SUMMARY

Torsten Weimarck:
ACADEMY AND ANATOMY. On the History of the Human Body in Art Instruction and Studio Practice from ca. 1600 up to ca. 1810, with Particular Emphasis on the Instruction of Anatomy at the Academies of Art in Stockholm and Copenhagen

The aim of the present study is to contribute to the documentation and interpretation of the image and experience of the body by means of two historically and locally specific examples. This image was first formulated in the 16th and 17th centuries by among others Rene Descartes, and it was given various visual shapes by artists connected with the academies of art from that time on. The intention of my investigation is to discuss – from a Nordic horizon – some traits of what from an epistemological point of view may be called the growth of the modern profane or rather anatomical body image. I have explored some important aspects of these specific, epistemological and ideological contexts, taking as my point of departure the basic pedagogical system in academy instruction, the academy drawing from the nude, especially the "scientific" version called plastic anatomy, painter's anatomy etc. The system was derived from Andreas Vesalius De humani corporis fabrica libri septem ("Fabrica"), an anatomical masterpiece which was published in 1543 with the enormously influential woodcuts by the Flemish artist Jan Stephan van Calcar educated in Titian's Venetian school of drawing.
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The Swedish Academy of Art was founded in 1735, the Danish counterpart in 1754, but I also try to outline the prehistory of anatomical instruction and studio practice in the Nordic countries; in fact the study begins with the Nordic Renaissance from the 14th to the 16th centuries and pursues the subject until about 1810, when a partly new perception of the body and the world was being formed. The flowering of Romanticism brought a new comprehension of human perception not only as a reflection but above all as a creative encounter between the individual and the objects of the surrounding world. This opinion, which is partly parallel, partly contrary to the Neo-Classical view, was held by some of the academic artists during the last decades of the 18th century, and it can be traced in the strictly anatomical renderings which were becoming the fashion at the time.
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Few scholarly investigations by art historians have so far been devoted to the anatomical discipline of the art academies. The subject is presented in general terms in some rather short sections in Nicolas Pevsner's Academies of Art – Past and Present from 1940, complemented in 1989 by Academies of Art between Renaissance and Romanticism (Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek), where the research done since Pevsner is accounted for by various specialists. Systematic and more specifically anatomical material is, however, presented in an older, classical work, Histoire de l'Anatomie plastique by Mathias Duval and Edouard Cuyer, published in 1899. A valuable, modern contribution is A. Hyatt Mayor's Artists and Anatomists from 1984 (written ca. 1954). There are references in the bibliography to a great many other interesting works dealing with the anatomical aspect, and I would also like to draw attention to the growing interest in representations of the body during the last few decades, at least in the Western world. Mention should be made of William S. Heckscher's epoque-making investigations of a rich spectrum of aspects of the contradictionary Rembrandt's Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaas Tulp (1958), which has been one of the most important and influential starting points for a good deal of later studies, including the present investigation. Among recent studies, mention should especially be made of Barbara Maria Stafford's inspiring Body Criticism. Imaging the Unseen in Enlightment Art and Medicine, published in 1991, and Jonathan Sawday, The Body Emblazoned. Dissection and the human body in Renaissance culture (1995).
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My investigation begins with an introductory chapter addressing the theoretical och analytical background which is important in this context. Here I discuss the historical and general, institutional function and aims of the academies of art, touching on the need for documentary illustrations occasioned by the growth of the natural sciences since the Renaissance. The discussion is accompanied by a contrasting section with some reflections on the body image of the old, archaic world.
The following chapters contain material on the art instruction and model drawing in Sweden and Denmark in the old days, before the founding of the Art Academies in the two capitals. There are separate discussions of the native encounter with continental Renaissance culture and its expressions in the pictorial arts, especially concerning the view and experience of the human body. This can be seen partly in the importation of the academic Renaissance culture, partly in encounters between this cultural influx and Swedish and Danish artists, e.g. the Danish 16th-century draftsman and engraver Melchior Lorch and one century later, the Swedish military engineer, draftsman etc. Erik Dahlbergh. Then follows a discussion of the Swedish academy-like studio-school of the late 17th-century court painter David Kocker Ehrenstrahl, an establishment directed by above all the painter Martin Hannibal and of the theoretical, academic character of this studio. The chapter on the pre-academic situation in Sweden is completed by a discussion of the cast, antique and classical sculpture copies which were imported by Nicodemus Tessin (the younger) in the years around 1700. The corresponding chapters concerning Danish art start with a presentation of the Academy of the Nobility in Soro and of the Renaissance epoque of Christian IV, interpreted against the common pedagogical and epistemological background that several of the noble academic items evidence. In this context the forthcoming academy drawing and the theoretical subjects taught at the academy, such as anatomy, perspective and optics, are especially interesting. After this follows a chapter on the court and university engraver Albert Haelwegh, the court painter Karel van Mander (III), and the professor of anatomy Thomas Bartholin, which illuminates the anatomical interest that was characteristic of the epoque. Another topic treated here is the close connection between anatomy and the curious baroque style of cartilage ornamentations and scroll-like cartouches. This chapter (No. IV) closes with an account of the founding of the first academy in Copenhagen in 1701 and its continuation at the end of the 1730s, when the still existing Academy of Art in fact opened, even if it was not formally established until 1754.
Chapter V documents, discusses and interprets the instruction and practice of anatomy at the Academy of Art in Copenhagen up to the beginning of the 19th century. Attention is paid to the precepts of teaching, especially model drawing and anatomy instruction. The focus is on the instruction given by the two first anatomy professors of the academy, the surgeon Christian Berger and the sculptor Andreas Weidenhaupt and its historical context.
The last part of the historical section deals with the teaching of anatomy in the Swedish Academy and the renderings of the human body by the circles of artists connected with the Academy from 1735 until the first decade of the 19th century. After a review of the political and mercantile discussions of the period, turning on the social importance of native crafts and commerce – discussions which led to the founding of the Swedish Academy of Art – follows a presentation of the first professor of anatomy, the barber surgeon Magnus Hedin. The main part of the chapter deals with the engraver Pehr Floding and his interest in anatomy – he was later to become professor of anatomy at the Academy. His fairly large legacy of manuscripts on art instruction, including anatomy and art history etc. is presented in a special section. This chapter concludes with some reflections on anatomy and the anatomical point of view, as evidenced in the works of two important artists, the sculptor and draftsman Johan Tobias Sergel and the admiral, architect, draftsman, author etc. Carl August Ehrensvard.
After the bibliography, a list of illustrations and an index follows an appendix containing complete transcriptions of two important manuscripts by Pehr Floding on the instruction at the Academy of Art. Both manuscripts are from the archives of the Academy of Art in Stockholm; one is dated 1769 and consists of a speech to the young apprentices at the academy on the "Reputation and Rumour of the Liberal Arts", and the other was apparently written during the following two decades and consists of his collected "Materials and Subjects of a Dissertation on the Arts". In these manuscripts the art life and thinking of the last decades of the 18th century are illuminated by an artist-cum-author, who, born in poor circumstances, was educated in the 1750s and 1760s in academical circles in Paris, where discussions of anatomy flourished, and who later returned to the distant city of Stockholm, where he, at times mentally deranged, tried to recreate important parts of this continental academical milieu.

Translated by Gunilla Florby


Computed Tomography (CT) using X-ray attenuation by atomic effects is now widely used for medical diagnosis and industrial non-destructive inspection. In this study, we performed a tomographic imaging of isotope (208Pb) distribution by the Nuclear Resonance Fluorescence (NRF), i.e. isotope specific resonant absorption and scattering of gamma rays, using Laser Compton Scattering (LCS) gamma rays. The NRF-CT image which includes both effects of atomic attenuation and nuclear resonant attenuation was obtained. By accounting for the atomic attenuation measured by a conventional method at the same time, a clear 208Pb isotope CT image was obtained. The contrast degradation due to notch refilling caused by small-angle Compton scattering is discussed. This study clearly demonstrates the capability of the isotope-specific CT imaging based on nuclear resonant attenuation which will be a realistic technique when the next generation of extremely intense LCS gamma-ray sources will be available. The expected image acquisition time using these intense LCS gamma rays was discussed.


The ultrastructure of the appendages of 24 strains of asaccharolytic pigmented Bacteroides spp. of cats was studied by transmission electron microscopy. All strains examined by thin section showed abundant fimbriae, outer membrane vesicles and capsules. Negative staining showed fimbriae which varied from long, fine and wavy in Bact. salivosus and cat Group 2 to shorter, less abundant and thicker fimbriae in cat strains of Bact. gingivalis as well as type strains of Porphyromonas gingivalis and P. asaccharolytica. Capsular material was very thick amorphous in human P. gingivalis, cat strains of Bact. gingivalis and in P. assaccharolytica but fine and fibrillary in preparations of Bact. salivosus and cat Group 2 organisms. Wet india ink preparations showed a large capsule although those of Bact. salivosus and Group 2 appeared largest. Five-day Group 2 broth cultures featured a thick ropy growth consistent with a large accumulation of extracellular slime. Enzymatic activities of the 24 strains measured by API ZYM system as well as the conventional biochemical tests showed it was possible to differentiate reliably Bact. salivosus from the other cat strains of asaccharolytic pigmented Bacteroides species and from human P. gingivalis and P. endodontalis by a combination of these tests. These tests suggest that Bact. salivosus is unlikely to belong to the genus Prevotella. Its place within the genus Porphyromonas is still to be determined.


Corneal cool cells are sensitive to the ocular fluid status of the corneal surface and may be responsible for the regulation of basal tear production. Previously, we have shown that dry eye, induced by lacrimal gland excision (LGE) in rats, sensitized corneal cool cells to the transient receptor potential melastatin 8 (TRPM8) agonist menthol and to cool stimulation. In the present study, we examined the effect of dry eye on the sensitivity of cool cells to the transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) agonist capsaicin. Single-unit recordings in the trigeminal ganglion were performed 7-10 days after LGE. At a concentration of 0.3 μM, capsaicin did not affect ongoing or cool-evoked activity in control animals yet facilitated ongoing activity and suppressed cool-evoked activity in LGE animals. At higher concentrations (3 μM), capsaicin continued to facilitate ongoing activity in LGE animals but suppressed ongoing activity in control animals. Higher concentrations of capsaicin also suppressed cool-evoked activity in both groups of animals, with an overall greater effect in LGE animals. In addition to altering cool-evoked activity, capsaicin enhanced the sensitivity of cool cells to heat in LGE animals. Capsaicin-induced changes were prevented by the application of the TRPV1 antagonist capsazepine. With the use of fluorescent in situ hybridization, TRPV1 and TRPM8 expression was examined in retrograde tracer-identified corneal neurons. The coexpression of TRPV1 and TRPM8 in corneal neurons was significantly greater in LGE-treated animals when compared with sham controls. These results indicate that LGE-induced dry eye increases TRPV1-mediated responses in corneal cool cells at least in part through the increased expression of TRPV1. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Corneal cool cells are known to detect drying of the ocular surface. Our study is the first to report that dry eye induced alterations in cool cell response properties, including the increased responsiveness to noxious heat and activation by capsaicin. Along with the changes in cell response properties, it is possible these neurons also function differently in dry eye, relaying information related to the perception of ocular irritation in addition to regulating tearing and blinking.


Abstract Recent oceanic data and measurements at Johnston Island were used to examine insolation over the tropical Pacific by comparison with empirical formulas which are reliable for mid-latitudes. In the eastern Pacific the observed insolation is in reasonable agreement with the formulas, but over the central and western parts of the ocean the observed values are systematically larger than the estimates. This is in agreement with earlier studies of Quinn and Burt who concluded that insolation over these areas was greater than estimates from formulas because of extensive cirrus cloudiness in the absence of other types. Finally, it is concluded that Budyko's climatological values are too low in the tropics, primarily because of systematic errors in the formulas that he used.


SUMMARY Kernel principal components (KPC) and kernel discriminant coordinates (KDC), which are the extensions of principal components and discriminant coordinates, respectively, from a linear domain to a nonlinear domain via the kernel trick, are two very popular nonlinear feature extraction methods. The kernel discriminant coordinates space has proven to be a very powerful space for pattern recognition. However, further study shows that there are still drawbacks in this method. To improve the performance of pattern recognition, we propose a new learning algorithm combining the advantages of KPC and KDC


Inhalation of small numbers of Francisella tularensis subspecies tularensis (Ftt) in the form of small particle aerosols causes severe morbidity and mortality in people and many animal species. For this reason, Ftt was developed into a bona fide biological weapon by the USA, by the former USSR, and their respective allies during the previous century. Although such weapons were never deployed, the 9/11 attack quickly followed by the Amerithrax attack led the U.S. government to seek novel countermeasures against a select group of pathogens, including Ftt. Between 2005–2009, we pursued a novel live vaccine against Ftt by deleting putative virulence genes from a fully virulent strain of the pathogen, SCHU S4. These mutants were screened in a mouse model, in which the vaccine candidates were first administered intradermally (ID) to determine their degree of attenuation. Subsequently, mice that survived a high dose ID inoculation were challenged by aerosol or intranasally (IN) with virulent strains of Ftt. We used the current unlicensed live vaccine strain (LVS), first discovered over 70 years ago, as a comparator in the same model. After screening 60 mutants, we found only one, SCHU S4 ΔclpB, that outperformed LVS in the mouse ID vaccination-respiratory-challenge model. Currently, SCHU S4 ΔclpB has been manufactured under current good manufacturing practice conditions, and tested for safety and efficacy in mice, rats, and macaques. The steps necessary for advancing SCHU S4 ΔclpB to this late stage of development are detailed herein. These include developing a body of data supporting the attenuation of SCHU S4 ΔclpB to a degree sufficient for removal from the U.S. Select Agent list and for human use; optimizing SCHU S4 ΔclpB vaccine production, scale up, and long-term storage; and developing appropriate quality control testing approaches.


Genetically-encoded tags are useful tools for multicolor and multi-scale cellular imaging. Versatile Interacting Peptide (VIP) tags, such as VIPER, are new genetically-encoded tags that can be used in various imaging applications. VIP tags consist of a coiled-coil heterodimer, with one peptide serving as the genetic tag and the other ("probe peptide") delivering a reporter compatible with imaging. Heterodimer formation is rapid and specific, allowing proteins to be selectively labeled for live-cell and fixed-cell imaging. In this Bio-Protocol, we include a detailed guide for implementing the VIPER technology for imaging receptors on live cells and intracellular targets in fixed cells. This protocol is complemented by two other Bio-Protocols outlining the use of VIPER (Doh et al., 2019a and 2019b).


Nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) belong to the protein family of neurotrophins. They both display profound neuromodulatory functions and are essentially involved in the survival and homeostatic maintenance of central and peripheral neurons during development and adulthood. Moreover, NGF and BDNF are known to modulate immune cell function and thus serve as mediators in the reciprocal cross talk between neurons and immune cells. Neurotrophic factors have been implicated in pathophysiological mechanisms of many diseases of the nervous and the immune system, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer's disease (AD), neuropathy, pain, allergic bronchial asthma (BA) and neurotrophic keratitis. For all these diseases research has reached the point of creating strategies for therapeutic intervention with neurotrophins. In this review, we present an overview of the pathophysiology, therapeutic interventions and strategies concerning NGF and BDNF in the mentioned diseases.


While courts have increasingly looked to contract law to vindicate the rights of students against universities and colleges, traditional contract law sometimes provides inadequate protections in situations where rights are adversely affected by third-party action. The rise of administrative oversight by the Department of Education and by other third-party governmental actors limits the universe of contracts that can be formed and is constantly changing the student-university relationship. This oversight is so pervasive that adverse administrative decisions of even private universities could possibly be characterized as state action or agency action for the purposes of a direct constitutional lawsuit or suit under the Administrative Procedure Act.Rather than solely focusing on state law contract suits against universities, students, professors, and rights advocates should look to these and other novel remedies to fill in the gaps of rights vindication where state contract law is otherwise inadequate.


Background. Hydroxyurea reduces pain crises, acute chest syndrome and blood transfusions in sickle cell disease (SCD), but potential detrimental effects on fertility and birth outcomes are an impediment to its use. Patient data on the effects of hydroxyurea when taken during conception and pregnancy are scarce. The Sickle Cell Disease Implementation Consortium (SCDIC) is a cooperative research program of eight clinical centers, a data coordinating center, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). One of the SCDIC programs is an SCD patient registry including at least 300 participants from each center.
 Methods. The SCDIC Registry retrospectively questioned participants regarding pregnancy history, hydroxyurea use and pregnancy outcomes. Of 2436 subjects 15-45 years of age, 2375 answered at least one pregnancy-related question, including hydroxyurea use during conception, the month and year the pregnancy ended, the outcome (live birth, stillbirth, miscarriage, abortion, currently pregnant), hydroxyurea use during pregnancy and what trimester (females only), and for live births - prematurity, birth weight < 5.5 lbs, and medical complications in the baby. The primary outcome was miscarriage or stillbirth, with separate analyses for males and females. Univariate logistic regression was used to identify significant covariates and predictors, and multivariate logistic regression was used to select the best fitting models. All models included severe sickle cell genotype, pregnancy order (1-3, 4-6, >6) and history of miscarriage or stillbirth at each pregnancy
 WResults. Among 1,357 women, 1797 pregnancies were reported for a crude rate of 1.32 pregnancies per woman; among 1018 men, 620 pregnancy conceptions were reported for a rate of 0.61 per man. Overall, in 221 (12.3%) of reported pregnancies in women and in 122 (19.7%) of reported pregnancies conceived by men, conception occurred while on hydroxyurea (P<0.001). We further analyzed 2062 pregnancies that did not end in elective abortion as reported by 920 individuals. Pregnancy order, severe sickling genotype of the parent and prior history of still birth or miscarriage were significantly associated with stillbirth or miscarriage in univariate analyses. After adjustment for these covariates, hydroxyurea use at conception was associated with a 2.1-fold increase in the odds of miscarriage or stillbirth in pregnancies conceived by males (P = 0.046) and hydroxyurea use at conception and during the first trimester was associated with a 3.3-fold increase in the odds of miscarriage or stillbirth in pregnancies conceived by women (P<0.001). Hydroxyurea use at conception and during the first trimester was also independently associated with birth weight <5.5 lbs (OR 2.4, P=0.01), but not prematurity or medical problems in the newborn.
 Discussion. There are important limitations to our study. The pregnancy history is self-reported and therefore complicated by recall bias. The completion of the reproductive history form varied by age. The dates of pregnancies ending in miscarriage were more often missing than other outcomes, so we could not use age at pregnancy in statistical analyses. Males may not have known or remembered all of the pregnancies they conceived that did not end in live birth, and we did not collect information about the female partners of males with SCD. Furthermore, the availability and use of hydroxyurea has increased over time. Nevertheless, our results suggest that the use of hydroxyurea at conception in males and at conception and the first trimester in females may be associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Our findings support advising patients who plan a pregnancy to temporarily discontinue hydroxyurea before attempting to conceive and during the first trimester in females, and to provide alternative approaches to prevent SCD complications during this time.

 Gordeuk: Novartis: Consultancy; Ironwood: Research Funding; Imara: Research Funding; Global Blood Therapeutics: Consultancy, Research Funding; CSL Behring: Consultancy, Research Funding. Hankins:Novartis: Research Funding; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: Honoraria, Research Funding; American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology: Honoraria; LINKS Incorporate Foundation: Research Funding; MJH Life Sciences: Consultancy, Patents & Royalties; Global Blood Therapeutics: Consultancy, Research Funding; UptoDate: Consultancy. Kutlar:Novartis Pharmaceuticals: Consultancy, Research Funding; Global Blood Therapeutics: Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Micelle Biopharma: Consultancy; NIH/NHLBI (SCDIC): Research Funding; Novo Nordisk: Research Funding; Forma Therapeutics: Research Funding; REACH: Other: DSMB Member; NOHARM: Other: DSMB Member; Bluebird Bio: Other: DSMB Member. King:Amphivena Therapeutics: Research Funding; Bioline: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Cell Works: Consultancy; Incyte: Consultancy; Magenta Therapeutics: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Novimmune: Research Funding; RiverVest: Consultancy; Tioma Therapuetics: Consultancy; WUGEN: Current equity holder in private company. Shah:Alexion: Speakers Bureau; Bluebird Bio: Consultancy; Novartis: Consultancy, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Global Blood Therapeutics: Consultancy, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; CSL Behring: Consultancy. Kanter:BEAM: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; SCDAA Medical and Research Advisory Board: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; AGIOS: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; bluebird bio, inc: Consultancy, Honoraria; Novartis: Consultancy; Sanofi: Consultancy; Medscape: Honoraria; Guidepoint Global: Honoraria; GLG: Honoraria; Jeffries: Honoraria; Cowen: Honoraria; Wells Fargo: Honoraria; NHLBI Sickle Cell Advisory Board: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Treadwell:UpToDate: Honoraria; Global Blood Therapeutics: Consultancy.


Based on the defect analysis of the PLC coal conveying control system in power plant, this paper puts forward a new method for on line defect judgement of the control system. This method can judge the actual defect source and decrease the software computation quantity by constructing the system defect judgement matrix and combining the PLC port state.


Most of metric learning approaches are dedicated to be applied on data described by feature vectors, with some notable exceptions such as times series, trees or graphs. The objective of this paper is to propose a metric learning algorithm that specifically considers relational data. The proposed approach can take benefit from both the topological structure of the data and supervised labels. For selecting relative constraints representing the relational information, we introduce a link-strength function that measures the strength of relationship links between entities by the side-information of their common parents. We show the performance of the proposed method with two different classical metric learning algorithms, which are ITML (Information Theoretic Metric Learning) and LSML (Least Squares Metric Learning), and test on several real-world datasets. Experimental results show that using relational information improves the quality of the learned metric.


Are we any closer to creating an autonomous model of analogical reasoning that can generate new and creative analogical comparisons? A three-phase model of analogical reasoning is presented that encompasses the phases of retrieval, mapping and inference validation. The model of the retrieval phase maximizes its creativity by focusing on domain topology, combating the semantic locality suffered by other models. The mapping model builds on a standard model of the mapping phase, again making use of domain topology. A novel validation model helps ensure the quality of the inferences that are accepted by the model. We evaluated the ability of our tri-phase model to re-discover several hcreative analogies (Boden, 1992) from a background memory containing many potential source domains. The model successfully re-discovered all creative comparisons, even when given problem descriptions that more accurately reflect the original problem ‐ rather than the standard (post hoc) representation of the analogy. Finally, some remaining challenges for a truly autonomous creative analogy machine are assessed.


Photovoltaic (PV) solar farms and hydropower stations can create a plant that do more than the two resources acting independently as long as, with the addition of a solar project, hydroelectric plants increase its annual availability of power and economic efficiency, taking advantage of the storage capacity of energy that a hydroelectric reservoir can provide. The objective of this paper is to investigate the potential of Brazilian hydropower plants regarding these issues using the large amount of available data recorded. There exists a potential increase in the energy production of 53.3 TWh per year based on the proposed optimized solution for the Brazilian hydropower stations with significant water storage capacities assessed in this paper. This energy is equivalent to an additional capacity factor of approximately 20% to the original 31.5 GW installed hydro capacity or almost 10% of the Brazilian electricity demand in 2018. This result would be at the expenses of a huge deployment of 34 GW of solar PV floating power plants installed close to the reservoir dams that must yet prove to be economically feasible. However, on the other hand, this proposal can create a virtuous cycle for the solar industry in Brazil and speed up the viability of solar cell costs, since setting up and connecting the PV plants are greatly simplified when done in existing hydropower stations facilities.


In the contact aureole of the Makhavinekh Lake Pluton (MLP), Labrador, garnet resorption caused redistribution of Lu and loss of Hf, creating spuriously young Lu–Hf garnet ages. Garnet grew during granulite facies regional metamorphism at 1860–1850 Ma. At 1322 Ma, garnet rims were replaced by coronas of cordierite and orthopyroxene during contact metamorphism. Garnet–ilmenite Lu–Hf geochronology using bulk‐garnet separates yields apparent ages that young from 1876 ± 21 Ma at 4025 m from the contact to 1396 ± 8 Ma at 450 m from the contact. Toward the contact, garnet crystals are progressively more resorbed. Concentrations of Lu measured by LA‐ICP‐MS along radial traverses on central sections through relict garnet decrease gently away from the cores but rise steeply within 50–200 μm of the edges of the relicts. Enrichments of Lu in rims of relict garnet demonstrates strong partitioning of Lu into garnet during resorption and modest intracrystalline diffusion. Hafnium distributions could not be measured, but considering the strong incompatibility of Hf with garnet, it is likely that nearly all Hf in resorbed portions of the garnet was lost from the crystals. Lu–Hf ages in the aureole are thus controlled predominantly by this retention of Lu and loss of Hf during garnet resorption. This deduction was tested with a simple numerical model in which the partial retention of Lu and loss of Hf is tracked as a population of garnet is resorbed. Assuming a spherical geometry for garnet porphyroblasts, Rayleigh fractionation is used to approximate initial Lu zoning profiles ranging from flat to steeply decreasing toward garnet rims. The model simulates: (i) Lu–Hf decay for a specified period before resorption; (ii) instantaneous resorption with retention of Lu and loss of Hf from the resorbed portion of the crystal and (iii) Lu–Hf decay during a specified period after resorption. Several parameters influence the modelled age, but garnet resorption and Lu retention are the primary factors. When all other parameters are held constant, larger amounts of resorption and higher degrees of Lu retention produce younger apparent ages (false ages). Similarly, flatter initial Lu profiles yield younger apparent ages as a consequence of the larger proportion of Lu and Hf that resides in the outer portions of the porphyroblast. The difference between the apparent and actual ages is greater if the duration of the pre‐resorption decay period is large relative to the post‐resorption decay period. Larger crystals in a Gaussian crystal‐size distribution (CSD) generally dominate the Lu–Hf budget and produce an older apparent age relative to the age of the mean crystal size. Compared to a symmetrical Gaussian CSD, positively skewed CSDs result in reduced resorption of large crystals and produce an older apparent age. Application of the model to the MLP aureole, positing growth at 1850 Ma and resorption at 1320 Ma, yields model ages that young from 1850 to 1374 Ma toward the contact, in good agreement with the apparent ages determined from geochronology.


Due to the advancement in sensor technology, the growing large medical image data have the ability to visualize the anatomical changes in biological tissues. As a consequence, the medical images have the potential to enhance the diagnosis of disease, the prediction of clinical outcomes and the characterization of disease progression. But in the meantime, the growing data dimensions pose great methodological and computational challenges for the representation and selection of features in image cluster analysis. To address these challenges, we first extend the functional principal component analysis (FPCA) from one dimension to two dimensions to fully capture the space variation of image the signals. The image signals contain a large number of redundant features which provide no additional information for clustering analysis. The widely used methods for removing the irrelevant features are sparse clustering algorithms using a lasso-type penalty to select the features. However, the accuracy of clustering using a lasso-type penalty depends on the selection of the penalty parameters and the threshold value. In practice, they are difficult to determine. Recently, randomized algorithms have received a great deal of attentions in big data analysis. This paper presents a randomized algorithm for accurate feature selection in image clustering analysis. The proposed method is applied to both the liver and kidney cancer histology image data from the TCGA database. The results demonstrate that the randomized feature selection method coupled with functional principal component analysis substantially outperforms the current sparse clustering algorithms in image cluster analysis.


I Present this ensuing Treatise to your Lordship as its proper Patron, to whom, by vertue of your great Trust (the greatest, doubtless, in this Kingdome) the management of his Majesty's Treasure, and improvement of his Revenue, are most peculiarly committed. The title of it (Englands Treasure by Forraign Trade) alone bespeaks your notice, the Argument, (being of so publick a nature) may invite your perusall but the Tract it self will, I hope, deserve your Lordships Protecton. It was left me in the nature of a Legacy by my Father, for whose sake I cannot but value it as one of my best Moveables, and as such I dedicate it to your Lordship. He was in his time famous amongst Merchants, and well known to most men of business, for his general Experience in Affairs, and notable Insight into Trade; neither was he less observed for his Integrity to his Prince, and Zeal to the Common-wealth: the serious Discourses of such men are commonly not unprofitable. To your Lordships judgement I submit this Treatise, and my presumption herein to your Pardon. My Lord, Your most faithful and obedient Servant, John Mun


The test of ADS-B receiving equipment is lack of validation of data source, a method of simulation of ADS-B data information is designed aims at the influence of great-cost of outfield test, time consuming and the interference of environment factors. Physical equations are adopted to simulate aircraft's operation, the information of operation of aircraft at a certain moment can be extracted and the information will be coded by the way of RTCA DO-260B coding standard, then the ADS-B message is sent by controlling the time of sending. Result of test shows that this method can simulate a great deal of data and it plays an important role on the performance of quantitative and tests of ADS-B receiver.


Symbol is a very ancient phenomenon as a constitute part of mythology. This paper highlights the issues of contemporary symbols connected with the national culture. The overview of different scholars' researches allows to identify the connection between mythology and symbols in other words and the symbolic perception of the world. The nature of the symbol is stable and kernel idea of symbols is transferred from generation to generation. Most of mythological heroes are described as symbols and nowadays they can have an influence on people's mentality and feelings. Among the Kazakh cultural symbols animalistic ones and symbols of flora, such as baiterek are presented vividly. The reconstruction of their cultural meanings highlights mythological understanding of the world. At the contemporary level of cultural development it is still possible to trace some of them. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s2p145


The technical support service in the Army has a great importance within the frames of combat service support. By the application of information technology in the planning of work of the Technical support service and by controlling the plan realization, the following is ensured: the most rational utilization of available resources, the balanced employment of staff elements and personnel within the frames of combat service and the most efficient realization of plans. This program is applied for observing the realization of the maintenance process in a technical company and it is apart of the logistic information system.


We previously showed that the plasma of patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) contains an elevated quantity of von Willebrand factor (VWF) with high specific adhesive activity (as measured by the binding of nanobody AU/VWFa-11). Total active VWF (VWF antigen multiplied by VWF specific activity) correlated with the extent of hemolysis in these patients ( Chen J. et al., Blood, 2011, 117:3680 ). In another study, we showed that N-acetylcysteine (NAC) reduced VWF size and activity ex vivo and broke down platelet–VWF aggregates in vivo in mice ( Chen J. et al, JCI, 2011, 121:522 ). Given the possibility that VWF is involved in the pathophysiology of sickle cell disease, we are examining whether NAC can benefit these patients. We are first conducting a pilot clinical trial to determine the safety profile of infused NAC and its effects on laboratory endpoints. Five SCD patients at disease baseline and not recently transfused will be enrolled. To date, two patients have completed intravenous infusion of NAC at a low dose of 150 mg/kg with a bolus infusion of 75 mg/kg for the 1 st hr and 75 mg/kg for 7 hr. Approximately one month after the low-dose infusion, these patients received another infusion of 300 mg/kg given as a bolus infusion of 150 mg/kg for the 1 st hr and 150 mg/kg for 7 hr. Blood was collected for analysis immediately before the infusion, at 1 hr (after bolus infusion), 8 hr, 24 hr, and 72 hr after infusion. Among the parameters examined were plasma VWF, red blood cell concentration, density, and size (to look for fragments), and the concentrations of NAC, cysteine and glutathione and their oxidized and mixed disulfide forms. In these two patients, the NAC infusion was well tolerated except that both patients experienced pruritus during the higher-dose bolus infusion. We measured the concentrations of reduced and oxidized NAC, cysteine, and glutathione in whole blood in the first study subject by mass spectrometry. NAC concentrations were 725 μM and 1.58 mM at the 1 hr time point at the low and high doses, respectively. Compared to the baseline (before NAC infusion), the concentration of total cysteine in blood was increased 2.4 fold for low dose and 2.9 fold for high dose at 1 hr and returned to baseline at 8 hr. The concentration of total glutathione in whole blood was increased 1.5 fold and 1.3 fold at 24, and 72 hr, respectively, for the high dose infusion but did not change much at the low dose infusion. The size of high molecular weight VWF multimers decreased with the high dose infusion, the effect being obvious at 1 hr. In addition, NAC infusion markedly reduced the concentration of red cell fragments and dense cells. Both of these effects were very rapid, being observable at the 1 hr time point. In summary, NAC infusion in sickle cell patients at disease baseline appears safe. NAC increases the concentrations of total cysteine and glutathione in blood, reduces high molecular weight VWF multimers, and decreases the number of dense red blood cells and the extent of red cell fragmentation. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


One of our most important line of defense against cancer is the use of chemotherapy. Resistance to these drugs represents, however, a fundamental limitation in our ability to treat tumors, especially in ovarian cancer (OC) as well as in endometrial cancer (EC). Both of these cancers display high mortality rate due to the establishment of chemoresistance. It is thus of utmost importance that we develop new approaches to overcome this problem and restore chemosensitivity in cancer cells. Nuclear transport has been shown to be exceedingly important in cell fate dynamics. CRM1, also known as XPO1, is a nuclear export receptor that recognize leucine-rich domain known as "Nuclear Export Signal". Indeed, substantial CRM1 enrichment is indicative of highly invasive and resistant tumors and is generally suggestive of lower chance of survival. On the other hand, Par-4, an exceptionally rarely mutated protein capable of inducing cell death only in transformed cells while sparing normal cells, is suggested to be activated upon nuclear localization; it is thus considered a powerful, cancer-specific, inducer of cell death. Recent findings suggest that reinstating the ability of Par-4 to accumulate in the nucleus could re-establish its capacity to induce apoptosis. Our hypothesis was that CRM1 nuclear exclusion of Par-4 could be an acquired resistance mechanism in cancer cells. To explore this hypothesis, we first treated various OC and EC cell types with Leptomycin B to observe whether Par-4 would accumulate to the nucleus; to this end, we performed immunofluorescence as well as subcellular protein fractionations. The obtained results suggested that Par-4 was enriched in the nucleus of cells following Leptomycin B treatments. We then treated multiple OC and EC cell lines with a combination of Leptomycin B, cisplatin and TRAIL recombinant protein to determine if Par-4 enrichment through CRM-1 inhibition could sensitizes tumor cells through either extrinsic or intrinsic death pathways. We then assessed cell death and Par-4 cleavage, an important event in Par-4 induced cell death, using western blot and confirmed the results pertaining to cell death by flow cytometry (Annexin V/PI). The obtained results suggested that the combination of Leptomycin B and TRAIL largely increased cell death and apoptosis when compared to their treatment alone. Taken together, these results suggest that CRM1 control export of various tumor suppressors including Par-4, and this could be a putative mechanism responsible for the establishment of chemoresistance in OC as well as EC. The use of CRM1 inhibitors in combination to chemotherapeutic drug treatments could be an attractive strategy to reverse chemoresistance in the context of gynecological cancer therapy. Citation Format: Francois Fabi, France-Helene Joncas, Sophie Parent, Valerie Leblanc, Eric Asselin. Leptomycin B sensitizes ovarian and endometrial cancer cells to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 3810. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-3810


This paper studies logarithmic spiral double curved arch dam, and carries out analysis on the bodily form of the logarithmic spiral double curved arch dam, based on the arch dam stress analysis and construction lofting, and builds three-dimensional mathematical model, with the help of C++ program language, automatically generates the three-dimensional model of the logarithmic spiral double curved arch dam with AutoCAD and divides the form into rectangular meshes. The three-dimensional curved surface is smooth, the rectangular meshes are evenly distributed, and reliable and accurate evidence has been provided for further structural and fluid analysis of the logarithmic spiral double curved arch dam.


Water limitation is one of the major threats affecting grapevine production. Thus, improving water-use efficiency (WUE) is crucial for a sustainable viticulture industry in Mediterranean regions. Under field conditions, water stress (WS) is often combined with viral infections as those are present in major grape-growing areas worldwide. Grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3 (GLRaV-3) is one of the most important viruses affecting grapevines. Indeed, the optimization of water use in a real context of virus infection is an important topic that needs to be understood. In this work, we have focused our attention on determining the interaction of biotic and abiotic stresses on WUE and hydraulic conductance (Kh ) parameters in two white grapevine cultivars (Malvasia de Banyalbufar and Giró Ros). Under well-watered (WW) conditions, virus infection provokes a strong reduction (P < 0.001) in Kpetiole in both cultivars; however, Kleaf was only reduced in Malvasia de Banyalbufar. Moreover, the presence of virus also reduced whole-plant hydraulic conductance (Khplant ) in 2013 and 2014 for Malvasia de Banyalbufar and in 2014 for Giró Ros. Thus, the effect of virus infection on water flow might explain the imposed stomatal limitation. Under WS conditions, the virus effect on Kplant was negligible, because of the bigger effect of WS than virus infection. Whole-plant WUE (WUEWP ) was not affected by the presence of virus neither under WW nor under WS conditions, indicating that plants may adjust their physiology to counteract the virus infection by maintaining a tight stomatal control and by sustaining a balanced carbon change.


The bond polarizability and differential bond polarizability are introduced to interpret the Raman and Raman optical activity (ROA) intensities, calculated by the ab initio method. Chiral S 2-amino 1-propanol is taken as a model molecule. Through these bond polarizabilities, we observe that symmetric and antisymmetric coordinates are, respectively, more significant in Raman and ROA. It is noted that in S 2-amino 1-propanol those bonds lying on a common plane share the same differential bond polarizability sign while that of the asymmetric C-H bond which protrudes out of the plane possesses the opposite sign. We conclude that ROA can offer more stereostructural implications than Raman and that the differential bond polarizability is potentially the appropriate parameter in interpreting the 3D configuration of a molecule.


Abstract. Atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) are known to have a warm and isotopically enriched bias over Antarctica. We test here the hypothesis that these biases are consequences of a too diffusive advection. Using the LMDZ-iso model, we show that a good representation of the advection, especially on the horizontal, is very important to reduce the bias in the isotopic contents of precipitation above this area and to improve the modelled water isotopes – temperature relationship. A good advection scheme is thus essential when using GCMs for paleoclimate applications based on polar water isotopes.


This paper investigates the ways in which the global spread of multicultural policies affects local ideas about race, inequality and diversity as evident in affirmative action policies in Brazilian universities. Our interviews with university administrators and university students indicate that, when implemented in Brazil, affirmative action acquired new meanings and predominantly class-based justifications. Such a transformation is illustrated by the idea of diversity, which acquired a different meaning to diversity discourses in the United States and international agencies. For administrators, the idea of diversity did not take racial groups for granted but was part of a broader, black consciousness-raising project. Students experienced diversity within the university environment, but often understood it as class, not racial, diversity.


Prostate cancer (PCa) is an endocrine tumor that presents distinct metabolic features associated with neoplastic development, namely in the transition from the androgendependent to the androgen-independent phenotype that characterizes advanced stages of prostate cancer. Recently, we have found that LNCaP (androgen-responsive) and PC3 (androgen-nonresponsive) PCa cells present distinct glycolytic metabolism profiles in consequence of altered gene expression and/or activity of glycolytic enzymes and transporters. Therefore, this study was designed aiming to examine the effect of androgens on gene expression of glucose transporters and glycolytic enzymes in androgenresponsive PCa cells. LNCaP cells were treated with 10 nM of 5α-dihydrotestosterone (DHT) for 12, 24, and 48 h. Glucose consumption and lactate production were determined spectrophotometrically using commercial kits. Expression of glucose transporters (GLUT1 and GLUT3), phosphofructokinase 1 (PFK1), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and monocarboxylate transporter (MCT4) mRNA and protein was analyzed by real-time PCR and Western Blot, respectively. LDH enzymatic activity also was determined. The obtained results demonstrated that androgens stimulation diminished the expression of both GLUT1 and GLUT3, and increased PFK levels. Also, the expression of LDH and MCT4 was diminished in LNCaP cells in the presence of DHT, which was concomitant with decreased enzymatic activity of LDH. In addition, we verified that androgenic regulation of genes associated with glycolytic metabolism underlies altered glucose consumption and lactate production in LNCaP cells. These findings demonstrated that androgens are modulators of glycolytic metabolism in PCa cells, which may represent a relevant aspect driven prostate tumor development. 16th European Congress of Endocrinology


We show that localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) can enhance the catalytic activities of different oxide-supported Au catalysts for the reverse water gas shift (RWGS) reaction. Oxide-supported Au catalysts showed 30 to 1300% higher activity for RWGS under visible light compared to dark conditions. Au/TiO2 catalyst prepared by the deposition–precipitation (DP) method with 3.5 nm average Au particle size showed the highest activity for the RWGS reaction. Visible light is converted into chemical energy for this reaction with up to a 5% overall efficiency. A shift in the apparent activation energy (from 47 kJ mol−1 in dark to 35 kJ mol−1 in light) and apparent reaction order with respect to CO2 (from 0.5 in dark to 1.0 in light) occurs due to the LSPR. Our kinetic results indicate that the LSPR increases the rate of either the hydroxyl hydrogenation or carboxyl decomposition more than any other steps in the reaction network.


BACKGROUND
Temporal information detection systems have been developed by the Mayo Clinic for the 2012 i2b2 Natural Language Processing Challenge.

OBJECTIVE
To construct automated systems for EVENT/TIMEX3 extraction and temporal link (TLINK) identification from clinical text.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The i2b2 organizers provided 190 annotated discharge summaries as the training set and 120 discharge summaries as the test set. Our Event system used a conditional random field classifier with a variety of features including lexical information, natural language elements, and medical ontology. The TIMEX3 system employed a rule-based method using regular expression pattern match and systematic reasoning to determine normalized values. The TLINK system employed both rule-based reasoning and machine learning. All three systems were built in an Apache Unstructured Information Management Architecture framework.

RESULTS
Our TIMEX3 system performed the best (F-measure of 0.900, value accuracy 0.731) among the challenge teams. The Event system produced an F-measure of 0.870, and the TLINK system an F-measure of 0.537.

CONCLUSIONS
Our TIMEX3 system demonstrated good capability of regular expression rules to extract and normalize time information. Event and TLINK machine learning systems required well-defined feature sets to perform well. We could also leverage expert knowledge as part of the machine learning features to further improve TLINK identification performance.


REACH Registry is a large international observatioal study in patients with symptomatic atherothrombosis including cerebrovascular disease (CVD), coronary artery disease (CAD), and peripheral artery disease (PAD) as well as asymptomatic patients with multiple risk factors for atherothrombosis. We analyzed the baseline and one-year follow-up data on the risk of CVD in 5,197 Japanese patients enrolled in the REACH Registry.Except advanced age, hypercholesterolemia and diabetes under drug treatment as well as carotid plaque were frequent risk factors even more than uncontrolled hypertension in the Japanese CVD patients. One-year follow-up data showed that cardiovascular (CV) death and total CV events were highest in CVD patients and lowest in CAD patients. The incidence of CV events was higher in patients with CVD plus PAD than CVD alone. The incidence of CVD was very high in patients with carotid stenosis or plaque, PAD, and diabetic nephropathy.We clarified in this study that in CVD patients the risks of death and CV events are highest among patients with atherothrombosis. In order to reduce these risks, we may need strict management of not only hypertension but also hyperlipidemia and diabetes as well as strategies against carotid disease and PAD.


In hematologic malignancies, leukaemia is categorized as the unusual proliferation of the hematopoietic cells. The confirmatory diagnosis is usually made on the aspirate of the bone marrow with or without trephine biopsy by visualizing the cell morphology and the architecture of the bone marrow. Furthermore, there are additional methods that are used to further categorize the variant of leukaemia that includes flow cytometry immune phenotyping, and genetic analysis. In India also use of molecular diagnosis is increasing rapidly for the detection of leukaemia. Techniques such as FISH and PCR are very sensitive and with accurate results have gained importance for cancer diagnosis. Further with the development of next-generation sequencing, it is likely to become an even more prominent practice in cancer diagnosis. This article focuses and elaborated on the molecular diagnosis of leukaemia


Australia's Indigenous population is comprised of two related, but distinct cultural groups – Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders. The two groups have a shared history dating back to thousands of years of cultural exchange, trade and travel between the islands of the Torres Strait and mainland Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people also share a similar colonial history marked by oppression, displacement and forced removal from their ancestral homelands. Recently however, the extent of 'shared histories' between the two groups has taken a distinctive turn as government policy seeks to redefine the boundaries of who constitutes an Indigenous Australian. This redefinition of Indigenous Australia is evident in government policy relating to Torres Strait Islanders, and more specifically, Torres Strait Islanders who live outside the Torres Strait. This paper explores the contentious political and social landscape that pertains to Indigenous Australians, and in particular the role government policy plays in redefining and engineering the boundaries of inclusion of certain cultural groups, most notably Torres Strait Islanders. The author argues that Indigenous social policy (in the Australian context) is characterised by a complex and often contradictory interplay of social and cultural processes that have been constructed within the politics of identity, representation and 'people making'.


This is a case report of an 35 year-old female with metastatic cerebral choriocarcinoma who received multiple chemotherapeutic agents because of multiple remissions and relapses. Recently, high dose taxol has been given resulting with prolonged stabilization of disease. [Journal of Turgut Ozal Medical Center 2(2): 199-200,1995] Key words: Choriocarcinoma, taxol, cerebral metastasis.


The next step beyond conventional scaffold-based tissue engineering is cell-based direct biofabrication techniques. In industrial processes, various three-dimensional (3D) prototype models have been fabricated using several different rapid prototyping methods, such as stereo-lithography, 3D printing and laser sintering, as well as others, in which a variety of chemical materials are utilized. However, with direct cell-based biofabrication, only biocompatible materials can be used, and the manufacturing process must be performed under biocompatible and physiological conditions. We have developed a direct 3D cell printing system using inkjet and gelation techniques with inkjet droplets, and found that it had good potential to construct 3D structures with multiple types of cells. With this system, we have used alginate and fibrin hydrogel materials, each of which has advantages and disadvantages. Herein, we discuss the roles of hydrogel for biofabrication and show that further developments in biofabrication technology with biomatrices will play a major part, as will developments in manufacturing technology. It is important to explore suitable biomatrices as the next key step in biofabrication techniques.


With the dynamic arrival of production orders and ever-changing shop-floor conditions within a production system, production scheduling presents a challenge for manufacturing firms to ensure production demands that are met with high productivity and low operating cost. Before a production schedule is generated to process the incoming production orders, the production planning stage must take place. Given the large number of input parameters involved in production planning, it is important to understand the interactions of input parameters between production planning and scheduling. This is to ensure that production planning and scheduling could be determined effectively and efficiently in achieving the best or optimal production performance with minimizing cost. In this study, by utilizing the capabilities of data pervasiveness in smart manufacturing setting, we propose an approach to develop a surrogate model to predict the production performance using the input parameters from a production plan. Based on three categories of input parameters, namely current production system load, machine-based and product-based parameters, the prediction is performed by developing a surrogate model using multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS). The effectiveness of the proposed MARS model is demonstrated using an industrial case study of a wafer fabrication production through the random sampling of varying numbers of training data set.


1. Comparative studies have been made on seven woodlice and the millipede Glomeris to determine: (i) the site of water loss, (ii) the effect of temperature and humidity on the rate of evaporation of water, (iii) the effect of humidity on their upper temperature tolerance, and (iv) their capacity to regain water after desiccation. 2. An apparatus was constructed in which several animals can be exposed simultaneously but separately to a slowly moving stream of air of any required humidity and temperature. 3. There is no difference between the sexes as regards rate of water loss, and no difference was found in this respect between living and dead animals for exposures up to 1 hr. 4. In Armadillidium and Porcellio the pleopodal area loses water some ten to twenty times faster per unit area than the dorsal or ventral surface (some five times only in Ligia), but the absolute amount of water lost per unit time by the pleopods is less than that from either of the other areas mentioned. 5. Tables and graphs are given showing the rate of loss of water in mg./cm.2/hr. in dry air at various temperatures for each species studied, both for 15 min. and 1 hr. exposures. These show a linear relationship between rate of evaporation and saturation deficit except for Armadillidium and Glomeris above 40° C. (where the rate falls off), and Ligia. Reasons for these exceptions are suggested: curling in the first two, absolute size in the last. 6. The animals studied can be placed in a series as regards rate of loss of water, from Ligia (which shows the greatest rate) through Philoscia, Oniscus, Porcellio, Cyclisticus and Armadillidium nasatum to A. vulgare, which shows the lowest rate of loss. Oniscus, Porcellio and Cylisticus do not differ very greatly from one another in this respect. Glomeris loses water less rapidly than the majority of species of woodlice if exposed for 15 min., but, because the average rate of loss from woodlice falls if they are exposed for an hour, Glomeris appears to lose more rapidly than they do for an hour9s exposure. 7. The highest temperature tolerated by woodlice for short exposures (15 min. or 1 hr.) does not vary greatly with humidity--temperatures are somewhat above 40° C. for 15 min. exposures--it is slightly higher at 50% R.H., due to a cooling effect, than in dry or saturated air; but for 24 hr. exposures, the animals die of desiccation and consequently the highest tolerable temperature is very much lower in dry air than in moist. These findings are also true, but to a less marked extent, of Glomeris. 8. The species can be arranged in a series as regards temperature tolerance which corresponds with the rate of evaporation series, A. vulgare having the highest temperature tolerance, Ligia the lowest. 9. After exposure to desiccation for 45 min. in dry air, or for 23 hr. in 50% R.H., both at room temperature, no species could live or recover weight if subsequently kept at 95% R.H. Armadillidium (but no others) could live and recover weight by absorption of water vapour if kept at 98% R.H., and all species could live and recover weight if kept in saturated air. Only living animals recovered weight by absorption of water vapour or liquid water. Animals which died after a period in the 'recovery' dishes always lost water very rapidly before doing so. The power to recover water from air at 98% R.H., possessed by Armadillidium, is limited by relative humidity not by saturation deficit. 10. The above results are discussed and the need for microclimatic data is stressed.


Cooper pair shape is not so simple in inhomogeneous superconducting systems. It is shown that pairing function in a normal metal is surprisingly anisotropic because of quasiparticle interference. We calculate angle resolved quasiparticle local density of states in NS bilayers which reflects such anisotropic shape of the pairing function. This unusual feature can be detected by a magneto-tunneling spectroscopy experiment.


A dynamic two-country labour matching economy is presented. Workers decide whether to search in their native country or look for a job abroad (bearing an additional cost). The number of vacancies posted by firms in each country depends on the average characteristics of the workers searching inside that country. Wages are determined in an individual Nash bargain. We show the existence of multiple steady-state equilibria: one no-migration equilibrium and two migration equilibria. The multiplicity of equilibria is due to a self-fulfilling prophecy phenomenon linking average wages and incentives to migrate. The equilibria are Pareto-ranked, with migration-equilibria dominating no-migration.


PLASTICITY OF FORAGING BEHAVIOR IN LEAF-CUTTING ANTS The foraging behavior in social insects is a complex activity that involves a self-organizing system and can be studied at the individual or at the colony level. In the ant society, not all individuals participate in the gathering of food. The workers who perform this task are often older and larger ants. In Attini ants, the foraging is a complex process that involves selection, cutting and transport of food resources to the nest. These ants use several sources of food to develop the symbiotic fungus, which provides food to the colony. The genera Atta and Acromyrmex, known as leaf-cutter ant, have a well-defined pattern of foraging determined by physical and chemical trails. In the basal genera the worker ants forage alone, hardly ever cut fresh vegetation, do not follow trails and there is no fidelity to the resource gathered. Besides the differences between groups, foraging behavior may be different in the same specie as consequence of environmental factors and the adaptability of workers. Other phenomena that make the Attines an interesting model to study foraging behavior are the polymorphism and polyethism. Several studies carried in Atta species demonstrated the existence behavioral plasticity of foraging behavior of ants. In this context, this review analyzes the adaptability of leaf-cutter ants to solve problems fitting their behavior, both individually and collectively to adopt the most convenient strategy to exploit as society several sources of food.


Radiation from an intense relativistic electron beam at submillirneter wavelengths has been measured with bandpass and high-pass filters. Radiated power ~100 kW has been measured in the passband 390-540 mu m. The generation of this radiation depends on giving the electrons a large energy component transverse to the magnetic field. Coherent wave generation mechanisms which may account for the observed radiation are discussed.


Lasers of diffraction-limited volumes involve the interaction of small numbers of particles (photons and dipoles). We demonstrate that these small populations of discrete particles induce large intensity noise in the output of the laser.


The present study was carried out to evaluate the survival rate of four tropical legume seeds submitted to different periods of ruminal incubation simulated by in vitro and in situ fermentation. The species studied were butterfly pea, stylosanthes, archer and perennial soybean. Four Holstein dairy cows fistulated in rumen were used in the in situ stage. A completely randomized design was used, in a 4 × 6 factorial arrangement (four species, six treatment periods) in the in vitro stage, with four repetitions. A completely randomized block design, arranged in a 4 × 6 factorial scheme (four species × six incubation periods), was used in the in situ stage, with four repetitions. The seeds (50 units of only one species at each repetition) were placed in erlenmeyer flask (250 mL) and were put in a 10 × 15 cm nylon bag in the in vitro stage. The times of incubation were: 6, 12, 24, 48, 96 and 144 hours and the time zero was estimated in the laboratory. The results demonstrate that, when submitted to ruminal incubation, due to their hard and impermeable teguments, legume seeds presented high resistance potential, and, thus, greater chances of germinating after passage through the gastrointestinal tract of bovines, when defecated in pastures. However, stylosanthes are not recommended for insertion in bovine feeding for this purpose, because they do not resist ruminal digestion.


We examine the thermodynamics of phase separation and ordering in the ternary Ca(x)Pb(1-x)S and Sr(x)Pb(1-x)S systems by density-functional theory combined with a cluster expansion and Monte Carlo simulations. Similar to most other ternary III-V or IV-VI semiconductor alloys, we find that bulk phase separation is thermodynamically preferred for PbS-CaS. However, we predict the surprising existence of stable, ordered ternary compounds in the PbS-SrS system. These phases are previously unreported ordered rocksalt-based compounds: SrPb3S4, SrPbS2, and Sr3PbS4. The stability of these predicted ordered phases is confirmed by transmission electron microscopy observations and band gap measurements. We believe this work paves the way for a combined theory-experiment approach to decipher complex phase relations in multicomponent chalcogenide systems.


Abstract Background and aims: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the frequency of demographic and clinical risk factors for fetal macrosomia, maternal pregestational, gestational and intra partum pathology associated with macrosomia, and to investigate the dynamic of these parameters in a decade. Material and method: We conducted two studies, a case-control study of 261 mothers who delivered macrosomic babies and 241 mothers who delivered normal weight babies in 2016, and then we compared the parameters obtained from the study group of 261women who delivered in 2016 macrosomic babies with those of a study group of 220 women who delivered macrosomic babies in 2006 at Gynecology I County Hospital of Cluj-Napoca. The data was stored and analyzed using Microsoft Excel. Results and conclusions: Overweight before pregnancy, the excessive weight gain during pregnancy, and the delivery of a macrosomic baby increase the risk to deliver in the future a macrosomic baby. Mothers who delivered macrosomic babies had a higher incidence of thyroid gland pathology (hypofunction) and gestational diabetes than those who delivered normal weight babies.


Objective: Sarasvata ghrita (SG) is a polyherbal formulation in Ayurvedic Indian medicinal system, in which ghee is the main ingredient used for extraction. Ghee is 100% lipid, thus its regular use is limited, and there is a lack of quality control profile of SG. Thus, the objective of the study is to develop quality control method for standardization of SG and to analyze manufacturing process of SG and an effective method of extraction to extract phytoconstituents from herbs used in SG to overcome the limitation of SG.Methods: SG was processed as per the traditional method, whereas ethanolic extract (EE) and hydroalcoholic extract (HAE) were obtained by the conventional method and lipid-based extract (LE) was prepared by modern extraction method. SG and all extracts were standardized using newly developed high-performance liquid chromatography (LC) with respect to bebeerine, piperine, 6-shogaol, I²-asarone, and chebulinic acid. All extracts were analyzed for pesticides, and heavy metal content by LC/mass spectrometry (MS/MS) and inductively coupled plasma/MS, respectively, screened for total polyphenols and flavonoids content, in vitro antioxidant potential, and for assessing its stability over time.Results: The better extraction was observed with maceration extraction using ethanol compared to ayurvedic method and LE method. All extracts were found to have a negligible amount of pesticide and heavy metals and found to be stable for 6 months under accelerated storage condition. Better polyphenols and flavonoid content and in vitro antioxidant potential were resulted in EE.Conclusion: EE showed a better potential in comparison with SG and LE.


This article deals with the problem of sexual health of epileptic patients, emphasis is placed on its psychological component. The authors present the results of their research devoted to the study of sexuality as Ego-function in patients with epilepsy, which was conducted on a sample of 102 persons (52 patients with a verified diagnosis of «epilepsy» and 50 conditionally healthy respondents) at the age from 19 to 45 years. It was noted that patients with epilepsy suffer from underdevelopment of structural functions, which complicates the formation of mature sexuality.


Objectives: This study aims to investigate the efficacy of screening by low-cost technology in down-staging and reducing mortality due to breast and cervix cancer. Methods: The present trial is a community-based, cluster randomised controlled cohort study on screening for breast and cervix cancers (clinical breast examination and visual inspection of the cervix after application of 4% acetic acid). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses are conducted to identify the predictors of participation in screening. Results: The average compliance is 71.43 and 64.93% for breast and cervix cancer screening, respectively, with the highest compliance in round 1. At the end of 3 screening rounds, 94 and 84% of the eligible women were screened at least once for breast and cervix cancer, respectively. Younger women, women from other than Hindu and Muslim communities, school level-educated women, women belonging to lower-income families, Marathi-speaking women, married women and women who had previously consulted for any breast or gynaecological complaints had higher compliance to participation in screening. Conclusions: Good compliance rates to screening have been demonstrated in the trial, reflecting acceptance of the study by the society, which has implications while translating the trial into a programme.


Two of the first Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) results were that galaxies have a wide range of values for the ratio of 60 micron to 100 micron flux density (0.2 less than or equal to S60/S sub 100 less than or equal to 1.0) and that this ratio is correlated with Lfir, Lb, Lfir being the total far-infrared luminosity and Lb being the luminosity at visible wavelengths (de Jong et al. 1984; Soifer et al. 1984). From these results arose the following simple model for the far-infrared emission from galaxies (de Jong et al. 1984), which has remained the standard model ever since. In this model, the far-infrared emission comes from two dust components: warm dust (T approx. equals 50 K) intermingled with, and heated by, young massive OB stars in molecular clouds and HII regions, and colder dust (T approx. equals 20 K) associated with the diffuse atomic hydrogen in the interstellar medium and heated by the general interstellar radiation field. As the number of young stars in a galaxy increases, S60/S sub 100 increases, because there is a greater proportion of warm dust, and so does Lfir/L sub b, because most of the radiation from the young stars is absorbed by the dust, leading to a swifter increase in far-infrared emission than in visible light. Although this model explains the basic IRAS results, it is inelegant. It uses two free parameters to fit two data (the 60 and 100 micron flux densities)-and there are now several observations that contradict it. Despite these major problems with the two-component model, it is not clear what should be put in its place. When considering possible models for the far-infrared emission from galaxies, the observational evidence for our own galaxy must be considered. Researchers suspect that the study by Boulanger and Perault (1988) of the far-infrared properties of the local interstellar medium may be particularly relevant. They showed that molecular clouds are leaky - that most of the light from OB stars in molecular clouds does not heat the dust in the clouds, but instead leaks out. The consequence of this is that that while most of the far-infrared emission from the solar neighborhood is from dust associated with diffuse HI, this dust is mostly heated by young stars.


Recent developments in detectors and electronics enable both positron emission tomography (PET) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) data to be acquired concurrently using the same detection front-end for dual-modality PET/CT imaging. Moreover, it would potentially allow substantial reduction of cost and housing size, in addition to facilitating image fusion. However, the lower energy signals ( ~60 keV versus 511 keV) and higher photon flux per pixel ( > 1 Mcps versus 10 kcps) in CT relative to PET cause significant pile-up and dead-time in CT data acquired in photon counting mode. A digital signal processing method was developed and implemented to improve processing of detector signals sampled at low frequency (~ 45 MHz) in presence of pile-up. The method consists in digitally subtracting the detector impulse response at the output of the preamplifier to restore the signal baseline for more accurate energy estimation. When compared to a fixed threshold counting technique, the proposed method features better noise immunity, higher energy resolution and 50% higher rates measured at an estimated true rate of 2.75 Mcps, making CT integration within modern digital PET hardware feasible.


Using real time control (RTC) techniques to improve urban drainage system performance is proven to be
an effective solution for alleviating urban flooding. Many modeling methods of urban drainage systems have been
introduced in existing literatures to accommodate different situations and scenarios. Nonlinear hydrologic models
are useful for detailed simulations in pipes and sewers. However, to utilize RTC requires users to establish suitable
models that both reflect physical characteristics of the system while not over complicating with unnecessary details. A mixed integer system was proposed where hybrid Model Predictive Control can be used to compute control
actions in previous literature. However, the complexity of solving associated optimization problem grows exponentially with the size of the system and therefore, the computation time renders direct application of such method
infeasible. This paper investigates the possibility of partitioning the system into several subsystems with communications and instead of computing solutions in centralized framework, the control actions are obtained distributedly
by individual subsystems. The performance of decentralized schemes is demonstrated with numerical simulations
on a fictional sewage system composed of 13 tanks and 12 control follows under 4 rain scenarios corresponding
to different rain intensities. Decentralized Model Predictive Control is shown to have comparable performance
compared with the centralized framework while having significantly improved computation time. Two methods
are also presented to reduce pumping energy costs by harvesting rainfall energy


This paper presents the application of Firefly Optimization Algorithm (FOA) to the design and characterization of Helmholtz coils to create homogenous magnetic field needed for calibrating magnetic field sensors and used for other experiments. Magnetometer is used to monitor and record the earth's magnetic field data at the geomagnetic observatory. Earth's magnetic field data from ground-based magnetometer observatories are important for studying geomagnetic storm. The absence of earth's magnetic field data observatories results in a complex mysterious phenomenon of geomagnetic storm and remains as unexplained one. Fluxgate magnetometer is contributing to the ongoing extensive research work dedicated to the explanation of some of the complex phenomena related to geomagnetic storm and solar terrestrial system. In order to examine magnetic field sensing of a fluxgate sensor, a large area with uniform magnetic field is required. The advantage of having a large area is to allow easy access of the sensor during magnetic field measurements. A laboratory design and characterization of high quality Helmholtz coils is a better choice when Helmholtz coil with larger areas that are available in the market are very expensive


AIM
The aim of this work was to study the feasibility of fabricating human hair keratin matrices through electrospinning and to evaluate the potential of these matrices for tissue regeneration.

MATERIALS & METHODS
Keratin was extracted from human hair using Na2S and blended with poly(ethylene oxide) in the weight ratio of 60:1 for electrospinning. Physical morphology and chemical properties of the matrices were characterized using scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, respectively. Cell viability and morphology of murine and human fibroblasts cultured on the matrices were evaluated through the Live/Dead(®) assay and scanning electron microscopy.

RESULTS
Electrospun keratin matrices were successfully produced without affecting the chemical conformation of keratin. Fibroblasts cultured on keratin matrices showed healthy morphology and penetration into matrices at day 7.

CONCLUSION
Electrospun human hair keratin matrices provide a bioinductive and structural environment for cell growth and are thus attractive as alternative templates for tissue regeneration.


We have investigated the phase diagram of the s= 1/2 J1-J2-J3 chain using finite-lattice techniques. The location of the boundary between spin-liquid and dimer phases has been estimated, and the characterization of these phases via correlation functions is presented.


Objective To discuss resection and various reconstructive options in patients with dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP). Methods This study was conducted at Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan, from May 2018 to December 2019. All patients aged 20 years or above of either gender who were diagnosed to have DFSP over this period were included in the study. All the patients underwent wide local excision of the tumor under general anesthesia. A peroperative frozen section was conducted in all the cases to confirm complete excision. Immediate reconstruction was performed following the tumor excision. The choice of reconstruction, i.e. free, regional, or local flap was based on the size of the resultant defect. Results The mean age of the patients was 37.11 ±10.91 years. There were 12 (66.7%) males and six (33.3%) females. The mean duration of the disease was 11.22 ±2.94 months. The affected anatomical site showed that the face was involved in the majority, nine (50%) patients, followed by the scalp in four (22.2%), nape of the neck in three (16.7%), and supraclavicular region in two (11.1%) patients. In most of the cases, the free flap was observed, i.e. (n=9, 50%), followed by a regional flap in seven (38.9%), and the local flap in two (10.1%) patients. Conclusion Wide local excision of the disease, confirmed on frozen section, offers improved survival. Among DFSP of the head and neck, the face was found to be the affected anatomical site in half the cases. Also, reconstruction following tumor excision with a free flap is the most favorable option among patients with DFSP.


In this paper, we have simulated and evaluated the performance tradeoff with routing protocols: Constrained Flooding, the Real-Time Search and the Adaptive Tree on MICA and MICAz platform with different radio models using PROWLER for wireless sensor networks. The simulation results establish that the MICAz motes give low latency, high throughput, high energy consumption, low efficiency but better lifetime while the MICA motes give high success rate and less loss rate. It has been, thus, concluded that in case of all the radio models the MICAz is preferably better than MICA in applications where energy is a constraint. Moreover, use of MICAz motes increases the network lifetime in comparison to MICA for the radio models. Further, the AT protocol can be applied to achieve better energy consumption, efficiency and lifetime in real time for wireless sensor networks.


In this paper we investigate the problem of identifying and localizing speakers with distant microphone arrays, thus extending the classical speaker diarization task to answer the question "who spoke when and where". We consider a streaming audio scenario, where the diarization output is to be generated in realtime with as low latency as possible. Rather than carrying out the individual segmentation and classification tasks (speech detection, change detection, gender/speaker classification) sequentially, we propose a simultaneous segmentation and classification by applying a Viterbi decoder. It uses a transition matrix estimated online from position information and speaker change hypotheses, instead of fixed transition probabilites. This avoids early hard decisions and is shown to outperform the sequential approach.


With the development of the medical imaging and the imaging equipment, although medical image quality has been improved significantly, and the noise in the majority of images can not be identified artificially, the projection data in the actual scanning process is still interfered inevitably by various noise, and the traditional denoising method can't possess both of reducing image noise and retaining image details. Wavelet domain image denoising processing is an attracting research orientation. In the paper, it introduced an improved wavelet threshold denoising method based on wavelet transform and fractal on the basis of the introducing image denoising principle and the general approach, and realized the computer simulation of wavelet image denoising. The experimental results showed that the algorithm, which could not only perform image denoising treatment effectively, but also keep the details of the original image, could avoid the shortcomings of the conventional method, so it had a good effect.


It is a commonplace observation that an insulator may be charged by another insulator, to much the same extent as by a metal. Yet the phenomenon is somewhat surprising: since charge is by definition immobile in the insulator one may as: 'how does charge pass from one insulator to another?'. If electron states in insulators are strongly localised in space, the states on the surface of one insulator will not overlap the states on the surface of a second insulator, except occasionally by chance. A possible resolution of this apparent paradox is that contact between insulators normally involves a degree of rubbing or sliding, deliberate or inadvertent, and this will obviously help to overcome any constraints on charge transfer imposed by localisation. The authors have investigated charge transfer between two insulators, using equipment designed to eliminate sliding during contact. The experiments clearly show that insulators charge each other even under these conditions, i.e. with sliding eliminated as far as possible. If sliding were indeed entirely eliminated it would be difficult to reconcile these observations with the electron-transfer model of contact charging. However, they show that a certain amount of relative 'sliding' is unavoidable, if only because the contact is inevitably accompanied by deformation of the contacting surface. This residual 'sliding' may be sufficient to overcome the constraints of localisation. Whatever the reasons, it is clear that charge transfer between two insulators is not limited by the spatial localisation of the electron states.


Abstract One of the most perspective development directions of the aircraft engine is the application of adaptive digital automatic control systems (ACS). The significant element of the adaptation is the correction of mathematical models of both engine and its executive, measuring devices. These models help to solve tasks of control and are a combination of static models and dynamic models, as static models describe relations between parameters at steady-state modes, and dynamic ones characterize deviations of the parameters from static values. The work considers problems of the models' correction using parametric identification methods. It is shown that the main problem of the precise engine simulation is the correction of the static model. A robust procedure that is based on a wide application of a priori information about performances of the engine and its measuring system is proposed for this purpose. One of many variants of this procedure provides an application of the non-linear thermodynamic model of the working process and estimation of individual corrections to the engine components' characteristics with further substitution of the thermodynamic model by approximating on-board static model. Physically grounded estimates are obtained based on a priori information setting about the estimated parameters and engine performances, using fuzzy sets. Executive devices (actuators) and the most inertial temperature sensors require correction to their dynamic models. Researches showed, in case that the data for identification are collected during regular operation of ACS, the estimates of dynamic model parameters can be strongly correlated that reasons inadmissible errors. The reason is inside the substantial limitations on transients' intensity that contain regular algorithms of acceleration/deceleration control. Therefore, test actions on the engine are required. Their character and minimum composition are determined using the derived relations between errors in model coefficients, measurement process, and control action parameters.


Few studies of incontinence have been done on the elderly as a specific population, although epidemiologic reports reveal that incontinence is a debilitating condition that affects 15% to 30% of the elderly population of the United States. In diagnosing the problem, we use the simplest procedure that can supply the required information. However, if the diagnosis is uncertain or the treatment being considered is risky, urodynamic testing is necessary. Several nonsurgical treatments are available and have varying degrees of success in reestablishing continence. Some, such as pharmacotherapy and intermittent self-catheterization, are effective for some patients and are replacing bladder drill and bladder distention in popularity. Less conventional techniques (electrotherapy, biofeedback, and periurethral injection) are useful only in select cases and have had fewer clinical trials. Clamps and external devices for men and pessaries for women are prone to complications and generally are avoided in our practice. Long-term use of indwelling catheters is a last resort, to be considered only when all other alternatives have been exhausted. Further clinical research that considers the particular problems of the elderly is needed so that practical, humane, and effective treatment becomes possible.


Adjustment disorders and major depression are common psychiatric disorders in patients with cancer and have a serious impact on quality of life. The problem in clinical oncology settings is underrecognition of these disorders; as a result, screening is recommended to detect them. The goal of the current study was to develop a new, brief screening tool for adjustment disorders and major depression and to compare its performance with that of existing screening methods.


Stochastic simulation models utilize probability distributions to represent a multitude of randomly occurring events. Theoretical distributions are commonly used to model the randomness of a real process because they help to smooth data irregularities that may exist due to the values missed during the data collection phase. These distributions can be selected either by fitting a distribution to the data collected, or based on the known properties of the process being modelled. The incompatibility between specific characteristics of the theoretical distribution and assumptions of simulation and mathematical calculus present an actual problem in supply chains. The paper is based on the analysis of mentioned contradictions. Different approaches to deal with theoretical probability distributions in supply chains are described in the paper.


The evaluation of a present acid injection profile used in acid flowback analysis is an important tool for optimizing acid treatments. as it affects the acidizing process by improved results of hydrocarbon production rather than subjecting the well to yet another optimized acid treatment in the future. In the standard method of acid flowback analysis. the engineers interpret the plots of the return fluid ionic content versus return volumes at certain increments i.e. every 10-20 bbl. In our work. we have found that this method may pose more questions than it answers. In order to simplify the acid flowback analysis method and provide a more definitive interpretation. we introduced a simple derivative technique in the analysis of the dissolved formation or the scale dissolved ionic content. In this technique the ratio of incremental ionic concentration per incremental produced volume (the derivative) was plotted against the cumulative produced volume. The significance of using this technique is that the derivative of ionic concentration with respect to the produced volume is very sensitive to the minute changes in the ion concentration per unit volume or cumulative acid flowback volume. We applied our method to two wells, which we shall call them wells #1 and #2. In the case study of well #1. first we found that the acid stimulation treatment dissolved significant amounts of material containing Potassium. Sodium. Magnesium, Iron, Aluminum. Silicon. Barium. and Calcium. But the treatment did not remove the Zinc completely. The source of Zinc could have been either the formation of zinc hydroxide from heavy brines or the 60% Zinc content of some pipe dopes. Incomplete dissolution of material containing Zinc resulted in an inefficient treatment. Consequently, the treatment was able to restore only the original production rate but failed to result in any increase in incremental production. Secondly. from the disordered dissolution profiles of Magnesium. Calcium and Barium. we found that these three elements existed in the formation as individual mineral rather than scale. In the case of well #2, we noticed that all materials containing the above mentioned elements including Zinc were dissolved. A complete dissolution of material containing Zinc from well #2 by acid treatment not only resulted in restoration of the production rate to the original one but also showed a significant increase in incremental production rate. From a near ideal. well-ordered. correspondence of dissolution profiles of Magnesium, Calcium and Barium. constructed with derivative technique we found that these three elements existed in the formation as scale rather than individual formation minerals. This is simply because, unlike the rock mineral. the scales. due to the well established thermodynamic principles. follow a well-ordered phase behavior and ionic concentration upon dissolution in acids. On the basis of our finding. we concluded that (a) our derivative method provides a more efficient tool for interpretation of the acid flowback results and (b) the method is simple. easy. quick. and practical enough to be used immediately by the personnel in the field or in the lab.


Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA

Human prion protein (PrP) is a glycosylphosphatidylino¬sitol (GPI)-anchored membrane protein and has been found to be up-regulated in some of the pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Current literature also suggests that over-expression of PrP induces inherent resistance to cancer therapeutics, while repression of PrP induces sensitization to cancer therapeutics. Our previous studies revealed the increased level of PrP expression associated with worse prognosis in PDAC patients. In PDACs, instead of forming normal GPI anchored protein, PrP exists as a pro-prion protein that binds Filamin A (FLNa) and exerts a cascade of activities subsequently augment the invasiveness of PDAC. In this study, we would like to investigate whether PrP also involves other signal transduction pathway in PDACs, especially Notch pathway.

Using immunoprecipitation and immunocytometry, we investigated the binding partners for PrP in several PDAC cell lines and found that PrP associates with Notch1 but not with Notch2 or Notch3 in cytoplasm and cell membrane. The association of PrP and Notch1 was further validated by confocal microscopy. Silencing PrP by siRNA not only decreased PrP expression, but also decreased Notch1 in the cytoplasm and the nuclear localized cleaved Notch1. Knocking down PrP in PDAC cells with high levels of PrP led to decreased cell proliferation and tumor invasion and increased apoptosis. PDAC cells showed Increased tumor necrosis after inhibition of PrP in xenografts, which accompanied by down-regulation of intracellular domain of Notch1 (Notch1NTM). In comparison, over-expression of PrP in PDAC cells with lower levels of PrP increased Notch1NTM expression, cell proliferation, tumor invasion, and xenograft tumor growth which could be blocked by the gamma secretase inhibitor. These findings suggest that PrP cross talking Notch1 in PDAC cells regulates pancreatic cancer cell survival and invasion. Elucidating the mechanisms for PrP mediated Notch activation in PDAC will further our long-term goal of understanding the role of oncogenic PrP in conferring pancreatic cancer aggressiveness, and potentially will lead to novel therapeutic options for treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Citation Format: Yiwei Wang, Dan Huang, Lan Zhou, Wei Xin. Prion protein cross-talks with Notch1 to promote pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma progression. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 2244A. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-2244A


A sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War, this book by Bray Hammond focuses on how Washington struggled financially to settle the Civil War and how its measures spurred the growth of federal government. Originally published in 1970. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.