Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug-activated gene (NAG-1) is a divergent member of the transforming growth factor beta superfamily. NAG-1 has been implicated in many cellular processes, including inflammation, early bone formation, apoptosis, and tumorigenesis, in several types of cancers. Evidence from recent clinical studies suggests that a C to G single nucleotide polymorphism at position 6 (histidine to aspartic acid substitution, or H6D (G) of the NAG-1 protein is associated with lower incidence, but higher rate of mortality, of prostate cancer. The objective of the current study was to determine the activity of the NAG-1 H6D variant in prostate cancer using two different approaches. First, DU145 cells stably transfected with the H6D NAG-1 gene, wild-type NAG-1 gene, and empty pLXIN vector were injected into nude mice subcutaneously and tumor growth monitored for eight weeks. The H6D variant was less tumorigenic than the wild-type NAG-1, and significantly inhibited tumor growth, 67% by volume and 59% by tumor weight compared to control mice. The growth inhibition by the H6D variant of NAG-1 was associated with significant reduction of serum levels of adiponectin, leptin, and IGF-1, and expression of Cyclin D1 in tumor samples. Second, we examined whether the sequence variant in the NAG-1 gene was associated with prostate cancer tumor aggressiveness in blood samples from the North Carolina-Louisiana Prostate Cancer Project (PCaP). A total of 449 Caucasians Americans and 413 African Americans were examined for allele frequencies using Taqman SNP genotyping assay. Although statistically insignificant, African Americans carrying the H6D (G) allele had an increased risk of more aggressive prostate cancer than those carrying two copies of the C allele (Odds ratio, 1.63; 95% CI, 0.903-2.95; P = 0.25). This result may help to explain the higher mortality rate of prostate cancer in African Americans. In conclusion, our data suggest that the H6D polymorphism of NAG-1 may have a dual effect during the early and late stages of prostate cancer carcinogenesis. More studies are needed to further examine the association of H6D variant of NAG-1 with prostate cancer incidence and progression.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5541. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-5541


Methods and compositions for the treatment of fibrosing diseases are described. More specifically, the invention demonstrates that inhibiting or otherwise decreasing the activity of CCL21 either alone or in combination with CCLl9 will be effective in reducing the presence of fibrotic lesions and ameliorating the symptoms of fibrosing disorders.


Conservation issues for agricultural landscapes are typical examples of "wicked" public policy problems: that is, ones in which questions are not clearly defined, and there is apparent conflict between different sets of values, all of which are legitimate. The paper argues that how to protect intrinsic value in nature is itself a wicked policy problem, complicated by the fact that at least three different senses of "intrinsic value" are easily confused. The challenge for policy in Australian agriculture is how to protect remaining natural values by processes that are fair to stakeholders, governed by scientific credibility and sensitive to the plurality of values held by groups within the community. The paper argues that scientists themselves can play an important role not just in problem definition, but also in helping set the agenda for action that will be effective in preserving natural diversity.


The basic representation of A1(1) is studied. The weight vectors are represented in terms of Schur functions. A suitable base of any weight space is given. The Littlewood-Richardson rule appears in the linear relations among weight vectors.


Background: Ventriculostomy-associated infection (VAI) is a major concern to physicians. Limited studies have looked at the outcomes of external ventricular drain (EVD) infection and predictors of unfavorable outcomes. In this study, we assessed the outcomes of EVD infection and predictors of unfavorable outcomes. Methods: This was a retrospective medical chart review, conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital. All the patients irrespective of age and gender, fulfilling the diagnostic criteria of VAI were included. Patients with preexisting bacterial meningitis or ventriculitis were excluded from the study. Outcome assessment was based on Glasgow outcome scale (GOS) at 1 and 3 months after procedure. Other outcomes included 30-day mortality and total length of hospital stay. Results: We included 256 patients in the study. 66 patients (25.8%) developed VAI. EVD was the primary procedure in 21 (31.8%) cases. Most patients, 24 (36.4%), had EVD as a secondary procedure for tumor surgery. Median interval between EVD placement and diagnosis of infection was 3 days. Mean length of stay in VAI patients was 31.85 ± 20.53 days. Seven patients required ICU care. Ten patients (15.2%) expired during hospital stay or within 30 days of discharge and further four had GOS of 2 or 3. A total of 52 patients had a favorable outcome after 6 months. Conclusions: Rate of VAI in this cohort was high. VAI is associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and prolonged hospital stay.


Electric dipole transition probabilities and oscillator strengths for singly ionized terbium (Tb II) have been calculated with the weakest bound electron potential model (WBEPM) theory using experimental energy levels and theoretical expectation values of orbital radii corresponding to those energy levels under the assumption of the Jj coupling scheme. The transition probabilities and the oscillator strengths calculated have been compared with available data in the literature. A good agreement has been obtained. In this work, the WBEPM theory has been applied to heavy atoms, such as Tb II, for the first time.


Generics are pharmaceutical products containing the same active substance as an original branded medication. Generics are used in order to reduce the cost of pharmacotherapy. They have to be bioequivalent to the original drug-their mean "area under the curve" (AUC) should not deviate from the AUC of the original by more than 20 per cent. One generic is not necessarily bioequivalent to another generic. It is therefore highly questionable whether an original drug should be replaced by a no-name generic. From a medical point of view only branded generics should be prescribed. "Generics-related" conflicts can be minimized through tight cooperation between hospitals, physicians in ambulatory practice and pharmacies. Generic drugs should never be used if a better but non-generic medication is available.


Developing emergent technologies implies an ongoing challenge involving using new technological management tools. Enzyme engineering and its respective technology (within the context of biotechnology) is one of the areas of knowledge from which great expectations are constantly arising, such as providing competitive advantage in emergent economies like that of Colombia. However, several decades of research in this field have still not led to important results in terms of enzyme production and their application in industrial processes. This article proposes applying the components of a technological intelligence system to developing enzyme technology. Initial emphasis is placed on scientometrics, using exercises for mapping patents, technological monitoring and evaluating Colombian projects forming part of Colciencias' ScienTI network, carried out for the enzymes being used in both the food industry for obtaining hydrolysed products and in the textile industry. An example of Delphi study is documented within the context of industrial enzymes' future within biotechnology in general. The learning which can arise from analysing a sector leader is stressed by using organisational benchmarking. The basis of a technological intelligence system is then discussed in terms of how it can provide productive and competitive strategies aimed at applying industrial enzymes.


Individuals including youth athletes have three basic psychological needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—outlined by self-determination theory. In sport, key social agents such as coaches and parents help satisfy these needs. Coaches, as well as fathers and mothers, can independently and interactively satisfy youth athletes' basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness by providing autonomy support and a task-involving motivational climate. It is essential for coaches to understand this to not only better the youth athletes that they coach, but also educate parents who have tremendous influence over the youth athletes and in order to help provide the best environment in which youth athletes can thrive. Coaches should listen to and communicate with parents about their youth athletes and together, as a team, work to give their youth athletes the best chance of success.


\"Mulesed weaners had lower dag scores than unmulesed weaners at 4 and 8 months of age, but management and breeding also had an effect on dag score. Mulesed sheep at 8 months of age at any given dag score required 10% less time to crutch compared with unmulesed sheep but the dag score was much more important than whether they were mulesed in determining mean crutching period.

At 12 months of age mulesed and unmulesed sheep were equally likely to require a pre-shearing crutch, but the unmulesed sheep required 36% longer to crutch.

Mean shearing period was not significantly changed by mulesing although there were significant differences between ewes and wethers and between different runs for the same shearer and between shearers.

Some sire mating-groups had a greater effect on dag score than the effect of mulesing or not mulesing although the overall sire effect was less. In one case weaner mobs run in different paddocks had greater differences in dag than between mulesed and unmulesed sheep.

If mulesing is not used, then greater attention to reduction of dag development will be necessary to avoid increased costs due to longer crutching times and more frequent crutching.\"


This is a short note with small observations about big questions. We discuss how fixed-point logics, modal and first-order, can describe natural and interesting kinds of dynamic limit behavior in social networks, not just convergence to one end state. We explore what new issues arise then, and how fixed-point logics interface with other mathematical views of dynamical systems. Finally, we discuss how to relate 'blind' network dynamics to behavior of conscious agents exercising their freedom.


Self-Regulated Learner is a student who can stand alone, not dependent on others. His or her behavior and attitude do not come in sudden but through a process since their childhood. Among individuals are different because of many factors. Factors that greatly influence student's self-regulated attitude categories into two factors from internal and external. Internal factors, namely, physiological factors; including the physical condition of students, healthy or unhealthy, and psychological factors; including talents, interests, attitudes, motivation, intelligence, and others. Meanwhile, external factors; including family, school, and society. This study discussed how good student self-regulated learning, its characteristics, its benefits, and its process.


occupation exposes his hands to trauma their presence may well be due to that alone. But if bacterial endocarditis is suspected the presence or absence of splinter haemorrhages should be recorded on a simple drawing so that any fresh lesions can be recognized with certainty. In this way the sign may prove useful. Interest in clinical signs should not obscure the cardinal importance of taking blood cultures and of giving treatment immediately if there is a cardiac lesion and other good clinical grounds for diagnosing subacute bacterial endocarditis.


New Zealanders are constantly reminded of their degraded environment and the threatened status of their unique plants, animals and ecosystems. Instead of presenting these as symptoms of unsustainable living and the socio-economic system that rewards this, there has been a propensity to treat these as independent problems needing individual solutions with insufficient resources allocated to implement the solutions. For example, conservation of native biota and ecosystem protection are viewed as biological problems that are mainly the responsibility of government to be addressed through a government-based reserve system. In contrast, the Tahi Group view a diverse native biota and healthy ecosystems as essential elements of New Zealanders' heritage that require social engagement and innovative economic reform. Most of all, the New Zealand conservation paradigm needs to be broadened to encourage collaboration of a wider range of stakeholders and land owners and the application of new tools for learning how best to reverse ongoing decline of native biota and degradation of ecosystems. Diversification of conservation strategies has begun in small "bottomup" ways in communities, organizations, businesses and institutions, powered by commitment and energy of many individual citizens. These strategies, where monitored, demonstrate effective and efficient actions that inspires hope for a future that fully integrates conservation as a normal and an essential component of a prosperous economy and healthy South Pacific society with little or no government input. We make a plea to move from the constant reiteration of conservation problems to a focus on developing and implementing solutions to these problems with the engagement of all New Zealanders.


Future 4D aircraft trajectories demand comprehensive consideration of environmental, economic, and operational constraints, as well as reliable prediction of all aircraft-related processes. Mutual interdependencies between airports result in system-wide, far-reaching effects in the air traffic network (reactionary delays). To comply with airline/airport challenges over the day of operations, a change to an air-to-air perspective is necessary, with a specific focus on the aircraft ground operations as major driver for airline punctuality. Aircraft ground trajectories primarily consists of handling processes at the stand (deboarding, catering, fueling, cleaning, boarding, unloading, loading), which are defined as the aircraft turnaround. Turnaround processes are mainly controlled by ground handling, airport, or airline staff, except the aircraft boarding, which is driven by passengers' experience and willingness/ability to follow the proposed boarding procedures. This paper provides an overview of the research done in the field of aircraft boarding and introduces a reliable, calibrated, and stochastic aircraft boarding model. The stochastic boarding model is implemented in a simulation environment to evaluate specific boarding scenarios using different boarding strategies and innovative technologies. Furthermore, the potential of a connected aircraft cabin as sensor network is emphasized, which could provide information on the current and future status of the boarding process.


Accessibility to public transportation system is a major concern in the cities of south Africa. the existing public transportation route network system offers poor accessibility from the residential areas to the public bus transportation nodes (bus stops/ranks) and vice versa in the cities of south Africa. therefore, using the existing public bus transportation system in Durban, the objective of the study was to make a public transportation route network analysis to examine the accessibility of different areas in terms of walking distance and time to the public bus transportation network. A remote sensing-premised geographic information system method was used for the study. findings suggested that different areas of the city are located at a distance between 0.5 km (0.31 mi) and 15 km (9.32 mi) from the public transport route networks. the inner-city areas including the central business districts that are located between 0.5 (0.31 mi) and 1.0 km (0.62 mi) are relatively more accessible in which people take a little above 8 minutes to a little above 16 minutes to reach a public transportation node. however, the areas located at a distance more than 15 km (9.32 mi) are highly inaccessible, and it takes more than 4 hours of walking to reach a node (bus stops). the study evidenced the current accessibility challenges in the public transport system in Durban, and the findings could assist in upgrading or re-configuring the route network system to make it more accessible.


The objective of this study were bone defect complications that occur due to traumas or infections. Bone grafts are required to provide support, fill gaps and improve biological repair in skeletal damage. Dexamethasone plays role in calcium si gnaling modulation and used in diseases. Aim of this study was to evaluate osteonectin and osteopontin expressions in new bone developm ent after dexamethasone application on tibial bone defects. Rats were divided into defect, defect+graft and defect+graft+dexamethas one treated groups. Tibial bone defect created, and rats were kept immobile for 28 days. Alloplastic material was placed in defect area in second and group third groups. 2.5 mg/kg Dex and normal saline were injected to dexamethasone and defect groups twice a week fo r 56 days. Inflammation and congestion were increased in defect and defect+graft groups. Defect+graft+dexamethasone group; increased number of osteoblast and osteocyte cells, dense bone matrix, formation of new bone trabeculae was observed. Defect+graft group; osteonectin expression in graft regions, osteoblast cells, some connective tissue cells and fibers were seen whereas in defect+graft+dexamethasone group; osteopontin expression in osteoblast and osteocyte cells of new bone trabeculae were observed . Dexamethasone may lead to formation of new bone trabeculae into the graft material resulting in increased osteoconduction and osteoinductive effect for differentiation of osteon.


Since democratization, Latin America has experienced a surge in new forms of citizen participation. Yet there is still little comparative knowledge on these so-called democratic innovations. This Element seeks to fill this gap. Drawing on a new dataset with 3,744 cases from 18 countries between 1990 and 2020, it presents the first large-N cross-country study of democratic innovations to date. It also introduces a typology of twenty kinds of democratic innovations, which are based on four means of participation, namely deliberation, citizen representation, digital engagement, and direct voting. Adopting a pragmatist, problem-driven approach, this Element claims that democratic innovations seek to enhance democracy by addressing public problems through combinations of those four means of participation in pursuit of one or more of five ends of innovations, namely accountability, responsiveness, rule of law, social equality, and political inclusion.


Administering a writing program has never been easy, and the issue of political correctness has added a new dimension to this difficult task. At the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), a controversy began when a cluster of statues, presented to the school by the graduating class, was attacked as being sexist and racist. According to the testimony of the writing program director, many composition teachers initially saw the situation as a good opportunity for writing assignmentsComplaints from teachers arose, however, when student reaction was generally conservative; complaints from students arose when bad grades were given for papers unsympathetic to the politically correct view of the statues as prejudiced. Many instructors complained to the director that only a "fascist" would fail to support their vision of progressive, often radical politics. Informal research by the program director suggests that on many campuses, literature and writing courses reflect such radical pedagogies, often in striking ways, leading the director to sense a fundamental shift in the goals of liberal education in general and composition instruction in particular. Cultural pluralism as radical pedagogy presents a serious problem for administrators seeking instructional consistency, always a difficult goal for a program administrator. The growing intolerance of teachers for the views of their student= should strike all program directors as disturbing, especially those who believe that the teaching of rhetoric is inseparable from democracy, which assumes that students may define themselves without instructor imposition. (HB) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** Program Administration in the Face of Political Correctness


Most theories of goal pursuit underscore the beneficial consequences of monitoring progress towards goals. However, effects of affect labelling and dissociations between experience and meta-consciousness suggest that monitoring may not always facilitate goal pursuit. We predicted that in the case of pursuing interpersonal closeness, intense monitoring of progress would have a detrimental effect. We tested this hypothesis with the intimate conversation procedure, adapted from Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone, and Bator (1997). Participants in the closeness-monitoring condition asked themselves every five minutes in the course of a 45-minute interaction with a partner whether they felt any closer to their partner, whereas participants in the control condition monitored the room temperature. As predicted, intense monitoring interfered with achieving a feeling of closeness, as measured by sitting distance between pair members following the intimate conversation procedure. We discuss the possibility that monitoring would also be detrimental for achieving other goals that are internal states.


Epitaxial growth of an Al0.2Ga0.8N(0001) film by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) at 1050 °C on a Si(111) substrate via a ZrB2(0001) buffer layer has been accomplished free of unintentional Si doping. The in-plane lattice mismatch between Al0.2Ga0.8N(0001) and ZrB2(0001) is only 0.3% and good epitaxial relation is established with [112_0]AlGaN//[112_0]ZrB2//[1_10]Si. The cathodoluminescence (CL) spectrum of the Al0.2Ga0.8N shows a band-edge emission at 3.87 eV with full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 40 meV. Both the intensity and FWHM of the CL emission are comparable to those from a high-quality undoped Al0.2Ga0.8N film grown by MOCVD on sapphire. The close lattice match and the reflective nature of the ZrB2(0001) buffer layer are both attributes accountable for the optical quality of the Al0.2Ga0.8N grown on Si(111).


Abstract The free space spontaneous emission spectra of a driven five-level atom embedded in a defective double-band photonic band-gap material are investigated. The effect of quantum interference on the spontaneous emission spectra and its nature are discussed. It is shown that the nature of quantum interference in the presence of the driving field and defect mode may be destructive or constructive depending on the initial atomic coherency.


We present electronic-structure calculations for various rational approximants to icosahedral quasi-crystals. We show that structure-induced minima in the electronic DOS exist in all phases. This pseudogap leads to a lowering of the structural energy by a Hume-Rothery-like mechanism.


Pedestrian fatalities have been increasing in the U.S. and almost three quarters occur in an urban setting. To reduce the risk of pedestrian injury among individuals on and around an urban, academic healthcare campus, a communication campaign was created as one component of a comprehensive pedestrian safety intervention. A 10-minute online survey, open for 3 weeks in Aug-Sept 2013, was distributed via email and e-newsletters to the target audience – members of an academic healthcare community and residents in the community. Neighbourhood partners worked with low-income and low-literacy residents to access and complete the survey if they desired. Based on the online survey data, strategic and creative approaches for a pedestrian safety communication campaign were developed and tested with n = 4 focus groups composed of target audience participants. The final strategic and creative approach was determined from the results of the focus groups, which involved open ended questions and discussions as well as the participants completing rating sheets. Most respondents reported that pedestrian safety was an important or very important problem (97%) and that drivers and pedestrians (74%) contribute equally to it. 56% reported that a communication campaign to educate pedestrians and drivers about how to stay safe would be effective or very effective in improving pedestrian safety. Open-ended questions solicited suggestions for persuasive campaign messages. Focus group participants (n = 31) rated "Alertness" as the most effective strategic approach and "Be alert. Don't get hurt" as the most effective creative message. Soliciting information and opinions from the target audience bolsters the chance of developing a communication campaign targeted to its needs. Pedestrian safety campaigns are often created without the use of formative research. This work demonstrates how both quantitative and qualitative data from the target audience can inform the development of a campaign to maximise the impact on reducing pedestrian injuries.


The long-term risk and risk factors for recurrent embolism after percutaneous closure of patent foramen ovale (PFO) were investigated in 152 consecutive patients with presumed paradoxical embolism. During follow-up, the actuarial freedom from recurrent embolism was 95.1% at 1 year, and 90.6% at 2 and 6 years. A residual shunt after percutaneous PFO closure was a predictor for recurrence (RR 5.3; 95% CI 1.3 to 21.0; p = 0.02). Randomized trials comparing medical treatment with percutaneous PFO closure in the prevention of recurrent embolism are in progress.


This ia a case report on a eosinophilic granulomatosis. This disease falls nunder the hypereosinophilic syndrome as well as the eosinophilic leukemia, the disseminated eosinophilic collagenosis, and the endocarditis fibroplastica parietalis Löffler. These diseases are characterized by cardiovascular, pulmonary, abdominal and cerebral symptoms. An increased number of eosinophilic granulocytes constitutes the obligatory hematologic feature. Eosinophilic infiltration and vasculitis especially of the small vessels in heart, lung, liver, spleen, lymphnodes, and cerebrum are typical pathological findings. The eosinophilic granulomatosis shows in addition extravascular granulomas with abundant eosinophilic granulocytes. It is assumed that the hypereosinophilic disorders result from the same basic disease. We would suggest to described this basic disease as allergic eosinophilic collagenosis. This term implies both the supposed etiology and the histologic localisation of the disorder.


Splicing factor SRSF10 is known to function as a sequence-specific splicing activator. Here, we used RNA-seq coupled with bioinformatics analysis to identify the extensive splicing network regulated by SRSF10 in chicken cells. We found that SRSF10 promoted both exon inclusion and exclusion. Motif analysis revealed that SRSF10 binding to cassette exons was associated with exon inclusion, whereas the binding of SRSF10 within downstream constitutive exons was associated with exon exclusion. This positional effect was further demonstrated by the mutagenesis of potential SRSF10 binding motifs in two minigene constructs. Functionally, many of SRSF10-verified alternative exons are linked to pathways of stress and apoptosis. Consistent with this observation, cells depleted of SRSF10 expression were far more susceptible to endoplasmic reticulum stress-induced apoptosis than control cells. Importantly, reconstituted SRSF10 in knockout cells recovered wild-type splicing patterns and considerably rescued the stress-related defects. Together, our results provide mechanistic insight into SRSF10-regulated alternative splicing events in vivo and demonstrate that SRSF10 plays a crucial role in cell survival under stress conditions.


SUMMARY This year's report on hydrology focuses on Water Year 2000 hydrologic patterns in relation to water management, biological processes and ecological restoration of the greater Everglades system. Previous reports reviewed antecedent conditions and suggested numerous hydrologic relationships with plants, soils, salinities and wildlife. The importance of these relationships continues to be explored experimentally in greenhouses, rhizotrons and mesocosms, synoptically along transects in Water Conservation Areas and Florida Bay, and analytically with ecological models, such as the Everglades Landscape Model.


The torque required for the rotation of the rotor of a bacterial flagellar motor (BFM) can be generated from an impulsive force resulting from the collision between the stator and the rotor. The asymmetry in the fluctuations of the tilting angle of the rotor determines the direction of rotation. The expressions of the torque and the step size can be derived from a Langevin equation of motion. The drag coefficient of BFM derived from the Langevin equation and the measured torque–speed (τ-ω) relation is notably high; the viscous force from the environment cannot account for it. The drag force may be caused by the frictional interaction between the bearing-like L- and P-rings of BFM and the cell membrane. Order-of-magnitude estimations of the torque and the step size are consistent with previous experimental observations. The slope of the linear dependence of the rotational frequency on the temperature was estimated and was consistent with the observed value. A simulation device having the structural characteristics of BFM was designed to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed mechanism. Many observations for the actual BFM, such as the bidirectional rotation and the τ-ω relations of the clockwise and counterclockwise rotations, were reproduced in the simulation experiments. Importance The concept that the torque required for the rotation of the rotor of a bacterial flagellar motor (BFM) can be generated from an impulsive force resulting from the collision between the stator and the rotor is new and effective. The magnitude of the torque and the size of the step derived from the proposed mechanism are consistent with the observed values. The torque-speed (τ-ω) relation might be explained by the frequency-dependent drag force caused by the frictional interaction between the bearing-like L- and P-rings of BFM and the cell membrane. The slope of the linear dependence of the rotational frequency on the temperature is consistent with the observed value, which has not been achieved previously.


As water production in mature oil fields continues to increase, we as an industry are continually challenged with how to handle the ever-increasing volumes of produced water. Downhole separation is attractive but needs further investigation about oil in water content after separation and its effect on formation damage of injection zone This paper is a description of field testing of Down hole Oil/Water Separation technology in well LA 90, Lacq Superieur field, SW France where oil and water streams are separately produced to surface in order to control fluids quality The deviated well produces an heavy oil with high water cut from a carbonate reservoir. The new well completion consists of a hydrocyclone for oil/water separation and of electric submersible pump. The system can handle a flow rate from 150 to 270 m3/d with a water cut of about 97%. All parameters including the two well head string pressures, flow rate and pump speed were investigated during the flowing periods. Water cut, oil in water and droplet size were measured Issues revolving around the quality of produced fluids are reviewed and preliminary results from the field trial are presented, specially the remaining oil in the water stream The improved knowledge of emulsion characterization leads to a better use of downhole separation system and a more accurate prediction of formation damage in the injection zone.


Successful mammalian reproduction is dependent on a receptive and nurturing uterine environment. In order to establish pregnancy in humans, the uterus must i) be adequately prepared to receive the blastocyst, ii) engage in a coordinated molecular dialog with the embryo to facilitate implantation, and iii) undergo endometrial decidualization. Although numerous factors have been implicated in these essential processes, the precise network of molecular interactions that govern receptivity, embryo implantation, and decidualization remain unclear. NODAL, a morphogen in the transforming growth factor β superfamily, is well known for its critical functions during embryogenesis; however, recent studies have demonstrated an emerging role for NODAL signaling during early mammalian reproduction. Here, we review the established data and a recent wave of new studies implicating NODAL signaling components in uterine cycling, embryo implantation, and endometrial decidualization in humans and mice.


The azimuthal asymmetry introduced in tokamaks by the use of a finite number of toroidal field coils can lead to anomalously large particle and energy losses. The diffusion and ion heat transport coefficients associated with the ripple-induced drift of particles trapped in the usual banana orbits have been calculated and the results compared with the coefficients for neoclassical banana transport in axisymmetric tokamaks, transport governed by the dissipative trapped-ion instability, and the transport associated with particles trapped between the coil planes by the ripple field itself. The calculations were performed for an Experimental Power Reactor design and show that the losses due to the ripple-induced banana drifts can be a major limit on fusion reactor magnet design.


Purpose: Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is know to occur in families and research has shown that in populations or predominantly Northern European origin, 97% of AIS patients are related to families with AIS. It affects 1–2% of the population and results in deformities treated by bracing and surgery. Brace prescription is empirical and surgery is reserved for late cases and brace failures. Identifying the genetic markers for AIS would allow creation of a diagnostic gene-based test that may also have prognostic value for differentiating progressive and non-progressive curves. Methods: A 21 million name data base of the original European pioneers in Utah was assembled including 3 million descendents and 18 million ancestors. 500 DNA samples from affected and first degree unaffected relatives were collected and genotypes determined with capillary electrophoresis using 763 autosomal markers and gene chip scanning for 116 000 SNPs. Disease haplotypes were also scanned with a 500K SNP chip to further narrow the position of each loci. Results: Two markers were identified with LOD scores of 7.0 and 7.3. p-values from SNP scanning were highly significant. More detailed descriptions of these genotypes will be presented. Conclusion: Two genetic markers were identified, one of which was present in 95% of patients with AIS greater than 40°. In our population, no one with AIS less than 40° had these markers. A genotype test for AIS may be possible that would offer both diagnostic and prognostic value. Further characterization of the genes and their mutations could give information concerning the molecular pathway that lead to disease expression.


Land disputes are a particularly relevant point of entry to illuminate the political dynamics in Kunar. Consideration of conflicts over inheritance and plot demarcations constitute a particularly powerful means of analyzing the social tensions that fuel the civil war in this rural province of Afghanistan. The multiplication and politicization of land disputes throughout the last three decades highlight the dislocation of the political structures and the normative framework which regulated these conflicts before the Soviet invasion. Moreover, a comparison between the modes of regulating land disputes pursued by local commanders, the US military and the Taliban underlines the differences between three ways of governing people. In dealing with land disputes, political actors act directly on social relations, with decisive implications for their struggle against each other. An analysis of the war through the study of land conflicts helps us to more fully understand why the warlords are currently getting weaker, why the people of Kunar are rejecting the US Army, and why the Taliban movement has taken root locally.


Responses to Referee #1 Stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is an important climate mode that not only modulates the variability in tropical climate system, but also has potential influence globally and may further lead to possible impacts on air quality. Li et al. examined the effects of QBO on interannual variabilities of tropospheric ozone over China mainly by correlation analysis with the help of GEOS-Chem simulations. It is quite an interesting and novel topic. The manuscript is well-organized and easy to follow. I suggest it to be published after addressing my comments below.


INTRODUCTION
Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and hypermobility spectrum disorders cause joint instability, chronic pain, fatigue and progressive multisystemic dysfunction, increasing symptom burden and decreasing quality of life. Researchers know little about how these disorders progress in women as they age.

OBJECTIVE
This research aimed to determine the feasibility of an internet-based study to understand the clinical characteristics, symptom burden and health-related quality of life in older women with symptomatic hypermobility disorders.

METHODS
This cross-sectional, internet-based survey studied recruitment methods, suitability and usability of survey instruments and obtained baseline data on women aged 50 and older with hEDS/HSD. Researchers recruited participants from a Facebook group for older adults with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Outcome measures included health history, the Multidimensional Health Assessment Questionnaire and the RAND Short Form 36 health survey.

RESULTS
Researchers recruited 32 participants from a single Facebook group within 2 weeks. Nearly all participants were satisfied with the survey length, clarity and navigation, with 10 participants providing free-text recommendations for survey improvement. The survey suggests a high symptom burden and poor quality of life in older women with hEDS/HSD.

CONCLUSION
The results support the feasibility and importance of a future internet-based comprehensive study about hEDS/HSD in older women.


Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) is one of the most important fruit crops worldwide. With increasing cultivated area in the last decades, Brazil has become the largest strawberry producer in South America. Anthracnose caused by Colletotrichum spp. has been considered one of the most destructive diseases in Brazil. In May 2019, irregular and circular dark brown leaf spots sometimes associated with chlorosis and petiole necrosis were observed on strawberry plants (cv. Pircinque) organically cultivated in Santa Catarina state, Brazil (27°45'40"S, 49°59'06''W). The Colletotrichum isolate was obtained from leaf, and monosporic culture was grown on potato dextrose agar at 25°C and 12-h photoperiod under near ultraviolet light. Colonies at the age of 15 days showed upper surface color varying from white to orange and the reverse side grayish to orange. Conidia were hyaline, cylindrical with rounded ends, 13.9 to 9.2 × 4.2 to 6.7 µm ((x ) ̅= 11.3 × 5.2, n = 100). Perithecia were produced in vitro and their diameter ranged from 265.2 to 142.5 µm ((x ) ̅= 198.4). Asci were 47.3 to 39.9 × 5.2 to 7.2 µm ((x ) ̅= 42.8 × 5.9, n = 50), and ascospores 12.6 to 8.1 × 4.3 to 2.1 ((x ) ̅= 10.3 × 2.9, n = 100). To confirm pathogenicity, 90-day-old plants of strawberry (cv. Pircinque) were inoculated by spraying a suspension of 1×106 conidia/ml, incubated in a moist chamber in the dark for 48 h and then kept in a greenhouse for further 30 days. Plants sprayed with sterile distilled water served as control. Additionally, detached leaves were inoculated with six drops of 10 μl (1×106 conidia/ml) onto abaxial surface and incubated in a moist chamber at 25°C and 12 h photoperiod for 15 days. Inoculated plants exhibited first symptoms in both leaves and petioles at 15 days after inoculation (dai). On leaf, irregular and circular dark brown spots evolved to necrotic lesions and were frequently surrounded by chlorotic halos. In petioles, lesions were reddish-brown, elongated, and depressed. Typical anthracnose symptoms on fruits at 6 dai showed as circular, slightly sunken lesions that enlarged over time and produced an abundant orange mucilaginous mass of acervuli and conidia, and after 20 days, fruits became mummified. In the detached-leaf-assay, symptoms appeared at 7 dai, with presence of circular dark brown lesions measuring 1 to 15 mm and then evolved to necrosis. The same pathogen was consistently re-isolated from the inoculated leaves, petioles, and fruits, and confirmed by morphological characterization and molecular assays as described in this note. A representative isolate (MANE189) was molecularly identified using genomic regions of actin (ACT), β-tubulin (TUB2), calmodulin (CAL), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate-dehydrogenase (GAPDH), glutamine synthetase (GS), and internal transcribed spacer (ITS). Nucleotide sequences exhibited 100% homology to the typical Colletotrichum karstii strains (CBS:127535, CBS:128500 and ML1792) and were deposited in GenBank database (MW396420, MW396430, MW396460, MW396440, MW396450, and MW331606). This species belongs to the C. boninense species complex (Damm et al. 2012) and was previoStrawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) is one of the most important fruit crops worldwide. With increasing cultivated area in the last decades, Brazil has become the largest strawberry producer in South America. Anthracnose caused by Colletotrichum spp. has been considered one of the most destructive diseases in Brazil. In May 2019, irregular and circular dark brown leaf spots sometimes associated with chlorosis and petiole necrosis were observed on strawberry plants (cv. Pircinque) organically cultivated in Santa Catarina state, Brazil (27°45'40"S, 49°59'06''W). The Colletotrichum isolate was obtained from leaf, and monosporic culture was grown on potato dextrose agar at 25°C and 12-h photoperiod under near ultraviolet light. Colonies at the age of 15 days showed upper surface color varying from white to orange and the reverse side grayish to orange. Conidia were hyaline, cylindrical with rounded ends, 13.9 to 9.2 × 4.2 to 6.7 µm ((x ) ̅= 11.3 × 5.2, n = 100). Perithecia were produced in vitro and their diameter ranged from 265.2 to 142.5 µm ((x ) ̅= 198.4). Asci were 47.3 to 39.9 × 5.2 to 7.2 µm ((x ) ̅= 42.8 × 5.9, n = 50), and ascospores 12.6 to 8.1 × 4.3 to 2.1 ((x ) ̅= 10.3 × 2.9, n = 100). To confirm pathogenicity, 90-day-old plants of strawberry (cv. Pircinque) were inoculated by spraying a suspension of 1×106 conidia/ml, incubated in a moist chamber in the dark for 48 h and then kept in a greenhouse for further 30 days. Plants sprayed with sterile distilled water served as control. Additionally, detached leaves were inoculated with six drops of 10 μl (1×106 conidia/ml) onto abaxial surface and incubated in a moist chamber at 25°C and 12 h photoperiod for 15 days. Inoculated plants exhibited first symptoms in both leaves and petioles at 15 days after inoculation (dai). On leaf, irregular and circular dark brown spots evolved to necrotic lesions and were frequently surrounded by chlorotic halos. In petioles, lesions were reddish-brown, elongated, and depressed. Typical anthracnose symptoms on fruits at 6 dai showed as circular, slightly sunken lesions that enlarged over time and produced an abundant orange mucilaginous mass of acervuli and conidia, and after 20 days, fruits became mummified. In the detached-leaf-assay, symptoms appeared at 7 dai, with presence of circular dark brown lesions measuring 1 to 15 mm and then evolved to necrosis. The same pathogen was consistently re-isolated from the inoculated leaves, petioles, and fruits, and confirmed by morphological characterization and molecular assays as described in this note. A representative isolate (MANE189) was molecularly identified using genomic regions of actin (ACT), β-tubulin (TUB2), calmodulin (CAL), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate-dehydrogenase (GAPDH), glutamine synthetase (GS), and internal transcribed spacer (ITS). Nucleotide sequences exhibited 100% homology to the typical Colletotrichum karstii strains (CBS:127535, CBS:128500 and ML1792) and were deposited in GenBank database (MW396420, MW396430, MW396460, MW396440, MW396450, and MW331606). This species belongs to the C. boninense species complex (Damm et al. 2012) and was previously reported causing anthracnose on strawberry leaves in Taiwan (Chung et al. 2020). To our knowledge, this is the first report of C. karstii causing anthracnose on strawberry in Brazil. The accurate identification of the pathogen will assist in the disease management and resistance breeding. usly reported causing anthracnose on strawberry leaves in Taiwan (Chung et al. 2020). To our knowledge, this is the first report of C. karstii causing anthracnose on strawberry in Brazil. The accurate identification of the pathogen will assist in the disease management and resistance breeding.


The role of negative revisions in the large-scale decline in natural gas reserves in Texas during the late 1960's and through the 1970's was examined. Analysis of the factors that contributed to the negative revisions determined that no single element was responsible. However, (1) continued high levels of production, (2) original optimistic estimates of gas in place and recovery factors, (3) market-related factors that encouraged overestimation of reserves, and (4) unusually high reserves-to-production ratios (> 15) that obscured the underlying weakness in reserves combined in the Texas Gulf Coast to drastically reduce booked reserves of natural gas. Negative revisions totaling more than 20 Tcf during the period were found to have resulted mainly from ambiguities in the degree of reservoir heterogeneity, in calculation of water saturations, and in drive mechanism, along with the overestimation of reserves due to optimism encouraged by market-related incentives. The much reduced reserves-to-production ratios that now exist, along with continued closer monitoring of technical, economic, and regulatory factors that affect gas reserves, indicate that a return of extensive negative revisions over the next 10 to 20 years is avoidable.


Background:Little is known about the prevalence of proximal (hip, buttock, lower back) claudication after aortobifemoral bypass (AF2B) grafting and its hemodynamic effects at the buttock level. Methods:Forty-eight patients performed a treadmill test before and within 6 months after AF2B. The San Diego Claudication Questionnaire and the chest-corrected decrease from rest of transcutaneous oxygen pressure on buttocks were used to study exercise-induced proximal claudication and regional pelvic blood flow impairment. A decrease from rest of transcutaneous oxygen pressure value <−15 mm Hg was used to indicate regional blood flow impairment (RBFI). Results:Patients had the following characteristics: 39 were men and 9 were women, 60 ± 9 years, lowest ankle-to-brachial index (ABI) of 0.55 ± 0.18 and maximal walking distance (MWD) on treadmill of 188 ± 192 m at inclusion. ABI and MWD were significantly improved after surgery at 0.83 ± 0.19 and 518 ± 359 m (P < 0.0001). Unilateral or bilateral RBFI at the buttocks was found in 39 versus 29 patients before and after AF2B, respectively. Proximal claudication with underlying RBFI on one or both sides on treadmill were observed in 29 patients before AF2B, and in 9 of 26 (41%) versus 6 of 22 (23%) patients in end-to-end versus end-to-side proximal aorto-graft anastomosis of the AF2B, respectively (P < 0.05). Conclusion:A significant increase in MWD and ABI, but little improvement of proximal perfusion is observed after surgery, a finding that is expected from the absence of hypogastric artery revascularization. The prevalence of proximal claudication and proximal blood flow impairment is higher in case of end-to-end when compared with end-to-side proximal aorto-graft anastomosis, confirming the role of collaterals such as lumbar arteries in the buttock circulation during exercise in patients suffering from peripheral arterial disease. Proximal claudication on treadmill early after surgery affects almost one third of the patients and must not be underestimated among patients receiving AF2B. Attempts at hypogastric artery revascularization, if possible, might be preferable to decrease the risk of proximal claudication after AF2B.


This book presents a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the international law aspects of Indo-Nepal relations and represents an important contribution to the debate on the subject. It covers all major questions facing the two countries, including political and security issues, trade and transit problems, and water sharing.


Business practices are often highlighted by development studies for their contribution to the resilience of the rural population. However, business contributing to rural development has to fulfill distinct characteristics and roles compared with urban counterparts. Commercial organizations that are solely targeting economic growth and lacking social aspects of development might not contribute to the overall sustainability of the region. This paper draws on three notions discussed in the literature -social innovations, sustainable rural development, and bridging organizationsto illustrate the relationship between business activities and rural capital. Two textile craft initiatives from rural India, Kala Raksha and Khamir, were investigated in order to trace the developmental roles and characteristics of business in rural. The research identifies a set of rural social innovations and elaborates on their five bridging roles contributing to the development of the region. Findings indicate that social innovations playing bridging roles have the potentials to contribute to the sustainability of rural enterprises and the development of the region.


In 1970, Canada decided to develop its relations with Latin America, especially in the economic sector. Adhesion to the Interamerican Bank of Development and the status of observator in the Organisation of American States was a good institutional basis for increasing these relations. However, the absence of objectives on refugee and immigration questions prevented adoption of a clear policy towards Chilian and Haitian refugees. Generally Canada had met the 1970 objectives. Trade increased substantially, partly as a result of Canadian policies, but also because of the development of the main countries: Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela and the increase in oil prices. It could be more important if vigourous policies were implemented. Canada has important investments in Latin America, especially in Brazil. In percentage of total Canadian aid, aid to Latin America declined from 1970. Relations with Latin America will increase during the 1980's, but they would be more important if Canada adopted a more coherent policy.


In this paper, a semidiscrete finite element Galerkin method for the equations of motion arising in the 2D Oldroyd model of viscoelastic fluids of order one with the forcing term independent of time or in $L^{\infty}$ in
time, is analyzed. A step-by-step proof of the estimate in the Dirichlet norm for the velocity term which is uniform in time is derived for the non-smooth initial data. Further, new regularity results are obtained which reflect the behavior of solutions as $t\rightarrow 0$ and $t\rightarrow\infty.$ Optimal $L^\infty({\bf L}^2)$ error
estimates for the velocity which is of order $O(t^{-1/2}h^2)$ and for the pressure term which is of order $O(t^{-1/2}h)$ are proved for the spatial discretization using conforming elements, when the initial data is divergence free and in $H_0^1.$ Moreover, compared to the results available in the literature even for the Navier-Stokes equations, the singular behavior of the pressure estimate as $t\rightarrow 0,$ is improved by an order $1/2,$ from $t^{-1}$ to $t^{-1/2},$ when conforming elements are used. Finally, under the uniqueness condition, error estimates are shown to be uniform in time.


We provide new evidence on the bank lending channel of monetary policy using bank-level data of 440 banks from eleven CEE transition economies between 1998 and 2012. Our findings are: i) banks adjust their loans to changes in host country's monetary policy, ii) foreign-owned banks are less responsive to monetary policy of a host country than domestic-owned banks in both normal and crisis times, iii) foreign parent bank characteristics are irrelevant for the bank lending channel. We propose market segmentation hypothesis that can account for those facts better than the alternative, the internal market hypothesis. Foreign banks have a competitive advantage so that their loan portfolio adjusts less to changes in monetary policy. As a consequence, an increase in foreign penetration of the banking sector does not render monetary policy less effective. JEL classification: E44, E50, G21


Abstract In this paper, we recruit the construct of psychological design rationale as a framework for integrating theory development with design evaluation in HCI. We propose that, in some cases, part of an artefact's psychological design rationale can be regarded as inherited from second-order artefacts (prescriptive design models, architectures and genres, tools and environments, interface styles). We show how evaluation data pertaining to an artefact can be used to test and develop the second-order artefact from which it inherits.


An assay for gamma-interferon (IFN gamma) in human lymphocyte culture supernatants, based on reverse passive haemagglutination (RPH) of red cells bearing a monoclonal anti-IFN gamma antibody, was developed and compared with a conventional virus inhibition assay. Test samples comprised supernatants of lymphocytes from patients with Schistosoma mansoni infections, cultured with or without a soluble worm antigen preparation. The two assays gave comparable results, the correlations for individual samples being good. The RPH assay was both specific and sensitive, allowing the detection of IFN gamma at 13 u/ml (1 ng/ml) or less. The advantages of the RPH assay were that it was quick, relatively inexpensive and suitable for testing large numbers of samples. In particular, between-experiment variation was very low, allowing the assay of different samples on different occasions.


Elderly surgical population is growing faster than the rate of population ageing. The risk of postoperative complication is higher in this population, the type of complication and the risk indicators are different from younger patients. There is also a huge heterogeneity in the elderly population. The concept of frailty-emerges to explain these specific aspects and to risk stratify older patients. The present work intends to help the anaesthesiologist to take into account the concept of frailty at the preoperative visit. We reviewed, in the light of surgical context, the physiopathology of ageing, the definitions of frailty concept,the current existing strategies for peri-operational optimisation and the different frailty assessment tools. Our conclusions are that preoperative frailty assessment is essential in modern perioperative medicine practice and that the Edmonton Frail Scale stands out from other tools even though it cannot yet be considered as a gold standard.


Mink chronically infected with Aleutian disease virus develop a severe necrotizing arteritis affecting muscular arteries. Acute, subacute and healing lesions may be found. Extracellular deposits of host immunoglobulin and complement and, after acid elution, viral antigen can be shown by immunofluorescence technics in areas of fibrinoid necrosis and between proliferating endothelial cells. No intracellular viral antigen was found, indicating that the virus probably does not replicate in vascular structures. The arteritis of Aleutian disease appears to be the result of immune complex deposits in vessel walls.


A simplified n- ZnO/ p- Si heterojunction has been prepared by growing n- type ZnO rods on p- type silicon wafer through the chemical vapour deposition method. The reflectance spectrum of the sample shows an independent absorption peak at 384 nm, which may be originated from the bound states at the junction. In the photoluminescence spectrum a new emission band is shown at 393 nm, besides the bandedge emission at 380 nm. The electroluminescence spectrum of the n- ZnO/ p- Si heterojunction shows a stable yellow luminescence band centred at 560 nm, which can be attributed to the emission from trapped states. Another kind of discrete ZnO rod has also been prepared on such silicon wafer and is encapsulated with carbonated polystyrene for electroluminescence detection. This composite structure shows a weak ultraviolet electroluminescence band at 395 nm and a yellow electroluminescence band. These data prove that surface modification which blocks the transverse movement of carriers between neighbouring nanorods plays important roles in the ultraviolet emission of ZnO nanorods. These findings are vital for future display device design.


This study examines the factors affecting the demand for higher-quality auditors at the time of an initial public offering in a small market characterized by low-litigation risk, government subsidies for companies going public, and the presence of large non-Big Six auditors, namely, the Canadian province of Quebec. Our results, from an analysis of for 212 Quebec IPOs between 1983 and 1997, indicate that the choice of an auditor at the time of an IPO is significantly affected by the company's risk, size, and geographical dispersion. They also suggest that the Quebec audit market is segmented between three types of service providers: the Big Six, the National firms and the Local firms. Local firms audit small local companies with low risk, National firms audit large local companies with moderate risk, and Big Six audit large geographically dispersed companies with high risk.


The development phase of the SAR Interferometer Radar Altimeter (SIRAL) is in the final stage in Alcatel Space and during year 2004 the Engineering and the Flight Models is tested before delivery to the Mission Prime ASTRIUM GmbH. This ESA mission will be used to estimate - on a global scale - the fluctuations in mass of sea-ice and land-ice. This paper gives a detailed presentation of the microwave and processing units developed, followed by a survey of the pre-launch performances.


Scientists and the general public agree that the rural world is characterized by a strong attachment to traditional values, and lacks a sense of initiative, creativity and innovation. This, supposedly, is why the rural world is lagging behind in development. Even if rural people are typically excluded from the creative class, the history of QuA©bec rural communities shows that they have been and are still very creative; we can definitely learn from them. A paradigm shift is needed for a better understanding of rural innovation based on the recognition that rural people and communities are creative and have been innovative for some time. Instead of aiming to teach them how to innovate, we must try to understand the various innovations they put in place in response to multifaceted rural development challenges. Rural innovation is much more than technical innovation and new products; it reflects three basic dimensions of genuine sustainable development: managing natural environments, building instruments or institutions for economic development, and facilitating social life. Under this new paradigm of rural innovation, innovations are studied as they emerge from within rural communities, as exemplified by the QuA©bec Rural University initiative. Rural communities should also be seen as living examples (or living labs) of innovation. "Rural clusters" are additional models for rural innovation. Public policy must therefore support empowerment and community capacity building that foster an innovative rural sector. This support covers not only technical R&D for new products but also the "social innovations" that rural communities have introduced to achieve sustainable rural development.


The effectiveness of village-wide use of permethrin-impregnated bed nets or eave, window, and door curtains as control measures for Plasmodium falciparum malaria was evaluated during two successive high-transmission seasons in western Kenya. Pairs of villages were assigned to one of three study groups: bed net, curtain, or control. Clinical, parasitologic, and entomologic measures were made from March to July 1990 and again 12 months later. When compared with the controls in 1990 and 1991, we observed a marked reduction in the incidence of P. falciparum infections in children less than six years old in the bed net villages (reduced by 40% and 48%) and a smaller but still significant reduction in the curtain villages (10% and 33%). Significant reductions were also seen in the incidence of P. falciparum parasitemias greater than 2,500/mm3 in the bed net group (reduced by 44% and 49%) and curtain group (16% and 32%). Additionally, we observed significant reductions in the incidence of documented fevers in association with P. falciparum parasitemia in bed net (reduced by 63%) and curtain villages (53%) when compared with controls. Entomologic inoculation rates in both bed net and control villages decreased by more than 50% below control values during both high transmission seasons. The results of this study, together with a 1988 study in the same area during the low transmission season, show that bed nets offer greater year-round of protection against P. falciparum infection than curtains. However, during the high transmission season, this technique reduces the frequency of P. falciparum infection rather than preventing it entirely.


AIM
To study the mediating effect of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) in ischemic preconditioning in the isolated perfused rat heart.

METHODS
Isolated rat hearts were subjected to 3 cycles of a 5-min ischemia and a 5-min reperfusion before a 30-min global ischemia followed by a 30-min reperfusion.

RESULTS
Ischemic preconditioning caused an improvement of heart functions, reduced the incidence of ventricular arrhythmias and decreased the release of creatine kinase (CK) during reperfusion (CK activities = 0.30 +/- 0.07, 2.03 +/- 0.49, and 0.92 +/- 0.40 U.min-1/g wet wt for control, ischemia-reperfusion, and preconditioning, respectively). However, pretreatment with CGRP8-37 (0.1 mumol.L-1) abolished the improvement of cardiac contractivity, the reduction of the incidence of arrhythmias, and the inhibition of CK release by preconditioning (CK activities = 0.9 +/- 0.4 vs 2.55 +/- 0.32 U.min-1/g wet wt, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSION
CGRP is an endogenous myocardial protective substance that played an important role in mediation of ischemic preconditioning.


Background. Pain is one of the most common health problems often experienced by the elderly. Research on pain and its comorbidities in elderly are crucial, because it relates to disability and impairment in quality of life. Unfortunately research related to pain in the elderly and co morbidities are still limited in Indonesia, better understanding about pain can be a vital consideration of treatment and drug consideration. This study was conducted to provide an overview of pain and its comorbidities in elderly. Materials and methods. This was an observational cross sectional study to 949 subjects. Subjects were recruited from outpatients neurology department in 10 big cities Hospitals in Indonesia. Data obtained from subjects who completed the self-made pain questionnaire and medical records. Subjects were characterized based on type of pain, location of pain, properties of pain, time of exacerbation, and comorbidities. All data were processed descriptively. Results and conclusion. A total of 949 subjects met the inclusion criteria. The subjects consist of 476 (50.16%) female and 473 (49.84%) male, with common age group between 60-74 years (80.08%). The Most common pain characteristic are mild pain intensity (46.79%), mixed type of pain (44.68%), chronic pain (64.59%), multiple site pain location (45.42%) and uncertain time pain exacerbation (37.40%). Six hundred and eighteen (65.12%) subjects have comorbidity and 331 (34.88%) without comorbidity. The most common comorbidity found were hypertension (41.31%) and diabetes (14.23%), with 561 (90.78%) subjects have 1 comorbidity. These study provide the overview of the geriatric problems especially in pain and the comorbidities so that the clinician can provide a comprehensive management of pain problems in geriatric.


Demand for organic avocado fruits, together with stringent food safety standards in the global market, has made producers to use alternative, safe, and consumer-friendly strategies of controlling the postharvest fungal disease of avocado fruits. This study assessed the in vitro efficacy of Trichoderma spp. (T. atroviride, T. virens, T. asperellum, and T. harzianum) against isolated avocado stem-end rot (SER) fungal pathogens (Lasiodiplodia theobromae, Neofusicoccum parvum, Nectria pseudotrichia, and Fusarium solani) using a dual culture technique. The Trichoderma spp. were also evaluated singly on postharvest "Hass" avocado fruits. Spore suspension at 5 × 104 conidial/ml of the Trichoderma spp. was applied on the avocado fruits at three time points, twenty-four hours before the fungal pathogen (preinoculation), at the same time as the fungal pathogen (concurrent inoculation), and 24 hours after the fungal pathogen (postinoculation). In the in vitro study, T. atroviride showed the highest mycelial growth inhibition against N. parvum (48%), N. pseudotrichia (55%), and F. solani (32.95%), while T. harzianum had the highest mycelial growth inhibition against L. theobromae. Trichoderma asperellum was the least effective in inhibiting the mycelial growth of all the pathogens. Similarly, T. virens showed the highest mycelial growth inhibition against N. pseudotrichia at 45% inhibition. On postharvest "Hass" fruits, T. atroviride showed the highest efficacy against N. parvum, N. pseudotrichia, and F. solani in all the applications. Trichoderma virens and T. harzianum were most effective against all the pathogens during postinoculation, while Lasiodiplodia theobromae was best controlled by T. virens, T. harzianum, and T. asperellum during postinoculation. Both T. atroviride and T. harzianum present a potential alternative to synthetic fungicides against postharvest diseases of avocado fruits, and further tests under field conditions to be done to validate their efficacy. The possibility of using Trichoderma spp. in the management of SER on avocado fruits at a commercial level should also be explored.


OBJECTIVES
To understand the factors underlying the decision by U.S. hospitals to participate or not in the U.S. Smallpox Pre-Event Vaccination Program (SPVP).

METHODS
We conducted semistructured telephone interviews with a convenience sample of 123 hospital decision-makers in nine states between June and November 2003.

RESULTS
Within our sample, 88 hospitals (72%) decided to participate in the SPVP and 35 (28%) decided against doing so. Nearly all hospital decision-makers considered the risk of a smallpox outbreak, risks associated with vaccination, hospital costs, and the reaction of hospital stakeholders. However, these factors often were weighed differently by hospitals that decided to participate compared to those that did not. Fewer than half of all hospitals reported that public health officials played an important role in their decision-making process, but those that did felt the influence of public health officials was positive.

CONCLUSIONS
Strengthening the linkage between the public and private health sectors may help to address some of the barriers to broader participation by hospitals in the SPVP and foster the success of smallpox outbreak response preparedness efforts in the future.


The availability of the computer to a broad section of the community has brought under its influence a number of individuals who may not have been so well disciplined in appropriate ethical behavior. Lacking precedents and truly parallel paradigms as in driver and sex education, this paper recommends that earnest consideration must be given to introducing ethical concepts and case studies into secondary school classes as well as in professional school curriculum related to computing. Surveys have shown that the person most likely to have misused a computer/communication system is the employee of the company under attack. It is the responsibility of the computer community to reach as many of these employees during their formative years to divert them from inappropriate practices. The objective of this paper is to consider the state of affairs in computing which lead to deep concerns about ethical behavior and to present proposals for the inclusion of ethical concepts in early computer related courses.


One of the most important steps in data fusion is image registration. Automatic image-to-image registration for images captured by different sensors traditionally requires the use of information-theoretic similarity measures such as mutual information. Recently, a new similarity measure known as cross-cumulative residual entropy (CCRE) has been proposed for multimodal image registration in medical imaging applications. In this paper, we investigate the use of CCRE for multisensor registration of remote sensing imagery. In particular, we investigate the extreme case of registering synthetic aperture radar images to optical images. We also propose a novel extension to the Parzen-window optimization approach proposed by Thévenaz which involves applying partial volume interpolation in the calculation of the gradients of the similarity measure. Our experimental results show that our proposed approach which uses CCRE as the similarity measure and partial volume interpolation in the optimization procedure provides superior performance to other approaches investigated.


This study describes characteristics of students with acquired brain injury enrolled in a statewide educational consultation program and the program's support activities. Utilizing deidentified data from a statewide brain injury school consultation program, descriptive analyses of demographic and injury characteristics, including medical diagnosis (concussion/mild traumatic brain injury [TBI], moderate-severe TBI, and non-TBI), referral characteristics, educational placement, and the types of program activities were undertaken. 70% of students were referred for concussions/mild TBI and students were infrequently referred by medical professionals. Most students with concussion/mild TBI experienced recreational injuries (59%), while students with moderate/severe TBI commonly experienced road traffic injuries (48%). The greatest proportion of program team members' time was spent in consultation with school personnel (24%), communication with families (20%), and communication with school personnel (16%). Results suggest that the program addresses important communication and coordination needs among families, medical professionals, and educators and identifies opportunities to enhance program utilization.


We show that, generically, finding the k-th root of a braid is very fast. More precisely, we provide an algorithm which, given a braid x on n strands and canonical length l, and an integer k > 1 , computes a k-th root of x, if it exists, or guarantees that such a root does not exist. The generic-case complexity of this algorithm is O ( l ( l + n ) n 3 log n ) . The non-generic cases are treated using a previously known algorithm by Sang-Jin Lee. This algorithm uses the fact that the ultra summit set of a braid is, generically, very small and symmetric (through conjugation by the Garside element Δ ), consisting of either a single orbit conjugated to itself by Δ or two orbits conjugated to each other by Δ .


This is a scanned version of a published article. The original can be found at: http://horttech.ashspublications.org/. To the best of our knowledge, one or more authors of this paper were federal employees when contributing to this work.


"Narn", one of the works in the Unfinished Tales, has many parallels with the thirteenth-century Old Norse Volsunga Saga, which Tolkien read and studied. This paper will assess comparisons between the heroes, women, dragons, plots, and tokens for their contribution to understanding Tolkien's relationship to his sources, and will note Tolkien's craft in source assimilation.


Abstract:This article presents two theories of social change, developed by Ernesto Laclau and Alain Badiou. Laclau offers a theory of how political movements come to acquire wide acceptance. Badiou, by drawing conceptual resources from his elaborate ontological system, theorizes politics as a process by which something genuinely new comes to be in social situations. Tracing the implications of their respective approaches, this article identifies shortcomings in each. It argues, however, that the difficulties that are encountered are not solely indications of theoretical shortcomings, but are indicative of the real difficulty of both conceiving and practicing a politics of radical social change today.


Objective: Duoxuekang (DXK) capsule is an empirical prescription for Tibetan medicine in the treatment of hypobaric hypoxia (HH)-induced brain injury in the plateau. This study aimed to investigate the protective effects and underlying molecular mechanisms of DXK on HH-induced brain injury. Methods: UPLC–Q-TOF/MS was performed for chemical composition analysis of DXK. The anti-hypoxia and anti-fatigue effects of DXK were evaluated by the normobaric hypoxia test, sodium nitrite toxicosis test, and weight-loaded swimming test in mice. Simultaneously, SD rats were used for the chronic hypobaric hypoxia (CHH) test. RBC, HGB, HCT, and the whole blood viscosity were evaluated. The activities of SOD and MDA in the brain, and EPO and LDH levels in the kidney were detected using ELISA. H&E staining was employed to observe the pathological morphology in the hippocampus and cortex of rats. Furthermore, immunofluorescence and Western blot were carried out to detect the protein expressions of Mapk10, RASGRF1, RASA3, Ras, and IGF-IR in the brain of rats. Besides, BALB/c mice were used for acute hypobaric hypoxia (AHH) test, and Western blot was employed to detect the protein expression of p-ERK/ERK, p-JNK/JNK, and p-p38/p38 in the cerebral cortex of mice. Results: 23 different chemical compositions of DXK were identified by UPLC–Q-TOF/MS. The anti-hypoxia test verified that DXK can prolong the survival time of mice. The anti-fatigue test confirmed that DXK can prolong the swimming time of mice, decrease the level of LDH, and increase the hepatic glycogen level. Synchronously, DXK can decrease the levels of RBC, HGB, HCT, and the whole blood viscosity under the CHH condition. Besides, DXK can ameliorate CHH-induced brain injury, decrease the levels of EPO and LDH in the kidney, reduce MDA, and increase SOD in the hippocampus. Furthermore, DXK can converse HH-induced marked increase of Mapk10, RASGRF1, and RASA3, and decrease of Ras and IGF-IR. In addition, DXK can suppress the ratio of p-ERK/ERK, p-JNK/JNK, and p-p38/p38 under the HH condition. Conclusion: Together, the cerebral protection elicited by DXK was due to the decrease of hematological index, suppressing EPO, by affecting the MAPK signaling pathway in oxidative damage, and regulating the RAS signaling pathway.


A 1 yr study was conducted to determine which fish species may play a role in the life cycle of Anguillicola crassus in various habitats of Lake Balaton, Hungary. The prevalence and intensity of the larval infection of fish species acting as paratenic hosts was studied, and observations were made on the types of paratenic host reactions against larvae. With the exception of 1 species, all 20 fish species were infected by A. crassus larvae; however, the prevalence and intensity of infection varied widely. Six species (asp, white bream, Chinese rasbora, pike, river goby, European catfish), hitherto unreported as paratenic hosts, also proved to be infected by larvae in Lake Balaton. Of the 13 fish species examined in large numbers, ruffe and European catfish showed the highest prevalence of infection (100 %), followed by river goby (83 %), white bream (79 %) and bleak (68 %). Of these 13 fish species, ruffe showed the highest intensity of infection by live larvae (mean intensity: 39.3 3rd stage larvae, L3), followed by European catfish (mean number of live larvae: 26.9) and river goby (mean number of live larvae: 9.1). The mean number of live L3 in bleak, a species regarded as the principal food source for eels, was 4.1. Specimens containing only dead or both dead and live larvae were much more common in cyprinid fishes than in species belonging to other taxonomical entities. In these fish, the process of encapsulation and subsequent necrosis of live larvae could also be observed. With knowledge of the feeding habits of eels, it appears that bleak play the most important role in the transmission of anguillicolosis. Other intensively infected fish species (e.g. ruffe) may also contribute to massive infection of individual eels, even if they have a lower share in the eels' food structure.


The task of event extraction consists of three subtasks namely entity recognition, trigger identification and argument role classification. Recent work tackles these subtasks jointly with the method of multi-task learning for better extraction performance. Despite being effective, existing attempts typically treat labels of event subtasks as uninformative and independent one-hot vectors, ignoring the potential loss of useful label information, thereby making it difficult for these models to incorporate interactive features on the label level. In this paper, we propose a joint label space framework to improve Chinese event extraction. Specifically, the model converts labels of all subtasks into a dense matrix, giving each Chinese character a shared label distribution via an incrementally refined attention mechanism. Then the learned label embeddings are also used as the weight of the output layer for each subtask, hence adjusted along with model training. In addition, we incorporate the word lexicon into the character representation in a soft probabilistic manner, hence alleviating the impact of word segmentation errors. Extensive experiments on Chinese and English benchmarks demonstrate that our model outperforms state-of-the-art methods.


By emphasising observation and empiricism as a key influence on human behaviour, this work excludes any consideration of tradition or revelation. Scholars often view the apparent scepticism of Ecclesiastes in terms of a reaction against the more confident assertions found in works like Proverbs , and the book does indeed seem to deny the possibility of humans shaping their future or changing their fate through informed action. What appears to concern the works protagonist, whose monologue occupies most of its length, is not any scepticism about Gods activity or consistency rather the problems that arise from a human inability to discern divine action or purpose. This study will seek to understand both the roots and the implications of this empiricism, comparing the monologue with other biblical and ancient literature, and suggesting that, although it has points of contact with other texts, its scepticism is largely distinctive and, unlikely to represent some broader tradition. For that reason and others, the work as a whole is unlikely to be a satire, as is sometimes suggested, but it may be inviting critical reflection on the outlook and limitations of its protagonist. Over the last 30 years this pioneering series has established an unrivaled reputation for cutting-edge international scholarship in Biblical Studies and has attracted leading authors and editors in the field. The series takes many original and creative approaches to its subjects, including innovative work from historical and theological perspectives, social-scientific and literary theory, and more recent developments in cultural studies and reception history.


The present work provides insights into several aspects of the regulated secretion in pancreatic β cells. We demonstrated a partial intracellular dissociation of two secretory granule (SG) markers, insulin (Ins) and chromogranin B (CgB), implicating distinct SG populations. In addition, we observed for the first time a redistribution of CgB, shifting from the SG core to the halo upon secretagogues application. We also found that upon ionomycin stimulation, CgB was preferentially released, possibly reflecting a higher sensitivity to Ca2+. These findings suggest a differential regulation of Ins and CgB at multiple levels.
Furthermore, we observed heterogeneous Ins and CgB expression levels in the rat insulinoma Rin-5AH cell line. Among the sub-clones isolated therefrom, two displayed interesting features. The D2 sub-clone, showing nearly undetectable CgB levels and a lower Ins release compared to parental cells, suggested that CgB expression or secretion might affect Ins release. The Q2 sub-clone displayed high CgB content, accumulation of Ins and CgB in the Golgi complex and a poor secretion of both proteins; in addition, it showed a proportion of constitutively released Ins, suggesting a partial impairment of the secretory pathway. Q2 cells also displayed some features suggestive of oxidative stress, i.e. impaired ATP production upon stimulation of Ins secretion and altered mitochondrial morphology and functionality. Such features were also observed in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), thus we propose the Q2 sub-clone as a model of T2D.
Next, we assessed whether a cell model bearing oxidative stress is more susceptible to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. We induced a sub-lethal ER stress in Q2 cells and compared them to INS1-E. Our results showed a higher sensitivity of Q2 cells to activation of apoptosis. Further studies of this sub-clone might shed light on the still unclear correlation between oxidative and ER stress in diabetes.


Occurrence of strong or mass synchronization of a large number of neuronal populations in the brain characterizes its pathological states. In order to establish an understanding of the mechanism underlying such pathological synchronization, we present a model of coupled populations of phase oscillators representing the interacting neuronal populations. Through numerical analysis, we discuss the occurrence of mass synchronization in the model, where a source population which gets strongly synchronized drives the target populations onto mass synchronization. We hypothesize and identify a possible cause for the occurrence of such a synchronization, which is so far unknown: Pathological synchronization is caused not just because of the increase in the strength of coupling between the populations but also because of the strength of the strong synchronization of the drive population. We propose a demand controlled method to control this pathological synchronization by providing a delayed feedback where the strength and frequency of the synchronization determine the strength and the time delay of the feedback. We provide an analytical explanation for the occurrence of pathological synchronization and its control in the thermodynamic limit.


Pediatrics arose as an academic and medical specialty in the United States during the late nineteenth century. This paper documents the first three stages of academic pediatrics in the United States between 1850 and 1950: (1) 1850-1880, a period focused on sanitary reform as a means of reducing infant mortality; (2) 1880-1900, the era where discoveries being made in bacteriology, physiology, and nutrition began to be applied to improving the health of children; and (3) 1900-1930, when the field was characterized by an active health reform movement directed at parents and health care professionals. Three prominent pioneer pediatricians, Drs. Abraham Jacobi, Henry Koplik, and L. Emmett Holt, are profiled as representative practitioners of these eras.


Given the rising prevalence of lipid metabolic disorders and malignant diseases, we aimed to establish an in vivo hypercholesterinaemic tumour-bearing rat model for the induction and assessment of these conditions. A normal standard CRLT/N, 2 (baseline),- or 4 (2 + 2, pretreated)-week-long butter and cholesterol rich (BCR) diet was applied to mesoblastic nephroma (Ne/De) and myelomonoblastic leukaemia (My1/De) tumour-bearing and healthy control Long—Evans and Fischer 344 rats. The beginning of chow administration started in parallel with tumour induction and the 2 weeks of pre-transplantation in the baseline and pretreated groups, respectively. Fourteen days post-inoculation, the measurement of lipid parameters and [18F]F-FDG PET/MRI examinations was executed. The comparable lipid status of baseline healthy and tumorous rats proves that regardless of tumour presence, BCR-based hypercholesterolemia was achieved. A higher tumour mass among pretreated tumorous animals was found when compared to the control groups (p < 0.05, p < 0.01). Further, a visually greater [18F]F-FDG accumulation was observed in pretreated BCR tumorous animals; however, the quantitative data (SUVmean: 9.86 ± 0.98, 9.68 ± 1.24; SUVmax: 19.63 ± 1.20; 17.56 ± 3.21 for Ne/De and My1/De, respectively) were not statistically significantly different from those of the CRLT/N tumorous rats (SUVmean: 8.40 ± 1.42, 7.22 ± 1.06 and SUVmax: 15.99 ± 2.22, 12.46 ± 1.96 for control Ne/De and My1/De, respectively). Our model seems to be appropriate for simultaneously investigating hypercholesterolemia and cancer in the same rat.


After a wide introduction focused on the jurist as intellectual especially during the years in which fascism was growing, the present volume offers a number of essays devoted to different italian jurists  of the years 1910 - 1920 (E. Betti, P. Bonfante, P. de Francisci, G. Del Vecchio, E. Ferri, A.C. Jemolo, L. Lucchini, V.E. Orlando, Al. and Ar. Rocco, S. Romano, A. Solmi). The common purpose consist in putting under light the intellectual path which brought each of these scholars (coming from different ideal and political positions) to adhere to the fascism especially when Mussolini was moving his first steps toward the conquest of the power in Italy. The volume is closed by an analysis of the comparable experience of the Spanish jurists under the Franco's regime. The contributors are: I. Birocchi, M. Brutti, G. Chiodi, F. Colao, C. Fantappie, L. Garlati, C. Lanza, M. Lucchesi, V. Marotta, S. Martin, M.N. Miletti, A. Musumeci, F. Petrillo, D. Quaglioni.


The phase diagrams of the V-Si and Nb-Si alloys were established by thermal anal., x-ray, and microscopic examn. Alloy specimens were prepd. by sintering under pressure, by converting cold-pressed powder mixts. into solids in an A atm., and by melting the metals in arc furnaces. A eutectic between Si and the compd. VSi2 occurs with 5 wt. % V at a temp. of 1385°. Pure tetragonal V5Si3 was assigned to the space group D2d11 with lattice consts. a = 9.410 and c = 4.747 kX units. The VSi2 and V3Si phases were confirmed. In the Nb-Si system, a eutectic occurs with 8 wt. % Nb which melts at 1405°. Only the compds. Nb5Si3 and NbSi2 were identified; the transition of β- into α-Nb5Si3 at approx. 2000° has led to previous reports of other compds. β-Ni5Si3 belongs to space group D2d11 with a = 9.998 and c = 5.067 kX units. A change in crystal habit accompanies the transformation into platelets of α-Ni5Sb3 which belongs to space group D4h18 with lattice consts. a = 6.557 and c = 11.860 kX units. The tetragonal compds. V5Si3, α-, and β-Nb5Si3 are converted into a ternary hexagonal phase by the addn. of only 0.1-0.2% C, which has a relatively extensive homogeneity range.


We propose a novel dispersion compensating fiber design consisting of two highly asymmetric concentric cores. We show that the fundamental mode of the proposed fiber can have very large negative dispersion values (~ —5100 ps/(nm.km)) with larger mode field diameter (~ 9/µm) relative to the existing dispersion compensating fibers.


Abstract We consider successive generations of non-altruistic individuals carrying either a good or bad gene. Daughters are more likely to inherit their mother's gene. Competitive insurers can perform a genetic test revealing an agent's gene. They can condition their quotes on the agent's or on her ancestors' genetic status. In equilibrium, generation one is bribed to take the test with an unconditional premium. The insurer uses this information to profitably screen a finite number of generations of their offspring. The offspring of good-gene carriers subsidize the tested generation.


In this paper, we study the problem of nonnegative graph embedding, originally investigated in [J. Yang et al., 2008] for reaping the benefits from both nonnegative data factorization and the specific purpose characterized by the intrinsic and penalty graphs. Our contributions are two-fold. On the one hand, we present a multiplicative iterative procedure for nonnegative graph embedding, which significantly reduces the computational cost compared with the iterative procedure in [14] involving the matrix inverse calculation of an M-matrix. On the other hand, the nonnegative graph embedding framework is expressed in a more general way by encoding each datum as a tensor of arbitrary order, which brings a group of byproducts, e.g., nonnegative discriminative tensor factorization algorithm, with admissible time and memory cost. Extensive experiments compared with the state-of-the-art algorithms on nonnegative data factorization, graph embedding, and tensor representation demonstrate the algorithmic properties in computation speed, sparsity, discriminating power, and robustness to realistic image occlusions.


Although there is a vast theoretical literature on the existence of a tradeoff between equity and efficiency, empirical investigations often fail to find evidence for this proposition. Furthermore there are hints that some social models in Europe can cope better with this trade-off and are actually able to provide what economists call a free lunch. In this paper we use data from the Luxembourg Income Studies (LIS) to evaluate (a) whether there really exists something like a free lunch and (b) whether some social systems are actually better in coping with the trade-off between equity and efficiency.


AbstractA nationwide multicenter study was conducted in the China to explore sources of variation of reference values and establish reference intervals for 28 common biochemical analytes, as a part of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, Committee on Reference Intervals and Decision Limits (IFCC/C-RIDL) global study on reference values.A total of 3148 apparently healthy volunteers were recruited in 6 cities covering a wide area in China. Blood samples were tested in 2 central laboratories using Beckman Coulter AU5800 chemistry analyzers. Certified reference materials and value-assigned serum panel were used for standardization of test results. Multiple regression analysis was performed to explore sources of variation. Need for partition of reference intervals was evaluated based on 3-level nested ANOVA. After secondary exclusion using the latent abnormal values exclusion method, reference intervals were derived by a parametric method using the modified Box–Cox formula.Test results of 20 analytes were made traceable to reference measurement procedures. By the ANOVA, significant sex-related and age-related differences were observed in 12 and 12 analytes, respectively. A small regional difference was observed in the results for albumin, glucose, and sodium. Multiple regression analysis revealed BMI-related changes in results of 9 analytes for man and 6 for woman. Reference intervals of 28 analytes were computed with 17 analytes partitioned by sex and/or age.In conclusion, reference intervals of 28 common chemistry analytes applicable to Chinese Han population were established by use of the latest methodology. Reference intervals of 20 analytes traceable to reference measurement procedures can be used as common reference intervals, whereas others can be used as the assay system-specific reference intervals in China.


Written health and safety policies mitigate catastrophic outcomes resulting from sport injuries. The purpose of this project was to evaluate athletic trainers' proficiency in evaluating catastrophic policies and procedures alignment with best practices. This study found athletic trainers were not able to identify the majority of policy and procedure components based on evidence-based best practice documents. Furthermore, athletic trainers tended to focus more on aesthetics and feasibility versus alignment with current best practices. Results support the need to enhance education specific to policy and procedure development, evaluation, and implementation in order to improve proficiency of clinicians.


The vibration disease occupies one of leading places among occupational diseases. To decrease vibration pathology and to diminish number of cases of disability an early pre-clinical detection of harmful effect of vibration on organism of worker is needed. The purpose of study is to develop mode of diagnostic of early indications of health disorders of working individuals under local vibration impact. The immune enzyme technique was applied to immunologically examine 40 males workers in contact with local vibration. In workers with pre-clinical indications of health disorders due to effect of vibration alterations were established concerning content of immunoglobulins and cytokines characterized by lowering of concentrations of IgA, IgM, TNFα and also increasing of production of pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1β and anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-4. The increasing of serum concentrations of neuro-specific protein S-100β is established. The proposed mode permits detecting early indications of health disorders in workers contacting with local vibration in condition of applying minimal number of the most informative diagnostic indices that promotes decreasing of volume of clinical analyses.


Most children with generalized tonic-clonic seizures have a benign developmental disorder of seizure threshold that will be outgrown with or without treatment. Such children may have one or more infrequent seizures before adequate threshold is achieved. A small percentage of children will have frequent generalized seizures (epilepsy) due to brain damage or abnormality. Such patients require vigorous anticonvulsant therapy. However, for the children with "benign childhood epilepsy" treatment may be worse than the disease.


Structural analysis of late Cretaceous sequences from the northeastern Tunisian Atlas, led to conclude on an active basin floor instability. Regional tectonics resulted in tilted blocks with a subsidence reorganization, since the Campanian time. These structural movements are controlled both by N140 and N100-120 trending faults. The Turonian-Coniacian and Santonian sequences display lateral thickness and facies variation, due to tectonic activity at that time. During Campanian-Maastrichtian, a reorganization of the main subsidence areas occurred, the early Senonian basins, have been sealed and closed and new half graben basins developed on area which constituted previously palaeohigh structures. These syndepositional deformations are characterized by frequent slumps, synsedimentary tilting materials, sealed normal faults and progressive low angle unconformities. These tilted blocks combined to a subsidence axis migration were induced by a NE-SW trending extensional regime. This extension which affects the Tunisian margin during the Upper Cretaceous, is related to the Tethyan and Mesogean rifting phase which resulted from the combined movements of the African and European plates.


The European policy of Open Access to scientific research is now one of the key issues discussed in public debates on the future development of scientific communication. The implementation of Open Access tools has significant impact on scientific and economic growth. On the one hand, Open Access accelerates disseminating new research findings and facilitates recognition of authors on a more global scale. On the other hand, Open Access helps provide equal access to knowledge and stimulates innovation. Thus, it has an important role in creating the modern information society and economic growth. International organisations, the European Union and governments of individual countries support the idea of Open Access giving recommendations and guidelines concerning making the outputs of research financed from public funds freely available. The paper aims to discuss the process of preparing and implementing the Open Access policy at the institutional level as well as the functionality and tasks of the Open Repository which is now being established on the Multidisciplinary Open System Transferring Knowledge Platform. The acronym of its name in the Polish language is "MOST Wiedzy", which means "Bridge of Knowledge". The repository is a project of an archive of scientific publications, research data, scientific dissertations, as well as other documents and sources, created as a result of scientific experiments and other research and development work conducted at the Gdansk University of Technology. It will also be a solution supporting communication between researchers and a platform for cooperation between science and business.