Lasers are increasingly important components within biological imaging and analysis systems. Applications range from flow cytometry to confocal and multi-photon microscopy. However, many commercial imaging systems are still limited in performance by the availability of suitable laser sources-limited in the availability of wavelengths and in the size, cost, power and reliability of conventional laser technologies. Ultrafast fibre lasers offer turnkey, compact and reliable solutions for next generation biomedical imaging systems.


The term "halogen molecule" is intended to include the interhalide compounds as well as the elementary molecules. The existence of three of the ten possible molecules of this type, namely, IF, BrF, and CIF, has not yet been established, and we have not attempted any spectroscopic search for them. For F2 the data are meagre, only an emission spectrum being known, and we have therefore confined our attention to the other six molecules, namely, CI2, Br2, I2, BrCl, ICI, and IBr. The spectra of these, with the exception of BrCl, have been extensively investigated, and partially interpreted. There are certain features, however, notably the continua and diffuse bands observed in emission, which have not yet been satisfactorily explained, and we have set out to survey the existing data systematically and, where necessary, to obtain new data with the object of accounting for these features. The problem of obtaining satisfactory data of continua and diffuse bands is definitely different from that involved in the case of line and ordinary band spectra. Not only is it more difficult to make accurate visual settings for the purpose of wave-length determinations, but it becomes of much more importance to record the intensity distribution, which is often very characteristic and undoubtedly significant. For these reasons we have thought it essential to obtain and reproduce microphotometer records in all experiments, and to determine wave-lengths solely from these records. Quite low dispersion has been used, and appears very suitable for a general survey, although a more detailed investigation using higher dispersion may well prove profitable later. It seemed important to us to get strictly comparable data in all observations, and it has therefore been necessary to redetermine some of the existing data, which although numerous are seldom complete or homogeneous. A number of entirely new data are also presented. Some consideration must first be given to the known band systems of these molecules, since they provide evidence relating to the location and characteristics of molecular levels, some at least of which may be expected to be concerned in the emission of the continua and diffuse bands.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this article is to describe the development and testing of the Pediatric Emergency Decision Support System (PEDSS), a dynamic tool for pediatric victim disaster planning.

DESIGN
This is a descriptive article outlining an innovative automated approach to pediatric decision support and disaster planning.

SETTINGS
Disaster Resource Centers and umbrella hospitals in Los Angeles County.

PATIENTS
The authors use a model set of hypothetical patients for our pediatric disaster planning approach.

RESULTS
The authors developed the PEDSS software to accomplish two goals: (a) core that supports user interaction and data management requirements (e.g., accessing demographic information about a healthcare facility's catchment area) and (b) set of modules each addressing a critical disaster preparation issue.

CONCLUSIONS
The authors believe the PEDSS tool will help hospital disaster response personnel produce and maintain disaster response plans that apply best practice pediatric recommendations to their particular local conditions and requirements.


This design note describes an inexpensive system used to control the radiofrequency field generated by magnetic resonance coils. The device is built around three main modules, a sequencer, a modulator and a phase-sensitive detector. This system permits one to detect the radiofrequency field at each point of the region of interest using a pick-up coil, without the requirement of a magnetic resonance spectrometer. Examples of radiofrequency field distributions obtained at 85 MHz are given.


BACKGROUND
The anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitides are a group of heterogeneous diseases. This study was undertaken to investigate the outcome of Wegener's granulomatosis (WG), microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) and renal-limited vasculitis (RLV). Furthermore, we analysed the differences in patients with proteinase 3-ANCA (PR3-ANCA) and those with myeloperoxidase-ANCA (MPO-ANCA), which have not been assessed in a homogeneously treated group of patients with renal involvement.

METHODS
In this retrospective analysis, 80 patients with a new diagnosis of WG, MPA or RLV with biopsy-proven renal involvement were followed over a median of 46.7 months (range: 0.8-181.9 months). All patients had induction treatment with cyclophosphamide and oral corticosteroids.

RESULTS
At the end of follow-up, 23% were dependent on dialysis. Renal survival was significantly worse in patients with WG compared with patients with MPA or RLV (P = 0.04). A higher rate of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) was noticed in PR3-ANCA- vs MPO-ANCA-positive patients. A total of 21 patients (26%) died. Predictors of patient mortality were development of ESRD, older age and the maximum creatinine in the first month. Mortality was found to be higher in patients with WG and was significantly higher in PR3-ANCA-positive cases (P = 0.02). The relative risk of death was 9.32 times higher in PR3-ANCA- vs MPO-ANCA-positive patients.

CONCLUSIONS
Our data underscore the pathogenetic potential of ANCA by demonstrating a more aggressive disease state and a poorer outcome in patients with PR3-ANCA.


Purpose Autoimmune diseases arise from an abnormal immune response of the body against self-proteins leading to tissue and organ damage. The excessive production of harmful autoantibodies (AAB) is a hallmark of autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc) and Sjogren's syndrome (SjS). Also in cancer research, it has been recently shown that AABs are useful to characterise patients. The characterisation of patient subgroups by means of stratification is essential for the efficient development of therapies, but often difficult due to the lack of appropriate biomarkers. Personalised or precision medicine approaches rely on appropriate multivariate multiplexing technology and data analysis. AABs serve as diagnostic markers for various autoimmune diseases, but the co-occurrence of AABs has rarely been analysed and is difficult to comprehend. Detecting a broad set of AABs helps to investigate the similarity between patients. A multiplex signature enables clustering for the investigation of relationships and patterns, which can be related to relevant clinical variables. Methods Here, we illustrate Luminex bead-based AAB assays using a set of 96 biomarker targets and their utility to characterise SLE and SSc as well as cancer study groups. Data analysis is based on bi-clustering algorithms and a prevalence and signature analysis of the markers. Cluster analysis was also performed using transformed data sets (qualitative) to investigate and visualise characteristic marker prevalence and co-prevalence patterns. Results Based on the individual marker pattern, patients can often be stratified belonging to different study subgroups. For example, for SLE we show that different reactivity groups exist including patients with different disease activity scores and organ damage patterns. Conclusions We conclude that the approach of a comprehensive prevalence and signature analysis and a vivid data visualisation is useful for any multiplex omics assay.


The Feeney Amendment to the PROTECT Act of 2003 restricted judicial discretion to make downward departures. Supporters of the Amendment argued that federal district court judges were increasingly departing below the ranges specified in the Sentencing Guidelines, reducing sentences and increasing sentencing disparities. Using data on all federal criminal sentences between 1993 and 2001, this article argues that federal sentencing practices did not change appreciably over the relevant time period. First, while the rate of downward departures increased, much of the increase can be explained by a number of potentially relevant variables such as type of offense, the offense level, district of sentencing, and offender characteristics. Second, even though downward departures were more frequent, average total prison sentences hardly changed. Third, there is no evidence that the increasing number of Democratic appointees on the federal district court bench affected average prison sentences or the rate of downward departures. Finally, the influence of Guidelines factors on prison sentences has remained constant.


We herein report an experimental and theoretical study on preferential solvation effects for the reactions of 1-fluoro and 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene towards morpholine in acetonitrile, water and mixtures of them of varying compositions. A detailed kinetic study opens the possibility of analyzing preferential solvation and reaction rates. The kinetic study was complemented with an exploration of the potential energy surface in order to analyze the nature of the molecular interactions. For the fluorine derivative, this analysis reveals that the solvation of the TS in the mode TS1F-water/MeCN clearly outweighs the solvation of TS1F-MeCN/water, thereby suggesting that there is preferential solvation in favor of the aqueous phase.


Skin burns are usually caused by contact with fire, heat, electricity, light, radiation, hazardous chemicals and friction. The degree of the burn is classed based on the extent and depth of the burn. A third-degree burn is classed as a severe burn and compression therapy is universally accepted as the treatment to manage hypertrophic scarring caused after such burns. This paper describes the types of burns and the different types of treatments available and reviews the types of compression garments that are commercially available for the management of hypertrophic scarring after severe burns. The Laplace equation that is used to model a pattern-cutting chart has been refined to predict the sub-garment pressure more accurately, irrespective of the shape and size of the limb. This model's accuracy was further validated by constructing garments for the arms and legs of a male volunteer and measuring the actual pressures by using a Kikuhime pressure measuring device.


This paper aims at shedding the light on the obstacles and challenges that hamper the performance and contribution of small and medium enterprises in Yemen and their contribution to the economic development. It is based on an in-depth review of international organizations reports about Yemen and the development of the business sector, reports on the performance of small enterprises and business environment during the current condition. The challenges that face small businesses in Yemen are serious and they need years if not decades to be contained from hampering the business performance and the contribution to GDP. These challenges are grouped into two sets, the first set is concerned about the historical challenges that had been facing SMEs for long time, and the other set is concerned about the emerging challenges that came to affect the small business sector in recent year with the emergence of the violent conflict and political instability


This study provide guidelines for the sustainable use and conservation of biological diversity and for the improvement of the relation between people and their environment globally. Sanctuaries, National parks and Biosphere Reserves are considered as protected areas. There are 13 Biosphere Reserves in India. The program of Biosphere Reserve was initiated under "The man and Biosphere (MAB) "program by UNESCO in 1971. Biosphere Reserves are areas of terrestrial and coastal or marine ecosystem, or a combination thereof, which are internationally recognized for promoting and demonstrating a balanced relationship between people and nature. This paper focuses on environmental planning of Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve which extends from Rameswaram Island to Tuticorin. There are 21 islands running almost parallel to the coastline of Gulf of Mannar. It spreads over an area of 10500 sq. km having 3600 species of flora and fauna.130 species of corals are found here. This study provides a guideline for sustainable use of resources, activities to be permitted along coastal stretch, coastal highways, and mangroves, reclamation of saline and alkaline soil, coastal pollution, sedimentation, avifauna, settlements, tourism and recommended vegetation.


This paper is motivated by the US freight railroad industry, which is characterized by a major restructuring over the last 30 years. In particular, the number of active firms decreased from 26 in 1978 to seven in 2006 due to several takeover waves. The empirical focus concerns the estimation of a structural demand model for the US railroad industry. Then, the demand estimates are used to compute the evolution of the mark-ups, the quality of the freight services provided, and the consumer surplus. The restructuring of this industry involves significant exit and takeovers. This implies that the data is characterized by an attrition issue, which generates a selection problem. A focus is to provide an estimation algorithm which takes explicitly into account this attrition issue. I find that the algorithm produces more plausible estimates of demand coefficients compared to standard estimation procedures. Moreover, using the model, I recover the evolution of marginal costs, mark-ups, and consumer surplus over time. I find that the takeover waves have led to efficiency gains by decreasing the marginal costs, and this was translated into lower prices and an increase in the consumer surplus. Finally, the takeovers have led to a reallocation of assets from the less efficient firms to the most efficient firms, which improved the quality of the freight services provided.


Pyrolysis of the polypropylene/montmorillonite (PP/OMMT) nanocomposites allows for recovery of the filler that can be then re–used to produce PP/pyrolyzed MMT (PMMT) nanostructured composites. In this work, we discuss the thermal properties of PP/PMMT composites investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). It has been found that effect of PMMT (5 wt. % and 10 wt. %) on matrix thermal stability occurs at temperatures above 300 °C. Addition of 5 wt. % and 10 wt. % of PMMT into polypropylene system gave good stabilization effect, as confirmed by the overall stabilization effect (OSE) values, which increased by 4% and 7%, respectively, compared to the control sample (PP). Interestingly, the presence of 1 wt. % and 3 wt. % of pyrolyzed clay stabilizes the system better than the same concentrations of organoclay added into polypropylene melt. DSC data revealed that pyrolyzed clay has still the same tendency as organoclay to enhance formation of the α and β crystalline PP phases only. The pyrolyzed MMT causes an improvement of the modulus in the glassy as well as rubbery regions, as confirmed by DMA results.


A GALNT14 single nucleotide polymorphism, rs9679162, has recently been found to be capable of predicting chemotherapy responses in patients with far-advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In the present study, a novel assay was designed and genotyping was performed on 244 surgically removed liver tissues. This assay employed two polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-generated restriction enzyme sites to simultaneously determine the genotypes of two adjacent single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), rs9679162 and rs6752303, on the GALNT14 gene. Genotypes determined by this assay reached 100% concordance with those detected by the direct sequencing method. Clinical analysis showed that the TT genotype of rs9679162 was lower in percentage among patients with virus-originated HCC compared with those with non-viral HCC (22.57 vs. 47.06%, respectively; P=0.023). The proportion of the TT genotype in the 244 HCC patients (24.18%) did not deviate significantly from those of two public-domain (HapMap) Chinese cohorts from Denver, Colorado, USA (28.44%) and Beijing, China (30.15%) (P>0.05). The proportion of the TT genotype was significantly higher in Japanese and African populations (42.11–54.55%; P<0.0001) but significantly lower in an Italian cohort (7.84%; P=0.0004). In conclusion, the novel PCR-generated double restriction enzyme sites method could correctly determine the genotypes of two target SNPs in GALNT14 in liver tissues. The TT genotype was associated with the non-viral etiology of HCC. A marked variation in ethnicity was found for the distribution of this genotype.


BACKGROUND
Surgical educators have responded to the demand for increased skills in minimally invasive surgery by offering short technique-focused workshops at academic centres. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a comprehensive laparoscopic intestinal workshop for the adoption of laparoscopic colonic surgery.

METHODS
A 2-day comprehensive laparoscopic intestinal surgery workshop included didactic teaching and supervised hands-on practice of numerous laparoscopic colon resections on a cadaveric model. Participants completed pre-, post- and 6-month postcourse questionnaires.

RESULTS
The participants (n = 39) had been in practice for a mean of 10 (interquartile range 3-18) years. Fifty-one percent (n = 20) were already performing laparoscopic colectomies as part of their practices prior to the course. Regardless of whether they were performing laparoscopic colectomies prior to the course or not, attending the 2-day workshop improved their self-assessed preparedness to perform laparoscopic colectomies. Six months after the intestinal workshop, 10 of 16 respondents who were not performing laparoscopic colectomies prior to the course had performed at least 1 since the course. Seven of these individuals had a preceptor for their first case. Reasons cited for not performing a laparoscopic colectomy since the workshop included perceived inadequate surgical skill set, a lack of preceptor and the lack of an appropriate patient.

CONCLUSION
A comprehensive laparoscopic intestinal workshop contributed to the perceived acquisition of advanced laparoscopic surgical skills. Local laparoscopic preceptorship was an important adjunct to the workshop for the incorporation of laparoscopic colorectal surgery into practice.


Islamic history proves the development of Islamic times beyond the boundaries and territories is largely due to the sacrifices of scholars. This study focuses on the contribution of Tuan Guru Haji Tahir Bin Daeng Mangati (TGHT) a scholar in Johor born Sulawesi Indonesia (1921-1994). This study provides academic exposure to the general public in order to recognize the personality, characteristic , contribution and sacrifice of TGHT as one of the scholar of the Nusantara who migrated from one region to another to develop Islam especially through Islamic education and Islamic missionary and Islamic organizations. The research method used besides document analysis, involves interviews and observation methods in primary sources.  Live interviews and through social media application What'apps and Facebook are continuously conducted throughout 2015-2017 among TGHT family members, especially his wife and 14 surviving children, 5 family members in Sulawesi as well as 5 former students as well as close friends with TGHT. The study found that his education background in the Madrasah Arabiyah Islamiyyah As'adiyah Sengkang South Sulawesi and the involvement in the movement against the Dutch colonialists in the 40s and the family and community environment in Makassar was a major influence that created his personality and identity until reaching the level of a preacher, educator, fighters and scholars. He is known to be very practical in appreciating the Sunnah of RasululLah SAW in family and community life as well as in the struggle to uphold the teachings of Islam by migrating their homeland to Java and Malaya. Throughout his life, he through various tribulations of struggle before and after independence. He finally managed to leave the legacy of a large family educated with Islamic teachings, eight madrasahs in Johor and dozens of da'wah and harakah books Arabic-Malay translation for the gaze of today's generation. He was recognized as a murabbi and leader in the Islamic movement especially PAS and respected by other missionary movements. Hence, it is hoped that this study will create awareness for the younger generation to appreciate the grassroots of the past history to be a good example in continuing their life more meaningful to religion and country.


The terminal phases of rheumatoid arthritis may be complicated by severe renal disease. For example, Kuhns and Joplin (1936) found that eleven of 76 (14 4 per cent.) patients with atrophic arthritis died of nephritis, and recently Duthie, Brown, Truelove, Baragar, and Lawrie (1964) reported a similar incidence (17-3 per cent.) in 74 patients who died after suffering from rheumatoid arthritis for 10 or more years. A number of lesions may be concerned in the renal failure. Gedda (1955) held amyloidosis to be responsible for uraemia in nine of 45 of his patients who died, and chronic diffuse glomerulonephritis was present in another two of the fatal cases. Vascular lesions similar to or identical with polyarteritis affecting the kidney alone or with other organs have been described in rheumatoid arthritis (Dawson, 1940; Bennett, 1943; Ball, 1954; Schmid, Cooper, Ziff, and McEwan, 1961). A high incidence not only ofpyelonephritis but also of renal papillary necrosis (RPN) was found by Clausen and Pedersen (1961) in a study of the pathological records of eighty patients dying with rheumatoid arthritis in Copenhagen, and was attributed to the use of analgesic mixtures containing phenacetin. In our own necropsies on patients with rheumatoid arthritis, we noticed an unusual frequency of the chronic or sclerotic form ofRPN (Schourup, 1957) which is said to be characteristic ofphenacetin nephropathy (Sanerkin and Weaver, 1964) and because of this, other records were reviewed in an attempt to assess the influence of drug therapy upon renal disease in rheumatoid arthritis.


The study determines and evaluates changes in the 10:00 p.m. newscasts of the Dallas-Fort Worth network affiliates following personnel and ownership changes, and a reduction in length of one station's newscast. Scripts and audio recordings of the newscasts were collected during four-week periods before and after the changes. The data were analyzed and supplemented with interviews conducted with the stations' news directors and producers. Conclusions drawn were that ownership changes had more impact on the presentation of the news than on its content, changes in anchormen and producers had more effect on presentation than on content, and a reduction in news time caused changes in the content of a television newscast.


Calcium copper titanate (CCTO) sputtering target was synthesized by solid state method. Structural analysis of target has confirmed the formation of CCTO phase. CCTO thin films were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering technique on p-Si (100) substrates with the working pressure and RF power of 5 × 10–3 mbar and 105 W, respectively. Post-deposition annealing was performed at different temperatures ranging from 650 °C to 950 °C. Evolution of CCTO polycrystalline peaks has been observed in the 950 °C annealed film. The formation of CCTO phase has also been confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy studies. The surface morphology of the annealed thin film was found to be modulated with the annealing temperature. Larger microstructures have been found for the films annealed at high temperature. Bandgap of films were calculated from UV–vis spectral analysis. Electrical properties of the annealed thin films were studied by fabricating Al/CCTO/Si MOS structures. The interface trap density (Dit) was calculated as 7.9 × 1010 eV−1 cm−2 for the films annealed at 950 °C. Improved bipolar resistive switching behavior has been observed for the films annealed at 950 °C.


Recent evaluation of ad hoc networks has shown that current techniques do not scale well with either network size or desired throughput. We argue that the greatest opportunity for improvement is in the integration and coupling of different network layers. To this end, we are building a "relay network" design in which end-to-end path resources are pre-allocated to avoid the cost of channel acquisition and contention at every hop. The routing, congestion control, and MAC functions are coupled – contention informs the routing and packet admission decisions, and demand determines link capacity allocation. We propose using spatial frequency division multiple access (SFDMA) to reduce interference and propose a forwarding layer using label-switching to allow a combination of SFDMA as well as statistical multiplexing. Normally, SFDMA methods are difficult to allocate due to a paucity of channels; we provision our network using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) channels, avoiding re-synchronization delays on each packet. One option for such networks is to use wireless flits rather than full packets for store-and-forward communication. This report describes an OpNET model that implements both those wireless flits and the traditional store-and-forward SFDMA networks.


An accurate time-domain technique for measuring the proximity-effect-induced nonlinear transition shift has been developed, and this technique is applied to the case of a thin-film inductive head writing on a metal-film disk of high coercivity and high coercive squareness. Significant proximity shift at high densities is shown, even when the writeability may be considered good by overwrite and hard transition shift criteria. Furthermore, many basic properties of the proximity shift have been clearly resolved by the experiments, including the attractive and long-range nature of the proximity shift, the presence of ripple structures at low densities, and the nonlinear interactions between the proximity shift and the hard transition effect. Modeling studies have also been used to obtain a good understanding of these properties, and the theoretical results show good qualitative agreement with the experimental proximity-shift behavior.


Due to the increasing threat to the Internet on both popular Internet sites and Internet infrastructure, it is very challenging to provide reliable data transfer in a more secured manner for time-critical applications in an energyefficient way. Several attack resistance schemes have been proposed to increase the effect of detection rate and the limitations of security, minimize the power overload, and energy consumption. However, they all disregard the time factor they take to accomplish the task of providing security and therefore miss significant opportunities for attack resistance. In this paper, we propose new approach called as the Application based Polynomial Distribution (A-PD) model for mitigating the problems related to application oriented DDOS attack. With carefully designed attack resistance strategies, A-PD model distributes the application services prior to sending the packet data streams. Since the distribution of packet data streams is performed in an efficient manner, the abnormality of service or the attack rate is minimized. The organization of packet data stream is performed using polynomial distribution according to the classification of application services using probability density function. The application of probability density function increases the detection rate and accordingly equate with the network traffic. Our techniques significantly outperform the state-of-the-art works. In comparison to prior work, our experimental results show that our model outperforms better in terms of detection rate, execution time, minimizing load overhead achieve. This, in turn, leads to improved security


Evidence of some attacks can be manifested by abnormal sequences of system calls of programs. Most approaches that have been developed so far mainly concentrate on some program-specific behaviors and ignore some plain behaviors of programs. According to the concept of locality of reference, programs tend to spend most of their time on a few lines of code rather than other parts of the program. We use this finding to propose a method of loop reduction. A loop reduction algorithm, when applied to a series of system calls, eliminates redundant data. We did experiments for the comparison before and after loop reduction with the same detection approach. The preliminary results show that loop reduction improves the quality of training data by removing redundancy.


The A Body Shape Index (ABSI) was recently introduced to quantify abdominal adiposity relative to the body mass index (BMI) and height. This cross-sectional study was performed to explore whether the ABSI is linked to chronic kidney disease (CKD) in older adults and compare the predictive capacity of the ABSI versus BMI for CKD. In total, 7053 people aged ≥ 60 years were divided into normal, mild, and moderate-to-severe CKD groups based on their estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). The correlation of the ABSI with the eGFR and the differences and trends in the ABSI and BMI among the groups were analyzed, and the cutoff points for moderate-to-severe CKD were calculated. The association between the ABSI and CKD was stronger than that between the BMI and CKD. The ABSI had a better capacity to discriminate the CKD stage than did the BMI. The capacity of the ABSI to predict moderate-to-severe CKD was higher than that of the BMI and was more substantial in women than men. The ABSI cutoff points for CKD were ≥0.0822 and 0.0795 in men and women, respectively. In conclusion, the ABSI serves as a better index than the BMI for screening and detecting high-risk individuals with CKD.


The name of Yuriy Lavrinenko, the author of the anthology ―Shot Renaissance‖, is well known outside of Ukraine. And although he is most often associated with the literary studies, his political journalism as the journalist and the writer is no less important, which is especially visible in the example of his cooperation with the newspaper ―"Ukrainski Visti"/"Ukrainian News". Therefore, the main research methodology was the analysis of this newspaper's publications. The objective of the article is to find out the role and the significance of Yuriy Lavrinenko's journalistic heritage on the pages of ―"Ukrainski Visti"/"Ukrainian News" in the social and political life of the Ukrainian emigration, to determine its problematic and thematic directions, the most important of which is the study of Russia's crimes against Ukraine, to highlight the truth about which, in particular thanks to his articles, became the mission – the task and the vocation – of the entire post-Soviet emigration after the Second World War. To realize this objective, more than one hundred publications of various genres were processed, their total number (133) was clarified, their bibliographic description was prepared for the first time, the thematic and genre diversity was determined, and finally, Yuriy Lavrinenko's contribution to the study of materials about the Kremlin crimes in Ukraine was outlined in the columns of the newspaper.


Ticks are obligate haematophagous ectoparasites of domestic and wild animals as well as humans, considered to be second world-wide vectors of human diseases. They are the most important ectoparasites of livestock in tropical and sub-tropical areas, and are responsible for severe economic losses both through the direct effects of blood sucking and indirectly as vectors of pathogens. The present review is focused on impact of tick on livestock productivity and health. Loss of blood is a direct effect of ticks acting as potential vector for haemo-protozoa and helminth parasites. Blood sucking by large numbers of ticks causes reduction in live weight and anemia among domestic animals, while their bites also reduce the quality of hides and skin. The impact of ticks on livestock production and health includes tick borne disease morbidity and mortality, huge loss of milk and meat production, damage on the quality of skin and hide and cost for tick and tick borne disease control and prevention. The economic losses due to ticks can be expressed either in terms of body weight or milk production lost or treatment cost employed for its prevention and control. The implementation of rational and sustainable tick control programs in grazing animals is dependent upon the knowledge of the ecology and epidemiology of ticks. Major tick controlling techniques such as biological and chemical control methods, grazing management, genetic manipulation and vaccination could be employed. The prolonged and incorrect use of tick chemicals can lead to resistance in ticks, enabling the ticks to tolerate and survive chemical applications and making tick control in the future much more difficult. Therefore, appropriate method of control and prevention of ticks should be formulated based on the ecological and epidemiological study done ahead of time, appropriate tick drug handling and management should be practiced to prevent the drug resistance and deep investigation should be done on the preparation and application of vaccines which could be a successful prevention method in the future. Keywords: Control, Health, Livestock, Prevention, Production, Ticks.


The relevance of the topic is determined by high activity of the modern trade business in corporate social responsibility. It is caused by the increased competition, necessity to comply with international norms and standards, increased exactingness of customers to the social aspects of trade companies' work. The article is aimed at assessing the customers` perception of social responsibility of trade business and development of recommendations to trade business units on implementation of the corporate social responsibility concept. To achieve the set goal, a survey among the customers of Moscow region was conducted. The statistical and the graphic methods were used in processing the results of the survey. The article assesses a general attitude of customers to corporate social responsibility of trade business; it reveals the most and the least significant components of social responsibility for customers; awareness of customers about social trade business activity was analyzed; the article includes the most effective ways of awareness raising among the customers on the work of the trade organizations in corporate social responsibility. Practical significance of the obtained results is conditioned by the fact that the implementation of corporate social responsibility concept in accordance with the expectations and preferences of customers will increase economic efficiency of trade business units; it will contribute to the society life improvement as well. Keywords: social responsibility, trade, trade organization, customers, Moscow region. JEL Classifications: L81, M14.


Abstract One of the assumptions of the draft of the Act on Urban Planning and Construction Code is to strengthen social participation in creating spatial policies at all levels of planning. As part of the conducted research, a questionnaire was designed for the purposes of this article. The research was carried out on people who took part in the expositions of Local Spatial Development Plans (LSDP) and public discussions taking place in the communes of Siemianowice Śląskie and Pszów. The conducted questionnaire inquiry pointed to the low level of public awareness regarding procedures, as well as the lack of understanding of these documents due to the illegible form of the presentation of the approved local plans provided by the Act on planning and spatial development. Only 26% of the respondents declared to have good knowledge of the procedures for developing and approving local plans. The draft of the Urban and Construction Code Act, which is to replace the mentioned act, provides for a substantiation of the LSDP that may contain a visualization presenting the local plan regulations in a graphic manner, understandable to people who do not have technical knowledge, including digitally excluded persons. The conducted inquiry has shown that more than half of all respondents admitted that the usage of both a large-scale map and an orthophotomap as a cartographic background for the visualization of LSDP findings was by far the most legible. The proposed solutions can be introduced directly into the regulation on the detailed rules for the preparation of spatial planning acts. The statutory delegation for its issue was included in article 243 of the Act on Urban Planning and Construction Code draft published on 23rd November 2017 on the website of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Construction.


In this paper, a lineal mathematical model is proposed to schedule optimally the power references of the distributed energy resources in a grid-connected hybrid PV-wind-battery microgrid. The optimization of the short term scheduling problem is addressed through a mixed-integer linear programming mathematical model, wherein the cost of energy purchased from the main grid is minimized and profits for selling energy generated by photovoltaic arrays are maximized by considering both physical constraints and requirements for a feasible deployment in the real system. The optimization model is tested by using a real-time simulation of the model and uploaded it in a digital control platform. The results show the economic benefit of the proposed optimal scheduling approach in two different scenarios.


The authors present several concepts and techniques aiming at a further improvement and acceleration of the deterministic test-pattern-generation and redundancy identification process. In particular, they describe an improved implication procedure and an improved unique sensitization procedure. While the improved implication procedure takes advantage of the dynamic application of a learning procedure, the improved unique sensitization procedure profits from a dynamic and careful consideration of the existing situation of value assignments in the circuit. As a result of the application of the proposed techniques, SOCRATES is capable of both successfully generating a test pattern for all testable faults in a set of combinational benchmark circuits, and of identifying all redundant faults with less than ten backtrackings. >


This review has focused on the characterological features of dissociative identity disorder (DID), extending the "state versus trait" debate to the realm of the dissociative disorders. A number of different theories are presented describing DID as a variant of, on a continuum with, or being comorbid with the narcissistic and the borderline personality disorders. It is then hypothesized that DID is best considered a distinct characterological entity. Two theories are put forth, which describe a personality disorder whose predominant defense is dissociation. The more developed model which possibly has more explanatory value is the "dissociative character." In this schema, DID would be considered a lower-level dissociative character, utilizing primitive forms of dissociation in which splitting is enhanced by an autohypnotic defensive altered state of consciousness. These altered states originate in response to the overstimulation of external trauma, but get reactivated in the service of here-and-now intrapsychic conflicts. Recognition of this dual quality of dissociation seems helpful in psychodynamic treatment, which allows for analysis of the defense and analysis of the content of these states. The nature of the content of what is "in dissociation" appears to have a dreamlike quality to it that may correspond to previous trauma but also be subject to some secondary revision. There is clinical evidence to suggest that "dream work" of the ego is operative in both the representation of a separate self in dreams and in alter personalities. Another organizing influence which contributes to seemingly separate identities is that of perverse sexuality. It appears that a number of dissociated sexual pathways may be followed in the same individual, which encapsulate aggression, childhood trauma, anxiety, and a sense of self. When this exceedingly complex psychic structure is successful, it may then free up some ego to proceed with aspects of healthy development.


Semiclassical scattering theory can be summarized as the study of connections between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics in the limit ~→ 0 over the infinite time domain −∞ < t < ∞. After a brief discussion of Semiclassical Analysis and Scattering Theory we provide a rigorous result concerning the time propagation of a semiclassical wave-packet over the time domain −∞ < t <∞. This result has long been known for dimension n ≥ 3, and we extend it to one and two space dimensions. Next, we present a brief mathematical discussion of the three body problem, first in classical mechanics and then in quantum mechanics. Finally using an approach similar to the semiclassical wave-packet construction we form a semiclassical approximation to the solution of the Schrodinger equation for the threebody problem over the time domain −∞ < t < ∞. This technique accounts for clustering at infinite times and should be applicable for researchers studying simple recombination problems from quantum chemistry.


The rapid extraction of farmland boundaries is key to implementing autonomous operation of agricultural machinery. This study addresses the issue of incomplete farmland boundary segmentation in existing methods, proposing a method for obtaining farmland boundaries based on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing images. The method is divided into two steps: boundary image acquisition and boundary line fitting. To acquire the boundary image, an improved semantic segmentation network, AttMobile-DeeplabV3+, is designed. Subsequently, a boundary tracing function is used to track the boundaries of the binary image. Lastly, the least squares method is used to obtain the fitted boundary line. The paper validates the method through experiments on both crop-covered and non-crop-covered farmland. Experimental results show that on crop-covered and non-crop-covered farmland, the network's intersection over union (IoU) is 93.25% and 93.14%, respectively; the pixel accuracy (PA) for crop-covered farmland is 96.62%. The average vertical error and average angular error of the extracted boundary line are 0.039 and 1.473°, respectively. This research provides substantial and accurate data support, offering technical assistance for the positioning and path planning of autonomous agricultural machinery.


Classic computing systems are characterised by heterogeneity, with its inherent advantages and disadvantages. This raises a number of difficulties for software engineers. The vision offered by a mix-and-match approach is an attractive one, though its practical realisation comes at a cost, as the process of integration is rarely smooth. This scenario will be repeated as Wireless Sensor Networks are increasingly incorporated into mainstream computing. One potential paradigm for managing this heterogeneity is that of intelligent agents. This paper considers the viability and potential of lightweight agents as a paradigm for harnessing the potential of heterogeneous wireless sensor networks.


Inactivation of the liver kinase B1 (LKB1) gene by somatic mutation is a common event in lung adenocarcinoma. LKB1 was first identified as a tumor suppressor responsible for Peutz-Jeghers syndrome (PJS) and up regulation of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) was detected in a significant percentage of human PJS polyps. In addition, COX-2 has been proposed as a therapeutic target for lung cancer although clinical trial using COX-2 inhibitors have been disappointing. In the current study, we identified a novel LKB1/CRTC/COX-2 molecular pathway in human lung cancer cells and provided new information for clinical use of COX-2 inhibitors. The Kaye lab cloned the CREB-regulated transcription co-activators (CRTCs) and showed aberrant phosphorylation and activation of CRTC1 exclusively in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) samples carrying LKB1 null mutations. We have now demonstrated that CRTC directly regulates COX-2 expression via evolutionarily conserved CRE sites within the promoter. In addition, we observed that ectopic expression of LKB1 resulted in nuclear export of phosphorylated CRTC with attenuation of COX-2 expression. Alternatively, LKB1 knock-down results in CRTC activation and promotes COX-2 expression in NSCLC cells. Importantly, LKB1 null lung cancer cells were preferentially sensitive to COX-2 inhibitors. In summary, our data defines a CRTCs-mediated transcriptional regulatory mechanism for COX-2 activity in cancer and proposes a possible clinical application of COX-2 inhibitors in patients with lung tumors carrying somatic LKB1 null mutations. Citation Format: Chunxia Cao, Ruli Gao, Min Zhang, Zirong Chen, Lizi Wu, Maria Zajac Kaye, Frederic Kaye. LKB1 regulates COX-2 transcription via CRTCs dependent pathway. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 591. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-591


The term "digitalization" for a long time settled in the agenda of significant events dedicated to education. The education system, fulfilling the adopted program, should prepare a huge number of schoolchildren, students and workers for life with the indispensable use of information and communication technologies. However, often the actual digitalization is reduced either to the digitization of educational materials and documents in educational structures, or to unhindered access to the Internet. If the request for digitalization is addressed to education, then, being in the pedagogical space, it would be reasonable to first determine what and how to teach. The problem of the lack of a reasonable psychological and pedagogical concept of digital learning, which could be used by the subjects of the educational process as a basic one, is raised in the article.


This study aimed to evaluate the absolute and relative size of internal organs of Holstein calves which suckled milk, silage transition milk diluted with water or mixed in milk. We used 18 male animals, 60 days old with a mean body weight of 70.3kg (± 11.8kg). The experimental design was completely randomized with three treatments and six replications. The animals were slaughtered at two months, and previously fasted for 16 hours. Breast feeding changed the weights of internal organs and omental fat of animals, except for kidney and mesenteric fat, and did not affect food intake solids. The silage transition milk diluted in water compromised the performance of the calves, reflecting on the weight of internal organs and omental fat, and showed absolute weights for liver, spleen and omental fat of 1072, 186 and 133g, respectively. The silage mixed with milk yielded results more similar to the exclusive milk supply, being an option for suckling calves.


Within the context of the clay barrier concept for underground nuclear waste storage, montmorillonite and bentonite have been widely used as reference materials for radionuclides (RN) retention studies. Associated modeling work aims at understanding and predicting the retention of RN in clay-rocks where clay minerals are assumed to be representative of the most reactive phases. This " bottom-up " approach relies on a good confidence in the mechanistic understanding of adsorption processes on clay mineral surfaces, and in the understanding of the reactivity of associated mineral (or organic) phases. In the first part of the presentation, experimental and modeling works will be reviewed with a focus on divalent metals surface complexation on clay mineral surfaces, showing the limitations of current modeling approaches [1]. Missing information, which is necessary to model adsorption data in a mechanistic way, together with experimental features that cast doubt on the ability of surface complexation models to catch adequately the nature of divalent metal adsorption, will be highlighted. In the second part of the presentation, " bottom-up " modeling approaches and related uncertainties will be detailed for the prediction of divalent metals retention in clay-rocks. The example of Ni 2+ retention [2] will be used to show how the chemical reactivity of non-clay mineral phases can lower or enhance RN retention through time-dependant processes taking place in laboratory experiments as well as in storage conditions.


Past research has suggested that dispositional sources of job satisfaction can be traced to measures of affective temperament. The present research focused on another concept, core self-evaluations, which were hypothesized to comprise self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and nonneuroticism. A model hypothesized that core self-evaluations would have direct effects on job and life satisfaction. It also was hypothesized that core self-evaluations would have indirect effects on job satisfaction. Data were collected from 3 independent samples in 2 countries, using dual source methodology. Results indicated that core self-evaluations had direct and indirect effects on job and life satisfaction. The statistical and logical relationship among core evaluations, affective disposition, and satisfaction was explored.


Wales in the period c.1870-c.1920 was home to massive heavy industry, accompanied by a huge upsurge of population and the growth of large and thriving towns. Many Welsh people saw it as a time of unparalleled national progress. It was also a period of ascendancy for the Liberal Party, in Britain generally, but nowhere more so than in Wales, where the Welsh Liberals articulated a vision of the potential of Wales as a progressive, modern nation. Welsh music and the supposed musicality of the Welsh became part of a discourse about progress, cultural achievement and the promise of future greatness. Choral and congregational singing, which flourished in the buoyant chapel culture of the expanding towns and villages, was often cited as evidence not just of innate Welsh musicality but also of cultural development. But most intriguing is the apparently contradictory belief, articulated particularly by the newly-founded Welsh Folk Song Society, that Welsh traditional song could be harnessed to the cause of progress. How did Welsh people understand Welsh singing in this period? What did it mean to them? What did listeners think they were hearing – the voice of progress, or the voice of tradition?


Background: With an increase in indoor smoking bans, many smokers smoke outside establishments and near their entrances, which has become a public health concern. Objectives: We characterized the exposure of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke (SHS) outside a restaurant and bar in Athens, Georgia, where indoor smoking is banned, using salivary cotinine and urinary 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol (NNAL). Methods: In a crossover study, we assigned 28 participants to outdoor patios of a restaurant and a bar and an open-air site with no smokers on three weekend days; participants visited each site once and stayed for 3 hr. We collected saliva and urine samples immediately before and after the visits (postexposure) and on the following morning and analyzed samples for cotinine and total NNAL, respectively. Regression models were fitted and changes in biomarkers were contrasted between locations. Results: Postexposure and preexposure geometric mean salivary cotinine concentrations differed by 0.115 ng/mL [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.105, 0.126)] and by 0.030 ng/mL (95% CI: 0.028, 0.031) for bar and restaurant visits, respectively. There were no significant post- and preexposure differences in cotinine levels after control site visits, and changes after bar and restaurant site visits were significantly different from changes after control site visits (p < 0.001). Results comparing next-day and preexposure salivary cotinine levels were similar. Next-day creatinine-corrected urinary NNAL concentrations also were higher than preexposure levels following bar and restaurant visits [1.858 pg/mg creatinine higher (95% CI: 0.897, 3.758) and 0.615 pg/mg creatinine higher (95% CI: 0.210, 1.761), respectively], and were significantly different from changes after the control visits (p = 0.005). Conclusion: Salivary cotinine and urinary NNAL increased significantly in nonsmokers after outdoor SHS exposure. Our findings indicate that such exposures may increase risks of health effects associated with tobacco carcinogens.


Quantum metrology provides a fundamental limit on the precision of multi-parameter estimation, called the Heisenberg limit, which has been achieved in noiseless quantum systems. However, for systems subject to noises, it is hard to achieve this limit since noises are inclined to destroy quantum coherence and entanglement. In this paper, a combined control scheme with feedback and quantum error correction (QEC) is proposed to achieve the Heisenberg limit in the presence of spontaneous emission, where the feedback control is used to protect a stabilizer code space containing an optimal probe state and an additional control is applied to eliminate the measurement incompatibility among three parameters. Although an ancilla system is necessary for the preparation of the optimal probe state, our scheme does not require the ancilla system to be noiseless. In addition, the control scheme in this paper has a low-dimensional code space. For the three components of a magnetic field, it can achieve the highest estimation precision with only a 2-dimensional code space, while at least a 4-dimensional code space is required in the common optimal error correction protocols.


AbstractThymic lymphoma is a highly invasive and even metastatic cancer. This study investigated the effects of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) transfusion on cell cycle, cell proliferation, CD3 expression, mutation frequency of T cell receptor using mouse model of thymic lymphoma.C57BL/6J young mouse models of thymoma were injected with MSCs. Six months later, the thymus was taken for pathological examination and flow cytometry studies. The cells were labeled with anti-CD4, CD8, CD3, propidium iodide, or CFDA-SE, cell cycle, proliferation kinetics, and mutation frequency of T cell receptor, respectively.Pathologic results showed that control had clear corticomedular structure with regularly shaped lymphocytes. After radiation, the thymus structure was completely destroyed, with lymphoid tumor cells diffusely distributed and heavily stained, and large nuclei. Transfusion of MSCs resulted in normal thymus structure. Cytometry studies showed that there were more CD4-/CD8- T cells in the thymus of irradiated mice than in control; transfusion of MSCs led to reduced CD4-/CD8- T cells. In irradiated mice, there were less CD4+/CD8+ T cells than in control and MSCs transfusion groups. It was observed that there were more cells arrested in G1 phase in the thymus cells and CD4-/CD8- T cells in irradiated mice than in other 2 groups, whereas there were more cells arrested in S phase in CD4+/CD8+ and CD4+/CD8- T cells in irradiated mice than in the other mice. In the thymus cells, and CD4+/CD8+ and CD4+/CD8- T cells, irradiated mice group had significantly less parent, G2, G3, and G4 cells, and more cells at higher generations, and also higher proliferation index. In CD4-/CD8- T cells, irradiated mice had significantly more parent, G2, and G3 cells, and less G4, G5, G6, and propidium iodide, as compared with the other 2 groups. The expression of CD3 in CD4/CD8 T cells was significantly higher than in control. MSCs transfusion improved CD3 expression, but was still less than the control. Irradiation resulted in very high mutation frequency of T cell receptor, which was barely affected by MSCs transfusion.Mesenchymal stem cell transfusion is able to restore the cell cycle and cell proliferation, but not CD3 expression and mutation frequency of T cell receptor in irradiated mice to control level.


Using Australian guidelines for management of acute coronary syndromes, we investigated the proportion of high‐risk patients enrolled in the Acute Coronary Syndromes Prospective Audit registry who received a coronary angiogram. A prospective nationwide multicentre registry involving 39 Australian hospitals was used. The study cohort were patients with high‐risk clinical features without ST segment elevation (n = 1948) admitted from emergency departments between 1 November 2005 and 31 July 2007. Eighty nine per cent of patients with ST segment elevation myocardial infarction and only 53% of eligible patients with high‐risk acute coronary syndromes with no ST elevation received a diagnostic angiogram. Increasing age was associated with lower rates of angiography; a high‐risk patient at the age of ≥70 years was 19% less likely to receive an angiogram than one at the age of <70 years (risk ratio (RR) = 0.81 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.76, 0.76). Women were 26% less likely than men to receive an angiogram (RR = 0.74; 95% CI = 0.65, 0.83). The adjusted RR from the multivariate analysis suggests that a patient at the age of ≥70 years was 35% less likely to receive an angiogram than one at the age of <70 years (RR = 0.65, 95% CI = 0.60, 0.73), and that women were 13% less likely than men to receive an angiogram (RR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.80, 0.96). Indigenous patients were as likely to access angiography as eligible non‐indigenous patients (RR = 1.03, 95% CI 0.85, 1.25). There is underinvestigation of high‐risk patients without ST segment elevation in Australian hospitals, particularly for women and older patients. Indigenous patients are younger and have poorer risk profiles, and represent a group that would benefit from greater investment in prevention strategies.


This paper studies the interaction between the communication costs in a sensor network and the structure of the data that it measures. We formulate an optimization problem for power efficient data gathering and show that the problem is NP-complete. We propose scalable, distributed and efficient heuristics for solving this problem and show by numerical simulations that the power consumption can be significantly improved over direct transmission or the shortest path tree. Our algorithms provide solutions close to a computationally heavy heuristic used as benchmark, simulated annealing, which is provably optimal in the limit.


The substantial productivity of the northern Norwegian Sea is closely related to its strong mesoscale eddy activity, but how eddies affect phytoplankton biomass levels in the upper ocean through horizontal and vertical transport-mixing has not been well quantified. To assess mesoscale eddy induced ocean surface chlorophyll-a concentration (CHL) anomalies and modulation of eddy-wind interactions in the region, we constructed composite averaged CHL and wind anomalies from 3,841 snapshots of anticyclonic eddies (ACEs) and 2,727 snapshots of cyclonic eddies (CEs) over the period 2000-2020 using satellite altimetry, scatterometry, and ocean color products. Results indicate that eddy pumping induces negative (positive) CHL anomalies within ACEs (CEs), while Ekman pumping caused by wind-eddy interactions induces positive (negative) CHL anomalies within ACEs (CEs). Eddy-induced Ekman upwelling plays a key role in the unusual positive CHL anomalies within the ACEs and results in the vertical transport of nutrients that stimulates phytoplankton growth and elevated productivity of the region. Seasonal shoaling of the mixed layer depth (MLD) results in greater irradiance levels available for phytoplankton growth, thereby promoting spring blooms, which in combination with strong eddy activity leads to large CHL anomalies in May and June. The combined processes of wind-eddy interactions and seasonal shallowing of MLD play a key role in generating surface CHL anomalies and is a major factor in the regulation of phytoplankton biomass in the northern Norwegian Sea.


Surgery remains the primary treatment for patients with localized gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), however, even after complete resection of the tumor, there is still a part of patients with tumor recurrence and metastasis. Imatinib, as adjuvant therapy in GIST patients with intermediate and high risk of recurrence, can significantly improve the disease-free survival, but whether it can prolong the overall survival is still unknown. It has reached a consensus that the intermediate and high risk patients should receive adjuvant therapy, but the duration for adjuvant therapy is still under investigation, especially for high-risk patients. Adjuvant therapy is recommended for at least 3 years, while in the end of adjuvant therapy, some patients still develop recurrence and metastasis. In 2017, results from PERSIST-5 study reported by the ASCO conference indicated that 5-year adjuvant therapy may further prolong disease-free survival of intermediate and high risk patients. In addition, adjuvant therapy is still not individualized based on the combination with different genotypes, and present adjuvant therapy is recommended for GIST patients with positive CD117 and intermediate-high risk of recurrence. It remains controversial whether different genotypes are associated with alternative adjuvant treatment options. Results of more researches are expected to provide better guidance for clinical treatment in the future.


The aim of this work is to evaluate the feasibility of re-implementing some key parts of the widely used Weather Research and Forecasting WRF-SFIRE simulator by replacing its core differential equations numerical solvers with state-of-the-art physics-informed machine learning techniques to solve ODEs and PDEs, in order to transform it into a real-time simulator for wildfire spread prediction. The main programming language used is Julia, a compiled language which offers better perfomance than interpreted ones, providing Just in Time (JIT) compilation with different optimization levels. Moreover, Julia is particularly well suited for numerical computation and for the solution of complex physical models, both considering the syntax and the presence of some specific libraries such as DifferentialEquations.jl and ModellingToolkit.jl.


OBJECTIVE
To determine if patients with gout with chronic alcoholism have lower serum urate levels than nonalcoholic patients.

METHODS
Of 95 consecutive consults for acute gout at a VA medical center, 42 were excluded from study due to lack of crystal documentation, lack of urate value within 2 years, or treatment with allopurinol or probenecid. The remaining 53 patients were grouped by alcohol use and a retrospective chart review was done for these patients.

RESULTS
Mean intercritical serum urate values for chronic alcoholics and nonalcoholics were similar at 9.7 +/- 2.1 for alcoholics and 9.5 +/- 2.1 for nonalcoholics. Yet, despite these similar intercritical serum urate values, and despite no difference between chronic alcoholics and nonalcoholics in frequency or severity of acute gout flares, patients with chronic alcoholism had index serum urate levels which were significantly lower than those of nonalcoholics. These mean index values, with standard deviations, were 7.7 +/- 1.3 for 15 chronic alcoholics and 10.1 +/- 1.3 for 34 nonalcoholics; p < 0.01).

CONCLUSION
Alcoholics and nonalcoholics had comparable intercritical values. However, on presentation with acute arthritis, the index serum urate values for alcoholics were lower than in nonalcoholics. Values for serum urate below 8.5 mg/dl are of less value in excluding gout in chronic alcoholics than in nonalcoholics presenting with acute gout flares.


ABSTRACT We report two Lesch–Nyhan Disease (LND) patients who developed new forms of self-injurious behavior following total dental extraction. Patients 1 and 2 were submitted to total teeth extraction at the age of 13 and 8 years, respectively, due to continuous self-biting, not prevented by mouth guards. Severity of dystonia was markedly reduced and quality of life improved. After 12 and 17 months, respectively, patient 1 started rubbing one foot against other and scratching toenails with his hands, and patient 2 stuck his legs and feet against hard objects. These forms of self-injury behavior could be easily prevented with protective materials, according to the mothers.


A brief introduction to the Monte Carlo methods and the most common types of Quantum Monte Carlo, Variational Monte Carlo and Diffusion Monte Carlo are presented. The fermion sign problem in Diffusion Monte Carlo is outlined and a way of bypassing the fixed-node approximation is discussed.


The scarcity of irrigation water requires procedures of specific. One of these procedures is the implementation of the rationing system (a period of the irrigation followed by a period of the dry). This system can have an impact on the properties of irrigation channels. Therefore, the study of rationing system for irrigation channels is important in both water resources and civil engineering, especially if they are constructed with gypseous soil. In order to assess the rationing system on gypseous canals stabilized with a specific ratio of cement, practical experiments were conducted to detect the effect of wetting and drying cycles on the physical and hydraulic behavior of this soil and calculation of some properties of soil such as scouring, grain size and gypsum content of soil at each cycle (10 days wetting and 10 days of drying). Where the gypseous soil with gypsum content 65 % was brought from Lake Sawh-Iraq to the hydraulic laboratory at the University of Baghdad, Physical and chemical tests were carried out according to the standard classification system. The laboratory work includes construction of a laboratory flume with gypseous soil to calculate the scouring of the canal and effect grain size of soil by two methods (the standard sieve analysis and Particle size absorptive test) and also calculate gypsum content at each rationing cycle, where the channel consists of two stages of operation, the one for untreated soil (4 cycles operation) and the other for soil mixed with 10% cement (5 cm of cement mixture above 5cm soil) 4 cycles also. The results show that the rationing cycles reduce the scouring of canal in the case of untreated soil by 56.6% and in the case of treated soil 82%. The rationing system led to course the gradient of soil according to two methods. Also its reduction of the gypsum content in the case of untreated soil by 43% and in the case of treated soil 45.6%. Thus, conclude that the rationing system leads to a positive effect on some properties of gypsum soils and the lining of irrigation channels


In a number of plasmas of practical interest, including the scrape-off layer of a tokamak with a divertor or toroidal limiter, some gas discharge devices, and in the vicinity of spacecraft, magnetic field lines intersect bounding surfaces at shallow angles. Under these circumstances a number of interesting and important effects arise. Drifts can compete with parallel flows in establishing the boundary conditions for plasma mass-flow and current (sheath current-voltage characteristics). We derive the mass-flow constraints including both poloidal and radial drifts, review the current boundary conditions, and survey the consequences, including along-field density and heat-flux asymmetries, convection created by a wavy surface, generation of electric fields and surface currents associated with shadows from surface structures, and modification of instability growth.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to validate measures of professional self-efficacy for detecting and responding to child abuse and neglect presentations, and then evaluate a clinical training programme for health professionals in a tertiary-level hospital in Vietnam.

Design/methodology/approach
A prospective, cohort design was used and professional self-efficacy was measured immediately prior to, and shortly after, training 116 nurses and doctors in emergency settings. Longer-term follow-up was measured six months later.

Findings
Linear mixed modelling showed that there was a statistically significant improvement in efficacy expectations for both suspected and known cases of child abuse and neglect between the pre- and post-test measures at zero and six weeks. These improvements did not persist to the six-month follow-up.

Research limitations/implications
The training succeeded in improving detection and clinical response to child abuse and neglect presentations but not faith in the provision of ongoing support for children and families.

Practical implications
Practice change in emergency settings in Vietnam can be achieved using a sustainable theoretically driven training programme.

Social implications
Building the capacity of health professionals to respond to cases of child abuse and neglect relies on the strength of the community and support services within which the hospital is located.

Originality/value
Measures of self-efficacy expectations and outcome expectations for responding to child abuse and neglect presentations in emergency settings in Vietnam are now validated.


Because tourism has in rural space its own attractions in social, cultural, and spatial particularities, it can propitiate the valorization of the rural environment since it has its development conditioned by environmental, patrimonial, and cultural preservation. In this context, the current study analyzed rural tourism as an acting agent on the valorization of the rurality in Porto Alegre municipality, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, parting from the Touristic Itinerary of Rural Routes. The research is based on the qualitative approach, which has as basis the analysis of semi-structured interviews, applied to rural farmers inserted in the itinerary. The appreciation demonstrated that the tourism has caused the valorization of the rural areas in Porto Alegre, due to the divulgation of the production means, the products and the rural landscape. Moreover, the tourism, just as it values elements of the rurality, it also sustains the approximation of the rural areas with the urban ones, which appropriates the rural space and acts on the ruralities; but the action of tourism in the Porto Alegra rururban approximates such space to a perspective of continuum which helps the interaction between the rural and the urban areas, and not the domination of the urban by the rural.


Herein is presented a proof-of-concept study of protease sensing that combines nontoxic silicon quantum dots (SiQDs) with Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET). The SiQDs serve as the donor and an organic dye as the acceptor. The dye is covalently attached to the SiQDs using a peptide linker. Enzymatic cleavage of the peptide leads to changes in FRET efficiency. The combination of interfacial design and optical imaging presented in this work opens opportunities for use of nontoxic SiQDs relevant to intracellular sensing and imaging.


A group‐III iron containing 1,2‐propanediol oxidoreductase, FucO, (also known as lactaldehyde reductase) from Escherichia coli was examined regarding its structure–dynamics–function relationships in the catalysis of the NADH‐dependent reduction of (2S)‐lactaldehyde. Crystal structures of FucO variants in the presence or absence of cofactors have been determined, illustrating large domain movements between the apo and holo enzyme structures. Different structures of FucO variants co‐crystallized with NAD+ or NADH together with substrate further suggest dynamic properties of the nicotinamide moiety of the coenzyme that are important for the reaction mechanism. Modelling of the native substrate (2S)‐lactaldehyde into the active site can explain the stereoselectivity exhibited by the enzyme, with a critical hydrogen bond interaction between the (2S)‐hydroxyl and the side‐chain of N151, as well as the previously experimentally demonstrated pro‐(R) selectivity in hydride transfer from NADH to the aldehydic carbon. Furthermore, the deuterium kinetic isotope effect of hydride transfer suggests that reduction chemistry is the main rate‐limiting step for turnover which is not the case in FucO catalysed alcohol oxidation. We further propose that a water molecule in the active site – hydrogen bonded to a conserved histidine (H267) and the 2′‐hydroxyl of the coenzyme ribose – functions as a catalytic proton donor in the protonation of the product alcohol. A hydrogen bond network of water molecules and the side‐chains of amino acid residues D360 and H267 links bulk solvent to this proposed catalytic water molecule.


We investigated the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and postoperative outcomes in 450 gallbladder cancer patients in Japan. We collected patient information, including sex, age, underlying disease, BMI, stage, surgery method, postoperative time to discharge, and postoperative Medicare fees, from the Japanese administrative database associated with the Diagnosis Procedure Combination system. We classified patient BMIs as underweight (BMI<18.5 kg/m2), normal (BMI≥18.5 kg/m2 and <25 kg/m2) or overweight/obese (BMI≥25 kg/m2), then investigated the relationship between these categories and two postoperative outcomes: time to discharge and postoperative Medicare fees. The median postoperative time to discharge was 12 days in all patients, and 12 days in each of the three weight groups (p=0.62, n.s.). The median postoperative Medicare fees from surgery until discharge were (USD): all patients, $5,002; underweight, $5,875; normal weight, $4,797; and overweight/obese, $5,179 (p=0.146, n.s.). A multivariate analysis with adjustment for competing risk factors revealed that BMI was not associated with increased risk of longer postoperative time to discharge (normal weight: HR 1.17, p=0.29; overweight/obese: HR 1.17, p=0.37) or higher postoperative Medicare fees (OR 0.99, p=0.86, n.s.). Thus, high BMI was not found to be a factor for poor postoperative outcomes in Japanese patients with gallbladder cancer.


In the cell membrane there are many processes that interact with the cytoskeleton in order to carry out its process.  One of the processes that are affected by the cytoskeleton that is closely by is diffusion rate of particles across the membrane.  The purpose of this review to present the readers with evidence from previous studies and scientific implications that have been made by other authors that the cytoskeleton has a specific role in cell membrane activity.  Authors Potma, Jaqaman and Thorsten all show that diffusion rate is influenced by the cytoskeleton.  Thorsten described how they were able to track single molecule tracking to view how the molecules would diffuse across the plasma membrane.  Each author indicated that the cytoskeleton slowed the diffusion rates.  This is important because the audience can learn how protein diffusion rate across membranes is and can be influenced.


To reinforce the long-term commitment to climate change mitigation, the post-2012 climate policy framework is aimed to be completed by 2009. The new agreement needs to include a wider participation of parties, and therefore needs to address the effort sharing of countries. The mitigation capabilities and the responsibilities of countries do however vary significantly. This can, in principle, be overcome with a cap-and-trade system, with which the question of equity is addressed trough the allocation of emission allowances. A number of effort sharing schemes have been proposed. Effort sharing however suffers from a fundamental trade-off between detail and transparency on how the emission allocations are calculated. This study addresses this problem by comparing and combining the results from a transparent but simplified effort sharing model EVOC, and a detailed and – due to its complexity – seemingly non-transparent ETSAP-TIAM energy system model. The aim of the study is to evaluate the goodness of the initial effort sharing, particularly in terms of mitigation costs experienced by different regions in the scenarios. Based on the long-term energy-climate scenarios crafted with the TIAM model, we assess the resulting consequences in emission profiles and the energy system, concentrating especially on regional mitigation costs and emission trading. Two cases of market failures in emission trading are also considered. Finally we compare the mitigation potentials between the two models and estimate the effect of EVOC recalibration on the national emission allowances. The results of the study underline particularly the importance of detailed and reliable assumptions for the mitigation potentials of different countries in the effort sharing process.


As part of a research project on the investigation of second language (L2) ultimate attainment in 41 Spanish early and late near-native speakers of L2 Swedish, the present study reports on voice onset time (VOT) analyses of the production of Swedish word-initial voiceless stops, /p t k/. Voice onset time is analyzed in milliseconds as well as in percentages of word duration, thereby accounting for speaking rate effects. The results revealed an overall age effect on VOT production; however, this age effect became salient and statistically significant for all three stops only when speaking rate was taken into consideration. Similarly, when speaking rate was accounted for, only a small minority of the late learners exhibited actual nativelike L2 behavior, and most (but far from all) early learners performed within native-speaker range. The results are taken as an indication for relative VOT, as opposed to absolute VOT, constituting a reliable measure of nativelike L2 stop production, which has important implications for future research on age effects and maturational constraints in L2 acquisition.


This paper presents a statistical framework for recognising 2D shapes which are represented as an arrangement of curves or strokes. The approach is a hierarchical one which mixes geometric and symbolic information in a three-layer architecture. Each curve primitive is represented using a point-distribution model which describes how its shape varies over a set of training data. We assign stroke labels to the primitives and these indicate to which class they belong. Shapes are decomposed into an arrangement of primitives and the global shape representation has two components. The first of these is a second point distribution model that is used to represent the geometric arrangement of the curve centre-points. The second component is a string of stroke labels that represents the symbolic arrangement of strokes. Hence each shape can be represented by a set of centre-point deformation parameters and a dictionary of permissible stroke label configurations. The hierarchy is a two-level architecture in which the curve models reside at the nonterminal lower level of the tree. The top level represents the curve arrangements allowed by the dictionary of permissible stroke combinations. The aim in recognition is to minimise the cross entropy between the probability distributions for geometric alignment errors and curve label errors. We show how the stroke parameters, shape-alignment parameters and stroke labels may be recovered by applying the expectation maximization EM algorithm to the utility measure. We apply the resulting shape-recognition method to Arabic character recognition.


Background: The phenomenon of locomotor sensitization to injected amphetamine is well-characterised. The increased locomotor activity found acutely is enhanced with repeated intermittent treatment. This effect arises due to hypersensitization of the dopaminergic system and is linked to drug addiction. A clinical population exposed to chronic repeated intermittent amphetamine treatment, such as is found for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), may be expected to be more at risk of addiction following this treatment. However, evidence suggests the opposite may be true. This suggests the route of administration may determine the direction of effects. Aims and methods: We aimed to establish how an oral amphetamine treatment regimen, similar to that used in ADHD, impacts on locomotor activity, specifically whether tolerance or sensitization would arise. Healthy hooded Lister rats were given amphetamine (2 mg/kg, 5 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg) or a vehicle solution once daily for 4 weeks with a 5 day on, 2 day off schedule. Locomotor activity was measured on the first day of treatment to establish the acute effects and on the final day of treatment to examine the chronic effects. Results: As expected, acute doses of amphetamine increased locomotor activity, although this only reached statistical significance for the 5 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg doses. By contrast, after chronic treatment, animals administered these doses showed reduced activity indicating drug tolerance rather than sensitization had occurred. Conclusion: We suggest that the route of administration used in ADHD, which results in more stable and longer duration drug levels in the blood, results in tolerance rather than sensitization and that this effect could explain the reduced likelihood of substance addiction in those treated with psychostimulants for ADHD.


In this study, thermal and argon (Ar) plasma/wetting treatments were combined to enhance the bonding strength of polyimide (PI) films. Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) was used to analyze the changes in the PI imidization degrees. The contact angles of the PI films were also measured. The results show that the contact angles of the fully cured PI films markedly decreased from 78.54° to 26.05° after the Ar plasma treatments. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis was also conducted on the PI surfaces. We found that the intensities of the C-OH and C-N-H bonds increased from 0% to 13% and 29% to 57%, respectively, after Ar plasma activation. Such increases in the C-OH and C-N-H intensities could be attributed to the generation of dangling bonds and the breakage of the imide ring or polymer long chains. Shear tests were also conducted to characterize the bonding strength of the PI films, which, after being treated with the appropriate parameters of temperature, plasma power, and wetting droplets, was found to be excellent at greater than 35.3 MPa.


This cross-sectional study aimed to assess the knowledge and attitudes of 123 Brazilian dentists in relation to the concepts and practice of minimally invasive dentistry (MID). Data were collected through a questionnaire developed and validated by experts. Statistical analysis was performed using an spss program and Pearson's chi-square test. Most participants had up to 10 years experience after graduation (69.9%), were specialised (60.2%) and worked in public and private service (43.1%). Regarding current concepts of dental caries, 87.0% were unaware and 65.9% answered that the treatment involves only the restorative phase. In relation to caries lesion arrest, 39.8% replied that it depended on the total removal of carious tissue. Most of them were aware of MID procedures (82.1%) but 49.6% did not follow them in daily practice. From these participants, 48.4% did not believe in the technique or did not know how to perform it. Decisions on partial or total removal of carious dentine, behaviour in relation to the procedures (permanent or temporary) and the practice of MID were not influenced by how long since the professionals had graduated or become specialised. It can be concluded that scientific evidence reaches most of the professionals, but does not benefit all patients, as many practitioners still follow the principles of total removal of carious tissue. Teaching should include making professionals fully aware of the carious process and encourage them to fully adopt the techniques and attitudes of MID.


Maturity-onset diabetes of the young type 3 (MODY3) is caused by heterozygous mutation in the HNF1A gene. Liver adenomatosis has been reported in MODY3 patients. The patient reported in this paper is a Japanese girl who first developed hepatomegaly, fatty liver, and hepatic dysfunction at age 5 years. Liver biopsy demonstrated steatosis and degeneration of hepatocytes. At that time, blood glucose and HbA1c levels were within normal ranges. Elevated HbA1c was noticed 4 years later, but islet cell and glutamic acid decarboxylase antibodies were not detected in the serum. Therefore, MODY3 was suspected and subsequent analysis of the HNF1A gene identified a heterozygous germline splice donor-site mutation in intron 9. MODY3 patients should be screened by non-invasive liver imaging, and careful follow-up of liver disease should be performed. Conflict of interest:None declared.


Objective Exercise-induced immunodepression is a common medical problem in competitive sports, leading to upper respiratory tract infection, affecting sports training and sports performance, and increasing athletes' sports disease and injury risk. Finding non-invasive early predictive biomarkers of exercise-induced immunodepression and giving corresponding preventive measures is therefore an important issue in sports training. iTRAQ is an important method that currently looking for and discovering disease-specific protein biomarkers of disease prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, and efficacy monitoring. In this study, early predictive biomarkers of exercise-induced immunodepression will be identified through the iTRAQ proteomics technique, which helps to prevent the occurrence of exercise-induced immunodepression.
Methods Fifteen healthy males were recruited from the student cohort of Guangzhou Sport University. Subjects performed four-week incremental load running exercise. The weekly running load intensity was 60% VO2max, 70% VO2max, 80% VO2max, 90% VO2max respectively, 5d/w, and 1h/d. The fasting venous blood and urine of the subjects was collected in the morning before the start of the training intervention and at the end of each training week. The white blood cells of the whole blood and the levels of the lymphocyte subtypes CD4+ and CD8+ were tested to monitor the immune function status of the subjects. iTRAQ proteomics technology was used to test and identify differential proteins and their characteristics in urine.
Results During the four weeks of increasing running load, the subject's immune function was progressively reduced. Whole blood white blood cells, and CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocyte fell by more than 10% at the end of the fourth week, showing exercise-induced Immunodepression. Using iTRAQ to test urine proteomes, there were as many as 1854 proteins in the urine during the incremental loading process. The relative molecular weights of most of the proteins were between 10-80 kDa, and the isoelectric point was between 4.5 and 7. During the four weeks of incremental loading running, there were 89, 52, 77, and 148 differential proteins up-regulated, and 66, 27, 68, and 114 differential proteins downregulated respectively in the urine of each week. The differential proteins were mostly found in extracellular and plasma membranes. It is mainly involved in the in vivo biological process, the immune system process, the material transport, and is related to the positive regulatory pathways and immune regulatory pathways for stress response. The up-regulation multiples of four up-regulated proteins such as Semenogelin-1, Prolactin-inducible protein, Platelet-derived growth factor receptor-like protein, and Nucleoside diphosphate kinase increased with increasing exercise intensity. The up-regulated multiples of Glycerol-3-phosphate phosphatase, Secretogranin-1, Prosaposin, and Nephronectin (Fragment) increased with increasing exercise intensity from the second week of exercise. The down-regulation multiples of Ig kappa chain C region, Immunoglobulin lambda variable 3-21 of CUB and EGF-like domain-containing protein 2 and Uromodulin decreased further with the increase of exercise intensity from the second week of exercise, which was consistent with the change of immune function.
Conclusions Urine iTRAQ proteomics technique is an important method to identify early predictive biomarkers of exercise-induced immunodepression, which helps to prevent the occurrence of exercise-induced immunodepression. In this study, the differential proteins in urine, such as Semenogelin-1, Prolactin-inducible protein, Platelet-derived growth factor receptor-like protein, and Nucleoside diphosphate kinase can be considered as early predictive biomarkers of exercise-induced immunodepression.


Multimodal fusion frameworks for Human Action Recognition (HAR) using depth and inertial sensor data have been proposed over the years. In most of the existing works, fusion is performed at a single level (feature level or decision level), missing the opportunity to fuse rich mid-level features necessary for better classification. To address this shortcoming, in this paper, we propose three novel deep multilevel multimodal ( ${M}^{{2}}$ ) fusion frameworks to capitalize on different fusion strategies at various stages and to leverage the superiority of multilevel fusion. At input, we transform the depth data into depth images called sequential front view images (SFIs) and inertial sensor data into signal images. Each input modality, depth and inertial, is further made multimodal by taking convolution with the Prewitt filter. Creating "modality within modality" enables further complementary and discriminative feature extraction through Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). CNNs are trained on input images of each modality to learn low-level, high-level and complex features. Learned features are extracted and fused at different stages of the proposed frameworks to combine discriminative and complementary information. These highly informative features are served as input to a multi-class Support Vector Machine (SVM). We evaluate the proposed frameworks on three publicly available multimodal HAR datasets, namely, UTD Multimodal Human Action Dataset (MHAD), Berkeley MHAD, and UTD-MHAD Kinect V2. Experimental results show the supremacy of the proposed fusion frameworks over existing methods.


The immunohistochemical localization of bone Gla protein (BGP) and osteonectin (ON) was investigated in normal human bone and cartilage tissues, and in osteosarcomas and chondrosarcomas with their respective antibodies. In normal bone and heterotopic ossification tissues, BGP and ON were detected in preosteoblasts, osteoblasts and young osteocytes, the reaction of which was strongest in osteoblasts. They were also demonstrated in most osteosarcomas, and their reaction was stronger in osteosarcomas with higher differentiation. These observations suggested that BGP and ON were related to the formation of normal and tumoral osteoid. In contrast, the localization of ON in normal cartilage and chondrosarcoma tissues was markedly different from that of BGP in these tissues. In normal growth cartilage, ON reacted with chondrocytes in hypertrophic and calcifying zone and matrix in calcifying zone, whereas BGP did not react. ON was also demonstrated in the cytoplasm and calcifying portion of most chondrosarcomas. These findings indicated that ON plays an important role in calcification of normal and tumoral cartilage tissues. BGP was detected in poorly differentiated and dedifferentiated chondrosarcomas. Thus, these antibodies are expected to be useful for studying calcification of human bone and cartilage and for the diagnosis of human osteosarcomas and chondrosarcomas.


Abstract Understanding the issues of infection related to an implantable medical device is crucial to all cochlear implant teams. Furthermore, given the risk of central nervous system complications and the relatively high quantity of underlying resource investment associated with cochlear implantation, the stakes of infection are high. The optimal strategies to prevent and manage such infections are still evolving as good-quality prospective data to guide such management decisions are not yet abundant within the medical literature and many recommendations are based on retrospective reviews or anecdotal evidence. We will outline a general strategy to deal with cochlear implant-related infection based on both the authors' experience and the published literature.


Delamination fracture has limited the use of lightweight Al-Li alloys. In the present study, electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) methods were used to characterize crack paths in Al-Li alloy C458 (2099). Secondary delamination cracks in fracture toughness samples showed a pronounced tendency for fracture between grain variants of the same deformation texture component. These results were analyzed by EBSD mapping methods and simulated with finite element analyses. Simulation procedures include a description of material anisotropy, local grain orientations, and fracture utilizing crystal plasticity and cohesive zone elements. Taylor factors computed for each grain orientation subjected to normal and shear stresses indicated that grain pairs with the largest Taylor factor differences were adjacent to boundaries that failed by delamination. Examination of matching delamination fracture surface pairs revealed pronounced slip bands in only one of the grains bordering the delamination.


Background: Short stem total hip arthroplasty (SHA) preserves femoral bone stock and is supposed to provide a more natural load transfer compared to standard stem total hip arthroplasty (THA). As comparative biomechanical reference data are rare we used a finite element analysis (FEA) approach to compare cortical load transfer after implantations of a cementless short and standard stem in native biomechanical femora.Methods: The subject specific finite element models of biomechanical femora, one native and two with implanted SHA (Metha, B.Braun Aesculap) and standard THA (CLS, Zimmer-Biomet), were generated from computed tomography datasets. The loading configuration was performed with an axial force of 1400 N. Von Mises stress was used to investigate the change of cortical stress distribution.Results: Compared to the native femur, a considerable reduction of cortical stress was recorded after implantation of SHA and standard THA. The SHA showed less reduction proximally with a significant higher metaphyseal cortical stress compared to standard THA. Moreover, the highest peak stresses were observed metaphyseal for the SHA stem while for the standard THA high stress pattern was observed more distally.Conclusions: Both, short and standard THA, cause unloading of the proximal femur. However, SHA features a clearly favorable pattern in terms of a lower reduction proximally and improved metaphyseal loading, while standard THA shows a higher proximal unloading and more distal load transfer. These load pattern implicate a reduced stress shielding proximally for SHA and might be able to translate in a better bone preservation.


The 'new Italian narrative' that began to be spoken about in the 1980s was not associated with a single writer or movement but with an eclectic and varied production. The eight essays that make up this volume set out to give a flavour of the breadth and range of recent trends and developments. The collection opens with two essays on crime fiction. In the first, Luca Somigli examines novels dealing with topical issues or recent history and which reveal a strong indigenous and regional tradition, while in the second, Nicoletta McGowan discusses the particular case of a noir by Claudia Salvatori. They are followed by essays on two of Italy's best-known contemporary writers: Marina Spunta's essay explores the representation of space, place and landscape in the work of Gianni Celati and photographer Luigi Ghirri, while Darrell O'Connell analyses the fiction of Vincenzo Consolo, and his struggle to find a means of representing an ethical stance within fiction.


Determination of the chemical composition of Kapok (Ceibapentandra) seeds and physicochemical properties of its oil were carried out using standard methods. Mature dried fruits of Kapok from which seeds were obtained were collected from in and around Basawa village, Sabon Gari Local Government Area, Kaduna State. Results of proximate analysis show crude fat (23.10%) and crude protein, (36.70%) while calcium (1212mg/kg) was most abundant among minerals analysed. Kapok seed oil had clear bright yellowish colour with offensive odour with iodine value, (76.80g I/100 g oil) and saponification value, (179.77mg KOH/g oil). Lignin content of the kapok fiber was 5.54%. We concluded that the kapok seeds, which are under-utilized and often discarded as an agrowaste in our environment, is rich in oil and protein therefore, has a reasonable economic potential which can be harnessed.


Two phosphate ester hydraulic fluids, Pydrauls 50E and 115E, are used principally in industrial systems. A study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicated that a significant portion of the annual production ofall hydraulic fluid was discharged into the environment as a result of leakage. We studied the mobility, persistence, bioconcentration potential, acute and chronic toxicity, and environmental concentrations of Pydrauls 50E and 115E and their three main components: triphenyl phosphate, nonylphenyl diphenyl phosphate, and cumylphenyl diphenyl phosphate. Physicochemical properties and use-disposal patterns were also considered. Pydrauls 50E and 115E presently do not appear to constitute an unreasonable risk to the environment; however, inadvertent leakage of these materials to the aquatic environment should be avoided. Toxicity tests indicated that the margin of safety between environmental concentrations in water and the expected biological effect concentration is at least 1 order of magnitude for coldwater fish, and about 3 orders of magnitude for warm-water species. Better control of hydraulic fluid leakage would reduce environmental contamination and increase the margin of safety.