This study statistically evaluated a set of commonly measured tremor parameters to determine their individual and combined ability to discriminate between essential tremor (ET) and Parkinsonian tremor (PT). Accelerometer and surface electromyographic (EMG) records of moderate to severe upper limb tremor in 20 patients with ET and 22 patients with PT were used to quantitatively compare tremor amplitude, frequency and pattern of muscle bursting in two resting and three non resting postures. The group statistics showed significant differences between ET and PT with respect to tremor frequency in all five postures, tremor amplitude at rest and muscle bursting patterns. Discriminant function analysis showed that no single parameter or combination of parameters was able to correctly classify all patients. Frequency was much more discriminating than amplitude or muscle bursting patterns in all limb postures. The best amplitude discrimination was obtained when the hand and forearm were both fully supported. Muscle bursting patterns were poorly discriminating and did not assist in correct classification of single patients. Group statistics confirmed a highly significant biological difference between the two tremor types. Optimal classification of single PT (86% correct) and ET (95% correct) patients was obtained using frequency and two selected amplitude parameters from the resting limb. Limb posture was an important variable in optimising the discriminative ability of tremor studies. The implications for routine tremor studies are summarised.


Propranolol is a nonselective β-adrenergic blocker used as a racemic mixture in the treatment of hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, and angina pectoris. For study of the stereoselective glucuronidation of this drug, the two propranolol glucuronide diastereomers were biosynthesized, purified, and characterized. A screen of 15 recombinant human UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs) indicated that only a few isoforms catalyze propranolol glucuronidation. Analysis of UGT2B4 and UGT2B7 revealed no significant stereoselectivity, but these two enzymes differed in glucuronidation kinetics. The glucuronidation kinetics of R-propranolol by UGT2B4 exhibited a sigmoid curve, whereas the glucuronidation of the same substrate by UGT2B7 was inhibited by substrate concentrations above 1 mM. Among the UGTs of subfamily 1A, UGT1A9 and UGT1A10 displayed high and, surprisingly, opposite stereoselectivity in the glucuronidation of propranolol enantiomers. UGT1A9 glucuronidated S-propranolol much faster than R-propranolol, whereas UGT1A10 exhibited the opposite enantiomer preference. Nonetheless, the Km values for the two enantiomers, both for UGT1A9 and for UGT1A10, were in the same range, suggesting similar affinities for the two enantiomers. Unlike UGT1A9, the expression of UGT1A10 is extrahepatic. Hence, the reverse stereoselectivity of these two UGTs may signify specific differences in the glucuronidation of propranolol enantiomers between intestine and liver microsomes. Subsequent experiments confirmed this hypothesis: human liver microsomes glucuronidated S-propranolol faster than R-propranolol, whereas human intestine microsomes glucuronidated S-propranolol faster. These findings suggest a contribution of intestinal UGTs to drug metabolism, at least for UGT1A10 substrates.


Cytomegalovirus is highly prevalent in glioblastomas. In 2006, we initiated a randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled, hypothesis‐generating study to examine the safety and potential efficacy of Valganciclovir as an add‐on therapy for glioblastoma. Forty‐two glioblastoma patients were randomized in double‐blind fashion to receive Valganciclovir or placebo in addition to standard therapy for 6 months. Magnetic resonance images were obtained before and immediately and 3 and 6 months after surgery to evaluate treatment efficacy by measuring contrast enhancing tumor volume (primary end point). Survival data were analyzed for patients and controls in explorative analyses to aid the design of future randomized trials. Trends but no significant differences were observed in tumor volumes in Valganciclovir and placebo patients at 3 (3.58 vs. 7.44 cm3, respectively, p = 0.2881) and 6 (3.31 vs. 13.75 cm3, p = 0.2120) months. Median overall survival (OS) was similar in both groups (17.9 vs. 17.4 months, p = 0.430). Patients could take Valganciclovir for compassionate use after the study phase. Explorative analyses showed an OS of 24.1 months (95% CI, 17.4–40.3) in patients receiving >6 months of Valganciclovir (Val > 6M) versus 13.1 months (95% CI, 7.9–17.7, p < 0.0001) in patients receiving Valganciclovir for 0 or <6 months, and 13.7 months (95% CI, 6.9–17.3, p = 0.0031) in contemporary controls. OS at 4 years was 27.3% in Val>6M patients versus 5.9% in controls (p = 0.0466). Prolonged OS in Val>6M patients suggest that future randomized trials are warranted and should evaluate whether continuous antiviral treatment can improve outcome in glioblastoma patients.


This study is concerned with the legal mechanisms and institutional arrangements established to control compliance with commitments undertaken in treaty form by Mediterranean States, with a view at protecting the marine environment from various sources of pollution. Part I begins with a brief presentation of the state of the Mediterranean environment, both natural and socio-economic. There follows a consideration and assessment of the nature and extent of, and the relationship between, environmental obligations arising under the relevant instruments adopted at the global, regional and sub-regional level, in order to identify the implications thereof for the design and application of the said mechanisms and arrangements. In Part II, the treatment of the core issue begins with an initial review of the evolution of compliance-control mechanisms under general international, and especially environmental, law, followed by a critical examination of the legal arrangements - actually or potentially - used in the Mediterranean to ensure compliance with the said body of law. In this context, a distinction is made between the traditional models, namely the state responsibility and civil liability approach to compliance control and the comprehensive institutional model, and the emerging approaches, namely provision of financial and technical assistance as compliance incentives, and compliance control and enforcement under national law. Finally, this thesis argues that the most constructive way to encourage observance of international marine pollution standards in the region in the long term is through the intervention of international law towards developing appropriate procedural means for follow up and enforcement within domestic legal systems, while, in the short term, efforts should concentrate at establishing - or refining - comprehensive institutional mechanisms that would necessarily accommodate arrangements for financial and technical assistance dependent on effective compliance.


Blockchains are on the top of the Gartner Hype Cycle 2016 and many start-ups are integrating blockchains into their technology portfolio. While blockchains have emerged in the context of financial applications, non-financial application areas are of interest as well. In this paper, modum.io is presented, a start-up that uses IoT (Internet of Things) sensor devices leveraging blockchain technology to assert data immutability and public accessibility of temperature records, while reducing operational costs in the pharmaceutical supply-chain. The medical industry has many complex and strict environmental control process (e.g., temperature and humidity) to ensure quality control and regulatory compliance over the transport of medical products. The sensor devices monitor the temperature of each parcel during the shipment to fully ensure GDP regulations. All data is transferred to the blockchain where a smart contract assesses against the product attributes. As modum.io is not the only non-financial start-up working with blockchains, a list of areas and other start-ups is provided that aim to reduce bureaucracy, distribute the infrastructure, and saving costs using blockchains.


Background: Cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are known to stimulate crosstalk between stroma and cancer via paracrine signalling and promote cancer progression through matrix remodelling, angiogenesis and immunosuppression. CAFs arise from many sources and display different markers and characteristics in the tumour stroma; their presence in head and neck cancers is associated with poor prognosis. This study examines the differences in secretome of myofibroblasts and senescent fibroblasts in the context of their ability to recruit and polarise macrophages, with the aim of establishing which phenotype recruits more macrophages, which chemokine/receptor is primarily employed and which way are the macrophages polarised.

Methods: Normal oral fibroblasts (NOFs) were transdifferentiated to myofibroblasts (MF) using TGF-β1, or senesced using cisplatin. MF phenotype was confirmed by expression of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), fibronectin with extra domain A (FNEDA), and collagen type 1 alpha 1 (COL1A1) using RT-qPCR, western blot and immunofluorescence. Senescence was confirmed by senescence associated βgalactosidase assay, RT-qPCR for p16INK4A and p21CIP1/WAF-1. Primary monocytes were allowed to migrate towards conditioned medium (CM) from MFs, senescent fibroblasts (SFs) and patient CAFs in a Boyden chamber assay. The involvement of chemokine receptors were scrutinised using CCR2 antagonist and pertussis toxin. Macrophages were also polarised in the same CM, as assessed by qPCR. Levels of The secretome of MFs, SFs and patient-derived CAF was examined using ELISA, cytokine array and mass spectrometry.

Results: CCL2 secretion correlated with monocyte migration through CCL2/CCR2 axis towards CM from SF, MF and most patient CAFs. SFs secreted more IL-6 and CCL2 than MFs, in which secretion declined with longer duration of TGF-β1 treatment. Cytokine array detected more cytokines secreted by MF than SF, while MS revealed more collagen interacting proteins secreted by SF, while both secreted several types of collagen. MF, SF and patient CAF CM also polarised macrophages towards M2 phenotype, increasing CD206 mRNA compared to normal firboblasts CM. While CM from unpolarised (M0) macrophages induced highest expression of αSMA expression.

Conclusion: SF recruits more monocytes through CCL2/CCR2 axis and secreted more collagen interacting proteins than MF. However, both seem to polarisation macrophages towards M2 phenotype. Collectively the data identify differences and similarities in the secretome of MF and SF, and one or both can be potentially targeted to manipulate immune cell populations in tumour stroma to improve prognosis.


This study
investigated the roles of adolescent popularity and likeability in eight
domains of risk-taking in Australian grade 9 students (53% girls). The eight domains included previously examined areas of aggressive behaviours, alcohol use, and sexual intercourse, and
areas where there is scarce information, including antisocial activities,
unprotected intercourse, body image-related risk-taking, unsafe road
practices, and stranger-related risk-taking. The results indicated a clear
association between popularity and higher risk-taking in five of the eight domains.
This is contrasted with likeability, which was not directly related to
risk-taking aside from one two-way interaction with gender for sexual intercourse.
The findings demonstrate the importance of including a broader range of risk-taking
activities when considering popularity, particularly stranger-related
risk-taking.


BACKGROUND
Risky behaviors are common in Huntington's disease (HD) and can lead to significant adverse consequences. However, the prevalence and scope of these symptoms have not been studied systematically, and no empirically validated measures are available to screen for them.

OBJECTIVE
To test a novel screening tool designed to assess risk-taking behaviors in HD.

METHODS
We administered the Risk Behavior Questionnaire (RBQ-HD) to HD patients and caregivers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center between 2018-2019. Patients completed the questionnaire based on self-report; caregivers provided collateral reports. Clinical and demographic information were obtained from the electronic medical record.

RESULTS
60 patients and 60 caregivers completed the RBQ-HD. 80% of patients (n = 48) and 91.7% of caregivers (n = 60) reported at least one risky behavior. Adverse social behaviors, impulsive/compulsive behaviors, and reckless driving were the most common behavioral domains reported. Male patients were more likely to report risky behaviors than females (92.3% vs. 70.6%, p = 0.04). The number of risky behaviors reported by patients and caregivers was negatively correlated with patient age (r = -0.32, p = 0.01; r = -0.47, p = 0.0001, respectively). Patient and caregiver reports were highly correlated in matched pairs (n = 30; r = 0.63, p = 0.0002).

CONCLUSION
These findings emphasize that risky behaviors are highly prevalent in HD and can be effectively identified through the use of a novel screening measure. We hypothesize that early pathological involvement of frontostriatal and mesolimbic networks may be important factors in the development of these behaviors.


Haemodynamic abnormalities, caused by pericardial effusion, range from undetectable or mild, to life threatening, depending on the determinants discussed below. These include the rate at which the effusion accumulates and whether or not the pericardium is scarred and thus adds an element of constrictive pericarditis. Pericardial adhesions or organisation of the fluid can result in localised, and thus atypical, tamponade. Pericardial effusion is the cause of a number of distinct clinical and haemodynamic syndromes.

Fundamental to understanding their pathophysiology are the biomechanical properties of the pericardium. The pressure–volume relation of normal pericardium, after an initial short shallow portion that allows the pericardium to stretch slightly in response to physiological events, such as changes in posture or volume status, shows a minimal increase in pericardial pressure. Thereafter, the pressure increase is extremely steep. This J shaped curve1 indicates that a sudden increase in the volume of pericardial fluid can slightly stretch the pericardium, and thus an increase of as little as 100 or 200 ml may elevate pericardial pressure from its normal ambient, or slightly sub-ambient value, to 30 mm Hg or more, defining severe cardiac tamponade.

At the other extreme, a pericardial effusion developing over several weeks or months may reach a volume measured in litres accompanied by a considerably more modest increase in pericardial pressure.2 The explanation for this difference is that the response of the pericardium to gradual stretch differs from its response to acute stretch. A slower accumulation of pericardial fluid causes pericardial compliance to increase; its pressure–volume curve is shifted to the right and the slope of the steep portion is greatly reduced, such that for a given increment in volume, …


High-resolution images available on Google Earth are increasingly being consulted in geographic studies. However, most studies limit themselves to visualizations or on-screen measurements. Google Earth allows users to create points, lines and polygons on-screen, which can be saved as KML files. Here, the use of R statistics freeware is proposed to easily convert these files to the shapefile format [or '.shp file format'], which can be loaded into GIS-software (ESRI ArcGIS 9 in our example). The geospatial data integration in GIS strongly increases the analysis possibilities. We highlight our methodology and its accuracy by an applied study on gully network and volume development in the second half of the 20th century in the Northern Ethiopian Highlands.


Naked plasmid DNA can be used to introduce genetic material into a variety of cell types in vivo. However, such gene transfer and expression is generally very low compared with that achieved with viral vectors and so is unsuitable for clinical therapeutic application in most cases. This difference in efficiency has been substantially reduced by the introduction of in vivo electroporation to enhance plasmid delivery to a wide range of tissues including muscle, skin, liver, lung, artery, kidney, retina, cornea, spinal cord, brain, synovium, and tumors. The precise mechanism of in vivo electroporation is uncertain, but appears to involve both electropore formation and an electrophoretic movement of the plasmid DNA. Skeletal muscle is a favored target tissue for three reasons: there is a pressing need to develop effective therapies for muscular dystrophies; skeletal muscle can act as an effective platform for the long-term secretion of therapeutic proteins for systemic distribution; and introduction of DNA vaccines into skeletal muscle promotes strong humoral and cellular immune responses. All of these applications are significantly improved by the application of in vivo electroporation. Importantly, the increased efficiency of plasmid delivery following electroporation is seen in larger species as well as rodents, in contrast to the decreasing efficiencies with increasing body size for simple intramuscular injection of naked plasmid DNA. As this electroporation-enhanced non-viral gene delivery system works well in larger species and avoids the vector-specific immune responses associated with recombinant viruses, the prospects for clinical application are promising.


A fast phase reconstruction method (FPRM) employing a free-sample hologram can improve the efficiency of phase reconstruction in off-axis digital holography. However, the space-bandwidth product is still confined by spectrum aliasing in the hologram owing to the zero-order term. In this paper, we propose an FPRM that features an efficient zero-order term suppression method called the average gray that can eliminate spectrum shifting. We can implement phase reconstruction by considering both speed and the space-bandwidth product. We verified the validity of our approach for off-axis digital holography using laser and white-light illumination.


1 While great effort has been made in documenting the processes that drive plant‐induced susceptibility after herbivore attack and it is widely accepted that herbivores can facilitate plant diseases, the relative importance of this interaction in controlling plant growth in natural systems remains largely unexplored. 2 In south‐western Atlantic salt marshes, we investigated the importance of disease after herbivory by examining: (i) whether or not a herbivorous crab facilitates disease (i.e. fungus infection) in marsh plants (Spartina alterniflora and S. densiflora) when clipping off small portions of leaves and (ii) the separate and interactive effects of crab grazing but fungal infection in controlling marsh plant growth. 3 Our results show that crab grazing facilitates fungal infection in Spartina leaves. A factorial field experiment shows that both direct crab herbivory and fungal infection strongly suppress plant production (by more than 50%). 4 Synthesis. These experimental results demonstrate that fungal infection following herbivory attack can decrease salt marsh plant production and that increased disease susceptibility can be a fundamental factor in controlling plant production in natural ecosystems, even in cases where herbivores do not directly inoculate the pathogen but only damage plant tissue.


The disappearance of medial edge epithelium (MEE) is a critical event for palate fusion. TGF-beta3 is one factor participating in the regulation of this process. To investigate the nature of ligand-receptor interactions in vivo between TGF-beta3 and the type II TGF-beta receptor (TbetaR-II), we compared the expression pattern of the receptor with TGF-beta3. Immunohistochemical analysis of the mouse fetus from E12 to E15 showed that expression of TbetaR-II in the palate began at E13 when the palatal shelves were in a vertical orientation. TbetaR-II was localized in the epithelial cells. This epithelium-favored distribution remained during palatal shelf elevation, the medial edge epithelial adherence, and midline epithelial seam disruption. After palate fusion and mesenchyme confluence, weak expression of TbetaR-II was present in the mesenchyme. To verify the possibility that TGF-beta3 and TbetaR-II expression coincide, immunohistochemistry was used to localize them both in serial sections. The distribution pattern of TGF-beta3 was also epithelium-limited in the palate from E13 to E15, and the spatial localization was correlated with the expression of TbetaR-II. Immunohistochemical localization of TbetaR-II and TGF-beta3 in palatal shelves in organ culture had patterns that were consistent with the in vivo results. These results suggest that TGF-beta3 exerts its developmental role through TbetaR-II in an autocrine fashion. The expression of both TGF-beta3 and TbetaR-II was below the detectable level in the mesenchyme following MEE disruption, suggesting that the TGF-beta3 signal might not be required once the MEE has completed phenotypic transformation/migration.


Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is an adverse hepatic drug reaction that can potentially lead to life-threatening liver failure. Previously published work in the scientific literature on DILI has provided valuable insights for the understanding of hepatotoxicity as well as drug development. However, the manual search of scientific literature in PubMed is laborious. Natural language processing (NLP) techniques have been developed to decipher and understand the meaning of human language by extracting useful information from unstructured text data. In particular, NLP along with artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML) techniques may allow automatic processing of the DILI literature, but useful methods are yet to be demonstrated. To address this challenge, we have developed an integrated NLP/ML classification model to identify DILI-related literature using only paper titles and abstracts. We used 14,203 publications provided by the Critical Assessment of Massive Data Analysis (CAMDA) challenge, employing word vectorization techniques in NLP coupled with machine learning methods. Classification modeling was performed using 2/3 of the data for training and the remainder for testing in internal validation. The best performance was achieved using a linear support vector machine (SVM) model that combined vectors derived from term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) and Word2Vec, achieving an accuracy of 95.0% and an F1-score of 95.0%. The final SVM model built using all 14,203 publications was tested on independent datasets, resulting in accuracies of 92.5%, 96.3%, and 98.3%, and F1-scores of 93.5%, 86.1%, and 75.6% for three test sets (T1-T3). The SVM model was tested on four external validation sets (V1-V4), resulting in accuracies of 92.0%, 96.2%, 98.3%, and 93.1%, and F1-scores of 92.4%, 82.9%, 75.0%, and 93.3%.


We consider a destination
country with an aversion toward legal and illegal migration. Candidate migrants
differ in terms of skills level and the legal migrants pay income taxes. There
is a positive probability to become clandestine once a candidate migrant is
rejected. We show that the government will give the priority to candidate
migrants with high skills. We derive the optimal quotas of the legal
immigration and show that the number of legal migrants increases as soon as the
probability of entering into the destination country illegally becomes larger.


Summary form only given. Since the inventions of silicon memory devices at early 70s, silicon memory devices have been advanced with unprecedented pace which results in exponential growth of storage capacity of memory devices, and now they reach to 1 Gb density with 60 nm node for DRAM and 16 Gb density with 50 nm node for NAND Flash. During the evolution of silicon memory devices for the last 3 decades, silicon memory devices on-and-off faced critical challenges which seemed to be very difficult to surmount at initial stage, but those challenges were eventually cleared by appropriate cost-effective solutions and some of challenges paradigm shifted silicon memory technologies from simple and common planar technology to complicated and diversified technologies such as planar transistor with 3D capacitor and recently 3D transistor with 3D capacitor and etc. However, as the silicon technologies further enter deep nano-scale dimensions, silicon memory devices will encounter much critical challenges originated from ultimate limit of the transistor scaling and shallow margins in manufacturing due to ever-increasing fabrication costs resulting from technical complexities. Although there seems to be no unanimous solutions for silicon memory devices in future, most of experts working in silicon memory area, however, believe that silicon memory technology will be given right solutions down to a 20 nm node where a transistor contains only a small number of electrons, which is believed to be a practical limit to avoid noise errors owing to random telegraph noises, signal variations due to 1/radicn statistics, and fluctuations due to both rough edges of propagating lines and thickness variations and so forth. In addition, there are still many unknowns about the deep nano scaled memory devices. Thus, in this paper, in order to find the right directions of future semiconductor memory devices, key challenges and their possible solutions will be mainly discussed in views of basics and key features of semiconductor memory devices, key technologies and designs.


The interaction of a periplasmic nuclease, isolated from Streptomyces antibioticus, with several oligodeoxynucleotide substrates has been studied. Double-stranded oligonucleotides that contain sequences of four or more consecutive deoxyguanosine residues are preferentially hydrolyzed, with the strongest cutting site occurring at GGG decreases G. The enzyme does not hydrolyze these sequences in single-stranded DNA. However the sequence selectivity of the nuclease is far from absolute. Other sequences can also be cut, albeit more poorly, and differences in cutting rates are observed for runs of dG bases that differ in their flanking sequences. An oligonucleotide, thirty-six bases in length, that contains a central run of five dG bases has been used to evaluate the importance of the individual deoxyguanosines in recognition and cleavage. With this oligonucleotide cutting takes place at GG[symbol: see text]G decreases G[symbol: see text]G (decreases, most prominent cut; [symbol: see text], less prominent cuts). The use of dG base analogues revealed that two bases, one and two steps removed from the cleavage site in the 5' direction (*G*GG decreases), were of most importance in the determination of the nuclease DNA cleavage selectivity. Of these the inner starred dG was the most critical. The use of 5-methyldeoxycytidine also showed that the dC, base paired to this critical dG, influenced cleavage specificity. The overall pattern of results seen with the base analogues suggested that the nuclease interacted with both strands of the DNA and also contacted the nucleic acid in both the major and minor grooves. Gel retardation analysis together with footprinting experiments using hydroxyl radicals, dimethyl sulfate, and ethylnitrosourea indicated that the nuclease does not form a tight and specific complex with sequences containing dG runs, at least in the absence of the essential co-factor, Mg2+.


Verter, N., Zdrahal, I., Dankova, B. & Udende, W. (2021). Trade performance of the ten most traded agri-food products between Nigeria, EU28 and ECOWAS. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 27 (3), 441–452 This paper uses Lafay index (LFI), trade balance index (TBI) and concentration ratio to investigate the dynamics and comparative advantage of the ten most traded agri-food products between Nigeria and the world as well as the European Union (EU28) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The country markedly recorded an adverse TBI in food trade with the world, EU28 and ECOWAS. The share of Nigeria's food export in total food exports to the EU28 declined from 65% in 2007 to 37% in 2017. On the other hand, the share of the country's food exports to ECOWAS rose from 2% to 14% within the same period under study. Remarkably, 5 out of 46 mostly traded food products accounted for 78%, 93% and 92% of total food exports to the world, EU28 and ECOWAS, respectively. The LFI further reveals that Nigeria has comparative advantages and positive TBI in trading with the world, the EU28, and ECOWAS with food products, such as crustaceans, cocoa, and oilseeds. On the other hand, Nigeria has comparative disadvantages and adverse TBI in about half out of the ten most traded products with the world, EU28, and ECOWAS. The study further reveals that Nigeria mostly exports unprocessed and imports high processed food products. Food processing and export promotion policies should be heightened to diversify export food baskets and reduce excessive reliance on food imports.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the optimal starvation conditions of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and establish a highly efficient and stable method for separating HUVECs.

METHODS
HUVECs harvested from human umbilical cords by digestion with 0.1% collagenase II for 15 min were cultured in endothelial culture medium (ECM) containing 5% fetal bovine serum (FBS), 1% endothelial cell growth factor (ECGS) and 1% penicillin/streptomycin solution(P/S) at 37 degrees celsius; in 5% CO2. The cells were observed for cell morphology under an inverted microscope and identified with immunofluorescence assay. The purity of HUVECs was detected using flow cytometry (FCM). The cell cycles of HUVECs cultured in the presence of 0, 0.1%, 0.5%, and 1% FBS for 0, 6, 12, 18, and 24 h were analyzed with flow cytometry.

RESULTS
s The purity of HUVECs harvested by digestion with 0.1% collagenase II reached 99.67%. The primary HUVECs showed a cobblestone or volute appearance in vitro. Immunocytochemistry showed that HUVECs highly expressed VIII-related antigen. Cell culture in the presence of different concentrations of FBS for 6 h resulted in 70% G0/G1 phase cells, which increased to 80%-90% at 12 h of cell culture, and further to around 95% at 18 and 24 h.

CONCLUSION
Digestion with 0.1% collagenase II can obtain high-purity primary HUVECs. Culturing HUVECs in serum-free medium for 12 h can result in a high purity (over 80%) of G0/G1 phase cells.


For pt.V see ibid., vol.24, no.8, p.L213-8 (1991). The complete density matrix describing the charge transfer process H++Na(3s or 3p) to H(n=2)+Na+ has been measured for scattering angles theta (0.2' and an H+ energy of 1 keV. At this energy the collision velocity is about half the mean velocity of the Na(3p) valence electron. Pronounced right-left scattering asymmetries has been observed both for initially oriented as well as for aligned Na(3p) states. Very good agreement is found with recent elaborate theoretical results of Dubois et al. (1993). Measurements at 0.75 keV and 2 keV show similar trends. The findings are discussed in terms of simple models such as velocity matching and propensity rules for orientation.


The present study compares the impact of individualized treatment provided by trainee therapists based on a traditional cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) model. Fourteen therapists were given initial training in CBT and ACT. Outpatients (N = 28) were randomized to either approach, with each therapist treating one client within each model, linked to a functional analysis. Clients treated within an ACT model showed better symptom improvement than the CBT clients, despite the fact that students felt initially less knowledgeable about ACT and were more fearful throughout when it was used. CBT improved client self-confidence more rapidly than ACT, and ACT improved acceptance more than CBT. Both processes predicted better outcomes; acceptance remained predictive when controlling for self-confidence but not vice versa. Overall, therapists with limited training in both models got better results with ACT and the processes of change fit with the ACT model.


Experts are generally in agreement that anthropogenic climate change is happening and will increase in severity, but this view is not clearly reflected in more non-specialist texts. Research has shown that school students have a limited and sometimes faulty understanding of climate change. Metaphors are used by scientists in developing thought and communicating with non-scientists; they are also used by educators. This research investigates students' understandings of climate change by comparing metaphor use in three corpora, of research articles, student educational materials, and of transcribed interviews with school students aged 11–16 from the north of England. We find that some metaphors are shared by the three corpora; where this happens, the researchers' use tends to be highly conventionalized and technical, while educational materials extend and explore metaphors, and the students' use is still more creative, sometimes resulting in inaccurate descriptions of the science. Students also develop some of their own distinctive metaphors based on their immediate concrete experience, and possibly on visual educational materials; these metaphors convey highly simplified and often inaccurate understandings of climate science.


Introduction Placement of a silastic ring around a sleeve gastrectomy (SG) may minimise long-term dilatation and weight regain. This study assessed medium term quality of life outcomes. Methods A questionnaire was sent to 46 patients that underwent surgery between November 2006 and February 2010. During the procedure the stomach was divided 3 cm proximal to the pylorus. Orogastric bougie diameter was 36 French (November 2006–June 2008) or 32 Fr (thereafter). A 6.5–7 cm diameter silastic ring was placed around the mid-portion of the SG. Results Responses were received from 29 (63%) patients (25 female, 4 male) with a mean (range) age of 49 (33–65) years and mean pre-op BMI of 37.5 kg/m 2 . Mean (SD) weight loss and % excess weight loss at 3 years was 31.1 (10.8) kg and 90.6 (28.9)% respectively. 66% were satisfied with surgery (median Likert score=9) although 48% reported weight regain. Physical—97% reported food intolerances: meat (59%), solids (35%) and vegetables (17%). 21 (72%) patients reported vomiting: daily (14%), twice weekly (14%), weekly (29%) or less frequently (43%). 66% had reflux, with a median Visick of 2. Exercise capacity increased in 96% of patients. Emotional—28% described depression or anxiety affecting their work or other activities. Social—28% found physical health /emotional problems following surgery interfered with social activities. Compliance—59% had blood tests at least annually, 79% continued multivitamins and 41% required vitamin/mineral supplementation. Conclusion Placement of a silastic ring around SG as a primary procedure should be avoided due to a high incidence of post-operative reflux, vomiting and food intolerance. Competing interests None declared.


This paper aims to examine the effect of governance mechanisms (board size, board independence, duality, the Sharia board size, Sharia board meetings and ownership concentration) on the performance of insurance providers of distinguishable Muamalah contracts (wakalah and hybrid), moderated by the length of senior leaders' servicing time.,The full sample includes 21 listed Takaful companies divided into two subsamples – 12 insurance wakalah contracts offered in the South East Asian (SEA) countries and 9 insurance hybrid contracts offered in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over the period of 2012–2018. The methodology is informed by Baron and Kenny's (1986) moderation process approach.,The results of this study indicate that the larger the size of directors' board and the higher the number of outside directors, the greater the SEA wakalah Takaful insurance performance. Nondual functions and a larger size of Sharia board along with a highly-concentrated ownership structure have a positive effect on the Takaful insurance performance in both the SEA and GCC regions. Furthermore, the higher the Sharia board meetings, the higher performance of all types of Takaful insurance providers in the sample. As for the moderating effect of the director's seniority, it is found to negatively moderate the relationship between the governance mechanisms and the Takaful performance in both regions.,This paper highlights that the leader's entrenchment stands as an obstructing factor impeding the governance mechanisms from enhancing Takaful performance. Thus, it serves to contribute to clearly understanding the appropriate governance mechanisms usefully fit for a Takaful insurance effective performance, applying the wakalah and hybrid contract types. Such a contribution should be appreciated by the concerned regulators engaged in setting up limited serving periods for the directors whereby the Takaful insurance practice could be efficiently managed and supervised.


The result of 3 decades of original research and instruction by internationally referenced authors, Drs. Joseph Altman and Shirley A. Bayer, the Atlas of Prenatal Rat Brain Development provides a complete, state-of-the-art presentation of the developing prenatal rat brain. With the aid of advanced computer graphics, Altman and Bayer revolutionize the study of the highly vulnerable prenatal brain and bring us closer to understanding the dynamics of its development, its malfunctions, deficits, and abnormalities. Their contributions to the field of brain research, and hence to our knowledge of brain disorders, are unsurpassed. The Atlas contains more than 265 platesUeach plate accompanied by a computer-aided drawing, a 3-dimensional reconstruction of brain slices never before achieved with such accuracy and clarity, that assists in the visualization of the brain and of the relationships among various brain regions. A new, user-friendly alphanumeric coding system is used, allowing for easy identification of brain regions.


An experiment was initiated to determine the effect of a low N, high P and K fertilizer applied during the flowering season on a hybrid moth orchid (Phalaenopsis TAM Butterfly Blume.). On 1 Sept., plants of flowering size receiving N, P, and K at 100, 44, and 83 mg.L -1 , respectively, from a 20N-8.8P-16.6K soluble fertilizer were given N, P, and K, at 30, 398, and 506 mg.L -1 (high P), respectively, at each or every fourth irrigation. Control plants continued to receive the 20N-8.8P-16.6K fertilizer. The high P treatments, regardless of the frequency of application, had no effect on the date of emergence of the flowering stem (spiking), anthesis, or flower size. All plants treated with the high P fertilizer had fewer flowers (15 to 19) than the controls (24 flowers). Continuous application of adequate N appears to be more important than low N and increased P for optimal flowering. In a separate experiment using the same hybrid orchid, terminating fertilization completely on 1 Sept., 29 Sept., or 27 Oct. or when the flowering stems were emerging (1 Oct.) reduced flower count (≤19 vs. 24). Flower longevity was reduced by 12 d when fertilization was terminated on 1 Sept. Flower size was unaffected by any treatment in either experiment. Discontinuing fertilization prior to late November reduced flower count. Withholding fertilization for extended periods resulted in red leaves, loss of the lower leaves, and limited production of new leaves.


A single microwave absorbent and simple coating structure cannot meet the increasing requirements for broadband and strong absorption. Three-dimensional printing is an effective way to prepare multi-component complex structure metamaterial absorbers, and the key is to prepare raw materials with excellent absorption properties, suitable for 3D printing. In this paper, CB-CIP/PLA composite filament was prepared via a high-energy mixer and twin-screw extruder by compounding the dielectric loss material carbon black (CB) and the magnetic loss material carbonyl iron powder (CIP) with polylactic acid (PLA) as the matrix. The coaxial ring test piece was printed by FDM technology, and the microstructure of the composites was observed and analyzed by SEM. Meanwhile, the electromagnetic parameters of the composites were examined by a vector network analyzer, mainly studying the influence of the CB and CIP content and thickness on the microwave absorbing properties of the composite material. The results show that when the CB content is 20% and the CIP content is 30%, the CB-CIP/PLA composite has excellent microwave absorption and broad bandwidth. When the matching thickness is 1.6 mm, the minimum reflection loss (RL) reaches −51.10 dB; when the thickness is 1.7 mm, the effective absorption bandwidth (RL < −10 dB) is 5.04 GHz (12.96–18 GHz), nearly covering the whole Ku band. This work provides an efficient formulation and process to prepare an absorbing composite filament for FDM.


In this article, we compare and contrast the design and performance of China and India's intergovernmental fiscal systems. We find that there are remarkable similarities in the design and performance of China and India's intergovernmental fiscal systems. More specifically, both countries have highly decentralized expenditures assignments and highly centralized revenue assignments. As a result, sub-national governments in both countries must rely on fiscal transfers to finance their assigned functions. Finally, there is considerable off the books and hidden borrowing by sub-national governments in both countries. We also find that there are considerable and growing disparities in the rate of expenditure decentralization among sub-national governments within each country. Lack fiscal discipline and growing fiscal disparities among sub-national governments create risks to future economic growth and to social cohesion, absent policy reforms to address these issues.


It has been assumed that the general public is unable to conceptualize information about risk uncertainties, and so communication about food risk has tended to avoid this type of information. However, recent societal and political pressure to increase transparency in risk management practices will result in the uncertainties inherent in risk analysis becoming subject to public scrutiny. Best practice regarding risk communication must address how to communicate risk uncertainty. A questionnaire was developed that aimed to assess how the general public characterized uncertainty associated with food risks. The results indicated that people wanted to be provided with information about food risk uncertainty as soon as the uncertainty was identified. People were more accepting of uncertainty associated with the scientific process of risk management than they were of uncertainty due to lack of action or lack of interest on the part of the government. The findings indicate that the focus of risk communication should be on "what is being done to reduce the uncertainty." Recommendations are made regarding best practice for communicating risk uncertainty.


RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to determine the cost-effectiveness of prostate biopsy at different excess prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels as a function of age.

METHODS
Medical decision analysis was performed with standard software (SMLTREE) to determine marginal effectiveness in quality adjusted life years (QALYs) and marginal cost-effectiveness in dollars per QALY of immediate prostate biopsy at different excess PSA levels between 0 ng/mL and 20 ng/mL. The probability of clinically significant cancer with a positive biopsy (pD+Bx+) was assumed to decrease with age from 1.0 at age 50 to 0.2 at age 70. Costs were based on charges at our hospital and were considered over a 2-year time frame.

RESULTS
With our base case assumptions there was a decrease in QALYs and an increase in costs doing an immediate prostate biopsy at all excess PSA levels between 0 ng/mL and 20 ng/mL, compared with not biopsying the prostate at > or = 70 years. Doubling pD+Bx+ from 0.2 to 0.4 in the 70-and-older age group resulted in a small increase in QALYs in biopsying the prostate at excess PSA levels between 0 ng/mL and 20 ng/mL. However, the marginal cost-effectiveness of prostate biopsy was very high, ranging from $275,000/QALY biopsying at an excess PSA level of 0 ng/mL to $68,000/QALY biopsying at an excess PSA level of 20 ng/mL. This compared with it being more effective and less costly to biopsy at all excess PSA levels > or = 0 ng/mL in 50-year old patients.

CONCLUSION
Immediate prostate biopsy is not cost-effective and can be detrimental in patients > or = 70 years of age at all excess PSA levels between 0 ng/mL and 20 ng/mL.


Nonlinear design procedures are presented for obtaining attitude and angular momentum control laws for the Space Station. These are based on Lyapunov's second method for stability analysis. In the absence of disturbances, there exist four stable equilibrium points. Only one of these is desired and its stability boundary is estimated from the gravitational dynamic potential. Simulation results are presented for the current Space Station configuration for large initial deviations from the local-vertical-local-horizontal frame. The control laws obtained under the zero disturbance assumption are tested in the presence of constant disturbance torques. It is shown that the Space Station can be stabilized about a torque-equilibrium attitude and the momentum of the control moment gyroscopes is bounded, provided the disturbance is smaller than the maximum gravity gradient torque that can be produced by the Space Station.


In the European research projects SIAM and 100GET, building blocks for 100Gbit Ethernet optical link have been implemented. Data are sent from a computer, modulated, converted to analog, mixed onto the RF-band, sent through an optical link, down-mixed, converted back to digital, demodulated and sent to a receiving computer. Signal Processing Devices Sweden AB is contributing to this project by their implementation PANDA. This thesis has been to study, as a proof of concept, and implement a prototype of PANDA as the component converting from digital to analog signal, the DAC, in 65nm SOI CMOS technology. The idea of the system is to use the concept of time interleaving, where two or more components interact by performing the same operations on a different set of data, ideally scaling the performance linearly with the amount of components used. This report presents design, implementation and verification at simulation level. It includes interfacing with off-chip components in low voltage specifications, clock generation, filtering and current-steered switches.


Applications of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in cybersecurity provide significant performance enhancement over traditional rule-based algorithms. These intelligent cyber-security solutions demand careful integration of the learning algorithms to develop a significant cyber incident detection system to formulate security analysts' industrial level. The development of advanced malware programs poses a critical threat to cybersecurity systems. Hence, an efficient, robust, and scalable malware recognition module is essential for every cybersecurity product. Conventional Signature-based methods struggle in terms of robustness and effectiveness during malware detection, specifically in the case of zero-day and polymorphic viruses attacks. In this paper, we design an adaptive Machine Learning based active malware detection framework which provides a cybersecurity solution against phishing attacks. The proposed framework utilize ML algorithms in a multilayered feed-forwarding approach to successfully detect the malware by examining the static features of the web pages. The proposed framework successfully extracts the features from the web pages and performs a successful detection process for the phishing attack. In the multilayered feed-forwarding framework, the first layer utilizes Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVN), and K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN) classifiers to build a model for detecting malware from the real-time input. The output of the first layer passes to the Ensemble Voting (EV) algorithm, which accumulates earlier classifiers' performance. At the third layer, adaptive frameworks investigate second layer input data and formulate the phishing detection model. We analyze the proposed framework's performance on three different phishing datasets and validate the higher accuracy rate.


This article describes Memory Squeeze (MemSZ), a new approach for lossy general-purpose memory compression. MemSZ introduces a low latency, parallel design of the Squeeze (SZ) algorithm offering aggressive compression ratios, up to 16:1 in our implementation. Our compressor is placed between the memory controller and the cache hierarchy of a processor to reduce the memory traffic of applications that tolerate approximations in parts of their data. Thereby, the available off-chip bandwidth is utilized more efficiently improving system performance and energy efficiency. Two alternative multi-core variants of the MemSZ system are described. The first variant has a shared last-level cache (LLC) on the processor-die, which is modified to store both compressed and uncompressed data. The second has a 3D-stacked DRAM cache with larger cache lines that match the granularity of the compressed memory blocks and stores only uncompressed data. For applications that tolerate aggressive approximation in large fractions of their data, MemSZ reduces baseline memory traffic by up to 81%, execution time by up to 62%, and energy costs by up to 25% introducing up to 1.8% error to the application output. Compared to the current state-of-the-art lossy memory compression design, MemSZ improves the execution time, energy, and memory traffic by up to 15%, 9%, and 64%, respectively.


The effect of biofilm on the attenuation of pathogen-sized particles from wastewater was compared for biofilms cultivated in a surface flow constructed wetland (SFW) and maturation pond (MP) The fate of fluorescently labelled microspheres (FLM) as surrogates for viruses (0.1 microm), bacteria (1 microm) and parasitic protozoa (4.5 microm dia) was investigated in microcosms in the presence or absence of biofilms. Rates of FLM removal from suspension were higher in the presence of biofilms for all particle sizes (kd 0.02-0.11 h(-1)) in MP and SFW microcosms with removal efficiency related to particle size and biofilm thickness and structure. Greater removal of 0.1 microm (79-81%), 1 microm FLM (92-96%) and 4.5 microm FLM (up to 98%) from suspension were found for microcosms containing thicker (autotrophic) biofilms grown in the MP or open water zone of the SFW. Lower removal of 43% (0.1 microm), 59% (1 microm) and 84% (4.5 microm) occurred in microcosms containing thinner heterotrophic biofilms from SFW vegetated zones. Providing surfaces for attachment of photosynthetic biofilms offers potential to enhance pathogen removal in open water systems. In vegetated systems, linkage to more oxic openwater zones may allow thicker and 'stickier' epiphytic biofilms to develop, improving pathogen interception and removal.


The effect of sodium selenite on the enzymatic oxidation of retinal in vitro and vitamin A accumulation in the rat liver was examined. Selenium as sodium selenite at concentrations of 0.5--2.5 microgram/ml inhibited significantly (40--45%) the enzymatic irreversible oxidation of retinal. Dietary supplements of sodium selenite at a dose of 50--250 microgram/kg body weight caused an almost two-fold increase of the vitamin A content in the rat liver as compared with the controls that were given no selenium.


importance to Germany, " who has not too many friends in the world," of knowledge of this Far Eastern State. He calls this a political and commercial necessity. " Germany must not let friends slip through lack of understanding." That being his creed, the author proceeds to present facts relating to Japan in five chapters. He discusses the physical formation, the population of Japan, the status of the individual in the family and in the State, and so on. He also refers to geology, botany, the fauna and flora, the social character and the power of the " fathers ". The text is illustrated with a series of excellent maps.


HYPOTHESIS
Minimally invasive surgery for primary hyperparathyroidism has become an accepted part of endocrine surgical practice worldwide.

DESIGN
Survey of members of the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons.

SETTING
Clinical practice of endocrine surgeons worldwide.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Numbers of parathyroid procedures performed, types of minimally invasive procedures undertaken, and techniques used to ensure completeness of removal of hyperfunctioning parathyroid tissue as reported by the survey respondents.

RESULTS
Of 160 surveys completed, 95 (59%) indicate that the surgeons currently perform minimally invasive parathyroidectomy and use this technique on average for 44% of patients with primary hyperparathyroidism. The most common approach is the focused technique with a small incision, either central or lateral (92% [87 respondents]), followed by a video-assisted technique (22% [21 respondents]), and a true endoscopic technique with gas insufflation (12% [11 respondents]). Techniques used to ensure completeness of resection include the quick intraoperative intact parathyroid hormone assay (68% [65 respondents]), a same-day intact parathyroid hormone assay (17% [16 respondents]), and the nuclear probe (14% [13 respondents]). The number of parathyroidectomies performed worldwide increased from 1727 in 1980 to 6977 in 2000 with the average number per surgeon increasing from 23 in 1980 to 45 in 2000. Geographically, 20 (59%) of 34 surveys from the Americas report the use of minimally invasive parathyroidectomy, 23 (56%) of 41 from the Australasian region, and 34 (49%) of 69 from Europe or the Middle East.

CONCLUSIONS
The number of parathyroidectomies performed for primary hyperparathyroidism has increased worldwide over the past 20 years. More than half of the surgeons responding to the survey perform minimally invasive parathyroidectomy, with the most using the focused small-incision technique.


Food habits of the Denali (formerly McKinley) herd of barren-ground caribou ( Rangifer tarandus granti ) were studied during 1978-80 in Denali National Park, Alaska, with emphasis on diets of adult females. Data from fecal analyses, field observations, and forage digestibilities were combined to estimate diets. Spring (late May to July) diets contained primarily Salix leaves (41%), lichens (25%), forbs (16%), and graminoids (12%). Summer (mid-July to mid-August) diets were similar, containing about 46% Salix leaves, 17% lichens, 10% forbs, 10% graminoids, and 12% mushrooms. In contrast, autumn (mid-September to mid-October) diets consisted primarily of lichens (43%) with less proportions of forbs (9%). graminoids (14%), mushrooms (10%), and mosses (5%). Winter (mid-November to early May) diets consisted largely of lichens (62%) and small proportions of Vaccinium vitis-idaea (6%), forbs (7%), graminoids (11%), and mosses (10%). Key words: caribou, Denali National Park, diets, fecal analysis, food habits, Rangifer


This paper measures the evolution of the interdependence level of the global economic system using a novel approach that combines network analysis and time-varying correlations. A Scalar-BEKK model is employed to determine the dynamic conditional bilateral correlations of 102 economies for the period 1952-2011. A subdominant ultrametric space is then defined for each year by applying a single-link cluster analysis to filter and highlight first-order connections in the network. I find the core of the global economic network to be dominated by advanced economies while the periphery is composed by nearly all of the developing economies and some of the emergent market economies; France occupies the central hub of the network, which coincides with recent findings from studies on European financial markets. I also find that the global macroeconomic interdependence rose over 61 percents between 1952-2011, which is in line with the majority of the empirical research on business cycle synchronization; however, this paper reveals an accelerating convergence process during the phase 1996-2011 that exceeds results from previous studies.


The widespread use of images, especially color images and rapid advancement of computer science, have led to an emphasis on securing these images and defending them against intruders. One of the most popular ways to protect images is to use encryption algorithms that convert data in a way that is not recognized by someone other than the intended user. The Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm (AES) is one of the most protected encryption algorithms. However, due to various types of theoretical and practical assaults, like a statistical attack, differential analysis, and brute force attack, its security is under attack.
In this paper, a modified AES coined as (M-AES) is proposed to improve the efficiency of the AES algorithm by increasing the algorithm's security to make the algorithm more suitable for color image encryption, and make it more resistant to many attacks. The modification is conducted on ShiftRows transformation of the original AES algorithm. To test the efficiency of the proposed M-AES algorithm, several images are drawn from the Signal and Image Processing Institute's (SIPI) image dataset. Moreover, the Mean Square Error (MSE), Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Entropy (H), Correlation Coefficient (CC), visual evaluation of histogram, Number of Pixels Change Rate (NPCR) and Unified Average Changing Intensity (UACI) are used as an evaluation metric. The results show that proposed modification to the AES algorithm makes the algorithm more appropriate to image and surpasses the original AES.
The modification is conducted on ShiftRows step of the original AES algorithm. To test the efficiency of the proposed M-AES algorithm, several images are drawn from the signal and image processing institute's (SIPI) image dataset. Moreover, the mean square error (MSE), peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), entropy (H), correlation coefficient (CC), visual evaluation of histogram, number of pixels change rate (NPCR) and unified average changing intensity (UACI) are used as an evaluation metrics. The results show that the suggested modification to AES makes it's more appropriate to the image and surpasses the original AES.


THE impact of Field Programmable Logic on the computing community has been growing for more than a decade. Field Programmable Logic devices are no longer just a prototyping vehicle for Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), but are increasingly found in computer systems where the user configurable logic and interconnects offer unique advantages. This special section contains seven papers reporting on a number of interesting advances in the architectures, compilation techniques, and applications of configurable computer systems, all chosen from the 13th International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Its Applications, held on 1-3 September 2003 in Lisbon, Portugal. Two papers are selected to reflect the diversity that reconfigurable architecture can offer. The paper "The MOLEN Polymorphic Processor" by S. Vassiliadis, S. Wong, G. Gaydadjiev, K. Bertels, G. Kuzmanov, and E. Moscu Panainte presents a mixed general purpose and custom computing machine, proposing their own computing paradigm, instruction set, and compiler methodology. This paper attempts to combine both by extending a general purpose instruction set with eight special instructions to implement reconfigurable functions. This paper illustrates that the traditional barrier between the software and hardware worlds is fast diminishing. Many of the modern Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) architectures which include embedded processors also illustrate this new reality. The second paper, "An Asynchronous Dataflow FPGA Architecture" by J. Teifel and R. Manohar, presents an FPGA architecture able to implement highperformance asynchronous logic using the dataflow paradigm. These asynchronous circuits do not need a global clock to ensure that computation proceeds in the right sequence. Instead, all cells compute concurrently and are connected by specific communication channels which guarantee the necessary data dependencies according to a dataflow scheme. They developed a specific asynchronous FPGA device instead of utilizing conventional clocked FPGA architectures, as has been done by others in the past. Software environments and tools for reconfigurable computers can be very different from those found in conventional computers. Three papers are selected to demonstrate such differences. The first, "Operating Systems for Reconfigurable Embedded Platforms" by C. Steiger, H. Walder, and M. Platzner, addresses some issues in the design of an operating system for a reconfigurable system, focusing on the runtime environment that guarantees proper scheduling of real-time tasks. Unlike conventional software-only scheduling, this operating system requires a strong connection between the scheduling and placement of hardware modules. The second paper, "Exploiting Program Branch Probabilities in Hardware Compilation" by H. Styles and W. Luk, addresses a very interesting topic relating to the optimization of circuits implementing behaviors with branching constructs. For many years, software compilation has taken advantage of branch probabilities to optimize the average-case performance of algorithms. This paper extends the approach to compilation for reconfigurable hardware. It is demonstrated that an approach based on queuing theory can provide insights into an appropriate trade off between circuit area and circuit performance for each component in a design. As a result, the overall design has significantly improved performance under the same area constraint, compared to commonapproaches that do not consider load balancing issues. The last compilation paper by K. Shayee, J. Park, and P. Diniz considers the impact of compiler loop transformations on hardware designs implemented in reconfigurable logic. It has long been accepted that loop transformations offer a useful way to formalize and automate design space exploration. However, the impact of loop transformations on circuit performance is not always well-understood due to the simplifying architectural models often employed. This paper studies the impact of loop transformations on both area and performance measures and focuses on the particularly interesting area of loop transformations within architectures containing a limited number of memory channels. Computer systems based on Field Programmable Logic only compete favorably against conventional computer systems in specific applications. Two such applications are chosen for the last two papers. The first by C. Ebeling, C. Fisher, G. Xing, M. Shen, and H. Liu presents the design and implementation of an OFDM receiver in the RaPiD reconfigurable architecture as a case study for comparing the relative cost and performance of ASIC, programmable, FPGA, and domain-specific reconfigurable systems. The last paper, by I. Skliarova and A. Ferrari, gives a IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTERS, VOL. 53, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2004 1361


Using a two-conduction-band periodic Anderson model, the influence of a magnetic field on the thermodynamic properties of heavy-fermion systems is studied by means of the slave-boson mean-field theory. A depression of the heavy-fermion state by the magnetic field is found. A theoretical explanation for the anomalous volume magnetostriction of heavy-fermion systems is also given.


An automated irrigation control system is described which uses real-time feedback information
transmitted by infrared telemetry from runoff sensors to control intermittent or surge irrigation.
Flow runoff sensors monitor water depth in a measuring flume at the end of a field. Runoff
data are transmitted via an infrared transmitter and receiver to a portable microcomputer located
at the upper end of the field. Inflow data from a flow meter in the supply line are also fed to
the computer. Using the feedback data and field parameters provided by the operator, the
computer controls a surge valve for the advance phase of irrigation and determines cycle times
during the cutback or post-advance phase to limit runoff and total application depths to target
values set by the operator. All system components are battery-powered. Results from
preliminary field tests confirmed the ability of the system to control irrigation by real-time
feedback.


G-quadruplex (G4), a non-classical deoxyribonucleic acid structure, is widely distributed in the genome and involved in various biological processes. In vivo, high-throughput sequencing has indicated that G4s are significantly enriched at functional regions in a cell-type-specific manner. Therefore, the prediction of G4s based on computational methods is necessary instead of the time-consuming and laborious experimental methods. Recently, G4 CUT&Tag has been developed to generate higher-resolution sequencing data than ChIP-seq, which provides more accurate training samples for model construction. In this paper, we present a new dataset construction method based on G4 CUT&Tag sequencing data and an XGBoost prediction model based on the machine learning boost method. The results show that our model performs well within and across cell types. Furthermore, sequence analysis indicates that the formation of G4 structure is greatly affected by the flanking sequences, and the GC content of the G4 flanking sequences is higher than non-G4. Moreover, we also identified G4 motifs in the high-resolution dataset, among which we found several motifs for known transcription factors (TFs), such as SP2 and BPC. These TFs may directly or indirectly affect the formation of the G4 structure.


A multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was developed for the detection and speciation of 60 Campylobacter strains isolated from porcine rectal swabs and from different areas in a pork processing plant. The PCR assay was based on primers specific for the cadF gene of pathogenic Campylobacter species, a specific but undefined gene of Campylobacter jejuni, and the ceuE gene of Campylobacter coli. Further characterization of these isolates was established by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analyses with the restriction endonuclease SmaI. In addition to molecular discrimination, the antibiotic resistance profiles of the isolates were examined by the Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method with 22 antibiotics. Differentiation of isolates by multiplex PCR identified 86.9% (52 of 60) as C. coli and 13.1% (8 of 60) as C. jejuni. Using the Molecular Analyst software, 60 PFGE types were identified. The percentages of relatedness among C. jejuni strains with PFGE ranged from 25 to 86%, while those among C. coli strains ranged from 34 to 99%. Among the 60 PFGE types, each of 12 C. coli isolates showed > or =90% similarity to one other isolate. The antibiotic resistance profiles of all 60 isolates were distinct. Analyses of antibiotic resistance profiles showed that all isolates were resistant to five or more antibiotics. Twenty-five percent (2 of 8) of C. jejuni isolates and 15% (8 of 52) of C. coli isolates were resistant to at least one of the three fluoroquinolones tested, antibiotics that are commonly used in the treatment of human Campylobacter infections. Three percent (2 of 60) of Campylobacter isolates examined were resistant to all three fluoroquinolones. On the basis of the PFGE and antibiotic resistance profiles, each of the 60 isolates was distinct, suggesting that C. jejuni and C. coli strains originating from diverse sources were present in porcine samples and in the pork processing plant.


We provide the complete mitochondrial genome of the reef manta ray, Mobula alfredi , using an ezRAD approach. The total length of the mitogenome was 18,166bp and contained 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNAs genes, two ribosomal RNA genes, and one non-coding control region. The gene organization and length are similar to other Mobula species. This reference mitogenome that includes the control region is expected to be a valuable resource for molecular-based species identification, population genomics, and phylogeography


Universities in English-speaking countries have experienced a sharp rise in the number of students in the past decades. One of the biggest problems students face is learning how to communicate in academic English, a language they have not experienced before. One of the tools that students often use to tackle language-related problems during their study is a dictionary. There are many dictionaries on the market, but only a few claim to be designed specifically for university students. This paper takes a closer look at these few dictionaries, and attempts to identify their unique features by comparing them with general dictionaries. The analysis reveals that the only real difference lies in the additional material-e.g. sections on academic writing, and not in the dictionary macrostructure or microstructure itself. The second part of the paper focuses on some of the features that dictionaries for university students share with general dictionaries, such as being based on corpus data, and discusses why many of these features cannot actually be acknowledged as studentfriendly. The final remarks point out that publishers, researchers, and lexicographers need to acknowledge that students are a specific group of dictionary users-users that need help, not only with regard to general language, but also with academic language.


Methods which provide good conditioning of model identification task in immune inspired, steady-state controller SILO (Stochastic Immune Layer Optimizer) are presented in this paper. These methods are implemented in a model based optimization algorithm. The first method uses a safe model to assure that gains of the process's model can be estimated. The second method is responsible for elimination of potential linear dependences between columns of observation matrix. Moreover new results from one of SILO implementation in polish power plant are presented. They confirm high efficiency of the presented solution in solving technical problems.


Extracted text; Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) females undergo oogenesis to create oocytes from undifferentiated stem cells in the ovary. Similar to estrogen in humans, the steroid hormone ecdysone in fruit flies has a known role in facilitating oogenesis. The ecdysone signaling pathway is highly studied as it can help us draw parallels between Drosophila and human reproductive processes. After ecdysone binds to an ecdysone receptor (EcR), EcR activates transcription of many genes, such as E74, E75, and E78. These early genes code for proteins that are essential for Drosophila tissue repair, development, and reproduction. One of the early genes, the Early Gene at 23 (E23), is thought to be a target of ecdysone signaling, but little is known about its function.
Because E23 is expressed in multiple cell types and highly expressed in Drosophila ovaries, we hypothesize that E23 plays a role in Drosophila viability, reproduction, and oogenesis. To determine the role of E23 in Drosophila viability and reproduction, flies harboring transposable element insertions in the E23 locus were analyzed for potential mutant phenotypes. Our experiments using these lines suggested that E23 is not needed for viability or fertility. We also tested whether E23 affects oogenesis in more subtle ways, using high-resolution confocal microscopy, but results indicate that it does not affect early oogenesis or adult stem cell numbers. Although E23 does not play a role in Drosophila oogenesis, it may have other important functions within the fly.


Background Recent changes in practice patterns and training paradigms in trauma care have resulted in a critical review of postgraduate curricula. Specifically, a shift towards non-operative management of traumatic injuries, and reduced resident work-hours, has led to a significant decrease in trainees' surgical exposure to trauma. The purpose of our study is to perform an exploratory review and needs assessment of trauma curricula for general surgery residents in Canada. Methods Our study design includes semi-structured interviews with trauma education experts across Canada and focus groups with various stakeholder groups. We performed qualitative analysis of comments, with two independent reviewers, using inductive thematic analysis to identify themes and sub-themes. Results We interviewed four trauma education experts and conducted four focus groups. We formulated two main themes: institutional context and transferability of curricular components. We further broke down institutional context into sub-themes of culture, resources, trauma system, and trauma volume. We developed a new conceptual framework to guide ongoing curricular reform for trauma care within the context of general surgery training. Conclusions The proposed framework, developed through qualitative analysis, can be utilized in a collaborative fashion in the curricular reform process of trauma care training in Canada.


Historically, health and mental health services have been separated by a variety of forces, including specialization; ideological, attitudinal, and financial barriers; the professionalization of psychiatry; and functional and organizational differentiation. Recently, several models of integration and coordination have been proposed. If they are to succeed, health planners will have to be aware of the essential ingredients of interorganizational cooperation and work to eliminate the obstacles to integration of health and mental health services.


It is now over twenty years since Alejandro Dez Macho announced his discovery of a complete text of the Palestinian Targum contained in the Codex Neofiti I of the Vatican Library. Even before the first volume of the editio princeps was published, the importance of Neofiti 1(N) and its marginal and interlinear glosses (Ngl) was apparent not only to specialists in the Aramaic language, Old Testament studies, and Jewish Literature of the Second Temple, Mishnaic and Talmudic times, but also to New Testament scholars. A particular feature of N which was bound to attract attention sooner or later is its frequent use of the formula Memra (utterance, word) of ahweh in the first chapter of Genesis in place of the Ἐlohim of the Massoretic Text, a feature encountered otherwise only in the Fragmentary Targum (FT). As we shall see presently, the exact significance of the term Memra was once a matter for keen scholarly debate, some asserting that it represented an entity separate from God, an intermediary between God and the created order, others roundly denying that it was any such thing, and regarding it only as a reverent means of avoiding pronunciation of the Holy and Ineffable Name. For reasons shortly to be described it was the latter opinion which finally prevailed and which is now generally accepted as established fact; but in the days before the scholarly debate on Memra was concluded it had been quite common for New Testament scholars to argue that, as an hypostasis and intermediary between God and the world, Memra had formed either the single antecedent, or one of the antecedents, to the Logos of the prologue of St John's Gospel. The presence of Memra in the text of N to Gen. i, and its frequent appearance in the Ngl, has led to renewed scholarly interest in the relationship of Memra to St John's Logos, so much so that A. Dez Macho, McNamara, and Domingo Muoz are all prepared to consider Memra a key concept in any discussion of St John's prologue. With the results of previous scholarship in mind, and in the light of new evidence, it would appear that the time is now right for a critical evaluation of these recent claims.


Surgeons attempting curative surgery for stomach cancer would not intentionally leave behind macroscopic disease. Histological evidence of resection line disease must therefore represent submucosal spread undetectable to the naked eye. The ability of a cancer to spread submucosally must represent a biological property of that cancer, which might be a sensitive predictor of subclinical distant metastases. The resection line disease therefore could be an expression rather than a determinant of the bad prognosis. This point might be clarified if the authors could show whether those patients with resection line disease were dying from an increased incidence of distant metastases or as a direct result of the mechanical problems from local recurrence. In the meantime, attempts to clear resection margins by resecting 6-12 cm of apparently normal tissue beyond the macroscopic edge of the cancer will inevitably increase the operative morbidity and mortality. Of course, I could be wrong but these considerations surely indicate the need for a randomised controlled trial comparing macroscopic resection of a stomach cancer versus a more radical approach aimed at producing margins free of microscopic disease. I would wager good money that the latter approach would increase the operative mortality and reduce complications from suture line recurrence but fail to influence mortality from distant metastases. MICHAL BAUm


The underexplored offshore deepwater basins of Angola hold tremendous potential for hydrocarbons. These basins have marked similarities with the prolific hydrocarbon producing region of the Brazilian margin which abutted the Angola offshore area prior to the opening of the South Atlantic In 2011, PGS in association with Sonangol acquired a 12,700 km regional 2D grid using a dual-sensor towed streamer systems to provide broadband seismic imaging to address the hydrocarbon potential of the frontier Kwanza, Benguela and Namibe basins of Angola. This high quality seismic has been used to enhance the knowledge of potential petroleum systems of the Namibe and Southern Benguela basins. Horst and graben structures that formed during rift phases are now visible in the depth-migrated seismic data and are overlain by 3-5 km of post-rift sediments. Thick salt, which is well known to the north, extends into the southern Benguela and northern Namibe basins. Post-rift channel and fan structures can be identified as high amplitude anomalies throughout the basin. These are observed to pinch out on the flanks of volcanic high structures and salt diapirs. The improved imaging and resolution provided by these data significantly de-risk exploration in a frontier deepwater area where well costs are high.


Background The 2001 United Nations (UN) Declaration of Commitment goal to reduce HIV prevalence among young people by 25% by 2010 was signed by 189 countries. Progress towards this goal is assessed. Changes in reported sexual behaviour among young people aged 15e24 years are also investigated. Methods Thirty countries were invited to participate in the study. HIV prevalence trends were assessed using data from antenatal clinic (ANC) surveillance and from repeat national surveys between 2000 and 2008. Regression analysis was used to determine if the UN target has been reached. Trends in sexual behaviour were analysed using data from repeat national surveys between 1990 and 2008. Results Seven countries showed significant prevalence declines of 25% or more among ANC attendees by 2008, in rural or urban areas or both. Three further countries showed a significant decline in prevalence among young women or men in national surveys. Four countries are unlikely to reach the UN goal. Nine countries did not have adequate data to assess prevalence trends. Favorable changes in sexual behaviour were observed in the majority of countries. In eight countries with significant declines in HIV prevalence, significant changes were also observed in sexual behaviour among either men or women. Conclusions Declines in HIV prevalence among young people were documented in the majority of countries with adequate data and in most cases were accompanied by changes in sexual behaviour. Further data and more rigorous analysis are needed to understand associations between interventions, behavioural changes and changes in HIV prevalence/ incidence.


The 57Fe Mössbauer spectra of FeAs above the Néel temperature, 77 K, display an electric-quadrupole split doublet with a total splitting of 0.55 mm/s at 295 K. This value increases almost linearly (0.05 mm/s per 100 K) with decreasing temperature, a change which can be correlated to the decreasing average Fe-As nearest-neighbour distance. Below 77 K a complex, partly nonresolved Mössbauer pattern develops. The magnetic hyperfine field varies strongly with the rotation of the magnetic moment in the (a, b)-plane, giving values between 4.8 T and 1.6 T. Using the conversion factor 10T/μB the average magnetic moment would be 0.30μB. Whether these highly anisotropic hyperfine fields also correspond to an anisotropic distribution of magnetic moments is still an open question.


Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in men, with more than 500,000 new worldwide cases reported annually, resulting in 200,000 deaths of mainly older men in developed countries. Existing treatments have not proved very effective in managing prostate cancer, and continuing efforts therefore are ongoing to explore novel targets and strategies for future therapies. LAPSER1 has been identified as a candidate tumor suppressor gene in prostate cancer, but its true functions remain unknown. We report here that LAPSER1 colocalizes to the centrosomes and mid‐bodies in mitotic cells with γ‐tubulin, MKLP1, and p80 katanin, and is involved in cytokinesis. Moreover, RNAi‐mediated disruption of LAPSER1, which is accompanied by the mislocalization of p80 katanin, results in malformation of the central spindle. Significantly, the enhanced expression of LAPSER1 induces binucleation and renders the cells resistant to onco‐genic transformation. In cells transformed by the v‐Fps oncogene, overexpressed LAPSER1 induces abortive cytokinesis, followed by mitotic catastrophe in a p80 katanin‐dependent manner. Cells that are rescued from this apoptotic pathway with Z‐VAD‐fmk display karyoki‐nesis. These results suggest that LAPSER1 participates in cytokinesis by interacting with p80 katanin, the disruption of which may potentially cause genetic instability and cancer.–Sudo, H., Maru, Y. LAPSER1 is a putative cytokinetic tumor suppressor that shows the same centrosome and midbody subcellular localization pattern as p80 katanin. FASEB J. 21, 2086–2100 (2007)


Simulation of retail space is a growing topic in the multi-agent systems community. Those systems vary depending on many issues, such as the type of store, or type of behaviour. The kind of issue that is wished to be simulated, or the type of data used to build the simulation, are other subjects of variations. Our ambition is to develop a simulator using a generic model, based on real data easy to collect. In this paper, we focus on the agent model. We develop it and make some experiments to test it.


Purpose
Backcasting helps managers involve and align the organization throughout a strategy process. Its core idea is creating a logical path from a depicted future back to the present, to share, analyze and manage strategic challenges. Still its use in strategic management is under-researched. The purpose of this paper is to verify the relevance and validity of backcasting as a strategic management tool. It also analyzes and structures knowledge about backcasting and its practical application in strategic management.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs desktop research method to outline the benefits and limitations of backcasting for strategy formation under VUCA conditions.

Findings
Backcasting can help organizations overcome cognitive barriers and broaden the scope of options when analyzing future positions. The research provides insights regarding the potential and limitations of backcasting when addressing uncertainty and its drivers. For instance, it helps managers to assess and align visions; increase the understanding and clarity regarding complex dependencies; as well as improve strategic agility.

Practical implications
Backcasting is exceptionally useful for investigating possible futures and alternative paths to it. Backcasting is an interactive workshop-based method that challenges prevailing mindsets by assuming we are in the future, looking back towards today to find a feasible path when major transitions are necessary. With it, managers can deal with even the most uncertain decisions in a structured manner.

Originality/value
Backcasting for many reasons has a great potential as a tool for strategy development. It has been successfully applied in other fields but only to a limited extent in business. This paper formally examines its applicability in this context and demonstrates its relevance for dealing with VUCA challenges.


Samples of optical semiregular variables (SRV's) of types SRa and SRb are correlated with the IRAS point source catalog. We extract bolometrically limited subsamples containing 352 objects in total. New near infrared photometry and data from the literature leads to complete energy distributions for 260 stars. On the basis of optical and IRAS low-resolution spectra we separate the samples into groups of defined chemistry, in particular C- and O-rich stars. The pulsational properties, visual and infrared colours, derived effective temperatures, mass loss rates, luminosities, scale heights and volume densities in the galactic plane of our subsamples are compared with corresponding characteristics of optical Miras. Moreover, it is possible to fit two blackbodies to most of the objects using visual and new near infrared photometry as well as mid and far infrared IRAS data. The resulting temperatures and other fit parameters support the findings gathered from the previous investigation. The results concerning variability and chemistry can be summarised as follows: (i) The SRa's are not a distinct class of variables but a mixture of 'intrinsic' Miras and SRb's. (ii)~The O-rich SRb's form a homogeneous group in terms of periods, amplitudes and temperatures. They consist of a 'blue' group with no indication of circumstellar matter, P < 150d and Teff > 3200 K and a 'red' group with temperatures and mass loss rates comparable to those of Miras but with periods a factor of 2 smaller. Scale heights and number densities are similar for 'red' SRV's and Miras. 'Blue' SRV's are about twice as numerous as the 'red' ones, half as luminous and without C-rich stars. (iii) The C-rich SRV's generally have smaller periods and are more abundant than C-rich Miras but their scale heights closely agree. (iv) Among all groups there are stars with much longer periods than expected from their temperatures and mass loss rates. This may be due to observational effects, irregular light curves or multiple periods. (v) A new classification scheme for O-rich SRV's and Miras in the groups 'blue' SRV's, 'red' SRV's and true Miras is proposed using period, amplitude and colours. The evolutionary status of the SRV's is discussed. On the basis of temperatures, luminosities, mass loss and number densities, the 'blue' SRV's appear to be on the non thermally pulsing AGB. One of the interpretations for O-rich 'red' SRV's is in terms of a phase preceding the Mira phase, with similar life times. The C-rich SRV's may show more variety in their pulsational characteristics.


Free radicals are highly reactive species generated in living organisms for the purpose of protection. However, in some circumstances, they are responsible for the occurrence or aggravation of tissue damage. Many anti-inflammatory drugs have a direct effect on free radicals and not radical reactive species, which contributes to its actions against inflammation. Ketoprofen is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agent that generates free radicals by photo irradiation and has an important hemolytic effect with that. The complexation of metals to different drugs has been used as a strategy to improve the pharmacological action of different molecules and reduce their side effects. This paper presents the results of ketoprofen and their metallic complexes action on erythrocytes and free radicals. It was observed that the cerium enhances the scavenger properties of ketoprofen on free radicals, while copper enhances its action over non-radical oxidants. Copper also reduced the hemolytic effect presented by ketoprofen meanwhile its cerium derivative maintained it.


Data from two surveys of the Tatra Mountain lakes (Slovakia and Poland) performed in the autumns of 1984 (53 lakes) and 1993 or 1994 (92 lakes) were used to estimate spatial variability in water chemistry in this lake district during the period of maximum European acid deposition. The ionic content of the lakes was generally low, with conductivity (at 20°C) ranging from 1.1 to 4.7 mS m−1 and 23% of the lakes had a depleted carbonate buffering system. Major factors governing differences in lake-water chemistry were bedrock composition and amount of soil and vegetation in their catchment areas. Compared to lakes in the predominantly granitic central part of the Tatra Mountains, lakes in the West Tatra Mountains had higher concentrations of base cations and alkalinity due to the presence of metamorphic rocks in the bedrock. Concentrations of phosphorus, organic carbon, organic nitrogen, and chlorophyll-a were highest in forest lakes and decreased with decreasing density of vegetation and soil cover in the catchment areas. Concentrations of nitrate showed an opposite trend. Several exceptions to these general patterns in chemical and biological composition were due to exceptional geology or hydrology of the lake catchments.


Introduction: Pancreas transplant is one of the UK's less commonly done solid abdominal organ transplants. The transplant is reputed for its high-risk postsurgical complications due to multiple patients, procedures, and immunological factors. For this reason, patients are habitually admitted to the intensive care unit for postlaparotomy care, physiological support, and graft function monitoring during their immediate postoperative course. Project Aim: This program evaluation analyzed the trend in critical care length of stay and organ support requirements for patients following whole pancreas transplantation. The aim was to use these baseline data as performance metrics to enable a safer transition and Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles in improving the delivery of enhanced recovery service. Design: A retrospective chart review was performed using records from Phillips IntelliSpace Critical Care and Anaesthesia system to evaluate the institutional outcomes of patients < 18 years admitted to intensive care following pancreas transplantation between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2021. Islet-cell transplant recipients were excluded as there is a different postoperative recovery. Results: The data suggested that although patients require a higher level of observations, blood pressure management, blood gas, and glucose monitoring during their first week of transplant, these patients did not routinely require the full range of critical care support. Conclusion: The present evaluation reported the organ support requirements for these transplant recipients. The results will generate further interest in enhanced recovery and service evaluation projects to streamline the postoperative care of these patients from the operating theatre back to the transplant wards.


This qualitative study investigates customer-brand relationships between customers and digital brands. This study aims to describe different digital brand relationship types, and their manifestations among young adult customers. The data collection was conducted in 2021 by interviewing fourteen Finnish adults aged 22-31 years. The findings categorize the customer-brand relationships into four relationship types, according to the relationship strength from weak to strong. Brand liking lacks emotions and is characterized by low commitment towards a digital brand. Brand attachment includes having a slight barrier of digital brand replacement, and emotions towards the brand are weak. Brand loving denotes that a beloved digital brand is favored in the long term, but the brand is not considered irreplaceable. Brand addiction occurs when a customer has an irreplaceable, intimate, and dependent relationship with the digital brand. All the found relationship types need further investigation in future research.


Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine tumor, and the rate of early lymph node metastasis may be as high as 60%. Currently, detection of lymph node metastasis of thyroid cancer during surgery is limited and time-consuming. Elevated levels of Cyfra 21-1, the proteolytic portion of cytokeratin, are associated with the metastasis and progression of thyroid cancer and are an effective biomarker for the prognosis and diagnosis of thyroid cancer. In this study, an immunochromatographic strip test based on colloidal gold nanoparticles was developed to semi-quantitatively detect the levels of Cyfra 21-1 in lymph nodes within 15 min. The standard (calibration) curve equation was Y = 0.003708 × X + 0.1101, and the detection limit was 0.55–1.14 ng mL−1. The strip did not detect other protein markers of epithelial cells at a concentration of 500 ng mL−1, including cytokeratin 8, cytokeratin 18, epithelial membrane antigen, and epidermal surface antigen. The ability of the strip to differentiate positive from negative metastasis in 40 lymph node specimens was 100% concordant with that of immunohistochemical staining for Cyfra 21-1. In an assessment of 20 lymph node specimens that had been determined by postoperative histopathology to be positive for lymph node metastasis and 20 specimens that were negative, the sensitivity and specificity of the strip were 100% and 95%, respectively. The sensitivity of the strip remained stable when stored at room temperature for 6 months. Together, these results indicated that although further testing using a larger sample size will be required, this immunochromatographic strip test may be useful for rapid intraoperative detection of thyroid cancer metastasis to lymph nodes.


In recent years, a number of experiments have been conducted with the goal of studying cosmic rays at GeV to TeV energies. This is a particularly interesting regime from the perspective of indirect dark matter detection. To draw reliable conclusions regarding dark matter from cosmic ray measurements, however, it is important to first understand the propagation of cosmic rays through the magnetic and radiation fields of the Milky Way. In this paper, we constrain the characteristics of the cosmic ray electron/positron propagation model through comparison with observational inputs, including recent data from the CREAM experiment, and use these constraints to estimate the corresponding uncertainties in the spectrum of cosmic ray electrons and positrons from dark matter particles annihilating in the halo of the Milky Way.


The objective of this work was to study the genetic diversity of pacu samples from the middle Paranapanema River and from the broodstock used in the stock enhancement program of the Aquaculture and Hydrology Station at the Duke Energy Power Plant, by RAPD marker. Fourteen primers were used to analyze 30 individuals captured in the middle Paranapanema River and 29 individuals from the broodstock. The Shannon genetic diversity index and percentage of polymorphic fragments were higher in individuals captured in the Paranapanema River. Genetic similarity was larger in individuals of the broodstock. Results of analysis of molecular variance showed that the major part of the genetic variation is within the groups (84.2%) and not between them (15.8%). The identity and genetic distance among the groups were 0.9517 and 0.0549, respectively. Moderate genetic differentiation (FST = 0.15) and high number of migrants per generation (Nm = 5.33) were observed between the two groups. The genetic diversity was lower in the broodstock than in fish captured in the middle Paranapanema River.


SUMMARY The growth of commercial and academic interest in parallel and distributed computing during the past fifteen years has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the number of available parallel programming systems (PPS). However, little work has been done to evaluate their usability, or to develop criteria for such evaluations. As a result, the usability of a typical PPS is based on how easily a small set of trivially parallel algorithms can be implemented by its authors. This paper discusses the design and results of an experiment to objectively compare the usability of two PPSs. Half of the students in a graduate parallel and distributed computing course solved a problem using the Enterprise PPS while the other half used a PVM-like library of message-passing routines. The objective was to measure usability. This experiment provided valuable feedback as to what features of PPSs are useful and the benefits they provide during the development of parallel programs. Although many usability experiments have been conducted for sequential programming languages and environments, they are rare in the parallel programming domain. Such experiments are necessary to help narrow the gap between what parallel programmers want, and what current PPSs provide.