Dear Editor-in-Chief, recent research has considered the utility of physical activity as a secondary prevention strategy for nonacute ischemic stroke (5-year poststroke) (1) and transient ischemic attack (TIA) patients (up to 12-month post-TIA diagnosis) (2).Such research has demonstrated improvements in aerobic capacity and coronary artery disease (CAD) risk factors immediately following either a 10-week (1) or 6-month (2) exercise program. Despite these findings, little is known about the optimal time to engage new TIA patients in exercise and education programs, nor the shortor long-term response. Recent research from our laboratory has assessed the short-term efficacy of an 8-week exercise and education program on CAD risk factors and markers of fitness in newly diagnosed TIA patients (3). Following a baseline assessment (CAD risk stratification, physical fitness examination), 60 TIA patients (recruited within 2 weeks of symptom onset) were randomized to either an 8-week exercise program or control group, with follow-up assessments noted immediately and 3month post-intervention. Encouragingly, a greater improvement was observed in a number of CAD risk factors for those individuals who took part in the regular exercise and education sessions. Critically, these improvements were maintained even three months after the intervention (Fig. 1). As significant improvements in fitness were also identified, the early engagement in regular physical activity should be considered a useful additive treatment strategy for newly diagnosed TIA patients. Importantly, clinical trial investigations (3–5) are examining the long-term efficacy of exercise and education programs in modifying vascular risk in TIA patients.These studies may increase awareness concerning the importance of incorporating regular physical activity participation within secondary prevention programs for TIA patients.


The carcinogenicity of certain nickel compounds has been confirmed by the combination of epidemiological evidence in humans and carcinogenesis bioassays in animals. The molecular mechanisms of nickel-induced carcinogenesis include interactions of this metal with major chromatin components causing alterations in gene expression rather than by direct DNA damage. Nickel, amongst 12 different metals, specifically induces a cytoplasmatic protein called Cap43, whose role is not clear, but it has been connected to hypoxia and is overexpressed in a number of cancer cells. Its most interesting feature is a monohistidine decapaptide repeated consecutively three times at the C-terminus, TRSRSHTSEG-TRSRSHTSEG-TRSRSHTSEG. Ni(II) is able to efficaciously and multiply bind to this sequence, and every single decapeptide fragment can anchor one metal ion. So, a detoxification role for Cap43 cannot be excluded. Last, but not least, nickel intolerance is a very well known cause of allergies and skin rashes. It has been discovered that this may be due to nickel interaction with a specific protein, called Toll-like receptor, which shows in its sequence a histidine residue that is not present in the rat homologue, for instance, as in other animals not suffering from nickel allergies. It is thus possible that specific histidine in the human variant is the responsible for nickel intolerance, since this metal can bind it in a very effective way. In this lecture we want to give an overview on nickel interesting behaviour inside the human organism by describing the most recent findings on the topics described above.


Microblogging has become very popular among web users: Twitter broadcasted 200 millions of them every day in 2011. These tweets can be used for social studies, opinion mining, and sentiment analysis. Tweets have been effectively used to analyze opinions and sentiments from specific events such as TV political debates or conference presentations. To analyze tweets, researchers either use Natural Language Process- ing or human-analyses, e. g. with Amazon Mechanical Turks. In this paper we describe a third method that can replace or complement the first two: convincing the tweet authors to explicitly express their opinion using a simple unambiguous syntax--a tag--while they tweet. We report on our experience with the PolemicTweet system where authors tag the tweets they send during conferences and TV shows. We explain how we implemented PolemicTweet and discuss briefly the pro and cons. We believe that author-tagging technologies can effectively complement automated analysis, in particular for analyzing tweets that are by essence ambiguous, and could be ironic, sarcastic or cryptic. We describe the incentive we used to convince the authors and the result we obtained.


We present a search for anisotropic cosmic birefringence in 500 deg$^2$ of southern sky observed at 150 GHz with the SPTpol camera on the South Pole Telescope. We reconstruct a map of cosmic polarization rotation anisotropies using higher-order correlations between the observed cosmic microwave background (CMB) $E$ and $B$ fields. We then measure the angular power spectrum of this map, which is found to be consistent with zero. The non-detection is translated into an upper limit on the amplitude of the scale-invariant cosmic rotation power spectrum, $L(L+1)C_L^{\alpha\alpha}/2\pi < 0.10 \times 10^{-4}$ rad$^2$ (0.033 deg$^2$, 95% C.L.). This upper limit can be used to place constraints on the strength of primordial magnetic fields, $B_{1 \rm Mpc} < 17 {\rm nG} $ (95% C.L.), and on the coupling constant of the Chern-Simons electromagnetic term $g_{a\gamma} < 4.0 \times 10^{-2}/H_I $ (95% C.L.), where $H_I$ is the inflationary Hubble scale. For the first time, we also cross-correlate the CMB temperature fluctuations with the reconstructed rotation angle map, a signal expected to be non-vanishing in certain theoretical scenarios, and find no detectable signal. We perform a suite of systematics and consistency checks and find no evidence for contamination.


This study
investigated predictors of quality of life (QOL) of people with progressive
neurological illnesses. Participants were 257 people with motor neurone
disease (MND), Huntington's
disease (HD), multiple sclerosis (MS), or Parkinson's. Participants completed
questionnaires on two occasions, 12 months apart. There was an increase in
severity of symptoms for people withMND,
negative mood for people with HD and Parkinson's, and social support satisfaction
for people with MS. Regression analyses were conducted to determine predictors
of QOL for each group. Predictor variables were length of illness, symptoms
(physical symptoms, control over body, cognitive symptoms and psychological
symptoms), mood, relationship satisfaction and social support. Predictors of
QOL were severity of symptoms for people withMND,
HD and MS; negative mood for people withMNDand Parkinson's; and social support satisfaction for people with MS. These
results demonstrate the importance of illness severity and mood in predicting
QOL, but also indicate differences between illness groups. The limited role
played by social support and relationship is a surprising finding from the
current study.


A 69-year-old man had an abnormal shadow on chest X-ray and bronchoscopic examination showed that left B4 was completely occluded by a tumor. A non-pulsatile polypoid nodule was also found in right B'. The tumor in the left B4 was diagnosed as carcinoid, but the nodule in right B' was suspected to be hemangioma and biopsy was not performed. Bronchial arteriography revealed hypervascularization with dilated vessels distributing to the lingular lobe and convoluted and a dilated bronchial artery extending to the right upper lobe. From these findings, we diagnosed racemose hemangioma of the bronchial artery of the right upper lobe. After bronchial artery embolization of the right and left bronchial arteries, he underwent segmentectomy of the lingula and was discharged without complications. Two months after the operation, bronchoscopic examination showed that the racemose hemangioma had shrunk and the swelling in the surrounding mucosa had decreased. If a submucosal small nodule is observed during bronchoscopy, biopsy should be performed after bronchial arteriography, and if the nodule is diagnosed as racemose hemangioma, bronchial artery embolization should be performed.


Donor-acceptor molecular complexes are a popular class of materials utilizing charge-transfer states for practical applications. A recent class of donor-acceptor dyads based on the fluorescent BODIPY functionalized with triphenylamine (TPA) shows the peculiar property of dual fluorescence. It is hypothesized that instead of the sensitized charge-transfer state being optically dark, it provides an additional bright radiative pathway. Here we use time-dependent density functional theory to characterize the energetic alignment of excitonic and charge-transfer states in a BODIPY-TPA molecular complex. We observe that using a long-range exchange corrected functional in combination with state-specific solvation scheme gives a qualitatively correct alignment of the exciton and charge-transfer states and an enhancement in oscillator strength for the equilibrium solvated charge-transfer state, in agreement with experiment. This work provides rationalization of charge-transfer state emission and provides a foundation to explore charge-transfer using ab initio excited-state nonadiabatic dynamics.


Within the last five million years, the Hawaiian archipelago has successively added 14, spaced, subaerial volcanoes at its southeast end. Each has received endemic terrestrial colonists; established populations appear to stem mainly from the immediately adjacent older island. Chromosome markers were used to trace the evolution of a phylad of 106 unique and closely related Drosophila species. With one exception, each species is restricted to one of the four groups of islands; 57 species appear to be restricted to single volcanoes. Founding of new populations across each of the three major oceanic channels appears to be infrequent. Genetic and morphological analysis suggests that each founding event has resulted in a newly organized, highly specific gene pool, not simply a transplanted colony of the source species. Progressive volcanic forces have thus provided an instructive spatiotemporal environment for the formation of new species. In Drosophila genetic change involves primarily spectacular premating sexual behavior, marked by novel male characters that appear to have evolved under the driving force of sexual selection. Permanent genetic changes in reproductive biology are thus elicited by selection for intrademe Darwinian fitness of individuals and are not the result of ad hoc selection for interpopulation reproductive isolation. The facts reinforce the view that reproductive isolation from other species is largely an incidental by-product of selection imposed by both the ambient and sexual environments in local populations.


3D game environments require players to adapt to the environment and user interfaces, imposing psycho-motor, cognitive and strategic challenges, which players may adapt to in different ways. Navigation in a 3D game is therefore complex, so that any specific instance of player movement may involve features of the virtual space, game-world physics, user-interface controls, the player's goals and intentions, and responses to other players' actions. Moreover, different players or different types of players may have different approaches to navigation. To fully understand the skills players acquire for successful game play, we need a statistical model for navigation. This paper presents one approach to modeling navigation in which players' actions govern transitions in a network of driving states. The structure of this model is explained, and exemplified from data drawn from 2421 half-hour long official matches from the Games United League of BZFlag, an online multiplayer tank battle game. Extensions of the model to obstacle or threat avoidance, strategic goal attainment and individual navigation styles are also discussed.


Residential space and water heating accounts for approximately 12% of California's and 15% of the United States, energy consumption. most Of the residential heating is by direct use of natural gas. combustion of natural gas is a contributor to the overall air pollution,, especially CO and NO{sub x} in the urban areas. Another efficient method for domestic water and space heating is use of electric heat pumps, the most popular category of which uses air as its heat source. Electric heat pumps do not emit air pollutants at the point of use, but use electric power, which is a major contributor to air pollution at its point of generation from fossil fuels. It is the specific objective of this report to evaluate and compare the energy efficiency and source air pollutants of natural gas heaters and electric heat pumps used for domestic heating. Effect of replacing natural gas heaters with electric heat pumps on air pollutant emissions due to domestic heating in two urban areas and in California as a whole has also been evaluated. The analysis shows that with the present state of technology, electric heat pumps have higher heating efficiencies than natural gas heaters. Considering the current electricitymore » generation mix in the US, electric heat pumps produce two to four times more NO{sub x}, much less CO, and comparable amount of CO{sub 2} per unit of useful heating energy compared to natural gas heaters. With California mix, electric heat pumps produce comparable NO{sub x} and much less CO and approximately 30% less CO{sub 2} per unit heat output. Replacement of natural gas heaters with electric heat pumps will slightly increase the overall NO{sub x}, and reduce CO and CO{sub 2} emissions in California. The effect of advanced technology power generation and heat pump heating has also been analyzed.« less


Background: Chronic breathlessness is a common and distressing symptom of many long-term cardiorespiratory conditions and cancers which are highly prevalent in both the UK and worldwide. It is associated with presentation to the emergency department (ED) and admission to hospital.
Aim: The aim of this research is to improve our understanding of the role of chronic breathlessness in ED presentations by people with advanced cardiorespiratory disease and to identify potential targets for interventions to prevent or avoid emergency presentations.
Methods: Mixed methods study with integration of findings at analysis. A systematic review and qualitative synthesis were performed to examine the literature on the experience of breathlessness. A prospective survey and case note review were conducted to establish the prevalence of presentations due to acute-on-chronic breathlessness at the ED and to identify the demographic and clinical characteristics of those patients. The perceptions of patients with chronic breathlessness, their carer and healthcare professionals regarding presentation to the ED due to acute-on-chronic breathlessness were explored by semi-structured interview.
Findings: Living with chronic breathlessness involves widespread effects on the lives of both the patient and those caring for them, yet this impact may remain largely invisible to others. Quality of life with chronic breathlessness is maximised by a patient's engaged coping style and a clinician's responsiveness to breathlessness as well as to the underlying disease. This is described by the Breathing Space concept. Presentation to the ED sits within this context and occurs as a result of a breathlessness crisis. There are a proportion of patients who may have avoidable attendances and could be more optimally managed in the community.
Conclusions: Greater public and professional understanding of the widespread effects of breathlessness, combined with appropriate assessment and management of the symptom, including planning for crisis may reduce the need to present to the ED.


Competition among Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Indonesia has reached
its peak, each telecom operator in Indonesia have started seriously to play served data.
Currently there are several Internet Service Providers who are active in competition in
the telecommunications sector. Telkom, which is a long time playerin the field of
telecommunications in Indonesia do not want to be left to secure his position as ruler
of data and voice services. One of them is through their flagship product that is
Speedy.
The purpose of this research is to determine: 1) the influence of image on
customer expectation, customer satisfaction, and loyalty, 2) customer expectation of
perceived quality, perceived value, and customer satisfaction; 3) perceived quality on
perceived value, and customer satisfaction, 4) perceived value to customer
satisfaction, 5) customer satisfaction on loyalty; 6) customer satisfaction on
complaints; 6) complaints against Speedycustomer loyalty in the PT. Telkom
Yogyakarta. The population in this study are all consumers Speedy in PT. Telkom
Yogyakarta with Speedy customer research sample was of 155 respondents from 175
copies of questionnaires distributed. Sampling technique using accidental sampling
method. The research method used in thisresearch using quantitative research
methods with structural equation modeling using AMOS version 16 to test the
hypothesis.
The results obtained:
1. Image signifkkan positive effect on customer expectation, customer satisfaction,
and loyalty. The results showed only the image of the customer relationship that
has significant expectation (probability value <0.05). Customer expectation
significant effect on perceived quality, perceived value, and customer satisfaction.
Causality test results indicate that significantly affects only the customer
expectation on perceived value and perceived quality (probability value <0.05).
2. Perceived quality has a significant positive impact on perceived value and
customer satisfaction; Perceived value to customer satisfaction: Customer
satisfaction has a significant positive impact on customer loyalty, customer
satisfaction has a significant negative of complaints; Complaints have a significant
negative effect on customer loyalty.
3. H2, H6, H7, and H9 study not proved. But H1, H3, H4, H5, H8, H10, H11, and
H12 this study proved.
The suggestions in this research is to PT. Telkom Yogyakarta, is expected to continue
to improve the overall quality, network quality, service and product quality so that it
can increase the overall quality foster consumer satisfaction.


The article analyses the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) through the spectrum of international environmental law. It unpacks the epistemic logics within which IPBES operates and emphasises the normative constructions underlying the mechanism, arguing that IPBES is best understood in light of the rationale and principles of the law of sustainable development. On that basis, the article provides an in-depth discussion of IPBES, and in particular of i) its mandate analysed in light of the principles of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, ii) its scope that combines a temporal and spatial perspective to scientific knowledge and iii) its outreach activities seeking to co-operate with a variety of partners, interpreted as an embodiment of the 'global partnership' that the Rio Declaration calls for.


Neutral atoms can be trapped and manipulated with surface mounted microscopic current carrying and charged structures. We present a lithographic fabrication process for such atom chips based on evaporated metal films. The size limit of this process is below 1 μm. At room temperature, thin wires can carry current densities of more than 107A∕cm2 and voltages of more than 500 V. Extensive test measurements for different substrates and metal thicknesses (up to 5 μm) are compared to models for the heating characteristics of the microscopic wires. Among the materials tested, we find that Si is the best suited substrate for atom chips.


International Labour standards promulgated by the International Labour Organisation have long called for ILO constituents to establish and support notification and recording systems for the collection of reliable data on work-related fatalities, injuries and diseases. The ILO has developed guidance and set out good practices in response to well document challenges constituents face when working to establishing effective notification and recording systems. These challenges are both technical and behavioural in nature. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which require countries to report the frequency rates of fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries, by sex and migrant status has put the spotlight on the reliability of the data countries are reporting and the need for countries to improve notification and reporting systems before that indicator is a true measure of OSH performance. For this indicator to be relevant it should be accompanied by a means for measuring the capacity of countries' notification system to collect reliable and comparable data. Frequency rates of fatal and non-fatal injuries are lagging indicators and should be coupled with leading indicators that drive behaviours that correlate with improvements in OSH performance. Leading indicators need to be supported by research and have applicability to variety of contexts and the future of work. Leading indicators can be more readily aligned with positive incentives, such as improved productivity and competitiveness. Leading indicators may also be more effective in addressing occupational disease. Leading indicators need to be developed through a collaborative and consultative process engaging representatives of governments, employers, workers and the public to ensure their viability and acceptance.


The study's purpose was to measure the impact of an individually designed lifestyle intervention program on the readers of a regional newspaper. A newspaper with 180,000 daily readers covered a story about three untrained and overweight adults who participated in an individually designed lifestyle intervention program. Their goals were to become physically fit and run a half marathon (21.1 km) after 14 weeks of training. The newspaper published on average three weekly articles throughout the project period, including the weekly training program and a record of the physical improvements made by the participants. The number of hits on the project's web site was recorded. Spin-off effects on the responses of readers were mapped. The project's web site had 25,000 unique weekly hits. Significant spin-off effects included the establishment of training groups which were still active after two years and the launch of a similar project by another regional newspaper. This individually designed lifestyle intervention program was successfully scaled up and reached a large number of the newspaper's readers. The collaboration between a newspaper and exercise researchers could also be adapted to other press media and represents a novel approach to improve participation in physical activities.


Old age pensions in modern western industrial countries rest on three pillars: public, collective and individual-private arrangements. The flat-rate public system and the collective systems, domain of industrial relations, prevail in Holland. Since the early seventies the public old age pension (AOW) has been raised to the net minimum wage level. In the meantime the importance of the collective systems has been increasing. The pension levels of these systems are, however, not prescribed by law. In order to measure the present state of the collective systems the Dutch Chamber of Pensions has started a research project to investigate how many workers lack such an arrangement and why they lack it. The results of the project have recently been reported: in 1985 18% (650,000) of the workers (25-65 years) lacked an arrangement. The vast majority of them (87%) was found in the sector of services, especially the commercial services. A second research project has been started to find out the quality of the existing pension arrangements. The results of the two projects together are meant to answer the question whether or not some sort of collective pensions must be enforced by law. The improvement of collective pension schemes, however, should not lead automatically to decreasing public schemes. For most people the public pension system is the most important source of income.


Sequence comparison of natural relaxins and the investigation of the structure function relationship of chemically synthesized relaxin analogs have been used to identify two arginine residues on the surface of the main helix of the B chain as hormone-receptor interaction site. This site is sensitive to structural changes, in particular the conformation of the A chain loop. Introducing the active site of relaxin into noncrossreacting structural analogs such as insulin and bombyxin required a four amino acid exchange. Both hybrid hormones bound to the anti-porcine relaxin antibody R6 with high affinity, and the insulin analog, with an additional C-terminal truncation of the B chain, crossreacted with rat relaxin-receptors.


Pro-inflammatory mast cells (MC) are crucial for initiation and perpetuation of anaphylaxis and atopic diseases. TNFα secretion by activated MC is critical for MC-mediated inflammation. Efficient MC activation depends on exogenous stimuli triggering endogenous mediators, such as pro-inflammatory neuropeptides. Surprisingly, studies linking neuromediators to MC are lacking. Here we analyzed the role of the neuropeptides, substance-P (SP) and hemokinin-1 (HK-1), in the regulation of IgE-mediated MC inflammation. In vitro, we show that MC express the shared receptor for SP and HK-1, the neurokinin-1 receptor (NK1R). FcϵRI ligation of bone marrow derived MC (BMMC) from WT mice increased HK-1 and NK1R mRNA and protein levels but had no effect on SP. NK1R-/- BMMC had significantly decreased degranulation and TNFα release suggesting that autocrine HK-1 promoted MC inflammatory functions. Mechanistic analysis demonstrated that NK1R-/- BMMC had impaired Akt-dependent NFκB activation. In vivo, NK1R-/- mice showed significantly decreased IgE-mediated cutaneous and systemic anaphylaxis and reduced development of chronic asthma, marked by reduced pulmonary eosinophilia, reduced Th2 skewing and low levels of TNFα in bronchial fluid. We conclude that MC utilize a positive feedback loop whereby autocrine HK-1 induces NK1R signaling that, in turn, potentiates TNFα secretion in the course of IgE-mediated anaphylactic and atopic disorders.


Perinatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES) can have numerous adverse effects on the reproductive organs later in life, such as vaginal clear-cell adenocarcinoma. Epigenetic processes including DNA methylation may be involved in the mechanisms. We subcutaneously injected DES to neonatal C57BL/6 mice. At days 5, 14, and 30, expressions of DNA methyltransferases (Dnmts) Dnmt1, Dnmt3a, and Dnmt3b, and transcription factors Sp1 and Sp3 were examined. We also performed restriction landmark genomic scanning (RLGS) to detect aberrant DNA methylation. Real-time RT-PCR revealed that expressions of Dnmt1, Dnmt3b, and Sp3 were decreased at day 5 in DES-treated mice, and that those of Dnmt1, Dnmt3a, and Sp1 were also decreased at day 14. RLGS analysis revealed that 5 genomic loci were demethylated, and 5 other loci were methylated by DES treatment. Two loci were cloned, and differential DNA methylation was quantified. Our results indicated that DES altered the expression levels of Dnmts and DNA methylation.


Cervical pessary is a new treatment for preterm birth and have obtained a lot of space in clinical practice because its real efficacy, which unconsidered the bias produced by some research. There is a lack of evidence about cervical pessary in many aspects and only those who handle this device every day can note and call for attention. Experience is the central point about cervical pessary in this article, and important centers with training and expertise must be taken the front of this issue, because low experience probably is one of the causes of contradictory results in literature. In fact, we have a lot of aspects that need attention and never were treated because always the efficacy is questioned and do not open space for other important aspects. We have a lot of o issues to discuss during this article such as the indication of a cervical pessary, the needs of guidelines about pessary, including a learning curve of pessary treatment, the relevant aspects about insertion of the device, its association with other medications, needs for hospitalization, which is the best management for the vaginal discharge pessary related, how to handle the pelvic pain after insertion, the urinary symptoms, the obstipation, and the inhibition of preterm labor during pessary treatment, and finally, what are the relevant aspects about the withdrawal of cervical pessary?


Mobile applications increasingly require users to surrender private information, such as GPS location or social networking data. To facilitate user privacy when using these applications, secure function evaluation SFE could be used to obliviously compute functions over encrypted inputs. The dominant construction for desktop applications is the Yao garbled circuit, but this technique requires significant processing power and network overhead, making it extremely expensive on resource-constrained mobile devices. In this work, we develop Efficient Mobile Oblivious Computation, a set of SFE protocols customized for the mobile platform. Using partially homomorphic cryptosystems, we develop protocols to meet the needs of two popular application types: location-based and social networking. Using these applications as comparison benchmarks, we demonstrate execution time improvements of 99% and network overhead improvements of 96% over the most optimized garbled circuit techniques. These results show that our protocols provide mobile application developers with a more practical and equally secure alternative to garbled circuits. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract While conflict-related sexual violence affects men and women, male survivors are often overlooked or marginalised. The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) is a poignant example. Twenty-two years after the Bosnian war ended, little attention has been given to the men who suffered diverse forms of sexual violence during the conflict. The present article contributes to addressing this gap. Based on semi-structured interviews with 10 men who endured the horrors of the Čelopek camp in north-east BiH, it focuses on the lives of these men today. Exploring the men's silences and the intersection of their trauma with ongoing everyday problems, it goes beyond the commonly made argument that sexual violence against men constitutes an attack on masculinity. Fundamentally, it examines how masculinity norms and expectations have shaped the men's stories, coping strategies, and current needs. This use of a masculinity lens highlights important gaps within transitional justice, which to date has narrowly focused on violent and militarised forms of masculinity. The article thus calls for transitional justice processes to give more attention to masculinities affected by violence.


CtrA is a master response regulator found in many alpha‐proteobacteria. In Caulobacter crescentus and Sinorhizobium meliloti, this regulator is essential for viability and is transcriptionally autoregulated. In C. crescentus, it is required for the regulation of multiple cell cycle events, such as DNA methylation, DNA replication, flagella and pili biogenesis and septation. Here, we report the characterization of the ctrA gene homologue in the α2‐proteobacteria Brucella abortus, a facultative intracellular pathogen responsible for brucellosis. We detected CtrA expression in the main Brucella species, and its overproduction led to a phenotype typical of cell division defect, consistent with its expected role. A purified B. abortus CtrA recombinant protein (His6–CtrA) was shown to protect the B. abortus ctrA promoter from DNase I digestion, suggesting transcriptional autoregulation, and this protection was enhanced under CtrA phosphorylation on a conserved Asp residue. Despite the similarities shared by B. abortus and C. crescentus ctrA, the pathway downstream from CtrA may be distinct, at least partially, in both bacteria. Indeed, beside ctrA itself, only one (the ccrM gene) out of four B. abortus homologues of known C. crescentus CtrA targets is bound in vitro by phosphorylated B. abortus CtrA. Moreover, further footprinting experiments support the hypothesis that, in B. abortus, CtrA might directly regulate the expression of the rpoD, pleC, minC and ftsE homologues. Taken together, these results suggest that, in B. abortus and C. crescentus, similar cellular processes are regulated by CtrA through the control of distinct target genes. The plasticity of the regulation network involving CtrA in these two bacteria may be related to their distinct lifestyles.


The predictive and interpretative capability of quantitative chromatographic retention-biological activity models is supported by the fact that in adequate experimental conditions the solute partitioning into the chromatographic system can emulate the solute partitioning into lipid bilayers of biological membranes, which is the basis of drug and metabolite uptake, passive transport across membranes and bioaccumulation. The use of retention data obtained in biopartitioning micellar chromatography (BMC) has been demonstrated to be helpful in describing the biological behaviour of different kinds of drugs. In this chromatographic system, polioxyethylene 23 lauryl ether Brij35 micellar mobile phases and C(18) reversed stationary phase in adequate experimental conditions are used. The RP-HPLC capacity factors of butyrophenones were determined using different Brij35 concentrations as micellar mobile phases. Relationships between seven biological activities of butyrophenones reported in bibliography and retention data were established and their predictive and interpretative ability evaluated. These relationships were significant between preclinical pharmacology and therapeutic efficacy parameters and the retention factors of butyrophenones (0.89 < R(2) < 0.98). The results indicate that the retention of compounds in BMC is capable of describing and predicting in vitro the biological activities of butyrophenones. This approach can be very useful in the development of new neuroleptic drugs, avoiding the use of experimental animals.


The fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) resulted in substantial changes with regard to the classification of Eating Disorders. In DSM-5, Feeding and Eating Disorders are for the first time subsumed in a single category. The Binge Eating Disorder (BED) was established as the third classical eating disorder in addition to Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and Bulimia Nervosa (BN). The criteria for AN changed remarkably, whereas there were only minor changes to the BN criteria. The criteria for BED differ only marginally from the DSM-IV research criteria. There are now subtypes of AN, BN, and BED in the new category "Other Specific Feeding and Eating Disorders." The rest category "Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified" has been renamed to "Unspecified Feeding or Eating Disorders." The practicability of the DSM-5 criteria for Eating Disorders, and for AN in particular, for both clinical practice and research remains to be seen.


A framework is developed for inference concerning the covariance operator of a functional random process, where the covariance operator itself is an object of interest for statistical analysis. Distances for comparing positive-definite covariance matrices are either extended or shown to be inapplicable to functional data. In particular, an infinite-dimensional analogue of the Procrustes size-and-shape distance is developed. Convergence of finite-dimensional approximations to the infinite-dimensional distance metrics is also shown. For inference, a Frechet estimator of both the covariance operator itself and the average covariance operator is introduced. A permutation procedure to test the equality of the covariance operators between two groups is also considered. Additionally, the use of such distances for extrapolation to make predictions is explored. As an example of the proposed methodology, the use of covariance operators has been suggested in a philological study of cross-linguistic dependence as a way to incorporate quantitative phonetic information. It is shown that distances between languages derived from phonetic covariance functions can provide insight into the relationships between the Romance languages.


Today the physician who treats women with emotional problems during menopause cannot function solely as a psychotherapist; he must deal with both their soma and psyche. The interaction between the endocrine and emotional states has long been known. When the equilibrium of an essentially normal state--menopause--is disturbed, a multifaceted approach is essential to restore homeostasis. Hormone replacement, psychotherapy and psychotropic drugs may all be necessary. Serial vaginal smears are useful in monitoring therapy.


Prostate cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease and its manifestations can vary from indolent localized tumor to widespread metastases. This heterogeneity is also observed at the molecular level both inter- and intra-patient. Intra-patient heterogeneity in the clinical setting of men with castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) might be informative in terms of treatment decision. Here I present analytical work on two approaches relevant to the characterization of intra-patient heterogeneity and applied to unpublished CRPC patients sequencing data. The first is based on the genome wide interrogation of multiple metastatic and primary tissue biopsies from single patients. I present genomic analyses to decipher the content of multiple tumor biopsies from CRPC patients and provide comparisons to highlight similarities and differences and to identify alternative patterns of aberrations. The second approach, alternative to tissue biopsies that might under-represent the genomic landscape of the patient's disease, relies on liquid biopsies, a minimally invasive test that is also amenable to serial sampling. Liquid biopsies contain circulating cell free DNA (cfDNA) released from widespread tumor cells, potentially uncovering the full tumor landscape. By using next generation sequencing on cfDNA obtained from plasma, I developed strategies aimed at systematically tracking the reiterative process of genetic diversification leading to disease evolution and to detect genomic aberrations. I specifically focused on an ad hoc computational procedure (ABEMUS) to detect somatic point mutations that could emerge under treatment pressure and as drug resistance mechanism. The work I present is relevant to the context of precision oncology that exploits detailed patient-specific molecular information to diagnose and follow cancer progression with the ultimate goal of promptly guiding treatment decisions to improve clinical outcome with transdisciplinary strategies. The analytical work I developed can be applied to the study of any tumor type.


Background Muslim women are especially vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections (STI) and are at higher risk of under-detection. Evidence on the unique barriers to STI testing and diagnosis among Muslim communities is severely lacking. Understanding the complexity of accessing STI testing and diagnosis in Muslim communities is an area that requires further exploration. We aimed to explore the multilevel barriers to STI testing and diagnosis among Muslim women. Methods We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews informed by the ecological model of health. This study took place in Riyadh Saudi Arabia in 2019 with women aged over 18. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results Twenty-eight women were interviewed from different ages, marital status, employment, and educational levels. Muslim women's perceived barriers to STI testing and diagnosis included personal, socio-cultural, and service-level barriers. Lack of knowledge about STIs, denial, and underestimating the seriousness of infection and symptoms were among the many individual barriers to STIs testing and diagnosis. Religious views towards extramarital sex and negative views of people with STIs is a significant barrier to STI testing and diagnosis. Lack of patient confidentiality and providers' judgement and mistreatment were also cited as barriers to seeking healthcare. Conclusion Barriers to STI testing and diagnosis exist on many levels including personal, socio-cultural, religious, and healthcare services, and at policy level. Multilevel interventions are needed to reduce the stigma of STIs and facilitate access to sexual health services among Muslims. It is our recommendation that policy and research efforts are directed to enhance trust in the doctor-patient relationship through better clinical training as well as implementing stricter regulations to protect patients' confidentiality in healthcare settings.


Abstract The complete mitochondrial genome of Argiope bruennichi is a circular molecule of 14,063 bp in length, containing 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNAs, 21 transfer RNAs, and a control region. The A + T content of the overall base composition of H-strand is 73.4% (T: 38.0%; C: 9.8%; A: 35.4%; G: 16.8%). ND6 begins with ATG, ND4 and ATP6 begin with ATA, ND5 and COI begin with TTA, ND1, COII and COIII begin with TTG, and other five protein-coding genes begin with TTG as start codon. ND5, ND4L, ND6, COI, COII, COIII, ATP6 and ATP8 genes are terminated with TAA as stop codon, Cyt b, ND1 and ND2 end with TAG, and other two protein-coding genes end with T.


In order to investigate the strength of any relationship between knee pain and disability, a postal questionnaire was sent to 2102 men and women aged over 55 registered at a general practice in Bristol. A response rate of 80.6% was achieved at second reminder. Knee pain was common particularly in women (27.6% overall). Disability was also more frequently reported in women (P less than 0.05) and rose with increasing age. Respondents with knee pain had significantly more disability relating to upper as well as lower limb activities (P less than 0.05).


The issue of exponential stability analysis of continuous‐time switched singular systems consisting of a family of stable and unstable subsystems with time‐varying delay is investigated in this paper. It is very difficult to analyze the stability of such systems because of the existence of time‐delay and unstable subsystems. In this regard, on the basis of the free‐weighting matrix approach, by constructing the new Lyapunov‐like Krasovskii functional, and using the average dwell‐time approach, delay‐dependent sufficient conditions are derived and formulated in terms of LMIs to check the exponential stability of such systems. This paper also highlights the relationship between the average dwell‐time of the switched singular time‐delay system, its stability, exponential convergence rate of differential states, and algebraic states. Finally, a numerical example is given to confirm the analytical results and illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Zipf's law states that, for most countries, the number of firms with size greater than S is inversely proportional to S. Most explanations start with Gibrat's rule of proportional growth but need to incorporate additional constraints and ingredients introducing deviations from it. We show that combining Gibrat's rule at all firm levels with random processes of firms' births and deaths yield Zipf's law under a "balance" condition between firm growth and their death rate. We predict deviations from Zipf's law under a variety of circumstances, which provides a framework for identifying the possible origin(s) of the many reports of deviations from the pure Zipf's law. Reciprocally, deviations from Zipf's law in a given economy provides a diagnostic, suggesting possible policy corrections.


In this paper, we have examined one-dimensional unsteady self-similar adiabatic flow of a dusty gas behind a spherical shock wave with time dependent energy input. The dusty gas is assumed to be a mixture of small solid particles and perfect gas. The solid particles are continuously distributed in the perfect gas. In order to get some essential features of shock propagation, the solid particles are considered as a pseudo-fluid and it is assumed that the equilibrium flow condition is maintained in the flow-field, and viscous stress and heat conduction of the mixture are negligible. The presence of small solid particles affects the medium in two ways. On the one hand, the volume fraction of solid particles lowers the compressibility of the mixture; and on the other hand, the particle load increases the inertia of the mixture. It is found that if the density of the solid particles and that of the perfect gas are equal, by an increase in the mass fraction of solid particles in the mixture, the strength of the shock is decreases and its distance from the inner expanding surface is increased. Also, by an increase in the ratio of density of solid particles and that of the perfect gas in the mixture, the strength of the shock is increased and its distance from the inner surface is decreased. Further, an increase in the rate of energy input increases the shock velocity and decreases the distance between the shock front and the inner surface.


Atlas is a 23 MJ pulsed-power facility presently in the design and construction phase at Los Alamos. Atlas will be capable of delivering a damped sinusoidal current pulse with a peak current of 27-32 MA at 4 /spl mu/s. In the center of the Atlas machine, the current converges radially to a load through the powerflow channel which is a flat and conical transmission line. The current connections to the power flow channel are at a radius of approximately one-meter, where the maximum linear current density will be of the order of 51 kA/cm. The Pegasus II facility at Los Alamos has been used to provide peak currents of 5 MA in 6 /spl mu/s to test various types of current connections applicable to the connections for the Atlas powerflow channel. A total of 32 current connections, scaled to produce current densities and actions similar to Atlas conditions, were tested. Since the powerflow channel will be replaced after each shot, most of the connections were tested under single shot conditions.


A class of Streptomyces aromatic polyketide antibiotics, the benzoisochromanequinones, all shows trans stereochemistry at C-3 and C-15 in the pyran ring. The opposite stereochemical control found in actinorhodin (3S, 15R, ACT) from S. coelicolor A3(2) and dihydrogranaticin (3R, 15S, DHGRA) from S. violaceoruber Tü22 was studied by functional expression of the potentially relevant ketoreductase genes, actIII, actVI-ORF1, gra-ORF5, and gra-ORF6. A common bicyclic intermediate was postulated to undergo stereospecific reduction to provide either the 3-(S) or the 3-(R) configuration of an advanced intermediate, 4-dihydro-9-hydroxy-1-methyl-10-oxo-3-H-naphtho[2,3-c]pyran-3-acetic acid (DNPA). Combinations of the four ketoreductase genes were coexpressed with the early biosynthetic genes encoding a type II minimal polyketide synthase, aromatase, and cyclase. gra-ORF6 was essential to produce (R)-DNPA in DHGRA biosynthesis. Out of the various recombinants carrying the relevant ketoreductases, the set of gra-ORF5 and -ORF6 under translational coupling (on pIK191) led to the most efficient production of (R)-DNPA as a single product, implying a possible unique cooperative function whereby gra-ORF6 might encode a "guiding" protein to control the regio- and stereochemical course of reduction at C-3 catalyzed by the gra-ORF5 protein. Updated BLAST-based database analysis suggested that the gra-ORF6 product, a putative short-chain dehydrogenase, has virtually no sequence homology with the actVI-ORF1 protein, which was previously shown to determine the 3-(S) configuration of DNPA in ACT biosynthesis. This demonstrates an example of opposite stereochemical control in antibiotic biosynthesis, providing a key branch point to afford diverse chiral metabolic pools.


In recent years, mid-infrared fiber lasers based on gas-filled photonic crystal hollow-core fibers (HCFs) have attracted enormous attention. They provide a potential method for the generation of high-power mid-infrared emissions, particularly beyond 4 μm. However, there are high requirements of the pump for wavelength stability, tunability, laser linewidth, etc., due to the narrow absorption linewidth of gases. Here, we present the use of a narrow-linewidth, high-power fiber laser with a highly stable and precisely tunable wavelength at 2 μm for gas absorption. It was a master oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) structure, consisting of a narrow-linewidth fiber seed and two stages of Thulium-doped fiber amplifiers (TDFAs). The seed wavelength was very stable and was precisely tuned from 1971.4 to 1971.8 nm by temperature. Both stages of the amplifiers were forward-pumping, and a maximum output power of 24.8 W was obtained, with a slope efficiency of about 50.5%. The measured laser linewidth was much narrower than the gas absorption linewidth and the wavelength stability was validated by HBr gas absorption in HCFs. If the seed is replaced, this MOPA laser can provide a versatile pump source for mid-infrared fiber gas lasers.


A high-speed pulse-swallow frequency divider suitable for ΔΣ fractional-N synthesizers is proposed. The proposed structure employs the retiming scheme for the modulus control signal to extend the timing margin, thus remarkably increasing the maximum operating speed. Moreover, unlike the conventional structure, the modulus control signal is set and reset by a single triggering signal to eliminate the unwanted offset at the total division ratio. It simplifies the interface logic between the divider and the ΔΣ modulator in ΔΣ fractional-N PLL's. Simulation results show that the proposed divider provides over three times faster operating speed than the conventional one. The proposed divider has been successfully verified in CMOS RF ΔΣ fractional-N frequency synthesizers.


Peter Bowker and Laurie Borg's three-part television drama Occupation (2009) chronicles the experiences of three British soldiers involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. By means of an historically situated textual analysis, this article assesses how far the drama succeeds in presenting a progressive critique of the British military involvement in Iraq. It is argued that although Occupation devotes some narrative space to subaltern perspectives on Britain's military involvement in Iraq, the production – in contrast to some other British television dramas about the Iraq war – tends to privilege pro-war perspectives, elide Iraqi experiences of suffering, and, through the discursive strategy of 'de-agentification', obfuscate the extent of Western responsibility for the damage the war inflicted on Iraq and its population. Appearing six years after the beginning of a war whose prosecution provoked widespread public dissent, Occupation's political silences perhaps illustrate the BBC's difficulty in creating cont...


Microcrystals of an organic fluorescent dye, 4-octylamino-7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazole, were generated using the reprecipitation method, which is a solvent exchange process. In the presence of polymers, namely, poly(acrylic acid), molecular weight 5100 g mol(-1) and 15 000 g mol(-1), and poly(acrylic acid-co-maleic acid), average molecular weight about 50 000 g mol(-1), used as their sodium salts, the reprecipitation process was strongly accelerated. The reprecipitation kinetics was monitored by UV/vis absorption spectroscopy and revealed a three-step mechanism, each step being influenced by the polymer. The size and shape of the microcrystals were analyzed by fluorescence microscopy. The microcrystals obtained in the presence of polymers were smaller and more regular than those prepared in water alone and were not agglomerated. When the polymer was placed in the reprecipitation medium before introducing the dye solution, the microcrystals displayed a rectangular shape. When the polymer was introduced 20 min after the beginning of the reprecipitation process, intricately structured flowerlike microcrystals were observed. Microanalysis revealed that the microcrystals contained noticeable amounts of polymer. The measurement of the surface electric zeta potential suggested that a proportion of the polymer was present at the microcrystal surface. This work gives a thorough insight into a field where trials have until now been performed in an empirical way. It opens new perspectives to produce low-cost organic microcrystals, potentially useful in optics or pharmaceutical sciences.


The problems of one-dimensional and two-dimensional (1-D and 2-D) parameter estimation based on the iterative quadratic maximum likelihood (IQML) algorithm are considered. For the 1-D frequency or source direction estimation problem, the inefficiency of two existing versions of the algorithm is addressed. An improved algorithm is obtained by using a new consistent nontriviality constraint. In addition, the IQML algorithm is applied to solve the 2-D frequency estimation problem. Given the estimates of 1-D frequency parameters in each of the two dimensions, a sufficient condition for consistent parameter pairing is provided. Numerical results are given to demonstrate the improvement gained by the proposed work.


During the past few decades our knowledge of past geomagnetic field behaviour has increased significantly thanks to enhanced work undertaken in the field of archaeomagnetism. The Balkan Peninsula has a very rich cultural heritage and is therefore a perfect area for the development of archaeomagnetic studies, especially Greece. Because of its well-dated archaeological sites it has for a long time drawn special interest from geophysicists aiming to study the characteristics of the past geomagnetic field. The accumulation of archaeomagnet ic determination s of the direction and intensity of the past geomagnetic field is a long and difficult task, which requires updating and validation of old results parallel to the new methodological approaches. Thus a revision of all published data is required when compiling the archaeomagnetic databases from different regions. In this paper a review of Balkan's scientists achievements in revealing the past geomagnetic field variations is presented. The Reference list contains the publications that are known to the author by Balkan's scientists in the field of archaeomagnetism.


Image registration is a crucial preprocessing step for many downstream analysis tasks. Existing iterative methods for affine registration are accurate but time consuming. We propose a deep learning (DL) based unsupervised affine registration algorithm that executes orders of magnitude faster when compared to conventional registration toolkits. The proposed algorithm aligns 3D volumes from the same modality (e.g. T1 vs T1-CE) as well as different modalities (e.g. T1 vs T2). We train the model and perform quantitative evaluation using a pre-registered brain MRI public dataset.


The computation of a peeling order in a randomly generated hypergraph is the most time-consuming step in a number of constructions, such as perfect hashing schemes, random r-SAT solvers, error-correcting codes, and approximate set encodings. While there exists a straightforward linear-time algorithm, its poor I/O performance makes it impractical for hypergraphs whose size exceeds the available internal memory. We show how to reduce the computation of a peeling order to a small number of sequential scans and sorts, and analyze its I/O complexity in the cache-oblivious model. The resulting algorithm requires O.sort.n// I/Os and O.n log n/ time to peel a random hypergraph with n edges. We experimentally evaluate the performance of our implementation of this algorithm in a real-world scenario by using the construction of minimal perfect hash functions (MPHF) as our test case: our algorithm builds a MPHF of 7:6 billion keys in less than 21 hours on a single machine. The resulting data structure is both more space-efficient and faster than that obtained with the current state-of-the-art MPHF construction for large-scale key sets.


The effects of pulsation in a pulsating flow through a rectangular channel have been investigated by Particle Image Velocimetry in both laminar and turbulent flow conditions. PIV results on a square channel (aspect ratio:1) have been reported on the cases of Reynolds number Re=80 in laminar and Re=8800 in turbulent region. For both in the laminar and turbulent regions, the influence of the pulsation onto the magnitude changes of the average velocity was negligible. In the turbulent region, the magnitude profiles of the stream-wise pulsating component obtained by the theoretical analysis based on the Stokes analogy were slightly different from the experimental ones due to the influence of the turbulent viscosities onto the pulsating flows.


In recent years, frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) have been extensively investigated in terms of their design and practical applications at microwave and optical frequencies. This study proposes a new design of a FSS layer, which is directly placed over the surface of an antenna to enhance its characteristics such as directivity, frequency selectivity, radiation efficiency, and gain. In the proposed design, two different substrates are used to analyze the improved performance of the FSS layer. For this purpose, FR-4 Epoxy and Duroid 5880 are used for cost effectiveness and to achieve the optimized performance of the antenna. The simulated and measured results are in good agreement, indicating the enhanced performance of antenna for WLAN and WiMAX applications. Finally, it is concluded that the proposed FSS layer ensures the best possible results of the filtering response as the first null gives divergence of more than 10 dB with its peak value layer.


In this paper we analyse quantitatively the concept of LAGEOS-type satellites in critical supplementary orbit configuration (CSOC) which has proved capable of yielding various observables for many tests of general relativity in the terrestrial gravitational field, with particular emphasis on the measurement of the Lense–Thirring effect. By using an entirely new pair of LAGEOS-type satellites in identical, supplementary orbits with, e.g., semimajor axes a = 12 000 km, eccentricity e = 0.05 and inclinations iS1 = 63.4° and iS2 = 116.6°, it would be possible to cancel out the impact of the mismodelling of the static part of the gravitational field of the Earth to a very high level of accuracy. The departures from the ideal supplementary orbital configuration due to the orbital injection errors would yield systematic gravitational errors of the order of a few per cent, according to the covariance matrix of the EGM96 gravity model up to degree l = 20. However, the forthcoming, new gravity models from the CHAMP and GRACE missions should greatly improve the situation. So, it should be possible to measure the gravitomagnetic shifts of the sum of their nodes ΣLT with an accuracy level perhaps less than 1%, of the difference of their perigees ΔLT with an accuracy level of 5% and of ẊLT ≡ ΣLT − ΔLT with an accuracy level of 2.8%. Such results, which are due to the non-gravitational perturbations mismodelling, have been obtained for an observational time span of about 6 years and could be further improved by fitting and removing from the analysed time series the major time-varying perturbations which have known periodicities.


2129 Background:Although new drugs for colon cancer have been developed and survival is improving, the results are not sufficient. Novel treatment approaches and new drugs are necessary. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays a central role in angiogenesis. Tumor growth and metastasis, including colorectal cancer, are strongly dependent upon VEGF for angiogenesis. Ki23057 is a new small-synthetic tyrosine kinase inhibitor that blocks autophosphorylation of the VEGF receptor2 (VEGFR2). To determine the effect of Ki23057 as an anti-angiogenic agent, we studied the effect of Ki23057 for colon cancer and vascular endothelial cells in vitro and in vivo. Materials and Methods: The effect of Ki23057 on the proliferation of three colon cancer cell lines (LM-H3, LoVo and LS174T) and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) was examined by means of the MTT assay. Capillary tube formation of endothelial cells was measured by coculture with normal human fibroblasts using an Angiogenesis kit (Kurabo, Osaka Japan). Ki23057 was added at a concentration of 0, 30 or 300 nM, followed by VEGF (10 ng/mL). The cells were cocultured for 11 days and stained with anti-CD31 antibody. The effect of Ki23057 on tyrosine phosphorylation of VEGFR2 in HUVECs was examined with immunoprecipitation. The effect of Ki23057 on the growth of LM-H3 xenografts and liver metastasis was examined in nude mice. Microvessels in the xenografted LM-H3 tumors were stained immunohistochemically using CD31 antibody. Results: The proliferation of HUVECs was significantly inhibited by Ki23057 (≥10 nM). On the other hand, Ki23057 (1-102 nM) did not inhibit the proliferation of three colon cancer cell lines. Tube formation was inhibited in HUVECs treated with Ki23057 compared with controls. The average numbers of vessels were 4.50±0.71/HPF (without addition of VEGF and Ki23057), 7.94±1.33 /HPF (VEGF 10 ng/mL, without Ki23057), 1.47±0.37/HPF (with 10 ng/mL VEGF and 30 nM Ki23057) and 0.19±0.16/HPF (10 ng/mL VEGF and 300 nM Ki23057). Immunoprecipitation demonstrated that Ki23057 inhibited tyrosine phosphorylation of VEGFR2 in HUVECs. Ki23057 exhibited a significant inhibitory effect on the growth of the xenografted LM-H3 tumors. After day 3, tumor growth was more strongly inhibited in the treatment group compared with controls. Microvessel density in xenografted tumors treated with Ki23057 was less than that in controls. Compared with the control group, the treatment group exhibited significant inhibition of liver metastasis. The weight of the liver was 3.73±1.00 g in the control group and 2.43±0.52 g in the treatment group. The liver weights in the control group were significantly greater than in the treatment group (p Conclusions:Ki23057 may be a promising new antiangiogenic agent for colon cancer.


Fine blanking is a process of press shearing which makes it possible to produce the thick sheet metal of the finished surface and the close dimensional accuracy over the whole material thickness in the single blanking operation. In this paper, a plate holder of automotive seat recliner is manufactured by FCF(Flow Control Forming) method using the conventional mechanical press instead of the fine blanking press. Main processes for manufacturing of the plate holder by FCF method are embossing, half blanking and trimming processes. Optimal clearance, stripper force and counter force to increase the dimensional accuracy of the plate holder have been investigated by FE-analysis. As a result of FE-analysis, the clearance for both embossing and half blanking processes was -2%t and the forces of stripper and counter were 25ton and 15ton, respectively. After manufacturing the plate holder by FCF method, the measured dimensional characteristics have been compared with the required specifications as the final product. Although the dimensional accuracy of the plate holder manufactured by FCF method was a little inferior to that by fine blanking process, it was satisfactory in a general sense.


The effect of vermicompost and inorganic fertilizers (NPK) on growth, herbage, essential oil yield, oil quality and nutrient uptake pattern of geranium (Pelargonium graveolens) was studied at Bengaluru in a semi-arid climate. Among the five treatments compared, the combination of vermicompost @ 5 t ha-1 + 50% recommended NPK fertilizer (100 : 25 : 25 kg ha-1) gave significantly better growth, high fresh herbage yield and oil yield which was on par with full dose of fertilizer NPK (200 : 50 : 50 kg ha-1). A similar pattern was noticed in case of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium uptake by plants. Oil content and oil quality were not influenced by vermicompost and inorganic fertilizers, alone or in combination.


A similarity has been found between processes of gold concentration in the volcano-sedimentary formations of Proterozoic and Devonian age of the Bohemian massif, Czechoslovakia, and of the gold concentration in the greenstone belts of the Archean shields. Based on this, the earlier concept of gold associated with Variscan granitoids has been revised and gold concentration explained in terms of mobilization of gold from the volcano-sedimentary units by metamorphic processes and granitization. Attention has been focused on the gold content of individual rocks and rock units in the central part of the Bohemian massif. Very low gold contents have been found in the unmetamorphosed Paleozoic rock units and in the high-grade crystalline rocks of the Moldanubicum. Relatively higher gold contents occur in all types of Proterozoic sedimentary and volcanic rocks and even the granitoids intruding them. The spatial relationships between gold and scheelite mineralization have been established. The new concept has led to the discovery of economically important gold and scheelite deposits in Czechoslovakia described in this paper.


This paper presents ssLOTR (self-supervised learning on the rings), a system that shows the feasibility of designing self-supervised learning based techniques for 3D finger motion tracking using a custom-designed wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor with a minimal overhead of labeled training data. Ubiquitous finger motion tracking enables a number of applications in augmented and virtual reality, sign language recognition, rehabilitation healthcare, sports analytics, etc. However, unlike vision, there are no large-scale training datasets for developing robust machine learning (ML) models on wearable devices. ssLOTR designs ML models based on data augmentation and self-supervised learning to first extract efficient representations from raw IMU data without the need for any training labels. The extracted representations are further trained with small-scale labeled training data. In comparison to fully supervised learning, we show that only 15% of labeled training data is sufficient with self-supervised learning to achieve similar accuracy. Our sensor device is designed using a two-layer printed circuit board (PCB) to minimize the footprint and uses a combination of Polylactic acid (PLA) and Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) as housing materials for sturdiness and flexibility. It incorporates a system-on-chip (SoC) microcontroller with integrated WiFi/Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) modules for real-time wireless communication, portability, and ubiquity. In contrast to gloves, our device is worn like rings on fingers, and therefore, does not impede dexterous finger motion. Extensive evaluation with 12 users depicts a 3D joint angle tracking accuracy of 9.07° (joint position accuracy of 6.55mm) with robustness to natural variation in sensor positions, wrist motion, etc, with low overhead in latency and power consumption on embedded platforms.


This paper contains an original investigation of the conditions which are necessary and sufficient for a function of many variables to have a stationary local minimum when its second variation is only semi-definite. The approach is to determine the order of contact which the function makes with the space of the variables upon which it depends. The analysis is slanted towards potential energy functions in order to get conditions for the colloquial stability of a conservative system. The sequence of governing equations are shown to be specializations of equations defining equilibrium paths which are explored in part I. They are characterized by variational principles. The classical notions of neutral equilibrium and buckling modes are re-examined in the light of this nonlinear analysis.


The essential themes of existentialism as a philosophy of declaration in human existence made famous and inherited from its classical heritage in the West are clear. The affirmation of the subjective or the individual as the starting point of any meaningful and useful philosophy; the rejection of outlandish speculative or transcendental metaphysics; the insistence that there are no a priori values for man to choose from and consequently that he must in freedom invent his own values, the affirmation that existence precedes essence, the nature and significance of choice, the pride of place given to revolt in the face of an absurd and meaningless life that leads particularly nowhere after an inevitable death and the celebration of suicide as the only serious problem in philosophy. These fundamental conclusions are robustly treated by both theistic and atheistic existentialist philosophers such that we can safely say that they represent the existential philosophical heritage from the West. Beyond the fact that the corpus of existential thoughts and positions in Yoruba philosophy is essentially theistic, it also represents, particularly when viewed critically, a classical case of reversals of those same existential themes generally presented in Western Philosophy. This paper highlights and discusses these reversals as a concrete reflection of the Yoruba understanding of their own reality and their corresponding attitude to that reality regardless of certain seemingly epistemological flaws and its overdependence on speculative transcendental metaphysics. The paper discusses very briefly select themes in Existentialism as found in the Western philosophical tradition. These same themes are discussed as they manifest in Yoruba philosophy while carefully noting inherent flaws and inadequacy as an authentic, liberating philosophy of human existence, a scourge which existential philosophies of the West have considerably surmounted by remaining universal in their approach, concern and appeal.


On behalf of the technical program committee, we are pleased and honored to invite and welcome you to Malaysia and to the 2010 IEEE Asia Pacific Conference on Circuits and Systems (APCCAS 2010). In APCCAS 2010, the technical program shows the novel and advanced development in the field of circuits and systems. We also hope all attendees have fun in enjoying the history and cultures of Malaysia.


In the paper we devote attention to the role of puzzles as a useful innovative study material in the computer science area. We emphasize how valuable complement of graph theory and combinatorial optimization puzzles can be. Graph theory and combinatorial optimization are powerful tools for teachers, allowing them to develop students' logical and algorithmic thinking, increase students' imagination, and familiarize students with solutions to various problems. To each topic it is valuable to select an example as a prototype, to better remind students explained matter. On two case studies we introduce puzzles partly as appropriate prototypes, partly as motivation examples enabling students to get a deeper idea about the explained subject matter usage. In the first case study we deal with puzzles with regard to isomorphism, the important graph concept. The second case study is devoted to puzzle searching hamiltonian circle with some properties in a given graph.


Introduction Infective Endocarditis (IE) has high mortality. Longer vegetation length is associated with increased stroke risk and mortality. Guideline indications for surgery to prevent embolism are based on vegetation length. However they do not specify which modality should be used for the measurement. Transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE) imaging is only a Class I indication for prosthetic heart valves or where trans-thoracic (TTE) is inconclusive. Therefore, not all patients with IE will undergo TOE. We investigated whether there are differences in TTE and TOE measurement of vegetation length and the potential impact on indications for surgery. Methods This was a retrospective study of 68 patients with definite endocarditis that had undergone both TOE and TTE imaging. Vegetation length was measured on two dimensional images. Indications for surgery to prevent embolism using the ESC 2015 guidelines were compared for vegetation length on TOE and TTE. Results The median time between TTE and TOE was 2 days. 21/68 (30.8%) patients with vegetations identified on TOE were not identified on TTE. Of the remaining 47 patients, 27 (57.4%) had longer vegetations measured on TOE than on TTE with the mean difference being 7.8mm. 2/47 (4.3%) patients had the same vegetation length on TOE as on TTE. 18/47 (38.3%) patients had longer vegetations measured on TTE than on TOE with the mean difference being 4.3mm. The mean difference in vegetation length overall was 5.9mm. Of the 59 patients with left sided endocarditis, 16 cases (27.1%) would change their surgical indication based on using TOE vegetation length rather than TTE vegetation length. 11/59 (18.6%) cases would change from no indication for surgery to a class IIa indication and 5/59 (8.5%) cases would change from no indication for surgery to a class IIb indication. Conclusion TTE often underestimates vegetation length compared to TOE. The change in vegetation length recorded between the two modalities would have changed the indication for surgery to prevent embolism in 27% patients. Measurements of vegetation length to determine surgical intervention for the prevention of embolization should be taken from TOE imaging rather than TTE. Conflict of Interest None


Oil palm is one of promoted plantation commodity that is developed intensively by the government. This phenomena need to be supported by an appropriate management mainly the fertilization aspects to maintain its productivity at high level. Field experiment has been conducted to test the effect of the compacted compound slow release fertilizer, formulated in stick fertilizer, to immature oil palm growth and fruit bunches production on Xanthic Hapludox from 2003 to 2005. Seven fertilization treatments, namely farmer's practice (A); recommended fertilization (B); controll (C); 1 fertilizer stick/trunk (D); 2 fertilizer sticks/trunk (E); 3 fertilizer sticks/trunk (F); and 2 fertilizer sticks combined with foliar fertilizer (Fosfo N)(G) have been tested on the experiment. All treatments were arranged in randomize complete block design with three replications. The result showed that the tested fertilizer could improve oil palm growth and increased fruit bunches production significantly. The highest yield was provided by 3 fertilizer stick/trunk (G) with growth scoring 90.30% and 31.43 kg of fruit bunches/trunk. This yield was significantly different with all others tested treatment, except recommended treatment (B) with growth scoring and fruit bunches were 87.30% and 30.57 kg/trunk/month, respectively. Compared to the recommended treatment, the application of the tested fertilizer could decrease the total fertilizers required by the farmers due to the increasing of fertilization efficiency about 50-60%. Based on nutrients dynamic and number of fertilizers required by oil palm, the existing recommended fertilization should be changed in order to maintain nutrient balance in the soil. The proposed changes of recommended fertilization is by increasing of potassium dosage because oil palm absorp potassium at the highest number from the soil. Besides that, sulfur should be applicated due to the higher absorption by the crop from the soil, whereas the highly weathered soil has lower capacity in supplying sulfur for crop growth so that sulfur is adsorp extensively from the soil and causes imbalance nutrient in the soil.


Specification cutting tools durability made of cutting ceramic in machining process of steel 80MoCrV4016 is very important for economics of small and medium-sized enterprises, because cutting tool durability is factor that significantly affects the budget of these enterprises. This problematic is determined for small and medium-sized manufacturers of bearings, because steel 80MoCrV4016 is most commonly used for production of bearings. Durability of cutting tool defines lifetime of this cutting tool and it determines its suitability for select technological operation. Especially for cutting ceramic is necessary to define durability dependence on available set of cutting speeds and to determine lifetime of tools made of cutting ceramic. Technical science defines a lot of different factors, that they may be cause of shorter cutting tool lifetime. For increase cutting tool durability is necessary maximally possible elimination of these factors. Determination of cutting tool durability is very important, because provides comprehensive information how to determine appropriate technological conditions for selected cutting tool. In engineering is for determination of cutting tools durability used T-vc dependence. The article describes process how to create durability dependence for cutting tools made of cutting ceramic by means of T-vc dependence in machining process of steel 80MoCrV4016.


This article explanes about urgency of signatures and stamp duty in giving legal certainty to the franchise contract. This theme departs from the rise of business model franchise today in Indonesia. This business is considered to minimize the risk of failure, as well as to provide various facilities. This research is a descriptive analytical research. In franchise contract are still many things that can happen in the future that might be detrimental to the parties. Therefore we need the legal umbrella to shade and protect with the aim to create a sense of fairness and legal certainty for the parties, not just for profit (profit oriented), but there is accountability for the impact of the overall business operations. To provide legal certainty every contract franchise must be in writing and include the signature and the stamp in order to obtain a force of law and can be evidence, so the purpose of legal certainty can be realized.


This paper presents a novel design for morphing mechanisms that combine the passive lockable reconfigurable variable geometry truss manipulator (VGTM) and the active parallel compliant mechanism. The structure of the VGTM is in a parallel-serial structure and its shape can be fully controlled just by using two active panels. This mechanism is suitable for the aerospace application due to its light, compact structure, load-carrying ability and can achieve multiple degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) deformation. The mobility and topological configuration of the mechanism are thoroughly analyzed. To make the moving process simple and efficient, a control strategy combining the approximate motion mode and the precise motion modes was proposed. The kinematic models for the multi-step motion are established and all solved analytically. At last, a prototype was fabricated to show the structure and the application on morphing wings.


In global aero-hydro-servo-elastic analyses of floating wind turbines (FWTs), the hydrodynamic loads are usually found from potential flow theory and applied in a single point of a rigid hull. When the hull is relatively stiff, this approach ensures correct behaviour for the six rigid body degrees-of-freedom (DOFs), but provides no information about the internal loads in the hull. The current work considers a simplified method to include distributed, large volume hydrodynamics in the global analysis, where frequency-dependent loads from potential theory are applied on a finite element (FE) model of the hull in a strip-wise manner. The method is compared to conventional load models for a braceless 5MW semi-submersible FWT, and validated against experimental results from model tests with focus on internal loads and rigid body motions in the main wave-frequency range. The global motions are accurately predicted by the distributed model for all investigated load cases. Good agreement with experimental results is also seen for the column base bending moment in wave-only conditions, although extreme values are not captured correctly due to limitations in linear theory. In combined wave-wind conditions, the measured bending moments are significantly increased because of the wind-induced mean angle of the platform. This effect is not considered in the numerical model, which therefore underestimates the moment response. However, an approach which calculates the loads in the actual mean configuration of the hull is found to give reasonably accurate results, at least in moderate wave conditions.


The availability of limiting nutrients is a critical factor regulating growth of aquatic microorganisms. In at least some aquatic systems the frequency of addition rather than the absolute concentration of nutrients controls community structure. Gnotobiotic continuous cultures were used to examine the growth characteristics of a green alga (Selenastrum capricornutum) and a heterotrophic yeast (Rhodotorula rubra) when phosphorus-limited steady-state populations were subjected to varying concentrations of pulsed phosphorus. The responses of these organisms to phosphorus additions were measured both in single and dual species continuous cultures. Both organisms exceeded the maximum transport rates for phosphorus predicted from batch and steady-state continuous cultures. Carbon limitation did not cause a decline in phosphorus accumulation in R. rubra. Carbon-limited yeast cultures perturbed with phosphorus attained the highest phosphorus per cell values seen in these studies. The phosphorus pool was not significantly diminished in these cultures only because the total yeast biomass was limited by carbon. These results suggest that carbon-limitation of heterotrophic populations may be essential to the existence of phytoplankton in low-nutrient aquatic environments.


As DRAM is reaching its scalability limit, Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) technologies are moving more and more into focus to meet the requirements of modern database and Big Data systems. With this novel paradigm a lot of new opportunities but also challenges emerge which requires a rethinking of database system developers regarding the programming model and data placement. In this paper, we present a design of an NVM-aware storage layout for tables using a multi-dimensional clustering approach and a block-like structure to utilize the complete memory stack. Contrary to previous works, this approach focuses on analytical workloads. In a microbenchmark, its potential for scan and point queries is investigated. We show that our approach is able to outperform the considered competitors by up to one order of magnitude.


We model B diffusion in the category of equilibrium diffusivity in the presence of other species using ab initio calculations. The result shows that in the presence of other atoms X (X=F, N, C, Al, Ga, In, and Ge), the migration energy for B along the migration pathway is larger than the case if X=Si (0.33 eV). This suggests the reduction of B diffusion. If another B occupies that position (X=B), then a smaller migration energy is observed and enhanced diffusion is expected. The simulation results are consistent with experiments. The reason for the migration energy difference can be understood in terms of electronic and strain effects. Estimates of the enthalpy of bond formation agree with the simulation except for the low-enthalpy cases where the strain effect caused by atom-size misfit dominates.


ABSTRA CT Target of this research is to mendeskripsikan activity of process study of Activity learn student in study of IPS use model of Quantum Learning in class of IV SDN 53 Kampung Jambak Kota Padang this Type Research is research of class action. This research is done/conducted in two cycle, each cycle consist of twice cycle final exam and meeting by the end of meeting of cycle . this Research Subjek is class student of IV SDN 53 Kampung Jambak Kota Padang, amounting to 22 people. Research instrument the used is student activity observation sheet, activity observation sheet learn and tes result of learning. Pursuant to result of research, student activity mean at cycle of I is 49,93 and mount at cycle of II become 77,26, its improvement equal to 27,33 and result of learning cycle student of I with mean 65,68, cycle of II 81,3 make-up of equal to 15,62. Matter this means study of IPS use model of Quantum Learning can improve activity learn class student of IV SDN 53 Kampung Jambak Kota Padang. Pursuant to result of this research, researcher suggest that teacher can use model of Quantum Learning in study to increase activity learn IPS student. Keyword: Activity Student, IPS, Quantum Learning.


We survey theoretical and experimental/observational results on general-relativistic spin (rotation) effects in binary systems. A detailed discussion is given of the two-body Kepler problem and its first post-Newtonian generalization, including spin effects. Spin effects result from gravitational spin-orbit and spin-spin interactions (analogous to the corresponding case in quantum electrodynamics) and these effects are shown to manifest themselves in two ways: (a) precession of the spinning bodies per se and (b) precession of the orbit (which is further broke down into precessions of the argument of the periastron, the longitude of the ascending node and the inclination of the orbit). We also note the ambiguity that arises from use of the terminology frame-dragging, de Sitter precession and Lense-Thirring precession, in contrast to the unambiguous reference to spin-orbit and spin-spin precessions. Turning to one-body experiments, we discuss the recent results of the GP-B experiment, the Ciufolini-Pavlis Lageos experiment and lunar-laser ranging measurements (which actually involve three bodies). Two-body systems inevitably involve astronomical observations and we survey results obtained from the first binary pulsar system, a more recently discovered binary system and, finally, the highly significant discovery of a double-pulsar binary system.


Abstract Goats were given intravenous injections (.2 or .4 g per kilogram of body weight) of detergent Triton WR 1339 to measure triglyceride entry into the blood under fed, fasted, lactating, or phloridzinized and fasted conditions. Blood triglycerides increased up to 160-fold 72 hours after injection. Total cholesterol and phospholipids also increased 5 to 9-fold while free fatty acids, acetone, ketone bodies, and blood glucose were not affected by Triton injection. Fed or fasted nonlactating goats had a triglyceride entry of from .14 to .22 mg per minute per kilogram body weight. Triton was not effective in blocking triglyceride exit from the blood in fed lactating animals even though triglyceride in the plasma increased 12 to 15-fold. Milk production and milk fat composition were not changed even at the highest circulating lipid concentration. Triton had no apparent effect on the health of the goats as they ate and behaved normally.


Logistics of waste management generated in healthcare institutions is a chain of operations related to the movement of waste from its origin to recovery or disposal. The purpose of waste management logistics is the prevention of environment pollution by eliminating improper waste management and protection of natural resources as well as quantitative protection by replacing them with recyclable materials. Along with ecological purposes, waste management logistics is committed to the task of reducing the costs associated with collection, storage and transportation of waste. The article presents logistics solutions in hospital waste management in the aspect of legal requirements [Marszelewski 2014, Project ... 2015] and proposals for measures to improve the effectiveness of these solutions.


Objective: This research examines whether the physical attractiveness of an outpatient practice influences patients' perceptions of healthcare quality, including patient and staff perceptions of the quality of staff-patient interaction. Background: Despite the high and increasing percentage of healthcare dollars for care delivered on an outpatient basis, relatively little research has examined the relationship between the design of ambulatory facilities and patient outcomes. Few studies have examined how patients' perceptions of healthcare quality differ in the same outpatient practice before and after a move to a new facility designed to be patient-centered. This study is the second phase of a study comparing patients' perceived quality of care in ambulatory facilities that differ markedly in physical attractiveness. Methods: Using both a patient and staff survey, and structured interviews, this study compared staff and patient perceptions of healthcare quality (including staff-patient interactions) before and after a move to a new facility designed to be patient-centered. Results: Patients' perceived quality of care, and their perceptions of the quality of interaction with staff, was significantly better in the patient-centered facility. Few differences were found in actual patient-staff interaction behaviors. Conclusions: This study is consistent with other studies that examined the relationship among the physical attractiveness of healthcare settings, patient satisfaction, and perceived quality of care. For this reason, the results are more credible than they would be were they inconsistent with other research or were this the only study examining these issues. These results support the value of investing in the physical attractiveness of patient areas in the ambulatory care setting. Further research is needed to identify specific physical elements that contribute to positive attributions related to quality of care, as well as where the "tipping point" is in investments to improve physical attractiveness.


Living nature contains amazing structures and materials which provide inspiration for bioinspired solutions that can solve many of mankind's greatest challenges. Two such challenges include reducing fluid drag and promoting self-cleaning. With inspiration from promising flora and fauna, a systematic study has been conducted using a combination of actual and replica samples. These include rice leaf, butterfly wing, fish scale, and shark skin samples, as well as laser etched riblets. In order to mimic properties from actual rice leaves, select replica and riblet samples received a nanostructured coating. Drag is determined by pressure drop measurements from sample lined rectangular closed channels with laminar oil flow. Oleophilic surfaces with appropriate micro/nanostructured surfaces may allow the formation of a thin oil film believed to reduce drag. A conceptual model is presented describing the role of surface structures allowing the formation of such a drag reducing thin oil film.


The fields of telemedicine and e-health have grown in recent years due to advancements in technology and wearable devices. This research aimed to look back at the last 27 years of e-health and telemedicine studies to see how they've evolved. Article details for the selected papers were obtained from the Scopus database. Article details for the selected papers were retrieved using the Scopus database. Insights from the existing study suggest an upward trend in the number of publications and a peculiar pattern in the distribution of both authors and articles. Nine of the most influential researchers and the most often cited works were identified. VOS viewer software underwent keyword, author, and country co-occurrence analyses, as well as co-authorship analysis. According to a country-by-country research review, the United States, Italy, and Germany are the top three countries in article production in telemedicine and electronic health. Doarn (8 publications), Merrell R.C. (7 publications), Giansanti D. (7 publications), and Maccioni G (4 publications) were found to be the most prolific authors in the field of telemedicine and e-health. The study used bibliometric analysis to determine that the keywords "telemedicine," "human," and "e-health" were the most frequently used in the 69 publications chosen for the study. This study is useful for telemedicine and e-health since it provides a thorough understanding of the literature in these subjects, highlighting the most studied and understudied areas from which to launch future research endeavours.


The paper presents a simple method for compensating the phase change of light reflected at a gauge block. This is done by measuring the gauge block from the rear of a glass base plate with which it was placed in optical contact for the interferometric calibration. The length of the gauge block can be determined accurately since the method compensates for errors such as those due to bending of the base plate and variations in oil film thickness in wringing the gauge block to the base plate.


Since its introduction in 1957 the Flame Ionization Detector (FID) is the most widely used Gas Chromatographic (GC) detector. Nowadays there is no Gas Chromatographic laboratory without apparatus containing a Flame Ionization Detector. However, the operation mechanism of the hydrogen flame and signal production is still not completely obvious. The FID response for hydrocarbons is proportional to the carbon content of the compound, while substances that contain heteroatoms yield smaller responses. In the Gas Chromatographic practice, a special relative response factor called Effective Carbon Number (ECN) is used for the expression of the response for molecules containing heteroatom. In the literature there are signal modifying constants published by different authors, which are typical of the carbon atoms and heteroatoms in the different chemical bonds. Although these constants express the nature of the modification (increase or decrease) the exact modifying value always depends on the chromatographic parameters and the molecular structure. If we want to apply the ECN method for our calculations these constants should be determined for our specific Gas Chromatographic system. In our earlier study we investigated the effect of the temperature of the injector, column and detector, the mode of the injection and the concentration level of the substance. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of the linear velocity on the response of the Flame Ionization Detector as a mass flow rate sensitive detector in the case of capillary column.


Irritation as defined in this paper is the subjectively perceived emotional and cognitive strain in occupational contexts. The structural equivalence of the Arabic, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Polish adaptations of the German Irritation Scale is examined. The Irritation Scale is recommended for application particularly in occupational contexts. In this field it can be used for evaluating interventions, for research on stress at work, and for individual counseling. Exploratory factor analyses, as well as single group and different multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses, were performed. Structural equivalency in terms of equal factor loadings as well as equal factor covariances across all adaptations can be claimed. However, the single group analyses suggest that the hypothesized factor model should be rejected in the English, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish versions, mainly because of borderline values in the RMSEA index.


The Problem: Can we develop languages for robots and embedded systems that adapt quickly to novel events, by reasoning on the fly from models of themselves and their environment? How do we make deductive algorithms fast enough to to plan, schedule, diagnose, reconfigure and plan contingencies in real-time? How do we seamlessly integrate these powerful deductive capabilities into traditional languages?


Introduction and aim. Non-ketotic hyperglycemia (NKHG), also known as hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state (HHS) is a serious metabolic complication of diabetes mellitus (DM).The mortality rate can be up to 20% and this is much more higher than that of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). It is usually precipitated by an event such as pulmonary/urinary infection, myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke. In this state of metabolic derangements, central nervous system (CNS) manifestations including altered mental status with or without focal neurological deficits are prominent clinical presentations. On the other hand, HHS may also be complicated with various other CNS events. Herein, a quite rare presentation of HHS with hemichorea ‒ hemiballismus in a 71 year old female patient with type 2 DM is presented. Description of the case. A 71-year-old female patient type 2 DM presented to our emergency department with progressive involuntary movements on the right upper and lower extremities accompanied by semiconsciousness during the last 24 hours. On neurological examination, cranial nerves and cerebellar signs were found to be normal, as the deep tendon reflexes. However, involuntary non-rhythmic writhing movements at rest were present on her right sided extremities. The fingerstick evaluation showed marked hyperglycemia (HG). The laboratory findings were characterized with high blood glucose level without obvious acidosis compatible with HHS. In urine analysis, glucosuria without significant ketonuria was detected. On head CT, subtle hyperdensity was noted in the left neostriatal regions without any mass effect or perilesional edema, compatible with left sided diabetic striatopathy (DS). Conclusion. Diabetic striatopathy is a quite rare presentation of HHS with hemichorea – hemiballismus. The characteristic computed tomograhy (CT) findings of associated striatopathy should be differentiated from vascular lesions that may also present with unilateral findings in the course of HHS and should not be overlooked in diabetic patients to recognise the ongoing HHS before the coma precedes.