The first edition of this text was published in 1981 and was coauthored by Ruth Purtilo and Christine Cassel. I have not examined a copy of the first edition text and do not intend to compare the two volumes. Since the original text was published well over 10 years ago and bioethics is an area of inquiry in which change is constant, I do not believe that a great deal would be gained by comparing the two editions. The second edition is current and should stand or fall on its own. I cannot remember when my reactions to a book have been more varied, or more in opposition to one another. As a philosopher and academician, I dislike intensely many things about this text. On the other hand, as a teacher who has seen students master a host of abstract ethical principles and then forget those principles as soon as


THE THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL, AHMADU
BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF
EDUCATION IN ISLAMIC STUDIES (CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTIONS)
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA
1999.


Vanilla is currently sold as an ethyl alcoholic extract, typically at a concentration of 35% (v/v). Alcoholic extracts have some disadvantages, such as high concentrations of organic residues, long extraction times and the requirement of large volumes when used as a flavoring. In contrast, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) allows isolation of high-purity oleoresins without co-extraction of undesired organic residues, thereby preserving the desired volatile compounds in vanilla. In this study, we identified and quantified volatile compounds and fatty acids in four oleoresins and two ethanolic extracts of cured Vanilla planifolia Andrews beans following 10 or 20 sun-drying and sweating cycles (SS). SFE was carried out at a pressure of 20 MPa at 40°C, 50°C, or 60°C, and the resulting vanilla oleoresins were analyzed with GC-MS and GC-FID. The major compounds identified in the extracts were o-guaiacol, p-creosol, p-vinylguaiacol, p-hydroxybenzaldehyde, vanillic acid and vanillin.


The performance of a cognitive radio system depends on how well it can maximize the usage of a free frequency band without causing any interference to the primary user. Thus the abilities to detect a primary user as well as to avoid any false alarm are of paramount importance for such a system. For energy detector based spectrum sensing in cognitive radios, these abilities are influenced by the threshold set to distinguish signal from noise. Conventional energy detectors are based on a fixed threshold. This may not be optimum in low SNR conditions where the performance of fixed threshold based detector can vary from the targeted performance metrics substantially. In this paper, we propose a method to change the threshold based on the number of samples, to optimize the detection parameters, namely probability of detection and probability of false alarm. We also introduce a control parameter which is used to vary the set threshold and thereby obtain a response more suited to the operational requirements than that obtained by a fixed threshold based energy detector. Simulation results are presented to show a different perspective of the importance of the sensing time to the performance metrics of the energy detector.


With the enactment in 2005 of the Law on Science, Technology and Innovation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the National Executive undertook the purpose of developing guiding principles in science, technology and innovation, such as: Organizing the National Science System, Technology and Innovation, defining the guidelines which guide policies and strategies for this activity and its applications, implement institutional and operational mechanisms of promotion, encouragement and promotion of scientific research, develop social appropriation of knowledge and promote the capacity use and circulation of knowledge through technology transfer and innovation thus increasing national development (LOCTI Article 1). In the five years (2005-2010 before the reform in January 2011), firms operating in the country have been complying with this mandate by applying technology management processes. This research aims to achieve the objective of describing how Venezuelan companies have advanced their technology management processes within the context of legal rules (LOCTI), ie, how the selected companies have been taking the innovation and technology management, which limitations they have faced in this process and finally why some companies decide to invest and others contribute. The type of research is descriptive and the selection of companies was done using a purposive sampling, selecting only those companies according to their income (100,000 tax units) contribute to. Out of the 20 companies selected, only thirteen confirmed. Concluding that most of the companies surveyed have knowledge and understanding of what technology management is, beyond the purchase of equipment, the majority establishes its alignments of administrative and operational processes with the technological variable, investment has been directed towards the improvement of their learning processes and working capital reflected in the accompaniments of the university consultants; there is willingness to invest with the presentation of projects to strengthen its technological development; also maintain expectations related to monitoring, control and execution of projects, also they have no clear regulatory framework for approval of projects. Finally, the most important problems are: a) lack of strategic / technology planning that links the middle management with strategic business indicators, b) excess in routine activities impede innovation, middle management is more concern in matters of efficiency, effectiveness (short term) than in the innovation and technological development, c) technological dependence, due to the sophistication of the machinery.


PurposeCorporate social responsibility (CSR) index represents attributes of firms that are differentiated. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of differentiated CSR, CSRS (strategic CSR activities) and CSRD (defensive CSR activities) on R&D expenditure and its effectiveness on firm values.Design/methodology/approachThe sample includes 1,388 firm-year observations for 2004–2015 of listed firms on the Korean Stock Exchange (KSE) whose CSR measures, KEJI (Korea Economic Justice Institute) index are available from the Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice (2016).FindingsThe results show that while CSRS is positively associated with R&D expenditure, CSRD is not. Further, development costs and its interaction term with CSRS positively affect firm values.Originality/valueThis study provides an important reason to separate the attributes of the CSR in future empirical studies. The results imply that the study of effects of CSR on sustainable growth or firm values should focus on CSRS rather than CSR activities in general in future research.


DNA content of 369 rectal cancers was measured by flow cytometry. One hundred and four (28.2%) were diploid, 252 (68.3%) were aneuploid and 13 (3.5%) were tetraploid. Diploid cancers were associated with an improved 5 year survival (p less than 0.001) and were more likely to be diagnosed at an early stage. However DNA content did not confer independent prognostic information in a Cox model based on four discrete pathological variables. Patients were classified by a new system of prognostic grouping and those with a very good or a very poor outlook were removed leaving 137 prognostic group 3 patients. No further substratification of this group by DNA content or by four additional pathological variables could be achieved. As the new prognostic system is not improved by the additional of ploidy, routine adoption of flow cytometry in the assessment of rectal cancer can not be recommended.


We present a next-to-leading order calculation of H+jet in gluon fusion including the effect of a finite top quark mass $m_t$ at large transverse momenta. Using the recently published two-loop amplitudes in the high energy expansion and our previous setup that includes finite $m_t$ effects in a low energy expansion, we are able to obtain $m_t$-finite results for transverse momenta below 225 GeV and above 500 GeV with negligible remaining top quark mass uncertainty. The only remaining region that has to rely on the common leading order rescaling approach is the threshold region $\sqrt{\hat s}\simeq 2m_t$. We demonstrate that this rescaling provides an excellent approximation in the high $p_T$ region. Our calculation settles the issue of top quark mass effects at large transverse momenta. It is implemented in the parton level Monte Carlo code MCFM and is publicly available immediately in version 8.2.


During rainfall events, many physical processes occur simultaneously. Conceptual frameworks for infiltration, runoff, surface sealing, sediment detachment, transport, and deposition processes have long been recognized. Nevertheless, interactions between hydrologic and sediment regimes and how they are affected by changes in slope steepness, soil erodibility, and rainfall erosivity have not been evaluated. A laboratory study on the Glynwood clay loam (fine, illitic, mesic Aquic Hapludalf) was designed to demonstrate interactions between hydrologic and sediment regimes. Four rainfall intensities, from 30 to 120 mm h -1 , and two inflows, equivalent to 30 and 60 mm h -1 rainfall, were applied to create different combinations of rainfall detachment and shallow flow transport. Sediment delivery was quantified from two rainfall events: first on freshly packed soil under free drainage and later on the eroded surface under seepage. During the first rainfall event, average sediment deliveries from 30 to 100 mm h -1 runoff were 1.8, 3.4, and 3.3 kg m -2 h -1 for slopes of 5, 10, and 15%, respectively. The lack of slope effects from 10 to 15% slope indicates the shift from a transport-limiting sediment regime at low slopes to a detachment-limiting sediment regime at high slopes. Under the potentially more erodible seepage condition, the second rainfall event produced only 1.3, 1.8, and 1.5 kg m -2 h -1 sediment from the same range of slopes and runoff rates. Reduction in sediment delivery during the second run was caused by removal of the easily erodible fraction during the first run. Increased profile drainage at the 15% slope further limited sediment detachment. These results show interactions between surface hydrologic conditions and erosion processes and the importance of understanding dominant sediment regimes in developing erosion prediction models.


Dialog response generation in open domain is an important research topic where the main challenge is to generate relevant and diverse responses. In this paper, we propose a new dialog pre-training framework called DialogVED, which introduces continuous latent variables into the enhanced encoder-decoder pre-training framework to increase the relevance and diversity of responses. With the help of a large dialog corpus (Reddit), we pre-train the model using the following 4 tasks, used in training language models (LMs) and Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) literature: 1) masked language model; 2) response generation; 3) bag-of-words prediction; and 4) KL divergence reduction. We also add additional parameters to model the turn structure in dialogs to improve the performance of the pre-trained model. We conduct experiments on PersonaChat, DailyDialog, and DSTC7-AVSD benchmarks for response generation. Experimental results show that our model achieves the new state-of-the-art results on all these datasets.


The mineralogy of drill holes J-13, UE-25A No. 1, and USW G-1 was previously determined using qualitative and semiquantitative techniques, and most of the available data were neither complete nor accurate. New quantitative x-ray diffraction data were obtained for rocks from all three of these drill holes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. These quantitative analyses employed both external and internal standard x-ray powder diffraction methods and permitted the precise determination of all phases commonly found in the tuffs at Yucca Mountain, including glass and opal-CT. These new data supplant previous analyses and include numerous additional phases. New findings of particular importance include better constraints on the distribution of the more soluble silica polymorphs, cristobalite and opal-CT. Opal-CT was associated solely with clinoptilolite-bearing horizons, and cristobalite disappearance coincided with the appearance of analcime in USW G-1. Unlike previous analyses, we identified significant amounts of smectite in drill hole J-13. We found no evidence to support previous reports of the occurrence of erionite or phillipsite in these drill holes.


This work presents FG-Net, a general deep learning framework for large-scale point clouds understanding without voxelizations, which achieves accurate and real-time performance with a single NVIDIA GTX 1080 GPU. First, a novel noise and outlier filtering method is designed to facilitate subsequent high-level tasks. For effective understanding purpose, we propose a deep convolutional neural network leveraging correlated feature mining and deformable convolution based geometric-aware modelling, in which the local feature relationships and geometric patterns can be fully exploited. For the efficiency issue, we put forward an inverse density sampling operation and a feature pyramid based residual learning strategy to save the computational cost and memory consumption respectively. Extensive experiments on real-world challenging datasets demonstrated that our approaches outperform state-of-the-art approaches in terms of accuracy and efficiency. Moreover, weakly supervised transfer learning is also conducted to demonstrate the generalization capacity of our method.


of notations." It is shown that for the system S the first and second forms may be expressed by a Tl\ predicate. For © the first form may be expressed by a n \ predicate and the second form by both a IIJ and a SJ predicate. Furthermore the ordinals represented by these systems are a proper subset of the A| ordinals. (Hence the author could have shown that the first form for 0 can also be expressed by a 2J predicate.) It is also shown that the system C of Kreider and Rogers XXXI 134 may be expressed in the first form by a IIJ predicate. The results were obtained independently of Putnam XXXI 136. In a footnote added at the end of the article the author remarks that some of her results are consequences of Putnam's article. WAYNE RICHTER


Activation and death pathway selection of T cells are regulated via the mitochondrial transmembrane potential (Δψm). Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients' T cells exhibit persistent Δψm elevation or mitochondrial hyperpolarization (MHP) and ATP depletion which predispose them to pro-inflammatory death via necrosis. Here, we examined the role of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), which serves as a sensor of MHP, in T cell activation in 34 female SLE patients and 30 female controls matched for age and ethnicity. MHP and mitochondrial mass was most robustly (1.6-2.0-fold; p= 0.0027) increased in CD3+/CD4-/CD8- cells. The prevalence of Foxp3+ cells within the CD4+/CD25+ compartment was reduced in SLE patients (37.05 ± 3.0 %) relative to controls (48.37 ± 2.5 %; p = 0.0014). mTOR activity, as measured by the accumulation of pS6 protein, was increased > 1.5-fold in CD3+ T cells (p=0.012) and CD19+ B cells (p=0.006). Relative to healthy controls (3.18 ± 0.39%), the frequency of Foxp3+/CD4+/CD25+ cells was reduced in 6 lupus patients (1.70 ± 0.42%; p=0.021) prior to rapamycin treatment. In vivo treatment with rapamycin increased the frequency of Tregs from 1.50 ± 0.45% to 2.8 ± 0.59% (p=0.040) while the SLEDAI scores were reduced in 5 SLE patients from 22.4 ± 5.7 to 16.7 ± 2.8 (p=0.017).These data identify the in vivo expansion of Tregs as a potential mechanism of action that may contribute to the therapeutic efficacy of rapamycin in SLE.


Summary Care Sport Connectors (CSCs) have been appointed to create a connection between primary care and physical activity (PA) sectors to stimulate inactive residents into becoming physically active. Adequate recruitment strategies are necessary to reach the intended target group in order to foster the sustainability of lifestyle interventions. The objective of this study is to explore PA behavior and health characteristics of the target group reached by CSCs and if these characteristics differ between participants when grouped based on how they were recruited. Participants from lifestyle interventions were included between September 2014 and April 2016 using a purposive sampling method. Participants were recruited through CSCs via public relations (n = 135), a personal letter (n = 136), or a referral (n = 98) and compared based on their PA level, health-related quality of life, motivation, self-efficacy, morbidity and health-related fitness. Scores were analyzed with a multi-level (mixed model) analysis measured before the intervention. The three groups were different in PA level (p = 0.002). The outcomes regarding health-related quality of life, motivation, and number of somatic disorders were also significantly different for the three groups, except for the categories of mental health (p = 0.145) and self-efficacy (p = 0.464). For all dimensions, the referral group scored the least favorable. The investment in time and money for an active recruitment strategy like referrals is worthwhile because it provides CSCs the opportunity to reach people who are inactive and at risk of chronic disease. Future studies are necessary to reveal the effect on PA levels and health in the long-term.


In this paper the authors present the results of an experiment conducted at the 2022 NATO Cyber Coalition Exercise in Tallinn, Estonia wherein a prototype Autonomous Intelligent Cyberdefense Agent (AICA) was evaluated for its contributions to cyber operator efficacy. Six teams were given list of objectives to accomplish including preventing other teams from accomplishing the same. This included monitoring the operations of a simulated power micro-grid supporting each team's network. Half of the teams (assigned at random) were given a AICA prototype. Evaluation of efficacy included self-reports from participating teams and measurement of total system uptime. Testing highlighted areas where future development can further enhance the prototype to improve automated responses and interactions with operators, as well as enhancements for future exercises of this type.


We report several methods of chemical dehydrogenation of hydrogenated graphene (HG), characterizing the results using Raman, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and electrical conductivity measurements. Notably, the hydrogen–graphene bonds appear to activate the graphene toward subsequent reaction such that, in several cases, the addition of the dehydrogenating agent to the graphene accompanies the removal of hydrogen. We compare the uptake of chemical groups on HG to those on pristine graphene and find that HG reacts more readily than pristine graphene with radical generators such as chlorine and AIBN.


The Gaia mission, with its unprecedented astrometric and photometric precision, combined with its Radial Velocity Spectrometer, will provide to the astronomical community a wealth of necessary constraints to disentangle between the different formation scenarios of the Galactic thick disc. The aim of this review is to present some of the recent results obtained spectroscopically concerning this Galactic structure, and highlight the open questions that still remain to be answered under the Gaia era. These concern mainly the measurement of the chemo-dynamical properties of the Milky Way at the inner and outer parts, which allow us to determine the total accreted mass from the mergers with satellite galaxies, and will give us an estimate of the strength of the radial migration phenomena to form such a structure.


In 2010 life test of three LEU (19.7%) lead test assemblies (LTA) is expected in the existing WWR-K reactor core with regular WWR-C-type fuel assemblies and a smaller core with a beryllium insert. Preliminary analysis of test safety is to be carried out. It implies reconstruction of the reactor core history for last three years, including burnup calculation for each regular fuel assembly (FA), as well as calculation of characteristics of the test core. For the planned configuration of the test core a number of characteristics have been calculated. The obtained data will be used as input for calculations on LTA test core steady-state thermal hydraulics and on transient analysis.


Approximately 21,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer annually. Although a relatively rare disease, it is extremely difficult to detect as there is no screening test available. There are symptoms even in early stages which are dismissed by patients as not being serious and often initially being attributed to benign causes by health professional not aware of the symptom complex associated with ovarian cancer. Awareness is the only tool currently available to help improve detection. Lilies of the Valley, an ovarian cancer support and awareness group in Huntsville, Alabama, has as its mission to educate, raise awareness and disseminate information about ovarian cancer to ovarian cancer patients and survivors, the general public and the medical community in the Tennessee Valley region. The Ovarian Cancer National Alliance has its mission to remain objective in providing information to the ovarian cancer community; it does not endorse any particular treatment, therapy, clinical trial or product. These two organizations raise awareness through two very unique and innovative programs, TEAL Talks and the Survivors Teaching Students: Saving Women9s Lives. This poster examines the roles of these organizations and these programs in improving early detection of ovarian cancer through patient and health professional awareness. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-41. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-LB-41


The riskiness of street crossing behavior of 75 individuals and groups of pedestrians was observed. Gap acceptance, or the elapsed time before a pedestrian initiated a crossing at a marked crosswalk and the time until a vehicle passed through the crosswalk, was the measure of risk. Pedestrian groups containing at least one infant tended to choose longer gaps, i.e., they were less risky in their crossing. Gap acceptance was also more conservative as the mean age of the pedestrian group increased. Gap was not affected by the sex ratio of the group or the volume of traffic passing through the intersection.


Palaeoersachus bicarinatus gen. et sp. n. is described from Eocene Baltic amber. The species seems to be most closely related to the extant Neotropical genus Ersachus Erichson, 1847. Potential synapomorphies of the two genera are the presence of pronotal carinae and hypomera with a pronounced internal border. The systematic position of Ersachus and Palaeoersachus gen. n. is discussed; apparently, they do not belong to the subfamilies Limnichinae or Cephalobyrrhinae, as stated by previous authors. Both genera are tentatively regarded as Limnichidae incertae sedis.


The Tcp-1 gene is located in the t-complex region of mouse chromosome 17 and on the long arm of human chromosome 6. In the mouse, a related gene, Tcp-1x, is tightly linked to Tcp-1. It is shown here that two genes located 3' to the murine Tcp-1 and Tcp-1x genes code for proteins highly homologous to acetyl-CoA acetyltransferases. These genes (Acat-1 and Acat-2) are in the opposite orientation to the Tcp-1 genes, and transcription results in mRNA species that contain the last exon of Tcp-1 or Tcp-1x within the 3' untranslated region of the respective Acat mRNA. Both Acat genes appear to be transcribed in several mouse tissues. An ACAT gene also overlaps the TCP1 gene in humans, suggesting that this close linkage may have some functional significance.


In muscle fibers which are free of myosin, tropomyosin and troponin thin filaments were reconstructed from muscle and non-muscle G-actin modified with 1,5-IAEDANS. Using polarized microfluorimetry it was shown that actin in such filaments maintained the ability to respond to conformational changes during actin interaction with subfragment of myosin (S1). The models of muscle fibers with reconstructed from non-muscle actin thin filaments are supposed to use for investigation of mechanisms of cell cytoskeleton functions with the help of polarized microfluorimetry.


Anopheles ludlowae is specifically known as malaria vector found in Sulawesi. The aim of study was to investigate population and breeding place of An. ludlowae in several ecosystems of Central Sulawesi. The study was conducted in Malino, Tanah Mpulu, and Lalombi villages, South Banawa sub district, Donggal district, Central Sulawesi province. There were six observed ecosystems i.e. settlements where were close and distant from a jungle area, settlements where were close and distant from non-jungle area, and settlements where were close and distant from a coastal area. Mosquitoes were caught using a man landing, animal bite trap, sweep net and light trap methods. All traps were set up at 6 p.m . and collected at 6 a.m. Trapped mosquitoes were identified based on key of morphological characteristic identification. Surveillance of mosquitoes larvae was carried out at some potential places of breeding sites i.e. holes around a river, wetland lagoon and other sites. The result demonstrated that An. ludlowae tended to suck blood of livestock and human. The highest population was MHD 4.42 head/person/hour found at settlements where w ere far from non-jungle s. The holes around a river were the breeding place preference of An. ludlowae.


Transformer failure makes the power system blackout,and the number of transformer failures is very large every year. Finding the spread source of transformer brittleness can avoid the transformer failures. In this paper, the method and step of building the brittle model based on the chart theory are brought forward. Building a model of 7 nodes to transformer and analyze it. Obtaining the layered electric power system brittle model and the brittle source. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is applied to build a three-layer brittle model for transformer. The relative important degree order vector of transformer failures is obtained for certain factor in certain layer. The high danger degree spread sources are found by defining the danger degree of the spread sources. As long as they are monitored intentionally, the transformer brittleness can be avoided from happening to the maximal degree. Verifying this method is usefulness to the analysis of electric power system.


We present an experimental and theoretical study of carrier-envelope-phase (CEP) effects on the population transfer between two bound atomic states interacting with pulses consisting of many cycles. Using intense radio-frequency pulse with Rabi frequency of the order of the atomic transition frequency, we investigate the influence of the CEP on the control of phase-dependent multiphoton transitions between the Zeeman sublevels of the ground state of {sup 87}Rb. Our scheme has no limitation on the duration of the pulses. Extending the CEP control to longer pulses creates interesting possibilities to generate pulses with accuracy that is better than the period of optical oscillations.


BACKGROUND
The Medtronic-Hall valvular prosthesis was used for the first time in Oslo, Norway, in June 1977. During the 10-year period from 1977 through 1987, the valve was the valve of choice in Oslo and was implanted in a total of 1104 consecutive patients with mean age of 56 years. There were 816 aortic (AVR), 187 mitral (MVR), and 101 combined mitral and aortic (DVR) valve replacements.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We report our 15-year experience with this prosthesis in a total of 1090 patients (98.7% complete follow-up). The observation time ranged from 7 to 17.8 years (mean, 9.2 years), with cumulative follow-up representing 10016 patient-years. Actuarial survival, including both early and late deaths, was 46% after AVR, 42% after MVR, and 28% after DVR. Thromboembolism occurred at linearized rates of 1.8%, 1.9%, and 1.9% per patient-year after AVR, MVR, and DVR, respectively. There were eight cases of valvular thrombosis, one fatal, resulting in linearized rates of 0.05%, 0.19%, and 0.13% per patient-year after AVR, MVR, and DVR, respectively. There were no instances of structural valve failure. Morbidity from anticoagulant-related hemorrhage was 1.19% per patient-year, with seven fatal events, all of cerebral origin.

CONCLUSIONS
Excellent long-term outcomes were confirmed for patients, with 80% of survivors in New York Heart Association class I or II.


This exploratory study examines the electoral experience of persons with disabilities with a particular focus on those that have sought provincial political office in Canada for the last three provincial elections in every province. It also gauges the accessibility of the environment into which they were entering when deciding to seek political office: political parties (recruitment efforts, campaign finance provisions, disability specific language in party constitutions) and the provincial electoral management bodies (campaign financing laws). If the incremental nature of disability policy changes has long been "not good enough" with minimal gains won through long drawn out processes (Levesque and Graefe, 2014), what then is to be made of the gains made to date? For persons with disabilities, this is important given their late enfranchisement (Davidson and Lapp, 2004). In its wake, a small but growing literature has emerged that examines accessibility issues related to the voting experience (Prince, 2004, 2012) while an even smaller literature exists that examines persons with disabilities seeking political office in Canada (e.g., D'Aubin and Stienstra, 2004). The work thus far largely focuses on barriers to inclusion and on federal electoral participation. Missing in this literature is a provincial assessment of persons with disabilities that have sought elected office, as well as the mechanisms used by political parties to encourage potential candidates with disabilities to seek office. The story that emerges is one of largely non-participation which underscores the work needed to attract candidates with disabilities to seek political office to aid in the construction and reconstruction of the Canadian nation.


Sexuality is an integral part of health and well-being. Despite a 30-year history of adolescent sexuality research, there has been little that has focused on more than risky sexual behaviour. For example, there has been little research on conceptions of sexuality and pathways to sexual health. In part, this is because sexual health has been often defined as the lack of risky behaviour and health problems. In the studies reported here, components of female sexual health were identified and tested, including behaviours and cognitions, among groups of girls in their late teens and early 20s. After a review of the literature, four sets of factors appeared central to identifying female sexual health. These factors included sexual subjectivity, sexual agency, psychosocial well-being and sexual exploration. The first factor, sexual subjectivity, had previously been described as important to female sexual well-being, but had been developed within feminist theories and studied with qualitative methodologies. After a thorough review of the literature, no psychometrically sound measure of sexual subjectivity was found. Therefore, an instrument to assess sexual subjectivity was constructed and validated through a series of studies. Partially as expected, five factors were found - sexual body-esteem, entitlement to sexual pleasure from oneself, entitlement to sexual pleasure from a partner, sexual self-efficacy in achieving sexual pleasure, and sexual self-reflection. In additional cross-sectional and longitudinal (6-month, 2 waves) studies, associations between sexual subjectivity, sexual agency, psychosocial well-being, and sexual experience were examined. The results showed that there were concurrent associations between sexual subjectivity and measures of sexual agency and some measures of psychosocial wellbeing. Results also showed that females with more sexual experience (i.e., experience with sexual intercourse, self-masturbation, noncoital orgasmic responsiveness, and same-sex sexual experience) were relatively higher in sexual subjectivity and sexual agency. However, well-being was similar in sexual experience groups when they were compared. In longitudinal analyses, changes in sexual subjectivity, sexual agency and psychosocial well-being were examined for the whole sample and among subgroups defined by levels of sexual experience. Comparisons were also made between those girls who commenced sexual intercourse during the course of the study, those who remained virgins, and those who were nonvirgins at the first assessment. Main effects generally validated cross-sectional findings. Girls who commenced first sexual intercourse relatively earlier increased in self-esteem over time, compared to their virgin counterparts. Girls who reported a history of self-masturbation and noncoital orgasmic responsiveness, and girls who reported no history with either behaviour, increased in sexual body-esteem and self-esteem over time, but the former group of girls were relatively higher in sexual body-esteem and self-esteem than the latter group of girls. Girls who reported a history of one, but not the other of self-masturbation and noncoital orgasm did not change over time. Results also indicated that girls' transition to first sexual intercourse had little association with sexual subjectivity, but some findings were suggestive of a need for further research. Future research, and study strengths and limitations are discussed. There is a need to examine sexual subjectivity as both an antecedent and an outcome using longer time lags with several waves of assessment so that the linkages between sexual subjectivity and other factors can be determined. The implications of sexual subjectivity and sexual exploration for sexuality education are also discussed.


In the 1980s, as a consultant to RAND's Institute for Civil Justice, we surveyed litigants whose cases had been resolved through trials, court-annexed arbitrations, judge-run settlement conferences, and bi-lateral negotiations between lawyers. We found that litigants cared about process: they reported less satisfaction with processes in which they took no part and more satisfaction with processes in which they could participate. Contrary to some lore that litigants were alienated by trial-like procedures, the litigants whom we studied reported that trials and arbitrations gave them a sense of control and dignity. When coupled with and complemented by research of others, that study also demonstrates that the preference for process survives outcomes, which is to say that it exists even when the litigants are not successful through a particular process. Contrast those data with what we know about judicial preferences - garnered not by parallel surveys but through other sources. At meetings where judges teach other judges about how to do their work, at conferences with the bench and bar, in descriptions of their activities, and in published opinions, judges are promoting settlements rather than trials. In this brief essay, I first provide an overview of the evidence on judicial preferences for dispositions other than trial. Therefore I explore the puzzles presented by the contrast between judicial preferences for settlement and litigants' preferences for process. At issue is how to evaluate and what weight to give either set of preferences as the polity makes its judgments about the structure of state-based dispute resolution.


This article proposes a novel modular multilevel converter (MMC) named "T-type MMC" (T-MMC) for reliable, controllable, and efficient performance in energy conversion applications. Circuitry configurations and control structures are presented with respect to fundamental and additional functions. The T-MMC topology consists of two solid-state power stages (Stage-I and Stage-II), which are coordinated for ac and dc fault tolerance and increased ac-side voltage synthesis. Energy storage elements can be integrated into the submodules. As a result, the T-MMC based energy storage system can not only increase system inertia but also maintain continuous power transmission during faults. A thyristor forced-commutation technique facilitates actively controlled utilization of symmetrical thyristors in the conduction path; thus, T-MMC normal-mode operation losses can be equivalent to those of the conventional half-bridge MMC. Simulation and experimentation demonstrate the performance of the T-MMC.


Background and objectives: This study aimed at analyzing the healing effects of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) (k620 nm, 6 J/cm) and light-emitting diode (LED) therapy (k640 nm, 6 J/cm) on the longitudinal sternotomy incisions of hyperglycemic and normoglycemic patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Materials and methods: 120 volunteers were electively submitted to CABG and were randomly allocated into four different groups of equal size (n = 30): control, placebo, laser (k of 640 nm and spatial average energy fluency [SAEF] of 1.06 J/cm), and LED (k of 660 – 20 nm and SAEF of 0.24 J/cm). Laser and LED groups were irradiated from the second to eighth day postsurgery, and sternotomy incision was photographically registered. Then, participants were also separated into hyperglycemic and normoglycemic groups, according to their fasting blood glucose test before surgery. Three researchers blindly analyzed the incision photographs to determine hyperemia and wound closure at the first day of hospital discharge (eighth postoperative day). Results: LLLT and LED groups had similarly less hyperemia and less incision bleeding or dehiscence ( p £ 0.005) and the outcomes were also analogous between hyperglycemic and normoglycemic patients, which indicates no difference observed in an intragroup analysis ( p ‡ 0.05). Conclusions: With the present therapy parameters, it may be assumed that both coherent light (laser) and non-coherent light (LED) are effective in promoting sternotomy and healing acceleration, which are evident on the eighth day postsurgery.


To determine the signaling pathways leading from Met activation to metastasis and poor prognosis, we measured the kinetic gene alterations in breast cancer cell lines in response to HGF/SF. Using a network inference tool we analyzed the putative protein-protein interaction pathways leading from Met to these genes and studied their specificity to Met and prognostic potential. We identified a Met kinetic signature consisting of 131 genes. The signature correlates with Met activation and with response to anti-Met therapy (p<0.005) in in-vitro models. It also identifies breast cancer patients who are at high risk to develop an aggressive disease in six large published breast cancer patient cohorts (p<0.01, N>1000). Moreover, we have identified novel putative Met pathways, which correlate with Met activity and patient prognosis. This signature may facilitate personalized therapy by identifying patients who will respond to anti-Met therapy. Moreover, this novel approach may be applied for other tyrosine kinases and other malignancies.


PURPOSE
To report a case of bilateral corneal graft dehiscence caused by blunt trauma.

METHODS
Case report of bilateral simultaneous corneal graft dehiscence with expulsion of the lens and iris as a result of airbag-induced trauma.

RESULTS
Both corneal buttons were resutured, the prolapsed iris tissue was repositioned in the right eye, and anterior vitrectomy was performed bilaterally. Topical and systemic antibiotics, topical steroids, cycloplegic agents, and antiglaucoma drugs were initiated. Repeated B-scan ultrasound examinations demonstrated an attached retina in both eyes. Three weeks after admission, the right eye was reoperated for removal of remnant lens material and additional anterior vitrectomy. The patient was fitted with polycarbonate spectacles with an optical correction of +8 in both eyes. Visual acuity improved to 20/200 and 0.5/60 in the right and left eyes, respectively. The right corneal graft regained transparency, but the left one remained hazy.

CONCLUSION
Airbag deployment during motor vehicle collisions is a significant cause of ocular morbidity. The reported risk of airbag-related eye injury is 2.5% for any eye injury and 0.4% for severe eye injury. Patients undergoing corneal surgery should be counseled about the weakness of the donor-recipient interface and should consider wearing protective glasses.


National health insurance system in Indonesia was developed by the Social Security Organizing Agency (BPJS), the hospital acts as a health servant who fulfils the rights of patients. However, this does not work optimally because not all hospitals are willing to cooperate with health insurance. This study aims to explain the legal protection of patients receiving health insurance that are rejected by hospitals which not cooperate with health insurance. Method used was descriptive analysis through a statute approach and a conceptual approach related to health services as well as provisions on national health insurance and legal protection. Actions that violate the law of rejection from hospitals can be regulated in Article 1365 BW and lawsuit filed based on UUPK regulated in Article 19 paragraph (1) of UUPK and demanded compensation in the form in accordance with Article 19 paragraph (2) of UUPK.


This paper presents a low power tunable active inductor and RF band pass filter suitable for multiband RF front end circuits. The active inductor circuit uses the PMOS cascode structure as the negative transconductor of a gyrator to reduce the noise voltage. Also, this structure provides possible negative resistance to reduce the inductor loss with wide inductive bandwidth and high resonance frequency. The RF band pass filter is realized using the proposed active inductor with suitable input and output buffer stages. The tuning of the center frequency for multiband operation is achieved through the controllable current source. The designed active inductor and RF band pass filter are simulated in 180 nm and 45 nm CMOS process using the Synopsys HSPICE simulation tool and their performances are compared. The parameters, such as resonance frequency, tuning capability, noise and power dissipation, are analyzed for these CMOS technologies and discussed. The design of a third order band pass filter using an active inductor is also presented.


The Lattrell-Dax method of nitrite-mediated substitution of carbohydrate triflates is an efficient method to generate structures of inverse configuration. In this study it has been demonstrated tha ...


This study mainly investigates the effect of talc and calcium carbonate (CaCO3) as monotonic and hybrid fillers on the thermal, mechanical and morphological properties of polypropylene (PP). The hybrid composites, through the synergistic coalescence of positive characteristics from both fillers, have exhibited exceptionally good strength and toughness as compared to the monotonic composites. The nucleating ability and high aspect ratio of talc contributed towards the increment in strength while the isotropic nature of CaCO3 enhanced the toughness of the hybrid composites. Titanate surface treatments on talc and CaCO3 dramatically enhanced the ductility of both monotonic and hybrid composites. The composites were also subjected to natural weathering in Penang, Malaysia for 6 months. After exposure, the mechanical properties of monotonic composites deteriorated due to severe physical and chemical degradation. However, the hybrid composites exhibited better retention in mechanical properties albeit having undergone some degree of surface-degradation. Filler surface treatments were also effective in preventing further deterioration in composite performance during natural weathering.


We are presenting a silicon structure constituting a vertical nanogap. Nanogaps are needed for connecting molecules and for measuring their transport properties. The main advantage of our structure is the CMOS compatible processing, showing excellent reproducibility. Gaps in the range of 3-15 nm have been fabricated. The structure is made from a silicon wafer covered with a thin layer of silicon dioxide (determining the gap size) and a top polysilicon layer. A trench is etched so the stack is reached from the side, and then the insulating silicon dioxide layer is partially removed by selective etching. Towards integration of molecular devices into CMOS technology, the challenges we face include attachment of different types of nano components such as molecules, clusters and nano crystals to the silicon/silicon dioxide surface, control of the surface leakage and control of the tunneling through the oxide.
Study on solvents confirmed no predominant surface leakage induced by the presence of solvents like Toluene and Chloroform. From the experiments performed by insertion of conjugate molecules (derivative of terthiophene in this case) in gaps revealed significant increment of the current at low bias but at high bias, the tunneling current through the oxide smears out the effect. The surface leakage was in this case found to be high with respect to the virgin sample. Measurements on CdSe nanocrystals showed a strong impact on the current at the first voltage sweep but this effect is not stable for the subsequent sweeps. Functionalization of the surface prior to insertion of molecules or clusters is preferable.


Abstract Cytokines are implicated in the immunopathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS). Interleukin (IL)-33, one of the recently discovered members of the IL-1 superfamily, is a dual functional cytokine involved in various autoimmune disorders. In a case-control study, venous blood was collected from healthy subjects categorized as control group (n=44) and MS patients (n=44). All recruited patients were clinically diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), including patients without treatment (new identified cases, n=16) and those treated with interferon beta (IFN-β) (n=28). The plasma levels of IL-33 in subjects were measured with ELISA. Significantly elevated IL-33 plasma levels were observed in RRMS patients (p=0.005). Furthermore, IFN-β-treated MS patients had lower levels of IL-33 compared to the untreated patients (p<0.001). Increased IL-33 plasma levels in the patient group might be associated with development of MS. These results could contribute to our better understanding about the role of IL-33 in the immunopathogenesis of MS.


A germanium strip waveguide on a silicon substrate is integrated with a microfluidic chip to detect cocaine in tetrachloroethylene solutions. In the evanescent field of the waveguide, cocaine absorbs the light at 5.8μm, which is emitted from a quantum cascade laser. The lowest measured concentration is 100μg/ml.


Coincidences between recoil ions-ejected electrons and recoil ions-scattered projectiles have been used to study the kinematics of electron and positron impact ionization. Triply Differential (TDCS) data for 500 eV positron and electron impact on Ar are presented here as function of scattering angle for a given range of energy losses. Binary and recoil interactions can be distinguished allowing us to determine the relative intensity between those interactions. Preliminary integration of the data indicate an enhancement of the binary region for positron interaction while for electron impact the intensity of the recoil and binary interactions is comparable.


Regional glucose hypometabolism is a defining feature of Alzheimer disease (AD). One emerging link between glucose hypometabolism and progression of AD is the nutrient-responsive post-translational O-GlcNAcylation of nucleocytoplasmic proteins. O-GlcNAc is abundant in neurons and occurs on both tau and amyloid precursor protein. Increased brain O-GlcNAcylation protects against tau and amyloid-β peptide toxicity. Decreased O-GlcNAcylation occurs in AD, suggesting that glucose hypometabolism may impair the protective roles of O-GlcNAc within neurons and enable neurodegeneration. Here, we review how O-GlcNAc may link cerebral glucose hypometabolism to progression of AD and summarize data regarding the protective role of O-GlcNAc in AD models.


Recent national efforts to stem the alarming growth of childhood overweight and obesity in Australia have highlighted the importance of preventative strategies that focus beyond the child-on parents, families, primary health care providers (PHCPs) and child care services. But, while such efforts have to date focused on school-based interventions, once poor eating habits and sedentary lifestyles have set in, a growing body of research is indicating that PHCPs can play a more influential role in monitoring and modifying factors affecting prevention and early intervention in preschool children. This paper presents the findings of a systematic review to: (a) identify key barriers to the effective engagement of PHCPs with parents and child care staff in the promotion of healthy weight among children aged 2-6 years, (b) appraise "promising" interventions for strengthening the capacity of PHCPs to effectively deal with these barriers, and (c) synthesise policy options to encourage and engage PHCPs. The study draws on the lessons of promising interventions to highlight the urgent need to address organisational, attitudinal, knowledge, skills and training barriers, to facilitate the engagement of PHCPs in different settings-based environments (clinical, child care, home and community).


Density functional theory (DFT) methods, including PW91PW91, BP86, TPSSTPSS, B3LYP, B3PW91, PBE1PBE, BHandHLYP, CAM-B3LYP, and M06 were employed to study the NMR properties of [Ce@C-2v(9)-C-82](-) and [La@C-2v(9)-C-82](-), representing open-shell and closed-shell lanthanofullerene molecular systems respectively. Among the methods employed, results from calculations with BHandHLYP show better agreement with experimental data to predict the NMR spectra of [Ce@C2v(9)-C-82](-) than those using the other DFT methods, while B3LYP wins in treating [La@C-2v(9)-C-82](-). Frontier molecular orbitals are analyzed to explain the calculated NMR data. According to the calculations, the BHandHLYP method gives the reasonable explanation that [Ce@C-2v(9)-C-82](-) keeps closed shell electronic configurations near the Fermi level, and the HOMO and HOMO-1 orbitals of [Ce@C-2v(9)-C-82](-) are composed of the 2 pi orbitals of the C-82 cage filled with 5d(1)6s(2) electrons of Ce and the extraneous electron, while the unpaired 4f(1) electron of Ce is localized at Ce and there is a large energy gap between the singly occupied molecular orbital (SOMO) and the HOMO. The LUMO of [Ce@C-2v(9)-C-82](-) is the pi* orbital of the C-82 cage, and the LUMO+1, LUMO+2, LUMO+3 of [Ce@C-2v(9)-C-82](-) are composed of the ds hybrid orbitals of Ce and the 2 pi* orbitals of C-82 cage.


Hospitals in New York were overwhelmed by the epidemic. With nothing known about the virus, most cases were treated with traditional or symptomatic remedies. New treatments were made though unsuccessful. Serum from various sources was given although it was many years before this was found to be ineffectual. Lumbar puncture was made, sometimes with additions. Although this became standard treatment, there were some who thought it was harmful. Many histories of polio ignore treatment.


T his month's Clinical Section features an excellent paper1 concerning thiamine deficiency in canine patients treated by Rita Singh and colleagues at the North Ryde Veterinary Specialist Centre, Sydney. The series of cases is just what would be expected from a state-of-the-art referral hospital in the first decade of the new millennium: a team approach to investigation and treatment, a timely diagnosis in most patients, utilisation of advanced diagnostics, and outcomes that were generally favourable, even in dogs that presented late with advanced signs. A range of cases is described, serving to emphasise the spectrum of physical findings that may develop in dogs with this disease. Interestingly, one gets the sense that the authors' diagnostic acumen was refined by their experience with the index case, as a subtle pattern of suggestive clinical findings emerged, facilitating the 'pattern recognition' of subsequent cases. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings in dogs with thiamine deficiency have been reported on only one occasion previously and the additional data provided from the case so examined suggests that the changes are characteristic, as might be expected from the neuroanatomical distribution of lesions (periventricular brainstem grey matter) in carnivores with this vitamin deficiency (Figure 1). Use of the thiamine pyrophosphate effect test in this case provided unequivocal evidence that thiamine deficiency was the cause of the observed MRI lesions. In cats, a diagnosis of thiamine deficiency is facilitated by the presence of more characteristic clinical signs, especially bilateral pupillary dilatation and the so-called 'praying sign', in which there is an active spastic ventroflexion of the head and neck. This sign can be precipitated by performing a manoeuvre that accentuates the vestibular dysfunction, namely suspending the cat by its hindquarters and 'nose-diving' the patient towards the floor or tabletop. This is not to be confused with passive ventroflexion of the head and neck, which is seen in association with diseases that cause muscle weakness, such as hypokalaemia and myasthenia gravis. In dogs, signs of thiamine deficiency tend to be more cryptic. It is important, therefore, to have a high index of suspicion for this diagnosis in canine patients with neural deficits, and sometimes even in dogs presenting with non-specific findings such as depression, vomiting and anorexia. Neurological findings in dogs with thiamine deficiency may include ataxia, vestibular signs, paresis, altered mental state, seizures and combinations of the above, consistent with a multifocal disease process. The importance of taking a careful dietary history cannot be overemphasised, as typically this provides the vital clue that thiamine deficiency is the correct diagnosis. In Australia, the key historical finding is feeding 'pet mince', 'pet meat' or 'unrefrigerated food rolls' especially when there is a relationship in time between the development of signs and a change in the composition of the diet and/or its supplier. In the distant past, and in other countries, feeding of fresh or canned fish containing thiaminases or inactivation of thiamine by cooking or processing have been implicated in the aetiology, however nowadays commercial canned and dry food produced for cats and dogs is generally supplemented with thiamine. There is a suggestion from Singh's paper, and the historical literature cited, that signs might develop more quickly in young patients, perhaps reflecting increased requirements for thiamine during growth. ClinicalClinicalClinicalClinical


ABSTRACT Whereas the dramatic environmental impact of plastic waste rightfully receives considerable attention by scientists, policy makers and public in general, the human health impact of micro- and nanoplastics contamination of our food and beverages remains largely unknown. Indeed, most studies aim at understanding the environmental impact rather than the human health impact of a possible exposure to micro- and nanoplastics. In addition, these papers generally lack a methodological, standardised approach. Furthermore, some studies focus on the damage to and contamination level of animal species collected from the wild environment, and others investigate the rate and biology of microplastic uptake of animals fed with microplastics in laboratory. This review aims at understanding human exposure. Since there is, with few exceptions, no evidence available on the presence of micro- and nanoplastics in a normal diet, this study takes an indirect approach and analyses peer-reviewed publications since 2010 that document the presence of micro- and nanoplastics in those animals (more than 200 species) and food products that are part of the human food chain and that may thus contribute directly or indirectly to the uptake of micro- and nanoplastics via the human diet. It also addresses the question of the definitions, the methodologies and the quality criteria applied to obtain the reported results. This review suggests that, beyond a few estimations and comparisons, precise data to assess the exact exposure of humans to micro- and nanoplastics through their diet cannot be produced until standardised methods and definitions are available. Graphical Abstract


Introduction Management of dysphagia due to malignant obstruction of the oesophagus can be challenging. Endoscopically placed self-expanding metal stents (SEMS) remain an important tool and have been performed under direct vision in our institution since 2004. A previous audit suggested a significant morbidity and mortality rate and therefore the aim of this study was to identify risk factors for 30 day mortality and re-intervention. Methods A retrospective review of all patients undergoing oesophageal SEMS insertion was performed over the period 2004–2014. Data collected included patient demographics, tumour stage/position, stent type inserted, survival following SEMS insertion, bioprofile and other therapies. Univariate analysis was performed and was followed by multivariate logistic regression to identify independent variables associated with 30 day mortality and re-stenting. Results 396 patients (median age 74 years, 252 males) had 514 stents were inserted over the study period and were included in the study. Regarding 30 day mortality, univariate analysis showed association with distal tumours (OR 1.6), stent length >10 cm (OR 3.0), oncological treatment (OR 0.4), raised CRP (OR 6.1), raised white cell count (OR 6.0), anaemia (OR 2.8) and low albumin (OR 4.9). Multivariate analysis showed white cell count (OR 8.1, 2.0–21.9, p < 0.001, albumin <35 g/l (OR 6.9, 2.6–18.8, p < 0.001) and oncological treatment (OR 0.3, 0.1–0.8, p = 0.013) were independent predictors of 30 day mortality. Regarding re-intervention, univariate analysis showed association with age > 70 (OR 0.6), junctional tumours (OR 0.5), stent length >10 cm (OR 0.6), raised CRP (OR 0.5) and raised white cell count (OR 0.4). Multivariate analysis showed age > 70 (OR 0.5, 0.3–0.9, p = 0.032) and raised white cell count (OR 0.4, 0.2–0.8, p = 0.009) were independent predictors of re-intervention. Conclusion Raised inflammatory markers were associated with poorer outcomes following oesophageal SEMS insertion and oncological treatment was protective. Longer survival appears to be associated with re-intervention following initial stent insertion. This data may provide a framework for the creation of a prognostic scoring system prior to SEMS insertion. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


Objective The clinical indication of chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) is related to functional performance and the benefits of physical activity in patients with CVI are known. Despite its importance, the literature is limited in this regard. This study aimed to determine exercise capacity and physical activity level in patients with varicose veins and CVI. Methods Volunteers who came to the polyclinic with leg pain complaints were enrolled in the study. Individual sociodemographic and clinical information was recorded. Individuals' pain severity was assessed by the visual analog scale (VAS) and exercise capacity was assessed by 6-minute walk test (6MWT). International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) was used to assess the level of physical activity. Results The study group consisted of 51 individuals who were diagnosed with varicose veins and CVI. The control group consisted of 51 individuals without varicose veins and CVI diagnosis. In the study group, the VAS during activity was significantly higher compared to the control group. The 6MWT distance, distance %, IPAQ total score and IPAQ walking score of the control group were significantly higher in comparison with the study group (p<0.05). Conclusions We believe that our findings will lead the planning of interventions to increase the level of physical activity in CVI patients.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to examine the effects of the 21-aminosteroid U74389F on wound healing, compared with corticosteroids using a murine incisional wound model.

BACKGROUND DATA
The 21-aminosteroids are extremely potent inhibitors of iron-dependent lipid peroxidation and peroxyl radical formation, and have proven significantly beneficial in reducing neurologic sequelae following head and spinal cord trauma in experimental models. The detrimental effects of currently administered corticosteroids on wound healing are well-documented; however, the effects of the 21-aminosteroids on wound healing are poorly defined to date.

METHODS
Male BDF1 mice (n = 28/group) given a left paraspinous wound received daily intraperitoneal injection of vehicle or U74389F (1 to 100 mg/kg/day) for 10 days. Wound disruption strengths (WDSs) in grams were determined on freshly harvested (F) and 36-hour formalin-fixed (FF) wounds. In addition, U74389F (3 mg/kg/day) was compared with equipotent doses of methylprednisolone, dexamethasone, and hydrocortisone (n = 12/group) for alterations in wound healing.

RESULTS
The WDSs of the U74389F animals F or following FF were not significantly different from controls. In the comparison study, no significant difference in F or FF WDS was found for U74389F (3 mg/kg/day) or methylprednisolone animals when compared with controls. Dexamethasone-treated and hydrocortisone-treated animals had F and FF WDSs that were 50% of control and U74389F values (p < 0.001; ANOVA). Wounds harvested from both the control and U74389F-treated animals demonstrated the greatest extent of wound cleft contraction, collagen deposition, and neovascularity, with no obvious internal differences detectable under light microscopy.

CONCLUSIONS
These results show that the 21-aminosteroid U74389F did not impair wound healing, as determined by WDS and light microscopy. Furthermore, given their greater efficacy in cell membrane stabilization and potent ability to scavenge peroxyl radicals, the 21-aminosteroids may prove beneficial in treating a variety of clinical conditions, wherein ischemia-reperfusion injury plays a major component.


A predictive model of water-quality, which based on wavelet transform and support vector machine, is proposed. This model uses wavelet transform to get water time sequence variations in different scale, and optimizes three parameters of Regression Support Vector Machine with improved Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm, to improve the accuracy of prediction model. This model is used to take one-step and two-step prediction for the dissolved oxygen density, which got from Wang Jiang Jing auto-monitoring station. the maximum MAPE is 4.54% in 10 samples, and then we make a comparsion between results of this model and the BP neural network. Results show that this model is good performance, higher precision, simple operation, and has better quality prediction at prediction effect than the model based on BP neural network, it provides a valid way for water-quality.


Background After allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), patients are followed up by transplant clinicians. Finding an effective primary screening method that transplant clinicians or patients can master is essential in the early referral of suspected chronic ocular graft-versus-host disease (coGVHD) to an ophthalmologist. This study investigated if the ocular surface disease index (OSDI) questionnaire could be used for coGVHD primary screening. Methods This case-controlled, cross-sectional study enrolled 161 allo-HSCT patients. All participants completed an OSDI questionnaire and underwent a silt-lamp examination. Bulbar conjunctival injection (BCI) was assessed using torchlight, while tear volume was measured via the Schirmer test (ST). The receiver operating characteristic curve was used to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, and cutoff values of OSDI, ST, and BCI grading. Performance comparisons of the 3 tests applied in isolation, parallel, and series were made. Results There were 84 patients with and 77 patients without coGVHD. Compared to those without coGVHD, patients with coGVHD had significantly higher median values of OSDI, corneal fluorescein staining, conjunctival injection, conjunctival fibrosis, and meibum quality, but lower ST scores (All P values <0.001). The cutoff values for OSDI, ST, and BCI grade in the diagnosis of coGVHD were 19.4 points, 7 mm, and grade 0, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of the tests based on the cutoff values were, respectively, 89.3% and 89.6% for OSDI, 91.7% and 59.7% for ST, and 78.6% and 70.1% for BCI. The area under the curve (AUC) value of OSDI was significantly higher than that of ST (0.931 vs. 0.826; P=0.010) and BCI grade (0.931 vs. 0.781; P<0.001). The AUC values of the combinations were lower than that of OSDI alone. Conclusions The OSDI questionnaire can be used as a simple screening test for coGVHD as demonstrated by its high sensitivity and specificity in the transplant clinic and patients' self-monitoring. An OSDI greater than 19.4 could be considered an ophthalmology referral criterion.


ABSTRACT Whilst the last couple of decades have witnessed an unprecedented growth expedition in Africa, an important question is how to make the growth sustainable. A remarkable distinction between the growth experience in the Asian economies and the African economies is that Africa has more or less skipped the industrial stage which many developed countries observed. Given the major contribution of industrialization to growth, this paper examines the impact of industrialization on economic growth in Africa. The examination of industrialization has become more imperative following recent commitments of African governments and the African Development Bank to it, and also it been a core part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Employing data for the period 1980–2014 from 37 African countries and the generalized method of moments method, we show two main interesting results despite the fact that industrialization is very much on the low in the region. First, our results affirm the hypothesis that industrialization is an important booster of economic growth. Second, trade openness further augments the effect of industrialization on economic growth. We also employ alternative measures of industrialization and perform sub-regional/sampling analyses. The results are shown to be robust across.


Blood loss is the major cause of postoperative mortality and morbidity associated with hepatic resection. A prospective multicenter study was conducted to determine if ultrasonic dissectors (USD) were useful in hepatic resection and could reduce this hemorrhagic risk. Forty-seven hepatic resections were performed in 42 consecutive patients during a two month period in 11 public, surgical centers. Twenty-one patients had primary or secondary malignancies, six had benign tumors, two had biliary cysts, one had cholangiocarcinoma, one had Caroli's disease, and 11 had hydatid cysts of the liver. Two different USD devices were evaluated (CUSA System-Lasersonics and NIIC-DX 101 T). The hepatic resections tested included a wide range of procedures. Each surgeon had the possibility of choosing between the USD and his own usual technique for each operative step and according to local conditions. The average volume of blood infused, irrespective of the underlying pathology or the procedure performed, was 1.0 L (range 0-4.8 L). Fourteen patients required no transfusions. No operative or immediate postoperative deaths were recorded. Five major complications, all unrelated to the use of the USD, developed in three patients. Access to intra and extraparenchymal arterial and venous tributaries and particularly the control of the hepatic veins were facilitated by USD. While transection of hepatic parenchyma was neither easier nor faster than with conventional techniques, it was found to be less hemorrhagic. Overall appraisal was expressed on an analog scale; the USD was found to be helpful or very helpful in 75 percent of all resections. With regard to the pathology being treated, total or partial excision of hydatid cysts was greatly enhanced by the use of the USD while this benefit was not found for wedge resections of other hepatic lesions. With regard to user friendliness and maintenance, the NIIC-DX 101 T device was preferred. We conclude that the USD facilitates formal hepatic resections. Converging opinions emerging from various surgical centers reinforce this conclusion.


In this paper some embedding theorems related to fractional integration and differentiation in harmonic mixed norm spaces $h(p,q,\alpha )$ on the half-space are established. We prove that mixed norm is equivalent to a ``fractional derivative norm'' and that harmonic conjugation is bounded in $h(p,q,\alpha )$ for the range $0<p\leq \infty $, $0<q\leq \infty $. As an application of the above, we give a characterization of $h(p,q,\alpha )$ by means of an integral representation with the use of Besov spaces.


This study aims to investigate the inter-regional cooperation on regional landfill management in urban areas, particularly in the case of Banjar Bakula in Southern Kalimantan, Indonesia. Intergovernmental relations system and cooperation among regions becomes important at this time as there are no areas that are isolated and able to meet the needs of the region independently. The relationship among regional governments, especially in the metropolitan areas, has the dynamic and growing characteristics, thus requiring special governance, particularly in the processing management of regional landfill in the urban area, including in Banjar Bakula. A development policy in the form of programs or projects involving some areas requires institutional arrangements both among the involved government agencies so that the programs of cooperation can be realized efficiently and effectively. Some hindrances related to the implementation of the policy and the issues upon governance structures will be the reference in the conduct of inter-regional cooperation.


This article extracts from the casuistry of the European Court of Human Rights empirical and theoretical elements for a broad view of the doctrine of the Court on the disclosure of journalistic sources and of the factual and legal contexts in the light of which the Strasbourg Court has established and perfected its line of thinking about this controversy to contribute to the scientific study of matter and the resolution of specific cases within the legal practice


Clear cell carcinoma of the ovary (CCCO) is an uncommon, clinically aggressive neoplasm that has a propensity for the development of venous thrombosis and embolization, especially when compared to other subtypes of ovarian malignancies. We present a fatal case of a 59-year-old woman with a clinical course complicated by venous thrombosis and pulmonary thromboembolism that was attributed to CCCO discovered initially at autopsy.


Femtosecond and attosecond spectroscopy benefit directly from the availability of ultrashort, high-power lasers at megahertz (MHz) repetition rates. High repetition rates allow decreasing the measurement's acquisition time and enhancing signal to noise ratio. Moreover, efficient extension of the spectral bandwidth of high repetition rate sources to beyond one octave paves the way for novel broadband spectroscopy techniques, such as femtosecond fieldoscopy. Nowadays, ytterbium thin-disk oscillators and fiber lasers deliver 100-W-scale average power, at MHz repetition rates [1, 2]. However, their pulse duration is limited to hundreds of femtoseconds due to the narrowband emission cross-section of ytterbium, which can be overcomed by employing efficient, external spectral broadening schemes based on solid state materials [3] or gas filled hollow-core fibers [4,5]. In what follows we report on the external spectral broadening of 265 fs, 6 μJ pulses from a Yb:YAG thin-disk oscillator to 7fs (Fourier transform limit-FTL) in three nonlinear stages.


In presence of rapidly changing atmospheric conditions, the Perturb and Observe (P&O) maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm can be confused due to the fact that it is not able to distinguish the variations of the photovoltaic array output power caused by the duty cycle modulation from those ones caused by the irradiance variation. In this paper, it is shown that the negative effects associated to such a drawback can be greatly reduced if the magnitude of the duty-cycle perturbations is customized to the dynamic behavior of the specific DC-DC converter adopted to realize the P&O MPPT. As an example, a boost battery charger has been studied.


Graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) have received immense attention from the global scientific research community in the 21st century due to their two-dimensional planar structure, high surface area, functionalization abilities, and notable thermal-mechanical-electrical properties. When appropriately integrated into polymer matrices, graphene nanosheets improve the mechanical performance of polymer under static and high-strain rate loading. On the other hand, surface modification of GNPs through functionalization enhances dispersibility and interfacial strength of GNPs/polymer composites. Computational methods for GNPs-based nanocomposites considering micromechanical and multiscale modeling were also developed to predict their thermo-mechanical and electrical properties. These nanocomposite materials have been identified as having a wide range of applications in aerospace, automotive, construction, biomedical, energy storage, sensor, and textiles. In this review paper, recent advances of GNPs/epoxy nanocomposites, including their functionalization processes, characterization techniques, production methods, properties, and potential applications, have been comprehensively explained. Furthermore, it attempts to provide a complete framework for researchers by summarizing and evaluating the extensive literature on these nanocomposite materials.


As a leading cause of cancer-related deaths, metastasis is the ultimate challenge in our effort to fight cancer as a life-threatening disease. A member of ankyrin repeat proteins, ankyrin repeat domain 52 (ANKRD52), is studied here to be involved in the regulation of lung adenocarcinoma metastasis. Ankyrin repeat proteins are known to function as a platform for protein-protein interactions, and ANKRD52 was shown to interact with protein phosphatase 6 (PP6). This study aimed to investigate the anti-metastatic roles of ANKRD52 in lung adenocarcinoma. Immunohistochemistry staining in lung cancer tissue revealed prolonged disease-free survival in high ANKRD52 expressing cases. Using lung cancer cell lines, ANKRD52 knockdowns showed significantly increased cell mobility while forced expressed ANKRD52 decreased cell mobility. Using mass spectrometry analysis, p21-activated kinases (PAK1) was identified to interact with ANKRD52. Upregulated PAK1 phosphorylation was detected in ANKRD52 or PP6 knockdowns. Our model demonstrated a novel anti-metastatic protein, ANKRD52, that regulates cell mobility through interactions with PP6 and dephosphorylation of PAK1. Citation Format: Yen-Fan Lin, Ying-Pu Liu, Ting-Fang Lee, Cheng-Wen Wu. ANKRD52 inhibited tumor metastasis through dephosphorylation of PAK1 in lung adenocarcinoma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4843. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-4843


Formal synthesis ensures the correctness of hardware synthesis by automatically deriving the circuit implementation by behavior preserving transformations within a theorem prover. In this paper, we present a new approach to formal synthesis that is able to handle control Row intensive descriptions. In paticular, we consider here the scheduling phase, which is a central task in high-level synthesis. We describe a methodology employing a new control flow oriented representation which allows the fully automatic scheduling of control flow intensive descriptions in formal synthesis. To obtain scheduled circuits of high quality, the scheduling is guided by conventional scheduling algorithms.


In this paper, the magnetic field signal radiated from an atmospheric pressure room temperature plasma plume is measured. It's found that the magnetic field signal has similar waveform as the current carried by the plasma plume. By calibration of the magnetic field signal, the plasma plume current is obtained by measuring the magnetic field signal radiated by the plasma plume. In addition, it is found that, when gas flow modes changes from laminar regime to turbulence regime, the magnetic field signal waveforms appears different, it changes from a smooth curve to a curve with multiple spikes. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the plasma plume generated by a single electrode (without ground electrode) plasma jet device carries higher current than that with ground electrode.


Using an ac driven asymmetric pulse we show how the Fermi acceleration (deceleration) can be controlled. A {\it deformed} sawtooth (Ratchetlike) pulse representing the moving wall in the static Fermi-Ulam model is considered. The time integral from the pulse over one period of oscillation must be negative to obtain deceleration and positive to obtain hyperacceleration. We show that while the decelerated case is chaotic, for the hyperaccelerated case the Lyapunov exponents converge to zero. Numerical simulations indicate that the hyperaccelerated case is ergodic in velocity space. Switching between different pulse deformations we are able to control the particle acceleration. Results should be valid for any pulse for which the time integral can be manipulated between positive and negative values.


"Everything is related," says Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato si' (no. 92) to make us ponder upon whether, as academics, we think globally and act locally in the spirit of university social responsibility, including for ecology. The author discusses (i) the nature and reception of the papal document, including by the academia and lawyers; (ii) foreign initiatives aimed to apply the principles highlighted or reiterated by the pope; (iii) the importance of the law in taking care of "our common home;" and (iv) the need for ecological education of those who will make and implement the law. Regrettably, already a tentative query across the universities of the region reveals the absence of or reduced importance attached to the problems of sustainable development and ecology, both in university strategies and curricula. The establishment of a working group on university social responsibility within the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy seems to perpetuate the business understanding of the phenomenon. On top of the many years of experience of foreign academic centres and their networks, discussed briefly by the author, a useful tool facilitating ecological education and a deeper understanding of the social responsibility of the academia in the field of sustainable development can be the papal encyclical Laudato si'.


This paper presents an application of discrete-event simulation in modeling a supply-chain for consumer products. Optimization of the simulation model provides an efficient way to produce operating recommendations from the model. The use of ProModel and SimRunner in this application describes a modeling and optimization software suite which can be used for supply-chain planning and operation.


In this report we present the cytogenetic findings of the expression of fragile sites in 10 couples with two or more spontaneous abortions. These findings were compared with the results in a control group of 15 subjects with two normal offsprings. Individuals of couples experiencing early fetal losses carry fragile sites with significant higher frequency, moreover this frequency is markedly influenced by the number of spontaneous abortions. Eight fragile sites were significantly more expressed in individuals with miscarriages than in the controls. These eight fragile sites correspond with cancer breakpoints or sites of oncogenes. Hypothesis on the role of oncogene mutations in spontaneous abortions is proposed, based on the results of the nonrandom distribution of fragile sites on human chromosomes.


In order to accurately estimate body composition at slaughter and to meet specific market targets, the influence of age at time of castration (surgical or immunological) on body composition and boar taint indicators must be determined for male pigs. In all, 48 males were randomly assigned to one of four management regimens: (1) entire male pigs (EM), (2) EM surgically castrated at ~40 kg BW and 10 weeks of age (late castrates; LC), (3) conventional, early surgical castrates (within 4 days of birth; EC) and (4) EM immunized with a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analog (primary dose at 30 kg BW and 8 weeks of age; booster dose at 70 kg and 14 weeks of age; IM). Pigs were fed corn and soybean meal-based diets that were not limiting in essential nutrients. Back fat was sampled on days -3, 8, 18 and 42, relative to administering the booster dose of GnRH analog at day 0, to determine androstenone concentrations (n=8 or 9/group). Fat androstenone concentrations in IM were lower than EM between days 8 and 42 after administering the booster dose (173 v. 863 ng/g, respectively; P<0.01), and were not different from surgically castrated males (EC and LC) after day 18. Slaughter occurred at ~115 kg BW, 42 days (6 weeks) after administering the booster dose for IM, and 10 and 20 weeks after surgical castration for LC and EC, respectively (n=8 or 9/group). At slaughter, live BW, liver weight as a percent of live BW, dissectible bone as a percent of cold carcass side, body protein and water contents and whole-body protein deposition decreased with time after surgical castration (linear; P<0.05), whereas dressing percentage, dissectible fat, probe fat depth and body fat content increased with time after surgical castration (linear; P<0.05). The IM had intermediate dressing percentage and dissected fat to EM and EC, whereas liver weight as a percent of live BW and body protein and lipid contents were not different from EM. Whole-body lipid deposition tended to be greater in IM than in EM between 14 and 20 weeks of age (373 v. 286 g/d; P=0.051). In conclusion, castration of male pigs after 6 weeks of age has a lasting effect on physical and chemical body composition. The relationship between time after castration and body composition may be developed to predict carcass composition and can be used to determine the ideal immunization schedule aimed at specific markets in the future.


Gold nanoparticle modifications for TiO2 (Au/TiO2) can extend the absorption wavelength from UV to visible (Vis) and enhance the photocatalytic performance, thus fueling increasing attention as an emerging photocatalysis strategy. To explore the plasmon-enhanced photocatalytic mechanism and directly unveil the intrinsic properties of Au/TiO2, the decay kinetics of photoelectrons upon UV (355 nm) or Vis (532 nm) excitation are monitored by means of nanosecond time-resolved infrared spectroscopy, which is a unique tool offering observations without interference of the holes. Under UV irradiation, the longer lifetime of photoelectrons observed in Au/TiO2 compared to that in bare TiO2 provides unambiguous evidence for the enhanced charge separation by AuNPs. Under Vis irradiation, the long-lived (hundreds of microseconds) electrons produced by injection from AuNPs into TiO2 upon plasmon excitation are here detected for the first time. Moreover, the effects of TiO2 phase composition and the amount of AuNPs loa...


Abstract This study addresses the high level of academic demands and workload in Chinese high schools and aims to identify protective factors against students' negative emotional responses. Using the well-established Job Demands-Resources Model as a guiding framework, we investigated the relationship between workload, perceived academic demands, teacher-student relationships, personal resources (self-efficacy, self-esteem, and optimism), and school burnout symptoms (emotional exhaustion and cynicism). Data analyses were based on self-reports from 1,083 Chinese students. The results of structural equation modelling showed that workload and academic demands were positively related to burnout. Among the resources, optimism was negatively related to emotional exhaustion and cynicism, whereas self-efficacy was only negatively related to cynicism. Surprisingly, self-esteem was positively related to cynicism after controlling for the other two personal resources. Our findings underline the potentially protective effect of students' self-efficacy, dispositional optimism, and self-esteem (at least at the bivariate level) against school burnout.


In this era of technology, biosensors play an essential role in living life. Today's research and investigation revolved around its higher responsiveness and speed of detection. Normal TFET has many disadvantages like fabrication complexity, random dopant fluctuation, and the lower ON-State current. We are introducing a device that is a Dual-Cavity Triple-Metal gate-underlap DM-CPTFET for label-free detection. This device has a dual cavity for sensing different types of biomolecules simultaneously. We used the tool i.e SILVACO ATLAS TCAD Simulator for the sensing applications. High K material and gate work function engineering help us to improve drain current and better sensitivity. We used this TCAD tool, for analyzing the different parameter variations like energy band variation, surface potential, transfer characteristic, and output characteristic using different biomolecules Gelatin(k=12), Keratin(K=8), Biotin(K=2.63), etc.


Remyelination is in the center of new therapies for the treatment of multiple sclerosis to resolve and improve disease symptoms and protect axons from further damage. Although remyelination is considered beneficial in the long term, it is not known, whether this is also the case early in lesion formation. Additionally, the precise timing of acute axonal damage and remyelination has not been assessed so far. To shed light onto the interrelation between axons and the myelin sheath during de‐ and remyelination, we employed cuprizone‐ and focal lysolecithin‐induced demyelination and performed time course experiments assessing the evolution of early and late stage remyelination and axonal damage. We observed damaged axons with signs of remyelination after cuprizone diet cessation and lysolecithin injection. Similar observations were made in early multiple sclerosis lesions. To assess the correlation of remyelination and axonal damage in multiple sclerosis lesions, we took advantage of a cohort of patients with early and late stage remyelinated lesions and assessed the number of APP‐ and SMI32‐ positive damaged axons and the density of SMI31‐positive and silver impregnated preserved axons. Early de‐ and remyelinating lesions did not differ with respect to axonal density and axonal damage, but we observed a lower axonal density in late stage demyelinated multiple sclerosis lesions than in remyelinated multiple sclerosis lesions. Our findings suggest that remyelination may not only be protective over a long period of time, but may play an important role in the immediate axonal recuperation after a demyelinating insult.


Backgound and Purpose— The clinical features and prognosis of cerebral vein and dural sinus thrombosis (CVT) in elderly patients have not been previously described. Methods— In a multicenter prospective observational study, we compared clinical and imaging features, risk factors, and outcome of adult patients aged <65 (young and middle-aged patients) and ≥65 years (elderly patients). Results— A total of 624 adult patients with CVT were registered and followed-up for a median of 16 months. Fifty-one (8.2%) were aged ≥65 years. Presentation as an isolated intracranial hypertension syndrome was less frequent in elderly patients (4/51 versus 139/573, P=0.008), whereas depressed consciousness (17 versus 97, P=0.005), and mental status changes (22 versus 115, P=0.001) were more frequent in the elderly. The prognosis of elderly patients was considerably worse than that of younger patients, as only 49% of elderly patients made a complete recovery (versus 82% in younger patients), whereas 27% died and 22% were dependent at the end of follow-up (versus 7 and 2% respectively in younger patients). Carcinoma (5 cases) was more frequent as a risk factor for CVT in elderly patients (P=0.017). During follow-up, elderly patients were more likely to experience thrombotic events (HR=4.8, 95% CI=1.9 to 11.9) and were less likely to experience severe headaches (HR=0.2, 95% CI=0.02, 0.97). Conclusions— Elderly patients with CVT have a distinctive clinical presentation: isolated intracranial hypertension is uncommon, whereas mental status and alertness disturbances are common. The prognosis of CVT is worse in elderly patients.


Abstract New collections rich in agnostoid trilobites were recovered from Lower Ordovician strata of the southern Montagne Noire, France. The faunas occur in the La Gardie/Val d'Homs, Saint–Chinian, La Maurerie, and Landeyran formations, coinciding with deposition in muddy outer-platform settings. Many previously described species are revised and their stratigraphic ranges emended. The studied agnostoids include Geragnostus cf. sidenbladhi (Linnarsson), G. aff. sidenbladhi, G. crassus Tjernvik, G. splendens (Holub), G. cf. explanatus Tjernvik, G. boutouryensis Howell, G. occitanus Howell, Geragnostus sp., Trinodus corpulentus Howell, Homagnostoides ferralsensis (Munier-Chalmas and Bergeron), Corrugatagnostus coulobresensis n. sp., Corrugatagnostus sp., Leiagnostus miqueli Sdzuy, and Leiagnostus sp. The record from the upper part of the Saint–Chinian Formation suggests a late Tremadocian age, whereas an early Arenigian age is indicated for the upper part of the La Maurerie Formation. Although the agnostoid record generally reinforces the peri-Gondwanan character of the Lower Ordovician shelly faunas from the Montagne Noire, some agnostoid species are independent of specific paleogeographic boundaries.


[Background] Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection and atrophic gastritis (AG) following H. pylori infection are well-established risk factors worldwide. Smoking is a convincing risk factor and fruits and vegetables intake is a possible protective factor in Japanese populations. PSCA-rs2294008 is one of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with the susceptibility of a stomach cancer risk identified by Genome-wide association studies in Japanese populations. The advances in molecular evidence may have a potential to impact cancer prevention. However, it has never been clear how much it may contribute to cancer risk of the stomach on a population level in combination with environmental factors. In this study, we established a risk prediction model of stomach cancer using these environmental, clinical and genetic risk factors as a potential practical application in cancer preventive intervention. [Methods] We conducted two age- and sex- matched case-control studies, one for model derivation (697 cases and 1,372 controls) and the second (678 cases and 678 controls) for external validation. Based on data from the derivation study, a prediction model was developed by fitting a conditional logistic regression model using the following predictors: age, ABCD category defined by H.pylori infection and AG, smoking, fruits and vegetable intakes and PSCA genotype. Performance of the model was assessed in terms of discrimination (C statistic), calibration (calibration plots and Hosmer-Lemeshow test) and Integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) index. Cumulative risks were obtained by combining odds ratios estimated from the risk model with the age-specific incidence rate and population size. [Results] The risk model, including a combination of PSCA genotype, smoking, fruit & vegetable intake and alcohol consumption, provided high discriminatory accuracy and good calibration in both the derivation and validation studies: C statistics were 0.78 (95% confidence intervals 0.76-0.80) and 0.80 (0.77-0.82), respectively, and the calibration plots of both studies stayed close to the ideal calibration line. IDI indices are 0.11 and 0.12 (p [Conclusion] The risk prediction model that includes these environmental, clinical and genetic factors could be useful to classify Japanese into relevant risk groups of stomach cancer for personalized prevention programs. Citation Format: Hidemi Ito, Isao Oze, Satoyo Hosono, Miki Watanabe, Hideo Tanaka, Keitaro Matsuo. Risk prediction for stomach cancer using helicobacter pylori infection and atrophic gastritis, fruits and vegetables, smoking and GWAS-identified genetic polymorphism (PSCA-rs2294008) in a Japanese population. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 2591.


This paper examines a new method on static tension measurement of overhead transmission line based on vibration spectrum analysis. Firstly, the causes of vibration of overhead transmission line are discussed. And then, static and dynamic characteristics of conductors are analyzed, and with reasonable simplification, taught string model is brought in to describe the relationships between static tension of overhead transmission line and its vibration spectrum. As following, a vibration and tension measurement system is set up to obtain vibration signal and tension data synchronously to verify the model. Finally, measurements on experimental transmission line are taken and experimental data are well analyzed. Results show that this model provides a good forecast on static tension of overhead transmission line and vibration spectrum analysis method is suitable for online monitoring and gives an effective alternative for traditional methods.


A novel approach using sheath flow chip‐based CE coupled to a quadrupole TOF mass spectrometer was developed and applied to the analysis of an O‐glycopeptide. The method provided good separation and sensitive analysis of the glycopeptide and its β‐elimination product. The β‐elimination reaction of the glycopeptide with ammonia or dimethylamine was adapted for changing the glycopeptide into deglycosylated form and for specifying the site of glycosylation. MS/MS analysis of the native peptide, glycopeptide and β‐elimination product enabled the identification of the glycosylation site through the comparison of the fragmentations and peptide sequence analysis.


In recent years, stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) have been shown to provide a useful way of specifying some classes of Gaussian random fields. The use of an SPDE allows for the construction of a Gaussian Markov random field (GMRF) approximation, which has very good computational properties, of the solution. In this thesis this kind of construction is considered for a specific spatial SPDE with non-constant coefficients, a form of diffusion equation driven by Gaussian white noise. The GMRF approximation is derived from the SPDE by a finite volume method. The diffusion matrix in the SPDE provides a way of controlling the covariance structure of the resulting GMRF. By using different diffusion matrices, it is possible to construct simple homogeneous isotropic and anisotropic fields and more interesting inhomogeneous fields. Moreover, it is possible to introduce random parameters in the coefficients of the SPDE and consider the parameters to be part of a hierarchical model. In this way one can devise a Bayesian inference scheme for the estimation of the parameters. In this thesis two different parametrizations of the diffusion matrix and corresponding parameter estimations are considered. The results show that the use of an SPDE with non-constant coefficients provides a useful way of creating inhomogeneous spatial GMRFs.


Interaction between animals and plants is an important way to maintain terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem function, but little is known about the structure of reciprocal networks between fruit plants and frugivore birds in urban habitats. To explore the characteristics of the plant–frugivore network and network roles of species, we observed the fruit ripening phenology of 21 species of fruit plants and the interactions between these plants and 39 species of frugivore birds during the whole year in a large urban park. Then, we assessed the characteristics of the total plant–frugivore and seasonal networks, and analyzed the network roles of species and the relationship between their network roles and ecological traits. Fruit ripened mainly in autumn and winter, and interaction connections in the two seasons contributed 39.68% and 44.83% to the total network, respectively. The specialization (H2′), connectance (C), nestedness, and interaction evenness (eH2) of the network were lower in autumn and winter, while the interaction diversity was higher. Compared with the networks (N = 1000) generated by the null model, the observed network exhibited higher nestedness and interaction diversity (E2) and lower specialization (H2′), connectance (C), and interaction evenness (eH2). A correlation analysis combining ecological traits and network roles showed that plants with black fruit had higher effective partners and partner diversity, while other traits of plants and birds were not significantly correlated with their network parameters. The important plants (N = 6) and birds (N = 3) contributed to 71.78% and 67.55% of the total network connection, they were mainly evergreen plants with black and red drupes and omnivorous generalist birds with medium and large sizes. Our research highlighted the seasonal differences in urban plant–frugivore network and the value of important species in maintaining network structures and providing ecosystem services.