Performance evaluation of a new hybrid encryption protocol for authentication and key distribution is considered. The new protocol uses a hybrid of public and symmetric key cryptography to distribute Diffie-Hellman components. Queueing analysis is undertaken to numerically compare the new protocol and two other protocols used for authentication and key distribution: the Kerberos protocol and the authenticated Diffie-Hellman protocol. The results show that the new protocol has a fast response that far exceeds the authenticated Diffie-Hellman, and which can approach the response of the Kerberos protocol. At the same time, the new protocol is more secure than the Kerberos protocol.


Part I of this Comment addresses the formation of the doctrine of unconscionability. Part I also covers the nature of exclusive songwriter agreements and how the doctrine of unconscionability can be utilized to level the playing field between songwriters and music publishers. Part II analogizes other areas within the entertainment industry where the courts have rejected adherence to industry standards and reformed the contractual agreements between the parties. This section's primary focus will be the court's reasoning in Phase II of Buchwald v. Paramount Pictures Corp. (Buchwald II) and how that court's analysis can be applied to exclusive songwriter agreements. Although Buchwald II is unpublished, the case is cited by commentators when addressing what they believe should be the appropriate analysis regarding unconscionability in contracts. The decision in Buchwald II will be contrasted with decisions reached in other areas of the entertainment industry in the United States and the cases that have become known simply as the "English Music Trilogy."'" The conclusion of this Comment will include both legal and policy arguments as to why adherence to current industry standards in exclusive songwriter agreements is a disservice to both parties of the contract.


Bone tissue engineering has been emerged as an alternative tool to induce bone regeneration through combination of biomaterials and their composites along with the suitable cells and growth factors. In tissue engineering, chitosan(CH)/silk fibroin(SF)blend scaffolds has been proven to be an ideal biomaterial possessingdesired properties. In the present research work,it is aimed to develop a novel 3D porous scaffolds from chitosan/silk fibroin and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) by freeze drying method, Pure CH/SF and CH/SF/CMC blends were prepared with different ratios of CH,SF and CMC and used to fabricate porous scaffolds. Among the various compositions, CH/SF/CMC (80:20:1%) blend was found to be the most favorable scaffold having somesuperior properties.The scaffol exhibited open pore microstructure as revealed by E SEM images with pore size(140±25μm) and porosity(78.1±0.6%).The scaffold was assessed for functional, structural, swelling, biodegradation, bioactivity and mechanical properties. Furthermore, nano-bioglass (≤120nm) was synthesized by sol gel method and incorporated in toCS/SF/CMC thereby CH/SF/CMC/nBG composite scaffolds with different composition were developed. A mong the various composite blends, CH/SF/CMC/nBG (80:20:1%:10%) showed better result with controlled pore size, biodegradation, biomineralization and increased compressive strength. Hence,CH/SF/CMC/nBG (80:20:1%:10%) composite scaffold is a potential artificial extra cellular matrix with improved bioactivity and further expected to possess superiorosteogenic and angiogenic property.


ABSTRACT Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is a highly conserved molecular chaperone that facilitates the maturation of target proteins. Here, we report that the auxin receptor TIR1 is a target of cytosolic HSP90 and that HSP90 and TIR1 form a complex. Inhibition of HSP90 compromised the nuclear localization of TIR1, and abrogated plant responses to the hormone auxin. Our findings suggest that HSP90 positively regulates auxin receptor function. We also propose that HSP90 buffers or hides phenotypic variations in animals and plants by masking mutations in some of its target proteins. Support for this proposal comes from the tir1-1 mutant of Arabidopsis, which showed a root growth defect that was only seen after inhibition of HSP90. We have developed a model in which cytosolic HSP90 works like a capacitor for auxin-related phenotypic variation via regulation of the auxin receptor in response to environmentally and genetically induced perturbations.


An alternative plan for the treatment of a perforated duodenal ulcer is proposed. We will focus on the now-recognized role of Helicobacter pylori in the genesis of the majority of duodenal ulcers and on the high rate of success of therapy with a combination of antibiotics and a proton-pump inhibitor or histamine2 blocker in treatment of such ulcers. Knowledge that half the cases of perforated duodenal ulcer may have securely sealed spontaneously at the time of presentation is incorporated in the therapeutic plan. Patients with a perforated duodenal ulcer who have already been evaluated for H pylori and are not infected or, if infected, have received appropriate therapy should undergo an ulcer-definitive operation if they are suitable surgical candidates. Most authorities recommend surgical closure of the perforation and a parietal cell vagotomy. The remaining patients should have a gastroduodenogram with water-soluble contrast medium. If the perforation is sealed, the patient can be treated nonsurgically. If the perforation is leaking, secure surgical closure of the perforation is necessary. Following recovery from the immediate consequences of the perforation, evaluation for H pylori should be conducted. If the patient is infected, combined medical therapy is recommended. If the patient is not infected, Zollinger-Ellison syndrome should be ruled out and medical therapy is recommended if the ulcer has not been treated previously. Elective ulcer-definitive surgery should be considered for the occasional uninfected patient who has already received appropriate medical therapy for the ulcer.


The aim of study is to indicate a gap in creativity research arising from products with dissimilar capabilities requiring independent creativity indicators that are empirically formed according to their functionality. Initially, a hypothesis for a criterion-based tool comprising 9 criteria and 40 indicators is put forward for assessing functional products. Then, a novel experimental approach is presented to indicate this variation. The first experiment uses the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) to measure the product creativity as well as the relationship between creativity and the criteria proposed. Then, EFA is considered to extract the irrelevant items and provide the optimum underlying structures for the factors used in each assessment. The validity of the models will then be investigated using the comparison of the goodness of fit indices between the estimated factor loadings calculated by CFA measurement and the empirical data collected from the second study. It is anticipated that the findings of this experiment will result in three dissimilar tools, where each comprised of specific indicators that appropriately established with respect to various product functionality.


Thailand had a higher prevalence of binge drinking (BD) behaviors which put them at risks of morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to determine the spatial association of BD and its associated factors among the population of Thailand. This study was conducted using a data set of the National Statistical Office of Thailand and another data set of the Center for Alcohol Studies, Thailand, in 2017. A Moran's I, Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA), and Spatial regression were used to identify the spatial autocorrelation between alcohol outlet density, started drinking before 20 years of age, and BD among Thai people. According to the results, among 61,708 participants, the prevalence of BD was 11.47 per 1,000 population. There was global spatial autocorrelation between alcohol outlet density, start drinking before 20 years, and BD with the Moran's I values of 0.10 and 0.54, respectively. The LISA analysis identified significant positive spatial local autocorrelation of BD in the form of two high-high clusters for density of alcohol outlets and seven high-high clusters of started drinking before the age of 20. Started drinking before 20 years of age could predict binge drinking behaviors by 62.8 percent. There were spatial associations between alcohol outlet density and problems with alcoholic beverage control law enforcement that let the youngsters start drinking before 20. It is a general recommendation to strictly enforce the law in prohibited the underage from consuming alcohol, especially in the high density of alcohol outlets.


On the basis of abundant facility and firm-level data for German manufacturing, originating from a recent OECD-survey, this paper empirically investigates the relevance of a variety of incentives for environmentally innovative behavior of facilities, the respective influence of pressure groups, and the impact of both regulatory and market-based policy instruments, such as eco-taxes. Since the early 1990s, Environmental Management Systems (EMS), specifically, have become a vital voluntary complement to mandatory environmental policies based on regulation and legislation. EMS may be perceived as an organizational environmental innovation that may lead to improved environmental performance. While the paper provides a descriptive analysis of the determinants for EMS-adoption and incentives that may trigger environmental innovation activities within German facilities, the major questions that will be addressed in this paper are: (1) How can public authorities support the introduction of management practices that may lead to improved environmental performance? (2) What are the main determinants of environmentally innovative behavior of firms? Specifically, we are interested in the role that market forces and regulation play in the process of complex firm decisions on innovation and environmental performance. While the relevant literature on these issues is dominated by case studies, our large-scale survey indicates that the most important reasons why firms contemplate introducing EMS are to improve the efforts to achieve regulatory compliance, to improve the corporate image, and to create cost savings with respect to both waste management and resource input. Among pressure groups, internal stakeholders - management employees and corporate headquarters - appear to be more influential with respect to EMS-adoption and environmental innovation than external forces, such as public authorities.


ABSTRACT: Aconitum noveboracense A. Gray ex Coville (northern monkshood) is a federally threatened plant species of the blue-flowered Aconitum section (Napellus) that occurs in Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, and New York, with most populations in Iowa. Monitoring of 12 populations in Iowa over a 15-year period showed substantial periodic variation in all population parameters, although less variation in adult density. Variation among sites was only detected for the proportion of quadrats with fruiting plants, and overall, adult and juvenile density. Our analysis provided a mixed view of the status of this species. On one hand, after a substantial decline between the 1994/95 and 2001/02 sample intervals, overall population density and density of each life stage increased and nearly recovered between the 2001/02 and 2004/05 sample intervals. Conversely, all our measures of reproduction - number of fruits/plant, proportion of quadrats with fruiting plants, number of fruits/node - indicated reduced vigor, as in the same intervals these measures declined and did not recover. Soil temperature was highly correlated with juvenile and adult density. Measuring additional biotic and abiotic factors should be incorporated into future monitoring. Local-scale abiotic factors that could influence variation in adult and juvenile density include light levels, drought, distance to cold air vents, soil moisture, nutrient levels, and humidity. Biotic factors, particularly herbivores, pollinator availability, and garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata (M. Bieb.) Cavara & Grande), are also likely to have an impact on the Iowa Aconitum populations.


-The impact of laser coherence noise on conventional photonic RF filters is investigated in this paper. In addition, a new MicroPhotonic adaptive RF filter structure is proposed, which can simultaneously suppress the phased-induced intensity noise caused by optical interference. Results show that the coherence length of the laser light significantly degrades the RF frequency response of a photonic transversal RF filter, whereas the MicroPhotonic RF filter has the capability of generating arbitrary transfer function with no phase-induced intensity noise.


KRAS is one of the most frequently mutated oncogenes in various cancers. Among KRAS mutations, KRAS G12D is the most frequent driver mutation and is found in approximately 34% of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), 12% of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC), 4% of patients with lung adenocarcinoma, and in a subset of patients with other solid tumors. We have identified ASP3082 as a novel KRAS G12D degrader with high potency and selectivity. Here, we have evaluated in vivo antitumor activities and pharmacodynamic properties of ASP3082 in various KRAS G12D-mutated xenograft models. ASP3082 was intravenously administered to KRAS G12D-mutated cancer-xenograft-bearing mice, and plasma and tumors were collected at defined time points. The drug concentration and KRAS-related signal transduction were measured in the xenograft model. The in vivo efficacy of ASP3082 monotherapy was confirmed in multiple xenograft mouse models following intravenous administration. Once-weekly intravenous administration of ASP3082 induced dose-dependent and significant growth inhibition of KRAS G12D PDAC tumors, resulting in profound tumor regression without body weight loss. ASP3082 showed sustained concentrations in the xenograft tumors after a single intravenous administration and decreased KRAS G12D-mutated-protein levels according to the duration of the sustained ASP3082 concentrations. ASP3082 also demonstrated marked inhibition of extracellular signal-regulated kinase phosphorylation and its downstream genes, and potently induced cleavage of caspase 3. In addition, ASP3082 exhibited potent antitumor activities in not only PDAC but also CRC and non-small cell lung cancer KRAS G12D-mutated mouse models. These studies demonstrated that ASP3082 induced degradation of KRAS G12D protein, inhibition of KRAS downstream molecules, and an apoptotic response to show dose-dependent antitumor activity in multiple KRAS G12D-mutated cancer models. ASP3082 is a potential therapeutic agent for patients with tumors harboring the KRAS G12D mutation. Currently, a phase 1 clinical trial is underway in patients with previously treated, locally advanced or metastatic solid tumors with KRAS G12D mutation (NCT05382559).
 Citation Format: Takeyuki Nagashima, Tomohiro Yoshinari, Yoshihiro Nishizono, Mamoru Tasaki, Kohei Inamura, Hiroki Ishioka, Atsushi Suzuki, Fumio Osaki, Yosuke Yamanaka, Masahiko Hayakawa. Novel KRAS G12D degrader ASP3082 demonstrates in vivo, dose-dependent KRAS degradation, KRAS pathway inhibition, and antitumor efficacy in multiple KRAS G12D-mutated cancer models. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 5735.


Describing the Nigerian Hip Hop music industry as the latest religion, and the youth as its true adherents may not be far from reality. As a genre of music that was adapted from the Western world, particularly the United States, the Nigerian brand of Hip Hop is setting a pace in African entertainment. Whereas the industry has become mainstreamed with overwhelming acceptance across our society, its didactic definition of success to our youths is becoming extremely worrisome. By means of vulgar and profane lyrical contents, excessive display of luxury, status and the "good life", the Nigerian Hip Hop music ingress into the psyche of our youths: distracting them from productive causes and engaging them in frivolities. Materialism, vulgarism and profane themes are now fundamental message within Hip Hop, but these factors have received little attention in extant research. As a result, this study examines the underlying meanings and extent of material, vulgar and profane themes in Nigeria's Hip Hop music videos. With a total of 185 hip hop music videos, selected by means of a purposive sampling procedure, a content analysis design was adopted. Two independent coders were trained for the content analysis. The reliability of the selected videos was determined through Cohen's kappa (k) symmetric measure of agreement. The result yielded 0.782 (78 percent), representing a good measure of agreement. Equally, a focus group discussion method was used to select eight Hip Hop fans who spoke about the effects of these themes on Nigerian youths. Findings revealed, among others, that the extent to which the analyzed music videos projected themes concerning materialism, vulgarity and profanity was very high and that excessive amount of jewelry, luxury brand apparel, expensive cars, derogatory lyrics and objectification of women were key messages in the videos. The study also found that exposure to these themes might have undesirable consequences on young people's perception of success. The study therefore recommends among others that Nigerian Hip Hop musicians be reoriented in their values and encouraged to promote themes devoid of materialism, vulgarism and profanity in their videos.


Traditionally, the ergonomics engineer has not played an active role in the design of jigs and fixtures used to manually assemble parts. This is problematic, since tool redesigns are often infeasible due to cost and production constraints. Therefore, less effective measures must be used to control ergonomic hazards, since the hazard(s) cannot be engineered out during the design process. References, guidelines and checklists used by many tool designers do not include ergonomic engineering principles and methods. In addition, many ergonomics engineers may not be schooled in the elements of jig and fixture design, which may reduce their effectiveness as part of the tool design team. The purpose of this paper is to provide the ergonomics engineer with an overview of the design process, and proffer guidelines to assist in the review of jig and fixture designs.


Liver resection for malignant tumors should respect oncological margins while ensuring safety and improving the quality of life, therefore tumor staging, underlying liver disease and performance status should all be attentively assessed in the decision process. The concept of parenchyma-sparing liver surgery is nowadays used as an alternative to major hepatectomies to address deeply located lesions with intricate topography by means of complex multiplanar parenchyma-sparing liver resections, preferably under the guidance of intraoperative ultrasound. Regenerative liver surgery evolved as a liver growth induction method to increase resectability by stimulating the hypertrophy of the parenchyma intended to remain after resection (referred to as future liver remnant), achievable by portal vein embolization and liver venous deprivation as interventional approaches, and portal vein ligation and associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy as surgical techniques. Interestingly, although both strategies have the same conceptual origin, they eventually became caught in the never-ending parenchyma-sparing liver surgery vs. regenerative liver surgery debate. However, these strategies are both valid and must both be mastered and used to increase resectability. In our opinion, we consider parenchyma-sparing liver surgery along with techniques of complex liver resection and intraoperative ultrasound guidance the preferred strategy to treat liver tumors. In addition, liver volume-manipulating regenerative surgery should be employed when resectability needs to be extended beyond the possibilities of parenchyma-sparing liver surgery.


Our publisher's report for PS: Political Science & Politics for 2011 gives us some insight into what you, our readers, are reading here in the pages of PS. In total, more than 101,000 readers completed full-text downloads of online articles in 2011, up nearly 30% from 2010 and 26% compared to 2009 figures. This figure only represents electronic downloads; we know that print is very important too and we hope to report on that readership in the future.


At work, there are some ways of presenting information about innovative projects which are examined. Special attention is given to key aspects of scientific and technical information visualization, including use of multimedia techniques.


This paper presents one-dimensional and two-dimensional microwave inverse computing methods to detect an internal object using measurements based on a signal applied from the surface of the host material. The modelling of our application system has been aimed towards the in vivo detection of a breast tumour, in particular, and to enable the calculation of the tumour size and its distance from the surface of the breast. However, our approach is also applicable for more general foreign object identification. Complex backscattered electromagnetic waves characterise the relations of the internal properties of the host material. Forward and backscattered signals are used to calculate the impedance and reflection coefficients as a function of the applied microwave frequency. In the study of one-dimensional modelling, we discuss the approach to identifying a foreign object hidden inside the host material and we present a method for computing the distance to the object from the surface of the host. Subsequently, a cylindrical coordinate system is used for two-dimensional modelling. A method to compute the size of the object (up to one millimetre in radius) is discussed. Computation of unknown electrical and non-electrical parameters using front-end microwave application is challenging but it is feasible.


High-precision aspherical optics are widely used in modern optical systems with the capability of providing high image quality, but an aspherical surface is more challenging to fabricate because of its more complex shape compared with other surfaces. Ion beam figuring (IBF) provides a highly deterministic technology for ultra-precision fabrication of aspherical surfaces. However, the convergent efficiency and final accuracy are strongly dependent on the original surface state, where the topography and distribution of the surface errors generated during the pre-processing should be taken into account. Consequently, we propose a combined technique that includes magnetorheological finishing, smoothing polishing, and IBF. This technique can effectively control different surface errors during the polishing process, and then rapidly impart nanometer-precision fabrication. Comparative figuring experiments are performed on a parabolic surface, and the original surfaces before IBF are pre-processed by manual polishing and our combined technique, respectively. The results indicate that abundant high-slope and middle-to-high frequency surface errors exist on the surface after conventional polishing, and this surface state limits the final fabrication accuracy. Nevertheless, a smooth surface is prepared by our combined technique and a nanometer-precision aspherical surface is rapidly obtained, which demonstrates the feasibility of our proposed method.


—A controller area network (CAN) connects dozens of electronic control units (ECUs), ensuring reliable and efficient data transmission. Because of the lack of security features of CAN protocol, in-vehicle networks are susceptible to a wide spectrum of threats, from simple injections at high frequencies to sophisticated masquerade attacks that target individual sensor values (signals). Hence, advanced analysis of the multidimensional time-series data is needed to learn the complex patterns of individual signals and their mutual dependencies. Although deep learning (DL)-based intrusion detection systems (IDS) have shown potential in such domain, they tend to suffer from poor generalization as they need optimization at every component. To detect such advanced CAN attacks, we propose CANtropy, a manual feature engineering- based lightweight CAN IDS. For each signal, CANtropy explores a comprehensive set of features from both temporal and statistical domains and selects only the effective subset of features in the detection pipeline to ensure scalability. Later, CANtropy uses a lightweight unsupervised anomaly detection model based on principal component analysis, to learn the mutual dependencies of the features and detect abnormal patterns in the sequence of CAN messages. The evaluation results on the advanced SynCAN dataset show that CANtropy provides a comprehensive defense against diverse types of cyberattacks with an average AUROC score of 0.992, and outperforms the existing DL-based baselines.


In 2006, the Dickens Journals Online project at the University of Buckingham was established with the specific aim of creating an open access online digital edition of Household Words and All the Year Round, which would act as a central resource for all additional knowledge and scholarship relating to these journals and their publishing history. Since 2010, much of the raw material--including all six volumes of the Household Narrative of Current Events (1)--has been available via the project betasite at www.djo.org.uk, while a team of dedicated volunteers help proof-read and correct the errors in the computer-read transcription. Meanwhile, assisted by grants from the Leverhulme Trust and the support of the general public, the project team has set to work indexing and classifying the contents, adding author information where known and uploading substantial introductory essays for each of the bi-annual volumes. To complement the online edition and provide twenty-first-century readers with access to a more traditional method of encountering this rich miscellany of prose and poetry, the University of Buckingham Press is making the bi-annual volumes of both magazines available in a handsome facsimile reprint edition, replicating the pagination of the original, prefaced by tables of contents, authorship information, as well as the specially-written synoptic introductions. All involved with Dickens Journals Online are proud of this aspect of its development--a fitting tribute to the genius of Dickens himself, for whose bicentenary in February 2012 the launch of the project is timed to coincide. (2) A successful multi-authored nineteenth-century periodical is always going to be more than the sum of its parts, and almost certainly a larger and more complex entity than the contribution of any of its individual contributors or editors--even so illustrious and energetic an editor as Charles Dickens. One must guard therefore against reading a magazine like Household Words as though it was simply an outlying part of the Dickens empire--not just because it has been shown that material published in its pages reflects a range of views that exceeded and sometimes ran contrary to what can safely be considered Dickens's own (3)--but because of the obvious fact that a production of this kind could only be sustained over time by a large and diverse team of contributors and employees whose collective impact on the magazine's destiny must outweigh that of any individual agency. This is not to deny that the magazines were shaped substantively by the input, say, of W. H. Wills as ex officio sub-editor and de facto co-editor, and by the nature of the material supplied by their many contributors, some of whom, over long stretches of time, were responsible for more of the contents than Dickens himself The contributions, in this regard, of gifted staff-writers such as Henry Motley, Wilkie Collins and R. H. Home, cannot be overlooked. But that Dickens aspired to the role of auteur in relation to these journals is crucial to their general nature during this period, as well as to the practical results, which varied from week to week, month to month, in response to the encounter between mind and matter, and between editor and contributor. Disputes between Dickens and his contributors have perhaps received disproportional emphasis relative to the aggregate of relationships between writers for the journals (Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, or Harriet Martineau, say) and their famous editor--but tensions and a perpetual "dynamic" certainly existed, with peaks and troughs of energy and friction. (4) For this reason, no generalizations about the flow of control will satisfactorily obtain over the two decades under consideration, and each introduction to each bi-annual volume concludes with a subsection on "Editorial Issues" that attempts to map this activity in the short term. The other subheadings we have adopted will also remain uniform and consistent across the series, with exception of the substitution of "Serial Fiction" for "Leading Articles" following the disestablishment of Household Words and the commencement of All the Year Round. …


The Systematization of Nursing Care (in Portuguese, SAE) allows quality improvement in the care provided by the nursing staff. However, its implementation is still incipient in health services. The objective of this study was to evaluate the SAE implementation process in a pediatrics unit of a university hospital. It was a case study with a quantitative approach. Data was collected from SAE forms and questionnaires completed by the nursing staff. The results revealed that the SAE implementation process faces difficulties, such as the nurses' heavy workload, the nursing technicians' lack of knowledge on the subject, and the low involvement of the health workers in the process. The implementation was further impaired by the inadequacies of the institutional forms, associated to their improper completion, and to lack of coordination between phases of the nursing process. The nursing technicians' inclusion in the execution of the SAE stages needs to be encouraged. Moreover the results demonstrated that the curriculum of technical courses should offer training on nursing processes and SAE, as well as addressing the technicians' competency. In conclusion, the SAE implementation process should take place in a context of participatory management; it should consider organizational aspects, such as the number of employees and the intensity of care required by the patients in the unit; it should also value the professionals' qualifications and their awareness about SAE.


BACKGROUND
Long-term outcome after surgical treatment of supratentorial ependymoma (STE) in children has not been extensively reported.

FINDINGS
We identified 26 children who underwent primary tumor resection of STE between 1953 and 2011, with at least 8 years follow-up. Ten patients (38%) had anaplastic and 16 had low grade ependymoma. Four of 15 children (26%) treated in the years 1953-1976 survived more than 5 years, but the observed 10-year survival was only 7%. One patient lived for 37 years, and second surgery for a local recurrent lesion disclosed a glioblastoma, possibly secondary to radiotherapy. In contrast, the observed 5-year survival rate for 11 children treated in the years 1992-2011 was 8/11 (73%) and observed 10- and 25-year survival rates were 70% and 66%, respectively. Eight patients were alive and tumor-free with follow-up periods of 8-27 (median 18) years, all treated after 1992. Five of these long-term survivors were 23-39 years old with full-time (n = 3) or part-time (n = 2) work. The last three patients were still children (9-12 years old): one with good function and two with major neurological deficits. The majority of patients (n = 18) received adjuvant radiotherapy and eight children no adjuvant treatment. Repeated resections for residual or recurrent tumor were necessary in 11 patients (42%), mostly due to local disease with progressive clinical symptoms. Eight patients underwent only one repeat resection, whereas three patients had two or more repeat resections within 18 years after initial surgery. Four patients were tumor-free after repeated resections at the latest follow-up, 2-13 years after last surgery.

CONCLUSION
Pediatric STE has a marked risk for local recurrence even after gross total resection and postoperative radiotherapy, but survival has increased following the introduction of modern treatment in recent years. Repeated surgery is an important part of treatment and may lead to persistent tumor control.


Cognitive radio is an emerging technology through which unlicensed users utilize the spectrum when primary users are in passive mode (i.e. don't transmit data). Real time transmission such as multimedia transmission plays an important role over cognitive radio networks. Normally a secondary user transmits its video over empty bands. When a primary user wants to switch on its band, the secondary user gets hanged and its transmission stops. To overcome such real time issues an efficient and flexible algorithm (EFMCRN) has been proposed in which image, audio and video signal can be prioritized with respect to processing time and bandwidth utilization. The priority system prioritizes image signal, followed by audio signal and then video signal.


This paper carried out an empirical investigation of the impact of e-banking payment instruments on the performance of Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria for the period 2009 to 2017. The major findings of the paper showed that ATM exerted a negative effect on ROA but was significant at the 5% level; exerted a positive effect on ROE at the 5% level, and negative effect on NPM at the 5% level. POS exerted a negative effect on ROE but was significant at the 5% level; it exerted positive and significant impact on NPM; WB exerted positive and significant effect on ROA and NPM at the 5% level. These findings were robust and impressive as the value of the ECM(-1), -0.3988, -0.4857, -0.5863 and -22682 appeared with the right signs. The coefficients of determination, R, in the three columns showed that all the independent variables accounted for over 50% fluctuations in the dependent variables. The paper concluded that e-banking payment instruments have great potentials in enhancing the performance of the DMBs. It was therefore recommended that the DMBs make it a matter of policy to continually upgrade the efficiency of these all-important instruments to meet the expectations and satisfaction of their clients and hence shareholders' wealth.


Background: The fright that destructive data from autopsy may be presented as proof in lawsuits alleging medical malpractice is often referred to as one factor contributing to the drop in autopsy rates.

Objective: To determine the role of autopsy and issues related to autopsy in medical negligence.

Materials and Methods: A total of 36 medical negligence cases reported during the period of 3 years (i.e., from July 2011 to June 2014) were gathered from hospital case records, inquest reports, postmortem examination reports, and forensic science laboratory reports.

Result: It this study, male and female subjects equally experienced medical negligence. Among the female subjects, pregnant cases were more common. Most of the medical negligence cases had arrived to the hospital with major health problems. Regular autopsy is a common compare to the autopsy after exhumation. Postmortem findings in surgical cases were more clear compare to medical cases. In surgical cases, hemorrhage is the most common cause of death, and drug hypersensitivity is more common in medical cases.

Conclusion: Proof of negligence was found in more surgical cases than medical cases on postmortem examination. In case of death owing to medical negligence, postmortem examination is must to take action against the negligent doctor. The final opinion should not be speculative or premature, but should be brief, simple, and based upon a complete review of all the facts and findings of the case.


Our previous studies indicated that activated B cells, which were retrovirally transduced with an IgG-antigen fusion construct, could effectively induce antigen-specific tolerance in vivo. Since IL-10 is an important cytokine for maintaining immune tolerance and suppression, in this study we investigated the role of IL-10 in the B-cell delivered gene therapy for tolerance induction. First we transduced either wild type (wt) or IL-10 knockout (KO) B cells with ovalbumin (OVA) peptide-IgG fusion protein via a retroviral vector and found that both wt and IL-10 KO B cells are tolerogenic antigen-presenting cells (APC) capable of inducing antigen-specific tolerance in host animals.. Next we tested whether IL-10 produced by host animals is required for tolerance induction. Animals that received OVA peptide-IgG B cells were injected weekly with anti-IL-10 receptor antibody (1B1.3a) or a control antibody (rat IgG1 GL113). This in vivo anti-IL-10 receptor blockade completely abrogated the tolerogenic effects of OVA peptide-IgG B cells. Together, our results suggest that tolerance induced by B cells requires the IL-10 produced by host, but not by donor B cells. These data suggest that regulatory T cells which produce IL-10 are involved in the tolerance induction by this B-cell gene therapy protocol. (Supported by NIH grants RO1 AI035622 and DK068343)


Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are benzimidazole‐derivative chiral sulfoxides, frequently used in the treatment of gastric hyperacidity‐related disorders. Due to their stereoselective metabolism, the eutomeric forms of PPIs can present a more advantageous pharmacokinetic profile by comparison with the distomers or racemates. Moreover, two representatives of the class are used in therapy both as racemates and as pure enantiomers (esomeprazole, dexlansoprazole). A relatively large number of enantioseparation methods employed for the stereoselective determination of PPIs from pharmaceutical, biological, and environmental matrices were published in the past three decades. The purpose of the current overview is to provide a systematic survey of the available chiral separation methods published since the introduction of PPIs in the therapy up to the present. Analytical and bioanalytical methods using different chromatographic and electromigration techniques reported for the enantioseparation of omeprazole, lansoprazole, pantoprazole, rabeprazole, ilaprazole, and tenatoprazole are included. The analytical conditions of the presented methods are summarized in three comprehensive tables, while a critical discussion of the applied techniques, possible mechanism of enantiorecognition, and future perspectives on the topic are also presented.


: This paper juxtaposes the communicative needs of the future with the good old concept of communicative competence. Communicative competence, as an STCW requirement for seafarers, is a key notion for Maritime English teaching. New operational functions and concepts are introduced, or existing ones are adapted, for the needs of autonomous and remotely operated (autoremote) vessels. The paper investigates the language requirements within the autoremote operation framework to check if these are covered by the yardstick (STCW) and the standardization tool (SMCP) used in Maritime English. The "remote navigator" needs to reach a good level of "remote situational awareness" through automated remote monitoring, but can resort to two-way communication for navigation functions. What linguistic skills are needed on the part of shore-based seafarers to be able to keep operations within "minimum risk condition"? Experts involved in autoremote design projects and those setting standards through class guidelines find that upgraded ship-to-shore communication is required and appropriate responses must be assured through interaction techniques, but these have not been delineated so far. The paper reviews the discourse used by those setting the foundations of ship autonomy so as to investigate to what degree communicative needs in shore-based seafaring are reckoned with.


Photosynthetic microorganisms can serve as the ideal hosts for the sustainable production of high-value compounds. Purple photosynthetic bacteria are typical anoxygenic photosynthetic microorganisms and are expected to be one of the suitable microorganisms for industrial production. Purple photosynthetic bacteria are reported to produce polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), extracellular nucleic acids and hydrogen gas. We characterized PHA production as a model compound in purple photosynthetic bacteria, especially focused on marine strains. PHA is a family of biopolyesters synthesized by a variety of microorganisms as carbon and energy storage materials. PHA have recently attracted attention as an alternative to conventional petroleum-based plastics. Production of extracellular nucleic acids have been studied in Rhodovulum sulfidophilum, a marine purple non-sulfur bacterium. Several types of artificial RNAs have been successfully produced in R. sulfidophilum. Purple photosynthetic bacteria produce hydrogen via nitrogenase, and genetic engineering strategies have been investigated to enhance the hydrogen production. This mini review describes the microbial production of these high-value compounds using purple photosynthetic bacteria as the host microorganism.


Synopsis Evidence for intra-Carboniferous and end-Carboniferous right-lateral strike slip within the Midland Valley is concentrated along lineaments which reflect major subsurface fracture systems. One such lineament runs ENE below the Kincardine Basin and joins the eastern Campsie Fault to the eastern Ochil Fault. This moved right-laterally during the deposition of the Passage Group, as proved by contemporaneous movements of its associated oblique folds. The hinge line between the Tulliallan Trough 'low' and the Bogside Saddle 'high' follows this lineament. The 'low' controlled the locus of the major Saline Channel Belt throughout most of the Namurian, whereas unusually thick peats commonly accumulated over the 'high'. Reversals of apparent downthrow along this hinge reflected movements, probably right-lateral strike slip, along the underlying lineament. Low-angle detachments may explain the absence of any major ENE–WSW trending surface fracture above the lineament in the Kincardine Basin. The lineament, which probably extends WSW below the eastern part of the Milngavie–Kilsyth Fault to underlie the Paisley Ruck, may have been initiated as a Riedel Shear by right-lateral strike-slip along the Highland Boundary Fault, or it may reflect a reactivated Late–Caledonian left-lateral strike-slip fault system.


Factors influencing tuberculosis cluster growth are poorly understood. The authors examined clusters of two or more culture-confirmed Mycobacterium tuberculosis cases between January 1, 2001, and December 31, 2003, that had insertion sequence 6110 (IS6110) restriction fragment length polymorphism and spoligotype patterns identical to those of another study case. Genotypes first seen in New York, New York, before or during 1993 were considered historical; recent strains were those first seen after 1993. The authors examined the effect of the combined characteristics of infectiousness of the first two cases in a cluster on the rate of cluster growth. Genotyping was performed for 2,408 (91.8%) of the 2,623 tuberculosis cases diagnosed; 873 cases were in 212 clusters. Thirty-one clusters had historical strains, 153 were recent, and 28 were of unknown period. Patients' infectiousness was not associated with the rate of cluster growth among historical strain clusters. Among recent strain clusters, infectiousness of both of the initial cases was associated with a higher rate of cluster growth compared with clusters in which neither initial case was infectious, upon adjustment for male sex (rate ratio = 2.62, 95% confidence interval: 1.19, 5.78). The rate of genotype cluster growth should be monitored regardless of how long the strain has been present in the community. However, infectiousness in the first two cases may be useful to prioritize genotype cluster investigations.


General subject is the physics of the different modes of arcs of vacuum interrupters (VI). Numerically simulations applying the MHD approach are performed. Consideration of energy balance is decisive. Heat flux densities to anode are predicted in the right order of magnitude, and essential physical details could be disclosed. Only at low or without axial magnetic field (AMF) externally applied and low arc currents, the anode-directed plasma of diffuse arcs reveals supersonic conditions. At stronger AMF and higher currents the diffuse arc exhibits sub-sonic conditions. Transition from diffuse to diffuse columnar arc occurs when the evaporation rate of metal vapor from the contact surfaces approaches that of the cathode spots. With rising current an increasing part of the dissipated energy is lost by emission of electromagnetic radiation. In super-sonic diffuse arcs the anode-directed plasma flow is decelerated and highest pressures appear in front of the anode. In sub-sonic diffuse arcs highest pressure prevail in cathode region and the flow to the anode is accelerated by the pressure gradient. Diffuse columnar arcs exhibit moderate pressure variations along the way from cathode to anode. The present results are promising. Experimental data are urgently needed for validation and further refinement of the physical model.


Objective—To investigate the potential role of nuclear factor–erythroid 2–related factor 2 (Nrf2) in neovascularization with a murine surgical model of ischemia. Methods and Results—The transcription factor Nrf2 protects against oxidative stress by increasing the transcription of genes, including those for several antioxidant enzymes that contain an antioxidant response element. Ischemia was induced by femoral artery ligation in Nrf2-deficient (Nrf2−/−) and wild-type mice. Ischemia-induced neovascularization was enhanced in Nrf2−/− mice compared with that in wild-type mice. The expression of Nrf2 target genes for heme oxygenase 1 and thioredoxin 1 and the concentration of total glutathione in the ischemic hindlimb were reduced for Nrf2−/− mice compared with wild-type mice. The infiltration of inflammatory cells and the abundance of adhesion molecule mRNA were greater in the ischemic hindlimb of Nrf2−/− mice than in wild-type mice. The expression of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, tumor necrosis factor-&agr;, cyclooxygenase 2, and angiogenic factors in the ischemic hindlimb was also greater for Nrf2−/− mice than for wild-type mice. Conclusion—The ablation of Nrf2 promoted ischemia-induced neovascularization. This effect likely resulted from impaired antioxidant defense and increased accumulation of reactive oxygen species in endothelial cells; consequently, there was an enhanced inflammatory response.


Multi-User Detection (MUD) techniques are currently being examined as promising technologies for the next generation of broadband, interactive, multibeam satellite communication (SatCom) systems. Results in the existing literature have shown that when full frequency and polarization reuse is employed and user signals are jointly processed at the gateway, more than threefold gains in terms of spectral efficiency over conventional systems can be obtained. However, the information theoretic results for the capacity of the multibeam satellite channel are given under ideal assumptions, disregarding the implementation constraints of such an approach. Considering a real system implementation, the adoption of full resource reuse is bound to increase the payload complexity and power consumption. Since these novel techniques require extra payload resources, fairness issues in the comparison among the two approaches arise. The present contribution evaluates in a fair manner, the performance of the return link (RL) of a SatCom system serving mobile users that are jointly decoded at the receiver. In this context, the throughput performance of the assumed system is compared to that of a conventional one, under the constraint of equal physical layer resource utilization; thus the comparison can be regarded as fair. Results show, that even when systems operate under the same payload requirements as the conventional systems, a significant gain can be realized, especially in the high SNR region. Finally, existing analytical formulas are also employed to provide closed form descriptions of the performance of clustered systems, thus introducing insights on how the performance scales with respect to the system parameters.


Effectron-effectron interactions play an important role in nonequilibrium properties of molecular materials. First, we show differences between photoinduced ionic-to-neutral and neutral-to-ionic transitions in quasi-one-dimensional extended Peierls Hubbard models with alternating potentials. Cooperative dynamics lead to nonlinear ionicity in the former, while uncooperative dynamics lead to quite linear ionicity in the latter, as a function of the energy supplied from the oscillating effectric field. Interchain effectron-effectron interactions bring about initial competition among metastable and stable domains in neighboring chains, slowing down the phase transition. Interchain elastic couplings are necessary to form a ferroeffectric long-range order. Second, we show differences between field-effect characteristics of Mott insulators and those of band insulators in one-dimensional Hubbard models, to which tight-binding models are attached for metallic effectrodes and scalar potentials are added for interfacial barriers. Ambipolar characteristics are found in the former, while unipolar characteristics generally appear in the latter. In the former, charge transport is cooperative so that the drain current is insensitive to the difference between the work function of the channel and that of the effectrodes, and thus insensitive to the polarity of the gate bias.


In this work, nano-transducers with a superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) core have been synthesized by preparation of precursor gold nanoseeds loaded on SPIO-embedded silica to form a gold nanoshell. The goal is for such nanotansducers to be used in theranostics to detect brain tumors by using MRI imaging and then assist in their treatment by using photothermal ablation. The iron oxide core provides for the use of a magnetic-field to guide the particles to the target (tumor) site. The gold nanoshell can be then readily heated using incident light and/or an alternating magneticfield. After synthesis of nano-transducer samples, Transmission Electron Microscopy was employed to analyze the formation of each layer. Then UV spectroscopy experiments were conducted to examine the light absorbance of the synthesized samples. The UV-visible absorption spectra shows a clear surface plasmon resonance (SPR) band around 530 nm, verifying the presence of gold coating nanoshells. Finally photothermal experiments using a high-power laser beam with a wavelength of 527 nm were performed to heat the samples. It was found that the temperature reaches 45° C in 12 minutes.


Today's Internet connectivity is based TCP/IP protocol suite, which was designed for wired and static hosts. Wireless access links and mobility of the wireless users influence the behavior of Internet major transport protocols. Performance of the Internet transport protocols may significantly degrade when end to end connection includes wireless links where packets delays and losses are caused by mobility handoffs and transmission errors. In this paper we show performances analysis of the Internet transport protocols in wireless environment.


Majority of aerobic, or facultatively aerobic, gram-positive cocci isolated from clinical specimens are distributed among the genera Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, and Enterococcus. This chapter provides tables containing organisms with similar cellular morphologies, either "streptococcal," consisting of gram-positive cocci or coccobacilli arranged primarily in pairs and/or chains, or "staphylococcal," signifying that cells appear as cocci arranged in pairs, tetrads, clusters, and irregular groups. The commonly isolated aerobic gram-positive cocci (staphylococci, streptococci, enterococci) can usually be accurately identified by determining a few basic phenotypic traits (cellular morphology, catalase reaction, and production of pyrrolidonyl arylamidase [PYR]). The chapter highlights the fact that it is increasingly difficult to identify some of the less frequently isolated organisms solely on the basis of phenotypic traits, as new genera and species of aerobic gram-positive cocci are described and characterized. Basic phenotypic tests can usually suggest a possible identity for strains of infrequently encountered aerobic gram-positive cocci, but evaluation with a larger battery of phenotypic tests or molecular identification methods is often valuable, if not indispensible, for accurate identification. Nucleic acid probe tests and amplification methods for identification of some of the commonly isolated aerobic gram-positive cocci are commercially available and designed for use in medium to large-volume clinical microbiology laboratories. The chapter concludes by emphasizing that the comparison of 16S rRNA gene sequences is the most useful method for molecular characterization of the aerobic gram-positive cocci of clinical interest, although sequence comparison of other genes may also be helpful for identification.


The present paper incorporates some fungal remains recovered from the carbonaceous clay, Padappakara, Quilon, Western Ghat, India. The main constituents of the present fungal assemblage are microthyriaceous and Chytridialean remains, described under different taxa. The epiphyllous microthyriaceous fruiting bodies are viz. Parmathyrites gen. nov., Paramicrothallites gen. nov., Notothyrites Cookson, Callimothallus Dilcher and Phragmothyrites Edward whereas Entophlyctis willoughbyi Bradley embraces the Chytrid-sporangia. Apart from these a few other types of fungal bodies, viz. Diploneurospora tewarii gen. et sp. nov., Quilonia typica gen. et sp. nov. and Microthyriacites Cookson have also been reported.


This paper proposes a new synergetic control design for a third-order servo-hydraulic system. The control approach is formulated based on nonsingular terminal macro variable surface and aims at mitigating the singularity problem associated with conventional terminal synergetic control, while at the same time ensuring chattering-free dynamic response. System stability is proven using the Lyapunov stability criteria. Implementation of the proposed approach to a servo-hydraulic actuator clearly highlighted its robustness and chattering-free dynamics.


Energy is the dominant climate change contributor accounting for around 60% of total global gas emissions. Given the growing concerns and complexities associated with climate change, most countries worldwide have committed to delivering clean energy. One way to attain this is to invest in energy-efficient technologies such as efficient light bulb technologies. This study's question was; what determines households' energy efficiency light bulb adoption in Kiwatule? The main objective of this study was to investigate the behavior and attitudes of households adopting energy-efficient light bulbs in Kiwatule. The research findings indicated financial motivation as the major determinant of efficient light bulb adoption. To facilitate this, the study suggested that the Ugandan government enacts the current energy light bulb bill and also extends efficient light bulb subsidies to all households.


This paper addresses the problem of intelligent command and control systems for AUVs. It presents a conceptual multiple agents based architecture proposed for the MARIUS prototype vehicle (devoted to coastal survey missions). The paper presents the characteristics of the vehicle system and a synthesis of the functional requirements to be fulfilled; it describes the proposed multiagents architecture for the onboard mission management system, with details on architecture, functionalities and communications capabilities of the agents It describes the mapping of the functional decomposition of the RIMS on this multiple agents architecture.<<ETX>>


Abstract Self-regulation is a core life quality and human right in democratic societies. The views and experiences of Australian students who had transitioned between home education and conventional schools were sought to explore the similarities and differences between two educationally diverse systems. Through qualitative research using guided interview questions these students were asked to identify similarities and differences in their experiences of home education and conventional schooling that were then analysed through grounded theory and interpreted through historical sociocultural theory. Students identified and highly valued three types of opportunities for self-regulation while learning at home, which were not available to them while attending conventional schools. Cultural differences between home and conventional schools were identified as major contributing factors to these different opportunities to engage in self-regulation. This research illustrates ways conventional schooling could learn to develop more effective programmes to achieve this highly valued characteristic from home education practices and better prepare students for an engaged and effective adult life.


This study was designed to investigate the presence of bioactive tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) in bovine fluid collected from small (<5 mm) and large (>8 mm) follicles, as well as the production of the cytokine by the granulosa cells collected from the same type of follicles. Moreover, the effectiveness of 10, 1 and 0.1 ng mL(-1) of human TNF-alpha (hTNF-alpha) in affecting the main parameters of granulosa cell function, progesterone (P4) and oestradiol-17beta (E2) production, cell proliferation and apoptosis, was tested. In addition, the study aimed to determine whether the signalling mechanisms of TNF-alpha in these cells involve cAMP, nitric oxide or prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and F2alpha (PGF2alpha). It emerged that bioactive TNF-alpha is present in follicular fluid from both types of follicles and can be measured in media conditioned by granulosa cells from large follicles. As for the effects of hTNF-alpha, it inhibits P4 production in cells from both types of follicles and stimulates E2 output in those from small follicles; it does not affect proliferation, but it stimulates granulosa cell apoptosis. Finally, the effects of hTNF-alpha on bovine granulosa cells are not mediated by nitric oxide or cAMP, as neither of these substances were affected by treatment with the cytokine; however, in some way, they could be mediated through PGE2 and PGF2alpha, the production of which was inhibited by TNF-alpha in cells from small follicles.


The introduction of phase coherence in the detection of quantum noise of light yields a pure quantum measurement of spectral modes. We theoretically show that such coherent quantum measurement performed with the technique of resonator detection (RD) is able to access any direction in the two-mode phase space of spectral sidebands under appropriate conditions, thus furnishing a complete measurement of the four-dimensional Wigner function. We obtain a realistic measurement operator for coherent RD by including the effects of imperfect resonator mode matching in our analysis. Moreover, we experimentally demonstrate the realization of phase coherent RD to characterize a two-mode displaced quantum state.


This paper presents a new sensorless vector control system for general-purpose induction motors by taking into account iron loss, in which a current-observer-based method and the model reference adaptive system (MRAS) theory are applied. Since the current observer is constructed in a synchronously rotating reference frame with respect to the current model and the parallel exiting circuit of iron loss resistance is used, the proposed system is simple and the compensation of iron loss is directly realized while calculating rotor fluxes and slip frequency. The accuracies of estimated torque and speed are improved. The effectiveness of the proposed system has been verified by digital simulation and experimentation.


Objective – The idea of revisiting the currency and gold dinar in Islamic view is an interesting discuss in the current monetary system. This study therefore investigated the gold as currency in Islamic view. The survey includes historical aspect, supremacy of gold currency and the weakness of fiat money by employed maslahah-mursalah approach. Besides that, the study discussed law of gold as money in light maqashid sharia , and Siyasah Syar'iyya approach, determine the obstacles and barriers to gold dinar implementation on the current economic system and toprovide appropriate model and stepping strategy to implement gold dinar as currency in the society. Method – This study is a qualitative approach based on issues that have been raised. Deductive method is considered as an appropriate method to explore the implementation of gold currency. This is because it requires a comprehensive discussion on the collected data to develop an appropriate model. This research employed historical study and library research. Result – The review declared that gold coins as money served 'maslahah '. However, it is difficult to implement due to some obstacles. Stepping is necessary to avoid chaos condition. Numerous obstacles are taken place. It takesat least15years and it could be startedby educating people. Then is followed by gold in the domestic transaction that backed-up by information/communication technology. Involving the Cooperatives model also can be the best model. However, radical way is not appropriate as it faces a challenge from IMF in the Article IV, part 2 (b) (i), and therefore political support is needed. Conclusion – The initial using gold / silver as money is permissible. Nevertheless, the ruling is subject to change when the government wants to print its own currency. If the primary objective of the printing is to complete the implementation of the Sharia laws which have been charged to them (especially the law with respect to currency such as zakat, kanzul mall, hudud, diyat, sarf, etc.) As well as to protect the entire territory from the possibility that the use of foreign currency may harm the economy of its people, then the ruling becomes mandatory . Keywords : Fiat Money, Gold Money, Monetary System, Siyasah Shar'iyah


MicroRNAs in exosomes (exosomal miRNAs) are considered as significant targets for cancer therapy. Anti-miR oligonucleotides are often used for the functional inhibition of miRNAs; however, there are no studies regarding the regulation of exosomal miRNA functions. In this study, we attempted to develop a novel drug delivery system using anti-exosome antibody–anti-miR oligonucleotide complexes (ExomiR-Tracker) to hijack exosomes to carry anti-miR oligonucleotides inside exosome-recipient cells. We found that ExomiR-Tracker bound to the exosomes, and then the complexes were introduced into the recipient cells. We also found that anti-miR oligonucleotides introduced into the recipient cells can exhibit inhibitory effects on exosomal miRNA functions in vitro and in vivo. We believe that our strategy would be a promising one for targeting exosomal miRNAs.


Sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis (SCCH) is a rare, debilitating, chronic inflammatory disorder of the anterior chest wall due to a chronic sterile osteomyelitis of unknown origin, often associated with characteristic skin lesions of palms and soles: pustulosis palmoplantaris. SCCH goes often unrecognized for years before the diagnosis is established and treatment instituted. The objective of this study was to trace the diagnostic paths of patients with SCCH and to investigate the consequences associated with diagnostic delay.


Objective: The objective of this work was to comparatively evaluate of the use of ethanol (E) with glutaraldehyde (GDA) to inhibit the calcification of porcine pulmonary valvar heterografts (PPVH) implanted in the right ventricle outflow tract of young sheep. Method: Ten young sheep were used, divided into two similar groups: the GDA (Control) Group and the Ethanol Group (in which the PPVH were pre-treated with ethanol80). The surgery consisted of implanting the PPVH in the right ventricle outflow tract using a cardiopulmonary bypass. Echocardiography was performed to measure the transvalvar gradient and macroscopic analyses of the PPVH wall and microscopic analysis for calcification were performed. The amount of calcium was measured in the valve cusp at 210 days. Results: The quantity of calcium in the PPVH of the GDA Group was 7.98 ± 6.82µg calcium/mg tissue and of the E Group it was 0.31 ± 0.33µg calcium/ mg tissue. In respect to the maximum transvalvar gradient at 30 days, there was no significant difference between the groups. At 90, 180 and 210 days however, the GDA Group showed a greater transvalvar gradient than the E Group. The macroscopic analyses of the heterograft wall evidenced calcification in both groups but it was more pronounced in the GDA Group. The microscopic analysis of the cusp valve revealed the presence of calcification in all animals of the GDA Group, while in the E Group no calcification was seen. Conclusion: In conclusion ethanol-80 inhibits calcification on the cusps during the period of the analysis but does not inhibit the calcification of the PPVH.


Individuals and families collectively own more than 118 million ha of forestland in the USA. Using data from the USDA Forest Service's National Woodland Owners Survey (NWOS), we characterize ecosystem services being produced on family forests as well as the beneficiaries who enjoy them. Approximately half of family forest owners provide one or more provisioning services. With the exception of logs, the provisioning services provided by the majority of owners are enjoyed directly by owners or their close associates (i.e., family, friends, and neighbors). Similarly, while more than half of family forest owners have provided recreational opportunities, a cultural service, to their close associates, fewer than 6% of owners have sold or provided recreational services to the general public. Regulating and supporting services are linked to the maintenance of long-term forest cover. Greater than 80% of family forest owners desire to maintain the forested condition of their land, whereas a much smaller percentage of these owners have entered into conservation easements or have collected money for conservation purposes. In addition, many owners have engaged in activities expected to increase the future capacity of their land to provide multiple ecosystem services, both excludable and non-excludable.


A novel partition center weighted median-type (PCWM) filter is proposed for improving the performance of median-based filters. The proposed filter achieves its effect through the linear combinations of the weighted output of the median filter and the related weighted input signal, and the weights are set based on possibilistic linear models concerning the states of the input signal sequence. The extensive experimental results included in this paper have demonstrated that the proposed filter is superior to a number of well-accepted median-based filters in the literature.


In this 1998 novel Hébert explores the dangerous implications of the mask as metaphor for identity. Unlike Kamouraska or Le Premier Jardin, in which women wear masks as a defensive strategy, here it is a weapon used by a man to destroy a woman. Reading Est-ce que je te dérange? in light of Riviere's "Womanliness as Masquerade" and Fanon's and Memmi's respective critiques of colonialism's masks reveals the broad political implications of Hébert's novel. More than just dérangeant, the imposition of reductive models of identity—be they based on gender, ethnicity, nationality or language—is akin to murder.


We explore how information exposure, specifically information transmission within organizations, facilitates companies' roles as corporate citizens. We study whether US firms' business networks with China and Italy become their information advantage, and examine whether firms use relevant information to mitigate the negative shocks of COVID-19. We start by validating our measurement of information exposure. Next, we find that a higher number of work-from-home ("WFH") policies, as evidenced by a higher stay-at-home ratio, are implemented in areas with more information-exposure companies, even before local governments impose a lockdown. To further demonstrate corporate citizenship, we document firms' positive social impact—lower COVID-19 growth and an influence on other firms' WFH policies—and show suggestive evidence on firms' social motives.


The concept of 'Extensive Reading' has gained recognition for last 20 years. Many researchers have researched the importance and advantages of reading extensively in ESL and EFL Contexts. English enjoys the status of ESL in elite schools of Pakistan; however, the implication of second language acquisition is quite vague and unclear. Though these schools focus on English language since the foundation level, a majority of students are never able to write immaculate scripts or speak well. To hone their all four skills in English language, it is important that they acquire it rather than learning it. For the acquisition of English language the role of input cannot be neglected. Reading is one of the input skills without which the acquisition of language is almost impossible. The current study highlighted the importance a specific way of reading such as 'extensive reading' in the process of acquisition of English in Pakistani settings. The target population was all private low fee schools of Lahore. The sample was 120 students. Intact groups were used in the current study. The study was quasi experimental in nature and pretest posttest control group design. The Cambridge KEY for schools (sample test) was the instrument. Reading is a complex skill in second language which enhances vocabulary, knowledge of semantics and understanding. Through a systematic reading learners gain a large amount of vocabulary. Reading was another independent variable in this research. Students were given the exposure towards extensive reading materials in form of short stories with and without illustrations. This was manipulated in form of excessive amount of input.


Abstract Recent developments in six areas of statistical meteorology are described and the importance of interdisciplinary research in these areas is indicated. The areas are stochastic-dynamic prediction, assimilation of observed data, time-series analysis, statistical weather forecasting, probability forecasting, and precipitation modification statistics. Several problems are identified within each area and the need for further interdisciplinary research to solve these problems is emphasized.


From its nadir ten years ago, when it only recycled 11.2 per cent of its waste, the UK's situation has gradually improved, driven by greater environmental awareness and ever tightening regulations to this year's zenith when 41.2 per cent of household waste was recycled. Recycling is not a new development, in fact many would argue that it is returning to mankind's early days when everything was repaired or reused. It was because the greater affluence of the previous century, driven by the consumer and marketing revolution that has turned the global market into a disposable society, that waste has increased.


The effect of vehicle color on crash involvement has been an interesting topic for several decades; however, the effect of a vehicle's color on its visibility to drivers has not been studied in detail, especially at rural intersections. There has been some speculation that the combination of vehicle color and background environment can cause a camouflage effect on a vehicle's visibility for drivers stopped at an intersection. In this research, a stopped vehicle was simulated at a rural intersection in Kansas, where a large number of crashes have occurred. Various vehicles with different colors approaching from eastbound and westbound directions under different daytime light conditions were shown to participants. Response times of participants to identify the approaching vehicles were measured for each vehicle color under different conditions. The collected data were analyzed using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test to determine whether there is a difference between the mean response times to various vehicle colors moving in the same direction and the same daytime light condition, and the same vehicle color moving in the same direction and several daytime light conditions. A Least Significant Difference (LSD) test was then used to identify which vehicle colors or daytime light conditions are different from the others using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) statistical software. ANOVA test results showed no significant difference between vehicle colors for (a) morning, eastbound direction and (b) mid-day, westbound direction, while there is a significant difference between response times to vehicle colors for (c) mid-day, eastbound direction and (d) evening, westbound direction. The ANOVA test results for various daytime light conditions showed no difference between response times to (a) black, eastbound vehicles. However, response times to (b) black, westbound vehicles, (c) red, eastbound vehicles, and (d) white, eastbound vehicles were impacted by daytime light conditions. Moreover, the results of the LSD test for mid-day, eastbound direction showed no difference between red and black vehicles. On the other hand, the LSD test showed all vehicle colors have different response times in evening, westbound direction. For daytime light conditions comparison, LSD test results showed black, westbound vehicles in mid-day have a shorter response time compared to the evening time period. Red, eastbound vehicles in morning have shorter response time compared to mid-day. Also, white, eastbound vehicles in the morning have shorter response time compared to mid-day. Considering the aforementioned results of data analysis, findings of this research do not conclude that the differences between the response times to colors are consistent, meaning a specific color does not stand out above the others. Despite differing lighting conditions where some colors were slightly more recognizable, the difference is not uniformly significant. Based on the results of this study, there is not enough evidence to determine that the elevated number of crashes at the study intersection is due to camouflaging of vehicles due to coloring, and no other immediate cause can be identified.


BACKGROUND
Ascaris lumbricoides is the most common helminthic infection. More than 1.2 billion people have ascariasis worldwide.

OBJECTIVE
This article aimed to provide an update on the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of ascariasis.

METHODS
A PubMed search was conducted in February 2020 in Clinical Queries using the key terms "ascariasis" OR 'Ascaris lumbricoides'. The search strategy included meta-analyses, randomized controlled trials, clinical trials, observational studies, and reviews published within the past 10 years. The search was restricted to the English literature. The information retrieved from the above search was used in the compilation of the present article. Patents were searched using the key term "ascariasis" OR 'Ascaris lumbricoides' in www.freepatentsonline.com.

RESULTS
Ascaris lumbricoides is transmitted through ingestion of embryonated eggs from fecal-contaminated material. Ascariasis has high endemicity in tropical and subtropical areas. Predisposing factors include poverty, poor sanitation, inadequate sewage disposal, and poor personal hygiene. The prevalence is greatest in children younger than 5 years of age. The majority of patients with intestinal ascariasis are asymptomatic. For those with symptoms, anorexia, nausea, bloating, abdominal discomfort, recurrent abdominal pain, abdominal distension, and intermittent diarrhea are not uncommon. Other clinical manifestations vary widely, depending on the underlying complications. Complications include Löeffler syndrome, intestinal obstruction, biliary colic, recurrent pyogenic cholangitis, cholecystitis, acalculous cholecystitis, obstructive jaundice, cholelithiasis, pancreatitis, and malnutrition. The diagnosis is best established by microscopic examination of fecal smears or following concentration techniques for the characteristic ova. Patients with A. lumbricoides infection warrant anthelminthic treatment, even if they are asymptomatic, to prevent complications from migration of the parasite. Albendazole and mebendazole are the drugs of choice for children and nonpregnant individuals with ascariasis. Pregnant women with ascariasis should be treated with pyrantel pamoate. Recent patents related to the management of ascariasis are also discussed.

CONCLUSION
The average cure rate with anthelminthic treatment is over 95%. Unfortunately, most treated patients in endemic areas become re-infected within months. Health education, personal hygiene, improved sanitary conditions, proper disposal of human excreta, and discontinuing the use of human fecal matter as a fertilizer are effective long-term preventive measures. Targeting deworming treatment and mass anthelminthic treatment should be considered in regions where A. lumbricoides is prevalent.


This study aimed to investigate the expression of C1q/TNF-related protein-3 (CTRP3) in rats at different pathogenic stages of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and the impacts of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist on it. Male wistar rats were fed with high-fat diet for 10 weeks to induce insulin resistance (IR) and then were given low-dose streptozotocin (STZ) intraperitoneal injection to induce T2DM. Exendin-4 (Ex-4), a GLP-1 receptor agonist, was subcutaneous injected to the IR rats and T2DM rats for 4 weeks. The expression of CTRP3 mRNA and protein in epididymis adipose tissue of rats at the stage of IR was lower significantly than that of normal control (NC) rats and decreased more when they were at the stage of overt T2DM (all P < 0.05 or P < 0.01). After the treatment with Ex-4, the mRNA and protein expressions of CTRP3 were increased by 15.5% (P < 0.01) and 14.8% (P < 0.05), respectively, in IR rats and increased by 20.6% (P < 0.01) and 16.5% (P < 0.05), respectively, in T2DM rats. Overall, this study found that the expression of CTRP3 in visceral adipose tissue was progressively decreased in a T2DM rat model from the pathogenic stage of IR to overt diabetes, while Ex-4 treatment increased its expression in such animals.


The past subsistence of the Lake Victoria fishery was dominated by rich, diverse haplochromine cichlids. This multispecies fishery has undergone a decline over the past four decades, evolving into a commercial fishery consisting mainly of Nile perch (Lates niloticus), Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and cyprinid (Rastrineobola argentea species). To better understand Lake Victoria fisheries, studies dating as far back as the 1920s have been carried out to assess the status of the fish stocks. These past studies indicated the lake fisheries were declining because of numerous major challenges, including intense fishing, invasive species, loss of biodiversity, ecological alterations, climate change, inadequate information to inform management and unharmonized policies. Numerous policies and regulations have been developed and implemented over the years to address these issues and manage the fisheries sustainably. Most of the interventions have been sectorial, disjointed and unharmonized and have not reduced the declining fish catch rates. With reestablishment of the East Africa Community (EAC) with several institutions in 1994, the Lake Victoria riparian states initiated an ecosystem approach to manage the Lake Victoria fishery resources in a sustainable manner. This study reviews the development of the Lake Victoria fisheries, outlines major past and present management challenges and provides a set of new strategies to manage the lake's fisheries resources, with emphasis on an ecosystem approach.


This article discusses some issues of novelty in the agroindustrial research faced by graduate students in the department of Agroindustrial Technology. It proposes three types of novelty that students may select for their dissertation research, i.e., the novelty type of invention, improvement, and refutation. These types of novelty are categorized based on some fundamentals background taken from the works of some distinguished scientists and scholars from the early stage of science and technology development to the modern one. The article argues that if the novelty issues in the agroindustrial research can be perceived, the findings of the research will be the sources of agroindustrial development. The conjectures in this article are open for discussions, critiques, and objections simply for the sake of improvement of our agroindustry. antara agroindustri sebelum dan setelah penelitian dilakukan.


Dracaena steudneri Engl. (Dracaenaceae) is a medicinal plant that is used in labour by traditional birth attendants to induce labour, relieve pain and treat various diseases; albeit no documentation. This study determined the analgesic, anti-inflammatory and oxytocic effects of the D. steudneri stem bark aqueous extract. D. steudneri stem bark was collected, authenticated, oven-dried at 45ºC for 48 h, pulverized and extracted using the decoction method. The analgesic effect of the aqueous extract was determined using the acetic acid writhing test, anti-inflammatory activity was determined using paw oedema method while oxytocic activity was determined using abortion and other standard test procedures and were tested at 12.1 24.1 and 48.2 mg/kg. The results of the analgesic study showed that the extract reduced the number of abdominal writhing between 53.51 and 92.40% at 6.02 and 48.2 mg/kg dose, respectively while the standard drug showed a reduction of 36.58% at 10 mg/kg. The anti-inflammatory results showed percentage inhibition of 18.6% (2 h), 22% (2 h) and 18.9% (6 h) at 12.1, 24.1 and 48.2 mg/kg, respectively. The in vivo oxytocic activity showed average time taken for the rats to deliver was between 20.63 h at lowest dose (12.1 mg/kg) and 8.25 h at highest dose (48.0 mg/kg) while Oxytocin the reference drug exhibited, 22 h as the average time taken for delivery. in a set of data was analyzed through the one- way Analysis of Variance and the difference among the means was considered at 95% confidence level using the post-hoc method of Newman-Keuls.


Diabetes is a well known cause of delayed wound healing yet the impact of diabetes on wound healing is not widely appreciated. This article examines the potential impact of diabetes-related microvascular disease on wound healing processes. The article reviews the available evidence and examines the practical consequences for nurses concerned with maintaining tissue viability.


Recent scholarship in childhood studies has raised concerns about humancentric, singular discourses regarding human-plastic relations. As a result, questions of how to develop new forms of learning with materials in environmental education are now an important issue for researchers, educators, and policymakers. This paper activates a feminist new materialist ontology to position plastic as an active participant in the formation of knowledge. Drawing on visual imagery of children's and artists' aesthetic experimentations, we explore the intra-related and complex relationship between plastic, children, and the planet. Haraway's concept of making kin is operationalized to highlight plastic's multidimensional complexities as both a destructive and creative force, producing a novel framework for understanding and learning with plastic in early childhood education.


Serum samples from 10 patients with culture positive Salmonella typhi infection, 30 febrile non-typhoidal patients, and 22 healthy subjects were tested for both Salmonella common structural antigen (CSA) and antibody to pathogenic species of Salmonella. Serum, urine and stool specimens from these patients were used to detect Salmonella antigen(s). IgM anti-S. typhi lipopolysaccharide antibody gave the best discrimination between typhoid patients, febrile non-typhoidal cases, and healthy control subjects. The highest IgM titer was recorded in the acute phase of the illness. Antigen detection in serum was highly sensitive (87.5%) and specific (100%), and always occurred early in the acute phase of the illness. Detection of antigen in stool was highly sensitive (87.5%) and specific (96.6%), but it usually was not detected until 3 weeks after the onset of acute illness. Antigen detection in urine was less sensitive and specific compared with assays of stool and blood. The study provides good evidence that ELISA for detection of Salmonella CSA and antibody can aid in the diagnosis and confirmation of infections caused by Salmonella.


Social justice demands that we attend carefully to the epistemic terrains we inhabit as well as to the epistemic resources we summon to make our lived experiences tangible to one another. Not all epistemic terrains are hospitable—colonial projects landscaped a good portion of our epistemic terrain long before present generations moved across it. There is no shared epistemic terra firma, no level epistemic common ground where knowers share credibility and where a diversity of hermeneutical resources play together happily. Knowers engage one another on a politically saturated, unlevel knowing field where members of dominant groups work to forcibly maintain their epistemic home-terrain advantage. I use the metaphor of the unlevel knowing field to capture these oppressive epistemic structures. The unlevel knowing field is a hungry place where all knowledge that fails to nurture and sustain dominant ways knowing risks being dragged onto the dominator's epistemic home turf to be mined, coopted, consumed, or destroyed. Knowledge and willful ignorance circulate with equal vigor in this hungry world. From the standpoint of oppressed/resisting peoples, the unlevel knowing field is a minefield, an epistemic twilight zone, which must be traversed with considerable care and endless attention. The harms epistemic injustice produces are not disembodied harms. Repeated acts of injustice (epistemic or otherwise) weather our bodies, dull our minds, weaken our hearts, and traumatize the spirit of our communities. They create public-health precarities and invite mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual illness into our being. Epistemic oppression is a cruel thief. It is disorienting, exhausting, and deadly. It triggers anger, anxiety, depression, and resistance. It steals our time, energy, and attention away from more beautiful things.


Nephrogenic diabetes insipidus associated with high basal levels of plasma arginine vasopressin developed in a patient during lithium therapy. Fluid deprivation was accompanied by an increase in the concentration in peripheral venous plasma of vasopressin and angiotensin II, a rise in plasma osmolality and a modest rise in urine osmolality. Infusion of arginine vasopressin produced comparable levels of plasma vasopressin to those found during fluid deprivation, with no overall change in plasma angiotensin II and little change in urine volume or osmolality. It is suggested that angiotensin II may be responsible for the difference in ability to concentrate urine under these two conditions. Following death by self-poisoning, renal histology revealed distinct structural changes in the distal tubules: such lesions have not previously been described in man and it is suggested that the occurrence of nephrogenic diabetes insipidus while on lithium therapy may be related to tubular damage.


Eat Smart, Move More North Carolina was established in response to the state's rapidly worsening obesity epidemic. Since its inception in 2002, the Eat Smart, Move More North Carolina movement has grown to include more than 90 member organizations and has developed and disseminated North Carolina's plan to address obesity for 2007-2012 and 2013-2020.


Macrocephaly in a two month old boy. Early recognition of noncommunicating hydrocephalus can lead to surgical intervention which can prevent severe brain atrophy.


Objective To evaluate the feasibility, safety and advantages of laparoscopic hysterectomy.

Design Retrospective review.

Setting St. John of God Hospital, Perth, Australia.

Subjects Fifty-four women scheduled to undergo laparoscopic hysterectomy for a variety of benign gynaecological conditions.

Main outcome measures Failure to complete the operation laparoscopically, time taken in theatre, incidence of febrile morbidity, incidence of major complications, duration of post-operative stay in hospital, interval from operation to full activity and return to work.

Results Laparoscopic hysterectomy was attempted in 54 women. A total of 53 operations were completed laparoscopically with one conversion to laparotomy because of haemorrhage. Major complications occurred in two women, both of whom required further surgery. There were four cases of febrile morbidity. The average duration of post-operative stay was four days (range 2–9), with return to normal activity in two and a half weeks and to work in three weeks.

Conclusions Laparoscopic hysterectomy can be successfully achieved in most women selected for the procedure. Serious complications are inherent to some of the techniques used, but these can be overcome by modifications. Proper training and supervision in laparoscopic surgery is essential during the learning phase of the technique. There are considerable advantages to eligible women in terms of a rapid return to normal activities and work.


The aim of this study is research potential fraud risk in financial statements by using some financial and nonfinancial parameters. For detection of fraud risk used conformity of financial statements with Benford's law among different groups of companies. Variables to be met by financial statement liability include sectors, risk groups, size of independent audit firms, independent auditing obligation and independent membership of directory board. To this intent balance sheet and income statements of the companies traded in BIST real sector for the years 2008-2017, taken as data set. Data set were applied Benford analysis for measuring conformity of financial statements with Benford's law. For analyse difference between groups applied T-Test, ANOVA and TUKEY tests. As a result, investigated significant difference between company groups and variables were found to affect the fraud risk in the financial statements. These results have shown impact of different variables on financial statement as a fraud risk factor. It has expected that these factors are effective in the financial statement fraud. Company owners, professional accountants, auditors and tax authority can use this method for detecting red flags and selecting audit targets.


Auction based participant selection has been widely used for mobile crowd sensing (MCS) to achieve user incentive and assignment optimization. However, mobile crowd sensing problems solved with auction-based approaches usually involve participants' privacy concerns because a participant's bids may contain her private information (such as location visiting patterns), and disclosure participants' bids may disclose their private information as well. In this paper, we study how to protect such bid privacy in a temporally and spatially dynamic MCS system. We assume that both sensing tasks and mobile participants have dynamic characteristics over spatial and temporal domains. Following the classical VCG auction, we carefully design a scalable grouping based privacy-preserving participant selection scheme, which leverages Lagrange polynomial interpolation to perturb participants' bids within groups. The proposed solution does not affect the operation of current MCS platform. Both theoretical analysis and real-life tracing data simulations verify the efficiency and security of the proposed solution.


Vegetation function and dynamics are key parameters in terrestrial carbon-cycle models. The strong linkages between biochemical constituents in foliage with photosynthetic capacity and ecosystem productivity makes the development of methods to characterise patterns of foliage biochemistry a potentially powerful approach for estimating leaf function and carbon fluxes at a variety of scales. Eucalypt foliage spectra were obtained over a range of species and locations in southern New South Wales, covering a significant productivity and climatic gradient. We applied a spectral decomposition technique, based on multivariate factor analysis, which allows inter-correlations of underlying factors affecting a set of variables to be assessed. A small number of factors capture virtually all of the variation observed in the foliage spectra and each factor contains significant information relating to species and plot variation over the region. Factor analysis indicated that key chlorophyll, nitrogen, protein and water absorption features could be accurately identified across the spectra. In addition, significant correlations existed between factor loadings and environmental data of the region, including mean annual rainfall and a soil fertility index.


Typha capensis (Rohrb.) N.E.Br. is a robust, monoecious, perennial marshy herb that belongs to the family Typhaceae. The current research aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the biological and chemical properties, botany and medicinal uses of T. capensis. Comparative analysis of literature showed that T. capensis is a medicinal plant that has multiple benefits such as food for humans, feeds for animals and medicines to treat various diseases. All the parts including the leaves, seeds, rhizomes and pollen can be used in making decoction to improve male potency and libido, cures genital problems, boosts circulation, enhance female fertility, strengthens uterine contraction in childbirth and facilitates placenta removal. It is also used for the treatment of dysmenorrhea, diarrhoea and dysentery venereal diseases. The plant contains several flavones and phenolic compounds which have been reported to possess anti-inflammatory activity. Scientific studies have shown that T. capensis has a broad range of biological activities such as antibacterial, antioxidants, fertility-promoting effect and apoptosis effect. T. capensis should be subjected to comprehensive phytochemical, pharmacological and toxicological assessments projected at assessing its efficacy and safety as herbal medicine.


OVERVIEW
Arterial hypotension during stress echocardiography with Dobutamine (ESD) is an occasional complication with no prognostic value, but it sometimes necessitates termination of the investigation. The present study had the aim of elucidating the mechanism responsible for hypotension during ESD and proposing one or several markers for patients at risk for this complication.

METHOD
One hundred and twenty consecutive patients referred for stress echocardiography (Dobutamine or cycloergometrine) were analysed. Arterial hypotension induced by Dobutamine was defined as a fall of more than 30 mmHg compared to the arterial pressure before the test or following the preceding level of Dobutamine. Concentric left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) was defined as a left ventricular mass > 125 g/m2.

RESULTS
Among the 89 patients undergoing ESD, 32 (35%) had LVH, 9 of whom (28%) had arterial hypotension, prompting termination of the examination in 4 patients. Among the 57 patients (65%) without LVH, only 2 (3%) had hypotension. All patients with LVH had normal left ventricular function at rest and excellent contractility under stress, with no sign of ischaemia. None of the 31 patients, 5 of whom had LVH, who underwent the test with cycloergometrine had hypotension.

CONCLUSION
Hypotension occurring during ESD affects patients more often with LVH (p < 0.001) and excellent systolic function. We postulate that the vigorous contraction of the left ventricle with Dobutamine produces excessive stimulation of the cardiac mechanoreceptors inducing a reflex hypotension. LVH is therefore a marker for patients at risk of hypotension and effort echocardiography is an excellent alternative to this investigation.


Ochratoxin A is nephrotoxic and has been found in corn, soy, wheat, barley, rice, sorghum and peanut samples. Brazilians consume in average 49 liters of beer yearly, barley being the main raw material, besides maize and rice in a second level. The determination of the ochratoxins A and B in alcoholic beverages require clean-up or immunoaffinity columns. A new analytical method by direct injection of the sample of beer, using liquid chromatography of high efficiency, with a IS-anionic chromatographic column (Internal Surface Reverse Phase) was developed. The considered method presented a recovery that varied from 78.5 to 92.1% for the levels of ochratoxin A in the range of 0.25 to 4.00μg.L-1; and 76.5 to 93.1% for the ochratoxin B at the level of 1.25 to 20.00μg.L-1. The limits of detection were 0.15 and 0.35μg.L-1 and the limits of quantification 0.25 and 0.60μg.L-1 for ochratoxins A and B, respectively. In a total of 42 samples of beers commercialized in Bauru and region, 2.4% of the samples of national beers and 11,1% of the imported ones were contaminated with ochratoxin A above the of quantification, being the level detected between 0.32 and 0.80μg.L-1. ochratoxin B was detected in only 2.4% of national beer samples at the level of 0.78μg.L-1.


In this paper, we studied a speaker independent isolated speaker recognition system for Turkish language by using cross correlation technique. The power spectrumpsilas of each keyword speech for different speakerpsilas determined using the linear predictive coding in order to constitute a feature vectors database that consists these spectrums. A new test input power spectrumpsilas then compared with these feature vectors database by using cross correlation technique and obtained the cross correlation valuepsilas of each comparison. The results of matching scores evaluated in different SNR levels and different number of persons.