BACKGROUND
Key aspects in a lifestyle analysis are physical activity level and eating habits. An unhealthy lifestyle results in fat mass increase and in a predisposition to non communicable chronic diseases even in young age. The purpose of this study was to investigate the lifestyle and body composition in young athletes.

METHODS
The subjects underwent to an assessment of body composition and they completed two questionnaires, one concerning the level of physical activity and the other regarding eating habits.

RESULTS
152 young athletes (63 females and 89 males) aged 8 to 18 years (13.4±2.5 years, height 159±14 cm) were enrolled in this study. 80.3% of subjects were normal weight (13.4±2.6 yrs) and 19.7% subjects (13.5±2.5 yrs) were overweight or obese. Greater sedentary behaviors were found in the overweight or obese participants compared to normal weight (618±125 vs 523±89 min; p<0.001) and a lower consumption of milk and yoghurt (5.0±3.2 vs 6.9±4.1 times/week; p=0.031).

CONCLUSIONS
Although competitive sports often increases physical activity levels in young people, this activity does not seem to reach the daily recommended amount of physical activity during youth. Therefore, it is necessary to have a comprehensive approach to create a primary prevention strategy from even a young age.


INTRODUCTION
Aberrant, altered, or blocked lymphatic drainage may contribute to the high recurrence rate of breast cancer. Thus, an efficient evaluation of lymphatic drainage from the breasts and/or upper limbs is essential in the management of lymphedema and in ipsilateral primary or contralateral recurrent breast cancer patients. There are very few reports of lymphatic drainage to the paravertebral lymph nodes in patients with a lymphedema after breast cancer surgery with or without reconstruction.

METHODS
We used lymphoscintigraphy to examine lymphatic drainage in a case series.

RESULTS
We observed five patients with upper limb and/or mammary lymphedema (after breast cancer surgery with or without reconstruction) who had lymphatic drainage from the upper limb or breast to the posterior intercostal and/or paravertebral lymph nodes. One patient also presented with nodal relapse at the time of our investigation.

CONCLUSIONS
The cases from this study demonstrate the unusual, and mostly unrecognized, lymphatic drainage pathways toward lymph nodes, which may be at risk for further evolution of breast cancer.


Positive surgical margins(PSMs) are associated with local recurrence and distant metastasis of prostate cancer which affect the long-term survival rate of patients1-3. IVIM can simultaneously observe microcirculatory perfusion of blood and intracellular and extracellular water molecules diffusion4. The results of our study show that f-Bi can be used to predict positive margins of radical prostatectomy.


This paper presents a method for clustering a large and mixed set of uncharacterized sequences provided by genome projects. As the measure of the clustering, we use a fast approximation of sequence similarity (FASTA score). However, in the case to detect similarity between two sequences that are much diverged in evolutionary process, FASTA sometimes underestimates the similarity compared to the rigorous Smith-Waterman algorithm. Also the distance derived from the similarity score may not be metric since the triangle inequality may not hold when the sequences have multi-domain structure. To cope with these problems, we introduce a new graph structure called p-quasi complete graph for describing a cluster of sequences with a con dence measure. We prove that a restricted version of the p-quasi complete graph problem (given a positive integer k, whether a graph contains a 0.5-quasi complete subgraph of which size k or not) is NP-complete. Thus we present the outline of an approximation algorithm for clustering a set of sequences into subsets corresponding to p-quasi complete graphs. The e ectiveness of our method is demonstrated by the result of clustering Escherichia coli protein sequences by our method.


Recent comparative genome hybridization studies revealed that hundreds to thousands of human genomic loci can have interindividual copy number variations (CNVs). One of such CNV loci in the HLA codes for the immune effector protein complement component C4. Sensitive, specific, and accurate assays to interrogate the C4 CNV and its associated polymorphisms by using submicrogram quantities of genomic DNA are needed for high throughput epidemiologic studies of C4 CNVs in autoimmune, infectious, and neurological diseases. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) assays were developed using TaqMan chemistry and based on sequences specific for C4A and C4B genes, structural characteristics corresponding to the long and short forms of C4 genes, and the breakpoint region of RP-C4-CYP21-TNX (RCCX) modular duplication. Assignments for gene copy numbers were achieved by relative standard curve methods using cloned C4 genomic DNA covering 6 logs of DNA concentrations for calibrations. The accuracies of test results were cross-confirmed internally in each sample, as the sum of C4A plus C4B equals to the sum of C4L plus C4S or the total copy number of RCCX modules. These qPCR assays were applied to determine C4 CNVs from samples of 50 consanguineous subjects who were mostly homozygous in HLA genotypes. The results revealed eight HLA haplotypes with single C4 genes in monomodular RCCX that are associated with multiple autoimmune and infectious diseases and 32 bimodular, 4 trimodular, and one quadrimodular RCCX. These C4 qPCR assays are proven to be robust, sensitive, and reliable, as they have contributed to the elucidation of C4 CNVs in >1000 human samples with autoimmune and neurological diseases.


The mean shift algorithm is a powerful clustering technique, which is based on an iterative scheme to detect modes in a probability density function. It has been utilized for image segmentation by seeking the modes in a feature space composed of spatial and color information. Although the modes of the feature space can be efficiently calculated in that scheme, different optimization techniques have been investigated to further improve the calculation speed. Besides those techniques that improve the efficiency using specialized data structures, there are other ones, which take advantage of some heuristics, and therefore affect the accuracy of the algorithm output. In this paper we discuss and evaluate different optimization strategies for mean shift based image segmentation. These optimization techniques are quantitatively evaluated based on different real world images. We compare segmentation results of heuristic-based, performance-optimized implementations with the segmentation result of the original mean shift algorithm as a gold standard. Towards this end, we utilize different partition distance measures, by identifying corresponding regions and analyzing the thus revealed differences.


Most hidden surface algorithms require a considerable amount of computation for all but the simplest images. This prevents their use in real time systems where new frames may be calculated at a rate of 25 per second. The paper presents an approach suitable for fixed models, such as those used in flight simulators, where most of the time consuming computation may be performed when the model is first created. The technique is to test for surface proximity in a well defined manner, 'well spaced' surfaces requiring a simple measure of distance to determine priority, and 'closely spaced' surfaces being modified until they are 'well spaced'. This modification is only in the representation of the surface and does not affect its final appearance in the picture. The work to be described is part of a project financed by the Science Research Council, to which grateful acknowledgement is made.


Ideological language is widespread in theoretical biology. Evolutionary game theory has been defended as a worldview and a leap of faith, and sexual selection theory has been criticized for what it posits as basic to biological nature. Views such as these encourage the impression of ideological rifts in the field. I advocate an alternative interpretation, whereby many disagreements between different camps of biologists merely reflect methodological differences. This interpretation provides a more accurate and more optimistic account of the state of play in the field of biology. It also helps account for biologists' tendency to embrace ideological positions.


Previous studies show that many physicians do not accept new patients with Medicaid coverage, but no study has examined Medicaid enrollees' actual experience of provider refusal of their coverage and its implications. Using the 2012 National Health Interview Survey, we estimate provider refusal of health insurance coverage reported by 23,992 adults with continuous coverage for the past 12 months. We find that among Medicaid enrollees, 6.73% reported their coverage being refused by a provider in 2012, a rate higher than that in Medicare and private insurance by 4.07 (p<.01) and 3.68 (p<.001) percentage points, respectively. Refusal of Medicaid coverage is associated with delaying needed care, using emergency room (ER) as a usual source of care, and perceiving current coverage as worse than last year. In view of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Medicaid expansion, future studies should continue monitoring enrollees' experience of coverage refusal.


Although nurse managers play a pivotal role in creating work environments for staff nurses, performance expectations for nurse managers practicing in acute care hospitals may be unrealistic. The authors discuss nurse manager interview data showing that these expectations are increasing nurse manager perceptions of stress, making coping more difficult, and potentially harming nurse manager and work environment well-being.


Germline mutations in the RET proto-oncogene (RET gene) are well documented as the genetic causes of multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2A (MEN2A). We performed genetic analysis by direct RET gene mutation analysis in a Chinese MEN2A family and compared these results with biochemical screening tests and pathological examinations. Twenty-one exons and flanking introns of the RET gene were amplified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The PCR products were subjected to sequencing directly, or cloned into pGEM-T plasmids and sequenced. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) was employed to confirm the mutation on the RET sequence. A novel heterozygous mutation of a 3-bp (GAC) deletion at codon 631 (D631del) of exon 11, resulting in the deletion of an aspartic acid at the locus, was identified in four MEN2A patients and one phenotypically normal family member. The average clinical onset-age of four MEN2A patients was 33.7 years, no cervical lymph node metastasis was found in MEN2A patients with medullary thyroid carcinoma in the family. The study indicated that the novel heterozygous deletion mutation at D631 of RET gene was co-segregated with MEN2A phenotype and promoted the development of MEN2A. This report is the first description of the D631del mutation in the family with MEN2A.


Oro-facial pain is commonly acute, and of dental origin. There are numerous other less common, but clinically identifiable types of oro-facial pain which can be attributed to an organic cause, and which usually respond to the appropriate treatment. There is a small proportion of oro-facial pain problems, however, which are chronic and which are found to have a psychogenic element of greater or lesser magnitude, and treatment is aimed at psychological or psychiatric therapy. The interim results of an ongoing study of chronic oro-facial pain of psychogenic origin are described in this presentation.


The main argument of this theoretical paper is that the pursuit of honest profits in a voluntary market exchange is not only moral but also ingrained in human nature, in that human beings pursue activities that benefit them and avoid those that cause them loss. Through an examination of the Kenyan business venture called Iko Toilet (which is a mix of the Kiswahili word ' iko ' meaning 'there is' and the English word 'toilet' to literally mean 'there is a Toilet'), the paper contends that there is no inherent contradiction between doing well (engaging in honest voluntary business transactions) in order to do good (maximize legitimate profits). Key Words Profits, Morality, Business, Ethics, Kenya


Benoxaprofen (BNX), a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that was withdrawn because of hepatotoxicity, is more toxic than its structural analog flunoxaprofen (FLX) in humans and rats. Acyl glucuronides have been hypothesized to be reactive metabolites and may be associated with toxicity. Both time- and concentration-dependent glucuronidation and covalent binding of BNX, FLX, and ibuprofen (IBP) were determined by exposing sandwich-cultured rat hepatocytes to each NSAID. The levels of glucuronide and covalent protein adduct measured in cells followed the order BNX > FLX > IBP. These results indicate that 1) BNX-glucuronide (G) is more reactive than FLX-G, and 2) IBP-G is the least reactive metabolite, which support previous in vivo studies in rats. The proportional increases of protein adduct formation for BNX, FLX, and IBP as acyl glucuronidation increased also support the hypothesis that part of the covalent binding of all three NSAIDs to hepatic proteins is acyl glucuronide-dependent. Moreover, theses studies confirmed the feasibility of using sandwich-cultured rat hepatocytes for studying glucuronidation and covalent binding to hepatocellular proteins. These studies also showed that these in vitro methods can be applied using human tissues for the study of acyl glucuronide reactivity. More BNX-protein adduct was formed in sandwich-cultured human hepatocytes than FLX-protein adduct, which not only agreed with its relative toxicity in humans but also was consistent with the in vitro findings using rat hepatocyte cultures. These data support the use of sandwich-cultured human hepatocytes as an in vitro screening model of acyl glucuronide exposure and reactivity.


Backgrounds: To observe the effect of using mild intraoperative hyperventilation on the incidence of postlaparoscopic shoulder pain (PLSP) in patients undergoing laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. Methods: Eighty patients undergoing laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, aged 22 to 36 years, with American Society of Anesthesiologists grade I or II, were divided into 2 groups according to method of random number table. A mild hyperventilation was used in group A with controlling pressure of end-tidal carbon dioxide (PETCO2) of 30 to 33 mm Hg, while conventional ventilation was used in group B with PETCO2 35 to 40 mm Hg during the operation. The incidence and severity of PLSP, dosage of remedial analgesia and adverse reactions such as nausea and vomiting at 12, 24, 48, 72 hours and 1 week after surgery were recorded. Arterial blood gas was recorded before anesthesia induction, 20 minutes after pneumoperitoneum, during suture skin, and 24 hours after surgery. Results: Compared with 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours after operation, the incidence of PLSP at 1 week decreased significantly (P < .01). Compared with group B, the incidence of PLSP, pain score, and dosage of remedial analgesic at 12, 24,48, 72 hours, and 1 week after surgery were significantly decreased (P < .01). There was no significant difference between the 2 groups in arterial blood gas analysis before anesthesia induction, 20 minutes after pneumoperitoneum, during suture skin, and 24 hours after surgery (P > .05). There were no significant difference of the occurrence of adverse reactions such as nausea and vomiting between the 2 groups within 1 week after surgery (P > .05). Conclusion: Mild hyperventilation can reduce the incidence and severity of PLSP after laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy without increasing the associated adverse effects.


OF ACHROMATIC AM) CHROMATIC mS&M KATTBMS 'AS RELATE!) TO THE US! OF COLOR OH THE RORSCHACH INKBLOT TEST The purpose of this study was to investigate the rela tionship between various dream classifications and color reponse to the Rorschach Inkblot Test. Sixty normal, Rorschach naive, introductory psychology students were individually administered the Standard Rorschach Inkblots. Color responses were scored during the inquiry period. Subjects were classi fied into three groups according to their use or non-use of color as reported in dreams. The three dream groups were (1) Black-White, 2) Black-White-Color, 3) Color. Analyses qf Covariance and Variance Methods were used to test the significance of the data at the 5 percent level. It was demonstrated that color dreamers use more CF on the Rorschach, are less emotionally controlled, give more responses and report more dreams than do BIf dreamers. The author further attempted to demonstrate various factors that have contributed to the controversy surrounding the coloraffect hypothesis (CAM). I N T R O D U C T I 0 N One of the major theoretical assumptions underlying the Rorschach Inkblot Test is the relationship between color perception and other personality variables = Rorschach (1942) stated that the influence of color in perceiving figures could be interpreted as representing the extent of emotional excitability of the individual and that furthermore, there appeared to be a definite correlation between the extent of motor activity and the number of responses influenced by color. In addition, color responsescwere hypothesized as representing the more ego-centric affective characteristics of the individual or possibly the more adaptive emotional responses. Rorschach felt that individuals characterized by stable emotionality gave few or no color responses while those characterized by labile affective tendencies gave many color responses. Pure color and color-form responses were thought to be indicative of emotional impulsivity and lability while form-color responses were presumed to be a measure of the degree of control that an individual exercised over his affective drives. In essence, Rorschach's formulation of the color-affeet hypothesis states that the response to color reflects an individual's emotional life and his methods of responding to the external environment.


Given a graph G with n vertices and k players, each of which is placing a facility on one of the vertices of G, we define the score of the i'th player to be the number of vertices for which, among all players, the facility placed by the i'th player is the closest. A placement is balanced if all players get roughly the same score. A graph is balanced if all placements on it are balanced. Viewing balancedness as a desired property in various scenarios, in this paper we study balancedness properties of graphs, concentrating on random graphs and on expanders. We show that, while both random graphs and expanders tend to have good balancedness properties, random graphs are, in general, more balanced. In addition, we formulate and prove intractability of the combinatorial problem of deciding whether a given graph is balanced; then, building upon our analysis on random graphs and expanders, we devise two efficient algorithms which, with high probability, generate balancedness certificates. Our first algorithm is based on graph traversal, while the other relies on spectral properties.


In the Czech Republic, around 70 % of deceased people die in hospital settings every year. On the other hand, surveys showed that almost 78% Czech wish to die at home. General practitioners take care of most of dying at their homes. Unfortunately, hours of attendance and visiting hours are not always sufficient when complications develop and health status rapidly deteriorates and the goal is to die at home. Significant proportion of patients is then transferred to acute hospital settings and lots of them dies there during so called terminal hospitalization. Mobile hospice services (mobile specialized palliative care), multidisciplinary teams with medical staff (doctor/nurse) available 24 hours a day 7 days a week, are newly developing services with potential for change in these undesirable trends and for increasing chance of peaceful dying at home.


Objective: This study aimed to screen the potential molecular targets for proximal, mid, and distal esophageal cancers.Methods: The clinical data, RNA-seq data, and survival data for TCGA esophageal cancer were retrieved from UCSC Xena database. The samples with clinical information on the esophageal tumor central location were selected. Differential analyses on different groups (mid vs. proximal, distal vs. proximal, and distal vs. mid) were performed. Following the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in three groups were analyzed, the common genes were subjected to survival analysis, miRNA prediction, and drug-gene analysis. The specific genes were annotated for functional and module analyses.Results: Six common genes, namely KCNA1, CCDC196, UNC5CL, CYP3A5, CA10, and REG3A, were analyzed among three comparison groups. The expression of CA10 and REG3A was significantly correlated in the prognosis of patients with esophageal cancer. The distal vs. mid groups screened 766 specific DEGs, and the mid vs. proximal group screened 99 specific DEGs. Functional analysis showed that the genes of distal vs. mid groups, including EDN3, CGA, CCR9, and GABRA2, as well as genes in the mid vs. proximal groups, including GCGR, OXTR, and MCHR2, were significantly enriched in neural functions. In the distal vs. proximal groups, there were 314 specific DEGs, including CYP2C8 and OXGR1.Conclusion: Six common genes may serve as the potential molecular targets for the treatment of all proximal, mid, and distal esophageal cancers.


Environmental enrichment can significantly improve poultry welfare, productivity and profitability by reducing the expression of harmful behaviours, like fear or feather pecking. However, some studies have yielded inconsistent results and many so-called enrichment stimuli elicited little or no interest. This probably reflected the wide array of stimuli used and the paucity of thought given to what a chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) might find enriching. Clearly, the design of enrichment devices required more critical thought. Our immediate objectives were to establish chickens' specific preferences and thereby guide the development of practical enrichment strategies. First, we established that chicks showed increased use of an environment when it was enriched with simple, manipulable objects. Our use of video playback to assess chickens' responses to specific attributes of selected images then revealed that visual enrichment stimuli should incorporate movement, brightness, colour, and moderate complexity. Next, a survey revealed that almost 50% of the farmers who replied routinely played the radio to their flocks and that the perceived benefits included reduced aggression, improved health and increased productivity. Finally, we showed that a simple device consisting of a bunch of white strings is an extremely attractive pecking stimulus for chicks and adults of various strains of laying hens. Rather than rapidly losing interest in the devices the birds pecked progressively more at them with repeated exposure in short-term experiments. Furthermore, they were still being pecked at 17 and 2 weeks after their incorporation in the home pens of groups of 1-day-old chicks and adult hens, respectively. Even more encouragingly, the provision of string reduced feather pecking in birds of an experimental line showing high levels of this behavioural vice. It also reduced feather damage in caged layers at a commercial farm. The provision of string devices increases the opportunity for the birds to engage in behaviours that are fundamental to their nature, such as exploration and foraging. By maintaining lengthy interest and apparently reducing the expression of damaging feather pecking, string devices also satisfy other critical requirements of effective environmental enrichment. They have the added advantages of low cost, ready availability, ease of installation, and durability. Collectively, these findings strongly support the hypotheses that extraneous stimulation is important to chickens and that the provision of appropriate visual, auditory and tactile enrichment stimuli can improve their welfare. Projecting images onto the walls of a poultry house could perhaps provide an additional source of visual stimulation, but this requires further investigation. Playing the radio was not only beneficial in terms of welfare and performance but it is probably one of the easiest and most practicable ways of enriching the environment for the birds and the stockpersons. The routine incorporation of string devices in rearing and laying cages is also considered likely to reduce boredom and feather pecking and thereby improve the birds' welfare and productivity. In conclusion, I wholeheartedly recommend the integrated application of string pecking devices and auditory enrichment.


Drought is one of the main problems for the development of rice plants. The aims of this study were selecting several Ponorogo local rice cultivars that have resistance to drought stress based on germination ability in various PEG 6000 (Polyethylene Glycol 6000) concentration treatment, root penetration ability to wax layer (consisted of 60% wax and 40% vaseline) and chlorophyll content during drought stress. The germination test with PEG 6000 used a completely randomized design (CRD) factorial pattern consisting of 2 (two) treatment factors, namely cultivar and PEG concentration with 3 replications. The first treatment factor was a variety of Ponorogo local rice cultivars consisting of 5 cultivars, namely: Legowo, Mlarak 1, Malihan Ketan, Philips and Edok. The second treatment factor was PEG concentration, consisting of 4 (four) levels, namely: 0 (Control), 15, 20 and 25%. Rice seeds that passed the selection using PEG 6000 in the germination phase, were used in the root penetration ability test. Data were analyze dusing variance analysis with 95% confidence level and continued with Duncan multiple distance test at 5% level. The results of the study revealed that Legowo cultivars showed the best germination in 25% PEG treatment with 15% germination percentage, 0,5 cm seminal root length, 0,1cm shoot length, seminal root length ratio per shoot length 4,2 and vigor index 0,1. At 20% PEG treatment, Edok cultivars gave the best results with 85% germination percentage, 1,7 cm seminal root length, 0,3 cm shoot length, seminal root length ratio per-shoot length 5,4 and vigor index 1,7. The highest number of roots that can penetrate the wax layer was produced by Edok cultivars averaging 19,3 strands with an average length of 25,5 cm.


In many practical optimization problems, the derivatives of the functions to be optimized are unavailable or unreliable. Such optimization problems are solved using derivative-free optimization techniques. One of the state-of-the-art techniques for derivative-free optimization is the covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy (CMA-ES) algorithm. However, the complexity of CMA-ES algorithm makes it undesirable for tasks where fast optimization is needed. To reduce the execution time of CMA-ES, a parallel implementation is proposed, and its performance is analyzed using the benchmark problems in PythOPT optimization environment.


Tellurium compounds have shown several biological properties and recently the leishmanicidal effect of one organotellurane was demonstrated. These findings led us to test the effect of the organotellurium compound RF07 on Leishmania (Leishmania) chagasi, the agent of visceral leishmaniasis in Latin America. In vitro assays were performed in L. (L.) chagasi-infected bone marrow derived macrophages treated with different concentrations of RF07. In in vivo experiments Golden hamsters were infected with L. (L.) chagasi and injected intraperitoneally with RF07 whereas control animals received either Glucantime or PBS. The effect of RF07 on cathepsin B activity of L. (L.) chagasi amastigotes was assayed spectrofluorometrically using fluorogenic substrates. The main findings were: 1) RF07 showed significant leishmanicidal activity against intracellular parasites at submicromolar concentrations (IC50 of 529.7±26.5 nM), and the drug displayed 10-fold less toxicity to macrophages (CC50 of 5,426±272.8 nM); 2) kinetics assays showed an increasing leishmanicidal action of RF07 at longer periods of treatment; 3) one month after intraperitoneal injection of RF07 L. (L.) chagasi-infected hamsters showed a reduction of 99.6% of parasite burden when compared to controls that received PBS; 4) RF07 inhibited the cathepsin B activity of L. (L.) chagasi amastigotes. The present results demonstrated that the tellurium compound RF07 is able to destroy L. (L.) chagasi in vitro and in vivo at concentrations that are non toxic to the host. We believe these findings support further study of the potential of RF07 as a possible alternative for the chemotherapy of visceral leishmaniasis.


Quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) models are extensively applied to inform management of a broad range of food safety risks. Inevitably, QMRA modeling involves an element of simplification of the biological process of interest. Two features that are frequently simplified or disregarded are the pathogenicity of multiple strains of a single pathogen and consumer behavior at the household level. In this study, we developed a QMRA model with a multiple-strain approach and a consumer phase module (CPM) based on uncertainty distributions fitted from field data. We modeled exposure to staphylococcal enterotoxin A in raw milk in Lombardy; a specific enterotoxin production module was thus included. The model is adaptable and could be used to assess the risk related to other pathogens in raw milk as well as other staphylococcal enterotoxins. The multiplestrain approach, implemented as a multinomial process, allowed the inclusion of variability and uncertainty with regard to pathogenicity at the bacterial level. Data from 301 questionnaires submitted to raw milk consumers were used to obtain uncertainty distributions for the CPM. The distributions were modeled to be easily updatable with further data or evidence. The sources of uncertainty due to the multiple-strain approach and the CPM were identified, and their impact on the output was assessed by comparing specific scenarios to the baseline. When the distributions reflecting the uncertainty in consumer behavior were fixed to the 95th percentile, the risk of exposure increased up to 160 times. This reflects the importance of taking into consideration the diversity of consumers' habits at the household level and the impact that the lack of knowledge about variables in the CPM can have on the final QMRA estimates. The multiple-strain approach lends itself to use in other food matrices besides raw milk and allows the model to better capture the complexity of the real world and to be capable of geographical specificity.


This article focuses on the reorientation of the Canadian development assistance policy during the 1980's to foster the emergence of a North-South partnership in which the business community would be a key actor. It is questionable whether the funding levels and geographical priorities of telecommunication projects undertaken by the Canadian private sector through CIDA'S Industrial Cooperation Program may lead to such a partnership. Sectorial allocations, albeit still sparse, reveal a selective marginalization of Third World Economies, as they are concentrated on a few Latin American and Asian middle-income countries.


In this paper, a GSM based cellular communication scheme with encompassing security is proposed for electronic banking. In order to demonstrate the detailed steps of the scheme in a quick but convenient manner, Warnier-Orr representation of the proposed protocols is used. The proposed SMS based mobile banking scheme provides opportunity to every client of a financial institution to use modern facilities available nowadays via internet banking. The key advantage of our scheme is that the users do not need any sophisticated cellular phone or internet connectivity within the mobile handset. They can get major services, like balance enquiry, balance transfer between authenticated customers, and bill payment without going to the bank physically and saving the precious time. Security at the level of internet based communication between the mobile server and the banking server, which is beyond the control of the clients, is a crucial issue to be handled. In view of providing a high level of security, in addition to voice authentication, the digital audio watermarking technique is employed. There is no doubt that such a secured but easy to handle system can attract clients towards e-banking, especially in developing countries.


COVID-19 has shown a relatively low case fatality rate in young healthy individuals, with the majority of this group being asymptomatic or having mild symptoms. However, the severity of the disease among the elderly as well as in individuals with underlying health conditions has caused significant mortality rates worldwide. Understanding this variance amongst different sectors of society and modelling this will enable the different levels of risk to be determined to enable strategies to be applied to different groups. Long-established compartmental epidemiological models like SIR and SEIR do not account for the variability encountered in the severity of the SARS-CoV-2 disease across different population groups. The objective of this study is to investigate how a reduction in the exposure of vulnerable individuals to COVID-19 can minimise the number of deaths caused by the disease, using the UK as a case study. To overcome the limitation of long-established compartmental epidemiological models, it is proposed that a modified model, namely SEIR-v, through which the population is separated into two groups regarding their vulnerability to SARS-CoV-2 is applied. This enables the analysis of the spread of the epidemic when different contention measures are applied to different groups in society regarding their vulnerability to the disease. A Monte Carlo simulation (100,000 runs) along the proposed SEIR-v model is used to study the number of deaths which could be avoided as a function of the decrease in the exposure of vulnerable individuals to the disease. The results indicate a large number of deaths could be avoided by a slight realistic decrease in the exposure of vulnerable groups to the disease. The mean values across the simulations indicate 3681 and 7460 lives could be saved when such exposure is reduced by 10% and 20% respectively. From the encouraging results of the modelling a number of mechanisms are proposed to limit the exposure of vulnerable individuals to the disease. One option could be the provision of a wristband to vulnerable people and those without a smartphone and contact-tracing app, filling the gap created by systems relying on smartphone apps only. By combining very dense contact tracing data from smartphone apps and wristband signals with information about infection status and symptoms, vulnerable people can be protected and kept safer.


BACKGROUND
The introduction of low titer group O whole blood (LTOWB) that contains potentially ABO-incompatible plasma and the increasing use of group A plasma, due to shortages of AB plasma, in trauma patients whose ABO group is unknown could put the recipients of incompatible plasma at risk of increased morbidity and mortality. This study evaluated civilian trauma patient outcomes following receipt of incompatible plasma.

METHODS
One trauma center's patient contributions to three multicenter studies of different trauma resuscitation strategies was analyzed; these patients were separated into two groups based on receipt of only compatible plasma versus receipt of any quantity of incompatible plasma. Multivariate analysis was performed to determine if receipt of incompatible plasma was associated with 24-hour or 30-day mortality.

RESULTS
There were 347 patients eligible for this secondary analysis with 167 recipients of only compatible plasma and 180 recipients of incompatible plasma. The two groups were well matched demographically and on both prehospital and hospital arrival vital signs. The median (IQR) volume of incompatible plasma received by these patients was 684 ml (342, 1229). There was not a significant difference between the groups in 24-hour and 30-day mortality, nor in in-hospital or intensive care unit lengths of stay. In the Cox proportional-hazards regression model for both 24-hour and 30-day survival, receipt of incompatible plasma was not independently predictive of either mortality endpoint.

CONCLUSION
Receipt of incompatible plasma was not independently associated with increased mortality in trauma patients. Prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings.


Recent studies have found job satisfaction to be positively related to user information satisfaction. Studies have also indicated that job satisfaction will influence the performance both at the individual level and the organizational level. This study concentrates on looking into accountants' satisfaction toward the computerised accounting system, and its influence on their job satisfaction. Other variables analysed include gender, type of AIS, number of tasks, frequency of computer usage, and computer literacy. The study was conducted on 43 accountants working in public listed companies in Malaysia. The results of the study indicated that job satisfaction of accountants is positive related to their AIS satisfaction. A higher job satisfaction is also related to a higher frequency of computer usage. There was no evidence of any other relationship among other variables with AIS and job satisfaction. The implication of the study is a suggestion that developers of accounting system should get the users more involved in the development of the computer-based system.


This paper describes the application of a new material, Biocem, for retrograde root-canal filling. The series included 222 teeth, including 234 roots treated during the period 1987-1992. This material consists of two components and once mixed, the autopolymerisation results in a three-dimensional structure. The biomechanical, histological and clinical longterm follow-up confirms the optimal qualities of this material, fulfilling the requirements in regard to biocompatibility, watertight sealing and application. The material proved to be superior in comparison to conventional materials and ceramics. The significant reduction of complications and the new apposition, as well as the evaluation of the results are most encouraging.


We have previously shown that cationic cholesterol derivatives bearing guanidinium groups were efficient vectors for gene transfer. To further evaluate the potentiality of this novel class of cationic lipids, we undertook to study the transfection efficiency of guanidinium-based lipids with other hydrophobic moieties. Specifically, we synthesized a reagent where two guanidinium groups are linked to a diacetylene lipid which may provide the lipoplexes with favorable structural features. We report here that the cationic lipid bisguanidinium-diacetylene (BGDA) is highly efficient for in vitro gene transfection when formulated with dioleoylphosphatidyl ethanolamine (DOPE). We also show that liposomes composed of BGDA, DOPE, and a neutral diacetylene colipid, hydroxyethylenediacetylene (HEDA), are efficient for transfection. Thus, diacetylene-based lipids provide a novel scaffold for gene transfection and will be particularly useful for gaining new insights into the structure-activity relationships of the lipid/DNA complexes as they offer a means to study the effects of polymerizable domains.


Coxiella burnetii is a Gram-negative intracellular pathogen and is the causative agent of the zoonotic disease Q fever. To cause disease, C. burnetii requires a functional type IVB secretion system (T4BSS) to transfer effector proteins required for the establishment and maintenance of a membrane-bound parasitophorous vacuole (PV) and further modulation of host cell process. However, it is not clear how the T4BSS interacts with the PV membrane since neither a secretion pilus nor an extracellular pore forming apparatus has not been described. To address this, we used the acidified citrate cysteine medium (ACCM) along with cell culture infection and immunological techniques to identify the cellular and extracellular localization of T4BSS components. Interestingly, we found that DotA and IcmX were secreted/released in a T4BSS-dependent manner into the ACCM. Analysis of C. burnetii-infected cell lines revealed that DotA colocalized with the host cell marker CD63 (LAMP3) at the PV membrane. In the absence of bacterial protein synthesis, DotA also became depleted from the PV membrane. These data are the first to identify the release/secretion of C. burnetii T4BSS components during axenic growth and the interaction of a T4BSS component with the PV membrane during infection of host cells.


[1] Ground observations of magnetospheric field line eigenfrequency are useful in continuously monitoring the magnetospheric plasma density. The amplitude-phase gradient method (APGM) [Pilipenko and Fedorov, 1994] is a technique which is applied to H-component magnetometer data from two ground stations aligned along a meridian; as a result, it yields the eigenfrequency and the resonance width as continuous functions of latitude. This feature (yielding the two quantities at any latitudes from two stations' data) is unique to APGM: Classic gradient methods yield the two quantities only at the midpoint of the two stations. This paper presents the first time APGM is applied to actual data: We apply it to two pairs of stations, independently, to test if the two results agree. The two pairs are made from three stations (one overlapped) almost aligned along a meridian, at L = 1.32, 1.36, and 1.39 (latitudinal separation: 1.51° and 1.06°). The data were taken when Pc3 pulsations took place. The resultant two latitude profiles of the eigenfrequency (resonance width) are very close to each other, demonstrating the consistency and usefulness of APGM. We also present a new technique to obtain one latitude profile of the eigenfrequency and that of the resonance width from any number of stations; we apply it to our three stations' data and show its consistency and usefulness. The application result unambiguously shows that the eigenfrequency at low latitudes increases with increasing latitude, which is ascribed to mass loading on field lines of ionospheric heavy ions. The result also indicates a large damping rate of the eigen-oscillations.


Backdoor attacks have been shown to be a serious security threat against deep learning models, and detecting whether a given model has been backdoored becomes a crucial task. Existing defenses are mainly built upon the observation that the backdoor trigger is usually of small size or affects the activation of only a few neurons. However, the above observations are violated in many cases especially for advanced backdoor attacks, hindering the performance and applicability of the existing defenses. In this paper, we propose a backdoor defense DTInspector built upon a new observation. That is, an effective backdoor attack usually requires high prediction confidence on the poisoned training samples, so as to ensure that the trained model exhibits the targeted behavior with a high probability. Based on this observation, DTInspector first learns a patch that could change the predictions of most high-confidence data, and then decides the existence of backdoor by checking the ratio of prediction changes after applying the learned patch on the low-confidence data. Extensive evaluations on five backdoor attacks, four datasets, and three advanced attacking types demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed defense.


Apert syndrome is autosomal dominant disease associated with multiple craniofacial and limb deformities. These children usually face many orthopedic, orthodental operative procedures. As anesthetist, we face difficulties in airway management due to mid-facial hypoplasia, craniosynostosis. We report a case of Apert syndrome which was referred to us for syndactyly release, focusing on the difficulties and complications related to it.


Hypoallergenic formulas are the sole source of nutrition for infants that are either allergic to milk proteins or at risk of developing allergies. Strategies to provide nutritional sustenance, while preventing allergic reactions, include designing formulas based on extensively hydrolyzed casein which is presumably devoid of antigenic epitopes. Assays devoted to the assessment of antigenic protein motifs are crucial to verify the absence of relevant antigens in formulas and the raw materials used in their preparation. Evaluation of commercial immunoassay kits intended for the detection of milk proteins in foods led to the conclusion that a specific assay for extensively hydrolyzed casein-based formulas was necessary to improve allergen recoveries and assay consistency. The purpose of this investigation was to develop a reproducible path, from the generation of antibodies to the pre-validation of immunoassays optimized for the analysis of hydrolyzed casein-based infant formula. We prepared purified antisera from sheep immunized with bovine acid-precipitated casein to establish a platform consisting of a slot blot immunoassay and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results indicate that sheep can reliably produce antibodies against epitopes in the casein fraction of bovine milk, thus providing a quantitative reagent that binds to immobilized casein in different formats. The limits of detection and quantitation for standard solutions for the enzyme-linked immunoassay were 0.8 and 2.5 ppm, respectively. The limit of detection in the extensively hydrolyzed casein-based formula was 0.5 ppm and the limit of quantitation 1.4 ppm. This account describes two reproducible immunoassays that are accessible to any laboratory or manufacturing setting and do not require proprietary ingredients or undisclosed extraction solutions. While these tests were developed to quantitate casein in hypoallergenic formula matrices, an application of the slot blot immunoassay to assess residual casein on manufacturing surfaces is also described in the present account.


Although national learning and Chinese learning seemed to stand on opposite poles, they had a much more complicated relationship. While many Tokugawa Confucians engaged themselves in the study of ancient Japanese classics, historical records, and religion, kokugaku scholars also read Chinese texts as well as the Confucian classics, using them either as useful references or negative examples. The Yijing (Book of Changes) was a text of particular interest to kokugaku scholars. Using the kokugaku thinker Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843) and his school as main references, this study examines how kokugaku scholars transformed the Yijing from a Chinese Confucian classic into a Japanese Shinto text. Through an investigation of the uses and appropriation of the Yijing among kokugaku scholars, this study aims to analyze the nature of kokugaku , the relationship between Confucianism and kokugaku , and the localization of Chinese learning in the Tokugawa period.


Tumor protein 53 (p53) is a critical regulator of cell cycle and apoptosis that is frequently disabled in human tumors. In many tumor types, p53 is deleted or mutated, but in others p53 is inactivated by overexpression or amplification of its negative regulator mouse double minute 2 (MDM2). A high-throughput screening effort identified 6,7-bis(4-bromophenyl)-7,12-dihydro-6H-chromeno[4,3-d][1,2,4]triazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine as a potent inhibitor of the MDM2-p53 protein-protein interaction. This screening hit was found to be chemically unstable and difficult to handle due to poor DMSO solubility. Co-crystallization with the target protein helped to direct further optimization and provided a tractable lead series of novel MDM2-p53 inhibitors. In cellular assays, these compounds were shown to upregulate p53 protein levels and p53 signaling and to cause p53-dependent inhibition of proliferation and apoptosis.


A recent trend in data mining has explored (hyper)graph clustering algorithms for data with categorical relationship types. Such algorithms have applications in the analysis of social, co-authorship, and protein interaction networks, to name a few. Many such applications naturally have some overlap between clusters, a nuance which is missing from current combinatorial models. Additionally, existing models lack a mechanism for handling noise in datasets. We address these concerns by generalizing Edge-Colored Clustering, a recent framework for categorical clustering of hypergraphs. Our generalizations allow for a budgeted number of either (a) overlapping cluster assignments or (b) node deletions. For each new model we present a greedy algorithm which approximately minimizes an edge mistake objective, as well as bicriteria approximations where the second approximation factor is on the budget. Additionally, we address the parameterized complexity of each problem, providing FPT algorithms and hardness results.


Abstract Organic agriculture is being promoted in Iran to address environmental problems resulting from the use of chemical materials in agriculture. Despite many advantages of organic agriculture, the results of several case studies show that its adoption rate is still very low among farmers. The purpose of this paper is to review previous studies that investigated the main factors influencing and challenging the adoption of organic agriculture. The review included journal articles and conference papers from 2007 to 2012. The results show that Iranian farmers have strong motives for the adoption, yet face challenges in certifying, marketing, and accessing reliable technical information and credits. Given the review of factors that govern farmers' adoption of organic agriculture, key mechanisms for promoting farmers' adoption are discussed. Further research is needed to learn how to bring these mechanisms into play in Iran.


Summary 1. Community genetics research has posited a genetic basis to the assembly of ecological communities. For arthropod herbivores in particular, there is strong support that genetic variation in host plants is a key factor shaping their diversity and composition. However, the specific plant phenotypes underlying herbivore responses remain poorly explored for most systems. 2. We address this knowledge gap by examining the influence of both genetic and phenotypic variation in a dominant host-plant species, Salix hookeriana, on its associated arthropod herbivore community in a common garden experiment. Specifically, we surveyed herbivore responses among five different arthropod feeding guilds to 26 distinct S. hookeriana genotypes. Moreover, we quantified the heritability of a suite of plant traits that determine leaf quality (e.g. phenolic compounds, trichomes, specific leaf area, C : N) and whole-plant architecture, to identify which traits best accounted for herbivore community responses to S. hookeriana genotype. 3. We found that total herbivore abundance and community composition differed considerably among S. hookeriana genotypes, with strong and independent responses of several species and feeding guilds driving these patterns. We also found that leaf phenolic chemistry displayed extensive heritable variation, whereas leaf physiology and plant architecture tended to be less heritable. Of these traits, herbivore responses were primarily associated with leaf phenolics and plant architecture; however, different herbivore species and feeding guilds were associated with different sets of traits. Despite our thorough trait survey, plant genotype remained a significant predictor of herbivore responses in most trait association analyses, suggesting that unmeasured host-plant characteristics and/or interspecific interactions were also contributing factors. 4. Taken together, our results support that the genetic basis of herbivore community assembly occurs through a suite of plant traits for different herbivore species and feeding guilds. Still, identifying these phenotypic mechanisms requires measuring a broad range of plant traits and likely further consideration of how these traits affect interspecific interactions.


Increasing atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gasses coupled to the accelerated rate of global warming puts plants and ecosystems under the strain of a rapidly changing abiotic environment. Understanding the impacts of changing global climate is a strong focus of plant science and the establishment of more resilient crop variants is an important goal for breeding programs. Our understanding of plant responses and acclimation to abiotic conditions has improved substantially over the last decades but the combination of a complex abiotic environment and high biological diversity, both on molecular as well as on species level, leaves us still with a lot of uncertainties. The aim of this doctoral thesis was to establish a link between plant thermal responses and the carbon-nitrogen balance of plants. The work in this thesis focused on ecologically significant species of the boreal region: Picea abies, Pinus sylvestris and Betula pendula; and Betula utilis, which is one of the prominent tree species in the high altitudes of the Himalayas. The results presented demonstrate that sub-optimal temperatures combined with other abiotic factors can have additive effects that are not easily deducible from the effect of the two factors separately. Low nitrogen availability enhanced the negative effect of low temperature, while elevated CO2 enhanced plant growth under moderate increases in temperatures but under a more extreme temperature increase it exacerbated the negative effect of heat. I also show evidence that species, despite being grouped into the same functional group or inhabiting the same biome can have different thresholds to temperature and to shifts in the C/N balance of their environment and that these differences can, to some extent, be explained by their differential growth strategies. Furthermore, I demonstrate results supporting the hypothesis that the C-N fluxes between mycorrhizal fungi and tree are strongly dependent on the C and N in the environment, highlighting the significance of the tree-mycorrhiza associations in the C sequestration capacity of the boreal region. In this thesis I also present a generalised empirically based mathematical model that can describe the respiration-temperature response of plant functional types or biomes with high precision, giving a more accurate estimate of NPP when implemented in global climate models, and has the potential to incorporate the thermal acclimation of respiration, further increasing the precision of estimating carbon fluxes under future warming temperatures. My results provide novel insights into the interactive temperature-carbon-nitrogen responses of plants, taking a step towards better understanding the response of plants and forests to future climates.


We explain how to use the composite likelihood function to ameliorate estimation, computational and inferential problems in dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models. We combine the information present in different models or data sets to estimate the parameters common across models. We provide intuition for why the methodology works and alternative interpretations of the estimators we construct and of the statistics we employ. We present a number of situations where the methodology has the potential to resolve well-known problems and to provide a justification for existing practices that pool different estimates. In each case, we provide an example to illustrate how the approach works and its properties in practice.


The dynamic organization of vacuoles and the association of tonoplast cargo protein PAT10 are impaired and lead to reduced pollen tube growth in adaptor protein-3 mutants. Pollen tube growth is an essential step for successful plant reproduction. Vacuolar trafficking and dynamic organization are important for pollen tube growth; however, the key proteins involved in these processes are not well understood. Here, we report that the ADAPTOR PROTEIN-3 (AP-3) complex and its tonoplast cargo PROTEIN S-ACYL TRANSFERASE10 (PAT10) are critical for pollen tube growth in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). AP-3 is a heterotetrameric protein complex consisting of four subunits, δ, β, µ, and σ. AP-3 regulates tonoplast targeting of several cargoes, such as PAT10. We show that functional loss of any of the four AP-3 subunits reduces plant fertility. In ap-3 mutants, pollen development was normal but pollen tube growth was compromised, leading to reduced male transmission. Functional loss of PAT10 caused a similar reduction in pollen tube growth, suggesting that the tonoplast association of PAT10 mediated by AP-3 is crucial for this process. Indeed, the Ca2+ gradient during pollen tube growth was reduced significantly due to AP-3 loss of function, consistent with the abnormal targeting of CALCINUERIN B-LIKE2 (CBL2) and CBL3, whose tonoplast association depends on PAT10. Furthermore, we show that the pollen tubes of ap-3 mutants have vacuoles with simplified tubules and bulbous structures, indicating that AP-3 affects vacuolar organization. Our results demonstrate a role for AP-3 in plant reproduction and provide insights into the role of vacuoles in polarized cell growth.


This thesis asks, what are the social, ideological and historical trends that have brought Salafi Jihadism into conflict with the US at the turn of the 21st century? It is proposed that one of the primary factors driving Salafi Jihadist violence against the United States and its allies lies in an incompatibility between the contemporary international system and the Salafi Jihadist vision of an Islamic political order. There has been since the origins of Islam a search for unity among the Muslim people and a political order legitimised through religiously sanctioned governance. Though these aims have been ongoing since Islam's origins, in the contemporary era this is met with particular challenges. The international system is characterised by the sovereignty of nation-states. Despite persistent challenges to the international system and the greater interconnectivity of states through globalising processes, the state remains the most prominent manifestation of sovereignty. The contemporary period is unique as the most significant hegemonic power, the US along with other great powers, not only accepts the given order but as well actively seeks to maintain it. This has hampered the ambitions of Islamic actors who seek to continue to strive for the unity of the Islamic world and governance that has its legitimacy based in religion defined by a particular actor's notion of what constitutes legitimacy in Islamic terms. These ambitions are presented with more profound obstacles than has been the case in previous historical settings. These historical ambitions have met with an international system that is structured in such a way that it is incompatible with this particular Islamic political narrative. The Salafi Jihadists are attempting to be the vanguard of Islam itself with their particular ideological understanding of Islamic political order, derived from the Salafist tradition. This imagined order is contradictory to the status quo of the contemporary international system that is in part characterised by state sovereignty. It is, therefore, the strategy of the Salafi Jihadists to disrupt the hegemon's ability to maintain this order, in what could be understood as reflective of competing universalisms.


We have observed that the amount of photoionization from an atomic Rydberg state with a pulsed laser depends critically on the length of the pulse, whereas lowest order perturbation theory implies that the yield only depends on the fluence (the integrated intensity) of the pulse. We have measured the yield for one-photon ionization with short (0.3 to 2.7 ps), high-intensity laser pulses from the 27d Rydberg state in barium. With equal fluence, the yield decreases for pulses shorter than the Kepler orbit time of the outer electron (2.2 ps), as not all of its wavefunction comes near the core during the length of the pulse. The observations and this classical picture are confirmed by quantum mechanical calculations.


Objectives This study aimed to identify main sex-specific correlates of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in a population-based, urban sample of Swedish adults. Design Cross-sectional. Setting Multi-site study at university hospitals, data from the Gothenburg site. Participants A total of 5308 participants (51% women, aged 50–64 years) with a valid estimated VO2max, from submaximal cycle test, in the Swedish CArdioPulmonary bioImage Study (SCAPIS), were included. Primary and secondary outcomes A wide range of correlates were examined including (a) sociodemographic and lifestyle behaviours, (b) perceived health, anthropometrics and chronic conditions and (c) self-reported as well as accelerometer-derived physical activity and sedentary behaviours. Both continuous levels of estimated VO2max as well as odds ratios (OR) and confidence intervals (CI)s of low VO2max (lowest sex-specific tertile) were reported. Results In multivariable regression analyses, higher age, being born abroad, short education, high waist circumference, poor perceived health, high accelerometer-derived time in sedentary and low in vigorous physical activity, as well as being passive commuter, correlated independently and significantly with low VO2max in both men and women (OR range 1.31–9.58). Additionally in men, financial strain and being an ex-smoker are associated with higher odds for low VO2max (OR 2.15; 95% CI 1.33 to 3.48 and OR 1.40; 95% CI 1.09 to 1.80), while constant stress with lower odds (OR 0.61; 95% CI 0.43 to 0.85). Additionally in women, being a regular smoker is associated with lower odds for low VO2max (OR 0.64; 95% CI 0.45 to 0.92). Conclusions The present study provides important reference material on CRF and correlates of CRF in a general middle-aged population, which can be valuable for future research, clinical practice and public health work. If relations are causal, increased knowledge about specific subgroups will aid in the development of appropriate, targeted interventions.


Background: This study attempted to clarify the innervation pattern of the muscles of the distal arm and posterior forearm through cadaveric dissection. Methods: Thirty-five cadavers were dissected to expose the radial nerve in the forearm. Each muscular branch of the nerve was identified and their length and distance along the nerve were recorded. These values were used to determine the typical branching and motor entry orders. Results: The typical branching order was brachialis, brachioradialis, extensor carpi radialis longus, extensor carpi radialis brevis, supinator, extensor digitorum, extensor carpi ulnaris, abductor pollicis longus, extensor digiti minimi, extensor pollicis brevis, extensor pollicis longus and extensor indicis. Notably, the radial nerve often innervated brachialis (60%), and its superficial branch often innervated extensor carpi radialis brevis (25.7%). Conclusions: The radial nerve exhibits significant variability in the posterior forearm. However, there is enough consistency to identify an archetypal pattern and order of innervation. These findings may also need to be considered when planning surgical approaches to the distal arm, elbow and proximal forearm to prevent an undue loss of motor function. The review of the literature yielded multiple studies employing inconsistent metrics and terminology to define order or innervation.


Background In Ethiopia, nearly one-third of people living with human immunodeficiency viruses do not adhere to antiretroviral therapy. Moreover, information regarding non-adherence and its associated factors among adults on first-line antiretroviral therapy in Northeast Ethiopia is limited. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the level of non-adherence and its associated factors among adults on first-line antiretroviral therapy in North Shewa Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. Methods A facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 326 participants selected by systematic random sampling technique from the five randomly selected public health facilities. Data were collected using the questionnaire adapted from the studies conducted previously and the collected data were entered into Epi data version 3.1 and exported to Stata version 14 for further analysis. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was done and an adjusted odds ratio with its corresponding 95% confidence interval was used to declare a statistical significance. Results The overall prevalence of non-adherence was 17.4% [95% CI: (12.8%, 21.2%)]. Patients with no formal education [AOR (95% CI) = 5.57 (1.97, 15.88)], those who did not use memory aids to take their medications [AOR (95% CI) = 3.01 (1.27, 7.11)], travel more than 10 kilometers to visit the nearby antiretroviral therapy clinics [AOR (95% CI) = 2.42 (1.22, 25.86)], those who used substance [AOR (95% CI) = 3.57 (1.86, 28.69)], and patients whose medication time interfered with their daily routine activities [AOR (95% CI) = 15.46 (4.41, 54.28) had higher odds of having non-adherence to first-line antiretroviral therapy compared to their counter groups. Conclusion The level of non-adherence to first-line antiretroviral therapy was 17.4%, higher compared to WHO's recommendation. Hence, patients counseling focused on avoiding substance use, use memory aids, and adjusting working time with medication schedule are very crucial. Furthermore, the ministry of health and the regional health bureau with other stakeholders should expand antiretroviral therapy service delivery at health facilities that are close to the community to address distance barriers.


Abstract Glucocorticoids used in pharmacological doses for the treatment of a variety of medical conditions, and endogenous glucocorticoid excess - Cushing's syndrome, may result in several adverse effects, but currently there is no clinically useful biomarker of glucocorticoid activity. We have applied a proteomic approach to the discovery of glucocorticoid-responsive proteins potentially measurable in human serum samples. To minimise the masking by abundant serum proteins, we conducted discovery proteomics on the secretome of ex vivo-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) isolated from 12 volunteers. The PBMC were divided into 4 treatment groups; +/- dexamethasone 100 ng/mL (dex) for 4h, or +/- dex for 24h. In all treatment groups, media was changed to serum free for 3h before collection. Media samples were processed for proteomics, with 561 and 273 proteins analysed by label-free quantification (LFQ) for the 4h and 24h secretome, respectively. Paired statistical analysis at the 2 time points generated a shortlist of 43 candidate biomarker proteins, which was verified using a multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) assay, confirming the differential secretion of 12 proteins at both 4h and 24 h. Five proteins were selected for validation using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in an independent cohort: β2 microglobulin (B2M), lysozyme C (LYZ), high-mobility group protein 2 (HMG2), nucleophosmin (NPM1) and nucleolin (NCL). Twenty new volunteers (10M and 10F) had venous blood drawn at baseline and 12h after 4 mg oral dex. Four proteins were detectable by ELISA, three of which showed statistically significant change in concentration. Serum LYZ and NPM1 significantly decreased following dex: LYZ - 101 ± 5.5 vs 67 ± 4.4 ng/mL, (P<0.0001); NPM1 - 17.4 ± 1.0 vs 14.3 ± 0.9 ng/mL, (P<0.01), while HMG2 significantly increased - 819 ± 34 vs 984 ± 60 pg/mL (P<0.01). These results demonstrate that an ex vivo proteomic approach using PBMC in conditioned media can identify glucocorticoid-responsive proteins measurable in human serum.


OBJECTIVE
To report our initial experience of the first 5 cases of partial left ventriculectomy (PLV or Batista operation), a new surgical therapy for treatment of end-stage dilated cardiomyopathy in China.

METHODS
From April to August 1998, 5 patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy received PLV at Anzhen Hospital. The mean age of the patients was 48.4 years (range: 42 to 53 years). Three patients were in New York Heart Association (NYHA) class III and 2 in class IV. All patients had mitral valve insufficiency (3 moderate and 2 severe) and 1 had severe tricuspid valve insufficiency in addition preoperatively. Cardiopulmonary bypass and cardiac arrest with cold blood cardioplegia were used in all patients. The average weight of the resected left ventricle muscle was 46.3 g. All patients underwent mitral annuloplasty and 1 plus tricuspid annuloplasty (De Vega).

RESULTS
Echocardiography demonstrated a significant decrease in left ventricular diastolic diameter (8.4 +/- 1.1 cm to 5.4 +/- 0.4 cm, P < 0.01) and an increase in ejection fraction (17.78% +/- 6.26% to 34.82% +/- 3.18%, P < 0.025). One patient died of heart failure on the 6th postoperative day. The mean follow-up period of the 4 discharged patients were 4 months (from 3 to 6 months). One were in NYHA class I and 3 in class II; all had a normal life.

CONCLUSION
Batista operation is a new and valuable alternative of the surgical treatment for end-stage dilated cardiomyopathy and the long-term results need further studies.


In order to add adaptability and user-friendliness to human computer interfaces, the classification and recognition of a user's emotional state has evolved to a significant topic of interest within the research on natural spoken dialogue systems. In this article we pick up the idea of using hidden Markov models (HMMs) to recognize emotions from speech signals and we integrate these recognition results in adaptive dialogue management. At first we give an overlook on different characteristics of selected emotions with respect to the features extracted from the speech signal and we describe the emotion recognizer. Then we highlight our approaches to improve the quality of the recognizer models and we show how the recognizer's results are used to adapt a dialogue system's behavior to the user's emotional state


The mode of action of some herbicides, viz., DCMU, simetone, and diquat, was investigated by studying their effects upon oxygen evolution and cyclic photophosphorylation in the unicellular green alga, Scenedesmus spec. Oxygen evolution was measured with the aid of the WARBURG technique, the suspension medium mostly was WARBURG buffer no 9, the gas phase was air, in general, the temperature 25°C. Cyclic photophosphorylation was determined by measuring inorganic phosphate uptake by the algae during a 90 minutes illumination period under a nitrogen atmosphere. In Chapter III, it is shown that phosphate uptake under the conditions described is saturated at much lower light intensity than oxygen evolution (fig. 4). In far-red light, preferentially absorbed by PS I, there is almost no oxygen evolution (table 2), while the fixation of phosphate proceeds equally well as in white light (fig. 5). This demonstrates that the latter process represents cyclic photophosphorylation in vivo. In Chapter IV, it is shown that DCMU, at light saturation and at 5 mm 3 cells/ml, inhibits oxygen evolution for 50% at a concentration of 2 x 10 -7 M (fig. 6). This concentration has no effect on dark O 2 -uptake (fig. 11). The degree of inhibition of oxygen evolution by DCMU decreases with increasing suspension density (section IV. 1.2.). Moreover, the degree of inhibition depends on light intensity (section IV. 1.4.), but not on temperature (section IV. 1.5.). By washing the cells, the inhibiting effect of DCMU can be removed (section IV. 1.3.). DCMU has no effect on the photosynthetic quotient (table 4). Phosphate fixation in white light is much less sensitive to DCMU than oxygen evolution; in far-red light phosphate fixation is more strongly inhibited than in white light, but less than oxygen evolution (fig. 36). In Chapter V, the effect of simetone is studied. Simetone has effects, qualitatively similar to those of DCMU on oxygen evolution and phosphate fixation. It differs from DCMU only in being less effective, not accumulated by the algae, and washed out more easily. In Chapter VI, experiments on the influence of diquat on oxygen evolution and phosphate fixation are presented. The inhibition of O 2 -evolution by diquat increases with time; treatment in light for one hour with 2 x 10 -5 M gives an inhibition of about 50% (fig. 27). The degree of inhibition decreases with increasing suspension density (fig. 29) which points to an accumulation of diquat by the cells. The inhibiting effect cannot be washed out, but when diquat is added in the absence of oxygen or in the presence of 10 -5 M simetone, the inhibition after washing is decreased (section VI.1.4.). It is concluded that diquat can be removed to a large extent by washing, and that oxygen is required to bring about the inhibiting effect. Diquat initially stimulates dark O 2 -uptake which subsequently changes into inhibition (section VI.1.2.). The degree of inhibition of O 2 -evolution increases with light intensity. Inhibition was observed both in the light-limited and in the light-saturated part of the photosynthesis-light curve. The degree of inhibition increases with temperature (section VI.1.5.). During the first 45 minutes after addition of diquat (with air as a gas phase), the photosynthetic quotient is increased (table 10). This shows that during this time diquat acts as a HILL-oxidant for O 2 -evolution, while CO 2 -uptake is decreased by lack of reduced NADP. Diquat was found to inhibit phosphate fixation to about 50 % (in the complete absence of oxygen) (fig. 35). The results are consistent with the hypothesis that diquat is reduced to a free radical in the photosynthetic process and also, to a smaller extent, in respiration. The reaction of this free radical with water and oxygen leads to the formation of toxic peroxide radicals or hydrogen peroxide (fig. 40). These peroxides are assumed to disrupt cellular organization, structure and function. In Chapter VII, the mode of action of the various herbicides studied, and the implications of the results for the mechanism of photosynthesis are discussed. The results obtained give rise to the following interpretation of the mode of action of DCMU and simetone: both herbicides affect the oxidized state of a substance X, which may represent, or is very close to, the primary electron acceptor of PS II. Moreover, X takes part in the cyclic electron transport chain (fig. 40). X might be plastoquinone; the binding with the herbicides probably occurs via hydrogen bonds (figs. 38, 39). With respect to the mechanism of photosynthesis it is concluded that cyclic photophosphorylation occurs also in vivo . The cyclic electron transport chain probably contacts the non-cyclic one at the level of plastoquinone. Evidence suggests that there are two phosphorylation sites in the cyclic electron transport chain: one between cytochrome 559 and cytochrome 553, and another one in the chain of PS I between Z and plastoquinone. For more details regarding these considerations, cf. section VII.2.3.


Introduction Criminal responsibility of legal corporations is an inherently contested issue. In a famous contribution on the topic, written in 1957, Gerhard Mueller asserted that, while common law countries had embraced the idea of criminal liability for corporations and the US Model Penal Code contained explicit regulations, the majority of civil law states still adhered to the maxim societas delinquere non potest (Mueller, 1957–1958: 28). The reasons for this reluctance are not hard to grasp. Corporations are abstract entities that cannot 'act' or 'think' for themselves. Holding them criminally responsible would flout the classic criminal law requirements of actus reus and mens rea . Moreover – and closely related to the previous point – a corporation is insensitive to punishment, because it has 'no soul to damn and no body to be kicked'. Meanwhile, in half a century, opinions and legal practice have changed. Nowadays, it is fairly universally acknowledged that corporations can cause widespread mischief by producing disasters, extensive pollution and even by being complicit in war crimes. Borrowing from the solutions advanced in the common law tradition, many civil law systems have gradually introduced legislation on corporate criminal responsibility. They have tried to overcome the conceptual hurdles by identifying corporations with their organs or representatives, by imputing the latter's conduct and intentions to the corporation or by simply holding the 'corporate culture' responsible. Such initiatives have been prompted by the considerations that corporations sometimes gain huge profits at the expense of human happiness, that managers are often quite successful in hiding behind the corporate veil and that corporations can be painfully hurt. After all, they have 'deep pockets' and can be heavily fined; they are sensitive to loss of reputation; they can be excluded from all kinds of public benefits and tax exemptions; and they can, as a measure of last resort, even be dissolved. At the supra-national level such legislative activities are encouraged or even prescribed. In spite of these developments, criminal corporate liability is still a problem nagging many people at the back of their minds. An important state like Germany is still adamant to keep corporations out of the grip of criminal law (Weigend, 2008). Moreover, corporate criminal responsibility is absent in all the statutes of the international criminal tribunals, including the Rome Statute.


Mutations in the human ether-a-go-go-related gene (hERG) cause chromosome 7-linked long QT syndrome type II (LQT2). We have shown previously that LQT2 mutations lead to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) retention and rapid degradation of mutant hERG proteins. In this study we examined the role of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway in the degradation of the LQT2 mutation Y611H. We showed that proteasome inhibitors N-acetyl-l-leucyl-l-leucyl-l-norleucinal and lactacystin but not lysosome inhibitor leupeptin inhibited the degradation of Y611H mutant channels. In addition, ER mannosidase I inhibitor kifunensine and down-regulation of EDEM (ER degradation-enhancing α-mannosidase-like protein) also suppressed the degradation of Y611H mutant channels. Proteasome inhibition but not mannosidase inhibition led to the accumulation of full-length hERG protein in the cytosol. The hERG protein accumulated in the cytosol was deglycosylated. Proteasome inhibition also resulted in the accumulation of polyubiquitinated hERG channels. These results suggest that the degradation of LQT2 mutant channels is mediated by the cytosolic proteasome in a process that involves man-nose trimming, polyubiquitination, and deglycosylation of mutant channels.


Industry Summary: Despite aggressive heat stress abatement strategies, the U.S. swine industry loses ~$900 million annually. Sources of reduced revenue include: slower growth rates, inefficient feed utilization, increased health care costs, inconsistent market weights, mortality and altered carcass traits. Consequently, heat stress is currently one of the costliest issues in the U.S. pork industry and annually compromises the industry's capacity to produce animal protein for human consumption. The effect of heat stress will likely become more of an issue for at least three additional reasons: 1) if the frequency of severe hot weather increases as predicted and 2) genetic selection continues to emphasize traditional economically important phenotypes as these (lean tissue accretion rates, piglets/sow etc.) are coupled with increased basal heat production, and 3) the inclusion of cheaper high fiber diets (digesting fiber generates increased more heat than other nutrients). Collectively, this presents two threats to profitability and sustainability: 1) the genetic propensity for lean growth accretion in contemporary commercial pigs is likely to make them more susceptible to heat stress, and 2) the need to use alternate feedstuffs containing higher fiber content is likely to create more heat stress in pigs. Therefore, there is an urgent need to describe the effects of management practices and genetics on heat stress induced losses in efficiency and profitability.


This paper describes the Transparent Access to Multiple Bioinformatics Information Sources project, known as TAMBIS, in which a domain ontology for molecular biology and bioinformatics is used in a retrieval-based information integration system for biologists. The ontology, represented using a description logic and managed by a terminology server, is used both to drive a visual query interface and as a global schema against which complex intersource queries are expressed. These source-independent declarative queries are then rewritten into collections of ordered source-dependent queries for execution by a middleware layer. In bioinformatics, the majority of data sources are not databases but tools with limited accessible interfaces. The ontology helps manage the interoperation between these resources. The paper emphasizes the central role that is played by the ontology in the system. The project distinguishes itself from others in the following ways: the ontology, developed by a biologist, is substantial; the retrieval interface is sophisticated; the description logic is managed by a sophisticated terminology server. A full pilot application is available as a JavaTM applet integrating five sources concerned with proteins. This pilot is currently undergoing field trials with working biologists and is being used to answer real questions in biology, one of which is used as a case study throughout the paper.


The molecular structures of (E)-1-(4-{[1-(4-fluorophenyl)-3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrazol-4-yl]diazenyl}phenyl)ethanone, C19H17FN4O, (III), and (E)-1-(4-chlorophenyl)-3,5-dimethyl-4-[2-(2-nitrophenyl)diazenyl]-1H-pyrazole, C17H14ClN5O2, (IV), prepared by reaction of the corresponding β-diketohydrazones with substituted arylhydrazines in acid media, are nonplanar, with the planes of the lateral phenyl rings forming dihedral angles with that of the central pyrazole ring varying from 2.71 (7) to 45.22 (7)°. The crystal structures are supported by C-H...O, C-H...π and π-π weak intermolecular interactions together with some unusual trifurcated C-Cl...Cl-C contacts, which are discussed in detail.


The aim of the chapter is to describe how service-level agreements (SLAs) could be utilized to provide the basis for resource trading based on economic models. SLAs enable a service user to identify their requirements, and a provider to identify their capabilities. Subsequently, the terms in an SLA are necessary to ensure that mutually agreeable quality is being delivered by the provider according to the agreement. The use of service-level agreements (SLAs) in a resource management system to support Grid computing applications is described. To this end, we provide an architecture that supports the creation and management of SLAs. The architecture of the system, in terms of the components and their interactions, is first presented, followed by a description of the specific requirements for a marketoriented Grid economy. We use SLAs as a means to support reliable quality of service for Grid jobs. The creation of such an SLA requires planning and orchestration mechanisms. We will discuss these functionalities and also consider the economic aspects such as dynamic pricing and negotiation mechanisms. These mechanisms are necessary to enable SLA formation and use, and to ensure that an SLA is being adhered to during service provision.


Based on the analysis of the related concepts of IOT technology, the architecture framework of IOT technology has been discussed in this paper. The mutual fusion logical relation with the mobile communication network has been also studied from the IOT technology aspect. Combining a large number of application cases of IOT technology, this paper has also proposed the key links of the R&D department and the project operator in the integration of IOT business applications and the aggregation of IOT industry chains in the IOT project applications so as to realize the sustainable cycle development of IOT industries.


The global economic crisis that started in 2007 in the area of finance, expanded over the subsequent years to the business sphere, and resulted in a drop of demand and production almost in any field of business activity. Access to foreign sources of finance, especially to loans, has become more difficult and expensive. In such circumstances, enterprises have had to resort more often to their own capital generated by the issue of shares, and to retained profit. Banks have limited their loans for business entities, reduced credit periods, and raised credit margins as well as their levels of collaterals. The McKinsey research into the changes that occur in the structures of sources of finance confirms that the share of equity capital in the structure of financing of non-financial enterprises has visibly grown, and their crediting scopes have been limited all over the European Union as well as in the euro zone. The global tendencies as regards directions of changes in the structure of the sources of corporate financing have also been reflected in Poland. The economic slowdown has resulted in changes in the structures of corporate financing. Mining companies have risen the shares of their equity capital in their general sources of financing. This tendency corresponds to the changes of structure of corporate financing in Poland and Europe. Enterprises have resorted to bank loans to a lesser degree than in times of better market situation. In mining, public companies have increased their crediting, while in private sector the tendency has been reverse. Enterprises tend to use more flexible debiting forms as compared to credits by way of issue of long-term corporate bonds. Mining companies have developed issue programs that are to be implemented over three-year periods. Before, only Katowicki Holding Weglowy [Katowice Mining Holding] had issued bonds. The present publication is an attempt at assessing the changes in the structure of corporate financing within the mining sector in the circumstances of economic slowdown. The changes have been assessed against the background of changes in the structure of financing of other business entities. Three problems have been identified and subjected to research. The first concerns the increasing share of equity capital in the structure of corporate financing in mining enterprises. The second issue concerns the scope of corporate crediting. And the third issue relates to the time structure of corporate debt. The said issues have been analysed in the conditions of economic slowdown.


Amorphous silica particles, whose applications are increasing in many biomedical fields, are known to be less toxic than crystalline silica. In this study, the inflammatory effects of amorphous silica nanoparticles were investigated using 30-nm amorphous silica nanoparticles and human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) or purified monocytes. As a result, production of IL-1β and IL-8 were increased. In addition, the mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) was detected, which may lead to mitochondrial membrane disruption. Most importantly, inflammasome formation was observed. Therefore, these results provide immunological information about amorphous silica nanoparticles and suggest that amorphous silica nanoparticles can evoke innate immune reactions in human monocytes through production of IL-1β and IL-8.


ABSTRACT An ideal vaccine delivery system would elicit persistent protection following a single administration, preferably by a noninvasive route, and be safe even in the face of immunosuppression, either inherited or acquired, of the recipient. We have exploited the unique life cycle of the autonomous parvoviruses to develop a nonproliferating vaccine platform that appears to both induce priming and continually boost a protective immune response following a single inoculation. A crippled parvovirus vector was constructed, based on a chimera between minute virus of mice (MVM) and LuIII, which expresses Borrelia burgdorferi outer surface protein A (OspA) instead of its coat protein. The vector was packaged into an MVM lymphotropic capsid and inoculated into naive C3H/HeNcr mice. Vaccination with a single vector dose, either intravenously or intranasally, elicited high-titer anti-OspA-specific antibody that provided protection from live spirochete challenge and was sustained over the lifetime of the animal. Both humoral and cell-mediated Th1 immunity was induced, as shown by anti-OspA immunoglobulin G2a antibody and preferential gamma interferon production by OspA-specific CD4+ T cells.


The yield of the double-stranded DNA product (500 bp) of asymmetric PCR with a rhodamine-labeled primer (Rho-primer) was determined in a homogeneous solution using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS). FCS provides the average number of molecules in a focused volume and the diffusion constant that relates the molecular weight. Since FCS measures the fluctuation of fluorescence intensity in a very small sample volume, the reaction mixture was directly placed on the FCS optical field without any purification procedure after amplification. The result of changing the initial number of templates suggested that elongation of the Rho-primer could be detected by FCS in a PCR mixture containing a single copy of the target gene in the initial condition. Possible scientific applications and perspectives of the proposed approach are discussed.


The issue of the cryptanalysis is defined as the unknown issue or problem related to the identification of the system where the major goal of the cryptanalysis is for the design of the system for various steps involved. Neural networks will be ideal tool for Black-Box system identification. The black-Box attacks against secret key cryptosystems (stream cipher system) would be presented by considering a Black-Box Neuro-Identifier model to retain two different objectives: first is for finding out the key from the provided plaintext-cipher to pair, while the second objective is to emulator construction a neuro-model for the target cipher system. There are many researches going on considering the various models of encryption where ANN is being used as single layered or multi layered perceptron. The above defined cryptographic techniques are sometimes also termed as the Neural Cryptography. As the ANN model relies on the feedforward working criteria means it can be used for the generation of some effective and efficient encryption methodologies. Cryptanalysis is considered as significant footstep for evaluating and checking quality of any cryptosystem. A portion of these cryptosystem guarantees secrecy and security of huge data trade from source to goal utilizing symmetric key cryptography. The cryptanalyst researches the quality and distinguishes the shortcoming of the key just as enciphering calculation. With the expansion in key size, the time and exertion required anticipating the right key increments. These systems for cryptanalysis are changing radically to decrease cryptographic multifaceted nature. In this paper a point by point study has been directed. Much cryptography strategies are accessible which depend on number hypothesis however it has the hindrance of necessity a substantial computational power, unpredictability and time utilization. To defeat these disadvantages, artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been connected to take care of numerous issues. The ANNs have numerous qualities, for example, learning, speculation, less information necessity, quick calculation, simplicity of usage, and programming and equipment accessibility, which make it exceptionally alluring for some applications. This paper gives a cutting-edge survey on the utilization of counterfeit neural systems in cryptography and concentrates their execution on estimation issues identified with cryptography.


Abstract To overcome difficulties in getting research materials of cephalochordate lancelets, which has severely hampered experimental studies of this animal, we have attempted to establish a culture system in the laboratory. Adult animals collected from the wild were maintained in 2.5-L plastic containers filled with natural seawater without sand substratum. They were fed daily with unicellular algae. About 25% of the animals collected in 2003, 2004, and 2005 developed gonads in our culture system. Some of the sexually mature animals collected in the breeding seasons in 2005 and 2006 spawned spontaneously in the plastic containers of this system. Broods obtained in 2005 were maintained longer than a year in a glass tank without sand substratum. The progeny born in the laboratory showed great individual variation in growth but metamorphosed normally, and some of them started to develop gonads around 10 months after fertilization. Our mass culture methods for both adults and their progeny made daily observation possible and allowed the constant spawning of animals collected from the wild, at least in the summer season. Our culture method saves labor in maintenance and is easily set up without any specific demands except for running seawater, though still required to better survival rate and spawning control. Lancelet populations maintained in the laboratory can promote studies on these animals across disciplines and especially contribute to elucidation of the evolutionary history of chordates.


Cyberbullying has become a major problem along with the increase of communication technologies and social media become part of daily life. Cyberbullying is the use of communication tools to harass or harm a person or group. Especially for the adolescent age group, cyberbullying causes damage that is thought to be suicidal and poses a great risk. In this study, a model is developed to identify the cyberbullying actions that took place in social networks. The model investigates the effects of some text mining methods such as pre-processing, feature extraction, feature selection and classification on automatic detection of cyberbullying using datasets obtained from Formspring.me, Myspace and YouTube social network platforms. Different classifiers (i.e. multilayer perceptron (MLP), stochastic gradient descent (SGD), logistic regression and radial basis function) have been developed and the effects of feature selection algorithms (i.e. Chi2, support vector machine-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE), minimum redundancy maximum relevance and ReliefF) for cyberbullying detection have also been investigated. The experimental results of the study proved that SGD and MLP classifiers with 500 selected features using SVM-RFE algorithm showed the best results (F_measure value is more than 0.930) by means of classification time and accuracy.


Evidence on the relation of socioeconomic position (SEP) with health and illness is mounting in South Korea. Several unlinked studies and individually linked studies (longitudinal study) showed a graded inverse relationship between SEP and mortality among South Korean males and females. Based on the mortality relative ratios by occupational class reported in the published papers of South Korea and western countries, the magnitude of the socioeconomic inequality in mortality in South Korea seems to be similar to or even greater than that in western industrialized countries. A potential contribution of health related selection, health behaviors and psychosocial factors to explain this socioeconomic inequality in mortality was discussed. It was suggested that early life exposure measures would demonstrate a greater ability to explain socioeconomic inequalities in all-cause mortality than the above pathway variables in South Korea. This is based on the cause-specific structure of mortality among the South Korean population who have a relatively greater proportion of stomach cancer, hemorrhagic stroke, liver cancer and liver disease, and tuberculosis, which share early life exposures as important elements of their etiology, than western countries. However, the relative contribution of early and later life socioeconomic conditions in producing socioeconomic inequality in health may differ according to the outcome, thus remains to be investigated.


The role of the RGDX putative receptor-recognition sites, which are present on the alpha chains of fibrin, in promoting platelet adhesion has been examined in flowing whole blood using the rectangular perfusion chamber at wall shear rates of 340 and 1,600/s. Platelets adhered to a comparable extent to surfaces coated with native fibrin and surfaces coated with fragment X-fibrin, a product of limited fibrinolysis that lacks the RGDS sites normally present at positions 572 to 575 of the alpha chains. The strengths of these adhesive interactions were comparable based on the concentrations of the antiadhesive peptide D-RGDW required to block platelet deposition to native and fragment X-fibrin at both low and high wall shear rate. Blocking either or both RGDX sequences with peptide-specific monoclonal antibodies did not inhibit platelet deposition in perfusion experiments performed with normal blood at 340/s, indicating that neither RGD motif is required for adhesion. However, adhesion was partly inhibited by anti-RGDX antibodies when perfusions were performed with blood from an afibrinogenemic patient, suggesting the RGDX sequences may play a limited role in platelet deposition. Exposure of fibrin surfaces to plasminogen/tissue-type plasminogen activator did cause a time-dependent loss of adhesiveness, but this effect was only weakly correlated with proteolysis of the fibrin alpha chains. These observations provide evidence that neither RGDX sequence is required for platelets to adhere avidly to fibrin in flowing blood. These results further suggest that incomplete fibrinolysis yields a highly thrombogenic surface.