BACKGROUND
Previous studies have reported variable and at times opposite findings on comorbid psychiatric problems in children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD).

AIMS
This study aimed to examine patterns of comorbid psychiatric problems in children with ASD and their parents compared with IQ matched controls and their parents.

METHODS
Behavioural/emotional problems were evaluated in a sample of children with ASD [a diagnosis of ASD was given if they met criteria for ASD on both of the ADI-R (Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised) and ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observational Schedule)] and an age and IQ matched control group using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL/6-18). Parental psychological distress for both groups was evaluated with the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI).

RESULTS
There were 59 (88%) boys and 8 (12%) girls in the ASD group. Similarly, 57 (85%) of the control group were male and 10 (15%) were female. The groups did not differ significantly on mean age, mean IQ scores, gender and parents mean age. Results of the CBCL/6-18 revealed that the majority of parents reported their child with ASD as having either internalising (clinical range: 47.8%; borderline range: 16.4%) or externalising problems (clinical range: 10.4%; borderline range: 20.9%). In the control group more parents reported their children having externalising (clinical range: 46.3%; borderline range: 16.4%) than internalising problems (clinical range: 35.8%; borderline range: 11.9%). Almost a half of the ASD group met CBCL DSM criteria for clinically significant attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (44.78%) and anxiety (46.2%) problems. Based on the Brief Symptom Inventory Global Severity Index 22.4% of fathers and 23.8% of mothers of ASD children produced scores that were indicative of possible psychopathology.

CONCLUSIONS
High rates of clinically significant psychiatric problems were detected in ASD children, with anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder being the most frequently detected syndromes.


Botrytis fabae spore suspensions containing c. 1, 10, 102, 103, 104, 105, or 106 spores/ml were used to inoculate 5, 17 or 30-day-old field bean leaves. The percentages of the leaf areas covered by, chocolate spot lesions and the percentages of the leaf areas bearing conidiophores were assessed 1, 6, 12, 14, and 19 days after inoculation. The percentage of the area covered by lesions and the percentage of the area bearing conidiophores (logit-transformed) increased linearly with increasing spore concentration (log10-transformed). The proportions of leaf areas covered by lesions and bearing conidiophores were both greater on 17 and 30-day-old leaves than on 5-day-old leaves. The rate of lesion growth increased with both increasing inoculum dose and increasing leaf age. Generally there was no interaction between the effects of leaf age and the effects of inoculum dose on either lesion growth or sporulation. Two days after inoculation with suspensions of either 104 or 106 spores/ml, 7-day-old leaves grown at 15°C were transferred to –16°C or 2.5°C or kept at 15°C for 4 days. Two days later more spores had been produced on leaves which had been frozen (–16°C) than on, leaves kept at 2.5°C.


A strategy to decrease the vector competence of Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto (Diptera: Culicidae), the most efficient malaria vector in Africa, may consist of exploiting the genes involved in zoophily. Crossing and backcrossing experiments were performed between An. gambiae s.s. and the zoophilic sibling species Anopheles quadriannulatus. Mosquito strains were tested in a dual‐choice olfactometer to investigate their responses to cow odour. Totals of 12% of An. gambiae s.s. and 59% of An. quadriannulatus selected the port with the cow odour. Crosses and backcrosses did not show a significant preference for the cow‐baited port. The results indicated that anthropophilic behaviour in An. gambiae s.s. is a dominant or partially dominant trait, which, in conjunction with the unstable zoophilic behaviour observed in An. quadriannulatus, poses a serious obstacle to plans to decrease vector competence by modifying the anthropophilic trait.


The objective of conducted research was to analyze the growth performance, fatty acid (FA) metabolism and gene expressions related to polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) metabolism in Oncorhynchus mykiss fed diets containing fish oil (FO), sesame oil (SO), linseed oil (LO) and olive oil (OO). Based on the results of the whole body FA balance method of the study, it was concluded that rainbow trout used n-3 PUFAs as energy and this affected the oxidation of n-6 long-chain polyunsaturated FAs (LC-PUFAs). Gene expression level of the Δ-6 desaturase was the lowest for FO and the highest for SO fed fish (P<0.05). Fish fed with OO had the lowest and fish fed with FO had the highest expression levels of elongase gene (P<0.05). The elongase (ELOVL5) transcription rate was higher in fish fed with FO diet and lower in fish fed with OO diet (P<0.05). In conclusion, this research indicated that the final n-3 PUFA ratio in fish fed with vegetable oil diets can be increased by the addition of 18:3n-3 and the decreased level of total dietary 18:2n-6, the balancing of dietary FAs with a proper content of saturated FA (SFA) and monounsaturated FA (MUFA) is substantial for the best growth.


The history of float equipment began in 1907, with the development by R.C. Baker of a casing shoe that allowed casing to be cemented in wells. Since that time, major changes in cementing techniques and equipment have taken place to address more challenging applications. This paper reviews the progress of float equipment design over the years and discusses the various failure modes that have been encountered and addressed.
 As the drilling and casing installation has grown in reach and design, so the level of sophistication of float equipment and operational techniques has developed and inherent problems have been encountered, identified and addressed. The development of the API Specification 10F will enable operators to better understand the design and performance of float equipment and make choices in design that are best suited to the application being planned. It is of vital importance that operators understand the possible failure modes and the choices available in float equipment valve design that are best suited to their application. There is quite often a tendency to underestimate the importance of choosing the right equipment for the application, and this will be addressed in this paper. The authors will also provide a detailed evaluation of the development, design, performance and suitability of the equipment choices that are available. They will review the industry standards that are applicable to float equipment, the various failure modes that can occur, identify the causes and discuss how to anticipate and address them. Navigating the various features associated with seeming simple float equipment can significantly reduce operational cost.


A combination of the iterative perturbation theory (ITP) of the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) and coherent-potential approximation (CPA) is generalized to the double exchange model with orbital degeneracy. The Hubbard interaction and the off-diagonal components for the hopping matrix tmnij(m ≠ n) are considered in our calculation of spectrum and optical conductivity. The numerical results show that the effects of the non-diagonal hopping matrix elements are important.


Data mining deepens the data analysis, also is able to mine the interesting mode hiding in mass data automatically. As a new data analysis technology, data mining makes full use of the modern software technology and computer scientific knowledge, has the extremely important research significance, provides for researchers of various fields with a new intelligence means to realize and use data. In data mining, association rule learning is a popular and well researched method for discovering interesting relations between variables in large databases. This paper makes a series of data analysis and research on the application of data mining technology in the students' scores. This paper use Apriori algorithm of association rules to analyze the intrinsic link among various courses, dig out the precedence relationship and association of students' learning courses, reveal the teaching regularities and problems from large amount of data, as well as to provide a strong basis for reasonable course-setting.


Background
The increasing habitat heterogeneity and complexity shows positive effects over different communities, leading to environmental diversity, access to resources and reducing the effectiveness of predation. In the present study we evaluate the structural and functional patterns of polychaete assemblages of three Mussismilia species with different coral morphology. Mussismilia hispida has a massive growth pattern; M. braziliensis also is a massive coral but forms a crevice in the corallum base; and M. harttii has a meandroid pattern.

Methods
Ten individuals of the three Mussismilia species were sampled in two reefs in the Todos-os-Santos Bay, and we analyzed the differences in richness and abundance of polychaete species and the functional diversity metrics: Rao's quadratic entropy, functional dispersion, functional evenness, number of functional groups and functional richness, among Mussismilia species.

Results
Two-way ANOVA with permutations showed significant differences for polychaete abundances and richness among Mussismilia species (higher values for M. harttii), but no differences were recorded when compared between the two coral reef areas studied. There was no statistical difference among coral species or between reefs in relation to the functional diversity components influenced by abundance, such as Rao quadratic entropy, functional dispersion, and functional evenness. Some individual polychaete functional traits presented differences among Mussismilia species, and that also helped us to build a picture about the effect of different growth structures over functional aspects of polychaete assemblages. Thus, the taxonomical approach, the analysis of individual functional traits and the functional diversity metrics are fundamental tools to characterize the assemblage of organisms associated with corals.


Using PSID data for the years 1984 to 1999, we estimate the level and severity of asset poverty. Our results indicate that the share of asset-poor households remained almost the same and the severity of poverty increased during this period, despite the growth in the economy and the financial markets. The race, age, education, and marital status of the household head, and homeownership, are important determinants of asset poverty. There seems to be a downward trend in the contribution to asset poverty of being a college graduate, a married elderly or a black head of household, a single mother, or a married person with children. The contributions of not having a college degree, being a 35 to 49 year-old household head, being a childless nonelderly couple, or being an unmarried elderly person seem to have increased. The contribution to net worth poverty of being a homeowner also went up. Descriptive statistics suggest that changes in the value of assets are more effective in transitions into and out of asset poverty than are changes in debt. Some lifetime events, such as changes in marital, homeownership, or business ownership status, are also correlated with the transitions.


Introduction: Adipophilin (ADRP/ADPH/PLIN2), a member of the
perilipin (PAT) family of lipid droplet proteins, is believed
to play a crucial role in both formation and secretion of milk
lipids in mammals. The aim of our study was to determine
whether adipophilin is secreted into human breast milk and to
associate adipophilin levels in breast milk with the exonic
variations of the adipophilin gene. Material and methods: The
total of 20 pregnant women with physiological pregnancy,
originating from the Caucasian Central-European population,
were enrolled into the study and serum-milk sample duos were
collected at the time of birth and at the days 1-3, 12-14,
28-30, 88-90 and 178-180 postpartum and investigated using
ELISA-based methodology. The exons 3-7 of the PLIN2 gene were
directly sequenced.Results: Adipophilin was constantly secreted
into breast milk during the whole period of the study. The
maternal serum circulating levels were extremely low (<0.8
ug/l), while the adipophilin levels in breast milk
substantially exceeded serum levels at the given timepoints (p
= 0.03). Two SNPs in exonic sequence of PLIN2 gene were
identified, synonymous rs2228416 and missense rs35568725 that
were not associated with maternal serum / breast milk levels of
adipophilin. Conclusion: This is the first study to demonstrate
that adipophilin is secreted into human breast milk during the
whole 6 months after the birth. We do not report major
association of investigated exonic variations of PLIN2 gene
with adipophilin levels in maternal serum / breast milk in the
Central- European population.


We and others previously showed that signaling through cSrc or atypical protein kinase C (aPKC) pathway regulates the proliferation of prostate cancer cells and is associated with their progression to castrate-resistance in vivo. However, the interrelation of these two kinases has been largely unexplored. In the present study, we show that androgen-induced activation of cSrc regulates the activity of aPKC through the small molecular weight G protein Rac1 in androgen-dependent LNCaP cells. Knockdown of cSrc in those cells reduces the phosphorylation of aPKC and the abundance of activated form of Rac1. Additionally, the treatment of those cells with Rac1 inhibitor repressed cell cycle progression at G(1)/S transition. In fact, forced expression of a constitutively active Rac1 mutant in LNCaP cells promoted cell proliferation under androgen-depleted conditions both in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, LNCaP C4-2 and AILNCaP cells, the syngeneic androgen-independent sublines from LNCaP cells, harbored abundant Rac1-GTP. Importantly, the inhibition of Rac1 suppressed cell proliferation and induced apoptotic cell death in all prostate cancer cell lines tested irrespective of their androgen-dependence. In immunohistochemical evaluation of tumor specimens from prostate cancer patients, Rac1 pathway appeared to be activated in the majority of castrate-resistant diseases. Collectively, our present results both in vitro and in vivo highly implicate that Rac1 can be a potential therapeutic target for patients with advanced prostate cancer, especially those with castrate-resistant status.


Aging time and storage conditions of silica stabilized gold nanoparticles impact the mechanism of nanoparticle-rattle structure formation. These differences are evaluated using electron microscopy and localized surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy coupled with modelling of gold nanosphere sensitivity to their local dielectric environment. Sample aging is revealed to impact the overall silica density and subsequent void formation in these structures. In all samples, voids formed near the metal cores and increased in size, which could be quantified using modelling. All in all, these results suggest that optimal silica membrane formation likely depends on initial silica density, which is directly related to sample age and storage conditions. As a result, these considerations as well as dielectric modelling could be exploited for future synthesis and use of these materials in surface enhanced spectroscopy and catalytic applications.


Liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry without prior fractionation (shotgun proteomics) were used to analyze vaginal fluid from patients admitted for signs and symptoms of preterm labor. The patients had an average age of 26.3 ± 5.9 years, a gestational age of 30.5 ± 2.5 weeks, and a median cervical dilation of 1 cm (range, 0-6 cm). None of the patients exhibited signs of vaginal infection at the time of enrollment. Shotgun proteomics yielded reproducible identifications (R = 0.973) of more than 40 proteins in vaginal fluid samples, such as plasma proteins, epithelial structural proteins, and several immunoregulatory proteins, including some that were previously linked to intra-amniotic infection. This initial characterization of the vaginal fluid proteome using a nonbiased, high-throughput technique yields reproducible results in late pregnancy. The presence of host defense proteins in vaginal fluid suggests that this technique may be useful for future study of inflammation-related preterm birth.


This paper presents a frequency domain learning control scheme for a class of nonlinear systems and its application to the process feedback control of the noncircular turning process for camshaft machining. In frequency domain, periodic signals are represented by the Fourier expansions that are nonzero only at discrete frequency points. An input dependent system matrix can be used to describe the input-output relationship of a class of nonlinear systems with periodic input and output signals. A learning controller is designed based on the system matrix and the bound of unmodeled dynamics. Conditions to achieve asymptotic stability and tracking performance are derived. To further improve system robustness, a low pass filter is used to turn off the learning scheme at high frequencies. The learning control scheme is then applied to the process feedback control of camshaft machining using the noncircular turning process. A two level control structure is adopted. The first level is servo control that ensures precise tool slide motion. The second level is frequency domain learning control that compensates machined profile errors due to the effects of tool/workpiece geometry, tool wears, machine deformations, and spindle runout errors. Relationship between the servo control and learning control is discussed. Implementation of the process feedback control on a steel camshaft turning demonstrates improvement of the maximum cam profile errors from 80 μm to within 20 μm in five iterations.


The supernova remnant RCW86 (G315.4-2.3) has been observed with the CANGAROO-II 10 m telescope from Woomera, South Australia. ASCA detected non-thermal X-ray emission from the south-west shell of RCW86, which is brighter than that from SN1006. The multiwavelength spectrum of RCW86 derived from radio and X-ray data indicates that the emission is due to the synchrotron radiation, and it is argued that high energy electrons emitting the detected synchrotron radiation are expected to be accelerated up to 20 TeV. Therefore, the radiation due to inverse Compton scattering with the photons of the 2.7 K cosmic microwave background is also expected to be detectable with the CANGAROO-II telescope if the magnetic field is as weak as that of SN1006. We observed RCW86 in 2001 and 2002 for a total observation time of 79 hours for ON-source data. The detection energy threshold was estimated from Monte Carlo simulations to be around 1 TeV.


Pro‐inflammatory mediators are thought to play both peripheral and central roles in migraine pathophysiology. Prostaglandins and leukotrienes, known as the eicosanoids, are degradation products of arachidonic acid and constitute signalization components of inflammatory pathways. This study was designed to assess concentrations of leukotriene E4 (LT‐E4) and prostaglandin F2a (PG‐F2a) in children with migraine.


Compared to standard video presentations, 360-degree depictions have been found to heighten emotional and perceptual responses in viewers while minimizing concerns about media framing (Archer & Finger, 2018; Bucy, 2019). Results in this paper indicates that 1) 360-degree presentations viewed with a headset generated more discussion and a broader range of emotional and perceptual responses than fixed-frame videos, and 2) partisan identification and ideology seemed to play a stronger role in interpreting and guiding participant interpretations in the 360-degree conditions. Although, previous studies on 360-degree presentation discovered some positive violations of viewer expectations, such as higher acceptance for those who march for women's rights (Bucy, 2019) and an increased sense of responsibility in closing the gender gap (Aitamurto et al., 2018), that was not the case in this study. Theoretically, this paper makes contribution to the literature on political stereotyping and expectancy violation model.


Rivers are dominant pathway for trace metals transport. Due to massive anthropogenic activities along Kuala Terengganu and Nerus River, the degree of pollution on surface sediment would increase. The purpose of this study was to determine the selected metals in sediment together with assessing the metal pollution in sediment at Kuala Terengganu and Nerus River. The study about trace metals in sediments were scarce in Malaysia. The sediments location were determine using Global Positioning System (GPS) and the sediments were collected 2 km for each point with 4 cm depth. At Kuala Terengganu and Nerus River, five and three sample of sediments were collected and have been analysed using X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) instrument. The mean concentration of all elements found (mg/g) namely Mn, Fe, Al, Zr, Ca, P, Ti, S, Cl, K and Si were 1.8, 353.4, 152.9, 2.8, 6.6, 9.6, 20.2, 25.4, 24.7, 80.7 and 305.9 respectively. The sediment assessment using Enrichment Factor (EF) indicated Fe, Zr, P, S, and Cl originated from anthropogenic sources and the rest of other elements comes from natural sources. The overall results of Geoaccumulation Index (Igeo) showed the rivers were level of strongly to extremely polluted by elements S and Cl. Moreover, the Pollution Load Index (PLI) of all elements were classified as polluted except for Ca and Si. However the Si is slightly polluted at Kuala Terengganu River. The statistical analysis using Kruskal-Wallis H test proved there were significant different for all elements at Kuala Terengganu and Nerus River. As a conclusion, sediments in this study were contaminated mostly from anthropogenic activity along the river. The recommendation for this study were identify the Total Organic Carbon (TOC), dating of sediment core, determine the water quality and benthic organism as well as identify the concentration of elements during dry and wet season.


The existence of small quantities of unesterified fatty acid in blood plasma has been known for some years. In particular, the finding of unesterified fatty acid (hereafter abbreviated UFA) in albumin fractions prepared from fresh human plasma by the methods of Cohn, Hughes, and Weare (1), and the report of Davis (2) that fresh serum yielded small quantities of UFA, indicate that UFA actually exists as such in plasma and is not a laboratory artifact. In connection with the investigations into the mechanism of lipid transport being carried forward in this laboratory, it had been found (3, 4) that a principal product of lipemia clearing in vitro is unesterified fatty acid. Study of the relationship of physiologic clearing in vivo to the concentration of circulating UFA therefore suggested itself, and led to the present investigation. It will be observed that the term "unesterified fatty acid" is used in preference to "free fatty acid" in spite of the widespread acceptance of the latter in fat and oil chemistry. The choice is due to the evidence (5-7) that higher fatty acids are firmly, though reversibly, bound to serum albumin and at times to other plasma proteins when proteins and fatty acids exist together in aqueous solution. The properties of the fatty acid ions, such as surface activity, are therefore not in evidence when small quantities of these substances are present in serum or plasma (8). We suggest that the term "free" be reserved to describe the fraction of unesterified fatty acid not bound to protein, a fraction which is not measurable by present techniques, but which may later prove to be of biochemical significance.


This portfolio of creative writing includes four full-length short stories and two pieces of flash fiction. In each of the full-length stories a male protagonist gets caught up in circumstances over which he has little control. Both pieces of flash fiction are inspired by recent re-readings of work in religious studies that has been important in my thinking - one by Georges Bataille another by Linda Badham.


Low-cost technology is needed to alleviate high-temperature injury for high-yield greenhouse tomato production. To acquire information about the physiological and morphological effects of root-zone cooling, we grew young tomato plants for 2 weeks in nutrient solution held at about 25°C, considered to be the optimum temperature for tomato plants. We investigated plant growth, nutrient uptake, root activity (xylem exudation and root respiration rate), root indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) concentration, and internal root structure. The root-zone temperature was maintained at 24.7°C by cooling, while the air temperature and control temperatures were higher than optimum (30.8 and 33.7°C, respectively). Root-zone cooling increased the relative growth rate (RGR) of roots compared with the control, followed by shoot RGR. Root IAA was positively correlated with root RGR. Root-zone cooling increased Ca and Mg uptake as well as root xylem exudation and respiration. It also advanced the development of the internal structure of the xylem near the root tip. Thus, possibly by increasing root activity and root IAA, root-zone cooling promoted root growth and nutrient uptake mediated by the development of the root xylem, and thus shoot growth. These results suggest a physiological and morphological mechanism of growth enhancement by root-zone cooling under high air temperature conditions.


A disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs (ADAMTS) family is involved in tumor development. However, how ADAMTS6 influences cancer remains unknown. We investigated the biological function and clinical implications of ADAMTs6 in breast cancer (BC). Its functional significance in BC cell lines was confirmed by ADAMTs6 overexpression or downregulation both in vitro and in vivo studies. Enhanced ADAMTS6 expression suppressed cell migration, invasion, and tumorigenesis, whereas knockdown promoted these characteristics. The extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway was partially involved in ADAMTS6-mediated inhibition of BC development, and miR-221-3p was identified as a predicted target for ADAMTS6. Results from the luciferase assay confirmed that miR-221-3p directly inhibited ADAMTS6 expression by binding its 3′-untranslated region. In addition, immunohistochemistry data from specimens from 182 BC patients showed that high ADAMTS6 expression was significantly correlated with favorable disease-free survival (DFS, p = 0.045). Subgroup analysis of patients with ER positive, PR positive or HER-2 negative tumors revealed that high ADAMTS6 expression more strongly extended DFS compared to low expression (p = 0.004, p = 0.009, p = 0.017). Multivariate analyses confirmed that ADAMTS6 expression was an independent risk factor for DFS (p = 0.011). Together, these data demonstrate that ADAMTS6 inhibits tumor development by regulating the ERK pathway via binding of miR-221-3p. Thus, its expression may be a potential prognostic biomarker for BC.


This paper discusses the wave description in biology, chemistry and economics. Using quantum mechanics to study social processes, it was shown that the economic waves of N. Kondratiev are theoretically derived from the quantum theory of the development of science and society. The use of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle for social phenomena shows that the development of society is conceptually probabilistic in nature and cannot be strictly predicted in principle (given the mathematical formula). The rejection of the "time arrow�? at the quantum level leads to the conclusion that "time in our world�? is a definite "averaging and transformation�? of periodic quantum processes at the fundamental level. It also shows the impossibility of achieving technological singularity and the creation of artificial intelligence like human.


Extensive literature documents age-related differences in spatiotemporal variables during gait. Recent efforts have focused on upper body control and balance during gait. Harmonic ratios, derived from trunk acceleration signals, measure smoothness of motion, and are an indication of dynamic balance during gait. Limited and conflicting information exists regarding the effect of walking speed on harmonic ratios, as well as age-related differences. This research extends previous literature by: 1) examining harmonic ratios across a range of self-selected speeds in young adults; 2) comparing harmonic ratios at preferred speed in young adults, healthy 60-year-olds, and healthy 80-year-olds; and 3) comparing harmonic ratios in all three age groups across a range of self-selected and paced speeds. In contrast to previous research, young adults and 60-year-olds had similar trunk smoothness during over ground walking at a preferred pace, but 80-year-olds exhibited reduced smoothness specifically in the anteroposterior direction. In contrast to previous research, clear optimization of trunk smoothness at preferred speed in young adults was not found; trunk smoothness was reduced at slower speeds, but was maintained at speeds faster than preferred. The two older groups showed this same pattern, although the 80-year-olds exhibited reduced anteroposterior and vertical smoothness across speeds. Together, these findings indicate that active healthy 80-year-olds exhibit changes in trunk control even during unobstructed walking at their preferred pace. But contrary to expectations, changes in speed did not differentially affect 80-year-olds, except at very fast walking speeds.


Chronic myelocytic leukemia (CML) is caused by the constitutively active tyrosine kinase Bcr-Abl. Inhibitors ofBcr-Abl have significantly improved the treatment of CML. Most notable is the inhibitor imatinib, which produces remissions in all phases of CML and is the current standard of care. However, imatinib resistance occurs in a significant proportion of patients, mainly through the development of mutations in the Bcr-Abl tyrosine kinase domain that impair imatinib binding. Attempts to circumvent resistance to imatinib led to the discovery of nilotinib (Tasigna; Novartis AG), a novel, potent and selective oral Bcr-Abl kinase inhibitor. Preclinical and clinical investigations have demonstrated that nilotinib effectively overcomes imatinib resistance. Efficacy has been observed in models of CML and other myeloproliferative disorders that are driven by Bcr-Abl and related kinases. In a phase II clinical trial in CML, major cytogenetic response rates were 52 and 33% for chronic- and accelerated-phase disease, respectively. Nilotinib has been filed for approval in the US and EU for use in Philadelphia-positive leukemias in patients who are resistant or intolerant to imatinib. Nilotinib is undergoing clinical trials in patients with newly diagnosed CML, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and gastrointestinal stromal tumors, among other indications.


A simple, fast and sensitive electroanalytical method consist studying the square wave of SnCl2.2H2O at hanging mercury dropping electrode in aqueous solution for the indirect determination of (AMI) drug. SnCl2.2H2O has revealed a major reduction potential at (-0.450) Volt against the reference electrode (Ag/AgCl/Sat.KCl). The calibration curve in the Phosphate buffer as the supporting electrolyte at pH=2 was constracted. The range concentrations up to (0.99X10-5–9.91X10-5) M, the correlation coefficient (r= 0.9989) and then studied the decreased of peak current of the drug by the (HMDE) behavior in the presence of SnCl2.2H2O. Results were as follow: The calibration curves were (0.316 X10-6 -3.136 X10-6) M and thismethods was successfully applied to determination of AMI in apharmaceutical formulations.


Abstract Objective(s): 1) to determine whether the proportion of alcohol-impaired patients involved in motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) varies by race/ethnicity within different age groups; 2) to explore the relationship between alcohol impairment, race/ethnicity and clinical outcomes among patients involved in MVCs across age groups. Methods: The 2012 National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) queried for patients aged 16–55 involved in MVCs who received a blood ethanol test on admission. Results: Of the 44,216 patients involved in MVC, 68% were White, 14% Black, and 13% were Hispanic. About 36% were 16–25 years old, and 19% were 46–55 years old. Alcohol-impaired patients constituted 34% of the patients. The multiple logistic regression analysis of HLOS ≥ 2 days revealed that, when controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, insurance status, and the interaction between alcohol impairment and age as well as alcohol impairment and race/ethnicity, alcohol impairment positivity carried a 15% increase in probability of HLOS ≥ 2 days (OR 1.15, p < 0.0001). Additionally, using the 16–25 age group as reference, each of the older age groupings showed an increased probability of HLOS ≥ 2 days with ORs of 1.15, 1.32, and 1.51 for ages 26–35, 36–45, and 46–55, respectively (p-values < 0.0001). Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians/others were less likely than Whites to have HLOS ≥ 2 days with OR of 0.88, 0.89, and 0.88, respectively (p < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the clinical outcome of mortality between races/ethnicities and alcohol-impaired driving. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that the proportions of alcohol-impaired driving and the associated clinical outcomes vary among race/ethnic groups in different age groups. More research is needed to determine the reasons for the observed differences in these vulnerable sub-groups.


theology. McGrath spends two chapters, here: first, approaching from the perspective of science fiction; second, approaching from the perspective of theology. Before broaching the relations of dialogue and integration, McGrath pauses at the intersection of theology and science fiction with philosophy and ethics. Then he explicitly outlines what dialogue and integration between science fiction and theology entail. McGrath concludes his companion book with three short science fiction stories of his own. Reading Theology and Science Fiction one wonders if the term 'theology' was chosen over 'religion' merely because McGrath's name is already attached to the edited work, Religion and Science Fiction. McGrath's use of the term 'theology' is not as systematic, nor as God-centred, as one might expect. This is perhaps due to his desire to discuss multiple religions rather than one tradition; regardless, the terms 'theologies', 'belief systems', or 'religion' would have been more apt descriptors. While one should not open McGrath's book to receive theological answers, it remains true to its goal of raising questions and inspiring engagement with religious and scientific ideas.


Background: Follicular unit excision (FUE) has come a long way in establishing itself as an alternative technique for hair restoration. There exists a plethora of scholarly work on FUE, albeit there is a paucity of evidence on variables that affect the outcome of revision FUE. A successful hair restoration surgery is, among other things, predicated on the surgery's follicular transection rate (FTR). Objective: The objective of this study was to determine whether there is an association between FTR and the type of hair restoration surgery patients had prior to their revision FUE; three surgical procedures were compared: strip harvesting (SH), FUE, and punch grafting (PG). Material & Methods: The sample size for this exploratory study was 40 (i.e., n=40), and all the subjects were men with different grades of androgenetic alopecia. The subjects had undergone an FUE revision surgery from January to December 2014, and had their FTR and partial transection rate (PTR) calculated for each session. We compared patients' FTR and PTR among cases who had undergone various hair restoration techniques prior to their revision FUE. We defined FTR as complete transection of the graft, where all follicles in the graft are transected; PTR was defined as the incomplete transection of the graft, where at least one follicle in a graft is intact. Chi-square test of independence was conducted to compare FTR and PTR across revision FUE cases of patients who previously underwent SH, PG, or FUE. Results: Out of a total of 40 cases, 52.5% (21) had undergone FUE surgery earlier, 35% (14) SH, and 12.5% (5) PG as the primary surgery. The average FTR in patients who had undergone strip surgery earlier was 3.22 per 100 grafts, while it was 3.33 per 100 grafts and 3.54 per 100 grafts in those who had undergone previous FUE and punch grafting, respectively. Chi-square test of independence showed that there was no significant relationship between the type of hair restoration procedure cases had prior to their revision FUE and the FTR and PTR. Nonetheless, our results support a trend where FTR and PTR are likely to be high if the prior surgery is FUE; moreover, post-hoc calculations for statistical power showed that the current study was under-powered. Conclusion: Our findings suggest the type of hair restoration surgery men with androgenetic alopecia underwent prior to having a revision FUE might influence the success of the revision FUE. In addition, we noted revision FUE cases of male androgenetic alopecia are least likely to have high FTR if they had previously undergone strip harvesting. Furthermore, our calculations for statistical power from our exploratory study would be very useful for sample size determination in future studies.


A transverse Ising spin system, in the presence of time-dependent longitudinal field, is studied by the effective-field theory (EFT). The effective-field equations of motion of the average magnetization are given for the simple cubic lattice (Z = 6) and the honeycomb lattice (Z = 3). The Liapunov exponent λ is calculated for discussing the stability of the magnetization and it is used to determine the phase boundary. The dynamic phase transition diagrams in h0/ZJ — Γ/ZJ plane and in h0/ZJ — T/ZJ plane have been drawn, and there is no dynamical tricritical point on the dynamic phase transition boundary. The effect of the thermal fluctuations upon the dynamic phase boundary has been discussed.


Taxane based chemotherapy is commonly used to treat a wide variety of solid tumors including breast, prostate, lung and ovarian. Taxanes bind to and stabilize microtubules inhibiting their function in interphase and mitosis, and leading to cancer cell apoptosis. Although taxanes are widely used clinically and their target, tubulin, is ubiquitously expressed, patient response is heterogeneous and the molecular mechanism of clinical drug resistance remains elusive. In addition to their antimitotic effects, taxanes affect several signaling pathways whose perturbation by microtubule stabilization may determine cell sensitivity or resistance. Our recent work has identified one such pathway by showing that Taxol treatment inhibits the translation of HIF-1α mRNA by inducing its sequestration to P-bodies where it is silenced. However, the signaling cascade that is initiated in response to microtubule damage leading to translation suppression of HIF-1α is not understood. Using polysome analysis we showed that Taxol treatment inhibited translation at the initiation step of protein synthesis, evidenced by the increase in the 80S peak. Post-translational modifications of various translation initiation factors are implicated in the regulation of translation initiation. Hence, we analyzed phosphorylation states of several initiation factors, including eIF4E, eIF2α, 4E-BP1, 4E-BP2 and rpS6. We didn9t observe any change in the phosphorylation state of these initiation factors except for 4E-BP1. We observed that Taxol treatment led to 4E-BP1 hyper-phosphorylation, at a unique previously unrecognized, site. Using isogenic cell lines with acquired mutations at the taxane binding site we conclusively showed that microtubule disruption was required for the hyper-phosphorylation of 4E-BP1. Phosphorylation of 4E-BP1 is known to activate cap-dependent translation. Instead, our data using polysome profiling revealed that Taxol-induced 4E-BP1 hyper-phosphorylation was associated with translation suppression. We confirmed these results by performing the cap-binding assay, which demonstrated that Taxol treatment had no effect on cap-dependent translation. Taken together these results suggest a novel biological function for 4E-BP1 hyper-phosporylation. Further, treatment with the mTOR inhibitor, Torin-1, had no effect on Taxol-induced 4E-BP1 hyper-phosphorylation, suggesting mTOR pathway independence. Interestingly, treatment with the CDK inhibitor Roscovitine, prevented both Taxol-induced 4E-BP1 hyper-phosphorylation and Taxol-induced cell death. Although we do not yet know which of the three CDKs exerts the inhibitory effect on taxanes, our data suggest that there is a functional link between 4E-BP1 hyper-phosphorylation and taxane activity. We are currently investigating the role of CDK1, CDK2 and CDK5 in this pathway to decipher the novel biological function of 4E-BP1 hyper-phosphorylation. Citation Format: Prashant Khade, Paraskevi Giannakakou. 4E-BP1 hyper-phosphorylation senses microtubule damage and plays a critical role in taxane antitumor activity. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 2896.


Introduction: Currently, prognostic determination of breast cancer often posed a challenge to oncologists due to variability in many molecular processes and metabolism. Caveolin-1 is caveolae protein that is closely related to tumour metabolism and had been proved to be associated with the level of malignancy in pre-clinical studies, but there is still no clinical evidence about Cavolin-1. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the association between the expressions of Caveolin-1 with clinicopathological characteristics of breast cancer. Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study was conducted in Sanglah General Hospital and Biochemistry Laboratory by using 78 subjects. The clinicopathological characteristics were recorded from medical records while Caveolin-1 expression was determined by IHC. Results: Caveolin-1 expression was found to be significantly associated with clinical stadium, subtype, histological grade and LVI in bivariate analysis. Multivariate analysis found significant only in three of them with high expression of Caveolin-1 was associated with early stadium, negative LVI and Luminal A subtype. Conclusion: Caveolin-1 expression is significantly associated with clinical stadium, LVI and subtype in breast cancer with high expression often delineate early stage, negative LVI and luminal A subtype.


Abstract By using US and Western databases, Hirschi and Gottfredson (HG) projected that the age distribution of crime always and everywhere has (a) a spiked adolescent peak and (b) a continuous decline thereafter into old age. In the study described here, we investigated these two core postulates of the age-crime invariance thesis by comparing age-crime distributions in South Korea (SK) with the inverted J-shaped norm proposed by HG. Our analysis considered age-crime schedules for a number of offense types (e.g. homicide) and indexes (e.g. total, violent, and property) and across a variety of measures or statistical tests. The findings revealed considerable divergence in South Korea's age-crime patterns compared with the HG invariance norm. Instead, SK age-crime patterns parallel those for Taiwan (also a collectivist Asian country) as reported recently by Steffensmeier and colleagues (2017). Implications for research and theory on the age-crime relation more broadly are discussed.


Systematic benchmark photography of modern and prehistoric fault scarps provides an accurate and timely method of documenting details of ground breakage related to earthquakes and provides a near-permanent record for future quantitative analysis of the degradation of these features. During the geologic investigation of surface faulting associated with the 28 October 1983 Borah Peak earthquake of central Idaho, I established 14 benchmark stations for repeat photography of selected deformational features. About 40 photographs (most in stereopairs) were made in November 1983 in order to show some of the details of the newly formed fault scarps, grabens, and an associated landslide. One year later (October 1984), H. E. Malde and I repeated most of the 1983 photographs and photographed from 14 additional stations. This paper provides an account of the location and subject of the photographs that are on file at the U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library in Denver. Hopefully, this study will provide the impetus for including systematic benchmark photography in future studies of ground deformation.


During the data acquisition of a sliding spotlight or terrain observation by progressive scan (TOPS) synthetic aperture radar (SAR), the steering of the antenna main beam increases the azimuth bandwidth but could result in the azimuth signal aliasing in the Doppler domain. To remove the aliasing, one has used a subaperture method. In this letter, we show a focusing scheme without the use of the subaperture for both sliding spotlight and TOPS SARs. In doing so, we eliminated the obvious increase in data volume or the subaperture division by choosing the pulse repetition frequency that is only 20% greater than the instantaneous bandwidth. The method was incorporated with an available imaging algorithm and then used to process simulated and collected data of the sliding spotlight and TOPS SARs. Well-focused results without aliasing were obtained.


This work presents a detailed analysis of the ability of high-K materials to recover from plasma damage, as simulated by Fowler-Nordheim stress. Forming gas and high temperature rapid thermal anneal (RTA) steps are compared to determine their efficiency at trap recovery. The annealing responses of the technologically relevant HfSiON and HfO2  materials (EOT<2nm) are correlated with structural differences in these dielectrics, as well as the trap generation rate, centroids and defect de-passivation. We show that plasma damage can be successfully recovered for HfO2 by high temperature annealing


Objective The da Vinci Xi surgical system (Intuitive Surgical, Sunnyvale, CA, USA) cannot give tactile feedback to surgeons. This shortcoming may increase the risk of left internal thoracic artery (LITA) injury during its harvest. We utilized Firefly Fluorescence Imaging (Firefly) to assess LITA quality in robot-assisted minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass (R-MIDCAB). Methods We retrospectively reviewed clinical records and intraoperative videos of 30 consecutive patients who underwent R-MIDCAB with LITA–left anterior descending (LAD) coronary bypass. All patients had post-harvest assessment of LITA blood flow by Firefly with 1 mL (2.5 mg/mL) of indocyanine green injection through a central line. Results Twenty-seven of the patients were male, mean age was 67.7 ± 10.7 years. In post-harvest assessment performed before transection of the distal LITA, blood flow in LITA was well visualized in 28 patients. In the remaining 2 patients, 1 had dissection and the other had severe spasm of the LITA. Firefly was also useful for locating LITA and LAD and for assessing blood flow of the graft after anastomosis. Time required for each Firefly assessment was approximately 20 seconds. There were no side effects or complications due to Firefly intraoperatively and postoperatively. Twenty-six patients had postoperative coronary computed tomography; LITA patency rate was 100% (26/26). Conclusion Firefly is fast, simple, and effective for locating and assessing flow in LITA and LAD before and after anastomosis in R-MIDCAB.


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Diagnostic medical ultrasound may have a slightly longer history than what you expected. Its root dates back to 1930s and 1940s, when Theodore Dussik, a psychiatrist and neurologist, and his brother Friederich used a 1.5 MHz source to record signal variations after transmitting the wave through the human brain. Although these images were later shown to measure the skull bone attenuation instead of brain ventricles as the Dussik brothers had believed, it was one of the earliest attempts to scan an in vivo organ (White 1988). The real developments of medical ultrasound imaging initiated after Second World War, since 1950s, when the "pulse echo" technique was adapted from military sonar and radar. For the practicality to position the setup for medical imaging, only a single transducer was used to measure the reflected wave from the target sample in contrast to transmission, which measures the wave transmitted through the medium by a sending transducer and a separate receiving transducer. In early 1950s, John Wild and John Reid developed the first hand-held imaging device which was applied to image breast cancer tumors (Newman and Rozycki 1998). However, it was not until 1960s and 1970s, with the development of electronics, these pioneering works truly came to fruition. The static B-mode imaging was replaced by real-time imaging modalities thanks to new techniques such as phased linear arrays (Seibert 1995). One of the major breakthroughs (which is also of special meaning to the author) is the multi-element linear arrays developed by the group headed by Professor Nicolaas Bom at Thoraxcenter, Erasmus medical center Rotterdam. The probe face consists of 20 crystals which can produce 20 scan lines in total. Figure 1.1 shows the design of the probe and the real-time cardiac image it produced. This early simple concept has later evolved into the more complicate real-time scanners that are widely available today. The later combination of real-time imaging with pulsed wave Doppler technique enabled accurate measurements of the blood flow, which greatly benefited diagnostic echocardiography.


Using a simple fingerstick-whole blood technique, we demonstrated that patients with disseminated neuroblastoma have diminished lymphocyte responses to phytohemagglutinin (PHA) and that their sensitivity to antilymphocyte serum inhibition of PHA responses was increased over that of tumor-free controls. These altered immunologic reactivities led us to question the chronologic sequence between the occurrence of the tumor and the lymphocyte defect. Tumor-bearing patients had serum substances that exerted an inhibitory effect on the transformation responses of lymphocytes from unrelated normal individuals; these substances may be present in sera for long periods after the tumor is eliminated.


We study continuous-variable graph states as quantum communication networks. We explore graphs with regular and complex network shapes distributed among different agents and we report for their cost as a global measure of squeezing and number of squeezed modes that are necessary to build the network. We show that the trend of the squeezing cost presents a non-trivial scaling with the size of the network strictly dependent on its topology. We devise a routing protocol based on local quadrature measurements for reshaping the network in order to perform teleportation protocol between two arbitrary nodes of the networks. The \textit{Routing} protocol, which is based on wire-shortening over parallel paths among the nodes, improves the final entanglement between the two nodes in a considerable amount of cases, and it is particularly efficient in running-time for complex sparse networks.


Reduced samples of chloroperoxidase, horseradish peroxidase, and deoxyhemoglobin were studied by Mössbauer spectroscopy in strong magnetic fields. The intricate paramagnetic spectra of chloroperoxidase were evaluated in detail in the framework of a spin Hamiltonian pertinent to high-spin ferrous iron. The studies strongly suggest that, in their reduced states, chloroperoxidase from Caldariomyces fumago and cytochrome P-450 from Pseudomonas putida have similar, if not identical ligand structures of the heme iron. The spectral similarities of these two proteins, noted in an earlier Mössbauer investigation, are further explored and substantiated. Reduced horseradish peroxidase and deoxyhemoglobin, on the other hand, show high-field Mössbauer spectra that differ considerably from each other and, in particular, from those of the P-450 type, suggesting a different ligand arrangement of the heme iron for each case.


The youngsters behavior has been the target of interest in social and human science, mainly the behavior that permeates delinquency. Although countless variables can explain it, the construct seeking of sensation has contributed to this direction, for it gives emphasis to individual differences. Based on the perspective of the studies about personality, this work aims at the evaluation of the degree youngsters wish to take risks and the predisposition to novelty and to intense sensations. 504 youngsters from 11 to 20 years old answered the Arnett scale of the antisocial and criminal behaviors and sensation seeking. The results showed that the predisposition to experience intense sensations and novelty is capable of influencing youngsters to criminal and anti-social behavior.


Since the interaction of ps laser pulses of TW power with plasmas was measured, an anomalous process was discovered which was significantly different from the usually observed numerous relativistic phenomena. This could be explained by earlier extensive numerical studies. Applications for laser fusion are reported for the generation of thick plasma blocks for ignition of fusion flames. For irradiation of spherical DT shells, the ablation efficiency may be ten times higher for the nonlinear force driven plasma blocks for volume ignition.


In response to the Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used its emergency authority through Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) to make COVID-19 in vitro diagnostic tests widely available to both diagnose active infection and help identify individuals with an adaptive immune response indicating recent or prior infection. Hundreds of innovative tests were quickly developed under Section IV.D. of FDA's Policy for Diagnostic Tests for Coronavirus Disease-2019. National reimbursement guidance through Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) provided significant financial incentives to track the endemic and enable healthcare workers and others get back to work more quickly. The US market for tests grew rapidly and the now exceeds $15 billion. However, many issues regarding product quality and availability have plagued the industry and called into question FDA's policy and regulatory framework for allowing these tests to be commercially available. This paper analyzes the development of COVID-19 in vitro assays and the lessons learned for innovation during a public health crisis.


Objectives Despite the growing use of mobile health (mHealth), certain barriers seem to be hindering the use of mHealth applications in healthcare. This article presents a systematic review of the literature on barriers associated with mHealth reported by healthcare professionals. Methods This systematic review was carried out to identify studies published from January 2015 to December 2019 by searching four electronic databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, Embase, and Google Scholar). Studies were included if they reported perceived barriers to the adoption of mHealth from healthcare providers' perspectives. Content analysis and categorization of barriers were performed based on a focus group discussion that explored researchers' knowledge and experiences. Results Among the 273 papers retrieved through the search strategy, 18 works were selected and 18 barriers were identified. The relevant barriers were categorized into three main groups: technical, individual, and healthcare system. Security and privacy concerns from the category of technical barriers, knowledge and limited literacy from the category of individual barriers, and economic and financial factors from the category of healthcare system barriers were chosen as three of the most important challenges related to the adoption of mHealth described in the included publications. Conclusions mHealth adoption is a complex and multi-dimensional process that is widely implemented to increase access to healthcare services. However, it is influenced by various factors and barriers. Understanding the barriers to adoption of mHealth applications among providers, and engaging them in the adoption process will be important for the successful deployment of these applications.


The Animal Health Network is designed to connect state veterinarians with Extension partners and local feed retailers to deliver timely, relevant animal disease-related information to non-commercial livestock and poultry owners. The study reported here explored perceptions of key opinion leaders related to the characteristics of the Network as an innovation. Qualitative interviews conducted with13 stakeholders involved in the implementation of the Network revealed that the relative advantage, complexity, and compatibility of the Network were readily apparent to participants, while trialability and observability were not as pervasive. Findings can assist those attempting to diffuse a concept or idea with similar characteristics.


Plants and Empire Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. By Londa Schiebinger. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004. 318 pp. $39.95, £25.95, €36.90. ISBN 0-674-01487-1. The author examines the factors that influenced how and to what extent knowledge of plants used by indigenous and African inhabitants of the Caribbean moved into--and failed to move into--Europe and colonial plantations around the world.


Neutral atoms trapped by laser light are among the most promising candidates for storing and processing information in a quantum computer or simulator. The application certainly calls for a scalable and flexible scheme for addressing and manipulating the atoms. We have now made this a reality by implementing a fast and versatile method to dynamically control the position of neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezers. The tweezers result from a spatial light modulator (SLM) controlling and shaping a large number of optical dipole-force traps. Trapped atoms adapt to any change in the potential landscape, such that one can rearrange and randomly access individual sites within atom-trap arrays.


Minimum Wages, Numbers of medium and small industry on Employment of small and medium Industry, in the city/district of the Special Region of Yogyakarta in 2013-2019. This research is based on secondary data, namely data sourced from the book of small and medium industry potential and publication of the Central Bureau of Statistics. The analysis tool used is panel data regression with the fixed effect model method. Based on the results of the study, the Investment has a positive and significant effect on the Employment of Small and Medium Industry, the Regional Minimum Wages has a negative and significant effect on the Employment of Small and Medium Industry, and the number of Small and Medium industry has a positive and significant effect on the Employment of Small and Medium Industry.


The National Science Foundation (NSF) is a federal agency charged with the care and feeding of basic scientific research in U.S. colleges and universities. NSF is a major contributor toward the support of research in Earth, ocean, and atmospheric sciences, disciplines of great importance to AGU members.

NSF makes a regular practice of employing scientists from universities, nonprofit research organizations, industry, and state or local governments as temporary program officers ("rotators") with terms of service from 1 to 2 years. There are several reasons for the use of rotators:

It brings to NSF people who have firsthand, recent knowledge of "what it is really like" beyond the Washington, D.C. beltway. Knowledge of new ideas, recent graduates, and a fresh look at the system are worth considerably more than the problems that arise owing to inexperienced program officers.
It sheds some sunshine on internal NSF procedures when the rotator returns with his tales to his home institution.
It provides NSF management with considerable flexibility in coping with changing staff requirements.


Research exploring the behavioral dimensions that drive travel (Carrel, Ekambaram, Gaker, Sengupta, & Walker, 2012; Dugundji & Walker, 2005; Jariyasunant et al., 2015) has shown that social and psychological forces often play a role equal to price and economic levers (Ariely, 2008; Heyman & Ariely, 2004; Lin & Wang, 2014; Riggs, 2014, 2015; William Riggs & Kuo, 2015; Riggs & Kuo, 2014; Sherwin, Chatterjee, & Jain, 2014).Yet, more work is needed to evaluate how market vs. social nudges work together to influence transportation decisions. For this study, roughly 500 participants were offered differing incentives in four identical trials. These randomly assigned incentives included various monetary amounts, a free gift, or a social nudge tapping into altruistic values (in this case, benefits to the environment). After tests for homogeneity, the results showed the social nudge had a high degree of effectiveness, when compared to both the financial incentives and gifts. Furthermore, the results indicated that mixing market and social norms caused both to be less effective. These findings suggest that fiscal incentive programs used to influence travel decisions may be lacking. In fact, this research suggests a focus on social norms and value provides alternative tools to facilitate greater changes in travel behaviors that nudge individuals to more healthy and climate-sensitive modes of travel.


Racial and ethnic representation in home ownership rates is an important public policy topic for addressing inequality within society. Although more than half of the households in the US are owned, rather than rented, the representation of home ownership is unequal among different racial and ethnic groups. Here we analyze the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey data to conduct an exploratory and statistical analysis of home ownership in the US, and find sociodemographic factors that are associated with differences in home ownership rates. We use binomial and beta-binomial generalized linear models (GLMs) with 2020 county-level data to model the home ownership rate, and fit the beta-binomial models with Bayesian estimation. We determine that race/ethnic group, geographic region, and income all have significant associations with the home ownership rate. To make the data and results accessible to the public, we develop an Shiny web application in R with exploratory plots and model predictions.


Using simulation and empirical analysis, we examine asymmetry in pricing patterns within hightech markets, where market leaders lead in both price increases and decreases. We examine 475,866 prices and 51,260 price changes for 810 high-tech products from 26 vendors over 283 days. We show that price premiums exist for the market leaders, but these leaders also engage in aggressive price decreases where market followers are unable or unwilling to competitively respond. Surprisingly, we show that large price premiums and market power can motivate a market leader to abandon high price premiums since capturing the entire market at a lower price can lead to greater profits. This research adds to the discussion of market friction and tiers by demonstrating that, in high-tech industries, drastic price cuts from market leaders that go beyond barriers to entry and loss leading can be profit maximizing.


Considering the influence of slow response characteristic of a high-power proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) on a grid-connected system adequately, a 150 kW PEMFC grid-connected system, including a PEMFC power unit based on a Ballard Stack Modules-FCvelocity™ HD6 is developed in this study. Moreover, then an active control strategy with vector-proportion integration controller is proposed to regulate the cascade system actively and improve the performance of compensating low-order harmonics. The comparisons with conventional active/reactive power (PQ) control are carried out to verify the validity of the proposed method under different conditional tests. The results demonstrate that the proposed strategy can not only track the grid power demand quickly, but also prevent the unsteady phenomena which are aroused by PQ control method from the relatively slow response of high-power PEMFC power unit. Furthermore, the total harmonic distortion of grid-connected current is measured by means of the criterion of IEEE Std1547-2003 and the result of fast Fourier transform analysis testifies that the proposed strategy can decrease the total harmonic content of currents better. Therefore, this proposed method will be an optional effective technique for the design of advanced high-power PEMFC grid-connected control system.


In the post-socialist and market reform era, the power of the market and the developmental imperatives are creating metabolic rifts between humans and nature, between producers and the land. The film The Piano in a Factory tells a story of the working class trying to rekindle, amid new alienations, past pride and solidarity. Chinese documentary films have proven an effective medium in critiquing ecological rifts and disasters, staging a stringent critique against eco-destructive economic trends. Against a visual landscape dominated by billboards, glamorous stars, and images, documentary filmmakers expose the conditions of alienated labor and the environmental and human costs of unfettered development.


The origin of superconductivity in bulk SrTiO3 is a mystery since the nonmonotonous variation of the critical transition with carrier concentration defies the expectations of the crudest version of the BCS theory. Here, employing the Nernst effect, an extremely sensitive probe of tiny bulk Fermi surfaces, we show that, down to concentrations as low as 5:5 10 cm , the system has both a sharp Fermi surface and a superconducting ground state. The most dilute superconductor currently known therefore has a metallic normal state with a Fermi energy as little as 1.1 meV on top of a band gap as large as 3 eV. The occurrence of a superconducting instability in an extremely small, single-component, and barely anisotropic Fermi surface implies strong constraints for the identification of the pairing mechanism.


The theory of forces and torques on current circuits of arbitrary shape placed in nonuniform magnetic fields is briefly reviewed. Exact expressions for forces and torques are derived based on the principle of virtual displacement, and the results are expressed in terms of magnetic dipole moment of the loop.


Non-fundamentalness arises when observed variables do not contain enough information to recover structural shocks. This paper propose a new test to empirically detect non-fundamentalness, which is robust to the conditional heteroskedasticity of unknown form, does not need information outside of the specified model and could be accomplished with a standard F-test. A Monte Carlo study based on a DSGE model is conducted to examine the finite sample performance of the test. I apply the proposed test to the U.S. quarterly data to identify the dynamic effects of supply and demand disturbances on real GNP and unemployment.


The paper presents the study and stabilization of a paleo-landslide reactivated because of the excavation works carried out at its foot to construct a new lift in Formigal skiing resort. Inclinometers were installed and surface movements were controlled by GPS techniques in order to analyse the sliding surface and to define the stabilization measures to undertake. The data obtained from the instrumentation was used to perform a back-analysis that allowed to determine the kinematics of the movement as well as to define the appropriate stabilization measures. Presently, the evolution of the movement is controlled by GPS. GEOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS


Double‐layered absorption‐dominated electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding composites are highly desirable to prevent secondary electromagnetic wave pollution. However, it is a tremendous challenge to optimize the shielding performance via the trial‐and‐error method due to the low efficiency. Herein, a novel approach of computation‐aided experimental design is proposed to efficiently optimize the reflectivity of the double‐layered composites. A normalized input impedance (NII) method is presented to calculate the electromagnetic wave reflectivity of multilayered EMI shielding composites. The calculated results are a good match with the experimental results. Then, the NII method is utilized to design polyvinylidene difluoride/MXene/carbon nanotube (PVDF/MXene/CNT) composites. According to the optimization of the NII method, the prepared PVDF/MXene/CNT composite has an ultralow reflectivity of 0.000057, which outperforms that reported in current work and satisfies the requirement of electromagnetic wave absorbing material. Additionally, its average EMI shielding effectiveness is 30 dB, demonstrating that PVDF/MXene/CNT composite simultaneously achieves shielding and absorption. The ultralow reflection mechanism can be ascribed to the ideal impedance match. Both the PVDF/MXene and the PVDF/CNT layers can attenuate electromagnetic energy, which subverts the traditional cognition of double‐layered absorption‐dominated EMI shielding composites. The NII method opens a way for the practical fabrication of double‐layered absorption‐dominated EMI shielding composites.


In this paper, the optimal active power dispatch is formulated as a network flow optimization model and solved by interior point methods. The primal-dual and predictor-corrector versions of such interior point methods are developed and the resulting matrix structure is explored. This structure leads to very fast iterations since it is possible to reduce the linear system either to the number of buses or to the number of independent loops. Either matrix is invariant and can be factored offline. As a consequence of such matrix manipulations, a linear system which changes at each iteration has to be solved; its size, however, reduces to the number of generating units. These methods were applied to IEEE and Brazilian power systems and the numerical results were obtained using a C implementation. Both interior point methods proved to be robust and achieved fast convergence in all instances tested.


Background:
 The obesity epidemic is a significant health concern, affecting nearly a third of all United States citizens according to the 2013-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Obesity contributes to multiple metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors including diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. The atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk calculator is a frequently used tool that aggregates various risk factors to assist physicians in detecting patients that may benefit from statin therapy and risk factor modification. However, this calculator does not directly factor in obesity, which has been found to be associated with multiple cardiovascular comorbidities. Our goal was to assess the correlation between body mass index (BMI) and ASCVD risk scores in order to identify potential targets for intervention to further decrease ASCVD risk.

 Methods:
 We obtained data from the medical record data warehouse of a primary care outpatient clinic predominantly run by internal medicine residents within a large safety-net hospital from January to December 2015. Patients with a diagnosis of dyslipidemia or hyperlipidemia were identified and electronic medical records were reviewed. ASCVD risk scores were calculated using the American College of Cardiology ASCVD risk estimator. Linear and logistical regression analyses were performed using SPSS software to assess the correlation between BMI and ASCVD risk.

 Results:
 The patient population was predominantly African American (92%, 1771 of 1919). Obesity (BMI ≥30) was present in 63% (1207 of 1919) of patients. ASCVD scores could be calculated for 914 patients and 90% (823 of 914) of these patients had ASCVD risk scores ≥7.5. However, only 84% (691 of 823) of these patients with elevated ASCVD scores were on a statin. Analyses did not reveal a correlation between BMI and ASCVD risk. However, elevated BMI (>25) conferred an increased odds ratio (O.R.) of having elevated ASCVD risk (>22.5% O.R. 1.58; p value 0.02) in comparison to normal or underweight BMI.

 Conclusion:
 Obesity rates appear to be higher in our patient population in comparison to national estimates but our mathematical model cannot be used to explain any correlation between BMI and ASCVD risk scores. Obesity did not confer an increased ASCVD risk in comparison to being overweight (BMI 25-29.9). However, both overweight and obese patients had a higher likelihood of having a significantly elevated ASCVD risk score. Future aims include initiating a targeted educational intervention for residents in the continuity clinic to ultimately demonstrate that resident driven intervention is an effective way to address obesity and modify ASCVD risk.


The emergence of VoIP in the growing Internet services today has brought about new way in which services are rendered to the public. In viewofprovidingbetter alternative to Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) with high quality and efficient internet telephony (VoIP), there is a need of having an improved QoS in Voice transmitted over the Internet. In this work, the influence of different impairment factors on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) as a contributory factor were analyzed, characterized, and evaluated. The results obtained from the research work compared with the theoretical values have some common correlations. This indicated that the impairment factors have significant contributory effect on voice transmitted over the internet.


Some of the most important impacts of global climate change and food security will be felt among the rural household, predominantly in developing countries. Their vulnerability to climate change comes both from being predominantly located in the tropics and from various socio-economic demographic and policy trends limiting their capacity to adapt to change. Climate variability directly affects agricultural production, as agriculture is inherently sensitive to climate conditions and is one of the most vulnerable sectors to the risks and impacts of global climate change. However, these impacts will be difficult to predict because of lack of standard definition of the rural household farming system, intrinsic characteristics of these household particularly their location specificity and their integrated agricultural and non-agricultural livelihood strategies and their vulnerability to a range of climate related and other stressors. This study therefore, is on climate variability and its implications on rural household food security in Nigeria. The main aim is the assessment of the impact of the below normal rainfall and drought on food security in Nigeria. Based on the facts gathered, this study concludes that there is need for stakeholders in environmental management and agricultural sustainability in developing countries to come to terms with negative impact of climate change and likely positive and beneficial response strategies to global warming.


Rapid progress in ultrafast laser systems opened many exciting possibilities for high-resolution material processing. These laser systems allow to control and deliver optical energy and laser pulses in time and space with unprecedented precision. It is not surprising that these high-quality optical pulses have revolutionized microfabrication technologies. Femtosecond lasers enabled processing of a wide range of materials (including heat sensitive and thermo reactive) with a sub-micrometer resolution. At present, nearly arbitrary shaped 2D and 3D structures can be produced by direct write photofabrication techniques using femtosecond laser pulses. In this paper we present a brief review of our recent progress in femtosecond (maskless, direct-write, nonlinear) laser lithography and 3D photofabrication technique.


ABSTRACT The influenza virus polymerase is central to influenza virus evolution. Adaptive mutations within the polymerase are often a prerequisite for efficient spread of novel animal-derived viruses in human populations. The polymerase also determines fidelity and, therefore, the rate at which the virus will acquire mutations that lead to host range expansion, drug resistance, or antigenic drift. Despite its importance to viral replication and evolution, our understanding of the mutational effects and associated constraints on the influenza RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) is relatively limited. We performed deep mutational scanning of the A/WSN/1933(H1N1) polymerase basic 1 (PB1), generating a library of 95.4% of amino acid substitutions at 757 sites. After accuracy filters, we were able to measure replicative fitness for 13,354 (84%) of all possible amino acid substitutions, and 13 were validated by results from pairwise competition assays. Functional and structural constraints were better revealed by individual sites involved in RNA or protein interactions than by major subdomains defined by sequence conservation. Mutational tolerance, as defined by site entropy, was correlated with evolutionary potential, as captured by diversity in the available H1N1 sequences. Of the 29 beneficial sites, many have either been identified in the natural evolution of PB1 or shown experimentally to have important impacts on replication and adaptation. Accessibility of amino acid substitutions by single nucleotide mutation was a key factor in determining whether mutations appeared in natural PB1 evolution. Our work provides a comprehensive map of mutational effects on a viral RdRp and a valuable resource for subsequent studies of influenza replication and evolution. IMPORTANCE The influenza virus polymerase is important for adaptation to new hosts and, as a determinant of mutation rate, for the process of adaptation itself. We performed a deep mutational scan of the polymerase basic 1 (PB1) protein to gain insights into the structural and functional constraints on the influenza RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. We find that PB1 is highly constrained at specific sites that are only moderately predicted by the global structure or larger domain. We identified a number of beneficial mutations, many of which have been shown to be functionally important or observed in influenza virus' natural evolution. Overall, our atlas of PB1 mutations and their fitness impacts serves as an important resource for future studies of influenza replication and evolution.


A highly reproducible and efficient in vitro shoot regeneration system was developed for Polyscias balfouriana using apical shoot tips as explants. Explants after surface sterilization were cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) (1962) medium supplemented with different concentrations (0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4 and 1.6 mg/l) of 6- Benzylamino purine (BAP), Thidiazuron (TDZ) and Kinetin (Kin), alone as well as in combination with indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) (0.1, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 mg/l). The highest rate of shoot multiplication (15.20 ± 0.86 for the average shoot number and 6.30 ± 0.84 cm for shoot length) was achieved on MS medium supplemented with 1.2 mg/ml BAP and 0.5 mg/ml IBA. The effect of sucrose and pH of MS medium on shoot proliferation was also tested. An average of 19.2 ± 0.34 shoots per explants with 6.90 ± 0.15 cm shoot length could be obtained by optimizing these two parameters. Rooting was achieved on micro shoots using MS medium with 3.0 mg/ml IBA. The in vitro developed healthy plantlets were successfully shifted to greenhouse for acclimatization.


A combination of mechanical and chemical treatments was utilized to modify the surface textures of copper and duralumin inserts in order to enhance the adhesion at the metal–polymer interface and provide an adhesive joint with a high loadbearing capacity. Pretreatment of the surfaces with sandblasting was followed by etching with various chemical mixtures. The resulting surface textures were evaluated with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and an optical confocal microscope. Surface geometry parameters (Sa, Sz, and Sdr) were measured and their relationships to the adhesion joint strength were studied. It was found that the virgin and purely mechanically treated inserts resulted in joints with poor loadbearing capacity, while a hundredfold (duralumin) and ninetyfold (copper) increase in the force to break was observed for some combinations of mechanical and chemical treatments. It was determined that the critical factor is overcoming a certain surface roughness threshold with the mechanical pretreatment to maximize the potential of the mechanical/chemical approach for the particular combination of material and etchant.


OBJECTIVE
To introduce the materials, preparative technique and endothelialization modification of scaffold.

METHODS
The recent original articles about vascular tissue engineering were extensively reviewed and analyzed.

RESULTS
The materials including natural materials, biodegradable polymers and composite materials were studied in the field of scaffold. The ways of casting, cell self-assembly, gel spinning and electrospinning were applied to prepare the scaffold of vascular tissue engineering. The modification of scaffold was one of the most important elements for vascular tissue engineering.

CONCLUSION
The recent research about scaffold of vascular tissue engineering focus on composite material and electrospinning, the modification of scaffold can improve the ability of adhesion to endothelial cells.


Permeabilized preparations of equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) are shown here to support efficient and accurate synthesis of full-length double-stranded proviral DNA. When (-) and (+) strand products were analyzed by Southern blotting, a discontinuity, mapping approximately to the center of the EIAV genome, could be demonstrated for the (+) strand, predicting a second site for initiation of DNA synthesis and a specific mechanism of (+) strand termination. Precise localization of this (+) strand origin within the integrase (IN) coding region was achieved through its in vitro selection and extension into, and excision from, nascent DNA by purified recombinant p66/p51 EIAV reverse transcriptase (RT), suggesting that the EIAV genome harbors a central polypurine tract (cPPT). In addition, a model system was developed for evaluating whether sequences immediately downstream of the cPPT would terminate (+) strand synthesis in the context of strand displacement. Such a sequence was indeed discovered which functions in a manner analogous to that of the central termination sequence (CTS) of HIV, where A-tract-induced minor groove compression has been suggested to induce localized distortion of the nucleic acid duplex and termination of (+) strand synthesis. This interpretation is reinforced by experiments indicating that read-through of the CTS can be efficiently promoted by substituting 2,6-diaminopurine for adenine, thereby relieving minor groove compression. The nucleotide substitution can also shift the site of termination in strand displacement (+) strand synthesis. Collectively, our data support proposals that lentiviruses may have evolved specialized mechanisms for initiating and terminating (+) strand DNA synthesis at the center of their genomes.


This video watermarking method uses human vision models of color information to control watermark strength and has immunity to rotations, scale changes, translations, and random distortion. It determines the watermark strength in L*u*v* space, where human-perceived degradations of picture quality can be measured in terms of Euclidian distance, but embeds and detects watermarks in YUV space, where the detection is more reliable than the robust watermarking scheme we previously proposed. An experimental evaluation using actual video samples demonstrated that the method can embed more watermarks while keeping the same picture quality and can detect them reliably in watermarked pictures that had gone through all four types of transformations. The method can be used in various watermarking schemes.


The application of organic lightweight aggregates (LWA) such as rice husk, coconut shell and oil palm shell in concrete are gaining popularity. However, organic substances are generally flammable under elevated temperature. As such, it is important to understand the strength performance of concrete with organic LWA under elevated temperature. To this end, this paper presents the compressive strength and mass loss of lightweight self-compacting concrete (LWSCC) when exposed to elevated temperature. In the research, comparison was made between the LWSCC samples of the control mix and mix with 40% of fly ash replacement. The compressive strengths of these mixes at 28-day were 31.35 MPa and 22.77 MPa respectively while at 90-day age, they were 33.27 MPa and 25.04 MPa respectively. Compressive strength of LWSCC samples were studied experimentally under different temperature of 26°C (room temperature), 100°C, 200°C and 300°C respectively. The experimental results showed that there is significant reduction in concrete compressive strength within the temperature range of 100°C- 200°C. When temperature was increased to 300°C, the concrete experienced strength reduction of nearly 84% and 79% at 28-day and 90-day age respectively for control mix. When 40% fly ash is incorporated, the concrete experienced strength reduction of nearly 72% and 66% at 28-day and 90-day age respectively.


This paper presents a design method for a novel configured stereo vision navigation system for mobile robots, which is a catadioptric sensor called OSVOD (omnidirectional stereo vision optical device) based on a common perspective camera coupled with two hyperbolic mirrors. As the hyperbolic mirrors ensure a single viewpoint (SVP) the incident light rays are easily found from the points of the image. In OSVOD the two hyperbolic mirrors, which aligned coaxially and separately, share one focus that coincides with the camera center. So the geometry of OSVOD naturally ensures matched epipolar lines in the two images of the scene. The separation between the two mirrors provides a large baseline and eventually leads to a precise result. The properties mentioned above make OSVOD especially suitable for omnidirectional stereo vision because depth estimation is simple, fast and precise. This proposed system can be used for detecting obstacles by mobile robots, automatic mapping of environments and machine vision where fast and real-time calculations are needed


The present investigation was carried out at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Chatha, Jammu during 2018-19. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) and comprised of twentythree treatments replicated thrice. Among the various treatments, maximum plant height (90.10 cm) and highest number of laterals (21.89) were recorded with treatment T7 comprising of 75 % RDF + Spent mushroom compost (1 kg/m 2 ) + 1% foliar spray of MKP (00:52:34). Lesser number of days taken to 50% flowering (70.22 days), number of flowers/plant (86.78), maximum flower diameter (6.20g), weight of flower (5.78 g), flower yield per plant (500 g), seed yield/plant (105.91 g), 1000 seed weight (11.67g) was recorded with treatment of 75 % RDF + Spent mushroom compost (1 kg/m 2 ) + 1% foliar spray of MKP (T9). Maximum plant spread (68.44 cm) was recorded with treatment comprising of 75 % RDF + Spent mushroom compost (1 kg/m 2 ) + Biofertilizers (T6). However, minimum electrical conductivity of seed leachate (0.688 μmhos/cm/g) was recorded with 25 % RDF + Spent mushroom compost (1 kg/m 2 ) + Biofertilizers(T20). The effects of treatments on flowering duration (days) and shoot: root ratio was found to be non-significant.


Shoreline information is fundamental for understanding coastal dynamics and for implementing environmental policy. The analysis of shoreline variability usually uses a group of shoreline indicators visibly discernible in coastal imagery, such as the seaward vegetation line, wet beach/dry beach line, and instantaneous water line. These indicators partition a beach into four zones: vegetated land, dry sand or debris, wet sand, and water. Unmanned aircraft system (UAS) remote sensing that can acquire imagery with sub-decimeter pixel size provides opportunities to map these four beach zones. This paper attempts to delineate four beach zones based on UAS hyperspatial RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) imagery, namely imagery of sub-decimeter pixel size, and feature textures. Besides the RGB images, this paper also uses USGS (the United States Geological Survey) Munsell HSV (Hue, Saturation, and Value) and CIELUV (the CIE 1976 (L*, u*, v*) color space) images transformed from an RGB image. The four beach zones are identified based on the Gray Level Co-Occurrence Matrix (GLCM) and Local Binary Pattern (LBP) textures. Experiments were conducted with South Padre Island photos acquired by a Nikon D80 camera mounted on the US-16 UAS during March 2014. The results show that USGS Munsell hue can separate land and water reliably. GLCM and LBP textures can slightly improve classification accuracies by both unsupervised and supervised classification techniques. The experiments also indicate that we could reach acceptable results on different photos while using training data from another photo for site-specific UAS remote sensing. The findings imply that parallel processing of classification is feasible.


Zinc oxide-based transparent conductors have long been advanced for their potential as low-cost, earth-abundant replacements for the indium oxide-based materials that currently dominate in practical applications. However, this potential has yet to be realized because of the difficulties in producing zinc oxide thin films with the necessary high levels of electrical conductivity and environmental stability that are readily achieved using indium oxide. To better understand the fundamental reasons for this, polycrystalline zinc and indium oxide thin films were prepared across a range of deposition temperatures using the technique of spray pyrolysis. Electrical transport measurements of these samples both as a function of temperature and UV irradiation were correlated with film morphology to illustrate that the different grain boundary behaviour of these two materials is one of the key reasons for their divergent performance. This is a critical challenge that must be addressed before any substantial increase in the adoption of ZnO-based transparent conductors can take place.


A wireless sensor network consists of manysensor nodes which are deployed to monitor physical or environmental conditions and to pass the collected data to a base station.Though wireless sensor network is subjected to have major applications in all the areas, it also has many security threats and attacks. Among all threats such as sinkhole, wormhole,selective forwarding, denial of service andnode replication, Sybil attack is a major attack where a single node has multiple identities. When a Sybil node act as a sender, it can send false data to its neighbors. When it acts as receiver, it can receive the data which is originally destined for a legitimate node. The existing solutionsconsume more energy. So an energy efficient algorithm named Sybilsecure is proposed.Experimental results show that Sybilsecure consumes less energy than existing defense mechanisms.


Introduction: The recrudescence of new cases of high blood pressure (HBP) and its complications are very worrying, especially since the high blood pressure seems more present among the workers. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of the activity on the occurrence of high blood pressure among ALUCAM group's workers. Method: This is an analytical, descriptive and cross-sectional study of all workers in the ALUCAM group from Cameroon. It was conducted between January and September 2013. We collected socio- professional data and assessed psychosocial risk using the Karasek model. The data were processed from Epi-info version 3.5.4 of July 30, 2012. The Chi-square statistical tests were used to compare our results (P 45 years) make up 73% (n=465) of our study population. HBP was significantly correlated with age (p=0.000, OR=16.95). The high blood pressure was significantly related to obesity (p=0.0000; OR=4.7). Active workers accounted for 91% (n=83) of Hypertensive workers. There was a significant difference between active and nonactive hypertensive workers (p=0.0000 with OR=7.16). There were more workers posted with high blood pressure (p=0.0168; OR=1.72). The workers in 63% (n=401) of the cases were in the "job strain" dial, among which 70% (n=280) of operators. Social support and decision latitude decreased as psychological demand increased. Conclusion: The prevalence of high blood pressure was significantly high among older and obese workers. Stress was a major risk factor for the development of high blood pressure. The activity has an impact on the occurrence of HBP, through its psychosocial components often unfavourable for the worker. Shift work was a contributing factor for the occurrence of HBP in these workers (p=0.0168, OR=1.72).


The objective of the research study was to determine the biological activity of essential oil and extract made from 'Asia' peppermint cultivar and to determine the volatile compounds therein using a GC/MS method. The research material constituted the 'Asia' cultivar of peppermint herb ( Mentha piperita L.) originating from an experimental farm. The essential oil was produced by hydrodistillation using a Deryng apparatus, and the alcoholic extract by maceration. It was found that the essential oil and the extract from peppermint showed different chemical compositions. In the essential oil, 45 compounds were identified, whereas in the extract: 15. The essential oil was characterized by the highest percent content of menthol (24.2 %), isomenthon (11.6 %), isomenthol (7.9 %), eucalyptol (6.1 %), and menthyl acetate (5.8 %). In the peppermint extract, the following compounds prevailed: menthol (34.4 %), isomenthone (17.8 %), and neoisomenthol (7.1 %). Furthermore, the metabolic precursor of sterols, squalene, was determined in the peppermint extract, as were phytol and stigmast 8(14)-en-3 β -ol. A disc-diffusion method was applied to assess the antibacterial and antifungal activity. The analyses proved that the bacteria were less sensitive to the peppermint essential oil than the fungi and the extract did not show any antifungal activity.


Prevention of diarrhea needs an appropriate immune system supported by normal microbiota composition. This study aimed to determine whether probiotic or prebiotic enriched Growing-Up Milk could significantly reduce incidence of acute diarrhea. The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study was conducted in Surabaya, Gresik, and Sidoarjo cities, East Java–Indonesia, between July 2007 and January 2008. This study involved healthy children aged 1–5 years at day-care centers and were randomized to receive three different Growing-Up Milk containing probiotic, prebiotic, or placebo groups (containing neither probiotic nor prebiotic). The day-care staff and parents reported the amount of milk consumed, symptoms, and duration of acute diarrhea during the observation time. A total of 162 participants were divided into probiotic (55), prebiotic (54), and placebo groups (53). The incidence of diarrhea in all the participants was 1.2%, which was the least incidence from the prebiotic group and the highest in the placebo group and significantly different (P = 0.001). The mean duration of diarrhea in all the intervention groups was lower than the placebo group, although neither was statistically nor clinically significant (P = 0.254). Administration of Growing-Up Milk enriched with probiotics or prebiotics appears to be a great opportunity in reducing the incidence of acute diarrhea in children aged 1–5 years.


ABSTRACT Equine piroplasmosis is a tick-borne disease caused by the protozoan parasites Babesia caballi and Theileria equi. We report a case of abortion in association with transplacental Theileria equi infection in a mare from the State of Espírito Santo, southeast Brazil. An apparently healthy mare aborted at the tenth month of gestation. At necropsy, the subcutaneous tissue, skeletal muscles, and visible mucosae of the aborted fetus were pale, and there was moderate hydrothorax and marked splenomegaly. Microscopic findings included splenic lymphoid hyperplasia and nephrosis. Merozoite-infected erythrocytes were found within blood vessels of all organs examined and were most numerous in the brain. DNA extracted from the spleen, liver, kidney, and thymus was used as a template for PCR. Generic primers were employed for the detection of piroplasm 18S ribosomal gene. All samples were positive for piroplasm DNA by PCR. Amplicons were purified and then sequenced. Sequencing analysis of these amplicons revealed 98% identity to T. equi sequences. Based on our findings, we suggest that abortion in this case resulted from transplacental Theileria infection.