by JAMES LOWELL GIBBS, JR. Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. 94305, U.S.A. 3 I 84 With one exception I'll explain below, Erchak's (CA 25:33132) Kpelle data on spouse abuse jibe with my own field data. Moreover, he contrasts the Kpelle data with those from Yap to form plausible linked hypotheses to explain why spouse abuse occurs in some societies and not in others. He presents these hypotheses not as proven but as exemplary of those that might be produced if anthropologists were to heed his injunction to study and report he incidence of spouse abuse in traditional or nonliterate societies. He is correct in concluding that the incidence of Kpelle wife beating is correlated with couples' proximity to kin and neighbors and the willingness of those kin and neighbors to intervene in quarrels. However, observations made in another Kpelle area in the course of research on conflict and conflict resolution suggest a refinement of Erchak's hypothesis. My data on the frequency of wife beating differ somewhat from his. Wife beating as a major charge in court cases is indeed quite rare. ("Other conjugal disputes," a category that included wife beating, constituted only 1.9% of 475 court cases reported in a 1965-66 census survey of Fokwele, the Panta Chiefdom town in which I have conducted the bulk of my Kpelle research [Gibbs 1969].) Wife beating as one of several allegations made during a moot ("house palaver"), an informal hearing of marital disputes, occurs more often (Gibbs 1963). Although, in apparent contrast to Erchak's experience, wife beating is not unheard of in Panta Chiefdom, bloodshed in wife beating is notably rare. My informants said that bloodshed pollutes the earth and necessitates the sacrifice of a white sheep; thus a violent, bloody outcome of wife abuse is supernaturally enjoined. "You may beat your wife," a paramount chief said in a memorable case, "but don't shed her blood." I suggest that anxiety about this potential supernatural (and monetary) cost contributes to the willingness of Kpelle kinsmen and neighbors to intervene in family quarrels, thus limiting the extent of injury. It operates as a partial restraint on men who beat their wives except-as Erchak's data also show-when alcohol relaxes that inhibition. In deciding what to observe and count in assembling crosscultural data on spouse abuse, we must cast our nets wide. For example, we must consider religious and ethical dimensions of behavior as well as those of kinship, territoriality, oreconomics. Even more critically, we must make explicit he psychological dimensions, such as intrapsychic anxiety generated by beliefs in the supernatural. Ultimately, these psychological dimensions should not only be taken into account but also assessed and measured.


This manuscript reports on genomewide epigenetic alterations in cri‐du‐chat syndrome related to a partial aneusomy of chromosome 5. A systematic analysis of these alterations will open up new possibilities for the prognostic evaluation of CDCS patients and the development of new therapeutic interventions for reducing the severity of the disease.


Both environmental and biological mechanisms are involved in the ageing process. Evidence for a genetic influence has been seen in nematodes (C. Elegans), Drosophila flies, and mice. Commonality in molecular and biological processes in evolution suggest that similar processes may apply to humans. Although the specific genes responsible for longevity in humans are largely unknown, it is likely that study of the genetic contribution will show that multiple genes contribute to longevity traits. Studies of the siblings and children of nonagenarians and centenarians demonstrate a strong relationship between genetics and longevity. Finding genes that influence longevity involves identifying a population suitable to conduct studies of inherited traits. The Old Order Amish (OOA) of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, represent a genetically closed homogeneous Caucasian population of Central European ancestry ideal for recruitment of large multiplex pedigrees and sibpairs for genetic studies. Religious persecution prompted the earliest Amish migration to the USA. In the mid-1700s the original group numbered about 200. Today they number over 30,000. Family records of the Amish include dates of birth and death of all Amish dating back to the early 1700s. This population has a fairly uniform standard of living and lifestyle, which reduces non-genetic variability and boosts the power to discern determinants of genetically inherited traits. Additionally, they have low migration rates, and do not practice birth control. Families are large, averaging seven siblings; extended families live either in the same household, or nearby. Two-thirds of the family members can be traced to a single founder, Christian Fisher, who was born in 1727 and lived to the age of 83. All of these factors facilitate the collection of multigenerational extended pedigrees with several long-lived members. Furthermore, the large sibship sizes provide the unparalleled opportunity to reconstruct genotypes of deceased longlived pedigree members by genotyping their living offspring (and other close These genetic markers are likely to be in close proximity to genes that contribute to longevity, which may then be identified through positional cloning. The human genome project will greatly facilitate these efforts. Defining the genetic factors that influence longevity in humans will have profound medical implications. It will unveil important mechanistic insights into the molecular basis of ageing. This research is also likely to identify genes which protect from disease. These insights may lead to novel preventive and treatment strategies, which will have a profound impact on morbidity and mortality, and enhance quality of life in the elderly. Nanette Steinle and Alan R Shuldiner Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition University of Maryland School of Medicine Baltimore MD 21201, USA family members). Genetic approaches similar to those used to identify disease genes are likely to succeed for longevity assurance genes. These include candidate gene approaches in which specific genes thought to be involved in susceptibility/protection from lethal diseases, eg, cardiovascular disease and cancer, or in the ageing process, eg, oxidative damage and DNA repair, are screened for sequence variation. Once found, these sequence variants can be assayed in long-lived individuals to determine if they are more prevalent than in the general population (so-called association studies). A second approach is that of genomewide scanning and positional cloning. Genetic markers distributed throughout the genome are assayed to determine which marker(s) are inherited in longlived pedigree members statistically more frequently than one would expect by chance (so-called linkage analysis).


Aim: The aim of the present study was to critically review and synthesise qualitative studies about next of kin's experiences of living with a depressed person in order to gain a better understanding of their need for professional support. Background: Having cohabitant next of kin facilitates recovery after depression. However, depression is a major emotional end social burden on the next of kin, and involving them in the treatment and rehabilitation process can increase this burden significantly. Methods: Based on the principles laid out by Sandelowski and Barroso, this qualitative metasynthesis comprised a) a systematic literature search in CINAHL, PubMed and PsycINFO databases, b) a critical evaluation of eight articles using the COREQ checklist, and c) an integrating synthesis of the articles' findings. Findings: The synthesis identified a cyclic psychosocial process accounting for the next of kin's changing recognition of their situation, their feelings and actions. Caregivers go through three phases: "searching for help and explanation", "the debilitating period" and "recovery". Conclusion: The views of next of kin to depressed persons on their situation and their need for support were sometimes at odds with the ill person's and the health care professionals' view.


T lymphocyte subpopulations and the expression of T cell activation antigens were determined in peripheral blood, synovial fluid and/or synovial tissues of patients with recurring monoarticular arthritis and patients with HLA-B27 associated oligoarthritis in comparison to patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In individuals with monoarthritis or oligoarthritis, there was a normal T cell subset distribution, both in peripheral blood and in intraarticular sites, with only a small number of T cells bearing Ia antigens. This was in marked contrast to the patient group with RA that demonstrated a significantly decreased ratio of T helper/inducer to T suppressor/cytotoxic cells in addition to large numbers of Ia+ T cells in intraarticular sites. The expression of the Tac antigen was similar in all disease groups.


In this paper we describe a methodology and accompanying tool support for the development of parallel and distributed embedded real-time system software. The presented approach comprises the complete design flow from the modeling of a distributed controller system by means of a high-level graphical language down to the synthesis of executable code for a given target hardware, whereby the implementation is verified to meet hard real-time constraints. The methodology is mainly based upon the tools SEA (system engineering and animation) and CHaRy (the C-LAB Hard Real-Time System).


The fear that application of EBM could lead to a cook-book type medicine has not been substantiated. The challenge is to evaluate and treat the individual patient according to his/her particular situation. The goal of secondary prevention is the reduction of the global risk. As patients with coronary artery diseases have a high event rate (> 20% in 10 years), intensive measures with proven benefit for risk reduction should be undertaken. Guidelines of national or European societies are helpful for the daily routine. However, the application of these guidelines is less widely used than expected which leads to less than optimal treatment. This is a universal phenomenon. The reasons may differ in different countries. Financial problems may be one limiting factor. However, the overal costeffectiveness of these measures for the social system is usually not taken into account. Educational efforts directed to patients, physicians and health care providers will be necessary to overcome this problem.


An extensive experimental database consisting of 2838 shrinkage data points and 3598 creep data points is used to evaluate the accuracy of the newly proposed CEB-FIP 2010 model in predicting the creep and shrinkage of concrete structures. To study the applicability of the model for high-strength concrete in general environments, the database was developed by only retaining the test data of concrete components with the average compressive strength greater than 30 MPa and the relative humidity in the test environment less than 95%. On this basis, combined with the B3 and CEB variation coefficient methods, the paper mainly adopts the residual method to assess the accuracy of the CEB-FIP 2010 model and compare it with the previous model, CEB-FIP 1990. The influences of several properties, such as the compressive strength, the age of concrete, the relative humidity, and the component size on the prediction accuracy of these two models are further studied. The results show that for the CEB-FIP 2010 model within the time interval of 0–9000 days, 52% and 48% of the shrinkage strain residuals of the total specimens are located in the negative and positive regions, respectively, while the positive and negative regions of the CEB-FIP 1990 model account for 73% and 27%, demonstrating the CEB-FIP 2010 model has better performance in predicting shrinkage strain than the CEB-FIP 1990 model, whereas the two models have comparable accuracy in predicting creep compliance. The CEB-FIP 2010 model is more reliable for considering the effects of compressive strength, relative humidity, and age at loading on shrinkage and creep than for considering the effect of member size.


The angle-dependent cross section for perturbed overlapping autoionization lines excited in ion-atom collisions is derived analytically. This electron angular distribution shows strong enhancement in the forward direction, and includes interference between overlapping lines that profoundly affect the cross section in the forward direction. The relative cross sections of autoionization lines excited in He[sup +]+He collisions at 5, 10, and 15 keV are calculated and found to be in good agreement with experiment.


Abstract Significant research has been undertaken focusing on the application of evolutionary algorithms for design exploration at conceptual design stages. However, standard evolutionary algorithms are typically not well-suited to supporting such optimization-based design exploration due to the lack of design diversity in the optimization result and the poor search efficiency in discovering high-performing design solutions. In order to address the two weaknesses, this paper proposes a hybrid evolutionary algorithm, called steady-stage island evolutionary algorithm (SSIEA). The implementation of SSIEA integrates an island model approach and a steady-state replacement strategy with an evolutionary algorithm. The combination aims to produce optimization results with rich design diversity while achieving significant fitness progress in a reasonable amount of time. Moreover, the use of the island model approach allows for an implicit clustering of the design population during the optimization process, which helps architects explore different alternative design directions. The performance of SSIEA is compared against other optimization algorithms using two case studies. The result shows that, in contrast to the other algorithms, SSIEA is capable of achieving a good compromise between design diversity and search efficiency. The case studies also demonstrate how SSIEA can support conceptual design exploration. For architects, the optimization results with diverse and high-performing solutions stimulate richer reflection and ideation, rendering SSIEA a helpful tool for conceptual design exploration.


This study aspires to analyze and understand the level of pollutant's concentration in the surface water of the central Indus (Wetland complex). It aims at investigating the major sources of water pollutants affecting the surface water quality of central Indus. Overall 40 surface water samples had been collected from the Central Indus (Wetland Complex) over a time span of two months ranging from February 2009 to March 2009 and water quality parameters/ Indicators like temperature, pH, TDS, EC, Salinity, DO, Calcium (Ca+2), Magnesium (Mg+2), T.H, Alkalinity (Alk), Chloride (Cl), Phosphate (PO4+3), Sulphate SO4 ,+2 Nitrates (NO3-), and trace metals including Zn2+ Cd+2, Pb+2 & Cu+2 were determined. In addition, biological parameters like total coli-form and fecal coli-form were also determined. The level of majority of water quality parameters was found higher than specified international quality standards. It was also observed that this level of pollutant's concentration was higher than echelon of most of rivers of the world Such as River Ogun, Ganga River, Calabar River, Vatinsky Egan River and River Indus itself.


The fossil obtained by the Rev. Messrs. Hislop and Hunter† from the sandstone series of Mángali, about sixty miles to the south of Nágpur, and transmitted for my examination, is a considerable portion of a skull, wanting chiefly the tympanic pedicles and the lower jaw; it is imbedded in a block of bright brick-red compact stone, with its upper surface exposed. The skull (Pl. II.) is broad, depressed, of an almost equilateral triangular form ; the occipital border or plane rather exceeding in extent each lateral border, which borders converge with a slight convex curve to the rounded obtuse muzzle. The breadth of the occiput is 4 inches 9 lines, and the extent of each lateral border of the skull in a right line is 4 inches 6 lines. Most of the cranial bones are impressed by rather coarse grooves, radiating in each from a prominence which indicates the primitive centre of ossification; the intervening ridges being in some parts broken up by communicating grooves into tubercles. The orbits (o, o) are entire, of a moderate size, of a full oval form, and situated in the anterior half of the skull. The middle line of the upper surface of the skull is slightly depressed; at the upper and fore part of the skull on each side, there is a smooth continuous groove of a sigmoid form, with a strong curve, convex outwards anterior to the orbit, and with a less strong curve, convex inwards on the inner side of the


Loss of hyaline chondrocyte phenotype during the monolayer culture in vitro is a major obstacle for cell-based articular cartilage repair. Increasing evidence implicates an important role of the epigenetic regulation in maintaining the chondrocyte phenotype. DNA methylation, histone modifications and microRNAs have all been shown to contribute to chondrocyte dedifferentiation and hypertrophy. Moreover, the interplay among epigenetic regulators forms a complicated epigenetic network in regulating chondrocyte dedifferentiation. This review provides a detailed overview of the epigenetic regulation in maintaining the chondrocyte phenotype for chondrocyte-based cartilage repair.


An inelastic hyperspectral Scheimpflug lidar system is developed for range-resolved oil pollution detection and discrimination. A theory of system parametric design is built for aquatic circumstances, and laser-induced fluorescence spectra with an excitation wavelength of 446 nm are employed to detect oil pollution. Seven kinds of typical oil samples are tested and well distinguished using the principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) methods. It has been shown that blue laser diodes (LD) have great potential for oil pollution detection, and our system could be further utilized for more applications in both marine and terrestrial environments.


Background : In Ethiopia, as most developing countries, there is little information on chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM) in children. Awareness about the seriousness of the condition is limited among the caretakers. Treatment is largely empirical owing to lack of microbiological data. Objectives : The study was conducted to identify bacterial isolates associated with the chronic suppurative otitis media in children and determine their antibiotic susceptibility pattern. Methods : Children consecutively seen for chronic otitis media at Department of Pediatrics and Child Health of the Tikur Anbessa Hospital during January - May 2000 were included in the study. Clinical/demographic data were collected using in a pre-formed questionnaire. Ear swabs were collected, transported, and cultured using standards methods. Biochemical tests were used in identifying Gram-negative bacteria. All isolates were tested for their susceptibility to different antibiotics. Results : A total of 158 bacterial agents were isolated from 120 ear swabs collected from 112 patients aged between 3 months and 12 years. The most frequent isolates were Proteus species (31%), Staphylococcus aureus (18%), Escherichia coli (16%), Klebsiella species (12%), and Pseudomonas species (6%). Most of the isolates were resistant to commonly used antibiotics but sensitive to kanamycin (72%), augmentin (84%) and gentamycin (88%). Triple antibiotics resistance was most common resistance pattern. Conclusions : The high rate of multiple drug resistance, particularly to cheap and frequently used antibiotics, raises serious concern. More comprehensive studies are required to define the true magnitude of CSOM, to determine the microbiological profile of isolates and produce data for policy decision on optimal intervention modalities.
(Ethiopian Journal of Health Development, 2001, 15(2): 89-96)


Scholarship on Russian Futurism often interprets this avant-garde movement as an essentially utopian project, unrealistic in its visions of future Soviet society and naive in its comprehension of the Bolshevik political agenda. This article questions such interpretations by demonstrating that the activities of Russian Futurists during the Civil War period represented a measured response to what was a challenging contemporary socio-political reality. By examining the development of Futurist ideology through this period, considering first-hand Futurist descriptions of dealing with the fledgling Soviet system, and recalling Slavoj Žižek's interpretations of revolution and utopianism, a different image of the Futurist project emerges. Futurism, indeed, was a movement far more aware of the intricacies of its historical period than has previously been recognised.


This study aims to describe the sociodemographic profi le of women attended at a health unit and investigate the knowledge and motivation which led them to be submitted to a Papanicolaou test. This is an exploratory-descriptive study of qualitative nature. Data collection was performed at a Center for Primary Health Care, in Paracuru – Ceara, through semi-structured interviews with fi fteen women. Collected data were grouped into four categories: knowledge; motivation; meaning; and feeling. The analysis showed that women considered it as kind of STD/AIDS test. The main motivation that led women to do the test was the presence of signs and symptoms. The examination also arises feelings of fear and shame. An urgent work is necessary to improve health education practices which make clear the senses and meanings of the test for the users. Descriptors:  Health Education; Primary Prevention; Women's Health; Vaginal Smears.


With the increasing applications of wheeled mobile manipulators (WMMs), new challenges have arisen in terms of executing high-force tasks while maintaining precise trajectory tracking. A WMM, which consists of a manipulator mounted on a mobile base, is often a kinematically redundant robot. The existing WMM configuration optimization methods for redundant WMMs are conducted in the null-space of the entire system. Such methods do not consider the differences between the mobile base and the manipulator, such as their different kinematics, dynamics, or operating conditions. This may inevitably reduce the force exertion capability and degrade the tracking precision of the WMM. To enhance the force exertion capability of a WMM, this letter maximizes the directional manipulability (DM) of the manipulator, with consideration of the joint torque differences, first in Cartesian space and then in the null-space of the robotic system. To maintain precise end-effector trajectory tracking, this letter proposes a novel coordination method between the mobile base and the manipulator via a weighting matrix. The advantages and effectiveness of the proposed approach are demonstrated through experiments.


Hundred and five actinomycete isolates could be isolated from different soil samples collected from different localities in Egypt. One of the actinomycete cultures (AZ-13Zc) from three cultures was found to produce a wide spectrum antimicrobial agent (anti-Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and unicellular fungi). The actinomycete AZ-13Zc could be isolated from a soil sample collected from Zefta district, Egypt. From the taxonomic features, the actinomycete isolate AZ-13Zc matches with Streptomyces cyaneus in the morphological, physiological and biochemical characters. Thus, it was given the suggested name Streptomyces cyaneus-AZ-13Zc. The parameters controlling the biosynthetic process of antimicrobial agent formation including: inoculum size, different pH values, different temperatures, different incubation period, and different carbon and nitrogen sources, potassium nitrate, K2HPO4, MgSO4.7H2O and KCl concentrations were fully investigates. [Atta H.M., El-Sehrawi M.H., Awny N.M., El-Mesady N.I. Microbiological Studies on Cultural, Physiological Characteristics and Antimicrobial Activities of Streptomyces Cyaneus-AZ-13Zc. Researcher. 2011;3(2):80-90]. (ISSN: 1553-9865). http://www.sciencepub.net/researcher


Salivary gland impairment after radioiodine therapy (RIT) is a well-known iatrogenic artifact that includes recurrent episodes of sialadenitis, hyposalivation, dysgeusia, and dysphagia. Several therapy modalities have been suggested over the years to decrease these effects on the salivary glands. However, in cases where the salivary gland system is impaired prior to RIT, preserving its function becomes more challenging. We present three patients who underwent RIT with pre-existing insult to the salivary glands and discuss the treatment modality employed. A protocol for treating patients with pre-existing salivary gland impairment prior to RIT is proposed. The dental professional personnel should be aware of RIT insult to the salivary glands in order to preserve more maliciously the oral health in these patients. Management of impaired salivary glands subjected to additional RIT is mandatory to reduce further damage to the glands' function primarily by combining interventional sialoendoscopy for recurrent sialadenitis and sialogogues for hyposalivation.


In this article we investigate the possibility of scaling down enzyme-gelatin modified electrodes by spin coating the enzyme-gelatin layer. Special attention is given to the electrochemical behavior of the selected enzymes inside the gelatin matrix. A glassy carbon electrode was used as a substrate to immobilize, in the first instance, horse heart cytochrome c (HHC) in a gelatin matrix. Both a drop dried and a spin coated layer was prepared. On scaling down, a transition from diffusion controlled reactions towards adsorption controlled reactions is observed. Compared to a drop dried electrode, a spin coated electrode showed a more stable electrochemical behavior. Next to HHC, we also incorporated catalase in a spin coated gelatin matrix immobilized on a glassy carbon electrode. By spincoating, highly uniform sub micrometer layers of biocompatible matrices can be constructed. A full electrochemical study and characterization of the modified surfaces has been carried out. It was clear that in the case of catalase, gluteraldehyde addition was needed to prevent leaking of the catalase from the gelatin matrix.


Syrian hamsters were treated with ethinylestradiol and maintained on a diet containing alpha-naphthoflavone (alpha NF), a regimen that produces a high incidence of liver tumors. Morphologic analyses (light microscopy, immunoperoxidase studies, and electron microscopy) were performed on livers of these animals. After 4 months of hormone plus alpha NF treatment, marked hepatocyte cell changes were already present, as demonstrated by loss of eosinophilic staining of hepatocyte cytoplasm. Large multinucleated hepatocytes exhibiting frequent mitoses were observed around central veins. After 5 months of treatment, there was proliferation of bile ducts, and small cells with eosinophilic cytoplasm resembling hepatocytes appeared surrounding these bile ducts. At 7 to 8 months, the first tumor nodules (foci) were seen. Tumor foci in the portal area consisted of small clusters of large cells resembling hepatocytes with irregular nuclei. At the same time, dysplastic glands were identified among proliferating bile ducts. By 8 to 10 months, large tumors were present. These were trabecular hepatocellular carcinomas with widely varying individual cell morphology. Compared with adjacent liver, dysplastic glands in the portal areas, microcarcinomas, and large tumors all showed intense immunostaining for cytokeratin. Rats treated with the same regimen also developed hepatic tumors, but the light and electron microscopy results and immunohistochemical profiles were very different. Altered hepatic foci composed of small hepatocytes were typically prominent; however, malignant tumors did not arise from the portal area. Neither altered foci nor tumors stained significantly for cytokeratin. These data suggest that the biochemical events giving rise to these liver tumors differ between the species studied, despite the animals being exposed to the same treatment regimens.


The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to compile the data examining the association between the CTLA4 + 49 A/G polymorphism and the risk for HCC. Multiple databases were systematically searched for eligible studies and the pooled odds ratios (ORs) were generated using five genetic models. Pooled data from 11 studies with 3,055 HCC patients and 3,450 controls found no statistically significant association between the polymorphism and HCC risk, both overall and in subgroup analyses. In conclusion, the current meta-analysis shows that the CTLA4 + 49 A/G polymorphism is not significantly associated with the risk of developing HCC.


Using density functional theory (DFT) approach, we assessed the newly developed fluoride sensor: [(bpy)(2)Ru(H(3)ImBzim)](2+) (denoted as 1, where H(3)ImBzim = 4,5-bis(benzimidazol-2-yl)imidazole and byp = 2,2'-bipyridine). On the basis of our benchmark test, a PBE0 functional with a LanL2DZ basis set was chosen to explore the electronic structure of 1 in both ground and singlet excited states in acetonitrile solution. Both absorption bands at 426 and 352 nm are assigned as metal-to-ligand charge-transfer transition characters. By analyzing the difference of absorption spectrum between the binding adducts and the experimental measurement, the fluoride detection process was found to be driven by the proton transfer model, which makes 1 not only capable of detecting fluoride, but also for other Bønster base anions. And the result is in general accordance with the experimental observations. We hope the current exploration can give some knowledge about the detection mechanism of the F(-) anion sensor and provide some inspiration for the design of functional molecular detectors for F(-) anion.


Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus lugdunensis (MRSL) strains showing resistance to several common antibiotics have been reported recently. Sequence type (ST) 3 MRSL carrying SCCmec types IV, V, or Vt is the major lineage associated with health care-associated infections. ABSTRACT Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus lugdunensis (MRSL) strains showing resistance to several common antibiotics have been reported recently. Sequence type (ST) 3 MRSL carrying SCCmec types IV, V, or Vt is the major lineage associated with health care-associated infections. We aimed to investigate the distribution and dissemination of antimicrobial resistance determinants in this lineage. Two representative ST3-MRSL strains, CGMH-SL131 (SCCmec V) and CGMH-SL138 (SCCmec IV), were subjected to whole-genome sequencing. Detection of antibiotic resistance genes and screening of susceptibility patterns were performed for 30 ST3-MRSL and 16 ST6-MRSL strains via PCR and standard methods. Except for mecA and blaZ, antimicrobial resistance genes were located within two plasmids: a 28.6 kb lnu(A)-carrying plasmid (pCGMH_SL138) in CGMH-SL138 and a 26 kb plasmid carrying non-lnu(A) resistance genes (pCGMH_SL131) in CGMH-SL131. Both plasmids shared common genetic features with multiple copies of IS257 flanked by genes conferring resistance to aminoglycoside (aacA-aphD and aadD), TET (tetk), and cadmium (cadDX) and tolerance to chlorhexidine (qacA/R); however, only pCGMH_SL138 harbored lnu(A) that conferred resistance to lincomycin and rep13 that encodes a replication initiation protein. Unlike ST6-MRSL, none of the ST3-MRSL isolates contained the ermA gene. Instead, most isolates harbored lnu(A) (20/30, 66.7%), and several other resistance genes found on pCGMH_SL138. These isolates and transformants containing pCGMH_SL138 exhibited susceptibility to ERY and higher MICs for lincomycin and aforementioned antibiotics. A novel lnu(A)-carrying plasmid, pCGMH_SL138, that harbored a multiresistance gene cluster, was identified in ST3-MRSL strains and may contribute to the dissemination of antibiotic resistance in staphylococci.


Modern education in the area of power systems cannot be based only on theoretical knowledge. The main problem of education in this areas is due to the continuous and fast development of technology. The curricula must adapt themselves to technological development and, consequently, principles of laboratory education have to follow this trend as well. In this paper, the approach of a ldquomulti-functionalrdquo lab utilized by the power system group at the Politecnico di Bari is described. This approach has been adopted at the power system laboratory (PS Lab) of Politecnico di Bari both for hystorical reason and an optimal exploitation of the available space. The main features of this lab are described in terms of organization and facilities on three different educational levels.


Biomarkers including fasting blood sugar, heart rate, electrocardiogram (ECG), blood pressure, etc. are essential in the heart disease (HD) diagnosing. Using wearable sensors, these measures are collected and applied as inputs to a deep learning (DL) model for HD diagnosis. However, it is observed that model accuracy weakens when the data gathered are scarce or imbalanced. Therefore, this work proposes two DL-based frameworks, GAN-1D-CNN, and GAN-Bi-LSTM. These frameworks contain: (1) a generative adversarial network (GAN) and (2) a one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) or bi-directional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM). The GAN model is utilized to augment the small and imbalanced dataset, which is the Cleveland dataset. The 1D-CNN and Bi-LSTM models are then trained using the enlarged dataset to diagnose HD. Unlike previous works, the proposed frameworks increase the dataset first to avoid the prediction bias caused by the limited data. The GAN-1D-CNN achieved 99.1% accuracy, specificity, sensitivity, F1-score, and 100% area under the curve (AUC). Similarly, the GAN-Bi-LSTM obtained 99.3% accuracy, 99.2% specificity, 99.3% sensitivity, 99.2% F1-score, and 100% AUC. Furthermore, time complexity of proposed frameworks is investigated with and without principal component analysis (PCA). The PCA method reduced prediction times for 61 samples using GAN-1D-CNN and GAN-Bi-LSTM to 68.8 and 74.8 ms, respectively. These results show that it is reliable to use our frameworks for augmenting limited data and predicting heart disease.


Recent progress in medical technology has markedly improved the prognosis for people with diabetic mellitus. In contrast, rapid changes in lifestyles have increased the number of people with impaired glucose metabolism, resulting in greater numbers of elderly diabetic patients.

It is generally accepted that impaired cognitive function is more common in patients with diabetes than those without, regardless of whether the diabetes is type 1 or type 21. Future progression to dementia reduces quality of life and imposes a burden on both patients themselves and the families supporting them. Therefore, preventing the complication of dementia will become even more important than it is now.

Although many factors are thought to be involved in impaired cognitive function, the mechanisms are very complex and have not been fully resolved1,2. We have to discuss mechanisms separately for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus, because of the different backgrounds. In particular, evaluation of the contribution of various factors to cognitive dysfunction, which include concomitant hypertension, dyslipidemia and complicated cerebral vascular disease, as well as changes in the brain and other organs as a result of aging, is difficult for elderly type 2 diabetes because they are very intricate in nature. Also, the two major types of dementia – cerebral vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease, and a mixed type including aspects of both – should be taken into consideration in middle‐aged and elderly subjects. However, in adolescent and middle‐aged type 1 diabetic patients, a consideration of the complications of Alzheimer's disease might be excluded and only the direct effects as a result of hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia might be investigated. However, it is noteworthy that cognitive impairment observed in type 1 diabetes is generally subtle and it is unknown whether it will actually lead to future dementia. In addition, few large‐scale, longstanding longitudinal studies have been carried out.

The DCCT/EDIC study, in which 1144 patients with type 1 diabetes were followed up for an average of 18 years and a variety of cognitive function tests were carried out, is a very interesting and significant study. It did not find evidence for a substantial long‐term decline in cognitive function in the large group of patients who were carefully followed up, despite relatively high rates of recurrent severe hypoglycemia. Higher glycated hemoglobin levels were associated with moderate declines in motor speed and psychomotor efficiency, but not other domains3. Recently, an association of other biomedical risk factors and decreased cognitive functioning has been reported in Diabetologia4.

Although a modest association between cognitive impairment and smoking or hypertension was found by carrying out univariate analysis on the study results, retinal and renal complications, as well as glycemic control, were each independently associated with a decline in cognitive function, specifically affecting measures of psychomotor efficiency. These findings might indicate that long‐term hyperglycemia has an adverse effect not only on the microvasculature of the retina and kidney, but also on the small vessels in the brain. In fact, it has been previously reported that retinopathy was related to cognitive impairment in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and recently an association between the brain and kidney has been focused on, because of their similar microvasculature structures1,2.

Several mechanisms that mediate the toxic effects of hyperglycemia, such as oxidative stress, accumulation of advanced glycation end‐products and increased activity in the polyol pathway, have been implicated in damage to the brain, leading to cognitive dysfunction. However, most of the respective studies were carried out in animal models and such an association remains unclear. Interestingly, recent research using functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography has detected elevated levels of brain glucose and glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter that can cause neuronal damage in high concentrations, in prefrontal regions in type 1 diabetic patients as compared with non‐diabetic controls. In addition, poorer metabolic control has been seen to be inversely correlated with levels of N‐acetylasparate and choline‐containing compounds in white matter and deep grey matter. These findings of study suggest that axonal injury, demyelination and increased membrane proliferation have occurred and might be a consequence of glucose neurotoxicity. This non‐vascular pathway could explain, at least in part, the recent observation that adults with a long history of type 1 diabetes manifest psychomotor slowing associated with microstructure damage to white matter fiber tracts1,4. In agreement with the present article, psychomotor efficiency, which reflects frontal lobe function, has been identified in other studies as the cognitive domain most often affected in patients with diabetes. Although the reason why frontal function is impaired in diabetic patients has not been clarified fully, it is thought to be a possible mechanism for prefrontal loop impairment as a result of silent brain infarct (SBI) in basal ganglia of the brain and hyperglycemia‐induced white matter lesions, which are likely to be found in diabetic patients.

In addition to hyperglycemia, an association between hypoglycemia attacks and decline in cognitive function has also been previously debated. Many studies on this theme have supported such a relationship, regardless of whether subjects have had type 1 or type 2 diabetes mellitus. However, clear evidence showing that frequent hypoglycemic episodes will lead to a longstanding decline in cognitive function in type 1 diabetes was not produced. In the DCCT/EDIC study, no associations between recurrent severe hypoglycemic attacks and a decline in cognitive function were observed. It might be because patients recruited for the DCCT/EDIC study were well controlled. Namely, if patients were carefully followed up, persistent hyperglycemia might have had a greater adverse effect on cognitive function than hypoglycemia. The relationship between cognitive function and hypoglycemic attacks is also discussed in a commentary in Diabetologia5.

As aforementioned, it seems reasonable to suppose that brain damage based on hyperglycemia is associated with a decline in cognitive function. Therefore, exaggerating things a bit, we could say that cognitive impairment is the fourth diabetic microvascular disease. If this is so, a hypothesis might be developed. Impaired endothelial function is known to contribute to the progression of diabetic vascular complications. Also, damage to the brain has been reported to be associated with impairment of the blood–brain barrier and such endothelial dysfunction might cause focal neural damage or ischemic changes through small vascular vessels, leading to cognitive impairment in type 1 diabetic patients. A partially similar phenomenon was found in type 2 diabetic patients. We have reported that levels of soluble adhesion molecules reflect endothelial function, especially intercellular adhesion molecule‐1, and there were associations with progression of cerebral small vessel disease and cognitive function in our cross‐sectional and longitudinal studies in middle‐aged and elderly type 2 diabetic patients6. It is unlikely that there would be visual findings in magnetic resonance imaging indicating SBI and white matter lesions in relatively young type 1 diabetic patients. However, one could easily suppose that longstanding endothelial dysfunction would cause progression in cerebral small vessel lesions. Endothelial function is impaired by not only hyperglycemia, but also many other factors, such as hypertension, dyslipidemia and smoking, and it has been reported that such impairment in middle‐aged people will lead to a future decline in cognitive function. Therefore, the early inhibition of such risk factors is important in the prevention of dementia7.

However, in contrast with young type 1 diabetes patients, the complications of Alzheimer's disease should be always taken into account in elderly people. Although an association between Alzheimer's disease and diabetes is becoming clearer, much still remains to be discovered. It has been suggested that the weakened action of insulin as a result of hyperinsulinemia or lack of insulin might interfere with Aβ metabolism by stimulating its secretion and inhibiting its breakdown. In fact, impaired cognition has been reported in patients with hyperinsulinemia and hypertension, and poorly controlled diabetic patients1,2,8.

Last, the effect of genetic factors should also be considered. The APOE e4 allele is a representative genetic factor for Alzheimer's disease. However, having this genetic factor is not necessarily associated with incidence of Alzheimer's disease and it is thought that daily habits have a great impact in this regard. Recently, a variety of interesting studies have been carried out on modification of diabetes by this genotype.

In summary, many factors, as shown in Figure 1, contribute to cognitive dysfunction in type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Therefore, one might say that better control of hyperglycemia, hypertension and dyslipidemia, in addition to improvement of daily lifestyle – with respect to such aspects as smoking, exercise and diet – will prevent not only the progression of diabetic vascular disease, but also a future decline in cognitive function. Further examination of the results of large scale, longstanding research, such as the DCCT/EDIC study, is expected to clarify the respective mechanisms and help the prevention of dementia in people with diabetes mellitus.

Figure 1

 Summary of possible mechanistic contributors to cognitive dysfunction seen in diabetes mellitus.


Routh order reduction method of the relativistic Birkhoffian equations is studied. For a relativistic Birkhoffian system, the cyclic integrals can be found by using the perfect differential method. Through these cyclic integrals, the order of the system can be reduced. If the relativistic Birkhoffian system has a cyclic integral, then the Birkhoffian equations can be reduced at least by two degrees and the Birkhoffian form can be kept. The relations among the relativistic Birkhoffian mechanics, the relativistic Hamiltonian mechanics, and the relativistic Lagrangian mechanics are discussed, and the Routh order reduction method of the relativistic Lagrangian system is obtained. And an example is given to illustrate the application of the result.


Bluetoothcopyradios are becoming pervasive in small, battery-powered devices. This is being driven by the reduced area requirements, cost, and power consumption of Bluetooth chips. As process technology scales down to 0.13 mum CMOS and beyond, the opportunities to trade off digital complexity to reduce analog requirements can enable optimized radio designs. This article presents an architecture on both the transmitter and receiver that can optimize this digital/analog trade-off while still meeting all system requirements. A polar transmitter is presented that is capable of transmitting both basic rate and enhanced data rate traffic. The low-IF receiver is also optimized, requiring very little analog filtering and using an oversampled analog- to-digital converter to move the filtering burden to the digital domain. The result is the smallest and lowest power Bluetooth radio published to date.


Much research has been devoted to the consequences of the completion of the European internal market in 1992. Existing estimates of the effects of market integration remain exploratory, however, and many important issues have yet to be adequately addressed. These are the issues concerning this book. Edited by L. Alan Winters and Anthony Venables, the volume examines such questions as the extent of gains to be expected from both 'internal' and 'external' economies of scale following integration, the implications of 1992 for the European Community's trade with its traditional EFTA partners, the potentially valuable new East European markets, and the rest of the world. There are also chapters considering the implications of the internal market for the design of appropriate technology and taxation policies, and a study of the role of Japanese foreign direct investment in European manufacturing.


Accurate 6-DoF camera pose estimation in known envi-ronments can be a very challenging task, especially when the query image was captured at viewpoints strongly differ-ing from the set of reference camera poses. While structure-based methods have proved to deliver accurate camera pose estimates, they rely on pre-computed 3D descriptors coming from reference images often misaligned with query images. This discrepancy can subsequently harm downstream camera pose estimation tasks. In this paper we introduce the Feature Query Network (FQN), a ray-based descriptor re-gressor that can be used to query descriptors at known 3D locations under novel viewpoints. We show that the FQN is able to model viewpoint-dependency of high-dimensional keypoint descriptors and bring significant relative improvements to structure-based visual localization baselines.


Chemical modification with foreign atoms is a leading strategy to intrinsically modify the properties of host materials. Among them, potassium (K) modification plays a critical role in adjusting the electronic properties of carbon materials. Graphene, a true 2D carbon material, has shown fascinating applications in electrochemical sensing and biosensing. In this work, a facile and mild strategy to K‐modifying in graphene at room‐temperature is reported for the first time. X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectra, and cyclic voltammetry are used to characterize this K‐modified graphene. The K‐modified graphene is capable of acting as an electron transfer medium and more efficiently promotes charge transfer than unmodified graphene. A highly sensitive and stable amperometric sensor based on its excellent electrocatalytic activity toward the oxidation of NO2− is proposed. The sensor shows a linear range from 0.5 μM to 7.8 mM with a detection limit of 0.2 μM at a signal‐to‐noise ratio of 3. The modified electrode has excellent analytical performance and can be successfully applied in the determination of NO2− released from liver cancer and leukemia cells and shows good application potential in biological systems.


This paper explains how to use Base SAS ® 9 software to create multi-sheet Excel workbooks (for Excel versions 2002 and later). You learn step-by-step techniques for quickly and easily creating attractive multi-sheet Excel workbooks that contain your SAS output using the ExcelXP ODS tagset and ODS styles. The techniques that are presented in this paper can be used regardless of the platform on which SAS software is installed. You can even use them on a mainframe! Creating and delivering your workbooks on-demand and in real time using SAS server technology is discussed. Although the title is similar to previous papers by this author, this paper contains new and revised material not previously presented.


The objective of this study was to obtain an estimate for residential electricity demand in Minas Gerais in the period from 1970 to 2002. Specifically, the goal was to estimate price and income elasticities. After determining that the series under study were non-stationary, we chose to use the Co-integration approach, estimating a Vector Error Correction Model (VEC Model). The results obtained show that the demand studied is more sensible to variations in the income than to the price of the electricity, although both elasticities are inferior to the unit. It was also concluded that price-elasticity is higher in Minas Gerais than it is for Brazil as a whole, suggesting differentiated usage of this energy among the different states in the Country.


This article examines the pedagogical-didactic legitimacy of an institutional language practice called the target language norm, and its implementation in Russian-language content-and-language-integrated (CLIL) classroom in primary education with 6–8-year-old students. Here, the language norm refers to an arrangement in which the teacher uses only the target language and restricts the students' use of their native tongue. The data consist of video recorded classroom interaction and ethnographic notes by the teacher-researcher, both collected during a two-year period. The microethnographic analysis shows that the students gradually adopt the norm as a part of their everyday school routine as they are socialized into classroom practices. The study argues that in certain contexts it is justified to introduce a language norm that supports the systematic and goal-oriented nature of language learning.


Cytotoxicity of methyl bromide on cultured mammalian cells was examined. Acute toxic action was induced by methyl bromide itself and its cytotoxicity was reduced in the presence of glutathione. Its hydrolysis products or its reaction products with organic compounds in the medium was extremely low in toxicity. Although methyl bromide is known to be a methylating agent, morphological changes induced on HeLa cells were different from the changes characteristic of chemotherapeutic alkylating agents. Lethal concentration of methyl bromide on HeLa cells and primary cultured muscle, kidney and brain cells was similar (10 microgram/ml). In a detailed survey, however, there was a slight difference in the susceptibility among the cells from primary culture of brain.


The libraries of the Capital Health System and York Hospital have been given the responsibility for collecting and maintaining the archival materials of their respective institutions. After an initial evaluation of donated items, each library researched methods of archival conservation, adapting them to their individual needs. Included in this article is an overview of these methods with many examples from the authors' experiences. Also included is an annotated bibliography of materials of value to anyone setting up a hospital archives.


We define microwelds as having fusion zone dimensions of <100 μm. At such small dimensions the required laser irradiance to produce melting is at or above conventional estimates of the irradiance required to produce drilling. The question thus arises if such small microwelds can be made via laser processes. A theoretical criterion defining the threshold pulse energy and beam intensity required for melt displacement (necessary for penetration-mode welding or drilling) is proposed. The results of numerical simulation present dependences of the threshold pulse energy and beam intensity as functions of laser pulse duration and beam radius. Experimental verification of the proposed criterion is described and a comparison of theoretical predictions and measurements is presented.


Host defense peptides, including antimicrobial chemokines, play an essential role in protecting a wide variety of organisms from bacterial infection. In an effort to identify bacterial genes involved in resistance to antimicrobial chemokine mediated cell death we performed random transposon mutagenesis on a population of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. Through the use of a novel flow cytometric assay these mutant bacteria were then screened for mutations which led to increased binding to the antimicrobial chemokine to the bacterium. Using this strategy we have screened thousands of mutant bacteria and identified several genes that when mutated lead to increased antimicrobial chemokine binding to and killing of bacteria. These genes, which when interrupted lead to increased susceptibility to antimicrobial chemokine mediated cell death, fall into several functional categories including efflux pups, transcriptional regulators and LPS biosynthesis related genes. Understanding how chemokines and other host defense peptides recognize and bind bacteria and how bacteria evade the antimicrobial activity of host defense peptides, could lead to novel drug targets that enhance the innate immune system. In short, the therapeutic use of AMCs to fight infections may be significantly enhanced by simultaneously targeting processes, such as lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis, that are required for resistance to these peptides.


This paper proposes a new method of pronunciation variant generation for reducing word error rate in conversational speech recognition. In particular, this paper focuses on the generation of alternative pronunciations from canonical forms by using the phonological knowl- edge derived from the analysis of a phonetic transcription corpus. The experimental results show that the pronunciation variation generated by the proposed method provides slightly better performance than a method based on manually written pronunciation. These results also demonstrate the applicability of phonological knowl- edge-based generation of pronunciation variation.


Prepregnancy overweight and obesity are associated with higher risk of perinatal complications. However, the effect of weight change prior to pregnancy on perinatal outcome is largely unknown. Therefore, it is aimed to examine the impact on perinatal outcomes of interpregnancy BMI change in women of different BMI categories. The MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, and CINAHL databases were searched (1990‐August 2019). Observational studies on interpregnancy BMI change were selected. Outcomes evaluated were gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), preeclampsia, gestational hypertension (GH), cesarean section, preterm birth, and newborns being large (LGA) or small (SGA) for gestational age. Meta‐analyses and meta‐regression analyses were executed. Thirty studies were included (n > 1 million). Interpregnancy BMI gain was associated with a higher risk of GDM (for BMI gain ≥3 kg/m2: OR 2.21; [95%CI 1.53‐3.19]), preeclampsia (1.77 [1.53‐2.04]), GH (1.78 [1.61‐1.97]), cesarean section (1.32 [1.24‐1.39]), and LGA (1.54 [1.28‐1.86]). The effects of BMI gain were most pronounced in women with BMI <25 kg/m2 before the first pregnancy regarding GDM, GH, and cesarean section. Except for LGA, interpregnancy BMI loss did not result in a decreased risk of perinatal complications. In this study, women of normal weight who gain weight before pregnancy were identified as a high‐risk population for perinatal complications. This emphasizes that weight management is important for women of all BMI categories and a pregnancy wish.


The in vitro antitumour-promoting, cytotoxic, and antioxidant activities of two ester derivatives of garcinia acid, that is, 2-(butoxycarbonylmethyl)-3-butoxycarbonyl-2-hydroxy-3-propanolide (1) and 1′,1′′-dibutyl methyl hydroxycitrate (2), that had been previously isolated from the fruits of Garcinia atroviridis Griff. ex T. Anders (Guttiferae), were examined. Based on the inhibition of Epstein-Barr virus early antigen (EBV-EA) activation, compound 1 (IC50: 70 μM) showed much higher (8-fold) antitumour-promoting activity than compound 2 (IC50: 560 μM). In addition, both compounds were nontoxic towards CEM-SS (human T-lymphoblastic leukemia) cells (CD50: >100 μM), Raji (human B-lymphoblastoid) cells (CD50: >600 μM), and brine shrimp (LD50: >300 μM). Although the antitumour-promoting activity of compound 1 is moderate compared with the known antitumour promoter genistein, its non-toxicity suggests the potential of compound 1 and related structures as chemopreventive agents. The weak antioxidant activity displayed by both compounds also suggested that the primary antitumour-promoting mechanism of compound 1 did not involve oxidative-stress quenching.


We carry out a research on nuclear transmutation through high energy gamma ray, to identify a way to reduce the hazards of long-lifetime radioactivity of nuclear waste. A laser Compton scattering gamma-ray facility was built on a storage ring at NewSUBARU and ~17 MeV gamma-ray photons were produced. An investigation on the reaction rate of radioactive Iodine waste was carried out. Based on the characteristics of laser Compton scattering gamma rays, a cylindrical target was adopted for the irradiation experiment. The radioactivity of the irradiated target was measured and the transmutation reaction rate was deduced.


The article presents data analysis of the literature concerning the morphology and morphological diagnosis intraduct lesions of the mammary glands. We describe the classification points and differential diagnosis of changes precede the development of mammary tumors.


ABSTRACT: Fecal samples from 38 individually recognized vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) from Loskop Dam Nature Reserve, South Africa, were examined for helminths. Analysis of 272 fecal samples revealed that all individuals were infected. Eggs of 5 helminth species were recovered. Prevalence of infection for Trichuris sp. was 92%, Oesophagostomum sp. was 84%, an indeterminate hookworm was 71%, an indeterminate spirurid was 68%, and Strongyloides sp. was 24%. Social group membership, age, and sex were not predictors of infection with any of the parasites detected. Monthly prevalence of parasites was not significantly correlated with mean monthly precipitation, minimum temperature, or maximum temperature, although some variables were correlated. Monthly prevalence of Oesophagostomum sp. was positively correlated with mean monthly minimum temperature (r  =  0.7152, n  =  12, P  =  0.013), mean monthly maximum temperature (r  =  0.6012, n  =  12, P  =  0.050), and mean monthly precipitation (r  =  0.6216, n  =  12, P  =  0.041). Monthly prevalence of Strongyloides sp. was positively correlated with mean monthly precipitation (r  =  0.7005, n  =  12, P  =  0.016). These are the first data on the parasitic infections of wild C. aethiops in Mpumalanga province of South Africa.


Amid deteriorating economic conditions, competition in the business just is inevitable.
moreover, entered the globalization era like today, one such competition is competition among producers of beauty products that are needed by human beings, especially women.
now we can find a variety of beauty products with various brands that have similar characteristics and functions in the market. therefore, the producers look for their efforts and strategies in order to maintain the continuity of their business and simultaneously expanding it.
Beauty product manufacturers use different ways to dominate the market and make its products as the products favored by the community. such as the use of information media.
Things like this that cause use of electronic information media to display and introduce their products through advertisements on televisi.hal like this that cause the television to become a top choice for many companies in communicating products, in many ways made the producers to form and maintain the image of its products, such as by using a public figure as a model in its product advertising.
Even this way taken by the producers of Ponds beauty products to maintain product that has been created, namely the Ponds ad showing three generations in the television version featuring three stories of three artists from different generations (ie: cut mini, sandra dewi,
and Regine Velasquez ), They each told at the time what they look pretty, and it turns out they were all wearing Ponds products with different types. This makes the researchers wanted to know how attractive appearance of a public figure, how high interest in consumer purchasing, and how much influence the appearance of public figures against the consumer purchase interest.
Type of research used in this study is the explanation, namely research to examine the relationship between variables in the hypothesized quantitative approach, emphasizing the analysis of data and numbers. while the sample in this study were 146 respondents who obtained from the survey research, ie research that takes samples from a population and then use the questionnaire as a means of data collection (primary data). then the technique of
taking samples was done by random sampling, after going through the process of research, the validity of the questionnaire were tested using product moment correlation technique and test technique realibilitasnya alpha formula.
Based on research results obtained by the correlation coefficient (r) which showed that the relationship between independent variables that influence the appearance of a public figure with the dependent variable was interest in buying the consumer with a value of r (correlation
coefficient) of 0.560. based on linear regression analysis obtained by calculating the value of f 65.939. because the f count> f table is 65.939> 3.91, the relationship between the appearance of a public figure is a significant consumer purchase interest. this means Hi refused and Ho accepted so that it can be said that public figures can affect performance significantly to consumer purchase interest. in other words, if the appearance of increased public figure, it will increase consumers' buying interest. obtained coefficient of determination equal to 0.314 means that 31.4% figure represents the influence of public appearances on consumers' buying interest. while the remaining 68.6% of consumer behavior is influenced by other variables not addressed in this study.


Abstract. Future sea-level change projections with process-based stand-alone ice sheet
models are typically driven with surface mass balance (SMB) forcing derived
from climate models. In this work we address the problems arising from a
mismatch of the modelled ice sheet geometry with the geometry used by the climate
model. We present a method for applying SMB forcing from climate models to a
wide range of Greenland ice sheet models with varying and temporally
evolving geometries. In order to achieve that, we translate a given SMB
anomaly field as a function of absolute location to a function of surface
elevation for 25 regional drainage basins, which can then be applied to
different modelled ice sheet geometries. The key feature of the approach is
the non-locality of this remapping process. The method reproduces the
original forcing data closely when remapped to the original geometry. When
remapped to different modelled geometries it produces a physically
meaningful forcing with smooth and continuous SMB anomalies across basin
divides. The method considerably reduces non-physical biases that would
arise by applying the SMB anomaly derived for the climate model geometry
directly to a large range of modelled ice sheet model geometries.


This preliminary report describes the application of target region amplification polymorphism (TRAP) markers to marker-assisted selection (MAS) in sunflower. TRAP is a fairly new marker technique that takes the advantage of the existing DNA sequence information to generate polymorphic markers near the gene of interest. The objective of this project was to identify maintainer lines from a segregating population. The TRAP marker, a 162-basepair fragment, used in the experiment was amplified by a fixed primer designed against a sunflower expressed sequence tag (EST) that shows homology to the Petunia fertility restorer gene. Two to nine seedlings from each of the 141 F3 families were genotyped with the TRAP marker. Forty families were identified as potential maintainer lines and used as male parents in making test crosses with a confection male sterile line; the progeny were grown in the field to observe male fertility. Only 18 of the 40 selected F3 families were of true rf1/rf1 genotype and can be used as maintainer lines. Although the frequency of recovery of the desirable genotype was 45%, it was significantly higher than that expected from a random sample for a monogenic trait where the homozygous genotype frequency is 25%. This experiment suggested that MAS can substantially increase the chance of recovering individuals with the desirable genotype from a segregating population. Using a marker tightly linked to the target gene and genotyping enough individuals per family are essential to ensure a successful MAS experiment.


Background: Visual impairment due to colour blindness is an unusual suffering of the school children. It may be associated with erythrocyte G6PD enzyme deficiency. Objective : To find out defective vision due to colour blindness in apparently healthy school children and to measure erythrocyte G6PD enzyme level among them. Methods : This cross sectional study was carried out in the Department of Physiology, SSMC from 1st July 2007 to 31st June 2008. Five hundred (500) apparently healthy school children of old Dhaka, age ranged from 6 to 12 years irrespective of gender and race was selected as study population. Colour vision test was done by Ishihara's test. Erythrocyte G6PD enzyme was measured among the colour blind children. All the results were compared to that of children with normal colour vision. Results: Five male children were detected to have partial red-green type of colour blindness. The percentage of colour blindness was statistically not significant (p>0.05) when compared to that of children with normal colour vision. Mean erythrocyte G6PD enzyme level of colour blind children was significantly lower (p<0.05) compared to that of children with normal colour vision. Presence of G6PD enzyme deficiency among the colour blind children did not show any clinical abnormalities might be due to different non symptomatic G6PD variants. Conclusion: Visual defect due to colour which blindness particularly red-green type might be present in apparently healthy school children associated with erythrocyte G6PD enzyme deficiency. Key words: Colour blindness; Erythrocyte G6PD enzyme. DOI: 10.3329/jbsp.v4i2.4175 J Bangladesh Soc Physiol. 2009 Dec;4(2): 64-70


Bidirectional signaling is an essential feature of IIb3 function. The IIb cytoplasmic domain negatively regulates 3mediated inside-out signaling, but little is known about the regulation of IIb-mediated outside-in signaling. We show that IIb-mediated outside-in signaling is enhanced in platelets of a patient lacking the terminal 39 residues of the 3 cytoplasmic tail. This enhanced signaling was detected as thromboxane A2 (TxA2) production and granule secretion, and required ligand cross-linking of IIb3 and platelet aggregation. This outside-in signaling was specifically inhibited by a palmitoylated version of a 3 peptide corresponding to cytoplasmic domain residues R724-R734. Unlike the palmitoylated peptide, the nonpalmitoylated 3 peptide could not cross the platelet membrane and did not inhibit this outside-in signaling. The physiologic relevance of this 3-mediated negative regulation of IIb outside-in signaling was demonstrated in normal platelets treated with the palmitoylated peptide and a physiologic agonist. Binding of IIb3 complexes to immobilized peptides demonstrated that a peptide corresponding to 3 residues R724-R734 appears to bind to an IIb cytoplasmic domain peptide containing residues K989-D1002, but not to control peptides. These results demonstratethatIIb-mediatedoutside-insignaling resulting in TxA2production and granule secretion is negatively regulated by a sequence of residues in the membrane distal 3 cytoplasmic domain sequence RKEFAKFEEER. (Blood. 2005;105:4345-4352)


Background: CAT is a new, patient completed, questionnaire designed to provide a simple and reliable measure of health status in COPD. The CAT has been validated against other measures of quality of life and outcomes of COPD (Jones P et al , ERJ 2009;34:648-54). However, its ability to improve the dialogue between patient and physicians has not been evaluated. We set out to design a study to assess the impact of CAT on the quality of the consultation between a primary care physician (PCP) and COPD patient. Methods: The CAT in Primary Care Study is a randomised, parallel group study conducted in 5 European countries. 160 PCPs without a working knowledge of CAT are recruited to the study. Each PCP completes 6 videoed consultations with standardised COPD patients (professional actors). PCPs are randomised to the CAT arm: with patient notes and CAT available in the consultations; or the non-CAT arm: with just the patient notes available. Cases were developed to include usual patient issues, which the actors were trained not to proactively raise with the PCP. The cases and their CAT scores were independently verified. Assessments are conducted by independent physicians. Each assessor will review 4 test cases for benchmarking. The assessments are based on the PCPs ability to identify, understand and manage the patient issues (A) and whether they reviewed key typical COPD issues (B). The primary endpoint of the study is the comparison of the assessment score (A+B) between the arms. The study has >90% power to detect a 3 point (out of 40) difference between the arms. A pilot study was successfully conducted with 10 PCPs to confirm the feasibility of the study. The study is ongoing and results are expected late 2011.


For 30 years Sir Steven Runciman's three-volume History ofthe Crusades has been a staple of the historical literature on this subject. Cambridge University Press has now issued an attractive, lavishly illustrated new version of the first volume of this work. The new edition is not an improvement on the first one; rather it retreats from the scholarly standards of the first edition. The revision consisted in taking out all of the footnotes, the appendixes, and the bibliography, cutting some of the background material from the opening chapters, and substituting a rewritten closing chapter for the original one. The illustrations in the present edition are handsome; many of them are in color, and they are beautifully reproduced in four-color fine-screen halftones. Presumably this will make this version of the book particularly attractive to owners of large empty coffee tables. However, historians and other serious readers will prefer the original edition of the book which, thank heavens, is still in print.


Methotrexate polyglutamates (MTXPGs) determine in vivo efficacy in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). MTXPG accumulation differs by leukemic subtypes, but genomic determinants of MTXPG variation in ALL remain unclear. We analyzed 3 types of whole genome variation: leukemia cell gene expression and somatic copy number variation, and inherited single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotypes and determined their association with MTXPGs in leukemia cells. Seven genes (FHOD3, IMPA2, ME2, RASSF4, SLC39A6, SMAD2, and SMAD4) displayed all 3 types of genomic variation associated with MTXPGs (P < .05 for gene expression, P < .01 for copy number variation and SNPs): 6 on chromosome 18 and 1 on chromosome 10. Increased chromosome 18 (P = .002) or 10 (P = .036) copy number was associated with MTXPGs even after adjusting for ALL subtype. The expression of the top 7 genes in leukemia cells accounted for more variation in MTXPGs (46%) than did the expression of the top 7 genes in normal HapMap cell lines (20%). The top 7 inherited SNPs in patients accounted for approximately the same degree of variation (17%) in MTXPGs as did the top 7 SNP genotypes in HapMap cell lines (20%). We conclude that acquired genetic variation in leukemia cells has a stronger influence on MTXPG accumulation than inherited genetic variation.


Abstract : The potential military capabilities of the People's Republic of China (PRC) carry tremendous implications for the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, The PRC's military modernization efforts are quickly eroding the ROC's qualitative military advantage As the PRC modernizes, the possibility for a peaceful reunification diminishes However, if it chooses an aggressive solution for reunification, the PRC recognizes that it may have to contend with the United States coming to Taiwan's aid, This thesis addresses the PRC's efforts to modernize its armed forces, Since 1985, Beijing has initiated a dedicated process of preparing the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to fight future wars, Through detailed analysis of U.S. military campaigns in the Middle East and the Balkans, the PRC has implemented new doctrine and equipment to help transform the PLA into a superior fighting force, As it modernizes, the PRC is developing strategies to force Taiwan's reunification with the mainland, Also, the PRC is developing asymmetric methods to defeat the possible presence of U,S, forces in the Taiwan Strait, The modernization of the PLA is dedicated towards achieving both of these goals.


In this paper, we present and analyze a variant of Burmester-Desmedt group key agreement protocol (BD) and enhance it to dynamic setting where a set of users can leave or join the group at any time during protocol execution with updated keys. In contrast to BD protocol, let us refer to our protocol as DB protocol. Although the DB protocol is similar to BD protocol, there are subtle differences between them: 1) Key computation in DB protocol is different and simpler than in BD protocol with same complexity of BD protocol; 2) Number of rounds required in our authenticated DB protocol is one less than that in authenticated BD protocol introduced by Katz-Yung; 3) DB protocol is more flexible than BD protocol in the sense that DB protocol is dynamic. The reusability of user's precomputed data in previous session enables the join and leave algorithms of our DB protocol to reduce most user's computation complexities which can be useful in real life applications; and 4) DB protocol has the ability to detect the presence of corrupted group members, although one can not detect who among the group members are behaving improperly.


The question was if a reduction of airborne particles and bacteria in conventionally (turbulently), ventilated operating theatres in comparison to Laminar-Airflow (LAF) operating theatres does occur at high air-exchange-rates. Within the framework of energy consumption measures the influence of air-exchange-rates on airborne particle and bacteria concentrations was determined in two identical operating theatres with conventional ventilation (wall diffusor panel) at the air-exchange-rates 7.5, 10, 15 and 20/h without surgical activity. This was established by means of the statistical procedure of analysis of variance. Especially for the comparison of the air-exchange-rates 7.5 and 15/h statistical differences were found for airborne particle concentrations in supply and ambient air. Concerning airborne bacteria concentrations no differences were found among the various air-exchange-rates. Explanation of variance is quite high for non-viable particles (supply air: 37%, ambient air: 81%) but negligible for viable particles (bacteria) with values below 15%.


Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) signaling has been shown to contribute to resistance to Listeria monocytogenes infection, as TLR2-deficient mice have a heightened susceptibility to infection with this organism. Because CD14 may associate with TLR2, we investigated the role of CD14 in Listeria responses. In both CD14-deficient and TLR2-deficient macrophages, nuclear factor kappaB translocation; CD40 and CD86; and the production of interleukin (IL)-12, IL-6, tumor necrosis factor, and nitric oxide are reduced. The absence of CD14 augmented susceptibility to Listeria infection, reduced survival, and diminished bacterial clearance, as observed in TLR2-deficient mice. Compared with C57BL/6 control mice, CD14-deficient mice were observed to have a greater number of hepatic microabscesses containing abundant neutrophils, these abscesses were larger in size, and there was reduced inducible nitric oxide synthase expression. Further, mice that are both CD14 deficient and TLR2 deficient display susceptibility to infection that is comparable to that of mice deficient in either CD14 or TLR2 alone. Therefore, the present data demonstrate the role of CD14 and TLR2 in the recognition and control of Listeria infection and host resistance.


The selective reduction of quinolin-2(1H)-ones promoted by a SmI2/H2O/MeOH system is reported for the first time. The reaction is effectively carried out to afford 3,4-dihydroquinoline-2(1H)-ones under mild conditions in a one-pot fashion with good to excellent yields.


Performance in searching solutions by Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) depends on genetic operators and/or their parameters. For comparison of the performance with some genetic operators and/or parameters, it has been usually employed the transitions of fitness values through actual applications or the number/performance of acquired Pareto solutions in multi-optimization problems. This paper proposes a visualizing method of search process for MOGA, which can visualize relative distances among chromosomes in search process and give information of not only the performance but also the effects of the genetic operations such as the diversity of chromosomes. This method uses Self-Organizing Map (SOM) for the visualization. This paper applies Non Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II) to ZDT2 and FON test functions and shows obtained nondominated solutions and visualization results. This paper also shows that the visualized data enables us to interpret the differences in search processes and to get new information to determine efficient genetic operators and their parameters.


Most textbooks on human anatomy and human embryology state that the appearance of the secondary ossification center (SOC) of the fetus is considered to be after or around birth. In our study, while collecting the data on growth indexes from 346 fetuses in normal pregnancy with conceptional ages from 12 to 38 complete weeks, we investigated using B-ultrasonography the appearance of the secondary ossification center and compared them in part with the anatomically observed data collected from fetal specimens. The results of B-ultrasonic observation show that SOC can be seen at the distal end of femur after 29 complete weeks. From them on, the percentage of the appearance of SOC increases weekly, and it is almost 100% in 34 complete weeks.


ABSTRACT In its first decade, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) focused much of its efforts on enabling the establishment of transnational public-private partnerships (PPPs) oriented towards increasing low-income country (LIC) access to essential health technologies. Critics have argued these efforts further enriched already profitable firms which long ignored the needs of populations with limited purchasing power, while lessening political will to invest in urgently needed public sector capacity to produce essential health technologies independently of market pressures. Missing from these critical analyses were the perspectives of those shaping BMGF's global health programming. Drawing on interviews with senior BMGF staff and external affiliates undertaken between 2010 and 2012, this article seeks to address this gap. We argue that BMGF's embrace of PPPs was adopted out of the belief that neither public agencies nor industry were capable of providing LICs with essential health technologies autonomously, and that their conflicting mandates required an honest broker to initiate and sustain collaboration between the two sectors. The Foundation's comparative advantage in global health governance was thus seen by those informing its work, as its capacity to negotiate such partnerships, which we argue has also been the basis of its agenda-setting influence in this domain.


Described here are two patients with a newly recognized syndrome of bone and cartilage maldevelopment which, we believe, results from a single embryonic defect, probably of genetic origin. The cardinal manifestations of this association are craniosynostosis, radiohumeral synostosis (RHS), and femoral bowing. Specific secondary defects include midface hypoplasia with characteristic facial appearance and ears, neonatal femoral fractures, and multiple minor anomalies of the limbs. Though the differential diagnosis includes such disorders as the campomelic syndrome, osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) and certain of acrocephalosyndactyly syndromes, the unique combination of clinical and radiographic abnormalities allows ready differentiation. The cause cannot be determined from these two cases.


Background: Anxiety disorders in adolescents can lead to serious psychosomatic problems. Objectives: This study was aimed at determining pattern and factors associated with anxiety disorders among adolescents who attend secondary schools in south east Nigeria. Methods: A total of 1500 adolescents who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were enrolled by simple random sampling. The questionnaire used was adapted from The Revised Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS). The RCMAS is a 37-item self-report inventory used to measure anxiety in children, for clinical purposes (diagnosis and treatment evaluation), educational settings, and for research purposes. Results: Three hundred and eighty-four students 384 (34.1%) had anxiety. On segregation into different components of anxiety 188 (16.7%) had physiological component, 674 (59.9%) had worry and 399 (35.5%) had concentration issues. There was statistical significant association between sex and general anxiety (χ2=30.121, p<0.001). There were statistical significant association between sex and physiological component of anxiety (χ2=10.838, p=0.001), class (χ2=5.546, p=0.009), father's educational level (χ2=8.306, p=0.016) and mother's occupation (χ2=12.348, p=0.015). There was statistical significant association between sex and worry component of anxiety (χ2=24.403, p<0.001). There was statistical significant association between sex and concentration component of anxiety (χ2=11.223, p=0.001). Conclusions: All the spectrum of anxiety disorders was present among adolescents in their institution with varying degrees of associated factors.


ABSTRACT Drawing on a sample of undergraduate social work students from four mid-western social work programs, this study compared perceptions of field instructors regarding non-traditional and traditional students. Field instructors rated their perceptions of the successful fulfillment of the demands of field practicum and the impact of several life characteristics for traditional and non-traditional students. Non-traditional students were rated significantly higher on a variety of measures as assessed by field instructors. This study has implications for social work education that involves differential recruitment, retention, and support of traditional and non-traditional students.


This study aimed to evaluate the effect of heat stress on quail hematological parameters. A total number of 300 Japanese quail chicks (Coturnix Coturnix japonica) of 28 days old were exposed to different levels of raising temperatures (22, 29, 34, 36 and 40 oC) for 15 days. At 42 days old, blood samples were collected from 14 birds (7 males + 7 females) that were randomly selected. The samples were used for determining red blood cells count, hemoglobin concentration, packed cell volume, total and differential white blood cells count, heterophils/ lymphocyte (H/L) ratio, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration. The obtained results indicated that, rearing quail birds under high environmental conditions during fattening period has a great adverse effect on these blood parameters.


The article shares some elements of comprehensive type about "mathematical argumentation in the classroom"; whose analysis, was made from two fundamental categories in the development of an oral mathematical argumentation process for the conviction, contradiction and validation of a written mathematical argumentation process. The research addressed two central categories of argumentation as a discursive form, the first one is the epistemic position, and the second one is the discursive position that students unveil at the time of mathematically arguing the solution to a problem situation. The research was developed under the interpretative paradigm through the design of a case study directed by the theory and technique of a focal group, for the collection of information. In the findings, difficulties in the passage were evidenced from the semantic to the theoretical from the epistemic position; regarding the discursive position, the presence of three discursive forms was revealed: description, explanation and argumentation, the latter being the least used by the students.


Free-Space Optical (FSO) communication provides very large bandwidth, relatively low cost, low power, low mass of implementation, and improved security when compared to conventional Free-Space Radio-Frequency (FSRF) systems. In this paper, we demonstrate a communication protocol that demonstrates improved security and longer-range FSO communication, compared to existing FSO security techniques, such as N-slit interferometers. The protocol integrates chaotic communications with Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) techniques. A Lorenz chaotic system, which is inherently secure and auto-synchronized, is utilized for secure data communications over a classical channel, while QKD is used to exchange crucial chaotic system parameters over a secure quantum channel. We also provide a concept of operations for a NASA mission combining chaotic communications and QKD operating synergistically in an end-to-end space communications link. The experimental simulation results and analysis are favorable towards our approach.


OBJECTIVE
To elucidate the correlation between urinary 11-dehydro-thromboxane B2 (11dhTxB2) and clinical efficacy of aspirin treatment in patients with type 2 diabete and coronary artery disease (CAD).

METHODS
In this prospective cohort study, 169 aged patients with type 2 diabete accompanying CAD in Peking University First Hospital were enrolled. The level of urinary 11dhTxB2 was detected using enzyme-linked immuno-sorbent assay. Low aspirin response or high on aspirin platelet reactivity (HAPR) was defined as urinary 11dhTxB2>1 500 ng/g. All the included patients were divided into two groups based on the results, HAPR group and No-HAPR group.

RESULTS
Baseline urinary 11dhTxB2 of the patients with type 2 diabete accompanying CAD was (3 687±3 052) ng/g, while the urinary 11dhTxB2 was (1 954±859) ng/g in patients after 100 mg/d aspirin treatment (P<0.001). Prevalence of HAPR in patients with type 2 diabete accompanying CAD were 32.5%. Within a mean follow-up time of 12 months, the outcomes occurred more frequently in HAPR group than in No-HAPR group (P<0.05).

CONCLUSION
Urinary 11dhTxB2 can be recognized as an effective indicator in evaluating aspirin clinical efficacy of patients with type 2 diabete accompanying CAD.


Monomer chromatin nu bodies (nu1) from chicken erythrocyte nuclei were exposed to 0-10 M urea plus 0.2 mM EDTA (PH 7). Alterations in nu1 conformation were examined using hydrodynamic methods (i.e., S, eta, and (formula: see text)), thermal denaturation, circular dichroism, reactivity of histone thiol groups to N-ethyl maleimide, and electron microscopy. The two domains of a nu body (i.e., the DNA-rich shell and the protein-rich core) aeared to respond differently to the destabilizing effects of increasing urea; DNA conformation and stability exhibited noncooperative changes; the core protein structure revealed cooperative destabilization between 4 and 7 M urea. Companion studies on the conformation of the inner histone "heterotypic tetramer" also revealed cooperative destabilization with increasing urea concentration.


Objective According to the recent development of minimally invasive spinal surgery, direct lumbar interbody fusion (DLIF) was introduced as an effective option to treat lumbar degenerative diseases. However, comprehensive results of DLIF have not been reported in Korea yet. The object of this study is to summarize radiological and clinical outcomes of our DLIF experience. Methods We performed DLIF for 130 patients from May 2011 to June 2013. Among them, 90 patients, who could be followed up for more than 6 months, were analyzed retrospectively. Clinical outcomes were compared using visual analog scale (VAS) score and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI). Bilateral foramen areas, disc height, segmental coronal and sagittal angle, and regional sagittal angle were measured. Additionally, fusion rate was assessed. Results A total of 90 patients, 116 levels, were underwent DLIF. The VAS and ODI improved statistically significant after surgery. All the approaches for DLIF were done on the left side. The left and right side foramen area changed from 99.5 mm2 and 102.9 mm2 to 159.2 mm2 and 151.2 mm2 postoperatively (p<0.001). Pre- and postoperative segmental coronal and sagittal angles changed statistically significant from 4.1° and 9.9° to 1.1° and 11.1°. Fusion rates of 6 and 12 months were 60.9% and 87.8%. Complications occurred in 17 patients (18.9%). However, most of the complications were resolved within 2 months. Conclusion DLIF is not only effective for indirect decompression and deformity correction but also shows satisfactory mechanical stability and fusion rate.


Nuclear magnetic resonance, through observation of chemical shift, allows the separate identification of each atom in a molecule. Thus, NMR spectra impart an often unrivaled wealth of information on molecular structure. A particular advantage of NMR spectroscopy is the ability to record multidimensional spectra, which provide correlations between atoms. When compared to other techniques, such as optical spectroscopy, the acquisition of NMR spectra is however an insensitive process, requiring samples of high concentration and long acquisition times. Recently, it has been demonstrated that dynamic nuclear polarization, a hyperpolarization technique, can increase the NMR signal by several orders of magnitude. Here, we present a robust method that allows recording two-dimensional chemical shift correlations from such hyperpolarized molecules. The method makes use of an apparent scaling of the scalar coupling observed on one type of atom, when an off-resonance decoupling field is applied to another type of atom. Thus, two-dimensional chemical shift correlations can be read directly from a small number of scans acquired using a hyperpolarized sample. Due to the ease of implementing this technique on commercial hyperpolarization and NMR equipment, it appears ideally suited for routine application, for example, to obtain carbon-proton chemical shift correlations in organic molecules.


This paper introduces a new wireless networking approach to multiparameter vehicle navigation systems based on ant algorithm. The proposed system finds the optimum multiparameter route between a pair of origin and destination (O/D). The importance rate of each parameter is adjustable by the user. This system acquires traffic data in online and offline modes. In online mode, traffic data are available from a traffic control center (TCC) using wireless networks. In this mode, an artificial neural network (ANN) is employed for traffic estimation of future minutes as the journey time delay is considered. In offline mode, traffic and other required data are available from the system memory, which contains statistical and historical data of parameters. In order to have a more user friendly system, the system is able of recommending more than one direction as well as considering previous selected routes of the user. The proposed system is simulated on a part of Kerman city, Iran, and the results indicate its feasibility and performance.


As mobile game grows rapidly in recent years, it becomes one of the new economic contributors to the game market. However the low-powered mobile device is the main barrier for the quick development of mobile game. Through mobile billiards game on the e868 mobile phone of the Bird-company, a game development framework for low performance mobile device is designed in this paper. To improve both the speed and visual effect of the game, this paper proposes an efficient collision detection algorithm suitable for mobile games from the aspect of game logic. Combined with the features of low-powered mobile devices, many different optimization techniques are presented and implemented.


Sir .—We read with interest the study by Yazdani et al 1 on the increased theophylline requirements for the control of apnea in premature infants who are also receiving phenobarbital for seizure control. Unfortunately, their retrospective study did not include infants' serum theophylline levels before and after institution of phenobarbital therapy. Patient Report .—Starting on the second day of life, we administered aminophylline for the treatment of apnea to a 640-g (birth weight) infant who was of 24 weeks' gestation. Minimal ventilatory support was subsequently necessary. A therapeutic serum theophylline level of 9.4 mg/L (52 μmol/L) was achieved with a 5.5-mg/kg loading dose of aminophylline (theophylline ethylene diamine), followed by a maintenance dosage of 2.0 mg/kg/24 h, administered intravenously. On the fourth day of life, phenobarbital sodium, in a loading dose of 20 mg/kg, was administered intravenously following seizure activity. Cranial ultrasonography disclosed a grade 2 intracranial hemorrhage. The seizures


Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that newborns from fresh embryo transfer have higher risk of small for gestation (SGA) rate than those from frozen-thawed embryo transfer (FET). It is suggested that supraphysiologic serum estradiol in controlled ovarian stimulation (COS) is one of reasons. Our study aims to investigate whether exogenous estradiol delivered regimens have an impact on live birth rate and neonatal outcomes in hormone replacement (HRT)-FET cycles. Methods: This was a retrospective study involving patients undergoing their first FET with HRT endometrium preparation followed by the transfer of two cleavage-staged embryos, comparing estradiol administered orally and vaginally (OVE group) versus estradiol administered orally (OE group) from January 2015 to December 2018 at our center. A total of 792 patients fulfilled the criteria, including 228 live birth singletons. The live birth rate was the primary outcome measure. Secondary outcome measures included clinical pregnancy rate, singleton birthweight, large for gestational age (LGA) rate, SGA rate, preterm delivery rate. Results: Patients in OVE group achieved higher serum estradiol level with more days of estradiol treatment. No difference in live birth (Adjusted OR 1.327; 95%CI 0.982, 1.794, p = 0.066) and clinical pregnancy rate (Adjusted OR 1.278; 95%CI 0.937, 1.743, p = 0.121) was found between OVE and OE groups. Estradiol route did not affect singletons birth weight (β = -30.962, SE = 68.723, p = 0.653), the odds of LGA (Adjusted OR 1.165; 95%CI 0.545, 2.490, p = 0.694), the odds of SGA (Adjusted OR 0.569; 95%CI 0.096, 3.369, p = 0.535) or the preterm delivery (Adjusted OR 0.969; 95%CI 0.292, 3.214, p = 0.959). Conclusion: Estrogen taken orally and vaginally together did not change live birth rate and singleton neonatal outcomes compared to estrogen taken orally, but was accompanied with relative higher serum E2 level and potential maternal undesirable risks.


The aim of the article is to present what benefits for the entity result from the implemented quality management system in accordance with the ISO 9001:2015 standard and whether having such a system is about organizational security and is effective protection against threats related to its functioning.