Abstract Objectives Diabetic retinopathy is a common microvascular complication of diabetes. Despite that, there are few studies in the literature to address pregnancy, delivery, or neonatal outcomes among women with diabetic retinopathy. Methods We conducted a retrospective study using the Health Care Cost and Utilization Project-Nationwide Inpatient Sample Database over 11 years from 2004 to 2014. A delivery cohort was created using ICD-9 codes. ICD-9 code 250 or 249 was used to extract the cases of maternal diabetic retinopathy. A multivariant logistic regression model was used to adjust for statistically significant variables (p-value ≤ .05). Results There were a total of 9,096,788 deliveries during the study period. Of those, 86 615 pregnant women were found to have Diabetes Mellites (DM). Diabetic retinopathy was present in 1233 of the patients with DM. Diabetic retinopathy increased the likelihood of developing pregnancy-induced HTN (p < .0001), Preeclampsia (p < .0001), and Preeclampsia and eclampsia superimposed on preexisting HTN (p < .0001). In addition, in women with DM, the presence of diabetic retinopathy increased the risk of Preterm delivery (p = .002), cesarean section (p < .0001), requiring transfusion (p < .0001), and undergoing hysterectomy (p = .001), and were less likely to have a spontaneous vaginal delivery (p < .0001). However, the presence of diabetic retinopathy in women with DM did not increase the risk of the fetus being small at delivery, having intrauterine fetal demise, or congenital anomalies. Conclusion Women with diabetic retinopathy should be counseled about their increased risk of pregnancy-induced HTN, preeclampsia, premature delivery, cesarean section, transfusion, and hysterectomy.


Yield and its prediction is one of the most important tasks in grapevine breeding purposes and vineyard management. Commonly, this trait is estimated manually right before harvest by extrapolation, which mostly is labor-intensive, destructive and inaccurate. In the present study an automated image-based workflow was developed for quantifying inflorescences and single flowers in unprepared field images of grapevines, i.e. no artificial background or light was applied. It is a novel approach for non-invasive, inexpensive and objective phenotyping with high-throughput. First, image regions depicting inflorescences were identified and localized. This was done by segmenting the images into the classes "inflorescence" and "non-inflorescence" using a Fully Convolutional Network (FCN). Efficient image segmentation hereby is the most challenging step regarding the small geometry and dense distribution of single flowers (several hundred single flowers per inflorescence), similar color of all plant organs in the fore- and background as well as the circumstance that only approximately 5 % of an image show inflorescences. The trained FCN achieved a mean Intersection Over Union (IOU) of 87.6 % on the test data set. Finally, single flowers were extracted from the "inflorescence"-areas using Circular Hough Transform. The flower extraction achieved a recall of 80.3 % and a precision of 70.7 % using the segmentation derived by the trained FCN model. Summarized, the presented approach is a promising strategy in order to predict yield potential automatically in the earliest stage of grapevine development which is applicable for objective monitoring and evaluations of breeding material, genetic repositories or commercial vineyards.


Background Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequently diagnosed malignancies in females, and its incidence has increased dramatically recently. Clinical studies have shown that BC patients are developing double primary cancers more frequently than by chance, and the prognosis has changed greatly. Previous articles rarely mentioned metachronous double primary cancers in BC survivors. Thus, further analysis of the clinical characteristics and survival differences may provide valuable information in BC survivors. Methods In this study, we retrospectively analyzed 639 cases of double primary cancers in BC patients. Cox univariate and multivariate regression analyses of clinical factors of overall survival (OS) were performed in patients with double primary cancers when breast cancer was the primary tumor to assess the correlation between clinical factors and OS in these patients with double primary cancers. Results Among the double primary cancer patients, BC was the most frequent first primary cancer. In terms of numbers, thyroid cancer was the most common type of double primary cancer among BC survivors. Patients had a younger median age when BC occurred as the first primary cancer rather than the second primary cancer. The total mean time interval between the onset of double primary tumors was 70.8 months. With the exception of the thyroid and cervical cancer, the incidence of second primary tumors was <60% within 5 years. However, the incidence was >60% within 10 years. The mean OS of double primary cancer patients was 109.8 months. Additionally, patients who had thyroid cancer as their second primary cancer had the highest 5-year survival rate, followed by cervical, colon, and endometrial cancer, while patients who had lung cancer as their second primary cancer had the lowest 5-year survival rate. OS risk of BC survivors with second primary cancers was significantly associated with age, menopause status, family history, tumor size, lymph node metastasis, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status. Conclusions The identification of double primary cancers in earlier stages could play a critical role in guidance and lead to better outcomes. A prolonged follow-up examination period for BC survivors is needed to provide better guidance and treatments.


Deep neural networks (DNNs) are incredibly vulnerable to crafted, imperceptible adversarial perturbations. While adversarial training (AT) has proven to be an effective defense approach, the AT mechanism for robustness improvement is not fully understood. This work investigates AT from a spectral perspective, adding new insights to the design of effective defenses. In particular, we show that AT induces the deep model to focus more on the low-frequency region, which retains the shape-biased representations, to gain robustness. Further, we find that the spectrum of a white-box attack is primarily distributed in regions the model focuses on, and the perturbation attacks the spectral bands where the model is vulnerable. Based on this observation, to train a model tolerant to frequency-varying perturbation, we propose a spectral alignment regularization (SAR) such that the spectral output inferred by an attacked adversarial input stays as close as possible to its natural input counterpart. Experiments demonstrate that SAR and its weight averaging (WA) extension could significantly improve the robust accuracy by 1.14% ~ 3.87% relative to the standard AT, across multiple datasets (CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100 and Tiny ImageNet), and various attacks (PGD, C&W and Autoattack), without any extra data.


Pharmacognosy Communications, Vol 11, Issue 1, Jan-Mar, 2021 26 ABSTRACT Introduction: Galactomannas are polysaccharides similar to cellulose and starch. Methods: A literature search was conducted in Medline, Scopus, PubMed and Google scholar databases. The keywords were fenugreek, health benefits, bioactive components, galactomannans, diosgenin and pharmaceutical science. Results: Fenugreek galactomannan is a heteropolysaccharide which reduces blood glucose level as normalize the surface activities inside the small intestine. They are also used in food products in order to increase the thickness of the water content. The most important health benefits of galactomanna are reduction in LDL cholesterol levels in hypercholesterolemic, blood lipids, as well as to reduce blood pressure and fibrinolysis. Diosgenin is an isospirostane derivative and the product of acids or enzymes hydrolysis process of dioscin and protodioscin. Conclusion: Diosgenin shows biological activities including antioxidant, anti-diabetes, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-adipogenic effects.


This paper presents a text-independent speaker verification system based on an online Radial Basis Function (RBF) network referred to as Minimal Resource Allocation Network (MRAN). MRAN is a sequential learning RBF, in which hidden neurons are added or removed as training progresses. LP-derived cepstral coefficients are used as feature vectors during training and verification phases. The performance of MRAN is compared with other well-known RBF and Elliptical Basis Function (EBF) based speaker verification methods in terms of error rates and computational complexity on a series of speaker verification experiments. The experiments use data from 258 speakers from the phonetically balancedcontinuous speech corpus TIMIT. The results show that MRAN produces comparable error rates to other methods with much less computational complexity.


Energy consumption is a serious environmental issue due to global warming and pollution. Public policies are developed in this context. Behavioral economics pays particular attention to the use of nudges. A nudge is a form of policy aimed at changing individual behaviors without using financial incentives or order, for example by providing information to individuals so as to conduct behaviors in the direction desired by the policy-maker. Interestingly "private nudges" can be imagined for companies. Many economists and psychologists have studied the impact of nudges on households' proenvironmental behaviors. Yet, studies focusing on nudging employees' energy use are rare. The objective of our paper is precisely to test the effect of 3 nudges on employees' energy consumption with the help of a field experiment. The first nudge alerts individuals on good energy consumption practices. The second one stresses the responsible use of energy regarding environmental stakes. Finally, a "social comparison" nudge is used informing employees on others' energy consumption in firms participating to the experiment. The field experiment is conducted with 50 French companies' sites. These companies are equipped with "Building Management System", allowing obtaining a daily electricity consumption. The experiment is conducted over 12. The data collected are subjected to statistical and econometric processing allowing us determining the impact of the various nudges tested.


Data aggregation based on machine learning (ML), in mobile edge computing, allows participants to send ephemeral parameter updates of local ML on their private data instead of the exact data to the untrusted aggregator. However, it still enables the untrusted aggregator to reconstruct participants' private data, although parameter updates contain significantly less information than the private data. Existing work either incurs extremely high overhead or ignores malicious participants dropping out. The latest research deals with the dropouts with desirable cost, but it is vulnerable to malformed message attacks. To this end, we focus on the data aggregation based on ML in a practical setting where malicious participants may send malformed parameter updates to perturb the total parameter updates learned by the aggregator. Moreover, malicious participants may drop out and collude with other participants or the untrusted aggregator. In such a scenario, we propose a scheme named DAML, which to the best of our knowledge is the first attempt toward verifying participants' submissions in data aggregation based on ML. The main idea is to validate participants' submissions via SSVP, a novel secret-shared verification protocol, and then aggregate participants' parameter updates using SDA, a secure data aggregation protocol. Simulation results demonstrate that DAML can protect participants' data privacy with preferable overhead.


This paper proposes a hand-controller mechanism for manually controlled endoscopic surgical instruments. A wire-driven mechanism is typically adapted for endoscopic surgical tools because motors cannot be embedded to the joints due to the size limitation. The wire-driven mechanism requires length control of wires that are pulled and released according to the desired joint angle. It is difficult for the operator to control individual wire lengths intuitively. The hand-controller mechanism should be able to control the wires easily without complex processes. For this purpose, we propose a mechanism that can control the wire lengths with a simple mechanical structure and its optimal design method using genetic algorithm. We show the simulation and experimental results to confirm the proposed mechanism and design methods are useful for the manually controlled endoscopic surgical instrument.


The article makes use of postcolonial theory, in particular of Said's notion of orientalism, to investigate the refined play of implicit and explicit cultural assimilations involved in Stael's choice to represent Italy through an extemporaneous woman poet. In this study we look at Corinne in a different light: rather than accentuating those elements of the book, which anticipate modern comparativism, the author investigates its judging glance – that proceeds in a polarized fashion, typical of the imperialist epoch – and highlights the outsider perspective, from which Mme de Stael imposes over Italy and the Italians a model for perceiving themselves as European.


Background CD133-positive melanoma cells are thought to be melanoma-initiating cells with cancer stem cell (CSC) characteristics. Some researchers have reported that CD133-negative subsets can also initiate tumors, so the clinical significance of a CD133-positive subpopulation of cells in melanoma remains controversial. This systematic review was designed to assess the value of CD133 as a CSC marker in melanomas. A meta-analysis was also performed to cumulatively analyze the data on CD133 expression levels in the selected studies. Materials and Method Eligible studies were identified via an electronic search through various databases including PubMed, MEDLINE, Ovid MEDLINE, and Web of Science (from May 2005 through September 2014) using the following keywords: "CD133 or prominin-1", "cancer stem cells", and "melanoma". Only articles in which CD133 antigen was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) were included. A meta-analysis was performed to identify any association between CD133 expression and clinical outcomes. Results Two hundred and ninety-nine melanoma cases from 5 studies were evaluated for expression levels of CD133 using IHC. Large heterogeneity was observed among the results (p<0.001, I2 = 94%). Approximately 47.9% (95% CI 23.7%-72.1%) of the studied melanoma cases had high CD133 expression. The I2 value and Q-test p value for heterogeneity were 89.0% and <0.001, respectively, and the pooled estimate of CD133 expression was 61.7% (95% CI 25.1%-98.4%). Conclusions Our findings suggest that CD133 is not yet proven to be an appropriate biomarker in identifying CSCs of melanoma. Thus, detection of CD133 in combination with other putative CSC markers may be more valuable for clinical application.


Professional clinicians and human services providers are increasingly attributing the mental health problems of American Indians (AIs) to historical trauma (HT). As an alternative to established psychiatric disorders, AI HT was formulated to explain enduring mental health disparities as originating in tribal experiences of Euro-American colonization. As a result, AI HT has been described as the collective, cumulative, and intergenerational psychosocial disability resulting from massive group-based oppression, such as forced relocation, political subjugation, cultural domination, and genocide. One objective of the HT construct is to frame AI distress and dysfunction in social and historical terms. Given widespread indigenous experiences of colonization, the debilitating effects of HT are presumed to affect most AI communities today. With this background in mind, I explore AI HT with specific reference to a "war narrative" obtained by an anthropologist in 1901 from an elderly Gros Ventre woman. In this account, Watches All described her participation in a historic intertribal battle, and her subsequent captivity and escape from the enemy during the late 1860s. This historical narrative references many first-hand experiences that would today be identified as traumatogenic. Interestingly, however, this account complicates several assumptions underlying AI HT, leading to vexing questions of whether Watches All's ordeal actually qualifies as an instance of AI HT. No matter how one answers these questions, such ambiguity highlights serious theoretical confusions requiring elaboration and refinement if AI HT is to remain a useful construct in the behavioral health sciences.


The electronic spectra of three types of 1,10-phenanthroline derivatives having different π-conjugated systems, phenanthrolinedione, phenanthrolinone, and the parent phenanthroline, showed characteristic patterns easily distinguished from each other. Analogous spectral patterns were noted in amino-substituted 1,10-phenanthrolines, and the protonated structures of these compounds were characterized on the basis of such spectral features.


This paper reports the results of a field experiment to assess the collaborative effects of community participation in the Ugandan oil and gas sector. Our research design assesses collaborative impacts as relational between community members and different decision-makers in the sector and measures these impacts from the point of view of local people. Local people often face power imbalances in collaborative governance. Decision-makers are increasingly attempting to mitigate such imbalances to improve outcomes for communities, but little experimental evidence exists showing the impact of such efforts. Using multilevel ordered logit models, we estimate positive treatment effects, finding that encouraging the equitable participation of communities improves collaboration with other actors. Next, we use machine-learning techniques to demonstrate a method for targeting communities most likely to benefit from the intervention. We estimate that purposefully targeting communities that would benefit most yields a treatment effect about twice as large, relative to pure random assignment. Our results provide evidence that interventions mindful of community needs can improve collaborative governance and shows how such communities can be most effectively targeted. The experiment took place across 107 villages (53 treatment and 54 control) and the unit of statistical analysis is the household, where we report outcomes measured from 6,062 household surveys (approximately half at baseline and half at endline).


The aim of our research is to be able to determine the tactile feeling of fabrics, sold over the web, by using inexpensive technologies. A Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) texture based fractal method is proposed to objectively evaluate the surface roughness of fabric images. The fractal dimension, which has been proved as a descriptor of tactile surface roughness, is calculated from the texture features extracted from GLCMs. The proposed method has been implemented in Matlab and tested by using woven fabric images which are randomly chosen from clothes. Two types of the fractal dimension estimation methods: the box counting method and the power spectrum method are used for roughness evaluation. The power spectrum method is demonstrated to be more robust than the box counting method. The major results of our fabric roughness evaluation show that the GLCM can represent a meaningful descriptive basis of fabric textures and fractal dimension of the GLCM textures have the ability to evaluate the actual fabric surface roughness.


ABSTRACT The global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has significantly altered the lives of college students across the United States. Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, college campuses were shuttered, classes moved to remote instruction, and university activities, celebrations, and events were canceled. Cast against a backdrop of uncertainty about the future, studies have documented that the pandemic has significantly increased anxiety among college students as they adjust to a "new normal." Drawing from general strain theory, we examine the influence of specific COVID-19-related strains on a variety of changes in student behavior including binge-watching streaming services, splurging on online shipping, sexting, "hooking up" with random people, and masturbating. Results using structural equation models on data from 1,287 students at a Midwestern university show that specific sources of strain directly are related to binge-watching, online shopping, hooking up with random people, and masturbating, while anxiety was directly related to increased binge-watching, online shopping, and sexting. Anxiety mediated the pathways between some sources of strain and binge-watching and splurging on online shopping. Overall, findings highlight that the global pandemic not only induces anxiety and interrupts academic life but also carries far-reaching consequences for a wide range of behaviors.


Different electric wind power conversion systems structures can be used based on the structures of converters used. The main objective in all topologies is always the same: the wind energy at varying wind velocities has to be converted to electric power with the highest performances [6,7,8,9,10]. In this paper a wind energy conversion schemes is presented based on the Indirect Field Oriented Control (IFOC)


This thesis details the preparation and subsequent characterisation of novel nanostructured porous materials with tuneable porosity. The main focus is the development of inorganic and carbonaceous porous materials for catalysis, templating and gas storage applications. Three distinct methods of synthesis are investigated, namely: (i) hydrothermal synthesis of zeotype aluminosilicates, (ii) nanocasting techniques for templated carbons and (iii) sol-gel processes, with/without metal salt 'porogen', to carbon aerogels. Post-synthesis modification methods for carbonaceous materials include supercritical carbon dioxide mediated incorporation of palladium nanoparticles into zeolite templated carbons and chemical activation for carbon aerogels resulting in enhanced textural properties.
Chapter 1: Provides the foundation and background to the main themes of nanostructured porous materials investigated in this work. Information about fundamental properties and applications is emphasised.
Chapter 2: Gives a brief background of techniques used for characterisation of the porous materials generated in this research programme. Gas sorption techniques used to probe hydrogen storage and carbon dioxide uptake are also presented.
Chapter 3: Describes stepwise experimental techniques followed in the preparation of various porous materials. The chapter also describes the instrumentation used in these techniques.
Chapter 4 - 7: Each chapter reports a separate but sequential area of research in which appropriate additional theory and background is provided with associated literature review. This is followed by a results and discussion section, with a concluding summary for each chapter.
Chapter 4: Details the synthesis of ordered mesoporous aluminosilicates, which exhibit some zeolitisation, prepared from a recipe conventionally used for the synthesis of microporous zeolite SEA. The porosity of the aluminosilicates is modified by simple washing and/or refluxing (in water) of either on the as-synthesised mesophase or the calcined material. The aluminosilicates have excellent hydrothermal stability and strong acidity and thus combine the best properties from mesoporous materials and zeolites.
Chapter 5: Describes the preparation of zeolite templated carbons (ZTC) generated as replicas of zeolite Y via a hard template nanocasting process. In order to enhance hydrogen storage, the ZTCs are impregnated with Palladium nanoparticles using supercritical carbon dioxide solvent, scC02, as environmentally benign reaction media. The Pd-doped ZTCs exhibit enhanced hydrogen storage due to optimised (with respect to metal content and particle size) incorporation of Pd.
Chapter 6: A two-step process for the generation of zeolite template carbons (ZTCs) was investigated. In this case the nanocasting technique involves liquid impregnation of zeolite 13X with furfuryl alcohol followed by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of ethylene at variable CVD temperatures. The two-step process was a successful attempt to optimise the replication of the zeolite structure in the carbons. The ZTCs had very high surface area and excellent mechanical stability, and achieved the highest hydrogen storage capacity (7.3 wt% at 77 K and 20 bar) ever reported for any carbon material.
Chapter 7: Organic Sol-gel chemistry is explored in the formation of carbon aerogels via conventional methods involving the use of resorcinolformaldehyde resins and melamine-formaldehyde with or without metal salt as a porogen and subcritical drying. Chemical activation is used to modify the porosity of aerogels for potential applications in carbon dioxide uptake.
Chapter 8: A brief overall conclusion to this research work is presented together with recommendations for future research.


The American Academy of Pediatrics, in attempting to fulfill one of the principal objectives of the Academy, has this year entered into a new phase of medical education by arranging a series of postgraduate courses for pediatricians. The need for such courses has been studied and considered by the Executive Board and the Committee on Medical Education for several years. Two years ago, the first step was taken when the Academy agreed to co-operate in publicizing a course on Pediatric Orthopedics that was presented in New Orleans at Tulane University School of Medicine by Drs. Ralph V. Platou and Clifford G. Grulee, Jr. This course was so successful and the arrangement so satisfactory that the Committee on Medical Education recommended that two regular Academy-sponsored courses be given early in 1959.
 These two courses were held in March of this year; the first course at Ann Arbor was presented by the Pediatric Department of the University of Michigan under Drs. James L. Wilson and Harry A. Towsley, and the second course was at Nashville under the direction of Drs. Amos Christie and O. Randolph Batson of the Pediatric Department of Vanderbilt University. These courses were extremely well received as attested by the numerous commendatory letters that were directed to the officers of the Academy as well as to those who directed the courses. This great interest in the postgraduate program was considered sufficient evidence of the need for such courses and, therefore, warranted the plan to increase the number of courses to four during the coming school year.
 The Subcommittee on Postgraduate Courses at a recent meeting laid the groundwork for the courses in the coming year. The schedule of courses as planned is as follows:


The question of whether and to what extent sovereignty has been transferred to the European Union (EU) from its Member States remains a central debate within the EU and is interlinked with issues such as Kompetenz-Kompetenz, direct effect, and primacy. Central to any claim to sovereignty is the principle of primacy, which requires that Member States uphold EU law over national law where there is a conflict. However, limitations to primacy can traditionally be found in national jurisprudence and the Maastricht Treaty introduced a possible EU limitation with the requirement that the EU respect the national identities of Member States. The Lisbon Treaty provided only minimal further support to the principle of primacy whilst simultaneously developing the provision on national identities, now found within Article 4(2) of the Treaty of European Union (TEU). There are indications from the literature, national constitutional courts, and the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) that the provision is gathering strength as a legal tool and is likely to have a wider scope than the text might indicate. In its new role, Article 4(2) TEU bolsters the Member States' claim to sovereignty and the possibility to uphold aspects crucial to them in conflict with EU law and the principle of primacy. Consequently, it is central to the relationship between the constitutional courts of the Member States and the CJEU, and where the final elements of control remain in 'hard cases'. However, it does so as part of EU law, thereby facilitating the evasion of direct fundamental conflicts and reflecting the concept of constitutional pluralism.


Abstract Significant maternal and child deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) even with existing effective interventions. Antenatal care (ANC), for example, is an intervention that improves the health of pregnant women and their babies, but only 52% of pregnant women in SSA had the recommended minimum of four ANC visits between 2011 and 2016. While significant socioeconomic inequalities in ANC visits have been reported to the disadvantage of the poor, little is known about the depth of ANC coverage and associated inequalities. This paper introduces 'deficits' (i.e. the number of ANC visits that are needed to reach the recommended minimum of four ANC visits) and 'surpluses' (i.e. the number of ANC visits over and above the recommended minimum of four ANC visits) to assess socioeconomic inequalities in the indicator and depth of the 'deficits' and 'surpluses' in ANC visits. Using the latest available Demographic and Health Survey data for 36 SSA countries and concentration indices, the paper found that 'deficits' in ANC visits are more prevalent among poorer women compared to 'surpluses' that are concentrated among the rich. On average, women with 'deficits' in ANC visits require about two more ANC visits to reach the recommended four ANC visits, and women with 'surpluses' exceeded the recommended minimum by about two ANC visits. The factors that explain a substantial share of the socioeconomic inequalities in ANC 'deficits' and 'surpluses' in SSA include wealth, education and area of residency, which are essentially the social determinants of health inequalities. For policy response, it is suggested that education is a significant channel to affect the other social determinants of inequalities in ANC coverage reported in the paper. Thus, countries must prioritize quality education as addressing education, especially among women in SSA, will significantly reduce disparities in ANC service utilization and accelerate progress towards universal health coverage.


Objective Standards of care and new genetic and molecular therapies have contributed to increasing life expectancy of patients with neuromuscular diseases (NMDs). This review presents the clinical evidence for an adequate transition from pediatric to adult care in patients with NMDs considering both physical and psychosocial aspects and attempts at identifying a general pattern of transition in the literature that can be used for all patients with NMDs. Method A search was performed on PubMed, Embase and Scopus using generic terms that could be referred to the transition construct specifically related to NMDs. A narrative approach was used to summarise the available literature. Results Our review shows that few or no studies explored the transition process from pediatric to adult care in neuromuscular diseases and tried to identify a general pattern of transition applicable to all NMDs. Conclusions A transition process taking into consideration physical, psychological, social needs of patient and caregiver could produce positive outcomes. However, there is still no unanimous agreement in the literature on what it consists of and how to achieve an optimal and effective transition.


The ability of low cost activated carbon based on tamarind stone for the removal of copper ion from water was explored. Tamarind stone was converted into activated carbon by lean air carbonization and chemically activated by barium chloride. The factors affecting on adsorption process i-e particle size, concentration, and pH were investigated. Maximum adsorption i-e 64% of copper ions occurs at 100 mg/L initial concentration by 0.1g of activated carbon having 149μ particle size. The adsorption of coppr(II) ions was higher at higher pH value i-e 21 mg/L. Adsorption was found to be increased with increase in temperature due to endothermic nature .The potential of the prepared activated carbon for removal of copper ions from aqueous media was satisfactory.


Endogenous cannabinoids and type‐1 cannabinoid receptor (CB1) are widely produced and distributed in the central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nerves in mammals. In addition, the detection of endocannabinoids and corresponding receptors in non nervous peripheral tissues indicates an involvement of the system in the control of a wide range of physiological activities, including reproduction. Recently, the existence of CB1 was also observed in lower vertebrates and in urochordate suggesting that the endocannabinoid system is phylogenetically conserved. Using RT‐PCR, CB1 mRNA expression profiles were characterized in a wide range of tissues of the anuran amphibian, the frog, Rana esculenta. Besides a strong expression in the CNS, CB1 was also present in testis, kidney, liver, ovary, muscle, heart, spleen, and pituitary. The CB1 expression pattern has been characterized in both testis and CNS during the annual sexual cycle. In testis, CB1 is poorly expressed during the winter stasis of the spermatogenesis rising during the breeding season and resumption period. An expression profile mismatching to that observed in testis was detected in whole‐brain preparations during the sexual cycle; in particular in the diencephalon, the encephalic area mainly involved in the control of reproductive functions. Furthermore, fluctuations inside isolated encephalic areas and spinal cord were observed all over the reproductive cycle. In conclusion, CB1 receptor is expressed in R. esculenta CNS and testis. As far as the gonad it concerns, our results suggest the involvement of the endocannabinoids in the control of reproductive function. Mol. Reprod. Dev. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


This paper describes the new microfabrication effort presently underway at the University of Louisville. A 1500 square foot class 100/1000 cleanroom facility was completed in the 1997 Spring semester. The cleanroom contains a wide spectrum of microfabrication processing and test equipment. The new lab supports a broad range of interdisciplinary research projects and will be utilized in the upcoming 1997 Fall semester for a new NSF-sponsored undergraduate course in microfabrication. Details of the cleanroom and ongoing fabrication activities at the University of Louisville are presented.


What can studying the creation of knowledge tell us about how new technical fields emerge and develop? This paper shows how a knowledge community may be necessary to support the legitimacy of new products that undergo performance evaluation before purchase. Using historical and ethnographic data covering half a century, we review the growth of the art investment field through an epistemic cultures lens. Technical knowledge about the financial characteristics of art has been developed alongside practical knowledge about how best to structure investment ventures. Investment venture success has been determined by legitimacy as much as by profitability, given durable expectations about the evaluation and monitoring of investments. The growth of knowledge, practices and tools was thus a necessary condition for the recognition of artwork as an asset class. Crucially, the epistemic cultures approach highlights deepening knowledge, resources and professional expertise, and their development through experimentation, failures and negative knowledge. This shows accounting issues contributing to technical field legitimacy and emergence, such as the role of knowledge production, valuation practices and receptive environments, and the distinction between legitimate investments that can be valued and investment venture profitability.


In short-term tissue cultures dibutyryl cAMP inhibits the cortisone-induced degranulation of mast cells. The effect of methylxanthine was found to be similar but developed at a slower rate. The increase of cAMP level also affected the maturation of mast cells, as the ratio of cells of mixed granulation increased, compared to the alcian blue- and safranin-present model inhibited degranulation.


Abstract Significant challenges face developing countries as a result of the maldistribution of access to healthcare throughout the world, specifically access to paediatric cardiac care. Sustainable paediatric cardiac programmes must be established in developing countries to provide care to all children with congenital heart disease. Education and research are essential components to sustainable paediatric cardiac programmes in developing countries to define local problems and the incidence of disease, and to generate solutions thereto related. Research can contribute to developing local expertise, improving technology, providing opportunities for local talent, generating financial resources, enhancing the dignity of people, and the facilitating resolution of health problems throughout the world. Clinical trials conducted in developing countries should meet the same ethical standards as trials based in developed countries.


Lack of disciplined use of a partograph in the management of labour is a widespread concern. Given the high maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality rate experienced in Africa, appropriate interventions that support good clinical management are necessary. As one of the ten key recommendations in the Third Report on Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths in South Africa, recommendation 8 states that ''the correct use of a partograph should become a norm at each institution conducting births'' (National Department of Health, 2006:24).
The overall purpose of this study was to determine whether midwifery students were adequately facilitated regarding the utilisation of a partograph as a midwifery record.
The study was exploratory and descriptive. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a questionnaire with closed and open-ended questions. The self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 80 midwifery students during their final year of study; 75% (n=60) completed questionnaires were returned.
The findings illustrated that students were adequately facilitated theoretically. There was evidence of minimal facilitation of midwifery students in the clinical setting. This might have implications for the underutilisation of the partograph by registered midwives.
Recommendations regarding the effective facilitation of the students in the management of labour, with regard to the utilisation of a partograph, as a midwifery record will be provided based on the research results.


Narrative, as one of the closest aspect to human experience, is sometimes overlooked because of its subtlety with everyday life. The study of its representation, narratology, discusses the manner of selling space and time as a series of interconnected events instead of independent occurrences. It offers an interesting view in rethinking architecture, in particular, its representations. In architectural education, dialogue between the two fields will change the way the next generation architecture graduates tell their ideas. Current architecture schools should not be looked as factories that produce only future architects. It is proven by the fact that some, if not most, graduates will have jobs other than professional architects. They may work as set designers, filmmakers, artists, or invent their own field. Architecture schools, at their best, are more about how to ensure the students can perform spatial thinking and expressing their ideas through representation. All of these circumstances lead to the importance of multidisciplinary discourse in architecture education.This paper aims to explore the potential of storyboarding practice in Basic Design 2 studio as part of architectural education at University of Indonesia. Adopting a narrative element, storyboard in this studio is used to read urban architectural settings and retell everyday life events; scene by scene, unfold in space and time, through different kinds of creative representations. By doing this exercise, the students 'sense of spatial arrangement is developed by their understanding of position and orientation of objects settings. They also learned about how the time works; both in compressed or expanded ways. Decision-making in choosing the key events within the storyboard plays a role in making engaging visuals. In conclusion, storyboarding exercise to represent urban architectural settings will enhance the students 'sensitivity of space, time, and how their ideas are being told by making a rich, multi-layers of narrative.


The development of the cable television' industry has been fraught with copyright and regulatory problems. The absence of cable copyright liability prior to 1976 created an imbalance in the rights enjoyed by broadcasters, copyright holders and cable operators. These parties hoped that the imbalance would be rectified by the limited copyright liability imposed on cable systems in the Copyright Revision Act of 1976 (Act) and by Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) regulation of cable's use of copyrighted television broadcasts pursuant to the Consensus Agreement of 1972 (Consensus Agreement). Unfortunately this hope has not been fulfilled. Whether copyright liability even exists for retransmission carriers, an important segment of the cable industry, remains unclear. This Note contends that the passive carrier exemption in section section 111(a)(3) of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976 should be strictly construed. Carriers that are not entirely passive should not be protected and therefore should obtain the permission of the copyright holder before retransmitting a copyrighted television broadcast signal. In reaching this conclusion, this Note examines the industry and legal settings of the issue, analyzes the retransmission carrier's copyright liability under the Act, and justifies the imposition of copyright liability on certain carriers on the basis of the language and intent of the Act and broader policy considerations.


Liver stiffness (LS) is a novel non-invasive parameter widely used in clinical hepatology. LS correlates with liver fibrosis stage in non-cirrhotic patients. In cirrhotic patients it also shows good correlation with Hepatic Venous Pressure Gradient (HVPG). Our aim was to assess the contribution of liver fibrosis and portal hypertension to LS in patients with advanced liver cirrhosis. Eighty-one liver transplant candidates with liver cirrhosis of various aetiologies underwent direct HVPG and LS measurement by 2D shear-wave elastography (Aixplorer Multiwave, Supersonic Imagine, France). Liver collagen content was assessed in the explanted liver as collagen proportionate area (CPA) and hydroxyproline content (HP). The studied cohort included predominantly patients with Child-Pugh class B and C (63/81, 77.8%), minority of patients were Child-Pugh A (18/81, 22.2%). LS showed the best correlation with HVPG (r=0.719, p< 0.001), correlation of LS with CPA (r=0.441, p< 0.001) and HP/Amino Acids (r=0.414, p< 0.001) was weaker. Both variables expressing liver collagen content showed good correlation with each other (r=0.574, p<0.001). Multiple linear regression identified the strongest association between LS and HVPG (p < 0.0001) and weaker association of LS with CPA (p = 0.01883). Stepwise modelling showed minimal increase in r2 after addition of CPA to HVPG (0.5073 vs. 0.5513). The derived formula expressing LS value formation is: LS = 2.48 + (1.29 x HVPG) + (0.26 x CPA). We conclude that LS is determined predominantly by HVPG in patients with advanced liver cirrhosis whereas contribution of liver collagen content is relatively low.


on Statement: Society of Echocardiography is accredited by the Accreditation Council for edical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. n Society of Echocardiography designates this educational activity for of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits . Physicians should only claim credit te with the extent of their participation in the activity. CCI recognize ASE's certificates and have agreed to honor the credit hours registry requirements for sonographers. Society of Echocardiography is committed to ensuring that its educational ll sponsored educational programs are not influenced by the special interests ation or individual, and its mandate is to retain only those authors whose fists can be effectively resolved to maintain the goals andeducational integrity y. While a monetary or professional affiliation with a corporation does not fluence an author's presentation, the Essential Areas and policies of the ire that any relationships that could possibly conflict with the educational activity be resolved prior to publication and disclosed to the audience. f faculty and commercial support relationships, if any, have been indicated. ience: is designed for all cardiovascular physicians and cardiac sonographers with erest and knowledge base in the field of echocardiography; in addition, reschers, clinicians, intensivists, and other medical professionals with a spein cardiac ultrasound will find this activity beneficial.


Abstract:Traditionally in translation and edited Greek texts, Heb 9:17 has been punctuated and understood as a declarative statement. I argue, however, that 9:17, particularly 9:17b, should be understood as a rhetorical question, not as a declaration. One possible translation would be "For a testament is made sure upon death. After all, is a testament ever valid while the one who made it lives?"


Background
In mammalian females, the uterine tissue is highly responsive to steroid hormones and their antagonists.

Aims
In the present study, topographical, histoarchitectural, and gene expression changes in goat endometrium treated with estradiol, progesterone, and mifepristone for 24 h were investigated, in vitro.

Methods
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used for surface topographical analysis; WGA and DBA lectins were used for histochemical analysis; and qRT-PCR was done for the quantification of mRNA levels of MKI67 (marker of proliferation Ki67), ESR1 (estrogen receptor), PGR (progesterone receptor), CASP3 (caspase 3), and PDGFR-β (platelet derived growth factor receptor-β).

Results
Few topographical alterations were observed in endometrial glands and the presence of scattered mucoid granules. A significant decline in WGA staining was reported only in the progesterone group. However, DBA binding was highest in the progesterone group and lowest in the mifepristone group. The expression of MKI67 gene declined to 79% in the mifepristone group, while in the estradiol and progesterone groups it elevated to 153% and 41%, respectively, than control; a similar trend was observed for PDGFR-β. The mRNA abundance for ESR1 declined to 59% in the progesterone group and 10% in the mifepristone group. However, a 100% increase occurred in the estradiol group. PGR expression followed the same trend as that of ESR1. CASP3 declined in the estradiol (50%) and progesterone (37%) group, but it showed a 67% increase in the mifepristone group.

Conclusion
We concluded that the caprine uterus undergoes dramatic alteration in structure and functions in response to different kinds of steroidal environments.


Objective To examine changes in places of dementia-related death following implementation of the national dementia plan and other policy initiatives. Design Observational study. Setting Japan between October 1996 and September 2016. Four major changes in health and social care systems were identified: (1) the public long-term care insurance programme (April 2000); (2) community centres as a first access point for older residents (April 2006); (3) medical care system for older people (April 2008) and (4) the national dementia plan (April 2013). Participants 9 60 423 decedents aged 65 years or older whose primary cause of death was Alzheimer's disease, vascular or other types of dementia or senility. Main outcome measures Place of death which was classified into 'hospital', 'intermediate geriatric care facility' (rehabilitation facility aimed at home discharge), 'nursing home' or 'own home'. Results The annual number of deaths at hospital was consistently increased over time from 1996 to 2016 (age-adjusted OR: 6.01; 95% CI 5.81 to 6.21 versus home deaths). Controlling for individual characteristics, regional supply of hospital and nursing home beds and other changes in health and social care systems, death from dementia following the national dementia plan was likely to occur in hospital (adjusted OR: 1.21; 95% CI 1.18 to 1.24), intermediate geriatric care facility (adjusted OR: 1.53; 95% CI 1.48 to 1.58) or nursing home (adjusted OR: 1.64; 95% CI 1.60 to 1.69) rather than at home. Conclusions As the number of deaths from dementia increased over the decades, in-hospital deaths increased regardless of the national dementia plan. Further strategies should be explored to improve the availability of palliative and end-of-life care at patients' places of residence.


In cloud computing, software architects develop systems for virtually unlimited resources that cloud providers account on a pay-per-use basis. Elasticity management systems provision these resources autonomously to deal with changing workload. Such changing workloads call for new objective metrics allowing architects to quantify quality properties like scalability, elasticity, and efficiency, e.g., for requirements/SLO engineering and software design analysis. In literature, initial metrics for these properties have been proposed. However, current metrics lack a systematic derivation and assume knowledge of implementation details like resource handling. Therefore, these metrics are inapplicable where such knowledge is unavailable. To cope with these lacks, this short paper derives metrics for scalability, elasticity, and efficiency properties of cloud computing systems using the goal question metric (GQM) method. Our derivation uses a running example that outlines characteristics of cloud computing systems. Eventually, this example allows us to set up a systematic GQM plan and to derive an initial set of six new metrics. We particularly show that our GQM plan allows to classify existing metrics.


227 Deep Brain Stimulator and Cesarean Section A Case Report Abstract Type: Case Report/Case Series Eun Su Choi Master; Sun Ha Paek; Joong Shin Park; Wonsik Ahn Seoul National University HospitalType: Case Report/Case Series Eun Su Choi Master; Sun Ha Paek; Joong Shin Park; Wonsik Ahn Seoul National University Hospital It is challenging for the anesthetists to manage the patient who is implanted electrical deep brain stimulator (DBS). In addition, hormonal change during pregnancy can worsen symptoms related mortor disorders and it is possible to be difficult to manage pregnant patient with DBS. Because there is little information on the management of pregnant patients with deep brain stimulators, close cooperation is necessary between surgeons, medical doctors and anesthesiologists. In this case, a 37yearold female presented for delivery who had uncontrolled generalized dystonia since she was a child and implanted deep brain stimulator 4 years ago. An obstetrician and anesthesiologist decided to do a Caesarean operation because of emergent situation such as respiratory arrest and fetal distress. We discussed the method to induce her delivery with Neurosurgeon who operated a deep brain stimulator implantation. We induced general anesthesia because her aggravated symptoms without DBS had trouble in bending her body for spinal anesthesia and risk of respiratory difficulty. A deep brain stimulator was turned off by a technician before an incision. The operation was done successfully without problem. As soon as the operation ended, a deep brain stimulator was turned on by a technician. The endotracheal tube was extubated after confirming the sufficient recovery of spontaneous respiration and consciousness and she recovered without problem. Through this case, general anesthesia can be an alternative to operate a parturient who has a deep brain stimulator.


Introduction: Throughout the world, the number of persons with disabilities (PWDs) is growing exponentially as a result of factors such as population increase, ageing, and medical advances that prolong life. This has increased the demand for quality health services, especially in developing countries.
Aim: The aim of this research is to assess the attitudes towards PWDs of "direct" and "indirect" healthcare service providers at the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, Nigeria.
Methods: The researchers analyzed the open-ended comments from 81 healthcare providers from the hospital, regarding their knowledge and attitudes towards patients with disabilities.
Results: The authors classified the unsolicited comments into three main categories, thus: "institutional-level actions advocated", "society-level changes advocated", and "individual-level perception or attitude."
Conclusion: This project has implications for reform and development of medical services in Nigeria. It identifies specific areas of need to improve the quality of healthcare service pertaining to PWDs and their families, especially in relation to the removal of architectural barriers, the development of positive attitudes, the formulation and implementation of effective legislation, and improved pre- and in-service training of healthcare workers in line with signed domestic and international protocols.


This paper presents the results of a extensive measurement campaign used to address the coverage study for a UHF signal to be used on the deployment of digital TV reception in Brazil. An experimental measurement setup was assembled and the received signal from a transmitter installed on the roof top of a 70 meter height building was measured in several points of the test environment. The results were compared with the most used coverage models and have shown which one of them presented the best behavior. Also the effect of antenna height was studies and compared with prediction models. This will allow better implementation of the foreseeing digital TV systems.


The mechanism for price determination in the South African stock industry, has changed since deregulation during the nineties, when the relevant councils were terminated. In the red meat industry, City Deep served as a point of reference for prices. This left the farmer with only one mechanism to determine stock prices, namely auctions.
This is the view of Johann Vosser, managing director of Vleissentraal Bosveld in Mokopane.


In this study, nanocrystalline LiMn2O4 cathode materials were synthesized by a facile sol–gel method and were then mechanical alloyed with varying amounts of MWCNTs in order to obtain a high capacity nanocomposite cathode electrodes for Li‐ion batteries. The structure and physicochemical properties of the obtained LiMn2O4 powders were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TG) and differential thermal analysis (DTA), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), galvanostatic charge discharge test, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The results show that MWCNT are uniformly distributed in LiMn2O4 particle. Compared with bare LiMn2O4, MWCNT (15.0 wt.%) / LiMn2O4 (85.0 wt.%) composite cathode material shows enhanced specific capacity of 136.5 mAh g−1 and improved cycling stability. After 50 cycles, the 0 wt.%, 5.0 wt.%, 10.0 wt.% and 15.0 wt.% MWCNT reinforced LiMn2O4 exhibited the capacity retention of 86.1, 129.4, 134.7 and 136.5 mAh g−1, respectively. The nanocomposites show high cycle performance with remarkable capacity retention of 93% after 50 cycles, compared with LiMn2O4 nanoparticles with a 7% loss of the initial capacity after 50 cycles. EIS measurements show that the charge‐transfer resistance of the nanocomposites is better than that of spinel LiMn2O4. A CV study further confirms higher reversibility of the nanocomposites compared with LiMn2O4 particles. The improvement of the electrochemical performance is attributed to higher electrical conductivity, higher structural stability of the composites and rapid Li+ diffusion resulting from the open lattice channels and unique one‐dimensional structure of MWCNTs. Furthermore, the MWCNTs can alleviate the capacity fading of the LiMn2O4 at high charging and discharging conditions, implying that the MWCNT reinforcing is very promising to be applied in the lithium‐ion batteries. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


It is generally accepted that a limited-scan antenna system with a phased-array feed uses significantly fewer elements than a direct-radiating, phased-array aperture (planar array) for similar scan coverage. This paper presents an analysis showing this is not necessarily the case. The author derives the relative number of elements for both cases (phased-array fed lens and direct radiating aperture) using two grating lobe conditions: (1) elimination of grating lobes in "real space"; and (2) elimination of grating lobes within the antenna coverage area. The former grating lobe condition does result in fewer array elements for the phased-array feed as expected. But imposing the latter grating lobe condition, often of interest in GEO satellite communication, yields no benefit in element count between a direct-radiating, phased-array aperture and the phased array fed, dual-lens antenna system used in the analysis.


In this paper, we develop tests for a change in an unconditional small quantile (Value‐at‐Risk, VaR, in financial time series analysis) based on an estimator motivated by extreme value theory. This so‐called Weissman estimator allows tests to be applied for extreme VaR, where extant tests mostly fail. In view of applications, we allow for weakly dependent observations. Our test statistics rely on self‐normalization, which obviates the need to estimate the complicated asymptotic variance. Consistency is shown under local alternatives, where multiple breaks can occur. A simulation study shows that in finite samples our tests compare favourably in the tail region with extant tests based on order statistic estimators and also with tail index break tests. Two empirical examples serve to illustrate the practical use of our tests.


Advances in lattice-based cryptography are enabling the use of public key algorithms (PKAs) in power-constrained ad hoc and sensor network devices. Unfortunately, while many wireless networks are dominated by group communications, PKAs are inherently unicast-i.e., public/private key pairs are generated by data destinations. To fully realize public key cryptography in these networks, lightweight PKAs should be augmented with energy-efficient mechanisms for group key agreement. We consider a setting where master keys are loaded on clients according to an arbitrary distribution. We present a protocol that uses session keys derived from those master keys to establish a group key that is information-theoretically secure. When master keys are distributed randomly, our protocol requires O(logb t) multicasts, where 1-1 is the probability that a given client possesses a given master key. The minimum number of public multicast transmissions required for a set of clients to agree on a secret key in our setting was recently characterized. The proposed protocol achieves the best possible approximation to that optimum that is computable in polynomial time. Moreover, the computational requirements of our protocol compare favorably to multi-party extensions of Diffie-Hellman key exchange.


We demonstrate the potential of Ni(COD)(DQ), a bench-stable Ni0 complex, as a catalyst for the reductive coupling of aldehydes with alkynes and ynamides, providing silylated allyl alcohols with excellent yields and regioselectivities. Mass spectrometric identification of the intermediates and DFT studies supported the proposed mechanism.


A surgical technique for the treatment of ununited anconeal process in dogs treated by osteotomy and dynamic distraction of the proximal part of the ulna using a linear external skeletal fixator was evaluated. In all cases the osteotomy was distracted 1mm each day after the surgery until desired distraction had been achieved. Eight dogs and 9 joints diagnosed with ununited anconeal process were treated. The success of the procedure was determined by comparing clinical signs of lameness and degree of arthrosis at the time of diagnosis to 6 months after the surgical intervention. Radiographic union occurred in 88.9% of the affected joints between 21 and 42 days after the surgical procedure. Clinically, six elbows were classified as good, two as satisfactory and one as unsatisfactory. Six months after surgery two elbows had no arthrosis, one had Grade 1, two Grade 2 and one Grade 3. It is concluded the combination of ulnar osteotomy and dynamic distraction of the olecranon by a linear external skeletal fixator is a feasible procedure for the treatment of ununited anconeal process in dogs.


Recently, polymer nanocomposites have attracted great interest due to their remarkable characteristics of high performance and enabling production of low-cost devices. This article explores the reflective index sensing application of the polymer nanocomposite IOC-133, which is a TiOx/polymer nanocomposite with a reflective index between 1.8 and 1.9. Considering the material properties of high reflective index, low absorption loss, and compatibility with nanoimprint lithography, a microring-based reflective index sensor with a suspended slot waveguide structure is proposed. We combined the sensing mechanism of slot waveguides with high reflective index polymer nanocomposites and designed the suspended structure to address the problem of decreasing sensitivity caused by residual layers. The sensing device was adopted as a microring resonator, which is conducive to large-scale integration. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method was employed to analyze the effects of several key parameters. The results showed that the racetrack microring sensor we propose can achieve a high sensitivity of 436 nm/RIU (Refractive Index Units), about six times higher than the microring sensor with a ridge waveguide. The Q factor of the microring reaches 1.42 × 104, and the detection limit is 1.38 × 10−4 RIU. The proposed suspended slot microring sensor has potential value in the field of nanoprinted photonic integrated circuits.


Traditional communication protocols focus on how to integrate a single wireless network with the Internet. Thus data from all wireless devices in that network can be gathered, sank, and provided to users via a friendly interface using web pages. These protocols offer limited automation. Much training is required for users to analyse data from different wireless networks. To resolve this issue, recently many researchers are contributing to design and implement an appropriate protocol for the communication between a heterogeneous wireless network and the Internet [1-3]. In this paper, we present a scalable and flexible communication protocol which is designed to work as an interface between the Internet and various wireless networks in a heterogeneous network, to store information and to provide web services to end users. Using web services, users can interact with wireless devices remotely and easily. The current implementation is based on a Linux server. This server uses different communication interfaces to talk to various wireless networks. From these communication interfaces, data is acquired, processed, and stored in the server. Algorithms are developed to analyse data in data processing stage to maximize automation. Meanwhile this server works as a web server and provides web services to remote users. Current studied wireless protocols include ZigBee, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. And our communication protocol can be scaled to work with more wireless protocols and developed into a distributed system.


The assertion by Dr Thiadens and colleagues that identification of airflow limitation and estimation of its reversibility by a bronchodilator is less reliable when measured by peak expiratory flow (PEF) than by forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. They measured both values with a Microlab 3300 turbine spirometer, disregarding the fact that, in primary care, PEF is almost always measured by peak flow meters of variable orifice type which employ an entirely diVerent principle and give considerably higher values. Jones and Mullee, who compared a similar Microlab turbine spirometer with a mini-Wright meter, found that values of PEF measured by the latter were, on average, 87 l/min higher. Hence, the values reported by Thiadens et al would have been much higher if they had been measured with a peak flow meter. To compare the reliability of PEF and FEV1 for estimating magnitude of airflow limitation, Thiadens et al expressed observed values of each as percentage predicted, using the reference values for each sex recommended by the European Respiratory Society (ERS). Those for predicting PEF were derived from regression equations which describe a linear fall with age and give predicted values much lower than curvilinear regressions such as those of Nunn and Gregg, which an ERS Working Party on PEF subsequently judged to be the most satisfactory reference values for prediction. The diVerence in l/min between predicted values derived from the latter and those from the ERS regressions was roughly equal in each sex (fig 1) to the diVerence between the turbine measured observed values and the values which would have been obtained with a peak flow meter. Since they are of opposite direction, they obscure the spuriously low absolute values measured by the turbine spirometer. Nevertheless, Thiadens et al considered that, in 19.2% of their patients, low values of PEF were associated with normal values of FEV1 whereas in only 3.3% of patients was a normal value of PEF associated with an abnormally low value of FEV1. To evaluate the relative merits of FEV1 and PEF as indices of bronchodilator reversibility Thiadens et al compared changes in FEV1, expressed as percentage diVerences in predicted values, with changes in PEF expressed as percentage diVerences in absolute values. The dissimilar manner in which the values were expressed invalidates their comparison and, hence, any conclusions drawn from it; it also makes the authors' prolix discussion of the sensitivity and specificity of their findings wholly irrelevant. There is no justification for stating that a cut oV value for a rise in FEV1 after a bronchodilator is "useful and valid . . . in separating asthma from COPD" since a bronchodilator reveals only immediate reversibility. Moreover, true irreversibility does not necessarily signify COPD since it may be present in patients with longstanding asthma in whom structural damage of the bronchi has occurred. The most convenient and reliable test in primary care for distinguishing between potentially reversible and truly irreversible airflow limitation is still twice or thrice daily monitoring of PEF during a course of corticosteroid treatment. The conclusion by Thiadens et al that FEV1 is more reliable than PEF for assessment of airflow limitation and its reversibility is not supported by their findings. Although I am very reluctant to criticise their study, attention needs to be drawn to its faults because the prominence given to their study by Thorax is likely to persuade general practitioners that its findings are valid and its conclusions are authoritative. IAN GREGG Eynsham, Witney, Oxford, UK


Home care in Brazil is still precarious. In most regions, it is restricted to treatment of patients with low complexity performed by primary care with the intention of prevention and promotion health. Until 2010, there was not a national policy for home care patients with greater complexity. In most cases they remained hospitalized or care poorly in their houses, suffering from recurrent hospitalizations. On March 19 last year, the Institute of Medicine Professor Fernando Figueira with the secretary of health of the city of Recife, started one Home Care Services. Already received 139 patients, aged between 13 and 101 years, with various pathologies, children with cerebral palsy, young adult sequelae of gunshot trauma, bedridden woman infected with HTLV, oncology patients and elderly patients with dementia. As a result of this care, there was a reduction in the rate of emergency room visits, hospitalizations, in addition to improved quality of life. Also the quality of death, because it was possible to die at home without having to be referred to the autopsy service to receive the death certificate. But we believe that the best achievement was to show that the daily cost of this service is 10 times smaller than the ICU and three times smaller than a hospital bed. With this we motivate an argument for deployment of a national policy.


BackgroundAlthough it is accepted that long lasting insecticide bed net (LLIN) use is an effective means to prevent malaria, children aged 5 to 15 years do not appear to be sufficiently protected in Madagascar; malaria prevalence is highest in this age group. The purpose of this article is to summarize recent qualitative studies describing LLIN use among children aged 5–15 years and explore options to increase their use in this age group.MethodsQualitative data from three anthropological studies on malaria conducted between 2012 and 2016 in 10 districts of Madagascar were analyzed. These studies cover all malaria epidemiological profiles and 10 of the 18 existing ethnic groups in Madagascar. A thematic analysis was conducted on the collected data from semi-structured interviews, direct observation data, and informal interviews.ResultsA total of 192 semi-structured interviews were conducted. LLINs are generally perceived positively because they protect the health and well-being of users. However, regional representations of mosquito nets may contribute to LLIN nonuse by children over 5 years of age including the association between married status and LLIN use, which leads to the refusal of unmarried young men to sleep under LLINs; the custom of covering the dead with a mosquito net, which leads to fear of LLIN use; and taboos governing sleeping spaces for siblings of opposite sexes, which leads to LLIN shortages in households. Children under 5 years of age are known to be the most vulnerable age group for acquiring malaria and therefore are prioritized for LLIN use when there are limited supplies in households. In contrast, children over 5 years of age, who are perceived to be at less risk for malaria, often sleep without LLINs.ConclusionsPerceptions, social practices and regional beliefs regarding LLINs s and vulnerability to malaria contribute to the nonuse of LLINs among children over 5 years of age in Madagascar. Modifying LLIN policies to account for these factors may increase LLIN use in this age group and reduce disease burden.Trial registrationNot applicable


Meissner, R.A. & Markey, A.S. Two new Western Australian species of Drummondita (Rutaceae: Boronieae) from banded ironstone ranges of the Yilgarn Craton. Nuytsia 17: 273–280 (2007). Two new species of Drummondita Harv. are described, both of which occur on rocky hillsides on the Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia. One of these, D. fulva A.S.Markey & R.A.Meissn., has close affinities to D. microphylla Paul G.Wilson but differs in having a reddish apiculus on the leaf apex, tawny new growth, and sub-orbicular, flattened sepals. The other, D. rubroviridis R.A.Meissn, is closely allied to D. wilsonii F.H.Mollemans, from which it is distinguished by a combination of spreading leaves, solitary, larger red flowers with green petal lobes, and a pointed apical leaf gland. Drummondita fulva, is relatively widespread, occurring on both Banded Iron Formation and associated metasedimentary rocks in the Yalgoo region, while D. rubroviridis has a restricted distribution and appears to be endemic to a single banded ironstone range in the Koolanooka Hills. A taxonomic description of these two new species, images and maps of their respective distributions are provided.


A Ga(OTf)(3)-promoted sequential reactions via sulfur-assisted propargyl-allenyl isomerizations and intramolecular [4 + 2] cycloaddition for the synthesis of 1,3-dihydrobenzo[c]thiophenes. As a result of the ready availability of materials and the simple and convenient operation, the type of reaction presented here has potential utility in organic synthesis.


fect church-mission relations? (4) How did the race problem affect ecumenical consciousness? (5) What necessitated unity in church and civil life, between mission and church, on the one hand, and between mission and government on the other hand? (6) Who were some of the principal figures, and how did they reflect on and respond to these questions? Nigerian Utuk would likely agree with his neighbor, Ghanaian John Pobee: "African ecumenism is fragile and has shortcomings. Nevertheless, the ecumenical efforts are an index of the growing consciousness of the church in Africa, of a shared identity as Christians, despite differences of language and denomination, of the celebration of unity, common faith and commitment in spite of diversity" (Dictionaly of the Ecumenical Movement, 1991, p. 10).


Based on the content analysis of 1,400 Twitter and Instagram accounts, this study identified the social media profiles of 792 Chilean journalists from national media outlets to describe their visibility and activity levels and how they construct their identities. Our results show that although Chilean journalists have a solid digital presence, they use social media platforms differently, deploying various identity creation strategies and new journalistic roles. Our findings also address the media outlets' influence on Chilean journalists' profiles, level of use, and the identities emerging from their social media accounts.


The authors examine a growable architecture for broadband packet (asynchronous transfer mode) switching, consisting of a memoryless, self-routing interconnect fabric and modest-size packet switch modules, proposed by K.U. Eng et al. (1989). They focus on the cell loss probability, because the architecture attains the best possible delay-throughput performance if the packet switch modules use output queueing. They compute an upper bound on the cell loss probability for arbitrary patterns of independent cell arrivals, possibly including isochronous circuit connections, and show that both sources of cell loss can be made negligibly small. For example, to guarantee a cell loss probability of less than 10/sup -9/, this growable architecture requires packet switch modules of dimension 47*16, 45*16, 42*16, and 39*16 for 100%, 90%, 80%, and 70% traffic loads, respectively. The analytic techniques used to bound the cell loss probabilities are applicable to other output queueing architectures.<<ETX>>


The formation of a genomic RNA dimer is critical for the HIV-1 replication cycle, and dimerization is known to initiate within the 5'UTR (5' untranslated region) of the viral RNA. However, the 5'UTR constitutes the 335 terminal nucleotides, and because of this considerable size, it has been difficult to study the global structure using conventional structural methods. Here, the atomic force microscope has been used to directly visualize the dimer formed from RNAs including HIV-1 nucleotides 1-744. Gold nanocolloids were deposited on the primer binding site regions in the dimer as an internal control. The dimer showed distinct ring morphology with up to two gold nanocolloids deposited within the ring and one or two strands extending from the ring. This morphology implies a dimer including a DIS-DIS (dimerization initiation site)-containing 3' dimer linkage site (DLS) and a TAR-TAR (trans-activation region)-containing 5'DLS. Furthermore, the dimer was formed under the influence of Mg(2+) and was imaged with an atomic force microscope under buffer conditions. The overall ring morphology containing a 5'DLS and a 3'DLS with one or two strands extending from it was conserved in these atomic force microscopy images. This indicates that the observed dimer morphology is physiologically significant. Moreover, evidence of multiple dimer interstrand contacts downstream of the major splice donor were observed, which indicates a component in the selection of full-length genomic RNA in dimer formation during virion packaging.


Seasonality has long been documented in the context of equity market returns, but only recently has been tested for in the residential real estate market. This paper argues, in line with the previous research in this area, that no month should, on average, demonstrate superior (or inferior) returns to any other. Using parametric tests and regression analysis this hypothesis is supported for the Australian market. The reason that the belief of a 'better' selling month exists is shown to be a result of the inadequacy of primitive market return measures to account for the heterogeneity of the market.


A general one-dimensional discrete monatomic model is investigated by using the multiple-method. It is proven that the discrete bright breathers (DBBs) and discrete dark breathers (DDBs) exist in this model at the anti-continuous limit, and then the concrete models of the DBBs and DDBs are also presented by the multiple-scale approach (MSA) and the quasi-discreteness approach (QDA). When the results are applied to some particular models, the same conclusions as those presented in corresponding references are achieved. In addition, we use the method of the linearization analysis to investigate this system without the high order terms of ∊. It is found that the DBBs and DDBs are linearly stable only when coupling parameter χ is small, of which the limited value is obtained by using an analytical method.


This study empirically investigated the economic effect of CSR initiatives on innovation by examining Korean firms. Our primary objective of this study was to explore how a CEO compensation system can affect the CSR-innovation relationship. An integrated model of the impact of CSR on innovation activities was developed through analyzing various CEO compensation components such as structure, type, mix, and distribution. We identified the CEO compensation system that more suitably supports CSR in driving innovation performance improvement, and empirically examined a compensation system that enhances corporate innovation by creating a good alignment with CSR. Using a longitudinal data, we empirically tested the interactive effect of a CSR and compensation system of CEO in Korean publicly traded companies. Our empirical findings concerning the interaction between CSR strategies and CEO compensation schemes hold practical implications for establishing and implementing a suitable human resource system to improve organizational competitiveness.


The past several years have been rife with accounting scandals. In the United States alone, we can cite well-publicized scandals at Adelphia Communications, Dynergy Inc., Enron, Rite Aid Corp., Tyco International, Xerox, WorldCom, and many others. The collapse of Arthur Andersen was the result of individual partners and managers perpetuating a number of frauds. We believe it is reasonable to think that accountants are caught in an ethical crisis. While the solution to such a large-scale problem is not simple, teaching accounting ethics specifically via a stand-alone ethics course as part of a multiple model approach may be part of the solution. Accounting students in particular need to learn the basic concepts of good ethics and need to be able to internalize those concepts in order to understand what it means to act ethically. A 1990 study by the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Section of the Academy of Management revealed that one-third of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accredited schools did not offer a standalone business and society course. When a school offered such a course, it was seemingly tacked onto the program haphazardly with no consensus on its focus--ethics or management. More than half the schools had no faculty members teaching ethics full-time, and the faculty who did teach ethics came from more than a dozen academic disciplines. (1) After 1990, overall ethics research in accounting appeared to increase. An annual accounting-specific ethics symposium began in 1994, and a discipline-specific ethics journal, Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting, started in 1995. In a 2004 report, the AACSB encouraged schools to adopt four broad themes in business ethics education: (1) the responsibility of business in society, (2) ethical decision making, (3) ethical leadership, and (4) corporate governance. Some in academia, however, criticized the report for not recommending any specific action and complained that the AACSB had long excluded ethics from its list of traditional subject matter. Critics offered one proposed remedy: a stand-alone business ethics course. In 2005, when the Education Committee of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) proposed changes to the education requirements of the Uniform Accountancy Act, which included three semester hours of accounting ethics in addition to three semester hours of business ethics, the reactions were almost opposite. Opponents contended that NASBA had overstepped its scope and authority and cited a lack of data that colleges and universities were not already teaching ethics adequately. In 2007, NASBA subsequently revised its stance to recommend instead a three-semester-hour ethics course that could either be taken as a stand-alone course or integrated into the existing accounting curriculum. (2) Research and Regulation Despite the controversies, professionals and academic researchers have long been advocating for more ethics education for accounting students, specifically in the form of a stand-alone ethics course. Based on the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) website for CPA licensure requirements of the 55 jurisdictions issuing CPA certificates in the United States, 35 require an ethics exam or course. (3) Five states require an ethics course to meet the educational requirements for licensing. There also is an annual requirement of 30 hours of NASBA-approved continuing professional education (CPE) for individuals who hold the CMA[R] (Certified Management Accountant) credential. Two hours of this are ethics CPE. Is there any hope that normative control can be established in accounting? A recent study at two medium-size U.S. universities by a California State University at Los Angeles professor discovered among auditing students a positive correlation between emotional commitment to the accounting profession and students' propensity to report fraud. …


The Canning basin (400,000 km2) of Western Australia is one of the largest intracratonic basins to have been affected by cold climates as Gondwana drifted across the south polar regions during the Permian-Carboniferous. This article describes the tectono-stratigraphic setting and evolution of the Permian-Carboniferous Reeves Formation and Grant Group of the northern part of the basin. We employ seismic facies analysis, downhole well-log responses, palynostratigraphy, and sedimentary facies logs from 25 continuously cored wells. The succession rests on a widespread erosional unconformity of middle Carboniferous age. This surface may have been modified by glacial erosion when a late Carboniferous ice sheet expanded across the entire basin, but no primary glacial deposits can be identified; if present, such sediments were likely reworked during subsequent basin faulting. Reeves Formation and Grant Group strata are dominated by massive and deformed sandstones, diamictites, and conglomerates deposited subaqueously as sediment gravity flows close to active faults. Initial strata of Late Carboniferous age (Reeves Formation) are preserved in the deeper troughs (Fitzroy trough) and in salt collapse subbasins on high-standing structural blocks (Barbwire, Betty, and Balgo terraces; Crossland platform). These areas later subsided and were blanketed by gravity flow deposits of Early Permian age (Hoya Formation). In turn, a regional flooding surface and overlying bioturbated siltstone unit (Calytrix Formation) records an increase in relative water depths across the northern Canning basin. Siltstones coarsen upward into lower shoreface storm-influenced sandstones (Clianthus Formation) and the fluvial Poole Sandstone. Potential petroleum play types are principally associated with faults and channels.


Despite irrefutable pharmacological evidence of the wide range in individuals' metabolism of opioid drugs, states continue to impose "onesize-fits-none" laws. For example, Massachusetts, apparently not entirely at peace with the abolition of the Salem witch trials, became the first state to establish a seven-day limit on first-time opioid prescriptions. Others followed. It's safe to say that no one is really paying attention to the science. So, here it is. Again.


Teachers must be able to cooperate with their students in the class to make the teaching and learning activities enjoyable. A good teacher has to use appropriate strategies to make his or her students fluent readers. Teachers also have to make students feel comfortable so that they can achieve the objective of the teaching and learning activities. Responding to the problems and considering the factors causing them, the researcher taught that the best way to improve the students' reading ability is through group work. Group work is a group of students who work together. Students in group can share, compare, and contrast ideas and thoughts. Group work enables students to study more because they learn together in an enjoyable way. Students will be motivated to study because working in group makes them help each other, especially when facing difficulties in reading. Students can get the meaning of some vocabularies and the content of the text easily. This research showed that group work can improve students' reading ability and motivation.


A fundamental challenge in the optogenetic toolbox is that all opsins, regardless of their excitation spectra, are activated by blue light. We hypothesized that pairing a red-shifted channelrhodopsin with a blue light-sensitive anion channel of appropriately matching kinetics shall render neurons responsive to a red but not blue light. To achieve this, we used a semi-rational mutagenesis strategy to optimize the kinetics and light spectrum of a chloride channelrhodopsin. By pairing optimized variants of blue light-sensitive anion channel ZipACR with vfChrimson, a fast red-shifted channelrhodopsin, we created a system in which red light derives precise and faithful action potentials of high frequencies, while blue light, through shunting inhibition, nullifies the effect of the red-shifted ChR2. Additionally, by a simple switch between red and blue lights, one can effectively excite or inhibit the activity of the same neurons.


It is well known that the piezoelectric properties of a thin film can be influenced by crystallographic texture. At the extreme case, epitaxial thin films can be deposited on single crystal substrates (with appropriate lattice matching) to effectively achieve a single crystal thin film. Here, the maximum advantage of orientation dependence is found. Typically this has required small, expensive single crystalline substrates. In the past 10 years however, the technique of Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD) has been developed for applying a biaxial textured template to an arbitrary smooth surface. That is, biaxially textured MgO (~10 nm thick) can be deposited on a flexible, polycrystalline or amorphous substrate. This has opened up a new realm of materials integration possibilities, with the prime example being high-temperature superconducting wires. Here, the same template is utilized for deposition of epitaxial piezoelectric thin films onto flexible substrates.


To determine whether the hyaluronate-binding protein from brain is similar or identical to the hyaluronate-binding site from the cell surface, the two molecules were compared with respect to their physical and binding properties. The hyaluronate-binding protein was purified from mouse brains by lectin-affinity chromatography, and then analyzed by molecular-sieve chromatography and rate-zonal centrifugation, which showed that it has a Stokes radius of 6.3 nm, and a sedimentation coefficient of 4.8 S. These values are remarkably close to those obtained previously for the membrane-associated binding site (a = 6.5 nm, s20,w = 4.8 S), indicating that the two molecules have similar shapes and sizes. Binding studies of the semi-purified proteins showed that the dissociation constant for the brain derived binding protein (Kd = 270 ng/0.5 ml) was similar to that of the cell-surface binding site (Kd = 350 ng/0.5 ml). However, when the two molecules were compared with respect to oligosaccharide inhibition of binding, significant differences were observed. The hexasaccharide significantly inhibited the binding of [3H] hyaluronate to the cell-surface binding site but had only a small effect on the binding to the brain derived protein. Differences were also found between the two molecules with respect to the effects of a monoclonal antibody (K-3). This antibody blocked most of the binding activity of the membrane-associated binding site, but had no effect on the protein from brain. Taken together, these results indicate that although the hyaluronate-binding protein derived from brain and the cell-surface binding site are physically similar, they are distinct proteins.


The purpose of this research was to improve team effectiveness through Meeting Exercise Guideline at PT AMFS. This research is a qualitative research using interview, observation, and questionnaire distribution methods. The sample population in this research were all the Sales Force Resources Management team, amounting to 14 people. Data collection instruments in this research used the Five Dysfunction Team questionnaire with a measuring instrument consisting of 38 items and divided into 5 dimensions, that is Trust, Conflict, Commitment, Accountability, and Result. The results in this research indicate that the intervention program made by the author in the form of Meeting Exercise Guideline was conducted in 3 meetings. However, even though the Meeting Exercise Guideline is only scheduled for 3 times, this program can be used as a guideline for daily team work meetings based on reference to the roadmap meeting exercise. With the Meeting Exercise Guideline, it is expected that a team can improve the productivity, relationships between team members, and the ability to adapt with the changing conditions and job demands so that the overall goals of the team and organization can be achieved.


The breaking of peace agreements and the subsequent perpetuation of civil war in South Sudan are sustained by the failure to adopt broad interventions addressing the many layers of the conflict. An understanding of the multiple causes of the conflict can form the basis for a successful and durable peace agreement. To investigate why violent conflict persists, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 29 major stakeholders, including conflict parties, mediators, eminent South Sudanese personalities, scholars and civil society leaders. The responses were grouped into five major themes: historical conflicts, estranged political relationships, power struggles, resource control and ethnic violence (not included in this article). The results suggest that estranged political relationships, characterized by fear, anger, bitterness, distrust and the urge for revenge, are born out of historical conflicts that remain unresolved. The ensuing power struggles and ethnic violence are motivated by the estranged political relationships between the top leaders. Dealing with their estrangements, therefore, forms the base from which historical conflicts can be addressed towards lasting agreements and sustainable peace in South Sudan.


A Young Gentleman ill of the Small Pox, of that sort which is call'd the cohærent, or the middle between the distinct and the confluent Kind, on Wednesday Oct 3d 1722, being the sixth Day from the Eruption, grew delirious in the Night, and got out of bed in spite of the Opposition of two Nurses that attended him


The present study deals with the pressure effect (1 to 10 10 5 Pa) on the hydrodynamics and efficiency within packed column distillation. Three kinds of packings are used: Raschig rings and Berl saddles as random packing, and Sulzer Mellapak 250 Y as structured ones. The hydrodynamic study concerns pressure drops, maximum column capacity, and the efficiency, which is characterized by the study of HETP (Heigh Equivalent to one Theoretical Plate). The results obtained show that pressure has a great effect, not only on flooding but also on efficiency. Indeed, when the pressure increases, the operation range increases for the three packings and the HEPT is also decreased. The Marangoni effect was also studied while using for the same packing, three different binary mixtures (positive, neutral, and negative according to Marangoni). The observations made on these three systems, for pressure drops and efficiency, remain valid when the pressure increases up to 10·10 5 Pa.


A derivation is presented of the response of an embedded thin layer to a vertically incident seismic pulse. The reflected pulse has the shape of the time derivative of the incident-wavelet, and its amplitude is proportional to the two-way traveltime in the thin layer and to a factor depending upon the ratio of acoustic impedances. The influence of spectral bandwidth on interface resolution and thin-layer response is investigated by means of zero-phase signals, and a filtering philosophy is proposed which enables thickness estimation either from amplitude or from peak-to-trough time.


Algae products are attracting growing interest due to their pleasant taste and their high contents in protein, essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Specifically, Spirulina products are widely promoted for their high vitamin B12 content. So far, knowledge regarding the contamination with cyanotoxins, heavy metals, pesticides or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), is scarce, although some studies reported high contaminant levels in Spirulina products. The regular intake of Spirulina, and very likely other algae products as well, as dietary supplement in the gram range demands a closer monitoring of potentially harmful constituents.


The paper provides a summary of the 10th anniversary conference "Written Monuments of the East. Problems of Translation and Interpretation", which took place at theInstituteofOriental Studiesof theRussianAcademyof Sciences (October 12–14, 2020). The participants, came from academic and educational institutions inMoscow,St. Petersburg,Makhachkala,Ufa, Elista,Irkutsk, andBaku(RepublicofAzerbaijan). They gave talks on the study of literary sources both written and oral, history (chronicles), inscriptions (epigraphy) as well as other genres and types of texts ("belles-letres", documents, philosophy, etc.). All the participants had in common special attention to the original source/s, their historic and literary place, the traces of the spiritual and material aspects of life in the countries of the East as reflected there. The meeting was held in a remote format, which made it possible to significantly expand its audience.


ABSTRACT Intestinal ischemia and reperfusion (intestinal I/R) causes acute lung inflammation that is characterized by leukocyte migration, increased lung microvascular permeability, and, in severe forms, noncardiogenic pulmonary edema and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Female sex hormones interfere with immune response, and experimental and clinical evidence shows that females are more resistant than males to organ injury caused by gut trauma. To reduce the lung inflammation caused by intestinal I/R, we have acutely treated male rats with estradiol. Intestinal I/R was performed by the clamping (45 min) of the superior mesenteric artery (SMA), followed by 2 h of intestinal reperfusion (unclamping SMA). Groups of rats received 17&bgr; estradiol (E2, 280 µg/kg, i.v., single dose) 30 min after the SMA occlusion (ischemia period) or 1 h after the unclamping of SMA (reperfusion period). Leukocytes influx into the lung and microvascular leakage were assessed by lung myeloperoxidase activity and Evans blue dye extravasation, respectively. The lung expression of adhesion molecules (intercellular adhesion molecule 1, platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule 1, and vascular cell adhesion molecule [VCAM]) was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. Interleukin 1&bgr; (IL-1&bgr;), IL-10, and NOx− concentrations were quantified in supernatants of cultured lung tissue. We have found that intestinal I/R increased the lung myeloperoxidase activity and Evans blue dye extravasation, which were reduced by treatment of rats with E2. Intestinal I/R increased ICAM-1 expression only, and it was decreased by E2 treatment. However, E2 treatment reduced the basal expression of platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule 1. E2 treatment during intestinal ischemia was effective to reduce the levels of IL-10 and IL-1&bgr; in explant supernatant, but only IL-10 levels were reduced by E2 at reperfusion phase. The treatment with E2 did not affect NOx− concentration. Taken together, our data suggest that estradiol modulates the lung inflammatory response induced by lung injury, likely by acute effects. Thus, acute estradiol treatment could be considered as a potential therapeutic agent in ischemic events.