Contents: Srikant Sarangi: Experts on Experts: Sustaining "Communities of Interest" in Professional Discourse Studies - Greg Myers: Social Media and Professional Practice in Medical Twitter - Anna Tereszkiewicz: Medical Doctors on Twitter: How and why Mds Tweet - Carol Berkenkotter/Cristina Hanganu-Bresch/Kira Dreher: "Descriptive Psychopathology" in Asylum Case Histories: The Case of John Horatio Baldwin - Syelle Graves/Rebecca R. Burson/Victor A. Torres-Collazo: Dialectal Variation and Miscommunication in Medical Discourse: A Case Study - Celina Frade: Attempting The Easification of Patient Information Leaflets (Pils) in Brazil - Rosita Maglie: "Can You Read This Leaflet?": User-Friendliness of Patient Information Leaflets in the UK and in Italy - Anna Franca Plastina: Patient (Mis)Understanding of Prescription Drug Ads in Social Media: Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Edtca - Girolamo Tessuto: Empowering Patients to Self-Care in Web-Mediated Communication: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis - Judith Turnbull: Living with Diabetes: The Discourse of Medical Information on the Internet for Young People - Paola Catenaccio: The Representation of Gambling in Gambling Awareness Campaigns: The Discursive Construction of Addiction - Miriam Bait: Authority and Solidarity: How Institutional Websites in the US and the UK Communicate Nutritional Guidelines for Children - Ruth Breeze: Media Representations of Scientific Research Findings: From "Stilbe Noids Raise CAMP Expression" to "Red Wine Protects Against Illness" - Maria Jose Luzon: Recontextualizing Expert Discourse in Weblogs: Strategies to Communicate Health Research to Experts and the Interested Public - Davide Mazzi: Semantic Sequences and the Pragmatics of Medical Research Article Writing - Stefania M. Maci: "Health Slips as the Financial Crisis Grips": Tensions and Variations in Medical Discourse - Anna Stermieri: Knowledge Dissemination in Genetics Blogs.


VVC facilities that maintain acceptable voltage at all points along the distribution feeder and maintain high power factor have been a fundamental requirement for all electric distribution feeders. Recent Smart Grid initiatives have created growing interest in the deployment of more advanced Volt-VAR systems for efficiency improvement, demand reduction, and better overall asset utilization. This paper identifies the ideal characteristics of the VVC system, describes several alternatives for accomplishing the VVC requirements and explains how well each approach provides the characteristics of the ideal system..


A boundary value problem of orthotropic piezoelectric solid circular cylinder which is in the state of antiplane shear deformation is studied. The whole boundary surface is loaded by an equilibrium axial traction. This paper gives an analytical solution of the considered antiplane shear deformation.


Even though surf tourism in Portugal is an economic activity with a steady growth rate, there are not many assessment studies available. Using a survey undertaken in surf camps located in the Vila do Bispo County, this study aims to analyse the environmental awareness of surf tourists in the Algarve. Through the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale it is shown that the environmental attitudes of respondents are strongly pro-ecological but also reveal some anthropocentric aspects. Tourists were asked about their willingness to pay for an accommodation tax earmarked for environmental protection in the Algarve. The results show that the large majority (86%) would be willing to pay, which indicates a high environmental awareness. It is also found that the willingness to pay is related to the nationality, with respondents from Germany, Austria and Switzerland showing a higher willingness to pay.


Emergency medical services (EMS) in the Republic of Croatia are currently organized as part of the existing health care system and delivered in the form of pre-hospital and hospital EMS. The pre-hospital EMS are delivered by standalone EMS Centers, EMS units set up in community health centers, and by general practitioners working in shifts and on call in remote and scarcely populated areas. In hospitals, each ward usually has its own emergency reception area, and only in a couple of cases there is an integrated emergency admission unit for the entire hospital. The current EMS structure does not meet the basic requirements that would make an EMS system optimal, i.e. equal quality, equal access, effectiveness and appropriate equipment. The EMS Restructuring Project is part of the Croatian health care system reform and is addressed by the National Health Development Strategy 2006-2011. As part of restructuring efforts, the Croatian National Institute of Emergency Medicine, 21 County Institutes of Emergency Medicine and county-level call centers are going to be set up. In addition, the project will introduce the following: integrated emergency admission areas at hospitals; telemedicine as part of emergency medicine; emergency medicine specialty for physicians and additional specialized training for nurses/technicians; separation of emergency and non-emergency transport; standards for vehicles and equipment and guidelines/protocols/algorithms for care. The Croatian National Institute of Emergency Medicine is an umbrella EMS organization. It shapes the EMS in Croatia and proposes, plans, monitors and analyzes EMS actions in Croatia. In addition, it submits a proposal of the Emergency Medicine Network to the minister, sets standards for EMS transport, and coordinates, guides and supervises the work of County Institutes of Emergency Medicine. County Institutes organize and deliver pre-hospital EMS in their counties. Integrated hospital emergency admission units represent a single point of entry for all emergencies at a particular hospital. Upon triage, depending on the level of emergency, patients are provided with appropriate care and treatment. The introduction of EMS specialty for physicians and additional specialized training for nurses/ technicians is going to increase competencies of all EMS team members. The main objectives of the EMS Restructuring Project to be achieved in the 5-year period are the following: to reduce the response time of pre-hospital EMS teams to 10 minutes in urban areas and 20 minutes in rural areas in 20% of team interventions; to bring patients to hospital within the "golden hour" in 80% of cases; to have 200 physicians specialized in emergency medicine; and to have 220 nurses/technicians that have successfully completed their specialized training in emergency medicine. The objectives are going to be monitored through indicators as part of the World Bank Project for which data have already been collected throughout Croatia: number of interventions; number of emergency interventions; time between call receipt and arrival to scene; time between call receipt and arrival to hospital emergency reception area; percentage of arrivals to hospital by EMS vehicles within 12 hours of symptom onset; polytrauma and cardiac arrest survival rate before admission to hospital; time spent in hospital emergency reception areas and integrated hospital emergency admission units; polytrauma and cardiac arrest survival rate within 24 hours of hospital admission; number of integrated hospital emergency admission units per county; and number of pre-hospital EMS teams per capita.


Literature review with the objective of searching nurses' articles concerning non-pharmacological strategies for pain relief in Newborns. Being a pain relief a right of Newborn and nurses' responsibility, it's necessary to know how to do it, like the following forms: non-nutritive sucking as administration of glucose, massages, the reduction of stimuli, among others. The research was done in January of 2013 with the following keywords: "pain", "newborn", "non-pharmacological strategies", "nursing". All of the selected studies are unanimous in affirming the efficacy of glucose in pain control. We suggest the development of protocols to assist in the decision of the pain's process of the newborn.


When collecting data from a single electronic medical record (EMR), few studies of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients admitted directly from an Emergency Department (ED) focus on observational methodologies examining occupancy of both the ICU and the ED, and population characteristics. This quantitative study design and analysis, with a sample size of 1433 cases using regression techniques, suggested odds of mortality were more likely with a higher ICU occupancy/census and if uninsured. There was no statistical difference based on ED occupancy/census at time of decision to admit to an ICU and no difference whether admitted on a weekend or weekday. Inpatient ICU occupancy is one of the variables that impacts waiting time and overcrowding in the ED, and, in this study, inpatient occupancy in the ICUs impacted patient outcomes. As all healthcare providers make up the interprofessional team and work within complex systems, ease of retrieval of EMR data can hasten decision support to improve quality outcomes.


Highly efficient light-harvesting systems were successfully fabricated in aqueous solution based on the supramolecular self-assembly of a water-soluble pillar[6]arene (WP6), a salicylaldehyde azine derivative (G), and two different fluorescence dyes, Nile Red (NiR) or Eosin Y (ESY). The WP6-G supramolecular assembly exhibits remarkably improved aggregation-induced emission enhancement and acts as a donor for the artificial light-harvesting system, and NiR or ESY, which are loaded within the WP6-G assembly, act as acceptors. An efficient energy-transfer process takes place from the WP6-G assembly not only to NiR but also to ESY for these two different systems. Furthermore, both of the WP6-G-NiR and WP6-G-ESY systems show an ultrahigh antenna effect at a high donor/acceptor ratio.


The maximum duration of the detention in custody and house arrest measures in criminal cases is researched. A number of issues have been considered regarding the calculation of the term and its initial and final moments, including the hypotheses related to the returning of the case to the prosecutor by the court, the taking of the measures against an accused party detained on different grounds, as well as in view of a modification of the legal qualification of the indictment, establishing a different maximum duration under Art. 63, para. 4 of the Criminal Procedure Code. An emphasis has been placed on the disputable aspect of the duration of the period in regard to underage accused parties. A necessity to introduce a maximum period of detention in custody and house arrest,including also the court phase of the trial, has been acknowledged.


Prevalence of the mechanical harvesting brought about significant changes in the conventional production processes in Turkey especially from the point of row spacing and variety. These changes in the production process increased the importance of picker performance from the point of field operation (quantitative) and effect to the lint quality (qualitative). The studies on the effect of the row spacing on the picker performance were usually concentrated on qualitative parameters. However, the amount of harvested cotton (and thus losses) and field performances of the pickers are quite important in Turkish conditions because the trading is based on seed cotton in contrast to the other countries. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of variety and row spacing on the quantitative and qualitative performances of a narrow row, self propelled cotton picker widely used in Turkey. The study was conducted in the field of 8 ha (328 m long), according to split-plot experimental design. Two varieties, Carmen and Stoneville 373 were planted at 76 and 81 cm row spacing. Defoliation was performed by ground sprayer 20 days before harvest by using mixture of 480 g/l ethephon+60 g/l cyclanilide (Finish) and 120 g/l thidiazuron+60 g/l diuron (Dropp Ultra) at application rates 2.5 and 0.4 kg·ha -1 , respectively, with volume of approximately 500 litres per ha. CASE–IH, Cotton Express 420 model, five narrow row mechanical cotton picker was used for harvesting. Ground loss and stalk loss values were within the proposed limits as indicated by the national standards. Results were influenced by variety and row spacing interactions significantly. Lower values were obtained at Carmen-76 cm and St373-81 cm plots comparing with the other plots. No significant relationships were found between harvestable boll ratio, yield and losses. No significant relationship between treatments and the other qualitative parameters was found except for micronaire. Depending on the trash content, there was a decrease in the reflectance (Rd) values of the machine picked samples in comparison to the hand picked samples, and an increase in yellowness (+b) values. In both varieties, the low defoliation ratios caused an increase in trash content and a decrease in the degree of color. The fundamental indication of the measured values was that the success of the defoliation process significantly influenced the lint quality values.


ABSTRACT This article presents the results of a survey of competitive intelligence (CI) practices in European firms. In comparing the results to a similar 2006 global study and a 2006 European CI study, it appears that the breadth of applications for CI has grown well beyond competitors to include customer related intelligence, technology, market, etc. Innovation is driving much intelligence activity, in particular research and development (R&D) and new product development decisions. CI is more formalised now in European firms than it was in 2006. The study also found similarities between corporate foresight and CI in terms of objectives (development and maintenance of competitive advantage, help with decision making) and analytical techniques with scenarios being among the more frequently used analytical techniques along with STEEP and other environmental analysis in both corporate foresight studies and the CI study.


Abstract: This chapter surveys the computer-based multi-scale modelling approaches currently being used to develop physical models of the effects of radiation on nuclear materials. The focus is on the problem of radiation-induced hardening (and embrittlement) in steels, limited to the scales ranging from the nucleus to the single crystal. First, the multi-scale nature of radiation effects is illustrated, including examples of microstructural and mechanical property changes observed in steels used in nuclear reactors. Then the chapter discusses the fundamental ideas upon which the multi-scale modelling approach is based. Next, an overview of the techniques of use in a multi-scale modelling framework is given, with an example of how these can be integrated. A discussion of the state-of-the-art and other general remarks conclude the chapter.


We consider the problem of estimating the surface of an object from a calibrated set of views under the assumption that the reflectance of the object is non-Lambertian. In particular, we consider the case when the object presents sharp specular reflections. We pose the problem within a variational framework and use fast numerical techniques to approach the local minimum of a regularized cost functional.


Copper(II) and cadmium(II) complex of a mono-dibenzofuran derivative of 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane (cyclen), L1, have been prepared by reaction of the mono-dibenzofuran-substituted cyclen with either copper(II) or cadmium(II) perchlorate in acetonitrile. This yielded the corresponding divalent metal complexes, [Cu(L1)](ClO4)2·H2O (C1) and [Cd(L1)](ClO4)2·H2O (C2), which were isolated as single crystals suitable for X-ray crystallography by diffusing diethyl ether into an acetonitrile solution of each complex. For the copper(II) complex, C1, the X-ray crystal structure revealed a distorted square pyramidal Cu(II) coordination sphere occupied by four amine nitrogens from the cyclen ring and one oxygen from the amide linkage present in L1. On the other hand, the metal center in the cadmium complex is seven coordinate, with two weakly bound acetonitrile molecules occupying two additional coordination sites about the Cd(II) center; these bind cis to the amide oxygen. The coordination geometry is best described as monocapped trigonal prismatic. In both complexes, the secondary amine nitrogens on the cyclen macrocycle form hydrogen bonds with perchlorate counterions present in the crystal lattice. Titration of L1 with various metal ions (Mn2+, Co2+, Ni2+, Cu2+, Zn2+, and Cd2+) in acetonitrile revealed a gradual quenching of the benzofuran emission with increasing [M2+] consistent with formation of metal complexes with a 1 : 1 M2+ : L1 stoichiometry. From the emission data, the conditional stability constant was determined to be 10–20 times higher for the Cu(II) complex than the other divalent metal complexes investigated.


From 1964 to 1977, 64 patients affected by aneurysm of the thoracic aorta were surgically treated at the 2nd Surgical Department of the University of Milan (Head: Prof. E. Malan). 25 patients had a true aneurysm and 34 a dissecting aneurysm. The various surgical techniques are discussed. The mortality rate and postoperative results are presented.


The nuclear scattering of positrons from Rh102 by nitrogen was investigated by the cloud chamber method. The number of photographs taken was about 5000, yielding 5212 positrons of energy lying between 0.53 Mev and 0.98 Mev with a total track length of 712 meters. The number of cases of scattering observed was 85.0, whereas Massey's theory predicted 8.19. The ratio of the experimental results, which covered the angular range 15°to 85°, to the theory was 0.96. This agreement favors the assumption of Massey that the scattering of positrons takes place on the interaction of the Dirac particle of positive charge with the field of the nucleus. © 1952 The American Physical Society.


Human mannan-binding proteins (MBPs) occur in two forms, serum MBP (S-MBP) and liver MBP (L-MBP), both of which are synthesized in the liver from a single form of human MBP mRNA. To investigate further the mechanisms of post-translational modification, molecular assembly and differentiation of S-MBP and L-MBP in vitro, we expressed a full-length human MBP cDNA in three human hepatoma cell lines, using the vaccinia virus expression system. The expression of human MBP cDNA reproduced the native MBP differentiation of S-MBP and L-MBP in human hepatoma cells. The recombinant S-MBP was secreted into the medium, and the recombinant L-MBP retained in the cells. The former had the ability to activate the complement through the classical or lectin pathway but the latter did not. Furthermore, one notable difference between the two MBPs was the degree of oligomerization through interchain disulfide bonds between subunits. In addition, we showed that both S-MBP and L-MBP undergo hydroxylation of lysine and proline residues in collagen-like sequences, and that the hydroxylysine is glycosylated to form glucosylgalactosylhydroxylysine (GluGalHyl) and galactosylhydroxylysine (GalHyl). Hydroxylation was required for S-MBP to be assembled into large complexes, the apparent molecular sizes of which were estimated to be 200-1,300 kDa by SDS-PAGE under non-reducing conditions and gel filtration under non-denaturing conditions. The hydroxylation and subsequent glycosylation and oligomerization were inhibited by alpha,alpha'-dipyridyl, an inhibitor of collagen lysyl and prolyl hydroxylases. These results suggested that newly synthesized lectins undergo post-translational modifications unique to the two forms of MBP, S-MBP, and L-MBP, in human hepatocytes and hepatoma cells, and that the collagen-like domains of the MBPs play an important role in promoting molecular assembly.


Abstract When searching for information in response to a query, their own library's online public access catalog (OPAC) and databases remain the most preferred resource for most aquatic science librarians. This preference does not vary regardless of age, gender, educational degree, position or designation, country classification, or type of library. While the Internet acts as a supplement to the library collection, whenever the requested information is not available at the library, librarians prefer Googling instead of looking at other sources. Other than aquatic science-specific open access repositories and databases, some of the librarians have identified Google Scholar, DOAJ, ResearchGate, and Academia, among many others as valuable resources that help them fulfill their clientele's query.


With the aim of stabilizing arsenic pollution in mine tailing, FeCl2 and FeCl3 were chosen as stabilizers. The changes in pH, speciation, and leaching concentration of arsenic were analyzed. The stabilization mechanism of the FeCl2 and FeCl3 stabilizers towards the removal of arsenic has been discussed based on FTIR spectroscopy and XRD results; the results show that both the FeCl2 and FeCl3 stabilizers can reduce the pH of arsenic waste slag, but pose the risk of acidification, especially for FeCl3. Both stabilizers could reduce the content of acid-soluble arsenic. When the Fe : As molar ratio was 1.0 and an FeCl2 mixed solution at pH 1⁄4 7 and FeCl3 mixed solution at pH 1⁄4 4 and pH 1⁄4 7 were used, the acidsoluble arsenic was decreased by 96.22%, 93.42%, and 96.22%, respectively. The arsenic leaching concentration <2.5 mg L , which meets the minimum requirements for the entrance of safe landfill sites, demonstrates that the FeCl2 and FeCl3 stabilizers have good stabilizing effects. The acid-soluble arsenic or reducible arsenic can be converted into residual arsenic by the FeCl2 stabilizer. Furthermore, acid-soluble arsenic was converted into residual arsenic and oxidized arsenic by the FeCl3 stabilizer.


Complementary and alternative therapies for neoplastic diseases treatment and prevention receive increasing attention from the medical community. Prostate cancer (PC) is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy and the second major cause of male death in industrialized countries. The chemopreventive properties and clinical safety of curcumin, a polyphenolic derivative, have already been established. However, curcumin regimen value in addition to conventional hormone refractory (HR) PC treatment remains largely unknown. This review article summarizes mechanisms by which curcumin may decrease HRPC aggressive proliferation and potentiate activity of taxane therapy. Our analysis suggests that curcumin alone has a therapeutic value in HRPC. In combination with a taxane agent, this compound may enhance cytotoxicity and retard PC cell resistance to taxane. As a consequence, a rationale is provided for considering the possible benefits of curcumin regimen in combination with taxane therapy in HRPC patients.


Tea is a polyphenol-rich beverage like wine and catechins are its chief polyphenols. Catechins have cardio-protective effects as they can scavenge free radicals and inhibit lipid peroxidation. Epidemiological studies indicate an inverse relation between tea consumption and the risk of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases. Addition of milk to black tea has been reported to adversely affect its beneficial effects, but the data are not unequivocal. Therefore, we assessed the effect of the addition of milk to black tea on its ability to modulate oxidative stress and antioxidant status in adult male human volunteers. Although the area under the curve of plasma catechins was lower on the consumption of tea with milk compared to black tea, it did not affect the beneficial effects of black tea on total plasma antioxidant activity, plasma resistance to oxidation induced ex vivo, and decreased plasma and urinary thiobarbituric acid reactive substance levels. The results suggest that addition of milk may not obviate the ability of black tea to modulate the antioxidant status of subjects and that consumption of black tea with/without milk prevents oxidative damage in vivo.


This paper deals with discontinuities analysis in the temperature, displacement, and stress fields of a thick plate whose lower and upper surfaces are traction-free and subjected to a given axisymmetric temperature distribution. The analysis is carried out under three thermoelastic theories. Potential functions together with Laplace and Hankel transform techniques are used to derive the solution in the transformed domain. Exact expressions for the magnitude of discontinuities are computed by using an exact method developed by Boley (1962). It is found that there exist two coupled waves, one of which is elastic and the other is thermal, both propagating with finite speeds with exponential attenuation, and a third which is called shear wave, propagating with constant speed but with no exponential attenuation. The Hankel transforms are inverted analytically. The inversion of the Laplace transforms is carried out using the inversion formula of the transform together with Fourier expansion techniques. Numerical results are presented graphically along with a comparison of the three theories of thermoelasticity.


This article uses data from the British Election Study series since 1974 and qualitative data from interviews with key party personnel to investigate the social and political basis of Liberal support in Britain. There are three main sections to the article: the first deals with the social and demographic profile of the Liberal vote, while the second examines the political characteristics of its supporters. In the final section these findings are used to assess the Liberal Democrats' electoral strategy at the 2001 General Election and beyond. We find that Liberals tend to be drawn from a similar social background to Conservative supporters (particularly in term of class), but politically there has been an increasingly close relationship between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party.


Background The association of autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) with diabetes mellitus (DM) type 1 (DM1) has been previously documented. However, there is paucity of data regarding the association of AITD and DM type 2 (DM2). The aim of the study was to shed light on the role of AITD on DM2, we studied the impact of AITD in euthyroid patients with pre-diabetes. Methods Euthyroid pre-diabetic patients were defined by impaired fasting glucose (IFG) (≥100mg/dl) and/or glucose intolerance (IGT) [glucose 120min post-oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) ≥140mg/dl]. We assessed static and dynamic insulin resistance (IRI) and insulin secretion indices (ISI), and the disposition index (DI). Age, gender, waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio, body mass index, anti-hypertensive and hypolipidemic treatment were recorded. Results Out of 166 patients studied (132 females) 53 (31.9%) had AITD; IFG prevalence was similar to non-AITD patients (92.2% versus 94.3%, p=0.55). In contrast, IGT was less prevalent in AITD compared to non-AITD patients (9.4% versus 28.3%, p=0.008). IRI did not differ between the two groups. The dynamic ISI: area under the curve (AUC) of insulin-to-glucose ratio (IncAUCins/glu), 1 st -phase and 2 nd -phase insulin release, and the DI showed a worse insulin secretion in non-AITD compared to AITD patients [0.54 (0.49, 0.2-2.42) versus 0.45 (0.41, 0.09-2.07), p = 0.029; 1029.3 (837.1, 323-2614.2) versus 864.3 (826.9, -282.5-2772.5), p=0.033; 354.8 (268.4, 132.8-851.1) versus 286.5 (254.7, 24.7-906.3), p=0.035; 0.09 (0.09, 0.006-0.55) versus 0.07 (0.06, -0.01-0.51), p=0.02, respectively]. On the other hand, hsCRP was higher in AITD versus non-AITD individuals [2.8 (5, 0-16) versus 1.2 (3, 0-13), p=0.008]. Conclusion Although individuals with prediabetes and AITD presented with higher levels of low-grade inflammation, their dynamic ISI and the DI, were less impaired, implying a better dynamic insulin secretion in patients with established abnormality of carbohydrate metabolism who carry an additional autoimmune metabolic component.


The present study is deal with the spatial distribution of Tuberculosis diseases in Cuddalore district. The main sources of based on the secondary data. The district has an area of 3,564 km². It is situated between 11° 45′ N, 11.75'Northern latitude and 79° 45′E ″ to 79 0 75' Eastern longitudes. It is bounded on the north by Viluppuram District, east by the Bay of Bengal, south by Nagapattinam District, and west by Perambalur District.Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that has plagued humans. Since the Neolithic times two organisms causes tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and mycobacterium bovis. The symptoms of tuberculosis may cause a bad cough that longer than two weeks, pain in the chest and coughing up of blood or sputum.The main objectives are to analyses the spatial distribution of the tuberculosis types in Cuddalore and map out them. To study the disease pattern in relationship to case history and demographic characteristic dimensions. The study will be analyzed based on secondary data. Finally the major dimensions of Tuberculosis treatments and improvements are identified.


The EU has proposed four flexibility mechanisms for the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2013-2020: (1) the Emissions Trade Scheme (ETS), a permit market between selected companies; (2) trade in non-ETS allotments between Member States; (3) the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to purchase offsets in developing countries; and (4) trade in CDM warrants between Member States. This paper shows that aggregate abatement costs fall as flexibility increases. However, limited flexibility creates rents so that increasing flexibility raises costs in some Member States. Costs are reduced more by the CDM than by non-ETS trade. The CDM warrants market reduces costs by a small amount only; market power is a real issue. However, the warrants market is obsolete in case there is non-ETS trade. The CDM leads to price convergence between the ETS and non-ETS market. There would be one price for carbon in the European Union if the proposed limits on CDM access are relaxed slightly.


Development of tension in aortic helical strips was studied using the male Kyoto Wistar normotensive (KNR) and age-, sex-matched spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) (8 to 10 weeks) to clarify the contractile response of vascular smooth muscle in SHR. In Ca2+-containing solution, noradrenaline-induced tension was smaller in SHR than in KNR. After washing the strips with Ca2+-free EGTA solution, the tension that developed by the addition of Ca2+ was greater in SHR than in KNR. Tension induced by the combination of Ca2+ and noradrenaline was the same between the KNR and SHR. It is assumed that these differences between the KNR and SHR aortic strips may be attributed to the abnormal contractility of the vascular smooth muscle in SHR.


Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) is a promising approach for applications with nonEuclidean data. However, training GNNs on large scale graphs with hundreds of millions nodes is both resource and time consuming. Different from DNNs, GNNs usually have larger memory footprints, and thus the GPU memory capacity and PCIe bandwidth are the main resource bottlenecks in GNN training. To address this problem, we present BiFeat: a graph feature quantization methodology to accelerate GNN training by significantly reducing the memory footprint and PCIe bandwidth requirement so that GNNs can take full advantage of GPU computing capabilities. Our key insight is that unlike DNN, GNN is less prone to the information loss of input features caused by quantization. We identify the main accuracy impact factors in graph feature quantization and theoretically prove that BiFeat training converges to a network where the loss is within $\epsilon$ of the optimal loss of uncompressed network. We perform extensive evaluation of BiFeat using several popular GNN models and datasets, including GraphSAGE on MAG240M, the largest public graph dataset. The results demonstrate that BiFeat achieves a compression ratio of more than 30 and improves GNN training speed by 200%-320% with marginal accuracy loss. In particular, BiFeat achieves a record by training GraphSAGE on MAG240M within one hour using only four GPUs.


In this article we present novel learning methods for estimating the quality of results returned by a search engine in response to a query. Estimation is based on the agreement between the top results of the full query and the top results of its sub-queries. We demonstrate the usefulness of quality estimation for several applications, among them improvement of retrieval, detecting queries for which no relevant content exists in the document collection, and distributed information retrieval. Experiments on TREC data demonstrate the robustness and the effectiveness of our learning algorithms.


Interactions between humans and red-billed Queleas (Quelea quelea) in Kondoa District, central Tanzania, have shaped the attitudes of the local inhabitants toward these birds. These birds are considered as serious pest because they consume small grain cereal crops. The red-billed Queleas are caught and consumed as food by local communities. Harvested birds are also sold at bus stops to passengers, as well as to local villagers, as a source of household income. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of differential costs and benefits of the red-billed Quelea, as well as the socio-economic factors (education level, gender, age and economic activity) that might shape the attitudes of the local inhabitants of Kondoa. To explore their attitudes, a questionnaire survey was randomly conducted among 360 households in six villages from June to August 2012. Most of the inhabitants who incurred costs of crop damage exhibited negative attitudes toward the red-billed Quelea, despite the benefits obtained from them. In contrast, those who benefitted from harvested Quelea birds exhibited positive attitudes towards the red-billed Quelea. The most important socio-economic factors influencing both positive and negative attitudes were education and gender. In contrast, economic activity only influenced negative attitudes. To change negative attitudes towards the birds; practical, economical and applicable solutions for the Quelea pest problem are needed while considering the future conservation of the species in the area.

 Key words: Attitudes, costs, benefits, red-billed Quelea, socio-economic factors, local inhabitants, Kondoa-Tanzania.


The current study investigated the relative effects of viewing motivations on viewing preferences and viewing intentions of television food programs. Data collection was conducted by administering a survey to television food program viewers both on and offline. Viewing motivations were categorized as 'information' 'entertainment', 'pass-time', 'companionship', 'relaxation', and 'social interaction'. 'Information' and 'entertainment' proved to be the most important motivational factors affecting viewing preferences for television food programs. 'Information' and 'social interactions' were the strongest predictors of viewing intentions of television food programs. However, 'pass-time' had a negative influence on both viewing preferences and viewing intentions of television food programs. Furthermore, the results of study verified the moderating effects of food involvement in these relations.


Hearing loss is an economically and socially important cause of human morbidity. It is estimated that at least 20% of the population develop clinically significant hearing loss at some time during their lives.1 Hereditary hearing loss occurs in approximately 1/2000 newborns.2 During the past five years, dramatic advances have been made in the mapping of more than 60 loci for non-syndromic deafness. Interestingly, quite contrary to the assumption that genetic deafness was caused by a large number of equally rare genes, it has been shown that in many populations mutations at the connexin 26 ( Cx26 ) locus can account for as much as 50-80% of recessive genetic deafness.3 The ability to diagnose specific forms of recessive deafness by molecular testing even in simplex families with only one affected child is rapidly becoming the standard of care for the management of such cases. However, the imminent availability of widespread testing in the deaf community has raised a number of ethical issues, some of which are unique to the genetics of deafness. For instance, some would consider prenatal diagnosis for hearing status unacceptable owing to the unique perspective on hearing loss among different groups.

Differences in the way people view the field of genetics and genetic testing for hearing loss are quite likely related to cultural differences in attitudes about hearing loss or deafness. The medical community tends to view deafness as a disability and a condition to be cured. Hearing subjects tend to share this "pathological" perspective on deafness. While most subjects with hearing loss become well integrated into the hearing world, many deaf people regard deafness and manual communication as distinctive features that define the separate, closely knit culture of the Deaf community (denoted with a capital D).4 Sociologists, linguists, and anthropologists now recognise Deaf people as …


Biometric user authentication is an important factor to ensure security and privacy for personal devices. While many devices such as smartphones or laptops can be unlocked based on biometric data, smartwatches or other wrist-worn mobile devices still rely on knowledge-based schemes such as PINs or passwords. In a proof-of-concept study with 24 participants, we show that it is possible to identify individuals using sound waves passing through the wrist bones using a bone conduction speaker and a laryngophone (microphone). We tested support vector machines (SVMs) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) for binary classification. Using ANNs our method shows an authentication accuracy of 98.7%. We discuss the implications of integrating our approach into future devices and contribute with our findings in doing the first step for continuous passive user authentication at the wrist.


In computer manipulation of macromolecules bond lengths and bond angles as well as some dihedral angles frequently are held fixed at ideal values observed in small model compounds. Changes of the conformation are then made by internal rotation about chemical bonds. The result of each rotation is the relative motion of large parts of the molecule; this will therefore be referred to as the global method of changing the conformation. The effect of this method is similar to manipulation of a stick model of the molecule. A method is described for manipulating the conformation in which only one atom is moved at a time; hence the name, local method. Each movement is made in order to improve the immediate environment of the atom by decreasing the differences between bond lengths, bond angles and fixed dihedral angles near this atom and their ideal values. Small displacements are calculated and applied for each atom in turn, and this is repeated a number of times for the entire molecule. At the same time, one may require that the position of each atom is not moved too far away from the starting position, so as to give idealization of the starting conformation or model building. Alternatively, inclusion of a term tending to lower the contributions to the intramolecular energy (van der Waals attractive energy, repulsive energy, electrostatic energy) gives energy minimization. A description is given of the progress of the model-building calculation with a fifteen-residue segment of the protein rubredoxin as a test case. The resulting conformation is found to be very close to the best global fit obtainable. This best global fit is obtained by constructing a global fit to the locally fit model and further adjusting this intermediate conformation to improve the agreement with the starting coordinates. A global fit constructed to the original data is found to be inferior. It corresponds to a higher relative minimum of the sum of the squares of the distances between the model coordinates and those to be fitted; the conformation of two side chains is qualitatively different in the two global fits. An example shows how the method is suitable for building trial conformations of chain segments. Finally, advantages of the local method are pointed out which, it is believed, make its use preferable for model building in an interactive computing environment.


Economic and biological systems, as open dissipative systems, need to extract low entropy from the environment to compensate for continuous dissipation. This process can be represented by lognormal processes, which in turn can be mapped into a thermodynamic equation. From here, we develop an analytic thermodynamic theory of economics. Since a thermodynamic equation is of first order in temporal dimension, economic and biological systems as thermodynamic systems are intrinsically evolutionary. Most people agree that thermodynamic theory is a sounder foundation to describe living systems than Newtonian mechanics, which is the physical foundation of general equilibrium theory. As it is often the case, an analytical framework that is built on sounder physical foundation delivers more intuitive and simpler results. This theory, for the first time in economic literature, provides an analytic framework that explicitly represents the relation among fixed costs, variable costs, uncertainty of the environment and duration of a project, which is the core concern inmost economic decisions. Since all economic and biological activities represent the extraction and transformation of low entropy from the environment, this analytic thermodynamic theory offers a unified framework to understand the general pattern in economic and biological evolution.


The harmony searching (HS) algorithm is a kind of optimization search algorithm currently applied in many practical problems. The HS algorithm constantly revises variables in the harmony database and the probability of different values that can be used to complete iteration convergence to achieve the optimal effect. Accordingly, this study proposed a modified algorithm to improve the efficiency of the algorithm. First, a rough set algorithm was employed to improve the convergence and accuracy of the HS algorithm. Then, the optimal value was obtained using the improved HS algorithm. The optimal value of convergence was employed as the initial value of the fuzzy clustering algorithm for segmenting magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain images. Experimental results showed that the improved HS algorithm attained better convergence and more accurate results than those of the original HS algorithm. In our study, the MRI image segmentation effect of the improved algorithm was superior to that of the original fuzzy clustering method.


An artificial neural network based computer-aided designing system together with the manufacturing cost estimation system for industrial induction motors is presented. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of the new system. Based on the actual design data for various types of induction motors, the cascaded artificial neural networks have been trained to calculate the output of the fundamental data and parameters. After the training, the dimensions and the basic parameters have been estimated quite accurately from the specification of the individual induction motor on the cascaded three artificial neural networks. The manufacturing cost of the individual motor has also been predicted precisely by using the neural network at the last stage of design. The proposed neural network based designing system including the cost estimation system is quite efficient in reducing the manpower of the designing process and also in enabling optimal design in a restricted time period without the knowledge of experts.


The effect of Pseudomonas aeruginosa alkaline protease (AP), elastase (Ela), and the elastase from polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN Ela) on iron acquisition of pyoverdin from human transferrin and lactoferrin at physiologic pH was investigated. Incubation of iron-loaded transferrin with iron-free pyoverdin for 10 h at 40 degrees C in the presence of Ela yielded pyoverdin-iron(III) complex, in contrast to incubations of transferrin with pyoverdin alone, AP, or PMN Ela. Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis analysis of the incubations revealed fragmentation of transferrin by Ela in peptides smaller than 14,000 daltons, whereas AP and PMN Ela cleaved transferrin in fragments of 49,000 d and 43,000 d, respectively. Incubations of lactoferrin with the proteases and pyoverdin or pyoverdin alone did not result in iron acquisition by pyoverdin; however, lactoferrin was fragmented by Ela and AP.


Thermal properties such as specific heat, thermal diffusivity, and thermal conductivity of carbon and graphite foams are very important in the engineering design process and analysis of aerospace vehicles as well as space systems. These properties are also important in power generation, transportation, and energy storage devices including fuel cells. Thermal conductivity is the property that determines the working temperature levels of the material; it plays a critical role in the performance of materials in high temperature applications and it is an important parameter in problems involving heat transfer and thermal structures.The objective of this paper is to develop a thermal properties data base for carbon and graphite foams. Carbon foams are commercially produced from urethane, petroleum pitch-based and coal-based processes, and they typically have large pores (> 350 μm) and low density (< 1.0 g/cm3). Petroleum pitch-base and coal-base carbon/graphite foams can be tailored to be thermally conductive or thermally insulating.The thermophysical properties of carbon and graphite foams have been investigated using experimental methods. The flash method was used to measure the thermal diffusivity of the foams; this method is based on America Society for Testing and Materials standard (ASTM E1461). In addition, the Differential Scanning Calorimeter was used in accordance with the ASTM E1269 standard to measure the specific heat. The measured thermal diffusivity, specific heat, and density data were used to compute the thermal conductivity of the foams.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


Grip strength and walking speed are considered to be important indicators of physical frailty. However, no study has contemporaneously examined any association of multiple oral functions with grip strength and walking speed. The purpose of this study was to examine which oral functions are associated with muscle strength (grip strength), physical performance (walking speed) or both. The study participants were 511 community-dwelling people (254 men and 257 women) aged 77–81 years old. Six oral functions—oral wetness, occlusal force, tongue-lip motor function, tongue pressure, masticatory performance and swallowing function—were measured. Grip strength and walking speed were also measured. A partial correlation analysis, adjusted for gender, showed that occlusal force, tongue-lip motor function, masticatory performance and swallowing function were significantly associated with both grip strength and walking speed. In addition, tongue pressure was significantly associated with grip strength. A general linear model showed that tongue pressure and occlusal force were significantly associated with grip strength. Swallowing function and tongue-lip motor function were significantly associated with walking speed. It is suggested that there are different oral function measures for muscle strength and physical performance, and these oral function measures could be a useful proxy for physical frailty.


1 A variety of studies have suggested that K+ channel activity is a key determinant for cell progression through the G1 phase of mitosis. We have previously proposed that K+ channels control the activity of cell cycle‐regulating proteins via regulation of cell volume. In order to test this hypothesis, we measured, with a Coulter counter and under different experimental conditions, the volume and rate of proliferation of neuroblastoma × glioma hybrid NG108‐15 cells. 2 The K+ channel blockers TEA (1‐10 mM), 4‐aminopyridine (0.2‐2 mM) and Cs+ (2.5‐10 mM) increased the cell volume and decreased the rate of cell proliferation. Proliferation was fully inhibited when cell volume was increased by 25 %. 3 A 40 % increase in the culture medium osmolarity with NaCl induced a 25 % increase in cell volume and an 82 % decrease in the rate of cell proliferation. A 40 % increase in the culture medium osmolarity with mannitol induced a 9 % increase in cell volume and a 60 % decrease in the rate of cell proliferation. 4 The Cl− channel blocker NPPB (5‐nitro‐2‐(3‐phenylpropylamino) benzoic acid; 50 μM) induced a 12 % increase in cell volume and a 77 % decrease in the rate of cell proliferation. 5 A 24 % reduction in the culture medium osmolarity with H2O induced a 21 % decrease in cell volume and a 32 % increase in the rate of cell proliferation. 6 Under whole‐cell patch‐clamp conditions, antibiotics (penicillin plus streptomycin) decreased the voltage‐dependent K+ current. Omission of antibiotics from the culture medium induced a 10 % decrease in the cell volume and a 32 % increase in the rate of cell proliferation. 7 These results suggest that the mechanisms controlling cell proliferation are strongly influenced by the factors which determine cell volume. This could take into account the role in mitogenesis of K+ channels and of other ionic pathways involved in cell volume regulation.


By forcing at most N out of M consecutive weights to be non-zero, the recent N:M network sparsity has received increasing attention for its two attractive advantages: 1) Promising performance at a high sparsity. 2) Significant speedups on NVIDIA A100 GPUs. Recent studies require an expensive pre-training phase or a heavy dense-gradient computation. In this paper, we show that the N:M learning can be naturally characterized as a combinatorial problem which searches for the best combination candidate within a finite collection. Motivated by this characteristic, we solve N:M sparsity in an efficient divide-and-conquer manner. First, we divide the weight vector into $C_{\text{M}}^{\text{N}}$ combination subsets of a fixed size N. Then, we conquer the combinatorial problem by assigning each combination a learnable score that is jointly optimized with its associate weights. We prove that the introduced scoring mechanism can well model the relative importance between combination subsets. And by gradually removing low-scored subsets, N:M fine-grained sparsity can be efficiently optimized during the normal training phase. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that our learning best combination (LBC) performs consistently better than off-the-shelf N:M sparsity methods across various networks. Our project is released at \url{https://github.com/zyxxmu/LBC}.


Abstract The ability of airborne instruments to measure temperature in cloud is studied using theoretical analyses and experimental data. Theoretical predictions of the effects of sensor wetting are reviewed and modified, and are then compared to measurements. Two airborne immersion thermometers, the NCAR "reverse-flow" thermometer and the Rosemount 102 thermometer, are compared to each other and to a new radiometric thermometer. The comparisons show that out of cloud all three thermometers agree well with each other. However, there is clear evidence that the immersion thermometers become wet in some clouds and measure erroneously low temperatures as a result. The evidence, particularly from measurements in unmixed parcels, supports the validity of the measurements from the radiometric thermometer both inside and outside clouds. Supporting evidence that the immersion sensors are susceptible to wetting is provided from tests in a wind tunnel and from measurements using a conductivity sensor placed at the l...


Indian Lands Conservation Area located behind the Town Office, Main Street, South Dennis. The Indian Lands, on 25 acres of woodland and marshes, today offers visitors access to a place where the Nobscusset Indians passed the winter months in comfortable wigwams, on the shores of Bass River, which offered shelter from the north winds, good water from springs, and plentiful fish and shellfish. They continued to reside here as late as 1778. In late spring, the Lady's Slipper Orchid can be seen in scattered patches beside the walking trail that circles the Indian Lands.


Since 2013, the Faculty of Dentistry of the University of Costa Rica has provided a preventive and restorative oral health program at Carmen Lyra Public School. The first generation of students that received dental care from this project were examined in 2019 for caries status.  A total of 62 twelve-year-old schoolchildren were examined (31 boys and 31 girls). First, all teeth surfaces were cleaned with a brush and then rinsed. Subsequently, examination was performed in each person by a calibrated examiner using the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS). Prevalence of dental caries was 59.7%. ICDAS code 2 was the most prevalent (68.8%), followed by 1 (19.3%), 5 (4.5%), 3 (3.5%), 6 (2.5%), and 4 (1.4%). Regarding number of carious surfaces, the highest prevalence was observed in the occlusal surfaces (77.3%), followed by the vestibular (13.9%), mesial (4.2%), palatal/lingual (4,1%) and distal (0.5%). Of these carious surfaces, 7% were caries associated with restorations and were present only on the occlusal surfaces. Boys had more cavities than girls (54.1% compared to 45.9%), however, this difference was not significant. Regarding the condition of restorations in teeth, 92 dental restorations (resin or amalgam) were found in the population studied and were well adjusted. Most of these restorations were found on the occlusal surfaces (82.6%), followed by vestibular surfaces (8.7%,) palatal/lingual (5.4%) surfaces, mesial surfaces (3.3%), and no restorations were detected on the distal surfaces. Sealants were identified in 11.3% schoolchildren; 98% were identified on the occlusal surfaces and the other 2% were found on the palatal/lingual surfaces. DMFT Index was 1.6±0.71. The prevalence of dental caries in this sample was low compared to other studies in twelve-year-old schoolchildren in Costa Rica. This may suggest that the oral health program had a positive impact in the studied population.


A study is made of the seismic behaviour of base-isolated highway bridges with the objective of developing design procedures in the form of code-type approach. The recommendations of current codes concerning the use of energy dissipation mechanisms for the seismic design of bridges are reviewed. A model representing the bridge deck, piers, and the base-isolation system is used to evaluate the response of the bridge to a selected earthquake time history record and to evaluate the effects of various design parameters on the dynamic response. The results of this analysis are used in the development of design guidelines for the isolated bridge system. It was found that base isolation affects the design forces on piers and abutments as well as the deck displacements. An optimum design should provide a reasonable balance between the shear forces on supports and tolerable displacements. Two design procedures are proposed based on the time history and inelastic response spectra approaches. Simplified charts are p...


Aim The aim of our study was to evaluate whether there was a difference in antimicrobial effect between the PRP of healthy volunteers and that of patients with chronic periodontitis against P. gingivalis, which was fresh cultured from subgingival plaque. Methods Subgingival plaque of patients with moderate and severe chronic periodontitis was collected to isolate P. gingivalis. The PRP of four individuals with healthy periodontium and four patients with moderate and severe periodontitis were collected with a specific kit using a two-centrifuge procedure, and then, the antibacterial properties against P. gingivalis were tested, through their minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), adhesion resistance assay, and biofilm susceptibility assay. Results P. gingivalis was successfully isolated from the subgingival plaque of the 21st patient. The round, smooth, and black colony appeared in the agar disk after 7–10 days of incubation under anaerobic conditions. Bacterial identification was performed by MALDI-TOF and confirmed by PCR. All PRP samples tested showed the ability to inhibit P. gingivalis growth. The MIC value (expressed as fraction of PRP) was 1/2, and PRP prevented P. gingivalis attachment on the disk surface. However, PRP did not have a strong effect on the suppression of P. gingivalis biofilm. Conclusion PRP of individuals with healthy periodontium and chronic periodontitis patients showed antibacterial properties against P. gingivalis. This material can become an adjunct to periodontal treatment.


To increase speed and reliability of operation, multiple computers are replacing uniprocessors and wired-logic controllers in modern robots and industrial control systems. However, performance increases are not attained by such hardware alone. The operating software controlling the robots or control systems must exploit the possible parallelism of various control tasks in order to perform the necessary computations within given real-time and reliability constraints. Such software consists of both control programs written by application programmers and operating system software offering means of task scheduling, intertask communication, and device control.
The Generalized Executive for real-time Multiprocessor applications (GEM) is an operating system that addresses several requirements of operating software. First, when using GEM, programmers can select one of two different types of tasks differing in size, called processes and microprocesses. Second, the scheduling calls offered by GEM permit the implementation of several models of task interaction. Third, GEM supports multiple models of communication with a parameterized communication mechanism. Fourth, GEM is closely coupled to prototype real-time programming environments that provide programming support for the models of computation offered by the operating system. GEM is being used on a multiprocessor with robotics application software of substantial size and complexity.


Due to its exclusive nature, representational architecture is often perceived as the most important, outstanding and suggestive part of the image of one or another era. In the general architectural spectrum, such edifices make up only a small part, whereas creative competitions offer an opposite situation, i.e. representational strivings designate a frequent, usual and reasoned form of the course. By acknowledging the importance of representational architecture, the same meaning shall be assigned to the competitions designed for architecture and analysis thereof. The article focuses on essential issues with respect to the traditions and substantial features of representational strivings at creative competitions. Referring to the particular examples of foreign and Lithuanian architectural competitions, the fundamental typological groups of representational edifices as well as tendencies towards development are defined. On the basis of the carried-out survey and comparison with foreign competitions, efforts are made to delineate the distinguishing qualities of Lithuanian representational architecture within the recent century determining the problems. Article in Lithuanian


Irish working-class history, culture, and literature are attracting increasing academic interest. With the publication of A History of Irish Working-Class Writing (2017), Declan Kiberd could write that its focus on 'an astonishing range of writing – from work-songs and political rhymes to poetry and government reports, from novels and plays to biographies by or about working people', would 'set many of the terms of cultural debate in the decade to come'. This essay asks a number of timely questions in that regard: What is the likely shape of that future debate, in terms of class and culture in Ireland, and what are the lacunae that will guide research and publishing priorities for those who engage with it in academia and the arts? What has been achieved in terms of the recent scholarly inquiry into working-class writing and what are that inquiry's blindspots and limitations? The international contexts, historical breadth, categorical limitations, and institutional and societal challenges are all surveyed in this necessarily short sketch of some of the major issues.


The rapid adoption of online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic and digital transformation associated with new tools and technologies has driven the demand for interprofessional collaboration within the education sector. It is now common-place for Instructional Designers (IDs) and Learning Technologists (LTs) to work alongside Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) when creating online learning content. Although the professional practice of an ID may vary, the collaborative approach to working with SMEs is similar across sectors. Typically, the role of the SME is to impart expert domain knowledge, skills or behaviours. An ID captures this information and creates a learning experience using pedagogical expertise and design skills. This relationship is not without friction and can be complex and challenging to navigate. Research often focuses on the experiences of SMEs and suggests a simple resolution to avoid conflict; clearly define each agent's role in writing. However, this is not a clear-cut solution. Detailed guidance for IDs is lacking, and conflicts still exist. This study aimed to gain a deeper insight into the interprofessional working relationship between IDs and SMEs. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted, which looked through the lens of relational working theory and focused on the perspective of the ID. Key themes were identified and aligned with the core concepts of the relational working framework. Findings show that a communication breakdown can negatively impact a project, resulting in power struggles and the delivery of subpar


A convectively coupled equatorial Kelvin wave (CCKW) was observed over the equatorial Indian Ocean in early November 2011 during the DYNAMO field campaign. This study examines the structure of the CCKW event using two simulations made using the MPAS model: one with 3-km grid spacing without convective parameterization and another with a 15-km grid and parameterized convection. Both simulations qualitatively capture the observed structure of the CCKW, including its vertical tilt and progression of cloud/precipitation structures. The two simulations, however, differ substantially in the amplitude of the CCKW-associated precipitation. While the 3-km run realistically captures the observed modulation of precipitation by the CCKW, the 15-km simulation severely underestimates its magnitude. To understand the difference between the two MPAS simulations regarding wave–convection coupling within the CCKW, the relationship of precipitation with convective inhibition, saturation fraction, and surface turbulent fluxes is investigated. Results show that the 15-km simulation underestimates the magnitude of the CCKW precipitation peak in association with its unrealistically linear relationship between moisture and precipitation. Precipitation, both in observations and the 3-km run, is predominantly controlled by saturation fraction and this relationship is exponential. In contrast, the parameterized convection in the 15-km run is overly sensitive to convective inhibition and not sensitive enough to environmental moisture. The implications of these results on CCKW theories are discussed.


Introduction: One of the most important characteristics of endodontic treatment seals is their biocompatibility. The aim of present study was to investigate the cytotoxicity of four types of freshly prepared root canal sealers using human gingival fibroblasts. Materials and Methods: In this experimental laboratory study, freshly prepared sealers were investigated. To investigate the cytotoxicity, each sample was extracted separately in RPMI-1640 (Sigma Aldrich-USA). Then, the resulting extracts were exposed to C165 fibroblast cells in culture medium for 1, 3 and 7 days. Then, the level of cytotoxicity was assessed by MTT colorimetric method based on the level of light absorption. In the present study, multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. Results: The results showed that the cytotoxicity of AH 26 and tgsealer sealers decreased and MTA Fillapex sealer increased over time. Also, Adseal sealer did not follow a logical trend but, in general, its cytotoxicity increased over time. In addition, based on mean of all data obtained from each sealer, MTA Fillapex had the lowest cytotoxicity and Adseal had the highest cytotoxicity, and AH 26 cytotoxicity was higher than that of tgsealer. Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, the MTA-based sealer of MTA Fillapex has the lowest cytotoxicity. Keywords: Root canal sealers, fibroblasts, freshly prepared roots


A 19-year-old girl with a long-standing history of kyphoscoliosis misdiagnosed as idiopathic was offered corrective surgery on several occasions but fortunately refused, since neurological examination later found evidence of mild dystonic posturing in the neck and right leg. Symptoms worsened toward evening but improved with rest. Treatment with low doses of levodopa led to total remission within a month. Our case illustrates that dopa-responsive dystonia can manifest spinal curvature as the major symptom and warrants its inclusion in the differential diagnoses of idiopathic kyphoscoliosis.


Our interest in writing this article is to create a bridge between the scholarly and academic research on technological innovation and a private sector, for-profit business model that implements the ideas on innovation and entrepreneurship, primarily in metro regional economies. This paper explores how the concept of the S curve of technology could be used to offer a judgment on the collapse of the American economy. The dilemma in writing this article now is that it may be too soon to offer a definitive economic assessment of the economic collapse. Even with the help of the S curve, it may be too soon to write the economic analysis of what went terribly wrong for America's experience in the free trade global economy. The S curve can tell us that it takes about 15 years for an innovation to run a cycle, and the American economy is now in about the 5th year of a 15 year downward spiral. Unlike past economic depressions, this downward cycle represents an irreversible ratchet down. Like the disease which destroy a brain's neurons, the downward innovation ratchet is irreversible because the innovation capacity of the nation is being destroyed. As LMP conclude, "the current pattern of offshoring activities by American companies that emerge from the ORN study does not fit the traditional story of companies simply trading non core low level workers in the US with low cost labor offshore."


In this study we have generated monoclonal anti-idiotypic antibodies against human monoclonal and polyclonal anti-HIV antibodies in seropositive sera. A human anti-gp41 mAb (H2, IgM kappa) was used to immunize BALB/c mice and to prepare hybridoma anti-antibodies that react with H2 and not with normal human IgM. Similar monoclonal anti-antibodies were made in BALB/c mice immunized with Ig fraction prepared from a pool of HIV-seropositive sera. Both kinds of anti-idiotypic antibodies reacted with antibodies in pools of seropositive sera and with individual seropositive sera but not with normal human Ig or seronegative sera. The Id-positive Ig from single donors were isolated on two different anti-Id immunoabsorbents and shown to bind to p24 and gp120, respectively. The detection and isolation of idiotypically cross-reactive human anti-HIV antibodies from seropositive donors demonstrated, for the first time, the existence of shared Id expressed by antibodies against HIV Ag. The utility of cross-reacting anti-idiotypic antibodies as tools to dissect the network regulation of the anti-viral immunity in AIDS is discussed.


Interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) form a heterogeneous group of rare diseases characterised by varying degrees of pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis. We hypothesised that IPF and unclassifiable ILD were common in a Danish ILD cohort and that prognostic factors based on disease characteristics and comorbidities could be identified The aims of the PhD study were to describe the demographics of ILD in Central Denmark, to characterise the distribution of ILD diagnoses, and to assess prognostic factors in IPF and unclassifiable ILD. The study is based on a cohort of 431 ILD patients referred to our department during a 6-year period. All ILD diagnoses were re-evaluated according to current diagnostic criteria. Patients were followed from the time of first visit on suspicion of an ILD to the last visit to the centre, death, transplantation, or discharge from follow-up. The incidence of ILD was 4.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, and the incidence of IPF was 1.3 per 100,000 inhabitants in Central Den-mark. The most frequently occurring ILDs were IPF (28%), unclassifiable ILDs (extensive fibrotic disease and other unclassifiable ILDs) (24%), connective tissue disease-related ILD (14%), hyper-sensitivity pneumonitis (7%) and NSIP (7%). Cardiovascular dis-ease was present in 21% of the patients. The presence of cardio-vascular disease at the time of IPF diagnosis did not lead to increased mortality, whereas cardiovascular disease diagnosed during the course of IPF was a statistically significant predictor of mortality. Our study also showed that diabetes and concomitant anticoagulant therapy were associated with worse outcome in IPF, and that a simple HRCT scoring system could be used in the prediction of outcome in fibrotic ILDs. The study of unclassifiable ILD revealed two disease categories: one group characterised by extensive fibrotic disease and one characterised by more inflammatory features. The latter group was characterised by younger age and significantly better prognosis. We evaluated the pragmatic disease classification based on the clinical disease pattern included in the 2013 revision of the guidelines of diagnosis and treatment of interstitial lung diseases. We found that it was able to separate patients with unclassifiable ILD into categories with highly significant differences in survival. We also evaluated the ILD-GAP model, which is based on gender, age and pulmonary function (physiology), and found that it was a valuable predictor of survival in unclassifiable ILD. In a multivariate model, the two prediction scores showed significant individual contribution to the prognostic assessment. The present study has provided the first estimate of ILD and IPF incidence in the Danish population and has shown that demographics and survival of IPF in this cohort were comparable to what has been reported in other studies. Comorbidities were common among patients with IPF, and the results of the study have led us to believe that careful diagnosis and treatment of comorbidities are important in order to optimise outcome in patients with IPF, although our findings need to be confirmed in larger studies. Unclassifiable ILD is frequent in daily clinical practice but has not been characterised in detail. Our study showed that it was possible to identify predictors of outcome and to validate the ILD-GAP model in this cohort. The study also showed that the Disease Behaviour Classification can be used in the management of patients with unclassifiable ILD.


Surfaces with controllable liquid wettability and related functions have gained increasing attention from interfacial scientists due to the high demand of fundamental research and practical applications. Inspired by pitch plant's excellent liquid repellency, external stimuli responsive lubricant‐infused surfaces switching between slippery state and nonslippery state under external stimuli (E‐LIS) have been developed by introducing external stimuli responsive materials as substrates, lubricants, or repellent liquids. This progress report is focused on recent development of E‐LIS. First, design strategy and fabrication of E‐LIS upon external stimuli exposure, including stress, electrical field, magnetic field, and temperature, is summarized. Then, emerging interfacial applications of E‐LIS, such as microreactors, pipetting devices, fog collection devices, and so on, are highlighted. In addition, remaining challenges and future prospects are provided.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the utility of tumor marker CA 15-3 in the following: the diagnosis of breast cancer relapse after curative mastectomy, and the differentiation or the value of tumor marker by site of metastases. Materials and Methods: Two hundred two patients (median age 48 years) with breast cancer included in the follow-up after curative mastectomy. The tumor marker CA 15-3 was determined by IRMA (CIS BIO INTERNATIONAL, France). Test values > 30 U/ml were considered elevated (positive). Results: Among 202 patients, recurrent diseases were found in 16 patients. CA 15-3 was elevated in 5 of 16 patients with recurrences. There was no false-positive patient who had elevated CA 15-3. Sensitivity and specificity of CA 15-3 for detection of breast cancer recurrence were 31%, and 100%. CA 15-3 was elevated in all of the 4 patients with liver metastases. CA 15-3 was elevated in none of the patients who relapsed with metastasis to bone-only or contralateral breast-only. Conclusion: The tumor marker CA 15-3 in the detection of breast cancer relapse after curative mastectomy is specific, but not sensitive. However, it is useful to rule out liver metastases of breast cancer, which indicates bad prognosis.


We report a case of lung abscess caused by Eikenella corrodens and reviewed the literature. A 51-year-old man was hospitalized because of an infiltrative shadow in the left upper lung on chest X-ray. The patient was intravenously given CEZ (2 g/day) followed by CEZ (4 g/day) and AMK (200 mg/day). We nevertheless deteriorated and was subsequently treated with CTM (4 g/day) and LCM (6 g/day), and the shadow improved but remained. Only Eikenella corrodens was isolated from aspiration materials obtained from the resected lung. We examined the susceptibility of 60 strains of Eikenella corrodens to various antimicrobial against. The organisms were very susceptible to PCG, ABPC, PIPC, CTM, CTX and LMOX, but were all resistant to LCM, CLDM, GM and AMK.


Introduction Blood sugar homeostasis relies largely on the action of pancreatic islet hormones, particularly insulin and glucagon. In a prototypical fashion, glucagon is released upon hypoglycemia to elevate glucose by acting on the liver while elevated glucose induces the secretion of insulin which leads to sugar uptake by peripheral tissues. This simplified view of glucagon and insulin does not consider the paracrine roles of the two hormones modulating the response to glucose of α- and β-cells. In particular, glucose-stimulated glucagon secretion by isolated α-cells exhibits a Hill-function pattern, while experiments with intact pancreatic islets suggest a 'U'-shaped response. Methods To this end, a framework was developed based on first principles and coupled to experimental studies capturing the glucose-induced response of pancreatic α- and β-cells influenced by the two hormones. The model predicts both the transient and steady-state profiles of secreted insulin and glucagon, including the typical biphasic response of normal β-cells to hyperglycemia. Results and discussion The results underscore insulin activity as a differentiating factor of the glucagon secretion from whole islets vs. isolated α-cells, and highlight the importance of experimental conditions in interpreting the behavior of islet cells in vitro. The model also reproduces the hyperglucagonemia, which is experienced by diabetes patients, and it is linked to a failure of insulin to inhibit α-cell activity. The framework described here is amenable to the inclusion of additional islet cell types and extrapancreatic tissue cells simulating multi-organ systems. The study expands our understanding of the interplay of insulin and glucagon for pancreas function in normal and pathological conditions.


We discuss the connection between the zero-spacing limit of the N fields Kupershmidt lattice and the KdV-type theory corresponding to the Lie algebra sl.NC 1/. The case N D 2 is worked out in detail, recovering from the limit process the Boussinesq theory with its infinitely many commuting vector fields, their Lax pairs and Hamiltonian formulations. The 'recombination method' proposed here to derive the Boussinesq hierarchy from the limit of the ND 2 Kupershmidt system works, in principle, for arbitrary N.


With the purpose of studying the behavior of novel solid-state lithium fluoride (LiF) films detectors based on the photoluminescence (PL) of radiation-induced defects for proton beam diagnostics and dosimetry, polycrystalline LiF thin films thermally evaporated on glass were irradiated at room temperature in a linear proton accelerator under development at ENEA. The irradiations were performed in air by proton beams of 3 and 7 MeV energy, in a fluence range from 1011 to 1015 protons/cm2. In the LiF films, proton irradiation induces the formation of F2 and aggregate color centers, which simultaneously emit broad PL bands in the visible spectral range under excitation in the blue one. The integrated PL signal, acquired by a fluorescence microscope equipped with a s-CMOS camera, shows a linear dependence on the dose deposited in LiF films, extending from 103 to 106 Gy, independently of the proton energy. A simple theoretical model is put forward for the formation of color centers in LiF and is utilized to obtain a proton beam dose-map by processing the PL image stored in the LiF film detectors.


Abstract Background: Beta-blockers have been shown to decrease mortality and morbidity in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) patients. However, the side effects are also dose-related, leading to the underdosing. Cost constraint may be one of the limitations of appropriate beta-blocker use; this can be improved with generic drugs. However, the effects in real life practice have not been investigated. Methods and results: This study aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of generic and brand beta-blockers in HFrEF patients. We performed a retrospective cohort analysis in HFrEF patients who received either generic or brand beta-blocker in Chiang Mai Heart Failure Clinic. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients who received at least 50% target dose of beta-blocker between generic and brand beta-blockers. Adverse events were secondary endpoints. 217 patients (119 and 98 patients received generic and brand beta-blocker, respectively) were enrolled. There were no differences between groups regarding age, gender, etiology of heart failure, New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), rate of receiving angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI), angiotensin recepter blocker (ARB), or spironolactone. Patients receiving brand beta-blockers had lower resting heart rate at baseline (74.9 and 84.2 bpm, p = .001). Rate of achieved 50% target dose and target daily dose did not differ between groups (40.4 versus 44.5% and 48.0 versus 55.0%, p > .05, respectively). Rate of side effects was not different between groups (32.3 versus 29.5%, p > .05) and the most common side effect was hypotension. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that beta-blocker tolerability was comparable between brand and generic formulations. Generic or brand beta-blockers should be prescribed to HFrEF patients who have no contraindications.


As advances in robotics create robust technology capable of being deployed in the home, design serves an important role shaping how robots will be experienced in accessible, appropriate, and compelling manners. The designer's task of shaping technology is fundamentally concerned with the creation of form. Form is the total expression of a product, including physical shape, materials, and behavioral qualities. In creating form, design balances the needs of people, the capabilities of technology, and the context of use to support an activity or action. In this paper we present The Hug, a conceptual design exploration of form for a robotic product that facilitates intimate communication across distance. We discuss the role of form in constructing meaningful relationships through The Hug and other robotic products.


Abstract: Author: Ncube, E. Flett, B.C. Waalwijk, C. Viljoen, A. Vol 27 Issue 2 Publication: 2010 Page: 195-198 : Aflatoxins are carcinogenic mycotoxins produced by Aspergillus spp. in groundnut kernels. Forty-six groundnut samples were collected from subsistence farmers in three provinces of South Africa, namely KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), Mpumalanga (MP) and Limpopo (LP), in 2006 and 2007. Aflatoxin levels of groundnut kernels were quantified using an ELISA technique. The occurrence of A. parasiticus colonies was predominant and it was isolated at twice the frequency of A. flavus. Aflatoxins were present in groundnut produced in the northern parts of KZN, where aflatoxin levels of up to 131 parts per billion (ppb) were found. In Mpumalanga and Limpopo, the highest aflatoxin levels were 160 ppb and 2 ppb, respectively. In the Makhanisi and Mbazwane localities situated in KwaZulu-Natal, and in Boshoffontein in Mpumalanga, aflatoxin levels were higher than the maximum permitted level set by the Food and Drug Administration in the USA (20 ppb), the European Union (6 ppb) and the Department of Health in South Africa (10 ppb) for groundnut that is intended for direct human consumption. This study indicates the need for mycotoxin awareness campaigns and control programs to be implemented in rural areas of South Africa.


Prefabricated construction is believed to be energy conserving though opportunities for achieving higher energy efficiency have yet to be fully harnessed. From investigation of a prefabricated construction project in Hong Kong, two main problems have been revealed relating to energy consumption, including: (i) inefficient management of resources such as labours and machines, and (ii) inefficient production, transportation, and on-site assembly of prefabricated components. These problems are primarily caused by lagged information communication and human errors. This paper seeks to offer a solution by developing a Physical Internet-enabled Building Information Modelling System (PI-BIMS) that integrates Auto-ID technologies, BIM, and cloud computing. The PI-BIMS enables real-time collection, communication, and visualisation of information across the processes of production, transportation, and on-site assembly. Practical issues of the system implementation are provided through a pilot prototype. It is found that the PI-BIMS helps enhance the resource allocation efficiency and decrease human errors. Thus, an alternative opportunity to improve energy efficiency in prefabricated construction has become possible.


Purpose
This study aims to examine the dynamics of banking competition between Islamic banks (IBs) and conventional banks (CBs) in emerging finance-oriented Islamic economies, also known as the QISMUT + 3 (i.e. Qatar, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Bahrein, Kuwait and Pakistan). The main aim was to conduct a comparative market power analysis between IBs and CBs in the 2006–2015 period.

Design/methodology/approach
The study used bank-specific and macro-economic variables available in the Orbis Bank Focus and the World Bank databases. The study applied a dynamic approach to detect endogeneity problems and unobserved heterogeneity using the two-step system GMM estimate.

Findings
The research shows that market power persists in both types of banks over time. It also demonstrates that capital adequacy does not explain the market power of banking in the studied countries. Unlike IBs, the scale of banking does not influence the market power CBs. Corruption undermines competition in the conventional banking system. However, because of the ideological orientation of IBs, corruption does not affect their competitiveness. IBs outperform CBs in QISMUT + 3 countries in terms of banking competitiveness. They also have higher persistency of market power in the region.

Practical implications
This study is a very beneficial source of information that can provide effective guidelines for efficient productivity and improved competitiveness of IBs and CBs in finance-oriented Islamic countries.

Originality/value
The study is the first to compare the market power of IBs and CBs in this country classification. In addition, the study examined a large number of IBs and CBs to carry out this research.


OBJECTIVE
Prospectively to evaluate the effects of lung resection on lung function (as measured via spirometry) and exercise capacity (as measured via shuttle-walk test) in lung cancer patients.

METHODS
We conducted pulmonary function tests and the shuttle-walk test with 110 consecutive patients, before and 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after lobectomy (n = 73) or pneumonectomy (n = 37). All the patients underwent a standard posterolateral thoracotomy. Eighty-eight patients completed all 3 postoperative assessments.

RESULTS
At 6 months after resection, the lobectomy patients had lost 15% of their preoperative forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) (p < 0.001) and 16% of their exercise capacity (p < 0.001), and the pneumonectomy patients had lost 35% of their preoperative FEV(1) (p < 0.001) and 23% of their exercise capacity (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
Lobectomy patients suffered significant reduction of functional reserve, with almost equal deterioration between lung function and exercise capacity. Pneumonectomy patients had a more substantial loss of functional reserve, and a disproportionate loss of pulmonary function relative to exercise capacity. Therefore, pulmonary function test values considered in isolation may exaggerate the loss of functional exercise capacity in pneumonectomy patients, which is important because many lung cancer patients who require resection for cure are prepared to accept the risks of immediate surgical complications and mortality, but are unwilling to risk long-term poor exercise capacity.


OBJECTIVE
To describe two cases of inherited antithrombin III (AT-III) deficiency presenting at less than or equal to 28 days of age, and to review other neonatal reports.

RESEARCH DESIGN
Clinical descriptions of two patients and literature review of known references to the neonatal presentation of this disorder.

SETTING
Academic neonatal intensive care unit.

PATIENTS
Case reports--two patients with thrombosis and family history of AT-III deficiency. Literature review--neonatal patients with thrombosis and diagnosis of AT-III deficiency or parental diagnosis of AT-III deficiency or diagnosis of AT-III deficiency alone.

SELECTION PROCEDURES
Random observation (case reports) and literature search for cases of AT-III deficiency diagnosed in the neonatal period or presenting with thrombosis and a positive family history of the disorder.

INTERVENTIONS
Fresh frozen plasma, heparin, and AT-III concentrate were employed in the current case reports. The cases from the literature used combinations of the above or no intervention.

MEASUREMENTS/MAIN RESULTS
Twenty-three cases, including the current reports, of suspected or proved AT-III deficiency were found, with at least 11 cases of thrombosis and at least 10 deaths.

CONCLUSIONS
Significant morbidity and mortality from inherited AT-III deficiency can occur in the neonatal period, and the incidence of affected neonatal patients is probably underestimated. Careful family history, early recognition, diagnosis, and specific treatment are important for management of this disorder.


The identification of cancer stem cells is a major step towards the understanding of the pathogenesis of solid and hematological neoplasias and might have direct implications for the development of innovative therapeutic strategies aiming at the eradication of the tumor propagating cell. Here we describe that acute myeloid leukemia (AML), induced by the CALM/AF10 fusion gene, is propagated by a transformed lymphoid progenitor in a murine bone marrow (BM) transplantation model of t(10;11)(p13;q14) positive AML. When mice were transplanted with BM cells retrovirally engineered to express the C/A fusion, all animals (n=13) died from AML showing DJ rearrangement of the heavy chain of the IgH locus after a median of 110 days post transplantation. Diseased mice showed an accumulation of myeloid Gr1 + /Mac1 + cells in the peripheral blood and spleen and a multi-organ infiltration by myeloperoxidase and chloracetate esterase positive cells in immunohistochemical sections. In the leukemic mice only a minor population counting for 6.7 % (± 2.1) cells in the BM displayed the B220 lymphoid antigen and lacked myeloid markers (on average 9.4 % ± 3). The majority of cells expressed myeloid markers (on average 82.9 % (± 8.6) Mac1 + cells, 86.4 % (± 3.7) Gr-1 + cells). Additionally, in the leukemic mice an average of 26.0 % (± 8.6) and 32.5 % (± 13.2) of these cells co-expressed B220 and Mac1 or B220 and Gr1, respectively, compared to 2.1 % (± 0.7) and 1.3 % (± 0.3), respectively, in GFP controls. Importantly, in vitro only the B220 + /Mac − cell population had growth potential at the single cell level (seeding efficiency 29 %) compared to the B220 + /Mac + (1%) and B220 − /Mac + cells (1%). When the frequency of leukemia propagating cells (LPC) of the three different populations isolated from primary leukemic mice was determined by limiting dilution transplantation and Poisson statistics the frequency of the LPC was more than 380 fold higher in the 'B220 + /Mac1 − ' population (1 in 36 cells) than in the 'Mac1 + /B220 − ' bulk population (1 in 13906 cells) and more than 12fold increased compared to the B220 + /Mac + cells (1 in 437 cells). In vitro a single B220 + /Mac1 − cell isolated from a leukemic mouse was able to give rise to the B220 + /Mac1 + as well as the Mac1 + / B220 − population, both populations showing the identical genomic DJ rearrangement at the IgH locus as the initial B220 + /Mac1 − cell, demonstrating its capacity to differentiate into the myeloid lineage at the single cell level. The B220 + /Mac1 − population displayed a CD43 + /AA4.1 + /HSA + /CD19 − /IL-7R − phenotype, was promiscuous in its transcription profile with positivity for EBF , but also MPO and lacked Pax5 . Taken together, this murine leukemia model indicates that AML can be propagated from an early transformed lymphoid progenitor cell. The transformation of an early lymphoid cell, which is re-directed into the myeloid lineage by appropriate oncogenes, could explain recurrent observations of immunoglobulin rearrangements in patients with AML and provide a rationale for therapies, aiming at the elimination of the leukemia propagating cell with lymphoid characteristics, but sparing normal HSCs.


Abstract Potentiality plays an important role in bioethical debates concerning embryos and fetuses. In these debates, "conservatives" tend to attribute ethical significance to an organism's potential for human life, whereas "liberals" are likely to deny both the logical coherence of the concept and its ethical significance. Whether favorable or critical, both sides of the debate have had in mind a very specific sense of potentiality, namely, natural potentiality, a pre-given telos awaiting to unfold. This Article argues that an equally important and novel sense of potentiality is at play in these cases, namely, techno-potentiality, a power that medical technology extracts from the organism and holds in-reserve for future use. Examining three bioethical debates, brain-death pregnancy, fetus viability, and pre-implanted embryos, the Article demonstrates the importance of techno-potentiality for understanding how these debates have come about. Understanding the emergence of a new kind of potentiality is as ethically significance as is resolving the bioethical dilemmas to which it gives rise.


Surface electromyography (EMG) is commonly used to detect muscle activation, to find muscle activation level compared to a reference-especially at low force levels- and to evaluate muscle fatigue level. EMG signal is nonstationary and is the response of complex system. The most commonly used method to assess muscle fatigue is to compute decline in mean (MNF) and median (MDF) frequencies which are found from power spectrum of EMG signal. As the muscle continuously passes to fatigue state during a prolonged muscle activation, conduction velocity declines whereas motor unit synchronization increases. The motor unit synchronization should effect EMG signal complexity. Considering this, the EMG signals are analysed with entropy and recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) methods along with MNF and MCF parameters since entropy and RQA methods give measure to determine complexity changes in the signal. It was found that MNF decline is accompanied with entropy decline and %DET increase as the fatigue occurs. These findings could be explained by increased regularity caused by motor unit synchronization.


The recent emergence of resistance to colistin, an antibiotic of last resort with dose-limiting toxicity, has highlighted the need for alternative approaches to combat infection. This study aimed to generate and characterise alginate oligosaccharide ("OligoG")–polymyxin (polymyxin B and E (colistin)) conjugates to improve the effectiveness of these antibiotics. OligoG–polymyxin conjugates (amide- or ester-linked), with molecular weights of 5200–12,800 g/mol and antibiotic loading of 6.1–12.9% w/w, were reproducibly synthesised. In vitro inflammatory cytokine production (tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) ELISA) and cytotoxicity (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) of colistin (2.2–9.3-fold) and polymyxin B (2.9–27.2-fold) were significantly decreased by OligoG conjugation. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests (minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), growth curves) demonstrated similar antimicrobial efficacy of ester- and amide-linked conjugates to that of the parent antibiotic but with more sustained inhibition of bacterial growth. OligoG–polymyxin conjugates exhibited improved selectivity for Gram-negative bacteria in comparison to mammalian cells (approximately 2–4-fold). Both OligoG–colistin conjugates caused significant disruption of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm formation and induced bacterial death (confocal laser scanning microscopy). When conjugates were tested in an in vitro "time-to-kill" (TTK) model using Acinetobacter baumannii, only ester-linked conjugates reduced viable bacterial counts (~2-fold) after 4 h. Bi-functional OligoG–polymyxin conjugates have potential therapeutic benefits in the treatment of multidrug-resistant (MDR) Gram-negative bacterial infections, directly reducing toxicity whilst retaining antimicrobial and antibiofilm activities.


The influence of photodynamic therapy (PDT) on vascular perfusion was investigated in 2 s.c. mouse tumours, a radiation‐induced fibrosarcoma (RIFI) and a squamous‐cell carcinoma (SCCVII). The 86Rb extraction technique was used to measure changes in perfusion relative to cardiac output at various intervals after interstitial PDT. Control groups showed that vascular perfusion in the RIFI tumours decreased with increasing tumour size. For both tumours, of constant size, vascular perfusion decreased to less than 10% of control values within 5 min after high PDT doses. Significant decreases in vascular perfusion were also seen after lower, sub‐curative doses. Thereafter there was slow recovery towards control levels. Photofrin given at shorter intervals before illumination generally resulted in even larger decreases in tumour perfusion, and slower recovery. Comparison of tumour perfusion measurements after PDT with tumour response revealed an inverse correlation with tumour growth delay both for the RIFI and for the SCCVII tumours. PDT with sub‐curative light doses appears to decrease vascular perfusion in the RIFI and SCCVII for a period of at least 24 hr. The most severe reductions in tumour blood flow were associated with the longest regrowth delays, indicating a major role of vascular damage in tumour response to PDT.


The basis of theoretical investigations of the magneto-optical properties of transition metals is outlined. It is shown that an appropriate description of the electronic structure has to account for both the spin-orbit coupling and the magnetic state of the system. Results of corresponding calculations on the magneto-optical Kerr effect in the visible regime of light, as well as of the magnetic dichroism in X-ray absorption are presented, and spectra are found to be in very satisfying agreement with experimental data.


Seventy-nine patients harboring recurrent brain tumors received four cycles of infraophthalmic carotid injections of 160 mg of carmustine. Two milligrams of intravenous vincristine and 50 mg of oral procarbazine was also administered three times daily for 1 week in conjunction with each BCNU treatment. The response rate was 60% with a median survival for patients with astrocytomas, anaplastic astrocytomas, and glioblastomas of 32, 20, and 6.5 months, respectively. The median survival of the responding patients was 20 months, and the survival at 30 months was 45%. The survival in patients not responding to treatment was 5 months, reflecting the natural history of the tumor. There have been no deaths related to the treatment procedure. No incidents of severe or permanent eye complications or leukoencephalopathy were observed. Based on multivariate survival analysis, only patients with a good performance status who are not steroid dependent are candidates for this treatment.