Reducing and eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities has become a national research priority. This research agenda requires new research frameworks that encompass the social determinants of health and the translation pathways of these social contexts into physiological morbidity. Within these sociobiological research frameworks, identity and emotions are seen as crucial links in the causal pathways from stressors to biological responses. In this country, the lived social reality of African American individuals is experienced through the color of their skin. Their identity is bound with the racial inequities of our society. It has been suggested that the emotions of anger and frustration resulting from this institutionalized racial discrimination are an emotional causative pathway to the pathophysiology contributing to the health disparities experienced by African Americans. However, as much as we espouse the concept of cultural competency in health care, until recently, there has been very little honest dialogue about how race and racism influences health. This article will explore the Black-White cultural perception gap and attempt to provide insight on the relationship to African American health and implications for health disparities research.


Higher heat flux is produced by Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) because of their reduced size and increased clock speed. At the mean time, studies of non-uniform heating conditions which are more practical than uniform heating conditions are inadequate and needed urgently. Four nonuniform heating conditions are simulated in the paper. Three heat sinks with different widths of cross-linked channels locating above the center of hotspots are studied and compared to conventional straight microchannel heat sink. Half of the module geometry is chosen to be the computational domain. Two hotspots are placed at the bottom surface. The coolant is water, whose properties are dependent on temperature. Two inlet velocities, 0.5 m/s and 1 m/s, are tested for each heat sink. Temperature profile at the hotspots, pressure drop and total thermal resistance are selected as criteria of evaluating heat sink performance. All heat sinks have better performance when there is an upstream hotspot or the upstream hotspot is subjected to a higher heat flux. Cross-linked channel width of 0.5 mm has the best benefit to obtain better temperature uniformity without increasing the maximum temperature on the bottom surface.Copyright © 2011 by ASME


ABSTRACT This study investigates the changes in social network types among older adults in South Korea, and it examines whether, and to what extent, these changes influence their health and psychological wellbeing. Data were obtained from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing. The sample was restricted to respondents over 65 years of age who participated in both the 2006 and 2008 surveys (N = 3,501). The social network types for both years were derived by Latent Class Analysis. Changes in network types over time were then identified. A series of multivariate regression analyses were conducted to examine the effects of social network changes on self-rated health, depressive symptoms and life satisfaction. Restricted, Family, Friend and Diverse network types were derived in each wave of the study. Although the direction of social network changes was not always towards the Restricted type, the Restricted network was the most prevalent and stable type among older Koreans. Older adults who remained in or transitioned to restricted types of social networks were more likely to have poor self-rated health, higher levels of depressive symptoms and lower levels of life satisfaction. This study adds to the limited body of literature on longitudinal network typology, and it expands the knowledge of social network types among older adults in diverse social and cultural contexts.


1 Blamey RW, Elston CW, Ellis 10, Morgan DAL, Maybittle JL. Node negative breast cancer. Br Med J 1990;300:1137. (28 April.) 2 Delides GS, GarasG, Georgouli G, etal. Interlaboratory variations in the grading of breast cancer. Arch Pathol Lab Med 1982;106: 126-8. 3 O'Reilly SM, Richards MA. Node negative breast cancer. BrMedJ 1989;300:346-8. (10 February.) 4 Leslie MD, Maher EJ. Node negative breast cancer. Br Med J 1990;300:749. (17 March.) 5 Early BreastCancerTrialists' Group. Effect ofadjuvant tamoxifen and of cytotoxic therapy on mortality in early breast cancer. N EngljMed 1988;319:1681-92. 6 O'Reilly SM, Camplejohn RS, Barnes DM, Millis RR, Rubens RD, Richards MA. Node negative breast cancer: prognostic subgroups defined by tumour size and flow cytometry. J Clin Oncol (in press).


In this survey article, we introduce a differential Batalin-Vilkovisky algebra structure on the Moore spectral sequence converging the Hochschild cohomology of the singular cochain algebra of a Poincar\'e duality space.


Cortical brain tumors are frequently accompanied by epilepsy correlated with alterations of rhythmic brain activities such as specific spiking trains and slow waves. Given that, frankly epileptic spikes cannot be detected in a large part of epileptogenic tumors unless undertaking long monitoring EEG recordings. Moreover, considering the relevance in monitoring the epileptogenic potential of the brain tumors in a surgical setting, we investigated, in the present study the possibility that abnormal low frequency magnetic activity (ALFMA), recorded by Magnetoencephalography (MEG) can be of some help in mapping epileptogenic brain tumors, even in absence of clear-cut epileptogenic spiking activity.


The rearing of two pups to weaning is a rare occurrence in pinnipeds and in many cases it remains unknown whether it is a result of twinning or fostering. This study followed two cases where female New Zealand fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri) raised two pups, at a colony in Kaikoura, New Zealand. Maternal attendance behaviour was observed, mass and condition of the pups were measured and genetic samples were collected to assess relatedness. In one case, the female gave birth to twins, while the other case was found to be fostering of a second pup. In both cases, the filial pups of each female exhibited significantly lower mass, condition and growth rates than the colony average. The twins' mother reared both pups to weaning and did not appear to spend a different amount of time ashore compared with single-pup mothers. The current study confirms both fostering and twinning in New Zealand fur seals, with the potential for successfully raising the pups to weaning, despite their well developed recognition system and the energy costs involved.


In this paper, a solution to the approximate tracking problem of sampled‐data systems with uncertain, time‐varying sampling intervals and delays is presented. Such time‐varying sampling intervals and delays can typically occur in the field of networked control systems. The uncertain, time‐varying sampling and network delays cause inexact feedforward, which induces a perturbation on the tracking error dynamics, for which a model is presented in this paper. Sufficient conditions for the input‐to‐state stability (ISS) of the tracking error dynamics with respect to this perturbation are given. Hereto, two analysis approaches are developed: a discrete‐time approach and an approach in terms of delay impulsive differential equations. These ISS results provide bounds on the steady‐state tracking error as a function of the plant properties, the control design and the network properties. Moreover, it is shown that feedforward preview can significantly improve the tracking performance and an online extremum seeking (nonlinear programming) algorithm is proposed to online estimate the optimal preview time. The results are illustrated on a mechanical motion control example showing the effectiveness of the proposed strategy and providing insight into the differences and commonalities between the two analysis approaches. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Geology![Figure][1]

CREDIT: © LEIGHSMITHIMAGES/ALAMY

In the channeled scablands of eastern Washington State, great ripples and scoured rock, visible by satellite, mark periodic massive flood outbursts from a dammed glacial lake. Their recognition early in the 20th century revealed the huge scale of flooding that can occur on Earth and has influenced understanding of even larger flood features on Mars. The floods moved across the rough but low topography in the east and then had to drain through the high Cascade volcanic arc along the Columbia River gorge. Denlinger and O'Connell simulated several of the floods to reveal how rapidly the waters moved and how they scoured the landscape. The model, which starts with the detailed topography of the region and likely positions of the ice sheets, suggests that the floods surged westward, filling the Yakima Basin east of the Cascades to several hundred meters within 38 hours. Drainage through the Columbia Gorge was slower, taking about 3 weeks. Drainage of a single large lake, rather than multiple lakes, would have been sufficient to have formed the scablands.

Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 122 , 678 (2010).

 [1]: pending:yes


BACKGROUND
Geocoding electronic health records (EHRs) provides novel insights for clinicians, but it is important to understand and address key issues, including privacy and protection of patient records, in order to realize potential benefits.

METHODS
This paper discusses the issues surrounding geocoding and illustrates potential benefits through 3 case studies of no-shows to clinical appointments, patient analysis for a merged clinic site, and multi-clinic patient overlap.

CONCLUSION
Geocoding EHRs provides a new contextual understanding for clinicians to understand patients and provide targeted interventions that patients can implement. While geocoding EHRs presents a need for high data security, the benefits outweigh the risks when proper protections are observed.


Different properties of quark chemistry are studied by performing accurate ab initio Hartree-Fock calculations on fractionally nuclear charged atoms. Ground and first excited states of sodium atoms with quarks attached to the nucleus are obtained using CI calculations. It is suggested that the sodium 2P ® 2S electronic transition can be used as a guide in searching for unconfined quarks. Also, the variation of the binding electronic energy with nuclear charge in the isoelectronic series of fractionally nuclear charged atoms A±2/3 and A±1/3 (A = H, Li, Na, P and Ca) is analyzed. The present calculations suggest that unconfined colored particles have large appetite for heavy nuclei and that quark-antiquark pairs could be stabilized in presence of the atomic matter.


This paper proposes a new architecture for speaker adaptation of multi-speaker neural-network speech synthesis systems, in which an unseen speaker's voice can be built using a relatively small amount of speech data without transcriptions. This is sometimes called "unsupervised speaker adaptation". More specifically, we concatenate the layers to the audio inputs when performing unsupervised speaker adaptation while we concatenate them to the text inputs when synthesizing speech from text. Two new training schemes for the new architecture are also proposed in this paper. These training schemes are not limited to speech synthesis, other applications are suggested. Experimental results show that the proposed model not only enables adaptation to unseen speakers using untranscribed speech but it also improves the performance of multi-speaker modeling and speaker adaptation using transcribed audio files.


Three hypertensive men with end-stage primary renal disease were hemodynamically evaluated before and 3 to 4 weeks after bilateral nephrectomy and before and after 6 hours of hemodialysis with the twin coil artificial kidney. Conclusions include the following: (1) The height of the blood pressure and changes in plasma volume (P.V.) are not necessarily directly related in the early renoprival state. (2) Increased total peripheral resistance (TPR) plays an important role in maintaining elevation of blood pressure after nephrectomy. (3) We cannot document that bilateral nephrectomy has a beneficial effect on the hypertension of chronic renal failure during the first month of the anephric state. (4) Renin is not involved in maintaining elevated blood pressure after nephrectomy. (5) Increased sensitivity to ganglionic blockade may follow nephrectomy if P.V. decreases. (6) No evidence supports the existence of a "cardiodepressor" substance in uremia. (7) Increased blood pressure occasionally seen during hemodialysis is probably related to several factors (increased cardiac output, increased TPR). (8) P.V. may fall during hemodialysis even though body weight is maintained constant. (9) If P.V. is unchanged across hemodialysis, cardiac output usually does not change.


95 The Asleep-Awake-Asleep Technique for Craniotomy in a Pregnant Woman Abstract Type: Case Report/Case Series Catherine Cha, M.D.; Emily Methangkool, M.D.; Victor F. Duval, M.D. University of California Los AngelesType: Case Report/Case Series Catherine Cha, M.D.; Emily Methangkool, M.D.; Victor F. Duval, M.D. University of California Los Angeles Introduction: The Asleep-Awake-Asleep technique provides patient comfort while creating ideal surgical conditions for functional brain mapping during resection of lesions near the eloquent cortex. A broad range of conditions must be considered for successful anesthesia management. In this case, the technique was tailored for a patient in her 3rd trimester of pregnancy. Case Report: A 40 year old G2P0 previously healthy female in her 31st week of pregnancy presented with 3 weeks of word finding difficulties. An MRI showed a left frontal lobe hemorrhagic lesion located near the precentral gyrus, suspicious for tumor or cavernous angioma. Neurosurgery recommended immediate excision of the lesion. Several options were presented, including waiting until after delivery or a cesarean section prior to surgery. After discussion of the risks and benefits, the patient and her family chose to proceed with surgery. The Asleep-Awake-Asleep technique was modified to account for maternal physiology and fetal well-being. An awake nasal fiberoptic intubation was performed in the sitting position. Mannitol was infused over 1 hour and the PaCO2 was maintained at 35 mmHg. Fetal well-being was monitored via continuous fetal heart rate, and tocodynomometer monitoring. Awake functional brain mapping was uneventful. The patient was discharged 9 days after an uneventful postoperative course. The baby was delivered at 38+2 weeks gestation, via a scheduled cesarean section under epidural anesthesia. She had significant improvement of her language deficits. Discussion: We have not found a prior report of intraoperative awake functional brain mapping in a pregnant patient. Intracranial lesions during pregnancy can be managed by delaying surgery, Caesarian section followed by surgery, or surgery followed by Caesarian section at term. An aggressive course of treatment was recommended for this patient as she presented with a symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage. In addition to addressing the common complications of awake functional brain mapping, such as respiratory compromise, agitation, shivering, seizures, and nausea, the anesthesia was adjusted to account for physiologic changes in the 3rd trimester as well as fetal well-being. An awake nasal fiberoptic intubation was chosen due to the risk of difficult airways in pregnant women and because patients tolerate nasal tube exchangers better during awake speech testing. Mannitol was infused slowly to minimize the risk of fetal dehydration, and the PaCO2 was adjusted to 35 mmHg to reflect the normal compensatory alkalosis of pregnancy. Administration of dexamethasone was unlikely to cause fetal adrenal suppression and was given to minimize neurogenic edema. Although continuous fetal heart rate monitoring was used, drug induced variability is common during anesthesia. This patient had an excellent Result of her intracranial resection using the Asleep-Awake-Asleep technique.


PURPOSE
Premature births have a great impact on the parents. The purpose of this study was to investigate the anxieties of parents of premature infants regarding infantile diseases and to help medical staff better communicate with parents of premature infants.

DESIGN AND METHODS
This study included premature infants <37 weeks of age who were admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Kosin University Gospel Hospital between August 1, 2017, and December 31, 2017. The eligible subjects included 51 premature infants with their 75 parents (45 mothers and 30 fathers) listed in the children's medical records. Parental anxieties regarding the infants were determined by retrospective interviews at various time points as follows: before and after the birth, on postnatal Days 3 and 7, before discharge, in the first week after discharge, and at "whenever" time point.

RESULTS
The highest parental anxiety during all time points was regarding the respiratory system of the premature infants. Parental concerns regarding the metabolic-endocrine system of their infants significantly correlated with the presence of maternal diabetes mellitus. Parental anxiety significantly differed depending on the use of resuscitation after birth. A statistically significant difference in parental anxiety was observed in relation to the birth weight before discharge. The premature infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia showed a significant difference in the level of parental anxiety concerning the infant's illness in the first week after discharge.

CONCLUSIONS
The parents of the premature infants were greatly concerned about their infants' respiratory system. Careful prenatal counseling and support are needed for mothers with diabetes.


In the new competitive electricity markets, accurate forecast of electricity prices is valuable for both producers and consumers. Due to the volatility of electricity price signal and limited available information, there is an essential need to accurate and robust forecasting methods for the price prediction. In this paper a data mining technique, mutual information, is proposed for the feature selection of price forecasting. Then, by means of the selected features, a neural network (NN) predicts the next values of the price signal. The whole proposed method (MI+NN) is examined on the day-ahead electricity market of PJM. The obtained results are compared with the results of some other price forecast methods and especially the other feature selection techniques. This comparison indicates the validity of the developed approach.


The focus in this thesis is on the acquisition of static and dynamic capabilities in LDC industry. This has been studied in small industries in Tanzania, which were started through international technology transfer, in which small producing firms from Sweden acted as technology suppliers (The Sister Industry Programme). The data has been collected during an eight-year period, beginning from the start of the first projects in Tanzania in 1978. In total, interviews have been conducted in 22 Tanzanian firms and 18 Swedish firms, supplemented by interviews with authorities and consultants. An in-depth study of acquired capabilities was carried out in 1983, forming the basis for an assessment of the technology transfer programme. An analytical scheme was made for the analysis of static and dynamic technological and managerial capabilities. These include production/administrative and inventive/entrepreneurial capabilities. Furthermore, during the course of the research, a method was developed for estimating the dynamic long-term effects in terms of magnitude of the capability contribution from the international technology transfer project. It was found that capability acquisition is a complex and long-term process, of which an international technology transfer project is only one step. Previous industrial experience is essential in order to benefit from an overseas training programme. While small scale industries were shown to be excellent in transferring production capabilities, they were less successful in the transfer of administrative and dynamic capabilities. This was primarily due to their inherent weakness of having a shortage of qualified personnel for training activities. However, through long-term cooperation, initially based on a contract and later developing in to a business relationship, and recurrent training periods in Sweden, it has been shown that several of the small Tanzanian firms have been able to acquire substantial stocks of dynamic capabilities. The Swedish firm has thus supplied the Tanzanian firms with new information and knowledge, having the double function of compensating for weaknesses in the local Tanzanian network and sometimes serving as a link to an international market. Based on these findings, the present study also makes some additions to the conceptualization of the infant industry process. Lastly, recommendations are provided for improving a sister industry type of technology transfer.


Starting from Lyotard's definition of Kantian reflection as "judgment repercussion", my contribution aims to describe the logical side of this repercussion. To do this, I will focus on Kant's concept of "judgment", explaining it as the logical act of constitution of experience. I will then point out how judgment involves sensibility for its self-affection and restriction to sensibility. Finally, I'll give a nominal explication of Kant's concept of Zweckmäßigkeit, returning to Lyotard's interpretation. The purpose, in so doing, is to offer to Lyotard's key concept a logical validation, finding its foundation in the Critique of pure Reason itself. And thus to gain an aesthetical definition of Judgment principle, to read the third Critique.


This chapter traces the development of the SEC's use of Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD) to address information asymmetry in the securities markets. The chapter describes the SEC's developing enforcement policy and notes, in particular, the SEC's efforts, through its selection and settlement of Regulation FD cases, to provide guidance to corporations and corporate officials about areas of key concern. The chapter concludes by highlighting current areas of particular importance, including disclosure of information through private meetings and the implications of technological innovations such as the internet and social media. The chapter is forthcoming in Research Handbook on Insider Trading (Stephen Bainbridge, editor).


Rose presents data on 32,675 presumed death squad murders culled from a newspaper in each state. Rose is to be applauded for trying to study this topic in a social scientifi c way. However, his method of classifying the death squad murders, as well as his interpretation of them, is open to question. In order to be included in Rose's data base, victims had to have several (how many is not clear) of 24 keys (237–238), including that the bullets came from revolvers used by the police, a death squad symbol was left on or near the corpse, and so on. However, the revolvers that police use circulate widely in Brazil, and death squad symbols do not really settle the question of who was responsible for the killing. Rose's keys do not exclude internecine killings between rival gangs or individuals. It is therefore not clear whether all of the violence that Rose analyzes is really "elite violence" committed for purposes of social control. Much of it may have been violence within the lower classes, at times aided and abetted by different factions within the police. While it could be said that elites ultimately benefi t from this kind of violence, this does not fi t the hierarchical model of violence descending from elites through sub-elites to the lower classes presented at the beginning of the book. The book ends with an anecdote from a visit to Brazil in 1832 by Charles Darwin, in which Darwin disgustedly describes a slave readying himself to receive a blow, unprepared even to defend himself. This is a curious note to strike, because it reinforces the book's depiction of the Brazilian poor as defenseless victims without agency, mere fodder for the elites' killing machines (or "human rubbish," 231). Yet the Brazilian lower classes are no longer, if they ever were, only "seen but not heard" (201). Their resistance and agency have wrought important changes in Brazil. Rose's neglect of this other aspect of the relationship between elites, sub-elites, and the lower classes results in a one-sided depiction of violence that is the main limitation of this carefully-documented and erudite book.


Author(s): Diddi, Varish | Advisor(s): Asbeck, Peter | Abstract: In order to meet the increasing demand of high data rate mobile broadband communication, newer standards increasingly employ spectrally efficient high order modulation schemes, which lead to large peak-to-average ratio (PAPR) of transmitted signals. To drive down the cost and form factor, a significant portion of the active circuitry in today's commercial handsets is implemented in silicon CMOS technology – except for the power amplifier (PA). Silicon technology comes with low breakdown voltage, however, limiting the output power of the PA. Recent work has shown that series-connection of Si FETs (the "Stacked-FET" technique) can overcome the breakdown issue of silicon CMOS FETs to implement high power PAs. This can enable the use of scaled CMOS technology nodes which are optimized for digital logic circuits, to implement high performance PAs. The PAs, moreover, can make use of the digital circuits available to produce compact integrated circuits that are less dependent on microwave matching techniques than their counterparts. This work investigates the design and implementation of high output power, digitally-intensive PA CMOS architectures and their extensions for wireless transmitters that are highly efficient, even for signals with high peak-to-average ratio.In the first part of this work, a digitally modulated PA (DPA) is implemented in polar architecture on 180 nm CMOS SOI technology. The amplitude modulation input signal is a 10-bit digital word controlling the number of active unit cells – each unit cell being a stacked FET PA. The DPA is also driven by a constant amplitude phase modulated (PM) signal centered at RF. The demonstrated DPA provides output power of 1.45 W at 900 MHz with drain efficiency of 65.9%. The power and efficiency are adequate for use in cellular handsets for 3G and 4G standards. The DPA can transmit WCDMA and LTE signals at 900 MHz and is functional from 800 MHz to 2.4 GHz with different matching networks. This DPA is a multi-band, multi-standard PA and is used as a building block for additional designs in this work.The back-off efficiency enhancement of PA is critical to efficiently transmit signals of high PAPR from hand-sets. In the second part of the work, two identical DPAs are used to implement a digitally modulated Doherty power amplifier (DDPA). This part of the work investigates the challenges and develops the techniques for achieving strong efficiency peaking in output power back-off for CMOS Doherty PAs at microwave frequencies. The output combiner needed within the Doherty architecture is realized using surface-mount components on a printed circuit board (PCB). Digital AM signals to both DPAs are independently provided as inputs. The phase difference between RF PM inputs of main and peaking DPAs can also be varied. The peak output power of CMOS DDPA at 900 MHz is g2 W (highest reported in the literature) with drain efficiency of 55.5%, while at 6 dB back-off the drain efficiency is 52.6%. The back-off efficiency and its improvement relative to class-B is highest reported in the literature for any CMOS Doherty implementation. The DDPA is demonstrated to transmit 5 MHz 64-QAM OFDM signal with very good linearity of ACPR better than -35.9 dB and EVM of 3.8%.For applications like femto-cell base-stations, where the power needed is large, technologies like Gallium Nitride (GaN) work better than silicon because of superior voltage handling. The challenge here lies in efficiently driving the GaN FETs. The DPA developed in this work can provide large enough voltage to directly drive the input of GaN FET, thanks to the use of FET stacking. A novel architecture is demonstrated in which the CMOS DPA drives the GaN FET, which is connected as a common gate stage, with no inter-stage matching. The GaN FET in turn drives a 50 Ω load directly. The absence of any impedance matching network (with its associated bandwidth limitation) makes this PA wideband. Key design aspects of this architecture, including bandwidth limitation caused by circuit parasitics, are discussed in this work. A digitally controlled PA with a combination of CMOS and GaN (Mitsubishi Electric 0.75 μm process) is demonstrated. The CMOS-GaN PA operates over a 2.4:1 frequency range for 1dB output power variation (500 MHz to 1.2 GHz); output power varies from 2.4 W to 3 W with efficiency between 48% to 74%. This PA is demonstrated to transmit 5 MHz, 64 QAM signal at various frequencies. These characteristics make this amplifier a candidate for application in femtocells and microcells.


This report describes the physical core of the new CMCC Earth System Model CMCC–CESM–NEMO. The model is largely based on the Community Earth System Model (CESM) project developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The ocean component of the CESM model has been replaced by the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean (NEMO) general circulation model, developed by an European consortium of modelling centers of which the CMCC is an active member. An overview of the CMCC–CESM–NEMO model is provided, together with a detailed description of the integration of NEMO into CESM and of the design of the physical coupling interface.


A point to multi-point physical-layer secure key generation and distribution (SKGD) scheme is proposed and demonstrated in passive optical networks (PONs), where the optical line terminal (OLT) broadcasts optical lights with fast fluctuating states of polarization (SOPs) to the optical network units (ONUs). The highly correlated key waveforms are shared between OLT and ONUs, and the high-level security of the SKGD scheme is guaranteed by the high sensitivity of SOP dynamics associated with the specific fiber links. As a proof of concept, a 3.9 Gb/s SKGD is achieved over 11 km single-mode fiber, where a Sagnac interferometer-based polarization scrambler is constructed as the high-speed random source. Moreover, the generated key sequences are verified to be error free and truly random. The proposed SKGD scheme offers a flexible solution for security enhancement in PONs, and is also compatible with the current PON infrastructure.


The detection of small biological molecules as antigens is always an interesting challenge as environmental controls in our society are more and more necessary. The coupling between electrochemical/gravimetric techniques appears very attractive for examining biosensitive films based on conducting polymers. The electrochemical performance of modified polypyrrole films was examined in this work by using the couple anti-human serum albumin (HSA)/HSA. Electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance used in the ac regime and electrochemical impedance allow the electrochemical subleties to be discovered, in particular the insertion law of the ions present in the electrolyte.


During the 90's with the operation of the Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO), Space Station Freedom (SSF), large platforms in polar and geosynchronus orbits around the Earth, and supporting systems and technology, an infrastructure will exist that will offer a wide range of opportunities for science and applications payloads. The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is in a unique position of studying for NASA science missions for all of these systems. This paper will discuss a variety of payloads being studied for NASA at the MSFC that are scheduled for flight in the 90's, in support of space science and Mission to Planet Earth. These science payloads such as the Controls, Astrophysics and Structures Experiment in Space (CASES), Advanced Solar Observatory (ASO), Laser Atmospheric Wind Sounder (LAWS), and Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS), etc. will fully utilize the capabilities of the EDO, SSF, Earth Observation System (EOS), and Earth Science Geostationary Platform (ESGP). Emphasis will be placed on showing how these scientific payloads can fully exploit the great potential of these new capabilities for exciting new science and application missions.


Rationale Recently Roflumilast (PDE4 inhibitor, Daxas®, Takeda) has been added as therapeutic option for severe COPD patients. The current study aims to 1) assess the mode of action 2) identify responder type of Roflumilast as add-on to LABA/LAMA/ICS therapy in severe COPD patients. Methods 41 patients were randomized to Roflumilast or placebo. At baseline and after 6m of treatment PFT, exercise tolerance tests (ETT) and functional respiratory imaging (FRI) were performed and patient reported outcomes (PRO) were measured. Results FEV1 did improve by 66±120ml (p=0.01) after Roflumilast as compared to baseline. Response was driven by a subset (n=8) of patients with a change in FEV1 g120ml (= measurement error of FEV1). Responders experienced worse dynamic hyperinflation during exercise at baseline compared to non-responders. FRI indicated regional changes in hyperinflation after Roflumilast leading to an improvement in PFT, PRO and ETT. Conclusions Roflumilast seems to reduce inflammation in the smaller airways resulting in reduced hyperinflation and changing internal airflow distribution (IAD). Changed IAD enhances deposition of LABA/LAMA/ICS leading to clinical improvements. Patients with dynamic hyperinflation tend to benefit from Roflumilast. These findings are relevant because 1) this is the first study to report effects of PDE4 inhibitor on top of ICS/LABA/LAMA; 2) sensitive, image-based endpoints provide insights in the mode of action of anti-inflammatory compounds and a basis for responder phenotyping. The current study provides hypotheses that need to be confirmed in larger clinical trials. This study was funded by Takeda.


Abstract Kornerupine, (□, Mg, Fe)(Al, Mg, Fe)9(Si, Al, B)5O21(OH, F), is known from only five mafic or ultramafic settings worldwide (of the >70 localities overall). We report a sixth occurrence from Akarui Point in the Lützow-Holm Complex, East Antarctica, where two ruby corundum (0.22–0.34 wt% Cr2O3)–plagioclase lenses are found at the same structural level as boudinaged ultrabasic rocks in hornblende gneiss and amphibolite. Ion microprobe analyses of kornerupine give 13–59 ppm Be, 181–302 ppm Li, and 5466–6812 ppm B, corresponding to 0.38–0.47 B per 21.5 O; associated sapphirine also contains B (588–889 ppm). Peak metamorphic conditions are estimated to be 770–790 °C and 7.7–9.8 kbar. Kornerupine encloses tourmaline and plagioclase, which suggests the prograde reaction tourmaline (1) + plagioclase (>An34)+ sapphirine±spinel→kornerupine+corundum (ruby)+plagioclase (<An82)±(fluid or melt). Alternatively, kornerupine and tourmaline could have formed sequentially under nearly constant P–T conditions during the infiltration of fluid that was originally B-bearing, but then progressively lost Na (or gained Ca) and B through reaction with mafic rocks. Kornerupine later reacted with H2O–CO2 fluid in cracks at P–T conditions in the andalusite stability field: kornerupine+plagioclase+(Na, K, ± Si in fluid)→tourmaline+biotite+corundum (sapphire)± magnesite±andalusite+(Ca in fluid). Secondary tourmaline differs from the included tourmaline in containing less Ti and having a higher Na/(Na+Ca+K) ratio. There are two possible scenarios for introducing B into the lenses: (1) infiltration of boron-bearing aqueous fluids released by prograde breakdown of muscovite in associated metasedimentary rocks; (2) hydrothermal alteration of mafic and ultramafic rocks by seawater prior to peak metamorphism. The latter scenario is consistent with an earlier suggestion that Akarui Point could be part of an ophiolite complex developed between the Yamato–Belgica and Rayner complexes.


Objective: To determine the factors responsible for termination of exclusive breast feeding in our population. Location and Duration: A cross sectional study was conducted at Combined Military Hospital Quetta, from February 2010 to June 2010. Study design: Cross-sectional study. Sample Size: A total of 620 mothers carrying healthy infants were interviewed. Inclusion Criteria: Mothers who failed to exclusively breast feed their infants within first six months of life and started supplemental feeds. Data Collection Procedure: A semi-structured, preformed questionnaire was filled containing information about mother's age, infant's sex and reasons for discontinuation of exclusive breast feeding. Data Analysis: Data was analyzed using SPSS version 18. Results: Mean maternal age was 25.87 years. Early failure was seen in 41.9% and late failure in 58.1% infants. Difficulties in initiating and establishing breast feeding (84%), knowledge deficit about breast feeding benefits (78.8%) and milk insufficiency (69.2%) were the main reasons for "early failure". Deficient knowledge about exclusive breast feeding which included its WHO definition of six months and its benefits (88.9%) was the most common reason of addition of weaning diets after 4 months of age. Other significant factors found for failure were working mothers (21.3%), premature delivery (13.5%), early second pregnancy (16.1%), and perception of poor weight gain by infant while exclusively breast fed (19.4%). Conclusion: Exclusive breastfeeding ensures the best possible health of an infant. Dedicated efforts are required at national level for dissemination and promotion of knowledge about exclusive breast feeding.


Abstract A study of creep cavities near reheat cracking in AISI Type 316H austenitic stainless steel headers, removed from prolonged high temperature operation in nuclear power plants, is reported. It is shown how application of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), cryogenic fractography and small angle neutron scattering (SANS) can be applied, in a complementary way, to observe and quantify creep cavitation. Creep cavities in the vicinity of the crack are found to be mainly surrounding inter-granular carbides. Trends in the size and area fraction of creep cavities relative to the crack path are quantified using optimised metallography. The SANS technique is found to be a very suitable method of quantifying creep cavitation within the size range up to 600 nm averaged over a larger gauge volume. It is shown that the cavity size distribution peaks in the region 100–300 nm, and this correlates closely with the quantitative SEM observations.


ABSTRACT Two Bacillus stearothermophilus wild-type strains were investigated regarding a common recognition and binding mechanism between the S-layer protein and the underlying cell envelope layer. The S-layer protein from B. stearothermophilusPV72/p6 has a molecular weight of 130,000 and assembles into a hexagonally ordered lattice. The S-layer from B. stearothermophilus ATCC 12980 shows oblique lattice symmetry and is composed of subunits with a molecular weight of 122,000. Immunoblotting, peptide mapping, N-terminal sequencing of the whole S-layer protein from B. stearothermophilus ATCC 12980 and of proteolytic cleavage fragments, and comparison with the S-layer protein from B. stearothermophilus PV72/p6 revealed that the two S-layer proteins have identical N-terminal regions but no other extended structurally homologous domains. In contrast to the heterogeneity observed for the S-layer proteins, the secondary cell wall polymer isolated from peptidoglycan-containing sacculi of the different strains showed identical chemical compositions and comparable molecular weights. The S-layer proteins could bind and recrystallize into the appropriate lattice type on native peptidoglycan-containing sacculi from both organisms but not on those extracted with hydrofluoric acid, leading to peptidoglycan of the A1γ chemotype. Affinity studies showed that only proteolytic cleavage fragments possessing the complete N terminus of the mature S-layer proteins recognized native peptidoglycan-containing sacculi as binding sites or could associate with the isolated secondary cell wall polymer, while proteolytic cleavage fragments missing the N-terminal region remained unbound. From the results obtained in this study, it can be concluded that S-layer proteins from B. stearothermophilus wild-type strains possess an identical N-terminal region which is responsible for anchoring the S-layer subunits to a secondary cell wall polymer of identical chemical composition.


When the visual environment changes, vision adapts in order to maintain accurate perception. For repeatedly encountered environmental changes, the visual system may learn to adjust immediately, a process called "visual mode switching". For example, following experience with red glasses, participants report the glasses' redness fades instantly when they put the glasses on. Here we tested: 1) whether once-daily experience suffices for learning to switch visual modes, and 2) whether effects of mode-switching apply to most stimuli affected by the environmental change. In Experiment 1, twelve participants wore bright red glasses for a single 5-hr period each day, for 5 days; and we tested for changes in the perception of unique yellow, which contains neither red nor green. In Experiment 2, we tested how mode switching affects larger parts of the color space. Thirteen participants donned and removed the glasses multiple times a day, for 5 days; and we used a dissimilarity rating task to measure and track perception of many different colors. Across days, immediately upon donning the glasses, the world appeared less and less reddish (Experiment 1), and colors across the whole color space appeared more and more normal (Experiment 2). These results indicate that mode switching can be learned from a once-daily experience, and it applies to most stimuli in a given environment. These findings may help to predict when and how mode switching occurs outside the laboratory.


Pathfinding elephants are moving through human dominated landscapes, often across international boundaries, thereby playing a vital role in connecting protected areas. Their movements are a call to action to not only understand their spatial requirements but to urgently work towards innovative ways to make people's livelihoods compatible with conservation outcomes so that coexistence and connected landscapes can prevail. We discuss the first three phases of a long-term strategy to conserve elephant corridors whilst incorporating the socio-economic needs of the people that share the landscape with them. We present a comprehensive satellite-tracking history of elephants across two transfrontier conservation areas (TFCA), represented by Great Limpopo- and Lubombo TFCAs and involving four countries (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Eswatini) to flag where linking corridors exist. We use innovative cafeteria-style experiments to understand which elephant-unpalatable plants would offer lucrative alternative income streams to farmers living in human–elephant-conflict hotspots. The most suitable unpalatable plants are chosen based not only on whether they are unpalatable to elephants, but also on their life history traits and growth prerequisites. We consider a combination of potential economic values (food, essential oil, medicinal and bee fodder value) to ensure that selected plants would accommodate changing economic markets. Lastly, we highlight the importance of combining food security measures with ensuring people's safety by means of deploying rapid-response units. By implementing these three phases as part of a longer-term strategy, we draw closer to ensuring the protection of bioregions to achieve biodiversity objectives at a landscape scale.


Objective The success of pharmacological randomised controlled trials (RCTs) depends on the recruitment of the required number of participants. Recruitment to RCTs for patients with cirrhosis and small oesophageal varices raises specific additional challenges. The objectives of the study were 1) to explore patient perspectives on factors that influence RCT recruitment, 2) to understand factors that influence the success of recruitment from a staff perspective, and 3) to identify opportunities for tailored interventions to improve trial recruitment in this context. Methods The qualitative study was embedded in a multi-centre blinded RCT (BOPPP trial) and was conducted alongside site opening. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with patients who enrolled to participate in the trial (n = 13), patients who declined to take part (n = 5), and staff who were responsible for recruiting participants to the trial (n = 18). An open approach to data collection and analysis was adopted and the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) was used to provide a theoretical lens through which to view influences on behaviour. Data was analysed using thematic analysis. Results The findings consist of 5 overarching themes that outline trial recruitment influences at the patient, staff, team, organisational and trial levels: i) patient risks and benefits ii) staff attitudes, knowledge and capacity, iii) team-based approach, iv) organisational context and v) Trial collective. Patient-generated themes map onto thirteen of the fourteen TDF domains and staff-generated themes map onto all TDF domains. The overarching themes are not mutually exclusive; with evidence of direct interactions between patient and staff-level themes that influence recruitment behaviours. Conclusions This study uses a theory-informed approach to gain new insights into improving clinical trial recruitment for patients with cirrhosis and small oesophageal varices. Although people with cirrhosis often display decreased healthcare-seeking behaviours, we found that patients used research to empower themselves to improve their health. Pragmatic trials involving unpredictable populations require staff expertise in building trust, and a deep knowledge of the patient group and their vulnerabilities. RCT recruitment is also more successful when research visits align with what staff identified as the natural rhythm of care. Trial registration ISRCTN10324656; https://clinicaltrials.gov/.


Extracellular vesicles are a heterogeneous family of vesicles, generated from different subcellular compartments and released into the extracellular space. Composed of a lipid bilayer encompassing both soluble cytosolic material and nuclear components, these organelles have been recently described as novel regulators of intercellular communication between adjacent and remote cells. Due to their diversified composition and biological content, they portray specific signatures of cellular activation and pathological processes, their potential as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers has raised significant interest in cardiovascular diseases. Circulating vesicles, especially those released from platelets, leukocytes, and endothelial cells are found to play a critical role in activating several fundamental cells within the vasculature, including endothelial cells and vascular smooth muscle cells. Their intrinsic activity and immunomodulatory properties lends them to not only promote vascular inflammation, but also enhance tissue regeneration, vascular repair, and indeed resolution. In this review we aim to recapitulate the recent findings concerning the roles played by EVs that originate from different circulating cells, with particular reference to their action on the endothelium. We focus herein, on the interaction of platelet and leukocyte EVs with the endothelium. In addition, their potential biological function in promoting tissue resolution and vascular repair will also be discussed.


Terminal selectors are transcription factors that control the morphological, physiological and molecular features that characterize distinct cell types. Here we use expression analyses and a transgenic reporter line to show that NvPOU4 is expressed in post-mitotic cells that give rise to a diverse set of neural cell types in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. We generated a loss-of-function allele by CRISPR/Cas9 and used additional transgenic reporter lines to show that the initial specification of neural cells is not affected in the NvPOU4 mutants. Analyses of transcriptomes derived from the mutants and from different neural cell populations revealed that NvPOU4 is required for the execution of the terminal differentiation program of these neural cells. These findings suggest that POU4 genes have ancient functions as terminal selectors for morphologically and functionally highly disparate types of neurons and they provide experimental support for the relevance of terminal selectors for understanding the evolution of cell types.


Two frequently used automated, blood pressure monitors, the Arteriosonde and the Dinamap, were compared with each other and with a standard mercury sphygmomanometer. Fifteen patients with elevated blood pressure were studied: 5 were untreated, 5 received a diuretic alone, and 5 received a beta blocker alone. One hundred and twenty blood pressure measurements were taken from each subject with two different instruments (one on each arm) in a 2 (supine or standing position) X 2 (left or right arm) X 3 (three different sets of pairwise instrument comparisons) X 5 (five one-minute interval measurements per phase) factorial design. A reasonable inter-instrument comparability for systolic blood pressure was found with mean deviations of +1.3 mmHg and -3.8 mmHg from the mercury sphygmomanometer for the Dinamap and Arteriosonde, respectively. Differences between instruments for diastolic pressure however, were significantly larger. The Arteriosonde systematically obtained higher diastolic pressure values (+7.4 mmHg) than the mercury sphygmomanometer or the Dinamap (10.7 mmHg). Diastolic pressure on the Dinamap was on average 5.2 mmHg lower than on the mercury sphygmomanometer. Left/right arm differences and differences for the treatment conditions were not observed. Findings clearly suggest that these two automated blood pressure monitors cannot be used interchangeably with each other or with the mercury sphygmomanometer in either a research or clinical setting. Overall the Dinamap approached mercury sphygmomanometer measures more closely than did the Arteriosonde.


Aim: The aim of the study was to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of microneedle mesotherapy in reducing skin discoloration. The results were analyzed using the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) method. Material and methods: The skin of the forearm (7 × 7 cm) of 12 women aged 29 to 68 was examined. Microneedle mesotherapy was performed using a dermapen with a preparation containing 12% ascorbic acid. Each of the volunteers underwent a series of four microneedle mesotherapy treatments. The effectiveness of the treatment was quantified using the methods of image analysis and processing. A series of clinical images were taken in cross-polarized light before and after a series of cosmetic procedures. Then, the treated areas were analyzed by determining the parameters of the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) algorithm: contrast and homogeneity. Results: During image pre-processing, the volunteers' clinical images were separated into red (R), green (G) and blue (B) channels. The photos taken after the procedure show an increase in skin brightness compared to the photos taken before the procedure. The average increase in skin brightness after the treatment was 10.6%, the average decrease in GLCM contrast was 10.7%, and the average homogeneity increased by 14.5%. Based on the analysis, the greatest differences in the GLCM contrast were observed during tests performed in the B channel of the RGB scale. With a decrease in GLCM contrast, an increase in postoperative homogeneity of 0.1 was noted, which is 14.5%.


Athletes heart is a left ventricular adaptation to long-term, intensive training which includes changes as increased cavity diameter, wall thickness and mass. Even if the standard 2-dimensional echocardiography represents an irreplaceable method in the evaluation of cardiac adaptations to physical exercise, the data currently available suggests the usefulness of Doppler Myocardial Imaging (DMI) in the assessment of the myocardial systolic and diastolic function of the athletes heart. In particular, DMI analysis in the trained subject has demonstrated interesting prospective for : 1) the differential diagnosis from pathological left ventricular hypertrophy due to Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM); 2) the prediction of cardiac performance during physical effort; 3) the evaluation of the bi-ventricular interaction; 4) the analysis of the myocardial adaptations to various training protocols; 5) the early identification of specific genotypes associated with cardiomyopathies. Such a combined use of standard 2-D echo and DMI may be taken into account for a valid noninvasive and easy-repeatable evaluation of both physiological and pathological ventricular hypertrophy.


The occurrence of metastatic events is a prominent indicator of poor survival outcomes in individuals afflicted by solid tumor cancers. The introduction of high throughput techniques for genetic knockdown or ablation, such as shRNA and CRISPR-Cas9 libraries, provides the means to effectively screen for loss of function genes that contribute to the metastatic cascade; however, screening strategies employing these methods, particularly RNAi, carry an inherent risk of false positives due to off-target effects. These off-target effects are often mediated by shRNA sequences mimicking microRNA functionality, whereby only seed sequence (base pair positions 2-8) complementarity to the 3' UTR of transcripts is sufficient for effective targeting and downregulation. Through two separate genome-wide shRNA screens, we identified a particular shRNA that shares its seed sequence with an uncharacterized miR, miR-8087, and exhibits wide-spread, miR-like off-target effects causing increased chemotaxis and Matrigel invasiveness. A comprehensive, third generation shRNA library was utilized to screen for metastasis suppressor genes in non-aggressive breast and prostate cancer cell lines (T-47D and LNCaP; respectively) by both in vitro and in vivo methods. Enriched shRNA variants were identified by barcode sequencing of clones and one shRNA sequence in particular, targeting apolipoprotein L-II (APOL2), was consistently identified in both screens. Conversion of the shAPOL2 sequence to siRNA and subsequent transfection in LNCaP cells increased the invasive and chemotactic potential of these cells. In contrast, APOL2 knockdown with alternative siRNA sequences did not increase the invasive or migratory capability of LNCaP cells. In order to identify off-targets responsible for the invasive phenotype, the gene expression profile of LNCaP transfected with the functionally relevant siAPOL2 was compared by microarray analysis (Illumina HT-12v4) to that of cells containing APOL2-specific siRNA. The library-specific siAPOL2 results in differential downregulation of 132 gene transcripts, suggesting miR-like activity. Examination of the siRNA seed sequence reveals exact homology to miR-8087 seed sequence and many of the siAPOL2 off-targets are shared with miR-8087 gene targets as predicted by miRWalk 2.0. Currently, efforts are underway to characterize miR-8087 expression and targeting in a panel of cell lines with varying migratory potentials as well as in patient primary and metastatic prostate cancer tissue samples. The off-target analysis of RNAi screens reveals a broad acting miR sequence that contributes to the invasive potential of cells and may provide a predictive and targetable element in metastatic cancers. Citation Format: Henry G. Withers, Ryan Ransom, Irwin H. Gelman. Off-target analysis of RNAi screens identifies microRNA seed sequence contributing to metastatic invasion. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-167.


In this article, we present the flight radius problem (FRP) on the condensed flight network (CFN). Then, giving a specific flight that is defined by an origin and destination (OD) pair, the problem consists in finding routes that connect the OD pair and satisfy a regret constraint on time, distance or cost. The found routes help airline manager to find business opportunities. This problem arises in the real world, for instance in some air transportation companies. The FRP is formulated as finding a maximal subgraph of nodes belonging to routes satisfying a regret constraint. Such routes can be found using shortest paths algorithms (SPA). The CFN is generated using a time-independent approach and stored in the graph database Neo4j. Implementing SPA in Neo4j is challenging since the graph database stores the weights of the graph in a separate data structure. In this paper, we propose four methods to solve the FRP: these methods combine parallel and sequential processing with more optimization to overcome time and memory costs. The experimental evaluation demonstrates that the best algorithm is the extended Dijkstra algorithm which meets the real-time constraints of the targeted industrial application.


Charter schools are public elementary or secondary schools which are released from a variety of state, local, and possibly federal regulations in return for new forms of accountability in terms of outcomes for pupils. Approximately one-half of the states authorize the establishment of charter schools, and a federal Public Charter Schools (PCS) program provides start-up funds for such schools. The House has passed (H.R. 2616), and the Senate is considering (S. 1380) legislation to modify and expand the PCS program. This report provides background information on charter schools and their characteristics, plus discussion and analysis of current legislation regarding the PCS program. Issues have also arisen regarding the participation of charter schools in other federal aid programs.


Neoplasia and endocrine disorders are common complications of neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1--von Recklinghausen disease). We report here a case of NF1 in a 31-year-old woman presenting simultaneously with an abdominal neurofibrosarcoma and a pheochromocytoma. The prevalence of secondary neoplasia and endocrine tumors in NF1 is also discussed.


COVID-19, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has scourged the world ever since its outbreak in December 2019, affecting over three million people and claiming more than 207 000 lives over 200 countries all over the globe. Human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 occurs primarily by fomites and by respiratory droplets. This has, in turn, fanned public concerns that cash and coins could transmit the virus as well. Central banks have reported a surge in the number of queries from the media on the safety of using cash. Internet searches pertaining to both 'cash' and 'virus' or 'COVID' is at an all-time high.1 The apprehensions have been fuelled by studies that have demonstrated the remarkable stability of SARS-CoV-2 on inanimate objects and surfaces.2 Hence, we have summarised the possibilities of transmission of COVID-19 via currency and the feasible alternatives amid the prevailing circumstances.

1. Does viral transmission occur through cash and coins?

Hitherto available in vitro data do suggest that human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 via cash and coins seems possible. SARS-CoV-2 has been shown to be more stable on smooth surfaces, and a detectable level of infectious virus has been recovered from banknotes and stainless steel (coins) even after 2 and 4 days of inoculation, respectively. In addition, a biphasic decay of infectious SARS-CoV-2 has been found in samples recovered from smooth surfaces, thereby further prolonging the duration of stay of the virus.3 However, recovery of the virus from inoculated objects in in vitro often requires elution of the virus by …


Abstract The pandemic COVID-19 led to almost "zero tourism" worldwide, with unforeseen consequences for a certain period of time. The hospitality industry was one of the hardest hit sectors of tourism, resulting in unprecedented versatility of lodging establishments. This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the hospitality industry, focusing primarily on the socio-demographic aspect of domestic demand in the Czech Republic. The gender of guests was found to have a strong impact on various safety requirements, such as maintaining a safe distance, reduced hotel capacity, or provided disinfection. In addition, women rated all COVID-19 measures higher than men. Other socio-demographic aspects, such as age and education, also have an impact on safety requirements. Consequently, the research findings can help develop new hotel strategies that keep the guest experience and profit optimization in mind.


Introduction Surgical innovation has generally occurred in an unstandardised manner. This has led to unnecessary exposure of patients to harm, research waste and inadequate evidence. The IDEAL (Idea, Development, Exploration, Assessment, Long-term follow-up) Collaboration provided a set of recommendations for evaluating surgical innovations based on their stage of innovation. Despite further refinements and guidance, adoption of the IDEAL recommendations has been slow; an important reason may be that determining the stage of innovation is often difficult. To facilitate evaluation of surgical innovations, there is a need for a detailed insight into what stage of innovation means, and how it can be determined. The aim of this study is to understand the concept of stage of innovation as reported in the literature. Methods and analysis A systematic review is being conducted. Ovid MEDLINE and Embase databases were searched from their inception until July 2021 using an iteratively developed strategy based on the concepts of stage of innovation, invasive procedures or devices and guidance. Articles were included if they described an approach to evaluating surgical innovations in stages, described a method for determining stage of innovation, described indicators of stage of innovation, defined stages or described potential sources of stage-related information. Conference abstracts and non-English language articles were excluded. Other articles were detected from citations within included articles and suggestions from experts in surgical innovation. Data will be extracted regarding approaches to evaluating surgical innovations, methods for determining stage of innovation, indicators of stage of innovation, definitions of stages and potential sources of stage-related information. A thematic analysis will be conducted, and findings summarised in a narrative report. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval will not be required. This systematic review will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at appropriate conferences. PROSPERO registration number CRD42021270812.


Parents, or pre-school educators in early childhood education, focus on assisting children to attain the highest possible pre-numeracy and pre-literacy skills in an attempt to give children a better academic foundation. Children are presented with technology, for example, in the form of a tablet, that act as baby-sitters even before they can speak properly, and this has largely deafened them to the sounds of nature. Sounds of man and machine are the only ones most children will be exposed to, due to their living in cities with few natural spaces. Children are not taken into nature to experience it and get to know the sounds of the bio-network, of which they are an integral part. Rural children may have a better chance to get to know, respect and cherish nature, due to their context, but their guides - parents and/or communities - have sunken into their own disregard for their environment. It is only when children are taught to listen to and appreciate nature that they will be enabled to begin moving back to being 'mensch' where the focus, ironically, moves away from the human and focuses instead on creating an equilibrium between humanity and nature, rather than stripping the planet of its natural resources through harmful practices. This empirical research explored the literature to highlight the significance of listening as a mode of developing an appreciation of and caring for nature. Attuning children of the post-humanist era to their natural environment through listening will encourage them to understand their function as part of nature, and assist in the restoration of the planet.


Three isomorphous porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs; PCN-9 (Co/Fe/Mn)) with entatic metal centers have been constructed on the basis of the trigonal planar H(3)TATB ligand and a novel square-planar secondary building unit. N(2) adsorption isotherms at 77 K confirmed the permanent porosities of the three porous MOFs. Variable-temperature adsorption measurements of H(2) revealed that the H(2) affinities of the three porous MOFs are related to the nature of entatic metal centers, which reversely affect their H(2) uptake capacities.


ABSTRACT Minimising the damage caused by natural disasters such as tsunamis in vulnerable coastal areas requires the development of an emergency action plan. An evacuation plan can reduce the damaging impact of an unexpected tsunami. One of the most important factors in developing an action plan is a guideline for choosing proper evacuation routes in order to minimise loss of life and property. In this study, an evacuation network is designed to develop an evacuation plan based on a hierarchical network design problem used in communication networks, public transport, and social organisation network designs. Experimental analyses have been carried out in order to find effective evacuation plans at Haeundae Beach, Busan, Korea, using multi-agent transportation simulation (MATSim). In order to design an effective hierarchical evacuation network, a hierarchical evacuation network design is developed using the concepts of hub location, clustering, and network design. Further, we consider contraflow in the evacuation network, as well as determination of corridor lines by the minimum distance rule, maximal flow rule, maximum accessible rule, and minimum travel time rule. As a result of running each scenario using MATSim, a criterion for establishing the corridor line is evaluated. An optimal evacuation route is found to minimise overcrowded queues of evacuees, when the total evacuation time from the area of the tsunami is approximately 3 hours and 30 minutes.


Kohoku new town, constructed in suburbs of Yokohama-city in high economic growth period, built Green Matrix System (GMS), systematizing open space, public accommodation site and traffic. GMS, providing still good house environment today and being inherent with the characteristic of ex-natural environments, however, could not completely structure local natural environments as aimed at the beginning of the planning. In this study, we grasped relationship between GMS and the former natural environment, comparing the present facilities and land use in southern part of Kohoku NT with original landform. We clarified the water system and the characteristic of farmlands, which GMS could not involve with its structure. The result become basis for the future area reorganization that assumed NT a nucleus.


Being one of the important factors responsible for image quality, the band to band registration error (BBR error) of high resolution imagery affects considerably the application precision of remote sensing. The author analyzed the influence of BBR error on remote sensing application in such aspects as vision effects, supervised classification based on pixel, object-oriented imagery interpretation. An experimental study was carried on suburban of Tangshan. The results showed that when the error reached 0.35 pixel, the application was affected obviously for multispectral data, while for pan data, it was 0.45.


We have successfully produced Tricine Potassium Nitrate (TPN) single crystal synthesis using the solution growth method in this study. The powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) technique was used to identify the phases of TPN crystals. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) analysis was performed to examine the functional groups contained in the produced crystals. To measure optical transparency, a UV-VIS-NIR investigation was conducted between 200 and 800nm. TPN crystal's photoluminescence (PL) spectrum was recorded. Vickers' hardness tester was used to investigate the mechanical characteristics of the formed crystal.Thermal gravimetric/differential thermal analysis was used to investigate the thermal behaviors of the produced crystals. The surface morphology of the formed crystal was determined using a field emission scanning electron microscope. Wet etching experiments were used to investigate the TPN crystal's growth feature. The shock damage threshold technique was used to determine the shock strength at which the crystal poses a risk. The Kurtz-Perry technique was used to investigate the effectiveness of the developed crystals' second harmonic generation (SHG). The antibacterial activity of TPN grown crystal against various standard bacterial strains.


This research study endeavor to inspect the influence of real effective exchange rate on level of real GDP consumer price index (CPI) by using restricted VAR (VECM) econometrics approach for Pakistan economy over the period 1980-2020. We examined the bivariate relationship between real effective exchange rate and level of real GDP. It was concluded a negative correlation between these two variables. Thelong-term interrelationship among real effective exchange rate, CPI price level, and level of real GDP has also been examined by employing Johansen co-integration. By utilizing various VECM models we have found the long-term causality (A) from CPI price and level of output to the real effective exchange rate, and (B) from the real effective exchange rate, CPI price level `and level of real output to M2 money supply and (C) from the real effective exchange rate, M2 and real output level to CPI price level. The money supply (M2) growth has a very strong positive impact on both levels of real GDP and CPI level.


Four methods of deriving indicators of school system performance were investigated. All four methods involve the regression of a measure of student performance at one grade level on student performance measures at an earlier grade level. Deviations of school system means from the regression surface are used as indicators of school system performance. The four methods were: (1) matched-longitudinal data using individual student scores for the regression analyses, (2) matched-longitudinal data using system means for the regression analyses, (3) unmatched-longitudinal data using system means, and (4) cross-sectional data using system means. The first two methods yielded highly similar results; however, the results of the other two methods were quite dissimilar from methods one and two and from each other. It was concluded that the latter two methods are not reasonable substitutes for the first two methods. The stability of the results of the first two methods was investigated by comparing results for one subsample of students to results for a second subsample of students. The deviations of the school system means from the regression surface for one subsample were highly correlated with the corresponding deviations for the second subsample.


The paper describes an early and primitive sauropod dinosaur, Gongxianosaurus shibeiensis (gen. et sp. nov.), from the Dongyuemiao Member of the Lower Jurassic Ziliujing Formation in Shibei Township, Gongxian County, Sichuan Province, China, which is one of the 5 dinosaur fossils discovered in Gongxian in 1997. Except the skull which is incomplete, the fossils are well preserved. It has some features of both sauropods and prosauropods. It is an intermediate type in the evolution of dinosaurs from prosauropods to sauropods and provides materials for the study of the origin and evolution of the sauropod dinosaur fauna. The discovery of this new sauropod furnishes a way for the stratigraphic correlation between the Early Jurassic Ziliujing Formation in the Sichuan basin and the Lower Jurassic Lufeng Formation in the Central Yunnan basin.


Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK) is a receptor tyrosine kinase that plays a key role in oncogenesis in a subset of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, through the generation of fusion proteins containing its kinase domain (KD), such as NPM/ALK (N/A). A three-dimensional (3D) model of the ALK KD was generated by homology modelling, using the crystal structures of the inactive conformations of Abl and insulin receptor kinase as templates. Sequence alignment of ALK and Abl, which share 34% identity and 61% homology in their KDs indicated that sequences diverged at positions known to be critical for imatinib binding to Abl. ALK sequence differs from Abl at 13 of the 18 amino acids known to be mutated in the Abl KD of imatinib resistant CML patients, with 3 of these ALK amino acids being identical to mutations observed in patients (Y253F, F317L and V379I). Hence, ALK could be considered as a 'supermutant' of Abl that should be resistant to Abl inhibitors. Mutation of ALK to an Abl-like sequence should be able to 'restore' sensitivity of ALK to Abl inhibitors. In Bcr/Abl, a key determinant in imatinib sensitivity is threonine 315 (T315), which is often mutated to a bulky isoleucine residue in relapsed CML patients. In ALK, the corresponding amino acid is a leucine (L256 of N/A), which similarly to isoleucine, causes a steric hindrance in the ATP binding pocket and eliminates the possibility of hydrogen bond formation. Therefore, we hypothesised that a L256T mutation in N/A might render this kinase sensitive to Abl inhibitors. Molecular docking of Abl inhibitors to ALK wild type (WT) and L256T 3D models predicted that WT-ALK should be insensitive to three Abl inhibitors (compound 583, compound 683, imatinib), while L256T-ALK should be inhibited by compound 583 and 683, but not imatinib, which would require further mutagenization. To test this hypothesis we generated BaF3 cell lines stably transfected with WT- and L256T-N/A. We observed that L256T-BaF3 cells were 5 times more sensitive to growth arrest induced by compound 583 than WT-BaF3 cells as determined by 3 [H]-thymidine uptake (IC 50 : 0.2±0.02 v 1.0±0.07 μM [mean ± sem]), and 7 and 3.5 times more sensitive to cell death induced by compounds 583 (70 v 10% after 48h) and 683 (70 v 20% after 16h) respectively, as determined by trypan blue exclusion. No difference in sensitivity to imatinib was observed in the 2 cell lines. In addition, autophosphorylation activity of L256T-N/A, assessed by anti-phosphotyrosine immunoblotting and in vitro radioactive kinase assays, was inhibited by compounds 583 and 683 with IC 50 s of approximately 0.2 and 3 μM respectively, whereas autophosphorylation activity of WT-N/A was not affected by either inhibitor. Neither L256T- nor WT-N/A kinase activities were inhibited by imatinib. Summarizing, L256T-N/A was significantly more sensitive to compounds 583 and 683 compared with WT-N/A. These data provide experimental evidence supporting our modelling predictions, thereby verifying the reliability of the ALK 3D model. The sensitisation of ALK to compounds 583 and 683, but not imatinib, by the L256T mutation is in agreement with data describing the activities of these inhibitors on Abl mutants, excluding the T315I, and supports the 'supermutant' hypothesis.


The hypothalamic supraoptic (SON) and paraventricular nuclei (PVN), median eminences (ME) and neural lobes (NL) of normally hydrated control rats (group 1), and of rats drinking 2% NaCl for 7 (group 2), 30 (group 3) or 90 days (group 4) were investigated using immunohistochemistry for neurophysins (NP), arginine vasopressin (AVP) or oxytocin (OXY). Animals from the 3 experimental groups showed equivalent decreased levels of immunoreactive NP in the SON and PVN, but the greatest decrease was in the SON. Dendrites of SON and PVN neurons became loaded progressively with immunoreactive NP, AVP and OXY as salt loading proceeded. In rats of group 2, axons leaving the SON and PVN showed a marked depletion of immunoreactive material. The latter was found mainly at the periphery of widely spaced axonal swellings, clearly contrasting with the small and narrowly spaced beads of the neurosecretory axons of control rats. In rats of groups 3 and 4, axons leaving the SON and PVN resembled those of control rats. In the ME of the animals in all experimental groups, the same degree of decrease of immunoreactive NP was observed. In rats of group 3, bundles of axons containing immunoreactive AVP and OXY frequently projected through the ependymal lining of the ME into the third ventricle. In the NL of all experimental animals, a marked decrease occurred in the amount of immunoreactive NP, AVP and OXY. The decrease of immunoreactive AVP, however, was more pronounced in rats of group 2 than in those of groups 3 and 4. The NL of rats in group 4 were approximately 80% larger than those of control rats.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Problem solving is central in chemical education. In order to succeed as a chemistry student or professionally as a chemist it is highly crucial to develop skills that enhance problem solving. Prioritizing the development of problem solving a lesson on electrolysis was planned for 11th graders. This article presents significant teaching and learning methods that according to research enhance problem solving and other related skills. Additionally the article presents successful applications of these methods into teaching electrolysis concepts. The methods introduced are solving problems cooperatively in groups, solving problems with students rather than for students, the use of animations and provoking class participation and discussion.


PURPOSE Although psychosocial and clinical factors have been found to be associated with hypoglycemic episodes in patients with diabetes, few studies have examined the association of depression with severe hypoglycemic episodes. This study examined the prospective association of depression with risk of hypoglycemic episodes requiring either an emergency department visit or hospitalization. METHODS In a longitudinal cohort study, a sample of 4,117 patients with diabetes enrolled between 2000 and 2002 were observed from 2005 to 2007. Meeting major depression criteria on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 was the exposure of interest, and the outcome of interest was an International Classification of Disease, Ninth Revision code for a hypoglycemic episode requiring an emergency department visit or hospitalization. Proportional hazard models were used to analyze the association of baseline depression and risk of one or more severe hypoglycemic episodes. Poisson regression was used to determine whether depression status was associated with the number of hypoglycemic episodes. RESULTS After adjusting for sociodemographic, clinical measures of diabetes severity, non–diabetes-related medical comorbidity, prior hypoglycemic episodes, and health risk behaviors, depressed compared with nondepressed patients who had diabetes had a significantly higher risk of a severe hypoglycemic episode (hazard ratio = 1.42, 95% CI, 1.03–1.96) and a greater number of hypoglycemic episodes (odds ratio = 1.34, 95% CI, 1.03–1.74). CONCLUSION Depression was significantly associated with time to first severe hypoglycemic episode and number of hypoglycemic episodes. Research assessing whether recognition and effective treatment of depression among persons with diabetes prevents severe hypoglycemic episodes is needed.


Minimal dimension dynamic covers play an important role in solving the structural synthesis problems of minimum order functional observers or fault detectors, or in computing minimal order inverses or minimal degree solutions of rational equations. We propose numerically reliable algorithms to compute two basic types of minimal dimension dynamic covers for a linear system. The proposed approach is based on a special controllability staircase condensed form of a structured descriptor pair (A i ¸E; [B1;B2]), which can be computed using exclusively orthogonal similarity transformations. Using such a condensed form minimal dimension covers and corresponding feedback/feedforward matrices can be easily computed. The overall algorithm has a low computational complexity and is provably numerically reliable.


urine of low specific gravity (1005). 1 c.c. of pituitrin did not raise the specific gravity. Much thirst. Sugar tolerance fairly normal. January, 1925: still passing large quantities of pale urine. Memory not so good, and his wife states that he seems to have been getting more irritable during the last month or so. February, 1925: patient shows some slight exophthalmos and slight weakness of left side of face. Pupils react to accommodation, but not to light. Optic discs, pale; but no definite irregularity of margins. Arm-jerks exaggerated; abdominal reflexes absent; knee-jerks exaggerated; ankle-jerks exaggerated; plantars double extensor. No loss of joint sense. No incoordination-finger-nose test good. No astereognosis. Urine is passed normally during the day, though the quantity is rather large; during the night the patient passes it under him, although he is not conscious of doing so. This occurs once or twice during the night when asleep. Is passing 60 to 90 oz. (incomplete) of pale urine, specific gravity 1001 to 1002. No albumin, no sugar, no blood. White deposit of phosphates. Blood-sugar curve shows hyperglyc8emia. X-ray shows some thickening of floor of pituitary fossa and of bone below this, around sella turcica. The alteration in the blood-sugar curve and in the X-ray appearance of the pituitary fossa in the last eight months, pointing to a prolonged hyperglycamia of the type associated with hyper-pituitarism, suggests an active irritative lesion (probably syphilitic), which is now involviiag the anterior as well as the posterior lobe of the pituitary body.


One of the most puzzling aspects of executive compensation is the pay gap that exists between American and foreign Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). Commentators and the financial press have been quick to argue that such differences are the result of high agency costs, or "board capture," a theory that claims powerful American executives take advantage of weak domestic boards of directors and passive, dispersed shareholders to overpay themselves exorbitantly. According to these theorists, American CEOs orchestrate the appointments of friendly, passive outside directors, and their obedient subordinates as inside directors. The net result is a board comprised of compliant directors and a Compensation Committee that lacks the aggressive hard-nosed negotiators needed to keep executive pay in check. The international pay gap arises, under this theory, because foreign CEOs don't have the same power over their boards. In most foreign corporations, control shareholders act as strong checks on executive pay. Control shareholders will recoup most of the firm's surplus that is not paid out to the factors of production, such as CEOs, and therefore have strong financial incentives to keep executive pay abroad low. Thus, by comparison to U.S. levels, foreign CEOs are paid less. In this article, I am critical of the board capture explanation and offer several more plausible, market-based explanations. Board capture, while it may lead to some inflation in U.S. CEO pay levels, it does not fully explain CEO pay levels. For example, it does not tell us why executive pay in the U.S. grew so rapidly after the early 1980's. There is no evidence that CEOs' power over their boards grew during this time period; in fact, most evidence is to the contrary. Nor does this theory offer a persuasive explanation of why bigger firms pay their executives more than smaller ones, or why the supply of executives has not dramatically increased in response to the alleged huge rents that CEOs have been receiving for the last twenty years. Furthermore, board capture does not explain why boards pay incoming CEOs so much where they have no prior relationship with the directors. Finally, even if we accept the theory, we still will need a mechanism to set executive pay. Market-driven forces seem necessary to accomplish this result. I offer four alternative market-based justifications for higher pay for American CEOs. The first rests on the marginal revenue product of executive labor. American CEOs should be paid more, on average, than foreign CEOs because American CEOs contribute more to their firms' value. American firms have greater growth opportunities, have greater resources to be deployed because they are bigger, and American CEOs play a much larger role in the decision-making process at their firms than CEOs at foreign firms. Furthermore, American CEOs receive more of their pay in the form of stock options, and may hold more of their wealth in company stock, than foreign CEOs and therefore their pay will reflect a risk premium. Next, I examine the international pay gap by examining the workings of corporations' internal labor markets and tournament theory. The tournament to become the CEO is, under this theory, a much bigger one at American firms because these CEOs have so much more power than their foreign counterparts. After all, in the U.S., the CEO is normally also the Chairman of the Board, whereas in foreign countries this is rarely the case. American CEOs' power is further enhanced compared to those of their biggest foreign rivals, Japan and Germany, because boards of directors are smaller in the U.S. than in Japan, and have only one tier, instead of the two tier structure in Germany. Furthermore, the "winner take all" culture in the U.S. may condone bigger prizes in these tournaments than are socially acceptable abroad. Third, I show that there are differences in the opportunity costs for American and foreign CEOs. The opening up of financial markets since the early 1980s has given U.S. CEOs better access to capital markets for financing their own start-up businesses, raising the value of their alternative opportunities. This occurred first through the use of the leveraged buyout (LBO) as a method of financing a new firm, then with the tremendous growth in venture capital financing, and later on (at least for a period of years) when the technology boom made available massive amounts of capital to finance start-ups. Established American businesses that wished to compete for managerial talent were thereby forced to offer executives larger pay packages. By comparison, foreign CEOs have not had nearly the same access to financial markets to launch their own businesses. Foreign financial markets are more fragmented, more regulated, offer less venture capital financing and experience fewer MBOs. Only recently has there been an expansion of executive job opportunities with the deregulation of some capital markets and increased managerial migration. These changes have increased pressure on foreign companies to pay their executives more like Americans, but they have yet to catch up. Finally, there are big differences in the amount of bargaining power that American CEOs have compared to that of foreign CEOs. These differences derive from two important forces at work in the U.S.: first, the shift in the 1980's in the relative bargaining strength of American CEOs in vetoing takeovers of their corporations; and second, the concurrent acceptance of the idea of pay-for-performance by domestic institutional investors. These changes gave American CEOs tremendous power to stop a hostile takeover unless the sale of the firm was perceived as in that executive's personal best interests. Top managers of foreign firms have not enjoyed the same increase in bargaining power because, while hostile takeovers in most foreign countries continue to be almost impossible to pull off, these firms generally have control shareholder ownership structures. Thus, in foreign firms control shareholders make the decision whether or not to sell the company. There is no reason for the dominant shareholder to offer the firm's CEO more money for agreeing to a sale, unless the CEO happens to be the control shareholder himself.


Carbon neutrality refers to a state of net-zero carbon emissions that can be achieved by balancing the discharge and removal of carbon compounds into and from the atmosphere. It is a crucial step to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change. This study aims to reveal the development of carbon neutrality research using a bibliometric approach. Using a keyword search of carbon neutrality (or carbon neutral), 8,071 publications including journal articles, review articles, conference papers, book chapters, and books were identified from 2001 to 2022 (up to 8 October) from Scopus. Data were analysed using Scopus bibliometric tools and VOSviewer. The results show that the number of carbon neutrality publications has increased exponentially in the past two years and Chinese researchers have produced most of the publications, followed by U.S. researchers. Co-occurrence of keywords analysis showed that four clusters of carbon neutrality research have emerged, namely carbon neutrals using biofuels and hydrogen; carbon neutralities focusing on energy efficiency, energy utilisation and renewable energies; carbon neutrality aiming to achieve sustainable development, and greenhouse gas emissions from coal. The findings of the study suggest that future research should focus on biomass and biofuels as they are key reservoirs of carbon.


The coastal area of the Rio de Janeiro State presents a series of lagoons, dune fields and strand plains, which are the result of the paleogeographical evolution during Neogene. The lagoa Azul is situated at 22o56'52"S and 42o04'62"W in the Arraial do Cabo, located about 160 km far the city of Rio de Janeiro. It is a natural hypersaline coastal aquatic body which, parallel to Atlantic Ocean. The present work focused on the identification of psammic cyanobacteria in the surface sediments of the lagoa Azul. The samples were obtained by using plastic tubes and were later aconditiones in opaque plastic containers and conserved in a 4% solution of formaldehyde. With the material obtained, permanent slides were prepared so as to characterize them phycologically. Qualitative analysis showed the presence of 14 species and the occurrence of the families Chroococcaceae Nageli 1849 (5 sp.), Phormidiaceae Anagnostidis & Komarek 1988 (4 sp.), Synechococcaceae Komarek & Anagnostidis 1995 (2 sp.), Nostocaceae Kutzing 1843 (1 sp.), Oscillatoriaceae Gomont 1892 (1 sp.) and Pseudanabaenaceae Anagnostidis & Komarek 1988 (1 sp.). The incidence of these species is also recorded in other lagoons (Araruama, Pernambuco, Pitanguinha and Vermelha) in the northeast of Rio de Janeiro coast, such as the frequency of cyanobacteria is justified by the harsh environment, without predation, with high salinity, elevated temperature and low concentration of oxygen


BACKGROUND
The beneficial effect of extracorporeal photochemotherapy has clearly been established for patients with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma with Sézary's syndrome. But this treatment has not been used in the red man syndrome or pre-Sézary syndrome. Some of these patients do not respond sufficiently or do not tolerate other therapies.

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this open study was to evaluate the clinical efficacy of photopheresis in this group of patients.

METHODS
Seven patients with the red man syndrome were treated on 2 consecutive days every 4 weeks for 6-22 months. Six had been on systemic steroids and 3 had also received retinoids without sufficient effects. All were initially treated with topical nitrogen mustard but no longer tolerated this treatment.

RESULTS
All signs of erythroderma disappeared in 6 of the 7 patients. All systemic therapy could be discontinued in all but 2 patients. No side effects were observed.

CONCLUSION
Photopheresis may be an effective alternative treatment for this group of patients, when other types of therapy have failed.


Wnt/β-catenin signaling plays indispensable roles in both embryonic development and adult homeostasis. Abnormal regulation of this pathway is implicated in many types of cancer. Consequently, substantial efforts have made to develop therapeutic agents as anticancer drugs by specifically targeting the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Here we systematically review the potential therapeutic agents that have been developed to date for inhibition of the Wnt/β-catenin cascade as well as current status of clinical trials of some of these agents.


Indonesia, with its ultimate development goal of "developing the people and the community as a whole," in fact is facing problems in the execution of this goal. With a population of more than 200 million persons, different in sociocultural background, educational level and environmental conditions, it is understandable that the process and results of technological choices and transfers for various target groups will be different. A wide range of work systems is found, from the simplest man-tool system to the most complex. The conditions are becoming even more complex, a phenomenon especially evident through studies of their sociocultural, psychological, and environmental factors. As a consequence, if success is to be gained in anticipating and understanding the role of Indonesia in the global competition that lies ahead, a very wise approach to the situation by using local values that are often based on traditional habits and customs in a modern context should be carried out. This approach will require an immense amount of time, dedication and effort. Improvement endeavors that have been carried out in different work systems in different types of activities and industries, showed that if the improvement to be sustained, a holistic, systemic, and interdisciplined participatory approach should be taken into consideration where the technical, economical, ergonomic, sociocultural, energy, and environmental factors will play significant roles.


We report an experimental realization of the quantum paradox of the separation of a single photon from one of its properties (the so-called "quantum Cheshire cat"). We use a modified Sagnac interferometer with displaced paths to produce appropriately pre- and postselected states of heralded single photons. Weak measurements of photon presence and circular polarization are performed in each arm of the interferometer by introducing weak absorbers and small polarization rotations and analyzing changes in the postselected signal. The absorber is found to have an appreciable effect only in one arm of the interferometer, while the polarization rotation significantly affects the signal only when performed in the other arm. We carry out both sequential and simultaneous weak measurements and find good agreement between measured and predicted weak values. In the language of Aharonov et al. and in the sense of the ensemble averages described by weak values, the experiment establishes the separation of a particle from one its properties during the passage through the interferometer.


In the Deep-Sea Mining, the seafloor mining tool is connected to the subsea slurry pump by a piece of flexible pipe named jumper. The jumper's shape is similar to a steep-wave flexible riser. Compared to a flexible riser, the jumper is a reinforced hose and has a shorter length. Numerous studies shed light on the dynamic behavior of flexible riser; however, all studies were carried out by the way of numerical analysis. We carried out, in the Deep-Sea Basin, an experiment using 1/5 reduced scale model of the jumper. Unhappily, the model's bending stiffness had to be distorted. During the experiment, an oscillator generated harmonic motion on the top end of the model and a centrifugal pump circulated water throughout the model. In addition, we installed load cells on the top and bottom ends of the model. Our Basin is equipped with a visual measurement system. Thus, we measured the displacement of targets attached to the model. The initial results show that axial tension amplitude increases with the frequency of the top end oscillation. This response is due to the drag force on the lower bend increases with the frequency of top motion. We also could observe that the internal flow may increase the vertical motion amplitude. The jumper's motion generates an oscillation on the internal differential pressure between both ends and the flow velocity. The differential pressure amplitude increases with the top oscillation frequency, but it is proportional to the top end oscillation amplitude. We will use these experimental results to validate our numerical models. Further, it is important to understand the internal flow effects to design the actual pump used to convey the slurry through the jumper.


You may have been wondering why there have been no further installments of African Diary. The short answer is that Diana was very ill from the side-effects of anti-malaria drugs. She has been back in this country being treated and having a spell of rest and recuperation. You will remember that Diana and Colin, her husband, had left Mozambique and were very busy building up a new mission station, funded by a business man from Liverpool, in Uganda. Before being taken ill, Diana had written some notes for the Journal which will be enough for two more articles. Diana and Colin have not yet decided whether they will return to Africa but we have told Diana how Journal readers enjoyed reading her news. We wish her well for the future.