bauxitized nepheline syenite are based entirely on rock weathered in place.


Ten kinds of the simplified Navier-Stokes equations (SNSE) are reviewed and also used to calculate the Jeffery-Hamel flow as well as to analyze briefly the seven kinds of flows to which the exact solutions of the complete Navier-Stokes equations (CNSE) have been found. Analysis shows that the actual differences among the solutions of the different SNSE can go beyond the range of the order of magnitude of Re-1/2 and result even in different flow patterns, therefore, how to choose the viscous terms included in the SNSE is worthy of notice where Re=S∞u∞ L/μ∞ is the Reynolds numbers. For the aforesaid eight kinds of flows, the solutions to the inner-outer-layer-matched SNSE and to the thin-layer-2-order SNSE agree completely with the exact solutions to CNSE. But the solutions to all the other SNSE are not completely consistent with the exact solutions to CNSE and not a few of them are actually the solutions of the classical boundary layer theory. The innerouter-layer-matched SNSE contains the shear stress causing angular displacement of the inormal axis with respect to the streamwise axis and the normal stress causing expansion-contraction in the direction of the normal axis and the viscous terms being of the order of magnitude of the normal stress; and it can also reasonably treat the inertial terms as well as the relation between the viscous and inertial terms. Therefore, it seems promising in respects of both mechanics and mathematics.


In this paper, we present an analytic model for evaluating the queueing delays and channel access times at nodes in wireless networks using the IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) as the MAC protocol. The model can account for arbitrary arrival patterns, packet size distributions and number of nodes. Our model gives closed form expressions for obtaining the delay and queue length characteristics and models each node as a discrete time G/G/l queue. The service time distribution for the queues is derived by accounting for a number of factors including the channel access delay due to the shared medium, impact of packet collisions, the resulting backoffs as well as the packet size distribution. The model is also extended for ongoing proposals under consideration for 802.11e wherein a number of packets may be transmitted in a burst once the channel is accessed. Our analytical results are verified through extensive simulations. The results of our model can also be used for providing probabilistic quality of service guarantees and determining the number of nodes that can be accommodated while satisfying a given delay constraint.


This review summarizes recent progress and developments as well as the most important pitfalls in targeted alpha-particle therapy, covering single alpha-particle emitters as well as in vivo alpha-particle generators. It discusses the production of radionuclides like 211At, 223Ra, 225Ac/213Bi, labelling and delivery employing various targeting vectors (small molecules, chelators for alpha-emitting nuclides and their biomolecular targets as well as nanocarriers), general radiopharmaceutical issues, preclinical studies, and clinical trials including the possibilities of therapy prognosis and follow-up imaging. Special attention is given to the nuclear recoil effect and its impacts on the possible use of alpha emitters for cancer treatment, proper dose estimation, and labelling chemistry. The most recent and important achievements in the development of alpha emitters carrying vectors for preclinical and clinical use are highlighted along with an outlook for future developments.


Context
Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is commonly associated with obesity, but the prevalence of the syndrome in obese patients is not well established.

Objective
The present study aims to investigate the prevalence of PCOS among overweight and obese premenopausal women and to evaluate the possible associations between the syndrome and metabolic disturbances in obese patients.

Methods
Medical records of all women referred to a single endocrine center because of obesity and/or metabolic disturbances during a three-year period were analyzed. A total of 262 overweight and obese patients of reproductive age were included in the retrospective study.

Results
The overall prevalence of PCOS using the Rotterdam criteria in the group of overweight and obese women was 26%. The degree of obesity did not influence the PCOS prevalence. Women with PCOS had higher blood glucose and insulin levels after glucose load in comparison to other obese patients despite the younger age.

Conclusions
PCOS is a common finding among obese women seeking endocrine help. The oral glucose tolerance test is an important tool for the early detection of carbohydrate disorders in women with the syndrome. Furthermore, screening for PCOS components might be justified in young obese women with pronounced insulin resistance or dysglycemia.


Tricalcium phosphate (TCP) is a porous material that can be used as a bone substitute. One method of making the porous TCP is starch consolidation using wheat particles. This researchaims to determine the effect of composition of wheat particles and sintering time on physical, chemical and mechanical TCP porous prepared by starch consolidation method. Wheat particles with variation of 4 g, 6 g and 8 g mixed with TCP suspension and then stirred for 3 hours. Slurry was dried in an oven at 80oC for 24 hours and 120oC for 8 hours. The dried green bodies inserted into the furnace where the combustion process occured at a temperature of 600oC for 1hour, followed by sintering at a temperature of 1100oC with variation of 1 hour, 2 hours and 3 hours. The results show that more addition of starch cause high shrinkage and porosity with low density and compressive strength. While for long sintering time lead to decline porosity with high shrinkage, density, and compressive strength. Produced sintered body in the addition of starch 4 g with sintering time of 3 hours showed 48.32 % shrinkage with 45.56 % porosity and 5.002 MPa compressive strength.


Abstract Background HIV and HCV are both treatable viruses for which routine screening among specific age cohorts is recommended. New York State requires patient consent prior to screening for HIV but not HCV. To estimate the impact of the consent requirement, we compared rates of HIV and HCV screening. Methods We performed a retrospective study of all adult patients admitted to a tertiary-care hospital in the Bronx, NY, between April 2015 and June 2016. During the study period, automated prompts in the electronic medical record facilitated screening for HIV among patients ages 21–64, and for HCV among patients born between1945-1965. We compared the proportions of patients qualifying for screening for HIV, HCV, or both who were appropriately screened prior to discharge to calculate an adjusted risk difference between performance of HIV and HCV screening. Using the local prevalence of undiagnosed HIV, we estimated the number of missed HIV diagnoses attributable to the difference in screening rates. Results A total of 21,413 unique hospitalized patients ages 21–64 and/or born between 1945–1965 were analyzed. Among those qualifying for screening for HIV alone or HCV alone, 39.7% and 58.6% were screened prior to discharge, respectively. Among those qualifying for both HIV and HCV screening, 6.7% were screened for HIV alone, 29.3% were screened for HCV alone, and 30.3% were screened for both. The risk difference between HCV and HIV screening adjusted for patient and admission characteristics was 22.0% (95% CI 20.6%-23.4%). Using an estimated prevalence of undiagnosed HIV of 0.2%, this risk difference corresponds to approximately four (95% CI 3.6–4.1) missed cases of HIV during the study period. Conclusion There was a large difference in the number of patients appropriately screened for HIV compared with HCV. While the requirement for consent was the only operational difference in performing routine screening for HIV compared with HCV, differences in how the two viruses are perceived may also have contributed to the observed difference in screening rates. Nevertheless, our findings suggest that removing the requirement for consent prior to HIV screening may increase the number of cases of previously undiagnosed HIV identified by routine screening. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.


"Ovid, in his 'Ars amatoria,' adopts the didactic framework in order to elevate the tradition of Latin love elegy and make a name for himself as a poet. In contrast, three of his most famous medieval successors--Andreas Capellanus, Jean de Meun, and John Gower--invert the balance, exploiting the subject of love to instruct their readers in other topics, such as religion, philosophy, and morality. This shift in balance is related to the practice of 'ethical reading,' which emerged in medieval 'grammatica' as a way of approaching classical authors by emphasizing the ethical (and thus educational) potential of their texts. Previous scholarship has established the ethical focus of medieval grammar education and the ways in which that ethical focus influenced medieval readings of classical texts, but this scholarship has rarely continued on to discuss the influence of grammar education on medieval authors. Andreas, Jean, and Gower first encountered imaginative literature in the medieval curriculum, where the texts of classical authors were used to teach students the Latin language. In the grammar classroom, they would have been taught interpretive methods that trained them to identify the utility of what they were reading, whether that utility was conceived of in philological, ethical, philosophical, or even theological terms. Conditioned to read imaginative literature for these didactic purposes, Andreas, Jean, and Gower discovered, in Ovid's 'Ars amatoria,' a text that used love as a platform for didacticism, and a model around which to build their own literary inventions. The literary works that they created--Andreas's 'De amore' (late 12th c.), Jean's continuation of 'Roman de la Rose' (late 13th c.), and Gower's 'Confessio Amantis' (late 14th c.)--are dense, challenging, and multilayered texts that illustrate the process of learning through reading and dialogue, and use the literary discourse of love to teach their students the art of reading." [JGN 33.2.]


We evaluated the effects of pretreatment with ethanolic neem leaf extract on N‐methyl‐N′‐nitro‐N‐nitrosoguanidine (MNNG)‐induced genotoxicity and oxidative stress in male Swiss albino mice. The frequency of micronuclei (MN), concentrations of lipid peroxides and the status of the antioxidants, reduced glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and glutathione‐S‐transferase (GST) were used as intermediate biomarkers of chemoprotection. Animals were divided into four groups of five animals each. Animals in group 1 were given MNNG (40 mg/kg body weight) by intragastric intubation. Animals in group 2 received intragastric administration of ethanolic neem leaf extract at a concentration of 200 mg/kg body weight for 5 days followed by MNNG 1.5 h after the final feeding. Group 3 animals received ethanolic neem leaf extract alone for five days. Group 4 received the same volume of normal saline and served as control. The animals were sacrificed by cervical dislocation 27 h after the carcinogen exposure. In MNNG‐treated mice, enhanced lipid peroxidation with compromised antioxidant defences in the stomach, liver and erythrocytes was accompanied by increase in bone marrow micronuclei. Pretreatment with ethanolic neem leaf extract significantly reduced MNNG‐induced micronuclei and lipid peroxides and enhanced GSH‐dependent antioxidant activities. The results of the present study demonstrate that ethanolic neem leaf extract exerts protective effects against MNNG‐induced genotoxicity and oxidative stress by augmenting host antioxidant defence mechanisms.


Information consumers in online social networks receive information from multiple information providers, which results in confusion. The amount of confusion depends on three main factors-(a) attributes of the source, (b) characteristics of the consumer and (c) trust relation between the information provider and the consumer. While information confusion has been qualitatively observed in social networks, no quantitative model or analysis was presented. We present the first quantitative model to analyze confusion in the presence of multiple information providers. We address the following fundamental issues-(i) What is a good model for confusion? (ii) How does the quality of information degrade due to confusion? (iii) What are good strategies for the information providers to control the power or the intensity with which the information is transmitted? The scenario is modeled as a non-cooperative game with pricing, whose Nash equilibrium provides the solution to the questions posed above. We use data from Twitter (e.g., on full body scan in airports) and diabetes outreach networks to illustrate the analysis. We use the solution of the non-cooperative game to study the confusion levels of consumers, in terms of the aggressiveness and passiveness of the information providers. Results indicate that confusion levels are high in in networks in which all information providers are equally trusted. In networks where information providers are unequally trusted, the confusion levels are moderate.


Vineyards are attacked by a series of pests that damage yield. In addition to the insects traditionally associated with the crop, the presence of Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky, registered as a grain store pest, was observed damaging grapes near maturity. Direct damage is caused by perforation of the grapes and indirect damage from the proliferation of bacteria that multiply in the spilt juice, that lead to increased rot at harvest. In Vitis vinifera grape vines of the Cabernet Sauvignon cultivar, up to 80% of the grapes were damaged by insect attack in February 2003.


The lower extremity exoskeleton robot is a wearable device designed to help people suffering from a walking disorder to regain the power of the legs and joints to achieve standing and walking functions. Compared with traditional robots that include rigid mechanisms, lower extremity exoskeleton robots with compliant characteristics can store and release energy in passive elastic elements while minimizing the reaction force due to impact, so it can improve the safety of human-robot interaction. This paper reviews the compliant characteristics of lower extremity exoskeleton robots from the aspects of compliant drive and compliant joint, and introduces the augmentation, assistive, rehabilitation lower extremity exoskeleton robots. It also prospect the future development trend of lower extremity exoskeleton robots.


This paper describes a 60 GHz-band (output) frequency tripler with I/Q outputs implemented in a production 90 nm CMOS technology . Differential quadrature outputs with high phase accuracy and low amplitude error are required for single-sideband frequency translation. Regenerative peaking reduces power consumption and optimizes the response of the 50 Omega output buffer. The tripler can relax requirements on the design of the PLL synthesizer, as a fundamental (i.e., 60GHz) VCO and high-speed dividers, which may consume more power and compromise performance, are not required. It should be noted that the tripler operating frequency can be selected to fit the desired transceiver architecture and frequency plan.


This study examines the rapid losses and acceleration of trapped relativistic and ultrarelativistic electron populations in the Van Allen radiation belt during the September 7–9, 2017 geomagnetic storm. By analyzing the dynamics of the last closed drift shell (LCDS), and the electron flux and phase space density (PSD), we show that the electron dropouts are consistent with magnetopause shadowing and outward radial diffusion to the compressed LCDS. During the recovery phase, an in‐bound pass of Van Allen Probe A shows an apparent local peak in PSD, which does not exist in reality. A careful analysis of the multipoint measurements by the Van Allen Probes reveals instead how the apparent PSD peak arises from aliasing monotonic PSD profiles which are rapidly increasing due to acceleration from very fast inwards radial diffusion. In the absence of such multisatellite conjunctions during fast acceleration events, such peaks might otherwise be associated with local acceleration processes.


Noise is one of the major serious issues for planetary gear trains (PGTs). This noise is regarded as a noise hazard in certain cases such as helicopter cabins where the sound level reaches 100dB. Herein, planet gears of several precisions are combined to investigate the influence of tooth precision on meshing noise of PGT. The meshing noise of PGTs is generated by stiffness coefficient excitation and error excitation forces; however, the stiffness coefficient excitation is assumed to be constant in this paper because a slight error on the tooth surface does not affect the meshing stiffness. It was found that maintaining the same precision for all planet gears is the best. If one of the planet gears has a precision that is significantly different from that of the others, the sound pressure level increases. The deviation for the maximum error among all meshing pairs, should be restricted to no more than 3μm in case of module one spur gear.


Summary: In the assessment of malignant potential of ovarian tumours, frozen section has been found to be accurate in 97.1% (168 of 173) of cases. The positive predictive value of frozen section in the diagnosis of a malignant lesion was 100% (34 of 34). Errors were mainly made in the diagnosis of borderline tumours with a predictive value of 87.5% (7 of 8). The negative predictive value was 98.4% (127 of 129). Frozen section however, was less accurate in the diagnosis of specific histological type with an accuracy rate of 91.9% (159 of 173). Macroscopic features were found to be useful in the intraoperative prediction of malignant potential. Completely cystic tumours were benign in 96.4% (108 of 167) of cases. Solid/cystic tumours were malignant in 69% (27 of 38) of cases. Completely solid tumours were malignant in 56% (9 of 16) of cases. Frozen section in completely cystic tumours only marginally improved the clinical macroscopic diagnosis of malignancy. The sensitivity and specificity of ultrasound scan in the diagnosis of malignant/borderline tumours were 82% and 86% respectively. The false negative rate of 7% makes laparoscopic excision of unsuspected malignant ovarian cyst a significant possibility. The predictive value of ultrasound scan in the diagnosis of malignant ovarian tumour was 62% (26 of 42). In the preoperative assessment of malignant potential of ovarian tumours, this study shows that ultrasound scan has a high false positive and a significant false negative rate. Careful intraoperative assessment of gross features and the use of frozen section especially in those with solid/cystic and solid tumours will help achieve a high accuracy rate in the assessment of ovarian tumours.


Internal flooding due to pipe breaks can interfere with a plant's ability to safely shut down or maintain the decay heat removal. Flooding simulation tools require information on location of pipe breaks and the degree of damage at each location as input for assessing the flooding risk. This can be especially challenging as the number of potential leakage locations are quite large and the state-of-the-art simulation tools cannot determine the degree of damage at a location. This paper presents a novel simulation-based framework that can be used to determine seismically induced flooding scenarios including the potential locations of leakage and the degree of leakage at each location. The proposed framework builds upon a few recent experimental and simulation-based studies on piping fragilities. This research identifies that a direct use of piping fragility information by flooding simulation tools is not appropriate. This paper presents a new approach that creates mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive events to characterize the complete sample space at each location and employs the total probability theorem to characterize the probabilities for each event in this space. This paper also identifies the importance of including the temporal effects in the piping fragilities in order to allow a more realistic simulation of internal flooding scenarios.


In order to provide differential privacy, Gaussian noise with standard deviation σ is added to local SGD updates after performing a clipping operation in Differential Private SGD (DP-SGD). By nontrivially improving the account method we prove a simple and easy to evaluate closed form ( , δ)-DP guarantee: DP-SGD is ( , δ)-DP if σ = √ 2( + ln(1/δ))/ and T is at least ≈ 2k/ , where T is the total number of rounds, and K = kN is the total number of gradient computations where k measures K in number of epochs of size N of the local data set. We prove that our expression is close to tight in that if T is more than a constant factor ≈ 8 smaller than the lower bound ≈ 2k/ , then the ( , δ)-DP guarantee is violated. Choosing the smallest possible value T ≈ 2k/ not only leads to a close to tight DP guarantee, but also minimizes the total number of communicated updates and this means that the least amount of noise is aggregated into the global model and accuracy is optimized as confirmed by simulations. In addition this minimizes round communication.


Abstract Historians of apartheid 'political corruption' have employed universal definitions which generate normative judgements rather than historical understanding of changing practices and derive measures of corruption from the macro topography of state and society not their actual micro practices. An alternative historical approach recognises political corruption as contingent and requiring situated micro readings to reveal the shifting moral economy of power. This essay offers just such a reading from the inshore fisheries and the early apartheid period (pre-1966) when the extant scholarly literature agrees that 'political corruption' was absent. It traces the endeavours of Dawid Johannes Louw 'Dawie' Walters to secure a lobster export licence for himself over the decade 1955–1964 and argues that his quixotic quest engineered a key shift in state policy to break the inherited Anglo-Jewish monopoly in the fisheries. Walters' lack of education, naiveté and alcoholism ensured that others picked the fruits of his labours, but here too the prevailing moral economy of volkskapitalisme determined who those beneficiaries were.


Objective. To analyze the literature on cervical spine tumors located in the region of the vertebral artery. Material and Methods. Sixty five publications containing data on the surgical treatment of 101 patients with tumors of the cervical spine located in the area of V1–V3 vertebral artery segments were selected for the literature review. Results. The analysis of publications was performed according to the following criteria: demographic data, complaints, histological type of tumor, involvement of the vertebral artery, the performed occlusion test, final embolization or ligation of the artery during surgery, and postoperative complications. The group of patients described in selected publications consisted of 66 men and 35 women, whose average age at the time of surgery was 38.7 years. Acute development of neurological symptoms at the prehospital stage caused by vertebral artery compression was observed in two cases. The C2–C4 vertebrae were most often affected, and the malignant process was confirmed in 70.3 % of cases. In 27 cases, patients underwent an occlusion test of the involved vertebral artery. At the preoperative stage, the final embolization of the artery was performed in 9 cases, the artery was tied during the main operation and removed together with the tumor – in 25, and damaged – in 7. Neurological disorders associated with stopping blood flow through the vertebral artery were noted in two cases. In a number of cases, patients underwent vascular anastomosis with preservation of blood flow at follow-up examination. Conclusion. Taking into account the obtained data and careful preoperative planning will improve the treatment of this group of patients, increase survival, and reduce the risks of possible neurological disorders and tumor recurrence.


From June 1993 to September 1997, a survey was carried out for the prevalence of larval Gnathostoma nipponicum infection in several kinds of frogs, toads, and their tadpoles collected from an endemic area of this nematode in Aomori Prefecture. Two frog species, one of 436 (0.2%) Rana nigromaculata and 51 of 147 (34.7%) R. catesbeiana were infected, and a total of 446 advanced third-stage larvae (AdL3) of G. nipponicum were recovered. These results confirmed that two frog species which can serve as the second intermediate and/or paratenic hosts in the life cycle of G. nipponicum exist in nature. This report is the first record of spontaneous infection of frogs with AdL3 of G. nipponicum.


Background Polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) is a common rheumatologic disease in the elderly population. Several other rheumatologic conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus have been associated with certain forms of cancer. Studies on the relationship between PMR and cancer have yielded mixed results, with one finding up to a 69% increase in the risk of cancer in the first 6 months after diagnosis with PMR while other studies have found no association. These studies have been limited by small sample sizes, limited follow up time and cohort source. Objectives The purpose of this study is to further investigate if, based on data obtained through the Rochester Epidemiology Project, there is an association between PMR and development of cancer. Methods A population-based cohort of PMR patients diagnosed between 1/1/1970 and 12/31/1999 was assembled. A comparison cohort of subjects with similar age and sex was also established. Records of the PMR and comparator subjects were reviewed for details concerning diagnosis of cancer. For each malignancy the date of diagnosis, site and type of malignancy were collected. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data comparing the PMR and non-PMR cohorts. The cumulative incidence of malignancy in patients with and without PMR, adjusted for the competing risk of death, was estimated and compared using methods by Gray. Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess the trends in malignancy over time. Results This study included 359 patients diagnosed with PMR and 357 non-PMR subjects. The individuals in these two comparison groups were similar in age (mean age in years ± SD: PMR 73.5±8.5, non-PMR 73.3±8.5), sex (PMR 66.6% female, non-PMR 66.9% female) and follow up time (mean follow up time in years ± SD: PMR 11.8±6.7, non-PMR 10.7±7.4). There was no significant difference in the prevalence of malignancy prior to PMR incidence date/index date between the two groups, with prior malignancies in 41 (11%) of PMR patients and 50 (14%) of non-PMR subjects (p-value 0.31). Analysis of individual solid and hematologic malignancies also revealed no difference between the two groups. Following PMR incidence, evaluation of the cumulative incidence of malignancy at 10 years for PMR patients and non-PMR subjects also showed no difference between the two groups (cumulative incidence at 10 years ± SE: PMR 13.8±2.0, control 13.1±2.0; p-value 0.89). Conclusions There is no increased risk of malignancy in patients who are diagnosed with PMR when compared to subjects without PMR in this population-based cohort study. Disclosure of Interest None declared


This report presents a framework for developing an intelligent Internet protocol, IIP, for space-based networks. IIP is compatible and interoperable with a variety of application, network, transport, and data link layer protocols. It is adaptive to accommodate the dynamic connectivity of space networks and reconfigurable to enable packets, routers, and protocols to be modified or upgraded remotely. IIP is IP-compatible, self-optimizing, fail-safe, secure, and intelligent with respect to energy and computational constraints of space technologies. IIP supports a variety of space missions for sustainable exploration. It enables autonomy, reusability, and robotic networks. The objectives of developing IIP are: (1) to develop the three building blocks of an intelligent space network protocol: a) intelligent network architecture, b) intelligent packet format, and c) intelligent flexible space router; (2) to determine the necessary IIP intelligence levels for different space network entities; (3) to develop a multi-objective optimization system to allow different routing schemes to support different distributed architectures; (4) to develop multiple levels of intelligent capabilities; which consist of: a) lower level: system requirements identification and upgrade; b) medium level: multi-objective optimization routing; and c) higher level: intelligent decision making capabilities; (5) to use simulation and emulation to measure the performance and analyze the tradeoffs of IIP.


The purpose of this essay is to provide an overview and discuss the results and current situation of the principal programmes and actions taken in Mexico in the last sixteen years to foster social inclusion in higher education, with particular reference to the situation of the indigenous population and some observations on the postgraduate level. I contend that despite a wide range of problems that affect each of such programmes, taken together these actions have laid the groundwork for better informed and effective responses for the next phases of development of similar programmes. The first part of the article addresses the relevance of the subject and our current understanding of it; the second section illustrates the lack of access of the indigenous population to higher education and summarizes the principal programmes and actions that have so far been taken to deal with this situation; the third and final part discusses the progress that has been made and reflects on some important challenges for the years ahead.


Three-dimensional integrated circuit technology with through-silicon vias offers many advantages, including improved form factor, increased circuit performance, robust heterogenous integration, and reduced costs. Wafer-to-wafer integration supports the highest possible density of through-silicon vias and highest throughput; however, in contrast to die-to-wafer integration, it does not benefit from the ability to bond only tested and diced good die. In wafer-to-wafer integration, wafers are entirely bonded together, which can unintentionally integrate a bad die from one wafer to a good die from another wafer reducing the yield. In this paper, we propose solutions that maximize the yield of wafer-to-wafer 3-D integration, assuming that the individual die can be tested on the wafers before bonding. We exploit some of the available flexibility in the integration process, and propose wafer assignment algorithms that maximize the number of good 3-D ICs. Our algorithms range from scalable, fast heuristics to optimal methods that exactly maximize the yield of wafer-to-wafer 3-D integration. Using realistic defect models and yield simulations, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods up to large numbers of wafer stacks. Our results demonstrate that it is possible to significantly improve the yield in comparison to yield-oblivious wafer assignment methods.


In recent years, wireless sensor networks (WSN) have shown success in distributed real-time signal processing systems. In collaborative signal processing environments, each sensor is responsible for extracting pertinent information from the surrounding environment and transmitting it to other sensors and/or to the main processing station. Often times, the sensors operate under a number of constraints, such as limited processing power and low bandwidth. In this paper we propose a collaborative signal processing framework that is implemented in an acoustic monitoring scenario. A low-complexity voice activity detector and a gender classifier are implemented on the Crossbow sensor motes. A series of experiments are presented that characterize the performance of the algorithms under varying SNR conditions and in different environments


The drug-sensitivity and cross-resistance profiles of cloned cell lines of Adriamycin-sensitive and -resistant P388 murine leukemia have been further characterized. A range of drug sensitivity that was more than 50,000-fold was observed for Adriamycin-sensitive cells; the most potent cytotoxic agent was the Adriamycin analog, 3'-(3-cyano-4-morpholinyl)-3'-deamino adriamycin, and the least active compound was vinblastine. Adriamycin-resistant cells, which express the multidrug resistance phenotype, were cross-resistant to the DNA topoisomerase II interactive drugs: actinomycin D, daunorubicin, mitoxantrone, etoposide, and 4'-(9-acridinyl-amino)methanesulfon-m-anisidide, to the vinca alkaloids: vincristine and vinblastine, and to colchicine but not to the Adriamycin analog, 3'-(3-cyano-4-morpholinyl)-3'-deamino adriamycin or the alkylating agent, melphalan. These findings are consistent with other studies suggesting that 3'-(3-cyano-4-morpholinyl)-3'-deamino adriamycin acts as an alkylating agent. Studies with DNA topoisomerase II interactive agents, including mitoxantrone, the DNA intercalator, and etoposide, the epipodophyllotoxin, showed that, as with Adriamycin, cytotoxicity correlated closely with the formation of DNA double-strand breaks.


Abstract Plasma level of chemokine CXCL12 can predict adverse cardiovascular outcomes in patients with coronary artery disease, but data on its relationship with severity of coronary stenosis in cases of severe myocardial infarction (MI) are scarce and conflicting. The objective of this study was to investigate link between plasma CXCL12 levels and different grades of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in statin-treated and -untreated patients with severe MI. A total of 198 consecutive patients with first-time severe MI (ST-elevated myocardial infarction [STEMI], n  = 121 and non-ST-elevated myocardial infarction [NSTEMI], n  = 77) were recruited from Coronary Care Unit, King Abdulaziz University Hospital. They have one to two coronary arteries blocked ≥50%, or three arteries blocked 30 to 49%. Demographic and clinical criteria were collected and plasma CXCL12 level was measured. No correlations were detected between demographic and clinical criteria and CXCL12 level. While troponin peaks and LVEF significantly differed between STEMI and NSTEMI patients, CXCL12 level showed nonsignificant changes. Plasma CXCL12 levels decreased significantly in statin-treated patients compared with those untreated. From receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, high CXCL12 levels were associated with no statin therapy. For STEMI and NSTEMI patients, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for CXCL12 test were 0.685 and 0.820, while sensitivity and specificity values were 75.9 and 54.8%, and 73.1 and 84%, respectively. Plasma CXCL12 levels showed nonsignificant changes with different ranges of LVEF and troponin peaks. In patients with severe MI, irrespective of statin therapy, plasma CXCL12 showed no correlation with different ranges of LVEF suggesting that it cannot predict left ventricular dysfunction in these cases. However, cross-sectional design of this study is a limitation.


Rats were fed a cholesterol-free diet with no added fiber (fiber-free) or with 15 g/100 g beet fiber or 5 g/100 g cholestyramine for 14 d. Final plasma total cholesterol concentrations were significantly lower in rats fed beet fiber than in those fed fiber-free or cholestyramine diets. This difference was due mainly to lower HDL cholesterol concentrations. The group fed beet fiber also tended (P < 0.1) to have lower apolipoprotein A-I concentration in plasma. Northern blot analysis revealed that the relative concentrations of jejunal apolipoprotein A-I and A-IV mRNA were the same in all groups, whereas ileal apolipoprotein A-I and A-IV mRNA levels were significantly lower in rats fed beet fiber or cholestyramine than in those fed the fiber-free diet. Hepatic apolipoprotein E mRNA concentrations were the same in all groups, but apolipoprotein A-I mRNA levels were significantly lower in rats fed beet fiber than in those fed the other diets. Apolipoprotein A-IV mRNA tended (P < 0.1) to be lower in rats fed the beet fiber diet. These data suggest that the hypocholesterolemic effect of dietary beet fiber is associated with diminished expression of the hepatic apolipoprotein A-I gene.


Objectives: The aim of this single-center study was to assess the incidence and predictors of in-hospital access site complications related to transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) performed with new delivery systems in our hospital which has the largest case series in Turkey. Materials and method: We performed successful TAVI with the Edwards Sapien XT valve to 127 (46 male) patients via a transfemoral (121), trans-subclavian (5) and transapical (1) approach. Access site complications were defined according to the Valve Academic Research Consortium (VARC) end-point definitions. Results: Vascular complications occurred in 10.1% of patients. There was negative correlation between vascular complications and diameter of the common femoral artery (r = − 0.301, p=0.004), external iliac artery (r = − 0.327, p=0.004) and common iliac artery (r = − 0.324, p=0.004), but positive correlation between diabetes (r =0.240, p=0.008), sheath to femoral artery ratio (SFAR), sheath to external iliac artery ratio (SEIAR), procedure time, discharge time and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) score (respectively; r=0.339, 0.001, 0.527, 0.361, 0.289, p=0.003, 0.001, 0.001, 0.001, 0.002). The incidence of vascular complications was significantly higher in patients with diabetes and a high STS score. VARC bleeding complications occurred in 11.7 % of patients. The learning curve pointing out the importance of experience was significantly important in decreasing both bleeding and vascular complications. Conclusions: In this study, we demonstrated that major vascular complications related to TAVI decrease with the use of smaller delivery systems and experience and increase with high-risk scores (STS) and the presence of diabetes. In addition, VARC major vascular complications, observed mostly in patients with diabete mellitus (DM) and high STS scores, were associated with vascular diameters. These results further underline the importance of experience and a multidisciplinary team in patient selection and management for TAVI.


In this paper, target identification and trajectory technology are analyzed. The tracking control algorithm based on the photoelectric sensors is proposed. The algorithm utilizes the errors of the location and the signal of route as input parameters, to regulate the output angle of the steering gear. The smart car system includes the straight trajectory control algorithm, the curvy trajectory control algorithm and the S-type trajectory control algorithm according to the different characteristic of the trajectories. The experiment shows that, by using the proposed algorithm, the smart car can move smoothly along the straight trajectory, the curvy trajectory and the S-type trajectory with satisfied accuracy.


Author(s): Tsuruda, Sabine Juliette | Advisor(s): Shiffrin, Seana | Abstract: This dissertation examines understudied aspects of the relationship between work, law, and moral agency. Liberal egalitarianism conceptualizes a just society as a fair system of social cooperation in which members can regard themselves and one another as social equals. Perhaps because workplaces have traditionally been loci of economic and status-based inequality, liberal discussions of the morality of work have tended to center on fair wages and nondiscriminatory access to work. While wages and access are important, liberal theory has neglected the moral agential dimensions of work, such as work's influence over our personal identities and associational lives, and the law's role in securing and communicating our social equality at work. That neglect is regrettable. Workplaces are some of the most pervasive and life-shaping venues for social cooperation, and the liberal ideal of social equality is not merely material. We should also—through our laws and major social institutions—treat one another as equal moral agents, and thus, as equally entitled to the social conditions we need to craft meaningful and moral lives. Through four case studies, this dissertation illustrates how our legal construction and regulation of work can both compromise and support our equal moral agency. Chapter 1 examines legal norms of managerial control and argues that paid workplaces exert systemic pressures on worker expression. Chapter 2 criticizes agricultural guest worker programs for subordinating nonresidents' agential interests in associational freedom to host countries' desires for cheap labor. The second half of this dissertation then argues that workplaces are not merely threats to moral agency, but are also important sites for moral agency. Through discussions of volunteer work and religious workplaces, Chapters 3 and 4 explore the associational interests people have in workplaces as possible venues for sustained cooperation organized around shared values. These interests can be compromised by skill-based specialization and the inegalitarian moral views of employers. While these cases are not exhaustive, they illustrate how workplace equality is not simply material and comparative, but is also a kind of social relation to be fostered through equal consideration of our agential interests in exercising a wide range of expressive liberties.


Background: The development of the Swedish demography is one of the most important social and economic changes ever in Swedish history. Society as well as business is facing an age chock since almost every other company owner is over 50 years old. The complexity of managing a successful succession is pointed out as a major threat to the Swedish economy by the organization Svenskt Naringsliv.Purpose: The purpose with this master thesis is to identify and analyze critical success factors for a successful succession from a going concern perspective.Research method: By using the strong aspects from the quantitative as well as the qualitative method, high level of order and systematic could be reached, without loosing too much details and depth in this particular research. The empirical data was gathered by a digital survey sent to 3000 companies. The quantitative research was complemented by 6 qualitative interviews to increase depth and reliability.Results: The study shows that there is a great incongruence between the expected problems associated to the succession and the actual outcome. Furthermore, there are great differences between the problems prioritized by the companies compared to the ones that their advisers and consultants recommend should be prioritized. The analyses and results lead to a new model for successful succession, The 4-Ps of Successful Succession.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical results of arthroscopic rotator cuff repair in patients with anterior greater tubercle cyst in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Methods: The cyst-present group comprised 38 patients with anterior greater tubercle cyst in MRI, and age- and sex-matched 30 patients without cyst in humeral head were included in the control group. The cystic group was divided into two groups, smaller than 5 mm (21 patients) and larger than 5 mm (17 patients), according to the cyst size. A total of three groups were created. In the evaluation of clinical outcomes, modified University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Index (WORC) were used. The visual analog scale (VAS) was used to assess pain. One-way analysis of variance was used to compare VAS, UCLA, and WORC scores among the groups. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in the clinical results of VAS, UCLA, and WORC among the cystic and noncystic groups in the anterior greater tubercle (p < 0.05). There was also a statistically significant difference in the clinical results of UCLA, WORC, and VAS scores according to the cyst sizes in the anterior greater tubercle cyst group (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Anterior greater tubercle cysts have negative effects on rotator cuff repair results. If the anterior greater tubercle cyst size is greater than 5 mm, the negative effects of rotator cuff repair results are more pronounced. An understanding of anterior greater tubercle cysts has a critical importance for rotator cuff surgery planning.


In two patients, men aged 80 and 75 years with cognitive deterioration, hallucinations and parkinsonism, the clinical diagnosis 'dementia with Lewy bodies' was established. Treatment with an atypical antipsychotic, risperidone and olanzapine respectively, resulted in an exacerbation of the parkinsonism. Rivastigmine evidently improved the psychosis, the anxiety and the cognitive, mood and behaviour disorders. Titrated treatment with levodopa improved the mobility without an increase of the psychosis. The treatment of dementia with Lewy bodies is complex. Levodopa can lead to an increase in visual hallucinations. Antipsychotics often cause serious side effects, such as increasing parkinsonism, sedation and cognitive deterioration. Cholinesterase inhibitors such as rivastigmine could possibly provide an alternative treatment for the neuropsychiatric symptoms.


A methodology for the formal specification of communications protocols is described. Communications protocol software offers special specification problems, because typically such software connects computers which are widely distributed geographically and differ in model, manufacturer and operating system. The specification method discussed is a modified version of traces, which were originally developed as a general technique for software specification. The author first describes the trace language and presents several examples. He then describes the trace methodology, illustrated with a specification of Stenning's protocol. He summarizes his experience of using the methodology to write specifications of major portions of two commercial standards: the Advanced Data Communications Control Protocol (ADCCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP). It is concluded that traces are a feasible technique for formal specification of communications protocols.


Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan's recording of "Stone Cold Dead in the Market" was a major R&B and pop hit in 1946. In narrating a woman's murder of her abusive husband from a sympathetic first-person point of view, the recording's depiction of domestic violence raises the question of how it achieved mass popularity in a cultural milieu that discouraged frank discussion of this topic. This paper attempts to account for this popularity by tracing the musical and lyrical changes between the hit recording and its sources, the Caribbean folk ballad "Payne Dead"/"Murder in the Market" and calypso performer Wilmouth Houdini's 1939 adaptation "He Had It Coming," and by arguing that Fitzgerald and Jordan's adoption of an exoticized West African accent, as well as their public personae, effectively produced a comic and ethnic "mask" from behind which the song's subject matter could be presented with relative frankness.


It is now well known, particularly among surgeons, that in close association of the pancreas and its ducts with the common bile-duct we have an arrangement which is responsible for many cases of pancreatic disease. Recently I have collected the reports of seventythree of my own cases of chronic pancreatitis in which I have verified the diagnosis at operation. Of these, fortyseven (65 per cent.) showed demonstrable disease of the gall-bladder or biliary ducts. Thirty-five, or approximately one-half, had gall-stones at the time of operation. Mayo found gall-stones in 81 per cent, of his cases of pancreatitis and Robson asserts that pancreatitis is associated with stones in the common bile-duct in about 60 per cent, of all cases. From these and similar observations it has become evident, first, that pancreatic disease is far more common than has hitherto been supposed, and, secondly, that a potent cause of pancreatic inflammation is


We present a nonlinear equivalent resistance tracking method to optimize the power output for solar arrays. Tracking an equivalent resistance results in nonlinear voltage step sizes in the gradient descent search loop. We introduce a new model for the combined solar module along with a DC-DC converter which results in a highly nonlinear dynamical system due to the inherent non-linearity of the PV cell topology and the switched DC-DC converter system. To guarantee stability over a range of possible operating regimes, we utilize a feedback linearization control approach to exponentially converge to the setpoint. Simulations are presented to illustrate the performance and robustness of the proposed technique.


Today much relevant questions concern Who get what, when and how?, due to the incredible rise in the remuneration of the economic, cultural and political elites in the large organisations around the world. A suitable conceptual framework for the analysis of the fundamental question, namely Cui Bono?, is the principal-agent approach from recent advances in game theory. The skyrocketing of the salaries and bonuses of CEO:s in the private sector and the spreading out of corrupt practices in the public sector forces the social science to ask the quid pro quo question about the relationship between the remuneration of agents and their delivery of outputs to the principal. It is truly fruitful for the understanding of political organisation in whatever form it takes. Politics everywhere is about contracting, introducing a web of contracts between principal and agents. The shape of these contracts determines the real constitution of a country.


Objectives The aims of the study were to determine bacterial pathogens frequently causing burn infections and their antimicrobial susceptibility patterns, to estimate the prevalence of multidrug resistance (MDR) among the isolated pathogens, and to evaluate the different risk factors for the development of burn wound infection. Background Infection in burn patients remains the significant source of morbidity and mortality. The aggressive use of antimicrobials has improved survival but led to an increased colonization and infection of pathogens that resist current therapies. Materials and methods The study was carried out by collecting swabs from 105 burnt patients during the period from October 2012 to November 2013. Semiquantitative assessment of bacterial growth was performed to distinguish between bacterial colonization and infections. MDR strains were detected including methicillin-resistance and vancomycin-resistance staphylococci and Gram-negative bacilli extended-spectrum b-lactamases and metallo-b-lactamases producers by standardized methods. Results Burn wound infections were polymicrobial in 26.6% of cases. Staphylococcus aureus was the most common aerobic isolate (32.4%). Among S. aureus, 76.5% were MDR strains, 73.5% were methicillin-resistant, and 17.6% were vancomycin resistant. Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) were represented by 16.2%. About 47% of CoNS strains were MDR strains, 47% were methicillin-resistant CoNS, and 23.6% were vancomycin-resistant CoNS. All Gram-negative bacteria isolated from burn wounds were MDR. Extended-spectrum b-lactamases were detected in 58.5%, whereas metallo-b-lactamases were detected in 43.4% of Gram-negative bacteria. The risk factors for burn wound infections were young age, low socioeconomic status, abuse of invasive procedures and antimicrobial, prolonged hospital stay, and improper control of burn-associated comorbidities. Conclusion The study highlights the high prevalence of MDR bacteria infecting burn wound in our hospitals.


In response to various cellular stresses, p53 induces its target genes and suppresses tumor development. However, the anti-tumor function of p53 has not been fully elucidated. The purpose of our study is the identification and functional analysis of novel p53 downstream targets. We conducted cDNA microarray analysis by using Hct116p53+/+ and p53-/- cells treated with adriamycin and identified p53 inducible protein (p53IP) as a novel p53 downstream target. Induction of p53IP mRNA was confirmed by qRT-PCR. We also found that p53IP protein was increased only in Hct116p53+/+ cells by adriamycin treatment. The result of reporter assay and ChIP assay revealed the direct binding of p53 to p53-binding sequence within p53IP promoter. Colony formation assay by using HCT116 cells indicated that ectopic expression of p53IP significantly inhibited tumor cell growth. Furthermore, knockdown of p53IP with siRNA inhibited apoptosis of tumor cells induced by DNA damage. Our findings indicated that p53IP as a important mediator of p53-dependent apoptotic pathway. Citation Format: Jinichi Mori, Paulysally Lo, Chizu Tanikawa, Yusuke Nakamura, Koichi Matsuda. Identification of a novel p53 target regulating p53-induced apoptotic pathway. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 1228. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-1228


This paper presents theoretical predictions for the excess polarizabilities upon excitation from the ground state to the first dipole-allowed excited state (11Bu) of some conjugated oligomers. The excess polarizability was obtained by simulating the Stark shift, which was predicted by the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) with the hybrid Becke-3 Lee–Yang–Parr (B3LYP) potential. The Stark shift in solution was simulated by employing the non-equilibrium integral equation formalism polarizable continuum model (IEFPCM). All the model molecules considered in this study were fully optimized by the Hartree–Fock (HF) method and the density functional theory (DFT) with the B3LYP potential, respectively. For diphenylpolyenes, the excess polarizabilities displayed by the DFT/B3LYP-optimized geometries are more reasonable than those displayed by the HF-optimized geometries when compared with the experimental results. However, this feature is not clearly demonstrated by our results in the cases of oligo(phenylenevinylene)s (OPVs). Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Untreated, air-plasma-bombarded, and b-aminoethyltrimethoxylsilane-silanized glass fabric (GF) was used to prepare GF/phenolic composites by dip coating in a phenolic adhesive resin and successive curing. The tribo-performances of these GF/phenolic composites sliding against AISI-1045 steel were evaluated with a pin-on-disc wear tester. The chemical composition of the untreated and surface-treated GF was analyzed with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectros- copy. The interfacial regions between the phenolic resin and GF and the worn surfaces of the composites were analyzed with scanning electron microscopy. The results show that the GF/phenolic composite with b-aminoethyltrimethoxyl- silane-silanized GF had the highest load-carrying capacity and best tribo-performance, and it was followed by the com- posite with plasma-treated GF. The improved tribo-perform- ance of the GF/phenolic composite made of surface-treated GF was attributed to the strengthened interfacial bonding between the treated GF and the phenolic adhesive resin.


Abstract Background We evaluated the effect of vitamin E and metformin on fatty liver disease in obese children. Methods This interventional study has been done on 119 children with Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (based on sonography results). Patients were divided into four treatment groups; they received metformin 1gr daily (age< 12 years), metformin 1.5 gr daily (age> 12 years), vitamin E 800 U daily and vitamin E 400 U daily. Liver sonography was performed for patients for two periods of two months. This trial was registered in Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT), No.IRCT2013021012421N1 Results The study group comprised 119 individuals (62 females, 57 males). The mean age was 10± 3.19 yr. There was no significant difference in terms of sex and BMI between the groups. Overall liver sonography showed normal liver in 66 patients (55.46%), 66.63% after two months and 33.37% after four months. After two months, the most therapeutic response observed in the group which received vitamin E 800 u daily (48.1%) and the least therapeutic response was in the group which received vitamin E 400 u daily (14.3%). After four months, the greater response was seen in vitamin E 400 u daily group (45.8%) and the least response in the metformin 1 gram daily group (19%). Conclusion In comparison with metformin, vitamin E is more influential in remission; however both are efficient in treatment of fatty liver. Vitamin E 400 u daily responses better in four-month treatment.


Author(s): Copenhagen, Katherine | Advisor(s): Gopinathan, Ajay | Abstract: Collective motion is a widespread phenomenon in nature where individuals actively propel themselves, gather together and move as a group. Some examples of collective motion are bird flocks, fish schools, bacteria swarms, cell clusters, and crowds of people. Many models seek to understand the effects of activity in collective systems including things such as environmental disorder, density, and interaction details primarily at infinite size limits and with uniform populations. In this dissertation I investigate the effects of finite sizes and behavioral heterogeneity as it exists in nature. Behavioral heterogeneity can originate from several different sources. Mixed populations of individuals can have inherently different behaviors such as mutant bacteria, injured fish, or agents that prefer individualistic behavior over coordinated motion. Alternatively, agents may modify their own behavior based on some local environmental dependency, such as local substrate, or density.In cases such as mutant cheaters in bacteria or malfunctioning drones in swarms, mixed populations of behaviorally heterogeneous agents can be modelled as arising in the form of aligning and non-aligning agents. When this kind of heterogeneity is introduced, there is a critical carrying capacity of non-aligners above which the system is unable to form a cohesive ordered group. However, if the cohesion of the group is relaxed to allow for fracture, the system will actively sort out non-aligning agents the system will exist at a critical non-aligner fraction. A similar heterogeneity could result in a mixture of high and low noise individuals. In this case there is also a critical carry capacity beyond which the system is unable to reach an ordered state, however the nature of this transition depends on the model details. Agents which are part of an ordered collective may vary their behavior as the group changes environments such as a flock of birds flying into a cloud. Using a unique model of a flock where the group behaves as a rigid disk reveals interesting behaviors as the system crosses a boundary between interfaces. The collective rotates and reorients or becomes stuck on the boundary as it crosses. I also investigate the effects of variable behavior depending on local density, and find that a frustration driven transient rotational phase arises in clusters where agents with low local density move faster than those with high local density as in cell clusters. All together I have shown that behavioral heterogeneity in collective motion can lead to unique phases and behaviors that are not seen in their homogeneous counterparts.


Damage products that are not in accordance with standards is a major problem for each company, because these problems will cause losses for the company as a result of increasing production costs and lower selling value of products. The quality control system carried out at PT. Sinar Jaya Inti Mulya is still lacking due to a lack of quality control personnel as well as machine maintenance and labor constraints. The purpose of this study was to determine the type and amount of damage that occurred and what factors caused the damage or deterioration of product quality. The method used in this research is explanatory survey method. This type of research is quantitative research with the object of research is product quality control and product damage. Data collection using interviews and documentation. The analytical tool used is to use C Chart analysis, Pareto Chart and Fishbone Analysis. The results of the C Chart analysis research showed that the amount of damage that occurred was still within tolerance limits. The number of product defects based on the order of the number is the highest due to the presence of foreign matter impurities, moisture content and free fatty acid content. The factors that influence product damage are mostly related to workers who do not supervise the production process and lack of quality control personnel as well as other causes such as raw materials and the environment.
Keywords: Control of product quality, product damage


Raptor trapping and banding at migration stations rely upon the use of live lure birds to attract hawks to the trapping area. The use of these lure animals may present raptor researchers with legislative, regulatory, ethical, and logistical challenges. We developed and tested a mechanical alternative to reduce the demands imposed by the use of live lures. The mechanical lure was able to withstand the rigors of field use and was as effective at attracting hawks to the trapping station as live lures during tests in the Marin Headlands, California, USA, 2001. Although resulting in significantly fewer captures, the use of a mechanical lure may be an appropriate alternative in situations where the regulatory and/or ethical environment prohibit the use of live lures and where the logistical demands of maintaining a captive colony of live lures is impractical. © 2013 The Wildlife Society.


It is possible to define the quantity of temporal effects by employing multitemporal data sets to discover changes in nature or in the status of any object based on observations taken at various points in time. It's not uncommon to come across a variety of different methods for spotting changes in data. These methods can be categorized under a single umbrella term.  There are two primary areas of study: supervised and unsupervised change detection. In this study, the goal is to identify the changes in land cover.  Covers a specific area in Kayseri using unsupervised change detection algorithms and Landsat satellite pictures from various years have been gleaned through the use of remote sensing. In the meantime, image differencing is taking place.  The method will be applied to the photographs using the image-enhancing process. In the next step, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is employed.  The difference image will be analyzed using Component Analysis. To find out which locations have and which do not. As a first step, a procedure must be in place.  We've finished registering images one after the other. Consequently, the photos are being linked together. After then, it's back to black and white.  Three non-overlapping portions of the difference image have been created. This can be done using the principal component analysis method.  From the eigenvector space, we may get to the fundamental components. As a last point, the major feature vector space fuzzy C-Means Clustering is used to divide the component into two clusters, and then a change detection technique is carried out. As the world's population grew, farmland expansion and unplanned land encroachment intensified, resulting in uncontrolled deforestation around the globe. This project uses unsupervised learning algorithm K-means clustering. In a cost-effective manner that can be employed by officials, companies as well as private groups, to assist in fighting illicit deforestation and analysis of satellite database.


Venture capital has rebounded thanks to a handful of select venture capitalists. The venture capitalists leading this renaissance are returning to the venture capital model in its most traditional form as a real partner to startups, as a risk-taker, and most importantly as an innovator and disruptor at the fund level. Less than stellar venture capitalists can only hope to replicate these innovative ways in a rapidly changing landscape where they will be forced to adapt or risk being exposed and shepherded out of the ecosystem. The age of easy fundraising has come and gone and with it goes the ability for poor venture capital funds to lurk in the background and ride the coattails of their more innovative counterparts to easy payouts. When taken in conjunction, visibility, disruptive leanings, and hyperactivity are game changers, especially for the fittest venture capitalists. These innovators are doing something about the industry's tarnished reputation. Investors, entrepreneurs, and the "other venture capitalists" should take notice. Care to meet them and understand what they're all about?


In animal breeding, animals originating from different environments are often considered in selection decisions. Production data in these groups may differ both in mean and variance. In South Africa, yearling weights of beef cattle are recorded in two different phases of the National Beef Cattle Improvement Scheme (NBCIS). The aim of this study was to assess changes in the ranking of animals in the selection process where animals are selected on estimated breeding values (EBVs) for yearling weight before and after correcting for heterogeneity between the two phases. Yearling weights are measured in Phases B and D of the NBCIS. Yearling weights recorded in Phase D were adjusted according to the standard deviation and heritabilities of yearling weights in Phase B. To determine whether the adjustment was justified, two VCE REML analyses were performed on combined Phase B and D data to estimate breeding values. The first analysis involved unadjusted Phase D data, while the second run involved Phase D yearling weights, adjusted for heterogeneity. The ranking correlation between EBVs derived from the two runs, was 99% indicating almost no re-ranked after adjustment. It is concluded that Afrikaner yearling weights in Phase B and D can be analysed jointly without any pre-adjustments when estimating breeding values. South African Journal of Animal Science Vol.32(3) 2002: 171-175


One of the most intriguing questions of mankind, if not the most intriguing one, is the question how consciousness arises. Answering this question requires examining the differences between unconsciousness, subconsciousness and consciousness. Especially important is the fact that there are multiple subconscious processes simultaneously, but only one conscious process. Conscious processes can become subconscious, and subconscious processes can become conscious. We show that the switchboard between consciousness and subconsciousness and so to speak the creator of consciousness is the subthalamic nucleus. And we propose a method by which the subthalamic nucleus might control consciousness, namely by monitoring the adrenaline levels of conscious and subconscious processes All principles regarding the creation of consciousness also apply to animals with a brain. We also show how the unique features of human consciousness - language and thinking - are realized neurally and how they are integrated into consciousness and subconsciousness.


IntI1 integrase is a tyrosine recombinase involved in the mobility of antibiotic resistance gene cassettes within bacterial class 1 integrons. Recent data have shown that its recombination specifically involves the bottom strand of the attC site, but the exact mechanism of the reaction is still unclear. An efficient in vitro assay is still required to better characterize the biochemical properties of the enzyme. In this report we describe for the first time an in vitro system partially reproducing the activity of a recombinant pure IntI1. This new assay, which constitutes the only available in vitro model of recombination by IntI1, was used to determine whether this enzyme might be the sole bacterial protein required for the recombination process. Results show that IntI1 possesses all the features needed for performing recombination between attI and attC sites. However, differences in the in vitro intermolecular recombination efficiencies were found according to the target sites and were correlated with DNA affinities of the enzyme but not with in vivo data. The differential affinity of the enzyme for each site, its capacity to bind to a single-stranded structure at the attC site and the recombination observed with single-stranded substrates unambiguously confirm that it constitutes an important intermediary in the reaction. Our data strongly suggest that the enzyme possesses all the functions for generating and/or recognizing this structure even in the absence of other cellular factors. Furthermore, the in vitro assay reported here constitutes a powerful tool for the analysis of the recombination steps catalyzed by IntI1, its structure-function studies and the search for specific inhibitors.


Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), known to inhibit cyclooxygenase (COX), reduce the risk of colorectal cancer. COX is a key enzyme in prostaglandin biosynthesis, and two isoforms of COX, COX-1 and COX-2, have been identified. Recently COX-2 has been reported to frequently overexpress in colorectal neoplasms and to play a role in colorectal tumorigenesis and tumour progression. In this study, using immunohistochemistry, we examined COX-2 expression in advanced human colorectal cancer and its correlation with clinicopathological features. COX-2 expression was observed mainly in the cytoplasm of cancer cells in all the specimens examined, but some stromal cells and endothelial cells were also stained. According to the grade of COX-2 expression of the cancer cells, patients were divided into high- and low-COX-2 expression groups. High-COX-2 expression significantly correlated with tumour recurrence, especially haematogenous metastasis. These results suggest that a selective COX-2 inhibitor can be a novel class of therapeutic agents not only for tumorigenesis but also for haematogenous metastasis of cololectal cancer. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the correlation between COX-2 overexpression and recurrence of colorectal cancer. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign


With the help of mathematical modeling, the features of the distribution of North Sea waters in the Bornholm basin are considered on the example of a large inflow occurring in January 2003. For better resolution of bottom processes in the bottom density flow model, the computational domain is split vertically into bottom and overlying areas. In the lower region with a thickness of 20 m, the vertical grid spacing is 1 m. The basic equations of the model are transformed for each of the regions using σ-coordinate. According to the simulation results, the features of the distribution of North Sea water are highlighted, as well as the associated change in the salinity field in the overlying layer. Estimates of the possible influence of runoff currents on the distribution of North Sea waters are obtained.


Follow-up studies of low-birth-weight (LBW) neonates have shown a high incidence of growth failure in the first years of life. We evaluated the growth attainment (weight, length and head circumference) in 182 LBW neonates discharged from our Intensive Care Unit between 1982-84 and included in a 3 years follow-up program. The aim of the study is to analyze the correlation between gestational age (GA) and subsequent growth failure. Neonates included in the study were divided in 4 groups (G) according to GA: I G < or = 30 weeks GA; II G = 31-33 weeks GA; III G = 34-36 weeks GA; IV G > or = 37 weeks of gestational age. Growth was evaluated at 40 weeks GA on the basis of Lubchenco and Battaglia centiles, and thereafter at 12, 24 and 36 months according to Scalamandrè greeds. Subnormal weight (< 10 degrees centile) was still evident at 3 years of age in 16.7% of the most premature babies (group I), in 6.2% of babies born between 31 and 33 weeks GA (group II), in 7.1% of babies in group III and in 16.6% of LBW babies born at term of gestation (group IV). Length measurements were satisfactory in PT babies as none of them showed a length < 10 degrees centile by 24 months of age. On the contrary, in the term LBW neonates group 15.6% of babies still showed subnormal length at 3 years of age. Head circumference remained < 10 degrees centile in 16.6% in the I group, in 6.2% in the II group, 21% in the III group and 30% in the IV group.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


The goal of this grant was to study lasers, laser devices, and uses of lasers for investigating physical phenomena are studied. The active projects included the development of a tunable, narrowband XUV light source and its application to the spectroscopy of core excited atomic states, and the development of a technique for picosecond time resolution spectroscopy of fast photophysical processes.


Soaring health care costs have made prevention programs an attractive prospect for corporate America. To survive in the 1990s, Hospitals need to move into the preventive services market. If they don't, non-medical corporations will seize this opportunity, according to Lawrence T.P. Stifler, Ph.D., president, Health Management Resources, Boston.


Intraluminal delivery of antisense oligonucleotides to c-myb was assessed following balloon angioplasty in swine peripheral arteries. Successful delivery and intramural persistence of oligonucleotide for over 24 h were demonstrated following angioplasty with hydrogel balloons coated with 32P-labeled antisense. Delivery of fluorescein-labeled antisense demonstrated further localization within the arterial media and intracellularly. Preliminary in vitro studies demonstrated the feasibility of inhibition of porcine lymphocyte proliferation using the murine antisense to c-myb. Twelve iliac or carotid arteries underwent angioplasty with antisense-coated balloons, while the contralateral vessels underwent angioplasty with the same-sized balloons coated with the complementary sense strand. Six to seven days later, dilated arterial segments were surgically isolated. In 10 of 12 vessel pairs, antisense-treated vessels demonstrated less cellular proliferation than did contralateral sense-treated vessels, as assessed by quantitative immunohistochemical staining of proliferating cell nuclear antigen, and smooth muscle cell proliferation was reduced 18% in antisense-treated vessels compared to the contralateral sense-treated vessels (PCNA-positive nuclear area: 7.7 +/- 4.9% vs. 9.3 +/- 5.2%, P < 0.04)-intraluminal delivery of antisense oligonucleotides to c-myb is feasible with a catheter-based system and may reduce smooth muscle cell proliferation following arterial injury.


This paper examines the determinants of general practitioner (GP) utilisation patterns in Ireland
over the period 1987-2001. Using three different micro-data sets, the influence of socio-economic
factors as well as health status variables on the demand for GP visits is analysed. A particular
focus of this paper is an examination of the impact of economic incentives as represented by
medical card eligibility. While medical cardholders are entitled to free GP consultations, nonmedical
cardholders must pay for each visit. In addition, it is important to analyse the impact of
the 1989 change in the reimbursement system for GPs with medical cardholder patients from fee
for service to capitation. A variety of cross-sectional econometric methodologies are considered
with the two-step hurdle negative binomial model found to be the most appropriate. The
empirical results confirm the results of earlier studies about the effects of socio-economic
characteristics such as age, sex and income on GP utilisation patterns and also confirm the highly
significant effects of health status. While medical card eligibility is consistently positive and
significant across the years of our analysis (1987, 1995, 2000, 2001), there is no evidence to show
that this effect diminished in importance between 1987 and 1995.


Forget the fiddling and tinkering that accompany budget reductions of 2 and 3 percent; in fact, forget the entire status quo of cost containment. Even in markets where managed care is not yet a major force, proactive CEOs in places like Middletown, CT, and Johnson City, TN, are challenging their staffs to undergo the most strenuous fitness tests of their professional lives, as they bring cost-cutting to new levels.


This thesis argues that American exceptionalism is a necessary, but insufficient,
way of reading U.S. foreign policy. Exceptionalism is employed by different
ideologists in different ways and in differing contexts. This thesis employs the
contextualist methodology of Quentin Skinner to challenge proleptic, static
understandings of American exceptionalism and, in doing so, uncovers American
grand strategy as a keenly contested ideological battleground. In each constituent
case study, the thesis identifies the ideological innovators of American strategic
policy and the key moments of ideological innovation, and examines why
ideological innovations became conventional, or not.
The analysis proceeds with an introduction to the composition of grand strategy,
continues with an examination of Quentin Skinner's version of Cambridge School
contextual analysis, and then places Skinnerian contextualism within the broader
framework of International Relations theory. This analysis illustrates the
methodological advantage of Skinnerian contextualism, which allows the
reconstruction of the context in which past generations of ideological innovators
operated and conceived of the world and the place of the United States within it.
This specific type of analysis demonstrates ideological innovation in practice at
four pivotal moments in American foreign policy: first, the emergence of
containment as the cornerstone of the Truman Doctrine at the outset of the Cold
War; second, detente and the supposed injection of realism into American foreign
policy; third, President Clinton's strategy of enlargement and the place of
American exceptionalism in the aftermath of the Cold War; and, fourth, the Bush
Doctrine and the interaction between American exceptionalism and
neoconservatism.
The thesis concludes by stressing the particularities of historical context, having
demonstrated that, although exceptionalism has rarely been the only causal
dynamic of American grand strategy, it has consistently provided the context with
which innovating ideologists have been required to engage in order to create their
own version of grand strategy.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Different rituximab protocols are used to treat membranous nephropathy. We compared two rituximab protocols in patients with membranous nephropathy.

DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS
Twenty-eight participants from the NICE cohort received two infusions of 1-g rituximab at two-week intervals, whereas 27 participants from the Prospective Randomized Multicentric Open Label Study to Evaluate Rituximab Treatment for Membranous Nephropathy (GEMRITUX) cohort received two infusions of 375 mg/m2 at one-week interval. We measured serum rituximab levels and compared remission at month six and before any treatment modification and analyzed factors associated with remission and relapses.

RESULTS
Remissions occurred in 18 (64%) versus eight (30%) from the NICE and GEMRITUX cohort (P=0.02) at month six, respectively, and in 24 (86%) versus 18 (67%) participants (P=0.12) before treatment modification, respectively. Median time to remission was 3 [interquartile range (IQR), 3-9] and 9 [IQR, 6-12] months for NICE and GEMRITUX cohorts respectively (P=0.01). Participants from the NICE cohort had higher circulating level of rituximab and lower CD19 counts (3.3 µg/L [IQR, 0.0-10.8] versus 0.0 [IQR, 0.0-0.0] P<0.001 and 0.0 [IQR, 0.0-2.0] versus 16.5 [IQR, 2.5-31.0] P<0.001) at month three, lower level of anti-PLA2R1 antibodies at month six (0.0 [IQR, 0.0-8.0] versus 8.3 [IQR, 0.0-73.5] P=0.03). In the combined study population, lower epitope spreading at diagnosis and higher rituximab levels at month three were associated with remissions at month six (13/26 (50%) versus 22/29 (76%) P=0.05 and 2.2 µg/ml [IQR, 0.0-10.9] versus 0.0 µg/ml [IQR, 0.0-0.0] P<0.001 respectively). All non-spreaders entered into remission whatever the protocol. Eight of the 41 participants who reached remission had relapses. Epitope spreading at diagnosis (8/8 (100%) versus 16/33 (48%) P=0.01) and incomplete depletion of anti-PLA2R1 antibodies at month six (4/8 (50%) versus 5/33 (9%) P=0.05) were associated with relapses.

CONCLUSIONS
Our work suggests that higher dose rituximab protocol is more effective on depletion of B-cells and lack of epitope spreading is associated with remission of membranous nephropathy.


The development of small molecular mass Hsp90 inhibitors has become an increasingly competitive field of research in recent years. Progress in preclinical and clinical research has provided increasing evidence that Hsp90 represents a promising molecular target for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. Although many challenges remain, recent clinical trial results for the most clinically advanced inhibitors indicate that clinical proof of concept in oncology therapy is achievable, and that Hsp90 inhibitors have the potential to contribute to the collection of anticancer treatments available to clinicians and patients in the near future.


In the present study, natural convection of nanofluids in a concentric
 horizontal annulus enclosure has been numerically simulated using the lattice
 Boltzmann method. A water-based nanofluid containing Al2O3 nanoparticle has
 been studied. Simulations have been carried while the Rayleigh number ranges
 from 103 to 105 and solid volume fraction varies between 0 and 0.04. The
 effects of solid volume fraction of nanofluids on hydrodynamic and thermal
 characteristics such as average and local Nusselt numbers, streamlines and
 isotherm patterns for different values of solid volume fraction, annulus gap
 width ratio and Rayleigh number are investigated and discussed in detail.


As a continuation of our theoretical studies on nucleic acid subunit systems, in this article we consider the case of the tetranucleoside d-GpCpGpC, the minimally ideal representative unit for analyzing the relative stabilities of different forms of homo- and mixed helical conformation of polynucleotides. The four sugar rings are kept so as to generate B-genus, B+A genus and Z-genus conformations. Twenty five helical conformational states which resulted from judicious mixing of A-, B-, C-, W-, and Z-, states locally are subjected to energy minimization permitting the 19 dihedral angles to vary simultaneously. Conformational states corresponding to regular helical forms and mixed helical forms, when analyzed provide valuable information as to the local conformational flexibility and transitions available to polynucleotides.


The duration of observation at a site of interest is generally too low to reliably estimate marine extremes. Regional frequency analysis (RFA), by exploiting the similarity between sites, can help to reduce uncertainties inherent to local analyses. Extreme observations in a homogeneous region are especially assumed to follow a common regional distribution, up to a local index. The regional pooling method, by gathering observations from different sites into a regional sample, can be employed to estimate the regional distribution. However, such a procedure may be highly affected by intersite dependence in the regional sample. This paper derives a theoretical model of intersite dependence, dedicated to the regional pooling method in a "peaks over threshold" framework. This model expresses the tendency of sites to display a similar behavior during a storm generating extreme observations, by describing both the storm propagation in the region and the storm intensity. The proposed model allows the assessment of (i) the regional effective duration of the regional sample and (ii) different regional hazards, e.g., return periods of storms. An application to the estimation of extreme significant wave heights from the numerical sea‐state database ANEMOC‐2 is provided, where different patterns of regional dependence are highlighted.


We show that the topological polar surface area (TPSA) descriptor and the radial distribution function (RDF) applied to electronic and steric atom properties, like the conjugated electrotopological state (CETS), are the most relevant features/descriptors for predicting the human intestinal absorption (HIA) out of a large set of 2934 features/descriptors. A HIA data set with 196 molecules with measured HIA values and 2934 features/descriptors were calculated using JOELib and MOE. We used an adaptive boosting algorithm to solve the binary classification problem (AdaBoost.M1) and Genetic Algorithms based on Shannon Entropy Cliques (GA-SEC) variants as hybrid feature selection algorithms. The selection of relevant features was applied with respect to the generalization ability of the classification model, avoiding a high variance for unseen molecules (overfitting).


From the recent availability of images recorded by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) airborne systems, automatic results of digital elevation models (DEMs) on urban structures have been published lately. This paper deals with automatic extraction of three-dimensional (3-D) buildings from stereoscopic high-resolution images recorded by the SAR airborne RAMSES sensor from the French Aerospace Research Center (ONERA). On these images, roofs are not very textured whereas typical strong L-shaped echoes are visible. These returns generally result from dihedral corners between ground and structures. They provide a part of the building footprints and the ground altitude, but not the building heights. Thus, we present an adapted processing scheme in two steps. First is stereoscopic structure extraction from L-shaped echoes. Buildings are detected on each image using the Hough transform. Then they are recognized during a stereoscopic refinement stage based on a criterion optimization. Second, is height measurement. As most of previous extracted footprints indicate the ground altitude, building heights are found by monoscopic and stereoscopic measures. Between structures, ground altitudes are obtained by a dense matching process. Experiments are performed on images representing an industrial area. Results are compared with a ground truth. Advantages and limitations of the method are brought out.


CONCLUSION: Facial bone contouring procedures such as malar and mandibular angle reduction surgeries are getting popular to improve the wide facial features with economic development in Asia. However, it can result in soft tissue drooping in cheek or jowl. Asian distinct facial characteristics make achievement of satisfactory results relatively difficult in facelift. The author utilizes 'high SMAS facelift with finger-assisted facial spaces dissection', which incorporating highSMAS, extended SMAS, and FAME procedures is effective to improve this unsatisfactory postoperative outcome.


This paper describes a program called Hob that uses analogical mappings across narratives to drive an experimental conversational system. Analogical mappings are used to drive internal reasoning processes and supply response templates. The knowledge base is written in simple English, and consists of three parts: a dictionary, a collection of facts and heuristics, and a collection of stories that notionally correspond to an experience base. Internally, knowledge is stored and used in the form of near-canonical English parse trees. Thus the schema is not hardwired, but is derived from the knowledge base as interpreted under the rules and implications of English grammar. An experimental "sellbot" application is described, and example runs are presented.


The limitations of single wavelength elastic scatter lidar with regard to retrieving various optical or microphysical properties of the observed aerosols are well known. Typical retrieval methodologies rely on elastic scatter information at at least two wavelengths, together with either temporally or geographically inferred estimates of the extinction-to-back-scatter ratio Sa, or aerosol model parameters which constrain the solution in such a way as to be consistent with the optical properties of commonly observed aerosol types. High spectral resolution lidars (HSRL) now facilitate unambiguous, direct measurement of aerosol extinction and backscatter profiles, greatly augmenting the level of information available for determining aerosol type or other relevant parameters. In this paper, we explore a methodology for using HSRL data at one wavelength to facilitate retrievals from traditional elastic scatter data at other wavelengths. Further, we extend the scope of the technique to improving aerosol models used to constrain retrievals from multi-wavelength elastic scatter lidars. We explore this methodology in the context of currently available HSRL technology as well as anticipated future spaceborne HSRL systems.


OBJECTIVE
To understand the relationship of schistosome infection with environment and the behavioral characteristics of residents in Jingzhou area.

METHODS
The schistosomiasis patients (positive in stool examinations) were investigated with the questionnaire at home. The content of questionnaire included the hygienic and environmental situation, the behavioral characteristics of the residents, and the treatment of schistosomiasis patients.

RESULTS
A total of 1 552 schistosomiasis patients were investigated, and the proportion of the patients aged from 45 to 60 years was 81.0% and the proportion of the patients aged more than 65 years was 9.7%. In Gong'an County and Jianli County, in daily life, the water contact included ditch water (0.7%), running water (43.0%), and well water (56.3%). In product activities, the water contact included farming (48.3%), fishing, and fighting flood. The peak period of water contact was from May to July. Totally 91.24% of the residents knew whether there were Oncomelania snails in their fields, and the snails could be detected in 18.6% of their fields or 10 meters around. There were 8.14% of schistosomiasis patients did not take the medicine last year, and 1 007 persons (64.88%) who took the medicine last year were re-infected in next year.

CONCLUSIONS
Productive activities are the main water contact ways in the 2 counties researched. It is the key measures to change the environment and the pattern of agricultural production in rural areas for schistosomiasis control.


Only PTPN12, MSH6, and ZEB1 have significant miR-1279 binding sites among paralogous genes of human tyrosine phosphatase family, DNA mismatch repair family, and zinc finger family, respectively. All miRNA binding sites are located within CDSs of studied mRNAs. Nucleotide sequences of hsa-miR-1279 binding sites with mRNAs of human PTPN12, MSH6, and ZEB1 genes encode TKEQYE, EGSSDE, and GEKPYE oligopeptides, respectively. The conservation of miRNA binding sites encoding oligopeptides has been revealed. MRNAs of many paralogs of zinc finger gene family have from 1 to 12 binding sites coding the same GEKPYE hexapeptide. MRNAs of PTPN12, MSH6, and ZEB1 orthologous genes from different animal species have binding sites for hsa-miR-1279 which consist of homologous oligonucleotides encoding similar human oligopeptides TKEQYE, EGSSDE, and GEKPYE. MiR-548j, miR-548m, and miR-548d-5p have homologous binding sites in the mRNA of PTPN12 orthologous genes which encode PRTRSC, TEATDI, and STASAT oligopeptides, respectively. All regions of miRNA are important for binding with the mRNA.


The enlargement of the middle concha as a pneumatized cavity is defined as concha bullosa. Concha bullosa is one of the most frequently encountered anatomic variations inside the nose. The histopathological changes caused by the infections that occur following the impairment of aeration of the conchal cavity filled with air are frequently found. Polyps, submucous cysts, cholesteatomas, ossifying fibromas and pyoceles have been found in concha bullosa. However, in our literature search, we have found only one case published up to date where presence of mycosis in concha bullosa was reported. In this article we presented a 19-year-old female patient. The patient was admitted to our clinic with the complaints of headache, left ocular pain, and nasal obstruction in July 2009. In her nasal endoscopy and paranasal computed tomographic examination, nasal septum deviation and concha bullosa were detected, calcified areas inside her left middle concha bullosa were noted. In the magnetic resonance imaging examination performed thereon, we found findings confirming the presence of mycosis. The patient was endoscopically operated. The histopathological examination of the removed material was reported as aspergilloma. This case was found worth presenting due to the location of concha bullosa and its rare occurrence in this location.


The status of heavy metal contamination of surface soils in two cocoa plantations of approximately 30 years in Cameroon was evaluated. The bioavailable fractions of Fe, Cu, Zn, Cd and Cr were used to assess the extent of heavy metal contamination using a selection of contamination indices. In addition, other physicochemical properties including organic matter, particle size, CEC and pH were assessed. One of the farms was dominated by sand (64.56 - 73.46% sand) in contrast to the other (2.56 to 37.51%) and the latter had a higher clay content. The order of abundance of heavy metals, as expressed by the mean values, is as follows: Fe > Cu > Zn > Cr > Cd in soils from the two areas. Contamination factors of Cu-, Zn- and Cd are considerable for clay-dominated soil. The potential ecological risk of the metals in both soils was low with the exception of Cd in the clayey soil. Results for hazard assessment showed Cu levels were within the low ISQC sediment criteria in the clay-dominated soil; possibly linked to the long-term application of Cu-fungicide.

 Key words: Heavy metal, contamination indices, cocoa plantation, Cameroon.


The problem of approximating a matrix by one of lower rank occurs in a number of signal processing problems, including reduced rank Wiener filtering and reduced rank maximum likelihood estimation. This paper derives a novel algorithm for computing the optimal rank-reduced approximation of a given matrix under an arbitrary weighted norm. Simulations demonstrate the advantages of the algorithm over the traditional alternating projections algorithm.