Aloe vera gel has been investigated as possible edible coating to help improve the storage life of fruits after harvest. The study sought to investigate the effect Aloe vera gel coating with or without citric acid pretreatment on the quality of eggplant fruits during low temperature storage and in shelf life. Briefly, eggplants were coated with Aloe vera gel (some fruits were pretreated with citrate prior to the coating) and the changes in physicochemical quality of the fruit measured during storage at 10 °C. After 14 days, however, some fruits were transferred for storage at room temperature until day 18. Coating with Aloe vera decreased moisture loss, and consequently, decreased weight loss and loss of firmness of the fruit. The coating did help maintain the phenolic content, ascorbate levels and antioxidant capacity of the fruit. Pre-treating the fruit with citrate did not improve quality, showing that Aloe vera gel can be applied alone to enhance the storage quality of eggplant fruit. Results obtained from this study shows that Aloe vera gel coating can be useful in extending the postharvest storage life and maintaining the quality of eggplant fruits during low temperature storage.


Delta(1)-Pyrroline-5-carboxylate dehydrogenase (P5CDh) is known to preferentially use NAD(+) as a coenzyme. The k(cat) value of Thermus thermophilus P5CDh (TtP5CDh) is four times lower for NADP(+) than for NAD(+). The crystal structure of NADP(+)-bound TtP5CDh was solved in order to study the structure-activity relationships for the coenzymes. The binding mode of NADP(+) is essentially identical to that in the previously solved NAD(+)-bound form, except for the regions around the additional 2'-phosphate group of NADP(+). The coenzyme-binding site can only accommodate this group by the rotation of a glutamate residue and subtle shifts in the main chain. The 2'-phosphate of NADP(+) increases the number of hydrogen bonds between TtP5CDh and NADP(+) compared with that between TtP5CDh and NAD(+). Furthermore, the phosphate of the bound NADP(+) would restrict the ;bending' of the coenzyme because of steric hindrance. Such bending is important for dissociation of the coenzymes. These results provide a plausible explanation of the lower turnover rate of NADP(+) compared with NAD(+).


The first systematic account of the neural crest in the human has been prepared after an investigation of 185 serially sectioned staged embryos, aided by graphic reconstructions. As many as fourteen named topographical subdivisions of the crest were identified and eight of them give origin to ganglia (Table 2). Significant findings in the human include the following. (1) An indication of mesencephalic neural crest is discernible already at stage 9, and trigeminal, facial, and postotic components can be detected at stage 10. (2) Crest was not observed at the level of diencephalon 2. Although pre‐otic crest from the neural folds is at first continuous (stage 10), crest‐free zones are soon observable (stage 11) in Rh.1, 3, and 5. (3) Emigration of cranial neural crest from the neural folds at the neurosomatic junction begins before closure of the rostral neuropore, and later crest cells do not accumulate above the neural tube. (4) The trigeminal, facial, glossopharyngeal and vagal ganglia, which develop from crest that emigrates before the neural folds have fused, continue to receive contributions from the roof plate of the neural tube after fusion of the folds. (5) The nasal crest and the terminalis‐vomeronasal complex are the last components of the cranial crest to appear (at stage 13) and they persist longer. (6) The optic, mesencephalic, isthmic, accessory, and hypoglossal crest do not form ganglia. Cervical ganglion 1 is separated early from the neural crest and is not a Froriep ganglion. (7) The cranial ganglia derived from neural crest show a specific relationship to individual neuromeres, and rhombomeres are better landmarks than the otic primordium, which descends during stages 9–14. (8) Epipharyngeal placodes of the pharyngeal arches contribute to cranial ganglia, although that of arch 1 is not typical. (9) The neural crest from rhombomeres 6 and 7 that migrates to pharyngeal arch 3 and from there rostrad to the truncus arteriosus at stage 12 is identified here, for the first time in the human, as the cardiac crest. (10) The hypoglossal crest provides cells that accompany those of myotomes 1–4 and form the hypoglossal cell cord at stages 13 and 14. (11) The occipital crest, which is related to somites 1–4 in the human, differs from the spinal mainly in that it does not develop ganglia. (12) The occipital and spinal portions of the crest migrate dorsoventrad and appear to traverse the sclerotomes before the differentiation into loose and dense zones in the latter. (13) Embryonic examples of synophthalmia and anencephaly are cited to emphasize the role of the neural crest in the development of cranial ganglia and the skull.


Many researchers, from Edward Gibbon to Arnold Toynbee, were interested in how large polities would emerge and collapse. Traditionally, the history of empires was considered both in temporal and spatial dynamics. This article focuses on the study of the external manifestations of polities' structural features which may be expressed by a limited set of mathematical curves described by the specified Zipf's law. An ideal Zipf's curve is characteristic of the classical empires with complex economies (China, Rome, and others). However, the curves of some empires have a distinctive feature – an 'imperial tail'. The simpler the structure of large polities is, the closer is the line describing their livelihoods to a right line.


Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) associated with systemic sclerosis (SSc) results in significant morbidity and mortality. We previously reported that insulin-like growth factor-II (IGF-II) is overexpressed in lung tissues and fibroblasts from SSc patients, and IGF-II fosters fibrosis by upregulating collagen type I, fibronectin, and TGFβ. We now show that IGF-II augments mRNA levels of profibrotic signaling molecules TGFβ2 (p ≤ 0.01) and TGFβ3 (p ≤ 0.05), collagen type III (p ≤ 0.01), and the collagen posttranslational modification enzymes P4HA2 (p ≤ 0.05), P3H2 (p ≤ 0.05), LOX (p = 0.065), LOXL2 (p ≤ 0.05), LOXL4 (p ≤ 0.05) in primary human lung fibroblasts. IGF-II increases protein levels of TGFβ2 (p ≤ 0.01), as well as COL3A1, P4HA2, P4Hβ, and LOXL4 (p ≤ 0.05). In contrast, IGF-II decreases mRNA levels of the collagen degradation enzymes cathepsin (CTS) K, CTSB, and CTSL and protein levels of CTSK (p ≤ 0.05). The SRY-box transcription factor 9 (SOX9) is overexpressed in SSc lung tissues at the mRNA (p ≤ 0.05) and protein (p ≤ 0.01) levels compared to healthy controls. IGF-II induces SOX9 in lung fibroblasts (p ≤ 0.05) via the IGF1R/IR hybrid receptor, and SOX9 regulates TGFβ2 (p ≤ 0.05), TGFβ3 (p ≤ 0.05), COL3A1 (p ≤ 0.01), and P4HA2 (p ≤ 0.001) downstream of IGF-II. Our results identify a novel IGF-II signaling axis and downstream targets that are regulated in a SOX9-dependent and -independent manner. Our findings provide novel insights on the role of IGF-II in promoting pulmonary fibrosis.


A new type of information on the distribution of electron density in crystals of biological macromolecules is proposed. This is a quasihistogram of the image of the function of electron density distribution at a finite resolution. It is shown how this information should be used to restore the values of low-angle structure factors whose amplitudes have not been measured during X-ray experiments.


In this paper, a three-dimensional nonlinear delay differential system including Tumour cells, cytotoxic-T lymphocytes, T-helper cells is constructed to investigate the effects of intrinsic recruitment delay and chemotherapy. It is found that the introduction of chemotherapy and time delay can generate richer dynamics in tumor-immune system. In particular, there exists bistable phenomenon and the tumour cells would be cleared if the effect of chemotherapy on depletion of the tumour cells is strong enough or the side effect of chemotherapy on the hunting predator cells is under a threshold. It is also shown that a branch of stable periodic solutions bifurcates from the coexistence equilibrium when the intrinsic recruitment delay of tumor crosses the threshold which is new mechanism, which can help understand the short-term oscillations in tumour sizes as well as long-term tumour relapse. Numerical simulations are presented to illustrate that larger intrinsic recruitment delay of tumor leads to larger amplitude and longer period of the bifurcated periodic solution, which indicates that there exists longer relapse time and then contributes to the control of tumour growth.


Biofortification provides a promising method of solving microelement malnutrition in developing countries. For this purpose, a study was conducted to understand the grain Fe and Zn content variation in seventy prevalent Iranian wheat genotypes across three consecutive years, to assess genetic diversity, and to identify informative amplicons for high grain Fe and Zn content using three simple sequence repeat (SSR), start codon targeted (SCoT) polymorphism, and intron targeted amplified polymorphism (ITAP) markers. Grain Fe and Zn content was highly variable each year with high heritability. Despite the highly significant effect of year-genotype interaction, some stable genotypes were ranked highly all the three years for grain Fe and Zn content. The grain Fe and Zn contents were positively correlated in the second and third years. High genetic diversity was detected among the wheat genotypes using three different marker systems. A number of informative SSR, SCoT, and ITAP amplicons for high grain Fe and Zn were identified overall or in individual years. A few informative amplicons were common and stable for grain Fe and Zn content in the different years. The SSR alleles located on 3A, 4A, 4B, and 6B chromosomes were positively correlated with high Fe and Zn content, indicating that co-location of genes affected Fe and Zn content. Identification of informative alleles and amplicons for high grain Fe and Zn content could contribute to the development of sequence-based markers and improve the selection of genotypes with high micronutrient content.


Abstract In Nepal, an at‐scale, multisectoral programme—Suaahara (2011–2023)—aims to improve nutrition behaviours. Suaahara II (2016–2023) transitioned from a mother/child dyad focus to explicitly targeting all family members. Evidence is scant, however, regarding how exposure by men to social and behaviour change interventions relates to nutrition outcomes. This study uses a 2019 cross‐sectional monitoring dataset to test associations between maternal and male household head exposure to Suaahara II interventions (interacting with a frontline worker, participating in a community event or listening to the Bhanchhin Aama radio programme) and adoption of three infant and young child feeding practices: minimum dietary diversity, minimum acceptable diet and sick child feeding, in households with a child under 2 years (n = 1827). Maternal exposure to Suaahara II had a positive association with minimum dietary diversity (OR: 1.71, 95% CI [1.27, 2.28], P < 0.001), minimum acceptable diet (OR: 1.60, 95% CI [1.19, 2.14], P = 0.002) and increased feeding to a sick child (OR: 2.11, 95% CI [1.41, 3.17], P < 0.001). Male household head exposure was only associated with increased feeding to a sick child (OR: 2.21, 95% CI [1.27, 3.84], P = 0.005). Among households with an exposed mother, having an exposed male household head nearly tripled the odds of appropriate sick child feeding (OR: 2.90, 95% CI [1.57, 5.34], P = 0.001) but was not significantly associated with the other two outcomes. These findings suggest that the relationships between exposure to nutrition programmes and outcomes are complex and further research is needed to understand variation by family member, behavioural outcome and context.


A possibility of the portal venous blood flow reduction by means of resection of 1/3 of the small intestine in animals with the model of portal hypertension has been proved. Such an operation was performed in 2 patients, the long-term results are good.


Embryo cryopreservation is a vital part of any assisted conception programme. We analysed our experience with respect to various clinical factors which may influence success and help modify our own practice. Factors studied were endometrial preparation, number of embryos transferred, woman's age at embryo freezing and endometrial thickness. The 212 cycles analysed represented all our frozen embryo-transfers from 1994 to 1996. Four cycles were excluded because of incomplete data. Statistical analysis was done with Student's t-test, Fisher's exact test and chi-square test for trend. The clinical pregnancy rate rose yearly and it was 12.3% per transfer in 1996. The most important clinical factor appeared to be the type of endometrial preparation. Natural cycles resulted in a pregnancy rate of 17.7%, almost twice hormone-replacement cycles. When transfer was on days 14 to 16 of the natural cycle, the pregnancy rate reached 33%. Other factors that were suggestive of success were younger age at embryo freezing, transferring at least 2 embryos and endometrium thickness > or = 11 mm. The natural cycle gave the best pregnancy rate in our hands and is our method of choice for ovulatory women with normal cycle lengths. For all other women, hormonal preparation is needed but our protocols need refinement. Our initial performance is encouraging and embryo cryopreservation has certainly enhanced our overall success rate.


Introduction: In addition to individual characteristics, there may be a wide range of environmental or neighborhood stressors that contribute to elevated cannabis use in groups of youth living with HIV/AIDS (YLHIV); however, the effects of social disorganization on cannabis use in YLHIV to date have not been studied. Methods: We examined the effects of individual-level and neighborhood-level factors by developing hierarchical generalized linear models estimating odds of current cannabis use (any use during the past 3 months) and daily cannabis use among a sample of YLHIV (N = 1921) currently receiving medical care. Results: The final model for daily cannabis use in the past 3 months included significant positive effects associated with hostility (O.R. = 1.08, 95% C.I.: 1.05, 1.11), being older (O.R. = 1.12, 95% C.I.: 1.05, 1.20), being a bisexual male (O.R. = 1.72, 95% C.I.: 1.10, 2.70), and residing in a community with a murder rate in the highest quartile (O.R. = 1.91, 95% C.I.: 1.27, 2.87), second highest quartile (O.R. = 1.62, 95% C.I.: 1.06, 2.46), or third highest quartile (O.R. = 1.52, 95% C.I.: 1.01, 2.30). Discussion: This paper advances our knowledge of the multilevel factors associated with elevated cannabis use among groups of YLHIV and furthers our understanding of social and structural determinants of health in this population. Future research into cannabis use among YLHIV should consider, not only cannabis use within the context of the adjustment of living with HIV/AIDS, but also the stressors that characterize the environments in which groups of YLHIV live. © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.


Fire has been an important ecosystem process in the Sierra Nevada for thousands of years. Before the area was settled in the 1850s, fires were generally frequent throughout much of the range. The frequency and severity of these fires varied spatially and temporally depending upon climate, elevation, topography, vegetation, edaphic conditions, and human cultural practices. Current management strategies and those of the immediate past have contributed to forest conditions that encourage high-severity fires. The policy of excluding all fires has been successful in generally eliminating fires of low to moderate severity as a significant ecological process. However, current technology is not capable of eliminating the high-severity fires. Thus, the fires that affect significant portions of the landscape, which once varied considerably in severity, are now almost exclusively high-severity, large, stand replacing fires. The resulting landscape patterns are much coarser in grain. Many gaps still exist in our knowledge of fire as an ecological process in the Sierra Nevada.


Abstract While the benefits of additional schooling in the developing world are widely recognised, the best use of scarce resources to improve academic achievement remains unclear. We compare public investments in school infrastructure, school improvement grants, teacher qualifications, and attendance incentives on independently-gathered measures of academic skills as well as grade progression for 8–11 year olds in India. We match a rich household survey containing a skills-assessment module, the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), with detailed measures of each district's education resources from the District Information Survey on Education (DISE). We also include border-pair fixed effects to control for unobserved heterogeneity. We find that incentives for children to attend school were associated with arithmetic, reading and writing skills, and grade progression. Investment in teachers were associated with greater probability a child could write and do more advanced math. Small improvement grants to schools were associated with better reading skills and writing ability. Investments in school infrastructure were only associated with improved writing ability.


Peripheral neuropathy represents a well-known complication from long-term exposure to vibration. In the present study an experimental model is presented with the purpose of analyzing the formation of intraneural edema following vibration exposure. Vibration (82 Hz, peak-to-peak amplitude 0.21 mm) was induced in the hind limb of rats by the use of vibrating electric motors during 4 h/d for 5 d. Tracer techniques (with albumin Evans blue and horseradish peroxidase) were used to study the permeability of intraneural microvessels after the vibration exposure on day 5. It was found that the vibration trauma in this model induced epineurial edema in the sciatic nerve. It is hypothesized that the formation of intraneural edema may be an important pathophysiological factor in the occurrence of vibration-induced neuropathy.


The refractive index distribution in the core-cladding region of an optical fiber plays an important role in determining the transmission and dispersion properties of the waveguide. The refracted near-field technique (RNF) is among the most widespread techniques used for measuring the refractive index profile of optical fibers and is based on illuminating the end-facet of a fiber with a focused beam whose vertex angle greatly exceeds the acceptance angle of the fiber, which is immersed in an index matching liquid. What one observes are then the refracted unguided rays rather than the guided rays. Nevertheless, the standard refracted near-field technique cannot be applied to a wide range of optical fibers e.g. if their shapes are not axially symmetric. In this work we demonstrate a modified method which allows 2-D imaging of the refractive index profile and thereby overcoming the axial symmetric limitation of the standard RNF. The new system is operating at 630 nm and based on the same principle of the RNF, but the optical path is reversed so that the light at the fiber end-facet is collected by an objective lens and detected by a CCD camera. The method does not require scanning over the fiber end-facet. Thus the system is faster and less sensitive to vibrations and external conditions compared to the standard RNF, furthermore it allows averaging to improve the signal to noise ratio. The spatial resolution of the system is determined by the numerical aperture of the objective and by the resolution of the CCD camera. To calibrate the setup, a reference multi-step index fiber provided by National Physical Laboratory was used.


In transportation service, Railways play vital role for customers to reach their destinations with comfort and Economy in India. Railways as a Public sector, operating in a monopoly competition, will it be same like other service firms operating in competitive markets in terms of complaint behaviour. This paper focus on investigating the complaint behaviour of customers in South Central Railway, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh.120 samples were selected from different stations in and around Vijayawada for data collection. Data was collected and analyzed through a standardized questionnaire which was tested in terms of reliability and validity by experts. T-test, Descriptive statistics were used and found that most of the respondents are complaining to the service providers at the instance when customers are dissatisfied with the service, but it was found that less were exiting from services given by SCR. At last, the study consists of implications and future scope for researchers.
Keywords: Dissatisfaction, Complaint behaviour, Monopoly, South Central Railway.


Motivation KATK is a fast and accurate software tool for calling variants directly from raw NGS reads. It uses predefined k-mers to retrieve only the reads of interest from the FASTQ file and calls genotypes by aligning retrieved reads locally. KATK does not use data about known polymorphisms and has NC (No Call) as default genotype. The reference or variant allele is called only if there is sufficient evidence for their presence in data. Thus it is not biased against rare variants or de novo mutations. Results With simulated datasets, we achieved a false negative rate of 0.23% (sensitivity 99.77%) and a false discovery rate of 0.19%. Calling all human exonic regions with KATK requires 1-2 h, depending on sequencing coverage. Availability KATK is distributed under the terms of GNU GPL v3. The k-mer databases are distributed under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA license. The source code is available at GitHub as part of Genometester4 package (https://github.com/bioinfo-ut/GenomeTester4/). The binaries of KATK package and k-mer databases described in the current paper are available on http://bioinfo.ut.ee/KATK/.


With the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic at the end of 2019, Clean and Healthy Living Behavior (PHBS) is now more important than ever. This is inextricably linked to people's habits in maintaining their health, so that they are not exposed to Covid-19 disease. As information technology advances, so does the form of media used in learning. As a result, a video game about PHBS has been created to aid in learning and increase the knowledge of teachers at Aisyiyah Kindergarten in Surakarta City. The goal of this activity is to provide kindergarten teachers with training on how to use PHBS video games. This activity is carried out in stages, such as problem analysis, identifying teachers' characteristics, socializing about the use of interactive learning media, analyzing partner needs in interactive learning media, and training the use of PHBS video games. The activity resulted in an increase in PHBS knowledge as well as an increase in teachers' ability to use PHBS video games. The creation of PHBS video games is critical in order to assist teachers in providing PHBS material to their students.


Abstract The outlook of political communication style is different in and outside crises. Depending upon the stress factor, there is a move from a cognitive, expressive, and content-oriented non-crisis style to emotive, impressive, and audience-oriented crisis communication rhetoric. This paper is meant to test a theory of a "crisis communication combination pattern". Crisis style would, according to this "CCC-theory", rely upon at least three cognitive and/or linguistic variables and it could be described as (1) a simplistic worded rhetoric, (2) full of metaphor power and (3) audience oriented use of modals. The empirical sections of the article investigate style and rhetoric of Belgian political parties in and outside crises during the period 2000-2005. Two cases represent clear examples of political 'crises, whereas the third case deals with an election campaign (as a crisis-like situation). From the results of all three cases can be concluded that it is possible to "smell" the crisis in political style. In all cases, the CCC-value is in crisis time approximately three times higher than in non-crisis time. Additional results show that parties at the endings of the political spectrum achieve significantly higher CCC-indices than more centered parties, both in crisis and in non-crisis time. This suggests the overall presence of a crisis-like communication style in political discourse of extremist and very radical parties. Keywords: crisis communication – rhetoric – metaphors – integrative complexity – modals – Belgium politics


OBJECTIVE. Our goal was to assess the effect of episodes of neonatal hypoglycemia on subsequent neurodevelopment. METHODS. We searched Medline and Embase for cohort studies on subsequent neurodevelopment after episodes of hypoglycemia in the first week of life. Reference lists of available studies were reviewed, and content experts were contacted for additional studies. Included studies were selected and appraised for methodologic quality by 2 reviewers. Methodologic quality was assessed according to well-accepted criteria for prognostic studies. Eventually, all studies were given an overall quality score: poor, moderate, or high quality. Studies in the latter 2 categories were considered for quantitative data analysis. RESULTS. Eighteen eligible studies were identified. The overall methodologic quality of the included studies was considered poor in 16 studies and high in 2 studies. Pooling of results of the 2 high-quality studies was deemed inappropriate because of major clinical and methodologic heterogeneity. None of the studies provided a valid estimate of the effect of neonatal hypoglycemia on neurodevelopment. Building on the strengths and weaknesses of existing studies, we developed a proposal for an "optimal" future study design. CONCLUSIONS. Recommendations for clinical practice cannot be based on valid scientific evidence in this field. To assess the effect of neonatal hypoglycemia on subsequent neurodevelopment, a well-designed prospective study should be undertaken. We submit a design for a study that may answer the still-open questions.


On June 1, 2016, the State Council of the People's Republic of China released its Opinions on Establishing a Fair Competition Review System in the Development of the Market System. It shows the determination of Chinese center government that firmly protect the Market System. Actually, the Chinese government is always making the effort to decrease the inappropriate intervention to Market System which from the public rights. Up to now, remarkable results have been achieved. And the stable and rapid growth of China's economy is the best proof. The release of the document about Fair Competition Review is conducive to consolidating the previous achievements of the Chinese government. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the content of this system and put forward some suggestions based on the actual situation in China.


We analyze the role of the confinement potential symmetry on the optical properties of quantum wires in the high-density regime. Within the Hartree-Fock approximation we go beyond a global group-theoretical analysis and analyse the structural details of the symmetrized set of microscopic polarization equations including band-mixing. We show that neglecting conduction band mixing leads to further degeneracies of the quantum wire excitonic fine structure. We also find that the decoupling of the symmetrized polarization equations is persistent in the quasi-equilibrium high-density regime.


The genus Brassica is recognized for including species with phytoaccumulation potential and a large amount of research has been carried out in this area under a variety of conditions, from laboratory experiments to field trials, with spiked or naturally contaminated soils, using one- or multi-element contaminated soil, generating various and sometimes contradictory results with limited practical applications. To date, the actual field potential of Brassica species and the feasibility of a complete phytoextraction process have not been fully evaluated. Therefore, the aim of this study was to summarize the results of the experiments that have been performed with a view to analyzing real potentials and limitations. The reduced biomass and low metal mobility in the soil have been addressed by the development of chemically or biologically assisted phytoremediation technologies, the use of soil amendments, and the application of crop management strategies. Certain issues, such as the fate of harvested biomass or the performance of species in multi-metal-contaminated soils, remain to be solved by future research. Potential improvements to current experimental settings include testing species grown to full maturity, using a greater amount of soil in experiments, conducting more trials under real field conditions, developing improved crop management systems, and optimizing solutions for harvested biomass disposal.


The construction method of environment description using stereo camera is described in this paper. This method is for safety of user-carried semi-autonomous mobile robot in outdoor environment that contains steps and slopes. This method constructs environment map by using three-dimension occupancy grid. These grids are cuboids fine in height direction. Three-dimension flow is used for self-localization. The elevation map is constructed from the three-dimension occupancy grid, and the dangerous area is calculated from the elevation map. This make it enable to distinguish passable slopes and impassable steps. Moreover, this system is equipped for an outdoor semi-autonomous electric scooter and performed in real world.


The light supported detonation wave (LSDW) propagation with the laser radiation absorption in a narrow layer behind wave's front is considered in the paper alternatively to the volumetric energy source model usually used for the energy deposition simulation [1-7]. The next laser plasma flow features were revealed in [8] by methods of numerical simulation: 1) laser plasma forms high-speed jet flow behind the LSDW front along the light beam propagation direction, 2) jet parameters are close to an isentropic flow mode at significant distances from the LSDW front, therefor can be determined with a good approximation using the unsteady pressure solution for the point explosion model with a kinematic x-t transformation. These features allow one to determine the plasma momentum value (in the direction of a laser beam) of the optical breakdown as an additional factor of effect on gas flow, first indicated in [9]. For an argon flow, we used a comparative analysis of the results of numerical simulations obtained both accounting the absorbed energy only and the breakdown plasma momentum additionally acquired at the absorption of radiation behind the LSDW front. The experimental results of an optical discharge plasma in a subsonic argon flow are also presented. Pulse-periodic radiation with a frequency of 40 kHz and average power of 1.6 kW (peak power more than 30 kW) was generated by CO2-laser created in ITAM SB RAS. In order to obtain the LSDW mode by increasing a length of the breakdown plasma a focusing system f / d ≈ 9 was applied. A high-speed video camera with the exposure time of 1.0 μs, and the shooting speed of 200,000 frames / sec was used to record process. It has been established that the plasma dynamics has two successive stages: from the initial high-speed (of the order of 1 μs) propagation of the optical discharge to the subsequent lower-velocity gas-dynamic stage.


Citizen participation is one of the essential issues for democracy. The value of democracy cannot be realized without citizen participation. Taking citizen participation as citizen power, this book studied on 6 cases which represented different levels of citizen power. The six cases included: participatory budgeting by Township Chinese People' s Congress, public policy advocacy, NGOs participation in government procurement, participatory governance in urban communities, participation governance by farms' organization in rural area, and participatory governance among the migrant workers. The book studied the essential mechanism, principles, problem, results, and preconditions of the cases.


: This paper investigates the best possible forecasting price models for three important agricultural products in Bangladesh namely potato, onion and garlic using time-series and secondary data from January 2000 to December 2014. The main objective of this paper is to find out the appropriate time series models using some of the latest selection criteria that could describe the best price patterns of the above mentioned three crops. To forecast the prices of the crops, the ARIMA models were used, based on model selection criteria and error statistics among the competing models. The overall findings of the study indicate that the fitted models are satisfactory for the respective commodities. The study observed increasing trends in forecasted prices of all three commodities. In particular, the increase in the price of garlic has been observed to be very high compared to that of potato and onion. The study also found that the best fitted SARIMA model for potato is SARIMA (1,0,0) (0,1,2) 12, for onion SARIMA (2,0,0) (0,1,1) 12, and for garlic SARIMA (2,1,3) (0,1,3) 12 .


As the major hazard of percutaneous vertebroplasty (PV), cement extravasation into the venous system, systemic embolism, and spinal canal has been previously reported. However, to our knowledge, only one case of the arterial migration of cement has been previously reported that is directly associated with this technique without any symptom in the immediate post-intervention and in the follow-up period. An arterial embolus of cement occurred in a 46-year-old woman undergoing lumbar PV for breast cancer metastasis. Less than one hour later, the patient complained of severe pain and numbness in her left leg. A diagnosis of acute left leg ischemia due to the acute occlusion of the infrapopliteal arteries by the cement was made. Transluminal angioplasty (PTA) for the infrapopliteal arteries was recommended because there were diffuse and long vessel involvements, leaving no distal targets for bypass vascular surgery. The patient's postoperative course was uncomplicated; the extremity tenderness and mottled skin were improved. A follow-up ultrasound 2 months later revealed an acceptable distal flow in the arteries of the affected limb, and the patient remained asymptomatic (except for a mild leg pain on exertion) at the one-year follow-up examination. In conclusion, PTA may save the limb from amputation in case of peripheral arterial embolism caused by cement during PV.


During the last decades, growing evidence indicates that the photodynamic antitumor activity of transition metal complexes, and Re(I) compounds are potential candidates for photodynamic therapy (PDT). This study reports the synthesis, characterization, and anti-tumor activity of three new Re(I)-guadinium complexes. Cytotoxicity tests reveal that complex Re1 increased cytotoxicity by 145-fold from IC50 > 180 μM in the dark to 1.3 ± 0.7 μM following 10 min of light irradiation (425 nm) in HeLa cells. Further, the mechanism by which Re1 induces apoptosis in the presence or absence of light irradiation was investigated, and results indicate that cell death was caused through different pathways. Upon irradiation, Re1 first accumulates on the cell membrane and interacts with death receptors to activate the extrinsic death receptor-mediated signaling pathway, then is transported into the cell cytoplasm. Most of the intracellular Re1 locates within mitochondria, improving the ROS level, and decreasing MMP and ATP levels, and inducing the activation of caspase-9 and, thus, apoptosis. Subsequently, the residual Re1 can translocate into the cell nucleus, and activates the p53 pathway, causing cell-cycle arrest and eventually cell death.


Objective To evaluate actual risk of complications and 1-year catheter survival of immediate full-volume 2000-mL dialysate exchange after peritoneal catheter implantation. Design and Setting A prospective randomized comparative study in a university hospital kidney center. Patients The study included 59 end-stage renal disease patients entering into a continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis program between January 1996 and December 1997. Interventions In group 1 (n = 21), exchange volume was gradually increased from 500 mL per 3 hours to full-volume exchange over 13 days. In group 2 (n = 38), full-volume exchange per 6 hours was performed from the day of catheter implantation. Bed rest with minimal activity was recommended for the first 3 days in both groups. Main Outcome Measures Occurrence of catheter-related complications such as dialysate leakage, drainage failure, malposition, infectious complications, and, ultimately, catheter loss were observed for 1 year. Results After straight Tenckhoff catheter implantation, pericatheter dialysate leaks occurred in 9.5% of group 1 and in 10.5% of group 2 patients (no significance, NS). Within 1 month of implantation, the incidences of tunnel or exit-site infection, catheter malposition, and outflow failure were not significantly different between the two groups. Abdominal discomfort was noted in 2 patients from group 2. Peritonitis occurred in 9.5% and 5.3% (NS) within 2 weeks of catheter implantation, and in 14.3% and 10.5% (NS) after more than 2 weeks in group 1 and group 2, respectively. Early catheter loss within 1 month occurred in 4.8% of patients in group 1 and 5.3% in group 2 (NS). The causes of loss were persistent leakage in group 1, and persistent leakage combined with tunnel infection and outflow failure in group 2. The duration of hospitalization from the day of catheter insertion to discharge was definitely shorter in group 2 compared to group 1 (9.9 ± 0.6 days vs 15.0 ± 0.8 days, p < 0.001). For 1-year follow-up, the frequencies of peritonitis were 0.062 ± 0.015/patient-month in group 1 and 0.076 ± 0.018/patient-month in group 2 (NS). The actual 1-year catheter survival was 85.7% in group 1 and 84.2% in group 2 (NS). Conclusions One-year catheter survival after immediate full-volume peritoneal dialysis exchange was 84.2%. This study did not show any evidence that immediate full-volume exchange causes more short- or long-term complications compared to the stepwise volume increment method.


The following study aims to outline, whether the perceptions of entrepreneurs about their entrepreneurial activities and the underlying meanings of their activities are universal or whether they vary systematically across cultures. In contrast to previous studies, the phenomenographical approach and the resulting findings of this study provide new insights into what constitutes entrepreneurship by drawing an inference from the perceptions of entrepreneurs in the United States and in Germany. Culture is shown to have an important impact on entrepreneurship, since the underlying meanings of entrepreneurship vary significantly among the two sample groups. Furthermore, the study sheds more light on the culturally contingent 'why' of entrepreneurship by looking at the internal motivations of individuals instead of exclusively focusing on character traits or external influences of the respective economic environments. Keywords—Cross-Cultural Management, Entrepreneurship, Phenomenography, Qualitative Research.


Polish has a large number of constructions which have been referred to as impersonal because they lack a canonical subject. I discuss syntactic, morphological and lexical properties of these constructions in turn and argue that they can be classified into four distinct types: constructions with optionally unexpressed pronominal subjects, morpholexically derived constructions with obligatorily unexpressed syntactic subjects, genuinely subjectless constructions formed with defective verbs and passivised intransitive predicates, and constructions with overt non-agreeing subjects. I offer LFG-type analyses of the first three categories of construction. I identify subjects for two of them at the argument structure and functional structure levels of representation, and confirm only one type of construction as truly subjectless at all levels of syntactic representation of the predicate.


The results of artificial polyploidization for horticultural and agronomic plant species are presented in this re- view. The data on use of the classical antimitotic drug colchicine for chromosome doubling are reported. The efficacy of other compounds such as dinitroanilines and phosphorothioamidates in polyploidy induction as compared to colchicine has been summarized. The molecular basis of highly specific binding of dinitroanilines and phosphorothioamidates with plant tubulin for induction of efficient polyploidy are discussed.


Describes AACE, a methodology for educational algorithm animation that the author developed while building an integrated hypermedia algorithm animation environment extending a fundamental algorithms textbook. After presenting the general structure of AACE, he discusses questions of the ideal user interface for algorithm animations. He compares his approach to the development of algorithm animation that he calls 'structure-based' with the more conventional 'unified view'-based approach.<<ETX>>


We find that watersheds in real and artificial landscapes can be strongly affected by small, local perturbations like landslides or tectonic motions. We observe power-law scaling behavior for both the distribution of areas enclosed by the original and the displaced watershed as well as the probability density to induce, after perturbation, a change at a given distance. Scaling exponents for real and artificial landscapes are determined, where in the latter case the exponents depend linearly on the Hurst exponent of the applied fractional Brownian noise. The obtained power laws are shown to be independent on the strength of perturbation. Theoretical arguments relate our scaling laws for uncorrelated landscapes to properties of invasion percolation.


In the general consumer literature, it has been claimed that the more transparent the payment form, the less likely a person will spend the money. This means that people are more likely to buy goods and services with virtual representations of money (e.g., credit cards) than with real money. These observations have also been made in reference to people who spend money gambling. It has also been asserted that the psychological value of virtual representations of real money (e.g., chips, electronic cash [e-cash], tokens, smart cards, etc.) is less than real money. Therefore, this study examined how much money poker players (N=40) gambled when playing Texas Hold'em Poker using either chips or real money to make bets. Results showed that participants gambled significantly more with chips than with real cash. The finding suggests that it might be more socially responsible for gaming operators to provide the option for their clientele to gamble with real money rather than make them convert it to chips, tokens, credits and/or smart cards.


The Debian GNU/Linux operating system is one of the most popular GNU/Linux distributions, not only among end users but also as a basis for other distributions and embedded systems. Besides being popular, it is also one of the largest software compilations and thus a good starting point to analyze the current state of libre (free, open source) software. This work is a quantitative study about the new Debian GNU/Linux release (5.0, codenamed lenny), which was officially released February 14th, 2009. We have measured the size of Debian in lines of code (which is close to 324 million source lines of code), what programming languages have been used to write that code, and the size of the packages included in the distribution. We have also applied a 'classical' and well-known cost estimation methods which gives an idea of how much it would suppose to create something as big as Debian from scratch. We estimate that cost to be near 6,100 million Euros.


In this paper, we propose a novel reduced order model (ROM) lengthscale definition that is based on energy distribution arguments. This novel ROM lengthscale is fundamentally different from the current ROM lengthscales, which are generally based on dimensional arguments. As a first step in the assessment of the new, energy based ROM lengthscale, we compare it with a standard, dimensional based ROM lengthscale in the mixing-length ROM (ML-ROM) simulation of the turbulent channel flow at $Re_{\tau} = 395$. The numerical investigation shows that the energy based ROM lengthscale yields a significantly more stable ML-ROM than the dimensional based ROM lengthscale. The new energy based lengthscale definition could allow the development of scale-aware reduced order modeling strategies that are better suited for flow-specific applications.


(1) This method involves too much interference with the cleavage tissues in between the muscle layers, and it is an accepted fact that when handling an infected organ like an aCLitely inflamed appendix the least interference with cleavage tissues is desirable as it predisposes to contamination of healthy tissues. (2) An extensive cut at a right angle to the fibres of the external oblique muscle has been proposed. This can be avoided. (3) Muscle splitting has been done twice, both of the internal oblique and of the transversus abdominis muscles. This will again contaminate healthy tissues more than is necessary. (4) No regard has been given to the cosmeti-c appearance of the scar. The operation may last for 20 minutes, but the scar becomes a life-long possession of the patient. In any surgical procedure -especially on the abdomen of a lady-the importance of cosmetic appearance of scars cannot be over-emphasized. May I be permitted to make the following suggestions which I have found very useful as a routine and especially in disputed or misplaced appendices ? (1) Routine inspection and palpatory examination of abdomen after pre-operative skin preparation to gauge the site of the inflamed organ, which naturally becomes easier when the irritated peritoneum and spastic muscles are relaxed by anaesthetics and relaxants. (2) The planning of an incision now can be done with precision. For a high appendix which Mr. Sethna has described a Batt'e's approach to the appendix is quite adequate. Even in very difficult cases an incision of more than 3-4 in. (7.6-10.2 cm.) is seldom required. (3) Drainage, if called for, of the local area and the pelvis should be through the same wound rather than a stab wound, to avoid further contamination.


The present study explored the effects of gender stereotype threat and conceptions of ability on motor learning and working memory in novice female learners. Sixty participants (Mage = 21.92 years, SDage = 1.74) were randomly assigned into a gender stereotype threat and a control group (neutral; without stereotype threat). Each group was, in turn, randomly divided into two subgroups: inherent ability and acquired skill. The tasks assigned to the participants included soccer dribbling and the n-back test. In the pretest, the individuals only performed one dribbling trial, whereas in the practice phase, the individuals performed 12 blocks of five trials based on their respective test conditions. During retention and transfer under pressure (48 hr after practice for both tests), the participants carried out one block of five trials. The participants also completed the n-back test in the pretest, posttest, and retention phases. In both motor performance and learning, the findings suggested that both gender stereotype threat and inherent ability variables can negatively influence the soccer dribbling skill (p < .05). However, regarding working memory, the results could not show any significant difference between the groups (p > .05). How these variables affect or do not affect motor learning as well as working memory and how the results are applied in the motor domain are discussed.


Cytochrome P450, namely CYP2D6 is major metabolizing enzyme for many antipsychotics, including risperidone. The aim of present study was to evaluate in 35 patients with first episode of schizophrenia relation of genotype and phenotype of CYP2D6 to therapeutic response to risperidone treatment and occurrence of adverse effects. PANSS score was assessed weekly; as response was considered at least 30 % reduction of baseline of total PANSS score; CYP2D6 genotype was assessed by automatic sequencing of DNA isolated from peripheral leukocytes, phenotype was assessed using dextromethorphan as a probe substrate.


Women salvation is a common depicted theme in literatures about women worldwide. Chinese novel Ju Yan and American autobiographical novel Eat Pray Love are all centered on the theme of their female characters' salvation under different cultural backgrounds. As a feminist interpretation of these two novels, this paper makes a cross cultural study on the theme of women salvation. Under the influence of gender culture and the different national cultures, the two women characters in the novels have quite distinctive experiences, a deep understanding of which may bring insight into cross cultural perception, thereby promote successful intercultural communication. Key words: Cross cultural study; Women salvation; Ju Yan; Eat Pray Love


ABSTRACT Researchers have demonstrated that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are vital in colorectal cancer (CRC) progression. Here, we aimed to explore the function of lncRNA PAX6 upstream antisense RNA (PAUPAR) in the development of CRC. In the present study, PAUPAR and microRNA (miR)-17-5p expression levels in CRC tissues and cells were examined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Western blot analysis was adopted to examine ZNF750 expression at the protein level in CRC cells. CRC cell proliferation was examined by colony formation experiment and 5-Bromo-2-deoxyUridine (BrdU) experiment. CRC cell migration and invasion were assessed by Transwell experiments. Apoptosis was measured using the TUNEL experiment. The targeting relationship between PAUPAR and miR-17-5p was confirmed using dual-luciferase reporter gene and RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) experiments. We demonstrated that PAUPAR was markedly down-modulated in CRC, and its low expression was significantly related to increased T stage and local lymph node metastasis. Knockdown of PAUPAR enhanced CRC cell proliferation, migration and invasion, and restrained apoptosis relative to controls, whereas PAUPAR overexpression caused the opposite effects. Moreover, rescue experiments showed that miR-17-5p inhibitor could reverse the role of PAUPAR knockdown on the malignant phenotypes of CRC cells. Additionally, PAUPAR could positively regulate the expression of ZNF750 via repressing miR-17-5p. Taken together, these findings suggest that PAUPAR/miR-17-5p/ZNF750 axis is a novel mechanism implicated in CRC progression. Graphical abstractPAUPAR repressed the proliferation, migration and invasion of CRC cells, and promoted the apoptosis of CRC cells. PAUPAR sponged miR-17-5p and repressed its expression, and ZNF750 was demonstrated to be negatively regulated by miR-17-5p. PAUPAR could upregulate the expression of ZNF750 via downregulating miR-17-5p, and the functions of PAUPAR were dependent on its regulatory function on miR-17-5p/ZNF750 axis


Based on a passive k-stage feed-forward delay line structure, this letter presents a novel scheme which allows fast tuning among as many as 2/sup k//spl times/2/sup k/ ultrafast time-division multiplexed (TDM) channels in all-optical networks. At a lower speed, a simple selection rule is applied at the input and output of the structure to set the state of the delay. In the experimental demonstration, the delay line can be tuned to any of the 1024 50-Mb/s channels in a 50-Gb/s all-optical TDM network with a five-stage structure and two E/O modulators. The average reconfiguration time is about 20 ns.


Many companies decided to move towards the cloud computing technology in order to manage, monitor and explore huge space data amount in the space ground data systems. The corresponding transition adaptation needs a study to classify each space related service in the appropriate cloud computing service model layer; SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. In this paper, we specify a representation of proposed cloud computing based ground data system architecture for earth observation missions. The proposed architecture takes into consideration the collaboration aspect between multiple space agencies. We evaluate the time, storage and processing performance when using the cloud computing environment. The obtained results show a good performance where contact time increases significantly and more data was processed compared to the classic approach using hard CPU units. These results and especially the obtained contact time increase provide multiple agencies with more opportunities to intervene in cases of anomalies or disaster.


A common theme in current school reform efforts is that teachers within schools must become reflective practitioners if they are to become more successful in improving instruction to meet the needs of increasingly diverse populations. In an effort to help schools promote district-level reflection about instructional improvement, Boston College's Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy (Massachusetts) assisted teachers in two urban districts to utilize an assessment approach that relied on multiple methods of gathering information about classroom practice. This approach suggests that schools seek alternative perspectives on the life of schools based on the insights and perspectives of those who are perhaps the most assiduous observers of school and classroom life, students. Survey responses from 1,402 students in one district and 720 in another were analyzed. The paper discusses the four fundamental components of the model: (1) involving practitioners in the design of assessments; (2) employing matrix sampling; (3) using multiple methods of assessment; and (4) involving practitioners in the interpretation of results. It provides examples of each of these key components from two districts. The paper also discusses the relative merits and limitations of using this model to promote district level reflection about instructional improvement. (Contains 21 references.) (Author/SLD) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ********************************************************************************


Using hand-collected data, we show that disclosure of non-earnings guidance, especially that about a firm's long-term value creation — capital expenditure (CAPEX) guidance and strategic plan disclosure (SPD) — was common even before the debate on earnings guidance gained momentum. Firms with high long-term institutional ownership tend to provide both earnings and CAPEX guidance rather than only one of them. Turnaround firms tend to provide SPD in lieu of earnings guidance, whereas growth firms tend to provide earnings guidance without SPD. Our findings suggest that before the trade associations injected themselves into the earnings guidance debate, managers' investment/strategy guidance was common and their choices of CAPEX/SPD vs. earnings guidance were consistent with economic theories. These findings belie the trade associations' concerns that corporate guidance behaviors have contributed to earnings fixation and short-termism in the capital markets.


The present paper proposes a novel watermarking scheme specifically designed for high dynamic range (HDR) images. The employed embedding strategy is based on a decomposition of the original HDR representation into multiple low dynamic range (LDR) images by means of a bracketing process. After having inserted the selected watermark into each LDR component, the final output is generated by combining the available contributions into a single HDR object. By exploiting some of the well studied properties of digital watermarking for standard LDR images, our approach is able to generate a watermarked HDR image visually equivalent to the original one, while allowing to detect the embedded information in both the marked HDR image and in its LDR counterpart, obtained through tone-mapping operators or by extracting a specific luminance range of interest from it. Several results obtained from an extensive set of experimental tests are reported to testify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.


This paper presents a robust decentralized model predictive control scheme for a class of discrete-time interconnected systems subject to state and input constraints. Each subsystem is composed of a nominal LTI part and an additive time-varying perturbation function which presents the interconnections and is generally uncertain and nonlinear, but it satisfies a quadratic bound. Using the dual-mode MPC stability theory and Lyapunov theory for discrete-time systems, a sufficient condition is constructed for synthesizing the decentralized MPC's stabilizing components; i.e. the local terminal cost function and the corresponding terminal set. To guarantee robust asymptotic stability, sufficient conditions for designing MPC stabilizing components are characterized in the form of an LMI optimization problem. The proposed control approach is applied to a system composed of five coupled inverted pendulums, which is a typical interconnected system, in a decentralized fashion. Simulation results show that the proposed robust MPC scheme is quite effective and has a remarkable performance.


In the era of metagenomics, more and more studies consider ecosystems rather than individual organisms to elucidate biological mechanisms. This enabled to associate two previously independent research fields: genomics and ecology. A host organism can be highly dependent on its microbial environment and new methods are needed to decipher the interactions occurring at this level. The microbiome is an interesting support from the ecological and evolutionary point of view as it may impact the growth ability, the fitness and even the survival of the host. Theories about holobionts suggest that the microbiome is faster to adapt than the host, further emphasizing the need to focus on this cornerstone of ecosystems studies. A major concern is to understand the reasons determining the diversity of the communities as well as the mechanisms underlying the general ecosystem functionalities. Here we focus on Ectocarpus subulatus str. BFT along with its bacterial community. Multi-omics studies were performed to gain better insights into the organization of the holobiont. Functional annotation, metabolic network modeling and biological pathway completion inform on potential interaction mechanisms at the metabolic scale. The hypothesis according to which microbial communities gather preferentially in order to optimize functional complementarity can explain the metabolic richness and diversity of the microbiome observed in the algal holobiont.


This study reports estimates on dietary exposure from the first French Total Diet Study (FTDS) and compares these estimates with both existing tolerable daily intakes for these toxins and the intakes calculated during previous French studies. To estimate the dietary exposure of the French population to the principal mycotoxins in the French diet (as consumed), 456 composite samples were prepared from 2280 individual samples and analysed for aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, trichothecenes, zearalenone, fumonisins and patulin. Average and high percentile intakes were calculated taking account of different eating patterns for adults, children and vegetarians. The results showed that contaminant levels observed in the foods examined 'as consumed' complied fully with current European legislation. However, particular attention needs to be paid to the exposure of specific population groups, such as children and vegans/macrobiotics, who could be exposed to certain mycotoxins in quantities that exceed the tolerable or weekly daily intake levels. This observation is particularly relevant with respect to ochratoxin A, deoxynivalenol and zearalenone. For these mycotoxins, cereals and cereal products were the main contributors to high exposure.


In this work, we review, extend and discuss low-temperature specific-heat experiments, that we have conducted on different molecular (hydrogen-bonded) solids both in crystalline and glassy (either amorphous or orientationally disordered) phases. In particular, we have measured the low-temperature specific heat Cp for a set of simple, well known alcohols: glycerol, propanol and ethanol. For glycerol, we have prepared and measured Cp of both glass and crystal phases down to 0.5 K. The same has been done for propanol, in this case comparing the strikingly different values observed for the two chemical isomers, 1-propanol and 2-propanol. Moreover, ethanol exhibits a very interesting polymorphism presenting three different solid phases at low temperature: a fully ordered (monoclinic) crystal, an orientationally disordered (cubic) crystal or 'orientational glass' and the ordinary structural (amorphous) glass. By measuring and comparing the low-temperature specific heat of the three phases, in the boson peak range 2–10 K as well as in the tunnelling-state range below 1 K, we provide a quantitative confirmation that 'glassy behaviour', either concerning low-temperature properties or the glass-transition phenomenon itself, is not directly related to the lack of long-range crystalline order occurring in amorphous solids.


This study assesses the use of two fiscal impact analysis (FIA) approaches for estimating the fiscal impact of land use changes in the City of Harrison, Ohio. The objective of the study is to validate two average cost FIA methods, the Per capita multiplier method and the Service Standard method, as a basis for estimating the fiscal impact of land use changes in Harrison. Based on a comparison of the outcomes of the average cost FIA methods with actual fiscal changes from 2000 to 2006, the estimates of fiscal impacts were found to be different for each of the average cost method. Further, the estimates from each method differed from the fiscal changes actually experienced. Finally, this study suggests ways to improve the accuracy of the Per capita multiplier and Service Standard average cost methods if they are to be used to estimate the fiscal impact of proposal land use changes.


Dermatological lesions are a common extra-intestinal manifestation (EIM) associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or its treatment. The severity of the lesions requires a preferential assessment by the dermatologist. The photography allows a telematic evaluation and non-face-to-face analysis. There are no published experiences of telemedicine in patients with IBD and dermatological EIMs. This study aimed to assess the results of a telematic system for the evaluation of dermatological lesions in patients with IBD (TELEDERMA) developed between the Dermatology Department and IBD Unit.

 The retrospective study that evaluates this system from its implementation in June 2014 to December 2017 (3.5 years). TELEDERMA (TD) establishes the issuance of a telematic consultation with images through electronic clinical history. A therapy is advised by a dermatologist either through an electronic prescription or a personal appointment. The study evaluates the average time of the telematic consultation, type of lesion and attitude of patients towards the therapy, type and characteristics of the IBD, treatments applied, other EIMs, smoking and dermatological history. Patients were asked to describe and evaluate their level of satisfaction.

 A total number of 47 consultations from 39 patients (70% females) with an average age of 33.2 (8–75) have been made.41 of these consultations were made in patients with Crohn Disease (CD) and 6 in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). Sixty-seven per cent of the patients with UC had pancolitis. CD Patients had ileal o ileocolonic location (82%) with inflammatory (39%) and stricturing (55%) behaviour. Eighteen per cent of the patients had an active flare-up. 1 out of every four patients had other EIMs. The most frequent reason for teleconsultation was paradoxical psoriasiform lesions (n = 13, 33.3%) of anti-TNF agents (70% of the patients) and suppurative hidradenitis (n = 4, 10.3%). The resolution was achieved in 87%, and only one patient had to interrupt the anti-TNF therapy. The average waiting time was 4.7 days (0–14), compared with the 60 and 28 days of the current waiting list with a routine or preferential request, respectively. All the patients evaluated this system positively, highlighting the advantages of rapidness in both the resolution of the consultations.

 TD is a useful tool for the rapid assessment of dermatological lesions associated with IBD. It prevents the patients from going to the emergency department, improves the care quality and the degree of satisfaction of the patients. The most frequent teleconsultations were related to psoriasiform lesions associated with anti-TNF therapy. The interruption of treatment was exceptional.


This study aimed at evaluating bacterial shedding, as detected in swabs, feces, and eggs of quails submitted to forced molting by feed fasting and experimentally infected with a Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) strain. In the experiment, 84 40-week-old Italian female quails were distributed in the following groups: FI (quails induced to molt by fasting and inoculated with Salmonella Enteritidis - SE); CI (quails fed with a laying diet and inoculated with SE); FNI (quails induced to molt by fasting and not inoculated with SE); and CNI (quails fed with a laying feed and not inoculated with SE). Feces, cloacal swabs, and eggs were collected on day 1, 3, 7 and 14 post-inoculation (dpi) and submitted to bacteriological analyses. All samples obtained from cloacal swabs were negative for SE. None of the quails of the non-inoculated groups (FNI and CNI) were positive for SE in the fecal samples. Among the inoculated quails, the FI group presented significantly higher (p< 0.05) SE shedding in the feces on 1 dpi than the CI group. On 4 dpi, no significant difference was observed (p< 0.05) in SE shedding between the inoculated quail groups. On 7 dpi, only the FI group shed SE in the feces, whereas on 14 dpi, none of the groups shed SE. According to the results, we concluded that quails submitted to molting by fasting have higher possibility of shedding SE in the feces.


Microstructure fiber is a new kind of optical fiber. An arrangement of air holes running along the full length of the fiber provides the confinement and guidance of light. The light is confined in the silica core along the fiber axis. This fiber has endlessly single mode, special dispersion characteristics and so on. Using a vectorial effective-index numerical method, we investigated the dispersion characteristics of a microstructure fiber with honeycomb cladding structures. The dispersion, dispersion slope, and Kappa parameter can be designed neatly by changing the air hole size and the separation of the holes in fiber cladding. We demonstrated the Microstructure fiber with large absolute value of normal dispersion and negative dispersion slope at the wavelength of 1550nm. Conventional communication non-shifted single-mode fibers and nonzero-dispersion shifted fibers (NZ-DSF) can be compensated efficiently using the microstructure fiber at the wavelength around 1550nm.


Since ancient times, mankind has cooperated in jobs that they cannot perform individually, including agriculture, in order to lead a better life. In accordance with changing needs, cooperation between people and solidarity difference has evolved into a different dimension and has been directly influenced by social changes. Development of cooperative societies in the modern sense was born from this solidarity and developed further. Cooperatives are institutions that play important roles in social development based on mutual assistance and solidarity aiming at improving living conditions of individuals constituting the society. Agricultural cooperatives on the other hand, were established in order to meet financial needs of farmers and to support regional development under the umbrella of mutual assistance and solidarity. The purpose of this study is to examine the development stages of Agricultural Credit Cooperatives in Turkey, to analyze the organization of such cooperatives throughout Turkey, and provide solutions and suggestions by determining the problems these institutions face.


Without resorting to the folk theorem or to altruistic preferences, we demonstrate that the problem of overharvesting among individually rational harvesters in a local commons vanishes if the harvesters share, and voluntarily contribute to, some public good. Formulating the model as a two-stage sequential game, the harvesting of a renewable natural resource takes place at the first stage. The observed harvesting surplus is then used for buying private goods and contributing to public goods at the second stage. In this setting, the model shows that the harvesters share an individual objective of maximizing total harvesting surplus. (JEL H41)


Typically, three types of implied volatility smiles are seen in commodity options: the reverse skew, the smile, and the forward skew. I put forward an economic explanation for all three types of implied volatility smiles based on the idea that a commodity call option is valued in analogy with its underlying futures contract, where the underlying futures price follows geometric Brownian motion. Closed form solutions for commodity calls and puts exist in the presence of transaction costs. Analogy based jump diffusion model is also developed. The smiles are steeper with jump diffusion when compared with smiles with geometric Brownian motion.


Previous calculations of band-head energy spectra of odd-mass heavy nuclei in the Hartree-Fock-plus-Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (HF-BCS) framework showed that the agreement with data is better for odd-neutron as compared to odd-proton nuclei. The reason for a poorer agreement with data for the latter have been ascribed to the possible usage of the Slater approximation in calculating the Coulomb-exchange term. In this work, we report the effect of exact Coulomb-exchange calculations on band-head energy spectra of two odd-proton nuclei (namely 237 Np and 241 Am) as compared to the results obtained using the Slater approximation. We performed self-consistent blocking calculations while taking the breaking of time-reversal symmetry at the mean-field level into account due to the unpaired nucleon. The SkM* and SIII parametrizations of the Skyrme interaction have been employed to approximate the effective nucleon-nucleon interaction while a seniority force is used for the pairing channel. Contrary to what was expected, our preliminary results show no improvement on the band-head spectra as compared to data when the Coulomb-exchange term is calculated exactly.


We describe the fabrication and characterization of visible transparent small-scale indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) integrated circuits. The IGZO channel and indium tin oxide (ITO) contacts and interconnects were pulsed laser deposited at room temperature. Low-temperature (200 °C ) atomic-layer-deposited Al2O3 was used as the gate dielectric in bottom-gated thin-film transistors with field-effect mobility near 15 cm2/V·s. Logic inverters and ring oscillators were fabricated and characterized, with operations at frequencies as high as 2.1 MHz, corresponding to a propagation delay of less than 48 ns/stage with a supply voltage of 25 V. To the best of our knowledge, these are the fastest all-transparent oxide semiconductor circuits reported to date.


Tissue engineered skeletal muscle has potential physiologically relevant environments to study myogenesis and investigate the organization, differentiation and proliferation to be used for the therapy of muscular dysfunction. In order to engineer skeletal muscle that better resemble the structured architecture in vivo, we cultured myoblasts on topographically micropatterned elastic polymer films with 10-/spl mu/m wide microgrooves. The organization and differentiation of myoblasts on nonpatterned and micropatterned PDMS films were characterized. In comparison to the myoblasts on nonpatterned PDMS films, myoblasts on micropatterned PDMS films aligned themselves along the direction of the microgrooves. The myoblasts on micropatterned films formed long and unbranched myotubes that had uniform diameter and aligned in the microgroove direction, suggesting that microgrooves promote end-to end fusion of myoblasts; in contrast, myotubes formed on nonpatterned surface were short and less uniform in diameter, and oriented in various directions. This study demonstrates a new approach to engineer muscular tissues on flexible substrate, and highlights the importance of topographical cues for creating more engineer skeletal muscle.


BACKGROUND
This study was designed to examine the influence of exercise training on leptin levels in patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD).

METHODS
Sixty-four male patients, mean age 55.6 ± 6.0 years, were randomized either to six weeks of aerobic training, three times a week, at 60-80% of maximal heart rate (training group, Ex, n = 32) or to a control group (n = 32). Exercise stress test was performed and body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist circumference and plasma leptin levels were measured at the beginning and end of the study.

RESULTS
Physical capacity increased significantly only in Ex patients (max workload in METs from 7.7 ± 1.4 to 8.2 ± 1.4, p < 0.05). There were no significant differences between initial and final results in either group in terms of BMI, WHR or waist circumference. Although, at the end of the study, leptin levels did not change in Ex patients (6.7 ± 3.2 vs 6.9 ± 3.6 ng/mL, NS), they did increase significantly in the control group (8.0 ± 4.0 vs 9.3 ± 5.2 ng/mL, p < 0.02).

CONCLUSIONS
A short period of exercise training in CAD patients improved their physical capacity, but did not influence BMI, WHR and waist circumference. Exercise training prevented an increase in leptin levels during the study period.


Obtaining spatially distributed accurate evapotranspiration (ET) estimates is crucial in most water balance calculations for the identification of mass and energy fluxes across the area of interest. While routine Bowen-ratio or eddy-covariance measurements of sensible and latent heat fluxes are typically representative of a horizontal scale of a few hundred meters (i.e., the so-called plotor field-scale), many hydrologic models work at regional to continental to global scales. Rather than aggregating from the field scale, which may be difficult not only from a theoretical point of view but also from a practical one when long time-periods (years or decades) and large areas are considered, an ET-estimation technique that directly works at the regional scale, yet, at the same time, spatially distributed may be of high practical value. An ET estimation method had been proposed by Bouchet (1963) almost half a century ago, now called the complementary relationship (CR) of evaporation which was subsequently formulated for practical regional-scale applications by Brutsaert & Stricker (1979), and Morton et al. (1985). The CR states that under constant available energy at the surface (Qn) actual (E) and potential (Ep) evapotranspiration rates are complementary, their sum yielding twice the wet-environment (Ew) evapotranspiration rate, provided Ep is obtained by the Penman (1948) equation (Szilágyi & Józsa, 2009a) and Ew by the Priestley-Taylor equation (Priestley & Taylor, 1972). In other words


DNA structural variations (SVs) are a major source of genetic instability in cancer, but they remain understudied. Large-insert mate-pair sequencing (MPS) is a powerful method designed to detect SVs, even in highly repetitive regions. Using MPS and other methods, we performed a comprehensive analysis of genomic alterations in breast cancer progression. Matched primary/recurrent frozen tumor samples from 6 patients, including two patients from our rapid autopsy program with multiple metastatic tissues (20 total samples; average 5.5 years to recurrence) were examined by multiple large-insert library (3-5, 5-8, 8-12kb) MPS to identify metastatic acquired SVs. This was supplemented with RNAseq (n=15), whole exome sequencing (n=18; ∼75x), whole genome sequencing (n=3; 40-65x), and SNP arrays. A relatively small fraction (∼10%) of somatic single nucleotide variants (SNVs) in the primary tumor were identified in matched metastatic samples, and the majority of metastatic SNVs were not found in the matched primary tumor. This indicates that a rare sub-clone colonizes the metastatic site and evolves extensively before becoming clinically evident. For example, in one patient with an ER+ tumor who initially declined anti-estrogen therapy, the recently described ESR1 Y537S mutation was not present in the primary tumor or in metastatic disease 5 years later. However, after extensive anti-estrogen treatment for metastatic disease, the mutation was identified at rapid autopsy, indicating that this mutation can be acquired even after initial metastatic spread. We observed extensive patient-to-patient variability in the number and types of SVs. In general, the overall pattern of SVs was remarkably similar between matched primary and metastatic samples, however, we identified a number of metastatic specific SVs that likely contribute to disease progression. Specifically, in one patient with an ER+ primary tumor treated with adjuvant Tamoxifen, we identified a novel fusion gene between ESR1 (estrogen receptor-α, ERα) and DAB2 (disabled-2) only in a lymph node recurrence. RT-PCR and western blot analysis confirmed that the fusion RNA/protein was expressed/translated only in the recurrent disease. The fusion retains the DNA-binding domain (DBD) and hinge region of ERα while the ligand-binding domain (LBD) is replaced with the majority of DAB2. We hypothesized that this is a functional genetic alteration conferring ligand-independent ERα-mediated signaling and growth. Confirming this, in vitro ERE-Tk-luc reporter assays showed that the ESR1-DAB2 fusion has ligand-independent activity that is 13-290x higher than wild-type ERα. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays in metastatic tissue from tumors with mutant ERα show strong enrichment for ERα at classical ERα target genes. We are currently assessing the genome-wide binding of ESR1-DAB2 and the functional contribution of DAB2 to the fusion protein. This study represents the most comprehensive analysis to date of genomic changes in breast cancer progression and indicates extensive changes occur during metastatic spread. A number of acquired changes likely represent therapeutically targetable metastatic dependencies. Citation Format: Ryan J Hartmaier, Shannon L Puhalla, Steffi Oesterreich, Amir Bahreini, Nancy E Davidson, Adam M Brufsky, Adrian V Lee. Identification of base pair mutations and structural rearrangements acquired in breast cancer metastases including a novel hyperactive ESR1-DAB2 fusion gene specifically in hormone-resistant recurrence [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2014 Dec 9-13; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(9 Suppl):Abstract nr S1-03.


Background Lymphatic filariasis (LF) is targeted for elimination through annual mass drug administration (MDA) for 4–6 years. In 2006, Zanzibar stopped MDA against LF after five rounds of MDA revealed no microfilaraemic individuals during surveys at selected sentinel sites. We asked the question if LF transmission was truly interrupted in 2006 when MDA was stopped. Methodology/Principal Findings In line with ongoing efforts to shrink the LF map, we performed the WHO recommended transmission assessment surveys (TAS) in January 2012 to verify the absence of LF transmission on the main Zanzibar islands of Unguja and Pemba. Altogether, 3275 children were tested on both islands and 89 were found to be CFA positive; 70 in Pemba and 19 in Unguja. The distribution of schools with positive children was heterogeneous with pronounced spatial variation on both islands. Based on the calculated TAS cut-offs of 18 and 20 CFA positive children for Pemba and Unguja respectively, we demonstrated that transmission was still ongoing in Pemba where the cut-off was exceeded. Conclusions Our findings indicated ongoing transmission of LF on Pemba in 2012. Moreover, we presented evidence from previous studies that LF transmission was also active on Unguja shortly after stopping MDA in 2006. Based on these observations the government of Zanzibar decided to resume MDA against LF on both islands in 2013.


ABSTRACT Aim The present study was aimed to determine whether adolescents make social judgments about other children who have noticeable enamel imperfections. Materials and methods Two schools with very different socio-economic profiles were selected using a stratified random sampling method. Children aged 13–14 years (school class 9) and 15–16 (school class 11) were randomly selected from these schools totaling to a sample size of 200. Half the participants rated full-face photographs of a boy and girl without an enamel defect, and the other half-rated the same two photographs with the digitally modified incisors. The photographic subjects were rated on a four-point Likert's scale consisting of six positive and five negative descriptors. Results Based on the gender of the photographic subject, the mean total attribute score was almost identical. However, it was lower for photographic subjects showing enamel defects as compared to those without. Conclusion The dental appearance can influence value judgments in children. Clinical significance It is important to treat the enamel lesions and various developmental defects of the enamel as it may lead to a negative social judgment by peers. How to cite this article Nayak UA, Pawar A, Kappadi D, Prajapati D, Roy KJ, Wadhwa S. Visible Enamel Defects in Adolescents: How Do their Peers View Them?. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent, 2018;11(6):479-482.


Kamishima, Tomoko, and John M. Quayle. Mitochondrial Ca2 uptake is important over low [Ca2 ]i range in arterial smooth muscle. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 283: H2431–H2439, 2002. First published July 26, 2002; 10.1152/ ajpheart.00865.2001.—Mitochondrial Ca2 uptake is usually thought to occur only when intracellular Ca2 concentration ([Ca2 ]i) is high. We investigated whether mitochondrial Ca2 removal participates in shaping [Ca2 ]i signals in arterial smooth muscle over a low [Ca2 ]i range. [Ca2 ]i was measured using fura 2-loaded, voltage-clamped cells from rat femoral arteries. Both diazoxide and carbonyl cyanide mchlorophenylhydrazone (CCCP) depolarized the mitochondria. Diazoxide application increased resting [Ca2 ]i, suggesting that Ca2 is sequestered in mitochondria. Over a low [Ca2 ]i range, diazoxide and CCCP slowed Ca2 removal rate, determined after a brief depolarization. When [Ca2 ]i was measured during sustained depolarization to 30 mV, CCCP application increased [Ca2 ]i. When Ca2 transients were repeatedly evoked by caffeine applications, CCCP application elevated resting [Ca2 ]i. Caffeine-induced Ca2 transients were compared before and after CCCP application using the half decay time, or time required to reduce increase in [Ca2 ]i by 50% (t1⁄2). CCCP treatment significantly increased t1⁄2. These results suggest that Ca2 removal to mitochondria in arterial smooth muscle cells may be important at a low [Ca2 ]i.


In this study, diclofenac-loaded Eudragit S100-based nanosuspension was prepared by nanoprecipitation method and characterised for particle size, morphology, in vitro release, and for its in vivo ocular anti-inflammatory activity. The diclofenac-loaded Eudragit S100 nanosuspension was found to have a particle size of 172 nm, polydispersibility index of 0.14 and zeta potential of −23.7 ± 6.07 mV, indicating that the nanosuspension is fairly stable. The nanosuspended particles were found to be spherical in shape. The nanosuspension was found to provide a sustained in vitro release, following the Higuchi square-root release kinetics. The results indicated that the nanosuspension released the drug by combination of dissolution and diffusion. The in vivo evaluation of nanosuspension in PGE2-induced ocular inflammation in rabbit model revealed a significantly (p < 0.05) higher inhibition of PGE2-induced polymorphonuclear leukocytes migration and lid-closure scores as compared with the aqueous solution of diclofenac.


This is a case report of an elderly male, who presented with duodenal obstruction caused by abdominal aortic aneurysm. An axillo-bifemoral shunting with an infra renal straight inlay graft together with a feeding jejunostomy was performed. This is rare presentation with only a few cases reported.


Proteins extracted from microalgae for food, personal care products and cosmetics must be of high purity, requiring solvent-free extraction techniques despite their generally considerably lower protein yield and higher energy consumption. Here, three such approaches for green extraction of proteins from Chlorella vulgaris were evaluated: ultrasound, freeze-thawing, and electroporation; chemical lysis was used as positive control (maximal achievable extraction), and no extraction treatment as negative control. Compared to chemical lysis, electroporation yielded the highest fraction of extracted protein mass in the supernatant (≤27%), ultrasound ≤24%, and freeze-thawing ≤15%. After a growth lag of several days, electroporated groups of algal cells started to exhibit growth dynamics similar to the negative control group, while no growth regeneration was detected in groups exposed to ultrasound, freeze-thawing, or chemical lysis. For electroporation as the most efficient and the only non-destructive among the considered solvent-free protein extraction techniques, simultaneous extraction of intracellular algal lipids into supernatant was then investigated by HPLC, proving relatively low-yield (≤7% of the total algal lipid mass), yet feasible for glycerides (tri-, di-, and mono-) as well as other fatty acid derivatives. Our results show that electroporation, though lower in extraction yields than chemical lysis or mechanical disintegration, is in contrast to them a technique for largely debris-free extraction of proteins from microalgae, with no need for prior concentration or drying, with feasible growth regeneration, and with potential for simultaneous extraction of intracellular algal lipids into the supernatant.


This paper discusses the need and scope for an active fiscal stabilization policy. It is argued that the effectiveness of fiscal policy as a short run stabilizer does not depend on the long run multipliers of (balanced budget) fiscal policies. To the extent that activity can be affected by aggregate demand in the short run, there is a case for a fiscal stabilization policy in terms of temporary variations in taxes or public consumption contingent on the state of the economy. The effectiveness of fiscal policy is supported by empirical evidence. However, an appropriate policy intervention depends both on the nature of the shock and the structure of the economy. There are thus fundamental information problems in pursuing discretionary fiscal policies on top of political economy concerns, and fiscal fine-tuning is not to be recommended. Automatic stabilizers do not to the same extent suffer from these problems, but their strength is not by design but the net result of other policy considerations. Hence, there is a need to consider the structure and size of automatic stabilizers.


Nationalism Indonesia was formed through a complex path with a relatively long time. An understanding of nationalism itself one of which can be understood through the medium of film. Here, a film as a product of modern art becomes a medium in conveying the message directed to the audience. Through the footage presented in a film, audiences are invited to enter a world that is commonly referred to "sedondhand reality" so as to understand the messages conveyed through the medium of film. This study is a qualitative descriptive study with the object of study and prayer Blood movie director Usmar Ismail made on 30 March 1950. Analysis of data using semiotic methods Metz. The results showed that the film The Long March is a film that journey of human life during the revolution in the sacrifice of body and soul, making manifest the attitude of nationalism. Nationalism embodied in the struggle against the invaders and our own people to maintain independence in 1948. The nationalist attitude soldier held high, soldiers sacrificed body and soul, so the psychological and physical suffering. The film The Long March is a means of modern media of communication which functioned to propagate nationalism. The reason is, because of the presence of the film as a medium of communication most effectively convey nationalism education to the community. Nationalism film The Long March is racial-republican, who represents the spirit of the era of nationalism during 1948 to maintain independence. Racial nationalism can be seen through the scenes of the film on the events experienced by movie characters in the struggle against the invaders and the inner struggle (the struggle with love and suffering against the invaders and the nation itself). From these events form the theme which in all honesty was sacrificed body and soul is a picture of the reality of man in his life to be honest and willing to sacrifice body and soul for the country. Keywords: Representation, Nationalism, Film.


We examine how the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war affected specific stock indices in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States, and Europe. Using event study methodology, we find that the event day's abnormal returns indicate that the war's outbreak had a significantly negative impact on most indices. For example, countries like Australia, Germany, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Vietnam, Mongolia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and the Philippines show significantly negative returns the day after the war's outbreak. All indices continue to have significantly negative returns in the rest of the post-event window, except Australia, Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines. Our analysis enables us to identify which countries in the Asia Pacific region along with selected markets from the Europe region, the counties directly bordering Ukraine were most vulnerable to war news and when the immediate consequences of the war were better than expected, confirming these cross-sectional implications


Volterra adaptive filters are known as nonlinear adaptive filters of parameter-linear, so that their global convergence is guaranteed. However, explicit and rigor analysis for these kind of adaptive filters is still not observed. In this paper, we present a rigor analysis on mean convergence of quadratic Volterra adaptive filters for Gaussian input signal.


The World Wide Web provides a large amount of information in several thematic areas. Due to its dynamic nature, the information that WWW offers increases rapidly on a daily basis. Therefore, a categorization of the web content assists Information Retrieval and Machine Learning purposes. The Web page classification issue is well known to the research community and raises important questions. Thus, researches in the topic-based Web page categorization are highly developed, we note lack in use of semantic information as a categorization criterion. In our study, we try a Web page categorization into predefined thematic categories, based on the processing of the Web pages' anchor texts. To this goal, we exploit the linguistic information that semantic networks provide us for the English and the Greek language. We note also the importance of the categorization features evaluated by semantic disambiguation methods.


We show in this paper a digital random target method for measurement of Modulation Transfer Function and Point spread function locally in all the field of view of the instrument, and with a good accuracy. The point is to use a "pixel locking method" to identify point in object space with its conjugate point in the image space in pixel accuracy.


The presence of unknown mutual coupling between array elements is known to significantly degrade the performance of most high-resolution direction of arrival (DOA) estimation algorithms. In this paper, a robust subspace-based DOA estimation and array auto-calibration algorithm is proposed for uniformly linear array (ULA), when the array mutual coupling is present. Based on a banded symmetric Toeplitz matrix model for the mutual coupling of ULA, the algorithm provides an accurate and high-resolution DOA estimate without any knowledge of the array mutual couplings. Moreover, a favorable estimate of mutual coupling matrix can also be achieved simultaneously for array auto-calibration. The algorithm is realized just via one-dimensional search or polynomial rooting, with no multidimensional nonlinear search or convergence burden involved. The problem of parameter ambiguity, statistically consistence and efficiency of the new estimator are also analyzed. Monte-Carlo simulation results are also provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and behavior of the proposed algorithm.


This paper presents results from a study of fracture behavior of rigid foam. Various mixed-modes I/II loading condi- tions were generated by the aid of single edge notched three point bending (SENB) test specimens containing an inclined notch as an initial crack. Three-dimensional finite element models of the SENB specimens were developed for analyzing the fracture test data. From the experimentally measured crack growth initiation loads various mixed-mode I/II critical strain energy release rates were computed by the virtual crack closure technique. The analysis revealed that besides mode I and mode II, there was also insignificant mode III component of the critical strain energy release rate. The variation of the critical strain energy release rate mode components with increase of the notch inclination was studied. It was found that the relative amount of the mode II component progressively decreases with increasing the notch inclination. It was concluded that the considered version of the SENB test specimen can be used for investigating fracture behavior of rigid foams in a function of the mixed-mode ratio over an interval of 0 G a/G a 0.413. It was found also that the theory of Sih can be applied successfully for analysis of


This work describes how is possible the definition of the light hole or lumen in implanted stents affected by restenosis processes using the BioImpedance (BI) as biomarker. The main approach is based on the fact that neointimal tissues implied in restenosis can be detected and measured thanks to their respective conductivity and dielectric properties. For this goal, it is proposed a four-electrode setup for bioimpedance measurement. The influence of the several involved tissues in restenosis: fat, muscle, fiber, endothelium and blood, have been studied at several frequencies, validating the setup and illustrating the sensitivity of each one. Finally, a real example using a standard stent, has been analyzed for stable and vulnerable plaques in restenosis test cases, demonstrating that the proposed method is useful for the stent obstruction test. Bioimpedance simulation test has been performed using the electric physics module in COMSOL Multiphysics®.


The observation by Lavoisier and LaPlace in 18th
century that muscular contraction consumes oxygen (0,)
and produces carbon dioxide (CO,) had made it possible
to study the mechanisms of exercise performance in
human beings (1). An individual's capacity to perform increasing
levels of dynamic work depends upon the amount
of oxygen that can be delivered to working muscles and
on the capacity of muscles to oxidize substrates. The
structural and physiological integrity of the respiratory,
cardiovascular and muscular systems is essential for
delivery of oxygen to the tissues and removal of carbon
dioxide from the body. Cardio-Pulmonary exercise testing
(CPX) is one of the important investigative tools to
evaluate patients with dyspnoea or exercise intolerance
who have pulmonary or cardiac dysfunctions or both and
in the assessment of work impairment. Exercise testing
provides clinically useful information that is not available
at rest. In addition, CPX is recognized as an useful noninvasive
method to evaluate healthy individuals in competitive
sports. In order to detect and interpret abnormalities
during exercise, it is essential that one should
have a knowledge of normal cardio-pulmonary and metabolic
responses to exercise.


We model a laterally coupled Franz-Keldysh add-drop ring modulator designed to overcome the C-band indirect absorption of silicon-germanium. Although our concept is based on loss-sensitive interferometry, it utilizes the same highly absorptive germanium-rich compositions geared toward complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) photodetectors and electroabsorption modulators. The proposed device can be integrated with passive waveguide networks in which the carrier plasma modulation mechanism is ineffective. In addition, unlike previous silicon-germanium modulator schemes, complex butt-coupling between the passive transport and the active silicon-germanium waveguides is not required. Instead, the optical mode remains guided within the transport waveguide, minimizing transition losses.


Cancer of unknown primary site is a common clinical entity, accounting for 5% of all cancer patients. The diagnostic evaluation of these patients must permit to exclude treatable tumors. We reviewed the charts of 85 patients admitted with this diagnostic. We propose an algorithm for investigation of these patients.