Time might not exactly stand still in Mudogashe but neither does it move apace. The river has dried up but will flow again with the advent of the seasonal rains. And the rains will bring the return of the cattle, which have been sent far away in search of grazing.

This is Kenya's north eastern province, a huge expanse of scrub and semidesert populated by pastoralists. We have flown to this desolate place with a medical team from Kenya's oldest hospital, the Presbyterian Church of East Africa Hospital, established in 1908 at Kikuyu near the capital, Nairobi. On board are two British eye specialists: Dr Mark Wood, director of the hospital's eye unit, and Dr Roger Gray, a consultant retinal ophthalmologist from Somerset who regularly visits Kenya to help train eye surgeons. They are accompanied by an ophthalmic assistant and a nurse.

The trip to Mudogashe is part of a programme of bimonthly flying safaris which brings the eye unit all over Kenya, as well as to Somalia and Sudan. The unit uses the word safari in its true Swahili meaning of journey. Like much of the unit's work, this mission has been funded by a German aid agency, the Christian Blind Mission, which has a fundraising and information office in Cambridge.

The patients wait quietly. There are many more people than expected but this is perhaps not …


Hill & Foda (1998) and Jamali (1998) have presented theoretical and experimental studies of the resonant interaction between a surface wave and two oblique interfacial waves. Despite many similarities between the findings there is one seemingly major difference. Hill & Foda's (1998) analysis indicated that there are only narrow bands of frequency, density ratio and direction angle within which growth is possible. On the other hand, Jamali (1998) predicted and observed wave growth over wide ranges of frequency and direction angle, and for all the density ratios that he investigated. We show that Hill & Foda's (1998) second-order representation of the dynamic interfacial boundary condition is missing a term proportional to the time derivative of the square of the velocity shear across the interface. When this missing term is included in the analysis, the resulting predictions are consistent with the laboratory experiments.


Equivalents of primary prostaglandins A and B as well as E and F were determined in the amniotic fluid of 64 clinically intact women in early pregnancy. The prostaglandin levels of the A and B groups were continuously lowered, between the ninth and 32nd weeks of pregnancy, while prostaglandin E revealed gradual rise from 57 pg/ml, in the ninth and tenth weeks, to 100 pg/ml, between the 29th and 32nd weeks. Prostaglandin F levels behaved similarly, between the 16th and 21st as well as between the 29th and 32nd weeks, mean values being 60 pg/ml or 75 pg/ml, respectively. High prostaglandin F levels, as recorded between the ninth and twelfth weeks of pregnancy (244 pg/ml), were probably attributable to mode by which amniotic fluid has been collected. Collection in that phase of pregnancy was transcervically, following cervix dilation during abortion, which differed from transabdominal amniocentesis in more advanced pregnancy. The above findings are discussed with regard to their physiological and clinical relevance.


Purpose
This paper aims to understand the emergence, operation and evolution of judge-centred models for the enforcement of competition law in Ireland and in Hong Kong SAR. The public enforcement model in Hong Kong chimes with the Irish regime where competence to adjudicate on competition law violations and to impose sanctions is intentionally reserved exclusively to judges. This design choice renders the Irish and Hong Kong regimes both similar to each other and atypical on the global stage, where in many jurisdictions an administrative competition agency investigates suspected infringements, makes determinations of infringements and may penalise infringers.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper starts by detailing the current competition law architecture in each jurisdiction. Then, it examines closely the discourse (expressed in consultations, experts' reports and Parliamentary documents) in the lengthy period preceding their introduction. This approach aims, firstly, to understand why judicial models were chosen over more familiar administrative ones and, secondly, to unearth any similar concerns which had a bearing on the choice of atypical design. Next, it analyses some implications of the judicial model in operation for, firstly, parties; secondly, the administrative competition agencies; and, thirdly, the evolution of competition law.

Findings
It finds the existence of similar concerns surrounding due process/separation of power arose in each jurisdiction. Other similar strands include a sluggish political appetite which delayed reform. Each jurisdiction actively sought to inform itself about international experience but did not feel obliged to copy the enforcement dimension even where substantive prohibitions were persuasive.

Research limitations/implications
It shines a light on the independent response by two small Common Law jurisdictions, which does not converge with popular administrative international models of competition law enforcement.

Practical implications
It is hoped that the decades-long experience in Ireland may interest those involved in Hong Kong competition law, which is at a comparatively fledgling stage of development.

Originality/value
This is an original research and appears to be the first paper exploring the atypical approaches taken in Hong Kong SAR and Ireland to designing locally suited regimes for the enforcement of competition law.


Recent research trends in thin film solar cells are moving towards finding alternatives based on earth-abundant elements. Cu(Zn, Sn)(S, Se)2 is being explored these days by the thin film photovoltaics community which contains earth abundant materials like Zn and Sn. CZTS has near optimum bandgap around 1.5 eV and a large absorption coefficient in the order of 104 cm-1. We have identified the optimum sequence for deposition of sputtered precursors has Sn/Zn/Cu. It was also observed that formation of Molybdenum sulfide layer can be controlled by optimizing the sulfurization process and hence series resistance can be minimized. Current efficiencies are around 6%.


This pilot trial assessed the tolerance of a proprietary extract from Mentha spicata L. and its effects on cognition in subjects with self‐reported memory impairment. Subjects (N = 11) consumed 900 mg of the extract daily for 30 d. Participants were 73% female and 27% male with a mean age and body mass index of 58.7 y and 27.4 kg/m2. Tolerance was assessed by evaluation of gastrointestinal (GI) tolerability, adverse events, and clinical laboratory tests at baseline and the end of treatment (EOT). Acute cognitive effects were evaluated by comparing pre‐dose vs. 0.5 to 4 h post‐dose values at baseline and EOT. Subjective cognition was also assessed at the EOT. Consumption of the extract for 30 d did not significantly alter GI symptoms and subjective cognition improved (3.5 vs. 4.0; P = 0.063). No serious adverse events or clinically relevant findings in the safety parameters were observed. Cognitive function task scores suggest improved reasoning (24.7 vs. 33.4 points; P = 0.023), attention/concentration (18.0 vs. 40.5 points; P = 0.002), and planning (29.8 vs. 44.1 points; P = 0.088) from baseline after 30 d of treatment. Day one, subjects experienced acutely improved attention/concentration from pre‐ supplementation vs. 2 h (63.4 vs. 82.4 points, P = 0.042 and 18.0 vs. 34.8 points, P = 0.025) and 4 h (63.4 vs. 92.5 points, P = 0.001 and 18.0 vs. 39.8 points, P = 0.002). These results suggest the extract was well‐tolerated and may improve certain aspects of cognitive function. Further investigation in a randomized, controlled trial is underway.


J Jeyaranjan for granted the existing system. It is this system that has led to the inefficiencies that people are complaining about. Why should future policy then be based on that structure? Let us look for alternatives and ask the TRAI to place such choices before us. What has been the experience of deregulation, etc, in other countries? We hear about how telephone rates fell in the Philippines. We hear about how common cell phones have become there. What kind of deregulation did they do? What are the adverse effects? What can we learn from such experiences? The debate has to be enriched with information and analyses of experience. We need much more information. The public should not be asked to decide without all the details being available. If some data are not available, let the TRAI say so and then seek acceptable assumptions and suggestions. These are matters where consensus will have to be built. In placing this paper before us, the TRAI has taken the first step towards building such a consensus.


The present invention relates to an improved method for the production of recombinant human blood clotting factors, in particular of factor VIII and factor IX. An immortalized human cell line can be used to stably express viral transcription activator proteins and carrying a vector having a promoter functionally linked to a DNA sequence coding for a blood coagulating factor, provided that said promoter is not a viral promoter which is stimulated by said viral transcription activator proteins. The invention further relates to an immortalized human cell line carrying said vector, factor VIII muteins particularly suitable for the above production method; pharmaceutical compositions comprising such factor VIII muteins, and the use of such factor VIII muteins for preparing a medicament for treating hemophilia.


A short survey is given of various techniques of 3D visualization of voids and other structural defects that are inherently present in thermally spray structures. It is proven that the only condition for visualization is possibility to set up a distinguishable threshold based on the gray scale of the microscopical image of the structure. Segmented images are then further processed by commercial software for image analysis, animations and anaglyph files creation. Several softwares were applied and combined, such as Lucia, Voxblast, Amira and Voxler. The visualization technique was demonstrated on a ceramic plasma sprayed coating, where two kinds of voids – semi-globular pores and large interlamellar pores could be separated. Similarly, this visualization technique can be used to distinguish between pores and oxide particles in case of metallic coatings. The visualization is done in a real Cartesian space without any transformation. The results can be useful mainly for: a) teaching to get a better insight into the microstructure of thermally sprayed coatings, b) research, where in combination with mathematical quantification the visualized structure can show important distinctions between coatings sprayed by different techniques and with variety of process parameters.


This is the first of a series of continuing professional development articles that provide insight into the sphere of practice of paediatric endocrinology nurse specialists. The article is aimed at registered nurses and nursing students who are interested in reviewing their knowledge of normal childhood growth and exploring potential reasons for, and consequences of, atypical growth. It discusses the stages and physiology of growth through childhood and adolescence. There is a focus on auxology, reviewing usual and more specialist measurement and assessment techniques used to collect data on a child's growth. Potential causes of atypical growth are explored, which may present as tall or short stature, requiring referral to specialist services.


Two Chinese bread wheat cultivars, Jinghua 9 and Zhongmai 175, distinct in grain weight and dough quality, were used to study proteome changes in the embryo and endosperm during grain development using a two‐dimensional difference gel electrophoresis (2D‐DIGE)‐based proteomics approach. In total, 138 and 127 differentially expressed protein (DEP) spots representing 116 and 113 unique DEPs were identified in the embryo and endosperm, respectively. Among them, 54 (31%) DEPs were commonly present in both organs while 62 (35%) and 59 (34%) DEPs occurred only in the embryo and endosperm, respectively. Embryonic DEPs are primarily stress‐related proteins and involved in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism, while those from the endosperm are related primarily to carbohydrate metabolism and storage. Principal component analysis (PCA) indicated that the proteome differences in the endosperm caused by different cultivars were greater than those by development stages, while the differences in the embryo showed the opposite pattern. Protein‐protein interaction (PPI) analysis revealed a complex network centered primarily on enzymes involved in carbohydrate and protein metabolism. The transcriptional levels of fourteen important DEPs encoding genes showed high similarity between organs and cultivars. In particular, some key DEPs of the endosperm, such as phosphoglucomutase, ADP‐glucose pyrophosphorylase (AGPase), and sucrose synthase (SUS), showed significantly upregulated expression, indicating their key roles in starch biosynthesis and grain yield. Moreover, upregulated expression of some storage proteins in the endosperm could improve wheat bread‐making quality.


This document is conceived as an overview of my research work on defects stability and kinetics in two materials of interest in nuclear science and for many other application domains : silicon dioxide and silicon carbide. The preliminary chapter (page ix) is an extended summary in french of chapters 1,2,3,4, followed by a four years project playing the role of a conclusion. Chapter 1 describes the context, introduces the approach and explains the choice of silicon dioxide and silicon carbide. Chapter 2 discusses several approximations and specific issues of the application of Density Functional Theory to point defects in non-metallic materials for the study of defects energetics and diffusion. Chapter 3 is devoted to native defects in silicon dioxide and the understanding of self-diffusion in crystalline and amorphous SiO2. It discusses achievements and failures of DFT in semilocal approximations in connection with the interpretation of some notable experimental results. Chapter 4 summarises the work that I have done on native defects and palladium impurities in silicon carbide, with a focus on kinetic properties controlling the annealing of stoichiometric defects, Frenkel pairs, and silicon vacancies, as well as the diffusion of Pd impurities. A conclusion 5 closes the main part of the document, written in english. Appendixes include a compilation of defect data for silicon carbide (A.1), a Curriculum Vitae (B, in french) and a selection of articles (C).


The applications of fiber reinforced composites have grown rapidly and are now widely used in industries. In recent years, a new class of short fiber composites in which the ends of the short fibers were enlarged, have been studied. Because of their length, these short fibers are referred to as short fibers. The fabrication cost of short fiber composite is considerably lower compared to that of continuous fiber composite and that short fiber composite is more feasible from a mass production point of view when compared to continuous fiber composite. Short fiber composites are finding an increased use in commercial applications. The study consists of two main experimental parts. For this purpose, non-reinforced (no fiber) specimens and three different shaped short steel fiber reinforced polyester calcite composite specimens were cured at different curing conditions i.e. 40℃, 80℃, and 120℃ for 4, 8, and 12 h separately. They were then tested according to the impact test procedure to obtain the effects of the end shapes on the mechanical properties due to the impact load. It was generally concluded that as long as the curing temperature and time increases, the impact strength increases.


SUMMARY The stayability and causes of culling of boars in four pig commercial farms in Yucatan, Mexico were studied. The get-in and get-out dates of the boars corresponded to the period of March 1994 to June 2007. Stayability was defined as the number of days between the first service of the boar (approximately 8 months) until its culling or end of the study. Information on 169 boars of which 147 were culled and 22 were in service at the end of the study was investigated. Stayability curves of the boars were obtained by survival analysis. The risk of culling of the boars between farms was determined by the Cox proportional-hazards regression method. Stayability curves between farms were statistically different (P<0.05). The longest stayability belonged to boars of farm A and the shortest to boars of farm B. The hazard risks were 6.26, 2.16 and 1.93 times greater for the boars from farms B, C and D, in comparison with boars from farm A. The main causes of culling were: old age and loss of sexual appetite (22.5 and 12.4%).


Poyang Lake is the largest freshwater lake in China, the water level of Poyang Lake was declined continuous, and extreme droughts have frequently occurred in recent years, the structure and function of the wetland ecosystem were destroyed. In this paper, Stable oxygen isotopes was used as a tracer to identify composition of soil water, river water, ground water, and plants water. The focus was on characterize the variation with depth of the stable oxygen isotope composition and identifying the main sources of oxygen in soil water, ground water, river water and plants water, understanding the mechanisms of water movement among them. Soil water sampled at 10 cm intervals over the top 100 cm at two sections in the Poyang Lake wetland, and water samples collected from the plants, river water and ground water, were analysed for stable oxygen isotope composition, exploring the recharge and discharge of relationship between them. The results shown that the values of δ18O at depth of 0∼30cm at section I were declined with increasing soil depth, the value of δ18O at depth of 0∼40cm at section II had rare variation with increasing soil depth. The groundwater supply at section I was mainly influenced by precipitation, at section II was by precipitation and river water. The average value of δ18O in the domain species plants leaves of phalaris arundinacea, crex cinerascens, and phragmites communis was -0.9%º, -4.23%º, -5.25%º respectively.


Microoptical elements like coupling or condenser lens arrays are industrially applied since years for improving the features of optical systems (e.g. optical communication lines, lithography machines). The launch of wafer-level fabricated front cameras in consumer products like cell phones is a breakthrough for microoptical systems. The advances in the explored microoptics technology (polymer-on-glass) are the base for next microoptics based consumer products to market in the coming years.


The Proteus architecture is a highly parallel MIMD, multiple instruction multiple data, machine optimized for large granularity tasks such as machine vision and image processing. The system can achieve 20 G-flops (80 G-flops peak). It accepts data via multiple serial links at a rate of up to 640 megabytes/second. The system employs hierarchical reconfigurable interconnection network with the highest level being a circuit switched enhanced hypercube serial interconnection network for internal data transfers. The system is designed to use 256 to 1.024 risc processors. The processors use 1 M byte external read/write allocating caches for reduced multiprocessor contention. The system detects, locates and replaces faulty subsystems using redundant hardware to facilitate fault tolerance. The parallelism is directly controllable trough an advanced software system for partitioning, scheduling and development.<<ETX>>


Purpose: To report the results of pars plana vitrectomy with adjuvant intravitreal amphotericin B and systemic fluconazole in the management of endogenous endophthalmitis after the urinary tract procedures. Methods: Retrospective study of 10 eyes of 7 patients diagnosed as endogenous fungal endophthalmitis. Pars planavitrectomy with adjuvant intravitreal amphotericin B and oral fluconazole was conducted once the general condition is suitable. The final anatomical and functional results were evaluated. Results: Ten eyes of seven patients, five men and two women had pars plana vitrectomy. Control of infection was achieved in all cases. Visual acuity improved in 7 eyes (70%), remained the same in 2 eyes (20%), and worsened in 1 eye (10%). The retina was flat in all cases. No eye developed phthisis bulbi. Conclusion: In cases of fungal endophthalmitis, after urinary tract procedures, the prevention of phthisis bulbi can be achieved in all cases. Improvement of vision can be achieved in most of the cases. The final visual status depends on visual acuity at presentation, macular affection, and the presence of retinal detachment at presentation.


Due to its simple form, linear regression is the most commonly used model when dealing with a predictive model. However, there are some limitations to the model, such as the constraint of only being able to model variables that have a linear relationship, the assumption of normality on its error, and the multi-collinearity between independent variables which should not occur. One of the alternative models that is free from these limitations is the copula-based regression model defined by the conditional expectation formula of copulas. Leong and Valdez [Claims prediction using copula models, Insurance Math. Econom., 2005] [15] developed a conditional expectation formula of copulas for higher dimensions in the implicit form with bivariate case examples. Crane and Hoek [Conditional expectation formulae for copulas, Aust. N.Z.J. Stat, 2008] [5] provided conditional expectation formula of copulas explicitly for two dimensions with its examples. However, in practice, a predictive model often involves more than two variables, i.e. one dependent variable with more than one independent variable, including a copula-based regression model. With regard to these problems and the limitations of dimension in previous studies, our contribution in this study is extending the copula-based regression model for higher dimensions for class of Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern, elliptical, and Archimedean copula. We obtain a closed-form of conditional expectation formula of Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern, Gaussian, Student-t, and Clayton copula for n dimensions and provide the formula for Gumbel copula up to four dimensions. We apply our extended formula to estimate KRW/USD currency based on its association with CNY/USD and JPY/USD, and found that the extended function can be used quite accurately.


Microbial mats are complex ecological assemblages that are found in the Precambrian fossil record and in extant extreme environments. Hence, these structures are regarded as highly stable ecosystems. In this work, we assess the ecological stability in a modern, fluctuating, hypersaline pond from the Cuatro Ciénegas Basin. From the 2016 to 2019 metagenomic sampling of this site, we found that this microbial site is sensitive to disturbances, which leads to high taxonomic replacement. Additionally, the mats have shown to be functionally stable throughout time, and could be differentiated between dry and rainy seasonal states. We speculate that this microbial system could represent modern analogs of ancient microbial mats where functions were preserved over time, whereas composition was subject to diversification in the face of local and planetary perturbations.


"Saint Sebastian is the outstanding example of the emphatically sexy saint ... " So writes Anne Hollander (Seeing through Clothes, 1978, 1993) in discussing the erotic freight carried by nude figures of martyrs in Christian art. The saint whose body is riddled by arrows raises fascinating and, I believe, important questions for religion and the visual arts. In my own case my interest stems, on the one hand, from studying religious iconography including the saints of Christianity and of other religions. On the other hand, these traditional images have been modified over the centuries, culminating in changes brought by modern culture and postmodernity, with the impact of the mass media, the consumer society and "the saturated self" (Kenneth Gergen, 1991). The relation of the sexualized body to the spiritual will be discussed in the concluding section of this paper. First of all we shall trace the development of the image of Saint Sebastian over the two millennia of Christianity, based on the following selection of illustrations from the history of art.


Objective: Owing to the habit of consuming ready food among the citizens of Malaysia a study was conducted to evaluate 20 samples of canned soya milk for the presence of possible microbial content. The samples were collected randomly from shopping malls, restaurants and kiosk in Ipoh Malaysia. Methods: All samples collected across Ipoh, were subjected to test for presence bacteria in nutrient agar, blood agar and macConkey media. The possible microbial load was swapped from surface and soya milk content with a sterile cotton and streaked on nutrient agar, blood agar and macConkey culture media. The streaked petri plates were incubated for 48 hours at 37C. Results: The study revealed negative microbial growth in all except two samples from the surface and soya milk content collected from a restaurant in nutrient agar and blood agar medium. The presence of microbes was conformed as gram positive staphylococcus sp. through gram staining. The positive growth may be imputed to poor storage condition at the restaurant. Conclusion: It can be computed from the study that the majority of the samples were free from bacterial growth, suggesting strong in house quality control mechanism at the processing unit and exquisite storage conditions in malls and kiosk suggesting that soya milk available in malls and kiosk are fit for human consumption. Received: 19-112015


Radiocarbon data from soil organic matter and soil respiration provide pow- erful constraints for determining carbon dynamics and thereby the magnitude and timing of soil carbon response to global change. In this paper, data from three sites representing well-drained soils in boreal, temperate, and tropical forests are used to illustrate the methods for using radiocarbon to determine the turnover times of soil organic matter and to partition soil respiration. For these sites, the average age of bulk carbon in detrital and Oh/A-horizon organic carbon ranges from 200 to 1200 yr. In each case, this mass-weighted average includes components such as relatively undecomposed leaf, root, and moss litter with much shorter turnover times, and humified or mineral-associated organic matter with much longer turnover times. The average age of carbon in organic matter is greater than the average age predicted for CO2 produced by its decomposition (30, 8, and 3 yr for boreal, temperate, and tropical soil), or measured in total soil respiration (16, 3, and 1 yr). Most of the CO 2 produced during decomposition is derived from relatively short-lived soil organic matter (SOM) components that do not represent a large component of the standing stock of soil organic matter. Estimates of soil carbon turnover obtained by dividing C stocks by hetero- trophic respiration fluxes, or from radiocarbon measurements of bulk SOM, are biased to longer time scales of C cycling. Failure to account for the heterogeneity of soil organic matter will result in underestimation of the short-term response and overestimation of the long-term response of soil C storage to future changes in inputs or decomposition. Comparison of the 14 C in soil respiration with soil organic matter in temperate and boreal forest sites indicates a significant contribution from decomposition of organic matter fixed.2 yr but ,30 yr ago. Tropical soil respiration is dominated by C fixed ,1 yr ago. Monitoring the 14 C signature of CO2 emitted from soils give clues as to the causes of


Objective. To obtain an unbiased estimate of the excess hospital length of stay (LOS) and cost attributable to extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) positivity in bloodstream infections (BSIs) due to Enterobacteriaceae. Design. Retrospective cohort study. Setting. A 2,200-bed academic medical center in Geneva, Switzerland. Patients. Patients admitted during 2009. Methods. We used multistate modeling and Cox proportional hazards models to determine the excess LOS and adjusted end-of-LOS hazard ratio (HR) for ESBL-positive and ESBL-negative BSI. We estimated economic burden as the product of excess LOS and average bed-day cost. Patient-level accounting data provided a complementary analysis of economic burden. A predictive model was fitted to national surveillance data. Results. Thirty ESBL-positive and 96 ESBL-negative BSI cases were included. The excess LOS attributable to ESBL-positive and ESBL-negative BSI was 9.4 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.4–18.4) and 2.6 (95% CI, 0.7–5.9) days, respectively. ESBL positivity was therefore associated with 6.8 excess days and CHF 9,473 per BSI. The adjusted end-of-LOS HRs for ESBL-positive and ESBL-negative BSI were 0.62 (95% CI, 0.43–0.89) and 0.90 (95% CI, 0.74–1.10), respectively. After reimbursement, the average financial loss per acute care episode in ESBL-positive BSI, ESBL-negative BSI, and control cohorts was CHF 48,674, 48,131, and 13,532, respectively. Our predictive model estimated that the nationwide cost of third-generation cephalosporin resistance would increase from CHF 2,084,000 in 2010 to CHF 3,526,000 in 2015. Conclusions. This is the first hospital-wide analysis of excess LOS attributable to ESBL positivity determined using multistate modeling to avoid time-dependent bias. These results may inform health-economic evaluations of interventions targeting ESBL control.


Background. Identifying effective relapse prevention interventions is a vital step to help smokers maintain abstinence for the long term. Aims. The purpose of this study is to determine if providing recently quit smokers with self-directed relapse prevention booklets is effective at maintaining abstinence after intensive group smoking cessation treatment. Method. Two hundred and twenty-five participants were randomized to receive Forever Free (FF) relapse prevention booklets or a control booklet (Surgeon General's report, SG) at the end of a 6-week group treatment program. Participants were then contacted by phone to assess whether they had read the materials. Smoking status was assessed 6 months after their target quit date. Primary analyses focused on the 115 participants who quit at the end of treatment. Results. There was no difference in the 6-month quit rate between groups (40.7% quit FF vs. 44.6% quit SG, p = .67). The FF group read a significantly smaller proportion of the materials versus the control booklet (20.0% read most or all of FF vs. 72.0% of SG, p < .001). Conclusion. Forever Free self-directed relapse prevention booklets did not reduce relapse or enhance cessation over general tobacco and health information when added to intensive group smoking cessation treatment. However, this study lacked power to detect a small but clinically meaningful positive effect.


Conjugated polymers based on a bis(2-oxoindolin-3-ylidene)-benzodifuran-dione (BIBDF) unit displayed promising performances for their application in organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). Herein, three new BIBDF-based donor–acceptor (D–A) polymers, containing thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (TT), (E)-2-(2-(thiophen-2-yl)vinyl)thiophene (TVT) and (2-(thiophene-2-yl)alkynyl)thiophene (TAT) as donors, were synthesized and characterized. The results indicated that the donor unit plays important roles in affecting the absorption bands, HOMO levels, lamellar packing and π–π stacking distances of the BIBDF-based polymers. The OTFT devices based on the three polymers were fabricated, and their field-effect performance and environmental stability were also characterized. All three BIBDF based polymers showed good n-type field-effect characteristics. The PBIBDF-TT showed the highest electron mobility of 0.65 cm2 V−1 s−1 and the best environmental stability, while the PBIBDF-TAT showed the lowest electron mobility of 0.13 cm2 V−1 s−1. The corresponding crystalline structures and morphologies revealed that the PBIBDF-TT and PBIBDF-TVT showed close π–π distances and long-range ordered, lamellar crystalline structures both of which contributed to the high charge carrier mobility. The PBIBDF-TAT with close π–π distances but poor crystalline structures showed miserable performance. Overall, this work showed the correlation of the microstructures and properties of BIBDF-based polymers, and the field-effect performances can be effectively optimized by introducing different donor units.


JAPAN IS NOW enjoying the longest life span in the world (83 years old in 2010). Accordingly, the ratio of the elderly population (65 years old and above) is the highest in the world (23% in 2010), and the ratio of the late elderly population (75 years old and above) is also the highest in the world (10% in 2010). Furthermore, Japan spent just 24 years in transit from an aging society to an aged society, which is the fastest transition in the world. Considering these aspects, Japan is seen as the world top runner in terms of society aging. Alzheimer's disease is considered the most 'malignant' disease in this century, considering the high prevalence rate, the degree of disability and dysfunction, and long duration of the disease. Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive deficits in memory and cognitive function, together with impairment in the ability to perform activities of daily life. Behavioral problems and psychiatric symptoms are also frequently associated with Alzheimer's disease. Due to the rapid aging of the Japanese society, there are 1.16 million patients with Alzheimer's disease in Japan, which is 4% of the elderly population (28.74 million) in Japan in 2010. The number of Alzheimer's disease patients in Japan is expected to increase to 1.42 million in 2015, 1.67 million in 2020, and 2.2 million in 2025. The prevalence of Alzheimer's disease has increased the need for research aimed at identifying the risk, pathogenesis, diagnosis, drugs, nonpharmacological intervention, care, and support for this disease. A diverse range of compounds has been evaluated as potential treatments for Alzheimer's disease, and five compounds have been approved in the world for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. This review will focus on the pharmacological properties of cholinesterase inhibitors (tacrine, donepezil, rivastigmine, and galantamine) and an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist (memantine), which are used for the symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer's disease, because rivastigmine, galantamine and memantine have finally been approved by the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA) of Japan for the symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer's disease this year.


The author presents results of an investigation of errors in a phase-shift telemetering system. In evolving a method to transmit angular position data, the selection of electrical phase angle to represent the desired data is a natural one, since there is a great deal of similarity between the two quantities. Since phase shift is a relative quantity, it is necessary to transmit a reference signal as well as a phase-shifted signal; and in order to transmit both of these on a common carrier, and to avoid angular ambiguities, the phaseshifted wave is transmitted at some integral multiple of the reference frequency. At the receiver, the frequency of the reference wave is multiplied prior to comparison with the phase-shifted signal. Minimum bandwidth is required when the integral multiple is 2, and it is with this particular system (which is perhaps the most common of all) that the following discussion of errors is concerned, although the analysis made for this case may be extended to others as well. This method has been successfully applied in plane-toground telemetering and in the relaying of shaft-position data in general. It is pointed out that the basic telemetering system will be of doubtful value when long-distance transmission is required, because of the distortion and error introduced by multipath propagation.


An actuarial approach for calculating a relativity based on geographic diversification is presented. The method models correlation as a function of distance between two exposures, and uses that to calculate a risk margin for each policy. It assumes that any premium provision for a company risk margin is currently allocated in proportion to policy risk-free premium, which results in a uniform risk-loading uprate for all policies. It is suggested that a better approach would be to allocate company risk margin in proportion to policy risk margin so that more diverse policies incur a smaller risk factor. This approach results in a range of diversification relativities that tends to be very narrow, so a revenue-neutral method for magnifying the impact of the diversification relativity is also presented. Approaches for reflecting nongeographic forms of diversification (such as for package policies) are also discussed. And since policies with many insured items have a greater potential for diversity than policies with fewer insured items, the diversification relativities presented herein could also be viewed as a type of policy size relativity.


Multimodal fusion is considered a key step in multimodal tasks such as sentiment analysis, emotion detection, question answering, and others. Most of the recent work on multimodal fusion does not guarantee the fidelity of the multimodal representation with respect to the unimodal representations. In this paper, we propose a variational autoencoder-based approach for modality fusion that minimizes information loss between unimodal and multimodal representations. We empirically show that this method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods by a significant margin on several popular datasets.


Bile duct cancer is a highly aggressive malignancy wherein early diagnosis is difficult and few treatment options are available. MicroRNA-31 (miR-31) is reported to be related with survival in patients with gastrointestinal cancers; however, the regulatory mechanism of miR-31 and association between miR-31 expression and survival in patients with bile duct cancer cases have not been established. Thus, we evaluated miR-31 expression in bile duct cancer tissues and assessed its relationship with prognosis. Additionally, we examined the effects of several cytokines on miR-31 expression. The study included 81 samples of bile duct cancer tissues. MiR-31 expression in bile duct cancer cells was significantly higher than that in normal bile duct epithelial cells (P = 0.038). There were no significant associations between miR-31 expression and clinical or pathological characteristics, except for tumour size (P = 0.012). In Kaplan-Meier analysis, high miR-31 expression was significantly associated with shorter survival (log-rank test, P = 0.0082). In multivariate Cox regression analysis, high miR-31 expression was significantly associated with prognosis (P = 0.043), independent of clinical or pathological features. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) significantly promoted miR-31 expression and cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner, and the inhibition of STAT-3 signalling significantly suppressed miR-31 expression and cell proliferation. In conclusion, high expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis in bile duct cancer patients. The IL-6-STAT-3 signalling regulated bile duct cancer cell proliferation and miR-31 expression. Our findings suggest that miR-31 may be a promising biomarker that reflects IL-6 expression in bile duct cancer tissues and predicts poor prognosis.


A case of a 69‐year‐old woman with endometriold adenocarcinoma of the ovary with functioning stromal cells is presented. The patient complained of genital bleeding. Endometrial curettage revealed endometrial hyperplasia. Preoperative levels of serum estradiol and progesterone were elevated, and serum gonadotropin levels were suppressed. The surgical specimen contained fist‐sired, bilateral, solid, ovarian tumors and a mildly enlarged uterus. Histologically, the proliferating, atypical, columnar cancer cells resembled early secretory, endometrial epithelial cells with subnuclear vacuolation, and there were clusters of fat‐laden foamy cells in the stroma. immunohistochemically, the cancer cells were positive for cytokeratin and progesterone receptor but negative for estrogen receptor. The stromal foamy cells were immunoreactive for vimentin, progesterone receptor, P450 side chain‐cleavage, 3β‐hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase, and adrenal 4‐binding protein. immunoreactivities of P450c‐17α hydroxylase and aromatase were only focally observed. These findings indicated that the stromal cells were steroldogenic and mainly produced progesterone. The cancer cells that expressed progesterone receptors showed morphologic changes in response to hormonal stimulation.


The present study investigated the effect of water extract from the residue of jelly fig achenes (WERJFA) on the protection of DNA against hydroxyl radical damage and on the growth inhibition of three cancer cell lines, including mouse colon cancer CT-26, human hepatoma HepG2 and breast cancer MCF-7. DNA protection against hydroxyl radical from hydrogen peroxide was assayed by agarose gel electrophoresis. Growth inhibition of the cell lines was determined by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The results showed that WERJFA was able to reduce the hydroxyl radical-induced DNA damage and to inhibit the growth of the three cancer cell lines with CT-26 being the most vulnerable one, HepG2 the second, while MCF-7 the least affected. The growth inhibition rates of WERJFA (200 μg total solids/mL) on CT-26 and HepG2 were 85.4% and 60.0%, respectively. MTT assay was also applied in the rat hepatocyte Clone 9 cytotoxicity test. No cytotoxicity of WERJFA (0-200 μg total solids/mL) was observed. These lines of evidence support that WERJFA has the potential to be an antitumor agent. Ultrafiltration enhanced the growth inhibitory effect of WERJFA. Among all the fractions of filtrate, the 3-10 kDa fraction had the highest inhibition on HepG2 cells, reaching 73.5% reduction of growth when added at 200 μg total solids/mL and incubated for 72 hr.


Long-range order in solutions of reversibly self-assembling molecules results from interactions among the asymmetric aggregates. Even for electrically neutral species, repulsions between the aggregates become significant at high concentrations. At the very least, the excluded volume of asymmetric aggregates creates formidable packing constraints which are relieved by orientational and positional alignment. Aggregate growth thus promotes long-range order, and long-range order facilitates growth. Nematic phases occur if aggregate growth is strong enough to induce orientational ordering at concentrations lower than those that induce positional ordering. The symmetry of the positionally ordered phases reflects aggregate morphology: the polydispersity of aggregates that grow in one (two) dimension(s) to form rod-like (plate-like) particles suppresses the smectic (columnar) phase in favour of the columnar (smectic) phase. Because plate-like aggregates pack more easily than rod-like aggregates, increasing concentration induces a rearrangement from rod-like to plate-like aggregates, and a transition from columnar to smectic ordering, in solutions of molecules, such as surfactants, capable of forming both types of aggregates. In mixtures of aggregating and non-aggregating species, the difficulty of packing spherically shaped particles among elongated particles results in dramatic demixing such that a very concentrated solution of very large, highly aligned aggregates coexists with a relatively dilute solution depleted of the aggregating species.


Persistent genital arousal disorder is a rare condition among women characterized by unwanted and intrusive sexual arousal that can persist for an extended period of time and unrelated to sexual desire or sexual stimuli. Since its first documentation in 2001, numerous studies have been dedicated to investigate its specifics. The persistent genital arousal occurs in the absence of sexual interest and fantasies and it causes excessive psychological suffering. Masturbation, spontaneous orgasm or sexual intercourse can offer only a temporary relief. Researches provide a limited insight into the characteristics of persistent genital arousal disorder. This paper presents a case and summarizes the scientific findings on prevalence, etiology and treatment perspectives.


This letter presents the observation of stable and reproducible electronic conduction through double stranded (ds) DNA molecules in a nominally dry state. Stable conduction was realized by immobilizing 15 base-pair guanine:cytosine rich dsDNA within gold nanogap junctions, stabilizing the dsDNA with a polycation, and characterizing in nitrogen. In air, the current levels decrease with successive voltage scans likely due to oxidation of the guanine bases under bias. In nitrogen, reproducible current-voltage traces are observed and the current levels at specific bias points are stable with time. The stability allows comprehensive electrical studies and could enable conductance-based DNA sensors.This letter presents the observation of stable and reproducible electronic conduction through double stranded (ds) DNA molecules in a nominally dry state. Stable conduction was realized by immobilizing 15 base-pair guanine:cytosine rich dsDNA within gold nanogap junctions, stabilizing the dsDNA with a polycation, and characterizing in nitrogen. In air, the current levels decrease with successive voltage scans likely due to oxidation of the guanine bases under bias. In nitrogen, reproducible current-voltage traces are observed and the current levels at specific bias points are stable with time. The stability allows comprehensive electrical studies and could enable conductance-based DNA sensors.


The purpose of this quality improvement project was to better understand how to teach medication administration underpinned by an electronic medication administration record (eMAR) system used in simulated, prelicensure nursing education. Methods included a workflow and integration analysis and a detailed process mapping of both an oral and a sublingual medication administration. Procedural and curriculum development considerations related to medication administration using eMAR technology are presented for nurse educators.


Designing protein sequences with desired biological function is crucial in biology and chemistry. Recent machine learning methods use a surrogate sequence-function model to replace the expensive wet-lab validation. How can we efficiently generate diverse and novel protein sequences with high fitness? In this paper, we propose IsEM-Pro, an approach to generate protein sequences towards a given fitness criterion. At its core, IsEM-Pro is a latent generative model, augmented by combinatorial structure features from a separately learned Markov random fields (MRFs). We develop an Monte Carlo Expectation-Maximization method (MCEM) to learn the model. During inference, sampling from its latent space enhances diversity while its MRFs features guide the exploration in high fitness regions. Experiments on eight protein sequence design tasks show that our IsEM-Pro outperforms the previous best methods by at least 55% on average fitness score and generates more diverse and novel protein sequences.


Synopsis Permian sandstones from the Cock of Arran area contain small amounts of sphene cement. The sphene occurs as a minor phase (up to 2%) in small patches cementing several grains, and as individual crystals with well developed crystal faces grown into pore space from quartz, feldspar or lithic grain surfaces. The sphene postdates the growth of red grain pellicles and chlorite rosettes and probably formed at a time of calcite dissolution and creation of secondary porosity. Sphene is apparently absent from Permian sandstones at Corrie and Brodick. It is postulated that the sphene was deposited from convective fluids associated with the intrusion of the Arran Granite in Tertiary times. Ti was probably derived from the alteration of Ti-bearing oxides and volcanic rock fragments in the sandstones.


Pancreatic cancer remains to have a high mortality, which is partly due to the lack of effective treatment strategies. In this study, genes with potential associations with immunophenotyping of pancreatic cancer were screened through bioinformatics analysis and the correlation between immune-related genes and the prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients was assessed. Firstly, differentially expressed immune genes were extracted from the pancreatic cancer-related datasets obtained for purposes of this study. The samples were processed by the "Consensus Cluster Plus" R package to determine the number of immune subtypes. Then, the pancreatic cancer immunophenotyping-related gene modules were determined. Differential analysis of immune gene modules was performed, and the function of genes related to pancreatic cancer immune subtypes was identified. The number of immune cells in the samples was calculated, followed by the differential expression analysis of immune cell numbers in each immune subtype of pancreatic cancer. The immune infiltration score was also estimated, and the correlation between the immune infiltration score and the patient prognosis with different immune subtypes was determined. Gene differences between each immune subtype were identified by differential expression analysis, and key immune genes affecting immunophenotyping were obtained. Following the analysis, 426 immune-related genes were identified to have potential involvement in the occurrence and development of pancreatic cancer, of which CD19 may be the most critical gene affecting the immunophenotyping of pancreatic cancer. CD19 played a significant role in the occurrence and development of IS2 and IS3 immune subtypes of pancreatic cancer through its action on B cells and T cells. Moreover, the expression of CD19 was increased in the collected pancreatic cancer tissues. Overall, our findings uncovered the critical role of CD19 in the prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients.


Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) provides the conceptual framework for estimating the likelihood that something of concern related to earthquake shaking will occur over a specified time period. Based on more than thirty years of research and development ( e.g. , Cornell, 1968; Algermissen et al. , 1982; SSHAC, 1997), PSHA has become a standard tool for combining information on earthquake occurrence, seismic radiation, and shaking response to produce hazard estimates, including the U.S. Geological Survey's national seismic hazard maps (Frankel et al. , 1996, 1997). PSHA methods, while now mature, continue to evolve as scientists improve the characterization of earthquake hazards and engineers develop new measures of seismic shaking for performance-based design.

The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), in collaboration with USGS, the California Geological Survey (CGS), and other partners, has undertaken a series of studies aimed at improving the regional application of PSHA methods. Phase I examined the implications of the 1992 Landers earthquake sequence for regional seismic hazards (WGCEP, 1992), Phase II developed a probabilistic earthquake forecast model (WGCEP, 1995), and Phase III assessed the wave-propagation and site effects that give rise to local variations in seismic shaking (see Field et al. [2000] for an overview).

The Phase III study found that accounting for some site attributes ( i.e. , the 30-meter shear-wave velocity and basin depth) can lead to significant improvements in PSHA. It was also found that making such corrections does not significantly reduce the prediction uncertainty associated with empirical ground-motion relations. In fact, 3D waveform modeling presented in the same report (Olsen, 2000) implied that this residual uncertainty represents an intrinsic variability caused by complex propagation effects that are unique to each earthquake-rupture/site combination. The Phase III study therefore concluded that significant improvements in PSHA will require replacing the standard empirical-regression …


"Boswellia serrata" is a herb used for ages in the Indian system of medicine and other systems of medicines across the world. It comes under the family "Burseraceae". The Boswellia serrata is called by various local names in different regions, out of which "Kundur" "salai" "guggul" "Shallaki" are very prominently used. "Shallaki" is a widely used active ingredient in the "Unani" "Siddha" and "Ayurvedic" medicines oriented for the treatment of inflammation and pain. It is also used as a component to add fragrance to the products. Boswellia serrata plant contains oleo-gum resins and the ASU drug manufacturer mostly use this resin to prepare Boswellia-oriented drugs and this practice of using resin as the key component of drugs is very old and effective. In ancient ayurvedic texts, particular methods describe the extraction, purification, and usage of this oleo gum resin. Now in the modern era, when a lot of research has been done on this plant and its parts, this plant has come out to be even more important as it is found to be showing specific characteristics beneficial for treating illnesses such as dysentery, urinary tract disorders, hemorrhoids, ulcers, and dyspepsia. The present review provides an overview of some pharmacological activities and the importance of "Salaiguggal" or " Boswellia serrata ". "Salai guggal" is rich in essential oils, and therefore, it becomes important for the perfume industries as its essential oils are soothing to smell and show therapeutic effects. The essential oils of Boswellia serrata are a mixture of different boswellic acids such as "mono-terpenes", "di-tepenes" and "sesqui-terpenes". Whereas the oleo gum resin of " Boswellia serrata " comprises monosaccharides such as pentose and hexose sugars. The oleo gum resin of this plant is highly recommended by almost every medical practitioner who deals in herbal medicines as it has shown a huge range of effective characteristics in asthma, cancer, microbial/fungal infections, inflammation, arthritis, diarrhea, and also as an analgesic. A proper systematic literature review was done using different databases that were available online like Google Scholar, PubMed, and ScienceDirect.


As a path control method of mechanical system, we proposed a new method using preview control with Superficial Error Evaluation Term (SEET) based on a different viewpoint of the usual position error in order to evaluate strictly the path control error.However, there were some problems in previous report, such as not to guarantee robustness of control system, and also the transformation of SEET to discrete-time expression were not specified.In this report, we improve this method about the following two points, aiming to construct a more practical control method.(1) We design both SEET and a control system from a consistent viewpoint of discrete-time system. With this, the transformation of SEET to discrete-time expression becomes unnecessary, and we make the meaning of SEET clear.(2) A method to guarantee steady-state robustness of the control system is given, using a theory of type-I servo control system, in order to cope with parameter uncertainties and continued disturbance.


The introduction of a methoxymethyl side chain into para-phenylenediamine (PPD) resulted in the development of a new hair dye molecule: 2-methoxymethyl-para-phenylenediamine (Me-PPD). Besides having excellent hair colouring properties, this PPD derivate has significantly lower skin-sensitizing properties than PPD and toluene-2,5-diamine. In a simulated hair dye model (i.e. open-use test), cross-reactivity to Me-PPD occurred in PPD-allergic individuals, but the number of cross-reactors was substantially lower than one would expect in an open-use test with a PPD-containing hair dye. Patch testing with Me-PPD has never been performed. The current study aimed to find the optimal patch-test concentration for detecting cross-reactivity to Me-PPD. PPD-allergic patients with a documented history of hair dye-related allergy, and different grades (+, ++, +++) of positive patch-test reactions to PPD, will be included in the study. Patch testing will be performed with Me-PPD 0.1%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 1.0% and 2.0% in petrolatum. In a simulated hair dye use model on the volar forearm, the reactivity to use concentrations of Me-PPD 2% and PPD 2% will be investigated. On the adjacent skin a similar open-use test with the same basic formula, but without Me-PPD or PPD, will be applied as a control. After 45min the hair dye will be removed from the skin surface by rinsing with water. Reading of the patch tests and the open-use tests will be performed at days 2, 3 and 7, according to the International Contact Dermatitis Research Group reading criteria. In total 30 PPD-allergic individuals will be included in this Me-PPD dose-finding pilot study. At the moment a number of individuals have been enrolled; full data will be available at the meeting.


Bose-Fermion pair correlations in a mixture are considered at zero temperature in the T-matrix approximation. Special attention is paid to the Luttinger theorem. In a strict RPA variant of the Nozieres-Schmitt-Rink approach, it is shown that this theorem is respected also in the homogeneous infinite matter case. We calculate the corresponding occupation numbers of fermions and bosons and the condensate depletion. We also show that in the limit of very small boson density, our results are in good agreement with the results found in the literature for the Fermi polaron in strongly imbalanced Fermi-Fermi mixtures.


Temporal bracketing can create images with higher dynamic range than the underlying sensor. Unfortunately, moving objects cause disturbing artifacts. Moreover, the combination with high frame rates is almost unachiev able since a single video frame requires multiple sensor readouts. The combination of multiple synchronized side-by-side cameras equipped with different attenuation filters promises a remedy, since all exposures can be performed at the same time with the same duration using the playout video frame rate. However, a disparity correction is needed to compensate the spatial displacement of the cameras. Unfortunately, the requirements for a high quality disparity correction contradict the goal to increase dynamic range. When using two cameras, disparity correction needs objects to be properly exposed in both cameras. In contrast, a dynamic range increase needs the cameras to capture different luminance ranges. As this contradiction has not been addressed in literature so far, this paper proposes a novel solution based on a three camera setup. It enables accurate de termination of the disparities and an increase of the dynamic range by nearly a factor of two while still limiting costs. Compared to a two camera solution, the mean opinion score (MOS) is improved by 13.47 units in average for the Middleburry images.


Abstract Motivated by understanding mass transport processes occurring in the vitreous chamber of the eye, we consider the steady streaming component of the flow generated in a viscoelastic fluid contained within a hollow, rigid sphere performing small-amplitude, periodic, torsional oscillations about an axis passing through its centre. The problem is solved semi-analytically, assuming that the amplitude of the oscillations is small. The paper extends the work by Repetto et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 608, 2008, pp. 71–80), in which the case of a purely viscous fluid was analysed. However, in reality, in young and healthy subjects, the vitreous humour has complex rheological properties, and so here we model it as a viscoelastic fluid. A similar problem was studied by Nikolakis (Eine Theorie für stationäre Drifterscheinungen viskoelastischer Flüssigkeiten, 1992, VDI). In the present model, the steady streaming flow is governed by four dimensionless parameters. We show that, when we account for the viscoelasticity of the fluid, there is a considerably more complex set of possible flow regimes than was found in the purely viscous case, and the flows can be classified into five qualitatively different types. Whereas there was only one circulation cell in each hemisphere in the viscous case, accounting for viscoelasticity it is possible have either one, two or three circulation cells, with different senses of rotation, depending on the parameter values.


A Survey of Paragonimus infection among primary school children aged 6-10 years in Oban village, Akamkpa Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria, was conducted. A total of 198 children were examined:112 (56.6%) were boys while 86 (43.4%) were girls. Eleven of the subjects were sputum positive for paragonimus eggs, giving an overall prevalence rate of 5.5%. The findings show that paragonimiasis is a significant health problem in South Eastern Nigeria; the risk of infection could be minimized by the proper cooking of fresh water crabs and crayfish before consumption.


Mirror syndrome is a rare pregnancy complication, life-threatening to mother and fetus. Increasing survival rates of congenital heart disease into reproductive age mean that complications like Mirror syndrome in this population may be more challenging to diagnose, given overlapping signs of edema in cases of heart failure exacerbation. We report a case of a pregnant woman with a history of unspecified congenital heart disease, presenting with swelling and distension, with diagnostic findings not consistent with preeclampsia. Her course was complicated by dyspnea, oliguria, and fetal hydrops. A cesarean delivery under neuraxial anesthesia was performed. We review the clinical manifestations of Mirror syndrome and discuss anesthetic and obstetric management considerations for this condition.


In this paper, we present our recent research about the computational efficiency in convolution. Convolution operation is the most critical component in recent surge of deep learning research. Conventional 2D convolution takes O(C2K2HW) to calculate, where C is the channel size, K is the kernel size, while H and W are the output height and width. Such computation has become really costly considering that these parameters increased over the past few years to meet the needs of demanding applications. Among various implementation of the convolution, separable convolution has been proven to be more efficient in reducing the computational demand. For example, depth separable convolution reduces the complexity to O(CHW⋅(C+K2)) while spatial separable convolution reduces the complexity to O(C2KHW). However, these are considered an ad hoc design which cannot ensure that they can in general achieve optimal separation. In this research, we propose a novel operator called \emph{optimal separable convolution} which can be calculated at O(C32KHW) by optimal design for the internal number of groups and kernel sizes for general separable convolutions. When there is no restriction in the number of separated convolutions, an even lower complexity at O(CHW⋅log(CK2)) can be achieved. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed optimal separable convolution is able to achieve an improved accuracy-FLOPs and accuracy-#Params trade-offs over both conventional and depth/spatial separable convolutions.


The present study was performed to analyze in detail gender- and site-related alterations in the adrenergic signal transduction pathway of lipolysis in fat cells isolated from subcutaneous abdominal and visceral fat depots from severely obese patients. The study group consisted of 30 morbidly obese subjects (9 men and 21 women) aged 41.1±1.9 years, with a body mass index (BMI) of 54.7±1.7 kg/m2, who had undergone abdominal surgery. Protein levels of hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) and adrenergic receptors (AR), as well as HSL activity and the lipolytic response to adrenergic agents were analyzed. Both fat depots had similar basal lipolysis, but the capacity of catecholamines to activate lipolysis was greater in visceral fat, both at AR and postreceptor levels. Basal lipolysis and lipolytic activity induced by dibutyryl cyclic AMP were higher in men than in women. However, the visceral depot of women showed a higher maximal stimulation by noradrenaline than that of men, in accordance with higher ß1- and ß3-AR protein levels. In conclusion, the main gender-related differences were located in the visceral depot, with women exhibiting a higher sensitivity to catecholamines associated with an increased provision of ß-AR, while men showed an enhanced lipolytic capacity at the postreceptor level.


Recently, the technology is getting to be the most important factor for companies, as the industry is changing fast. The uncertainty and complexity of technology valuation arc higher so that the technology concentrated companies need more developed and high performance technology. This paper reviews the methods of technology valuation for five categories that have been developed by valuation researchers, (1) research of technology diffusion and acceptance model, (2) research of technology valuation, (3) research of technology import and export factor, (4) research of technology valuation model, (5) research of technology transfer and market. And we propose a new technology valuation model using need(market), seed(technology) and deeds(management) factor by cross impact matrix. This model gives us the reference negotiation range for deciding the amount of royalty. I hope this paper induces more research on this field of technology valuation.


While nations measure the quality of educational systems by different standards, many nations, such as China, have adopted the ISO9000 quality standards to assess the quality of schools. This article explores the various elements of the the ISO 9000 standards and how each element relates to the various groups that are consumers or stakeholders in the educational process. The authors then develop a model to explain the relationship of the expectations of stakeholder groups to measures of quality for educational inputs, processes, and outputs. Emphasizing the differences between business and educational systems, a balance of promissory and satisfaction standards based on the ISO9000 standards is suggested in order to appropriately and effectively assess educational quality.

 Key words: Education, quality; standards, ISO9000 series, customer satisfaction.


Plant‐parasitic nematodes are one of the limiting factors for soybean production world‐ wide. Overall, plant‐parasitic nematodes alone cause an estimated annual crop loss of $78 billion worldwide and an average crop yield loss of 10–15%. This imposes a chal‐ lenge to sustainable production of food worldwide, since there has been increasing demand for food supply and food security. Unsustainable cropping production systems with monocultures, intensive use of soils and expansion of crops to newly opened areas have intensified problems associated with new pests and diseases. Thus, finding and applying sustainable methods to control diseases associated with soybean are in cur‐ rent need. Over hundred nematode species, comprising fifty genera, have been reported in association with soybean. Of these, the root‐knot nematode Meloidogyne spp., cyst nematode Heterodera glycines , lesion nematode Pratylenchus brachyurus and the reniform nematode Rotylenchulus reniformis are major nematode species limiting soybean produc‐ tion. Here, we report an up‐to‐date literature review on the biology, symptoms, dam‐ age and control methods used for these nematodes species. Additionally, unusual and emergent nematode species affecting soybean are discussed.


This paper presents the wrist joint MR images of the EULAR–OMERACT rheumatoid arthritis MRI reference image atlas. Reference images for scoring synovitis, bone oedema, and bone erosions according to the OMERACT RA MRI scoring (RAMRIS) system are provided. All grades (0–3) of synovitis are illustrated in each of the three wrist joint areas defined in the scoring system—that is, the distal radioulnar joint, the radiocarpal joint, and the intercarpal-carpometacarpal joints. For reasons of feasibility, examples of bone abnormalities are limited to five selected bones: the radius, scaphoid, lunate, capitate, and a metacarpal base. In these bones, grades 0–3 of bone oedema are illustrated, and for bone erosion, grades 0–3 and examples of higher grades are presented. The presented reference images can be used to guide scoring of wrist joints according to the OMERACT RA MRI scoring system.


Current Monte Carlo pricing engines may face computational challenge for the Greeks, because of not only their time consumption but also their poor convergence when using a finite difference estimate with a brute force perturbation. The same story may apply to conditional expectation. In this short paper, following Fournie et al. (1999), we explain how to tackle this issue using Malliavin calculus to smooth the payoff to estimate. We discuss the relationship with the likelihood ratio method of Broadie and Glasserman (1996). We show on numerical results the efficiency of this method and discuss when it is appropriate or not to use it. We see how to apply this method to the Heston model.


Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic showed the critical importance of supporting teachers' and students' systems thinking when making sense of complex phenomena. This study sets to explore preservice biology teachers' (PBTs) mental models of COVID-19 as complex phenomenon using concept maps. Methods 27 PBTs concept maps of COVID-19 outbreak were collected and taken for analysis. Structural and complexity attributes were identified in participants' concept maps and the relationships between them were tested, providing statistical analyses using exemplary concept maps. Results The results suggest that the appearance of many concepts in a map (structural attribute) does not necessarily indicate high level of complexity, but rather the amount of simple structural relationships (complexity attribute). On the other hand, the results indicate that higher structural sophistication (e.g., high number of connections and junctions) could be associated with the complexity level of the map. Discussion This study provides a practical method for evaluating the complexity level of PBTs' systems thinking, suggests a possible link between structural and complexity attributes in their concept maps, and demonstrates the need to further support PBTs in developing their systems thinking skills in the context of complex biological phenomena.


Genetic and environmental exposures cause variability in gene expression. Although most genes are affected in a population, their effect sizes vary greatly, indicating the existence of regulatory mechanisms that could amplify or attenuate expression variability. Here, we investigate the relationship between the sequence and transcription start site architectures of promoters and their expression variability across human individuals. We find that expression variability can be largely explained by a promoter's DNA sequence and its binding sites for specific transcription factors. We show that promoter expression variability reflects the biological process of a gene, demonstrating a selective trade-off between stability for metabolic genes and plasticity for responsive genes and those involved in signaling. Promoters with a rigid transcription start site architecture are more prone to have variable expression and to be associated with genetic variants with large effect sizes, while a flexible usage of transcription start sites within a promoter attenuates expression variability and limits genotypic effects. Our work provides insights into the variable nature of responsive genes and reveals a novel mechanism for supplying transcriptional and mutational robustness to essential genes through multiple transcription start site regions within a promoter.


Previous work (C.F. Spiropoulou and S.T. Nichol, 1993, J. Virol. 67, 3103-3110) has demonstrated the existence in cells infected with the New Jersey serotype of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) of two small carboxy-coterminal proteins encoded by the P mRNA. These proteins have been named C' and C. We are interested in studying the function of these proteins in the virus life cycle. Toward this end, we have cloned the ORF encoding the potential C' protein of the Indiana serotype as a histidine-tagged fusion protein, purified the expressed protein from Escherichia coli, and used the fusion protein as an immunogen to raise antiserum in a rabbit. We have used this anti-C' protein serum to demonstrate that both of the predicted C' and C proteins are synthesized in cells infected with the Indiana serotype of VSV. In addition we have localized a portion of these proteins to nucleocapsids isolated from infected cells, suggesting that they may play a role in RNA synthesis. Reconstitution of the viral polymerase activity by expressing the L and P protein subunits with or without the C proteins failed to demonstrate any effect of the presence of these latter proteins on reconstituted transcription using purified nucleocapsids as templates. However, we have been able to show a dramatic stimulation of the polymerase activity in purified virions by the addition of purified C' protein to in vitro transcription reactions. Both the level and the fidelity of mRNA synthesis are stimulated by this protein. Evidence for the specificity of this effect comes from the fact that stimulation appears to be serotype specific; C' protein of the Indiana serotype stimulates transcription by purified Indiana serotype virions but has a minimal effect on transcription by purified virions of the New Jersey serotype. We are continuing our studies to determine the mechanism of this stimulation.


This article approaches the images to achieve a perception of our time. Not just what we can see, but mainly as sensitive is our ability, our desire and undesirable, our imagination and the unimaginable. It is problematized the political links with the market economy, to the extent that they have generated and instructed us to manage our own self-image. Thus, productivity is revealed a strong amalgam of generators and sense of body and reality. Through analysis of advertisements and television programs available on the Internet, advertisements distance courses distributed by email, as well as an art project also published on the network, we come to the evidence that the image today has become the commodity par excellence. She does not just sell a product or herself, sells an experience of a world to 'my own'.


The mechanisms of absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination of small and large molecule therapeutics differ significantly from one another and can be explored within the framework of a physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model. This paper briefly reviews fundamental approaches to PBPK modeling, in which drug kinetics within tissues and organs are explicitly represented using physiologically meaningful parameters. The differences in PBPK models applied to small/large molecule drugs are highlighted, thus elucidating differences in absorption, distribution and elimination properties between these two classes of drugs in a systematic manner. The absorption of small and large molecules differs with respect to their common extravascular routes of delivery (oral versus subcutaneous). The role of the lymphatic system in drug distribution, and the involvement of tissues as sites of elimination (through catabolism and target mediated drug disposition) are unique features of antibody distribution and elimination that differ from small molecules, which are commonly distributed into the tissues but are eliminated primarily by liver metabolism. Fundamental differences exist in the ability to predict human pharmacokinetics based upon preclinical data due to differing mechanisms governing small and large molecule disposition. These differences have influence on the evolving utilization of PBPK modeling in the discovery and development of small and large molecule therapeutics.


Patients with chronic liver disease have a very high lifetime risk of malnourishment. It has been increasingly identified in literature that the severity of liver disease affects severity of malnutrition and vice versa. The objective of this review article is to recognize the severity of complications associated with malnutrition in patients with cirrhosis and ways to overcome these obstacles.


The fact that surrogacy contracts are unenforceable can cause problems if a surrogate decides that she wishes to keep the child. When this happens, the intended parents cannot bring a claim in contract compelling her to give the baby up to them or even for the return of money paid to the surrogate. Intuitively, it appears unfair that the surrogate can keep the child and the money while the intended parents are left with nothing. However, enforcing such contracts could be oppressive to the surrogate and detrimental to the child's welfare. In this article, we consider whether the law unjust enrichment will allow for the return of money paid under such contracts. We argue that this branch of the law can provide a solution to the problem of unenforceable surrogacy contracts that strikes a fair balance between the interests of the surrogate and intended parents while also placing the child's lifelong welfare paramount.


Governments frequently partner with the private sector to provide infrastructure and public services. These cooperations, known as public–private partnerships (PPPs), have often failed. Sometimes, due to the problem's complexity, the public sector cannot choose the right partner for these projects, which is one of the main reasons for failures. Complexity in such problems is associated with a large number of indicators, imprecise judgments of decision-makers or problem owners, and the unpredictability of the environment (under conditions of uncertainty). Therefore, presenting a simplified algorithm for this complicated process is the primary goal of the current research so that it can consider the problem's various dimensions. While many researchers address the critical risk factors (CRFs) and others focus on key performance indicators (KPIs), this research has considered both CRFs and KPIs to choose the best private-sector partner. In addition, we used single-valued neutrosophic sets (SVNSs) to collect decision-makers' views, which can handle ambiguous, incomplete, or imprecise information. Next, by defining the ideal alternative and using the similarity measure, we specified the ranks of the alternative. Additionally, to face the uncertain environment, we examined the performance of options in four future scenarios. The steps of the proposed algorithm are explained in the form of a numerical example. The results of this research showed that by employing a simple algorithm, even people who do not have significant operations research knowledge could choose the best option by paying attention to the dimensions of the problem complexity.


As a biological phenomenon the interaction between drugs may be viewed in 'explanatory' or 'empirical' terms. In clinical psychopharmacology the former is rarely possible: two examples are cited, one concerning amphetamine and reserpine, the other desmethyl-imipramine and tetrabenazine. Among centrally acting substances, empirical studies of the interaction between alcohol and the barbiturates have been pursued intensively by several methods in clinic and laboratory. Both general considerations and recent work on the effects of amphetamine-barbiturate combinations suggest caution in the medical use of mixtures of psychotropic drugs. Adverse reactions caused by interaction between psychotropic drugs and other substances have still to be studied systematically as a potential hazard.


Summary
1. Lakes in the Rotorua region of New Zealand are affected by eutrophication from urbanisation and agricultural land use. Some lake tributaries contain geothermally influenced waters, and it is currently unknown whether geothermal tributaries are active sites of nutrient cycling or represent point sources of nutrients to the lakes.

2. Using government data sets, we characterised the physicochemical conditions of geothermal and non-geothermal streams. We then measured ecosystem metabolism and reach-scale uptake of nitrate (), ammonium () and phosphate () in summer 2010 (n = 8 streams). Finally, we used government data to compare annual nutrient flux from geothermal and non-geothermal surface water inputs to Lake Rotoiti.

3. As expected, geothermal streams had higher temperature, conductivity and nutrient concentrations and lower pH. However, primary production, community respiration and uptake rates in geothermal streams were not different from those in their non-geothermal counterparts. Uptake rates of were higher in geothermal streams, and uptake was below detection in geothermal streams, probably due to the saturation by naturally high concentrations.

4. A comparison of Lake Rotoiti inputs suggested that geothermal streams are not significant sources of and , while geothermal inputs of represent an average of 46% of total flux from Lake Rotoiti tributaries.

5. Despite their high temperature and low pH, geothermal streams are active sites of photosynthesis, respiration and and cycling, indicating dynamic biofilm communities.

6. Management options for geothermal streams, if any, should focus on retention (e.g. uptake or coupled nitrification and denitrification) but could prove challenging given the persistent, naturally occurring high flux.


Background The analytical and clinical validity of cerebrospinal (CSF) biomarkers has been extensively researched in dementia. Further work is needed to assess the ability of these biomarkers to improve diagnosis, management and health outcomes in the clinical setting Objectives To assess the added value and clinical utility of CSF biomarkers in the diagnostic assessment of cognitively impaired patients under evaluation for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods Systematic literature searches of Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO and Web of Science research databases were conducted on 17 December 2022. Data from relevant studies were extracted and independently screened for quality using a tool for bias. Clinical utility was measured by clinicians' changes in diagnosis, diagnostic confidence and patient management (when available), after their examination of patients' CSF biomarkers. Cost-effectiveness was assessed by consideration of additional cost per patient and quality-adjusted life years. Results Searches identified 17 studies comprising 2090 patient participants and 593 clinicians. The meta-analysis revealed that clinicians' use of CSF biomarkers resulted in a pooled percentage change in diagnosis of 25% (95% CI 14 to 37), an increase in diagnostic confidence of 14% (95% CI 9 to 18) and a pooled proportion of patients whose management changed of 31% (95% CI 12 to 50). CSF biomarkers were deemed cost-effective, particularly in memory services, where pre-test AD prevalence is higher compared with a primary care setting. Conclusions CSF biomarkers can be a helpful additional diagnostic tool for clinicians assessing patients with cognitive impairment. In particular, CSF biomarkers consistently improved clinicians' confidence in diagnosing AD and influenced on diagnostic change and patient management. Further research is needed to study the clinical utility of blood-based biomarkers in the clinical setting.


In this paper, we design an implementable high-performance flat reflector based on conformal transformation optics. In the proposed 2-dimensional device, the rescaling refractive index approach is applied to overcome the sub-unit refractive index issue, resulting in an all-dielectric isotropic graded-index medium that is physically implementable. Rotating the permeability profile around the antenna axis yields the 3-dimensional profile of the flat reflector construction. The dielectric with continuous refractive index profile is split into eleven layers with a constant refractive index. The proposed antenna requires only dielectric layers with the permittivity of 1.1 to 3.8, making it realizable. Simulation results show that the proposed flat reflector can operate in wide frequency bandwidth. The simulated antenna gain is about 25.27 to 29.55 dBi in the 13-30 GHz frequency range with the side-lobe level below -15 dB. Design and simulation of the proposed antenna are done using COMSOL Multiphysics, and simulation results are validated with CST Studio Suite.


The processes of globalization, the strengthening of intercultural communication in the world community define new requirements for the training of future managers of foreign economic activity – officials whose duty is to manage the organization, its subdivision, conducting a certain direction of work in the conditions of increasing cooperation and competition in the economy and business. Practice shows that today in this sphere, there are stronger connections and communication between representatives of different cultures, both in direct communication and in electronic communication. Today the goals of the education of managers are aimed not only at the formation of knowledge and skills in the organization of the management process, but also on the development of communication skills, the ability to clearly state their own opinion, to substantiate conclusions about solving problems, to convey knowledge and ideas. In the light of such demands, the problem of forming readiness for professional activities on a dialogical basis among students-future managers of foreign economic activity becomes more important. The purpose of the article is to carry out an analysis of the theoretical and practical foundations of future managers' readiness for dialogue in the future professional activity and to determine the conditions for the successful implementation of this task by higher management education. The article substantiates the place and role of dialogical communication in the professional activity of managers of foreign economic activity, the importance of forming readiness for dialogue in the student age; the analysis of the concepts of "dialogue", "interaction", "dialogic interaction" are considered; the conditions and advantages of dialogical communication are examined, the levels of dialogical interaction in the educational process are determined; The modern forms and methods of training managers as an important factor in achieving the necessary level of preparedness of future international managers for dialogue are revealed; considerable attention is paid to the requirements for the study of a foreign language – an effective means of increasing the communicative abilities of students and their level of readiness for dialogic interaction.


Disbursement of funds by Islamic banks expected to get results have direct implications to the fund owner. If the investments made by the Islamic banks have payments that are not smooth and even jammed, can result in a small earned income and income received by the owner of the funds raised to be too small. All types of financing provided by banks to customers have experienced financing problems. Based on the information and data obtained, the most problematic financing for 2010 is the ijara financing, which underlies the preparation of this study. Research uses descriptive method of analysis. The research objective was to determine how the application of PT. Bank Syariah "X" in ijara financing problems, how it compares ijara financing problems in PT Bank Syariah "X" with non-performing loans at conventional banks, and how it compares to compliancewith SFAS 107 on accounting ijara at PT. Bank Syariah "X". The benefits of research for the PT Bank Syariah "X" can be an evaluation of the practice that has been done in Indonesia Islamic banking world. Bank Syariah "X". Accounting records ijara financing for the financing of the reverse problem of scheduling has been agreed will be recorded as revenue ijara receivables. The conclusion of the study is the recording of the restructuredijara financing, PT Bank Syariah "X" will record the repayment of the existing contract and replace with a new contract that has been adjusted in both the number and schedule of installment payments previously agreed by the customer and the PT. Bank Syariah "X". Ijarah accounting records adopted by the PT Bank Syariah "X" are in accordance with SFAS 107 on accounting ijara.


The theory of compressive sampling (CS), also known as compressed sensing. It is a modern sensing scheme that goes against the common theory in data acquisition. The CS theory claims that one can recover images or signals from fewer samples or measurements than the traditional methods use. To achieve this recovery, CS theory depends on two basic principles: the first is the sparsity of signal, which relates to the signals of interest, and the incoherence, which relates to the sensing method. In this paper we will give a simple review on the CS theory and the analog to information (AIC) system will be discussed briefly supported with two examples of signal reconstruction from undersampled signals. Simulation results show the powerful of the CS reconstruction for both sparse in time and spars in frequency signals.


Economic dispatch (ED) is one the main power system problems solved during operational planning phase. It is solved by power system engineers with the objective to find the best setting of dispatchable generating units output so that the total production cost is cheap and at the same time abiding the system constraints. For the past ten years, researchers and engineers have been focusing on hybrid optimization techniques to solve ED problems. The strength of each hybridized technique is combined to form an improved optimization technique. Most of the hybrid techniques are combination of two or more meta-heuristic techniques. This paper proposed a new hybrid technique termed as immune evolutionary programming (IEP) to solve economic dispatch problem. The technique is a combination of two population based optimization techniques which are artificial immune system (AIS) and evolutionary programming (EP). In order to study the effectiveness of the proposed technique, the results produced have been compared with the results produced using AIS and EP techniques. It is found that IEP succeeded to give the lowest total production cost compared to the other two techniques.


From the Publisher:
The book provides an integrated treatment of continuous-time and discrete-time systems for two courses at postgraduate level, or one course at undergraduate and one course at postgraduate level. It covers mainly two areas of modern control theory, namely: system theory, and multivariable and optimal control. The coverage of the former is quite exhaustive while that of latter is adequate with significant provision of the necessary topics that enables a research student to comprehend various technical papers. The stress is on the interdisciplinary nature of the subject. Practical control problems from various engineering disciplines have been drawn to illustrate the potential concepts. Most of the theoretical results have been presented in a manner suitable for digital computer programming along with the necessary algorithms for numerical computations.


In this paper, we propose a new method for designing oversampling DeltaSigma DA converters via Hinfin optimization. The design consists of two steps. One is that for DeltaSigma modulators. In DeltaSigma modulators, the accumulator 1/(z - 1) is conventionally used in a feedback loop to shape quantization noise. In contrast, we give all stabilizing feedback filters for the modulator, and propose an Hinfin design to shape the frequency response of the noise transfer function (NTF). The other is a design for interpolation filters in oversampling DA converters. While conventional designs are executed in the discrete-time domain, we take account of the characteristic of the original analog signal by using sampled-data Hinfin optimization. A design example is presented to show that our design is superior to conventional ones


We have studied thermal expansion and contraction of polystyrene thin film supported on silicon substrate using X‐ray reflectivity and inelastic neutron scattering techniques. In annealing experiments, we found fast and very slow contraction processes in the thin films above the glass transition temperature. The fast one was attributed to normal relaxation (annealing) process observed in bulk and responsible partly for the reported apparent negative expansivity. In addition, we found extremely slow re‐expansion process in the glassy state. The ultra‐slow contraction and re‐expansion have been assigned to the lateral expansion and contraction of the film, respectively. Using well‐annealed films, we have evaluated thermal expansivity as a function of film thickness, and found that it decreases with film thickness in a thickness range below twice of radius of gyration of a polymer chain 2Rg in the glassy state. The decrease has been attributed to hardening of harmonic force constant due to confinement in a t...


Unlike cervical cytology, morphological cytology criteria in the differential diagnosis of endometrium have not yet been clearly defined, and methods to allow for more precise evaluation of endometrium status have been searched for. The aim of the present study was to assess the value of morphometric nucleus analysis of cytologic aspirate endometrial samples in proliferative, hyperplastic and malignant endometrium by use of digital image analysis. Morphometric analysis was performed on archival cytologic aspirate endometrial samples (at least 10 per group) stained according to Papanicolaou (n = 77) and May-Grünwald-Giemsa (MGG; n = 80) with the following histopathologic diagnoses: proliferative endometrium, hyperplasia simplex, hyperplasia complex, hyperplasia complex atypica, and adenocarcinoma endometriodes endometrii (grade I, II and III). Interactive image analysis (nuclear area, convex area, perimeter, maximum and minimum radius, length and breadth, as well as nucleus form factor and elongation factor) was performed by use of the SFORM software (VAMSTEC, Zagreb) on at least 50 (Papanicolaou stain) and 100 (MGG stain) well preserved endometrial epithelial cell nuclei without overlapping, at magnification of x1000. Statistical data analysis was done by use of the Statistica Ver. 6 statistical package. Multivariate analysis (ANOVA) distinguished malignant, hyperplastic and proliferative endometrium according to all morphometric variables with both staining methods (p < 0.05). However, on interactive testing of the groups (Kruskal-Wallis test), hyperplasias without atypia yielded no significant differences (p > 0.05) from atypical hyperplasia, adenocarcinoma and proliferative endometrium only according to the nucleus form factor and elongation factor (Papanicolaou stain), whereas malignant and atypical hyperplastic endometrium (MGG stain) differed statistically significantly (p < 0.05) from proliferative and hyperplastic endometrium without atypia according to all study parameters except for the nucleus form factor (p > 0.05). According to the cytologic staining method, morphometric parameters were considerably higher in MGG stained endometrial samples, reaching the level of statistical significance (p < 0.05) except for the nucleus form factor and elongation factor (p > 0.05) in the groups of hyperplasia simplex and complex, well differentiated adenocarcinoma (form factor) and atypical hyperplasia (elongation factor). A combination of cytomorphology and the morphometric variables assessed in this study can yield useful information on the cytologic state of endometrium, with special reference to the possible differentiation of the group of hyperplasia without atypia from the group of adenocarcinoma and atypical hyperplasia.


Summary In China, high-speed transportation infrastructure, including high-speed railways and highways, develops rapidly in recent years. The standard for post-construction settlement of the high-speed transportation infrastructure is restrict with the considerations of safety and comfort. Piled embankments are widely used over the deep soft deposits. The piles that support the embankment are exposed not only to the heavy loading from the embankment self-weight, but also to the cyclic loading induced by high-speed vehicles through their service time. In present work, the model tests on soil arching were performed and a method for anticipating the loads carried by the piles was developed. A series of large-scale model pile tests was performed to investigate the response of single pile subjected to axial cyclic loading. Cumulative settlement, axial force, stress at the soil-pile interface were measured. The test results indicated that the development of accumulated settlement depends on the cyclic load ratio and static load ratio. Closed-form solution for piled embankment was obtained taking into consideration the soil arching in embankment fill, the negative friction along pile shaft, and the settlement of the foundation soil. Case study shows that the predictions of the load share ratio and the post construction settlement made by this solution match the in-situ monitoring data well. The design procedures and settlement control methods of pile-supported embankment have been proposed. Finally, a full-scale dynamic testing system for high-speed railway embankment is introduced. In this testing system, different types of subgrade and soil improvement methods could be simulated. The loading system could simulate the trains' passing dynamic load with maximum speed of 400km/h. Using this testing system, many problems associated with high-speed railway embankment can be studied, such as cumulative settlement of the railway line and soil improvement technique for subgrade.