This brief presents a dedicated unit for the combined operation of floating-point (FP) division followed by addition/subtraction-the divide-add fused (DAF). The goal of this unit is to increase the performance and the accuracy of applications where this combined operation is frequent, such as the interval Newton's method or the polynomial approximation. The proposed DAF unit presents a similar architecture to the FP multiply-accumulate units. The main difference is represented by the divider, which is implemented using digit-recurrence algorithms. An important design tradeoff regarding DAF is represented by the number of required quotient bits. We present the impact of the adopted number of quotient bits on accuracy, cost, and performance. Consequently, two implementations are proposed: one pro-accuracy and one pro-performance. We show that the proposed implementations have better accuracy with respect to the solution based on two distinct units: an FP divider and an FP adder. The implementation suitable for lower latency presents the best cost-performance tradeoff.


Tramadol is widely used as a pain reliever; stimulant and it may delay ejaculation. But chronic tramadol users have adverse side effects. Aim: To clarify the worst effect of tramadol hydrochloride on male fertility and its role in neurodegeneration disorders due to oxidative stress in spite of indeed its use as ejaculation delaying. Materials and methods: This experimental study was performed upon 30 adult wistar rats. They were purchased from the National Research Centre Cairo, Egypt. These rats were divided into three groups (n=10), Group I, rats received vehicle and served as normal control. Group II, rats received low dose of tramadol (20 mg/Kg body weight/ day). Group III, rats received high dose of tramadol (50 mg/Kg body weight/day) for 12 weeks. Results: The results illustrated that tramadol in both low and high doses ingestion lead to weight loss, elevated Nitric Oxide Synthase (NOS) expression and plasma peroxidation value (MDA) but reduced Glutathione (GSH) and Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) in plasma were significantly decreased. Furthermore, plasma Monoamine Oxidase (MAO) was increased leading to serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine decrease in brain tissues proteins (p˂0.001). Plasma Testosterone level, sperm content and sperm vitality were significantly decreased (p˂0.001). Furthermore, hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain of the brain tissues showed few purkinje cells and the cells of granular layer were widely separated in the rats of low dose of tramadol group, but there was shrunken purkinje cells, some cells had pykinotic nuclei and majority of the cells of granular layer were non-nucleated, few of them had pykinotic nuclei in the rats of high dose of tramadol when compared to normal brain tissues of normal control rats. Conclusion: Long term tramadol administration developed oxidative stress, neurodegenerative disorders and male infertility.


Back ground: Several previous reports on the association between hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and certain human leukocyte antigens (HLA) have yielded controversial results. Objectives: This study was conducted to explore the association of HCV infection and certain HLA in patients from Al-Ramadi Province. Subjects and methods: Thirty two patients with chronic HCV infection as well as 64 apparently healthy individuals and 30 patients with clinically evident acute viral hepatitis, but HCV negative were enrolled in the present study which was conducted in Al-Ramadi city for the period from August/2004 to May/2006. HCV infection was diagnosed by detecting the anti-HCV antibody by enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA) and confirmed by Immunoblot assay. Determination of HLAs was done by Microlymphocytotoxicity technique. Results: The results revealed that the presence of HLA-DR5 (Odd ratio 2.7, P 0.022) and HLA-DQ2 (Odd ratio 3.1, P= 0.008), and the absence of HLA-DR7 (Inverse Odd ratio 3.2, P = 0.04) and HLA-DQ1 (Inverse Odd ratio 2.8, P= 0.012) were associated with significantly increased risk for HCV infection as compared to healthy controls. On the other hand, the presence of HLA-DR5 (Odd ratio 6.5, P= 0.005) and HLA-DQ2 (Odd ratio 5.1, P= 0.002), and the absence of HLA-DR7 (Inverse Odd ratio 4.8, P= 0.018) were significantly associated with increased risk for HCV infection. Conclusion: Genetic predisposition may play a role in hepatitis C virus infection in patients from Al-Ramadi city.


The University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory Project is to construct a 6.5m infrared telescope at the summit of Co. Chajnantor (5640m altitude) in northern Chile, promoted by the University of Tokyo. Thanks to the dry climate (PWV~0.5mm) and the high altitude, it will achieve excellent performance in the NIR to MIR wavelengths. The telescope has two Nasmyth foci where the facility instruments are installed and two folded-Cassegrain foci for carry-in instruments. All these four foci can be switched by rotating a tertiary mirror. The final focal ratio is 12.2 and the telescope foci have large field-of-view of 25ʹ in diameter. We adopted the 6.5m light-weighted borosilicate honeycomb primary mirror and its support system that are developed by Steward Observatory Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab. The dome enclosure has the shape of carousel, and large ventilation windows with shutters control the wind to flush heat inside the dome. The operation building with control room, aluminizing chamber and maintenance facilities is located at the side of the dome. Two cameras, SWIMS for spectroscopy and imaging in the near-infrared and MIMIZUKU in the mid-infrared, are being developed as the first-generation facility instruments. The operation of the telescope will be remotely carried out from a base facility at San Pedro de Atacama, 50km away from the summit. The construction of the telescope is now underway. Fabrication of the telescope mount has almost finished, and the pre-assembly has been carried out in Japan. The primary, secondary, and tertiary mirrors and their cells have been also fabricated, as well as their cells and support systems. Fabrication of the enclosure is now underway, and their pre-assembly in Japan will be carried out in 2016. Construction of the base facility at San Pedro de Atacama has been already completed in 2014, and operated for the activities in Atacama. The telescope is now scheduled to see the first light at the beginning of 2018.


Epigenetic regulation is an important factor in glucose metabolism, but underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here we demonstrated that bromodomain-containing proteins (Brds), transcriptional regulators binding to acetylated histone, are potent modulators of glucose metabolism via the gut-liver farnesoid X receptor (FXR)-fibroblast growth factor 15/19 (FGF15/19) pathway. In vivo inhibition of Brd4 by the inhibitor JQ1 in mice strongly inhibited ileal expression of FGF15, resulting in decreased FGFR4-related signaling, increased glucose production in the liver and hyperglycemia. Adverse metabolic effects of BRD4 inhibition were reversed by overexpression of FGF19, with improvement in hyperglycemia. At a cellular level, we demonstrate that BRD4 binds to the promoter region of FGF19 in human intestinal cells; BRD inhibition by JQ1 reduces binding to the FGF19 promoter and downregulates FGF19 expression. Thus, we identify Brd4 as a novel transcriptional regulator of intestinal FGF15/19 in ileum, and a contributor to hepatic and systemic glucose metabolism.


Cairn Oil & Gas in Joint Venture with ONGC, is the operator of contract area RJ-ON-90/1 in the state of Rajasthan, North West India. MBA fields (Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwarya Field) comprise of more than 565 wells. Produced liquid from these wells is transferred to Mangala Processing terminal (MPT) where liquid from each of these wells is collected and processed. MPT processes ~11,00,000 BLPD and separated water is re-used for water injection for pressure maintenance and power fluid for jet pump artificial lift. This requires stringent separation procedures to maintain injection water quality.
 With the terminal operating at the limit of its processing capacity and high field water cut, maintaining oil production with high liquid handling posed a big challenge.
 The objective was to prove the concept of addressing liquid handling constraint and optimizing oil production by utilizing standalone separation and pumping systems. It was anticipated that bottlenecking in the lines was causing high backpressure on the wells which led to substantial decrease in well liquid production. A network model was created which confirmed this. This paper describes the approach used to establish a standalone set-up for header pressure reduction and increased liquid handling using surface well test and pumping facilities.
 The network model indicated that for an increase of 1 bar pressure in production header, there was a substantial loss in oil production from each network of MBA field. For example in Mangala Cluster A, this resulted in ~ 400 BOPD of loss in oil production.
 Later an idea was developed to take out ~10,000 BPD liquid from production header line of a network and the same was separated using standalone well test & pumping spread. It was planned to pump oil back into production header and use the produced water for Jet Pumping application and remaining water to be pumped in nearby injector. The entire operation was planned with 2 standalone surface well test spread and pumping units.
 Post achieving success in Mangala field the same idea was implemented in Aishwarya field where the main objective was to knock off the gas from the system along with liquid reduction from the production header which ultimately reduced the back pressure on each of the well in the pad.


. The Ces`aro sequence spaces ces p , 1 < p < ∞ , are reflexive but they have the fixed point property. In this paper we prove that in contrast to these sequence spaces the corresponding Ces`aro function spaces Ces p on both [0 , 1] and [0 , ∞ ) for 1 < p < ∞ are not reflexive and they fail to have the fixed point property.


Safety barriers are required in many technical systems to reduce initiating negations, suppress failure propagations, or mitigate the consequences of common cause failures and cascading failures. Based on a thorough literature review, this paper explores the functions of safety barriers within an extended bow-tie model. The safety barriers to prevent common cause failures are important to eliminate the coupling effects on multiple components simultaneously, whereas the safety barriers against cascading failures are functional with stopping or alleviating the failure propagation by intervening coupling paths. Then, an illustrative example is introduced to demonstrate the how such two types of safety barriers are modeled and how their effects are evaluated.


This report explores the sectors that will be instrumental for positive CU impact and competitiveness in the medium term. The initial chapter analyzes the gaps and opportunities the Kyrgyz NQI presents for capturing benefits of access to the enlarged common market across sectors. The next three chapters take an in-depth look at three high-growth sectors and identify adaptation priorities and opportunities. Agriculture, services, and garments are a large and growing share of exports and are the sectors most likely to be transformed by accession to the CU and the increased tariffs to countries outside the EEU. Services added 56 percent to GDP in 2013, while agriculture contributed 18 percent, and manufacturing 16 percent. Exports in the garment sector were lose to 200 million US dollars in 2013, employing over 150,000 workers. The main findings of each chapter are summarized below followed by a summary of recommendations. This report is relevant to the Kyrgyz experience as it highlights important differences both in terms of regulations and technical requirements. The report highlights differences between the EU and CU regulatory systems in approaches to food safety and legislation, but it also analyses the differences in infrastructure aspects of the NQI, such as testing laboratories and certification mechanisms between the EU and CU. The Customs Union approach is based on end-product compliance to a specific technical regulation or standard, whereas the European Union relies on preventive measures and minimizing risks associated with each process throughout the complete food chain. In the CU food control system, food control bodies verify that the end product meets the required technical specifications established by the government, in the EU system, end-product attributes such as size, color, shape, smell, and taste are generally left to the marketplace to judge if they are acceptable. Importantly, the report pinpoints specific technical requirements for EU food safety that differ from the CU requirements(microbiological criteria for foodstuff, contaminants in food; maximum residue limits for residues of pesticides, and pharmacologically active substances).


Current-induced multilevel magnetization switching in ferrimagnetic spintronic devices is highly pursued for the application in neuromorphic computing. In this work, we demonstrate the switching plasticity in Co/Gd ferrimagnetic multilayers where the binary states magnetization switching induced by spin–orbit toque can be tuned into a multistate one as decreasing the domain nucleation barrier. Therefore, the switching plasticity can be tuned by the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of the multilayers and the in-plane magnetic field. Moreover, we used the switching plasticity of Co/Gd multilayers for demonstrating spike timing-dependent plasticity and sigmoid-like activation behavior. This work gives useful guidance to design multilevel spintronic devices which could be applied in high-performance neuromorphic computing.


Taking as examples a series of oxiranes, oxetanes, and oxathietanes with different substituents, we study in a systematic way the role that the latter play on the optical rotation of the molecules. For this, we use time-dependent density functional theory together with a hierarchy of Dunning's basis sets. The B3LYP and CAM-B3LYP exchange-correlation functionals are employed. We select results obtained with the CAM-B3LYP functional and the daug-cc-pVTZ basis set as our reference values. Additionally, specific rotation in all systems is calculated with the ORP basis set, specifically designed to carry out optical rotation calculations. The present study shows its good performance in CAM-B3LYP estimations of this property, providing results close to the reference values. The proper choice of the exchange-correlation functional proves to be much more important than that of the basis set. Considering the effect of the substituents, some of the presently investigated molecules show a behavior in line with earlier findings; however we have also found systems that do not match the conclusions previously available in the literature.


In a fluid-loaded, semi-infinite axisymmetric rod, a free shear stress boundary condition on the circular cross-sectional end introduces complicated, nondispersive waves in the solid. They are composed of a pulse wave, which has the same waveform as the transmitted one and travels at speed c1, and different kinds of pulse trains, each of which travels along the rod at the speed of either c1 or radic2c2, where c1 and c2 are the propagating speeds of the longitudinal and transversal bulk waves, respectively. Furthermore, one can conclude from the solutions to the boundary conditions that c1 and radic2c2 are the only phase speeds of nondispersive waves. Frequency equations associated with these waves are established, and the solutions are solved and discussed analytically and numerically. The acoustic field in the fluid is also fully discussed, and it is more complicated than a single outgoing Hankel function as described for an infinite rod. The acoustic energy coupling between the solid and the fluid and the end reflection and transmission are quantified as well. In the end, experimental examinations of the echo spectra, using an aluminum rod immersed in the water and air, fully confirm the numerical solutions to the frequency equations


Research goals: modeling of educational activities and characteristics of the learning process with the use of remote technologies, in particular, the use of cloud-centric platforms, tools and services, e-learning.Research objectives: the formulation of didactic possibilities of cloud technologies for use in the learning process.Object of research: ways to improve the effectiveness of teacher.Subject of research: the use of cloud technologies in the educational process in order to increase the efficiency of the work of the teacher.Research methods used: analysis of statistics and publications.Results of the research. The need for creative activity and professional development of technical thinking, the ability to design, evaluate, rationalize machinery and technology is growing rapidly. Solving these problems depends on the content and technology training of future specialists. In this regard, actively introducing innovative learning technologies. Proposed use in the classroom cloud technologies, which in turn increases the efficiency of the teacher and the changes for the better the educational process itself.The main conclusions and recommendations. Didactic possibilities of cloud technologies, confirming the feasibility of their application in the educational process of modern higher school: the possibility of collaboration; fast start creating products in the educational process; organizing interactive sessions and group teaching.


AbstractBecause of the adverse effects that diagenesis exert on ancient skeletal remains, DNA from these samples is often compromised to the point where genetic typing can be challenging. Nevertheless, robust and reliable methods are currently available to allow successful genotyping of ancient specimens. Here we report nuclear DNA–based methods and typing strategies used to analyze 2 human skeletons from a medieval burial. Reliable DNA nuclear profiles were obtained from teeth, whereas mitochondrial DNA analyses in bones were inconclusive. A complete nuclear mini short tandem repeat profile was obtained from a well-preserved premolar, but only a partial one from the femur. Increasing the sensitivity of the polymerase chain reaction system allowed a full profile from the latter, but the presence of artifacts reinforced the idea that the interpretation of this kind of analysis must be performed with caution. The results presented here also indicate that DNA from dental pieces can be better preserved than from bones, even in the case of well-preserved long bones with thick cortical tissue such as the femurs, and have a better chance of successful genetic typing, probably because of the high degree of protection conferred to the DNA by the enamel.


Surfactant protein A (SP-A) is the most abundant protein associated with phospholipids in pulmonary surfactant. There are several lines of evidence that pulmonary and gastrointestinal epithelium produce closely related surface-active materials, although the presence of SP-A in gastrointestinal tract has so far not been reported. Indirect immunofluorescence experiments using different antibodies raised against rat pulmonary SP-A showed that some jejunal and colonic but not gastric epithelial cells positively stained for SP-A. Analysis of the proteins in cell lysates from rat small intestine and colon studied by Western blot revealed several immunoreactive bands, including the characteristic triplet of 26-, 32-, and 38-kDa monomeric proteins, less strongly labeled than in lung cells, and higher molecular mass forms of 66 and 120 kDa also present in lung cells. The 66- and 120-kDa bands displayed the expected isoelectric pH of SP-A after two-dimensional electrophoresis. Alkylation induced conversion of the 120-kDa form (almost completely) and the 66-kDa form (partly) into the 26-38-kDa monomeric species. The presence of SP-A mRNA in rat stomach, small intestine, and colon was then searched for by conventional cDNA/reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Products of appropriate size (372 base pairs) identical to that of pulmonary tissue were amplified in small intestine and colon but not in stomach or in other tissues used as controls. Cloning and sequencing of rat colon SP-A cDNA revealed the same sequence as the one reported for rat lung SP-A. Furthermore, analysis of the transcriptional initiation site of SP-A gene in colon by anchored-polymerase chain reaction showed that transcription was initiated at the same site in both colon and lung. These data, which demonstrate that small intestine and colon express SP-A constitutively and that this protein is present in some epithelial cells, extend the concept of intestinal surfactant and underline its close relationships to pulmonary surfactant.


Pituitary adenomas are mostly benign tumors which may be clinically functioning or nonfunctioning. ACTH secreting tumors causing Cushing's disease are detected in 0.7 to 2.4 per million individuals per year . Most of the cases reported on such ACTHomas are microadenomas ( 10mm). We report an unusual case of 79 year-old elderly patient presenting with subclinical Cushing's disease due to pituitary macroadenoma (ACTHoma) found incidentally. It raises many possibilities of biochemical nature of hormone in such patients or early degradation of hormone. It certainly brings to our attention that more clinical research is needed to find causes of subclinical Cushing's disease.


The author designs a new speech codec in this paper, which is based on ANN to carry out nonlinear prediction. This new codec synthesizes speeches with better quality than the conventional waveform or hybrid codecs does at the same bit rate. Moreover, the most important characteristic of this codec is the low coding delay, which will benefit the enhancement of the speech communication QoS when we transmit speech signals in IP or ATM networks.


Three lysins from Campylobacter, namely, Clysins, were investigated, and their antibacterial activities against E. coli were determined for the first time. To overcome the restriction of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria, we combined the TRB domains of colicins with these Clysins. ABSTRACT The emergence of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli, which poses a major threat to public health, has motivated the development of numerous alternative antimicrobials. Lysins are bacteriophage- and bacterium-derived peptidoglycan hydrolases that represent a new antibiotic treatment targeting bacterial cell walls. However, the bactericidal effect of native lysins on Gram-negative bacteria is restricted by the presence of an outer membrane. Here, we first evaluated the antibacterial activity of three Campylobacter-derived lysins (Clysins) against E. coli. To improve their transmembrane ability and antibacterial activities, six engineered Clysins were constructed by fusing with the translocation and receptor-binding (TRB) domains from two types of colicins (colicin A [TRBA] and colicin K [TRBK]), and their biological activities were determined. Notably, engineered lysin TRBK-Cly02 exhibited the highest bactericidal activity against the E. coli BL21 strain, with a reduction of 6.22 ± 0.34 log units of cells at a concentration of 60.1 μg/mL, and formed an observable inhibition zone even at a dose of 6.01 μg. Moreover, TRBK-Cly02 killed E. coli dose dependently and exhibited the strongest bactericidal activity at pH 6. It also exhibited potential bioactivity against multidrug-resistant E. coli clinical isolates. In summary, this study identified three lysins from Campylobacter strains against E. coli, and the enhancement of their antibacterial activities by TRB domains fusion may allow them to be developed as potential alternatives to antibiotics. IMPORTANCE Three lysins from Campylobacter, namely, Clysins, were investigated, and their antibacterial activities against E. coli were determined for the first time. To overcome the restriction of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria, we combined the TRB domains of colicins with these Clysins. Moreover, we discovered that the Clysins fused with TRB domains from colicin K (TRBK) killed E. coli more effectively, and this provides a new foundation for the development of novel bioengineered lysins by employing TRBK constructs that target outer membrane receptor/transport systems. One of the designed lysins, TRBK-Cly02, exhibited potent bactericidal efficacy against E. coli strains and may be used for control of multidrug-resistant clinical isolates. The results suggest that TRBK-Cly02 can be considered a potential antibacterial agent against pathogenic E. coli.


High-density polyethylene (PE-HD) is a widely applied plastic for fuel storage tank applications. But such tanks, filled with diesel or biodiesel, provide excellent environmental conditions for growth of a broad spectrum of fungi and various bacteria1. This can result in fuel contamination, engine plugging or possible (bio-) degradation2. Our research focusses on the initial attachment phase of Bacillus sp. and Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from a "dieselpest"2 on two distinctly PE-HD materials, typical for fuel storage tank applications, pre-damaged thermally and by UV-irradiation.


Background and aim: Oral care contributes significantly to the patients' health outcome in a critical care unit. Nurses play a vital role in maintaining good oral health. However, there remains a dearth of literature regarding oral care practices among nurses working in a rural critical care unit. In this descriptive cross sectional study, awareness and practice of patients' oral care among rural tertiary critical care unit nurses was assessed.
Methodology: After obtaining approval from the Institutional ethics committee, 64 critical care unit nurses, having work experience of atleast 6 months in the critical care unit, were enrolled in this descriptive cross sectional study. A self-structured questionnaire was used to assess the awareness and practice of the nurses. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics and results were expressed as percentages.
Result: Of the 64 nurses enrolled in the study, there were no dropouts. It was found that 62 nurses (96.87%) provided oral care to all the critical care unit patients. 60 nurses (93.7%) claimed that a standard oral care protocol has been provided to them. Documentation of the oral care was carried out by 54 (84.37%) nurses. Although 50% of the nurses had been trained to provide oral care, 54 (84.37%) nurses felt the need of fresh training. 60 nurses (93.7%) preferred using toothbrush in conscious patients. Chlorhexidine was the most commonly used solution. Bleeding, extubation and biting were among the few complications that they faced during routine oral care.
Conclusion: Despite working in a rural set up with limited number of resources available, oral care was provided by most of the nurses. Following a standard protocol and documentation of the same, has helped maintain consistency in oral care of all critical care patients.


Three-dimensional ultrasound has initially been used to address volumetric imaging for diagnostic purposes and represents the leading-edge technological orientation in both transducer and IC (integrated circuit) architecture and design. However, new applications are coming up like biomarker measurements, preoperative navigation, real time surgery guidance or therapeutic procedures where 3D ultrasound modalities are key but their design objectives may need to be thought outside 3D echocardiography and radiology technological trade-offs. For those new applications, system architectures would need less complexity and imaging performances enabling easier hardware reconfigurability tailored to application-oriented imaging. This paper presents an ongoing development where a large matrix transducer has been assembled with multiple ASIC dies in a reconfigurable way. The transducer has a central frequency of 8MHz, a square pitch of 150µm× 150µm capable to fully image the upper carotid window thanks to a large aperture of 80×240 elements, resulting in a transducer active footprint of 12×36 square millimeters.


Platinum nanoparticles grown on SrTiO(3) nanocuboids via atomic layer deposition exhibit cube-on-cube epitaxy with the predicted Winterbottom shape, consistent with literature values of the interfacial and surface free energies. This thermodyamically stable configuration should survive the rigors of catalytic conditions to create stable, high surface area, face-selective catalysts.


This report provides documentation for UMTRI's file of Trucks Involved in Fatal Accidents (TIFA), 2007, including distributions of the code values for each variable in the file. The 2007 TIFA file is a census of all medium and heavy trucks involved in a fatal accident in the United States. The TIFA database provides coverage of all medium and heavy trucks recorded in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) file. TIFA combines vehicle, accident, and occupant records from FARS with information about the physical configuration and operating authority of the truck from the TIFA survey.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of mortality and causes of death of patients hospitalized due to erysipelas. The in‐hospital mortality rate of patients with erysipelas in Hospital de Base, Sao Jose do Rio Preto was evaluated for the period from 1999 to 2008 in a retrospective cross‐sectional study. The cause of death, gender, age and length of hospital stay were analyzed. The Fisher exact test was utilized for statistical analysis with an alpha level of 5% (p‐value < 0.05) being considered acceptable. A total of 219 women and 209 men with a mean age of 58.6 years were hospitalized with erysipelas. Of these, 1.7% of the patients died (5 women and 2 men); 3 patients on the first day of hospitalization, one on the 2nd, one on the 10th, one on the 11th and one on the 12th day after admittance. The causes of death were neoplasms (3 patients), pneumonia (2), sepsis (4), renal failure (1), cirrhosis (1) and purulent pericarditis (1); some patients had concomitant comorbidities. Of these, neoplasm, pneumonia and sepsis were significantly associated with death. Erysipel comorbidities can cause death.


In this paper, I discuss design workbooks, collections of design proposals and related materials, both as a method for design and as a design methodology. In considering them as a method, I describe a number of examples of design workbooks we have developed in our studio and describe some of the practical techniques we have used in developing them. More fundamentally, I discuss design workbooks as embodiments of a methodological approach which recognises that ideas may emerge slowly over time, that important issues and perspectives may emerge from multiple concrete ideas, potentially generated by multiple members of a team, rather than being theory-driven, and that maintaining the provisionality and vagueness of early proposals can be useful in supporting a quasi-participatory design approach that allows participants to interpret, react to and elaborate upon the ideas they present.


In a study of the effects of K+ in stroke prone spontaneously hypertensive rats, adding K+ to normal chow was found to reduce the mortality from 83% to 2%, a 98% reduction. An 86% reduction in mortality occurred even when blood pressure was virtually equal in the two stroke prone spontaneously hypertensive groups being compared. Dietary K+ supplements also reduced mortality in hypertensive Dahl salt-sensitive rats from 55% to 4%, a 93% reduction. There was an 87% reduction in mortality even when blood pressure was equal in the Dahl salt-sensitive groups being compared. The added dietary K+ decreased blood pressure moderately in stroke prone spontaneously hypertensive rats and modestly in Dahl salt-sensitive rats, which probably contributed to the reduced death rate. More importantly, however, the added K+ seemed to prevent severe lesions in cerebral arteries and deaths even when blood pressure lowering was eliminated as a protective factor. In another group of stroke prone spontaneously hypertensive rats, there was a 40% incidence of cerebral hemorrhage in surviving rats not receiving K+ supplements and no incidence of cerebral hemorrhage in similar surviving rats receiving K+ supplements, which suggests that K+ supplements confer protection against brain hemorrhage.


Proceedings: AACR 106th Annual Meeting 2015; April 18-22, 2015; Philadelphia, PA

Direct implantation of viable surgical specimens provides a representative preclinical platform in pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PC). Patient-derived xenografts consistently demonstrate retained tumor morphology and genetic stability. However, the evolution of the tumor microenvironment over time remains poorly characterized in these models. This work specifically addresses the recruitment and incorporation of murine stromal elements into expanding patient-derived PC xenografts, establishing the rapidity by which murine cells are integrated into networks of invading cancer cells. In addition, we provide methodology and observations in the establishment and maintenance of a patient-derived PC xenograft model. A total of 25 histologically confirmed pancreatic adenocarcinoma specimens were implanted subcutaneously into NOD-SCID mice. Patient demographics, staging, pathologic analysis and outcomes were analyzed. After successful engraftment of tumors, histologic and immunofluorescent analyses were performed on explanted tumors. PC specimens were successfully engrafted in 15 of 25 (60%) of attempts. Successful engraftment does not appear to correlate with clinicopathologic factors or patient survival. Tumor morphology is conserved through multiple passages and tumors retain metastatic potential. Interestingly, despite morphologic similarity between passages, human stromal elements do not appear to expand with invading cancer cells. Rather, desmoplastic murine stroma dominates the xenograft microenvironment after the initial implantation. Recruitment of stromal elements in this manner to support and maintain tumor growth represents a novel avenue for investigation into tumor-stromal interactions.

Citation Format: Daniel Delitto, Kien Pham, Adrian C. Vlada, George A. Sarosi, Ryan M. Thomas, Kevin E. Behrns, Chen Liu, Steven J. Hughes, Shannon M. Wallet, Jose G. Trevino. Patient-derived xenograft models for pancreatic adenocarcinoma demonstrate retention of tumor morphology through the incorporation of murine stromal elements. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 1466. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-1466


An 8-year-old neutered Beagle dog was presented with polyuria and polydipsia. Routine clinicopathologic testing showed a significant lymphocytosis and proteinuria. Lymphocytes were of small to intermediate in size with a mature morphology. Infectious disease screening was negative. PCR for antigen receptor gene rearrangements showed a clonal T-cell receptor (TCR) rearrangement consistent with T-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Bone marrow cytology showed <30% lymphocytes, while the proportion in splenic fine-needle aspirate cytology was considered increased. The dog was initially monitored but started on prednisolone and chlorambucil therapy 2 months later due to worsening clinical signs and progressive lymphocytosis. After an additional 2 weeks, the dog developed multifocal spinal pain and single-node lymphadenomegaly. Cytology of the lymph node showed a monomorphic population of large lymphoblasts consistent with lymphoma. Cytology of a cerebrospinal fluid sample also showed large lymphoblasts. PCR for antigen receptor gene rearrangement at both sites showed a clonal TCR rearrangement of the same molecular size as in the initial leukemic cells. The dog was diagnosed with a transformation of the CLL to Richter syndrome (RS) with involvement of the central nervous system (CNS). Therapy was started with L-asparaginase and an increased dose of prednisolone; however, the dog was euthanized due to progressive clinical signs. To our knowledge, this is the first report of canine RS with direct involvement of the CNS.


The resource industry has been one of the most interesting and important topics in the business and research fields in the 20th century. The steel production has been growing rapidly because of the vast industrialization of China. However, up to date, the mining industry has not performed well in its ability to deliver projects on time and within budget. In the current market situation, an effective project management (PM) methodology is becoming a necessity of managers in the mining industry. The book consists of four main studies. The first part elucidates mining project development and the phases, in theory. The second part is concerning a study associated to mining project risks. The third part describes the benefits of using the Six Sigma technique for a project in the Mining Industry, in practice. The final part focuses on the usage of a simulation analysis method for managing risks associated with development of mining improvement projects, in practice. Overall, the book suggests ways for advancing the PM methodology by using qualitative techniques such as Simulation Analysis and demonstrates it both in theory and practice.


PURPOSE
Both absolute and relative increases in the older adult population are occurring concurrently with the growth of high technology. Technological devices offer sophisticated solutions to some of the problems associated with ageing. This study borrows from the health utilization literature in order to develop and test a model for understanding receptivity to specific technological products by older adults.

RESULTS
Receptivity is directly influenced by predispositional, need and social support factors, as well as by one's level of concern for problems that could be alleviated through the use of technology. Hierarchical regression equations reveal that this latter variable, concern, has the strongest influence on receptivity, while need factors display strong indirect effects. Those with unsatisfactory contact with others are also more receptive, suggesting that the lack of social support acts as a need factor. Contrary to past research, women are more receptive to technology than men.

CONCLUSIONS
The results indicate that new technology geared toward enhancing the quality of life of seniors in their homes would be welcomed by many.


222 which statement also serves as a fundamental criticism against structuralism and cognitive poetics for upholding the status quo. With the blurring of the borderline between production and reception, which, based on Bratich"s account, might be called a poststructuralist or postmodern turn, practically nothing appears to be excluded from the scrutinizing gaze of reception studies as represented in this collection. From small talk to lm adaptations, from illustrations to social networks, activities which have traditionally been classi ed as production are now analysed as reception of other artworks, media, or culture. And with readers and audiences activated, reception is no longer seen as passive decoding, but as an active contribution to discourse, in short, as production. But reception study has also extended itself by incorporating neighbouring realms of other disciplines. In line with the merging of literary and cultural (media) studies, a cursory glance over the background of the contributors to the present volume reveals the truly interdisciplinary nature of the eld, interacting with, among others, sociology, media and communication studies. This expansion has indeed shown a way around the problem of reading readings, but this has not been without a price. With a concept of reception that now covers everything, reception study appears less and less separable from literary, media, or cultural studies in general. Előd Pál Csirmaz Notes 1. See, for example, Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature (1975) (London: Routledge, 1997), and Cognitive Poetics in Practice, eds. Joanna Gavins and Gerard Steen (London and New York: Routledge, 2003). 2. See Seán Burke, The Death and Return of the Author (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1998), p. 26. 3. Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author," trans. S. Heath, in Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader, ed. David Lodge (London: Longman, 1988), 167–172, p. 170. 4. Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," trans. Alan Bass, in Critical Theory Since 1965, ed. Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle (Tallahassee: Florida State UP), 83–94.


ABSTRACT The healthcare sector is one of the largest polluters in the UK, accounting for 25% of total emissions of carbon dioxide of the public sector. Ironically, it is the healthcare sector itself that is primarily affected by any deterioration in the environment affecting individuals' health and their demand for healthcare. Therefore, the healthcare sector is a direct beneficiary of its own steps towards sustainability and is more and more viewed as the one who should lead the change. In this article, we first review the concepts of financial and environmental sustainability. Second, we discuss the existing evidence of sustainable changes within this sector. Third, we propose a simple adaptation of the classic cost-effectiveness analysis to incorporate carbon footprinting to account for these external costs. We illustrate our method using the case of in-centre versus home haemodialysis. We conclude that home dialysis is always a preferable alternative to in-centre treatment based on a cost-effectiveness analysis. Finally, we discuss the limitations of our approach and the future research agenda.


Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare poorly differentiated neuroendocrine tumor, usually located in sun-exposed skin, with aggressive behavior and with high recurrence risk and metastatic disease. In Latin America, case series have been published, and it does not exceed 32 patients in 10 years, and in Colombia, there are case reports. We present a descriptive retrospective cross-sectional study in patients diagnosed with MCC in the Department of Pathology and Laboratories at the University Hospital Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá(FSFB) between January 2003 and December 2018. We present the demographic, clinical, and pathological variables of these patients, as well as a literature review.


In this thesis we address the challenge of automatically summarizing spontaneous, multi-party spoken dialogues. The experimental hypothesis is that it is advantageous when summarizing such meeting speech to exploit a variety of speech-specific characteristics, rather than simply treating the task as text summarization with a noisy transcript. We begin by investigating which term-weighting metrics are effective for summarization of meeting speech, with the inclusion of two novel metrics designed specifically for multi-party dialogues. We then provide an in-depth analysis of useful multi-modal features for summarization, including lexical, prosodic, speaker, and structural features. A particular type of speech-specific information we explore is the presence of meta comments in meeting speech, which can be exploited to make extractive summaries more high-level and increasingly abstractive in quality. We conduct our experiments on the AMI and ICSI meeting corpora, illustrating how informative utterances can be realized in contrasting ways in differing domains of meeting speech. Our central summarization evaluation is a large-scale extrinsic task, a decision audit evaluation. In this evaluation, we explicitly compare the usefulness of extractive summaries to gold-standard abstracts and a baseline keyword condition for navigating through a large amount of meeting data in order to satisfy a complex information need.


Purpose To compare the results of a chemical method of kidney stone analysis with the results of Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. Materials and Methods Kidney stones collected between June and October 2015 were simultaneously analyzed by chemical and FT-IR methods. Results Kidney stones (n=449) were collected from patients from 1 to 81 years old. Most stones were from adults, with only 11.5% from children (aged 3–16 years) and 1.5% from children aged <2 years. The male to female ratio was 4.6. In adults, the calcium oxalate stone type, calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM, n=224), was the most common crystal, followed by uric acid and calcium oxalate dihydrate (COD, n=83). In children, the most frequently occurring type was predominantly COD (n=21), followed by COM (n=11), ammonium urate (n=10), carbonate apatite (n=6), uric acid (n=4), and cystine (n=1). Core composition in 22 stones showed ammonium urate (n=2), COM (n=2), and carbonate apatite (n=1) in five stones, while uric acid crystals were detected (n=13) by FT-IR. While chemical analysis identified 3 stones as uric acid and the rest as calcium oxalate only. Agreement between the two methods was moderate, with a kappa statistic of 0.57 (95% confidence interval, 0.5–0.64). Disagreement was noted in the analysis of 77 stones. Conclusions FT-IR analysis of kidney stones can overcome many limitations associated with chemical analysis.


The change that takes place with the sunspot cycle of distortional characteristics in the daily variation of the F2-region on the magnetic equator isi nvestigated herewith using Huancayo data during about one sunspot cycle. It is found that the type of the daily variation of f0F2 shows a systematic change with the sunspot cycle and that this change in type of f0F2 daily variation is also fairly closely connected with the phase shift in the geomagnetic Sq variations. Thus it would be confirmed that the change in type of the daily variation of f0F2 with the sunspot cycle is interpreted mainly by the phase shift of the vertical drift, associated with the geomagnetic variation.


Blood transfusions have been shown for two decades to prolong allograft survival. The mechanism is complex, involving both T lymphocytes and macrophages. In the last five years, transfusion induced immunosuppression has been shown to increase the rate of tumor growth and to increase susceptibility to infectious complications. Prevention of this immunosuppression may be possible by the concomitant use of immunomodulators which inhibit suppressor T lymphocyte function or block prostaglandin E production. A second potential but as yet unproven method is by use of frozen washed red blood cells when transfusions are required.


Since the rediscovery of proline in 2000 as catalyst in aldol reaction by List, Barbas and Lerner and, soon after, the development of iminium catalysis by D. W. C. MacMillan, the emergence of organocatalysis as an important tool in organic synthesis is outstanding. During the last years, several research groups have worked in the development of new and powerful methodologies that allow us to build difficult molecules with high yields and enantioselectivities in a metal-free environment. Moreover, the possibility to join two or more organocatalytic reactions in one process has become one challenging goal for chemists, probably due to the costly protecting groups and time-consuming purification procedures after each synthetic step that are one of the common issues in organic synthesis. To circumvent these problems, tandem, domino, cascade or multicomponent organocatalytic reactions have been utilized for the efficient diastereo- and enantioselective construction of complex molecules from simple precursors in simple processes. For example, different tandem organocatalytic reactions such as cyclopropanation, aziridination, Michael-aldol, Michael-?-alkylation, etc. have been developed since 2006 with excellent yields and stereoselectivities. Herein, we describe the last trends and examples of organocatalytic domino reactions. This review aims to cover and discuss the current development of this fast growing field.


Background: Incorporation of next-generation sequencing to detect plasma-derived tumor DNA (ptDNA) is emerging as a popular method for tumor genotyping and for monitoring therapeutic response. The vast majority of studies so far have focused on detecting ptDNA from patients with metastatic disease. Herein, we tested whether ptDNA could be used as a biomarker to predict relapse in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients with residual disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery. Methods: BRE09-146 was a Phase II clinical trial that randomized TNBC patients with residual disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy to Cisplatin or Cisplatin+Rucaparib. From the combination arm, 1ml of plasma was collected at four predefined time points post-surgery. In total, 39 patients with matched tumor, blood, and plasma were analyzed. Extracted DNA underwent library preparation and amplification using the Ion Ampliseq Oncomine Research Panel which consists of 134 cancer genes that are well-known to be mutated in cancer. Samples were then sequenced on an Ion Proton next-generation sequencer to at least 2500X coverage followed by bioinformatic analyses using the Torrent Variant Caller. Results: We first detected high-quality somatic mutations in primary tumors. TP53 mutations were the most prevalent (70%) followed by AKT1 (8%). Somatic mutation frequencies in our trial were congruent with publically-available mutation data of TNBCs from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Using these somatic mutations, we then analyzed the plasma-sequencing data to detect the same mutations in the circulation. Out of 39 patients, 14 patients had a clinical relapse (median follow-up for disease free survival = 24 months). Of the 14 patients, we were able to detect somatic ptDNA in 4 patients (3 TP53 mutations, 1 AKT mutation). Notably, all 4 patients had a rapid recurrence (0.3, 4.0, 5.3, and 8.9 months). ptDNA-sequencing was unable to detect distant recurrence. The combination of a paucity of ptDNA molecules in the circulation of patients who have no evidence of disease along with a limited amount of plasma available per patient are potential factors for the inability to detect distant recurrence. Conclusions: Next-generation ptDNA-sequencing of triple-negative breast cancer patients after neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery can detect rapid-recurrence but sensitivity to detect distant recurrence is limited. Studies to increase sensitivity by incorporating mutation calling from ptRNA along with ptDNA are currently underway. Citation Format: Chen Y-H, Hancock BA, Solzak JP, Miller KD, Radovich M. Next generation sequencing of circulating tumor DNA to predict recurrence in triple-negative breast cancer patients with residual disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-01-01.


The beech bark necrosis (BBN) infestation severity of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) was assessed in regions of Central (CE) and South-Eastern Europe (SE). Altogether more than 10,000 trees were sam- pled at 114 sites. Using variation partitioning method, we examined the pure and shared effects of stand, site, climate and spatial sets of variables on mean BBN severity. Our rating included (i) the whole stand, (ii) tree social status classes, (iii) canopy (C) and (iv) understory (U) trees sepa- rately. We found that C trees were less affected by BBN than sub-canopy and U trees in both regions. There were found inter-regional differences in amount of explained variability (25.4-73.9%) for whole stand BBN and in the sensitivity of C and U trees to the environmental gradients. The analy- sis revealed that the climate and spatial variables followed by stand vari- ables had the largest marginal effects on mean BBN severity in all models, while the site set of variables had the weakest one. More than half of the explained variation was shared among four sets of variables in SE, contrary to CE. Except to U trees in SE, the effect of climate - pure or spatially structured - remained the highest also after partitioning of variance; more in SE than in CE. Taking into account positive association between mean annual temperature and mean BBN severity in C trees in SE, reinforced negative effect of climate change on the necrosis might be expected to be more serious mainly in low situated beech forests there. Promoting the tree species diversity in areas with higher incidence of beech bark necro- sis, i.e. in low altitudes in SE, could reduce the susceptibility of forests to the necrosis at regional level in the future. For better understanding of the relative importance of environmental and spatial variables on BBN sever- ity, further research performed on finer spatial scale (extent and grain) is necessary, along with accounting for pathogens involved in the infestation.


Although clear cell carcinoma of the ovary is considered to be a tumor with poor prognosis, the clinical characteristics has not been defined. The aim of this study was to evaluate the response of clear cell carcinoma of the ovary to first and second-line chemotherapy and explore effective chemotherapy. Fifty-three patients with clear cell carcinoma of the ovary were enrolled between 1988 and 1997 at our department. Since taxol was not available in Japan at that time, cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy has been exclusively used as a standard first-line chemotherapy. Retrospective analyses of clinical characteristics and the response to first or second-line chemotherapy were performed. Median age was 52 years (range 27-71 years). Tumors were 34% (18/53) stage I, 19% (5/53) stage II, 38% (20/53) stage III, and 9% (5/53) stage IV. All patients with I or II stage disease had optimal cytoreduction. Out of 25 patients with III or IV stage disease 20% (5/25) had negative residual tumor, 36% (9/25) had <2 cm residual tumor, and 44% (11/25) had >/=2 cm residual tumor. All patients received postoperative platinum-based chemotherapy. Of 23 patients with measurable residual tumor 8.7% (2/23) completely and 13% (3/23) partially responded to first-line chemotherapy consisting of cisplatin, adriamycin and cyclophosphamide (CAP) or cisplatin and cyclophosphamide (CP) by CT scan or second look laparotomy. Presence of endometriosis was 55% (29/53) but was not a prognostic factor. Although overall response rate of ovarian clear cell carcinoma to first-line chemotherapy by CAP or CP was about 22%, EP or EJ consisting of etoposide and cisplatin or carboplatin used as a second-line chemotherapy showed 29% response rate, while CPT-P consisting of CPT-11 and cisplatin showed 40% response rate. Clear cell carcinomas were frequently present at early stage, with association of endometriosis and with poor overall prognosis. Although patients with advanced ovarian clear cell carcinoma seemed to have better response to CPT-P than conventional platinum-based chemotherapy, further studies are required with larger number of patients to draw firm conclusions.


This study illustrates the relationship between the petrographic characteristics of micrographic granite and the topographic features around Ijin-ri. Light-brown to light- gray granite is composed of intergrown fine-grained quartz + orthoclase, displaying micrographic textures. Miarolitic cavities are abundant. Many micro-landforms including tor, tafoni, and gnamma occurred in the micrographic granite of the study area. Tafoni is dominant in the north and gnamma is dominant in south. From our study of the occurrence and textural properties, two alteration zones were clearly identified; one is an external zone (A) characterized by abundant of small sized miarolitic cavities and the other is an internal zone (B) having them less than zone A. The former is dominant in north, and the latter is dominant in south. Particular geomorphologic features such as fluting cores and raised rims are present in the Ijin-ri area. This suggests that development of miarolitic cavities played an important role in the formation of the various geomorphologic features. Consequently, the petrogenesis of the micrographic granite is related to geomorphologic features in the external zone typified by abundant tafoni such as the tiger rock, and the formation of a platform as micro-landforms is influenced by thetextural differences of host rock in the internal zone.


It is argued that, contrary to a rather prevalent view within economic theory, rationality does not imply Bayesianism. The note begins by defining these terms and justifying the choice of these definitions, proceeds to survey the main justification for this prevalent view, and concludes by highlighting its weaknesses.


This paper presents the main results of a research that had as general purpose to study the existence and implementation of internal auditing procedures within Portuguese municipalities, as a consequence of local management reforms. Using a questionnaire, we have searched for: knowing the features of the internal auditing service/ department, if existent; gathering information on the practice of internal auditing standards and procedures, focusing on economic and financial auditing; and verifying which issues are object of internal auditing, namely those related to the accounting and internal control systems. We have also assessed the importance practices and objects of internal auditing are given, even if non existent. Given that the questionnaire was built on the basis of auditing standards used in the private sector, this research allows to assess the possibility for these to be applied and useful for Portuguese municipalities.


Background The unit dose drugs dispensing system (UDDDS) is established in the following way: first, the physician prescribes the treatment for the patient, the pharmacist then validates the prescription and finally the medication is dispensed from the pharmacy department. One function on the UDDDS is review the inpatient's pharmacotherapeutic profile and recommend therapeutic drug monitoring, such as vancomycin plasma levels. Vancomycin is an antimicrobial glycopeptide with high toxicity whose most important adverse reactions are the red man syndrome, ototoxicity and nephrotoxicity. Purpose To evaluate the clinical impact of pharmaceutical interventions from the UDDDS in the recommendation of vancomycin plasma levels in hospitalised patients and subsequent dosage adjustment from the pharmacokinetic unit. Material and methods Descriptive and prospective study, conducted between January and August 2015 in a teaching care hospital of 412 beds. We reviewed all of the monitoring recommendations carried out in adult inpatients with a vancomycin prescription order. Critically ill patients were excluded. From the UDDDS of the pharmacy service, the recommendations had been made taking into account if the patient did not have vancomycin plasma levels measured or ordered. We analysed physician agreement with these recommendations, and patients who had adequate concentrations (appropriate range considering both 10–15 µg/mL and 15–20 µg/mL as severe infections) or doses adjusted by the pharmacist. Results During the study period, the recommendation for vancomycin monitoring was performed in 112 patients after reviewing their pharmacotherapeutic profile, of which 64 were accepted (57.14%). 143 patients treated with vancomycin were monitored from the pharmacokinetic unit, so that 44.75% were performed following the recommendation from the UDDDS. Of these, 22 (34.38%) were within the therapeutic range and in 42 (65.62%) the pharmacist recommended a new dosing regimen tailored to the patient's clinical condition. Conclusion The pharmaceutical intervention from the UDDDS in the recommendation of vancomycin plasma levels in inpatients allowed correct dosage in more than half of the patients. No conflict of interest.


The colloidal interactions between asphaltene surfaces in heptol, a mixture of n-heptane and toluene, were studied for the first time by colloidal force measurements using an atomic force microscope (AFM). Asphaltenes were deposited on silica wafers and silica spheres using the Langmuir-Blodgett upstroke technique. The results showed that the ratio of toluene to heptane can significantly change solvent quality in terms of the ability to solubilize asphaltenes and hence the nature and the magnitude of the interaction forces between asphaltene surfaces. In pure toluene, there is a steric long-range repulsion which can be well fitted by the scaling theory of polymer brushes. As toluene volume fraction in heptol (Phi(T)) is gradually decreased from Phi(T) = 1 (pure toluene) to Phi(T) = 0 (pure n-heptane), the steric repulsion reduced and changed to weak attraction when Phi(T) < 0.2. The attraction in heptane can be fitted by van der Waals forces alone which are thus believed to promote asphaltene aggregation, leading to asphaltene precipitation. The results obtained in this study provide an insight into interactions that determine asphaltene behavior in an organic medium and hence in crude oils.


The rod-like configuration of conjugated polymer chains with its low energetic disorder is the key to utilizing the backbone as a highly electrically-conductive wire. An energetic disorder that is higher than 0.1 eV, coupled with vibronic modes of the chains, leads to the localization of charges. Herein, we have tracked precisely the rod-like transition of poly(p-phenyleneethynylene) (PPE) chains as a function of temperature in diluted solutions, and shown a steep increase in persistence length at 230 K. The resulting rod-like configuration of the PPE chains with its extended electronic conjugation exhibited an extremely small energetic disorder of ∼70 meV, and was stabilized by subsequent polymer aggregate formation.


Various Galactic stellar spectroscopic surveys are currently underway, and each is expected to achieve high internal accuracy in terms of stellar parameters and abundances. A number of questions related to the formation and evolution of the Galaxy may be addressed based on samples of stars observed within each survey. In addition, complementary samples of stars may be constructed by combining data from different surveys. The Gaia FGK Benchmark Stars provide the necessary link to bring the quantities measured from different spectra with different methods onto the same scale. We selected 28 FGK stars and 5 M giants with available angular diameter θ, bolometric flux F bol , and distance. We used the fundamental relation T eff ∝ F /θ 0.5 to determine a reference effective temperature. We used the fundamental relation g ∝ M / R 2 , where M is the mass and R the radius, to determine a reference surface gravity. A homogeneous analysis of a high resolution and high signal-to-noise spectral library provides a reference metallicity (Blanco-Cuaresma et al. 2014A&A...566A..98B, Jofre et al. 2014A&A...564A.133J). These stars serve as a reference for testing and homogenizing large stellar surveys such as the Gaia mission and the Gaia-ESO public spectroscopic survey and for improving models of FGK-star atmospheres. A detailed discussion of the fundamental T eff and log g values will be presented in Heiter et al. (to be submitted).


Nerve signals were recorded from the sciatic nerve of the rabbits in the acute experiments with multi-channel thin-film longitudinal intrafascicular electrodes. 5.5 s sequences of quiescent and high-level nerve activity were spectrally decomposed by applying a ten-level stationary wavelet transform with the Daubechies 10 (Db10) mother wavelet. Then, the statistical distributions of the raw and subband-decomposed sequences were estimated and used to fit a fourth-order Pearson distribution as well as check for normality. The results indicated that the raw and decomposed background and high-level nerve activity distributions were nearly zero-mean and non-skew. All distributions with the frequency content above 187.5 Hz were leptokurtic except for the first-level decomposition representing frequencies in the subband between 12 and 24 kHz, which was Gaussian. This suggests that nerve activity acts to change the statistical distribution of the recording. The results further demonstrated that quiescent recording contained a mixture of an underlying pink noise and low-level nerve activity that could not be silenced. The signal-to-noise ratios based upon the standard deviation (SD) and kurtosis were estimated, and the latter was found as an effective measure for monitoring the nerve activity residing in different frequency subbands. The nerve activity modulated kurtosis along with SD, suggesting that the joint use of SD and kurtosis could improve the stability and detection accuracy of spike-detection algorithms. Finally, synthesizing the reconstructed subband signals following denoising based upon the higher order statistics of the subband-decomposed coefficient sequences allowed us to effectively purify the signal without distorting spike shape.


Rabies is an acute fatal zoonotic encephalitis caused by a Lyssavirus belonging to the family rhabdoviridae

responsible for about 69000 deaths annually. In July, 2015 Malaysia lost its rabies free status due to an outbreak

of canine rabies that started from Perlis state and later moved to Kedah and Pulau Pinang states of Malaysia.

This study was carried out to review available data on rabies and determine the incidence of rabies during the

outbreak, the susceptible population of dogs, the number of dogs culled, the number of dogs vaccinated and

lessons that can be learned from the outbreak using data principally from the OIE and other public domain

sources. Statistical calculations employed chi square analysis at 95% confidence level using SPSS version 22.

The incidence of rabies was 0.10% (CI= 0.05%, 0.18%). There was significant difference (P<0.0001) between

the number of cases, number of susceptible dogs, number of dogs destroyed and number of dogs vaccinated

between the 3 states in Malaysia with Perlis having the highest number of cases, Kedah having the highest

number of susceptible dogs, Pulau Pinang having the highest number of culled dogs but with the least number

of vaccinated dogs and Kedah having the highest number of vaccinated dogs. Perlis had the highest number of

cases followed by Pulau Pinang. Kedah with the highest number of vaccinations recorded only 1 case of rabies.

There was no case of human rabies despite numerous dog bite cases during the outbreak. The proximity of the 3

states especially Perlis to a rabies endemic country must have led to the outbreak of the infection. Mass

vaccination of dogs along with short term targeted culling is important in stopping rabies outbreaks. Territories

within close proximity to endemic locations must maintain more surveillance against transboundary diseases

like rabies. Post exposure prophylaxis is necessary immediately after exposure to rabies to prevent human

infection.


Given a single outdoor image, this paper proposes a collaborative learning approach for labeling it as either sunny or cloudy. Never adequately addressed, this twoclass classification problem is by no means trivial given the great variety of outdoor images. Our weather feature combines special cues after properly encoding them into feature vectors. They then work collaboratively in synergy under a unified optimization framework that is aware of the presence (or absence) of a given weather cue during learning and classification. Extensive experiments and comparisons are performed to verify our method. We build a new weather image dataset consisting of 10K sunny and cloudy images, which is available online together with the executable.


Short survey of late or long-term consequences of gastric operations (recurrent ulceration, postprandial discomfort, disturbances of motility, syndrome of malassimilation). The possible importance of the recently discovered gastro-intestinal hormones Motilin, Gastric Inhibitory Polypeptide (GIP) and Vaso-active Intestinal Peptide (VIP) is discussed.


Background: The dysregulation of apoptosis is a defining characteristic of malignant cells where excessive concentration of BCL2 protein contributes to the anti-apoptotic phenotype, driving development and subsequent resistance to therapy. Chromosomal translocations, including the t(14;18) rearrangement, up-regulate BCL2 transcription, preventing tumor cell death in B-cell lymphomas. A new class of therapeutic agents, called DNA interference (DNAi) drugs, exert their therapeutic effect by selectively blocking the transcription of oncogenes. PNT2258 is the lead DNAi drug currently undergoing clinical evaluation in patients with hematological malignancies. PNT2258 contains PNT100, a single stranded, native sequence oligonucleotide targeted against BCL2, which is delivered to cancer cells in a protective liposomal transport system. We present data on the anti-tumor and immunomodulatory effects of PNT228 in mice compared with that observed in patients with advanced solid tumors treated with escalating doses of PNT2258. Material and Methods: Twenty-two patients received PNT2258 doses ranging from 1 to 150 mg/mˆ2 as part of a Phase I dose-escalation study in patients with advanced, treatment refractory solid tumors. Patient plasma specimens were analyzed using a 61-marker multiplex immunoassay. Balb/c and WSU-DLCL2 xenograft mice received PNT2258 or an encapsulated scrambled control (oligonucleotide) sequence at a dose of 20 mg/kg by intravenous infusion. Murine plasma was analyzed with a 37-marker multiplex immunoassay. Results: In the murine xenograft model, PNT2258 demonstrated sequence-specific anti-tumor and anti-BCL2 activity not observed with the scrambled control. Xenograft mice demonstrated a strong innate immune response that was very similar in magnitude for both PNT2258 and scrambled control. Balb/c mice exhibited a broad and relatively weak immune response to PNT2258 and a stronger response to the scrambled control suggesting activation of both adaptive and innate immune responses. In patients, PNT2258 did not produce clinical signs of immune stimulation. Multiplex immunoassay revealed a lack of significant drug-induced modulation of inflammatory biomarkers following treatment. PNT2258 did induce statistically significant dose-dependent changes in IP-10, leptin, MIP-1β, MCP-1, IL-17F, and IL-1RA consistent with a mechanistic response to BCL2 suppression. Conclusions: Biomarker response profiles of encapsulated human sequence-specific oligonucleotide therapeutics in mice are not predictive of responses in humans. PNT2258 is safe and well tolerated in patients with no evidence of an innate (TLR) response. The observed biomarker profile provides mechanistic confirmation of drug-induced BCL2 suppression at all doses tested. Leptin represents a unique biomarker that may be used to monitor PNT2258 anti-BCL2 activity in the clinic. Citation Format: Elzbieta Izbicka, Robert Streeper, Michael J. Wick, Drew Rasco, Amita Patnaik, Kyriakos P. Papadopoulos, Anthony W. Tolcher, Shari Gaylor, Michael J. Woolliscroft, Richard A. Messmann, Wendi V. Rodrigueza. Effect of PNT2258, an anti-BCL2 DNA-interference drug, on tumor growth and immunological markers in mice and humans. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3529. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-3529


Digital data has experienced explosive growth over the past few years and evidence suggests that this trend continues. As the world becomes more digitized, data storage becomes increasingly relevant to the individual, the IT community, and the economy. Data storage undoubtedly continues to be a big issue in the near future, but in five years, expect continued demand for capacity, proliferation of form factors (sizes and shapes of storage devices), and governmental regulations. So what does 2010 look like? You can expect continued emphasis on management technologies for heterogeneous environments, less-expensive storage media, and tools for content management. In short, you see cheaper, better, and faster technology for creating, managing, and storing digital data.


Based on a sample of 72 managers from Hong-Kong and1032 associates identified by these managers, the results show that female managers network with other females for expressive support but when seeking instrumental contents, they network with male associates. We also found that females are less likely to approach female associates they have strong ties with but are more likely to approach similarly ranked colleagues. They are also unlikely to approach higher ranked female colleagues to network on instrumental contents. Taken together, these results imply that for female managers seeking instrumental support, they should focus on peer-relationships with other females as well as on male associates with whom they have strong ties with. From a stakeholder's point view, more attention should be paid to designing and implementing social policies and integrating a gender perspective into all public policies. This calls for setting up an integrated network of structure, mechanism and processes designed to arouse more gender-awareness, increase the number of women in decision-making role, facilitate the formulate of gender-sensitive policies and programs. Long-term strategies should be developed to build up women through personal growth process, promote integration and equality in the workplace.


We report an experimental and theoretical study of wetting front propagation in anisotropic paper. The height-height correlation function is measured in the presence of large scale biasing and is found to scale with an exponent χ = 0.4. Theoretical analysis of this two-dimensional invasion predicts logarithmic scaling for isotropic paper. The observed nonzero roughness is due to correlated randomness and anisotropy in the paper.


With modern heavy vehicles using higher inflation pressures and higher axle loads the dynamic measurement of the tire-pavement contact force/stress is essential not only for tire development but also in road research for the investigation of factors which may lead to excessive damage of pavements. In this paper the results of laboratory tests with a prototype stress in motion (SIM) quartz sensor trafficked with a one-third scale load simulator (MMLS3) are presented. The tests were designed to vary parameters such as tire inflation pressure, speed, ambient temperature, lateral position, and angle to direction of travel in a controlled environment in order to isolate the influence of these parameters on the SIM sensor results. All other controllable variables remained constant while the target parameter was varied. Tire inflation pressures were calculated from these data. The laboratory tests show that the prototype sensor promises to be an effective investigative tool for SIM measurements.


ABSTRACT: Purpose: To describe: (1) recruitment of a community sample of sexual minority women (SMW) using respondent driven sampling (RDS), (2) and how RDS was modified to reach target recruitment goals, and (3) characteristics of successful recruiters. Methods: We compared the rates of recruitment using RDS and two modifications of RDS that we developed during our recruitment of SMW in Chicago. Key demographics of successful recruiters are described. Results: Using RDS without modifying the standard methodology provided the best rate of recruitment, but moved too slowly to be cost effective. Modifications proved necessary to meet recruitment goals. Participants who successfully recruited others tended to be younger, were African-American, have a high school education or less, and have an income of $20,000 per year or less. Conclusion: Researchers using RDS to recruit SMW may need to consider modifying RDS methodology. Flexibility and adequate staff resources are important. Using RDS to fill specific cells required to obtain a diverse sample may be difficult given the nature of RDS and the demographic characteristics of successful recruiters.


Environmental factors such as the existence of exogenous sugar and light quality during seed germination may affect the growth and quality of seedlings. This experiment was aimed to evaluate the effect of glucose and light quality on seed germination percentage, vitamine E and chlorophyll content in green bean sprout (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilcz). The experiment design used was 5x5 factorial. The main factor was glucose concentration which consisted of 5 levels (0%, 0.5%, 1%, 2.5% or 5 %). The second factor was variation of light quality which consists of 3 different light spectrums namely blue, red or green as well as sunlight and dark condition. Seeds were selected, sterilized and germinated in a petridish containing various level of glucose. Fourty seeds were germinated in each petridish and 5 replicates were used per treatment. Petridish with seeds in it were then placed in a growth chamber having different light quality (blue, red or green), under dark condition or light condition. Growth parameters observed were germination percentage and height of bean sprout. In addition, vitamine E and chlorophyll conten were determined using spectrophotometer. Data were analyzed by using analysis of variance (ANAVA) and followed by Duncan's Multiple Range Test (DMRT) at significant level of 5%. The results showed that increasing glucose content caused reduction in the germination percentage and height of bean sprouts whereas green and blue light also reduced seed germination. The vitamine E content in green bean sprout grown under red and blue light was relatively similar compared to those grown under sunlight or dark condition, however, green light decreased the vitamine E content in green bean sprout. In addition, the existence of glucose and light quality influenced chlorophyll content in green bean sprout. Keywords : glucose, light quality, green bean, vitamine E, chlorophyll content.


This study tested the hypothesis that excitatory amino acid (EAA) neurotransmission at non-N-methyl-D-aspartate (non-NMDA), but not NMDA, receptors within medial regions of the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) is required in the inspiratory termination elicited by vagal or intercostal nerve (ICN) stimulation. Adult cats were anesthetized, decerebrated, vagotomized, and ventilated. After control responses to stimulation of the superior laryngeal nerve (SLN), vagus, and ICN were obtained, EAA receptor antagonists were injected into the medial aspects of the NTS. Injections of 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione (CNQX) or 6,7-dinitro-quinoxaline-2,3-dione (DNQX), EAA receptor antagonists; (+/-)-2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid (AP5), an NMDA antagonist; or 2,3-dihydroxy-6-nitro-7-sulfamoyl-benzo(F)quinoxaline (NBQX), a non-NMDA antagonist, ipsilateral to the vagus abolished the termination response. The SLN-elicited response persisted after AP5 injection but was abolished by NBQX injections. The ICN-elicited response persisted after bilateral injections of CNQX/DNQX or procaine. We conclude that the inspiratory termination elicited by ICN stimulation is independent of the regions medial to the NTS. Inspiratory termination elicited by vagal or SLN stimulation requires non-NMDA-mediated EAA neurotransmission within medial aspects of the NTS, but the vagally elicited response also requires NMDA receptors.


Abstract Nucleolar organizer regions (NOR) were studied in 15 salivary gland myoepitheliomas by an argyrophilic staining technic (AgNOR). The AgNOR data were then compared with flow cytometric DNA content of the neoplasms and also with selected clinicopathologic parameters. We conclude that AgNOR's: (1) do not correlate well with DNA cytometric indices and (2) at best, provide redundant information.


A 57-year-old female diagnosed with advanced gastric cancer with multiple organ metastases was treated by various intra-arterial chemotherapies. After surgical resection of the tumor, adjuvant chemotherapy was carried out. Continuously administered 5-fluorouracil of 250 mg/day made it possible to control the growth of the liver metastases. Extrahepatic metastases were kept under control by administering 30 mg of methotrexate, 750 mg of 5-fluorouracil and 30 mg of Leucovorin per/day/week, and 60 mg/day biweekly of cisplatinum via an abdominal artery infusion port. Owing to this multiple infusion route and chemotherapy regimen, the patient lived for 18 months after her first diagnosis of gastric cancer with multiple liver metastases. Although liver metastases may respond to hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy, extrahepatic metastases lead to poor prognosis. Given the above results, intra-abdominal aorta chemotherapy may be effective for extrahepatic metastases since this method gives high concentration of the anticancer agents at tumor sites with a low incidence of side effects.


The pervasive presence of English in Spain is unquestionable; indeed, a vast volume of literature has provided evidence of this fact. In this article, the remarkable presence of Anglicisms in a particular type of social media will be examined, namely the Spanish Internet forum enfemenino . The analysis covers three specific domains: beauty, fashion and leisure. The study focuses on a sample of English borrowings used in news articles published in this forum over the last 2 years (from January 2015 to March 2017). The findings reveal an increasing use of pure Anglicisms in the forum, whereas adapted Anglicisms, along with pseudo-Anglicisms, are not so common. These Anglicisms seem to be used for different reasons: the values of modernity and prestige associated with English, the lack of Spanish equivalents in some cases, the emergence of new concepts and innovations and, last but not least, the increasing influence that the Anglo-American culture is exerting on Spain. This raises the question of the extent to which these factors affect our sense of identity in Spain.


The Owen Fracture Zone is a 800 km‐long fault system that accommodates the dextral strike‐slip motion between India and Arabia plates. Because of slow pelagic sedimentation rates that preserve the seafloor expression of the fault since the Early Pliocene, the fault is clearly observed on bathymetric data. It is made up of a series of fault segments separated by releasing and restraining bends, including a major pull‐apart basin at latitude 20°N. Some distal turbiditic channels from the Indus deep‐sea fan overlap the fault system and are disturbed by its activity, thus providing landmarks to date successive stages of fault activity and structural evolution of the Owen Fracture Zone from Pliocene to Present. We determine the durability of relay structures and the timing of their evolution along the principal displacement zone, from their inception to their extinction. We observe subsidence migration in the 20°N basin, and alternate activation of fault splays in the vicinity of the Qalhat seamount. The present‐day Owen Fracture Zone is the latest stage of structural evolution of the 20‐Myr‐old strike‐slip fault system buried under Indus turbiditic deposits whose activity started at the eastern foot of the Owen Ridge when the Gulf of Aden opened. The evolution of the Owen Fracture Zone since 3–6 Myr reflects a steady state plate motion between Arabia and India, such as inferred by kinematics for the last 20 Myr period. The structural evolution of the Owen Fracture Zone since 20 Myr, including fault segments propagation and migration, pull‐apart basin opening and extinction, seems to be characterized by a progressive reorganization of the fault system, and does not require any major kinematics change.


This study was conducted in a large-scale environmental literacy project. In the project, we developed a Learning Progression Framework (LPF) for matter and energy in social–ecological systems; the LPF contains four achievement levels. Based on the LPF, we designed a Plant Unit to help Levels 2 and 3 students advance to Level 4 of the LPF. In the present study, 12 teachers used the Plant Unit to teach, and their students took an LPF-based assessment both before and after the teaching intervention. We observed and videotaped 20 lessons from four of those participating teachers. In this article, we report on how teachers' teaching practice and students' learning practice in classrooms mediate the intervention's impact on students' learning outcomes. Regarding teaching practice, we focused on how teachers used discourse strategies to engage students in meaningful learning. Regarding students' learning practice, we studied epistemological frames that the students used to guide their thinking. The results show that encouraging students to talk about the how and why behind their answers did not always lead to students' use of productive frames and positive learning gains. We found that one teacher, Ms. S, successfully fostered students' use of productive frames by using discourse strategies that target the specialized ways of reasoning behind the science content and the rationale for scientific investigations. Ms. S' students also achieved a learning gain higher than the average learning gain in the intervention. These results suggest that discourse strategies aligned with the LPF play an important role in learning progression-based interventions. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54: 852–883, 2017


The Hippo pathway is a novel signaling cascade that regulates cell proliferation, organ size and tumorigenesis in mammals. In mice, deregulation of the Hippo pathway in the liver has been shown to potently induce tumor formation. However, the molecular mechanism by which the Hippo pathway regulates hepatic growth is not well understood. In this study, we have examined liver development in NF2-/- mutant zebrafish, which exhibit systemic activation of Yap, and found that liver size was increased by 5 days post fertilization (dpf). Histological evaluation of the NF2-/- mutant zebrafish embryos revealed that the enlarged liver was composed of an extended biliary network. In order to examine the cell-autonomous effects of Yap activation in hepatocytes, we generated Tg(fabp10a:YapS87A) fish and found that liver size increased dramatically by 5 dpf. In contrast to the NF2-/- mutant, histological and FACS analysis revealed that the enlarged liver in the Tg(fabp10a:YapS87A) embryos was composed of a greater number of hepatocytes. Chemical exposure to the γ-secretase inhibitor DAPT or erlotinib rescued the hepatomegaly phenotype in 5 dpf Tg(fabp10a:YapS87A) embryos, indicating dependence on Notch and EGFR signaling pathways. To gain greater insight into how these developmental studies relate to tumorigenesis, we compared NF2+/- mutants and Tg(fabp10a:YapS87A) adults and found that both lines were predisposed to liver tumor formation, developing predominantly intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas. Together, these studies reveal an evolutionarily conserved role of the Hippo pathway at the interface between liver development and tumorigenesis in zebrafish. Citation Format: Andrew G. Cox, Sebastian Beltz, Kimberley Evason, Didier Y. Stainier, Trista E. North, Wolfram Goessling. The Hippo pathway regulates liver development and tumorigenesis in zebrafish. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1574. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-1574


The molecular mechanisms generating muscle diversity during development are unknown. The phenotypic properties of slow- and fast-twitch myofibers are determined by the selective transcription of genes coding for contractile proteins and metabolic enzymes in these muscles, properties that fail to develop in cultured muscle. Using transgenic mice, we have identified regulatory elements in the evolutionarily related troponin slow (TnIs) and fast (TnIf) genes that confer specific transcription in either slow or fast muscles. Analysis of serial deletions of the rat TnIs upstream region revealed that sequences between kb -0.95 and -0.5 are necessary to confer slow-fiber-specific transcription; the -0.5-kb fragment containing the basal promoter was inactive in five transgenic mouse lines tested. We identified a 128-bp regulatory element residing at kb -0.8 that, when linked to the -0.5-kb TnIs promoter, specifically confers transcription to slow-twitch muscles. To identify sequences directing fast-fiber-specific transcription, we generated transgenic mice harboring a construct containing the TnIs kb -0.5 promoter fused to a 144-bp enhancer derived from the quail TnIf gene. Mice harboring the TnIf/TnIs chimera construct expressed the transgene in fast but not in slow muscles, indicating that these regulatory elements are sufficient to confer fiber-type-specific transcription. Alignment of rat TnIs and quail TnIf regulatory sequences indicates that there is a conserved spatial organization of core elements, namely, an E box, a CCAC box, a MEF-2-like sequence, and a previously uncharacterized motif. The core elements were shown to bind their cognate factors by electrophoretic mobility shift assays, and their mutation demonstrated that the TnIs CCAC and E boxes are necessary for transgene expression. Our results suggest that the interaction of closely related transcriptional protein-DNA complexes is utilized to specify fiber type diversity.


This report contains the findings of a research study on health and wellbeing carried out in 2014 on behalf of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. The fieldwork and data entry were performed by BMG.


A spectrophotometric assay for glucosidase I using the synthetic trisaccharide alpha-D-Glc 1-->2 alpha-D-Glc 1-->3 alpha-D-Glc-O(CH2)8COOCH3 is reported. The terminal glucose is released from the substrate by the enzyme and quantitated using glucose oxidase, peroxidase, and o-dianisidine. The trisaccharide is specific for glucosidase I and provides all the necessary structural features for correct interaction in the enzyme active site. The utility of the assay for monitoring enzyme activity during isolation and for use in kinetic and inhibition studies (i.e., with 1-deoxynorjirimycin) is demonstrated.


Five groups of 4-week-old turkey poults were each infected by aerosol with a different lentogenic strain of Newcastle disease virus. Four days postinfection, sections of tracheas were collected for histopathologic characterization and virus titration. The most prominent lesions were fibrinopurulent exudate in tracheal lumens, hyperplasia of epithelial cells, and infiltration by lymphocytes. All strains multiplied to high titers and produced similar microscopic lesions, but the number of poults with severe microscopic lesions varied among groups.


The quantum nonlinear Schrodinger model with four-component fermions exhibits a Y(so(5)) symmetry when considered on an infinite interval. The constructed generators of the Yangian are proved to satisfy the Drinfel'd formula and, furthermore, the RTT relation with the general form of a rational R-matrix given by Yang-Baxterization associated with so(5) algebraic structure.


The small Southeast Asian ruteline genus Glenopopillia Lin, 1980 is revised. We describe four new species: Glenopopillia albopilosa Zorn & Lu sp. nov. from Vietnam, Glenopopillia forceps Zorn & Lu sp. nov. from India, Glenopopillia mengi Lu & Zorn sp. nov. from China and Laos, and Glenopopillia skalei Zorn & Lu sp. nov. from Vietnam; and one new subspecies: Glenopopillia rufipennis nigropicta Zorn & Lu subsp. nov. from Laos; propose two new combinations: Glenopopillia fossulata (Benderitter, 1929) comb. nov. (from Strigoderma fossulata Benderitter, 1929) and Glenopopillia klossi (Ohaus, 1926) comb. nov. (from Spilota klossi Ohaus, 1926), bringing the total number of species group taxa in this genus to ten. We characterize the genus, provide a key to the species, describe and diagnose each species group taxon, and compile a distribution map. A lectotype for Spilota klossi Ohaus, 1926 is designated.


We propose a null sub-carrier based carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation technique for OFDMA uplink systems. We discuss the effect of multi-user interference and channel nulls on the identifiability of CFO estimation. We also derive the CFO acquisition range of the algorithm and the optimum location of the null sub-carriers. We prove that the identifiability due to multi-user interference is guaranteed under the CFO estimation range supported by the algorithm. The performance of the algorithm is also evaluated through simulation results.


Background and aims To investigate whether the anomalies affecting the antioxidant defenses could start at birth and to check the decrease in antioxidant defenses in macrosomic newborns. Methods Thirty macrosomic and 30 sex-matched control newborns were recruited for a retrospective case-control study at the Maternity of Tlemcen University Hospital (Algeria). Results The serum plasma ORAC, and albumin levels were significantly decreased in macrosomic than in control newborns, yet no difference was observed after adjustment for weight. Additionally, serum concentrations of malondialdehyde and xanthine oxidase were significantly higher in macrosomic than in controls before adjustment for weight. Moreover, macrosomia was significantly associated with low levels of ORAC (OR = 4.96, 95% CI 1.2–20.55), albumin (OR = 2.25, 95% CI 0.41612.48) and with high levels of MDA (OR = 10.29, 95% CI 2.02–52.36). Conclusions Excessive weight could be a potential factor for decreased anti-oxidative capacity and increased oxidative stress.


In this article, we inquire to what extent different manifestations of trust are associated with public support for evidence informed policy making (EIPM). We present the results of a cross-sectional survey conducted in the peak of the second COVID-19 wave in six Western democracies: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States (N = 8749). Our findings show that public trust in scientific experts is generally related to positive attitudes toward evidence-informed policy making, while the opposite is the case for trust in governments and fellow citizens. Interestingly, citizens' assessment of government responses to COVID-19 moderates the relationship between trust and attitudes toward EIPM. Respondents who do rather not trust their governments or their fellow citizens are more in favor of EIPM if they evaluate government responses negatively. These findings suggest that attitudes toward EIPM are not only related to trust, but also strongly depend on perceived government performance. © 2022 The Authors. Public Administration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.


The protein metabolism and [3H]-uridine uptake of thyroid and adenohypophysis and the kinetics of pituitary TSH rebound (PTR) were studied in goitrous female rats (fed propylthiouracil, PTU: for 7-12 weeks) following single, iv injections of L-thyroxine (T4: 0.8 to 200 mug). Goitrogenesis was associated with reduced protein concentration and enhanced uptake of [3H] uridine in both glands. Plasma levels of TSH were invariably elevated but stores in the adenohypophysis were consistently reduced. Small doses of T4 (4 mug) induced significant TSH repletion in the pituitary within 2-6 h following injection. Accumulations of pituitary TSH to supranormal levels (15-fold increases) were achieved with 20 mug T4 at 6 and 24 h; higher doses (100-200 mug) inhibited the PTR at all time intervals tested (0.5-24 h). Administration of puromycin or actinomycin D did not influence the PTR. Protein content and labeled uridine uptake of the pituitary bore no apparent relationship to T4-induced TSH repletion in the gland. Blood clearance rate of exogenous rat TSH was measured prior to and during PTR. Plasma half-life was determined to be 13.6 and 19.9 min in euthyroid and chronically hypothyroid rats, respectively; it was not significantly altered from the latter during rebound (18.7 min). Calculations of theoretical TSH secretory rates prior to (50.5 +/- 4.4 mU/h) and after rebound with 20 mug T4 (25.4 +/- 4.2 mU/H) revealed that the reaccumulation of TSH in the pituitary induced with T4 cannot be attributed solely to inhibition of release, but may also involve enhancement of synthesis. It is concluded that T4 administration at high dose levels inhibits both synthesis and release of TSH from pituitary thyrotrophs, whereas low critical doses of T4 suppress release, but augment synthesis and/or facilitate conformational change in a pituitary precursor(s) molecule which renders it detectable by bioassay.


Ectomycorrhizal fungi form symbioses with most temperate and boreal tree species, but difficulties in measuring carbon allocation to these symbionts have prevented the assessment of their importance in forest ecosystems. Here, I surveyed allocation patterns in 14 culture studies and five field studies of ectomycorrhizal plants. In culture studies, allocation to ectomycorrhizal fungi (NPPf) was linearly related to total belowground net primary production (NPPb) by the equation NPPf = 41.5% x NPPb - 11.3% (r2 = 0.55, P < 0.001) and ranged from 1% to 21% of total net primary production. As a percentage of NPP, allocation to ectomycorrhizal fungi was highest at lowest plant growth rates and lowest nutrient availabilities. Because total belowground allocation can be estimated using carbon balance techniques, these relationships should allow ecologists to incorporate mycorrhizal fungi into existing ecosystem models. In field studies, allocation to ectomycorrhizal fungi ranged from 0% to 22% of total allocation, but wide differences in measurement techniques made intercomparisons difficult. Techniques such as fungal in-growth cores, root branching-order studies, and isotopic analyses could refine our estimates of turnover rates of fine roots, mycorrhizae, and extraradical hyphae. Together with ecosystem modeling, such techniques could soon provide good estimates of the relative importance of root vs. fungal allocation in belowground carbon budgets.


Surface operating metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors with monolithically integrated asymmetrical Fabry-Perot resonator are presented. Because of the low capacitance of the planar electrode configuration frequency limits exceeding 35 GHz easily can be obtained. Wavelength demultiplexing of closely spaced channels is achieved by an integrated Fabry-Perot resonator. An optical bandwidth of 1.0 nm and a contrast ratio exceeding 10:1 are demonstrated.