Molecular imaging has found numerous applications in oncology as many tumours express or activate tumour specific target molecules or pathways. This relatively new imaging technique results in a better localisation of tumours and improved tumour staging, especially in the setting of hybrid imaging that is in combination with morphological imaging such as computed tomography. In well differentiated neuroendocrine tumours, somatostatin receptor imaging, as one of the first examples of receptor targeted imaging in humans, plays an important role in the diagnostic work-up of these patients. In poorly differentiated neuroendocrine tumours or medullary thyroid carcinoma, 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT and dihydroxyphenylalanine PET/CT play an important role due to the limitations of the somatostatin receptor imaging in these tumour entities. These limitations prompted the development of innovations such as radiolabelled somatostatin receptor antagonists for imaging all types of NET and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists for the imaging of insulinomas. The current review summarises the actual state of knowledge in the field.


Necropsy is a post-mortem criterious exam that helps in clinical diagnosis and consists in external and internal analysis of body cavities and organs of a corpse in order to determine the cause of death or to verify the extension and the nature of lesions caused by diseases. Considering the bonds between owners and their pets many veterinarians seems to visualize necropsy as a difficult task. This fact has gained great importance in avian Veterinary Medicine since bird owners have both love and economic bonds. Necropsy in often neglected in Veterinary Medicine although being a very important practice for the professional learning and also for reaching a reliable diagnosis of certain diseases. For this reason, this article aims to describe the procedure for performing avian cosmetic necropsy, which keeps the external characteristics of animals and increases the acceptance of owners by not disfiguring the corpse.


Hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment is aiming to cure and prevent the development, progression of fibrosis, and related complications. Interferon-based therapy was claimed to reduce or even reverse fibrosis. Although direct-acting agents have a better cure rate, we still lack the knowledge of their effect on fibrosis regression. We aim to assess fibrosis regression in direct-acting agents compared with interferon-based treatment regimens in the treatment of chronic HCV patients. The 204 chronic HCV patients were divided into 3 groups; group 1(N = 68) received Peg-IFN and ribavirin, group 2 (N = 69) received sofosbuvir and ribavirin, and group 3 (N = 67) received Peg-IFN, ribavirin, and sofosbuvir. Fibrosis assessment was performed by transient elastography (TE), APRI and FIB 4, in the pretreatment and at least 3 months after end of treatment. Of these, 66.2% of the patients did not show significant fibrosis changes, 6.4% fibrosis progressed, and 27.5% of fibrosis regressed (P < 0.0001) by TE. Similar results were detected in the different treatment regimens with no statistically significant difference between the regimens. Fibrosis regression was detected in 43.3% of cirrhotic patients who achieved sustained virological response (SVR) and only in 27.4% with significant fibrosis. Significant improvement of posttreatment aspartate transaminase, alanine transaminase, and alpha fetoprotein as well as APRI and FIB 4 scores were detected. Fibrosis regression (TE, APRI and FIB 4) was detected with direct-acting agents and interferon-based therapy. Treated patients with significant fibrosis will benefit of fibrosis regression irrespective to their treatment response, whereas fibrosis regression was associated with SVR in cirrhotic patients.


Agu, a relatively small-bodied pig with a black coat, is indigenous to Okinawa, the southernmost island in Japan. The objective of this study was to evaluate growth, carcass and meat quality traits of Agu pigs and to elucidate breed characteristics. A total of 16 Agu pigs and 18 LWD three-way cross pigs (Duroc sires×F1 dams ; Landrace×Large White) were fed a commercial diet ad libitum at 70 kg and slaughtered at 110 kg. Daily gain, dressing percentage and the area of the Longissimus dorsi muscle (LM) were significantly lower in Agu than in LWD pigs at the same body weight. Agu pigs had much thicker backfat than the LWD pigs at the same finishing body weight. The content of intramuscular fat (IMF) was significantly higher in Agu than in LWD pigs. Though raw Agu meat had lower water holding capacity, cooked meat had lower cooking loss and higher pressed juice percentage than LWDmeat. Moreover, the inner layer of Agu backfat contained a higher proportion of monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), a lower proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and had a lower melting point. The results revealed that Agu pigs had meat characteristics different from those of LWD pigs that are a common crossbred in commercial production. Jpn. J. Swine Science, 54, 3 : 121-129


We will present an application of the probabilistic branch of Variation Mode and Effect Analysis (VMEA) implemented as a first order, second moment reliability method. First order means that the failure function is approximated to be linear with respect to the main influencing variables, while second moment means that only means and variances are taken into account in the statistical procedure. We study the fatigue life of an air engine component and aim at a safety margin that takes all sources of scatter and uncertainty into account. Scatter is defined as random variation due to natural causes, such as non-homogeneous material, geometry variation within tolerances, load variation in usage, and other uncontrolled variation. Uncertainty is defined as unknown systematic errors, such as model errors in the numerical calculation of fatigue life, statistical errors in estimates of parameters, and unknown usage profile. By defining also uncertainties as random variables, the whole safety margin problem is put into a common framework of second order statistics, with the Gauss' approximation formula as the main tool. By using a simple log transformation, the failure function is regarded as linear enough for a proper estimate of the scatter and uncertainty contributions based on the first order approximation. Thus, the final estimated variance of the logarithmic life is obtained through summing the variance contributions of all sources of scatter and uncertainty, and it represents the total uncertainty in the life prediction. Motivated by the central limit theorem this logarithmic life random variable may be regarded as normally distributed, which gives possibilities to calculate relevant safety margins that, in turn, is transformed back into fatigue life margins for comparisons with demands.


The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected, provinces with separate interests, laws, governments and systems of taxation, become lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier and one customs tariff. (Communist Manifesto, Progress, Moscow, 1969, p.48).


Experimental evidence suggested the existence of unidentified leprosy susceptibility loci in the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) complex. To identify such genetic risk factors, a high-density association scan of a 1.9-mega-base (Mb) region in the HLA complex was performed. Among 682 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), 59 were associated with leprosy (P <.01) in 198 Vietnamese single-case leprosy families. Genotyping of these SNPs in an independent sample of 292 Vietnamese single-case leprosy families replicated the association of 12 SNPs (P <.01). Multivariate analysis of these 12 SNPs showed that the association information could be captured by 2 intergenic HLA class I region SNPs (P = 9.4 × 10⁻⁹)-rs2394885 and rs2922997 (marginal multivariate P = 2.1 × 10⁻⁷ and P = .0016, respectively). SNP rs2394885 tagged the HLA-C*15:05 allele in the Vietnamese population. The identical associations were validated in a third sample of 364 patients with leprosy and 371 control subjects from North India. These results implicated class I alleles in leprosy pathogenesis.


Vaccine efficacy, the effectiveness of a vaccination programme and the fraction of a population that would be necessary to vaccinate in order to prevent a measles outbreak are studied in a population having a vaccination programme. A dynamic model for acute, directly transmitted diseases was applied, based on the rate of transmission, namely, the probability that the infectious agent is transmitted from an infected to a susceptible person within a short space of time. We carried out a population-based study where we observed the final attack rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated people for a measles outbreak. In this population, the vaccination programme is responsible for a reduction of: 82.41% of all cases in the non-vaccinated sector; 98.45% of the average risk of disease among the vaccinated; and 97.29% of all cases among the population as a whole. Under these conditions there is the possibility of disease outbreaks arising, outbreaks which could be prevented if the percentage of the vaccinated population exceeded 95%.


Superimposed flow pulsations promote heat transfer intensification. Usage of such flows allows to increase the thermal characteristics aimed at the energy saving. However, the question of the thermohydraulic efficiency of this method remains open, since there are little data of changing in hydraulic resistance in the case of non-isothermal pulsating flow in the channels. To solve this problem, CAD/CFD software SolidWorks/ FlowSimulation was used. Smooth and profiled channels were investigated. A model of periodically pulsating fluid flow in channels with sinusoidal velocity pulses was considered. Pulsating frequency range was set from 0 to 30 Hz. The results showed that a periodic change in the Reynolds number leads to a change in the value of hydraulic resistance over time. At a flow pulsation frequency of 0.5 ≤ f ≤ 5 Hz and 2.8 ≤ lgRe ≤ 3.5 for a smooth channel there are characteristic zones of a laminar (Re≈2000) and transient flow regime (Re = 2000-4000), and a turbulent zone at 3.5 ≤ lgRe ≤ 4.7. With increasing of the flow pulsations frequency f > 5 Hz, there are no zones of laminar and transient regimes, and the flow can be characterized as a stabilized turbulent flow. In contrast to the pulsating flow in a smooth channel, in a profiled channel a stabilized turbulent flow appears already at a pulsation frequency f = 2 Hz (Sh = 0.09). The relative coefficient of hydraulic resistance for non-isothermal fluid movement in a profiled channel is 10-15% higher than in a smooth one. Increasing in the thermohydraulic efficiency, both in smooth and profiled channels, can reach up to 20 40%.


Regional production is a traditional production structure developed adjusting to the geographical, climatic, biological and soil conditions in given production regions, a certain territorial specification of agricultural production, and a type of farming that best fits the natural conditions and takes the biological needs of plant and animal species into account as fully as possible. The most probable element of risk in plant production is the changeable, extreme weather. That is the reason why the specific characteristics of the place of production and the characteristics of regional production should be considered to a greater extent. The establishment of the range of varieties appropriate for the place of production is the key issue in regional production. One of our historically grown cereal plants that perfectly fits regional production is millet. Due to its short growing season, favourable reproduction ratio and the fact that it is relatively undemanding, it used to be grown in larger quantities in the middle ages. Its good nutritional values made it an important food item, but over time, as a result of industrialisation and technological progress; it has been eclipsed by other cereal crops. In our country it is mainly used to cook porridge, but it is also used in the form of flour and as a base material in the spirit drinks sector. In the recent decades, millet has been applied only in a small area, mostly as a secondary crop in areas that dried out from drainage water in late spring, or as a replacement of extinct sowings due to its late sowing time. Water will be the most significant factor for the future of agriculture, especially considering climate change.
My examinations took place in the area of the Institutes for Agricultural Research and Educational Farm of University of Debrecen, in the Research Institute of Nyíregyháza, in a small-plot experiment with four replications in 2016.


Abstract Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are used in different biomedical applications, whereby each application requires specific particle properties. To fulfill these requirements, particle properties have to be optimized by means of variation of crystal structure, particle size, and size distribution. To this aim, improved aqueous precipitation procedures for magnetic iron oxide nanoparticle synthesis were developed. One procedure focused on the cyclic growth of MNPs without nucleation of new particle cores during precipitation. The second novel particle type are magnetic multicore nanoparticles, which consist of single cores of approximately 10 nm forming dense clusters in the size range from 40 to 80 nm. Their highest potential features these multicore particles in hyperthermia application. In our in vivo experiments, therapeutically suitable temperatures were reached after 20 s of heating for a particle concentration in the tumor of 1% and field parameters of H=24 kA/m and f=410 kHz. This review on our recent investigations for particle optimization demonstrates that tuning magnetic properties of MNPs can be obtained by the alteration of their structure, size, and size distribution. This can be realized by means of control of particle size during synthesis or subsequent size-dependent fractionation. The here-developed particles show high potential for biomedical applications.


Deep learning methods of fault diagnostics require the availability of a large amount of labeled data for training, i.e., signal values corresponding to known degradation and fault states. Furthermore, the distribution of the training data should be similar to that of the (test) data collected in the field. Since these conditions are typically not satisfied in most industrial applications, this article develops a deep multiadversarial conditional domain adaptation network. The main original contribution lies in a novel method to align, class by class, the weighted marginal data distributions using multiple domain discriminators. The network allows overtaking the classification underperformance caused by the problem of negative transfer, which is typically encountered when only few training data of some of the classes are available. The proposed method is shown to outperform other state-of-the-art methods on two cross-domain fault diagnostic case studies, verified by applying Friedman and Holm post-hoc tests.


The codes pertain to ten variables: (1) ordinary nutritional conditions, (2) occurrence of short-term starvation, (3) occurrence of seasonal starvation, (4) temporal proximity of seasonal starvation, (5) occurrence of famine, (6) temporal proximity of last famine, (7) severity of famine, (8) persistence of famine, (9) recurrence of famine, and (10) contingency of famine. The contingency codes have not been published previously. The others originally appeared in the journal CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH (Dirks 1993). Note, however, that the scale for the recurrence of famine has been modified since its original publication and the codes revised accordingly. Codes for other variables have been changed in a few cases because of newly acquired information.


Neutrophils play a key role in the immediate non-specific immune response, and defects in their function increase host susceptibility to a range of infective agents. However, excess activation and/or delayed clearance of these cells from an inflamed site can lead to significant tissue damage. Neutrophil priming by agents such as endotoxin, granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), platelet activating factor (PAF) and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF alpha) may play a pivotal role in modulating the adhesive and secretory properties of these cells. Priming also appears to affect the survival of neutrophils by delaying constitutive apoptosis. The unique signal transduction events that control neutrophil priming and apoptosis, and particularly the importance of the phospholipase C and phosphoinositide 3-kinase pathways, suggest opportunities for selective pharmacological intervention.


The performance of the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) Table Mountain telescope was evaluated to determine the potential of such an instrument for optical angular tracking. This telescope uses a Ronchi ruling to measure differential positions of stars at the meridian. The Ronchi technique is summarized and the operational features of the Table Mountain instrument are described. Results from an analytic model, simulations, and actual data are presented that characterize the telescope's current performance. For a star pair of visual magnitude 7, the differential uncertainty of a 5-min observation is about 50 nrad (10 marcsec), and tropospheric fluctuations are the dominant error source. At magnitude 11, the current differential uncertainty is approximately 800 nrad (approximately 170 marcsec). This magnitude is equivalent to that of a 2-W laser with a 0.4-m aperture transmitting to Earth from a spacecraft at Saturn. Photoelectron noise is the dominant error source for stars of visual magnitude 8.5 and fainter. If the photoelectron noise is reduced, ultimately tropospheric fluctuations will be the limiting source of error at an average level of 35 nrad (7 marcsec) for stars approximately 0.25 deg apart. Three near-term strategies are proposed for improving the performance of the telescope to the 10-nrad level: improving the efficiency of the optics, masking background starlight, and averaging tropospheric fluctuations over multiple observations.


Free-living amoebae (FLA) are amphizoic protozoans with a cosmopolitan distribution. Some strains of species are associated with infections in humans. They feed on microorganisms by phagocytosis; however, some of these can become endocytobionts by resisting this process and taking shelter inside the amoeba. The whole world is experiencing increasing shortage of water, and sewage is being reused, so the study of this environment is important in public health context. The objective of this work was to identify FLA present in sewage treatment plants in Porto Alegre, Brazil. About 1 L samples were collected from eight stations (raw and treated sewage) in January, February, July, and August 2022. The samples were sown in monoxenic culture, and the isolated amoebae were subjected to morphological and molecular identification. Polymerase chain reaction results indicated the presence of the genus Acanthamoeba in 100% of the samples. Gene sequencing showed the presence of Acanthamoeba lenticulata and Acanthamoeba polyphaga - T5 and T4 genotypes - respectively, which are related to pathogenicity. The environment where the sewage is released can be used in recreational activities, exposing individuals to potential interactions with these amoebae and their potential endocytobionts, which may pose risks to public health.


Flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) with limited storage capacity can be modeled as queuing networks with finite buffers and general service times. An approach is presented for improving the performance of such systems by distributing the routing probabilities across workstations in an optimal way. The proposed approach is suitable for online application in situations where analytic models are not available. Case studies have shown that reasonably good estimated optima can be obtained with very short computer run lengths in comparison with conventional simulation methods. >


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effect of pathological placental conditions such as intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) or exposure to angiotensin II (AII) on TNF-alpha secretion in the vasculature of isolated human placental cotyledons.

STUDY DESIGN
Isolated placental cotyledons from 10 normal and four intrauterine growth restricted fetuses were dually perfused. Perfusate samples from the fetal circulation were collected every 30 min during 120 min. TNF-alpha levels in the fetal-placental perfusate were evaluated using specific commercial ELISA kits. In three additional normal placentae, bolus injections of angiotensin II (10(-9)-10(-4) mol/l) were given into the fetal-placental circulation and perfusate samples were collected. Statistical significance of difference TNF-alpha levels between different conditions was determined by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and paired t-test.

RESULTS
TNF-alpha levels were significantly higher in the perfusate of IUGR placentae as compared with normal placentae after 120 min of perfusion (mean 410+/-121 vs. 39+/-14 pg/ml, P=0.005). There was a significant dose-dependent increase in TNF-alpha levels in the placental perfusate after a bolus injection of AII 66 pg/ml with AII 10(-9) mol/l vs. 97 pg/ml with AII 10(-5) mol/l (P=0.004), respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
Placental pathology related to condition IUGR might induce the secretion of proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-alpha, which may enhance the vasoconstriction of the fetal placental vascular bed.


On the 8th of February, 2007, Ian Stevenson, longtime Carlson Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia Medical Center, passed away. He was a leading figure in the paranormal field for half a century and opened up a new field of inquiry. In psychical research there had been a long tradition of investigating evidence relevant to the question of life after death. Stevenson started a new field of inquiry into pheomena that might give evidence for life before birth, i.e., for the theory of reincarnation. I first heard Ian speak at the 1968 Parapsychological Association convention in Freiburg, when he was president of the Association. Due to sickness he did not appear in person and his presidential address was played from a tape recording. A paper was also presented for him on the characteristics of cases of the reincarnation type. Both became very memorable to me. In 1970-71 I stayed a year at his Division of Parapsychology (now of Perceptual Studies) during an internship in clinical psychology at the University of Virginia. This was the beginning of an association that lasted almost four decades. His empirical approach, his choice of research topics, and the thoroughness of his investigations all appealed very much to me. I felt enriched by every piece of work that I did with him or for him, and his personal company was always delightful. His knowledge of the field was truly exceptional and greater than that of anyone else I knew. My first stay at the University of Virginia led to the publication of three joint papers on mediumship (Haraldsson & Stevenson, 1974, 1975a, 1975b). In the late 1980s, Ian asked me if I would be willing to conduct an independent investigation of cases of the reincarnation type, which I gladly accepted. In the early 1970s I had already helped him by conducting a few interviews during my work with Karlis Osis in India. We also started a psychological study in India of children who claimed to remember a past life, which came abruptly to an end when I met with a car accident in India. In the 1990s I took up this thread again. My association with Ian lasted until the end of his life. He offered me his house to stay in during a long visit to Charlottesville last winter, and by chance I happened to be present at his deathbed. Ian was an extraordinarily hard and persistent worker. This was very noticeable to everyone who worked with him. Emily Kelly, his longtime personal assistant, has told me that once there came a questionnaire from the university enquiring about the working habits and workload of its professors. There was a question about how many hours they worked per day. Ian's reply was 12 hours per day. And how many days of the week? Seven days of the week, was his reply. This was in line with the observations of those of us who had the opportunity to work with him. Ian was a meticulous notetaker. From the age of 17 he kept a logbook in which he recorded titles of all the books he had read. By 2003, when he stopped keeping it, they numbered 3,535, almost 53 books per year for 67 years. Paging through that logbook makes interesting reading. Ian Stevenson was born in Montreal, Canada, on October 31, 1918. His father, John Alexander Stevenson, was born in 1883 in Scotland, where his father was a schoolmaster in Beith, a small town within an hour's drive west of Glasgow. Ian's mother was Ruth Cecilia Preston, born in 1891 in London. Later she moved to New Jersey where her mother had a second marriage. It was on a voyage from England to America that Ruth Cecilia met John Alexander. They married in 1916. Ian attended a Montessori School and had a normal elementary schooling in Canada. During this time he was often sick with a lung problem and had to stay in bed, attended by his loving mother. While being tied to his bed, he became an avid reader. Around 1931, Ian was sent to England to attend an innovative public school in Bryanston, Dorsetshire. …


The strength of reinforced concrete members can be enhanced by using the externally bonded reinforcement (EBR) and near-surface mounted (NSM) methods. However, very few studies have adopted the NSM method for torsional strengthening. Although previous studies have reported the efficacy of using epoxy-resin-bonded NSM steel bars in increasing the flexural and shear strength of RC beams, no study has examined the use of steel bars and epoxy adhesives for torsional strengthening. Therefore, this study investigates the behaviour of RC beams subjected to the combined actions of torsion and bending moment when they are strengthened with NSM steel bars (O10 mm) in different configurations. The practical part of this investigation consisted of seven cast and tested beams of 150 × 250 × 2000 mm dimensions. One beam was reference, which is not strengthened; meanwhile, all the other beams were strengthened with two U-shape-welded NSM steel bars. During the testing process, the twist angle at the torque intervals, first cracking torque, ultimate torque, and ultimate twist angle of the conventional beam were compared with those of the strengthened beams. The torsional performance of the RC beams was significantly improved by using NSM steel bars, whereas in various NSM configurations, the 90° NSM beams outperformed the 45° NSM beams.


Rohrer index, Vervaeck index and Body Mass Index(BMI) are frequently used in order to judge obese subjects in clothing & textiles field. However, there are no certain criteria of judging the degree of obesity. Each researcher utilized these obesity indices according to their own criteria so far. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to suggest a reliable obesity index and new criteria for judging the degree of obesity. The results are as follows; Utilizing frequency analysis, main percentiles, minimums, maximums and ranges were presented by 5 age groups from twenties to sixties. Obesity rates dramatically increased, the subject got older. Especially, obesity rate of the subjects in their fifties and sixties were much higher than other age groups. 1.6 & higher can be used in the Rohrer index, 98 & higher can be used in the Vervaeck index, and 25 & higher can be used in the BMI as the Optimal criteria of the obesity. Total of 24 body measurements and 3 obesity indices were used for analyzing the correlation analysis. All heights measurements showed negative correlation with the 3 obesity indices. It is determined heights measurements have high correlation with Rohrer index compare to other indices. Crotch height, interscye back, neck shoulder point to breast point, bust circumference, waist circumference, upper arm circumference and armscye circumference have high positive correlation with all obesity indices. According to the ANOVAs by each percentile group of the Rohrer and Vervaeck indices, there are big significances in all measurements and obesity indices except arm length. In general, heights decreased significantly by getting bigger, while circumferences and lengths, widths and indices increased rapidly by getting bigger. The results of the analysis by each percentile group in the BMI, it showed the significant differences in the all measurements except cervical height and arm length. There were similar tendency of differences according to the degree of the obesity in BMI percentile groups. It was confirmed that the BMI is the most reliable index for judging the obesity owing to the high correlations and significant differences with other measurements.


Scedosporium infections have become one of the most common cause of deep mold infections. It has also become a potentially dangerous causative agent of local and invasive infections in immunocompromised and occasionally in immunocompetent patients. It exhibits intrinsic resistance to many antifungals making the treatment difficult, thereby increasing the mortality. We present a case of an immunocompetent patient who came with a swelling on the left upper eyelid with a discharging sinus. A diagnosis of frontal lobe abscess was made and the mucopurulent discharge from the sinus was sent to the microbiology laboratory to know the etiology. The KOH wet mount of this discharge showed the presence of septate hyphal elements and the fungal culture yielded the growth of Scedosporium prolificans.The patient was treated with intravenous voriconazole to which he showed a favourable response.


The authors report the characterization of a novel cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP)—responsive luciferase (Luc) reporter that exhibits optimal performance in high-throughput screens of agonist binding at G protein—coupled receptors (GPCRs). This reporter (RIP1-CRE-Luc) incorporates a nonpalindromic cAMP response element (CRE) originally identified within the 5′ promoter of the rat insulin 1 gene (RIP1). When multimerized and fused to the coding sequence of firefly luciferase, the CRE of RIP1 allows for the efficient activation of luciferase expression by cAMP-elevating agents or by cAMP itself. Of primary importance is the demonstration that RIP1-CRE-Luc does not exhibit the relatively high levels of basal luciferase activity inherent to reporters incorporating the palindromic CRE first identified in the somatostatin gene promoter. Furthermore, studies of HEK cells expressing class II GPCRs for the cAMP-elevating hormones GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon demonstrate that RIP1-CRE-Luc affords a much wider dynamic range of activation upon exposure to agonist. Such properties of RIP1-CRE-Luc indicate its usefulness as a new and powerful tool for the identification of small-molecule compounds with receptor-stimulating actions or for the identification of constitutively active orphan receptors with cAMP-signaling properties. (Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2007:740-746)


In the context of developing competitive liquid composites molding processes for primary aircraft structures, modeling the forming stage of automatically-placed initially flat stacks of dry reinforcements is of great interest. In the case of HiTape®, a dry unidirectional carbon fiber reinforcement designed to achieve performances comparable to state-of-the-art pre-impregnated materials, the presence of a thermoplastic veil on each side of the material for both processing and mechanical purposes should also be considered when modeling forming in hot conditions. As a dry unidirectional reinforcement, HiTape® is expected to exhibit a transversely isotropic behavior. Computation cost and strong characterization challenges led us to model its behavior at the forming process temperature (above the thermoplastic veil melting temperature) through a homogeneous equivalent continuous medium exhibiting four 'classical' deformation modes and a specific structural mode, namely out-of-plane bending. The response of both single plies and stacks of HiTape® to this latter structural mode was characterized at the forming process temperature using a modified Peirce flexometer. Results on single plies showed a non-linear softening moment-curvature behavior and a corresponding flexural stiffness much lower than what can be inferred from continuum mechanics. Moreover, testing stacks revealed that the veil acts as a thin load transfer layer between the plies undergoing relative in-plane displacement, i.e. inter-ply sliding. This inter-ply response was then characterized separately at the forming process temperature thanks to a specific method relying on a pull-through test. Experiments performed at pressures and speeds representative of the forming stage revealed that a hydrodynamic lubricated friction regime predominates, i.e. a linearly increasing relationship between the friction coefficient and the modified Hersey number. From an industrial point of view, high forming pressures and low speeds are therefore recommended to promote inter-ply slip to limit the occurrence of defects such as wrinkles.


Robotic-assisted technology has shown to be promising in coronary and peripheral vascular interventions. Early case reports have also demonstrated its efficacy in neuro-interventions. However, there is no prior report demonstrating use of the robotic-assisted platform for spinal angiography. We report the feasibility of the robotic-assisted thoracic and lumbar spinal angiography.


In this paper, a new method of aggregating decisions in a multi-support vector machine (SVM) ensemble system is proposed. The evidence theory is introduced to reduce the uncertainty of decision-making. In the evidence theory, a practical problem is how to determine the basic probability assignments. Usually they are evaluated subjectively by experts in advance. However, they may be far from the optimal values. Furthermore, in some cases where there is no expert knowledge, especially for aggregation in an ensemble learning system, they could not be evaluated as such. Due to the natural relation between the evidence theory and the rough sets theory, rough sets methods are applied so as to determine the basic probability assignments. The merit of the rough set theory is that it does not need any priori knowledge. Afterwards, the decisions of bagged and boosted SVMs are combined respectively by the evidence theory. Experimental results show that the presented multi-SVM system gains better performance over the popular ensemble learning methods such as Bagging and Adaboost.M1.


Many services are being introduced as mobile telecommunication technology advances and they provide profits to the mobile network operators (MNO). However, the adoptions of new services often require additional features in terminal devices or even in the networks. Some pre-standardized services may not be supported in the network or even require some changes in the network architectures, which makes the deployment of new services challenging. In this paper we propose a UMTS core network architecture to support various services with the service map. The proposed architecture supports the easy adoption/test of the pre-standardized services and easy creation of specialized services for networks.


This paper considers the distributed H∞ leaderfollowing tracking problem for a class of discrete-time multiagent systems with a high-dimensional dynamic leader. It is assumed that output information about the leader is only available to designated followers, and the dynamics of the followers are subject to perturbations. To achieve distributed H∞ leader-following tracking, a new class of control protocols is proposed which is based on the feedback from the nearest neighbors as well as a distributed state estimator. Under the assumptions that dynamics of the leader are detectable and the communication topology contains a directed spanning tree, sufficient conditions are obtained that enable all followers to track the leader while achieving a desired H∞ leader-following tracking performance. Numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical analysis.


To realize a granular film composed of L10-FePt grains with high uniaxial magnetic anisotropy energy, Ku, and segregants for heat-assisted magnetic recording, the FePt-TiO2/FePt-C stacked film was investigated. The FePt-TiO2/FePt-C stacked film has well-isolated granular structure with average grain size of 6.7 nm because the FePt-TiO2 film follows the FePt-C template film in microstructural growth. However, the Ku value is quite low for total thickness of 9 nm: 5 × 106 erg/cm3. Exploration of the thickness dependence of L10-FePt(001) peaks in XRD spectra and cross-sectional TEM images suggest that degradation of the L10 ordering appears near the middle of the FePt-TiO2 layer. The EDX-STEM mapping reveals that Ti atoms exist within the FePt grains in addition to the grain boundary. This indicates the possibility that TiO2 tends to be incorporated into the FePt grains and that it prevents L10-ordering of the FePt grains along the normal-to-plane direction.


The generalized bow-tie model (Yu N Demkov and V N Ostrovsky 2000 Phys. Rev. A 61 32705) is a particular generalization of the famous two-state Landau-Zener model widely used in atomic physics and beyond. It comprises an arbitrary number of states; the diabatic-potential curves are linear functions of time whereas the coupling matrix elements are constant. We derive a rigorous solution of the model by the contour integral method. The complete set of transition amplitudes is obtained by considering solution asymptotes for t→±∞. It agrees with the transition probabilities evaluated earlier by heuristically appealing but non-rigorous reduction of the model to the sequence of two-state transitions. An unusual quasi-factorization property of the transition amplitude matrix is established. The entire matrix is expressed via a single complex-valued vector.


The Band II RF system was originally built to support the Booster operations during the acceleration of heavy ions. Designed to sweep from 0.6 to 2.5 MHz, it was build and successfully tested over a much broader range reaching 4 MHz. Voltages up to more than 20 kV were reached over the design frequency range. The system consists of two stations, each of which is made of one single gap cavity directly driven by a grounded cathode push pull power amplifier. The low Q high permeability ferrites needed in the coaxial cavity in order to reach the lower end of the band make tuning extremely easy. Both systems were thoroughly tested both at single frequencies and on a sweep and are now installed in the ring,ready for operations. Static measurements showed no high-loss effects. The results of the "bench" tests that lead to important performance improvements are given.<<ETX>>


The system is implemented to reduce the manual work and enhances the accuracy of work in a restaurant. This system manages and maintains the record of customers and their order online. This Android App has been made in a user friendly interface. So that Customer can add and delete the food items easily. The menu card of different restaurant consists of various food varieties available in the restaurant. Through the place ordering menu, the customer can simply click and order the food. The messaging module tells the supplier to supply the particular food. Also tracking module track the order. The billing system prepares the bill according to the delivered food. This system entirely reduces the unnecessary time. Every order is associated with an individual seat at the table, and orders are built one customer at a time, just like on paper, but with greater accuracy. Items can also easily be shared by the whole table, moved or modified, and noted and the cost can be calculated in real time. Keywords—Restaurant Management, Recommendation, Tablet, Menu, Intelligent, Android application.


Nocardia nova is a less commonly isolated Nocardia species that was formerly classified as belonging to the Nocardia asteroides complex. This organism is a rare cause of primary cutaneous nocardiosis. We report a case ofN. nova flexor tenosynovitis and abscess involving the right forearm after a remote inoculation injury.


The traditional theory of urban finance argues against local redistribution of wealth on the assumption that such action is likely to chase away the relatively wealthy, leaving only the impoverished behind. Nevertheless, Clayton P. Gillette observes, local governments engage in substantial redistribution, both to the wealthy and to the poor. In this thoughtful book, Gillette examines whether recent campaigns to enact "living wage" ordinances and other local redistributive programs represent gaps in the traditional theory or political opportunism. He then investigates the role of the courts in distinguishing between these explanations. The author argues that courts have greater capacity to review local programs than is typically assumed. He concludes that when a single interest group dominates the political process, judicial intervention to determine a program's legal validity may be appropriate. But if the political contest involves competing groups, courts should defer to local political judgments.


Security is provided to grant access to a legal user and to prevent the system from an illegal or non-authorized person. SHOULDER ATTACK is one of the latest weapons that are used by hackers or adversaries to hack an account or to authenticate in a secure zone. When a user uses a Chip+PIN credit card at a POS terminal, the POS machine will ask for PIN to be entered then on entering PIN in the terminal the transaction gets completed. To complete the transaction user need to provide four digit PIN number on that device. While providing PIN in front of friends, relative or unknown person, it is affected by "Shoulder Surfing attack". In a shoulder surfing attack, password can be easily obtained by simply looking at the fingers of the user or by making video while user enters the password. So there is a need to develop a secure system for credit/debit card transactions that will avoid the SS and another similar type of attacks. The proposed system must contain minimum hardware changes and secure algorithms. The approach is to divert the flow of current system in such a way that whenever the user needs to put PIN code, he will be using his mobile phone to type that pin-code. The user will get the request to enter the pin code on his/her phone itself. The project proposes the technology of secure authentication system to avoid shoulder surfing (SS) attack and also the problem of identity theft is resolved to increase the faith of users in the system.


Mesonephric adenocarcinoma (MNAC) is a very rare tumor that originates from mesonephric duct remnants of the female genital tract. Only a few cases were reported in the literature, and most of them occurred in the cervix, extremely rare in the uterine body and ovary. MNAC was rarely reported to arise in the uterine corpus, but never was reported in the ovary. Mesonephric-like adenocarcinomas are recently suggested to describe these neoplasms arising from the uterine corpus and ovary. Due to the rareness of the disease, little is known regarding clinical characteristics, pathological diagnosis, prognosis, and optimal management strategy of MNAC in the female reproductive system. We report a series of MNACs arising from the vagina, cervix, uterine corpus, ovary, and fallopian tube, to summarize the clinical characteristics, pathological diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. We retrospectively analyzed all MNACs in the female genital tract derived from our institute from January 2010 till January 2020. Patients' clinical details and follow-up were obtained from hospital records and scans were obtained from picture archiving and communication system. A total of 11 patients were included. The median age of onset of symptoms was 52years. All patients underwent total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, and lymph node dissections were performed in 7/11 (63.6%) patients. Two/ eleven (18.2%) received neoadjuvant chemotherapy before surgery and 7/11 (63.6%) received adjuvant chemotherapy after primary surgery. Of the 11 patients, only 1 patient received adjuvant radiation therapy. One patient died at the end point of this study, 9 patients (81.8%) survived and 1 patient was lost to follow-up. The mean follow-up duration was 33.5months. Although there is no consensus for the optimal treatment of this rare disease, radical surgery is considered to be the initial choice for localized lesion. Given the high malignancy, the majority of MNAC or mesonephric-like adenocarcinoma patients who underwent adjuvant chemotherapy received 4 to 8 cycles of carboplatin/paclitaxel as a first-line treatment after primary surgery with a median progression-free survival of 12months. Treatment for recurrent disease in these patients included gemcitabine, carboplatin, and paclitaxel. Radiation was very limited in the treatment of the disease. Abbreviations: MLA = mesonephric-like adenocarcinoma, MNAC = mesonephric adenocarcinoma, NACT = Neoadjuvant chemotherapy, PACT = postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy, PFS = progression-free survival.


A channel estimation technique using time-domain training sequence is investigated. It is demonstrated that this technique can estimate the channel status more accurately, under low C/N situations, than the conventional frequency domain technique using in-band pilots. A novel channel estimation and compensation scheme for a fast fading channel is developed for an OFDM system using time-domain training sequence. It is compared with the frequency domain pilot channel estimation scheme.


In stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRSP) plasma norepinephrine levels and vascular reactivity to norepinephrine are increased and intravascular volume is reduced during the developmental phase of hypertension. Since the accelerated rise in blood pressure following sodium-loading in SHRSP cannot be attributed to the volume-retaining properties of sodium, the effects of an increased dietary intake of sodium on biochemical parameters of sympathetic vascular tone were investigated. The following results were obtained. First, the increased reactivity of vascular smooth muscle was further augmented in sodium-treated SHRSP; the degree of supersensitivity was positively correlated to the plasma sodium concentration. After blockade of the neuronal uptake by 30 μM cocaine, no difference in vascular reactivity to norepinephrine was detected between SHRSP on a normal and SHRSP on a high-sodium diet. Second, the inactivation of norepinephrine by the neuronal uptake was impaired in rats on a high-sodium diet, the impairment being more pronounced in SHRSP than in Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats. This decreased inactivation could be expected to cause higher concentrations of the neurotransmitter at the receptor site if the transmitter release from the nerve ending remains constant. Third, the release of norepinephrine and epinephrine into the plasma was increased in sodium-loaded SHRSP but not in sodium-loaded WKY. Cold exposure exaggerates these differences between normotensive and hypertensive rats. These findings suggest that a high-sodium intake modifies the transmission of sympathetic impulses at the level of the nerve terminal in both WKY and SHRSP. In the normotensive rats, moderate impairment of norepinephrine inactivation, however, was balanced by an appropriate reduction in central sympathetic discharge following sodium-loading. In the hypertensive rats, the peripheral disturbance in norepinephrine inactivation due to sodium-loading was obviously not balanced by an adequate withdrawal of central sympathetic discharge. The resultant hemodynamic change was a further increase in the sympathetically mediated vasoconstriction, which is regarded as at least one of the main mechanisms of the sodium-dependent acceleration of hypertension in SHRSP. (Hypertension 4: 773–781, 1982)


Maize fiber is a byproduct of the maize wet-milling industry. About half of the fiber in a maize grain is found in the pericarp. The pericarp consists of 35% hemicellulose, 18% cellulose and 20% remaining starch. Recent research on maize fiber has shown that it can be used for extraction of maize fiber oil, which has been shown that has higher levels of phytosterol than the germ oil, and has also negligible amounts of ferulate phytosterol esters.The present study was undertaken to investigate the fiber content in a series of single cross hybrids of maize. Experiments were performed under natural conditions, without irrigation, in field research of ARDS Turda. The experimental model was a comparative polifactorial settlement with plots. Two of the comparative crops had 28 plots each and three of them had 21 plots. The plot consists of two rows of 5 m long each, with a distance of 70 cm between rows, 23.7 cm distance between plants in a row, 23 plants in a row, to obtain a density of 60.000 plants/hectare. The content of fiber to the testing isonuclear inbred lines of maize was studied in 2 years (2009-2010), in two experimental views: in terms of self-pollination and open pollination. Plants were harvested individually, and for the determinations of chemical compounds, two sets of samples were prepared: evidence from open- pollinated cobs and samples from self-pollinated cobs. Determinations were made using the device INSTALAB 600, carrying out infrared analysis. Given the nature of soluble grain fiber, arising in particular from the pericarp, the differences between the two background of grain might be out of the conditions in which they were formed, and of the lower photosynthetic contribution of husk in the case of self-pollination (during the whole period from pollination to harvesting the maize cob was protected by a paper bag that was used for self- pollination).


When I purchased my pair of Edward's fig parrots from Aves International in February 1987, I had absolutely no knowledge of the pitfalls that had already been encountered in both the keeping and rearing of their young. Perhaps, had I known, I would have been dissuaded. I had seen a picture of a male Edward's fig parrot on a Nekton calendar and was fascinated by his beauty and uniqueness. When I found the birds available in this country, I did not hesitate to purchase a pair. Since I could find little if any information about fig parrots, I contacted the San Diego Zoo where Wayne Schulenburg was kind enough to discuss their diet with me. I also learned that there was a tendency for them to hemorrhage and that I would have to supplement them with vitamin K to avoid this possibility. They arrived healthy and in beautiful condition. I was delighted with them, but also apprehensive about my ability to keep them alive and thriving. I had acquired a good supply of dried Calamyrna figs and a large bottle of Nekton Q and decided to offer as wide a variety of fruits as I could find available. No expense was spared in this endeavor. The diet I fed and still feed them consists of soaked figs , soaked light and dark raisins, chopped kiwis, grapes, apples, vari- ous green, leafy vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, frozen and thawed corn , peas , string beans , cooked lentils, split peas and soybeans, pear, raspberries (fresh if possible or frozen), Zupreem soaked in water from the figs, and pulverized Ziegler Frugivore pellets sprinkled over the fruit.


Based on a research study (Questionnaire Scientists and Cultural (Scientific) Diplomacy of Serbia, conducted among employees in research, scientific and teaching positions at faculties and institutes in the Republic of Serbia from November 1-15, 2021), analysis of available documents of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, as well as literature, the paper analyzes the place and the role of scientists (scholars) in the cultural (scientific) diplomacy of Serbia. Recalling the historical significance of scientists in the political and social development of Serbia since the beginning of building a modern Serbian statehood, the place of scientists in society is emphasized and the possibilities to apply good examples in the present are analyzed as well. Based on data on the participation of Serbian scientists in international projects and networking with scientists in Europe and the world, the paper will provide recommendations for better use of these ties in (re)positioning Serbia in bilateral and multilateral relations. The paper presents current attitude of scientists in Serbia on the need and importance of cultural (scientific) diplomacy to answer the following questions: How many of them participated in cultural-diplomatic actions? Do they perceive themselves as actors of cultural (scientific) diplomacy? In what ways Serbian cultural diplomacy can be organized? Finally, this paper, in addition to analyzing the possibilities and scope of engaging scientists to promote Serbia and its interests in international relations, also gives specific recommendations for strengthening and developing cultural diplomacy of Serbia. International projects, conferences, guest appearances and study stays are an excellent training ground for improving and presenting results, as well for establishing contacts and connections, but they also can and must be developed into a powerful tool of Serbian public diplomacy. The results of this research showed that a significant part of Serbian scientists have a clear awareness of their role in scientific and cultural exchange, as well as that they have a desire to participate in it. This, along with the scientific elite of this country in the diaspora, is a huge untapped potential of Serbia. This potential has to be systematically organized and shaped in accordance with the goals of Serbian diplomacy. It is very important that actors of cultural (scientific) diplomacy and useful individuals be recognized and financially supported, which should be followed by better coordination design of activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development. Cross-sectoral cooperation can be strengthened through joint coordination bodies or by building a system of institutions that would deal with: (additional) education of new staff (master studies, specialized courses in cultural and scientific diplomacy), lifelong learning of existing staff in diplomacy or recruitment of experts in certain fields, with a single list (base) of potential experts, who would create proposals for the development of diplomatic strategies and / or, if necessary, be sent abroad for longer or shorter missions.


Clear evidence has highlighted a role for hormones in the plant stress response, including salt stress. Interplay and cross-talk among different hormonal pathways are of vital importance in abiotic stress tolerance. A genome-wide transcriptional analysis was performed on leaves and roots of three-day salt treated and untreated plants of two Italian rice varieties, Baldo and Vialone Nano, which differ in salt sensitivity. Genes correlated with hormonal pathways were identified and analyzed. The contents of abscisic acid, indoleacetic acid, cytokinins, and gibberellins were measured in roots, stems, and leaves of seedlings exposed for one and three days to salt stress. From the transcriptomic analysis, a huge number of genes emerged as being involved in hormone regulation in response to salt stress. The expression profile of genes involved in biosynthesis, signaling, response, catabolism, and conjugation of phytohormones was analyzed and integrated with the measurements of hormones in roots, stems, and leaves of seedlings. Significant changes in the hormone levels, along with differences in morphological responses, emerged between the two varieties. These results support the faster regulation of hormones metabolism in the tolerant variety that allows a prompt growth reprogramming and the setting up of an acclimation program, leading to specific morpho-physiological responses and growth recovery.


This article examines job quality and job satisfaction for individuals who are employed at workplaces located in Scotland. Using a series of indices constructed from responses in the survey of employees associated with the 2011 Workplace and Employment Relations Study, it investigates how job quality and job satisfaction differ across individuals. It also examines whether job quality and job satisfaction for individuals employed in Scotland are different from individuals employed elsewhere in Britain. Individuals employed at workplaces in Scotland are seen to have positive perspectives about the quality of their jobs. Although most maintain that they work very hard, nonetheless they are seen to have considerable control over most aspects of their jobs; are confident about their job security; and view their workplace managers as being supportive. In terms of differences across individuals, who have higher (lower) levels of job quality depends upon the index of job quality used. With the exception of their pay, individuals are seen to be satisfied with all aspects of their jobs, although the level of satisfaction does vary across individuals. There is little difference between employees located in Scotland and employees located elsewhere in Britain with respect to either job quality or job satisfaction.


Background: Currently, the number of the elderly has been rising sharply worldwide. Seemingly, age-induced cerebral endothelial dysfunction may lead to vascular abnormality that can later progress to cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. Moreover, several evidences have shown that age-related oxidative stress and decline in cellular function appeared in the vascular system both in humans and laboratory animals. The role of exercise training in the regulation of age-related oxidative stress and endothelial functions have been reported. Objectives: To investigate whether exercise training can prevent age-induced cerebral endothelial dysfunction associated to PI3K/Akt signaling. Methods: Male Wistar rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: sedentary-young group (SE-Young, 4 months), sedentary-aged group (SE-Aged, 22 24 months), and swimming trained-aged group (ET-Aged, 22 24 months), which individually swam 1 hour/day, 5 days/week for 8 weeks. After 8 weeks of the exercise period, the rats took rest for 24 hours. After a phosphate buffer saline (PBS) perfusion, brain was used for determining CD31 by immunohistochemistry. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), phospho-Akt level (p-Akt), and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in the brain were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: The aged rats' physiological characteristics had significant alteration when compared to the young group (P < 0.05). However, ET-Aged rats showed significantly reduced resting mean arterial blood pressure when compared to the young group (P < 0.05). This study also showed that exercise could upregulate VEGF, p-Akt level, and increase CD31 in the ET-aged group. Furthermore, tissue MDA in ET-Aged rats was significantly reduced when compared to SE-Aged rats (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Our findings imply that exercise training protected age-induced cerebral endothelial dysfunction associated with its effects of oxidative stress and PI3K/Akt signaling.


In treating chronic bronchitis, the effect of 13 Herbs Anti-Cough-Dyspnea decoction was better than that of other traditional prescriptions such as Ephedria-almond decoction etc. The effective rate of this decoction in relieving cough, sputum, bronchial spasm and eliminating wheezing sound were 98.6%, 98.32%, 91.52% and 85.35% respectively. The total effective rate was 98%. The animal experiment revealed that the decoction was given to isolated trachea after medication for 30 min, the effective rate in easing bronchial spasm was 99.1 +/- 30.2%, which was two times than that of other prescriptions.


: The clinico-functional examination of agricultural machine-operators, truck drivers, excavator and boring machine operators revealed that, under low-frequency general vibration, polymorphic pathologic changes occur in human organism. Those include peripheral vascular and neuritic disorders and changes in the vertebral column. The most peculiar symptoms of VD are dealt with. The data obtained show to the importance of further elaboration of differential diagnostic criteria of VD, specifying its pathogenic mechanisms and prevention measures working out.


The case of waste from durian rind in Ngrogung, Ngebel, Ponorogo, Indonesia increased significantly per year. Agglomerations and decomposition of durian rind surrounding agro park caused air pollution and bad view in park areas. The decomposition of durian rind is very important to reduce those impacts. The micro composter model in Kampung Durian consisted of three main components. The first component was drying area with cemented ground. The drying area was set to accommodate 1 t fresh durian rind per day. The materials come from surrounding areas of agro park. The second was a machine house with one ton material capacity per day. The third was a composter house consisted of composter tube and packing area. The result of the micro composter house showed a cleaning agglomeration of durian rind from Ngebel lake and surrounding areas. In addition, the model produced liquid organic fertilizer and compost. A cycle of composting was 30 d in the dry season. Amount 1 t of durian rind decomposition resulted of 100 L liquid organic fertilizers and 50 kg compost. The result of composter had a direct impact to control waste problems in Ngebel and surrounding areas.


General criteria for choosing basic pharmacotherapy (inhaled β-agonists, M-cholinolytics, inhaled steroids (ICS), and theophylline) for long-term treatment of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) are given in the article. The authors described a role of ICS in the current management of COPD patients. Possibility of ICS withdrawal in COPD patients without increase in the risk of exacerbations and a clinical approach to revision of the therapy were discussed. The authors analyzed currently available evidence of efficacy of dual bronchodilation as the key point of modern therapeutic strategy for COPD. A choice of single or dual bronchodilation should be guided by certain criteria. Russian and international clinical algorithms of pharmacotherapy for COPD were also reviewed.


OBJECTIVE
We explored both within-method and between-method rigor and reproducibility in the field of eating disorders genetics.

METHOD
We present critical evaluation and commentary on component methods of genetic research (family studies, twin studies, molecular genetic studies) and discuss both successful and unsuccessful efforts in the field.

RESULTS
Eating disorders genetics has had a number of robust results that converge across component methodologies. Familial aggregation of eating disorders, twin-based heritability estimates of eating disorders, and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) all point toward a substantial role for genetics in eating disorders etiology and support the premise that genes do not act alone. Candidate gene and linkage studies have been less informative historically.

DISCUSSION
The eating disorders field has entered the GWAS era with studies of anorexia nervosa. Continued growth of sample sizes is essential for rigorous discovery of actionable variation. Molecular genetic studies of bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, and other eating disorders are virtually nonexistent and lag seriously behind other major psychiatric disorders. Expanded efforts are necessary to reveal the fundamental biology of eating disorders, inform clinical practice, and deliver new therapeutic targets.


The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of instruction in horticulture using and not using a greenhouse laboratory experience with the traditional classroom lecture/discussion technique. Data were collected on selected student and teacher characteristics as well as post-experiment knowledge and attitude scores. Teachers at participating schools received a unit of 15 lessons in growing poinsettias. Both treatment groups were taught by the local instructor with lesson plans provided by the researcher. Data were analyzed for 168 high school horticulture students in grades 9-12. Of the characteristics noted, seven of the total group of 168 had a home greenhouse, 65 had a horticultural supervised agricultural experience and 126 had horticultural work experience. There were 107 students in the group provided a greenhouse laboratory experience and 61 students in the group not provided a greenhouse laboratory experience. In this study, students who received a greenhouse laboratory experience scored significantly higher on the knowledge test than did students who were taught the same lessons, without a greenhouse laboratory experience. However, no significant difference was found between the post-experiment attitude toward poinsettia production scores for the two groups.


A microcolony fluorescent-antibody (FA) procedure for detecting salmonellae was compared to the usual direct FA procedure on 304 environmental, food, and feed samples. The microcolony FA test detected all of the specimens found positive by culture, whereas the direct FA missed 3.1% of them. Both FA tests revealed stained organisms in some of the culturally negative specimens. The microcolony FA test has several advantages over the direct FA test: ease of examining the smears, elimination of the fluorescent background material, and increased sensitivity.


We have systematically investigated the geometrical structures, relative stabilities and electronic properties of small bimetallic AunBe (n = 1, 2, …, 8) clusters using a density functional method at BP86 level. The optimized geometries reveal that the impurity beryllium atom dramatically affects the structures of the Aun clusters. The averaged binding energies, fragmentation energies, second-order difference of energies, the highest occupied-lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy gaps and chemical hardness are investigated. All of them exhibit a pronounced odd—even alternation, manifesting that the clusters with even number of gold atoms possess relatively higher stabilities. Especially, the linear Au2Be cluster is magic cluster with the most stable chemical stability. According to the natural population analysis, it is found that charge-transferring direction between Au atom and Be atom changes at the size of n = 4.


Rationing is a pervasive feature of credit markets. It has been suggested that credit rationing represents a suboptimal allocation of resources. In a general equilibrium model of credit rationing with hidden information and costly monitoring we show that if credit is rationed it is suboptimal but that credit should be rationed more tightly. In equilibrium, loan applicants bear average monitoring costs, whereas for efficiency they should bear marginal monitoring costs which are larger because average monitoring costs increase with quantity as extra loans are accompanied by a rise in the interest rate which increases the number of defaults. Copyright 1994 by Royal Economic Society.


BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE
Survivin, a member of IAPs (inhibition of apoptosis proteins) family, has been revealed by many studies to inhibit the activation of caspase-3, caspase-7 and caspase-9, and thus increase the anti-apoptotic effect of cancer cells, which subsequently makes the cells to become resistant to chemotherapy in cancer treatment. Survivin is expressed in human oral squamous carcinoma cell line KB and its multiple-drug resistant (MDR) cell line KBv200. This study was to compare the apoptosis induced by silencing survivin gene between these two squamous cell lines.

METHODS
Mu6/survivin plasmid which expressed shRNA against survivin was transfected into both KB and KBv200 cells to inhibit the expression of survivin gene. Survivin mRNA and protein expression was detected by semi-quantitative RT-PCR and flow cytometry (FCM), respectively. Cell apoptotic rate was measured by flow cytometry after PI staining, and apoptotic morphology of cells was observed under a fluorescent microscope after Hoechst33258 staining. Activation of caspase-3 was measured by colorimetric assay. MTT was used to evaluate the growth inhibition of tumor cells.

RESULTS
Expression of survivin, which was higher in KBv200 at mRNA and protein level, was detected in both KB and KBv200. After 48 h transfection with mu6/survivin plasmid, the expression level of survivin mRNA in KB and KBv200 was reduced by (61.98+/-8.12)% and (59.29+/-6.32)%; and that of survivin protein was decreased by (44.25+/-5.26)% and (38.76+/-4.31)% compared with the control group. Moreover, KB and KBv200 cells exhibited typical apoptotic cell morphology by Hoechst 33258 staining. Apoptosis, which was higher in KB cells, was increased significantly at 24, 48, 72 h after the transfection of mu6/surviving in KB and KBv200 cells, and reached the peak at 48 h. Similarly, activation of caspase-3 was elevated significantly, and reached the peak at 48 h. MTT assay revealed the inhibitory rates were (33.04+/-2.16)%, (56.25+/-3.32)% and (58.26+/-5.14)% in KB cells, and (35.23+/-3.42)%, (44.90+/-4.12)% and (44.19+/-4.37)% in KBv200 cells at 24, 48, 72 h after the transfection, respectively. Growth rate was lower in KB cells at 48, 72 h after the transfection compared with KBv200 cells.

CONCLUSION
RNA interference could silence the expression of survivin, which significantly induces apoptosis not only in KB cells, but also in drug resistant KBv200 cells.


The sandfish (Scincus scincus) is a lizard having the remarkable ability to move through desert sand for significant distances. It is well adapted to living in loose sand by virtue of a combination of morphological and behavioural specializations. We investigated the bodyform of the sandfish using 3D-laserscanning and explored its locomotion in loose desert sand using fast nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging. The sandfish exhibits an in-plane meandering motion with a frequency of about 3 Hz and an amplitude of about half its body length accompanied by swimming-like (or trotting) movements of its limbs. No torsion of the body was observed, a movement required for a digging-behaviour. Simple calculations based on the Janssen model for granular material related to our findings on bodyform and locomotor behaviour render a local decompaction of the sand surrounding the moving sandfish very likely. Thus the sand locally behaves as a viscous fluid and not as a solid material. In this fluidised sand the sandfish is able to "swim" using its limbs.


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Correlations of the stress intensity factor, KI, with crack speed, ċ, have been obtained in a number of detergent solutions each having different detergent concentration. A constant crack speed region was observed in high density polyethylene. The KI independent constant crack speed was found to vary linearly with detergent concentration. The viscosity of the detergent solution increases with concentration and hence this region is not controlled by the hydrodynamic properties of the environment in contrast with Williams' model. The KI-ċ data were compared with existing models of crack propagation.


A measurement of the theoretical and methodological knowledge of Critical Thinking (CT) production is presented in education under the Network Analysis methodology, identifying lines and authors that have the most impact on existing production and which are taken up in other scientific production to resize and to create new definitions, representing the main current in the field. This condition makes these lines and authors of mandatory review to conduct research on CT. Therefore, this work provides a structure of knowledge that makes it possible to establish current and future research and discussions on the subject, as well as a methodological path for the construction of the state of the art based on scientometric measurements.


The purpose of this thesis is to discover how differentiation and cost leadership strategies have performed after the financial crisis of 2008 in comparison to each other and the control group that does not engage in either strategy. Differentiation refers to selling differentiated, unique produce typically for higher price whereas cost leadership concentrates on selling standardized, low-priced produce. The hypothesis assumes that cost leaders outperform differentiators in the post-crisis period due to declining consumer purchasing power which supports the sales of produce in the lower price range. The objective of this thesis is to provide new information on strategy performance during recession, a current topic which has received little coverage in prior research. Panel data consists of 197 American and Canadian companies in the retail industry during 2006-2009. The data are derived from WRDS's Compustat database. Company sorting to cost leaders and differentiators relies on theories of the DuPont disaggregation of return on assets (ROA): companies with relatively high asset turnovers were categorized as cost leaders and companies with relatively low asset turnovers as differentiators. Performance in the regression is measured by ROA. The regression analysis is run with OLS using a difference-in-differences method. The regression analyses fail to provide statistically significant results on differentiators' or cost leaders' performance both before and after the crisis. The regression coefficient analysis suggests that both differentiation and cost leadership strategies have outperformed the control group during the pre-crisis period, with 0.5% and 1.0%-units, respectively. In the post-crisis period, cost leadership outperformed the control group with 0.5%-units while differentiators had a ROA ratio 2.0%-units smaller than that of the control group. Against the findings of prior studies in retail industry, this study suggests differentiation to clearly have underperformed in a recession-economy in comparison to companies with other strategies. However, due to the lack of statistically significant results, the relationship between strategy and performance remains unclear and is left for future research. The regression did indicate a statistically significant positive correlation between ROA and firm size (2.5%).


Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) causes several maternal and neonatal complications. Aims: This exploratory study was conducted to estimate the prevalence, determine the risk factors and morbidities among pregnant women. Methods: In this prospective study, 1557 pregnant women attending the Gyn. & Obs. clinic of a hospital in an urban area of Bhubaneswar were enrolled. Various socio-demographic factors and clinical profiles were assessed. We used a Glucometer for the diagnosis of GDM. Results: More younger pregnant women residing in slums, sedentary and overweight were having diabetes. A large percentage of pregnant women living in rural areas and slums visit the government hospitals as they are benefitted by the State govt.'s scheme, Mamata. Pregnant women residing in the urban areas prefer to go for ante-natal check-ups in private Nursing homes/Clinics owing to the crowd and prolonged waiting hours. In this study, body mass index (BMI) and family history of the pregnant women appeared to be the significant risk factors for the gestational diabetes. Out of 1557 pregnant women, 154 were having diabetes, the prevalence being 9.89%. This is low when compared to the studies reported from other regions of the country. Conclusions: Gluco-One is suitable for screening gestational diabetes using the optimal threshold capillary glucose level of 140 mg/dl. As the pregnant women find it difficult to come the next day just to collect the results, this facilitated in getting the test results promptly and appropriate consultation by Doctor the same day. Glucometer can be used for accurate screening of gestational diabetes mellitus. Pregnant women with screening values not normal were identified on the spot and followed up at regular intervals. Screening for diabetes among pregnant women would result in early case detection indirectly resulting in better outcomes of treatment and prevention of complications.


The occurrence of tuberculosis (TB) in patients treated with immunosuppressive drugs (ISD) is an old problem that has been highlighted by cases occurring in patients using anti-TNFalpha drugs. After a brief review of anti-tuberculosis immunity to highlight the immunosuppressant targets, we show how an epidemiological approach allows the control of risk in patients with drug-induced immunosuppression. The assessment and the control of this risk are usually complicated by underlying immunosuppressant disease, co-morbidities, associated drugs and local disease prevalence. Steroid therapy in systemic diseases and ISD protocols in graft rejection prevention illustrate this problem particularly well. The management strategy adopted to combat anti-TNF related tuberculosis in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has allowed these biases to be avoided. The incidence of TB in RA has been recorded in some national databases (USA, Spain). A four fold increase was registered after the introduction of anti-TNF agents in 2001 which could be considered as the true risk of the drug. Several national health agencies proposed guidelines to screen and prevent TB risk in these patients. Their effectiveness was confirmed by the incidence of TB returning the level prior to the introduction of these agents. Recommendations could be improved by using interferon-gamma screening tests and a better benefit/risk prophylaxis. They should be observed and if possible extended to new and other ISD.


Energy harvesting has experienced significant attention from researchers over the past few years due to the ever-increasing desire to produce portable and wireless electronics with extended life spans. Piezoelectric materials have been greatly used for this purpose since they possess more mechanical energy for conversion into electrical energy than other materials and can also withstand large amounts of strain making them very attractive for power harvesting. They therefore use the ambient vibrations from the environment. Other sources of harvestable ambient energy including waste heat, electromagnetic waves, wind, flowing water, and solar energy. This paper will review recent progress in the vibrational power harvesting using piezoelectric materials and their applicability in developing self powered devices.


We argue that inelastic grains in a flow under gravitation tend to collapse into states in which the relative normal velocities of two neighboring grains is zero. If the time scale for this gravitational collapse is shorter than inverse strain rates in the flow, we propose that this collapse will lead to the formation of "granular eddies", large-scale condensed structures of particles moving coherently with one another. The scale of these eddies is determined by the gradient of the strain rate. Applying these concepts to chute flow of granular media (gravitationally driven flow down inclined planes), we predict the existence of a bulk flow region whose rheology is determined only by flow density. This theory yields the "Pouliquen flow rule", correlating different chute flows; it also accounts for the different flow regimes observed.


Meridional structure and transports of energy in the atmosphere, ocean, and land are evaluated holistically for the mean and annual cycle zonal averages over the ocean, land, and global domains, with discussion and assessment of uncertainty. At the top of the atmosphere (TOA), adjusted radiances from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) and Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) are used along with estimates of energy storage and transport from two global reanalysis datasets for the atmosphere. Three ocean temperature datasets are used to assess changes in the ocean heat content (OE) and their relationship to the net upward surface energy flux over ocean (F o ), which is derived from the residual of the TOA and atmospheric energy budgets. The surface flux over land is from a stand-alone simulation of the Community Land Model forced by observed fields. In the extratropics, absorbed solar radiation (ASR) achieves a maximum in summer with peak values near the solstices. Outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) maxima also occur in summer but lag ASR by 1–2 months, consistent with temperature maxima over land. In the tropics, however, OLR relates to high cloud variations and peaks late in the dry monsoon season, while the OLR minima in summer coincide with deep convection in the monsoon trough at the height of the rainy season. Most of the difference between the TOA radiation and atmospheric energy storage tendency is made up by a large heat flux into the ocean in summer and out of the ocean in winter. In the Northern Hemisphere, the transport of energy from ocean to land regions is substantial in winter, and modest in summer. In the Southern Hemisphere extratropics, land ocean differences play only a small role and the main energy transport by the atmosphere and ocean is poleward. There is reasonably good agreement between F o and observed changes in OE, except for south of 40°S, where differences among several ocean datasets point to that region as the main source of errors in achieving an overall energy balance. The winter hemisphere atmospheric circulation is the dominant contributor to poleward energy transports outside of the tropics [6–7 PW (1 petawatt 10 15 W)], with summer transports being relatively weak (3 PW)—slightly more in the Southern Hemisphere and slightly less in the Northern Hemisphere. Ocean transports outside of the tropics are found to be small (2 PW) for all months. Strong cross-equatorial heat transports in the ocean of up to 5 PW exhibit a large annual cycle in phase with poleward atmospheric transports of the winter hemisphere.


A novel synthetic route for the formation of ruthenium complexes [Ru(κ2-OAc)2(PR3)2] 1 has been developed. These complexes have been used to investigate the stoichiometric formation of geminal alkenes from the reaction of triphenylphosphine complex [Ru(κ2-OAc)2(PPh3)2] 1a with propargylic alcohols. It was found that the reaction was promoted by the use of the bulky, electron-rich triisopropylphosphine. This lead to the proposal that the mechanism involves a cationic intermediate and the suggested structure of this intermediate was vinyl carbene [Ru(κ2 OAc)(OC{Me}OCC{H}=CH2)(PPh3)2][BF4] 26.
A series of analogues of 26 were synthesised and their reactivity investigated. Whilst no evidence was obtained of their being involved in the transformation of propargylic alcohols to alkenes, it was found that their reactivity can be tuned by changing the substituents on the vinyl moiety. Deprotonation leads to the formation of either the allenylidene complex [Ru(κ2-OAc)(κ1-OAc)(PPh3)2(=C=C=CPh2)] 30 or the vinyl vinylidene complexes [Ru(κ2-OAc)(κ1-OAc)(PPh3)2(=C=CH-C(R)=CH2)] 32 (R = Ph, Me). A theoretical investigation into this reaction has led to the suggestion that vinyl carbene complexes like 26 could be important reaction intermediates in the formation of allenylidenes from propargylic alcohols.
The reactivity of 1a towards the triphenylphosphine-substituted alkyne [HC≡CCH2PPh3]+ 39 has also been investigated. It has been found that this propargylic phosphonium is particularly prone to isomerisation to its allene isomer [H2C=C=CHPPh3]+ 40 and, as a result, reaction with organometallic precursors leads primarily to the formation of the allene complexes [Ru(κ2 OAc)(κ1 OAc)(η2 H2C=C=CHPPh3)(PPh3)2][BF4] 45a and [RhCl(η2 H2C=C=CHPPh3)(PiPr3)2][BPh4] 60. Experimental and theoretical investigations have concluded that the isomerisation is spontaneous (the allene is 37 kJ mol-1 more stable than the alkyne) and not metal promoted. It is however counter-ion dependant and use of the tetraphenylborate salt 39c slows the process enough for novel vinylidene complexes [Ru(κ2-OAc)(κ1-OAc)(C=C=CHCH2PPh3)(PPh3)2][BPh4] 38 and [RhCl(C=C=CHCH2PPh3)(PiPr3)2][BPh4] 63 to be synthesised.


The morphogenesis of pulmonary edema and bronchiolar injury induced by the toxic furan, 4-ipomeanol, was studied by combined light and transmission electron microscopy. Weanling male CD-1 mice received 47 mg 4-ipomeanol/kg body weight by intraperitoneal injection and were studied at intervals from 2 to 360 hours after treatment. Interstitial edema associated with damaged endothelial cells was observed as early as 2 hours after treatment. The most severe endothelial damage was observed from 12 to 24 hours after treatment and occurred in association with alveolar edema. Capillary endothelial cell damage was characterized by marked dilation of endoplasmic reticulum and perinuclear envelopes, marked swelling of mitochondria, separation of cytoplasmic processes from other endothelial cells and their basal laminae, and occasional disruptions in the plasmalemma. Endothelial cell lesions in small caliber veins were similar but less pronounced as compared with the alterations observed in capillary endothelium. Minimal changes were present in alveolar epithelial cells. Damage to nonciliated bronchiolar epithelial cells was first observed at 4 hours after injection. The most severe changes in nonciliated cells occurred from 36 to 48 hours after treatment and included swelling of endoplasmic reticulum, necrosis, and sloughing. There was also necrosis and sloughing of ciliated bronchiolar epithelial cells. Endothelial and bronchiolar epithelial repair and resolution of the alveolar edema were complete by 240 hours after treatment. It is concluded that the endothelium lining capillaries and small veins, in addition to the nonciliated bronchiolar epithelial cell, are early targets in the development of 4-ipomeanol toxicity in the mouse and that the endothelial cell injury plays a major role in the development of pulmonary edema in this species. The results further suggest the possibility that pulmonary endothelial cells have the capability of metabolizing xenobiotic compounds such as 4-ipomeanol to form ultimate toxins.


Epithelial cells are characterised by distinct apical and basolateral membrane domains that are separated by tight junctions. Establishment and maintenance of this polarity depend on specific gene expression and protein targeting to their correct location. Our former studies, performed with renal epithelial MDCK cells, revealed a new function for galectin-3, a member of a conserved family of lectins. There, galectin-3 is required for intracellular sorting and correct targeting of non-raft-associated glycoproteins to the apical plasma membrane. In the present study, we found transport defects of the intestinal brush border hydrolases lactase-phlorizin hydrolase (LPH) and dipeptidylpeptidase IV (DPPIV) in galectin-3-null mutant mice. We could show that, in enterocytes of wild-type mice, both glycoproteins directly interact with galectin-3 and transit through non-raft-dependent apical transport platforms. Therefore, this genetic analysis provides definitive evidence for the involvement of galectin-3 in protein intracellular trafficking in vivo. Further investigations revealed that gal3-null enterocytes also exhibit striking cytoarchitecture defects, with the presence of numerous and regular protrusions located along basolateral membranes. Moreover, β-actin and villin, two characteristic markers of brush borders, become abnormally distributed along these atypical basolateral membranes in gal3–/– mice. Taken together, our results demonstrate that, in addition to a pivotal role in apical trafficking, galectin-3 also participates in epithelial morphogenesis in mouse enterocytes.


Piperine is an alkaloid isolated from piper nigrum Linn (family: piperaceae) a natural bioenhancer. It enhances the bioavailability of drugs by inhibiting cytochrome p450 enzyme. Atorvastatin is a lipid lowering agent. It has approximately 12% bioavailability. Hence, the objective of present study is to enhance bioavailability of atorvastatin using piperine as a bioenhancer. The study was carried out to formulate bilayered tablets of atorvastatin with different concentration of piperine using superdisintegrants (sodium starch glycolate, croscarmellose sodium, crospovidone) by direct compression method. The prepared formulation was subjected to evaluation for hardness, weight variation, friability, content uniformity, invitro release studies. Among all the formulation F3 containing piperine (15mg), sodium starch glycolate, microcrystalline cellulose and magnesium stearate is considered as the best formulation when compared to all other formulations and compared with the marketed formulation of atorvastatin (Lipitor)


In this work we describe a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to accurately predict image quality without a reference image. Taking image patches as input, the CNN works in the spatial domain without using hand-crafted features that are employed by most previous methods. The network consists of one convolutional layer with max and min pooling, two fully connected layers and an output node. Within the network structure, feature learning and regression are integrated into one optimization process, which leads to a more effective model for estimating image quality. This approach achieves state of the art performance on the LIVE dataset and shows excellent generalization ability in cross dataset experiments. Further experiments on images with local distortions demonstrate the local quality estimation ability of our CNN, which is rarely reported in previous literature.


Concentration index filter is a kind of spatial filters of images, and its typical application is diagnosis from medical images. This paper presents a dedicated computing engine for concentration index filtering. Original algorithm is modified to extract full parallelism and data width is optimized for maximizing clock speed and minimizing hardware scale. Evaluation results reveal that the system runs 100 times faster than current workstation and enables real-time diagnosis.


The main aim of the paper is to introduce a common methodology for case study accessibility analysis presented in the following chapters. Background information concerning the TRACC ESPON project is presented and a justification for the selection of case studies is provided. Finally, the generalised results of the in-depth analysis, conducted for particular case studies, are presented and compared.


It is essential to write requirements for every system. They specify what the system is to do, and they are not supposed to say how the system is to achieve those results - that is the responsibility of the design. Requirements must be readable by the different stakeholders. But in addition, they must define exactly and completely the system behaviour. Therefore, they must be consistent. To ensure this last property, the only solution is to use formal methods. But formal notations are recognized as being unreadable and difficult to apply by the customer. We propose a method for the elicitation of requirements and the expression of formal specifications. The approach, expressed in a five-step process, does not introduce a new language but builds on known techniques: the UML semi-formal technique and the B formal technique. It gives methodological support for requirements elicitation and specification development, including the definition of the system tests. The approach is developed on a vending machine case study.


Abstract Static allometries determine how organ size scales in relation to body mass. The extent to which these allometric relationships are free to evolve, and how they differ among closely related species, has been debated extensively and remains unclear; changes in intercept appear common, but changes in slope are far rarer. Here, we compare the scaling relationships that govern the structure of compound eyes of four closely related ant species from the genus Formica. Comparison among these species revealed changes in intercept but not slope in the allometric scaling relationships governing eye area, facet number, and mean facet diameter. Moreover, the scaling between facet diameter and number was conserved across all four species. In contrast, facet diameters from distinct regions of the compound eye differed in both intercept and slope within a single species and when comparing homologous regions among species. Thus, even when species are conservative in the scaling of whole organs, they can differ substantially in regional scaling within organs. This, at least partly, explains how species can produce organs that adhere to genus wide scaling relationships while still being able to invest differentially in particular regions of organs to produce specific features that match their ecology.


In this paper, we present an enhanced Pictorial Structure (PS) model for precise eye localization, a fundamental problem involved in many face processing tasks. PS is a computationally efficient framework for part-based object modelling. For face images taken under uncontrolled conditions, however, the traditional PS model is not flexible enough for handling the complicated appearance and structural variations. To extend PS, we 1) propose a discriminative PS model for a more accurate part localization when appearance changes seriously, 2) introduce a series of global constraints to improve the robustness against scale, rotation and translation, and 3) adopt a heuristic prediction method to address the difficulty of eye localization with partial occlusion. Experimental results on the challenging LFW (Labeled Face in the Wild) database show that our model can locate eyes accurately and efficiently under a broad range of uncontrolled variations involving poses, expressions, lightings, camera qualities, occlusions, etc.


The authors of this article have been writing together about practitioner research and inquiry for more than 25 years. In this article, they trace the roots of this interest to their work with K-12 teachers and school leaders over many years and their dissatisfaction with the idea that external researchers produce all the knowledge necessary to change teaching, learning and schooling. The article also highlights the notion of "inquiry as stance," which contrasts with the idea that inquiry is a project or a problem-solving technique.


A case of pulmonary arteriovenous fistula (PAVF) complicated by brain abscess is presented. The incidence of this complication has been quoted to be 1-5%. After reviewing all inpatients in Chang Gung Memorial Hospital from 1977 to 1988, we found a total of 9 cases of PAVF; only one case of PAVF complicated by brain abscess was noted. PAVF is often asymptomatic in the early stage, and its diagnosis may sometimes be quite difficult. However, untreated PAVF tends to enlarge and become symptomatic. There is also a continuing risk of severe neurologic complications. For these reasons, early diagnosis and treatment are essential. In a case of brain abscess associated with unexplained hypoxemia and extra-cardiac murmur on auscultation, PAVF should be considered.


The serum concentration of YKL-40, a matrix protein of specific granules in neutrophils, was determined by RIA in 90 patients hospitalized with pneumonia of suspected bacterial origin. Of these, 64 were followed prospectively during antibiotic treatment with blood samples taken on day 0 (on admission and the start of treatment) and on days 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, and 21. Serum YKL-40 at admission was increased in patients with Streptococcus pneumoniae pneumonia (median, 893 microgram/L; 95% confidence interval [CI], 704-1560), compared with healthy subjects (median, 102 microgram/L; 95% CI, 64-247 microgram/L; P<.001) and in patients with pneumonia of unknown etiology (median, 448 microgram/L; 95% CI, 334-700; P<.05). Peak YKL-40 serum values were observed on day 1 and thereafter declined steeply to almost normal by day 3. During the first 10 days, there was a close relation between serum YKL-40 and markers of specific granules of neutrophils (serum lactoferrin and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin), which suggests that serum YKL-40 reflects exocytosis of specific granules of neutrophils in persons with acute bacterial pneumonia.